It’s the twelfth installment of Stone Cold Steve Austin’s post-Raw podcast, and for the first time ever, the reigning WWE Champion was his guest. Dean Ambrose stopped by to talk about his road to WWE, and what it’s like at the top. Here are some of the highlights:
On enjoying pro wrestling from a young age: “I don’t have a first memory [of it], I just never remember a time when wrestling wasn’t the thing that I liked. Every memory I have, as far back as my memory goes, wrestling was my favorite thing.”
On Terry Funk: “I love Terry Funk. I loved that ECW version of Terry Funk… He wasn’t my favorite guy at the time or anything, but looking back, especially not that people compare me to him, you go back and look at NWA Champion-type Terry Funk? He was awesome.”
On wrestling in Puerto Rico: “I had a great time there, actually. That’s where I really learned about being vicious. I was down there with Bushwhacker Luke … You go down there and do a fancy move, they’re like, ‘Cool. Whatever. What else you got?'”
On getting scouted by WWE: “Joey Mercury got somebody to take a look … I don’t really know who was involved in the conversation or how it came about. It wasn’t like they were rolling out the red carpet for me or anything. I don’t think anybody knew I was even coming in, and if they did, they probably didn’t have any idea what they were getting.”
On his time in FCW (WWE’s former developmental program): “I actually had a great time there. Dusty Rhodes was the booker for TV, and that was one of my favorite things about it … It’s not like it is now with NXT and stuff. Back then, we felt like we were on an island. We felt like we were the bastard children of WWE. You forget you even work for WWE sometimes … I had two programs down there, one with Seth Rollins and one with William Regal, that I’m very proud of from a creative standpoint.”
On the early days of The Shield: “We had a chip on our shoulder. We felt that we were just as good or better than anybody in the company, and we were just down there making pennies in Florida on local TV. Screw everybody, we’re going to come in and kick the door down, and we don’t really care if we get heat or if nobody likes us. Screw it, don’t care.”
On the timing of The Shield’s dissolution: “We had gotten as high as we possibly could. I think we beat Evolution, [that] was our last night. We were crushing everybody, and there wasn’t anybody left for us to go after. We had literally dominated WWE and stood atop it, and it was just time to walk offstage. And because we were so hot, nobody expected it, which made it the perfect timing.”
On his WrestleMania match with Brock Lesnar: “I felt like I was pulling teeth to make that match into something epic … Artistically, Brock didn’t want to do anything, if we’re being perfectly honest. Brock’s gonna Brock, he’s all about Brock. I had a vision for that match to be the craziest thing imaginable. I was trying to pitch everything to everybody … I was met with laziness. I just kept thinking at the end of the day, ‘Once we get in the ring, it’s all going to be okay. We’ll figure it out once we get in the ring.'”
On his relationship with Vince McMahon: “It’s great. Me and Vince are boys. I’m his favorite wrestler … I had a 45-minute conversation with him at 2:30 in the morning the other day. He was going to work out, because he’s crazy like that.”
