Impact Wrestling announcer Josh Mathews recently spoke with the Irish Mirror and below are some interview highlights:
Current role on Impact:
“I’ve been a straight wrestling play-by-play announcer for twelve years,” Mathews told the Irish Mirror in an exclusive interview to promote the Total Access TNA Wrestling app. “There was a very brief time a few years ago when I ‘turned heel’… It lasted all of about a minute! It was pushed back because of politics and different things back stage, but here I’m allowed to go that direction. I can push the envelope here. I can go to places that maybe haven’t been visited in this role… I’m not always going to just like the heels and hate the babyfaces but there’s an opportunity for me to tell you who I like and who I don’t like without being worried about being screamed at through a headset to say ‘the right thing’. It’s refreshing after thirteen years in this World.”
His “best play-by-play commentator in the world” comment:
“It’s hilarious to me that I said ‘I think I’m the greatest wrestling announcer in the World today’ and a lot of other big statements but people took that one bit out and focused on it. But I’m not going to back down. I do think I’m the best, and anyone who is in this World should think they are the best!”
Separating from his wrestling personality:
“It [being a heel announcer] is a difficult thing to get right and you have to walk a fine line but I think it can work really well. For a long time I struggled with the idea of ‘why can’t I be a wrestling personality for 5 hours a week on television and then tweet about my own personal interests and hobbies the rest of the time?’ I think people just want me to be the television character all the time and it’s weird because people say ‘I’m just me but turned up,’ but for some people it’s not always the case. If you see Matt Damon walking down the street you want him to be Jason Bourne but you can understand that he’s not. With wrestlers, there are certain people, like a CM Punk or John Cena, who are just like they are on TV but a lot of people are very different. It’s a strange genre. The great thing about what I’m doing is that I just get to be me. I know I’m going to make some people mad but it doesn’t affect me. It won’t affect what I do either, in or out of wrestling.”
Nick was born and raised in Detroit, Michigan, and lived there until the age of 18, when he decided to pack his flack jacket and move to New York City.
