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I probably don't have any more of a bigger following on the Internet than anybody else does - I just probably have a stranger one.
I put in the same hours to get good at this as a surgeon who went to college. It's just a much less important job in the realm of society.
I had a hard time going to school. I probably wasn't the most pleasant young person to be around. I kept a very tight circle of trusted people.
It is very easy to get hurt in a match like the Royal Rumble. It seems very run of the mill, but it's always the stupid stuff where you get hurt.
In a situation like the Rumble, I'm looking around constantly and keeping my back against a rope as much as possible so I can see what's going on.
I wasn't 'gifted' in the way that Brock Lesnar or Roman Reigns or somebody like that is gifted, in that they got the physical attributes and so forth.
In the back of my mind. I always knew WWE was where I should be and where I would end up. Or where I could end up. Where I deep-down wanted to end up.
I could totally see myself limping down the aisle when I'm 60, jumping off the top rope and breaking my hip. I could be a hilarious geriatric wrestler.
You have these magical moments in these live events that are never captured on film and that only live on in your memory. Those are always my favorite.
I was pretty happy with what we were able to do on 'SmackDown.' It was one of the best, most fun runs of my career because it was essentially a new show.
In North America, there aren't too many big places to go, so you find that pretty much all of the best talent in the world ends up filtering through WWE.
Where a new guy may only know one or two ways to do something, I know all of the moves, and I've forgotten more stuff than the newer guys might even know.
I can't imagine, I can't get in the mind of a wrestling fan who wants to break news that spoils a surprise for somebody. Would you want a surprise spoiled?
There's no, 'Oh my God, somebody else is gonna come back and take my spot.' I wanna have a spot that's my spot, that nobody can take away, because nobody else is me.
I listen to some Hank Williams before I go out. I tell some jokes. I have fun. I don't waste too much energy thinking about it - I like to save that all for the ring.
You'll find that all WWE performers, when they go on to any television show or set of any kind, we're more prepared that we get credit for. We don't get enough credit.
It's not like I'm not constantly dealing with a litany of injuries that I have myself. If it's not one thing, it's another thing, but I've just been able to keep rolling.
I may not be the biggest guy in the world or strongest guy in the world. I don't have those gifts. But I will take more punishment, and I'm willing to withstand more abuse.
A lot of guys come out, and they do the exact same thing, are in the exact same mood, and have the exact same entrance every night, I really just make up a lot of crap as I go along.
A lot of people say, 'It takes a lot to beat him,' or whatever. I'm trying to show you in the most literal terms, my body is indestructible, whether its glass or fire or barbed wire.
No one really has any idea about me. To me, what I give you is what happens onscreen, and past that, anything you're coming up with in your own head, you're creating in your own mind.
I like, at the end of the night, to be walking back to the locker room limping and sweating, spitting blood out of my mouth. I've been doing this for a long time, and it comes naturally.
I've always fed off negativity and wanting people to hate me. That attitude really fueled me for my entire career. So being a guy that people like and want to cheer for is the weird part.
The thing is that, not only do you learn so much about being in front of a camera and stuff being on 'Monday Night RAW,' but at the same time, I'm not really acting on 'Monday Night RAW.'
There are times when you got to put a little 'extra' in, especially on a card at WrestleMania or SummerSlam because it's no time to hold anything back. You have to pull out all of the stops.
I have no fear of anybody or anything happening to me in WWE because nothing can be as bad as some of the injuries I went through and some of the grotesque things that have happened to my body.
I don't go out there and put on any sort of front for people. If I'm in a good mood, I appear in a good mood on TV, and if I'm in a bad mood, I just go out there and look like I'm in a bad mood.
Being a nocturnal creature myself, I often find myself in dark alleys or strange places late at night. If there were werewolves around, I'd be likely to run into them, being the night owl that I am.
It's such a high-pressure form of live entertainment that I found, once I got out there, being on a movie set isn't that different from being on 'Monday Night RAW.' It's all stuff that I was prepared for.
I'm not some schmuck they just hired and threw down in the Performance Center and gave him an entrance or anything that like. I've been around enough and have enough experience; I know what I'm doing pretty much.
I hate ladders. I don't mind heights, but I hate getting hit with ladders and falling into ladders. Anything where there are ladders involved or inanimate, unpredictable objects or multiple people gets dangerous.
I think I'm one of the only guys here - I mean, we have so much great talent here, but I can do anything. I can literally do anything. That's not me being like, 'Oh I'm so great.' I'm just like, 'I know what I'm doing.'
You're always going to get comparisons. Everybody comes out and says, 'He's the next so and so,' or, 'He reminds me of so and so.' I have so many influences and stuff in my brain, who knows what's going to pop in and come out.
I've been around in WWE for quite a while now and before that had - even in Florida - I've been all around the world and seen every type of style in opponent; the way I was trained and stuff, I got a lot more tricks up my sleeve.
I always liked the guys who lasted a long time in the match and had endurance. People like Ric Flair going an hour at the 1992 Rumble, or Shawn Michaels and the British Bulldog being one and two in 1995 and both lasting until the end.
From day one, The Shield was a vehicle. It wasn't, 'This is what we're doing for the rest of our lives.' It was, 'This is the vehicle we'll use to bust into WWE, to ride to the top of it, and then we fight each other.' That was always the plan.
I kind of miss that whole NXT thing. When I was there, it was Florida Championship Wrestling with Seth Rollins and the other guys who were there. I wrestled on, like, local-access Florida TV in front of 30 people. It was a tiny little situation.
A lot of people feel they spend enough time watching me go through the good, the bad, and the ugly, so they feel like they know me and are a part of it. I'm kind of like a part of people's families. You can't buy that kind of connection with people.
I remember, the first times watching WWF, Bret Hart was kind of the man, winning King of the Ring, technical master, and he could go for an hour. He had a million different moves he could beat anyone with. Just rugged, dynamic champion. He was so cool.
The first time that somebody handed me a sheet of paper with a promo on it, it was like a 'throw up in your mouth' kind of moment. And it's not, like, their fault, you know? It's not the writers' fault. But if was my world, there would be no written promos; there'd be no scripts.
There's a lot of guys in WWE - you would know who they are - you know you're going to see the same thing every single match. You know you're going to hear the same thing every time they pick up a microphone. You know John Cena is never going to get mad at you no matter what you do.
I know a lot of guys say that when they are younger - 'I'm gonna get it, get my money, and get out' - and then end up wrestling until they're 50. But that could end up being me, too. I can tell you I want to get out early and end up eating my own words. All of a sudden, I'm 50, and I'm still walking out there.
I like to think I'm a good mechanic for the company. 'Oh well, we sprung a leak? Call Ambrose; throw him in there.' I like that because I think it has really upped my value with the company, and I think that they realize nowadays, too, another Dean Ambrose isn't going to walk through the door anytime soon - or ever.
As far as social media and all that, I understand connecting with fans on a different level, but I don't feel the need to open myself up to the opinion of everybody in the world with a phone or computer. I just don't get that, being connected to everybody on such a superficial level like that. It's not really for me.
Once you get within a few weeks of the show and it becomes WrestleMania season, the energy starts picking up, and the energy feels different. You can feel it in the air, and every show means a little bit more, and everything is a little more focused and directed. Everything's directing toward that day of WrestleMania.
I didn't even know what Chikara was... So I show up at the show, and I'm expecting a normal wrestling show... there's like a f#%ing dude in a dinosaur outfit walking around, and there was a stipulaton that someone would be sent back in time... Not that I disliked it or anything, I was just like, what the hell is going on.
I said, 'What I'm going to do is dress as plain as humanly possible.' I'm not going to wear anything fancy, I'm not going to have fancy music, I'm not going to have fancy pyro - I'm literally just going to be a dude walking into the ring. I'm going to look like I just got off work from a construction site, and I am now punching you in the face.
I have no fear; I have nothing to lose. I'd rather burn out than fade away, and I would rather go out in a blaze of glory on my own terms than let anybody dictate anything to me in my career. I had the chance to wrestle The Undertaker [on Smackdown in 2013], and one thing I took away from it was that he looked me in the eye and said, 'Trust your instincts because you've got great instincts.'
I don't like my wrestling or entertainment in general to be too clean or predictable for me as a fan. When I say clean, I'm not talking about dirty jokes, middle fingers and stuff like that. I'm actually not even a big fan of that. A lot of people talk about the attitude era being so great but a lot of it was terrible crap, sex jokes and over-the-top terrible bad comedy. It was Jerry Springer-like. They made a joke about a woman's breasts. Hilarious, but where's the wrestling? I look back on a lot of stuff now, and I'm like where's the wrestling? It's just a lot of crappy jokes.