Luther recently appeared on Talk is Jericho and discussed several topics, ranging from how he landed with All Elite Wrestling to where his name comes from. Here are some highlights:
On how he signed with AEW:
Luther: “I recorded a bunch [of tapes], I remember I sent in one, you said they liked it, I sent another, they liked it, I sent another, I sent three audition tapes in.”
On auditioning to be The Exalted One:
Luther: “[The Dark Order] was like a cult, cult leader…so I just sorta thought, like sorta what my angle would be on that, so I kind of thought, okay, so when I did the WRP, Father Dante, and you were like, you told me then, we were talking, you were like, ‘Yeah, maybe a nice cross between Luther and Dante would be a good mix.’ I watched a few and listened to a few different cult things and watched some different videos online to try to, I don’t like to copy one person, I like to sort of pick different things from different people and, you know, make it my own, just like you did the same thing. So I took all this stuff together, and it was kinda cool that I did the Father Dante thing because that kinda gave me a sort of of a base.”
“I remember the one I did, one of the audition tapes I did kinda more like Father Dante where I was, you know, really yelling kind of…passionate, like preaching-wise, and you’re like, ‘Let’s try to humble it down a little bit,’ and Jake The Snake, who’s in AEW, you’re like, that’s a good kind of role model, like his delivery, which is always spot on. And so I kinda thought, okay, I’ll take this angle, but maybe kinda mix it with that.”
On where the name Luther came from:
Luther: “Luther came from, on the plane going over, I was like, hey, I still didn’t really have a name. [The magazine] put this little, I think the first picture they put in was small, and they used that name, and then the bigger one was Dr. Luther because I came up with it just before I left. I didn’t have the full gimmick, I was still on the plane when I was coming up with the full gimmick, but the name I got, because I was like, how about Hannibal Lecter, and then they’re like, oh you can’t use Lecter, so then I was like okay, Luther, Luther, Luther, and then two things came to mind right away, was, well there’s Lex Luthor and Luther from The Warriors….so he was a great villain, right, and he kinda had that whiny scream thing, which I kinda do wrestling now, too, so it was kinda cherry-picked a little bit from that. And then I was like okay, I could go with Luther, so the first couple tours, I was actually Dr. Hannibal Luther, like I had the full long name,and then one night I was at home, and at like 3:30 in the morning, I get a call and it’s Tarzan Goto. And he said two things, they wanted me to drop my agent which, don’t have to ask me twice….”
“This [tour] was about bringing in another guy. ‘We wanna bring in another guy, we want him to look like you,’ and it was like what? It seemed weird, right? We want him to be like you, and we’re gonna call him Hannibal, and it’s like, well, I’m Dr. Hannibal Luther, and you want him to look like me…what? So I kinda was like trying to figure out what they’re talking about, and then I realized they wanted to call him Hannibal, like take my first name, call him Hannibal and then shorten me to Dr. Luther. And then they said they want to bring in another guy to just take all, basically the bumps and to keep me strong. So I was like oh, I’m in a group with the cannon fodder guy and me.”
The full episode is available below:
https://open.spotify.com/episode/3Qx4KpbCmAnTXzDsJBLoRD?si=uTqrIKIZRhqEE_Jl3_Ya-A
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