Colt Cabana recently spoke with Michael Wonsover for ESPN.com; you can read a few highlights below:
Colt Cabana comments on how the view of the independent wrestling scene has changed since his WWE tenure as ‘Scotty Goldman’:
“[Independent wrestling] was still looked down upon. It was kind of laughed about. The WWE, or big time wrestling, didn’t really see the independents as a place where talent was groomed. It saw it as a place where the misfits and the untalented went. I think that’s what completely changed.
“Because of my era of wrestlers in the 2000s who have gone onto the success they’ve gone onto — Daniel Bryan, CM Punk, Claudio Castagnoli (Cesaro), Chris Hero, Spanky (The Brian Kendrick), Seth Rollins, Dean Ambrose, Kevin Owens — I think everyone in the wrestling community has realized it is a place where talented people come from, and there should be a spotlight on it because of that reason.”
Cabana comments on getting over with fans on the indies versus getting pushed by a limited number of people in WWE:
“If you’re loved by the wrestling fans, it’s because you gained their respect. It’s not because of some ‘push’ from somebody. The WWE’s a different system. There’s a roster. There’s a team that says, ‘We want this guy to be the next star, and we want this guy to be the next star.’
“You could just tell their thought process of who and how they want stars to be, whereas in my world, if the fans cheer for you and ask for you to come back, you come back. If they sit on their hands and start texting during your matches consistently, well then you know it’s time to either reinvent or choose a different path.”
Cabana comments on not staying locked down to one promotion and how he sees his future:
“I’ve turned down a couple full-time contracts from a couple different organizations with the idea that they wanted to nail me down and not allow me to wrestle everywhere and anywhere. For me, that’s what independent wrestling is all about. I just like the idea of having all these eggs in different baskets. When I was fired from WWE, I put all my eggs in the WWE basket and then when they fired me, it was just gone. When I did start over, that’s when I realized I can’t put myself in a place where if one person fires me or one person makes a decision then my career is done. That’s where that mindset comes from. I don’t want that to happen to me again.”
