Stevie Knight - The Final Interview (?)

Stevie Knight is retiring from professional wrestling. Oh yes, he really is this time. We were sceptical too, but then Stevie contacted the XWA website wanting to set the record straight with an exclusive and emotional shoot interview and afterwards we were convinced he's definitely going to call it a day. This absorbing chat about Stevie's 19-year career includes such topics as his highs and lows of wrestling in Morecambe, his career with the FWA, his match with the late great Mitsuharu Misawa, his reasons for quitting the wrestling ring and much, much more. It is, as I'm sure you'll agree, a fascinating read. Ladies and gentlemen, we present Stevie Knight - The Final Interview (?)...



- Stevie, the first question I have to ask you is, are the rumours true? Are you really leaving the UK to start a new life in Cyprus?
- Yes. My wife has got a job working in Cyprus so we shall be leaving in August. She has a minimum five-year contract and we’ve sold the house. I realise I have a history of trying to leave the country but this time it’s for real!

- So I guess that means your wrestling career really is over. You haven’t wrestled since you lost the British Heavyweight Title to Sam Slam at XWA Last Fight at the Prom on September 6 2008….
- Yeah, I was a bit disappointed with my performance in that match. I was a bit knackered, a bit fat and a bit out of breath. I was taking too many painkillers and smoking too many cigarettes, and I’d stopped enjoying wrestling. I didn’t want to be there any more. That’s not good, for someone who’d given their heart and soul to wrestling since I was 10 years old. At 10 years old, I was putting rings up for (legendary UK wrestling promoter) Max Crabtree.
It wasn’t that I wasn’t interested in wrestling any more, I just knew I couldn’t perform to the ability that I’d like to. I remember saying to Greg Lambert while I was lying on the changing room floor knackered after (the match with Sam Slam): “That’s it. I’m done.” I don’t think anybody really believed me but 10 months later, I’ve not wrestled, I’ve not been to a wrestling show, I’ve not seen any of the lads, nothing at all.
But I did watch some wrestling on the TV the other day, though, and quite enjoyed it. Until Nick Aldis came on. That’s a joke, Nick! Bless him.

- You mean Nick ‘Brutus Magnus’ Aldis from The British Invasion in TNA, who has had some criticism from Power Slam magazine, The Wrestling Observer – and other quarters – about his wrestling ability.
- Hey, good on him. He’s doing well. He’s doing Gladiators, he’s doing ‘Are You Smarter Than A 10-Year-Old’, he’s in TNA. Anyone who says anything bad about him is jealous. Wrestling is not about moves, it’s about getting over, it’s about people enjoying what you’re doing, and if the crowd are enjoying it and management are enjoying it, then who cares what anyone says? I’ve been told I’ve been s**t for years!

- You mentioned earlier how you tried to emigrate before. After your farewell match against Alex Shane at the Morecambe Dome on July 30 2005, you announced your retirement from wrestling and moved to Spain. But things didn’t go to plan and you returned to the UK – and to wrestling – a few months later. What happened?
- It was the Steve Knight Curse! The wife, who is a teacher, had got a job in Spain. So we moved over there, but while she was there, she attracted a stalker! He was following her about everywhere, he was sitting outside our house. Obviously I wasn’t too impressed with him so I went and had a little word. The next thing we know, there’s about seven Spanish men sitting outside the house, following me about, threatening to kill us…so we thought it was prudent to return home. We were there three months.

- Crikey. So the question is, will the Steve Knight Curse strike again now you’re moving to Cyprus?
- It certainly won’t happen this time, no. This is a different kettle of fish. We’re in a different environment. The crime rate is about 90% less in Cyprus. So no, it won’t happen. Hopefully. Don’t wish it upon me!

- No, we're definitely not wishing it upon you. But there are sceptical people out there – both British wrestling fans and members of the British wrestling industry – who say that Stevie Knight has retired more times than Roddy Piper. They think you’ll be back home and back inside a wrestling ring, once again, in a few months. What happens if you get to Cyprus and you get the wrestling bug?
- I’ve no idea. But there’s no wrestling in Cyprus, for a start. Aside from that, let’s say I wasn’t going to Cyprus. I can’t wrestle any more. I physically can’t. I’m just too knackered from doing it.
In 1999 I was wrestling on television for UWA – which was a big deal at the time for me and for everyone involved (NOTE – in 1999 the Ultimate Wrestling Alliance had a short-lived deal with cable station L!ve TV). We got ourselves in good shape and I was training like an idiot. Look at the guys who were in UWA - they had Jody Fleisch, Jonny Storm, Alex Shane and Doug Williams – guys who have gone on from there to do decent things in British wrestling. I really enjoyed UWA. But from there, I went out to America with (UK wrestler) Kerry Cabrero and I broke my neck during a match. I didn’t know I’d broken my neck and I carried on wrestling for about another two weeks. When I got back home I was in absolute agony. America was a big letdown for me. And I think that’s where my love of wrestling died a bit. I got offered work in Puerto Rico and maybe if we’d stayed in America, we’d have done OK. But America disheartened me a lot.
When I came back, I met my wife Emma and my interest in wrestling waned. Like you said, it does come back to me from time to time. I will always be interested in wrestling. Danny Collins has just come back after 10 years off. But unlike Danny Collins, I was never an athlete. I was the kid who was second to last in the school cross-country run! When Danny came back at 40 years old, he was still better than 95% of the people out there. I’m not like that. My actual wrestling skills eroded after my neck injury in 2000. Yeah, I’ve had some good matches at Morecambe. But never at the level I’d have wanted them to be.
Certainly my last year (in XWA) was nothing like I’d want to be remembered for, to be honest with you. I’d rather people watched something from five or 10 years ago to see what Steve Knight was all about, rather than my last match with Sam Slam. And that was my fault, not Sam’s. I was just not physically capable of doing anything.

- When you say you’re “knackered”, what other injuries have you sustained?
- Everything, really! I did my neck in again when I came back for the FWA in 2003. I remember trying to do a show at Cleethorpes and I couldn’t drive the car, I was in such agony.
I broke my ankle during my first ever TV show for Rumble Promotions in about 1996. I wrestled Flash Barker. The night before the show, me and James Mason were walking up some steps, I slipped over on some ice and broke my ankle. I never had it fixed, because I thought I have to do the TV show the next day. I didn’t want to miss the show either, because it was exciting for me at the time. I swallowed six tablets, which was at the time quite small stuff compared to what I was taking later on, and got on with the show. Because that’s what you did. But I never had my ankle fixed and I kept wrestling.
I also fractured my cocyxx – the bit at the bottom of your back - at a show in Cleethorpes. You know how the ring post hooks stick out? The middle one was sticking right out, I took a posting right into this ring hook, I collapsed, the ambulance had to come for me, and two days later I was back driving to do shows all over the country. I shouldn’t have even been out of bed! But it was something I loved doing. It’s all starting to catch up with me now (laughs).

- To what extent were you taking painkillers during your wrestling career?
- Nothing to a major degree but I was on them for a long time. I was on prescription painkillers for five years. I wasn’t passing out in hotels or anything like that. But I was taking the maximum dosage I could take for five years. This year, I’m glad to say, I’ve got off them. I’ve stopped smoking. I’m in a happy place now, I’m looking forward to Cyprus, and it will be nice to go without relying on anything un-natural to feel good.

- That’s good to hear. Let’s talk about happier times. After your neck injury in 2000, you were out of wrestling for over two years then you did indeed come back in 2003 for the FWA. You had your first FWA match at The Morecambe Dome on August 2 2003, teaming with Alex Shane to win the British Tag Team Titles from The Family.
- I did. That was very good.

- Was that your first match at The Dome or had you wrestled there before?
- I had. I wrestled at The Dome about 10 or 12 years before, for Max Crabtree. Possibly against Johnny Angel. I was probably about eight stone and just getting knocked about. I was the young sacrificial lamb back then.
With going off to Cyprus, I’ve been going through my old VHS tapes from my mum and dad’s loft, and my very first match is on there from 18 years ago. I was watching it the other day and it’s hilarious. You wouldn’t think it was the same Steve Knight – back then I took bumps! It was amazing to watch these tapes and remember all the different places I wrestled. I used to do all around the Morecambe area, Pontins at Blackpool, different holiday camps every week. When I stopped doing them I’d go off and do shows for (All-Star promoter) Brian Dixon and Max Crabtree. It wasn’t like it is now, when people do four shows a month. I was doing 10 a week! It was crazy. I think that’s a contributing factor as to why I’m so beat up now. And back then, I did proper matches with big guys who really threw me about.
When I came back, I couldn’t do that any more, but I’d learned how to talk, slow things down and make everything mean something, rather than all the moves I used to do. But I was once that young guy who everyone thought was really good!
I started at the back end of the World of Sport era. I was lucky to work with Skull Murphy, Giant Haystacks and Big Daddy. They were genuine TV stars of the day, on the national stage on a Saturday afternoon. The guys in British Wrestling now haven’t done that and it’s a shame.

- What do you remember about the match with Alex against The Family?
- While I was off, the FWA had really come to prominence. I’ve always got on well with Alex. And when he said you can come back, and we’ll win the belts, it immediately put me back up at the top. I didn’t have to work my way up again. That was fantastic.

- After that, you had a short inter-gender programme with Nikita (now Katie Lea in WWE) which culminated with a match against her at Morecambe on May 29 2004 – which you lost.
- I look back at (working with Nikita) with fondness, but it’s a shame how it ended. They never really did anything with that angle. I’d have liked to have done more with it. They put a £10,000 bounty on Nikita’s head if somebody could take her out, and the person who put the bounty on her head turned out to be (FWA ring announcer) Jane Childs. I was scratching my head about that.

- Tell me about your ‘Odd Couple’ tag team with ‘The Specialist’ Mark Sloan which led to some hilarious situations and TV segments with FWA in 2004.
- To start with, Mark and I genuinely didn’t get on. Me and Mark are complete and utter opposites in everything – in real life and in wrestling. When I was doing UWA, I slagged him off. But we actually started talking when we were doing a tour for the FWA. I remember thinking, actually, he’s a nice guy and really funny.
When they put us together, I was the comedy guy and he was the straight man. But the funny thing was, all the funny stuff we did was his idea. We did a TV segment where I accidentally hit one of his trainees in the face with an exercise rubber band, and Mark came up with it! But again, (the storyline) never went anywhere. We did all those TV skits, but we only actually tagged together twice!
One of my favourite memories was (FWA New Frontiers 2005 in Broxbourne) when Mark was wrestling Stevie Lynn. I was doing a gimmick at the time when I was on a quest to win the Flyweight Title. Stevie won with a Shooting Star Press, then I came out and tried to do a moonsault. And the crowd just started chanting my name. There was no reason for it, other than I’d got over from the skits we’d done on TV. The last time I’d been at Broxbourne, they didn’t give me much of a reaction. But a few months later, based on the stuff we’d done on TV, I got the biggest reaction of the night!

- Let’s talk about the FWA Carnage Tour of May and June 2005, which you promoted.
- Urgh. Do we have to?

- Promoting the Carnage Tour probably felt like a great idea to you at the time, because it was based around D-Lo Brown and Joe Legend - former WWE superstars who were appearing on the heavily-publicised ITV prime time Saturday night reality show ‘Celebrity Wrestling’. But the programme was a total flop, ratings were terrible, the show was axed from its Saturday night slot after just a few episodes and the tour suffered as a result.
- I’m just about over that now! I was friends with D-Lo Brown and he was over in London, and I went to stay with him for a couple of days. He told me about ‘Celebrity Wrestling’ and I decided to do the Carnage Tour. I didn’t think it could fail. It was a bit like doing an X Factor touring show with Simon Cowell and Louis Walsh as the judges – because it was on ITV, at the same time as the X Factor is, and D-Lo Brown and Joe Legend were the two stars of the show. Anybody would have thought, my God, this could be massive…having not seen ‘Celebrity Wrestling’ of course! So I booked (D-Lo and Joe) for a 10 date tour, booked very big venues like Leeds Town Hall – which seats about 3,000 people and we drew 300! We also booked X-Scape at Castleford, two shows at Cleethorpes, and it all went tits up because ‘Celebrity Wrestling’ was crap. The name actually tarnished the shows.

- How much money did you lose on the Carnage Tour?
- I don’t know exactly how much…I think about £12,000. It was a gigantic f-up.

- Yet you have had great success as a promoter. The previous year, in 2004, you promoted two very well-attended and well-received shows at the over 1,000-capacity KC Arena in Hull under the name International Wrestling Promotions (IWP).
- They were fantastic. But the difference between those and the Carnage Tour was that the Hull shows were stand-alone. That was my sole focus. One show at a time. We did so much promotion. I got a lot of publicity through having The UK Pitbulls on the show, we got them on the front page of the local paper. But the Carnage Tour was one show after another. There was no way I could put so much time and effort into selling 7,000 tickets without employing promotional teams in every town. I got a lot of help from Youngy (Richard Young) and another lad called Chiddy, but it was too much work for three people to organise.
That first IPW show (on August 1 2004) was awesome from start to finish. OK, Jake ‘The Snake’ Roberts didn’t show up (NOTE - Jake was advertised but failed to attend) but when you watch it back now, it made no difference. We put Spud on – who wasn’t meant to be on the show, he was just there – in place of Jake and everything was great. We drew over 1,000 people because we put the effort in to promoting it in the Hull area. You can’t just promote a major show through the Internet alone. How many people from the UK Fan Forum are going to come and watch a show? 10 or 15? That won’t cover costs.
You have to aim at the local market, as Brian Dixon does very well and from what I can gather Sanjay Bagga (LDN promoter) is doing well. And Morecambe is a prime example. XWA gets the locals and the kids in, they give them a good show, don’t rip them off, give them what they promise them and they keep coming back.

- Youngy, XWA’s referee and ring announcer, is your best friend in wrestling. How and where did you meet?
- Youngy came to the UWA television taping in London in 1999 and I can’t remember how or why I spoke to him, but he told me he was from Grimsby like me. He was a paper boy at the time and I used to make him put flyers for my shows in the papers he delivered!

- You also promoted a show in Cleethorpes in January 2005 to raise money for those affected by the Tsunami disaster in South East Asia. How did that come about?
- That was mental. I work as a DJ as well, and used to DJ at the Winter Gardens in Cleethorpes which has sadly now been knocked down. There was a poster advertising a bands night and all the proceeds were going to the Tsunami appeal. I thought, that’s a good idea, I’ll put a wrestling show on. I hired the ring for nothing from my friend Mick Romeo, it cost nothing to put the show on, and I thought I might raise £500. So I put one of my rare posts on the UK Fan Forum, asking for wrestlers who would work for nothing. And I was absolutely inundated with wrestlers…top wrestlers. Paul Burchill was there, we had Jonny Storm, Hade Vansen, Johnny Angel…Johnny Angel’s dad even did it, which was my biggest thrill doing the show. ‘Crazy’ Dave Adams, The Pitman’s Hercules. One of my heroes when I used to watch Max Crabtree’s shows as a kid. He was 63 years old or something but he was fantastic.
The nice thing about that was, was there was 60 wrestlers there from all over the country, from everywhere from Portsmouth to Scotland. It was nice that they’d do that, and nice they’d do it for me. They did it because it was a charity show but also because it was me who had asked.

- Was that show the last one Paul Burchill worked in the UK before he went to WWE?
- It was the second to last. He actually signed for WWE the day of the second IWP show (November 6 2004). I remember saying to Paul, don’t get big-headed and keep in touch with everybody. That went well! I speak to Hade though. I actually gave Hade Vansen his first paid wrestling job ever, just after he’d been training with Alex Shane. I said to Hade then: “You’re a good looking git, I’ll pay for some pictures of you but I want commission on whatever work you get in the future.”

- I’m not sure how much commission you’d get for that one promo Hade did on WWE SmackDown before he was released.
- Bless him. I did feel sorry for him. I thought it was odd when WWE got rid of him after that. But what do I know, in my little house in Grimsby.

- You teamed with Doug Williams to face Yoshinari Ogawa and the late Mitsuharu Misawa in Carluke, Scotland in March 2005. What was it like to wrestle the Japanese legend that was Misawa?
- Surprisingly easy! It’s funny because I’m really good friends with Doug, and nobody else but (BCW promoter) Colin McKay would have put me in that match. I love Colin, haven’t seen him for a long time but when I came back to wrestling in 2003 he was one of the first people who booked me. He always booked me in a really good position and nobody else would have put me – the comedy guy for FWA – in that match with the Japanese guys. It was great. I didn’t want to do too much in case I cocked it up. I wasn’t nervous. It was a decent match and they were really pleased with it. But I wish I could have done more.
I remember not smoking before the show. I didn’t want to smoke in front of Misawa. But then I was talking away to him later, and he got out a bottle of Jack Daniels and started smoking some Marlboro Lights! I thought, maybe I should have just had a fag when I wanted one. He’s probably the biggest name I’ve ever wrestled, in front of 100 people in Carluke, Scotland. I'm very sad he died. Poor old guy. What a way to go.

- You’ve always had a special relationship with the fans of Morecambe, whether they’ve loved you or hated you. And you clearly love wrestling in Morecambe yourself – because when you returned from Spain in 2006 you pretty much wrestled exclusively in Morecambe from that point onwards. What is it about The Dome that you like so much?
- When you’re young it’s great, you travel about and have a great time, you don’t care where you sleep or eat. But when you’re older, and you get married and you’ve got your own house and your own bed, that kind of stuff wasn’t as much fun for me any more. I was happy doing Morecambe every six weeks. And what I did at Morecambe was great because Greg Lambert always put me on a nice part of the show, with something constructive to do that I could get my teeth into. The crowd at Morecambe is always fantastic. I do enjoy doing Morecambe.
I do genuinely think Morecambe is a doss-hole though! (laughs). The first night we went out in Morecambe we got into about 18 fights! We went to a nightclub called Crystal T’s and we were only in there for half-an-hour before it all kicked off. There was me and Doug, and Colt Cabana. Colt had only just arrived in the UK, and he told these guys in the club: “Yeah, we’re all wrestlers!” And I thought, oh no, don’t say that…
Steve Corino was there too. I remember he wasn’t very impressed with his hotel accommodation in Morecambe, with the blood on the wall!
I think Morecambe is the best crowd. Even when the All-Star guys were there for the FWA v All-Star show (on May 13 2006) – and they do 1,000-seater places for Dixon – but I think they really enjoyed themselves as well. It’s a good atmosphere.

- Were you surprised with how the Morecambe Dome crowd took to you when you wrestled Alex Shane on June 18 2005 at FWA NOAH Limits? You had been a heel prior to that match, but your performance turned you babyface.
- Yes and no, because even as a heel, it wasn’t that they didn’t like me. They were more amused by me than hated me. I think the second time around (after turning heel again in 2007) they really didn’t like me then. But the first time around, I think they wanted to see more from me than just the comedy stuff. So they went for it big time. I love working with Alex and it was one of my best matches, that. I think the crowd were surprised we had such a great match. There was an emotional attachment to that match, compared to the main event that night (Doug Williams and Scorpio v Minoru Suzuki and Naomichi Marufuji). That was a great match to watch, but in ours the fans cared who won and who lost.

- When you returned from Spain in 2006, you feuded with Johnny Angel – a name from your past. How was that for you?
- To understand my relationship with Johnny Angel, we’d have to do a five-hour shoot interview. Johnny Angel bullied me when I first got into wrestling. When I first met him, he was not a nice person at all. I think he admits that. He gave me a slapping on quite a few occasions. He broke my nose in Blackpool, not an accident. He really beat me up one time in Holbech as well. Then I never saw him for 10 years and I always said: “When I see that Johnny Angel, I’m gonna really hammer him.” Then I saw him and I thought, perhaps not!

- Yeah, because when Johnny Angel came back to wrestling himself in 2005 – after a lengthy hiatus – he’d grown a lot bigger, hadn’t he?
- Yeah! But I actually got him back involved in the FWA and it was marvellous to work with him again. It was nice to actually work with him on an even keel this time! And when you wrestle Johnny Angel, he doesn’t play about. You know you’ve had a good hard match. You take some lumps and bumps. And that’s how wrestling should be, in my opinion. I have a lot of respect for Johnny Angel. He’s a man’s man, he takes no s**t from anybody and you know where you stand with him at all times. We’re best buddies now. I really like Johnny Angel. He’s a tattoo artist now. He’s doing well, bless him.

- In 2007, you won £10,001 on the Channel 4 TV game show ‘Deal or No Deal’. But you could have won £100,000, had you kept going to the end and opened all your boxes. How do you feel now about that?
- Fine. I was OK after about five days! You look back, like a lot of things in life and think God, I wish I’d opened all those boxes. But at the time, you start to realise as the show goes on that you’re not playing for peanuts in a pub quiz, this is hundreds of thousands of pounds! Then you start taking it seriously, which was probably my downfall really. I was gutted on the night, especially for someone who’d been given ten grand for nothing! It was especially annoying when the biggest loser on the show, who nobody liked, walked away with £100,000!

- Earlier, you said that your last year with the XWA at Morecambe is not how you’d like to be remembered by the British wrestling fans. Even so, that year was incredibly successful. You won the Goldrush. You incited a riot, which had never been done at Morecambe before. And you won the British Heavyweight Title for the first time in your 18-year career.
- I did. I was really pleased with my match with Jonny Storm (at XWA War on the Shore on April 11 2008). But people don’t realise that three minutes into that match, I really, really hurt myself. I ripped the muscle from my ribs and was in a lot of pain. So I was pleased I went 20 minutes and the crowd was so into it. What I wasn’t pleased about during that last year, was that I wasn’t fit enough and flying about all over the place like I was when I was younger. I thought the crowd could see that I was struggling and I realised I was in trouble and should call it a day.

- Do you regret therefore that you can’t, maybe, have one more match at Morecambe to set the record straight?
- Absolutely, yeah. It’s a shame I can’t. But I am going to come to the show (XWA Vendetta) on July 4.

- Really?
- Yeah, it’s my friend’s stag night in Blackpool the same night so I’m in the area, so I’m going to pop along. I’m going to sit in the crowd, watch the show and it will be nice to see everyone. If anyone wants to follow me down to Blackpool to some strip bars after the show, they’re quite welcome!

- So this really is it for Stevie Knight. You’ve got this fantastic new life awaiting you in Cyprus and you say you’re never going to wrestle again. How would you like people to remember your 19-year wrestling career?
- I’d like people to remember me as someone who made them laugh or made them cry or whatever. All that ever bothered me, was that when I left an arena after a show, I wanted the fans to remember who I was. I didn’t want them to remember my match because it was the best. I wanted them to remember me. And I wanted the promoters to know, that when they booked me on a show, whether as a good guy or a bad guy or whatever, I would get a reaction off the crowd. Nobody ever went to the toilet when I was in the wrestling ring. And that’s all I want to be remembered for.

- Stevie, it's been a pleasure watching you entertain us all these years, and we look forward to seeing you for one last time at XWA Vendetta on Saturday July 4 at The Dome.
- I’m looking forward to seeing all of you too.




credits: www.xwawrestling.com