Phil Johnson sent this in.
In part two of a two part interview, one half of TNA Impact Wrestling’s The Wolves, Davey Richards recently took some time to participate in an exclusive interview with PWMania.com. Richards discusses his time with ROH, his and Eddie Edwards tryout match for the WWE, signing with TNA and more. Check out some highlights below:
Winning the ROH Tag Titles: It was a great experience. It was my home for many years and I’m very proud of all the time I’ve spent there and I’m very proud that its continued to grow and I wouldn’t be where I am or the person I am today without them. The thing I was most proud of doing there was The American Wolves by far and away. If not for them we couldn’t be what we are today. I gave them a little bit back of what they gave me. It’s always a place that stood for the highest quality of in ring action and I think they live up to that. There are phenomenal talents that are there and guys that have moved on from TNA which just goes to show you that things are circular and that good talent is always going to find a home somewhere. Ring of Honor talent is doing well in WWE. Ring of Honor talent is doing well in TNA and Ring of Honor talent is doing well in Ring of Honor. It’s that talent that helps out the grand scheme of wrestling. It’s a very good basis and a place for a lot of people. Gabe’s eye for talent absolutely has something to do with it. If you look at it, Gabe gave Kevin Owens a job, me a job, Austin Aries a job, Tyler Black/Seth Rollins a job. I’m forgetting countless others don’t get me wrong Samoa Joe, Bryan Danielson/Daniel Bryan a lot of those guys wouldn’t have been if Gabe hadn’t given them a shot. He definitely was and still is by far ahead of his time. He’s a very great and talented person.
His WWE tryout:We couldn’t commit to going down there and going into their system. I can’t go down there and train 5 days a week at NXT because I’m in school, I’m in medical school full-time. It is very important for me to get my doctorate and I’m also a full time firefighter/paramedic and that’s something that’s very near and dear to me to. For me, I operate best just in life just to being having Davey time, wrestling time, and then coming home and having Wes time. I love wrestling, I also love saving people’s lives and helping and medicine and things like that. So I don’t love one more thing than another so for me it’s just doesn’t work out for me to go 100% into wrestling and that’s just my personal thing. They were very kind to us. They were very generous. They were very fair and nothing to absolutely have to say to them. They were absolutely great people. They are obviously doing great so were all very happy for them. It’s just didn’t work for me personally. Pursuing my doctorate is kicking my butt, so I have a full time job and I wrestle full time and I go to school full time so for me to give up all of that just to go to NXT wouldn’t work out. I have to concentrate on that. They had some names and I said well could I be something Billington because well Tommy Billington is The Dynamite Kid, my number one inspiration in wrestling. They were cool with it and it was all good.
Signing with TNA: We were talking to TNA pretty much the whole time and I really wanted to go to TNA from the start and Eddie really wanted to give NXT a chance and check it out and I can understand. So we went down and TNA was really cool about it. They totally understood. We go and do our thing with NXT and TNA came to us with the deals and said hey we’ve got something for you and can get you guys started right away on TV. As soon as we cleared up things with NXT we told them we weren’t going to go any further and they said they weren’t willing to go any further and we had a contract with TNA within 5 minutes.
Richards also talks about NJPW, his future and more. You can read the interview in its entirety at this link.