Ethan Carter III Discusses His Release From WWE, Who Has Influenced His On-Screen Character

Ethan Carter III, formally known as Derrick Bateman in WWE’s NXT developmental, recently became TNA World Heavyweight Champion after defeating Kurt Angle during the July 1 episode of “Impact Wrestling.”

The 32-year-old was recently interviewed on “Chad Dukes Wrestling Show,” where he discussed his release from World Wrestling Entertainment in May of 2013, as well as which superstars have influenced his on-screen character:

Release from WWE 

“I always look at that Stone Cold mentality. Steve Austin, Stunning Steve over in WCW was always a good hand, but he just never breaks through, whether it was on him or was on to someone not seeing it in him. He kind of had a rough deal on his exit. Wasn’t he fired via FedEx or something just ridiculous like that while he was injured? Kind of a similar mindset that I had and experienced. You take that motivation, even though he was a guy that’s probably incredibly motivated as it was, much like I was, to come out there and be like, ‘you know what, the only thing left to do is shove it up their ass and show you what I can do.'”

Who/What influences his character

“Like a Stone Cold, a Rock, a Kurt Angle, a John Cena were guys that can, they are entertaining and they can entertain you and they can make you laugh a little bit, but they’re not comedy. They’re not out there pulling a sock out of their junk, they’re not with a little Anaconda thing doing finger pokes of doom. They’re entertaining and being entertaining and endears you to the fans to either love you or love to hate you. As opposed to being, you know, our business is kind of ridiculous in a sense that when you take it uberly seriously, right off the bat, I think that it’s hard, at least from my perception, it’s hard to endear to a character when it’s too dry. I think there needs to be different levels of entertaining but to be able to be serious is also important especially when you’re in a main angle or main guy because comedy can only get you so far, where an entertaining personality who takes this business very seriously is what makes money.”

You can check out the interview by clicking here.

Follow @WalderSports