Nick Dinsmore had a run with WWE from 2004 to 2007 where he portrayed the character of Eugene. He recently sat down for an interview with Chris Van Vliet and spoke about if he feels the character would work in wrestling today.
“One thing I know about WWE is that they can almost always make anything work,” Dinsmore responded.
“When Eugene first started, I didn’t have my first match on TV for two or three weeks and in those first two or three weeks some people I had heard, like radio stations or news outlets were saying ‘What is WWE going to do with this character?’. But the minute I won my first match, then they know it’s an underdog story of a boy with a dream wanting to be a wrestler and he’s fulfilling that dream.”
He was also asked if he was worried about people thinking the character was making fun of people with special needs.
“I thought about that going in but it was my opportunity but I was either going to sink or swim on it. But I had got so much positive affirmation afterwards. So many people said to me, ‘My brother has special needs and he told me that he can do anything because Eugene did it’. I heard that more times than I heard, ‘You’re making fun of people’. No, instead I heard ‘You’re giving them a voice’ or ‘Oh my God, there’s someone like me’. That’s what I want to be. That’s what WWE should be a representation of every type of person that there is around the world.”
The full interview with Nick Dinsmore, aka Eugene, can be viewed in the player below: