WWE star Santos Escobar looks ahead of UK tour - including Manchester Co-op Live show
Manchester World's Christian Evans chats to WWE star Santos Escobar about the wrestling superstars coming to the UK for their latest tour.
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00:00When you first moved into the main roster in 2022, Triple H was in charge, and for yourself,
00:05he was in charge when you first started in AXD. How much did that familiarity
00:09and having that continuity, if you will, benefit you?
00:13It was awesome. Not just because of the work aspect of it, but because working with Triple H
00:21is always a pleasure. He's a wise man. He knows everything. I mean, at least
00:29in my perspective, he's been there and done that several times. So every time I have the
00:35opportunity to work with him, he oversees everything, but sometimes I work closely
00:40with him on my segments. And every time I have that opportunity, I just cherish that because he
00:45is so knowledgeable, and he always knows the right way to do things. And like you said,
00:51on NXT, when I first got there, and to me, it's special because I've always been a Triple H guy.
00:58I grew up admiring him, and I loved seeing him as a champion, him and Shawn Michaels. And
01:07luckily, life rewarded me with the opportunity to meet them in person, but not just that.
01:15Work with them and be approved by them and be mentored by them on NXT. So to have the opportunity
01:22nowadays, when I first started on NXT, then on the main roster, and nowadays currently having
01:28the opportunity to work with him week after week is something that just elevates my career to a
01:34different height because I'm constantly trying to evolve and to emulate what he has done.
01:42Yeah, when you're speaking to Triple H and Shawn Michaels, for basketball fans,
01:48if they saw LeBron James, they'd be like, Oh my God, it's LeBron James. Are you a bit like that?
01:54I mean, yes, there's always a chance to do that. But I feel like nowadays, I have to
02:03sort of hide the fan in me, you know, like, just stay in the back, let me handle business.
02:11Because I want to learn from them. And unless you break the barrier, you can't. The only way
02:17to learn from people like Triple H or Shawn Michaels is to talk to them, you know, like,
02:24face to face as talent as both workers. And it's hard when you really admire them, you know?
02:30Yeah, you've faced a lot of like high profile names on the main roster and wrestlers who've
02:35been in WWE for a while like Kevin Owens, Bobby Lashley, Finn Balor, The Miz,
02:41Rey Mysterio, but I'm going to ask you about him in a little bit. Even someone as experienced as
02:46yourself, do you still see it as like a great opportunity to pick the brains and like
02:50improve that way? Does that make sense? Yes, absolutely. Yes. I grew up in the world of
02:58Lucha Libre. And Lucha Libre, at least in Mexico, is a way of life. It's not just sports. It's not
03:07just entertainment. It's culture. It's society. It's everywhere. Every family in the country knows
03:13about it. And so the point that I'm trying to make is growing up, I was always taught to respect
03:20everyone and to listen to everyone and to try and learn from everyone. And that was taught to me in
03:26a sense of sometimes you feel like you already made it or you're already there or you already
03:31achieved or you're accomplished. But in reality, you always have to learn from every single person
03:38because the experience in this industry comes from actually wrestling and working and doing the shows.
03:45And you mentioned people like The Miz, for example, which is one of, if not the best
03:52talker in the business. You give him a mic and he'll give you a show. And to be able to work with
04:00him and to have a promo battle with him, it's an opportunity. It's a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.
04:08And to have the opportunity to have him give you notes on your work and give you advice on your
04:14work. Same with John Cena. Same with Triple H, Shawn Michaels, of course, Randy Orton, Ray Mysterio,
04:21Cody Rhodes. To have them pull you aside of Edge and tell you, hey, I like your work,
04:28first and foremost, and then you should do this, you should do that. And it's amazing that
04:33that's what I'm here for. You mentioned Ray Mysterio and you was in the revived LWO.
04:41How much of an honor was that for you? It was the honor. It was a year and change of traveling
04:52with Ray Mysterio, long hours on the road, just talking, learning, listening. He's a beautiful
05:01person, an amazing performer, hall of famer, nonetheless. And just to have the opportunity to
05:08be with him, that was a gift. That was a learning experience. But to be in a faction with him and to
05:18compete with him and then against him, and finally at WrestleMania, it's just a beautiful chapter
05:26in my life. Okay. You mentioned before about Lucha Libre, which Lucha Libre wrestlers
05:34finally got it out. Would you like to see in WWE eventually? I feel like there's a lot of people
05:42out there that would be a perfect fit for the WWE universe. Now, most of them are under contract,
05:52so I'm just not going to say who they are, but they know who I'm talking about. And I hope that
06:00whatever is going on with them works out. And eventually we see them here. But I feel like
06:06there's a lot of talent out there. And some of them I don't even know. Because one thing about
06:11Lucha Libre is that it's always creating and generating superstars, and it's always evolving
06:16as a show. So just watching some shows last week, I realized, wow, how much the industry
06:24in Mexico has grown, has changed. I couldn't help but to think that I want to have
06:32a PLE or WrestleMania in Mexico. That's the only thing I think when I see this talent.
06:37Because that would obviously bring the eyes of the company to Mexico. And that's when all this
06:44talent is cultivated. If there was ever the opportunity of a WrestleMania in Mexico and you
06:52got to main event, who would you choose to face and why? That's obvious. That would be Rey Mysterio,
06:57and I would like to have a mask versus hair match with him. A lucha de apuestas, a wager match.
07:04When you joined WWE, you had the El Hierro del Fantasma name. Forgive me about the pronunciation.
07:11You did good.
07:13Oh, thank you. Who decided you were going to have a new name and you were going to unmask?
07:18Well, I was already unmasked because I lost my mask at TripleMania the prior year.
07:25And so when I got to WWE, I was without a mask. But actually, the decision was to start with the
07:34mask so that I could reintroduce my audience to Lucha Libre, which is something that my character
07:42has always been about. About Lucha Libre, the true roots of my culture, my tradition, my heritage.
07:49And the best way to do it was, number one, to appear with the mask. And of course, number two,
07:57to remove the mask on my own and reveal this new persona of Santos Escobar, which is a character
08:04that I really, really love. I remember watching it because that was in the pandemic era and you
08:10were facing Drake. I was just thinking Ultimate Heel Move there. Ultimate Heel Move.
08:16That is Ultimate Heel Move. But also, it's like control your narrative. Control your narrative
08:23in front of the camera and have the opportunity to tell your story and not the story that other
08:28people want you to tell. And of course, in a business that is scripted, it's hard to tell
08:34your own story. But I feel like working with people like Triple H, Road Dogg, Shawn Michaels,
08:40and all the amazing writers on NXT, Johnny Russo, and of course, the people in the main roster,
08:46I have always been afforded the opportunity to tell my story. Maybe that's because I'm good at
08:52the mic. So that's important to have the talent and to have the chance to actually tell your story
08:58and have the audiences understand it and maybe capture their hearts and minds.
09:04Okay, a question about NXT. You just mentioned you spent quite a bit of time on NXT before coming to
09:10the main roster. And there's a lot of NXT stars on the main roster now making the name like
09:15Brom Breaker, Ilja Dragunov. Who in NXT would you love to face? And what's the best advice you could
09:20give them for when they are if they move to the main roster?
09:24Well, the number one advice I would give to all of them is to learn. You're there to learn and to
09:31grow. That's number one, learn and grow. And always think of where you're going to perform after that,
09:41which is PLE, WrestleMania, Friday Night SmackDown, Monday Night Raw. So you work
09:51with your mindset on that. That's number one. And number two, I would really like to resume my
09:59rivalry with Tony D'Angelo, Trick Williams, of course. Melo is already in the main roster,
10:07so that's going to happen. But Brom Breaker, of course, let's run it back. I feel like our
10:16generation is now populating the main roster. So all the amazing things that you saw on NXT,
10:25you're probably going to see them again, both on Raw, SmackDown, WrestleMania, who knows?
10:32There's one person I'd love to see you face on NXT, well, on the main roster, Wesley.
10:39I already faced him on NXT and he is awesome. I can't wait to work with him, hopefully soon.
10:47Okay. Coming from a family of wrestlers, watching your dad, your uncle, your cousin,
10:51all wrestle, when was it you decided like, yeah, this is what I want to do?
10:55It was early in my life. It was really, really early. But see, the thing about it is my mom
11:02was pretty much against it. And also my dad, because this is a hard life. It's not easy.
11:06It's not easy to grow. It's not easy to evolve. It's not easy to become a superstar. But
11:13my mom said, you got to go to school. You got to go to school and be an academic and learn
11:18and nurture your brain as much as you nurture your body. So I did that. And eventually I started
11:25training early, like really early. Five years old, I was already training. But eventually when the
11:33time came, they wouldn't let me do it. So it didn't matter that I had decided I wanted to do
11:39this when I was five or six years old. They were always like trying to make me run the opposite
11:45run the opposite way. I had to fight for my spot here, but I'm glad that I did it. And that would
11:52be an also an advice that I would give to anyone that's listening. If you have a dream in life,
11:59pursue it, go for it, do whatever it takes, because really, nothing is impossible.
12:06Look at me like, by all means, I should be here, you know, but I am and I had and I got the
12:13opportunity to work with Triple H and Shawn Michaels, for example, I grew up watching them
12:18and admiring them and being inspired by them. And then eventually I got to work to meet them
12:24and then work with them. So if you have a dream, go for it. That's my advice.
12:30When you go, as we both mentioned, like when you were growing up, you had that wealth of
12:35experience, you're disposable at your disposal, sorry. So forgive the very poor analogy,
12:41like Max Verstappen, when he was growing up, his dad retired from Formula One to train him. And
12:45that's what and that's when he ended up getting to in F1, like at 17. Was that experience like
12:51similar for you? So you like knew what to eat, you knew how to like condition your body,
12:55that type of thing? Exactly. It's not a poor analogy. It's a very great analogy,
13:00because that's how I grew up. I said it before, Lucha Libre is culture, it's life. And I just
13:08did a podcast on it. It's 12 episodes of Lucha Libre, it's called Lucha Libre Behind the Mask.
13:14If you get a chance, listen to it. I grew up with this world, with this way of life,
13:21like you have to train yourself, you got to have a certain mindset. And so it was only natural
13:28for me to grow into the business. That's something that maybe my dad or my mom didn't realize at the
13:34moment. But as much as Max Verstappen, you grow in a world that's your world. It's only natural
13:42that you're going to be a part of it. And that's what happened with me. And not just that,
13:46because of all this knowledge that actively and passively was passed on to me. Eventually,
13:52when the time was right, my IQ was through the roof. I already knew how to do this, I already
13:56knew how to do that. I already had this charisma, this, this pizzazz, this x factor that you need
14:03in this endeavors. And of course, like I said, they didn't want me to do it. But then when I
14:09proved myself to them, they were like, okay, this is what you got to do with your life.
14:15And that point, it was like, yeah, fair play, fair play. You've listened to all the lessons,
14:19go do what you got to do. And I feel like for both Max and myself, it worked out.
14:27I think that's probably the first and only time you'll hear Formula One and wrestling in an
14:31analogy or a question. So that's something to remember by.
14:35Yes, absolutely. I love that was an amazing analogy. I loved it. Thank you.
14:39Thank you. Obviously, you recently faced LA Knight for the US title. You came up short.
14:46What did you learn from that matchup? And how would you like to rebound from it?
14:51Well, you know, there's always something to learn. I feel like that night, my crew jumped the gun
14:58earlier. I think that's something they got to learn about. They're going to help Santos Escobar,
15:04they got to do it the right way. But LA Knight's still there. The United States Championship,
15:11it's still there. And I'm still there. So the trifecta completes itself. And I'm going to
15:16keep looking for that title. Who knows, maybe on Manchester next month, because LA Knight's going
15:22to be there. And there's a lot of superstars that are going to be there as well, like Cody Rhodes,
15:27Sol Sikowa, Andrade, Nia Jax, Bayley, Jey Uso, Shinsuke Nakamura, Randy Orton. So that was just
15:35to give you a little commercial on the live show, but also on me, still looking forward
15:41to the opportunity of having the United States Championship around my waist.
15:46Okay, just one final question for you. It's one you probably get a lot, but who is on your
15:51Mount Rushmore of Lucha Libre wrestlers? Well, that's a very difficult question, because
15:59I try to pay homage to all the people that have mentored me throughout the years. And I feel like
16:07just reducing it to a few names would be doing a disservice to all the other people. But of course,
16:13if I had to, I would put there El Santo, Blue Demon, My Dad, El Fantasma,
16:25Irma Gonzalez, a female wrestler. I think that's a few names that I would put there,
16:32just to pay tribute to some of the biggest names in the industry. But like I said, I've learned from
16:39all of them, all of them. It's a universe of superstars and legends that I have
16:44for their knowledge in me. So my Mount Rushmore has a lot more people in it.
16:53Okay, I'll just have to say thank you very much for your time. It's been really insightful
16:58getting to listen to you talking about Lucha Libre and whatnot. And it was great to use the
17:02Max Verstappen analogy. Yeah, I loved it, Chris. Thank you very much. See you next month in
17:08Manchester at the Co-op Live Arena. There's still a few tickets on ticketmaster.co.uk. So
17:14just help me promote that so that people can be there and can chant,
17:19I sold my car to Santos Escobar. And there's yet another analogy of cars and Santos Escobar.
17:26There you go.