Interview with Christian
26-06-2009
Christian has been back in WWE for four months now, and wasted no time in capturing the ECW title. Unfortunately leading up The Bash 2009 he lost it to Tommy Dreamer. We caught up with Christian to see how he's been enjoying his return.
Q Congratulations on your return to WWE. What's it been like coming back?
A It's been good - exciting time really. Whenever you leave somewhere for a certain amount of time, especially in WWE, everything moves so fast. When I was last here it was Raw and SmackDown, now I'm on ECW and things have changed. I wanted to get back in the fold, back in the mix.
Q What did you miss about working in WWE?
A The fans. WWE has passionate fans, a huge fanbase around the world. Everytime we go out there and you hear that reaction from the crowd and it reminds why you do what you do. It's been great to hear that again.
Q How do you feel about working on ECW instead of Raw or SmackDown?
A ECW has been fine. I don't think anybody expected me to come back to that. It's hard to shock people nowadays so it surprised people to be back on ECW. It's been good getting my feet wet and reminding the fans of me. I've been gone a couple of years so there might have been fans that haven't seen me before. There's been a good chance to work with some of the up and coming stars on the ECW brand. Now it's the time to regain the ECW championship so I'm hopefully looking forward to that this weekend.
Q You've certainly had a run of good matches with Jack Swagger. What are your thoughts on him?
A He's a good talent... young guy with a great amateur wrestling pedigree. He has gifts that you just can't teach. He has a presence in the ring and the right attitude and there's something about him that people love to hate. He has a natural gift to pick things up quickly and he's going to go a long way.
Q How did you get into the wrestling business?
A Growing up in Canada I was playing hockey and I broke my shoulder. The break was so high they couldn't put a cast on it so they used a sling that held my arm to my body. I couldn't go to school for 8 weeks because I couldn't get knocked or anything. I was kinda confined to the house, so my brothers would be outside I'd be stuck indoors. I started flipping the channels and found wrestling. Within an hour I was in love with it, got obsessed with it. I said growing up I was going to be one of two things: either a pro hockey player or a pro wrestler, and I found a wrestling school not far from college when I was just turning 19. I had a student loan to pay my tuition, my housing, food and stuff but I used a portion of that on my wrestling school fees. So I didn't have any money! During the day I was going to school, at the weekends I was going to wrestling school.
Q You said you were watching wrestling on TV, was that WWE or other organizations such as Stampede?
A In Canada that's the cool thing, you're exposed to a lot of different things. Yes WWE was the first thing I saw, we'd get that on Saturdays. Then we'd get another WWE program on Sundays called International Wrestling from Montreal with stars like Rick Martel, Dino Bravo, Bruiser Brody... guys like that. Then Mondays we get Stampede from Calgary, Stu Hart's promotion. You had guys like Brian Pillman, Bad News Brown, Jerry Morrow, all these different guys. They also had a working relationship with Japan so you had people like Jushin Liger. Therefore they were ahead of the game with the high-impact, high-flying style on television. Then we had AWA wrestling on Wednesdays. Because we were central of all of this we were exposed to a lot of different styles of wrestling. It was pretty much wrestling every day of the week.
Q Back when you started out you went under the name 'Christian Cage'. Where did that name come from?
A I was sitting with a friend the night before I was about to have my first match and we were talking about stage names. Nicolas Cage was one of my favourite actors and I thought it was a really cool last name, and then we were we watching a TV show and they were doing a piece on Christian Slater, which is how that came about.
Q What's the worst gimmick that's been pitched to you? Any storylines that were absurd?
A I don't think any of them were absurd. The thing you have to remember is that they sound strange until you get out there. It's original programming every week for 52 weeks a year. Other TV shows have an off season and they have time to hash out a new story line, even with athletes of other sports they have an off season so you have to factor that in. It's a challenge to think of original things - you have to throw things up against the wall, sometimes they stick, sometimes they don't.
Q Back in 2001 you were DDP's protege. What was it like working with him?
A I really enjoyed it. I'd watched him on WCW, now I got a chance to talk with him and pick his brain. We still talk 2 - 3 times a year and catch up. He's a really passionate guy, anything he does he puts in 100%. He's really positive and is full of new ideas. He really motivated me.
Q Thinking back to WrestleMania, did the right person win Money In The Bank this year?
A Ask the fans! Everything happens for a reason. It wasn't my year, maybe next year. I heard the fans when I was up on that ladder I definitely heard them chanting my name. When you've been out for a while and come back, you wonder whether the fans are going to remember you. You come back to the biggest show of the year and there's 70,000 people cheering for you. It's maybe the largest ovation I've ever heard. It's pretty crazy, and pretty flattering. It made me know that I was happy to be back and that I made the right choice.
Q How do you feel when you step into the ring with the physical giants, such as Kane or Big Show? Does it change your game, do you feel intimidated?
A No I'm not intimidated. I like wrestling bigger guys. I like the dynamic of the bigger guy versus the faster guy. That's the good thing about being my size, I'm not really a big guy but I'm not considered a small guy either. I feel like I adapt really well, against a bigger a guy I can use my speed to my advantage. I don't get intimidated, I look forward to it!
Q Do you think we'll see you and Edge anytime soon?
A I don't know about anytime soon, you can never tell. I think it's something the fans would love to see, whether it's as partners, or against each other, you never know. I think it'd be pretty cool.
Q I think a lot of fans would be interested how Edge & Christian face off against the Hardys in 2009.
A That'd be pretty cool wouldn't it? Very interesting. Someone just mentioned to me that coming up in September is the 10 year anniversary of the Ladder Match at No Mercy 99. That put us on the map.
Q The big one has to be to main event WrestleMania. Who would like to be in the main event with?
A Maybe with all our history, maybe Edge. Through all the places we've gone growing up together, with all the steps we've taken, it'd be a pretty cool match up.
Q Is there anyone you'd like to feud with?
A Coming back that's the good thing; there's plenty of new guys wide open in ECW. I've had the chance to wrestle with Jack Swagger. I've had one match with Tyson Kidd and I'd love to have the chance to do more stuff with him. I'd like to get in there and wrestle with Evan Bourne, he's a talent. They're two guys in ECW I'd really like to do something with.
Q If you had the chance for you to do anything you like with the Christian character, what would you do?
A Concentrate on ECW and take care of business, get back that ECW title.
Q Why did you change the name of the Unprettier?
A The name always bothered me, it started as a joke. The group TLC had the line in the song Unpretty, "Make you feel so damn unpretty", We were joking around one day, myself and the Hardy Boys, I need a name for this move, and this song came on in the bacgkground. I said I'm going to call it the Unprettier, when they said why I said "because it makes you feel so damn unpretty". I think an announcer overheard us and chuckled to himself, then he said it on the air and it stuck. I always thought it was a devastating move and the name didn't fit. When I came back I thought it was time to change the name of the move and make it a little more serious.
Q Who does the best Ultimate Warrior impression: you or Matt Striker?
A I haven't seen his impression! But I'm positive mine's better.
Q What is the greatest match you've ever had?
A There's been so many... the first ladder match at No Mercy with the Hardys has a special place for me. It took us from being WWE wrestlers to WWE Superstars, people started taking notice and we started moving up the ladder (no pun intended!) - that match will always have a special place with me. The first TLC where Edge and I won the tag team titles, our first of 7, that was pretty cool. Or when I won the Intercontinental Title, I always wanted to do that. It's hard to narrow it down to just one. I always go out every night with the intention to steal the show. We go out there and put it all on the line for the fans.
Q And what's the greatest match of all time?
A You're going to be hard pressed to say anything other than Shawn Michaels vs. Undertaker from WrestleMania this year.
Q People often ask us if there's going to be a Christian DVD. What would your DVD be called?
A It would be called "Christian: Welcome to the Peep Show!"
Q Finally, is there anything you'd like to say to all your Euro-peeps?
A Glad to be back, can't wait to get back to the UK to see everyone and perform for all the peeps and I'll definitely be there with hand over my eye looking out for all of you.
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Nothing especially controversial here, just interesting to hear him bigging up all the ECW stars, rather than bitching about being on the C brand. Kinda want to see his Warrior impression, though...
