Madman Fulton on World Championship aspirations, Sami Callihan & more [Exclusive]

Almost everything you said there reminded me of someone you know very well - apart from the fact you mentioned you're quite a big guy. All of the confidence, and the coming from NXT yet ending up kind of being the real deal in IMPACT, it reminds me a lot of Sami Callihan. I need to ask, what are your thoughts on Sami?

You know, Sami was one of my best friends in NXT. We met a few times in Ohio before I started three, but he quickly became one of the guys that I could lean on and trust.

He's not the type of dude... He won't do anything, he's not going to force you into things you don't want to do. He's not going to go out of his way to help you unless he knows you're really passionate and you truly love this place.

Between him and Jake Crist, and Dave for that matter, those three really helped to install that confidence and really got me out of that mindset of, "Oh, you're not good enough to make it in NXT," to now, "You are good enough, you do have these abilities and we are going to show you exactly how you can stick each and every foot back into the throats of the people that let you go prematurely." Yeah, Sami has definitely helped me out so much.

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You speak very highly of him. Another man I know you've spoken very highly of, bit of a legend when it comes to IMPACT Wrestling, it's Kurt Angle, which I believe you share a kind of similar background. You have an all-American background. Was he the main inspiration growing up?

He was my inspiration to get into amateur wrestling. It wasn't until seeing him that, in my mind, I kind of clicked, like, "Oh, if he became an Olympic gold medallist to become a pro wrestler, that's obviously what I have to do." Then I showed up in my school to start wrestling and there wasn't a ring in the gym like I'd originally thought. There was just a mat.

I figured, you know, "You need to get good on the mat before you move on to the ring," which wasn't untrue, it only took 16 years.

But the wrestler I first fell in love with was Kane. Just because I had an older brother growing up and he liked Undertaker and, of course, as a younger brother, by law, you can't have the same... You've got to like the exact opposite thing and the exact opposite of Undertaker was Kane.

The more I grew, the more I started learning about pro wrestling, the more I realised that he is definitely a man to idolise. 25+ years at the top of the card, he's renowned as one of the most crucial big men in this industry, he's had several crazy good matches and he's known worldwide, and he's the Mayor of Knoxville Tennessee. There's so much good that he has done in and out of pro wrestling. He's definitely still the wrestler I idolise the most.