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RADICAN’S REVIEW SERIES
“BEST FRIENDS WITH RICH SWANN
RELEASED BY HIGHSPOTS IN 2015
“Best Friends with Rich Swann” is one of the latest editions in the Best Friends interview series from Highspots. As usual, Chuck Taylor and Trent Baretta host the interview. Swann makes for a great guest. He’s always engaging and has funny stories to tell.
Although Swann has done other interviews with Highspots, this interview is very different, as Taylor and Trent tackle a number of topics that usually wouldn’t get brought up in a typical interview. There are some things covered here that were discussed on Swann’s other Highspots releases, but the majority of the material here is fresh.
Swann kicks the interview off talking about the Ronin entrance in DGUSA. Swann would rap and beatbox Ronin’s entrance. Taylor ends up showing Trent how he and Gargano would just clap behind Swann when the three of them came out together. Depending on your sense of humor, you’ll either really enjoy this interview or you won’t. I find Taylor and Baretta to be very funny, so the opening did a good job of setting the stage for the rest of the interview.
They make good use of putting images on screen when certain topics are being discussed during the interview. Swann talks about how he’s going to straighten his hair and a short time later, Taylor pulls up a picture of what appears to be a very young Ricochet with a perm.
Swann talks a lot about his time wrestling overseas, especially in China and Japan. Swann traveled with Taylor and Trent to China for the WWN tour in 2014. The discussions about the WWN tour in China are among the most interesting topics discussed from a wrestling perspective. Trent and Swann discuss their match where they were able to get the crowd to invest and Taylor mentions how that was great since China had no exposure to wrestling in the past. Taylor also mentions how the first night of the tour was hard because the fans just didn’t react.
Swans ends up telling a fantastic non-wrestling story later in the interview about going to the mall with Larry Dallas and their translators. Needless to say, the story takes a turn for the worse when Swann, Dallas, and their translators nearly get into a strange white van after waiting forever for a taxi after they had finished shopping at the mall. The best part is that this time, Larry Dallas isn’t the focal point of the story, but instead Swann talks about how the white van contained two very enthusiastic men and an escort in a mask. This story is almost worth the price of admission alone.
The Best Friends interview staples are all here as well. Swann is asked about Jerry Lynn, how he wipes, whether or not he has ever full dogged a female wrestler, and of course he is asked to tweet The Rock. Swann’s reaction to tweeting at The Rock is great, as he was just about a month or so away from reporting to NXT when this interview was filmed and jokes that he doesn’t want to get fired before he gets hired.
The non-wrestling topics covered include Swann talking about the illuminati and how he believes that aliens are demons. Swann says he knows his beliefs are ridiculous, but he believes that aliens exist and that they are demons. This section of the release was just strange to me, but I can listen to Swann talk about just about anything, so it wasn’t that bad to get through.
Swann talks about how Bret Hart and Steve Austin were his two favorite wrestlers growing up. Besides the talk about wrestling overseas, Swann’s imitation of Bret Hart and his story about meeting Bret at WrestleCon are the other highlight of this release. Swann’s imitation of Hart and his mannerisms is dead-on. I was in stiches just watching Swann cut a perfect Bret promo complete with hair flips.
Swann goes into detail about his rough upbringing and how his father abused his mother when he was growing up in Baltimore. It’s really unbelievable that Swann has made it this far in life, as he’s currently signed with WWE. Swann had a really horrible life growing up. His father was killed by his girlfriend when Swann was 12. Swann’s mother died when he was 16. Swann discusses these circumstances and how he credits pro wrestling with saving his life. Watching Swann speak is really inspiring, as he always has a smile on his face and you would never know he’s had such a tough life to date.
Overall Thoughts: (8.5) – I really enjoyed this interview. It was different than the other interviews I’ve seen with Swann from Highspots, which was a good thing. Sometimes Taylor and Baretta take things way off the beaten path, but I find them entertaining and engaging. The stories Swann, Taylor, and Trent tell about wrestling overseas were particularly engaging.
I had heard about how good Swann was at Virtual Pro Wrestling and No Mercy on N64, so it was a blast that the bonus match on this release was Taylor and Swann facing off against each other in Virtual Pro Wrestling. Highspots used a cool picture-in-picture shot for this segment and it is clear that Swann has videogame skills. If you’re looking for Swann to talk about his future wrestling in WWE, you won’t find this here, but you will get a really fun discussion between Taylor, Swann, and Trent, who clearly have good chemistry together. Thumbs up.
You can purchase “Best Friends with Rich Swann” on DVD by clicking HERE or by visiting Highspots.com. You can also purchase this release on MP4 at Highspots.com and on VOD at DIYWrestling.com. You can also watch Highspots titles from The Kevin Steen Show, Best Friends, CZW, PWG, and more at HighspotsWrestlingNetwork.com subscription service, which is now available on Roku.
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