Keith Lee Talks Staying Ready To Compete

Keith Lee claims to be such a good wrestler that he doesn’t need to do “in-ring training”.

Keith Lee was considered a big signing a year ago after leaving WWE. He has enjoyed a modicum of success in AEW, which includes one reign as one half of the AEW Tag Team Champions.

But Lee, like almost everyone else in AEW, doesn’t wrestle as often as others. He has long gaps between matches as the company grapples with finding time for everyone to appear across AEW’s various programs.

With so much time between matches, some fans have wondered if Keith Lee does anything special to ensure he’s always at his best when it comes time to wrestle. As it turns out, there isn’t.

Speaking on Fightful’s Grapsody podcast, Keith Lee explained that he’s so confident in his abilities that he feels he doesn’t need to do anything in terms of training before getting into the ring.

“You mean like in-ring training? I don’t do in-ring training. I’m gonna level something here. This is where you’ll really understand why I’m confident in who I am and what I do.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I believe in training and believe it’s a good thing to do. When I came back form the almost dead situation, I did a lot of in-ring training, maybe five or six weeks before I returned. But it wasn’t enough time to get myself together and be back on a TV show, if that makes sense.

Because the after effects of that whole ordeal left me in a position where things like running and some of my favorite versions of cardio were extremely difficult and some just couldn’t be a thought because it was too taxing on me and the recovery was too long.

A lot of times, and I don’t know why this is, but in terms of needing a ring to get myself ready has never been a thing for me. Movement in the ring is not something that is difficult for me. For what you see in the ring, particularly today, is a fraction of what I’m capable of. I like it that way ‘cause I am always a guarantee regardless of what happens.”

Additionally, Keith Lee explained in the same interview that he didn’t train ahead of time to do some of the more “athletic stuff” like flips and dives. In one example, he told himself he would flip over and land on his feet after getting monkey flipped and did exactly that. He also never trained himself on how to dive out of the ring properly.

h/t Fightful for the transcription.