Betting on himself has left Ricochet with one major mission: Earning his damn respect
English journalist Richard Hammond, probably best known as the host of BBC’s “Top Gear,” once tried to describe why he’s found so much professional success. Instead of talking about all he’d done for people and who helped him along the way, he very concretely talked about the things you normally don’t mention as the keys to personal victory: “I like to think that my arrogance, impetuosity, impatience, selfishness and greed are the qualities that make me the lovable chap I am.”
More and more, you’ll see people on social media regurgitate messages such as “there’s really no upside to being a good person,” lamenting being decent as if it’s some type of detriment. While hyperbolic, there’s something to be said about looking out for No. 1 and immediately seeing a change in not only a level of success, but personal satisfaction, and almost a release from the things that may have previously held you back. Ricochet, AEW’s newest free agent turned creative success, has played the good soldier most of his televised career, but now that he’s willing to do any and all things to solidify his status as one of the top talents on Earth, he’s the bad seed ready to grow and overtake any and all doubters.
In a world where everyone has “haters,” where “nobody believed in us” is the false narrative people use to motivate themselves, Ricochet’s problem is the opposite: Everyone’s been telling him how great he is all along. “So many people, when I see them and I run into them, tell me all the time — whether it's ‘Lucha Underground’ or it's with Will Ospreay or it was in NXT, or there's some point of my career, whether it's the New Japan stuff, Dragon Gate, a lot of stuff too with PAC — I have so many people tell me this specific match or something got me watching wrestling again,” he told Uncrowned.
Ricochet has probably been as close to a video-game character as any wrestler to date, with the biggest difference being video games only have so many buttons, so many ways to do something fresh. He spent the first 15 years of his career tearing apart the independent wrestling scene, in particular being one the driving forces of American startups Dragon Gate and Pro Wrestling Guerrilla. He became maybe the most decorated Black wrestler to compete in Japan, winning numerous New Japan Tag Team Titles and 2014’s “Best of the Super Juniors” tournament. Effortlessly athletic, he employed moves never experienced by American crowds in-person, and if they had seen them, they hadn’t seen them with the grace and precision he possessed. He jumped higher, he landed smoother, and he made it look easier. And as time passed, he developed that superhero physique to match his skill set — first as the muted, masked Prince Puma in Mexican magic/mystique promotion Lucha Underground, then once more as the more grounded (but almost never on the ground) Ricochet.
“Who's your favorite wrestler? Stone Cold? He thinks it. Who's your favorite wrestler? Triple H? He thinks it. Who's your favorite wrestler? Rey Mysterio? He thinks it. Even if you don't think it, that's OK, because your favorites, they all think it and they all know. Is AJ Styles your favorite? Well, he thinks that I'm really, really good," Ricochet said. "You know what I'm saying? It's all good for me.”
There’s really no guarantee that leaving WWE for AEW, or vice versa, will make you a bigger star, will make people more fond of your work, or even if it’ll make you happy. But that’s been true for former WWE talents that have found success if they've taken risks perhaps not allowed under their former employer. Jon Moxley, AEW’s first big flip, let go of the zany, unpredictable Dean Ambrose to return to his gritty, grizzled deathmatch roots. Swerve Stickland leaned heavily into hip-hop, urban art and an unrelenting mean streak on his way to world title status, while Toni Storm hopped into a time machine, washed out her colors and found one of the most fun on-screen figures in wrestling with her “Timeless” persona.
So when the rumbles about Ricochet's impending AEW signing got louder this past year, the question was simple: What’s he going to do differently?
While not consistently at AEW’s level, WWE was allowing more and more of the athletic, fast-paced style they’d brought with guys like Ricochet, Carmelo Hayes and Dragon Lee. Ricochet shined in his initial match for the NXT North American Championship. He won both WWE's United States and Intercontinental Championships, feuded with fellow PWG alumni like Styles and Sami Zayn in fantastic bouts. So was it simply a chance for a few new matchups, or would we get something fresh in how he’d be presented? Watching a talent like Strickland, who he’d known for years, break out creatively, definitely made AEW an attractive destination. “Seeing where he started and then seeing where he ultimately ended up going to and achieving, it was incentivizing," said Ricochet.
"Because, again, it's somebody who I know he came up watching me. He came up asking me and Rich Swann for advice. Now to see where he has gone and do the things that he has done, and reached the heights that he's reached, has been really motivating because to see what somebody can achieve on their own, betting on themselves and achieving such popularity and such status in the wrestling world, really made me, again, want to show everybody how much better I was than him.”
But where Swerve embraced control, Ricochet committed to chaos. In recent weeks, he’s attacked people with scissors, he’s used managers as human shields, he’s stolen the regalia of stars no longer with us. He’s insulted Texas’ finest, spitting out rap legend Bun B's world-class hamburgers and even comically referring to him as “Mr. B.” With every interruption, with every insult, and every Jadakiss “A Ha!” cackle, you aren’t getting something new, you’re getting who the guy always was: His own biggest fan. “This is the culmination of pretending for years, and now no longer having to put on that facade of, ‘Man, I hope these people really care,'" Ricochet said. "Because now I can be honest, and now I can talk, and now I can tell the people that I really, really do not care. It's great.”
While the mania of it all has been cathartic for him, the foundation is, and always will be, the wrestling. Like fellow Kentuckians Raylan Givens and Boyd Crowder before him, what was hiding behind an early career of hard labor (while the "Justified" leads worked in a coal mine, Ricochet worked in a factory between matches and travel) was the drive and focus to be a significant part of a larger world. It’s easy to lose track of just how long Ricochet’s been synonymous with top-tier professional wrestling across the world ... unless well, you ask him.
“Nick Wayne is like 19 years old. He’s a baby. In 2010, me and PAC was out there killing it Korakuen Hall," Ricochet said. "Then four years before that, I was viral doing double moonsaults in 2006. What year are we picking that I've been relevant? I'm talking about, we're not going to act like I ain't been relevant. We're not going to act like I ain't been the top dog.”
He doesn’t want to recreate his classic matches, but with AEW having some of his strongest past opponents under the umbrella, he wants everyone to see just how much better he’s become. “The most attractive thing was to get in there with Will [Ospreay] again, was to show everybody how much better I was than him," Ricochet said. "That was the most attractive thing to me because I've been watching. I've seen it. I watched from afar and I saw everything that he was doing
"[Fans] bring that [NJPW] match up or something me and Will did, and they say that made them watch wrestling. I understand all that again. Having now the opportunity to get back in there with him, but then now show everybody that I am better than him and I always was better than him, that was attractive to me.”
Richard Hammond may be a bit more “lovable,” but Ricochet feels he’s never been better, and he’s out to make sure everyone knows that puts them a level beneath him, even if it’s at the cost of losing a few supporters along the way.
