Mance Warner is a blue-collar babyface who is wildly beloved. As such, comparisons to names like Stone Cold Steve Austin and Dusty Rhodes are ever-present.
Speaking to Spencer Love, Ol’ Mancer opened up about these comparisons as well as whether he feels authenticity is important in professional wrestling.
Credit to Spencer Love for passing along the following quotes
The importance of authenticity in pro wrestling:
“Now, I can’t speak for nobody else. My thing has always been I ain’t going to bulls**t nobody. I ain’t going to lie to nobody. If I get hurt, I’m going to tell people ‘hey, I’m hurt.’ I ain’t going to bulls**t nobody. But, for me, once you lie to the fans, to the people that are spending their money to come see this, you’ve already lost them. At the end of the day, you wouldn’t want to get lied to, I wouldn’t want to get lied to, so why would you want to lie to the fans out there that are spending their money that they’ve gotta work for every day to put a little bread in our pocket? I ain’t going to want to break bread with somebody if they’re lying to me, so I try to always be honest, I try to always call it right down the middle and let people know what’s going on.”
Dealing with comparisons to Stone Cold and Dusty Rhodes:
“The way Ol’ Mancer looks at it is, we all get into pro wrestling, even maybe you’re just a fan. Maybe you want to become a writer (in) pro wrestling. Maybe you want to be a camera guy. Maybe you want to be a talent. Whatever it may be, we all get into it for a certain reason, right? We can all remember at some point when we were kids the things we loved about pro wrestling. For me, it was Arn Anderson, Ric Flair, Macho Man, Dusty Rhodes, Terry Funk, Jake the Snake, all these guys that you could sit there and listen to them, and you forget you’re even watching wrestling. You’re just listening to someone tell a story about how he is gonna beat someone’s ass or whatever it may be.
“You can’t ever forget that once you’re into pro wrestling, because that’s the stuff - I didn’t get into pro wrestling to do cool moves. I got into pro wrestling because I like fighting people anywhere I go, and I like telling stories. So, if I can sit down and talk to you and pay attention without even doing anything, right there, here we go baby. It’s that thing of it’s not relying on, because I think the way you worded it was relying on something from the past, you’ve got to remember how it all got to this point. So, while other guys are trying to do the craziest thing over here, I’m gonna be over here dancing in the circle doing everything. It’s just kind of take your own spin on it, and then beat the hell out of people and tell some stories in between.”
Earning all of his nicknames and if one is particularly meaningful:
“There’s so many nicknames there, because I started out doing shows in Ohio and Indiana and the Midwest, out in Tennessee, wherever I could go I would drive and go to the show and hit the pay window and fight people. The one - I got a beer mug that a fan made for me, and they took their free time to make every nickname that I have on the back of it. And they had it cut out, each little piece, and they glued it on there and stuff. So, I’m sitting there drinking beer out of this thing, and it’s cool to know the connection I have with the fanbase to where they’ve given me these nicknames.”
“I guess, for me, Southern Psycho kind of represents everything that I do, because when you hear that, you automatically - if you don’t know who I am, you go ‘what’s happening,’ and then you watch and you go ‘awe, I get it.’ Back in the day, people had nicknames, you would hear it and you knew exactly what it meant. So, for me that kinda represents exactly what I’m bringing to the table.”
“I always feel bad. Nick Maniwa, the ring announcer out there at IWA Mid-South, he pinned that tweet on there and he told me to put all the nicknames there, so when people gotta do the introduction, they can look and say the names right there. Guys will come up at different shows and they’ll be like ‘hey man, which one do you want me to say?’ And I always go ‘say whichever ones you want, man!’ And they’re like ‘well, now I gotta read ‘em all, man! That’s like your thing!’ And I go ‘no, no, no. You ain’t gotta waste all your time reading all that s**t. Take some that you like, I don’t care which ones you say, say whatever one you want. Let’s just go out there and do what we’re doing.”
His favorite people to have a beer with:
“I’m gonna pick two, though. I’m gonna pick Dusty Rhodes and Terry Funk would be the two I would wanna sit down and drink with. Currently, I’m gonna say Stone Cold, because he, maybe we get him one more match at some point, but I would like to sit down with him.”
“Another guy that I’ve drank with - I’m trying to think of the most oddball one I could think of. I drink with a lot of people, man! It’s hard to think of just one. Like I said, usually after shows I go out in the parking lot and drink beers with fans, they bring beers (and) it’s a good time. I’ll just say all the fans, man. I like sitting out there, bulls**ting, drinking a beer and talking about life.”
You can read the full interview at this link.
