Sean Waltman On Being A Smaller Guy In Wrestling, The Importance Of Being Different In The Ring
Wrestlers the size of Sean Waltman may be the norm now, but that certainly wasn't the case when Waltman was breaking through 25-30 years ago. Not only were industry standards on size different back then, but that was also well before the Wellness Era so guys took whatever they wanted to achieve their large physiques.
Waltman being so much smaller made him stand out but not always in a favorable way for the audience. He talked about being a smaller guy in pro wrestling on his X-Pac 1,2,360 podcast.
"The way I looked and how I was, you talk about Marko Stunt, oh f*** people laughed at me. The first time I got in the ring, I wrestled Ricky Rice. He's built very well, I mean not huge but f'n built well. And I was totally pale, skinny af, and so everyone laughed, they were all laughing at me as I come to the ring," revealed Waltman. "So it took about a minute and then they were on their feet because I German-suplexed them, wrestled them, and then I dove out of the ring. No one had ever seen that kind of sh*t.
"So, it didn't take long. They took to me really quick, it was something different. Everyone else were these big jacked up guys, and to be honest with you, a lot of them had this sense of entitlement. That they were from Minnesota and they were jacked up on the gas, and that they were gonna get a phone call."
Being a small guy in a business historically dominated by giants created a chip on Waltman's shoulder. He wanted to go out there and wow the audience by doing something totally different than what fans were used to seeing.
"What was really important to me was to bring an extra amount of believability to the sh*t I did compared to all these big goofs that were going out there. I mean not that their stuff looked really bad but my sh*t looked better," said Waltman. "I wanted you to go 'okay this guy is a skinny dude but he's a f'n buzzsaw.' And I was. When I was younger, in those days, I had a chip on my shoulder. I was in fights a lot. I really wanted everyone to know I was a badass."