AEW star and indie wrestling legend Colt Cabana was a recent guest on the Keep It Locked’ podcast to discuss his run with the company, and how he feels about the rising stars in the company, including lead play-by-play commentator Excalibur. Hear Cabana’s full thoughts in the highlights below.
Speaks highly of Tony Schiavone and Jim Ross but says AEW needs to continue to highlight Excalibur as the future:
Yeah, it is important [to have Jim Ross & Tony Schiavone] around but it’s also important that we understand to move on to the future so as great as J.R. and Tony Schiavone is, the most important thing is that we’re highlighting Excalibur because he is amazing, he is so good at what he does and I know Jim Ross is so important to the wrestling industry and has been around for so long, but this is my personal thought. His job is to essentially push the young guys and give the young guys the rub and Excalibur is the future and he’s amazing at what he does so, I love being around the older generation. [When you] take a step back in our locker room: Sting, Taz, Jake The Snake Roberts, Vickie Guerrero. As long as — in WCW style, as long as they’re not the focal point of the show and our wrestlers, the Fenixs’, the Omegas, The Young Bucks, the Hangman Pages, as long as these are the wrestlers, PAC. These are the wrestlers that are pushing wrestling into the future, that’s important and I think AEW has a great grasp and I think we do use the veterans very well in those spaces. Arn Anderson, Tully Blanchard. I think it’s so fun that Tully is with The Pinnacle and when he dressed up in that outfit and he did that match, he was what he was and was really good at it and all these guys are really good at it. Not trying to take over the spotlight but helping new wrestlers come into the spotlight.
How he’s happy to be apart of the AEW team, then praises a large portion of the Dark Order faction:
Honestly, I’m just along for the ride. I love to play my part, I love to, you know, I don’t know. I’d love to be champion, sure. I’d love to be. Yeah, but I don’t know if that’s the biggest goal. I would just love to be a part of this team, taking over the wrestling world and we’ve done such a great job and we’ve started. [We’re] in such a great place and it’s such an exciting — I think a lot of people know that I like the weirdness and nostalgia of wrestling. I romance about wrestling a lot so I love that in 20 years, people are gonna be like, ‘I can’t believe you were around during the start of AEW.’ The same way I was around the start of Ring of Honor. It’s just like I know I have this great place in wrestling, I’ve done some wild things, NWA Worlds Champion, I’ve wrestled in India and I’ve wrestled in the northernmost part of Canada and I’ve done these bizarre shows in Mexico, Lucha VaVoom shows and also I’ve been a part of AEW. My story runs so wide that-that’s just fun to be knowing — I look around at the locker room every single time I’m there and I just look at these bizarre cast of wrestlers and know that I’m a part of it and I think it’s really cool and I know it’s something special and a lot of these wrestlers, you know, some of them were the ‘chosen ones’ or whatever. You know, [Chris] Jericho and there’s Big Show and these guys have been around and they have their own struggles but, not compared to these indie wrestlers who were shunned, who were told that they couldn’t be stars and to be in the locker room, to see a guy like Hangman [Adam Page], [guys] like The Young Bucks and Kenny Omega and there’s just such a long list of all of these wrestlers who were just kind of told like, ‘Ah, you’re not a star’ and then another promotion starts up and says, ‘Yeah, you are a star and we’ll put you on national television. You’re gonna be amazing and you are.’ That for me is always really special. Evil Uno and Stu [Grayson], these are two guys that are — no one would put them on TV and now here they are and we’re thriving in The Dark Order and it’s so fun. John Silver’s another guy. How many trials did that guy have over the years? A million, you know?
(H/T and transcribed by Post Wrestling
)