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Road Warrior Animal Discusses All In, Regrets, Cody Winning NWA Title, and NJPW

Road Warrior Animal was Sean Waltman’s guest on this week’s X-Pac 1 2 360 podcast, and the legendary pro wrestler had plenty to say about the current state of pro wrestling. Animal talked about his experience at All In, getting to see Cody win the NWA title, his wrestling regrets, and Japanese wrestling’s influence on the current product.

On All-In:

The thing we all wonder every time is ‘Do you still got it?’…As soon as he said ‘What A Rush’ and that motorcycle hit, man, especially when I got on stage all the L.O.D chants starting out and half those fans probably weren’t even around when Hawk and I were on top going full board. So it was really cool to see. What I loved about ALL IN is that those guys did it right, they combined guys that were in the legend status, and some of the new guys. And they intertwined both the eras and that is so important in our business. I think too many times the new companies get caught up with just putting on the new guys.

Seeing Cody Rhodes Win the NWA Title:

I thought it was awesome. I think what it did is it gave the NWA title, which has been dead for a few years, some clout again. Behind the scenes I was very very impressed with how Cody ran that show. He ran it like a total professional, man. He was calm, cool, collective, nothing bothered him. Reminded me a lot of Dusty. Dusty was always calm when he was directing TV shows… To be associated with that ALL IN show was really freaking cool.

His Lone Regret In Wrestling:

The only thing that I regret in the wrestling business is, Hawk and I would’ve loved, and we threw this idea around in WWE at the time, ‘Why don’t you put us in a six-man match with Hulk (Hogan) and take it around the country?’ Because we would have loved to have been in a match with the Hulk as our partner. That would have been awesome.

Japanese Pro Wrestling’s Influence:

The Japanese influence has always been there, the only thing that is different now  is there are different TV outlets today for them to get over here. With the Internet and Youtube and everything else, they started slowly creeping over, creeping over and now with Fite TV on the Internet everybody gets to be on TV. It just goes to show you when you sell out a place like Madison Square Garden in fifteen minutes for New Japan. And New Japan always had a great reputation from the wrestling fans who read magazines for being the top company over there and All Japan. I mean those were always the two companies that everybody wanted to go over and work for. Fortunately, for me, I got to work for about four different companies. Most of it was with New Japan and All Japan.

For much more, including Sean Waltman’s thoughts on Liv Morgan’s injury, check out the full episode below:

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