Zack Clayton has had a great experience working with All Elite Wrestling and looks forward to building a future with the company.
Professional wrestler and Jersey Shore: Family Vacation star Zack Clayton spoke with WrestleZone about his work with AEW, including his recent AEW Dark: Elevation match with QT Marshall. Clayton first appeared on AEW programming in May 2020 as a security guard in the infamous Chris Jericho/Mike Tyson scuffle on Dynamite, but he also made his in-ring debut the next night at an AEW Dark taping. Clayton faced off with QT Marshall on an episode of AEW Dark that aired June 9, 2020, and he recently found himself on the opposite side of the ring against Marshall on Elevation.
Asked if he saw facing Marshall as a full-circle or notable moment, Clayton said it’s great to finally be able to perform in front of an AEW crowd. He added that he’s been able to learn a lot from Marshall, noting that he considers him a friend and the whole experience has been rewarding each time he comes back to wrestle.
“It’s been two years now [with AEW], or coming up on that. QT [Marshall] was my first match, I believe it was June of 2020 because it was during the lockdown, we were in Jacksonville with no audience and just that part alone,” Clayton noted, “that we’re able to have an audience back, we were in Newark for the last match, I think we had about 16,000 people, which is crazy. It’s amazing, so that aspect alone is fantastic that we can have actual people in the audience. It helps us grow and it helps me grow individually because that’s what we do it for, we do it for the engagement and participation of the audience, so that aspect missing takes a lot of the art and performance aspect away but now we have that back and that’s great.
“I’ve been with them [AEW] a lot more frequently now, which has been awesome. QT specifically is a great guy and is someone who I can call a friend outside of the ring but behind the scenes, he’s always booked up and always doing something backstage, so being able to have a match with them provided insight in a different way. Not only is he a great teacher in real life and now he has that group The Factory, but he’s a really great coach in real life as well. And being able to have a match with him is a great experience and working with him behind the scenes as well is a great experience,” Clayton said. “It’s really great being back there, every time it’s different, it’s a little more progressive each time, so it’s been great, so far.”
— Zack Clayton™️ (@zackclayton) January 19, 2022
While Clayton is starting to become a regular name that is familiar to AEW fans, many others know him from his appearances on Jersey Shore: Family Vacation. Clayton started on the reality series as “24,” the boyfriend of Jenni “JWOWW” Farley, but the two are now engaged and Clayton has also been embraced by the fans of the hit MTV show. Asked to compare the fanbases and if there are parallels in their loyalty, Clayton said that there are definitely some things that make both groups relatable to one another.
“We have a new season debuting [the new season premiered on January 6] and we’re starting to film another season, so being a part of that is a great thing. Obviously my fiancée and being involved like that, we’re all kind of one family on the MTV side of things with the production and crew. They’re around all the time right now, so it’s hard not to just become friendly with everybody. So, we’re non-stop doing that, which is great and I’ve noticed a lot of similarities, reality TV fans and pro wrestling fans are the same kind of obsessive, controlling and need things to happen their sort of way, they’re the exact same people,” Clayton said. “I don’t know if they necessarily watch the same thing all the time but I am starting to see that they do but the characteristics of those fans are that they see things the same way. So, I’m able to identify that from being a performer and now coming to TV. An example is my fiancée has seen it from TV to now seeing what wrestling fans are like, so I get to bring that aspect to the show in a way that they haven’t really thought about before and find a way to maybe integrate both sides. So yes, there’s a certain relatability to sides of both.”
Check out our full video interview with Zack Clayton at the top of this post. Clayton has had nine matches with AEW so far, including one at the January set of AEW Dark tapings in Orlando; that match will air at a future date. You can also check him out on Jersey Shore: Family Vacation on Thursdays on MTV.
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