Anthony Bowens appeared as a guest on DC 101 with Mike Jones for an in-depth interview covering all things pro wrestling and AEW.
During the discussion, the AEW star spoke about joining The Opps, his Pride of Professional Wrestling nickname, being guided by Samoa Joe and more.
Featured below are some of the highlights from the interview where he touches on these topics with his thoughts. Also embedded below is a complete video archive of the discussion.
On his Pride Of Professional Wrestling nickname isn’t just a clever play on words: “That is part of what being The Pride Of Professional Wrestling is. It’s not just because of my sexuality — it’s a clever play on words, but it’s legit. I do everything for this company, I do everything for this business. I know baseball might not be part of it, that’s a personal passion but I make sure that I manage everything to make sure I fly the AEW flag as much as I can.”
On his “boots on the ground” work and how he has always wanted to have this type of character: “It’s a lot of boots on the ground type work because I do a lot of these. I was just at the Michael movie premiere this past Monday. It’s a lot of boots on the ground of hey, you’re a wrestler, do you work for the other company? No, no, no. This is AEW. We’re on HBO Max, we’re on TNT, we’re on TBS, let me tell you a little about it. Whether they watch it or not, I don’t know. If I get one out of every 20 people, that’s great because it’s one other person watching the product. I’m doing my job. I always was taught and told that in order to be a world champion, in order to be a superstar, you need to be a guy that can wrestle, talk, but also can go out and represent the company. I do these media days, I do these red carpet events, I do influencing, I do Major League Baseball, modeling, I do everything. That’s the purpose of this character and I’m trying to get that across on the television show. That’s really what it is and that’s what I love to do. It’s always what I aspired to be and it’s really cool that I get to be a face of the company like this.”
On joining The Opps: “It’s a badass crew of people. I’m excited to learn from Shibata, I’m excited to learn from Samoa Joe. HOOK needs to get in line a little bit because it seems like he’s having a little bit of an issue with me over the past couple of weeks. I don’t know why because he’s one of my good friends, but that’s something we’ll figure out as we go. I am very excited for this, I’ve been a little all over the place the last couple of months trying to find my spot on the programming.“
On being confident in Samoa Joe’s ability to guide him to a title: “Of course because I want to accomplish it all. I want to accomplish it all. I dominated the tag team division, tag team champion and trios champion. I want to be TNT Champion, Intercontinental Champion, World Champion. Joe, like you said, multiple time AEW World Champion. He’s a guy that I’m going to look towards to give me that advice to guide me on that path straight to the top of the singles division, straight to the top of AEW.”
