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EditorialRich Swann Says He Wants The Cruiserweight Division To Return, Talks His...

Rich Swann Says He Wants The Cruiserweight Division To Return, Talks His Mother’s Support, & More

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WWE.com has posted a new feature interview with Rich Swann, who recently joined NXT. Here are some highlights…

On Getting Into Wrestling at a Young Age: I’ve always been a fan of wrestling. By the time I was five, I knew that’s what I wanted to do. I’ll never forget: I was watching the “Power Rangers,” which my mom recorded for me, and my brother came in from basketball practice and said, “We’re not watching this, we’re watching Monday Night Raw.” He turned it on and Bret Hart came out. I’d never seen wrestling before that, and I remember him coming out to all these crazy lights, holding the WWE Championship, and I was like, “Wow, this is really amazing.”

On His Rough Childhood: It was pretty rough. My father was an alcoholic and my mother had lupus. We were living in an apartment a little outside Baltimore, a county called Rosedale. I witnessed a lot of abuse between the two. My father was, like I said, a real bad alcoholic and there was a lot of domestic violence; my mother kicked him out, and it was just me and my brother for the time being. My brother got older and he decided to move out and get married, and then it was just me and my mom.

On His Mother’s Support: She and I would just watch wrestling all the time — that’s what kept me afloat. At the time, being 10, 11, 12 in school, and living in low-income places and not good areas, it kind of took me down the wrong path. But my mom kept me afloat by saying, “Hey, this is your dream. You need to do this. You need to stay in school. If you’re not going to pay attention, you’re not going to be able to watch Raw.” When I was 14, my father was murdered, and that took a real toll on my life. Then, my mother had a breakdown, so I went to Arizona to live with her friends. They were very religious and they didn’t like any violence, so I couldn’t watch wrestling for a whole year until I came back to Baltimore. Me and my mom were getting really close, and I remember her telling me that there was a wrestling school in York, Pa., where my aunt lived, and she wanted me to go there and try to pursue my dream. So I saved up the money and got training, and exactly when I started, my mom passed away, so that was very hard. After that, I just committed myself to getting here and staying on the right path, because for a while I started going down the wrong path. But after I finished school and started wrestling, started taking off really well, wrestling just changed me. It made me realize that you can’t be living in the past. You have to embrace what has changed you in your life and what you have been blessed with, and now I’m here.

On His Influences: Wrestlers like Psicosis, Eddie Guerrero, Chavo Guerrero, Rey Mysterio, RVD, Jerry Lynnn, Super Crazy, like that. Once I found out what ECW was when I was in middle school — boom — that turned me. WCW, too. I love these bigger guys, but I knew I was never going to be that big. The cruiserweights, however, look at these guys move, flipping around, doing crazy things and being daredevils. Guys like The Hardys. I was drawn to them because that’s what I wanted to do.

On Wanting The Cruiserweight Division to Come Back: I really hope that one day there can be a cruiserweight division comeback. I feel like the state of cruiserweight wrestling in WWE — it’s not lacking because you’ve still got smaller guys who can move, like Kalisto, Sin Cara, Dolph Ziggler, Neville, guys like that that are just ridiculous. If there’s ever a cruiserweight division to come back, I’d like to be the face of it, like Rey Mysterio back in the day. That’s one of my goals.

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