Starks ‘Absolutely’ ready to star on Saturday nights

Since the launch of All Elite Wrestling’s Saturday night show Collision in June, one constant established thus far is the presence of “Absolute” Ricky Starks.

The 33-year-old New Orleans native has been featured prominently on AEW’s third weekly show and that trend will continue on Saturday night when Starks faces off with CM Punk in the final of the second annual Owen Hart Foundation Cup Tournament from the Scotiabank Saddledome in the late Hart’s hometown of Calgary.

You can catch AEW Collision LIVE on Saturday from Calgary’s Scotiabank Saddledome at 8pm et/5pm pt streaming on TSN+.

When TSN.ca spoke to AEW president Tony Khan last month, he said that the time was right for a third show because his company’s roster could sustain one, and Starks agrees.

“I think everyone was pretty excited for it just because it’s something new and fresh and something else to offer the fans, but of course, as everybody thought about it, it’s also another show to get more wrestlers on, especially those who weren’t able to get on Dynamite at the time,” Starks told TSN.ca. “But it was a positive reaction all around. There was no negative reaction to it because I don’t see any negatives to it.”

After years spent on the indies, Starks rose to national prominence in 2018 when he began working for Billy Corgan’s National Wrestling Alliance where he became the inaugural NWA World Television Champion before joining AEW in the summer of 2020.

In his three years with AEW, Starks has steadily climbed the card and recognizes that his current main-event status is a sign of the kind of faith AEW has in him as a performer.

“I think they put a lot of trust in me to deliver,” Starks said. “If I haven’t proven my worth, especially for the last few months or year, I don’t know what else I have to do to prove it, but at least they see it and acknowledge it. That’s why I’m in the spot I’m in now – because there’s trust built. I think if you don’t have trust, then it’s kinda hard to really move up [the card].”

With AEW’s talent roster effectively split between working Wednesday nights, for a live Dynamite and then a taped Rampage (airing every Friday), and Saturday nights for Collision, Starks thinks it’s inevitable that competition will develop between the two groups.

“I think it’s an unsaid thing, but you can’t convince me that guys who wrestle on Collision don’t watch Dynamite [and think] ‘I’m gonna outdo that,’” Starks said. “I remember there’s been times where me and Darby [Allin] have talked and we’ve had that type of friendly rivalry just being on the same show, so I don’t see this being any different.”

But Starks cautions that it might not come without its drawbacks.

“I will say this – sometimes when you’re watching somebody else’s fishing hole, you kinda miss the fish you’re trying to catch, as well,” Starks said. “What I’m saying is when you focus too much on trying to outdo the other guy, you miss out on some of the things you should have been taking care of to begin with. I’m not saying that’s what’s happening [now], but you want to avoid that on a wrestling show.”

Starks’s current focus is his match with Punk on Saturday night on a Collision show that wraps up a lengthy Canadian tour for AEW that started in Toronto on June 23 and saw stops in Hamilton, Regina, Saskatoon and Edmonton.

“I’ve had the pleasure of actually being on a Canadian tour back when I was on the independents, so I had a good idea of how everyone was, but this was 10 times that of what I experienced in the past,” Starks said of working in front of Canadian fans. “These people love wrestling; they respect it and they also wanna come out and have a great time. I’m not saying that they don’t get a lot of [live] wrestling, but compared to everyone else [in other places], it doesn’t happen all the time.”

Saturday’s show in the home of the legendary Hart family will be a special one and it’s a night Starks plans to savour.

“It’s an honour and it’s a privilege and that is not lost on me,” Starks said. “This is probably one of the most well-packaged opportunities I’ve had and what I mean by that is not only am I representing myself, but I am facing CM Punk in what I think is gonna be the main event of Collision in Calgary for the Owen Hart Cup Foundation Tournament in the finals with his family probably in attendance. That is not lost on me at all. So, it’s something I’m taking to heart, obviously, and I like that added pressure that I’ve been given.”

His opponent on Saturday night, Punk, returned to the company last month after a lengthy spell on the sidelines, recovering from a torn biceps that kept him out of action since last September. Starks says Punk’s return to AEW is a welcome one and that the Collision show he anchors is one in which he’s greatly invested.

“He’s a real chill dude and his door is always open, just like it was before,” Starks said of Punk. “Nothing’s really changed. He really wants us to make sure Collision is a knockout show. We want to make sure we deliver on everything. It was the same when we were on Dynamite, just make sure it’s a knockout show because people’s livelihoods are on the line. This is a show I think he’s taken a lot of pride in, and I think he takes pride in being a person who people come to for help. I think he takes a lot of pride in making sure that this isn’t a show that’s going to fail.”

Failing is something that Starks hasn’t done in his time in AEW, and he doesn’t intend for that to change. When reminded of the last time he spoke to TSN.ca about his aspirations for the future, Starks believes he’s on his way towards achieving them.

“As you get older, your values kinda change,” Starks said. “I think success for me will be to have built up a good enough legacy and reputation for myself in wrestling that if I were to leave tomorrow, I wouldn’t have any regrets or feelings that there were stones that I didn’t turn over. If I had to go a little bit further, success would be to be given a title and given the chance to do something with it, to run with it. I used to have this idea of being a main eventer in AEW. I manifested it. It’s happening already – that’s the thing with manifestation, you have to be very specific on what you want because if you’re not, sometimes things happen that you’re not really ready for. So success right now for me is being a cornerstone of Collision, making sure I help us out as much as I can and go on from there.”