By CiaranJames@TheCiaranJames
This is the first in a new series of interviews focusing on the next generation of young wrestlers, from the United Kingdom, Europe and United States I will be talking to the newest names on the scene wanting to make a name for themselves. First up is “The Elliott Jordan Experience”, truly a name you will want to remember. Enjoy
First, please introduce yourself, who and what is ‘The Elliott Jordan Experience’? The Elliott Jordan Experience is the most streamlined and aerodynamic experience in professional wrestling today. It could be in the ring, or the VIP section of a night club that you can’t get in to, When The Elliott Jordan Experience is around you know you are in for quite the “experience”
So why choose wrestling? What inspired you to start training? This will sound bad but I didn’t even get in to wrestling till I was 20 and at university, me and the lads were flicking through one day and a repeat of RAW was on, followed it to the Bragging Rights event of 2010 with the big tag match where Edge and Rey Mysterio just cleared house! I was hooked straight away with the superhero personas and all the action, it drew me in like anything before and I knew this was something I had to try! It turned out a guy I worked with trained at a local school and offered to take me along, I thought I’d go and give it a try and here I am years later!
So where did you train? Talk to us about your experiences during this time? I originally started training at a small school up in Middlesbrough where I’m from, but after a few months I moved down to Birmingham to take things more serious and the timings worked perfectly as the Kamikaze Pro Dojo started a month after I arrived here! My experience of wrestling training has been amazing, the dojo is like a family, the past couple of years we have all grown together and we are now at a point where more of us are on shows than are not and you can’t really call the dojo shows trainee shows any more because of the quality of the guys and girls coming from the school. A few of us have been there years now, a couple for a few months and some only a few weeks but everyone who walks through the door is welcomed into the crazy family and is made to feel at home from day 1! We have an amazing trainer in Marshall X and with regular seminars with top talent and shows it has become one of the best dojos around.
How would you describe your style of wrestling? I would have to describe myself as all rounder, I love all different types of wrestling and feel like I have shown in the matches I have had so far this year that I can do them all, I love a bit of technical wrestling but at the same time am comfortable flipping over the ropes or off the turnbuckle! Each match is different, the experience is never the same!
When did you make your debut, who was it against and how was your mind set before and after, did you feel ready? I made my debut on Friday 1st May 2015 for Kamikaze Pro at Gatecrasher Birmingham, I took on Mika The Polish Punisher and Omari! To say I was nervous as hell would be an understatement, it was a really big show in a really cool venue! We had a couple of weeks in training to go over the match and I knew it inside out so I wasn’t worried about anything going wrong in that regard, throughout the day I hadn’t really thought about the occasion or anything like that I was just looking forward to debuting, then just before I walked out I heard one of the guys say they we’re going upstairs to watch the match, so I get in the ring and see Pete Dunne, El Ligero and Juventud Guerrera sitting up top watching us, that’s when the nerves really hit home and the pressure started, it turned out to be a great little match and a fantastic show! I am so proud to look back and say that’s where I debuted!!
So how/why was your character ‘The Elliott Jordan Experience’ born? Did you have any inspiration? The Elliott Jordan Experience sort of just developed as opposed to being born, when I first started I was The Wolf of Broad Street, Elliott Jordan. They say the best characters are extensions of yourself and this just wasn’t, I found it very hard during matches to play this character and found myself instead just reacting to the crowd instead of playing a certain character, I started using the line “This is the Elliott Jordan Experience” and it stuck, so one day I’m sitting with my coach and we are discussing new names and ideas and I suggested The Elliott Jordan Experience as a name, he liked it and we went with it! Since then I’ve been growing the character, 2 years on its a character I’m proud of and is someone I really love playing, it’s an extension of myself with everything turned up to 100 really! It’s funny, but a massive part of the character is the streamlined and aerodynamic (definitely not bald) aspect, that happened at random, I had never used those 2 words together before until I said them to a fan during a match, yet now if you said The Elliott Jordan Experience to someone they would probably say streamlined and aerodynamic!
Your interactions with the audience are great, you garner great reactions and you have a great heel swagger. Was this something you worked on or is it just natural? Thank you! It’s not something I have specifically worked on but it’s not exactly came natural either, if you watch my first few matches my crowd-work is just generic boring heel stuff really! Then everything kind of just came in to place, I had the streamlined and aerodynamic comeback start which became a big part of my character, this gave me the confidence to push on with crowd-work, it’s gone from “shut up” at some guy in the crowd to shouting some sort of funny put down which also serves to entertain the crowd, I told some bloke the other week he looked like an extra from Emmerdale which got a great reaction! I love the interactions I have with the crowd but I do have 1 rule, I won’t start it, I’ll only retaliate!
You obviously work extensively with Kamikaze Pro, I’ve attended many of their events and they are a great progressive company. Tell us about your time with Kamikaze and your experiences? I love Kamikaze Pro, since I started with the dojo it has always been such an amazing place! My first show ever Indy show was Hostile Takeover featuring Too Cool back in 2015 and since then I’ve been hooked and have always loved each show and every training session. Kamikaze Pro is such a cool family, from the wrestlers to the commentators, regular fans to first timers, commentators to the trainees everyone makes it the great place it is! Its amazing to see how far it has grown in the 5 years it has been around and I can’t wait to see what the next 5 years bring!
In the last year you’ve really stepped up your game in Kamikaze, you’ve taken on some great names such as Bram, David Starr and Phantasmo. Do you feel as if you’re taking that next step? Yes! Since I made my return to the main roster last year I haven’t looked back, my matches with Jack Starz, El Phantasmo and Bram gave me the confidence in myself and my ability that I needed, then when 2018 started I had that huge match with Clint Margera and then got to go out there with one of the best in the world in David Starr and really hold my own! It’s been a crazy time but I definitely feel I have taken the next step with my work and proven to a lot of people I can do this! I can’t wait to see where 2018 takes me!
Kamikaze obviously has faith in you, does it feel as if the company is backing you? Yeah, I feel like I am supported and backed by the company, I have shown them what I can do and what I am capable of! It feels great knowing I have their confidence, backing and support!
In March (Kamikaze, Shots Fired) this year you challenged then Kamikaze Pro Champion Clint Margera in a No DQ match. Clint is famous for his death style matches, how did you feel before and what was the match experience like? It was amazing, I was nervous before, but it was more nerves as I hadn’t been in that sort of match before so didn’t know what to expect with regards to the planning and creating of it, although I also hadn’t swung a chair or been hit by one so that was quite nerve wracking! It was amazing to be part of, I had so much fun, even whilst genuinely gasping for air in the snow or trying not to smile at the reaction to myself kicking out of a tornado DDT through thumbtacks! Clint really looked after me out there and I will forever be grateful, he was someone who was always good to me when I came up to the roster so to have a match like that against him was amazing, my only regret is me Mam was supposed to be there and couldn’t make it, although she did say whilst watching the footage she would have wanted to jump in!! The match was the easiest I have ever had and will be my favourite match for a long, long time, the standing ovation I received after the match had me emotional, to have gained the fans respect and for them to really appreciate the work I had put in and the journey I had been on really meant a lot!
You also participate on the Kamikaze Pro Live shows, what’s it like working with the next wave of talent from the Dojo? The Live shows are great, I do believe I am the only person on the roster to have competed on all of them so far as well so that’s something I hope to keep going on! They started out as a brand for us from dojo to get match experience in front of a live crowd but have turned in to a respected brand in their own right, to call them dojo shows I believe is disrespectful with the talent on them and the quality of matches put on! I remember the first show, there was myself, Omari and Mika from the dojo on the show, last week we had about 13 from the dojo on the show so that says it all! Sean Devine, Luke Douglas, Hammer Heeley and Man Like DeReiss have all recently debuted on the main roster as well! I said before the dojo is like a family, so every Live show I’m getting to go out there and wrestle someone who I’m already really close with, can’t think of much better than that!
You recently worked with Lana Austin, what do you think of mixed matches in wrestling and the opinions of some who don’t think women and men should be wrestling one another? Working with Lana Austin was great, the setup was perfect and our characters could bounce off of each other, add Sean Devine in as a special ref and you have an amazing dynamic! I love inter-gender wrestling, opens up loads more possibilities for matches and story-lines and produces some really entertaining stuff. To those people who don’t think women should be wrestling men I would ask what Triple H was up to at Wrestlemania a few months ago? He got threw around like a rag doll by Rousey which is exactly what would have happened in the real world! Plus it was the best match on the show! People need to realise we are in 2018 now.
June 30th was Kamikaze’s 5th anniversary show, you made quite the entrance and as always owned the room. Management arranged for you to face Millie McKenzie, how was the experience? and…wasn’t that your 3rd match of the day? That was a great experience, such an amazing day! It wasn’t My 3rd match of the day it was my 1sf of 3 matches, within 25 minutes of wrestling Millie I was in the ring in a venue about 20 minutes drive away to compete in a semi final and then wrestled in the final later on so it was a crazy evening! I really feel like this 5th year in Kamikaze Pro has been a great year for myself, it made that promo easy as a lot of it was from heart and just honest! I really enjoyed the match, had wanted to wrestle Millie for a long time and I feel we delivered on the day!
What has been your most memorable match or moment so far in your career? My most memorable moment of my career has to be getting Tornado DDT’d through a pile of thumbtacks, kicking out and having the crowd sing “he’s got thumbtacks in his head.” The way the crowd interact with me because of my head that spot wrote itself, couldn’t have imagined the reaction it would have received!
So where does Elliott Jordan want to be at the end of 2018, have you set yourself goals? By the end of 2018 I really want to have established myself as a mainstay on the Kamikaze Pro roster and I want to have a load of debuts booked in for 2019! As it stands I’m set to wrestle most weekends in between now and the end of the year, with most weekends actually having multiple dates! 2018 has been amazing, it has given me so much but has left me hungry and motivated for so much more in 2019.
The UK wrestling scene is on fire right now, as a fan and competitor what is your opinion on the idea of WWE signing up top talents, do you see it as an opportunity to take those spots left empty? I personally think it’s great! You have WWE UK and World of Sport giving amazing opportunities! It’s amazing motivation for all of us who aren’t on those shows as it’s opportunities that haven’t really been there before, and like you say it’s loads of spots that need filling, if the WWE signs a guy and they can’t work certain places then those places have to fill that spot, it’s great for us all! The British wrestling scene is absolutely amazing right now and their really isn’t a roof on how far it can go!
Finally where on social media can we all keep up to date with your career? You can keep up with all things The Elliott Jordan Experience on Instagram as theelliottjordanexperience and on Twitter as @ElliottJordanXP. For Facebook, it’s The Elliott Jordan Experience!
One more, what wrestler working right now would be your dream opponent? My dream match is a great question, Juventud Guerrera would be very much up there, the guy is a great person and has always been really good to me as long as I’ve known him. Paul London, he was amazing to meet and I got to go out with, hands down the nicest guy in wrestling so he has to be up there! On the British scene I’ve been lucky enough to wrestle The Hunters, my trainer Marshall X and then Bram was a big one for me as I actually met him once as a fan! The David Starr match for me was huge as when I first started he actually stayed at mine for a few days whilst on tour here so to then wrestle him was so cool! A match I would love is Saxon Huxley, such a great bloke the few times I’ve met him and I believe he’s one of the best around, I got lucky enough to wrestle him in a tag but would love a singles, plus he’s from Hartlepool which is only down the road from where I’m originally from in Middlesbrough so that adds a bit of spice!
A huge thank you to Elliott Jordan for his time and cooperation
You can follow me @TheCiaranJames
For further previews, reviews, news and Interivews on the UK Independent scene check out ProWrestlingJournal
Thank you to Wrestleography for the images used, you can see more of their work @wrestleography
