Richard King is a 22-year-old wrestler out of Orlando, Florida who has become a mainstay for Battle Slam, ACW, and other independent promotions.
Nicknamed "The Adonis," King has worked a few AEW Dark matches including one against Ortiz that never made it to YouTube. The bout was taped on June 11 as part of the bulk tapings at Universal Studios and is a rare Dark match that remained in the dark.
Speaking to Jeremy Lambert and Stephen Jensen on The Spotlight, King explained why the match never aired.
"The Dynamite episode that aired after those tapings, Ortiz shaved his head. I was told before we went out there, 'this match probably won't air because Ortiz is going to shave his head in a few days.' I was like, 'Okay, cool.' I was hoping to at least get footage, 'Hey, don't share,' type of thing, but I didn't get anything. I don't even know if the cameras were on," he said.
Ortiz lost a Hair vs. Hair match to Chris Jericho on the June 15 episode of AEW Dynamite.
Though the footage may never been seen, King did have a takeaway from the bout as he received advice from Christopher Daniels backstage.
"The match that I had with Ortiz at Dark, that unfortunately was never aired, Ortiz and I got critiqued by Christopher Daniels. It was like, 'You guys went out there, you had a great technical match. Physically, it looked great. Character-wise, you need to show that more. More character.' From that point on, I was like, 'character, character, character.' I know I can be physical and do the physicality stuff and the moves, so in the back of my mind I'll do that, but the forefront of my mind has to be on character," he said.
King fashions is character as Injustice Superman or Homelander where he believes he is always in the right and is God's gift and doesn't understand why people dislike him.
Fans can see King in action on Battle Slam Thriller premieres on Fite TV on Sunday, November 20.
The full interview with King will air on Thursday, November 24 at 9:30 a.m. ET as part of The Spotlight.
