Posted on 12/17/125 by Colin Vassallo
Kyle Fletcher sat down with Chris Van Vliet in Houston,
Texas to discuss his breakout year in AEW, the match where
he felt he had his breakout moment, how close he came to
signing with WWE before joining AEW, his steel cage match
with Will Ospreay that included a Spanish Fly off the top,
why he wears pink gear, how the screwdriver became his
weapon of choice, future AEW dream matches, and more!
On previous comparisons to Will Ospreay:
“It’s one of those things where for a hot second you take it
as a compliment, and at surface level it’s like, Oh, thanks.
I think Will’s incredible at what he does. So I take that as
a compliment. But then I feel like, the more I sit with it,
and the more I hear it, the more it makes me go, No, I don’t
want to be anyone else. I don’t want to be the second coming
of Will Ospreay. I think after shaving the head, I got a lot
of Randy Orton [comparisons], and it’s like the same feeling
of at first, that’s really cool, that’s a great comparison.
But I really want to start carving my own path, and I don’t
want to be the second anybody else. So, yeah, I think that’s
kind of what I’m focusing on, and just trying to carve my
own path.”
On wearing pink gear:
“Yeah, so that kind of started earlier this year. I think it
was a random tweet that jogged my memory. It was like ‘Not
enough men wear pink in wrestling.’ I screenshotted it, and
I sent it to my gear designer, the guy that designs all my
gear. I was like, I have this idea. I’d done 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. Then I just sent that to him, and then we were like,
All right, great. He cooked this thing up, I saw the design,
and I was like, this is the best gear I have ever had. I’m
so excited. Then it ended up coming in time, just as I found
out I was going to be in the Owen tournament. So I was like,
Oh, that makes sense. I’ll just wear it for the Owen
tournament. That’s great. It’s perfect. 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 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. 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 all right, 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, all right, 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,
my found my niche.”
On whether he feels the pressure of being told he is a
future star:
“In a lot of ways, yes, but I think none of it even comes
close to the pressure that I put on myself. I think my whole
life, I’ve kind of felt this. Even before I knew I wanted to
be a wrestler, I felt this calling that I was meant to do
something big, that I was meant to be somebody. So when I
fell into wrestling, and I was like, Yes, this is my thing,
I always knew I wanted to be the best. I knew I wanted to be
world champion. So I think it’s more so the pressure that I
put on myself. I think when I hear other people say things
like that, it’s almost more reaffirming to me that this
thing that I felt, this drive, that I feel, that it is
paying off and it’s for a reason, and that I’m just exactly
where I’m meant to be.”
How has the screwdriver become your weapon of choice?
“Blame Don Callis for that one. Yeah, I don’t know. I’d like
to think I’ve gotten pretty good at stabbing people. I like
it because it’s something that a lot of people, not can
relate to, they can’t relate to being stabbed with a
screwdriver. But most people have held a screwdriver in
their hands. I think they could pick up a screwdriver and
go, ‘He got stabbed with this! What the hell? That’s
crazy.!’ So that’s kind of why I like it.”
On his most painful moment:
“I think it was the Continental Classic match I had with
Mark Briscoe. I was just climbing up the guardrail. He came
and stopped me, and we did like a little baby superplex, is
what we called it. Baby superplex, off the guardrail to the
floor. For whatever reason, whatever angle I hit the ground,
it was like all tailbone. I swear I felt like I was pissing
blood. I felt like my butthole had fallen out, it was the
craziest feeling I’d ever felt in my life. I was laying on
the ground like, please leave me here for a good 10 seconds
at least. I need to figure out if I’m okay right now.”
Did you actually piss blood?
“No, I did not. I was totally fine. But whatever feeling I
felt at that time, I was like, it felt like everything had
exploded, and I was just not having a good time at all.”