Post by AJ Riles on Oct 24, 2012 4:59:51 GMT -5
The camera fades in to show Riley Taylor in front of a backdrop reading "Off the Ropes". "Hello there, everyone, and welcome to another edition of 'Off the Ropes'! Today, we'll be speaking with the current MWL World Heavyweight Champion, Riley Taylor." Riley gives a brief wave to the camera before holding the title belt into view.
"So, Riley, let's start off with your early career. Your first consistent job was with MWL, right? How did you come into the company originally?"
Riley shifts slighty in his chair. "Well, it's not a particularly exciting story. Like most wrestlers starting out, I basically drifted from indy to indy, pretty much competing anywhere I could for a paycheck, you know? I was at...I think I was up in New Jersey at the time, one of Yugo's last appearances there, when Michael came up to me at the end of the show. He just flat-out asked me, 'hey, I'm starting a promotion down in the midwest. I like your style, you want a job?' So I sign the deal and I head down and boom."
"Through most of your carreer, one of your most defining traits is probably the scar on your face. How exactly did you get that?"
"Well, this was before MWL got the Redline deal, but on one of their first shows, they put me into a feud with Justin McIntyre. He'd been wrestling for a few years before that, too. But they stick us in this feud, and over the course of just a few shows, Justin and I take this rivalry to this insane level of brutality that from what I can tell, is still one of the nastiest the company's ever seen. Really, I don't remember what the trigger for the whole thing was. Probably Kim. I swear, it seems like everywhere she and I work together, creative ends up having her get yanked all over the place.
"Anyway, we're going into this major showdown and Michael pulls us aside. He tells us 'you guys are one of our big draws right now, go out there and tear the house down. Do whatever you have to to get these people on their feet.' So Michael books the match as a no-DQ street fight. It pretty much was MWL's first Revolution X match, actually. So anyway, we go out there that night and we light the place up, right? People are on their feet, cheering the both of us on. And for whatever reason, we decide to keep outdoing ourselves through this match. It eventually gets to the point that we have barbed wire weapons just all over the damn place. Busted tables, two-by-fours, think we even had a barbed wire ladder or some nonsense like that. The whole thing was ridiculous as hell. But, anyway, Justin at this point was using this kind of inverted powerbomb finisher. Sort of a sitout powerbomb where he'd drop you on your face. Well, here I am, pumped up and I tell him to hit me with that onto some of the barbed wire.
"So, up I go, and BAM! We screw up the impact, and I go face-first into this barbed wire. I manage to pry my face off, and I reach up and touch my face. I could barely see around all the blood, but I could see a pretty freaked out look on Justin and the ref, so I reach up, and my cheek is just completely shredded. Well, about that point we bring it home, and I hit Justin with, like, the fourth Taylornado of the night and get the pin. Then they haul me off to the hospital. They stitch me up, and I'm out of action for a few weeks."
"Now, sometime after that, you had your first work for a then-major company in Original Championship Wrestling."
"Aah, yes. The Oh-See-Dub. I have this sort of loyalty to OCW, or I did, anyway, since it was the first place I really got my face out there. I left MWL a little before Redline came around because I wanted a bit of a change, and since OCW had shown some interest in me. Not gonna lie, it was a bit of a shock going from MWL, where I was in the upper-mid card, to OCW where I was pretty much just a jobber for my first several months. Probably my first major angle with the company was the feud with CK One. And would you care to guess how that one started?"
"Kim?"
"You betcha. Anyway, we have constant encounters backstage before we lead up to our match at Inferno 2008, which ended up being a Hell in a Cell. Fun fact though, they were originally talking about putting a ladder on top and hanging Kim's contract above the Cell."
"...What."
"Obviously it never happened, but it was discussed. Anyway, that match was almost as brutal as the match with Justin, but the finish eventually has CK catapult me off the top of the Cell, and through the ringside announce table. And to this day, I have no idea what the guy was thinking, but CK decides to do a running shooting star press on me from the top. Fans ate it up and I'd say it's one of my career highlights, but still."
"And when it comes to OCW, what do you think people will remember you for?"
Riley immediately reaches up and lightly punches himself in the temple. "First of all, the concussion gimmick. Would you believe that was born from the match with CK, too? Evidently, the powers that be thought that 'oh hey, CK's going to be off-screen for a while to sell the match'. When I went and asked if it would be better for us to both be taken off for at least a few weeks, they immediately told me 'no, you have to go out there tonight and wrestle again'. It wasn't so played up that night, but afterwards, I kind of played with this idea that I was taking painkillers incorrectly and having it affect me in the ring. Evidently, it stuck and spiralled into that sort of...'permanent head trauma' character I fell into after 2008.
"Now, obviously, the other thing I'll be remembered for is how I ended up leaving OCW. The place had started falling apart toward the end of 2009, there was this tangled mess of a Creatures of the Night reunion, and the Next Gen Pro invasion, and at the last show of 2009, there was this enormous gauntlet between those two factions, the OCW loyal, and...the tag team division. Yeah, I dunno, either. The point is, my contract ran out that night and after that show I was done, but it was on good terms. Later found out that a few months later they closed their doors.
"But THEN, a few months after THAT, they reopened, and they wanted me back in. I figured I'd give it a shot, and I walked into the company again at Backwoods Asskickin' 2011. They decided to hold a tournament to crown their new World Champion, and, heh...I'll never forget this, Rick Slade walks up to me in the locker room before the show, he gives me a pat on the back and says 'Riles, we're going to have you in the tournament final against Minion'. My jaw hits the floor, right? I'd never faced any of OCW's top guys, and here I'm at my first night back and they throw me into the World title tournament final.
"So we get to the tournament final, and I'm told it's going from the advertised two out of three falls to a best of five. I head out there with Minion and the crowd here is absolutely nuts. They're getting bonus material, after all, and I was told that when we were set to bring it home, I'd hit Minion with a powerslam, he'd kick out, finish, pin, boom. Well, we do the spot like planned, and when I go to cover Minion, I see this grin on his face and think, 'what the hell?' And I go completely deer-in-headlights when I hear the ref a few feet off shouting 'one! Two! Three!'
"I about broke down right there. The crowd's going completely nuts, my legs turn to mush, and the ref practically has to hold me by the hand so I don't collapse. I get to the back after the show, and I find the entire friggin' locker room back there, ready to congratulate me." Riley smiles and laughs before wiping under his eye. "I don't think I've celebrated that hard since. But to answer your original question, the head trauma gimmick, and the fact that I went out as OCW's final World Champion."
"It was about the middle of 2008 when you rejoined MWL's roster, right?"
Riley gives a short nod. "Yeah, Michael Jamborgh called me up after an OCW show, or hell, maybe he even showed up to the arena, I don't remember. Either way, he says to me, 'Riley, we're starting a second show. Would you be interested in working for MWL again?' And for the record, I will say right now that working three televised events a week is a pain in the ass. Bouncing back and forth between OCW's Adrenaline and Overdrive, and pulling MWL's Ignition was tiring as hell."
"Through your work with MWL and OCW, it's not very often that you work alone. What would you say is your favorite team so far?"
Riley rubs his chin for a moment as he thinks.
"That's tough. First of all, in OCW we had the Moonlight Army. The first version with Mark Rejda and Chaser. Those two were fun to work with, but...I dunno. I just don't think we quite...clicked, so to speak. Then there's the 2009 Moonlight Army, with Rugaku and JD Haze. My little sister actually had a brief run in OCW at that point, too. As I recall, they were working toward having her work with Haze, but she was released before it came about. We had some good stuff with that group, but again, I don't know, we were missing something with that one.
"Then we look at MWL, and when I walk in, I find Justin back, and Rod Friedman, too. The three of us went on after a few months to form the Silver Age Kings, and they subsequently had us feud with, well, pretty much everybody else. I got to be good friends with Justin during the early days of MWL, so we gelled pretty quick. Didn't like Friedman so much, though. Guy's kind of a jackass. But, about the end of 2010, I get switched over to Redline, where they tag me up with Magnum as Project Revolution."
"And wasn't that supposed to be part of a larger group?" Riley nods.[/b]
"Yeah, it was me, Magnum, Rhys Bennett, who had just been brought up from Cross-Atlantic Wrestling, Osiris, Adrian Cole, and William James, with Shane Warner as our leader. About that time, though, the United Wrestling Circuit formed, and Cole and Osiris chose to stay with their other jobs, and then, well, it pretty much just stayed Magnum and myself.
"Aah, but then now, we have Brutal Force, where I'm teaming with Anthony Jacobs, Marc Hawkins, and B-4. And Jim Norris is an unofficial member. Right now, I'd say my favorite team is the Silver Age Kings, but we'll see where Brutal Force takes us, I suppose."
"Alright, well, Riley, thanks for talking with us, but we're out of time. Tune in next time for another edition of 'Off the Ropes'!"
And with that, the feed cuts out.
"So, Riley, let's start off with your early career. Your first consistent job was with MWL, right? How did you come into the company originally?"
Riley shifts slighty in his chair. "Well, it's not a particularly exciting story. Like most wrestlers starting out, I basically drifted from indy to indy, pretty much competing anywhere I could for a paycheck, you know? I was at...I think I was up in New Jersey at the time, one of Yugo's last appearances there, when Michael came up to me at the end of the show. He just flat-out asked me, 'hey, I'm starting a promotion down in the midwest. I like your style, you want a job?' So I sign the deal and I head down and boom."
"Through most of your carreer, one of your most defining traits is probably the scar on your face. How exactly did you get that?"
"Well, this was before MWL got the Redline deal, but on one of their first shows, they put me into a feud with Justin McIntyre. He'd been wrestling for a few years before that, too. But they stick us in this feud, and over the course of just a few shows, Justin and I take this rivalry to this insane level of brutality that from what I can tell, is still one of the nastiest the company's ever seen. Really, I don't remember what the trigger for the whole thing was. Probably Kim. I swear, it seems like everywhere she and I work together, creative ends up having her get yanked all over the place.
"Anyway, we're going into this major showdown and Michael pulls us aside. He tells us 'you guys are one of our big draws right now, go out there and tear the house down. Do whatever you have to to get these people on their feet.' So Michael books the match as a no-DQ street fight. It pretty much was MWL's first Revolution X match, actually. So anyway, we go out there that night and we light the place up, right? People are on their feet, cheering the both of us on. And for whatever reason, we decide to keep outdoing ourselves through this match. It eventually gets to the point that we have barbed wire weapons just all over the damn place. Busted tables, two-by-fours, think we even had a barbed wire ladder or some nonsense like that. The whole thing was ridiculous as hell. But, anyway, Justin at this point was using this kind of inverted powerbomb finisher. Sort of a sitout powerbomb where he'd drop you on your face. Well, here I am, pumped up and I tell him to hit me with that onto some of the barbed wire.
"So, up I go, and BAM! We screw up the impact, and I go face-first into this barbed wire. I manage to pry my face off, and I reach up and touch my face. I could barely see around all the blood, but I could see a pretty freaked out look on Justin and the ref, so I reach up, and my cheek is just completely shredded. Well, about that point we bring it home, and I hit Justin with, like, the fourth Taylornado of the night and get the pin. Then they haul me off to the hospital. They stitch me up, and I'm out of action for a few weeks."
"Now, sometime after that, you had your first work for a then-major company in Original Championship Wrestling."
"Aah, yes. The Oh-See-Dub. I have this sort of loyalty to OCW, or I did, anyway, since it was the first place I really got my face out there. I left MWL a little before Redline came around because I wanted a bit of a change, and since OCW had shown some interest in me. Not gonna lie, it was a bit of a shock going from MWL, where I was in the upper-mid card, to OCW where I was pretty much just a jobber for my first several months. Probably my first major angle with the company was the feud with CK One. And would you care to guess how that one started?"
"Kim?"
"You betcha. Anyway, we have constant encounters backstage before we lead up to our match at Inferno 2008, which ended up being a Hell in a Cell. Fun fact though, they were originally talking about putting a ladder on top and hanging Kim's contract above the Cell."
"...What."
"Obviously it never happened, but it was discussed. Anyway, that match was almost as brutal as the match with Justin, but the finish eventually has CK catapult me off the top of the Cell, and through the ringside announce table. And to this day, I have no idea what the guy was thinking, but CK decides to do a running shooting star press on me from the top. Fans ate it up and I'd say it's one of my career highlights, but still."
"And when it comes to OCW, what do you think people will remember you for?"
Riley immediately reaches up and lightly punches himself in the temple. "First of all, the concussion gimmick. Would you believe that was born from the match with CK, too? Evidently, the powers that be thought that 'oh hey, CK's going to be off-screen for a while to sell the match'. When I went and asked if it would be better for us to both be taken off for at least a few weeks, they immediately told me 'no, you have to go out there tonight and wrestle again'. It wasn't so played up that night, but afterwards, I kind of played with this idea that I was taking painkillers incorrectly and having it affect me in the ring. Evidently, it stuck and spiralled into that sort of...'permanent head trauma' character I fell into after 2008.
"Now, obviously, the other thing I'll be remembered for is how I ended up leaving OCW. The place had started falling apart toward the end of 2009, there was this tangled mess of a Creatures of the Night reunion, and the Next Gen Pro invasion, and at the last show of 2009, there was this enormous gauntlet between those two factions, the OCW loyal, and...the tag team division. Yeah, I dunno, either. The point is, my contract ran out that night and after that show I was done, but it was on good terms. Later found out that a few months later they closed their doors.
"But THEN, a few months after THAT, they reopened, and they wanted me back in. I figured I'd give it a shot, and I walked into the company again at Backwoods Asskickin' 2011. They decided to hold a tournament to crown their new World Champion, and, heh...I'll never forget this, Rick Slade walks up to me in the locker room before the show, he gives me a pat on the back and says 'Riles, we're going to have you in the tournament final against Minion'. My jaw hits the floor, right? I'd never faced any of OCW's top guys, and here I'm at my first night back and they throw me into the World title tournament final.
"So we get to the tournament final, and I'm told it's going from the advertised two out of three falls to a best of five. I head out there with Minion and the crowd here is absolutely nuts. They're getting bonus material, after all, and I was told that when we were set to bring it home, I'd hit Minion with a powerslam, he'd kick out, finish, pin, boom. Well, we do the spot like planned, and when I go to cover Minion, I see this grin on his face and think, 'what the hell?' And I go completely deer-in-headlights when I hear the ref a few feet off shouting 'one! Two! Three!'
"I about broke down right there. The crowd's going completely nuts, my legs turn to mush, and the ref practically has to hold me by the hand so I don't collapse. I get to the back after the show, and I find the entire friggin' locker room back there, ready to congratulate me." Riley smiles and laughs before wiping under his eye. "I don't think I've celebrated that hard since. But to answer your original question, the head trauma gimmick, and the fact that I went out as OCW's final World Champion."
"It was about the middle of 2008 when you rejoined MWL's roster, right?"
Riley gives a short nod. "Yeah, Michael Jamborgh called me up after an OCW show, or hell, maybe he even showed up to the arena, I don't remember. Either way, he says to me, 'Riley, we're starting a second show. Would you be interested in working for MWL again?' And for the record, I will say right now that working three televised events a week is a pain in the ass. Bouncing back and forth between OCW's Adrenaline and Overdrive, and pulling MWL's Ignition was tiring as hell."
"Through your work with MWL and OCW, it's not very often that you work alone. What would you say is your favorite team so far?"
Riley rubs his chin for a moment as he thinks.
"That's tough. First of all, in OCW we had the Moonlight Army. The first version with Mark Rejda and Chaser. Those two were fun to work with, but...I dunno. I just don't think we quite...clicked, so to speak. Then there's the 2009 Moonlight Army, with Rugaku and JD Haze. My little sister actually had a brief run in OCW at that point, too. As I recall, they were working toward having her work with Haze, but she was released before it came about. We had some good stuff with that group, but again, I don't know, we were missing something with that one.
"Then we look at MWL, and when I walk in, I find Justin back, and Rod Friedman, too. The three of us went on after a few months to form the Silver Age Kings, and they subsequently had us feud with, well, pretty much everybody else. I got to be good friends with Justin during the early days of MWL, so we gelled pretty quick. Didn't like Friedman so much, though. Guy's kind of a jackass. But, about the end of 2010, I get switched over to Redline, where they tag me up with Magnum as Project Revolution."
"And wasn't that supposed to be part of a larger group?" Riley nods.[/b]
"Yeah, it was me, Magnum, Rhys Bennett, who had just been brought up from Cross-Atlantic Wrestling, Osiris, Adrian Cole, and William James, with Shane Warner as our leader. About that time, though, the United Wrestling Circuit formed, and Cole and Osiris chose to stay with their other jobs, and then, well, it pretty much just stayed Magnum and myself.
"Aah, but then now, we have Brutal Force, where I'm teaming with Anthony Jacobs, Marc Hawkins, and B-4. And Jim Norris is an unofficial member. Right now, I'd say my favorite team is the Silver Age Kings, but we'll see where Brutal Force takes us, I suppose."
"Alright, well, Riley, thanks for talking with us, but we're out of time. Tune in next time for another edition of 'Off the Ropes'!"
And with that, the feed cuts out.