AJ Kirsch was recently featured in East Bay Express and spoke about growing up wanting to be a wrestler, and how he’s used his career to branch into other avenues.
Kirsch cited Shawn Michaels as his favorite wrestler growing up, saying he found an even greater appreciation for “HBK” after he started wrestling himself.
“Shawn Michaels was my favorite and the guy that made me want to become a pro wrestler,” Kirsch said. “I had no idea why, but I just thought he was the coolest. As I later got into wrestling, I appreciated him on a completely different level, because he could work with anybody and make them look better than they are.”
Kirsch talked about getting his shot with WWE through their Tough Enough competition, adding that although he didn’t win, getting on the company’s radar was equally as important. He added that making it to WWE had been his primary goal for so long, but he eventually realized the pursuit of that dream ended up opening more doors than that one:
“I need to show them that I’m doing everything in my power to make myself as valuable a commodity as possible, because they need their talent to be able to do talk shows and TV shows and movies and radio and whatever they can to further the brand of WWE. If they say ‘Hey, Whoever, we want you to be able to do this and are you up for it?’ and you’ve got to be like ‘Yep!’ And then you have to nail it.”
“For the longest time, I was so hyper-focused on making it to the WWE, but what started as a pursuit of that one, singular brass ring has opened doors that I otherwise never would have found myself in front of and has led me to experience moments that I literally had to remind myself out loud that I wasn’t dreaming. There’s still a part of me that would welcome the validation of being offered a position at WWE, but I’m making a living doing what I love, I’m respected within my field, people seem to enjoy my work, and I enjoy doing it. I’m ‘doing it.’ And for that, I’ll always be grateful.”
Kirsch talked about using the mantra of “Why not me?” to guide him, saying if you think you’re the right fit for something then you should pursue that goal.
“Somebody has to do it. And if you think it should be you, then why not? That’s the mentality I had the moment I dropped my application in the mail for Tough Enough back in late 2010. I mean, the way I look at it, any time you get paid to use your imagination, you’re doing all right.”
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