Interviews
Carlo Cannon Interview
Published January 19, 2012 at 10:06 pm by Marek Indyka
You would be hard pressed to consider yourself a fan of Australian Wrestling and not be aware of the name Carlo Cannon. The self-proclaimed ‘sexiest man in wrestling today’ has made a name for himself not only as one of the very best wrestlers in the country, but also one of the most widely traveled. Based out of Melbourne, Carlo finds himself working all over the country, and has competed in every state to feature their own regular promotion, winning championship gold in many of them along the way.
And it isn’t just our fair shores that have been traversed over. Whilst still in his rookie year in 2005, Carlo found himself venturing to Canada a total of three times, to train under the watchful eye of former WWE, WCW and ECW wrestler, Lance Storm. But, as Carlo told Rumble Magazine, it almost didn’t happen that way.
“I wanted to train like Lance [Storm], so I researched where he trained, and he trained at the Dungeon [run by the Hart Family]. I moved over by myself, got an apartment, got a job, family left me, and it just didn’t work out. There were problems with the Hart Dungeon; they didn’t have a training school at the time. I heard on the radio that Lance was opening up a school, so I pretty much put $500 in a cheque, sent my resume in the mail, and I got a letter back, which I still have, saying that I was going to be his first student.”
Now, half a decade on, and being a trainer in his own right back in his hometown of Melbourne, Carlo still speaks very highly of his trainer.
“If your goal is to get to the big leagues, why not get trained by someone that’s done it all? He’s been to Japan, he’s been to Mexico, he’s been in WWE, all three major feds, so he knows what it takes. And not only that, but he’s an amazing teacher.”
The training also helped open up doors for Carlo, that may have been a distant dream had he have remained in Australia for his entire career. “I think it gave me a lot more exposure being in his very first class, and eventually going on to help him teach two other classes. It showed that I was pretty competent, and Lance put me over well, so I was pretty lucky, and my reputation traveled pretty quick.”
A prime example of that would occur just a few months ago, when Carlo, along with other past and present standout trainees of the academy were featured on the Canadian TV show ‘World of Hurt’, a reality TV style show filmed in the same vein as WWE’s Tough Enough program. The ten episodes focused heavily on their strict training regime, a program that Cannon estimates left him with over four hundred hours of in-ring training over the duration of his three trips.
Upon his return to action in his homeland, Carlo found himself working with the cream of the crop of Australian Wrestling, so its no surprise that he’s not only forged a strong bond with some of his colleagues, but they’re also some of his best opponents.
“Slex and I had a really good match at WrestleRock. He’s probably one of my favourite opponents, and one of my best friends, so we’ve got a lot of chemistry. We get along really well in the ring.”
But it isn’t just Melbourne that ‘Cash Money’ is producing his best work. Carlo is quick to add that a lot of his best work is taking place in the Perth based promotion, Explosive Pro Wrestling. Recently, he participated in Western Australian mainstay Davis Storm’s retirement match, and cites Davis as another top opponent. On top of that, he has a list of wrestlers who he feels will further propel Australian Wrestling into the future.
“Guys like Mikey Nicholls, Shane Haste, Damian Slater, even Mikey Broderick and Sean O’Shea, there’s a lot of talent out there, and they’re all diverse and spread out throughout the country. Shows like WrestleClash bring them all together, and I think that’s what’s really good about WrestleClash. The talent are all really young and really fresh, and the future looks bright, as long as everyone is still working towards the common goal of making what we’re doing successful, I think we’ll all be pretty good.”
In addition, Carlo has brought home some of the knowledge he acquired whilst training overseas, and has opened up his own training school in the grand ballroom of the Thornbury Theatre; the venue inhabited on a regular basis by Melbourne City Wrestling. It’s a labor of love for Carlo, who has the desire to provide the same feeling to his students that he felt when he first started training.
“I love training. I love teaching, its one of my favourite things to do. You know, when I first started training and I learnt something new, especially something I was really interested in, you get that little smile, or that warm feeling that makes you go ‘this is awesome, this is what I want’, and giving that to other trainees and other people that want to wrestle makes me feel really good.”
And when he’s not training, Carlo still finds himself competing on many of Australian Wrestling’s biggest shows. On October 22, he will be facing Dowie James (the former Champagne Pyro) in a Falls Count Anywhere match at MCW’s first anniversary show, WrestleClash. He’ll be following that up with an appearance at EPW’s tenth anniversary show, Re-Awakening, where he expects to be in their Invitational Tournament, adding that he hopes to bring that trophy back to Victoria.
Beyond the next few months, the twenty five year old knows exactly where he wants to be, and has his goal clearly set in his mind already.
“I definitely want to go back overseas. I plan on going back to Lance’s, and training a bit more. I’d love to give Florida a shot and see what the developmental [feeding ground for WWE] is all about, and seeing what the tryouts are all about. The more I learn, the more I know, the more I can give back, and I feel with the way I’m teaching, if I make these kids really good, then I’ve got to learn more to keep getting better.”
- Interview conducted & article written by Michael Jozis.
http://www.carlocannon.com/
http://www.melbournecitywrestling.com.au
http://www.epwperth.com
