AEW star and current FTW champion Ricky Starks recently spoke with TalkSport about a wide range of topics, including what his experience was like working with the icon Sting at Revolution, and how he is really good friends with top WWE talent, Bayley. Highlights from the interview are below.
On getting to work with Sting at AEW Revolution:
“It’s crazy to think about, isn’t it? It’s crazy to think about where I was two years ago to now. I wasn’t scared working with Sting. Sting is a legend obviously and I like the pressure of making sure that, hey, this is his first match back in six years right? That whole process was so awesome to see. Sting, while there’s some issues there in the past, I’ve come around to respect Sting. You can hear it first [laughs]. I do respect him. So to not only have the best cinematic match ever in wrestling, but to also be in a ring and wrestle Sting is crazy. That’s just something I never thought I’d say.”
Calls the bout the best cinematic match in existence:
“That took two days to do. I know that we all went into it with the mindset that this is going to be the best cinematic matchup ever and so far no one else has been able to touch it. It still stands at the very top as the best cinematic match, period. No one can tell me different.”
Says WWE superstar Bayley is his best friend:
“She’s my best friend. Me and Aaron Solow [Bayley’s former fiancé] used to be a tag team and we used to live together back in 2017 or something like that. I met her in 2014 and we were just all mutual friends. We’ve definitely trained together, travelled together, she’s a great person. She’s helped me out with advice about life, the wrestling business and she’s been there through it all for me. Especially after the tryout I had with WWE and I didn’t get anything from them. I love her, she’s awesome. She’s one of my closest friends.”
Talks AEW’s upward momentum:
“We’re all excited. So excited because it’s great to finally feel like we’re slowly turning the corner into the new phase of wrestling popularity, because wrestling is all cyclical. It has to come back around eventually. I think the sellout for the United Center, the sellout for Arthur Ashe stadium, this is all just like a snowball going down a hill. We cannot be stopped. We’re all just so excited for it because this is what everyone has been wanting and working towards. We just want to present the best product possible and to say that, hey, the other company WWE looks at us as competition? You damn right they do, because who else would they look at as competition? We’re making all the right moves, we got the ratings on lock; it’s just a hot time for us. The fact that we’re still a start-up company and we’re going up against a tenured company like WWE, I think that’s pretty cool. And it’s great for WWE as well because they have competition. We know that competition breeds better product, better wrestling; it brings out the best in anyone. If fans have an option to choose between AEW and WWE, if the wrestlers have the option to choose between AEW and WWE I think that’s great for the business as a whole.”
