Matt Sydal recently spoke with Brian Fritz for Sporting News; you can read a few highlights below:
Matt Sydal on finding a new perspective in life, how it’s helped him in wrestling:
“It was about five years ago that I first started walking down this path in the pursuit of something else. I guess you could call it the pursuit of something more. Beyond money, beyond fame, beyond accolades.
“The last five years has been a lot of growth for me. I worked extremely hard and dedicated my life to pro wrestling but the more I grow in ways not related to work, my work grows.”
Sydal talks about holding an advantage over his Slammiversary opponent, Brian Cage:
“Someone like Brian Cage, he’s a gigantic man who is trying to wrestle like me. That’s his mistake because I clearly hold the top card in someone who is wrestling like Matt Sydal. I see things from a higher perspective. I can know what Brian Cage is doing before he’s doing it because he’s doing me. I’ve been facing the man in the mirror my entire life. That’s been my hardest battle is the one where it’s me versus me.”
Impact Wrestling Slammiversary Media Call feat. Josh Mathews & Johnny Impact (Audio & Highlights)
Sydal says the wrestling world modernized itself for the betterment of wrestlers and fans:
“Wrestling used to be like this — it was this bathtub that we will fill up from only one faucet. It was mainly WWE filling the tub of love of wrestling for the entire world. And because of the internet, technology, the interconnectiveness of people and the desire of independent artists to create their own work, this resurgence of wrestling has come up and it’s reinvigorating for me.”
“Wrestling modernized underneath us. The underground movement has surfaced and created a whole circuit. Now the bathtub of wrestling that we’re trying to fill up to the brim with water — it has a WWE faucet, it’s got a New Japan faucet, IMPACT Wrestling, some of these hotter indies, WWN, Evolve, Progress. It’s getting filled from everywhere and all of the water is warm and everybody’s saying come on in and take a bath with us because this is some good, clean fun. And that’s the thing — the wrestling business cleaned itself up for the fans and for the wrestlers involved. We created something we’re proud of and we just want to share it with the rest of the world.”
