Max Caster's Most Controversial Raps, The Acclaimed, Scissoring, AEW Tag Champions

On how much thought goes into every freestyle:

"Man, we would sit for a long time, especially when it was just me and Anthony [Bowens] before Billy [Gunn] had come on. We would just sit there and throw lines back and forth. And Anthony was my perfect sounding board. He would tell me okay, too far, I go, okay let me bring it back a little bit. He goes, Okay, maybe try it this way. And I go, okay, So I would walk away and I would attack this line from a different angle, and then it would be perfect. So it was really collaborative. At a certain point, I think we kind of got away from that and we don't talk about it as much. I would have to chase him down for whatever reason. He's busy. He's got his outside stuff or he's getting warmed up for the match. I'm just sitting there we got to attack these guys. And, you know, we wrestle the same guys over and over, hey I need a new way to insult The Dark Order. We've wrestled them so many times. They'll joke about it. They're like, I'd like to see what you come up with this time because I don't know what you got left, I've killed all of them so many times. So it's a lot of thought and a lot of reading the news and what does this guy look like? What is middle America gonna find funny? It can't be so niche that only I laugh at it. Because that's a lot of things for me. But, I watch Jimmy Fallon's monologue, [Stephen] Colbert’s monologue. What are these people joking about? Okay, let me try something in that realm. And just go from there."

On realizing he had this skill:

"The whole story of why I started rapping is actually wrestling-related. John Cena was in a music video with an underground rapper named Murs. And Murs was a big wrestling fan and he had John Cena do a feature in his video. So John did a verse he did the music video. And me at like 14 years old was like, amazing, let me look up more Murs. And growing up in New York, we get a lot of like 50 Cent, a lot of Dipset, The Locks so all this like hard gangster rap. And then Murs was like, a little bit more relatable to me, a guy from the suburbs. And I was like, Man, he's not rapping about all the stuff they rap about on the radio. Maybe I could rap about my life. And so it kind of went from there and just reading interviews and listening to songs. Oh, how do you write a verse? How does music structure work? I taught myself how to make beats, because I had nothing to rap over. So I go, let me try and sample stuff and I would do that on the desktop in the kitchen. And that worked up to my own computers and stuff like that. And no one was rapping over my beat. So I'm like, I guess it's just me. So I'm like, the one man band in my house. It's just me humming and then on the computer like, Okay, let me start writing."

On being homegrown AEW talent:

"I think me and Anthony are the best, purely homegrown talent AEW has ever created. We have not been on major wrestling television as signed wrestlers prior to that. We literally had our first match together on an AEW show. And who went as high as us? And at this point, we're still doing fine. We're still very, very popular. I mean, we just showed up at the Ring of Honor show, the pay per view and that crowd was super excited to see us with no announcement. I think if we are announced that's appointment viewing because they want to know what I'm going to say. They want to see Anthony and Billy interact with the people. And it's really like a big feel-good party when we're out there. So for us to kind of cultivate all of that and create scissoring, the pink, Daddy Ass."

On his appearance in WWE as one of Bobby Lashley’s sisters:

"Sure. You know, young wrestler, hungry, $500, quick drive three hours here. Catering is great, what else could you ask for? I think most other aspiring wrestlers would have taken that booking. It was very last minute thing from what I remember. They called I think the week of like, can you come to Raw? Okay. No idea what they wanted me to do. Gotta be in a dress. I don't know about that, you know what Katt Williams says about guys in dresses. It's a little like a slippery slope but again, it's like getting paid. You're getting on TV. I'm like this is this will be good for my career. They thought of me, they're like specifically Yeah, let's bring you in for this. I go okay, that makes sense. Sami Zayn has dressed up three men to lure Bobby Lashley to the ring and now we have to beat him up. Very, very cartoonish. Very, like Bugs Bunny Elmer Fudd I thought. I don't think people really responded to it. It still gets brought up as one of the worst things on their show of all time, but I thought it was great." 

Did anything else come from that appearance?

"No, that was kind of it. I didn't expect anything. I think after that I had my WWE tryout at the Performance Center, which was completely independent of that. And at that tryout, they told me, You did great, go make a name for yourself and we'll talk to you then. And it took me I think, another year and a half before it came down to the decision of AEW or WWE. They were both offering [deals] at the time."

On choosing AEW over WWE:

"That's a good question. Because I gave it a lot of thought and I almost did the NXT thing. [This is 2020?] Yeah. The full story is they had a guy on Dynamite that they did a match with on one of the live shows. And then the very next week or something he signed with WWE. They swooped in, boom, grabbed this guy right up and he's still there. I'm sure he's doing great. I don't keep up. But I think Tony or whoever got word that WWE had been interested in me, I'd done a couple of shows on pay-per-view with David Marquez and that's when they called me, I go, Oh, okay, this might be it. And then I think AEW got wind of that and then they go, in my opinion, let's swoop in on these guys and take this guy that they want. I was I think the beneficiary of that. And just the environment there, even when I worked there as an extra at AEW, it was night and day different than working as an extra for WWE. I think I changed in the men's locker room as opposed to a curtained-off area at the back of the arena. The only memory I have of Brodie Lee in person is me and him just sitting across from each other, him as him, and me as an unsigned guy just putting on my my boots. And I'm like, wow, this is actually way different. And no one even cared, everyone was just like, oh, yeah, you're here, you're wrestling today, good for you. I feel like that put me more at ease. And then the fact that it was Tony's idea to put me and Anthony together to be The Acclaimed to give us that name and he seemed, yeah, this is this is an exciting thing, this is my idea. And I hadn't heard anything specific. I technically didn't have a deal on the table with WWE, but they were flying me down to come meet and hang out and see if I was a good fit. They put that contract in front of us and that was it was like a leap of faith for me and Anthony together to do that."

On the possibility of The Acclaimed breaking up:

"I don't feel the animosity yet. And you would think [it's been almost four years] it doesn't feel like that, we can look back on the start. It seems like yesterday and again, like for me, I feel like I don't give myself enough respect to say I am a veteran in wrestling. I am one of the most popular wrestlers in AEW, I am a locker room leader. Even if it's by example, people could watch us and say I want to aspire to be that. I don't know if I give myself enough credit for that because I don't even know if there's a reason. That's one of the things I want to improve this year. [It is hard to give yourself praise though]. It's for some people, for me definitely and that's where the best wrestler alive comes from. It's just we got to reiterate that we got to drive that into everyone else's head but also my head and come out of that. On the other side, way better and actually the best and when people call me the best, that's the validation, and they will. It's not going to be tomorrow. But one day, it's going to start and it's going to keep going and keep going. And everyone's gonna say, Wow, I never realised how great Max is. And I think it all just starts with me and in here. So that's what we're working on this year is along with the physical improvements it's just making sure that I know that I am the best."

Do you think you have ever gone too far with one of your raps?

"No. There are raps that other people have thought I've gone too far on for sure. But everything that I've ever said and done has led to my career being at this point right now and I can't regret it. I've never walked out there and been like yeah, this is too far, but I'm gonna say it anyway. I think it's funny. Whatever I say, I think it's funny. If it's a bad joke, it's a bad joke. It didn't land, Oops, you know, stand-ups, they work material out in front of a crowd. If it doesn't land, they just go well, okay, next joke. That one didn't work. I kind of don't have that luxury. If it's really on the line I'll kind of walk around to different people that I trust and go what do you think of this and If they really, really don't like it, I might try and rework it. But, you know, I might also say it too."

Did you have to run your raps by people after the Simone Biles line?

"For a time. But that stopped pretty quickly. Of course, I wasn't gonna go there again. It wasn't even that line in that rap. It was the Duke Lacrosse, and that is a whole to me grey area because it's an accusation, but a false accusation. But it's also referencing something that is very sensitive in the world, which is sexual assault, and I get it, it's a very touchy subject. Probably shouldn't have said it but in retrospect, how could I ever regret that? Because when I returned to TV, it was like a hero's welcome. So why was I being rewarded for the most horrible thing that anyone's ever said? We walked out, it was I believe Chicago. And it was a Dark, I want to say 2021. Chicago, one of these shows before the pay-per-view. And we walked out, and it was, yeah, so happy you guys are back. Anthony had been wrestling singles matches in the time that I was away following that, and you could feel the energy just wasn't in the room. As great of a wrestler as he is, if he kept going it would have come together and people would get on board. But that's the yin and yang of us is he's gonna have the platform to do what he can do as long as I'm there, and vice versa. I think we've closed the gap on each other. He's become a great interviewer and I've become a more outstanding wrestler because I'm trying to focus more on that not so much on the rap. And we've kind of closed the gap, and we're becoming more one and the same. But it helped, that suspension, that thing that I said the outrage helped my career and Anthony's career in turn." 

On how the suspension helped his career:

"Say what you want in the moment, people were really upset. I thought it was great, because I go, Oh, well, I'll just do some more like that. It was a little too far. Things got really, really touchy when the network starts calling. And that's what really did me in. Something had to be done and I agree with that. I'm cool with that. I only apologise to Tony and Anthony Bowens and they both appreciated that and accepted that and we moved forward. And when I came back, we figured out wouldn't it be funny if I just read off a sheet of paper, a corporately written rap? And we started doing it and the fans are booing, and then we rip it up and they start cheering. So it's like this is what they want. They want me to be me. Everyone wants me all the wrestlers to be themselves really, or extensions of themselves. And I feel like I'm one of the only wrestlers who's not afraid to be himself. I use my real name, my government name, you can look me up. I will say what I want to say I'm, okay with that. I'm okay with the consequences. And we keep going. But our popularity speaks for itself."

On referencing WWE:

"That's a double-edged sword. Because you can get them on some things, and it'll be a good burn, but you're also putting more light on their product, which they don't need it. They're already however many years they've been in business 50, 60, 70 If you count all the way back to the territories, they have that credibility built in, that longevity, so do they need that from the four or five-year-old wrestling promotion in AEW? No, they really don't. And at a certain point, you know, people would say, hey, stop doing that. And I listened. I really try not to do it anymore because it just creates more eyes on their product and not ours. It makes us seem second-rate.

I mean, there were certain things that had nothing to do with the TV show. Reference Vince McMahon I think the very first time that any sort of allegations came out. When he retired, I referenced him. And that was like news, it was news news. So I thought that's a little bit better than me saying, their TV show they did this, on their internet show, they did this. It's way different. John Laurinaitis had done something, I think that's different than reacting to their TV show. So I would pick and choose, but honestly, it was never a good idea. Because it would just create shots back and forth. And now you see them taking shots at us. And of course, they are, if they're running hot and anyone's going to ask them about AEW, of course, they're going to take shots because we took all the shots at them. Fair is fair. I'm cool with that. But when it comes back around, not no one's gonna complain."

On getting away with scissoring on TV:

"Scissoring is great. I've heard a lot from the lesbian community about how they, like scissoring how only some lesbians scissor, one lady was like, you have to be skinny to do it. So it's not every lesbian. I'm like, I never said it was, it's just something we do as a handshake. So there was a certain point where we were asked to stop, and then we tried some other stuff. And we're throwing the A down. And I'm like, man, a scissor would go so good in this, but I'm like, um, milk it like udders, and Anthony's just like, What are you doing? Scissoring was the thing. I can't tell you, when I knew for sure that it was going to lead us to success. But once people started making their own, like cardboard scissors that would like open and close. And I'm like, Oh, yeah. If they're making art out of what we say, yeah, that's moving the culture."

On the Shelton Benjamin discourse on social media:

"We don’t want him [Why?] what’s he gonna do? Take up my TV time. This is one thing I learned when I was getting signed to AEW, I got a call from QT Marshall. Who I love and respect because he's a great wrestler. And he's very honest. One of the most honest guys I've ever met, if not the most. He called me up. And he's like, Tony wants you to come in. I go. Is this a joke? I don't know. He goes, Look, I'm a wrestler. I'd prefer it if you didn't come here and work because you'd be taking a spot that I want. And I go, Oh, that was some real sh*t. I respect that guy. And ever since then, he's always kept it on that level with me so I gotta keep it on that level with everyone else. Every single free agent that comes up in professional wrestling fans want to go, they'd be great in AEW. We only have so much TV time. Some of that needs to go to me. I don't want all of it. I'm not selfish, but I'm the best. But if people start calling for Shelton Benjamin, or Motor City Machine Guns or whoever, it doesn't matter, and not to single anyone out. My sentiment is, why would we want them? We already have the best roster, you already have the best wrestler alive. If you want anyone to come in and do whatever role they're going to do. I bet I can do it better. I bet Anthony could do it better. I bet we have a guy on there that's not even getting used on our roster that could do it better. So what are we really doing? We're just bringing in stars that were made other places to do what? Less work ourselves. I'll work for that. If you want me to fill someone's role, I can work and do that. It's not going to be overnight. It's not going to be okay, Max is now this guy. No, but I could work there. But it's insulting to me as a veteran and a top wrestler, and one of the most popular wrestlers that fans will go. Well, we want this other guy now. Why? You have the best, literally the whole roster you have the top of wrestling." 

Just to be clear this is not a Shelton Benjamin thing?

"Not at all. I will say right here, great wrestler, and I respect him a lot. But why would I campaign for anyone to join the company when we already have the best wrestlers? I'm here. Put me in that spot and it'll be great. But if I'm gonna sit here and go, Wow, yeah, we need more on this roster. No, we don't." 

How do you feel when someone gets signed?

"I'm insulted. I really am. I want to see them prove themselves. And, you know, talking about the people that we signed recently, I think Will Ospreay has proved themselves. Give him all the credit in the world. He's an amazing wrestler. Okada, I think once he's situated in the country, and he's on TV every week, we will see. But that doesn't take away from how great of a wrestler he is. He's here, we got to live with it. But if you had asked me before we signed him. Max, do you think Okada should be here I go if you want but I can do that for you."

On Adam Copeland:

"I'll be honest, when he was brought in, I was sceptical. Because you go, he's done so much, what else could he really want to do? This is my company. Again, you're stealing our TV time. But he's proven himself to be a leader and someone who's gonna go out there and put in the work in the ring and pull guys aside. He's pulled me aside and said, Hey, I saw your match. Here's what I think. And I go, thank you so much and I appreciate that, but there's a lot of guys who wouldn't do that."

On new signings possibly bringing in more people:

"They could, I don't know if they have. Wrestling and TV is a lot about how you make people feel. But not just once, over a long period of time. So these guys can come in and there's some general excitement when they first show up. But are they going to sustain that? We have to wait and see, but we've worked so hard to get to where we are in the company from literally ground up, homegrown, purely. And then to just have guys who were stars somewhere else, did their whole career somewhere else come in, and now they're perceived to be on top of us, it's an insult to me. I'm speaking for me, I don't want to speak for my partners or anything like that. It's an insult to me because of all the work we've put in. If other people help along the way, sure. But not many of these guys have ever campaigned to wrestle me and Anthony. I think there's a reason for that. One because they don't want to get embarrassed via me on the microphone. And they know that we are younger and hungrier and ready to go and they want to be in their comfort zone, wherever they are. I get that, but we have the tendency to bring people outside their comfort zone. So I again, take that personally when me and Anthony are the number one thing in wrestling period. And then none of the top wrestlers are saying we can actually better AEW if we put on a top-level fight with two of the top teams. FTR was the only one team that agreed to wrestle us and that was great. Again, I respect them for that. But there wasn't that clamour from everyone in the locker room, like, put me with Acclaimed, none. And I again take that very, very personally, because that shows that people are afraid to try and help the company as a whole.

What is Max Caster grateful for?

"My genetics, my brain, my creativity and professional wrestling."