Interview with Fergal 'Prince' Devitt! by Stephen Ashfield

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00mercoledì 28 gennaio 2009 19:06
courtesy of www.piledriver-online.co.uk
-INTERVIEW WITH FERGAL 'PRINCE' DEVITT-
by Stephen Ashfield (www.piledriver-online.co.uk)




Not many wrestlers are born in Ireland, travel over to England to learn the business and eventually end up as part of one of the biggest companies in Japan. That is the story of Fergal Devitt though and here we find out exactly how his career has taken the turns that it has.




-What first got you interested in pro wrestling and when did you decide you didn't just want to be a fan but to get in the ring and compete?
My earliest memories of wrestling are with my grandfather on Saturday afternoon's 'World of Sport', and then when Sky One came in with WWF at the time I was hooked. I was always big into playing sports growing up and a huge fan of wrestling, so when I saw an ad for one of the summer camps that were run at Hammerlock I decided I wanted to give it a try.

-You also played football and Gaelic Football when you were younger, was it a difficult decision to become a wrestler and what did people think when you made that choice?
It wasn't a difficult decision at all, it was what I wanted to try more than anything, so I started wrestling and continued playing soccer and Gaelic football for a while, until slowly the wrestling took over completely.

-You were trained by Hammerlock, what was that training experience like and what was the hardest part of the process for you?
I cannot speak highly enough of everyone at Hammerlock. There was nothing easy about it at all, I remember waking up the first day after training and not being able to move my neck! Straight away I thought to myself " maybe this isn't for you". But I stuck with it, the training was top notch, Jon Ryan and Johnny Moss helped Andre (Baker) out a lot and all three were major influences on me both in and out of the ring. Hammerlock was not just a wrestling school, I learned a lot about diet and weights training, professionalism, and general life lessons in my time there and will be eternally grateful for that.

-How much has the NWA association that Hammerlock have helped your career?
Well I'm a big believer in everything happening for a reason, and if Hammerlock were not part of the NWA I would have never dreamed of attending the NWA anniversary shows in the US and Canada were I made many contacts.

-2005 saw you travelling to the States for the NWA 57th Anniversary show in Nashville where you beat Dru Onyxx to win the NWA British Commonwealth Heavyweight title, what are your recollections of that event and what did it mean to you winning the title?
It was a great time, a bunch of us from Ireland went over for a week or so and made a little holiday out of it, and again it was great catching up with friends from the previous years. The match itself went well, it was the second time I had beaten Dru/SOA for that belt. Every time we wrestle he brings it, people have actually asked us if we hate each other because of the way we go at it, but the fact is myself and Dru are good friends and just enjoy a good old-fashioned scrap.

-That led to you being invited to the New Japan Inoki Dojo in California, how did you feel when that opportunity arose?
I was delighted; I had been spending some time in Boston as I had quit my real job at home in hopes of following the dream. The people in Boston were great but when the chance came up to train with the Inoki's I jumped at it.

-At the Dojo you were trained in the Japanese style of pro wrestling, how did that differ from your previous experiences of wrestling?
People might not notice it but it's only the small things that really change, the biggest difference to me was it didn't feel as smooth as the British style I had learned at Hammerlock. But I took Andre's advice to take parts from both and tried to form as he said a 'hybrid style'. As regard discipline and everything else of that nature it was much of the same as I had learned in England

-How did you feel when NJPW invited you to join the company and you became the first foreign wrestler to graduate from their Dojo for some time?
I was delighted, I was told I was being given a chance to train at the Japanese dojo for 3 months. nothing more. That in itself was a huge opportunity and I was delighted with it. I never dreamed of ever being given a chance to wrestle.

-What was it like wrestling as the Pegasus Kid II considering the legacy of the character?
That was a big honour for me, even if the shoes were too big to follow! Honestly I had never been a huge fan the original Pegasus but I realised it was a big chance, and was only too happy to do whatever was asked of me.

-What are your long-term ambitions in wrestling and how long do you see yourself continuing to wrestle in Japan?
Well, its been a roller coaster ride so far and I don't really have and ambitions, I take every day as it comes and as long as I'm happy doing what ever it is I'm doing ill continue to do it!


To read more of this interview go to www.piledriver-online.co.uk/downloads.php and click on edition 14 of Piledriver Online

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