Not expecting many page views with this post, but anyway ...Two parts.
http://slam.canoe.ca/Slam/Wrestling/2013/09/03/21093096.html
Rob Conway's memories of WWE and La Résistance
For wrestling fans, especially those in Canada, Rob Conway may best be remembered for his tenure as part of the group La Résistance. Conway joined the group on August 18, 2003 when he debuted in the WWE; however that wasn't the original plan.
"Initially, I had gone up and I was supposed to debut the week before," Conway recalled for SLAM! Wrestling.
"I had long curly blonde hair and I used to wear white trunks with pink trim. One of the writers said, 'This guy wears pink trunks. We should put him with Stevie Richards and have Victoria be his friend.' My first night I was going to wrestle Tommy Dreamer and that was up to six or seven o'clock that day. They later came to me and told me they had decided they weren't going to have me debut that night, which crushed me. I was told I was debuting on the TV and wouldn't be on the road. I just had my dream taken away from me, but they told me they were going to bring me back next week and they thought they might have something better."
When Conway came back the following week, John Laurinaitis, the head of WWE talent relations at the time, sat him down in a chair right by the beautician who was backstage and told her to cut all his hair off. Conway was shocked, but he allowed his hair to be cut off.
"They gave me an air force uniform, told me to go out and sit in the front row," Conway explained.
"So that's how I debuted. I came in, joined La Résistance, and laid out the Dudley Boyz. There wasn't a lot of planning. That's pretty much how it went. I had a cell phone in my pocket for if they decided they didn't want me debuting while the show was going on. I even went in the front door with a ticket and had them seat me and everything."
What many people may not realize is that it was Sylvain Grenier's idea for Conway to join La Résistance, which consisted of René Dupre and Grenier.
"Actually it was a blessing because René was an @$#%$@#," Grenier told SLAM! Wrestling. "It was my idea to bring the army guy that he was playing at the time into La Résistance to go against the Dudley Boyz; they were always three. It worked really well. Thank God because René left to Smackdown and me and Rob had a great, great two years together. We were champions for two years and main evented in Australia and all over in Europe and I learned a lot from Rob. Thank God, because René was not helpful. He was not fun to travel with. It's sad, but Rob made me love wrestling again."
For Conway the highlight while he was a member of La Résistance was winning the world tag titles in Montreal -- Grenier's hometown.
"It was the one place in the world that we got cheered no matter what we did because we had their flag and represented them all over the world," reminisced Conway.
Other highlights from this period in his career included the opportunity to team with Grenier against the Rockers, Marty Jannettyand Shawn Michaels, and a match against Eugene and Ric Flair.
However, one of the big La Résistance moments Conway didn't get the opportunity to be a part of was when the group wrestled in France; yet, from what Grenier and Dupre told him about the experience, it's a country he would love the chance to wrestle in.
When he looks back on his time as a member of La Résistance one of the things that stands out in Conway's mind is that outside of Québec, he and Grenier tended to get contradictory reactions and that was even the case in the rest of Canada.
"It was almost confusing because when we would go to Calgary, or Edmonton, or Toronto it would be a mixture," Conway elucidated. "Some people would kind of cheer for us and some people would kind of boo us, but in the U.S. and all over the rest of the world we would be hated. Yet, there it was confusing for the audience because we did the same thing we always did because we were just representing Québec. There were a lot of people from Québec who had migrated to the rest of Canada who would cheer for us. We never got the same reaction in the rest of Canada; negative in the United States or positive in Québec. It was odd."
As Grenier recalled the shift in having La Résistance represent Québec came about due to how big the Internet was starting to become in 2004 and 2005, and the public becoming aware that no members of the group were actually from France.
"So that's why when I came back from my neck injury I said to Stephanie McMahon, 'What about coming out with a French Canadian flag?' and she's like, 'Yeah, no problem,'" explained Grenier. "So we did a little something on TV -- I can't even remember what it was -- and Michael Cole put it over. That was it. We moved to Québec and now everyone from Montreal could appreciate La Résistance. You can do everything on TV. I don't think the people cared if he was French or not. When we were there we won the championship, everybody loved it, and everybody loved Rob."
