It’s hard to imagine now when Wardlow is powerbombing 20 men like he did on the June 15 episode of AEW Dynamite, but he didn’t emerge into the world as the mass of muscle he is today.
While he did grow up dreaming of making it as a professional wrestler one day, he didn’t initially idolize the giants of the sport. It took time, and a growth spurt, to change his perspective a bit.
“Believe it or not, I was a very late bloomer,” Wardlow said in a phone interview with Wrestling Junkie. “In my head, I was going to be a future Rey Mysterio or a future Jeff Hardy. So I trained my body to do corkscrews and flips and twists. And then all of a sudden, I started to grow. I started to hit the weight room, and I started to find this appeal in guys like Batista and Brock Lesnar. And I started going, ‘OK, this is awesome.'”
That allure has been central to the hold pro wrestling has had on the masses for decades. Performers who are literally larger than life have a long history as top attractions, and that’s something Wardlow doesn’t ever see changing — especially when it comes to two big men going toe to toe.
“You’ll never be able to deny that that is a draw,” Wardlow said. “When you see a 6-foot-3, 6-foot-4, 260, 280-pound athletic freak, fighting another 6-foot-3, 280-pound athletic freak, I mean, that’s just money. That’s always going to be appealing, and that’s always going to be exciting.”
At the same time, as the wrestling industry has evolved, fans’ expectations have changed too. A time when the drama revolved around whether one large man was strong enough to body slam another seems quaint now.
Raw power still has its place, but marrying it with athleticism is what Wardlow does so well. Calling himself “blessed, or lucky, or both,” he recognizes that he’s fortunate to be able to do things in the ring that previous big men simply weren’t able to do (and rarely even tried).
At the same time, as the definition of “heavyweight” in wrestling has expanded to include the Mysterios and Jeff Hardys that Wardlow looked up to, he knows and appreciates that his size and look helps him stand out.
“I think what is beneficial for me is the fact that that’s all pro wrestling used to be,” he said. “Pro wrestling was seven matches with giant athletes, and then you would have one or two special matches with the luchadores, the high flyers or the cruiserweights.
“Now it’s kind of the opposite. Eight out of the 10 matches are high spots and flips and crazy athleticism, and then the other two matches actually present some monsters.”
Often, those monsters have been portrayed as strong, silent types. That’s how fans were initially introduced to Wardlow, as he spent the first portion of his AEW career serving as the personal muscle for MJF, and at various times, for the Inner Circle and the Pinnacle as well.
That’s changed as he broke free from MJF’s shackles — figuratively and literally — and put a decisive end to their feud at Double or Nothing. Wardlow might still be dishing out powerbombs to hapless security guards, but he’s getting a chance to showcase his personality too.
Character turns are a constant in pro wrestling, but few members of the AEW roster have made the kind of complete 180 from silent to outspoken, and from jeers to cheers, as Wardlow. What he’s found most rewarding about his progression is how natural it’s felt along the way.
“It’s kind of wild how it happened,” Wardlow said. “We really didn’t do anything different, we just proceeded with normal business. Just the little things I did, like my mannerisms, the crowd started to connect with. And then getting to see the real me shine through a little bit here and there. Realistically, this is the most organic transition of somebody being a heel to a babyface that we’ve seen in professional wrestling in decades.
“I didn’t change a thing about what I was doing, and then one day in Austin, Texas, I walked out and the crowd was chanting my name. I’ll never forget that. I was blown away by that.”
It’s an ascent that feels like it could lead to a world championship, a goal Wardlow is confident he will achieve. It just won’t happen in the immediate future; as several other top contenders got involved in the pursuit of either the interim AEW World Championship or the IWGP World Heavyweight Championship leading up to Forbidden Door, Wardlow revealed on TV that he’s going to wait until current world champ CM Punk returns from injury before making a run at the company’s top prize.
In the meantime, he has unfinished business with TNT Champion Scorpio Sky, who handed him a rare loss and kept him from winning his first AEW gold in March. Wardlow says that their inevitable rematch wouldn’t make sense for Forbidden Door (“It’s going to be an amazing show, but a little bit of different business that night.”), but he’s looking forward to it happening sooner rather than later.
Other wrestlers might worry that their momentum would fade while they await their next moment. For Wardlow, that doesn’t seem like a big concern, because he’s secure in the idea that he’s bringing something to the table that’s increasingly rare and isn’t going out of style.
The man who grew up thinking he’d be one of the smaller performers is now one of its hottest big men instead. It’s a tradition he didn’t always expect, but one he’s happy to carry on.
“I said it before, I feel like I’m a little bit of the last of a dying breed,” Wardlow said. “You just don’t have those Hogans and Warriors and Lesnars and Batistas and these big, large, athletic men any more. So it’s nice to be … I am that guy in the wrestling business right now.”