The Watch List takes a look at what matches you should be watching and they come recommended by today’s professional wrestling stars.
WrestleZone recently spoke with Billie Starkz, who ranked #52 on this year’s PWI Women’s 150 list. When reflecting on her last year in wrestling, the young “Space Jesus” pinpointed a couple matches she felt really proud of.
“Probably me and Nick Wayne from earlier this year,” she said. “I wrestled him on his birthday, and leading up to it, we were super, super excited. I feel like I’ve just grown a super great connection with him. He’s become one of my best friends through wrestling, and he deals with a lot of the same things I do, of being like a kid in wrestling and the judgment you get, even though you’re trying to do great things, people always have something critical to say. But when we got to wrestle the day before I was wrestling Ruby Soho, which was another fantastic match. I was super happy with it. But I traveled from Iowa all the way to New Jersey in a car [to wrestle Wayne].”
Starkz battled the future AEW star on July 10th at JCW’s The Great American Birthday Bash. After about a 12-hour drive to New Jersey, Starkz recalled arriving, confident the two could recapture the magic in their second-ever singles match against each other. “It was crazy. But I showed up and I feel like Nick was stressed because I literally got there right before doors opened and we had all these crazy ideas and he was like, ‘Are you sure we want to do this? We didn’t practice this.'”
“I was like, Nick, ‘we got this. I know you, you know me.’ That was like our second match that we had because we wrestled on the west coast at one point and now we finally got to wrestle again. We improved so much since then. I truly feel like it was one of my best matches and I had so much fun doing it and it just meant a lot to me. So that’s definitely one of my callbacks. Shout out Nick-y Wayne.”
At 17-years-old, Nick Wayne is another young performer like Starkz, navigating the world of professional wrestling. Billie continued on to explain that Wayne has helped her outside of the ring as well, specifically with her upcoming debut in Japan.
“I was really talking about Nick with like the Japan trip stuff [to TJPW] because he went with GCW for all that jazz. And I was like, ‘What did you think?’ He was like, ‘You’re going to have a blast. You’re going to fit in and you’re going to love it.’ He was giving me little tips.”
In addition, GCW owner Brett Lauderdale lent the young star some helpful information as well as she eyes her international trip. “I also reached out to Brett Lauderdale because he organized that [GCW] whole trip. And I was like, ‘Hey, I heard you had this little QR code thing, so I don’t have to carry around a bunch of paperwork. What’s that QR thing that you had?’ Because everybody was jealous of him when they went to the airport and he just had to pull out his phone and scan this. Everybody else is like, ‘Here’s my papers, here’s my papers.'”
Check out some free-to-watch full-length matches from Billie Starkz’s career, including the aforementioned match against Ruby Soho, a bout with current IMPACT Knockouts Champion, Jordynne Grace, and more
Billie Starkz vs Ruby Soho
REVOLVER: Cage Of Horrors — July 9, 2022Billie Starkz vs Jordynne Grace
F1RST Wrestling: Wrestlepalooza XVIII — October 1, 2021
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