Imagine building your career to the pinnacle of being at the top, for 13 years fighting and clawing your way to the peak of the business you are in and then in a flash, you come crashing down. This is what happened to Josh Alexander. For 13 years, he built a resume that was unrivaled in the professional wrestling world and had finally earned his shot at IMPACT Wrestling’s Bound for Glory pay-per-view and the IMPACT World Championship. In this interview, we sit down with Josh Alexander for an interview ahead of Slammiversary.
Josh Alexander Interview Leading to Slammiversary
“The entirety of the pandemic and the opening of the forbidden door, and the Kenny Omegas and the Christian Cages, or whoever else came in and out, and me taking exception to that because the door only swung one direction, I kind of wanted to take the championship back to represent our locker room.”
Will Gray of Botched Spots and Chair Shots got to sit down with Josh Alexander for an interview ahead of Slammiversary and defending the IMPACT World Championship against Eric Young. The conversation didn’t start there; it started at Bound for Glory. Up until that night, there had been an 8-year drought in successful cash-ins on the option C clause of the X-Division Champion which gives the champion a chance to relinquish the title in exchange for an IMPACT world title opportunity.
“I wanted to kind of bet on myself and do that to represent everybody here, the locker room, the crew, I think we have the best wrestlers on the planet on our roster.” With that mentality, Josh Alexander enacted option C and was successful in winning the IMPACT world title. This is when Moose came in claiming his “Call Your Shot” battle royal victory from earlier in the night and stealing the title right out of Alexander’s hands.
When asked about that night and the buildup over almost a year since it happened, Alexander said it was, “the best way it could have possibly happened.” The almost year-long run gave Josh Alexander a chance to show the wrestling world why he was the walking weapon. Alexander tells the host that he had to claw and fight his way through monsters like Minoru Suzuki, Jonah, and Charlie Haas. “It gave the fans a way to get to know me beyond just my in-ring style.”
Then, at Rebellion, he got his chance at Moose to reclaim the title and was victorious. After 14 years in the business, he got the title reign he had fought so hard to deserve. Now with the 20th anniversary of IMPACT wrestling and Slammiversary, he is staring down the barrel at Eric Young, the leader of Violent by Design and a fellow triple crown IMPACT champion.
https://youtu.be/ks7U687vhW4
Alexander told Gray, “I do not prepare for any match differently. I can’t work any harder than I already do.” The match against Eric Young will be a classic. Both men have held and lost the title on the biggest stages and with Young being forced to relinquish the title due to injury well over a year ago, he too has something to prove ahead of this main event matchup.
“It’s not just Eric, he has Violent by Design,” said Alexander about Young having the numbers advantage. When you are at such a disadvantage, Alexander told Gray you have to, “use your instincts as a pro wrestler” and be able to call it in the ring when you never know what might be coming. Alexander says he wants to go down as one of the greats, like AJ Styles, Samoa Joe, or Kurt Angle, to hold the IMPACT world title.
When asked about the importance of defending the title in Nashville and on the 20th anniversary, Alexander smiled and said “I started my run in IMPACT as a fan like everyone else at 15 years old… the X-Division is what I think, what got me inspired to be a pro wrestler myself.”
Alexander remembers Kurt Angle’s debut when he attacked Samoa Joe and Joe rose from behind Angle with the crimson mask as Angle addressed the camera. “I popped, I was like, LET’S GO!” Alexander said. This and his title opportunity and reclaiming the gold were his personal favorite IMPACT moments of the last 20 years.
“It seems kind of weird saying that now as the face of the company and their champion. It almost feels fabricated, but it’s the honest to God truth.” Alexander told Gray about the last year and the climb back on top of the IMPACT world and now defending the gold in the city that started it all 20 years later.
Stay tuned to the Last Word on Pro Wrestling for more on this and other stories from around the world of wrestling, as they develop. You can always count on LWOPW to be on top of the major news in the wrestling world, as well as to provide you with analysis, previews, videos, interviews, and editorials on the wrestling world. IMPACT Wrestling Slammiversary will air live on pay-per-view and via FITE.tv.
