Speedball Mike Bailey Reflects On AEW Debut, Reveals New Finisher Name

AEW star “Speedball” Mike Bailey spoke with Sports Illustrated on a number of topics, including his debut with the company this past Wednesday on Dynamite.

Bailey said, โ€œMy phone has been buzzing nonstop since the match happened with people saying congratulations, but Iโ€™m doing my best to respond to every single message and every single tweet and I canโ€™t (laughs). Thereโ€™s been too many, itโ€™s been impossible to say thank you to everyone, but I want to and I think right now is the perfect chance to do it, right?โ€

On coming up with his finishing move:

โ€œWhen I started in PWG, I used just a Shooting Star Press as my finishing move, but there was also Ricochet there, also Matt Sydal and Andrew Everett there, who were all using the Shooting Star Press, so I was like I gotta make mine unique, I gotta find something different, so I added the knees, right. And I didnโ€™t have a name for it, it was just Shooting Star Knee Drop until I got to DDT and thatโ€™s when I decided to call it โ€˜The Ultimate Weapon.โ€™ Final Fantasy 7 is one of my favorite games, I play it so often, but Sephroth who is the main bad guy and โ€˜The Ultimate Weaponโ€™ is a sword that Cloud, the main character uses and the final cut scene after you beat the last boss. Thereโ€™s just a little battle but itโ€™s like a one-on-one little cutscene, you basically win automatically, but itโ€™s basically the main character using โ€˜The Ultimate Weaponโ€™ to deal the final blow to Sephroth, โ€˜The One Winged Angelโ€™ and that is the image that led me to naming my finish, โ€˜The Ultimate Weapon.’โ€

On coming up with something new during his time away and why it took him so long to debut:

โ€œIโ€™ve thought about it a lot, Iโ€™ve been practicing that move. I felt I needed something quicker, something more direct, something that requires a less specific setup than โ€˜The Ultimate Weaponโ€™. And during the whole time I was off, I was in Canada getting my visa renewed between December and March and I spent a lot of time there several hours every week in the IWS dojo, which is a wrestling school in Montreal training and teaching there, and Iโ€™ve been working on that kick extremely hard every chance I get for the last three months. And I call it, name reveal right here, โ€˜Time Adventure.โ€™ Which is a reference to the final episode of what is one of the greatest TV shows of all time, โ€˜Adventure Time.’โ€