IMPACT star and former X-Division champion Mike Bailey recently spoke with Fightful about a wide range of pro-wrestling-related topics, where “Speedball” discussed his favorite matches and how much better he believes he has gotten since his PWG days. Highlights from the interview can be found below.
Says he has gotten so much better since his PWG days:
“It bothered me for years when people would come up to me [in 2019] and say something like, ‘Oh, the best match of yours that I’ve ever seen was your match with Roderick Strong four years ago.’ Which is patently untrue. I’ve had much better matches since because I’ve gotten a lot better. But ultimately it’s hard to say. I can theorize a bunch of scenarios where I was able to continue to wrestle in the States past 2016 and I did the Cruiserweight Classic and I got a WWE job there and then I realized I was miserable and hated wrestling and went to live on a farm. That’s one of the many scenarios I can theorize. You don’t know. You really don’t know. It could have been worse. It could have been better. I had a great time for five years traveling the world and wrestling. Now I’m in IMPACT and I’m absolutely killing it. I’m super happy doing what I’m doing and there’s no part of me that is like, ‘I regret doing this. I should have done things differently.’ I did what I had to do. I’m glad it worked out. It’s fun to theorize, though. It’s fun to think about what would have happened. But it’s ultimately pointless.”
Talks recent triple-threat match he had at IMPACT Rebellion:
“So I‘m gonna give you one. That triple threat between me, Ace and Trey. That match is 1000% the most underrated match of my entire career.”
What he thinks are his greatest matchups:
“So, honestly, it isn’t difficult. It never is difficult. The best matches I’ve had were the easiest to make in my career. Always. I wrestled Will Ospreay a bunch of times. He’s definitely the number one guy. It takes five minutes. We don’t even talk and we know what the match is going to be. Because we know what we know that’s cool and the other is like, ‘You do this one, then I do this one, then that one. Good.’ It’s just mathematically it’s a good match. So we don’t have any additions to make.