An Interview with Mikey Aarons: Part 2

Here is the conclusion of my interview with underground wrestling blogger Mikey Aarons. Mikey speaks candidly, particularly about his experiences with custom videos.

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Drew Harper vs Cody Blayde from Weekend Wresting. This video was sponsored by Mikey and one of my personal favorites at WW. 

What underground wrestling league comes closest to fulfilling your needs as a fan?

-I can find something I like about most of them, but probably Weekend Wrestling

Have you ever attempted to join an underground wrestling league? Have you ever faced any underground wrestlers privately?

-No, but I always thought it would be cool to do. I wrestled around with Gabe Steel and JJ Allen in Chicago a few years back. They were both really fun to hang out with off the mat as well.

Gabe Steel vs TrevThor from W4H

I understand you've commissioned several custom wrestling videos over the years. What are your best and worst custom experiences? Who would you recommend?

-I've gotten 3 in total, each from a different company. The best experience was with Weekend Wrestling when I ordered a custom between Drew Harper and Cody Blayde.

I loved it! Cole was really easy to work with during the planning of the match and both Drew and Cody gave me just what I wanted. 

There was another company I got a custom through and the experience was very rocky. In the end I got what I was looking for but this was after one of the wrestlers I requested was changed out *twice* with someone else and the owner was rather insistent on some of the aspects of the match. All that said, it turned out very hot and I was happy with the match, but getting from point A to point B was quite frustrating.

-I'd HIGHLY recommend Weekend Wrestling for a custom. I've also gotten a custom from Spotland before and the experience/match was really great and very affordable (at least as far as customs go.) 

Most of the guys I liked on Spotland seem to be no longer wrestling though.

Young Ady vs Max Morrison from Spotland Scrappers. This video was commissioned by Mikey. GIF from Mikey Aarons Battle Arts.

When did you start blogging and what inspired you to get started? I understand you started on Tumblr before coming over to Blogger.

On Tumblr I just shared hot wrestling gifs and photos and never really blogged on there. Initially I started my blog to create wrestling stories and fiction with a fantasy league I put together on the 2K video games. 

I started doing reviews and match highlights after I got really REALLY pissed off at a match I bought which had some awful wrestling and wasn't even close to being as hot as advertised. Better judgement prevailed and I decided to create something positive instead of flying off the handle over one match. So I started doing reviews here and there in between my stories, and eventually just switched to them.

I seem to remember you had a fantasy wrestling league of characters you created from a WWE video game, but I can't find it anymore. What happened to that series?

The posts and stories are all still there technically, I just reverted them to drafts and wanted to make the focus of my blog solely underground wrestling. I still think about reviving it from time to time, but it's just SO time consuming with getting the screen captures and doing the edits. 

In 2023 you had a featured "Wrestler of the Month". Did you ever get any response from the wrestlers you recognized? Why did you stop the concept in 2024?

It really comes down to me just not blogging that frequently. I missed a month or two and didn't want to do a wrestler of the month for only some. I couldn't be consistent with it, so I stopped.

Mikey's banner for Ty Shadow.

You've recently conducted a survey on underground wrestling, do you expect any of the companies to take notice of your results or was it more of a personal experiment?

It was a little bit of both. It got almost 60 responses (more would have been nice but that was still more than I had expected.) I thought it would be a good way for people to voice what they like and do not like when it comes to the larger companies in particular. 

Who knows if they will even pay attention to it or know it is even there though lol. I was also curious if a lot of underground fans liked pro wrestling for what it is outside of the kinky stuff. In particular I thought it was great to see so many of us like to watch and support a lot of different indie wrestlers and federations 

Just one of the questions from Mikey's survey on underground wrestling. Yes, I participated.

You're very good at creating professional looking photo collages (see above), has that opened any doors with working with any underground wrestling leagues or personalities?

Thanks! It sort of has? It's nothing constant but from time to time I get a request here and there for a banner or promo style graphic. I can say without a doubt I like being creative in that sense way more than blogging. 

It would be great if it turned into something more, but I'm no expert and it's mostly just a hobby. 

What does the future hold for your blog? Do you have any goals in mind?

I don't have any particular goals outside of hoping people appreciate my thoughts and it will ultimately help them make a smart choice if they should spend their hard earned cash on a match or not.

I still think about being more critical when I buy a match that I don't like or about certain practices that companies have. For now, I'm just sticking with the positives.

Do you have any parting words for myself or the readers?

You had some really great questions and I enjoyed answering them!