IMPACT Wrestling star Johnny Swinger on working with Chris Bey, this year's Slammiversary & more (Exclusive)
With Slammiversary just around the corner on July 18, IMPACT Wrestling has been in the news a lot lately. The popular wrestling company continues to air its flagship weekly two-hour program IMPACT! every week airing on AXS TV, while last month it announced that the renewal of its long-running broadcast deal with Mexico City-based MVS Comunicaciones MVStv and a new international partnership with the TV LATAM platform.
One of the IMPACT performers who regularly has people entertained is Johnny Swinger. Active in wrestling since 1993, Johnny Swinger first found his way into TNA in 2003. Prior to that, he had done work with all of the other major US-based wrestling companies, even wrestling on the July 1998 WCW Nitro at the Georgia Dome, where Goldberg defeated Hollywood Hogan for the WCW World Heavyweight Championship.
Within IMPACT, Johnny Swinger not only has excellent matches -- including a recent one-off as "Swinger-cide" -- but he often works alongside Chris Bey as a manager of sorts and backstage with Madison Rayne as part of a recurring talk show called Locker Room Talk. In other words, Johnny Swinger does it all as one of the company's top utility players.
I had the pleasure of speaking with Johnny Swinger by phone on July 9, 2020. Swinger opened up about Slammiversary, working with Bey, musical heroes, fitness, and more.
The full conversation with Johnny Swinger is embedded below for your listening pleasure. More on Swinger can be found online via Twitter and Impact Wrestling's website.
On being around for decades but doing his best work now in IMPACT:
Johnny Swinger: Being around so long, you learn so many things from so many different people. IMPACT has been great with the producers, they're behind me and they like the character and they have a vision for it. I go out there and execute the best I can. They're just happy with it and the fans seem really happy with it. It's my most favorite work I've ever done in my career. I just turned 45, so I'm just glad to be there and glad that people enjoy what I'm doing. It's a lot of fun, I'm having fun with it.
On whether there's some David Lee Roth influence in the Johnny Swinger character:
Johnny Swinger: There's a little Dave in there. I was a huge, huge Van Halen fan, all the 80s bands and they're still my favorite. If they weren't any good, they wouldn't still be coming on the radio. When something's good, it lasts forever, in music, in wrestling. Robert De Niro's still "the man" and he's gonna be 80. I look at what I do now, if you want to call it a character, I think that what I'm doing on IMPACT now is gonna stay with me for probably the rest of my life. It's the thing that stood out... It's pretty exciting.
On Chris Bey being the future of IMPACT:
Johnny Swinger: Man, that guy just burst on the scene right around the time I did out [in IMPACT]. You could just tell right away he was gonna be special. Man he can do some stuff in that ring that you're just amazed he could get up afterwards. This kid has something going for him. It's a good pairing and he listens, you know what I mean? That's the main thing. You've gotta always be open. I still listen, I go to a show and "Bullet" Bob Armstrong is there, I make sure I listen to whatever he says because he's seen way more than I have and it works. So you never ever stop learning, and that kid Chris Bey, I don't think he's even 25 years old and he's already got so much going for him. He can only get better. I just tell him, "Just don't get hurt out there. Don't get killed out there and you'll make nothing but money."
On whether he'll be in Chris Bey's corner at Slammiversary this year:
Johnny Swinger: Well, allegedly I've been banned. We're trying to work on this at the 11th hour to try and get this reversed, the referees and all that. I'm standing outside of the ring for one of his matches and they think I did something that was illegal or whatever, I don't know what that's all about, I'd never do anything like that. That kid doesn't need my help, he can do it all on his own, I'm just giving him pointers. But there's some kind of ban as we speak, things change at the 11th hour. There's a "stay of execution," so you never know what can happen. Whether or not I'm there, Chris Bey will be your next X-Division Champion. That's my prediction.