Agitator for change, firebrand, national hero, wrestling legend. Konnan has worn all these hats in a career spanning four decades at the sharp end of professional wrestling. Perhaps best known to British audiences as part of the hugely successful NWO faction during the height of the Monday Night Wars, Konnan has been allowed to create his own vision for a wrestling group in Impact Wrestling. Debuting in 2006, Latin American Xchange are more than a wrestling faction as their iconic leader explains.
I came up with the idea, with the concept. With the letters, with the entrance song that you can still hear to this day. It started off as a shoot because I was in another group called 3 Live Kru with Ron Killings and Road Dogg, and they brought Billy Gunn in and they made us 4 Live Kru. I believe this is when Dusty Rhodes was still there as the booker and then they took Road Dogg and Billy Gunn and made them their own tag team, since they were DX in WWE. I said, "why don't you team us and Ron Killings together?" cos Ron was my boy, they said no. So I got really angry as a shoot, I started to go "you never want to help Latinos you never want to help minorities, you never have any Latinos in positions of power as producers or writers." So they go "well you come up with an idea". I came up with Latin American Xchange, where the only way you could be on the team was if you were Latino. It was almost like reverse discrimination, we didn't want anything that was Anglo. You had to be Latino, and so very early on if you go back to some of those promos that I did where people go "they're so passionate, they sound so real", they were real. I was doing shoot promos that sounded like a work. They were full of real anger, and passion, and the frustration I was feeling as a Latino in this business.
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With such a provocative and impassioned idea, the talent portraying it needed to be right. With K-Dogg leading the pack from the outside as their manager, the group next recruited some new blood to help realise LAX in the ring. Ring Of Honor standout Homicide seemed like the obvious choice, with his real-life street credentials. He was backed up by the gargantuan Hernandez, the powerhouse of the team.
I had real chemistry with Hernandez and Homicide. That was real good chemistry. Homicide obviously actually being from the streets, I used to hustle in the streets back in the day so to have two guys that were really from there. It was something different, organic, and it felt real. People really liked it a lot.
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LAX enjoyed a legendary first run with Impact Wrestling. Never far from the top of the tag team division, Homicide, Hernandez and Konnan were involved in several classic encounters during their initial stint with the company. Bouts with AJ Styles and Christopher Daniels, The Motor City Machine Guns and Team 3D (WWE Hall of Famers The Dudley Boyz) ensured LAX would be well remembered by fans. However after years away, the familiar gunshots of the LAX theme would be heard in arenas once again when the concept was brought back last year.
When I came back to Impact, they were like "what do you want to do?" I said I want to start LAX again and they said bring in some new members. They gave me literally three or four days to find two guys that would fit this role. I went around looking, I asked wrestlers, I went through film clips and I just saw these two guys from New York who were Puerto Rican. I'm half Puerto Rican too and I'm like "man I think we've got something here". I ended up calling these guys, I was like "hey man would you like to come to Impact and do the LAX thing?" they said yes and they went down there. The first day they were there, I'll give Jeff Jarrett a lot of credit. He trusted my senses so much cos he hadn't seen these guys in his life, never met them. He didn't know if they could work good or nothing. To tell you the truth I didn't know much about them either, they were two guys I was going to have to help cultivate. They gave us the straps either the first day or second day we were in there. I told them "bro this doesn't happen too much in the business. you have a real big responsibility, not just to LAX but coming in here being given the belts. There's going to be people here who are jealous, just professional jealousy nothing personal. We've got to live up to this standard." They have the talent and it's just beautiful to see where they were two years ago, which is just basically unknown to who they are now.
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With a new tag team taking on the legendary mantle, naturally fans started to wonder what would happen if Homicide and Hernandez were to take on the new breed of LAX, Ortiz and Santana. Konnan agrees this was a natural progression, but the road to get to this dream match was a bumpy one.
Originally I wasn't too happy with some of the things that Hernandez did when I left LAX the first time. When I came back I told Jeff (Jarrett, Impact founder), I'd like to bring Homicide back but I don't want to bring Hernandez back. Homicide knew what Hernandez had done to me, and so did the other LAX boys, so they at first didn't want to do it, cos they knew I didn't want to do it. They approached us and said "what would happen if the old LAX fought the new LAX?". Everybody said "no I don't want to do that". I thought (the same) myself but I knew the fans would like it. I told everyone "let's forget our own personal feelings and I thank you very much for backing me up but we're doing this for the fans." Then we found the perfect heel, which was Eddie Kingston. who I met because he was really good friends with the LAX guys, Ortiz and Santana, and he was really good friends with Homicide. They said "you should bring Eddie to LAX" so when I said "I think we should do something with Kingston". It fit perfectly cos he was good on the mic, he was a good heel. I was very happy. People loved the angle, it was very well done.
With Konnan still so heavily involved in the business, both as a performer and the host of Keepin' It 100, he still keeps up with the wider pro wrestling landscape. WWE continue to loom large as the biggest company in the business, however for K-Dogg their size does not equate to quality.
You were watching during the Monday Night Wars yes? That type of talent, that type of storyline, that type of risk-taking, that type of competition doesn't exist anymore. WWE, they're just kind of resting on their laurels. They don't have anyone pushing them, they're not afraid anybody is going to come and take their talent, they're not putting out their best product. I watched it last Monday and that show was absolutely terrible. I have a lot of friends there and I want them to do good, but the show's absolutely terrible. They've got too many shows. Between Smackdown and NXT...the Network and dinner for 3 and this show and that show. It's all WWE people working on those shows. If they had one show like Impact, I bet you it would be a great show, but they have so much content. I always say to myself "too many hours of TV? Well get more writers" I'm pretty sure if they gave Game of thrones 7 extra hours or something their show quality wouldn't dip that bad, you know? And get better writers, what they're writing is terrible. If I didn't have to wrestle and I didn't have to follow wrestling because I do a podcast and we talk about wrestling, I don't think there's any other show that if it was this bad I'd still be watching it. That's a shame. because they wrote the blueprint on how to introduce characters. They built the blueprint on so many things you even see UFC take a page out of.
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As someone who has main evented sold out Lucha Libre cards in Mexico, been a featured player when wrestling was at its apex and turned LAX into a team respected the world over it begs question; what is left for Konnan to achieve? The man has asked himself that same question, and he is currently eyeing an in-ring farewell tour.
About 10 years ago I went to get a hip replacement and when i went in there they found out my kidneys weren't working. So now a kidney transplant overrode the hip implant because they weren't going to give me a hip operation until my kidneys were fixed. I went through really some tough times and I had to retire from wrestling. I didn't retire the way I wanted, to be able to go into the middle of the ring and say goodbye to all the people that helped me and supported me all these years. To the business that's given me so much. So next year hopefully we'll start a little world tour, we'll go over to Mexico and US and UK and Puerto Rico and just say farewell to the fans.
With new talent emerging all the time, as well as fellow veterans still going strong, who would the LAX leader like to phase in his final series of matches?
I want to wrestle some of my contemporaries, there's not that many left. Whether it's Chris Jericho, whether it's Rey Mysterio, Psicosis, guys of that ilk. Also guys that I've never wrestled, whether it's Alberto Del Rio or Pentagon and Fenix; two of my boys. My LAX boys, team up with them. There's a lot of people I've never wrestled against. So it'll be a real pleasure to wrestle against them.
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As one of wrestling's greatest orators, it makes sense that Konnan now splits his time between the ring and the microphone as a prominent part of the podcast community. His show Keepin' It 100 is a long-running and popular stable of many fans listening lists.
Chris Jericho has a Network on Westwood One and he invited me to do my own podcast cos he heard me on another podcast. I think I had the first wrestling podcast that ever talked about something that wasn't wrestling. Because when I broke in there were only a couple of podcasts, like Dave Meltzer and Colt Cabana; they just spoke wrestling. I came in talking wrestling, politics, movies, sports, pop culture, stuff I like that everybody else likes too. it's a real cool show, we discuss those subjects and my co-host is Disco Inferno who's really funny, we've got Shane Helms (WWE legend Hurricane) is really funny. We go out there and just try to entertain the people. We went on the Chris Jericho cruise and a lot of people came out to see the Keepin' it 100 podcast. If you guys want to check out that show, something different, check it out, see if you like it. Go to Westwood One and its called Keepin' It 100 it's a really good entertaining show.
Konnan is an anomaly among veterans in the business. Old school but constantly evolving. Deeply passionate about the business and constantly trying to revolutionise the way we think about important issues such as race in professional wrestling. Put his podcast on your speakers, and we'll see you ringside when his farewell tour hits the UK.
See Konnan and the stars of Impact Wrestling on Fridays at 11pm on 5 Spike, as well as on the GWN app available at https://globalwrestlingnetwork.com/
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