Mike Bailey revealed that he had discussions with the WWE about signing for the company – but was inspired a top star in wrestling to go out on his own, with great success.
Speedball Mike Bailey has recently returned to the United States after a six year ban from the country and made quite the storm. He wrestles regularly for Impact and has faced a number of top stars on the independent scene, including NJPW star KENTA and former AEW Champion Jon Moxley. He also recently made history by winning the Battle of Los Angeles, the prestigious PWG tournament, adding a huge honour to his already impressive canon of work.
Mike Bailey revealed that there were discussions with the WWE, but that he ultimately chose not to sign with the company. He cited NJPW star Zack Sabre Jr as someone who inspired him to go his own way on the independent scene and walk away from the WWE at that point in time. With his recent BOLA victory, it seems he made the right call on that one, especially given the incredible number of releases from the WWE in recent years.
In the interview with Denise Salcedo, “Speedball” Mike Bailey said;
“And when you had guys like Zack Sabre Jr, who was like one of the first guys, when it was still a big deal to turn down a WWE contract to go to New Japan and seeing things like that were happening more and more, it was pretty inspiring to me to be in that position where it’s like okay ‘maybe this isn’t the end all be all?’ There are other options, there are people who are pursuing different tracks and it’s working out extremely well, so maybe I could do that as well.”
“Not in any concrete way…. There were like discussions but they’re kinda always are, you always hear rumblings and I never know how much of that is true. So that’s always a weird thing, I’ve heard people say that people have said that they heard someone say that they were definitely going to sign me. I don’t know how much that’s worth.”