Kellie
11-23-2008, 01:32 AM
Ken Kennedy had been in WWE a wet weekend when FT was blown away by the Green Bay Grappler.
He swaggered into global superstardom like it was his birthright.
He was charming, opinionated, humble and witty, and also a fantastic wrestler, and we spoke a few times as his career rocketed towards the very heights of WWE.
We cheered along in person for his high point: victory in the Money in the Bank Ladder match at Mania 23 in Detroit.
Then Kennedy had some bad luck: a minor tricep injury was misdiagnosed as serious, costing him his briefcase, and things went downhill from there.
His European media tour in August of 2008 was a farce, during which he told FT and everyone who would listen that he didn’t use steroids, and had been clean for a year, no less.
He was promptly suspended by his employer a mere two weeks later.
To say your trusty correspondent was less than impressed would be as mild as a DDT from my nan.
FT is the only place in the British national print media pro-wrestlers can be heard and we print their comments in good faith. If they lie, we all look stupid.
So you can bet your inflated wallet-wasting mortgage that I was looking forward to talking to Kennedy again.
I got my chance this week. We got to the point. Why did Kennedy talk out of his backside when last we met?
He says: “Overall I made a mistake. I’m sorry for it, I’m trying to move on and get past it.
“I would love to sit down with you for two or three hours and explain things.
“I was on a time schedule, so I would omit certain parts that I did not deem necessary. There is a lot more to it than what was said.
“It’s something I feel passionately about. I believe wrestling has changed, and of course it’s still apparent because I hear stories about the past, and how things were in the 80s. They are funny now, but at the time it was horrific, what happened on the road, and all the unethical things people did.”
But Kennedy adds: “I stand by the fact that I stopped taking steroids for cosmetic reasons.
“If you simply look at pictures of me, there’s a huge difference from when I started to now.
“When one partakes in those substances ... at the time I thought I was impervious, invincible.
“I ran into some of those situations, and you don’t quit cold turkey – there are health risks.
“What we do is not ballet, it’s an inevitability of our job, and people get hurt.”
Kennedy is off on the long term-sick, having dislocated his shoulder and undergone surgery.
He estimates he’ll be back in another two or three months.
There are positives on the horizon: his first acting venture, Behind Enemy Lines, has been a blast. Injury has allowed him the time for filming.
Mania 26 in Houston is on Kennedy’s mind for a spectacular return. A certain Stone Cold Steve Austin, friend and mentor, will be joining him on a card that’s bound to be stellar.
Kennedy says: “He’s always maintained he could come back and wrestle any time.
“Steve put in his time, and he still puts it in. He has a tremendous wrestling mind.
“It wasn’t just a case of the right place at the right time. You can’t bottle that, you can’t teach that, he just had that God-given talent.”
Source: DailyStar.Co.Uk
He swaggered into global superstardom like it was his birthright.
He was charming, opinionated, humble and witty, and also a fantastic wrestler, and we spoke a few times as his career rocketed towards the very heights of WWE.
We cheered along in person for his high point: victory in the Money in the Bank Ladder match at Mania 23 in Detroit.
Then Kennedy had some bad luck: a minor tricep injury was misdiagnosed as serious, costing him his briefcase, and things went downhill from there.
His European media tour in August of 2008 was a farce, during which he told FT and everyone who would listen that he didn’t use steroids, and had been clean for a year, no less.
He was promptly suspended by his employer a mere two weeks later.
To say your trusty correspondent was less than impressed would be as mild as a DDT from my nan.
FT is the only place in the British national print media pro-wrestlers can be heard and we print their comments in good faith. If they lie, we all look stupid.
So you can bet your inflated wallet-wasting mortgage that I was looking forward to talking to Kennedy again.
I got my chance this week. We got to the point. Why did Kennedy talk out of his backside when last we met?
He says: “Overall I made a mistake. I’m sorry for it, I’m trying to move on and get past it.
“I would love to sit down with you for two or three hours and explain things.
“I was on a time schedule, so I would omit certain parts that I did not deem necessary. There is a lot more to it than what was said.
“It’s something I feel passionately about. I believe wrestling has changed, and of course it’s still apparent because I hear stories about the past, and how things were in the 80s. They are funny now, but at the time it was horrific, what happened on the road, and all the unethical things people did.”
But Kennedy adds: “I stand by the fact that I stopped taking steroids for cosmetic reasons.
“If you simply look at pictures of me, there’s a huge difference from when I started to now.
“When one partakes in those substances ... at the time I thought I was impervious, invincible.
“I ran into some of those situations, and you don’t quit cold turkey – there are health risks.
“What we do is not ballet, it’s an inevitability of our job, and people get hurt.”
Kennedy is off on the long term-sick, having dislocated his shoulder and undergone surgery.
He estimates he’ll be back in another two or three months.
There are positives on the horizon: his first acting venture, Behind Enemy Lines, has been a blast. Injury has allowed him the time for filming.
Mania 26 in Houston is on Kennedy’s mind for a spectacular return. A certain Stone Cold Steve Austin, friend and mentor, will be joining him on a card that’s bound to be stellar.
Kennedy says: “He’s always maintained he could come back and wrestle any time.
“Steve put in his time, and he still puts it in. He has a tremendous wrestling mind.
“It wasn’t just a case of the right place at the right time. You can’t bottle that, you can’t teach that, he just had that God-given talent.”
Source: DailyStar.Co.Uk