Current ROH Pure Champion Josh Woods was a recent guest on Pro Wrestling Culture, in which he talked about his recent appearance at the AEW Dark tapings.
Woods said how his work in ROH helped him getting the opportunity to collaborate with AEW: “I’m not sure I can talk about that. Everyone kind of has their own contact system and some people don’t want to be bothered about how to do things so I don’t think I can actually say who specifically did what, but being in Ring of Honor and trying to be a good person regardless of what it can do to benefit me, just trying to be a good person. The relationships I’ve built and the caliber of person I am has kind of helped me get to that point with the people that are there. It’s nice having people vouch for the type of character I have. The in-ring work speaks for itself. If that sounds arrogant, I apologize, but I don’t think I’m bad. Just having the relationships I have with the people that were here (ROH) and are now there (AEW), really helped me get my opportunity.”
The Pure Champion described how excited he was to work with veteran Shawn Spears: “When Shawn was in NXT, he has always a leader in the Performance Center, it was just before the Perfect 10 character and that’s when I came in. I got to learn from Shawn a lot and had done some Performance Center shows in front of the boys and Shawn had helped me in a few of them. I’ve always looked up to him and wanted to have an opportunity to do that. When I saw that was happening when I was backstage, I was pretty pumped. I don’t know if Shawn was pumped or not, but I personally was. You never know how people view you or view your body of work and you’re never sure if people are upset. I’ve definitely had a match where I’m like, ‘I definitely don’t want to do that.’ I hope that’s the case for this or for anything because I would hate to see that. I was pumped and Shawn has always been a great guy. He is so freaking smart. He understands every aspect of wrestling and even the brief interaction we had, I’ve learned a lot from him in that part. I’ve been to Flatbacks (wrestling school owned by Spears and Tyler Breeze) a couple of times and every time I’ve gone there, I always come out better than when I went in. It’s a testament to how great Shawn is.”
Like many who met him, Woods recalled that Tony Khan is easy to talk to: “He was there and I did get to meet him. I spoke with him a little bit. He is a freaking great guy. He is intimidating. I’ve had a lot of really intimidating and authoritative figures in my life from coaches and peers I’ve looked up to, but I was super nervous. I’m such a goober. I had the opportunity to talk to him for a little bit. He was so humble and very approachable. Instantly, that intimidation factor was gone. He was welcoming and warm. It was nice and refreshing. I can see why people love being there and like Tony so much. I definitely like Tony.”
