Nick Aldis: SmackDown GM, One More Match, Adam Pearce, Randy Orton RKO, Mickie James
podcast.chrisvanvliet.com
On laying down the law on SmackDown:
"Naturally, sometimes I have to tell guys stuff they don't want to hear, and that's when the executive speak comes out. Because in my mind, I think if I was in that situation, if I was the wrestler in the equation, hearing that annoying, corporate babble would make me infuriated. So I think, Okay, this is a good time to slip that in, particularly if I'm dealing with guys like Randy or Cody. Or with Roman, the very key sort of early interaction for my character was the thing with Roman, right? It was like, I thought I'm gonna walk the line here of sort of have some physical presence, but I'm gonna also lay on a bit of the corporate stuff just to sort of establish the dynamic."
On having a unique GM character:
"I mean, look, my whole thing on this was I had to make it my own and I had to create, to me, in my mind. This is also based on some early conversations with Hunter about it. He said 'I want this to be different. Your General Manager schtick is not going to be the typical authority figure we've seen necessarily in the past. You're not necessarily going to be this.' Obviously, there's been some major differences between some of the characters you've seen in those roles. But it wasn't going to necessarily be this sort of insecure, power-hungry, sort of guy right off the bat. He said, 'I want you to be more you, kind of calm and collected and all business.' I went, I think I know what you want. Obviously, there's a lot of coaching involved and stuff like that. But in the beginning, I was like I think I've got what you have in mind, we sort of went that way, and it seemed to work."
On fans realising that he is a wrestler:
"It’s sort of humbling, yeah, a bit of a humbling experience. It is funny because the anniversary just passed a few days ago of me and Cody doing two out of three falls in Nashville. So usually the All In match and that match are the ones that tend to get sort of annualized. It came up again and all these comments are just like, What? no way! It’s funny, because it's always going to be that way, right? Because that's just the difference between WWE and the rest of the wrestling world."
On making the transition to the GM role:
"Yeah, it's fun. I mean, like I said when I mentioned this before another interview, so I don't want to harp on too long. But when the General Manager thing was presented to me, I talked to Mickie about it and I said they're offering me the General Manager. She was just like, 100% take it, you'll kill that. And I said well good, I did. I already said yes, and I just was like, I'm gonna be the best f*cking General Manager you've ever seen and we'll go from there."
On possibly saying goodbye to his in-ring career:
"I guess. But I also don't necessarily see it like that. 100% I see it more as a sort of maybe not a full-time wrestler, but I don't know. Look, it gets asked all the time by everyone except me. I have never once said, hey what about me? Could I wrestle? Because I don't need to. If and when the time comes it'll be what they want, and it will hopefully be the right time. I just told them that if you want to do that, I'm ready."
On his debut and Dominik Mysterio:
"I love working with Dom. Also, shout out to Dom, because he was so instrumental in my introduction as a character. I always make this point, I was introduced on WWE television in a Triple H in-ring segment. If you'd have told the 13-year-old Nick Aldis that he would have fallen out of his chair. Hunter was my guy. I loved Bret when I was a kid, but I saw Bret like a superhero. When I first started formulating this idea of I think I want to get into this business, actually get into it, it was because of Rock and Hunter. It was their feud in 2000. But as much as The Rock was the man who captivated my imagination like so many of us who were in the business, probably half the roster, if they were honest with themselves, it was Rock. But for me, I was watching Hunter, and I realized without articulating it at the time, I was studying him. Because I was sort of going well, self-awareness. I don't think I can be that guy, talking about The Rock. Because I'm not American number one, and I'm more cerebral, I had a bit more of that, I could relate more to that approach. I think people who are familiar with my in-ring work, they see a lot of Nick Bockwinkel, who I studied a lot, Harley Race, a little bit of Flair. I think if you look at Hunter, it's quite a similar combination. Anyway, my introduction to the character is by Triple H in a Triple H in-ring segment. Fantastic, sign me up! But if Dirty Dom Mysterio hadn't been in that segment, would have been a much more difficult position for me to get that one thing, which was the big fan of your dad line, because when I was looking over it in the day, obviously I'm brand new, but I'm also here as a producer, so I have a bit of freedom, a bit of leeway to make some suggestions. Hey, what if we did like this? I remember looking at the way it was laid out, and I saw this sort of suggestion of saying something about [being a] big fan. I was like what if I put a pause in there, in my mind I was like that's kind of my sense of humor. That's my sort of sh*t-talker type of style. ‘I’m a big fan of your dad.’ I said it, and Hunter and whoever was around at the time, all sort of laughs. Okay, so I went, Okay, that might work, and in my mind, because when I was looking at it, I knew that this segment isn't necessarily about me. It's I'm here to facilitate and that's sort of what that character is a lot of the time. But at the same time, I've got 10 seconds here to f*cking smash something. I was like that's it, that's my bit. That's my moment there. Because then it's like, then here comes KO and it started and that's kind of the business of the segment. But I looked at that little and I just kind of went, that's my kick the door down moment, because I knew I had to do that like I did. I knew that the majority of people watching would probably not know who I was. I would have loved to have debuted in Chicago or New York or Philly or something where there would have been maybe a higher concentration of fans who [knew me]. Tulsa, Oklahoma, not what I necessarily have described as my strongest market. But I was like, hey, I'll take it. But because Dom has so much heat, and because that Dom character is the guy you love to hate, which is, to me, that is the sweet spot, especially in the modern era, that's the sweet spot you want as a heel character. Have to be a guy you love to hate. Sometimes it's hard now to have, because it's hard to have heat. I mean real heat, because real heat then becomes like, oh, well, is it real? And obviously you presented them with this conundrum of well, we don't want to have to sort of disclaim to people well it's not real, because what's the point? That's ruining the whole thing. So you have to be a guy they love to hate, and that's Dirty Dom. And now with Liv. To me, Liv Morgan, I don't know what you want to call it breakout. I shouldn't really say break out. She's been around a long time, but she's the MVP of 2024, she leveled up in a huge way, immensely."
On being recognised by the fans before his debut:
"It was pretty hard to shut it out. I had to sort of shut that out, because obviously, typically, the the ones who are closer to the front row are usually the ones who are much more sort of die-hard fans, too. So, yeah, of course they're going, Nick Aldis! What are you doing here?"
On Adam Pearce:
"I love the dynamic between Adam and I. It's a lot of fun, and it's something that you can go to, then get away from for a bit and go back to. I think Hunter’s approach and look, I don't like to speak on his behalf, obviously, but I think that a lot of the time he does like to have a sort of combination of long-term planning and some improvisation where it's sort of like, to me, I've always felt like that's the key is you need to know where you're going. You need to have a destination in mind, and you need to have, and I think you sort of have to have pit stops along the way that are sort of maybes, maybe we'll go there, maybe this will lead to this, maybe we'll get to that. Randy Orton RKO’d me out of the blue last time SmackDown was in Brooklyn. Then a week later, it's like, he cuts me a check. He goes, Oh, that's for next time, but we haven't gone back to it thankfully. But it's like, I think Hunter likes having fun with little things like that, laying some breadcrumbs here and there, planting a seed, whatever. And that's how I look at me and Adam is like there's always potential there."
On the RKO from Randy Orton:
"I still feel funny. I know we're in 2024 but I still feel funny about giving away [the secrets]. But it's like, whatever I've done it now, I can't not give it to you. It was called on the fly. It's Roman, it's Randy, who's he gonna sign with, and then he was gonna sign the SmackDown contract and stare down Roman, and I think that was it. And then it was like, somebody told somebody told somebody while I was ringside. So I had to go in and call it. I’ve never gotten to the bottom of who was behind it. I still feel weird giving away the magic. It seems to have been one of these moments that connects. So it's like, there seems to be a heightened level of interest on that particular moment, because it was quite out of the blue, even for me."
On a possible TNA return:
"I guess I hadn't really thought about that, but it might be fun as the GM, depending on the context. Obviously the Machine Guns just debuted. That was cool. It was cool for me to be involved in that, because of our history and everything. But again, I think one of the really exciting things about the Paul Levesque era, for lack of a better term, I tried to coin the Renaissance era, but that doesn't seem to have taken off."
On a possible UK WrestleMania:
"Absolutely. I don't think that you have the Mayor of London campaigning, using it, he pledged to try to get WrestleMania at Wembley in his campaign for Mayor of London. I mean, what else is there that solidifies the status of WWE? Mayor of London is not a small political position, in the UK. It's really, in a lot of ways, the second most sought-after position after PM. A lot of times it's the precursor to being PM, it's like, when did you ever think that someone running for Mayor of London would say reelect me, I'm going to do everything I can to bring WrestleMania to Wembley Stadium. Think about the hoy polloi types who would have been like, oh, talking about wrestling ghastly and now, and like he's campaigning with it."
On being the best SmackDown GM since Teddy Long:
"Can I just say it's so cool to me that I ended up sort of in that spot. Because even before I was ever involved with WWE, I would bump into Teddy all over the place at conventions and different events and stuff like that. He was always so complimentary to me and he was one of those guys that was like you need to be up there, you need to be in New York. So it's cool for me to sort of get that spot and to be talked about with him, because I love Teddy so much."
On a possible catchphrase:
"No. I mean, first of all, it's not something that I think that you want to force, ever. But I also think once get into sort of catchphrase. I still feel like I'm establishing the character. It takes a long time."
On Chelsea Green:
"I mean, it's a night off. It's great. You don't have to think very hard because she's just going to give you endless material. What a great example of maximizing your minutes. What a great example of taking something that a lot of people would have seen that particular opportunity. We've had conversations that kind of tiptoe around this, actually, with each other, because Chelsea and I know each other a long time. We're around the same age, we've sort of been in a lot of the same places. We've had quite similar career paths in some in some respects. I think for her, there was this thing of will I ever get the shot on the main show? Then it comes. And I'm sure that this probably isn't what she first had in mind. I don't want to speak for her, but I would venture to say that what she's doing, it probably isn't like what she envisioned a long time ago. But man, Has she taken this and run with it."
What is Nick Aldis grateful for?
"The opportunity from Paul Levesque, the support of my wife and embracing my faith."
