Ahead of Impact’s Hard To Kill PPV on Friday night, Impact World Champion Josh Alexander appeared on The Wrestling Perspective podcast to talk about the show and other topics.
Josh Alexander on the AEW/Impact relationship:
“During the whole, especially during the Kenny part portion where he was the champion and all this other stuff, there was definitely like a cloud over the locker room, I’d say you’d hear whispers and little conversation in the corner being like, ‘Man, like, the doors swing in one direction right now. They’re all coming in here.’ You know what I mean? That’s fine. It elevates our product to have new faces and stuff competing with our guys to put us on the same level, of course, like me defeating Christian Cage. That’s like, another thing that, you know, we have to be grateful for, obviously, and I’m very grateful for that opportunity. But it would have been real nice if some Impact wrestlers could have got on to the AEW programming and showing what we could do against those guys, because I think, you know, our locker room stacks up right up there with any locker room in this business, be it WWE, AEW, New Japan, anything like that.”
Josh on why he works so many Independent shows:
“I’ve had several people from management come to me from the very top all the way down to talent relations and asked me to work less on the Indies. But the freedoms of my contract allow me to do that all on my own. It is half, the more I wrestle, the sharper I feel. So when I do show up to these Impact tapings, and these pay-per-views and stuff, I feel more ready. If I have two weeks off, I feel like I forget how to wrestle for some reason, even though that’s not the case, but that’s how I feel. It’s that and it’s also to me, like, I just think I have this giant Impact bumper sticker on my back, and I’m going around to these Indies. If people can see me wrestle and defend this championship, if they haven’t checked out Impact Wrestling, after they see me wrestle a main event on an Indie against, you know, whatever hometown local guy it is in that town that I’m in, they might tune in to Impact Wrestling. They might check us out and discover not just me, but everybody else we have and how our product is awesome right now and give it a chance. It’s a little bit of both.”
On if he would want to be part of a faction:
“Absolutely. I have jokingly and half seriously made these comments in passing several times where I see Team Canada 2.0 happening and like I’m ready for this. I think now especially with our roster with guys like Mike Bailey representing Canada, you know, Taya Valkyrie, Canadian, we have all these Canadians in our company, you know, Gisele Shaw. I think that we’re ready to have a Team Canada 2.0. Personally, as a wrestling fan, I was always a fan of stables. When I first discovered wrestling, it was the NWO era, and then it was the DX era. These were like the two hottest things in pro wrestling for me. I think that went right into The Hart Foundation, right to Team Canada when I discovered Impact Wrestling and TNA. I was such a fan. I think there’s a lot of people out there like you and me that are fans of this kind of thing and want to see it. So hopefully, it can happen eventually. I think nostalgia is a great thing with a little twist, but you know, that’s out of my hands. I don’t write the show, but I’ve definitely pushed for it.”
Click below to watch the full interview.
If you use any portion of the quotes from this article please credit The Wrestling Perspective Podcast with a h/t to WrestlingNews.co for the transcription.
