Josh Alexander On Getting A "Second Chance" In Wrestling, David Starr NXT UK Title Belt Controversy

Josh Alexander has been through a lot to get to his current position with Impact Wrestling. He spent 14 years on the indies and suffered a broken neck which nearly ended his career.

He also appears for Destiny Wrestling and he talked about his history with Destiny when he spoke to Wrestling Inc. on our WINCLY podcast.

"Destiny gave me an opportunity that no one else would give me. I've wrestled for a lot of indies in North America over the last 14 years, and when I came back from my neck injury, no one was giving me the opportunity to prove that I'm one of the best wrestlers in the world. Destiny gave me a platform to show that and they put me in month-in and month-out with some of the best indie wrestlers across the world," stated Alexander.

He then went into detail about breaking his neck and how it changed his whole outlook on pro wrestling.

"Before I hurt my neck I had a lot of success and it was based on my natural talent; it wasn't my work ethic to be honest. I always worked hard for the wrestling portion, but everything else, not so much," admitted Alexander. "So when I hurt my neck and was told I would never wrestle again – it was just a DDT that went wrong ? but I had thoughts of just thinking about all of the regrets I had. Honestly, I never gave it 100 percent to make it as a pro wrestler and do what I said was my dream job.

"So, when I got that second chance and came back, I think it was the best thing that ever happened to me. I think my work ethic is unmatched now. I'm in the gym, dieting and working tirelessly at pro wrestling. I was given a second chance and it was the best thing that ever happened to me."

As Alexander mentioned, he is well versed on indie wrestling and he reacted to David Starr recently stomping on WALTER's NXT UK title.

"It's to drum up controversy. David Starr is very outspoken and he has his beliefs which is fine. I believe in indie wrestling as well and I think it should be valued. ?But to make a stance against WWE, I don't think that's true. WALTER made a choice to go sign with WWE and be a contracted talent. I don't know what the statement meant if you're gonna stomp on the championship, all you're doing is stomping on success."

Before making pro wrestling his career, Alexander took part in backyard wrestling while growing up in Canada. He discussed what initially led to him getting involved with that.

"Well I wouldn't say I was a good student. But I was lucky enough to be friends with a guy into film and TV production in high school and another friend into English. So I would take classes with them, but if we were in class and had to do a presentation or report on King Lear, our heads came together," said Alexander.

He and his friends made a pro wrestling version of King Lear as a school video project and they would hit a cookie sheet with a bat to make thunder sounds. They all created wrestling names for themselves as well and their monikers fit right in with that era of wrestling.

"I was The Iceman which translates a little bit because everyone says I'm stoic," said Alexander. "But I had a comparison to Dean Malenko in my head early on. I was Iceman. My friend was Money Mac and I had another friend who called himself Sadistico. He was a fan of Mankind and Abyss, so he was the crazy one."

Alexander and his friends didn't have a wrestling ring, so they improvised and just used whatever was available.

"I had a trampoline that I was lucky enough that my parents bought one. The clips you see were in Sadistico's basement and he had a mattress we got at Goodwill. To think of that now just makes me cringe, but we had some mattresses from Goodwill in his basement and we wrestled there," stated Alexander.