Candice Michelle (@DIVACANDICEM) is a professional wrestler best known for her time in WWE and currently signed to TNA Wrestling. She sits down with Chris Van Vliet in Austin, TX to discuss her journey to WWE via the Diva Search and becoming the first Diva Search contestant to win the Women’s Championship, her match with Beth Phoenix that had a terrifying ending, life after wrestling, what her current role is in TNA, Melina having real heat with her, the story behind her magic wand and more!

I had seen the word online that you were working with TNA.

“Yeah, Tommy Dreamer called me and he offered me a spot as an agent.”

So did that just start this year?

“It did. It started in January, which was my first show, and he was so funny. He’s like, come and shadow me the first weekend, and the next weekend you’ll be an agent. All I can think about is that it’s wrestling, you know, we’re gonna see if you’re going to survive or not, and if you can do it or not and throw them to the wolves. I was like, Okay, let’s go.”

So is this just a backstage role, or are we going to see Candice Michelle making an appearance on TV? 

“I think that this initial call was my hope spot, and I think it’s going to lead into my comeback.”

Are you open to wrestling another match? 

“I was at WrestleCon, and I was doing an appearance, my promoter had Dustin on, and somebody said, ‘Go up to him and tell him how you want to wrestle again.’ I’m just listening to this voice, like, really? Maybe it’s because I’m at WrestleCon, you know, you see all the wrestlers, you kind of get the itch, you’re kind of in it a little bit. I was going to the Hall of Fame that year to watch Michelle be inducted. I go over to him, I was like, ‘Hey, I know you have a school in Texas, and I think I have the itch.’ He’s like, what? I don’t know if she really does. Then to come to December and get this call from Tommy Dreamer, I was like, I just feel it coming. I don’t know when it’s coming, but it’s coming.”

When you left WWE in 2009, did you feel like your career was complete at that point?

“Yes, it was a huge transition, and that was a season and a blessing for me to become a mom, so I thought that season was over, and moving into I thought that season was over, and moving into being a mom was a beautiful season for me. I didn’t know that coming back to wrestling was a possibility for me.”

So let’s back it up to the beginning here. I know you moved to LA when you were 19. So everybody has an LA story. What were you chasing?

“I wanted to be a model. I grew up with the John Robert Powers modelling agency. I won a contract with them, and I was able to go to this convention to see all the top modeling agencies in the world. There was an agency in LA that picked me up if I would pay my own way. So me and these two guy models decided that we were going to pay our own way, and we did, and we moved out there. We created our own little model apartment, and I was chasing the dream of being a model.”

There’s quite a few things we can see you in. You were famous for the GoDaddy commercials. You have a brief role in Dodgeball. Talk to me about being on set of Dodgeball. 

“That was really fun. Actually, I got to take stripper pole classes, and that was a new thing, so it was really funny like, You’re gonna go to stripper pole class. I was like, wow, I’m really making it, I’m learning how to dance on a pole. A lot of that scene was cut off, but there’s a piece of it in there. To be there on a set like that was really fun.”

So then this idea of being part of the Diva Search comes around. What was your reaction when you heard about that?

“It was funny. My agent called me, and it’s a modeling agent, so he’s booking me for covers and modeling. He’s like, ‘I’ve had this really weird audition…’ I’m thinking, Oh, geez. And he’s like, ‘I don’t know if you’ll like it, but it will pay you $100,000.’ I am a starving model actress, right? He’s like, ‘WWE is going to have this Diva Search contest, and you’ll win that money and you’ll get a one-year contract.’ All he was excited about was 10% of the $100,000, but I grew up watching wrestling, and so I’m thinking, this is my dream gig. This is it. I just thought all those days, like every Monday night, I watched Raw with my stepdad, Ken, I remember climbing up on the couch and sitting next to him, and we’re screaming and shouting, and my mom’s in the other room, ‘Turn that stuff off. It’s fake!’ We’re like, What are you talking about?! So getting that audition, I was really excited.”

It’s fair to say that the Diva Search changed your life. You didn’t win it, but you still end up getting a contract. 

“That was really hard. In LA, as you know, when you’re auditioning all the time, you get over it pretty fast, or you need to get over it fast. That one, I think I cried for like a month, and I was like, That was perfect for me. I was athletic, I was into boxing and Krav Maga. I was like, I should have got that. I also know there’s a side of the business where I also knew Christie Hemme was perfect role for that spot. I just didn’t know that they would call me back when that contest ended and offer me three years.” 

Did they tell you why you didn’t win? 

“I think it was just obvious. I just have a different character. I have a different appeal. I need to warm up to an audience. Christy just had that fun, vibrant, bubbly personality. People love her instantly, and I think that’s what the WWE needed at that time.”

At what point did you start feeling like a pro wrestler, and not just someone who was on the Diva Search?

“Feeling like it and trying to be it I think were two different things. So it started for me where I would get there earlier, like when the refs and everybody was setting up the ring, and I would get in the ring. So I was, that was my training. Is who would be there, what ref would be there, what Superstar would be there, that would be willing to give me any knowledge of how to do that.”

So it’s up to that point, you’re just figuring it out as you go?

“Actually, maybe there was one other point. I had this match against Melina on a house show, and she didn’t like to put things together with me, which was frustrating because I didn’t know much, so I really wanted to put together a match. I remember even going to, I think it was Fit, I was like, I don’t know what to do. If somebody doesn’t want to put a match together with me, what am I going to do? And he really said nothing. I was like, Okay, well, what I do know is how to shoot fight, and if we’re going to go out there, I’m not going to give up my opportunity, and we’re going to go out there and we’re gonna have a shoot fight. We went out there in that mindset, and had one of the best matches. It was such a great lesson for me, because we put together matches to try to make it go so move to move, and we had to listen to the crowd. I had to listen to my partner, Melina, leading the match out there. I had to really surrender, and it became a beautiful match and a beautiful lesson.”

I’ve heard you say in other interviews that you and Melina didn’t get along at first.

“No. You know, she came from the independent scene and the wrestling school and paving that way. So for her, she felt like this opportunity was earned and deserved. It looked to many that I’m just coming from Hollywood and just popping on TV, and I get this opportunity, I just paved my way differently in LA.”

For people that don’t know what’s your career look like after wrestling?

“I was a mother. Literally, I got the phone call. I was at the gym, and they released me.”

Were you expecting that?

“When they called, it made sense. I broke my collarbone on the two out of three falls. I shattered it in my first match back. So now I’m in surgery. I’m out eight months, plates and screws, the whole nine yards. Then I’m rushing to come back. I’m in Krav Maga. I land on the bottom of the bag and tear two ligaments in my ankle, surgery select if I want. So it just it was like, putting me out, putting me out. While I was healing from that, I got the call.”

So this is a match with Beth Phoenix. What happens?

“Well, we were overseas, and we were putting together this match, and this is when Arn Anderson and Ricky Steamboat started to really train me. So you see how really towards the end of my wrestling career is when I really felt like I was getting the knowledge. It was the first time I understood that there’s a philosophy to the match. I literally had no idea. I was never taught it or anything. There was something in me and Beth that resonated with Ricky and Arn Anderson, and they really stepped up to the plate, and they said, This is how you got to start working this. The fans were really getting behind us, and overseas, we’re having these great matches, and we had this move where it was supposed to be, you know how you open your legs on the top rope and fall in. I guess I’m not that flexible. I think about it to this day. I just saw somebody on TNA do this move, and I was like, yeah, that’s not for me. So I was like, I’ll do my knees instead. That’s a little less flexible. And overseas, I did it one time, and I came back, and all the boys were worried because I landed on my neck. I didn’t feel it. It didn’t phase me. I was not injured. I wasn’t hurt, and so I didn’t really think much of it. But we’re on like a 7 to 10 day tour over there, not much sleep. We fly back to Nebraska. We’re going to kind of do this match again, and my boot catches that rope, and I wasn’t allocated that little extra space, and I landed on my head.”

Do you get knocked out?

“I was knocked out. I don’t remember it. The first thing I remember is being on the stretcher, and Stephanie McMahon was leaning over me, and they’re going into Gorilla, and she goes, ‘Don’t worry, we’re flying your husband out.’ I was like, they don’t fly your husband out [unless it’s serious]. So instantly, I was worried. I had a concussion and I broke my collarbone. It came at a time where we weren’t really educated with that kind of injury, and so being dragged to the center of the ring after that happened, if that was my neck, it would have paralysed me.”

How long until you came back?

“I think it was about four or five months, and with my husband being a chiropractor, we have an X-ray machine. So I’m like, I’m fine, I’m ready. And he x-rayed me and he’s like, ‘No, actually, it’s still broken.’ He’s like, see? And I’m like, ‘No, not really, looks like a shadow.’ So WWE flies me back out. The doctor looks at the X-rays, and he can even see that it’s a little broken. I’m like, I’m fine, look, and I’m moving my arms like I’m totally fine, Doc. Somehow, I convinced him I was totally fine, and then I went back for my first match, and that’s when I shatter it.”

So when did it shatter in that match? 

“So in the very beginning of the match, I think I do two clotheslines and a drop kick. The drop kick, I land on it and shatter it.”

You and Beth Phoenix had amazing chemistry. Was that instant?

“It was. You know, for her, she was coming back when she debuted. She got smacked in the face and broke her jaw. So for her, in a way, it was like that dream was broken for a season. And for me, I needed that experience. I needed that opponent. People ask me a lot, ‘What were you good at?’ What I’m good at then and now is getting other people over. I’m really good at that, and that’s what I do in my practice, and that’s what I do at TNA now, is I will do anything to get you over. And that gets me over, right? What I learned is that when I won the championship, I remember telling myself, take a moment, because I know it’s going to go fast. But what I learned is that moment lasts for a second and right when you walk through the curtains now you have a whole locker room chasing you. Whereas if I help you win a championship, whether that’s becoming a father or starting over or healing from a trauma, that lasts a lifetime for me. So the ROI the return on my investment is better if I get you over.”

Do you remember being told you were going to win the Women’s Championship?

“I do. It was like hours before the match. We were literally like, down in the ring, I think it was Fit Finlay, and he’s like, ‘You’re going over tonight.’ So casual. I’m like, What do you mean? He’s like, ‘You’re taking the title tonight.’ Okay? That match got cut, I think it was like three minutes. I mean, it got cut so short. And the most powerful part of that match was actually a match before that. It was the match leading up to that where I got the title shot. It was a match against me and Melina, it was about three minutes long, and like I said, to get the story in that time. It’s hard, but we did. I go to the locker room afterwards, it was a good three minutes, and there’s a knock at the locker room door, and I think it was Victoria, ‘Candice, Vince is here.’ I’m thinking, I did something wrong. I mean, Vince does not leave Gorilla for much of anything at in those days, right? I come to the door and he’s like, ‘Good job kid, you did well.’ And I was like, whoa! That was the moment I became a wrestler after. For that to happen is big! Then the next match was when I got to take the title.”

How did Playboy come about? 

“That’s a really great story. Well, you know, Playboy worked with WWE for a while, so they had some cover girls before me, but I had a dream of being in Playboy before WWE. I don’t really know how it came about, but for me, it was like a symbol of the 12 most beautiful women are displayed in this in a year. One centerfold a month. I don’t even know how I saw these or knew about this, but I know I had that dream. When I was in LA doing modeling, I auditioned for Playboy. I got their special editions magazines, which is like college girls, which I really didn’t go to college, and a Wet ‘ n ‘ Wild magazine, and I was sitting in the makeup chair with the makeup artist, and I told her my dream is Playboy. She looked at me and she goes, ‘That will never happen. If you do this special edition you’ll never do the main magazine.’ She crushed my dreams, and she was the one who did the makeup. I had no idea of the rules. So for WWE to get me that gig as the cover girl, which, by the way, at the time, the centerfold made like $5,000 and the cover girl made over six figures.” 

So how did WWE approach you with this opportunity? 

“There are people that kind of come up to you. I don’t know, they came up to me, said, ‘Hey, you want to do it?’ It was just totally a yes, and shocking, I am doing this, and on a level so much higher than my dream. Don’t put an expectation on your dream, because sometimes God’s plan is bigger than your plan, and so when that came into fruition, it was just a big learning lesson for me that reach for the stars.”

What’s the story behind your magic wand? 

“Oh, that’s a good story. I was traveling on the road with Victoria and Torrie [Wilson] and back then, you know, the seamstresses were really for the men. It wasn’t for the women. They weren’t really making gear [for women], maybe here and there, but it was a luxury, if you had any connection to the seamstresses, who are very talented, but we didn’t have that. So we would visit what we called stripper stores for ring gear, because that’s kind of it was similar in the season. So we go into this store on the road that we had heard about, and it was Halloween time. So there’s a lot of costumes, and one of these costumes has this, like, flimsy star wand. So I say to Torrie and Victoria, ‘I’m gonna use this star wand like Triple H uses his sledgehammer, and I’m gonna defeat people with it.’ They’re just like, you are out of your mind. So I show up to Raw, and I remember walking down the entrance to the ring. We’re gonna have a tag match, and we’re meeting in the ring with Fit Finlay. I got my wand, and I am so confident about this wand, and my girls are thinking she’s just out of her mind. I get in there and they’re putting together the match, and I tell Fit. I’m like, ‘So Fit, this is my new weapon…’ He’s just like, What is wrong with this girl? I was like, ‘And I’m gonna use it the way Triple H uses his sledgehammer.’ I think kind of just even ignored me, maybe. I’m sure there’s so many people that laughed about this behind the scenes, but that star wand got over. I was committed to it, and my favorite thing was after I left WWE, I was back for an event, Fit came up to me and said ‘Do you have any star wands left? Eer since then my daughter has been asking for a star wand.'”

How come you haven’t been called back for any of the Women’s Royal Rumbles?

“I don’t know. I have the story that it’s not my time. I don’t take it personally. I don’t have an ego about it. If they called me, I would show up, they just haven’t called me. So I just think that it’s not my time to show up.”

What is Candice Michelle grateful for?

“My faith, my health, and my family.”

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Chris Masters (@ChrisAdonis) is a professional wrestler best known for his time in WWE. He sits down with Chris Van Vliet at West Coast Creative Studio in Hollywood, CA to discuss making his WWE debut at such a young age, having one of the best physiques in pro wrestling history, never winning a championship in WWE, being the first wrestler to be put in the STFU by John Cena, his pec dance to Crazy Train when Ozzy and Sharon Osbourne hosted Raw, fans calling him “Sexy Jesus”, and more!

When you had the beard, people were calling you sexy Jesus. 

“Well, they still do. I just have to trim every once in a while. I like to do the sideburns.”

So tell me about sexy Jesus.

“Okay, so basically, somebody dropped hashtag Sexy Jesus in my Instagram comments. I just got a little chuckle out of it, didn’t think much of it, but it was funny. It was silly. So fast forward to its maybe NWA 77. I’m wrestling Thom Latimer, and I have the thought of I have a pre-tape, so I’m like, maybe I should drop that Sexy Jesus line, but subtly. It doesn’t need to be a big thing or anything, just subtly drop it in the promo. So I did, and then you fast forward to the match, and I’m working with Thom Latimer out there, and we’re in the heat of the match, so to speak, and the crowd starts chanting “Sexy Jesus.” It was just really cool, because I’ve never seen something pay off so quickly in pro wrestling. You say it earlier, just hoping that maybe it’s stupid, maybe it’ll catch on a little bit, and then they’re chanting it later. So I was like, okay, maybe I can run with this a little. I mean, it’s blasphemous, so it’s kind of hard to use it in any of the big companies, but at least it gives me something to play off of now. I told you before we came on that I’ve been working with GCW so that’s a good promotion for something like that. Circle Six, another one out here. I actually was Jesus for their Halloween show. We had a Master Lock challenge with the devil. It was amazing!”

When you started in wrestling, you started out in UPW, which is in Orange County. Were you there at the same time as John Cena?

“Yeah. So I don’t know this for certain, but we might have even started the same day. So yeah, my earliest memories are with Cena and there’s another guy named Bad Boy Basil, UPW, I was only 16 years old.”

So you’re 16, Cena would have been early 20s.

“So I can remember some of our trainings together. I remember one practice specifically where, do you know Andrew Bernardski from The Program? He’s a big dude. But anyways, he was training with us, and he went to give a leg drop off the second rope, and literally landed with all of his ass on John Cena’s head, almost killed the franchise before he ever became the franchise, and it was clunky as hell, man. Some of the stuff I remember, because I remember us working some tags and stuff over there, because it was originally in Huntington Beach, it was maybe three months in that I was doing a leapfrog, and again, with Andrew Bernardski, and I didn’t clear him. So I kind of landed on him, and then landed on my ankle, fractured my ankle. I tried to keep training on it, but I knew something was wrong. Literally, a month had gone by, and I couldn’t extend my foot. So, long story short, I ended up having surgery, and then I took a couple of years off. In that time, Cena obviously got signed, went to OVW, and then I ended up coming back to UPW a couple of years later, by the time I was 18.”

I don’t think it’s talked about enough that you were only 22 when you made your WWE debut, looking as jacked as you did. I think because you had that much muscle, people assumed [you were older]

“I was 21. I know that because I was turning 22 when I worked the Elimination Chamber. That’s how that always stands out to me. So I definitely didn’t look my age. I think most of the guys didn’t even treat me like I was my age because of that. I was a kid. It was me, Muhammad Hassan and Renee Dupree, just a few young guys amongst locker room of men that most of us kind of grew up watching. So yeah, I just think most of them just kind of treated me like I was a grown man, when really, I was a kid. If you think, because when I do seminars or even just indies, I’ll see guys who were right around that age, and they still look like kids. So I’m like well, that was me. I was that age too. I just looked older. It doesn’t mean I was necessarily more mature or had any kind of wisdom or anything like that at point.”

Did you feel the pressure being in the Elimination Chamber at that age, and really early into your WWE career?

“Yes, I did. Also I made a huge mistake. I took a red-eye flight into New York, and that was a mistake. I learned that at that time, because I was so kind of off for the day, it’s hard to get back on track if you take a red eye. You got to get a really good nap. But yeah, it was a lot of pressure too, because it’s such a different match. You don’t know how it’s gonna feel, necessarily. I mean, when you have a one-on-one match, you kind of know the flow of it, and you have a better grasp of it. With a match like that though, there’s so much going on and stuff that can go wrong. Like in the first one, Hunter getting his throat squashed, but I just remember it was a lot of fun, though. Things that stand out to me. I always see the clip of Kurt Angle entering, and I always remember being in the pod and watching him and just being like, my God, he’s one of the best ever. I already knew that. But I’m just saying, watching him and that intensity that he brought, it was just like he’s my top five in-ring work. He could do everything, obviously. But it was at that intensity that he brought, I was like, oh man. Because I have to come out after him. I did pretty good in my entrance in there. But you’re seeing something like that, it’s like you got to try to match [him]. You’re not gonna outmatch that intensity, but you got to definitely bring it. I don’t know, it was always cool. I just had this realization, Kurt is just freaking amazing. Obviously Shawn was in it, which was really cool. Kane, Carlito. The story of it was real cool, too, how Carli and me tried to band together, and then he screws me. Honestly, none of us knew about Edge coming out after, none of us knew. I mean, Shawn probably knew, I guess. But I just remember that day Carlito just thinking the finish was odd, because it would have just been a roll up, Cena rolls up Carlito, that’s it. So it just kept saying, Something’s not right, something’s not right. Then we’re out there, and then Vince comes out, and then Edge, I didn’t suspect anything. I don’t even know if I thought about but Carli knew something was involved.”

But they didn’t even tell you?

“No. I get it now, though, because it’s just one of those things, just like nowadays, sometimes the less that know the better. It’s not really about being disrespectful or trying to be secretive. It’s more just like, the less that know the better, because everything gets reported, stooged, especially now even more maybe with the social media and stuff. So I didn’t at the time, I was kind of like, why’d you have to keep us in the dark about it? But again, you just get it with time. It’s just better less people know. When they talk about the screwjob and some of the guys they didn’t tell on that, you kind of get it. It’s like, okay, well certain people needed to know. But you didn’t necessarily have to tell everybody. The more they know, the more hands are dirty, right?” 

Where do you think you fall in terms of best physiques in wrestling?

“Well that 20- 22 range would definitely be, probably, I don’t know, maybe top 10, top 15. It’s hard to compare yourself against guys you kind of grew up watching, and you kind of looked up to and all that. I just know the guys that stood out to me always were like Ultimate Warrior, Lex Luger, Rick Rude, Buff, Scott Steiner. I mean, there’s guys that weren’t necessarily known for their bodies that obviously had good builds too, but I mean, those were the guys that were really known for it. Then I think more in this era, I guess it was Bobby Lashley.”

If you had to give me a Mount Rushmore of your best body guys in wrestling, who are they?

“Okay, Mount Rushmore. This is gonna be tough, but I’m gonna probably lean Scott Steiner, Lex Luger, I guess we could say that version of Hunter, Madison Square Garden, that one, and Ultimate Warrior.”

How hard was it to stay that conditioned?

“It was hard, but it was more about just making it a habit. You did everything you could to not miss the gym and get your five workouts in a week, get whatever cardio it is you intend. It got harder on the road. But initially, I would pack enough food so that I’d have food to get me through till Saturday and stuff like that. So little stuff like that. I won’t do that anymore. Brian Cage will walk around with a big thing of food, you know, he’s got it all for the day.”

Do you feel like you were ever close at any point in time in WWE to winning a championship? It’s crazy to think you didn’t win one.

“There was a point. I mean, Carlito and me were supposed to win them at that WrestleMania, but it literally got switched like the day before. We were penciled in to win it. But then Carlito, they wanted him to turn baby and The Spirit Squad, they kind of wanted to get the belts on them somehow, to give them some steam, so that was that. Then the Intercontinental title. I was actually supposed to win that, but it was the same point where they had given me intervention for my prescription painkiller abuse at the time. They even told me, I remember having the meeting with Johnny [Ace], and because there was a four way match that night, it was in Vegas for the Intercontinental title that I was slated to win. But then they caught wind of the issues I had, and I had an intervention, and basically told me you’re going to rehab. I screwed that. So tag belts, I had no control over that, just happened. IC, I f’d up. There was a point there, because you can even watch back to those old Raws where Vince was playing with the idea of making me the youngest champion. But, you know, he was feeling out a lot of guys at that point. I’m pretty sure Cena gave me probably the thumbs down at some point.” 

Was there an issue there?

“Oh yeah, we never mixed too well for whatever reason. I don’t know, Massachusetts guy, California guy, I don’t know, just kind of oil and water. But I don’t take away anything from the fact that he’s this generation’s Hogan, and he definitely worked harder than anybody probably would have in that spot, especially for that long.”

You were there during a time when a lot of your colleagues, a lot of your friends were passing away like that. Was that a really rough period?

“I don’t even think it was just pro wrestling. If you look at the grand scheme of the country, the US had an opiate problem. Obviously the pro wrestlers had it. You know, out here in Hollywood, there was an issue, just a lot of people. I think there’s a better awareness of the fact that these things can be addictive now, and they control that stuff much better. Yeah, I lost a lot of guys, Lance Cade, Test. I always think about and, you know, the list goes on and on. But I just, you know, it would be sad to lose your life over that. It really sucks, because I think back to it and being in it sucked. But like, I could see, you know, looking down from heaven and just being like, Oh my god, why did I jeopardize everything to do that?”

Didn’t Cena give you the very first STFU?

“Yes, and it was a shoot STFU. I mean, again, I’m not saying that Cena was purposely doing it to shoot on me. I used to think sometimes with Cena, he got so fired up in the moment that he wouldn’t even know his own strength type of thing. So, yeah, he did it to me for a shoot. You’ll see my face starts turning red, I start trying to get it a little bit looser. I’m pretty sure that I heard later on that he was working with Kurt, and Kurt had to tell him to loosen it up a little bit. But Kurt with his neck issues and stuff. But my Master Lock could be kind of brutal sometimes with guys, because I didn’t really know how to work it either. So sometimes when I look back at those videos and I look at me putting on Kurt, I’m kind of like, oh man, I was probably rougher with him than I needed to be. Because when you’re that green, you don’t know how to shake spirit as much. You do do stuff a little more real than you have to. I can remember, actually, there was a time with Shane Helms, we were working at a live event, and I Master Locked him, I guess, way too hard. So I released the Master Lock, and they ring the bell, the match is over, and he gets up, and I think he tells me to f off, and just walks off. I’m not even saying it to heel on him, I was too stiff, I didn’t know how to work it, and it became a big drama with everybody, because then it was like, you know, he no sold the hold, I’m obviously doing it too rough, and I know that too. Because with Shelton, one time, he was telling me, I was about to pass out. I mean, if it’s too tight, some of the guys were so broad here that it’d be so tight that it would be tough, because you start twerking their neck from the start. [It’s a legit hold]. You’ll pass out, cuts off the blood flow, and you’ll go out.”

Who is it the hardest to put the Master Lock on? 

“Probably, Bobby. Just look at his build. I mean, I say that just because I remember just holding that thing for a long time on anybody can be kind of tough. I’m saying not for 20 seconds, but like with Bobby. I mean, it was hard, you know, because by the time I got it around his neck, it was probably not even fully locked in, just because he was so kind of broad up here.”

I thought for sure it was gonna be Big Show. 

“Well, I don’t even think it was possible with Big Show. Honestly, we went through this one time at a TV where we were trying, we tried to get it on, everybody was so excited when I got there to try it. They got me to the ring, or they want to see it, and then we had this idea of maybe using a chain. But I guess it didn’t make sense. You rap a chain, you do it there, but it’s like, well I guess it didn’t make sense, so we didn’t do that. Then it’s funny, because I feel like there was a point where I could have put it on him, and maybe he just was a little heavier when he was heavier. But maybe I’m wrong. Maybe I was just was never able to get it on.”

Give me the pitch for when they told you to pop your pecs to Crazy Train. 

“Oh, boy. I don’t know whose idea that was, but I didn’t like it right from the start, because I didn’t want to be doing comedic stuff really. But I also knew that there was a point where I was like, All right, well, if I’m going to do this, let me just try to do it the best I can. So then I did it, and the crowd really responded to it like crazy. And unfortunately, it’s one of those situations where I look back and I’m like, maybe I did it too good, because then they kept wanting me to do it, and then I was just like this is stupid. This is funny once or twice, but to do it [every week], if I was a fan, by the third time of it I’m like enough. So when I always think about that, it was funny, but I always hate the fact that it’s like okay, now let’s do this every week in some fashion. As a fan, I don’t think I’d like this. So we lost Ozzy not that long ago, so a lot of the clips came up of that segment. One thing I will say that I love about that is the genuine enthusiasm. When you see Ozzy’s face, he just loves it. To me, I thought that was really cool. After his passing, I thought about this, and I watched it, man, it’s really cool that I entertained Ozzy to that extent. He just thought it was hilarious. Yeah, it’s cool. And, you know, Sharon was very flirtatious. It was pretty funny. Honestly, the funny thing about it is, they wanted me to win, right? But I don’t think that’s the way it was worked. The whole thing. There was some gimmick finish. But honestly, I actually won the freaking thing. But I don’t remember what the finish was. It was some whatever, some angle or something.”

What is Chris Masters grateful for?

“My cats, my biceps are still here, and the sexy Jesus hair.”

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Cody Rhodes (@CodyRhodes) is a professional wrestler with WWE and the reigning WWE Undisputed Champion. He sits down with Chris Van Vliet in Atlanta, Georgia to discuss winning the WWE Championship for a third time, welcoming his new daughter Leilani Ella, reacting to hearing boos from fans, his WrestleMania 42 match against Randy Orton, not being the fan favorite at WrestleMania 41 in his match with John Cena, the Codyvator spot in their SummerSlam rematch, being slapped by Travis Scott, how the infamous Cody Splash came to be, that tables match with The Big Show, and more!

I’m looking at the belt right now. It still has Drew McIntyre side plates. When do you get the American Nightmare side plates?

“I should have got them on Friday. I was just moving too quickly. I grabbed the title. I stayed a little bit after and I grabbed the title. You know how the West Coast shows, wrestlers love a West Coast show because they can get the red eye. I didn’t make my red eye, which is why I’m wondering why I was racing out of there, but I was. But as much as oil and water we might be, and fighting behind the scenes, fighting in the ring, all these things. You fight a guy long enough, I think you start to have a respect for him. I saw that with a lot of my dad’s opponents, with Tully, with Ric, and I’ve really come to, I don’t know what it is, respect his skill set and his body of work, for sure, but I almost want to take these off myself and give them to him. I don’t know if he’s ready for that right now, but I also don’t want it to feel petty or condescending. I just sincerely, a lot of times this stuff we collect, we forget to collect it, and then 10 years from now, somebody’s got your boots, or you want something for your kids and you don’t have it, but that might be a moment. I don’t mind having them for right now, still feels good.”

With everything you’ve done since coming back to WWE, has it occurred to you that your accomplishments have outdone your father’s accomplishments in WWE? Three-time WWE Champion, two-time Royal Rumble, winner, King of the Ring.

“I don’t think he’d mind me sharing this. Mr. Heyman told me that, and I thought he might be the one guy I believe it, because even when I’m by myself and doing one of these, I still don’t believe that, because I think Dusty’s legacy had such a final chapter that it still goes on today. I mean, they’re still doing things of his today, and there’s a whole fandom that will never even know they were his brainchild. This is a silly one, but for example, the cage lowering with the [music], that’s a Dusty thing. These production things are still in play. I appreciate you saying it. I think I have a lot more to do. But yeah, that’s really nice. I don’t know if I was ready for you to be so kind, not that you’re not kind, but that’s very nice.”

What more do you have to do? 

“I’ll tell you something about King of the Ring. That’s one as a fan, I wanted that crown, and I don’t ride on the WWE charters anymore coming back from Saudi. Because after the King of the Ring, was probably the most partying I’ve ever done on a flight. Today, it’s pretty nebulous. You see Damian Priest running around in an Aquaman outfit and stuff like that, but I got photos with people I don’t even know. I’m arm wrestling Santos in one photo. My shirt is unbuttoned to like my navel. But all I remembered was that this would have been way cooler had I had the crown, because I emerged from the front of the plane with a crown on. But yeah, I had a good time.”

When you were Stardust, you were so deep into that character. How do we know you’re not in character now?

“I think the reason it haunted me is that I didn’t know the answer. It should be easy. Am I in character now? No. It should be easy. But is that a lie? Maybe. Because what is the character? Is the character who you were? Cody Runnells and Cody Rhodes, is there any real difference? Here’s the only thing I’ve kind of know, because the question still haunts me, and I still don’t have an answer. Here’s the only thing I’ve noticed, where I know when I’m not in character. I know I am not in character when I’m around my children. That I know for sure, I have nothing, I am not there to do anything other than be a father. That’s it. So that’s why I’m perplexed by the question. Maybe there’s other times.”

So if the story leading into WrestleMania 40 is doing what your dad never did, finishing the story. What was the story? Then the year after and the story now?

“Well, the biggest thing the year after that I wanted to do was it was more of I had talked a lot about what a WWE Championship reign with me looks like. Hey, we’re gonna bring back the Winged Eagle. That took a lot, and thanks to Triple H for saying sure.”

That came back for a night. Was there talk of making that the belt? 

“I don’t think there was ever talk of making it the belt, but it was definitely only supposed to be there for one single night. Then the next thing you know, it’s hanging above the ring at the Royal Rumble, and there’s figures with it, which you know you’ve done something good there. Kevin Owens was carrying it into HQ, so I was really glad we got that. Also, this wasn’t a knock on the previous run, but it was hey, there’s going to be a lot of bell-to-bell wrestling here. I want to be defending this more frequently, and I want the matches to be a little bit less entertainment, a little bit more sports. Definitely both sports entertainment, but skew to the left. So here we go to France. We’ve got AJ Styles out of the gate. That’s a prime example of what I wanted it to look like, in terms of what that first reign would be. Somebody has asked me a question recently, ‘What is this one? What is number three for you?’ I wish I had an answer, but I think every wrestler, and it’s fun if you watch people who come on your podcast, who talk to you so frequently, do they find their identity? Do they change? Are you talking to different characters? I think for me, at this point, the prime of my career, I’d like it to really define who I am. I’m not so much worried about defining what the belt is to me. I’d like myself to be fully formed and fully defined. I think I’m there as far as the American Nightmare, what that is, and how I feel, but I’ll tell you an area that’s changing is I was never a polarizing wrestler. Now I’m a polarizing wrestler.”

How does that make you feel?

“That’s the thing. I’m honored by it. I’m honored by the passion of both sides of the coin. What I would like to do and to honor those who are so excited and those who are so not, however you’d put it, is I want to make sure that I’m not gotten to by it. I think with everything I’ve been through and everything in the business, you hear people say you got thick skin. I can definitely say I have thick skin now, because I used to not have thick skin.”

Are you trying to win that section of the audience over who maybe isn’t a fan of you being a champion right now, or who’s booing you at a show?

“I don’t want to say no, but there’s a really great line, you watch Rick and Morty? What does he say? He says something about, ‘I don’t care that you boo me, because I’ve seen what you cheer,’ and that is very much my approach often. I spoke about this recently with the big dude from Barstool, Brandon [Walker]. I spoke about that Leslie Knope Parks and Rec episode about bowling, where she spent so much time on the guy who was never going to vote for it in the first place. Unfortunately, you do that to discount your own, the people who are already there for you, but I don’t want to be against them either, if that makes any sense. I think John had it perfect, and watching John, having my own skin really, really beat up and thickened up over the course of my career has made it so that I think I’ve got the lane I can run in and make something very entertaining for both sides of the coin.”

At what point in that WrestleMania match with John Cena did you start to hear, oh my gosh, they’re booing me. They’re cheering him. It was almost like Rock vs. Hogan

“I remember every now and then you see fans say, ‘Turn the sound off when you watch it.’ I might have already said this on a podcast with you previously, and I’m always thinking, what? The sound is fans are in the ring with us. We are a live performance that interacts with our audience and plays off of what they are giving us. There is no sound off. Sorry, I feel strongly about that match. Bobby Roode is probably one of WWE’s absolute best assets. […] Bobby Roode has a couple of times come up to me and said, ‘Hey, it’s going to be an away game.’ That was because they show us now [arriving], we love doing these arrivals. I actually don’t mind it, because I could sit right there and go, Okay, great. It’s going to be one thing in Louisville, Kentucky, it might be a different thing in Las Vegas. Somebody said something to me recently, because you talk about, I don’t know if villain is the term, some people might think that’s who I already am. That might be that for them, I might not need to do any more. They might think, no, he’s a bad guy, I’m booing him, or he’s a good guy, I’m cheering him. But somebody said something, and they said it to me in a condescending fashion. They said it as an insult, but I didn’t take it as such, they called me golden boy. I loved it. Here’s why I loved it. If you’re new to the game and you’re watching now, I think you can get away with saying that. If you have followed this for more than 5 years, or more than 10, you know that’s not how it started. So I’m not mad at that little statement. You know that I wasn’t even able to walk down the ramp at my first WrestleMania, we went side ramp for the battle royal. That’s a denotation and little nickname that I did not take in a negative fashion, even though it was delivered as such.”

At what point during that WrestleMania 41 match did you start to hear the crowd was not on your side?

“It’s the difference with hearing them. Stadiums are always tough to hear because that noise does go up. It’s the difference between hearing them and the best way to put it is feeling them. I started feeling them in my rib cage, really, on the old school intros. I love that they’re there for a fight. You get the classic when Michael Cole or Joe Tess or Stu or Corey, or when any of these guys can say a big fight feel, and it actually is a big fight feel that’s amazing. You’ll get that with both WrestleMania main events.”

John Cena talked about how the match that you guys did at SummerSlam had to be different, had to deliver, because the WrestleMania match he felt didn’t. How did you put that match together at SummerSlam?

“Well, I never was one to get mad or get in my feelings over WrestleMania 41 because it was part of a larger story. That is a hard sell, though, for a WrestleMania, especially when the year before you had the completion of over several decades of a journey, and at a 10-year Mania, you’re involving luminaries and legends. It’s a feeling that’s good, a good feeling, as Shawn Michaels will say, the good stuff. So when you go into 41 and you’re doing 1/4 of your story, and you know your story goes all the way to SummerSlam, I never was not committed, and I never doubted John. I hope he knows that, because I know he talks about this match, so I feel comfortable talking about it, but I never doubted, hey, well, this is what we’re doing now, and this is what we’re going to do, then this is what we’re going to do when we get to SummerSlam. You asked, though, how we put it together. I have a really great photo of how we put it together in the most old-school fashion ever. He wanted to have a cigar where he was staying in New York, and this was the night before. I figured I like cigars, it is one of my favorite things, maybe the most Cuban thing about me. I went there, and I realized after dinner and stuff, maybe an hour in, that we were talking about tomorrow. But we were just talking about it differently than you talk about it at the ringside area. We were talking about it, then we would talk about something else, and then we’d slip back into it, and it was the most I think I’ve ever focused in my mind. Because once we go past something, I don’t want to forget it. Remember that idea, I don’t want to forget it. So I ended up going to my hotel that night, and I had it all. I had everything, and I kept making sure. I think I was telling Brandi, and I was making sure I had it. I had what we had talked about. Because with an old school guy like him, you may actually go out there the next night without seeing each other, which is wild in 2025-26. But with John, that was a possibility. He could have just yelled his whole version of it, or I could have yelled my whole version. But that was a really special moment, because I got a lot of pictures from it, and I didn’t share any except maybe one of us signing at the tables. But I got to be with my friend at the end, and I got to not just be with my friend, but I got to have the responsibility that I think anyone in the business would want. I got the responsibility of being booed in Vegas. I got that responsibility of being the one who can survive. Hey, yeah, you may not be the hot thing right now, but if you’re going to be QB 1, you have to be able to survive, and I got to be able to be in there with the guy who survived more encounters than anybody in our business with split crowds, for him crowds and hostile crowds.”

How did you guys come up with the Codyvator with John Cena coming up? 

“I don’t want to tell you whose idea it was, but I can say this, there’s a guy backstage who runs Gorilla. Shout out to him, Temarrio. He does not like the Codyvator. I like that he calls it the Codyvator, because we could easily just call it a lift like it’s denoted in a production budget. But he doesn’t like the Codyvator, because the Codyvator is pretty expensive, and if we’re only going to use it for me to come up and I prefer it’s only me. But I joked with him a lot that, hey, look, dude, we’re getting bang for your buck here, two uses of the Codyvator, and it made him feel better about the use of it that night. So yeah, I’ll go ahead and credit Triple H for that one, easiest one to credit for it, but that was fun. Also, you can tell how strong a man really is when you’re going at a tiny, incremental pace and the floor is lifting you, and still had me, and I think wanted to carry me 70 yards, but didn’t need to. I can fall off your shoulders at a certain point. He’s still got it. John, certainly, all the functional strength, and you’ve seen all the hard knocks videos and all that, that’s never gonna go away.”

This WrestleMania with Randy Orton, does this one feel so much different than all the other WrestleManias you’ve main evented?

“I would say it’s very champagne problems. This is a conversation that’s been brought up a lot as far as what would I have done had I not won the championship back from Drew? I don’t know, and I think it’s a bit scary to me. Because ok, WrestleMania 39 main event, SoFi, sets a record. WrestleMania 40, 2 main events, right where my Eagles played, sets records. Then last year, Allegiant Stadium. I don’t know. I wish I had a plan B. I would have come up with one, and I would have been motivated, and this place certainly gets all of me so I would have been able to dig in. But I think looking at WrestleMania this year, and I said it incorrectly. I said sleeper Mania, which would imply that people are sleeping on it, and that’s not what I meant. What I think you’re going to get from this year’s WrestleMania is you have two main events with Roman and Punk for the World Heavyweight Championship and myself and Randy, and the show that’s filling out with Stephanie and Liv and the show that you’re seeing kind of come together, because these matches are starting to become obvious what they are. I think bell to bell, you’re going to get one of the better Manias ever, and I really, really like being part of that WrestleMania.”

So, what’s the story behind the Cody splash?

“Well, a couple of things. People love to watch the table get broken. There’s only so many ways you can break a table. I don’t like setting the table up in the corner. I think that’s lame. You got to break the table. You got to break the actual table. Legs need to be down. We were scrambling for something to do in a contract signing at some point in my career, and I thought, hey, why don’t I just splash you off the top rope and keep the pen and the contract in my hand? There’s something fun about that. Plus, people love a table breaking. They’re chanting, ‘We want tables.’ By God, give them the tables. Then what would come of it is on the live events, which are no longer intimate and just for that crowd, because people will film something they saw that night and it’s out there. My splash from the live event started to make it out, and that is just a prime example of you don’t always see your age, and then maybe you see your age. So I think I’m at the prime of my career. I think I’m psychologically the best I’ve ever been. As an athlete, believe it or not, even with that splash, I feel like I’m the best I’ve ever been. However, I have committed to the idea of the Splash is a non-jump splash, it’s a fall splash. I like to get straight as a board. I like to really get out like a tree frog being flung from a tree. The one overseas, in Germany, was so high up, the idea that I would jump is insane. So now we just call it at TV lovingly, the New Jack splash, where I just fall. So there’s no splash involved. It’s just going to be a fall. But yeah, it started as the idea people love a table, let’s do this at this contract signing. What could we do? Oh, we could do this, and then we could grab your hand, and it would be a thing, but it’s developed into the New Jack splash, and I have no shame with it at all, because people do seem to enjoy it. They do. That is not a showcase of my athleticism. That’s not the one I would put my hat on athleticism over, this is just my splash and how I do it, and it’s become part of my repertoire now. So you know, if I go up there, don’t expect me to jump. I’ll be falling.”

How badly were you hurt after Elimination Chamber last year in Toronto? How badly did Travis Scott hurt you?

“Travis Scott did not hurt me. It looks like he hurt me. I took a photo with Travis Scott at the OBB studio event, and I never saw that photo. I like Travis Scott. I think it’s safe to say at this point, I like Travis Scott. I like that he lended us his time and that we had moments with him. I mean, he took a Cross Rhodes. Most people just remember the slap, and I’m going to be on this side of history with it. I know it wasn’t everyone’s favorite thing. That is not the hardest I’ve ever been slapped. That’s number three. That’s number three. I’ll give you the list of slaps. Number two, Bob Holly in London. He says, ‘Fire up out there, kid.’ I don’t want to say something nefarious that gets anyone in trouble. I think someone told him to try and knock me out, because the way he slapped me was trying to knock a man out, it didn’t. I have a decent little jaw. So I took said slap. The number one might shock you, but I felt it in both of my heels. I felt it in my feet. I had to plant my feet. It was so hard. Nattie Neidhart hit me. It felt like an MLB batter swinging the bat, and I walked into it. She leveled me. So Nattie is one, Hardcore Holly two, Travis Scott, I’d say maybe three.”

But was that a legit black eye from Travis Scott?

“I’m gonna say that John Cena and The Rock gave me the black eye, and Travis Scott was there as well. So the three of them gave me the black eye and the perforated eardrum. Also, it runs. If you get anything up here, right? So if I like, dot you up here, it’s gonna run. Some people are quick healers too. I’m like, a real yellowy, gross healer, where it just takes forever. So, yeah, it was not the worst slap I ever got, and he took a great Cross Rhodes.” 

How long have you been waiting to use that Raheem line in a promo?

“It came up randomly. I was never, ever going to touch it, as I probably shouldn’t. I was never going to touch it. I think I’ve kind of expressed this. I felt like there was this natural, sometimes people watch the show and they’re watching and they’re just entertained, and they don’t tweet about it and they don’t post about it. Other times, there’s people watching more from the they’re deeply invested, and they’re invested in the behind-the-scenes nature of it, and we have Unreal. This is all our own design, right? I think there was some more on the latter side, who thought he’s got to reply to what CM Punk and Roman had said about the WWE Championship or about the A show. He’s got to reply to that. I wanted to make it very clear I was not going to be replying to that. I’m not going to spend my time heading towards WrestleMania in Allegiant Stadium, talking seriously about that, so that was my way around it. Hey, if we’re going to make this measuring contest, well, I didn’t get this nickname for no reason, and I stand by it. I stand by what I said. I stand by it. I am actually glad, though, because we could have kept going as far as the next thing you know, Punk could be out there. That’s not what we needed. I needed a one-and-done on this little bit, and here’s something funny about it, though, I chose to say that on the night that I debuted a youth kids t-shirt. I am wearing the kids t-shirt when I said it, so my hypocrisy was on full display. The first time ever WWE said, this is the youth only line, because we had a lot of kids who wanted the Nightmare stuff and not the skulls, so I needed to wear it. But that also was the night I said that. So again, my hypocrisy on full display. I’m a complicated man.”

How much longer do you think you want to do this?

“I don’t have a number on it anymore. I know that the next deal I do will be my last as far as a full-time wrestler. Sometimes, when you take things, and I think I’m doing this right now, and you use them to your advantage where you’re like, I need to do this for this, but really it might be for you. We talked about Liberty earlier. She’s known nothing but WrestleMania main events. She literally thinks what I do for a living is WrestleMania. That’s what I do for a living. Leilani is only six months old, so in my mind, I owe her a few more of these. That’s silly. That’s me doing it for me, or maybe it is a little bit of both. I’ll know, and you know who else will know? The audience. They’ll know. I don’t even know if the kids say this anymore, washed. I’ll know, because your mind is your greatest asset as a pro wrestler. I was a big Hogan fan through every era, but if you look back at Hogan in black and white, Hollywood Hogan, a master just up here in terms of the psychology of a live audience and what they came to play with and my dad said something on commentary once that absolutely pulled my heart into my stomach. It just hit me so hard. But he was talking about Hogan, and this is the middle of deep kayfabe. He’s talking about Hogan, he said, ‘No man has captured the imagination of the audience like that guy.’ I thought that’s what I want to do. They came here for something, and if they’re booing, they came here to boo. If they’re cheering, they came here. I want to capture their imagination the best I can, and you can when you have the experience I have. And again, got to wrestle my angel on my shoulder last year, and John Cena gets to wrestle the devil on my shoulder this year in Randy Orton. If I can’t do anything with that, well then I’m a real dick. You know what I’m saying? I’m sorry, if I can’t do anything with that, then I’m selfish, then I’m not here to give back to the industry, so I need to do that as well. But you’ll know, you’ll know.”

The Tables match with Big Show where he steps through the table on the outside. What was supposed to happen in that match? 

“That.”

That was it? Because the look on his face sells it perfectly. 

“Yeah, that’s what was supposed to happen. It almost didn’t happen because I did a disaster kick off the table in the corner, and it did a slight like that, and I realized, oh, this was so dumb. I could have reversed the finish because I tried to do the same thing he’s doing in a second that 100% is the thing that’s supposed to happen. I don’t mind if people don’t believe that, and I don’t mind if people are still caught up in the suspension of disbelief. But that is it, and his face is accurate, because that happened to him frequently with chairs. I was in The Big Texan with him in Amarillo when he sat in a chair at the end of the table, and it exploded. Now you have to get off the ground. Now they have to get you another chair. It’s a whole thing. That was something that was happening in his life. He is a legit giant, one of the people I learned the absolute most from. But that is what was supposed to happen. There was someone who said, ‘This is not going to work,’ and then he was so happy to tell them when he came to the back, ‘Oh, it worked!’ Then he beat me up pretty bad after, though. I remember, we went from a funny haha moment to the I do kind of a whirly bird into a table on the outside that was rough. When I get up, you can tell that was a rough bump.”

What is Cody Rhodes grateful for?

“My family, WWE giving me this platform, and the algorithm.”

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John Morrison (@TheRealMorrison) is a professional wrestler currently signed to AEW. He sits down with Chris Van Vliet at West Coast Creative Studio in Hollywood, CA to discuss losing a hair vs. hair match at CMLL and now being bald, his wife Taya’s reaction to the new look, replacing Chris Benoit at Vengeance and winning the ECW World Championship in 2007, his dive from the top of the Elimination Chamber, his parkour Royal Rumble save, having more than 34 names throughout his pro wrestling career, and more!

Are you getting used to seeing yourself with no hair?

“No. Imagine your whole life, every time you see your reflection there’s a guy there with hair. I never shaved my head. But more than that, for the last 24 years, 25 years, I’ve had long hair. When I got my WWE contract in 2003 that was the day I stopped getting haircuts. Basically, I just grew it out from then till now.” 

I want to read you some comments I saw on Twitter: “John Hennigan makes me sick. The guy loses a hair match and somehow looks even better than he did.”

“[Laughs] Is that from Taya?”

“I was baffled. He should have celebrated like he was the winner.”

“I gotta admit, the match did feel fantastic. That hair match, I feel like, was one of the best matches I’ve had in years. Was the first time in a while that I felt like me again. Kind of feeling unfulfilled, basically. Not just me, a lot of people in wrestling. But for me right now, in AEW, I feel underutilized. Can’t blame anyone, that’s just how wrestling promotions work. There’s only enough TV time for a certain amount of people. Those people at AEW, we’ve coined the term the island. Those people are on the island, so to speak. I don’t feel like I’m on the island with Tony or AEW right now. So because of that, I feel like I’m doing like 10-20% of what I’m capable of, storytelling-wise, wrestling-wise, in the ring. With CMLL, I’m on their island, and so I got to do everything that I could, and it was cool.”

Had you been thinking for a while about shaving your head?

“A little bit. Honestly, my acting coach [Hank] has been on me for years about shaving my head. I had a bunch of missed calls when I got back from Mexico. It’s all him going, ‘Hey, you got to take some photos. You could go out for cop roles, soldier rules, all kinds of stuff. The world is your oyster now, come on.’ Thanks, Hank. He doesn’t have social so one of those comments wasn’t his, but he’s excited.”

So what’s interesting is, you get your head shaved. Everybody sees it first. You don’t. So when did you finally look in the mirror and see what it looked like?

“So as soon as I come back from the match, honestly, Mexico City is like a mile and a half above sea level. My hands are on my knees, looking down for like 30 seconds before I find a mirror and Whoa! A couple of things, a few days prior, actually, three days prior to this match, I came back to LA and I had to shoot a bunch of projects because I was shaving my head, continuity-wise, I had to finish up a bunch of stuff that had just kind of been on the to-do list. So two days before the match, I was doing a Bat in the Sun superpower beat down video playing Casey Jones and fighting foot soldiers. There’s this one part where I kept choking this guy with a pay phone cord, ‘You got a collect call from pain 101!’ But the pay phone was a prop, and it kept falling and gashing me in the head. There was one time I got gashed there and I started bleeding a little bit, which doesn’t really matter, because if you have hair, you can’t see it. But I was thinking about that before the hair vs. hair match, I was like, I wonder if I have those marks from the pay phone fight scene on my head, and then I wonder if all those times Sabu hit me in the head with chairs, or a kendo stick to the head from Sheamus, or something, I just never noticed they have a gnarly scar. When you look in the mirror, I was like yep, I guess I was right about the pay phone marks, because I am kind of cut up. Either that or the barber character in CMLL. She shaved me pretty quickly without a guard on the razor.”

What does Taya think of this?

“She was one of the first people to say I think John looks amazing, which, I mean, probably the most important perspective to me of anyone in the world. Wife, she’s cool with it. All right, I’m fine with it.” 

Who was the first person in your WWE career to say, hey, you kind of look like Jim Morrison?

“I can’t remember, but it wasn’t a thing that had happened like super frequently. Was more so that, and we’ve talked about this, I think. When I won the ECW championship, I was Johnny Nitro. Prior to that, Vince had mentioned a few times that Johnny Nitro is not a champion’s name, or not a good name, ‘You got to change it.’ [I responded]’Why do you think that, Vince? Is it because it reminds you of WCW Monday Nitro?’ [Vince said] ‘Yes.’ The day after I won the championship. Actually the week after, because the day after, everyone on the roster got some very bad news. But we can talk about that if you want later. The week after, Vince walked up to me in catering, which is rare, and said, ‘You got to change your name.’ Put a paper down on the table and a pen and said, ‘Just make a list of names.’ So I was really on the spot, and I just started writing down what could be an M and M name that fits? Then I was like, maybe Johnny Brando, John Morrissey, John Morrison, couldn’t think of very many Ms, so I made a list of kind of like celebrity, Brando, Morrison, Johnny Brando, stuff like that. The first one that I’d written down was John Morrison, and a couple of hours later, I handed this list to Vince, and he just went like this and read the top was like, ‘John Morrison, I like it. That’s it.’ So then after that, I kind of went from this Johnny Nitro wet hair look to getting the makeup department to flat iron my hair. I used to say I wanted it to look like Farrah Fawcett’s hair. But once I started doing that and wearing aviators, I got a ton of people saying, You look just like Jim Morrison, even to the point where I started getting fans asking me if I was Jim Morrison’s brother sometimes, and I would sometimes make a smart ass comment, like, I mean, he died in 79 if I’m his brother, am I a vampire? Now I’d be like, 80 years old. I don’t know how to do the math. The math doesn’t math on that.”

You mentioned winning the ECW championship. So that was at Vengeance, Night of Champions 2007. It was supposed to be Chris Benoit versus CM Punk for the vacant ECW championship. At what point do you realize throughout the day, Chris Benoit is not showing up, and I’m his replacement?

“So we’re at Vengeance 2007, not everyone’s there. It’s a pay-per-view, but I happen to be there. The ECW roster didn’t have a lot of representation at that particular event. Say call time, I think it was maybe 2 pm.” 

Were you booked to do anything? 

“No, I was like a standby. I was booked to be there, maybe have a dark match, I don’t know. So, say call time is 1 pm, everything’s fine. I’m just in catering. Around 3 pm, I hear Chris Benoit hasn’t showed up, and if he doesn’t show up, I might need to fill in or something. Okay, sure he’ll be there though, it’s Chris. 4:30, 5 pm, me and Mordecai, Kevin Thorne, get called into talent relations, the two of us, and we’re told, ‘Hey, can’t get hold of Chris Benoit. He’s not here, and if he’s not here in another hour or two, it’s going to be one of you two guys versus CM Punk. We don’t want to let the crowd down by having the replacement lose. So whoever it is between you two is gonna win.’ So kind of like both looked at each other like, I hope it’s me.”

How do they determine who was gonna be that?

“I don’t know who made that decision with that call, but I’d had a lot more TV time consistently than he had up to that point. Whoever made that decision? Thank you. I agree. Good call. So we have that talk, and then I spend the next two hours pacing, hoping that Chris Benoit does not show up. Walked out to the parking garage a couple of times, just to see if I saw a car coming. I didn’t. Then the pay-per-view started, put my tights on. The whole time I’m like, Oh my God, Chris Benoit is gonna show up, and this is gonna get squashed, and I’ll just be back to business as normal. He doesn’t show up, though, and we have the match. I wrestle CM Punk. It was a great match, Punk and I had several after that, leading to eventually the two of us having great chemistry. The first couple were a little clunky, but still fun. So I win the ECW Championship, and it was one of those. This morning, I thought I was just coming to this pay-per-view to eat catering and hang out, didn’t really have anything going on TV storyline-wise. To tonight, now ECW World Champion, the writers are all asking me questions. They’re going to start writing the show around me and, holy crap, this is the best night ever. Then the next day, we get the news about Benoit and what happened. I felt like crap. I felt so guilty just for being happy with something that came to be because of the tragedy we’ve heard about and talked about ad nauseum. It’s still tough for me to be happy about how everything came about. I’m happy that I got that match and my career took a huge turn upwards because of everything. It’s just a very confusing thing to benefit from a tragedy, even if you really had nothing to do with it. Because up to that point, as far as I knew, I thought Chris and his family were just very nice people, you know, and Chris I thought was nice to a point. He always liked me, I think, and respected me, because he could tell that I liked wrestling and that’s what I was there for, but he was one of the guys that was kind of going to weed you out if he didn’t like you, or if anyone thought you had an attitude problem, you’re gonna have to deal with him. I kind of felt like it was cool that he saw me in regard to the fact that I did like wrestling then, I like wrestling now, more than that, I loved it, and I still love it. And as mentioned, confusing, like talking in circles about it.” 

Does it feel like your world title victory is a little tainted, because now you’re the footnote of this tragedy?

“I’ve never thought about it in those terms. The only thing that I think about is I feel guilty about being so happy and excited because I didn’t know what had happened. I don’t care if it’s a footnote or not. What happened after it is more meaningful to me anyway.”

Where do you feel like that could have taken you because you’re World Champion. One of the words that’s always attached to you is underrated. Do you feel like there was a chance later on, to become a world champion?

“I mean, you can say what you want about this, but to this day, I still feel like I could be world champion of WWE one day, maybe AEW. I feel like I just need another opportunity. The way wrestling works, in my mind is things come in waves. Might have mentioned that to you before, but you ride a wave for a while, and then it passes and you’re kind of waiting for the next wave. Sometimes you’re waiting longer than other times, but when waves come and you catch them, they take you places, and like the ECW Heavyweight Championship win for me was like the first huge wave that I caught, and it led me to some really amazing places, and it could have ended up leading me to become a world champion on Raw or SmackDown, or it could have just completely backfired and like, something else weird happened and then led to nothing. So I’m kind of happy with how things turned out, and don’t what if? Anyone watching this, don’t What if?”

Who’s on the list of people you haven’t worked with yet in AEW that you can’t wait to get in there with? 

“A ton of people, and so some of these people maybe have worked with in like a trios or a scramble or a battle royal, but I mean, Mike Bailey, Kevin Knight, Kenny Omega, Jon Moxley.”

I think it’s fair to say that you were the most successful Tough Enough winner of all time. Miz, I think is the most successful tough enough contestant.

“He came in second, though.”

He didn’t win. But what a career:

“The irony, I have thought about this too, if I didn’t win Tough Enough, I feel like my career is totally different if I had won, if Miz did win Tough Enough, same, I don’t know if he makes it as the Tough Enough winner, especially because his year, I think, was it a $250,000 Tough Enough? So I remember at OVW, when I got there with my Tough Enough contracts, which is $50,000 a year, basically a grand a week showing up to OVW, and there are people like Rob Conway and the Bashams and Nick Dinsmore who had been there for years, and they were on $500 a week, or $250 a week. Conway had been there for years, and most of it, he worked part-time as a furniture mover and installer, in addition to the training. So there’s people there making that much money. There’s people there with years of experience that are just there on their own dime. I walked in with this contract and TV and got beat up, and I deserved it. That’s kind of what I feel like shopping to everyone who wants to get into pro wrestling. There’s a part of it where you pay your dues. But [Daniel] Puder had just won $250,000 and he drove up the first day to OVW in a brand new Mercedes, designer sunglasses, kind of locked his car and just walked in with a little bit of swagger. I thought to myself, Oh no, he doesn’t get it. He doesn’t get it at all. And it didn’t work out for him for a lot of reasons. But Miz has this natural thing about him to rub people the wrong way or be annoying or unlikable, that, if he had won Tough Enough. I mean, even coming in second, he went to Deep South, fought and worked his way up and got bullied and bullied and bullied and bullied and kicked out of the locker room. We’ve all heard that story. What if he’d won? How much worse would it have been for him? I don’t think that The Miz would ever have quit wrestling. I truly believe that from the time he was a kid, there was something in his heart and soul that told him I’m going to be a professional wrestler. So even when he was on the Real World, we saw what he kept saying on all his shows back then, was he wanted to be in the WWE but the difference is just him having to overcome, not winning, and work his way up, I think, was more palatable to the rest of the locker room than if he had won and been given, a good position, like he already rub people the wrong way. It might have rubbed people too far.”

You were the first one to have a real crazy Elimination Chamber spot. How did you dream this up?

“I wouldn’t say growing up, but high school, college, I was watching the Chambers, always thought they were cool. When I got signed, and I was in OVW, Louisville, I started watching more closely. Then I saw that parkour movie, District 13, and started doing parkour a bunch, and I hadn’t been in a Chamber match. Then I started watching parkour and Chamber matches, and in my head, booking all these crazy things that I could potentially do in the Chamber and this is like two years before I had my first Chamber match. So when I knew that I was going to be in the Chamber match, I had like 10 ideas of different kinds of crazy things that I wanted to do, ready to go.”

That’s high when you’re up there!

“It’s so high! The one where I crawled up to the top and then dropped down on Sheamus. It’s funny. When you’re up there and you’re dropping, it feels like you’re three stories up. It doesn’t look like that on TV. It’s not that high, but it feels that high. It’s also when you’re falling backward, you just have to have a lot of trust in what’s behind you. I know Sheamus. I trust the hell out of that guy. He would always be there to catch you, pick you up, and then just hit you in the face with his fist.”

You were in the Elimination Chamber match where the Undertaker got burned on the way to the ring.

“Yes. Everyone’s heard this story now, about Taker’s pyro being let off a little bit too soon, and his jacket being engulfed, and he had to take his jacket off. So I was in the pod, and I was watching everyone’s entrances. I was in my pod, it’s locked, my coat off, and I was like, trying to look cool. Taker’s entrance hits, and it’s the stoic, you know, here he comes, slowly walking. I see the flames go off on the ramp, he’s standing right in the middle of them. I thought that’s so cool until I was like, Ooh, he’s on fire. Then I see him take his jacket off, throw it down, and then take a few steps quickly, and look around, then back to character. I don’t know if it’s really true or not, but I feel like I saw his face change from just The Undertaker walk to just being seethingly angry, and rightfully so, he just got burned in front of a room full of people with pyro that was botched by the guy who had the fire.

After the pyro went off and Taker got on fire, the pyro guy took his headset off and just ran and never came back. After the match, Taker ran back to look for him, and he’d been gone for like a half hour. He never came back to work. But back to the other part of the story. So now seethingly angry Undertaker, who was just set on fire and put his jacket out and threw it down, never seen the man break character, is walking to the chamber, and he’s getting into his pod. I’m thinking I got 5 or 10 minutes in there with that man, and he looks so angry. Are we gonna wrestle, or what’s gonna happen? I was kind of like looking at Rey, who was in one of the pods too, and looking around, and everyone in the pods was all kind of looking at Taker and then looking at each other. I looked at Taker, and he was looking around, still mad, but he started doing this sort of licking his lips really weirdly. Then I start going, What the hell is going on? I stopped and I said, I bet he burnt his mouth and his mustache and his face, and he’s trying to wet his lips, because they’re dry. The match is going and I think when my pod opened he might have been in there already. I was terrified when I got in there with him. Nothing but the most professional, solid guy was there in the ring performing. That’s him, and kind of a nervous, younger dude, that was me, but fantastic. I was gonna talk to him after match and thank him, but I couldn’t find him because he was running around the parking lot looking for the pyro guy. I don’t know what he would have done if he found him.”

I read that you are on your 34th name right now. Does that sound accurate? 

“It sounds accurate, if not underrated. I feel like there’s a handful of names that I’ve [used once]. Johnny Zero, when I wrestled for Below Zero Wrestling in North Dakota for one show. There’s a ton of those one-show names that I’ve had.”

They didn’t do enough with Johnny Drip Drip:

“First of all, Taya hates Johnny Drip Drip. She just does not like the word moist. Most of Johnny Drip Drip’s sayings are based on the fact that Taya hates hearing moist. So America’s Moist Wanted, the Most Moist-See Superstar, I made the choice to be moist. Got the moist voice. Then at some point I realized maybe I went too far. She’s not like Haha Funny. She’s like, No, seriously, don’t say that.”

What is John Morrison grateful for?

“Season 2 of Johnny Loves Taya, for Taya and everyone in the wrestling business.”

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Mustafa Ali (@MustafaAli_X) is a professional wrestler signed to TNA Wrestling. He sits down with Chris Van Vliet at INSIGHT Live in Chicago to discuss his guitar coffin match with Elijah on TNA Impact, a terrifying moment that took place when he was dragged to the back by a horse, Brock Lesnar telling him to “Get a life, kid”, a hilarious Undertaker story, returning to WWE NXT to challenge for the North American Championship, getting advice from AJ Styles at TNA’s AMC premiere, and more!

I thought you weren’t gonna be able to walk after that guitar casket match. 

“I would say single-handedly, one of the roughest nights I had. That thing that was constructed, I think it was 500 pounds. So when we think about casket matches, my hope is to use the damn thing at some point. But it was very weirdly shaped. Obviously, it’s shaped like a guitar. So I’m looking at it and I’m like there’s no safe way for me to actually get tossed into this, so there goes half of my ideas. When we got there, I was like we’re just gonna have to kill each other. So, yeah, I appreciate it. If you haven’t had a chance to watch it, it’s on YouTube. Watch it, please. I have scars all over my body.”

I feel like you don’t do a lot of 450s anymore. You save them for special occasions, and in that match, you did one off the top rope to the outside, through a table.

“Yeah. So the problem with that one too, this damn casket is so big. It’s no one’s fault, but when he [Elijah] had positioned the table, it was kind of off. So we move on to the spot, I looked, I go, oh sh*t. The way he’s laying on it, and the way I have to come off the ropes, because the casket is right there, his knees are where I need to land. I’m supposed to land on this torso. I go either I’m about to break my ribs or he’s about to break his knees. Good luck to you, Elijah. Little did I know at the last second he decided to put his knees up. So it’s my ribs. Everyone’s fine. I’m indestructible. But it all hurt.”

What’s been the scariest moment you’ve ever had in a match?

“For some reason, it’s always tied to Elijah. Technically, it was part of a match. So back in December, we were in El Paso, an incident that is now named the Lasso in El Paso. It was The Rascalz, shout out to The Rascalz. Hope they’re doing well. We’re doing this thing where I’ve had enough with the match, I’m out of here, I’m taking the high road, and the lights go off and on, and then Elijah appears behind on a horse, and the idea is that he attacks me, ties me up, he lassos me and he pulls me out of the arena on a horse. That’s not the scary part, right? Little context, so I’ll give you twofold. There’s a story behind the story. Earlier in the day, we’re rehearsing this stunt, and this is just when TNA announced its partnership with AMC. So there’s AMC execs there and all this stuff like that. There’s a director named George who’s been with TNA for a long time, and we’re kind of walking through this rehearsal, and it is not happening. So the horse is getting scared, the lasso is becoming undone. Elijah’s not tying it right. The cameraman’s out of position. Everyone’s messing up, except for me. The director, George, says ‘Hey, I’m gonna pull the plug on this. We’re not doing the stunt. We got to come up with something.’ I’m like, ‘George, I’m telling you, we can pull this off.’ He goes, ‘You don’t understand. AMC is here, this is a bad impression. We’re not doing it.’ I don’t know what overcame me. I said, ‘George, let me do this stunt. I put my job on it. If it goes wrong, you can fire me on the spot.’ Without any hesitation, he goes, ‘Remember what you said.’ Sh*t, what did I get myself into? I went up to him [Elijah] and go, ‘Dude, we have to do it this way. There’s a guy that handles horses. Let him tie the damn lasso. No one’s looking at him. They’re looking at you. He’s 300 pounds of muscle. They’re looking at you dude, relax.’ So we had the handler do the lasso off-screen. You just don’t see it, and then it looks like Elijah did it. So the stunt goes according to plan. I don’t get fired, but I almost die. This is why. What you guys don’t see is when the horse pulls me away, you see me screaming and all that stuff when we go down this hallway, the thing about this hallway is there’s another horse. No one told me there were two horses. The handler, because of me, was on stage doing the tying. No one is manning the horse. You guys ever see when one horse runs what another horse does? First it gets scared and starts kicking. So the hallway, it’s slim, and there’s a horse right there. So as I’m kind of going yay, I’ve done it, I turn around, there’s a horse, and the horse is kicking and screaming and jumping. I was like, All right, this is it. This is how stupid wrestlers are. My first thought is, and there’s not a cameraman to get it. So I just cover up. I say, thank you God for the good life. I just crawled up and the horse just missed me like, right here, I felt its tail almost, and I’m yelling, stop. So luckily, security came and stopped the horse. I’m a very pleasant person, despite what people hear. I got some students in the Chicago wrestling center over there. I’m very pleasant, I don’t get mad. I was on one that day, ‘Who put this horse over here?!’ There’s a whole other horse. So yeah, I’ve never had a scary experience as bad as that in the ring. It was definitely the horse. But I’m alive.”

You had this moment in a match with Cedric Alexander where you did the suicide dive to the outside, you don’t get caught and you face plant to the ground. 

“Once again, not my fault. I kind of felt bad about what happened. I’m at the stage in my career now, man, where I tried protecting and really going out of my way to make sure no negativity comes towards people. But now I’m at that stage in my life where, like, if something happened and you messed up or you f*cked up, it’s on you. What originally happened was I gave very clear instructions to the people that were accompanying me to the ring that night. TNA have, like, this big secret service entrance, and I have this political character. I gave them instructions I go, ‘When you guys advance on Cedric, stay here.’ I don’t want Cedric close to the ring because this dive, I’m sensing it’s this big show we’re at UBS Arena. We’re trying to sell this thing out. And I just had that vibe, and like no one had talked about AMC or the network. I had this intuition, I go, I think something big is going to happen for TNA, and I want to be one of the reasons why it happens. So I just had this mindset, they’re not giving me the ball, but I’m going to take it, type of thing. So very clear instructions, see where that tripod is. I go stand there. Well, I start running, and all of a sudden the guys that were supposed to stand by the tripod have advanced way closer. At the end of the day, could I have put on the brakes? Sure. So I go all the way I clip Cedric barely and, yeah, I just, I remember the ramp was like grated. So I just remember the, like, the greats just peeling like the skin, and I roll up, and you would think I’d stay down, but I had to get up and like, I’m indestructible. Everyone thought that was the death of me. But no, here I am standing once again. Chicago motherf*ckers are tough.”

You recently returned to NXT:

“So he [Shawn Michaels] had called me when I got released, and he was, it’s one of those things where you can kind of tell when someone’s being fake. With mine, it was not. He was like, ‘What? What do you mean? What happened?’ He literally found out as I found out, because that weekend, yeah, I got let go on a Tuesday, and I was supposed to wrestle Dominik Mysterio for the North American Championship on a Saturday. So we had talked then, and then we stayed in touch. He was very proud of the PWI cover, he just sent me that. He goes, ‘I just want to let you know I’m always watching.’ That was Shawn Michaels. It’s one of those things, like when Matt, Jeff, Shawn, these guys that you grew up watching, emulating to some degree when they compliment you, there’s a lot of weight to it. So, yeah, that was the first time I saw Shawn. It was the week prior. It was for the promo to challenge. So I get there and this writer gives me this promo. I’m reading it, I go ‘I get it, but I kind of disagree. Let me go talk to Shawn.’ That’s how I’ve been my whole career. Like, no, no, no, pardon you, but like, you’re not going to change it. So I go and plead my case to Shawn. I go, ‘Hey, listen, I understand that you want me to talk about what’s happened. I was promised this championship. I don’t want to come off whiny. In TNA I’m this really presidential political weasel, politics is way and stuff.’ I think it’d be more fun, we want to have fun. We watch wrestling, everything doesn’t need to be dramatic sometimes. I go, ‘So what if I just like politic my way into this match?’ He goes, okay, yeah, I kind of see and I kind of told him what I want to say. He’s like, alright, yeah, we can do it that way. That’s fine. All right, cool, awesome. Oh my god, I don’t work here and I’m causing drama. I sh*t you not, five minutes before we go out. So Ethan’s been updated. Ali’s gonna change his variable. Dive minutes before we go out. Shawn’s like, ‘No, I think you’re wrong. I want you to do the promo the way I wrote. I’m telling you. Ali, people resonate with you, because when you put up this facade sometimes. But when you’re real, you’re real. You just got to tell people what happened.’ I was like, I can’t believe I said that. I go, ‘Shawn, I gotta tell you, I think you’re wrong, but you asked me to do something. I’ll do it.'”

You told Shawn Michaels you think he’s wrong?

“Shawn Michaels was not wrong. I go out and yeah, as I’m saying the words, it’s just like, man, you could tell this isn’t a problem. I’m telling you I busted my ass, and right when I was gonna get a reward, you pulled the you know. I thought about this, this, this, and I come back and just the reception, especially online, I don’t try to pay too much attention, but it’s feedback, it’s an opinion. I will digest it. And sometimes some people have some sh*tty takes. But for the most part, it was like, Yo, no, that was real. There is a real, ‘Is this dude cursed?’ Elimination Chambers, KofiMania, this stuff, this all comes at the expense of me. So hopefully this is a nice little redemption starting part of Oh man, is WWE going to do something they haven’t done before and put a championship on someone that doesn’t work here. Who knows, right? So Shawn was totally right with that.”

I hear you have a great Undertaker story:

“It was the 25th anniversary [of Raw]. It was when Raw was doing the Barclay Center and the Manhattan Center at the same time. There’s a bunch of people that have paid a lot of money to attend this event. But here’s the problem that they didn’t plan, there was no actual matches there. It was just legends coming out and cutting a promo. So about almost an hour into it, the fans start realizing, hey, we got jibbed. There’s no matches, and they start booing recklessly. So Triple H is at the Manhattan Center. He gets on the phone, and he calls over Barclays, and he goes, I need matches, and I need them now. So Mark Carrano goes, ‘I know, the cruiserweights!’ So he stuffs a bunch of cruiserweights into a van, and just sends us blindly to Manhattan Center. Hideo Itami is driving, I don’t know [what’s going on]. So we’re running upstairs and everyone’s panicking, go, go, go, upstairs. Go upstairs. We’re running with our gear, because we’re all coming from Barclays. And Triple H goes, ‘Situation, there’s no matches during the commercial break. I just need you guys to go out there and do the craziest sh*t for two or three minutes.’ All right, cool. So I was wrestling Lince Dorado, and we run upstairs, we have our bags, so we just open this door and we throw our bags down, we close the door, we start talking. The referee comes up and goes, ‘Hey guys, where are you changing?’ Right here. And then we look up, private locker room for The Undertaker. Open the door sheepishly, me and Lince, ‘Hello, sir. I’m Ali, This is Lince. Huge mistake. We’re just gonna grab our bags and leave.’ We go to reach for our bags, and he goes, ‘Hey, you guys don’t want to hang out with the motherf*cking Undertaker?’ Before I could say anything Lince goes ‘Hell yeah!’ We’re changing. He’s asking us about, you know, I told him I was a former police officer. He was like, oh sh*t, we’re talking about this and that. Lince was a former teacher. So he’s like, Isn’t that crazy? We’re talking to The Undertaker about life, and then we kind of forgot that we had to go. We just ran out and did our match up. And then, yeah, it was just one of those wild experiences with the Undertaker.”

“Get a life, kid.” Brock Lesnar said this to you, what’s the story behind it?

“So it’s a little twofold, right? So I get that it was really funny, but if I tell you guys a real story and feel really, really sad, so I’ll share what I can. I would tell you guys, but I don’t want people to get in trouble. That was a shot at me from someone very high up, and not directly. The back story of this, and I’ll keep it to this. So I hope you guys can understand. I was sent to go do media, public relations for an upcoming event in Saudi Arabia called Night of Champions. So I go there. I’m not on the show. I’m going there. I’m making everyone happy. Just because it’s, you know, you’re always going to relate to someone that looks like you. I do these little events. Obviously, very appreciative of the turnout here. But the turnout there was insane. They’re expecting 500 people. There was like 3,000 people. So the guy’s like oh, this Mustafa, maybe he does the show. I was like, ‘It’s the Night of Champions. You have to be a champion to be on the show. I’m not a champion.’ I didn’t realize I was talking to like the president of the GEA, which is a general entertainment authority that basically runs the shows in Saudi Arabia. He goes, ‘You leave it to me, I talk to Vince.’ I go No, no. He goes ‘I’m going to request that you’re on the show.’ I think what happened was someone told Vince what to do, and he’s like, ‘Oh, okay.’ So the whole day, I kind of could sense the nervous tension about something was going to happen. I had this promo, but I’m reading it, and it was like, and then what happens? They go, ‘Well, Brock’s just gonna walk by.’ And I go, yeah? And last second, you know, let me ask you guys this question. When someone’s doing a backstage interview, where does it happen? Backstage. Not by Gorilla. So they go at the last second, I’m getting ready. ‘Oh, we’re moving the shot to gorilla now.’ And I go, right, okay, here it comes. So I didn’t know he was gonna say that. So when he said that and he walked off, there was this dead silence, because everyone that worked there, they knew what happened. They’re like, Oh, they’re trying to send a message, but it’s like, why does it have to be in my expense? So it’s just one of those things, I think, because of the frustration and because of what had happened, I think that’s why Shawn had reached out to Hunter about NXT, because right after that is when I made my NXT appearance. But again, not to cry over it like that. It is what it is, the way the cookie crumbles. I know when I look at WWE, I know that I knocked on every door, I presented every idea, I never said no for the most part, and I did good work, man. I’m never gonna look in the mirror and be like, Oh man, I failed. I talked to a lot of my peers that have unfortunately got let go. I go, are you doing okay? And they all said the same thing. They go, man, I just wish I tried a little harder. I wish I wasn’t mad. I go, when I got let go, I just go, well, there’s nothing else I could have done. I tried everything. Comedy, serious, being the little guy, this guy, whatever the hell. So I walked away with that. And then, you know, when Brock said, Go get a life kid, I quite literally did that. I’m the f*cking man now!”

What was the idea of coming up with the light-up mask?

“So it’s long gone now, but everyone thought it was Sub Zero. I think some people thought it was Iron Man. The idea that I sat down and kind of presented to Vince at the time was that I want to be the light. And what I mean by that is everyone was just such a badass. No one was like genuine babyface. The idea behind it was I wanted to be the light. He said, Well, how do we convey that you’re the light? Why are you just walking around saying that you’re the light? So the idea about the light was Oh, I’ll be the physical embodiment of the light. So it’s like, you know, when you’re going through dark times, my hope was to motivate you through a promo. That’s why all the 205 Live matches, I got my ass kicked on design so that you can see that this guy will not stay down. He has something that he’s fighting for. So just that idea of, like, light being a symbol, you know, the whole idea, there’s light at the end of tunnel, there is hope. That was the idea behind it. The quick little Daniel Bryan story, I was never supposed to be on SmackDown. I was on 205 Live, doing my thing, and one day I’d like to reenact this, but there’s not enough room. A writer told me this story. They’re all sitting in the writers room, and Daniel Bryan comes in. He kicks the door and he goes, ‘Hey, we don’t have any hot young babyfaces for me to work. I want a hot young babyface! Give me a good-looking baby face for me to beat the sh*t out of.’ The next week, they’re like, ‘Hey, you’re wrestling Daniel Bryan.'”

What are 3 things you are grateful for?

“My wife, time, and the chance to dream.”

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Kris Statlander (@callmekrisstat) is a professional wrestler currently signed to AEW. She sits down with Chris Van Vliet at West Coast Creative Studio in Hollywood, CA to discuss winning the AEW Women’s Championship and if she felt she was ready, her nickname “The Galaxy’s Greatest Alien”, her violent match with Willow Nightingale at All Out, landing on a bed of nails in Blood and Guts, her WWE appearance and why it didn’t lead to more, bringing Jade Cargill’s TBS Title reign to an end, and more!

A lot of fans would say that this was a long time coming. About six years in AEW, you became the Women’s Champ. 

“I guess I kind of agree. I feel like you shouldn’t always necessarily need to brand yourself as a champion in order to be worthy of having this memorable career, so to speak. I feel like actually winning the championship kind of came at a really weird time for me. It almost didn’t feel like it was the right time, because the way Toni Storm went about making the match was like, You, you, you, let’s go do it, and we’re like, okay, so it’s kind of like taking advantage of an opportunity. Meanwhile, I was still getting harassed by the Deathriders and trying to sneak my way out of dealing with them. And then the up and down situation with Willow, and then me and Harley were kind of a thing. It was like a really, really weird time where I was very unsure of what I wanted to do and what path I wanted to take. Now I’m in this opportunity to win this belt. I’ve never gotten a chance to win, and I haven’t wrestled four in years at this point, so it’s like, I’m not gonna not take the opportunity, just because in my mind, things are all over the place. But at the same time, it felt really weird. It was just kind of like, well, I guess we’re here, so okay, and now it’s just kind of been an uphill battle trying to cement myself and find myself, while also putting myself and showing everyone who I am as the World Champion. So it’s been a really odd time.”

Did you feel you weren’t ready to win the championship?

“No, I felt I was ready. It’s really more just like a mental [feeling of] I don’t know if everyone is ready to see me in this position, if that makes sense. Because I feel like fans were always there hesitant to like me a little bit still, because of the fact that I turned on my one of my best friends and I and I punched Orange Cassidy in the face, and I murdered Willow for a good couple of months, so it’s hard to kind of and then I was like, No, guys, I messed up, and now I’m going to try and be better. And everyone’s like, Okay, but why? And I’m like, trust me. I know what I’m doing. I feel bad, and I never really did anything to gain everyone’s trust back. So it’s more I feel like people are happy for me. They think that I deserve it, but people can be like, Oh, I’m happy for this person, they deserve it, blah, blah, blah… and then don’t really care what happens after they get to the top. So now I’m trying to rebuild my friendships and prove to everyone that I’m worthy of being a champion, and also keep telling myself like, No, you deserve to be here. You’re ready for this. It’s fine. You don’t have to worry about it. But I have a lot of emotions in my head about this, so it’s been a little bit of an internal battle, even though I feel very confident in my abilities.”

So how did wrestling find you?

“I met friends who were wrestlers, and when I was doing my stunt double training at the time, when I was 18, they were like, ‘That’s similar, come valet us.’ I was like, Sure, I don’t know what that is, but, ok. So I would go, and they would just kind of give me a quick rundown of how to be a manager. And I was like, okay, and then I would just leave, and I’d be like, I don’t know what I’m doing here.”

So what’s the moment when you fell in love with wrestling?

“I kind of fell in love with it when I realized I could do a lot of what the in-ring stuff was when I was still kind of valeting. I think that’s kind of when I was like, oh, I want to try that. I want to give it a go. And then I started my in-ring training, and it definitely wasn’t like a one moment hit, and I was like, This is what I want to. It was a very gradual, a slow fall, if you will, in love with it. I started my in-ring training, and then three months into training, I broke my heel, split my heel bone right in half, and then I sat and watched training every day for the two months that I was out. And then when I got back in the ring right after, and I was able to pick things up a lot quicker, I feel like that’s kind of when one people really started taking me under their wing, because they saw how much that I cared about it. When I when people started helping me a little bit more, is when I realized I was like, Oh, this is actually something I can actually do and pursue, especially now that people want to see me succeed at it. And then it just became something that I kind of just never really knew where it would take me. I just sort of was like, let’s just see where it goes. And now here we are.”

Your name is Kris Statlander and your character’s name is also Kris Statlander. How were they different, and how are they similar?

“Well, Kris Stadtlander, the non-wrestler, it’s spelt s, t, a, d, t, l, a, n, d, e, r, so that’s really a big difference. I also feel like I’m very shy, and when I’m meeting new people, I really don’t speak a lot because I don’t ever want to like interfere with the vibes of other people in a group, and I worry sometimes people might not think I’m friendly for that, but I always try to be friendly. I like to keep to myself. I like to be kind of alone a lot of my time. But then at work, big, powerful, strong person, and I try to be more out there. I try to be bold and daring and scary and stuff like that. But I’m not a scary person. I’m not an intimidating person. I’m such a weird, weird, weird, weird, dork person, and I don’t have any shame in that. I’m not afraid to admit that, and I think it’s taken me a long time to be like I don’t care if you think I’m weird. I don’t think care if you think I’m cringey in my personal time, because that’s who I am, and I’m not gonna apologize for acting weird on my own time. So I think that’s the biggest thing, is that I tried to kind of be everybody, be both of them at once. When I was alien Kris early on, trying to be like, No, I’m just a weird person, and I’m gonna do embarrassing things, but I’m an alien, so it’s fine. You understand that it’s different, but now trying to be a more serious, more badass character. People don’t like it when you do weird things, they’re like, that doesn’t make any sense. And I’m like, Well, I’m sorry. It’s just me. I can’t help it, sometimes.”

You were The Galaxy’s Greatest Alien. Are you still an alien?

“Well, I’ve never said I wasn’t, and I think that says enough as it is. When I went from Galaxy’s Greatest Alien to more than a woman, I did that purposefully, because I like the undertone of being more than a woman. So it’s like a little bit different, or more than just the ordinary sort of. Now doing cosmic killer is kind of like cosmic is just, it means large and of great proportions and stuff like that. It doesn’t necessarily mean space, so it’s still kind of like underlying tones of everything, without having to be like alien, oh, my god, out of this world.” 

We have to talk about this wild match at All Out with Willow. What was the most painful thing in this match?

“I know what you’re expecting me to say, and you know what? This wasn’t a physical pain thing. This is an emotional pain thing. At one point in the match, we took out the chains where we tied ourselves to each other, and I tied hers to her, and I was having trouble tying mine to me, and I just head-butted her to kind of keep her down. And I was like, I’m so sorry, because that wasn’t an initial idea of something that might happen. So that was probably the worst thing that I did. I was like, Oh, I had to just keep you down. That wasn’t my favorite thing I’ve ever done, but you gotta eat up the time somehow, while I was struggling with my wrist. So that one probably hurt me the most emotionally.”

What was the overall idea you guys had going into that match? Because it was violent.

“Yeah, I think we really wanted to just push the boundary of what we’ve been allowed to do. We got really lucky that we were able to do a light tube spot, because that’s not something with fans around and the glass. It’s very dangerous. But doing it on the stage and kind of away from the fans, that was a good way to kind of cover our bases. Also probably won’t be able to do that anytime in the future, just because it’s shatter risk, and we don’t want to put any fans in harm’s way at all.” 

Was that your first time taking light tubes? 

“Yes, actually, yeah. And it was not as bad as I thought. It did kind of burn a little bit. There’s a lot of things in wrestling that don’t look very fun. Obviously, I’m sure the other spot you’re thinking of is the splits on the thumbtacks. I will say I was thinking about that for months. I had that spot in my head for months. I wanted to do it so bad, and it really wasn’t that bad, because it was mostly my thigh. So we’re good.”

Tacks don’t look fun:

“Yeah, it’s not fun. It’s not as bad as you would think. I think the worst tack thing I actually did it to Marina, where I barefoot dropped her onto the tacks. That’s probably the most painful tack thing you could probably take. And I didn’t even do that one. So kudos to her.”

In Blood and Guts you fell onto a bed of nails!

“Again, not as bad as I thought it was gonna be.”

The photo you posted later looked bad.

“Yeah, I think I still have some scars on my lower back from it, but I like scars. So I was like, yes! I think they’re cool. I’ve been dying to get a face scar. Have something happen. Get a nice, cool face scar. That’s my wish. That’s my dream.”

This match with Jade Cargill. She goes into it, she’s 60-0. She has the streak. She’s undefeated. You end up beating her. It’s a huge moment. You become the TBS champion. Talk me through this match.

“Well, it was my first match after my second knee surgery, getting thrown into that, a title match and trying to defeat the undefeated, big task ahead of me. My goal was really to do the unimaginable and pin her. And I did that. I think a lot more things in my head was like, don’t trip on your entrance, and blah, blah, blah. I did kind of lose my balance on my entrance and I was like, great, this is off to a great this is off to a great start. But it all happened so fast that by the time I was holding the belt, I was like, where am I? What just happened? Similar feeling to when I won this one, too. Both of my title reigns were very much like, well, I guess we’re here. I did it. So yeah, my goal was just to do the impossible, I think.”

In 2019, the same year when you made your AEW debut, you also made your WWE debut on SmackDown. You just went by Kristin on that episode of SmackDown. Why were you just Kristin?

“Well, originally the team name was supposed to be the Brooklyn Pizza Connection, and we were supposed to be named Saucy and Cheesy.” 

Were are you gonna be Saucy or Cheesy? 

“I don’t know, we never got that far, but those were the options. Then it was the Brooklyn Belles, and then just used our first names. But I was like, that would have been iconic to have been either saucy or cheesy, and my only match there was a tag title match. So what a way to go, to go in and go out right away. Yeah. But then now I have tag titles at AEW to go for, and maybe I’ll be Saucy or Cheesy or Garlic or Oregano, something like that.”

So then how did the opportunity with AEW come about?

“I got an email, and I was like, Okay, I’ll go. Sounds great. Then I was very fortunate when I showed up to AEW, just as an extra work, they brought me in. I got the dark match, and we had done training before in the ring, and before I even did my dark match, I remember people being like, did anyone talk to you about your contract? And I was like, I don’t even do anything. Are you sure? And then we had gotten into the talks of turning it into me being a part of the roster. But I just remember showing up, and I was like, Why do you want me here? I didn’t even do anything yet. So, yeah, that’s kind of how it worked out, just getting the emails and just working hard. I remember that day, whatever, the day that I got my first opportunity with AEW, I was doing like six shows a week at the time on the Indies, I was tired. Three weeks in a row, I did like six shows.” 

What is Kris Statlander grateful for?

“My animals, my family and my job.”

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Brad Williams (@funnybrad) is a stand-up comedian, actor and massive wrestling fan. He sits down with Chris Van Vliet at West Coast Creative Studio in Hollywood, CA to discuss his love of comedy and wrestling and why the two work so well together, if he is taller than Hornswoggle, making jokes about wrestlers on The Jericho Cruise, his issues with Peter Dinklage, possibly wrestling a match, the viral spot between Omos and Micro Man, dressing up as Scott Steiner, and more!

Maybe you’re El Grande Americano?

“You never know. No, with this forehead, a mask couldn’t even fit over this thing. Although that would be so funny. El Grande Americano is a dwarf, but yes, this is one of the non-wrestler episodes, so no doubt, huge crash in the ratings, huge dip.”

But anybody who has been on the Jericho Cruise knows that you love wrestling?

“Yes, I’m a mark, as they say, and it’s been really cool doing the Jericho Cruise. I’m now the official comedian of the Jericho Cruise. I am the director of laughs of the Chris Jericho Rock and Wrestling Rager at Sea. I book the comedians. So if you ever see a show at the Jericho Cruise that sucks, blame me. But so far, they haven’t, because it’s been really fantastic. There’s so many comics that are really big wrestling fans, and I think it’s because comedians look at wrestling, and we get it. It’s performance art, and it’s playing an elevated version of yourself. It’s playing a character, and we can see that some wrestlers are actually good on the mic, which pisses me off so much when a wrestler is good on the mic. So I’m like, you don’t get all the skills. Nic Nemeth, he’s good. His brother Ryan is good, but in a completely different way.”

When wrestlers do comedy it works:

“What Toni Storm is doing right now in AEW is brilliant. It’s great comedy, calling people slop tarts and tits up. It’s awesome. I love it because sometimes wrestling fans get so into wrestling that it becomes this sacred cow that cannot be silly or funny or whatever. No, wrestling is supposed to be silly. Wrestling is supposed to be fun. Once we got past the 70s and 80s, where it’s hard to believe that at one point in our country, people were still like, ‘No, they’re fighting. That guy legit hates that guy, and they are legit fighting.’ Once we found out that it is predetermined, I think that opened up the world. You could have your grapplers, you could have your street fighters, but then you could also have your Orange Cassidy’s. You could have your Iguana man’s. You could have your very silly people. You could have Santino with the freaking Cobra. You can do that, and it’s silly. And we all just acknowledge because if you take away The Undertaker’s mystique, it’s silly. He’s a zombie. He throws lightning. There’s fire that he can summon, he’s got way too much eyeshadow on. He looks like a My Chemical Romance fan going through a midlife crisis. But then it’s because it’s The Undertaker, that’s like, okay, but it’s the Undertaker. I went slight Vince mode there. But wrestling is supposed to be fun. Wrestling is supposed to be silly and it’s performative. And that’s one of the reasons why I love it.”

Give me your Mount Rushmore of comedy wrestlers:

“Well, if I’m doing it, it’s more like a molehill. So Brad Williams’ Molehill Rushmore of comedy wrestlers. All right, you got to put The Rock on there. Had so many funny moments, so many. I would put Santino on there just with all the mispronunciations of everybody’s name. I would put mutual friend Chris Jericho on there, not known for being a comedic wrestler, because he’s so good at everything else. He made clicking a pen be threatening! R-Truth, for him saying that John Cena was his favorite wrestler as a child, as a childhood hero, and R-Truth is three years older than John Cena or whatever he is. It’s a basic joke, but it’s so good. I got one more. This will make a lot of people mad, but I love Orange Cassidy. He made it work, and he’s done so many good things, and I will usually laugh at some point. When he and Sting did the back and forth, and Sting said yes to it, which I found out later was improvised.

Because one thing you find out in wrestling, and it’s true in comedy too, is you have to commit fully to the bit. You cannot second-guess. You cannot be like, I’m not sure about this. I know Jericho has talked about the pen, where he would tell the wrestlers, you have to sell the pen. Think about the time when Mick Foley came out and he just got beaten up by Triple H as Mankind. And now he reveals that now he’s Cactus Jack and Triple H acts like Mick Foley just shot his brother in the ring, he just throws his hair. No, not Cactus Jack! Anything but the same guy I beat last night. Wrestling, inherently, if you break it down, it’s kind of dumb, but it’s just so much fun when you actually go for that, and you get fully into it, and you believe it, because that kind of stuff isn’t going to happen in real life. I can’t be about to fight a guy and be like, ‘You know what? You beat Brad Williams, but now you face Half Pint!'”

Is that your alter ego?

“All right, I’m not gonna lie, Half Pint was what I would always put myself as a create a wrestler. I always did half pint, and I would always give myself like Big Show move sets, just because I thought it was hilarious.”

Was your create a wrestler small?

“Of course, yes! But the problem was that they couldn’t make them small enough. I stopped playing wrestling video games at SmackDown: Here Comes the Pain. Which arguably is the best one ever. But the create a wrestler had Rey Mysterio height, and that’s the shortest it could go. I need to go lower!”

Who’s taller? You or Hornswoggle.

“All right. This is a debate which I hate saying this because I hate giving Hornswoggle any credit for anything. I feel bad saying another dwarf was funny, because it’s like we’re Highlanders. There can be only one. So Hornswoggle, I would say, is probably an inch taller than me. But because of his spinal surgeries, I think he’s back down to my level. There’s a video online of one of the greatest moments of my life, of me getting in the ring with Hornswoggle, the dream match, not a match, but the dream run-in happened on the Jericho Cruise. We stood eye to eye, which is the only person, literally, I could stand eye to eye with, and it was an awesome moment. Whenever I would go on the Jericho Cruise, people would ask me to get in the ring. I’m like, No, I’m not gonna get in the ring. These guys are trained. I’m not trained. But when Hornswoggle was booked on the Jericho Cruise, and I was on the Jericho Cruise, I’m like, okay, Chris, I know what you’re doing, and it’s working, because it’s gonna happen. We saw each other in the check-in line to go on the boat, and we immediately started chirping at each other, and we saw the crowd reaction of everyone just going, what the f*ck? Two dwarves are gonna fight? Two dwarves are gonna fight! I don’t know what happens when two dwarves fight. Do portals open up? Do rainbows fly out of the ring? Gold Coins get showered from the sky? I have no idea what happens. And we saw people really get into it. So then we had to do this thing, because, you know, people have pulled back the curtain on this podcast many times, me and Dylan are friends. I love the guy.”

At the core, comedy and wrestling have one thing in common, storytelling.

“It’s just storytelling. Yes, when you see two wrestlers fight, you haven’t been to a situation like that. You haven’t had a guy do that to you or backstab you, but you’ve had a greater theme happen that relates, like, Stone Cold and Vince. You all had a boss you hated. I doubt many of you poured cement into your boss’s Corvette, but you wanted to. So that relates. I’m a little person, not my whole crowd is in dwarves. But the stories I’m telling, they relate to, they identify with. You know, when I talk about my wife, when I talk about my kid, when I’m doing that kind of stuff, people out there have wives and kids and spouses that annoy them sometimes too.”

Do you have some ideas in your notes app for when you’re gonna roast wrestlers on the cruise this year?

“Yes, so that’s one thing I do. One thing I do every time is I roast the wrestlers. Because when else is a guy my size gonna walk up to a guy like Wardlow and make fun of him to his face. The roasting started accidentally. I didn’t know I was going to do it, and then it just became a thing, because it was me and SCU and we were all talking in the back. Frankie Kazarian and Christopher Daniels Scorpio Sky. Scorpio mentions casually, just in conversation. He’s like, ‘Yeah, I was kind of nervous coming on this boat, because I don’t know how to swim.’ I went, Okay, put that in the back. Go on stage that night for the comedy show and I talk about how Scorpio Sky can’t swim. ‘Really, you can’t swim? You could do a springboard somersault, Hurricanrana inside of a steel cage, no problem. But this move is too hard? This is too hard for you to do?’ And that got a big laugh. And when I did that, I was like, okay, so then it just became a part of it where every time I get up there. No one’s gotten mad at me directly, but guys I’ve mentioned, like, ‘Yeah, I let that one slide.’ It’s kind of their warning shot of like, Hey, that was fun. Don’t really do that again. But for the most part, the wrestlers have been amazing. They really like it. You could always make fun of The Gunns. You make any kind of Nepo baby jokes you want to them, they’re fantastic. The fact their dad still looks better than they do and he’s 30 years older, they’re awesome. I love them, they are so much fun. But then sometimes, all right, so the one when I can get a holy sh*t chant on a joke. So this one was last year. I did Will Ospreay earlier. ‘If Will Ospreay is here and not on TV, then what is Dave Meltzer jerking off to this week?’ That was fun. This was the one that got a holy sh*t chant where I said, ‘I actually stopped watching AEW for quite a while, because, let’s face it, AEW is being run by an egomaniac wrestling mark who nobody likes, and they’re all afraid to call him out on his bullsh*t. But enough about CM Punk.’ So it’s fun. If Punk were here right now, I would say that joke to his face. To me, that’s the rule, you have to be able to say it to their face, because then if you do it and they’re not there, which I did, but I would say that joke to his face, and if he had a problem with it, whatever. But it’s all in good fun.”

You also recently introduced us to Little Poppa Pump on The Jericho Cruise:

“Another crazy story. So Little Poppa Pump, it’s the last match, again, where oftentimes it just descends into chaos. Scott Steiner had been on the cruise, and he had done some podcasts, done some autograph signings, and they wanted him to do this run-in at the end. Right near when it was about to go he’s like, ‘I’m tired. I’m gonna go to bed.’ So Scott Steiner goes to bed, and now they’re like, Okay, what are we gonna do? And then Jericho texted me, ‘Where are you right now?’ Where I was last year, buddy. I’m on the side of the ring. He goes, get back here. So I run to the back, and he goes, ‘Hey, Steiner is out for the main, so we were thinking about you doing a run-in at the end.’ And I go, ‘Wait, Steiner’s out? How much time do we have?’ And he’s like, maybe 10-15 minutes. I’m like, I got this. So I run down to my room, and I don’t know why I brought this with me. I have a fan who, every time I go to a city in Ohio where he lives, he makes me art that is just soda pop tabs that put together like chain mail. He’s made me vests. He’s made me wrist things. It’s an amazing talent. It’s ridiculous. Also, I never asked for it. It’s not like I’m on stage going, if only I had a pop tab vest. No, he just brings them to me. He asked me one year, he goes, ‘Can I make anything for you? I just bring you sh*t. Is there anything you want?’ I’m a wrestling fan, so I go, ‘Oh, let’s do the Steiner chain mail.’ I sent him some photos. He’s like, Okay, I could do that. He made it for me, and I brought it on the Jericho Cruise. There was no plan. I just had it. I think I did a signing with it on, because all the wrestlers always do autograph signings. I tried to flex the whole time, but that didn’t work. That’s hard to do. But I had it with me. So I run, and I grab this chain mail armor, throw it on, get some sunglasses, take off my shirt. It’s Little Poppa Pump. And thankfully, the wrestlers were really cool. I did a step suplex and then I did What’s up headbutt as Steiner, which was just fun. But yeah, Little Poppa Pump was a character, but the fact that it was Scott Steiner that walked out and that I had the outfit, so it’s like we planned it.”

Do you have the same disdain for Peter Dinklage that Hornswoggle does?

“Yes! Yes, I do. That is where Hornswoggle and I will absolutely be on the same page. That is where the Mega Powers will collide and we will unite as a tag team over our disdain for Peter Dinklage. Now, I have disdain for Peter Dinklage for a couple of reasons. Is this a shoot? Let’s go! First of all, I have disdain for Dinklage because he’s really freaking talented. He’s really amazing. He’s a really great actor, pure jealousy. If they made a movie and called The Brad Williams Story, it would be starring Peter Dinklage. All right, let’s be honest. The guy gets everything. But the real disdain comes for the same reason why Hornswoggle doesn’t like him is that he came out and was really angry that the live-action Snow White movie was going to use real dwarf actors, and he thought that was offensive. If someone else gets work, that’s really offensive to him, and it’s not to his cultural standards of what a dwarf should do to be a respected member of this business. Now I get it, Dinklage, you went on Saturday Night Live and instructed all the writers not to make any dwarf jokes. I know you did that for a fact, because I know several writers on that show. And that’s fine. That’s your preference. He made a stand and said, I’m not going to take offensive dwarf roles, or so he thought. Because I remember Dinklage that you were in a movie called Tiptoes. And Tiptoes is the most offensive movie to little people ever made. This is where in the podcast you will run the preview for Tiptoes, because it looks like a Saturday Night Live sketch. When you watch it, you’re like there’s no way that’s real. Now, you’re like, Tiptoes is probably a nothing movie. Nobody’s in it, right? Wrong! It stars Matthew McConaughey, Kate Beckinsale Patricia Arquette, Peter Dinklage, and in the role of a lifetime, which the narrator says in the preview, he goes, …And in the role of a lifetime, Gary Oldman.’ Because Gary Oldman plays a dwarf. Now you’re thinking, okay, yeah, you were like, they probably did some CGI stuff, right? Nope. They got Gary on his knees, put some shoes down there. They tied his arms back so his arms would be shorter. Doesn’t look like a little person at all, and he’s a dwarf in the film. Yeah, it’s the most offensive movie to little people ever made. Dinklage has an accent in the movie, which doesn’t make any sense because it switches three times throughout. It starts off, he’s like, ‘I’m from Brussels…’ and it’s like French. And later, I don’t know what it is, it just changes. There’s a fight scene between Gary Oldman as a dwarf and a guy who’s having sex with his girlfriend. His girlfriend in the film is played by Bridget The Midget, the porn star. Yep, she’s in that movie as well. It’s bonkers, they ignore all laws of genetics, and the movie is horrible. And Dinklage has been in that film. So my point is, you can’t be in Tiptoes, the worst movie, also shout out to David Alan Greer, who’s in the film. You can’t be in Tiptoes, the most offensive movie little people ever made, and then come out and try to take work from dwarf actors and say you can’t play the role of a dwarf because it’s considered offensive to you. That’s where me and Hornswoggle agreed.”

Would you have liked to have been a dwarf? 

“Yes, literally the role I was born to play, genetically. I would have loved to. I don’t care which one, happy, sleepy, dopey, I’ll be grumpy. I don’t care. By the way, one of the funnier things is whenever I’m out in public and someone is wearing a grumpy t-shirt and they see me, they’re like, Ah, f*ck! That is one of the funnier things that I’ve experienced.”

Has anyone pitched for you to be in a full-on wrestling match?

“I have been in one. Not for any of the major companies. There was a fayre, and they had wrestling at the fayre, and they needed some wrestlers, and they called up a wrestling school where I had taken literally one lesson back in my early 20s. I thought, maybe I’ll give this a shot. I took one lesson, after the one lesson I was like, this hurts. No, I’m out. So respect to everyone who does it. But they called up this wrestling school. ‘Hey, we need some wrestlers, also one of our minis couldn’t make it. Do you guys have a mini?’ That’s code for little guy. They go, yeah, we got one. I had taken one lesson, one lesson! I show up to the fayre pretty much dressed like John Cena, I think I had jorts. They go, this is your opponent, the crazy clown is the guy I’m facing, and he doesn’t speak English, so we have to go back and forth with a translator, and he’s a pro. He’s like, ‘What can you do?’ And I go, nothing! So he’s like, okay, so he plans out a match. I did get a really nasty bump during the match, though, because I was like, let’s do a dive to the outside and I’ll dive, and he’s like I’ll catch you. I dove, he caught me, but then adrenaline, I dove too far, and moved back, caught me, and then took two more steps back, fell, and then my head on the railing, bam. I had a lump. This is a big head. I don’t need it to be any bigger. I won the match on a sunset flip, undefeated, pulled off a hurricanrana during the match. That was fun. But if anyone wants me to get into the ring again. Oh, okay. But the thing is, is I have so much respect for the business. I just watched the WWE Unreal, and they talked about when Jelly Roll was gonna do his match, and shout out to Jelly Roll, friend of mine, good guy, big fan of comedy. He took it seriously, and that’s what I would want to do. If I’m going to do anything now, I’m going to take it seriously. I’ll do a run-in, sure. Run-ins are fun. But if anyone ever wants me to actually go, if you want me and Swoggle to go, all right, I gotta do some training.”

What about you and Omos? Did you see that moment with Omos and Microman?

“That would have to be me, Swoggle, there’s another dwarf wrestler, I think he just retired, but his name is Short Sleeve Samson. We’d have to get all of us in there. We’d have to get dink, mink, pink, stink, all of them. They’d have to all come back, and we’d have to all form up and like a Voltron or like a Power Rangers and like fight him. That’s madness, man. But I would. My phone is open. I love doing things in this business that scare me. I love doing things that I enjoy. So it’s like, if someone wants me to do a wrestling thing, I’ll do a wrestling thing, but I’m not doing the county fayre show again. It’s gonna have to be something where it’s like, I have to tell my wife, like, Hey, I’m gonna go get myself in danger and beat up a little bit.”

What is Brad Williams grateful for?

“The lack of gatekeepers in this space, to anyone who buys a ticket to see live comedy, and that I get along with my family.”

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Darby Allin (@DarbyAllin) is a professional wrestler currently signed to AEW. He sits down with Chris Van Vliet at West Coast Creative Studio in Hollywood, CA to discuss climbing  Mount Everest, crashing through a pane of glass during Sting’s last match, getting launched onto the announce table by Claudio Castagnoli, whether he sees himself becoming AEW World Champion, whether he thinks his spots ever go too far, winning the TNT Championship, breaking his foot in the ring, getting hit by a bus in New York, and more!

What do you feel like your relationship with fear is like?

“I love it. Honestly, goes back to when I was in middle school. I would look at the wall in my room and just think my whole life’s gonna amount to nothing. I was so just life’s over. There’s nothing to look forward to. I had no confidence in the world at all, but the more fear [I had], I went straight on and started doing crazy stuff. It gave me all this confidence, and it made me believe anything was possible. So fast forward all these years later, I’m doing the most crazy stuff, like Everest and everything, but I feel the most confident and I feel the most at peace with myself. So that’s why I constantly love fear.”

7,000 people have climbed Mount Everest. That’s it.

“Yeah, I don’t know. It just puts things into perspective, kind of how small your problems are, what you think is so big really doesn’t mean a thing. It’s very humbling when you’re up there, because it’s hard to have an ego when you’re fighting for your life on a daily basis. Because you don’t care about how you look, you don’t care about how you smell. You just want to survive. So it’s pretty cool to be in that type of energy.”

There is a real possibility you could die up there. Did you say your goodbyes before you went up there? Did that hit you?

“Yeah, absolutely. I climbed with my mom and my brother to base camp, and the base camp hike, to a lot of people it’s no joke, it takes like 10-12 days. The elevation is like 17,000 [feet]. But the reality hit me when my mom and my brother were leaving base camp, and now I had to stay behind to actually go for the summit, and I was going to be there for another month after they left, but when I saw them walking away, the reality hit, oh sh*t, this might be the last time you see them. Then it just thought about, this might be the last time you’ve seen anybody. I was like, Oh crazy. So I went in my tent and I cried, and I filmed a little vlog about it and stuff, being like, there’s no way I’m gonna die on this mountain. I’m gonna summit, then I’m going to come back down and see a lot of people. So it was a commitment I made to myself when I was up there.”

What was the reason you wanted to do it?

“What I said earlier, I wanted to tell myself I was capable of anything, because you find yourself on this hamster wheel and wrestling. There’s no off-season. It’s all year long. And sometimes you feel like you’re living your life for somebody else. I wanted to really find out who I was going to be on the other side of Everest, and I didn’t want to live my life for somebody else. I wanted to really prove to myself what I was capable of. Because it goes back to the politicking and everything like that and the egos. I can’t stand it.”

Growing up, how does wrestling get into this?

“I always remember wrestling being there. I always remember it being in the background. I remember, we’re going to talk about Jeff Hardy, but I remember when I was in kindergarten, I’d watch Jeff Hardy, and then I would climb on top of top of my piano, and there’d be a concrete floor, and front flip off and just knock the sh*t out of myself, just rolling around, but it’s always there. It was always a form, like an outlet to entertain, plus just to have an excuse to go crazy in front of a live crowd.”

Was Jeff Hardy your guy growing up?

“Him, Mick Foley, a lot of those guys really spoke to me as a kid, especially coming from skateboarding and stunts and wildness, they weren’t your traditional wrestlers, so they were very appealing in that sense.”

Are you in any pain as you sit here right now?

“No. I’m not lying. I’m completely straight edge. I don’t take pain pills, I don’t take anything. I asked for this, and I want to deal with it mentally and with the human brain, and all the meditating and everything that I do, I feel like I can deal with anything.”

When you started talking about this match with Jeff Hardy, are both of you guys going all right, how are we gonna one-up each other? 

“For the first time in my career it did feel like I was calling a match with myself, and that was a fun feeling. Because originally it was supposed to be just a straight-up wrestling match, but nobody wants to watch Darby Allin and Jeff Hardy trade wrist locks. We got to bend the rules a little bit. Then one thing led to another, and it was for the Owen Hart Tournament. So, all right, this is relaxed rules, whatever that means. And the next thing you know, we’re out here talking about, all right, I’m gonna do this. And then he’s like, I’m gonna do this, and it’s just super fun, because, to me, I love traditional wrestling, I love World of Sport, I love all of that. Not a lot of people would think I do, but I am obsessed with all that technical wrestling. But you got to think of the big puzzle of what AEW is and where you can fit on that, what makes it different. I’m not going to go in there and be like, oh, I want to be a technical wrestler, because you take a guy like Danielson, he’s the best at that. So I’ll be the guy who will be willing to go places no one’s willing to go physically. That’s where I fit in, and everything like that. So it was just super fun, because you got that energy match with somebody like Jeff, and now you’re like, Oh no, this is a car crash. This is everything I would love if I was watching TV flipping through the channels. Oh my god. It was a really great experience.”

You jumped off a ladder onto Jeff Hardy, and then there were chairs there too. Talk me through that spot.

“Well, I don’t know. I felt like it wasn’t so much of live up to the hype of what people expected, it was to live up to the hype that I expected. So it’s like, man, because I expect a lot out of myself any night of the week. I don’t save any big things for a pay-per-view. I’ll be going ballistic on Dynamite, Collision. It don’t matter. I’ll be going ballistic every night. But with this Jeff Hardy match, I was like, Dude, we gotta go, and all I kept thinking is, all right, there’s this ladder, and then there’s a stack of chairs. I don’t know where it came from, but it just seemed like the most logical step. But also, I’ve never seen it done before, because everyone’s like, how are you supposed to even land that safe? I honestly don’t know.” 

You don’t think that through?

“No. And also I’m very chill with going to the hospital and breaking things. I don’t care. It doesn’t bother me, which I think, in the long run, actually, that helps me, because when you’re afraid of stuff, that’s when you get hurt. But if you just go with the flow, like it’s nice and loose, you’d be surprised what your body can handle.” 

Have they ever told you that’s too much? We don’t want to do that. 

“The Sting spot, easily, the Sting spot. [So this is off the ladder through the glass?] Yeah. I remember the moment I hit it, my adrenaline was just going through the roof and the referee comes up, ‘How are you feeling?’ I feel good. He’s like, oh sh*t. My insides got sliced into the glass, and then he’s like, ‘We got to bring you to the back.’ I was like, There’s no way you can bring me to the back. So if you see me come back into the match at the very end, I’m wrapped in duct tape. And I was like, just wrap it up, I only have one more spot. So let’s finish strong. I can’t go to the back. I remember Tony saying that could have been really bad.”

You splatted when you hit, it looked like the glass barely breaks your fall. Did it hurt?

“Surprisingly not. But a couple of weeks later, I’m still pulling glass out of myself. I don’t know. It wasn’t like, oh my God, that was miserable. I was like that was chill. If you look back at when I did the front flip off of the ladder onto Jeff, I whisper in his ear when we’re laying down, I’m like, that was fun, just to let him know, because a lot of these spots, when you do some crazy stuff, you don’t know how the person you’re wrestling is going to be after it. So it’s kind of good to give them the whole like, Dude, this is cool.”

What do you say to those people that don’t like the way that you wrestle. 

“Oh, I don’t know. There’s so much different things to like or not like. You don’t have to pay no attention to me if you don’t like it, just go complain about something. There’s just nothing to say. I’m just gonna keep doing what I do.”

Do you look at your style and think that you will have to adapt it?

“I think everybody has to shift their style to a degree, absolutely. But that’s the beauty of wrestling, to me, is you can’t have a pro athlete playing NBA or NFL at 64 or a skateboarder. But you can have Sting going out there having a rememberable retirement match at 64, so there’s ways around it, obviously. But also you got to look at Sting. He was jumping off balconies, which is something he never did in his early years. He was doing that at the very end. So there’s ways to keep the craziness but also, you know, mirror it. I’m not going to be able to run as fast or do my dives as hard as maybe I want to. But that doesn’t mean I can’t jump off 30-foot balconies. There’s just ways around it.”

Have you seen the comparisons to Spike Dudley?

“Yeah, I don’t really see it to be honest, because I’m way more of a wrestler, wrestler. I don’t feel like Spike was ever a technical wrestler.”

I think it’s because he took some nasty bumps too:

“Definitely, but I definitely feel like I’m way more of a wrestler’s wrestler than that. I sh*t you not. I feel like I could out-wrestle a lot of people from a technical standpoint, but ain’t nobody want to see Darby Allin do a lot of technical wrestling. But when I do, it’s super fun, because I feel like people always forget that I know how to do this. But I got a ring at my house, and I train all the time. So, yeah, I don’t personally see it, but that’s just the nature of the business. I feel like a lot of wrestling stuff is very small-minded. You think about, oh, he’s with Sting because they have face paint. It’s like, Dude, it goes way beyond that. I feel like, yeah, a lot of people are very small-minded in wrestling.” 

You also have a win over Gunther:

“It was so fun. It was incredible. I just remember I was supposed to originally wrestle him a month prior, but I had this crazy, crazy injury where I was bleeding from the brain, and it was like a double shot where I wrestled in the morning, and I was supposed to wrestle Gunther at night. It was two shows in one, then the morning show, I hit the concrete on my head so hard that I just started feeling everything start to get quiet and feel like something was swelling, and I could barely hear people. I was like, Oh, this ain’t normal. Went to the hospital and you’re bleeding from the brain, we had to put you under and stuff like that. So it’s pretty crazy. But imagine if I didn’t go to the hospital, I probably would have died that night against Walter. But yeah, fast forward, I end up having the singles match with him, and it was incredible. It was so fun because when I’m in there, I love being in the ring with guys where you can actually be lost in the moment, guys like Gunther, Brody King, all these people, feels like I’m in a real fight. That was incredible.” 

Then there’s Claudio launching you from the ring through the announce table.

“Like I said earlier, a lot of it’s like, Okay, what’s something that’s [crazy]? Because there’s a lot of craziness in AEW, a lot. I actually love watching people push the boundaries. But I’m also trying to be like, what’s a bump that no one would want to take? I’m looking around. I was like this guy is strong as sh*t, just throw me. Just chuck me. I don’t know there’s nothing to it. It’s just kind of rag doll it.”

Did you guys both know that he was gonna be able to hit the announce table?

“Not 100%, but he’s so strong. I’m like, whatever happens, happens. Let’s just go, wing it. Because if I come short and I actually hit the corner of the table it might look cooler, you don’t know. But it was super fun.”

You’ve been thrown onto the stairs a lot!

“The worst one is definitely the one with Christian Cage at WrestleDream. If you watch that back, that one’s the worst. Way worse than the PAC one. My head is like that far away from actually breaking my neck on those stairs.” 

Not only did you get set on fire, you also set people on fire. You set Jack Perry on fire. You set Jon Moxley on fire. You had a flamethrower. It’s a wild spot!

“I don’t know what to tell you. Sometimes Darby has to get his revenge. He can’t just clearly get his ass kicked every single night.”

Was there a point where you broke your foot, when that first trip to Everest got put on hold, were you worried that it wasn’t gonna happen?

“No, absolutely not. The very first thing I did when I was in the hospital is I called Tony and I said, promise me that I can do this next year. Because Everest was such a spiritual journey for me that I felt like I needed to do it. Then he’s like, yeah, absolutely. So once I got that promise, I was like, okay, cool. I’m just gonna hit it harder and train my ass off even more. But yeah, it was incredible. I wouldn’t change a single thing.”

Do you have the goal of being AEW World Champion one day?

“I don’t know. It’s a weird question. It’s something I talked to Sting about. I never really cared about championships. Care more about just good storylines. To me, that’s where I feel like my head is on that thing. Would it be cool to be the face of a company? Yes, absolutely, considering I do feel like I best represent what AEW can give. Because you take a guy like Darby Allin, where would have Darby fit in the grand scheme of pro wrestling if it wasn’t for AEW? But you just see, hey, here’s a guy, be you.”

Do you think about if, if Jackass had been around, 10 years ago, like just starting how different your life might have looked like. You might have been the star of Jackass instead of a pro wrestler?

“You never know. Honestly, because back then I was just going crazy on my skateboard, doing all these stunts and stuff like that. I was trying to go the Evil Knievel route, because I had no confidence to being a wrestler. But then, with all the craziness, I think I can do way more for wrestling, because people aren’t willing to go the lengths I’m willing to go. I am not just saying that. It’s not a catchphrase. I do believe there’s no one in the world of wrestling that is willing to go the places I’m willing to go, physically, mentally. I love a challenge.” 

What is Darby Allin grateful for?

“My health, my family and AEW.”

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Eva Marie (@natalieevamarie) is a professional wrestler and podcaster best known for her time in WWE. She sits down with Chris Van Vliet in Orange County, CA to discuss how she was fast-tracked to the main roster after signing her contract and the resulting backlash, being on Total Divas and how much of the resentment was real, her signature red hair, why her 2 runs with WWE came to an end, helping others battling with addiction, and more!

What keeps you busy these days?

“I mean, one, we’re sitting in the studio, so, I mean, we just had you as a guest on the Hopeaholics podcast. So I think that really has kind of transitioned my life, it has drastically shifted since July 28 2023 because that’s when I originally first came as a guest on this podcast, the Hopeaholics podcast, or the studio that we’re in. And then that’s really where everything kind of changed the trajectory of my life, because I was living in Texas, and then all of a sudden, after being on the podcast and seeing what the guys were doing out here with the treatment facilities, from helping our veterans to having other facilities for people to come and detox and get well from drug and substance abuse. I really put all my chips into this bucket over here to open up my own treatment facility and to be on the podcast and just kind of go all in with everything, breaking the stigma with addiction.”

So if somebody’s watching this and they want to reach out and they’re seeking treatment, what’s the best way for them to do that?

“There’s so many ways. You can go to the Hopeaholics on Instagram. You can go to nemrecovery on Instagram. You can go to a website. You can go to nemrecoverycenters.com. We have numbers everywhere for anyone, like on any social network. We have our very own AI tool as well of both Chad and myself. It’s amazing, and you can text that number anywhere you go on my personal socials, you can contact a number or go to a website and find help.”

What does your life look like without recovery?

“It doesn’t. There’s no way. If I wasn’t sober, I wouldn’t have WWE. WWE was literally a monumental moment in my life, because it was the setup, I came public with my sobriety on Season One of Total Divas without me knowing what I was really doing by coming public with it, it was just I came public to hurry up with my story so that I didn’t walk into the locker rooms and have like Nikki or Brie holding up my mug shot. Me trying to skirt around something that I was so shameful of. So that’s really why I kind of put that out there myself. Because I think if you own all of your own stories or your own transgressions, how are you gonna tell me anything I’ve already told you? “

Like that scene in 8 Mile?

“That’s my go-to, that’s my analogy that I always use and I always reference, because I feel like everyone’s seen that movie, and they kind of understand what I’m talking about. When it’s like, you own your own story, you own your own narrative, it gives you so much power, because nobody can say anything to you then, because you’ve already owned it. So that’s really what I was doing at that moment, without really knowing how powerful it was going to be for me, not only to be so open and honest about me working a 12-step program or struggling with alcohol and drug addiction, but it really did set up my life fast forward 10 years later to what I’m doing now. Because when I got out of treatment, because I don’t know if people really understand that not only was WWE such a life-changing experience for me, on a magnitude of reasons, from the fact of like me always wanting to be a professional athlete. Soccer was really my sport, but the fact that God gave me that element back into my life, because, as you know, having to handle the physicality inside the ring and being able to perform and travel and do all the things within that company is something that my soul was yearning for from not being able to pursue soccer, my dream, but also I was fresh out of treatment five weeks so I had gotten originally, my first audition, because we don’t do them anymore, but they were diva searches at the time. I had gone to my first one a couple of months before, and I was still kind of in my addiction. I mean, I was able to show up to the first call, but then I ended up going into treatment, and when I got out, that was when I got the call back, and it was like five weeks after I had just left treatment. So my life changed really quickly and really fast.” 

How quickly did your life change after signing with WWE?

“So, how it went down was actually really wild, because we had the in-ring physicality tryout, and that’s obviously where I met and totally hit it off with JoJo and a couple of the other girls from our camp, CJ was in there as well. So it was a four-week tryout. I fell in love with it because I was missing that competitive edge in my life, too. So the fact of doing something and getting into a ring, it’s like, especially if you don’t have that type of physicality background. I feel like dancers, gymnasts, they kind of pick it up a little bit easier. I’ll never forget my body. I couldn’t even pick up my legs. I was so sore. It was insane. So how it went with that is, after the four weeks, if they thought that they saw some type of potential in you, you would end up getting a developmental contract move to Tampa at the time, because that’s where the facility was, not in Orlando yet. So it was just a developmental contract, and then you would go out there, learn how to wrestle, learn whichever character you’re going to try to work on and learn about the business, and then hope to get called up to the main roster on Monday night Raw or Friday night SmackDown. I always refer to it as AAA baseball, but even at AAA, you know how to play the game. But when you’re going in, how we got the developmental contract, none of all of us knew how to kind of run the ropes and kind of take a back bump by then, and we’re doing, forward backward rolls. It’s not like we’re really knowing how to wrestle. We’re knowing little basics, and that’s about it.”

So how long after you started training did you have your first match? 

“Well, it gets better. So that’s why my whole sh*t is like, no one will ever walk into WWE the way that I did, I can almost guarantee it, because it’s insane, in a good way, though, for me. Because it’s like I’m so blessed that I was able to have that opportunity. Because if I didn’t, I don’t know what I would be doing. So that’s why I’m so thankful. So after those four weeks, I get my developmental contract. Me and JoJo actually got it together. They told us together. I was so excited. I was like, Oh my gosh. And they’re like, Okay, well, you guys have a couple months get your things together, because you’re gonna have to move to Tampa. No problem. I ain’t got sh*t out here, I was saying I was sharing a bed with a girlfriend of mine, because I had too much pride to move back in with mommy and daddy. So I was just like sharing a bit with her, because that’s how bad my life was, or my decisions, I guess you could say had put me. But then I get a call because I was in LA and they go, how do you feel about going in for this audition? We can’t really tell you much about it. We don’t know about this project if we were gonna green light it, or whatever it is, but they want to see you. I was like, Yeah, sure, no problem. I don’t care. So I sit down, green screen, shout out to Russell, the producer of the reality show Total Divas. I had no idea that’s what the casting was for. But cameras kind of like this, and you’re sitting in front of a camera, he’s drilling you a million questions, just like who you are, where you’re from, family, this, that and the other. Three hours later, interview is done, and he goes. Just so you know, this project is moving really, really fast, and if you do get it, your life will be changing pretty quickly. So it’s only happened to me probably twice in my life, this being one of them. When I walked out of that interview, I was like, I mother f*cking murdered that. I just had that feeling of wow, I think I just killed it, for sure. So I ended up leaving that interview and drove back up to the Bay Area. It was a Friday night. Drove up to where I’m from, was with my parents, got a call on Saturday. It’s Russell saying, congratulations, you got the job, and they mentioned something about my hair. Totally go deaf, because I don’t care, because now I’m like, you have to think I’m a chick that had all these hopes and dreams of being a soccer player, then that kind of shattered. Got heavy into my addiction, went to rehab, just got out maybe five weeks or so ago, and now I’m getting a call saying that I just got this opportunity to not only be in the WWE, but now I’m going to be on this reality show that showcases what that looks like on the road. So I get the call Saturday. So that’s 24 hours after my interview, saying that, congratulations, you got the job. First day on the job is going to be New York WrestleMania. You’ll be on a flight on Monday morning. So my life changed within 48 hours, just like that.”

So how long were you on Total Divas before you actually worked a match?

“So my first match? Not long at all. That’s why I was f*cking terrible, which played in my favour character-wise. But it was so horrifying because I hadn’t had a real match in practice or anything. I barely even knew how to take kind of a back bump. So I think, what happened, because things were happening so quickly that Total Divas started to air, and then immediately they were like, Oh my gosh, we need to put these girls on and kind of coincide with them on Monday Night Raw. But you have to remember too, when Total Divas started airing, women did not have the time they have now on WWE TV. So it was even more difficult to kind of paint a picture and paint a story. Because, I mean, the first year or first season, you get to watch the disappointment and then you have to think the twins and the Funkadactyls. They were just valets for the guys at the time for WrestleMania, and they got cut. Their match got cut during that first season. But that’s kind of how it was for women at that time too.” 

What was the story behind your red hair? 

“So best business decision I have ever made without me knowing it. My mom’s a hairdresser, so I’ve been dyeing my hair since I was stealing all her stuff since I was like, 15. So I had black, dark hair. That’s my natural hair color. You see my eyebrows? That’s the natural color. When I got a call on Saturday saying that I got the job, they mentioned a lot of the girls that have left were platinum blonde. Because the twins are Mexican-Italian too, so we don’t want you to look like one of The Bella Twins. Are you okay with changing your hair to platinum blonde? I didn’t care. I was like, Yeah, sure, whatever. I’ll dye my hair freaking purple, whatever. So I get to New York for WrestleMania. That was my first day on the job, also, which is unheard of, and they had set this appointment and everything with this really nice salon in New York to dye my hair blonde, we’re going platinum. Well, I’ve been blonde, not like a really cute blonde, whatsoever, in high school, and it was horrible. It was so bad. So in the show, season one, or I think it’s like the first episode. That was real sh*t That was literally like, I’m in the chair, and they’re stripping my hair color from previous colors and stuff, and it starts to kind of look orangey. I literally look at JoJo and I was like, I can’t do it. I literally say in the chair, I look like Mufasa from The Lion King. I look insane. It looks terrible. It’s orange. There is no way. Well, I was listening to Rihanna’s album at the time, it was when she had that crazy fire-red hair. I think her album was called Loud at the time. I was like, dude, her hair is sick. It was just such a fire engine red. I was like, f*ck it. Let’s go red. I don’t know exactly what really sparked me to kind of go against the grain, because it was a big gamble, because the Vince and the higher ups were the ones that were requesting this to happen, but deep down, I knew if I were to really go platinum blonde, like Maryse or Kelly Kelly, like that type of blonde, I would be bald, and there’s no way that I would be able to maintain that type of white color for very long without it just ruining [my hair]. I literally would be bald to have that colour hair, because my hair is so dark. So I just really took a gamble, and at the time, because we were called Divas, my saving grace, because I got in trouble, and the girls thought that I was gonna get fired, and I’m sure, looking back, they probably hope that I did. But my saving grace, why I went red and went against the grain was because being a WWE Diva, being a WWE superstar, even to this day, is all about your inner confidence and showcasing that and feeling good about yourself, and then being able to hopefully radiate that from inward to outward. I said that if I went blonde, there’s no way I would be able to put forth the most confident individual, because I would be insecure and self-conscious from the very jump, and that’s not what a Diva embodies.”

How long do you think it took you to really start to figure out the moves in the ring, to really start to feel confident with putting together a match?

“I don’t think until I decided when I went to Vince and asked him to go back down to NXT. I was probably already on the road for like, a year and a half or two before I went. I made a rocky decision by going and asking him. No one steps down, but we were on the road so much, and we were filming with so much that I didn’t really have the time to put energy into training because our time was really limited at that moment. Then you can work on the road at house shows and stuff, but it’s really a big ask to ask some of the other Superstars to kind of get to the arena early and try to roll around with you, and it’s not the same either, and they have a show that night. Trust me, there was a ton that wanted to do, Nattie was great, Fit was also awesome, because he would always get there early. But usually people are getting there early to try things, and they already know how to wrestle. They already know how to put together a very basic match. So it’s a little bit different than what I really needed.”

When you were filming Total Divas, was there legit beef?

“Oh, that sh*t was real. I mean, we’re all good now, but that’s why I can laugh and talk about it, because that sh*t was [real].”

Was it the idea that, like, Hey, you don’t belong here, you’re an outsider coming into our world?

“For sure, and I totally get it. Pay your dues. Who is this bitch? We’ve been going hard for the last X amount of years. You have to think too. Not only were there two-minute matches, there is one storyline for the girls, so it’s a dog-eat-dog world. When you’re on TV, that’s also how you get paid, and also how you get known, how you get [fans], which the WWE has the best fans in the world, and when you’re on TV, you get the love or the hate from the Universe. So you want to be on television, and that’s the whole point of being in the WWE and on a show, so that you can go perform. So now all of a sudden, they have two new girls stepping into the locker room. They know that they don’t know how to wrestle. So there’s one ping against us is that they’ve been putting in their blood, sweat and tears for years to get up on the main roster now that they think they have the opportunity for their time to shine. Now we have these two new girls that know nothing about the business. Don’t even barely know how to do a back bump or a suplex or run the ropes, and you expect us to, one, help them, and two, I’ll be damned if they think they’re going to take my spotlight. So you already had that, which I completely understand, that like, how could you not? But at the same time, when opportunity knocks, you better be ready to f*cking take it, because nobody else is going to do it.”

The segment of you having the wardrobe malfunction has 47 million views on the WWE YouTube channel. What was the whole pitch for that segment?

“So that whole kind of storyline was fun. There’s always going to be an excuse for me not to get in the ring. One I got stuck in traffic. The other one I hurt my knee, and then the wardrobe malfunction. I can’t remember who exactly thought of that idea, but it was pitched to me. I’m obviously easy, I’m really am, especially because I’m a bad guy as is, so I have removed really quickly being the hero or being like, the one that doesn’t look silly. Because I think that also is a big component in going into WWE. Sometimes some superstars have a really hard time with [being the butt of the joke], or not being the man. I kind of let that sh*t go, because it was like, it’s fine, here we are, and it worked. People really did hate me. There’s a sign, and I can’t remember what city it was, it was like, if Eva Marie’s here, we riot. Or just this crazy little section of this is Eva Marie’s section or something so obnoxious, but it was fun, because they couldn’t wait to just talk sh*t to me when I came out. But the wardrobe one was gnarly, because it’s live television, so to make it realistic, we had to do like we did a run through with it, because the last thing that we needed me actually dropping my top. So cameramen were paranoid, freaking out, so I was securely taped, but it came off pretty good.”

So what actually happens, because you actually do have a wardrobe malfunction:

“I do, yeah. But the way that I’m holding it looks like, Oh, my God, it’s really happening, but I’m taped up. So if I literally let my hands go, it’s just flapping in the wind.”

What happens to your straps?

“It basically just clips off and it just falls forward. And how it kind of came off on TV looked great. It liked how it just really did look like this is happening, like her top is literally falling off, and Becky played off it great.”

Why did your first run with WWE come to an end?

“It was actually odd. I still don’t know exactly. The timing of it was. I mean, I got my first movie, so that’s also kind of what happened, is I stepped away to do that. Inconceivable, you can still watch it on Netflix. Had an amazing time on that film. So when I left for that I kind of still have a feeling of like, if I didn’t leave for that movie, maybe I would still be in the company, because I think that probably was as much as they gave me their blessing. I’m sure it hurt me internally in some capacity.”

What led you to go back to WWE in 2021?

“I love the business. I love it. There’s nothing like it. I owe everything to WWE. I’ve learned so much. I’ve grown as an individual. I feel like I have a love-hate relationship too, because I feel like I never really got a solid shot, a solid storyline. I never did. I never even had a title run. I went for the NXT title. But when you really look at the grand scheme of things, of storylines, and me on the main roster.”

So why did the most recent run with WWE come to an end?

“That one is actually f*cking a little bit odd, because it was supposed to be longer than that, and it wasn’t. But I think there is going to be changing of hands in management, and that’s kind of what happened with my contract. So it kind of got messed up within kind of that communication.”

What is Eva Marie grateful for?

“My family, my health, my relationship with God, and endless opportunities.”

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Rusev (@ToBeMiro) is a professional wrestler currently signed to WWE. He sits down with Chris Van Vliet at West Coast Creative Studio in Hollywood, CA to discuss his journey from Bulgaria to WWE, how he was paired with Lana, wrestling John Cena at WrestleMania 31, and making his entrance in a tank, the success of Rusev Day, being in the League of Nations and taking a Stunner from Steve Austin, the Bobby Lashley and Lana romance storyline, his Good Ol’ Fashioned Donnybrook match with Sheamus in Paris, and more!

It’s crazy that if we were to look at a photo of you when you debuted in WWE and we look at you now, I think to a new wrestling fan, it’d be difficult to explain that’s the same person.

“Yeah, I got this the other day from Roman. We were in Saudi Arabia, and he says, ‘Hey, talking to my kid the other day, and he was like, “Oh, is that Rusev?”‘ So he had to explain that it’s me. We fought all over the world before, and now I’m back. Just look different. But yeah, it’s a bit of a change.”

Let me ask you this, because my son was born on December 17. What’s it like when your birthday is on Christmas, you’re sharing it with Jesus?

“Well, when I was a kid, we didn’t have money, so presents were not always there. But now that I’m a grown-up and I can afford a couple of things, I go to town.”

You talk about growing up and you didn’t have much, what are we talking?

“In Bulgaria in 1996, you see the hyperinflation. People line up. There was no bread, there was no food, there was nothing. You just had to wait, and you might end up going home with nothing. So yeah, when we had nothing, it was nothing. Our electricity was always on and off, on and off.”

What age did you learn English? 

“So I have been interested in America, always been interested in movies and wrestling, obviously, and English. So I signed up in third grade. I signed up for English, which not everybody did, I just loved it. I just loved everything about America, getting myself ready to go.”

What age were you when you moved here? 

“20 years old. So I had to go to college for a little bit so I can do this work and travel thing over the summer. So as soon as I was able to do that, landed here in Richmond, Virginia.” 

Why Richmond?

“So when you sign up for these programs, they give you a job. My first job offering was to paint houses. I’ve never painted anything in my life, maybe at Easter some eggs, that’s about it. But they say, Hey, if you deny it, you may not have another shot. So I was like, I just want to get there. So I came in painting houses, got fired a month later, walked out on the streets because it was a community house for the workers, and after they fired me, they kicked me out, so I was literally on the street a month in with $100 in my pocket.” 

What’d you do? 

“Well, there’s a couple of guys that I met through work, and they were really cool guys, and they accepted me in their apartment, and we lived in a two-bedroom apartment. I think it was six of us sleeping on the floor, whatever you got to do.” 

Were you already training to be a wrestler? 

“No, there was the first month. Then I started working cleaning stores, Dollar General stores, traveling around half of the country with these chemicals, we were cleaning Dollar Generals. I worked in Wendy’s for a week. It was the weirdest place I’ve worked at. Especially with the burger they tell you to draw a W on it. I’m like, ‘Well sir, if you turn it the other way, it says McDonald’s, M for McDonald’s.’ They were looking at me like I was reinventing the hot water. But then it was even embarrassing to go get my check back because I was there for a week, I didn’t call because I was so embarrassed. I didn’t want to go back to work, but I didn’t want to call, Hey, I’m not coming back to work. So that was weird. And then my friend said, ‘Hey, I’m moving to California. I’m gonna drive cross-country with this 1988 Oldsmobile.’ I said, count me in brother, all the dreams are in California. I left, I jump in the car with him, and we drove for three days, I think, to San Pedro, California.”

How long did it take you before you started to get noticed by WWE?

“So I remember getting pulled in the office in the school one day. At this point I’ve been training not even two years, probably. They said, ‘Hey, you may have an opportunity to go with TNA or WWE.’ I said No freaking way. These guys are giants, man. They’re Titans. What am I? A 24-year-old Bulgarian gonna go through that? I just didn’t think it was a possibility. Then I just kept training, kept training, kept training. Then Rikishi pulled me aside and said, ‘Hey, we’re gonna have this [try-out].’ Because I trusted him, because a lot of people like to go out there and do their own thing. I trusted Rikishi. I trusted his training, trusted Gangrel and his training, and I know that when I’m ready, they’re gonna set me up for success. And they set up a tryout for me. Was 2010 Summer Slam in LA. I went out there with a torn ACL. Had to go through the bathroom, wrap my knee with duct tape because it was giving up. I wrapped the motherf*cker, hiding away from everybody and going to the tryout, almost in a fight with one of the other guys.” 

What do you mean? 

“It was like you’re in and you get in. Then we go in and we work, and this guy, boom, clotheslines me, right in my mouth and my nose. I was like, All right, whatever. Kickout, then work again and again, boom, right in my mouth again. I lay down, all right, cover me. He covered me, and I kick out with my elbow in his face, because I got tired. I get it. We all want a job, but you can’t be just like killing over here, because I’m trying to succeed as well. They stopped us. Then we kept going a little bit. After that, Johnny Ace came and he offered. He said, ‘Hey, do we have any problem relocating to Florida?’ I said, No, sir, I don’t. And yeah, that’s where they offered me a contract, and I had to wait another year to fix my paperwork, because still a little issue with the paperwork situation. So there was another callback that I had to take. There are these people they’re saying, Hey, we’re going to sign you to your dream, it’s about to come true. But then you have to go back and work and everything else, that was so hard. It was probably one of the hardest things I’ve ever done is to be like, hey, it’s right here. No, you can’t get there yet. But anyways, everything got arranged in 2011 in March, I believe I went to Florida, to Tampa, to FCW.”

Were you worried at any point? You’ve got this basically agreement that this thing’s gonna happen, but you got to get the paperwork to come through. Are you worried at any point, like, maybe it won’t?

“No, I couldn’t be worried. I just have to stay focused. Because once you start worrying, you start getting distracted and negative thoughts come in. I didn’t want any of that. I just put my head down, keep working hard, keep doing whatever I can, because at the end of the day, when you have a huge desire, when you have a dream, and it’s not like an ill intent, it’s not like, oh, I want to make money to screw with all these guys. It’s not like a bad intent, and you pray to God, he’s always going to be there with you. He’s always going to help you out.”

You were booked so strong once you figured out who Rusev was, how did you develop that character?

“Trial and tribulation. So I was in developmental, after a few months, they found out my knee was broken at my ACL, so I had to get the surgery. So six months. But the American Dream [Dusty Rhodes] always kind of believed in me, even if I’ve never done promos before. In KnokX Pro, I used to train with Rikishi, they never taught us any promos. So now we have back in FCW, on Monday and Tuesday practice and then Wednesday was always promo class. But I’ve never done a promo in my life. It was kind of my first time I went out there did a promo and Dream liked me, the way I talked, I was big, I was able to move. So he gave me an opportunity. Unfortunately, my knee gave out, and we had to go and replace my ACL. I came back, starting climbing a little bit. Two months later, I broke my neck. I don’t even know how I broke my neck. I thought my shoulder was hurt, and I went and got my shoulder checked. He said, Yeah, your shoulder is bad, but your neck is broken. That’s what causes the problem. It was something leaking, blocking some pathway. Couldn’t move my arm, and so I had to repair the neck after that, which is another big setback. I thought after that, I was trying to be realistic, probably gonna fire me, it makes sense. I’ve provided nothing for this company, and besides, they had to pay for all these surgeries. Probably gonna fire me. But I was okay. I was gonna go to Japan or something. I was not gonna give up, for sure. But they didn’t fire me. They call me and they said they are gonna fire me if I don’t show them anything, I think they gave me a month or two to say, hey, we’re gonna give you this time and to show us what you got. If not, we’re gonna have to let you go. No problem at all. I love fighting for something when there’s not just a purpose, but what do you call it, like a goal. They stuck me in a beginner’s class, and I was extra motivated. You’re gonna put me in a beginner’s class? Watch me. So I was just f*cking go, doesn’t matter. I always do everything extra. It doesn’t matter what it is. So I was showing a boom, boom, boom, boom. After the first month, instead of firing me, they gave me an award for the most improved or whatever it was. But once again, I had nothing before that because I wanted to try something else. I went back and watched Kickboxer, I watched Bloodsport. Then all the bad guys that I grew up watching, I love it. So I was like, I’m gonna take something from this guy, something from this guy. That’s why I started changing my stance, my gear, my attitude. I went barefoot, start showing a different thing. And they loved it. They absolutely loved it. I started buying it more and more. Then eventually we moved. We started moving to Orlando, to the new system after Triple H took over, and it was a completely different thing. That probably saved me a lot, because there was such a structure. It was a program. It was you follow it. You go this coach, this coach, this coach. Everybody had a different level. It’s not just like figure it out. I had thrived in that system. I loved it, and it was very random. It’s not like I was ever prepared for anything. It’s not like anybody was like, oh, Rusev is going to be the next thing. It’s just one day. I had a random match, Dolph Ziggler came to NXT. They volunteered me for their Ziggler match and I haven’t even been on NXT TV at all, nothing. I was just doing nothing. And then I had this match, and Dolph was the nicest man. They wanted him to squash me pretty bad. He’s like, no, that’s not gonna do anything for you or me. We had a match, and let me showcase my moves, and thank God Triple H was there. He noticed it. He’s like, Who’s that kid? And from then on, fast-tracked. Once he saw me, once he saw my big traps, I guess my wild moves, and then they start figuring it out. Then Lana was there at this point, because she just started, so they figured out she can speak Russian. I’m a foreigner in that part of the world. And then they paired us together. We started doing promos. I showed CJ Rocky 4; she’s never seen it, not big into 80s and 90s movies as much as we are. Showed her Rocky 4. We said, This is what we’re doing. We’re gonna take this inspiration, and they loved it. From then, it was not a matter of if, but when.”

Rusev Day was so hot. When did you start to realize that Rusev Day was getting over?

“I don’t know. It was never meant to be over. It was never supposed to be anything. It was just supposed to be a celebration and here’s the key from the mayor of Plovdiv, my hometown. And it just worked for some reason, I was a heel. But then I started to relax a little bit, show more of my personality and I guess people started buying that. Then Aiden [English], of course, Aiden is such an essential part of this, with the songs, with introductions, with everything. Without him, probably wouldn’t even be the same. But just the combo work, man, it was just me having fun and doing the backstage with the New Day, and then the first shirt. Oh my God. They did one shirt of Happy Rusev Day, which is the first one. I remember putting it out in a backstage promo and there’s the huge reaction from the crowd. What? It’s just a shirt. It’s not that big of a deal. But then it just starts picking up steam and people love chanting Rusev Day and celebrating Rusev Day. I got that sweet treatment. I have a beach towel, I have sunglasses now that says Rusev Day. I have all these things that say Rusev Day. I was like, what is happening here? I couldn’t believe it. And then, yeah, we’re just getting over little, little by little. It was a good time, even to this day, Hey, happy Rusev Day.”

Was there ever talk of making you a full babyface?

“I don’t know if there was any direction for it necessarily. I remember I’ve been off TV, and I’ve never been off TV. I remember being off TV for a couple of weeks, and I was like, What is going on? Why are we off TV? Before the shows, these people are chanting Rusev Day, and it’s not like, oh, let me get my sh*t in. I thought it was good for the show. If these people were chanting something, we should give them what they want. That’s why I started fighting for it, hey, let’s do something. Then it was getting a little more traction. But I became a United States Champion.”

Just felt like it could have been so much more.

“A lot of things could be. I went over there, I talked to the boss, and I laid my cards in front of him. Everything I can, I did, but what comes after that? It’s not up to me.”

Every day is Rusev day:

“There was a calendar. I remember January, every day, Rusev Day, Rusev Day… That was one of my favorite things was the calendar.”

What brought you back to WWE in 2025?

“I wanted to wrestle. I wanted to mix it up with the best. I know that the roster is stacked. I don’t remember the last time it was this stacked, but I just want to mix it with everybody. I wanted to wrestle more and more, and all these European tours and everything. I love all that, I love the grind. Because when we first started, we were five days on the road, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, you go home Wednesday, you’re out on the road again on Friday. And that’s just how life was, as hard as it was, that’s how you get better, just by putting in the work. Because every day you work different towns, you travel. Now the people can only hear about that and be like, Oh, really, that’s what it was. It was so cool. Wrestling, getting beaten up, getting the rental car driving three hours to the next town, getting the hotel, waking up, working out, doing the same thing, makes you feel like a real professional wrestler. I miss the grind.”

When you got let go from WWE. Did you think your path would bring you back to WWE at some point?

“Only if I wanted to. Well, look so I got fired. It sucks, right? Nobody wants to get fired, especially in the pandemic. There was just something else. But I jumped right away, I started doing the Twitch thing, because I had the three months no compete and jump on Twitch. I had fun on Twitch. I was making money. I was playing video games. I was having fun. I was gaining my audience, little by little, and that was fun. And then AEW came through, and I started wrestling there. The same thing. I just wanted a short contract, just to feel them out. Everything was great, signed a bigger contract. Then did I ever think I was going to come back to WWE? If I wanted to. I really meant that if I wanted to. If I didn’t want to, I didn’t have to come back. But I love WWE. I love what they’ve made for me, and I love how they’ve taught me since I was a young kid. And I just love the organization.”

You had this moment recently where you scared this little kid in the front row. Did you see the reaction on his face when it happened?

“I did. I did see he panicked, but it was his fault. At the end of the day, it’s like, you can’t blame me for that. I think I met him earlier backstage, and maybe that’s what made him so comfortable. That’s what I keep thinking. But then you can’t just be so comfortable to touch the animals, you can’t reach in the cage. And if your dad didn’t teach you that, your mom didn’t teach you that, I will. I always said don’t touch me kid, and he’s like ah! It was the most shocking face I’ve ever seen. Like before, they used to replay when The Undertaker lost. This is probably the next thing close to it.”

WrestleMania, 31 you’ve got this match with John Cena, US Title on the line. What an entrance. How’d they come up with this idea for you to come out in the tank?

“Manifestation, brother. Manifestation, nothing else. I couldn’t even believe that, because CJ sometimes reminded me, No, we literally took a paper and we just kind of, Oh, what if it’s this, what if it’s this, what if it’s this? We’re not gonna go to [Vince], it’s my first few months. I’m not gonna go, ‘Vince, what about this?’ But then all of a sudden, a few days before the show, they call us in the stadium, oh, there’s a tank. Whoa, there’s the guns. Whoa, there’s a Russian soldier. It was just something, I couldn’t ask for or dream for anything more. And it was all because, like I said, just we thinking about it, manifesting it, and then somehow it’s getting to Vince’s head for him to put it up there.”

What do you think is the biggest thing you learned from John Cena?

“Just timing, take my time. There’s no such thing as a TV match and a live event match, like there’s no such thing as a bad crowd. If they’re not reacting, it’s because you’re not giving them what they want to see. Him listening, ‘Okay, is it a high pitch? Is it low-pitched? Who’s out there tonight? What’s the vibe?’ He’s always there, watching and learning the crowd as much as everything else. Not everything has to be like [fast paced] it’s got to make sense, and it’s got to take your time and listen to the crowd. I think that’s the most important thing. Just listen to the crowd. They’ll tell you what to do.”

League of Nations, they come up with this idea. So it’s Sheamus, Alberto Del Rio, Wade Barrett and you

“I think they needed somebody for Roman, to be honest. I think that’s how they came up with it. It was not like, oh, we have this great idea for these four guys. I think they needed somebody for Roman to be a babyface, and that’s why they put us together, which was fun. We got a WrestleMania match. I got to eat the stunner from Steve Austin, which was another dream come true.”

The storyline with Bobby and Lana and you, how was this originally pitched to you?

“WrestleMania match. That’s how it was pitched to me. I said, Great, I can deal with that. We just never got there. But it was a good story. I understood the story. It was not my favorite story, but I understood it. And when they told me what the final goal was, I said, All right, that sounds good to me. We have a direction, we have a dip, we have a comeback. We have a good story to finish it.”

This is your wife, and she’s making out with another guy:

“It’s acting, though, it’s nothing else, all these Hollywood people, and she’s the only one. How many other WWE female Superstars have made out with so many people? It’s just part of the business. If you start selling it, of course it’s gonna go bad for you, but as long as you take it just to work, it’s nothing else than just to work.”

Do you think about how much longer you want to wrestle? 

“I said 45 and then reevaluate the body, see how it feels. But so far, I feel great. I haven’t felt that good in a long time, because it’s not like you have matches every day. So the body is way more protected. I take care of my body a lot more. I do a lot of stretching and massages. I eat a lot better. I train a lot smarter. So I just take care of my body, and I know that the body’s going to take care of me.”

What is Rusev grateful for?

“God, my wife and the fans.”

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MJF (@The_MJF) is a professional wrestler signed to AEW and the reigning World Champion. He sits down with Chris Van Vliet in Las Vegas, NV to discuss winning the AEW World Title for a second time and how this reign is different from his first, how he defied the odds to make it in professional wrestling, how much interest there really was from WWE, his rivalry with CM Punk, starring in Happy Gilmore 2 with Adam Sandler and beating up Eminem in the movie, why his scene from The Iron Claw was cut, his ultimate dream match, and more!

You said that we would do another interview when you were the AEW champion, and here you are.

“I don’t remember any of that, but it sounds like me. When I set a goal, about 110% of the time I achieve it. For example, when I was five years old, I was on the Rosie O’Donnell Show, and I said I was going to be a professional wrestler, and here we are. “

You said opera singer or professional wrestler

“I’d say one out of two ain’t bad. But to be fair, I was told to say opera singer for the cameras. That was not something I had any interest in whatsoever.”

What do you remember from that day with Rosie O’Donnell? 

“She was a big woman and she smelled. Outside of that, I was given Shrek ears, WWF Restaurant tickets. The restaurant shut down before I could go, which was typical Rosie O’Donnell. I want something. I want money, and I was given a lot of strawberry Dunkin Donuts, my mom must have told her those were my faves, because they were at the time.”

So you’re the type of person where if I tell you can’t do it. You look for a way to make happen?

“Yes, I look for a way to make it happen. I live on spite and hate. It drives me. I’d love to sit here and pretend I’m just saying that for the cameras. No, it’s a very real thing. I don’t know if it has to do with my upbringing or what, but I think I’ve been driven to go down as legitimately, one of the all-time greats, simply because people wanted to deny a dream.”

At what point in your life do you feel like people were trying to deny this?

“Oh my God, in my entire childhood, up until the time I was 18. Pro wrestling right now is pretty, pretty hot. It’s white hot, you know, between us and WWE and Impact, and there’s, a lot of great independents now. When I was a kid, it was a bit of a cold period. Cena didn’t get the ball exactly yet. You saw a lot of tarp and drape, you know what I mean. So, people in my friend circle and I would bring it up, it was something to be made fun of for, being severely neurodivergent and having probably the world’s worst attention deficit disorder, which I still have to this day. But I’ve learned how to use it. It didn’t help that caused a lot of bullying in school. Being Jewish certainly caused a ton of anti-Semitic bullying in school. Coaches, because I was on the smaller side, especially when I was younger, didn’t expect me to be able to excel in sports. Teachers didn’t expect me to be much of anything in the classroom, so I pretty much just had doors slammed in my face from the time I was born all the way until the time I jumped into this, and then when I jumped into this, it got even worse, because I busted my ass to become a legitimate premier athlete in high school that had multiple Division One scholarship offers.” 

Which sport?

“Football, I was a middle linebacker. I broke the record in tackling in my high school. I was an all-state middle linebacker. At the time, five nine, which was unheard of, but again, that’s because people looked at me and they said, ‘Oh, you’re Jewish and you’re short. This isn’t gonna happen.’ I was like, Okay, I’ll f*cking bite. I will bite people if that means I’m tackling them to the ground, because you just said that. If you have the ball, I’m going to hurt you. Then when I entered wrestling, I’m a loud dude. I’m unapologetic about how great I know I am, and people don’t care for that. People like humble. Humble bores me. Humble doesn’t feel right to me. Humble to me has always been worse than being cocky. I’m honest about what I think about myself every time somebody goes, I’ll watch interviews with famous athletes, and they’re like, ‘Oh, it’s the team, and they’re the ones that threw up 50 points in the game.’ Is it the team, bro? You’re annoying me. Just be honest, you’re carrying them to the promised land, no different than how I’m carrying AEW to the promised land since I’ve won that championship. Ticket sales up, ratings up, intrigue up, the level of competition in the world title scene up. We’re hot right now, man. People are talking about All Elite Wrestling in a very positive way. And there was a period of time there where everybody was saying, ‘Restore the feeling, restore the feeling.’ I am the feeling. I’m the feeling, I’m the face, I’m the main character, I’m MJF. When people think of AEW, they think of me. The reason I have a chip on my shoulder when I say that, and the reason I’m not going to be humble about it, is because people constantly want to deny me of what I’ve accomplished in the sport, and you can’t do that because I’m a proven draw, I’m a proven top act, I’m a movie star, I’m a top guy. I’ve had some of the greatest matches, moments, promos, rivalries in the modern era, hell, probably in the history of the sport. I do all of that because I think some people chase the hug. That’s not why I do it. I think what I’m chasing is vindication and validation for the child that was told, who do you think you are?”

What’s this version of you look like compared to the version of you who first won that AEW Championship in 2022

“I was a child. I was immature. I wasn’t ready. I was ready to talk the talk, and at moments, I walked the walk. But I slipped and I fell and I had a long cry over it, as opposed to picking myself up, dusting myself off and going, No, I’m still the best. Nobody’s better than me in the ring, nobody’s better than me blow for blow on the mic, nobody’s better than me outside of the square, that’s me. That’s not just MJF, that’s Max Friedman talking. I’ve been doing this for over a decade now. I’ve been doing it since I was 18 years old. I got signed to my first contract at 19 with MLW. Then I got signed. I had an opportunity to either go to WWE or AEW when I was 22. I went to All Elite Wrestling, and during this entire time span, I’ve proven over and over again that I’m the most complete professional wrestler in the world. There was three months that thankfully now, when I look back on them, I could laugh. I could not laugh when Adam Cole broke his ankle. I could not laugh when my friend betrayed me. I could not laugh when my left hip and my left shoulder were essentially Jell-O pudding. I could not laugh when people went from talking about me as being the guy to talking about me as being the problem. It took a lot of hard work, a lot of effort, and a lot of shining a mirror up to wrestling fans’ faces, and going, oh sh*t, no, he is everything he said he was. I’m not going to sit here and tell you that those three months didn’t suck a bag of donkey dicks. They did, but I feel what I’ve done now has more than made up for it. What I’ve done for the whole span of my career has more than made up for it. I’m noticing now people are talking about me in the same reverence that they did before those three months.”

You turn 30 next month in March. How would you describe your 20s?

“I can’t sit here and pretend I wasn’t the fastest and youngest rising star probably in the history of the business. If I did, I’d be full of sh*t. My 20s put me on the map, and made me a genuine household name, which a lot of the time if you want to be a household name in pro wrestling, people don’t think of those three letters. They think of WWE. I’ve proven that’s not the case by being in the most-streamed movie of all time, by having Violent Night 2, where I have a huge role in that’s coming out in December of this year, by doing Stranglehold, by being executive producer in Iron Claw. I get stopped wherever I go. You know who else does, whether I like it or not, Hangman Adam Page, Swerve Strickland, Kenny Omega, Jon Moxley, Samoa Joe. If we’re just naming the guys that haven’t ever worked for WWE that have become household names just based off of those three letters, you have me, Darby Will Ospreay, Hangman, again, we’re changing the narrative. Now, am I the biggest star out of all the homegrown stars? Yeah, it’s not even close. I mean, people talk about me in the same reverence as top acts across the board in this sport, right? I have Hollywood, I’m getting auditions left and right, and there’s a lot of interest there. And there’s interest there because of what I’ve done on this platform, because our platform matters, and our platform is an incredible alternative, and it’s not taking anything away from WWE. So what I would say to a WWE fan, you don’t even have to necessarily be disenfranchised by your company that you call your home base being WWE, if you’ve not watched us yet, I truly don’t understand what you’re waiting for. I feel that we make gourmet food and we work very hard. I think our pay-per-views are the best. It’s not even close. I think our matches are the best, and we have the best promo guy in the business who’s sitting right here. So if you’ve not watched our product before and you’re watching this interview, we’re on at Wednesdays at 8 pm on TBS and HBO Max. We’re on Saturdays on TNT and HBO Max at 8 pm both Eastern Standard Time. Give us a watch. And if you don’t want to give us a watch because you somehow feel indebted to one company. A, you’re weird. And B, I feel bad for you because you’re missing out on me. That is the biggest crime of them all.”

Do you think you’re the best wrestler to never wrestle in WWE?

“Yeah, it’s not even close. It’s not even close. Before me, the answer would have been Sting. And then he wrestled there.” 

Kenny Omega? 

“Omega? No, stop it. I love Kenny to death. If you put our names into a search engine, I can assure you, more people are looking my name up than his. Now, is he gonna go down as one of the greatest professional wrestlers of all time? Yes, but that’s not the question you just asked me. The question you just asked me is outside of the wrestling bubble. Kenny Omega has done some awesome voiceover work. He’s been involved in some massive video games, but he’s not MJF, and by the way, that’s no shade. I’m sure people are going to try to clip this and make it seem like I’m talking sh*t about Kenny Omega. Kenny Omega is great. I’ve talked about Kenny Omega’s greatness when we wrestled on Collision a couple of years ago. I can’t say enough nice things about Kenny Omega, but he’s no MJF.”

When the bidding war was happening, when your contract with AEW was coming to an end, how much interest was there from WWE?

“You know the answer, there was a lot. I had some nice calls with some nice folks who are high up on the chain, and they were interested in me. They’re still very much so interested in me, and I understand why. But for all my faults, one thing I am not is unprofessional. If you put a contract in front of me with the right amount of money, I’m going to do this. I’m going to broadcast how important those three letters are. Those three letters are just as important as these, because you’re paying me to say that. Now, do I believe it’s true? You’ll never know, and that’s the beauty of it. No matter what promotion I’m working for, I’m going to shamelessly shill what’s going on. Now, can I look in the camera and say I really do believe everything I’ve said prior to this? Yes I can, but they’ll never know.”

Give me your top five MJF matches of all time.

“Bryan Danielson, Iron Man match. CM Punk, dog collar match, I’m gonna throw MJF versus Hangman at Revolution. I believe that was last year. Darby versus me Full Gear, we were the opening match. This is where it gets hard. I will throw in the Mistico match as well. We can do this all day. I can do a top 50, because I’ve had it. But I think those are the ones that, when people think about my career, that’ll come up. The match against Kenny Omega on Collision also. These things can be swapped and switched. The match against Samoa Joe at Grand Slam was insanity. My match with Adam Cole in front of 82,000 people, we pretty much broke the sound barrier that night. It was absurd. It was the loudest I’ve ever [heard], my ears hurt. Both of my matches with Will Ospreay. But the difference between me and somebody you ask this question to, I get frustrated naming these matches because I didn’t win all of them. Sure, they were great and they were entertaining, but I didn’t win all of them, and that p*sses me off. I won a good amount of them that I said, but not all of them.”

Do you think the wrestling now compares to the wrestling when you grew up?

“Listen, I think you’re always going to look at things with rose colored glasses. For example, I loved CM Punk growing up, and now if he was dying in front of me, I’d do nothing but laugh. So the things that you loved as a child are not going to be things that you love now, I think the style of professional wrestling has changed immensely, but that happens after every decade. At one point in time, they thought Harley Race was like a clown. They were like this guy wrestles like a buffoon. Why is he doing all of these things? This is dumb. If somebody wrestled like Harley Race today, people would be like, this is tame. What’s going on? Why is this plodding and slow? Whereas I love Harley Race matches. Don’t get me wrong. I like CM Punk matches too. I just think he’s a piece of sh*t. So the sport evolves, much like how football, the way they run plays now, and the way a defense has to check audibles and the way a free safety is now utilized as opposed to the way they were in the 80s and the 90s, it’s an entirely different game. Basketball is played differently. It’s a three-point game now. When I was growing up, people were going hard in the paint. You look at a guy like Shaq, for example, that was before my time, but you look at a guy like Shaq, for example, like the Magic dominated. I think if you put that exact team with him and Penny [Hardaway] now I don’t know how they do because it’s a three-point game. The game’s changed. The way the game works has changed. I’m a raging traditionalist. I approach my opponents in a very old school manner to get the W. I’m not looking to be flashy. If something flashy happens, it’s because I see an opening to take my opponent out in a unique way. But outside of that, I’ll pull your hair, I’ll bite your face, I’ll scratch your eyes, I’ll do whatever I have to do to win. And I think that’s been lost a little bit on my generation.”

How old were you in that now famous photo when you’re a kid meeting CM Punk?

“I believe it was the year after my Bar Mitzvah. I think I was just turning 14.”  

So fast forward 10 plus years later, you’re in the ring, toe to toe, cutting promos with him. But it’s like you had met your match.

“Match? No. I mean, watch the tape. You tell me who got the better of who verbally during that entire rivalry. I hope he’s able to enjoy what he’s accomplishing over there. I have no idea, because the things that he said in my company do go against the things that he’s saying now. Some people might say that’s hypocritical. That’s not my place. All I know is since I’ve jumped into pro wrestling, I’ve been saying the same thing since the jump, my tune has not changed. I’m Maxwell, Jacob Friedman, and I’m better than you, and you know it. I also won’t sit here and lie to you and tell you that I didn’t learn so much through my hatred of that man. I learned the difference between good and great. That’s what I learned. Now, do I like him? I’ll reiterate, no, I wouldn’t piss on him if he was on fire to put that fire out. But I’m not going to sit here and pretend I didn’t learn from him.”

Do you still keep in touch with Cody?

“Absolutely. Look, I’m not sitting here without Cody Rhodes. Cody Rhodes booked me for All In, which got me in front of Tony Khan, which got me signed to a contract. Like Punk, I hope whatever he’s doing, he’s happy right now. I mean, you would think he would be.”

So when you say you were close to it was either signing with AEW or signing with WWE? 

“Are we referencing when I was in MLW and it was time to make a choice? [Yes] I wouldn’t say I was close. So the version of pro wrestling that I love, now it does [exist], but it didn’t exist. The only option I had was WWE, until I got older and I heard about Ring of Honor and I heard about PWG and Evolve and so on and so forth. When I talked to Tony Khan for the first time, we were on the phone together for two hours, two hours with a kid who was 22 turning 23 and all we did was discuss the territories and our love of territory professional wrestling. It was a no-brainer for me. I know I would have been successful if I went over there. I know I’d be successful if I go over there now, that’s why they’re still interested in me. I respect what they’re doing. I respect their product. I know that they respect our product because about a million times they’ve tried to counterprogram us, slash us any way they can, hurt us any way they can, which, by the way, I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, that’s smart business. Try to kill me. Try to kill me before I kill you. It’s f*cking smart. I’m not going to take that away from them. But I knew I would have a better opportunity, and I would be given more of a leash. Now there’s no leash at all because I’m just stupidly over and I just do whatever the hell I want, but I know I’d be given more of a leash based on the way my now boss was talking about what his vision is for professional wrestling.

I’m already annoyed at Twitter because somebody’s gonna make it seem like I was sh*tting on Cody or Punk or WWE when I’ve literally sat here and whatever, it is what it is, that’s the fun of the app. I’ll just go on there and I’ll just probably make it even worse.” 

With how busy you are. You’ve been in so many movies recently, you’re the AEW Champion. Do you think about how much longer you want to wrestle?

“No, because I’m young, the idea hasn’t even entered my head, like when I was watching that John Cena retirement, or the AJ Styles retirement.”

Cena has got 20 years on you:

“So does Cody, so does CM Punk, so does LA Knight, so does Jey Uso, so does essentially every top guy, Roman, all these dudes are 40s to 50. I’m 29. So yeah, I do think it’s silly to even go there to Oh, when am I going to hang them up? I’m a baby, you know what I mean? I’m a top act, and it’s very rare for somebody my age, if ever, to be in the situation that I’m in. But I’m also very cognizant of the fact that I’m just getting started, I don’t know what my prime is going to be. I don’t think I’m going to have a prime. I think I’m just going to be great for at least the next 20 to 30 years, and it’s crazy to say that out loud, because when you hear 20-30 years, you’re like, Oh, that’s a lot of time. 30s, 40s, 50s, it’s all ahead of me. It’s all ahead of the viewers. I personally feel that year over year I’ve only evolved and gotten better. And I’m very curious to see what I look like as a wrestler when I’m 35 when I’m 45 or when I’m 50.”

So how did Happy Gilmore 2 come together?

“I had an audition. I actually auditioned to be the evil golfer that would have been beside Becky’s character. Becky rules, by the way, if you don’t like Becky Lynch, go f*ck yourself. Anyway, so I auditioned for that role, and Sandler saw it. I didn’t find this out until later, and he was like, this kid is funny, and he kind of looks like me. Can we try him out to be one of the sons? So he specifically out of God knows how many people that auditioned were like him. Then when I got to work with him, it was so apparent to me, obviously you already know how talented he is, but how much of a good, down-to-earth human being he is. Whatever happens to my career now is because no different than Cody and Tony taking a chance on me is in my career in LA is because Adam Sandler took a chance on me, and that’s something I’m never gonna forget. When I make it big, which I will, it’s something I’m never gonna let him forget.”

I think one of the biggest things that’s not talked about in Happy Gilmore 2 is you beat up Eminem

“I did beat the sh*t out of Eminem, yeah. Marshall Mathers, he rolls deep. He showed up on that movie set with a big crew, probably 10-15 dudes, and they were all easily as big as Luchasaurus. It’s like massive human beings, and I get it because he’s seen some sh*t. So I’d imagine it’s no different than when a wrestling fan might see me out and about, being next to who is arguably the greatest rapper of all time was one of the only times in my life where I was star struck was that moment.”

What was your scene, or scenes in Iron Claw supposed to be?

“I had a five-minute talking scene with Zac Efron, who I became really tight with on set, and I would hang out with him in the trailer. He was the nicest guy. When I brought my belt onto the set he was like, let’s take a photo, which was hilarious. His work ethic was insane. He got rhabdo on set because he was working out so hard and hitting the rope so hard and wrestling so frequently.” 

So at what point are you told I’m so sorry, your scene’s not in the movie?

“As an EP [executive producer], I wasn’t even upset, and I know no one’s gonna believe me, but this is the honest-to-God truth. I just wanted the movie to be true to the Von Erich story, because I’m a huge World Class fan. When I got the call from the director, who’s a mensch, by the way, he was like, ‘Max, I’m so sorry…’ I’m like, Dude, this movie is too long, and this scene, while incredibly entertaining, does not help the length, and also is like a sub story. It’s not part of the A story. So I wasn’t upset at all, and I would like to think the movie came out pretty damn well, and I was really proud to have my name on it.”

What would be on the top of the list of I can’t believe I said that on TV. The line to Jeff Jarrett is a pretty good one.

“That was hilarious. I’m gonna say when I called my boss a f*cking mark, and then we had to cut to a commercial break in the middle of me talking, and they cut my microphone. So I’d say that’s the only time my microphones ever been cut. So I think that’s probably the right answer for the time I crossed the line. Yeah, it’s a pretty good one. Yeah, that’s probably numero uno.”

Give me your dream match. If we could make any match possible. Doesn’t matter what company they work for.

“Piper. Or is this alive? Piper is always going to be the answer.”

Give me someone who is alive:

“I think this answer is going to shock people, because also, I will say I can’t pick people that are retired. John would have been my answer, but he’s retired, so I’m gonna say Kevin Steen.”  

Not Kevin Owens?

“No, I want Kevin Steen, the one that I watched in Ring of Honor. Not saying Kevin Owens isn’t spectacular. Kevin Owens is one of the best wrestlers in the world, and it sucks that he’s hurt right now. It kills me. But Kevin Owens can’t exactly say some of the things that Kevin Steen was able to say back in the day. So I want Kevin Steen. That’s a dream match for me. I think that would probably go down as one of the greatest matches of all time and one of the greatest promos of all time. I think I also have to say Seth Rollins, for sure.”

What is MJF grateful for?

“My wife, my house, my jobs.”

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BDE (@itsbrandonde) is a YouTuber and professional wrestler signed with TNA. He sits down with Chris Van Vliet in Albuquerque, NM to discuss his success on YouTube and how that led to him making his pro wrestling debut, competing at TNA Bound For Glory 2025 and signing a contract, overcoming criticism from fans, why he spent $20,000 on a ticket to the WWE Royal Rumble, when he realized BDE has another meaning, dream matches, a possible NXT appearance, his goal to win the X Division Championship and more!

It’s funny, you and I go way back. You were making thumbnails for my channel while you were still having a very successful YouTube channel of your own. But to see your growth over these last five, six years has been crazy.

“If you would have told me five years ago that I’d be wrestling, I would say you’re crazy.” 

Was this ever the goal?

“It was something I always wanted to do, but I wasn’t sure how to get into it, or if it was even possible for me. But once I started training back again in 2024, I was hooked. I was like, I got to keep doing it. Then I had my first match, and I was definitely hooked after that.”

Here’s the thing, a lot of wrestling fans watch it and go, I’d love to do that one day. I dream of doing that one day, and then they never take the steps towards doing it. What for you went from I’m a fan of this to I’m going to give this a try.

“Surprisingly, it was just because my friends at the time wanted to go to training. So they wanted to train to be wrestlers, and it was something that I was interested in. I wanted to see what a bump felt like, because I was watching it for a decade at this point. So I was like, well, if I’m gonna watch and critique it, I gotta at least try it. So I start going as a referee. Because I was like, I won’t be a wrestler. I took like, one bump, and my trainer at the time was like, ‘You’re not a ref. It’s not happening.’ So then it all just kind of fell into place after that.” 

How’d that first bump feel? 

“It was pretty jarring. My neck was hurting. I had a headache. It was bad.”

It’s funny, because people online love to play Monday morning quarterback, right? ‘Oh, I would have done this, or they should have done that.’ So many of them have never taken a bump, right? So now that you’ve gone in there and you’ve done it, you know what it feels like, you know how it should be, and it completely changes everything for you.

“Yeah, it changes how you think. It changes the moves you want to do for your own move set. It changes how you watch wrestling, too, after getting into the business and wrestling, I’ve only been wrestling for a year, but now it goes from when I watched wrestling, it used to be as a viewer. Now I’m studying. So it’s a lot different.”

Congrats on signing with TNA. How did that come together?

“I think it was the Bound for Glory match, the call your shot gauntlet. And then after that, it was the Turning Point match with AJ, and then I heard about it from Carlos in the back. He pulled me to the side, and he said, ‘I want to offer you a contract.’ I was happy as hell, man. I actually hugged him.” 

How’d you even get on their radar?

“What an opportunity. You know, I’m forever grateful for that. But I think it all came to be because TNA wrestling has this creator program. So we were coming out to Slammiversary, and like doing vlogs and filming. So we’re meeting people and getting accustomed. I think Sami Callihan put in a good word, and just the Bound for Glory match happened. I don’t know how it happened, but it happened.”

Because it’s difficult. You’re already cast in the certain light of, Oh, you’re just a YouTuber, you’re just a content creator, and then people, I think, are already painting you in a certain light, you won’t be able to do this because you didn’t come from this. Do you feel like you have to overcome that?

“Yes, and no, there’s a certain chip on my shoulder that I feel like I need to prove. But at the same time. I don’t mind being called a YouTuber. That was my first dream job when I was a kid, so being called a YouTuber doesn’t bother me. But I also want to prove that just because I’m a YouTuber doesn’t mean I can’t be a wrestler either.”

How did this debut match with AJ Francis come together? 

“Honestly, that’s above my pay grade. I just get booked in these matches. I just get surprised every time. But I think it just came together because the Bound for Glory spot that we had, eliminating him from the call your shot gauntlet. I think it just led to that. We have a lot of history from the Indies as well, so I think that was just a way of seeing how I could hang in a one-on-one.”

I think you have to give a ton of credit to AJ Francis, you got to give him his flowers. He is so good at making his opponents look great.

“He does not get enough credit. He really doesn’t. I completely agree.”

It’s pretty crazy that you went from playing as someone like Nic Nemeth Dolph Ziggler in a 2K game. Now you can have a match with him.

“Yeah, I don’t appreciate him unplugging my switch, but at the same time, I am excited for the match. Everyone knows, if you’ve been watching me for a while, Nic is the reason I got into wrestling. The very first wrestling match that I remember watching had Nic Nemeth in it, and I’ve been a fan of him ever since.” 

Now that you’re in TNA, what are the goals in TNA? 

“I want to win a championship. That is definitely why I’m here. I want to win the X Division Championship, eventually the World Title. That’s way down the line. I still got to earn my stripes. But, you know, debuted in the call your shot gauntlet. I would absolutely love to win that 100%. That’s like goal number one, really.”

You recently had a match with Mr. Anderson, Mr. Kennedy. Talk to me about that

“Speak about dreams come true. Just being able to share the ring with people that I grew up watching is something that I never thought would happen. I feel like I’m still having imposter syndrome sometimes.”

How do you deal with that?

“Yeah, I think it’s just time. Over time, it’s gotten more normal. But I don’t even think I’m still there yet, truthfully, but I think it just comes with time and just asking questions too. That’s what makes me feel more comfortable, because I really want to understand what I’m doing in the ring, so the imposter syndrome fades the more I ask questions backstage with some of the wrestlers.”

I know that Jeff Hardy gave you some advice. What was the advice? 

“Really, it was just to be yourself and be authentic. I was asking, what do you think is the best way to connect with the audience? He told me, just be authentic. Be yourself. You’re already doing that because you have your content and stuff like that. But that was really the gist of it. Was a quick conversation. He was putting his makeup on, so I didn’t bother him. But yeah, he was, he was very kind about that. So, yeah, the authenticity for sure.”

Have you officially come up with a name for your finisher?

“Yeah, yeah. So the knee of glory, that’s like the running knee. The Frog Splash, I call it the Fall From Glory. And now we just named the springboard cutter, the clip cutter. The clip cutter.  I was trying to figure out a name for it for a while, but I was like, I’ll just leave it until I find something I like. And then it was actually at TNA last week where I came up with it, and I was like, that’s staying, I like that.”

With your videos, titles and thumbnails are crucial. They’re the most important thing. When you have a video titled, ‘I bought a $20,000 seat to Royal Rumble’ I’d click on that.

“That was a risk. That was a really big risk, because I’ve never [spent that much]. I’ve spent a lot of money on videos.”

You actually bought a $20,000 seat?

“I dropped $20,000 of my own money. That was the biggest risk I’ve ever taken.”

The video got 4 million views. So you made your money back. But what are you thinking when you hit purchase?

“On one hand, I was excited, because I was like, I’ve never sat that close at a wrestling show before, so I was like, either way, it’s gonna be awesome. But I was like, I really hope the ROI is gonna be there. It all came about because I was playing video games with Brent, and we were just chilling, and we were like we want to go to this event. He was like, why don’t we just get tickets? And I was like, hold on, that’s a good idea. So then I call my business manager, and I was like, ‘Hey, I kind of want to drop $20,000 on a ticket. What do you think about this?’ He was like, ‘What are the plans to make that back?’ I was like, ‘Oh, we’ll do streams. We’ll do whatever we got to do. I don’t know. We’ll make it back.’ We ended up doing streams to make it back. So the video before we even filmed it, we had already made some of it back, but it was still a big risk. I’ve never dropped that much money in my life.”

So when you’re thinking about titles and thumbnails, what are kind of some do’s and don’ts?

I like to keep my titles relatively short. I don’t like to go above 60 characters. I would even say 50, because some devices, it gets cut off. So I like for a viewer to be able to know exactly what the video is, and especially with the thumbnails too. I don’t like repeating myself in the thumbnail and in the title.”

What’s your relationship like with criticism? Whether it’s helpful or maybe it’s hurtful? 

“I invite it because at the same time, even if it’s negative, I feel like there’s some truth in it to an extent, right? If it’s overly negative, I think you can tell the difference, you know. You can tell the difference between someone who’s hating and someone who is just giving their opinion. I don’t mind someone critiquing me or giving me constructive criticism, because I’m only a year in. So there’s things that I need to get better at. There’s things I still need to improve on. I think the only thing is, is like, if I wouldn’t trade places with the person that I’ll just take it with a grain of salt.”

If you’re here with TNA full-time now, what does that do to your full-time content-creating job?

“So the content is still going to stay the same. I would say, since full-time with TNA, the content is not necessarily on the back burner, but it’s not my primary focus anymore. My primary focus is getting the gym, studying practice and promos, all that. This is the main goal now, because I feel like, with content after I hit a million subscribers, that was my real last goal for YouTube, it’s something that I’ll still do. I tell my viewers all the time, I’ll be making content till I’m old and gray. My mom gave me my first camera when I was, like, nine years old. I used to make family movies, skits with my friends. That’s just something I enjoy doing, like it was a hobby before it was a job, so I’m always gonna be making content.”

With the partnership that TNA has with WWE and NXT. Is that another goal for you.

“Yeah, that’d be sweet. Obviously, my main focus is TNA. But if the opportunity ever rolls around, I’m definitely down. I’m a team player, whatever TNA wrestling needs me to do. I’m there.”

What is Brandon grateful for?

“This contract and the opportunity to show what I can do.”

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Chaz Warrington (@ChazMosh) is a professional wrestler best known for his time in WWE as Mosh, one-half of the tag team The Headbangers. He sits down with Chris Van Vliet at West Coast Creative Studio in Hollywood, CA to discuss how he was paired up with Glenn Ruth (Thrasher) to form the tag team, how Jim Cornette created their name and look, his Beaver Cleavage gimmick, returning to WWE in 2016 for a match on SmackDown, getting set for his final match with The Headbangers in 2026, and more!

Buy Mosh’s book “Beneath The Skirt” here: https://chazmosh.com 

Congratulations on the new book. What went into telling your story now? 

“It actually started probably seven or eight years ago, and it all started with me just wanting to jot things down for my son. My son never saw me wrestle at the point that we wrestled at WWE. He’s 21 now, he wasn’t even born [when I wrestled]. He was born in 04, I left WWE in 02. So he didn’t know anything about anything. So I just wanted to jot things down for him, just to give him a perspective of what I went through. If he hears about stuff I did, or something kind of like, I don’t know, like a journal or memoir for him, and the more I started writing, the more things just started coming back. But it was a lot of off and on. It was more off than on, because you get sidetracked. Life gets in the way. Then I went back to a high school reunion on October of 24 and someone there, her name is Tori. She’s the writing coach. She’s an editor/ghost writer and she was like, ‘Oh, I’d love to work on that project, can you send it over to me? I’d like to read it.’ I was like, Yeah, sure. So I sent it over to her, and she called me up. She’s like, ‘This is amazing. You got something here.’ She goes, ‘You need to finish it.’ At that point, I was probably 75-80% done. So what happened was, she started from the beginning, going through, editing, making notes for me on the side of the paper of Word and everything for me to go back and look and maybe add something here, it’s just really needed, and kind of helped me with it. But that motivated me to get it done, and I got it done, and here it is now.” 

It’s a crazy concept to think that your son wasn’t there for your best wrestling memories. 

“Yes, and the craziest part about that is, so when I lived in New Jersey before I moved to South Florida, where I’m at now, my basement in New Jersey was my man cave. I had a pool table, an air hockey table, you had the dart board, you had the bar, you had the big screen TV. But on the walls it was all of my pictures, the magazines, the belts, anything I had to do with us, I had framed. It was up on the walls. That was my mini Chaz shrine, I guess. But when I moved to Florida, there’s no basements, so I had nowhere to hang it for all those years. So I just moved probably about two and a half years ago into a three-story townhouse, and the first floor, I was like, this is perfect. I have shelves up with my figures on them, with the action figures. Then I was able to take all of those, because all the years, every time I moved, I kept all of this stuff in the big frames. I never got rid of them. So once I had that room, I was like, Oh, this would be perfect. So that’s what I did. I started going through it, but I had so much extra stuff that I actually went and bought one of those big art books. I bought a giant one. I was like, this is perfect, because now I have a coffee table book of me. So my son came home from college one time and he was downstairs, and I’m like, ‘Are you coming up?’ He’s like, ‘Yeah, I’ll be up in a minute. I’m busy.’ So I walked down, he was sitting on the couch flipping through. He was reading. He read the stuff that I had hung on the wall, which was WrestleMania 13, the belts, all the big, important stuff, are the cool things I thought we did when I had enough room, I reframed it and hung it. But he was going through the book of newspaper clips, and when I threw out the first pitch at the Phillies game, he’s going through all that, and he stopped. He looked at me and goes, ‘Dad, I knew you were kind of like a big deal. I’ve never seen this stuff before. This is cool. I never realized how big you were.’ I guess he didn’t even know how to put it into words. He was like, ‘You’re a bigger deal than you played off or than I ever thought. This is some cool stuff you really got to do because you did this.’ Now he starts going through it, like showing me stuff that really stood out to him. Then it dawned on me at that point, he really has no idea to the extent of what I did. So the cool part about the book now is when he does get around to reading, and no he’s not gonna read it anytime soon, but when he does get around to reading it, he’ll be like, oh sh*t, I didn’t know that happened. My dad did that?”

So you’ve been at the PC quite a bit. You’ve been doing a lot of guest coaching. How did that all come together?

“It kind of came together, I don’t want to say it’s kind of just a joke I threw out, but Steve Corino and I, we’ve remained friends all these years out of nowhere, and he’s a Phillies fan also. So during baseball season, we’re always texting back and forth about something. He is awesome. So for someone who never, and I don’t mean this in a negative way, the way it may sound, because he made it, but he never made it like WWE status. ECW status is unreal. What he’s done in Japan, what he’s done is what most people haven’t done. But the knowledge that he has, and watching him work with these kids and pass it down is just amazing. So we were texting one day, and I was like, ‘Hey, just throwing it out there, if you ever need a coach up there, or is there a chance or an opportunity to come up and help out or something?’ He was like, ‘Yeah, absolutely. You have Bloom’s number?’ I’m like, I think so. He goes, ‘Just text Bloom.’ He came back to me. He goes, ‘You text Bloom?’ I’m like, ‘No, not yet.’ He goes, ‘I just talked to him. He said, Yeah, he’d love to have you come up here. So just text him and you guys figure it out.’ And two weeks later, there I was.”

At what point did you start to realize I love wrestling, this is something I might be able to try to do for a living?

“Well, I used to go with friends of mine, especially my best friend Mike, every month if the WWF was in the Spectrum in Philly. So we would jump on the Speed Line, take the subway down, and we made a whole venture out of it. But we would go, and I used to joke around with him and my other friends going, one day you’ll see me in that ring. But never thinking [anything of it], that was just kind of a funny thing, because I was just a huge fan of it, and I love the promos. The promos sucked me in. So that was it. Then riding down there was a town in New Jersey, which was like 10-15 minutes from my house. It was an old rundown flea mart, like you would walk in there and you would go, Oh, this is where the thrift stores come to buy stuff to sell at the thrift store, used underwear and bras with pink stitching in them. It was crap, stuff you would not really wear. But out front every now and then there was a big, giant white truck, and it was spray-painted on the side. ‘Pro Wrestling Saturday night at 8 pm.’ So one Saturday, I had nothing going on, let me go check this out. Now, meanwhile, the only wrestling I ever saw was WWE or WWF, and then WCW started running more. So they would run the convention center. So there’s the lights, there’s music. I had no idea what indie wrestling was. Never been to anything like it. I walked in and I sat down going, what is this? Because that’s where the Monster Factory was. I see the Monster Factory, I see WWE up on the wall, but I have no idea what any of that means. I watched it, the guys came out, and I was like, this is awful. Where are the lights? There was music. I’m like, where’s the lights, and the guys’ outfits weren’t anything. Everyone just had a singlet on. There was no flare. I’m like, where’s the Macho Man? I was expecting a production like that, and didn’t get it. But then I saw the Monster Factory logo and WWE logo on the wall. I’m like, I gotta find out what this is. I kind of lingered after the show, and at the time, the heavyweight champ was The Spider, and I saw The Spider hanging over by this door. The ring was here. There was a balcony to sit on, and then there was an office door. So I saw him standing there. Then as everyone was running out, I saw him take his mask off. I went, guy kind of looks familiar, so it turns out it’s Glenn, my partner. We started talking, and we never started talking before. We realized we knew of each other, because our high schools wrestled one another. So we never wrestled each other, but we kind of knew each other. So I started talking to him, and that’s when he explained to me, Oh, this is a school, just like a show that Larry does every month, and blah, blah, blah, and that’s when he convinced me to come and try out. And I was like, yeah, let me try out. What the hell? What else am I doing? At that point, I was in my fourth year at community college.” 

What were you studying?

“Nothing. It was college because my parents would let me stay at the house rent-free because I was still in college. So that was it. I went down to the school, and I tried out, and I signed up for the school, and at that point I was like, I’m in the ring. I did what I said I would do, and I had no idea it was gonna go where it went. It was just me getting in there, it was never one of those things where I was like, oh I can see myself being heavyweight champ or a tag team champion like that. It was always like, Oh, this would be a cool thing to try.”

Did you have aspirations to be a singles wrestler or a tag wrestler?

“At that point, the only aspiration I had was not to get hurt and just try to figure out life. Because at that point I was 22 I had no idea what I was doing with my life, and I was just trying to figure it out. So it was just one of those things. But then when Glenn and I started tagging together, and I realized, oh, there’s something here, that’s when it kind of started clicking with me that this is something that could really work or could really take off.”

What was the idea behind forming the tag team in the first place?

“So Glenn had been around for two or three years already doing independents, so he was kind of known in that northeast area, and he had gotten a herniated disc in his back, and his thing was, he approached me because the moment we met, we clicked. We just clicked. We got along really well. We were hanging out all the time together. He just kind of took me under his wing. He was helping me more than others, and his thing was he tried to do it by himself. He had been to Japan. He had been to Puerto Rico, and if anyone’s watching out there, I’ve never been to Japan. I want to go to Japan at least once, now put it out into the woods. Out there you go. I mean, NOAH’s got an agreement with WWE, and I am under contract with WWE, the legends contract. Yes, it’s still a contract. So, yeah. So I think Glenn’s thing was hey, I’ve been doing it singles by myself. I really haven’t gotten anywhere. Let me try a tag. We get along really well. Our body types at that point were very similar, except that was just a smaller, skinnier version of him, to the point where he was the heavyweight champ. I went out dressed as him and lost the belt for him, but I never took the jacket off, but no one knew that was me and not him. One time we had the masks on. We were at a show. His mom came over and had a 10-minute conversation with me thinking I was Glenn the whole time. So we just gelled like that right off the bat. So that’s why he was like, ‘Hey, we should try this. Are you interested in trying it?’ At that point, I was trying to figure out who I was and when I was in the ring. All I did was laugh and giggle because I was like, I’m in a wrestling ring. So the mask helped hide me laughing and smiling the whole time. I’m getting the sh*t beat out of me. I’m supposed to be selling, and I’m looking up at the crowd like laughing and smiling.”

Weren’t you training with some pretty big names at The Monster Factory?

“Yeah, D’Lo was down there. Boo Bradley [Balls Mahoney] was down there. Then when we had left, Big Show had come, but this was months later, Big Show was there. D’Lo actually was a huge part. So D’Lo kind of trained himself, did the backyard thing, and him and his friends would come down and rent the ring, and they put on a whole production. They were great. They had lights, they had ring music. They had their own matches. They videoed it all. It was great. Glenn and I would stay and watch, because they would rent the ring on a Saturday afternoon. So after we got done training, Glenn and I would sit there and watch. So when Larry convinced D’Lo to join the school. D’Lo is actually the one who helped us perfect the Stage Dive, our finisher. So he was a huge part of that.”

What a finisher! It’s one of the greatest tag team finishers in the history of wrestling.

“It’s not one of, it is the greatest tag team finisher of all time, the most underrated finisher. And we say that, and Glenn’s way more passionate about than I am. He gets hot when it comes up. But what’s so great about it is the timing, nothing else. You need timing for the 3D, LODs finisher, really no timing. You just stand up and jump off. Matt and Jeff’s finishers, The Hart Foundation, there’s really no [timing required] because you’re just holding one up. Even Demolition, as much as I love them, it’s just across the knee with the elbow coming off the timing. With ours, the timing is important. But what else is important is what you have to do. If I’m giving you the Power Bomb Leg Drop. There’s a way you have to land so you don’t get hurt, and Glenn doesn’t get hurt. You have to turn your head, you have to put your arm down. There’s a lot more to it, and it’s never been duplicated.”

So where did the idea come from to make you guys The Headbangers?

“That came from Jim Cornette. So we left, we packed up the car and I started in June of 93 we packed up the car in April of 94 and went to Memphis for USWA as The Spiders. So we worked as The Spiders there, and then we were in Ozark Mountain wrestling with Burt Prentice in Arkansas for a little over a year, maybe a year and a half. And what happened was, at the end of that, Burt started bringing in Ricky and Robert, The Rock and Roll Express, Tracy Smothers was bringing them in for our big show we had every Monday night. And then it was just Ricky and Tracy coming and we were working them. And the good part is that Larry would bring guys in. So he brought Jerry Lawler in back in the day, and then Cornette was there. So Glenn knew them and they knew of Glenn, and from being around and with Tracy and Ricky coming, we were giving them tapes like, ‘Hey, can you give this to Cornette? Can you give this to Cornette?’ Because USWA had the gateway into WWE back then, and so did Smoky Mountain. USWA, we went there as The Spiders. We were there a few months, and then we were gone. We couldn’t get back in. And so we’re like, okay, so Smoky Mountain is another way for us to try to get in. So Cornette called us one day, and he goes, ‘Hey, I got this idea. I’d like to bring you in. The Gangstas are getting ready to finish up. I’d like to bring you guys in.’ We’re like, Yeah, because with Burt Prentice, at that time, we were making 4 or $5 a night. 

So when Cornette called us, he goes, ‘Hey, I had this idea. I want to bring you guys in, but I don’t like the masks. I don’t like masked wrestlers.’ Which is funny, because when he brought us in at Ring of Honor, what did he do? He put us under a mask first. But yeah, so he told us that, and you’re gonna laugh at this knowing Jim Cornette, he was at a Danzig concert in New York. He goes, ‘It was the craziest thing I’ve ever seen. These guys had earrings and their noses were pierced, and they had makeup on their face. They’re wearing dresses and they had tattoos.’ He goes, ‘With your guys’ attitude from the northeast, I think you could pull this idea I have off. I don’t really know what the idea is, other than you’d be Headbangers.’ He goes, ‘You would come out, listen to loud, obnoxious music. I want you to spit on people.’ I mean, the first TV we did, I walked down the ringside and I spit on every single person in the front row, right in their face. He didn’t care. He was like, if you find roadkill on the road, throw it in the back of the car, put it on a leash and drag it to the ring. We didn’t want to go that far. But I knew what he was talking about, the music he was talking about. I knew what he was talking about. I knew I had been to the heavy metal concerts at the bank, and I’ve been to him in the spectrum in Philly with my buddies, so I knew exactly what he was talking about. I’d been in the mosh pits.”

You were part of that scene?

“Yes, I had done it. So we were like whatever you want us to do, it’s the opportunity, it’s gonna get us seen, it’s Cornette. We knew who was there, and we knew it was another gateway into WWE. So we’re like, Yeah, sure. So we show up at TV, and it’s actually funny, because we show up and The Gangstas were there. We walk in, and New Jack walks over to Cornette. He goes, ‘What the f*ck are these guys doing here?’ And Cornette’s like, ‘What do you mean what are they doing here? They’re coming in because you’re finishing up, they’re taking your spot.’ They’re like, ‘Well, f*ck you. We quit now then.’ The idea was to bring us in, give us two matches, and then do two interviews. So before weeks of TV, we’re on TV, and then we’d start doing the spot towns. Cornette was like, ‘All right, so leave.’ He turns around. He goes, ‘You guys doing anything this weekend? Now you’re booked.’ So we instantly got booked on everything, and he said, ‘I can’t guarantee you the world, but I’ll guarantee you 75 dollars a night.’ We’re like, 75 hours a night for three nights a week?! I’m like, that’s 225 dollars a week. Gold mine!”

What was the idea behind the makeup you wore and the way that you guys had it on your face?

“So when we showed up to the first TV, Cornette had the black acrylic paint you can buy in a tube at Walmart or any store. We were trying to put it on, trying to be nice and neat about it. We kept washing it off and then we would try it again. After like, the fourth or fifth time, Cornette comes over. He goes, No. He dips his finger like this, and he goes, swipe, swipe. He goes, That’s it, go. So there was no rhyme or reason. So some nights we would do it that way. Some nights do it this way, we’d let it run down. Then I learned that if I put water on my face first, and I just did a thick line here, it would kind of just run now, sometimes we just did it thicker, which spurred whatever it felt like that night. That’s what it was.”

Take me back to some of those early matches. So like, you’re super green, incredibly inexperienced, and you’re in the ring with people like Adam Bomb, people like Papa Shango. You punch Papa Shango in the face? 

“So, this is great too, because now it’s my second night. So, there’s a bunch of us from the school. We all went out that night, we had a few drinks. So I’m sitting there, I’m feeling confident. I’m like, I had a match last night, this is going to be good. They roll the board out, and it says Papa Shango versus Chaz. I’m like, Oh, another giant, okay. Then Glenn said to me, ‘Oh sh*t.’ I go, ‘What’s wrong?’ He goes, Larry [Sharpe] and Papa have heat.’ I don’t know what it is. There’s heat there, because Papa Shango went through the Monster Factory. Now I’m thinking, I knew Papa Shango went through the Monster Factory, I see that, and I’m golden. We went to the same school, we can talk about it. He goes, ‘Him and Larry have heat, it’s real heat.’ And I go, ‘What’s the heat?’ He goes, ‘I don’t know, but just don’t mention you went to the Monster Factory.’ So now I have to go over and introduce myself to him and say, ‘Hey, I’ll be sitting over here when you’re ready to tell me whatever you want to do to me.’ And now I’m thinking, what if he asked me what school I went to? What do I say? All this is going through my mind, so my confidence of being here quickly got squashed. So Papa comes over. He’s like, ‘Come on, let’s talk about it.’ We went through a couple of things. Then he says to me, ‘How do you throw a punch?’ I go, ‘I punch you right there’, and I’m pointing to his neck, I don’t want to hit you up here. I’m trying to talk him through what I’ve been told or what I’ve seen. I haven’t thrown a punch at the school. I’ve done nothing offensive at the school. I’ve just taken bumps and hit the ropes. So I’m like, ‘I punch you right there.’ And he’s like, ‘Okay, yeah, but how do you throw a punch?’ I’m like, ‘Well, I hit you down here.’ And he goes, ‘How do you throw a punch?’ And I’m like, ‘I don’t know what you mean.’ Now, looking back like me today, if I get into the locker room with someone and someone’s having that conversation back, I most likely would be like, kid I’ll see you out there, don’t worry about it, and I’m thinking I’m not gonna let you do anything. I’m just gonna bump you and that’s it. He had such patience. He looks at me, goes, ‘Throw a punch.’ I go, ‘You want me to punch you right now?’ He’s like, yes. I’m like, Okay. I punched him so hard. His head spins this way. He turns around. He’s like, ‘Kid, tonight you’re gonna throw kicks.’ I was like, ‘Okay. Do you want to see how I kick?’ He goes, No. Because I had never thrown a kick, and no offensive moves whatsoever. And then it’s great in the match, because we go through the stuff, and he shoots me to the corner, and he comes charged in, and I move, and I’m like, one, kick, two, kick, three, kicks. And he comes out of the corner, wham, and just squashes me. But those were my first offensive moves. And the best part about that story is, all the years we were in the locker room together, I never told him. I don’t know why. It’s just insecurities I always had, I never really felt like I fit. I guess maybe that was kind of why.” 

When The Headbangers won the Tag Team Championships the titles were vacated at this point?

“Technically, yes, because that’s when Dude Love and Stone Cold were tag champs, and Stone Cold had hurt his neck wrestling Owen at SummerSlam, so he couldn’t defend the belts. So we found out four or five days before the pay-per-view that we were going to be slid into that spot, and we’re just ecstatic to be on another pay-per-view. And yeah, so it was LOD, the Godwins, and then Owen and Davey Boy, and The Headbangers were, all of a sudden, just thrown into that mix. And again, we had no idea about anything other than we’re just in another pay-per-view. So every time we were on a pay-per-view, we tried to step up our outfits. So we went to the thrift store, we bought wedding gowns and we dyed them black, specifically because we’re in a title match on a pay-per-view, we need to have something a little bit different. To be in there with them, and, I mean, you know, we had worked the Godwins. We had worked Davey and Owen, we worked LOD, so we’ve worked all of them before. We wrestled Davey and Owen a night after WrestleMania 13 for the belt. So that was one thing. You know, we had a title shot, but to be in that environment, on the pay-per-view like that, we were just all jacked up.”

How many matches did Beaver Cleavage have? 

“One match. Four vignettes, undefeated.”

You have one match, but it lives on forever. Here we are, 27 years later, still talking about it.

“I have one of the worst gimmicks in the history of wrestling.” 

Do you think it was one of the worst gimmicks?

“Probably. I still to this day don’t know where it truly came from, how the idea came up. I mean, I think the vignettes could possibly be some of the best vignettes ever done. They’re hysterical. I mean, I’m sitting there, and I come out of a room, and I tell my mother that I can’t find the cat. I can’t find a cat anywhere. She turns around. She goes, ‘You can’t find pussy?’ I go, ‘No, I can’t find pussy anywhere.’ Meanwhile, she’s peeling a zucchini, and she goes, ‘Well, Pussy is probably under the bed. I know what would get pussy…’ I have a scrape on my knee, and she’s cleaning my knees, and I go, ‘When it comes to working on your knees, my mom knows best.’ I mean, they’re priceless. There were no rules back then. Do whatever you have to do to get over, to draw ratings.”

So you have no idea where this idea came from?

“I have a general guess. First overseas where we went to Kuwait. It’s the first overseas tour I was ever on. Jerry Brisco was the agent in charge of the trip. He gets my passport. He starts laughing. Now, my passport picture at that point was from when I was 20 years old. So he looks at it, and he starts laughing, and he goes, ‘Oh, look at you. You look just like Leave It to Beaver.’ I’m like, Okay? So like that trip I was called Beav, and then I found this out the other day. I didn’t know this. Bruce Pritchard was a huge Leave It to Beaver fan. So everyone wants to blame it on Russo. I mean, Russo helped with the vignettes, and he was there when we did all the vignettes. But I don’t know who actually came up with the idea of, let’s have a Leave It to Beaver character, and we’re going to insinuate that he’s having sex with his mother. I don’t know who came up with it, but when it was presented to me, I was like, okay. I was home, Glenn was hurt. He was rehabbing his knee. I’m gonna get used, I’m gonna be on TV. If I’m on TV, then I go to house shows. I make money when I’m on house shows, because back then, we didn’t have a guaranteed contract. So I’m like, sure, whatever. I’d never done singles before, other than those three matches I had my first when I first started down at Monster Factory. I was like, Yeah, this will be cool. The vignettes were funny. Then for me, it was a character. So I was able to dive into this big kid wearing a propeller hat, burying my face in my mother’s boobs every time I went out to the TV or staring at her boobs. Everything revolved around my head being in her boobs. So I was like, This is funny. It’s fun, I don’t know, we’ll see what happens.” 

I don’t think people realize it lasted like a month. 

“No, it was literally five weeks. Yeah, it was five weeks. So I did the four vignettes. Then I had the one match with Christian, and then I think it was maybe one or two weeks later, they had me walk off the set live. It was in Memphis. It was live on TV.”

What was the idea to kill this character? 

“I think there were things behind the scenes. Owen had just had his accident and passed. There was some sexual harassment charges being discussed or thrown out. I don’t know if they ever happened or not. So anything that was edgy like that, they were squashing right away.” 

So then were you like, well, what’s my character now? Where do I go?

“Yeah, so they said to me, ‘You’re just gonna be Chaz from Jersey. You’re just here to have fun.'” 

What kind of description is that? 

“So I’m like, here I am, Headbanger Mosh, who I know. Now I’m this Beaver Cleavage guy, I knew what I had to do. I just acted like a big kid, just wanted to make my mom happy. Then it was like Chaz with a girlfriend, because Mariana, the girl, they were like, oh, that’s gonna be your girlfriend. And the whole idea was she convinced me just to be Chaz, a kid from New Jersey, and I didn’t know what to do. I’m like, Who is Chaz? I had to try and figure out who Chaz was. And then they came up with the storyline of me beating my girlfriend. So now I’m a woman beater on TV, and which actually leaked into my personal life a little bit, because some people don’t realize it’s TV, it’s entertainment. Guys at the airport, TSA. Same TSA agents going through Philly. All of a sudden, they’re like, ‘What’s up with this new thing?’ I go, ‘Dude, it’s work. It’s not real. I’m not beating my girlfriend up.’ But you got treated differently, my bags would get searched more at TSA because of this. But Glenn and I, when we were Tag Champs, we’d put our belt in the bag and boom, go through. Now I go through, ‘You have nail clippers in your bag? You can’t have those.’ I’m like, what? That’s not real. But, yeah, it just kind of leaked in, but the whole time I was trying to figure out who Chaz was. It wasn’t easy to try to figure that out, because you had to figure out, Okay, what moves do I want to do? I didn’t know what to do.”

Did you end up figuring it out?

“I think I started to. Then they brought Glenn back, and then they put us back together as The Headbangers. So I think as I really started feeling my groove and figuring out and I’ve started having decent matches, other than just me going out there and trying to act like a goofball or just getting beat up because the locker room was now against me, because they showed vignettes at the locker room throwing me out and I wasn’t allowed in the locker room. There was times I wasn’t allowed in a building because I was a woman beater and all these other things. I think I literally started to get comfortable, and then Glenn came back.”

Was it a huge surprise when you get called to come back to WWE in 2016?

“Yes. So what happened with that is, I would see Road Dogg at indie shows, and whenever WWE was in town or anywhere near me, I would call. I would try and get a hold of Hunter and say, ‘Hey, is there any way for me to [do one match]? I’m not looking to come back, just want to do one match.’ At this point, I had a son. My son was born in 04. He had seen me do hundreds of indie shows, then when Glenn came back and him and I started tagging again, he’s seen that. All I wanted was one time for him to see me in a WWE ring. That’s it, in an arena, or whatever it was, that’s all I wanted. Every time I reached out to the office, I got no because of insurance purposes. ‘You don’t have physical.’ I’m like I’ll get a physical. I’ll get blood work, I’ll do whatever you want. I’ll sign a waiver. I’ll sign all the waivers you want. I just need one match, please. That’s all I’m asking for. And I kept being told no. But I would see Road Dogg, and I’d be like, ‘Dude, you’re still close with Hunter, can you talk to him? Just one match? That’s all I want. I don’t care where it is, what it is. Then so all of a sudden, 2016 I got a text and it said, ‘Hey, are you and Glenn available to do SmackDown Live on Tuesday night?’ And it was like, Foxwoods Casino or something up in Connecticut. I’m like, okay, yeah, nice rib. Then immediately he called me, and it was Road Dogg, and he goes, ‘No, no, it’s not a rib. We got the storyline we’re doing, we’d love to have you on.’ I couldn’t say yes fast enough. Then a couple of days later, I get a text, ‘Sorry, dude.’ I didn’t realize in Foxwood, wherever the casino was, you had to have full blood work done, full physical. He goes, ‘We won’t have enough time to get that done by Tuesday. I want to try and keep the storyline going to bring you to Dallas the following Tuesday. But no promises. I’ll do my best.’ I text him back, ‘Thanks, Brian. Appreciate you thinking of me. I’m like it’s not happening. So I actually hadn’t watched WWE in a while, I hadn’t watched anything. I was a little bit bitter and salty about being the way I was, not re-signed and all it says I just kind of separated myself. But at Tuesday night, I’m watching SmackDown, and I’m trying to see the storyline where we would have fit in, never saw it. I’m like, oh, I don’t see where [we’d be], so I let it go. Wednesday comes and goes, nothing. Thursday comes and goes, nothing. And then I got a message on Twitter from Howard Finkel, saying, ‘Please call me at this number.’ Before I even saw it, five minutes later, my phone rang and it said it was a 203 number, so which I know is Stanford. So I’m like, hello, and he’s like, ‘Chaz, Howard Finkel here. I don’t know if you saw my message on Twitter, but you and Glenn are needed in Dallas, Texas on Tuesday night for SmackDown Live. Are you available?’ Hell yeah, we’re available. So that and that was three, four o’clock on Friday. So that’s when I’m like oh my god, this is really happening. Hadn’t been there in 15 years, on TV in 15 years, and now it was the opportunity for my son to actually see me [wrestle]. But not only see me, but see it on TV, live in a WWE ring, which was even better. So leading up to that, I had said to him, ‘What can I do?’ Because that whole thing for me was for him, that it’s all I wanted. In 2016 he was 12, so he I talked about him earlier. He had no idea the level that I did it, or anything like that. So I said to him, ‘What can I do for you so you know it’s just for you when I get to the ring?’ We went through a bunch of stuff. He goes, ‘I want you to dab.’ I looked at him, and that’s when the dab was big with Cam Newton. I looked at him and I go, ‘I hate the dab. I think it’s stupid, I’m not doing the dab.’ He goes, ‘That is exactly why I want you to do the dab.’ So I went, Okay. So we went back. It just worked out perfectly. Because a lot of times when you’re doing stuff in the ring, you want to make sure your camera gets it. You talk to the camera guys or production and say, ‘Hey, I do this, can you get this camera over here?’ I didn’t talk to anyone about it, was just a perfect thing. I did my roll in, I hit that corner, and bam, there it was. The greatest part about is my wife at the time, she set up her phone behind Tyler and she videoed him watching me. So I got to see his reaction. I got my entrance coming down. I watched the TV, but the TV was here, and he was here. I got to see the whole thing. As I’m coming down, and you could see his face, he was smiling. But the reaction of when I hit the dab, he was like, [cheers]. I go, ‘You teared up?’ He goes, ‘No, I had something in my eye. The ceiling fan was going, wind blew in my eye.’ But that’s probably the greatest two minutes. I have it saved on my phone. That’s the greatest two-minute video I have of him. I’m so grateful to my ex for filming that, because all I wanted was for him to see me, but then I got to watch him watch me. It’s goosebumps. And for him to be able to do that. At the end of the book, I write kind of chronological order of my top 10. So the only reason it’s not number one is because I did it chronologically, but that’s got to be the highlight of my career. Watching him watch me get in that ring, was just, and then we had a decent match with Heath and Rhino, because we knew them also. So they were like, ‘No, whatever you guys want to do, let us know what we’re going to do. We want you to get your stuff in. And it was just amazing.”

When you go back to catering, are you seeing some faces you recognize? 

“So what happened was we heard stories about how the locker room was so different than when we were there. Because when we were there, it was guys playing dominoes and guys playing cards, and guys just ribbing on each other. It was just fun. We got there, was so quiet and reserved. We’re walking down the hall, and we see the signs, it says male locker room on this door, and then it said extras on this door. We’re like, are we extras? Are we male wrestlers? We didn’t know where to go. Matt Cardona, back then he was Zack Ryder. He pops out of the locker room and he sees us. He’s like, ‘Oh, Headbangers, come on in here with us.’ So we were like, Oh my God, thank goodness Matt ran out and saw us, so we sat with him. But then the next thing was, all right, let’s go somewhere. And because the thing was, when we were there and somebody would come, you could tell it was awkward for them. Then we felt awkward, this isn’t our house anymore, we’re guests here. So you want to kind of just be quiet, stay out of the way. So the idea was going to catering and to eat, but then to find someone we knew that we could just sit down with right away, you kind of get out of the way. Our idea was, where’s Chioda? We’re looking for Mike Chioda. He’s awesome, or Chimel. We walked in, and we kind of stood there and kind of looked around for a second, and then from across the room, it was instant eye contact. It was John Cena. Cena jumps up. He’s like, ‘Sh*t, Headbangers are here! Heard you guys were coming.’ He comes running across, literally running across the thing. He gives us a hug and he’s like, ‘Man, I’m so happy you guys are here, this is great. I heard you were gonna be here. I’m so excited. You know what? Grab some food and come over and sit down and talk to me, because I’d love to catch up with you guys and see what’s going on now.’ Before then, we only met Cena one time. We did an indie show in California when he was Prototype. He was just starting. So, I never met John Cena. I met Prototype. So for him to do that, we were like so maybe we do still kind of fit in. We didn’t feel like outsiders, but we sat down with him for 10-15 minutes, and then he was like, ‘Guys, I’d like to talk more…’ We’re like, ‘No, John. We understand, go ahead.’ But it just eased us so much. Then when we went out, we started talking to Heath and Rhino and Mike Rotundo was our agent. We walk over and we say hi to him, and he’s like, ‘Oh, this is going to be easy.’ We’re like, ‘All right, cool. What are we doing?’ He goes, ‘Whatever you want. Just tell me what you’re doing, here’s the time limit you have, you guys figure it out. Just tell me what you’re doing. I have no worries about this match.’ We were like, cool. So then Heath and Rhino were both like, ‘So we want to make sure you guys get your [stuff in]. Heath’s like, ‘You got your drop down clothesline. I want to take your flapjack. We want Power Bomb leg drop in here. We’re like, oh sh*t. This is awesome, they want to take all of our stuff. We expect to just come and bump around and bounce for you guys. But yeah, it was awesome.”

What is Mosh grateful for?

“My son, my ex and life.”

Nia Jax (@LinaFanene) is a professional wrestler currently signed to WWE. She sits down with Chris Van Vliet in London, England to discuss her WWE return and why it has been much more successful this time around, punching Becky Lynch and the backlash that followed, responding to online critics, taking an RKO from Randy Orton in the Royal Rumble, yelling “My Hole” during a match on Raw, taking a stinkface from Rhea Ripley at a WWE live event, crushing Lyra Valkyria, getting hit by a drunk driver before her wrestling career started, being cousins with The Rock and more!

Chelsea Green said you were a locker room leader, nothing but love for you!

“I love that. That’s awesome. She’s great. I honestly feel the same about her. But it is funny, since I come back, I have kind of taken on the role of a little bit of the locker room leader. I’ve been here longer than most of the girls in the locker room, I’m older, and I’ve seen it all, so I feel as though you kind of have to have a little bit of a tradition in the locker room, and I think it kind of gets lost in this new age. Some of the new people, they didn’t come up when I came up. My coach was Bill DeMott when I got hired for the WWE, and he was very old school, very traditional in the ways, you know, shake hands, introduce yourself to everybody. You guys set up the ring, you break down the ring, you watch every match. We never had the opportunity to not go to a show, even if we weren’t working. I had to learn how to ring announce, how to time keep. I had to learn everything from the ground up, and it’s different now in NXT. So it’s not really their fault. They just don’t know better. So I feel like, since I do know better, it’s my job to help.”

Do you look at your career in 2 parts of when you got released and when you came back?

“Yeah. I mean, it’s hard not to.”

It could have picked up where it left off. But I don’t feel like it did

“No, because I had that break. I feel like I changed in a better way. I got better and I elevated my game a little bit more. Not that I didn’t think I had the opportunity in my first part, but I think because it was a different schedule, and I wasn’t really locked in as I could have been when I had the break, and I was able to see what I could improve on. I was able to change it coming back.”

It feels like maybe it’s a different style and a different approach compared to your first run. How do you contrast the two?

“I feel as though before, I was taught a certain way, ‘You’re a certain size. You can’t do these things. Stay away from this. Don’t let them do this to you.’ So I was kind of like pigeon-holed into a little bit of a [situation where] I was afraid to get out of it, because the person telling me is somebody who runs the show, you work for an audience of one. So this time around, Hunter was more like, ‘Be you. You show them what you can do, because I know what you’re capable of.’ So I feel like the difference is just me kind of like being myself a little bit more. I’m more adding who I am into my character, instead of I gotta stay here and make sure that somebody’s happy.”

I don’t think that people appreciate how athletic you are.

“It was something where it was like, Oh no, you shouldn’t do that. Somebody said you shouldn’t [do that]. [Because of] Your size, stay in this kind of in this lane, because this person does this, and this person does that, and you are special here. So I’d always get sh*t on like, ‘Oh, you’re boring.’ I’m like, actually, no, I can do things, just you stay in the lane that you’re told to stay in. Now, I mean, I’ve played sports my entire life. I’ve never not played sports. I played basketball, soccer, baseball, anything I could. I’m a pickleball player now.”

How often do you play pickleball? 

“Well, since we’ve been on the road, not as often. But when I was off, when I was trying to lose weight, I got bored with certain cardio and I would just play pickleball all day with my church group. We’d go at like 7 am to noon and it was so much fun.” 

You look amazing:

“Thank you. It’s funny because right now, I just told one of the girls, and they were like, No way, because they hadn’t seen me at my biggest. My fitness journey started three years ago. At this point, I’ve lost 100 pounds since I started. Not a lot of people saw me when I was that big, because I wasn’t really working here, and I tried to stay off the internet. But yeah, this is actually the weight I started in NXT at when I got hired. So it’s kind of like people haven’t seen that because I never really had the opportunity to lock it in, and I’ve been locked in. My nephew was like, ‘I’m 100 pounds.’ I’m like, ‘I know, I just lost you!’”

You’re the only female WWE wrestler I know where they announced your weight. What was the idea behind that?

“I know everybody went nuts and they’re like, ‘How dare you announce your weight?’ I was like, whatever. So I think the idea was just to be like, I know she’s big, but this is how big she is. I’ve always been a heavier girl. If I showed you a picture of me at my thinnest, you wouldn’t even believe I was like 225 pounds at my thinnest. So when I was that way, I was heavier than Roman. I was heavier than all The Shield guys. So I think the thought was it’s impressive that you’re this weight and move the way you do. I think they announced me at 270 and that’s a lot of weight. To be able to move and do what I’ve done at 270 is difficult. So I think it wasn’t like, oh, let’s embarrass her and shame her. It was more of like, no, we’re trying to show you that’s impressive. Yokozuna, he was a big man, but that guy moved. If you go back and watch his stuff, he can move, and Vince was like, that’s the impressive part about it. I think that’s where the idea came from.”

When did they stop announcing your weight?

“I couldn’t even remember because it wasn’t something [bad], I didn’t have an issue with it. It wasn’t like, I’m so upset. I was like, yeah. They asked me before.”

How did you find out that you were going to be in the Men’s Royal Rumble?

“So we had rehearsals that day, the Women’s Rumble, because it was me, Becky and Charlotte at the end of that one. So the doors were opening, and we were in Arizona, I believe. I was walking back, and Johnny Ace was like, ‘Hey kid, you got to rehearse more.’ I said, ‘Oh, what are we doing?’ He was like, ‘You’re in the Men’s Rumble.’ I said, ‘What?! Doors are open Johnny. When am I going to rehearse?’ [He said] ‘Oh, we’re just gonna rehearse this part with Truth, and then you go do the Women’s Rumble, and then we’ll talk about the guys after.’ I thought he was kidding. But then when we rehearsed it with Truth, me beating up Truth and everything, entering at number 30, I was like, this is happening. So then I had to focus on the Women’s Rumble, because I had stuff to do with Lana in that match, and then Becky and Charlotte, and then run back. I had to go into a room with a bunch of the guys, and they’re going over stuff, and they’re like, ‘Hey guys, Nia’s in the Rumble. So run through with what you’re gonna do with her.’ I was like, I don’t get to go into a ring?”

Did you know who you had spots with? 

“Yeah, it was Andrade. It was Ali, Randy, Rey and Dolph. So they were in at the time, and they’re like, ‘Yeah, now you’re gonna come in, you’re gonna drop Truth, and then when you slide in, you’re gonna start cleaning house and then you’re going to eliminate Ali, and then there’s going to be a spot with Andrade and Dolph and Rey, and then you’re RKO’d.’ And I was like, ‘I’m going to get what?’ They’re like, yeah, you’re going to take an RKO. Before that, it was like, ‘Yeah, you’re going to go to tackle Randy, and then this happens.’ I was like, Okay. So I was just sitting there going but what if I f*ck up the RKO? That’s one of the most iconic moves in WWE history. Everybody already hated me. So then I look at Randy, and Randy’s super cool. But you know, Randy has a reputation of being like, you know. I was like, Oh, f*ck. I’m like, Randy. He’s like, Yeah? I’m like, ‘I’m nervous. I don’t want to fuck up your RKO.’ And he was like, ‘Don’t worry about it kid. Just when you turn left, I’ll take you. You just turn to the left, and the rest I’ll handle.’ I was like, okay. So out of that whole match, that was the most nervous. I was like, f*ck. I just can’t f*ck up the RKO. We get into it. I beat up Truth, poor Truth, and beat the sh*t out of Truth. Go in there and run the spots. Go to tackle Randy. He takes a bump for me, and I was like, f*ck, did I just hit him too hard? In my mind, I’m thinking sh*t, did I just hit Randy too hard? Meanwhile, I hear Kim cussing me out. She’s yelling at me. I’m like, oh sh*t. And then whatever we run through, do the RKO, I take the 619, the RKO. I’m like, Holy sh*t, this is not happening. Then they dump me, then they drop kick me off the apron. When you’re in the moment, you don’t realize that. When I was done, I was like, that was a massive moment for me that those guys didn’t have to. They could have said no, that they just did for me.”

Did you feel like this might lead to more intergender stuff?

“So at the time, we did have something. I think I went to a storyline with Dean Ambrose right after, where I hit him, or I bumped him the ground or whatever. I think there was supposed to be something that went to into a storyline there, but it just kind of fell off. There was a promotion that we were promoted to have a match at a live event. I think in that state, it couldn’t be inter gender matches. So then they had to scrap it. Then after that, I think they just kind of let that story fade away.”

When you got released from WWE in 2021 you didn’t work anywhere else. You have never worked a match outside of a WWE ring. When you got released, was there the thought of, I’m gonna do the Indies or I’m gonna go elsewhere?

“Not really. I didn’t think that I wanted to wrestle anywhere else, but I did know that I wanted to still wrestle. I didn’t even know if I was gonna come back to the WWE honestly, it was just kind of, like I said, it was my whole life at the time. So when I was released, it was kind of a shock. Or it was like, What is my life? It’s kind of like I had to reset. I’m like, What is my life right now? Because my whole life has been WWE and I really didn’t think about an after, which, you know, a lot of wrestlers get caught up in that. Because it happens to be like that. When we’re on the road five days a week, you don’t really think about the after. So I didn’t think about wrestling anywhere else. I, you know, everybody kept saying, try here and go there.”

Do you think about how much longer you want to wrestle?

“No, because as many times as I’m like, Well, maybe after this, or I’ve won this title and I’ve done this, I’m like, Oh, I can still do this. Then I see all this new talent, I’m like, Hey, I would love to work with this new talent and do stuff with them and help them out. So I haven’t really said, Oh, this is when I’m going to be done. I hope it just happens naturally, where it’s like, Okay, I think, I think it’s my time, where I’ve kind of given enough back to the business that’s given a lot to me. So we’ll see.”

I had Rhea on the show, and we were talking about the stink face, and she said it was all your idea. So how did this idea come about?

“Well, I mean, it was my idea to stink face. It wasn’t my idea for her to get them freaking cheeks out. So obviously, that’s what I do. I do the stink face, and as a heel, I like to rub it in, literally. I just thought we were on the live event. I thought one night, let’s change this up. Why not? Because it was a cool Triple Threat moment, me her and Shayna, and I was like, ‘Why don’t you give me a stink face?’ She’s like, really? She was like, ‘You mean like Rikishi style?’ I was like, ‘Yeah, do the full Rikishi. Get it, get it!’ And then we did it. And obviously, like, the crowd went nuts, and then it was a viral moment, and yeah, and then we had a good time. We actually switched it a couple nights because everybody was expecting it and I was trying to be a dick about it. Then I did it to Shayna, where Shayna was like, ‘Let me have it.’ She closed her eyes, and then I freaking took out Rhea, and then she didn’t realize it was me. It was funny. It was a good time.”

You’re no stranger to viral moments, so when you said, ‘My hole…’

“So it was a table match with Lana. And I don’t know if you remember, but during that time, I kept putting her through the table, nine times. I put her through the table nine times. Then we thought we’re gonna have her redemption moment at Survivor Series, but it didn’t happen. So then we ended up having this table match, and when we were rehearsing it, it was suggested that I do a leg drop on the apron. I was like, Oh my gosh, that will bust my tailbone. Then I was like, ‘What about my hole?’ Just as a joke. I remember saying it to Hunter and being like, you know, my hole, before the show, and he was like, ‘Yeah, that’d be funny.’ Because it was COVID, there was nobody in the audience, so you could clearly hear everything people were saying in there. And me, personally, it was like, I’m gonna say it just to pop everybody in the back, Vince and all them, as a joke, and Hunter, because he knew. We were joking about it before. So yeah, I did it, and it was like, ‘My hole!’ Then I literally was just like, This is gonna be hilarious for us, right? And then it was trending everywhere. By the time I got to the back, I was like, What the f? I thought I was in trouble. I was like, ‘I’m like, sorry.’ And they’re like, oh my gosh, this is great. They actually had a shirt made. There was gonna be ‘My hole’ shirt. The first time I ever got real merch. I don’t know what happened, literally, it was about to be printed out and sold, because it was trending for a few days.” 

Could you imagine if that shirt got released?

“It would have been a big, big deal. It would have been a huge hole.” 

When you did this bullying storyline with Alexa Bliss, it was so perfectly done, because how else are we gonna get you over as a babyface

“I mean, it’s something; everybody’s been bullied or hurt at one point in their life, and there’s something you can pull from, I feel like, in those moments. Lexi, I just remember her being like, ‘I don’t really want to say this. This is really mean. I don’t really want to do this.’ She had a hard time because she’s a great human being. I was like, ‘Dude, we got to sell this story. We want this. We want to pitch this like this is supposed to be a major storyline.’ We want this. So, yeah, I have been bullied, my biggest bullies in my life are my brothers. So I really have thick skin, nobody can really hurt my feelings. But there have been times where it’s like, yeah, I’ve been made fun of for the way I look and how big I am and whatnot. So it wasn’t that hard to pull from, but I’m really proud of that storyline, because we both gave it our all, and she’s such a great little actress.”

Did you know you were going to be able to cry on camera?

“No, I didn’t. So we had an acting coach, and it was something to where it was like, in NXT they wanted us to have some acting experience before we get out to the main roster. Now, it’s different. I think people on their own go and have acting coaches for their promos and stuff. But he just said, Hey, like, if you’re an emotional thing, like, try to pull from something that really hurts in your life. So I have something in my head that will literally make me cry on cue. So I used it.”

How do you handle it when the criticism is maybe not just at the Nia Jax character, maybe they’re taking personal shots at you?

“I don’t know these people, they don’t know me. They think they know me. And you know what good I’m glad. I’m glad they can somewhat relate to a Nia Jax character and take a shot at me. I find that to be something like unfortunate for them if they have any kind of anger in their heart to come to attack people. So it never really bothers me. It’s usually like a personal problem for them.”

The moment with Becky Lynch, when she became The Man. Did you realize in that moment how big this affected both of your careers?

“No. I do realize in the moment when I hit her, I felt on my knuckle a little [contact], and I was like, f*ck. Because when it happened, this will be funny. Go back to the beginning, where we came in and they were like, ‘Hey, we got to sell this match, go in there, give it your all. Say sorry later.’ A producer said that to us. I was like, All right, we’re in there. And naturally, I feel like I’m an easy target because I’m the biggest girl. So I kept getting punched, hit from all angles, and I’m like, mother trucker. I’m in the corner with Naomi, and we’re fighting, and somebody comes and just clinks me in the back of my head, and I just turn around. I’m like, ‘Get the f off me.’ Didn’t realize it was Becky. I thought it was Lana. I turned and connected, and I felt it, and I was just like, oh sh*t! I didn’t realize how bad it was until I looked down and I just saw her bleeding all over the mat. Then she rolled out, and Dana was looking at her, taking care of her. Then we get done, and we go to the back, and I’m sitting there going, like, Oh my gosh, I’m in so much trouble. This is it. I think they’re done with me. I was getting my papers. Then Becky was in the trainer’s room, and I couldn’t go in there, they were checking her out, and I was just trying to make sure she was okay. Then I had to go talk to Vince and the producers, and they were all quiet, but talking to each other and not saying anything to me. Then in gorilla they had it on the screen, he was talking to Kevin, ‘Let me see the footage.’ They were replaying it from every angle. And I was like, oh, man, it was a tough time. Then Vince was like,’It’s not ballet, sh*t’s gonna happen.’ I was like, okay, because I’ve been cussed out by Vince before for other things, so I thought oh for sure I’m gonna get cussed out for this. He was like, ‘It’s not ballet. Sh*t happens, is she okay?’ I was like, ‘I don’t know.’ He said ‘Go check on her.’ He’s like, go check on her. Then from there, it just exploded all over the internet. Then I think when I tweeted out, it was a joke, and I asked Becky about it if I could, it was like I had a cut on my hand from the punch. And it was from the movie The Campaign, ‘Is anybody asking me how my fist is doing?’ I thought it was funny just like every heel is justified. But it was definitely that people were way too sensitive to it. That’s when I went nuclear heat. I’ll never forget the next week was Survivor Series, and I wasn’t supposed to win that match, whatever it was supposed to be. I think it was Sasha was supposed to win that match. I was still trending about the punch, and everybody was telling Vince the internet is still going nuts about Nia punching Becky in the face. Then right before the doors open, he was like, ‘Finish change, Nia over.’ He said, ‘Yeah, when you go out there, you show your fist and you smile.’ I was like, All right.”

Was it a similar moment when you threw Jade into the steps? 

“That was weird, because I know I’m strong. But yeah, I didn’t realize that even happened. I didn’t realize she hit her head that hard on the steps. So when I saw it, because I didn’t actually get to see the full extent of it until later, I was very shocked that she split open that badly. But it was definitely different. It was a different moment, for sure. But yeah, that was pretty scary.”

You had this moment with Lyra, and you crushed her!

“Well, she’s a tough cookie. I’ll tell you that Lyra is a tough cookie. But, yeah, that was something that somebody had pitched for the match, let’s try this, something different. We rehearsed it, but we didn’t go full in rehearsal, right? I’m like, ‘Hey, this is a one-time shot, you don’t want to keep taking this if you don’t have to.’ So then we did it in the match, and I just remember landing, all 270 pounds of me were into Lyra’s rib cage. So she took it like a champ. I give her all the credit, because she’s tough.” 

On the infamous Charlotte Flair match:

“My match with Charlotte, where we kind of got into a little tiff, a little back and forth there. It was a miscommunication. I will say I’m going to call it a miscommunication. Things got heated, like legit got heated in that match. I did warn her a few times to stop, to chill out, and she didn’t, so then I two-pieced her. We came back and we were calm and we were level-headed, we all kind of were just like, ‘All right, got kind of out of hand.’ But sometimes it happens. But yeah, it just got a little out of hand. It got hot and we just started swinging.”

Are you guys good now?

“Oh, yeah. We’re good. But it was definitely, everybody was like, ‘What just happened?’ Even the crowd, because when it happened in the moment, I couldn’t hear anything because I was angry. I was legit pissed. So I didn’t hear anything. But then when I felt the dead silence of the crowd, I think the crowd was kind of like, ‘Is this really happening?’ I could hear Corey Graves. Commentary is the only thing I could hear because that crowd was dead silent, because I think they were kind of in shock, like, ‘What just happened?’ So, yeah, it was definitely a moment. So that was a match where I’m like oh. But then we were able to redeem ourselves after that.”

Your career almost ended before it started, because you were involved in this incredibly scary car accident. 2014, hit by a drunk driver. Yeah. What do you remember from that?

“So that night, we went to my uncle Afa’s wrestling school. He had an end of the year party and award ceremony. I went with my auntie, because she always goes and enjoys it, because wrestling is her passion. She loves wrestling. I remember asking to go to that off of live events from Coach Bill DeMott, and after the ceremony, we were all going to a restaurant to have dinner, and we were just driving, and it wasn’t really that late at night. It was kind of like evening time, and we were pulling up to a stoplight, and literally, it just felt like an explosion happened. We weren’t expecting anything. It just felt like a bomb went off. I just remember at the moment, like my ears were ringing. I couldn’t breathe, and I just kept trying to say something to my aunt, but I couldn’t speak. I didn’t know at the time, I guess my collarbone just snapped in half, and it was like cutting in, but I couldn’t breathe or say anything, and I’m looking at her, and she was pinned behind the wheel. But yeah, it was a crazy moment. We didn’t realize at the time that a cop was chasing a drunk driver. They pulled her over, I think, and then she took off, and then she just, without the brakes, had no brakes, she just hit us full speed, dead on. Thankfully, the car protected us. I feel like the airbags came out and all that stuff. Then I got out of the car and the ambulance came, it was real quick. The cops were there already, because the cop was, you know, chasing the drunk driver. And so the ambulance came quick, soon after, they had to get the jaws of life to get my aunt out.”

What is Nia Jax grateful for?

“My relationship with God, my family, and my outside WWE family.”

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Matt Hardy (@MATTHARDYBRAND) and Jeff Hardy (@jeffhardybrand) are professional wrestlers currently signed to TNA. They sit down with Chris Van Vliet in Albuquerque, NM to discuss their legendary careers as individuals and as a tag team, retiring Team 3D at Bound For Glory and if they have thought about winding down their own careers, their most extreme moments, Jeff being attacked with a screwdriver by Randy Orton, Matt suplexing Ric Flair off a ladder, their epic WrestleMania 33 return, crazy Swanton Bombs, Leon Slater’s Swanton 450 and more!

What a testament to where you guys are at in your career.

Matt: “I gotta tell you, Chris. So Jeff’s had this neck issue, and we had our big pay-per-view match at Genesis against The Righteous. I tried to do the majority of the match, I was in there, I was taking the heat and the bigger bumps, we’re trying to protect him as much as possible. The meet and greet was massive at the end of that. We signed for like five and a half hours, we got back to the hotel, slept 90 minutes, two hours at the most, and got in the plane, flew back home. I remember getting out, and I was like, Oh my God. I felt like I was crippled at the end, it’s wild. These meet and greets are great, but sometimes they are tough, especially if we don’t have the ample time to sleep afterwards.”

Jeff, how’s your neck doing?

Jeff: “It’s better. This past Monday and Tuesday, it felt really good. Then we flew out here, and I fell asleep a little funky on the plane. I remember jerking my head up one time, and it hurt. So it was hurting a little more than it did Monday and Tuesday. But overall, man, it’s feeling good. It’s definitely better. So this has been a little over three months now. I’ve been dealing with two bulging discs on the left side of my neck, and this happened when we dropped the titles at the NXT Halloween Havoc show. It was one of those things, you couldn’t even tell, it looked completely fine. I landed flat, but I was on the big guy’s shoulders. The one guy jumped off the ladder, clotheslined me off. The idea was for me to go through the table, but I kind of overshot the table, and he just broke the table, and my head just hit the mat, and it was a little whiplash like that. It felt terrible. I mean, it definitely felt like a concussion, and I was close to being knocked out, but that’s when it happened. Two bulging discs on the left side of my neck, but I’m feeling much better.“

So on a scale like one to 10, how much pain do you think you’re in right now?

Jeff: “Right now, I would say maybe a five. It’s not bad at all.”

Matt: “But his 5 is massively different from a normal person’s five. We’ve also just been very cognizant of, you know, it’s been protect Jeff at all costs. So done what we’ve had to do to try and work smart and not make things worse in this issue. So far so good.”

The Swanton is always going to be your finisher, and that’s such a high-risk move:

Jeff: “Yeah, and back to AMC. This is such a big deal for TNA, but we did a commercial where we had to go through a table, and Matt was gonna do something.”

Matt: “I don’t know if you saw that. We were the first people that found out that it was 100% definitely AMC [as TNA’s new home]. We had to go do the shoot with the AMC people, and it was the closer of the commercials. I did a leg drop through a table, and he did a swanton, and it was his first time doing anything since he knew he had this neck issue.”

Jeff: “The whole building up to that [I was going] I don’t know if I should, this might be one of those times I just say, I got to stand my ground and say, I can’t do that. My necks hurt, I can’t do that. But I knew it was something big. I didn’t know it was AMC, so I said it’s kind of like riding a bike. I’ve done it so many times, I can do it, and I think I’ll be all right. So, I mean, it hurt a little bit doing it, but man, a few days later, when we found out officially it was AMC, I was like, that was totally worth it. But that was a scary morning for me, not knowing and I hadn’t had my MRI done yet. I think the week after we filmed that was when I got the MRI, and that’s when I found out it was two bulging discs. I got the call and they said, Oh, here we are. You got two bulging discs, and the options are to speak to [a doctor], or a pain management plan. I was like, Oh, I don’t know. I think I’ll just deal with the medical team at TNA, and maybe they can help guide me through the healing process. Luckily, I’m feeling much better. But that was scary. On that phone, I was going, oh my god, this might be the end of my career, the beginning of the end, because I haven’t been hurt in four or five years, I’ve been super good since I’ve been doing the ice baths. It’s the first major injury I’ve had since doing cold plunges. I remember telling the DarkState guys after that match, oh, it ain’t nothing a little cold water won’t fix. I got home the next day and I got in the cold water, and when I got out, it’s like it made it worse. It’s like it hurt more. I did it on the second day, and I was going, Oh, my God, maybe I don’t need to do the cold water. So my mind was just freaking myself out. So I laid off the ice baths for a while, and it seemed to feel better, but, yeah, now I think I’m back to the points where I can rebuild. I’ve kind of rebuilt my armor, and now that I’m healed enough to get back in the cold water and to hopefully avoid injury from here on out.”

Jeff, when you talk about thinking like this might have been the end with this injury, how much do you guys think about the end of your career?

Jeff: “I try not to think about it, especially with seeing the Cena retirement tour, naturally, because we’re the same age. He’s a little older than me, but I’m 48 and I’m like, oh man. AJ, same age, he’s talking about maybe retiring soon. I mean, I think about it, but the way my career has went over the years, the ups and the downs, I just hope I can do it for as long as I can. I think that’s the way I’m going to do it, because after this neck injury, I feel like my performances are naturally going to get 1,000% better, because I’m so excited about this whole AMC deal and being in TNA and continuing to evolve. But yeah, I try not to let the thought of the end enter my consciousness.” 

Matt: “Wrestling Twitter has been trying to retire us for years now, and they still do. They’re trying to book our retirement matches nonstop. But we feel good. As long as we feel good, we’re gonna keep going.”

On potential AMC cinematic matches:

Jeff: “I can’t help but think about the first cinematic match that’s going to be on AMC. I think it’s going to be a very, very powerful thing, man. I’m not a big show guy, but like shows like The Walking Dead and Breaking Bad, to know those shows were on this in this place. Oh my god. I think anything’s possible when it comes to a cinematic match on AMC.”

Matt: “We told AMC we’re ready to this first cinematic match. We only have two requests in our first cinematic match, whatever it is, we need two cameos in there. We need, Gus Fring. We need Rick Grimes, you know, make it happen. AMC, make it happen. We want zombies roaming through the woods in the Hardy compound. That can probably actually happen.”

Is ultimately the dream to retire as the Hardys?

Matt: “I think so. I just feel like as we’re a little older, it’s nice when we kind of get to share the workload, as opposed to doing a singles run. [But] who knows? I mean, with TNA, maybe if that’s something they need. And it’s funny, you were talking about the whole AMC deal earlier, like we both take a lot of pride in that, because we were a major factor in this AMC deal happening. We’re both so proud of TNA for getting to this point and being on this major platform and we really want to lead it into the future. I want TNA to be a place that is a stable wrestling company where people can come and make a living and it is in the conversation with all the other top companies.”

Jeff, does it hurt more to land a Swanton or when the guy rolls out of the way?

Jeff: “It’s a good question. Yeah, definitely, when the guy rolls away overall. But if it’s a big guy, like Big Show, for example, I’ve done one to him before, and it’s like broke my back, I’m arched over him, I was just laying there on top, I got knocked out as well. But it’s almost bend your back to where it actually hurts pretty bad. But, yeah, depending on the size of your opponent, but I would say overall, missing in them is the worst.”

Matt: “Yeah, that Big Show is a massive piece of meat.”

Jeff, what is the craziest move that Matt has ever done?

Jeff: “Craziest move that Matt’s ever done? I would have to say it’s got to be a leg drop off the top of the cage.”

Matt, what’s the craziest spot that Jeff’s ever done?

Matt: “I still think it’s that Swanton that he did in the impact zone, because it is so crazy. Was that the first Bound for Glory? He did a Swanton, it wasn’t just off the stage, it was to Abyss. He went up on whatever the structure was behind that and jumped over the stage. I mean, he just had so many hurdles it felt like he had to get over. And if he missed, it would have murdered him if he had been off in any capacity, and he pulled it off to perfection. It was wild. He calls it the sketchiest Swanton he’s ever done, and it really was. It’s still crazy. Jesus Christ, I mean, you make one little mistake on that, like you’re done.”

It’s crazy looking at the highlights and somehow realizing you guys can still walk.

Matt: “Especially like after that leg drop, I never walked the same. Well, also if 51-year-old me could go back and talk to 23-year-old me when we’re just starting, I would say, like, first and foremost, I know you guys think it’s cool, because you guys do that leg drop splash. We did that every single night, and our schedule in the beginning was 10 days on, 4 days off. It’s a bunch of house shows. We would do that every night, whether we’re winning or losing. And just like the wear and tear from doing that leg drop, especially when it was the real hard rings. Before they made the ring bumping rings in WWE, it’s when they were built for the big guys, for 360-pound guys that were Earthquake and Typhoon and Hogan and guys that didn’t do a lot, so we’re doing that leg drop splash every single night. I’d just say get a more simple finish, you know, figure out something that isn’t so hard on your body and use the leg drop when it counts on a big show, whatever else, that’s the first thing I would do. But I have so much scar tissue in my lower back and pelvis and hips and whatnot. That was the time, whenever I did that one off the cage, I gotta change this to I’ll do an elbow to the back of the head from the second rope. I smartened up.”

There is so much history with you guys and Team 3D. What a special moment to be in there with the Dudleys for their final match. Were all of you guys crying in there?

Matt: “It was definitely emotional. So I’ll tell you this, I’ll be fully transparent. D-Von, we just wanted to get him through this last match, we knew he was retiring, this was it. We want him to go out on this great match with career rivals. We had no idea they were going to both take their boots off, and we definitely didn’t know they were going to give them to us. Jeff had just asked at the end, ‘Hey, is that a thing?’ I said it wasn’t, but I think it is now. He said what we’re going to do at the end to show you the respect and say you guys have won this battle. Whoever wins this is the greatest of all time. We have something we’re going to do, but we don’t want to tell you, is that fine? I said, that’s great. Let’s just do in the ring. Let’s get a very authentic, genuine reaction, and that’s what that was. More than anything, we just wanted D-Von to be okay in that match. We tried to protect him as much as we could. He’d had some serious health issues over the years, and we were going to bust our ass to work as hard as we could, because those guys haven’t been working a lot. Bully has been working here and there, doing some stuff. But we wanted to bust our ass and we really wanted to tap into the emotion behind the match. What was great, even in the beginning, we had to start the match so the crowd would stop chanting. So the crowd was so involved in it, and they were so emotionally invested, and that’s what made it feel so special.”

Both of you had your very first official match in WWE May 23 1994. Jeff, you were 16 years old, and your first match was against Razor Ramon.

Jeff: “It was terrifying, man. One guy didn’t want to take his finish. Keith Davis. I was Keith Davis that evening. I became Keith Davis after Keith Davis didn’t want to take the razor’s edge.” 

And that was your first match at that point?

Jeff: “Ever. I didn’t know what I was doing.”

Matt: “Also, he had to lie about his age, because I said, my brother’s 16. Can he go there? Someone said, your brother? Yeah, it’s fine. Just have your dad write a note and say it’s okay.”

How much did the screwdriver in your ear with Randy Orton hurt?

Jeff: “It hurt a little bit. That’s my hell in a cell moment. For years after seeing Mick Foley and Undertaker, naturally, I was like, Man, I want to do something like that. When he went off that first time through the table, I totally get why he does stuff like that. But then the chokeslam, when that gave way and he hit that, and that was back in that when that ring was super hard. Actually being in a Hell in a Cell with Randy, and it was the first one time it had been painted red, and it was awkward and strange, but just seeing how big that structure is, and even the splash I missed when I was hanging, it’s just such a massive structure. So thank God for that screwdriver and Randy and the twist that he did, because I consider that my hell in the cell moment that it’s kind of hard to forget.” 

How’d you come up with that?

Jeff: “It was somebody else’s idea with the screwdriver. He [Orton] had used his fingers and pulled me around by it, and I think a chain or a rope. But somebody mentioned that screwdriver. It might have been Michael Hayes or somebody else. But anyway, it was somebody’s idea that was out there with us talking about the match, but twisting it like that, and just watching the way it looks, how it was turning purple, it was gruesome.”

Matt: “That’s the essence of pro wrestling. Those moments that are memorable like that, pro wrestling has gone down such a path now where people are like oh, my god, I gotta get all these spots in, let’s put together a lot of choreographed combos that we’re gonna do, whatever. But those moments are what people remember.”

That spot at WrestleMania 22 with Ric Flair. When you suplex him off the ladder is wild. They’re reiterating he’s 57, so he specifically asked you to do that spot?

Matt: “Yeah, so they needed a spot. They wanted a spot where Ric was going to say he was hurt and be carried out of the match and he was going to come back in the end, and he said, ‘I have an idea. Matt, I trust you. I know you’re one of the creators of this ladder match. Will you suplex me off?’ He said, ‘I’ll be honest. You’re the only person I trust doing this match.’ And he also told Edge that whenever they had the match, he said, You’re the only person I trust to have this match with, because I know you and The Hardys created this ladder match nonsense. And I said, Sure, that’s cool. I remember we talked about the spot, and we had a rung Ric was gonna be on, then I was gonna suplex him off. I remember we’d got to that rung as we were fighting, and I said, ‘All right, you ready?’ He said, ‘No, higher, higher, higher.’ I was like, Okay, we went up one more, and he took that bump like a champ and got him over. He was safe and sound. And he said it was great. He said it was an easy bump. He would always do that. He would do the deal where he would flip over the corner, run to the other side, coming off. He said, If I can do that every night, it shouldn’t be that bad off the ladder. Afterwards, he said, it was easy. Thank you. He said, Yeah, it was good. Thank you. He said, ‘You took care of me, made sure I got over. I didn’t land on my head, and that’s all I wanted. Thank you. You’re the only person in this match I trust to do it with.’”

What are The Hardys grateful for?

Matt: “My health, my family, and the fact I have a brother that is so amazing.”

Jeff: “My health, my family and pro wrestling.”

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