Kyle Fletcher on Confirming New Long-term Contract with AEW, Reason He Signed with AEW Over WWE, His AEW Dream Match & Career Goal, Taking Inspiration from The Miz for His Promos in AEW, His Reason Why He Started Wearing Pink Gear

A recent episode of the Insight with Chris Van Vliet podcast featured Kyle Fletcher as the guest. One of the topics discussed included Fletcher confirmed that he had signed a new long-term contract with AEW this past Spring.

“Man, it felt really cool. I was on a beach in Jamaica when I signed my contract. It was pretty surreal, man. It was one of those moments that I thought about my whole life, signing that first big deal. It gave me a bit of, I hate throwing around words, but impostor syndrome. It made me feel like I was like, man, when I was growing up, I thought maybe there were one or two people with these kind of contracts in the whole world of wrestling, and here I am. It’s very weird to realize, man, this spot that I’m in, it’s pretty big. It’s pretty special.”

Fletcher also gave his thoughts about how him and Mark Davis had been in talks with WWE for a potential contract before signing with AEW instead because AEW was the right fit for them.

“We had a Zoom call with them, we kind of spoke about what the deal would entail, that sort of thing. I think when it got to that point, it just didn’t feel like the right fit at the time. We didn’t get super close, it was kind of at the point where there was options there. But, AEW was just the right fit for us at the time, for sure.

Why did Fletcher eventually choose AEW? The “vibe.”

We were lucky enough that we had worked there a couple of times; we were brought in as part of New Japan to do a couple of things. I think it was the vibe there. To me it was, I don’t want to say the freedom, but I think there’s a lot of trust there that I can produce the wrestling I want to produce, and I can wrestle the way that I like to wrestle. And experiencing that beforehand and knowing that, I think that was what kind of drew me towards AEW for sure.”

Fletcher also gave his thoughts about a match with Samoa Joe being his current dream match goal in AEW.

“I think the one that I keep talking about is: I really want to get in there with Samoa Joe. I think that would be a really cool one for me and a really cool test for me. It’s someone that I’ve been watching for a decade-plus.

So that’s someone that I would love to get in there with. Other than that, I’ve been pretty blessed. Like, I’ve been lucky enough to get in there with a lot of the people that I looked up to growing up. So I don’t know if there’s a lot of people left, man. It’s pretty cool.”

Fletcher also gave his thoughts about his current main goal for his wrestling career and what he wants his legacy in wrestling to be.

“I think to me, it means when I’m done, when I’ve wrapped it up, I want to believe in my heart that I reached my fullest potential. I think I have hopefully a lot of potential still to come, a lot of things, a lot of goals that I want to achieve. And I think, yeah, when I’m all said and done, I want to feel like I did everything I could.

I want to be spoken about for years after I’m done, years after I’m not on this earth anymore. I want to be spoken about in that best-of-all-time conversation. And that’s kind of, it’s not something that is tangible. It’s not something that is something that I can get to a certain point and be like, ‘All right, I’m done it now.’ It’s something that I’ll always be working towards, which I think is what I want.”

Fletcher also gave his thoughts about taking inspiration from WWE’s The Miz’s promo style for his promos in AEW.

“This always gets a bit of a laugh. Growing up — I’m a little bit younger than a lot of wrestling fans. One of the people that first drew me in with their promos was The Miz. A lot of people have things to say about him now, but I still think he’s one of the best. I’ve always thought that.”

In response to comments from host Chris Van Vliet about The Miz is just starting to get his flowers and appreciation from fans, Fletcher responded stating:

“Totally, and that’s always how it happens as well. It’s like, right when they’re on the way out, it’s like, ‘Oh yeah, you know what? He was pretty good…’ But I was 12 years old in 2011 going, ‘This is the best! ‘I am awesome!!’ So yeah, that was probably my first one. I think (John) Cena is far and away the best promo guy I’ve ever seen. The stuff in his final run, there have been a couple where I’ve just been sitting there glued to the screen, just like, ‘How is this guy just so amazing at what he does?’ Roman (Reigns) obviously now and then there’s Hangman (Adam Page), I think is one of the best guys on the mic. (Samoa) Joe, every time he’s on the mic, I’m so drawn into him. MJF as well. Those are kind of, like, probably where I draw the most inspiration from I’d say — those guys.”

Fletcher also gave his thoughts about his reason why he started to wear pink colored wrestling gear on AEW programming.

“Yeah, so that kind of started — it was earlier this year. I think it was a random tweet that jogged my memory. It was like, ‘Not enough men wear pink in wrestling,’ and I screenshotted it and I sent it to my gear designer, the guy that designs all my gear, and I was like, ‘I have this idea.’ I’d done like 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, and then I just sent that to him and then we were like, ‘Alright, great,’ and he cooked this thing up, and I saw the design and I was like, ‘This is the best gear I have ever had. I’m so excited,’ and then it ended up coming in time, just as I found out I was going to be in the Owen (Hart Foundation) tournament. So I was like, ‘Oh, that makes sense. I’ll just wear it for the Owen tournament. That’s great.’ It’s perfect, right? 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, it 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 of like, 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, ‘Alright, 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, ‘Alright, 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, I found my niche… It’s gonna be a test of how creative I can get with the color pink… We’ll see how long it takes before I run out.”

Transcript h/t: PostWrestling.com, F4WOnline.com, Fightful.com 1 & 2