{"id":114384,"date":"2022-07-04T12:00:18","date_gmt":"2022-07-04T16:00:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/?p=114384"},"modified":"2022-07-04T09:40:06","modified_gmt":"2022-07-04T13:40:06","slug":"interview-jake-crist","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/2022\/07\/04\/interview-jake-crist\/","title":{"rendered":"BSCS: Jake Crist Comments on Setting IWA-MS Titles on Fire"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\u201cI wrestle every day like it\u2019s my last.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Will Gray from <a href=\"https:\/\/podcasts.apple.com\/us\/podcast\/botched-spots-and-chair-shots\/id1561502956\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Botched Spots and Chair Shots<\/a> got to sit down with former X-Division champion Jake Crist and he did not pull his punches in reference to the business, its fans, or a certain former ECW star. \u201cThe \u2018Born to Die\u2019 Jake Crist, isn\u2019t just a gimmick.\u201d Crist was adamant about his passion for the business, whether it be where he is wrestling, who he is wrestling, or who is watching him wrestle.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Tea and Hot Takes w\/ Former X-Division Champion Jake Crist| Botched Spots and Chair Shots | S2:E33\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/IZD3egbxe5U?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<h3>Wrestling East Coast vs. West Coast<\/h3>\n<p>\u201cThe west coast is the best coast, down South they like to be heckled, but the east coast is the worst coast.\u201d The reason for this objectification stems from his early days in the business. The east coast brand of wrestling especially the hardcore antics of Extreme Championship Wrestling, left a certain taste in the mouths of wrestling fans. Crist would go on to say that \u201con the East coast where I cut my teeth in the business, in <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/2022\/06\/28\/combat-zone-wrestling\/\" target=\"_self\">Combat Zone Wrestling<\/a> and the early Ring of Honor days, you could literally set yourself on fire and not get a reaction from the fans.\u201d This desensitization came from the hard-hitting antics of Rob<br \/>\nVan Damm, Tajiri, Rhyno, and Sabu all extreme legends so to speak on the East coast. Because of everything they did then in the late 1990s and according to Crist \u201cthey did a lot of crazy things\u201d the fans on the East coast have a reputation for wanting this same style of wrestling to this day.<\/p>\n<p>With the lavish productions of wrestling on TV and the nature of the product the fans want to see, Will asked about the difference between sports entertainment and pro wrestling or if there is even a difference anymore, Crist laughed and said he felt they had always been synonymous. \u201cEven if you think of the WWE commercials in the 1980\u2019s you would see them call themselves sports entertainers.\u201d Jake would explain that even after his first trips to Japan as a professional he was shocked to see on his visa the word entertainer. \u201cI\u2019ve always said since I was an entertainer.\u201d<\/p>\n<h3>Jake Crist on His Wrestling Style<\/h3>\n<p>Jake Crist prides himself on being a jack of all trades style worker in the ring. He says that he wants to adapt his style to fit in all over the world. \u201cI really do it all. I really do death matches, I do Lucha libre, I do strong style or pure wrestling. I paint with a very wide brush in the world of pro wrestling.\u201d This includes his time with IMPACT Wrestling where he is a former X-Division champion and tag team champion with his brother, Dave Crist. When asked what it was like to get the call that he was the guy for the X-Division and he was getting the strap, he said he was in shock. At that point in Impact Wrestling, the X-division was the \u201cworking man\u2019s division\u201d the people who were the hardest workers and would take the next step to put on a great match, and Crist was that guy. He said it was an honor to<br \/>\nbe trusted with that championship when he got it.<\/p>\n<p>Crist strives to be the kind of wrestler fans want to go back and watch. He said during the interview he will still go back and watches Eddie Guerrero\u2019s last matches and he wants to be that person for someone, \u201cYou\u2019re always going to go back and watch your favorite\u2019s last match.\u201d Crist stated.<\/p>\n<h3>Issues With Ian Rotten &amp; Burning the IWA Titles<\/h3>\n<p>The wrestling business has its ups and its downs. Recently Crist had his fair share of those with IWA Midsouth promoter and former ECW star Ian Rotten. The drama dates back months in this saga but Crist explains that Rotten owed him money. \u201cI\u2019m a big believer in you give people second chances, and that\u2019s exactly what I was giving Ian.\u201d Crist thought that he was going to change but Rotten continued to grow distant. \u201cThere were shows where I forfeited my entire pay to make sure the younger guys got paid or got a little extra, so they could get gas or food for the road.\u201d This wasn\u2019t a one-time thing though, Crist<br \/>\nwent on to say that \u201cThere were a few times where I felt bad for him and give him my payday because there were no fans there and I literally felt bad, so I gave him my payday.\u201d Jake would say he was at a position in his life where he didn\u2019t need it as much, but now fast forward \u201ctimes are hard for anyone and everyone, he owed me my house payment, literally my house payment, so I mean I had to do what I had to do.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Jake went on to say that it would take him about a month to finally get a response from Rotten saying that he ghosted him. He then went to Twitter and made a Twitter post about the transgressions between himself and Ian, and still nothing. \u201cOnce he backpedaled and took that away from the relationship he and I had, I knew he was going to continue to give me the runaround.&#8221; This led Crist to take matters into his own hands and on June 13 of this year Jake posted a video on his Twitter page saying since Rotten had burnt this bridge, Crist had some burning of his own to do and proceeded to light the IWA Midsouth World Heavyweight and Jr. Heavyweight titles on fire live on camera.<\/p>\n<p>Although Jake Crist is a madman who will light your titles on fire if crossed, he is a passionate worker who wants nothing but the best for the business and the people coming up in it.<\/p>\n<p><em>Stay tuned to the\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/\" target=\"_self\">Last Word on Pro Wrestling<\/a> 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.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u201cI wrestle every day like it\u2019s my last.\u201d Will Gray from Botched Spots and Chair Shots got to sit down with former X-Division champion Jake Crist and he did not pull his punches in reference to the business, its fans, or a certain former ECW star. \u201cThe \u2018Born to Die\u2019 Jake Crist, isn\u2019t just a [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4168,"featured_media":99835,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7,6,28,2192],"tags":[855],"class_list":["post-114384","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-impact","category-north-america","category-podcasts","category-wrestling","tag-jake-crist"],"modified_by":"Alex Richards, LWOF Editor","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/114384","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4168"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=114384"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/114384\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/99835"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=114384"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=114384"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=114384"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}