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Kurt Angle On John Cena’s Retirement, ‘Perc Angle’, Chris Benoit, Eddie Guerrero, Brock Lesnar

in LATEST EPISODES on January 21, 2025 January 21, 2025

https://cvvtix.com – Tickets are on sale now for INSIGHT LIVE in Toronto, Las Vegas & Indianapolis with VIP Meet & Greet!

Kurt Angle (@RealKurtAngle) is a retired professional wrestler and WWE Hall of Famer. He sits down with Chris Van Vliet in Pittsburgh, PA to discuss his legendary WWE and TNA careers after winning a gold medal at the 1996 Olympics, the merchandise he wishes could have been made, the origin of his “It’s True” catchphrase, why he wishes he could have ended his in-ring career 10 years sooner, his legendary matches with Chris Benoit, being the odds-on favorite to induct John Cena into the WWE Hall of Fame, the ‘Perc Angle’ nickname and his battle with addiction, getting into a backstage fight with Eddie Guerrero and more!

Quote I’m thinking about: “It does not matter how slowly you go as long as you do not stop.” – Confucius

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On nearly becoming a Pittsburg Steeler:

“You know what? It’s a long story, I’ll make it short. A football player or a wrestler. Three time national champion, Division One, NCAA Championships, his name was Carlton Haselrig, and when he graduated college, he didn’t play football, never played football a day in his life. When he graduated college, he won three NCAA division one titles, and the Steelers called him and said, Hey, you want to come try out? Not only that, but he didn’t even try out. What they did instead is they drafted him in the eighth round, one of the lowest rounds, and they brought him on the team and he did incredibly well. He was a seven-time All Pro, and they saw me. I was the next one coming up through the ranks for the NCAA Wrestling and I dominated for the next three years, just like Carlton did. Steelers thought, you know what, this kid might be a good choice too. I tried out at a skill position, which is backfield, defensive back, quarterback, anytime that you have a lot of movement. Carlton was a lineman, so he was an incredible athlete, and he was so much better than the other athletes on the line. So I understand why they picked him and why they drafted him. But for me, being at a skilled position, you have to have college experience. They want me to be a running back and it’s like going from wrestling to pro football, it’s a hard transition.”

So it wasn’t gonna happen?

“Well, they had me try out. I had a real good tryout. They wanted me to go to NFL Europe for a year or so, and I didn’t want to do that. Don’t forget, the reason why I tried out for the Steelers is because I wasn’t making the Olympic team in wrestling. So 1993 and 1994 I was losing. I ended up third in 93 and second in 94. I kept losing to these two wrestlers consistently. So after the 1994 season, I decided to quit. I figured, what’s the use, I’m never going to beat these guys so why even try? So that’s when the Steelers approached me, and I tried out for them, and I’m glad that I didn’t make the team because I ended up coming back after five months and I made myself a promise that I was going to do everything possible to make sure that I could give the very best I can in the tryouts in 95 and 96. So I did something that really helped me. It was called exhaust training. That’s when you train to your exhausted and that’s when the training actually begins. It’s almost a form of torture. I learned this from the University of Iowa head wrestling coach Dan Gable. He taught his wrestlers this and they were always the most well-conditioned wrestlers. So I did that and in 95 and 96 I won the world championships and I won the Olympic gold medal and never looked back.”

On how he made extra money on top of his guarantee while with WWE:

“It comes with merchandise, but you have to be a businessman, which I wasn’t. Also pay-per-view buys. If you’re main eventing a pay-per-view, you’re going to get a hell of a lot more than the other guys are. We’re talking significantly more, 50-70 grand more. So yeah that’s another way to make more money. But for me, for the most part, I made about two and a half million a year. I did all right, no, I did fantastic, but I wasn’t a businessman. I didn’t promote myself, I didn’t do a lot of merchandise. I didn’t know. I went into pro wrestling thinking all I have to do is wrestle and that’s it, but you have to market yourself, and I didn’t do that. I didn’t do that at all. And watching Stone Cold Steve Austin, rumor has it that he made 10s of millions of dollars with merchandise. So he obviously was a good businessman, but he was also the most popular wrestler of all time.”

On merchandise he regrets not having made:

“My gold medals. But the problem was, I don’t know how this happened, but somebody started making them, and the reason why I couldn’t make them is because we weren’t allowed to duplicate them, but somebody else did it. Now a lot of fans come to me with these gold medals, I’m signing it and I’m like, Where’d you get this? They say I got it online. And I’m like well somebody snuck in there and made those gold medals without the Olympic Committee’s permission.”

On the “It’s True” catchphrase:

“That came by mistake. Vince McMahon was having me cut promos and whenever I go to whatever city or whatever town, he would have me pick on their sports teams. Usually their sports teams were doing horrible. So when I would say, hey your Olympic hero is here to save your year. I represent you now instead of the Detroit Pistons, who actually suck right now. The fans would boo me and I’d say ‘No, it’s true. It’s damn true.’ So that came by mistake, just because I was reacting to the fans’ reaction.”

On his moonsault:

“You know what’s crazy? I never practiced it. It’s one of those things you don’t want to practice. I mean, you could put a crash mat on there and go ahead and do it, but what the hell. If you’re going to do it, just go ahead and do it. Take a chance and see how it goes. I don’t know any other way. I don’t know anybody that does practice moonsaults off the top of a cage. I could see them doing at the top of the rope, but practicing off the top of the cage is just stupidity.”

On possibly picking a different career after the Olympics:

“You know what? I wish I would have finished my career in WWE 10 years shorter, in WWE or TNA. So in other words, instead of 20 years, I think 10 would have been enough and I think I would have been okay. But I pushed myself further, got into my 40s and kept working at a high pace. The only reason why I retired is because I was losing a step, and I could see it when I watched me on film. I didn’t like what I saw. I didn’t want the fans remembering me as a broken down Kurt Angle. I wanted them to remember me when I was in my prime, and that occurred when I went back to the WWE for the second time. That was in 2017 when I came back, they wanted to induct me in Hall of Fame and I was like Vince, I’m not done wrestling. He’s like we’ll get to the wrestling and then he said that that night after the Hall of Fame I want you to be a General Manager of Raw. I was like, Vince, I want to wrestle. He said it’s coming. So he made me General Manager of Raw for nine months and during those nine months I was inactive. I never got in the ring. I was so busy doing General Manager stuff, I couldn’t get in the ring. And by the time they had me wrestle, I looked like an old man. Taking those nine months off, especially at my age, close to 50, it just shut down. My body shut down and literally, my knees were bent full time, I couldn’t straighten my knees out. I had to have knee replacements. Now my knee is straight, but I had a rough time in that ring. I wanted to retire against John Cena, but I was doing a program with Baron Corbin and Vince McMahon said if you wait another year we’ll give you Cena. And I said, Vince, I want to retire this year. I don’t want to be the person I am right now. I don’t want to be out there in the ring where I lost the step, and I don’t want the fans to remember me like that. He said, Well, you’re going to have to wrestle Corbin, and that was fine.”

On if there were any conversations in 09 to return to WWE:

“No, I was happy in TNA. I was literally moving along nicely and I loved being there. The great thing about it is you got to be creative yourself. They would give you an idea, a promo, and you would write the promo and do it. And when you wrestled, you usually have agents that will structure the matches for you. We did it ourselves for the most part.”

On the Perc Angle nickname:

“I know that fans, it’s almost like they want me to feel good about it, the fans are having fun with it because I was the best wrestler in the business. So they want to say that, Kurt Angle was Perc Angle. That’s why he was doing it, because he was all perked up. The thing is, I didn’t use painkillers while I was wrestling. I did them in the morning, and then at night I would wrestle, then I did painkillers after I got done wrestling. So I never wrestled high.”

On the misconception that he wrestled well because of painkillers:

“No, listen, you can’t wrestle messed up. It’s going to be sloppy. You’ve seen people in the past that have wrestled high, people are like what’s wrong with them? So you can’t do that. It’s almost impossible, especially to have a good match. You have to be sober or you’re not going to have a good match.”

On if it feels strange talking about Chris Benoit:

“I will tell you this. I did it for a while. I did what I was told to do, [which] was to pretend Benoit didn’t exist. But what that did for me is it took away all my best matches. It was rubbing on my legacy. So by saying that Chris Benoit no longer exists is saying I never had those matches, and it’s like whoa, I have my best matches with that kid, and he was an incredible wrestler. I don’t condone what he did. What he did was 100% wrong and it’s unforgivable, but how he was in the ring, he was the best in-ring worker I’ve ever been in a ring with. He reminded me of me. I felt like I was wrestling my twin.”

On if he considers Chris Benoit his greatest rival:

“Yes, I do. Him and Brock Lesnar. I also loved wrestling Shawn Michaels, but we only wrestled three or four times. It wasn’t a big program, but Benoit and I, we went for years. I mean, it would be him and me, and then they would take a break from it, and then we’d go back to him and me and take a break. Then it’d be him and me tagging together when we’d be tagging and fighting each other while we were tagging. We just had a really strong program and it went on for years. But Brock, our program went on for about two and a half three years, and that was a good run.”

On not being able to return to the ring for John Cena’s retirement tour:

“No, I can’t wrestle anymore. Actually, you know what I did? I did wrestle about two months ago. I did a commercial for CBS, and it was for the NFL pre-game for the Ravens and Steelers. So me and a gentleman named Kyle Brandt, he’s a sportscaster for CBS. He pretended he was the Ravens and I pretended I was the Steelers. We had a pro wrestling match and I was bumping.”

So you’re telling me there’s a chance?

“No, no, no. Because what happened was I threw my back out and I couldn’t walk for a week after that. My wife was like, you’re never getting in that ring again, and she’s right. I shouldn’t have even got in the ring, but it was a lot of fun to do it. But I would love to wrestle John Cena. There’s nobody that wants to wrestle John more than I do for his retirement match, especially with the respect I have for him. I just can’t do it.”

On being the odds on favourite to induct John Cena into the Hall of Fame:

“Well, I’ll tell you this, there are a lot of people that deserve to induct John. Randy Orton, who was his biggest competition, or his nemesis. But Stephanie McMahon, don’t forget that she’s the one that discovered his rapping ability, and she was a big fan of his, she really supported him quite often. But no I’d be honored to induct John Cena, the one thing I want to say about him is he has shown that he is possibly the greatest WWE superstar of all time. Winning 16 World Heavyweight Titles in one company, Ric Flair won 16, but he won them in NWA and WCW and WWE and you can’t take that away from him, they were all major promotions. But to do it all in one company, that makes you that company’s greatest star. And I really believe that he deserves another title before he retires.”

On his match against Chad Gable:

“It was okay, but Chad made me look good. Chad is incredible. He’s a very talented kid, and I’m just glad that they’re utilizing him properly, I know because he’s undersized a little bit, they didn’t know what to do with them. But this kid could be a World Champion and be very marketable. I mean, especially with the gimmick he has right now with the whole USA thing and the ‘You Suck’ and everything, he’s like my son. [He should have been your son]. Yeah, he should have been, exactly. But Vince McMahon had other ideas having Jason Jordan be my son, which was ridiculous, but that was cool.”

On a photo with Eddie Guerrero that recently resurfaced:

“Okay, Eddie and I had a little scuffle one night. What happened I was in a faction called The Honor Society. It was with Luther Reigns and Mark Jindrak, and we were supposed to get heat on the Guerreros. It was the end of the show, we went out in the ring and Luther and Mark Jindrak beat up Eddie, and I was beating up Chavo. We got backstage at the Gorilla, where you enter the arena. When we went backstage Eddie started yelling at me. He said ‘You were stiffing me. You were hitting me hard for real.’ I’m like, ‘Eddie, I didn’t touch you.’ And he’s like, ‘Yes, you did’ and he pushes me. I said, ‘Eddie, don’t do that again.’ He pushed me again. I shoved him, and he tried to double leg me. I got him in the front face lock and I choked him out. The thing was, when we went to talk, I went over to him and said, ‘Hey, I want to apologize.’ He goes, I’m not ready to apologize. And I said, Oh really, we start going at it again. So Eddie and I were like brothers. We loved each other and we hated each other hard. But that was right after that occurred. That’s when Eddie calmed down and said, Listen, I know, let’s just let bygones be bygones. He’s like, I love you Kurt, you know I do. And so that photo right there is right after that incident.”

On staying sober:

“Well, I stay clean for 14 years. Time always helps. When you’re not in trouble and you’re out of the eye of going against the law, and you show that you got your sh*t together, people start to forget it. The only time they remember is when they say, Hey, remember Perc Angle? So that’s one of the things that I still have to deal with, but I understand that for the fans, it’s more of a term of endearment, how great was Perc Angle? He was awesome. So I know they’re not saying it to try to hurt my feelings.”

Does it hurt your feelings?

“Yeah, but I know they don’t mean it. And for that, I’m okay if they say it. I don’t want them to say it to my face, but it is what it is.”

What is Kurt Angle grateful for?

“God being there for me, being a father and a husband and for my legacy.”

Matt Hardy On A WWE Return, Jeff Hardy, Being TNA Tag Team Champs, The BROKEN Universe

in LATEST EPISODES on January 16, 2025 January 16, 2025

https://cvvtix.com – Tickets are on sale now for INSIGHT LIVE in Toronto, Las Vegas & Indianapolis with VIP Meet & Greet!

Matt Hardy (@MattHardyBrand) is a professional wrestler currently signed to TNA. He sits down with Chris Van Vliet in Dallas, TX to discuss why he and his brother Jeff Hardy chose to stay with TNA and why it has been a perfect fit, The Hardys becoming Tag Team Champions again and what this reign means to him, the inspiration for Broken Matt Hardy and the Broken Universe, why he never broke character, boxing a kangaroo, how much longer he thinks he can wrestle for, the epic WrestleMania 33 return, if a WWE return could happen as part of the ongoing TNA partnership and more!

Quote I’m thinking of: “A man is great not because he hasn’t failed; a man is great because failure hasn’t stopped him.” – Confucius

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On what the 13th Tag Team Championship reign mean to him:

“I think this particular title just shows that people need to get their tenses right. A lot of people say in past tense the Hardys were great, but present tense is what they need to speak in that the Hardys are great. We had a couple of years at AEW where people thought oh my God, maybe these guys are done or they’re finished, whatever. We came back to TNA, and kudos to TNA for putting us in a position to succeed. We rocked and rolled as the original OG Hardy Boys, more or less, and then we ended up earning a tag team title shot and we built to that full metal mayhem at Bound for Glory, which was full metal mayhem reimagined with all of Jeff’s art on the tables and Ladders and Chairs and whatnot. We earned these titles, these mean a lot to us and we’re really happy to be back and be very prevalent again in our position.”

On nostalgia:

“I’m big on that. I’m big on hanging on to stuff. It means a lot too, memorabilia, it’s very important. I love to look back at that stuff and be reminded of a certain time, a certain feeling you had during that era. But you talked about the OG Hardys, that was very important for us to go through and win these titles as the OG Hardys. Now we’re at the point, I think, in 2025 one of the important things that the Hardys are going to do is start to evolve again. I think it’s time to reinvent a little bit and go in a totally new direction. You’re seeing little bits and pieces of that in some of the promos we’ve been doing recently.”

And what does that look like?

“I think it looks like the Hardy Boys, once again, have found success. The Hardy Boys are feeling good. They’re physically feeling good. They’re mentally and emotionally feeling pretty good about what they’re doing and they’re going to understand and be able to comprehend and understand that they are these legends that people speak of, these icons that people speak of after doing this for 33 years and maybe even lean into that a little bit.”

On wrestling in his 50s:

“I never really thought about it I guess. My approach in life, I live every day like it’s my last but I am also simultaneously living like I’m preparing myself to live to be 100 years old. That’s kind of my mindset because life is so short, life is so precious, especially after those incidents with Jay Briscoe and then the thing with Bray Wyatt, Windham, just them passing away like that so quickly and unexpectedly. You never know.”

On what hurts right now:

“I mean, my lower back, my hips, that’s my biggest issue. I miss not being at home, not doing the cold plunge, because there was no bathtub in the hotel, so it was just like a little bit of a cold shower or whatever. But I mean, I get in that cold plunge every single day and I sit in there for like four to five minutes and it’s just crazy the feeling that it gives you after sitting in that once you get out. It’s tough to get in. Sometimes you’re like, Oh, I really don’t want to get in there. It’s hard. But then once you come out you feel so good. It’s such a high.”

On why TNA was the right fit:

“It just worked out right because they offered me something just a couple days out with the Moose thing, doing a little program with Moose. I went in initially on a handshake deal and we said I’ll work through Against All Odds and we’ll see what I end up doing by then. If that ends up being the last day, then we have a match, he retains the title, and then I’ll go wherever. It turned out that Jeff’s deal had expired at AEW one day before that. So it was crazy timing. Then he ended up showing up that day. It was a huge reaction and Jeff said, Man, I love what you’ve been doing, and it’s been so cool, I think we should have a run here, it seems like this is a really good spot for us. They would put us in a position to succeed, which they have, and we can help TNA, because they’ve been hot this year with Joe Hendry, they’ve had the NXT exchange, which has been great, and then they’re really having a true resurgence, and we think we’ve helped add to that, which is very cool.”

On returning to TNA:

“Once again, I can’t compliment AEW enough for putting us in a position to succeed and that’s what’s real important, especially with a legacy act like myself and Jeff. We are guys who are still very beloved. We’re generational talent, because we have different generations that like us and adore us and follow us. We have a very, very strong following, a very, very die Hardy following fan base. And the fact that they have done that, they gave us opportunities. We don’t need to go out there. The show doesn’t need to be all about us. We don’t need to be on every single week, but we can contribute to TNA, and they’ve done a great job in utilizing us.”

On why WWE added a z onto Hardy Boyz:

“They added a z so it would be theirs. I think that was specifically why they did it. So people ask, Oh yeah, Hardy Boys, you use that. I mean, Hardy Boyz is a WWE property, especially with a Z. I would guess the Dudley Boyz are too. They put their own spin on it so they can own it.”

On the WrestleMania 33 return:

“It was amazing, one of those things we are so grateful to have had that moment, we really kept it to a very small circle of people that knew about it. So there were some people that speculated it may happen, may not happen, but it did, and it’s crazy because TNA, after we’d done all the broken Matt Hardy stuff, the broken universe, brother Nero, just the 10s of 1000s of people in there going, delete, delete, delete. How we had gotten that over and established it and it was all over the wrestling industry. It was so, so cool.”

On how much longer he hopes to wrestle for:

“I just think I’m just gonna ride the spiral until it ends. I’m just gonna ride the spiral until it ends. I think in the past I have, I’m just gonna see how I feel and just roll with it. I try not to think too far ahead. I try not to overwhelm myself. I’m more of a day-by-day person. I just try and get through every single day and make it as good as possible.”

On if The Hardys would end their career together or as individuals:

“I would imagine it would probably go out that way. We came in that way. We would probably go out that way. Then for Jeff, I could see him, he’ll end up being an artist, living in Cameron or whatever he’s doing. I think I’m a lifer in the business. I’ll be working somewhere as a producer or an agent or creative or whatever else, just because I’m so passionate about pro wrestling. I think once I stop being an in-ring performer, I will still contribute.”

On TNA taking a gamble with Broken Matt Hardy:

“Yeah, they totally could have said this isn’t worth taking the risk. I mean, once again, it was a risk. They were very nervous. I’ll never forget we sent a final copy and we did this intentionally. JB edited The Final Deletion and he sent it to John Gabbert, and we’re gonna clear it for TV. And he did it at like last second. So it kind of had to be sent in to go to TV and be on air, whatever. He said well, I watched his back and some people told me only a wild man would let this go on TV so I guess you can call me the wild man from here on out. I’ll never forget Dixie texting me that morning or that afternoon before The Final Deletion. She said I’m so nervous about tonight. I hope everything goes good. And it did, like a record high number on the channel it was on, and there were so many people seeking it out, and the DVRs and trying to record it, whatever. And then it was viral online in so many ways. Pro wrestling in many ways, especially if you’re talking about creating a new genre or new character, new persona is a risk. But I mean the big scheme of things that’s what life is, it’s a risk.”

On the concept of Broken Matt Hardy:

“The concept from Broken Matt, well there were so many young guys doing these amazing matches, doing all these crazy athletic, acrobatic moves and stuff. That’s when really the business, the work rate, was picking up more and more and more. I said everybody’s doing this, let me lean into something I feel like I’d be better at, an over-the-top, maybe half-assed, delusional character. This is larger than life, and I could do it and maybe even tap into the old school wrestling when you had Papa Shango, or when you had Undertaker, and he was more magical let me see if I can get into something like that and get it over. I said worst case scenario I’ll see him, I come crazy, and then maybe even people will buy that I’m some sort of supernatural character. Something has happened to me after my brain was broken and I became cognizant of where my essence or my soul has been over all these years. I think the reason I really came up with that was because of True Blood. My wife and I were watching it. I was a big TV series person after I took time away from WWE initially, and I’d watched True Detective, which season one was just incredible. Dexter, still a huge Dexter fan, watching the new stuff right now, and True Blood. I thought the vampire stuff was so cool. I was such a big fan of Alexander Skarsgård and how you see him in these different eras, how he has different clothes on, he has different haircuts, different styles, and just how much stuff changes through, that’d be so amazing if you could do an immortal gimmick. I said, obviously, we’re all mortal, right? You can’t really, truly doing a mortal gimmick when it comes to that. But what if I could be aware of where my soul has been, like the different bodies has been, and once it leaves one body, then it goes to another. I could say I’ve done all these people and I could say, in theory, I’m 2000 years old, if I’m aware of where my soul has been, and that was pretty much the the building blocks of Broken Matt Hardy.”

On never breaking character:

“I mean, that was something that I was very dead serious about, to keep consistency, because I wanted people to think if I had lost my mind and I was going crazy, that he is going crazy. Because as soon as you step out of that and show people that you’re normal and that you’re a regular guy who can articulate and speak normal and you’re okay, then it’s obviously a character that is not really you. I remember I was hot as far as business growing, people were buying merch, and they wanted to see Broken Matt. They wanted to see Brother Nero. They wanted to see the broken universe stuff. They asked me to do media for something, and they were going to have me do the Wrestling Observer with Dave Meltzer. They said yeah, we’re gonna do this but we would like you to talk to him a little bit about promote this event. This was with TNA. I said I’ll go on but I’m not breaking character. I said, I’m gonna talk about being 2000 years old, don’t give a sh*t about work rates or five star match or whatever else. I said, I’m Broken Matt Hardy through and through and that’s where they’re gonna get, that jargon. I did it and I really stuck to the gimmick. I did a podcast with Chris Jericho and did it for an hour. I was so locked into it, once I would commit to that bit and commit to the role. It was pretty easy. I was pretty good at it.”

On boxing a kangaroo:

“That was one of the most terrifying things. People don’t realize how scary that was. They would tell us too. They would say look, you guys can play with this kangaroo a little bit, you just can’t hit it. It can hit you. But these guys, they’re a little older, and they’re not as excitable as a young kangaroo would be, but still, be very careful, it was terrifying. The very first time we were doing I said, Okay, I’ll get out there and I’ll spar with them a little bit, just show you with Jeff. I think it was so intimidating. We were actually shooting and we’re now. I said, okay, yes, here we go. I said, Let’s go Smoking Joe Frazier, and I go, brother Nero, I would like to allow you to go first. And, yeah, Jeff was like what? That’s kind of how that all started.”

On a possible WWE return as part of the TNA partnership:

“That was actually one of his [Jon Alba, Extreme Life of Matt Hardy co-host] bold predictions, The Hardys will wrestle a match in WWE before the year is over. [How do you feel about that?] I feel good about that, that’s one of the great things about working with TNA. They know that we do have a lot of love for WWE. They know that we would like to do the Hall of Fame. We filmed some content for WWE that’ll probably be dropping pretty soon. I saw the Dudleys did it the day before us, and I know theirs just dropped recently, but we have a good working relationship with them. I think the perfect storm arose. I think you could see us pop up even as TNA champs on some WWE show at some point. Who knows?”

On his favourite Jeff Hardy match:

“One of the matches that really stand out, just because it was such a big deal for him at the time when it happened, I know it’s one of his favorites as well is when he wrestled The Undertaker in a ladder match. I know Taker was taking a lot of pride. He wanted it to be good, and he wanted to make it into a great match. That moment at the end where Jeff wouldn’t stay down and he came back and he endorsed him, that once again, such a big moment. That’s probably what pops into most people’s minds.”

What is Matt Hardy grateful for?

“My family, my health and that I get to do this.”

Jeff Hardy On Sobriety, Owning His Mistakes, Returning To TNA, Possible WWE Return, Hall Of Fame

in LATEST EPISODES on January 14, 2025 January 14, 2025

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Jeff Hardy (@JeffHardyBrand) is a professional wrestler currently signed to TNA. TNA Genesis is Sunday, January 19 live from the Curtis Culwell Center in Dallas, TX. He sits down with Chris Van Vliet in Dallas, TX to discuss why he and his brother Matt Hardy returned to TNA, the origin of the signature Hardy Juke, their signature theme song, the most scared he has ever been in a professional wrestling match, his worst injury, hitting Brock Lesnar with a vicious chair shot to the head, his battles with addiction, getting sober, what he remembers from his match with Sting at TNA Victory Road 2011, if a WWE return could happen as part of the ongoing TNA partnership and more!

Quote I’m thinking about: “Day by day, what you choose, what you think and what you do is who you become.” – Heraclitus

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On there being something special about The Hardys’ music hitting:

“There is, yeah. Even when I returned, it was so weird how everything worked out. I had no idea Matt was going to go to TNA. I finished a workout one morning, went upstairs and my wife said, ‘Did you know Matt was going back to TNA?’ I said, ‘No, I had no idea.’ Then I watched the footage, oh my God, that was amazing. And naturally, I asked him how it felt. It’s just so strange and bizarre how everything just worked out. My nose was broke when I was in AEW, so my contract was a little extended, but it ran out the night before I was able to show up and save Matt once again in the world of professional wrestling, back in TNA.”

On where The Hardy dance came from:

“It definitely came from our wrestling daddy, Michael PS Hayes, when we hooked up with him. Because back in the days the Free Birds, I think he would do it and then do a moonwalk and make the tag to Jimmy Garvin. So that’s where it came from, just the way he goes, like this. So I might bust that moonwalk out at some point. But, yeah, it came from Michael Hayes. I just modified it, and it became such a big deal for me.”

On leaving WWE:

“I’m not sure. It was so weird. When I left WWE in 2021 my dad had been real sick. 2017, right after we went back to WWE at Mania, that was probably around the time that he felt good for the last time before he slipped back into this dark depression. But yeah, I’d been taking care of him, and it was just bad to where he did not want to be here. He was ready to go. Our mom died at a young age, I was 10 when she passed away. So I’ve always told myself when he needs me, I’m going to take care of him. I just did everything I could to get him excited about life and all that stuff. So that’s definitely when my drinking got carried away during those times that I’ve never really talked about. The year 2021 is when I miss WrestleMania because my dad had just passed away. April 6, my wife’s birthday, is when my dad passed away, which was strange in itself. But yeah, it just got out of control and I needed something extreme to happen. It’s sad the way it worked out, but I refused to go to rehab, so I ended up waiting my 90 days out and showing up in AEW, and naturally screwed that up as well. I feel so bad about Matt’s position, because now being in TNA, I feel like I can really kind of pay back for that to the fullest extent.”

On drug and alcohol addictions:

“There were times when I would wake up and I was just like oh my God, what am I doing? I would tell myself all the time, and I never got to the point to where I had physical withdrawals from not drinking. So with that, I was like okay, I must not be an alcoholic because I don’t get sick from not drinking. Then I’ll be sober for weeks and then give into it again. But then, man, when the DUI started happening, that’s when it really got crazy how much denial I was in because, man, I never have any intention of hurting anybody. So the thought of I could have possibly hurt somebody else out there on the road, I’m so sorry for that, especially for people who have lost loved ones in DUI accidents. But I needed something big to happen, that’s what happened. I went to rehab for the long haul, and it’s exactly what I needed, man. I’ve been so enlightened, there was a moment with the sun, actually, when I was in treatment in Florida and the moon, and I’m like, Okay, there’s something very special going on here with me getting sober again, because every time, my second time, when I came back to TNA, I had gotten sober and I was great. 2012 was one of my best wrestling years in my career, in my opinion, and that’s because of sobriety. To be back in that zone now approaching three years of sobriety, it’s just super exciting to keep doing exactly what I’ve been doing and prove people wrong in the process.”

On the current iteration of Jeff Hardy:

“I feel more than ever, not even like The Charismatic Enigma, [I’m] The Enlightened Enigma, I’m so grateful for the gift of life I have. I was born to be a pro wrestler, and it’s just crazy how it worked out. I had such an opportunity to be a huge wrestling star in my younger 20s but I just went another direction. It would be amazing if I wouldn’t have fell into that dark place in my life from drugs and alcohol to see what would have actually happened. But I’ve also had all these other hobbies that I just love. I love motocross like crazy. I eventually broke my leg in 2015 and that pretty much ended my motocross career. I got into music. I just had all these things I never could commit fully to pro wrestling. That’s kind of, I guess, that’s kind of been, it’s hurt my career, definitely a little bit. But again, that’s kind of what makes me interesting as well.”

On paying tribute to Bray Wyatt:

“Oh, the feedback was incredible. Just the love that came back from that and people being grateful of that, because he was such an amazing human being. Matt got to work with him. Naturally, I would have loved to, but I still watched the little pre-tape we did backstage when I was coming back from shoulder surgery, and we did a little thing back there. I was about to go out with Finn Balor and Seth Rollins and me, Matt and Bray did a little thing back there, and it warms my heart every time I see that.”

On breaking his leg in a dirtbike accident:

“The worst injury, that was the first time in my life that I could not get up on my own. We had just won the TNA World Tag Team titles, and I’ll never forget my buddy was out there. He was filming it and he came up. He said ‘Oh man, you can walk it off.’ No, I can’t walk it off. I can’t get up. I thought both my legs were broke. It was just the impact was so powerful. My wife coming out there and said ‘Oh my God, do I need to call Dixie?’ I said, ‘Yes, call Dixie.’ My buddy called 911 and then naturally, Dixie needed to know what happened. I think she might even have said to post a video, which was smart, just because I was going to take a while before I was healed from that. It was a good year before I was able to just referee that match when Matt won the title from EC3, I was the referee. I tried to paint up all the zebra stripes and all that. But I was my leg was still throbbing so bad. It took me a good year to come back from that and it was way worse than any wrestling injury.”

On the most scared he has been in a wrestling match:

“Definitely my first huge Swanton Bomb in my first run in TNA. It was the one against Abyss and Rhino over the stage and there was one little area. I don’t think I told him that I was going to go up to it, but I just noticed that area about three foot taller that I might get up to just make it more impressive. I jumped over Jim Mitchell and I cleared it, it was so, so scary, because when I got to that peak, I looked back down at the monitor area where people were watching the show, and I was like, Oh my God, this might be it Jeff, this might be the end of your career. Let’s go. I did it and then I think I even made it back to the ring to take a power driver off the second rope from Rhino. But that was, I think, the scaredest I’ve ever been.”

On that chair shot to Brock Lesnar:

“Man, I had been taking the three power bombs so much like night after night, and I just felt like it was my chance to get it in. We were out there and Matt followed up with a chair shot. But the echo in that building that night was just crazy. Matt followed up, and he just went out of the ring. I was like the adrenaline was flowing because it was such a loud chair shot. He didn’t go down because he is a beast of a man. But then I think after that I found out through Paul Heyman that that was the first chair shot he had ever took to the head. And I was, Oh, my God. I had no idea, but I guess I’m sorry.”

On separating Jeff Hardy the person and the wrestler:

“It’s weird too, because my personal life kind of became my professional life back in 08 09. A lot of people [thought] that’s messed up, they’re going there. But I mean, in a way, I think it helped me, but also, looking back at it now, I go, Oh my God, was that the right thing to do? Because that is my personal life and now here we are in my professional [life]. It’s super interesting. The storyline and the feud with CM Punk was just so amazing, and that kind of helped make it that way, because we were complete opposites. But yes, there’s really no difference in Jeff Hardy. That’s why I’m excited too. There’s this alter ego of mine, alter Nero of mine named Willow, and he appeared in TNA, my last run in TNA. There’s a new mask with a brand new face plate. I haven’t tried it on yet, but when I go pick it up, and if it fits real good, I’m sure I’m going to get excited about possibilities with a way darker side of Jeff Hardy, or way more just spiritual, innovative character that Willow has never actually been in the past. The original idea with Willow is like nothing makes sense, because he’s not human. He’s just some alien, and he’s the God of my imagination. That’s kind of where it all started. But for him to be my dark passenger and kind of guide Jeff Hardy into this different zone in pro wrestling, I think there might be something pretty powerful within that idea.”

On if he thinks about how much longer he can go:

“Not at all. I just said a joke a few weeks ago at this show we did, and my humor is different, too. I know a lot of people don’t get my humor, and I guess it can be dark at times. But I just said that by the time I’m 50 I might go back to WWE, retire CM Punk, and then maybe go in the Hall of Fame. But there were things like that was seriously what I was manifesting, which is not the case at all. I just said that thinking I was being funny, and I think that was right after I painted my face so uncomfortably in front of all those people. But no, I didn’t mean that at all. I just thought it might be funny. But yeah, the reality is it could happen because our feud, I still get so many compliments on that with people that are adults now. ‘Oh man, you and Punk, the feud was amazing.’ So even in AEW I felt like there was a moment for me and Punk, at least just some kind of face off or uncomfortable like us running in each other in the backstage or something. But we never got to do that. But ultimately, I would love to revisit that feud in some way, and who knows. CM Punk is such a superpower in the pro wrestling game, but if Jeff Hardy getting sober made him like an asshole. I mean, come on, heel Jeff Hardy against the one and only popular CM Punk. I feel like that’s completely possible.”

On a possible WWE return as part of the TNA partnership:

“For sure. There’s never been a real heel Hardy run. I was so excited about that in AEW, but I know I own what I’ve done and it was my fault I really let Matt down with the whole AEW thing. I think even AEW, before I broke my nose wrestling Sammy Guevara my thinking was we’re not being used, what if I can be like a heel on social media and send out some tweets? It evidently wasn’t professional, but again, it’s not like I was being serious. I just said something like Collision was designed for Punks. But I ended up getting three matches out of that with Swerve Strickland, Jon Moxley, and then Sammy. In all those matches I had that feeling, that passion. I could feel it again within myself. Oh my God. I love this I can still go, I got a lot more left in the tank, and I experienced that. But then naturally, injury happens, and my nose was broken, that was going to take a while to heal and things just worked out the way they worked out. I’m so glad to be back in TNA and super excited, because TNA has been there for me in dark times. When I left the pro wrestling world in 09 and got in my situation TNA employed me, they supported me and oh my God, like I said earlier, 2012 is one of the best years of my career, I was from sobriety. I was doing really good, and I just eventually eased into that drinking alcohol again. It took a while, but it just slowly caught up to me. It got me.”

On what he remembers from TNA Victory Road 2011:

“I remember going out there, and I remember just Sting roughing me up and throwing me to the mat. So I remember, and naturally we say he shot on me, but Eric Bischoff told him to pin me because I was a zombie. It was obvious when you watched the tape and I was kind of MIA throughout that whole evening. Sting had talked about this one killer spot I was going to do. It was something like the twist of hate with the head in the chair, but I was going to take his finish the reverse thing in a chair and I was scared of that. Oh my god, I’m going to break my neck, I don’t know if I should do this. But anyway, I remember sobering up after that and Jeff Jarrett and even Hogan knew I had to go home and get straight. They gave me another chance and when I did go back I did this song called Resurrected. Bruce Pritchard was there, I believe, and he made me go in the locker room and apologize to everybody. I don’t think I’ve ever been that nervous in my life. I was so nervous in front of all these professional wrestlers that I admire and love so much, but I had to go in there and just admit, say I’m sorry for what I did on pay-per-view. But that was good for me. It helped me heal. So I just moved on from there and had a really good 2012 but yeah, such a dark time with Sting. Every time I’ve seen Sting since he’s just such a good dude and such a support. So I’ve just had a lot of dark, dark times from the alcoholism and the drug addiction stuff. It feels good to be on the other side of that.”

On his TNA return:

“That’s why I’m so grateful for TNA and I think everything did work out exactly how it was supposed to with me being able to go back. There was even one moment when I found out Matt went back to TNA, I watched the footage and I was like Oh God, maybe I need to stay with AEW to continue to prove myself and really have some of these killer matches, some of these guys are on a different level with these matches they’re having. But then I was like wait, what? I had such a good run in TNA last time and the merchandise they came out was so cool. Started doing the eyelid paint and everything was so good the last time at TNA. There were so many innovative bumps I did throughout that run and I said, No, this is exactly the way it’s supposed to be. So naturally, I called Matt and agreed to show up. But yeah, this time, I’m glad I didn’t try to run and do the Juke at the same time. I still don’t understand why would I try to Juke and run saving my brother my first time in AEW it was so bizarre. I’ve even practiced it since to see if it’s possible and I don’t think it’s [possible], it’s not smoothly possible at all.”

What is Jeff Hardy grateful for?

“Health and family.”

Seth Rollins On CM Punk, Heist Of The Century, WrestleMania 40, Becky Lynch, Roman Reigns

in LATEST EPISODES on January 9, 2025 January 9, 2025

Seth Rollins (@WWERollins) 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 main event match at WrestleMania 40 and if there was any concern he wouldn’t make it to the match, CM Punk’s WWE return and his viral reaction, cashing in his Money in the Bank contract in the main event of WrestleMania, the stomp into the RKO from Randy Orton, wrestling an injured Cody Rhodes inside Hell in a Cell, what goals he still has left to achieve in WWE and more!

Quote I’m thinking about: “All we get is time and choices. Be wise with both.”

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On what his goals are in WWE now that he has done everything:

“It’s a great question. I’ve asked myself this many times, especially over the last couple of years. I don’t know. I’m in this weird space where I feel, especially after WrestleMania this past year in Philadelphia. I had this sense of accomplishment, but in a way that I never experienced before where I felt like I’m good. If I stopped tomorrow, I’m good. Everything that I wanted to do, I’m good. I really felt like WrestleMania was kind of this moment where we really took the business into a different era. It was the first WrestleMania that Triple H was really in control over. I felt a big part of it and I just felt like we ushered in kind of a new era of WWE. Business was amazing and WrestleMania in Vegas is going to be even bigger. It just feels like everything is fresh, everything is new within WWE, whereas the previous 10 years felt like a real fight to get it to that point. I don’t know, after Philadelphia, after night two, I just felt this release, like this kind of weight lifted off my shoulders, like I don’t have to do everything on my own or I don’t have to be the guy that pushes this thing forward. I think we’re going to be okay. So with that said, I’m trying to be healthy, trying to be happy, trying to find more of a balance between my home and work so that I’m not just prioritizing whatever next goal is on the horizon. Obviously, you work every year to main event WrestleMania and to be the biggest act in our industry. I think when I kind of don’t care about that it might be time to hang it up. Right now I think that’s it, but it’s not the obsession that it used to be.”

On Cody Rhodes winning the WWE Championship at WrestleMania:

“I had a different experience watching Cody win the title. I felt joy, probably a little bit of jealousy. But I don’t know, I’ve never really been the guy that’s been handed the ball that way. For the last 10 years it’s been Roman for the most part, and then Cody comes back and he kind of gets that treatment as well. I’ve always felt like I wanted to be that person, and I could be that guy, but it just wasn’t for me in the eyes of the people who were making those decisions. So there was this joy and this happiness that we kind of crossed a proverbial finish line, certainly a little bit of professional jealousy as well. But I mean, look, Roman doesn’t get to where he’s at without me, I don’t think. I think he would tell you that as well. And certainly, Cody coming back, there’s a reason when he came back that I was the first person they put him with, so I don’t think he’s where he’s at if it’s not for me. I don’t mean that in a way that’s arrogant or anything, but I’ve always been the person who wanted to put the industry and the company before my own personal desires. I was okay with it. If we all did better, if the company did better, and the business as a whole was healthier, I felt like I was doing my part, even if it was kind of unsung in many ways. So I told Drew you f*cking deserve it and he does, did, he squandered it pretty quickly. Because I get it, that moment there’s a lot of emotions going on in that moment. There’s some things that don’t go your way all the time when you’re kind of wrapped up in yourself, but Drew had a really good year after that, so I kind of stick with what I said. He does deserve the spotlight. He works really hard. He’s a guy who got fired and came back. He didn’t leave on his own, he got let go because he didn’t know what he was doing, and he went and put in the work and then came back a totally different version of himself and has continued to improve. Say what you will about him being a super troll online, when you get him out there in the ring, whether it’s with a microphone or in a match, he’s one of the best there is.”

On if there were any concerns he wasn’t going to make it to WrestleMania 40 due to injury:

“No, I just didn’t know what shape I was gonna be in by the time we got to WrestleMania.”

How much pain were you in?

“At that point the pain wasn’t so bad. So the match with Jinder Mahal would have been in January. I had basically really sprained my MCL pretty bad and tore my meniscus. The meniscus tear was an older tear that I think got displaced. So I’d basically been wrestling on a torn meniscus for as long as I can remember but I had a kind of a mechanism to sort it out. Whenever I kind of dislodged it, it put the meniscus into a different position in my knee. I don’t need to get into the anatomy of all that, but basically it was really painful when I would do specific things. So I just had to be smart. So I took, obviously, Rumble off, Chamber off, but then I came back in a brace and I did some live events. I had wrestled Solo Sikoa on one of the Mondays leading up to WrestleMania as well, mostly because I just wanted to get a feel for it. I wanted to know what I could and couldn’t do, and I didn’t want to wrestle with a brace at WrestleMania because I hate wrestling with a brace. So I wasn’t in a ton of pain only because I had gone through the pain the weeks leading up to it, kind of like trial runs. I was like let me test this out at these live events, and then let me test it out on TV. Let me see what’s going to hurt me. Basically like stab, stab, stab, okay, now I know what not to do, now I know how to work around it. Then I just had booked the surgery for right after. I knew what the end game was at Mania. I’m like, let’s just get through that. I want to help, I think I can be an integral part of this. So let’s do that, and then I’ll go get it fixed and take a little bit of time.”

On what would have happened if CM Punk did not get injured:

“That’s a great question. It would have been Seth Rollins and CM Punk I believe. But then you’ve got The Rock and his introduction into that story right after Royal Rumble. But he comes in and kind of didn’t really understand the scope of what he was messing up I don’t think. So I don’t know what would have happened if Punk won the Rumble or not got injured. Yeah, I don’t really know. I don’t know where Cody would have landed in all of that. I don’t know where Roman, I don’t know where anyone [would have landed]. There were just a lot of players and somebody would have been on the outs. I don’t know who that would have been. I have no idea. So, I mean, all the stars were pointing towards CM Punk and Seth Rollins at WrestleMania. But it’s a tough business and things get in the way.”

On if he thought CM Punk would ever come back to WWE:

“When he joined the broadcast team on Fox, when they were doing that Backstage show I thought to myself okay, maybe there’s an opportunity here. Then when he joined AEW I kind of thought maybe he’ll have a twilight run here. But there were then a lot of times where I just thought, you know, because I know he makes it out like he didn’t really like the other guy that was in charge, but the truth is he didn’t really get along with the current guy that’s in charge either. It wasn’t like they were pals as well. So I think that even when Triple H took over, I didn’t think there would be an olive branch to be had, so kind of 50/50, but I would waver more towards no, I never thought it was gonna happen.”

On if he knew CM Punk was coming back at Survivor Series:

“No, that was a bit of a surprise.”

On his viral reaction:

“You know what I wasn’t happy about was Randy had just come back from a long hiatus. That was his moment. It was a great moment. The reaction for him when he came through the curtain was unreal. We went out there, there was 10 of us out there, and we went out there and had a hell of a contest. [We] just didn’t really need him, but you know, it was Chicago, it’s his city, it’s just the most classic make everything about me CM Punk moment I’ve ever seen. So I was just, you know when you’re in that moment, your adrenaline just going through the roof, you’re on the top of a cage celebrating with your pals, sold out All State arena going bananas. Then that happens and it’s no longer about the performance. It’s no longer about Randy. It’s no longer about what you had done to get to that point. It’s just, hi guys, it’s about me. Remember I’m the guy that you that you miss, remember me, guys? So yeah, just another kind of throw that on the pile of disgusting CM Punk moments. But don’t worry, he’s not selfish. He’s in it for helping everybody else.”

On his WrestleMania 31 Money in the Bank cash in:

“There might be camera footage of this somewhere, but I’m just sitting in this chair right outside of the curtain in Gorilla. This was a smaller Gorilla at the time, we hadn’t expanded it to this big one yet. I remember Michael Hayes is in the producer seat and Hunter and Vince are on the far side. I want to say there was panic about the time because we were still on pay-per-view, so we have to be off at this time. It wasn’t like an option to overrun like on Peacock, they want a certain time period. With streaming they’re awesome because of that, you get a little window and you’re not strict, because the advertising model is a little different. So it’s like, by the time we had to be off, done. So I remember sitting there and thinking oh shoot, they’re not going to make it, we’re going to have to do this tomorrow, that’s what I was thinking. I was just if it doesn’t work, we’ll just do it tomorrow, just hoping that my idea doesn’t go up in smoke. So fortunately, they are professionals, and they hit their cue when they needed to and the rest is history.”

So this was your idea?

“The idea to cash in the contract at WrestleMania was my idea. I had put it into the ether probably two months prior or so, because you remember I win this thing in July or June. Immediately when you win it you look at the landscape and you go okay, when can I cash this in? At the time, if I’m not mistaken, there was only one World Championship and the champion was Brock Lesnar. You looked at it, okay, Brock wrestles twice a year. When are you going to cash this thing in on Brock Lesnar? Is Brock Lesnar going to allow you to cash it in on him? What circumstances would be the best for this? Then you start to go down the months and you take off all the shows that Brock’s not going to be on. So you look at SummerSlam, probably not going to happen. You look at Survivor Series if he’s there, and then it’s like, maybe Rumble or Mania. Then you’ve got that little window after Mania where maybe, so you start to plot it out in your head. The major point for me as I was kind of going along with that was the Royal Rumble earlier that year. I did a triple threat match with Brock Lesnar and John Cena. I kind of had to, I don’t want to say weasel my way into that, but that was initially meant to be John vs. Brock, they were in a series of matches and the audience was kind of getting a little tired of it. Not to say that those guys aren’t incredible, they are, but you do the same thing and Brock wasn’t around to sell the story that much. He just kind of showed up, and when he did he was a huge attraction, especially at that time, but I think the audience was getting a little bit bored of it. And I was like well what does it hurt, I don’t need to be in the Rumble because I’ve got this briefcase. That doesn’t make any sense. I don’t want to be off the show. I’m like, just throw me into that triple threat, I can mix in there good, change the whole dynamic of the thing up and see what happens. We ended up having a really great triple threat and a really good dynamic. That was the first time I think I worked with Brock, so he got to see how my mind works a little bit. So got to kind of create some little touches of respect there. Then later that night Roman wins the Royal Rumble to a chorus of boos, even The Rock comes out afterwards to try to endorse him and it just did not matter. I was like oh, this isn’t good. You don’t want to give him this title at WrestleMania. If he gets booed out of the building there when he wins the title the first time, that’s not good. So I’m a hated, hated, hated villain at this time. If I win the title, then we can give the audience time to understand the story of who the good guy is supposed to be against me. I’m not cool at all at this point. I’m like, let me be the guy. Let me be the heel that can get what we want out of this change. So I pitched the idea, I let it sit in the ether for a while, and then still even the day of, obviously, I was doing the story with Randy Orton, leading up to WrestleMania, even still until the till after my match with Randy was the first confirmation I had gotten that we were gonna go in that direction. I don’t know whose idea the triple threat part of it was. I think my idea was just a cash in after the match. But somebody came up with the triple threat idea in the interim once it was floating in the ether there and it was a brilliant, a brilliant kind of way to do it that I’d never even considered.”

On Seth “Freakin” Rollins:

“I give that credit to the old man. The middle name was his idea back in the day. I don’t remember why. I don’t remember how it came about. I think he was just bored with Seth Rollins and he was like ah, you’ll be Seth Freakin Rollins again. Okay, cool. Sold a lot of T shirts when we did it, so whatever. The thing that killed me was when we first did it, when we first brought the freakin’ back in. Because it was just like The Monday Night Messiah Seth Rollins or whatever, for a while. And then there was the Drip God, which was never my idea. I didn’t like that nickname at all. I tried to push The Visionary on him, and he didn’t get that character at all, and then added freakin’ in there at some point. But then everybody had to say freakin’ every single time they mentioned my name on commentary, anywhere. The first thing I did when I had the opportunity was let’s just pull back on that, how about I just say it? If someone’s introducing me in a grandiose manner, they can say it. But if they’re just talking about me they could just say Seth Rollins, it’s okay. You don’t have to say The Tribal Chief Roman Reigns all the time. No one said The Hitman Bret Hart all the time.”

On fighting an injured Cody Rhodes inside Hell in a Cell:

“You know he refused to not do the live events before Hell in a Cell, because they told him that he couldn’t hurt his pec anymore, even though he was in horrific pain whenever he moved it in a certain direction. They were like, well you can’t tear it anymore. He’s like well I’ve been advertised for these live events, so I should probably be there. I think it was in Rockford and Bloomington, Illinois, or something like that. Everyone was like maybe just stay home. You can just come to the pay-per-view on Sunday. We’re probably good. No, I gotta be there. So he comes to these, maybe Bloomington was the first one, and I remember [saying] let me see this thing. He pulled it open and this was two days after it happened so it hadn’t fully gotten crazy, what you ended up seeing in Chicago at that Hell in a Cell match yet, but it was gnarly, and I was like, yeah, okay, all right, whatever. I’m not gonna tell you what to do, I mean we just talked earlier about how I wrestled with a torn meniscus for many, many months in a lot of pain. So I get it, I understand it. So as long as you know you feel safe enough and you feel safe enough that you’re gonna be okay, we’ll get through it. We’ll figure it out. That’s part of the gig. It was a gnarly pec.”

On how much longer he could wrestle for:

“I think about it all the time. I am 38, I will be 39 in May. I think I’ve got more than a couple years left in me. The dynamic of the industry has shifted so much. I’m not wrestling 200 times a year anymore. I’m not on the road 300 days a year anymore. Live Events, non-televised events have kind of dissipated, which for me, guys like me, I’ve wrestled over 2,000 matches in my career, that’s nice for me. It’s just like riding a bike for me. We’ll see how it is for people coming up who need that experience, we’ll see what that looks like in a few years. But with that schedule, I feel like I’ll be able to extend my career probably longer than I thought I was going to, and then it just depends on where I want to go from there, what I want to do next and how much time I’d like to spend at home with my daughter, taking her to do things that are important to her, that are a lot more important than making towns.”

On Captain America:

“It releases in February. I wish it the best, but I am not a part of that film. [What happened?] Well, does my NDA still apply if I’m not in the film anymore? Truth be told, any answer I gave would only be my opinion on it. The script went through a lot of rewrites and reshoots so what I was there to do, essentially my role got either repurposed or completely erased. So I did do a bit of an audition to possibly pop into another role, I believe, or the repurposing of my role, I’m not exactly sure on what it was, but they ended up going in a different direction with it. And yeah my understanding was there were just a lot of rewrites and a lot of reshoots, and they know they’ve got a finished product that hopefully they’re happy with, and hopefully it’s successful, but it will be sans Seth Rollins.”

On fans thinking they spotted Seth Rollins in the trailer:

“To be fair, he looked an awful lot like you as well because you could just see his eyeballs. I’m not in the movie. I will say unequivocally I’m not in the film. I do not want anybody to go to the film thinking I’m here to see Seth Rollins. There might be two people that would do that, but I don’t want those two people to waste their time. I don’t want to misinform anybody. I don’t want to lead anybody astray. I am not in the film. It should be a good one. Marvel does a great job. I mean, if I’m not [in anything else], I don’t care. I don’t love acting. I love wrestling. My wife loves acting. She’s way better at it than I am. She’s got awesome stuff coming out, obviously, she announced her bit on Star Trek, which is going to be sick. I think that comes out maybe next year and she’s got another thing that I’m not allowed to talk about that’ll be coming out sooner than that. Yeah, I can’t say anything. People have been like oh she’s on hiatus, taking a break. She has not been taking a break. She has been working her tail off the last six, seven months, she’s been hustling.”

What is Seth Rollins grateful for?

“My health, people around me and that I get to be Seth Rollins.”

Sheamus: BANGER After BANGER, Chasing The Intercontinental Title, John Cena, Gunther

in LATEST EPISODES on January 7, 2025 January 7, 2025

Sheamus (@WWESheamus) is a professional wrestler signed to WWE. He sits down with Chris Van Vliet in Phoenix, AZ to discuss his YouTube channel Celtic Warrior Workouts hitting 1 million subscribers, his first championship reign being with the WWE Championship after beating John Cena, why he is still chasing the Intercontinental Championship, his 18-second victory over Daniel Bryan at WrestleMania 28, being Edge’s final WWE opponent, why he and Gunther always have great matches, coming back from a potentially career-ending injury, signing a new 5-year deal with WWE and more!

Quote I’m thinking about: “A river cuts through rock, not because of its power, but because of its persistence.” – Jim Watkins

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On hitting 1 million subscribers on Celtic Warrior Workouts:

“Yeah, what a ride, man. We started out, me and a friend of mine, Ray Senior. We started in Dublin. I was going through some issues with my training and I just kind of lost all motivation to work out. I started doing these kind of, I wouldn’t say CrossFit style, but just kind of more functional training stuff, wall balls into burpees and then sledge pushes down the street and all these different exercises. I just kind of got to challenging myself in the way I never challenged before, rather than just doing static weight lifting, bench press or barbell curls, doing one armed with the land mines. So yeah, it just became a thing where I started getting my passion back for working out. I talked to Ray about it and we’re posting all this stuff on Instagram because there’s nothing really happening at the time. At the time me and Cesaro were tagging, but we’re kind of in a period of just purgatory where we weren’t really doing much. Think we might even have been the champs at that stage, but we weren’t really doing much on TV, so I was just trying to figure a different way to burn off energy and be more creative. Then came up with the idea of the channel, because in WWE the entire roster is made up of athletes. There was nothing that touched on working out. Just one handheld camera, did a couple of videos. Then on the road I asked the talent if they wanted to do it and if they’d help me out and they all did. I’d phone up the gym, I’d ask one of the social media guys to come in, throw them few quid to record it, and we basically go in there and we’d film the workouts, and Ray took until four o’clock in the morning editing them. So my part was easy, and his part was torture, a nightmare. But it just grew and grew and grew. Then, the biggest thing for me was seeing the responses from people in the comments about how they’ve always wanted to work out, and they just didn’t know how. They started doing these workouts and how it changed their lives. Was incredible. That’s really the biggest benefit from the channel of seeing people just have their lives changed by just diving into health and fitness.”

On getting his passion back:

“I definitely felt during the pandemic I really came into my own skin. I really felt like I had an opportunity to kind of recreate myself and show people what I was really about. And that’s I think where the whole physicality came from. You know how it was, nobody is physical in the ring as I am and then that’s where we went into the banger era of Sheamus. But yeah, I still get nervous every time I go out there because I care, I’ve still got passion. I’ve always said to myself, if I’m ever in the business where I go out there and I just phone it in, then I think it’s time for me to hang up my boots. But it took me a long time, I definitely faced a lot of negativity from people when I first started the whole thing, working out with Triple H, his workout buddy. Then I became the WWE champion really quickly and people just hated that. A lot of talent hated that too. But it’s been a long journey, and I’m like, sometimes you kind of feel where’s this going. But I think the whole part where it really came together was when I started tagging with Cesaro, and we became The Bar that best of seven series, that’s where I really got my passion back.”

On working with Cesaro/Claudio Castagnoli:

“Claudio just came back and he did a short run. He was off for a while. I think he did something to his shoulder, and then all of a sudden he was doing nothing. I know Claudio well. He’s very, very passionate, he’s very motivated, he’s very disciplined. I know he put a lot of effort into coming back. Then he comes back and after a short time, there’s nothing there for him, he has a chip on his shoulder to show people how good he is, and in the ring he is one of the best. There’s not many people who can touch him. So I was going through a phase after being World Champion with Roman, then we did the League of Nations thing, which kind of just self-imploded, and then we’re just thrown into to the best of seven stuff. We’d already wrestled each other twice, and people were just like I’ve seen this match twice already. But then by the end we told a great story over seven matches, and really had people involved. Then the yay boo stuff as well was fantastic and just our chemistry just grew and grew and grew. That was one of the funnest periods of my entire career working with him. It was great.”

On his first Championship being the WWE Championship:

“The Randy, Cena thing had just done its rounds, they wrestled about 100 times, and then me and Kofi got picked. Kofi got to go with Randy and I went with John, and we had a couple of matches on a European tour. We had definitely had one in Wales or Minehead. I think it was where I actually wrestled for All Star Wrestling before I got picked up by WWE and I guess that was a test, I think, be honest with you, I don’t know for sure, but there was a throw up between me or Swagger to go in with John at the time, because obviously Jack was obviously a fresh, new talent as well. And that whole initiative, you look back at the Survivor Series, which we’re touching on next Saturday, if you look at that like it was Miz and me and Drew. The talk at the time was I was supposed to go with Hunter, Drew was supposed to go with Taker and Miz was supposed to go with John, and then it all switched with Taker and Shawn for WrestleMania 26 which is in Phoenix, which is where we are.”

On if his accent has changed:

“Not really. It comes back when I go home. When I am talking to you it definitely gets watered down a bit. Because the first year was tough because nobody understood a word I was saying. Like Drew, people still don’t know what Drew was saying half the time. [Drew said he had to get lessons.] He still has to get lessons. I can’t even understand some of his texts, to be honest. But yeah, there’s no chance. He gets the bollocks slagged off of him when he goes to Scotland. Actually, I think it was a Scottish comedian, has a show, sketches, like I think you should leave. And one of them is where just this Scottish lad goes over to America. Comes back, and he starts speaking like an American. Drew, reckons it’s about him, bit of an ego. I think he thinks a lot of himself, but, yeah, I still don’t understand him half the time.”

On it only being a matter of time before he wins the Intercontinental Championship:

“You say that, right? It’s the IC curse of The Celtic Warrior. It’s the one thing I can’t win. The irony is that it’s the first title I really became focused on because Macho Man was in a feud with Steamboat over it. So when I started watching Macho Man was the first IC champion. So the one title that I was exposed to as a fan is the one I can’t win, which has become this kind of crusade. But it’s definitely an IC curse for me.”

Is it that you want to become Grand Slam Champion?

“Ultimate Grand Slam Champion. It’s basically the first one to win everything. It’s true King of the Ring as well is in there, Rumble, all the rest of them. Jesus. I was almost one of the longest reigning World Heavyweight Champions too but Big Show messed that up, but I was close. I think I’m like the third longest, whatever. But, yeah, it’s been a hell of a ride. Sometimes it’s hard to imagine that I’m going into my 18th year with the company.”

On why he and Gunther constantly have great matches:

“European style maybe. I think a lot of talents when they come up, when they’re going in with top talent, I feel they’re just afraid of hurting them, and they’re afraid of just leaving it all out there. For me, they know I don’t give a sh*te. They know you better bring it, because I’m gonna beat the sh*t out of them, but I want them to beat the sh*t out of me too. I want them to bring it. It’s not a thing where I’m going in there taking advantage or taking liberties. That’s the word they used to say. It’s not just like people going, Oh, he’s taking liberties with the younger talents. No, I want them to step up. I want to show a side that no one has seen before, and I bring it out in whatever way I can. Whether it’s the shots, whether it’s the clubs or the 10 beats of the Bodhrán. I want to see them show a side of them that’s never been seen before and they’ve never seen in themselves before. So that brings it out, because you can do all the flips and you can do all the stuff, and there’s definitely a place for that, and people love that. I can’t do it. I’m never going to take it away from anyone. But there’s still a lot. This is still an art to two physical lads going out there and just absolutely tearing each other apart physically, where the people in the crowd just believe that these two individuals hate each other. And I take pride in that. You better step up or just step off. That’s the way it is for me, and I love it, and I know that. And do I get the crap knocked out of me as well because I have that style? Absolutely. This time last year I was sitting on the on the sidelines coming back from what I thought could have been a career-ending neck injury. People don’t realize I went through a lot of procedures, a lot of physical therapy, and I couldn’t move my neck. I went in. I got cortisone shots, I went to see spine surgeon specialists, and then I thought it was good. Then I went back in the ring, and I took a bump and I kept getting stingers, so it wasn’t looking good. Then eventually I got my nerves burned in the back of my neck. And even then, it took a while for that all to settle down. But I literally thought that was it.”

On if a particular bump caused the issue:

“Just over time, took one big bump in the last one before I went away in my last match. I think it was Edge’s last match. I just took an awkward fall, and that itself just I woke up the next morning and thought my neck was broken, just because, again, me and Edge were just knocking the sh*te out of each other, just took a bad fall on the ground. At the time I felt it, but I just worked through it. Then the next day I woke up, it was not good, and it just didn’t go away. I just could not move my neck. And then after that I was trying to work through and then I didn’t know. I didn’t know how serious it was. I just thought it might be something. Because over time, just wear and tear, especially how I work. For example, when I had my first major surgery where I tore my shoulder at the Money in the Bank match. I was out for well, supposed to be six months, but I got ready in three months. I tore my labrum and my left shoulder. So I came back, and the first thing I did was take the hardest post on my shoulder and Flair was in the back going, you’re lunatic, what are you doing? You just had shoulder surgery and you’re hitting the post 100 miles an hour. I said, Yeah, I gotta make sure it works. You know, gotta make sure it’s all right. You gotta test it out. It’s like when someone has something or injury, you gotta just go head first into it. You gotta go make sure you get that fear out of your way. So, yeah, so I took a post 100 miles an hour, but that’s just the kind of mentality me. But, yeah, it was touch and go. There was a couple of times Pete Dunne was there. He was in and out of NXT. So it was Ridge. They both helped, Ridge and Pete really helped me out back in January, February. But there was, I was work with Fit and I couldn’t even take a bump, like even a headlock takeover. I didn’t know whether or not I’d be back.”

On the body shaming comments from fans:

“No that’s on me, mate. So I was I was pushing for Mania. I was pushing for that Gunther match at Mania. [I know Walter had quite a few more pounds on him]. Not anymore. Gunther, he looks like a swimmer now, two different people. We just had different ideas on diet. But yeah, so Gunther. I was pushing that match with Gunther at Mania, and it just didn’t happen. So I was really hoping to end the trilogy on that note, and then that didn’t happen. So I just kind of lost a bit of motivation. I was full on speed towards that. And then once I heard it, once that was kiboshed, yeah, I was like, you know, whatever. So then I just kind of took the foot off the gas, probably drank too many Guinness, enjoy myself too much.”

On the short match against Daniel Bryan:

“No, they didn’t give us a time. I guess what happened was I heard from somebody that it was either going to be Punk and Jericho’s match was going to be short, or me and Bryan’s match was going to be short. I don’t know what the time was. They just said the idea was ding ding ding, distraction, finish.”

Were you ok with that?

“I mean, look, we knew that we could have an amazing match. When we were running the US title back end of 2010, 2011, we knew how good our matches were. We were putting on such good matches I think couple of lads in the main event actually asked like, just so you don’t have to kill yourself. I just kept saying I was trying to break that glass ceiling. But we were just stealing the show every single night, we were tearing it up, knocking the crap out of each other. I remember one time, I don’t know where we were, I think it’s before WrestleMania 27. But yeah, we’re having great matches. We had these street fights we are hitting the bollocks of each other, hitting each other with everything you can think of. One time went for the Brogue and this happened. He’s ducked the Brogue, my left foot got stuck between the middle and the top, and I flipped over upside down. So I was hanging upside down outside the ring, totally by accident. The rope is just like strangling it, so much pressure on my ankle. Bryan comes in with the bleeding kendo and just starts whacking the sh*te out of me! But that’s what it was. We just didn’t care. We just went out there and just was physical as hell. That’s why I loved working Bryan. Bryan was just so unique because he wasn’t the biggest, tallest, whatever, but he had this heart in him and this fighting style, and just never gave up. Just unbelievable, great athleticism and also just very, very physical. The kicks when you’re on your knees, he brought everything. Every kick he did it was brought, was as much intensity as he had.” I told this to Regal the day before we did this. While I was doing the stuff with Pete Dunne I felt Pete’s exactly the same. Pete’s very creative. People realize that, and I’ve got great, very creative mind, but he’s also when he needs to be physical. He can be really, really physical. And that’s kind of like when I was doing that feud with Pete on it kind of brought me back a little bit to the stuff with Bryan.”

On if he has been told to not hit as hard by an opponent:

“Of course I have. Some of them are still there, so I’m not going to go down that road [laughs]. But yeah. But most of them enjoy it. I think most in the beginning are taken aback kind of deer in a headlight stuff. But if you ask them afterwards [they say] that was brilliant. 99% of them after match like that. Because I’m not dropping them on their head, not breaking their nose. I did kick out Jeff Hardy’s tooth once. That’s probably the most damage I’ve done to someone. But yeah, everything I do they could wrestle again tomorrow. It’s not like I’m putting them on the sideline, or I’m putting them in surgery, or I’m putting them in the hospital, or on the shelf. Because they’ll come back. That was awesome. That was great. And you’ll see just kind of adrenaline going in their face.”

On signing a new WWE deal:

“I signed a new five year deal. It just started about two months ago. I’m loving it. The channel hit a million. A lot of great men and women, WWE superstars have given their own time as well to make that happen. So that’s not something where I go I got a million followers. Again, the channel wouldn’t happen only for a lot of the talents were so gracious with their time, and they were so nice about it, because they weren’t getting any money. They’re just on Saturday. You’re on the loop, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday, whatever. They’d have a Saturday morning off to get dinner, go to gym, and I’m dragging them into a Celtic Warrior Workout. And they gave their time graciously. So definitely, thanks to all every single person who’s been on that channel, because every single one of them gave their own time, and it would not have happened without them giving their time to make the channel.”

On his match against Edge:

“We talked about it. I remember we talked about doing an angle together, a storyline together for a while. We came up with a storyline, it was shot down for whatever reason. And then it just happened. I just got a call, I think it was because we did a promo the week before, and then we did the match the week after. Edge’s contract was coming up. I didn’t know. No one knew if he was going to stay or go. No one really knew. I didn’t know. I thought he was going to stay, because we’re talking doing something after that as well. But yeah, it was just a situation. I think originally Damian Priest was penciled in, but then it just turned to me. So I don’t know however it happened, but I was really surprised that did happen. Both excited about it too, because me and Edge have never had a one on one match. Me and Rey [Mysterio] still haven’t had a one on one match. Me and Punk still haven’t. Well, no, I think me and Punk did wrestle a couple of times back in the day, about 12 years ago. But for me, I think Rey is the only person I haven’t wrestled who has been on the roster for a substantial amount of time.”

On if he has thought about how much longer he intends to wrestle:

“Not really. Again, I just signed a new five year deal. [So that’ll take you into your 50s?] Yeah, my wife reminds me all the time, 52. Listen, I’ll go to the wheels fall off me. Could do it until physically I can’t do it anymore. I love what I do, and listen, there’s plenty of time to sit back and read a book and just watch TV. I know a lot of people. I’ve talked to some talents as well, but we meet them all of Mania and everything when they come in, especially the Hall of Fame, but also everybody gets invited to Mania. You can tell a lot of the talents who just retired too early. I mean, look, if I had to hang on my boots when that stuff happened with my neck, I’d be at peace with it. Because sometimes you can tell that when they have retired before their time there is a little bit of regret there.”

On the disastrous Raw after WrestleMania 35:

“So that Monday we [Sheamus and Cesaro] were supposed to be off for Raw because we were SmackDown talents, and then we got pulled in to break up the Seth and Kofi match. Me and Tony are like this is horrible. They’re just going to sh*t all over us. People want this title versus title match. Kofi had just beaten Bryan and then Seth had beaten Brock. But they’re in New York City, Barclays Center. We’re like, we’re going to go in there and break that up? That’s a terrible idea. There’s going to sh*t on us. So it was just what happened was with the singles that turned into a tag. That’s when the beach balls came out fella, all the beach balls because people are just angry, they took away what you’re giving them, which I think was a terrible idea. And then the next night we had a six man. It was me, Drew and Cesaro against all of The New Day. So time got messed up in that one. It just got messed up, and it was a taped show as well. But whatever happened, I end up getting a concussion. Got a shin in the back of the head, so I was knocked out cold. I was knocked out on my feet, but I don’t remember anything after the kick, and then I went back and I’ll remember is I was not good for about a month after got really bad concussion. So that could have been [the end], I didn’t know if that was it. I think, if you think back then, if I’d retired then, I’d missed out on the whole coming back during the pandemic era, going into the banger after banger, all the stuff I’ve done lately, that would never existed. That’s kind of really where I started to show people, they started realizing who I was and how much passion I had and the matches I was putting on. So you take that out, you know what I mean? So it’s like, when do you retire? When you go, like, I’m gonna pull the plug, when is the right time? Because if I’ve had a massive concussion. I can’t do this anymore. Would I be a producer, or whatever it is, or just go on? I went on, and then I got the neck stuff, and then it’s like, so that’s just wouldn’t have existed. I wouldn’t be sitting here with you right now. So I think as long as you’ve got passion and your body can go, obviously you don’t want to be. Like, my biggest fear with the Mrs is that if we have kids and stuff that I won’t be able to play with them or whatever, but I think for a 47-year-old in January, I feel like I’m doing all right physically, I’m moving around pretty good. But I think I’ll go until I feel like I’m not wanted. Thanks for everything, but you know, we just don’t enjoy watching anymore, you can’t do what you can do. I don’t know when is that time? Could be 70 [laughs], I’m just throwing stuff out there. But I just feel like as long as I can do what I do, as long as I enjoy what I’m doing, as long as the fans are enjoying what I’m doing, yeah, I keep that banger after banger thing going. To keep the banger after banger era, just keep going and going, who knows where I end up because I’m still enjoying what I’m doing. The schedule is just a lot better now as well for the talent. So I think a lot of the talents are going to have longer careers because of the schedule being the way it is compared to what it was. I think that’s good.”

What is Sheamus grateful for?

“My wife, my family, my friends, my health and my dogs.”

R-Truth Is HILARIOUS! His Childhood Hero John Cena, 24/7 Championship, Getting Brock Lesnar To Break Character

in LATEST EPISODES on December 31, 2024 December 31, 2024

https://cvvtix.com – Tickets for the first ever INSIGHT LIVE the day before the Royal Rumble on January 31, 2025 in Indianapolis are on sale now!

R-Truth (@RonKillings) is a professional wrestler currently signed to WWE. He sits down with Chris Van Vliet in Phoenix, AZ to discuss how his career is still going strong at 52 years old, being a former TNA World Champion, his hilarious segments with the likes of Brock Lesnar, Wade Barrett and Triple H, his music career, how he is able to make so many stars break character, crashing Drake Maverick’s actual wedding to win the 24/7 Championship, his more serious side in 2011, whether another heel turn could happen and more!

Quote I’m thinking about: “Most New Year’s resolutions fail because they are wishes, not plans. Break your goals into daily, actionable steps. Success isn’t about the resolution — it’s about the execution.” – Joe De Sena

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On not aging:

“I wish I didn’t age. Thank you, man, thank you. Thank you for the kind words. I hear that a lot and it’s good to know.”

What’s the secret?

“Daniel Bryan always said this, I don’t have a [time]. Time just doesn’t exist to me. I feel like we have to make time for time, in a sense. So I don’t look at it as you’re too old for this. Are you too young for that? Just look at it like we have time to adapt, evolve, create, we have time to make time.”

On the difference between R-Truth and Ron Killings:

“Oh, wow. Ain’t that much of a difference, man, but there is a difference. Ron Killings is either father, he’s a husband, he’s a son, he’s a friend, he’s all those things above. R-Truth shares that with Ron Killings, I would say share because when I’m R-Truth, I’m R-Truth. That’s up and down.”

On finding his comedic side:

“I’ve always been funny. I think we are all funny, man. It’s timing. I’m best at it on the spot. I mean, I can be creative, and think of it too. But like on the spot funny is just, that’s what my strong points is.”

You’re not coming up with that stuff in advance?

“Most of the stuff no. It comes on the fly, even in pre-tapes, backstage stuff. I sometimes don’t tell what I’m going to say, because I don’t know what I’m going to say. Just it’s the moment, you have to ride the wave.”

On the segment he was most proud of:

“Probably Paul Heyman and Brock Lesnar. The thing with that was, I come to Gorilla and Paul was there. He’s like, ‘Hey, we got a bet going on.’ I was like, ‘What bet?’ He’s like, ‘That you can make Brock laugh.’ I said, ‘What do you mean?’ He said, ‘We’re not going to tell him what you want to say, we don’t want to hear what you want to say. We just go.’ I said, ‘Man, I think we should let Brock know what we’re gonna do.’ He said, ‘Nope, we’re not gonna let Brock know it all.’ And that was the most impromptu thing that just came off like sliced bread. It was just great.”

On if he purposely tries to get people to break character:

“I haven’t tried to break anybody, it just happens. Got a funny bone. It is all timing. And I think a lot of people when they’re in a promo with me, or they’re in a backstage with me, I think their guard is up so much. Because of that, it’s easy to penetrate. When you try not to do something too hard, too good, you end up doing it. So it’s that reverse psychology type thing. So, yeah, you have to just be yourself. I’m gonna be myself.”

On confusing Triple H with Tomasso Ciampa:

“Hunter was another one that was like you know what, I gotta get through this. I’m not going to break, this is going to be business. I’ve known Hunter for a long time, so I kind of know his funny spots. I know the funny spots on him. I know what to say to [get him to break]. And that was one of the moments I was waiting on.”

On John Cena being his childhood hero:

“Oh, man, I broke him too with that one. That was good, man. And they’re still running with it. I love it, man. I’m not going to burst nobody’s bubble. I’m not a bubble buster. I love it. He is my childhood hero. I would be legs crossed watching him every Saturday morning.”

On parodying John Cena and asking for his blessing:

“Everything, even wearing shorts. He said, ‘Truth you don’t have to ask me to wear shorts in the ring.’ I said, ‘Man, but I want to. I want to be you. I want to do everything you do, walk, talk. How do you hold your head to the side? I want to do everything. I want to be you.’ He said, ‘Run with it, man.’ Yeah, he’s one of the greatest.”

On having fun:

“Yes, It is the most fun I’m having in my career because I’m clear headed. I’m happy. I’m in a good space, good spot. Everything bounces off me. I’m good to go now.”

On little Jimmy:

“Do you know people were taking pictures with an empty chair? Yeah. They were like, ‘Hey, do you mind if we take a picture with little Jimmy?’ By all means, take a picture little Jimmy. And they would get to the side of the chair, and they were just like, it would be nobody in the chair. So I was getting a kick out of this. So as long as they went with it, I was going with it. Because little Jimmy was birthed. He was created, and people loved it.”

On the Hell in a Cell 2011 angle:

“Me and Miz were in that mode. We were ready to grab the bull by the horns and ride it. Man, it was again at that time, it was time for Awesome Truth. I think it was the first time with Awesome Truth. So we was like, we were in it to win it. So everything, man was like coming up on the fly, everything was just great. I love that moment. As of right now, that video has over 100 million views on it.”

On his career nearly coming to an end:

“At one point I thought it was [the end], because it was when I caught the infection. A lot of people thought I just tore my quad. I did tear the quad tendon, but a couple of weeks out, when I go to get the stitches out it wasn’t healing. And that’s when they found out I had five different bacteria like staph, MRSA, their cousins and kinfolks and relatives. Yeah, it was bad. It was so bad the doctor wouldn’t even give me a high five. I know it sounds crazy, I want a high five with the doctor. He’s like you don’t have time for high fives, this is serious. I just went to get my stitches out. He said, ‘What are you doing this afternoon?’ I said, I’m gonna pick my kids up. He said ‘Can somebody else go do it?’ I’m like, why? [He said] ‘We need to take you to surgery now.’ Yeah. So everything went from haha to you better be ready. It was serious. There was a chance I could lose my leg. That’s how serious it got. The infection was that bad that he thought they would have to amputate if they couldn’t get it slowed down. I was on antibiotics that was like, it was $4,700 a week for it. I was on the heavy stuff. I had a picc line the first 6 weeks. Deep down it was like it might be gone. He told my wife if we don’t get this under control we are going to have to think of other options. My wife said what other options? He said amputation. I’m like what the? But that’s when I was thinking I may never come back to this, how can I adapt?”

On still being able to go in the ring:

“I like being in the ring. I think I’m like Rey Mysterio with this right here. I’ll let my body be the guide and be the answer to that. I always listen to my body, always. And right now, man, to be honest, I’ve never felt as healthy as I feel now, clear-minded, clear-headed. Still can do my back flips, still can do my splits. There’s a lot of things that this generation hadn’t even seen me do yet, and I still can do, like you said, just sometime I don’t need to do it. Give me an opportunity, I will go out there and show that oh, sh*t, he could still go.”

On bringing a ladder into the Royal Rumble:

“That was a fan’s idea. Yes, I do read those tweets. I see them all too. So watch what you say. But, yeah, I saw a fan tweet that. I see you running in there, going in with the ladder. And I was like, Oh my gosh, that’s funny. Took it to creative, and they was like, let’s do it.”

On constantly coming up with new material:

“You have to reinvent yourself all the time. You have to evolve. You have to stay up with the times and you won’t age out if you keep coming up. It’s like you’re as good as good as your last match. That’s saying you have to always just evolve. You have to resurface. You have to reinvent yourself. Everything changes. I was around when they didn’t have telephones, not when they had pictures, but when they had pagers and stuff. I heard they had pictures. I don’t know about that, but when they had that you got mail! AOL. So you just evolve. Chris, you gotta evolve with everything, musically, theatrically, with a visual to everything evolves.”

On winning the US Championship in confusing circumstances:

“That was crazy. If I could remember this correctly, we had maybe another two or three more spots to go to, and that was it. I was going to get it anyway, but there’s a strict rule, if you don’t kick out at three referees gonna get fined. You don’t want that. You better slap that motherf*cker. Excuse me, sorry, you better slap it down, right? So Chioda just did his job, Shinsuke didn’t kick out and we’re like, oh sh*t, sorry. We’re like, Oh shoot. That was it. That was a wrap. He did his job.”

On a possible heel turn:

“The selfish part of me would love to turn heel and be a heel, but the majority of me is like, I could never be a heel. People would think it’s cool if I did something bad, if I did something heelish, they would think it’s cool. I smoked a cigarette, and they thought that was the coolest thing on TV. To be a heel you have to get that real, genuine hatred heel heat. Mine would be more of like, they will want me to bash somebody’s head in. Selfishly, I would love to see it one time, but I don’t have to.”

On his favourite 24/7 Championship segment:

“Oh, man, there were so many of them that was good. I could tell you some good stories. The plane was good. Drake’s wedding was good. [Wasn’t that his actual wedding?] That was his real wedding. Y’all, that was funny. The thing in New York the Christmas light tree. Oh, man, they robbed us so bad. The guy had the horses, and we had to pay him more money for the horses to run. They wouldn’t even run. They would try. And it was cold. New York is cold. If my horse won’t run, my horse won’t run.”

On the golf course segment:

“Carmella drove me with that golf cart from one end of the fence to the other end. Because I thought I would outrun the golf cart. Didn’t know the guy gave us the fastest one he had that he had souped up. So I said, we got but one take. I said, you push that gas. You better reach that gas, and she pushed it, and I ran. And that last leap I took, I was holding on for dear life, because she was moving with it. If you go back and watch that, you can tell.”

What is R-Truth grateful for:

“My life, my family and people.”

Mustafa Ali On Leaving WWE, RETRIBUTION, Brock Lesnar Stealing His MITB Win, TNA X Division Champion

in LATEST EPISODES on December 24, 2024 December 24, 2024

https://cvvtix.com – Tickets for the first ever INSIGHT LIVE the day before the Royal Rumble on January 31, 2025 in Indianapolis are on sale now!

Mustafa Ali (@MustafaAli_X) is a professional wrestler previously signed to TNA and WWE. He sits down with Chris Van Vliet at West Coast Creative Studio in Hollywood, CA to talk about his new wrestling school in Chicago called Chicago Wrestling Center, how his injury led to Kofi Kingston’s WWE Championship win at WrestleMania 35, being eliminated by Nia Jax in the Royal Rumble, nearly winning Money in the Bank before Brock Lesnar entered the match, the infamous Retribution faction, his viral RKO counter and more!

Quote I’m thinking about: “The cost of never taking a risk is spending the rest of your life wishing you had.”

On opening a wrestling school:

“I’m really excited. It’s something that’s been sitting in the back of my mind for quite a while, but it’s located in Niles. That’s like 15 minutes from O’Hare in Chicago, and it’s just the best of the best, man. I’m gonna have the best trainers. AEW, WWE, TNA, they all come to town. I’m gonna invite them to come hang out and train and do seminars with the students there. So we launch in January 2025 I’m super excited.”

On advice for aspiring wrestlers:

“I think the one thing that comes up is there’s never a good time for anything. One of my favorite quotes is ‘Man makes plans and God laughs.’ Who are we to know what’s gonna happen in a year? I know people are financially struggling, so if there’s one aspect of you not financially being able to go to wrestling school, I understand that. But I’ve also seen people cut their cell phone bill and their Hulu and they’re gonna say they’re going to this school one way or the other. They’re gonna wait a couple more tables. If you truly want something the school opens up in January 25, the kids that want to be there are gonna be there. But the advice I would give to people that are planning on going to a wrestling school is, I don’t want to say workout, but it’s intense. You have to realize someone else’s life is literally in your hands when you’re picking them up and you’re running and this and that. So fatigue and weakness from a physical standpoint is very dangerous, both to you and your partner. So I would say that would be my biggest advice, and then be prepared for the mental challenge. I don’t want to say that I’m doing like old school training, but I do feel there’s a lot of schools, and I’m gonna make headlines with this, probably there’s a lot of schools that’ll take your money. I won’t. There’s an application form you have to send out, you have to fill out a waiver, and there’s a big portion of it that’s called, Why do you want to train here? And if I don’t feel what you’re saying off of that app, I won’t approve the application. I’m very, very blessed and fortunate to be very financially secure. This is literally me doing something because it’s a passion project on the side. I still got a million dreams in front of me that I am chasing. I’m just not sleeping in the process. But inside this is something again, I feel like I was obligated to do and my standards are here, and one way or the other, you’re gonna meet me here.”

On his current character:

“This is a super random side note, but this is how sensitive this character can be. In TNA, I had a feud going with Mike Bailey. I’m talking about weeks before a real-life event happened. We came up with this idea where after I’ve been torturizing Mike Bailey for weeks, and beating up his friends like that. I’m pulling up into the arena with an SUV, and I have a campaign manager with me. His name is campaign Singh. And I’m like man, these idiot voters, they love me. Watch this. I put my window down. And he’s like, Sir, I don’t think that’s a good way. I’m like, shut up. They love me. And we have all these fans going and I’m shaking their hands, these idiots. And as I’m shaking their hands, I go back to Singh I’m like, they love me. Mike Bailey appears within this crowd and Mike Bailey grabs me by the throat. He’s trying to pull me out of the SUV, and Secret Service jumps on him. And I’m like, drive, drive, drive, and we drive away. Later that night in a promo, I say Mike Bailey tried to attack me in what the public has deemed an assassination attempt. We tape this, the week that’s going to go live, which is a Thursday earlier that week, the incident happens with Trump, the assassination attempt. So I’m sitting and I’m watching this, oh no. Some people had nothing to do with it, right? A genuine coincidence. So I had to text TNA because some people gonna think we’re parodying it or making fun of it. No matter how you feel about someone, death is death. I personally don’t wish that upon anybody. So I made the call, hey, I really think you should edit this clip. So we ended up editing that part out. But it just goes to show you the volatile, sensitive nature of this character. So, that’s why I am a little bit more OG Ali over here. But yeah, I just got to evaluate and see if it’s something I want to continue doing long-term because of an incident like that.”

On being able to do a reverse 450:

“The thing is, again, wrestling rings aren’t as nice and padded as they think they are. The cause of concern with that move is the ropes actually, more for me, I would feel terrible if I hurt somebody because you had to realize I’m jumping backwards. So there’s a good portion of this move where I have lost my opponent, and the next time I see my opponent is when I’m landing. So that’s why I’ll check back once, and I gotta take that picture and I hope he’s still there. Again, margin of error, it’s a shin or a knee or an elbow across their throat, their face, their head. So, yeah, just as far as how I knew, I have no idea. I must have figured out how to do it when I was 16. Because, you know, you’re 16, you’re indestructible.”

On people mispronouncing his name:

“I say it the right way. So I mean, I’ll take the blame on that. So when I started with WWE, everyone’s super nice, right? You go introduce yourself, and I’m just that guy where it’s like, I’m the new guy here. I don’t want to rock the boat. I’m in WWE. It’s very like, you’re taken aback. So when you’re introducing yourself, like, ‘Hey, I’m Mustafa Ali.’ [They responded incorrectly] ‘Mustafa?’ Yeah, sure, you just go with it. And again, it’s on me. I just didn’t have the balls at the time to correct anybody. So eventually I was like, oh man, they’re all just saying it that way. I should just say it too, because I think it’s just easier for the audience to say, and I’m not proud about it. I just kind of like, hey, I can say it’s not a big deal, but it’s your name, of course it’s a big deal. But at the time, again, just super unsure of myself. Didn’t have the confidence, or the stock, honestly, to say much. So I was saying my name incorrectly for a long time.”

On his name being changed to just Ali:

“Again, I guess in a way, I’m not proud of it, but trying to make myself a little bit more marketable. We’ve seen the clips that go that guy’s name’s too hard, I’m just gonna call him Mo. I didn’t want that. My biggest fear, which came to light, was if I correct them and my name’s too hard to pronounce, they’re just gonna call me Ali, which, sure enough, when I brought up that, hey, you know, I brought it up one time, by the way, this the correct pronunciation. So Road Dogg explained to me. What actually happened was when you do live events, these producers, they write reports, and this is during a babyface run. I think I was working with Shinsuke Nakamura or something like that. One portion of the crowd was chanting ‘Mustafa’ and the other crowd was chanting Ali.’ It was a weird chant and just dies out, and it happened a few nights, so that got written in the report. So whoever makes decisions, I’m assuming it was Vince at the time, just call him Ali, just one name. That’s how I lost my name.”

On if his WWE release was a surprise:

“Not surprised that it happened. Surprised when it did happen? Yeah. I think I was in NXT at the time, and I actually had a pay-per-view match scheduled that weekend with Dominik Mysterio for the North American Championship.”

On being rumoured to win that match:

“I don’t believe anything until it happens. But yeah, I don’t mind sharing. I think that was the plan. But mind you, the plan was actually to put the North American Champion on me months prior. But WWE is so smart with advertising and contract negotiation. So NXT, the network deal was coming up. Shawn in NXT is awesome. He explains to me, he’s like, ‘Hey, we’re gonna put the North American Championship on you.’ What happens is the network deal is coming up, and this is when Judgment Day, specifically Dom, is just white hot. I mean, they’re still white hot right now, but Dom was next level right there. So they were like, ‘Hey, everyone in Judgment Day has a championship. We want to put a championship on Dom, and we want to spike the ratings for NXT.’ Because the idea is, if you spike the ratings with the contract negotiations this helps you. So this is when Seth was coming and Becky was coming back. So I get a call from Shawn, ‘Hey, we’re actually putting the championship on Dom, and here’s a reason.’ I go, Yeah, that makes total sense, awesome. Do it like that. I didn’t expect it coming. Dom’s gonna come and challenge Wes Lee and beat him, great. So we do that. Then we do a three way match, which was super fun, with Dom, me and Wes Lee. And then [Shawn] was like, ‘Hey, Dom is needed back on the main roster.’ Poor guy was working six days a week. So I think that was a plan. Was it a surprise? No, because I saw WWE stock and WWE in general going this way [up], and my stock just going this way [down].”

On a possible WWE return:

“I think there’s multiple paths, yeah. And the thing is there’s good relations there. The thing with them moving to Netflix is very, very interesting, because it just opens things. I don’t know how much the show is going to change, as far as dynamic, as far as rating, as far as what they’re okay with.”

On his injury that led to KofiMania:

“Just a series of unfortunate events. It’s really, really cool, because from that came a really tight relationship and friendship with Kofi Kingston. We were in a talent meeting one time where they had someone come in for something, and the guy didn’t know the product very well, and he kept looking at Kofi and calling him coffee. And because Kofi is such a nice guy, and he would not [correct him]. He’s like, right coffee? And everyone’s laughing. Elimination Chamber, it all happened so fast. Come up to SmackDown, wrestle Daniel Bryan, losing that effort. But I think the next week I pinned him and I got AJ Styles. I’m like, What is going on? Get the word finally that we’re moving you over to SmackDown full-time. You’re done with 205, we’re gonna get you a main roster contract, all this stuff. So it’s all happening a million miles per hour. I want to say the week before, I got the heads up about, ‘Hey, you’re in the Elimination Chamber. Could you wrestle 60 minutes on SmackDown?’ I was like, what? They go, ‘Yeah, we’re gonna do a gauntlet style thing.’ I go, ‘Yeah, I could wrestle 60 minutes.’ I’m like, Man, I’m doing all this cardio. That week, I have a match with Randy and just kind of a slip of the boot. So Randy does like the stomp where he goes around, he stomps each body part. And one of the things, I think the compliment just went to my like man Ali sells so good. You hit something and it looks like he just sells so well. So I want to say Randy had either stomped me in the stomach, something like that, something that basically made me sit up to sell. I’ve watched Randy work for years, and usually it’s stomp, and he takes his time and stomp, and then he takes his time. But for some reason, I guess, he was feeling to stomp me again in the stomach. So he went for two stomps. But when he stopped me the first time, I sat up, and the second stop was coming and just caught me right in the eye, and I could feel like the bones. I felt my face move and it was like, oh man. And in a second I’m like, Oh, I’m fine. I knew where I was. I was fine. But Randy keeps saying ‘Yo your eye is flaring up really bad. Are you okay?’ I’m fine. I promise I’m fine. It’s just a black eye. We finished the match. We get back. Everyone’s saying are you okay? I go, Yeah, I’m fine. It’s just a black eye. Later that night, the finish of SmackDown was a big melee to set up the Elimination Chamber match. Eric Rowan’s with Daniel Bryan at the time. So the spot had called for Eric Rowan to do the claw choke slam on the announce table. I take it, and I remember landing on the table, and I go oh no. The whole room is just spinning violently, I feel like I’m spinning on the table. I know I’m laying here, I’m messed up. So I’m like you probably just got rocked. Just give it a second. I get back. I’m all good. I’m all good, that weekend I have live events. I’m sorry, this is when I get the call about, hey, can you go, like, 60 minutes? I’m like yeah I can do it. I’m driving to these live events and I was like man, something’s not right. I wrestled the first night, and I was like man, I’m gonna throw up, I’m not myself. I’m stumbling on myself, but I’m composed enough that I’m okay. The second night I’m in a tag team match, and I want to say my tag team partner was actually Tye Dillinger versus Samoa Joe and Shelton Benjamin, and just things happen in the ring. I was looking this way, but Shelton wanted me to go this way, and he kind of grabs me to give me this turnbuckle move I do where I get thrown in the turnbuckle. It looks like I knock myself out, except this time I really knock myself out right again, because I think I’m going here, but I get pulled this way, get rocked again, and now I’m like, I can’t stand. Samoa Joe picks me up for the muscle buster. I’m able to slip out, get the quick pin, and I’m out of there. And, yeah, this part sucks. I’m sitting in the back Indian style on the floor, and a referee walks by. He goes, ‘Hey, you good?’ I go, yep. And he knows, goes and gets the doc. Doc comes. ‘Hey, Ali, why don’t you come with me?’ And I know. I go, No, no, I’m good. They go, stand up. I go, No, I’m good. And eventually, I get bullied into the medical room. I’m grabbing everything I can. I just my back, and I was like, oh, yeah, okay ‘Do you know where we’re at?’ Yeah. ‘What town are we in?’ We’re here. I’m looking at the wall trying to see, I don’t know anything. I’m gripping the table. Man, this part sucks because they wanted me basically to put my hands in front and I’m sitting on the little medical table. I’m holding it, they go put your hands up, so I do this and, man, I just eat it. They go this is massive, you’re not well. So they all put me up and they, it’s a whole protocol thing where the doc has to stay across you from the hotel room, transport me back home.”

This is concussion protocol?

“I think mine was pretty exceptional. I couldn’t stand correctly. It was really bad vertigo. So, we have to get you home, WWE arranges for transportation. And, yeah, that’s what sucks. I’m like Okay, what’s the process? Can I make Elimination Chamber? They go, ‘Dude, you’re out for months probably.’ I was like, no! Then, they asked me to film something at home. I send it in, basically announcing I won’t be in the Elimination Chamber. I’m heartbroken, but I’m going to come back better. And then this beautiful gift of KofiMania happens, and Kofi, what a guy and lightning in a bottle. The entire WWE universe is behind him. He has this magical gauntlet performance. He has this amazing performance at Elimination Chamber and those combined is what fueled KofiMania all the way to WrestleMania. Now, no way am I comparing, but as a competitor, of course, there’s some jealousy, right? I’m watching. I’m like, man, could you imagine what a healthy Ali could do in the Elimination Chamber? But then I go and look and I’m so mad at myself. I’m like, if only I didn’t take that bump at the live event. I’m sitting there kind of like, I could have, I would have been fine. And my wife’s like, so you thought it would be a good idea to go in the Elimination Chamber concussed? I would have tried to scale something, you don’t know, at the end of the day, I’m healthy, I’m happy. Everything works. I’m good. My brain isn’t mush. WWE did the right thing. They protected me for the day. You gotta protect these athletes from themselves, because we have that thing. We get hit, we get up. The instinct is, I’m good.”

On Money in the Bank:

“So, yeah, I show up to Money in the Bank, and they’re like, ‘Hey, you’re winning it.’ I go, ‘What? Okay, cool.’ So this is so funny because I’m one of the shorter guys in the match. So they actually had me climb up the ladder so they could adjust the briefcase so it was within grabbing distance of me. And all day we’re putting this match together. Everyone’s like, Hey, man, Congrats. Yeah, man, this is awesome. I was like, Oh, maybe I can get this briefcase to light up, because I was wearing the light of stuff at the time. I’m thinking this is one of those cloud 9 moments, I can’t believe this is happening, because it’s not happening. So the match is about to start. Entrances have started. I want to say Baron Corbin is making his entrance. I don’t know why, I just have his music in my head. I have a very funny visual for you. So I’m wearing this light-up mask and I’m wearing this jacket that lights up and I have a glove, and they all kind of pulsate with lights, obviously. And Jamie Noble comes up. ‘Hey, boss man wants to talk to you. Go talk to the boss.’ I was like, Okay. The entrances are happening. Vince is looking up, and I come over. Now, mind you gorilla is completely dark, so I just have these red lights that are flashing on Vince’s face. And he’s all shadowy. So you can see the picture that I see right looking up him, he goes ‘Change of plans. Do the match, everything you called. When the time’s right I want you to climb up the ladder and grab the briefcase. Someone’s going to come out. I want you to hold the briefcase and just have shock on your face. He’s gonna run down, tip the ladder over, and you stay down. Do you understand?’ And again, my lights are just flashing on his face, so I see what he’s saying. But there’s a moment where he goes black and it’s red, black and it’s red. I’m like, ‘Copy that, sir.’ I just walk away I’m like, It’s Brock. Who else could it be? I’m walking, I’m like, whatever. My music is hitting. So he literally told me. None of the guys in the match know. Finn didn’t know. Randy didn’t know, Baron Corbin in the match, Drew McIntyre, Andrade. No one knew. I’m the only guy that knows. I’m walking down, I’m just focused on the match. At this point, the match happens, climbing up the thing and, man, it’s just like, I know everyone’s like, Well, why didn’t you just grab the briefcase? I want to be like, because my boss told me.”

On why he didn’t just grab the briefcase:

“Well here’s the thing that’s my immediate response to him [Vince]. Well, my music’s playing and he’s got a vision. There’s no point in arguing this time. So what you didn’t see is, I climb up the ladder. I got my fingertips on the briefcase. Brock’s music hits. I do the shock thing like I’m asked, and I’m like, they’re gonna cut to Brock, but at some point they’ll come back to me. They didn’t. But what I did is I did the slip thing where I try to get it, which you don’t see on camera, the briefcase slips out of my hands. So when Brock gets in the ring, you see me trying, it just slipped up. I’m trying to regain possession of it so that I’m not just holding it for the whole time. That was my I’ll cover it up this way, and then I would just tell Vince oh, it slipped out of my hand. So I climb up, I grab it. Brock’s music hits. They cut to him. I do the slip. You don’t see it, but when I’m looking down Brock hits a ladder out the way, and it just completely annihilates a cameraman named Rico. Just hits him in the head. He goes down. He needs stitches. And I’m watching this, I’m like, he’s gonna murder me! I hope I’m not destroying the mystique of Brock here, but what a pro. Gets in the ring, grabs me, looks up to me. He’s like, ‘Hey, kid you ready?’ And I’m like yeah? He says ‘Okay, nice and easy, one, two.’ And the thing is, he was so nice about the push that I was expecting this violent thing that I hurled myself off the ladder, and I end up hitting the top rope with my mouth, cutting my mouth completely my fault, and hurting myself, and I go down like he just pros pro man. I’m saying that, but you can see if you watch it back, if you cut to the clip of the guys on the floor selling. They’re all very unamused that this match happened that way.”

On being eliminated from the Royal Rumble by Nia Jax:

“So that spot wasn’t originally for me. I don’t know who it was for, but someone was not very much okay with getting eliminated by a woman. And I’m at this point where I’m trying to prove that I’m a pro’s pro. I’m down for whatever. And I can kind of see, I think it was Jamie Noble, because it was some sort of frantic search. I looked at Jamie. I was like, ‘What’s the spot?’ He looked at me and he goes, ‘Would you be okay with it?’ I just go, Yep. What is it? He goes, ‘Well, Nia is gonna beat up R-Truth, and then she’s gonna take everyone’s finisher. But before she does that I just need her to throw somebody [out].’ I don’t know who the original person is. I really don’t know. But I remember going it’s a scripted show. It’s fine. Me and Nia are homies. So I remember I told Nia hey, I’ll do it. And she was so like, thank you. I could see the sense of relief. So I could see why some people were like, oh, man, that made you look weak. I go Nia is shoot strong as hell and could pick up anyone in this room right now, and she tossed me over. So we did the thing, hey, Nia, can I do the whole [thing] I’m not gonna hit you. I did this thing and then she head-butted me, picked me up. Gets talked about to this day. Actually, I think the RKO and the 619 she took in the Royal Rumble gets talked more. But yeah, it was a moment. I could see how some of the guys were like, Oh, I wouldn’t have done that. One, I didn’t have a problem with it. And two, I was looking like, I think that goes a long way to Vince and to Bruce. This guy didn’t have a problem getting the spot over because that’s a moment. That’s what we want to do. We want to create moments. That was the honest intention behind it. So, yeah, it wasn’t originally designed for me, from what I understand.”

What is Mustafa Ali grateful for?

“Family, empathy and that I have this mindset.”

Ivar’s Return From A Career-Threatening Injury, Getting Paralyzed In A Match, War Raiders Are Back!

in LATEST EPISODES on December 19, 2024 December 19, 2024

Ivar (@Ivar_WWE) 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 recent return to WWE from injury, getting temporarily paralyzed in a match, returning as The War Raiders instead of the Viking Raiders, how he made it to WWE, the comedy segments with The Street Profits, being a part of an independent show with John Cena and Vince McMahon and more!

Quote I’m thinking about: “A real loser is somebody that is so afraid of not winning, they don’t even try.”

On his recent neck injury:

“So it started in Brooklyn before WrestleMania, me and Ricochet had a match. I took a European uppercut and I was like, whoa. Did a system check. I’m like, I’m okay. I’m all right. And then after that, I was doing Main Event, Raw, NXT, NXT coconut shows. I was doing some SmackDown dark stuff. I was just on everything. Then it got to that match with Oba Femi for the North American Championship in NXT. We got to the second half of that match, and I just lost all strength in my right arm. I couldn’t pick him up, so I just started calling audibles in the ring where I wasn’t going to pick him up. We made it through the match, and that was that. The whole time we were checking on medical to see how I was doing. And then after that match was like, okay, that’s no good. Then I went to Discovery Cove that week with my wife, just to be like, Okay, I need a break, like a reset. Usually, when we do vacation things, it’s go, go, go. I’m like, I know I need something where I can just relax and just see how I’m doing. We did an animal trek thing, where you interact with a parrot. I held my arm up for the parrot to come over, and I couldn’t hold my arm up. So that was immediately MRI, we’re getting an MRI right away. Then we got the results back and that was it, read the results. They’re like, Okay, this is probably the end of your career, to the point where they handed me mental health paperwork to kind of get that rolling, because I already had the double fusion of my neck. So if we’re talking about another level fusion, because the MRI showed I had another herniated disc in my neck the level above. So two levels, C5,6,7, they’re all fused together. This was C4 and 5, so the one directly above, another fusion would probably be the end of my career. So yeah, they were there preparing me for the worst for when I went to see my surgeon. My surgeon had read the result in the MRI, and he pretty much felt the same way that this was it. So for five days, I think this is it. It’s over with. I flew close to the sun and the wings melted. But when I saw him in Birmingham five days later, and he actually had the disc for the MRI, and he read the results for the MRI himself, he’s like, okay, we can work with this. So with my original injury, I did the suicide dive, and my head got pushed back into my disc, exploded into my spinal cord, which caused the temporary paralysis and then pretty much emergency fusion surgery after that. This one, the herniation happened, instead of shooting in towards the cervical cord, it went out away from it. So he was pretty sure, because my symptoms weren’t too bad, we could probably rehab it without having to do surgery. And if we did have to do surgery, he knew a different surgeon who would go in through the back and just shave the herniation down arthroscopically, which wouldn’t require fusion. So he said on multiple occasions that I dodged a very big bullet.”

On being given another opportunity:

“I do have an opportunity, and it’s like the theme of my career. It keeps happening where things happen, and it’s a career-ending injury, and it’s like, oh, wait a minute, maybe not. And I’m just lucky. I’m not on my 9th life, I’ve been well past that. I’m on my 12th life. Pretty much.”

On being temporarily paralysed:

“So seconds for feeling. So I dive out of the ring. Someone’s hand gets me in the face, it pushes my head back. You watch it, and you can’t even tell that’s what happened. And then this exploded right into my spinal cord, I fall, and I hit the mat. So when I fall, a lot of people thought that I hurt my legs on the dive, because when the hand hits me, I lose everything. My body. I have no control over anything, my legs just hit the ground. There’s nothing. Boom. But then I managed to roll over, but I couldn’t feel anything. This is COVID. No one’s ringside, no fans are ringside, no medical is ringside, no nothing. I knew they were going to the finish in the ring, and I needed to tell somebody I was hurt. I knew the ref wasn’t coming out and checking on me, because they were going to the finish in the ring. So I went to put my hands into the x, the signal that I’m hurt, I need medical out here, and I didn’t feel my arms at all. So I go back and watch the footage, and my arms move, and I do a little X, but I couldn’t feel that. Couldn’t feel it at all. Couldn’t feel my legs, nothing. And then as the medical came out and stuff, I started getting crazy burning sensation in my legs and started getting crazy burning station in my arms and stuff. So the feeling started to come back, but it was just I was riddled with nerve pain, and then it was off to the ambulance. I did manage to ask talent relations for a raise on my way. Didn’t happen though [laughs]. I thought it was a good opportunity, but, yeah, that was crazy. The whole thing was crazy because it was COVID, so no one getting the ambulance with me. Went to the hospital, no one’s gonna come in to see me. There’s a whole bunch of people who came to the hospital, they couldn’t get in. And my tag partner, obviously the ref who I’ve known for so long Bennett, Jason Jordan, came. He was the producer, just trying to check maybe they couldn’t even get into the hospital, not even the waiting room. Couldn’t even because we’re in the middle of COVID. So it was kind of crazy. I mean, obviously it’s a crazy experience, but it made it double, like amplified, because of the situation that we were all in.”

On not choosing to have neck fusion:

“I didn’t have a choice. There was no option for me, because the the disc had exploded into my spinal cord. So I had pressure pushing on my spinal cord, which is what gave me all the nerve pain. That’s why I had temporary paralysis. As the swelling kind of eased up a little bit, I was able to get the feeling back as things kind of went back in, but because they were so damaged, they were going to permanently push on my spinal cord. So that would have been the end of my career number one, but it would have been hurt for my quality of life, because I wasn’t able to do anything. It was hard enough to get an approval to get a flight from Orlando to Birmingham to get the surgery with that surgeon. That’s the surgeon. I don’t think the people in Orlando wanted to do it. So I was lucky and got, got the flight. But yeah, it was I didn’t really have much of a choice.”

On his current quality of life:

“So I’m pretty good now. To be fair, I do have permanent nerve damage and nerve pain in my hands, and that will never go away. That’s something I live with. But as far as everything else, I got most of my mobility back to my neck. It’s a little stiff now because I have another herniation, but I still have very good range of motion. I credit that to yoga pretty much. Then all my strength is returned to my arm, so I have no problems there, so it’s really just the nerve pain right now from the original injury that I have that’s permanent. But I have good days and bad days. Some days I can really feel it goes down my arm a little bit, and some days I can’t feel it all, kind of all depends. But quality of life, I feel pretty good.”

On the return of The War Raiders:

“When I had this opportunity to do the singles run and it was going well, I had a conversation with Triple H where he said, Hey, how about we start pulling back off of the heavy Viking stuff, slowly peeling some of those layers off so we can tell more stories with you. I’m like, Oh, that’s great. So as we started to do that, I got hurt again, and then Erik and I were ready to come back. I think we were actually scheduled to return in Calgary at Raw. At the last second, they pulled our travel and said that we’re gonna hold off for now. Oh man, here we go. They’re like, No, nothing bad. We want to hold off. We want to have better creative for you. And then the next week, we got a phone call, Hey, how do you guys feel coming back as The War Raiders? And we were like yeah that sounds good. That sounds really good.”

On if there was talk of bringing their original names back:

“I think at this point we spent five years in the main roster and Erik and Ivar, especially with the Ivar singles run. That’s how we’re known. I think it would have felt like an erase of everything we’ve done. I don’t think we want to erase everything that we’ve done on the main roster. We’ve done some great things, including singles run, our Raw Tag Title run that we had, all the stuff that we did with The Street Profits, whether people liked it or not, it’s our history. I loved every second of it, and I don’t think we want to erase that.”

On the move that impresses the fans the most:

“I think it’s the moonsault, but sometimes it’s the Tajiri, sometimes it’s the forward roll to the floor. I mean, it kind of depends on the situation, but I’ve learned a lot. When I climb up the ropes it builds so much anticipation, and they just want to see what’s going to happen. Like, oh, my God, he’s so big and he’s climbing. So I tend to like that stuff the best, because I can feel the anticipation. I did the handspring back elbow, it’s exciting and it’s shocking, but that anticipation wasn’t there before. So I feel like for me, it’s better when I do the climb and that people are anticipating it.”

On his previous WWE extra work:

“Goldberg spears Rosey through the guard rail. It might have been the first through the guard rail spot that was ever done. They had us all planted in the crowd just in case the barrier came down on somebody, or if people wanted to charge, we’d be there holding back. That was my first one. I got in Heidenreich’s face on SmackDown once. He’s reading a poem in the ring I’m a member of the crowd I got yelled at by him. He came out, got in my face and attacked me. A druid at Survivor Series. I can’t remember what year, when he wrestled The Big Show. So they just so we had to bring a casket out. Then it got destroyed. Big Show destroyed it. They went to bring a second casket out onto the ramp, top of the ramp, and Big Show got put in that. Then we had to carry Big Show off in the casket.”

On thinking WWE might never happen at one point:

“Oh yeah. Big time. It was 2011, I hurt my shoulder, I went in for shoulder surgery. It was supposed to be like a little cleanup job, and when they opened me up, the surgeons decided to look where I was complaining my pain was in my shoulder, and discovered that my labrum was over 60% blown out, completely blown out. So that’s all he did. He’s supposed to shave down bone spur, do a couple other things. Didn’t do any of that stuff. He just did the labrum. So everything else is still wrong in that shoulder. But then I was just in deep depression. I’m just, this isn’t gonna happen. I’ve failed so many times. It’s just not gonna happen. But I love wrestling, and I want to leave my mark on this somehow, not just for having small roles in people’s success, their young success, like we talked last time, Kofi and Sasha Banks and Tommaso and so on and so forth. I wanted to leave some sort of legacy. So I’m like alright, I gotta go to Ring of Honor. That’s the only other place I can go at that point in time. So I juice fasted. So when I had hurt my shoulder I was like 350 or something like that. I juice fasted and did DDPY for months for my rehab, I lost 90 pounds and grew the beard. Had to grow the beard out and just evolve who I was as a wrestler and just give my all at Ring of Honor. I did a tryout camp there in 2013 and I was wearing a singlet at the time, but my stomach didn’t look too flattering in the singlet, even though I’d lost all the weight, just kind of loose skin or whatever. Delerious, who was the booker at the time, he got the idea to have me wear something to cover up my midsection. That was kind of the genesis of the war belt that I wear, which took me on this path into the Viking culture going forward. So out of that camp, 2014, Top Prospect tournament comes around, and names are getting announced for it, there’s eight people, seven names were announced. I’m like, I guess it’s just this isn’t gonna happen. And then I get an email, Hey, we want you for the tournament. So I was like, they didn’t contact me for the tournament until they already announced the other seven. I was like, Oh, wow, last second. So then I hopped in that tournament. Erik and I wrestled in the finals. I won, very serious about mentioning that. But then we became a tag team and that was where I found out that Erik loves Vikings, so we really were able to bond and mesh up in that regard. I think at that point we were a team for a minute. He had the motorcycle accident, I got the singles push, then he came back, and we were a team again. I think when he came back we became the team again. We both kind of looked at the landscape, and we had similar experiences with WWE, similar failures, where it looks like we’re good enough, but they’re just not taking our body type or whatnot, the 6 foot 2, 240 thing that was going on in that time frame, like it was very hard to get in. So we’re looking for the landscape wrestling, and we’re like, what if we just go all in on being a tag team? There aren’t too many teams out there, teams that are always teams that are just these well-oiled machines on the Indies, or even in WWE, they’re just these units that are teams, and they’re solidified as that, and that’s how they succeed. That could be our ticket to stardom in Ring of Honor to start, and I don’t know, maybe something like Japan after that. So War Machine was successful in Ring of Honor, and then it caught the eye of NOAH. We did a little bit with NOAH, and New Japan was helping NOAH at the time. So then New Japan ended up having us come in and get over there. So we were loving life with New Japan and Ring of Honor, because that was like, All right, we made it. We did it, and then we got the call from WWE. So we both had to pretty much give up on the goal. I shouldn’t say give up, because obviously it was always in our hearts that’s where we want to be. But we had to put it on the back burner and say let’s become successful somewhere else, as successful as we can get. If the other thing happens, great, but let’s just be the best that we can be, and go from there.”

On a possible War Raiders break-up:

“So, no. I’ve answered this a few times before. I mean, New Day’s having their turmoil now, but for a decade on WWE television New Day’s been together, and it’s never happened, yet. So I feel like we’re in the same boat, maybe we can do singles things on the side. Maybe we don’t have a story in the tag division and something opens up for you know me for the Intercontinental title, or maybe something opens up for Erik for the Speed Championship, just one below whatever I’m doing [laughs]. But I think we can do things. We’re both great singles wrestlers. I don’t think anyone realized that until I had this recent singles run, and he’s just as good. If just the opportunity is there it’s great, but I don’t see us breaking up. I don’t see us splitting up. I think we’re always gonna be there to support each other.”

On the comedy segments during COVID:

“So it was this whole scary time. I feel like half the roster got fired, the lockdown, and there’s a lot of uncertainty in the whole world. It was a scary time. We were told we were doing it and at first, I don’t know, the first hour or two after we were we were told, we were like, Oh, this is not good. This is going to be the precursor to you’re out of here. A lot of times when they take serious characters, or historically when you’ve seen serious characters, and then they take a really sharp turn into the comedy stuff. Then they’re doing that for a short period of time and they’re gone. We’re like all right, well this is the hand we’re dealt, so let’s do the absolute best that we can with it, and make sure that they can’t get rid of us because we’re so good at what we do, and that’s kind of what we did. I felt like originally, that whole feud, it wasn’t for us. It was for The Street Profits, because that’s their thing, or at least the time that was their thing. They’re the comedic, funny tag team. So it just felt like everything was for them, which is fine, totally fine. It is what it is. So it was our job to do the best that we could in that role, and I think we did. I can watch it back, I see memories of it and stuff, or just randomly running the fans. It’s funny because I’ve heard a lot of people online talk trash about that stuff. Never one to my face, but I was proud of the fun, comedic stuff that we did.”

On wrestling John Cena at an independent show:

“He’s on the main roster, but he thinks he thought he was getting fired. He was coming to his school. He was coming to Chaotic Wrestling at that point in time. So we’d see him there and his dad was a manager, Johnny Fabulous, on our shows, and did commentary for years. So I texted you about that. But then John made a name for himself. And then at some point in the late 2000s I want to say 2008 he wanted to do a benefit show. One of his brothers was a police officer and was in an accident. He wanted to do a fundraiser for their police department. So he talked to his dad, and they contacted Chaotic Wrestling, and they said they’re going to put on a benefit show. Vince gave the blessing for John to come in and also Eugene, who was under contract at the time. So we had this big show right by West Newberry at a high school, very close to West Newberry, Massachusetts. I wrestled Eugene on it, which actually the promoter gave me the option. He said, Do you want to wrestle in the main event with John Cena as a referee, or do you want to wrestle Eugene? And I’m like I think I want to wrestle Eugene because I was just such a wrestler at the time. I wanted to have that experience wrestling. I look back on it, I know it was weird. He was like, Are you sure you want to wrestle Eugene? Yeah, I want to wrestle Eugene. Okay, so I wrestle Eugene, and then the main event was Big Rick Fuller from WCW fame against Brian Milonas, who’s a really good friend of me, Tommaso and Kofi. He was in Ring of Honor for a bit, big, almost 400-pound monster. They were the main event with John Cena, who was currently the WWE champion, as the referee.

I gotta rewind a second, I’ll get back to it, because this is really good story, too. Johnny Fabulous was Rick Fuller’s manager. So John Cena Sr. earlier in the show he cut a promo. And this is running 2500 people at a high school. He goes now, usually I’m a heel that’s a bad guy, but tonight, I’m a baby face that’s a good guy. We’re watching the monitor in the back, I’m sitting next to Eugene, and Cena is standing up in front of us watching on the monitor. And when that happens, he just turns back to me and Eugene and goes, my pops is killing the business and walks off. It’s such a good memory. But main event, Rick Fuller, Brian Milonas, is for the Chaotic Wrestling Heavyweight Championship, with John Cena as the referee, who is the current WWE Champion, and Cena had Eugene put together the whole back end of the match to do whatever they were going to do, layer it with false finishes and belt shots and whatever. So again, I’m watching it with Eugene, all of us around the monitor, I just wrestled Eugene so we’re sitting next to each other. Then they start to go into this finish that Eugene called, and then all sudden, there’s a big commotion, like, what’s going on? And then in the ring appears a figure in a suit, and we’re like what? Vince McMahon [was there]. Eugene was totally confused. Dinsmore had no idea what’s going on, because that’s not what he called. Cena had him call a whole back end of a match without any Vince McMahon. But Vince got in the ring. I think he’s face-to-face with Milonas. I love hearing Milonas tell the story. So Vince was like, are you the babyface of the heel? He’s like I’m the heel. And he grabs his hand, and he raises his hand. There is a picture somewhere, what is going on? Vince takes the worst attitude adjustment ever, just as bad as that last stunner he took so bad, and he rolls into the ring, goes over the guardrail, out to a limo and takes off.”

What is Ivar grateful for?

“That I got to go to Pepper Lunch, to be back in the ring with my partner and for everyone who has supported me.”

DDP: Cody Rhodes Is Like A Nephew, Helping WWE Legends, Randy Orton’s RKO, Royal Rumble

in LATEST EPISODES on December 12, 2024 December 12, 2024

https://cvvtix.com – Tickets for the first ever INSIGHT LIVE the day before the Royal Rumble on January 31, 2025 in Indianapolis are on sale now!

Diamond Dallas Page (@RealDDP) is a retired professional wrestler and WWE Hall of Famer. He sits down with Chris Van Vliet in Atlanta, GA to discuss being in phenomenal shape at 68 years of age, helping the stars of the past and present recover from injuries and addictions, his recent work with Lex Luger, being a surprise entrant in the 2015 Royal Rumble, if Randy Orton asked permission to use the Diamond Cutter as his finisher and more!

Quote I’m thinking about: “When the old man knocks, I don’t let him in.” – Clint Eastwood

Subscribe to DDP’s YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@Dallapage

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On if he would wrestle at 70 years old:

“No [laughs]. It’s so important for me, my body feels good. I remember Bruno Sammartino and I did something. My buddy Sal Corrente was really the first guy, and he was ahead of his time to do it. I can’t remember what he called it, but it was something of Meet the Freats. It was some wrestling name Rumble, I can’t remember what it was called, but he promoted it so well that he got me and Bruno on ESPN to talk about this show. Dusty was a headliner as a signer, and Bruno feuded with Zybysko, and I was going to be his second and get it in wrestle for Bruno, who, at the time, is 70. I love Bruno Sammartino, dude, you don’t get no bigger than Bruno. So I tell Bruno, I go, because here is what we’re going to do at the end, we’ll do the schmoz, and you come in and you light Larry up. [He says] Oh no, no, Diamond, I don’t feel too good. Aches and pains? Most of them are gone. I’m good. I’m like, okay, Bruno. You know what happened at the end? He went in there and lit Larry up, he couldn’t stop himself. I am there for a diamond cutter. I do want to hit one when I’m 70.”

On his Royal Rumble cameo:

“Let’s go back to the last time that I did a Rumble. No one knows it. We have The Resurrection of Jake the Snake at the Slamdance Film Festival, the same time as the other big Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah, no one knows. I fly up to Jersey, and they drive us into Philly, they’re having a big party, and everybody’s saying I’m not there because my throat, oh my God, my throat was so bad. There was an interview on YouTube of me with Larry King and Scott and Jake and I blew it out pushing myself too much. So I got enough of a voice to talk, and I get a text from Cody. He goes, how apropos, I will be the first that you hit with the cutter. And it was Cody, and then Fandango, and then the immortal Bray Wyatt, bringing boom, boom, boom. Then PS Hayes, the booker, right? He’s booking this whole thing. He goes, and then, you know what happens? Me and Bubba, who’s also going to be in the Rumble, look at each other. Here comes Randy, and he goes. So he’s going to take you out of like and me and Bubba looked at you’re like, really? Like, wait a second, the legend killer and Randy, a lot of people have heard me talk about him. One of my favorites, one of my favorites of all time. I think the most underrated guy maybe ever in our business. Because even though he’s seen here, he could be on Mount Rushmore. I mean, he’s had everything, and he’s still got the look and the size and the rap and the work and the promo. I mean, again, he’s a guy who’s gotten all the breaks and freaking kicked their asses. The Legend Killer, but haven’t killed me yet [laughs]. I want to take it so bad. I had this vision of the rumble, right? And friggin he comes down. Here, comes Randy. And he goes for it, and I get out of it. And then I go for it. He gets out of it, and then it turns into, of course, the RKO.”

Did Orton ask for permission to use the cutter:

“Randy wasn’t there when I left. I called him later on about it. I wanted him to use it. But he never remembered the phone call, because he was coming out of surgery, and it was right around the time that I had called him, he was all banged up, because you come out of surgery and stuff. Later on, like Michael PS Hayes and Johnny Ace is really the originator of the one arm kick it out. Randy took it with the jump, and Randy did things with that sh*t that I wasn’t athletic enough to do what he did, and I love what he did with it, but my favorite cutter ever, I had him on an interview with me recently. If you haven’t seen it, check it out. Me and Sammy Guevara. And that him and Cody. And before that, it was Frankie and Chris.”

On helping Jake Roberts get sober:

“I owed him. There was a point in time during the f*cking pandemic, those f*ckers for doing that to us. There was a time where I really bought into it, like I thought, f*ck this sh*t. These guys are serious before I really realized everything that was happening. But at one point, I kept telling Jake, because he was staying with me for a while over that period. And I said, ‘Listen Jake, if you go out to work. I got Brittany here, my daughter, my granddaughter, Oakley, and Paige. Dude, I don’t want you to bring anything back, bro. If you leave, you’re gonna have to stay gone.’ He’s like, ‘Okay, I gotta go to work.’ Okay, so we end up in a hotel room, and then at some point in that hotel, is no one except for Jake and the person who’s working the desk. So it’s really kind of like, What’s that movie that Jack Nicholson was in? The Shining. It’s kind of like that. I saw a tweet or something Jake did that was kind of rough, and I called him up. I said, ‘What do I tell you? I’m coming to get you.’ So I come upstairs, and I see Brittany. She’s in the kitchen. And I said, ‘Listen, I know I told her he couldn’t come back, but I’m gonna go get Jake. I’m gonna bring him back.’ She goes. I love Jake, but doesn’t he have other family he can go to?’ I said, ‘Little girl, I don’t own this house without him.’ [She says] ‘You’re right, Dad, you’re right.’ So Jake and Dusty, those cats they were. I mean, I had the greatest minds in the world mentoring me.”

On how WWE treats their legends today:

“I think it was SummerSlam Cody had said, ‘Did you hear about the email that went around?’ I said, No. And they said, these are the legends who are going to be here. And they just brought different guys in. I was there because Bron Breakker he’s working in his gym with me for two years. I was helping him get ready for Baltimore to go for the Ravens, and that didn’t work out, but he’s going to be a mega star in WWE. So getting there to see him win the Intercontinental Championship was huge and always being there for Cody for me. But when they sent that email out, they had a little bio on each person, just a little one, and what they said to their crew, the boys and the girls, because a lot of those people don’t even know how we are. They weren’t even born. You know what I mean? It’s understandable. It’s like, here’s who they are. Just don’t say hello, thank them. And that was really cool for me. I’m a fan of CM Punk and just this is whole, just his whole Punkism that he is, how he is so over with the people. He literally came up to me when he saw me hey DDP! He gave me a hug and he said, Hey, man, just want to welcome you in and thank you. That was super cool. And I got a lot of respect for him anyway, because it’s amazing to me, the grip he has on the people, like he can do no wrong, man.”

On being at the Royal Rumble press conference:

“You said there in the press conference, you need to ask him [Cody Rhodes] the first question. And next thing I know, they’re handing me [the mic] and I’m asking him for the first question. That is the power of manifesting something into reality. It starts with a thought that is a spoken word and then repetition. I’ve lived the dream over and over and over again. I’ve also failed on the way there. And I used to say a line every wrestler says, but it’s not about how many times I fall down. It’s about how many times I get back up again.”

On working with Lex Luger:

“[He’s been in a wheelchair] 15 years. You know the craziest part about that the day that he got paralyzed, I’m not sure exactly why it happened, but I have been wanting to see him because I’d heard he found God, and he had gone through this change. To be honest, I couldn’t believe it, because I know Lex, and I know when Sting got saved Lex would bury it. He loves Sting, but the God sh*t? He wasn’t buying it. I know the good and the bad of Lex, and I still love him through all of that. Once we became bros, we were tight as hell, but I hadn’t talked to him in a long time, and he had gone through a lot of things that had happened over that period, and Eric Watts is the one who told me. He goes, ‘You gotta see Lex. You’re not gonna believe it.’ I go, ‘What do you mean?’ I go, you hate Lex. He’s like, No, I don’t. I go, you wanted to beat his ass. You hated Lex. And he’s like, you’re right, I did, but I don’t anymore, we’re roommates. What universe am I in? That’s how much Watts hated him, and he’s like, you gotta see this man. His belief in Christ and everything. It’s real. And I said, Man, I’m going to San Francisco next week. I can’t wait to see him. And that was the night that Lex ended up going down and the promoter, who had just paid me said, I just got a call. Lex had some kind of heart attack or something. There’s EMTs in there. He didn’t know why, there was no heart attack, but when I ran to the room where he was at there’s Lex sitting in a chair, and like, Lex, I come up and I give him a hug. Are you okay? He goes, I’m okay. Dally, I’m okay. He didn’t hug me or anything. I didn’t really realize. I wasn’t thinking at the time, but looking back, I know he didn’t. The EMTs are like, Lex, you have to go to the hospital. [he said] No hospitals. Lex didn’t have anything then. He didn’t want any more debt. He’s a very proud guy, and he didn’t want any of that. I’m looking to him, and I know things that have happened to the boys when something like this happens, [I said] ‘You got to go to hospital, you got to go, bro.’ He goes ‘You think so, Dally?’ I’m like ‘bro, you got to go.’ And he goes, ‘Well, you know, my hips are bad.’ I go, ‘I’ll help you.’ So an EMT got on one side, got another, and we picked him up, laid him on a table, and they took him off. The guys who were the EMTs, this is God’s work, they’re both humongous wrestling fans. They’re in freaking San Francisco, they’re in Cow Palace area. This is the hood. They go through all those towns to get to Stanford, which is one of the best hospitals that there is. And the nurse, when he gets there, name is Charity. They end up taking him, I believe, a couple of days first class. They have to wheel him in. I don’t know how the hell they got it all done, but they fly him into Atlanta, where he goes to the Shepherd Center, and his nurse is Hope, and he’s in, no bullshit, room 316, so whatever is happening here, me and Steve [Borden] are there the next day, and by this time, he’s starting to get movement back in his fingers and his arms a little bit, no legs. And Lex had a hospital that was going to give him new hips, but now he’s paralyzed. Somehow, Lex talks them into giving him new hips, even though he has no movement because his rationale was that if you get me moving, I won’t be able to walk anyway, because I couldn’t walk before. They put the new hips in and over time, I’ve got video footage of me and Lex working together with Steve taking this from 14 years ago, okay, maybe more than that, how many years ago it was. And then Lex finally gets up, and he starts eventually, because he’s so relentless, moving and walking with a crook thing, and then a cane, and then no cane, and then he hit a pothole, and he went down, and that’s where he was for the last X amount, whatever years it’s been. When he saw the Butterbean video, we were both at Sting’s last match, I’m sitting there watching the monitor, and we’re the two guys who are WWE guys, basically said we’re going, you good with that? We’re not going to go on camera. We’re good? And they were great. And he rolled up next to me, and he goes, ;Dally, I saw the Buttebean video, bro. I didn’t know you had chair workouts.’ I said, ‘Well, I didn’t have them back when you and I were working, I got them now.’ He goes, ‘Do you think maybe we could start?’ I’m like, ‘Dude, how many times have I asked you to start back up again? I’m like, absolutely, come over Monday.’ And we got met up after that, and we’ve been working together about whenever Sting’s match was, that following Monday?”

Could Lex Luger walk again?

“I don’t know. I mean, I really don’t. There’s so much nerve damage in there. I really don’t know, but I do know that if it’s possible, Lex is gonna do it. There’s so many things I do in the chair workouts, even the bed. No one could tell me you can’t do DDP yoga. It starts in bed. You can’t get out of bed? I got nine workouts for you in bed. Then sitting in a chair. That’s where I focus most of my things, chair and then getting him to stand up and then go back down and stand up and go back down. Standing is one thing. He can stand, but it’s for moments, that’s a huge deal. We’re going to put that video out soon to let people see. It’s shaky, but it’s pretty amazing. And again, what I do is every time he works out, it’s a completely different workout. I’m adding, subtracting, changing, growing, and I’ve never done this before with anyone. So I’ve got our first workout. Do you know how many people are in chairs that aren’t paralyzed? There’s a lot. How many people are in those little scooters? There’s a lot and they’d like to be out of that. Well, you could start here, because this guy was paralyzed and he’s got nerve damage, you can surely do what he did on day one. But every week, we’ll be on the app at some point, when we get to wherever we’re going to, it’ll all be in a sequence. So you could wherever you’re at start where he’s at.”

What is DDP grateful for?

“My wife and kids, the openness that it took to be open and that I know how to be grateful.”

Bobby Lashley On Brock Lesnar, Shaving Vince McMahon’s Head, Kurt Angle, AEW, Hurt Syndicate

in LATEST EPISODES on December 5, 2024 December 5, 2024

https://cvvtix.com – Tickets for the first ever INSIGHT LIVE the day before the Royal Rumble on January 31, 2025 in Indianapolis are on sale now!

Bobby Lashley (@fightbobby) is a professional wrestler currently signed to AEW. He sits down with Chris Van Vliet in Dallas, TX to discuss signing with AEW, how Kurt Angle got him into pro wrestling, representing Donald Trump in the Battle of the Billionaires at WrestleMania 23, shaving Vince McMahon bald and the rivalry that followed, the Rusev and Lana love triangle, jumping through the cage onto Umaga, how close he came to fighting in the UFC, finally getting the match against Brock Lesnar in WWE and more!

Quote I’m thinking about: “So turn the page, get off the ride. You are the author of the book of your life.” — Matthew McConaughey

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On not aging:

“I think I fell in a little time warp, the 10 years of my life kind of just fused together when I was fighting and everything like that. It kind of links me up so I don’t feel any older. I feel in great shape, I’ve never stopped working out, it’s like an addiction. That’s my addiction. So I’m just that guy. I take it easy, I have fun, and my kids keep me young. When you’re running around with kids, my son’s like, all right, Dad, we gotta go throw a football. You know you got to be ready. You got to be there for your kids. So that’s what it was all about. For me, is being able to do things with my kid and stay active because of that. And I think if you are around kids, and you allow yourself to just have fun with kids, I think that’s what keeps you young.”

On always being in great shape:

“We would joke about it, there’s show muscles and go muscles. And I would say I had go muscles. Because I enjoy doing a lot of other things, I enjoy boxing, and you can’t box if you’re a bodybuilder. So I’ve always kept kind of flexibility, stayed loose, and everything like that. I enjoy yoga. I enjoy being able to explore all kinds of different fitness avenues, not just pumping weights, lifting weights. When people ask me what my training regimen is I’m like, I don’t know, because I really just go to the gym as mental clarity. I go to the gym because I like to challenge myself. I always talk about challenges. I really just go up there because I have different challenges, from my pull-up challenge to my push-up challenge and different things like that. And I do it, and then it’s like, I set a number for myself. It’s like, alright, you did this amount of push-ups or this amount of pull-ups, and that’s where you’re at. Then the next time I go there, I want to be able to beat that. So there’s a series of things that I have to do in order to be better at that challenge.”

On Kurt Angle helping him get into WWE:

“So amateur wrestling and pro wrestlers kind of have this [animosity] before, the relationship has been different. It’s been changed up to now. But, when Kurt came, I was at the Olympic training center training. We were getting ready for World Team trials. So it was a big event that we were getting ready for. Kurt was doing a vignette with WWE, he came down, and when he was doing it, he wanted to just go through practice with us. So he was running with us, drilling and everything like that, off to the side. Then Kurt was just kind of like going around some of the people he knew. I never met Kurt, but I was a pro wrestling fan, and sometimes in the amateur rankings, you gotta be little quiet with that. But I knew Kurt, because the cool thing about Kurt was when I was in high school, he was in college, and when I was in high school, I watched his video where he wrestled Sylvester Terkay. And it was big, it was on TV. All they were doing is talking about Sylvester Terkay, how great he was. And they were talking about Kurt Angle is the underdog in this match and it was a great match. It was one that I recorded on VHS tapes, if you look up far back that was. I remember watching it then. So I knew Kurt then, and I looked up to him because how tough he was and how hard he fought and how much he trained. They talked about his story a little bit, and I was like that’s me. I’m a workout trainingaholic. I love to train and get ready for things. It motivates me. So I was a big fan of his when I was in high school, and he was in college wrestling. Then I moved up to college and he moved to WWE. Then I watched him and I saw some of the matches he was doing. I was a pro wrestling fan before, and when I watched him come up, he was doing amateur wrestling in a pro wrestling world, but he was able to mix the two. And I was like he’s incredible. Some of the matches he had with Eddie Guerrero and some of the other people that he wrestled with, Brock and some of the other big matches that he had. I was like I love the style. So now, when he was out there, I’m at the Olympic Training Center, he comes back and I was like, this is the kid. I was a huge fan of him for 10 years ago. So I was like this is awesome. And then he came to me, and he said, you got a pretty good look and I see, he said, you watch pro wrestling? [I said] Absolutely, man, I’m a huge fan of yours. And he was like, I’d love to be able to maybe introduce you to some people in WWE, because it might be a good opportunity for you. He said, I’ve already talked to coach Kevin Jackson, and Kevin Jackson said, yeah, just go talk to him. So we exchanged numbers then. What Kurt told me at the time, he said, if you would have accomplished what you accomplished in amateur wrestling in basketball, football, baseball, you’d be probably a multi-millionaire playing in the pros. He said, pro wrestling is our pro sport, so you might want to look into it. And I was like, noted. So one thing led to the next, and then I ended up in WWE.”

On quickly being involved in a Vince McMahon storyline:

“That was crazy. When you first get into the business, you don’t really understand how quick that machine moves. Some of the people that are in there right now, they’re in there, and they just don’t understand the magnitude of that machine. They don’t understand it.”

On the Battle of the Billionaires:

“It was funny all the way through, because you just watching these two powerhouses talk to each other, so they’re going back and forth, and they’re on top of everything. I remember there was an iconic photo that we had where Vince and Trump were sitting down on a chair, and then we were standing above them. Austin was in the middle. I think everybody was in there in this picture. And I remember it was something so small. But you saw these two, Vince and Trump, and both of them, they want to be leaders here. And we were trying to figure out how we were going to sit. Because they initially had it, which I don’t think made any sense. Somebody put it down on paper that me and Umaga were supposed to sit in the chairs and have those guys standing with their hands on our shoulders and and then Stone Cold in the middle, and them looking at each other. So little things like that are huge. And then Trump was like, No, I don’t think we should do this. I think we should sit down and based on the way this angle is right here, it makes me look old, so it catches this. I don’t want to see that. Let’s go here. Vince was like I want to do this. I was like, I’ll stand wherever you guys want me. So when we put it all together with these two guys, they were able to work together. And then we put it together, and the picture came out perfect. I think it was right the way it should have been.”

Did you show Trump how to do the clothesline?

“No. But I can tell you. I remember the backstage, I think Vince was saying it. Because Trump wanted to be a part of it. He wanted to do something. He was like, I want to beat somebody up or something like that. I think Vince’s whole thing was like, Haha, when he starts punching me, I’m gonna put my head down so he could punch my head. That’s the hardest part of my head, so it’s gonna hurt his hand. And I think there was something in there. But those guys, I think everybody wanted to do something in that match and be a part of that match. So I don’t know who told him to do it. I don’t know when they told him to do it, but leading into that match, there wasn’t supposed to be any altercation. But I guess they may have talked, or somebody talked, and they figured out, okay, we’ll do a little clothesline, because that could be easy, and then jump on top of him and do the punching I don’t know where it came from, but that’s what they decided to do.”

On his Umaga cage dive:

“I was just telling somebody about this two days ago and he said the same thing. So certain things you can’t practice, you know you’re not going to be able to practice. It was, again, Vince, because he was knee-deep in that role, that was his role. So since it was his feud, he wanted to make sure everything was moving in the right direction. We were having that cage match against Bob Holly. And there was something where they wanted me to do something with the cage, or throw it on top of him, or something like that. And then I was like I’ll just jump into it. They were like, well, that might be hard to do, because if you think about it, we have a match in there, so we’re going to be throwing each other against that cage anyway. We can’t just keep it loose so you touch it and it falls, so they have to buckle it. So he was like, Okay, you’re having a match first off. Then in order to jump this thing, you have to jump over the top rope and hit it. I was like, Okay, you got to hit it hard. I was like, okay, all right, okay, what are you saying here? And then Vince comes out. Vince was like, you can jump over that top rope? I was like, yes, yes, I can. So I was like I don’t see what I could do wrong, I can jump over the top rope and if I have to jump hard, I probably have to hit this one and build up speed to be able to do it. They said, Well, when we go out there, it’s on you, because that thing is latched. So if you don’t knock it over and go, you’re just gonna jump up and hit it, which would have been horrible. And I think I would have been in a whole different place in my career if that would have happened.”

On losing the ECW Championship to Vince McMahon:

“I didn’t know. I mean, because I’ve always been like that, you could talk, and most people know me through wrestling business. I’m not one of the people to call the office throughout the week and fight for everything. I’m like I’m just going to make whatever we do work. So when I came in there, I knew I was in a feud with Vince, and I knew every week it was going to be something where he’s getting at me. But the one thing he said, He’s like haha, don’t worry, you’ll get it all back. I never understood what he was saying at the time. I was like, you’ll get it all back, what are you talking about? You guys have me down. You guys were slapping me, beat me up, and I had to fight through and get away. But that was a great story, and he taught me a great story. He was like that heel that’s just getting you, getting you getting you, just can’t get him back, and then when you do get him back, then the crowd’s gonna blow up. And that’s what we did. Because there was a time that I almost got him back in a tag match where it was with Shane, Umaga and Vince. And it was like, Shane came in, I got rid of him. Umaga came in and I low roped him, and then Vince was there by himself. And he was like, the whole crowd, just like, kill him. And then the minute I grabbed Vince, boom, they were on me. So it took it away. So it was that little roller coaster that we like to play with people. So that story was great, but then again, you’re working with the boss, so he has the versatility to do whatever he wants, to make the story as big as he wants it. And we had a lot of heat with that story. Of course when he won the ECW title and he came in wearing a do-rag.”

On the Rusev and Lana love triangle:

“I can say this, and I’ve said this several times before, but then again I’m very positive with everything. But I can honestly say it was 100% Lana that was able to make me feel comfortable doing it, and then to just try to do things, to really further that whole feud. She was on top of everything. She was always like, Alright, I got a photographer over here. We need a photographer over here. We need to walk so the people see us together, so it’s not like something where they’re just like, oh, they don’t care about it. So I was like, alright, but all I’m thinking about is who am I supposed to wrestle or go smash? She’s like, No, we need to come over here and take these pictures. We need to go do this. She was like, pulling me in all these different directions. And I was just like are you cool with all this? She’s like, yes, because she knows acting and she’s able to put herself into characters. Lana is a sweetheart, and I know that some people were hard on her because it seems like she tries too much, she tries too hard, and sometimes it comes as not sincere to people and I think some people kind of jumped on her about it. But working with her, I think she’s a sweetheart and she really helped me feel comfortable in that role. I had nothing but respect for her for going through it, because she kept it very respectful. I was working with her and her husband, and she understood what the plan was, so she wanted to play her part.”

On how close he came to competing in the UFC:

“So at the beginning, when I first started fighting, I think there were little talks with it and they said, Yeah, we’ll give him the opportunity to but he needs to work his way up. And I was just like, okay, and it was a decision that I had to make, because I could fight for some other organizations that were offering more money and I always thought if the situation changes in WWE, I thought that’s my calling. That’s where I really deserve to be. I just needed time away because the situations and things were going on. So I was like, here’s an opportunity for me to just kind of keep it open and then go back. So I didn’t want to lock up a contract with them, because I would have had to really just shut off wrestling.”

On finally getting a match against Brock Lesnar:

“I wanted to do a lot more with it. I wish we could have really done the things that we could have and should have wanted to do with that. I think people could have really got sold into just us training to fight each other and some of the heat that we could have brought. Brock was a natural bully, but in this sense, he was kind of a babyface, because he was that guy coming back and forth and I was a heel at the time. But it could have showed how we prepared for a fight with each other and it could have showed something different. It could have been so much like the Rocky story. Hell, if they wanted to, they could have put us two together and kind of ran as doggone rogue warriors for a while. I even went to a point where I was like, man, wouldn’t it be cool that they would have brought us both back here and then put us together, had Paul Heyman find a way to put us both together, and then the whole time we win tag team titles and he keeps referring to I got the greatest fighter in the world and the greatest tag team. Then it got to a point like, who you keep talking about as the greatest fighter? Because you’re only saying one person. So that could have built some natural animosity there. And it’s like, hold on a second man, I know you and Brock have this history, but you keep saying you have the greatest fighter and the greatest tag team. So Who are you referring to? And it could have been my ego got in the way, or something like that, whatever it was, whatever it did, but it brought us apart. Because they always said some of the best feuds are the people that were together first, and something brought us apart. Could have been, I don’t know if we could have put us two together as a tag team, because it might have been too dominant, but I still see there were some people in there that we could have had great fights with and great matches with if we needed to.”

Why AEW was the right fit:

“So I have a good friend that was working with AEW before Dan Lambert. He was American Top Team. He was in AEW for a while. Dan’s one of my favorite people in this world. He helped manage me through fighting and everything like that, has always been just a great friend first and foremost. And I talked to Dan, and we kind of discussed different options, and I asked him about Tony, because I didn’t know, you don’t know anything about Tony if you don’t know him. So I was like, Oh, what about this Tony guy? And a lot of things that he told me about him, I was just like, I can respect that. He said he’s got kind of like little personality like you, in a sense, where he goes out of his way to be nice to people he really likes. He’s a genuine person. He told me pros and cons and I was like, Man, I’d love to be able to meet him. But at this time, I was talking to MVP, and I was talking to Shelton, and we were like, let’s run this back. Let’s run the group back. Let’s do it. We have that option. We’re all out at this time. So let’s see if we can go and do this the right way.”

On what he wants his legacy to be:

“You know a lot of people talk about what they want done in the ring. But for me, if people say Bobby, he was a cool dude, he was a good guy, that’s enough for me, and that’s across the board. I mean, if they knew me more personally then I would want them to talk about me as a father, as a provider for my kids and the people around me that meant something. That’s that’s what’s really important to me. And like I said before, I understand with wrestling, and some people are so dialed into the wrestling part. But at the end of the day, wrestling is just kicking and punching. There’s so much more to it. There’s so much more to being on a platform like you are, and being able to influence so many different people around the world. Then another thing, the creative side of it is to be able to have stories, and then to be able to put together stories that are entertaining for people, that people talk about later. So those are the two parts that I love. So I just want to be in the talks of some of the stories of those people, that people look back on, and said, Hey, man, that was really cool.”

What is Bobby Lashley grateful for?

“My kids, my health and my faith.”

Josh Alexander Is A Free Agent! TNA, 5 Star Matches, Will Ospreay, Breaking His Neck, C4 Piledriver

in LATEST EPISODES on December 3, 2024 December 3, 2024

https://cvvtix.com – Tickets for the first ever INSIGHT LIVE the day before the Royal Rumble on January 31, 2025 in Indianapolis are on sale now!

Josh Alexander (@Walking_Weapon) is a professional wrestler currently signed to TNA Wrestling. He sits down with Chris Van Vliet at West Coast Creative Studio in Hollywood, CA to talk about his decision to become a free agent in February, where he might sign next, his feud with Moose that featured a very short title reign, being the longest reigning TNA World Champion in history, his 5-star TNA match against Will Ospreay, nearly stepping away from wrestling altogether after suffering a broken neck and more!

Quote I’m thinking about: “You can do anything, but not everything. Focus.”

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BLUECHEW: Use the code CVV to get your first month of BlueChew for FREE at https://bluechew.com

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On approaching free agency:

“February 15 I’ll be a free agent. I mean, TNA announced they extended me, picked up my year extension on February 14 last year. So yeah, heading into free agency for the first time. [I’m] equal parts nervous, equal parts excited. Obviously, there’s the one end of the spectrum where you’re like, nothing might come of this. You have to be realistic. I have kids, I have a wife, I have a house I pay for and stuff like that. I can just do wrestling because I love it, because that’s all I’ve ever really done. That’s what kind of what’s led me through this business the entire time, just getting fulfillment out of it is the most important part to me. As long as I get to do it at some level, I’m happy. I do indies, still to this day, where get tons of fulfillment, very happy to do it. And that might be it. I might just be doing Indies. Might be back doing construction to feed my family and stuff like that. But every so often you gotta bet on yourself. Five years ago it was Santana, one of my very good friends, and he was finishing up with TNA, at the time Impact Wrestling, we had an indie date, and he actually debuted the next night, but I didn’t know that. He never told me anything like that. So we’re just chilling out of the hotel. It’s just like, what made you want to leave or really look at it as an option because he’s very happy at Impact, they were very successful, obviously. And he was like, we just didn’t know what more we could do. We’ve held these Tag Team Championships this many times. We’ve had this many amazing matches with this tag team and this tag team. It’s just like, every once in a while you got to think about what’s coming next and what’s going to excite you. Because he kind of alluded to the fact that he hadn’t been excited in quite some time. And I was just like, man, that really hits. Because now I’m thinking about my own thing. I’m just like, I’ve done so much in TNA over the six years. I’m very grateful for it. Because opportunities are the one thing wrestlers need, and TNA has given me tons of countless opportunities to prove myself and show what I can do, but I’ve also done everything and worked with the bulk of the talent that’s in that company right now. So it’s just all about what’s going to get me excited beyond this point?”

On what’s next:

“That’s the big question mark because I don’t know what the next step is. I’ve been ragged on in the past for saying I never had the dream of main eventing WrestleMania. And I know Hunter himself has had the quote being like, if you don’t want to be the top guy here, then you’re in the wrong business. It’s not that I don’t want to be the top guy, or don’t think I have the ability to be the top guy or anything like that, it was just never my childhood dream. Because I honestly never thought anything that I’m doing or have done was even possible. So this is all this amazing trip I’ve been on the entire time, and it’s just been setting little goals along the way, like you said. I want to win this Ontario indie promotions World Championship too. I want to get paid a certain amount to wrestle too. I want that contract to kind of validate all this work and all this travel. Running cars into the ground for little and no money to drive to Chicago and back, and one night make it back for work the next day and stuff like that, and then you achieve that contract, and all this other stuff I’ve been able to do. Now I’m sitting here going, what could I possibly do next that’s going to be the next step, and it’s just like, I need to grow my name. I feel like I’ve established myself as a top guy in TNA, and whatever might be next after that. I mean, I’ll find out, and then I’ll set those other goals.”

On what could be next:

“I’m looking at everywhere right now, like. Both my sons are wrestling nuts, especially my six year old. So, Monday is Raw, Tuesday is NXT, Wednesday is Dynamite, Thursday is Impact. I’m watching everything with my kids all week long, which is awesome, because I get to share this passion with them, but at the same time I’m watching the product, looking at NXT being like, man me and Ethan could tag up and we can face that tag team, that’d be awesome. I’d really love to have a match with Pete Dunne or Gunther, the list goes on, Then you watch Dynamite, and I’m just like, man, I’ve torn it up with Will and Takeshita in the past, I would sure love to do that on a bigger stage. And one bucket list thing I might have, a wrestler that’s stil out there wrestling that I would really love to get a chance to wrestle is Edge. He’s in AEW, you know what I mean? And there’s Japan, Shingo is the one guy on my bucket list, this is doable. I’m gonna make this happen. Him and Ishii were neck and neck, and I made the Ishii match happen. Shingo is the other one. So I just look at the landscape of it, where I can go and where the talent is I want to work with everybody’s kind of stacked, roster-wise. To be able to tell stories and stuff like that with these people, the options are all open.”

On what will be the deciding factor:

“Probably just personal fulfillment and a bunch of things go into that. Like, I love wrestling. I love the actual act of wrestling. You give me 20 minutes on TV or pay-per-view, I’ll go out there and I’ll do everything I can to make magic happen. So where the opportunities come, that’s probably the most important part. Obviously money plays a factor. Like I said, two sons, a wife. I need to upgrade where we’re living, because my kids are only getting bigger and more crazy.”

On his short TNA Title reign:

“I remember the phone conversation, and as I was speaking I was like, Oh, this all sounds great. Yeah, no problem. Cool. All this stuff. And you hang up the phone, part of me was like, Damn, I really wish, it wasn’t like this, because I think I can do some really good stuff, but I didn’t see the forest from the trees.”

On the reaction:

“I would be lying if I said there wasn’t a small part of me that was just like, man it’d be cool if you didn’t do the Moose thing and I could just show what I can do, because you never know if that’s going to come back to. I didn’t know that I was going to go on to beat Moose at Rebellion six or seven months later. I’m sure management kind of had an idea to see how it would get over. But anything can happen in wrestling, I could have gotten hurt, Moose could have gotten hurt, and then that match would never have happened. Or anything could have happened that didn’t make it transpire. But luckily, everything does happen for a reason, and we got there eventually. I remember the day I got to my hotel room in Sam’s Town, and I checked Twitter and people are posting clips of the match and saying all these great things, and then they’re just hammering TNA for this terrible booking decision. ‘We’re back to the Vince Russo era’, all this stuff, and I’m just reading just like this is kind of nice, because I guess they wanted me to be champion.”

On if he was promised a major reign down the road:

“I don’t think I was told that exactly, but it was kind of like, we’re gonna see where this goes. Because I think it was the next day they were like, you get Suzuki the next day, and then it’s gonna be Jonah, and then it’s gonna be… They laid out six months of me working with monsters to try to get me over and I was just like, cool. They never said, really 100% we’re getting back to Moose. But it was probably two, three months into that, I think after the Jonah match at Hard to Kill, they were like, We’re totally doing you and Moose, probably at Rebellion. I took three Tsunamis and three sentons and spit up blood, just like you’ve seen Seth Rollins doing on Raw recently.”

On relinquishing the World Championship the second time:

“It kills me every day. I wish I could have lost that title so bad.”

How much longer do you think you would have had it?

“I think there was a good chance Steve Maclin was gonna take it at Rebellion, which was like two weeks or three weeks after I tore my tricep. I think, I think it would have ended up like three days short of a year.”

On if Scott D’Amore’s exit played into his decision to become a free agent:

“Somewhat. When I first found out, he was [gone] I teared up. I’m not gonna lie, I was thinking about these last six or five years at the time I had in TNA and everything along the way. When I started, having zero relationship with him other than he was the guy that got me a visa was giving me this opportunity to this point where we developed this relationship of trust, and he coached me along and gave me so much help and put me with the right people to make sure that I was leveling up like my skills along the way from storytelling and promos to in ring, wrestling and stuff like that. Just putting me with these certain people. He didn’t have to, but he knew it would benefit me, and then leaving, we ride or die for this guy. The entire locker room, especially with the rebranding of TNA thing happening at the end of BFG, and then it was like the debut of TNA, we were riding high. We just sold out the Palms. These shows were insane. Then it felt like the rug was just pulled out from under you, right? So it’s like, how do you react to that? How do you feel about the relationship we built? I was just like I’m losing a mentor, and that sucks, but it’s also the wrestling business. So I can’t say it’s 100% the reason why I’m thinking about free agency, I would have thought of free agency regardless. Scott, when we negotiated my three-year deal that I signed to keep me there up until this February, he told me he was just like, you’re either going to be worth so much I can’t keep you at the end of this, or I’m going to make sure you get paid to stay here. But you’re going to be worth much more, because I know what you’re capable of. And that was kind of like the thing we sat on when I signed that deal.”

On everyone being able to make magic with Will Ospreay:

“It’s a testament to him, and it’s the same thing to a lesser extent with stuff I’ve been able to do, because people have been like, that was that guy’s best match I’ve ever seen, blah blah. And it’s just like, you have to cater to people’s strengths. When me and Will are putting the match together, we’re on the same wavelength with a lot of stuff, and the realism thing, all this other stuff, and just his formula for how he thinks of wrestling, it neurotic the proper word? He’s so like just devil in the details on all this little stuff. But it makes a difference, and it helps when you have this body of work that has gotten you over with the fans, so they’re reacting the way they are, because at the end of the day, we are out there for the fans, the more loud and into the match the fans are, the better our match is. You could have the best wrestling match in the world, if nobody’s making a peep it ain’t that good. To me, that’s the measuring stick for wrestling.”

On nearly having to step away from wrestling due to a broken neck:

“Yeah, I tried to play it off like it wasn’t that tough of a decision to make, that I was completely fulfilled with everything, because that’s kind of the mindset you have to put yourself in when this might be your reality for the rest of your life. I didn’t want to have regrets. The problem being when I came into surgery and he told me I could still wrestle, that’s when all the regrets flooded in, and I was just like, You know what? I didn’t work hard enough. I got by on my God-given ability and my aptitude for pro wrestling. I wasn’t dieting, I wasn’t working out the best I could. I wasn’t putting the time into the other things that would make me an elite-level wrestler, to a point where I could fit in with the people I was working with. I would work with the Roderick Strongs of the world and these people, and everybody would know, just by the eye test that they’re the better wrestler. They just look like a more complete product. I was fine being a big fish in a small pond, and when I came back from my neck surgery after writing that article and stuff like that, that’s when all the regrets seeped in. I was just like, I’m not gonna have any regrets this time.”

What if he couldn’t wrestle again:

“I don’t think I’d be anywhere near where I’m at right now as a 37-year-old man that owns a house and has two kids that make sure that his kids are happy, safe, and all this stuff at all times. I wouldn’t have fallen into drinking or addiction, because I’ve always just learned from my mistakes and my parents and family members that fell into that along the way. I have two step brothers who are now both dead from drugs and alcohol, they went that direction. I find that people either gravitate to going the same way, or they go the opposite. I was lucky that I ran away from it, but without wrestling, I wouldn’t have had that work ethic that made me kind of be able to survive over these past like 19 years since I was 18.”

On Joe Hendry:

“No [I didn’t know about the song]. So I had been ripping apart Joe on Twitter pretty heavy, just trolling him, because I’m the wrestler’s wrestler guy, right? So I’m just like this guy’s the complete opposite of me. I’m just going to play into this and lean into it. So making fun of him. He puts up a thing saying NXT has been great, they have me down to the Performance Center training every day. I’m like, You need more training, blah, blah, whatever. And we go into that TVs, and it’s before the TVs/ I go up to him and go, so what do you got? And he goes, I don’t know. I kind of looked at you, and I was just like, what do I really make fun of him about? There’s not much. And I go, Oh, you’ll find something, dude, don’t worry. I watched it live, I didn’t want to know because I wanted to be out there reacting on the spot. With my promos and stuff like that, I find if it’s just very off the cuff, rather than predetermined and premeditated, I’m way better at delivery and stuff like that. It’s more natural. People enjoy it more. So I watched it live, and I’m just like, holding back like this son of a bitch. [You kept a straight face] Yeah, it was tough. I was biting my lip pretty hard, Kurt Angle from Wish, and that’s the line right there. Man, you can do the Walter White thing all day long. That’s fine.”

On not competing in the Royal Rumble:

“I mean, unless TNA with their WWE relationship work something out.”

What is Josh Alexander grateful for?

“Health, family and opportunities.”

Jake Roberts Was SCARED Of Snakes! Legendary Promos, Hulk Hogan, DDP, Sobriety

in LATEST EPISODES on November 28, 2024 November 28, 2024

https://cvvtix.com – Tickets for the first ever INSIGHT LIVE the day before the Royal Rumble on January 31, 2025 in Indianapolis are on sale now!

Jake “The Snake” Roberts (@JakeSnakeDDT) is a retired professional wrestler and WWE Hall of Famer. He sits down with Chris Van Vliet in Cleveland, OH to discuss having some of the most memorable promos in professional wrestling, Will Sasso’s impression of him, working and being bitten by snakes, working with DDT to get sober and stay sober, never winning a championship in WWE, not getting a title shot because of the fans and more!

Quote I’m thinking about: “You don’t have to be great to start, but you have to start to be great.” – Zig Ziglar

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On having many iconic promos:

“Well, there was a lot of them. You just didn’t hear all of them. That interview, that promo [WrestleMania 6] was special, but I don’t remember how it all came about. Promos for me, were a game, they were fun. And if anything is fun, you’ll spend more time doing it. I like playing with people’s minds. I like mixing the words up, finding stuff that works. A lot of guys, maybe after a show, they’ll go out and eat or chase skirts or whatever, but not me. I was wherever I was at. I had a pen and paper and I was thinking about doing a promo, writing down ideas. Finally, I had to go to a recorder, because sometimes, man, I’d wake up the next morning and read some of the stuff I’d wrote, and I’m like, Oh my god, what the hell was I thinking about? I couldn’t believe what kind of sh*t I wrote down, man. But yeah, I love spending time on promos.”

On where the inspiration came from:

“Books, movies, music, all the above. I love Ozzy Osbourne stuff. I love Pink Floyd stuff. I love Rolling Stones, of course. And The Who they had some good stuff.”

On sobriety:

“For me, the smell of alcohol turns my stomach. I can walk through an airport blindfolded, and I could tell you where the bars are at, because I can tell that smell and it upsets my stomach now. I’m glad, that’s the last damn thing I made is to go down that road again, and I have no fear at all. Maybe that’s not healthy not having a fear of it, but I just feel so strongly that’s something I’ll never do again.”

On DDP:

“No doubt in my mind, I’ve been dead several years ago. Several years ago. That’s just where I was going, man, and I was going fast too. No sense of trying to walk into it, Jake, just run down the hill and jump in that.”

On not liking snakes:

“I don’t like snakes at all. I’m terrified of them. They scare the piss out of me, and you never get used to getting bit. I should have been like Billy the bug, just carry a cockroach around. You know, if I shoved a cockroach in your ear, that would mess with your head, yeah, yeah, especially your ear. Little cockroach dug in there.”

Why did you pick the snake in wrestling?

“Because of that, because most people are afraid of snakes. Your parents tell you from the get go, keep away snakes. And that’s ingrained in you. It’s sort of something that is taught to us from the very beginning, and kids dig it, because mom and dad can’t stand it. You know, it makes mama squirm. I love to see your mother squirm. I still love seeing that.”

On how many times he has been bitten:

“15-20. Yeah, some of them are pretty nasty. I got one on the inside of my arm here it was 30 It Was a big reticulated Python, he tore the hell out of my arm. Yeah, it’s crazy, because they tell you, if you happen to get bit by the snake, whatever you do, don’t move. Excuse me? When something bites you, the first thing you do is react, and you react by jerking your arm away. And that’s exactly what happened. When you do that it rips your flesh.”

Was Andre The Giant actually scared of snakes?

“No, [but] he did a phenomenal job of playing that off. In fact, Damian bit him once and he didn’t even know he’d been bitten. He just shrugged it off and kept going. He got back to the locker room, and he was sitting down playing cards, and Rick Rude came up and pulled the two fangs out of his shoulder. Yeah, they’re about two inches long, embedded in his shoulder. Man didn’t even know it.”

How does it make you feel that the DDT is not used as a finisher?

“Oh, I think it’s great. Every time somebody does it. What do people say?”

That’s Jake the Snake’s move?

“That’s right, yeah. And if Jake did it, what would happen?”

They wouldn’t be able to kick out?

“That’s right. So therefore Jake must be better than that guy.”

On not being concerned that he never won a championship:

“Not at all. My god, I’m grateful I did not have to carry that too. You know, I carried a 50 or 60 or 75 pound snake around, and we’d be on the road for two and three weeks at a time, all your clothing, everything you gotta carry, the last thing I want is a 10-pound belt to carry around too. Would I’ve liked to have had a championship? Yeah, of course. That would have been something, but I had had several championships up until then, maybe not WWF Championship, but I’d had several Calgary, I had it in Louisiana and mid-south. I had it in Texas. I had it in different places around Mid-Atlantic. So I’d had my time with the belts. I mean, it was all right, I would have liked to have had the money that is associated with that belt. But how can I complain about a career that I had.”

On the fans screwing him out of a title shot:

“Well, we tried to shoot an angle between Hulk and I, and we did it. Whenever I got back to the curtain, I was told to stand there and wait for the people to start chanting, Hulk, Hulk, Hulk, and they didn’t. They started chanting DDT, DDT. Vince looked at me and he goes, you’re screwed. That’s the end of your angle. We tried to wrestle twice, once in Providence, Rhode Island, and another time in Montreal. And over 50% were chanting DDT and Vince did not want that because that screwed up the marketing. The marketing is where the money is. I’m the bad guy, yeah, you know, but I was the first anti-hero, yeah, no doubt, bad guy that people loved.”

What is Jake Roberts grateful for?

“Sobriety, my children and a second chance with my wife.”

Ricky Starks On AEW Absence, Cody Rhodes, Royal Rumble Appearance, The Rock Comparisons

in LATEST EPISODES on November 26, 2024 November 26, 2024

https://cvvtix.com – Tickets for the first ever INSIGHT LIVE the day before the Royal Rumble on January 31, 2025 in Indianapolis are on sale now!

Ricky Starks (@starkmanjones) is a professional wrestler signed to AEW. He sits down with Chris Van Vliet in Austin, TX to discuss his absence from AEW TV since March 2024, being spotted backstage at the Royal Rumble with Cody Rhodes, being in attendance at WrestleMania 40, being in Sting’s first AEW match, being compared to The Rock, going toe to toe on the mic with MJF, why his many WWE cameos didn’t lead to a signing and more!

Quote I’m thinking about: “Staying positive doesn’t mean you have to be happy all the time. It means even on hard days you know that there are better ones coming.” – Diamond Dallas Page

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On being absent from AEW:

“March was my last match. I’ve been home, I’ve been healthy. Never was injured. I did have a stinger. I got a stinger in that match against Top Flight in March. I got immediately checked out and everything was fine, but I was just concerned at the time. So that happened and then I was just home. That’s kind of where it’s been at. I’ve just been home. It’s kind of a mindf*ck because I’m in my prime and it sucks when you’re on such a momentum, riding the wave, doing work and doing stuff, and then to just be at home for so long, you’re kind of like, whoa. It kind of throws it off. I am not meant to be at home. I’m not meant to be a homebody in this current phase in my life. I’m not meant to be just chilling at home and doing not the thing that I’ve been busting my ass to do for the past 13 years.”

On why he has been absent:

“Beats me. I could have 1,000 theories about what’s really going on. The fact of the matter is that if I don’t have a definitive answer, I can’t just make up an answer for people and just assume. Would I love to know the exact reason? For sure. Do I have speculations about why? Absolutely. But that does nothing to speak on things that I speculate, does nothing for the situation. So I think it’s just a matter of, it sucks, it’s been a very cold day here in Austin. It’s been a very cold day. May have been cold for the past nine months, not sure. But thankfully, I have a sweater, and I’m always ready to keep the warmth going.”

On being missed by fans:

“It’s incredible. I get so many messages from people who are like, Hey, we don’t know what’s happening. We don’t know what’s going on, but we miss you. We hope that you’re mentally okay. Obviously I would love to give an answer of what’s a definitive answer, and I still maintain the truth of this, I have no clue. I have no clue. So I already know this is gonna go up in flames too, but yeah, I love the fact that fans still care. All I know is this, regardless, I’m always gonna end up better than my situation. I’m always gonna end up better than the circumstances that I’m currently in. That’s just how it works for me. I can’t lose.”

On if he thinks he is being punished:

“I don’t think that’s ever crossed my mind of like you’re being punished, because that wouldn’t serve me at all to think like that. I would be depressed and angry. That wouldn’t serve me.”

On being seen backstage with Cody Rhodes at the Royal Rumble:

“You know what’s so funny about that whole situation? First off, yes, I did go see a friend of mine for his match, obviously, because it was an hour away. Secondly, they caught me walking to the bus. So like, Okay. Third off, somebody who worked at Alamo decided to take a video, take that screenshot, and then post it. I remember the next day, Sunday, I woke up and this whole thing was blowing up. I was like what is this? I had people from my job, I had one guy who was like ‘Were you at the Rumble last night?’ I said ‘Yeah and what the f*ck about it?’ He goes ‘Just saying that’s a bad look.’ How is it a bad look? I can’t control somebody taking security footage while I am walking to a bus, I don’t control that. Tell me how that is a bad look. We got people on our own program talking about people in the other company, but me having my security footage exposed is a bad look? Give me a break! It was simply visiting a friend. I was only on the bus. I stayed on the bus. I wasn’t trying to cause any type of issues or anything like that. The whole purpose was I was walking to the bus so I wouldn’t be seen by anybody.”

On being in attendance at WrestleMania 40:

“You know who else was in the box with me? Dustin, QT Marshall, Aaron Solo. This is not me putting them on blast. This is just saying yes, there’s people in the box. There’s footage of me celebrating. There was no issue about that. There was no issue at all. Only because before I had went Tony already said, Hey, it’s okay. So like, there was no issue. Now, if he actually didn’t mean that, okay, I don’t know, that’s different. But there was no issue about that and I still, to this day, don’t see a problem with it. I’m gonna tell you why. I got into this because I am a fan. I love professional wrestling. Regardless of where I work, I’m going to go and support people that I love, and I’m gonna go support wrestling in general. I was there to watch Jade’s first Mania match and was extremely proud. I saw her match, and then I was there to see Cody’s match. Guess what? I was at Mania the year before that and saw Cody lose. There is no issue with somebody being at another show. Jay Z ain’t gonna go to another rapper’s concert? He ain’t gonna go to a J Cole concert? It’s only blown up online because people are trying to get paid for their engagement, they got rent due, I always make that joke. It’s people who just want to start something. You could say it’s the tribalistic fans, I don’t necessarily agree with that, to a certain extent yeah. I remember seeing some quote tweets about how I was dick riding Cody because I was there, and I was just like, wow, this is amazing, because if you took this situation out of the scope of wrestling, people would think it’s normal. But supposedly, for some reason, it is so taboo to not be over here when you work [for another company]. Who cares? We all getting paid, aren’t we?”

On hitting back at trolls online:

“No, I’m not [in character]. That’s not what I’m saying at all, because you’ll never know. But what I am saying is that I grew up in an era of Halo 2 online. So talking trash online, I’m built for it. The best part about it is when you reply to someone who runs you down, and they go, Well, you’re gotten too. What do you mean I’ve gotten too? Because I’m replying to you? Isn’t the purpose of you saying this anonymously online is to get a response, don’t you want to debate? You’re trying to debate with somebody, right? I’m giving you that, you’re not going to win because I’m too quick-witted. So I like talking trash to people. I like it because I quote tweet and I talk trash about it, and not everyone can see how stupid this person is. That’s why I like it.”

How do you decide?

“It’s only when I’m in the mood. Sometimes I’m not in the mood, sometimes I laugh at it and keep it moving. Sometimes I will, I remember I posted a picture and someone was like, shouldn’t you be talking about the show tonight as opposed to posting pictures? It’s like, bitch, you’re on my Twitter. What are you talking about telling me what I should and shouldn’t do? You got some nerve. I don’t know. I find the internet, the IWC, I don’t think they’re as bad as a lot of people make them out to be, only because I choose to ignore certain things about it.”

On being Sting’s first match in AEW:

“I remember when it got announced that me and Brian versus Sting and Darby was happening, it was such a wild reaction to it. Then I had to really think. I didn’t grow up as a Sting fan. I didn’t grow up watching WCW. I was an Undertaker fan. So as I got older though, I did study Sting. I studied a lot of WCW from the early 90s. I watch all types of wrestling, but that was an era that was really cool because he just had a certain energy to him back then. I’ll never forget Sting coming in and meeting him. He was so nice and so sweet, and he’s very collected. You have to realize he’s coming to a place that he knows nothing about, as far as this company goes, and he’s dealing with people younger than the place that he was at previously. I think what it was was he was very observant and it was just getting used to what was going on. I would hope that he probably met me and said, Okay, something is about this kid that I don’t really understand just yet, but I like it and I respect it, and he’s got his own little thing. When it came to the match itself, yes, there were some nerves about it, obviously. But I remember going and we didn’t practice, per se, but he needed to get the body warmed up again. So doing drills with Sting was insane. Then the match itself, we filmed it in two days. The second night was a lot colder, and I remember telling them, Hey, because I knew what was going to happen. Sting needs a heater. He needs a dry sauna just to keep the body limber, because we were stopping and there were breaks in between the films. You get how it is. It’s just filming is hard because there’s waiting, it was cold, it was all of that. So I remember telling them that and just making sure that he was as comfortable as possible. Because if anything I knew from training with him what would help him out, and he’s very respectful, and I’m not saying that this was a man who couldn’t speak up for himself, but I think that he only wanted to ask for things that was absolutely necessary in times, he didn’t want to seem like he was being too needy.”

On being nervous about hitting moves on Sting:

“I mean, yes and no, there was a moment where Sting had me up for a gorilla press slam. I remember being up there like, Damn, he’s still very strong. And then the next thing, he punches me right in my mouth and I was like, Oh my God. There was a moment where, dude, Sting gave me a sunset bomb. I flipped him up in this, he gave me a sunset bomb, and I just was like, damn, this is kind of badass. Sting is giving you a sunset bomb. What is happening? You, Of all people. But yes, it was really cool, and Sting will forever hold a place in my heart, because out of anybody you could go to and talk to, and he was understanding. You talk to him, and he could view this look, and you would think that he wasn’t going to say anything. It’s just some thinking. And he speaks from a place where he’s lived life several times over.”

On going toe to toe with MJF in a promo segment:

“There’s several instances where I think I’ve proven everybody that I’m actually more of a troll than Max is, and I’ve had it happen on live TV. But in that moment, that was in Austin, and I just had a match. So the promo that I went off on him with was so good because yeah I stumbled, and I said I’m gonna stomp an ass in your something. I like stumbling through a promo. I don’t care if it’s clean. You hear somebody freestyling on a rap beat, and it’s just like, well they kind of stumble, but they just keep it moving. I like when that happens. That right there was my moment in my head of just kill me with what you got. You give me an inch. I make sure that you get every juice out of that squeeze. And so obviously the chemistry with me and Max was palpable in that moment, because you could feel it, and you could see two people somewhat similar, but total opposites.”

On being called Dollar Store Dwayne by MJF:

“And I said he was a rip-off of Roddy Piper. You know what’s wild about that? Max says all that stuff about me, yet made a return in a leather cut-off jean jacket. How is it that I am trying to rip off The Rock and this guy every day is cosplaying Triple H. He’s cosplaying Ric Flair. He’s cosplaying Roddy Piper. Do you ever find that interesting?”

On comparisons to The Rock:

“I don’t think I ever really gave it much thought. I think it’s pretty well known who my favorite wrestler was. The Rock was cool. I liked The Rock. He was cool. But this is how I do it. I can’t help the way that I look. I’m a handsome motherf*cker. That’s just how it is, and that’s a respectable thing. My style, as you know, even before we started filming is I had a Garth Brooks shirt on. I like what I like, and I wear what I like. It’s nothing to do with ripping somebody off and I would be honest if I was doing that. I am. I am an improvement on a design straight from the city of New Orleans. If you had to say that I copy anyone, I’m copying the people of New Orleans, absolutely, that’s who I am.”

On if he went off script with Adam Copeland:

“There was no script. Ricky Starks going off script? How is that possible if there’s no script to begin with? So to speak. I didn’t say anything crazy. I just called someone bug eyes. What’s wrong with that? That’s like, how is that any different than someone calling someone fat? Am I missing the point here?”

On his match against Bryan Danielson at All Out 2023:

“You know what’s so great about that match? Before I went out I was nervous, but I guess I didn’t really realize what was about to happen, because I was so frustrated in such a beautiful, organic way. So the day before, Tony comes out and announces that Punk is gone, and then I actually opened that show with the promo. Watch the promo, it’s very good, and you can kind of tell what’s happening. But I was so frustrated about things happening the way they have. I’ll never forget someone telling me just be grateful that you even have a job. I remember someone being like, just be grateful we have a job. I’ll never forget feeling like, How dare you! Don’t tell me to be grateful for something that I’ve worked very hard for. That’s saying I know that you’re hungry for dinner, here’s a half-eaten loaf of bread, actually no, let me take that back. Here’s just the crumbs. F*ck you. Don’t tell me just be grateful for something, you don’t live my life. You don’t understand the things that I have gone through to even just get in this moment. It really set me off. So when it came to Sunday, I was looking forward to it, but I didn’t realize what laid ahead of me and what I was actually going to be capable of doing. Bryan had that injury too, and we had to deal with that, and that was such a weird thing for me. I’ll never forget, I’m sitting backwards, and that first whack from the leather strap echoes throughout the arena, and I remember feeling this jolt and then hearing it go, oh. I was like, Okay, here we are, nice. Then later on Bryan is tagging me in the face with that strap and he was like, Are you gonna take it? Are you a man? And this is my theory. I think Bryan thought I was a pussy. I think he thought I was a pussy because of how I look, because well this pretty boy. I guess what I’m trying to say is he wanted to test me, and I love that. He wanted to test me, and I definitely think I passed with flying colors.”

On why his WWE cameos didn’t lead to more:

“I don’t know. I think at the time, I did a trial in 2017 and really put all my eggs in that basket. I was told that they liked me because I did a promo that they really enjoyed. I just don’t think they had a place for me yet and I was competing against guys who had a name on the indys. So you got to think about it. They were going to take the guys with names because those fans were going to follow them, and in turn those fans were going to buy a Network subscription or something. So you’re just adding to the bucket of money. You come in with something. I personally think that’s just what it is. Timing-wise, at the time, I thought it sucked, but looking back on it, I’m actually glad that I went on this route that I’ve taken with AEW and having them basically take a chance on me and me prove my work 10 times over.”

On being a police officer in a segment with Roman Reigns:

“So when I was a US Marshall, I drove to Dallas with my girlfriend at the time, she dropped me off. When you get into that building there’s no reception, just so you know. I left my wallet in her car. When I got there, I was trying to get my wallet back. I could not. As I’m trying to leave, just to go outside to grab it they go, are you trying to leave early? I said, No, no, no. I was just trying to go grab my wallet because, hopefully, she was still outside, and I was trying to get the reception and all this stuff. And they go, Well you need to get to the ring right now. Go to the ring. They tell me what the setup is. You’re a US Marshal, blah, blah, blah. Act like you’re not a wrestler, please, Like how you get in and all this stuff. Okay, so they get me suited up. They run out of letters to put on their US Marshal, but they somehow figure it out. I don’t know what a US Marshal is. I don’t know the jurisdiction of that, who’s over who in that situation? But to be arrested by a US Marshal means that you’re indicted on something, some serious charges, RICO charges, fentanyl charges, something. So I thought arresting Roman Reigns was like, what did he do wrong? I don’t even remember, but he did beat the piss out of all of us. But it starts, if you watch it, you can see how I get in the ring. I get in the ring like the women’s wrestlers used to back in the day, where they go to the real bottom. Because they’re like, hey, act like you never got in the ring before. I was like, Well,if I was a US Marshal I wouldn’t know how to get in the ring. I was doing all that, and I am wearing dress shoes. So then when I get hit by Roman, I slipped and fell, and had to get up and grab them. It was a mess, man. But I will tell you I look like a total badass in that outfit. And you know, as they say, long-term storytelling.”

On a possible move to WWE in the future:

“I could end up anywhere actually. It’s not crazy. I understand it, and definitely get it. Like, you know, you just go where your friends are. Yes, I love my friends. I would like to always see them every day in my life, whether they come to me or whatever the case may be. That’s just how it is in life. You have people that you are cool with, and you’re always gonna have people say, like, well, you’re gonna do that because of this person. It’s like, Well, damn, yeah, I can’t act on my own accord.”

What is Ricky Starks grateful for?

“The people in my tribe, the support of people and that I am happy and proud of myself.”

Ricardo Rodriguez On Alberto Del Rio, Beating Roman Reigns, Being Bret Hart’s Final Opponent

in LATEST EPISODES on November 21, 2024 November 21, 2024

https://cvvtix.com – Tickets for the first ever INSIGHT LIVE the day before the Royal Rumble on January 31, 2025 in Indianapolis are on sale now!

Ricardo Rodriguez (@RRWWE) is a professional wrestler best known for his time in WWE as Alberto Del Rio’s personal ring announcer. He sits down with Chris Van Vliet at Three Legacies Wrestling School in Lancaster, PA to talk about how he got signed by WWE and being paired with Alberto Del Rio, having a victory over Roman Reigns, being ringside for Dolph Ziggler’s Money in the Bank cash-in, his Royal Rumble entry, why he decided to leave WWE, his battles with addiction, getting clean and more.

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On if he always wanted a wrestling school:

“No, not at all. This is something I just kind of developed over the last several couple of years. I’ve been grateful that I’ve had the privilege of running schools and at least running classes. Even in my time with WWE, I was put in a position to kind of help guide others through the help, obviously, of my mentors that were there with me. As time went on, I just started taking that a little bit more seriously, and I got put in a position where I was given trust to be able to help others. Now that I have this opportunity to build my own thing, to build my own legacy, I’m very grateful for it.”

On his career as a wrestler before he became a manager:

“It’s night and day. At the time I started in Mexican Lucha Libre, that’s how I started. I was very grateful for my trainer, Latino Blanco, who just would beat the living dog hell out of us, but in a good, constructive way. I learned so much from that. Then when I switched over to the American side, it was a struggle at first, but then once I kind of started getting my groove, and I had awesome trainers that were helping me switch from Mexican style to the American style, these guys named Los Luchas, Phoenix Star and Zokre from PWG, so they were a big part of that, too. When I started kind of modeling what I wanted to be in the American side, I used to watch Super Dragon, Samoa Joe, Low Ki, Great Muta, how they were more just aggressive, and they didn’t really talk, and it was more so just mannerisms. So in my head at least I would tell myself, you’re this badass then usually go and kick everybody in the head, and then you’ll incorporate a couple little Lucha things here and there, but that’s what I used to try and do and emulate. And then I became Ricardo. I did not talk and then I got hired to talk. So that was a whole 180 because prior to that, I maybe had cut maybe one promo ever in the four years I was doing independent wrestling. Maybe one or two promos tops, and I got hired to talk. So the irony of how all that kind of came about.”

On getting signed with WWE:

“So I had worked for this promoter in Southern California named Jesse Hernandez, who owns Empire Wrestling Federation. And Jesse used to be a referee for WWWF I think, but he had been around for a while, and he became one of the main promoters in Southern California, so I got to wrestle for him once. And right after the match, he comes up to me and he goes, Hey, WWE is coming to town in a couple of months or so. He’s like, Would you be interested in doing a tryout? And mind you, this is the first time I’ve met him, so he didn’t owe me anything. And I was like, Yeah, of course. So I jumped in on that. I did the tryout. And at the time, I didn’t know too much about what was going on WWE television, because my full-time job as a graphic designer was a full-on production type thing. So it was an all-day, 12-hour, 16-hour shifts, right? So I wasn’t watching wrestling, really. And then when I was getting out of work, I would go straight to training. So then I did an actual tryout at the Staples Center. We got there super early. We did a three hour tryout. So we finished that, and then they come up to me afterwards. The talent scout at the time was named Tye Bailey. So Tye Bailey comes up to me, and he just kind of asked me a couple questions like are you under contract anywhere? No. Are you married? No. Do you have kids? Not that I know of. If given the opportunity, would you be willing to relocate to Florida? Yeah, sure, of course. At that point, I had been promised the moon by so many promoters, and I didn’t know any better, so I was like, whatever, right? I would just kind of, we’ll see. We’ll just kind of play by ear and see what happens. So then we go to catering and I was only scheduled for that tryout. I wasn’t scheduled for SmackDown or anything. I was just scheduled for the tryout, but I stuck around because obviously they welcome you to stay in case they need extras or whatever. So they went up to this other gentleman that had done the trial with me, and we did like this thing where we did matches and we did tournaments, tournament style, and at the end of it was myself and this other guy, and they had gone up to him first and they’re like, Hey, we’re looking for this ring announcing thing. They had asked him and for whatever reason, he said he couldn’t make it the next day. So then Jesse goes up to the individuals that were in charge, and he’s like, Well, he speaks Spanish. So then they approached me and they’re like, Hey, do you have a tuxedo? I was like, Yes, of course, and I didn’t. They asked if I’ve ever done ring announcing before, and I told him yes, which I never have. So then they’re like, Alright, come tomorrow to SmackDown in Bakersfield, they didn’t tell me what for. They’re just like come tomorrow. I was like, Cool, awesome.”

On what happened next:

“So then I go to the Goodwill that was across the street from where I used to live, and I got a cheap little suit. There was a bridal store across the street from that, so I bought a bunch of bow ties. Coincidentally too, because I wasn’t scheduled for that SmackDown, Miro was actually on that tryout with me, and we were training together at Knox Pro. So I told him, and he’s like, Well, just take the room that I had purchased for the night, the hotel, just take it. I was like, Cool. So he let me stay. He offered it, but Bakersfield is only an hour and a half, two hours from the valley. So we were in the tryout together and I went to Bakersfield, I do the first little walkthrough, they tell me what I’m doing, and I get introduced to Alberto. And at the time, I didn’t really know who he was. He seemed familiar. So we go over the rundown of what we’re doing. So then they tell me, Hey, you’re gonna be announcing this guy. We do the first rehearsal. Vince waddles down the ramp as I see him. So he does the little walk and I was like, Dude, that thing’s real. Then he comes up to me, and because I had already done one rehearsal, and he’s like, not like that. Be more animated, be more Hispanic, whatever that means, right? So just be more Hispanic. I was like, All right, cool. So then I started thinking of the AAA announcers, how they’re so loud and so I took that approach. And he’s like, Yeah, that. So then I do it. And obviously the first time around, it wasn’t as big and as extravagant as once I got used to it, but they liked it. I did the first night and then that week they were doing a double taping of SmackDown, because the guys were going overseas, the SmackDown guys were going to the European tour. I believe that’s when they got stuck because of the volcano. There was a volcano in Iceland, and I think on the way back they got stuck. I think it was that that week. So I did Bakersfield on Tuesday, and then we did a double taping. So on Wednesday, we were in Fresno. So then I go up, I do the deal. Alberto wrestled this wrestler by the name of Alex Kozlov. Then after that, Mark Carano and Johnny Ace, they pull us into the office, and they ask us basic questions. They’re like, Hey, are you on a contract? And I was like, no. So they asked Alex the same and I think at the time he was wrestling with AAA, but a per-appearance type deal. So then they’re like, would you guys want to sign? We’re going to offer you, especially for me, because they talked to us separately, but they offered us both contracts, so then that’s kind of how I started. But at the time, I didn’t really know who Alberto was, and I had a friend who was a super, super, super, super mark fan. So I was like, Hey, who’s this guy? Because I knew he would know, because obviously dirt sheets and all that stuff, he will look into who he was. So he’s like, Oh, that’s Dos Caras Jr. I was like, No way. So obviously, I grew up watching Lucha Libre, so I became an instant fan of just the idea that’s the nephew of Mil Máscaras, the son of Dos Caras. So I was like, Cool, this is Mexican royalty. So I fanned out for a little while. So I got signed, and then I was basically an extra for about three months. I did my physical, I did the background check, all that stuff, and then they flew me out to TV right off the bat, and then eventually got that call, Hey, you got you passed, we’re gonna send you to Florida. And it just kind of went from there.”

On his first match in FCW:

“I think it was in December of 2010. I think December when I finally got my first match in FCW, and it was a 10 man tag. I don’t remember exactly who was all in it, but I do believe Husky Harris/Bray Wyatt and Roman Reigns were in it. I think we won that match. I don’t remember, but somebody had tweeted to me the other day that I had a victory over Roman. I was like, No, I didn’t. And they mentioned that. So I don’t know. I don’t remember what the result of that was. [I think you have a victory over Roman Reigns]. Yeah, Tribal Chief, I’m kidding.”

On where Alberto Del Rio’s cars came from:

“I have no idea. That wasn’t up to me. I know it was like, twice, I think that they actually used Alberto’s car. And that was when we were in Miami, because at the time, he used to live in Fort Lauderdale. So he had, I think it was like a 65 Mustang, whatever it was. I think they used it twice, because obviously he would ride it, and when we were done, he would go home. That was another thing too. After our first WrestleMania check, we went out, we bought ourselves Mustangs.”

On being ringside for the Dolph Ziggler Money in the Bank cash-in:

“To me that’s still the top one. That’s incredible, just because I know originally, there was a plan to do it the night of WrestleMania that was originally planned, and then they ended up switching it to the next day. And then, retrospect, I’m glad they did, just because I think it was a little unexpected. And what was great about it too was when they were going over the match. They have that false finish where I think Dolph hit the fameasser, and they go one, two, kick out, whatever. And then Alberto counters it. He does an ensigure and then I think he finally hits the arm, the arm bar. Then, because the office has been screwed so many times, and you can just hear everybody bite on it. And that was so beautiful. So when he finally hit the zigzag, and then the three happened, dude, the eruption of that arena was so incredible. And it was something that I think everybody in unison was very happy for Dolph, because we knew it wasn’t happening.”

On cosplaying as wrestlers:

“[When I was Big Show] I think it was a pillow [in my singlet]. Then we had, I think, I don’t remember whose boots they were that we did the skullcap thingy. [What do you have in your hand?] It was an oversized, I don’t even know what sport that was, but it was a baseball mitt, but for something different, but it was massive. And so Big Show had seen when they were doing it, the one that did not see when they were dressing me up was Sheamus. So I went up to him and asked him for his boots, because I was like, hey, they want to do something with your boots for a design or a picture or something can I borrow your spare? So we didn’t tell him. So they hid me in a room, they dressed me up and then right before we got to Gorilla, because all Sheamus knew was that we were doing a promo. That’s all he knew. So then we’re at Gorilla, and obviously we’re about to go out. And then I just sat next to Seamus, and he just looks at me, and then he does that double take, and then he just lets out like a motherf*cker! So that happened. And then this, it was the same thing. When I dressed up as Zeb Coulter they didn’t tell Swagger, because I think a big part of it was trying to get their genuine reaction. So anytime, like for instance with the cash in, obviously, we don’t tell anybody except for the people involved, because it’s all about the genuine reaction, and then obviously, the whole, you don’t want it to get leaked. But just getting that real, genuine reaction of what they’re gonna be like when something happens.”

On his Royal Rumble entry:

“So how that one came about, it was actually in December, Alberto had gotten hurt. He took a weird bump, and he had a torn ligament in his leg. So obviously he was out for a little bit, and we were still down at FCW. I remember after FCW, we had gone to the Cheesecake Factory, a bunch of us, and Pat Patterson had just happened to be there too. So Pat was sitting at the bar. So out of respect, I’d go up to him and I just say, Hello, whatever. And then he asked me about Alberto. He’s like, Oh no, he’s doing fine, he’s healing up, whatever. And we start chatting. Then, just for sh*ts and giggles, I was like, hey, Wouldn’t it be funny if during the Rumble I come out? We play his music, I would come out, and then we laugh about it, and we just leave it. Shortly thereafter, we did something in Dallas, and we got stuck in Dallas at the airport because of a storm, so I’m sitting next to Malenko, and then we’re just talking. We’re talking about cruiserweights and whatever. He had mentioned back then that he had pitched the idea of a cruiserweight tournament back then, and he asked my Alberto. And then again, I just brought it up. I was like, hey, wouldn’t be funny if during the Rumble, whatever, we just laugh about it and just leave it. So the day Rumble in 2012 I get to the arena, and I was typically, usually one of the first folks over by the ring, because I want to get in and just roll around. And then Michael Hayes comes up to me, and he’s like, Hey, did you see your car? I thought that he was talking about my rental car, that somebody had done something to it. I was like, no, what? He’s like, your car, did you not see in the back? He’s like, no, what happened? So he’s like, come here. So we get to the back, behind the stage, and then he’s like, your car. And then it was the car, but it was covered. It had the cover. And he lifts it, and I’m looking at it, and I’m looking at him, and it didn’t click in my head. He’s like, did nobody tell you? You’re in the Rumble. I was like, Huh? So then that’s kind of how I found out. So then he’s like, Yeah, this is your car, whatever. So then I talked to Ellis, and he was like, the stunt coordinator guy. And so he showed me the car, and then I realized it’s a stick shift. And then my house, like, dude, I’m from LA man. Like we’re, I’m from the city. Like, we don’t, we don’t have stick shifts. And then the last time that I drove one, I was probably, like, 1718, so I was like, Hey, is it possible if I can just take it to the parking lot and then just kind of get a refresher? He’s like, No, you’ll be fine. I was like, Dude, this is live PPV man, I’m doing the Rumble. I don’t want to step on the wrong thing, and then either stall, or, even worse, just haul ass into the people. He’s like, you’ll be fine. And, dude, I tried convincing them to make them get stagehands to, like, legit, push it so we can play audio where I stall, and then you just see the stagehands push the car out. He’s like, No, you’ll be fine. I was like, dude, so I went on YouTube, and I just looked up a video How to drive stick and then that’s just kind of went from there. But yeah, dude, the whole time, the whole time I was just, I was just like, sweating buckets. The first person I attacked when I got in the ring was Cody Rhodes in the corner. So I started pummeling Cody. So I’m just saying, He’s the champ right now. And I took down Cody.”

On being Bret Hart’s last opponent:

“Yeah, it’s insane. We were Ontario that day, we’re at the gym, Alberto and I, and then we get a text from Road Dogg, he tells Alberto the rundown. He said Hey, tonight, it’s gonna be you and Ricardo against John Cena and Bret Hart. And we’re like, Ha! So we’re waiting for the LOL, right? And then it never came. So then I got the text. I was like, wait, what? All right, this is gonna happen. So obviously, Ricardo is not a wrestler. So I had my wrestling gear, but Ricardo is not a wrestler. So at that gym that we were at they were selling women’s tights and stuff, which I like them a little bit more, because they’re more colorful. And then they have more designs than the men’s, obviously there’s not any men’s tights. So I bought a couple of the female workout tights and I took it to Road Dogg and then he’s like, Yeah, that one. So then we go over the match, and then it’s still not clicking in my head that what’s about to happen, and then we get in the ring, and I’m like, Dude, this is cool. This is awesome. I’ve worked with John, but I was always grateful for the opportunity. But just the fact that, hey, we’re in Canada, Bret Hart’s about to put me in a sharpshooter. This is cool. This is super cool. So that’s one of those images I think I have that printed in the office too.”

On his WWE exit:

“So I never got released. I asked for it, so it wasn’t like I was a part of a big thing or whatever. At the time, I had already been separated from Alberto. I was doing the Spanish commentary, but I wasn’t feeling it. I wasn’t happy at the time. I was going through a lot of depression, I wasn’t happy, I wasn’t making what I had been making prior, and I had a lot of discussions with the office, with Carrano, and we just couldn’t get anywhere. And it got to honestly one day where I just didn’t get on the flight. I woke up the next day on a Monday, and I called Carrano and was like, Hey, dude, I’m still at home. I’m not coming in.”

What was the reaction?

“He said are you alright? I was like, Yeah, I’ve tried talking to you a few times and it’s just not going anywhere. At the time I was 29, I was like I think I’m so young enough where I can kind of do stuff. I just want to say thank you, but I think I’m done. He’s like, all right. Well, you know what, stay home. Let me talk to Vince and Hunter and let me call you back. I was like, cool no big deal. And he called me on a Wednesday at like, five o’clock. He’s like, Hey, I just talked to Paul and Vince, and we’re gonna grant you the release. You are always welcome to come back, whatever blah, blah, blah. Was like, All right, thank you. And then a lot of bitterness kind of went into the next couple minutes, because as soon as I hung up with the phone, I started getting all these alerts on Twitter that I had been released. In my head, I was like, these motherf*ckers. Then I didn’t even wait like a day or anything. As soon as I got off the phone, they had posted that I was let go. I was like, dude, like, you couldn’t have waited. I mean, I’m sure they have a reasoning, or they have somebody like on standby that as soon as that happens, hey, let’s get the first leg up there. But I was just so angry and bitter, and then for months and years, really, I had this like disdain for wrestling and just the company. Obviously, there’s a lot of stuff that led into it, but I was just, I wasn’t happy.”

On what was next and alcohol addiction:

“I got contacted by Carlos Colon and WWC, and then he asked me if I wanted to go wrestle for him. So even though I still had this little bitterness to wrestling, I was like well life still has to go on. I need to make money. So I did that and it was a good experience, it was fun, but I still have that hatred towards the company. Obviously, there was a lot of alcohol that was involved with a lot of my social media postings after I left WWE and stuff that I’m not necessarily ashamed of what I said. I’m more ashamed of how I said it, and I wish I would have approached it differently, because a lot of those feelings were valid. I just didn’t know how to manage them. And obviously, a lot of them were alcohol-induced, so that became a big problem as I went along, and then I just went on a downhill slope from there.”

When did you realize alcohol was a problem?

“When did I know it was a problem and when I actually decided to do something about it are way different timelines, very different. I knew early on it was [a problem], but once you’re addicted to something it’s hard to let go of that. I tried so many different ways to get out of that little cusp of that hold addiction gets on you. It was every day. The only time I didn’t was when I was sobering up so I can kind of get better and enough for me to be able to get up and go get more. Obviously, the alcohol led to the drugs, the drugs, the women, all that stuff, the partying, that whole lifestyle became a thing, because obviously, once I left WWE, I had all the time in the world. I didn’t have to show up anywhere. I gained a lot of weight. I was just always angry and bitter. I was so good at self-victimizing. ‘This is happening to me because of all of you, none of this is my fault. It’s all your fault.’ I was so good at that because that’s what an addict does. And there were a lot of people that were trying to help me that I didn’t realize that they were and at the time, I think I saw them as they’re just trying to get in the way of my good time, so f them. So I kept pushing people away. And in retrospect, a lot of people left me, a lot of people that I thought were close friends, they left and I was so angry at the time of why they’re leaving me, they were deserting me. But when I look back at it I don’t blame them. I was terrible. I was constantly drugged up. I was drunk, I was miserable, I was a slob, and I didn’t care about anybody. I didn’t care about me and it was just a cycle. It became a cycle where, obviously, because of the WWE schedule that we had, it was always go, go, go. You get out of Raw at let’s say 11 o’clock, by the time you get out of the arena, and then the city, maybe midnight, you get to the next town, three, four o’clock in the morning, you go to sleep for a couple hours. You wake up, you go to the breakfast, you go to the gym, and you go straight to the arena. So I was used to running and functioning on very little sleep, and I don’t know how to manage it. So obviously, when I left WWE, I still had that same cycle, but I had nothing in between. So I used to supplement that adrenaline of being in front of a camera, because obviously that’s not there anymore. So what happens when the red light goes off and I have no way of pushing or getting that high, is use alcohol, and so the insomnia kicked in a lot too. The insomnia led to me drinking wine, because at the time, wine would make me sleepy. The irony was, I did not want to do pills, because I didn’t want to get addicted to pills. That turned out very well for me. And so the wine, I had one glass, and then two glasses, and then the whole bottle, and then two bottles, and then three bottles. And I was like, man, it’s getting expensive, so let me just get a box of wine so I could chug a whole box of wine by myself, but then it was a lot of sugar. So I was like, Alright, so let me switch over to alcohol, hard liquor. So I went to vodka, because vodka is healthier, right? So it just became a thing.”

On getting help from Drew McIntyre:

“So I woke up in San Antonio, I had my phone and I put out a tweet. I was like, hey, I need help. I screwed up. This gentleman by the name of Christopher Dreisbach had just happened to see my tweet, and he’s never on Twitter, so then he sends me a DM, and he’s like, Hey, if you’re really serious about getting help. Let’s talk. Let’s figure something out. WWE has this really cool wellness program part where if you’ve been with them and you encounter a similar situation, they can help you out, they’ll figure something out. So I got in contact with WWE, and this is where a good friend of mine Drew McIntyre comes in. I sent Drew a message, and I was like, Hey, can you find out the information of the wellness policy, who’s in charge or something. So then he dug around, and he got me the info. I contacted WWE because of that, and it just yeah, it became a thing and that’s how we got connected. I had talked to WWE, and I told who had contacted me up here in Lancaster. And he’s like, oh, and we’ve done stuff with them before. Go ahead and set it up, and we can figure out the details later. So yeah, Drew was a big part of making that connection.”

On still battling addiction:

“It never goes away, but I’ve just gotten better at managing it. It’s a daily battle. I’ve gotten better at how to control it and how to manage it. The concept of being of being mindful and grateful is a key element also learning how to take a pause when something upsets me, instead of instantly reacting to whatever just pisses me off. Just take that pause and weigh out the pros and cons of what you’re about to do? Because if I go back to the same route that I used to do of the instinct, f*ck me, f*ck you, right? That’s where that take me, and that’s not going to be anywhere good. So that sense of taking a pause, slow down, I’m not answering you, because I don’t care whatever is like, I’m just, hold on. Let me just process this before I give you a more accurate answer.”

What is Ricardo Rodriguez grateful for?

“Everything I was able to overcome, the circle that I have and I am no longer the reason my mom cries.”

Nick Aldis: SmackDown GM, One More Match, Adam Pearce, Randy Orton RKO, Mickie James

in LATEST EPISODES on November 19, 2024 November 19, 2024

Nick Aldis (@RealNickAldis) is a professional wrestler and the General Manager of WWE SmackDown. He sits down with Chris Van Vliet in Brooklyn, NY to discuss becoming the SmackDown GM and his no-nonsense management style, his in-ring debut segment with Triple H and Dominik Mysterio, being on the receiving end of a Randy Orton RKO, if he is done being an in-ring competitor, a possible match against Raw General Manager Adam Pearce, being married to Mickie James and more!

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On laying down the law on SmackDown:

“Naturally, sometimes I have to tell guys stuff they don’t want to hear, and that’s when the executive speak comes out. Because in my mind, I think if I was in that situation, if I was the wrestler in the equation, hearing that annoying, corporate babble would make me infuriated. So I think, Okay, this is a good time to slip that in, particularly if I’m dealing with guys like Randy or Cody. Or with Roman, the very key sort of early interaction for my character was the thing with Roman, right? It was like, I thought I’m gonna walk the line here of sort of have some physical presence, but I’m gonna also lay on a bit of the corporate stuff just to sort of establish the dynamic.”

On having a unique GM character:

“I mean, look, my whole thing on this was I had to make it my own and I had to create, to me, in my mind. This is also based on some early conversations with Hunter about it. He said ‘I want this to be different. Your General Manager schtick is not going to be the typical authority figure we’ve seen necessarily in the past. You’re not necessarily going to be this.’ Obviously, there’s been some major differences between some of the characters you’ve seen in those roles. But it wasn’t going to necessarily be this sort of insecure, power-hungry, sort of guy right off the bat. He said, ‘I want you to be more you, kind of calm and collected and all business.’ I went, I think I know what you want. Obviously, there’s a lot of coaching involved and stuff like that. But in the beginning, I was like I think I’ve got what you have in mind, we sort of went that way, and it seemed to work.”

On fans realising that he is a wrestler:

“It’s sort of humbling, yeah, a bit of a humbling experience. It is funny because the anniversary just passed a few days ago of me and Cody doing two out of three falls in Nashville. So usually the All In match and that match are the ones that tend to get sort of annualized. It came up again and all these comments are just like, What? no way! It’s funny, because it’s always going to be that way, right? Because that’s just the difference between WWE and the rest of the wrestling world.”

On making the transition to the GM role:

“Yeah, it’s fun. I mean, like I said when I mentioned this before another interview, so I don’t want to harp on too long. But when the General Manager thing was presented to me, I talked to Mickie about it and I said they’re offering me the General Manager. She was just like, 100% take it, you’ll kill that. And I said well good, I did. I already said yes, and I just was like, I’m gonna be the best f*cking General Manager you’ve ever seen and we’ll go from there.”

On possibly saying goodbye to his in-ring career:

“I guess. But I also don’t necessarily see it like that. 100% I see it more as a sort of maybe not a full-time wrestler, but I don’t know. Look, it gets asked all the time by everyone except me. I have never once said, hey what about me? Could I wrestle? Because I don’t need to. If and when the time comes it’ll be what they want, and it will hopefully be the right time. I just told them that if you want to do that, I’m ready.”

On his debut and Dominik Mysterio:

“I love working with Dom. Also, shout out to Dom, because he was so instrumental in my introduction as a character. I always make this point, I was introduced on WWE television in a Triple H in-ring segment. If you’d have told the 13-year-old Nick Aldis that he would have fallen out of his chair. Hunter was my guy. I loved Bret when I was a kid, but I saw Bret like a superhero. When I first started formulating this idea of I think I want to get into this business, actually get into it, it was because of Rock and Hunter. It was their feud in 2000. But as much as The Rock was the man who captivated my imagination like so many of us who were in the business, probably half the roster, if they were honest with themselves, it was Rock. But for me, I was watching Hunter, and I realized without articulating it at the time, I was studying him. Because I was sort of going well, self-awareness. I don’t think I can be that guy, talking about The Rock. Because I’m not American number one, and I’m more cerebral, I had a bit more of that, I could relate more to that approach. I think people who are familiar with my in-ring work, they see a lot of Nick Bockwinkel, who I studied a lot, Harley Race, a little bit of Flair. I think if you look at Hunter, it’s quite a similar combination. Anyway, my introduction to the character is by Triple H in a Triple H in-ring segment. Fantastic, sign me up! But if Dirty Dom Mysterio hadn’t been in that segment, would have been a much more difficult position for me to get that one thing, which was the big fan of your dad line, because when I was looking over it in the day, obviously I’m brand new, but I’m also here as a producer, so I have a bit of freedom, a bit of leeway to make some suggestions. Hey, what if we did like this? I remember looking at the way it was laid out, and I saw this sort of suggestion of saying something about [being a] big fan. I was like what if I put a pause in there, in my mind I was like that’s kind of my sense of humor. That’s my sort of sh*t-talker type of style. ‘I’m a big fan of your dad.’ I said it, and Hunter and whoever was around at the time, all sort of laughs. Okay, so I went, Okay, that might work, and in my mind, because when I was looking at it, I knew that this segment isn’t necessarily about me. It’s I’m here to facilitate and that’s sort of what that character is a lot of the time. But at the same time, I’ve got 10 seconds here to f*cking smash something. I was like that’s it, that’s my bit. That’s my moment there. Because then it’s like, then here comes KO and it started and that’s kind of the business of the segment. But I looked at that little and I just kind of went, that’s my kick the door down moment, because I knew I had to do that like I did. I knew that the majority of people watching would probably not know who I was. I would have loved to have debuted in Chicago or New York or Philly or something where there would have been maybe a higher concentration of fans who [knew me]. Tulsa, Oklahoma, not what I necessarily have described as my strongest market. But I was like, hey, I’ll take it. But because Dom has so much heat, and because that Dom character is the guy you love to hate, which is, to me, that is the sweet spot, especially in the modern era, that’s the sweet spot you want as a heel character. Have to be a guy you love to hate. Sometimes it’s hard now to have, because it’s hard to have heat. I mean real heat, because real heat then becomes like, oh, well, is it real? And obviously you presented them with this conundrum of well, we don’t want to have to sort of disclaim to people well it’s not real, because what’s the point? That’s ruining the whole thing. So you have to be a guy they love to hate, and that’s Dirty Dom. And now with Liv. To me, Liv Morgan, I don’t know what you want to call it breakout. I shouldn’t really say break out. She’s been around a long time, but she’s the MVP of 2024, she leveled up in a huge way, immensely.”

On being recognised by the fans before his debut:

“It was pretty hard to shut it out. I had to sort of shut that out, because obviously, typically, the the ones who are closer to the front row are usually the ones who are much more sort of die-hard fans, too. So, yeah, of course they’re going, Nick Aldis! What are you doing here?”

On Adam Pearce:

“I love the dynamic between Adam and I. It’s a lot of fun, and it’s something that you can go to, then get away from for a bit and go back to. I think Hunter’s approach and look, I don’t like to speak on his behalf, obviously, but I think that a lot of the time he does like to have a sort of combination of long-term planning and some improvisation where it’s sort of like, to me, I’ve always felt like that’s the key is you need to know where you’re going. You need to have a destination in mind, and you need to have, and I think you sort of have to have pit stops along the way that are sort of maybes, maybe we’ll go there, maybe this will lead to this, maybe we’ll get to that. Randy Orton RKO’d me out of the blue last time SmackDown was in Brooklyn. Then a week later, it’s like, he cuts me a check. He goes, Oh, that’s for next time, but we haven’t gone back to it thankfully. But it’s like, I think Hunter likes having fun with little things like that, laying some breadcrumbs here and there, planting a seed, whatever. And that’s how I look at me and Adam is like there’s always potential there.”

On the RKO from Randy Orton:

“I still feel funny. I know we’re in 2024 but I still feel funny about giving away [the secrets]. But it’s like, whatever I’ve done it now, I can’t not give it to you. It was called on the fly. It’s Roman, it’s Randy, who’s he gonna sign with, and then he was gonna sign the SmackDown contract and stare down Roman, and I think that was it. And then it was like, somebody told somebody told somebody while I was ringside. So I had to go in and call it. I’ve never gotten to the bottom of who was behind it. I still feel weird giving away the magic. It seems to have been one of these moments that connects. So it’s like, there seems to be a heightened level of interest on that particular moment, because it was quite out of the blue, even for me.”

On a possible TNA return:

“I guess I hadn’t really thought about that, but it might be fun as the GM, depending on the context. Obviously the Machine Guns just debuted. That was cool. It was cool for me to be involved in that, because of our history and everything. But again, I think one of the really exciting things about the Paul Levesque era, for lack of a better term, I tried to coin the Renaissance era, but that doesn’t seem to have taken off.”

On a possible UK WrestleMania:

“Absolutely. I don’t think that you have the Mayor of London campaigning, using it, he pledged to try to get WrestleMania at Wembley in his campaign for Mayor of London. I mean, what else is there that solidifies the status of WWE? Mayor of London is not a small political position, in the UK. It’s really, in a lot of ways, the second most sought-after position after PM. A lot of times it’s the precursor to being PM, it’s like, when did you ever think that someone running for Mayor of London would say reelect me, I’m going to do everything I can to bring WrestleMania to Wembley Stadium. Think about the hoy polloi types who would have been like, oh, talking about wrestling ghastly and now, and like he’s campaigning with it.”

On being the best SmackDown GM since Teddy Long:

“Can I just say it’s so cool to me that I ended up sort of in that spot. Because even before I was ever involved with WWE, I would bump into Teddy all over the place at conventions and different events and stuff like that. He was always so complimentary to me and he was one of those guys that was like you need to be up there, you need to be in New York. So it’s cool for me to sort of get that spot and to be talked about with him, because I love Teddy so much.”

On a possible catchphrase:

“No. I mean, first of all, it’s not something that I think that you want to force, ever. But I also think once get into sort of catchphrase. I still feel like I’m establishing the character. It takes a long time.”

On Chelsea Green:

“I mean, it’s a night off. It’s great. You don’t have to think very hard because she’s just going to give you endless material. What a great example of maximizing your minutes. What a great example of taking something that a lot of people would have seen that particular opportunity. We’ve had conversations that kind of tiptoe around this, actually, with each other, because Chelsea and I know each other a long time. We’re around the same age, we’ve sort of been in a lot of the same places. We’ve had quite similar career paths in some in some respects. I think for her, there was this thing of will I ever get the shot on the main show? Then it comes. And I’m sure that this probably isn’t what she first had in mind. I don’t want to speak for her, but I would venture to say that what she’s doing, it probably isn’t like what she envisioned a long time ago. But man, Has she taken this and run with it.”

What is Nick Aldis grateful for?

“The opportunity from Paul Levesque, the support of my wife and embracing my faith.”