WF: We are delighted to introduce one more talent from England to the German fans. How are you?
MM: Im very well thank you, i hope you and all your readers are well too!
WF: Soon, fans kann see you in Austria at the comeback of RoE (Rings of Europe). Have you wrestled in a German speaking country before?
MM: No i have not, Before i got into wrestling myself, when i was very young i would buy lots of VHS tapes of lots and lots of matches, many german shows were on them, so i have a little knowlege as a fan of those shows, but have never experienced them myself in person. Ofcourse i have wrestled in the UK lots over the last almost 18 years, i have wrestled in Greece, in the USA and Portugal so far. I am looking forwards to experiencing Austria, its culture, its people and definatley its wrestling scene!
WF: You´ve been a wrestler for 20 years now, you organise shows yourself and you know both sides of the curtain. How did the business change for you?
MM: Well not far off 20 years, gosh that makes me feel very old realising that! Then again i was 15 when i started! Wrestling does change, ups and downs, bigger crowds and smaller crowds, better buisness etc. It is at the moment very very strong with some amazing wrestlers. However i think wrestling will always be the same at its core, a strong working class passtime with good vocal crowds that enjoy them selves and wrestlers that work hard. The rest will change around it, but it will always be wrestling.
WF: In 2000/2001 wrestling in Germany was at its beginning with little to no wrestling schools or trainers. What was it like when you started your career?
MM: in 1999/2000 there were no where near as many schools as there are now, it was much harder to get into wrestling. Dont get me wromg i think, from hearing stories from people older and wiser than me, i think it was much much harder to get into wrestling in the 60s/70s/80s etc, those guys, that generation had it TOUGH! However when i started it was hard in a sense that there was just not as many schools around. I was very lucky, a few Towns across from my home town, a great wrestler by the name of Steve Logan (he wrestled in Germany a fair bit actually!) had a school, i made contact with him, infact you can tell how old fasioned i am, i didnt email him like people do now, i sent him a hand written letter…..and he wrote back! I started at his school at 15 years of age, id never really left my home town apart from family holidays, and there i was catching two busses to get to this place travelling for a longer amounts of time than the actual sessions lasted ha ha, it doesnt seem far now, but at that time to me, it was a huge journey ha ha.
WF: We heard that you fell in love with wrestling watching a match between Tony St. Clair and Snuka, is this true?
MM: Well actually id already fallen in love with wrestling by this time, but this match taught me a valuble lesson! Its very strange becuase my memory fails me a little bit here, im not entrirley sure if ive seen this particular match or seen pictures of it, its funny how your memory distortes and changes over many years, but what i took from that match was very very valuble to me, it was Tony St.Clair going toe to toe with Jimmy Snuka, Tony St.Clair was an amazing world class wrestler, but when i was very very young i had not discoverd him yet, but because of how American wrestling was marketed and pushed in the UK i knew full well who Jimmy Snuka was, and knowing that an English man went toe to toe with Snuka, and kicked his ass made me see that it wasnt just Americans who ruled the world, He was part of three things that made me beleive i could be a wrestler. Now as i got older i would discover and learn that Tony St.Clair (In my opinion) was infact better than his opponent that night, and indeed many american stars, but as a naieve child, i saw him as the underdog BUT it tauight me English people, or Europen people (the match was in Germany after all) COULD be the best.
WF: How long did you train until your debut match?
MM: As i said above i recieved my intial training from Steve Logan at his school, his facilities, especially at the time, were second to none, great equipment, great set up, and a very very smart man.
In the early years i also learnt alot from Taffy Jenkins, an older English wrestler, hes from Leicester and meeting him by axcident was one of the more fortunate things that happend to me, i got to travel abit with him and wrestle him a bunch of times and that brought me on further still.
There is also another of Steve Logans trainees that probably helped me more than anybody in those early years, he had only been wrestling 2 years longer than me, he still wrestles infact, and he was what id define as a pure natural, he is so good, and he helped me no end, he wrestles today as “Superstar“ Carlos.
Another who helped me more than he knew it, was Tracy Smothers from America, i was really only around him a brief amount of time, i got to be on a few shows that he was main eventing, i got to go to a few seminars that he taught, and then by axccident i got to wrestle him, i was set to defend the Celtic Wrestling Championship against Joey Mercury, from the WWE, it wasnt long after his MNM tag run and he was very famous, i dont no the full story BUT i think he missed his flight or there was a problem with his flight, either way he didnt make the Town and i got to wrestle Tracy by axcident as a replacement, i went on to wrestle him 3 or 4 more times, and yes ive been in the ring with people you might class as higher profile, but jeez, that guy taught me so much in a very little amount of time, very, very tallented wrestler. How he conducted himself backstage as well as in the ring impressed me to this day.
Another guy who taught me so, so, so much is the “Rock & Roll Express“ Bob Barratt, a long time tag partner of Kendo Nagasaki and a very well traveled wrestler in his own right, i got to wrestle him so, so many times, and im a much better wrestler because of him, in fact im a better person becuase of him!
Another guy, in more recent years would be Marty Jones, he’s such a talented wrestler and an amazing coach, helped me fine tune alot, helluva coach.
I could talk all day about people who have made me better and taught me, there are so many! Infact im sorry for the many i missed, the list is too long!
WF: How did you get your name? Was it just spur-of-the-moment or does it have a story?
MM: honestly i picked it from a video game when i was like 14 years old, lots of promoters tried to get me to change that name, as a 15 years old skinny kid starting out, looking back my name “Mad Dog“ did not suit me then, and those promoters from Steve Logan, to Brian Dixon, to Dave Reese all knew it, they all tried to get me to change it, and you know what looking back they were right, it didnt suit me then ha ha, i was a very stubourn kid and kept the name, prehaps i should of listened to them, well actually i should of, but for some reason i never ever wanted to change it, and now i have grown older and grizzlier and it fits me now haha.
WF: As a promoter you hosted several legends from Scott Hall to Jim Duggan. Are those icons more ‚easy-care‘ than talents today? How popular are they in the UK nowadays?
MM: I wouldnt say they are easier to do buisness with than todays stars or wrestlers, because that would be doing an injustice to so many good people, in any set of people there are good people and bad people, professional people and some not so much, it really does boil to the indavidual person rather than the era they are from if that makes sense? They are very popular though and bring in good numbers for me.
WF: You almost exclusively wrestled in the UK so far, are there specific countries you would like to work in?
MM: Well as i say above ive wrestled in the USA twice, Greece once, Portugal about 10 times, but yes ofcourse the UK is my main base of operations, ive done 99% of my wrestling here. I travel to Portugal a good number of times a year, im very, very fortunate that the promoter out there (a very good & honest man) beleives in me and values my wrestling, and his trust in me means so so much, his promotion is CTW and his wrestlers Red Eagle, Rossi, Superkid people like that, they‘re awsome, id say thats probably my favourite country, so rather un-ambiotuously, continuing to travel there would make me very very happy. Id like to do the USA one more time, and more European countries would be great, i very much consider myself European and i hope this Brexit thing doesnt effect that, i am European and i want to be apart of that community, France, Germany, so many counties id like to wrestle in. I cannot wait to see Austria, werstle and sample the beer ha ha.
WF: You are also a trainer, among others there is Ryan Smile, who you trained and who is a well known highflyer. Do you follow his career – do you still have contact?
MM: I couldnt say i trained him to be honest,I couldnt really take any credit for him or his skills, i helped out showing some basics at a pomotion called AWW in Birmingham UK when he was very young, but to be honest i didnt have very long with him, im sure he would credit others as his teachers who helped shape him to who he is etc etc.
WF: In your opinion, how long should a wrestler train until their debut match? Is there a minimum time? What are your thoughts?
MM: Honestly thats such a hard question to answer, it would depend on the teacher and very obviously the student, you can have one guy who could take to it like a duck to water, a natural who could be ready much sooner than expected, or the opposite, some one who takes time to grasp things and takes longer to get there, its like saying how long does it take to get your driving licence, i might take 400 lessons, and fail my test 14 times, you might take 20 lessons and pass first time.
WF: Is there advice you give to every talent?
MM: Listen to everyone, learn from anyone who is around you, try to get better. All the time.
WF: Fans love road stories, please share a funny, interesting or informative one with us 🙂
MM: Oh gosh road stories? Some of mine are far to ex-rated to put on here. They would either bore your readers to death or get me in trouble ha ha, no real middle ground!
…..Ok i have one, that might be ok, i have a reputaion for liking a good drink (beer, Jack Daniels, Amareto, bitter, wine, lots ha ha) after the matches, once myself, two of my best buddies in wrestling Bob Barratt and Matt The Hammer Mentzer and a few other guys were booked on a small tour on the channel islands, Jurnsey and Gurnsey, and rather stupidly i presumed the channel islands were near the chanel crossing between England and France, i had no evidence to back this up, other than channel crossing, channel islands, thats it, its stupid, but kind of logical!
Ok so we had to drive down to Bournmouth, stay in a cheap hotel the promoter had booked and then onto the next town first thing in the morning to get the ferry.
Well the first problem for us was being stuck in the hotel with nothing to do, no dissrespect to the other wrestlers on the bill, but they were all in the hotel lounge watching TNA on TV when me and Matt walked down to meet Bob! Each to thier own ofcourse, but really not my kind of thing whilst on the road, so what do 3 bored wrestlers do in a very cheap hotel with nothing to do? Ofcourse we start to drink………and drink, and drink!
This is when i should have started to realise this wouldnt be a usual trip ha ha, well we didnt sleep, we went all the way through, and got right in the car to get the ferry, in my confused state about the location of the channel tunnel, i figured we’d be on the ferry for prehaps an hour before we got to our destination.
In to the ferry port me and Matt Mentzer walk, two dodgy looking wrestlers in cowboy boots and long hair and beards, stinking of beer, yes you guessed it we got stopped by security at every turn, boots off, bags empty full pat down, the lot, maybe sombody didnt want us to go to the channel islands ha ha.
Whilst on the ferry, i figured a small trip, too short to sleep off my hang over, so straight in the bar. In England we have two sayings, one being “Hair of the dog“, the second being “what makes you bad, cures you“, both refering to a hang over, and what you drunk the night before, will make you feel better again, sooooo we went to the ferry bar and started drinking, and drinking and drinking, we seemed to be in that bar for hours, i went to find bob to ask him what was the hold up, this is when i discover the channel islands are NOT near the channel crossing and we are still HOURS away! Stupid!
Any way we were 6 or 7 pints in now, it would have been rude to stop! So no sleep was had!
We made it to gurnsey and did the show, it was actually a fun show, we made the short hop to the next island to do the same, both nights no sleep, or if we did maybe an hour or so here and there, nothing really. Four days later and about 20000 beers later, and hardly ANY sleep, we get on the long ferry trip back, at this point i was almost seeing things i was so tired, i went to sit out side in the sun on the ferry, get some fresh air, i found a nice bench and fell to sleep, finally some sleep!
It was at this point i became a tourist attraction for the first time in my life! I was so tired, exhuasted is fact, that i could and did sleep through anything, a storm started, the heavens openend, rain everyware, and i slept through it, tourists, people id never even met started to come out side in the pourng rain to have thier picture taken with the incedable sleeping man! How do i know this happend my good friends watched the whole thing from the comfort of the inside whilst laughing haha.
WF: Final question: Do you have a personal highlight – match, moment or segment – which you would like to tell the fans about?
MM: Honestly i think i have too many, from meeting my absolute wrestling idols like Marty Jones, Tony St.Clair, Jim Duggan, Honky Tonk Man, etc etc, to wrestling against real real tallented wrestrlers, to seeing sights and places id have never seen if i wasnt a wrestler. The list would just be exhausting to write, wrestling is the highlight for me, it can be rough at times and hard and even cruel, but its also the most wonderful of things, i love it!
WF: We can´t wait to see you in Austria at RoE, stay safe and thank you very much for your time!
MM: i cant wait to see all of you guys either, thank you so much!!!
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