Interview: Dean Allmark talks TNA, fans, Jake the Snake and a LOT of favourite opponents…

First of all, I thought your match at PCW last week was great, so thank you for that. I take it you enjoy working there?

Thank you very much, I really enjoyed it. I’d never wrestled Sabre Jr, Hayes or Dar before that match either! It’s always good to wrestle new people – keeps you fresh. That was my second show for PCW and both were very enjoyable – the fans are great there.

And you’ll have a re-match with Noam Dar at Spring Slam – how do you rate him, and are you looking forward to that show?

I’m really looking forward to wrestling Noam in a singles bout for the first time. He’s someone I’ve wanted to wrestle for a while now and I think he feels the same about me. I think he’s really talented, especially for his age. I’ve seen quite a few of his matches now and he has impressed me every time; I feel our styles match up well so I’m really stoked about the next show!

You’ve worked with pretty much all the major UK promotions – where do you think has the best fans?

That’s a tough question! I’d say everywhere I wrestle the fans are totally different. All-Star fans are always really good: big crowds, mostly kids making loads of noise, then you have IPW, NGW, DGUK and PCW who are all different in my opinion. They are all awesome in their own different ways. I tend to change my style and try to cater for the fans at that particular show and what I think they’d like to see – I guess sometimes I get it right, sometimes I get it wrong…

You’ve done a heck of a lot of things over the past decade, but you’re still very young – why did you want to become a wrestler in the first place?

I think just watching wrestling from the age of six made me like wrestling but I never thought I’d actually become one. But lucky for me when I was fifteen a wrestling school opened in the same building as the gym where I had just started training. I went along on their open day and I was hooked.

Probably your highest profile booking has been when you were part of TNA’s Team Britain in 2004 – how did that come about, and what was the experience like?

I was wrestling for All-Star in Chester and Robbie Brookside came up to me and said, “There’s this company in the US called TNA and they have asked me for four guys to go over and wrestle some Mexicans, and I would like to offer you one of the spots. The only thing is you will have to leave at 2am tomorrow morning to catch your flight from London.” I gave it a couple of hours of thought, and probably if it was anybody else asking I would have said, “No, I don’t feel like I’m ready.” I still felt pretty green and I had just come back from the worst injury of my career. But with it being Robbie who has always been one of my idols who had asked, I said yes, and I’m glad I said yes – I enjoyed spending time over there and seeing Nashville.

I know you’ve said that the matches in TNA were the worst of your career – was that simply because of the ankle injury you were recovering from at the time?

I think it was a combination of a few things: the clash of styles, the injury I had, the jet lag, and the rush of it all – having to basically get off the plane go and wrestle in my first match against Essa Rios who seemed more tired and injured than I was – and for the first time in my career I was the bad guy which felt pretty weird and surreal.

Who have been your favourite opponents to work with? Jake the Snake must have been amazing for you!

Yes, wrestling Jake was amazing for me, with him being someone I’d grown up watching, and was also one of my favourites, it was just a great honour for me. I’ve wrestled so many great wrestlers in the last 12 years it’s really hard to pick a favourite.

Who –

There are a lot of people I love wrestling: guys like Rampage Brown, Nathan Cruz, El Ligero, Marty Scurll, James Mason, Frankie Sloan, Mark Haskins…

Wh –

Dave Mastiff and Chad Collyer…

W –

Oh, and Tony Spitfire. And Ringo Ryan.

But my favourite is Robbie Dynamite, who is now retired from wrestling unfortunately. I wrestled Robbie hundreds of times, more than any other man I’ve ever wrestled. I’ve known him since I was six and he was with me on that first day of wrestling training and in TNA too. He is an amazing wrestler.

Is there anyone you’ve not worked with you’d like to?

As far as guys I’ve never wrestled and would like to, I have to go with PAC as top of the pile. He is someone I rate very highly and I think there’s a very realistic chance that that may happen one day. I’ve also wanted to wrestle Martin Kirby for a while and will actually be wrestling him on March 10th at NGW in a four-way.

Time-machine permitting, who would be your ideal opponent?

Another tough question! There are quite a few that spring to mind straight away: guys like Benoit, Dynamite Kid, Rollerball Rocco, Johnny Saint, Steve Grey, but I was such a big fan of Michinoku Pro Wrestling in the early/mid 90s if I had a time machine I would go there and wrestle all of those guys because they were all awesome. 20 to 30-minute matches of non-stop action – I would have loved to have been there.

Check out Dean Allmark’s official YouTube page, and catch him in action at NGW this weekend.