Ricky Starks on Creating His Own Vignettes to Get Noticed, Showcasing His Personality

– Ricky Starks spoke with Fightful for a new interview discussing his joining the NWA and more. Highlights are below:

On creating his own vignettes to show what he can do: “I found a guy in Austin to film, Travis Ward, and we collaborated as far as what I wanted them to be. For the most part, I produced everything and had 100% input. Travis filmed it and would say, ‘This shot looks better this way.’ For the most part, it was 100% from my brain and just an idea that I wrote down. To me, it’s all about the intersection of art and cinematography with wrestling. I think about those things on a deeper level because that’s what I’m into. I’m into certain angles and how my favorite directors shoot their movies. And I try to do that as well. It’s a great creative outlet. I know myself better than anyone. The best way to articulate that is through visuals. Originally, I wanted it to be more of a look book, for people to atheistically look and be like, ‘this is intriguing’, and it’s up for their interpretation. It really came from having these ideas of what I wanted to do and instead of holding off, (I wanted) to see where I could go with it.”

On the vignettes leading to his getting into the NWA: “David Lagana saw one of my vignettes I created and messaged me. The purpose of those videos was to gain some interest. David Lagana hit me up after seeing it and wanted to bring me in for NWA 70. From there, I impressed in the ring and coupled with the creativity, that’s how we became more in-depth as far as agreements go and what led me to NWA Powerrr. But it all started from those vignettes and trying to get myself out there.”

On showcasing his personality: “I don’t feel like I can compete with the athletic style that the Indies are on right now. My body doesn’t move like that. There are things that I’m limited in that doesn’t allow me to take the same roads that were driven on by the previous Indie guys. To me, wrestling is about presentation, entertainment, and emotion. I have a pretty unique personality, I think. And I love to talk. My view on it was, ‘let’s bring the emotion in it.’ I remember going to WWE to do extras work and they kept talking about ’emotion. We have someone that can do flips and this and that. But we need someone who can drive emotion.’ I felt like that is my area. Through selling, through promos, I can really alter emotion. My goal was to make that happen. It was a long road traveled because I couldn’t compete as far as atheticism but I saw that not a lot of people were doing promos or pulling emotion from the fans. I was hopeful that one day, that would show up for me. And that’s why I wanted to do the videos because the fans don’t get to see that. Most promotions don’t even showcase that type of stuff. I didn’t know NWA was going to be the ‘promo promotion’ but it worked in my favor that way.