Luke Harper recently spoke with Mike Thiel of the Courier-Journal to promote Tuesday’s SmackDown Live at the KFC Yum Center in Louisville. Here are some of the highlights.
His gimmick’s inspiration:
(Laughs) I don’t know if there was any real inspiration. I got an email from a promoter, Mike Quackenbush and (sports entertainer) Mitch Ryder, who suggested it. I tried it out and then it just became me turned up and wacky and it just felt right. I’ve been told a thousand times, you’re really whacked out there, but to me, it doesn’t seem that way. It feels very normal. So when someone tells me it’s crazy, I don’t know what to say. My wife, I don’t think she even bats an eye at it anymore.
Finding his own identity after breaking away from the Wyatt Family:
That’s the fun and stressful and terrifying part about this time of my career; who knows where it goes? It could go way up or way down and it’s kind of up to me to decide where it goes. I’m just trying to make myself the best professional wrestler that I can and I know that sounds cliche, but that’s kind of the point, is to do the best you can and it’s on them to use that.