AEW star and current FTW champion Ricky Starks recently joined the Pro Wrestling Illustrated podcast to discuss a wide range of topics, including who he would add to Team Taz if he had the choice, and what he wants his legacy to be with the FTW championship. Highlights from the interview can be found below.
Says if it were his choice, he would add Sasha Banks to Team Taz:
I mean, if I had to pick anyone to be in Team Taz, it’d probably be Sasha Banks. Yeah, but I think for right now, I like it how it is. I like the fact that it’s this small group. I don’t want to overpopulate it and then it becomes something boring and just corny. Most importantly, I just don’t want it to get to that but, I think for right now, it’s good how we have it. We all have seemingly found our groove a bit and this is the best version of Team Taz in my head by far.
What he wants his legacy to be with the FTW championship:
I think, one, coming to AEW and winning the title was a big deal because I’m a big, big person on history and making sure that things from the past isn’t forgotten because when you’re forgotten, that’s true death, right? I always think of things in that sense, although it may be a bit morbid but I think it’s cool to have a piece of history like that on television and to carry it. That is the original title from 1998 so that thing has seen so much. I would even akin it to the ‘Smoking Skull Title’. Imagine if you had that title, the original one. You would cherish that and honor that with everything because of the history that it has and I’m not saying they are on the same level but I’m just saying in terms of having such a piece of history like that is insane and so for me, I think it’s more important to have this title and represent it in the best way I can and do with it what I can and I know that it won’t be perfect and I know that it’s things outside of my control that I just have to deal with, right? But at the end of the day, I wanna make sure that one, I do the best that I can with the title and represent it and make sure that it has some type of legitimacy, regardless if it’s recognized or not. I get that so much. You have a title that isn’t recognized by the company, this and that, sure, whatever. I don’t care. To me, it’s important to represent this title and its legacy to the utmost that I can. It wasn’t done by the previous champion and I wanna make sure when I won it, I made a promise to myself that no matter what, I would ride all the way to the end with it and whatever happens, that’s the end of my title reign. I would hope that it goes down as someone that actually cared and put in the work for it and dealt with it the best that he could with what he was given.
(H/T and transcribed by Post Wrestling
)