Getting to know Will Allday before Impact Wrestling Deep Impact on Twitch

Patches Chance: Let’s start at the beginning. When did you become a wrestling fan?

Will Allday: I remember being in a Blockbuster. Gosh, I had to have been 9 years old, I think I was 9. Yeah. I was walking through the wrestling section, and I had never seen it before, but I saw a VHS of WrestleMania 14. My dad was with me and we picked it up, and that was my very first experience in wrestling was Shawn Michaels vs. “Stone Cold” Steve Austin with Mike Tyson in the main event. You would think, you know kind of like with my style or whatnot, that I would’ve been drawn to Shawn Michaels, but I was immediately drawn to Steve Austin.

I just loved his attitude, his brashness. Growing up, when I was watching like cartoons or Power Rangers even, I was always drawn to the guy who had the attitude. He always had a chip on his shoulder. I don’t know why I was drawn to that, but I was drawn to that in every single little cartoon, so that’s why I was all into Steve Austin. And I think right after that Shawn Michaels retired, so I didn’t really get to watch him, I just watched Stone Cold’s rise all through the Attitude Era. And then I didn’t look back. I thought he was the coolest thing in the world.

Patches Chance: I saw that you went to Rice University, what did you go to study?

Will Allday: I went there to study biological sciences. I had a plan to go to medical school afterward to go be a doctor, but I went to college for five years. So I was a little burnt out with school at that point, so I just went into oil and gas right after.

Patches Chance: What led you to the decision to start training to be a professional wrestler?

Will Allday: So, I actually had been working in oil and gas for like five years at this point, and I had played all sorts of sports growing up. I played club baseball in college, I played on the football team in college, and I always had that itch to do something athletic. Even when I was in college, I was like “man, wouldn’t it be cool to go be a wrestler.” And I always said it, but I never really took the chance to just jump and do it. Being in the workforce living the “9-to-5” everyday life for five years, man it sucks. It was horrible. And that’s just not my personality just to sit there, do your work, go home, drink a beer, watch TV, and be content.

I wasn’t content. I was just like anxious and chomping at the bit to do something more with my life. And so finally, I had said for years I wanted to do it, and I knew that Booker T had a training facility around Houston, so I looked it up. I was like, it’s now or never. I was 28 years old, and most people start training when they’re 18 to 21. I was like, well if I don’t do this now, I’m never gonna have the chance to do it again. So I was not gonna regret or be saying what if or what could’ve been, so I just jumped in.

I went to training. I did all my conditioning there. I watched all the people train, and I was like “yeah, I can do this.” I started going to the classes and I realized very early that me having the background in athletics, and I also did some acting when I was younger, it’s like the perfect combination. I realized right there since I was 28 and not 18, I didn’t have 10 years to get really good at it. I had to be good right away. I knew I could get to an elite level doing this, so I just went all in with this.