Roderick Strong Talks About His Feud With Jay Lethal

In an interview with the Two Man Power Trip of Wrestling podcast, Rodering Strong spoke about his ROH career and feud with Jay Lethal. Here are highlights:

On his feud with Jay Lethal: “It was two guys going out there with something to prove and nothing got settled. I know Jay Lethal is probably not happy about this but August 21st I have my rematch and we can finally settle this.”

On their in-ring chemistry: “I think it’s the ability to be aggressive. I’ve said in promos that I like to push the pace and I really do. In the ring there are certain matches where I like to just challenge my opponent and not in a bad way to try and embarrass them but I like to challenge somebody enough to up their aggression. Jay is a classic wrestler like me in a sense that you feed off of that and respond to it well. He is a fantastic professional wrestler that really loves the sport and understands it and I feel I’m the same. A lot of it is reaction based and I think that is what makes our chemistry so unique.”

On building to a true rematch: “It’s going to be a lot more intense than our first match up. Obliviously we didn’t settle what we needed to be settled and when you have a first match up like that in this kind of situation and you set the bar so high, it’s a challenge for you to go in there and see if you can top it and the thing that is great is being able to go in there with someone like Jay Lethal. We are very competitive and we want to be considered the best in the world (both of us) doing what we do. I think we are going to try and make that even better but different.”

On preparing for his IWGP title match against Kazuchika Okada: “It’s another situation of facing somebody that many people consider the best or one of the best in the world. I am a competitive person so for me to see the match ups he has had with other people and the type of wrestler he is it’s a challenge for me to top the type of stuff he has done with other people around the world. It has people talking about us, having one of the best match ups in Ring of Honor history if not in the world and to prove that I am one of the best wrestlers currently participating in professional wrestling today.”

On if he’s the MVP of ROH: “Honestly, the way I look at stuff is I go out there and do my job. My goal when I started wrestling is go at the highest level possible and I feel like I’m just starting to hit the prime of my career. For people to consider what I’ve been doing to be the “MVP” or (this) being the best year of my career, it makes me happy but it also motivates me to make the rest of this year and the rest of my career even better. I am always hard on myself and I’m trying to just improve as much as I possibly can. If it’s up to me, you guys have seen nothing yet.”