Billy Corgan highlights some of the issues that the current generation of performers deal with.
Corgan appeared on 94 WIP—Philly Sports Radio on Thursday with Ike Reese, Spike Eskin, and Jack Fritz to promote NWA 76. During the conversation, Corgan was asked how he assures NWA talent that he’s doing his best to treat them the right way.
Corgan says it starts with good leadership, putting over the team he works with.
“It takes a lot of locker room leadership. We have veterans, former WWE people, who came up in that great system and they’re the people that will pull me aside and say somebody’s struggling. ‘Hey you need to talk to this person, lay off this person a little bit.’
“I will say — and it’s an easy thing to wave your hand over this current generation and say they’re lazy, they don’t want to work, they can’t get away from their phone. Well, that’s the new generation athlete that we’re dealing with,” Corgan explained.
“Their mental health struggles are a bit different than our generation, they just are. It takes a little bit — you have to try and understand where they’re coming from. Particularly as it pertains to social media,” he continued. “So for example, something might happen in wrestling where in the world we grew up in, not a big deal. But if they’re getting hammered online, it’s like they feel like they’re getting piled on. And it might be something that they have no control over, like they’re in a match. Maybe they didn’t like the edit or something happened and it came off bad. It just didn’t look good on TV, but it was fine in the arena. I mean, you’d think they got hit in the head with a brick because that’s their whole world, is their social personality, which to me, was so strange.
Billy Corgan does not read press, good or bad
Eskin mentioned putting the phone away or how no one mentions an incident, but your perception changes once you go back online.
Corgan said that his team knows not to send him press. He doesn’t Google himself or read reviews, whether they are good or bad.
“I do not. I’m telling you [I don’t]. You can ask [my wife], she’s standing right here. I don’t want to know anything anybody’s saying,” Corgan said. “I don’t, because at the end of the day — I had to learn, and I’m from a generation that didn’t have that. Before, all I had to do was deal with the jerk from Rolling Stone or The Village Voice. OK, I could kinda manage that, at least you could call the guy up and say, ‘Hey, lay off’ or whatever.
“In this world, ‘Joe7463’ who is an expert at pickleball. He’s going to tell you how to roll and you’re like, ‘C’mon, man!’ Especially [when] I’ve been in the game since 18. The band started when I was 21, I’m 57 now. C’mon, I heard it all,” he proclaimed. “You ain’t gonna have a hot take that’s going to change anything about me, you know?”
NWA 76 takes place on Saturday, August 31 at the 2300 Arena in Philadelphia.
If you use this transcription, credit the source, h/t WrestleZone and link to this post.
