Roderick Strong Says He’ll Become EVOLVE Champion

In an interview with WWE.com, Roderick Strong said he plans to win the EVOLVE championship and break Darby Allin at his appearances for the promotion this weekend. Here are highlights:

On possibly becoming EVOLVE champion: “If I win? It’s when I win, and no, never. I’m made to do this. I’ve been around wrestling since I was 12 years old and I really believe I was put on this planet to wrestle and that’s what I love to do. It would be just another opportunity to sharpen my skills because I always have that white-belt mentality, and I’m trying to learn and to become the best that I possibly can be. The more I do it, the better I become, and that makes me a very dangerous man to the wrestling world.”

On Austin Theory: “I hear more than I’ve actually seen, to be completely honest with you, because I’m extremely focused on NXT and WWE as a whole – but I also talk to a lot of people who still wrestle on the independents. Once you start hearing a buzz about somebody, you want to check them out because you never know if, and, or when exactly, they may come to NXT because NXT obviously has the best talent in the world. From what I’ve seen and heard, he’s amazing. He’s super young and he keeps getting better. He’s in a position that I feel like I was [in] when I was on the independents, of just being put in tough positions. You either bust or you don’t, and Austin’s a guy whose name keeps coming up, so obviously he’s handling himself well. For me, as someone who’s been doing this for so long, that kind of stuff excites me. It’s a new match-up against a younger guy that’s making a name for himself, and I like to consider myself the measuring stick of wrestling in general. Fabian’s doing a great job himself, but I plan on pushing those guys at a pace that they’ve never really had before, and we’re going to see what those guys are made of.”

On breaking Darby Allin: “I’m always prepared. I’ve wrestled every kind of wrestler that there is, I’ve been in every situation that there possibly has been. If you look at my history, I fare very well against guys like Darby — the smaller risk-takers. I guess this sounds sick, but my thing is, I’m just excited to see how much pain he will put himself through before he breaks. He’s wrestled a lot of guys, but there’s not anyone on the independents, or in WWE, that wrestles like me and is as relentless as I am, because I don’t care. I really don’t care. I will break him.”

On the working relationship with WWE and EVOLVE: “From the young guys in NXT to the guys on the independents, it’s a priceless experience. Some of the guys who are coming to NXT never had the opportunity to go and wrestle in the independents to see what that’s like, and the guys who are wrestling for EVOLVE are now having the opportunity to do some of the NXT stuff. To me, honestly, that’s a priceless experience that a lot of these guys are very lucky to have. I’m excited just because of my long history to come back to the independents, which is something I never thought I’d ever do again, and just show them again why I’m one of the best that does this.”