Though Ricochet has technically already debuted in AEW, wrestling in the Casino Gauntlet match at All In and working a singles television debut against Kyle Fletcher on Dynamite, fans still aren't 100 percent sure where the “First in Flight” stands within Tony Khan's company.
Is Ricochet a babyface, as he is a fan favorite for defecting from WWE and has wrestled his first match back against a heel in Fletcher, who is currently still part of Don Callis' faction? Or is he about to turn heel on Will Ospreay, who is arguably the biggest pure babyface in AEW outside of the “American Dragon” Bryan Danielson, for his incredible in-ring action and boundless enthusiasm for the sport?
Asked if he has any interest in going heel in an interview with The Babyfaces Podcast – ironic, I know – Ricochet noted that, in his opinion, there aren't really babyfaces and heels in modern wrestling, as performers are more nuanced than back the days of yore.
“I think… everybody just kind of is an extension of who they feel they are. So I feel like for me, for example, I'm not afraid to tell somebody to shut up and smack them in their mouth. But at the same time, I feel like there's steps that we could take before we get there. So the good guy/bad guy, that's all just within that person. I feel like there aren't really good guys and bad guys,” Ricochet noted via Fightful.
“Is Thanos a bad guy? Some people don't think so. Is Killmonger a bad guy? Some people don't think so. So it depends, everyone's got their story and how they tell it. People can resonate with that. So maybe one of these days, my story will be told differently than how I feel now. Maybe I will feel differently later. So who knows? But right now, I feel great, I feel good, and it's hard to really get me down. It's always been hard. In my real life, in my wrestling life, it's hard to get me down. It's hard to really get on my bad side. Sure, I will communicate with you, and we will talk about it, and we will fight if we need to. But I don't know. I've always kind of been, if not for the fans and if not for the people, I wouldn't be where I'm at. So I'm not afraid, like Will Ospreay or whomever it is, if we got a problem, we can squash it right now, however you need to squash it. So, the good guy/bad guy, it's just different. It's all how you are in the moment, and I might feel differently later.”
In WWE, there are babyfaces and heels, even if someone like CM Punk is about as heelish a babyface as you will find in the business today. In AEW, however, things do tend to be more nuanced, with one style heel routinely feuding with another and babyfaces wrestling babyfaces from time to time to see who is the best in the ring. Only time will tell what Ricochet ends up doing in AEW, be that staying true to his babyface roots or turning heel on Ospreay and company.
Ricochet has transitioned seamlessly from WWE to AEW
Elsewhere on The Babyfaces Podcast, Ricochet reflected on the transition from WWE to AEW and how it feels to get back into the ring with some of the talent he came up with on the indies, in Chikara, and across Japan.
As someone who has shared the ring with over a hundred different performers over the years, Ricochet is a pretty good judge of character and believes that the locker room Tony Khan has assembled should help him to have what just might go down as the best run of his entire professional wrestling career.
“Wembley was amazing. It really gave that big show feel, the big fight feel, it really did. The locker rooms make things different. Both locker rooms are great. I've known people are in All Elite [Wrestling] for probably my whole career I've known a lot of these guys, the Chuck Taylors and some of those guys since day one, so it was honestly a pretty easy transition,” Ricochet explained via Fightful.
“It was pretty smooth for me to transition over. I haven't seen a lot of these fives in five, six, seven years, maybe longer. But honestly, it was kind of like I saw them last weekend. We started right back where we left off. Obviously, the environments are different, so those are different, but at the end of the day, I've had fun my whole career, and this is just going to reignite that spark, that fire that still was there, but it just needed some gasoline to throw on it to ignite it, and I think AEW's gonna be that gasoline.”
While most fans are incredibly excited to see Ricochet wrestle Ospreay in AEW, that is far from the only pre-existing feud he has lined up with members of the AEW locker room, as he's had legendary matches with PAC, Adam Cole, the Young Bucks, and beyond. Regardless of how this initial feud shakes out, and whether or not the “Highlight of the Night” stays a babyface or turns heel, it's safe to say he should be lined up for a pretty remarkable run in All Elite Land over the next few years.
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