Compiled by Kari Williams

On Jan. 30, Former WWE, TNA and ECW Superstar Al Snow paid a visit to The Fan Shop located in St. Louis, MO prior to the training seminar he conduted with Dynamo Training Gym. In between signing autographs and memorobilia and talking wrestling with the fans in attendance, Snow accepted an interview with Missouri Wrestling Revival.

Inbetween signing autographs and memorabilia, Al Snow took time for an interview for Missouri Wrestling Revival before leaving The Fan Shop for the training seminar he conducted at Dynamo Training Gym located in St. Louis, MO.

Kari Williams: How many years have you been wrestling?
Al Snow: This May will be 27 years.

KW:Which titles have you held?
AS: What titles have I held? *slight pause*

KW:Or just the major ones…
AS: I’ve held the WWF Tag Team Titles, WWF Hardcore Title, and the WWF European Title.

Independent Wrestler Michael Morbid waits while Al Snow calls Morbid’s girlfriend, who wanted to attend the signing, but was unable to because of her work schedule.

KW:What first hooked you on pro wrestling?
AS: You know, I don’t know. I just knew that it was something I wanted to do, that I had to do. I just fell in love with it.

KW:There’s nothing inparticular that stands out?
AS: Well, you know, I remember when wrestling came back on TV in the area where I lived in Ohio, we had the original shiek…we were part of his terrirtory then it went out of business. And then we didn’t have wrestling for quite a while, and then when I was like 13, I believe, we actually got cable television. I know that’s kind of odd to think, ‘You didn’t have cable television?,’ but they didn’t at that time. And, we got cable television and they started broadcasting Turner–TBS–and we got Georgia Championship Wrestling—NWA Georgia Championship Wrestling. The first thing I saw was they were showing a seen from the omni where Dusty Rhodes was supposed to be the special referee against, I believe it was Tommy Rich and Wahoo McDaniel, against Ole Anderson and Ivan Koloff, and they jumped Dusty in the parking lot prior to it. He was wondering, white shirt, torn, blood dripping all over the place, and so after that I was hooked.

Superfan and Former Independent Valet Barbie Shultz has her autograph jacket signed by Al Snow.

KW:What were your aspirations when you got started and have they changed since you’ve been in the business?
AS: Nope. My goals when I first started were exactly the same then as they are now, and that was, I wanted to have the kind of matches that people would remember. I wanted to make a name for myself in the wrestling business that would last beyond my time in it, and I wanted to make really good money.

KW: What is your favorite match you’ve been in and why?
AS: Gee, I’d say everytime I get to go to the ring. That’s my favorite match.

KW: Is there anything you would consider the highlight of your career?
AS: The highlight of my career?

KW: Or your greatest accomplishment.
AS: I’d say my greatest accomplishment is that I’ve been able to do what I love to do for as long as I’ve been able to do it.

KW: Out of the companies you’ve worked with, which was your favorite to work with or the best to work for?
AS: All the different companies were good for different reasons at different times, but I really enjoyed ECW not just for the obvious reasons of the success that I had there, but also because it was a great comraderie in the locker room and the atmosphere as far as the fans was just amazing.

KW: When did you decide to come to Dynamo for a seminar? Or were you asked to come?
AS: They contacted me about coming.

KW: Why did you decide to come?
AS: Because they asked me to come and do a seminar. The reason I go and do seminars is because I love the wrestling business and there are things about the wrestling business that need to be taught to properly understand the wrestling business, and if they’re not taught and passed along then what happens is the wrestling business changes and it becomes something else. And then it goes away, and that’d be a shame considering that wrestling, other than jazz, is the only other true American art form and it’s lasted since over a century now, and it’d be sad to see it disappear.

KW: How many seminars do you conduct per year? Or does it just depend?
AS: It depends. It depends. Probably last year, I probably did 25 to 30 of them.

KW: All over the country?
AS: All over the country and including Canada too.

KW: Why have you chosen to work with wrestlers on the independent level?
AS: Well, to kind of pass along what I know, and I still enjoy—I still very much enjoy—getting a chance to go out and do what it is I love to do. I never got into wrestling just to be a WWE superstar or an ECW guy or a ‘blah, blah, blah’ guy, you know. I got into wrestling just because I love to wrestle.

KW: If you could give anyone wanting to get involved in wrestling one piece of advice, what would it be and why?
AS: The one piece of advice I would give them is that make sure you are absolutely passionate about what you want to do, and don’t treat professional wrestling as a joke, treat it as what it is. It’s a profession. It’s not a hobby. It’s not a fantasy. It is not something that you just undertake and do on a whim. It’s something that you have to be dedicated to and be willing to sacrifice to have any type of success. And whether you have all the personality, the charisma, the size, the build, the look, the gift of gab, physical ability, you have all of that, [but] if you don’t have passion, you’ll never get any kind of success.

Al Snow signs ‘heads’ while chatting with the owners of The Fan Shop about the local wrestling scene, as well as the goings on in WWE and TNA.

KW: How do you think the Beyond the Mat documentary affected the wrestling business in general or do you think that it has at all?
AS: I don’t think the Beyond the Mat documentary has affected the wrestling business one bit.

KW: Why?
AS: Why? Because the wrestling business is the wrestling business. You know, you’re not exposing or taking the lid off of Pandora’s box on wrestling by watching the Beyond the Mat [Documentary]. You may show another side of it, that might give people either a greater appreciation and respect for it, or, even a greater disdain, but those people are going to have that no matter what. The fact that, the only thing about professional wrestling that’s fake is that it’s predetermined. When that became obvious was back in the 1930s when the newspapers in North America stopped covering it as if it were an actual sporting event. Since then, everybody’s known. It’s not all of a sudden, let’s pull back the curtain and realize that a magician is not actually performing reality-altering spells. We all know that magician is not actually doing that, but we pay to see it. Wrestling’s the same thing.

KW: If you could change anything about your career, what would you change and why?
AS: I would change all of the mistakes that I made and the missed opportunities that I now realize I had that I didn’t fully take advantage of that I could have.

KW: What kind of opportunities?
AS: The one big opportunity is that everytime I would go to the ring, and I had an opportunity, and I didn’t realize that. I thought that it was because I either won or I lost or I did certain things or didn’t do certain things, and every time I went to that ring, I had that opportunity to do business and make myself a star, and I didn’t look at it that way.

KW: Is there anything you’d like to add?
AS: Keep an eye out for me, I am now involved in an even more extreme sport. I am part of the Russian Roulette Players Association. And, you know, it’s pretty extreme because every match is a sudden death match. No pun intended, but I’m gunnin’ for rookie of the year, but we’ll see. There are a couple good players that are coming off the injured/reserved list, and they could cause a problem as far as that—as far as my chances of being rookie of the year.

Paul Morad, the winner of the MWR T-shirt raffle poses with Al Snow, who appeared at The Fan Shop on Jan. 30.

You will be able to meet former WWE and ECW wrestler at the The Fan Shop This Saturday at 3:00 P.M. The Fan Shop is located at 1393 Covington Manor Lane in Mehlville, Mo. The signing is sponsored by Southern Indiana Pro Wrestling.