Cian Noonan discusses what inspired him to become a professional wrestler.
'Sculpted' Cian Noonan is one of the brightest prospects in Irish wrestling in 2024, having already shared the ring with Robbie X, Sammy D and more at this early stage of his career.
While speaking to Fightful's Corey Brennan in a recent interview, Noonan was asked about what inspired him to become a professional wrestler. Cian explained that while he always wanted to be a wrestler, it was a meeting with Will Ospreay in 2019 that inspired him to make his training a reality.
"So I think like a lot of people, I kind of always wanted to be a wrestler. I think there's a lot of people in wrestling with the exact same experience as me. But I had never really thought to go and pursue it. I think it just seemed unachievable to me at the time. I was quite a small kid as well and even now I'm still trying to get bigger, but we try every day. But I remember like thinking like, oh, that's America. Like it's not achievable. Like unless you're over in England or over in America, like you can't go do wrestling and I kind of put it to the back of my mind and thought, like, oh, this won't happen. Then in late 2018, I heard about OTT, and it wasn't until early 2019 I attended my first show. But I remember the friend that was going with me had told me he'd been to OTT previously, and he was saying, like,' oh, you get the chance to interact with wrestlers, stuff with me wrestlers, like, halfway through the show.' And I thought, oh, that's very cool. I never knew that was a thing. I got to meet Will Ospreay, who at the time, and probably now, I think modern day, is probably my favorite wrestler ever. Like, I think talking about all time, there's always different names that come about, but from modern day, people who are still currently active, it's definitely Ospreay. At that time, he was still much more flippy style wrestler, kind of like the way I try to have my style now. I love doing all this kind of flippy stuff. I got to see him live and I got to meet him in person. And I think it was a mixture of, I was going to this OTT show and in my head, I had this idea of like having like a hundred people in the hall somewhere from what you would see from some indie wrestling artist from a few years ago. But when I got to the venue, this show happened to have like two and a half thousand people at it. It was in the National Basketball Arena in Tallaght. It was called Homecoming 2. I think Pac and Walter was on the card as well. But I remember like going in and seeing this huge venue and seeing people who were there, like avid wrestling fans who were there for OTT and getting to meet Ospreay, and it just kind of clicked."
Noonan's most recent high profile matchup took place at last month's OTT Showdown In Sheriff Street event, where he wrestled then OTT World Champion Sammy D.
Elsewhere in the same interview, Cian made his predictions for OTT Gaff Party Dublin. You can read more here.
