In many ways, professional wrestling is a love story. Sometimes it’s a love story about a 6’6″ black nerd who makes good on a 9-year-old promise he made on a video game podcast Professional wrestling adapted into animation. AEW wrestler Mason Madden proves that these two seemingly disparate forms of entertainment are actually very similar, and how harmonious the use of anime moves and characters in professional wrestling can be. To learn more about the fascinating crossover, my city Chatting with Madden via Discord, he documented how his steely anime protagonist determination helped him overcome his dismissal from WWE and achieve his dreams.
Mason Madden, whose real name is Brennan Williams, has had a career much like Roman Reigns and the Rock. He is a former football player who felt the calling of sports entertainment. Williams was also an athlete and loved anime before it became popular Athletes admit it toohe hopes to combine the two forms of entertainment within the square circle. As fate would have it, Williams got his chance in 2015 after coming in contact with fellow Texan and WWE Hall of Famer Booker T.
“It all happened very quickly,” Williams said. “I started training with Booker and within about a year or so I was auditioning for WWE and the rest is history.” Williams officially joined WWE in August 2016 and a month later Had his first match on the developmental brand NXT.
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During WWE training, Williams claimed he would make wrestling more like anime – a medium he already felt was a good fit Dragon Ball Z-style Storytelling – Infusing cultural touchstones into the action on the Rooster Teeth network’s Castle Super Beast Podcast (formerly the Super Best Friends Podcast). For example, the various movements of his improved neck-swinging destroyer, Cruel Angel Essay;his elegant football tackle Initial D Spear;and his high kicks, D4C; not so subtle reference Neon Genesis Evangelion, Initial Dand JoJo’s Bizarre Adventurerespectively.
“The most famous one is Nico Nico’s knee,” Williams said. Unlike other moves he conceived after hearing a great animated phrase, Williams credits Nico Nico Knee to former SBFC member turned game developer Liam Allen-Miller ). During Williams’ first appearance on the podcast, Miller suggested Love life!– Inspired by the name of the lark. Nine years later, the Nico Nico Knee has now become Williams’ signature move.
On paper, getting WWE officials to read through the details of Williams’ animated moves seems like an incredibly high hurdle, but Williams said it’s never an issue as long as the commentators are told the name of the move beforehand. time. The only obstacle Williams encountered was the need for WWE management to have creative control over a wrestler’s on-screen persona.
One outside A brief on-screen scuffle with Brock Lesnar and a noisy run The “gimp” faction failed to reachRetribution, Williams never got the chance to properly show off his love for anime in the ring. Still, he made up for the time he had by integrating his influence in subtle ways. Even if it means he’ll be a jobber on screen – someone who loses out to established talent.
“In WWE, there are a handful of people who can be cool and win. That’s never been my job in WWE. I usually get something and then I have to find my truth and what resonates with me in that character. ,” Williams said. “Retribution isn’t cool, but one thing I always get is, ‘Hey, you’re cool in Retribution,’ and that’s because I’m doing my best to play a tokusatsu villain.”
In layman’s terms, Williams puts his self-proclaimed “Great Black Otaku” moniker to the test with a line from Japanese visual kei metal bands such as Dean Gray. In the process, he gave his gimmick a tangible identity beyond the vague musings of Vince McMahon.
In July 2022, in the twilight of McMahon’s WWE era, Williams finally got a chance to become a cool anime wrestler when he joined a tag team with Mansoor. Zolander-Formula 2 largest male model. In this new stable, Williams sees urban gimmicks mostly used for comedy as an opportunity to be as campy as possible and embody a JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure The characters are “real”.
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Unfortunately, William’s long-awaited animation dream will be shattered in September 2023. He and Mansoor were part of a massive wave of layoffs in WWE. While the news caught their fledgling fanbase off guard, Williams said he felt the writing was on the wall.
“The WWE thing, and this isn’t specific to WWE or anything like that, but every quiet time or time when you’re not doing anything, you’re just waiting for a call,” Williams said. “There’s spring cleaning almost every year, and there’s no spring cleaning for a while and you just worry about it coming back. So when we got fired from WWE, I was expecting it. We started seeing these posts on Twitter and I was like, ‘Oh , well, today might be the day. And then I got a call from a Connecticut number, and I was like, ‘Oh, this is it.
He continued: “In a way, I’m mentally prepared, which makes it easier to jump into the next thing, and that’s what I’ve been doing. When I got injured playing football , I just jumped right into wrestling. When I got fired from WWE, we were like, ‘Hey, what are we going to do in these 90 days? Are we going to do this on the indies? ?What are our options? Because now I have three daughters and they all need to be fed, so I don’t have much time to live.
Luckily, the two took advantage of the unique situation of layoffs – they were the only tag team to be unceremoniously cut by the company – by mutually agreeing on their “shared brain cells” to tackle the indies together and continue their competition, thereby gaining an advantage. Williams also strategically used His Twitch channel InsideMxMmaintain an online presence and keep fans engaged.
“We continue to use my Twitch stream, which has been repurposed as our Twitch stream, which keeps us relevant, and that’s because that’s what these 90 days are for, is to get people to quiet down and forget about what’s going on while you’re waiting to resume. time, something about you,” Williams said. “It’s been a very coordinated effort to make sure everyone can still follow us.”
Repackaged as the MxM series, the pair hit the ground running, with Williams likening it to Dragon Ball GT– A grand tour through the world of independent wrestling. The performance of the two captured the hearts of the audience American professional wrestling is at an impasse., Gretel in Japanand Soft wrestling in Uganda. Williams said the team came to the attention of AEW President and CEO Tony Khan, who contacted them with plans to bring them to AEW “as soon as possible.”
The team officially signed with AEW’s wrestling company, ring of honorand has participated in a few AEW shows so far. When Williams began his wrestling career, it was hard to imagine that he would find success with any company other than WWE, thanks in large part to WWE monopolizes wrestling territory across America.
“At that point in my life, I already had one of three daughters, so I needed to fight in a way that I could make money. Obviously, WWE was the only place to do that at the time,” Williams said. “Thankfully, that is no longer the case.”
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“They were very open to our ideas and allowed us to pitch stuff and make our ideas work, which was really cool. It’s really cool to see your idea out there somewhere, for people to see it, and then people do something with it. It’s been very gratifying to have a good response and it’s a completely foreign concept to us,” Williams said.
“Making people want to see more of you is a big problem,” Williams continued. “Having a platform where we can showcase our art in any way for anyone anywhere in the world to see it is a huge boon for us because I think people are really starting to be able to see us What can be done.
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After delivering on the lofty promise of making wrestling more like anime, Williams hopes his legacy in pro wrestling continues the tradition of performers unabashedly letting their nerd-geek flag fly, whether it’s by expressing their love Video games and animation through Ring Gear cosplay their favorite characters Or rely on gimmicks.
“Our purpose has always been to have fun and be the most fun we can be. So if our legacy means anything, it’s to bring fun and joy to wrestling in some way.
If this pleasure means transcending further by introducing Dragon Ball Z Abridged co-creator Takahata 101’s Vtuber character As the manager of MxM Collection in AEW (as Williams suggested during our chat), so be it. All they have to do is figure out how to move him and his virtual bar as fast as Twitch streamer Ironmouse.