Speedball Mike Bailey Is All About More Weird Wrestling

"Speedball" Mike Bailey is one of wrestling's hottest rising stars, with recent matches against the likes of Kota Ibushi, Hiroshi Tanahashi, El Hijo del Vikingo, and many more. The Quebec, Canada native has been with Impact Wrestling since 2021, but hasn't shied away from working a wide variety of independent promotions, as well as traveling the world prior to signing with Impact. Throughout his career, not all of Bailey's matches have been what one might call "traditional." Speaking to Fightful prior to Impact's Rebellion pay-per-view, Bailey spoke about some of the more outlandish performances he's been a part of over the years.

"I have done so much weird [wrestling] with DDT," Bailey said, upon being asked the weirdest place he's ever performed. "Definitely one of the weirdest matches I've ever done was wrestling just basically in the forest, for about an hour and a half, ... in a match that included a murder mystery, a car accident, fireworks. Some people lit themself on fire. It was great." Bailey revealed that he's also wrestled inside a cave, and he believes wrestling needs to get weirder when it can.

"I'm in favor of weird wrestling," Bailey continued. "And I think now, finally in 2023 in America, we're getting over the hurdle of, 'Oh no, you could never put a ring in here, you can't have a wrestling show.' And now we just have shows without the ring, which work just as well the majority of the time."

While not everyone is in favor of experimentation in professional wrestling, the independent scene is rife with it. From the infamous Invisible Man vs. Invisible Stan match in GCW to Josh Barnett's yearly Bloodsport event, it's clear that there are many different directions to take wrestling, from silly to deadly serious and everything in between.