Matt Sydal has had plenty of ups and downs in his career, but his latest journey has landed him in Global Force Wrestling.
While he's met incredible success, Sydal has faced car accidents, drug test failures, incarceration, and injuries that have often derailed him and left him on the outs with WWE and New Japan Pro Wrestling.
In a recent interview with Real Sport, the former Evan Bourne admitted that from a maturity standpoint, his big break came a little soon.
"I know when I was twenty-four, I was not ready for the opportunity but it came my way and I just had to scramble it and rely on my instincts and my training and you know, I survived. The way the industry was, in 2008, was for somebody like me to enter the WWE, it was very, it was almost a shocker, to the world because, what was going out online at that time, to make it into WWE, you have to be six feet tall and over two hundred and thirty pounds, you know, period. No ifs and or buts about it. But I knew that, just like reality, those rules are malleable, they can be changed. It was a little foggy and I took that first step out there and I could kinda see what Brian Kendrick and Paul London had done. I thought that there might be a step here, a stone to cross this river, to get across, and it was foggy and I think what I was able to do was to start blazing a little trail that everybody could start feeding into and creating their own path. Once they saw that once I overcame the barrier, it showed other people that that barrier is possible to overcome as well. If there's anything I'm proud of, it's that. It's that I empowered to people to say 'Hey, if he can do it, so can I,' and that's why you have guys like Sami Zayn and Kevin Owens on TV right now. It's been this great team effort. For me, I don't see the divisions in wrestling, I just see the boys in the back and the fans out there and everybody is working together."
The stops and starts cause inconveniences, but haven't prevented Sydal from achieving several accolades. He's managed to become WWE Tag Team, IWGP Junior Heavyweight Tag Team, ROH World Tag Team, Never Openweight 6-man and OVW Heavyweight Champion. At this year's Bound For Glory, he'll compete for the GFW X-Division Championship.
You can see Sydal's full interview at this link.