Sami Callihan Says IMPACT Is The Closest Thing To The Attitude Era Today, Why He Quit NXT
Photo Credit: Bill Pritchard
Sami Callihan says IMPACT Wrestling isn’t afraid of taking chances, and they are sticking to the plan of giving fans the alternative wrestling product they’ve been asking for.
Callihan recently spoke with Alex McCarthy of TalkSPORT ahead of his World Championship match against Tessa Blanchard at IMPACT’s Hard To Kill pay-per-view on January 12.
Callihan spoke about IMPACT’s position in the wrestling world, noting that the company is taking chances and risks in an era where other promotions are reacting too much to fan feedback. He says people clamored for an “Attitude Era” return for so long and says IMPACT is the closest thing to it as far as giving fans an edgier product.
“People were screaming for an Attitude Era-like company to come back and I feel like IMPACT Wrestling is the closest thing to it. We’re the only company right now that isn’t afraid to offend people, to try new things, we’re not afraid to push the envelope and give you an edgy product and we’re not going to apologise for every single thing like a lot of the other companies. The other companies,” Callihan said, “if they see the internet wrestling community is upset, they just want to apologise about it instead of actually staying the course and giving people an alternative.”
Before he broke out on a national stage with IMPACT Wrestling, some fans might remember Callihan’s time in NXT as Solomon Crowe from 2013 to 2015. Callihan says he knew early on that things weren’t going to work out due to how much the company wanted to change him, and he quit because he wasn’t going to be happy being anything but the top guy he knew he could be.
“I quit NXT because I wasn’t complacent. I wasn’t happy just collecting a paycheck and just being a toy on the shelf. I saw myself as a top guy, I had to go out and prove it and I’ve done just that. As soon as I got there, they wanted to change everything about me and I knew it wouldn’t work. I could have sucked it up probably been on RAW or SmackDown right now,” Callihan said, “but I’m not complacent to be the third or fourth guy, I want to be the top guy and I’ve been able to do that, I’ve proven that a normal white kid from Ohio can be the face of a company when that’s not the norm, because I connect with people.”