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Adam Cole on Keeping a Positive Mindset, AEW Debut, Leaving NXT, How He Met Girlfriend Britt Baker
Today's guest is Adam Cole. Adam Cole (real name Austin Jenkins) is a professional wrestler known for his time in AEW, NXT, and Ring of Honor. He joins Chris Van Vliet to talk about his AEW debut at ALL OUT, his decision to leave NXT, The Undisputed Era, his entrance theme, why he says his trademark "Bay Bay" catchphrase, how he met his girlfriend Britt Baker on the dating app Bumble, his time in Ring of Honor, becoming ROH World Champion, his positive mindset and much more!
“So I have been doing “Adam Cole Bay Bay” since 2009, but it didn’t catch on until about 2014. It kind of started early on in my wrestling career and had done a Maryland Championship Wrestling show. Joey Matthews [Joey Mercury in WWE] was on the show, and he was in the finals of the Shane Shamrock Memorial Cup. He was the heel, and he was just walking around going “Joey Matthews!” and putting his fists up in the air, and he said it so many times. I remember sitting there and thinking that is so smart. If you are not really a hardcore wrestling fan, if you remember one name from that show, it’s going to be Joey Matthews. So I thought how can I incorporate that into my own thing? I’m a huge Chris Jericho fan, and when he would stand on top of someone, flex and go “come on baby!” I was like oh, I will do “Adam Cole Bay Bay.”
“It actually did start as “Adam Cole baby!” But eventually it got more obnoxious. For 4 years I would do it and no one would do it with me, or they would boo. I did it a lot more than I do now as well. But eventually what happened was I got injured, I had to get shoulder, tricep and elbow surgery in 2014. I was away for 4 months, so I had that blessing of the fans missing me when I was gone in Ring of Honor. When I came back, they started doing “Adam Cole Bay Bay” with me. It just turned into this incredible thing now, that has just been a huge part of what I do.”
“When I did it initially, there was no intention of people doing it with me. I was a heel and was trying to think of cocky, arrogant things to do. In my brain, I never thought that I’m going to turn this into a catchphrase. It really never was. It was something small to do in-between my matches to get people to boo. That’s exactly what happened in the early stages of it. I would do it in the middle of a match and everyone would be like boo! So that was always the plan. The fact that it’s turned into this huge catchphrase is something that went above and beyond my expectations. So there was no real disappointment in it not catching on, because it was never supposed to catch on, but here we are.”
“That was just a little thing. I had been doing the finger, looking up and point at myself for a really long time. Again that was something that I had been doing in Ring of Honor. It’s crazy how that has caught on too, it’s wild.”
“I think so. It was one of those situations where I was just at rehearsals and I was just messing around. For years I had pointed at myself and said “Boom!” or said something. Because at that point in the song it had said it, I think Road Dogg said to me ‘Yeah, you should definitely make sure that you do that.’ I had been doing it for quite some time but they had noticed. So then I made sure that I consistently did it all the time, and then that caught on as well. So it’s amazing man, it’s so cool.”
“So interestingly enough, the first console that we ever had was the Sega Genesis. My first memory of my entire life, not just in video games, was me waking up at 6am and running downstairs to see that my dad had stayed up all night to get the best bike in Road Rash on the Sega Genesis. I was so excited that he got it. So early console-wise, it was Road Rash, Streets of Rage 2 and Sonic 2 on the Genesis. Then we got the Super Nintendo and we played Super Mario World, Donkey Kong Country and Super Mario RPG. But I would say when I realized games were more than something to pass the time was the PlayStation 1 era of games. We are talking Final Fantasy 7, Resident Evil 2 and Metal Gear Solid. I think at that point I knew, man, gaming is really cool.”
“At that point, I was so obsessed with wrestling and wrestling only. My younger brother was really obsessed with video games, and I was really obsessed with wrestling. I would play these games and I would love it, but I never bought my own console. We either got them as gifts or my brother would get the consoles and I would play on them. In 2015, I was thinking more and more about how I needed to find a hobby, because it was just wrestling 24/7. He had gotten Halo 5, and it had just come out. He was playing it and he was going to bed, so I said ‘Hey Brent, do you mind if I play Halo 5?’ I stayed up until 7am and beat the entire campaign. I was like this is really fun, I’m going to buy an Xbox. Then the rest is history, I have Halo to thank.”
“Oh my God [they influenced me] so much. I had been thinking about streaming for quite some time, because I had been into video games for years at this point. But I always found some excuse like ‘I’m too busy. When will I have time to learn how to do this?’ When the pandemic hit, all of a sudden I had all this time on my hands. I had no excuse. Actually a year prior, Britt [Baker] got me all the gear one Christmas. So Austin Creed spent 5 hours over discord explaining to me how to barebones do my first Twitch stream. I have him to thank massively. So I used to stream just once a week, but as time went on, I’m getting to a point where on a good week I can stream up to 5 times a week. But Creed, Breeze and Swiss [Cesaro] all helped so much with getting me so excited about streaming. It’s fun to go through an exciting story, but when you can look over to the chat, see their opinions and talk to them, it makes it so much better. I think that’s a big reason why we were all so connected initially. But I feel the same way about my Twitch community, I love them to death.”
“It was really important to me. I know that I have made it pretty apparent, even while I was still there, about how Twitch stream is something that I am really passionate about, it’s never going to go away and things like that. Twitch became a vital part of not just something that I did, but a part of who I am. I can’t imagine not being able to go on there and talk to the community or play games with buddies of mine. There’s so many things about Twitch that have become so important to me. And I really want to keep growing, I want to see where it goes and see how far I can take it. So yeah, keeping Twitch was very important to me.”
“It kind of all happened so fast, because again, when the discovery of my deal coming up very soon, that was when all these thoughts and ideas starting entering my head. I want to make this very clear, and I know that everyone knows this, I had a wonderful 4 years at WWE. Specifically down in NXT with Triple H and Shawn Michaels, 2 guys that I respect the hell out of and have been nothing but so kind and so generous to me, and so helpful. I feel like I became such a better performer because of little things they have said and working alongside them.”
“So the decision actually was difficult in a lot of ways. With 9 year old me, my goal was to wrestle for WWE. Now I had this other opportunity, where I see this company like AEW, which has just grown massively over these past 2 years. I see a guy like Tony Khan, who is one of the nicest and most passionate about pro-wrestling that I have ever met. The Young Bucks, Kenny Omega and Britt all being there, that was nice. There was a phase where I was seeing Britt for half a day once a week. Now I can see her a lot more, which is great. I didn’t make my decision to come to AEW officially until like a few days before All Out. I remember laying in bed and weighing out the pros and cons and trying to decide what I wanted to do. It was 1am, Britt was asleep, and I was thinking about showing up at AEW, and I got butterflies in my stomach, I felt like a 9 year old kid. I have always followed my gut, and have always followed what my heart wanted me to do. There were so many pros to going to AEW. When you say you can tell that I am having the time of my life, it’s because I am, I am having a freaking blast.”
“Yes. So I did make it very clear to them that I wanted to weigh my options, and I wanted to think about what I wanted to do. They could not have been more professional. They could not have been cooler about it and they never pressured me, they were awesome the whole way through. I think what helped, and this is public knowledge at this point, with everything going on, there was a short extension that I ended up signing. To me, it was such a no-brainer. They didn’t have to convince me and they didn’t have to talk me into it. I was in the middle of a program with one of my best friends, Kyle O’Reilly. It was really important to me that I got to finish that. And not just that, but just because how good to me they were that entire time. I think that was really helpful in terms of the respect on both sides, because hypothetically, I could have ended up walking out and debuting on Dynamite a few days later. But there was no chance that I would have ever done that.”
“I made it very clear to them that I was going to think about what I was going to do. Because again, it was tough, I had no idea. I couldn’t communicate properly with AEW until my contract was up. At that point, I felt like it would have been foolish of me from my own personal standpoint, to not at least wait and just see what was available and just see what the options were. But they understood that.”
“So I had one job before I signed with Ring of Honor. The one job that I had was I worked in a retirement home. There was a fitness center where people would come down and exercise, and if people asked for help on a machine or how to use a machine, I would direct them. I kept an eye on the gym to make sure everyone was ok. In-between that, it was literally in the same building, I taught kids swim lessons. That was the job that I had. Why it was so great is that they were so lenient with my schedule. If I said ‘Hey guys, I have to go to Europe for a week.’ They would just say ok, it was the dream scenario.”
“That whole situation was so strange, especially now we are performing again in front of crowds. It is so insane how literally vital they are to what we do, so it changed a lot of it. First of all, the bumps hurt a lot more without a crowd and without that adrenaline. But of course I cared so much, because in my mind, I’m having this match and I’m thinking everyone is watching at home. Also, Triple H and Shawn Michaels are back there watching as well, I want to make sure I am doing good for them and for the people watching at home. But it just changed so much on how we approached matches and the way that we wanted to do things. It became more of a television show, because so much of it was to the camera, and so much of it was hoping that the people were feeling what we were trying to portray. When you have an audience it’s so much easier, because you get this instant gratification. It either worked or it didn’t work. During the pandemic, it was a total shot in the dark and it was a guess. It was definitely strange, and I am so happy that fans are back.”
“So for me personally, and this is always how I have been, being in NXT and being in AEW, I’ve never been someone who is super focused on the ratings war. I was always so focused on, if I was wrestling I want to have the best match possible, if I’m cutting a promo I want to have the best promo possible… Of course it’s really exciting to hear ‘Hey! 1.3 million, that’s awesome!’ or that I was in the highest rated segment on the show, that’s great. But if my match isn’t good, or my promo isn’t good, I don’t care how many people have watched it, I’m going to be upset. But it was a really exciting time, really cool, especially in the beginning. It was NXT’s first time on TV, which was really awesome. Now I am on the other side in AEW and seeing the momentum continuing to grow, it’s cool. I think across the board it’s good for wrestling. I think it’s cool that people can watch both shows and stuff like that. Sometimes I do think that the fans are a little bit too hard on either side. I was on the WWE side, but I still loved WCW. But I’ve always been someone who is like, man there are a lot of people getting a lot of TV time, or not been on TV before and getting the chance to showcase themselves. I just think it has been great across the board for the industry of pro-wrestling.”
“I do love the idea of eventually doing something on-screen with Britt. I know I have been asked that before, and I know some people are like ‘Oh maybe you want to keep it separate’ or ‘Maybe you want to work together.’ I love the idea of that. There was a small phase when I was done with Ring of Honor, where for like 3 months I was doing independent shows. I remember doing shows that she was also booked on, and in a couple of those matches we got to do some mixed tags, or she had run in or I had run in, it was really fun to work with her. Eventually, doing something like that on the big stage that is AEW, I’m all for it.”
“My family, my girlfriend Britt Baker and our health.”
