Kyle Fletcher has had a breakout year in All Elite Wrestling in 2025.
During a recent sit-down interview on the INSIGHT with Chris Van Vliet podcast, the Don Callis Family member spoke about past negotiations with WWE, his big 2025, shaving his head 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 breakout year: “I think it’s one of those things where I’m doing my best to just take it as it comes and just approach every opportunity and just do the best I can with it. And then, it’s weird, because doing that, it just accumulates, and everyone starts going like, ‘Oh my God, look at this run you’re having.’ And I’m like, ‘Oh, thanks, man.’ I’m just thinking about next week, thinking about the next match type thing. So it’s cool to look back on, but yeah, I try my best to just look forward and to live in the present and just focus on what I’m doing right now.”
On the head shaving segment: “So it started off that we knew we were going to do this Ospreay feud, and that was what we were leaning towards. It was just one of those things where I was getting sick of my hair, my blonde hair, and I was wanting to change it anyway. So I just broached the idea. I can’t remember who I said it to originally, it might have been in the room with Tony. I was like, ‘Hey, I want to get rid of my hair. Is there some way we could use it in this storyline?’ The way we landed on was me shaving it myself. It felt like a definitive change, a definitive moment to me, I was literally shedding the skin of being in Ospreay’s shadow, I was trying to get out of that. So yeah, it started with me, but then it was, oh yeah, that’s a pretty good idea, let’s run with it. So yeah, it was cool the way it came off in the end.”
On possible WWE interest before signing with AEW: “It was a toss-up for a while. We had one kind of like official [call]. At the time it was myself and Mark Davis as Aussie Open, we had like a Zoom call with them. We kind of spoke about what the deal would entail, and that sort of thing. I think when it got to that point, it just didn’t feel like the right fit at the time. So we didn’t get super close. It was kind of like at the point where there was options there. But AEW was just the right fit for us at the time.”
On what made it the right fit: “We were lucky enough that we’d worked there a couple of times. We got brought in as a part of New Japan to do a couple of things. And I think it was the vibe there. I think to me, it was, I don’t want to say the freedom, but I think there’s a lot of trust there to that I can produce the wrestling I want to produce, and I can wrestle the way that I love to wrestle, and I think experiencing that beforehand and knowing that, I think that was what kind of drew me towards AEW for sure.”
On his breakout match: “I think it has to be Full Gear with Ospreay, for sure. I think maybe before that, the first match we had on Dynamite. But before that, we wrestled right after he had signed full-time, back in March of 24, we wrestled on a dynamite and that was the first time I’d been given a Dynamite main event. We got given three segments. It was my first big TV match. I think after that, a lot of people came out, and they were like, I didn’t know you could wrestle like that. Then, before that, it was in one week, I wrestled Bryan Danielson and Kenny Omega in the same week. I think that was the first one where I was like, Okay, this is weird. Then that and then to go out there, have a cool match, and then afterwards, have them be so, like, complimentary and like, putting me over and like that. That was a mind trip, for sure. But yeah, I think the first one where I kind of felt comfortable, I felt that confidence, for the first time was that full gear with Ospreay, I think was the real turning point.”
