Jordan Oliver On Complaints That Wrestling Lacks Realism

In an interview with Wrestling Inc, MLW wrestler Jordan Oliver commented on complaints that pro wrestling these days comes off as too choreographed and lacks realism. Here are highlights:

On doing moves to go viral: “Sometimes I 100 percent think, ‘Oh, let’s do this because it will get a lot of attention.’ But when I thought about this 60-second spot, I wasn’t thinking this was gonna blow up or anything. I was thinking that I love Will Ospreay and I wanna be in the Super Juniors. I love run spots and I love fast wrestling so this would be cool and let’s just do that.”

On complaints wrestling looks too choreographed: “I don’t really understand the issue with it. This argument has been going on since Ricochet vs Ospreay and they did a double handspring backflip. This issue was, ‘Oh, this isn’t wrestling. It’s too choreographed.’ It’s the same issue people are having now with me and Blake. Guys have been doing this for years like Rey Mysterio and Eddie Guerrero or Jerry Lynn and RVD. This isn’t a new thing in wrestling. Maybe those spots are usually 10 seconds long and we did it for 60 seconds. I don’t understand the debate or when they say Jordan Oliver is a spot monkey. I wrestled David Starr for 40 minutes and we didn’t talk about anything in the back. I think it’s more of a misconception and people don’t understand what they’re talking about.”

On working in MLW so far: “It’s been so awesome. For me at first it was a little hard to adapt because of my style. Everywhere I go I don’t want to be just the high-flyer as I want to be a main event wrestler. I would always sit down with guys like Jim Cornette and Low Ki and ask them what I could be doing better. I think over the last few months I’ve started to come into my own and figuring out how to wrestle a TV style. I really appreciate this time I’ve had so far, especially being so young, as it’s kinda insane that I’m only 20 and signed to MLW and traveling the world every weekend.”

On who he’s enjoyed working with the most: “Probably Low Ki as I grew up loving him. That’s the style I really love and Low Ki is a Junior Heavyweight legend. I really love listening to Low Ki talk about the business and how he perceives it. How he perceives wrestling is so different than everybody else as he takes it from a realism that I feel is lost in the sport nowadays. People just love to bash and say, ‘Oh this is what wrestling needs to be.’ It’s bullsh*t. Everything’s not for everybody. ECW wasn’t for everybody back in the day and for all of these ECW legends sh*tting on it, I think they’ve lost touch with the business.”

On if MLW has given him feedback on his style: “I haven’t really gotten any feedback on my style because for MLW I do more character work than anything. I know I’m only 20 but I have a good understanding that I’m not on MLW to do these spots – I’m there because I’m a heat-magnet. I haven’t had much of Court telling me to slow it down because I really haven’t had the opportunity to do that there.”