Alex Shelley reflects on what he’s learned from Kevin Nash.
In 2006, Alex Shelley founded Paparazzi Productions in TNA, an entity that would soon become a faction involving the likes of Kevin Nash, Johnny Devine, and Austin Starr (Austin Aries). Shelley worked alongside the eventual WWE Hall of Famer for a number of months, which afforded the current IMPACT World Champion the opportunity to learn from a seasoned veteran.
During a recent interview with Dominic DeAngelo of Ad Free Shows, Shelley shared some of the best advice he received from “Big Daddy Cool.”
“I’ve learned from Kevin in life, not just wrestling because I was with the guy for over a year,” Shelley said. “Like a lot too, at IMPACT and outside the ring as well. Basically, if I had to really just encapsulate a few of the lessons I got from him, I remember him telling me, ‘You’re the most powerful when you don’t care.’ And I hate to say it this way, it’s not that I don’t care about losing the belt, it’s that I know one day I will lose the belt, right? So I don’t care what anybody says about it. That’s why I have the attitude that I do going into these matches coming up. If you can beat me, beat me, fine. I’m still gonna do things my way.
“I understood working with Kevin too that there is something sublime about connecting with the audience. The audience sees through a lot of bullshit. If something isn’t authentic — and usually that’s the case of the wrestlers themselves trying to do something that doesn’t come naturally to them, whether that’s emotionally or physically — the fans will catch on and that will rattle the wrestlers too.
“So he said the best way to be successful is honestly go out there and entertain yourself. Do what comes naturally to you. Do what you think is going to be cool or different or interesting or easy or fun. If you can do those things, it parlays with success, and I do agree with that completely. I mean, there’s way more lessons than that, but those two I thought were quite paramount.”
When it came to battling the nerves of performing in front of audiences, Shelley noted that it came to him naturally, especially when he was around Nash.
“It came to me naturally,” Shelley said. “It came more naturally when I was around him and he told me that, though, right. So this is right, I do feel this way, but then this is confirmation from somebody that I watched growing up that I loved as a kid as a fan and then respected when I got into the industry and now looked to as a mentor telling me, ‘No, you’re right. This is the way we do it. This is how you should do it. This is how The Kliq did it.’ And he wasn’t the only Kliq member to mentor me either, I was with Shawn for a bit too. But these guys thought of wrestling differently and they instilled a certain type of work ethic in me too.
“I remember Kevin telling me once, ‘When you’re traveling, you’ve got a couple of options in front of you after a match. Sometimes it’s going to be, do you sleep or do you go to the gym?’ And recovery is important certainly for your biophysical, but that’s why I wake up at like two in the morning sometimes on travel days to work out. You can ask other wrestlers about that, that’s a real thing.
“You get these lessons from the previous generation that was successful and then you apply them to yourself,” Shelley added. “So it contributes to my attitude in how I answer these questions about matches coming up, but it doesn’t mean that I don’t consider them important. I very much do, I’m just a realist about the entire situation.”
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If you use any quotes from this article, please credit Ad Free Shows with a h/t to WrestleZone for the transcription.
