Jake Crist Details His Return To IMPACT Wrestling And Being Sober For Nearly Three Years

Jake Crist is back and in better shape than ever before.

After nearly two years away from IMPACT Wrestling, Jake Crist made his return to the company at Under Siege, teaming with Sami Callihan and Rich Swann against The Design. Appearing on Callihan Uncensored, Crist descibed the emotion of returning to the place he called home for over three years from 2017-2020. 

“I can’t even put it into words. I can’t even express the meaning. Three years of hard work, dedication, going to the gym, dieting. I know it’s cliche to say all those things, but that’s exactly what I was doing. I’m telling you, I came out the better person in the end and I’m very, very happy that I got that opportunity. Not only was I happy that I was able to overcome all the odds that I’ve overcome, but to do it by my best friend’s side was just the icing on the cake,” he said.

Crist then proudly shared that he will be three years sober come this October. 

“Three years sober and I’m very, very happy and proud to say that. It’ll be three years this October. I kind of forgot the date to be honest. I forgot what it’s like to be drunk. I forgot what it’s like to be hungover. I’ve just loved the feeling of forgetting what it was like to be that drunk,” Crist said.

He would continue on, saying that even though he quit cold turkey, he wouldn’t reccomend it, likening it to The Dewey Cox Story of needing more and less blankets at the same time. Jake would also share the story of the night (and day after) that ultimately led to him making a change. 

“I do not recommend that at all because going back during the research, you know, and actually suffering through withdrawals. The day before, I was with a small group of people and we decided to have a few drinks and I actually told my wife, ‘You could do most of the drinking if you feel like it. I’m only gonna have one. I’ll drive us home.’ Well, one ended up being a whole bottle of vodka. I was like 240 pounds at this time. I just let myself go. I didn’t know what was going on. It was in there in the middle of the pandemic. I just didn’t know where my life was headed. So I just started throwing them back. Next thing you know, one became the bottle. She’s carrying my 240 pounds. She gets me out of the passenger seat and I fall face down, ass up in my front lawn. She’s trying to get me up and I’m telling her, ‘No, no, leave me. Please leave me.’ She’s trying and then I legit turn my head and I just vomit. Like violently vomiting. It was bad.

I wake up [not knowing if he was asleep for 5 seconds or 5 hours]. Travel back into my house and I go to my bathroom to do the normal hangover ritual which was throw up, take a shower, throw up, take a shower. Do that, repeat, recycle seven times. So that was like my home remedy of curing my hangover. So in the middle of me going to do this this process, I walked past my mirror and I didn’t even recognize who that guy was. Just like, ‘Who is this guy?’ That’s when I was living in rock bottom’s basement. I was trying to crawl crawl up and every little thing would send me back down to the basement. So I literally put both hands on each side of the mirror and I had a heart to heart with myself. I remember one of the last things I said to myself is, ‘You’re not the best wrestler in the world, but you’re one of the best wrestlers in the world. It’s time to get your shit together. The two things that held you back your whole career has been your ability to talk and your body. Now it’s time to become unstoppable.

Last time, I took a shower, get ready, throw some gym clothes on start walking out. My wife goes, ‘Hey, where are you headed?’ ‘I’m headed to the gym.’ She’s like, ‘Well, you don’t have a membership. What are you talking about?’ ‘I’m about to!’ Walking to the gym ever since for three years,” he said.

As for the backstage reaction at IMPACT, Crist says the amount on nice things everyone was saying was overwhelming.

“It was overwhelming,” he said. “I can’t even put it into words how much every single person that came up to me and said something amazing about how great I looked or how young I look or how fantastic of shape I was in, it was awesome. It was the best feeling ever. It made every bit of those three years, every second of that, it made it all worth it. There were days that I literally made myself go to the gym, like I made myself quit drinking and put down the bottle. Anything that you can think about that would set you over the edge and make you want to do those things, I literally had to block those things out to get to this point in my life and I’m so happy and grateful that I’m at the end now.”

The conversation concluded by Crist exclaiming that he’s on the best run of his professional career, acknowledging that he wouldn’t have been afforded these opportunities had he not made a change. 

“That’s 100% fact. If I didn’t do that, if I didn’t make a change, I wouldn’t have had these opportunities. I know that for a fact. I’m on the best run of my life,” he said.

Crist will team with Sami and Fulton against The Design in a Ohio Street Fight at IMPACT Against All Odds on June 9. Fans can check out the updated lineup for IMPACT Against All Odds by clicking here.

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