As you may have already seen, retired UFC Hall of Famer Stephan Bonnar has recently made the jump to pro-wrestling on the US indie scene. Team Venom's Rory Bailey recently had the chance to talk to the "American Psycho" about his motivations and goals for the career switch. Check it out:
Firstly, you are a UFC Hall of Famer and was the runner up to The Ultimate Fighter 1. What made you want to get into professional wrestling?
I’ve always joked that it’s been on my bucket list and I’ve joked about that since I was in my twenties and all of a sudden I turned forty. I guess I’m having a mid-life crisis. I realised “yeah, I may be too old to get up there and mix it up with [guys like] John Jones” but these guys entertain some fans and I can throw some submissions at ‘em. Yeah, I could do that.
How did you end up with Smashmouth Wrestling? I’ve seen that you’ll be teaming there with another UFC legend – Phil Baroni – there. How did that come about?
Well a few months ago the chairman who runs Smashmouth asked if I’d be interested in doing this show and I hadn’t trained for pro-wrestling once! I was like, “where are you located” and he happened to be a town over in Indiana next to my home town. So it’s like I get to go home and see my family, make a little money and do something that’s on my bucket list so I went in there and did a battle royal and after that I was like “You know what? What the hell” you know? And now he’s having another show on July 16th and wants to put me back on there along with my tag team partner, The New York Bad-Ass.
With regards to your MMA career, what would you say is your proudest moment?
Everyone always talks about the Forest fight but probably the proudest was after the fight with Krzysztof Soszynski when the clash of heads in the third round made them wave the fight off and the referee missed the call and it was a loss and I was hurt, bewildered and devastated but Dana White was fair, saw what happened and said “you guys gotta fight again” and we did at UFC 116. This was when Brock Lesnar fought Shane Carwin and was probably the best card of the year and we got fight of the night on that night. The fight was stopped in the second round and it was great man, a great moment.
Was there anyone in MMA that you would have liked to face but didn’t?
Not really. I mean, I was retired – happily retired – and never got a chance to fight Tito who I always thought was a d*ckhead anyway and I thought I’d come out of retirement to fight that as*hole and I did and I had a lot of fun with that. As you probably saw there was some pro-wrestling flair thrown into that one as I “turned heel” and everyone was like “Oh that was staged” but I knew what I was gonna do. I knew I was going to go in there and insult him and with the comment about having pity for Jenna Jameson and feeling sorry for her – sure enough that got him to snap and he swung at me and it worked out great! If he didn’t react like that then it wouldn’t have turned out so well but he did – he played into it. I hurt his feelings, he swung at me and we had the most watched fight of 2014 so while MMA fans gave me heat about it - it worked! Everyone tuned in to see that fight!
Is there anyone in particular in pro-wrestling that you would like to face?
Honestly, the plan is to just go in and throw some flashy kicks and slap on submissions. Someone said to me that these guys aren’t going to be able to stop me and then said but what about Josh Barnett, Bobby Lashley and Brock Lesnar. I was like you know what? Yeah! Those guys wouldn’t be able to stop me and I’m pretty confident I could hold my own with those guys. There’s no one in particular though, really – I’m just looking to have fun. I’m kind of bored being retired and not going to the gym as I’d not got a reason to work out and this gives me a reason to train again. Go back in there and do my weights and the problem is I’m back on my health kick and I’ll go into an MMA gym and it’ll be like “Stephan I’m glad you’re here as somebody needs some sparring today” and I can’t say no but then I went to a pro wrestling gym and my mind stimulates as it’s a new thing, I’m having fun and I’ve got a reason to do it. I guess it is a mid-life crisis man, I’m serious about that – it’s not a joke – but I feel like my time is limited. Two more years and I’ll be too old to even try this so I’m doing it, I got a reason to be back in the gym and it feels good.
Finally, what can we expect to see from you in the future?
Honestly, just doing this now. I’m having fun – it’s just a hobby and that’s all MMA was for a couple of years. I never trained to fight in the UFC. I just did what I enjoyed doing and one thing led to another so who knows where I’ll end up. As long as it’s fun for me. I’m an entertainer. I’ve always liked entertaining fans and this is no different to go out, perform and entertain. Half of it is mic skills and I get to go on the mic, say what I want to say, speak my mind, write my own script. A lot of it’s character development in pro wrestling too, people have been asking what’s my character and I’ve told them “No”. I’m the American Psycho and Phil Baroni is the New York Bad-Ass and we’re just gonna go in there and be ourselves and entertain people through violence like I’ve always done.
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