Nova On Transitioning To Life After Wrestling, What He Misses From It

Nova has moved on to a post-wrestling life, and he recently weighed in on the matter. Mike Bucci spoke with Fightful’s Sean Ross Sapp about moving on from his in-ring career, and some highlights are below:

On his transition to life post-wrestling: “This is what I would say to anyone who’s in pro wrestling. There is life after the bell, and I can’t emphasize that enough. If you’re in wrestling now, realize that you’re getting the greatest school of hard knocks street education you can ever get in your life. You’re learning how to work. You’re learning how to work a room, how to cut promos, how to get over, how to communicate with folks, how to interact, how to do media. You’re just learning a skill set. You don’t even realize you’re learning it while you’re doing it, but you can take that and you can use it in the real world. Kevin Fertig has done it. Matt Morgan has done it. Johnny Jeter, my buddy Kevin Keenan, there’s a whole bunch of guys who have been able to do this.

“So over the years, my generation of guys in the late 90s / early 2000s, I’m hoping that’s the last generation of guys that—I hate saying this—hang on forever or never realize they can do more,” he continued. “The odds are now, if you’re getting in, you’re probably gonna have a shorter career, Maybe five, ten, fifteen years at max. You’re gonna have to find a second act. I don’t care what it is. You can be passionate about it. You can enjoy yourself. I got into banking and finance. I serve on several boards and committees. I do a ton of charity work. I love working with these different non-profit organizations.”

On what he misses from wrestling: “I’ve been very fortunate, but I’ve embraced it, and I don’t miss it. I miss the guys, the girls, the fans. I miss the physicalness of wrestling at times. But I don’t miss a lot of the other stuff that came with it because it drove me nuts. I wish more of us in wrestling can get recognized for what we did when it’s not a tragedy. We all don’t end up like Randy the Ram. It drives me nuts everybody thinks we wound up like that. But we don’t. Pro wrestling took me around the world. It helped shape who I am today. I owe everything to it. I think sometimes we only glamorize the bad stuff involved in it, [but] the wrestling fans are the ones who made it all possible.

“I tell people all the time, I made some money in wrestling, but I made a lot more outside of it. The skills I learned in wrestling, I took into the real world. So it doesn’t end, man,” he added. “If you’re a wrestler and you’ve been cut, or you moved on, whatever it might be, just know there’s a second act. There’s a third act. You just gotta keep going. What was your dream? Did you want to be a pro wrestler or just be in the main event of WrestleMania? ‘Cause there’s only been 39 main events at WrestleMania, right? There’s only so many guys that can be in that. So if you gave this your best shot and you maybe got cut, just know there’s more to this. You can keep going, or you can move on and do something in the real world. So, there’s no harm in it.”