Crowbar Reveals Which Spot He Did That The AEW Locker Room Popped For
On a recent episode of The Wrestling Inc. Daily, Wrestling Inc. Managing Editor Nick Hausman sat down with WWE, WCW and ECW veteran Crowbar. Crowbar recently made his AEW debut at Dark: Elevation, and he discussed what the AEW locker room was like.
"I'm kind of loose now. I'm late in life," Crowbar stated. "I have a family. I've done X, Y and Z. Traditionally, my least favorite part of going into a new place, wrestling wise, is meeting new people. I was always kind of a recluse, socially awkward, not that comfortable of a person, and when you first go into a wrestling locker room, etiquette wise, that's a big deal. For Chris Ford, the socially awkward kid from Rutherford, New Jersey, who is very overweight, had a terrible speech impediment, I'm definitely ADD, ADHD, all that type of stuff. Whenever I would go into a locker room with people, it was a very uneasy feeling and uneasy situation, and you go up and you shake your hand.
"You try your best to introduce yourself to everybody. Inevitably, there's somebody you should introduce yourself to, but you see they're having a conversation with somebody. Now, do you stop the conversation and say, hey, how are you, or do you wait till they stop? And if you wait till they stop and then they walk on, are you now seen as snubbing them that you didn't say hello? There's this whole crazy dynamic that plays worse into a person's psyche when you go into a locker room.
"From independent shows to ECW to WCW to WWE, it's a very important scenario, and social situations have always traditionally been very awkward for me as a person, for Chris Ford. I go in there, and there's some people that I know. All the situations where guys are having conversation that seemed like important conversations, but overall, this locker room was by far the most welcoming, most relaxed, most easygoing I've ever been a part of. I introduced myself to a lot of people. A lot of people introduced themselves to me.
"They were familiar with my work as Crowbar and as Devon Storm going way, way back. It was a very welcoming locker room for me right now, but I think back, it would have especially been a super welcoming locker room for 17-18 year old Chris Ford way back when. Just a fantastic vibe, fantastic atmosphere. I like to say I have a foot in the old school and in the new school that being I was brought up and trained old-school style. I have a lot of the old school values, but I'm not old school wrestling culture wise. When I would be a part of the independents, ECW, WCW, I was never the kind of guy that would go out and tear things up and be a complete nut. I go out once a while. I would have a meal, have some beers, and that was it but not that often. I was probably the first guy to bring my video game system on the road. I was probably the first guy to bring schoolbooks on the road."
Ahead of his match on Dark: Elevation, Crowbar took to Twitter to thank Tony Khan for giving him the opportunity. He talked about his interactions with Khan backstage.
"He was rushed around quite a bit," Crowbar revealed. "The night of the show, that's a really big night. I got to say hi. I thanked him for having me. He thanked me for coming there, and that was pretty much the extent of it. It was pretty cool. We got most of our match directions through Joey, and me and Joey being very familiar with each other, we were able to kind of throw our heads together and and get the match done."
Crowbar and Joey Janela had wrestled many times on the indies before. Janela won the match with a Death Valley Driver, but Crowbar used his signature suplex chair move on Janela and had an assist from The Blue Meanie as well. Crowbar commented on the suplex chair move and sent a message to other wrestlers if they plan on using it.
"That move has gotten such a great reaction and such awesome feedback. I've been doing that move for probably 20 years," Crowbar noted. "Astonished it hasn't been ripped off yet. Probably the first main show I did it on was in the steel cage for a WWWA against a Sabu, and I've used it regularly since then on independent shows here and there, but it's never really been on a big major show like that. So for 20 years it's been mine. I'm sure somebody is gonna rip it off now but be safe, have fun with it."
The Blue Meanie came into the match to help Crowbar even the odds against Kayla Rossi helping out Janela. Crowbar revealed an interesting fact about his interaction with The Blue Meanie and discussed if this is the last time fans will see them together
"I love Brian, great guy," Crowbar expressed. "We've known each other for so many years. We've never worked with each other, I don't think, in any capacity. We looked at it. If it's a one-off, great, but if not, there's something weird there that kind of works. Maybe the two guys that are complete opposites. My character that I do in the promos being very serious and deadpan humor and then you have The Meanie that's completely nuts. I don't know, something there works maybe. Who the hell knows? I'd love to do it (work on the indies with The Blue Meanie)."
Crowbar also revealed what from his match got the biggest reaction from the AEW locker room.
"They (AEW locker room) said, 'That thing with the chair you did, I've never seen that,' and my reaction was, 'I've been doing that for 20 years just totally under the radar.' It was a fun match," Crowbar said. "Everybody seemed to like it. There was a lot of action. The show was going over when they were taping, so we had more of a structured story to get to the finish.
"They really wanted us to end the match. It was a kind of abrupt Death Valley Driver. We did have more of a story there, so maybe one day, but we'll see. But overall, the reaction was good. It's very flattering the comments that I get. 'How do you still do this? How do you still move like this?' I'm 47 years old, so hearing that kind of stuff is great, and I attribute a lot of that to — we all get injuries over the years and just having a physical therapy background. I'm a physical therapist for 23 years of those 30 years."
Powered by RedCircle