AEW star Darby Allin wants to reach the top of Mount Everest and plant the company’s flag on top of it; he discusses his desire to climb the mountain.
Speaking with Sean Ross Sapp of Fightful, Allin noted that AEW is his priority, but he has plenty of goals outside of the ring, including climbing Mount Everest. He noted that he’ll have to wait until 2024, and he’ll miss ten weeks due to the experience.
“AEW is my big focal point. That’s my big thing,” Allin said. “Right now, there’s a lot of goals I have outside the ring, like Mount Everest is probably the biggest one I would say, at the moment, and that’s set for next year because you can only hike it two months out of the year, so I gotta wait until next April or May. It takes ten weeks to climb it, so I’ll be gone for ten weeks.”
When asked to describe how Tony Khan reacted, Allin described how he pitched the idea as a way to get more eyes on AEW. He noted that extreme sports could help get AEW more publicity. Allin then recalled how he envisioned planting an AEW flag on top of Mount Everest.
“I told him. I said, ‘Hey, I got this idea,'” Allin said. “I said, ‘If there’s a way to get more eyes on the company, like I’d been doing, there’s more eyes to get on the company through extreme stunts, and I’ll be the guinea pig for that. I said, ‘What about me climbing Mount Everest?’ No wrestler’s ever done that before. What if I just plant a big AEW flag on top of Mount Everest. I’m thinking of like what we could get in return, like interviews with Good Morning America or whatever it may be, and I have a team that reached out to me from Discovery. So we’ll document the whole thing.
“It’s a way I want to give back to the company, so it’s not just homey going into the mountains and disappearing. There is a method to the madness that I want to give back on.
Allin went on to describe how Khan was initially “down” with the idea before he worried that Darby’s life was at risk. Allin then explained how he told Khan that he “got this”, and he emphasized that it was a big thing for him to do. The AEW star also made it clear that doing extreme activities builds his confidence.
“He was down at first, and then he started thinking, ‘Wait, it’s Mount Everest. You might die.’ I said, ‘Tony, I think I got this.’ I really believe I got this. It’s a big thing to me to do. It’s something, like what I’ve said in promos at AEW, I do crazy things to break down the mental barriers in my head because growing up, I never had the confidence. I used to walk to school with my head looking at the ground because I was too embarrassed to look up at the people driving by.
“The moment I started doing crazy stuff, it gave me more and more confidence, and it’s building. I felt like, being in the main event this Sunday, I’ve never had more confidence my whole entire life, and I’m laser-focused, and I really think it’s from doing crazy stuff. It breaks down these mental barriers in my head, and climbing Mount Everest, I feel like once I summit that mountain, I come back, like you’re gonna get the most confident dude ever. I’m looking forward to it. We’ll see how it all plays out.”
The full interview is available here:
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