Speaking on the Black Rasslin’ Podcast, Ricky Starks looked back on his Strap Match against Bryan Danielson at AEW All Out 2023.
Starks admitted that the circumstances ahead of the bout were chaotic and frustrating as he had been feuding with CM Punk, with them reportedly set to wrestle at the show before Punk was released.
“The Strap Match. The Strap Match, here’s the truth about it. The circumstances leading up to the strap match was very chaotic and a point of frustration for me. If you saw that Collision, I went out and started the show with a very heartfelt message that I wanted to get to people. It wasn’t me whining and complaining. It was more of a message or, ‘Look, even somebody like me, even somebody who is dedicated and puts in the work, takes the steps back due to outside sources.’ That match in itself, had no expectations for it. Didn’t know what I was getting myself into. I thought Bryan is a great dude. Didn’t realize his arm was still kind of injured or something, so that was something to keep in mind,” Starks said.
“Afterwards, the reception of it was so overwhelming for me that, on the flight home, I was looking through my text messages. It’s just a lot of people were like, ‘Man, that was amazing.’ It really touched something into me where it kind of, I kind of found myself again a bit. Not saying that I lost myself, but something that was dormant kind of woke back up. I felt so inspired, and I was just moved by it because I didn’t have any expectations about it and I went out there, and I gave it 1000%. I put everything that I had into it, to the point where I was just so exhausted. There’s a promo that I cut after, it was four minutes long, and they didn’t really use it, they chopped it up a bit. But I really hope that they post it one day because you see me in the rawest form. Once you see it, I think you will..that’s what I mean by being misunderstood, things that people don’t get, that what I’m referring to, it isn’t about just, ‘Woe is me. It’s more than that. It’s more than just wrestling. But that match itself was so great. It’s hard, when you have great matches like that, it’s hard to, you have the need to try to top it. But some things just can’t be topped. Some things are at its pinnacle point, and they exist there, and then you can have another space to put it right next to it. You need to have to take one out and replace it.”
(H/T to Fightful for the quotes)
