In an interview with the V2 Wrestling Podcast, former WWE superstar Ezekiel Jackson discussed his release from the company, being WWE Intercontinental Champion and ECW Champion, working with William Regal, pitching ideas and more.
Highlights of the interview are below:
On working with William Regal: “Regal is a teacher, he loves this business and wants everyone to understand this business is special. He was one of the guys I wanted to be like growing up because of his style, you would watch him on WCW and you would really think he was beating the cr** out of somebody, it was really cool to be in there with a legend of this business.”
On planning out matches: “I prefer to see where a match takes you, that’s the fun part of it, you know if the fans are in to it, you can give them more, if not, it’s like, I guess we’re done.”
Who he would have liked to have faced that he never got an opportunity to: “There’s a bunch, again, as a fan, anyone would want to work with The Undertaker, he’s a big athletic guy who can still go and he proved that at WrestleMania 30 that he can still go. Triple H definitely, but my ultimate would have been The Rock, I was a Rock fan, I think I could have good matches with anybody given the opportunity. If you have two guys who love the business and love to fight, you’re going to get great matches.”
On wrestling after coming back from injury: “It was on my mind, especially when the first thing I had to do was get clotheslined over the top rope by The Big Show and I had to land on my quad, but my doctor was phenomenal, he said, what’s in your leg now, nothing can break that. Once I landed on my leg and I was like, oh, okay, I’m good and I was ready to go.”
On Vince McMahon’s quad tear: “His injury was the same as mine, but in both quads. He was out for 5 months, but the guy was a monster.”
On where he rates the WWE Intercontinental Championship and ECW Championship against each other: “It’s like having two kids, you can’t say you like one more than the other. I am a father of 2 kids and they’re special to me in their own way, I could never compare the two and say one was better than the other.”
On winning the WWE Intercontinental Championship: “I only found out on the day. That day was special to me as it was Father’s Day and I was thinking about my Dad who passed away. It was on the East Coast and I saw my Mum the night before. My Mum saw me perform in the ring for the first night in New Jersey the night before. I was wearing the Championship on Father’s Day and that was really exciting.”
On pitching ideas: “It’s always good to pitch ideas, but whatever ideas creative have, they’re going to run with whether you’re ready or not. You can submit ideas, but you have to wait your turn and that’s what I was willing to do.”
On feedback from Vince McMahon: “I remember from my first night on TV with Brian Kendrick, his reaction was that he liked what I did. The first physical thing I did was with Stevie Richards, I snatched him up and torture racked him for the first time and Vince said, I like that. I was ecstatic, this was my second or third week on television and I was impressing the boss which is what you’re supposed to do, impress the boss, so I was excited from the get go.”
On being released by the company: “I knew my contract was coming to an end, but I was still hoping that I might get the call to renew, but it never happened that way. I got to live my dream for 7 years, so I am not unhappy with the way things happened.”
On possibly working with other promotions: “I just love wrestling, I am open to work with any promotion, whether that be WWE, TNA Wrestling, Ring of Honor or any other promotion.”
The interview is available at this link.
