“Speedball” Mike Bailey also spoke with Fightful about his ability to withstand hard-hitting offense in the ring, explaining that his brain has learned to process the pain as a positive.
“So I don’t know. I’m not able to answer that question. I’ve never been like knocked out in the ring or anything like that. I’ve been hit very hard. I’ve been chopped very hard. I’ve been kicked very hard. Where Kevin Steen’s chops in my second match at C4 Wrestling in Canada, he chopped me a lot and very hard. But I think over the years of pro wrestling, I kind of failed to recognize how hard I’m being hit because my brain has been fully rewired to absorb that pain and kind of turn it into—I don’t want to say pleasure, that sounds too weird—but a positive reward mechanism that I know, ‘Oh, this felt great. The audience got a good reaction,’ and absolutely not care about how much it hurts. I am one of the first people to say, ‘Chops don’t hurt me. I don’t mind. I don’t care. You can kick me, chop me, slap me as hard as you want.’ Please don’t take that out of context.”
H/T to Fightful for the transcription. Thanks for checking out this article. Make sure to follow Jeff Jarrett and all things GFE on Facebook.