If you sit around and wait for things to happen, they're not going to happen the way you want.
Adam Cole
You don't make a statement unless you make noise.
When you say the word 'undisputed,' what do you think of? You think of something that is untouchable, undeniable. Myself, Bobby Fish, and Kyle O'Reilly are all of those things.
When you're young, you feel like you're Superman and that you can't be hurt.
Shawn Michaels, to me and to so many people, is just the greatest in-ring performer of all time.
I can't say enough good things about Matt Hardy.
I grew up watching guys - like, I loved Mick Foley's ECW promos; I loved CM Punk's promos. There's this guy, Eddie Kingston. He was just a fantastic talker, so I used to study and watch him. I mean, gosh, there's just such a big list of guys who I used to study. I used to watch promos as much as I did matches.
I look at a guy like Velveteen Dream who has only been wrestling for a couple of years, and he's just filled with charisma, filled with talent.
With me, Bobby Fish, and Kyle O'Reilly, I know on-screen we are these brothers whose bond can't be broken, and we are this faction. I promise you, it's very real behind the scenes, too. I've known those guys for years. We travel together all the time; we talk every single day.
I had a tryout when I was, like, 19 and totally not prepared. I was 170 pounds with homemade gear. At that point, I realized how far I had to go to even get looked at. Then, when I was 22 or 23, I was much more prepared, and that second tryout went way better.
There is nothing that makes me more falsely arrogant, like, wanting to defend myself, than a TSA agent.
There's so many cool things that happen, where you want to kind of sit back and smell the roses and say, 'Wow, this is awesome!' But then you're already thinking a mile ahead about what the next landmark is, what the next goal is.
For me, it's always been a financial kind of scenario. I was actually the first one who signed the 'exclusive to Ring of Honor' contract. I was the first guy who ever signed one of those contracts. That was tough for me because I had no one to talk to. I had no examples to go on. I was the guinea pig.
I started training when I was a senior in high school. I trained at the Combat Zone Wrestling Academy in South Philadelphia.
There are some times I'm really busy and other times I'm not, but I prefer to be really busy because I generally don't know what to do with myself when I'm not wrestling or on the road.
There are people who are unsure, and maybe their minds can be changed based on someone's work and accomplishments. Those people are the ones I'm interested in having stay tuned and watching for the rest of my career.
I always think back to that first night in Brooklyn, where I debuted, and it was this total surprise. I just remember thinking, 'I hope they care. I hope they remember me.' The way they embraced me that night, I knew it was the start of something special.
Bobby Fish and Kyle O'Reilly are seriously like brothers to me.
I think Ring of Honor is becoming a legitimate threat in the world of pro wrestling. To say that Ring of Honor would be WWE is getting a little bit ahead of yourself. At the same time, I think Ring of Honor can definitely be a place where guys can make a living.
I look around and see guys that I've been on the road and traveled the world with in a WWE locker room, and we still think it's surreal. At least once a week, one of us will look at the other and just say, 'Can you believe we're really all here?'
I got signed to Ring Of Honor because Jim Cornette happened to be paying attention to something I was doing.
I'm going to be with Ring of Honor for a while. So I'm focused on making ROH the best company it can be.
Nothing turned the NXT Universe upside down like The Undisputed Era's debut.
For me, travel is one of the biggest perks of pro wrestling. You get to see the world on somebody else's dime.
I'm a very shy, introverted person.
I've been in a lot of different factions my whole career, and all the guys who made up those factions are different performers. For example, if you look at the Undisputed Era as a whole, I'm very different than Roderick Strong, who's very different from Kyle O'Reilly, who's very different from Bobby Fish.
Ring Of Honor was so great to me and so great to many young talents where they really give you the ball.
Steve Corino was a guy I met before I got into Ring of Honor. I got to work with Steve, and he kind of took me under his wing and really helped me.
My two main trainers were John Dahmer and DJ Hyde. DJ Hyde mainly taught me how to be tough: I mean, the beatings that he used to give the students as far as wrestling initiations go were as tough as they come, and I'm thankful for it.
I wanted to be a part of WWE and part of NXT first, as, if I went to 'Raw' or 'SmackDown' right away, I would always wonder what NXT would have been like.
Ring of Honor is my home.
My grandmother played a huge influence in my life and helped raise me, and she and my mother saw how much I loved pro wrestling and how much I wanted to go after it.
Generally speaking, ROH championship matches are hard fought and grueling, and the fans are really into it. The ROH Championship means a lot to me for those reasons.
For me, I've been very lucky because of my relationship with Ring of Honor. I'm very close with everyone there, and that includes the guys that negotiate the contracts.
Regardless of who leaves and who stays, Ring of Honor is going to continue to be a healthy, growing, successful pro wrestling promotion.
Promos have always been something that I've taken very, very seriously.
My parents split up when I was nine years old, and I started taking karate lessons at that point. I was very dedicated to my karate, and I looked up to my karate instructor kind of like a second father.
Any time guys move to 'Raw' and 'SmackDown,' I think that is what has kept NXT so relevant and has kept the fans so invested because they are now conditioned that whoever leaves or comes in, NXT, as a product, is going to give really exciting sports entertainment every time.
I think the rating system is a way to open more discussion with wrestling fans about matches. To me, it's just another outlet to voice their opinions, so that's why I think they are so passionate about it.
Ring of Honor always has a great general idea of what they think I need, and generally, we agree pretty quickly on what I want to do.
Like me personally, I'm not a huge football guy, but I do watch the Super Bowl every year, and I get into it because it's exciting.
I think that is when guys are at their best: when you put pressure and have something to work towards and have something to compare yourself to or try to best them, it really does make you better.
Aside from ROH, just getting a taste of Wrestle Kingdom at the Tokyo Dome with NJPW has me really excited at the prospect of furthering and developing my career in Japan.
I would love, love, love, love a one-on-one match with Tanahashi, and I've never had one before. He's my all-time favorite New Japan guy. I think the guy's a rockstar. He's so cool, just in the ring and in person.
Fortunately for me, I discovered Ring of Honor. And I saw guys who were much smaller in stature but were putting on these amazing matches that I had never seen in WWE before. So I thought, at the very least, I'd love the chance to be able to wrestle in a company like that someday.
For me, my number one guy would be Tanahashi from New Japan Pro-Wrestling. Like, watching him, like, this guy is a bonafide rockstar over in Japan. He can't even walk down the street without getting stopped, the way that he carries himself.
I was a 19 year old kid; I was 170 lbs soaking wet. I didn't have an identity. I didn't have a look. I didn't have the proper gear. I was just a young guy trying to be a wrestler. So, to be honest, WWE didn't even give me a second look.
So when you're following guys like Kyle O'Reilly and Bobby Fish or The Young Bucks or Jay Lethal or The Briscoe Brothers, and you're going out and trying to really stick out and have a very memorable, talked-about main event, or the match of the night, like the main event should be, it's really challenging.
For anyone watching Ring of Honor out of the gate, they knew when they were watching an ROH event that they were watching a different level of wrestler from what they had seen.
You realize, as time goes on, there is a certain expectation now in 2018 where fans want to see cool, exciting, hard-hitting sports entertainment or hard-hitting pro wrestling, and there are ways to give them that without necessarily putting yourself in the hospital that night or not being able to move the next morning.