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Exclusive: QT Marshall Parlays One Big Opportunity Into Another At ROH Final Battle

QT Marshall is ready to capitalize on another moment.

Steven Muelhausen

QT Marshall coming out for his AEW Full Gear 2024 match with Big Boom AJ!
QT Marshall coming out for his AEW Full Gear 2024 match with Big Boom AJ! / All Elite Wrestling - Lee South

Opportunities in professional wrestling aren't just handed to you on a silver platter. Like anything else in life, you have to earn them. If you do exceptionally well, another chance comes your way to make the most of the chance you're given.

In All Elite Wrestling, this applies to QT Marshall, who returns to action against Jay Lethal at Friday's Ring of Honor Final Battle pay-per-view from the Hammerstein Ballroom in New York City.

At November's AEW Full Gear event, Marshall took on Big Boom AJ! of The Costco Guys during the Zero Hour portion of the show. The match went off without a hitch with AJ getting the victory. The buildup and the aftermath received plenty of mainstream attention with Marshall getting a lot of praise for his work. In retrospect, the match exceeded what the AEW VP of Show and Creative Coordination could have ever imagined.

"For me personally, yes, I think it exceeded everyone else's expectations, which was really good.," Marshall told The Takedown. "That's what it was designed to do. It was a win overall. I lost in the ring. But I think sometimes you win when you lose if you do it the right way.

"I think having somebody that the fans are really invested in as a antagonist, and then having someone they're very invested in as a protagonist, it makes the job a little bit easier and the storytelling a little more simple. I believe AJ being booked on the show had brought in a lot of casuals that maybe didn't know what AEW was. I think we didn't make them think too much, and they were just able to get lost in the moments and have fun. And that's really, at the end of the day, what this is all about."

When the dust settled on Full Gear, Marshall told AEW Owner Tony Khan his feelings on the match and being proud of the work he'd done which in turn, gave him a boost of confidence because he felt wrestling fans may viewed him in just one light.

Because of his showing one month prior, that has now earned him a crack at one of the greatest world champions in the history of Ring of Honor.

"One of the things I spoke to Tony about after the match was like this was maybe something that we needed for me professionally," Marshall said. "Not that I didn't think I could do these things, but I think the fans needed to see it. It had to be the right place, the right time. Everything was just a perfect scenario. Now, on the flip side, being a professional and one that trains people, there are different stories that you have to tell.

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"I think at Final Battle, the story of me and Jay Lethal is going to be a lot different than the story of me and AJ. I think if I could show that side of me as well then maybe more opportunities will arise.Jay Lethal is one of the greatest wrestlers that I've ever been around. So this is a huge test for me, but at the end of the day, I'm the one with all the momentum, not him.

"So to me, having the AJ stuff was a perfect storm. The build was just as perfect as it could be. And now, I think I've earned another chance to try to do something similar, but on a different level. To me, like I said, it's trying to present myself in a different manner. We were able to do that at Full Gear, and I think we could do it again at Final Battle, and this time again, try to exceed expectations."

Now, Marshall gets another chance to show what he's all about in the number one media market in the U.S., with the wrestling world watching to see what happens in a prime spot at Final Battle.

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"You're going to get an excellent wrestling match," Marshall said. "We have a lot of surprises, not just in the match but in just the way the match will be presented. You saw that when I brought the Doom, it was a lot different than QT. I have another thing we're going to show, and it should be really fun and exciting for me as a fan of professional wrestling."

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Steven Muelhausen
STEVEN MUELHAUSEN

: Steven Muehlhausen is a veteran combat sports writer for various outlets including Sporting News and Yahoo Sports. He can be reached at stevemuehlhausen@yahoo.com and followed on Twitter @SMuehlhausenJr.

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