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You just mentioned that you used to have long hair, but you had some recently in the new Barclaycard advert! How did that come about?!
That was great. So, I'm trying to kind of weasel my way into acting and stunts as well as professional wrestling, so I have an acting agent and he gave me a call about a month ago and he was like, "I've got you an audition, it's as a wrestler, so just bring your kit with you." I was on tour with NGW, so I couldn't make the audition, so instead I sent a self taped through, just what we are doing now, but introducing myself and doing the lines or whatever.
A few days later, I got the call back, so I had to skip out on one of the NGW shows to go down to London and audition, the director was in the room and I had loads of guys I knew from the circuit, and it was just basically, "Show us what you've got."
I ended up sticking around and helping them out with the actresses that had come in for the audition, just to sort of run them through some choreography to see how they'd do it, if they could handle it because, as you will see in the advert, the woman, Lucy, who plays 'The Karen', she actually was amazing, she was unbelievable.
Greg Burridge, who was there as the fight coordinator, stunt coordinator role, he runs which Lucha Britannia, he couldn't believe how good she was and how easily she picked stuff up, so it was great for me. The other wrestler involved was Ed Gamester, who is a real good friend of mine and a strongman athlete as well as a wrestler.
So, we had so much fun in Serbia for a week, which is an absolute hidden gem. I've never been, never had anything about it really and it was a great country, beautiful people, great people and it was really cheap, too, so it was great when we were eating out and having a blast. It was really cool.
It's on telly at the moment and it's amazing, really cool to see it - and I had the wig on, which is what you're alluding to.
Now, the most impressive thing about yourself - you're the WOS Champion, NGW Undisputed Champion, but let's forget championships for a minute, it was a major achievement for you just to step in the ring as you suffer from ulcerative colitis.
How much of a challenge is it being a wrestler, keeping your body in shape, and suffering from such a condition?
Yeah, it's really hard to judge things as being good and bad because time always changes.
Something that initially is a terrible thing, like ulcerative colitis, a real hard thing to manage, it turns out to actually be a blessing in disguise over time because, in terms of my physique, I have to be very careful with what I eat because it can affect my symptoms pretty badly - so actually, it's led me down a pretty good part of being healthy, which I definitely was not before, part of the reason why I probably got diagnosed with it when the symptoms started.
As much as it's a pain in the backside, literally and figuratively, it's actually pretty good for physique. It can impact a lot of things. Travel... You know we travel a lot with wrestling, what I ended up doing was building an off-grid campervan with a shower and a toilet in.
So wherever I go, especially with touring, I can pull over anywhere, I can use the toilet wherever I need to on the journey and also stay overnight in places if I'm tired. Colitis, I don't want to go into too much detail, if viewers want to, they can google it and find out what it is, but it is frequency and urgency of bowel movements and that is just hard to live with - but I don't think it should stop anyone from being able to live the life they want to live.
You've just got to maybe go about it differently, like build a campervan, which means you've always got a toilet with you. Or let your staff at the venue know that, "Hey, if I don't come out during my entrance music, the reason is on the toilet, so get someone out to cut a promo."
That's just one of those things, Dave Mastiff done it once for me and in one of the Haven holiday resorts back in the day. He knew where I was, so he just started cutting a promo on the mic. Another guy - Sam, Buzzsaw Bronson - did the same for me at another event. The guys are always good.
I used to keep it a secret, but honestly telling people is the best thing. Everybody knows, everyone asks if I need the loo before they go and use it, you know, it's great. The people have been wonderful and, yeah, so far, it hasn't stopped me doing anything I want to do, it's just made it a little bit more difficult.
NEXT: Justin discusses living with ulcerative colitis
COMING UP: Justin Sysum reveals his dream opponent and which former WWE Champion he was a stunt double for
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