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Ethan Page On Becoming NXT Champion, Leaving AEW, Joe Hendry, Shawn Michaels

in LATEST EPISODES on September 24, 2024 September 24, 2024

Ethan Page (@OfficialEGO) is a professional wrestler and the current NXT Champion in WWE. He sits down with Chris Van Vliet at the WWE Performance Center in Orlando, Florida to talk about his surprising arrival in WWE, winning the NXT Championship in record time, why he left AEW, the first conversation he had with Shawn Michaels, the upcoming NXT move to the CW Network on October 1st, being the subject of one of Joe Hendry’s famous parody songs and more.

Quote I’m thinking about: “Life isn’t about being perfect, it’s about being ridiculously passionate that people think you’re a little crazy” – Case Kenny

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On winning the NXT Championship in record time:

“I guess it is a record, if I’m wrong, it’s because that’s what I read on the internet. Fastest championship. Vic Joseph was saying this to me, he thinks that I have the most PLE main events consecutively in the fastest amount I’m on a really good run right now.”

On how it feels:

“Validating? I think that’s the perfect word, validating. It’s like, imagine your whole life you have this vision of what your potential could be, and no one around you sees the same vision as you. Then magically, the greatest wrestler of all time just has the same vision as you and is like, I’ll let you do that, here I am doing it. Yeah, the boyhood dream, dude.”

On the first conversation with Shawn Michaels:

“I was hidden in one of these back rooms in this building, and essentially it was like, Hey, I don’t know everything about you, but you seem like a guy that’s never been given a fair shot, so I’m gonna give it to you.”

Do you know what he saw in you specifically?

“No, well also I’m not going to question it, because I’ve been in the game so long that someone looking me in the eyes and being like, I’m going to give you this chance, what you wanted to accomplish, you can try it right now. That was it for me. Someone’s telling me I’m giving you the ball. So if you do well, we’ll both do well. This whole thing has been extremely weird. Then to get the guidance of Matt Bloom and Terry Taylor and then Fit Finlay, any of these guys that I want to either pick something from or ask them questions, or they are just willing to just help you out. That’s not something I’ve ever experienced. It’s such a competitive business, especially everywhere else that I’ve been, you can have camaraderie with fellow wrestlers and stuff like that. But not many guys are just walking around being like, Hey, do you want to get better? This is how. No, because they want to do it themselves. They want that position. But here, especially NXT, I don’t know the main roster yet, but with NXT, this is such a great environment to hone your skills and to get better.”

On if he thought this was possible after leaving AEW:

“No. I had 70 independent dates scheduled because I was like, Oh, I got two kids. Got this house, these cars, I moved to America we just got our green cards. This is where we live now, so I have to make sure that my children are fed and the bills are paid. So no, I didn’t.”

On leaving AEW:

“It was time. Yeah, it was time. And I wasn’t getting what I magically got here, which was the opportunity to show what I bring to the table.”

On there being a point where he might have been too old for NXT:

“Dude, I feel old! I’m training with 20-year-old college athletes that are freaks of nature. That’s what this place is, breeding freaks of nature. And then here’s my broken down 34-year-old ass in training and working out with these guys looking around like, Oh yeah, I’m the old guy now.”

On receiving the offer from WWE:

“I took all those independent dates, and I was just kind of betting on myself, trying to, I guess, get some upward momentum back into Ethan Page. I’m very big on following trends and patterns and I could tell that I was on a downward tick, and there wasn’t anything that was going to change there. So I had to kind of change my environment to be able to change my momentum. I booked up, maybe I’m over exaggerating, but up close to 70 shows for the remainder of 2024 and I did a great uh wrestling show in Winnipeg. And on my layover from Winnipeg to Detroit, because I was landing in Detroit to drive for Revolver wrestling in Dayton, Ohio, I got a phone call a number that I didn’t have my phone. They were like, ‘Hi, is this Ethan Page? This is so and so from the WWE.’ Yeah, sure! [They said] ‘We’d like to offer you a contract this long, this amount…’ I’m just like this is not real. I just go ‘Honestly, that sounds fantastic.’ They hung up on me. My phone rings instantly. ‘Hi, this is so and so from WWE.’ And I was like, whoa, wait, that phone call I just got was real? And you agreed to everything, [They said] ‘So we would like to email [the contract] to you, have it signed, send it over over.’ I’m like, whoa, whoa. Then I’m calling my wife, ‘I think the WWE just offered me a job.’ She’s like, Wait, aren’t you coming? Yeah, I’m on my layover. Like, I’m about to land, and I have to go do this show. But yeah, I think I’m gonna work for the WWE.”

On using Ego’s Edge as his finisher:

“So, I mean, it actually goes back pretty far, because when I came to AEW, my finisher at the time at Impact was a spinning rock bottom. I used to call it the spinning Dwayne. So I would use that as my finisher. But when I looked at the roster at AEW, there were like seven people that were doing a rock bottom, a urinagi, or some version of that as a suplex. And I was like, oh, it’s very used. And the only person that was doing any kind of move where they’re hoisting someone up like that, was Lance Archer, and he did it where the person was facing forward, no one was doing the razor’s edge. At the time, I was doing the border toss on the independents as a false finish or secondary finisher. So I had just pitched that it would be my finish, instead of something that’s been repetitive. I always tried to avoid any moves that I would do, and I try it here too. That’s why I don’t do the jumping cutter anymore. I just try and make sure everything that I’m doing is not being done on the show. So when you see me, you see something fresh, you see something different, and you see what’s mine. It’s like, oh, that’s Ethan Page’s, whatever that is.”

On NXT moving to CW:

“So huge. Just the viewership alone. You are growing in one day it’s like, oh, we’re going from this amount of people being able to see you to this amount of people being able to see you. Selfishly, I’m excited, as company wide, like CW seems very proactive with teaming up with us to promote this as something huge. When you have the network that’s excited to have wrestling to be promoted, I mean, obviously we’re excited about it. I think it’s going to be a very big collaboration.”

On the Joe Hendry song:

“No [he didn’t tell me what was in it], I also said I don’t care. I was just like, go for it. Whatever you find, go for it. Don’t mention my kids and I don’t care. Then he showed that stupid video. I’m glad you brought this up, because I told my wife that I really wanted to brag about this. It just didn’t seem like a thing to say on social media. So I’m glad I get to do it on your show. My daughter is now a published photographer and a worldwide videographer. She filmed that video of me in the Bowser costume, doing curls on Halloween, and then a video game magazine put pictures out of my Sega Genesis collection. And I was like, Oh, it be funny if my daughter took these photos. So I’m just saying she’s very talented for only being six years old and videographer for the WWE.”

On his WWE dream match:

“It’s probably Randy Orton. Yeah, I would say that is the [dream]. I mean, one of the best ever past 20 years here. How many more does he have? I don’t know. I mean, if I look at him, I’m gonna think a lot looks like a million dollars. He’s the guy. I mean, he’s the bar as far as how you want to be as a wrestler, he’s great. The Rock is obviously numero uno. I don’t know how many more matches he plans on having. I don’t know how many Egos Edges he has left in his career.”

What is Ethan Page grateful for?

“My wife, my children and the coaching I have here.”

Ken Shamrock On That Chairshot From The Rock, WWE Hall Of Fame Snub, Refusing To Wrestle Chyna

in LATEST EPISODES on September 19, 2024 September 19, 2024

Ken Shamrock (@ShamrockKen) is a retired MMA fighter and professional wrestler. He sits down with Chris Van Vliet at West Coast Creative Studio in Hollywood, CA to talk about his time in UFC and what made him transition to professional wrestling, being the special referee for the WrestleMania 13 match between Bret Hart and Steve Austin, his relationship with The Rock, whether a WWE Hall of Fame induction could happen, The Rock appearing on TNA as part of his TNA Hall of Fame induction, the scrapped MMA fight against Bobby Lashley, if he was ever planned to be in the Brawl For All tournament and more.

Check out Ken Shamrock’s Tru BK at http://trubk.com

Quote I’m thinking of: “Do not wait. The time will never be just right. Start where you stand, and work whatever tools you may have at your command and better tools will be found as you go along.” — Napoleon Hill

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On if there is a relationship with WWE:

“I’ve had a relationship with them forever, even since when I went away, we did a legends contract, so I’ve always been a part of them. It’s one of those things where I think I spent enough time there and did enough there that I feel like I’m a part of that family forever.”

Are you under a legends contract right now?

“I am. Yes.”

On the recent T-shirts appearing on WWE Shop:

“They’re constantly, always putting stuff out, so it’s been a good thing. Like I said, I feel like, you know, I spent enough time there and did enough things to where I feel like family.”

On not being in the WWE Hall of Fame:

“That’s a great question and I get asked that a lot, which I guess is a good thing, right? I probably think I’m in four or five different ones, wrestling included. But no, when people ask that, it’s not really something that I think about a lot. I enjoyed my time in wrestling. I thought while I was there it was enjoyable. I mean, I went into it because it was an opportunity for me because the MMA was struggling and I wasn’t able to make the money I needed to support my family, so I had to make a decision. So I made that decision to go into wrestling, not knowing how that would turn out. Obviously, it was risky, but I did it. And fortunately for me, I fell in love with it. It was a great opportunity for me, and I enjoyed, all the moments that I had there. A lot of them with The Rock, and a lot of people think it’s crazy, but I enjoyed the chair shot.”

On The Rock’s chair shot:

“Everybody keeps looking at that, and they say it over and, oh, man, that must have hurt. For me, it’s funny, because it would hurt so much more if I didn’t see it coming. Top of the head, back of the head. I wanted it. I was like, bro, you were not hitting me in the head, like the top of the head or back of the head. I want you to hit me right in the face. He’s like, shut up. He thought I was kidding. I was like, bro, come on, man. I’m not taking it to the back of the head or top of the head. I say, if you’re gonna swing, you swing for my face and I’ll take care of the rest. I mean, I literally said that, swing for my face and I will protect myself. And he looked at me with this bewildered like, where’s the punchline? Where’s the joke here? And I looked and I said, No, I’m serious. And he’s like, I’m not doing that. And I said [then] I’m not taking it. I said swing from my face. I’ll protect myself. And he goes, You sure? And I was like, Yeah. And I remember, look right at him in the eyes, and I go, you better swing it. And he says, Oh, I’ll swing it.”

How do you protect yourself?

“Well, he swung for my face like I asked him to. And I told him it’s not his responsibility. It’s mine. You, swing it and I’ll do the rest. And so he did, and all I did was just like I would in a fight. I tucked my chin and it hit me right in the forehead. And anybody knows how the skull is put together, the thickest part is your forehead. And just like within football, and now they can’t do it, but you usually hit with the forehead. And if you get punched, most of the time, if you hit somebody in the forehead, you break your hand. So I just logically thought if I was going to get hit in the head, hit me in the hardest part. That was a great moment, though, because I had no idea what it would look like, or what the impact of that would be. It was just basically a thought in my head, because I saw everybody else doing it, and I was like, Man, that is just a dumb way to take a chair hit in the top of the head, back of the head, and I ain’t doing that. Hit me in the forehead.”

On if a Hall of Fame induction could happen:

“Obviously any athlete that goes through a career and has made an impact wants to be recognized, and I do want to be recognized. But I don’t think of it until it’s brought up, right? It’s not something that I dwell on because I felt like everything that I’ve done in my life, I’ve been blessed to have been in those moments. What comes after that is just icing on the cake. And if that happens it’s going to be a true thrill. But like I said, it’s not something that I lose sleep over. I’ve really enjoyed my journey and very happy with the way my life has turned out.”

On being known as The World’s Most Dangerous Man:

“A lot of that nickname or moniker or whatever you want to call it, there’s this unwritten rule in whatever sport you’re in, you cannot name yourself, you can’t give yourself that name. Fortunately for me, I got it through an NBC or ABC, I don’t remember which one it was of the world’s most dangerous things. So when it actually came out, it was one that I didn’t think I would like, just because of the nature of what UFC was in 93. People didn’t look at it like it was a normal thing, and they kind of looked down on it. There was this kind of cult following, and it wasn’t until probably UFC 5 that they kind of humanized the individuals and who we were, and we were no different than anybody else. We just chose a different job.”

On making the transition from MMA to pro wrestling:

“I had to make this decision on my own, because I wanted to take care of my family. My family came first, and doing what I wanted to do came second. It came down to that, my family or do what I love doing. So I chose to try to make the money I needed to support my family. Not just my family. I had six fighters living in a house and I supported them, every new fighter that came in, I trained them for six months to a year, and I had this gym with three different buildings, one for weight training, one for kickboxing and one for grappling, and three different buildings. And so I had a pretty good business going. And it was a decision I had to make in order to make money, to be able to support all that going on. And I felt, if I went into pro wrestling, that I could make the money I needed to keep it going, which was a risk, to see that if MMA would improve and get better, and then I could go back to it. And so I made that choice to go into pro wrestling because I needed enough money to support what I had built.”

On breaking Vader’s nose:

“Again, I didn’t know, because remember, I’m a fighter, and I just tried to go in and do what I thought was normal. So normally, I’m used to just sparring, right? You spar, but you don’t hurt guys. And that’s kind of what I did with Vader. I kind of went and sparred with him, didn’t want to hurt him, and I guess I ended up breaking his nose, didn’t know it. Then I find out later on that he gave me a receipt when he hit me hard, I went down real hard. That’s like the chair shot, where people look at it and go, Oh, Vader really nailed him, he must have pissed Vader off. I’m thinking to myself, what? What are you talking about? And then I watched him and I was like, that’s awesome! You guys really think that was really [hurt]. That’s awesome, man. I can do this.”

On what happened after the match:

“Even when we walked back to the locker room, I thought it was a crappy showing. But when I walked back into the locker room, I remember Bret Hart was the first one I looked at. He went, Dude, that was good. I’m thinking to myself it just didn’t feel right. I’ve been fighting all this time and I wouldn’t do this, and just didn’t feel right. And then Vader came up to me and says bro, good job, man. Good job. He said, I think he broke my nose. And I was like, Huh? He goes, he when you threw the knee. And I was like, oh, sorry. He goes, Ah, bro, I don’t worry about it, man. It was a good match. And I was like when I did it, I didn’t feel that good about it. But then when I watched, I was like, Damn, that was good, that wasn’t bad, and that was my actual very first one, really going and working with someone like that, right?”

On officiating the WrestleMania 13 match between Stone Cold and Bret Hart:

“I hadn’t been introduced yet, I hadn’t really been on the scene. So when they asked me to do it, and this was Bret Hart, Stone Cold, I’m like what am I gonna do? Shouldn’t it be a referee doing this? I don’t know what I’m doing. I’m not a referee. And you’re like, No, we think it’d be great, man. It would add that thing to it, you’re there, you’re going to make sure that nobody gets out of line, and you’re going to regulate these matches. I was nervous. I mean, this is Bret Hart and Stone Cold, these guys are it. I was so scared I was going to screw up the match or miss something, because I never ref, I’m not a referee. I remember going into that, and I’m thinking to myself, Man, well I guess I’m going to find out whether I’m staying or going, because if I screw this up, I’m gone. There’s no way I recover from this. So I went in and just I kept thinking to myself, all right. I tell you the reason why I was more nervous was that I didn’t know if I could act, if I could make things with my facial expressions, or doing what those guys do so good. I didn’t know if I could do that because everything I’d done to that point was legit. I knocked the heck out of people, and I meant what I meant. Now I got to go in and I got to do something that I don’t know if I can do at this level. So I remember going in there, and I would say probably a minute, minute and a half into the match, I completely forgot everything. I mean, it was like I was actually refereeing an MMA match. I literally went from being nervous, not knowing whether I could do this or not to I’m in it and it’s a fight. These guys are fighting. I didn’t have to change anything from what I knew. My career in MMA when I was in there with those guys, they were hitting each other. They were putting these moves on one another. And I kept thinking to myself, he’s gonna tap, he’s gotta tap, he’s literally tearing him up. Then all of a sudden he would reverse it and I was into it as much as the fans were, like it was that legit to me, and I was standing that close to him, and I know those guys beat the hell out of one another.”

On taking the first People’s Elbow:

“It had to be a long time ago. I remember looking at that video. I mean, I don’t even think Rock knew how to perfect it yet, because when he was just starting, I remember laying on the mat looking up at him, going, bro, this is just not a good site. You don’t have to be standing over the top and with your legs spread pointing to the crowd that long, make your move! [laughs]. That was one thing great about working with The Rock is that I felt like that was a great opportunity for us to really put ourselves in the mix with the greats. Shawn Michaels, Stone Cold, The Undertaker. That was a loaded roster, and I felt like me and Rock had the opportunity to put us in the mix on one of the best matches on the card those nights that we were together. It felt like the more that we worked together, the better we became. And to a point too where I believe that we were rivaling any main event that they put on our card, and that was a testament to The Rock and some of the hard work that he put into those matches with me and him.”

On The Rock inducting him into the TNA Hall of Fame:

“I was being inducted into the Hall of Fame and you can only get so many [chances] to actually have somebody say something about you. I felt like The Rock was a very big opportunity for me in pro wrestling, there was one of those things in your career where you know that one thing helped you get where you needed to go. I felt like the matches with The Rock was a huge part of bringing me into that world of wrestling and becoming relevant. I know it was for him because prior to that, we kind of came in at the same time. Prior to that, he was struggling, he was with The Nation, kind of in a group of people, and no identity. I felt like when we were put together, we both got to really kind of become a figurehead in pro wrestling. I was already something in MMA, had already built that no question. But coming into this world, the fans had to identify me as something, and working with The Rock gave me that opportunity, because that was the real first opportunity for me to work a program with somebody, a long working program with somebody, and I felt we did a tremendous job.”

On The Montreal Screwjob why he left WWE:

“That was one of those times where it was uncomfortable, because I was so close to Bret. He helped break me into the business, because I went up, trained with him, worked with them, and then that happened. Again, I wasn’t in the conversations with Vince and Bret and wasn’t on the inside. So I don’t know what happened. I don’t know who was right and wrong, but I know who helped me. I know who worked with me and helped me understand the character that I needed to be. Then, of course, getting the opportunity to wrestle in the WWF, Vince gave me an opportunity. Bret helped me develop my character. It was a very uncomfortable spot for me. Then moving on past that it just felt like in that, in that moment, it felt like I had no identity, like I wasn’t going anywhere. There was no program.”

On not being happy with some storylines:

“I was being asked to do other things that just weren’t comfortable. I’m not saying anybody was trying to hurt me or anything, but it’s just some stuff that I just didn’t feel comfortable doing [The Ryan Shamrock angle?] Yeah that and then, you know, my own personal thing was I just didn’t want to get in the ring with Chyna. I taught my children at a young age and they were at the time, eight, seven and five, young kids going to school. One of the things that I drilled into their head was that you respect women and that you don’t lay your hands on them. Then I was asked to do that, and I get it, this is entertainment. I get all that. But again, we talked about this earlier where my family comes first, and if I’m doing something that’s going to possibly, might not, but possibly confuse them, I’m not doing it. And it was not like WWE had it in for me, it wasn’t it. It was just things that I believed in, and it just felt like I was constantly going in a direction that had no end to it.”

Was there any resistance to saying no to working with Chyna?

“No, nothing at all. The fact is, it was very respectful when I said I didn’t want to do it. Now I may have gotten beat a few times, but it was no angering like that. I enjoyed my time and truly blessed to have the opportunities that I’ve had, but I believe that everybody has to make their decisions in life and try to do what’s best for them and their family. I felt at that moment that I needed to make a move and get back into what I love doing. Don’t get me wrong, I love wrestling, and I enjoyed it, and I probably would have stayed much longer if I felt like there was a direction for me. I just didn’t feel that.”

On the scrapped MMA fight against Bobby Lashley:

“Man, that was a long time ago. I don’t even remember, but one thing that I want people to know, and anybody that knows me, and anybody that’s ever been around me, and anybody’s ever trained with me knows this for a fact. I’m afraid of no one. Even to this day, I’m afraid of no one. It’s a friggin fight. You put a gun to my head I mean, yeah, I’ll be a little bit nervous, but my character in the way that I grew up, I’m not afraid that’s not in me. That’s not a part of me. So whatever happens throughout my career with different things, because it’s been probably three or four more, it fell through, and mostly because of the negotiations. I never negotiated my fights as I became bigger and bigger, I got agents to do that. So when they fell through, it had nothing to do with me. It’s the negotiations, and for whatever reason, and a couple of these other different things that people want to say, Oh, you just didn’t want to fight him. I promise you this, if you’re a fighter and you’re at that 1% level, that will never happen to anyone, not wanting to fight somebody. That’s not in our DNA. That’s not how it works. That’s not how brain fighters brains work. That’s what we do for a living man. It’s like, that’s how we make money. You think we’re afraid of an individual because we may get hit. Come on.”

So you both wanted to fight each other?

“Yeah. And again, I don’t know how or what happened and why it didn’t happen. There’s a couple of other ones too, that happened. I’m supposed to fight somebody in England. I forget his name, and it fell through at the last minute, and had to do something with negotiations, and all of a sudden they’re screaming he didn’t want to fight him. He was afraid of him. I was like yeah, that’s how I became a champion because I’m afraid to fight people. It’s unbelievable. But just as an education, man, anytime that ever happens, I promise you, it has nothing to do with the fighter.”

On if Kurt Angle reached out to ask for permission to use the ankle lock:

“No, and he didn’t need to. I remember when it first started happening, people were like, you stole your ankle lock. And I was like, huh? That doesn’t even equate in my brain, What are you talking about? Well, he’s using the ankle lock. And I was like, I learned that from somebody. And then, of course, with what you said, Well, yeah, but you know he’s using it in pro wrestling. And I remember thinking to myself, yeah, but I’m not there. If he would have done it while I was there, then there would be a problem, like, Hey, bro, that’s my finishing hold. You can’t do that.”

On if he was asked to be a part of the Brawl For All:

“I was asked. I said No. Listen, I got paid big money, big, big money to fight [in the UFC]. So now they’re asking me to do this thing for free? Listen I think anybody that has been involved in pro wrestling understands how hard it is to gain trust in the locker room. If guys don’t trust you, they’re not going to work for you. They’re not going to allow you to do things that they feel they may get hurt with. So that was one of the things that Bret really instilled in me. It was being able to make sure that I had a relationship with the locker room. I would go up and say hi to people, shake their hand, be open to suggestions, building relationships, because you got to build trust. These guys got to trust me to go in the ring with them, and then they asked me to fight. I’m like, so now I’m going to go in there and beat the hell out of these guys and then go back and say, Hey, we’re going to do a pro wrestling match. I just felt like that was kind of going against the grain of what I was trying to do there. I guess they were paying, I don’t know how much it was 50 grand or something, if you won it. I mean, you guys asked me to come here and do a certain thing, and we negotiated a contract for that, and now you want me to actually fight. So I’m doing two things now, and I just felt like, Yeah, this is not for me. I am not persuaded by insults and by ridicule, people saying you’re afraid to go against the pro wrestlers and you’re afraid to get in there, you’re afraid of this guy, you’re afraid of that guy… That does nothing. You’re not going to shame me into trying to fight somebody. I mean, if I’m going to fight them, I’m gonna fight them, and we’re gonna negotiate something, and we’ll do it. But I’m not gonna be shamed into fighting. It just felt like that’s what was trying to happen, not WWF, just fan base, because they were pro wrestlers and they’re pro wrestling fans, and by me saying, No, I didn’t want to do that. I’m not going to do that. There was that whole scene behind the scenes where people were saying, Yeah, the Shamrock is afraid. I’m thinking to myself wow, how soon people forget.”

What would have happened if it was you versus Butterbean in the finals?

“Oh, Butterbean would have knocked that piss out of me! I got no business boxing that dude. That’s not my game. In a boxing match, because I don’t, I don’t know how that was, but I don’t believe you could have taken him down. But with the way that we could take guys down. That’s a different game. That was my game.”

What if it was an MMA fight?

“I mean, it’s over, there’s no question. I mean, I fought guys so much better than him that were strikers in the K1 that could kick and punch and knee and elbow, so no problem. But in a boxing match, man, he would knock the piss out of me.”

What is Ken Shamrock grateful for?

“The opportunity my family gave me, the opportunity in pro wrestling and MMA and family.”

Otis Is Hilarious! Chad Gable Feud, Money In The Bank, Mandy Rose Romance, Alpha Academy

in LATEST EPISODES on September 17, 2024 September 17, 2024

Otis (@OtisWWE) is a professional wrestler signed to WWE. He sits down with Chris Van Vliet in Minneapolis, MN to discuss being a part of Alpha Academy and how Maxxine Dupri has improved in the ring, the origin of his name, his real life friendship with Chad Gable, learning to do the caterpillar, being a massive fan of Too Cool, winning Money in the Bank, the romance storyline with Mandy Rose and more!

Quote I’m thinking of: “Normality is a paved road: It’s comfortable to walk, but no flowers grow on it.” ― Vincent van Gogh

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On his size:

“So I was this size already in eighth grade. Basically the same height and obviously lighter because the amateur wrestling but yeah, I hit puberty really early, like third grade. It was bad. I got like the terrible acne under my eyes. I had to get popped every night.”

On the nickname Dozer:

“Yeah, that nickname started because, with Tukey, it was funny because we first met in NXT he’s like I know the side sweep. Like I didn’t know anything about the side I just go straight forward. And I remember Dax Charles gave me the nickname but at first at first he was calling me the Bone Crusher, which was very annoying. So he had a big dip and he’s just like, you know what I’m gonna call you? The Bulldozer. I like it. So then it was easy to chant you know, especially at home meets, you know what I mean? It’s always a big thing, the heavyweights go up there and it’s either a complete sh*tshow or it’s a battle. You never know.”

On where Otis came from:

“I had three decisions. So I gave them a 12 [name] list. I was like, Man, this one sounds good. And they were like, No, this doesn’t sound good. And I was gonna be cannonball, but there was a previous cannonball before so I couldn’t do cannonball. So it was like, the list was Dozer, Terry Dukes, Otis Riker, was like the top three. And then I don’t hear nothing for a while. Then we were actually in the ring at Full Sail and I get this rub on my calf and I think it’s one of the referees. I’m just like, Hey, get off my ass. It’s Hunter, said hey, I want to talk to you. Pulls out this little piece of paper, what do you think about this? I’m like Otis “The Dozer” Dozovic. He goes eventually we’ll call your Dozer but just because I want to give you a real name. So of course we tried to push on the Dozer and still just became Otis.”

On early memories of watching wrestling:

“I remember my first time, I only remember because it was Raven. My dad was cutting up stuff for stew. It was such a random [selection], garlic, and stuff I had never heard of, chopping it up. I’m just watching Thunder and I just remember being like, I don’t know, I just loved it ever since and I watched Raw. But I grew up kind of in that Attitude Era and WCW so watched WCW, the Cruiserweights, What’s going on right here, then next thing you know, you got Sable? It’s just like, oh my god, Sable.”

On being a massive 2 Cool fan:

“I was the biggest 2 Cool guy. Oh, yeah. I remember meeting Scotty for the first time. He’s working on an indie show in Proctor, Minnesota at the fairgrounds. And he must have thought I was working him. It wasn’t like we snuck in. We just walked in. It was almost when they were building the ring and we were just walking in and Hey, Scott, and he goes hey, what do you want to do tonight? I’m like, Oh no, I’m just here to tell you I just won the Fargo national championship 2009 I did the worm on stage. I f*cking threw the f*cker, got him on his f*cking head. Got the points. I remember the referee was gonna do some sh*t. Because you wasn’t supposed to have your hand raised pretty soon after.”

On learning to do the worm:

“I remember it was called the sock hop in Cooper Elementary School. And mom says get your ass out of the house. You watch too much horror, watching too much damn wrestling. Get out the house. I’m gonna take you to sock hop, apparently it’s a form of dancing. You get in there and it’s typical. I’m not gonna dance with a girl. It’s kind of like fifth grade. I’m like, Alright, so walk up to the DJ and said, Excuse me, sir. Do you have Batter Up by Nelly? He’s like yeah, but I wasn’t planning on playing that. Play it next. Walked away. Next thing at home was waiting for the song to play. But 10 More Polka songs came on finally. That goes up. All the dudes dance with their chicks, I just dropped down, did it, boom. Got that first reaction attention. I’ve never been a big attention guy but it’s always been like, show some love to for your like craft and performing. So I drop down on there. Always been hooked [on wrestling] it’s a totally good addiction to have.”

On Maxxine Dupri improving:

“It helps that her best friend is Chelsea too. And Chelsea’s like, oh yeah, you’re gonna do that, aren’t ya? You know what I mean? Just that confidence builder. I love our whole women’s division to be honest with you. I’m a big Zoey Stark guy, she’s a badass worker, we have a stud-ass Women’s Division for sure.”

On Mandy Rose pitching the romance storyline:

“She was definitely the ignition for sure. Because you can it pitch all day long. But again, like with Mandy, she’s like, I’ll talk to Vince. Like, okay. Because I was just kidding around, I would see a bikini post on her IG and I would be like you look good, babe. And then it became this thing and last year on Google, it said is Otis married [to Mandy Rose]? It was just one post. And I’m sitting there going, Oh I can get some more leverage here. So I kept posting it just for laughs. And she’s awesome. The girls, they’re a blessing too. Because again, they’re like, it’s HR but we know you mean well. So yeah, but she talked to Vince came out and then we started rocking and rolling there. So I mean, but she definitely was like, Hey, we gotta do this.”

On the storyline playing out:

“It’s one of those things where I’m gonna kiss the world champion bikini model. Behave yourself. Every day was a test. We could never do a pre-shot. It was always live because somebody would mess up, and she’s just like, just got to be ready. I’m sweating terribly because I got to get a hold of a cake. And the box was so uncertain that I was like this thing falls during a live shot I don’t know what to do, but I don’t know. It was just like, you couldn’t find a grip on it. And of course, Ziggy, you know, top the cake, man. I love Ziggy man. It’s pretty crazy Ziggy gets in the picture. And like, it was his first singles match in the warehouse as WrestleMania was my first singles too. So it was like, it was bittersweet because I respected Dolph off a lot and it’s like damn, I wish it was better. Just that time but you know, times being the times.”

On saving Mandy Rose from the Royal Rumble elimination:

“We’re doing the curtain business, but my boots, you could barely see them. Literally someone goes, That’s Otis! I’m like F*ck sake! Guess I’ll spread out now they know it’s me. We got under the ring, and I remember Nick who was always under the ring, crew guy. I go, Hey, do you know where should I roll? What side? He goes, they didn’t tell you? I go No, I’ll just assume. So I just kind of kept just weaselling around that ring. It was cool because you watch it back, the crowd sees me but no one really knows happening until she finally stands up and then finally we get the big [cheer]. I felt so bad for her landing on me too. I’m so sweaty. She is just beautiful and just barely breaking a sweat. She’s standing on me. Hey, you got it babe. I missed Sonya DeVille. So did that spot too. So I was like, ah, catching two buff ladies. Yeah.”

On winning Money in the Bank:

“I don’t think there was a plan. It was kind of a shock because the whole day was like, we couldn’t get up on the roof for the longest time because of COVID stuff. It was like just sitting sitting sitting, do one thing and shoot it. So you were basically just sitting there in your gear. They were kind of bullsh*tting all the boys and kind of calling stuff when they give you more of a spectacular [spot], get it approved. Gets it approved. So it’s just like a long day that finally Jamie [Noble] was like you thinking King Kong up in there? I’m like King Kong? He goes yeah, come with me. Jamie is all fired up. He walks up just climbing this ladder with his cowboy boots. I’m like, Man, I’m not going up there. I hate heights. That’s why I go on the second rope. He’s like get your ass up here! And it was a long way down, it’s headquarters. So we got out there and he goes I’m gonna take a picture of you. Take your shirt off and roar! I go okay, like King Kong and really roar. I’m like, okay, I’m roaring, been sitting for 14 hours. Then they said you’re gonna win it. I’m like, Oh, okay. And then. Yeah, from there, but I think everything was always like, again, it was who’s healthy, who’s not. So that could have been a factor there with testing for COVID and all that. So there were a bunch of changes going on.”

On his WWE goals:

“Definitely a singles match at WrestleMania. I mean, everyone talks about the title. For me it’s basically, probably a big match with Gable hopefully would be cool.”

On Bray Wyatt:

“I always wanted to work with Windham, definitely. That’s going to be a fantasy of mine when I get to heaven basically, because like I always knew me and him could tear the house down. Two big guys, our styles aren’t exactly similar but he’s way more agile. The guy was phenomenal so yeah RIP Bray. But like that and work with certain guys too, newer guys coming in. But yeah, then obviously having that big, big title would be nice, but I for me this is doing what I do, this basically been like a blessing for me. And selfishly I’m doing it for myself because it’s that much of a love for me.”

What is Otis grateful for:

“Jesus, my family and friends and the boys.”

Stephen Amell On Heels, Arrow, Cody Rhodes, CM Punk, All In, His SummerSlam Match

in LATEST EPISODES on September 15, 2024 September 15, 2024

Stephen Amell (@stephenamell) is an actor best known for his roles in “Arrow” and “Heels.” He sits down with Chris Van Vliet at West Coast Creative Studio in Hollywood, Ca to talk about “Heels” coming to Netflix on September 15th, how he was cast for the role of Jack Spade in the show, CM Punk and AJ Lee starring in the show and being potentially responsible for Punk’s return to wrestling, whether or not he thinks there will be a third season, his match at SummerSlam 2015 teaming with Neville to defeat Wade Barrett and Stardust, if he thinks there is more to tell with the Cody Rhodes story, his match against Christopher Daniels at the first-ever All In show in 2018 and more!

Quote I’m thinking about: “Your life is right now! It’s not later! It’s not in that time of retirement. It’s not when the lover gets here. It’s not when you’ve moved into the new house. It’s not when you get the better job. Your life is right now. It will always be right now. You might as well decide to start enjoying your life right now, because it’s not ever going to get better than right now-until it gets better right now!” – Abraham Hicks

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On Heels debuting on Netflix:

“If you are a wrestling fan, Netflix is the place for you right now. We got Heels, which is 16 episodes, I counted it as one season. The way that I actually think about it is, do you remember in the Andre The Giant documentary, when they were saying that for the purposes of WrestleMania III Hulk and Andre had never wrestled, right? But in actuality, they had wrestled each other all over the country, like hundreds of times. God bless our original network, but as far as I’m concerned, Heels debuts on September 15.”

On why he thinks Heels is one season:

“I mean, there is literally no time cut between episode 8 and episode 9, which would have been 101 to 201. It ends with the big match at the State Fair and the surprise ending. And the next episode picks up basically, with Alexander Ludwig, who plays My brother just walking out of the ring, direct cut.”

On being the perfect casting choice:

“So it’s my understanding that they tried to put the show together in 2017, maybe even earlier than that, and they couldn’t cast it. They couldn’t find the brothers. Then the project came back around in 2019 and it was an offer that went out to someone that wasn’t me, and from my understanding when the network said who they put up the offer to, the feedback that they kept getting was, did Steven Amell pass? Eventually, it came around. But it was really funny, man, because I was finishing up Arrow, and I think we had, like, maybe five or six episodes to go, and I was very, very specific with my manager. I was like, A) I’m taking a break from television. B) I’m not entering into another six-year contract right away. And C) I really don’t want to do anything particularly physical. Then my manager calls me up, and he’s like, listen, an offer is coming on this one. It’s going to be an excellent offer. Here’s the script, and I want you to hop on the phone with Michael Malley, who was our showrunner on Heels. I sit down and I read the script in about four pages, and I go, Oh, motherf*cker. This is obviously a yes. It was a yes right away. Five pages into the script, I was like, I obviously have to do this. And, yeah, the rest is history.”

On his experience in the ring translating to Heels:

“Under no circumstances should I ever have attempted that, we could have cut around it in a variety of different ways. I do not have luck with the coast-to-coast. The only one that I’ve ever done where I haven’t hurt myself was the first take, which ironically we definitely ended up using. But when I did the coast-to-coast at All In, I didn’t realize it at the time, but I figured, okay, I don’t want to smack the back of my head, so at the last minute, I’m gonna bail out and try to just land on my left butt. We finished the match, and I’m back in there in the locker room, and I can’t figure out, it feels like someone’s put a tennis ball underneath my left hip. And actually got a text from The Big Show, and he goes that coast to coast looked pretty stiff, I think maybe it might have been. Anyway, I fractured my hip. I had to go right back to filming Arrow on like the Tuesday after this long weekend, and I definitely didn’t ask permission to go to a wrestling match, so I had to sit everyone down and go, I’m not to be treated any differently. I am fine. My hip hurts. I can’t make it worse. I can just slow down the healing process. But that also turned out to be the episode that had the most amount of stunts in the history of the show. And the first thing that I had to do on my first day back was go into this dead sprint and then slide under a door. And as I’m sprinting, I can just hear tearing in my hip. It was horrendous.

On his match at All In:

“First of all, Christopher Daniels just couldn’t have been a nicer guy. Was so helpful with me in the ring. I agreed to do it, but the only way that I would agree to do it is if I lost clean. Because I don’t think people ever do that in the celebrity matches. So I was like, Listen, I want to equip myself really well. I want to tell an actual story. But I want to get one of those, 1, 2 oh! But then I want to lose straight up. And CD was like, Absolutely not, no way, absolutely no way. And I said, Chris, I’m not doing it unless you go over clean, and we can shake hands at the end and then I get to have my moment. I felt like also that’s the way that you get respect in the industry. You go in there, you change with the boys, and it’s like, no, I’m gonna lose clean. But no, he took care of me in that match, because there’s so much adrenaline. So what inevitably happens is you forget to breathe. Straight up, you will go through some sort of sequence in the ring, and you’ll forget to breathe, which leads to you blowing up. I think three minutes into that match I grabbed him, I’m like, we need to go home. He went, shut the f*ck up. Don’t even move. I’ll take care of you. And he did. Yeah, he was great.”

On his match at SummerSlam 2015:

“Well, I mean, first of all, I wouldn’t recommend to anybody to have their first match at a Premium Live Event in f*cking Brooklyn. They’re like Hey, listen, this crowd is not going to be the easiest and the one thing that you can’t mentally prepare for. First of all, I came out, I was so nervous that I forgot to get in the ring. If you go back and watch the match, Cody was like, you forgot to get in the ring because he was going to powder out and do all that stuff. First of all, I went and trained with Cody. [How long did you train for?] I went on a loop with them. They were on Vancouver Island. So I went to that show, and then they were in Vancouver the next day. Cody and I had dinner that night with Brandi and my wife Cass and then I went down to Everett with them again. That’s when we did the run-in, where he face washes me, and then I come into the ring. I was the guest host at Raw, so I had to sit in the crowd for the entire show and this didn’t happen until hour three. We had practiced this, and the agent that we had was Road Dogg, an awesome guy. I was like Cody’s gonna face wash me and then I want to jump up onto the apron and then sort of like whip myself over the ropes into the ring. Road Dogg was like, No, you can’t, you gotta slide under the bottom rope. And I’m like, I don’t want to slide under the bottom rope. I want this to be dynamic, I want to jump up onto the apron. And he goes, okay, but just so you know, if you miss and you stumble, there will be no match at SummerSlam because you will have lost the fans forever. They want to hate you. They don’t want to like you. Okay? You’re just some actor that’s taking away a spot. So it’s like, you’re welcome to jump, but if you miss… So about an hour and a half into the show I realized, Oh, my God, we’ve practiced this a bunch, but I was practicing it in shorts and now I’m wearing dress pants, am I going to be able to do this? So, there’s probably someone who saw me walking around the back of that arena jumping in my dress pants to make sure that they weren’t going to rip. Once I got into the match, it was good, but we decided that we were gonna start the match off with Cody springboarding into the ring, and then me springboarding as well. He’s like, Oh my God, holy smokes. I was terrified of messing up the springboard, I practiced it 100 times. But I even said to him right before the match. I go, do we have to start with the springboard? And he was very, very accommodating and really, just kind of let me do what I want. But he goes, Yeah, we’ve got to do the springboard.”

On if Heels season 3 is possible:

“I think that season three is a possibility. People are gonna have to watch it on Netflix. It’s gonna have to line up schedule-wise for me because I now have another job that’s in first position. But listen, without trying to spoil it, we didn’t want to send my character out quite literally on his back. There was always the idea that we would tell more of a story. I think there’s more to be told. I think that in the way that there’s no real season one and season two, because eight and nine really line up. I think that if we did come back, you might see a little bit of a time jump. That’s sort of what the showrunner has pitched.”

On there being more to be told with his Cody Rhodes story:

“I hope so. Yeah, I really hope so. First of all, I could not be prouder of that guy. To do what he did, to walk away. I don’t want to speak for him too much. But I really do think that after our match at SummerSlam, because I remember it was like Neville pinned King Barrett, and then they did the camera thing where Cody’s walking out of the ring they got the camera on him, and they got the camera on me, which is the sign, the universal sign in wrestling of we’re not done, we have unfinished business. So the plan was, as best I can recall, was there was a pay-per-view after SummerSlam, and then the October pay-per-view was going to be in LA at Crypto Arena. Cody and I were supposed to have a cage match. We were getting ready to send a ring up to Vancouver for me to do a bunch more training, because I basically faked my way through the SummerSlam match, I could still probably take you through the beats of it right now. So the plan was to actually go more the length I went with Christopher Daniels, like 12-15, minutes. And again, the plan was to lose clean. Then all of a sudden, Cody just calls me up, and he goes, Look, man, I don’t know what’s going on, but our match just got shelved, and no one will give me an explanation why. I am devastated, and I’m deeply embarrassed. I was like, Look man, it’s okay. But I really think that was one of the contributing factors to him leaving.

On Peacemaker’s insult at Arrow:

“That was a little unnecessary. I didn’t f*cking appreciate that at all. Okay, I’m just gonna come right out and say this. Between the movies and between Peacemaker, a little bit like, our show was kind of treated like sh*t. I get it, we’re on the CW, I get it. It’s TV. But I also get the fact that when people think about the most recent iteration of DC, okay, they don’t think about the Snyder cut. They think about the Arrowverse, and we got crapped on for years and years and years, and this just seemed excessive. Again, I’m not actually mad, but like, just remember hearing that and being like f*ck those guys! Seriously. I’m up here, I’m working just as hard as anyone else. You know how hard it is to play a superhero with no superpowers for 23 episodes a year? It’s really, really, really hard. I’m not looking for a prize, but maybe don’t sh*t on our show.”

On meeting John Cena:

“I’ve met John a handful of times. There couldn’t be a nicer, more genuine person. If I should be mad at anyone, should be James Gunn for writing that in the first place. But he could not be a nicer guy. He’s such a good guy. It’s not a personal vendetta against him.”

On being part of The Bullet Club and his ROH match:

“We had set up a great spot with me and Kenny where we hit the Hart Foundation’s final move, the clothesline, and we’re supposed to go back down and then we were supposed to wait. Now I’m supposed to wait for Kenny’s call, we were both supposed to kip up at the same time and then celebrate in the ring the way that he does. I was so excited that I kipped up immediately, didn’t wait for him. That I think that is the hardest thing to do in the ring. The hardest thing to do in the ring is to slow down. Right before my first match, Hunter came up to me and he went, listen, when you get out there, slow everything down. Then when you are positive that you’re going too slow, slow it down. And then when you think there is no chance in the world that you can go any slower, slow it down. I think back to kipping up when I should have waited for Kenny, or when I went through the table in a match against Christopher Daniels, like I could have taken 20 seconds to climb those ropes and really let the crowd stand up and let everything build. I did the whole thing in like 2 seconds. Didn’t even have time for the for the announcer. He just went, ‘Steven Amell, what are you doing?!’ Although that didn’t hurt at all.”

On Heels leading to a CM Punk return:

“So Phil wasn’t originally in that part. We had shot a bunch of stuff with a different actor playing Ricky Rabies. But then with everything that went down with the pandemic, they had to bow out. So we got Phil in, and he was great, just a great guy to work with, good actor and I stand by my match that I had with him. It was a lot of fun. And if that’s 5% of the reason could be that we got him back in back in the business, then I’m good with that.”

What is Stephen Amell grateful for?

“Healthy kids, my wife and that I have had wonderful people to work with.”

Dave Bautista On Recent Weight Loss, Triple H, Iconic Theme Music, WWE Hall Of Fame, Evolution

in LATEST EPISODES on September 15, 2024 September 15, 2024

Dave Bautista (@DaveBautista) is an actor and retired professional wrestler. He sits down with Chris Van Vliet in Hollywood, CA to talk about his new movie “The Killer’s Game”, how he recruited WWE Superstar Drew McIntyre for a role in the film, slimming down to 240lbs, his early wrestling days as Leviathan and Deacon Batista, why he couldn’t do a retirement tour like John Cena is planning for 2025, his friendship with Triple H, if he could have done more in the wrestling world, the botched ending to the 2005 Royal Rumble that saw Vince McMahon tear his quads, Mark Jindrak being in Evolution, his iconic theme music and more!

Quote I’m thinking about: “Time is the only currency you spend without ever knowing your balance. Use it wisely”

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On starting his acting journey:

“I did an episode of Smallville, and I did it because I was a fan. I was a fanboy. I wanted to be on a Superman-related show. I just had no interest in acting. I wouldn’t say I did a film and it made me fall in love with acting. I did a film that made me want to be better at acting. I did a film called Wrong Side of Town. I did it, and I didn’t think much of it. Again, I was on top of my wrestling game, and I loved wrestling. I was obsessed with it. That’s all I wanted to do. I went and I did this film and I realized what a horrible actor I was, like so bad. I was really embarrassed, and I just wanted to prove to myself that I could be better. I mean, I left that set just feeling unfulfilled, and I had the itch, man. I just wanted to get better. And so, as you know, Wrong Side of Town, that kind of started my whole journey.”

On the wrestler once known as Deacon Batista now being one of the biggest actors on the planet:

“It’s weird hearing that, because I don’t think about myself like that at all. I feel like I’m really starting to break into my own, my career is [taking off]. It took all these years to kind of, I feel like I’m just getting started. Now I’m starting to get lead roles now. I’m starting to build on my career. And they’re not like massive lead roles. I’m not doing massive studio $150, $200 million films. I’m not on the top, so I’m not like a big movie star. But I’m coming into my own.”

Do you want to be at that level?

“I do want to be at that level, and there’s a particular reason. One, I really want my company to be successful. But also, I’ve kind of learned throughout my journey that the bigger star you are, the more you can get things done. It’s just easier to get things done. It’s the nature of business. People see you as a commodity, they see that you can generate money. Same with wrestling, if they see that you can generate revenue for the company, then they’ll make you a star.”

On slimming down:

“I got really big for a role, and it was uncomfortably big. Knock at the Cabin. I got really big. I was around 315 pounds and I put the weight on really fast. [Not like 315 in WWE?] No, definitely not. When I was younger I was carrying lots and lots of muscle, this I had to put on between films. I had a very short period of time to put this weight on. I packed it on with french fries and pancakes. That’s how I did it. The director asked me, he said I don’t want you to look like a powerlifter, I just want you to look like a great big guy. So now, looking back at it, I probably overdid it. I was probably a little too big. But at the time, I was just thinking, I gotta get big, I gotta get big, I gotta get big. I put on an uncomfortable amount of weight, and it took me forever to shed it off. And then I noticed, the more I trimmed down, the better I felt. I also noticed, the more I trimmed down, the better I looked on camera, the better I looked next to other actors, because typically, even at this weight, it’s weird, because people think for me, people say, God, you’re skinny. I’ve even saw online that some people are worried about my health, and when I say it out loud to people, I’m 6 foot 4 240 pounds. When you say that out loud, it sounds like I’m a big person. But to me, because people have seen me so much bigger over the years they think I’m anorexic, but I’m still a large human being. So at 6 foot 4 240 pounds, next to your typical actor, I look like a gorilla, and it’s distracting. So I’ll probably lose a few more pounds because I’m basically killing myself to be this trim. I mean, I’m training hard, not only training hard, but my calories are pretty restricted.”

On not being sure about his audience:

“It’s weird. I always tell people I’m not really sure where my audience is, because I’ve been kind of all over the place with my career. A lot of the fans who were real hardcore fans when I was wrestling, they love me because they love that character. And obviously, I’m not that character in person, and also because I’ve aged and I’m not jacked and I have grey hair and I have a bald head now, I don’t know if they still are invested in me. But again, maybe it’s a little bit of my insecurity.”

On life before wrestling:

“It’s weird, because I don’t know how people thought that I was brought up. But when I was a kid, a lot of times we didn’t have food. Me, my mom and my sister slept in a basement of a house in DC and we all shared one bed. I didn’t grow up with money, I grew up with less than no money. I had a pretty rough childhood, and I was broke until I was well into my 30s, and this is what led me into wrestling. I was broke and had two kids, I was bouncing and I couldn’t afford to buy my kids Christmas presents one year, I had to borrow money to buy my kids Christmas presents. I was so humiliated that I said, I got to make a change, I got to do something. I didn’t have many choices because I had no education, high school dropout. So I started, I was an athletic person, I was enormous. I thought I’ll give wrestling a shot. I failed in my first attempt, then I paid someone to teach me how to wrestle, Afa of The Wild Samoans, God rest his soul. It was so heartbreaking that he’s passed away, and that was kind of it. That’s where my journey started. But even after that, it was a long, long road. A lot of people didn’t believe in me. Even when I was in developmental camp down OVW, there was people with the WWE, John Laurinaitis, who wanted to fire me. But I just kept digging in and digging in and digging in and digging in until I finally got my real first opportunity with Evolution, and I had access to Triple H and Ric Flair, I mean, two of the greatest professional wrestlers ever. I wasn’t going to blow my shot, so I just had blinders on. I put everything else in the back burner and focused on my wrestling career.”

On if being in OVW was a help or a hindrance given the others in his class:

“It didn’t hurt me as far as they went, they only helped me. They only drove me. When you are surrounded by greatness, it brings out the best in you. These guys, to say they were competitive would be a massive understatement, it was a class full of studs. These guys were athletes, so I was good there, I needed them. Thank God they were there. What hurt me was my character that I had in OVW. I always get grief about this because people think that I don’t respect Jim Cornette. I really do. The reason I do is because Jim Cornette taught us so much about the history of wrestling. He taught us so much about the traditions of wrestling. But I won’t back down when I say that career, that character [Leviathan], it stunted my growth in OVW because I had nothing but squash matches. That’s what I did. I went out and in two or three moves, and my matches were over. I had Goldberg matches, and they didn’t. I didn’t progress like the rest of the guys. I didn’t progress like Brock Lesnar, Randy Orton, those guys are incredible athletes. Obviously, with Randy being a legacy, I think he was born and bred into this business, but I was just stunted a little bit. I never got to speak on the mic. I spoke on the mic a few times and it was me screaming into the mic. But I think my growth there was a little bit stunted, I went into the WWE completely unprepared, and it was like a whole new learning curve. I remember, and I will say it over and over, that Fit Finlay in a day changed my life. I went and that was kind of a last-ditch effort. John Laurinaitis sent me down to work with Fit, Steve Regal and Dave Taylor. Fit just took me aside and just started talking to me like, what’s wrong with you? More than the physical stuff, he just got in my head a little bit and made me see things differently and a light bulb just went off in my head.”

On how Drew McIntyre became involved in the project:

“Really just pointing everybody towards Drew, because I was having a conversation with J.J. [Perry – Director], and he said, I need a great big guy who’s almost intimidating to you, a guy who would be kind of bigger than you and I also need him to be able to pull off a Scottish accent. He was like, Do you know anybody? I was like, Man, I got the perfect guy [laughs]. I immediately thought of Drew, and I loved Drew. I’ve always gotten along with Drew and I’ve known Drew probably since he was a teenager. I think it was like 18 or 19 when I met him. So I pointed him in this direction. I sent him a bunch of pictures, some reference stuff, and I was like, this is the guy, don’t even look any further. And he said, Oh, I love him. So immediately I hit up Drew and said, Hey, man, would you be interested? He said, absolutely. I said, check with Hunter, make sure you are cool. And thank God Hunter, because things have changed a lot. I think Hunter changed the company in a lot of great ways, but he’s very open-minded to letting people do stuff outside of the company because he really understands that the bigger star they become, the more attention it will bring back to WWE, which is a great thing. Where I think in the past, it was just kind of the opposite of everything. We wanted to keep everything contained, everything, everybody in-house, which is why I ended up leaving the company because I wasn’t afforded the opportunity to do stuff outside of the company. But now, the way things are now, and their structure, Hunter is like, yes, we want you to do this. This brings more eyes onto the WWE.”

On if he keeps in touch with Triple H:

“I don’t know if he likes my movies. He probably thinks I’m a sh*t actor [laughs]. But I’ve always clicked with Hunter. I get Hunter, and Hunter gets me, and I think we could go a year without talking to each other, and then when we pick up a conversation, it’s like we just talked to each other yesterday.”

On if he made it to the top of the wrestling world:

“No, I think if I had stayed longer, I might have. There’s a part of me that always thinks right guy right time. But I don’t know what I would have achieved if I had been like a John Cena or Randy Orton, been the 13, 14, 20-time World Champion, I don’t know. But I think what I did in the short period of time that I was actually there, my run between 2005 and 2010 I’m proud of. I can say that I’m proud of it. I’ve had the conversation with Hunter about going to the Hall of Fame and there was always a part of me that makes me feel like my career is not worthy of going into the Hall of Fame. Well he said this to me, and this makes sense. He said, you accomplished a lot in the short period of time you were there, I think it’s worthy. But if you don’t feel like it’s worthy, look at it this way, what you’ve accomplished outside of the company makes you a Hall of Fame WWE wrestler, and I would tend to agree with that. I think I’ve accomplished a lot, and I’ve never turned my back on my roots. I’ve always been very proud of it, been very open about being a WWE superstar, and I think I’m a good ambassador for the company. I think if on those merits, if they want to put me on the Hall of Fame, I’d be proud to accept that.”

On John Cena and the upcoming retirement tour:

“I get along with John. I respect John a lot, a lot more than people think I do for some reason. I think the internet and I think fans have built this rivalry between us, which there really isn’t, but this is how we’re different. I would never do this [retirement tour]. I wouldn’t, I couldn’t. It would feel disingenuine to me to go around and I just couldn’t. But where I see his point where he wants to go around and he wants to personally thank all the fans, but there’s just something in me where I just couldn’t do it. It would feel uncomfortable to me, like accolades feel uncomfortable to me. I could never be the type of babyface who was saying good stuff because I wanted to get the crowd to cheer for me. I couldn’t be that guy. So I love and respect what he’s doing with his whole tour to say thank you to the fans, but we’re just different that way. I couldn’t do it. I went out the way I wanted. I retired the way I wanted. I didn’t want to make a big deal out of it. I announced my retirement on Instagram and I knew I was going to do it. I just didn’t want to tell anybody I was going to do it because I didn’t want anybody to say, no, no, you got to come in, you got to give a speech, you know, the fans. I don’t know, just something about it would have felt false to me. I couldn’t do it.”

On the 2005 Royal Rumble:

“Well, the whole day I thought I was getting fired. The whole day was just a nightmare. [They didn’t tell you you were winning?] No, I knew I was winning. But what happened was, so I think we were in San Francisco the night before, and so I stayed there instead of driving to Bakersfield. I stayed there because my mom lives there, and I want to stay and I want to spend time with my mom. So I got up the next day, and I drove and I was really late to the show. I was really late to getting there, and I knew that I was supposed to go over that night and it was like a big deal and I was going to go to WrestleMania. Vince thought that I was being super disrespectful by showing up late, and he was pissed. I thought he was going to change his mind and it was going to change, like the whole storyline. So I got there, and he ringed me out as soon as I got there. But then we [had] the match, and it was botched, and I totally take the blame for it, because I went over. I knew what the finish was, and I just went over. I just went over and thank God we landed when we did kind of at the same time, it was a miracle. Then when I saw Vince coming down, I was like, I’m getting fired. Most of my career, until later in my career, throughout my career, especially in OVW, I thought any day now I’m getting fired. I’m getting fired. I was just so happy to be there.”

At what point do you realize he’s torn both quads?

“I think later on, I didn’t realize during the match, I didn’t know why he was sitting there. I had no idea what was going on, I was just worried about the match. Then they got him out of there. I think I found out later on. The funny thing was, so I can’t remember where we were at the next day. But it was the next day, and I got to the building and somebody immediately said, ‘Vince wants to see you in his office.’ I was saying, Ah, here it comes. So I went to his office, and my heart is beating, just in my head I’m packing my bags. I walk into his office, and he’s sitting, he’s got his crutches beside him, and he’s all bandaged up. He just starts laughing. He’s laughing at the top of his lungs, ha, ha. I was like, ‘You’re not gonna fire me?’ And he goes, ‘No, I loved it! It was real! It was so great, and it was real, and nobody knew what was gonna happen.’ He loved it. I think that Vince thrives on chaos. When you think about some guy, he’s a billionaire, he’s accomplished everything it could. He’s bought everything that he could ever buy. So what’s he got left, excitement! I think because that moment was so chaotic, I think it just excited him and it exhilarated him. So even though it was a total botch, I think he just had so much fun in that exhilarating, exciting moment that he kind of thrived on it and he forgave me.”

What is Batista grateful for:

“Health, that my mother raised me the way she did and for dogs.”

Drew McIntyre On CM Punk Feud, Jack Perry Photo, Beating Brock Lesnar, “The Killer’s Game”

in LATEST EPISODES on September 5, 2024 September 5, 2024

Drew McIntyre (@DMcIntyreWWE) is a professional wrestler currently signed with WWE. He sits down with Chris Van Vliet in Los Angeles, CA to discuss his role in the upcoming movie “The Killer’s Game” with Dave Bautista, how Batista got him in the movie, if he plans to star in more movies in the future, his losses at both Clash at the Castle shows, his rivalry with CM Punk and if he has ever gone too far in his promos, the viral photo with AEW star Jack Perry and how it came together, his war with Gunther and Sheamus at WrestleMania 39, beating Brock Lesnar at WrestleMania 46, why he believes in Joe Hendry and more.

Quote I’m thinking about: “Most people tell themselves that if they felt better, they’d do the thing – when it’s actually doing the thing that makes you feel better.” – Mark Manson

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On the bracelet:

“I’ve seen some of the memes about it being more meaningful, or people have more of an emotional attachment right now than some of the titles, which may technically be true right now. But eventually, the titles will kick up their gear in the storylines, et cetera. But I’m gonna be so bold as to say this right now as perhaps the top prize in all of wrestling.”

On doing the best work of his career and what changed:

“I mean, it’s all across the board. Just with the new management coming in, new creative process, Hunter kind of leading the ship and giving a lot of people, basically everybody, but specifically the ones that have been there for a minute, the chance to hey, if you’ve got more to show, then show it, this is your chance. There’s no wrong answers, go for it, and if it fails, it’s on you. If you’re willing to take that wrist slap, and I’m willing to take a wrist slap, a fining a firing to be true to myself and the relationship now I have with creative, how much they know the character, because it’s essentially me with the volume turned up. When it comes to the Punk stuff, especially because I can’t stand the guy, it’s easy, but it’s awesome. And to see across the board, not just for myself, just how many characters have stepped up and standing out right now and Raw is a lot easier to watch. Three hours is still a lot, but it’s a lot easier to digest these days. The show flows so well. There’s so many popular characters. It’s amazing just to see wrestling so healthy and everybody thriving.”

On getting a role in The Killer’s Game:

“He [Batista] called me and had a pitch. I thought it was just the catch-up, and he mentioned that he’s working on his new movie, The Killer’s Game. Told me a bit of the premise, which I loved. The Hitman that takes out the bad guys and is never going to have that happy part of his life. He does what he does, and he finds the right girl and everything’s perfect until it’s not perfect, and he decides to take a hit on himself. We’re not going to ruin it any more than that. But it gets pretty exciting. A lot of people come to kill him, including this guy. And then you need some extra characters. The director, J.J. Perry had said, I’ve got this idea for this Scottish brothers, the Mackenzie brothers. I have one of them. The other one, I just want to be, you know, the big, imposing guy that can feasibly and realistically beat you up. I just want them to have these thick Scottish accents and be just wild, kind of drinking party badasses that are somewhat unintelligible because of their thick accents. And Dave basically said, I actually know that guy, he exists. He called me.”

There were subtitles in this movie for your character:

“I’m trying not to spoil anything, but it was fun, like just having J.J say Just go ridiculous, use whatever Scottish slang you want, because I don’t know it. So just thinking back to all the crazy words I used to say back in Scotland and the current slang, asking my friends, you know, what’s some of the current slang that we find? Using this, and there’s no swearing restrictions that we might have in WWE sometimes. Come on Netflix! So yeah, I got to freely use a lot of words, including my favourite word in the world, the C word. People are so offended by that word in America, and I’ve never understood why. The Butcher [from The Boys] is doing a heck of a job right now helping acclimate Americans to it, but Australians and Scottish people use it as a term of endearment, and I was horrified to see this reaction the first time I used it. In 2007, somebody sat down and almost cried because I mentioned in their presence. So, yeah, if I do anything from this movie, I just want to get people more comfortable with words. I don’t think this will hurt them, they’re just words.”

Is this the first of many movies?

“We’ll see. It’s just a fun journey as far as I’m concerned. All I ever wanted to be was a wrestler since I was five years old. Very lucky to get signed straight from university. Have the journey I’ve had, and if the right opportunity comes up, like the character, you saw it yourself, it wasn’t big bruiser number three, just standing being big and angry. I was like, I’m not gonna do that. Like, thankfully, wrestling provided a living where I can pick and choose what I want to do and I want to wrestle. But I was like, this looks fun, and it was fun. So something comes up like that, I’m gonna do it.”

On Joe Hendry:

“He’s killing it. It’s awesome. I mean, to a lot of people, it’s oh my goodness, this overnight sensation. Joe Hendry is not an overnight sensation. He’s been working hard. He’s been paying his dues. He’s been perfecting his shtick that we’re all seeing right now, and I always put over his video. He’s got one on me, I’m Drew, so make sure you look it up. I always tell the story just if you’ve not heard me say it. I didn’t know what the video was. I told them, Don’t show me. I want to have a legitimate reaction in the ring to his video. So I’m Drew came up to the tune of I’m blue, and I was supposed to be angry, and I was laughing so much. Had my hair in my face trying to cover my laughter. It’s just so entertaining. There’s always that entertainment aspect. But he’s come so far in the ring as well. He’s put it all together, and, yeah, he’s about a 10-year overnight sensation.”

When they called you The Chosen One, did you feel like it?

“I guess in certain ways. But a lot of people did not like it backstage, so I didn’t feel as much backstage with the professional jealousy that I didn’t realize how significant it was and the things that were being said then it was all out of jealousy. Why is this kid getting this huge opportunity when I’ve been here for all these years? But for the opportunities on TV, I certainly did for a period. And looking back, I know obviously I could have done things a little bit differently, but at the same time, I just didn’t have those tools in my wheelhouse to do things differently. And we all go through our journeys for a reason to end up at the final destination.”

Did WrestleMania 40 feel like your moment?

“Yeah, it did. I mean, the match itself, opening Wrestlemania, myself and Seth, one of my greatest rivals. We have a big professional rivalry, and the match itself is perfect, just with a story going into it. We’ve had so many matches like technical, high fly, near falls left and right. This was okay, just starting off, Claymore, just unload, unload, unload, unload, till somebody doesn’t get back up. And finally, I put the last round in Seth, and had that moment where the crowd were chanting, you deserve it. Wrestlemania. Seth had that moment telling me the same thing, which meant a lot, and then being able to present the title to my wife, who has been such a big part of the journey. But no, I’m not going to talk about what happened after that. But just that five minutes or whatever I dragged it out to because I made sure I milked every second of it, because that was very real. It was very emotional. To be able to give her the title and say, this is yours too. And hugging my brother, who’s my original tag partner, was very, very cool. And then Punk f*cked it up.”

Did WrestleMania mean more than if you had won at Clash at the Castle:

“I think so. It’s weird, because you look at certain moments and in the moment when you’re living them you’re like this is ridiculous. We should have found a way out of this. Theory could have cashed in, and I could have pinned him because we had to protect The Bloodline and Roman at that time, that’s the top story in the company, the top character. And perhaps at that time, I was like, I just feel this is a bad move. That thing with Tyson Fury. That was stupid. There’s no excuse for that. That’s the worst moment in my entire career. We did the bit, the song, and then I told him, Hey, you want to sing Sweet Caroline, because British fans [love it]. They’re upset that I lost. They don’t know American Pie. He was like, Nah, I’m good. I’m not gonna fight you, you’re Tyson Fury. I figured we’re off the air that’s why I started doing the Oasis bit and singing Don’t Look Back in Anger. Just got the crowd going. And I was like, Oh, this sucks, but we’re off the air. Then I found out we’re still on the air. It was a whole thing. But anyway, I digress, Oasis are back together. Gotta get some tickets for that. Yeah, that night, I was very upset. How does McIntyre rebound from this, which took a minute to do, but because I didn’t win that night, the way things worked out, the story we’ve been telling that was such an integral part of the story, especially initially with the character shift with Jey Uso moving from SmackDown to Raw and bringing up the trauma and PTSD McIntyre had from The Bloodline of what they had done to cost not just me, but my family that moment, who were all in the front row. My dad, my wife, my brother, my sister-in-law, my cousin, like everybody is there who’s been missing me for all these years and I’ve not seen my nephews grow up. That was going to be our moment. This trauma is brought up by this Bloodline member just showing up and everybody cheering him and saying a silly little word Yeet and doing his little silly dance. And now, wait a minute, this guy’s a bad guy, and then suddenly people start turning on me. So if it wasn’t for what happened at Clash, if it wasn’t for the journey and the way we tell stories now, we can tell stories now, we wouldn’t be where we are right now.”

What about in Scotland?

“That was a tough one. Really, really tough one. The same time, if I win, then I’m right. Sometimes it’s okay to be right. Yeah, that one really stung.”

Was there a moment where you thought are you sure this is the right way to go?

“Yeah, there’s always that moment and I like in the environment we’re in now, it’s story above all else. I didn’t feel that way in the past. I was like, if we don’t do this now, things could change in a couple of weeks. It’s a lot of pivoting left and right, and characters and stories changing consistently. Now I know we will stick to the story. It hurt, but I see what we are now, and I’m like, Okay, if I won that night, then I’m just, yeah, I did it. I’m right, go screw yourselves. Because of what happened and much as I can’t stand him, that moment was something that would be replayed forever, just the big near fall at the end, everybody in my freaking home country going insane. One two, and it’s that piece of sh*t counting the fall and cost me the match with the low blow. And at the same time, it’s SummerSlam. If you noticed, the way I gave him the low blow was exact same corner, exact same way he did it to me. So he can’t say one word about how things happened at SummerSlam.”

On the Jack Perry photo:

“I was flying to LA and they just did a show the night before. I’d seen Roderick Strong at the airport, a buddy of mine, and we got to catch up, which was awesome. He was heading to an ROH show I believe. And then on the flight, just saw Jack, had a little chat with him and his missus, and then we snapped a picture, and the internet had a freaking meltdown. It was hilarious.”

How long did it get to stay up for?

“I think it lasted 45 minutes. The numbers I heard were 2 million impressions or something insane for 45 minutes. It was pretty wild. People enjoyed that immensely. So, yeah, I’m always dancing on that line of what’s acceptable, not acceptable. Make people question things.”

Do you know where that line is?

“That’s probably back of 100 yards that way. That’s where I live. And yeah, I just do what was fun. And then Did someone tell me? Didn’t someone tell me? Was it by design? Did I choose to remove it? I’ll never answer that question, because I love people asking questions.”

Is there a particular line you’re proud of when it comes to insulting CM Punk?

“I could write a book the size of War and Peace about the amount of lines I’ve used, because I’ve been holding it all together since January, did 99.9% of the heavy lifting. So, yeah, I’ve got so many. One I like in particular. My wife doesn’t think I’m funny at all. Thankfully, the boys, and a lot of the fans do. But I was in the shower, I remember, I shouted her. I was like, Caitlin, come here. She runs through thinking something’s wrong. I said I need you here for a line, she goes oh God what? I was like Punk is Straight Edge. He doesn’t do drugs, he doesn’t drink, doesn’t smoke, doesn’t do anything. So what’s the line? I was okay. Here’s what’s ironic about CM Punk. He’s straight edge, doesn’t drink, doesn’t do drugs, yet he spends all this time in rehab. She just rolled her eyes. He’s on TV not long after and it was during the Chicago everyone talks about. And again, that was one of my favorite moments. Whatever I feel about him personally, when he’s on, he’s not always on and I crush him on the mic, he was on in Chicago, and we went back and forth, like I mentioned, Seth, and I like, OK, corral, like, verbal bombs on each other. And he got the one at the end where I was like, All right, he wins this one in Chicago because I’m not gonna go down there, because I’m not willing to hurt the company or whatever. That’s kind of person I am, a company guy. He plays the company guy, wears the suit, kisses all the corporate ass. I don’t do any of that stuff, but I do the stuff that actually matters, like not hurting the company’s image.”

On the WrestleMania 39 match with Gunther and Sheamus:

“I’d say bell to bell, the fact that it was at WrestleMania that could be the best match, probably is the best match of my career. I mean, how can you top being at WrestleMania, having a match that people say is one of the greatest Mania matches of all time, but perhaps the greatest Triple Threat of all time, and also the history I have with Sheamus? For the past 20 years, in the ring and out the ring, everything we’ve gone through together, and then adding Gunther, was somebody who’s just very similar to us, such an incredible physical in-ring talent. Put us all together and it was amazing. I remember not even 10 minutes into the match. Think it was after Sheamus gave me about 40 beats to the chest and the face. Nice. And then the crowd went crazy, and they’re chanting I believe this is awesome. And I was like, wow, we’re not even getting started. Wait till you see and also, why am I seeing double at this point? That was cool. And the story for the match was cool as well, because eventually Gunther disappeared for a while, and Seamus and I have always dreamed about our one-on-one match at WrestleMania. And we went back and forth for 10 straight minutes, claymores and brogues and hitting our bombs. It was like we’re having that singles match. We forgot about Gunther, and at the right moment, he just reappears. Boom, steals it, heads out. So that was cool as well that Sheamus and I kind of got a one-on-one match at Mania we should have had the year prior.”

On if CM Punk’s return and his reaction planted a seed:

“There was no seed being planted. I was just angry. I left the ring and I stormed out. I mean, try to talk about it. I was pissed off. [That he was there? That you didn’t know about it?] I guess a number of things I can understand, business reasons that’s not for me to make those decisions personally. Yeah, I was pissed off, and I chose to leave the arena because I’m not going to cause an incident that’s going to affect everybody’s mood afterwards and the guys in the match that worked so hard. People asked me about Seth’s and my reaction, maybe that was Seth’s legit reaction, but to me, I couldn’t have stood out there if somebody’s that close to me that I don’t like that much. I wouldn’t stand and swear and have people hold me back. I would have walked right up to him and punched him in the face, so I chose to leave the building. I mean I get to do that now, and it’s amazing. I guess we’re good to make money for a hatred for each other.”

What is Drew McIntyre grateful for?

“Family, health and the wife.”

Damian Priest On Rhea Ripley, Wrestling Bad Bunny, Winning The World Heavyweight Championship At WM40

in LATEST EPISODES on September 3, 2024 September 3, 2024

Damian Priest (@ArcherOfInfamy) is a professional wrestler currently signed with WWE. He sits down with Chris Van Vliet in Cleveland, OH to discuss his Money in the Bank victory in 2023 that led to his World Heavyweight Championship reign that began at WrestleMania 40, wrestling Bad Bunny at Backlash in Puerto Rico and what that match meant to him, his time in The Judgment Day, his friendship with Rhea Ripley, R-Truth getting him to break character live TV, nearly giving up on his dreams of becoming a professional wrestler, what a Gunther chop feels like and more.

Quote I’m thinking about: “The magic you are looking for is in the work you are avoiding.”

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On everything taking place so quickly:

“I mean, it has. Somebody put it in perspective the other day, I’ve been on the main roster for three years. When you really think about all the stuff that’s happened in the last three years, this is wild. So it’s a lot being thrown at me, and then it’s one of those things that is, they say, enjoy the moment. It’s kind of hard to when you got to look forward at what’s next and what’s next and what’s next. Every once in a while I’ll take a breath and look around and like, wow. But it’s one of those things that, yeah, it’s a lot, but this is what I wanted.”

On appreciating the moments:

“Like I said, you gotta take a breath and really think about it, even if it’s while you’re laying in bed or just on a car ride to the building, on a bus to the next town, or whatever it is, look around and really appreciate this is a different life, something that you couldn’t have even envisioned but you wanted. Those are the moments that I take to really appreciate it. Every now and then it hits me hard, especially, like I said, when I’m alone and I have a day home off, I just really think about everything and I’m in awe of everything that’s happening around me. Like, I don’t know how this happened, but I’m happy it did.”

On the night after he won the World Championship:

“If I’m being honest, it was emotional. I partied with my friends and family afterwards. We had a celebration, it was a great time. But then when I got back to my room, it was kind of one of those things where I was like, What is this? How is this happening? And yet, just holding the title in my hand, looking at it, and just it was like one of those things, like, my entire life flashed, everything I had to go through to get to that point. It was one of those realizations of I thought I had regrets. I thought I wished I could do things differently, and then it was one of those things where it was like no, this is exactly where I’m supposed to be, and this is the only way it would have happened.”

On nearly giving up on WWE:

“I gave up on the idea of working for WWE. You know, I tried multiple times to get in and in 2017 when I got an email saying nothing for you here. I gave up and I was just focused on you know what? Let me just live a happy life and figure it out. Then they called me, which is crazy how that worked. When I gave up, that’s when they wanted me. It wasn’t like I gave up the dream of wrestling. I was still wrestling. So I was like, I guess I’ll just stay in Ring of Honor. I get to wrestle, and that’s what I wanted to do anyway and it’s cool. It was small at the time, but it was still a television program. So I was like, Hey, I’m on TV. I’m doing what I wanted to do when I was a kid. It’s okay. Then here we are in the WWE. So yeah, even in WWE, there were many times I looked around and seeing everybody and how people, some of them are progressing faster than others. Although it happened fast for me, there were still times that I wasn’t sure if it was going to be like that. Maybe it’s cool that I made it, but this is it. It was one of those things like I don’t know if I belong, I don’t know what the future is going to be, and not that I gave up, but that I did doubt. And I was like, I don’t think this is going to happen. I never thought I was gonna be world champ.”

On pushing past the doubt:

“So I was never a believer in the power of positivity till I decided to change my life around. When I have those moments of doubt, it’s like all right, well, even though you doubt, still strive for that. Because even if you don’t make it, you’re gonna encounter a lot of cool stuff on the way, on the journey. If you put your best foot forward, you give it everything you got, and you work your ass off for your own dream and your own goals. Even if you don’t make it to the finish line, the stuff you’re gonna experience and accomplish on that route, you’re gonna be proud. I mean, there’s no way you’re not. So that’s what kept me pushing.”

On who inspired him to wrestle:

“There’s a lot, but the main one was The Undertaker. I’ve never been shy about that one. That was my idol, watching him. It wasn’t even so much the wrestling, it was just the aura, the presentation, everything. I remember how I felt, and then that’s when I knew I needed to make people feel this way. Because I was big into comics, I wanted to be a comic book superhero or supervillain, where people are that emotionally invested in me, like even as a little kid I knew that. Maybe I couldn’t articulate it that way, but I knew that. Then obviously, I saw Razor Ramon, who I legit thought was a Latino, as a little kid you don’t know the difference. I’m sure my dad knew, this guy had a fake accent, but I didn’t know. I sort of was like, Yo, he’s one of us. Then as you get older, you learn of other wrestlers. Sting was another one, I loved Sting. Still do. Just the character, especially when it became The Crow, and I thought it was the coolest thing. And then Attitude Era obviously happened and I was in high school, so Austin and Rock were my favorites. Obviously, Taker was always there, then DX. I was a Bret fan but then nWo took over, and then that was it for me, you know, nWo all the way. But I would watch WCW just for the nWo, and then that’s it. nWo and some of the cruiserweights, then I would switch back.”

On when things started to shift:

“I think the first, because I’ve morphed a few times, but I think the first big jump was after my match with Finn Balor at In Your House at the Performance Center, just during the COVID era. I don’t know, I can’t even explain what happened that day. It was just something clicked, and I just let loose. I remember getting to the back and Shawn and Hunter were waiting for me, and he was like, that’s the guy I need to see from now on, there’s no going back that guy that guy that was out there, that guy’s money, you have to be that guy always, stop pretending. Hunter told me and it’s cool because he gave me advice that I guess Taker had given him. And he goes, Taker told me this once, when you learn how to just be yourself, you’re gonna make a lot of money in this business. Then he was like, I know that’s weird, because how the hell do you not know yourself? It’s you. And sure enough, I was like, yeah, what the hell does that mean? And then I figured it out. It’s just we try to be a version of ourselves that we think everybody else expects, which is not you, you’re still pretending. I think now is the closest to really me that you see, especially with The Judgment Day and Rhea, you saw a different version of me. I like that I could show off different layers, like, when I did work with Truth, that just showed a different layer to me like, Oh, I’m a normal person, but still, I’ll kill you. But, yeah, going back, it was that moment with the match with Finn Balor. He just brought something else out of me. And then Finn and I became boys after that match, because I was like, I’d love to do that again. And he was ecstatic about it, and he chose me. At the time, I think he was supposed to go into a program with Gunther, the pandemic happened, they just couldn’t work. And I think they asked him, like, Well, who would you like to work with? And he picked me, and I’m grateful for it.”

On R-Truth:

“Ah Ronnie, that guy. I mean, look, it goes without saying at some point we’re gonna have to team, we’re gonna have to properly. The guy is unbelievable how talented of a performer, actually, I can’t even say he’s a performer that’s him. Because we’re in the locker room or backstage, just walking by off camera and the guy has me in tears sometimes laughing. It’s unbelievable how funny he is, and it’s just his natural way of being. He’s just a funny guy and really lovable person. So everything you see on TV that’s real, that’s why. And it’s clear as day that he broke me a few times.”

On when R-Truth cracked him the worst:

“Oh, man, there’s a few. The one that always comes to mind is we were in the ring and he said something about I could see it in your eyes or something. I turned around because I was supposed to be serious, I wanted to be serious in that moment for me. I wasn’t told to, but I wanted to be serious. So I turned around to laugh, and the cameraman is right there on me, and that’s what showed on TV was me laughing and then turning back around serious. That one always stands out to me because it was in the ring, but there’s a bunch of backstages that I just couldn’t help it. It is what it is.”

When Backlash in Puerto Rico was announced:

“When it became official, because what a lot of people don’t know is that there was back and forth that it almost didn’t happen in Puerto Rico. Plain and simple, I don’t think we would have done the match if it wasn’t in Puerto Rico, we were only going to do the match if it was in Puerto Rico. So when they announced Backlash in Puerto Rico, I was like, Okay, this is real. This is happening. The island is getting a little shout-out, we get to represent. And for me it was always, of course, I’m a very proud Puerto Rican, but it was just representing the Latin community, all Hispanics. That, to me was opening the doors for a lot of stuff. And I’m not saying that Puerto Rico did, but look at how many PLEs we’re doing outside the immediate. I feel like the crowd reaction there got the company excited for man, let’s see what else they can do. So we were excited and thrilled for that representation. Obviously, I was nervous that the idea of this has got to be really good. It’s me versus Bad Bunny one on one in a high-profile match, this isn’t just a typical celebrity match, they do two or three moves, and it’s hi and bye. We’re gonna go 20-plus minutes, have to get everybody emotionally invested into this. And it’s more than just again, just people clapping hands for a celebrity. People needed to feel sympathy, excitement, fear, you know, all of it, that’s what you want. So that there was nerves. In that sense, I knew that the work was going to be put in on Bunny’s side, like I did not worry about him not being ready. But you never know of how things are going to play out.”

On being the leader of the match:

“I would think there had to have been a concern in the office too. Like, yes, there’s confidence in me, but at the same time, they had to have been like did we make the right decision here?”

Clearly, they did not make the wrong decision.

“Thank you. I don’t think so either, and I don’t think they do either. But I’m sure beforehand, because there was talk of changing it to a tag match. But at the same time, Bad Bunny and I were very adamant. We were like we don’t want to do a tag match, and I was proud of that one. Because, obviously I helped train Bad Bunny. I pieced this match together the way I envisioned it, and he did as well. He had input, and he had great ideas, and then I was very adamant about all the representation. I wanted to use the LWO, I requested Carlito and Savio maybe requested it under the guise of, you know, Bad Bunny thought it was a good idea [laugh]. But they added so much, especially for the crowd. It was a cool moment, it wasn’t a typical match. So it’s like, Well then let’s go all out. If we’re going to do it, let’s go all out. And it was great that everybody was receptive and they thought it was the right move and clearly it was. I mean, every moment of that match, I thought was great. Hands down my favorite match, just because of what it represented. It was bigger than any win or loss.”

On what hurt Bad Bunny the most in the match:

“When we were training, and it was one of those things, I was like, we got to train a little harder than we did the last time. I explained to him, I was like, I’m gonna hit you really hard, I have to. This is one on one, it’s a street fight. I was like, I need you to not hold back like you’re in a street fight for real, give me all you got. I was like, I’m not gonna give you all I got because you’ll die, but I’ll give you a lot. And I did, and I gave it to him. That was the one thing like you got to respect the guy that’s not from this business. His body is not used to taking that much physical impact and he kept on getting up. Granted he told me that it took him a few weeks to recover, and he messaged me like three days after, and he was like, I finally feel good enough to walk around like he was, he was like, I barely come out of my bedroom, I’ve been so much pain, I feel like I’ve been in a train wreck. And I think the worst thing for him was one of the Kendo stick shots, and I only got one. He gave me like 20 of them. I gave him one shot, but I did tell him. I was like, I’m only gonna hit you once. Don’t worry. And he goes, Oh, okay. He goes, You sure? I was like, Yeah, I’m sure. And it was one I swung like a baseball bat.”

On being unsure that he would cash in his Money in the Bank contract at WrestleMania:

“No, no, that’s one of those things like we’ll see what happens. When I won the briefcase, I wasn’t sure if I was going to cash in that night. They don’t tell you everything, just putting that out there. And other people think that we know. They might have a long-term plan, which I know they did, yeah, but they don’t really articulate it fully to you, probably for the main reason. Also the reason of, they don’t want you to get amped up and hyped, and then, sorry, things change, then you’re heartbroken, because that’s not cool, either. So I’m pretty sure they like to keep it [secret], but when they do tell you, they tell you things can change. So take it with a grain of salt type of thing.”

On winning his first World Championship at 41 years of age:

“The world has changed. When they say my age out loud, like you just did, it reminds me of like, oh, wow, I actually am that age. But I don’t think that way. I don’t feel that way. Maybe because I am immature, I don’t know [laughs].”

On changing his finisher as Cody Rhodes was coming back to WWE:

“That was pretty much the conversation. Actually, they didn’t say you can’t do it anymore. It was like a conversation of look, obviously, it’s a similar move, it’s different, but it’s still similar. I do it differently, but it’s one of those things. They’re like, you might want to [change it], but they never said change it. And even Cody was like, You don’t have to change it. I was like, Yeah, but if you come back and I’m doing this move every time I hit it, people are gonna think of you. But at the end of the day, it is a rolling cutter, right? So I was okay with it. So basically, anytime I face Cody, I’m gonna hit him with it [laughs]. But look, it’s a move. It’s not that serious. I think everybody else thinks it’s more serious than we do. I really didn’t care. I was like, Okay, I’ll just go back to using the South of Heaven or Razor’s Edge or the flat liner that I do. I wasn’t sure which one I wanted to use. I haven’t even started using submissions yet, and I’ve got a few! That’s what I mean, there’s a lot of stuff that we can do. I wasn’t mad, I wasn’t upset, I just didn’t want everyone to think of him every time that I did a move. It’s one thing paying homage to somebody, it’s one thing to do a move similar to someone who works somewhere else, but when they work in the same company, on the same show, it’s like alright, there’s got to be a difference.”

On what a Gunther chop feels like:

“I can’t even, there’s no explanation, there’s nothing you can compare it to. I don’t know, grab a frying pan and have somebody swinging as hard as they can against your chest. But him and Drew, these guys just with these heavy hands, just ginormous people, and they’ve perfected the art of slapping, which is crazy. It’s ridiculous. It’s brutal. I mean, you’ve seen it. It sucks. Like, there’s no other word for it. It sucks. I hate being marked up like that, and it doesn’t go away right away. You’re just marked up and you take a shower, it hurts. Take a deep breath, it hurts. You put on a t-shirt. It hurts, like it all hurts. So, yeah, not fun.”

What is Damian Priest grateful for?

“To help my family, that I have changed my life around and that my story can inspire others.”

Kayla Braxton On Leaving WWE, Horror Movie Role, Paul Heyman, Cody Rhodes

in LATEST EPISODES on August 29, 2024 August 29, 2024

Kayla Braxton (@TheKaylaBecker) is a former WWE host and backstage interviewer. She sits down with Chris Van Vliet at West Coast Creative Studio in Hollywood to talk about her decision to leave WWE on her own terms and why it was time to explore other opportunities, her Madison Square Garden send-off from Cody Rhodes, interactions with Paul Heyman, choosing to bet on herself, being done with professional wrestling, her upcoming role in the movie “Stranglehold” from Director/Writer Clark Duke, advice for anyone looking to get into the broadcasting world and more!

Quote I’m thinking about: “Well done is better than well said.” – Benjamin Franklin
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On post-WWE life:

“I feel really good. I think anytime you’re somewhere for so long and it becomes such a big part of your life, I think it was difficult for me to know how I was going to feel when I stepped away. I’ve had a little bit of FOMO when I see the show is on, or see my friends posting about their matches and stuff backstage, but I feel really good. I think I made the right decision. It was definitely time for me to go. There was nothing negative about my reason for leaving. It was just done everything I can do there, I’ve hit the ceiling at this time. At that point, I was just kind of wasting my time, and I think everybody else’s time. Someone else could be moving into my spot, and then I could be moving on to the next part of my life. So I’m really at peace with it.”

On expectations when she signed 8 years ago:

“I definitely didn’t think I was going to be there for eight years. I think I came in thinking, all right, this is a new thing, wrestling. I’m going to learn it. I’m going to get some new skills, and then move on. That was kind of the idea that I had in my head, but it locked me in way longer than I thought. But no, not at all. Never thought I would end up hosting a morning show for the better part of four years that’s grown into what it was, and hosting shows with Paul Heyman and becoming part of a storyline with Paul Heyman. No, but I think every single step that I had in WWE, I wouldn’t have changed anything.”

On handing in her notice:

“I think it’s something I’ve been kind of contemplating for a while. I think once I stepped down from The Bump, I moved to Los Angeles, it was very clear I was kind of trying to find what my next phase of life was going to be, career-wise. And I think the company kind of acknowledged that as well, and they were very supportive. When I moved out to LA they put a studio in my apartment. They wanted me to continue doing The Bump until I was like, Okay, I think it’s time that Megan Morant takes over this role full-time, and you have your studio crew in Stamford. Then I feel like on SmackDown, it’s hard, it’s a two-hour show, so there’s not a lot of room for backstage interviews on SmackDown. You gotta, gotta get the stories in there. So I wasn’t doing much backstage at SmackDown, and then I wasn’t really doing the kickoff show panels anymore. So I was just kind of seeing the writing on the wall a little bit and just thought, you know, I feel good at where my life is outside of WWE. So I just thought it was, and while everybody was getting long, everything was amicable. The company was very supportive of me stepping down too, the door is always open. It was very nice to hear. But yeah, it was just everything was just the perfect timing to do that.”

On the send-off at Madison Square Garden:

“So Madison Square Garden. I was gonna have this send-off party after the show. So I’m all ready, it’s 30 minutes left of the show, It’s my last day, I’ve done my interview, I’m in party mode. Okay, this is where I send off. And one of the writers came up to me, Oh yeah, and said, Don’t leave. No, it was Kusama. We love Kusama. She said, Kayla, don’t leave. I say, why? She goes Triple H said don’t leave. I was like, Are they, like, probably gonna have me for the plan B, if the show runs short, gotta run out there. I’m ready for my tequila. So then I start thinking, Oh, they’re about to do something. And then I get brought to Gorilla, Stephanie McMahon is there, Triple H is there. I just talked to Nick Khan and then I knew they were about to do something for me. I didn’t know it was gonna be Cody. And so, yeah when I talk about it still kind of surreal that as an announcer for WWE, I got a send-off like that with the biggest star in the company at the world’s most famous arena.”

On betting on herself:

“I just think having more control over [things]. I’ve always been so career-oriented since I was a little girl. I’ve always known I wanted to be in a TV space, and I think I’ve always worked for other people before this. Before WWE, I was working for a local TV station in Orlando, which was amazing and a great experience. But I’m like, You know what? I know what I want to do at television. I’m not a spring chicken anymore. I have a decade of experience under my belt. I want to start doing things that bring me personal joy, and I feel like the experience I have and the things I want to do, I think will be able to make an impact in the industry. So just want to take more control over it.”

On needing skills to be a backstage interviewer:

“I mean, yeah, it is true. Everyone knows it got kind of blown up online about me and LA Knight. We had an interview towards the end of my days there, and I don’t know what was going on, I think I was just really tired. He and I were going back and forth backstage, and he’s trying to get me to say Yeah! But he also just insulted me on TV, so I felt like my character wouldn’t have said Yeah! But whatever my facial expression was, the Internet was still talking about saying that I just looked like I ruined the entire promo by my reaction. But that is like, the fact that an announcer/interviewer can ruin a promo just shows how important the interviewer actually is.”

On Paul Heyman:

“He made it really easy for me. A lot of that stuff we were kind of given the direction of how it needed to go. But everyone’s like, we’ll just do whatever Paul says. And so a lot of times it was just riffing. I just go off Paul. He’d go off me. I didn’t know what he was going to do. And we’re live, and that is a terrifying place to be! But it always did well. I feel like it always got a lot of positive reactions. I never got into any trouble. Paul’s like, you won’t get in trouble. I’m like, ok.”

On her role in the upcoming film Stranglehold:

“So my name is Crystal, it’s a film directed by Clark Duke. So the movie, I don’t know how much [I can say] I think they put out a little bit about it, but basically it’s based in a strip club. No, I do not strip in it, don’t be weird! Basically it’s about, like, what, like this main dancer is Ashley Benson was here. She and her husband, Jake Lacy, one night decide to rob the strip club. And so, like, the manager is played by Justin Long, who I’m a huge fan of. Ron Perlman is there as one of the guys working with one of the main characters. It’s mind-boggling to even think I was in that. But yeah, I’m just, I’m one of, one of the girls. There were three other strippers castsin the show, so I was one of them. And I, again, I won’t go into much detail about my character, but yeah, it was fun.”

On the name Kayla Braxton:

“When I was getting hired, they were like, Okay, we need a new last name for you. Can you help us choose one? [At Least they let you keep Kayla]. I know, that would have been a harder thing to transition out of, but I was okay, I just want to keep my initials. I want to keep KB. So I gave them, a list of 10 B names, and they didn’t choose any of them. They said, All right, you’re Kayla Braxton. I’m like, what? Why did you even ask my opinion? But no, it’s a good name. It’s a strong name. I know I definitely don’t hate it. But it’s hard, even now I catch myself saying I’m Kayla Braxton. No, I’m Kayla Becker. It’s so hard to get back into it.”

On being done with wrestling:

“Yeah, I think so. That’s one thing about our fans too. They think, oh, you leave WWE, you must be going to AEW or Only Fans, it’s like the only two options that they think that you have. I’m like, actually, I’m doing neither. I think wrestling will always be like a love of mine and always be a family of mine. But I think I just really didn’t want to pigeonhole myself as a host and a broadcaster and just see what else I can do out there. I mean, there’s always the possibility that maybe I pop back in for a fun cameo or something down the road. But yeah, I think my time is done.”

On advice for aspiring broadcasters:

“I think learn the business as much as you can outside of the business. Definitely be very respectful, because it’s a culture, WWE is such a culture. Don’t overstep, that’s something I’ll definitely say, don’t overstep. Don’t keep harassing people in the office about wanting a job. But come to shows, shake some hands and yeah, I think if you’re the right fit, it’ll be seen. There are very few spots and definitely spend time deciding who’s going to fill those spots. So if you’re meant to be in that spot, you will be but otherwise just keep at it. Do interviews on your own. You do something that Chris is doing, really hone in those skills, because we’ve seen many times we hire someone get in that spot and they don’t last a month or two because they don’t have the interview chops. So I’d say yeah just work on it.”

What is Kayla Braxton grateful for?

“To have this time, friends and family and that Halloween Horror Nights starts next month.”

Jesse Ventura Is Back With WWE, Karrion Kross & Will Sasso’s Impressions, Hulk Hogan, Vince McMahon

in LATEST EPISODES on August 27, 2024 August 27, 2024

Jesse Ventura (@GovJVentua) is a retired professional wrestler, announcer, WWE Hall of Famer and former Governor of Minnesota. He sits down with Chris Van Vliet in Minneapolis, MN to talk about his career in politics and how he became the Governor of Minnesota, his professional wrestling career both in the ring and as a commentator, his renewed relationship with WWE, how he got his role in “Predator” with Arnold Schwarzenegger, his career bodyguarding The Grateful Dead and The Rolling Stones, his issues with Hulk Hogan and Vince McMahon, why he owes everything to Cyndi Lauper and more! Plus, Karrion Kross and Will Sasso each do their Jesse Ventura impressions for the man himself!

Quote I’m thinking about: “Be curious, not judgmental.” — Walt Whitman

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On how crazy the wrestling scene was when he was breaking in:

“I don’t know if it was truly that crazy. I know I had initially contacted Verne Gagne and I received a letter back from him. I listed my whole resume, what I had done, and he told me that at the time, he wasn’t running a camp. But if he did run another one, he would invite me. Well, I was at college with my college buddies and we were going to the matches then, it was when I got influenced by Superstar Billy Graham, and without Billy Graham, there would be no Jesse Ventura. I say that unequivocally. Without Superstar there would not be me. So we were just looking and I saw a little ad in the newspaper, pro wrestling school, Seventh Street gym, which was down on Seventh and Hennepin right in the heart of downtown Minneapolis down in the basement. If that’s what you’re referring to, which I assume you are, it was kind of the Mecca for do I say a few unsavory characters. In fact, my wife at the time, who was my girlfriend, she didn’t even like going down there. She might have not walked into that gym because she said she’d look around at these guys there and go Who are these people? And then of course I met Eddie Sharkey, and Eddie’s a bit of, you know, Eddie earned a living, God he’s still alive, so I don’t dare defame him. But let’s just say you could buy things from Eddie on discount. I guess that’s the best way that I could word it is that Eddie had a way that he could sell to you like vitamins and protein and all of that stuff. And he could beat the prices in the stores by about 50%.”

On where people know Jesse Ventura from the most:

“Wrestling. I think that because that’s where I got my initial stardom. And then everything else fell into place after I had my falling out with the WWE, or WWF at the time, and I had a short stint with WCW till Hogan arrived. And then I got the axe, I got backstabbed good by Eric Bischoff.”

On his relationship with WWE in the present day:

“My relationship with them now has much improved. We are on the verge right now. I can say this, contracts have been written, contracts have been agreed upon. And all it requires is two signatures, one from them, and one from me. And I will be back with the legends [deal].”

Do you have a timeframe on this?

“Fairly quickly, because time is money.”

On Vince McMahon not being there anymore being the main factor for his return:

“Yeah, very much so. I think that they’re very much more since they merged with the ultimate fighting [UFC] and they’re under that one roof now, they’re very much more mainstream corporate that you can deal with better because they’re more open. It isn’t having to tie into the old days of wrestling, for lack of better term, slavery. Because, you know, in the old days of wrestling, you truly were slaves. I don’t know, I got a great compliment I heard the other day. Barry Bloom, my former agent, the one I introduced to Vince, I was the first wrestler that made Vince deal with an agent. And I heard Barry was on a podcast and said that all these contracts these guys are getting today, they owe Jesse Ventura a thank you. Because if it weren’t for him, they wouldn’t be getting them.”

On his relationship with Vince before Vince left:

“I’ve always admired Vince, I was at the point in wrestling I was going to quit. We’re talking about 1983. I had saved up enough money. I had opened up a weightlifting gym here, Ventura’s gym. It was supporting me and it gave me what you need in wrestling at that time. And I’ll be very blunt, this is a podcast, it’s ‘F You’ money. To where you can say F you and walk away. Well, the gym did that for me. It gave me a leverage. At the time, if they were mistreating me, fine, I’ll go run my gym. And we were getting by, my wife and children, the gym was supporting us. So I was at the end of my straw. So when I made the final jump from the AWA to the WWF at the time, I did it fully knowledgeable, this would be it. I simply said, Vince, I want you to guarantee me six years, and he did because I ended up 84 to 90 right on the button almost. Six years before he fired me.”

On why he didn’t come back more:

“Vince and I were not totally adversarial. It’s just that he couldn’t have me around. Because I’m the proverbial stallion that’s outside of the corral. You know, he has to have everyone in the corral. That’s why I was fired. I owned the rights to Jesse “The Body” Ventura. I have them registered with the United States government and Vince wanted them. I said, No, Jesse Ventura belongs to me. You want them you deal with me. And he couldn’t do that because he owned everybody. That’s why I called it slavery. Felt like Prince a little bit.”

On thanks to Cyndi Lauper:

“I will always have a place in my heart for Cyndi Lauper. Because when I was struck down the night before I was supposed to wrestle Hogan for the world title in LA. I was going on a three-match program with him. I would have made untold amount of money, more than I’d ever seen. The night before I get pulmonary emblem, blood clots in my lungs. I’m seven days in intensive care in a San Diego hospital. It was so bad my wife had to fly out. The doctor told her you better fly out here, he may not make it. Well, guess what I faced then? What do you do now? You can come back to Minnesota and you can go up to General Mills and say what? Hire me, I’m an old pro wrestler. What do you do? So I was faced with what will confront every athlete at some point in their time. What do you do when it’s over? Now subsequently, I did get back in the ring. I wrestled a little bit more. But it was during that time that Cyndi Lauper was doing the rock and wrestling stuff and was red hot with it. She was doing a concert here in Minneapolis. I called Dave Wolf, I think that was his name, Cyndi’s manager. I called up Cindy and Dave and asked, because what I had done in facing down that my career could be over. I had two little children. The gym was still viable, but what was I going to do? And somebody said to me, you’re a great talker why don’t you become a sports broadcaster? So I had a friend at Channel 11. Here. In fact, I just ran into him at the hospital. He’s 86 years old now Tom Rather. I thanked him. I said, Tom, you helped me with my career and I owe you a debt of thanks forever. I talked to Tom about my situation. He talked to the head guy at Channel 11. They gave me a producer, cameraman man, Emmy Award winning named John Hijack. And the cat of the station says okay, go do something for me. So Cyndi Lauper was coming to town to do a concert. So I called her up and we decided that she would dye my hair multiple colors and we do it on film. So here I am sitting in the chair with Cyndi Lauper by the hairdresser. And that night she unveiled me to the crowd brought me up on stage, showed off my new multicolored hairdo, cuz she was into the punk scene, that was sort of thing. Rock and roll had drifted that way. That was a new extension of rock and roll is what Cyndi Lauper and Girls Just Want to Have Fun. A huge album. Mega hit had like four number-one hits on that album. So I will always have a place in my heart for Cyndi Lauper, she didn’t have to do that.”

On if he would want to run for President:

“If I had ballot access and in 50, yeah. See, I have an objection to one of these candidates. And I object to him, and I can say him so you know who it is now. I can object to him, because he is in the wrestling Hall of Fame and I’ve almost resigned from it on two or three occasions because of that.”

On the angle that was too big for WWE:

“I came to Vince McMahon. I’ll reveal this to you. I flew out to Connecticut. I sat in Vince’s office with him and Linda, and I proposed the biggest angle the WWF/WWE could have ever done. And it was too big for Vince.”

What was it?

“Vince told me that he would back me on anything political that I wanted to do. So I went out to him and I said, Vince, we can do an angle right now. You can come out with the WWE and say we’re going to have our own nominee for president, the WWE party, the World Wrestling Party. Meanwhile, Vince has people in every state, he can send those people, get ballot access, and do what’s required to get on the ballot in all 50 states. He could do that for me. I said, then you work the angle Vince where everybody thinks it’s going to be you. You’re going to be the nominee. But we do something where I come in and say bullsh*t, I’m a governor. I’m the natural WWE candidate for president, then you do a schmoz where Vince and I get two wrestlers to represent us. Whoever wins gets the nomination. My guy beats Vince’s guy. I then become the nominee of the World Wrestling Federation for President and I have ballot access in all 50 states because Vince could have done it.”

Why didn’t it happen?

“Well, here’s the part that pissed me off and where Vince and I big time separated. I flew home. He didn’t even bother to call me to turn me down. I thought that was the most disrespectful thing. First and foremost, when I flew out there, he made me wait an hour. I’m the former Governor. I’m out of office now. Then I shoot him this angle. If he did just called me and said, Jesse, it’s too crazy. It’s too hokey. I don’t think we can do it. I would have said fine. I gave it a try. But he didn’t even call me back. That was so disrespectful to me as Governor Jesse Ventura, as Jesse Ventura the man and as Jesse Ventura who made Vince a ton of money.”

On a return to commentary in the present day:

“I don’t think I could. I don’t think I could today because I don’t like the stuff. You know what else I don’t like today? There ain’t no Mean Gene. What do you have today? Oh, they both come walking down these ramps, they stand in the ring and yell and scream at each other and then start cutting meat and beat the sh*t out of each other. It’s so predictable.”

On being a bodyguard for The Rolling Stones:

“My best story of them is that when I became Governor, I had just become Governor sworn in in January, The Stones were here in February. The first declaration I made as Governor of the state of Minnesota, I declared it Rolling Stones Day in Minnesota. They were so honored. I went over that night and Mick Jagger says, No one’s ever done this for us. I said, Well, nobody’s ever been a bodyguard for you. But my favorite was Keith Richards. Because to me, Keith is The Stones. Mick’s great, he’s the frontman, but the Rolling Stones is Keith. And I’ll never forget that Keith Richards walked up to me. Here’s all disarrayed; he’s got this stuff hanging, and you know, it’s typical how he looks on stage. Keith walks up to me and he looks at me and he smiles. He goes, so you used the bodyguard us back in 78 and 81, huh? And I said, yep. And he goes, and now you’re the Governor. And I went yep, and Keith looked at me in that cockney British accent and he goes, f*cking great. I’ll never forget that. I thought if I got the blessing of Keith Richards, I’m home free.”

On advice for up-and-coming wrestlers:

“Do not rely on that sport. Do not rely on that lifestyle. Educate yourself, get a degree have something because it’s going to end and it’s going to end probably sooner than you want it to.”

On if he would bury the hatchet with Hulk Hogan:

“No.”

Would you have a conversation?

“I don’t know, he betrayed me.”

On the betrayal:

“But this was just prior to WrestleMania 2. We were all in a dressing room and there was nobody from the office. I waited and I got up on a chair. I told everybody now is our time to unionize. I said all the publicity is gone out on WrestleMania, if we refuse to wrestle unless union negotiators are brought in, it’s federal law, they have to be brought in. It’s the law. Then I said if we can get the Charlotte guys to join us, we can fight. We can freeze them, freeze Vince, and force them to do collective bargaining and we can finally get a union. I gave my impassioned speech. The next day I go home, my phone rings. It’s Vince. [He says] ‘What the? Union?’ I said, Vince, ‘I’m not talking about just fighting you.’ This was 1980s, I said ‘Right now I pay $5,000 a year for health care for my family. If we had a union, I might only have to pay $1250, because there’s strength in numbers.’ I said, ‘What about all the guys I’ve seen that give 30 years to this business and in the end, they ain’t got a pot to piss in or a window to throw it out of? If we had a union, maybe they could retire with $500 a month.’ You know what did it for me? I was in Las Vegas, and I got on an elevator. And you know who got on the elevator with me? A great big offensive guard from the Oakland Raiders by the name of Gene Upshaw. Do you know who Gene Upshaw was? Head of the NFL Players Association. I got on that elevator and I said, ‘Hi, Gene. Jesse, nice to meet you.’ Gene’s finger went up in the air and he goes, ‘You boys need a union.’ And I said, I know. Gene Upshaw sparked me and said you boys need a union. I said I know we do. So I stood up, I gave my impassioned thing to unionize. Vince called me on the carpet the next day. I didn’t care, I was going to do Predator. Then when I came back to Vince, I told Vince ‘You don’t have to worry about me speaking out on union anymore.’ He goes, ‘Really? Why not?’ I said ‘I got mine, Screen Actors Guild. I now get health benefits retirement right now with the little sh*t that I did in Hollywood.’ I’m retired on over $50,000 a year from SAG. I get over $50,000 a year right now. I’m collecting it. It’s my retirement. So when I came back to Vince, I said ‘You don’t need to worry about me if these dummies don’t want to protect themselves, screw them.’ I tried. I said I got my SAG card and I’m on retirement right now. I started at age 70. Started collecting and I made it up to where I make over $50,000 a year in SAG retirement. Then I have AFTRA retirement too. Which is the broadcaster’s. And you know, I could never figure this one out. But then it came to me. Since wrestling’s on TV every week, why weren’t they required to join AFTRA? You want to know why? Health care. You think AFTRA wants to bring in 1,000 wrestlers into their healthcare system? It would bankrupt them? That’s solely that can be the only reason. Because they’re on TV every week on television. Why aren’t they required to join AFTRA?

But getting back to the Hogan thing. What ended up happening was this and that’s why I know he did it. Because when I sued the WWF over royalties for videotape, I used to say to Vince all the time, Vince, ‘How come everything I do in Hollywood I get royalties and everything I do for you, I get nothing? Why is that? Why are you different than Hollywood? Could it be a union? Could that be the difference?’ So getting to what had happened was when I sued the WWF, we had to take Vince’s deposition. So me and my lawyer flew to Connecticut. Now, I can’t say nothing, because you sit in a deposition, I got to stay silent. But I told my attorney the whole story. I said, if you can find out who ratted me, who was the rat? Who was the stooge? Who is the office stooge that stooged me to the office? So we sat down deposing Vince, and it got halfway through it and a lawyer can ask anything. And my attorney says to Vince, Mr. McMahon, he said, ‘Has there ever been a union in wrestling?’ And Vince goes, No. [He asked] Has anyone ever tried to form one? And Vince paused a moment. He said, Yeah, I think Jesse Ventura spouted his mouth off about it one time years ago. My attorney said, really? How did you know? Did you hear Mr. Ventura talk about unionizing? And Vince said no, my attorney said well, then how did you know? With no hesitation, Vince answered ‘Hulk Hogan told me.’ Now he’s under sworn deposition here. He’s under sworn deposition to tell the truth. There was no hesitation Hulk Hogan told me. Vince also admitted it to Larry King, because Larry King brought it up. Is it true that Hulk Hogan is the one that ratted Jesse Ventura when he tried to unionize wrestling? And Vince said, yeah.”

On why the conversation with Hogan won’t happen anytime soon:

“When you have a guy who’s as narcissistic as Donald Trump, it ain’t gonna happen until I hear an apology from him. [From Hulk Hogan?] Yeah, He’s the narcissist like Hogan. You know, birds of a feather flock together. I heard he was at the Republican Convention. I already heard about that, Hogan was there. Somebody wrote here, they’d have done better with Doink the Clown.”

What is Jesse Ventura grateful for:

“My wife, my children and to still be alive.”

Scott D’Amore On His TNA Departure, WWE & AEW Partnership, Kazuchika Okada, Maple Leaf Pro

in LATEST EPISODES on August 22, 2024 August 22, 2024

Scott D’Amore (@ScottDAmore) is a retired professional wrestler and onscreen authority figure. He sits down with Chris Van Vliet in Detroit to talk about his time at TNA and his exit from the promotion, how he found out that he would be leaving, turning the brand around following previous fan backlash, making things right with Kazuchika Okada, Jordynne Grace and Joe Hendry appearing on WWE TV, his upcoming work with Maple Leaf Pro Wrestling, the first time he saw Petey Williams execute the Canadian Destroyer and more.

Quote I’m thinking about: “…if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.” Excerpt from “The Man In The Arena” – Theodore Roosevelt

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On his TV presence being meaningful:

“That was our hope, right? I think Jimmy Jacobs was a big one spearheading it. Look, I enjoy banter with talent, we could have some fun. My thing was, if we’re going to do it, I didn’t want to be Jack Tunney and I didn’t want to be like Vince McMahon. So I wanted to be more tongue in cheek, I wanted to have fun with it. The whole thing, if you go and you look at the things I did, I’m really a jerk. In a lot of ways the character throughout, especially through the first few years, near the end was more hey, here’s an announcement, we’re going to do this, rah rah, especially as we start heading into the TNA stuff. But when I went on TV for impact, it really was like, Hey, we got to get this out. Cool. But then I was like, Oh, I can just stick it to people. And if you watch it, really the only thing that’s consistent is whether I’m talking to a babyface or a heel, I’m probably sticking it to them. It’s the old, oh, I leave, but I come back to say ‘Oh, and by the way…’ So our thing was if you come to me for something, it’s almost like the saying well Be careful when you make a deal with the devil, because I’m going to give you what you want, but I’m going to give it to you in the least advantageous way for you. I sit there and look at the stuff we did with Heath, I’m literally just stopping this guy. Why? Why would anybody dig their heels in this deep on this guy wanting to work for you? Here’s a guy who has star power, who’s been in WWE, who’s literally showing up and trying to sneak into the building. He wants to do anything, he wants a job. And I’m like, Nope, can’t have it, sorry. But to tell stories, you have to take some liberties. We just thought that was a fun one, and it led to the whole thing with Heath trying to get a job and his campaign. And has anyone ever used cameos in a more entertaining way than we did? I never thought I would be listening to a Flava Flav promo on a wrestling show with him heeling him to do something.”

On not liking the mundane things in wrestling:

“One of them’s a contract signing. And I’m like, Guys, I hate contract signings, so then they would have to talk me into doing them right. Because, again, I just never wanted to do the mundane stuff of being an authority figure. I really didn’t want to be on TV that much because I wanted to focus on the behind-the-scenes. But I also have an ego like everybody else, and I enjoy the fun of doing it. But it was really more I tried to be like, Guys, you figure out where we need me, and then we’ll debate on how strongly [I’m needed]. I had such a good team there through the years. Whether it was originally when Don Callis was there, and Abyss and Sonjay Dutt, and then those guys move on. Tommy Dreamer and Jimmy Jacobs, who I’ve known since he was 15 years old probably, just so smart and so good. Then Robert Evans, who I hadn’t known at all, but when Sonjay left. I’m in that room at one point, and I’ve got Jimmy Jacobs, who I’ve known since he was 14-15, watched him literally grow up from a child to an adult and, you know, and it’s such an amazing wrestling mind. I’ve got Sonjay Dutt, who we joke, I hired him still when he was a teenager. I’ve got those two guys have known forever. Then I’d have the Dons or the Tommys or the Abysses I’ve known forever. Then bringing in Robert Evans was like, Oh, this is weird. I’m sitting in a room with someone I don’t know. And he was such a great addition. And he brought a little something different to it, which I always thought was great. So I’m very grateful for the team that I was able to work with while I was there, and that’s just on the creative side. There’s, so many. I could eat up this whole interview talking about the young, unsung heroes behind the scenes that do so much and did so much to make that company go.”

On his exit from TNA:

“The funny thing is, obviously not the choice of how I wanted things to play out. Took me by [surprise a bit]. I can’t say I was shocked when it actually happened, because I could see the process playing out where we weren’t quite on the same page on things. And as I said on Busted Open, I found out two days before Hard to Kill.”

On still going on on TV during Hard To Kill:

“I mean, first of all, Len Asper could have not told me that night. But I knew by that night, I already knew. It was like, okay, I told him you and me are having a conversation, and we had an honest conversation. I said, Look, I disagree with it, I don’t like it, but it’s your decision to make. And I said, this is what I’ll do. I’ll get on that plane tonight and go to Las Vegas. I will make sure that we have two amazing kick ass shows in Las Vegas, lockdown with the team. I’ll make sure that we go into Orlando and we get you out four TVs so that you’re in a position, because you’re going to have a lot to deal with. And this way, at least, you’re going to have five weeks in the can from when I walk out that door at the end of Orlando, and that was my goal, right? Just going to finish up those shows in Orlando, walk out there and then just either walk off into the sunset or like the old monster movie, like where Godzilla just slowly goes back into the water and disappears, lonely and depressed. It’s going to be one of those things.”

And which one was it?

“A combination of both. Look, it was certainly melancholy, and the hardest part for me was telling people. Part of me wanted to tell everybody, which isn’t possible, and part of my conversations with Anthem was there’s some people I have to tell that deserve to hear this from me. So I took a small group of people there, and that last day in Orlando, I kind of went around and told a handful and said, you can’t say anything, this is what’s happening. Then I left there, I went back to my hotel room, a couple of people came by and this was the hardest part. I would tell people and they cry, and when they cry, I cry. I got to my room and almost like, okay, like, here we are. Then a talent reached out and said, Hey, there’s a couple who want to come see me. And I was like, Sure. I opened the door, they tear up. I was like, Okay, I can’t do this, just being around people, I’ve got a lot to process, and I didn’t process it, this is how I’m built, there’s something to do. So when we had that call on that Thursday night before, Hard to Kill okay, this sucks, not happy, but this is the mission, and you have to complete it. And I was almost like if I’m going to go out, if this is going to be the last thing that anybody ever sees, it’s going to be one of the best things they ever see. Handling this rebranding was very important to me. I fought for this rebranding. There were a lot of people like, I would have rebranded at TNA day one, except I was told, coming in, we can’t rebrand. And we had a conversation. When you look at the history, TNA to Impact, TNA to GFW to Impact… and it’s like, Hey guys, let’s change the name. It wouldn’t work. But how can I nicely say I put my heart and soul into the Impact brand, but only because, to me, it was still TNA.”

On not taking it personally:

“I mean, I don’t know if I did the greatest job at not taking it personally. I compartmentalized it. There was a lot of anger, and there’s a lot of hurt. I tried to offset by saying, look, there was nobody sitting there at a corporate level at Anthem who was going, Hey, let’s do something bad to Scott D’Amore. They were making decisions that they thought were right, and I can agree with them or disagree with them on that, but that doesn’t change.”

On the open letter from talent requesting to bring him back:

“Yeah, and I appreciated it, it was touching. I also knew when there’s people saying, hey, like, the talent’s gonna walk out. Guys, I’ve been here, that’s, it’s not happening like everybody’s upset, and they’re gonna be upset for a bit, and I said, and they’re scared.”

On offering to buy TNA:

“I presented it to them. I actually sent it to them the day that the Jericho Cruise was leaving. I know because I wanted to get it out before going on that cruise, because then I don’t know how [the Wi-Fi was]. I was on the first Jericho cruise, and Wi-Fi was really rough on the first one. And people said, no, no, it’s better, but I don’t want to be trying to do business on the Jericho Cruise. So got the offer out then and then waited for the process to play out for them to say yes, no, or come back and negotiate. And ultimately, it wasn’t something that they were looking at, we weren’t going to come to a deal.”

On announcing TNA is back:

“By the time we announced the TNA announcement, that’s at Bound for Glory. I’m jazzed about what we’re doing, but I also know on the corporate side, like we’re we’ve got a couple of things where I’m not overly thrilled. The funny thing was, there was no promo. And the most ironic thing is, of all people, the person who said, somebody needs to say something here was Lance Storm. He was the producer of the segment. And that was just kind of like, Hey, we’re going to air this video, and then we’re going to come up and the talent’s going to be in the ring. Then Lance is like, I think somebody needs to say something. We talked about it for a little bit, and it was Lance, myself, Lou D’Angeli was there, and there was one other person. Lance is like, I think it should be you. I looked and Lou kind of like, and I was like, Okay. I said, I’ll say something, and then we did that. That was impromptu. I mean, I had no idea what I was going to say, I was so concerned about so much time and effort went into that reveal video, crafting that, and keeping it a secret, and the whole thing that it was like, let’s get through that. Then it’s just lights come up, the crowd’s going to cheer and chant TNA. Okay, sure, I’ll thank the people, or whatever. So I might have been a little jazzed up.”

On there being negative feelings to TNA at one point:

“I think that era [Hogan and Bsichoff] was part of it, and then the era that came after it. Then there was a period where people weren’t getting paid and the whole thing. Look, whatever led to it, there was a lot of people on camera and behind it that were very bitter and didn’t have kind feelings towards TNA or Impact. So one of the things we had to do was go out there and change that perception, and we worked really hard on it. It was changing the media perception, because you can’t change the perspective. We sat there one time and looked at it, 9 out of 10 articles about something we did, something we thought was decent, 9 out of 10 articles were negative. And we’re like, Okay, well, how do we fix this? It got to the point where, literally, I sat down one-on-one with some journalists, and said, okay, are you just never going to give us a chance? I get it. This company has mistreated you, lied to you or betrayed your trust in whatever sense. If your position is that you’re just never going to give us a chance on anything, even if we do everything right, you’re still going to find a way to write it with a negative spin then just say that’s what you’re going to do. Don’t pretend you’re a journalist, all I’m asking is give us a chance. I’m not even guaranteeing you we won’t screw up, you might end up hating us, but you have to give us a chance, or don’t be a reporter. If we do something bad, say it, no problem. But maybe, just maybe give us credit, even begrudgingly, for something we do.”

On previous eras of TNA where fans said they wished more people watched it:

“You saying we suck isn’t going to help it. Truthfully I think, and look, we did a whole media run, mainly in the UK, right after we took over, and we literally talked about it. We knew it was going to be a long process, we talked about it one fan at a time. And then we came out of that media tour, and I turned to Don and Ed, and I go, this isn’t even just one fan at a time, we’ve gotta individually turn media to get them to just give us [a chance]. I honest to God don’t know what happened in those years to but there was some people who report wrestling, who they just say, Hey, Scott, I like you, I hate Impact, or they call it TNA, I hate TNA. Okay, so can we change that? To go from that to that Bound for Glory with Will Ospreay there, and those great shows in Chicago and that TNA announcement, and getting that out there, and then being able to build in a period of time where we weren’t really running a lot of shows. You don’t build to a major premium live event by not running shows. But we managed to do it. We built enough about the return of TNA to get it there. And then I thought we delivered at Hard to Kill.”

On Kazuchika Okada:

“I thought we delivered at Snake Eyes. Getting Okada there to me, it’s kind of, I mean, ironic and kind of cute, in a sense that getting Okada there was the last thing on my list of things about changing the narrative about TNA Impact. Right away before it was even public I flew to Japan, we met with New Japan officials about trying to mend that relationship, because that relationship that was built when I was there booking. It was Mike Tenay, Jeremy Borash, that team and myself. First it was All Japan. We switched to New Japan. We had that continued on for years. Even the Global Force thing, I’ve had a great relationship there for years. And it’s like to be told, Scott, we like you, you’re a friend, but we hate TNA, and we can’t do business. We’re in Japan. We talked to them, and it took a lot, we have to be able to do something. Ring of Honor had its [issues], and probably rightfully so, for some of the things TNA had done to Ring of Honor over the years. Ring of Honor wanted nothing to do with it. We met with Joe Coff and Delirious, and said, Hey, we’re here now, and we want this to be different, and that wasn’t different. And the New Japan one, it took a while, right? I think you start looking at it, I think we get into just pre-COVID when we start seeing some cracks. We had to show New Japan we’re different. I think as we started doing that then okay, now the New Japan people say, Oh, well, New Japan hates them. Okay, well, now New Japan doesn’t hate them. So now the product’s good, can’t say the product’s not good. The shows are doing decently. Well, New Japan’s okay with him, but Okada hates him. He’ll never wrestle for him. Geez. So then it’s like, okay, we’ve gotta have Okada. To me, to have Okada there as a statement, TNA is back, and here on our first weekend, here’s the one guy who everybody said no matter what you do, this guy will never [come back], and God bless him too, the whole thing. Just kissing the TNA logo and everything else. He had a lot of fun with it, and I appreciated it. To me, that was like, okay, we’re not where I want to be in the sense that I don’t like that I’m two weeks away from walking out the door, but I’ve checked off everything on my list. Got Okada here, TNA is back, and there’s buzz. People bought the pay-per-view, some people say a record number, which is mind-blowing. Will and Josh had that unbelievable match. And again, that promo, was impromptu. Those guys, you know, had an amazing match, but went three minutes short.”

On why he was let go from TNA:

“We saw things differently as far as how we wanted to proceed. So I think partially, they just wanted their guys in charge. And I mean, I had a good seven years with those guys, but I’m not an Anthem guy. I don’t sit in that Toronto office. I have my thoughts, and you could say it’s my ego. I just don’t think it was the right move, and I don’t begrudge them. They’re doing their thing. They’re still going, and they’re going to run that company. I always say that everything is bigger than one person, even me. If I’m gone tomorrow, things will still go on.”

On the return of Maple Leaf Wrestling:

“Maple Leaf wrestling is just so uniquely Canadian and was so cool. I’m of the age where I saw the very tail end of it. To me, Maple Leaf wrestling growing up was WWF wrestling. Because they took over in 84 I’m 10 years old. Did I see Maple Leaf wrestling pre-WWF? A little.”

On future plans for Maple Leaf Wrestling:

“We’ve got the two shows in October, which I think is going to be a great kickoff, and then I think it’s what happens in 2025. We come out of there from October, we do a couple things later in the year. We’ll have an announcement, I think by October of some things for next year. But what we’re looking to do, Maple Leaf Wrestling was unique in the sense that, and it’s very much in line with 2024 because if you go back and look at the history of Maple Leaf wrestling, pre-WWF, WWE, it was like neutral ground. Even back when the territories played nice, they all had their own alliances. Toronto, Maple Leaf Gardens is one of the few places you might see Nick Bockwinkel or Verne Gagne defend the AWA title, and the same card that you see Harley Race or Terry Funk or Lou Thesz defend the NWA World Title, then you might even have Bruno or Bob Backlund come in as the WWWF World Champion. They all wrestled at Maple Leaf Gardens. If you looked at arenas that you wanted to wrestle in back in the 50s, 60s, 70s and into the 80s, there’s Madison Square Gardens, but after that I don’t know if there’s a place that was more sought after to wrestle in than Maple Leaf Gardens. It’s where Bruno Sammartino went when he had his problems and couldn’t wrestle in New York. It’s where Sweet Daddy Siki set up his home base. When the racial intolerance of him having the nerve to be married to a white woman started ruining his career in some places. He came to Toronto and he’s like wait, I can walk down the street with my wife and the person I work for isn’t mad at me because I had the nerve to marry somebody who has a different tone of skin? I think we can celebrate that. I want to tell some of those stories, because I think there’s some amazing stories of cultural significance for Canadians and connect with people in general. I always say, we talked about my father immigrating here, my uncle immigrated here at the same time. My uncle would say, we didn’t have a TV, but if we were somewhere where you could watch a TV, he goes, ‘We didn’t understand anything. We couldn’t understand a talk show, or we couldn’t watch a TV drama or something and know what was going on, we just didn’t grasp English. But you turn on wrestling and maybe we don’t get the nuance of the things. But I see this guy, he’s good. This guy, he’s bad. I know the BS, but my doctors say don’t get upset. But you know what I watch, and you know they do the thing with a two guy versus the two guy, and these are two guy, keep a cheat behind the referee.’ And I’m going, Oh, this is why your doctor told you you can’t watch this. But his whole thing was that’s why you look at it and you could understand it. Then the other thing about wrestling is if you’re an Italian immigrant, you’ve got Bruno or Dominic Denucci or Tony Parisi. If you’re an immigrant of Latino or Hispanic descent, maybe you’ve got Pedro Morales, or Tito Santana, whoever you’ve got. If you’re African American, then you’ve got Thunderbolt Patterson. You’ve got Sweet Daddy Siki, you got Tiger Jeet Singh, you have all of these things. Has wrestling historically done representation right all the time? Well, clearly, absolutely not. But it was a place where you could look and say hey, there’s something I see myself in and something I can connect with.”

On the big stars coming to Maple Leaf Pro Wrestling:

“Well we’ve got Kushida there from New Japan, and from TNA. We just announced that Takeshita is going to be there. The guy’s just lighting it up in the G1, he’s maybe the hottest wrestler in the world arguably when it comes to match quality right now, and having him come there gives us that AEW representation. We’ve got Kevin Knight, who’s an amazing young talent from New Japan. We just announced earlier this week that ELP, who just had that five star with Takeshita in the G1, he’s going to be there. So I think it’s really cool. We’ve got a few people from New Japan. We got a few people from TNA, we’ll have multiple people from AEW. Then we’ve got the best of the best Canadians like Trevor Lee, who had some time in Impact, went on to Cameron Grimes in WWE, we’ve got an amazing group of talent together. So, I think that the matches that night are going to be as good as any pay-per-view. I said it over and over again when I was with TNA, with Impact, for these pay-per-views we don’t take it lightly. I never take it lightly. I would say that people have to reach in their pocket and pay to watch this in a world where you can get so much on your TV, on your tablet, on your cell phone for free. When people invest in you with money and also their time. Because time’s the most valuable commodity we have. So if you’re going to sit out and say not only I’m going to both pay to watch this and I’m going to block out my entire evening to spend with your product we want to deliver and make sure that people get their money’s worth. So I think people see this card come together and say, Okay, this is a card that I want to see. This is two nights of wrestling that I want to be part of. And I think we have one of the very best, indisputably the best combat sports cross genre announcer, because Mauro Ranallo has agreed to be the voice of Maple Leaf Pro.”

On Mauro Ronallo:

“I mean, he’s the man. And Mauro has got a passion for wrestling. I met Mauro probably close to 25 years ago in Stampede Wrestling. I was coming in as a heel to feud with Sabu. And he was the 20-21year old kid who was doing the play-by-play with Bad News Brown, and we connected then over the years. He loves wrestling. He’s the best. You turned on Showtime for any big boxing fight, or you turned on to watch a lot of the big MMA fights with pride and everything, Mauro is that voice.”

On Jordynne Grace appearing in the WWE Royal Rumble:

“I reached out to somebody at WWE. I talked to Ed Nordholm, Chief Corporate Officer at Anthem, and said I was thinking this. I was talking to a friend and I think the timing’s right to reach out. So I reached out to a friend of mine there and said, Hey, this is what I’m thinking, blah, blah, blah, blah. And they’re like, I think it all makes sense. We talked for a little bit and they said, how are you going to handle it? I said, Well if you’re willing, I would like you to be the person to take it forward and see if there’s any interest. I kind of laid out, not a formal proposal. Talked about a little bit, shot something, this is worth having a conversation. I got a text from Triple H, and we set up, had a chat, kind of just said, Hey, it’s a whole new world out there. Let’s explore things. I think if you look at what WWE and the direction it’s been going with with Paul and Nick at the helm. I think you see a lot of changes. I think you see a lot of business being done differently. You would not see this TNA collaboration that I’m proud to have been part of starting go the way it has, the way you’ve seen it. You wouldn’t see AJ Styles over in NOAH wrestling, Marafuji or any of this stuff. It’s just such an obvious [thing] that with the changing of the guard, there’s been a changing of philosophies on how things should be. So that’s really just how it started, then it went from there and it was very much a hey man, we’re open. It’s a different, different time.”

On the rise of Joe Hendry:

“I’m honored to be part of that and I can look at it and smile. Look, here’s Joe Hendry. Joe grabbed me one day and he goes Scott, Did I ever tell you why I chose to come to Impact? And I’m thinking, damn it, he probably did and I don’t remember. I was like, I don’t think so. And he told me a story. First, he told me a story about he was someplace else and his music was playing, it’s like, okay, here I am and it was a big moment. His music has a spot where he comes out and somebody pushed him and said, Go! They pushed him out before it was the moment. He’s kind of like, these guys don’t get me. Then he goes in that moment as I went to the ring I thought of an interview you did in the UK years ago, I think it was like 2018 19, long before he ended up coming, because he ended up going to Ring of Honor. He goes, you did an interview and they asked you a question about future World Champions, you mentioned Moose, Josh Alexander and Joe Hendry. I was like, oh, so glad I did that. He goes, I heard that, and I was like there’s a guy who gets me. He didn’t come then, but then when he became free again, he’s like, okay, maybe there’s more money for me somewhere else, but right now, I want to go somewhere where there’s people that that get me, and let me be clear, it’s not like I was the only one. But he told me that’s the type of stuff that that really makes me feel good. The fact that he gambled on coming to us at Impact, to TNA, because he trusted us that we would handle him right. I think we have and he’s obviously delivered. Those type of things make me happy. Having reached out to Jordynne when she was on the Indies and just be like there’s something there, let’s bring her in. She’s a completely different talent back then from what she is now. But there was always something there that was special. Ethan Page is the NXT Champion and he’s rocking it, he’s somebody else when we talk about Maple Leaf Pro and why it needs to exist, you look at Ethan Page. Ethan Page and Josh Alexander both had to go around and try to sneak into the country to work on shows with different companies, and ended up having various problems with the border. I think my first conversation with Ethan Page was when he called me up. He said, Hey, I got your number from so and so. I hope you don’t mind, but I got this thing at the border. We talked a little bit, and I sent him a few pieces of paper. But ultimately, people just as happens, especially in wrestling. Oh yeah, come do the shows, and then we’ll get you [a visa] just keep working, the visa never comes, right? Yeah, it’s coming second Tuesday of the week, as my father used to say. But, yeah, it took us saying, hey, we can get you a visa, come in work here. We’ll get you that visa and the platform. And that’s needed still today.

On the differences between the NXT partnership with TNA and the AEW partnership:

“You look at where Impact was at the time, and this is what frustrates me about social media, as great as it is in some ways, no matter what somebody says, somebody has to make it toxic. Can’t it just be good that the NXT relationship [exists]? Why are you comparing? Well first of all, there’s pros and cons to each side. So the NXT thing is obviously super cool that the TNA talent is being incorporated into the NXT broadcast, which is amazing. The flip side of the preferences of the AEW relationship. Well, one we were not in great shape, like the TNA company is so much stronger now in 2024 than Impact was in 2020, at that point we needed a boost. We never got a chance to put Kenny Omega in front of a crowd. We would have been selling a lot of tickets at that point with Kenny Omega.”

What is Scott D’Amore grateful for?

“Family and friends, 30 plus years in the toughest sport in the entire world and getting to be a part of so many people’s stories.”

Ronda Rousey’s WWE Issues With Vince McMahon, Becky Lynch Match, UFC Legacy, Graphic Novel

in LATEST EPISODES on August 20, 2024 August 20, 2024

Ronda Rousey (@RondaRousey) is a professional wrestler and former UFC Bantamweight Champion. She sits down with Chris Van Vliet at West Coast Creative Studio in Hollywood, CA to talk about her graphic novel “Expecting the Unexpected“, how Paul Heyman inspired the idea, expecting her second child with husband Travis Brown, whether she still loves professional wrestling, if she would ever return to WWE, her thoughts on Triple H and Stephanie McMahon, why there is no love lost between her and Vince McMahon, fans not liking her previous comments, the controversial finish to WrestleMania 35, if a match against Becky Lynch was ever going to happen, her UFC legacy, the first time she met Dana White and more.

Check out the Kickstarter for Ronda Rousey’s graphic novel “Expecting The Unexpected” here: http://kck.st/4c4SQlX

Quote I’m thinking about: “You are not stressed because you are doing too much. You are stressed because you are doing too little of what makes you feel most alive.”

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On doing the side quests in life:

“Well, I’m at the point where I defeated all the big bosses, and I’m going back to the game to complete all the side quests because I’m a completionist. I’m at the point where I just want to go fishing forever. This isn’t really part of the whole thing, but I want to get the Hyrule Bass, the really gold one. There was an awesome fish in Zelda that took forever to get. I’m at that point, yeah, I’m going back through the game and going and doing the things that I really enjoy that aren’t necessarily, huge achievements and completing the game. I didn’t write a graphic novel because I thought it would impress the whole world. I wrote it because it was my way to deal with I think anxiety of that big event or whatever it is coming up. I just kind of have my own social anxiety which I call post social anxiety, right? I’m in the moment, I’m fine, but then afterwards I’m like, oh my God, didn’t say this right and didn’t do that. I have a tendency to ruminate over things, just in general, I fixate on stuff and I can’t get off which is why I can look at a punching bag and hit the same punch for five hours straight trying to get it right without getting distracted. But it’s also why I’ll wake up in the middle of the night and be like, Oh my God, remember when you tweeted that thing years ago and you’re just the worst person ever and there’s nothing you could ever do about it? You just think about it. So I found creative writing as a way to take those self-destructive thought loops I couldn’t get out of, and purposefully focused my mind onto something creative.”

On where the idea for Expecting the Unexpected came from:

“It came from Paul Heyman. It was right before the go-home for the all-women’s main event [at WrestleMania 35]. It was like seven o’clock, and Vince ripped up the whole f*cking show. It wasn’t the one where we had the cop cars and everything like that. I think there was maybe one in between, that was the go home, and one before, I don’t know, it was really close. We were just waiting around backstage being like what are we even doing? It’s seven o’clock. The doors are open. We don’t even know what the hell we’re doing, which was a common occurrence, unfortunately. And Paul Heyman, we got into a talk about movies and stuff like that. He was like, What kind of movie do you want to star in? And I realized I was just so passively waiting for someone to hand me my dream project. I had such a high opinion of myself and that, like, Oh, I’m a better martial artist than Bruce Lee and a better actor than Jet Li. Why isn’t anyone throwing opportunities at my feet? I’m super hot and young, come on. Why isn’t this happening? It wasn’t happening, and I realized that I was being an idiot, being passive, and I needed to stop being so full of myself and do something about it. So when Paul asked me that question, I was like, Well, what is one role that no one could play better than me? I know I’m not Meryl Streep, I don’t have a huge range. Sylvester Stallone gave me a lot of great advice, one of which was an example that no one f*cking wrote Rocky for him. He went and did that, and he told me that there’s a difference between actors and stars. Actors can go out there and play anyone, and stars go out there and play themselves, and you need to figure out how to go out there and play yourself. He was like every single role Al Pacino is in, he’s Al Pacino the cop, Al Pacino the criminal, he’s always Al Pacino. So I was like, I didn’t really think about it. I wrote a log line of a wanted assassin with the unwanted pregnancy, has to figure out how to give life instead of taking it, and I left it at that. I didn’t think about it. Then WrestleMania came, shattered my knuckle, had to go straight into surgery, went from surgery, didn’t even go to bed, straight onto a plane to fly to New York to go on Colbert, because I was voicing Sonya Blade in Mortal Kombat 11 to promote that. Then finally got to be in bed for five hours before getting back on the plane. I’m laying in bed, I’m like, Oh, I have a great idea for when she finds out she’s pregnant. I was actually trying to go to sleep, no, no, no, go to sleep. You know when you get an idea in your head while you’re going to sleep you keep repeating your head so you remember it in the morning. Then you’re just keeping yourself awake and I was like, God damn it, you haven’t slept for how long? I was there with my hand propped up like in Rookie of the Year, where the kid is like this, because of the circulation. I’m like, you know what? Just type it. Just get it out, and you’ll go to sleep. So I started typing on my thumbs on my phone, and five hours later, it was time for the car to get there. I didn’t sleep I was just typing with my thumbs, and then a two-hour car ride to the airport, typing with my thumbs, and by the time we were flying over Arizona or Nevada, was when I hit the end. I had no idea I had a story like that in me to tell, and it was also god-awful and not formatted. I was like, I need help, maybe a writer or someone can help me with this. I hit up my agent, and he was like, in his way he was like, I don’t know what you want me to do with 60 pages of block text. Okay, I can learn. I can do this myself. I can figure out how to do it. And that started like an obsession for years, learning about screenwriting and how to structure a script and how to format it, and all these different things. All my free time kind of went into it, and it became my secret hobby, because it’s so cliche in LA to say that you’re working on your screenplay. I was like, I just didn’t want to ever be that guy to tell anybody so I’m working on my screenplay, or can you read my screenplay? So it was my secret shame for a long time.”

On the screenplay looking like it would be a great graphic novel:

“That’s exactly what happened. I got it to as far as I could get it and I’m like, no one’s gonna take a chance on me being a lead. I’ve never, proven myself as a lead, and no one’s gonna take a chance on me being a writer. Some fighter wrestling check? No, I’m gonna think you can actually write anything. But I started getting much more into graphic novels as I was getting more free time, not training non-stop. And yeah, then it kind of hit me, oh my God, this would be a really cool graphic novel. It kind of came in a roundabout way, which I’m not even gonna go through that story. So a friend of mine started hitting up publishers and Axel Alonso, who used to be the Marvel Editor in Chief, he read it, and he was like, Dude, this is freaking amazing. I can’t even believe that you actually wrote it. Let’s make it into a graphic novel. Then I continued to pursue screenwriting. I started interning at WME, the story department.”

On still loving pro wrestling:

“I love pro wrestling. My experience in my last run wasn’t the best, it was the death throes of the Vince McMahon era and they just made it so needlessly stressful. I just wish I could just show up to the venue and already know what the match is and have it memorized.”

On the Triple H era:

“I’ve heard it’s a lot better. But yeah, that wasn’t my experience before. My experience before was like if you showed up to Saturday Night Live and no one had written the show yet, like you hadn’t been filming it and practicing it all week. It was like, you just showed up and you had to negotiate what the script was going to be until the very last second. Even if we killed it and had such a great time while we were out there, it was just the needless anxiety of getting to the finish line just made it so not fun. So unfortunately, it’s kind of put a gross kind of a film on the incredible experience. I hear from everybody that’s so much better now, and I’m happy for them. But it’s also, I got babies, I can’t be taking them on the road. I did it for a little bit with one, I can’t do that with two. It was hard on, my husband for us not all to be there all the time. I just don’t think I can ask them to sacrifice that anymore.”

On anxiety from what Vince might say about her match:

“No, no. I didn’t give a sh*t about that. I didn’t really give a f*ck what Vince thought, to be honest. I just wanted to have a great match. Sometimes I felt like instead of like enabling us to have a great match, we were fighting against him in order to have a great match. No once it was done and all that, like once I was in there and like in the moment and lost in it, there’s no better feeling than when you’re in it and you believe the story and you’re out there with your friends and you’re having a blast. It was like, we had to march through, what were the marshes called in Lord of the Rings? The Dead Marshes. I was just going through the swamps of sadness, just trying to be able to walk into the arena. Then once the music hit, I was like, f*ck you, we’re gonna have a great time. Then we come back, and then I come back to the curtain. I’m like, f*ck you. I’m going to my baby. I don’t want to hear sh*t unless you actually have a plan for next week, which you don’t. You don’t have a f*cking plan. I’m trying to get any information all week long, and then no one’s gonna tell me sh*t until I get to the arena, and I’m still not gonna hear anything for hours.”

On her SummerSlam match against Shayna Baszler:

“I think if we did the match at Bloodsport or something, people would have loved it. But I think the crowd, it wasn’t for them at all. It was all MMA easter eggs and all of these moments in MMA history that we’re big geeks for that, we were recreating and throwing homage to in the match and it was not inviting any audience participation or anything like that. But it was kind of like, I don’t know if you read my book, but it was a nice little f*ck you on the way out. You’re gonna sit here and watch this match that we wanted to do from the very beginning. I don’t care what you think, go get some f*cking popcorn. But yeah, we loved it. We had a great time. And from the very, very beginning, I always wanted to be able to wrestle with Shayna and be able to put her over and leave. Which they never would have let us do unless I threatened to leave right at the new year when they told me that I wouldn’t be able to fight Becky at WrestleMania, which was what I came back to do. And I was like, Fine, I’m gonna tag with Shayna, and she’s in turn on me, and then I’m gonna leave, or I’m gonna f*cking leave right now. That was the only reason we were able to do it, because they wouldn’t let us do any Four Horsewoman stuff. They wouldn’t let me and Shayna do anything together, because Vince was convinced that no one knew that me and Shayna were actually friends.”

Why the Becky match never happened at WrestleMania:

“Because Vince is an 80-year-old asshole.”

So there’s no love lost?

“No, Vince McMahon, John Laurinaitis, Bruce Prichard they can all suck a dick.”

But all good with Triple H and Stephanie McMahon?

“They are fantastic, love them.”

On the necklace that Stephanie McMahon gifted to her:

“I was talking to her about [kids]. I was just excited about having a baby and we just started trying. Actually, no, we already had two miscarriages, and I was just going to start doing IVF. She took the necklace off of her neck, this necklace and it was a locket with pictures of her girls in it. She was like, this has my babies in it. I want you to put your babies in it. So I never took her babies out. I put my baby on top and I’m gonna have to add some more pictures. I got another locket too that had my boys in it and stuff. But she specifically said babies go in this locket. I love her so much. I miss her actually. I love this for us that we have, frolicked into the sunset and have peaced out or doing our mom thing.”

On being done with wrestling:

“Full time yeah. I might come back and have some fun here and there. But I can’t be leaving home and being on the road like that.”

On having a great debut match at WrestleMania 34:

“It is crazy what you can do when you have time to prepare and resources to work with. It’s great to see that they do that with people like Logan Paul and Bad Bunny. But I think I made the mistake of I wanted to really learn how to wrestle, be able to do a match on a fly or learn a match within 30 minutes before.”

On Triple H making her look like a star:

“Triple H, Kurt Angle, Shawn Michaels, helping us out. Michael Hayes, Sara Amato, I mean, everybody that saw it would like, give their two cents in and be like, you give this facial here, you do this, do that. You pulled the hair out from between your fingers, you know. It was the product of a lot of different people and time and practice and precision and things like that. When it got to the day of the event, it was just like, Oh my God I’m so excited, I know exactly this match. And I always wanted to recreate that feeling but it was like, never allowed, ever again. Then it just got to be less and less time and less and less support and less and less help. I really think that they have the ability to be a powerhouse like SNL to create these stars. They just got to put time and production and resources. If they put the machine behind these people, they would be doing so much more than they are now. This is with the minimal of time and preparation and most of the time you see people go out there and they’ve rehearsed a couple of spots, but they haven’t ever done that match before.”

On there being pride in calling it in the ring:

“You know what? Let people that want to do it that way, do it that way. But I saw plenty of people come up from NXT that they would doing this match throughout the week, and then they would have their match on the weekend and be able to do it, and they come up to the main roster and they’re like, yeah, it’s not like that anymore. I think a lot of people would prefer to be able to have some kind of time and preparation. That’s when you see a lot of needless injuries happen, is because of little miscommunications or miscues, because these guys talked about doing this in a hallway. They never practiced it before, and that’s why people are getting spiked on their heads way more often than they should.”

On calling wrestling fake in a social media post:

“The second that we cut we all burst out laughing. The second that I cut, laughing our asses off, which I loved blurring that line of what’s kayfabe and what’s not, what’s real, what’s not, and what’s making what’s happening behind the scenes supposedly candidly being part of the show. That was me trying on the sidelines to push a story and put time into it that the company wasn’t. So many people are trying to be the cool guy heel. They’re like I want to be the heel, but I want everyone to actually like me for it. I’m like, No, man. I want people to feel like I am an existential threat to what they love and to get them lost into it, have a passionate feeling about it, have people that disagree and think that it’s all work, and have it be a big disagreement. Because if everybody agrees about you, the discussion is over. If you make yourself a topic of discussion, you need to be hard to pin down. So, because I didn’t feel like I was getting that support from the company to tell that story, I felt like I had to take it into my own hands and blur that line with those videos. It’s so funny, because when people can’t tell when you’re in character and when you’re not, I feel like that’s where the real art is. When you’re really making people participate in a performance, when they don’t know where it is. Because I think people want to know, oh, this person’s in character, this person this person’s not, this person’s going as whatever their stage name is, and now they’re Fred, where I’m always Ronda Rousey.”

On fans potentially disliking Ronda Rousey the person:

“Well, here’s the thing, before they had an opinion about me, I didn’t give a sh*t about anything they thought about anything. Why should I suddenly care now that they have an opinion about me? The point is I’m here to entertain you. Roddy Piper, his job was to make people feel amazing about him getting beat. I never wanted to be a face. They always would force me to be a face and I was always wanting to be the heel. Because I don’t like trying to placate for cheers, I love to get the reaction and the people like it great, I am pretty freaking amazing. But yeah, trying to pander for cheers and stuff like that. It was never for me.”

On the WrestleMania 35 finish:

“I didn’t think my shoulders were flat on the ground, so I was trying to scoot to get my shoulders flat because it’s so f*cking loud I can’t hear anything. But that’s the difference between a match that got thrown together the night before and the debut match, which is a match that had been put together over weeks with tons of support and practice and opinions and everything like that. And that was why we put a whole year into promoting and building this match, and then it’s just thrown together at the last second. We were still figuring it out when we were at the venue, and that’s what a lack of practice and rehearsal does.”

On the finish possibly playing into another match:

“I wanted to use that. I wanted to use that as, okay, this is how we lead into the next one. We bring it up on the Tron and say, you never got me, this is bullsh*t. The referees are all in your pocket. And put that into the next, you know, the singles between me and Becky that everybody wanted that got taken away.”

So it wasn’t intentional?

“No, no, no. I didn’t think my shoulders were flush. I was trying to flatten out. But I think that we could have used it and kept it going, but they never let us.”

What is Ronda Rousey grateful for?

“My family, my friends and my past.”

Beth Phoenix On A Possible Return, Adam Copeland, Santino Marella, Taking An RKO, Hall Of Fame

in LATEST EPISODES on August 15, 2024 August 15, 2024

Beth Phoenix (@TheBethPhoenix) is a professional wrestler and WWE Hall of Famer. She sits down with Chris Van Vliet in Asheville, NC to discuss how winning a coloring contest ignited her passion for WWE, the inspiration behind The Glamazon character, breaking her jaw in her first singles match, entering the Men’s Royal Rumble and eliminating The Great Khali, getting hit with an RKO by Randy Orton and a con-chair-to by Rhea Ripley, Adam Copeland’s recent cage dive at AEW Double or Nothing, not currently being signed to WWE, if there could be one more match and more!

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On being in great shape:

“So my secret weapon is I have gotten heavily into hot yoga. I love yoga for the mental aspect, the emotional aspect, it’s been just this wonderful journey for me. Also, it’s very physical, it requires so much strength. Initially, when I walked in there, I was concerned. I like being fit and strong and I was like, Is this gonna help me maintain? So yoga really, really opened a door up with a new style of fitness and I like where it’s been taking my physique. The craziest thing with yoga is there’s so much planking, tons and tons and tons of planking, which even with a yoga mat can get tough on your elbows. So with Adam and Jay creating this Pure Plank and starting this new brand, this is something that I’ve leaned on quite a bit, and I use in my yoga practice too here at home, it’s a way to make things more challenging and also really correct your form, which was what I struggled with a lot. I like to call it the wrestler’s back, which I’m sure a lot of us in the business understand what that means, just from years of abuse and taking bumps, takes a toll. So it’s really helped me with my posture and being able to build my core strength, which just, even in daily life and mobility as we get older, it’s a huge, huge thing. So I love Pure Plank, it’s part of my routine and it’s really helped me a lot with my yoga routine, too.”

On Adam Copeland’s cage dive:

“I barely talked to Adam that day and I assumed, you know, any sort of gimmick match like that there’s a lot of inner workings going on. So I didn’t assume I would talk to him with any length of detail before the match. We happened to have my family with us and my family was like, Oh, we want to watch Adam’s match. This might not be the one to show the kids because I knew there was a level of violence and barbed wire and all those things. I just didn’t want to traumatise them any more than we do with watching wrestling. But there was a brief opportunity. I think it aired at 11:30 at night or whatever, I had it on my little cell phone and I was watching it while the kids were asleep kind of in bed quietly. When he began climbing up to the top of the cage, which I wasn’t aware was going to happen, I had kind of pit in my stomach and dread which I do with all high-risk things. I’m his wife, wife first wrestler second. So everything was set up to go well, I could see everybody was in their place and it was just one of those things, unpredictable. Sometimes things happen in wrestling and no matter how well-trained we are, how well we try to minimize risk and minimize injury, crap happens. So when he landed, I was pretty sure something was up just from the way he landed. I was like, I don’t think that’s kind of how he wanted it to go. Then the rest of the match I could see he was a little heavy-footed on that left foot so I was like, oh, something’s up. We always text after the match and he texted me and said, I think I tweaked my ankle and I was like, okay, and I just kind of was like, we’ll see what happens. He had to go to the hospital to get looked at so I got more information. Then we were wrapping our minds around, okay, it’s tough news to get that MRI or that X-ray back and show, okay, I’m injured. I’m not just hurt and I can’t work through it, I’m injured. So like I said, it was a bit life-changing in that way, especially having an injury this late in the game in his career. What does that recovery look like? It’s entirely different. We’re finding this out, all brand new one step at a time. Because we’ve never wrestled at these ages before. So when things come up, this is a learning curve. So yeah, I had a lot of mixed emotions watching that live. It was a tough thing to see.”

On life after wrestling:

“There’s only two things in life I ever wanted to be, and that was a pro wrestler and a mom. At this age, I’m 43 years old, I’ve been able to do both. I feel like with my whole heart and soul. When I was full-time wrestling, that was my life. That was everything to me, and nothing else mattered but my success in that and checking all my boxes. Then when I had my children, nothing mattered more to me than being a good mom and that meant putting wrestling on the back burner at times. I went back for a long run as a commentator for a couple years. I came back for a couple runs here and there with WWE and it was so fulfilling and so awesome, but it put a strain, especially when Adam started wrestling full-time, it put quite a strain on our kids. That was where I was like I gotta shuffle the deck here a little bit and reprioritize where I’m spending my time. Because the kids right now need me, they’re at a real age that’s very demanding. So I am so happy in life after wrestling. Although you know, I’ve heard we’re a little bit like Hotel California you can check out but you can never leave, so once a wrestler always a wrestler. I love my career. I love my presence and the brand and my representation in wrestling, I loved it. I love everything about it, I’m still a fan. I still watch it as a fan. And I still have heated conversations with Adam about our opinions on stories and this and that, which is it’s a blessing and a curse to be married to a wrestler.”

On seeing what Adam is doing and wanting to go back:

“Always. That never leaves. I’ll be transparent about that. That at this age has been really tough for me to like, step back and step away because I truly get lit up when I see it. As much as I love all the things in my life, my job my family excluded, like nothing lights me up career-wise like wrestling. I’ve tried a variety of different things too, what’s the next chapter, what does this look like? I find wonderful things but nothing’s like performing in front of 1000s of people, being able to pull those emotional strings and connecting with people in today’s world where I feel like connection has a buffer right now of technology. Wrestling is a very primal connection with the audience and community and it still brings that. If you go to a local indie show, and you get your box of popcorn and you’re sitting with others, I guarantee at some point you’re going to hoot and holler and yell and scream, and you’re going to lose yourself in the story, just because it’s built in our emotional makeup.”

On one more match:

“I don’t know. It’s really hard to say you’re retired, when I left in 2012 that was the word I threw around a lot. I’m retired, I’m retired. Because I wanted to have a family and I knew for myself that wasn’t going to be in congruence to perform and to have kids, I needed to devote myself to the kids at that time. I give the age-old cliche answer that everybody hates, never say never. But it really just depends on the opportunities and what suits our family, that’s really it. We weigh out everything, Adam’s opportunities too. I remember when Percy Jackson came on the table, and he was full-time in WWE, and it was really, really hard to take that on. But we weighed out everything, we sat as a family, and we made that decision. We’re like, this is huge, this is like the biggest acting opportunity that’s come our way and you need to go do this, this is massive. We talked about saying no to that and we talk about everything that comes our way, as a family and does that serve us now? How does that affect the kids? How does it affect our marriage? That matters too.”

On if she is still signed to WWE:

“I am not. I am currently a free agent, I have a great relationship with WWE. I treasured my time there. I feel like there’s more, there’s other opportunities that have presented themselves. I feel the motivation right now to kind of explore and explore what else is out there and explore myself. But my relationship with WWE hasn’t changed. I have so many friends there and I appreciate and enjoy the product as I always have. I love NXT I have a special place in my heart for NXT, of course, and just the system, and seeing young people come up and go through that excitement of developing themselves for the big time. I love WWE, I always will.”

On what inspired her to become a wrestler:

“It was the wild and crazy dream that I had from the time I was little. But I think it was WrestleMania 10 seeing Bret versus Owen where I was like, I was just so stunned by the performance and the emotional aspect. It felt so real to me, these characters weren’t just characters to me. They literally are brothers and whatever magic they created in the ring together was a lightbulb moment for me that I gotta figure out how to do this. I don’t know anyone in the business. I live in a tiny little town, Elmira, New York, I have no access to anything. I’ve never been even out of my town, how am I going to do this? There’s no manual written on it. I had no contacts, but I just had to figure out little by little how that was done, it was a lightbulb.”

On breaking her jaw on her singles debut:

“It’s pretty much worst-case scenario, and I felt my whole world crumble all around me. I go in the ambulance and they did the X-ray, and they’re like, Oh my God, your jaw is shattered, you need surgery. I went to UPMC and Pittsburgh, where this was Monday night on Raw, and they couldn’t get me into surgery until Wednesday afternoon. So I had to sit in a hospital bed for essentially two full days just thinking about how my life is. I’ve ruined everything, I’ve sacrificed everything at that time, I really hadn’t had a chance to start making any money. I put my family second, everything my whole life, I had put all my eggs in the basket of wrestling and it blew up right in front of me. This was my moment. I’m standing beside Trish Stratus, I’m working with Mickie James and everything crashed. Two people called me in the hospital that I really, really remember so, so much. One was Stephanie McMahon to check on me and just extend her remorse for what happened and give me a pep talk that you can do this, you can come back from this. And the other was Howard Finkel, and Howard was so sweet. He recounted how he remembered me coming in as an extra and how this was my dream. He goes, I remember you wanting to do this for the last three years driving all over the place as an extra. He goes, Don’t give up, It feels terrible now [but] don’t give up. In that really dark moment for me, like I am so grateful that I got those two phone calls. Particularly Howard, who it was a very special call.”

On if there would be another opportunity:

“I had doubts. But I guess in my heart of hearts, I was like, I gotta figure this out. There was a crazy thing that happened to me. I thought initially, oh I’m on Raw, I’m officially on Raw. Once I get the clearance, because they told me [I’d be out for] about two months with the broken jaw. Once I got the clearance, I’m right back where I started and I thought it was gonna be plugged right back in and be off to the races. Well, those two months came and went, I got cleared and I’m back in the developmental system, I wasn’t plugged back in. The machine had moved on and they didn’t have room for me, and maybe they look at me like [I am] injury prone now. So I guess month after month started rolling and I was like, oh my God, I gotta get myself back over. The work, all the prior work I had done was kind of erased and now I’ve got to get myself back over. So that’s where I went back to the drawing board and I was like, I need to create a character. I can’t just be Beth Phoenix, blonde girl, I have to create something that they don’t have right now, and that’s where The Glamazon came from. So I was like, I’m going to start working, and I’m going to start presenting myself like I feel inside, like the person that I know I am, rather than trying to jam a square peg into a round hole of being, the next Stratus, which nobody can be the next Trish. Trish is Trish.”

And that’s what made you stand out:

“Well, and that’s what I learned too was I had to look at the landscape and be like, what do they not have? Well, they don’t have a powerhouse right now. I can do that stuff. I felt excited because that was stuff I was doing on the independents. But when I came to OVW, I felt like I really need to pull back on that because I needed to look and I needed to present myself more on brand of being like this, beautiful Diva and emphasize that, not my strength.”

On how Victoria felt about the jaw-breaking incident:

“She felt horrible, and it was not her fault. It was literally that I had my mouth slightly open. It was my fault. When you take a hit to the face you’re supposed to clench your jaw so that it doesn’t happen. I was standing there probably because it was my first match and I was stunned and just pure ignorance I had my mouth slightly open and boom. And yeah, she felt terrible. She still feels terrible about it and she shouldn’t, I love her to death. She’s maybe one of the kindest women in the business.”

On being in the Men’s Royal Rumble:

“So that was a private conversation between myself and Dean Malenko. He pulled me aside and at that time he was putting together the Men’s Royal Rumble. And again, Chyna was a huge influence of mine. Glamazon was pretty much Chyna 2.0. And that’s what I was modeling it after. I felt like we needed a new, strong woman in the group. So, to be able to be the successor to her in that particular moment was just mind-blowing because it was very sentimental to me and special to me because of her. But also it was this incredible gift that I kept so guarded because Dean had told me this about five or six weeks out. So I was given this secret and Dean said, Look, we pitch this, everybody likes it, it’s dependent on you keeping the secret. So if it had leaked before, they basically weren’t going to do it. I did not even tell my parents, I told no one, I did not tell Natty and I tell Natty everything. I was carrying around this golden goose. It was such a sigh of relief when I walked up to Gorilla and I got to, like, look around be like, okay, they know now. When they were on number five, or whatever and I was number six before they hit the music. But it was one of the most outstanding moments of my life to be able to be a part of that page in history, opening more doors for the women. And it was so much fun. It was so much fun. I’ve never experienced a crowd reaction like that.”

On eliminating Khali:

“Oh, yeah, they definitely set me up for success and put me in there with Khali. That moment of getting to stand toe to toe with him and be fearless, whereas inside I was just like, it was an out-of-body experience. That’s the only way I can ever describe that moment. It was just so intensely emotional that I felt like I was floating. It was a moment that I knew in wrestling, it’s a fleeting part of the history book we have. We’re only there so long. It moves on fast, and the next generations that come bring so much more to the table than we did. But I knew in that little moment I was like no matter what, nobody can take this special, special moment for me. It’s what I wanted to do here, I wanted to have these moments, I wanted to be a successor from the stars that I looked up to, and to me in that moment, I did it. If it all ended the following day, I would have been okay with that.”

On being paired with Santino:

“So I’ve kind of had my run as The Glamazon, the big dragon to be slayed. Then the dragon was slayed, I was beaten. And after the dragon gets beat the first time, you got to reinvent a little bit. I found myself in catering a lot and I found myself not really being used on television. I was like oh my God, they’re moving on from me, I’m done, my character is done, what now? So my thought was like, Okay, what have I not done? I was like I could be a valet or a manager, but that kind of doesn’t make sense for this like big, tough character I’ve created and Santino was just on the cusp of finding some comedic beats. He was no longer the Boris Alexiev tough guy. He was kind of doing the unibrow and finding some comedic beats. I had seen the Eddie Murphy movie Norbit, it’s vintage. The whole premise is this big mean girlfriend and this kind of wimpy, almost abused boyfriend. So I wrote up a one-page pitch, and I walked into Vince’s office and I said, Vince, I have this idea. I didn’t even tell Santino. So I was just kind of hoping and praying that he’d be okay with it. I handed him the paper and I said Vince, if you could just take a look at this, I made sure I was concise. The next week, Vince came up and found me, he goes, we’re going with your idea and it starts tonight. I was like, oh my god, it was that easy! It wasn’t that easy, it was a lot of stars aligning. But I found a place on the show that was independent of what was going on with the women’s title because really, that was the only spot for the girls to be on every week, or a valet. If I wasn’t the contender and I wasn’t the champ, what could I be doing? And so Santino and I kind of started building this little alliance and relationship and it ended up going off the rails. It was super special. I think I was very good at being the straight man and he was very good at just doing everything he could in his power to make me crack. Other than my wonderful time I got to spend with Natty as my tag partner and the Royal Rumbles, my time with Santino was by far my favorite memories from WWE.”

On teaming with Adam to take on The Judgement Day:

“Oh my gosh, it was just such a simple story, the “I Quit” match. There’s a crazy story behind the I Quit match, honestly. Of course, Percy Jackson filming was booked, it was butted right up to the pay-per-view, the “I Quit” match. That was in Philadelphia on Pay-Per-View. And so Adam had to fly all the way from Vancouver to Philadelphia overnight, basically not sleep, and then have a 40-minute match with Finn Balor which was an “I Quit” match, which is not always the easiest type of a match. So we were sitting and talking about that and he’s like, I don’t know, maybe I can’t do Percy Jackson. We were looking at it again, like weighing all the options. How do we do this? And I was like, you can use me if you want, it may be using myself as a part of this story in this moment could help alleviate some of the stress on how to book this finish. So the I Quit match was crazy. I flew his gear, everything that he needed for the match, I flew it from Asheville to Philadelphia and met him at 11 o’clock in the morning pay-per-view day after he had been filming Percy Jackson for like two weeks and charter flight straight to Philadelphia. Basically, he laid down in the hotel for about 30 minutes and then we had to go to the building and then put the spool thing together. There’s a lot of moving parts in this match, you had everybody, all of Judgment Day was out there. It was just chaos and fun and crazy. But I was super excited because I’d watched Rhea come up. I was just super excited, even if that was all we did. I just wanted the opportunity to kind of get in there with her and get to be face-to-face.”

On getting hit with the con-chair-to:

“Again, they had never done that to a woman before. So we were like, are they gonna let us do this? It’s a violent, violent thing to see and it’s a violent thing to see a woman doing it to another woman. So there was just so much Shakespeare in that, in the ending of that match that it was just beautifully orchestrated, and everybody played their role perfectly. But there was something, there’s a couple of funny hitches. I was so nervous, I’m out of practice, and they’re all on their game, because they get so many reps, and they’re just doing wonderfully. Then my job was, of course, involving handcuffs, which anytime you have a prop, like the handcuffs can go wrong in so many ways. They don’t latch or they break or the key goes missing. So getting the key from Rhea was a portion of this finish, and then I had to unchain Adam from the handcuffs because he was handcuffed to the ropes. Well, of course, I’m so nervous. I grabbed the handcuffs and I’m trying to open the wrong handcuff for him that’s on the rope. And he’s just like, What are you doing? He’s like, grab the other handcuff on my wrist, free me, free me, free me. And I’m like, oh, yeah, I’m so sorry. It was chaos, but in the end, it was just so much fun. I remember coming to the back and we all just kind of were like reveling in the crowd reactions. The story we told is what we wanted to tell like that, that played out as beautifully and as perfectly as it could. And it was really fun. It was great bad guy work, great good guy work.”

On bleeding in the Women’s Royal Rumble:

“So when I had retired from wrestling the ring posts didn’t have those big digital LED wraps on them, they were a smaller post. So I had never been in the new rings with all the cool technology and all the upgrades. And I was in this was really early after I came in, I had a little interaction with everybody. And then we kind of settled in and I was working with Bianca a little bit. I was sitting on the top turnbuckle and Bianca and I were going back and forth or whatever. Then she gave me a punch to the face and I whipped my head back like that and the back of my head hit the LED post, which was a little bit wider than what I was used to. I feel like I just from not getting in the new ring and being rusty. I went, Whoa, hit my head right on the edge of that and I thought, Oh, that hurt. Bianca to her credit was like, are you okay? Are you okay? I’m like, I’m fine. Then I’m working with somebody else in the Rumble just doing my thing. I looked down to pick somebody up and I was like, it was Charlotte actually. I was like, Charlotte, you’re bleeding. And she was just like, No, it’s you, dude. And I’m like, what? Because it was all in the back and I didn’t see it. Then I looked down and I saw the blood dripping and I’m like, oh my God, I think I’m bleeding. I don’t even know from where. And then I touched the back of my head. And I was like, Oh, no. So I was in the Rumble a good long while and a part of the whole story. So I was talking to the doctors there and like, are you okay? Are you dizzy or anything? I’m like, Nope, I’m fine. I’m fine. I’m fine. I was like, Please, can I stay? I was afraid they were going to pull me because of the injury. But they they let me stay. And so yeah, so I just stuck it out. And it made for this badass warrior looking performance that was just me misjudging the ring post, but it turned out it turned out great. Luckily, it was just a few staples in the back of the head. Everybody was so worried and here’s the crazy part. So, again, I was not even sure I should do the Royal Rumble because it was Adams’s return like I was there for his support, not to have my own performance. And then I get my head split open and he’s watching from the back about to have his return after nine years. And then he’s worried about me and I’m like, I’m so I’m sorry, I didn’t I just didn’t want to add stress to the day. I’m so sorry. But that’s the risks we take every time we get in the ring, you can’t predict things to go smoothly. Fortunately, our children weren’t there because I feel like that would have been [upsetting], and our littlest was like two or three. I would not want to want her to see that.”

What is Beth Phoenix grateful for:

“My family, my health and time.”

Chad Gable On Wyatt Sicks, Heel Turn, Kurt Angle Comparisons, Olympics, “Shoosh! & Ah-Thank You!”

in LATEST EPISODES on August 13, 2024 August 13, 2024

Chad Gable (@WWEGable) is a professional wrestler currently signed to WWE. He sits down with Chris Van Vliet in Minneapolis, MN to discuss his transition from amateur wrestling at the Olympics to becoming a professional wrestler, the comparisons to “Perc Angle” in TNA, if he was ever in conversation to be Kurt Angle’s son, the origin of the “Shoosh!” and “Thank You” catchphrases, being the focus of the Wyatt Sicks debut, why there has never been a bad Chad Gable match, the first time he met Otis and more!

Quote I’m thinking about: “Embarrassment is the cost of entry. If you aren’t willing to look like a foolish beginner, you’ll never look like a graceful master.” – Ed Latimore

On being in phenomenal shape:

“It’s just become a passion of mine and it’s not even like a vanity thing or anything. But training and just physical well-being, because of what it does for me, and mentally, what I find helps. The more you dive into everything, and I know you’ve experienced some of this and the deeper you get into just taking care of different elements of your life, the physical part of it is kind of the foundation that bleeds into everything. Because the better you take care of yourself physically. Obviously, you feel better, but that transforms your mind, man. It takes care of everything else in your life. So when you place that at the forefront, at least that’s what I found, it’s crazy what it does to your world.”

On how he looks compared to ten years ago:

“I don’t know about shredded, but somebody posted a picture of me 10 years ago at a NXT show or something compared to now. And just the difference of like, I don’t know, just you can tell I’m doing it right now compared to then. I am just a larger, I think a bigger, more appropriate version for what I’m doing. The effort that I’m putting in is paying off compared to then because then it was just like, so much effort and so much. I just wanted it so bad and I was applying so much time and effort into the gym and I just didn’t look any different. It feels good to know that trusting somebody that knows what they’re doing to guide you really works and I think that’s what it takes. It’s handing over the reins once in a while. Even if you think you know better.”

On being “killed” by the Wyatt Sicks:

“Yeah, that was that was quite a night. Out of everything I’ve done over the past couple of years, the response to that was so out of this world insane. People thought [I was dead], I can’t tell you the amount of people that thought something actually happened to me. I went to church that Sunday and ran into a little kid who was watching. I was kind of hiding my head from him and he was like making his way around me to get a look at my head. And he’s like ‘Where did it [the wound] go?’ I’m like, ‘Well, I mean, I fixed it bud, I went to the hospital and stuff, it was bad.’ And he’s like ‘What did they do to you?’ I’m like, ‘You’ll have to tune in tomorrow night.’ They were into it, it was really interesting.”

On if the Chad Gable character might have been killed:

“I mean, you saw him definitely rattled like he’s never been before, which was cool. What the storyline has done is it came at this awesome time when I had just done the turn. I had become this abusive coaching character, which people got a whole new look which I thought did wonders for me. Then all of a sudden at the same congruently the Wyatts came in and forced me to be vulnerable. So we get Chad Gable, who’s this abusive over the top, shows no vulnerability, and now he’s forced to. So you’re getting these two dynamic stories at the same time. I benefit from this and not a lot of people get to dip their hands in so many different stories at one time. It’s almost like every time I show up for TV each week it’s like well, what are we doing for this story? What are we doing for this one? And this one, and this one… My toes are in so many things right now and I mean, how grateful, that’s such a great place to be.”

On the Wyatt Sicks pitch:

“It was going to be that I was going to be the lone guy kind of laid out. Initially, we didn’t really know to what degree. But when we got it ready to go, we’ll say we were blown away, like, holy crap, what exactly happened to me here? We’re not sure and we just ran with it. There was no plan, we kind of saw how it worked out. And it worked out, I think, to our advantage better than we expected. Because the response to that from an audience standpoint was just out of this world. I think it just helped the whole intro of the family and their aura and they’ve been doing so great with that. You can tell the audience they’re just taken aback by them. Every single week, the vibe in the crowd, you’ll see it tomorrow night when you’re there, maybe you have already. But it’s something else when you’re out there in the arena, and they show up man.”

On working in Bo Dallas’ first program in 5 years:

“That’s special for a number of reasons. Bo, he’s so excited about this, and he should be, but I feel his energy and his anxiety, the good anxiety, he has his pacing back and forth before watching him. And it’s similar to watch, eerie in a way, but also so comforting because Windham was very similar and I had the very good fortune to work with Widham when I first got called up to SmackDown. We were on a European tour, my first ever, and he was with Randy at the time. We were over there, me and Jason Jordan as American Alpha, we’re doing some other match, I don’t even know what it was. But then they watched us work the first night and requested to work with us like the rest of the tour. So the whole card got flipped around. So for 9 or 10 days straight over there in the UK and in Europe, we worked with Randy and Bray every night, and it was awesome. They just had nothing but the nicest stuff to say about us afterwards. They dropped the tag team titles to us about a month later, which to me was just like a nod to us as you guys are great. But I learned a lot from Bray in that time and just gained the utmost respect for him. Because he’s one of those guys that when he speaks his mind or gives you feedback you listen. Nothing he says feels like he’s just saying it. Hey, kid, here’s a piece of advice. It’s like he’s looking at you, and offering you his real piece of mind. And something I found about myself that I’ve kind of discovered over the past few years, and this happens with Randy too, or I find with people that I hold in very high regard. I don’t always have like these, I’m not texting him all the time. I don’t have those types of relationships where I’m constantly staying in touch every day and I’m talking to them. But when they say something to me, I store it somewhere in here, and it means so much to me. Bray was one of those people and Randy’s one of those people. So now, like you said, to your point, to be selected as the first guy to have to work with Bray or to work with Bo as he carries on Bray’s legacy. To me, I get to play a small part in carrying on the legacy, which is so special. So when he gave me Windham’s old finisher the other night. I wanted to make it look good, put some stank on it and make it look a little extra special to go that was for you my friend and now also for Bo as he carries it on. So I think all of us that are playing a part in this right now are in a very special position and a very delicate one to carry it on and do it in the right way. So it’s balanced like a golden egg, take care of it. It’s a cool, cool thing.”

On there not being a bad Chad Gable match:

“That’s a feather in my cap then, because I took pride for a long time when any match I got on TV could only be like 90 seconds or two minutes at times. But also some people might write that off and be like, well, it’s just a two-minute match, let’s just go do it. It’s like no, man, I have two minutes tonight, let’s see just how good we can make two minutes. I had a good run there doing that for a while, it’s kind of like almost, there’s an art to it. It’s kind of artistic to be like, Well, you got a four-minute match with Finn Balor. I think I had one of those a while [ago], he’s one of my closest friends and one of my favorite people in the world. We could have very well went out and had a little four-minute forgettable thing, but it’s like, let’s just tear it down for four minutes. I did it with Big E too for a while, five-minute matches and stuff. There’s like a clever little art to it and it’s fun and you’re painting a little bit. I find joy in that. So thank you for saying that.”

On the “Perc Angle” comparisons:

“I mean, what an honor. First of all, it’s so funny when that stuff started coming out because I’m like, oh, here we go, now we’re cooking. Like the week after it came out. For those that didn’t see we come back from a tour overseas. I can’t remember where but, we went to one of my favorite coffee shops called Perk. And I was like, Oh my gosh, did the stars align on this one? I walked into the coffee, they got the big sign and I’m like, Nikki [Otis], do the picture of me with this stuff. It just lined up so perfect. And people just latched on to it. And then like the coffee place sent me a big box, all this Perk merch. I got Perk shirts and bags of Perk Coffee and stickers all over my house. And it just worked out really well. But all that to say like Kurt is the man dude, he’s been so cool. throughout everything we’ve done with him. I got to wrestle him, which was insane.”

On the biggest thing he had to unlearn when transitioning from amateur to pro wrestler:

“Stone face all the time, no emotion. Coming into NXT, when I first came in, that was certainly the hardest thing was letting yourself be vulnerable and that applies to life too. But letting yourself be vulnerable in wrestling, I think is a big part of it and something that I had a lot of trouble with. Obviously, in amateur wrestling, you don’t go out there and show emotion to your opponent or show them how you’re feeling. But at NXT I got down there and I’ll never forget my first Tuesday when I got thrust in front of presentation skills class, basically promo class with Dusty Rhodes in front of like 80 of my now peers, who are just these larger than life personalities, every one of them and they were experienced in doing this, and I get called up in front of everybody and with the camera and red lights on. And they’re like, Give us something. Well, what do you mean? They’re like, show us character, anything? I hope nobody pulls up any of my old stuff that I did there. Because I mean, talk about anxiety and stress in front of that many people trying to make an impression but having no clue what you’re doing. It was the worst, but you’re either forced to sink or swim at that point, it’s like, get over it. And thankfully, I did think pretty quickly. But I was surrounded by great people, there’s so many people down in NXT that had no reason to help me and be welcoming, but they were. And to my benefit, I have a lot of people to thank from down there.”

On the chaos theory:

“So, I mean, Doug Williams, the OG of chaos theory, was one of my main influences when I was around that age, 14 or whatever, and tape trading. And I like I said, me and my friend Kurt Pope in the backyard. I tried it out. I was very young and a lot smaller than but then I wish I could remember the first time I tried it in NXT. I was like well I used to do that when I was 14, I can probably still pull it off now. I did it and no one else was doing it at the time and no one in the company even. Saw I was like, claim it, put my mark on it. I’ll keep it but it’s a unique movement. It’s one of those things that I always struggled with because when they tell you to pick your finisher, not that’s necessarily a finisher, my finish but it’s a pretty spectacular move and you but if you’re going to do a move like that, that’s gonna be signature they always say like you make sure you can do it on everybody and it’s, it’s like, oh, that one I don’t know about that. But I pulled it off on Braun Strowman. So like, who else is there that I’m gonna need to do it on? He’s a big dude. It’s pretty it’s pretty gnarly dude. It just speaks to, not my athletic ability, but that of the people I’m working with. I mean, everybody’s necks aren’t in great condition. And that’s you’re going straight over your neck on that move every single time. But when we talk about performance and what we do, there’s a lot of that that goes into that move. And it’s, it’s a difficult one.”

On hopefully winning a singles championship soon:

“I hope so. I feel like I also am disappointed in the fact that I didn’t grab one during that whole run [against Sami Zayn]. Because I also don’t want to give the fans the impression that like, well he’s great, but he’s also just the guy that can’t win the big one, where I know I am and I know I can. But what this is doing is I think for me building that first one to mean almost as much as maybe it’s ever meant for anybody. I’ve come so close so many times, the Gunther stuff, what it did for my career, what Gunther did for my career can’t be overstated. I have him to thank for so much the way he elevated me. Then moving on to the stuff with Sami, from a storytelling perspective alongside the in-ring perspective, we got so much accomplished in such a short amount of time. I feel like for both of us that it left just the right amount on the table for me as a singles guy to be like he did so much there, he got so much done, but he didn’t win the championship. So we’ve got one piece of the puzzle left to fill in, and I’m almost happy it didn’t happen then, because of what we got done there. It didn’t need it. I didn’t need it. But now I do and so now it’s still on the table.”

On Shorty G:

“I’ve often said, probably to nobody’s surprise, that was a pretty low point. But again, and I don’t want to get too repetitive but I was asking for opportunities on a weekly basis at that point. I was going into offices and being like, Look, I need to work, I need to do anything. Because I really wasn’t doing anything. So I was given the Shorty G character persona. The last thing I’m going to do, my personality, the last thing I’m going to do is scoff at it and not give it whatever I can. Whatever effort I can is going to go into that because I’ve asked for it. I asked for anything, an opportunity and I was given it. So I did the most I could with it. I think what it showed was that I am willing to contribute in whatever manner, if it’s down here, or up here, I’m willing to contribute whatever I can and whatever is asked of me. Once you’ve proven that, that you’re going to do that and you’re not going to put on a booboo face and sit around and sulk around because you’re not happy with it. Then look at this guy, let’s give him some more. Okay, he showed us his grit, he showed us that he’s here for the long run. And I think that worked to my benefit hopefully.”

On Maxxine Dupri:

“How unique of a situation to where she’s really learning to wrestle week by week in front of a live TV audience. Because at the time she wasn’t even doing live events, all she was doing was coming to TV and learning there to work, and then go into the Performance Center in Orlando. But we got to a point where we knew she was going to start having some singles matches. And to her credit, she asked me to get in the ring with her at shows before TV and stuff, which of course I did. So we would work on, I kept telling her let’s do the basics, because we’re at a level and with our company I think what’s most appreciated and to me, at least what stands out the most with new people is when they do the basic things really, really well. Not some flashy new flip or something or new move that looks cool, that doesn’t impress me. Someone doing the old-school stuff really well and snug and they were taught properly, that impresses me.”

On ‘Shoosh’ becoming a catchphrase:

“Shoosh I stole from Pauly Shore’s movie Encino Man. The bully, the high school jock bully, just said shoosh like 100 times in the movie and it was so funny. Like it was so annoyingly funny. I’ll never forget the first time I did it. We had this one night and I think COVID had kind of interrupted the plans because a bunch of people got sick, had to stay home, all this stuff. It was Detroit, if I remember right, and me and Otis were thrust into this promo seg to open the show. I don’t know where it was, they’re like, Well, you guys can walk and talk and do a promo tonight. I’m like I can say what? They’re like whatever. I was like we were waiting for this. So I pulled out all these Pauly Shore references and these Always Sunny references, absurd stuff that I just liked. It was the first time I ever just did stuff that I liked because I had the chance. And lo and behold, the stuff I liked is what resonated with people and it was like this light bulb. The crazy thing is you get people that will tell you this, and it happens in all avenues of life. You get advice from people but it never really clicks until you just do it for once. It was like all this stuff I like resonated with the people and stuck and who would have thought it’d be something as stupid as saying thank you and shoosh.”

On ‘A Thank You’ also becoming a catchphrase:

“I think that was by accident as well. That was stolen from I think Always Sunny if I’m pulling my right reference, because Charlie on one of the episodes of Always Sunny, he says thank you like three times in a row. But like the last time he said it, he kind of drifts off because I think he had huffed something. And I always heard that last time you said it and I was like, That’s really funny. And then it was when I got my master’s degree, and I was being this obnoxious, schmuck, so to thank people I said it like that. And then I just heard the people’s response and I was like, Oh, that one’s gonna stay, that’s gonna stick.”

On possibly being Kurt Angle’s son instead of Jason Jordan:

“There was never any talk of any of that until it happened. We found out about that whole thing the day before, or two days before. We got called in, they told us the deal and up until that point, we thought we were just hunky dory tag team for the long run. But that night, they sent Jason to wherever TV was, and they sent me to Birmingham, Alabama. I just sat in my hotel room and watched Monday Night Raw as they announced. And I said, What? Okay. And that was it. And that’s how I found out it.”

On Chad Gable being the son making more sense:

“You would think so [laughs]. Yeah, I don’t know. I think Jason, I mean, what a talent first of all, but he was such a strapping young lad, and probably in the company’s eyes at that point in time, out of the two of us. I mean, dude, besides his unfortunate injury, he was going to be a superstar. He was often running with the stuff he was doing with Seth Rollins. And I know he got a lot of crap when he first started with the stuff with Kurt and the character he had taken on. But people didn’t realize that was how you were supposed to feel about that character. He was playing it perfectly and everyone was very critical of a lot of the traits that the character was doing and I’m like, you’re doing it right, that’s what you’re supposed to be doing. Right before his injury, he was peaking and he was getting all these awesome singles matches, he had wrestled Cena and he was wrestling all these guys just killing it, dude. What an unfortunate end. But thankfully, he’s taken on a producer position. I mean, every time he tells me that he’s got my segment or my matches, I’m like, oh baby, music to my ears.”

What is Chad Gable grateful for?

“Family, that I have rediscovered God and Jesus and extending my relationship with WWE.”

Adam Pearce: Raw GM, Bray Wyatt Segment, Nick Aldis, Brock Lesnar Split His Pants

in LATEST EPISODES on August 8, 2024 August 8, 2024

Adam Pearce (@ScrapDaddyAP) is a professional wrestler and the General Manager of WWE Raw. He sits down with Chris Van Vliet in Toronto to discuss how he got the job in WWE, why his first run with the company didn’t work out, if there are ever any plans to have a match against SmackDown General Manager Nick Aldis, being a 5-time NWA World Champion, his 2 matches in WWE, getting hit with 2 F5s from Brock Lesnar, becoming Postman Pearce in Bray Wyatt’s Firefly Funhouse, his many arguments with Chelsea Green and more.

Visit Adam Pearce’s new website: http://itisofficial.org

Quote I’m thinking about: “Love somebody today.”

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On fans realising he used to be a wrestler:

“I think it depends on what people you’re talking to. Are we speaking specifically of WWE fans? Yeah. I would say the majority of them are they give you a look almost like Scooby Doo. Yeah for almost 20 years.”

On if he could still go in the ring:

“100%. Right now. How much do you pay me? I don’t want to either. I appreciate that though. I’ve been done for 10 years. December 21 of this year will be 10 years to the day I had my last pro match. Well, now I have to back up. If you rewind, five years or so I guess you could say that I hold the singles victory over Shinsuke Nakamura, which was in the main event of a SmackDown. And the last tag match I had if I’m thinking about that was as partners with Braun Strowman for the World Tag Team title against Hurt Business, where I got beat.”

On a possible match between himself and Nick Aldis:

“Yeah, there’s something there. There’s a lot of air and opportunity between Mr. Aldis and I but here’s the thing like, you have to want that. Man, don’t think he wants that. No, that’d be fun. I think neither one of us neither Nick and I are ever going to angle for a position in the spotlight like that. I think we’re both content very happy and very honored to have the positions we have currently in WWE. There’s only one general manager for the show. So it’s highly important. It has been the pinnacle of my professional career, performing career. And I hope that continues into the future. But as I’ve said, 100 times, privately, publicly, I ain’t afraid to get my hands dirty either. So if the situation calls for it, I’m sure Nick would be down for it and I think there’s a whole litany of NWA fans who have played that what if game? Because I think our names are always connected when people talk about that, especially in the “modern era.” I think it’d be fun for a lot of different groups of wrestling fans.”

On his backstage role:

“I am a producer of Raw currently, previous to that Raw and SmackDown. I have been the director of live events, which means I have written and booked the territory brother, so to speak. I did that for a long period of time, which was a lot of fun. I was hired to be a coach and a trainer way back when almost a decade, just about a decade now. So I spent the first 10 months at the Performance Center teaching, which was awesome in and of itself.”

On getting the job in WWE:

“I call it time served and the reason I say that is because you spend a lot of time in a vocation, you’re going to run into everybody, you’re going to run the gamut of the experiences and the people you run into and that you meet. I see this quote all the time and I used it today when I tweeted something about Rhea Ripley and always be kind to the people you see on the way up because it’s the same faces you’ll see on the way down and I saw a lot of faces over 20 years. Thankfully, I guess I had a good enough track record with the work that I had done independently. I was a freelance professional that entire duration save for the five years I was under contract Ring of Honor two of which I ran the company. And that’s where I got a taste of writing TV for the first time, booking a house show schedule and working contractually with talents to keep them in the fold and losing talents to other places, not to mention taking bumps. I got a phone call from a gentleman who I highly respect and I won’t name his name because I don’t know how he would feel about that. But he posed the question to me. This was in 2012. He said, Hey, man, if I told you that I think I could get you a job that you could have for the next 25 years but it meant you’d never put your boots on again, what would you say? And I said When do I start?”

On Adam Pearce the wrestler:

“Oh, Adam Pearce the wrestler, the Scrap Daddy. There’s only one scrap iron that appears five times as NWA world heavyweight champion. I was dead set every night I put my boots on into drawing negativity, at all costs, at any cost. Everything I did was geared towards receiving a negative reaction from the paying customer.”

On why his first stint in WWE didn’t work out:

“So this was 98-99 and I was young and up and coming. This is not pre-internet, because the internet existed, but it didn’t exist nearly at the capacity or the way the world works with it or around it or because of it now. But I had some buzz and I had talks with WWF at that time and WCW at the same time and little conversations even with ECW and WCW’s, I don’t want to say offers, but what I thought they could offer seem to be more appealing to me at that period of my life. And I turned on their offer too, so here we are, turned down New Japan sorry. I said no, a lot of times to a lot of people and I’m that guy.”

On his WarGames yell and trying to live up to William Regal:

“No. I would preach this to students when I was training people to wrestle. If you throw a lot of chops in your match, what does the crowd do? When the crowd Woo’s, who are they thinking about right now? Not you brother. So the last thing I wanted to do was to say WarGames like regal. So I actually went to him. And I said, any thoughts on what you think this should sound like coming from me? And aside from him saying it didn’t sound anything like me. He also said, you know, I only said that like four times. And somehow they think I’ve been doing this for 30 years. He said, Just do it like you do it. So did and it was fun.”

On receiving 2 F5s from Brock Lesnar:

“That was amazing. [My pants] split on the first one, which was hilarious. I remember saying to Brock. I said, Hey, how do you grab for the F5, I know it’s a firemans carry. And so he showed me how he’s gonna grab me and I said, Don’t worry, I’ll get light for you. And he goes, You don’t have to. And I said, I know I don’t have to, but I will. Brother, I got you. What a pro. What a freak athlete. [Did you know they’d split the first time?] No, I didn’t know they split until I got in the back and everyone was laughing at the fact that I split my pants. And I was like, why don’t you take two fives and see what happens?”

Was it supposed to be two?

“He listened to the crowd because they started chanting one more time. Yes. One more time. One more time. One more time. And I’m laying there and they kind of look up. And again, professionalism, we made eye contact or when the eye contact was sustained for longer than two or three seconds. I knew that one more time was gonna happen, which is cool.”

On Chelsea Green:

“Always an experience working with Chelsea and easy to play off. When she would do her thing and to this day when she does it’s almost like you don’t have to say anything. I always try to think about what would my face say to this person without a word coming out of my mouth. What do my eyes say? I’m pretty good facially and there’s a tip for younger wrestlers too, sell everything with this. Your eyes Your face. I always thought let Chelsea be Chelsea and I just have to kind of react without saying anything.”

On working with Bray Wyatt and Postman Pearce:

“He was great. I wish we could have done more obviously. I think everybody that worked with Windham would tell you that. Postman Pearce appeared once just once. But I thought, what a creative way in this world of sports, entertainment and pro wrestling, how do you again with the WWE official or the GM being the informational conduit? What does that conduit look like to the supernatural Wyatt Family to Bray, to The Fiend heaven forbid. What would that look like? And when they when they when the postman idea. When I read that I was like, This is hilarious. It’s going to be funny. And what was awesome about doing the Playhouse with him is whether or not you were working specifically or strictly off a script or a lot of creative leeway. He had all the leeway to make it as out there or as Bray Wyatt as he wanted it to be. And I remember saying hey, man, like, of course we have the point we have to get across but like just kind of want to be in awe of this place and look around and I wanted to say what the f*ck. I go through the door and I go what the? And then he starts talking but like, it was fun. I still have the costume.”

On firing and swearing at Bobby Lashley:

“I don’t know that I’m giving anything away that I shouldn’t when I say this, I was supposed to say it without saying it. They wanted it to come across like it was being muted or beeped for TV. They asked me do you think you could say motherf*cker without saying the f*cker part? I went I am a professional profanity slinger Of course I can. I did, and there was no need for anyone to hit the button at the network.”

What is Adam Pearce grateful for?

“My health, my family and that we are in Toronto.”

Nigel McGuiness On Bryan Danielson, AEW Commentary & Mind-Blowing Magic

in LATEST EPISODES on August 6, 2024 August 6, 2024

Nigel McGuiness (@McGuinnessNigel) is a professional wrestler and commentator currently signed to AEW. He sits down with Chris Van Vliet at West Coast Creative Studio in Hollywood, CA to discuss how likely one more match will be, his in-ring careers in ROH and TNA, being renamed Desmond Wolfe, the offer that got rescinded from WWE and what could have been, being in attendance at SummerSlam 1992 in Wembley Stadium, his thoughts on Bryan Danielson and more! Plus, Nigel wows Chris with some amazing magic tricks!

Quote I’m thinking about: “We are what we repeatedly do, therefore, excellence is not an act, but a habit” – Will Durant

Sponsors: PURE PLANK: The future of core fitness! Use the code CVV to save 10% on Pure Plank which was designed by Adam Copeland & Christian: https://gopureplank.com/

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BONCHARGE: Use the code CVV to save 15% off your infrared sauna blanket at https://boncharge.com/cvv

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On trying to lose his accent:

“I even took classes to try to get rid of it. Yeah, I took a class to try to get an American accent because, you know, there was a time when I was looking about getting into acting and stuff. And there are a lot of great British actors who do incredible American accents.”

On how much prep there is for AEW Collision:

“For me, quite a lot. The week prior, I’m usually on social media a fair bit looking for little hot-button topics, things like that, things that are relevant. And then, the day of, I’ll get in there early and as soon as we got the list of what the matches are I’ll put them all together. It is a sort of very stringent routine that I go through every time to know the stories that I’m telling, the little bullet points as well. Then just little funny things as I said that I can sort of bring into the conversation. So that will usually take me most of the day as of late I’ve been getting in the ring as well and rolling around so between all of that it’s a hectic rush till 8 o’clock when we shoot.”

On if he is working towards a return match:

“I was open to the suggestion, open to the idea. When I originally signed with AEW, I took a flight cross country with Tony and he said, I’ve got to swear you to secrecy, I’m telling you something you can’t tell another soul. We’re doing Wembley Stadium and I was like, Oh, my God. Then just the idea occurred to me. Could you, should you, because Wembley Stadium 1992. That was an epiphany for me. That was a moment. I went there with my friend and I sat back 50 rows back, and I just remember having this strange sensation, I talk about it during my magic show how I just have this weird feeling, this belief that somehow I knew I was going to be a professional wrestler. I think maybe you’ve had a similar idea yourself, but it stuck with me, certainly. So to go back to that venue and wrestle would just be off the charts. But the only thing that really made sense was Bryan, and he broke his arm because he’s got osteoporosis.”

On what would have happened if Bryan Danielson had not broken his arm:

“I don’t know. I mean, there’s so much of it is out of my control, really is whether he wants to wrestle me. I always thought it was kind of funny. Someone asked him about that time if he’d ever wrestle me again and he said if I ever wrestled, Nigel, I’d break his neck. Then three weeks later he breaks his arm, which I thought was karma. I’ve always thought as well. Sometimes, you get couples and the girl is always jealous and blaming the guy for cheating. You’re cheating on me. You are thinking of cheating. I mean, it always turns out, she was thinking of it. So I think maybe when Bryan said, if I wrestle him I’ll break his neck, he probably remembers those lariats and thinks, doesn’t want that. Go back and watch that match at Liverpool where we had that incredible match. There was a time after he ran my head into the ring post. I rolled back in blood pouring looked him in the face and perhaps the only time I’ve ever seen true fear in his eyes. So yeah, I think he was having a flashback, PTSD from that. So I make jokes about it, don’t think he’s ever going to wrestle me to be perfectly honest.”

On a match with Bryan Danielson in Wembley being the terms for an in-ring comeback:

“It certainly feels like that. You know what I mean? It certainly feels like that. All roads to me, I think certainly aimed towards him. Because there’s so much talent in AEW, so many young guys who deserve those spots. I’m very inspired by Christian Cage, obviously, and Adam Copeland as much as I’d hate to admit it. These guys can show that they haven’t lost a step. They can still go and all the knowledge that they have, they can convey and pass on to the next generation by being in the ring with them as well. I’ve been like, wow. Getting back in the ring I felt like, wow, it is so strange realisation when you figure out that the only thing stopping you being a wrestler is you. Now, having said that I’ve certainly got no desire to step away from the announcing booth. I don’t want to become a full-time wrestler. I don’t really want to wrestle anymore, to be honest with you. Other than beating Bryan, obviously, because that’s our story. There’s our history.”

On ending his career on his terms:

“That’s definitely a possibility. I mean, you mentioned before we started filming that you watched the documentary, it was rather an ignominious end to my career. I was very grateful to all the independent promoters who booked me on my final retirement tour. But I certainly never imagined that my last match would be in a small volunteer fire department in West Virginia. But yeah, you just don’t get to choose it sometimes.”

On WWE commentary:

“I’ve always said actually, if this is what I know about doing commentary, this is what I learned in WWE about it. And that all goes down to Michael Cole and filtered down through Tom Phillips, both of them are so incredible in taking their time in explaining WWE’s view of commentary and how to do it and setting me up for success rather than failure. And Michael Cole, when he started there, people weren’t quite so kind and understanding to him. Not even the fans, even the people behind the scenes, it was a very different atmosphere backstage when he started. Sometimes people pay that forward, I had to endure this, I had to pay my dues. He could have been very mean and [said] you got to be good, or else you’re gonna be [fired]. But he didn’t want that, he wanted it to be a success. That’s why in my opinion he is such a valuable asset to that company.”

On when he was cleared to wrestle:

“I mean, ostensibly once I cleared Hep B, then I was clear to wrestle. [People don’t even understand that you can clear the virus] Hepatitis is very confusing because there are four, maybe even five different variants of hepatitis. And I think because they’re all called hepatitis, they’re all similar, but they’re not. They’re only called hepatitis because they affect your liver, your hepatic function. So you have got Hep A which you get from eating bad food, which makes you very sick, very quickly. And then you get rid of it, pretty much. You’ve got Hep B, which is what I had, which is generally you get rid of it yourself within a few months. 10% of people don’t get rid of it, which is what happened to me. And then Hep C, which generally speaking was considered lifelong but now I believe there’s medication and get rid of it as well. Then there’s hep D as well, which I am not too familiar with. But Hep B, which I had, I didn’t clear it. So because of that, I had to take some medication and it took about a year for me to finally clear the virus. And then once you get rid of the virus, you have the antibodies to the virus, so the majority of people in the 90% of people who get Hep B, never know they have it. Because you only really have symptoms for it for a short period of time. And then you can get rid of it. And then you do a blood test and you will find the antibodies to it. And once we’ve got rid of it, you can’t pass it on anymore, because there’s no more virus. So that’s what happened to me.”

On AEW allowing blading:

“Yeah, yeah, it’s definitely difficult and it is sometimes a crisis of conscience for me. Oftentimes, I don’t know if it’s going to happen and sometimes it happens by accident. So it’s certainly something I’ve thought of, and I feel very comfortable in the sense that I don’t feel I will ever be forced to do commentary in a match I didn’t feel comfortable doing so. It’s something that I think that maybe I will address moving forward. I’m not sure. Again, it’s hard for me to say because pre getting it myself, I would have said it’s no big deal. In the time since nobody else has tested positive so it’s hard for me to say just because of me, one example.”

On the WWE offer being rescinded:

“I was on the beach in Florida, actually, when I got the phone call from the doctor. So Bryan and I were both signed at the same time, we both had a contract and it wasn’t a developmental contract, it was an on-the-road contract. We both went to the physical at the same time and I passed and we had a few little niggling things that he managed to resolve. The doctor said to me in passing afterwards, you ever had any injuries? And I’d been wrestling for 10 years, who hadn’t? So I’d had an arm injury, which previously an orthopaedic surgeon who was highly recommended had looked at it and said it’s partially torn, will scar in place, and it’s no more likely to get re-injured than if it never been hurt in the first place. Even wrote me a letter saying that. So he said, well send me the MRI, I just want to take a look at it. So I sent an MRI. He said, You need surgery, I said, my guy said I didn’t need surgery. And so long, and the short of it is he said I can’t recommend that we hire you. And so what was I going to do at that point?”

Did you have options?

“So I mean, my options were to get surgery. So first of all, I didn’t have a lot of money. Second of all, I didn’t believe I really needed surgery. I’d already wrestled on this for a year and a half since having the original injury and was perfectly okay. And third of all, just because I’ve had the surgery doesn’t mean that they’re going to hire me because I couldn’t get that kind of assurance. They may not ever hire me again, and there was an offer on the table from TNA. I remember my last match in New York with Bryan and I remember getting a phone call from someone at TNA saying if it doesn’t work out with WWE, give us a shout. So sure enough after I got that phone call, I gave him a call and I was totally honest. I said, this is what they’ve said, this is what I believe. So they said, Okay, we’ll sign you up. I mean, it was for pennies on the dollar compared to what I would have made but I really truly believed in myself and my ability I was gonna go TNA, prove them wrong, have some great matches and before the hepatitis that was largely what happened.”

On the Bryan Danielson eating Brie line:

“I wish I could take credit for that one, Christopher. But unfortunately, no. [Who gets the credit?] The beauty of social media I think someone must have posted it on Twitter about a year or so ago. Something like that. Well, that sounds like a fun line. I wasn’t sure whether I could use it because I’ve had a lot of lines that I always run everything by Bobby Crews before the show because he’s a good sort of barometer of whether this is politically correct enough or not. That one got through the Crews-ometer [So you were talking about cheese right?] Talking about cheese. There were some upset people in France but can’t please everyone.”

What is Nigel McGuinness grateful for?

“My daughter, my girlfriend, my health and my job.”