Top Independent Star Reveals He Has Rejected WWE More Than Once

At PROGRESS’ Super Strong Style 16 tournament over the weekend, David Starr defeated Artemis Spencer, Travis Banks AND Ilja Dragunov on route to a clash in the final with NXT UK’s Jordan Devlin, with a title match against the new PROGRESS Unified World Champion WALTER on the line. After a great bout, the incredibly opinionated Starr walked out the winner, and will challenge WALTER at a later date.

Your winner of #SSS16 2019, @TheProductDS. pic.twitter.com/I7Tw0nPn8q

— PROGRESS Wrestling (@ThisIs_Progress) May 6, 2019

Prior to the event, WrestleTalk’s Louis Dangoor had the opportunity to speak to David Starr about a variety of topics, including his opinions on WWE. Starr was asked if he had been approached by Vince McMahon’s company about signing with them, and revealed some of his feelings towards the promotion:

“I’ve been contacted by them before and I’ve turned it down a couple of times. The thing that doesn’t hit home with the European audience is the health care thing. Because [you’re] very fortunate to just go to the hospital. That’s one of the reasons I moved to the UK. Being a professional wrestler, it’s hard to afford healthcare, the things you need.”

David cut a fantastic anti-WWE promo at a wXw show over WrestleMania weekend. On the topic of that promo, Starr had the following to say:

“My point is, similar to John Oliver’s stuff and things I’ve talked about in private, but never been given the opportunity to say it, so I decided to take it on a WWE show, a WWE-lite platform, so I decided f**k it, I’m gonna do it. I just want wrestlers to realise the power we have, and understand that we don’t have to accept whatever is given to us. We have our own terms and our own conditions and I want wrestlers to understand that it’s cool to say “no”, it’s fine. Don’t give in just because it’s got three letters and it seems like it would be cool. Just think about yourself and don’t cave into a corporate power just because they tell you, “look at all this exposure you get’. Well how about you treat us right? How about a billion dollar corporation that is able to provide healthcare to it’s wrestlers. Clearly they don’t care. So yeah that bothers me”.

WrestleTalk will be releasing a bonus episode of the WrestleRamble podcast featuring David Starr’s full interview, and comments from other stars performing at the event such as Trent Seven, WALTER and AEW’s Jimmy Havoc and Darby Allin.