Trevor Murdoch Talks WWE Frustrations, Harley Race, Nick Aldis, More
Trevor Murdoch was on “Prime Time with Sean Mooney” this week. Murdoch talked about joining the NWA, what makes the promotion so special, and why Nick Aldis is the right person to be leading the charge. Plus, he shares his feelings towards his mentor Harley Race, and shares his frustrations about his time with WWE.
The full podcast can be heard in the video at the top of the page and you can also listen at this link.
Fightful was sent the following highlights.
On relationship with Harley Race:
“I went into the situation wanting to earn his respect. I wanted to earn Harley Race’s respect. Eight time NWA World Heavyweight Champion Harley Race, and I came out with the love of a man that I will cherish for the rest of my life. My children call him Pappy. I love that man. If it wasn’t for him, I would not have anything of what I have today; and when I was with the WWE, when I got let go, when my wife lost a child, he was always the first person that I called going, “What do I do? What do I do?” And he was always there to answer that phone call and give me that advice. I miss him dearly. I just, I can’t say enough good things about the person, not only the wrestler, but the person.”
On Nick Aldis leading the NWA:
“They (NWA) were smart about who they picked first with Nick Aldis. That man. As much as I want his title, which I do, and that’s my goal. But he’s a damn fine. I mean, a fantastic representation of what we’re trying to express in and out of the ring. He’s classy. He’s got respect. He can speak very well. But he’s also got talent in the ring. When you step into the ring with that guy, you know what he can do and he’s the best of the best.”
On his frustration with WWE creative / conversation with Vince McMahon in catering:
“There were four or five times we weren’t being put on TV and we didn’t know why, and we went to Vince one time. We were off TV for four or five weeks and we were writing ideas for us and giving them to the writers, the people who should be writing the ideas, people getting paid to write ideas. We were doing it for ourselves, and they weren’t getting anywhere.
So we went, we tracked down Vince, we saw him in catering. The one time he was by himself, and we sat right next to him and we said, “Vince, you’re not putting us on TV. We want to know why”. And he goes, he looked at Lance, he goes, “I hate your fake black hair.” And he looked at me and he goes, “I hate your pasty white skin.” We said, “okay.” We got up. The next day I was tan, my partner was blonde. I’ll be damned if we weren’t on TV that next week. And I’m like, wow, why couldn’t it have just happened three or four weeks ago? Saved us, everybody, time, money; and that was like the beginning of my disdain with the business. Like I worked my whole career. I’m trained by one of the toughest guys in the business. I just went through six months of hell. And my career is halted because somebody couldn’t send an email or make a phone call or just give me a heads up. That’s where my career was, and it really bothered me like, wow, all that hard work and one lazy a****** putting a hold on it. You know, cause that’s, to me, that’s all It was, laziness. You’re paying me, you’re putting me on your TV. You’re telling me you ain’t got enough time and energy to give me a two minute phone call and tell me to change something so it works better for you? And it really started leading me down my path of maybe this business isn’t made for me. Maybe I was born in the wrong time frame. Maybe I’m the round peg in the square hole. And it slowly started just making me have disdain for the pro wrestling business.”
On talent getting opportunities in the NWA:
“The only way, one of the main reasons the company is going to survive is if the company goes along with what the people are wanting. And what I mean by that is if the fans are getting fired up behind a Ricky Starks, there’s no political bullshit in the back man. Well, they’re getting behind Ricky, we’re going with Ricky. Getting behind Eli, we’re going with Eli. They’re getting behind Ken, we’re going with Ken. They’re getting by Nick Aldis, we’ll go with Nick Aldis. And it’s the place that a worker wants to come because if you’re going out and you’re producing, you’re putting good matches out, you’ve got the people behind you in whatever form you need – heel or baby face – and you’re doing your job, you’re going to get rewarded. You’re going to start getting more. You’re going to start being put in more high-pressure situations. That’s how the wrestling business should be, and at one time was like that.”
