By Jason Powell, ProWrestling.net Editor (@prowrestlingnet)
Insight With Chris Van Vliet with guest Kyle Fletcher
Host: Chris Van Vliet
Podcast available via Podcasts.Apple.com
On previous comparisons to Will Ospreay: “It’s one of those things where for a hot second you take it as a compliment, and at surface level it’s like, Oh, thanks. I think Will’s incredible at what he does. So I take that as a compliment. But then I feel like, the more I sit with it, and the more I hear it, the more it makes me go, No, I don’t want to be anyone else. I don’t want to be the second coming of Will Ospreay. I think after shaving the head, I got a lot of Randy Orton [comparisons], and it’s like the same feeling of at first, that’s really cool, that’s a great comparison. But I really want to start carving my own path, and I don’t want to be the second anybody else. So, yeah, I think that’s kind of what I’m focusing on, and just trying to carve my own path.”
On wearing pink gear: “Yeah, so that kind of started earlier this year. I think it was a random tweet that jogged my memory. It was like ‘Not enough men wear pink in wrestling.’ I screenshotted it, and I sent it to my gear designer, the guy that designs all my gear. I was like, I have this idea. I’d done a triple red gear before, but in my brain, it just like popped. I was like, triple pink, just for whatever reason, that was my idea. Then I just sent that to him, and then we were like, All right, great. He cooked this thing up, I saw the design, and I was like, this is the best gear I have ever had. I’m so excited. Then it ended up coming in time, just as I found out I was going to be in the Owen tournament. So I was like, Oh, that makes sense. I’ll just wear it for the Owen tournament. That’s great. It’s perfect. So I wore it for that.
“It was Dynasty earlier this year. I wore that gear for the first time, and just the reaction that it got was polarizing. It was like, people loved it, people hated it, whatever it was. But I think whenever something like that happens, it sets something off in my brain. That’s something, whatever that is, something that organically gets that much reaction either way, it’s like, that’s something to tap into. So I was like all right, I’m gonna keep wearing this gear for a little bit, see what happens. I think I wore that one set of gear for a month or two, and by that point, everyone was like, ‘Pink is your thing now. I think it’s just synonymous with you.’ So I was like, Okay. And then since then, it’s just been every set of gear I’ve had. It’s like, all right, what can we do with pink this time? Let’s change it up. Let’s do something else. And then, yeah, the suits and stuff as well. I think I’ve just found my thing, my found my niche.”
On whether he feels the pressure of being told he is a future star: “In a lot of ways, yes, but I think none of it even comes close to the pressure that I put on myself. I think my whole life, I’ve kind of felt this. Even before I knew I wanted to be a wrestler, I felt this calling that I was meant to do something big, that I was meant to be somebody. So when I fell into wrestling, and I was like, Yes, this is my thing, I always knew I wanted to be the best. I knew I wanted to be world champion. So I think it’s more so the pressure that I put on myself. I think when I hear other people say things like that, it’s almost more reaffirming to me that this thing that I felt, this drive, that I feel, that it is paying off and it’s for a reason, and that I’m just exactly where I’m meant to be.”
How the screwdriver became his weapon of choice: “Blame Don Callis for that one. Yeah, I don’t know. I’d like to think I’ve gotten pretty good at stabbing people. I like it because it’s something that a lot of people, not can relate to, they can’t relate to being stabbed with a screwdriver. But most people have held a screwdriver in their hands. I think they could pick up a screwdriver and go, ‘He got stabbed with this! What the hell? That’s crazy.!’ So that’s kind of why I like it.”
On his most painful moment: “I think it was the Continental Classic match I had with Mark Briscoe. I was just climbing up the guardrail. He came and stopped me, and we did like a little baby superplex, is what we called it. Baby superplex, off the guardrail to the floor. For whatever reason, whatever angle I hit the ground, it was like all tailbone. I swear I felt like I was pissing blood. I felt like my butthole had fallen out, it was the craziest feeling I’d ever felt in my life. I was laying on the ground like, please leave me here for a good ten seconds at least. I need to figure out if I’m okay right now.”
Whether he actually pissed blood: “No, I did not. I was totally fine. But whatever feeling I felt at that time, I was like, it felt like everything had exploded, and I was just not having a good time at all.”
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