Insight with Chris Van Vliet - Ace Austin on winning the X Division title, comparisons to AJ Styles, wanting to become the youngest Impact World Champion

Episode Date: April 13, 2021

Ace Austin is a professional wrestler signed to IMPACT Wrestling where he is the current X Division Champion. He chats with Chris Van Vliet about how he got into wrestling, his workout routine, the difference between his first X Division Title run and his current one, the comparisons to AJ Styles, his goal to be the youngest Impact World Champion, wrestling Matt Cardona in his debut match and much more!If you enjoyed this episode, could I ask you to please consider leaving a short review on Apple Podcast/iTunes? It takes less than a minute and makes a huge difference in helping to spread the word about the show and also to convince some hard-to-get guests.  For more information about Chris and INSIGHT go to https://chrisvanvliet.com  Follow CVV on social media: Instagram: instagram.com/ChrisVanVliet Twitter:twitter.com/ChrisVanVliet Facebook:facebook.com/ChrisVanVliet YouTube: youtube.com/ChrisVanVliet Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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So good to have Ace Austin, the current X Division champ with us. Take a screenshot. Let us know that you're listening. Tag me. I'm at Chris Van Fleet. Tag Ace, he is at the underscore Ace underscore Austin. And if you haven't yet, make sure to hit subscribe or follow wherever you're listening right now. And thank you for those reviews that keep coming in.

Dominic 29 left this review on Apple Podcast that says, Longtime fan of CVV. I've been a fan going back to your days on the news in Cleveland. Man, we're going way back with that one. Always entertaining, great interesting interviews. Keep up the great work, man. looking forward to all your interviews. Also took your advice.

Chris is the man. Well, no, sir. You are the man, Dominic. I appreciate you taking the time to leave a review, and I miss Cleveland. Live there for five years. Those were five great years. And I'm still a huge Browns fan.

And I can't wait for their season this year. Oh, they looked so good last year. Can't wait for their season. So thank you so much for taking the time to leave a review. And I can't wait to share this conversation with you. So let's just dive right into this. Please welcome. Inevitable, Ace Austin. There he is, Ace Austin, ladies and gentlemen.

What a setup you have behind you here. It's like we're in a nightclub. We got an original Jeff Hardy right here, Jeff Hardy painting. Wow. Got this really sweet thing I got from Five Below. It lights up. It's a skeleton. From I love Five Below.

Oh, yeah. That's why I bought it. It lights up purple. Above that, my graduation, or my rookie of the year certificate, from the Wild Samoans where I trained. Yeah. Of course, my impact wrestling plaques.

Match of the year, X Division Star of the year. You know, I have a mantle over here with the X-Division title in the Super X-Cup, too. What, so when you're not the X-Division champion, what goes in that spot? Whatever other championship I have.

I've been a champion in Mexico for DTU for since 2018. And you're still the champion there? I'm still the champion. I still have. So you're, as we sit here right now, you're currently the X-Division champion on your second reign. Does this rain feel different or better, worse than the first one? It definitely does feel different.

It feels like I've been telling this full circle story about that match at sacrifice, because it was really a total coming around full circle of my impact restaurant. wrestling career and I am seeing it as that next launching point into making up for what I consider my greatest failures back then. So like beginning of my career, I was undefeated for four months. Yeah. JP re-debues and just like smokes me. If you have a rematch a week later, it's very competitive, but he taps me out in the end. So like, TjP totally just upset me at the very beginning.

And then we never came back around to that match. Four months later, eight months into my impact career, bound for glory happens. I win the X Division Championship. My career takes off. I dye my hair purple. And then, yeah, and everything went great from there. I had an incredible run as X Division Champion. As soon as that ended, I went into the world title picture, slam anniversary at main event,

huge deal. and that's what I consider my greatest career failure was that moment this anniversary, that was mine. And then when that didn't happen, it was like, things just kind of rolled right into the tag title thing, leading in the Bound for Glory. And then after Bound for Glory, it was kind of just like a stalemate for a while.

I wasn't sure what was going to happen. And then all of a sudden, it came back around full circle to the Exhibition, title picture, TjP was the champion. So it was like the one person I couldn't beat at the beginning, the one thing that kicked off my career, and it all came full circle to sacrifice where last year I made evented at X Division Champion against the world champion. So it was like this whole, this big thing sacrifice was.

So becoming a division champion again, I feel like it's the launching point into, you know, making up for that lost time. I feel like we've zoomed out here and like seen an entire like overlook. We've seen your entire impact wrestling career and everything you just said there. I love this. As we look at it, does this mean TJP is your arch nemesis in impact wrestling? I guess he was. Yeah.

I think, well, I guess he is. Yeah, I can't say it was. He currently is. He has to be. Yeah, I would think so. So as being, you know, your next division champion, so many incredible wrestlers have held that champion. aside from you, of course, who do you think is the best X-Division champion?

Probably AJ. It's a pretty A-J, right? AJ, Joe, was great, of course. Amazing Reds. He's the only, Amazing Reds the only one that beat me in the youngest category for X-Division champion. He was just a year older than me when he became an year younger than me when he became an exhibition champion. So I'm the second

being the ex-station champion. My amazing red. But when you were in that title picture for the world title, for the Impact Wrestling World Championship, if you won, you would have been the youngest champion of all time. Yeah, but that's not over yet.

Do you have the date in mind? Do you know the date? I don't know the date, but I know it's August. I know that is when I will no longer technically. technically be, but even after August, if I get it while I'm 24, I'll still have an argument for youngest world champion.

Well, you would be the youngest man to hold the championship. Yeah. And yeah, absolutely. Because right now, you know, Tessa has the record. I don't know the exact, but it's like 24 and a half, basically. Yeah, 24 and a half. Okay. So you're saying you've got five-ish months to make history.

Is that something that's like on your goal list for 2021? I haven't taken my eyes off the world titles since the anniversary, since all that happened. And when I ended up back in the X-Division picture, I can't forget about option C. I know that that is a back pocket like something that I have in the tank. I knew that becoming X-Division champion meant that there was a sure-fire way. to possibly make that happen. This is so true. You could cash it in for a title shot.

And after Rebellion, who knows what that might mean. Man. I want to talk about the hair. You mentioned the purple hair. For all the colors, you could dye your hair. Why was it purple? Well, purple is my favorite color. It's always been my favorite color.

So, I just see, you know, see my way to go. And red was way too on the nose. A lot of people do red. Red is the most common color in pro wrestling. Blue still wouldn't have really been as

cool. I think that purple was just more of a unique route. And it was just the way to color. And purple was the color of most of my gear and stuff at the time too. So how does this work when you dye your hair purple? Do you go to the drugstore and buy some dye? Do you go to see a hairdresser and go, all right, we're doing purple today.

Well, when I was living with Sammy, Jess used to do it. Jess or Sammy used to dye my hair for me. But now my girlfriend does it. Sammy Callahan was dyeing your hair. Yeah. Yeah, very aggressively, as you could imagine. Well, he doesn't do anything any other way. That's how he does things.

You know, when you're growing up and your real name is Austin, do you feel like you're kind of on a path to one day become a pro wrestler? At what age do you realize? My name's Austin. One of the greatest wrestlers of all time is also named Austin.

Yeah. I mean, well, besides that connection in itself, I just knew that I wanted to be a wrestler from the time that I was like four. My family was wrestling fans. before me and my mom had taken us to some live shows when we were like babies, like real, real young. So I don't really have any memories of those,

but my first memories kind of started coming in when I was about four. So that's kind of when I remember starting to that. Is that when you first realized, oh my gosh, Stone Cold Steve, Austin, that's my name. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. It was very, and there were a lot of kids, like, in my school and like where I grew up, up there were a lot of Austin's too. It's a common name thing. Did you, does your mom like, do you know why you're, why you were called Austin?

I don't. Actually, funny enough, my name was almost Jericho. Your first name was going to be Jericho? Yeah, my mom almost named me Jericho. What? That would have been, that would have been insane, too. If your mom's going to name you Jericho and then ends up naming you Austin, like you were going to be named after a wrestler, it sounds like.

It sounds like, I don't think that's what she had in mind, but that's what it is. It was destiny. Like the star, that's the story in my career. Star is just a line. Yeah. So you're growing, you know, you're born in 1997, right? Yes. So you start watching wrestling.

I guess it's technically the ruthless aggression error where you really start to become a big time fan. So who were the guys? 2001-ish, something like that. Okay, so the end of the attitude era then. Yeah. So who were the people you're really looking up to at that time? Oh, so, well, so like that first memory that I was talking about involved Sean Michaels.

So, like, that was, of course, like, one of the first things that stood out to me and really spoke to me. I loved Sean. I, when I started watching, like, you know, we always had, like, Comcast on-demand, stuff like that. So I was always looking up, like, old. anything old WWE that I'd find on Comcast and of course, like, the DVDs and stuff for Gave for Christmas. I love Ultimate Warrior. Just like a huge, just that energy.

I just like, he was so connected to that. I love Warrior. And then Rob Van Dam was another one, like just with ease could just do, the way that, specifically the way that he jumped to the top rope was something that I always, in my head was like, it's just like no matter where he is in the match, no matter how exhausted or blown up, he's got to be, he can just in one fell swoop hop to the top rope, just like that. So that was another one. And of course, Jeff Hardy. I mean, Jeff Hardy was probably the, the big one where it was like somebody that I could, I was always much like, I was always very short. I didn't hit a

gross spurt until like high school. So like I always considered myself something of a misfit. I dressed in the most eccentric way I possibly could when I was younger, I used to get these like arm sleeves from my topic and I'd wear these vests over my T-shirts for no reason. I dressed ridiculously. It was really just like,

just an outspoken character that I wanted to be. So like Jeff Hardy was a huge connection for me of love, you know, I wasn't sure if I would ever be able to be one of those those cookie cutter wrestling guys. So like Jeff Hardy was like, maybe I don't have to be. And now I feel like I've been able to blow into the two.

I have a very alternative look, but I have the body of a professional wrestler. You know, so I really, yeah, that was. You know, you mentioned AJ before, and there's been a lot of comparisons between you and AJ, certainly in the X division. When did you first become aware of AJ Styles? Definitely aware of like his presence, of course, when I was a little younger. but when I started watching wrestling, I didn't really know the difference between, like, companies, the brands.

So, like, whenever I saw wrestling content, I kind of just consumed it as wrestling content. I didn't really make a distinction. So growing up, there wasn't, like, a lot of kids that were wrestling fans. So I pretty much was only exposed to WWE stuff for most of my life. And then I saw an occasional TNA thing here and there when me and my brother kind of came across it,

but we never knew, we never like kept up with the weekly episodes of TN. So it wasn't until I got much older that, and of course, you know, social media and video circulating on the internet, that like I was able to really kind of dive into that a little bit. And then it all pretty much changed when I turned 17 and I started training. And that's when I started surrounding myself with great, you know, wrestling minds on the Indies. And these people would help me about the, these Indies that I had no idea about my whole life.

I didn't know the concept of the Indies. So like learning about that and then diving into the history of like TNA and all this stuff, it's just like insane. So, so, so that was definitely, when I started training, here's what I'll say. Sum that up. When I started training, I started training with like WWE in mind. That's all I really knew. I went to the Wild Samoans for training because it was like, go here,

opportunity with WWE, boom, boom, boom. That's how it's going to work, right? The more time I spent outside of the Samoans and in this independent scene, the more that my goals changed, the more that I realized that there was so much more out there besides the WWE. And then when these comparisons to AJ started happening and I started happening and I really looking at AJ's career, that became something that I wanted to almost emulate. He achieved so much before he settled into that SVVB spot.

So my goal is completely changed. I wanted to kind of discover who I was and what wrestling meant to me before I'm into what's considered the end. Yeah, being compared to AJ Stiles as like being a quarterback. and people going, you know, you kind of play like Tom Brady, you kind of play like Joe Montana. You kind of play like Peyton Manning. Like it's a massive comparison. Yeah.

Yeah. Going into the Slammiversary, they, uh, Eric, the Eric Tompkins, the head production guy, he showed me this. He showed me this. Well, that's what we were here. You're hearing your cat. Yeah. She's running around like crazy right now.

we he showed me this clip that he merged of a.J. doing this dive very similar to the Fosbury flop that I do. And it was like AJ leaps and starts twisting and it just morphs into the footage of me twisting over the rope and hitting this crazy dive. And like when he showed to me, it was just like, oh man, that's wow. Cool. So cool. I want to talk about this. Jeff Hardy art behind you. How did you get this?

Oh, there's a just impact as a bunch of them, you know. Oh, really? Yeah. It's not like you commissioned Jeff Hardy to paint this for you. No, no, no, no. It was just, I'm not really sure when it was painted. Okay. I thought you were like, oh, you know, Jeff Hardy came to a show and I was like,

Jeff, could you make this art for me? I made the right friends. Yeah, well, apparently, yeah. I got to see, I did get to, I got to see Jeff Hardy live right before I started training. So I started training in May of 2014, May 27th. And then so back in January of 2014, my mom worked at a radio station growing up. So she always got these like extra, you know, ticket, giveaway tickets that either didn't get claimed or like maybe the contests got pushed or whatever. So like these, she would always end up with these tickets to live WWE shows or occasionally these TNA shows when they were in the air.

and we got to go to one one time at the Sovereign Performing Arts Center in Redding in January 2014, I wore all of the Jeff Hardy gear that I owned and I just anything I could find and then when we got there we hit the merch table and I got more stuff to just put it on and then when Jeff Hardy came out I stood on top of my chair in the auditorium

and was like losing it and he like pointed at me because I was like above the sea of people. So that was really cool. My mom caught it like on our phone. So that was like a really cool thing. And then we got to go in the ring afterward and take a picture with him. And I was wearing purple skinny jeans.

And he said he liked my pants. And that might have been why purple, that might even why purple became my favorite color, honestly. Maybe that's what, maybe that's the connection I just made. Maybe that's funny. I always remember it impact wrestling shows how you had the opportunity afterwards

to go in the ring and take a photo with the wrestlers. Like, that is the most obscene idea to, you know, think you could do that at a WWE show. But at a TNN. Show, like, I have a photo of me and AJ Styles in the ring. I'm like, that's my blowing. Huge, yeah, for 20 bucks, you know. Yeah, no, it's a, yeah. I love that there's like that, I don't know, you feel like you're part of the show when you do something like that.

Oh, yeah. And I had never felt a ring at that point. So, like, in my head, I was like, oh, I'm going to walk up these steps and I'm going to jump in this ring like I'm already a wrestler and they're gonna you know somebody's gonna mentor me like in my head karate kid scenario of like oh somebody's gonna see me and just be like you must be trained but uh but as soon as i stepped on the canvas I was it was like nothing I'd ever fell before I was like I almost lost my balance so it was totally a fail I was like this isn't good but this is pretty crazy that your first ring that you ever stepped foot in was an impact wrestling ring

actually I never thought about it like that but yeah You're right. Talk about it coming full circle again. Yeah. Wow. Yeah. Wow. So that was January, 2014.

May I started training. And then September. So this is all the same year. September 2014, Samoans were doing ring crew for a T&A taping in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania at the Sands Casino. So I went as a student now for a few months to do this. ring crew. I'm helping set up.

It was the first time I'd seen like the backstage interview set. Jeremy Borash was like, you know, cut in intro promos for like the tapings that they were doing. And it was just like crazy to see all this. I saw like, you know, the match card and like, just the crew's crazy. And then I was helping take tables out to put under the ring for for gimmick matches later.

And I saw Jeff and Matt show up and like sit down in the back. And I was like, I got to talk to him. So I went over and I, you know, said hello. And then I just asked him some advice on like what to wear in my ears when I wrestle. Because like I had these plugs just like him at the time, not as big as his. I was like, you know, what are you wearing your ears? What should I, what should I look into doing?

And then we just had a conversation about tattoos and whatnot. Man, that is so cool. Yeah, all in the same year. So that was such a. Just fast track, right? Just, you know. And then if we fast forward from there, how long after that did you make your debut?

Just wrestling debut. So, yep, so that was September 2014. Then April 2015 was when I debuted. April 4th, 2015, I believe it. So almost a full year of training with the Wild Samoans. Yeah, and that was almost, that was pretty much mandatory because in Pennsylvania, the commission rules were that.

I couldn't, wasn't allowed to perform on a show until I was 18. Hmm. Like Pennsylvania law, you know, with the athletic admission. So, so I didn't have a choice. I was like, I, they told me that I was ready for matches in like four months of training because I went so hard at it. So I was just doing training matches for the next, you know, however many months. consistently every week until April 2015

when I could finally do something. And then it wasn't long after that before I was like doing a lot of stuff. I mean, my first, by my 10th match, it's strange that it was eight months into my impact wrestling career, I became Exhibition Champion. Eight months in my pro wrestling career is when I ended up at CZW for the Doja Wars program.

And that's what really, opened up the door to like indie wrestling for me. So would you say that the like the dream match for you would be Jeff Hardy? Yeah, probably. Definitely Jeff Hardy. One of them was Robin Dam for sure. I'm, of course, disappointed that never happened with impact. But there's always a chance.

Did you have a point? I mean, Rob Van Damned spent a bunch of time in impact. Do you have a point where you were able to like go, hey, RVD, like, you meant so much to me growing up. actually when we did one of the tapings when we did one of like the like ECW kind of reunion hardcore one of those like sorts of

theme tapings in the in the 2300 arena in Philly we went out afterwards for like cheese sticks and like RVD bought like me and like three other people that were just like in this hanging out these like cheese sticks afterwards so that was like really cool

yeah you got to talk a little bit about that kind of stuff. Are you still working at Hot Topic? The end of March, the end of this month will be 10 years. And it's like, the whole theme of this interview is like coming full circle. It's so interesting that now Hot Topic is this place where you can buy wrestling attire. And I had always said from the time that I got a job at Hot Topic and I was 14 years old, my bosses were always very supportive of the wrestling dream the idea

Hot Topics always been very supportive of like independent artists and people looking to explore, you know, those kinds of avenues. So my one boss, his name was Stephen. He used to be a backyard wrestler when he was in high school. And he was friends with, he backyard wrestled with G Raver, who then became an indie wrestler. And my boss never did. So like he had that kind of like, you know,

in the back of his mind. And then when he met me, when he became the manager, we had this really great relationship. We talked about wrestling all the time. And like I said, he was the reason that I've stayed with the company for so long, honestly, because he made sure that unconditionally I would have the time off that I needed.

It made me choose between wrestling or work. And that's why I stayed with the company for so long. The day that they tell me that I can't go to a booking because I need to work shift is let me leave. You know, they've never done it to me. So it's always, been like we work with each other. I make sure they know my commitments. And if something comes up, they are more than welcome to help me schedule around it. And I get a great discount. And it's just a

great team part of. Yeah. And that's like I like to shop there. I like to get stuff from there. So like it's just a great gig to have. But that full circle thing being when I was that young, I used to talk to my boss, Stephen. I used to say that like I one day, my face is. going to be up on that wall because I would see some of my favorite wrestlers on those t-shirts up on the wall and I was like I started here my face is going to be up there one day and it's crazy to think that that could potentially happen while I'm still employed with the company yeah that's wild so obviously an indie wrestling schedule can sometimes kind of be all over the place what happens if you're scheduled for a shift at hot topic and then you get a booking at the last minute

I just text my manager and I let them know that I have to be somewhere on that day and they'll call another associate to cover the shift, whoever wants some extra hour. Oh, yeah. I mean, my first job was in retail. I worked at them all and I knew that like when I signed on for that job, I had to work at least one weekend day every single week. That is obviously not possible when you're in any wrestler. No, not at all. But that's definitely a hiring requirement now. When they hire new people, they tell them, like, you have to work at least, like, one of these days on the weekends.

But I get to be an exception to that. This is great. Yeah. How many Bullet Club shirts do you sell every day? Well, depending on how many we have in stock, like, the stock is always changing which shirts are popular. But they usually sell out pretty quick, and then we won't see another batch for a while until, you know, the next whatever thing is happening in wrestling to push that. you know. Like isn't that one of Hot Topics most popular shirts, bar none?

Possibly. I don't really do a lot of like, so like since I've moved to Ohio and my schedule's been even crazier, they hired me on to do a lot of like kind of extra curricular sort of work. So I don't really have to deal with like a lot of sales as much anymore. I do a lot of like shipment stocking like backroom sort of. of, you know, just coverage kind of things. But anytime people come in with wrestling shirts on or looking for wrestling stuff,

more often than not, they recognize me these days. This is great. So between working at Hot Topic, between wrestling for impact wrestling, between, you know, getting jacked in the gym and eating around that, I don't feel like you probably have very much free time. like that's something that I've spent ever since like even before I started wrestling I've always been really I've spread myself real thin

because I like I don't like I don't want to waste time I just like to I'm in it for the experiences like of life as you know strangely as that might sound I'm just like I just want to see what what stuff's all about like before I could become I knew I've always knew that I wanted to be a wrestler, but before I could become a wrestler, I spent as much of my time as possible exploring artistic avenues. Like, I spent a little bit of time doing organized sports, but I just wasn't really like my forte. So then I switched into like a lot of music stuff.

So I got really deep into like not just instruments and like singing, but also like music theory. I took any kind of music theory classes, music history classes, like any kind of music related classes I could find. They had an intro guitar class, so I learned how to play the guitar a little bit. And then I started doing musicals and just drama club acting, skateboarding, parkour, video production, graphic production. I printed screen printed T-shirts in my high school for like three years. So I just, anything I could just get my hands on to like just give me some kind of, I don't know, It's just like experience that might help me in the future with wrestling potentially.

And then as soon as I turned 17 and I was able to start, that's when I started. And I dedicated all of my time to that. So I've always found a lot of activities to fill my time. And wrestling is like the ultimate version of that. Like just this past week that I've had even is like I flew to an indie show. I had to fly for my indie show straight to Nashville for tapings. I had to, you know, get tested, make sure everything was cool. and then go through tapings.

And then I had to come home real late last night. Then today I got to jump in the car with Fulton. We're going to go do an indie show. We come home. We have another indie show tomorrow in Michigan. And then we come home. And then I got to jump on a plane Sunday to North Carolina for an indie and then come home. This podcast is sponsored by BetterHelp.

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your first month. Just go to BetterHelp.com slash Insight. That's BetterHelphelp.com slash insight. I feel like your look is heavily inspired by music and musicians. So who are some of the bands that you really got into? Well, Guns and Roses is my favorite, bar none. I grew up with a very deep appreciation for Guns and Roses. It was definitely a lot of my family. I'm a team with it.

And that's just that kind of like, I just never get sick. I never skip a song. But yeah, so it was like, I got a lot of really that, like, different experiences in music from different parts of my family. Like, my brother Mark was very, you know, classic rock and like a lot of foundational kinds of music

taught me a lot about that. My sister was like, of course, a lot more punky and grungy and like showed me a lot of that side. My mom, country music. So, like, it was just so many different. different end of the spectrum. When I was young, I actually went with my mom every Tuesday to this club where they did line dancing. Every time I'd throw on some cowboy boots in a cowboy hat and a white pink top and some blue jeans. And we go line dancing at this at this club called

S-Kickers. Yeah. I don't know if I can picture you line dancing. It was quite something. I'll tell you all the girls, all the girls thought I was the cutest thing they'd ever seen because I was this boy with my red cowboy boots running around the dance floor. So yeah, and then as I grew up, like my friends, you know, would open me up to more modern stuff

and then working at Hot Topic, of course, just like floodgates opened so many different things. Like I feel like if you sat next to a stranger on an airplane and they didn't know what you did for a living and they saw the purple hair and they saw, you know, the plugs. They might think you're like the lead singer of a punk band. Yeah, definitely possible. But then if they're listening, you know, if they hear what's coming through my earbuds,

they're going to hear it go from show tunes to heavy metal to maybe a rap song or two. I love show teams. I work out to show teams. Like stuff gets me amped. Like what? Hamilton is so inspirational that it just makes me feel like I have to do things. Well, that actually makes a lot of sense. Yeah. Rent.

Rent is actually one of the things that helped keep me awake on the roads by myself a lot. Listening to Rent and singing rent. What else? I have Sweeney Todd. I've Sweeney Todd on my phone too. I have to skip some of those songs, though, because they're really quiet. And it's like they're really long. So, like, that's not good for working out.

But, yeah, there are lots of great ones. What's the go-to rent song for you? Tango Maureen. We're going, this is a deep cut. You know, you mentioned the T-shirts at Hot Topic. And I was actually there in Vegas when you debuted the Austin 316 shirt. And I went, oh, so what was the idea behind making your own, an Ace Austin 316 shirt?

I think it was like, you know, it was one of those buzz things. I was in the middle of like a really, you know, hot run. And we had a lot of great stuff going on and we had a lot of great stuff planned for the future. So the Austin 316 shirt kind of just was like an idea that somebody threw out.

They said, that's great. Sammy drew up this design that was like, so perfect for it that it was like we have to do this so they wanted to do uh yeah it was it was a shock factor thing because because like you know how do how do all these these these hot you know

wrestlers recently how did the t-shirt boom happen you know you you provide a shocking event for the world to be like like whoa that really just happened pro wrestling and then like you brand that on a shirt and that's how you remember Now they're doing it like four minutes after it happened.

Oh, yeah. They have it ready before it even happens. They know, which is genius. But it happened with that. It was like we did the shock factor of the whole bang your wife stuff. And then it was like, let's put this t-shirt out to just be like, no way. This is outrageous. I have to have this shirt.

So that's what happened. Austin 316 says, I just banged your wife. Yeah. Well, Austin 369. It changed to 369 after the initial run. So how long were you wearing the 316 shirt? I think that's the one I wore that for like the first, all the first Vegas run.

Yeah. Because mine said 316, but the girls in the crowd said 369. And then it was like, I was the one that was kind of like, there's going to be some confusion there. If people like are looking for buy the shirt, like,

so we should just run with the 3659. I think it makes more sense anyway. It's funny or anyway for the, the minute. I think we should run with that. So that's kind of, it just shifted to that then. Yeah, and probably, you know, 369, probably not trademarked. 316, I'm guessing it might be.

Maybe. Yeah, maybe. But like this storyline that you had at that time, you were like, kind of like those ladies, man. I just banged your wife. It's actually like the furthest thing from who you are in real life, I feel like. I guess you can say that. Yeah.

especially, you know, in the last, what are we in that, 2021? So in the last like three years or so, especially in the last three years. Like since, you know, since I met my girlfriend now that I've been with for a long time, she's kind of what changed all that. But before that, before that, the gimmick might have been perfect, you know, but not so much after. What did your girlfriend think of the gimmick when you had it? Well, thankfully, not only did my girlfriend, not only was she trying to get into the wrestling business herself, even before we met.

That wasn't like a decision influenced by me or anything. She had those wheels turning before we had met each other. But she was also going to school for a performing arts degree at the University of Alabama. So she was in the acting realm, the theater realm, all of that. So she understood, you know, what happens on cameras in real life. Right. So that was, it wasn't, you know, a no problem scenario, but it was certainly, certainly an understanding we're able to move through this sort of scenario.

A lot of, like, after the first couple of things, a lot of it was like, you just, you don't need to tell me. I just, I don't need to know. I trust you. Do your job. Okay. You know, now that the forbidden door has been open, now that AEW and Impact Wrestling are working together, who are some of the matches that you're hoping you can somehow get? Well, I know that the Twitterverse definitely wants to see me and Sammy Mara.

Yep. And that's a one-on-one that's never happened. We've had one match. We had a triple threat match once in, Rhode Island for XWA. It was me, him and Anthony Henry. So that was really great. And then what else?

I know a lot of people want to see me in Darby, too. Well, I think that that makes sense. You're a skateboarder. Darby's a skateboarder. Yeah. You can have a skateboard match. Oh, we should. Yeah.

Me and Darby actually had a singles at the same place, XWA in Rhode Island once. That was pretty awesome. a long time ago. Pock, for sure. I think he's like an elite level athlete, and I consider myself an elite level athlete as well, and I think that'll be like an ultimate best of strength and speed.

I mean, those are three pretty good ones right there. Yeah, I mean, there's just, there's, there are a lot of options. Never got to work with Wright Phoenix ever, even within back. So in Phoenix, definitely. May I throw one out there? Of course. How about Ace Austin and Kenny Omega? Oh, I think that that match is inevitable.

Oh, inevitable. When did inevitable start to become your thing? I can tell you exactly when it was born. It was born out of my greatest failure. It was born out of the loss at Slammiversary. Heading into Slammiversary, I was so confident. I felt like there was no way that the match couldn't go my. because that's how I'd been my whole career.

I'd been so steadfast, so headstrong that I just made everything happen for myself because I refused to see it happen any other way. And I just made my destiny a reality by speaking it into existence and accepting nothing less. So leading into San Bursary, that's exactly what I thought was going to happen. So when it didn't happen, it was pretty devastating. And when I took some time after that to kind of self-reflect, that's when I, it was either like, do I need to change something or, you know, or did I do anything wrong at all? So that's how I kind of had to answer that question for myself. And I decided that I didn't.

I decided that everything that I am, everything that I was was not what, It was not a failure, regardless of the loss. I felt like it might not have happened at Slammiversary, but I know that it's going to happen. You know, the definition of absolutely going to happen is inevitable. There's no way that it can't happen. And that's how I feel about myself. You know, even if I might be inaccurate about the time,

it's eventually it's going to happen if I want. too. It is inevitable. It is inevitable. Hmm. I like that. And of course, I'm a huge superhero Mark. So, Thanos, you know. So you're more of a Marvel guy than a DC guy?

No, no, definitely more DC. But as far as like the cinematic universe goes, of course, Marvel dominates in that realm. Did you spend last night watching the Snyder cut? I wasn't able to. I was on the road. And I wanted to watch it today, but I didn't have time and I won't have time until Monday.

I mean, it's a big chunk of time that you need to watch this thing. And I, yeah. So I didn't want to just like start it today and then try to finish it on Monday. So I'm just going to. I'm so excited. I've interviewed Zach Snyder numerous times. I'm so excited to watch this film because

he's a genius when it comes to these films. Yeah. I have seen so many, like, you know, social media reviews of it and just like, it sounds like all great things. I even watched a YouTube thing

with Sammy last night about the top 10 improvements or whatever. So, without spoilers, of course. You may have like pound for pound the largest quads in all of wrestling. In fact, you know, maybe

when you're done with the inevitable run, maybe you can just call yourself Quadzilla. What's the hashtag that I have been using? I think it's a quad god. Quad god. Yeah. Did you always have giant legs?

I think so. It wasn't really like, because like I was always much smaller, and I guess my base has always just been a lot wider. But it wasn't really, it didn't rise to prominence until, you know, wrestling, really. Because like, before that, I had. had no reason to be showing off my legs really at all. Yeah, they're hitting, they're hidden in jeans or as you know, some people like to call them leg prisons.

Leg prisons, indeed. So then when I started wrestling, originally I wore, you know, biker shorts. It was my first pair of gear. And then when I started working with CZW, it was, you know, DJ eyed that was like, why don't you wear trunks? And I was like, oh, trunks are weird, you know.

I don't want to wear trugs. And he was like, you have, like these insane legs and you're trying to like hide them essentially. So I tried a pair of trunks on and it was like you look like a pro wrestler and I was like, that's what I want to be, I guess. So then I went with it and now I'm totally comfortable with it.

Now it's like... So you're telling me you don't have like some ridiculous leg day routine? Well, I definitely have in the past. Right now I just have a really well-balanced routine. I've definitely, I've spent the last two years really trying to dial in a lot of aspects of training.

I've always trained really hard in the gym, but I've always felt like I was missing knowledge, and that always really, like, gave me some anxiety. I've always had some kind of gym anxiety. I think what's pushed me to work so hard is that, like, I wasn't sure if I was doing everything I needed to do, so I wanted to make sure that I was always working as hard as I possibly could be.

So then, especially in the last year, I focused a lot more on the diet aspect, because it just changes everything about your result. But growing up, like I said, I spent a lot of time spreading myself thin. So like I was really always on my feet doing something. Musicals, we were always dancing. We're always rehearsing. We're always doing stuff.

And then any time I spent outside of that was practicing parkour or skateboarding, which is all, you know what I mean? It's all leg-based. Yeah. You're always running. You're always pushing with your legs. So like I think that had a lot to do with it. And then when I started working out really seriously, me and my friends,

friend Ben back home, we followed the Rock's Hercules workout when he did the Hercules movie. Yeah. Workout on his Instagram. And I screenshot at all of them. And I was like, we're going to do this, dude. We're going to do this. And it's an excessive workout. It's just like, it's insane.

Like the leg day especially is obscene. It's like four sets of 50 leg presses, super with 45 walking lunges. Like that is just an insane amount of volume. And we were doing that like twice a week. So it was just too much. And then when I started with the Samoans, they're very old school. So it was like 300 squats to start training no less, sometimes more. You know?

So I think all of that kind of culminated to where we are now. And it's crazy that you mentioned the rock because I remember seeing the Hercules workouts and being like that is ridiculous. And as great of shape that we thought the rock was in for Hercules, he's in insane shape for Black Adam. I've been keeping up. I've been watching a lot of those videos that he's been posting from him. And I'm just like, I can't wait until I have that, you know, even a fraction of the kind of money he has to be able to, like, that kind of, you know, training regimen and training team. and like the Iron Paradise, of course.

He travels with it. He travels with this gym. That is a goal for me 100% is to have a traveling gym because I'm just like, whatever I need, I know it'll be there. Let's dive into your diet a little bit. So what does it look like right now? Okay, so I have been following the same sort of like diet plan for the last, since 2018, probably.

So how many calories are we talking? and do you count your macros? Not super strictly. So originally the first diet plan I got was the first wrestle house that I moved into when I moved into Ohio was like 13 people. And the head of the house, he had got this diet plan from like a bodybuilder, a friend of his. And he was like, if anybody wants to let me know and we'll clap right on. So I will, of course, jump on the opportunity to get that information.

And then I didn't know really how to cook at all, not much of a cook myself. So I just got this like, what's it called this like, the crock pot, you know, thing. Yeah, like a slow cooker. Yeah, like a slow cooker. And I would just like throw chicken breasts in there and just put them in there. I didn't know I would do it any other way. I would just season it, throw them in there, cook it, whatever.

And then I would do like, you know, some lean beef. Eventually I switch to lean the turkey meats because I just prefer that over beef. I prefer the leaner cuts of meat no matter what. but yeah so that was like let's see it was a breakfast two meals the the beef or turkey meal and then a snack sort of meal like pre-bedtime with like a icing protein shake and small ones and stuff like that it was probably around 3,300. 3,500 calories, something like that. That's a decent amount.

Yeah, maybe a little more. That's actually surprising that you can have 3,500 calories and still have abs. Well, so, yeah, I mean, I think it was just the workload that I was putting into the time, especially, like, training twice a week, still weight training every day, and then doing shows. So, like, my show schedule was always so insane. and I was really nuts. So since then, it's morphed into, I've gotten a lot of knowledge from watching some of these, like these guys on YouTube that I've been following lately.

This guy, Greg Doucette is a one that I've been watching a lot lately. And he's like, a beast. A lot of people don't want to give him credit because like he's kind of like when you first listen to his voice, you're off by it. But you have to get past that because he drops a lot of really great knowledge. He's a bit of a heel.

Yeah, he really is. And I actually bought his cookbook because I was really interested in this, the idea that he was presenting of like low calorie dense foods. Like I always had this idea in my mind that he is kind of pushing against of like eat big to get big. So I was just consuming so many calories because I wanted to be a hundred. Yeah. Like 190 pounds was my goal for so long.

I finally got 190 pounds. And then when I started like learning more about how. calories work with the body. It's really not as complicated as some people try to make it out to be. Like the macros don't matter so much as your calories in calories out. How many calories are you expending? How many calories are you consuming? That's going to equal weight loss or weight gain. So all I did leading into like sacrifice was cut out one of those meals that I eat every day. so I still kind of have the same baseline. I do like a breakfast that includes like two scoops of isolate just so I can get

an instant, you know, some instant protein in the morning. And then whatever else that breakfast might be. And then it's like some form of chicken meal, some form of lean turkey meal. And then, you know, I have a shake after my workout and then a shake before bed with acine protein. It's like longer. I mean, I don't want to dive too deep into this. But how are you getting so many calories from just?

protein. You must have a ton of carbs in there too. Yeah, yeah. So the shakes that I drink throughout the day are pretty much to just like guarantee that I'm going to hit that goal of like one gram of protein per pound body weight. I don't really need any more than that. So the shakes that I drink throughout the day almost guarantee that so that I can kind of play with my meals throughout the day and consume more carbs than I normally would for a certain. If me and my girlfriend, I'm having a certain kind of meal, just whatever I want to play with. Listening to the Greg Ducek guy is really like taking me out of that mindset I used to be in a

it has to strictly be this. It has to be the chicken broccoli rice. It has to be the chicken broccoli rice. It doesn't have to be. If you figure out what the lowest calorie, but most dense food is, it's like you'll fill yourself up. You'll consume less calories. And then, you know, you'll lose weight.

So, yeah, leading it aside. sacrifice. I really just like a strict, you know, just weightlifting period of time. I'd follow that up with DDPY just about every day. The DDPY was the perfect amount of extra calories burned that I needed so that when I took one meal out every day, it just like, like, like, like, I just like, like, like, I drove like six pounds of body fat like right of the it was. So, yes, I felt really good going to sacrifice. I worked so hard to be 190 for so long. but I was carrying around some extra body fat that I didn't need. Yeah.

Like back down to 186 or whatever. Yeah. You know, you've mentioned sacrifice a bunch, but I want to talk about Hard to Kill briefly here because Matt Cardona debuting against you, I think made both of you guys look really good. That was one of those kind of cool career moments that when you're in the ring,

you kind of have to turn off. you know, as a professional and as somebody who wants to be at the top, I'm not going to give anybody else my spotlight, no matter how much I'm going to respect for my own of them. So growing up, Matt Cardona was, of course, one of those guys that, like, I had always seen me and my brother, like, really liked his stuff when we were younger. So that moment at Hard to Kill was pretty cool. But, but, yeah, but like I said,

said that you just have to as a professional who wants to be at the top you just have to be able to perform you have to just on there's no reason I shouldn't be the same level of star that Matt Cardona is as the A2

yeah as we wrap things up here is the X Division championship reachable is it something you can grab and show us it's it's actually yeah it's in my my bag ready to ready to go oh it's ready to go oh he's packed that's

Right. Packed up and ready to go. Do you bring it to all the indoor shows? I can grab it. Usually, yeah. Yes, let's grab it. Let's grab it. Let's see the X Division Championship.

And wow, and as Ace Austin moves, we see there's a cat tree behind him. I'm fully expecting a cat to jump out and jump onto that right below the Jeff Hardy artwork that we see here. I need to get some art. A lot of funcos there. Which funcos do we have in the corner? There's one. two, three, four, I think it might be six funcos. So those are just, those are just my funcos that I don't have the boxes for that were like gifts.

I have a whole wall of box kind of over. Oh my gosh. Yeah, you do. Very tall. But yeah, so here we have the, there it is. And it is. And all this glory in the ring. like is.

There it is. New and improved. Yeah, there's a lot of history in that, in that championship. Yeah, and I actually held, I held the, I held the blue version, and then I held it when they repainted the blue version to the red version. And now I'm holding the totally updated redone version. Yeah. It's and everything.

So I've had like three iterations of the X-Vision championship already. This has been cool, Ace. I'm so glad we finally made this happen. I mean, we've been talking about this since we first met in person. That was September of 2019. Yeah, and people have been tagging it on Twitter a bunch, too, over the years. I've been waiting for it. Well, here we are.

We made this thing happen. I look forward to doing this in person with you. But I end every interview A is talking about gratitude because it's a big thing that drives my life. So I'm curious. What are three things in your life that you're grateful for right now? I'm grateful for my career, of course. you know, I'm grateful that I've been able to do as most as I have so fast. I'm just done, you know, grateful for all the people that I've met,

the connections I've made. That's all kind of encompassed into one, of course. Right for my grandmother, you know, may she rest in peace, of course. She passed her right at the beginning of the quarantine COVID period. It wasn't due to COVID or anything. It was due to prior complications. But COVID quarantine is the reason I wasn't able to make it. out to Pennsylvania back home to, you know, see her before she was going.

So I'm grateful for my grandmother. She's pretty much the reason that I have been able to be this successful this fast. If it wasn't for her, I wouldn't have had the gas money. I wouldn't have had the cars that it took to get to the shows that I needed to get to. I wouldn't have had somebody to go with me when I was 17 every week to training. So I owe it all to her, for sure. I'm grateful for my girlfriend she's incredibly supportive

and she makes my life so much easier to deal with the craziness with the schedule you know if there's things that I can't do she's always ready to help I'm grateful for the exhibition championship of course man thank you so much I really I really enjoyed this Yeah, this is cool.

I've definitely been excited to do this. Ace Austin, ladies and gentlemen, and he's only 24 years old. Actually, he just turned 24. And when you look at people like him, MJF, Sammy Guevara, Brian Pilman Jr., all these people whose ages begin with the two. I know there's lots of other ones. I just named these ones off the top of my head. But so many great young wrestlers.

And I think that when you look at that, the future of pro wrestling, that's pretty bright. It's pretty bright. I think it's just a matter of time before Ace Austin is the Impact Wrestling world champion. Snap a screenshot. Let us know what stood out for you the most in this episode. Tag me at Chris Van Fleet, tag Ace.

He's at the underscore Ace underscore Austin. And I'll leave you with these words from H. Jackson Brown Jr. Who says, the best preparation for tomorrow is doing your best today. Be great. Be grateful. We will see you on the next one for some more insight. Jim Rome takes on sports. Why? Because I have a job to do. With rapid fire takes.

So I don't want to hear from you lava pigs on this notion today. No idea what you're talking about. You're complaining more than you like to breathe air. It's like you get up in the morning only to complain and cry and moan on social media about things that you don't even understand. He's the spitfire of sports smack. Ticket banjov, but get up in here. The Jim Rome Show podcast.

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