It’s been just over two months since Randy Myers defeated Schaff to become the 7th-ever DEFY World Champion, carrying on the legacy of champions such as Artemis Spencer, Shane Strickland, and more. The title gives Myers yet another reason to espouse his love of the promotion, which he’s done on a frequent and consistent basis.

Myers joined me to discuss his love of working with DEFY Wrestling as well as the honour of carrying the promotion’s championship.

His love of DEFY Wrestling:

“When I got involved with DEFY, it was at a point where I was taking my first-ever break from professional wrestling. I’ve been doing wrestling for the last twenty years, so I’ve been going, like, every weekend, (a) couple shows for quite a while. And then, it was a time where I developed some mental health issues that I’d kind of needed to focus on, so I’d taken a step away from wrestling. But, then, there was a big show at DEFY down in Seattle, and they had Davey Boy Smith versus…who was he wrestling that night? It was a stacked card, and I needed to go down and I needed to witness this live. So, I went down. I had heard good things, I went down, had some friends down there, and I was blown away when I saw the product.

The fans were incredible, the actual in-ring was awesome, and just the vibe was phenomenal. So, I just went down there as a fan and was blown away.”

“Then, Matt Farmer, who’s one of the promotors of it, we’ve known each other for quite a while. We toured a couple years, probably ten years ago, eight years ago now.

So, we knew each other, and then we kind of got to talking.

He sent me a message asking me if I wanted to be on their next show. Like I said, I was taking some time away, but I was so blown away and this kind of rejuvenated me and it got my heart pumping again. It got those juices flowing. So I was like “of course, I’d love to take part in your show.’ I thought I was going to maybe only go down for one, but then the crowd was so loving and embraced me so much that I was like ‘well, I can’t leave. They pulled me back in. It’s like the mafia, right? You try and get out but they pull you back in, but happily.”

Carrying on the legacy of the DEFY World Championship:

“It’s incredible. Representing DEFY as a whole, being in that lineage of champions that (were) just named, it means so much to me. I can’t even really put it into words. I (feel) like DEFY’s what I always wanted from wrestling. I always wanted something that was an inclusive product where you could feel safe as a fan no matter who you were, no matter what kind of place you were coming from in life. Whether you’re a freak, a geek, a misfit, a weirdo, felt that you were strange, or felt that you needed to change, or any of those things. (If) you ever felt that you were different, this is the place for you. It’s so embracing and so loving.”

“To represent a company that is what I’ve been looking for twenty years in wrestling means the absolute world to me, and means every drip of sweat I’ve had, means all the blood, means all the tears that I’ve cried, all the times I said I was going to quit, all the workloads I didn’t want to do but did anyways, all the gross cans of tuna I shoved down my throat, they were all worth it.”

Please credit Spencer Love/Love Wrestling with any transcriptions used. 

Since signing with WWE in 2018, Chelsea Green has teased a faction featuring herself, Deonna Purrazzo and Rachael Ellering called VXT. However, the faction has yet to appear on WWE programming despite the group’s popularity amongst online professional wrestling fans.

Recently, Green joined me to discuss the VXT faction, as well as the lack of female factions as a whole.

What VXT stands for:

“Oh my gosh, so many people ask us that! So, VXT was just a short version of the word ‘vexed,’ which Rachael Ellering came up with. She saw it and pitched it to Deonna and me, for the three of us to be a strong, badass, Charlie’s Angels-type of group. We truly wanted to be the Undisputed Era of the girls. I think so many people laughed at that, but I’m like ‘no, but they’re so cool!

’ They’re so individual, but they’re so freakin’ cool, and they all highlight each other.”

“So, it was the word ‘vexed,’ which means to bring trouble to cause a reckoning. But, we could shorten it down to VXT, which is perfect for chants and NXT rip-offs and stuff like that, and it was also just a badass word. But, Rachael hurt herself, and then I was out for a little bit, and it was such a mess that we never truly got to – we kind of pitched it on social media to the fans, but we never truly got to actually do anything in NXT with it, really.”

If the lack of female factions is a missed opportunity:

“One-hundred percent, and especially in WWE. That was such a crazy opportunity that we could have taken and run with, especially because the tag titles came out and then they were saying that NXT, or that the tag titles would be defended on every brand. I just felt like it was money. The reason that we decided to get together is not because we were like ‘oh, we’re better together.’ We actually all think that we’re strong singles wrestlers and better as singles wrestlers.

But, we thought ‘(we) think this could work,’ because the Undisputed Era (were) better as singles wrestlers, and now look at them. It was a perfect opportunity to get these three singles wrestlers and put them together and show that this was going to be this perfectly well-rounded group of individuals. A strong person, a person that is more dramatic, which obviously is me, and then Deonna, the technical wrestler.

I seriously think that could have been something that, if we had have got the opportunity, we could have totally run with it.”

“But then, I look back and I’m like ‘well, dang, I ended up on RAW, and Deonna ended up on RAW, so do I really care?’”

Please credit Spencer Love/Love Wrestling with any transcriptions used. 

“The Weirdo Hero” Randy Myers has always been vocal about his journey with mental health. Whether it be messages embedded throughout his ring gear or cutting a promo on whichever subject he happens to be passionate about at the moment, Myers’ openness with his own struggles is something that not only pro wrestling fans, but anyone can draw inspiration from.

Recently, Myers joined me to discuss the impact professional wrestling has on his mental health, both positively and negatively.

Using his platform as a professional wrestler in a positive way:

“I was having trouble with wrestling for a while there a while back. I felt like I was playing a cartoon character, and I wasn’t showing all the aspects of me. I felt there was more. There (were) more aspects to performing that I wanted to show than just the greed for wanting a championship, or the anger of wanting revenge. I felt there’s so many other emotions and aspects and so many other sides of me that I wanted to share with the audience.”

“Fans have shared stuff with me in the past, their true, personal lives. I wanted to un-crack that and start sharing who I really was and be the performer that I wanted and maybe needed in my youth, and the performer that I need still at this time that’s going out there and is championing these issues that are important. It goes beyond just the fight in the ring. There is so much more, and if we have this platform and we’re given this stage to deliver a message, I don’t want to go out there and just grunt and say that I want this championship and you know that I’m better than you and I’ve always been better than you.”

“If there’s any ears that are open to what I’m saying and it gives me an opportunity to get into those ears, that’s what I want to do. That, to me, is the championship. That, to me, means so much that I could maybe make one person feel more comfortable in that audience.”

How professional wrestling has impacted his journey with mental health:

“More and more I realize each day. During this time when we have it off, it’s been hard. It’s been really a struggle for me because wrestling is my therapy. It gets this aggression out in me, that fire, that energy. I look at it like nuclear power. If you can use that nuclear power for good, then that’s awesome and you can get that power out. But that energy’s not going to go away. It’s not just going to disappear. It can go – it can be led in the wrong direction quite easily.”

“Wrestling is so much about control. It looks like extreme, wild violence at times, but it’s so much about control at the same time, and so much about consent, and so much about caring about that person you’re in the ring with. It’s about being able to get that energy out in a wild, frantic manner, but it’s done in the most healthy of ways.

For me, when I first got into professional wrestling, I was a 17-year-old kid who was kind of lost and could have easily gone down the wrong path. But then, I found wrestling.”

“I was at a point where I’d broken up with my first love, and I was really heartbroken about that, so I really wanted to do self-harm. Define professional wrestling, which was like a way that I could do a bit of self-harm, but it was therapeutic self-harm.

It grew me rather than being destructive. It built.”

Why the Weirdo Hero nickname resonates with him:

“I think because I’ve always – I think was that Mick Foley, that first impression that I saw where I’m like ‘here’s this sensitive person who’s not what you expect to be, but can be the hero.’ It seems like so often it’s like Clark Kent, or your cookie-cutter, John-Cena style that they have be the hero because that’s what you expect and that’s normally what’s cast in that role. I always felt like an outsider, or kind of felt like people were looking at me differently. Not necessarily badly, but differently. Sometimes badly, but sometimes lovingly. It felt like it fit so well. I’m a man of a million monikers, but that’s the one that feels the most in-sync with who I am as a human.

Please credit Spencer Love/Love Wrestling with any transcriptions used. 

Few Canadian professional wrestlers of the past decade have reached the heights of Victoria’s Chelsea Green. The Storm Wrestling Academy graduate and former ECCW/All-Star Wrestling standout has worked her way through a number of the world’s top promotions on her way to the WWE and now occupies a premier spot on one of the top televised wrestling programs in the world, NXT.

Green recently joined me to chat about the Canadian wrestling scene and some of her favourite Canadian pro wrestlers.

The Canadian pro wrestling scene:

“Isn’t it amazing? There’s so many people that haven’t been seen. Even Nicole Matthews’ boyfriend (Artemis Spencer) – well husband actually, now – he is so freakin’ good, and he still hasn’t been kind of spotted yet. The past couple years, El Phantasmo has been blowing up, which I can’t believe didn’t happen six years ago. There’s so many freakin’ people that are so good! I love it. I just feel like Canadians know that it’s kind of hard to succeed at anything at life in Canada because we’re in such a bubble. You really have to be the best, or the biggest, or the most outrageous, and I truly think that Canadians just work so hard to prove themselves and to show the world ‘I deserve this chance’ or ‘I deserve the rest of the world to look at me.’”

Why Canadian wrestling is underrated:

“It’s always bugged me, and every time I do an interview now – which is very rare in Canada – but every time I do an interview, I always say ‘guys, open your eyes. We’re not just hockey and lacrosse.’ We have so much more, and it’s unfortunate that I am recognized way more walking down the streets of Florida than I am in my own hometown, or in Vancouver, or in Calgary.

It really, really bugs me, and it’s something that has bugged me since Tough Enough. I got on to this massive reality show, and there was not one Canadian publication that said anything about it. I had zero backing from Canada, and if I had have had that support from my Canadians, who knows what would have happened?

Who knows if those votes coming in from Canada would have made the difference for me staying there. It’s so unfortunate, and I wish that – I understand the rest of the world not caring about Canada because I think the rest of the world is so focussed on America because America has just built themselves up to be this greater-than-everything-else country.

But, it’s like – Canadians! Come on! You have to be supporting your fellow Canadians!”

Which Canadians are under-appreciated:

“I definitely think Artemis (Spencer) deserves a spotlight that he every now and then gets, but he’s so good. He deserves to be in WWE on 205 Live. That’s someone that I truly, truly believe, and there’s a couple of girls on the East Coast that I think are amazing. All-in-all, I think that the girls that come to Shimmer and things like that, those are all girls that deserve all the success in the world. Nicole Matthews deserves the success.”

Please credit Spencer Love/Love Wrestling with any transcriptions used.