Scorpio Sky Interview Part 2 | SoCalUNCENSORED.com

In the first portion of this Interview Scorpio Sky spoke candidly about his thoughts on Kevin Steen, Pro Wrestling Guerrilla, and his run as CWF Hollywood Television Champion. In this portion, Sky speaks about his time working for WWE and TNA, the F-Word Controversy, and his falling out with the Santino Bro. Wrestling Academy.

J: Now, having a little fun, you and I did an interview about a year and 3 months ago and we were talking about what’s in store for 2012 for SS. You used the expression, so perfectly, “The sky’s the limit.” At that time, in 2012, you had recently won the title, you recently gone to Charlotte to challenge for the World Junior Heavyweight Championship in the NWA, in 2011 you were competing at the Urban Wrestling Federation and now here we are a little more than a year later, and since then, you’ve competed in TNA: Impact Wrestling, in fact you even did a pay per view for them that has yet to be released, and you also appeared in WWE programming as a character Howard.

S: Harold

J: Harold, sorry, brain fart.

S: Just listen, they’ll chant it later.

J: Haha, Well it’s been quite a year for you. Can you talk to us about getting the opportunity to have those appearances in TNA, appearing on paper view, competing for the X Division Championship, and can you also tell us a little bit about the opportunity with the WWE?

S: Well, I’ve been incredibly blessed. There’s a lot of guys that are on the exact same level that have just as much talent as I do that don’t get the opportunities that I have. I don’t know what I’ve done, maybe in my life, that gave me the opportunities that I get, but I just have to be thankful for them as much as I can. When I told you that the sky was the limit, I had a feeling things were happening and obviously I was talking to people. I had no idea things were going to go quite the way that they did. I’ve been very fortunate to be able to do some great things in this business, to make some decent money. I’ve flown all over the world, gotten off planes and gone straight to car lots and bought cars with money I’ve made off the tour. Things have been really good. As far as WWE and TNA go, I love both companies. I’m still on good terms with both companies, obviously right now I’m working more with TNA, which I believe fits me better. They’ve both been great learning experiences. I have to give a lot of credit to William Regal who’s been a very big help for me in training sessions, and he’s invited me to try-outs, and giving me tremendous advice, and he’s put me over to the company very well, I have to thank him for that. [TNA has] treated me very well. Dixie was very complementary of me, so was Eric, so were all the agents, they’re all very easy to work with. I did feel a lot at home in that company, I wish I could work with them more actually but there are only a few X Division spots available. It’s really just the champion, and who the champion is working with. It’s not like it used to be, when they had an entire roster. It’s just a different product now. It’s cool, I really enjoy it. Obviously David Lagana is a big part of it there, and he’s a big big help and I hope to work with him more.

J: Now, let me just ask you to play matchmaker. With the concept of the X Division, from it’s very get go, it wasn’t about the weight division, it was more about a style of wrestling, and clearly in the last few years or so a lot of the So. Cal. Wrestlers have been able to make an impact, pun intended, for that X Division. Of course, Austin Aries who was a regular out here who came to the company and won the title. Of course, yourself and Johnny Yuma were able to have an impact by competing for that X Division championship. Even TJ Perkins, both as TJ Perkins and Puma, had the opportunity to compete in that division. Do you think that going forward, it is a kind of business model that will be used by other companies, like TNA, where maybe not have guys on a regular contract, but guys come in and compete for their shows?

S: I certainly hope not! Because it’s a double edged sword. It’s really good because a lot of people get opportunities, such as the people you named: Johnny Yuma and myself, but at the same time it does limit full time spots. So, if they’re always bringing in someone new, which is very exciting for the fans, doing one offs, here and there. It is keeping things fresh. But at the same time, on the talent side, there’s no consistency. That’s, I think, where I’m at right now. I’m kind of a spot guy. They know they can bring me in, they know whatever spot they put me, I’m going to, for lack of a better term, I’m going to fill those shoes that they’re trying to fill and get the job done. No pun intended there. *laughs* But with the one offs here and there it does take away from getting a full time deal, which is what everybody’s goal is. It doesn’t matter who you are, everybody is in this to get a full time deal somewhere.

J: Now, this next question is going to be a little bit more difficult, because you know I have a lot of respect for you. It’s something that I’m sure a lot of people are curious about, I’m sure you have something you would like to add to it. In late 2012 there was a lot of rambling on Twitter about a derogatory term that was used by you. In a 24 hour news cycle, sometimes little things are blown out of proportion, sometimes people just don’t understand. But can you tell us your side of the story with Outsports and basically what you had to deal with when they called you a ‘homophobe’?

S: Well, first off, being called a ’homophobe’ is absolutely crazy to me. There are not too many people out there more open to different races and religions and sexualities than myself. I have a lot of gay friends, I work with gay people, I work with transgender people. Nobody ever approached them asking how I treat them; nobody asked them have I ever had fowl words towards them. Anybody straight, gay, bisexual, Christian, Muslim, whatever it is, anybody that I know, that I am close friends with, or have been close friends with, they won’t say anything negative about me because I’ve never treated anybody different. If you’re a friend, you’re my friend. With that being said, I won’t try to defend what I said. And though it was not intended the way people were taking it, it was not intended to bash the gay community or have anything to do with the gay community, it was wrong to say it. Obviously it did strike a nerve with certain people. That was definitely not my intention. However, I wish I would have been given the opportunity to elaborate. I think what Gary Yap said was right, where a lot of people take one thing and just run with it. If I say just one thing, they’ll run with it instead of asking me to elaborate, saying, “What do you mean?” They just take it and, “BOOM, there’s the headline.” And unfortunately, that’s the bad part of success. That’s not the part of success I ever imagined I’d go through. When you’re coming up and you’re dreaming of doing certain things, you never think like, I’m going to be one of those guys who is going to have negative press. So now I look at things different when I see headlines about a Kanye West, or whoever it is, and it’s a negative thing, I think twice about it. Instead of condemning that person, I think well, maybe he didn’t have the intention that everyone is portraying. So, like I said, I just want to again say that it was wrong and I do apologize to anyone that was offended by it. I have deleted that word from my vocabulary. I have not used it since and I don’t plan on using it in the future, and that’s that

J: I think that’s fair. Times have changed a lot, and I know the vernacular that is sometimes used in wrestling. You can go to the message board from 6-7 years ago, and that word is used in almost every post. But now it’s not like that, so I’m glad to hear that. When you apologized for saying it, it should have resolved the issue. I know Outsports kept going with it, and it seemed like to me they were going after you for saying it. I’m glad that’s resolved. There was a lot of talk early on that it might impact your relationship with WWE, TNA, and even Lucha VaVoom here in Southern California. Clearly, it hasn’t.

S: They emailed every company I work for, including CWFH. They emailed everyone complaining. Instead of coming to me about it, they went that way and they vindictively tried to keep me from eating, so to speak. That, in a way, that really didn’t bother me because the people I work with know who I am, they know my heart. What bothered me was people, such as the fans. When I looked on Twitter and I was told early on by people around me, because I wanted to speak about it earlier, I was told not to. I was actually told by the people around me, don’t make a statement, just ignore it, let it bury. Obviously it didn’t bury, it got hotter. I possibly could have nipped it in the bud earlier, but I followed the advice I was given whether it was right, or wrong, or not, but I almost think at the same time it probably was good advice. If I did come out and say, “I didn’t mean it that way, I’m sorry.” They would just say, “Well, he’s just saying that because now he’s in trouble for it.” The statement the WWE released, I thought, was really the right statement, if I was in that position, I would’ve put out probably the same statement. I have spoken with them since, and I have spoken with people related to them since, and it has been positive talks. We still have a good relationship and we’ve talked about working together in the future. Obviously, I still have a good relationship with TNA because we are working together, and CWFH, and Lucha VaVoom. So, obviously they didn’t accomplish anything. They might have put a few things on hold. But like I said, what might have hurt me the most, was fans who don’t know who I am and for them to take this article so seriously. I would look at Twitter at times and I see people obviously “@ing” me, and they would say that, “I lost faith in Scorpio Sky” and “I lost respect for Scorpio Sky”. People that were fans of mine, turned against me, so to speak. That was a hard pill to swallow and again, I apologize to all those fans and I hope that I can gain them back in the future. It’s just a part of life though, you have to have thick skin in entertainment, and I’ve said that before. You can’t get upset with every word that someone calls you or every bad piece of press that you get. You can’t please everybody. Eventually you get to the point where every 5 people that love you there’s going to be one person who hates you and wants to destroy you. I’m finally at that point, like I said, the negative part of success. You have to take the bad with the good and there’s an old saying that “Tough times don’t last, tough people do” I’m one of the toughest out there, trust me.

J: Without a shadow of a doubt. A couple more questions, I know your time is limited and I appreciate you taking your time out today [to speak with us]. With all the controversy that surrounded what happened some people took exception after the fact, and I guess I’m trying to find the right way to phrase it. One thing that I saw that I though was curious. It seemed that there was an altercation on Twitter between you and Joey Kaos, and he kind of made light of the situation. I don’t think, to discredit the work that you had done and to gain the redemption, but more to stick it to you a little bit. Early on the CWFH training school you guys completed your training at the Santino Bros. dojo, if I’m not mistaken. Now you’re at El Pappies. Is there any animosity between you and Joey, or are things good between you two? Did the school moving have anything to do with the incident on Twitter?

S: Well, not to go into too much detail, because I’m not out to bury anyone else or to tear anyone down, especially someone I’m obviously going to have to work on the same show with. Long story short, I did run my school there and we had a verbal agreement and they did go back on that agreement. I won’t go into detail about what the situation was. Let’s just say they weren’t fulfilling their end of the deal and I gave it a certain amount of time to try to work it out. I was seeking outside help to mediate the situation and we couldn’t get it resolved. Eventually I reached out and made a deal with Pappy to move the school there. Also, a big part of that was, our class was growing. There wasn’t just 2 or 3 guys, now we have 10-12 guys and I needed more room. There’s more room needed because we do a lot of drills and hard, hard training there in and out of the ring, so I definitely needed more space. I finally did reach out to Joey and Sylvia and let them know that I wanted to leave on good terms and I just said thank you, I didn’t address any of the negative things. I just said thank you for everything but we decided to move. Sometimes business doesn’t go your way. Obviously it didn’t go their way in that type of situation, but they obviously took offense to it. Then they took to Twitter and Facebook to basically bury me and take a shot at me and say that I moved because of the flag or whatever it is. I thought it was really childish and I thought it was actually pretty bad business. I thought they should’ve been fired for it because I look at it in terms of, if you look at say WWE or something and you have someone like Kelly Kelly, and they jump on Twitter and they start bashing Sheamus or Batista, or someone like that, what do you think is going to happen? They’re going to be taken care of if they still have a job, especially in a situation like it was. But, nothing obviously developed out of it. We’re not on good terms, but we can be in the same building and not want to tear each other’s heads off. That’s as good as it can be at this point.

To Be Concluded In Scorpio Sky Interview Part 3