Action Andretti On the Pandemic Halting His Momentum, Indie Scene Coming Back Strong

On a recent edition of AEW Unrestricted, up-and-coming AEW superstar Action Andretti talked with Tony Schiavone and Aubrey Edwards about a variety of topics. Andretti opened up about how the pandemic shut him down just when he was beginning his career, and how the situation taught him not to take any of this for granted. Read on for highlights:

On his training at Maryland Championship Wrestling: “MCW’s a really great wrestling school. They trained me very well. They bring in a lot of good names to work with. It’s a good facility. There’s like three rings in there, so there’s plenty of rings to get your training in and stuff. I’m really happy that happened to be the one that I signed up with.”

On the pandemic happening shortly after his training began: “So honestly, the pandemic really did kill my momentum. I was training for about a year. I started getting put on the MCW shows. That was my ultimate goal, to make it onto these MCW shows, just to be able to wrestle in front of a crowd. I didn’t wrestle on a show for a whole year. I think I was ready maybe six to eight months in, and I knew I was ready, and I knew I could go out there and perform. I had confidence in my ability. Once I got that first match out there, I went out, I did all my stuff, I went super-hard, I just basically showed like, yo, I can go. I had probably like three or four after, and then the pandemic hit.”

On what he did to keep growing during the shutdown: “Training gets shut down, no more shows. I was just getting a little bit of momentum for myself and like I said, it just stopped right there. All I could really do was continue to watch tape, train here in my room, just shadow wrestling. Just tell myself, one day we will be back. This is just a pause right now. So many people just up and quit during the pandemic. It got so to their head that they just quit, and with wrestling, we all get that feeling at some points, pandemic or not, where we like second-guess ourselves. Why am I not doing this, or why am I not… you just always have to tell yourself you keep working, you keep doing what you’re doing, hard work will pay off. I just tried to stay positive through the whole pandemic cause it really did suck having to like sit at home and not do any wrestling.”

On how the shutdown taught him to not take anything in wrestling for granted: “Once we came back, came back stronger than ever, got in there, had my first match since the pandemic. Just was on a roll after that. That’s when I realized as well, I’m not just working MCW, I’m working everywhere I can. I’m hopping on the road, putting miles on the car. It also helped me not take anything for granted within wrestling. Having all the fans come back, not seeing people at all. I was genuinely the happiest I’ve ever been to see fans, and just talk to them, and take pictures to them, and just interact with them. I was genuinely super happy to have all the interaction when we came back.”

On how the indie scene bounced back when things opened back up: “I think it came back like it never left. Just right back. We got the go to go, we’re going. Shows every weekend again. Just right back to it, and I loved that. I loved that because that’s exactly how I wanted it. I didn’t want to just do one show, and then have to wait a little bit longer to do the next. It was back to back. Same thing with training. It did suck having to train with a face mask on, that was the worst. Oh my god, that was bad. Sweaty masks are not a good thing. But I really do feel like everything just kicked right back into force, and everybody just started coming in hot. Like I said, came in like we never left. It was a good feeling to be just right back on the grind.”

If using any of the above quotations, please credit AEW Unrestricted h/t 411mania for the transcription.