Corey Graves was a guest this week on The Kurt Angle Show podcast. Graves talked about his career, Dusty Rhodes, CM Punk and several other topics.
Corey Graves on how he came up with his wrestling name:
“When we used to get signed to FCW, the standard protocol was unless you had a big name from outside of WWE, which very few people did, you would have to submit lists of names that would be approved and you could be that character’s name. I remember having a really hard time with a first name because there was just nothing that came to mind that I felt fit. I submitted the last names, Ness and Graves and Ness was from Mike Ness from Social Distortion and Graves was the singer of The Misfits at the time. I thought, Okay, I’ll borrow one of their names much like Seth Rollins, you know, he borrowed that last name. Corey, ironically enough, came from Bray Wyatt In practice one day, and he was singing Sunglasses at Night by Corey Hart. I don’t know why that song was being discussed. I’m sure there was a reason at the time, but he goes, ‘There’s your name, Corey Graves.’ Personally I hated it, but I didn’t submit anything different in time and one of the guys that worked in the office was like ‘Well, the office approved Corey Graves’, and I said, ‘All right, well, I guess I’m Corey Graves’, so here I am.”
On transitioning from FCW to NXT:
“To the best of my knowledge, it was very exciting, but it was also very uncertain. FCW versus NXT, it was two completely different systems, basically different worlds. FCW, we were sort of the redheaded stepchildren on this island down in Tampa hoping that maybe one of us someday would make a couple bucks. No one was making much money. I think we were all making five or 600 bucks a week, which was standard at the time, but not exactly a comfortable living. You train five days a week and you do these live events in front of 10, 20, 30 people four or five nights a week. I remember getting there and having a conversation with Seth Rollins who I knew from the independents at the time. I was like, ‘Dude is this WWE? My paycheck says WWE on it, but it just doesn’t feel anything like WWE.’ You know, I grew up watching it and I’m thinking to myself, I’m in England every few weeks wrestling in front of three or 4,000 people and now there’s 26 people for our TV tapings. It was absolutely not glamorous.”
“I think the goal when making the NXT changeover was to really overhaul the entire system and that was sort of Paul’s baby at the time. Triple H’s baby was developmental and he wanted to give us the best tools in the world to succeed and boy did we ever. There were certain holdovers. Obviously we still had Dusty Rhodes. We still had a lot of the same familiar faces from FCW coaching-wise. So there was a level of comfort. I know that a lot of us were just blown away by the facility, the Performance Center. The first time you stepped foot, wait a minute, we have a kitchen. In FCW, we had a microwave and you’d have about eight guys standing around in a semicircle waiting to heat up their food, and just just seeing the Performance Center and what it became. Then there was such an influx of talent where we saw a lot more of our friends from the independents coming in, whereas FCW there were a handful of us who were the quote unquote indie guys, but there were a lot of outsiders. Then NXT came and it was like, okay, everyone who we felt should be here was starting to get an opportunity. Not everybody stuck, but it was really cool to see all these different faces that were familiar and guys you knew wanted it and wanted to be there and cared about the business.”
On working with Dusty Rhodes:
“I can honestly say, I mean, there’s a lot of people that have added so much to my life and my career, but if I had to pinpoint one guy who I think I learned the most from, not only about the business, but about life, it was the American Dream. Dusty, you’ve heard in all the documentaries and the interviews, even in Cody’s new interview, that NXT and FCW, we were Dusty’s kids and he treated us as such because he cared and nothing made Dusty happier than someone who was willing to take a risk or willing to step outside of the box or do something that wasn’t a quote unquote wrestling promo or a character. Dusty wanted you to break the mold. He wanted everybody to do that. The impact that Dusty had is visible each and every segment on RAW or Smackdown these days, from a Seth Rollins to a Becky Lynch, Roman Reigns. The top stars that populate those spots in the business all spent significant time with Dusty, those first few generations of NXT as well.”
“I think I learned more and became closer with Dusty actually after I was out of the ring because it was when my concussions happened and I had to step away and I was still trying to figure out what the hell I was going to do with my life with this opportunity. Dusty was one who said, ‘Come on, baby, you just hang out with me’, and I spent eight hours a day in Dusty Rhodes’ office in the Performance Center for like six months straight, five days a week, listening and learning and laughing and half the time it was it had nothing to do with wrestling. Dusty would put on Garth Brooks live in Central Park and we would just sit there and watch. I’ve seen it 50 times at this point. We would sit there and he would start thinking and he’d go, ‘Hey, tell me what you think about this.’ We’d bounce ideas back and forth. That was the coolest thing about Dusty was he was never the one who had to make it his idea. Dusty just wanted to help and if Dusty saw a glimmer of what you felt inside, he was a magician at drawing it out and really helping people step out of their comfort zones, myself included, all the way up to when I had to announce my retirement and step into the broadcast world. Dusty was an advocate for me. Dusty went to bat for me at every opportunity and he was more than gracious with his time and his knowledge and I was like a sponge, man. It was a short period of time, but I would say it was one of the most important periods of time, not only in my career, but in my life as far as learning so much from Dusty. I’m so blessed to have known him as well as I did.”
Corey Graves on how he felt when Pat McAfee joined the SmackDown announce team:
“So believe it or not, I am blowing up my own stuff here. I think the world of Pat. He again has such a strong persona. It’s easy for me to play off of and rib him and get under his skin. I was a little upset professionally that I found out like, ‘Hey, you know you’re going from Friday night SmackDown on Fox, the network show that you kicked off with Michael Cole.’ I took it a little personally, not because of Pat, but sort of it it was like, I’ve paid my dues here. I’m the guy that shows up week after week. I’m the guy that did both Raw and SmackDown for two years straight and never complained, and this is how you do me? And again, I remember I was talking to my wife and just going, ‘This isn’t right. I have to do something about this. This isn’t fair.’ I really took it hard. Again, it had nothing to do with Pat being Pat. It was just sort of a professional issue. She talked me off the ledge and I had a few conversations with Cole and Michael Cole is my boss slash therapist, so he talked me off the ledge as well. Looking back, you know, it’s business. Sometimes you gotta do stuff you don’t want to do so you can do the stuff that you do. It was a shock that I didn’t see coming, but you know, I dealt with it. We’re all better off for it I think.”
If Graves would welcome back CM Punk to WWE:
“Punk was always great to me when I was coming up. We were really really, really close. Punk was in Pittsburgh at the time. He was actually the first guy who held my son after he was born. We were tight. Fast forward a few years, I don’t really know what happened. We sort of fell out for one reason or another. I said some disparaging things in a very public unprofessional manner. We haven’t spoken since then, but at the end of the day, rather than sitting here and wasting everybody’s time, I’m a professional. I’m too old to hold grudges. I feel like whatever’s happened is water under the bridge. I got a whole different life. I’m in a very different place in my life than I was back when all that stuff went down. If it’s right for business, who am I to say no? I’m a pro at the end of the day. I will happily do whatever is needed and I would shake the man’s hand and move on and see what life holds.”
If you use any portion of the quotes from this article please credit AdFreeShows.com with a h/t to WrestlingNews.co for the transcription.
