Curt Hawkins recently spoke with Justin Barrasso of SI.com about his career. During the interview, he was asked about Vince McMahon holding a talent meeting at the 2008 Great American Bash pay-per-view to announce that the company would be going PG. He recalled that McMahon explained it to everybody, but he didn’t think anyone thought too much about it at the time or knew what it would entail. He noted that no one would interrupt McMahon in these kinds of meetings because it would have to be really worth speaking if you had something to say. However, in this meeting, someone did interrupt the boss, and that was Michael Tarver, who at the time was just working dark matches. Tarver asked something and McMahon said that it was an excellent question, Shelton (mistaking Tarver for Shelton Benjamin). Hawkins noted that everyone start laughing. He said that during the John Cena – JBL match he remembered sitting there watching it and thought that it was a pretty violent match as it was a street fight and that they were brawling backstage and using cars as weapons. “And all you could hear was Mark Henry say, ‘So murder is PG?’ and that comment cracked us up.”
When asked about working in NXT in 2014 and some of his experiences with Dusty Rhodes, Hawkins said that when he was at the Performance Center, he had some awesome matches with Sami Zayn and Neville. He noted that when he was in FCW, he worked with Rhodes every week for a year. “He was a vital part and he, along with Edge, were the two people who saved my career. I’d already been on TV, had the tag titles, then I went back down to FCW. Dusty saw in me that I was a star, and he gave me confidence in cutting promos and helped me out immensely. I’ll forever be grateful to him.” He added that he wrestled Rhodes in Rhodes’ last match. “So in the summer of 2010, me, Trent Barreta, and Caylen Croft as the Dude Busters main-evented an FCW show against the Rhodes. It was the only time the Rhodes boys ever tagged, and it was Dusty’s last match ever. The match ended with me taking an elbow from Dusty. It was very, very cool, and I was very, very honored.”
You can read the entire interview here.
