Hello everyone! Our man Andrew Thompson recently interviewed Impact Wrestling/Game Changer Wrestling referee Kris Levin. Here are several highlights from the interview and thank you for taking a look! Credit also to POST Wrestling.
Kris talking his busy schedule and all that is happening in IMPACT Wrestling:
The last few weeks have been some of the busiest in my career. And sometimes you’ll look at your schedule and you’ll see, ‘Oh okay. These next few weeks are gonna be rough’ and that’s what I just came off of. The rest of my year has thankfully slowed down a little bit in comparison but we had an awesome pay-per-view in Chicago [Bound For Glory]. And pay-per-views are always the most stressful thing. Then we had television tapings right after that in Windsor, Ontario, Canada then again in New York City and Impact’s been putting out bangers you know?
And it’s really awesome when things are firing on all cylinders. With the women’s division, the Knockouts division, the X division, the tag team division, the world championship division. Like Sami Callihan’s the new World Champion. He’s doing stuff with Ken Shamrock in 2019. I love it because it’s so wild and so diverse. Ken Shamrock versus Joey Ryan is a match that happened. There’s no rules anymore. Anything can happen and I think that’s great.
Kris’ thoughts about the Faye Jackson versus Joey Ryan match that he officiated for Prime Time Pro Wrestling:
I think I enjoyed it a little too much. Things got steamy. But no, it was an awesome match. And Faye Jackson and Joey Ryan are incredible at what they do and it was so much fun. I mean like, I thought… the crowd was thunderous and the crowd’s been up all night. But like, I feel like that’s the loudest they’ve been so far and that’s a testament to how it was I think, right?
Tessa Blanchard possibly becoming IMPACT World Champion at ‘Hard To Kill’ and if Kris wants to be a part of that match:
So, first of all, it’s always an honor to work in the main event of a pay-per-view for the Impact World Championship but it’s especially an honor to work with Tessa, who is… she’s just such a natural talent, and being in the ring with her is always a pleasure. It’s always a fun artistic challenge just like working with someone you jive with and Sami Callihan — one of my mentors. So it’s always so special to be in the ring [with him], let alone when you think about the historical significance of a match like this because make no mistakes about it.
Not just pro wrestling
This isn’t just a pro wrestling thing, this is… and I think some people might roll their eyes when I say this but I don’t care: It’s a civil rights thing. Because there’s still places in the United States today where they’ll look at that and say, ‘That match is legally not allowed to happen’; based solely off of the gender of someone. I think that’s disgusting. And I applaud Impact so much for having such a forward-thinking mindset of, ‘It’s not male wrestlers and female wrestlers. It’s just wrestlers.’
And it’s okay if you don’t subscribe to that mindset. But it’s okay if you do. And I think a lot of people look down upon intergender wrestling and say, ‘Oh, it’s not believable. It’s not this or that’ but like, since when has anything in pro wrestling been predominantly concerned about believability since the 70s you know?
Since the early 80s, and don’t get me wrong, there’s characters who follow the old Johnny Valentine rule of, ‘You might not believe pro wrestling is real but you’ll believe I am’. But, I feel like it’s a strongman argument to have anything negative to say about it. If it’s not your cup of tea, that’s fine. But live and let live and anything that goes towards equality. I think is awesome and that’s exactly what that match is doing. It’s normalizing alternative ways of producing professional wrestling and the more alternatives there are to something, as long as it’s safe and the fans are enjoying it; that’s ultimately all that matters and fan support is democratic.
If they like it, they’re gonna tune in, they’re going to legally pay in order to watch pay-per-view, buy tickets, attend live. And if they don’t like it, they won’t be there. And [if] people like it, it’ll keep happening. So if you like it, make sure you support it because if you don’t, it’s an opportunity that might be lost. And who knows when, if ever it’ll be regained.
