Interview: Impact Wrestling's Eddie Edwards discusses training in North America and Japan, career challenges and more
Impact Wrestling's Eddie Edwards recently went through an incredibly taxing match against the innovator of violence, Tommy Dreamer at the Slammaversary XIV pay per view. The match was seen as a passing of the torch from Dreamer to Edwards.
However, before the match took place, Edwards had a chance to discuss some of his early preparation that came from stepping in the ring to this point in his career. To see the interview transcription read the question and answer section below.
Throughout your career, what can you say has been the biggest challenges over that time and the greatest triumphs?
Throughout my career, there have been numerous injuries, but one of the major injuries has been when I broke my elbow when I was part of Ring of Honor. I broke my nose in a match against Kevin Steen who is now Kevin Owens. Then, the next night, I had a match with both myself and Davey Richards against Kevin and Sami Zayn. Basically, it was where I had to wrestle a match with my arm in a straight cast.
I couldn't really do much, but that was something I had to get through and survive. It is funny how it worked out because in the end the fans were the ones that respected me for doing that and it helped out in elevating me to the next level. Any time you get an injury you have to overcome it.
How did you prepare for the mental toughness needed to achieve?
Wrestling when I first got into it, under Killer Kowalski was something I tried to have to completely immerse yourself in. That is what you have to do. Obviously, when you first start training everything hurts. Everything you do hurts. But it is something that you know that if you stick with it that it's going to get better and it is going to get easier. When I first started that in my mind this was all that I wanted to do. No matter what no one was going to stop me. The reason that I wanted to use the moniker 'diehard' was that it wasn't for the movie. It was for the attitude and feeling.
In competing in both North America and Japan which experiences have been the most rewarding ones?
I have always been a fan of Noah. That is why I went over there to train. That is why I went with Pro Wrestling Noah to train in their dojo and work my way up that company and work my way up that card. When I first got over there it is just a different mindset over there. There is a very strong sense of respect for guys over there for guys that came before you. They make you earn a shot. If you are going to be given a match on the show and if you are going to get a match on the show, you truly are going to have to earn that through everything you do. You are going to have to earn that.
What have you found to be the biggest difference in both competing in singles and competing as a tag team?
Not having someone in the corner to tag definitely is a different feeling. (laughs) I think one of the good things about myself and Davey (Richards) when we were tagging we could split up and do our own thing. We could split up and go out and do singles and come back and do a tag team run. We could succeed either way. I think that's pretty unique for a tag team break up or go their separate ways. One may sink and one may swim and both may drift off for what. I think we would succeed either way we went.