Former ROH world champion Matt Taven recently spoke with Steve Fall from NBC Sports Boston about his partnership with Mike Bennett, and how the duo hope to prove that they are an elite tag team by proving their worth in a very competitive tag division across multiple companies. Highlights from the interview are below.
On him and Bennett finding their stride together as a team and the tough paths they were given:
“I think Mike and I, we waited for five years to really kinda be back together as a team because I think in 2015, when I blow my knee out and he goes to TNA, we were just kind of really hitting out stride as a team, and in their five years that we were both doing different things, we were both doing great stuff, but at the same time, we would be side-texting like, ‘Hey, the day we get back together, let’s do X, Y, Z,’ and you just grow so much as people that you’re excited for what, if you ever got back together, what that would look like. Then we did, we end up winning the tag titles again at Ring of Honor, and then it’s kind of like, phew, you’re thrown out in the wind again. So just when I thought we had our footing to, as a team again, the ground changes underneath you.”
How he and Bennett want to win the IMPACT tag titles:
“So now that we’re at IMPACT, and now that we’re kind of finding our place there, we need a shot at the IMPACT Tag Titles. It’s been six months, we haven’t gotten one. We’re clearly the best team in IMPACT and there’s no doubt about that. NWA as well, we’ve been all over that television since last October, we haven’t had a tag team title shot there, you know what I mean. What are these people scared of? I mean I got all these belts behind me, I need to get more replica belts and more bookshelves to fill up. So I need more shots at these titles because it’s the whole reason why we got back together, to show people that we are one of the best tag teams, if not the best tag team in the world. Anytime we’re in there with a top team, we prove that time and time again.”
Says he also wants to add an NWA tag team title reign to their resume, which means he would have held tag team gold for several different companies:
“We have this weekend, we’re going out to Pro Wrestling Revolver, wrestling for their tag titles, so I’m hoping that this kind of starts a snowball. We’ll win those, and then we’ll just win every single one along the way. But there’s no doubt that the IMPACT Tag Team Titles is something that is on my extremely short list. People have five-year goals, ten-year goals. Five weeks, I wanna be the IMPACT Tag Team Champions. I want it sooner than later, and the NWA one as well because to me, I’m a stat nerd. I love like, ‘Oh, who had the most rebounds that season? Let’s look them up and argue about it as I look it up on Wikipedia real quick.’ So I look at the stuff that I’ve done, and if I could say that I’m the only person, I can’t think of anyone else that has done it, but if I could become the only person that’s won the New Japan, Ring of Honor, IMPACT Wrestling and NWA tag team titles, I think I could be pretty happy with that. So that is the goal, not on the horizon, on the right now.”
(H/T and transcribed by Fightful)