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

Patches Chance: What surprised you most about wrestling once you started training?

Will Allday: I truly think, just because I started at such a later age, I think I had done all my research and been thorough. I think I knew what I was getting myself in for, and nothing really surprised me. I knew there would be a lot of politics. I knew you gotta pay your dues. I knew I was gonna have to start from the bottom. Yeah, I wasn’t surprised really at anything, and it goes back to being an athlete my whole life. I knew I was gonna have to start at the bottom and ‘yes, sir,’ ‘no, sir,’ be humble. I knew I was gonna have to like work my ass off and- wait, here you go.

So, doing that, knowing that I’m gonna have to be under these guys and listen to like my trainers and do all this stuff, I had been conditioned for 28 years up to that point to do that because of my athletic background. When you’re doing it as an athlete, you’re doing it with these 40-something or 50-something-year-old coaches that have been there, done it. The respect is there because they’ve been there so long and they know what they’re talking about.

Then I go train, and I’m being trained by like these—sometimes a 21-year-old, sometimes a 25-year-old. You know, people that are younger than me. But, what’s crazy is they’ve been doing it for 8 years, 11 years, 9 years, you know what I’m saying? And they’re so much younger than I am. And I’m like, what am I gonna learn from this kid? What are you gonna tell me that I don’t already know athletically? Then they’re teaching me this wrestling stuff like psychologically and, oh my gosh, holy crap this kid gets it. And so that, that’s surprising. I can say that.

And you know what? You can’t have an ego going into something like that. Like I said, a 21-year-old kid, who is phenomenal. One of the head trainers, Gino. I think he’s like 24 right now. And even like Ryan Davidson, Ryan’s only 33 but he’s been wrestling for 11 years. Rex Andrews I think is like 27 and he’s been wrestling for like 9 years or something like that. You can’t have an ego going into it, because these kids, I say these kids.

These people who are younger than you have been doing it for so so long that they know what they’re talking about. They’re the head trainers for a reason. So if you were to come in here, and be like “I’m not gonna listen to this guy who hasn’t even been through life who is still living at home with his parents.” And that’s just like theoretical, that’s not talking about anybody in particular.

Patches Chance: Who are some other wrestlers who influence your style today?

Will Allday: People always ask me this question, and I think they always—who do you expect me to say?

Patches Chance: That’s actually just as hard to say. Shawn Michaels is one that comes to mind, but I feel like that’s because a lot of people say Shawn.

Will Allday: And they say AJ Styles all the time.

Patches Chance: Honestly, I think that may just be the gloves and the hair.

Will Allday: Yeah, okay. Thank you. Because that’s the only thing I think.

Patches Chance: You’re small, you’ve got a cruiserweight style, and you’ve got gloves and hair. I can get why people would say that.

Will Allday: Obviously the hair, and I have these fingerless gloves I always wear. I just thought they were super cool because they’re silver, and they’re kinda like biker gloves. When I put the biker gloves on, I was like ‘oh shit, I gotta get away from this, because I don’t want people to say Shawn Michaels.’ And nobody ever said Shawn Michaels, they were like ‘oh the gloves, AJ Styles.’ And they don’t even look anything like his.

It pissed me off at first because everybody was like ‘oh, you’re an AJ Styles ripoff.’ And I’m like, I literally do no moves, not one move that he does. And the purple gear I got, they’re like ‘oh, that’s AJ.’ Like, I directly ripped this off from like 2003 Chris Jericho. Like, directly, so I don’t know where you’re getting that from either. I don’t even wear kickpads.

It pissed me off at first because everybody said it. And I think some people said it just to tear me down a little bit, but I think a majority of people were saying it like ‘oh, you remind me of him because you’re dynamic, etc.’ And so I was like, ‘okay, thank you.’ Now that like I’m really just like confident in myself, I don’t care what they say or who they say I remind them of. Thank you. I’ll just take it as a compliment and I’ll keep going.

I think aggressiveness-wise, because I was a huge fan of Stone Cold, I like to have that little attitude about me, I like to throw hands. I think I really gravitate towards a hard-hitting athletic style, so I really do truly like AJ Styles. I think he’s the best in the world, and so I really gravitate towards him because he can do anything. He can fight. He can jump around. He can do flips if he wants to, but he just comes at you full force. And so that’s really what I try to base my style on.

I don’t do too many flips or whatnot, but everything I do is coming at you. Whether it’s like jumping at you or flying at you, or anything. I’m just bringing my entire full force of my body at you because I’m not the biggest guy in the world, so I’m bringing everything with me to bring you down. So yeah, I mean. I would say AJ Styles, Chris Jericho, I like Kurt Angle a lot because he was so athletic. I like Dolph Ziggler a lot. And I try to take a lot of stuff from those guys, like I say I try to stay away from doing flips and all that because I don’t wanna be pigeonholed as that. So I try to be well-rounded, and I wanna be good at everything.

I don’t wanna have to do these crazy non-stop style matches where you’re going 20 minutes of back and forth with back flips, front flips, spins, jumps, dives. I don’t wanna have to do that every single match, so I’m trying to get well-rounded at everything. So I look at wrestlers like ground-based, Dolph Ziggler and Kurt Angle. Then I look at guys who are dynamic, and I look at like AJ Styles and Jericho. I like Seth Rollins’ style, because he’s not really super flippy either. He just, he can do everything and he comes at you like a madman too. I think that really rounds out about who I kinda based my stuff off of.

Patches Chance: If you could say one thing to fans who have followed you from the beginning, and one thing to fans who don’t know you yet, what would you say?

Will Allday: For fans that have followed me from the beginning, I’d say thank you for sticking with me through the Legion stuff where I had to like figure out who I was as a performer. And that’s really what that stable’s for. It’s for the brand new guys to come up and get their feet wet. And that’s why six months into the business I started wrestling, or six months into training I started wrestling and that’s a good place to throw me.

So thank you for going through my little evil phase, even though I didn’t want it. I was told it would only be a month and it turned into like 9 months. But I never complained, I never said ‘hey, I don’t wanna do this.’ Everything they threw at me, I just said okay, I’ll make the best of that. Booker said that to me a couple weeks ago, he was like ‘yeah, man. We put you through all this shit and you always made it work. You never complained, and that’s why you’re getting the opportunities you are now.’

And that’s what I’d tell the people who have been following me. Now you’re really seeing what I’m capable of because I was able to get my feet wet doing that, and I get to show my personality now. And I think people are really starting to enjoy it. And I’ve really been a heel most of the year and a half that I’ve come up, and it’s really helped me and I’ve come into my own little persona. I don’t know, I think people just gravitate towards me as a baby, so even when I’m a heel, they still like me. And I think that’s gradually turning me baby the places I go, because people appreciate me actually showing my personality and being myself in the ring now.

And for the people who haven’t seen me, I would say just wait. Give me a chance, and I know that I’ll impress because I’ve had a year and a half to build this confidence in myself. Now I know what I’m capable of, and I just need a chance to show it. So when I get in front of people, I don’t have any reservations that they’re not gonna be impressed because I know that every single time I go out there I don’t half-ass anything or don’t put my best foot forward.

I always try to have the best match I can possibly can, or the best performance I possibly can, every single time I go out there. Whether it’s in Sherman, Texas at a small promotion or that’s at Reality of Wrestling which is like a global stream or WrestleCircus which is a huge indie promotion. I’m gonna go out there and put on the same exact performance no matter where we’re at.