As noted, WWE broadcast team member Corey Graves recently appeared as a guest on Lilian Garcia’s Chasing Glory podcast for an in-depth interview. Featured below are some additional highlights from the interview.
On the passing of “The American Dream” Dusty Rhodes: “It was like the whole world came crashing down on me. I couldn’t breathe, I felt like I was gonna burst into tears. I didn’t wanna cry in front of anybody else, so I made a beeline out of the gym up to the locker room. And William Regal was in there. He was standing there, and I walked in and broke down. I told him and all he did, he just stood there and hugged me. It wasn’t like there was anything he could tell me that was gonna make [it better]. Essentially, my dream just came crashing down at a moment’s notice. And he was there for me, and consoled me the best that he could. And by that point, I was panicked. Because I had worked my whole life to get to this point. Now I can’t do it anymore. What the hell am I gonna do? I have a family to support, I’ve sacrificed everything in my life to be here. I’m right here at the cusp and now it’s gone. And that’s a lot to fathom in one moment.
“Luckily I had a lot of people — friends and coaches that were around that tried. I remember Bill DeMott was the coach that said, ‘Hey, do you wanna go home, do you want to take some time off?’ And I said, the last thing I need is time off. So I just jumped into everything. So a few weeks went by, we had some conversations about what I was gonna do. They weren’t gonna just release me, it wasn’t like I did something wrong. It was just a crappy situation. Essentially, they gave me the keys to the kingdom and said, ‘Hey, figure something out.’ So I went and tried everything and anything. I started running the music at NXT live events, learning the production end of things. I was helping out Dusty with promo class, which turned out to be one of the best blessings in disguise. I got taken out of the ring, but for the better part of a year I basically stood side by side with Dusty Rhodes all the time. So I got to spend countless hours with him and get to know him and learn. I probably learned more after getting shut down from wrestling about the business and characters and just life.”
On Triple H being the one who broke the news to him: “I will never forget. I would argue it was the worst moment of my life. We were at the Performance Center, and Triple H who is the boss, he was there. And I had been on the shelf for a few weeks, and I was just like ‘Man, I don’t know what’s taking so long.’ And I’m talking to the doctors and saying ‘Hey, when can I get back in?’ And they’re just saying, ‘Well, we’re just waiting to see some things, we’re waiting on some tests.’ So I couldn’t get a straight answer from anybody. So I walked up to Hunter, and he was in the middle of a workout. I was passing through the gym and I said, ‘Hey boss, do you have any updates for anything?’ And I don’t think he was prepared at that moment to tell me, but he didn’t want to sugarcoat anything, and he just kind of blurted it out in a way that — I think I caught him off-guard, so he didn’t have a gentle way of telling me. He was just like, ‘You know, I would expect the worst.’ And he tried to justify it, but you could tell he wasn’t ready for that in the moment. He didn’t want to lie to me, so I respect that.”
Check out the complete episode of the Chasing Glory with Lilian Garcia podcast featuring the Corey Graves interview at Spreaker.com.
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