One night after competing for the ROH World Television Championship at ROH Final Battle, Bryan Keith received the opportunity to challenge for another title — Orange Cassidy’s AEW International Championship, to be exact.
While Keith’s title pursuits didn’t produce his desired outcome, he still has his eye on facing some more performers in both companies. During an interview with the To Be Someone Podcast, Keith revealed some of the names on his list of dream opponents, which includes representatives from NJPW, WWE, ROH, and AEW.
“One of them is a guy named [Tomohiro] Ishii that wrestles with New Japan. The Stone Pitbull. I feel like his aura is everything that I try to emulate,” Keith said. “When he comes out, he may not be the biggest guy, and he’s not the fastest, not the strongest, but when he comes out, the song hits, you hear the dogs barking, you know you’re in for like a hell of a match. It don’t matter who he’s in there with. He could be in there with anyone, and there’s going to be a five-star classic. I draw heavy influence from him and guys like him …
He just has that aura about himself that I always try to portray because I’m not the biggest guy, I’m not the fastest, I’m not the strongest. I don’t do a bunch of flips or anything like that. I just got that Texas ‘I’m coming there and I’m gonna kick your ass’ feel, I want people to feel that, and I feel like he’s got that aura. Japanese strong style versus Texas strong style, that’d be a hell of a match.”
WWE, ROH, & AEW Dream Opponents
Within the landscape of WWE, Keith identified Finn Balor and AJ Styles as two other names he’d like to face one day. In assessing their work, Keith noted that both performers display a crisp arsenal of offense and defense in the ring.
Within AEW and ROH, Keith is keen on squaring off with current ROH World Champion Eddie Kingston and former ROH Television Champion Samoa Joe. If he had to choose between them though, Keith would favor a match with Samoa Joe, whom he describes as one of his early wrestling influences.
“Samoa Joe’s the man. I’d love to wrestle Eddie Kingston, and Eddie Kingston is definitely a dream match for me, but Samoa Joe is legendary. Not the Eddie Kingston is not, but just Samoa Joe and what he’s done, what he means to me and the influence on me. I learned about Eddie Kingston later on in my career, whenever I was an older wrestler. So foundationally, I wasn’t really watching Eddie Kingston to grow up and be a better wrestler,” Keith said.
“I was foundationally watching Samoa Joe, seeing him wrestle on TNA, seeing him wrestle on the Indies, Ring of Honor and stuff. He’s a guy that definitely influenced my style in the way I wrestle.”
A native of Houston, Texas, Keith has steadily built a name for himself in the southern independent wrestling scene, notably becoming the longest-reigning New Texas Pro Champion.