The following are highlights from a new interview with The All Night Express:
The buildup to Ladder War 3 vs. The Briscoes and what it meant to headline Ring of Honor’s “Death Before Dishonor IX” (Rhett Titus): “The buildup toward Ladder War 3 has been coming pretty long for me. From the original Ladder War, you’ll find a young Rhett Titus doing ringside security that night. I remember watching The Briscoes and Kevin Steen and El Generico and thinking ‘Man, how can these guys do this?’ At that time in my career, I didn’t have a problem with no one or have a feud where that could be something I could consider doing. As time went on with The Briscoes, and the whole just kept snowballing, it just came to the point where it was only on way to be settle it was The Briscoes’ own game: Ladder War. Throw in the fact that it’s a sold-out crowd in New York City, and we’re the main event on the iPPV. We weren’t playing no games. We were going make sure that when we left there that everybody knew our names, that everyone knew what the hell we’re about, and that everyone was going to know that we are here to stay all night long.”
The feeling of having closure in their feud with The Briscoes, while at the same time becoming the new #1 contenders for the ROH World Tag Team Titles (Kenny King): “The goal was always to be the Ring of Honor World Tag Team Champions, but more importantly, we did sign the contract in the blood of The Briscoes. Ladder War was it. There was going to be no more of us. We agreed, on both sides, that we weren’t going to go after each other any more after this. It was more for us to let them know that we can beat their ass and then getting the contracts more than anything else and achieving both goals. I feeling really good about that.”
Having to adjust after Austin Aries’ departure from Ring of Honor and seeing their collective stock rise to their current standing within the company (Rhett): “When Austin Aries was around, we always kind of looked up to him as a mentor, and went to him for advice, and that sort of thing. Once he left, it was ‘sink or swim’ time. We’re out here on our own, so we just turned it up three notches, and we’ve been going hard as hell ever since.”
How the mental and physical preparation for The Briscoes going into Ladder War 3 will be changing completely for their forthcoming ROH World Tag Team Title Match vs. Wrestling’s Greatest Tag Team (Shelton Benjamin and Charlie Haas) at “Glory By Honor X” (Kenny): “Going into it, it’s a totally different mindset from our last match. You can’t prepare for a Ladder Match. You can’t prepare for someone to smash you upside the head with a ten-foot ladder, somebody trying to knock you off a ladder. You just have to get into a mental toughness where pain doesn’t matter, so going from that to going to an athletic contest with two of the most gifted athletes on the planet and two of the best professional wrestlers in the world, that’s a complete different mindset.”
Check out the complete interview online at MondayNightMayhem.com.
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