TK O’Ryan Discusses the Origin of His Ring Name, Explains How The Kingdom Is Misunderstood

– Telegram in Worcester, Massachusetts recently interviewed ROH talent TK O’Ryan. Below are some highlights.

TK O’Ryan on his ring name: “I’ve been called TK as long as I can remember. I knew I wanted the TKO and I wanted an Irish surname. There was just something about O’Ryan that I really liked.”

TK O’Ryan on his background in baseball: “I broke my foot my junior year in a game at Harvard and that basically ended my season. That was kind of the beginning of the end of my baseball years… Yes, my original dream was to become a professional baseball player and I chased that dreamed for 20 years. The game kind of told me I was done playing as it does to so many athletes, and I accepted that.”

TK O’Ryan on The Kingdom: “We’re all New England guys. I’m fortunate to be working for one of the top wrestling companies in the world, and I’m on television just about every week. We’re the resident villains, man. We don’t get a whole lot of love. The Kingdom gets booed in just about every building we step in, but in Lowell, the fans do love us. We walk on water in Massachusetts. Put it this way: we’re misunderstood and often misrepresented.”

TK O’Ryan on how he used to work with software licensing:“I worked at a software licensing job at first, and I hated it. Then I worked as a network administrator for the Bourne school system. After a while, I realized I needed to do something athletic and that’s when I started thinking about being a pro wrestler. I knew a local professional wrestler from the Cape, Scott Ashworth, and he directed to me to the pro wrestling school in Fall River, The Lock-up. It’s sounds crazy, but I didn’t want to think about 40 years of just having a desk job.”