Nottingham Wrestler Joseph Conners Chats WWE, House of Pain Wrestling Academy, and Crafting a Career in Sport

What are your memories of coming up through the House of Pain Wrestling Academy?
Back then it was called Norton British Wrestling - House of Pain has gone through a few different iterations. I grew up just outside of Nottingham, and was a wrestling fan since my early teens. I remember getting my driving licence and was looking to take the car out - there were a few local wrestling shows in Leicestershire, which is where I met Stixx (Paul Grint - Head Trainer at HoP) and found out about his school in Nottingham. I went along and never looked back. 

Do you remember the first time you stepped into a ring?
I didn’t start in the ring when I first began training. I trained in a dojo on a deflated crashmat. I think I had only been in a ring two or three times before my first match! The rings we trained in were twelve-foot which, compared to the twenty-foot WWE ring, is obviously quite small. I remember it just feeling very surreal. You have to remember that when I first started my aim was to just have a match, which already felt like wanting to climb Mount Everest. I didn’t even know if that was going to be possible. It’s hard taking myself back into that mindset, but I remember thinking, ‘I’m going to get into a wrestling ring for the first time and take a bump,’ which was pretty cool. It’s like being a Formula One driver and sitting in an F1 car for the first time. 

Was there a definitive moment when you realised it could be a feasible career path?
When I first started, a lot of the people around me had the attitude of, ‘Well, you’re not going to get to the WWE - there’s no way that will happen.’ That wasn’t just directed at me, but a lot of people on the scene. It just seemed like such a long way away. But I never put a glass ceiling on it - I just put all my eggs in that one basket. I was still working other jobs and stuff, but I was enjoying wrestling so much. Then one night I got attacked in a nightclub and it was pretty rough. I had to have surgery and couldn’t wrestle for a while. It felt like I was at a crossroads in my life, where I could either let it beat me or motivate me. Luckily I chose the second option. I started taking the business more seriously, getting my body in better shape and just learning as much as I could. I used to train with Dave Taylor, the former WWE wrestler, who always told me that WWE wouldn’t look at you if you were over thirty, and at that point I was 29, so I knew I had to look at trying to get in. I started sending more emails, putting DVD packages together and meeting more and more people. I’d met Robbie Brookside, the former wrestler who at that point was working as a talent liaison, at a seminar, and decided to send him an email. The next day, I had an email saying, “Do you want to come and do some extra work at Raw and SmackDown at the O2 Arena in London?” From there I met William Regal, and it all spiralled from there. I’d been in the business for ten or eleven years at that point, and had been okay at a certain level, but I always thought that I could get somewhere with wrestling. I always maintained that belief. 

Who were your wrestling inspirations growing up?
I was enamoured by Kane and Mankind when I was young. I saw a picture of both of them and it looked like something out of a Halloween movie. It was exciting, like they were real-life monsters. I was like, 'What the hell is this?' And then, like a lot of people my age, Mick Foley struck a chord with me. Reading his autobiography [Have a Nice Day: A Tale of Blood and Sweatsocks] made me feel a real connection because you could see the real person. 

When I first started watching wrestling it was purely for the entertainment value rather than watching techniques, but as I started to get more into it Bret Hart became my favourite wrestler of all time. I know that’s a lot of people’s choice, but it’s hard to say anyone else. 

I'm also a huge Christian Cage fan, I love Christian. And how can you not watch Shawn Michaels and say he's phenomenal? I could name fifty wrestlers right now and talk about them passionately and say why they're so good. 

Can you tell me what it was like to sign with WWE for the UK championship tournament, and what the experience was like?  
Going back, it was very surreal. I’d been waiting for this opportunity and all of a sudden it's right there. It really was out of the blue. I got a phone call from Stamford, and it was William Regal saying 'We want to do this tournament' and, even though I had never done any kind of WWE matches before, inviting me to a two-night event on the WWE network - there were sixteen of us as well, which is different in itself. A lot of the wrestlers we hear about come onto the WWE roster as the new guy, but with this - other than Martin Stone (aka Danny Birch) - none of us had ever been on WWE TV.  Obviously the nerves were there, but I felt confident in my abilities. It’s like anything big that happens in your life, where you don't really know what's happening and you're in the middle of it. But I did know that no matter what happens, that'll always go down in history. It was the first UK tournament; it was a big deal. For example, the guy I wrestled in the first match, James Drake, I'd never wrestled him before on any independent show, and here we are having our first match on TV. It was crazy not having a clue about what's going to happen or what the future had in stock. It was special, that first tournament, something I'm very proud of. He won’t remember this, but I do remember having the first match, coming back and wondering how the reaction was when Finlay came up to me and shook my hand. In my mind that was validation. Talking about it now it’s hard to believe that it was five years ago!

Then, once I did both matches, I remember it's the one time in my life where I can genuinely admit I had tears of happiness. It felt very overwhelming. I've never had that feeling of thinking that no matter what happens from this point, I've done something I'd always wanted to achieve, something I watched as a kid. I grew up in such a small village and who would have thought I'd be in a WWE match? It was very cool.

How do you process that feeling of having achieved such a huge life goal at a relatively young age? Is it a process of setting new goals?
Yeah, definitely. I think the one mistake I've made in my life from a career standpoint, which is a positive and a negative, is that I'm very goal-orientated. I never really allow myself to enjoy a lot of the moments because I'm always thinking about what's next. With wrestling, at that point, not long after the tournament I went to Florida and got to do media access. For perspective, I went to WrestleMania 25 as a fan, and was at WrestleMania 33 as an employee. I was always thinking, 'I've got to get in better shape, do better here, climb this ladder,' so it was always just about what's next. Once I'd done that tournament, I was back on the road the next weekend doing my bookings, back at shows straight away. So, it never stops. With wrestling, you're only as good as your last match. If you have a match you don't enjoy, you have to rectify that. Now, I'm trying to enjoy things more. I'm still analytical and critical, but I let myself think, 'That was cool, I enjoyed that.' Even if things could be better, I take it as a good experience and move on to the next thing.

What are some of the biggest misconceptions about professional wrestling?
Some people still think of TV wrestling as glamour, driving fast cars and flying first class. If you’re someone like Roman Reigns, that’s probably the case. But I’ve done shows in places from the Royal Albert Hall to working men’s clubs. Another misconception is that it doesn’t hurt - I can tell you that it very much does! I’ve had some serious injuries. Without being too over-the-top, every time you step into the ring you’re putting your life in someone else’s hands, and they’re putting their’s in yours. You cannot take this for granted, it’s serious. A lot of people see wrestling and think, ‘I can do that.’ But you wouldn’t watch a game of football and think you could get into the Arsenal team. You’re talking about two men telling a story with their bodies. No CGI, no second takes - just two people taking an entire building on an emotional and mental rollercoaster. When it’s done well, it’s one of the purest forms of entertainment. It’s gladiatorial and Shakespearean. A play on a stage. And if you can make people, like real-life superheroes, suspend their disbelief for that long, that's the real magic.

Say you get to wrestle in a fatal four-way with any three other wrestlers, dead or alive. Who are you choosing?
Wow. That’s hard. I'm going to take Bret and Shawn Michaels, but on the understanding that they're getting along at this point! They've got to be friends. Then I'm going to throw Christian Cage in there as well. It's a random one but that would be my four-way.

Sounds a decent match-up, that. To round things off, what advice would you give to an up-and-coming wrestler?
I’ve been told a few good bits of advice over the years. Tracy Smothers once said, ‘Remember that the wrestling business owes you nothing.’ I think about that when things aren’t going my way, or I’m not getting the opportunities I think I should be getting. You have to remember that this is a callous business, and you can be the hardest worker in the room but it doesn’t always count for anything. 

One piece of advice I always give to other people is to stay humble. Keep your humility and remember who you were when you first stepped in and started to learn. Pay it forward, help people, remember at the end of the day you don't actually win or lose, someone decides that for you. And the person who is asked to lose is helping you in the long run, so stay humble and keep your feet on the floor, because success will come, but it can go and then come back again. Remember who you were good to on the way up, and hope that they learn that as well. Humility is a big thing for me, not just in wrestling but in life.

@joseph_conners