wrestling / News

Alexander Hammerstone On How His New Physique Has Affected His Wrestling Style, Working With Savio Vega

February 15, 2020 | Posted by Jeremy Thomas
MLW Alexander Hammerstone Image Credit: MLW

Alexander Hammerstone spoke with Wrestling Inc for a new interview discussing his recent work in MLW and more. Some highlights are below:

On how he’d describe himself to a new fan of wrestling: “A little bit of a throwback to the 90s where there was a formula for a visual representation of a wrestler. That got thrown to the wayside and got overplayed and we went down this road with all of these different directions almost to the point where we’re revisiting some of those original things. At the time it became distasteful but now it has a loving memory. The big, blonde, muscular, in your face kind of attitude – I’m bringing it back.”

On if the business is mving back toward bigger men: “I think it’s moving to a direction where there are just a lot more avenues to be explored and a lot more avenues that people are gonna appreciate. That shows with the different types of promotions – it’s not even just different types of wrestlers. There are shows that presenting wrestling one way and shows that present it another way. What fans want is someone who brings something congruent to the table. If you’re out there doing something and all of the pieces come together, then they’re gonna buy it. There’s a lot of wrestlers just trying to figure that out. They have a lot of cool pieces but when they put them all together, it doesn’t make it work.”

On his change in mindset that led to his recent success:“I feel like I always had a presentation that works but what happened with me was that I got to a point where I got successful to an extent. But I hadn’t gotten exactly what I wanted out of wrestling while a lot of people around me were. I kinda went, ‘What if I didn’t care? What if I didn’t care about pissing anyone off?'”

On the initial reaction to the change in look: “The immediate reaction was not positive for the most part. There was a lot of people saying this is the same, old crap you’ve been doing for the last eight years. But in the end, it paid off because I was into what I was doing and it made sense to me. I wasn’t playing how to be a wrestler as I was doing things I legitimately liked to do.”

On how his physical changes affected his wrestling style: “People are like, ‘Man you look so different.’ But I’ve always lifted weights and was bigger than 90 percent of the guys on the indies. But the last couple of years has been a focus on getting larger. In my head, a larger than life wrestler is not just a personality as it’s a physical attribute as well. There are things I’ve had to change. Every once a in a while I’ll watch a match from me about 40 pounds ago and I realize I used to move a little different.”

on his match with Savio Vega: “It’s like he’s stepped out of a time machine. It was definitely cool – and I don’t mean this to sound any type of way – but I’ve been in the ring with so many guys I idolized that it’s just another day at work. It was definitely fun and is one of those things that in the aftermath I’m like, ‘It’s so weird that that just took place.’ They tell me in training, ‘Hey, you’re gonna wrestle Savio Vega on TV in 2020’ and I’m like, ‘Uhh, okay.’ It’s kinda strange but it’s cool that it happened.”