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Richard Holliday is one of the best wrestlers on the independent scene and has held several championships in various promotions since beginning his professional wrestling career.
Holliday was most recently the Awesome Championship Wrestling (ACW) Heavyweight Champion before losing the title to Killer Kross last month. He was also ranked 112th in Pro Wrestling Illustrated’s Top 500 Singles Wrestlers in 2021.
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The Connecticut native opened up about his career in a recent interview with Pak Gazette Digital.
“Richard Holliday is the biggest independent professional wrestler in the world today,” he said. “It goes without saying, but I have no problem saying it because it’s true… In November of 2014, Paul Roma and Mario Mancini legitimately opened a professional wrestling school two blocks from my house and at the time I was playing college football, D-II football for the University of New Haven.
Richard Holliday gives the crowd the business at an Awesome Championship Wrestling event. (Jay Vogel)
“I always knew I wanted to be a professional wrestler, but at that time I was quitting playing football. I didn’t want to play anymore. I wanted to get in the ring. And I don’t know, by divine intervention or just by chance, a school opened two blocks from my house and I felt like the universe was telling me, ‘Here you go, kid, now is your time.'”
Holliday said the appeal of professional wrestling is what drew him to the sport. He said it gave him a chance to show off all of his skills, as well as his athleticism.
“To me, professional wrestling is the best thing in the world,” he said. “Obviously, I think it’s the best form of live entertainment, but I think it’s above everything else. I couldn’t think of any other professional career that I could really sink my teeth into and have all of my skills portrayed the way I can in professional wrestling: from my creative prowess to my athleticism, to being in front of a live audience, to my marketing, to my management, to everything.
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“Professional wrestling has taught me a lot about myself. Not in terms of what you see on the screen but off the screen: running my own business, being an independent wrestler, being my own boss. So, I manage everything and it takes a lot of skill and a lot of self-discipline to do that and make it in this industry. I couldn’t imagine doing anything else. So, from a very young age, it was always what I wanted to do.”
Holiday is now considered the “most marketable man” in professional wrestling.
He has thousands of followers on various social media platforms and his natural ability in front of the camera gave him the opportunity to perform in ACW.
Richard Holliday hits his opponent in Awesome Championship Wrestling. (Smoothlenz Photography)
“I’m from Connecticut, and then The Now – Vik (Dalishus) and Hale (Collins) – are both New York guys, so we’ve shared locker rooms across the street for several years,” he told Pak Gazette Digital. “When they started this company, I was one of the first people they approached. They said, ‘Hey, what you’re doing is amazing right now and we want you to be a part of Awesome Championship Wrestling.’ It was very appropriate.”
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Holliday will appear at ACW Reckoning next week in Poughkeepsie, New York against Andrade El Idolo, an All Elite Wrestling star and New Japan Pro-Wrestling IWGP World Heavyweight Champion. He said the fight is just the latest in a series of major fights he has been involved in.
“Really over the past year I’ve had this surge on social media where a lot of my popularity has been gained through what I post on social media every day. Showing up every day and having really entertaining things on the platform like Instagram, Facebook, Twitter and TikTok, things of that nature,” Holliday said. “And it’s not lost on me that I gain new fans on social media and a lot of them may have never seen me fight in person, which is great because now it allows them to say, hey, I saw this guy online and I want to go see him fight. So, I think the goal of social media is to attract new fans, which is great. But ultimately, we want them to come in the door to see the action live.
“Now, I wrestle every weekend, but every time I wrestle for ACW, they really seem like really big matches. I’ve wrestled people like Matt Cardona, Matt Riddle, Killer Kross, Mike Santana. The matches keep getting bigger and bigger and now I’m wrestling Andrade. So what I’d really love, and I know it’s going to happen, is if someone tunes in to my previous ACW matches, go check out the catalog, they’ve uploaded a lot of the library to YouTube. or you can go to Triller and watch these matches. I’m showing how exceptional I am as a professional fighter. If you want to consider me a technical fighter, a tactical fighter, I don’t really care what type of fighter you want to consider me, I never label myself, I just get in the ring and do what I do at a very high level.
Richard Holliday performs to the crowd at an Awesome Championship Wrestling event. (Smoothlenz Photography)
“So, Andrade and I, is it a clash of styles? I don’t know. Is it a dream match? I’m sure for some people, absolutely. This is a huge match that will take place at the MJN Center, just like all of Richard Holliday’s matches that take place at the MJN Center. It’s going to be one to watch. It’s going to be a spectacle.”
Ben Bishop, Steph De Lander, Indi Hartwell, Mance Warner and The Righteous are among those who will be on the ACW Reckoning card.
ACW’s professionalism is what separates the promotion from all others, according to Holliday.
“It is by far the most professional independent professional wrestling promotion I have ever wrestled in and I mean that. It is a television quality production,” he said. “Backstage, everyone is looked after. It’s great from the catering, the locker room is spacious and comfortable and it’s the most professional environment I’ve ever been a part of on the independent scene. I almost don’t want to put them in the independent category because that’s how they stand out above everyone else.”
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ACW Reckoning will take place at the MJN Center on May 16.
