By Ross Blair:
Michael Walker is at an intriguing stage of his pro wrestling career. He just concluded his 308-day reign as Coastal Empire Wrestling Heavyweight Champion with a Match of the Year candidate. In doing so, he also returned to his babyface “Flying Fro” persona — arguably the most popular character in the history of the Savannah promotion. Walker sat down with GWH, in this telephone interview from his home in Lyons, to delve into being a third generation superstar, his deep history with new CEW champ Hunter James, and competing despite an ailment that would keep a lesser man from stepping inside the squared circle.
GWH: You may have just lost the CEW title, but you went out having a Match of the Year candidate & regaining your popularity with the fans. Your thoughts on your recent storyline & match against Hollywood.
MW: Let me start by saying that Hollywood Hunter James is one of the best wrestlers I've met in my entire life. If there's such a thing as wrestling soulmates, I think that's what we are. If you look back, I won that belt from Hunter James when I turned heel & we kinda built this whole storyline where Hollywood is chasing it & Simon won't let him get it. It culminated when we did something totally different by cutting a promo & losing the title at the very beginning of the show. I think a lot of the fans in the crowd thought we were gonna screw him over, but it turned into something like you said in your report: a “Hollywood ending”. That main event was one of my favorite matches I've had in my whole career & I'm glad I got to do it with Hunter. It was a special moment & a special match. That whole ending sequence...it was electric! You can't plan for stuff like that. Being able to roll with it & have moments like that...that's completely organic.
GWH: When I interviewed Hunter James a few months ago, he said the reason he came to CEW is, and I’ll quote: “When I first got asked to go to Savannah, I didn't know much about it. I got a text from Fro…and he goes 'hey, you're the only person that I've ever wrestled that I've never beat & I have to know if I'm worthy of being the (Coastal Chaos) champion. Will you come wrestle me?’.” Fast forward to CEW this past month, where you said basically the same thing about wrestling Hollywood, who you called the best wrestler in CEW, and needing to challenge him for your CEW Heavyweight Title. Bottom line is there’s more than meets the eye with you two. Can you elaborate on this?
MW: So the whole thing with me & Hollywood, it goes back to 2021 in the Landmark Arena for National Championship Wrestling (in Cornelia, GA). When I got there, I was a rookie. I was just a couple months into the business. Much like Hunter, I'm a multi-generational talent — so wrestling is in our blood. When I got there, he was already the standout guy & the Junior Heavyweight Champion. The funny thing about is that everyone said he looked like Zack from Saved By the Bell & they joked that I looked like Screech from Saved By the Bell. There were actually talks by promoters about us being a tag team just because of that. (laughs) Anyway, it ended up with us having a match for the Junior Heavyweight Title. I was 22 years old and I think he was 19. We absolutely tore the house down in that match. He won that match & we went on to have more matches like that all over the state through the years for different promotions. We went from the NCW Landmark Arena to some taco bar in Monroe, Georgia to Southern Fried to Coastal. Hunter James has always been that special talent...that prodigy that everyone has seen coming up & is now the best wrestler in the state. He was even just voted the best wrestler in the state! We used to do a show up in Swainsboro & that's when my dad first met Hunter James. He watched his match and as soon as Hunter came back through the curtain, dad looked at him & said "You're gonna make a million dollars in this business one day!". With the two of us, the chemistry has always been there & we've always had a lot of respect for each other...aside from that time I hit him with Simon’s ring. (laughs) Every time we both have a match on a show, I try to outdo him in my match...that kind of thing.
GWH: Would you say that he brings out the best in you?
MW: I absolutely would. I think we bring out the best in each other. After our match at Southern Fried, I told him "Dude, you're a ring general!” It's incredible the way he works & pieces things together in the moment/on the spot by listening to the crowd.
GWH: You said you’re a multi-generational talent. Tell us a bit about that.
MW: Yeah, so my grandfather, John Coursey, was a promoter and my dad, David Raines, was a wrestler & a promoter as I was growing up. He ran a weekly show right here in Lyons. From ages 5-8, I was there at his shows every Saturday. My dad was a heel, but I still held up signs for him. He used to get so mad at me & tell me you're not supposed to cheer the bad guys. A lot of big names in Georgia came through there — like Suge D, Marvelous Michael Stevens, and Krule before he was Krule. It was really cool growing up around all that. GWH: Who trained you to be a pro wrestler? MW: I credit my training to my dad, who trained a lot of guys. I credit my promo training to a guy named Scotty Bullwinkle. He was a local guy here that was my dad's tag team partner. He was a promoter & wrestler throughout the 2000's & 2010's.
GWH: With your dad being in the business, I suspect your pro wrestling fandom started quite early.
MW: I was pretty much born into pro wrestling. I remember when I was like 5 years old and dad would have all the guys over to watch Wrestlemania…along with all my friends, who I'd wrestle with on a trampoline. I used to powerbomb my sister on the couch. I remember taking a chair from the kitchen and trying to do a Sabu leg drop on the couch. I traveled with my dad when he wrestled every Saturday or every other Saturday. Ever since I was a kid, wrestling was the only thing I really ever wanted to do.
GWH: You’re obviously a staple in Coastal Empire Wrestling. How did you first get involved with that promotion? MW: My dad was friends with Scratch (CEW promoter), so myself & the guys I trained with came down to Coastal to set the ring up, tear it down, and that type of stuff. That got my foot in the door. I consider Coastal my home promotion. It's basically where I grew up as a wrestler. I started working there at the beginning of the promotion, when there weren't a whole lot of continuing storylines with the matches. With the exception of the Bryce Cannon-Matt Odam feud, the focus was just to have a good time with a bunch of good matches. Zach (Mosley) & Bryce came in & kinda changed direction, in I think 2023, toward building a show focused on storylines & getting a lot more moving pieces involved. It ended up paying off tremendously because our crowd expanded so much that we had to move venues...and that's always a good problem to have. I think the growth of Coastal Empire Wrestling is definitely attributed to the locker room, the people who stepped up to become leaders, and just that overall family vibe that we all have…and that common goal that we all have that we want this to be as good as we can make it. And I think that it's paid off a lot. If you look at that 2023 era & you compare it to now, I think Coastal Empire Wrestling has a lot more respect within the Georgia wrestling community & I think that a lot of people now look at it as one of the top shows in Georgia. When we started this, we weren't using a whole bunch of big names, so we made a lot of stars at Coastal Empire Wrestling. It's kind of like Kraken Pro Wrestling, who are using a lot of underutilized guys and making their own stars too. They do really good work in South Georgia. The Saturday Night Temptations are the tag champs there too, as a matter of fact.
GWH: Are you excited about the big Coastal show in July?
MW: I am VERY excited about it. I think it's gonna be the biggest thing that Coastal has ever done. There's a lot of work being put into it & everybody is busting their ass to really deliver for this show. I think it's gonna be phenomenal. GWH: Did your in-ring career begin at Coastal?
MW: I started my career at Coastal & a promotion called Passion of Wrestling in Swainsboro, Georgia. I spent 3-4 years at Passion of Wrestling...that's actually the place where I won my first singles title & my first heavyweight title. I actually beat my dad in a steel cage match for the Passion of Wrestling Heavyweight Title in early 2023.
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GWH: Oh wow! That is so cool. How was that experience?
MW: It was awesome! Dad beat me up. Everytime he hit me, I was like "Dang, I must have really made him mad growing up!" But it's always like that whenever me & dad wrestle. He'll throw a punch and go like "This is for that C on your report card!" (both laugh)
GWH: I’ve recently become a big fan of Southern Fried, where you’re on the roster. How has your experience been there?
MW: I LOVE Southern Fried. Every time that I'm in the Southern Fried locker room, I learn more about wrestling & myself. It's full of people with so much knowledge about pro wrestling & how to deliver stories & how to deliver emotions to people. It's one of my favorite shows to be a part of. Todd Sexton (SFCW booker) has been a mentor of mine. He sends me film study of classic matches to watch & what part to pay attention to...like 2005-2006 Ring of Honor & even stuff from the eighties. He's a student of the game & a teacher of the game.
GWH: Besides your matches with Hunter, do you have another match in your career that stands out as a favorite?
MW: I can think of 3 matches in particular. I think my match with Rob Killjoy in CEW was probably the best in-ring match I've ever had. That was actually the match that started the Hakeem Young feud. Obviously, I'd have to put the 2024 Match of the Year in here: me & Hakeem in the Last Man Standing Match. Like the match with me & Hunter, you can't plan for something like that...the crowd reaction & the emotions at play...everything just worked out so perfectly. I bled a lot in that match. Hakeem came out of it looking like a superstar & I think I came out of it looking like a superstar as well. Another favorite is that cage match with my dad. That's just one of those special moments that I'll never forget. We probably wrestled 20 times, but that was the only time in a cage. It was for super high stakes & we had a whole story going into it.
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MW: Yeah, Macho Man & Eddie Guerrero are definitely my two favorite wrestlers of all time. A lot of people think I stole the froggy bow from Mark Briscoe, but I actually do it because Eddie did the frog splash & Macho Man did the elbow drop. That's my homage to the two of them. Macho Man was larger than life & so was Eddie Guerrero. My favorite promo of all time is Eddie Guerrero's addiction promo with Brock Lesnar…it’s so fantastic! Ya know, Eddie battled a lot of addictions & Brock brought it up as a weapon against Eddie. Eddie countered by turning into the most beautiful babyface promo of all time, saying he's fighting to get his kids back & he's fighting to get his life back & now he has a new addiction & he points to the crowd. It's very powerful & it inspires me a lot. If you take real life and make it something people can relate to and be inspired by -- that makes the best wrestling.
GWH: When you first started in wrestling, were you "The Flying Fro", or did that moniker come about later in your career?
MW: For my very first match, I didn't have a gimmick or really know what I was doing. Dad's training program is 12 weeks. In that time, you learn how to work, you learn how to sell, you learn how to bump, you learn how to run the ropes, and you learn how to be safe in the ring…then you figure it out. I believe that's how most wrestling training goes. No matter if you train for 12 weeks or 2 years, you're never gonna figure it out until you get in front of a live audience & you have to respond to the crowd. For my very first match, dad was booked for a show...it was called Broken Bones Wrestling in I think Valdosta. I had a little baby afro and I planned to call myself The American Luchador or something like that. It was a horrible idea. They had a couple guys cancel on the show, so they had me & a guy I was training with at the time fill in for the opening match simply because we brought our gear with us. That's how my wrestling career started. I walked through the curtain & I'm like 145 pounds soaking wet with a little baby afro & the crowd started chanting "Screech" at me. So we finish the match, which went really well & I walk back through the curtain & all the guys in the back are like "you can't cut your hair now" because it just happened to get over. I didn't know how to incorporate it into my gimmick at the time, but my hair was definitely helping me get over with the crowd. I was doing moonsaults at training one day when it hit me like an epiphone: The Flying Fro!
GWH: Who are some of your biggest influences in your wrestling career?
MW: Big thank you's obviously to my dad David Raines, my grandfather John Coursey, and Scotty Bullwinkle. Big shout outs to Bryce Cannon, Zach Mosely, and Scratch for taking a kid with a dream & making a star out of him. Big shout out to Hunter James for being the best opponent I've ever had. Big shout out to Clark DeBenedetto and Kevin Kantrell. Clark is fantastic and a really good friend of mine. His mind is so good for wrestling that he just turned 18 but can sit in a locker room and call everyone's matches for them. I think he was born to be in the wrestling business. Kantrell is a mentor to me. Everytime I have a match that he's able to watch, I get advice from him…what I did right or what I can do to get better.
GWH: What are you passionate about outside of pro wrestling?
MW: I used to be an amateur wrestler as well. I wrestled folk style for about 13 years. One of my best friends is a wrestling coach, so I like to go hang out with him sometimes and roll around with him & some of his students. As far as hobbies, I'm a big Magic the Gathering guy…I spend way too much money on cardboard.
GWH: (Cornelius) Pepperbottom shares that same hobby, as I discovered during my interview with him.
MW: Oh yeah, we talk about Magic all the time. (laughs)
GWH: What are your goals for the future?
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