I recently had the distinct pleasure of speaking with IMPACT star and current X-Division champion Josh Alexander ahead of this Saturday’s highly-anticipated Slammiversary pay per view, where the Walking Weapon defends his title in the dangerous Ultimate-X matchup against Rohit Raju, Ace Austin, Chris Bey, Trey Miguel, and Petey Williams. Highlights, including the full video interview, can be found below.
Whether he was missing a live crowd for his Ironman classic with TJP:
No, not at all. From my perspective, I don’t know how anybody else feels about this, but when I’m wrestling, whether there’s a crowd or not, especially at television tapings, or anything like that. It’s like tunnel vision for me, I’m so tuned in I don’t notice any of that. It’s the exact same thing. I understand that like sometimes with a crowd, I’ll get some adrenaline rush or like a peak of live energy or something from them reacting to certain things. But otherwise, it’s a performance the entire time. It’s a competition the entire time for me, and you know, it’s not it’s not hard for me to suspend my own disbelief and put myself into that next scenario.
What stars come to mind when he thinks about the X-Division championship:
There’d be two, AJ Styles, obviously, I think he’s the biggest star ever out of Impact Wrestling, and it all started with the X-Division. He went in and out of it…obviously that triple threat match in 2005 Unbreakable. But Samoa Joe was the guy that solidified even the possibility of myself becoming a professional wrestler. And he was the one that made it, you know, a possibility in my mind to even try to attempt this dream. So you’d be the guy.
Whether he’s proud to hold the longest title reign in the history of the company as a member of the North:
Yeah, absolutely. And it’s like, it comes as like a little bit of a shock and surprise to myself, because like coming in Impact Wrestling, you never know what to expect. Three months after I signed, I win the tag team championship. So we go on to have that longest reign, and now that reign ends and three or four months later, I win the X Division Championship. And now I’m on this this incredible run to me where this momentum is growing and stuff like that. And it’s all about opportunities and building upon it. So like as a TNA and an Impact fan growing up being able to be etched in the history books beside America’s Most Wanted, Beer Money, all these other tag teams as the North, it means a great deal to me.
On his NJPW Strong debut and whether he’ll be making another appearance for the promotion:
I don’t know if it’s anytime soon. I think you can expect to see me there again. Whether New Japan likes it or not. I went out and I performed twice against Alex Coughlin and Rocky Romero and I have two W’s now so unless they’re going to leave somebody undefeated you know off on the bench. I think that would be a big mistake on their part. So I think you can definitely look to see me back in New Japan Strong representing Impact Wrestling.