Speedball Mike Bailey discusses his dedication to hard work.
Speedball Mike Bailey recently appeared on Fightful's Grapsody podcast for a discussion with Righteous Reg and Phil Lindsey. Speedball recently joined AEW, but during his time at home from January to March 2025, he was actually training at the IWS Wrestling School in Montreal, and he says he was putting 20-minute matches in during practice.
Bailey explained why he believes every wrestler should be doing that and how he feels about staying on top of his game, averaging about 150 matches yearly.
"I was home for two months, right? From January to March, I was back in Canada waiting for my VISA to be processed so I could start with AEW and I went to the IWS Wrestling School in Montreal and I would do matches. I would do 20-minute long matches in practice just for the camera, which I think is what every pro wrestler should be doing. I think you need to get comfortable in the ring, but also I feel like with the experience that I have, I don't need to go at such a high volume in order to stay on top of my game. For the last three years, I did on average about 150 matches a year for the last three years," he said.
He also spoke about wrestling 10 matches during WrestleMania weekend in 2024, calling that a "ridiculous volume." Bailey also vowed to keep working as hard during his time in AEW and always finding a way to put energy into professional wrestling.
"It is, including, as you talked about, we'll call it WrestleCon weekend. I did, like, I think 10, 11, and 12 matches in two or three days, which is just ridiculous volume. I think that I'm still working just as hard, and I will keep working just as hard the whole time I'm at AEW. The hard work is just gonna be different, right? It's gonna be more than volume. It's gonna be precision, and it's gonna be the same volume is just gonna be concentrated into the one 10 to 20 minutes slot that you see on TV once or twice a week," he said. "I will never not be working all the time. I love pro wrestling. It's what I do and I will always find ways to put more energy into it, whether that's getting to be on social media more, creating more content, putting time in the ring behind training, teaching pro wrestling as well as something that I look forward to having even more time to do. But I think I'm going to be just as active as I ever was."
Elsewhere in the interview, Bailey discussed platitudes that are often offered as advice to young wrestlers and why he tries to avoid them. Learn more here.
Check out the full interview embedded above.
