Rich Bocchini, better known as Rich Brennan in WWE NXT, recently spoke with Jay Reddick of the Orlando Sentinel. During the interview, the former NXT ring announcer talked about various topics including how the late great WWE Hall of Famer Dusty Rhodes helped him as an announcer and why some fans prefer independent wrestling over WWE. Here are the highlights:
Independent wrestling:
“I think it has to do with how nerd culture has melded with popular culture. A lot of indie wrestling is the hipster crowd that’s maybe into ‘Star Wars,’ comics and craft beer. I’m a little older, but I consider myself one of them. Every decent-sized city now has one craft brewery, if not four and people want to support the local brand, it feels like they can make it their own. That’s what indie wrestling is, it’s craft wrestling. It caters to the fan that doesn’t want the bigness of WWE and the indies are small enough that they can really listen to what people want on a more personal level.”
Dusty Rhodes helping him in NXT:
“I loved to pick Dusty’s brain on big-picture stuff. He gave me confidence. There were a lot of kids learning promos who were scared to death, but if he saw you worked hard and had passion, he would get behind you. He trusted both me and Corey Graves to do more and more and that was huge.”
You can read the entire interview here.
