MVP (@the305MVP) is a professional wrestler currently signed to AEW and known for his time in WWE and TNA. He sits down with Chris Van Vliet in Las Vegas, NV to discuss leaving WWE in 2024 and signing with AEW, reuniting The Hurt Syndicate, how close he came to becoming World Champion, his signature entrance tunnel, his emotional reaction to Kofi Kingston winning the WWE Championship at WrestleMania 35, and more!

Quote I’m thinking about: “Whether you think you can, or you think you can’t — you’re right.” – Henry Ford

On wrestling tribalism:

“I realize how fortunate I am. You know, over 20 years in this space, and I think about some of the people who haven’t had that opportunity. I have friends and colleagues that work for all the wrestling companies. Why would you want somebody to lose their livelihood? I want all the wrestling companies to be successful, the more successful they are, the better it is for us, the wrestlers, and you, the fans. So I just don’t understand that mentality, that kind of almost pure hatred, the tribalism, between brands. But one thing I do get, I do get the kids that want to be extra cool, [who say] ‘I don’t watch that mainstream stuff, dude, I watch the cool niche companies.’ Which I think that’s dope, because I was one of those guys before people knew what New Japan was. I was a tape trader, and wrestling was only WWE and WCW. They had some Japanese guys on there. Well, those guys have a whole career in a whole other country that you’re not aware of. So I’ve always just been hungry for wrestling. Whether Japanese wrestling, Lucha Libre, European wrestling, it’s all wrestling, just sit back and enjoy it.”

On some fans not realising MVP is a wrestler:

“There’s a whole sector of our fandom now that has no idea MVP was a wrestler. You got these young kids that never saw me wrestle. They just think I’m the guy with the cane and the suit that runs his mouth.”

On his son not knowing he was a wrestler:

“My son, Camden, he’s 10. He’ll be 11 next month, he discovered wrestling, and he didn’t know daddy was a wrestler. But he discovered wrestling, and he liked it. For me as a dad, it was just crazy that my son would teethe on my action figure. He has no idea, but for me, it was pretty cool. And I remember one day we were in the store, and we were in the toy aisle, and he’s pointing out, ‘Daddy, that’s Samoa Joe!’ He’s just pointing them out. He’s calling him by name. I’m like, when did you start watching wrestling? Then I felt some kind of way, because these were my colleagues, and I was still working independents and things like that, but I wasn’t on TV, and I thought man, I want my son to see daddy on TV.  I want him to be able to walk down the toy aisle once and see, oh, look, there’s daddy. So I put in a call to Paul Heyman, because I knew that the Royal Rumble was coming to Houston that year, and there had been a couple times since I left the WWE. Let me make that point, because a lot of people thought I got fired. I didn’t get fired. I had a year left on my deal, and Lauriniatis was asking me to re-sign a five-year deal, and at that time, I was burned out on the WWE machine. That was 2010.”

On why he left WWE in 2010:

“I was talking with Vince one day, and I said, ‘Vince, I didn’t go to superstar school to become a professional superstar. I went to pro wrestling school to become a pro wrestler.’ [He said] ‘Well, you’re a superstar around here, pal.’ We laughed about it, but Japanese wrestling was my passion. For me, my dream was the Tokyo Dome, my goal was WrestleMania. Usually people go to Japan, get over and then come to the WWE or WCW, whatever. I needed to recharge. I needed to rekindle that flame, that passion for wrestling. So I asked for my release, and they were kind enough to give it to me with the promise that when you’re ready to come back, come back. And I never came back. I ended up going to Impact, and that was a business decision, because just the amount of dates that I had to work versus the income, so I could make more at WWE, but I’d work three times as much. So my son had no idea that was part of life for me.”

On his WWE return in 2020:

“I got to be one of the surprise entrants in the 2020 Royal Rumble. And my son was in the crowd. It’s so cool, because he even made it into one of the highlight commercials where you just see him going, ‘Yeah!’ That gave me something emotionally, because I never wanted to be a dad. I wanted to be single forever, my son was an oops, and now I’m so grateful for him in my life, because he makes me a better human being, and to be able to share that with him. And Rey Mysterio was his favorite wrestler. So after that, we went into the back and Rey being the just incredible human being that he is, took some time to pull my son to the side and gave him a mask, and he spoke for a minute. After that, Paul Heyman asked me if I could make it to San Antonio the next day. And I was like, Yeah, sure. Easy pay, quick drive. I went and again, Paul E booked me to be in a match with Rey Mysterio on Raw, just a cool match. I wasn’t even under contract, but my son’s mother sent me a video of my son standing underneath the television during my entrance, so my son got to watch daddy wrestle his favorite wrestler. And again, that’s all I wanted. That was it. And then after my match, Laurinaitis just pulled me to the side and said, Hey, we want to offer you a position as a producer. And at that point, I was contemplating retirement anyway, I just felt like getting pretty close to the end here, and we talked about it and what the ins and outs would be. And I said, let’s give it a shot. Let’s see what happens. And I enjoyed it. It was pretty cool, the creative process and learning about how that machine works.” 

On his signature entrance tunnel:

“That was me and Dusty Rhodes. So we used to have these afternoon workouts as they were grooming me getting ready for my debut. It was me, Dusty Rhodes and Chris Benoit, and he was coming back from his neck surgery, so I was the guy that he picked to have private workouts with, because we had had a relationship before that, and we were talking college football, and I’m a Canes fan, 305, you know, U of M, all the way back to Howard Schnellenberger days. I was talking about the Hurricanes coming out of the tunnel with the smoke, and I just said, off the cuff, ‘Oh man, that’d be cool if I could do something like that.’ Not really understanding how the machine works yet, like we can do whatever you want if it works. And I’ll never forget Dream, he looks at me, goes, ‘Oh yeah, baby, that’d be something special. We have the hurricanes, we have MVP come out the tunnel with the smoke and everything.’ And I was like, yeah, that’d be dope. That was American dream, Dusty Rhodes. He did that. I just came up with it, not thinking that it would really be a thing like that would be kind of neat, you know. And he said, Yeah, as a matter of fact, that’s exactly what we’re gonna do.” 

On taking the Twist of Fate from Matt Hardy off the ladder:

“Matt and I were having an amazing program, and we carried SmackDown for a while when we were doing the odd couple partnership. We were having so much fun, because again, something I’ll never forget being in Baltimore, Maryland, when I just got called up. Matt came to me that afternoon and goes, ‘Hey, man, how you doing?’ We talked to just a little chit chat. He goes, ‘Yeah, we gonna do a little business tonight. You and me, we gonna do some business.’ And I was like, Yeah, all right, cool. I’m like, Oh, wow. I work with Matt Hardy, this is dope, not knowing that that would be the beginning of a feud that turned into a rivalry that turned into a very close friendship. Matt and I are very tight to this day. During that time, that rivalry that we were having on SmackDown, Matt had a really bad, I don’t know if it was like a ruptured hernia or some really bad internal injury that took him out for a while. So at the time it wasn’t supposed to have ended the way it did, but Matt got hurt. So with Matt being hurt and me turning on him during our tag team when we lost the titles, and I’m beating with the US title, taking him out. For him to come through the crowd as I was just about to grab the briefcase, I was there, I could hear the rumble as the people saw Matt Hardy come running down. And when everybody saw and he came up, that sound, that moment, every professional wrestler wants to have that moment under those lights, on that stage, where everybody gives you that explosive pop for that moment. And in pro wrestling, people forget a lot of the time. People don’t remember who won and lost the match. They remember moments. And that was definitely a moment.”

On how close he came to becoming World Champion in WWE:

“I don’t know this for an absolute fact, because I wasn’t in on the meeting, but I was told by some people that were. As a matter of fact, one of the writers, [said] there was talk about MVP being World Heavyweight Champion, but there was reservations because of my felony conviction. So for those of your viewers who don’t know, when I was a teenager, I was coming up in Miami, rough gang violence. I was an armed robber, and I did a robbery, and I ended up going to prison for several years. Nine and a half years. I served from 16 to 26. [Originally sentenced to] 18 and a half with a mandatory three for the sawed off shotgun, meaning for three years you can’t get time off for good behavior. And consequently, it was as a result of that, when I was at work release, getting out of prison, I met a correctional officer [called] Primetime Daryl D, he was an indie worker, and that’s how I got into the business. Because he would bring in videotapes for us to watch in the morning before they would open up the center to let us go to work. So guys couldn’t leave till seven, so it’d be like, 10 15, minutes, people just kind of milling around. And he’d bring in tapes. And I would be, Hey, man, how do you guys do that without really killing each other? And he’s like, Well, I see you out there playing basketball, working out. You got a good physique. You’re athletic. When you get out, if you want to give it a try, I’ll show you something. So that’s how I broke into wrestling. But going back to my conviction, it was at work release that I met the correctional officer who introduced me to my career. But now I’m a convicted felon.”

So they didn’t want to make you the World Heavyweight Champion?

“Because there were potentially countries that I couldn’t get into. So how can you be the World Heavyweight Champion, but you can’t go to this country? Like going to Japan. Japan is very strict about people who [can enter], like James Brown, they wouldn’t let into Japan. But because I went over for a Japanese company, they were able to smooth it over with the visa process. Canada. I couldn’t get into Canada for a long time. I had to go through a process there where people had to write letters of recommendation. It costs 1000s of dollars in legal fees to get something in Canada. They call it a letter of rehabilitation. They said, Okay, you’re rehabilitated. You can come to Canada. You always have to bring this letter with you, because if they ask, ‘Have you been convicted of a felony?’ And I say ‘Yes, but here’s my letter of rehabilitation.’ Then I can get in. Australia, the last time I went to Australia was with Tommy Dreamer’s House of Hardcore. It literally took an act of Congress, and at the 12th hour, some Parliament official, nobody wanted to sign off on my document to let me in. And somebody knew somebody, and some member of parliament or whatever, signed off on it, and I was able to get in Australia. Now England, the United Kingdom, just started the electronic transfer authorization, and they ask the question, ‘Have you been convicted of a felony that required you to have a 12-month stay or longer in a correction?’ Well, yeah, I did nine and a half years, so I answered truthfully, and that’s why I wasn’t allowed in for Forbidden Door. So coming full circle, as it was told to me, there was a conversation about me being a World Champion. But there were reservations because of my convicted felony.”

On footage of him reacting to Kofi Kingston winning the WWE Championship at WrestleMania 35:

“Well, here’s a double whammy here, right? Because Shad is no longer with us, and Shad tragically passed away. Dude, his final words, he was swimming out in Venice Beach with his son. They were at the beach, they got caught in an undertow. The lifeguard said he made it out to Shad first, and Shad told the lifeguard, ‘Go get my son.’ And Shad went under and didn’t come back up. He washed back up, I think three days later. Me and Shelton, we used to verbally beat Shad up so much. He was a big, goofy little brother. I used to tell Shad all the time, ‘Dude, I can handle you in small doses.’ But what a great guy. And I was mad at him for posting that, because I felt that was very personal, it wasn’t for everybody. But when I saw the response to it and what my response meant to other people, then I apologized to Shad, ‘I owe you an apology, man.’ And we laughed about it. 

But race is a very touchy subject, especially in our current society, and race in wrestling has always been an issue. When you look at various companies that have been around for decades, they’ve never had an Asian champion or a Hispanic champion or a black champion, then that just comes from the mindset that existed. Because if you look like old WWF back in the day, the champion was meant to be marketed to his people. Bruno Sammartino, the Italians, other people liked him too, but the Italians came out for Bruno Sammartino. Pedro Morales, the Puerto Ricans came out. That was marketing. It was done that way. But representation matters. When you have an opportunity to see somebody on the screen that looks like you, that means something to little kids, and lots of people say, ‘Oh, well, I don’t see color.’ Well, you’re wrong for saying that, you should see color. We should celebrate our differences. Different foods, different music, our complexion is different. Don’t ignore it, let’s address it. Let’s talk about it. Let’s celebrate our differences.

Growing up, I’m 51, I’ll be 52 in October. When I went to the toy store, there weren’t toys that look like me. If you’re a little girl my age or older, you had Barbies with blonde hair and blue eyes, they weren’t Barbies that had black curly hair or brown skin, and it matters. And what really drove that point home to me was when I took my son to see Spider-Man Multiverse, Miles Morales. And I asked him, as we were learning about the Marvel Universe and the different characters and everything, he was four, maybe five, and I asked him, ‘Which Spider Man do you like?’ He goes, ‘I like the black spider man, daddy.’ And I thought, yes, that’s cool. His costume is real cool because Peter Parker’s blue and red, but Miles Morales was black and red. I thought he was referring to the costume. And my son said, ‘No, no, no, daddy, Miles Morales, because he looks like me.’ Wow! So in that moment, wrestling has always been this beautiful space where you can celebrate your hero, but there are wrestling fans all around the world that never had a man of color with dreadlocks hold the coveted championship. There are little kids that love wrestling and have their heroes, and I’m not taking anything away from that, but just the fact that when you have somebody like The Rock, who’s a man of color, who I took to right away, I’m like, yeah, me and that dude. It was a moment in time, and I knew that there are little kids everywhere who love wrestling, who could look and see this guy who looks like them. And not just that, but I love Kofi. Kofi is an amazing human being. He’s an awesome husband, he’s a great dad, he’s a wonderful friend, and we were in developmental together, and we laugh about it, because when he walked in the door, I was one of the first people he saw. I was in the ring with somebody, and he had his low haircut. And I remember a little while after us, we were interacting. I told him,’ Man, you gonna be all right, man, you gonna make some money in this business.’ Early on, when we would go out on the road, I was a guy that I’m going out after the show. I want to go to the bar. I want to go to the club. Kofi wasn’t that guy. He wasn’t antisocial, he’d hang out here and there, but Kofi didn’t want to be out partying or whatnot. He was married, he had a family and he didn’t get any flack for that, we didn’t drag him over. Well, I don’t say we because I was still a rookie, but the older vets, they saw something in him, and they didn’t give him a hard time for not drinking shots and hanging out at the bar. It just wasn’t his thing. But they respected the fact that he was talented and a professional. So there were a whole bunch of emotions going on at once. To see this guy that I hold so much respect for, who’s an awesome human being, tremendously talented, and the role that he was filling. Booker T was somebody for a lot of people. But here’s a whole new generation. And it was just such a beautiful, organic moment. There was just a lot of emotion going on. And I was just proud and happy for my friend.” 

On leaving WWE for AEW:

“Everybody knows that The Hurt Business got shut down in WWE for reasons that have never been made clear to me. No one has ever said, and I begged Vince, Bobby begged Vince, but please don’t do this. Vince had his ideas of what he wanted to do, and everybody genuinely agrees that we got shut down way too soon. So when it came time for our contracts, I made it very clear that I don’t want to be there anymore. There are people there in management that I dislike immensely, a person, and I wouldn’t even bother to get into that. But I just knew that with certain people in charge, and that’s how the wrestling game is, that’s how life is. I don’t care where you work. When management changes, some people are out, other people are in, and I knew it was time to go. I wasn’t gonna re-sign. I was in Bobby’s ear constantly like don’t re-sign. Shelton got released. Don’t re-sign. Let’s you me and Sheldon get back together. Let’s go to AEW. I know we can go to AEW and we can pick this thing back up. I’m grateful to Tony Khan for seeing the value in us and giving us an opportunity to come over there and continue to tell our story and help some of these younger talents. Because contrary to what the internet tells you, there are a lot of young guys that come up and ask us for advice and ask us to watch their matches and ask us for insight, and I love being able to pay it forward because people gave it to me. So thank you to Tony Khan for seeing something in us and believing in us and giving us an opportunity to end The Hurt Syndicate in AEW, and for us to finish telling our story.”

What is MVP grateful for?

“My health, my son and the career that I’ve had.”

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