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Omos On His WWE Absence, Brock Lesnar, AJ Styles, Bobby Lashley, Wrestling In Japan
https://cvvtix.com - Get your tickets for INSIGHT LIVE in LA and NYC with VIP Meet & Greet! Omos (@TheGiantOmos) is a professional wrestler currently signed to WWE.…
podcast.chrisvanvliet.com
On the challenges of being his size:
"Shopping for clothes is difficult. Pretty much having to buy really expensive furniture so I don't break it. So I've broken couches. I remember seeing my one of my best friends, Dennis. It is in Arizona, and before I got signed to WWE, I was living with him. I broke his bed because he gave me beds, and I slept on the bed for like four months, and I just broke it because it couldn't hold me. So I have to make a constant effort to make sure that I invest in actually well-made furniture to sustain my size, because I will break it."
On how many times he has been asked how tall he is:
"If I count it, I'll be a multi-millionaire. I promise that people ask me every single day, multiple times a day, it never stops. It’s, 'Do you play in the NBA? What do you do? How tall are you?' I actually have fun with it. My wife hates it because she cringes at us. I go, 'I’m not a basketball player, I'm an accountant.' I go, 'Yeah, what do you think? Just because I'm tall, you think I should play basketball?' And they go, no no, no, no, no, no, no, no. I go, 'I'm just joking.' Just to lighten up the mood. But I love having fun."
On when he had the big growth spurt:
"I was always a tall kid. I remember my primary school teacher used to call me tall man as a kid. By the time I was 11, I was already six foot. Then by the time between 11 and 13, I had this huge growth spurt. By the time I was 13 I was six seven."
On when he realized he was not growing at a normal rate:
"Not until I got to college in the States. It took me years of playing basketball, and then the doctor realized that what's going on with you is not normal."
On what would have happened had the doctor not realized:
"I'd have been dead. So it's kind of similar to what Andre The Giant had. It's called acromegaly. I think Big Show has it as well. But mine is kind of unique, because I have acromegaly, I also have gigantism, just means that you just grow really, really tall, and I have what you call Partial Cushing's disease. I don't know how to explain, it's kind of complicated, but I have all three combined, and it was the first time in endocrine history that they found a patient that has all three combined. So I'm a really, really rare case, to the point where they had a journal published about my case. Yes, it was a treat for endocrine doctors to say we have read about this in textbooks, but you're the first person to admit that actually has this condition."
Is there any pain?
"I have no pain, I'm pain-free. I'm great. The thing about it is once you keep on growing your heart, your organs keep on growing too. Then it's like cardiac arrest and things of sort. It's a protein; you probably heard about this in bodybuilding. It's called IGF-1 [Insulin Growth Factor]. My body produces too many growth hormones, so I have to take a medication to stop my body from using the growth hormones so that I don't get any bigger."
On getting the condition diagnosed:
"I walk in and they pull out my MRI. They go, Hey, so we did the MRI on your brain. They go, you see this little dot right here, you have a pituitary tumor. We're gonna take it out or one or two options. Either you're gonna go blind or you're gonna have a heart attack. Because my body was just producing so much growth hormones, it was making my heart enlarged. So they said, We need to get this fixed now. So that's how I found out about that. I know it was a blessing. I was 18 years old, and it was just me and myself in college. My parents were back home in Nigeria. I'm like, this huge that has been put on me. I never expected anything like that to happen my entire life."
On what car Omos drives:
"I drive a Honda Palisade, which sounds crazy, but it has a lot of leg room, and I recline, sit all the way back to drive it. I do need a bigger vehicle. I would acknowledge that. But for right now, it does the trick."
On his passion for fragrances:
"This is embarrassing, and before I say this, I do acknowledge that I do have a problem [laughs]. I have about 350 bottles. I can wear one for every day of the year and not wear the same fragrance twice, it works."
Do you not have your favorites?
"It's hard, they’re all my babies. It's something that I discovered. Everybody likes nice smells, but something I discovered I had a passion for when I went to Saudi Arabia, and it just kind of hit me out of nowhere, and I just fell down a rabbit hole. But I don't have a favorite. It's so hard because it all depends on how I'm feeling."
On receiving advice from The Undertaker:
"I've been blessed from the first day. I remember the first time I met him. I was at NXT, this is when we were still filming at Full Sail. I’m walking to Gorilla in the back, and I see Hunter. Hunter goes, 'Hey, I have a special surprise for you.' He [Undertaker] just walks out, and I rarely get star-struck. I just go oh it’s The Undertaker! He goes, 'Hey big fella', and he just gave me a big hug. I was shocked. I was shook. I couldn't believe my eyes, and from that day it just became like a bond. He's pretty much like a, because he can't be my dad, sorry Taker, but he's been such a great influence on me, and I appreciate him. We talk quite often. He gives me advice. Whenever I'm trying to figure out a match or a spot, I always ask, What would Undertaker do? Because I do admire how he's been able to transcend the business, because he has built one of those characters that, even after he passes, that character is going to be forever."
On competing in Japan:
"What happened was I saw Tavion Heights of NXT and Josh Briggs go to Japan. I was just watching the videos and everything. Then, as they were doing shows in Japan, an interview came out with Great Muta, they asked him, Who would you love to have in Japan? The first name he mentions is me. I'm like, Oh, wow. That's great. I didn't think he would remember me, but he did. So I kind of threw the idea to a couple of guys about Japan. I remember seeing Road Dogg at the PC, 'Hey, do you have a couple of minutes to chat? Not really busy right now, but I would love to go to Japan.' He said, 'You know what? Let me think about it.' And then a couple months later, he was like, 'Hey, you have an opportunity to go to Japan. Do you want to go?' I was like, Yes! I want to go to Japan. To be honest, I am glad I did. I needed to go to Japan."
On his style in Japan:
"I would say a little bit [different]. I took a lot of things that I learned while I was working with MVP. There were a lot of things that we talked about when we were on the road together, because he taught me a lot. I just took all that style. When I was there I called him, because he wrestled in Japan. I called him. I called Shelton Benjamin, and they go, 'Hey, in Japan, you’re a heel, be a heel. They love it, be the nastiest heel.' I'm like, Oh, really? So I really got to embrace that. And they loved it."
On when he expects to be back in the ring:
"I don’t know. I'm just waiting. I'm kind of in a scenario where I'm kind of like a special attraction. Whenever that time comes, I'm ready."
On the cage match with Bobby Lashley:
"Another fun thing about that match is that's also one of my favorite matches, the cage match, because that was also my birthday. I think that was 2022, and I was sick as a dog that day. I was so sick. Oh, my God. I remember the couple days before we had the show in Wilkes-Barre. We had a dark match, and this is when we used to do the big man class. Shout out to Adam Pearce and Jamie Noble. We used to do big man class, had a little snuffle but I was fine. Then I catch my flight on Friday morning to Philadelphia, end of my flight, I don't know what happened, whether it was atmospheric pressure, but I just start sweating balls and having a headache, and I just feel so horrible on the plane. I'm thinking, maybe it's just the plane. I landed in Philadelphia, go to the bathroom, splash water on my face, and then I'm like I'm okay. I get my luggage, try to get a rental. I’m gonna call an Uber to the hotel, thinking to give myself a couple of hours, take a nap, I'll be fine.
Every hour that I woke up that day, I got even more progressively sick. I had to call the doctor and say, 'Hey, I'm here. I'm at the hotel, but I am so sick.' I had a phlegm coughed up in the sink, and it was just like gunk of this colored mucus in the sink. They're like, we're gonna send you a COVID kid to test and make sure you don't have COVID. Luckily, I didn't. Spent the night in Wilkes-Barre, I felt better. Drove from Wilkes-Barre to lower Maryland, because my wife was doing a rotation at that time in medical school. I drove out there, when I joined her there, she drugged me up that whole weekend. Because we had this cage match, we had it advertised for the whole week, and it was my birthday. There's no way in heck I was missing that match. So that whole weekend was just recovery, hydration, and drove to the show in Norfolk, Virginia. We drove that Sunday night, got there. On Monday morning, everybody goes, Are you okay? I'm like, Oh, I'm fine. I'm fine. I was like, 50% okay. I did the match, and something just happens to me. It just happened to me in the ring. I just performed and whatever you’re feeling just disappears. I felt amazing in the ring, Bob and I put on a great show. Everything was great. Then on the drive back, just felt sick again. I guess I got sick on the way back, because my wife drove halfway. She also felt sick. Then I drove the other half, and it was a miracle to make it back to her apartment that night. But yes, that's the story of that day. So that deal, which sticks in my head."
On whether there were concerns the cage would not break:
"Yes. I was like, please, break. Because if it doesn't break, it is gonna be a sh*tty spot. So I said, Please, please, please. It was on my birthday. I said, you cannot mess this up. You have to throw this man through this cage with all your might. And I'm glad I did, because if you didn't."
On whether there were concerns the cage might break too early:
"I wasn't thinking about that because I was so in the moment that I just forgot until we got to the spot. I was just in the match, and we're just having fun, until we got to this spot, like, Okay, time for you to break. You better break!"
On whether there were concerns Brock Lesnar could not German suplex him:
"No, Brock, he's a specimen. I wasn't worried at all. People forget he's a farm boy. He throws hay for a living. So him picking me up at 300-400 pounds. I knew he was gonna be able to do that. If Bobby can pick me up, I knew he could. That was my first time ever taking a suplex. Never taken it in training, never done it to PC, not from anyone. That's the first time I ever took it in German suplex was during that match."
You didn’t do it the day before?
"No. He's such a great dude. Because I remember during rehearsals, he just goes, 'Hey, how many Germans do you want to do?' I'm like, 'Brother, it's you Brock. However much you want to give me, brother. You’re doing me a favor with this match. So however many Germans you want that makes you look good, we're gonna do it.' He goes, okay."
On the F5:
"That F5 was easy. The Germans sucked. But for the first time in my entire life, I never felt someone hook me that way, and I could feel the muscles contract when he picked me up. For the first time I felt that oh sh*t, I can’t do anything."
On being thrown through the announce table by 6 guys:
"That was Money in the Bank 2022, I believe. I had never been put through a table. I don’t know what that feels like. I remember during rehearsals, the guys picked me up. It was Sheamus, Sami, Drew, Matt Riddle, Austin Theory, Riddick Moss and Seth Rollins all pick me up and I was like, whoa, this is high. I said this really feels like taking my finish. Oh, wow. This is high. So they go, because they had a crash mat out. And they go, 1, 2, 3. Oh sh*t, this is gonna suck. I remember during the spot, during the actual match, and we did a spot, if you watch the video I'm just laying down there like this. I just close my eyes, and I'm just dreaming. All I hear is 1, 2, 3. It was the longest fall, the highest fall ever. I just saw my body going, and it kept on going. Okay, where's the table? It kept on going and kept on going and kept on going and I hit a table. And I was like, Oh, this sucks, but okay, I'm here. It's done. My part of the match is done for the night. But I was pretty high. I was like, wow, this is hot."
On playing a ninja on TV:
"We shot at like 5 am, 6 am. They were shooting all night because they had all these spots they had to shoot. I remember The Viking Raiders running through the glass, and the glass exploded. Dawkins spearing Ivar through the glass, and it exploded and he had glass shards in his body he had to take out. We're just off shooting. It was just so much fun. I remember pulling out the katana sword, because I'm a huge nerd, so you give me a sword I become a five-year-old kid. I had a blast. I was smiling cheek to cheek under the mask. I'm like, wait, I get to be a ninja on TV?! You’re telling me you’re going to give me a katana. Thank God it wasn't sharpened!"
What is Omos grateful for?
"My health, my wife and life."
