Soundsphere sat down with LaBron Kazone to discuss his time in Major League Wrestling (MLW), his rivalries, and his thoughts on the evolution of the industry now he’s training the next generation of wrestlers.
Image credit: MLW
Soundsphere: Since Fusion came back a few months ago, it feels like MLW is really going places. How’s that feeling on your end as a member of the locker room?
LaBron Kazone: MLW’s been nothing but joy. You know, sold-out crowds every time I’m there. I’ve been able to wrestle in territories that I haven’t been able to really put my foot down in, like Atlanta. A lot of markets that I haven’t hit. Major League has definitely brought me out to crowds that I’m not familiar with.
It’s a gratifying feeling when you can feel a crowd that’s not 100% familiar with you, and you go out, and you do your thing, and by the end of the match, when the bell rings, it’s a completely different feeling.
I feel like right now, this part of my career, MLW is the best place for me with where I am, not just professionally, but personally as well; MLW is just a great fit for me. Like, just in my time being able to work with guys like Teddy Long and Kojima-san, it’s been beautiful. And I wouldn’t have had that experience elsewhere.
Soundsphere: So you’ve been having some issues with Joe Coffey recently. What’s your unfiltered take on him?
LaBron Kazone: Great wrestler. S***** person. Don’t like him. He probably doesn’t like me. I don’t care. But yeah, not a fan. But great wrestler. I give him that.
I am the number one contender for the championship that he holds. I feel like that championship describes who I am, which is a representative of the good old South.
I don’t think he understands much of anything about the South, especially in this area. I’m brought up in North Carolina, the good old Southeast. I feel like he’s just holding that championship real nicely for me, and I will gladly take it off his waist.
Soundsphere: What’s the relationship between you and Teddy Long?
LaBron Kazone: Teddy’s seen a lot of different environments. And it’s rewarding for someone like me to have a legend like Teddy Long publicly endorse me in front of an audience like Major League Wrestling. That meant a lot to me. Teddy represents the people back at home that believe in me. That’s what he is to me.
Soundsphere: You had a great showing in the Opera Cup to the semifinals, but you were knocked out by Austin Aries. So is that a lick you really want to get back?
LaBron Kazone: Of course. That was my first time encountering Austin Aries. Watched him growing up. I’m not going to lie, it was a pleasure being in the ring with him just for the fact of who he is. And again, like coming up as a youngin’, it’s just some wrestlers represent, these are the goats of the indies.
I feel like Austin Aries is definitely up there in my eyes. And, you know, fast forward today, you have a lot of young kids looking at LaBron Kazone, a current goat of the indies. So to have two goats go at it, one from a certain generation and then another from a new generation, is a special moment. So of course I would love to revisit that again.
Image credit: MLW
Soundsphere: You put a lot of effort and your own time into running your wrestling school. But what I want to ask you is, what do you think is different about the current crop of wrestlers coming up now to when you were coming up? How is the industry different?
LaBron Kazone: I can only speak from what I experienced, and I feel like information and knowledge wasn’t as easy to come across as it is in today’s time. I feel like guys can just go on social media and they can find a lot of information. But back then you really had to go out and you had to drive very far distances and hopefully you can learn from somebody that’s willing to teach you.
I feel like nowadays there’s a training school just around every corner, and maybe they are teaching some good stuff, but it’s more than that. It’s where can they put you? Where’s the opportunities that they can put before you? I feel like we’re in a time where we take knowledge for granted because knowledge is everywhere. And what’s missing is how do we apply it.
So it’s just trying to do that. One of the things that I tell my kids is, it doesn’t really matter what you know at the end of the day. Just what matters is what you do with your hands, what you do with your feet. That’s what’s going to make the change. Like I could tell you all the secrets of life, that’s not going to make you a better person. It’s what you do with it.
Soundsphere: How has MLW been as a home to you so far?
LaBron Kazone: It’s been great. Again, it’s allowed me to be seen in places that I’ve never been seen before. And it’s a thing that a lot of people say: out of sight, out of mind. Well, MLW, they keep me in sight, you know, and they keep me in sight in a major way. How they treat me, how they build me as being the new generation prospect, a blue-chip prospect, everything that they have going on in my future into this Opera Cup, which is a really big deal for Major League Wrestling.
So it’s benefited me in so many different ways. A lot of new fans that have never seen me before, they see some of the things that I do — like the time I killed Andrew Everett with the clothesline — it’s going viral, and then I’m getting a lot of new followers from that. So it’s great. I feel like MLW’s brand has helped me, and I feel like my brand has helped MLW as well.