?Reported by Adam Martin of WrestleView.com

On Monday, May 9, 2005 at 1:34 PM EST

Jimmy Van of JimmyVan.com sent in the following recap...

On Tuesday night, May 3rd I spoke with former WWE superstar Andrew "Test" Martin. Andrew spoke candidly and honestly for an entire hour about a variety of WWE topics including a missed opportunity with DX, Bret Hart and the Hall of Fame, being a Kevin Nash clone, storyline disappointment, the infamous Baltimore snowstorm, his neck injury, his WWE release and much, much more.

Part two of the interview (which is 30 minutes in length) is now online at www.JimmyVan.com in Windows Media and Real Audio formats. You can also listen to a five-minute preview clip of the interview in Real Audio format at this link:

Here is a text transcript from this portion of the interview.

JV tells Test about a website called AbsoluteAstronomy.com which is an encyclopedia website. One of their definitions for "test" is, "Test is also the professional wrestling name of Andrew Martin."

"All right I'm in the encyclopedia," Andrew laughs. "My mom always told me I'd amount to nothing."

JV asks Andrew about having his own action figures and video games.

"It's awesome, I have every action figure hung up in my office," he said. He said he has 29 or 30 different action figures. JV jokes that he must sit around at 3AM with a little ring putting together matches with the toys. "Not those kind of matches if you know what I mean," Andrew jokes.

At WrestleMania X-8 in Toronto, the six-man tag match featuring Test teaming with Lance Storm and Curt Hennig got bumped to Sunday Night Heat...

"That was the biggest disappointment of my career," he said. "It was my birthday too. It couldn't have gotten any worse. My birthday, in my hometown, WrestleMania, supposed to have this six-man tag on WrestleMania, it got bumped to Heat. It was a bummer."

Was is just a time issue?

"Yeah it always is."

Even though it was on Heat, to be in Toronto in front of 68,000 people, must have still been a cool experience.

"I still ate it all up, but I'm not gonna say I wasn't disappointed."

What was it like getting to team with Mr. Perfect?

"It was cool, Curt was a great guy. Curt was a great guy."

Did you ever think of getting rid of the Test name?

"I thought about using my real name because we'd been using it so much on TV, my real name. But the name never bothered me. It was better than The Dentist..."

They didn't call you Duke the Dumpster...

"Right, right. It really wasn't a big issue."

You're from Canada living in Florida now, do you have dual citizenship?

"I'm in the process of getting my green card. But I'm Canadian... I have a working visa, I'm a resident here (in the United States)."

What'd you think of the Un-American angle with Regal and Christian?

"Well it was just like the Hassan and Daivari thing right now. Yeah you get a lot of heat out of it but there's only so much you can do with that too."

I heard you and Christian are still pretty tight...

"We hang out all the time. Well he tries to hang out with me," Andrew joked.

You don't want him to cramp your style.

"No. I just go out because his wife's kinda hot," he said.

November 2002, you got your hair cut.

"Yup. Uh huh," Andrew said sarcastically.

Is that something you wanted to do or did the office suggest it?

"Well they suggested it and I didn't really like it. And then they started having me do dark matches. I went from working a PPV with The Undertaker to doing dark matches the next few days. And you know what, I think of it this way; I'm playing a role, cut my hair, who really cares. So we cut it and you know what, I'm glad we cut it, I don't miss it one bit."

So you've still got it short I guess.

"Oh ya."

February 2003, apparently you and Stacy Keibler were in Baltimore...

"I already know where you're going with this," Andrew said.

There was a snowstorm and apparently you guys missed a flight. The story was that the office had informed everybody about the weather ahead of time...

"There's where the story is not true," Andrew said. "Me and Stacy had to do an on-sale which is, fly to a city on a Friday, they took us off the house shows, to promote on Saturday morning, "Hey we're coming here in a few months," sign autographs, meet people, shake hands. We went there, we did the on-sale, they brought us back to the airport. We got to the airport, and the lady said to us because we were early, "I'll fly you into Philadelphia," so I said wait I have to phone the office to make sure that's okay. I phoned the WWE travel office and said, since we were originally planning on going to Baltimore, we're going to Philadelphia, can we switch to there because if not we have to wait four more hours for this plane to Baltimore. And they're like, "Sure." So they switched it... I knew nothing of any kind of weather situation, whatsoever. We flew there, we landed, they had a car pick us up in Philadelphia and drove us back to Stacy's in Baltimore. And I just remember going to bed Saturday night, waking up Sunday morning still knowing nothing about any of this. There was snow coming down like crazy. So right away I called the office and said, "It's snowing, can you guys maybe get us out of here?" "Sure, we'll get you out." And then all the airports are closed, they said you guys are booked on a flight out of Washington in the morning, so wait until then. So I phoned a few other people, they said the same thing, you're already booked on a flight in Washington, it's gonna take off... I couldn't sleep, I got up at 3 in the morning to start calling. All the airports are closed... I phoned every limo company... I offered a limo driver $10,000 to drive me and Stacy to Columbus to the show which is eight hours away. I tried to get a rental car, everybody said no because it's a state of emergency, it's illegal to be on the roads at that time. They called in the National Guard, that's how bad it was. And you know what, we were at the on-sale, yeah maybe I should have tried to check the weather, but I've never done that in the past. There was no warning, nobody told us we should get on this flight. And I just remember... that really... we took a lot of heat over that. Or really, I took a lot of heat over that. Over something that wasn't done on purpose. Nobody told us about it. Nobody said... I've heard that before that people say oh, weren't you guys warned? No there was no warning. We even phoned to have the flight switched, their own travel company didn't even tell us."

Well it's good to get this cleared up...

"Even if, let's say I had've... jump in a car and drive eight hours... what if we'd died on the way to the show? It was a state of emergency and people weren't on the roads."

Let's talk about Vince McMahon. Did you ever talk to him about any ideas, and was he receptive?

"We talked about some ideas, if I wasn't comfortable with certain things. Vince is always cool with that. You know I never really had any problems with Vince personally."

When you met Vince, how'd you find him?

"He's just like a normal person to me to be honest with you. I can see how people get intimidated and stuff, but I just treat him like a regular person."

What do you think of the company splitting the roster in two, trying to go with the brand extension concept?

"Like I said you need competition, I guess if you don't have anybody else you need to create your own."

Do you think it's working?

"Definitely not the show it was in '98 and '99, but maybe it still wouldn't be the show if it was still together. It gives a lot more opportunity for a lot of the other guys so I'm all for that."

Is there ever any competition between guys on the two sides?

"I don't know I never really experienced that but then again I never really looked at it that way."

What was up with the Girls Gone Wild PPV?

"Just something that Vince and Eric Bischoff put together. They just asked us, would you do it? I said sure."

Was there any protocol for it? Did they just say go out there and do what you want?

"Ya pretty much."

Last year WWE went through a round of budget cuts, and you were one of the guys they released. The timing was questionable because you had just undergone neck surgery. First, who called you, was it Johnny Ace?

"Ya Johnny called me."

What reason did he give you?

"Johnny and I always had a good relationship. He called me, I just had two discs taken out of my neck and steel plates put in, and this was like two months after it happened. And you know, I know that business is really bad right now, and I know they're not paying the guys the kind of money that some of us guys who've been there a while were making. So he called me and just said, 'You know Andrew I've gotta talk to you about something. And I'm having a hard time explaining, and I've been fighting about it all week because I don't...' and I genuinely believe he felt bad about it. He said, 'We have to release you, business is really down right now, and we need to make some budget cuts,' and blah, blah, blah. And I thought... first thing is well, you know I just had two discs taken out of my neck for this company. And the right thing to do I think is to stand by me until I'm ready to go somewhere else. And you know the reply to that was, 'Well you worked here a long time I'm sure you have some money saved up.' And then he said, 'You can never say never in this business,' and he said Vince wants to see you when you're healthy and whatever... you know what, I can't say I wasn't disappointed... I worked seven years for that company, I broke my neck in that ring, I had my discs taken out of my neck in major, major surgery that takes a year to recover from. It was hell, I had a hard collar on for three and a half months. And yeah the right thing to do is stand by me until I'm healthy. But you know what the way I look at it is... the story I told you about how I got into the business... you know what, I got to live my dream. That was my dream the whole time. I've seen the world, I got to travel everywhere. I've made a lot of money, and I just turned 30 so, there's definitely a lot more positive things that happened to me out of this. I think a lot of guys would still switch places with me in a second. So... there's no bitterness towards the business... there's lots of opportunity out there."

How did the injury happen? I know there was a house show in June...

"Well that was after I'd come back. I'd actually cracked my neck in a match, I don't know how. I just got an MRI done on it and the doctor said I'd cracked it. I'd been working with a crack for about two weeks. He said I was lucky that I was in the kind of shape I was in. I took eight weeks off, I tried to heal it, tried to come back. My arm was going numb, I couldn't grip a dumbbell in the gym like I should, so I saw Dr. Youngblood in San Antonio and in August I got the operation done."

Did you know at the time much about Kurt Angle's alternative surgery in Pittsburgh?

"Yeah and there was no way I was going to do it because Kurt had done it twice, and the first time he came back he got hit in the head with a chair and his arm went numb. You know what if I was going to quit the business and not wrestle again, that's the way to go."

Edge was initially upset because Kurt found his surgery right after Edge had his, so Edge was out for a year and Kurt was only out six weeks the first time.

"Just goes to show you, you know you can't work something like that, something that major."

What'd you think of the way WWE handled the Edge/Lita thing as far as deciding to let Matt Hardy go?

"Totally wrong."

What do you think of their apparent reason about Matt going public on the Internet?

"I can't really say, and I'm not even saying that to be politically correct because it could have been... when you're there, you never know when you've done something wrong. You could have done something you don't even know about. Who knows what sets who off. Unless you walk a day in that man's shoes, you shouldn't judge what he should and shouldn't do."

I heard there's been a lot of backlash in the back against Edge and Lita...

"I have no idea about it because I'm not around. From what I've seen on TV, ya."

Before you left, Johnny Ace took over as VP of Talent Relations. He implemented a dress code... what'd you think about it, you see it in pro sports...

"I wasn't there for that, I was still at home hurt. I think it was put out there because they want us to act like professional athletes. But it's not like they're flying us all first class. There are some 6'7" and 6'8" guys sitting in the back with a suit on next to a fat lady and a fat man, you're not gonna be too comfortable. I can understand coming to the arena, know what I mean? I don't know, I really don't have an opinion on it, but that's the part that would be the downfall for me - it would be uncomfortable."

Do you still watch the WWE product now?

"I tune in every now and then."

How's your neck doing?

"My neck feels great, it's about 95%. I have a guy, Rob Russen who's doing all my appearances for me and setting them up. If you could plug him for me I'd appreciate it. He's got me lots of stuff over in Italy and Australia, going overseas to England and Germany, lots of interest overseas and I'd really like to go there because I always loved going overseas... If I miss anything most about this business, I don't miss the way I felt sometimes backstage, the not knowing if you've done something wrong, I miss that 15 minutes you got to entertain those fans. Nothing can replace that."

Have you been cleared, will you be working matches?

"I haven't been fully medically cleared, my neck's probably about 95%, it's coming along, fusing well, I'm about eight months out, usually it takes a year, I'm ahead of normal. In the next month or two I should be good, I mean I've been going to the gym hard the last three months, probably in the best shape I've ever been in my life. Being home, eating all the time... I've just been travelling a lot, and enjoying life. Good thing I got in the business when I did, saved my money, and now I get the chance to enjoy it."

Since you're about healthy, have you had any talks with WWE about coming back?

"I haven't even tried to contact anybody; to be honest I'd really like to just try something different for a while. And especially let my body heal and recharge. It's feeling great, I'd like to just start to wrestle again, I haven't wrestled a match in almost a year. Before I even think about that, would I go back to WWE? I'm sure I would, never say never."

Have you had any talks with the Jarretts about TNA?

"I've talked to a lot of guys over there, and the owners are asking about my neck and everything like that... there's no sense even speaking about money or going over there until you're cleared to work. I've got some overseas stuff coming up and that's really what I want to do right now. I like TNA, I like everything they do, I think they've got a lot of great performers, and I think they've got a big chance, especially if they get on a major network..."

I heard about a possible deal with WGN...

"Yeah I did too. Especially if they get on a major network, there's a lot of guys out there with WWE exposure, I think if they brought them all in they could do something special."

Some wrestlers think if they get released by WWE they're in trouble, but people like Spanky and Molly Holly made the decision to leave. What do you think, are there alternatives to WWE?

"There are definitely alternatives, I mean... I've kept myself busy buying and selling real estate. I want to wrestle still. There's a lot of money to be made overseas if you want to do it. It's a different experience, and I'm actually looking forward to it."

When I did research on you I found a couple of things I didn't know about - "Kim Possible", a cartoon show?

"I've done some voice-over work..."

And "18 Wheels of Justice", you were on an episode of that. Will we be seeing Andrew Martin the TV star?

"Well you know what I've always been a wrestler... I could always play that big meat head in the back."

Word Association

Bret Hart

"The guy I owe everything to for getting me in this business."

Leo Burke

"Leo Burke is one of the greatest guys I know, just the nicest man in the world, taught me so much."

Tommy Lee

Andrew just laughed.

The Rock

"Real nice guy, always very nice to me, and the first guy to really cross over to mainstream movies."

Vince McMahon

"Obviously the greatest wrestling promoter there has been."

Stephanie McMahon

"Vince but female."

Shane McMahon

"Shane's one of the boys. Shane and I keep in contact, and he's a great guy."

Owen Hart

"Sad, that's the first thing that comes to my mind. Just a waste."

Triple H

"Got a lot of stroke."

Too much maybe?

"Well I don't really get involved in the politics side. He's part of the family now, he's gonna be running that business, and that's just a fact, and that's the way it is."

He's always talking about his title reigns on TV. We know Flair's 16-time World Champ...

"I'm sure Triple H will be 20-time Champ," Andrew said.

Trish Stratus

"Trish surprised me, I didn't think she was gonna last, and she turned out to be probably one of the best female wrestlers ever."

When they first put her with you in T&A, what did you think, it'd just be a short-term thing?

"Yeah you know she was really green, just like I explained to you it's not people's fault, you just don't know any better about this business. There is a "wrestler's code" so to speak, and she didn't know, and I didn't think she was gonna last, but she sucked it up, and I'll put her over, she sucked it up, and she turned out to be one of the greatest female wrestlers that I think that they've had."

Jay Reso (Christian)

"The most underused guy on Raw. He should be... there's no reason that Christian shouldn't be World Champion. He is the funniest guy, he has the best character right now. Five-star matches every time. They're missing the boat on him."

It seems like they've recognized it because the fans are taking to him...

"How can you not? When you get to know Jay... that's who he is. He's finally getting to be... he's the nerd. That's what we call him, the nerd. And that's how he acts, just goofy like that. That's him. Finally he's getting the chance to be himself... the sad thing is, just because Jay's not 6'7" and 290 pounds, he's not gonna get a shot. But if Jay was 6'7" and 290 pounds, he wouldn't be as funny as he is."

Adam Copeland (Edge)

"Adam... I've never been as tight with Adam as I have with Jay... probably in a bad place right now."

Matt Bloom (A-Train)

"One of my best friends in the business, a good guy."

Booker T

"Book is one of the funniest guys I know, a great guy to be around, always lifts your spirits, makes you laugh."

Scott Steiner

"Biggest mistake was getting rid of Scott Steiner. You're telling me that... that guy, the way he looks... is he the Scott Steiner from 10 years ago? No but Scott was putting asses in seats. One guy says he can't work and he's gone... that's not true, I had great matches with Scott Steiner. I respect him so much, and I really think they dropped the ball with him."

Test

"A lucky guy, you know? Was at the right place at the right time, and got to live his dream, and that's why I'm happy about everything that's happened to me."

Rob Russen is promoting WrestleReunion II in August, and you'll be there.

"Ya, I'm gonna be apart of that and I'm looking forward to it."

How did you hook up with Rob?

Andrew said he approached him about doing WrestleReunion. He said Rob does bookings and gets guys work in places like overseas. He also said Rob represents a few other people, and he asked Andrew about doing business and he was interested.

What else do you have coming up?

Andrew said he's going to Italy for a couple of shows, and Australia for four or five shows, and some stuff in England and Germany.

And I hear you're really making the interview rounds now.

"I am making the interview rounds... the silence has been broken after nine months."

Anything else you'd like to say?

"I just want to say... I want to thank everybody so much for all the support they've given me while I've been injured, and all their kind words, and just giving me the chance to perform in front of you all. I miss all the fans, and hopefully I'll be back."

JV wraps up the interview.

Part two of the interview (which is 30 minutes in length) is now online at www.JimmyVan.com in Windows Media and Real Audio formats. You can also listen to a five-minute preview clip of the interview in Real Audio format at this link:

http://www.jimmyvan.com/audio/test/part2/test-050305-clip2.ram

Part 1 of our exclusive interview with Matt ?A-Train? Bloom is now online! It?s the first interview conducted with Matt since his WWE release.

Thanks to Rob Russen, Andrew's agent. You can contact Rob for bookings at RobLRussen@aol.com. And for information on Rob's WrestleReunion II convention, check out www.wrestlereunion.com.