During a recent interview with Sports Illustrated, Sami Callihan commented on still working the recent Impact Wrestling TV tapings during the coronavirus pandemic, and more. You can check out some highlights from the interview below:
On being able to get back in the ring for Impact Rebellion: “I started wrestling when I was 16 years old, this is been all I’ve known, and this is the longest I have ever been home for one spurt of time in my entire adult life. I used it to recuperate and let my body feel better from some injuries, but then it started getting to me. I’m not built to be a stay-at-home guy. I’ve traveled around the world and wrestled for every major company on the planet. Being home for this long, it really gets to your psyche. I was just happy to be back in the ring for the company I love and the one I’ve put on my back for the past two years.”
On why he agreed to work the tapings after saying he wouldn’t do so until the world was in a safer place: “The reason that I was 100% OK with doing that was because Impact took amazing care of us. From the time we got there to the time we left, I knew no one from our crew was going to be in any danger. Impact took every precaution to make sure our television taping was the safest television taping going on right now. I put my entire trust in Impact management to make sure we all get taken care of. I’ve wrestled for every major wrestling company on the planet, and Impact Wrestling truly is a family. I know it’s crazy to think how many ‘families’ there are in this crazy world, but our entire locker room and our entire staff took care of each other so we could all be safe.”
On having creative freedom in Impact to become one of the top heels: “People either love me or hate me. I have a huge cult following because I speak a lot of truth. I say things how I see them and how I feel about them. That might offend a lot of people, too, but Impact Wrestling has been the first company to pull the shackles off me and say, ‘We want to give you the freedom to actually do you.’ Sure, I may get in some scuffles with management or arguments, but they have enough faith in me to realize, even if we have a disagreement on something, to let me do what I want to do. If it doesn’t work, I’m going to take the full blame. 90% of the time, it works.”
On a possible match with Jon Moxley down the line: “You never know what might happen. At the end of the day, he’s doing his thing, I’m doing my thing. Everyone always compares us because we were trained at the same place, we came up at the same time, and we teamed together. I don’t want to live in Jon Moxley’s shadow. We’ve done a really good job of separating ourselves and really carving out a niche in the industry.”
