LordsofPain.net writer Daniel Pena reports that Ring of Honor wrestler Mike Bennett appeared on Kayfabe Wrestling Radio with Alan Wojcik (interview available at WildTalkRadio.com). Highlights from the interview are as follows:
If banding together independents would help them as a whole and the state of independents as a whole today: “I think that’s would be a great idea and that would be wonderful. I think that’s the biggest problem with independent wrestling right now; with the exception of recently, that’s why the WWE didn’t look at independent wrestlers and independent promotions, because for every really good promotion, there was 10 or 20 really crappy promotions and I think it stems down to the ego of a lot of guys. They don’t know how to just shut up and know their role; if so-and-so gets mad at a promoter, and they go ‘Well, I’ll show you.”
“I’ll go start my own promotion’ and then they’ve got their core group of crappy guys and then so-and-so gets mad and says ‘Well, I’ll show you, I’ll go start WWXCXYW’ and then it just snowballs from there. I think the idea of everyone banding together and putting on one really good show is theoretically there but I don’t think it would ever happen, because too many guys in wrestling have egos and it’s really sad because you tend to notice the guys that have the biggest egos shouldn’t have the egos.”
Does the success of past ROH champions elsewhere help to promote the product and talent within ROH today: “Yeah and I think to a certain extent, I’m almost positive, that they already do; I know WWE does. Just talking to guys there (WWE), I know as far as Ring of Honor goes, if they’re looking for talent, that’s where they look. I, personally, don’t consider Ring of Honor an indy; I consider it a national wrestling company for the sole reason we are owned by the Sinclair Broadcasting Group, which is a nationally owned company and they’re huge all over the country and seen all over the country.”
“I think as long as some of the wrestlers look at us as indy, we’re going to be indy, but I think the hardest part is convincing our locker room that we’re a national company, and as soon as everyone in our locker room says were national, we become national. It’s hard for a company like Ring of Honor to keep surviving because, like you said, we’re always having guys get ‘picked’ to go to TNA or WWE.
I think, I know for me personally, I went to this year’s Wrestlemania with Maria (Kanellis), and as we were leaving, we met up with a bunch of the guys from the production crew and I was talking to them. They asked me where I worked and I told them Ring of Honor and their first reaction was ‘Oh, you must be good then.’ That was just the perception; they didn’t know who I was, but their perception of ‘Oh, well, our top guy is CM Punk and if you talk to Triple H, he’s going to tell you ‘we look at guys from Ring of Honor.’ It really is a hot bed of wrestling talent right now and if WWE wants someone, they are going to look to Ring of Honor first.”
The creation of “The Prodigy” gimmick within Ring of Honor: “It’s funny, cause I get told this a lot by people I meet; they say ‘You’re nothing like what we watch on TV.’ I can tell you 100 percent truthfully, that me, in real life, is nothing what I am like on TV. I think having Bob and Maria only adds to my character. I was, for the first 4 or 5 years of my career, a babyface and then one time I just decided to try the heel business and clicked more naturally with me than the babyface stuff did so when I signed with Ring of Honor I think they always knew I was going to be a heel. It all kind of came about, to be the prodigy of pro wrestling but it really transformed into being a sports entertainer in Ring of Honor which was my idea.