SWE Spotlight: In Profile – SLTD Wrestling meets “The Gear of War” Kevin Williams

Welcome to the latest in our SWE Spotlight series focusing on my local wrestling promotion, SWE. This week’s interview saw me catch up with the newest member of “The Syndicate”. After turning on his tag-team partner (and turning heel in the process), “The Gear of War” Kevin Williams is really on a roll right now. Kevin sat and spoke to me about his past, a dodgy gimmick, a nasty experience when getting a pre-match pep talk before his debut, as well as his alignment with Chaz Phoenix & Steven Magners! It’s a great insight into his history, the dues he’s paid and where he hopes to go now that he’s the real Kevin Williams. Enough talking from me, let’s hear what Kevin had to say!

Tell us a little bit about how you got started in wrestling and who your influences were when you were growing up?

I’ve been into wrestling since before I could remember and I think my earliest memory of wrestling is watch events like SummerSlam with Undertaker vs. Undertaker and Survivor Series with Bret Hart vs. Bob Backlund in the throw in the towel match. I used to watch wrestling with my father, brother and sister until we stopped being able to watch it and then wrestling just kind of got forgot about really. My parents ended up getting Sky TV a few years later and I started watching it again as soon as I could. It was around the 1999 Royal Rumble and I was seeing guys like Stone Cold cause all kinds of hell and I thought this is amazing! Wrestling wasn’t like that when I was younger.

We (my brother, sister and me) knew what we were watching was pure entertainment, but we didn’t care. Neither did my father, so wrestling became something that was just ours. We would watch it religiously and often have to tape the PPV’s and watch them in the afternoon after we finished school and he finished work. It really is my fondest memory of my dad, who unfortunately passed away in August of 2004 to cancer. He never complained about it for the two years he had it, but he always told me to do what makes me happy and nothing made me happier than wrestling.

When did you decide that you wanted to be a wrestler?

A month or so after my dad passed away, I went to a wrestling show in Glenrothes ran by Orig Williams with my best friend Fraser Kelly. It was my first live wrestling event. We just looked at each and said “we’re doing this!”. We hounded the ring announcer until he gave us the address of a school in Glasgow and off we went. W3L later opened up in Fife and just seemed like the logical place to train really. That was run by Mike Musso and Spike Anderson at the time in a little school hut and all we had were judo mats. Mike was trained by Jake Roberts and the one thing I’ll always be thankful to Mike for is teaching solid psychology. It’s something most workers on the British scene seem to forget about.

You’ve been wrestling for almost 10 years now. How much has it changed since you first got started training and what’s the major difference between then and now?

When I first started wrestling, respect and speaking when spoken to were very important. It was all about having respect for something that you should feel beyond privileged to be a part of. The guys and gals I started with, including my friend Fraser (who would later wrestle under a mask for Mike), Johnny Lyons, Sara Marie Taylor and Taylor Bryden all knew how lucky we were to be there. However, there were a few times when something would piss one of the older workers off and boy did we pay for it as a group, but it was all ( mostly) about teaching respect. I’m not saying there isn’t the same respect in wrestling today, but it’s far easier for someone to get into the business now than it was when I started. It’s much the same in that it was easier for me than when the older guys started, so I suppose that’s just progression.

Is there anything that frustrates you right now about wrestling or the way it’s perceived?

As a fan watching the current product, what really grinds my gears is ad breaks during matches! It completely takes you out of the match and the story of it. Also the fact that these breaks happen during every match at a certain point doesn’t really scream “real contest”.

On a domestic front, the thing that frustrates me (as someone who was trained by someone that was trained by the master of psychology) are matches that are just full of moves and spots without telling a story. To me, that isn’t wrestling. Sure its fancy and looks nice, but you won’t leave an impression on a fan other than “Oh that guy did a cool move didn’t he?” I feel it’s far more effective telling a story and really getting to a fan in some way, as a babyface, heel or indifferent. If they go away remembering your name and your match, then you’ve done your job.

There are lots of good, strong wrestling companies in the UK right now. What do you put that down to?

The hard work and “balls to the wall” mentality that people involved in the UK scene seem to have these days. Scotland in particular has so many companies doing huge things. SWE have Hell for Lycra, which has become a brand in Scotland with areas competing with each other to host it on a yearly basis.

ICW is something very special as well and Mark Dallas has only his hard work and the team of his guys to thank for the success they have had. SWA is somewhere I would love to work, as they seem to have a different way of doing things as well. What’s refreshing about it all is as much as there are a fair few promotions (and I can only speak for Scotland here), there’s not much stepping on toes or bickering between companies. They all seem to get on fine and understand that all success is for the greater good of the scene in Scotland.

For anyone that hasn’t seen you wrestle, how would you describe your style?

My style right now would be described as technical brawler. I like good technical wrestling, but I would say I’m probably the best striker in the SWE. When I hit you, everyone knows about it. I like fast paced matches as well, so any opportunity I have to get in with someone that can go, I’m all over it with good ideas.

What are your memories of your first match?

Oh, my first match was special! I was in a gauntlet match with a guy named “Invincible” and he gave the “old school” speech to me, Johnny Lyons and Tommy Turner (who was Johnny’s first tag team partner in the team of the Tenacious Guns) about how this is real for him and we were going to feel it etc. etc. This guy was massive, round and intimidating, but while we were getting “the talk”, all I could think about was the smell from the toilet where the guy had just been! So trying to be respectful and listen to him was getting more and more difficult! The match itself was fine. People seemed to like me and my “antics”. I took my clothesline (didn’t feel a thing by the way) and one slam in the match, and that was me done. 16 months of training for one move in the match. Dues paid that day… lots.

You trained under Mike Musso and Alan Grogan (among others) at W3L. How much did their experience prepare you for life in the ring and on the road?

As I said before, the mental training, as well as physical training, we got from Mike was (and still is) extremely valuable to me. Alan Grogan is one of the more technically gifted British style wrestlers in the UK today, so anything he had to teach me, I was all over. As far as travelling with those guys on the road, that was interesting to say the least! There were lots of trips in the back of ring vans, with ropes and canvas to sit on! (All very illegal, but hey that’s paying dues for you!)

Tell us what the thinking was behind the “Kongo Kev” gimmick? I’ve heard there’s a good story behind that!

(sighs) Well when I started training, I had long hair and a fairly bushy beard cause I wanted to look like Ryan Dunn from Jackass. I thought I looked cool until one time at W3L training, a guy called Chris (who wrestled under the name of Damien Diamond) commented that I looked like I had been dragged backwards out of a jungle! I could literally see the cogs in Musso’s head turning and Kongo Kev was born. At the time, I was under the impression that if I didn’t do this gimmick, I wouldn’t get to wrestle, so I sucked it up and went with it for six years!

It wasn’t only me that had to suck it up though. Johnny Lyons had to be in a gay tag-team called the “Tenacious Guns”, but at least he had the advantage of getting to choose his name! I did enjoy getting to make the gimmick more my style over time, but ultimately I kept thinking about my dad and how he said do what makes you happy. The Kongo Kev gimmick wasn’t making me happy, so I changed my name about a year or so after joining SWE.

After W3L and Wrestlezone, you moved a bit further north and started working for SWE. What was it that made you want to work there?

SWE is a very special place in the world of wrestling. It’s run by a group of guys who just want to put on great shows that have something for everyone. There are lots of people backstage that I’m proud to call friends and there are no egos: everyone’s there for the same reason. SWE and Wrestlezone had a partnership before it was lost to Aberdeen, which was a good partnership, but it just made me see the wrestler, worker and friend I wanted to be to people in wrestling.

How did your tag-team with Luke Xavier come about and what was the idea for “Project Revolution”?

I was sort of floating about in SWE after dropping the Kongo gimmick, and I was approached by management to team with Luke because they needed something for him as well. I was looking forward to starting out in tag team wrestling, taking Luke under my wing, and kicking the tag-team division in the ass really. There was only one real tag-team in teh SWE, The Flying Scotsmen (Bravehart and Claymore) and they’d split up at the previous year’s Hell for Lycra, so I felt that a team that was all about tag-team wrestling would be welcome. We came up with lots of tag-team manoeuvres and started travelling to shows. He became one of my best friends after that. Luke works harder than anyone I know and paid a fair bit of dues driving me around to the various places we worked.

What made you decide to break up your tag-team with Luke and join Chaz Phoenix & Steven Magners as part of “The Syndicate”?

Mostly, I felt it was time to see what I could do by myself, but then there was the chance to join Chaz and Magners. I thought that as someone who’s been around a while, I’d fit into that group very well. The way it was done was amazingly fun and I can’t wait to see the footage back on the SWE YouTube page.

Going forward, what’s the plan for Kevin Williams in SWE?

Hopefully I can work more singles matches with the likes of Johnny Lyons, Luke Xavier, Sam Ross and Ian Ambrose and especially Euan G Mackie as a heel, which is out of my comfort zone, so I’m looking forward to it. Also causing chaos as part of The Syndicate will be great fun!

Over the last few years, the SWE have managed to get some WWE legends at their shows like Ted DiBiase, Virgil, Tatanka and most recently, Chavo Guerrero. What’s it like to be around those guys backstage and are they generous with their time to the boys in the back?

The guys that have been brought over, Ted especially, have all been absolute gentlemen and couldn’t be nicer to everyone. We all got the chance to have a sit down seminar with Ted and it was an amazing learning experience. Backstage, it’s a little different for me. It was quite intimidating to have these guys I grew up watching just walking about! I found myself just staring at Chavo Guerrero, which was funny cause he just looked at me and said “what’s up man?” A simple enough sentence, but the inner mark in me could’ve died happy that day!

It’s not often that we get to speak to wrestlers who work in Europe as well. What was it like working in Poland?

Working for DDW the times I’ve been over have been great experiences for me. The first time I was over with Claymore (now Gentleman James Swinton) was nerve-wracking as it was my first time on my own without the safety net of the people I know around me, but I did what the promoter wanted and I’m proud of that. The second time I was over was far better as me and Martyn Stallion had two shows over a weekend, but the venues were on opposite sides of the country. We ended up having to take two 12-hour train journeys over that weekend. It was an experience that turned me into a thief for the train back though! I needed to steal a pillow from the first venue in preparation for my train back to where I was flying from, because the first train there was complete hell! Don Roid is doing an absolute bang up job over there running Poland’s only wrestling promotion, and I can’t wait to go back.

I’ve heard that you’re going to be working a match in Hungary soon as well. How did that opportunity come about?

Martyn and I met the guys from HCW on our trip to Poland and I got to work with one of them, while Martyn got to work with two of them. They invited Martyn and Bravehart over for a show and now they want more of us over, so I’m looking forward to it.

Who’s been your favourite opponent to get in the ring with and why?

Picking a favourite is quite hard. I’ve worked with everyone in Scotland that really matters these days, like Lionheart, Kid Fight, Liam Thompson and Red Lightning, but the guys I’ve worked with in SWE have produced far more memorable matches for me. Guys like Mr News, Johnny Lyons and E.G Mackie. If I have to pick a favourite though, I’d say Chaz Phoenix. We had a match for the Wrestlezone title that was amazing. Everything about the match was spot on and Chaz is one of the people that rarely gets any praise for the incredible worker he is.

Of all the matches you’ve had in your career so far, which one stands out to you most and which one are you most proud of?

Apart from the match with Chaz, winning the SWE Tag Team Titles with Luke at Hell for Lycra 8 was amazing. Not only cause we won the titles, but because we got to open the show, which I love doing, and I feel we opened it well! There’s also a match I had with Damien at my first Hell for Lycra, which was number 5, won us match of the year that year, which was a great honour.

Is there anyone you haven’t had the chance to wrestle yet that you’d love to work with?

Loads! I’d love to wrestle Bravehart now that I’m a heel. Wrestling a guy who is as over as he is should, and would, be a complete pleasure. From an indy perspective, I’d love the chance to wrestle the likes of Damien O’Connor, Colt Cabana or Kevin Steen. That would be amazing!

Let’s pretend for a second that Vince McMahon calls you up and offers you a WrestleMania match against any wrestler from the recent past or present. Who would you choose to wrestle on that stage and why?

Chris Jericho, without any hesitation. The man is an absolute hero of mine and his style is something I’ve always tried to emulate. A match with him would be an amazing, if not pant-filling, experience!

When it’s all said and done, what do you want to have achieved and be remembered for?

Hopefully not as the idiot in leopard print who threw bananas at people! I do feel there are a lot of people that respect what I’ve done in wrestling and are looking forward to seeing what I’m going to do next, because “the gear of war” is me. The best wrestling characters are an extension of yourself and now I’m finally getting to do that. Ultimately, I want to be remembered as an honest, hard worker and someone that made his dad proud.

And finally, have you got a message for all your fans?

You think you know Kevin Williams? You think you know that guy who used to make you smile and laugh? You don’t know sh*t! The ass-kicking machine that is “The Syndicate” has a new cog and we’re now kicking on all cylinders! SWE shows from now on will never be the same. Come and see for yourself…

I think you’ll all see from what Kev’s had to say that he’s paid his dues to get to where he’s at in the SWE right now. To be honest, The Syndicate have put everyone on notice in the SWE and I can’t think of any interview I’ve done that’s finished as intense as it did with “The Gear of War”, Kevin Williams. As with every interview, for more information about Kevin, The Syndicate, or any of the other SWE wrestlers we’ve put the spotlight on lately, head on over to www.sweonline.co.uk. You can also follow the SWE on Twitter @SWE_online for info about upcoming shows and appearances. You can also check out Kevin’s Facebook page at www.facebook.com/G.O.WKevinWilliams.

That’ll wrap things up for the latest SWE Spotlight. Join us next week to see who we’ll be putting under the microscope! Until then, thanks for checking this out and remember to share/like/comment on the interview!