“Speedball” Mike Bailey on JetSpeed’s Mindset in AEW & Misconceptions About Tony Khan’s Booking Process In AEW

A recent episode of the Masks Mat & Mayhem podcast featured JetSpeed’s “Speedball” Mike Bailey and Kevin Knight as the guests. One of the topics discussed included Bailey’s thoughts about JetSpeed’s mindset in AEW.

“I know for me that after the pandemic, when my five-year ban from the US had ended, I made that quite public, and I got an offer to go to NXT, which I accepted. It didn’t work out because they changed their hiring guidelines or whatever. But when I accepted that offer to go to NXT, I knew that it wasn’t AEW, where people get to be themselves. I made peace with the fact that they might decide that I need to be someone else, that I need to be something else, that Speedball Mike Bailey is not what they need. I knew that, being an excellent professional wrestler, no matter the situation in which they put me, I was gonna kill it. I was gonna use the skill of pro wrestling that I have accumulated over the years to be the best in whatever situation they put us in. That is the mentality that we’ve carried through AEW. We’re confident. We know we’re good. The Jet is too fly and he knows it. I know that I have 20 years of accumulated knowledge in professional wrestling. Have us do anything. We will kill it.”

Bailey also gave his thoughts about the misconceptions from wrestling fans about AEW CEO Tony Khan’s booking process and approach for shows in AEW.

“I think that Tony Khan is an incredibly smart person. He knows what he’s doing. I’ve talked to him. I’ve listened to him in interviews, and AEW is a challenger brand. I think a lot of the criticisms that people have for AEW is that, ‘Oh, they’re doing things differently than what I’m used to seeing on TV.’ It boils down to that. A lot of it is just, I think the other guys would have done this, so AEW should do this, which is wrong. They have to be different. It’s still a pro wrestling show, but they have to find a different segment of the audience. All Elite Wrestling is where the best wrestle. It’s not sports entertainment. It’s about pro wrestling, because pro wrestling is great. The reason the company came to be is because there was a hole in the market.

There were a lot, at the time that AEW was founded, of unsigned, independent, world-traveled professional wrestlers that had the ability to put on a fantastic show, no matter the context, no matter the place, no matter the audience. They always sent the audience home happy with exactly what they wanted. That’s what AEW is founded on. It’s founded on great pro wrestling and that’s what they’re offering. I know that art is subjective, right? People will like or dislike whoever they want, but pro wrestling is a skill. You can be objectively good or bad at a skill. What you need in order to thrive in AEW is to be the best at the skill of professional wrestling, which sounds incredibly simplistic, but it’s a lot more complicated when you go deeper.”

Transcript h/t: Fightful.com 1 & 2