By Jody Roberts
After nine years away from an MCW ring, Rocky Menero returned to the Thornbury Theatre at MCW Ballroom Brawl, where he took on Royce Chambers and entered the Ballroom Brawl match. He’s wrestled in nightclubs, a Chinese restaurant and has even lost to an unconscious opponent. The MCW Wired crew caught up with Rocky backstage before his long-awaited return.
Though he’s now an established Australian wrestling legend, he had a rocky start to his career, “I was the worst natural wrestler of all time, I was a fat kid, I was so bad my trainer was going to give me my money back, I went ‘nup’, I’m going to stick this out!”.
His mission now is instilling knowledge into the new generation, “You practice what you preach, even though it hurts me and Krackers a lot more than it used to, we still need to get in the ring and show them, we are showing you this because this is a way to do it, not saying it’s THE way but it’s another way. We’ve got that knowledge in our heads.”
This led to the inevitable question of what MCW talent Rocky kept an eye on and who he’d want to get in the ring with “There are a lot of people I’ve got my eye on. You always keep an eye on the up and coming guys because A; you want to see who you can be in the ring with and B; who’s coming for my spot.” Rocky adds, “I’ve always loved tag team wrestling, I look at the Brat Pack and I love the way they go about it. You’ve got The Natural Classics, Stevie & Tome Filip, there’s a whole stack of potential there. Royce Chambers, I love watching him get in there – there’s a lot to like here.”
The Australian style of wrestling was the next topic of discussion. Where Japan, the US or UK have quite defined styles, was it good, or bad, that Australian wrestling was undefined. “Well that is uniquely Australian, look at Australians, what is an Australian? We’re a multicultural country. So that’s what our style has always been.” Rocky continued, “Our trainer in Adelaide was from that British style of “this is real, defend it with your life” so we learned how to do all the holds and everything, but he didn’t have a clue of how to tell a story in the ring. Guys like myself, I’m more of an American style, I like WWE or WCW, I like telling stories, so I’ll go that way”.
Rocky ended with “Wrestling has always been the three-ring circus, you need to have your acrobats, you need your trapeze, you need your clown and your strongman, you need to have all those things, that’s what wrestling has always been.”
Episode 17 of MCW Wired is out NOW! Subscribe via Tunes, Spotify, or wherever you find your favourite podcast.
iTunes – https://apple.co/3hwGzvq
Spotify – https://spoti.fi/34xtn5M
Watch Rocky Menero’s return to MCW against Royce Chambers, and the rest of the historic MCW Ballroom Brawl, now on-demand at MCWOnDemand.com.au
