Our fans love to choose their heroes.
They do not love to be told who their heroes are.
That's been proven time and time again, and
it seems as though now with your body of work and everything
that you've accomplished, and to your point banger after banger after banger.
Particularly recently, it felt very much like it all culminated in Cardiff.
You and Gunther, Intercontinental Championship.
Talk to me about that night, as a whole.
>> I'll tell you something now,
I've been very fortunate to experience a lot of amazing moments in my career.
Going into that match, I knew that people really wanted to see they say
Rome wasn't built in a day, it's success isn't done overnight,
it me took me 13 years WWE career to air in that moment, and it was unbelievable.
I just stand out there,
and first of all the recession I got when I went out there blew me away.
I didn't know what way was gonna go, Gunther obviously has a cult
following as well for being NXT UK Champion for so many years.
So I didn't know really what to expect.
It's a moment I'll never forget, Corey.
It's probably a pretty like the biggest amount
that I've had up to this point in WWE.
>> How did you mentally prepare for that match-up that day?
Did you roll into Cardiff knowing that hey, your buddy Drew,
your best mate is headlining this deal with Roman Reigns.
You guys have the Intercontinental Championship match, but you're on what,
second or third?
And that's that old wrestler mentality like okay follow, that.
Did you walk out there that night with that mentality, like we're gonna
go out there and we're going to be what everybody's talking about?
>> Of course, that's the goal for everybody.
If that's not your goal in this business then what the hell are you doing here?
That was absolutely it.
Listen, me and Drew are best mates.
But I was going out there at to bleed and steal the show, no matter what.
That was the goal from day one.
Once I knew this match is gonna happen I'm like I'm stealing the show here,
there's there's no doubt about it.
All the promotion it was for Roman and Drew be building for a long time,
I went out there against the lads, I believe awesome blood by the way,
Gunther, great wrestler, very aggressive, great opponents.
No promotion, no mural on the wall.
>> All right.
>> No press conference, I went out there two weeks for that match that we had.
And the biggest promotion came is SmackDown the night before.
>> Where you and Gunther stood in the ring and the Brutes and
everybody fought around you.
>> That was it, right?
That's all I need to blow the roof of the 70,000 seat arena, that's it, right?
That's a problem I give the WWE execs and Triple H, it's like I don't need man,
I don't need any this is the paint on the wall, the Sheam-O, or
I don't need leading big press conferences to hype me up.
Join me in our big promotional packages, give me a means in an arena,
just give me 20 minutes in that ring, with a formidable opponent, and
I will give you a match of the night every single time.
I will give you something that nobody else is gonna see that night, because nobody
is going to see the brutality, aggression, and passion that I bring in that ring.
And it's taken to 13 years Corey, but you know what?
It doesn't matter how long it's taken because that moment in Cardiff was to
me was the moments of my career, one of the biggest moments of my life.
And if it's taken that long, and
that's even better because I know I've earned every single cheer and
every single part of that experience for all the years I've put together.
Listen, when we get something for like when something comes really, really fast,
how do you really appreciate it, right?
>> Very good point, >> But
that's where to go to keep going forward on and on and on.
I haven't lost track of Intercontinental Championship.
But man, I'm telling you, all I need is a ring.
Give me give me a ring that this is Sheamus and give me a formidable opponent
and I will give you match of the night every single time.
I will give you banger, after banger, after banger,
after banger, after banger, after banger, after banger.
>> I was gonna, say how far it's gonna go.
[LAUGH] >> [LAUGH] There's a lot of truth in what
you said because I can admit here before Clash, Graves and I talked and
I said the match that I'm looking forward to is Sheamus-Gunther.
I can go back to WrestleMania in Tampa, Graves, and I boasted the match I'm
looking forward to Sheamus-Riddle, and the list goes on and on.
At this stage of the game in your career,
is that something that also drives you as have great matches and help the future?
Is that what your focus is now rather than adding accolades more or so?
>> Yeah, that's it, I mean, that's my passion, I don't wanna go and
I don't wanna leave that ring knowing that it hasn't been matched and
I never thought it's gonna bother me until the next one.
Because I know after all these years, I told you I'm tired of just playing
the humble game and I noticed nobody can touch me in there, absolutely nobody.
There's nobody who can touch my physicality and
people know, when they come to a WWE show, and
Sheamus is on there, they're gonna see a pure aggression violence.
They're gonna see something that they will not see in any other match.
And regarding the talent, that's exactly what I've done.
I've done everything I can to bring that talent up.
This stuff with Damian Priest we were at around the horn about,
jeez it's like 20 times for every match we had was even better than the last.
Even with the mask, when I had my nose broken.
Rip that off, make that moment, do you know what I mean?
And it's funny because when I win at SummerSlam and
got the United States Championship.
Even after that went into a rematch with three way,
I went in there, another great match, another banger.
And then of course, the last one you have.
And I think when I had my nose broken, because I had my nose broken again, but
I wanted to have that last Falls Count Anywhere match with them,
where White Noise him through that table.
And then he broke me out on the table just disintegrate like.
>> [LAUGH] >> I couldn't walk for that,
I honestly couldn't walk for about three weeks.
>> Wow.
>> It was like- >> Really?
>> Basically took the phone off the apron with Damian on the shoulders.
>> Directly on his tailbone, yikes.
>> Corey, people have been telling me for years I'm a lunatic, I need to slow down,
you'll get to a point where you get to an age and you get to a point in your body
where you can only do so much, you got these clever, I'm like, just screw that.
>> Here's Sheamus trying to make every one of those people into a liar.
Just going I have to do that, I can't do that, watch.
>> I'm not half ass-ing anything.
Yeah, I'm gonna feel it physically on my body.
But that's it, that's part of it, I'll go to the ring fella.
The biggest thing I used to hate was when there was guys here for such a long time,
and they're just phoning it in.
I'm like I'll never do it, I'm never gonna phone it in.
Never, I'll never rest on this stuff behind me.
I'll never rest on his laurels, or these accolades and a half,
because if I do, I'm dead in the water.
Who wants to come and see that?
Like whatever ten years ago, or five years ago, or three years ago, even in
the Thunderdome two years ago, two matches with Drew I'm coming out with Dame,
I'm like that's great, but we're living at the moment, we're living in the present.
I'm not gonna live on anything, or
just phone it in because of what I've done before.
I wanna keep going until the wheels fall off, man, and that's how I am, that's it,
that's how I live my life, that's how passionate I am.
Don't get me wrong after all these years with the travel and everything,
those take its toll on you.
Like going back and forth to the West Coast like we have been for
the last couple weeks, it's tough.
Like anybody else, I don't wake up every morning and go, yeah,
big leg day, let's go in there.
>> [LAUGH] >> I'm like, leg day, my God,
have a cup of coffee, and the knee stretch okay, all right let's go and do this.
Some days are more of a struggle in order, I'm not Superman and I'm not gonna
complain to say like a go I can people on Instagram, I just crushed this, and
crush this, and crush this every day, I go in there, no problem like a roebuck for
shit, that's bull [BLEEP] >> Yeah.
>> You are a human being, there's times you don't wanna work out.
There are the times you gotta soak it up and drag yourself in.
And the time you're like, I don't wanna do this, but you get in there and you do it.
And you get through it and you put what you can into it.
Other days you wake up and you'd be like a blame 12 year old on,
yeah, let's get into the gym.
But a lot of the time it can be a struggle and like everyone watching here people who
are not in this business or people who are trying to work at themselves.
We say like I don't know a lot of the guys share the same mentality when it comes
to train, and we're not superhuman there are times when we don't want to do both,
it's part of a man I have to do it.
It's what I need to do, stay in shape, stay in the gym, and
days like there's a lot of days that don't wanna do it, but I dragged my ass in there
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