Interview: Impact Wrestling’s Sami Callihan discusses blood in wrestling

Sami Callihan, formerly known as Solomon Crowe over in NXT, has often been seen as one of the most underrated wrestlers currently competing on the independent scene. The 30-year-old has already had an extremely successful career and given that his best years are still ahead of him, it seems like there’s a lot more to come.

Right now his main priority seems to be with Impact Wrestling, where he recently took part in Barbed Wire Massacre III which aired last night on Twitch. We were able to speak with Callihan just a few hours prior to it airing, and we asked him just how intense a bout like that can get.

TOMBSTONE PILEDRIVER ON A BARBED WIRE CHAIR! #BarbedWireMassacre @TheSamiCallihan ▶️https://t.co/nFjjBnYbDL pic.twitter.com/pVp4okibGV

— IMPACT (@IMPACTWRESTLING) January 19, 2018

SK: Sami, Barbed Wire Massacre is obviously a brutal concept and there’s often expected to be a lot of blood. So when you do shed blood in the ring, does it add an extra sense of adrenaline and how much would you say it adds to the intensity of the match?

Sami Callihan: It’s absolutely a shot of adrenaline. Pro wrestling is the best drug in the world, and if you wanna be in a match like that you really have to get your mind in a certain setting. All bets are off, and you really try to become the guy that you’re portraying in that moment. You feed off of stuff like that, and it makes something special.

I don’t want to do it all the time and I don’t think it SHOULD be done all the time, but when it’s done it’s done right. It adds that extra element of just “WTF”, like what’s gonna happen next.

With Impact having some momentum going right now, it seems as if Callihan could be a key component of their rise back to relevancy.