The following are highlights from Xtreme Mayhem's interview with NWA TNA's James Mitchell of the New Church! The interview was conducted by Mike Nagel on June 1st, 2003. Visit http://xtreme.themayhem.com/ to listen to the streaming audio or downloadable version of the interview!

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- Mitchell talked about how he first discovered wrestling by accident. In the first grade, he would get beat up by kids who put wrestling holds on him. He ended up becoming friends with one of them is Jeff Bailey who currently works for NWA Wildside. He became a hardcore wrestling fan until puberty came in strong and he put off wrestling to the side to chase girls and get involved with rock music. He learned how to talk well through wrestling promos and marvel comics. He was a singer for several years, and he found himself cutting more wrestling-style promos instead of focusing on the music. He called various people and tried to get into the wrestling business. He called Jim Crockett promotions several times and he visited Fabulous Moolah's training camp. He said that he lied, conned, and swindled his way into the business. He said he would bullshit to make it sound like he knew more than he did. He worked some bad independent Gene Anderson and went to his school in Charlotte. He got the hell beat out of him and cut a promo, and they asked if he wanted to wrestle or be a manager. He started managing in the South Carolina area and he gained more knowledge of the business and starting meeting big names in the business such as Paul Orndorff and The Iron Sheik. In 1993 he went to Jim Cornette's Smokey Mountain Wrestling and a few years later ended up in WCW, then ECW, and now NWA TNA.

- He talked about being in WCW and how Dallas Page and Kanyon were the ones who got him in. He said he could take credit for discovering Kanyon and Mitchell had seen some of Kanyon's tapes around 1991. Mitchell said that Kanyon had good raw talent, and he helped Kanyon improve and helped got Kanyon's foot in the door in Smokey Mountain Wrestling. He said that Kanyon got to WCW and was chosen to be "Mortis" for the feud with Glacier. He said that the "Blood Runs Over" gimmick was meant to be a big deal at first, but the NWO killed it off. WCW also felt that Mortis and Wrath were too green and they needed a mouthpiece. Mitchell was at Kanyon's house and DDP called and wanted to see a tape of Mitchell's work. Mitchell was drunk on wine and cut several promos on how the Mortis concept should go. DDP saw the tape and told Mitchell to make some fine tuning, which he did and DDP gave it to Bischoff. Mitchell was hired by Bischoff thirty minutes later. Bischoff told him right away that he felt the whole gimmick was destined to fail because they had waited too long to get it started, but Mitchell didn't mind because it was first real money he was making in his life. He was happy to be part of WCW because they had such a great talent roster at the time. He became frustrated because he was with WCW for three years, but they just paid him to sit at home for the last two years. He felt it was foolish for them not to use him and he just ended up being wasted talent. He was basically told to stay home, shut up, and collect his checks before they remembered he was on the payroll and fired him.

- He spent some time talking about his stint in ECW. He hung around at ECW shows and Paul Heyman just used him one day out of the blue. He talked about the birth of the red devil suit and how Raven gave him some advice and said that he was one of the best promo guys, but he needed to have a look that would standout. Raven said that he needed a look where if he was at airport, people could take one look at him and know that he was involved with wrestling. At first, Mitchell didn't like dressing up in a goofy costume because he felt his talent was good enough, but then he felt he should be the physical embodiment of the devil since he had been called that since the 2nd grade. Heyman saw him in the red suit and laughed and put him in a promo. From there, Heyman signed him to a contract and Mitchell said his time in ECW was the most fun he had in his life. Mitchell wasn't crazy about being paired with Mikey Whipwreck at first, but they started doing promos totally drunk in the middle of the night. Mitchell was embarrassed about having the promos air on television, but the more silly the promos got, the more the fans enjoyed them. Mitchell talked about using fireballs in ECW and went into detail about the whole process and an accident with his hand. He spent a week in the hospital and his hand had looked like his hand went into a chainsaw. He was told that he could have suffered a heart attack or a stroke because of the initial shock. This was a very interesting story. When ECW closed down, people still worked together and wanted to see the company survived despite people not getting paid.

- He talked about being in NWA-TNA and how hanging out backstage is similar to ECW without the political bullshit of WCW. He said in TNA, everyone is working together for the most part and just hoping to make some money and stay healthy. When the New Church first started, he didn't think the booking was done well. When they were brought back on Halloween, he felt the music, video packages, and the whole overall presentation was done better. He likes being involved with Mike Awesome, but feels that Awesome needs to be booked better and brought up how Paul Heyman could bring out the strengths of a wrestler and hide the weaknesses. In word association, he said Paul Heyman was a guy who gave him his biggest break and he'd love to work for Heyman again. He called Tajiri and Nunzio (Little Guido) great wrestlers. He said Kid Kash is much better as a heel since he is sort of a heel in real life. He called Jeff Jarrett the heart and soul of NWA TNA who is a very hard working person. He said Kanyon is his best friend in the business and a super talent. He used one word to describe himself - evil! He finished up by plugging his new unofficial website, which is linked below.

James Mitchell's (un)official website: http://www.the-new-church.com/

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