NWA President Billy Corgan recently spoke with the Toronto Sun to discuss a variety of topics, including how he grew up as a wrestling fan and the comparisons between wrestling and music.
You can check out some highlights from the interview below:
On growing up as a wrestling fan: “I lived, when I was about four years old, with my great-grandmother, who was in her 80s and a Belgian national. My great-grandfather had been divorced from my grandmother, so I lived with them when I was about four and they used to watch wrestling late on Friday night and seemingly early Saturday morning. I mean, it’s obviously a faint memory, but I remember watching it…. I think it was the contrast between what I was seeing and I couldn’t understand why they were interested.”
On attending WWE shows as a guest: “That was really my introduction to professional wrestlers behind the scenes, getting to know people and not only the psychology of what they were trying to do, but the inner politics of the business, that sort of brought me in and I thought, ‘Well, this is just utterly fascinating. It’s like a mirror looking into a mirror, where does the fantasy end and the real person begin?’ And vice-versa.
“I think generally speaking, people are pretty nice if you’ve accomplished something in life and they certainly understand you’re there to see them. Well, that’s how it was for me when I first was backstage at WWE shows. I was the visiting celebrity and everyone went out of their way to be welcoming. I think they were pleased that someone like myself was there to see the show, the same way I feel if one of them – and of course, through the years many famous wrestlers have now come to see me play — I’m always touched. It’s kind of cool as it’s like you’re here to see me do my gig and or I’m here to see you do yours. Those encounters usually are OK.”
On the comparison between wrestling and music: “Usually what is more interesting to me is once you get past that and you get to know people as they are, the real people, and what concerns them, what’s on their radar as far as where they are in their career or what they still hope to achieve, what they’re proud of, you start to draw certain parallels between my business – well, I guess NWA is my business – but you start to draw parallels between the two worlds and you start to understand that you have a lot more in common than you might imagine.”
