Al Snow was a guest on the Hitting The Marks pro wrestling podcast with Michael Jargo and Ric Vickrey to talk a bit about different experiences throughout his career, Mr. Snow has finished his book “Self Help: Life Lessons from the Bizarre Wrestling Career of Al Snow” which focuses on Snows take on his experiences in the pro wrestling industry and how it’s made him the person that he is today. Al Snow talked a bit about Collar and Elbow and training Dan Severn, and discusses the transition from MMA into pro wrestling. Here are a couple of highlights below:
Hitting The Marks Interview With Al Snow
Snow was asked about Collar and Elbow and the idea behind the company:
“My partner, myself and Rod Hicks, and uh, developed the ideas and were making fun of, quite honestly, like, the WWE merchandise, where grown men buy shirts of pictures with other grown men’s pictures on them. For me, I’m not real comfortable with wearing another man’s picture on my chest, but I’m still very much a fan of professional wrestling and I’m a fan of pro wrestling, period. It just felt like Under Armour kind of represented football and the passion of the fans who love football, and Nike represented basketball and the passion of the fans of basketball, running, etc. And I just didn’t feel like there was something that captured the fans’ love for professional wrestling or wrestling in general, and we decided we were going to create something like that, that, if you’re a fan, and you wear typical wrestling merchandise, the first thing you hear when you’re at a party or an event is “oh, why do you like that, that’s fake…” you know, i don’t need people to tell me that and make fun of me for having a passion of something I enjoy. So we decided we would try to create designs that were more streetwear and communicated something cool. Like the term “Collar & Elbow”, you know, if you’re a wrestling fan you understand what that is…”
MMA Style and Pro Wrestling
Snow was asked about his time training Dan Severn and what it’s like helping to adopt an MMA Style into the world of professional wrestling. Snow mentioned what a joy it was working with “The Beast” and what a great human being he is. A similar praise from many people around the professional wrestling and MMA world. Snow noted being fortunate enough to help training Severn at UFC 4. Snow said about his experience:
“UFC was completely different back then, you know, it was a tournament, if you won, you fought at least 3 times, to win the tournament. There were no tapes of who you were going to fight, you weren’t able to study your opponent, unlike now where it’s developed into its own style where every competitor has some kind of ground game to a degree, and every competitor has some kind of stand up game to some degree. Back then, everybody had a different style, Royce Gracie was at the top of the ladder, he was a jiu-jitsu fighter, you had guys that were judo, the UFC we were in had a guy who was a boxer. His (Dan Severn) first fight was with a muay thai guy, and the second fight was with a guy whose style was karate, and then his third was with Royce, who was a jiu-jitsu, so you couldn’t plan, you didn’t know what you were training for…but because of Dan’s physical toughness, he went on to have a successful career. The transitioning or adapting to professional wrestling is not that hard, it is from a timing, distance, and footwork, and the reason that there is that distinct difference of those three elements is because of the intent. The only thing that is fake about professional wrestling, is just the outcome, just the intent about the thing you are trying to attempt to do. Meaning that whatever I am doing in the ring, I’m genuinely trying to either get my opponent to submit or wear them down to where I can pin them for a three count, and with MMA that intent was there, and so that timing and footwork are going to be altered because you’re not going to open yourself up, you’re not going to give your opponent that opportunity much like you would in professional wrestling…Professional wrestling, was kind of the original mixed martial arts because of the catch wrestling you had and allowing the strikes you had in it. It was just that, it got developed to more of a show and more of an actual artistic performance as opposed to staying in a pure competitive situation.”
Al Snow on Ronda Rousey
Snow provides his thoughts on Ronda Rousey and her transition from mixed martial arts to professional wrestling:
“A good example of it would be Ronda Rousey, I think that she quite honestly epitomizes what it means to be a “worker” in wrestling because she’s so good in what she does, she’s capable in allowing an audience to believe in her intent while she’s in the ring, and she does absolutely fantastic.”
For more on this in-depth interview from at the “Hitting The Marks Pro Wrestling Podcast” click below:
Stay tuned to the Last Word on Pro Wrestling for more on this and other stories from around the world of wrestling, as they develop. You can always count on LWOPW to be on top of the major news in the wrestling world, as well as to provide you with analysis, previews, videos, interviews, and editorials on the wrestling world.
