Can I talk my shit again?
Ricky Starks is a well-known Kanye West fan who has used Kanye tracks as his theme during his Independent run. Though many see Starks as a can't-miss star, his rise didn't happen overnight as he had to grind on the Independents and make his way to the NWA before getting a shot in AEW.
For Starks, he sees his journey as being similar to Kanye's, who famously shopped his demo around and produced beats before becoming an all-around rapper.
"The parallels for me, at least for the first episode of 'jeen-yuhs' [Kanye West documentary] and my career, also ties into, you just said something, 'Are you okay with the opportunities you've given?' Basically, you're saying, 'If you aren't given opportunities, are you okay with that?' They go hand-in-hand as far as parallels in my wrestling career. I'm absolutely not happy or good with a ceiling opportunity. If I can't get beyond that ceiling opportunity, I'll go and make my own lane and get it done. I do believe that I can be higher than whatever the ceiling is. That's how it was for Kanye. The best part is where he shops around his tape and no one is listening and he keeps going. There's a period where I talked about how my Indie career was flat. I was only big in my Texas area. Kanye was as big as he was in Chicago/New Jersey. Even when I wanted to shop around my matches, I still wasn't heard or seen. That's the same way it was for him. It's cool that his break was with the beats and then with the beats it went to him getting his foot in the door. That's the same way it happened for me when I went from wrestling and posting it online, someone liking that, then I got my foot in the NWA and I said, 'I can wrestle, now watch me cut a promo.' It went from Jesus Walks to Workout Plan to Slow Jamz, it's a constant thing. When I look at that and look at the documentary for 'jeen-yuhs,' I think,' that is me. On Late Registration, Kanye talks about how he felt on Spaceship where he's working at Gap and that wasn't where he wanted to be and he knew his destiny was bigger for him, but he kept the work on in the background. That's what I related to. When Kanye talks about how him and his girl spent the night at KFC on Touch The Sky, that (song) represents me falling through the cracks, not really given a chance, but still keeping at it and wrestling the way I like when people are starting to catch on. The similarities are too good and too big for me to ignore. That's the reason I love Kanye West," Starks explained to Emilio Sparks on Wrassle Rap.
When asked if he had his "Gap moment," Starks went back to his pre-wrestling days.
"I was working for a start-up and it was a plush job, working for home, paid for everything, but it was still an office job. I went to Japan and had to quit. Before I quit I remember saying to myself, 'this will be the last time I ever work a 9 to 5.' I quit, came back home, and got the gig with NWA. That last job was my Gap moment of, 'I don't like it, it's okay, but it ain't for me.' There was a time where in 2015-16, I worked at an alarm company sales job and it as staring at a cubicle all day and you hit these numbers and say these things, all this BS. I remember working at this job one day and not getting any calls, no calls came through. I hated it and thought the product was a rip-off, so I could never sell it to people because it was dishonest to me," he said.
Starks said that his manager asked him to get his sales numbers up and a 15-minute break turned into a six-month 'looking for a job' situation.
"That was the moment where I was like, 'I have to keep going, I can't stay stuck,'" said Starks.
Starks is the reigning FTW Champion and does commentary on AEW Rampage. He most recently wrestled on the April 19 episode of AEW Dark, teaming with Powerhouse Hobbs to defeat The Dark Order (Evil Uno & Stu Grayson).
Fans can find results from the most recent episode of AEW Rampage by clicking here.
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