Air Paris Discusses Appearance At Talk ‘N Shop A-Mania

Air Paris famously teamed with AJ Styles in the final year of WCW as Air Raid. 

While Styles went on to become one of the top performers in wrestling history, Air Paris never broke out from the pack at the independent level, only competing a handful of times throughout the years. 

Paris was back in the spotlight at Talk ‘N Shop A-Mania when he appeared in the Bonneryard Match between Doc Gallows and Karl Anderson. 

Speaking on the Two Man Power Trip, Paris discussed how the appearance came about. 

“During COVID, Luke Gallows reached out to me about doing a match at Talk ‘N Shop A-Mania 1 about doing a cameo. I think I was the first cameo for their spoof of the Boneyard match with him and Karl Anderson. I did that and he said, ‘Dude, you look great, we should wrestle.’ I said, ‘You’re an idiot. You’re insane.’ What I love about him is he’s the ultimate optimist. He’s always happy and ‘there’s nothing that can’t be done.’ That’s one of the reasons those guys have been successful after their initial release from WWE. He said, ‘come do this match with me, we’ll do a Hacksaw Jim Duggan match, it’ll be super slow like a WCW Saturday Night match.’ I’m like, ‘okay, we can do it.’ We get ready for the match and day of, he’s like, ‘don’t worry about it,’ No Way Jose had just gotten released and he said we would do a tag match, ‘you and Aleksandr Koloff vs. me and No Way Jose.’ I hadn’t looked at boots in almost a year and a half, two years, I hadn’t looked at a wrestling ring either. I looked at my wife and said, ‘who in the world takes two years off and then goes and does an IMPACT Plus taping against two just released WWE guys?’ She said, ‘I guess you do.’ I went and did it, had fun with those guys, and have done several shows with Lariato. It’s always something easy and safe and I know I’ll get to go home and not get hurt. If I can do those kind of things, I will, but anything serious where I have to take a lot of chances, my kids mean more to me than the chance to wrestle does,” said Paris.

Paris would return for Talk ‘N Shop A-Mania 2 where he was thrown through the barbershop window. He has also done matches for Lariato Pro. 

Speaking about his experience in Lariato Pro, Paris said, “I know Gallows would never put me in anything that is unsafe or that I wouldn’t be uncomfortable with. I’m up for anything, it’s just, you have guys on these shows like John Skyler or Rich Swann. All those guys that Gallows uses, there is no way I can keep up with those guys. It’s funny for me to say it at 42, but I’m a nostalgia act. The people who do remember me, I can’t do a 20 minute Broadway and all those false finishes that I used to do, but we can certainly find a way to do things.”

Paris has wrestled twice for Lariato Pro in 2021. 

Fightful spoke to Air Paris ahead of Talk ‘N Shop A-Mania 2 about WCW, AJ Styles, and more. You can find the full interview by clicking here. 

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