One of the newest additions to Global Force Wrestling, Johnny Impact, was the feature of this week’s GFW media conference call. The good people over at FanSided had the opportunity to ask Impact a few questions and he revealed how he got his GFW Impact name, shared his thoughts on his former tag-team partner The Miz having a great 2016/2017 and more.
Here are the highlights:
Does Johnny Think This Was The Right Time To Come To GFW:
“Yeah, I couldn’t have been happier with the way that it worked out. The reason I didn’t come right away is because it’s not like I left [WWE] on bad terms, I was planning on just taking a year off and I wanted to do movies and to make that movie that ended up taking a lot longer than I thought. I talked to [Dave] Lagana, Taz, Dixie and Big John [Gaburick] several times back then and it never really happened because I didn’t want to take myself out of Los Angeles.
Like you said, well-documented journey, all that stuff happened and I ended up in a situation where I was working for Lucha Underground, working for AAA and there’s an opportunity to start having all these promotions work together and I could represent all three of these companies at the same time and still have enough control of my time to write movies, to audition, to do fun shorts and things, which is all I ultimately wanted in WWE. For me, personally, this is the perfect time, that’s first and secondary, for me, professionally, I’m the best I’ve ever been: physically in the ring and also psychologically when it comes to understanding what a pro wrestler is supposed to do.”
The Miz:
“Oh yeah, we text back and forth all the time. Every time my IMDB meter is higher than his, I snap it, send it over to him and tell him Boone: The Bounty Hunter is better than The Marine. He’s been killing it and it comes down to how The Miz is always himself. He never changed who he was, whether it’s in the ring or in real life, he’s always this loud, abrasive, confident guy. He’s also a really good friend and a loyal friend and in smaller groups, always a lot of fun to hang out with because he’s got that quality of remaining consistent; he knows who he is in the ring and out of the ring. I think that confident core of Mike Mizanin is what’s propelled him to the next level of success with wrestling, it’s been really cool to see. I’d put him on the dream match list also. It’d be cool to… I don’t know if it’d be more fun to tag with him or kick his a**, but either one would be interesting.”
How The Name “Johnny Impact” Came To Fruition:
“It came up as a little bit of a joke at first because we were thinking: “All right, well, Mundo is my Lucha Underground name” and we wanted to do something different. So, we started brainstorming names and I forgot who said Johnny Impact first, but it was kind of like, “Johnny Impact! Ha ha ha” and then everyone thought about it for an extra couple of seconds and thought, “You know, that could work.” It’s a little bit cheesy and on-the-nose, but it’s also fun and wrestling should be fun first and foremost. I’ve actually really grown to like it.”
