Adam Cole Used to Let Online Criticism Ruin His Opinion of His Matches, How He Deals With It Now

– Speaking with Lilian Garcia, Adam Cole discussed how he used to allow internet criticism affect how he saw his own matches and more. Cole discussed how he used to really be affected by what he read on Twitter, which of course led to some self-esteem issues. Cole said that he no longer checks Twitter regularly as a result and will only post a tweet after now and then because it’s important to keep his social media presence around.

Highlights from the interview, and the full video, are below:

On how he used to let Twitter affect him: “So when I first started wrestling, it really meant everything to me, what the internet thought. Because at that point — wrestling on the independents, your only real buzz was online. In the arena, you’d wrestle in front of 200 people tops, so it’s not like the world was talking about it. You would hope that word of mouth, people would speak highly of you. And it mattered to me so much that I would have like, a match that I loved, and the guy I was working with loved, and the boys in the locker room loved, even fans. But if two or three people would say, ‘That sucked, that was so terrible,’ then the match sucked to me. And I was like, ‘I gotta stop doing that. It’s ruining my perception on what is fun or what I’m enjoying, or what I know is good.’ Like, there are certain things too, where you’ve got to — it’s the classic ‘If 99 people tell you it’s amazing and one person goes, ‘That’s the worst thing I’ve ever seen,’ you’re like ‘[Groans] Come on…'”

On how he deals with it: “So now, it’s crazy. I seriously barely ever — I’m like the worst Twitter person ever. I’ll have it, and I’ll tweet every few days because I know it’s important. But I really don’t check too much what people are saying. I kinda just stay away from it in general. Because like you said, there are some really means things people can say. And again, that’s the thing too. People are entitled to their opinion. I think people are more than welcome to go, ‘Yeah, I wasn’t that crazy about it’ or whatever — that’s fine. But it’s when people take really hard and crazy, ‘I wish this person wasn’t alive.’ Like, that type of stuff. That’s like, okay. I just can’t imagine watching a movie and then going online and being like, ‘This movie sucked! Leonardo DiCaprio, Shutter Island, trash!’ Leonardo DiCaprio is my favorite actor by the way. Random fact.”

If you use any of the quotes in this article, please credit Chasing Glory with a h/t to 411mania.com for the transcription.