{"id":21567,"date":"2016-06-02T12:23:49","date_gmt":"2016-06-02T17:23:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/?p=21567"},"modified":"2016-06-02T13:32:26","modified_gmt":"2016-06-02T18:32:26","slug":"former-wwe-star-brad-maddox-identifies-issues-wwes-backstage-environment-top-star-really-felt-pressure","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/2016\/06\/02\/former-wwe-star-brad-maddox-identifies-issues-wwes-backstage-environment-top-star-really-felt-pressure\/","title":{"rendered":"Former WWE star Brad Maddox identifies issues with WWE&#8217;s backstage environment, which top star really felt the pressure?, more"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"pwtor-1304141870\" class=\"pwtor-before-content pwtor-entity-placement\"><hr \/><b>SPOTLIGHTED PODCAST ALERT (YOUR ARTICLE BEGINS A FEW INCHES DOWN)... <\/b>\r\n\r\n<iframe src=\"https:\/\/widget.spreaker.com\/player?show_id=3076978&theme=light&playlist=false&playlist-continuous=false&autoplay=false&live-autoplay=false&chapters-image=true&episode_image_position=right&hide-logo=false&hide-likes=false&hide-comments=false&hide-sharing=false&hide-download=true\" width=\"100%\" height=\"140px\" frameborder=\"0\"><\/iframe>\r\n<hr \/><\/div><p>Many of today&#8217;s WWE stars decided they wanted to become a pro wrestler watching the Monday Night Wars. Then, when they got in the\u00a0WWE system, they realized it&#8217;s not as easy as storming down to the ring when their music plays, hitting their moves, and leaving.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I think the main disconnect is that you grow up watching Stone Cold or The Rock and you think it&#8217;s super awesome. Then you get on the road and you&#8217;re traveling 300 days a year and you have to drive 300 miles in between shows, there&#8217;s so much stress,&#8221; said former WWE wrestler\/referee\/GM Brad Maddox in a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.blogtalkradio.com\/pancakesandpowerslams\/2016\/06\/01\/pancakes-and-powerslams-episode-218\" target=\"_blank\">new interview with Chris Featherstone of the Pancakes &amp; Powerslams Slam<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Just booking travel, just that by itself, booking hotel rooms every night and booking cars, paying for all your travel, is a constant thing. I got caught up into it as well, I got sick of a lot of the aspects of it when I was there. It&#8217;s a bit different when you get there than what you think it will be.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>It doesn&#8217;t help that backstage communication between management and talent is problematic.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It does get very frustrating. Communication gets very muddy, and I think a lot of guys feel a little trapped,&#8221; Maddox said.\u00a0&#8220;Almost like they can&#8217;t defend themselves within the constructs of the company. So, when you have a system like that, you&#8217;re gonna continue to have outbursts, and some are going to be more public than others, depending on the frustration level. That&#8217;s just the system that they&#8217;ve set up, so they&#8217;ve gotta deal with whatever happens.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Maddox also pointed to the environment being stressful for underneath guys who fear losing their spot on TV\u00a0and top guys who want to keep their position.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;That&#8217;s the thing about the system is that you can&#8217;t really take breaks, especially if you&#8217;re in a decent spot. You gotta stick it out, and ride it out until they&#8217;re not writing you anymore, because if you pull out &#8211; unless you&#8217;re [John] Cena or The Undertaker &#8211; you lose your spot. So if you want to take a vacation, good luck getting back into the rotation. So it&#8217;s a little stressful in that regard as well,&#8221; Maddox said, while also relaying a story on a top guy like Randy Orton feeling the stress.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Orton would get angry at something in a match. I remember a few instances when I was a referee, so I was in [the Gorilla Position] a lot of the time. A few times he would say things or threaten other guys, like right there in Gorilla, and I would be standing there with my eyes wide open, not believing that he is saying this in front of all the producers and in the same room with Vince (McMahon). I was kind of amazed by that,&#8221; Maddox said.<\/p><div id=\"pwtor-3062691685\" class=\"pwtor-content pwtor-entity-placement\"><div align=\"center\" data-freestar-ad=\"__336x280 __336x280\" id=\"pwtorchcom_test_300x250\">\r\n  <script data-cfasync=\"false\" type=\"text\/javascript\">\r\n    freestar.config.enabled_slots.push({ placementName: \"pwtorchcom_test_300x250\", slotId: \"pwtorchcom_test_300x250\" });\r\n  <\/script>\r\n<\/div><\/div>\n<div class=\"pwtor-end-article-groups pwtor-entity-placement\" id=\"pwtor-2462893122\"><div id=\"pwtor-2116858047\"><div align=\"center\" data-freestar-ad=\"__336x280\" id=\"pwtorchcom_medrec_3\">\r\n  <script data-cfasync=\"false\" type=\"text\/javascript\">\r\n    freestar.config.enabled_slots.push({ placementName: \"pwtorchcom_medrec_3\", slotId: \"pwtorchcom_medrec_3\" });\r\n  <\/script>\r\n<\/div>\r\n\r\nTHANK YOU FOR VISITING<\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<div class=\"mh-excerpt\"><p>Many of today&#8217;s WWE stars decided they wanted to become a pro wrestler watching the Monday Night Wars. Then, when they got in the\u00a0WWE system, they realized it&#8217;s not as easy as storming down to <a class=\"mh-excerpt-more\" href=\"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/2016\/06\/02\/former-wwe-star-brad-maddox-identifies-issues-wwes-backstage-environment-top-star-really-felt-pressure\/\" title=\"Former WWE star Brad Maddox identifies issues with WWE&#8217;s backstage environment, which top star really felt the pressure?, more\">[&#8230;]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":4845,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"episode_type":"","audio_file":"","podmotor_file_id":"","podmotor_episode_id":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","filesize_raw":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","itunes_episode_number":"","itunes_title":"","itunes_season_number":"","itunes_episode_type":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[1134,73,184,71],"class_list":["post-21567","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news_wwe","tag-brad-maddox","tag-randy-orton","tag-vince-mcmahon","tag-wwe"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/post\/2015\/12\/MaddoxBradWK_3x2_600.png","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21567","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21567"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21567\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21568,"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21567\/revisions\/21568"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4845"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21567"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21567"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21567"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}