Luke Gallows and Karl Anderson on Doing More Talk 'N Shop A Mania Shows, Impact Wrestling, Bullet Club
Luke Gallows and Karl Anderson have been the talk of the pro wrestling world for the past few [...]
Luke Gallows and Karl Anderson have been the talk of the pro wrestling world for the past few weeks. The two former tag team champions were released by WWE back in April but have since signed with Impact Wrestling, made their debut with the promotion in the closing moments of the annual Slammiversary pay-per-view and confirmed that they'll also be returning to New Japan Pro Wrestling in the near future. On top of all of that, the pair will be hosting their own pay-per-view this Saturday night with Talk 'N Shop A Mania, which they promise will be "the worst pay-per-view ever."
On Friday the pair sat down with ComicBook.com to talk about everything that's happened and what they've got in store with Impact and New Japan going forward.
ComicBook: You guys had your first match in months air this week. How did it feel to be back in the ring?
Luke Gallows: It felt good, man. We were ready for it, we needed itWe had three months off, we were filming Talk 'N Shop A Mania, but Sex Ferguson and Chad 2 Badd were not inside of a ring, they were in a boner yard. So it was nice to get into the ring and work the kinks back out. And yeah, it was a great feeling
Karl Anderson: It felt really good. It's just, at the end of the day, that's our place we want to be more than anything in this. It really is an enjoyable time in the ring, and we love it.
You mentioned Sex Ferguson and Chad 2 Badd. Will we ever see them pop up on Impact?
Gallows: I think that they're probably safer in the Talk 'N Shop A Mania world, so we'll probably leave them there. They don't know how to conform to normal television standards, they're a little bit too TV-MA, a little NC-17. So they probably need to be separate entities.
Anderson: Yeah, they need to stay in the Talk 'N Shop A Mania universe, in like the comic book world. They need to stay right there.
How does one win a Boner Yard Match?
Gallows: Well, it's where you have to bury your opponent alive in a grave so that he can't climb back out. And then, if Sex Ferguson wins, I heard a rumor that he's going to possibly defecate in the grave. I don't know if I can confirm or deny that.
You got to watch. And there's going to be, there's a lot of great cameos in the Boner Yard match. A lot of professional wrestling talent, different eras and ages that we know and love stepping out of the confines of what you've probably seen them do on television in the past, to come out into our fantasy world and have some fun on the worst pay-per-view ever, Talk 'N Shop A Mania. And hopefully, when it's all said and done, wrestling's greatest parody.
If enough people buy Talk 'N Shop A Mania, will we see another one in the future?
Gallows: Oh, yeah. A hundred percent. Maybe sooner.
Anderson: Yeah, I almost think if ... I'm not actually sad about it, but the projections right now, it's almost already a success. So I feel it, and it feels like Gallows, his brain has already started to twirl. And I feel like we'll be, if this thing hits, if I get like we think it's going to hit, it's going to not just be a yearly thing, it'll probably be a quarterly year thing.
Who in Impact do you think can take the wrestling world by storm here in the next few years?
Gallows: Well, I think that first of all, we have to answer that question selfishly and say us. We finally have the Good Brothers, we finally have Gallows and Anderson un-handcuffed, off the cuff, and being able to run roughshod over a place again, like you saw in New Japan. But we're smarter, we're a tad bit older, we're in better shape, and we're more prepared. It's going to be awesome, but you've got a great roster coming behind it. You got Eddie Edwards as world heavyweight champion, and I know my partner, The Machine Gun, has already taken offense to that. And then the issues with him and Eric Young.
You look at the tag team division is stacked. The North that were just the longest-reigning Impact Tag Team Champions in history. Great tag teams we'd like to get in there with. You look at the Motor City Machine Guns, that's a dream match, but then you've got all these 20-somethings that are just starting to catch that buzz. The Rascalz, groups like that. Up-and-comers, and then you've got some nasty veterans. There's Sami Callihan, Rhino, and we've got Heath Slater coming in. We've got Brian Myers like you've never seen him before. Never seen a guy more determined, and I've known him for 15 years, than he is.
So I could keep saying sleep on Impact Wrestling, because I think it's going to be the new hot button thing to watch. We're going to keep pushing that envelope, we're going to keep showing you new creative stuff that you would not expect to see. And it's just going to keep growing and getting bigger and bigger.
Anderson: And the Knockouts, man. I think the Knockouts have something that people haven't had a chance to really see in awhile, too. I think that some new eyes are going to be on Impact now that, well, we're there. And so I think that everybody's ... There's a whole new magnifying glass on Impact, and this is a chance for everybody to shine.
You guys have talked in previous interviews about how you're on the fence about going back to Bullet Club once you return to New Japan. How do you feel about where the group has gone since you guys originally left?
Anderson: Bullet Club, when we formed it, we knew it was going to be cool, we knew it was going to be a hit, but did we know it was going to go as worldwide as [a] wrestling household name as it actually did? Probably not. But in our confident minds, when me and Finn Balor and Tama [Tonga] and [Bad Luck] Fale joined, we joined together, we were confident and we knew we could take the wrestling world by storm. Then Gallows comes in, you get The Young Bucks with their fan base. And then AJ Styles comes, and then Kenny Omega, and then Cody comes in, and you got a whole ... There's just so much that happened, and people can say that it's not what it was before, but it's still just as big in Japan to those Japanese fans as it was when The Elite was rocking hard, and when we were running hard.
It's fun that it's still there, and there's still such a story there, because Fale and Tama are still in it, and they're the originals. And so, when Gallows and I show back up again, there's such a massive story. Are we going to join the Bullet Club again? Are we not? Jay White is basically one of the leaders there now, and he was a Young Boy in the dojo doing my laundry when I was there. So there's so many ways we can take this story, and it's exciting to see what's going to happen.
Where do you think Bullet Club ranks in the pantheon of great factions?
Gallows: I think it's got to rank pretty damn high, right? Yeah, you go ahead. But here we are seven years later, it's still rocking and it's going to continue. I don't know a lot of factions in the history of wrestling factions that can say that.
Anderson: I think that a lot of people think that something doesn't get its validation unless it's in WWE, right?
There's of course D-Generation X and nWo, and The Four Horsemen and Evolution, that's all the biggest you're going to see, because the WWE created that and helped it get to where it is. And if Bullet Club would have, if they would have bought the Bullet Club name and brought the Bullet Club in, it would easily have been number one up there. You can't say it wouldn't. But to be as big as it got outside of the WWE, and never touched foot in the WWE, makes it even cooler, I think. And that's why I rank it a hundred percent number one, when it's at its absolute full force. It was and is a true rebel faction that functions outside of those television walls, and got as big as it did, and continues to have momentum.
Talk N Shop A Mania will air at 9 p.m. EST on Saturday night via pay-per-view and FITE TV.
