Rhino interview w/ Denise Salcedo

[Chris]

Writing credit: Denise Salcedo

On his 27th anniversary in pro wrestling, I spoke to the "War Machine" Rhino. With nearly three decades as a professional wrestler, Rhino (real name Terrance Guido Gerin, 46) has seen and done it all in this business.

Rhino on what keeps him motivated to keep wrestling after 27 years in the business

Rhino explained that he keeps wrestling because he's afraid that there won't be any wrestlers left to connect between the older and newer generations of wrestling fans. He also explained that is why he never changed his appearance.

"That's another reason why I never tried to change my look, or style, or my hair color or cut my hair, the only time I wear my hair down is when I wrestle and I can't wait until the day that I can cut it. I try not to change too much, you never want to see your heroes get older, that's why I try to keep the same look so I don't change,” Rhyno explained. “I am that connection from when a kid went to watch me in ECW with their dad, and now they are taking their child to watch me wrestle twenty years later."

Rhino says he plans to still wrestle for five more years

Currently Rhino is still an active member of the IMPACT Wrestling roster, so I asked him what he still would like to do in the wrestling world. He informed me that he would like to wrestle a few more years and slowly transition to a producer role to help younger talent.

"Well hopefully, God willing, I can have five more years in the wrestling business, I wanna slowly taper off, and then move more to the behind-the-scenes as a producer and along the way work with people and boost up their careers and and help them get on the path that they are supposed to take,” Rhino said.

When asked about who he would like to wrestle that he has never wrestled before, Rhino named Kevin Owens.

Rhino says he left WWE In 2019 when his contract expired because he was unhappy

Rhino confirmed in our conversation that he was offered double the money to stay with WWE in 2019, however due to the lack of house show appearances and traveling, he decided he would rather take the pay cut and do more for the business outside of WWE.

"Well I was very fortunate that they were even thinking of signing me, and doubling [the pay],” Rhino said. “I am not in [the pro wrestling business] because I am looking for glory, I am in it to be in the ring with the younger talent to show them a little bit here and a little bit there, and I also learn because I never stop learning."

"With WWE, I would have been sitting at home more, because they had I wanna say close to 250 people under contract,” Rhino added. “And I understand that. I never wanted to be a focal point. I would have liked to do the live events and travel with some of the guys because you learn the business in the car traveling town to town [without having] to be on TV. But the thing is they wanted guys to get experience, so when I was only on the road once a month I was starting to hate life. So I chose. Do I collect a paycheck or do I leave, make less money but make more of an impact in wrestling to help other guys, to go on the indies, try to find the next Rock, the next Stone Cold, the next Lita. So that's what my decision was and IMPACT was such a good fit because Scott D' Amore is the guy that trained me, and I had seen how he built this roster. If you look from 2019 to now, the roster is a world series team."

You can check out the entire conversation with myself and Rhino below.

 

[Leon TrotSky]

Rhino vs. KO would be wild tbh

 

[Zany Clowny]

 

[Leon TrotSky]

Actually, wait a minute, he has wrestled KO before

ROH Death Before Dishonor X « Events Database « CAGEMATCH - The Internet Wrestling Database

Internet Wrestling Database

www.cagematch.net

 

[Chris]

Actually, wait a minute, he has wrestled KO before

ROH Death Before Dishonor X « Events Database « CAGEMATCH - The Internet Wrestling Database

Internet Wrestling Database

www.cagematch.net

That's Kevin Steen