Ron Killings AKA R-Truth On His "Legacy" As The First Black NWA World Champion
On a recent episode of The Wrestling Inc. Daily, Wrestling Inc. Managing Editor Nick Hausman sat down with Ron Killings, a.k.a. WWE Superstar R-Truth. Killings has a new single and music video out in Legacy, he spoke about what Legacy is and represents to him.
"Legacy is a dish of my greatest, most memorable accomplishments, my most emotional times in my life throughout my career," Killings described. "A lot of people look at us celebrities or Superstars as invincible, unstoppable, but we are human. Legacy is a lot of ups and downs for me. You get an inside peek of the mental, the emotional roller coaster R-Truth, Ron Killings is on. Legacy speaks of me being the first NWA champion, first Black person to hold that title.
"Legacy speaks on my adversities, my ups and downs throughout my career with relationships, personal problems, the passing of my siblings. Legacy deals with my life, hitting that brick wall of life all the time, back and forth to jail. Legacy is just a dish that I'm serving everybody. You're gonna like it. You like to eat. I know everybody like to eat. It's a dish that has a little bit of this, little bit of that that makes it scrumptious. You'll like it when you eat it, but it's just a dish I'm serving everybody, and you get a a good taste of who Ron Killings, aka WWE Superstar R-Truth, really is, what he's like and what he's all about."
After leaving WWE in his first run with the company in the early 2000s, Killings found success in TNA. In 2002, Killings defeated Ken Shamrock to become the first recognized Black NWA World Heavyweight Champion. Killings described what that accomplishment means to him.
"I'm proud man, proud. One of the truths I can say is we live and learn," Killings stated. "I didn't know how much of an accomplishment that was until my latter years, until maturing, coming into the adult me. That accomplishment was huge in my time and making it a part of my legacy, making it be known as part of my legacy as an inspirational tool, we have all kinds of resources, a tool for any and everybody who's like me or can relate to coming up being like me.
"If you got that inkling of a dream or a goal, somewhere you want to be, do in life, if I did it, you can do it. There's so much prestige in that title, and being the one that's given that, every day I live now, I think about that. I think about the accomplishment, what that means to a lot of kids. Whether you're Black, Hispanic, white, for you to watch my career and to bring that up, it's like, damn, so all the sacrifices I've done, all graduations to birthdays, anniversaries, the things I've missed, because I was doing this to get there is really about this."
In the music video for Legacy, Killings is shown time hopping to different time periods from medieval times to the wild west. On the topic of the wild west, Killings revealed what fans can expect more.
"You're gonna like my country song, Barnyard Flexing, that's gonna be coming out," Killings revealed. "Oops, did I say that? That's next year sometime though. We still got this EP. The slogan we came up with was 'my favorite wrestler is my favorite rapper.' In the wrestling universe, I'm that guy. They can put me up against anybody. When they hear this EP, they could put me up against the best of the rappers that's out there. I've been doing this rap stuff way before I started wrestling, so I'm just going back to my roots. I'm just able to produce and give you guys and mature. When I say somebody's giving you that dish, this cake right here is original, it's authentic. It's scrumptious as hell."
Many WWE fans are probably unaware of Killings' early years in pro wrestling. He revealed how he got into wrestling in the late '90s and how his music career influenced his wrestling career.
"I got into the business because of my music. I met Jack (Jackie) Crockett in a halfway house," Killings recalled. "If you Google 'Ron Killings and Tupac Shakur' or 'Ron Killings and Eazy E', I've been doing this way back when. I got involved with wrestling as a way of going a different route. That's one thing a lot of people relate to me with when it comes to the music. I'm that guy. I'm just like you and a lot of people out there. I had to go a different route. I wanted to be a rapper, I wanted to be the biggest rapper out there, take care of my family, my mom, my dad.
"It wasn't happening. It wasn't working. I still want to stick to it, but when Jack Crockett introduced professional wrestling to me, and I was that willing vessel, I wanted to change what I was doing. I wanted a different result. Keep doing negative stuff, you get negative results and Crockett gave me that option, that opportunity and I seize the moment in it. I call him that ram in the bush, by the way, but it was just a way of me going a different route to getting where I want to get to. Now not only was the whole wrestling universe accepting of my music, they were accepting of me in everything, my achievements, my failures, my mistakes.
"They accepted me. I came in as me. What they saw was what they got, that's me, and it's still me. The music was always what led me to being a wrestler. When Crockett sat beside me and said, 'When Ric Flair's music hits,' he took me to three WCW shows in Atlanta, and when 20,000 people stood up, when Ric Flair's music came on, the light came on, and Jack Crockett said, 'That can be you rapping your own music, and dancing, and you get in the ring, and you can mix that with fighting, and then you rap and you can entertain the people to be the first of your kind.' And bruh, it worked. I'm living proof of that dream."
You can check out Ron Killings aka WWE Superstar R-Truth's latest single Legacy by clicking HERE
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