Wrestling Travel Exclusive: Erick Redbeard

Wrestling Travel’s Lockdown Sessions recently caught up with the former Erick Rowan (Erick Redbeard) in an exclusive chat.

Rowan, who began his career in the ring back in September 2003 before signing a contract with WWE in 2011, found success with Luke Harper to win NXT Tag Team championships (x1) and Smackdown Tag Team championship belts. (x2)

Erick Redbeard’s time in professional wrestling has yielded success, and he has seen it all having also been a founding member of the Wyatt Family.

And his wins as a Tag Team alongside Harper and also Daniel Bryan remain highlights to date, and he spilled the beans on the world of professional wrestling.

“Winning the belts at Mania was long overdue for both of us, we felt it may have been a bit too late, but just being at Mania and winning was immense.

“But I got hurt and we ended up giving the belts up, I had a torn bicep at SummerSlam and was out for five of six months,” Rowan told Wrestling Travel.

“The whole time I was out they did not use Luke once, not for TV or anything, then I was working more with Daniel Bryan.

“Vince (McMahon) said to me that he wanted me on the main events scene, and not a background guy, that’s what he told me.

“But I thought that I was killing it. I thought I was doing great.

“They put me and Brodie Lee in different shows when we draft happened, they had me come out two or three weeks against their champion at the time, who was Seth, in a falls count anywhere match, and they said that they want to protect me.

“We then did a tour of the United Kingdom and we were doing fun matches; street fights every night.

“So basically, all of the work I did as a character, to become a star, went out of the window. You play a role and you cannot do anything about it.”

Erick also had his say on the current state of wrestling during the Covid-19 pandemic.

He added: “You need to be in front of people, a full arena. I get that it is a television product now but there is nothing like going to a show and being in the crowd.

“No matter how good the wrestling is, it would have been so much better with the crowd.”

Erick’s full interview is available on Wrestling Travel’s official YouTube and make sure you subscribe for more exclusive interviews!