Colt Cabana jokes about CM Punk, discusses John Cena and more

The Interrobang has an interview with Colt Cabana. Here are some highlights from the interview:

You just returned home after a tour of India. What was that like?

It was surreal. I wrestled for five days in Guwahati in Assam, which is one of the most poverty-ridden places in the world. That’s one of the great things about this weird and wacky life as a pro wrestler – it can take you all over the world.

As a Jewish kid growing up in suburban Chicago, I was really never meant to see of experience anything like this. It’s such an incredible thing for us to be able to use our talents and be able to see the world.

These people had never seen anything like professional wrestling entertainment before. Their world is filled pollution and poverty. It was a wonderful experience going over there to perform and to entertain them, and I think it was a wonderful experience for them, too.

Luscious Johnny Valiant, Mick Foley, and you have all tried your hand at stand-up comedy. What similarities do you seen between the world of comedy and wrestling?

I don’t do stand-up anymore. I did some with Mick Foley a few years back, when he was starting out. I am doing a comedy performance show, though: “Colt Cabana & Friends Hang Out and Provide Commentary on Bad Wrestling Matches.”

The name pretty much says it all. We take lousy matches and just riff on them. We performed at The Fringe Arts Festival in Edinburgh, Scotland, which was amazing. I was the first-ever professional wrestler to appear there, doing it with Brendon Burns.

We’ve seen taken it all over England and the U.S. We have a show coming up in Chicago, and sold out in New York. I do consider myself a comedian, though. I’ve been a comedian in the ring for the past 15 years. I wrestle a comedy style. I’m just taking it out of the ring and into the club.

Can you pinpoint one specific moment or angle that hooked you and made you a wrestling fan for life?

I always say that my first memory was Andre the Giant getting his hair cut by Big John Studd and Ken Patera. I must have been about three years old when that happened. It’s the first thing I remember. I have no idea why, but that just stuck.

That’s why I disagree with a lot of wrestling fans my age and how they criticize John Cena today. I get it. I remember being a kid and watching Saturday Night’s Main Event, with Hulk Hogan beating King Kng Budy and The Honky Tonk Man.

He was such a larger-than-life character that all the kids loved, like Cena is today. It’s important not to forget how you saw things when you were a kid once you grow up. Hulk Hogan didn’t wrestle every week.

You used to tune in and watch every (wrestling) show, hoping he might make a appearance. Maybe that’s what’s missing from wrestling today, but it’s a different game today.

CM Punk is a close friend of yours. What’s the deal – do you think he’ll be back in WWE?

My stance is I think he’s dead. I haven’t heard from him.

You’re close to the mysterious masked wrestler Matt Classic, the old-school rassler. How did Matt Classic feel when the IOC briefly considered removing wrestling from the Olympic Games?

I usually speak for Matt, because he doesn’t like interviews. Matt Classic feels that Greco-Roman wrestling is the most important sport ever. He was furious when they banned people from wrestling tigers and bears; banned regular humans wrestling humans made him furious.