Matt Morgan spoke at length with Alfonso Castillo of Newsday.com regarding a variety of topics including allegations that his character is too derivative of other wrestlers. "I guess I could see the Goldberg thing earlier on, because I’m overly intense," Morgan said. "And I think fans get into it if you’re an intense, big guy with muscles. ‘Oh, you’ve got to be doing Goldberg.’

"The only thing I recall being derivative of anything directly was doing a tribute to the Undertaker’s top rope walk when I first started, and that’s because that’s my favorite pro wrestler of all time and he always will be. And he’s a big influence on my career. And that’s all I was. And as my character changed, I stopped doing it. I did it a total of three times on TV. And now people think, ‘Oh, he’s trying to be the Undertaker.’ No, not really, because I’m doing things – like my finisher.

"Have you ever seen anybody else do the Hellevator? I haven’t. No ones ever done it, that’s why. I could tell you right now a little kid over in Japan is copying me, doing it. No one’s calling him the Matt Morgan derivative. You see - little things like that. They’ll always find ways to be negative, because they were wrong in judging you when you first started your career, and people don’t like to be proven wrong. And that’s fine by me. And I don’t read their stuff to begin with, so I have no idea what they’re saying." To read the full interview, visit Newsday.com.

Powell's POV: I think it's only natural to compare wrestlers to guys that came before him. For that matter, it's only natural for wrestlers to emulate some of the bigger names who have been successful. My primary critique of Morgan has been that I'd like to see him slow down on interviews and take more of a traditional "speak softly and carry a big stick" approach on the mic. Of course, you could also make the argument that this approach would also be derivative, so we're right back to square one and now my head hurts. Anyway, it's a lengthy interview that is worth going out of your way to read.

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