Bellator’s Nick Newell On How Pro Wrestling Led To His Inspirational MMA Career
On a recent episode of The Wrestling Inc. Daily, Wrestling Inc. Managing Editor Nick Hausman sat down with Bellator lightweight fighter Nick Newell. Newell currently has a biopic out titled Notorious Nick that documents his inspiring MMA journey and he spoke about why his story makes for a compelling film.
"As you can see (Newell gestures to the camera), I only have one hand," Newell said. "All around, my life is good. Everything is good, but I'm a professional mixed martial arts fighter. I have a record of 16-4. I should be 18-2. Some of these judges are bugging, but I fight for Bellator, which is one of the biggest leagues in the world, and I won a world title back in 2012, and I'm still fighting, and this movie is based about my journey from nothing to something and it does have ties to pro wrestling because for me, pro wrestling was one of the reasons why I started actually wrestling. Me doing amateur wrestling was the reason why I did mixed martial arts, so it all ties together."
Newell was born with congenital amputation of his left arm and has won the XFC Lightweight Championship and "Submission of the Year" in 2013 with World of Series Fighting. Cody Christian of Pretty Little Liars and Teen Wolf fame plays Newell in the biopic. Newell spoke more on his pro wrestling fandom and revealed an interesting fun fact.
"I think the first wrestler that ever caught my attention was the Ultimate Warrior, and I was a big Warrior fan and then I kind of gravitated over to Bret Hart," Newell noted. "Big time Bret Hart fan and actually if you look up Shawn Michaels vs. Diesel, the match at WrestleMania, you can see young Nick Newell. When Pamela Anderson sits down, behind her, I touch her hair, and then I adjust my Intercontinental Title. If you look it up on YouTube, you can find the clip. It's definitely there, and it's definitely really me. I'm just a little kid out there, and when Pamela Anderson sits down, I'm right behind her and I got the Intercontinental belt.
"I got my Diesel glove. I got it all on. My love of wrestling is what brought me to do wrestling. I had a big obsession with wrestling, and I loved it and I got away from it for a little bit, but then I started falling back in love with it again, My neighbor, we used to watch wrestling all the time together. Right before we went to high school, he was like, I'm going to join the amateur wrestling team, and I said, you know what, that's kind of a good idea. I think I'd like to try that too. It would be cool. I can't have you learning how to beat me up. I gotta be able to defend for myself, so I joined wrestling. My focus shifted over to that, and I fell in love with the sport."
AEW star Jake Hager is also a Bellator fighter, fighting in the heavyweight division. Newell discussed his relationship with Hager as well as if he has talked about pro wrestling with him.
"Me and Hager are cool but it'd be like if I was a pro wrestler and I was like, 'Hey, I want to fight, but I never trained in fighting before.' I don't know how to take a bump," Newell stated. "I don't know how to do this stuff. I'm just friends with these guys. Maybe once I'm done fighting, I can start goofing off a little bit and learn how to do a couple of tricks. I'm pretty good on the microphone. Actually, I'm really good at talking trash and coming up with creative things. I think I might have to bust out my my pro wrestling character, Bobby Casablanca."
Dan Lambert of American Top Team has made himself known in the professional wrestling, most recently in AEW. Newell commented on Lambert and his recent trash talking in AEW.
"Lambert's a buddy of mine," Newell noted. "I love Dan Lambert. He's top-notch guy right there. Maybe I'll reach out to Lambert."
Notorious Nick is now available wherever you can rent movies. You can follow Nick on Twitter @NotoriousNewell.
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