“Speedball” Mike Bailey on How People In His Life Would React To Him Wanting To Become A Pro Wrestler & Kevin Knight’s AEW World Title Match Against Kenny Omega at AEW Redemption

TMZ Sports held a recent interview with “Speedball” Mike Bailey. One of the topics discussed included Bailey’s thoughts about how people in his life would react when he told them he wanted to become a pro wrestler.

“I mean, my mom was kind of passive about it. She was like, ‘yeah, sure. Okay. Do whatever you want,’ you know, kind of just assuming that it wouldn’t work out, which is pretty much what I told teachers at school or as I started getting older and telling everyone the same thing was kind of like, ‘yeah, okay, you can try, but it’s not going to happen.’ Because I remember when we did like at school and the teachers asking us what we wanted to do when we were older, so many people said, ‘oh, I’m going to play in the NHL,’ and then I said, I’m going to be a professional wrestler, and the overwhelming response was, ‘yeah, that’s not going to happen,’ which is absolutely the correct answer. You shouldn’t tell kids, ‘yeah, you want to become a professional wrestler? Sure, that’s going to happen’ because statistically it isn’t, and when I said it at the time, there was no one like me or close to me that was working as a professional wrestler, and even when I started, even when I was 15 years old and I started wrestling in 2005, there was no one on television that looked like me. Luckily from Quebec, we had guys like Kevin Steen and El Generico who had just started doing independent wrestling as a career, traveling the world, selling merch and making a living at it. But that was brand new at the time, and, you know, shortly after that, we saw guys like the Young Bucks and guys like Kenny Omega who packed up and just went to Japan and were able to make a living there, and, you know, slowly over the years, it became possible to have a career as a wrestler outside of, you know, the one company that was on TV at the time.”

Bailey also gave his thoughts about his former tag team partner Kevin Knight’s upcoming match against Kenny Omega for the AEW World Championship at AEW Redemption and him feeling that he can definitely see Knight dethroning Omega.

“I can definitely see that for him. I mean, the story of Kevin Knight is that everyone has known from the beginning that he is a star, and I mean, I think that he and I have wrestled before, and I think that our tag team was so successful because we both have world championship aspirations and potential, and I think he certainly could beat Kenny Omega because that’s the kind of talent that he has. I will be watching very, very closely. Of course, I’m very excited to see this match as a fan because it’s going to be great because I think that Kenny Omega is one of the greatest professional wrestlers in history, and so obviously the match is going to be great for, you know, as a fan, but for personal reasons, I will be watching very close. I certainly think Kevin Knight has what it takes to win. Now, is he going to be able to rise up to his potential or is he going to be cutting corners and trying to rely on Don Callis? That’s what we’ll find out Sunday.”

Transcript h/t: Fightful.com 1 & 2