Speedball Mike Bailey and Veda Scott aren’t just the definition of #couplegoals, but they’re two of the top independent professional wrestlers in the world. The pair have both established themselves as not only two of the most popular, but two of the most talented individuals in the business today, and as part of our upcoming conversation for Love Wrestling, Speedball and I chatted about Veda’s influence on his career both inside and outside of the ring.
“I think you guys are both very great examples of driven individuals, you’ve done a lot of different things [in wrestling],’ I inquired. “How has she influenced or inspired you as far as that side of things goes?”
Bailey was quick to answer.
“She has a brilliant, brilliant mind for professional wrestling,” he replied glowingly. “We think about it in the same way, and we’ve always helped each other. Being together at a wrestling show means that we’re gonna have a big amount of input on each other’s matches. Like we’ll always – I’m going to plan my match with my opponent, but I’m always going to go over back to her and relay to her. And then she’ll go, ‘oh, use this instead of that, and then this there, and then switch this to that.’ ‘Okay, no problem.’ That’s always been a constant, so that’s been great.”
“In a more concrete way, obviously, the way my career went, I had to travel out, and I’ve had to travel a lot,” he continued. “We have always been traveling together – or not always, but for like four years, we’ve traveled together, and that made it a lot simpler, and a lot more like fun to organize. Things like [when] we’re wrestling in England for two months, [when] we have five days off, let’s go to Paris for a week, or let’s go to Vienna for a week, which we’ve been able to do, are things that I probably would not have done chosen to do by myself. It’s also made – traveling for wrestling can get pretty lonely, and pretty sad. Just being able to do it with someone whose company I enjoy so much has made the whole experience just that much better. So that’s been very nice.”
Bailey continued to sing Scott’s praises.
“But also, mostly, I think a big part is, I mentioned my brother earlier, and I think something that’s missing from wrestling is real coaching. I had it with my brother and I have it with Veda now, and it’s immensely helpful. But, it’s just having someone whom you trust to always give you good feedback and sort of knows what you want to do with wrestling and someone that you trust to be honest with you. And, well-meaning, which is the most [importat] part because, in wrestling, a lot of people are going to give you advice, but it’s not always the best advice, especially from someone who doesn’t know you. Or, they might not always have the same goals. But, having someone like my brother did, and like Veda, who knows exactly what I want and is not afraid to tell me ‘this was bad, don’t do it. This was great, do more of it,’ because I fully trust them is immensely helpful.”
I interjected.
“I guess the easy example for me is it’s pretty easy for me to sit and tell you you’re great at pro wrestling, and it would be pretty hard for me to sit and pick something out of like a match you had with Bandido or something along those lines where I could sit and say, ‘oh, you could do this better.’ Whereas I would have to assume like you say, she’s a great mind [and] might be able to pick up those little things that normal people wouldn’t be able to do.”
“Correct,” replied Bailey. “And, it’s also the fact that we’ve followed each other’s career and evolution closely, right? Like the worst thing is [when] someone would say like, ‘oh, don’t do this.’ [They] say some aspect is bad, but not realize that this aspect was terrible, and you’ve done – like, you’ve gotten way better at it, and that’s been something that’s difficult for you. Then, someone just still says, ‘oh, that’s bad,’ because they haven’t seen anything before. That comment is not helpful at all, because it’s something – like, in my matches, there’s a lot of things that I will choose to do because they’re difficult, and I’m not very good at them, and I want to get better at them. So, I put them in the match to be able to work on it in that environment. That takes knowledge of my career in order to be able to give accurate feedback on that.”
Please credit Spencer Love/Love Wrestling with any of the above quotes used.
