The beauty of wrestling in terms of both participants and\nfandom is that it often celebrates the different and the unique. Sure, there\nare some who step into the ring or cheer from the sidelines that don\u2019t exactly\nembrace this openness with their fellow peers, but for the majority, wrestling\ncelebrates individuality.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Individuality of expression and what makes a person themselves is something that Darby Allin holds in the highest of regards. Asked about the possibility of previous contact from the WWE, Allin was clear in what drove him in and out of the ring. \u2018There\u2019s a thing inside me where I really want to be creatively in control at all times\u2019<\/strong>, emphasised Allin, before a brief aside about the dangers of potentially becoming the guy who will cut promos in the attic spoke to the way his way of life could easily be misconstrued and manipulated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This singleness of mind and his overall presentation Allin\nattested to a harrowing episode from his childhood: \u2018When I was 5, my uncle was drunk driving and he crashed and there was\nan accident and I was in the car with him and he passed away from this accident\u2019<\/strong>.\nThis scarring incident left Allin feeling \u201850%\ndead\u2019<\/strong>, a numbness to life that carried into his skateboarding and\neventually his wrestling career. By his own admission, he did a lot of crazy,\nreckless activities during that time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Inside the ring, Allin isn\u2019t just about mindless violence\nfor the sake of it. Indeed, the wrestler he looked to the most for inspiration in\nhis formative years getting into the sport was Rey Mysterio Jr. The evasions,\nthe movement, the way he used his body to escape bigger guys all fired up the\ncreative juices of Allin. A man who felt he had been fighting from underneath\nhis entire life wanted to do the same in the ring, using his quickness and\nathleticism in an attempt to stay one step ahead. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Allin was clear on his psychology behind his moves \u2013 \u2018I don\u2019t pick anybody up\u2019<\/strong> \u2013 believing that\nwhilst wrestling could be a wonderful world where anyone can do anything, it\ndidn\u2019t fit with the way he wanted to present himself. In Allin\u2019s eyes, it was a\ngift to be small: it forces him to be more creative in what he did in the ring.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Creativity often bleeds into violence, quite literally in\nAllin\u2019s case. In his first shows outside of North America, Allin lost to Paul\nRobinson in the first round of the Super Strong Style 16 tournament, whilst he\nwas unable to be victorious in the Wasteman Challenge on Day Three. However,\nhis skateboard-assisted top rope stomp earned his trio a victory in the middle\nof these contests, whilst his decision to bite through his own lip to draw\nblood in the Robinson contest was one of the more arresting visuals of the weekend.<\/p>\n\n\n\n With a new continent under his belt, Allin\u2019s recent signing\nto AEW also potentially put him in a position where partnerships with AAA\n(although he had already wrestled in Mexico before) and OWE could see him\ntravel more often, following where the wind takes him. The response from the UK\nfans was at least heartening; a long line at the merch table assuring Allin\nfrom an early stage of the weekend that the fans did give a f*ck about him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Someone who definitely felt that way about Allin was Cody\nRhodes. It was he, fresh from watching an Allin versus Pentagon contest on an\nindependent supershow, who first made overtures with regards to an AEW\ncontract. Any concerns that this might curb Allin\u2019s creativity where staved off\nat least initially during recently filmed promos for a match between Rhodes and\nAllin \u2013 nothing was controlled in terms of Allin\u2019s aesthetic, actions or what\nhe was allowed to say.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Time spent in AEW may at least go some way to making a match\nagainst Jimmy Havoc a much more likely proposition; oddly, the two men have yet\nto be booked opposite each other in what feels like an obvious piece of\nbusiness. When asked, Allin stated \u2018(I)\nfeel like it\u2019s a long time overdue to be honest and I\u2019m surprised it hasn\u2019t\nhappened\u2019<\/strong>. One other potential dream match that was posited was perhaps a\nlittle more tongue in check; following an admission that he doesn\u2019t often watch\nwrestling, Allin voiced the desire to meet Ricky Morton in a No-Ring Death\nMatch some time down the line.<\/p>\n\n\n\n When not watching wrestling, Allin choses to direct movies\n(his first due in August) and skateboard. Unsurprisingly, this alternative\napproach to life within the wrestling bubble \u2013 characterised by the impact the\nworld has had on him from a young age – seeped into his desire for his career\nin wrestling from the day he stepped foot in the ring. Rather than the lofty\ngoals of some wrestlers who envision main eventing Wrestlemania as the ultimate\nand epitome of any worthwhile career, Allin\u2019s goal when first entering the\nbusiness was admirable in its honesty and simplicity. \u2018(To) leave knowing I was me the whole time and not morphed into\nsomething\u2019. <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n When you look into the eyes of Allin and listen to him speak from the heart, it is hard to argue against him achieving that goal. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The beauty of wrestling in terms of both participants and fandom is that it often celebrates the different and the unique. Sure, there are some who step into the ring […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":12465,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_bbp_topic_count":0,"_bbp_reply_count":0,"_bbp_total_topic_count":0,"_bbp_total_reply_count":0,"_bbp_voice_count":0,"_bbp_anonymous_reply_count":0,"_bbp_forum_subforum_count":0,"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[28,2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12460","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-editorials","category-featured"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9jnWd-3eY","jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/prowrestlingjournal.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/maxresdefault.jpg?fit=1280%2C720&ssl=1","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/prowrestlingjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12460","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/prowrestlingjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/prowrestlingjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/prowrestlingjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/prowrestlingjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12460"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/prowrestlingjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12460\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12462,"href":"https:\/\/prowrestlingjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12460\/revisions\/12462"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/prowrestlingjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12465"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/prowrestlingjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12460"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/prowrestlingjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12460"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/prowrestlingjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12460"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}