(VIDEO) "I'm just his worst nightmare, trust me": Michael van Gerwen says he is lucky he wasn't born earlier to snap Phil Taylor's dominance

Michael van Gerwen has called himself Phil Taylor's biggest nightmare and said that he was lucky that he wasn't born earlier slight tongue in cheek but also believing that he would.

Van Gerwen was asked for his opinion on Taylor during JaackMaate's Happy Hour podcast and recalled an incident with Taylor where he said he took him to the floor and asked what he did after 'The Power' was supposedly talking nonsense.

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"I didn't know what he was doing. So at the Grand Slam of Darts backstage, I can remember exactly, it's in the old venue. I took him like, you know, on the floor. And I was like, what did I do? It happened," said Van Gerwen on the Happy Hour Podcast.

"And he was like, what happened here? Because we threw the big Phil Taylor on the floor. Yeah, sorry, that was me. We had a moment that we loved, that Phil Taylor was talking a lot. He was talking so much nonsense."

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But on being born earlier, he said that it is slightly to wind him up with Van Gerwen having a reputation as a wind up merchant but also that he does believe it himself.

"Yeah, just to wind him up. Because I'm just, I'm his worst nightmare, trust me," but despite that in Van Gerwen's mind, he believes he would've done and he would've troubled Taylor's peak. "100%. Yeah. Because he was playing really well, even when I was at the beginning, when I was playing, when I was coming up, when I was winning tournaments. Yeah, there were a lot of problems for me. Although, always has been, has been."

The Dutchman believes he would still be winning majors now but that in his opinion, he became bitter towards the end of his career which didn't help him. "Yeah, 100%, of course. It's not that because what he did for the game and how good he was, absolutely amazing. But at one point he was starting to play a little bit, not as good anymore. And he was getting a little bit sore, a sore person, And that's what didn't help his career on the end, I think. And he didn't need that.

He could have waved everyone away. Sometimes when you stop, you have to stop. But in his mind, he still can't stop. And then started to get a little bit of a sore man. And you don't want to, because I think he won too much to be like that.