Hardcore wrestling icon who decimated rivals with barbed wire reveals biggest regret

Hardcore wrestling pioneer Abyss has revealed how today’s WWE superstars can learn from his mistakes.

The 52-year-old former TNA Wrestling champion, who has officially retired from his in-ring career, works behind the scenes for WWE as a producer helping the wrestlers put together their matches on Raw, SmackDown and premium live events like this weekend’s Survivor Series: WarGames.

He exclusively told Metro that while he’s proud of his legacy – which includes using barbed wire, thumb tacks and fire in some brutal matches – he wishes he’d done something things differently in the ring.

‘The biggest thing is what not to do. I did a lot of stuff,’ he explained in an interview after being added to this year’s WWE 2K25 video game.

‘If I had one thing that I wish I would have done different, I wish I would have done a little bit less of the hardcore, and a little bit more of the storytelling,’ he said.

He has learned his lesson, and applies his experience to his current role, where he has been in charge of high profile matches like CM Punk and Drew McIntyre’s brutal Hell In A Cell match in October 2024.

‘I learned from the mistakes that I made, and I apply that to my job as a producer now,’ he said. ‘Making sure that the talent are safe, and in the intensity of which they’re doing, stuff is storytelling driven.’

Abyss, whose real name is Chris Park, insisted there is a place for ‘hardcore spots’ in the ring, but he’d rather they had ‘a great story behind it’ to justify the moments.

‘I learned that through my days of hardcore wrestling, the dos and the don’ts,’ he pointed out. ‘I’ve been able to apply that when I’m working with talent, like the Drew McIntyre/CM Punk Hell In The Cell.’

The two rivals went all out in the ring, including McIntyre taking a particularly nasty bump onto the steel steps, while they were both bloodied and battered by the end.

For Abyss, who featured in Netflix’s WWE Unreal docu-series earlier this year, it was a perfect example of doing something so violent the right way.

‘That, I think, was a masterpiece. Those guys just absolutely crushed it,’ he smiled. ‘There was a some elements that I was able to advise them on, from my experiences, that I think helped them make it even better.’

Despite having some regrets about not making each hardcore moment mean something, Abyss insisted he ‘wouldn’t change’ a thing about his back catalogue of matches.

‘I’m proud of every one of them. I wouldn’t change any one of them,’ he insisted.

‘But, wow, I look back on some of them, and there’s times where even I look at it and I’m like, “What was I thinking?,”‘ he confessed, putting it down to being young and ‘reaching for the stars’.

He smiled: ‘I always tried to to give the fans something that they could walk away from and never forget. I felt like I accomplished that in a lot of ways.’

WWE 2K25 is available now. Survivor Series: WarGames airs Saturday, November 28 on Netfix.

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