wrestling / News

Kaun Talks Working AEW Dark: Elevation Match, Reaction Backstage to Bout

January 25, 2022 | Posted by Jeremy Thomas
Kaun AEW Dark: Elevation Image Credit: AEW

Kaun recently discussed his match against Andrade on last month’s episode of AEW Dark: Elevation and the reaction backstage to the match. The Shane Taylor Promotions member faced Andrade El Idolo on the December 20th episode of Elevation, and he spoke with POST Wrestling’s Andrew Thompson about the bout. You can see a couple highlights as transcribed by Thompson below, plus the full interview:

On the match: “So I was actually supposed to wrestle Frankie [Kazarian] the first time but his flight, something happened with his travel so he came to the show late. It’s funny because I’m like a huge fan of Andrade. I was a huge fan of his in NXT and I’m like, ‘Okay, I’m wrestling this dude.’ But I’ve been watching AEW Dark since they started and I’ve been studying these match structures and I know they don’t get a lot of time and I think a lot of people do a lot of stuff that doesn’t really mean too much so in my mind, all right, I’m like, ‘I’m just making a moment. I’m just making a moment.’ When I was working with Andrade, fortunately we didn’t do too much because why? It doesn’t mean anything. There’s only three or four minutes. If I’m trying to show off my physicality and make a moment. This dude pulls my hair, I slap the s**t out of him. He can slap me back, but, I make sure I had that moment and look, I’m not here to play either. This is my opportunity to try to get signed.”

On the feedback he got from the veterans backstage: “Came to the back, Mark Henry’s been like a huge fan of mine for a couple of years so I talked to him briefly. He put me over on commentary too so I definitely appreciate that. He’s a legend so, him saying that I have a great physique and I’m an athlete, thank you. Same thing with Kazarian… talking to him about the way that I was trained by Joey Mercury and he was at ROH right when — right when he left ROH, that’s when I got signed there so I briefly crossed paths with him. But same thing with him, ‘Hey, we don’t have a lot of time. Let’s take this slow, let’s make this work, let’s show this struggle, let’s make this mean something because that’s gonna be so much more important to these people than just like doing all this stuff.’ I don’t even wrestle like that. I’d rather show off my physicality and came to the back, same thing, Mark Henry loved it, Kazarian liked it, [Christopher] Daniels liked it so, I think I’m going back for a couple more opportunities.”

On his overall experience: “Hopefully, some good things come out of that. But it’s been great. I know a lot of those people from ROH, I know some people in the office, I got to meet people. Surprisingly, they remember me when I was at ROH when they were there. So it’s like a great vibe, it’s cool to see people like Austin Gunn, Fuego Del Sol and catch up with people so, hopefully, good things happen in the next few weeks.”