GCW was back in the headlines last weekend for their recent announcement of their WrestleMania week plans. From April 8th-10th, the promotion will host a series of events as part of “The Collective: Remix” series.

The events mark a semblance of the ‘return to normalcy’ that many have been hoping for since, well, right around this time last year. Unfortunately, last year’s series of Collective events were unable to take place throughout WrestleMania week as they’ve traditionally done. However, rather than outright cancel the event, the promotion chose to host the shows in the fall with the shows finally taking place from October 9th-11th.

One of the prominent independent stars on the show was Laynie Luck, who I had the opportunity to chat with shortly after the event’s conclusion. “You mentioned the Collective [earlier],” I commented near the start of our conversation. “Just take me through the entire experience of it, because even as a fan sitting and getting to watch that much wrestling back-to-back-to-back for the first time in a while was great. Actually being there in wrestling as a part of it, what was that like for you?”

“It was a very long day, that’s for sure, but it was really good,” Luck laughed. “Our locker room was like this whole huge building that was attached to where we were wrestling at. It was literally huge. Everyone had so much space to spread out. So that was really comforting to where I’m not like, ‘Oh my gosh, I’m going to be packed in like sardines with these people for 16 hours. Like, weak, there’s plenty of room to go outside and lots of fresh air going in and out – all the big doors were open and all that. So it was great, very comforting, and relaxing to have a huge locker room.”

“All the fans were, you know, doing their part as well,” Luck was quick to note. “If I looked around – if I was in the building, watching some of the wrestling when I looked around, people had their masks on and weren’t just sitting in these huge groups. That was really cool. As for that much wrestling, I genuinely can’t believe how much good wrestling happened in such a short amount of time. Like not just wrestling, but good wrestling.

”

“I’m gonna put you on the spot,” I informed her. “You don’t need to give me [just] one, but maybe a couple of your personal highlight matches [at the Collective] outside of your own.”

“Oh my gosh, for sure it was [Jonathan] Gresham and [Lee] Moriarty,” she replied almost instantaneously. “Gresham is one of my favourite wrestlers right now. (He) has been for a minute, but he’s just so smooth, and I wish I could move like that. And then, obviously, Moriarty coming up out of nowhere and just being so good for no reason. That was definitely the highlight of the night for me, probably.”

Of course, like many wrestling fans, Luck had to give a shout-out to one of the most entertaining individuals in the business today.

“Also, Juice, Orange Cassidy coming in, just being in the stands for that pop, I literally had goosebumps. I was tearing up. I was like, wow, this is like, this is what I want to be like. That’s the pop of my dreams.”

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

If you’re a fan of All Elite Wrestling, then there’s little doubt you’re a fan of the Ian Abel Band. Ian’s songs “Shoes” and “Not Afraid to Die” have been the soundtracks to some of All Elite’s most iconic moments, including the classic Cody vs. Dustin ‘Brother vs. Brother’ match at 2019’s Double or Nothing and the Full Gear tilt between Cody and Darby Allin that saw the latter win his first title with AEW.

Ironically, though Not Afraid to Die was the song selected for the Full Gear pay-per-view, the track was actually the one that Abel believed would be used at Double or Nothing. Though that didn’t turn out to be the case, Abel admitted as part of our upcoming chat for Love Wrestling that it was the right decision in the long run.

“Yeah, I think that it was used better at Full Gear,” he began with a laugh.

“I had been talking to Cody and Brandi, and Michael Cullari was in the conversation and then a few other emails, I have no idea who they are. They’re behind the scenes people. Here I am talking to these people, and I’m thinking we’re talking about the song Not Afraid to Die,” he said referencing the initial discussions for Double or Nothing. “I’d went in after – I sent them Shoes and I sent him a couple of others to show what kind of sound like. I went in that weekend with my friend John Graber and another buddy Reid. I’d written the chords, I’d written the melodies, I’d written the lyrics, everything was there. We just went in and said, ‘okay, let’s figure this out.'”

“We pretty much laid everything down and what you hear on Not Afraid to Die we did in one day, which is pretty cool,” Abel reminisced on the song’s recording. “To get in there, I mean, my friends are incredible engineers and mixers. I got lucky there. We just laid down the acoustic, sang a vocal that I thought was gonna be a scratch track to then re-cut and John was like, ‘nah, man, that’s it, dude,’ and I was like, ‘okay, cool.

‘”

“[It’s] the Georgia Satellites theory, right?'” I laughed, calling back to another excellent scratch vocal.

“Yeah!” Ian affirmed. “I was like, ‘oh, okay, crap, I wish I would have sang better, I don’t know.’ And so then we mixed it, and I sent it over Sunday. Monday we start talking more, and that’s when we were leading up to Double or Nothing. I’m thinking the whole time that we’re talking about Not Afraid to Die, and then actually, Cody [emailed] me in all-caps and said, ‘I want Shoes.’ And I said, ‘oh, okay, this is different. I’m not prepared. Brandi wants some shoes!'”

We both laughed. “Whatever you want, boss!” I commented.

“Yeah, that’s totally fine. That’s interesting,” Abel chuckled. “And, it worked out better. But, what was cool about it at Full Gear is that I think the song thematically, not only – because I wrote it with Cody in mind. I spent one evening, I was like ‘screw it, I’m gonna write this new song, I’m going to send it to them, show them what I’ve got right off the bat.’ And so I’m writing it thinking about Cody and the Rhodes family, and now you got Darby in it, too, in the promo, and in the match, and you’re like, it worked.

“

“I think it worked better to me than it would have at the brother- versus-brother match.”

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