Posted on 5/15/126 by Colin Vassallo
Joe Hendry sat down with Chris Van Vliet at Insight LIVE in
Tampa, Florida to discuss his latest parody song “Fire Logan
Paul”, future plans for more parody songs, how he
hilariously messed up a WWE tryout, why he decided to dye
his hair blonde, making his WWE main roster debut, his
WrestleMania 41 match with Randy Orton, how close he got to
wrestling John Cena, which Championship he has his sights on
next, and more!
Where are you actually recording these songs, are you
recording them in your apartment, your house?
“Actually, I could drop an exclusive right here for people.
Because this is actually very relevant. So this is an
exclusive. I haven’t told anyone anywhere, but I have
recorded an album with WWE Music, and it’s going to drop
this summer. We recorded most of that in New York at the WWE
Studios. So what I’ve done now is the microphones that we
have there, I have basically replicated the setup back home
now, so I don’t need to fly to New York to do it. I can send
stuff in, and we can work on it back and forth. So that’s
one of the things that makes these songs work, is because
they’re fast and they’re topical, so we can basically, we
obviously did the Logan Paul song on TV, but we were able to
just get it done that week, because we could send files back
and forth. But yes, there is an album coming out.”
Is it an album full of all original songs, or have we heard
some of these songs already?
“Well, I will say, they are all original songs. I won’t say
any more than that; they are all original songs.”
Well, you’ve been the TNA World Champion. You’ve been the
NXT Champion. What’s the next one you have your sights set
on?
“That’s such a tough question to answer, because you have
different focuses at different points. I used to be like, I
have to sign with WWE. I have to be there by this year, and
I have to do that. Actually, when I was on the Indies, that
got quite exhausting, that way of thinking, and I shifted my
focus. I remember the day it happened. I was wrestling for a
company called North Wrestling in Newcastle, England, and I
did a parody video of Bon Jovi on Scotty 2 Hotty. I remember
the audience just went nuts. There was like 200 people
there, but they all went nuts. I thought, You know what? If
this is as big as it gets, that’s cool. This is my job. I’m
committed. I am a pro wrestler. If it never gets bigger than
this, I know I killed it. I know I entertain those fans, and
I’m going to give my best to entertain the fans no matter
what I’m doing. When I shifted my focus to delivering value
for the fans, rather than I want this belt. I want this. I
want that. That’s when things really took off. I feel like
now I’m in a phase where I feel like if I just commit to
entertaining the audience as best as I can, and doing the
absolute best job I can, all those things that I want will
come to me. That said, Intercontinental Championship,
please.”
You made it really clear that you wanted to have a match
with John Cena before he retired. How close were you to
having that match with John Cena?
“I mean, I don’t know. I think the thing is, to me, it’s
something either happens or it doesn’t. Ultimately, I have
to put the responsibility on myself. I didn’t wrestle John
Cena because I didn’t do enough to make me an obvious choice
to wrestle John Cena. So I didn’t do enough somewhere along
the way, and that I feel led into the motivation that I
needed in NXT, because it made me realize. Because if you
think about it, I’m going, ‘I’ll wrestle at the Royal
Rumble, I’ll wrestle at WrestleMania…’ and I’m saying this
crazy stuff, and it’s happening. So I think that gave me a
reminder that you just can’t take progress for granted. You
have to work for everything. I was like, All right, okay, I
got to take things up another level now, and I think it
inspired me to work harder. So again, I have no regrets,
because I look back and go, yeah, maybe could have been
stronger in this area, this area, this area, but I won’t let
that happen again. The next thing I want to put out there,
I’ll make sure I get i