{"id":188122,"date":"2025-08-30T23:22:17","date_gmt":"2025-08-30T23:22:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/188122\/"},"modified":"2025-08-30T23:22:17","modified_gmt":"2025-08-30T23:22:17","slug":"aew-star-speedball-mike-bailey-talks-2300-arena-residency","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/188122\/","title":{"rendered":"AEW star \u2018Speedball\u2019 Mike Bailey talks 2300 Arena residency"},"content":{"rendered":"

PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) \u2014 Since its launch in 2019, All Elite Wrestling has brought some of professional wrestling’s biggest international stars together under one banner. Now, for the first time, it’s bringing them all to the heart of South Philadelphia, for a three-week takeover<\/a> of one of wrestling\u2019s most iconic venues.<\/p>\n

Through Sept. 11, the company is airing its weekly television shows, \u201cDynamite\u201d and \u201cCollision,\u201d from the 2300 Arena on Swanson and Ritner streets<\/a> \u2014 known to pro wrestling fans as the longtime home of the 1990s independent wrestling phenomenon Extreme Championship Wrestling.<\/p>\n

For AEW President and CEO Tony Khan, it\u2019s the first time he\u2019s been to the arena since 1996, when the lifelong wrestling fan visited the city as a 13-year-old to see ECW live.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo be able to come to Philadelphia and see the hardcore wrestling and see the wrestlers I loved watching on TV and tape trading \u2026 it was a big deal to come to Philadelphia,\u201d Khan told KYW Newsradio in April, ahead of its Dynasty pay-per-view.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was really my biggest dream in 1996 when I was 13 years old, to come to Philadelphia and watch wrestling.\u201d<\/p>\n

AEW has several ties to the history of the arena. It employs ECW alumni both in and out of the ring, including former ECW World Champion Taz on the \u201cDynamite\u201d broadcast team. Khan also owns Ring of Honor, a trailblazing company launched in Philly in 2002, which now serves as a sibling promotion to AEW. Many of its wrestlers cut their teeth at the arena for promotions like ROH and New Jersey-based Combat Zone Wrestling, including Bryan Danielson, Jon Moxley, Samoa Joe and reigning AEW men\u2019s World Champion \u201cHangman\u201d Adam Page.<\/p>\n

Another AEW talent who is no stranger to Swanson and Ritner is \u201cSpeedball\u201d Mike Bailey. Though the Quebec native debuted for the company in March, he has turned heads around the world over his 19-year career.<\/p>\n

Through the years, Bailey has made several appearances in South Philly, for companies like CZW, Game Changer Wrestling, Total Nonstop Action Wrestling and New Japan Pro Wrestling. He has even settled nearby, living in the Lehigh Valley area with his spouse, pro wrestler and Drexel law school graduate Veda Scott.<\/p>\n

\u201cI love the energy here and that there’s a certain kind of freedom to Philadelphia, where people just go about their lives in a way where they, in a good way, don’t care what other people think. And I think that is wonderful,\u201d Bailey told KYW Newsradio.<\/p>\n

“If you’ve seen ECW shows at the 2300 Arena<\/a>, Philly really does have that same kind of energy.”<\/p>\n

Bailey has become one of AEW\u2019s fastest-rising stars since he arrived. The fourth-degree taekwondo black belt has incorporated both martial arts strikes and fast-paced, high-flying moves into his style.<\/p>\n

\u201cMartial arts was kind of the focus for my first several years of professional wrestling, but really, I think that the patience and respect that I learned from martial arts is what led directly to my success in professional wrestling,\u201d said Bailey.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe main lesson that I got from martial arts is that when you start your white belt, you’re not good. And even if it feels like it’s impossible, if you keep trying, you’re gonna get it eventually, and that very much happened with professional wrestling.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt took me nearly 20 years to get to AEW, not that I didn’t have any form of success before that, but it definitely took a while for me to become, you know, good at it and be proud of the work that I put on in the ring.\u201d<\/p>\n

Though Bailey debuted in AEW as a singles star, he is also an accomplished tag team wrestler, and quickly found himself paired in his new home with another emerging star, \u201cThe Jet\u201d Kevin Knight. Bailey said he hopes the upcoming shows bring him and Knight \u2014 known together as JetSpeed \u2014 closer to the AEW World Tag Team Championship, currently held by the team of Brody King and Bandido, or \u201cBrodido.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBrodio versus JetSpeed is something that needs to happen, and hopefully, that’s when and where JetSpeed finally win the AEW Tag Team Championship,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

While he isn\u2019t privy to any surprise plans for the South Philly shows, Bailey said fans might not want to count out any arena legends showing up.<\/p>\n

\u201cTony Khan loves the 2300 Arena. He loves all the history there, so I would not be shocked to see any big names pop up on any show at any moment.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) \u2014 Since its launch in 2019, All Elite Wrestling has brought some of professional wrestling’s…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":188123,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5132],"tags":[5229,1448,2830,1311,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-188122","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-philadelphia","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-pa","10":"tag-pennsylvania","11":"tag-philadelphia","12":"tag-united-states","13":"tag-united-states-of-america","14":"tag-unitedstates","15":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","16":"tag-us","17":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115120292057950770","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/188122","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=188122"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/188122\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/188123"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=188122"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=188122"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=188122"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}