Former IMPACT star Jake Crist recently spoke with WrestleZone to discuss his free agency, and how he hopes to forget the past and focus on his future. He also mentions how the #SpeakingOut allegations made against his brother Dave Crist and former faction mate Joey Ryan had a ripple affect that eventually led to him losing his job. Highlights are below.
Says he has no hard feelings for IMPACT keeping him off TV for six months:
After reaching out, IMPACT was happy to grant me [my release]. I told them I had some opportunities coming up, and there was no—I could feel deep down, they weren’t going to re-sign or do anything with me anyway. The writing was on the wall, I was off of TV for six months so I was pretty much forgotten at that point. It’s all fine and dandy and I have no hard feelings.
How the #SpeakingOut movement affected him even though he wasn’t involved with any scandals:
It sucks to be a victim of the ‘Speaking Out’ movement when I had nothing to do with anything. It sucks. I feel so bad for those victims, but the ones like me that lost their jobs. I feel it because of the relationship with my brother and what he was accused of, and being with Joey Ryan on television in a group probably wasn’t good for me either. I kinda got hit with the double whammy, so to speak, and at this point, the last thing you see on TV as far as oVe breaking up was me roundhouse kicking my brother in the face. That was the end of oVe and I went with Joey Ryan, and our name was ‘Cancel Culture.’ Pretty fitting, huh?
How is main focus is to move on and forget the past:
I’m trying to forget about the past as far as [being grouped in with] the allegations [against my brother and Joey Ryan], and I’m trying to move forward and find out who I want to be as a person, if that makes sense. There’s no point in harping on the past to me. I just want to move forward and I look forward to building this brand and building my character as the ‘Modern Man In Black.’ I was a victim just like most of the people around the world in this pandemic. They lost their job. I lost my job during a pandemic, so I can relate to that.
