Crowbar Explains How AEW Appearance Came Together
Crowbar returned to the national spotlight on the October 11 episode of AEW Dark when he took on Joey Janela.
Crowbar was a featured player in WCW when he teamed with David Flair & Daffney. He has had an on-and-off relationship with wrestling over the years but was brought in for a show in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania to face Janela.
Speaking to Tommy Dreamer on House of Hardcore, Crowbar explained how the appearance came together.
It all started with Crowbar returning to wrestling following the pandemic.
“AEW starts up and as a wrestling fan, it’s not a knock on WWE, but you’re interested in this new thing and want to see what they’re going to do. The whole pandemic, I’m watching Dynamite and Dark and thinking, ‘It would be a lot of fun to go there. It would be great.’ I had wanted to reach out sooner, when they were doing the tapings in Florida, but New Jersey had the two-week quarantine if you left. I’m in health care and if I took off two weeks, it would have killed me financially. I couldn’t afford to go and then come back and lay at my house for two weeks and not work. I wanted to call (AEW) sooner. The pandemic starts to come to an end and my first match back was the ECWA Super 8, which I did 25 years ago. They give me a call, it’s at 3:30 in the afternoon the day of the Super 8. Way back when, if you got a call for a date last minute, you could go and do a solid match and give the people their money’s worth. Now, almost everything is going to go to YouTube or something. You can’t shit the bed. I haven’t had a match in 14 months. I wanted to do this and in the car, we’re talking it through, ‘Ricky Morton is having an issue with travel, can you show up?’ I wanted to do it and it’s on FITE TV or IWTV and I ask myself, ‘Should I do this?’ It sounds cliche, but I thought it was God giving me an opportunity. I had been working the whole pandemic to stay in shape because I wanted to return. I go, ‘If you don’t take this, you’re going to miss out. You’re meant to take this.’ I go and have two matches. From that date, I get a date for JCW in Atlantic City against Rickey Shane Page and we tear it up,” he said.
Crowbar continued, explaining how he reached out to AEW and getting the call from the company,
“From those two shows, I had video that I was able to send to QT Marshall. In wrestling, you’ll get a call from somebody, ‘I’m in shape, yada yada,’ then they show up and it’s not the case. Before I even contacted (AEW), I wanted to show them what I could do and that I was still capable of doing. I sent (the tape) down, about a month and a half goes by, I’m on vacation in Disney and I get a text, ‘We’re going to bring you in when we’re in New Jersey.’ I wanted to cry. It was awesome and such a great feeling. We hadn’t had a vacation in two years because of COVID and I had the cleanest diet anyone could have on a Disney vacation. I was so hyped up and working out twice a day. It was such a great call to get and if it’s a one-off and that’s it, that’s all it is, it was worth it. It was incredible. You feel alive, you feel grateful. Just being able to go out there again in Philadelphia was just amazing. I love it,” he said.
Crowbar also credited Janela, who helped pull him back into wrestling the first time when they wrestled at JCW in 2014 and 2015. Crowbar helped Janela rehab his knee injury and was excited to work with Janela in AEW.
Crowbar most recently wrestled at JCW Series Of Survivals. You can find full results from the show by clicking here.
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