Al Snow Says TNA "Creatively Mishandled" Drake Maverick, Talks WWE 24/7 Championship
As a former road agent for Impact Wrestling, Al Snow knows Drake Maverick fka Rockstar Spud very well. Not only did they work together in Impact, but Snow was the booker of OVW when Maverick was there and it was under the ownership of Impact.
Snow talked about Maverick and the 24/7 Championship when he spoke to Wrestling Inc. on our WINCLY podcast.
"It's very entertaining," Snow said of the title. "I think that was something the show was missing and needed; it needed some entertainment. It's fun to watch and I think Drake Maverick is making the most of the opportunity that's been created.
"From the moment I saw Spud in TNA's British Bootcamp, I felt that he was a star. He was brought to OVW and I helped create TNA's developmental program with OVW at that time. He never did anything super-significant in OVW at the time but he knew how to be a star."
Snow praised Maverick's charisma and work ethic while also complimenting his ability to stay humble.
"When he was in TNA, he did spectacular but they just creatively mishandled him," admitted Snow. "But he did awesome that whole time in TNA and there's no surprise that he's doing just as well in WWE. It's just a larger platform and a bigger audience."
In addition to running OVW, Snow also wrote the foreword to one of author Jon Chattman's recent books Moving Forward. He explained the premise of the book and how all of the forewords tie in together.
"The premise of the book is that every book has a foreword written by someone that the book is about or knows something of the topic. ?Jon went around and got a bunch of different celebrities to write these forewords for these fictional books as if they were real," said Snow.
"This is a collection of those forewords that these celebrities have written. Some of them are really funny and some of them make you wonder if there is actually a book out there like that."
Snow then mentioned several of thte celebrities who wrote forewords for it including Moby, Daryl Hammond, John Oates, Adam West, Shirley Manson, Bruce Springstein and Thomas Lennon.
Snow's foreword in the book centers around an unusual topic: his love for actor Patrick Duffy. Snow explained why he chose Duffy as his focal point for Chattman's book.
"Let's explain Patrick Duffy. Let's explain "The Duff." Patrick Duffy was in one of the greatest TV shows that lasted one, maybe two episodes and that's Man from Atlantis," recalled Snow. "I don't know if anyone remembers Man from Atlantis but it was spectacular. It was on NBC and had about a two-week run before being cancelled.
"Now, why do I idolize him? He went from that to Dallas, the No. 1 TV show, and they shot his character, killed him off and literally made it a dream sequence because it was such a backlash."
Snow also complimented Duffy's later work in such series as Knots Landing and Step by Step.
Jon Chattman's Moving Forward, featuring Al Snow, is now available and can be purchased here. Al's full interview with Wrestling Inc aired as part of Thursday's episode of our WINCLY podcast. It can be heard via the embedded audio player at the bottom of this post. In it Al discusses his contribution to the new book "Moving Foreward", purchasing OVW, his plans for OVW as a school and promotion, WWE hiring Paul Heyman and Eric Bischoff and more.
You can check out past episodes of the WINCLY here. Subscribe to Wrestling Inc. Audio on iTunes or Google Play. Listen to the show via Spotify here or through TuneIn here.