What’s the story?
WWE Cruiserweight Champion Rich Swann recently spoke to German radio station, Raute Musik, about the legendary Bret ‘The Hitman’ Hart being his idol since childhood and who his best friend in the WWE is at present.
In case you didn’t know…
Swann is just 25 years old but has already gathered a lot of experience in the pro-wrestling arena with promotions such as Dragon Gate USA, Evolve, Revolution Pro Wrestling, Pro Wrestling Guerilla and Combat Zone Wrestling among others. He joined the WWE as a part of NXT in October 2015 and made his main roster debut on the 19 September episode of Raw last year. ‘The Outlandish’ captured the WWE Cruiserweight Championship on the premiere episode of 205 Live and has held the title ever since.
The heart of the matter
Rich Swann spoke about starting to watch wrestling as a 5-year old and Bret Hart being the first superstar that he saw making an entrance. He remembered watching Hart handing out his sunglasses to a kid and wanting to be that kid for the remainder of his life to try and get those sunglasses. Swann claimed that he has never stopped watching wrestling since that day. He stated:
“The very first time that I ever seen professional wrestling, I remember I was maybe about five-years-old, I was watching a recorded episode of the Power Rangers at about 8:50, and my brother had came into the house with his friends. He grabbed the remote from me and he said ,'No, we're not watching this crap, we're watching this.'
And he turned on USA Network, and the first thing I hear is a loud screeching guitar, and pink lights and hearts splashing everywhere, and Bret Hart comes out with the World Wrestling Federation Championship.
The people just going nuts, and seeing him give his glasses to a kid instantly made me want to be that kid in the front row for the rest of my life, trying to get those glasses. That was how I first started watching wrestling, and I've never ever stopped watching since then.”
Asked about who his best friend in the WWE was, he said that it was difficult for him to refer to someone as a best friend because all of them spent close to 300 days together. However, he did mention Neville as a guy he was very close to. According to Swann, the English wrestler has helped him out while they were together in different countries and he looked up to him.
Here’s what the WWE Cruiserweight Champion had to say:
“I'd say definitely a couple of my best friends, it's so hard to say best friends because we're all together over 300 days a year, so you kinda get close to each and every person in a different kind of way. Definitely a guy who I've always been close with and traveled the world with is a guy like Neville. To go with a guy who I've looked up to and who has helped me out all over the world in Japan, Germany, England, the man is definitely a guy that I aspire to be in WWE one day.”
What next?
Neville will be challenging Rich Swann for his Cruiserweight title at the Royal Rumble pay-per-view. The build-up to their match so far has been quite intense and it will be interesting to see who walks away with the title on the night.
Sportskeeda’s Take
From whatever we have seen of Rich Swann since he made his main roster debut, he definitely has the wherewithal to be the face of the new WWE cruiserweight division.
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