Former WWE Intercontinental and United States champion Dean Ambrose made a return visit to Jonathan Coachman's "Off the Top Rope" segment on SportsCenter yesterday (June 7) and, well, it was a very Dean Ambrose interview.
Last time the Lunatic Fringe was on ESPN was in the build to WrestleMania 32, so Coach checked in on how the show - where Ambrose lost a street fight to Brock Lesnar - was for Dean:
Well, that was an extraordinary experience, as WrestleMania always is, and if you want extraordinary experience, you've got to be willing to take extraordinary risk.
He'd go on to reiterate a lot of the build to that match, which paid off in a less-than-satisfying way for fans hoping for a little pre-PG Era brutality and/or seeing Ambrose booked the way Shane McMahon was later in the evening. But he also did his best to build his character by downplaying the loss:
I wasn't done. I survived, I survived every run-in I've had with Brock Lesnar and I'll do it again. I'll fight Brock Lesnar tomorrow in a Denny's parking lot.
Can't talk about the Beast Incarnate this week without discussing the blockbuster news from this past Saturday about his return to the Octagon. Dean's take on that has a bit of a shoot-y feel, but it's so entertaining it's probably not worth wondering how much of it is a full-timer's resentment against part-timers:
Brock Lesnar likes to get his rest time, you know what I'm saying? A guy like me, I'm out here doing this every night while Brock Lesnar is sitting in some, you know, log cabin in Minnesota or whatever drinking hot cocoa and chilling out and eating giant slabs of deer meat he killed with his bare hands and all that stuff - so he's got a lot of rest and recuperation time in-between fights.
As someone who calls a Samoan Tough Guy "brother", it's probably not surprising to hear Dean is with the oddsmakers on Brock's UFC 200 showdown:
The thing about this fight is he's fighting Mark Hunt, the "Super Samoan". And if you get clipped by Mark Hunt? Even once, even a little bit - you're going down. I don't care how big you are. I mean, Mark Hunt is blessed with far more punching power than I am, so Brock Lesnar better just watch out for that right hand, that left hook, you know what I'm saying?
Their conversation wrapped with a discussion of Ambrose's next pay-per-view (PPV) match, coming up in less than two weeks. Dean rambled a bit about ladders, and why the Money in the Bank match is so dangerous, but still isn't fazed heading into his second shot at a briefcase:
I'm as comfortable as... as a... I'm very, very comfortable.
Like, imagine a kitten just curled up in your lap... just cozy - purring. That's me. That's me in a ladder match.
They also discussed the growth of NXT - which Dean used as an opportunity to plug all the past (if you're "weird like" him "and like to watch old Mid-South Wrestling"), present and future wrestling content fans get on WWE Network - before signing off.
And, of course, you get a slickly produced recap of Monday night:
And the segment opened with a special look at Muhammad Ali's connection to WWE:
Also worth noting - at least for conspiracy theorists or overanalyzers - WWE didn't promote the clip where Ambrose spoke about UFC 200, but did spread the other four around on their social media.
How do you think Dean did? Good ambassador, just crazy or both?