Wrestlezone’s Kevin Kellam recently interviewed Alex Shelley ahead of his big match against Matt Taven for the Ring Of Honor World Heavyweight Championship at ROH Summer Supercard in Toronto on August 9.
Shelley talked about tonight’s match serving as the biggest match of his career, noting his ties to the local community in Toronto as well as what it meant for his career.
“It’s definitely the biggest because it’s the only one that’s upcoming, it’s the only one that’s not done with. I’m excited for a number of reasons, and I think we’ve beat the horse to death as far as how it feels for me emotionally, but geographically, I love Toronto. There was a company there called UWA many, many, many years ago, and these guys worked so hard—on their own dime—to bring in all of these wrestlers and they had such a great product. I would go there every month and I did that for about two or three years, and I was one of their guys that they had around all the time because I could drive from Detroit, it only made too much sense. A lot of those fans are Ring Of Honor fans as well, and they go to the Ring Of Honor shows and they are my age, and they have kids and they’re bringing their kids with them too—I just think that’s so cool.
If you ask any of the guys in the back in terms of cities that they get excited to go to as far as crowd reaction, Toronto’s always one of them. It’s just a really cool environment, especially to someone that was married to a Canadian at one point in their life. I trained in Canada as a pro wrestler, and I feel very close with that culture. I know enough Tragically Hip songs to at least consider myself partial Canadian.”
Shelley didn’t shy away about what a title win would mean to him, noting that he’s an emotional guy and it would just move him to tears. Shelley said everything he’s already gone through in his personal life in the past year already made it worth it, but beating Matt Taven for the ROH World Championship would be “a really nice cherry on top.”
“I try not to think about these things because believe it or not, I’m a pretty emotional guy—I’ll cry. I will legit just cry. To be able to actually succeed in doing something like that, at that level against the quality of wrestler that Matt Taven is, after everything I’ve gone through, I’d just lose my shit. I’d absolutely lose it.”
(Transcription credit to Bill Pritchard for WrestleZone)
Ring Of Honor’s Summer Supercard takes place on Friday, August 9 at the Mattamy Athletic Centre in Toronto, Canada; the event is available to watch on ROH’S HONORCLUB STREAMING SERVICE.
Related: Alex Shelley On Returning To Wrestling On His Terms, Why Matt Taven Is A Dangerous Champion
