Zach Gowen recently spoke to The Score about his WWE run in the early ’00s, getting into the business and more. Check out the highlights:
On what made him enter the business after losing his leg: “I made the decision when I was 16. I knew that wrestling was what I was going to do because my love and passion for wrestling was unparalleled. Basically there’s nothing in life that grabbed my interest or mesmerized me as much as Professional Wrestling. I just knew I would somehow be involved in it.”
On Roddy Piper pulling his leg off on Smackdown: “I hit him (Piper) with Mr.America’s flag pole and then Sean O’Haire tackled me. Piper was gonna come over, rip my prosthetic leg off, cause no one knew at the time I had a missing limb. When he was pulling my real leg, he was pulling extremely hard too and yelling at me “why wont this thing come off kid (laughs)”
On his WWE release: “I didn’t know how to conduct myself as a WWE superstar, I didn’t know how to conduct myself as an employee of that organization, I didn’t know how to conduct myself as a man at that point cause I wasn’t a man (Gowen was 18 at time of signing). I guess I acted out a little bit. Thing is I didn’t want to, that’s just what was going on in my head at the time. What was going on inside of me was the complete opposite, I felt like I didn’t belong there, I felt I wasn’t as good as these guys, I felt like I didn’t fit in at all.”
On his addiction problems and coming out through them: ” I would like to say I have a spiritual intervention basically. I don’t know what happened, I was sick and tried of being sick and tired, and I was living one lie after another. I remember I came to my mom about everything because I was trying to leave this double life, everything just came out. Basically I dropped to my knees and asked for help for the first time in my life. My mom suggested I go into the WWE’s rehab program and thought it was a great idea, so I called the WWE office and told them I needed help and didnt know how to stop. It was the best thing ive ever done”
