From 2002-2004, Canadian pro wrestling Tyson Dux made a number of appearances for the WWE, a theme that has continued throughout the years. Dux has appeared as recently as the promotion’s Cruiserweight Classic, and potentially had the opportunity to join them at numerous points throughout his career.

Recently, Dux joined me to discuss whether there was ever an offer to join the WWE and if he would take the opportunity to sign if it was offered at this point.

If there were any formal offers to join WWE:

“It was the day that I got hurt. I wrestled (Mark) Jindrak in April of ’04 – no, it was March.

It was March of ’04 where I blew out my knee. I tore my ACL in half in my right knee, and that match there was – I talked to Stephanie McMahon before we were in catering. We were eating together, we were discussing moving and all this stuff because there was no NXT, there was no Orlando. It was you just you go to work or you go to OVW and then they bring you up right away. So I talked to Stephanie in the afternoon and then I talked to Johnny Ace (former WWE Senior Vice President of Talent Relations John Laurinaitis) just before I went out, and the word was, from Johnny Ace was like ‘finish up, get yourself done, and then we’ll talk after your match. Me and Stephanie will sit and we’ll talk about what the plans are.’ Sure enough, I blew out my knee that night. Dean Malenko actually helped me to the back, he knew I was really badly hurt. He pulled me to the back. Then, when I was sitting in with the trainer, Johnny Ace came and put his hand on my shoulder and said ‘hey man, we don’t know if you’ll be well. We can’t really – we honestly can’t hire you in this condition, so we’ll have to wait and see,’ and then that was just the window. The window was gone when I came back when I was healed up.”

If a major promotion is still the goal:

“I would never close the door, the window is always open to do a little bit of work wherever it comes from. I’m ready to go, and always ready both physically and mentally to work. I do, I’m not saying I won’t take any opportunities, but I really enjoy being a freelance guy. My school does well, I do well on the road, barring this virus thing. Nobody’s doing well on anything anymore right now, but I do okay.

If it comes, it comes. If it doesn’t, I’m still at peace with it.”

Please credit Spencer Love/Love Wrestling with any transcriptions used. 

In 2008, Canadian pro wrestler Tyson Dux made an appearance on the popular television show Kenny vs. Spenny as part of their “Who’s the Best Pro Wrestler?” episode. Not only did Dux make a memorable appearance on the show, but has continued his feud with Spencer “Spenny” Rice since the episode aired.

Recently, Dux joined me to discuss appearing on the show, as well as his continued “feud” with Rice.

On his appearance on Kenny vs. Spenny:

“It’s funny how things work. My business is always worked through professional wrestling, and I’ve gotten roles and different kinds of opportunities in different kinds of markets, but it’s always been linked by somebody through professional wrestling. This time it was the Megan boys, the twins Jian and Page, who are great dudes out of Toronto. I’ve always gotten along really well with them. They said ‘hey, we really want to get you to be a part of this project,’ because they have – they get a lot of good business up in the Toronto areaway.”

“So, the first call they made was to me to be the trainer for Spenny. It was two days of probably – it was the oddest, the weirdest, and probably one of the most memorable moments. I don’t know if it was the most fun, I had a lot of fun though. It was a great time, let me tell you, working with both Kenny and Spenny on their show. I got free movies and popcorn for probably a year and a half after the fact because every student that was working at Cineplex knew who I was, and it was just so easy to get in for free so that was quite a bonus for me.

”

His continued feud with Spencer “Spenny” Rice:

“The funny thing is Spenny messages me from time to time because if you could tell by the show or anybody who hasn’t seen the show, Spenny is a massive, massive wrestling fan. Like the old, old school stuff.

Like, anything with the Sheik, and Giant Baba and all these old guys is what he grew up on at Maple Leaf Gardens and stuff like that.”

“So Spenny’s a huge, huge wrestling fan, so anywhere Spenny can kind of weasel himself into a show, he’s going to do it. To the point now where, in the past, anybody would talk to Kenny vs. Spenny, they’d be almost star-struck by those two guys.

Now, it’s almost on the other side for me, When I see a message from Spenny I’m like ‘oh, God, here comes Spencer again! I wonder what he want’s now! What show does he want me to get him on now?’”

Please credit Spencer Love/Love Wrestling with any transcriptions used. 

Few professional wrestlers are as associated with the Canadian pro wrestling scene as Tyson Dux. The 20-year veteran has long been regarded as one of the countries’ top independent professional wrestlers and has gone on to represent the country in the WWE’s Cruiserweight Classic, in TNA as part of Team Canada, and under the WhatCulture Pro Wrestling banner as the promotion’s Canadian representative. It’s earned him accolades as one of the ambassadors of Canadian pro wrestling, an accolade that he discussed during our recent conversation.

His status as an ambassador of Canadian professional wrestling:

“See, I never even think about it. It’s so weird because I have people tell me stuff like this every once in a while, I’ll brush it off.”

“To me, I have so much I want to do and so much I still want to accomplish, that I always have – my vision is almost tunnel. It’s almost tunnel-like, where I’m always just pushing forward and wanting to go ahead, because I always keep thinking like, when I’m done and I’m retired and I’m old, I can sit back and I can reflect and enjoy the time that I had and what I accomplished. In the meantime, as I’m young enough to go out there and do it, my mindset has always kept me from reflecting because I’m always pushing ahead. The moment I’m done is when I’ll relax on it – maybe!”

Canadian pro wrestling being under-appreciated:

“That is exactly what it is. It’s a geographical thing. We live in this massive, massive country with one of the smallest populations on Earth.

We have places that are smaller than Ontario, countries that are smaller than Ontario with three times, four times the population we have here.

That adds a lot to it, because if you don’t have – Quebec City has a promotion called NSPW, and they have such talented workers like a Matt Angel, or a Marco Estrada, or a Marcus Burke, who’s from New Brunswick as well, these guys don’t get the due they should have, and they’re all über-talented guys, but you’re not going to have it when you’re in the middle of Quebec City and nobody else but that fan, that clique of fans, can appreciate them.”

“So, you don’t have the write-ups, you don’t have the – even in the social media day and age, everybody’s Canadian social media when it comes to promotions and stuff is very weak. It isn’t as strong as in the middle of the States, because it is the America’s. It has more media, it has more outlets, it has more interest in that kind of stuff that it gets pushed to the moon, whereas we really don’t.”

Representing Canada in the Cruiserweight Classic, TNA, and more:

“I haven’t even put much thought, seriously. When you mentioned it is the first time I put two and two together. Like, I’ve done Impact as Team Canada or TNA as Team Canada, the Cruiserweight Classic I was the Canadian representative, for the WhatCulture tournament I was also Canada trying to get into the finals there. It’s a little overwhelming sometimes if I sit back and I do think about it because there are a lot of moments and there has been a lot of opportunities where I’ve gotten to represent and hopefully I’ve represented well.

What makes the Ontario wrestling scene unique:

“Ontario’s a little different than the other provinces, because it’s very central, and a lot of people want to come here (with) Toronto being the big city. And, it has a lot of cities that are close to Toronto. It’s not Toronto itself – I’m not saying Toronto’s the most major city in all of Canada, but we do have a lot of cities, feeder cities that go around it, so anywhere within an hour to two-hour range you could be in another city, which is a little bit different than being anywhere else. Even in New Brunswick, where I’m from, to travel from Miramichi where I grew up in the little city there to Moncton is over two hours.”

“When you have the ability to hit a highway and drive under two hours and be on another show in another town and stuff like that, it is going to, first of all, start more promotions. There’s more work in Ontario than there is in any other province, and that’s not a bragging thing, it’s just a logical thing. Because there’s so many cities and they’re all based around each other, there’s so much work to be had. That way, with so many shows and so many different little hotspots in Ontario, guys get to be seasoned a lot sooner than, say, in the middle of Quebec, or in New Brunswick, or Prince Edward Island where they would only have a show maybe every two months or three months, you have guys working three times a week. So, in that regard, you’re going to get a little bit more seasoned, a little bit better, just because practice makes perfect.”

“The more time you put into it, the better you are. I’m not saying that pro wrestlers out of Ontario are better, that’s not what I’m saying, but I’m just saying that you’re going to hear about them more. They’re going to be more frequent. They’re going to be able to use their skills a little bit more than they would in say, Saskatchewan. Prepared is a good way of saying it. If you have a week off, or two weeks off,  it’s not that you’re rusty, but you could be a little bit foggy in the head, or ‘oh, what should I do? How am I going to react to this?

’ Whereas if you’re consistently going at it every weekend, you don’t have that option anymore. You’re just good to go.”

Please credit Spencer Love/Love Wrestling with any transcriptions used. 

Last week’s Dark Side of the Ring documentary took not only captivated wrestling fans across the globe but was widely acclaimed as one of the most accurate portrayals of the Benoit tragedy in recent memory. A large part of that was due to the acting work of Canadian wrestling star Tyson Dux, whose portrayals of Benoit throughout the documentary’s vignettes added a realistic feel to an otherwise unbelievable tragedy.

Recently, Dux joined me to discuss his recent appearance as Chris Benoit on the Dark Side of the Ring documentary and his relationship with Benoit himself.

His previous experience with Dark Side of the Ring:

“If you check out that first season, there’s a pilot episode. The pilot episode is the Bruiser Brody one, because why not start with one of the craziest stories ever? That being the Bruiser Brody story, being stabbed in Puerto Rico and the promoter getting away with it, right? (It’s) crazy, just crazy. Well, in that first episode, I played Dutch Mantel. It was really neat, because those guys, Jason and Evan, the guys that are behind this, they’re the vision behind this amazing series.

The thing I love about Dark Side of the Ring is you don’t have to be a wrestling fan to really enjoy this program. You can be completely in another part of life other than professional wrestling and if you watch that for five minutes, I guarantee you’ll be hooked. You’ll be hooked by it. It’s just great TV. It is just good TV, and those guys, their vision of it, how they keep your imagination into it, because just watching interviews will kind of get on you a bit, you know what I mean?

You don’t wanna see just faces. Just having that dramatic illusion of how it looked and stuff like that to give people an idea of how it went down is just monumental. It’s just great stuff.”

Getting the opportunity to play Benoit:

“So, they base their stuff out of Toronto, of course, because Toronto’s a great filming area because it’s cheaper. It’s easy to get rings because it is Toronto. It is easy to get talent, all this stuff. Jason, who’s the director, is from Nova Scotia, so he’s a Canadian boy, and then Evan, of course, is just across the pond, he’s just in the States. So, those guys got together, and I got hired just because of my name to do the Dutch Mantel role because of my beard that I had at the time, and it was great! It was a great experience.”

“So, when the second season came up, they were looking for people to play different roles for the series, for the whole series. They asked me to see if any of my kids could fit any of these roles. So, I put one of my kids and said ‘hey, he could probably play Benoit,’ and they’re like ‘ah, he really doesn’t have that Benoit vibe, we were honestly really hoping that you would play the role of Benoit other than him.’ I said ‘of course, I would love to, just I have a whole bunch of tattoos, so I really didn’t want to make a mess of your thing.’ He (said) ‘don’t worry about it, we’ve got a lot of makeup artists that are the best in Canada, so we’ll just cover them up and if you could, you play Benoit.’”

“I chomped at the bit. Benoit’s always been my idol when it comes to professional wrestling. Let’s just get that out of the way. When it comes to wrestling, Benoit’s always been my guy. He’s the guy I watched when I wanted to become a professional wrestler, he’s the one that I watched and said ‘yup, that’s exactly what I want to do.’ It was really easy to – it was an easy hire because they already know me. I know how it all works, I know how the script worked and all that stuff. It was supposed to be four days, it got cut to three days because I had to wrestle on the fourth day. So, they crammed my stuff all into three days over twelve hours a day of work to make the finished product, which turned out – I just watched the finished product along with family, so I was just blown away by how well it turned out.”

Separating the person from the act:

“I just look at the body of work. I knew the guy, and I’ve met Benoit many times. I’m not saying that we’re best friends, I try not to tell people that we were super chummy, but I worked with WWE in 02-04 consistently every month as a freelance guy and just worked with the company. I did know Chavo (Guerrero), I still talk to Chavo from time to time. I knew Eddie well, I knew Chris well, and I know them as people and as human beings. That’s what I try to remember, I try to remember the Chris that I knew and the body of work that I’ve always loved that he did. So, I still watch his stuff as if nothing had ever had happened or this horrific nonsense had happened, because, at the end of the day, we’ll never know – it’s a mystery of why, the question is why. I don’t know what would make a man that I knew was a cordial, very quiet, polite, humble human being turn like that and snap like that, and I guess we’ll never know. Just know that he was broken, he was definitely mentally broken. So, I can separate, yeah.”

On the documentary bringing him closure:

“I feel as though it being shared out there, because even if you watch it again or somebody watches it and you watch Chavo talk about him, Chris talk about him, Jericho talk about him – you watch Dean, even like Dean Malenko, who is just one of the greatest human beings on the planet, they’re still torn up, because that is still their best friend, but yet they can’t come to terms with it even now, so that really shows you that there’s some kind of disconnect where there’s got to be some therapy involved in making this better.”

“It’s so hard, even for them. Dean I found was the hardest because Dean just could not separate the horrific act from his friend. That might not ever happen and that’s not on him, that’s not his fault – it’s not even a fault thing. If he doesn’t come to those terms in that, so be it, but if he does, even better.”

“I get a lot of these questions. I put on Twitter how I felt about the role, being able to be Chris Benoit. Of course, I always have to re-think my words all the time, because you have a lot of people that would first attack instead of finding that – they just want to attack at you, they don’t really want to think about what you’re saying.

”

Please credit Spencer Love/Love Wrestling with any transcriptions used.