Frankie Kazarian and Scorpio Sky made history back on Oct. 30 when they became the first team to hold the AEW World Tag Team Championships by defeating Pentagon Jr. and Rey Fenix (the Lucha Brothers) on an episode of AEW Dynamite. The two were reunited with the third member of SoCal Uncensored, Christopher Daniels, at the Full Gear pay-per-view when Daniels attacked Pentagon after SCU’s first successful tag title defense. The champs will once again be in action on this week’s episode of AEW Dynamite in Nashville when they defend the titles against AEW World Champion Chris Jericho and Sammy Guevara.
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Leading up to the show Sky, Kazarian and Daniels all stopped by the ComicBook.com studio for an exclusive interview to discuss their time in AEW so far and their plans for the future within the young promotion.
ComicBook.com: Dynamite has been putting on some stellar tag matches every week. What separates AEW’s tag team division from other major promotions?
Scorpio Sky: I think this tag team division is the most stacked division in all of wrestling, and not just tags but in singles. You have so many teams that can all carry the company as the champions, talking about us, we’re talking about Lucha Brothers, obviously The Young Bucks, probably the best tag team of the last 10 years, and the list goes on and on. We just so happen to be at the top of it, and it’s a great honor to carry these championships and be the very first champions at that.
Frankie Kazarian: Yeah, certainly depth of roster, I mean just look at the teams that were in the tournament, the Lucha Brothers, and Young Bucks, and Private Party, and Best Friends, and Dark Order, and it’s just one team after the other just, it’s stacked. Just absolutely stacked, and you got other singles wrestlers trying to pair up and go after the belt, so it’s um, I’ll put this tag team roster up against any tag team roster, past present or future to be honest.
Chris you mentioned in the media scrum after Full Gear that you weren’t interest in the Freebird Rule with this tag title reign. Why is that?
Christopher Daniels: Well honestly it wouldn’t be fair to these guys. I mean they did the hard work, they went through the tournament on their own, and you know, if circumstances were different, maybe it would’ve been me and Frankie in the finals, maybe Frankie and I would be World Tag Team Champions on our own. But it went the way it did, these guys, they fought the fight, and they won the titles. So I feel like it would be very unfair of me to try and take a position as a co-holder of one of these tag titles for a defense. Honestly, the fact that they’ve got their names inscribed on the belts on the plates, that sort of makes it hard for me to carry a belt that doesn’t have my name on it. So that’s fine with me, I’m not looking to ride the coattails of my partners, they earned it, and they are the World Tag Team Champions. I’ll have my opportunity to be a champion in AEW soon enough.
What were your reactions to that Lights Out match between Jon Moxley and Kenny Omega at Full Gear?
Kazarian: My reaction was I was glad I was not in that match. Those guys, they brought a new level of violence the likes of which a lot of people, at least state side here have not seen, and it’s it’s different, I know that type of violence is not for everybody. But there are people that do enjoy that aspect of it, and the thing about those two guys is those are not two guys that you would consider just death match style wrestlers, because they’re both incredible accomplished, I mean look what Kenny Omega’s done over the last couple years. He’s, you know, widely regarded as the best wrestler in the world, and Moxley’s proved that he’s probably wants to be in that conversation too. So I enjoyed it, I know that type of match isn’t for everybody, and I know that type of violence isn’t for everybody, but I enjoyed it, and there’s a large portion of our fan base that enjoyed it too from everything that I’ve read and heard.
Sky: Yeah, I watched some of the match from the dressing room, and about halfway through I moved over to the viewing area because I wanted to watch it with people. And I’ll tell you, there was a lot of people watching through their hands. It was a very violent and kind of scary match, because you never wanna see one of your locker room mates hurt. So once both guys came out of it and nobody was seriously injured after a match like that, we were just all grateful and happy. And what those two guys gave to the audience was something unbelievable, and I know as a fan myself I’ll never forget it.
Scorp, you’ve referred to yourself as an “Overnight sensation, 17 years in the making.” What advice would you give to guys in the business that have been wrestling for a while but still haven’t found their big hook?
Sky: It’s gonna sound cliche, but stay the course. If you really really want it, remember why you started, because in this business, there’s gonna be people that are gonna hit right away, and there are gonna be people that it takes a while. And I like to look at it as like a sport, not everybody can be the number one pick. Not everyone’s going to be LeBron James, the number one overall pick, sometimes you might be a Kobe Bryant who’s number 13, or you might be a Draymond Green who goes all the way in the second round. But that doesn’t mean you can’t finish your career as a hall of famer. Things start differently for everybody, so stay the course, keep working, never let yourself be satisfied, and never be, never be too proud to accept help, and accept advice. Myself, I’ve been at it for years, and if someone with one years experience has some good advice for me, I’m gonna listen to ’em. Because anything that can make me better, that’s gonna only improve my career and give me more longevity, and that’s basically what I would give to anyone out there who’s trying to make it.
Now I also know you’re a bit of a sneakerhead. We’ve seen shoe collaborations with brands like Star Wars, Marvel and even Spongebob lately. If AEW did a collab, which shoe brand would you want it to be with?
Sky: Oh God, I would love it. Obviously the Jordan 1 is my favorite shoe of all time, I probably have 15 or 20 different pairs of just different versions of the Jordan 1, and that’s just obviously one style of shoe. I also love Air Force 1s, I even like like Chuck Taylors and that sort of thing. So if we did a collab, obviously Jordan would be my first pick, but I wouldn’t be against Air Force 1s, I wouldn’t be against anything with Adidas because I wear Adidas all the time as well. Which actually kind of works, since I threw that out in the crowd maybe that’s a little, I don’t know if Adidas would want you throwing their shoe out, but you know. I think any kind of collab we can get would be fantastic, and actually that is definitely a goal of mine at some point in my career to have some type of shoe collaboration, I think that’d be a dream come true.
How would it feel to hand Chris Jericho his first loss in AEW on this week’s Dynamite?
Sky: How would it feel to, you know, play one on one with Michael Jordan and give him a loss? You know, Chris Jericho’s one of, if not the greatest of all time. You know, he’s called himself the GOAT in the past, you can’t argue against him, the way he’s reinvented himself, the way he’s always been able to stay on top year after year after year, and then you have Sammy Guevara, I’m not gonna take anything away from him. He’s also a young, dynamic star we have in AEW and his best days are ahead of him, but to able to give him his first loss in AEW, because he has been on a roll, he’s got a 100% winning record, and again, that would be another historic night for us.
Kazarian: Yeah, when you know, a popular topic of conversation in wrestling is who’s your Mount Rushmore, and certainly I think that Chris Jericho needs to be in that conversation. If you look at his body of work, and what he’s done across the decades and across the companies, and the guy is still doing it at a high level, and obviously he’s the champion of AEW. Having said that, it’s gonna be very rewarding and a very good moment for SCU to hand him his first loss.
This week’s AEW takes place at the Nashville Municipal Auditorium in downtown Nashville. The show airs live on TNT at 8 p.m. ET.
