During a recent appearance on “The Wrestling Perspectives” podcast, former WWE Superstar Matthew Rehwoldt (Aiden English) commented on getting called up to the SmackDown brand and his high praise for John Cena, Brodie Lee, and Sami Zayn. You can check out some highlights from the podcast below:
On getting called up to SmackDown in 2016: “In that regard, I was extremely lucky. I consider myself extremely lucky. Most of my run up there — As soon as I came up they started bringing that brand split back, so I did a little bit of Raw/SmackDown, but then they did the split that summer right after we came up. I was on SmackDown the entire time. I never went to Raw. I don’t know what it was — if it was producers or the writing teams who just got what they wanted, but man, SmackDown, as far as — I mean as talent in-ring, you know, but as humans, we got the kit and caboodle as far as all the good brothers went. We had such great dudes.”
On John Cena: “Cena was just awesome. He’s one of those guys where it almost makes you mad because he’s so successful, and so good, and carries it all so well that you almost want him to be a total asshole. But he’s really cool and he would actually sit down with me at TV’s and be like, ‘Hey, are you booked? Are you working tonight?’ [I’d say] ‘No.’ He’s like, ‘Why not?’ Then I’d say something and he’d be like, ‘Well that’s not why,’ and he would help me work through things. He’d be, ‘Well you need to do this. Tell them this. Do this.’ Me! I’m nobody. We would bond over playing piano because he was learning classical piano because apparently, he didn’t have enough to do. He legit was a guy who would sit at Gorilla and watch every single match from the dark match to 205 Live on days when he was there.”
On his his love for the late Brodie Lee (aka Luke Harper) and Sami Zayn: “Our whole locker room. I don’t know if I’ll have enough time to say everyone who was just a good dude. Huge, huge, huge love to Brodie Lee. Luke Harper was such a good brother. One of the true people I call a friend. Him, his wife, his children; friends. Not just like a good dude in the locker room. Absolute friend. Gem of a human being. Such a fun guy to be around. All the time I got to spend with him is something I’ll always remember. Sami Zayn is such a weird, awesome, super cool guy. Him and Kevin Owens were great. New Day. I got to spend so much time with New Day both in the ring and out. Those guys freaking rule. The Usos freaking rule. Like our locker room was stacked with good dudes.”
On hearing that Raw was a more stressful place to work: “We would always hear, and there were a bunch of people on Raw who were great too, but we would always hear everyone on Raw being, ‘It was so stressful here today.’ ‘It’s all this. It’s all that.’ Raw was [stressful] because Raw was, still is kind of is looked at as the flagship, and we were over here like, ‘We’re playing video games with Woods’ Up Up Down Down channel and chilling in the locker room.’ I don’t remember there ever being a bad time.”
On his thoughts on Randy Orton: “Randy Orton was another one who took a lot of interest and time with me and I got to work with a lot during the Rusev Day stuff. So, man, there was a plethora of really great dudes in that locker room, most of the time I was up there.”
(h/t – Fightful)
