Sami Callihan On What He Would Say To His WWE NXT Self
Prior to Impact Wrestling's Hard to Kill, Sami Callihan was the World Champion in his first reign. He would go on to lose the title to Tessa Blanchard, but before that happened Callihan took part in a media scrum to talk about a number of topics.
Wrestling Inc's Nick Hausman asked Callihan about wrestlers that influenced him and specifically Mick Foley in an interview on our WINCLY podcast.
"Absolute legend, absolute guy ? I look up to him in this business, not just as a hardcore wrestler but he's one of the best professional wrestlers of all-time. He had great runs in every company and he made you truly believe. He and Terry Funk are two of my favorite wrestlers of all-time," revealed Callihan.
"That's why I use the piledriver as my finisher ? he gave me that move. I wanted his legacy to live on and that's why I call it the Cactus Special. That's why I had these boots made. I wanna give back to the guys who made me wanna be a professional wrestler and this is just a token of appreciation."
Callihan added that even though he's pretty crazy, he may not be on the craziness level that Foley was. He also said he's been infuenced by several wrestlers including Fit Finlay.
"He made me who I am today. If you look at my The Wrestling Revolver shows, I book people from all avenues. People that could be considered comedy, deathmatch, hardcore, Lucha Libre, catch-as-catch-can, strong style ? I see something that makes someone special and I gravitate towards them and want to help them out, especially if they work hard," stated Callihan.
"I will go leaps and bounds above helping someone that works hard and does it the right way vs. someone that has a terrible attitude. Wrestling wasn't easy for me. I had to bust my ass and I had to have people actually help me to get where I am so I wanna do that for other people."
Callihan spent over two years in NXT as Solomon Crowe but he doesn't look back fondly at that experience. He was asked what Sami Callihan would say to Solomon Crowe back then.
"Quit being a b—h dude. Quit and do you because you is good at the end of the day and it doesn't matter what anyone says. You don't need to walk on eggshells. You don't need to try to be someone that you're not. You need to be yourself because you either succeed being yourself or you fail being someone else," said Callihan.
Callihan's full pre-Impact Wrestling Hard To Kill media scrum aired as part of a recent episode of our WINCLY podcast. It can be heard via the embedded audio player at the bottom of this post, or via the video at the top. You can check out past episodes of the WINCLY here. Subscribe to Wrestling Inc. Audio on iTunes or Google Play. Listen to the show via Spotify here or through TuneIn here.