AEW's Kyle Fletcher on Adam Page Match at All Out, Pokémon, US vs. Australia and More

This Saturday in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, Kyle Fletcher, the current TNT Champion, will challenge "Hangman" Adam Page for the AEW men's World Title.

The 26-year-old has already accomplished a lot since he began wrestling in 2016, including dozens of title reigns across indie promotions, Ring of Honor, AEW and New Japan Pro-Wrestling, but this weekend will be the biggest match of his life.

The Australian native has been on a roll ever since he joined the Don Callis Family. Fletcher defeated his mentor, Will Ospreay, at WrestleDream, held the ROH Television Championship, and he just recently won the TNT title by defeating Dustin Rhodes.

We spoke to Fletcher ahead of All Out to discuss the pressure of being in the main event, what he thinks of his opponent, the significance of his pink gear, Pokémon, Marvel movies and more.

Main Event Pressure

This weekend, Fletcher will step into the ring for the biggest match of his career when he challenges Page for the men's World Heavyweight Championship. To say the pressure is on is an understatement.

The current TNT champion is no stranger to big match situations, but he also recognizes the importance of the position he's been put in.

"I don't want to lie and say that it's easy," Fletcher said. "I definitely feel the pressure, especially being 26 years old. I think you always dream about being in this spot when you get into professional wrestling.

"I definitely didn't think it would come this quickly, but the best part about pro wrestling is you have to take those opportunities when they come, and timing is everything.

"So yeah, everything happened very quickly and I'm super grateful to be in this position. I definitely feel the pressure, but I've always kind of known this is where I was meant to be.

"This is the spot that I was meant to be in, so I take none of it for granted, and all I want to do is go out there and prove I am exactly where I'm meant to be."

Facing Hangman Adam Page

Hangman is one of the original stars in AEW, and came close to becoming the first world champion, so he has already established himself as one of the pillars of the company.

Fletcher will be stepping into the ring with a man he respects and has been watching for years.

"I think I have a pretty unique perspective on AEW in general because I've watched as a fan ever since its inception in 2019," Fletcher said. "I was living in Australia. I was watching everything, watching all the pay-per-views.

"So I have a bit of a different perspective, and I've gotten to see that character arc that Hangman has been on. I really believe that he has one of the greatest characters in professional wrestling.

"He's had such an awesome story. A lot of stories feel very stop-start. I feel like everything Hangman has done has threaded so beautifully into one another. The man that we see today, the wrestler that we see today, is the culmination of everything that he's been through.

"And I think there's so much depth behind it all because of that. So yeah, I think as a character and a wrestler, you don't get much better than Hangman."

InstaGraham

Before he was the TNT champion, before his days in AEW, and before he was even in Aussie Open, The Protostar wrestled under a mask with the name InstaGraham.

While he may have left that gimmick behind, he has found ways to pay homage to it during his current run.

"It's never something I thought about bringing back entirely," Fletcher said of the gimmick. "I think there was a period where I wore like an entrance mask out to the ring. Back in 2024, I did it a couple of times.

"I think that's kind of a nod to that as well because I feel very attached to the fact that I wrestled the first four years of my career under a mask. So I like to incorporate it in some ways, but the InstaGraham gimmick itself, I think, has passed me by.

"It served its time. It played its part back in the day, but yeah, definitely a thing of the past."

Pink Gear

For many wrestlers, their gear is an important part of their presentation, and Fletcher is no exception.

Over the past several months, he has worn pink trunks and boots almost exclusively for his matches. It's a color with a long history in pro wrestling, mostly being associated with the Hart family. For the Protostar, his love for the color goes back to his childhood.

"When I was a kid, I don't remember exactly what age, between like five and ten probably, pink was my favorite color," Fletcher said.

"I just remember the feeling of telling people that as a kid, when people would ask what my favorite color is, I would say pink, and they would be like 'Pink? But you're a boy,' or whatever, and they would turn their nose up about it.

"And I just remember that feeling, and it was never something I planned on doing. I remember I saw, I believe it was a tweet, someone said, 'Not enough men in wrestling wear pink.'

"I saw that tweet, so instantly I talked to my gear designer and said I want to do pink, and we came up for the idea for the first set of pink gear. When I debuted it, the reaction was so polarizing.

"A lot of people loved it, but a lot of people hated it as well, and I think in wrestling, whenever you find something that has that kind of organic reaction to it, polarizing I think is the right word, you've really got to run with it.

"That's kind of now, I feel, become synonymous with me and this Protostar character. When those things happen organically, you just have to run with it. I think I'm stuck with it now."

Favorite Matches

At the young age of 26, Fletcher has already been wrestling for almost a decade, so he has already built up quite a catalog of performances. When asked if he had a favorite, he listed a handful.

"I think putting it down to one specific one is a bit too hard," Fletcher said. "I definitely have a couple. If I'm ever feeling down about wrestling or things aren't going the way that I wanted them to, there are matches that I will go back and watch of myself that make me almost remember why I love it and why I love doing it.

"I think off the top of my head, the first one is myself and Mark Davis against [Hirooki] Goto and Yoshi-Hashi where we won the IWGP tag titles. It was in Ryogoku Sumo Hall, Sakura Genesis 2023.

"That's one that I'll always go back and watch because instantly I remember how that match felt in the moment, everything surrounding it, how well it went, the real-life emotion behind it, and that instantly will make me fall in love with wrestling again.

"I think another one is the Will Ospreay match. I mean, any of the Will Ospreay matches we had on pay-per-view. The Full Gear, the Worlds End, or the Revolution, they're ones I will always go back and watch if I need a pick-me-up.

"The Mark Briscoe matches. They all do it for me as well. Me and Will versus The Young Bucks from Grand Slam. So there's a lot of them that I could put on the list. It's very hard to pick definitely just one favorite."

Aussie Open

Before he was known as The Protostar and a member of The Don Callis Family, Fletcher was part of a tag team with Davis called Aussie Open, which was a part of the larger United Empire stable.

The TNT champion learned a lot while teaming with Davis, but it was the friendship that meant the most to him.

"I don't know if I have one specific thing," Fletcher said. "I think more so than anything, I think it was just having someone there to fall back on. When we started teaming, I was 18 years old, and you can imagine traveling the world at 18 and living in a country where you know nobody, you have no family, no real friends.

"And then you get to travel the world, and you get to do it all with your best friend by your side. The most important thing was just having him there with me. I don't think I would have been able to do half the things I did or achieve the success that I did by myself at that time.

"I was fresh out of high school. I had no idea who I was as a person, but I think having that brotherhood with him really got me through those early years of wrestling abroad for sure."

Australia and the United States

Like many wrestlers, Fletcher is not from the United States. Having grown up in Australia, he is used to a more laid-back lifestyle.

"The biggest thing I would say is just the lifestyle that somewhere like Australia has," Fletcher said. "I was super blessed. I grew up a five-minute walk from the best beaches in the world.

"But more so than that, it's like everyone there has this kind of carefree nature. Everyone there loves life. They're not rushing from point A to point B. They're not worried about working 24/7. They really just love life, and I think that's something that I miss."

"One of the things I love about the U.S. is it feels so close to everything and there's always something happening, and you feel so close to all of the important things happening in the world.

"But Australia, I love almost the opposite about it, how laid back it is and how carefree it is. So every time I go back, I try to just enjoy that side of it because it's a refreshing break for sure."

When asked about what he enjoys about being in the U.S., Fletcher discussed his love of autumn.

"I am absolutely loving the fact that it's turning to fall right now. Every time I drive anywhere, all I'm doing is looking at the pretty colors of the trees and going 'Oh my god, that's one's turning orange already. Oh my god, that one's red.' I love all the colors, man. I love this time of year."

Assigning Pokemon to the Don Callis Family

Fletcher is a big Pokémon fan, so when asked which Pokémon he would pick to represent members of the Don Callis Family, he provided some gems.

"Don Callis would have to be Diglett," Fletcher said. "I saw a sign once that a fan made that said 'Don Callis is Diglett,' and I can't get it out of my head. So Don Callis will be a Diglett.

"I will be the greatest Pokemon of all time, Rayquaza. I think that's self-explanatory. He's just cool as f--k, so that's me.

"Who do we got next? How about [Konosuke] Takeshita. Takeshita is like...he's cool too though. Oh man, honestly, this is going to be really hard. I feel like I need time to think about this. Takeshita is going to be like, I think, Lucario. Maybe Maga Lucario. He's just super cool, man. You just know he could beat anyone in a fight.

"Okada? Oh my god, he's going to have to be, maybe like, have you seen Mega Gardevoir before? I'm just trying to think 'Extravagance.' That's like a Mega Gardevoir I think.

"Josh Alexander, he's like a Machamp I think. Yeah, maybe a Machoke or a Machamp. We have so many members of The Don Callis Family. It's a huge group. This is your fault, Don.

"Wardlow, I picture him as like Groudon, you know what I mean? Can you see that? A big Groudon guy. Just an absolute monster that you want to stay out of the way of at any and all times."

Movies

We always end our AEW interviews with a movie review. When asked what he has been watching recently, Fletcher mentioned going through the MCU.

"Funnily enough, my girlfriend, my partner Skye Blue, she is not a movie person at all and I am slowly making her into a movie person," Fletcher said. "At the moment, we're working on the Marvel Cinematic Universe."

"We are going through every single Marvel movie in order. We just started, but we haven't finished [Captain America] Civil War yet, so we just did Avengers: Age of Ultron and then Ant-Man were the most recent ones.

"I think it kind of goes back to the fact that my whole life, I've loved Spider-Man. He's like my favorite superhero. What was it? The most recent one, No Way Home, the one with the Andrew Garfield and Tobey Maguire cameos.

"I actually got to watch it the day of release in a cinema with myself, Mark Davis, Will Ospreay and Shota Umino. And it was one of the greatest movie experiences I've ever had."