Paul London On Brock Lesnar Debut Match, Making Vince McMahon ANGRY, Royal Rumble Elimination, John Cena
Paul London (@LondonFU) is a professional wrestler best known for his time in WWE. He sits down with Chris Van Vliet at West Coast Creative Studio in Hollywood, CA to discuss his memorable WWE debut segment with Vince McMahon and match with Brock Lesnar, having one of the best Royal Rumble eliminations in WWE history, facing a young John Cena on an episode of Velocity, getting in trouble for smiling at Vince McMahon, and more!
You had a break from wrestling, what was going on?
"I think I got a little burnt out on it. I think the social media thing was a part of it, too. I was brought in by all territories, legend types. The first trainer I ever met of name would have been “Exotic” Adrian Street, didn't teach me a damn thing and ripped me off. I was 16, and basically stole our money and used it on eye surgery and then tried to sell us paintings of naked Native Americans with wolves in front of their dicks and stuff. It was ridiculous."
You could have said, what kind of industry is this?
"But I didn't, and I stuck it out, because as I was growing up, it was constantly, 'Are you kidding me? You're never gonna make it.' Because it was still the land of the giants. So that's why now the standards have been removed. I mean, when I was coming in, and I feel like back in my day, I would have been looked at like, 'Where's your ticket?' You know what I mean? The first person that really kind of beat the tar out of me was Polish Power Ivan Putski. So I had gone through this whole quest to try and get trained. Went to like I picked all the colleges that I applied to. They were all outside of Texas, because I was destined to get out there. But I picked them all based on if there was a wrestling school with a credible trainer nearby them. My father didn't know that, but that was my plan. So that saw me go up to Pittsburgh, where I was going to train with Shane Douglas and Dominic DeNucci spoke to Shane Douglas on the phone. He left me a voicemail. He was like, 'This is Troy Martin.' I was, Oh, my God! He used his real name. This is real! It's really happening. And I got up there, I went to Duquesne, but he tore his bicep. So they were like training is off. I was like, What am I doing up here? I have to go to class. So it's the only time in my life I ever made the Dean's list."
So you were jaded a few years back, what brought you back?
"Well, okay, so what happened was I was going to return I believe in 2018, I was going to dip both feet back in the water with Ring of Honor when they were in Vegas. If I'm not mistaken, I want to see my buddy Jay Lethal was setting that up, and this was the last show they had when they canceled it because of the pandemic. It started getting crazy, people were looting and all this."
So that was 2020?
"I'm getting my dates all mixed up. So that got canceled. Ring of Honor still paid me, which was really cool. But then nobody knew what was going on, and I was still kind of burnt out. I was doing the work, delivering and doing all this bullsh*t, you know, jobs that you hate, but you have a kind of freedom to do whatever you want to do. I like putting myself in situations where people don't know everything about me. That's why social media is such a silly tool, because for me, it is just that, it's a tool. It's a tool to promote things. For the most part, it's an edited illusion, right? Everyone living their best lives and we're so happy and all this stuff."
"I'm not saying that doesn't happen, but I mean, it's basically a photoshopped life, it's an edited life. And so many people put all their chips in on it, and it ruins things. When I talked about it hurting the wrestling business, I don't know what came first, it might have been the Speaking Out thing when there was cancelations all over the place, and a lot of those were warranted, but I think it put a net of fear over everybody. So it did allow voices to be heard that should have been heard in the first place. But it also didn't just open the doors, it just took the doors off the hinges. So now anybody can be a wrestler who isn't a wrestler. Now, I mean, you just stumble upon just whoever it's like pro wrestler, ‘I do the graps!’ Shut the f*ck up. What are you talking about? So to allow these people to play the business has to compromise itself and look sh*ttier and phonier, more cooperative and more planned, more rehearsed, and it's just unwatchable. It gets to where I can't watch any anything on TV."
So back then, what got you onto WWE’s radar?
"Selling and being a generous worker. I credit Dory Funk Jr. for giving me the opportunity to even get to WWF at the time, that's the first time I had a trial was for WWF. I was able to be in the WCW locker room because of Dory Funk Jr. I was a plant in the crowd on the last WCW Pay Per View ever, Greed, where I'm in the crowd wearing my Funk t-shirt, and we had these plastic pie plates or something. And so it's DDP and Steiner, and both super cool. I'm cheering, and Steiner's beating up DDP in the entranceway, and I'm right at the corner, and Steiner comes over to me, and he, like, pulls my pie plate thing away, and he pie faces me, and he's like, 'Sit down, you white trash!' It's still a highlight of my career to be called white trash by Scott Steiner. Then something happens, and then DDP turns it around, and I get another pie plate, and he smashes it. Then I was a security guard for a contract signing, I want to say between Booker T and Scott Steiner on that Thunder. It was maybe the last Thunder or the second-to-last Thunder ever. But anyway, so Dory had set up these tryouts for Adam Windsor, who was his kind of project franchise guy, which was a whole other kind of situation. Rest in peace, Adam Windsor. But he was a kid from England who weighed about 170 and his parents basically funded Bang TV in order for his kid to get signed, because that's what they guarantee. 'We'll guarantee we'll get your kids signed, just fund our TV show.' So that went not as planned. I don't even know if that show still exists, but Dory is a fabulous trainer. He's incredible, but he got this kid a tryout on house shows, and I was the third last guy. So that's what put me on the radar initially, my first tryout was at a WWF house show in Fort Myers, Florida."
"Had a look all three nights against a different guy from the camp, so I was able to see what each guy did that got massive critiques, like a guy doing a spear on the same show as Rhyno. Some guy was lathered up in hot stuff or something that burned somebody's eye. Yeah, just ridiculous. But I came to the back, and I want to say Pedro Morales was there at the time as an agent, and Jack Lanza. Everyone was super complimentary. Long story short, I ended up getting in touch with Kevin Kelly, my first real look that they were like, oh, okay, was against Perry Saturn in Austin for a show called Jakked Metal back in the day, was still WWF, and Perry gave me a ton. But the thing was, I was brought in by big, tough guys, Ivan Putski, Dory Funk Jr., even Terry Funk, you know, took a few licks and stuff. And even Rudy Boy Gonzalez is a big guy. He's like if a baked potato lifted weights. So my thing was selling. You have no story if there's no selling."
You had an early match with John Cena on Velocity. Is it true he got in trouble letting you get in too much offense?
"Yeah, that was in Dallas, Texas, when he had B Squared ringside. Super cool guy. John's amazing, by the way. I think he's the Mick Jagger of pro wrestling, and he was just super cool. Mind you, I went out to UPW in California after he had left, so I was very familiar with him. I knew he was The Prototype, and I'd watched that documentary on Discovery Channel or something like that. That's how I found out about UPW, and that's what led me out to California. But they had already gotten their developmental deal taken away from them, but they didn't tell me that before I moved out here, and then they told me that they still had it. I moved out here, and I was like, What the f*ck?! But John was amazing, and the funny thing with John is, so we went out to the ring, and he said, 'What do you want to do?' We start talking. I'm like, 'I do this slingshot…' Because he's asking me. I was always taught when the veteran, or who the match is engineered for, when they're asking you questions, you just shut up. For any vet, you just stop and listen when they ask you questions, then you answer, but you give your input when they ask you for it. One of the things for most academies is etiquette is not taught, because lot of these mixed schools are taught by people who taught themselves, or they couldn't get booked elsewhere because they sucked. So now they're teaching people, and they're the champion of their promotion, and they're like, 'You can't work anywhere else, or you're never coming back.' It's garbage. It's all crap. But it was hard to get back in it. So selling, I was taught to make yourself available. So that's what happened with Perry Saturn, which allowed him to give me a ton of offense in that match. That's what really put me on the map, was that match with Saturn. Because he came to the back, he was like, 'Oh, kid, I was so awesome.' [He's] hugging me. Perry? Who did you work with? He's in a good mood. And Heyman’s running down the hallway. 'Sign this kid. Sign this kid, I swear.' What the hell is happening here? I think I wasn’t signed for another year and a half later, but that match with John was another tryout match, dark match, or it was on Velocity, but it was for him. I wasn't signed, but he said 'What do you do?' I do this slingshot head scissors. [He said] 'Show me.' We get in the ring. This is before the fans get in the building. I'm parallel to the ropes coming over. He's supposed to catch my ankles here and go this way. But it went [crash]. I was like, oh sh*t, I'm f*cked. I'm done, I'm done, I'm done. He's like, 'It's not ballet. Come on, let's do it again.' And we hit it and it worked in the match, so just super generous. I didn't find out until later at OVW, when John came to work out with us, he's like, 'Why are you here?' He was like They got mad at me for giving you what I did."
After you got signed, your first televised appearance, the first time we see you on TV, is a segment with Vince McMahon.
"But that was not the first time I met Vince McMahon. So I was also a professional plant. Because I was a plant in WCW, after the Perry Saturn match, I was also a plant for SmackDown. This is leading up to WrestleMania 18. So Undertaker is a heel, Flair is a babyface. They stumble into the crowd. Flair goes to punch Undertaker, Taker moves, he decks a fan, I'm the fan. So he decks me. It's a live SmackDown. We go upstairs, we're coming back in like, two minutes. 'Okay, you're gonna say that man punched me.' I'm like, Flair, right? 'Don't say his name.' The f*ck kind of a fan am I who deosn’t know his name?! I’m wearing a Stone Cold shirt. I want the wheeling, jet stealing, limo driving… that dude, the money dude, yeah, he hit me. 'No, say that man [Undertaker] hit me.' Okay. So at the end of that night in San Antonio, all the local guys are waiting to say, Oh, thank you. We're all waiting. So Vince is power walking. He's got shoulder pads in his suit, and I'm last So Vince is walking, everyone is like 'Oh, thank you sir. Remember me and hire me and change my life forever. Thank you sir.' I went in for an aggressive handshake, and this is what I did. I went in for an aggressive handshake on Vince McMahon. I caught these two [fingers], but I had committed to it. I was already committed. He wiped my handshake off and power walked off. I was like, I'm f*cked. Never working here. I'm done. I'm done. I just clipped his two fingers. He didn't say anything to me. So when I got to Hartford, I think that's where they said I was from. This is before the dress code, and I had gotten called up to do house shows after two months, and out of the blue. I got to the TV taping, I expected to have a dark match with Brian teaming against whoever. I remember Arn Anderson came up to me. He's like, 'You ready kid? Your big day today.' Oh, really, what's going on? He's like, 'You might want to go get some better clothes, you got this thing with Vince.' Oh my God. So I ran across the street. I don't know if it was Brooks Brothers or something, I don't know, but I spent money on slacks and basically what you see in that shot. I wasn’t gonna remind him I'm the guy who grabbed two fingers a couple of years ago. But he was cool, he seemed to like it. It seemed fine."
So the first time we see you in a televised match right after that segment with Vince. It's Brock Lesnar, and it's for the WWE Championship
"I think that stemmed out of that thing where he had decimated Brian [Kendrick]. He took that crazy F5 into the ring post bump, which is still, I have no idea how he did that. He even took a weird back bump from the floor up against the turnbuckles. Brian did an amazing job, incredible worker. But then he did the thing with Zach Gowen, where he bled him out like a stuck pig. Then it was me. But the same thing happened where I'm in the ring with Brock going over it. Arn is the agent. I love Arn Anderson. I actually have one of his trading cards, I carry it with me everywhere. But he's like, oh, 'What can you do, kid? Gotta make this guy look like a son of a bitch.' I'm like, I think he's doing a pretty good job on his own. He doesn't have a neck. He's shaped like Ram Man. And I'm like, 'Well, if he clotheslines me right off the bat, I can do a 360.' So I wouldn't say Brock took a liking to me, but we were always cool, always cool after that. I mean, he wouldn't say hi to anybody a lot of times, but he was always cool to me."
Did you piss Vince McMahon off by smiling in that segment?
"Yeah, it's funny, it's cute how sensitive millionaires are. If you think about it, the money, the power, the image, the persona, all of this becomes a big smoke screen. That becomes an illusion that you use as leverage to create some sort of fear, or try to keep everyone on their heels so they're easier to move around. I don't know, whatever you want to call it, but extremely sensitive, like very easy to hurt their feelings."
So this is the segment when it was going to be who killed Vince McMahon when the limo exploded:
"We were in Hershey, Pennsylvania. We were coming off of a house show, and I had been pulled into the office right as I got there. I still had my bags, and, you know, I was already in trouble for another before-mentioned hillbilly backyard wrestler from North Carolina, who sabotaged me by putting out online that I had leaked a magazine reveal to a fan. I had revealed Ashley being on Playboy; I had revealed that online, so that had been put out there that I talked to a fan. So I was getting reprimanded for that. I was like, you know who did this. You know who's behind this. 'I know, we still have to talk to you.' Why? If you know who did it. So I was already in trouble for that. Then they called everybody over that they didn't have any plans for. Just okay, the rest of you, this was going to be going on here. Okay, we have this segment going on the ring now. Vince is going to be acting very queer, okay, very odd, unusual, very, very queer. They kept saying queer, I don't know why, okay, I think they mean odd. That has to be what they mean, right? 'He's gonna come back here and we're gonna line you all up, and he's gonna just walk along acting very queer, very odd and just very bizarre and very queer.' I was like, Okay, I get it. Now, if he looks at you, just play off of it. The best part of that segment is watching everybody else in that thing, their faces. That’s my favorite kind of part of that scene, because they were really trying. I'm like, What are y'all doing? So that was the only description. They filmed the limousine explosion the night before. Didn't tell any of us that was what was happening. Didn't tell us anything other than he was bizarre, odd and queer. So every take he looked in my face. I'm sitting here thinking, whatever is up this guy's ass is making him so bizarre.
I did that every time. We did it nine times, every time he [looked at me]. All right, thanks, everybody. And then it was that Oompa Loompa that used to walk Khali to the ring, who was in the office, and I'm not talking about Davari, because I love Davari, but the non-athletic Oompa Loompa guy who used to walk Khali out to the ring, he's like, 'Hold on, sir. Do you think anyone's gonna notice this'? He pulls out like a stencil and points out my smile. I don't know if you're familiar with Mekaneck from He-Man or a periscope in a submarine. His head, literally, he power walked over to me. 'Why were you smiling?!' Because you're like, acting bizarre, and I don't know? Don't kill the messenger. I don't get that."
You have one of the greatest Royal Rumble eliminations of all time
"It wasn't as glorious as that. But at the time, they hated it. Royal Rumble is my favorite event. That was my favorite of the traditional four, as it should be still, pay per views. And you know, that was one of the four pillars, Royal Rumble, Survivor Series, WrestleMania and SummerSlam. So Royal Rumble is my favorite. That was in the first magazine I ever picked up, coverage of the Royal Rumble. So I had to figure out what pro wrestling was. I had to figure out what the hell a battle royal was through images and in a magazine, and it was just these Gladiators, and it appears that they're trying to tip each other out over the top. I love the Royal Rumble. We get to the building, I think it was in Fresno. How does this work? How does the Royal Rumble, the battle royal of all battle royals. How does it work? I was super intrigued. Get us into the room. There's these big dry erase boards with like 30 names here, and like 30 names here, it was basically like, in parentheses, I think who's eliminating you, and I love Snitsky. Always have Gene's always been awesome. I love him. He's who I would hire to be Jason Voorhees. But that's just me."
He was a punter before WWE:
"I believe it. So when I saw him eliminating me, it wasn't like I wanted Shawn to super kick me out or whatever. But I think this is well after his not my fault stuff. So I thought I feel like that was just kind of like an afterthought. Well, who's gonna eliminate [London]? Well, just have him [Snitsky] take this guy. That's what it felt like. So I thought, well, how can we do this? I love David and Goliath. Easiest story to tell in wrestling. So easy. I said to my students all the time, and so it was a matter of just, how do I get [eliminated]? There are moments in that spot that I don't like. There's a pube of hesitation on my part before he clotheslines, but that was my idea. Gene's like, 'You know I'm gonna have to bring it.' I was like, 'Yeah, please, as long as you bring it."
What is Paul London grateful for?
"My family, the career I’ve had so far, and the experiences I’ve had."
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