Willie Mack Weighs in on AEW’s Success, More Opportunities For Talent: ‘It Ain’t Been Like This Since the Attitude Era’

– Speaking with Jeffrey Harris for the 411 Wrestling Interviews Podcast, Impact Wrestling star and former NWA National heavyweight champion Willie Mack discussed AEW’s early success and its impact on the industry so far. Mack spoke about how AEW has helped to foster a new era for wrestling where there are so many opportunities for talent to work for a televised promotion, and also weighed in on whether he’d want to work for AEW at some point down the line. Highlights from that part of the interview are below:

On AEW’s success with Double or Nothing: “It’s cool. I was at the afterparty, I didn’t end up going to the show. But I was in Vegas, chilling at the afterparty and everything. And I saw the PPV because they had the viewing party too, for people who couldn’t attend. And it was pretty good. I like what they bring to the table, and it’s like crazy that a company that didn’t have not one show has so much buzz around it and is getting a lot of buzz going for wrestling again. It ain’t been like this since the Attitude Era, if you think about it. Because back in the day, there was only three places to work: ECW, WCW and WWF at the time. Now there’s like five or six places where you can get a contract set and be on some kind of television. And that’s amazing for everybody that’s wrestling, so you don’t have to worry about trying to go to the top three or the top one. You can go wherever you want to pretty much, and there’s opportunities out there, and it’s time for people to show the world what they’re about, and that wrestling’s still a thing.”

On if he’d like to wrestle in AEW at some point: “I’d like to wrestle everywhere, but I got my commitments with Impact, so I’m gonna stick it out with them. And hopefully everything goes good, and I’ll make my name there and then see what happens in the future.”

In the full interview, Mack talks about his run in Impact, the status of his contract, Nick Aldis’ controversial tweet about Impact signing him, whether he’s heard anything about Lucha Underground’s future, the success of AEW, if he has any interest in working for WWE in the future and more.

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Introduction (0:00)
On working with Michael Elgin in Impact and his current status with Impact (1:40)
On how the current regime is handling things in Impact (2:20)
On Impact’s problems with Pursuit Channel and if there’s any word of Impact moving to another channel (2:42)
On if he’ll be at Slammiversary and how he likes working in Texas (3:38)
On his run as NWA National Champion and working for the revamped NWA (4:55)
On Nick Aldis taking a shot at Impact signing him (6:45)
On the status of Lucha Underground (7:39)
On AEW’s success and whether he wants to work with the company down the line (8:04)
On which talent in Impact he hasn’t worked with yet that he wants to (9:45)
On when he first knew he wanted to be a pro wrestler (10:19)
On the key to being a successful working pro wrestler (10:54)
On being signed by WWE in 2014 and if he wants to go to NXT or WWE in the future (11:41)
On if his Impact contract is exclusive and if he’s interested working in MLW or Japan (13:01)
On whether the indy scene in the US is improving (15:12)
On what wrestling he enjoys watching in his free time (15:51)
Where to find him on social media (16:51)