The outspoken Effy has a soft heart. Don't believe us? Read it and weep!
The wrestler and Twitch star was asked to say nice things about some of his contemporaries, and he didn't let us down.
The latest edition of Shooting Softly, starring Effy.
Izzy
“Okay, so I had to deal with Bully Ray on that one and I gave the PR answer. Here’s the fact about Izzy and here’s what I’ll say. Y’all pissed her off so bad for making fun of her for having a match with me and saying she was unprepared that she became a real shooter. She’s now one of the top wrestlers in Florida, I believe in high school wrestling. Especially in the women’s division, but I know she’s done some double division stuff. Y’all messed her up and when she comes back to wrestling, she’s gonna be a fully trained MMA savant and she’s going to ruin everyone who talked crap about her. I can’t wait.”
“She had to confront all of (the social media hate). Sometimes that’s the way you find out. You’ve gotta deal with everything at once. She has great parents that are with her. Her dad joked with me one time and goes, ‘Everybody says we’re making so much money off her. Well, guess what? I’ve sold three shirts today. So, we’re getting rich.’ I was like, ‘Yeah.’”
“There’s footage from that night that I think Joey Janela has that you should see, because this was at a time when he said he was going to put her through a flaming table and stuff. I show up at the venue and I’m ready to go, and she’s talking about Joey Janela was being mean to her. I go, ‘Oh, god. Pay him no mind.’ My guys were following me around to film for me because they were there all week just like, here’s what he does at work and here’s what he does at the time. It never came out. But, there is footage where I’m like, ‘Oh, my god. Leave it alone. Who cares, Izzy? We’re having fun. Don’t worry about him.’ I think it’d be really funny to see four years later.”
Allie Kat:
“Oh, my God. So, I have to shoot softly. See, this is like, what’s happened with me and Allie Kat. We both played [viola] all through middle and high school, and we found that out, we were both like, ‘Oh, yeah. This makes sense.’ But, ever since we started tagging together, everybody just throws us in the same room and that is dangerous because we are crazy. Not like crazy like you think. We just get into some wild stuff and she is a bundle of fun. Listen, Allie Kat gets put in a little bit of a box, I think, because she does so well at intergender, because she does so well at hardcore stuff. Any TV company would be lucky to have her, and honestly, it would probably be good for her to—I’m going to leave it at that. I think Allie Kat would do well on television.”
Eddie Kingston:
“Eddie Kingston is the most incredible person I’ve ever gotten to spend time with. He’s the king of the second gear crew. He really is that second gear mentality. Which is like turn it up and give the people what they need and go hard and show ‘em what it’s all about. Being able to work with him, like, I tapped Eddie Kingston out in L.A. in a match at GCW. The fact that I’m like even allowed to say that sentence out loud it shows you what kind of guy Eddie Kingston is. It shows you his heart for this business. To see him now on TV and succeeding and doing well and getting to still just be Eddie Kingston every week, and do whatever he wants and talk crap, have hardcore matches with Moxley.
It’s great to see somebody who stuck to their own path and it ends up being fine. Where the whole time he’s not sitting around going, ‘I’ll never get my due.’ You know, you have those guys. ’18 hard years and I never got my—’ He just said, ‘I’m Eddie Kingston. I’m gonna keep being Eddie Kingston. If you’re into it, come with me. If you’re not,’ and that time finally came where it was like, this is what wrestling needs, is that drop of realism and that now and that person whose not going to shut up a bit. It’s now going swimmingly for both sides. I can see it.”
Serpentico:
“Holy moley. I wrestled Serpentico one time for WWN. Here’s the thing about WWN that’s so funny. They knew I would get over with the Tampa bar crowd, but they would never use me outside of that. I got real pissy one night, I blew a tire and they were asking me to do all these segments and all these matches. They were like, ‘Well, the second match is with Serpentico.’ I was like, ‘Fine. Fine.’ I got out of that match and I went, ‘Hot damn, I’m a good wrestler. I’m a superstar. I’m so good and excellent.’ Turns out, it’s Serpentico. Serpentico is the easiest, most fun person I’ve ever been in a ring with. He’s so smooth. His positioning is incredible. His brain is magic. Luckily, through FEST Wrestling I got to work with him a few times and it’s like every time you get better and you learn something new, and he always has something to teach. Now, he gets to be on TV too, and seeing him with Luther, is the greatest oddball pairing. I guess it’s not even oddball, because he’s like Luther’s evil snake. Which, I guess, makes total sense.”
“Look what he’s brought to AEW. Where like, even before Mox got that full right, he was sneaking in there going, ‘We’re going to do some crazy stuff, is that cool?’ They were like, ‘I mean, you’re Luther. You can do whatever you want.’ Now he’s getting to have these wild, crazy, insane matches with new talent on Dark and getting to do it on Dynamite. It’s just cool to see how those weird paths converge. Like, you pluck names out of a hat, I would have never put those names together. But, it works literally like a perfect puzzle and I want to see them keep growing and keep being weird. That’s the good thing, I think, about heels, especially in AEW, they’re allowed to be bad, they’re allowed to turn it up. There’s sort of levels to the heelness, but you can also be a little playful, too, and the audience is okay with having that fun. That’s exciting because you don’t have to hate-hate them all the time. They still want to tune in to see what dastardly things you’re going to get into.”
Orange Cassidy:
“It’s like—look at the smile on my face. This is like, Orange Cassidy stepped into my life at the right time and I think maybe I stepped into his life at the right time, too. Because we’ve had some good times together. Show out to [Gang Business]. Which is a bigger point of the whole. I am starting to notice something really exciting, Sean Ross Sapp. All these kids who were supposedly Chikara kids and supposedly had all this intense vinyl pants, shiny training from carnival barkers and who speak weird and can’t draw anybody to their shows and can’t pay anybody on time, for whatever reason a lot of these kids have started rejecting some of that ideology. I really hear some of that Orange Cassidy mentality pushing through.
"Which isn’t to say they are ready to perform and go at the highest level, but is to say they are being themselves and they are not rejecting parts of themselves that they thought maybe, or were told were maybe, wouldn’t be good for wrestling or entertaining for wrestling and they’re doing their own thing. That influence of being able to do your own thing and still entertain people at the highest level of pro wrestling, to still be the number one guy on the cover of the magazine, to still go toe-to-toe with someone like Pac, with someone like Chris Jericho, with all these names and be able to hold your own—it is incredibly inspiring and he is still that laid back dude who’s down to help everybody and down to make sure everybody leaves happy with their entertainment for the evening, you know?”
“I want you to know something. I didn’t take credit for this. There is a picture from Every Time I Die Tid the Season of Tommy Dreamer and Orange Cassidy and Pac and I think Gregory Iron and a few other people, and they’re all dressed as Santa Clause characters. I did take that picture in the locker room. I want to take credit for that.
"The last thing I want to say, and I know other people have said this, and I know Orange Cassidy may say it himself, the Rock needs to hear me and I know he follows you, right? Doesn’t he follow you? He knows what’s going on. He’s like those wrestlers who won’t follow me on Instagram, but they’ll still check my stories. Especially when something is blowing up.”
“I’m gonna say it. If by 2023 we have not had a movie moment with Orange Cassidy showing up as the laid back guy who hooks the Fast team up with all the new gadgets and technologies, I’m out. I’m retiring. Because Orange Cassidy is made to be a part of the Fast franchise. The Rock, I am begging you, I know you already know. You guys could have already filmed it without my knowledge, but I’m telling you, kiss that money. Because you’re going to sell at least three more tickets to those Fast movies and that will make up for what Vin Diesel couldn’t.”
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“I want to see them teamed. I want to see Roman Reigns underestimate Orange Cassidy, but when the Superman Punch hits—which folks, I tell you, Orange Cassidy can hit that Superman Punch—when it hits, they do it as a dual team and it’s just as effective.”
