Gangrel sat down with Chris Van Vliet in Nashville, Tennessee to discuss being a trainer at Rusev’s KECH Pro Wrestling Academy, still wrestling today and how much longer he wants to keep going for, why he hasn’t worn a white shirt in over 20 years, why the Attitude Era was so incredible, the rumor about why he was fired from WWE, not being a part of WrestleMania 39, his AEW appearance, spiking CVV with an Impaler DDT, and more!

You’re 57 years old, and you’re still doing this. You are on the indie grind every single weekend. Do you still love it?

“Absolutely, 100%. I don’t know about the traveling as much, but I still love wrestling, so I tell people it’s a lot like a musician. You’ll hear them say, ‘I get paid to travel, not play music.’ I get paid to travel, not wrestle. I would wrestle for free anyway. I love wrestling. When they asked you, what’s your fee, I go, what are we talking about? I look at it, and my fee is addressed to where that travel is. I’ve wrestled in every state, been to a lot of countries and stuff like that, so I know exactly what’s involved in that travel, and that the travel is what adjusts my fee. It’s not necessarily the wrestling part of it. I still love wrestling; it’s the travel of it.”

Are you at the point now when you’re taking bookings and you’re like, I only want to take a certain amount of bumps, or you want to just go out there and have a great match?

“No, no, no. The hardest part about wrestling is getting your boots on. Once the boots are on, I’m fine. I can rewind this back. I do take only certain bumps now, I’ve eliminated certain top rope things that are just not necessary for a 57-year-old man with a new knee and a new hip and stuff like that. I don’t want to push the envelope too much. Once I get in my gear and I’m rolling, I want to go. You’re either all in or you’re all out, 24/7. Can’t stop, won’t stop, fanging and banging. The hardest part about it’s getting dressed. Once you’re dressed, you traveled, you went through that, you got there, then just getting dressed. You’re like, ah, then the boots are on, then it’s all gold. Then after that, you know it’s all good.”

Does your rate change based on what you’re wearing to the ring? Are you always going to wear a white shirt? You’re always going to split blood.

“I haven’t worn a white shirt in 20 years.”

You haven’t worn the pirate shirt?

“’I don’t want to be a pirate!’ I love Seinfeld. No, I haven’t worn a puffy shirt. If somebody wants a puffy shirt, if they request it, I say, ‘Sure, you buy it. Make sure you get one. I’ll sign it and leave it with you, but I won’t go hunt them down.’ They don’t make them the same. They’re cheesier, and to custom-make them cost way more than what you could buy, it gets out of control. So if they want it, I’m not against wearing it, but it’s just working, you just go through them, you get one show out of them, they’re either torn or that you can’t get the stains out, not the blood stains, the blood comes out, but I spray the blood every night. I still get out my wallet for the blood. You got to have the blood and the Impaler DDT.”

There’s a rumor you got fired from WWE because you didn’t tuck your shirt in.

“I never tucked my shirt in.”

Would you like to clear this up?

“I don’t know if that was the rumor. I think the rumor was they said Vince saw my stomach and said, ‘Ah, he’s got to go.’ I think that was the rumor. No, I don’t know. They hired me back, I got burnt. I sat home all that time, and then they let me go. Then they hired me back, told me I was going to be on the Syfy Channel. They said, ‘You’re going to be a big star on ECW. You’re going to come in, you’re going to have a group, Kevin Thorn, Shelly Martinez.’ I said, great. I went home, never heard from them. I was signed back, never heard from him, never did an appearance on TV or anything. So, there’s no shirts, or there’s no nothing. Then I see Kevin Thorn comes on, and then Shelley comes on with him, and I got let go. Then I get a call from Johnny Ace, going, ‘It never really took off, it didn’t work out.’ I said save it, I’m gonna go back to England next week. So it was nothing. They brought me back for SyFy, I never did any TVs, I never did anything.”

When Edge had his Brood entrance at WrestleMania 39, the match against Finn Balor, there were so many rumors that you might be there. Not only were you not there, he didn’t even use the Brood entrance theme, it was so interesting that they used another song.

“I’m not sure, but I think maybe it might have been Hunter. Some people said Vince, but I think it might have been Hunter. Somebody kiboshed it. So when that didn’t go down, he [Edge] left the next year to AEW. Then he wanted to make sure, that he’s a guy that wants to have his way. Don’t tell him no on something, he’s gonna figure it out. So in AEW, he had me come back and come up to the ring and stuff like that.”

Were you close to being part of WrestleMania 39?

“In Edge’s mind? Yes. He was trying hard, but in their minds, no, I don’t think so.”
WrestleMania 15: You’re part of this moment where Undertaker hangs Big Boss Man. You’re the one who’s actually giving Undertaker the noose. What do you remember about the setup of this?
“What I remember is we weren’t on schedule for anything in WrestleMania, and then we all get like a memo saying you have a rehearsal. We’re like, rehearsal for what? So we show up, they go, ‘Oh, you’re gonna come out of the ceiling.’ We’re like, ‘What?’ We’re looking at each other like, ‘Who’s coming out of the ceiling?’ ‘No, you three are gonna come out of the ceiling and come down on top of the cage.’ So, we rehearsed it one time there, and I know none of us were happy about it. We’re all freaking out. So it was terrifying. We did a rehearsal, everything went fine, and we got back up. Then came WrestleMania. Again, it’s not like the entrances. You do a dry rehearsal, it’s one thing, but then there’s live crowd, and in the moment, so we all go off and we go down. I almost missed the cage, like one foot’s over here, but I get back on it. That was scary. Then we go over, and then we’re on that, and all I’m thinking is, don’t fall through the cage, because you think about Mankind. The cage is kind of rigged too, for you to be able to rip it open. So we’re up there, we got the noose, we’re ripping it, please don’t fall through this cage, because I don’t like heights at all. So we get that, we go back up, and then the circuit breakers blew. So we’re all stuck, that’s why you got a picture of Edge hanging right there in his coat. He was hanging the lowest. I was between the sound board and the lighting, and Christian, I think, was just where his hands were on the beam to get back on top. It legit went out. We were stuck, and it felt like forever, but it was probably only a couple minutes, you know. I kept thinking they’re going to come on this sound board and just blow my eardrums out, because I was in between the lighting board and the speakers, and Edge was down low, and he was getting all the pictures, because he was stuck in his coat. That’s why you see that a lot. Yeah, there was just one rehearsal, and then we did it, and there’s a bit of a heavy thing, you know, a hanging is a bit strong, I suppose. You don’t really see them, I don’t think they push that much anymore, and stuff like that. I think if you go look for it, it’s hard to find that, because it was so graphic and kind of strong.”