‘Speedball’ Mike Bailey Discusses Breaking Out, Names His Favorite Matches Of His Career

‘Speedball’ Mike Bailey talks about his breakout in the pro wrestling scene.

Ever since returning to the United States at the beginning of 2022, Mike Bailey has once again become a fan favorite in the independent wrestling landscape. Bailey, who was banned from entering the United States in 2016 after dealing with visa issues, has made the most out of this year, competing in promotions like IMPACT Wrestling, PWG, GCW, and more.

Before being banned from the United States, Bailey’s name was starting to heat up on the independent scene after having matches with guys like Roderick Strong and Sami Callihan. In a new interview with Fightful, Bailey discredited his original breakout in the scene, noting that he believes he’s gotten much better since then.

“Yes and that PWG stuff was in 2015. So I did a lot of wrestling after that. It bothered me for years when people would come up to me [in 2019] and say something like, ‘Oh, the best match of yours that I’ve ever seen was your match with Roderick Strong four years ago.’ Which is patently untrue. I’ve had much better matches since because I’ve gotten a lot better. But ultimately it’s hard to say. I can theorize a bunch of scenarios where I was able to continue to wrestle in the States past 2016 and I did the Cruiserweight Classic and I got a WWE job there and then I realized I was miserable and hated wrestling and went to live on a farm. That’s one of the many scenarios I can theorize. You don’t know. You really don’t know. It could have been worse. It could have been better. I had a great time for five years traveling the world and wrestling. Now I’m in IMPACT and I’m absolutely killing it. I’m super happy doing what I’m doing and there’s no part of me that is like, ‘I regret doing this. I should have done things differently.’ I did what I had to do. I’m glad it worked out. It’s fun to theorize, though. It’s fun to think about what would have happened. But it’s ultimately pointless.”

Bailey went on to name some of his favorite matches and/or opponents that he’s had in recent years. This list included names like Lee Moriarty, Konosuke Takeshita, Trey Miguel, ACH, & Moose. Bailey also named the three way X-Division Title match from the Rebellion pay-per-view earlier this year as the most underrated match in his career.

“So I‘m gonna give you one. That triple threat between me, Ace and Trey. That match is 1000% the most underrated match of my entire career.”

Bailey also went on to note that even his greatest matches are not difficult to put together.

“So, honestly, it isn’t difficult. It never is difficult. The best matches I’ve had were the easiest to make in my career. Always. I wrestled Will Ospreay a bunch of times. He’s definitely the number one guy. It takes five minutes. We don’t even talk and we know what the match is going to be. Because we know what we know that’s cool and the other is like, ‘You do this one, then I do this one, then that one. Good.’ It’s just mathematically it’s a good match. So we don’t have any additions to make.”

Bailey most recently wrestled at the Bound For Glory pay-per-view on October 7. To see results from that show, visit Fightful’s results section.

Elsewhere in the interview, Bailey discussed Naomi and her signature kicks. To learn more, click here.