Stevie Richards discusses WWE vs AEW, the 24/7 Championship and conspiracy theories (Exclusive) 

SK: Your last "run" in wrestling was in 2016 for ROH! You faced off against the likes of Adam Cole, Roderick Strong and Silas Young. What was it like going up against the likes of Adam Cole, particularly looking back on it now he's the NXT Champion?

SR: Well, guys like that and the guys I'm wrestling today in places like WildKat Sports, and other places, are literally the only reason I stay in the business at all - because I do have a responsibility to pass along positive information and reinforcement, and knowledge to them.

To myself, I've still got a little bit of that masculinity where I go, "Hey, can I still hang with his kid who's 20 years younger than me?" I still have a little bit of that in me. My wife asks me, "When's it going to be over? When will you get that out of your system?" I'm like, "I'm almost 50, maybe in another 10 years, who knows?"

The first match, before that, was the Proving Ground match against Jay Lethal, which we went for 20 minutes, in October of the year before. The only thing I didn't like about the match with Jay, they match with Adam, the match with Silas, the match with Roddy - which was the match for the TV Title - was that I didn't have a full-time wrestling schedule so I didn't get to really enjoy the matches because I was too busy struggling in the first leg of that match to catch my second wind - because there's no other conditioning that is close to actual wrestling.

But here's the thing, too, I spoke about this with the Goldberg vs Taker match. It's the popular thing to bury Goldberg and Taker, "You're too old, you don't have it, blah-blah." That match was designed to fail because it went way too long. Both guys were in incredible physical condition. Were they in wrestling shape, though? No, it's not possible because it's a double-edged sword.

Goldberg and Taker could train at a wrestling school, take bumps, run spots, but they're going to be feeling like s**t by the time they get to the end of a match because, just like UFC, most guys go into their fights not 100% because of all the training injuries.

Pro wrestling is the same way so I would rather get in the ring, blow up a little bit and be a little sore afterwards rather than be training for two weeks straight for a match and I'm already just dog-tired by the time I get in the ring.

It's something you have to temper, so just to let people know, when you want to get on guys for being in their 50s and they get put out there for a 15-minute match, and they've never worked together - that's tough. On a smaller scale, that's what I felt wrestling those guys in Ring of Honor - but it was also a cool thing to kind of do and pass along to them.

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SK: So, you've kind of have closed the door on wrestling or having one big last run but we've touched on your love of technology, you have several podcasts - my favourite one is The Conspiracy Horsemen, and you have Stevie Richards Fitness as well.

Do you feel like this is something you've always wanted to do, but wrestling was the priority, or is this filling a void left by wrestling?

SR: That's pretty tough. It's probably a little bit of both. I mean, I've always had these interests. I always kept up with them because, I say this to anybody out there who has a job - whether it be in wrestling or a job you're not satisfied with, or even a job you like but you're not testing yourself and fulfilling yourself - do these things, especially in this day and age of YouTube.

If you're like, "I don't know how to do this," look it up on a YouTube video - hopefully you come across my stuff - but I always had a passion for it.

When I was in high school, I was always a nerdy kid, I liked tech, I liked video games. I liked fitness but I didn't have the knowledge or anybody to show me anything up until a certain age where I would pay my dues at a local gym. I'd be cleaning up the weights just to kind of be around to kind of get some knowledge, so I kind of had to pay my dues before I was in wrestling - even though I didn't know what paying my dues were.

It wasn't like I had a void from wrestling, but I did because I wasn't being creatively fulfilled - so that's why I started the tech channel, the tech podcast, trying to do it under my real name [Mike Manna] in 2007.

It's funny. You talk about ahead-of-the-curve type stuff, I was podcasting and had a YouTube channel before any of these guys. That doesn't make me like, "Oh, look at me, I'm so cool," because they've managed to market it and become more notable than me, so God bless them for that - but when YouTube, believe it or not, wasn't that popular or podcasting wasn't that known, it was maybe Adam Curry and a few other people, that's about it.

I've always had that love for that and then the fitness stuff, it went from a necessity because I knew I had to work out.

Every time I got hurt, it became more my mindset was, "Wow, I have to work out for physical therapy," then it became, with all these injuries, I can still be healthy and fit, now I get to work out every day. I get to be in shape, I get to get out of bed because every day I wrestle, my God, I'm testing fate, ain't I? I'm testing fate because it just takes one bad bump, and we've seen it, one little move to be botched and someone's in a wheelchair or something like that, knock on wood. There is a real possibility. So I'm always mindful of that.

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NEXT: Stevie Richards Fitness

COMING UP: Stevie talks conspiracy theories!