Kid Lykos has discussed why he decided to pass the Kid Lykos name onto Joe Nelson during his temporary retirement, with the now-Kid Lykos II recalling how it felt to take on the moniker!
Speaking to Inside The Ropes‘ own Innes McVey, the duo known as Lykos Gym were asked about Kid Lykos’ 2019 retirement and his decision to pass on the Lykos character to Joe Nelson – now known as Kid Lykos II.
The four-time PROGRESS Tag Team Champion noted how there were similarities between their careers and bestowing the career would help propel Nelson’s career!
Lykos: Basically, I know my experience with the Lykos character… When I first started doing it, I was just a white meat babyfaced teenage-looking boy and that’s not a draw. It’s not interesting. You can only go so far. I’d been doing it for seven years at the time, I’d been wrestling seven years, and I was still seen as this green new kid. Changing to Lykos just changed the whole game for me.
I got seen as a wrestler, got seen as a good professional wrestler and there is nobody that wrestles as well as Joe Nelson did in that capacity. There were other names thrown about, it was a conversation between not just myself, but with Chris [Brookes] – I’d have the conversation just to see who’s out there. But no one was at the level that he was and in the same position that I was because he’d been doing it the same way I had in that he’d been doing camps for years…
Lykos II: …Our stories of how we were both brought into pro wrestling are strangely similar.
Lykos: There are parallels, right? You’d been around for years and years and years and years, you were a veteran at this point and you were still seen as just the teenage boy. The same things happen now: People see Lykos II as a professional wrestler and a damn good one, rightfully so. So I think the logic behind the decision was, ‘This is a very similar situation to mine and this will help this person break out and be the star that they deserve to be.’
Later, Lykos II recalled the “wild” experience of taking on the Kid Lykos persona after looking up to the original Lykos as a fan for many years!
Lykos II: At the time it was wild, man. Honestly, it was wild because there are so many points I can remember from when I was trying to network at shows and show up to help out that [Lykos I] was wrestling and I was like, ‘Holy sh*t, man, he’s sick.’ I was a fan of Kid Lykos and then we slowly started to build a relationship like, ‘Oh now I get to wrestle on his shows.’
To me, that was enough. I was like, ‘Fantastic, this is cool. One of my personal favourite British wrestlers is a fan and using me on his own product, Schadenfreude and Friends’ and then it was such a strange transition. I won’t lie, it was something that, at first, I was kind of hesitant on just because it was terrifying in a way. You see characters changing all the time, right? You never see them completely different and I mean, flipped on its head. So it was terrifying at first, but honestly, it was maybe the most humbling and cool thing to happen to me.
Lykos: You don’t see it that often, the only other person who’s had a change of that drastic a nature is Cara Noir. It took him two and a half to three years to even get the opportunity. But now you see him and he’s a star and this is the same for Kid Lykos II. But the difference is he’s so incredible, you can’t deny it and you can just see it any time he steps in the ring. You can see from the bloody lockups, from the lockups to the Brainbuster at the end. You can see he’s incredible and you can’t deny that. That’s why he’s getting the opportunities he is.
Lykos Gym also detailed their strategy for their PROGRESS Tag Team Championship match at Chapter 112, discussed Kid Lykos’ comeback from retirement earlier this year and explained why they want to defend their titles against The Motor City Machine Guns, The Young Bucks and The Usos!
You can check out our interview with Lykos Gym in full here.
Photo credit: Rob Brazier / Head Drop Photography