Show: Wrestling Epicenter
Guest: Big Damo
Date: 10/06/2026
Your Host: "Arizona" James Walsh

Big Damo has been everywhere, man! That might be a song, but it is true in this case. From being the owner of PROGRESS Wrestling and his own family run promotion in Scotland to being on WWE WrestleMania and now working for MLW as MLW Fusion has taken over Tubi, this man has been everywhere! 

In this fantastic chat, we discuss MLW's growth as well as his purchase of PROGRESS with wife Nikki Cross, Nikki Storm. We also discuss the passing of PAC, the greatness of GRADO, and so much more. 

Below is a transcript, verbatim, of our chat. You can read it. Or, listen!

YouTube LinK; https://youtu.be/rpRCmD7rHck

You can catch MLW Fusion every Thursday on Tubi! Visit www.MLW.com for details!

Don't forget to check out www.WrestlingEpicenter.com for more great content like this including interviews with 950 other prior guests. Enjoy!  And, come check out our store! 

BIG DAMO:

On his time thus far in MLW:
"Oh, so far so good is the best way to describe it. So, I got very lucky with MLW. They tried to bring me in as early as January, but I just desiccated my shoulder and I was having a minor issue.
But MLW were very patient with me and as soon as I was good to go, they brought me in. So, you know, there's a real loyalty there that they were willing to stick with me. So, it meant a lot to me because it's very easy when somebody gets hurt that you have to move on.
I know that as a promoter myself. But it was very cool of them to, you know, stick with me on that. And listen, I love the roster there.
There's so many incredible wrestlers who I've known for the longest time is probably the best way to describe it. And there's just so many, you know, super talented people that the interactions they have with CMLL, with New Japan, and now with Stardom, that's just kind of came up. It means that our roster's wildly diverse from all over the world, and it's been very cool to be a part of it."

On MLW being able to get the best out of talent seen to be difficult:
"Well, I think it's one of those things, it's like there's just this wealth of experience on that roster, like there's people who've been in almost every major TV company on earth, so you're getting a chance to rub shoulders with people with wildly incredible experiences, you know, people who've been wrestling as long if not longer than me, and it's been very cool, like this weekend on Tubi, sorry, this Thursday in Tubi, I'm actually wrestling one of my long-term foes, Wolfgang, we've probably wrestled each other 30 or 40 times all across the world, and it'll be very cool doing it for MLW, we first met in like 2004, I believe, so a long, long time ago."

On his feuds with Mads Krule Krugger & Wolfgang:
"He's even taller than me, but the beauty is when you get 330 pounds running at you, there's not really much you can do. Mads was very interesting, but we had to make a statement. That's a former Contra member who turned his back on Contra, so we had to get in about him. That's something that I'm very good at, shall we say, as an aggressive big man. Absolutely, that's been interesting. It's been such a unique, wherever we've gone, whether it's Philadelphia, whether it's the Carolinas, we're going to Chicago, we're going to Atlanta this weekend. We're in New York as well, I forgot about that. We've been all over the place, so it's been really cool being able to hit up these different markets, which I've done relatively recently in the last 10 years with NXT and WWE. It's been awesome getting back to these towns and maybe being able to see a little bit more and things like that, which has been one of the major issues of being in my 20s and 30s when I was traveling and things like that.
I didn't stop to smell the roses very much, whereas now I'm more likely to. It's awesome that MLW has given us that opportunity. We've been enjoying ourselves so far."

On MLW finally inking a deal with Tubi to bring Fusion to the masses every Thursday night:
"Well, first of all, let's just be, let's just rattle in the fact that it f***ing happened, all right? So I'm delighted, you know, I read this story from afar and everything else, so I'm delighted that it happened. Even better, it happened while I'm here. So that's pretty, that's pretty badass for me. But you know, one of the cool things about Tubi, like, you know, it is, it's a free streaming service and it's probably the biggest one kicking around. So when you think about that, you know, you're not getting a chance no matter what walk of life you come from, that you can watch, you know, live professional wrestling every Thursday. So I think that that's pretty badass and listen, that roster is outstanding. The quality of wrestling we're getting and the fans that were, are coming to our shows are just so much fun to, to, to wrestle in front of. So it creates this brilliant experience and there's just so much talent in the production team. There's so much talent in ring. So like the timing's really good, you know, I'm, I'm assuming this has all come together like a brilliant plan for, for the MLW promoters and everything else because, you know, they've done a hell of a job to put all this together and like, just to give you an idea, like Fusion, like this Thursday, Amras and Wolfgang, who's a long-term, a long-term frenemy of mine, but also there's going to be like Killer Cross and Matt Riddle versus the Skyscrapers, which is, which is Dijak Bishop, which is cool. One of my, my friends in Contra, Kure Kwon's against Andre Everett, and there's just so much more happening. It is a really cool time to be, to be a wrestling fan. Like, like the fact that this is on a, on a free, a free service is incredible. Like, you know, you know, yourself, like subscription costs are hard at the minute, like there's just every, it feels like cable used to feel, you know, like 10 years ago, but yeah, it's like coming very close to that kind of price to get access to everything you want. But so, so for MLW to be like affordable in terms of ticket sales and then, you know, like a free service on Tubi is amazing and I'm delighted for MLW because like that's a, it would be a lot easier to put it all into a subscription service and charge people and I'm sure they would, they would, they would, you know, make whatever they want to make from it, but they've actually done this a very different way and you can also catch it on, on beeps and the NJPW world and there is also replays on YouTube. So they're doing their very best to get eyes on, on all of us. So for us as, as Tal, it is very cool time to be there. "

On the expanse of UK wrestling in the 2010's:
"Listen, what the likes of Jodie and Johnny were doing, in the early 2000s, it was way ahead of its time, but it didn't really have the eyeballs on it until much later, which is crazy. But that's just an example of what changed. It went from World of Sport in the 80s and early 90s to the 90s tribute acts and things like that, which played into the 2000s, really. Then there was an uprising of indie wrestling in the United States that obviously piqued a lot of wrestling fans' interest in the UK. Me, personally, I was such a massive fan of Ring of Honor, especially that window, 2002 to 2009, was just outstanding. I think that our goal as we started... I started in 2004, and a lot of my contemporaries, 2004, 2005. As we started coming through, it also helped that we had the internet, we had YouTube, we had the opportunity for tape trading and things like that. We were not just fans of the major companies in America. You're watching New Japan, you're watching pro wrestling, you're able to go back and see the World of Sport. Suddenly, you're just flying at that point. You've got so much education available to you. I was talking about that, my physique by 2010. By that period, 2010 to 2012, there now was about 30, 40 wrestlers who had all been wrestling for about 6 to 10 years who were all pretty talented. Originally, we'd been kind of regional. There'd be two in this town and two in this area. Now companies started being ambitious, like Progress Wrestling, like ICW, like RevPro, who started trying to take us all from these different areas and put us against each other. Obviously, that was the big win because it was all killer, no filler. It's probably the best way to describe how those rosters started going. The fans responded almost immediately. When I think of how shows were in 2013 versus 2015, suddenly we're putting 2,000 people in a building. ICW eventually puts 4,000 people in a building at the end of 2015. At the end of 2016, ICW put 6,000 in a building. Progress put 5,000 in a building. It was like this was just continually rising. Even local independents, like I was running a small family company and we put 1,000 people in a building. This was happening on a regular basis all across the board. But what really, really made the difference was now suddenly we're all wrestling the best around. Then that obviously means we can bring people in from America, in from Japan, and then we start going to America and Japan and all these places. The rise was awesome. It was cool to be a part of. Suddenly, we were all struggling indie wrestlers, and now suddenly we're doing pretty damn well as indie wrestlers. To give you an idea, I was earning more in the indies than I did in my first WWE contract. I wasn't a brilliant merch guy. That just gives you an idea of what it was like at the time. Yes, that was a bubble, and the likes of WWE were very smart in how they ingratiated themselves into the bubble. But realistically, it was an awesome moment in time. One of the cool things I can say, as a person who's running shows now in Britain, it feels like it's coming back. There seems to be this buzz again about independent wrestling in the UK and Europe. Europe has really started to grow. France has exploded. Italy's starting to really take off. I keep getting emails from people all across different countries, like Bulgaria and Turkey and all these places that never had a history of wrestling in terms of professional wrestling. Lots of amateur wrestling. So it's been very cool to see how it's rising again in Europe, and I'm excited how this looks in 10 more years because there's all this talent here coming through who are starting to wrestle the better talent around. Obviously, a lot of us who've left the major companies, they're getting a chance to pick our brains and stuff like that. What I am noticing is kids are getting better faster, and that is something that is very exciting because you look at the likes of Leon Slater there at TNA, an absolutely outstanding wrestler who's just adjusted really quickly to be early 20s and to be excellent is amazing. But that's one of the cool things about how this next generation is going to go, and I personally am very excited for how this looks in 5 years' time, 10 years' time."

On if young wrestlers listen to veterans, quoting "You can lead a horse to water...":
"I actually really love that saying, so thank you very much for that. So, like, to give you an idea, so I ran a training school late 2000s into the early 2010s. And I was very lucky that, like, eight of my trainees ended up getting signed into Dublis, right? Now, you've got 50 trainees, or whatever it is, and they all get given the same knowledge, the same advice. And, you know, some of them are able to take it, some of them have families, some of them have whatever. You know, there's roadblocks for some of them, and there's maybe more open road for others. So it's like, you know, you're trying to give people the opportunity the best they can.
And what I've found since I left Dublis is I've been, there's been a bunch of talents who, you know, come and ask for advice, and some, you know, maybe take it, and some of them don't understand it. And then there's some who understand it, implement it, and do very well. In fact, there's two talents who I've recently been using on Progress, Raven Creed and Mila Grace, who, they both asked me advice a bunch of times over the last few years, and they've went away, implemented it, and they've just went from strength to strength.
And I personally love that, because, you know, being able to see that in person, and now they're able to pick my wife's brain. So like, you know, obviously there's not a whole lot of correlation I could give them as 6'4", 300-pounder, right? But in terms of, you know, what I think works, my philosophy, you know, and things that I think would help them, they've went away and built on that, and they've came back much better. And now they can pick the brain of my wife, and Kaylee Ray, and Zelina, and that's what's very cool.
So I'm very excited for how they do in Progress over the next couple of years. And the issue will be, for me, is they'll probably end up getting signed elsewhere, so... But that's one of the cool things about this, and that's what I've loved so far. And listen, I'm missing out on like thousands of talent who have asked for advice and have implemented it well, but as you say, you can only give so much advice, and people can only like take on board as much as they possibly can.
But so far, the ones who have, you know, I've been able to do well out of it, and that's what's been very cool. Like, I love training. I was actually coaching at Tommy and Zelina's school last night, and there's a great bunch of talent there in Orlando. There's a few who I'm very excited about for the future. But yeah, that's the thing I'm quite passionate about, and I think that helps coming into Progress. I want to develop a lot of these talent.
I want to put them against more experienced talent and give them a chance to really explode, and hopefully they can come and join us in MLW, which would be even better."

On living his WWE dream in spite of earning less money in his first WWE year than on the indy scene:
"Well, just to clarify, that was my first contract was lower than my... Not the film type, but in terms of what it meant, I've been a fan of pro wrestling since I was about 3 years old. My best friend's a year and a half older than me, so he was a bit more compos mentis, so he had taped early NWA as it was coming into WCW, so we were watching wrestling from 3, 4 years old, and then you become super obsessed. I saw WCW live, and when I was 8 years old, it was quite a rarity for big American companies to come to Ireland at that point because of the war and stuff. And then as I became a teen, that's the attitude era really kicking off, so at different parts of my life, it was the only thing that mattered, effectively. And when I was about 15, I decided, okay, I need to start thinking, why am I going to go about doing this? And so then when I was 18, I moved myself to Scotland because I knew there was a wrestling school there that I could get access to. And at first, it's just about, you know, can I wrestle? And then at each... Well, it's almost like every six months, you almost set yourself new goals. So, like, my goals eventually became closer to my dreams, you know? So I'm able to sign for WWE. I'm able to go to Mania. I'm able to do these wild gimmick matches and things like that. I'm getting to wrestle people who I adored. You know, like, I wrestled Daniel Bryan, who I was obsessed with because I was a big fan of early Ring of Honor. AJ Styles, you know, I'm working with Fit Finlay, who's my ultimate hero. I'm in a class with Shawn Michaels. All these things that, like, you couldn't possibly have asked more for, you know what I mean? So, yeah, absolutely. Like, in terms of the fan in me, that was, like, I've always been, you know, I've always been, like, business-like when it comes to in-rings. So, like, literally, like, you know, you try to... You're effectively just fronting, right? But right before the WrestleMania thing, like Shawn Michaels said to me, try to take this in because, you know, you're gonna do what all the rest of us did. You're just gonna black blaze through it and then almost, you know, miss the importance of the opportunity. So there's a great moment when I'm walking down the ramp. A friend of mine took a photo of it. And, you know, I am taking my time. I'm looking around. I'm wrestling in front of 70,000 people, so it's insane, you know? And, like, I did my best to take it in for a second. Then you get in the ring, boom, right? It's time to go to work, right? But it was very cool. And, like, as a fan, as a, you know, as a wrestler who's, you know, from a very small country and things like, you know, like, I'm aware that these things are rare."

On if it is difficult to be a married couple in WWE:
"f***, for us, it was really easy. They put us in the same group for a bit. That was really cool. But when we were on different brands and stuff like that, yes, it was a little harder. There was a period where I was in SmackDown, Nikki was on NXT, and then Nikki was on Raw, and I was on NXT. That did happen a couple of times, but if you want it to work, then it will work. A lot of people try to use excuses and stuff like that. Realistically, we made as much time as we could. We had patience for each other. We both wanted each other to succeed. For us, we found it pretty easy."

On the decision for he and Nikki Storm to buy PROGRESS:
"You know, timing is always the key in wrestling. Where it worked out for us, Nicky had just left WWE. It was literally within days that an opportunity came up. We thought about it. We said no about four times, and then it all came together. And it's been an awesome ... it has been time-consuming to say the least, but it has been awesome. And it's been very cool, because obviously I have a philosophy that we're trying to get across as a showrunner, and there's a lot of the talent are really, like, stepping up, and it's been very exciting to see who's fighting this, who's really succeeding in this so far, and there's been a bunch of them. I'm very excited for next year and the year after. It's very easy to put on good shows if the talent are as passionate and as talented as they are. And right now, that's very easy. We've just brought back Tommy Evans and Selena have just joined us there this last couple of months, so that's really helped us. Especially the younger ones look up to these newly-released talent, like there's Nikki Storm and Kaylee Ray as well, so there's so many people who've been on television this year who they're able to now pick their brain off and get to wrestle in rings, so it's been very cool. It really helps to have that experience level now in a locker room, so there's ones who this happens every now and again, you know, there's wrestlers who hit ceilings because they're not wrestling people better than them, and now here's a situation where they've got somebody who's more experienced who's done a little more in the industry who can then give them those little nuggets of wisdom, so I can only see it as a benefit. Realistically, I believe we'll succeed because we've got so many avenues not to succeed."

On his emotions after the passing of PAC:
"Yeah, absolutely devastated actually and Ben I've known Ben for 21 years. I actually wrote a tribute to him Yesterday, and I realized you know, I met him on a show in the northeast of England in 2005 I just debuted the week before And in Scotland actually and I was dying and I was there to support a friend of mine who was wrestling Park but we all left Every single one of us left talking about Park how good he was He'd been wrestling for a year a year after that. He was in Dragon Gates.
He was just outstanding he was rubbing shoulders with veterans and looking better than everybody on the planet and And it's it's one of those crazy things Like I shared many many many locker rooms of Park and spent a lot of time with him and but I only rested him twice and that was only a couple of years ago and Like I just We did a singles match and then I feel for way the next night the feel for way is actually live on on YouTube for OTT which is over-the-top wrestling based out of Ireland. It's myself Park Robbie X and Leon Slater So a pretty pretty badass Pretty badass group of lads there. So but then listen Ben was Ben was one of the best in the world and he was beyond humble like he It's wild how good he was and how nice he was because it doesn't always correlate and but yet for him Every time I saw him like there's there was times where I was quite homesick when I was in the debly And I'd end up running into Ben whether it was a show Whether it was a hotel or whether it was at the airport and like just like without meaning to or maybe he didn't mean it you know, he immediately You know would would would be talking about home we'd be talking about soccer and things like that and just you'd suddenly like feel so much better and I'm like he In my opinion, like he's probably the greatest high flyer of all time And I know that stuff with maybe Ray Mysterio whatever but like in terms of body control and what he could do He was the full package like he not only could he fly he was he was mega strong.
He was a great striker He was an awesome technician and he could talk like he was the full package of a wrestler And he's he's maybe only weakness is that he wasn't you know, a Bullshitter he wasn't a politic or you know And he was he was who he was and that's but I admired him more because of that You know, and he was just such a wonderful guy But it's such a loss to to wrestling in total, but I know how devastated, you know Everybody is back home because you know, everybody looks up to him He's from a you know a time that there's there's no other major wrestler from really He's from Newcastle and like he was such a Massive fan of the soccer team there Newcastle United. They did a lovely tribute to him actually and Yeah, there's this there's a whole memorial for him in Newcastle We're looking in to see if we can get a statue to him in the city And we're trying to get permission for that because like he means so much to the people there He means so much to wrestling. He means so much to to everybody coming through I know I got in touch with a lot of my friends at AEW.
They're all devastating, you know Like Ben's such a cool motherf***er. That's the best way to describe it. And so yeah, it's been really tough The but like my best memories are are often like randomly running into him and just immediately feeling better And you know, there's times where like, you know, we've caught each other They were both of us weren't feeling great And you know, we've been able to perk each other up and things like that And that's one of the the best things about wrestling.
It's a brotherhood, you know It is it is a long long large family And and I think Ben's passing like obviously like it the time and event with Andy Williams as well like another amazing fella and you know, like and it's just I think the hardest part will be and You know how he was literally on television, you know the other day, you know So it's it's just it's so fresh and it's you know The fact that AEW did that wonderful tribute show like a massive shout-out to everybody involved there. That was that was beautiful and But like, you know I know how much that's gonna hurt a lot of you know my guys and girls back home and in progress on our next show and you know that that's It's it's tough and it's tougher because he was one of the nicest people you could ever meet He just adored his family, you know, he he adored where he came from like he loved living in Newcastle that you know and it's like It's one of those we like I'm doing him a disservice here by him and you know I could I could sit here all day like he is was an incredible person an even better wrestler Which is hard to it gives you an idea of how good he was. He was in the top echelon on the planet He'll go down as one of the greatest ever and he could do everything and he could do everything perfectly and I think that's real testament to Amazing man.
And yeah, the truth is we're devastated. My wife loved him too. He was always so good to her So it's like we're trying our best to soldier on and then you know You end up running into it like I met Tommy End last night The two of us are you know, effectively in tears because you know, this is a guy We've both known for so long and he's not gone from our lives So, you know our thoughts are with with Natalie and his family and we're just hoping that you know They know how much we love him and because we we adore him I'm like that's not just the rest of us the person he was utterly phenomenal in both in the ring on outside the ring "

On the incredible appeal of Grado:
" (laughs) Listen, Grado helped us put 4,000 people in a building, then 6,000 people in a building in Scotland. Grado is a character. He's awesome. I've wrestled Grado a bunch of times. He was actually in my very first ever match in 2005. We had a tag match just outside Glasgow, Scotland, and Grado is a great lad to have enjoyed every moment with him.
He is just as much a mental person outside of the ring as he is inside of the ring, but he's a special lad. A really, really lovely fella. I've known him a long, long time. 22 years. He'll actually be working for me in November for SWA, which is the family show that I run again in Scotland, so it'll be cool seeing him again. He is the ultimate character is the best way to describe him. He's always on TV in the UK. He's got a radio show and things like that, so he's like a proper local celebrity. "