Chris Mordetzsky (Masters) discusses his time with growth as a wrestler, time in the WWE, and future As Global Force Wrestling’s, “The Adonis” Chris Mordetzky recently took some time to participate in an interview. Mordetzky reveals his growth as a wrestler, training under Rip Rogers and OVW and the difference between The Adonis and The Masterpiece. He opens up about his experiences with the WWE and its lasting impression and what he has gained with this new opportunity with GFW. Check out the complete interview below.
Discuss some of Chris Mordetzsky (Masters) earlier training through Rick Bassman, OVW and UPW.
Chris Mordetzsky (Masters): “Well my preliminary training was over at UPW was very much just the basics. It was me learning just the basics, the fundamentals, learning how to protect yourself, how to do things. Once I got to OVW it got a lot more in-depth, it was psychology, storytelling and beyond learning just how to do a hip toss and a bodyslam. It was more in terms of if you had to work a 60 minute Broadway match, Rip Rogers was your guy.
Basically, when I went to OVW, we started training under Rip Rogers and he was just so old school but in a good way. He just created a great foundation which you could build off of which made it perfect when Lance Storm came around and Rip was let go for whatever reasons and Lance came in and took the foundation that Rip had laid out and he really modernized what we needed to do in this day and age of professional wrestling.
It’s not going to be an hour Broadway obviously for the most part.
It’s usually more just about time. There were a few Broadway matches done in OVW and they weren’t the greatest matches they really aren’t talking or anything they are just going out there and that’s an accomplishment even if its plausible or decent you can’t ask everyone to go out there and be Shawn Michaels or Bret Hart but it’s just good to have it in your back pocket and say that you’ve done it.”
What differences, character-wise, separate The Adonis from The Masterpiece?
Chris Mordetzsky (Masters): “I don’t know how much a difference there is in character but I’ll say this about myself that I’ve been doing this close to a decade and I’m much more well-rounded, much more mature performer, my in-ring work is the best it’s ever been. Basically, I’ve reached my peak I believe within the last few years in terms of in ring ability and what I can do and understanding what can do and you’ll see me essentially The Adonis formerly Chris Masters but you are going to see basically 2015 version of me which is definitely among one of the top workers in the world.”
How would you say Chris Mordetzsky (Masters) changed/adapted/adjusted in the ring since leaving the WWE?
If they weren’t going to use me, I was going to make them use me. I was going out there every night and used it as fuel. I’m going to be that damn good. I worked my ass off and everything started coming together, I really started getting it and anybody that’s seen my work from 2011 pretty much on will tell you and vouch for that fact. Even CM Punk said in the promo where he was quote-unquote shooting, that I’m not the same guy that most people remember at least not from back in my earlier run.
Now I can go and I can go with anybody it doesn’t matter who it is.
I’m looking forward to this opportunity with Global Force Wrestling because I think it will be a good platform working a lot internationally, I’ve had some of the best matches of my career over in the UK and Europe and now being with Jarrett I understand it’s Global Force but we’re kicking things off here domestically. It’s good for wrestling fans who want to see me out here to see me doing something and get that exposure and have that platform.”
With the number of wrestlers only starting to reach their prime over 30, would you ever foresee yourself competing in the WWE again with this experience behind you?
“It goes back to one of my motto’s in wrestling or sports entertainment whatever you want to call it but never say never. I mean if you’re asking me do I think those opportunities could be available? Considering the context of me being 32 and the experience I have? Then, yeah definitely. I’ve heard a lot of talk from guys about the 30-year-old rule in WWE. But as far as I’m concerned that is somebody that is not making a smart investment always.
There are some exceptions to this rule obviously, like Batista and whatnot but it’s not honestly a smart investment to start training somebody at 30 years old because chances are it takes guys at the very least a year or two to not be ready for TV.
Let alone 5 years over there to just be something and be half-assed prepared.
I think wrestling wise I have every opportunity available to me in front of me if I want it but now I’m looking at what’s in front of me and I’m not looking at the past with any negativity. My stay with WWE was nothing but positive. I accomplished a persona over there and I worked off and on there for 10 years. Right now though, I’ve got to focus my attention on where I’m at now and we’ve got this new, young, up and coming promotion that Jarrett’s really putting his backing behind and doing everything he can to pump and I think wrestling fans out there want an alternative at least the real hardcore fans.”
Describe your experience competing for Antonio Inoki’s Genome Federation & Harley Race’s World League Wrestling show.
“Japan was so brief and I was just coming off of an injury and a lot of other circumstances. It’s hard to really form an opinion. I got a taste of what the Japanese crowd is like but it wasn’t a long match but it was definitely a very nice experience because of the way the Japanese treat you upon just arriving there and cater to wrestling it was unlike any place I’ve ever seen quite honestly.
With Harley Race, he is just an amazing man. He came on in such a great time in my career where I was in-between WWE runs. I was on the indy scene and I remember his wife, who has unfortunately passed away BJ her, really showing me the ropes just working the indy scene.
Then Harley Race using me for his shows for a good stretch of at least two or three months as his champion.
I don’t know how it’s doing now but I do remember that being the top wrestling schools that I had seen in the country and it wasn’t as though I was around the practices but just seeing the talent that it had produced. It was the talent on the cards were just every bit of what you’d expect out of a school run by Harley Race, King Harley Race.”
How would you say your second tour of duty with the WWE was different than your first? What were some of the pro’s and cons of both?
“I categorized it as being two different halves. The first half I was just kind of that I’ve got there, happy to be there and happy to be back but lost. They didn’t put the machine behind me and they didn’t really book me like they did before and I was just stuck in limbo and I didn’t know what to do. Then just one day, I had this awakening. Alright, I’m not happy about this. I’m not being used but that doesn’t mean that I can’t go out there and if they give me 10 minutes.
I was going to make the most of every second of that 10 minutes that I possibly can. That really became my driving force in the second half. Even though I wasn’t getting a push and I was in limbo and on Superstars.
It was that I was so dedicated to my craft that it really didn’t matter.
What really mattered to me was that every week I was putting out a match that would be where I was my biggest critic and I would come back and literally break down every second of the match from what I liked, what I disliked and applied it to my game the next week and repeat the cycle, every week, therefore, it became very fulfilling. Just being able to improve regardless of the push.
But just to go out there and get better and go through the process and you just start understanding things better.
You understand the mental aspect of it. Once you start grasping the mental aspect and the psychology and the storytelling and all of that, that’s when you’re a veteran or your seasoned or you’ve come into your own.
The first half was tough and confusing and the whole thing was tough and confusing but really that last year and a half was just me against the world. It was me every night just going out there and I’m going to leave it all out there and whether they are going to push me or not in my mind it’s that I’m not going to give them an option. They are going to have to. Obviously, that didn’t end up falling to be true but be that as it may it still made it an enjoyable experience.”
It was reported that you competed in a dark match for Impact Wrestling. Is there any truth to that? And is there any reason why a contract never developed?
Chris Mordetzsky (Masters): “Yes. I can’t speak to that. I was under the impression that I was hired by multiple sources within the company and another lesson that I’ve learned in wrestling is don’t count your chickens before they hatch. Until something happens, you can never get excited or disappointed or anything about it. You just have to wait for it to actually happen because you never know. I’ve seen it happen time and time again.
TNA was a good example of that. I went into the situation already fully booked and at the time they didn’t want anyone booked who was going to be on shows that were going to be recorded or anything like that. It would have been nice on one hand to be there but on the other hand, I didn’t need to be there.
But I was under the impression that I was going to be there. This was from sources within the company and also a personal friend actually. I’m actually friends with Nick Hogan, who’s obviously dad is Hulk. Hulk was actually the one telling me. The crowd was really receptive and everything went really well and obviously, I made an impression so Hulk sat me down amongst others and all the reports were positive and look like I’m getting a job and I didn’t necessarily by it though. But I was kind of like okay, it went well, cool.
But again to go back I know better than to count my chickens before they hatch.
What really got me thinking though that it wasn’t going to happen though when I was on my way home and I got a call from Nick out of nowhere. Now I don’t talk to Nick every day by any means so when he called me and told me of what his dad told him that was a little more validating in terms of Hulk can say something to me that he may mean or not mean but for him to go out of his way and call Nick within such a short span of time and then Nick call me and tell me led me to believe that it probably was in the bag.
With these things, I feel there is a chain of command or hierarchy or whatever you want to refer to it as and sometimes all it takes is one person in that chain of command to put the thumbs down or not necessarily see a need for you or whatever or maybe even just timing. Timing is also a thing with pro wrestling. Is there a spot for this guy? Or how can we use him? I don’t know specifically what it was but I know it wasn’t on my behalf wasn’t devastating and on their behalf, I’m sure it wasn’t devastating. But you never can tell because I never really did anything up there.”
As much as fans may know about Chris Masters the person, there are heroic instances in the personal life of Chris Mordetzky that people may not know about. Could you share the incident in which you saved your mom’s life? It is a remarkable story.
Chris Mordetzsky (Masters): “Basically, the neighbor who was psychotic barricaded my mom in her own house, locked the door and refused to open it even for me. Once I got a call that there was a problem over there from one of the other neighbors and he was going on this rant about her being his mom and he’s her kid now so then I realized I was dealing with a crazy person. I was yelling to my mom and she wasn’t saying anything and speaking in a broken speech you could tell that he was probably threatening her I’m assuming at that point but I heard her yell something like ‘fire’.
I guess he was telling her that if he said anything that he was going to set the place on fire. So fast forward, the cops got there and started to barricade the door down and once they did that the guy set fire to the house. So basically what I did was where I saw the fire emanating from they put me out at a distance because I’m not a police officer and they don’t want me in the action.
Once I saw the fire I just bone rushed the house. I got right there.
They broke the window with their club and I took the hose and I shoved it right in the hole where the fire was and then I came around the other side and they are still trying to get this door down but the guy has it barricaded. So they finally get it down and then smoke just comes burrowing out so all the cops can’t even advance. They start selling backward and that’s the moment to me where adrenaline completely took over and I realize that my mom could realistically die right then and there. It’s one thing you’re thinking the fire but then once you think all this smoke you realize the smoke would kill her before the fire ever gets to her, she’ll die of smoke inhalation.
So basically adrenaline through the roof, I yell to the cops she’s in this room because I knew which room she was in and she’s in this room, she’s in this room but there was this big tree covering any access to the windows so basically once I realize I it gets the tree freak in uprooted it up out of the floor and the cops moved in they broke two windows.
One window, no sign of her, they broke the second one and boom she popped up and the most relief I’ve ever felt in my life.
I grabbed her scooped her out and pulled her away from the whole scene and got a couple of licks in on the a**hole who did it. Thank God my mom’s alive. I didn’t set out to be a hero but I appreciate everybody giving me such positive feedback from that and just all of it being on Good Morning America the day after that was pretty cool. Bottom-line, I made sure she came out of there alive.”
If you could highlight one match that was the pinnacle of your career, what would it be?
Chris Mordetzsky (Masters): “I can’t narrow it to one and I don’t mean that by any means to sound egotistical or maybe I do? (chuckles) I can tell you a handful of matches that stand out to me as matches that were pinnacles. I’ve had three matches that were with a young talent in England named Chris Travis and he’s like a young Shawn Michaels. We wrestled one match and then the crowd demanded another match and then they demanded another match.
So literally the matches were so good this was PCW and they didn’t plan on bringing me back. But they brought me back a second time and then a third time and then eventually I just became a regular there.
So I’ve been wrestling there for the last 3 years pretty much.
Then also, I always say there was a match on Superstar’s where some people will laugh at that but it’s about a 14-17 minute match with Drew McIntyre, that is where he worked my leg and it was storytelling masterpiece absolute storytelling masterpiece. The pace, the selling everything about it was executed well. Any or my matches with Drew were top notches because he’s just a top-notch talent in my book and one of the best in the business.
I have to put Shawn Michaels on there just because it was Shawn Michaels and on pay per view and that was obviously very young and early in my career and I didn’t even know enough to know that I didn’t know but it was still amazing. Those are just the matches that stick out that were the ultimate high that I look back on and I’m proud of or that I chose somebody.”
How did the opportunity to compete with GFW come about?
What does the latter half of 2015 and beyond have in store for The Adonis Chris Mordetzsky (Masters)?
Chris Mordetzsky (Masters): “That’s a good question. I think Global Force Wrestling is going to be a huge going forward for me. I’m going to continue I’m sure wrestling overseas and internationally, doing a lot of that whether it be for QPW or PCW or just to the various promotions. I’ll be going back to Europe next month and then the month after in August for PCW and then beyond that? This is my passion. I’m going to continue when I decided that this was what I was going to do with my life.
I decided that I was going to look at was what was my passion? What’s the motivating factor? What are you passionate about? The answer to that was wrestling. I’m going to continue to do this as long as they’ll pay me to do it and at the same time realize the value and diversifying and also looking at other revenue streams and getting involved in other things like that may be beneficial to me.
I live in LA, and there are opportunities out here.
I’m not saying that I’m going to try and go out to Hollywood and do something out there or anything but like that but wrestling is always going to be the number one passion. I would love to find something else that I was even half as passionate about that I was about wrestling that I could do at this point in my life. That’s what I’m on the search for now. Not to give up wrestling but to have another passion that can also give me fulfillment but also still provide.”
The recent passing of the American Dream Dusty Rhodes has shaken the wrestling community. What are your thoughts, feelings, and experiences with Dusty?
Chris Mordetzsky (Masters): “I don’t think I had a substantial amount of time around ‘The Dream’ where I can remember a story but I can remember him being just a good dude. The whole wrestling world is mourning over this because he was one of our icons and he was one of our legends. Anyone of the wrestling fans that grew up that are around my age or slightly younger or older they know who the American Dream is and they know who Dusty Rhodes is.
He was a guy that went out there and despite all adversity got himself over despite them putting him in a polka dot suit, he got himself over and you have got to hand it to that man. I think I speak for everybody in the wrestling community when I say we’re mourning his loss.”
