Grayson Waller exists, in part, he says, because of all those Willy Wigs once selling for $25 a pop.
Remember them?
Of course, you do.
Just as Waller will never forget how, early in the 2000s, so many NRL crowds were awash with those curly, black tributes to Canterbury bad boy Big Willie Mason.
But wear one?
Nah, not this Roosters diehard.
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A fella who, while loving all things Big Willie, sure, much prefer to talk about all those times Jared Waerea-Hargreaves, has favoured enforcer, has been booed, binned, fined, strung up, sent off or simply cocked another elbow like John Wayne once did rifles.
“Because being the bad guy,” Waller grins, “it’s powerful”.
Which is a truth this now 33-year-old has embraced since long before becoming a WWE Superstar.
Long before he was even Grayson Waller.
Call it a love of the bad guy that traces all the way back to his days as an anonymous Sydney teen – real name Matt Farrelly – who studied teaching, cheered the Tricolours and spent weekday arvos having his face punched by a CityRail electrician.
But more on UFC star Rob Whittaker soon enough.
First, those Willie Wigs.
“Because Willie Mason, love him,” Waller cackles when asked by Fox Sports Australia to explain his own incredible rise up through the WWE Universe.
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One that, in the space of three short years, has seen this fella who now boasts his own TV program – the Grayson Waller Effect – also jawing with John Cena, sledging The Rock, sharing squared circles with Edge, then Rey Mysterio and Logan Paul, before being tossed into WrestleMania, a Royal Rumble, and now this Saturday night the biggest show in Australian wrasslin’ history – a WWE Elimination Chamber blockbuster at Perth’s Optus Stadium.
Better, the Aussie looks set to go head-to-head against WWE superstar Cody Rhodes – that son of wrestling Immortality who right now may just be the most popular grappler anywhere on planet earth.
But Waller?
Well, he’s the guy so many fans want to punch in the face.
Or so they tell him online.
For the uninitiated, think a buffed up Nick Kyrgios.
Or wrasslin’ Big Willie.
That NRL cult favourite whose own rise in the early 2000s was a chaotic swirl all grit, biff, thwacks, Tests, titles, Origin wins, Churchill medals and, of course, those wigs mimicking his own signature ‘fro.
Yet most importantly?
Big Willie had no drama being the heel.
“Just like those Penrith Panthers now,” Waller continues of those defending NRL premiers who haven’t only been branded, at times, rugby league’s new bad boys, but whose own incredible rise has run in lock-step with Waller’s rapid ascent through the WWE.
Indeed, in the same time the mountain men have gone from Neville Nobodies to threepeat premiers, so Waller has exploded up and out from the local indie circuit to become a new age WWE heel.
An outspoken Aussie upstart who realised years ago, long before anyone knew even what a Conor McGregor was, that there is good coin to be made if you’re willing to take the boos.
For how else do you explain Paul Gallen grossing $25 million in his final three years of heavyweight boxing? Or Big Willie once telling us how those cartoonish ‘fro wigs, they made him $25,000?
“Could’ve made s … loads more too if the NRL didn’t own my image,” he cackled.
“Imagine that? Selling 50,000 yourself …”
Certainly Waller can.
With roughly as many seats having been sold for Saturday night’s Elimination Chamber blockbuster.
Which is no small thing for a Sydney history teacher whose celebrity, until three years ago, extended no further than the 26 days preceding his eviction from an Australian Survivor.
A fella now exploding in the WWE with a character all brash, big talking Aussie who drinks Shoeys, trolls Swifties – “I’m not the sort of guy that would settle for a six” – and when in, say, Scotland remarks how the women “look and talk like Shrek”.
Crucially, too, the bloke can wrestle.
Really wrestle.
Which is, he says, a key ingredient so often overlooked among bad guys.
“Take Nick Kyrgios,” Waller starts, referencing the polarising Aussie tennis ace.
“I love that guy because he’s passionate, super competitive.
“And where he needs to get himself to mentally to perform like that, most people have no idea.
“That’s why it’s so frustrating to see athletes like him demonised for talking themselves up.
“Same as I’ve heard people the last few years getting into Panthers players, saying they’re horrible guys.
“They’re not.
“They’re confident.
“That’s why I always loved Willie Mason with the ‘fro, that bit of grub to him. Jared Waerea-Hargreaves, the same.
“They’re guys who are good and they know it.”
Yet to really succeed as a heel, Waller says, you cannot have the second part of that sentence without the first.
Which is why he has to tell you about Whittaker.
Australia’s inaugural UFC king who, some 15 years ago, spent his weekday afternoons as a sparring partner for Waller – sorry, Farrelly – at his local MMA gym in Padstow.
“Although mostly, it was Rob punching my face,” the superstar laughs
“The guy was already so talented.
“I actually remember this one day, we were sparring and it felt like I was starting to get some jabs in against Rob. But pretty quickly I realised it was only because he was letting me.
“(Laughs) Was almost headbutting my punches.
“Which doesn’t feel great for the ego.
“But it definitely let me know not only the level he was at, but the level of effort and work you have to put in to be great.
“So while I’ve always been one to do a bit of talking, I could never do it at MMA training because I just wasn’t good enough.
“I had to stay quiet, learn.
“Because the talk can only come from confidence … it’s about knowing how good you are and being comfortable with that.”
Which now, he does.
With Waller in the early stages of what could eventually be following that long line of wrasslin’ heels which – in no particular order – includes the likes of Stone Cold, Macho Man, Iron Sheik, Ric Flair, Kurt Angle, Rowdy Roddy Piper, Million Dollar Man, even 1960s bad boy Freddie Blassie – who was so hated by fans they stabbed him 21 separate times.
Yet while Waller has also modelled himself on UFC favourites like Irishman McGregor and the ‘American Gangster’ Chael Sonnen — “fighters who believe in themselves,” he says, “and have no problem telling the world” – so he is also keen to avoid the darker paths taken by fighters the likes of Colby Covington and Sean Strickland.
“Being the bad guy, it isn’t easy,” Waller explains.
“Especially these days with social media being everywhere — when you can open your feed and find it filled with people saying all sorts of horrible things — it breeds lots of fake bad guys …”
Fake bad guys?
“Athletes who play the bad guy on television,” he says.
“But then when they go online, they’re polite, showing love … they’re too scared about people being mean back.
“It’s why there are so few bad guys in professional sports.
“And those who are, they go the wrong way.
“Just look at how some UFC fighters are trying to be so controversial, saying such horrible things that you’re actually having people say ‘no, I don’t want that’.
“And it’s because it is all such low hanging fruit.
“It’s embarrassing.
“Where’s the creativity in any of that? Where is the fun?
“You’re not a bad guy.
“You’re just lazy.
“Because the truly great bad guys, they bring an element of fun to it all.”
Which, undoubtedly, Waller is.
And why somewhere tucked away at home, and in his training locker, this breakout Australian star has notebooks filled with potential lines, sledges and hacks for future opponents.
“I’m always watching guys and thinking about what I would say to them, potential lines I can play with,” he reveals. “I’ve got books full of stuff I’ve written down.
“But still for me, the best stuff comes naturally.”
Like when, say, you had a crack at The Rock on socials?
“That one was definitely a risk,” he says of a video which, before his Madison Square Garden debut, showed him mocking the outfit Dwayne Johnson wore into the same venue 27 years earlier.
“I’m not friends with The Rock.
“We’d never even met him before I put that out there.
“So it was risky because if the guy does take it the wrong way, mate, he likely wants nothing to do with me moving forward.”
So as for how The Most Electrifying Man In All Of Sports Entertainment did take it?
“Well, he commented back,” Waller grins. “Gave a couple of classic Rock lines too, which at least shows he’s paying attention.”
Isn’t the only one, either.
In fact, more than simply building his own brand, Waller insists Australia’s wrestling talent is about to experience an explosion similar to that already underway in MMA – and headed by the likes of Whittaker, Alexander Volkanovski, Tai Tuivasa and Jack Della Maddalena.
“I think our situation is very similar to MMA,” he says, referencing the explosion of local talent including himself or megastar Rhea Ripley, but Bronson Reed, Indi Hartwell and a handful of others already in training to be that next one out from behind the curtain.
“Initially with the UFC guys, it took a couple of people to knock on the door, open the door … and then we started running through.
“And now it’s happening for wrestling too.
“Rhea Ripley is very much number one.
“She’s done so much for Australian wrestling in WWE, she opened that door and now the rest of us are here … we’re kicking it down.”
Better, Waller is getting it done with the same swagger that once sold those Willie Wigs, puts JWH among the greatest enforcers of modern times, and at the time of writing again has those Penrith Panthers the $3.75 TAB favourites in premiership betting.
“And I see a lot of similarities between us,” Waller says of that western Sydney crew all boom box, elaborate handshakes and undeniable chip on the shoulder.
“While we didn’t grow up the same area of Sydney, neither of us is supposed to be here.
“Australians aren’t supposed to be in the WWE. Or on Smackdown against John Cena.
“But it’s a case of ‘you don’t think I’ll make it? … watch me’.
“And when you have that energy, that passion – have a little bit of anger, too – that’s when you can go out there and be yourself.
“I actually reckon when Penrith are sat there in the dressing sheds, celebrating another premiership, they must be laughing so hard at every single news article where somebody called them a bad bloke.”
Same deal for him.
“Because, no, I’m not the good guy,” he grins, “and I don’t care”.
