‘Speedball’ Mike Bailey has built his reputation on two things: breathtaking aerial offense and wrestling completely barefoot. In a new interview with Fightful’s Sean Ross Sapp, the AEW star broke down the real pros and cons of ditching his boots — and his answer might surprise you.
Mike Bailey (Credits: Fightful)
First, the bad news: feet do take damage. “I have very few feet issues. I mean, I’ve hurt some toes. I think I’ve broken some toes, but I just pop them back in,” Bailey said. “It’s the kind of thing where it’s not gonna get worse. If you break a toe and you snap it back, you can’t break it more. It’s just gonna heal and be fine.” He added that in his Taekwondo days, he dealt with chronic turf toe and feet “constantly bruised from kicking elbows.”
The Hidden Advantage: Rope Control
But Bailey says the benefits “easily outweigh” the injuries — and the biggest advantage is one most fans never consider. “The main one that people don’t think of is ropes,” he explained. “When I’m standing on the top rope and I can grab the rope with my toes and when I do a springboard, you can see my feet curl around the rope and I get extra balance that way.”
He also loves that AEW lets him be himself: “I’m glad that I get to do it in a place like All Elite Wrestling that actually embraces the individuality of the wrestlers… the emphasis is on letting the wrestlers be the best versions of themselves, which, in my case, is wrestling without boots or shoes.”
‘More Sanitary’ Than Wrestling Boots?
Bailey isn’t careless about hygiene — he wears flip-flops backstage and keeps his feet clean. But he found the hygiene concern ironic: “It’s funny because I think what I’m doing is a lot more sanitary than the wrestlers who will wear their boots backstage, go to the urinal in boots and then stomp you in the face in the middle of the ring and no one bats an eye.” His point: “No one disinfects their wrestling boots before a match.”
The One Real Downside: Speed
Bailey admitted one genuine trade-off — he can’t run as fast as wrestlers in proper shoes. “I think I can run faster barefoot than the people in the thick boots. But I think people who wrestle in running shoes, some wrestling shoes with very grippy soles, I think that can help, especially depending on the canvas.” For a wrestler nicknamed Speedball, that’s quite the concession.
Also Read: AEW WrestleDream 2026: Full Match Card, Start Time, How To Watch And Location
Source: Fightful — read the full story there.
