Thanks to Andrew Thompson of Post Wrestling for sending us the following highlights of his interview with Shane Taylor:
Shane Taylor on wrestling in Madison Square Garden at G1 Supercard: “The crazy thing for me is wrestling Madison Square Garden was never a goal, because growing up in Cleveland, I didn’t think I’d get to this point. I didn’t think I’d live past 30. So, for me, that’s just one of the perks of being in the right place at the right time and just one of those things you can look back on your career and go, ‘Wow, I got to do that too. That’s awesome.’ That’s a cherry on top thing, because for me, it was never, ‘I’m gonna wrestle in this venue or do this.’ I just wanted to be able to be successful and make this [a] career and provide for my family doing something that I love to do. Everything else on top of that is gravy so, having done it now and being able to look back on it now, it’s still surreal. Like man, I wrestled in Madison Square Garden. Of the hundreds of thousands of people that do this now, of the millions that have done it throughout the history of the sport, there’s very few that can say they’ve done that, and I get to be on that list so for me, that’s incredible.”
Taylor’s thoughts about his ROH TV Title run: “My thoughts on my title reign is I am doing exactly what I told people I’d do from the start. I told people that if I got the opportunity to show them exactly who I was, I would make history. That’s exactly what I’m doing. Nobody defends their championships in Ring of Honor like I do. Not the world championship, not the tag titles, none of them. You talking about when we went to the U.K. tour, all three nights, three championship defenses. I am the single longest reigning champion in ROH right now. Going into Final Battle, I’m going for the 13th defense of my World Television Championship. If I’m successful there and I get out into the new year as champion, I will already be top five on the list of the greatest Ring of Honor Television Champions of all time and the goal is not to be number five, or three or two, the goal is to be the absolute best. To be number one, and to do that, I have to beat Jay Lethal’s record of 35 championship defenses so, even though we’re on a good clip with twelve, to me, I still have 23 left to go, 24 to beat it, and to me that’s where all my focus is.”
Shane Taylor talks being proud of WWE’s Keith Lee & Erik (Raymond Rowe): “It’s fantastic, and yeah, we talk weekly. I’m always shooting them funny memes or messages or vice versa and we text back and forth. I just went to go see Ray [Erik] for his birthday in Cleveland. Shout out to his wife Sarah [Logan] as well who hooked that up for me. I’m extremely proud of both of them. When Keith had his big Survivor Series weekend, even though it was late, I made sure to send him a text just letting him know how proud of him I was. Both of us had our visions of what we wanted to be and where we wanted to go and what we wanted to do and how we wanted to take this sport over and separately, we are able to do that on our own terms the way that we wanted to do it. Sometimes that takes a little bit longer, but again, traveling down that road and doing it the right way makes it all much better in the end when you get to your goal, and with Ray, seeing him achieve just about every goal on his checklist that he wrote down years ago — winning championships all over the world. Winning championships at the very top of this sport. Winning championships in Japan and seeing everything that he’s done now from where we came from in Cleveland, man, I couldn’t be prouder of the guy. Both of them are like the big brothers I never had and I tell them that and words can’t do justice as to how proud I am of them, how much I wish for their continued success and I’m sure if you were to ask them, the same would be said to me about the things that I’m doing now so, much respect to them, much love to them and keep it going.”
Shane Taylor responds to Erik’s comments from WWE After The Bell. During that podcast, Erik spoke about Taylor taking care of him after his motorcycle accident:“That’s what you do for family. There’s very few people in this world outside of my kids that I would take a bullet for. He’s one of them so, to me, our families are extremely close. Blood couldn’t make us any closer so, if I was in the situation he was in, I can pretty much guarantee the same actions would’ve been taken. There’s no thanks that’s needed. Those are things that you do for family. His success is based off of his hard work and what he does and the pride he takes in his craft and he deserves every bit of it. That’s awesome.”
Shane Taylor talks about the progression of African-Americans in wrestling: “It’s incredible to see the progress that’s come. I still feel that there’s a longways to go. So it’s fantastic to see people that I know well have success. Guys like Keith Lee who had an absolutely incredible Survivor Series weekend and now the world’s talking about him as they should’ve been. It’s amazing to see guys like Kofi [Kingston] have their run, who has been killing it the last decade-plus, and it’s inspiring to see not only the men, but the women do their thing as well because there’s so much talent out there. Again, in this sport, people like to put us in boxes and put us in stereotypes of what we can and can’t be and that reflects what society [thinks] and wrestling mirrors that, and so for me, to be able to be on a platform and turn that mirror around and go, ‘I am more than what you think I am. I am more than what you think I can be. I am more than what you want to promote me as’, and stick by that. That to me is how we continue to push this forward and continue to keep these doors open, and continue to let the next generation see that whether it’s wrestling, media, music, TV, whatever it is. You don’t have to be a character of black culture to be successful. You find what your talent is, find what you can do, do it well and then promote yourself that way. You don’t have to give into the pressure of doing whatever you need to do to make a dollar. You can earn income and be successful and keep your pride.”
