Earlier this year, former AEW TNT Champion DarbyAllin took some time off from pro wrestling and realized a lifelong dream of climbing Mount Everest. During an interview on "The Ariel HelwaniShow," Allin expressed what it meant to him to scale the top of the mountain and what he actually wanted to prove to the world and himself by doing it.
Allin, interestingly, expressed that he doesn't like the culture around pro wrestling and called it a "15-minute" ride. "A lot of people believe their own hype, but at the end of the day, someone else is [in] control of your destiny. They're either going to make you the champion or make you the guy at the bottom," he explained. "So that's a big reason I wanted to climb Mount Everest, is to really prove to myself that I'm capable of anything."
The wrestler further explained that he doesn't like ego, and adds that the wrestling world can chew you up and spit you out. "If you believe your hype and it spits you out? You're literally living your life for somebody else; that's like my whole thing," he added, noting that with AEW, however, this is different as the promotion allows people to live their lives outside and inside of the ring. "The fact that they let me climb Mount Everest in, essentially, the peak of my career? It's like, you never get that."
Additionally, he expressed that he has no ego when it comes to wrestling, and if the industry had to spit him out tomorrow, that would be the end, and he'd be at peace with it.
When asked if the climb ever pushed him to his mental breaking point, Darby Allin interestingly claimed that this was never the case, and that's why he made his climb such a public ordeal. "At the end of the day, all you have is your word. And if I say I'm gonna do something, I'm gonna do it," he explained. "So, when I said I was going to bring the AEW flag on top of the world, there was no turning back! I would die on that mountain before I turned back."
Mount Everest has been notorious for the number of people who die while trying to reach its peak, and Allin claims that he saw several dead bodies on his way to the top. "They ask you, right when you first get there, 'Are you willing to die for this?' 'Cause if you're not? Go. Leave. Go home!" he added, expressing that being willing to die is the ultimate definition. "The way I live my life, I feel like I have lived more in one year than people do in their whole entire life."
Allin further expressed how grateful he is for his journey climbing Everest, and described it as a self-journey of discovery. "There's nothing more humbling than sitting there and looking at these bodies, and knowing that could be you... And every day you're just fixated on surviving." During the same interview, Allin further opened up about the climb and how he realized he felt nothing during milestones in AEW.
If you use any quotes from this article, please credit "The ArielHelwani Show" and provide a h/t to Wrestling Inc. for the transcription.
