Josh Mathews Talks New Additions to GFW, How He Became a Prominent On Air Figure, More

– Josh Mathews recently spoke with wrestlinginc.com, here are the highlights…

Has He Changed How He Works?: “As it relates to my commentary? No, I think that’s a common misconception, to think that I’ve changed, or my style changed, or my voice changed. All of that is not true. I’ve been calling wrestling the same way that I’ve been calling wrestling since I started. Obviously, I’ve gotten better, as I’ve gone along, but there’s no change in anything. It would be impossible to work somewhere for 13 years, and then come here, and immediately change the way that I call a wrestling match. Or the way that my cadence or my voice, or my style and all that… it is what it is. I’ve been the same way since I started doing this.”

On The New Additions to GFW: “Well I think it’s great. I think that – keeping them separate, I think that Johnny Impact coming in is awesome. I’ve known Johnny since before his wrestling career started. I’ve always been a fan of his, and I think what he does is phenomenal, and I think that he brings a different style, and a different attitude into the locker room. As for Jim Cornette, obviously he has been around this sport for many, many years. I think that Jim does bring a level of wisdom with him and everything that he does with the company, and everything he does with his character and the credibility that he brings. Honestly, I don’t have a whole lot of time in my day to… I don’t have a lot of time when we’re down there doing TV to be in the locker room and see the morale of the locker room. But I think that those guys will bring a lot of different energy to the locker room, for sure.”

On How He Became a Prominent On Air Figure: “Well, I’ll tell you exactly how it happened. When Jeff Jarrett came here, and when they were getting ready to take over, I said to him, ‘Check out what happens when I go out there. The fans don’t like me.’ He sort of laughed and said, ‘Okay’. When I came back in the night, he said, ‘They don’t like you. They hate you!’ And he said, ‘I have an idea’, and I said okay. The next thing I know, we were getting ready to have this match at Slammiversary. So that was all how it sort of came about, and that’s the way it sort of played its role.

On The Evolution of The Business: “I think it goes hand in hand with social media. And that wrestlers – everyone really – are more accessible than they ever have been before. And you get to know who these people really are. So it’s hard to be a character, right? You are who you are. If you go on social media and do certain things, that’s probably going to play into the way you are on TV. Look at what happened with me. I did an interview – a segment for one of our digital platforms, where I said I feel that I’m the best wrestling commentator on the planet. And that’s another avenue that sort of put this whole thing into perspective, and there are so many different platforms, and so many different things that you just can’t control, that you have to roll with. When they got rid of that Talking Smack show (on WWE) because the characters – the people were being too real, and so they can’t control that. So they said they were not going to do the show anymore, because of the way it’s going, and we don’t like it, and we’re going to stop doing it. GFW is the opposite, where we sort of embrace what happened, and we say, ‘Okay. Let’s see how we can deal with it.'”

On GFW Taping So Far Ahead: “Well, I mean, you take the good with the bad, right? I mean, people like to say what they say because we tape in bulk, but, it’s like, I’m a fan of movies. And I’m not watching the new X-Men movie live while they’re filming. I’m watching the finished product; I’m watching when it’s done. I watch a lot of other shows on Netflix and things like that, where I can watch every episode. It’s binge – watchable, and it’s done. I’m not looking for spoilers, I’m not looking for people to tell me the end of a movie before I see it. It doesn’t do any good for me, as a viewer. Wrestling fans seem to want to know or seek out spoilers or all that sort of stuff, I don’t really get it. But, also, if I know that Eli Drake is going to win the Global Championship on Thursday, I may tune in because I want to see how he’s going to win the Global Championship on Thursday.”