The AEW fighter “Speedball” Mike Bailey Reflect on The pain in the ring, the criticisms of veterans and the internal logic that holds professional wrestling. All this in the same recent interview with our partner Sean Ross Sapp in which he comments on his own documentary series and explains that fans must see the whole process of what a fight or an event is.
► Pain, logic and wrestling
«They have never knocked me in the ring or anything like that. They have hit me very strong. They have given me very hard chops. They have kicked me very strong. For example, Kevin Steen's chops in my second fight in C4 Wrestling in Canada … It gave me many and very strong. But I think that, with the years in professional wrestling, I have stopped noticing how strong they are hitting me, because my brain has completely reprogrammed to absorb that pain and transform it into … I do not want to say pleasure, that sounds too weird … but in a kind of positive reward mechanism. I know, 'Oh, this felt good. The public reacted well, 'and I absolutely don't care how much it hurts. I am one of the first to say: 'The chops do not hurt me. They don't bother me. I don't mind. You can kick me, give me chops, slapped, as strong as you want. ' Please do not take out that context. “
“I am very angry when professional wrestling veterans talk about psychologyand for example, about why a Superkick should be just a shot. But if you see their struggles, 90 % began as follows: 'I will give you four right right. You will block the room. You will give me four yours, also without protection and direct to the jaw. Then you will take my arm, you will throw me against the strings, you will try to throw me. I will invest your Irish Whip, as if nothing had affected me – not your four punch without protection to the face – and then I will give you a rotating elbow or some nonsense, and you will fall with that elbow, ignoring the fact that we hit ourselves directly in the jaw. '
“And you don't even start with cognitive dissonance in terms of professional wrestling logic. The accounts of three? The accounts are the fake part of all wrestling. If you have ever practiced wrestling based on keys or counts, you know that one does not release the opponent of 2.9, the head is hocked, look at the camera and say, 'Oh!' For about 10 seconds. I think Akatsuki – I think it's called – in Marvelous, has really started to cover the opponent, and that is the game. It is incredible, because this is how counts really work, which is not seen in professional wrestling. But, again, that is the beauty of wrestling: we act in the universe that we create. We put the rules, and as long as they are consistent and the public perceives them as logics, everything is fine. Everything is perfect. “
