Scorpio Sky On Getting Back To Basics With SCU, How Kobe Bryant’s ‘Mamba Mentality’ Inspires Him
Scorpio Sky is a Los Angeles Lakers fan so he knows all about staying hungry.
A legendary basketball franchise doesn’t win that many NBA championships (16 if you count their Minneapolis roots) by just staying stagnant. Sky, a recent challenger for the AEW TNT Championship, yearns for what’s next as he readies himself for his self-imposed full-court press on All Elite Wrestling.
Scorpio Sky’s alliance with Frankie Kazarian and Christopher Daniels dates back many years as they’ve been a team longer than AEW has been a wrestling promotion. Since Dynamite debuted in October, they’ve seen more of a focus as a ‘team’ in the traditional sense but Sky did provide some clarification as to what the future holds in an exclusive interview with WrestleZone’s Dominic DeAngelo.
“Well, we’re going back to a little bit of the original formula of SCU where I was the singles wrestler and The Addiction, Frankie Kazarian & Christopher Daniels were the tag team. Obviously we got away from that because things happen, CD got hurt in the tag team tournament on Dynamite last year and I had to take his place and Frankie and I were fortunate enough to end up being the World Tag Team Champions so we ran that until the wheels fell off and now it’s time to go back to do what we originally were doing.”
“I think Frankie and CD are still one of the best tag teams in the world,” Sky added. “They’ve been World Tag Team Champions in multiple companies. I would love to see them become World Tag Team Champions in AEW. As for myself, I’ve got a lot of goals as a singles wrestler. I’ve heard JR talk about it when he talks about me. ‘I gotsta know, I’ve gotsta know’ and I do feel that way. I have to know, ‘How far can I run this thing? How far can I go? Can I be the TNT Champion? Can I be the World Champion?’ We’re just going to have to see.”
Sky’s home of Los Angeles sure suffered a great deal of sadness early in the year as Kobe Bryant, along with his daughter Gianna, tragically passed away in a plane crash back in January. This past Sunday would’ve been Kobe’s 42nd birthday and Scorpio took so much from being a major fan of the late NBA legend and talked about how he adapted his signature “Mamba Mentality” to his own life and in-ring career.
“Growing up out here in the Los Angeles area, the Lakers are in your blood. It’s in the water, it’s part of your DNA, you are just a die-hard Laker fan and I was fortunate enough to grow up in the Kobe Bryant era.”
“Kobe was my generation’s Jordan and even when I became an adult and I watched how hard he worked, it became more than just a fan. The way he was maniacal about his craft and I kind of took that same approach towards pro wrestling and to where it’s just like whether I’m hurt, whether I’m feeling good, whether I’m run down, whether I’m tired, no matter what I’m going to do I’m going to out everything I have into this and try to overachieve more so than anything else. You can talk all the talent you have, but you want to overachieve no matter what you do and you never stop being hungry. That’s another thing, I’ve said it before, guys kind of get to a certain point, they get to this level where we’re in a big company and guys kind of become satisfied and I think one of the big things I took from Kobe is I never let myself become satisfied. Kobe won three championships and that’s not enough. ‘Now I want four, now I want five, now I want six’ and I’m the same way.”
(Transcription credit should go to @DominicDeAngelo of WrestleZone)
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