Chris Van Vliet passed along a recent interview he did with AEW star Kip Sabian. Sabian talks about how The Hurricane influenced him to get into wrestling, his love of superheroes, signing with AEW, British wrestling vs. American wrestling, and more!
Why The Hurricane was his favorite wrestler growing up:
“I as a kid saw The Hurricane and I was like ‘Oh my God, he is a wrestler and a superhero!’ I was a superhero guy. I always liked wrestling as a kid but I wasn’t a mega fan. My favorite superhero was Spider-Man 100%. Spider-Man is the guy.”
How he feels having the first singles win in AEW history:
“I didn’t know that we were going to be closing the Double or Nothing Buy In so when I was told that I was like ‘OK, this is the next level now. It’s not just a match on it, it’s closing the show. This is important.’ Winning that match too, as I say in every interview I have is that it’s something no one can ever take away from me. I was always be the first person to win a singles match in AEW.”
The biggest change for him since signing with AEW:
“Moving to the United States was probably the biggest change I guess. It was always something I already wanted to do at some point. Even before wrestling it was either going to be I wanted to move to Canada, I wanted to move to the United States or I wanted to become an Aborigine when I was was a kid because my dad bought me a boomerang when he went to Australia. But then I found out that it’s not a career path so I had to settle for wrestling. So that’s probably the biggest change, but wrestling-wise it’s been a boom for me as well. A lot of people in the US aren’t familiar with my name whereas in the UK it’s a completely different ballgame. So for me it’s been a chance for me to show the US what I can do.”
He was a backyard wrestler in the UK with Will Ospreay:
“Before starting wrestling, the real stuff, me and Will Ospreay would do backyard wrestling together. I’d get a train down to his house, stay for the whole weekend. We’d watch old school TNA matches, we’d watch a lot of Motor City Machine Guns back then.”
Christopher Daniels is the reason he got offered an AEW contract:
“Chris Daniels. He said in an interview or to a fan in Vegas about how he put in a word for me. Daniels was really instrumental in everything that happened to me over the last few years. Prior to this I shared a long car journey with him and he was a great guy and gave me lots of advice, tips, pointers. That night it was me versus Chris Ridgeway who is one of my best friends. It was me and him in the main event and we were told we could do whatever we want, you’ve got half an hour, have a great time. So we went out there and it is still one of my favorite matches to this day, it was just so much fun. Daniels watched the match, I didn’t even know he was going to watch it. He came back and I said ‘Hey man, do you have any tips, any advice, any feedback’ because that’s the first thing I always ask no matter who watched the match, I want feedback because it’s always good to get everyone’s opinions on that. He said ‘OK, I think you need to get some color in your gear’ and I was like ‘OK, sweet. Now what?’ and he was like ‘Yeah, that’s it. Get on TV.’ And I was like ‘Oh, it’s Christopher Daniels. Come on, give me some secret thing that I need so I can get to the top.'”