Matt Sydal recently talked with Chris Van Vliet about his AEW debut, slipping on the top rope, his run in WWE as Evan Bourne and more. Plus he apologizes for his last interview with Van Vliet.
Sydal talked about slipping off the turnbuckle on his AEW match:
“I was so lucky I didn’t get injured. That was the craziest turn of events that happened. I can say I’ve jumped off that rope thousands of times and zero times have I had a slip like that. That was the first one. It was also the first time fireworks exploded in the background.
There are a million excuses but I’m not going to take them. It just didn’t go well. What did go well was when I slipped, I basically reached back with my arm and the rope was there and basically it kept me from turning over onto my head. I landed on my back so it was just super scary.”
Matt Sydal on being a free agent:
“I don’t have anything booked with Ring of Honor right now. We filmed 8 weeks of TV so I actually had a match with Ring Of Honor on Monday. I had a late night AEW Dynamite debut the day after a Ring of Honor match and then just this past week when I wrestled Sonny Kiss on AEW Dark, the night before I’m wrestling Jonathan Gresham in the Ring of Honor Pure Title Tournament…during the pandemic I had zero work. It was very challenging. I was just holding on by a thin thread but I was just dedicated and I really believed we would come out of this.”
He also said that he and his girlfriend were working on new gear and then he started getting booked by ROH and AEW.
Sydal on how he got the name Evan Bourne in WWE:
“They told me I have to change my name. They gave me a bunch of really bad, we will call them, developmental names. I told the writer that I have to live with my name for the rest of my life, can I have a few minutes to think of something better than what the names they laid out for me?’ She said, ‘yea, you have 10 minutes to come up with a name.’
The person I knew the best there was CM Punk from our time in IWA Mid South. He was always there for me and looked out for me. I asked him what I should do and how do I come up with a name? He said, ‘what do you want me to do? Come up with a name for you?’
He said, ‘listen, talk to Joey Styles. He’s good at this kind of thing and he is the kind of guy that can help you.’ I asked Joey to help me. He took me into his office. We sat down and put on our thinking caps. We came up with a couple names like Evan and Eric for first names and Bourne and something else for the last name.
Evan Bourne was our top pick. They sent it to legal. Legal said great. The writer came to me and said you are ‘Evan Bourne now. Can you do an interview for our picture in picture?’ I literally said, ‘I’m Evan Bourne. I’m not good at promos. I’m going to be doing a match tonight. Please watch.’”
