AEW star Darby Allin recently opened up about his life-changing experience of climbing Mount Everest earlier this year, a journey that required him to take a six-month hiatus from professional wrestling. The former TNT Champion, who is known for his death-defying in-ring style and fearless persona, explained the deep personal motivation behind undertaking such a dangerous and demanding challenge.
Speaking on the “My Mom’s Basement with Robbie Fox” podcast, Allin discussed the personal growth that comes from risking his life.
“I was just pulling something out of myself climbing that mountain. That’s like — the funnest thing about doing things like that. Where you’re literally risking your life is, who are you going to become on the other side? And that’s like the funnest thing. And I’m like I said I’m grateful. Because I’m essentially in the prime of my career, and the fact that I was able to do that. And get off this hamster wheel for six months and actually do that. I can’t even.”
He also explained that his decision was not due to burnout, but rather a need to pursue personal goals outside of the demanding, year-round schedule of a professional wrestler.
“No, no, no. Because you live your life for other people. Because this is — there’s no offseason. It’s all year round for whoever knows how long. And then it’s just like, by the time you get out of the hamster wheel, you realize, ‘Oh, there’s so much I wanted to do with my life that I couldn’t do.’ Because you’re trying to make the fans happy, the TV happy, all this stuff happy. But at the end of the day, you’re not really making yourself happy. So that’s like, the fact that it’s like Tony and AEW were like, ‘No, do what you want to do. Fulfill what’s in your heart.’ That’s like the greatest thing. It’s unreal. It’s f—ing insane if you really, really think about it. It’s insane.”
He then recounted the most difficult moment of the climb, when he was faced with the real possibility of not reaching the summit.
“It’s when I got to the summit. Because when I was climbing day of Camp 4 to the summit… There all a sudden was this gnarly line, that we didn’t move for an hour. Like a little bit of a traffic jam… And I see people running out of oxygen. And I see them, like their adrenaline stops and they start to freeze. And they’re like, ‘Yo, screw this.’ Like, ‘I’m not going to die on this mountain.’ Because you start to see people like start convulsing up there. And I was like, ‘How am I going –‘ I was like, ‘I have to make it to the summit. Because I gave everybody my word that I was going to summit Mount Everest.’ And I put so much into this that — there is that thing called summit fever, where you literally are so fixated on making it to the summit that you will die trying. And I fully had that… I stuck with it and then made it the summit. And I started crying, and I was like ‘Man, I did it.’ That’s when it really hit me.”
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