Brother Azriel had felt sick for more than a week. When he started throwing up black liquid in the locker room at a show, he knew it was time to go to the hospital.
It was January of 2025 and Azriel ultimately received a diagnosis of diabetic ketoacidosis. Scary, but manageable. Still, he chose to take a couple of months off from the ring.
Recently, Azriel — the current Kraken Pro champion at Kraken Pro Wrestling — discussed his health scare, his background, working for Kraken, and more.
“I didn’t have that thought, about not ever coming back,” Azriel said. “I knew I was taking a break. As soon as I got from the hospital and the doc they said he can go back to regular activities. But with my wrestling mind, I thought, ‘It’ll be a cool pop if they know I’m OK but don’t know when I’m gonna come back and I show up outta nowhere.’
“I kept it low key. On my Instagram story, I had a little video of Goku in the hyperbolic chamber and put different songs to it. Until I came back at Pro South.
Azriel made his return last spring, more than a year ago. Since then, he’s won the top singles titles for Pro South Wrestling in Alabama and, as of March, the Kraken Pro Title in Kraken Pro Wrestling.
“A promotion that puts any title on you, thats a stamp of approval,” he said. “It’s, ‘This is our guy. He’s gonna have the workrate to put on good matches and tell good stories.’ “
Azriel turned heel at the event where he won the title, aligning himself with Justin Kayse and The Business. Standing alongside Kayse, who is without question the man that Kraken fans love to hate, immediately makes Azriel one of the top villains in the promotion. He’s good with it.
“Everyone wants to see him get punched in the face,” Azriel said of Kayse. “You don’t have that many guys around who are ready and willing to do that type of work.”
After playing football — offensive line, which will surprise no one given his build — Azriel has been involved in wrestling for about a decade. He bounced around with a few different trainers at first but credits Spinebuster Championship Wrestling for giving him his true start: “I honed in on my skills after that. After that I went out and did different seminars to get a lot better.”
The Azriel character manifested after he learned how Finn Balor drew his name in WWE from Irish legend and mythology. Azriel wanted a similar character, derived from African folklore. The only problem: most of the names he found, he felt, would be too difficult to pronounce. Then he found “Azrael”, the African spirit of death, or angel of death, depending on what source you find.
Azriel, the fifth Kraken Pro champion in the near two-year history of the promotion, has been part of the Kraken roster since its first show. He’s seen the audiences and the support grow as Kraken has moved from one venue to another to accommodate its crowds. Actually, he’s been part of Kraken since before it officially debuted; Kraken promoter Sam Hanson was an early training partner.
“He kinda told me the idea of Kraken actually before it was even a thing: the logo, everything, before he started it. I was in the know before it was even formed.
“Being there at the beginning, seeing it get as big as it is, it’s very grassroots,” he added. “All of us are out there promoting. We work on the social media. Somebody works on editing the videos, doing the graphics for the videos, the motion videos, the SmackDown vs Raw type stuff. Guys are sharing the posts, making their own promos to share as well or just helping out any way that they can. It’s us. Doing as much as we can. Make it as big as we can make it.”
Azriel’s story continues Sunday at the Kraken Classic, when he defends the Kraken Pro Title for the first time against Dominic Stuckey, the man he defeated for it. The execution of that title change was a double turn that hearkened back to the days of classic territorial wrestling. Stuckey ran afoul of Justin Kayse, and Azriel, who had a championship match any time he wanted after successfully defending Kraken’s Cash In Hand Title three times, came in, waylaid Stuckey, and quickly beat him to claim the title and join The Business.
“That was one of my favorites,” Azriel said of the angle surrounding him becoming champion. “I was in the [earlier] match, the Cash In Hand Scramble, and I was down getting stomped and the fans were chanting my name. I thought, ‘This is gonna be a good one tonight.’ “
After his health scare, becoming Kraken champion and headlining the promotion’s biggest show of the year, means a little bit more.
“It’s like a second opportunity. It just makes me more concentrated to put in more work and have the best performance I can.”
Editor’s Note: Hope you enjoyed the first of what will, hopefully, be many interviews here on the site. If you like the content here, or you’re here for the first time to read, please follow us on social media. If you have a WordPress, you can also join our subscriber list and every new article will be sent directly to you via email.
In Moore House Wrestling 