Hornswoggle Talks His Success On The Indie Wrestling Scene

There are a lot of stories in WWE history that are hard to forget. Just about everything Hornswoggle did during his time in WWE has a quality of something you should never forget. But when he was released from WWE, he was afraid that was all she wrote for him in pro wrestling.

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On a recent episode of Bischoff On Wrestling’s Overrun Hornswoggle had a chance to speak to Eric Bischoff about his wrestling career. During the interview he revealed what happened after he was released from WWE.

Swoggle said as soon as he received his “best of luck on your future endeavors” call from WWE, he called Curt Hawkins. He called Hawkins before he even called his dad or anyone else. Swoggle said Curt Hawkins told him to “stop crying, quit being a p—-, and I’ll call you back.” When Curt called him back in an hour he had lined up thirteen indie dates for Swoggle.

Hornswoggle went on to speak about how well he is doing and how healthy the indie wrestling scene is. “I’m going to India with Impact for three days, maybe four days — I forget with all the travel. When I come back literally next Thursday and I have my local show, my company’s show ECW Wisconsin on Friday. Then I’m in Montana the weekend after and then I’m in the UK straight to Australia the week after that. It’s crazy. I’ve had in the last year, I’ve had like five weekends off.”

“What I like about it is if I wanna be home I can be home, if I wanna be gone I can be gone. Now I’m missing my son’s last day of school which sucks, I wrestled on his birthday which sucks. But he gets it. At seven-years-old he gets that if I miss something we’re gonna make it up. Or if I’m not exactly there for a baseball game or a football game, my dad or his mom or someone will Facetime me and I’ll get to get to watch some of it. Or send me video or it and I’ll get to see it. That’s the good thing about technology these days and I’m so grateful for that, so thankful that technology is what it is. Because I still don’t miss out on a lot. I miss actually being there, but I don’t miss out on events. Like Fit [Finlay] would have when he was breaking in.”

Hornswoggle went on to talk about how indie wrestling seems to be exploding in popularity. “It’s huge. The independent scene is a thing of — it’s crazy that it’s never been this big. I don’t think it’s ever been this big. I don’t ever think there’s been a spotlight on the independent scene as there is now. It’s fun. I am having fun. And the thing is with it is — you realize that there is wrestling other than WWE.”

“But you also gotta — if you make it that. You gotta be a hustler. You gotta be ready to put your name out there and do — sometimes reach out there to promoters and make your schedule. If I only have a Saturday show, I gotta try and get on a Friday or Sunday show after that, that same weekend in that area. Because that’s where your money’s coming in. Your money’s coming in by the number of shows you work. It’s not a contract anymore. You know when I was sitting at home with WWE still getting paid, but just sitting at home […] I was comfortable. Now if I’m not on the road, I don’t work and I don’t make money.”

“I love it though. I truly love it. I love the hustle. I love the random little towns, it’s fun for me. And it makes me happy to realize that there’s something else. That when I got released and Hawkins goes, ‘this is not the end, you’ll be fine’ that he was right. Which he was. Because when he was released and he did great and made a name for himself and got on the indies and he got hired back [to WWE].”

Hornswoggle continued by saying, “there’s defiantly more stepping on toes with the territory system I feel but yeah […] look at the guys [WWE’s] hiring nowadays. They wouldn’t have hired them five, six years ago. They wouldn’t have gotten a look at them five, six years ago. But it’s because the independents are such a growing thing.”

If you use any portion of the quotes in this article, please credit Bischoff On Wrestling’s Overrun with a H/T to Still Real To Us for the transcription