Former WWE NXT UK performer Mark Andrews was recently interviewed by Herald.Wales, where the Welsh athlete spoke about his career in the wrestling business, including his departure from WWE last summer.
You can check out some highlights from the podcast below:
On relaunching Attack Pro Wrestling: “We’re bringing back Attack Pro Wrestling, and we feel this is the perfect time to do it with everything that’s happened over the past few years, and we’re all very excited about what’s coming next. We started it originally back in 2011 just doing small shows in places like Cardiff and Birmingham, in front of small crowds as a place to express ourselves, but it quickly grew a very loyal fan base and became what I would say is the spiritual home of Welsh wrestling. If you look at the big names to come out of UK wrestling over the past few years such as myself, Eddie Dennis, Pete Dunn, Wild Boar, and Flash Morgan Webster most of them trace their roots back to these first Attack shows, and we hope we can launch the next generation of talent from the area here as well now. People might not realize it but Wales is a hot-bed for wrestling and there is a very strong fans base of people who absolutely love coming to these kind of shows. It’s almost like it’s own little community in a way, with in-jokes and niche story lines built in to the production, and as many of the people in the audience have basically watched us growing up in the ring, we’re happy to be back in front of them in the venue where it all began for a lot of us.”
On his release from WWE: “It was hard, as we were hoping to be on one of the biggest shows the UK has ever seen in Cardiff, but instead, just days before that event in the stadium took place we found out we had been let go, which was a bit of a shock to us all. It was a very difficult time for me as it was the same month as my wedding and I’d heard rumours I might make an appearance at Clash at the Castle, so to go from that to then hearing we were being let go was tough.”
On how that lead to the decision to reopen Attack: “Life goes on though, and even though a number of us were released from the WWE, it’s given us the opportunity to come back to where it all started with Attack. What we want to get across is that these are special shows intended for everyone to enjoy, where there is a unique atmosphere and connection between the athletes and the audience. Obviously we want to keep that same type of atmosphere we had before, but we also want to try and make it even bigger this time round and we’ve made a lot of improvements behind the scenes. We hope as many people as possible can come to see our next series of shows now in April, which will be our biggest to date.”
