WRESTLING: Beyond the mat

By Shannon Rose eWrestling.com Guest Columnist

He is one of the top workers on the independent scene. This man has turned many heads with his great wrestling ability. I'm talking about Donovan Morgan. Donovan is one of the top performers in the country. He is a mainstay in Roland Alexander's APW. I caught up with Donovan for this exclusive interview conducted a few months back. We covered a varitey of topics and here is what Mr. Morgan had to say.

Shannon Rose: How are you doing?

Donovan Morgan: I'm doing great Shannon thanks for having me.

Shannon: We're here at IPW. It was a great show. We had some problems, but it turned out to be as we usually notate it, "hardcore." But, you said you aren't hardcore.

Donovan: Yeah. You know it's funny because nowadays "hardcore," people use it because they don't know how to work. They can't work. They don't know anything but chairs and tables because they've never been trained the right way. So I feel like I'm a wrestler. I shouldn't have to do "hardcore." If I'm going to get in the ring, the ring's gonna be actually set up right and we're going to have a good match. I'll put 110% into every match I have. I just had a 25 minute match with Barry Horowitz back in Cali a couple months ago. I had a 20 minute match last night with Vic Grimes in Minnesota for the AWA. I put a lot into my matches. I take pride in being an athlete. I take pride in eating right. I don't drink beer in the locker room. I don't smoke pot. I take pride in myself. I'll never have any regrets because I'm going to do this 100%.

Shannon: You wrestle for APW, which was on the movie Beyond the Mat. It's run by Roland Alexander. Now Roland is different than some other promoters. He deals in other businesses too besides promoting?

Donovan: Yeah. Roland also has the APW Boot Camp, which I believe is one of the top schools in the country. It's a 2 year wrestling program. Roland's involved with not only running shows, but he's involved with the training as well and has a really strong boot camp there. Roland's one of the more controversial people in the wrestling business. In the movie Beyond the Mat you saw how he was portrayed in a real shady manner. That leads a lot of people who don't know him to think bad about the guy. To be honest with you, Roland has been nothing but good to me. Roland's never charged me a dime. Those people that call him a money hungry bastard, I've got news for you, Roland's actually been really good to certain people that help him out. If you help him out, he'll help you out and that's the way it works. I think he's a pretty fair guy. Not to say he's perfect. Not to say he never says anything that's wrong. He's always been good to me and a lot of the guys there at APW.

Shannon: In the movie Beyond the Mat, he actually got a tryout for Mike Modest and another guy that was there. It didn't seem like it went too far. Yeah they got the tryout match, but never got called back.

Donovan: Right. That was an interesting story. They got the tryout match and basically after that they really didn't hear too much. I know Tony Jones. They were looking at Tony Jones. They were telling him to make improvements on his body. They wanted to see him and the WWF was very interested. They told him to keep sending tapes. They looked at Tony for a little while. They actually looked at him a little more than they did Mike. Not too long after that, WCW snatched Mike up. With Sullivan being fired and the new regime coming in, Mike was left out in the old without a contract that he was promised. That stuff happens in the business. Right now Mike Modest is heading up the UWA down in Los Angeles, it's called the Urban Wrestling League. It's like a hip hop mixed with wrestling. I've seen it and it's pretty good. I wish the best to them. Right now Mike's doing pretty good as a leader in that part of the business.

Shannon: APW actually has a competitor I would say, the UPW which is run by Rick Bassman. They have a deal with the WWF. They're like a farm system sort of. A lot of guys came out of there. What do you think of them?

Donovan: I think UPW's got a lot of strong things going for them. Number one, they've got a lot of guys that "look" like pro wrestlers. You stick in a tape of UPW and you stick in a tape of some APW guys and you see the difference. There's a lot of guys that look really, really good. Bodybuilder style. UPW also has developed that relationship with WWF. They have that strong working relationship which is good for them. I like Rick Bassman. I think Rick Bassman has a very good thing going. His training camp and everything, I've seen it. Training wise, I like our training. I'm a big fan, not just because they employ me. I feel like our training's really solid. I'm not saying UPW's isn't. But, on the training level, 2 years solid work before you have your first pro match. I think our training's very good. But, Rick's got a lot of good things. Bruce Pritchard's down there. Triple H comes down there. Jim Ross comes down there.

That's a big thing. That's a morale boost for all the guys. You've got Jim Ross and Triple H coming down there and they're commenting on your matches, of course you're gonna work your ass off. You're gonna give it 100% in and out of the ring. That's a big plus for them. We've also got our contacts too. Our contacts might not be as strong as Rick Bassman's is with the WWF coming to every one of his shows. But, we got Crash Holly into the WWF. Vic Grimes and Spike Dudley in ECW. Various tryouts and dark matches for a lot of our guys. We're doing good too. I'm pretty proud of what we've accomplished.

Shannon: You've spoken of all the other guys. How about yourself? Have you had a dark match or where do you see yourself in the future?

Donovan: I had a dark match the first year into my career. I didn't have a body. I looked like a skinny 21 year old kid that would just watch wrestling. I had a dark match for WCW. They told me put some size on, that Orndorff actually really liked me, this is what he said. They said that we're going to be in the Oakland Coliseum in six months, come see us then. Then, Orndorff was actually moved to another position in the company. So that kind of left it out in the cold. But either way, my body wasn't ready at that point in time. I've had some dark matches with the WWF. When the WWF comes to town, Kevin Kelly invites me down on most occasions. I think in the near future you'll be seeing me get some tryouts if everything goes well.

Shannon: As we saw with the movie, Roland Alexander had some ties with the WWF. Does he still have some ties with them? I haven't heard too much of APW working in an association with them?

Donovan: Our main contact then was Jim Cornette. Now Jim Cornette is in Ohio Valley. We don't have much of a contact with him anymore. The contact that I have is Kevin Kelly. So that's pretty much who we go through. Jim Cornette was the one that set me and Mike Modest up with our dark matches. I thank him for that because it was very nice of him to have faith in us to have a 10 minute dark match because most dark matches don't go that long. So Jim had a lot of faith in us. For the most part we still have some contacts. It's not like where the WWF is coming into our wrestling school every week like Rick Bassman.

Shannon: Who have you found that you like working best with in the ring?

Donovan: Like I said I had a match with Barry Horowitz about two weeks ago. I like working with people that can lead me, that can show me things, teach me new things. Everyone can learn. I like getting in there with veterans. Barry Horowitz, I learned a lot from him in the match that I had with him. Also guys like Mike Modest. I've had a lot of good matches with him. He's the one that taught me and trained me. I really like working experienced veterans that can teach me a thing or two.

Shannon: Do you find yourself able to lead in a match now? Have you been in the business long enough you feel to do that?

Donovan: Yeah. Actually I'm feeling really comfortable and it's funny you bring this point up because looking at APW, it's all the same guys. You're working all the same guys all the time. It's very easy to have a good match. It's very easy to call a good match in the ring because you work the guys all the time. I went on a trip to Canada not too long ago. I wrestled some guys that were a little more inexperienced than me. The matches weren't that good. It hit me then. Gosh! It's an art form to lead a match with someone that's not very experienced because you have to stick with their strengths. You can't do anything in the match that they aren't able to do physically, so you have to stick with their strengths.

Knowing that, just walking into a locker room, and talking with someone you've never worked with before is an art. Lately I've been working a lot just with guys that I don't know and putting together matches that are actually coming out really well. I've been leading the matches. I'm learning how to do that. I feel like come a long way just in the past two months. As far as leading a match, yeah I feel like I'm pretty solid, but still getting better.

Shannon Rose is the ring announcer for IPW Hardcore Wrestling. He has worked in the wrestling business for over 14 years and has interviewed everyone from "The Rock" to RVD. Rose also has wrestled WWF announcer Kevin Kelly in his pre-WWF days.

Article courtesy of eWrestling.com