AIW Owner Recalls EC3 Dressing As Sid Vicious in 2017 to Replace Him After Last-Minute Cancellation

– AIW’s John Thorne spoke with Fightful for a new interview discussing when Sid Vicious cancelled an appearance in 2017 and EC3 appeared as Sid. Highlights are below:

On EC3 replacing Six at the show: “He was just home for the holidays. I shot him a text and asked if he was in town. He said he was but he didn’t have his wrestling gear. We sent somebody out to a thrift store to look for a leather vest and I honestly have no idea where the wig came from. It was all picked up that afternoon. That was a thing that happened on a whim. We took all the Sid 8x10s and he did a free meet and greet and signed autographs that said ‘I’m not Sid — EC3.'”

On Sid cancelling at the last minute and claiming it was because of Donald Trump’s travel ban: “I guess if you promote indpendent wrestling long enough, you learn that you have to adapt to every situation, and you can’t dwell on things. I was super bummed. I was a gigantic Sid fan as a kid. I was looking forward to this more than anyone, but I knew the horror stories and the risks. When you talk to Sid on the phone, he makes you believe he’s coming. When that moment happened, I was bummed about it, but I was recording the entire phone conversation, so at least there’s proof he’s booked and giving me the most ridiculous cancelation story of all time. As much as I wanted to dwell on it, it wasn’t as bad as I thought I was. Independent wrestling, some people want to show up and meet Sid and don’t care about the show. We just had to roll with it. I text EC3 and it made for a memorable moment. For people that were there, that was probably one of their greatest AIW memories.”

On the reaction to Sid’s cancelling: “You can’t plan for that to happen. It happened organically throughout the day. We had no backup plan for Sid. It was 1 PM in the afternoon. We didn’t have a lot of time to get something together by 6:30. I was sitting in a room with Hornswoggle and Eddie Kingston going back and forth. I texted EC3 and the idea evolved out of that moment. I’ve not heard from Sid, but last year at WrestleCon Sid did show up and Colt Cabana was yelling ‘Fuck you, Sid,’ and ‘You owe AIW money, Sid'”!