‘Speedball’ Mike Bailey laid down a challenge to Swedish YouTube star PewDiePie.
The idea of professional wrestlers dipping their toes into the world of MMA is nothing new, with Brock Lesnar being the most obvious success story. During his time away from the squared circle, Lesnar signed with UFC and became UFC Heavyweight Champion.
One very different wrestler to Lesnar who also includes multiple disciplines in their move set is IMPACT Wrestling star ‘Speedball Mike Bailey.’
Speaking in a new interview with Fightful, Bailey was asked about potentially making the switch to MMA. The former X-Division Champion explained that although he might be too old for a legitimate MMA run, he wouldn’t be against squaring off against a celebrity or YouTube star.
“I feel like pro wrestling takes up way too much time for me to be able to focus. Maybe in a different part of my career, but then I might be too old. I’ve competed in Tae Kwon Do. I’ve done one boxing match. It all ended up the same with professional wrestling. It’s not worth the expense and the time and the weight cut to miss out on a wrestling match to do it. However, if it was one of those money fights with a YouTuber, I would 100% entertain the idea. I think it would be great. I think it would be fun.”
Continuing to discus the idea, Bailey said that a match against YouTube star PewDiePie would be worth watching. The Swedish star’s channel has amassed over 111 million subscribers with more than 28.5 billion views.
“Right. So that’s the other side of it. So to answer your question, yes, I’ll fight Jake Paul. That’s where this was going, right? Love Anderson Silva. But maybe not Jake Paul. He’s a little bit above my weight class. I think Speedball Mike Bailey versus PewDiePie would be worth watching. No! I made clickbait! ‘Calls out PewDiePie,’ hell yeah.”
Speedball Mike Bailey was most recently in action at GCW Fight Club where he was defeated by YAMATO. Prior to that he lost the X-Division Title to Frankie Kazarian at IMPACT Bound for Glory.