Former Impact Wrestling World Champion returned to Impact Wrestling at this past Friday's Slammiversary PPV, confronting Alex Shelley after Shelley defeated Nick Aldis in the main event for the Impact title.
Ahead of appearing on tonight's edition of Impact on AXS, Alexander appeared on Cody Deaner’s new podcast “Wrestling is Life is Wrestling with Cody Deaner” for its debut episode. The new podcast series will feature Deaner speaking with wrestlers about how wrestling imitates life and life imitates wrestling, and all the lessons that can be learned in between.
Highlights:
On how watching wrestling as a young fan taught him that you can like whatever you like and you shouldn’t care what others think:
“For me, because I had the contrast of my stepdad in the room and saying, ‘Why are you watching this dumb stuff?’ [and my grandma being in the room] the lesson I took away from it was – ‘You can like whatever you want if you enjoy it.’ My grandmother, who never said a cross word to anybody would turn [to my stepdad] right away and say, ‘Let me like what I like!’
If I can say anything from being a young wrestling fan … if you like something, even if it’s weird to the bulk of people at your school… wear that Degeneration X shirt and be the weird wrestling guy if that’s what makes you happy. That’s what I did. … If I can teach a life lesson to my kids it’s not to conform.”
On his tough upbringing leading to his current positive mindset in life and in the wrestling business:
“My [dad] didn’t have a dream to push himself. He kind of self-sabotaged himself before he could actually fail. Which is something I did time and time again throughout my childhood. The ‘you can’ts’ [in my house as a kid] were far more than the ‘you can do whatever you want.’
In my house [now with my kids]… can’t isn’t a word you can use. I’m trying to prop everyone up at all times. Like you said with me, my fitness [journey], my wrestling [career], I’ve kind of willed this into existence. But, that [mindset] didn’t happen until I discovered wrestling.”
On a major lesson he learned from Johnny Devine in wrestling school:
“This is all my responsibility. No one else is going to pick up the slack for me. If I really want something… I gotta take it.”
On how talented Jake Something is and developing a friendship with Jake Something by going to war in the ring with him:
“I can’t be friends with someone until I wrestle them. We can be acquaintances, but the second we wrestle… it happened with me and Jake Something. We knew eachother for years, we were always buddies, but we wrestled eachother once and it was so kick ass and awesome. He was amazing. I came to the back and we leveled up in our friendship right away.”
“Wrestling is Life is Wrestling with Cody Deaner” is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, and all major podcasting platforms now. Visit the podcast page at http://CodyDeaner.com/podcast.
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