Anthony Agogo Calls One Of His Highest Profile AEW Segments 'Dogs***'
As one of the few wrestlers AEW has signed and developed practically from scratch, former Olympic boxer Anthony Ogogo has been around the promotion since the beginning. His most high-profile storyline in AEW to date was his feud with Cody Rhodes a year ago, which spawned an infamous promo from Rhodes and a match between the two at AEW Double or Nothing.
In an appearance on Insight with Chris Van Vliet, Ogogo revealed things were supposed to go a little bit differently regarding his and Rhodes' match.
"It was supposed to be a 16-minute match with Cody," Ogogo said. "I've seen people at TV, they're wrestling and are told 'You've got to cut a minute.' And then they panic, and they make mistakes. We lost 6 minutes in our match, for my first ever match, which was annoying because we had some cool s*** planned and we were going to really hype up the bigger moments.
"But you've got to be a team player in this business. And I very much am a team player and I want AEW to succeed. I want to be successful of course, but I want AEW to be successful as well. And sometimes you've got to be a team player."
Ogogo also gave his thoughts on the weigh-in segment between him and Rhodes prior to Double or Nothing, with Ogogo agreeing with the sentiment Paul Wight recently expressed towards the notorious moment.
"F***ing dogs*** mate. Dogs***," Ogogo said. "So Cody said to me 'We're gonna do a weigh-in.' 'Oh cool. What's going to happen?' And Cody, Cody's brilliant. He's brilliant at what he does and has a great mind for it. He's a really good coach, a great promo coach.
"He was like 'We can do a weigh-in.' I asked 'Who's getting knocked out? What are we going to do?' 'It's a weigh-in. We're not going to touch.' I was like 'Oh.' I've watched enough wrestling to know that's a bit drab and a bit s***. He was like 'Nah, it's going to be cool.' Listen, this was my third week on TV. I was gonna show up, work hard, do as I'm told."
Ogogo also discussed how some friends of his thought he may have used a particular term towards Wight during the segment, which Ogogo initially feared soured Wight on him for a long time.
"I'm in there, Big Show's there and he's sweating his t*ts off," Ogogo said. "He's getting really hot. So I said to him, I'm just being a heel. I said to him, something like 'Can you count you dumb yank?' After the segment happened, no one was happy. I get my phone, my friends texted me and they went 'I can't believe you called Big Show a C-*-N-T.' And I went 'Did I?'
"When I'm out there and the red light goes on, I'm in the zone and what I do is real. It's one of my favorite words, I say it all the time, but even eyewitnesses said 'I don't think [you said that].' But then again, I do get lost in the moment, because it's kind of real to me. And if I'm having a fight with somebody, I'm calling them every name and I'm knocking them out. So possibly I did."
Fortunately for Ogogo, looking back at the tape revealed he had nothing to worry about.
"So I watched it back, and I didn't [say it]," Ogogo said. "I said 'You can't count.' And when I said 'Count', it looks as though I said that, but I didn't. Then I saw him the next week, and he wouldn't speak to me because he was busy, not because of that. But I thought 'He thinks I called him that.'"
Looking back on it, Ogogo believes the segment could've worked with a few tweaks and a bit more realism.
"The whole thing was a disaster, it really was," Ogogo said. "But you know, I thought 'I'm the victim.' It was my first kind of entry and I'm in this really weird segment that wasn't my idea. I would have rather knocked out Goldust, knocked out Dustin. We get out of the ring, we jump, bighorn, maybe Aaron Solow gets beaten up or whatever, me and QT get away scot-free. At least something happened.
"But they're having this weird thing where I'm in my little union jack pants, I'm getting up on the turnbuckle, we're doing a 'yay' 'boo' thing which is so childish. I don't like that. I like the Bryan Danielsons, the William Regals, the in-your-face, smashmouth, Jon Moxley like. They get stuck in that. that's what I like about wrestling. I like realism, I like blurring the line between real and not real. That's what I like."
If you use any of the quotes in this article, please credit Insight with Chris Van Vliet and provide an h/t to Wrestling Inc. for the transcription