411 Wrestling Interview: Brent Albright

Posted by Jeffrey Harris on 04.15.2009

The Gun For Hire speaks with 411mania for an exclusive interview.

Shortly before I shipped out to Houston for the WrestleMania weekend, I had the opportunity to speak with ROH wrestler, Brent Albright. Going back a few years ago, Albright started for WWE in their developmental territory, OVW. Albright feuded and had many great matches there with the one and only CM Punk, the former ROH and WWE world champion. In 2006, Albright moved up to WWE television on the Smackdown roster where he debuted under the new moniker of Gunner Scott with a huge win over Booker T. From there, Albright was taken under the wing of the late Chris Benoit, but after Benoit took a break from television, Albright was left with nothing to do and was written out of Smackdown after being put in a body bag by Khali. Albright shortly returned to OVW before being let go by the WWE.


Brent Albright as Gunner Scott on WWE Smackdown.

From there, Albright would transition into becoming a regular member of the ROH roster, being billed as the Hired Gun. Albright would later join Larry Sweeney's stable Sweet 'N Sour Inc. and would ultimately quit the group. In 2008, Albright and Adam Pearce feuded over the NWA World Heavyweight title, where Albright defeated his rival in August 2008 to win the belt in the biggest match of his career.

Albright was nice enough to take some time to speak with me and 411mania for a very honest and revealing interview:


Albright in ROH.

Jeffrey "The Vile One" Harris: So congrats, you and the rest of the ROH roster are finally on TV every week on HDNet.

Brent Albright: That's good. We got ROH on HDNet every Saturday night at 8 o'clock, and I want to say it also comes on Monday afternoon at 4PM and a number of times throughout the week. So you've got a number of opportunities if you've got HDNet to watch ROH on HDNet. It's awesome. It's a great step forward for the company.

TVO: I think what I love about the show is that even though it's a one hour show, HDNet isn't one of those major advertising channels, so you get a lot more content for the hour with the limited commercial interruptions.

BA: That's right. The thing that I think is great about our wrestling show is that it's wrestling. You've got a 55 minute show essentially and 39 to 40 minutes of it is all wrestling.

TVO: That's more wrestling than what you get in a two hour episode of TNA Impact or a 3 hour TNA PPV.

BA: That's more wrestling than you are going to get on RAW or TNA. RAW, Smackdown, ECW, TNA – if you look at ratings and you look at WWE/TNA, those shows when they draw their highest ratings is when they have the most wrestling on them. And we are wrestling, 100% wrestling. Its balls to the wall wrestling, nonstop action, not to steal it from TNA or nothing, but its wrestling all the way you know.

TVO: In WWE, you started in the OVW developmental territory where you had a great feud and series of matches with former WWE World Heavyweight Champion, CM Punk. How did you like working with Punk in OVW? That storyline you had with Punk where he would refuse to shake your hand until you earned his respect was one of the most inspired wrestling storylines of this decade.

BA: Yeah me and Punk had some good matches there, we had some good stuff going on. I enjoyed working with CM Punk, and I can only hope that he can say he enjoyed working with me. The stuff we were doing was good, the stories were good. It was compelling and everything about it was good. OVW is some of the best times in my wrestling career that I've had.

TVO: You and Punk had such great booking under Paul Heyman in OVW, but when you moved up to WWE television and became a part of the Smackdown roster, did it feel like the booking started to fail you?

BA: Its just circumstances of environment. When you're a new guy in there in the WWE, all the booking isn't going to be written for you. You have to take the booking that you're given and do the best with it that you could. In OVW, me and Punk were big fish in a little pond, and we were the stars. The booking was written for us. And in the WWE, we were little fish in a big pond and just trying to make our way which Punk has done. Punk has overcome the odds and he's a star. He's a star all the way, and it just didn't work out for me that way.

TVO: With all the great matches you've had in the indy scene and ROH, and winning the NWA World Title from Adam Pearce, do you have a favorite match from the independent wrestling scene?

BA: Well you know, I would say one of my favorite matches in my career was that NWA World Title match we had in New York City. That's been one of my favorites ones of all time. As far as one of my favorite matches in ROH goes, the very first Tables Are Legal Match I had with BJ Whitmer, that's one of my favorite matches once again there in New York. I think there's a match I had in Boston with Bryan Danielson that was a really good match I enjoyed a lot. The stuff I've got going on right now. The feud with Claudio Castagnoli, we've had some really good matches come out of that, I'm really excited about. And it's just a lot of good matches right now. I'm on a role, I'm feeling pretty good, and I'm having some good opponents to wrestle against, and I'm at a good place.

TVO: Do you ever get to go on any wrestling tours in Europe or Japan?

BA: No I haven't been on any tours in Europe or Japan. I'm staying pretty busy here at home with ROH, NWA, and stuff like that. I've got a baby girl that just turned one, and I don't want to be too far away from home right now, I'm going to wait until she's a little older before I go out and start doing more tours like that. Being a father, there's so many things that you miss being gone all the time, and my head is home right now. I want to be home, and I don't want to miss a lot of this.

TVO: Who do you want to face right now?

BA: I'll wrestle who ever they put in front of me. You want me to wrestle KENTA, I'll wrestle KENTA. You want me to wrestle Bison Smith, I'll wrestle Bison Smith. You want me to wrestle the little lumberjack, I'll wrestle the little lumberjack. I don't care—

TVO: I hope that's a hint, I would love to see you fight Bison Smith.

BA: I would love to fight Bison Smith. You know a little unknown fact you might want to know about, me and Bison trained together at APW when we were both first getting started. And I think we've only wrestled one time, and that was back so many years, and we've both gotten so much better since then. I would love to wrestle Bison Smith.

TVO: The big talk of the wrestling industry recently was the highly lauded movie, The Wrestler which features appearances from many ROH wrestlers including Necro Butcher. This is a movie that does address a lot of the grim realities of professional wrestling. And now when professional wrestling is not as popular as it was some years ago, does it worry you when these sort of things come out, or do you think its important for people to see the realities of professional wrestling now?

BA: You know I think people take professional wrestling for granted, and everybody thinks its all glitz and glam, and what they see on TV is the wrestling business and its not. There is a dark and other side of professional wrestling. The people at home don't get to see and feel the aches and pains that we go through. They don't get to go through the relationship problems that we go through. They don't have to go through the travel that we go through, all they have to do is sit at home on Monday nights, Tuesday nights, Thursday nights, and Friday nights, and turn on the TV and watch it and be entertained by what we do. They don't get all the other stuff that we go through to be entertained. So whenever stuff comes out like that is a reality check, I think it is good that they see that. Professional wrestlers are human just like everyone else. We have the same aches, we have the same pains, and we have the same problems that everybody else has. And just because we're on TV doesn't make us immune to those problems.

TVO: Did you feel the movie was honest and were you satisfied with the way it was presented?

BA: I had no problem with the way it was presented. The only problem I had with the movie itself, I was going in thinking The Wrestler, even though we were a part of the filming, I was going in to The Wrestler, thinking it was going to be like Rocky. You know you watch Rocky and you want to run up the steps and work out and take on the whole world. And not to give away the ending, but at the end of the movie its like, *in a dull voice* "Uh, alright . . . let's go wrestle, yeah." Just the way it ended, it was kind of sad. But I think the story that was told in that movie about Randy the Ram, a fictional character, I think it's pretty true. I don't know how probable it is to believe he can wrestle after a heart attack, I'm sure it's happened before. But once again, the struggles of a professional wrestler, he used to be on top, he's wrestling just to make end's meet, and now he's got problems with his family, problems with this and that, that's all true. We all have to go through that.

TVO: So as far as the wrestling business goes, are you focused on sticking with ROH for right now with the TV show and the PPV's?

BA: Well of course. I'm committed 100% to ROH. Of course I keep my options open because you never know what your options are in the wrestling business. But right I'm 100% Ring Of Honor. We want to see it succeed. Everybody's working hard to see it succeed. The thing you have to remember, professional wrestling is a business. And I'm in this business because I love it, but also I have to support a family and make money. And if another opportunity comes my way that's going to be more lucrative, then I would be crazy not to take it. And all the people in the office of Ring Of Honor, and they understand that . . . that if something comes along for anybody, and opportunity for them to make more money and better their financial situation, especially in the economic recession that we're in now, if there's an opportunity for you to go somewhere else and make more money, they want you to take it because right now, the company's not making the kind of money—it can't offer the kind of money that the WWE is or that a TNA can offer, and you know that's fine and they're not afraid to say that. I'm 100% ROH, but I'm also 100% Brent Albright. If an opportunity comes knocking on my door, and its going to make me able to put my family in a better financial situation, I'm going to take it.

TVO: Keep upholding the Code Of Honor, Brent Albright, and thank you so much for your time and your honesty, I very much appreciate it sir.

BA: Thank you very much, I appreciate your time.



As Brent mentioned, new episodes of the weekly ROH TV series air every Saturday on HDNet at 8PM, and the show replays regularly throughout the week.

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