“Speedball” Mike Bailey is finally in the spotlight with IMPACT Wrestling, but he dealt with plenty of adversity on his journey to the promotion.
Due to an immigration issue, Bailey was banned from the United States for five years in 2016. Now that he can compete stateside again, he’s hit the ground running; “Speedball” has already wrestled for GCW and PWG, in addition to IMPACT.
In an interview with Denise Salcedo, Bailey described the challenging nature of his return to the United States; while some fans are have followed him for years and are excited to see him perform, others don’t quite understand what the hype is all about. “Speedball” noted that this dynamic creates plenty of pressure, and he’s aiming to do his best to prove himself to his fans and doubters alike. That’s exactly what he did, starting with his IMPACT debut at the Hard To Kill pay-per-view.
“I am in a weird position when it comes to the U.S.,” said Bailey. “I mean especially on the independent bookings that I’ve taken over the last few weeks, I’ve had a mixed reaction of people that know who I am, have followed my work over the last few years and are just happy to see me and excited. And then there’s a lot of people, which is, you know, at some of the shows, it’s a majority of the audience, is like oh, we’ve never seen this guy, why are people so excited? So it’s a weird spot to be in where [some] people don’t know you, but also there are expectations, you sort of have to deliver.
“And I felt that way at IMPACT, where they, I got a full entrance and I got a video, and I was put in a match with people that were well-established. Former X-Division Champion Ace Austin was there, and there’s pressure. People are like, ‘Okay, this guy, he appears to be a big deal.’ And then I have to go and deliver on that. And you know, fantastic, got the win, made it happen, and [I’m] excited to see what comes next.”
.@SpeedballBailey has arrived at #HardToKill!
#IMPACTWRESTLING #HardToKill pic.twitter.com/njffnOpwvj— IMPACT (@IMPACTWRESTLING) January 9, 2022
Speaking of his travel ban, Bailey reflected on how this setback changed the way he thought about his goals as a wrestler; whereas he had been hoping to land with WWE NXT, he was forced to look elsewhere and focus his efforts on Europe, Canada, and other promotions.
“You assume that things are gonna go a certain way for your wrestling career, a lot of people with whom I wrestled at PWG during 2015/2016 ended up going to NXT shortly thereafter or IMPACT back then,” said Bailey. “And that’s sorta what I was hoping would happen with myself as well, and once you know that’s not gonna happen the trajectory that you had made for yourself is not gonna work out at all.
“You have two options basically, I can just quit, I can stop, I can take the ‘L’ and move on to something else with my career and let pro wrestling go or I can figure out another way to become a successful pro wrestler outside of the United States outside of the place where everyone wants to be. That forced me to look at Europe, shortly after I was banned I did some shows in Canada, RevPro, then I got to wrestle for DDT….”
Bailey then described how DDT was his “home” for the first few years of his travel ban before the COVID-19 pandemic hit and made it difficult to travel internationally. Still, through his work with DDT and other companies, Bailey continued to hone his craft while he eagerly waited to return to the United States.
“DDT was really my home from 2016 to 2020 right up until the pandemic, I would have been right back there if the pandemic wouldn’t have made things so darn difficult,” said Bailey. “DDT became my home, I was able to learn a living as a pro wrestler outside of the U.S, my mission was really to keep as much momentum as I could going up until the end of my 5-year admissibility.”
Since his IMPACT debut, Bailey has continued to shine; he competed in the main event of this week’s episode of IMPACT Wrestling, and it seems like he has a bright future with the promotion.
RELATED: WATCH: ‘Speedball’ Mike Bailey Sign His New IMPACT Wrestling Contract
(H/T Denise Salcedo for sharing the quotes in this article with WrestleZone.)
