Michael Oku discusses his current reign as the RevPro Undisputed British Heavyweight Champion.
After spending nearly five years with the promotion, Michael Oku made history at RevPro's recent Epic Encounter show, as he defeated Great-O-Khan to win the RevPro Undisputed British Heavyweight Championship.
Oku is set to make his first defense of the belt later this month, as he will take on Trent Seven at the promotion's tenth anniversary event.
In a new interview with Fightful's Grapsody podcast, Oku spoke at length about becoming the first ever black RevPro Undisputed British Heavyweight Champion.
"I try my best to smell the roses, so to speak, as they happen. There’s so much that I’ve been able to do in wrestling in these last couple of years. I’m like, ‘Man, these are a lot of firsts that are happening. Not just for a wrestler from my country or from the continent of Europe, but are a black wrestler.’ So I do stop to think about it. It is a thing where I don’t realize I’m breaking ground as it’s happening because my focus is, ‘I’m just gonna try and be as special as I can.’ I thought, ‘Maybe I can inspire some young black kids,’ and you see them in the crowd and I feel like there’s been an increase of people talking about diversity in wrestling and that increasing is something that I think then is the byproduct of that is now seeing diversity in the crowd."
Oku continued on and said that winning the title should have been his goal the entire time. He also gave credit to Andy Quildan, the promoter of RevPro, for seeing his ability.
"There are so many black kids, black couples that I’m seeing coming to the shows. I’m like, ‘This is... Wow.’ It wasn’t even, ‘Oh, this should be my goal.’ I didn’t think this would be a goal, but now that it’s happened, I’m like, ‘Yes, this should have been my goal the whole time.’ I would assume that I’m one of the reasons that’s the case and just seeing, like you said, a more diverse roster in the UK, let alone the world is the reason for that. I kind of feel honored at the same time as kind of grateful that this opportunity was able to happen in terms of going to PWG, going to America. I put a lot of credit on Andy Quildan, who is the promoter of RevPro. Who, what I didn’t know, that a lot of people don’t know, is that he’s black. The most prominent promoter in this country is black. It’s not that like, ‘Oh, because he’s black, he’s just booking me because I’m black.’ He’s unlike what some promoters have done in the past, he just sees me as a wrestler. He just sees me as a wrestler. Sees my merit, sees my ability, sees what he can do with me and let’s me go out there and be me. I think because of that I’ve been able to be known not just as one of the top black wrestlers, but one of the top wrestlers, full stop, that happens to be black."
Elsewhere in the interview, Oku talked about receiving his first five star match rating from Dave Meltzer back in 2022. Fans can learn more by clicking here.
Fans can see Fightful's full interview with Michael Oku linked above.
