16p na 130510WRESTLERphoto02 Courtesy of Jesse Neal 1998 Jesse Neal poses for his portrait shortly after joining the Navy in 1998. Neal, 30, survived the 2000 bombing of the USS Cole that killed 17 people, and is now a star for TNA Wrestling. Neal says his career has become both therapy for that tragedy and the culmination of a lifelong dream.
Former IMPACT Wrestling star Jesse Neal was recently on Cut The Promo Podcast with host Jordan Garber. All credit for this news goes to Jordan Garber. You can listen to the show every Sunday at 11 PM EST on blogtalkradio.com/cutthepromo; here are some of the highlights.
On his first TNA House Show: My very first house show was in Norfolk, VA. I was stationed there. I had brothers and sisters there from the ship I was on. It was a very good feeling. It was also my first house show where I became me and had the attitude to actually have the balls to become a pro wrestler. It was that town and it was that Navy that supported me and I’ll always have that moment.
On working with Homicide: I had the honour and privilege to wrestle Homicide on my first house show. I had a blast doing it, it was a full circle kind of thing. There’s not too many locker rooms that I changed in that I remembered. I don’t have a very good memory but I’ll tell you. When me and Homicide were talking in the back I remembered that locker room and it was because of that moment frozen in time in my head. I actually got to train with Homicide. He taught me a lot of stuff in the ring instead of being at a training facility. Now it’s me and Homicide wrestling in front of a crowd. It was amazing. He knew I was nervous. He was kind of my big brother and I will always respect that.
On training and working with Rhino: It was like a dream. Literally everyday I was in TNA I was always taught to expect something different. Having the honor of Rhino not just training me but behind the scenes and on the scenes it was overwhelming to be honest with you. I was like “you were in WWE and ECW and you wanna be in my storyline?” That’s pretty cool man.
On Sting: It’s always about respect when it comes to Sting. The road he’s paved especially when I was a kid as a superhero character and than I started working with him. He came up to me backstage in full gear and make up on and stinged out, and everything just giving me advice at first .. I’m like holy shit, and this is when I was very new. He just gave me the best advice in the world and I’ve been doing it ever since.