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This Saturday night, IMPACT Wrestling will present its biggest pay-per-view event of the year, Bound for Glory. Chris Bey will try to deliver a star-making performance in his first appearance at the iconic event.
Ahead of the show, Chris Bey spoke to Sportskeeda's Philip Lindsey about his match and various other subjects.
Chris Bey hopes to become a two-time champion at 'Bey for Glory'
Chris Bey signed with IMPACT Wrestling on Feb. 19, 2020. Five months later, The Ultimate Finesser defeated Willie Mack to win the X-Division Championship at Slammiversary. However, Chris Bey lost the title on the first night of the next event, Emergence, to Rohit Raju.
This weekend, Chris Bey has a tall task ahead of him as he takes on Raju, Jordynne Grace, Willie Mack, TJP, and Trey Miguel in his attempt to regain the X-Division title. Nevertheless, Chris Bey plans to stand out in a stacked match.
"It’s not hard," he said. "I plan on being me, you know, and I mean that with the utmost respect to all the other competitors in the match. You know everybody has something different that they bring to the table. We all know how unique Willie Mack is. We all understand that T.J. is one of the best technical wrestlers in the world. We know that Trey Miguel is one of the shining, the most brightest shining stars as far as the future of pro wrestling holds. Jordynne Grace is in a league of her own, which is the reason why she's in our division in the first place. And Rohit is the champion for a reason, but we also know that Chris Bey is The Ultimate Finesser."
"If we pay attention to anything that I do on my social media or anything in my personal pages, you see that I'm in the gym every day getting in the best shape of my life. You see that I'm always in a ring training and preparing and just becoming a new version of myself and always evolving, always elevating my game. This is another scenario where the odds are seemingly stacked against me, but, you know, at Rebellion, I was in a multi-man match and I was able to win and become the number one contender."
"I defended the title of the triple threat match and that's where, unfortunately, the reign ended. I also had another number one contendership in a triple threat match and whatnot, what have you. So I'm used to these multi-mans at this point and at Bound for Glory, when the lights are on bright, Bey for Glory, as we like to call it, live on bey-per-view championship is coming back home with me."
Chis Bey on The Ultimate Finesser moniker
Chris Bey briefly talked about the origin of his nickname, The Ultimate Finesser, and its accompanying persona. It can be traced back to his roots as an indie wrestler.
"I would love to say that it came from," Bey said. "Like, you know, something super cool or a tour where someone passed it down to me or something like that, but it was literally just me looking for a new, a new moniker to call myself and something that was unique to pro-wrestling, something that hadn't been done yet in pro-wrestling, and there was a match I did in Vegas, triple threat match, where once again, one of those multi-mans where it was a scenario where, you know, triple threat match, it was three people involved."
"So it was a two on one type scenario where I was able to finesse around my opponents and as I uploaded the clip to my social media, I remember just captioning it the ultimate finesser. And it took a while, for a couple of months, for me to let that stick."
"I remember a couple of months went by and I got an opportunity on an independent show in Northern California to fight for a world championship, and it was a random entry for me to be fighting for the world championship. But I walked out as the champion and it was just the ultimate finesse. So, it just kind of stuck there."
Next: Chris Bey discusses comparisons to Kofi Kingston and his music
Chris Bey on showcasing something different among a new generation of Black wrestlers
Many fans have compared Chris Bey to another well-known wrestler with blond dreadlocks, Kofi Kingston. However, Bey is a dynamic performer in his own right and a part of a renaissance era of sorts for Black wrestlers. There are so many new and talented African American stars, who different styles and portray unique characters. Chris Bey believes he brings something totally new to the table.
"Oh 100 percent," Bey said. "I think all across the border, we're all different, and I think that's because as a, you know, young Black talent I understand how much soul and how much, you know, just for lack of a better term flavor, man, that we come up with and we all come up with a little bit differently, as anyone does, honestly, but I know for me personally, there was a lot of different vibes in my household growing up from the music that we listen to to the way we would dance or, you know, slang we would depending on the neighborhood you’re from or whatever."
"So I think we all have something different, completely different, and unique to offer. And we're not just directly influenced from what we see on television. You know, we all have influences from things that we've seen in life. But I think we also all bring different things. You can see that even on the home product. If you watch it on AXS on Tuesdays or Twitch or wherever you end up checking it out and see people like Tasha Steelz and Kiera Hogan and people like myself and people like Trey and even Rich Swann. And that’s just, you know, there's a couple of us just to name a few that just are so different from each other, even though we have a lot of similarities."
"To be compared to that other wrestler is always awesome, but he's been in this journey for so long. I'm still in the beginning stages. So, you’re still seeing early development of what I have to offer in the long run and I'm barely just getting started. "
Chris Bey uses his music as another outlet to reach his fans
Chris Bey also makes music in his spare time. His single Brain Freeze is doing pretty well on Spotify and he plans to release a new EP soon.
"Yeah. So, Brain Freeze is doing well," Bey said. "Doing better than that, we have Lonely, which is my most recent release. I released that in July, and that's on all platforms. And as of last night, I decided that next month I will be releasing a new EP called Odyssey, which is the EP Lonely is derived from. So, yeah, this is just a short EP that just talks about where it's been the last couple months of my life and I think I think people will enjoy it. I think it's really cool, and music has always been a part of my life, so I'm glad that I'm getting to share that now with everybody."
Other wrestlers famously doubled as musicians on the side, and some of them eventually recorded their own theme. Chris Bey talked about if that's something he's interested in, as well.
"Yeah, it's got to be the right vibe, but it's gotta all make sense. It's not something that I can sit down and make because, you know, no disrespect to anybody else, but I always feel like when you try to take that approach for wrestling, it always comes out a little cheesy and that's what I want to avoid."
"So for me," Chris Bey said. "It's a matter of me making a certain song that I feel is so good that it's something that can match my wrestling persona and do something that I want to hear every time I come out to the ring. For right now, I think One Shot depicts that perfectly. You know I came to IMPACT with the moniker and the slogan, All I need is one shot. And with every shot I was given, I made the most of it all the way up to Slammiversary when I took the championship and history will repeat itself Bound for Glory, October 24th, when I take back my championship because all I ever needed is one shot."
Next: Chris Bey opens up disappointment with his entry in the 2020 PWI 500
Chris Bey talks spot on this year's PWI 500
A few months ago, Chris Bey made the PWI 500 for the second year. In 2019, he landed at no. 425 on the annual ranking. This year, he came in at no. 202, but The Ultimate Finesser wasn't particularly pleased with his spot on the list or what was written about him.
"I mean, if we’re being honest, I was disrespected by my spot on the list because I definitely felt like I've earned a better spot than that," Bey said. "And then, you can call it arrogance, you call it whatever you want. I call it just being confident and knowing exactly what I put into my work and I put into this business and how much I sacrifice and my level of performance. I promise you that if you haven't seen it already, I'm one of the best wrestlers and one of the best entertainers in the world."
"And I think that no matter whether it was a 200 spot jump or not, they missed the mark on a lot of important details. If you look at the article that they wrote about me, I think it was very inaccurate. And I think it didn't say anything about who I am. They chose to talk about a job that I had when I was 17 years old for a summer job during my high school years rather than talk about what I've actually accomplished in the last year, which for someone aged 23 transitioning over 24 years being three years in the business and doing what I did last year was a lot."
"For them to skip over all of that, it was disrespectful, it was a slap in the face, but, you know, who cares? Some people care about this stuff. I care about more important things like what I'm actually doing in life and what people are trying to write about, about what I'm doing. Because the reality of it is I am a former X-Division champion and I haven’t even been with the company for a year. I wrestled some of the best wrestlers in the world. I have wrestled a lot of my idols growing up and I'm only getting started."
Chris Bey said his goal is to become a world champion and push IMPACT forward regardless where he was ranked in the PWI 500.
"I will be the world champion of IMPACT Wrestling", he continued. "I will take this company to the next level, whatever that may be, to a new level, whatever we're going to end up calling that era. We called the Finesse Division the Finesse Division and that's going to be coming back soon after Bound for Glory aka Bey for Glory. But as for that position in the magazine, it honestly means nothing to me."
"And that's with all due respect to how other people feel about it. For me, it just meant nothing, especially once I saw what they wrote I understood that it holds no value. And what really holds value is what I'm really out here doing in the ring and in my performance level. And when the lights are on, there will come a time when they want to write something a lot better and a lot more detail. But for now, I'm not worried about it. I'm just worried about the action."
Next: Chris Bey discusses his understanding of the wrestling business
Chris Bey hopes to make Chris Bey fans into wrestling fans
If you follow Chris Bey on social media, it will quickly become apparent that he does a great job promoting himself. The 24-year-old star has only been in the business for three years, but he already has a solid grasp of how to differentiate himself from his peers even outside of the ring.
"I think for a lot of that stuff, it's about me trying to be something different than what I've seen," Bey said. "Like what I was talking about earlier how, you know, we all come from different walks of life. I try to look at this as, you know, what I would really participate in outside of wrestling. For my first year, I felt a little more lost because I was trying to play whatever the part of what the wrestling would be. I was taking in all these super, you know, oiled up like promo pictures and I was cutting these more generic type promos. And it wasn't until I realized that what I'm going to do inside the venue is going to be wrestling regardless, so what I do outside the ring has to be different."
"And as far as the merchandise, I’ve always looked at it as if I wouldn't wear it, then I wouldn’t drop it. And I remember as a kid wearing a wrestling shirt, there would be times where you wear a wrestling shirt everyone’s like, 'oh, you like wrestling' and it’s this negative stigma to it or you wear that one wrestler’s shirt who, you know, you didn't quite know was a wrestler’s shirt and people are 'yo that shirt’s sick.'"
Chris Bey revealed that his approach to coming up with fans is distinct because he doesn't market to only wrestling fans. He tries to reach fans that may not watch his matches and get them to look at what he and others are doing with IMPACT.
"So I always kind of approached it from my own personal experiences in that scenario where it's like, OK, well, can I have a lot of fans who aren't wrestling fans, they're just Chris Bey fans. And for me, it's important that they have something that they can wear and it doesn't scream this is a wrestling shirt, I'm a wrestling fan rather than this is a Chris Bey shirt and have people go, ‘oh, well, who's Chris Bey?’ And they go, ‘Oh, he's this wrestler, he's this musician.’ And then people tune in to see my work and through them seeing my work, of course, it's a two-way sport. So they're going to see me wrestle someone else who is, especially if they’re tuned into IMPACT on Tuesday nights, they will see me wrestle someone who's of excellent caliber, and then they'll be able to become a fan of our product and a fan of, you know, not just myself, but whoever I’m in there working with."
"And, you know, that's kind of the mentality I have. It's honestly just a sense of me wanting to or having to understand that it has to be different and it has to be different than everything else that I'm seeing and everything else that I'm feeling. No one actually helped me really learn that. It was just something that I adopted through the course of realizing who my actual fanbase was, rather than being, you know, 100 percent hardcore wrestling fans, because it's not, you know."
Next: Chris Bey on the chance of him forming a tag team with IMPACT
Chris Bey's goal is to become a world champion but never say never
Lastly, Chris Bey talked about who he would team up with if he competed in the tag division. Before he signed with IMPACT, he was a part of a tag team called Double Platinum with Suede Thompson. Although he has experience working with a tag partner, Bey admits that's not his focus at the moment.
"You know, they say in this business to never say never. So, it's something that, you know, I won't completely shut the door on. As far as who I’d team up with, maybe I should bring Swinger back, huh?"
"Maybe. I mean, maybe The Bench Press and Finesse Express should come back or The Finesse and Bench Press Express should come back. I don't know. We have such a diverse roster that I feel like I could have a killer tag team with anybody that I'm put with, whether it's even down the line. If we could even put our differences to the side currently and actually become a well-oiled unit, being me and Rohit or, you know, me and Trey and all our abilities together, I'm sure we could come up with some creative things or, you know."
"Jeez, it’s just so many people. Me and Moose, I think that'd be a crazy, crazy combination just because of our size differences, but we don't have that athletic background and that agility and ability, explosiveness, and the power. He’s the real powerhouse, and then I'm not, for lack of a better phrase, the Little Petey Pump of the scenario you know with the Scott Steiner and Petey Williams. But I think we can have a good relationship there. But it's just something I don't put into the air because I have goals to be the world champion and not to get distracted while I'm here and I think that's what I'm focused on."
"But it's not something I say that the door's completely shut on. And I know that whoever put with any of those people that I mentioned or anybody who I haven't mentioned, even Willie Mack himself, you know, I think that would be something crazy or something new. And, you know, be the super baller status that I guess you just have to tune in on Tuesdays on AXS or Twitch. You're going to have to tune in for Bound for Glory to really see what's going to happen next and see which direction is going, because you just never know, right?"
Be sure to watch Bound for Glory this Saturday, October 24 as Chris Bey looks to take back his X-Division Championship.
