WWE Superstar Rick Boogs is the guest on the latest “WWE After The Bell with Corey Graves” podcast.
Boogs talks about his role as the personal guitarist for King Nakamura, his journey to WWE, heavy metal fan clubs, his alter-ego Art Von Boogs, and more.
During the interview, Boogs talked about being paired with Shinsuke Nakamura and he said that Vince McMahon wanted him on SmackDown after seeing him on an Old Spice commercial. Boogs had been in WWE’s developmental system since 2017 and then he did some spots as an extra as an audience member for the empty arena shows on the main roster in 2021 before McMahon saw him in the commercial.
Boogs on his reaction to being paired with Nakamura: “How was my reaction? Let’s just say I was shocked. I was stunned. I had, I would say, about maybe 12 hours of heads up. I got a text the night before to be at SmackDown, and this is what I was going to do. Obviously, I played his theme on guitar. Let’s keep in mind that sure, I dilly-dallied a little bit with guitar, but I hadn’t played guitar other than maybe a little bit here and there, but I haven’t practiced in a long time. I’m not even kidding.
From time to time maybe I’m doing something simple and easy, maybe put it on Instagram, but it’s not like I practice. I was like, ‘I played this song when I was 16 years old. I think I can remember it.’ They’re like, ‘Can you learn this?’ I said, ‘Of course, I’m like, yes, I’ll do it.’ The anticipation and nerves with that, not just playing guitar, because I was in a band in high school. Not a very serious band. I think the biggest crowd I played in front of was 25 people. Now it’s like, can you learn this thing in a matter of hours? Everyone’s going to judge you. It’s going to be in front of millions of people, and it’s not really what I do.
You know what it was? I think it was the first day I was at SmackDown, and Bruce Prichard was like, and I don’t know why they were looking at an Old Spice commercial, and apparently, Vince watched it, and he’s like, ‘Call the guy up’, just from the character work alone. This is what I heard. Then they had to figure out what to do with me because they were like, ‘Well what does he do?’ ‘I don’t know.’ ‘Is he on NXT?’ ‘No.’ They went on my Instagram, and you know what it was? I did this video where I did a lunge. I was playing The Trooper on the guitar. Bruce said that Vince was going to love that because he loves lifting weights. I guess that was it. ‘Oh, he can play The Trooper while he’s lunging 340 pounds so let’s have him bust out Shin’s tune live in front of millions of people.”
If you use any portion of the quotes from this article please credit After The Bell with Corey Graves with a h/t to WrestlingNews.co for the transcription
An extremely “heavy” episode of @AfterTheBellWWE w/@rickboogswwe awaits! Subscribe NOW!
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— Corey Graves (@WWEGraves) September 3, 2021
