This is Kowloon Part 2: Prince Akeem The Supreme

[Lo-Drew]

Resurrection is now eighteen days away and for Akeem The supreme, this marks his first time taking part of the biggest show of the GCW season. With his girlfriend and GCW X Division Champion M.A.E.V.E. set to defend against Livvie Nelson on Night 3, Akeem, alongside Savino, find themselves involved in a nine team, one night tournament. If they defeat Katrina Lopez and Bella Downing, they earn the chance to face the winners of the two other tag matches and face them in a three way to determine the number one contenders for the GCW Global Tag Team Championships. With time running out before Resurrection, we got Akeem's thoughts on what lies ahead for him and Savino, M.A.E.V.E.'s title defense and Kowloon as a whole.

[This interview was conducted on Wednesday, May 12th, 2021]

-So last night was eventful for both M.A.E.V.E. and Savino.

Akeem: Yeah s**t was crazy! They both showed out.

-Savino and Chanel Hunter in particular had a brutal match in the main event. There were a lot of weapons and stiff strikes exchanged and they both looked worse for wear. And that was before they went crashing into that table.

Akeem: S**t you not, me and Baby Girl are backstage, on our feet because you know, we were rooting for our boy. I have never seen Vino that ticked before. I mean, he had a real chip on his shoulder going in. When they were on the stage, I thought he was putting Chanel to sleep. Then what happened, happened.

-What's the status of Savino, if you know?

Akeem: My mans will be aight. He picked up a couple of bruises, doctor was saying something about his elbow. But he'll eat that. Nothing major so it's nothing to worry about. All that is just war wounds to me and I know Vino feels the same way.

-You touched on the mentality Savino was in going into the match. He took it personally when Chanel keep hold of the Chanel #5 after he had tapped out to it a couple of months ago. That seem to have stuck with him, which seemed uncharacteristic of who he is.

Akeem: Vino's like any other dog out there. If you try to punk him out, he's going to come back for you. I know people think he's all respectful and chill and everything and he is. Vino is never going to put a front to anybody. But my mans grew up in Oak Town. You ain't making it through there being soft or a pushover. So that may have surprised y'all but I've seen that dude madder than that. He a man at the end of the day and any real man is going to defend himself with s**t like that happens. You have too.

-The next time he and Chanel cross paths, that will be an explosive moment.

Akeem: Yup! And I want to see that too, as a fan. Real talk, Chanel is nice in the ring. I can say that now since Baby Girl took the belt off of her. Feels like they're trying to put the battery pack on her and trying to make her the next star. She's the next challenger for the Heavyweight belt, right? If you're asking me, next time I think Vino is winning that dub. And if Chanel wins that title before they meet, he should be the first challenger. Or if they go at before then and Vino wins, that he should get the next shot.

-You seem to be campaigning for him to be considered as a Heavyweight challenger.

Akeem: That's my brother. I got his back always.

-So let's talk about Resurrection. You and Savino will be teaming up to take on Illuminaughty and by winning, you advance in this one night tournament to face the two other winners and whoever wins gets a future World Tag Team title shot.

Akeem: We going to run that tournament, too. I've been in stuff like this plenty of times.

-You've gone on record saying you prefer singles matches over tag team matches. Yet, you have the opportunity to earn a tag team title shot.

Akeem: I'm just used to fighting man up. When I was doing kickboxing or sparring, it's never you and someone else against two other people. It's always you against the next man. I like not having to worry about s**t I can't control. See when it's one on one, that's something I know. That's something I'm familiar with. I don't like either being the reason why I allowed someone else to lose or someone being the reason why I lost. I rather be the reason for all that. At the same time, if I had to team with anyone, it would be with Baby Girl or Vino so I'm cool with this. Baby girl got a big match of her own at Resurrection and I know she going to eat that blonde alive [Livvie Nelson]. So me and Vino gotta make sure we holding down our part too!

-You started learning MMA and kickboxing at 14 years old, according to your biography. In those settings, there are no such things as having partners. Everything is strictly between you and the opponent.

Akeem: I would have been a beast too, if I went that route. Most of the people I ran up with didn't know what to do with me. I was straight knocking em out left and right. All those boys were on the mat. Could have read all of them bed time stories and all that.

-You decide at the last minute to pursue pro wrestling. Why?

Akeem: It's more of a challenge. The kickboxing thing and the MMA thing was fun and I could have easily killed it. Would have made bank easily. But it was kinda boring after a while and when I peeped wrestling, I was vibing. It was a whole vibe between the crowd and the wrestlers. Like it was crazy and I was like "this is what I need to be doing." So that's when I made the switch and I don't regret it at all. I knew a few people were in their feelings about it because I was real close to my first MMA fight but they got over it. If they didn't, that's on them.

-What are the challenges that wresting presents that MMA doesn't?

Akeem: it's all the s**t you can't control. Like I was in that three way with D'Nae and Mariah. I didn't have to get pinned or tap to lose the match. S**t like that I hate. I hate those matches but that's a challenge. I think too there's a lot more room to operate a a wrestler than in the oxygen. Not even that though because most of my kickboxing matches were in the ring. But you can't use the ropes to get out of holds or exist the ring to take a powder. In wrestling though, you can use the ropes, you can fight outside, you can jump off the f**ker turnbuckles and s**t.

-Strikes have to be a big adjustment for you as well. In a kickboxing or MMA setting, blows to the back of the head are considered taboo. In pro wrestling, those limits don't exist.

Akeem: Yeah! That s**t still trips me out. You get use to be told you can't do this or that, you can't strike someone the ground like this and like that. But when you're wrestling, there's not of that. All that s**t is legal and so earlier in my wrestling career, I would pull back because of instinct. But now, I've gotten used to strikes to the back of the head being legal. So that opens up a lot for me because that's what I like to do. Really though and this is real talk, MMA, kickboxing, wrestling, it's all the same. There's differences in all of them but it's really just the same.

-What do you mean?

Akeem: it's all combat. All those things I mentioned are combat sports. That's why when the casuals had me as an underdog against D'Nae, I was just like "do y'all know I've been triple, probably four times more fights than her?" That was wild to me. She tiny. Real tiny.

-That match ended in a time limit draw. You two have had some back and forth with one another ever since.

Akeem: That ain't nothing. We just talkin. That's natural. If people don't s**t talk me back, that's how I know they food to me. I'll hand it to her. She was talking that s**t right back to me. And when we had our match, she did everything she needed to do to stand a chance. She got up close, attacked me early, made sure I was never really had her at arms length. I figured her out towards the end and I would got that dub if it wasn't for time. No lie D'Nae is probably my favorite person to go against.

-You seem to like getting a rise out of her. Last month you guys were involved in a six man tag in her hometown of Atlanta and you wrestled in a Tom Brady jersey.

Akeem: Because the Falcons are trash. If they were going to rock with her, cool. Let me remind y'all of how trash y'all are. Atlanta ain't that great. Only thing I like there is getting some Lemon Pepper. That's it. Trae Young is nice but other than that, it ain't nothing there. But for real, whoever wins that Heritage title between her and Mariah, I feel like I should get the next shot.

-Even if you and Savino become the next contenders for the Tag titles?

Akeem: Is that suppose to stop me? I want all the titles! You hear that talk though so I'm not getting at you. Some of these guys think it's some crime to want more than one title. And all those guys that believe that are some geeks. That's some real loser energy and I bet they don't watch real fighting. You see it in boxing, UFC. Most of the elite fighters are walking down to combat with two, three, four belts on them. I was talking earlier about how Vino should be in the convo for the Heavyweight belt. I didn't get pinned in that three way with Mariah and D'Nae. and honestly if Kellen doesn't jump in and attack me, I'm probably the champ now. I'm trying to have one of those pictures you see of the guys with like three belts on their arms and s**t. That's what I want.

-Going back to your wrestling. What's noticeable with you is how precise and measured your strikes are. And what's unique about them is obviously your mixed martial arts background. Out of M.A.E.V.E.and Savino, you are clearly the purest striker out of all of them.

Akeem: I spend a lot of time in the lab. Lot of breaking down the footage. I'm really into stats and percentages and so after every match, I look at my strikes and I calculate what was the success rate, how much damage I put out, what angle I threw it, all that. Me and Vino are like real ass NFL coaches and s**t because we'll just watch our matches and we'll be stopping the tape and be like "you should have done this" or "he should have done that." M.A.E.V.E. gets in there with us but she hates how much we stop and start so she just peaces out and does her own thing.

-M.A.E.V.E. was the first one out of you three to win championship gold in GCW.

Akeem: Haha that's my girl. Didn't surprise me. She's just a beast, for real. I've seen someone who was like...made to fight like her. It's crazy. I'm not saying this because we're together but real talk, I don't think I'm scared of anybody in the ring expect for her.

-Really?

Akeem: She's just built different. She the same way training with me and Vino as she is with everyone else. It's the same energy. That intensity that she fights with is crazy. She don't care who it is.

-We had talked with her a week and a half ago and she described herself as a killer and likened herself to a shark.

Akeem: See what I mean? I'm telling you. The scariest person to fight is someone you know doesn't hesitate. I'm dead serious when I say that. Because you know that person feels no ways if she puts you on a stretcher or knocked out. She's cold blooded man. That can get used against her sometimes and that's why we make her watch tape like us. But she just has natural fighting instincts. Like her I.Q. is crazy. Even outside the ring. She's like the smartest person I know. She can be real chill and cool, but at the same time, she has that aura about her that makes people know "that's not the person you f**k with."

-One thing that is clear with all of you is that you all have some level of pride as to where you guys come from. Savino has a burden for talking about the political matters going on in the country as well as providing for his family. Your girlfriend went through a horrific experience as a teenager and tries to inspire hope in those that have gone through a similar experience. You go out of your way to bring up Lagos.

Akeem: You gotta always rep where you came from. That's just what it is. There's not that many African wrestlers and not like African Americans. But Africans Africans. It's weird I feel like if you watch movies of Africa, you would just think all of it is poor and run down. Which isn't true. I never grew up in some of the poorer areas there. I had it pretty easy and me and my siblings didn't have to worry. But Lagos made me and so you gotta rep where you come from and try to do right by them. I want to show everybody down there that if they want to wrestle like I'm doing or get into fighting or whatever, all that is possible. That goes for my siblings too. I'm the oldest so if they see big brother out there doing his thing, they going to think "I can do that too and I want to do that." And we need more of that, to be honest. We need more black people running s**t in wrestling.

-You want to inspire more people from your country to get into wrestling.

Akeem: Yeah but it doesn't just have to be wrestling. I just think there's a lot people don't know about my country and only know it from movies. Like the other day and Vino were running some basketball games for the kids down in Oakland. And this little white kid, he was like 8, asked me have I ever been to Wakanda. I was dying, man. That s**t was hilarious.

-what did you tell him?

Akeem: i told him yeah, of course! It's bigger in person than it is in Black Panther haha.

-This is going off topic, but you are a massive anime and fighting game nerd. Your entrance theme, in particular, comes from a famous fighting game character Geese Howard.

Akeem: Geese is the big boss. That was my walkout music when i was kickboxing. I knew I wanted something that when it comes on, you know the show is about to begin. So yeah I kept that when I started wrestling.

-What are some of your favorite animes?

Akeem: All time? Probably Hajime no Ippo. It's this boxing anime. It's so good.I've always loved JoJo's Bizarre Adventure. Obviously, like every other weeb, grew up watching Naruto and Bleach and One Piece. Bebop, too. I f**k with Trigun and Black Lagoon. Really like KinnukuMan. That was probably the first thing wrestling related I've ever seen.

-I'm familiar with that.

Akeem: it's dope. Right now I'm really into Demon Slayer. I took M.A.E.V.E. to the movies and we saw it. I've slowly been getting her into it because at first she would clown me for it. But on the low I catch her watching s**t like Soul Eater so it's working haha. But nah I'm also rewatching Koruko no Basket, Fist of the North Star. I'm going to start rewatching Kill la Kill with I get time.

-You're easily the biggest anime fan in GCW.

Akem: Haha I take that.