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Eric Young On Confronting Vince McMahon, Leaving WWE For TNA, Bray Wyatt, SAnitY
Eric Young (@TheEricYoung) is a professional wrestler currently signed to TNA Wrestling. He sits down with Chris Van Vliet at West Coast Creative Studio in Hollywood to discuss his time in TNA and winning the World Championship twice, trying out for WWE early in his career and not getting signed, being part of Team Canada, his role as a comedy wrestler, signing with WWE and his work in Sanity, getting called up without the rest of the group and what went wrong on the main roster, returning to WWE for a second time and nearly being aligned with Bray Wyatt, why he thinks he will retire in TNA, a scary incident where it looked like he might lose his ear and more!
Quote I'm thinking about: "People quit when things get hard because the thought of something being hard forever is unbearable. But nothing hard last forever. You either quit, it gets easier or you get harder. No matter what, it always ends. But you only lose when you quit before you see it through." - Alex Hormozi
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"I don't know, there's something in the water in Canada. Seriously, we just make really good professional wrestlers. Ronnie, Shawn Spears, Tye Dillinger, or whatever aliases you want to call him. He was one of those guys that was better than me the first day he was there, you could show him something, and he could do it almost instantly. Full circle, fast forward. We end up wrestling each other in NXT. He worked in the WWE before I did. It's like he's my son, my pro wrestling son, and he did it. He did it faster than I did, and he's one of the best guys ever, and crazy talented."
"Well, it's hard. We've chit chatted about this on the way over here today is American people, or American wrestlers or people in entertainment in general don't understand the extra added level of difficulty. Because coming here and working here without a visa or without being married or without something is illegal, completely illegal. So it makes it so much more difficult than anyone realizes. Me and Bobby Roode were very close to being hired by the WWE probably around 2001. We had done, who knows, 20-25 dark matches and try out things. They were interested, but it came down to they were going to hire us, we came up in a meeting and they're like, oh well, they're Canadian. Then it was like oh well, who else could we [use]? I don't know who the two other guys that they hired were, but it was basically because we were Canadian, they didn't end up signing us. So yeah, it just adds this really, really difficult layer that most people aren't aware of."
"The truth was even TNA in 2003 didn't even really seem like [an option], I didn't know what anyone was making, but I didn't think that it would be a place where I could work and make a living full time. They're doing the weekly pay-per-view on Wednesday nights. I think the pay-per-view cost $9.99, they got Shamrock and all these other people like that. There's no money left there for me or for guys like me. But then started getting [interest], went down and met some people there, and then got booked on one of the pay-per-views and did like a tryout match. And so there was interested in both places at the same time, and I was just trying to keep as many of my options open as I could, because I wanted to do it full time for a living."
"I mean, it's a wild story, and I don't know if I've ever said this in an interview, to be honest. So I'm going to Nashville, and I'm doing independent shows, and I had been backstage at TNA a couple times, then I got booked on one of the shows, and it was like a six man tag, and I can't remember who it was. I want to say they're doing the getting ready to do the World X Cup, but I wasn't on Team Canada. Team Canada hadn't been formed yet, and it was me Elix Skipper and Shark Boy were Team USA, which is hilarious. I was wrestling against, I want to say it was Hector Garza, Abismo Negro and Heavy Metal from Team Mexico, but I'm really bad at remembering those things, but I think that's what it was. So the first time I appeared, I was on Team USA, that's the very first time I ever appeared, and just kind of as a throwaway thing, but I had met one of the girls. They had like cage dancers, and if you remember they had girls in bikinis dancing in between the matches and sometimes during the entrances. I met her, and we became friends and started hanging out and kind of dating, that went on for a couple months, and I'm wrestling for the WWE and getting across the border, sneaking across the border, basically illegally. I don't even know if I can get in trouble for saying that now, but either way."
"That it wasn't gonna survive. I can remember thinking that when I was 21 to 22 years old. Because they're just doing the pay-per-views at this point and there's big name guys on there that are not cheap. There are big ticket guys that are making probably very good money, and they're not going to appear on it unless they're making good money. Because those are the rules. So it's not like they're Oh, Jeff's a friend of mine, so I'm doing him a favor. There was a lot of money being spent, not enough money coming in, and then they get the deal with Dixie Carter coming in and taking it over basically as the CEO. Then the Fox Sports thing starts to happen. So now we're shooting pay-per-views on Wednesday nights in Nashville, and then we were out all night. It's five, we've got to go to the airport, get in a car, somehow get to the airport, fly on a Southwest flight. There'd be 40 of us on the plane. Fly to Orlando, land, take a bus to Universal Studios and shoot the Fox Sports Show there in in Orlando. At the time, there was very little wrestling in Orlando. So I can remember the Team Canada versus Sonjay Dutt, Chris Sabin, and it might have been Shark Boy. It was me, Bobby and Petey in a six man tag, and Sonjay Dutt gave me like a hip toss, I took a bump, and the place just came unglued for a hip toss. I remember looking at Bobby Roode after the match and saying, Man, I hope we can do all the shows here, and we got what we wished for. Then you're taking bumps on ladders eight years later, and there's 45 people there, and nobody cares."
"I think they did a really good job of making it completely different, trying not to do what they were doing. Because competing with them is stupidity. As Ted Turner found out, there is no competing with them. They were the New York Yankees and we were the Mississippi Mud Ends, and that's okay. We're still playing the same sports, still the same thing, still the same risks, still the same rewards. And then over time, it built into this very legitimate alternative."
"I'm sure they exist somewhere. But then there's this whole other thing cost to now, you have to have a truck, and this truck has to drive all over the United States hauling the six sided ring run when we go to towns we're using rings that are in and around the area, and then they dressed it up to make it look like the TNA ring. The TNA ring looks like the TNA ring. The ring is never the same ring. It's a different ring in every city that we're in. So there's this whole other cost of having this because the six-sided ring, the only place that happened was TNA, and they at that point, it was big enough where they had a truck, a ring truck, and it drove from city to city to where we went. So we would have the truck, but, or we'd have the six-sided ring, but I don't think that's viable for where TNA is now. The truth is I don't know if the six sided rings even exist. That's why they’d have to have them built."
"I mean, the biggest for me personally is Christian, he came by choice. Kurt had been released, and him coming probably is an even bigger deal numbers-wise visually, but I think as a wrestler and as knowing the full story of both sides, Christian turned down a deal there to come because he felt he had a lot more to prove in the ring. He wanted to be the guy, and he's one of the best professional wrestlers ever. I would challenge anybody that, as a person that's done it at a very high level for a long time, a guy that shared a ring with him, he's just one of the best he's one of the best minds for it. Just overall, his body of work is actually incredible. Him betting on himself to come there, making that a thing for other guys, you know, I think partially making that a thing for Kurt and for later on, for Booker T and Rob Van Dam and these other guys that whether they were under contract or not. They realized when they left the other place, wherever they were, it was an option for them to continue to be on TV, to keep their name in the wrestling world. So, yeah, to me, Christian is the biggest because it was by choice, not by necessity. That's no slight on Kurt or any of the other guys. I've had to necessarily move to another place too, that's just business. But I think, to me, the biggest is Christian because he chose."
"I want to say it's right in that wheelhouse of probably 2008 to 2012, that's when it's really rolling. We're doing house shows every weekend. We're going to the UK and doing really good numbers. I can't remember [the network], it was on the free channel. So TNA in the United Kingdom is massive. At one point, it was outrating the WWE, because WWE is on a pay channel, so you had to have like an HBO Style channel to watch the WWE. But if you were a wrestling fan. TNA was available to you for free and on any TV in the United Kingdom. Will Ospreay talks about it, AJ Styles and X Division, that's what made Will Ospreay want to be a wrestler. He's a TNA fan. That's what made him want to get into pro wrestling. And at that time, we were doing really good numbers. There are huge houses there. We're wrestling all over North America, house shows on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, and live TV is doing well on Spike. It's rating actual, you know, big names are coming over. They're in the mix. There's a bunch of homegrown talent like AJ and Joe and Bobby and I'm in there. I'm not at that level yet, but I'm very involved in what's going on. So a very exciting time to be part of it."
"For sure it's vindicating. I have said this before and I mean it, if you in the professional wrestling business and you don't want to be the World Champion, then you're either lying or you're in it for the wrong reasons. And in the end, it's a prop, I didn't win anything. Someone said, We want you to carry it, but with that responsibility, that's the drug of this multi-million dollar company that's airing these shows that millions of people are watching. We're saying you're the most important piece, and we believe that you can carry interest or hold the fort while we're transitioning to something else, that level of responsibility is something that I've always wanted, and I've known kind of deep in my heart I've always been good enough, but actually getting it, being able to have that feather in your cap is very vindicating."
"Well the first, you never forget your first. At that point, I mean, the second one was strange, because during COVID, right? So there's no fans in the arena, which is very wild. And at that point I had done lots of other things, and my name was big. It wasn't a stretch for me to win that world title the second time. I think it was a bit of a stretch the first time. I think there were a lot of people who were resistant to it, and that's okay, I'm not embarrassed by that at all. But yeah, the first one was huge, and my mom was still alive, and she was staying at my house, and I didn't even really know I was winning it kind of until I got down to Orlando. I think I was shooting the end, or maybe the start of the second season of Off Your Hook. So I flew home, and I had the belt in my bag, and she didn't know, and I got a really cool picture of her holding it, very special."
"I think at the time I had kind of done everything, there wasn't a ton left for me there to accomplish. I'd been the World Champion, Tag Champion, TV champion, Global Champion, Knockouts Tag, me and ODB never lost those belts, just so everyone knows. So technically, we're still the champs. They took them from us. But yeah, obviously I'd always wanted to wrestle in the WWE, that's my dream. The opportunity came around, and TNA’s people were kind enough to let me kind of finish up my deal there and move on to a different opportunity. And, yeah, I mean, had a meeting with Hunter and it went well, and the rest is kind of history. So it was like fulfilling a lifelong dream was part of it. Also, it was kind of I think time for me to move past that. At the time TNA was certainly declining. We had moved from network to network to network, it was shrinking and I knew it was kind of a matter of time before bigger opportunities were just going to kind of go away because of circumstances that the company found itself in at the time, and obviously, WWE is not going anywhere. NXT at the time is the hottest brand in pro wrestling. Anyone that says it wasn't wasn't watching or wasn't paying attention. It was white hot. Guys like Shinsuke and Bobby Roode and Adam Cole and FTR, they made it into this viable [brand], it wasn't an option, it was the number one thing driving the WWE. The other shows were obviously bigger and doing bigger numbers. But the tickets that sold first were TakeOver. They go into a place. They go into New York on WrestleMania weekend. TakeOver Saturday night sold before anything else, they were sold out instantly. It was the hottest brand in pro wrestling, and to be part of that was a massive honor for me and at that point in my career, very exciting."
"Well, the plan was it was the three of us and not Nikki. We didn't like that, because she was such an important part of what the group was. The first time you see me, it's me by myself. But that's because our debut was supposed to happen on SmackDown. We were supposed to come our music was going to hit, we come out of the end of SmackDown, we're going to do and we're going to do this thing with New Day. I'm pumped. They're three amazingly talented guys, they're crazy over, Austin [Creed] is still a very good buddy of mine. I knew Kofi a little bit and Big E a little bit, but just being around him those few couple weeks, they're just good people. I know it's going to be amazing to work with them. The six man tag that was in the ring. I want to say it was Miz, Joe and someone versus New Day, and it went long, it's live TV, and it went long, and our entrance got cut. The end of SmackDown is supposed to be us standing at the top of the ramp and our music playing. It goes black. That's huge. But instead, it's the end. The match, ding, ding, ding, SmackDown is over because they ran out of time and just a victim of circumstance, all this weird stuff happens.
I’m standing there in my Sanity gear ready. We're literally standing in front of the curtain, waiting for them to count us down and say go. Then they're like, No, we're cutting it. And it's heartbreaking. But at point that point Sanity is such a hot group that they'll figure it out. Something else will come along, no big deal. I think it was maybe a week or two later, we're in a thing with The Usos. We wore black tracksuits during one of the breaks, and they hide us into the ring, we come out from underneath the ring, we beat them up and get really good heat. Sanity was like number two trending in the world that night. Half of the audience doesn't know who we are, because they just are people that watch SmackDown and Raw. They don't really watch NXT but it was still a popular enough group that we made a pretty good impact. The Usos are awesome. I'm pumped to work with both of them. Then I think SmackDown is at in Ontario, here in California, and Shinsuke gets attacked by one of the bomb-sniffing dogs during the day. He's in the changing room, and this professionally trained dog, they are going around looking for explosives, and it just attacks him, bites his leg, he has to go to the hospital. So it's supposed to be Shinsuke versus Jeff Hardy. Jeff Hardy's the Intercontinental Champion that night. And they're like, Well someone's got to wrestle Jeff. I think it was Brian James said thinking he's doing me a favor. We're still buddies, he's a very good friend of mine. He says Eric Young's great, he could do it well, not fully thinking that through, that means the first time you see Eric Young on television he's going to get beat. Winning and losing has never been super important to me, but there's times when you need to win and times when you need to lose, and when you're first debuting, they're breaking my legs before I can run. Right there I'm getting beat, and there's no shame, I'll lose to Jeff Hardy every night, one of the most over wrestlers of all time, yeah, but it was kind of the beginning of the end right away, before we even got started."
"I don't really know what happened. Nobody can tell me, the person in charge, we all know who that is, not allowed to say the name, just kind of didn't like it. Although it was his choice to bring us up in the first place. But at that point, like this is what would happen. There's just no rhyme or reason to any of it, and just a victim of circumstance. The fans liked us, the boys liked us, the internet was a buzz about Sanity coming up. Everyone liked us. The unfortunate truth is there's one person that didn't get it and he's the only person that mattered. I talked to him like I talked to anybody. I interrupted [him], and I was told to do it by people there, and I went and interrupted a meeting he was in. We had a very good conversation, and he said, Do you have ideas? I said, Yep, sure do. Came in the next week, pitched ideas. He was very open and very complimentary. Thank you for bringing this in, and thank you for showing initiative. And then they sent Damo and Wolfe back to NXT, and then I got sent over to Raw and it got worse. I mean, I didn't do anything. I didn't make him mad. I didn't have a bad match, there's nothing I did. He just decided that I was no good at whatever I was that I was doing, I wasn't doing anything. I don't know how you came to that decision, and I've said this before too, I'm not the first person that he's missed out on. Won't be the last, right? Well, hopefully I'm one of the last. But Kenny Omega was there and didn't last eight months, so the one of the best bell-to-bell ever in the universe, and he couldn't survive. So it's frustrating more than anything. I'm not mad about it. I moved on, for sure, with my life and very fulfilled, very happy person. I'm exactly where I'm supposed to be. But it's a very disappointing thing, yeah, very disappointing."
"I was making very good money and wasn't going to work, I would have fired me. I was well aware it was coming. I didn't think the group would be that big. There's guys that were working on TV like Rusev and a bunch of people. It was a bloodletting, and I was definitely in that group. I can't remember, someone put the numbers up, I want to say it was like 125 different guys, or whatever it was, a lot all at once. So, like I said, I'm not traveling down to Orlando where they're shooting the COVID-restricted tapings. I'm not talking to anybody. I'm well aware that it's coming. I'm kind of hoping that I'll sneak under the radar somewhere, somehow, and continue on. But that's not what happened. Got released during that and Scott D'Amore, who I've been friends with for 30 years, is one of the first people to call me and apologize and say he's really sorry that happened. But in a week [he said] let me crunch some numbers and figure some stuff out. Let's talk. I really want you to be in to come to TNA. So that was surely a relief at that point, because at point that point I've got 90 days, and I'm going to be unemployed and maybe making $0."
"So I was employed by them for, I think eight or nine months. [People don't know this because you weren't on TV.] Yeah, some people know, but I think the majority of the world doesn't. They don't understand, because I would never show up at TV. The truth is, I never left my house. So yeah, I was proposed a gimmick to work there with two guys, and was super excited about it. Then that didn't happen, and one of them was Bray, and then Bray passed away, which sucked, and is unfair in every way possible. So then it's like, well pitch some new ideas, and then the person I worked for before forced his way back in. I just kind of said, there's a lot of reasons why I didn't want to work there at that point, but the number one reason was I just don't want to work for a person like that. And this is long before all the other stuff would come out. But I was pretty convinced I knew who he was and how he was professionally one, but more importantly, for me, morally, I just can't work for a human being like that. So I asked for my release, and was granted it. And I'm not saying any of the stuff, because I had to sign an NDA. So yeah, it's a whole weird thing."
"I think the original idea was me, Bray and Bo as a trio. That's what was told to me from Hunter, basically. So obviously I'm gonna jump at that. I'm friends with both of those guys. It would have been creatively just an unbelievable opportunity working there, working on the main roster wrestling all over the world with two guys that I get along with well, and obviously a huge part of the show at that point. The Fiend and Bray coming back was one of the most popular things at that time, one of the most viewed things. They put up those viral videos, they'd be viewed within six hours by millions of people. So being part of that was very appetizing. It's kind of not in my wheelhouse, but close enough to my wheelhouse where I would have really enjoyed it, it would have been challenging, but in a really cool way. So I was obviously very excited, and then all the stuff happened with the sale and all this other weird stuff. All of a sudden, I wasn't working for the person who hired me, and I wasn't willing to do that. I don't regret it, not at all. I think it's the coolest. It's not lost in me that I was able to walk away from money like that, stability like that, because of what I believe, beliefs of the kind of human being that I am. 10 years ago, I don't know if I would have been able to make that choice financially or personally or certainly not professionally. I'm in a position where I'll be fine. I'll figure it out. I hadn't even talked to Scott at the time, or TNA, we had zero conversations about it. I just knew I wasn't going to work for the WWE anymore. So it's a wild one, but the truth is it was 100% my choice. I think there'll be a lot of people that think that's stupid, a lot of people that won't make that choice. But I think for me in my career, I think it's one of the proudest things I've ever done."
"I'm not great on social media, but there was all this stuff, it had to be reattached and all this stuff. It was obviously very serious. I had a huge cut on the back of my ear from a table spot I did with Frankie. And totally my fault. I'm doing the Spanish Fly. I know when he does it, he kind of goes sideways a bit, kind of turns to one side. In my head he went this way, but he actually doesn't. He goes this way, and I'm going this way, and he's going that way, and ended up busting the table with my head. I mean, really, I probably should be dead. As soon as I hit, you can just see the blood just stream down. So the internet does what the internet does, and [says] his ear got ripped off. Man, that sounds awesome, that sounds cool. I'm not going to correct them. I'm just going to let them say whatever they want, because the truth is whatever they say is always going to be cooler than the truth. That's the rule. I'm never going to let truth get in the way of a good story. The story wasn’t I had to have my ear reattached. I think it was eight stitches behind my ear, but it was just bleeding nonstop because of where it was."
"The industry of pro wrestling, my friends and family and opportunity."
