TNA star Davey Richards of the Wolves recently spoke with Sports Illustrated Extra Mustard‘s Chris Featherstone.
Richards talks about knee injuries and reeducating wrestlers about training and prevention, his run with Pro Wrestling Guerrilla, why he’s happy with TNA and doesn’t want to go to WWE, and more. You can read a few excerpts below:
Davey Richards talks about breaking in with Pro Wrestling Guerrilla:
“I got my start in [PWG] after they saw me wrestle some smaller promotions in the Los Angeles area. They said I could get on their show if I’d find a way down there, but I was too poor to buy a plane ticket so I spent 36 hours on a Greyhound bus to go down to their show. Then we worked out a deal to where we would split flights or they would fly me down, but not pay me. And at that point, they were still doing me a favor, because I was extremely unheard of, so they cut me a break. So I worked my way up into being a permanent part of the roster, and earning my keep. I owe those guys a lot in giving me my experience in wrestling.”
Richards talks about educating wrestlers about injuries, how Seth Rollins and others share the same injury:
“Every single pro wrestler has been trained the wrong way. I’m not speaking in terms of how they throw punches and bumps or hit the ropes. The biomechanics, the science of sports when it pertains to professional wrestling has not been figured out and understood. If you look at how me and Tyler [Black] and [Matt] Taven and B.J. Whitmer and all these other guys hurt their knee, it’s literally the exact same way. No one is training right, because the science hasn’t been done. We’re just figuring it out. I will remedy it.”
Richards says he will return to TNA before his reported 6-9 month timetable:
“They’re ignorant to it, but it’s understandable because that has typically been the time that people are out, 6-9 months. I’m changing all of that; I’m not everyone else. The day before I had surgery, I was able to do 500 squats, and [now I am] three weeks post-op and I worked out twice today. I can walk, I can go up and down the stairs. Massive, massive acceleration rate. It all just comes down to science, and that is one thing in wrestling that I’d like to focus on more going forward. There is a side of wrestling where I’d really like to train people because I can kinda fuse my love for wrestling with science to basically just build better athletes.”
Davey Richards explains why he’s not interested in signing with WWE as a wrestler:
“I just don’t have any interest in going to WWE as a wrestler, just because it’s not congruent with my schedule. I want to finish school, I have a job outside of wrestling that I really like, and I really don’t like traveling; that’s why I stopped going to Japan. To me, to just quit everything and move [to Florida] just doesn’t work for me. I operate best when I do my wrestling thing and then come home and do my real life thing.”
