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To simply call Josh Mathews the voice of Impact Wrestling would be doing him a great disservice - he's a man who wears many hats and has many strings to his bow.
A runner up to Maven and Nidia in the first-ever edition of WWE Tough Enough, Mathews has now been a part of the wrestling industry for 18 years - taking on a plethora of roles such as wrestler, commentator, ring announcer and now taking on several backstage duties in Impact Wrestling too, as well as playing a huge role in the new, innovative Ringside App!
Well, we spoke with Josh Mathews about the signing of Tenille Dashwood to Impact Wrestling, the huge success of Slammiversary, and how much longer Mathews has behind the announce desk!
Hi, Josh! Thanks for speaking with me. Firstly, I feel like it would be remiss of me not to mention the huge breaking news coming out of Impact Wrestling recently - Tenille Dashwood has signed for the company. How did that come about, and just how big of an acquisition is she for Impact?
I think it's a great signing for Impact. Tenille brings a huge resume, a great past, she's Australian born but spent some years in WWE, went to Ring of Honor and now she's come to Impact Wrestling and the reaction has been amazing.
She's going to be a big part of Impact. Mexico will be her first show, she'll be in Vegas too. She joins a roster of Knockouts that are absolutely incredible. If you look at everyone on there and what they've accomplished, it's incredible.
We've got the current champion Taya Valkyrie, who's been champion for quite some time, Jordynne Grace, Kiera Hogan is starting to come into her own, in Madison Rayne you've got the resume of a five-time Knockouts Champion, so when you look at the Knockouts and what they've done - Su Yung, Rosemary - and when you look at what they've done, it's just a very well-rounded group of athletes, and Tenille coming in, it's just great!
NEXT: Josh discusses Slammiversary!
COMING UP: Josh speaks about where Impact stands in the world of wrestling
Now, Slammiversary was a monumental success, and definitely one of the biggest and most well-received wrestling events of 2019. What was your personal highlight from the show?
It's hard to pick a personal highlight because of so much work that goes into all of the shows from the announcement of tickets going on sale to everything that happens in between - and then we also don't get much of a break, so Slammiversary ended then it was right onto Toronto then Windsor - so there was no time to really come up for air and think about what was accomplished in Dallas and how great of a show that was.
For us, it was right back to work Sunday night and Monday morning, so we didn't get a huge chance to realize how great it was. We have had a chance to look back on it now and reflect a little bit. My laptop here is waiting for me to get to Bound For Glory stuff so we can start working on that! It was a great show, though.
NEXT: Josh opens up about the Ringside App
COMING UP: Josh speaks about commentating on his wife's matches and how long he has left
Of course we also need to chat about Ringside Wrestling, and the new app that allows fans to take part in all-interactive professional wrestling matches and also game nights with yourself! This might be the single most innovative and revolutionary thing I've ever saw in wrestling. Just how much of a game changer could this be for wrestling?
The Ringside App is really interesting to me, and when I was approached by Kiswe Mobile, who are behind some incredible things in technology and media - and they wanted to get into wrestling. It started out with me doing some weekly trivia for them, it was Impact-related trivia so I thought, "Why not try introduce a new audience to Impact?" and that was really my motivation behind it was to try and get more eyes on Impact Wrestling and make Impact a part of the trivia so people would watch the shows.
Now it's grown and this idea came about for this Weapons of Destruction match that happened this past Friday between Andy Dalton and Caleb Konley - and the match was just amazing to watch. 20 minutes or so, and the interactivity of the match was amazing!
I hope they keep it going, I wish them nothing but success and, if they do this again, maybe they can do it on a bigger scale - not that Pro Wrestling Revolver wasn't a great stage for them, it was a great endeavor.
Now, I'm a huge fan of your commentary, so don't take this the wrong way - but you obviously have a lot of backstage duties now. How much longer can we expect to hear Josh Mathews as the voice of Impact Wrestling?
(Josh laughs) To say that I've tried to slide out of that chair... It's a tough one, man, it really is. I love what I do but I feel like it takes up a lot of my time at TV to be out there the whole time.
It's a blessing and a curse, I suppose.
NEXT: Josh discusses his wife's matches
COMING UP: Josh speaks about where Impact stands in the world of wrestling
And on a similar note, do you have anyone in mind for who you'd like to step into your shoes as a play-by-play guy, or are there any wrestlers you believe should be looking to step into a color commentary role in the future?
I've never really thought about it. No-one's ever asked me who I thought should replace me from a play-by-play standpoint.
I do think we need to build a depth of commentators and things like that. I've had the privilege to work with amazing people in my career from a color commentary standpoint, but I love working with Don Callis on Impact and Xplosion every week, but we also do some revolving chair stuff on there.
Color commentary, I think a lot of wrestlers could step up and do a good job. Play-by-play, you need a lot of reps. I've been doing this for 20 years and I still haven't figured out!
(Josh laughs)
You're married to Madison Rayne of course. How does it feel to call your wife's matches?
It's difficult. I like the way we do it where Josh Mathews - the announcer - isn't married to the Impact Knockouts Champion Madison Rayne because it would be difficult for a husband to watch his wife in a match being physically hurt and just talk about it, so I don't think you can go down that road from a play-by-play, straight, trusted voice perspective.
I always text her right after to make sure she's okay and healthy, and liked what she did, then I can take a quick breath of relief.
NEXT: Josh speaks about where Impact stands in the world of wrestling
And in today's current wrestling landscape, there's so much out there just now, where would you say Impact Wrestling stands right now in terms of the global wrestling phenomena going on?
I wouldn't try to rank us and say, "We're here, WWE is here, Ring of Honor's here, NJPW's here, AEW's here." I think you have certain days.
On Monday, this week, was a win for Impact - we announced the signing of Tenille Dashwood. A few weeks ago, AEW won the day when they announced their television broadcast deal. WWE is going to win some days, a lot of days.
I think you have to look at it in that sense. We are trying to do everything we can, we're on the road, we're going to be in Mexico, Las Vegas, Bound For Glory's in Chicago, then we'll head back to New York this year and we have a lot of specials. Oklahoma in September.
TNA is no longer a thing any more, it's Impact Wrestling, so we're just trying every day to make it everything that we can.
You said about each promotion winning days there. In that situation, I just think wrestling fans are the winners.
Yeah, of course!
Now, I have one final controversial question for you, you don't need to answer if you really don't want to, but - Lion King or Aladdin, which is better?
(Josh laughs) The Lion King!
I didn't see Aladdin. We saw The Lion King, saw it in 3D. It rained here, like, every day for a week earlier this summer so we saw, like, Toy Story 4, The Lion King - we saw them all except for Aladdin. I thought The Lion King was really good and I just saw this morning that it's the fourth Disney movie this year to gross $1bn, so good for them!
A huge thanks to Josh Mathews for speaking with us. You can follow Josh here.
