Speedball Mike Bailey and Veda Scott aren’t just the definition of #couplegoals, but they’re two of the top independent professional wrestlers in the world. The pair have both established themselves as not only two of the most popular, but two of the most talented individuals in the business today, and as part of our upcoming conversation for Love Wrestling, Speedball and I chatted about Veda’s influence on his career both inside and outside of the ring.

“I think you guys are both very great examples of driven individuals, you’ve done a lot of different things [in wrestling],’ I inquired. “How has she influenced or inspired you as far as that side of things goes?

“

Bailey was quick to answer.

“She has a brilliant, brilliant mind for professional wrestling,” he replied glowingly. “We think about it in the same way, and we’ve always helped each other. Being together at a wrestling show means that we’re gonna have a big amount of input on each other’s matches. Like we’ll always – I’m going to plan my match with my opponent, but I’m always going to go over back to her and relay to her.

And then she’ll go, ‘oh, use this instead of that, and then this there, and then switch this to that.’ ‘Okay, no problem.’ That’s always been a constant, so that’s been great.”

“In a more concrete way, obviously, the way my career went, I had to travel out, and I’ve had to travel a lot,” he continued. “We have always been traveling together – or not always, but for like four years, we’ve traveled together, and that made it a lot simpler, and a lot more like fun to organize. Things like [when] we’re wrestling in England for two months, [when] we have five days off, let’s go to Paris for a week, or let’s go to Vienna for a week, which we’ve been able to do, are things that I probably would not have done chosen to do by myself. It’s also made – traveling for wrestling can get pretty lonely, and pretty sad. Just being able to do it with someone whose company I enjoy so much has made the whole experience just that much better. So that’s been very nice.”

Bailey continued to sing Scott’s praises.

“But also, mostly, I think a big part is, I mentioned my brother earlier, and I think something that’s missing from wrestling is real coaching. I had it with my brother and I have it with Veda now, and it’s immensely helpful. But, it’s just having someone whom you trust to always give you good feedback and sort of knows what you want to do with wrestling and someone that you trust to be honest with you. And, well-meaning, which is the most [importat] part because, in wrestling, a lot of people are going to give you advice, but it’s not always the best advice, especially from someone who doesn’t know you. Or, they might not always have the same goals. But, having someone like my brother did, and like Veda, who knows exactly what I want and is not afraid to tell me ‘this was bad, don’t do it. This was great, do more of it,’ because I fully trust them is immensely helpful.”

I interjected.

“I guess the easy example for me is it’s pretty easy for me to sit and tell you you’re great at pro wrestling, and it would be pretty hard for me to sit and pick something out of like a match you had with Bandido or something along those lines where I could sit and say, ‘oh, you could do this better.’ Whereas I would have to assume like you say, she’s a great mind [and] might be able to pick up those little things that normal people wouldn’t be able to do.”

“Correct,” replied Bailey. “And, it’s also the fact that we’ve followed each other’s career and evolution closely, right? Like the worst thing is [when] someone would say like, ‘oh, don’t do this.’ [They] say some aspect is bad, but not realize that this aspect was terrible, and you’ve done – like, you’ve gotten way better at it, and that’s been something that’s difficult for you. Then, someone just still says, ‘oh, that’s bad,’ because they haven’t seen anything before. That comment is not helpful at all, because it’s something – like, in my matches, there’s a lot of things that I will choose to do because they’re difficult, and I’m not very good at them, and I want to get better at them. So, I put them in the match to be able to work on it in that environment. That takes knowledge of my career in order to be able to give accurate feedback on that.

”

Please credit Spencer Love/Love Wrestling with any of the above quotes used.

In 2012, Ravenous Randy Myers was part of a program airing exclusively in Canada called World of Hurt, a pseudo-Tough Enough program featuring a number of today’s top stars including Taya Valkyrie, Kc Spinelli, and Myers himself. While the first season featured Storm Wrestling Academy founder Lance Storm, the program’s second season was hosted by none other than Rowdy Roddy Piper.

Of course, I had to ask the Weirdo Hero about his time on the program when we recently chatted for Love Wrestling, both on the training aspect itself and what he learned from the legendary Saskatchewanite.

Like the storyteller he is, Myers kicked off the story about as perfectly as possible.

“Okay, well it came out of me being a bitter asshole for lack of a better word.”

As I laughed, he continued, smiling himself.

“The first season was Lance Storm. He hosted and coached the first season. They held their big show, like filming of all the matches they were going to have, at a PWA show, which I had been, you know, felt like I was that was like my show, and I worked hard to make this show what it was. And that was just ego, and obviously all wrestling, it’s like a circus. We need everybody from the popcorn seller to people putting up the ring to the promoter and all that.”

“At this show, they had put our show, the PWA show was beforehand, and then the Lance Storm show was more of the main event show. So we were all kind of treated as like ‘dark matches,’ and I felt like ‘I’ve been wrestling in this town longer than any of these people that are on this Lance Storm World of Hurt show! Who do these people think they are coming into my town and taking over my show!

‘ Not my show, but I thought it was.

“

“They had footage of me setting up the ring because that’s what we all did,” he continued. “We all came and set up the ring, and the World of Hurt people came over to me. They had another dressing room, too, which, don’t get me started on that. But they came up to me, and then they had me – they asked me if they could fill out this form because I was in footage of setting up the ring and they wanted kind of footage of the ring being set up. And I’m like, ‘okay, so I’m not going to be on the show, but you’re going to show me like I’m some guy who sets up rings? Don’t you know who I am? I’m nobody, I sure think I’m somebody!’ So I was like, ‘no, I’m not going to sign on to that. You’re not going to pay me anything for my likeness. I’m not going to do this. You can blur out my face or put a blue dot on it like they do on Cops.’ And they’re like, ‘do you have any idea how expensive that is? And I’m like, ‘I don’t care. You’re not gonna pay me!'”

“I was gonna say,’ I interjected, “it probably cost more than it would pay [you]!”

Myers laughed. “Exactly. So I was a real jerk that night. And then, being that it was a reality show, the best way to audition for a reality show is to be a drama queen. Because then, Season Two comes around and they’re like, ‘we need wrestlers to fill out season two. Do you remember that drama queen? That guy was such a dick! There’s no way we can bring him on and he won’t stir up so much controversy. They came to me, and I was kind of shocked when they came to me. I was like, ‘okay, this, I don’t know about this.’ But then as soon as they dropped Piper’s name, they knew they had me. The money wasn’t great, but it was like, I like put it through my head and I was like, ‘how much would I pay to get trained by Piper?’ So I was like, I’m totally gonna do this. I was a little bit walking on eggshells because I knew that like, ‘do these people like me? Or are they just here to make me look like an ass?’ But, I love looking like an ass, so that always works out anyways.”

“That’s so cool man, and especially getting the opportunity to learn from Rowdy Roddy Piper,” I replied to him. “I don’t think anyone can stress just what a cool opportunity that is for anyone. Nonetheless, someone [like], let’s just stress here, Canada’s own Rowdy Roddy Piper!”

Myers agreed.

“He was like an idol of mine growing up,” stated the DEFY World Champion. “He was my guy like, He has that like unique ‘it’ factor that was unmatched by anyone else. You couldn’t pretend to have that, you know what I mean? It wasn’t trumped up. As much as I believe that he turned it up, I believe that that was just him, and it was uniquely him. Just this energy. The first moment I met him, they did like a shocking thing where they were like, ‘okay, we’re gonna have everyone come into the office here to do like a little interview,’ and then he was just there. We didn’t know he was going to be there. I think nine-out-of-ten of us, I think we all cried. I think we all cried, broke down. He had this way of staring into your soul and kind of knowing you better than you knew yourself. The lessons I took from that ten days to two weeks shooting was astronomical.”

Noting my curiosity, the Ravenous One gave a few examples of Piper’s warm-hearted nature outside of the wrestling ring.

“He was such a kind soul,” he was quick to point out. “That was the thing that I took away was he was everything I wanted Roddy Piper to be but then 100 times sweeter. Such a kind maniac, and that’s such an inspiration to me because I have such a high energy level and such a high capability to get big and to get large right away. But the way he was able to have that, to be both the kind and the maniac, just, again, is inspirational to me and just showed me that like, obviously, he had his demons, and he was able to work through them and end up being this kind, sweet man who was willing to teach us all it took us all under his wing. [He] was teaching us meditation tactics, as well, teaching us breathing techniques before our matches and stuff like that, and had all sorts of cool things. So you would do countdown breathing. It was like, he would have you breathe into five, like, breathe in 1-2-3-4-5, and then breathe out, 5-4-3-2-1, and then again.

It was really great. Just the way he was able to like – you could tell that it was a wild man who was centered. That was like such a cool opportunity to feel like kin to him.”

“He was the first one that opened up that sensitive side to me. He could tell right away that I had issues with my father, which [happened] right away. Like he looked at me and he said something and I’m like, how do you… [are you] like a psychic or something like that. That was what broke me down. And then he was like – just to able to be sensitive. It was the first time it showed that again, the vulnerability. It was the first time to show that ability. He brought that out in me, and forever, I’ll be grateful because that’s my greatest thing I have. Appreciated and ushered into the world and into the professional wrestling world by Roddy Piper.”

Please credit Spencer Love/Love Wrestling with any of the above quotes used.

In the most positive of ways, Speedball Mike Bailey is one of the most terrifying men in professional wrestling today.

That’s not to say that Speedball isn’t one of the nicest people you’ll meet in professional wrestling; far from it, in fact. However, whether it be his prowess as a Taekwondo expert or as one of the world’s most technically gifted professional wrestlers, no one would argue that Bailey brings a certain legitimacy to any professional wrestling match or event he takes part in.

However, in previous interviews, Speedball has reminisced on his first memory of professional wrestling being wildly askew of the reality-based character he presents, recalling his first memory as a specific instance of the Brood setting Kane on fire.

Err, kind of.

“Well, [he was] trying!” Bailey laughed when I brought up the attempted arson of his memories. “I don’t think he actually did set them on fire. That only happened recently. I think the Fiend was the first time someone has actually set ablaze in the WWE ring.”

I had to laugh at the comparison.

“The first actual victory by inferno?” I chuckled.

Bailey agreed. “Correct. I think Kane was only trying, but it was still enough to get me hooked.”

As I continued to laugh, I also continued my line of questioning. While certainly not a supernatural character like the Kane’s or Gangrel’s of the world, he’s certainly someone who’s established and excelled at playing his character. With his first experience in wrestling based so wildly out of the realm of reality, was there ever a point where he looked to the supernatural for character inspriation?

“So, no,” he was quick to assert, “because that’s honestly, that is the first thing I saw in professional wrestling. But, that is not the side of professional wrestling that really got me hooked.”

“It was when I was a lot older, honestly, and I saw – like, I always wanted to do it, just because I thought it was so cool. But it wasn’t until much later and I saw guys like Amazing Red and AJ Styles and Matt Sydal and Low Ki do the kind of wrestling that they did that I was like, ‘oh, wow, okay, this is really cool. This is what I would really like to do.

‘ Right? I couldn’t – I liked the Hardy Boyz and X-Pac when I was a child, because I felt like I could relate to their style a little bit more. There was no part of me that was watching Kane or the Undertaker, The Big Show, or Bradshaw being like, ‘oh, I could do that,’ because I realized that I was never, never going to be eight feet tall like they are.”

“Well, and it’s pretty hard to bring thunder from the sky,” I replied half-jokingly. “I figured that would be something that’d be pretty difficult to train in.”

“Correct, I don’t have control of that,” Bailey retorted. I can’t have control of that. So of course, that’s not really helpful, is it?”

We shared a laugh before Bailey continued.

“I appreciate that side of professional wrestling and the supernatural, super theatrical,” he explained. “I think that’s all fantastic. I think the idea of a gimmick and giving someone a gimmick, or a character, is kind of passe. I think we’re beyond that. I think mostly because pro wrestling now is a fully immersive experience, where you must live as your character through the internet 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

Whereas before, if it was contained within a weekly television show, you could be a vampire then, and then just be a normal guy the rest of the time, and it wouldn’t matter. But now, it does. So, if you want to be a supernatural character, you really have to commit.

Otherwise, it’s better to just be yourself. And that’s fully what I’ve chosen to do with my pro wrestling character and career is to just be myself and then adapt it to have better matches. If I need to be a little bit more on the bad side bad guy side or need to fully lean into being a good guy, I can do that. But, I appreciate people who don’t. I appreciate people who chose to go hard on the gimmick and present themselves that way and go all-in with it. I think that’s amazing.”

Of course, every great interviewer loves a great segue, and thankfully, Speedball provided one for one of the questions I was most excited to ask him about.

“Well, and it’s definitely something that you’ve done at least once in your career and one of my favorite things that I’ve watched,” I began.

“Tell me about your experience wrestling as Shrek!”

“Yeah, that was the dumbest thing!” Bailey commented, bemused. “I just made – okay. I make a lot of really, really dumb tweets. Most of them are so dumb that they’re not even worse worth tweeting, and they just live out in my drafts, and I show them to my partner, Veda Scott, and I just show them the tweets and they just go ‘haha, that’s funny. You can’t tweet that,’ and then it just dies. I wrote one that was, the tweet was just ‘if this gets 2,000 likes, I’ll wrestle in full Shrek cosplay,’ or something. And it was like, ‘haha, tweet it.’ And then, I did, and then it rapidly got more likes than I had asked. I was like, ‘Okay, I’ll do it. I don’t care.’ There was this place called Good Wrestling in England. They were like, ‘Hey, we saw your tweet, and we know you’re booked on this show. You should do the Shrek match!'”

“’We’ll book you as Shrek?!’ What a fantastic phone call to receive!” I chuckled before asking the million-dollar question. “Are we going to see it again?”

“I have no idea. No clue. I have no plans to wrestle as Shrek again, I have no concrete idea of when that could or could not happen.”

“It might! I mean, if people ask for it, I wouldn’t be opposed.”

Full Match:

Please credit Spencer Love/Love Wrestling with any of the above quotations used.