Tonight, Darby Allin will get the biggest opportunity of his career.
The former EVOLVE star has been on a role since getting his first victory over CIMA during AEW Dark. Despite not having the best record in the new promotion, Allin has shown the wrestling world his tremendous athletic ability and heart, which is what the challenger for the AEW World Championship wanted to do throughout his wrestling career (transcript courtesy of
Uproxx):
“For a long time, I had this stereotype of I just do crazy bumps. I just do crazy bumps. That’s all I do. Then they actually, like, saw that match – because I don’t think anybody had been paying attention to what I was doing at Evolve because no one watches Evolve – so then after they saw that match, they said, ‘Oh yeah, this guy can actually do shit. Let’s hit him up,"
For Allin, he knew it was time to leave EVOLVE when he realized that the company wasn’t helping him gain buzz within the wrestling community:
“But at the same it, it wasn’t building your career. Because, the thing is, I wrestled Adam Cole there and then I checked my Twitter expecting a lot of people to be talking about the match. Only two people were talking about that match on Twitter and at that time I saw the writing on the wall that being here isn’t going to help your name value at all. You’re not going to get more followers. You’re not going to get more buzz.”
Before joining AEW, Allin was offered an opportunity to join WWE NXT; however, the 26-year-old turned down a chance to work with the company because he didn’t want to just sit on the sidelines and be satisfied with simply being in the WWE:
"There’s a million guys there who are never going to see the light of day. It’s not worth it. So I was like, ‘I’m not even interested.’ I’m not the type of guy who wants to sit on the sidelines and say, ‘Gee, I’m just happy to be in WWE.’ I don’t give a f*ck," he said.
Check out the full interview where the AEW star discusses other aspects of his career, including his reckless style inside the squared circle.