In a recent interview with Renee Paquette as part of The Sessions podcast, All Elite Wrestling star Darby Allin discussed several topics, including his love of skateboarding, his stunt work and what his parents think of it, his friendship with Sting, living in the woods with no television or Wi-Fi and much more.
Highlights of the interview are below:
On living in the woods with no television or Wi-Fi: “I want to blow s*** up and not be bothered, I want to jump my house and not be bothered, there’s a lot of things, like just freedom, but no TV and Wi-Fi. I feel like I could turn my mind off, because I’m really into meditating a lot, there’s a lot that goes into it. The moment I’m around TV or Wi-Fi, I kind of feel trapped and it feels like there’s like a rat race going on, when I would rather just f*** off and live in my own world, and that’s what I do all the time. A few people come over, and then when they see the place, they’re like, no wonder you don’t feel the need to go on Twitter, you’re doing all this weird s*** all day.”
On how he feels physical considering the bumps that he takes: “I feel amazing actually, and I have been jumping off washers and dryers on the concrete since I was 4. I feel really solid actually, I’m so extreme about physical therapy, I want to be as crazy for as long as possible, so if you ever see me at tapings, I’m always in the doctor’s room, not because I’m messed up, I like to do maintenance like dry needling and acupuncture and a lot of yoga.”
On his love of skateboarding and it being the most important thing in his life: “It’s so weird, because like back in the day, I was able to just go crazy and if I broke my ankle, cool, whatever, I could just chill, but now I’m on AEW and people don’t know how gnarly it is to balance out skateboarding and wrestling. I have such passion for skateboarding that you couldn’t pay me to stop skateboarding, there’s no way I would ever stop stakeboarding, there’s not enough money in the world to make me, and I mean that, because there was a point in my first year in wrestling where I just stopped skateboarding, because I thought I had to dedicate 100% of my time to wrestling, so I stopped doing a lot of things and I was just wrestling. Then, for some reason, I was so depressed, I was like man, I’m forgetting who I am as a person, I wasn’t doing stunts, I wasn’t skateboarding and I was like man, there’s something missing and the moment I picked back up the skateboard, I was like, it was this, I’ll never put you down again. With wrestling, I love it, but it’s so weird to say, but I don’t feel like it’s my true calling in life, it’s skateboarding.”
On what his parents think of him doing stunt work: “They’re there for all of it, my Mom and Dad were there when I jumped my house. It was so funny, because we jumped the house for the pilot of my reality show called “Darby’s Days Off”, so we had this reality thing where like, what does Darby do on his days off, and it’s just like this gnarly s***. My parents were in the whole pilot, it was following them around, it was super fun. They were there, my Dad and my Mom have been there since the beginning with all the gnarly s*** that I was doing in high school, and jumping off, like with skateboarding and stuff like that, so they’re used to it, they’re so hyped on it now that it paid off.”
On his friendship with Sting: “People will say, oh so you guys are together because you just paint your face, but it’s crazy what people don’t see behind the scenes, like how much we get along. During the pandemic, I would change in the boiler room, like that was my spot, I would shut the door and just be in the boiler room. Then, one day Sting walked by and he’s like, why are you in this boiler room and I was like, I just like to be in my own zone, I don’t know, like my own world to get away from everything and then, he’s just like alright, well my locker room is your locker room from now on. Ever since then, even when we went on the road, he’s just like, your locker room is my locker room. We have such, you know, stuff outside of the ring, it’s cool, but no one gets to see that. When we’re paired off now, it feels super right, but in the beginning, I have no idea and it’s funny because they’re like alright, you’re going to sit in the rafters for a couple of weeks. I didn’t put two and two together and then they said, Sting is going to debut and I was like oh cool, I’ve never met him. Then, I started talking to him and then, he was watching all my promos and he’s like dude, don’t change a thing, you’re doing awesome and then they asked me to be paired with him and it was awesome to play a part in his final chapter.”
The full interview is available at this link.
