Wade Keller Pro Wrestling Podcast – Interview Friday
Release Date: 10/05/18
Run Time: 1:33:28
Recap By: Joe Aguinaldo
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Thoughts on All-In
- Shane thinks All-In was an awesome and monumental event. It shows what can be done when people work hard, think outside the box and bust their a**es. He takes his hats of to the Bucks and Cody as getting 10,000 people to any show is amazing. He also offered to do anything he could to help. He jokes that the Bucks have defied convention because they’ve made their careers by not listening to anyone’s advice and Shane told them not to listen to his either but just keep doing what they’re doing.
- Starrcast was amazing and successful as well. Shane puts it up there with WrestleMania weekend.
- It would be difficult for another promotion to replicate All-In because Cody and the Bucks are worldwide names. They are not regular indy promotions guys and their fans are very loyal to them. They are constantly hustling and working. Shane recognizes they are having fun and those are the types of people he likes to work with.
Social Media and wrestling
- Social Media has given wrestlers a positive advantage. He set up Twitter accounts for a bunch of wrestlers in the WWE. Certainly, people could potentially take something you said in the past and use it against you.
- Use common sense and your company’s corporate guidelines and you should be OK. Shane tells the story about a meme he posted that helped him get into the Royal Rumble. Social Media also helped him get into ROH.
- Shane feels wrestling is still in a place where people want to believe who you are on TV. From that aspect, being out of character on social media can hurt.
- When Shane was a good guy he would do a ton of meet and greets however when he turned heel he wouldn’t do them because he wanted people to boo him. Fans want wrestlers to be who they are on the screen which makes it different from other entertainment.
- If you do something that doesn’t hurt your wrestling persona, then go ahead and do it.
Wrestling Agents
- Shane started being an agent in TNA/Impact Wrestling. At first, they didn’t assign him any matches but asked him to help where he could. He ended up suggesting something to Kurt Angle and Matt Hardy who were in a main event which led to him being signed a few weeks later.
- Shane said he had ‘shrapnel’ heat and any heat that Jeff and Matt Hardy had was transferred to him when the new ownership arrived.
- Most agents Shane worked with were good at what they did in their careers. Shane was a heel, a babyface, a wrestlers and a gimmick. He was successful in all those things so there weren’t many situations he wasn’t comfortable in.
- Shane had a good rapport with the guys and could talk the language. Being an agent is being the middleman between the agent and the talent.
- In the WWE, if you were a heel, Arn Anderson was the agent for you. When Shane was a heel, Arn was his guy but when he became Hurricane, he had to switch as Arn was not strong in that aspect. When Shane was a babyface, Steamboat was the guy.
- There have been some people who have been agents but don’t know the product. If Shane was asked to agent a company, he would watch a couple of weeks to get acquainted with the product. When he got asked to talk at the PC, he watched a bunch of NXT even though he was familiar with the product
- Pat Patterson was one of Shane’s favorite agents who gave him a bunch of good ideas for the Hurricane character.
- Shane says there’s no set time to how long it takes to agent a match. Shane says the important agenting should happen after the match, pointing out mistakes so they can be corrected. He has seen agents who will not do that which does a disservice to the fans, the product and the two wrestlers.
- Some of the greats don’t know why they’re great. Shane understood wrestling but couldn’t explain why. Initially he wasn’t a good trainer.
3 Count and Massive Heat and Tank Abbott
- Shane’s favorite memory of 3 Count was during a house show. Arn Anderson actually said it was the most heat he had ever seen.
- Evan Karagias was wrestling one of the Villanos. After the match, they did the 3 count dance which drew big heat. During the intermission, they went out and did the dance again and the fans started throwing trash into the ring. They started using their green circles as shields which made fans throw even more stuff. Sid Vicious came out while they were dancing and powerbombed Evan Karagias. Evan was so covered in trash that it took a second for Shannon and Shane to pull him out. They had to schedule another intermission to clean out all the garbage.
- Shane tells a story about Tank Abbott cutting up his shirt and having his nipples hang out. Tanks was pretty cool.
The Performance Center
- Shane wishes there was a PC when he was coming up. He doesn’t hold it against the kids like some of the older vets do. Shane had to fight against bigger people when he was coming up and he’s glad the current crop of wrestlers don’t have to worry about that,
- The PC is amazing. It has an awesome gym, 4 -5 rings, dieting and wrestling coaches.
- Shane was there recently and was able to agent a dark match at NXT and some of the matches at their live event. Shane doesn’t think there’s anyone he can’t make better.
- Triple H talked about having the right attitudes in the PC and NXT because the current chemistry is positive. Shane noticed there is big camaraderie in most training centres. When everyone is working hard and busting their asses, it does build camaraderie.
- Shane says along with Triple H, Matt Bloom is responsible for the success of NXT. He also mentions Norman Smiley, Scotty Too Hotty, Shawn Michaels and Terry Taylor.If you have people like that giving you advice, it would be hard for you not to be successful.
The WWE Production Truck
- Shane brings up the segment on Raw between Taker/Kane and HHH/HBK and how it was shot beautifully. It was his favorite part of Monday night Raw.
- Shane compares the WWE production truck to a Norad facility.
- WWE has great production value and Vince wants everything to look as best as possible.
Old School vs. New School
- Shane talks about the between today’s wrestler and past wrestlers in terms of what a good match means. Back in the day, wrestlers only cared about the house. Today lots of the guys don’t ask about that.
- Shane says there are guys today that may have the passion but don’t have the hunger but also says you can’t hold it against them because that’s how wrestling has evolved.
- Shane would like to see the wrestlers be more creative and not copy spots from each other.
- Shane says the indies are like the wild west and that story telling in a show is non-existent. This is mainly up to the promoters to police which they aren’t doing.
Rating: 9/10
Great interview by Wade. Shane is really entertaining and is also very intelligent about the wrestling business. Highlights for me were the discussions about All-In and Wrestling Agents.
About Joe:
Joe is a long time wrestling fan from Toronto. One of his life goals is to be a guest host on one of Wade Keller’s post show podcasts but until that happens, he’ll keep writing for PW Podcasts. He doesn’t consider himself any sort of expert, mark, smark or IWC type. He just likes wrestling. Check him out on twitter and instagram @ja113.
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