Ethan Carter III on Going from WWE to TNA, the Saturated Wrestling Market In 2015, More

– Chad Dukes of CBS Radio Washington DC 106.7 The Fan and ChadDukesWrestling.com recently spoke with TNA World Heavyweight Champion Ethan Carter III. The full interview is at this link but here are a few highlights:

Starting in WWE as Derek Bateman and starting another chapter in TNA as Ethan Carter III:

“I always look at that Stone Cold mentality. Steve Austin, Stunning Steve over in WCW was always a good hand, but he just never breaks through, whether it was on him or was on to someone not seeing it in him. He kind of had a rough deal on his exit. Wasn’t he fired via FedEx or something just ridiculous like that while he was injured? Kind of a similar mindset that I had and experienced. You take that motivation, even though he was a guy that’s probably incredibly motivated as it was, much like I was, to come out there and be like, ‘you know what, the only thing left to do is shove it up their ass and show you what I can do.’”

Influences for balancing the humorous and serious sides of his character:

“Like a Stone Cold, a Rock, a Kurt Angle, a John Cena were guys that can, they are entertaining and they can entertain you and they can make you laugh a little bit, but they’re not comedy. They’re not out there pulling a sock out of their junk, they’re not with a little Anaconda thing doing finger pokes of doom. They’re entertaining and being entertaining and endears you to the fans to either love you or love to hate you. As opposed to being, you know, our business is kind of ridiculous in a sense that when you take it uberly seriously, right off the bat, I think that it’s hard, at least from my perception, it’s hard to endear to a character when it’s too dry. I think there needs to be different levels of entertaining but to be able to be serious is also important especially when you’re in a main angle or main guy because comedy can only get you so far, where an entertaining personality who takes this business very seriously is what makes money.”

The good, the bad, and the challenges of the saturated wrestling market in 2015:

“For a guy who’s talented, who’s working in the industry, I think it’s a great thing that there’s a bunch of places to work. The more options the guys have the better for everybody because everybody’s working and working’s good, it stimulates the economy and that’s what we will be like. Is that a thing? As far as in the mindset of on Wednesday night there’s a ton of wrestling on, three hours on Monday, what seventeen hours on Wednesday, there’s two hours on Thursday, there’s a pay per view give or take every other weekend, there is a lot. When there’s a lot of something maybe a casual fan can become desensitized to it and it’s a little watered down, so I think the responsibility I take personally is trying to make something different, take it from a different approach, kind of work hard to keep their interest and if it works great and if it doesn’t, ‘Well, whoops!’ But it should work and I’m working hard hopefully doing it because there’s a lot. I start to look at it like there’s a lot being lost in the shuffle. So every time you have an opportunity to do something you can be the very first time someone’s seeing you do something, so put in max effort at every possible opportunity you have because you don’t know when you’re going to make a bunch of new fans or turn a fan off right away. “

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