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This was posted two days ago, but it has got to be around a decade old at this point. No one has done a recent interview like this with Al Snow and I'd love to see one done. Love hearing this guy talk.
Al is the most honest wrestling vet out there. All the other vets sugar coat things at the expense of the business. Al just lays it all out there knowing full well it’s going to get him heat. Most workers these days haven’t been properly smartened up and the few that have didn’t listen.
The business has changed. You no longer have to be smartened up to the business in order to work because kayfabe died over 20 years ago. While the WWE’s product isn’t as good as it was 30+ years ago, they still try to do it the right way and I think will be getting back to more of the old way now that Vince is out of the picture. But AEW? They never had it. The owner is a mark. 99% of his employees are marks that openly expose the business every week on tv. I just can’t wait for them to lose their tv deal and fade away in to obscurity.
@@Bls-of1ld kayfabe died 20 years ago. Not 100 years ago. Kayfabe was how they were able to keep it going for as long as they did. It’s how they protected the business. If you wanna get smart to the business listen to Jim Cornette’s podcasts. He’s an excellent source for learning about how they used to do things correctly.
@@dr.floridamanphd “Smartening someone up” means something totally different inside the business. Online fans think it means breaking kayfabe, but the reality is that smartening someone up is enlightening them on the finer details of the business. The ins and outs of psychology, mostly. Fascinating stuff. I’m not sure if any of Al’s seminars are online but they are worth giving a look.
@@ZTrigger85 kayfabe goes beyond just the finer points of how to put on a match and make it look good. It’s secret keeping. They learned that from the carneys they worked with/for. But wrestlers took it to a whole new level. Everything was kayfabe. The characters and gimmicks were part of it. How they kicked the crap out of each other but never sustained major injuries. How to book. How to hot shot. How to promo. The purpose of a manager or a valet. And on and on. Everything was kayfabe because it was all about keeping the secrets of the business safe. When someone breaks character to talk about a match they had 40 years ago? That’s breaking kayfabe. Explaining how they used to get color and conceal the gimmicks being used for it? Kayfabe. When you smarten someone up you’re explaining the business to them. You’re giving them the secrets on how to be successful and make a lot of money back before everyone had a guaranteed salary on contract. Breaking kayfabe is exposing the secrets of the business no matter how big or small. When Jim Cornette finally caved and explained how he had more or less booked the Montreal Screwjob, he was breaking kayfabe. He was smartening people up to the behind the scenes business of one of the biggest events in modern pro wrestling history. All of these shoot interviews are breaking kayfabe because they’re exposing the business to one degree or another. They’re dropping the character and talking about the match, and the goings-on around it in general, in greater detail than they would’ve back then to an outsider. That’s why I told that commenter that if he wanted to get smart to the business to listen to Cornette’s podcasts. He has many hours of himself going over why things were done a certain way and why they worked all those years ago and why the modern stuff, especially in AEW, goes over like a fart in church.
Looks like the Smarks in the comment section are proving his point loud & clear 😅 Al Snow is right about certain fans who think they know the business because they watched a Cornette Shoot Interview. Like he famously said, how can someone be SMART to something they have never been involved in? And before anyone says: "I don't have to be a 5 star Chef to know how to cook." Well you better know how to cook otherwise your opinion is meaningless.
👏👏👏 You nailed it! As you stated, too many so called "smart fans" think they know the business, cause they read the dirt sheets and watch shoot interviews on RU-vid.
And you sound like a parrot that wants to exclude himself from the internet community by writing a long comment about nothing, just repeating what a former bitter midcard wrestler said, that was just using his frustration to the people who didn't cheer for him when it mattered the most. Al Snow doesn't know how to cook either, he was just a server at best lol
@@lancethefilmguy9392 you pretty much write the same comment on anyone because you can't think for yourself. Congrats, you proved to be another sheep lol
I did a couple seminar s with AL Snow before and he,s the real deal,He talks a lot of shit but backs it up with great matches and is even pretty funny while critiquing wrestlers
I remember a segment of Smackdown where Big Show came out and yelled at the Tough Enough contestants for shortcuts before giving them a body slam. IIRC, his first match was against Hogan for the WCW World Title and he won. Not even the Tough Enough guys got that kind of fast tracking.
He’s at them all the time, it’s like another day for him…and since when are wrestlers supposed to let the fans know they’re happy to be there? They aren’t singers.
I turned on the tv and saw a wrassling thing was on and a skinny dude with his hands in his pockets , was bouncing around the ring, is that guy a star?
Do people want to watch him??? I used to watch a guy that did nothing but pratfalls in the ring, flipped himself over the cornerpost and used the same damned catchphrase promo for 40 years. His 2 moves of doom were a chop and a figure 4. Many argue he was the best in the business. Even though I think he was the most overhyped boring thing I ever saw in or out of the ring, I can't deny that he's a star.
@@brianbenoit6883 Flair didn't have a very exciting moveset but that could be said about Hogan as well. He could talk really good as most of the wrestlers from the '80s could, he had a unique look which was very important back then, but that's about it. The reason why the attitude era was so successful was for the first time we had wrestlers that could talk, had unique looks, but they could also work. The few that couldn't talk didn't get very far. Even our mid card acts looked impressive. Today, it's the same fucking archetype for every wrestler. Flippy shit, endless spots, promo work that's all over the place, all of the matches feel like an attempt to jerk off Dave Meltzer's ego, and of course all of the wrestlers look like scrawny woke ass liberals. None of them look like legit tough guys. None of them look like they have any business being in the ring. It sucks. They are relying on aging acts like Chris Jericho, now you have some little millennial bitch accusing him of misconduct which makes me sick. This generation is nothing but professional victims and attention whores. Wrestling is dead
I disagree with this sentiment. If we ain’t buying what you’re selling, every single mistake is magnified and we’re unable to suspend disbelief. Al knows his stuff but his mindset is 99% wrestler and 1% fan.
Al Snow is so mad that his career NEVER made it past lower quartile of the card mediocrity that he gets angry at passionate fans. He's wearing a JOB Squad shirt. The fans are dumb while he says everyone knew wrestling was fake but you need to protect the illusion? "Pin me and pay me while I protect the illusion." What a joke.
@@KingCrab85 I like the quote, but I don't know if that's always true. Dave Meltzer has poisoned the views of a lot of fans. For example, he supposedly gave 5 stars to Randy/Steamboat at WM 3 and Hogan/Andre 1 1/2. Hogan and Andre was a huge match for its time and I'm guessing a lot of fans were into the spectacle of it. He's influenced a lot of how people started to look at wrestling.
We could have gotten Brock vs Batista but catering to the minority got us the yes movement and the streak being broken. We could have gotten rock vs roman now we have a boring cody rhodes title reign
This was back when Al still had a big chip on his shoulder and was full of piss and vinegar for the business he would later go on to be a great trainer and teacher.
Every person he described is currently ruining the AEW roster turning wrestling into a parody of wrestling. Just look at the tournament they are running. There’s like two faces and 8 heels. People don’t boo the heels anymore
@@lancethefilmguy9392Al got over due to a mannequin head. Not mocking it, I was a fan of him in ECW but prior to that WWE had no use for the guy and once they got him back they really didn't do anything with him till Tough Enough.
@@WilliamRFC91 no he's just stating facts how know it all smart marks like yourself act like they know how to run a business because they listen to a couple of Jim Cornette video's and quoting his words to sound like as if they ran a promotion in their life. It's okay. I understand and he was never acting like he was over like Steve Austin level or Hogan... Gossip girls lying, typical
Wrestling will die when vince does. He made it entertainment and sustainable. Itll be collapsing mini empires like it was before. WWE with vince using gimmicks, characters and storylines while doing his absolute best to cross over to the mainstream will always be the only path to a lasting model.
Wrestling was incredibly popular before Vince McMahon as well. It was just a regional business with multiple companies as opposed to one nationally broadcast touring promotion.
You mad the truth hurts? Lol nothing he said was a lie sometimes a man needs to get it off his chest n that's what al did he didn't give a damn about the question 😂😂
The good ole days when wrestlers shook down Taker for "training". Wrestlers had no workers rights and many of the top guys literally brutalized trainees and this doesn't even touch Japanese wrestling history of brutality and assault somehow being passed as honorable to endure instead of literal criminal activity.
I think Tough Enough was bad for the business, overall, it exposed too much. I mean again, the mystique, the mystery, had to be preserved, shows like Tough Enough did too much to let the cat out of the bag. Like Cornette said, when’s the last time you saw a Magicians school on television lol Can’t put that on TV, there has to be some doubt lol I remember first learning wrestling was “fake”, when I read Mick Foleys book, Foley is Good lol Like at 12-13 years old or wtv lol That was the first time I KNEW wrestling wasn’t real, it was scripted. And did it kill it, well sort of lol You definitely don’t take it AS seriously anymore, because you know it’s not actually real, they’re not really hitting each other, they’re not really winning or losing the belts, it’s not a real competition. I mean you can still like suspend reality and pretend it’s real lol But it’s not the same, I don’t think it was ever quite the same. As before you knew for SURE that it wasn’t really real.
Vince McMahon made national headlines in 1989 when he clarified that it's predetermined entertainment in order to avoid paying taxes to the states' athletic commission
@@NoneofYabiz-rx3zi Yea well I was 1 year old in 1989, so wtf lol I, personally, first learned wrestling was a work, at like 12-13 years old. Maybe 14 lol Don't recall, something like that lol I mean it wasn't so open lol As it became after the year 2000, where it became like common knowledge lol Up until then, wrestling was still wrestling. Frankly when they changed it to WWE, that's when it like cemented lol LIke okay this shit ain't real. That was the true turning point, because they basically admitted completely, that it's just entertainment, hell we even changed the name to WWE lol Like wtf.
@@NoneofYabiz-rx3zi THAT WAS THE TRUE TURNING POINT, when they changed it to WWE lol Then you were like, wow this shit really ain't real lol It's just entertainment. I mean I grew up watching the Attitude Era, and like WWF wrestling lol When it was like the hottest show around, as big as the NBA or anything. And it was the WWF, WWWFFFFF lol Wrestling. Then it changed to WWE, and it became like ehh lol It's WWWWEEE, like some watered down version of wrestling, where you know it's all scripted and a show. It just wasn't the same, I lost interest around that time. Couldn't take it as serious anymore.
@@lancethefilmguy9392 He never was a main eventer anywhere. Heck, he started wrestling in 1982 and it took him 13 years just to finally get into a sizeable promotion (ECW). Wasn't a main eventer there. Wasn't one in SMW. Wasn't one in the WWF. Never even was IC Champion at a time when the belts were passed around like 5 dollar hookers. He never was a star. His biggest claim to fame is when Walmart famously removed his action figure because some feminist idiot thought it was the decpatiated head of a woman. That's his legacy.
Al Snow in every interview with him comes off as pretentious and thinks he is the smartest guy in the room but he drew no money in wrestling. The only time Al Snow was ever over in the wrestling business was when he had a mannequin head. No one paid money to see him or has cared about him otherwise. He’s propping up OVW which is dead and hasn’t produced any stars in years.
And yet he’s worth an estimated $3M. Go figure. No, he was never going to beat the WWF Champion at Mania or win the Royal Rumble, but his merch sold like crazy. His schizophrenic gimmick was insanely over. The fans loved Al Snow. And yet here you are bitching about him online while he became a millionaire living his dream.
It's usually all these former midcarders that are like that, they come off as wannabe geniuses and know it alls but then I wonder why they don't get a job in the creative teams of any wrestling promotions. At best they either end as coaches for new talent or do their own podcasts when they can whine about how bad wrestling is
@@martifrey3357 the reason why they don’t end up working on the creative teams is because they’re not Hollywood writers. They’re wrestlers. Especially the guys that came from the territory days and know how the business is supposed to work. A promo should be 30 seconds to no more than 2 minutes. Not 37 minutes to open the program. These guys know what works. They know how to tell the story in the ring. But when you have guys like Bruce Pritchard and Kevin Dunn in the boss’s ear, the wrestlers’ entrance to the ring is more important than the match itself. These days it takes almost 17 minutes just to get through the entrances for two guys, followed by two minutes of wrestling before going to break, and another 2-3 minutes after the break before the finish. They often have to go to commercial during the damn entrance because it’s taking so long! This is what happens when you hire outsiders to script the show. They don’t know the business. They don’t know what sells. They just know how to write for television. So if Jim Cornette, Road Dogg, Kevin Nash, and whoever else want to bitch about the product they’ve earned that right because they know better than the marks who don’t know their ass from a hole in the ground who think they know more about this business than the guys with 30+ years in it.
Al mad that smart fans realize he never drew money. And still can't with OVW. And the biggest marks are in the ring. All brought up by Al's generation.
@@honestreviewer7788 you're 40... Been watching wrestling since the 70s, longer than you have been alive... Let's not go there millennial. You weren't even brought up in the 80s. He's right about you fans acting as if you know how to run a business when in reality you guys just wanna play the know it all gimmick and watch a couple of Jim Cornette videos and quote him to try and sound like you have a clue how a wrestling business works better than those who actually lived it. It's quite funny seeing smart marks cry about this and you're proving his point already. Cry some more child
@@honestreviewer7788 you're only 40... I've been watching wrestling longer than you've been walking on this earth... What is Al right about? Oh you know, how smart marks such as yourself play the know it all gimmick and think they know what's best for business when in reality they don't and they simply forget they're just fans who do nothing but sit down and watch Cry some more kid
I want to know where all of you guys come from? How come anytime then anyone ever says anything negative or that they don’t like some thing and then I’m sure you like it. They are better or they’re jealous or they’re looking for a job. …. Guess what just because they don’t like something that you like doesn’t mean you’re right. He is passionate about his view of what happened to wrestling , wrestling hasn’t been good for over 20 years. And now you basically have Triple H and Shawn Michaels, running a Wrestling company. It’s just gonna get worse..
“Why can’t everything stay the way it used to be back in the old days?!” It’s like saying “ I’m the greatest train conductor in the world!” OK, great… People are taking the airplane now
@@perfectblindguy There was a time I was only waiting for Gilberg. lol If you actually ask attitue era fans about Gilberg and Al Snow I would bet you they would immediately remember Gilberg
@@Chaz4543 he had an entrance and a few decent matches. He didn’t get the mouse head over, his matches against Too Cool were abysmal and rubbish with the dog. Not about taking wrestling seriously, it’s about terrible tv.
Al snow himself is a mark. I've never seen a more exaggerated view of pro wrestling in my life 😂 and his views on teaching wrestling are extremely jaded and laced with dead ends. How can you be teaching a class of wrestlers and the best advice you give them is basically, don't be a wrestler because your stupid and can't do it. And he would've gotten a bigger push back in the day if he had the body back then that he does now, and kept his negative Nancy view points out of it.
Jesse Ventura said in a interview never belittle or think your above the fan's because it's those fan's that make them stars maybe Al needs to learn this
You dont have to have top level experience to be able to teach. Some of the best coaches and trainers never competed anywhere close to the highest level of any game. Such an uneducated view on your part Al.
@@johnjancar6152 No, you dont. Remember when Michael Jordan tried to be a coach? What about Mike Tyson? At best they are great at convey nuggets of information, but a teacher or a coach is made of a different caliber. If you need that explained instead of being able to reflect and understand its merits, then you're just another ego idiot like lower card Al.
Al you lost just about every match in your career. From a credibility & believability standpoint you could not hold a candle to the main eventers. After 1999 put you in there with even upper midcard guy & you'd have been squashed within seconds. You are a level below Horowitz & Mike Sharpe when it comes to guys that lost every single match.
@@Nintendomaster91Hell most ppl in the world are “jobbers” lol I mean anyone who has some job, some 9-5, is rightfully a “jobber” lol You literally lay down and let some company smash you lol Exploit you to no end, then pin you 1-2-3 lol So you can get paid and have some type of career to avoid homelessness, I mean that’s most people lol In the world. I mean what’s your point, there is no point lol I think AL SNOW might know a little something about the wrestling business, more than YOU, who never been in the wrestling business lol
Al's claim to fame was carrying a mannequin's head talking to it and the crowd chanting " we want head" Al has a BIG ego for being a glorified jobber comedy act the business
