PCO on Career Rebirth, Villain Enterprises and ROH at Madison Square Garden

Fred: I’m Fred Richani of The Sports Courier Podcast, and this week we have a very special guest: Pierre-Carl Ouellet, aka PCO, formerly one half of The Quebecers and the Amazing French Canadians. He’s a three-time WWF World Tag Team Champion and a former Hardcore Champion who has worked for WWF, WCW, ECW and TNA. For years he felt he didn’t get the shake he deserved, but after changing his attitude, his diet, his mindset and his character, PCO has had an incredible career resurgence. Today he’s a Ring of Honor World Tag Team Champion and World Six-Man Tag Team Champion as part of Villain Enterprises with Brody King and The Villain, Marty Scurll, at the ripe young age of 51. Mr. PCO, how’s it going?

PCO: I’m great, Fred. How are you doing?

Fred: All right, man. We’re recording this on March 23, and on March 23, 2001, 18 years ago, WWF finalized its purchase of WCW. The wrestling business was never the same. Fast forward 18 years: You’re killing it in Ring of Honor, AEW is starting up, WWE is ramping up its global expansion, the indies are popping and we’re a couple of weeks from WrestleMania. How does it feel to be a professional wrestler right now?

PCO: It’s probably one of the greatest times ever for any wrestler. It’s like the golden age is back again. Everybody’s winning. The fans are winning, the promotions are winning and the wrestlers are winning. It’s a win-win-win situation. Talent gets paid a little bit better because there’s competition, and at the end of the day the fans get the best product. With social media and YouTube, they can choose what they like. Before, you were forced to watch a certain show because it was the only show on the air.

Fred: Is it like a new-age territory days? You have the major promotions with real money behind them, like AEW, ROH and New Japan, All Japan is seeing a resurgence, and it’s so easy to watch all of it, like on Honor Club and New Japan World.

PCO: I think it’s looking like that, but different. It’s like the same car with a different facade. The way things are projected is different.

Fred: Fans can watch you and Villain Enterprises every week on Sinclair Broadcast stations or on the FITE TV app, and on April 6 Villain Enterprises will be at Madison Square Garden, where Marty Scurll challenges for the Ring of Honor World Championship against Jay Lethal and Matt Taven in a ladder match. I’m sure you and Brody King have something special planned. Can you give us a hint?

PCO: As usual, expect the unexpected. It’s going to be crazy, but I can’t say more, because I’m going to keep a few surprises for the people in attendance and the people watching on Honor Club and the different platforms. You want to watch it live for sure. Our match and Marty’s match speak for themselves, so everything else is going to be a bonus.

Fred: Was professional wrestling your first love when it came to sports?

PCO: Being from Canada, I was in love with ice hockey too. It was almost equal. I started playing hockey when I was about 3, and when I was 12, getting ready for hockey practice on weekend mornings, I’d always fall into a wrestling show on TV, and I got hooked very badly. When I was finishing high school, a group of six of us had to put on a French play, and the whole show was a wrestling show, with play-by-play and a color commentator like Mad Dog Vachon. We finished that course with a mark of about 95 percent, and the teachers were surprised by our creativity and how we used the French language. So it was already there at 14 or 15. I also lost the sight in one eye at 12. It’s been a burning desire since my teenage years.

Fred: When you broke in, it was still the era when they didn’t tell you whether it was real or predetermined. You had to find out for yourself.

PCO: During my training they’d put one of the trainers in the corner and he’d kick us right in the face with his boot, and when I asked what I was supposed to do, nobody would answer. It took three months before I was able to get in the ring. I was getting body slammed on floors and chopped, all kinds of stuff to make us quit and see who was really going to last. It’s very different today. We started with maybe 35 to 50 guys, and only three or four of us made it to the roster for the Sunday afternoon shows, wrestling in front of 300 to 500 people. A lot of guys quit after a week or two.

Fred: Wrestling certainly isn’t for everybody. You cut your teeth on the independents for a few years before breaking into the WWF with Jacques Rougeau as The Quebecers. You won three tag team titles and feuded with Bret Hart. It was kind of a down time in the business, but one that showcased a lot of great talent. What was that period like for you?

PCO: It was a dream come true, and I really busted my ass to get there. I left Montreal for the Calgary territory because I couldn’t get booked anywhere by sending my resume and pictures. My English wasn’t good, and nobody could understand me on the phone. So I bought a plane ticket, went to Calgary and asked Stu Hart directly, on a Friday night before a live show, if I could wrestle for Stampede. He said no. So I’d go back and forth by Greyhound bus between Calgary on Friday and Edmonton on Saturday, four or five hours each way, hoping somebody would miss a show or get injured. I did that for three or four months, then I was supposed to go to Al Tomko in Vancouver, but I got so discouraged. I was 18 and missing my family.

I went back home and got booked in the Maritimes, and somehow I got booked on top right away. From not being able to get booked anywhere, I was wrestling for the belts every night. But I was so green, mixing up the language and screwing up spots, that I got fired after a month. They were tough times until I went to England, Germany and South Africa, and finally got booked in Puerto Rico for Carlos Colon. Eight years in, I got the break with the WWF.

Fred: What was it like working with a great technician like Bret Hart?

PCO: He’s a great technician and a great wrestler, but on top of everything, he’s one of the greatest, if not the best. Him and Shawn. Bret is a great storyteller. Sometimes he wasn’t using spectacular moves, but the way he laid out the story, the psychology of putting a story together, was one of his best qualities among many others. It was so much fun working with him. I was like a sponge, trying to listen, see and absorb as much as I could every night. That rivalry was something very special in my life.

Fred: How’s your relationship these days with Kevin Nash? From what I understand, you had some beef with him in the mid-’90s because he didn’t want to lose clean to you in Montreal.

PCO: It’s been awesome, actually. In 2017 and 2018 we met maybe 10 times a year, and I worked against him a couple of times in 2009 and shared the same dressing room. It’s been totally cool. If someone heats you and you heat him back, it’s double heat, and that creates a lot of tension. It’s like pushing on a wall. If you push on a wall, you feel the wall pushing back at you, but if you don’t put any pressure on it, there’s no pressure coming back. That’s what I learned through the years. At one point I was mad at him, but I started looking at myself in the mirror and realized I was the only one responsible for everything that happened to me. Once I took the blame off everyone else and took responsibility myself, it gave me the power to change things. That’s when my career started getting better, and that’s why I’m where I am today.

Fred: Younger fans might not realize that after your WWF debut, you had a short stint in WCW as the Amazing French Canadians with Jacques, and then you were back in the WWF for a couple of years during the Attitude Era. That era seemed very cutthroat backstage. A lot of wrestlers now root for each other. Was it a different story back then?

PCO: My perception is different now because I’ve changed too, but yes. If you get mixed up in everyone’s stories, you start to heat people you’re not traveling with or don’t get along with. It’s easy to get four or five guys traveling together talking about the other group of guys, feeling they have a position they don’t deserve, and they start pitching things about why it shouldn’t be like that. That’s what creates most of the backstage problems. One of the best things when you’re traveling is not to get mixed up in stories like that. Keep your talk to yourself. It could be career-ending. You make the wrong move at the wrong time, and it takes a while before you get another good chance.

All your life you want to accomplish something, and when you get there, you think you’ve arrived. Everybody recognizes you at the restaurant or the mall, you’re on TV, you’re making money, and it changes your mindset a little bit. You start thinking you’re better than others. Then things start to go wrong, and you think it’s because of the other guys, the company, the bad angles. You lose your focus because you’re not as disciplined as you’re supposed to be. You say you want to be the next champ, but you’re out at night chasing girls and hanging out at bars. You make excuses: “I’m on the road all the time, I’m stressed, I’m not happy with my storylines.” There are tons of traps out there, and you’ve got to be ready mentally. At 25, 26, 27, I made tons of mistakes.

Fred: You’ve learned from those mistakes, and you’re an inspiration for young wrestlers. After the WWF, you worked a few matches with TNA and did voiceovers and commentary for them for a few years. Then you dove back into the independent scene, and with social media and GIFs, people saw this guy from back in the day doing moonsaults and dives. Your matches with WALTER really woke everybody up, at Joey Janela’s Spring Break and in Germany.

PCO: When I first started back, I went through a series of failures, big time. But I believed in myself. I was making good money at a TV station, and I quit that job. My boss said they could have someone replace me for three months, so I could fall back on it if it didn’t work out. I’m the kind of guy who hates having something to fall back on. There’s a great documentary by Kenny Johnson called “Burn the Ships.” I love to burn the ships, because I didn’t want something to fall back on. I trusted myself. I went to England and worked full time on the indie scene for Brian Dixon’s All Star Wrestling, and I wrestled WALTER in Germany.

I had a WWE tryout in Birmingham, England, in 2003, and Tommy Dreamer said they didn’t have anything for me. In 2005 I had a great tryout in Montreal, and they said creative didn’t have anything for me. In 2008 I had another tryout in Connecticut that was supposed to be for Raw on Monday and SmackDown on Tuesday. I came up with some stuff way out of my time, the timing was wrong, everybody was watching, and I had a bad match. They told me not to bother coming to SmackDown and to drive the car back to Montreal. So there were a lot of failures.

Then I got the chance to wrestle WALTER on WrestleMania weekend in 2018. I knew it would be a great match, so I didn’t act like a prima donna and ask for a lot of money or a flight. They were tight on budget and asked if I could drive to New Orleans, so I drove about 40 hours for one match. I really had to believe in myself after so many years in the business, and it paid off. The rest of 2018 blew up.

Fred: You appeared on MLW, which is on beIN Sports, and now you’re with Ring of Honor, where Villain Enterprises is looking to take over Madison Square Garden on WrestleMania weekend. You’re a World Tag Team Champion and World Six-Man Tag Team Champion with Brody King and Marty Scurll, who may be the top star in Ring of Honor right now.

PCO: I think Marty has a good chance of becoming world champion at Madison Square Garden. We want all the belts in Villain Enterprises. It doesn’t matter who gets what, as long as we get the TV title, the world title, the tag titles and the six-man titles. Villain Enterprises is the greatest faction in pro wrestling in 2019: Marty Scurll, Brody King and PCO.

Fred: On the surface it seems like a random team, but watching you guys, you gel naturally. Did you know each other before the group formed?

PCO: I met Marty in 2008 while I was touring. I knew him for almost a year, and I never thought it would come back later in my life. 2008 felt like a wasted year for me. That’s why I tell all the guys trying to get a break in this business: Don’t think you’re doing something for nothing. Everything means something. You don’t know which story or which person you meet is going to come back and help you. When Marty wanted to start a faction, my name popped up. Brody King had met him at a wrestling school or seminar, and they got along. I’d worked against Brody so many times during my tour that I knew the chemistry was already there, and I’d known Marty since 2008. When I knew they wanted to put the three of us together, I knew the chemistry was going to be crazy, and it can only get better.

Fred: Some of your colleagues, like Jim Ross on Twitter, have said, “Take it easy, man,” with all these dives and your trademark moonsault. It’s amazing stuff, but it can be really hard on the body. How are you feeling, and what lets you keep taking these risks?

PCO: I’m so passionate about what I do. I feel fine and I’m OK the next day. It’s just me, and it feels great doing those things. It’s hard to explain.

Fred: You’re 51 years young, man.

PCO: That’s the first time I’ve heard that, and it’s awesome. I’m not saying this to increase my value, but this is my best year ever. My explosion when I take off or hit the ropes, my speed, everything I do is better than it’s ever been, better than in 2018 and 2017 and even better than in ’95 or ’93. I feel right now that I’m the best wrestler I ever could be or ever was. For some people that’s hard to understand, but it’s what it is. It’s about discipline. I’m up early every day, I’m in the gym for my first workout and I go back for a second workout. I work on my psychology as a person, trying to understand patterns and what I have to do to get better, because I want to excel in pro wrestling. I’m totally focused. I spend my time watching tapes and learning about my opponents. My whole life is focused on my goal, which is to be a dominant force and a story people will talk about for a long time. Maybe they’ll make a movie about my story. It’s going to get bigger and bigger, I can promise you that.

Fred: Your social media videos are fantastic. You’ve gotten into tremendous shape and gotten better in the ring, but you’ve also invested a ton in your character, without big budgets or a major company behind you before Ring of Honor. What can younger wrestlers learn from your transformation?

PCO: It’s the passion. It’s how much you’re willing to invest in what you want to be and in creating something you feel part of. You might have to start like that until you find your way. I searched for a long time for the perfect character for myself, and the perfect character was PCO, the Frankenstein, in 2017 and 2018. It’s been a different guy since then, and it works. The crazy bumps were always part of me, and now I’ve got a reason to do them. It makes sense, and it’s an extension of who I am. I’m willing to do a lot of things to succeed. I put so much discipline and time into what I do that I don’t even want to watch the news on TV. I just concentrate on what I want to accomplish. That’s why DESTRO and I are able to be so creative with the videos. We’re two guys so hungry for success that we’re willing to do everything. We go through a lot of hard times to get a video done, but we come out with something every Monday, and it challenges us to be creative and show my passion for wrestling.

Fred: G1 Supercard, the Ring of Honor and New Japan Pro Wrestling supershow, is Saturday, April 6, the night before WrestleMania, at Madison Square Garden. If you can’t make it, you can order it on Honor Club and traditional pay-per-view. And who is DESTRO, for fans who have seen the videos?

PCO: DESTRO is my guy. He’s my personal trainer and, most of all, the creator. When I met him, he asked if I was willing to pay the price to get what I wanted, and he promised it would bring me to the land I wanted to reach. So that’s what’s going on: I pay the price every week, every match, every time I step into the ring or the gym. Whatever he wants me to do, I do, because I want to succeed. Follow me on Twitter at @PCOisNotHuman. Every Monday night we come out with a different video.

Fred: You’re about to get busy on WrestleMania weekend, so we appreciate the time. Follow him on Twitter at @PCOisNotHuman. PCO, thank you so much.

PCO: Thank you, and all the best to all the listeners.