AEW star Anthony Ogogo and former Olympic boxer Anthony Ogogo recently joined Cultaholic’s Desert Island Graps show for an in-depth conversation about a wide range of topics, including his thoughts on the controversial comments he made against former ROH champion Jonathan Gresham back in 2021, and how the two have since made up. Highlights from the interview are below.
How difficult boxing and pro-wrestling is:
I was a boxer for 18 years. I’ve had 21 surgeries in my life… My body aches every single day. I’m 78 percent blind in my left eye. Boxing is the most brutal sport in the world where you’re getting punched in the head. Nothing’s more serious than that, when you walk to the ring thinking, if I have a low left hand, if I make one mistake, I could get rendered unconscious, I could get beat in my brain. My wife could watch me become a vegetable… become not me now, right? So, when I get into wrestling, I wanna have fun but then you’re wrong, wrestling hurts, it’s hard and taking bumps suck and getting hit hard sucks. It’s a really, really, really hard industry.
Says at this chapter in his life he just wants to have fun:
However, I lived 18 years of my life busting my ass. In boxing, I did everything right. I never cheated, never missed a day of training. I gave it my all, I still came out with a bad eye and a bashed up body with my dreams incomplete. At this chapter in my life, I just wanna have fun. I’ve been enjoying myself… I love wrestling, but I could make more money doing something else. I could have made a living, a better financial living… an easier living [Ogogo laughed]. It hurts taking bumps, it hurts getting suplexed into chairs… Easier ways to make money so I did this job because I wanted to do it. I don’t need to do this, I want to do this. The second this isn’t fun for me anymore, I’ll do something else, and I mean that from the bottom of my heart. The second this isn’t fun for me anymore, I’ll do something else, I’ll make as much if not more money and I’ll take no bumps and my head’s not gonna get bashed up.
On the backlash from his comments against Jonathan Gresham, adding that he and Gresham have since hashed things out:
I was having fun, it was funny and if somebody’s small, I say he’s small and they get offended from me saying they’re small, but if you are small, I don’t understand it, and actually, by me saying you’re small and you’re still one of the best wrestlers in the world, that proves how good you are. It wasn’t a knock. It was silly high school banter but by doing that, I’m showing you how good you are. You’re still a world champion or at that world title level. You’re really, really, really good but listen, we had a chat… at the airport, we had a chat and we put everything aside. I think we did anyway, which is cool. See, somebody I’d love to wrestle though because there’s a needle there, there’s some friction that will never go away. So, I’m sure we’ll have a banger match. But yeah, we had a chat after that.
On the backlash:
Not for me [the social media backlash is not hard to take]. If you think I’m a cunt and you don’t know me, f*ck you mate. I don’t give a f*ck… There are people on the roster that maybe, I don’t know, that were friends with him and thought what I was doing, I was being mean to him and if they don’t like me because of it, if you don’t like me without knowing me, f*ck you. I could not care less. Now if you know me… then you know I’m not being nasty or malicious in any situation. You know me, where it came from and there’s people on the roster who I’m really, really, really close to and they know me. If you don’t know me and you’re making a judgment, an assessment from a wrestling character where I’m a bad guy, mate, bruv, come on. Listen, you need to go and take a long, hard look in the mirror and those people, f*ck ‘em. They don’t mean nothing to me. F*ck ‘em.
(H/T and transcribed by Post Wrestling)