Johnny Impact spoke with Wrestlezone’s Kevin Kellam ahead of Impact Wrestling’s Bound For Glory pay-per-view this Sunday, where he will challenge Austin Aries for the Impact World Championship. You can read a few transcribed highlights, and listen to the full interview below:
Johnny Impact on how often he sees matches lower in the card that look like a tough act to follow:
Oh yeah, all the time. There’s one of two ways of looking at that. Like there’s saying to yourself ‘that match I just watched was hot fire and that means we got to kick ass too.’ Or—and this is more of an old school mentality—it’s the ‘oh, those guys did too much. They gotta they gotta save something for the main event’ mentality. And there’s certain parts to that thought process that are true, but in general, that mentality isn’t good for a promotion. There’s certain things—you should do your own stuff. You shouldn’t do other people’s stuff—you should be aware of what’s happening on the shows and not everyone’s doing the same thing. The idea that you should save something for the main event I think is antiquated, isn’t it? It’s not something that’s true anymore and current in pro wrestling.
Is there any sense of entitlement, or does he think he and Austin Aries have to earn the BFG main event?
There’s no entitlement. Both of us have chips on our shoulder, but I’ll just speak for myself. I feel like I have something to prove; that’s what wrestling is. You’re only as good as your last match. It’s a cliche, but it’s true. That’s what the business is about, is every time you’re out there and you have to prove why you deserve to be the main event, why you deserve to be in the ring. Why do the chairs deserve to be pointed at the ring? That’s what you have to prove every time you’re out there. I don’t feel any sort of entitlement.
Johnny Impact Comments On Austin Aries’ Trash Talk, Why He Thinks Things Got So Personal
On what else he’s excited for at Bound For Glory:
I’m excited for the Lucha Brothers and Cage versus oVe for sure, and I’m definitely gonna watch Taya versus Tessa. I have watched Taya over the past couple of months, twice a day hit the gym, training in the ring in the backyard and scout Tessa. She’s so excited for this match and she trained so hard that I’m really excited to see what happens on that.
Johnny Impact talks about why Survivor specifically appealed to him:
The idea of reality TV isn’t really exciting to me at all. But the idea of being Survivor specifically—it’s not necessarily like, ‘hey, we’re going to send a camera crew to your house and then it’s gonna follow you to the bar.’ Survivor is an experience that is unrivaled. I can’t say too much about it right now because I’m liable for $20,000,000,000 because of the [non-disclosure agreements] we signed. [Laughs] But I will say it was challenging and it was a really cool thing to be a part of.
IMPACT Wrestling presents BOUND FOR GLORY on Pay-Per-View this Sunday from New York City
