WrestleTalk Exclusive Interview: ROH World Champion PCO

PCO sat down with WrestleTalk.com to discuss his upcoming match with RUSH this Saturday streaming live on HonorClub. PCO recently won the ROH World Title at Final Battle in December. The link to the full interview is at the bottom of this article.

PCO doesn’t have any plans on relinquishing the title anytime soon and has plans to do much more now that he’s the champion.

“It feels like finally, you know, I accomplished what I always wanted to accomplish. But, that was just the ground base of what I wanted to accomplish…It was to become World Heavyweight Champion with a great company like Ring of Honor. That was a dream that came true, but now it’s time to roll up the sleeves and work even harder than I did to get there.”

How did PCO develop his wrestling style and willingness to take massive bumps?

“It’s just part of my training. I’ve been training like that since I was young. The reason I trained like that because I liked the feeling of the pain, sort of. You know, because it doesn’t hurt me. For other watching, they feel like, ooh, that must of hurt. For me, it’s just a great feeling of being up in the air and just awaiting that huge bump. It’s just a thrill for me. I’m just putting something that I like into my style. I’m using my own body as a weapon.”

PCO talks about how he made a comeback in 2016-17. He changed his focus to nothing but wrestling.

“2017 was really when I decided to make a comeback and really work hard and go with Destro…I decided to focus totally on that goal to become a world champion. I was not going to watch any TV. I was not going to listen to radio anymore. I was not going to have conversations that weren’t leading me to my goal. I wanted to keep all my energy and my focus on my goal.

It became a discipline. Going to bed early. Not going out ever. Never having a drink. Never having a girlfriend. Taking care of my daughter and regular duties of my life…All the focus was put on becoming a world champion.”

Signing with ROH and Future Plans:

If you’ve watched PCO, you know he definitely is not afraid to take risks and put his body through just about anything to entertain the fans.  PCO’s style caught the attention of the internet wrestling community and major companies all over the world.  What was it about ROH that led him to sign with them?

“Yeah, every company at that point wanted to sign me…Ring of Honor proved to me they were really professional. They flew me to baltimore. I met with the president. I met with the vice president. I met with the booker. I met with everybody wrestling related…I’ve never been treated so professionally in my career. If you compare to the other companies the way they were offering deals and doing things…When you see something so professional you’re impressed. You feel like you’re wanted there. You feel like they do care about you. I’m doing my best to give back to the way they received me…I want to prove they made the right decision.”

Obviously, for any normal human, wrestling the style PCO wrestles would seem to not to be a long term plan. However, PCO is not human and doesn’t plan on stopping until he’s reached all his goals:

“I’m going to compete as long as I can reach my full potential…I will wrestle until I reach my goals.  It’s to wrestle in front of sold out crowds for a full year. To impact the wrestling world in a way it was never impacted before by someone who was black balled from pro wrestling. From someone who everybody thought had no future in pro wrestling…

I want to be so successful and become the most popular wrestler in pro wrestling history that I’ll be able to have a movie that will motivate people by watching that movie. I want to give my principles of success in a book. I want to have biography that is going to explaing I’ve been through, so much adversity. I’ve changed so many thing to have the success that I’m having now.”

One thing I walked away impressed with from this interview was PCO’s outlook on wrestling. You can tell he is thankful for his second chance and wants to be an inspiration.  His story is impressive and it is not done yet.

I’m looking forward to watching how the rest of his journey plays out.  You can listen to the full interview below.  PCO discusses his definition of toughness, his ideal match-ups, and the Walter match which put him on the map in 2017.

• ROH
• Interview
• PCO
• Rush

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