MLW National Openweight Champion Alexander Hammerstone recently spoke with Sean Ross Sapp of Fightful. In the “shoot interview,” Hammerstone discussed a number of topics, including signing with MLW and looking too much like Triple H.
On facing Savio Vega:
“This is definitely unexpected. MLW has a tendency to bring people kind of unexpected, never-before-seen matches but this is even a little more outside the realm than usual. The thing is, the younger cats, they’ve got speed, agility, they’ve got all these crazy type of aerial moves that are being innovated day in and day out but, at the end of the day, they’re pretty easily put down and overpowered whereas someone like Savio Vega, he’s got a bag of tricks that maybe goes a little deeper than I am used to. So I guess you could say, ‘expect the unexpected,’ but you don’t really change your game plan.”
On his goals with MLW National Openweight Championship and in MLW in general:
“My goals with this championship pretty much run parallel to my goals with signing with MLW in the first place. A lot of guys get opportunities with companies with TV deals or things like that, you know, younger guys who are happy to be there, you know, ‘oh, this might be cool,’ ‘oh, I want to tell my friends I’m on TV,’ you know, ‘I’m gonna make pretty good money,’ cool, whatever, But when I signed that contract, my mind went, ‘okay, I’m gonna be the face of MLW, I want this company on my back, I wanna be a franchise player, I want, a year from now, my name to be synonymous with MLW.
“I’m the first person to ever hold [the MLW National Openweight Championship] so I’m going to kind of set the bar and set the standard of what this championship means and so my goal is to make it the most sought-after championship in wrestling, the most must-see part of our program. I want it to be something that, if that title is being defended, people want to watch that match. I want it to be a main event belt.
On signing with MLW:
“At the beginning of this year in wrestling, with everything that happened and was announced, you know, all the companies turned and started really going after who they wanted and I can’t say MLW was the only person or the only company talking to me but what I can say is they seemed to have a very clear vision for me. It wasn’t that I was some prospect, it wasn’t that I was some muscular guy that, ‘Hey, maybe you’ll look good on our program or maybe we could do something with you eventually.’ It was like, “Hey, we like what you bring to the table and we want to make you a part of this show.’ And that is what I wanted to hear. Being in wrestling as long as I have, it’s good to be valued for what you bring to the table, it’s not that a company is trying to scoop me up so no one else could, it was that they specifically saw something that they wanted to buy and I think the relationship so far has been very beneficial on both sides.”
Here’s the full interview:
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