PJ Black is ready to show everyone he’s not just a high flyer and he’s a more capable wrestler than you might think.
Black recently spoke with WrestleZone Managing Editor Bill Pritchard about his entry into the Ring Of Honor Pure Championship Tournament, where he faces Tony Deppen in the first round.
“I’m super excited, you know, I was always a huge fan of the Pure Tournaments when it started in the early 2000s. And now, I get to compete on it, that’s pretty cool. As far as my opponent concerns, Tony Deppen, I don’t know too much about him. I tried to Google him and search and stuff. Usually, I try to find my opponent’s move sets if you will, I try to find out stuff, but I couldn’t find anything on him. But I know he has to be pretty good if he’s in this tournament, so I guess we’ll see what happens. Guys like this that you don’t know much about,” Black said, “these are the guys you usually got to look out for, you know, because I don’t know anything about him and this guy has something to prove. So he wants to beat someone in the first round, and obviously, he’s trying to win the whole tournament, so he definitely is going to come out swinging.”
Black also spoke about the Pure Tournament giving him a chance to showcase his technical wrestling skills, noting that people think he’s more of a high flyer but he’s quite an accomplished technical wrestler.
“Not many people know this, but I’m actually an excellent technical wrestler. I lived in Europe, when I finished high school, I actually lived in London, and so between 2001 and 2006, I lived in London, and I purely wrestled the British style. This was before the hybrid style that everyone does these days, you know, came to fruition, and I love guys like Jim Brakes, and I studied all those guys. I’m actually a really, really good technical wrestler, but I like to mix it up,” Black said, “I like to dab in all kinds of styles. I just took parts of all those [global] styles, and I just made up my own hybrid style, so I mean, people think I’m a high flyer, but I’m actually a really good technical wrestler. Now I get to show that in this tournament, so I’m stoked.”
“I learned this before I learned anything else. This is—I wouldn’t say basics because that’s taking away. You know, I’m formed in a lot of combat skills, so yeah it should be fun. I have thousands of moves in my back pocket that I haven’t even showed anybody,” Black said, “locks and submissions and key holds and stuff, and now I get to whip them out because now I can win some matches with them instead of high flying moves, which should be different for me, but it should be fun.”
Week four of ROH’s Pure Tournament action will air Monday night on FITE at 7 pm EST.
