Marc Copani (@marccopani) is a retired professional wrestler known for his time as Muhammad Hassan in WWE. He joins Chris Van Vliet in Philadelphia, PA to talk about His short but impactful run in WWE, how his character was originally pitched to him, not actually being Arab-American, getting heat from the locker room, always staying in character even outside of the ring, plans for him to beat Batista to become World Champion, being written off of TV following pressure from the network, what he is doing today, working in education, if he still gets recognized, any plans for another match and more!

Quote I’m thinking about: “He who is not courageous enough to take risks will accomplish nothing in life” – Muhammad Ali

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On never getting back in the ring:

“I cannot step back I would shatter into a million pieces I think as soon as I took one bump, I threw my back out two weeks ago picking up my nephew. I blew my hamstring racing my daughter on the beach. Like it’s just amazing as you get older, like you just come you just pile up injuries for no good reason. I wish I had a good story for how I threw my back out, like, I mean, I could squat and I could bench and that I’m just getting out of the car and doing this and like boom, gone.” 

On what he is doing now:

“I started as a teacher, then I became an assistant principal, and then I became a principal. And now I am the Director of Human Resources in the city school district.”

On being recognised in school:

“The ones who like wrestling. Yeah, it’s funny because my son’s nine and he’s on a basketball team and his friends are all huge wrestling fans, like I’m signing things for them. Shawn actually got them tickets to the show in Syracuse last week, they had a blast. And my son, you know, he’s into basketball. None of my kids are really into which I’m completely fine with. But it’s funny because he’s at that age now where I started getting into wrestling. And he’s just, you know, not a big fan, I guess.”

On if he still follows wrestling:

“Not really. I know a little bit, I’ll check it out here and there. It’ll pop up on my Instagram feed and watch videos but I don’t really watch the show. Not because I don’t want to, just I really don’t have time. I only tend to get to watch TV in my bed at like 10 o’clock at night.”

On possibly being fired for being too good of a heel:

“Someone had said, too controversial for WWE, which I kind of liked because that is a distinguishment right there. Yeah, it was definitely a controversial character and I feel like I played it pretty well. I was talking about this last night, it was very hard to get into character with Shawn [Daivari] because everywhere we went, we kind of faced that. I mean, it was still pretty fresh after 9/11. We went to the airport and Shawn would always be randomly checked at every single airport. It’d be very annoying because then we’d have to run to our flight. So I kind of use that as my anger, obviously, more things than that. But it was very easy to fall into that character and be able to speak the truth about what I saw, because that was what was happening back then. And again, that character would never fly today. You know, it kind of had to stay in its time and I think it’s kind of cool for me doing something completely different that that character still stays as controversial.”

On how long the character would have lasted:

“It would have been gone I think within a couple of years, the world really started changing and the things that we were doing in wrestling back then would never fly today. That was definitely one of them. So I mean, what if Yeah, I’m happy where I am now. So I never really think of it like that. Now, this is fun. Like, this is extra stuff for me to be able to come and do this and talk to you. You know, it’s not real life for me so I really enjoy it. But I’m happy where I am.” 

On the initial character pitch:

“God, I think Jim [Cornette] and Arn Anderson was there at the time and we really didn’t know what that character was going to be. They pitched the idea and we knew about Shawn. But we weren’t sure other than I was going to be an Arab it was going to generate a lot of heat. He talked to me about travelling with Sheikh back in the day and all the heat that it generated. And are you up for this? And I’d been you don’t say no, I remember talking to Rip Rogers, who was trainer there at the time. I’m like, I’m not ready for this. He’s like, you never know if you’re ready. You had to jump into the fire and see if it burned. But I wasn’t gonna say no and it sounded fascinating. Then Shawn came in and we had great chemistry and it kind of took off. We were at the house shows we first started just trying different things, seeing what the crowd would boo at or if they would even cheer. I don’t think we really had a decision made until after the second or third vignette that we filmed in Connecticut before I debuted about what that character was going to be. People are going to cheer him because I am kind of telling the truth. We could have an ethnic demographic that might cheer that character on. But I think the way that I interrupted and the way that character was presented once I got on TV, and after those vignettes became more and more aggressive. I mean, it was obvious that they were going to boo but we kind of film those in order waiting to see the reaction.”

On not being Arab-American:

“I am not. I am 100% Sicilian. And Shawn is not Arab, either. He’s, he’s Iranian. He’s Persian. So again, you know, like, I still hear about that like that. I played an Arab character. It’s like, it’s all phoney, man, it’s this character on TV. It’s the same thing. But with Shawn speaking Farsi, it really tied the whole thing together. And that’s what really started generating a lot of heat.”

On the timing of the character:

“It was a very different time in this country. And it was obviously not a great time to be Arab in this country, so that character really did speak the truth. I do hear from people who are Arab or Middle Eastern quite frequently about how they identified as that character, with that character and how important it was to them, which is really cool to hear that you actually could have an impact like that on someone’s life playing a character. But it wasn’t just an Italian playing the character that was important. It was what that character was saying and what he stood for and really, the hypocrisy that that character was up against in the WWE was really what shone through on that character.”

On picking up momentum:

“It picked up momentum right after the debut. Then I think what really put that character on the map was working with Shawn Michaels. I had done some smaller angles, but working with Shawn and then eventually Hulk Hogan. I think that was kind of where I felt that that character is at the top of its game, in the ring with someone like Shawn Michaels every night you really can’t look bad. So yeah, definitely right around then, and then it kind of ebbed and flowed a little bit up until the end.”

On jealousy from the locker room:

“I think there was, especially when I first got there, and nobody knew me, I felt like a lot more heat. Coming in and getting a push to the moon, it doesn’t upset the top guys, it does upset some of the mid-card guys, because they look at it as that’s the response, the top guys will tell you, if that was your spot, you would have taken it, that did. So all the top guys treated me really well and most of the middle card guys did too. But you know that there’s just heat coming in and being new and back then it was a different locker room. You know, there wasn’t a lot of rules. But I definitely had some heat during my career in the WWE.”

On being told the character can’t be on TV anymore:

“So I remember when we didn’t know where we were gonna go with it. I remember when they were getting a lot of pressure, the character was gonna change or come off TV. I remember talking to Johnny Ace, who was head of talent relations at the time, and I was like any idea what’s going on? And I said something like I’m about to buy a house and he’s like, don’t buy the house. That’s when I knew I was like okay, and I didn’t know what’s gonna happen after that. But after that, it was pretty quick. We couldn’t be on TV anymore. We did the pay-per-view with Undertaker and Buffalo and that was it. They wouldn’t even put the character back on TV in any capacity.”

On this being a Vince McMahon idea:

“I was told later that it was Vince’s baby, that whole idea of bringing back an Arab character was Vince’s idea and he was very, you know, big on the idea. So I think that’s obviously why we got that big push.”

On the rumoured World Championship reign:

“I know I heard that and I don’t know where it originally came from. But I was supposed to, as far as I know, beat the Undertaker, obviously with a lot of help and then wrestle Batista at WrestleMania in Washington, DC. Dave was announced as being from, he is from Washington, DC. So it was kind of like, the era of beats the hometown boy in the nation’s capital was supposed to be the story.”

On not wanting to stay in wrestling:

“It took me a while to really figure it out. I think I was a little depressed. I was definitely heartbroken, turned off. The constant travelling in the spotlight, it was fun while it lasted, but it wasn’t for me. It took me a while to figure out that I just didn’t want to get back in there because it really was a huge, heartbreaking moment for me. You work so hard, you spend so much time just training and preparing, and then it’s all taken away kind of for no reason. I didn’t do anything, I didn’t bomb anyplace. I understand why the character is taking off to me it absolutely had to be but I think that was the heartbreak for me is that I was just out there doing the best that I could and it kind of just was pulled out the rug was pulled out from under me.”

On falling out of love with wrestling:

“It took a long time. I would not face it for a long time and that’s why I never did a lot of signings or appearances, or when anywhere else, it was almost like I was trying to avoid the reality of what had happened to me and as that character. But now, years later, like I look back and I think it was a cool trip. Sometimes because of it, my kids think I’m cool. That’s awesome. I’ll take it when I can get it.”

On having a return match in 2018:

“It’s funny, I was just there to sign and you always bring your gear with you. So I was going to do a signing and the guy was like, Do you want a wrestling match? I was like yeah, I guess I do. There was no big story, and it just kind of like what you’re here do you want to wrestle and I was like yeah, why not? So I put my stuff on got the ring, messed around a little bit and then ended up just wrestling a match for like 10 to 15 minutes was a lot of fun. And then I did like one or two more. It’s kind of like I just want to see if I could do it again. It had been so long and I really enjoyed the the wrestling aspect of being a wrestler being in the ring and working with somebody in the ring. So I just did it there was there was not a lot of thought put into it, man, it was spontaneous.”

Was there any plans of turning that into another run?

“Absolutely not. I don’t want to travel, I don’t want to put my body through [that]. It’s been rough enough as it is getting old. Like I said, Absolutely not never, I just wanted to have a couple of matches. There are small local shows and local promoters, nice guys. So it was just something to do. I did I think two or three matches, and that was it. I’ll never do it again.”

What is Muhammad Hassan grateful for?

“My family, my wife and to have the opportunity to work in education.”

Billy Gunn (@RealBillyGunn) is a professional wrestler currently signed to AEW. He sits down with Chris Van Vliet at the West Coast Creative Studio in Hollywood to talk about his legendary wrestling career where he has wrestled in 5 separate decades, how he still looks this good at 60 years of age, why his AEW run has been the most fun of his entire career, working with his sons Austin and Colten Gunn, not being a part of the DX reunion on WWE Raw, winning King of the Ring and the promo where The Rock called him “Bob”, coming up with the legendary entrance for The New Age Outlaws, wrestling Sabrina the Teenage Witch, wanting a retirement match against Will Ospreay and more!

“Don’t be afraid your life will end; be afraid that it will never begin.” – Grace Hansen

Sponsors:
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PLUNGE: Get $150 off your Plunge with the coupon code CVV150 at http://plunge.com

On being in better shape than when he debuted:

“Well, I’m a different me than I was then. So because I know you want to talk about this, I’ll give you a perfect lead-in because that’s what kind of guest I am. When I was training horses and riding bulls and all that other stuff working out was the last thing I wanted to do, in a sense of working out to look good. Working out to keep your joints and stuff good is one thing, that’s a total different workout training horses and stuff. I don’t have to be me now, so working out was never really a thing. I mean, I worked out when I played football in high school, but you know how that is, hey, you guys go do full body and you let me know when you’re done in an hour. This is one of those when you really don’t lift you just go hey, I can lift more than you and that’s it. Like there’s no structure, no plan, no nothing, that was the extent of my working out until I got into this lovely business. Once I kind of got into it and realised it was a thing and now I’ve transformed from that to this, which is not bad.”

On looking this good at 60:

“I have a different mindset than most people. It’s just not an option, it’s just not in my DNA, it’s not in my thought process to not be me, to not work harder or not to be better than I was yesterday. Age doesn’t mean anything to me. If I’m gonna get older, it doesn’t matter. That doesn’t mean because I get older that my life stops and I stopped doing the things that I love. So just probably five or six years ago, I really just when dove head off. Help from Mike and help from Ferland and guys in Orlando that know that this is their life, right? So if I want to be in their life I’m going to the people that have done this. I’m sure if those guys wanted to know about wrestling, they’d come to me, right? Because I know a little bit about that. Not a bunch, but I know a little bit. So it’s the same thing. When I really wanted to get into this really it’s just been the past few years that I’ve really got into seeing what I can do.”

On competing:

“My wife and Mike, they didn’t have to talk me into it, but they kind of convinced me. You’re that type of there’s, it’s not that you can’t do it. It’s just that’s a different animal than what I do. And sometimes I get a little shaky when I get outside of my comfortability. I’m not a dieter, I am very good with my food now. But I’ve been super lucky because my genetics and my metabolism have always allowed me, as long as I’m close to eating good, I’m okay. But once I realise about competing, that is a whole different animal. My kids thought I was a walking action figure. I remember the day we were in the gym, and I happened to have this big sweatshirt on and I was probably maybe four or five weeks out. I took my top off and my kids just stood there and stared at me and they go you’re like a real live-action figure right now. And I went well, thank you. So that was kind of cool. But yeah, the dieting and the way that you eat and what you do. It’s amazing if you take the time to figure out what food can do to your body.”

On having fun:

“At this point, that’s all I want to do. I’ve done it all, pretty much everything that you can do. I’ve been to the top, I’ve been to WrestleManias, I’ve done this, I’ve done that and I’ve lived that stressful being on 24/7 and for so long that now my kids, The Acclaimed me, it’s all about having fun. Now it’s just enjoying because I can’t do this forever, and we know, of course, everybody thinks I’ll do it until I’m 100 years old, which ain’t nothing. You haven’t missed a step and it’s not a thing. So they’ll come a point where it’s it’s over, but at until that point, I’m not going to let myself go out there and just be that’s just not in my genetic makeup.”

Was it ever not fun?

“It was probably my TNA run and it had nothing to do with TNA, I was in a whole other headspace. I love the girls, Beautiful People were amazing. Trying to redo the thing with Brian, Road Dogg, just kinda was a thing that we were trying to recreate. But when I was with the girls, it was so much fun because they made it fun. It wasn’t just me, they put me with them for a reason. It was just kind of window dressing at the time. But the girls had total trust in me, they believed in me, they knew if they had questions or wanted to do something that I wasn’t going to just do something. It’s never about me, it just isn’t, with the wrestling stuff it has never been like that. Because I’m not a wrestling person. We all know that right? We all know Billy’s story, he just got into it because he had nothing to do, so he became a wrestler and I just happened to be good at it in certain aspects of what I do in wrestling. It’s not that I’m the greatest wrestler, I’m not that. But I did enjoy it. But I didn’t know what I was doing. And to this day I don’t know what I’m doing but I’m very good at making other people and making other people live the dreams that they want. And that’s okay because I’ve had my run in the sun or whatever they say. So I don’t need that. I just want to have fun. I just want to watch my kids because that right there in itself, I watch them and just laugh so hard, because they are probably the most entertaining kids that I’ve ever seen. The energy, the enthusiasm the way that they just, and they’re the same way they’re not selfish at all. They just aren’t, it’s amazing.”

On scissor me Daddy Ass:

“So this is the thing. It’s very interactive with us, and this is my outlook on wrestling. I’ve never been good at the wrestling part but I’ve been really good at figuring out how to get people to react. So when I do some kind of wrestling move, there is a reaction. Because I’m not going to wrestle and get the people. That’s just not my forte, that’s not my thing. That’s never been what I’m good at. I’m good at taking a heck of a butt-whooping. That’s what I’m good at and taking things. But now that I’m older, I don’t want to take off these things. So it’s all about crowd participation. We have it, you can channel there’s all kinds of stuff to chant, there’s something to do. So now, when we come out, it’s it’s very much, okay, now we get to be interactive. Now we get to participate in a show that we came to see. So that I think that’s where that comes from. Not that Max and Anthony aren’t appealing to the people because there’s all the rap, the energy from Anthony, the, you know, the scissors stuff. So it’s very interactive and if you can do that you can get anybody.”

On The New Age Outlaws intro:

“The thing about it is it for some reason it never got old. I can do it 100 times and it’s such a time to get, I can just just let it rip. And I can’t tell like I tried it. I’ve tried a couple of times just to kind of get into and I can’t I just can’t do it. I just if for some reason. It makes me I guess so excited and so glad to do it I guess that I lose my mind when I do it. I love it. Yeah. Never got old.”

Who came up with New Age Outlaws?

“I think Vince Russo. I’m not 100% sure. So Brian was wrestling somebody’s in a singles match, I was on commentary. If I could find it, I would go back because I’m sitting there and JR pitches something to me like, hey, so I hear you guys are calling yourself the New Age Outlaws. And I go Yeah, that’s the stupidest name I’ve ever heard. Don’t ever say that again. And Vince buzzes me in my ear. He goes, Hey, that’s your new name. Hey, this is a good place for me to know that like maybe just buzzed me before, but things happen like that, you just go at the moment, right? And then, like I and so now I go from like trying to be Mr. heel talking to just going oh, because I hated doing ringside, commentating anyway, so it was just like, let the sails right out of me and I just went, okay. So, so bad.”

On being at his worst while battling addiction:

“I woke up in a house. My house was destroyed. There were things everywhere. There were no dogs, there was no wife, there was no nothing. I literally just went, Yeah, this is it, I can’t do it anymore. One or two things is going to happen, it was just like a couple of days before that. I just drove to the gas station and hit one of the pumps and the cops came up to me and go hey, you alright? I said Yeah. When you’re an addict you come up with [excuses], I have some of the best excuses ever. So you just start splurting out, and they just have to take me at my word. I went home and I’m like, Damn, if they just arrested me maybe that would have straightened me out. But when you wake up, and you have nothing around, you have nothing to your name, and nobody wants to be around you. You can’t talk to anybody, because they don’t want anything to do with you. My wife left cuz she knew she was getting a call one day and she ain’t sitting around waiting for that. That’s one of the worst things that you could ever put somebody through, those are my biggest regrets. The call that I’m dead because I wrecked two cars. I would take a massive load of pills before when I flew home, just so I didn’t have to deal with her and listen to her. And they would kick halfway there. I ended up in a ditch and now she’s at the hospital having to come get me you know. So, like, you don’t want to live like that. So she left, she was out. She goes, I ain’t doing this no more. It was my decision that like, I had to know that this was it for me. This is it. I can’t do it like this is I don’t want to live like this and I don’t want to be by myself anymore. But this is how I’m going to be because nobody wants to be around me. So I made the phone call and was gone.”

On potentially not going back to WWE if he did not get clean:

“Not at all. When I left rehab and kind of started doing my programme like I was supposed to, they’d asked me when I left there, they just come up with this 18-month programme. It was a new trial kind of thing where if I can remember. The first three months of you call this number if your color comes up, you go take a drug test, and then you have to call a counsellor every day just to kind of check-in and just say, Hey, how are you today, this kind of thing. And then at the end of the three months, if everything’s good, the next three months is like every other day you call this number, and then it just kind of backs off instead of going and living in a sober house. I didn’t want to do that. Not that I am too good, just that it wasn’t going to suit what I was doing at the time. But this checking in and keep being accountable every day was something yes, I had to do. I went to meetings every day, it was right down the road from my house and just doing everything that they told me I had to do to stay where I wanted to stay. I did it and it worked. It’s amazing. It worked, it never gets easier. It’s just I know that if something starts getting weird or going haywire, I just go to a meeting and that’s it, that’s all I have to do. I don’t have to use that’s the last thing I have to do. Because there are times when I start kind of it’s not that I don’t have [urges]. We were in Vegas, I was going kind of beer would taste good, but it’s not anything crazy. It’s just, if I get overwhelmed with things I just go and that usually fixes it right off the bat.”

On not being a part of the DX reunion on Raw:

“Yeah, it was just a miscommunication. It was trying to get [there] and believe you me, I get it. I work for a completely different company. If I can do it, fine. If I can’t get it I’m not gonna [be mad]. I spent the majority of my life doing that company and being a part of it. So of course, they want me to be there. But if the company that I’m with now has some issues of what they need and what they want, and if it doesn’t work out, then I can’t go, I can’t be mad about it. You know what I mean? And was I upset? Yeah, cuz I want to hang out with the guys and relive that moment as much as you can. But if it doesn’t work for the company that pays me then I’m not gonna go.”

On guest starring on Sabrina the Teenage Witch:

“So they were looking for somebody to do the show. I didn’t know anything about the show I just knew at the time it was pretty hot. But she lives in a regular world but there’s a realm world and I’m whatever I am there. And so they asked me to come do it and I said, Well, yeah. I’ve done some spotty stuff, in some shows, but nothing like that. A talking role and a major part where I got to beat her up and all that. So I was doing it and it was great. But the way they [shhot it], I’m so used to live TV, that when you do movie stuff, that’s a whole other animal. Because they like I kept trying to tell them, hey, I can do this in one shot, I’m really good at this. Like if you just tell me and they go, Well, that’s not how we do it. So that was my first real experience of how to do that and that’s okay if I don’t do that anymore, but I did do it anyway. But yeah, it was that and then they wanted me to press her and do all this stuff. And I said I ain’t sticking my hands in between her legs, because I’ll be cancelled. So we did certain things with her and then certain things with her stunt double and then they said they’re gonna throw a cat on me and I had to do these lines with a cat and stuff. A talking cat in the realm world. So it was a different experience and it was actually pretty fun.”

On not knowing the lyrics to I’m an ass man:

“I didn’t know the lyrics to ass man for a year. I never knew the lyrics to that song because all I do is listen and feel what I can do with the song. It’s never about what I hear that people singing. It’s about the melody and what I need to do, like energy-wise with the song. I walked out to it and they said hey, we got new music for you tonight. I went Okay, walk down it and listen to it. I went oh, that’s kind of catchy but never heard the lyrics. Didn’t know what the lyrics were for at least a year.” 

On never seeing Chuck Palumbo in AEW:

“He just has no desire right now. He has all his other stuff going on. I’ve asked him to do a couple of things. He just, it’s not that he won’t do it for me, it’s just not him anymore. The boys wanted him to come do my birthday celebration when we did the birthday thing. I called and asked him and he’s got so much other stuff going on that he’s okay that he doesn’t do any of the wrestling, and I get it.” 

On Will Ospreay:

“I don’t know what it is about that kid. I love him, I tell everybody that’s my retirement match. When I retire it’s me and Will, and he just said on some media scrum that he’s in AEW to retire me. Because his work really isn’t me. It’s so opposite of me. But I love him. He’s good. He’s very energetic. Just the stuff he does is amazing. He’s so athletic and could do so much stuff. But he has charisma with it and he’s very good at that. And I love that, I don’t know I just love that kid.”

On The Rock’s “My names Billy…” promo:

“I don’t think there is a story behind it. It was just we were in a programme to go to Rumble or something, whenever we did the kiss my ass match. He always had his own rider and stuff. When I heard it the first time to I went, That’s genius. The only thing that used to make me mad, I’m telling you right now and I’m not the greatest promo ever, right? I’m just not good at it. It was something that I’ve struggled with a little bit. But I could do it. But the problem is when I did it, they would always let him come over the top of me and just crush every bit of heat that I had. But that was because they weren’t his promos, they were just promos to the point of what I’m trying to get across. They weren’t in-depth. It was just more to the point Hey, this week I’m gonna go out there. I came out of the segment and I’m gonna beat you half to death. That’s what I’m going to do whatever. And then he comes over the top and he’s one of the best promos ever because he just is, it’s hilarious, It’s entertaining. So whatever heat that, again, was wiped away. So finally one day I walked him back. I said, Okay, that’s it. Stop letting him come over the top of me. I can’t compete with that I just can’t. And you’re killing every bit of heat that I’m trying to get to there, trying to get to where we’re trying to get to. So now the only way I’m getting heat is like beating the life out of him is just beating him to death. You know, which gets old, but if you can’t cut that promo, you got to protect me just a little bit. Let me do it. Give me some time to kind of let it sink in. And then he can come over the top somewhere else. But he cut that, I laughed so hard. It was great. It was so good. It’s hilarious. But all his promos are, he has that niche and he’s good at it.”

On winning King of the Ring:

“They just came to me. So they just said that, hey, you’re winning King of the Ring and I went awesome. I said that should go somewhere and it went, Yeah, right down the toilet. They hardly even mentioned me in the past King of the Ring winners. But this sounds bad, I don’t care. I don’t. That doesn’t define me, winning things and doesn’t define who I am. As long as people know, hey, I could stick him in there with anybody and He’ll do whatever I want him to do and he can work with anybody, and he’ll do his best to make them or do whatever we want, I’m cool with that. The winning titles and winning this and winning that it’s, you know, it’s all fake. But it is exciting, I get that. And it is exciting and I’m not trying to diminish any of the things that I’ve done or won. But it sits different with me because like I said, I just was never brought up in wrestling because I don’t know how it works. I barely know how it works today. But it was a guy is going to pay me a pretty good amount of money to run around and do stuff that I love to do. I’m going to travel all over the place, I’m going to go out there for 10-15 minutes, I’m going to run around in my underwear, I’m going to pull my pants down, and they’re going to pay me to do that. So I don’t care about positioning and all that other stuff. It’s what it is.”

On the potential retirement:

“I wish I knew, I don’t feel too bad. But a lot of it is the way that I take care of myself. I mean, yeah, do I wake up and everything until I get moving? Yeah. I just found I have two stress fractures in my back, but they don’t stop me from doing what I do, it doesn’t hinder me, but I can still do what I do at a pretty good level. I mean, I’m not gonna go out there and go 25 minutes with Will [Ospreay], that ain’t happening. But do I still have equity in the company? Can I still bring something? Damn right. I can because the minute I step out there those people go nuts and they start saying my name. So as long as I bring value and it’s not, you know, if I go out there and they go, Oh, God really? The first time I hear that I’ll quit. But as long as I can do something to help The Acclaimed or help the company or help my kids. Yeah, I’ll stay around. There’s no reason I can’t. I have no problem just being The Acclaimed’s sidekick. I love it. Because I get to run around talk to people act like a goofball interact when I want to and work every now and then. When I work it’s nothing crazy. My kids asked me that they go, did you just take a triple powerbomb? Go What are you thinking? I went, I thought it would help the match. [They go] Okay, don’t ever do that again. I said okay. Well, I thought in my head it did. But as long as I can do that, and I feel good and I’m not you know, it’s a struggle. The only thing is a struggle is flying these days. Because I hate it. Yeah, but I mean, as long as I’m still as long as I’m still having fun and doing what I do, and I can bring something to help I’m in, I’m good.”

What is Billy Gunn grateful for?

“My wife, my kids and my job.”

Joe Hendry (@joehendry) is a professional wrestler currently signed to TNA. He sits down with Chris Van Vliet at West Coast Creative Studios in Hollywood to talk about the viral success of hit entrance song “I Believe in Joe Hendry” which reached number 4 in the UK charts, plans to return to the UK charts and representing the country in the Eurovision Song Contest, his recent musical performance on TNA Impact, working with the likes of Cody Rhodes and Drew McIntyre earlier in his career, getting a phone call from John Cena when he was 15, his time in WCPW where he faced off against Kurt Angle and more!

Subscribe to Joe Hendry on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@JoeHendry

Quote I’m thinking about: “Success is not the absence of failure; it’s the persistence through failure.” – Aisha Tyler

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On creating a catchy theme song:

“Well, I reverse-engineered it from what I wanted to happen. So for me, professional wrestling is all about crowd interaction. So throughout the song, you’ll notice we literally show and tell what we want the audience to do. So ‘Say his name and he appears…’ and you will see the two claps. Whichever version of the song I’ve had, there’s always been a visual of the two hand claps. Then I literally tell the audience to wave their hands from side to side, and it comes from I heard Queen talk about how they structured We Will Rock You and how they found the perfect BPM for how they wanted people to stomp and clap. And then I looked at the BPM they used for the slower moments and I went for 120 BPM for the faster which is the kind of hypnotic pop timing.”

On the change of tempo:

“The song I had before people liked and it was catchy but I just felt like it needed a bit more energy. So I wanted something a bit faster. So the first section is a little bit like International Love by Pitbull. I mentioned this when we were driving over, I was a musician for a long time before I got into wrestling. And this melody was me saying, Oh God, we’re never gonna make it with this rock music, we should just be like Pitbull and just name places. So I came up with a song that was just making fun of how not successful we were, and after shows would be driving and going ‘London, and Paris and Tokyo…’ And then when I was coming up with the song, it just kept getting stuck in my head and I was like, maybe this is the one. And so yeah, it was a song that I made for a joke making fun of the fact that I wasn’t successful as a musician about 10 years ago and then that just kept getting stuck in my head and here we are now.”

On when the song went viral:

“So I think that professional wrestling and entertainment is all about timing. So there are certain things that I’ve done that would be good ideas in isolation but if the wave is coming at the right time and then you deploy the idea, that’s when things explode. So I’ll give you an example. The billboard that I just appeared on, that’s an idea I’ve had for months and months and wanted to do but just never had the right moment. I thought, well, you know, 10s of 1000s of wrestling fans are going to be in my home country on a certain day at a certain time, maybe that’s the time to deploy the idea. So I kind of take the same approach with everything and I take my approach to wrestling like that. So with the song, a lot of people were telling me to upload it to Spotify and release it officially and I knew I was going to do it. But it was when I noticed on TikTok that if anyone made a TikTok with the song, it was getting hundreds of thousands of hits. I thought now might be the time. So I decided to upload it, I did that and then I started to think actually, how many units do you need to sell for it to chart? And then as with many things I do in life, I watched a YouTube video on how to do it, honestly, YouTube is such a phenomenal education for anything. So there was a video about these guys who got sponsorship money from Saints Row and they were told to make something to promote the video game in a YouTube video and they were like, Let’s make a song about Saints Row and get it in the charts. And they unveiled the units it takes, they unveiled the process you have to go through and I didn’t do the exact strategy, but I took elements of that. The funny thing is the charts run from Friday to Thursday, but I didn’t know that. I just thought well, I’ll release it on Monday. So this all kicked off, this is where the luck came in, this all kicked off because there was no release competition on the Monday because all artists released on the Friday. So in Monday’s iTunes charts, we were like, I looked at my phone, I was like, oh my God, number 20 in the iTunes charts, that’s crazy! Then I tweeted that out and everyone’s like, he’s number 20. Let’s push him up. Then it went to one in the UK on iTunes six in the US, one in Malta, and three in Ireland, it was wild. Then it really caught fire and then we hit the media trail, and then it started to actually do pretty well.”  

On why the song did not catch on in Ring of Honor:

“There are many elements to it, but I think I’ve put things together in TNA. So before TNA I had the gimmick but not the character. So I had these custom entrance songs that were over and people really enjoyed. But that was what I was doing. Whereas the character elements of who Joe Hendry is on television, that came to be in TNA. I think you can see that in the video, you can see the Joe Hendry character in that video. I will say this, it really has taken an army of people to get me to this point, and I will shout out with many people. But one person I’m going to shout out first is Eric Young. Just this is where I feel like you know, someone’s looking out for me a few weeks before I got to TNA, me and Eric Young first met on a show in Germany. And he was like, right, this should be your finish this do this, do that do this, don’t do that kind of stuff, and he helped me understand how I should approach this. So that’s when it started. Then TNA management has worked very hands-on with me, and it’s just been an incredible learning experience. So I think it’s putting everything together in the video that you see now for TNA, you hear the songs which I had before, but you see the character elements.”

On creating lightning in a bottle:

“We say I’ve created lightning in a bottle but honestly, I would not be doing any of this without the fans and the loyalty that I’ve had over the years. There were times when the only thing that kept me going and my rent paid were my Twitch audience when it was like 12 people watching, so those are the people that I’m thankful for. I’m thankful for the fans that are helping me do this because, without their support, it doesn’t mean anything. All the stuff that I’m doing means something because they believe in it, forgive the term, but that’s why this matters because the fans believe in it. So I’m just incredibly grateful to be in this spot. I really don’t take it for granted. I know how important timing is. I know that there’s so few times in life where you get a window of opportunity like this and I fully intend to seize it with both hands. But like I say, it takes an army of people to get you to this point, I have so many supportive colleagues, TNA management have been unbelievable. I just wouldn’t be in this spot if I wasn’t working with Eddie Edwards and Brian Myers and Moose and Frankie Kazarian. It’s one of those things, I’ll miss somebody but it’s just like, there’s a lot of people looking out for me, there’s a lot of people who are who have helped me a lot along the way. I have to say though, I may have to retract that about The System in TNA because we’re having problems now. They might have helped me get to this point. But now, you know, the student might have to [fight back].”

On a very early conversation with John Cena:

“This is when I first got into wrestling. What happened was, I couldn’t go to a wrestling event that my friend went to and he got the VIP package. So I’ll tell you from my perspective, my friend was called Kyle and my phone goes and I saw it was Kyle’s number. I answer the phone and I hear ‘It’s your boy John Cena’ and it was John Cena. My friend Kyle in the middle of this, you know, busy Meet and Greet said my friend couldn’t make it. Would you phone him? And John Cena said Yeah, sure. Me and John Cena talked for 10 minutes and he let me tell him about my thoughts on creative and I thought he was going to win the title the next year. And he let me have that moment in that conversation when I’m sure the queue was, you know, just infinite. So that really meant something to me. I was 15 at the time, so that meant something to me. That displayed leadership for me when it came to how to treat your fan base.”

On Cody Rhodes:

“So Cody and I initially worked together in What Culture Pro Wrestling and I think that was a real missed opportunity for me to get mentorship from Cody. Because I came up through a company called ICW in Scotland, which was like, at one point, it was the hottest indie in the world, but it was very much a shark tank, it was just that type of environment. I don’t mean that in a bad way, necessarily, I just mean that everything was moving so fast and it was like I have to be respected and I have to convey myself as a top talent. So when I got to What Culture, I think rather than learn to be a student, I was trying to be like, I can be on Cody’s level, and I think I maybe missed mentorship opportunity there. But we were on the same tour right around the time that he was starting AEW. And obviously, at the time, that may not be the right fit, but rather than just be like, No, Cody came to me and he says Listen, like, I think Ring of Honor is interested in you, he’s like you’re not under contract? Because I’d done some stuff with TNA when it was Impact back in 2018 and I think there was the assumption that it was under contract, but I just done a handful of shows. So Cody set up the that that call with me and Ring of Honor, and honestly it was like, deal was done in five minutes. So all of this happened because of that call, I did the first Ring of Honor show back with the new ownership so if I hadn’t had my time in Ring of Honor, I learned so much that I wouldn’t be doing what I’m doing right now. So I definitely owe Cody Rhodes a cigar for sure. [Cody Rhodes basically stuck his neck out for you?] 100%, and the thing I respected about him was it’s like, okay, like, we can’t make something work here right now. But I know I know these guys want you, I’m gonna put in a good word, Just a great dude. Yeah, very thankful for that.”

On his musical segment on TNA Impact:

“Interestingly, I was asked to do the concert by TNA management and I was initially hesitant because The Rock had just done another Rock Concert and I thought I’m gonna have to bring it, this just can’t be a concert. This has to be knocked out of the park. One of the other problems I had was I hadn’t played acoustic guitar since 2015, which was the last time I did something like that. I’m the type of musician I am. See for my entrance song I played the guitar isn’t that but what I’ll do is I’ll practice what I need to practice to play the parts in the studio and then forget about it. If you asked me to play the solo in my entrance I would need an hour or two just to refamiliarise myself. It’s not planted in there. Again, I feel that your brain only has so much information. So I was like, right. Okay, so I got to play these three songs and I haven’t played acoustic guitar in a long time. So to me, we’re adding in these little chaos variables. And I remember TNA management said to me If you feel that you can’t do this, we won’t do it. But if you really want to be a top guy in this business, top talents don’t say no, this is what we need. And I was like, fair point, absolutely fair point. And they said, so if you’re telling us it can’t be done, can’t make it work, we won’t do it. But we’re going to prepare as if you can do it. And when I look back, that is the same conversation I had almost every taping for the six months prior to that, me going I don’t know if we can do that. I don’t know if we can do that. And management says, No, you can do it. You’ve done it. It wasn’t like a lack of faith in myself. It was more just like, I’m thinking about logistical variables and all that. And that really taught me the lesson I think just in time that actually is a top talent. Your job is not to get over under ideal circumstances, it’s your job to get over under the given circumstances. So the conversation then became about how can we do this so they won’t just feel secondary to the musical concerts that have come before. So we were told we might be able to use a copyrighted song and I was like, Okay, we might be onto something here. So if we can use a copyrighted song, it has to be something that people associate with wrestling. So it has to be like a Limp Bizkit or Evanescence or Creed. So we started with like, I couldn’t really find something for My Sacrifice.” 

“Then Higher [by Creed], it was like fired, Can you please get fired? Oh, man, that’s a little rough. AJ [Francis] love him, he wasn’t the biggest fan of that one. I will say this about AJ, working with AJ has been fantastic because he’s the perfect catalyst for what I needed at that point on the show and whether he agreed or disagreed with what I was doing, or liked or didn’t like it, it didn’t matter. When he went out he gave it 1,000%. Part of the reason why it got so over is because of the way AJ sold it. So you know, I hate to give the guy credit. But I knew when I went out to do the concert, what had to do was I was like, How can I make this as easy as possible for myself? So you know how I said you have those chaos variables? How can we take away those? So some of them are gone because we were in a music venue. You know how live music sounds sometimes in you know, wrestling shows or whatever it sometimes doesn’t always hit or if you’re watching music from a festival on TV and the sound just isn’t quite there. Live life sound can be tough. But rather than play full band, it was acoustic. So you’re going right? I’m going to a decent music venue an amazing music venue. So we took away some of the chaos variables there. So I decided I would get the best guitar that money could buy. Because I thought there’s a lot of things I can’t control and this is what wrestling is control the things that you can control. So I got the best guitar that money can buy in my view. It was a Martin, one-piece solid mahogany guitar, which set me back like two and a half grand, something like that. And people are like, Oh my god, I can’t believe you did that. And I knew I had to do it. Because I knew with that concert my career would never be the same after it. Whether it be bad or good, my career would never be the same when I came back from that concert. That was the moment that people started seeing me in a different light.” 

Didn’t you lose the guitar?

“So what happened was I got this guitar and I’m told you can take it with you. So they took it off me, they checked that and my bag. My bag made it but the guitar didn’t so they just chose not to pick the guitar and I’m going oh my God, because the rehearsal was the day before. So I’ve got to Las Vegas with no guitar. So I’m in Vegas. We can’t do the rehearsal now the day before because the guitar is not there and I am sweating buckets about this. It was BA, I hate to throw them under the bus. So it eventually arrived at midnight, the night before the concert, right? The crazy thing was when I opened the case, I remember opening the guitar and I thought this has been in like freezing temperatures in the sky. This has been in the Vegas heat, these strings, this is never going to be in tune, picked it up perfectly in tune. In that moment, I knew I’d made the right decision by getting the best guitar that I could get. I mean, there’s more expensive guitars, limited editions but in terms of, you know, a solid guitar that’s gonna get you through it. That’s when I knew I made the right decision on that.”

On potentially representing the UK in Eurovision:

“So Eurovision is a contest that we have in Europe where millions of people watch this contest. Each nation supplies a song and people weren’t that happy with the UK’s contribution in recent years. So I was doing an interview with the BBC and they said they would back me to do Eurovision, so I won’t say exactly. They were joking, but this is where you have to take that little thread of truth and ou have to make it real. So that’s what this whole thing has been because they said that. Now I’m going to build upon it and eventually, hopefully get enough steam where it becomes a realistic option for Eurovision. So I won’t say exactly what I’m going to do, because the details aren’t confirmed, but I’ve got something pretty epic planned.”

On the billboard over Clash at the Castle weekend:

“Yeah, that was a tough decision. That was a tough decision. [Why was it tough?] It was tough because you want to push the boat a little bit, but you don’t, sometimes you don’t know where the line is until you’ve gone too far.”

Could it be perceived as trying to get yourself over?

“I think that’s absolutely what is, let’s not pretend that’s not what it is. But I think it’s like I need to be bold and respectful of the business at the same time. You know, so that’s why I did on the Friday and not on the Saturday, I thought that was respectful and not because it was half the price [laughs]. But I did kind of think, Pat McAfee did happen to say his name, and he appears on TV. So I thought, well we’re both having fun so why not join in the fun?”

On Drew McIntyre saying he believed in Joe Hendry:

“I appreciated that. I really did. That means a lot because, again, I’ve said this as well. I’m gonna compare him to someone you met recently, which is to me on the UK indies Drew was our Undertaker. He was the guy you went to, he lifted the shows, he was an example. To me, he is just like Jordynne [Grace], like Drew is an example inside and outside of the ring. And yeah, so I was absolutely honoured for him to say that, especially when this was his moment and to even just take a second to say that he knew how big that endorsement was going to be for me. So I’m always grateful for having worked with Drew unbelievable wrestler unbelievable human being. Just, you know, him and Jordynne are credits to the business.”

On being one of Kurt Angle’s final opponents:

“So I look back at this, and I’m like, how on earth did I have the balls to pull this off? So I started training in 2013 and in 2016 I made it to What Culture Pro Wrestling. That was just a fun time. That was the Wild West, we were bringing in everybody into What Culture. And there’s some funny things that were talked about that never happened there which I’ll tell you about in a second, because I don’t think I’ve ever said it publicly before. But what happened was a fan asked me, What’s your dream match? Now, The Rock is the reason I got into the business so that’s my dream programme with segments. I have to say this, I fully 100% believe that, especially now with companies crossing over, I can’t tell you why. I just believe it in my heart that I will have some sort of interaction with The Rock and John Cena. I can’t tell you why I just believe it in my heart.”

On how the match came to be:

“So a fan asked me, but what’s your dream match? I thought and I answered it, well, just like a one-off match, and I went Kurt Angle and I tagged him thinking nothing of it. Angle DM’d me in 2015, a trainee. He says, Listen, I’ve heard your name, I’ve seen a couple of things. Because I think at that point, I’d done like my first viral entrance, I came to the ring to wrecking ball but I came to the ring in a zorb as Hendry ball. So Kurt said, I know who you are and you’re not ready yet, but maybe one day, you’ll get the match. And I was like, wow, I had a bit of back and forth. So ICW bring in Kurt Angle for their show at the Hydro, which was huge at the time, it was like for an indie promotion to get 6000 people or however many thousand people it was, it was insane. But they brought in Kurt Angle. And so I went to management, and I said, Let’s do a match. Because it was Joe Coffey that was facing him. I says let’s do a match with me and Joe Coffey. Because at this point, I’d started amateur wrestling, which for some reason decided to take out but 26 Right. But we can maybe get into that later. But I thought because of the amateur wrestling thing. I just won one of the championships in amateur wrestling, or got a medal of some significance or something and I was like, they might think it’s me. So let’s have me and Joe Coffey face each other to see who faces Kurt Angle. So Joe is facing him, but Kurt DM’s me and says, That’s great that we’re going to be facing each other at the Hydro and I said Kurt it is actually just an angle we’re not [wrestling]. I thought to myself, and I was like well What Culture is doing pretty well with that YouTube money over there. And I heard through the grapevine that What Culture had asked Kurt to come in and he’d said no. So I asked for a meeting with the owners of What Culture at the time. I walked into the boardroom, and before I got there, I said, Okay, Kurt, if I had a financier to pay for a match, what would you need? And he told me what he needs. Then I went and I sat down with these two multimillionaires, and I have to say, by the way, I’m very thankful for What Culture Pro Wrestling. What Culture did a lot for me. They don’t get enough credit. If you think about all the wrestlers that came through there and really made a big name there, Cody did a lot of cool stuff there, Will Ospreay, Gunther… If you look through the names yet, like Pete Dunne, like you, if you look through the names that are so many, and obviously, the stuff that I’m doing, and Gabriel Kidd, and so many people came through What Culture and I don’t think they get enough credit. But I walked in the boardroom and I said, Thanks for meeting. You guys tried to get Kurt Angle didn’t you? I’m just a trainee at this point, anyway. Yeah, yeah. I said what did he say, knowing what he said. and they went he said, No. I went I can get you Kurt, but if I get him, I need both your word that I wrestle him and I’m the top guy after that. And I’m a trainee at the time and they went you can really get Kurt Angle? I was like, those are the terms. And they were like, alright, they shook my hand. I was never meant to be like a top guy in What Culture. So I went from being like a guy to getting that opportunity to wrestle Kurt. So if you can imagine this, how I got the balls to do that. I don’t know. But I started trading in 2013. And in 2016, it was the week of the third anniversary of my first match. I was standing opposite Kurt Angle, we’re in a sold-out building and I look over and there’s Jim Ross and Jim Cornette commentating in the main event of an internet pay-per-view, and I’m looking at Kurt Angle and my family is on the balcony. I’m looking at it and I go is this happening? Am I facing Kurt Angle in the main event of a pay-per-view with Jim Ross to Jim Cornette commentating?  Is that what’s happened here? I’ll tell you this, Kurt is the man. When I made the entrance video for him, I threw his metals in the bin, I shredded him. And I was I was like, Oh, God, like, I hope he’s okay with this. And he loved it. He loved the entrance video, he loved it. And for him, this is what I learned about top talents. He’s Kurt Angle. He was so secure. He was just like, this is about your moment. This is going to help your career and we need to maximise that. He didn’t care about getting himself over because he’s Kurt Angle. He was like, What can I do for you? And I just thought that again, another leader, another example. And at the end of the match, he said some awesome stuff. Again, another credit to the business just unbelievable.” 

On his previous WWE cameo:

“I was actually Rusev and Lana’s lawyer at one point as well, which was crazy. Because if you think about how few people get mic time on Raw and SmackDown, I cut a 90-second promo as their lawyer, I think it was Smackdown in Liverpool. [How’d that even happen?] So it’s quite a funny story. So what I didn’t know is two people had been specifically hired to be brought in to do this role, specifically hired. I didn’t know this. William Regal told us that when you are asked if you can do something, be the one that steps up. Someone backstage came up to me and said something about like, Oh, I remember the red ties. And I was like the red ties? So I went to you know, some clothes shop and bought red ties. What happened was whoever that was backstage, I think it was one of the referees, but they got the wrong person. So they told me to go get red ties, and it wasn’t me. So I brought the red ties and I said to someone what are the red ties for? They said oh it’s Rusev’s lawyers and was like, Oh, cool. So someone goes, where’s my lawyers? I went [raises hand]. So some poor dude that had been hired to do it specifically is sitting behind me, he had to shave his head for it and everything, right? So he’s got prepared, and I just went like this. So they asked me to come forward. So it was me and it was me and Lionheart actually, who very sadly passed away. Again, someone who gave a lot too, especially Scottish professional wrestling, and Piper Niven actually had, I think it was like an armband with his symbol on it. So you know, that was really cool that she did that. But it was me and Adrian and they said, here’s this promo and you’re both gonna read it out and we’re gonna pick one. I remember at the time, this was really cool because me and Adrian were close so for both of us to get this moment on, on TV, it was very cool and I’m glad that we got to do that. But they said to me, can you do a Russian accent? I remember Stone Cold saying about the forklift truck. It was like, Can you drive a forklift? Just say yes. So I was like, Yeah, of course I can. And I’m like, looking up like Russian accents, my Russian accent was horrible. But they said go read out the promo, we’re gonna let a couple of people do it and we’re going to pick one. I knew in my heart, I was like, the thing was this long. It was like a lot. And I thought if I memorise this word for word, they’ll just pick me if I don’t use the sheet. So we went in the ring, there were a bunch of different people who were going to try it for it. I read it once without the sheet and they went him, nobody else got the chance to do it. So that’s how that came to be.” 

“I think the other thing that people need to realise is that don’t think I’m not terrified when this stuff’s happening. Don’t think I’m not [nervous], I’ve got to say this in a Russian accent, that I can’t tell you how nervous I was before that concert. I knew I couldn’t show it. But anyone at TNA will tell you I was freaking out because I hadn’t played guitar in however long, but sometimes you just have to go out there and you just have to get the business done. It doesn’t matter how you feel. And I think to me, I’m sure you’ll appreciate this. It sounds like we read similar books, but courage is not not being afraid, is being afraid and having nerves and going out there and giving it your best anyway, that’s that’s what this game is. It’s about just going you know what, if you’ve prepared like as best you can, if you go out there and you give it everything that you’ve got, then that’s all you can do.”

What is Joe Hendry grateful for?

“The challenge, my home and to be content.”

Rey Mysterio (@reymysterio) is a legendary professional wrestler and WWE Hall of Famer. He sits down with Chris Van Vliet in Las Vegas to talk about his incredible career and the fact that he is still wrestling in WWE, being inducted into the WWE Hall Of Fame as an active wrestler, his son Dominik developing his heel persona, never wrestling Triple H in WWE, his thoughts on retirement, how he developed the 619 as a wrestling move, being swung on a stretcher by Big Show, his favorite mask, getting thrown like a lawn dart by Kevin Nash, the rumor that he was a stunt double in the horror movie Freddy vs. Jason, his iconic match against Eddie Guerrero at Halloween Havoc in 1997, winning the Royal Rumble from the #2 spot, never turning heel in WWE and much more!

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On being recognised without the mask:

“Now, more than ever. Back in the day before I lost the mask in WCW I had a big amount of time that was my private time and nobody knew who I was. Obviously, my size would give it away most of the times, especially travelling with with the rest of the boys, they kind of figure it out, that’s gotta be Rey Mysterio. But when I did lose the mask against Kevin Nash and Scott Hall, rest in peace, that time period with The Filthy Animals and then that whole Rey Mysterio unmask kind of opened the eyes of a lot of fans who didn’t know who I was, now my face was out there so I was recognisable.” 

On how many masks he owns:

“I’ve lost track over time. But I can probably say between the ones that I have in my closet and in my office and then now the rooms of the house, a little bit over 500.”

On retiring masks:

“Yes, I do. The crazy thing is, I have so many outfits that I’ve used throughout my career that I won’t remember sometimes when I use a particular outfit. There’s a good friend of mine, he comes over to the house every now and then, he likes to see my collection, and I’ll show him something. He goes, Oh, that’s the one you use against The Big Show? How do you remember that? I didn’t remember that. So particular ones really stand out like my first match with WWE on SmackDown, which was against Chavo, that red outfit. That one was special so those kinds of outfits do stand out.”

On unmasking in WCW:

“My god, that was one of the conversations that we battled for it not to happen. And not just me, Konan was probably the first one that said no you don’t understand there’s a history here. Not just the history, but the fact that Rey is marketable with the mask, like the kids. I just started watching Who Killed WCW? actually was following up with Episode Two last night, and I had to turn it off because I was tired. But it took me back to that era. And I wish that WCW would have known how to market the character of Rey Mysterio. It’s something that maybe at the time, because there was so much going on and so many big names, I was nobody back then, I was just given an opportunity. But I truly believe that at the end of the day, everything happens for a reason and it didn’t happen in WCW because it wasn’t meant to be. As soon as I came to WWE everything just started happening. Funny thing is that when I got signed by WWE, I remember going to OVW training a week prior to my debut. Somebody came up and asked me Rey, they’re asking what outfit Are you planning to use on your debut? I said while I was thinking of using this right here, and they were like, What about the mask? I said I’m not wearing a mask, I don’t wear a mask anymore. They go no no, no. Vince wants you to come back with the mask. So my idea was already taken Okay, I’m gonna come back with the baggy pants, the horns that I was wearing at the time. And they’re like No, no, no, we want the old Rey Mysterio so right then and there I thought okay, this is now the time to just kick it back in gear and then start moving forward. I guess they probably subconsciously thought well, he’s gonna come back with the mask. But at the time I was wrestling without it. So I kind of started getting used to not using the mask for a while.”

On being undersized: 

“I truly believe and I’m a faithful believer that my work got me where I’m at now. But my work wouldn’t have been accomplished without the opponents that I’ve had over the years. You know, it takes two to tango, and starting off with Psychosis, and just the chemistry we had. They would see Rey Mysterio and be like, wow, this is unbelievable. Like, we’ve never seen anything like this. And that has a lot to do with the person that would be across from me in the ring, making me look good, extra good. And me, as far as my work goes, it was the fans believe that this heel that’s in front of me is a badass heel and can eventually take me down at any point. And over the years. That’s pretty much would happen. Dean Malenko my first match in WCW, ECW with Psychosis, and we had already had a history from just training together in the ring back in the early 90s. So yeah, I lost track of the question. But yeah, that connection that I’ve had over the years with rivals has definitely secured my position where I’m at today.”

On not being brought to WWE immediately after WCW closed:

“I think at the time, I was probably making a little too much in WCW money-wise, and the contract was still running when the company was bought out. The conversation at the time was sit back, enjoy your pay for the rest of the year. That’s in your contract. And once it’s expired, we’ll sit down and we’ll negotiate. And at the time, I thought it was a way for them to say we’re not really interested. That’s what I thought because I had always heard that. Too small. Definitely too small for WWE, and that it wasn’t going to happen. So remember when Eddie and Saturn, Jericho was the first one to leave. But when Dean and The Radicals, when they left, I kind of had a bit of hope. Like, okay, if they’re there, probably one day I’ll be able to make it. But sure enough, when they bought out the company and told me to wait, I thought it was them saying in a good way, we’re interested but not right now. But no, I mean, JR kept his word. Once my contract expired, we sat down, we negotiated and I kicked off the first year.”

On developing the 619:

“So that move. The first time I ever saw it was from a wrestler that I grew up watching in Tijuana, he used to be one of my uncle’s partners. He was probably about 5’1” or 5’2”. Very stocky, had like a Mighty Mouse look to him. And he would haul ass and just swing through the ropes. Nobody being there, he would just swing and kind of fake dive to the floor and the opponent kind of like just move out of the way. But when I saw it the first time I’m like oh, this is so cool. And then surely enough later, when I started getting into Japanese wrestling, I saw Tiger Mask and I believe he was probably the first one to start doing it, if I’m not mistaken. And then one of my good friends, Damian 666, said to me one day, why don’t you do that move, but put your opponent against the ropes and swing your legs around and hit him connect, like, oh, that sounds cool. Sure enough, I started doing it, it started to get a reaction. And the name at the time behind that move. I kind of picked up off of Stone Cold 3:16 so let’s put a 619 here. So that’s how it all came about.”

On being inducted into the Hall of Fame while still being active:

“So when that was brought up to me, Rey, we want to induct you into the Hall of Fame and it was Hunter that mentioned that to me. We were thinking of doing it in LA, it’s so close here to your hometown. And my first response was, but I’m not ready to retire Like, no, no, you don’t have to retire. We just think that it’s the perfect spot to induct you to the Hall of Fame. I was like, wow, I really felt it was just just such a cool moment. That was one of my goals and it was on my bucket list. But for it to happen then it was a special moment for me, overall. Being able to do a storyline with my son being able to work against him for the first time. It was just so many moving parts that at the end of the day lined up perfectly, and I feel truly blessed man for the opportunity and very thankful to WWE for the run they’ve given me for over 20 years.” 

On Dominik Mysterio:

“Incredible. I remember speaking to Dom before him breaking into WWE when he was training. We would bullsh*t Hey, imagine if you were to make it before I retire and we can do a run together as Tag Team Champions. We were not thinking heel terms, it was completely babyface being together. At one point, I remember designing one of his outfits. And you know Rey meaning King so maybe you can be Prince Mysterio.”

On the 2005 Custody of Dominik ladder match:

“I want to say that that came from Bruce [Prichard] and Eddie [Guerrero] I don’t know if somebody else had some input in it. But when that idea was brought up to me, I said, Sure, that sounds cool. Let me speak to Dom about it. Dom from his understanding had always been a little bit shy, timid especially back then, younger. But when he knew that money was involved, he said, Yeah, I’m down. I’ll do it. But Eddie spoke to him, I know Bruce spoke to him as well, which is crazy, just to even, like, see, so many years past and now Bruce being there and talking to Dom and Bruce kind of telling them okay, this is what we’re gonna have going on for the next storyline. You know, I can’t imagine what Bruce feels when he speaks to Dom when he spoke to him when he was only seven years old. And it’s got to be such a cool feeling.” 

On talking to Dom about the match:

“Being a kid sometimes you don’t take into consideration how important or how this is really going to work out, it was just minor details. And I know Eddie had a lot of saying to making him feel comfortable. I know he would feed him Twizzlers, every now and then when we did some of the shoots, like on the swings. But overall, the surroundings that he was in, he felt like he was at home. And I think that had a big part to do with him saying his lines and doing what he had to do at the right time. And you ask yourself now, why is he becoming so good, so fast? Well, he’s been around for so long, and it’s just insane.”

On there possibly being another Custody of Dominik ladder match with Rhea Ripley and Liv Morgan:

“I always ask myself this question. And I like to every now and then kind of just let my brain wander off. If Eddie would still be here in this scenario, with Dom being who he is now, I can’t even imagine the kind of pleasure we would bring to the ring, to the audience of being able to see Dom, Eddie and myself. You know, it’d be such a cool moment, man. And I do think about that a lot.”

On Dom being a future World Champion:

“Yeah, most definitely. Dom is getting really good at what he’s doing and he’s understanding the craft. The fact that he’s where he’s at with such little time, I wish I could be there, or I could have been there with four years of being in the business. I didn’t know sh*t at 4 years. [Look who he’s learned from] Not only me, I mean that, yes, I am his father. But the fact that he’s been able to be in there with the best Seth Rollins, Cody Rhodes, Roman Reigns, John Cena. All these moments are moments that give you the ability to learn. So I think he’s taken very well advantage of those moments and has added him to his career.”

On thinking about how much longer he wants to wrestle:

“I don’t until it’s being brought up and when my wife brings that up, that’s when I pause. I don’t know if I want to do it another two years, three years. I kind of listen to my body and my mindset, because my body’s been feeling great. And with all the benefits that I get from doing like the cold plunge and the sauna. Overall, my mind has to be in the right place, so that’s probably the hardest thing for me. Because sometimes the age factor comes into mind and not in the moment, but thinking ahead like I want to be able to still move around and walk at 55 or 56. Is my body going to feel the same?”

On possibly turning heel in WWE:

“I remember bringing it up one time when Dom and I were working together, I brought it up to Vince and it was brief. Like maybe I turn on Dom and we continue with something along the ways. But getting feedback from some of my colleagues, like no, you’re the babyface that could never be a heel. Like you’re Ricky Steamboat, nobody can ever see you as a heel, I don’t think they would buy into it. And I’m kind of glad that I listened and that they didn’t listen to me. Because the best thing that could happen is for Dom to become the heel and be the evil one.” 

On being swung on a stretcher by The Big Show:

“We were just talking about that on Monday. I think Dominik was making fun of it. But anyway, I remember going over that and Big Show and the production team were like is that possible? Yeah, definitely it’s possible. We just never thought of what would happen after he swung. There was no way that he would be able to swing and hold on like if there was a bat. No the weight as soon as that hit. It went down and with my arms strapped to my side, headfirst. Crazy moment.”

What is Rey Mysterio grateful for?

“God, my life and the life I have been given.”

Mark Calaway (@undertaker) is a legendary professional wrestler and WWE Hall of Famer. He is best known for his 30+ year career in WWE as The Undertaker. Chris Van Vliet sits down with him at his home in Austin, TX to talk about his incredible career, his podcast “Six Feet Under With Mark Calaway”, appearing in the main event of WrestleMania 40 to help Cody Rhodes with the WWE Universal Championship, his tag team with Kane, memories of Paul Bearer, the hilarious story of his coat that wouldn’t come off, not remembering anything from his match with Brock Lesnar at WrestleMania 30, his legacy as both The Deadman and The American Bad Ass, his iconic entrances, never breaking kayfabe and much more.

Check out “Six Feet Under With Mark Calaway” here: https://www.youtube.com/@SixFeetUnderwithMarkCalaway

Quote I’m thinking about: “Legacy is not what’s left tomorrow when you’re gone. It’s what you give, create, impact and contribute today while you’re here that then happens to live on.” ― Rasheed Ogunlaru

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On how retirement is treating him:

“For the most part good. I actually have spurts though now where I’m out more than I was the last few years than when I actually wrestled. I’ll get busy and it’s like dang, when is the last time I’ve been home? But then I’ll have stretches like I’m on right now where I’ve been home for a month and a half and I get into a rhythm of doing things and it’s nice. And then soon as I get in that rhythm, I’ll get bombarded with a million appearances that I do.”

On being fact-checked by fans:

“I’m trying to think where it was. This happened, it may have been Australia. This guy, I would say something and I’m absolutely horrible with dates and all that and I will butcher it completely. The story will be accurate but the dates of when it happened and maybe what pay-per-view, Premium Live Event, I’ll screw it up every time and you know how wrestling audiences are. I think it was Australia and I would say something. And this guy on the front row [says] that was 94 it was In Your House or whatever it was. Okay, thanks. So I would go on and tell another story like that. And I’d get to a point where I couldn’t remember what and I just turned to him, it became a running joke in the show. I was like, hey, that time that I worked with Bret Hart in the UK? And he would give it to me like that. I’m like, Dude, you need to get a life because I lived this stuff and I don’t remember. It’s crazy how much and how quick they will fact-check. I mean, if I say something on the podcast and they say you got that wrong because this guy said it and I looked it up. Well, look, I can’t remember it all man. I’ve got a few concussions and I’ve got a few years on me and I just can’t remember it all.”

On realising it was time to retire:

“I never really [thought about it]. I knew the end was near, but I didn’t. It’s weird. Like, I knew that it was going to come but I wasn’t mentally preparing myself for it. I always just thought I was going to be able to do it and realistically, you know, Father Time is undefeated. I knew early on, even when I was still working, and I love this business so much, but I knew I was going to have a hard time. People always ask me, Well why don’t you go down to the PC? Or why don’t you be a mentor? When I’m around, I do that kind of stuff. But as an everyday deal, I can’t do it. Because recently, I’ve just kind of had closure, Mania. I don’t know if you heard this but I struggled since I retired at being at live events. I would go, I was at the Rumble because I had 1DeadMAN Show in Clearwater. I stayed over and I was at the Rumble. By the time I think maybe the first match had gone out I left. Because internally, my body and my mind is you should be getting ready, you should be going out there and I get almost, I wouldn’t say anxiety, but I just get this feeling like I can’t take it because I want to be out there so bad. I wanted to continue to wrestle, obviously, my body broke down and Father Time is undefeated, I never wanted to be a parody of myself and I really risked that at the end. I had some matches that I think maybe at one point in my career, they were bad. But there was one point in my career I felt like I could take anything and turn it around and I just didn’t have it in me, like the match I had with Goldberg in Saudi Arabia. I should have picked up on the fact that he had his bell rung, and then [he] rung it again when he hit the post, I should have been sharp enough to adapt at that point, and not try to get to where I was getting.”

That was a scary match to watch:

“It was a scary match to be in and it was just Father Time. The worst thing as you get older are the breaks. When you have long periods of time where you don’t work and as you get older you lose that sharpness, the mental quickness to figure out things. That was something that I always really prided myself on [that] if something happened, knowing what to do. So in that match, I was so just like, I’m gonna make this good. I’m gonna make it good, I’m gonna make it good and I don’t think I had enough mental acuity and the physical attributes to turn that around, and it just continued to go backwards. It was nobody’s fault. Just, you know what happened. [Were you pissed when you went to the back?] Yeah, I was pissed because you don’t get many opportunities, especially that late in your career to do a first, I had never worked with Goldberg. And the Saudis for all the good and all the bad, they paid a lot of money to get us to come over there for that. And regardless, I always like to live up to my name and I really felt like I had let people down I’d let myself down. Because I hold a higher standard for myself than what anybody else does. I can get over what other people think of me but what I want out of me is the very best. It happened and it’s it turned into a train wreck and yeah, I was extremely p*ssed. But yeah, mostly because I knew it wasn’t good. And we both, he thought he had a concussion and my back, I thought was broken. It was just one of those moments, it was a frustration of the whole thing.”

On the WrestleMania 40 cameo appearance:

“It was a lot of fun. The rib was on me though. Because normally we would stage a lot differently. So when I get downstairs and they say, Okay, we’re going to put you here and then when this happens in the match, we got to start running. So I’m at the far end of the bowl of the of the stadium, and whatever spot happens. [They said] Alright, let’s go. So I’ve got all these ring guys, these tech crew, we’re all running a big group trying to hide me. And we’re running and actually no one is really paying attention. And so I’m running and I’m like crap. I said, Where do we have to go? And they’re like, you see the tent down there? We gotta get under it. And I’m like, crap, it’s 75 yards. I had both my knees replaced. So this is the first time that I’ve actually run on them. So I’m running through the crowd and I finally get to the place and I’m blown up. And so then I waited on the second cue and slid in there, [you looked good], Hey, man, that’s what two new hips and two new knees. Well, then the hips are not new, but now I feel pretty good.”

Could you still do it?

“I could do it, but I couldn’t do it to the standard that I wanted to do it. But I mean yeah, there’s certain things that I don’t feel like I would be able to do. But after I did it I came back and I was like, I’m good now. I don’t need to do this again. I’m not saying that I wouldn’t if they needed something like that again, but I’m not gonna have a match or I’m not coming out of retirement.” 

On what drove him in his career and what drives him now:

“At the peak of my career, I wanted to be the best. I wanted my name at the top of the page, I wanted to carry the company or do the absolute most that I could. I always felt like when you stop growing and you stop improving, it’s basically time to move on. And I never felt like, and I said in my Hall of Fame speech, never be content. That was one of the things, I was never content. I was happy. Obviously, I was very proud of what I was able to accomplish in the business. But I was never content. I was always like, Man, I wanted to do this. Even back in the middle of the Attitude Era when Rock and Austin were the top two guys, that was a driving force for me to be better. Like, man, whether it was attainable or not, that was a goal. I want to be at the top of the page. Obviously, I was happy for Steve and I was happy for Rock, I was happy for all those guys because we were killing it and business was awesome. But for me personally, I wanted to be that guy. And that’s what drove me and I never got discouraged, just that was a goal. We’d go after it and unfortunately, Steve’s career gets cut short, Rock goes on to be an adequate movie star, I guess. Then I moved into into the role I took there in the 2000s. Now what drives me? I’m just looking to enjoy myself because as much as I enjoyed the business which I did. The business came first, second and third with me. And my kids paid a price, everybody paid a price for this dream that I was living. So now it’s trying to catch up and enjoy the civilian part of my life and do things like going hunting and going fishing and doing those kinds of things. But still, the 1DeadMAN Show, it keeps me out just enough just to stay in the world, but not so engulfed in the world of sports entertainment. I’m a trained soldier man. I have a battle all the time like man you don’t have to say sports entertainment. You could say professional wrestling, you could say the belt, the strap.”

On having 2 legacies as The Deadman and The American Badass:

“I think my legacy is going to be wrapped around The Deadman but I had so much fun being The American Badass, I enjoyed it. I think I had to do that just for the sake of staying relevant during that time period. Again, you go back to the promos that everyone’s cutting and the content that we were getting away with at the time As great as that Undertaker character was it was also kind of shackled to where you’re in a box, there’s only so much that you can do within that box. I think I just needed a little break and let me show the other side of what I had in the toolbox. So it allowed me to cut promos on the likes of what Rock was cutting, what Austin was cutting and Triple H and everybody was cutting. So it allowed and it freed me up to do that and then it freed my work up to where I could really get into what I enjoy most, which is storytelling. I had kind of figured out a way to do it with The Deadman but The American Badass was just there was no box, there were no parameters I could do and say whatever I wanted to. I love doing the pre-tapes backstage with the chewing tobacco and just making Tommy Dreamer drink barber water and everything else that he did. Before I get any bullying hate he did that without reluctance. He relished the fact that he could do those kinds of things. That was how he liked to operate.”

On the origin of the eye-rolling:

“Crazy enough I did it by accident. I had a match and I want to say it was Greg Valentine. I was working with Greg Valentine, and I was on him and I had him down down in the corner. And then like I said, just slapped a choke on him, you know, because of my hair being long like it was, I just put the choke on him, and I threw my hair back. And when I threw my hair back, my eyes went back. And I wondered if I could hold them back there, and I did. I wasn’t consciously thinking roll your eyes back, but I did it. And then I go back, I get to Gorilla position, and everybody is looking like, What the hell was that? That was the coolest thing, that was so creepy. And then they run it back and show it to me and I’m like holy crap. That’s scary. So it just happened by accident. And then naturally, I used to have a fairly long tongue. So the eyes and the tongue. Those were requested a lot by people that you probably wouldn’t think would want to see that.”

On not liking chops:

“Yeah, I’m not fond of chops at all. [But you worked with Ric Flair?] I told Flair he gets 3 [laughs], I think I ended up giving him more. I’m pretty sure he got more than 3 and Shawn used to chop me up pretty good too. It’s kind of a weird deal with me, and I didn’t mind getting [hit]. I’d rather get a potato than for a punch to look bad. I’d rather you hit me, hit me in a safe spot, but hit me. I’d rather the match be good than me selling a punch that misses by six inches. So, guys, they spent all this time working on their punches and trying to work light and then just knock the crap out of you with a chop. Just I don’t know, it was just a thing. I would love right now to be able to work Gunther, I’d let him chop the sh*t out of me. I mean, I would love to work with him. But it was just one of those deals man. I remember I worked with, it was me and Kane, I want to say we were working against Rikishi and Haku and Haku put me in the corner and chopped me. Instinctively I grabbed him and spun him around. I didn’t potato him or anything. Thank goodness my common sense kicked in before I did anything stupid. I’ve turned him around real quick and then I was like, oh sh*t, man that’s Haku. I don’t want smoke, man. Thank goodness. Haku is a sweetheart of a man, he liked me thank goodness, but I don’t know. It was just one of those deals, it’s the chop now. There’s two things that get overdone is the chop and then the leg slap, drives me nuts. just drives me absolutely nuts. It’s so bad. Even my daughter, my 11-year-old points it out. And she does it cuz she’s she’s all about the business. wants to get in the business.”

How do you feel about that? 

“Well, if her heart is in it and she puts in the work then I’ll support her. She’s a tremendous athlete [she plays] flag football. Yeah, that’s the fastest-growing women’s sport right now is flag football. But yeah, she wants to she wants to get into business. So we’ll see. We’ll see how that goes.”

On Cody Rhodes:

“I think he’s doing a phenomenal job. And again, I think he’s gonna have a tremendous run as a babyface, but I think his bigger run will be as a heel. I think there’s just something about Cody that I envision as a heel. It’s down the road. Because right now I think he’s killing it as the babyface and his promos are on point. He’s fighting all the people, he’s almost the anti-Roman for the most part. So things are gonna be really interesting when Roman comes back too.”

On an idea that did not work:

“There was a pair of snakeskin pants I wore at a match with Kurt Angle. That I really regret. It’s one of my biggest regrets. They were horrible. So the rumour for a long, long time was that I forgot my tights, or I forgot my pants and I had to borrow those from The Godfather. They were mine. Terry Anderson bless her heart, she did all my gear pretty much my whole career. I told her what I wanted to do. Throughout my extended career, my gear was very, I mean, it was minimalistic. I mean, there was not a lot of love and thrill to my character. When I told her I wanted a pair of python pants. She went no you don’t, I went yes I do.”

What was the thought behind it?

“I just thought it would be cool looking. They were snakeskin pants. I’m a biker, it didn’t translate well. I really regret those pants those are awful, man. I see them every once in a while. They’ll pop up on a feed or something. [Do you still own them?] No, no, no, no, they’re long gone. I think I burned those. And the horrible thing was, it was a really good match. That’s what really sucks is I had a really good match with Kurt. That’s when we used his twin and they screwed me out of the title there. But I can’t watch it and enjoy the match for its quality. All I see are those damn [pants]. I’m touching 330 At that time, too. I’m a big dude. And big dudes don’t wear snakeskin pants.”

On Kurt Angle:

“I mean, he gets his flowers but he didn’t get enough credit for how good he really was. He was willing, and it’s strange because of his background. Like a lot of times, shooters or, you know the amateurs, they can’t get that mentality out of their head and become professional wrestlers at a high level. They just can’t do it. And man, for an Olympic gold medalist to do what he did and be able to put his ego on the shelf and make himself look like a friggin idiot week after week after week it was so entertaining. But when you crawl through those ropes dude you better be ready to go because he could flat go. I had some really really really good matches with Kurt, he was a machine man. He was another guy that I really had a lot of fun working with and enjoyed working with. But he was so good. He could cut promos. I mean, his vignettes. And his backstage stuff was, I mean, next level and his work was so solid.” 

On an underrated rival:

“Because he had his big run late, I don’t think people really realise how good JBL was. He came in as a cowboy and then he was an acolyte in the APA. But not until he became JBL I think he really got to showcase his true ability. Not only as being able to cut promos, but also his work as a heel, as a big heel. He’s a big dude, but he was a chickensh*t heel and that’s sometimes tough to do. Just like being an amateur wrestler. It’s hard to conquer the ego part but he was a lot of fun to work with. I worked with him. I don’t know how many hundreds of times in dark matches after TV tapings. It was always just a constant, trying to get me to crack kind of deal.” 

On the laugh with Brock Lesnar:

“That was Brock. So we talked a little bit about that match and he ran it by me but I don’t think I was paying enough attention to what he really wanted to do. So when he did it, I was almost taken aback a little bit like what the freaking hell are you laughing at that? And then it kind of dawned on me what he was doing. And then I laugh back at him and it’s yeah, it’s become kind of an iconic deal but yeah, if I’d have been paying close enough attention I’d probably go Yeah, I don’t know if I want to do that. But the way it worked, it worked out worked out fine. Fortunately, too it was at the tail end of my career and not in the middle or the front end of it because that surely wouldn’t happen then. But I think for the time period, it worked out okay.”

On the scariest moment he had in the ring:

“Thinking that I was injured, that was probably Saudi. I mean, I already was nursing several injuries and body parts that already needed to be replaced years before. My spine was already starting to fuse so I didn’t have full mobility. I don’t know if that protected me or hindered me. I don’t know which way that went. But I know I went for a little bit and then it was like a bolt of lightning went through me. It went up my leg and right through my spine and I didn’t know like for a second there. I was like, Man, I hope I can move because I didn’t know that I was going to be able to. But thank goodness, I got up and got to be p*ssed off and walked out and I lived. [Didn’t you go to the hospital after WrestleMania 30?] Wrestlemania 30 is with Brock. Right? Yeah, that was, I got concussed somewhere in the first five, maybe 10 minutes of that match. I’ve watched it back. I can’t pick it out.”

Do you remember WrestleMania 30?

“My last memory of that day happened around two o’clock in the afternoon. Michelle had come backstage to check to see me. Then I told her, because I didn’t know until 30 minutes before that we were going to break the streak. I got to the building that day thinking I was going over. So I just got the news that we’re going to break the streak tonight. I remember telling her and the next thing that I remember I’m in the hospital at like 4:30 in the morning. When you get concussed like that they come in every five minutes. They want to know your name, your birthday, where you’re at, and everything like that. It was crazy. Because evidently, I knew who she was but I had no clue who I was. [They asked me] Sir, can you tell me your name? What year were you born? Where are you? [I said] Erm, hospital? This happened several times. But so evidently I knew who Michelle was, they left and I was like, come here, she goes, yeah? [I said] What’s my name? She says, babe, I can’t cheat for you on this. What’s my name? Just tell me my name. Finally, at 4:30 I figured out my name and where I was. It took me a while to figure out that I’d already wrestled. I gotta get to the stadium. No, it’s already over, all that had already happened. I’m in no pain whatsoever. They gave me a CAT scan as soon as I got there. A lot of people don’t know this either, Vince left WrestleMania, him and Brock both got in a car and followed the ambulance to the hospital. So the first thing they do is give me a CAT scan and they come out and Michelle and Vince are there and they say he’s he’s broken his neck. They’re like, oh, my gosh. Then another doctor comes in who reads the scans and he goes, No, no, no, he goes, that’s a that’s an old break, it’s an old injury. So I had broken my neck at some point and didn’t know that I had broken my neck. So no his neck is fine, he’s just got a really bad concussion. So I eventually remember my name and my birthday and where I was at and everything, but I have absolutely zero recollection of that match until I watched it back. I mean, and the reason why I know it’s like, five or 10 minutes, because I can tell by how I’m moving. I went through the whole match did whatever, did everything that we were supposed to do. But I can tell by how sluggish I was and the way I was moving. My timing was a little off, just a little bit off on everything. I think what it was, is out at that point, I was in that period of time where I was only working WrestleMania, I would do WrestleMania I would go have something fixed. I would rehab and then I started training again for the WrestleMania next year. And I think what ended up happening was it just again, Father Time, I wasn’t used to the trauma that you get during a wrestling match, and especially a wrestling match with Brock Lesnar. There’s not a lot of people that pick me up and throw me around like he was able to. It wasn’t anything that he did that was unsafe. It was just the fact that I was taking a bunch of belly to backs and something just rang my bell on.”

On being set on fire during his entrance:

“Yeah, that was pretty hairy and potentially could have been far worse than what it actually was. A lot of things happened just by chance that night. Backstory, two weeks prior I have Kevin Dunn and the lead Pyro guy out on the stage. I’m saying look these Pyro balls when I stop at the edge of the stage right before I hit the ramp. I said these two powerful bursts right here are too close, I’m getting a lot of heat. I said I want my entrance to be as scary and as cool as possible. But I said these right here, they need to back out a little bit. The guy goes no I think it was there’s just a draft in the building. I was like, I don’t care if there’s a draft in the building. I’m telling you these Pyro bursts are too hot, they’re too close. Kevin Dunn said you need to back them up. Okay, so now we jumped forward two weeks. It’s the Elimination Chamber, it’s in St. Louis and I’m the champion. We’re gonna switch the belt because we’re leading into me and Shawn. So originally, I had one of my Hellraiser jackets on. I had that coat on, well, when I wear that coat and when you wear the belt, you can’t see it, because it all fastens together. And I said, Okay, this is my last night as champion, I want people to see the belt. I don’t want to carry the belt, I don’t want to drag the belt, I want to wear the belt. This could be the last time that I have it. So the last minute I switched from the Hellraiser coat to the duster and hat so that when I walked down, you’ll be able to see the title. The first thing that I did right was that. So now I was the last one into the pod and I was gonna be the last one to come out. So I’m thinking about, okay, my hair is gonna dry out and when my hair dries out I can’t see a thing. So I take a couple of extra bottles more than I usually would do and I just doused myself with water so that my hair stays wet so when my music hit, I’m drenched in water. I mean, it’s just pouring off of me. That was crucial. I come out and make my entrance. I stop at my normal spot, my head down waiting to do the lift. The Pyro ball on the left comes up and it comes right up my left side. I mean, it’s like he moved it in and it’s so hot. I will no sell something as long as I possibly can until I can’t take it. So I turned to my right to get out of the fireball and then this one goes off. Now I’m right in it. So I’m totally engulfed in this propane Pyro ball. And the only place that I knew safe to go was go straight. Because you’re also dealing with walking off the stage and I’d be on fire and take a huge fall. So I run out of the fireball and obviously everyone’s freaking out and they’re trying to cover for me. [The announcer says] But he wants to get this match he runs into the ring. So I come out of this Pyro ball and I can see my hat’s on fire and my right sleeve is on fire. Now if I hadn’t switched coats this arm would have been totally just trashed. Then without all the water that I had on me, I mean, my eyebrows were all singed up my face was burnt and then I had a big burn right around my singlet. So I’m in the pod, I know that I’m okay but now I have the burnt flesh and burnt hair smell. I’m looking down and I’m watching the skin on my chest bubble up, it’s blistering up and I’m getting madder and madder and madder. They’ve got a couple of ring crew guys underneath. Back then the floor of the pods were grates. So they’re handing me bottles of water up from the bottom and I’m taking the water and I’m pouring them on myself. I still gotta go. They’re asking me do you want to stop? Do you want to get out? I was like, No man, we got business to do, I’ve got to drop this belt to Jericho. So everybody they work, they work, they work. Finally, I’m the last one in and then I ended up going another 20 minutes with Jericho and that Jackass puts me in the walls of Jericho. My burned chest is on the mat and I’m thinking you got to be kidding me! So finally Shawn comes up through the ring gives me the Super Kick and then I get out of there. I’d already told him, I said look if that dude backstage when I get back I’m gonna kill him and I totally meant it. So I’ve been out when I came out it was all over with man, I blew through gorilla backstage it was like a ghost town. There was nobody anywhere. And everybody’s kind of behind me chasing me because they want to take care of my wounds and everything, but I was like, man, if there’s any chance this dude is here he’s dead, because I was pissed. But yeah, so I had severe burns on my chest and ended up having to go to the burn centre the next day and went into a little bit of a shock later that night. Once I started trying to shower and get cleaned up I came out of the shower and I was just shaking. So yeah, that was pretty scary, that one could have been avoided.” 

What is The Undertaker grateful for?

“God, my wife and my children.”

Quinton “Rampage” Jackson (@rampage4real) is a mixed martial artist, actor and former UFC Light Heavyweight Champion. He sits down with Chris Van Vliet at West Coast Creative Studio in Hollywood to talk about his legendary MMA career, beating Chuck Liddell to win the UFC Light Heavyweight Championship, what went wrong with his run in TNA Wrestling, how he got the role to play B.A. Baracus in “The A Team”, the real story behind destroying the door on The Ultimate Fighter, powerbombing Ricardo Arona in PRIDE, his favorite flavor of F3 Energy, his involvement with United Fight League and much more!

Quote I’m thinking about: “Life is a guy trying to play a violin solo in public while learning the music and his instrument at the same time.” – Joseph Campbell

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On taking part in Bloodsport:

“I miss it. It’s been four years since I had an MMA fight. But Josh Barnett hit me up the other day, like, Hey, you got time to train MMA because I’ve been training boxing. I was like, Oh, damn, I need to go start training MMA because I’m doing Bloodsport for him in Japan and that’s pro wrestling but it’s like the MMA fight.”

On being nice in real life but scary in the cage:

“I don’t know. I know I have two personalities I know that much about myself. You know, I’m two people I’m Quinton and I’m Rampage and it just happens. [What are most people calling you in real life?] Most people call me Rampage. But you know, but I have a lot of names and some people call me Q, some people call me Page some people call me Ram.” 

On how difficult it was to dial it back in wrestling:

“That’s totally different. If it’s pro wrestling, and stuff like that, if it’s not like MMA style. Yeah, that’s fun. I always wanted to be a pro wrestler. So that’s fun for me. I’m not really trying to hurt nobody or knock anybody out in pro wrestling.”

On wanting to be a pro wrestler:

“I didn’t even know what MMA was. When I started wrestling in high school I was disappointed when I found out it wasn’t pro wrestling. Because you know, I grew up in a certain side of Memphis where we didn’t have wrestling in high schools. Then my mom remarried, we moved to a better side of Memphis and the schools were better. And they had a wrestling team and I offered to go join his pro wrestling team. And I get there and like they got singlets on and they hook on each other and I was like what the hell is this Coach? I was like where the ring at?”

On falling in love with collegiate wrestling:

“I fell in love with it because I picked people up and slammed them. And my coach, he taught me how to slam people legally. I had to drop to my knees first before I actually let them hit the mat. That’s the legal way of slamming in collegiate. But freestyle you can do whatever you want.”

On becoming an MMA fighter:

“This was all a mistake. So I ended up going to college for wrestling and I got injured. Then I came back home and one of the guys I used to wrestle against him and I became good friends at the time. We always used to see each other in the finals of a tournament in our weight class. We used [to be] the two best wrestlers in Memphis. And his coach and my coach were best friends. So you know, we had to practice together sometimes. So we stayed in touch over the years and when I came back home to Memphis he was training for an MMA fight. He took me to my first MMA fight, I had never really seen it. One of my coaches in college was doing UFC and I still didn’t watch it. I just heard about it, Vladimir Matyushenko, he was one of my coaches in college, he fought in UFC back in the early days. So he actually took me to a fight and I saw this guy submit the guy and push his face off with his feet and I was like man, I would like to fight that guy. And, you know, time goes by and he asked me to help them train for a fight. I’m there for like, two or three days, I’m having to train for a fight wrestling and he showed me some stuff. And the coach said like, Hey, you want to fight? Like yeah, when? He was like three days, the champion’s opponent pulled out, okay? Now I was like, Okay, I don’t know anything. Then my friend said like this the guy you said you want to fight. I signed me up. So I went out there and I fought the champion of Memphis with three days notice. I beat him by decision and then my friend is like, Oh, you a fighter now.”

Who did Rampage love in wrestling:

“I grew up watching Memphis. I used to love The Moon Dogs. Jeff Jarrett. I used to like Macho Man Randy Savage. Ultimate Warrior was my favourite, Hulk Hogan, Andre the Giant. I like Junkyard Dog, that was my little brother’s favourite. I like a lot of people.”

On possibly pursuing wrestling instead of MMA:

“I was thinking that it was going to be my destiny to be a wrestler. But you know, I used to be friends with Chris Benoit and I talked to him one day and he was like, Man, I’m always on the road. And I’m like, what? He said, Yeah, we’ve got like, 300 some days a year. I was like, wow, I didn’t know that. That’s that’s basically when I changed my mind. I don’t think I could do it. I don’t think I can keep that schedule.”

On facing Chuck Liddel for the UFC Light Heavyweight Championship:

“I had no idea I was getting the title shot. I think Joe Rogan asked me in an interview or something in the cage. I played it down like No, no, I’m not ready to fight. Because at this time of my career people thought I was finished. Because in Japan, maybe like couple of years prior I had turned real religious. I fought Shogun and I got injured going into the fight and people didn’t know that, I didn’t say anything about it. And he beat me pretty fast. He like broke the muscle to my ribs. And then people thought I was done. So you know, they thought that maybe Chuck could beat me because Chuck was on his comeback tour when he had beaten everybody that that beat him in the past and I was the last guy. So I figured I figure that’s why they brought my contract to get me over to the UFC. I was like, yeah, they will put me with Chuck. But I knew I could be Chuck.”

On not being in the UFC Hall of Fame:

“I don’t know. You know, the weird thing about me is that I didn’t start fighting to be famous. So I really don’t care for the Hall of Fame. I don’t know if these guys called Dana up and said hey put me in the Hall of Fame. I really don’t care for the Hall of Fame, like what was gonna do for me?”

On his relationship with Dana White:

“I don’t talk to him much. He and my manager are really close friends and every now and then they are on FaceTime he sees me and he says, what’s up, but he always reminds me of that movie I did. You know, that’s when our relationship went more south. I took a movie over a fight one time, The A Team.“

On losing money for taking the movie role:

“I got paid like less than 10% of what I get paid for a fight. And so you know, I did it because I’m a big fan of it, I like doing movies. I’m a big kid and I was hoping to get more movie roles. All I can say about that is that the manager I had at the time was a f*cking idiot. And he thought was a good idea to sign with the same agency that represented the UFC and I didn’t get any more movie offers. So that’s all I’m gonna say.”

Was that a bad decision to take the movie role?

“I don’t think it was a bad decision. Because A Team, it brought me and my father, not closer together. We always been close. But back when I was young, that’s one of the ways my dad and I bonded, we used to watch A Team together and stuff. And I’m a weird guy. I’ve never been a real big fan of anybody. But I’ve always been a big fan of A Team and Mr T. I always was one of the biggest fans. It was like a personal thing for me to do the movie. You know, my dad went through a bad patch in his life with alcohol and stuff as I got older, and now he’s back on the straight and narrow. So I brought him out to the set, and he got to be a big kid and stuff like that. It was good fun for my dad and he talks about this one that was one of the best times he ever had, because he had never been to Canada, never been nowhere. He got to be on set and see The A Team movie and stuff like that. And my dad had a great time. So, you know, I wouldn’t trade that for the world.”

On why he is doing more movies now:

“I love it, man. You know, I’m a big kid. Because I get to shoot at people, doing that type of action and stuff like that. It’s fun. I enjoy it. I’ve done a lot of movies. But you know, most of them. People will never see them. They were B movies, but they’re fun to do.”

On his TNA run:

“I did TNA I was so stoked to do it. They had me and Kurt Angle do to stare down. I thought this is going to be huge. I thought like, oh, yeah, you know, I was going to find out a few more MMA fights then did leave to go to pro wrestling. I don’t know how they dropped the ball. I had my own gym at the time and they put a wrestling ring there. They were supposed to be training me and they never trained me.” 

On how the TNA deal fell apart:

“You want me to tell the truth? All right so at that time, I started deal with Paramount Pictures. Remember that dumb manager I told you I had from England who thought was a good idea to sign with the same agents that represent UFC? This fight manager, he thought he thought was a good idea to sign with them He was the same motherf*cker who went over the contract and everything and I did a deal with Paramount Pictures. So I did a deal with Paramount Pictures and they wanted me to do movies, pro wrestler fight, and give me a reality show. But they offered me this huge contract when in all reality, they just wanted me to fight for cheap. So they promised me like movies and then they promised me my own reality show and I found TNA and all of it was a sham. So I don’t read contracts it’s my manager’s job to read the contract. And so Paramount actually tried to sue me because I didn’t want to fight. It’s all designed for me to fight. I’ll go make money doing this make money doing that but they wanted me to fight for $250,000. I was like I haven’t fought for $250,000 in f*cking years. [They said] But you got to make like 10 million a year with this contract. And so when they sued me, I got my own attorneys and stuff, I fired that manager and I broke down the f*cking contract and they said we going to get you in front of movie execs. They never said that they’re gonna get me in movies. They said like they’re gonna give me a meeting with people who make movies. The reality show, is it was actually shoulder programming like a 24/7 type of thing. It wasn’t like a reality show. Everything was bullsh*t, they just said all this to get me to fight for cheap. And the pro wrestling was under the same thing when I supposed to get paid like a certain amount every time I made an appearance it would take them like six months to even pay me. It was just all bullsh*t and I was like, f*ck this sh*t [Was it TNA that wasn’t paying you?] Yeah, everyone was supposed to pay. Then I found out that Paramount Pictures, they got all these channels and all this stuff, but it wasn’t like what they sold it as. I felt like they always competing against each other, Spike TV was still around and stuff like that. It was all competing against each other.” 

On the WWE appearance in 2010 possibly leading to discussions:

“It never led to discussions, I really liked it over there. But it was really cool. But none of guys will let me powerbomb them but I understand now. I talked to Ric Flair he was on my podcast. Ric Flair told me like yeah, they let you powerbomb me, they don’t know you know what you’re doing? Okay, it makes sense, though. [You did a chokeslam?] Yeah, yeah, I did a chokeslam and Big Show gave me sh*t about it. You want to use my move? Like come on, bro. He was joking, he was cool.”

On his current condition:

“I’m all f*cked up. If I sit down and play video games too long, and I have to get up and go to the restroom. I’m like stiff for like the first like 20 seconds. I don’t know. But when I wake up in the morning, I’m fine. Most days when I’m in a clear mind, I wake up, go for a run, I’m okay. When I get back from the run I ice my knees and stuff like that. But I go to Columbia, I go to bio accelerator, stem cells. Oh my God, those guys changed my life. So I’m good. But I guess the way I’d be sitting when I sit down because my right knee is really bad. I am supposed to get stem cells on it once a year but I took a couple of years off. So last time I went I thought it was gonna be training for a fight. So I just did my elbow and my shoulder. I didn’t do my knee. Because you can’t train like it’s hard for a while. So I regret that now. I wish I would have done my knee. So I’m gonna go back and get my knees done. At first my hand hurt, I had like a fracture that wouldn’t heal up. But I got stem cells and healed up in less than a week. My hands are small for a small for a fighter.” 

What is Rampage Jackson grateful for?

“My kids, my friends and that I met Harrison Rogers.”

Carmella (@carmellawwe) is a professional wrestler with WWE. She sits down with Chris Van Vliet in Philadelphia to talk about recently becoming a mom, being in labor for 60 hours, what Corey Graves is like as a dad, when she plans to return to the ring, being a Lakers girl when Kobe Bryant was on the team and cheering for the New England Patriots when Tom Brady was there, winning in Money In The Bank and cashing it in to become the Smackdown Women’s Champion, being paired with Enzo and Cass, her favorite memories of NXT and much more!

Sponsors:
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On being in labour for 60 hours:

“It was just such a long, long experience and it was honestly just very defeating because I spent my entire pregnancy preparing for labour and delivery. I feel like as a WWE superstar I’m used to being in pain, I feel like I have a pretty high pain tolerance. So I just could not wait to get into labour and deliver this baby and call it a day. I did all the preparations and took the classes, I exercised every single day in my pregnancy. And then when it came time to have the baby it just didn’t go the way I planned and it just took so long and it felt like it was never-ending. And but ultimately, at the end of the day, everyone was healthy. So that’s all that matters.”

On what Corey Graves is like as a dad:

“He is the best dad. I’m so impressed. I mean, he has three kids I have through stepkids. So obviously I know of him as a great father to them. But I’ve never seen him as a father to a baby and to a newborn and it’ll melt your heart. If I told you the things I see him do with this. You would never believe it because Corey Graves, we all know Corey Graves. But as a dad, he’s just the sweetest. Oh my gosh. I mean, so our son is obsessed with Mickey Mouse Clubhouse and there’s this little dance called the hot dog dance and Goofy does this move and he will be in our living room Cory does this move with as the as Goofy doing the hot dog dance and it is the funniest thing you would never in your life picture this but it is so funny and it’s so cute.”

On a WWE return:

“I would love to return. I mean, obviously, I’m so immersed in this motherhood world right now. But honestly, I actually have an injury from delivery. So I have a lot of nerve damage that happened and my foot is kind of non-functional right now. So it’s something that I never knew could happen during labour and delivery. But I have two herniated discs in my back and that is correlated to my foot. So I haven’t even been able to work out. I haven’t been able to do anything that will get me back to the ring quite yet. Hopefully, eventually, I’ll get there. But right now I’m just kind of working. I’m going to be in physical therapy and things like that, too. I mean, I’ve been wrestling for 11 years, I’ve never been injured knock on wood. And now here I have a baby and I’m going to physical therapy. So I don’t know how that works out. But here we go.”

On the Money in the Bank cash-in:

“I guess that was all part of the plan and I knew that he [the referee] was gonna give me a hard time with it. But I didn’t know he was gonna give me that hard of a time. I was like, Okay, how many more times am I gonna tell you to cash this damn thing in? Let’s go. But I’m watching it back. It’s hilarious. I just love him so much. He’s so awesome. So it’s funny to have that memory. I just sprinted down the ramp, and of course, my adrenaline and everything. I’m so excited because I know I’m about to cash in and hopefully win this title. So I mean, I was just like, how much longer can I sit here and scream? I was so it was ridiculous.”

On the unlikely path of following in her father’s footsteps:

“Never ever in my life that I think I would be here. I love performing, I was a dancer in my old life I cheered in the NFL, NBA and then when this opportunity presented itself, I just felt like, sure let me try it. I don’t know if I can do it, I’ve always been a small girl. So I never thought it was something that I could do. And then I went to the tryout and I just fell in love with it. And of course, with my history of watching it, I knew what it was all about. So it’s just kind of cool that it all came full circle especially with my dad’s history, my love of performing and, you know, led me to where I’m at.”

On choosing between Lakers Girl and WWE:

“I was a Laker girl and I had found out about an opportunity to try out for Tough Enough. I just kind of did like a video submission, I think or something like that, was emailing with somebody. They had said what the commitment would be for Tough Enough and I knew I wouldn’t be able to do it because I’d already committed to Laker Girls, I couldn’t do both. So I thought well, I moved to LA to be a Laker girl. I’m here on this squad, I need to finish my commitment with this. And then I just never thought again about WWE until this opportunity came about. And you know, it’s great. It ended up working out.”

On not being called up to the main roster with Enzo and Cass:

“We were at WrestleMania 32. I guess Triple H had talked to Enzo and Cass separately and told them they’re debuting the next night on Raw. And they were talking about it because we had done tours together. We had done loops, and I was with them. So I thought okay, well when they go up, of course I’m going up with them. So when I found out that Triple H had talked to them, and someone came and pulled me off the bus we were about to leave. It was TakeOver, I think or I don’t even remember what we’re doing. But I was pulled off the bus. We’re about to head back to the hotel, Triple H wants to talk to you. I’m like, oh yeah, we’re debuting tomorrow! I was so excited. And he pulled me and he’s like, Enzo and Cass are debuting tomorrow. And I’m like, yeah, he’s like, you’re not going to debut with them. My world just came crashing down. I was devastated in the moment. But now I look back and he had told me no, this is a good opportunity for you to prove who you are on your own. You’re going to be a strong character. You don’t need to be with them. You’re going to be strong on your own. And at the time, of course, it was devastating to hear but it all worked out I think the way it’s supposed to. And here I am 11 years later still here and killing it. I mean, not right now. But soon.”

On the 24/7 Championship:

“I just loved being paired with R-Truth. He is such a treasure and he’s such a good person and so fun to be around. It was just full-on shenanigans all the time whether the cameras were rolling or they weren’t. We just always had fun ideas. We would adlib things that weren’t in the script. And it was just fun to play off each other in that aspect. And I just think you just never knew what to expect. And people were looking forward to seeing what we were going to do. You know, we’re in costumes and disguises and just getting into the most ridiculous situations. And I just loved being that entertainment part of the show, rather than going out, I had already at that point been Women’s Champion, I show what I can do in the ring. Let me show what I can do with my character and be fun and be silly and have comedic timing and play off somebody. I think to be able to have that range is so important. Not everyone can do that and I’m so grateful I was afforded the opportunity to show that side of my character, especially alongside R-Truth.”

What is Carmella grateful for?

“Family, my health and wine.”

Mark Henry (@themarkhenry) is a WWE Hall of Famer, powerlifter and Olympic weightlifter. He sits down with Chris Van Vliet in Indianapolis to talk about his 25-year WWE career, his incredible weightlifting numbers, his son Jacob Henry breaking records, Nick Dinsmore helping him get prepared for his WWE career, his new foray into stand-up comedy, traveling with Mae Young, breaking the ring with Big Show, his eye for talent and discovering Jade Cargill, Bianca Belair, Samantha Irvin, Braun Strowman and more.

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/

PRIZEPICKS: Download the app today and use code INSIGHT for a first deposit match up to $100!

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

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

ROCKET MONEY: Join Rocket Money today and experience financial freedom: https://rocketmoney.com/cvv

BETTERHELP: Get 10% off your first month with the code INSIGHT at http://betterhelp.com/insight

PLUNGE: Get $150 off your Plunge with the coupon code CVV150 at http://plunge.com

On his son’s success:

“Yeah, man, he’s doing really well. Tomorrow he’s competing in the Texas relays is the biggest track meet in Texas bigger than state. And he qualified and he’s going to compete and I think he’ll do well because. It’s shotput, he went to state in wrestling, went to state with choir. His life is consumed with being the best and when you work with the work ethic of trying to be the best, even if you don’t ever become number one, which he was number two and stayed in wrestling. And he’s going to do well tomorrow and throwing the shot. They won first place in choir. Like, even if you’re not number one, the work that you’re putting in to be number one, wherever you fall, 20th place, puts you above all the people that didn’t try. That’s who I’d hire. I’m not going to hire somebody that’s doing nothing. Yeah. Fortune 500 companies. The margin between them making a billion dollars a year and then making a few 100 million is who you hire. So I tell my kids, I’m preparing y’all for the world. I’m not preparing you for the individual sport you’re doing that’s that’s just a byproduct of what you’re doing and on the journey.”

On always being strong:

“Yeah. All my childhood pictures of me flexing, posing like I was a bodybuilder or something. Just because I just felt strong. And I knew when other kids my age, like we touched, it wasn’t the same. It was never fair. And at 10 years old, I boxed. And because I weighed over 220 pounds. I had to fight in the other category [against] 12-year-olds, they beat the shit out of me. It was horrible. I don’t know if you ever box before. Boxing is like playing chess. And you make the wrong move. Your game is over like Checkmate. Boxing is serious. And, man, I was not 12 years old. The kids is not it’s not fair.” 

On wrestling being a gamble:

“I had no clue that I could even do that. Seriously, like I was a fan and they got wind of the fact that I was a fan. My coach knew a couple of people and said hey man this boy wants tickets to a show he’s a big fan. And they were like sh*t, he should wrestle, he’d made a killer. And Vince McMahon called me one day. And I hung up on him. [Why?] I thought it was one of my friends just f*cking around. Dead serious. I was like, yeah, yeah, all right Wes. I thought it was Wes Barnett, who was also a super fan like I was. We lived at the Olympic Training Centre in Colorado Springs, and neither one of us ever missed Raw. There was no such thing as SmackDown. So my coach and manager called me back and was like, Hey, did you hang up on Vince McMahon? He said you hung up. I said that was him for real? and he was like. I answered the phone, he was p*ssed at me. And he called Vince I was like, hey, I apologize. He’s like that ain’t the first time I’ve been hung up on. So me and Vince had a good relationship?”

On his 10 year deal:

“Part of it was, we don’t want to do all the work training you and getting you ready. And then you go sign with the opposition. I’m loyal, I wouldn’t have done that anyway. But nonetheless, he did say that is going to take about three or four years for you to really understand that and get it, then we will still have you on contract for another five or six years to, reap the benefit of being able to draw money and I more than paid for my career.”

On scouting talent:

“I want to give black people opportunities in wrestling that would not have gotten those opportunities hadn’t somebody saw that they have all the skill set for wrestling they just don’t know that it exists for them. And overall, I mean, Bryan Danielson is as lily white as you can be, but his talent was undeniable. And the WWE want big people. And I was like listen, I saw a guy wrestle last night that was good. I don’t give a sh*t what his size is. He’s one of the most entertaining guys. I work with Steve Austin and I said this dude is like, really good. And then a lot and say he’s six one and about 300 pounds. But I got him in the door. And he did the wrist. Some people just need the look I didn’t help him at all. Really? I just opened the door.”

On Bianca Belair:

“She got my attention, because she wore a tutu. And a big Mickey Mouse bow in her hair. And you’re supposed to work. You’re doing apparatus, and you put that down and then you go to something else. She did a damn backflip on her way to doing another. I’m like, What are you doing? You’re exerting the energy that you don’t need to. She couldn’t help it. She’s an entertainer, that’s wrestling.”

On Jade Cargill:

“Before she went to AEW she had a try-out with WWE. I’m the one that got her the tryout. I knew Jade when it was an idea. She was a basketball player. She said that she wanted to wrestle. And I said you’re a pretty girl and everything but wrestling is hard. I was like, no disrespect to you, your pictures are great, but there’s a lot of pretty girls. She says I’m different and that’s my gimmick, I say I’m different. So when she hit me with that, I was like, Ah, you different? I tell you what? Why don’t you go and see Rip Rogers? Because Rip Rogers is the litmus test. The mentality of wrestling is you have to eat sh*t and like it. You got to take verbal abuse, browbeating and persevere. When it gets tough, you got to be like the hell with that. Give me some more. That’s wrestling. I didn’t think she had that in her. That’s why I sent her to him. Rip called me and said Mark I don’t know where the hell you got this one. But I bent her over and hit her across her back as hard as you can hit a human and she told me that’s all you got old man? And I went she didn’t say that. He said Yes, she did. And I was like let’s go! I knew she had it.”

On not having a retirement match:

“Yeah, my body said man f*ck your plan. My back said listen, we go into your House, right? Yeah, I guess we’re going to go into the house, like my back gave out. It just never allowed me and I can probably have a surgery. I keep putting it off, because I just want to keep moving around. But eventually I’m gonna have to just gonna get it fixed.”

On struggling to break into a steel cage in WWE:

“It was a padlock on it. It wasn’t a door. I mean, I could have jumped up and grabbed the door and just ripped the door off the hinges. They wanted me to pull the chain and break the chain. I had committed to pulling on that chain to break that lock. Jim Ellis was busy. He had so much sh*t going on. He forgot to take a hacksaw and kind of saw the Master Lock. So Master Lock Mark Henry broke it. He didn’t score it. So he didn’t weaken it enough. So I could just pop it. So when I started pulling on it, it wouldn’t go. That’s why it took so long. I had to go back and look but it was supposed to be like, instantaneous. Do it and go like three or four minutes. Maybe longer. It took for me too, I really broke it. But it was a success. We did the business. But that was a case where you saw something real happen in wrestling that probably will never happen again. I would like to do a reenactment and challenge people to go try it, it will humble, strong, strong people. Because what did that was Mark Henry, the strongest man in the world, lost his sh*t and had to do it. Because I was on TV and failure was not an option. So I mean that’s probably the greatest feat of strength you ever seen in wrestling. I could never do that again. My hands hurt for like, two weeks.”

On Mae Young:

“Sometimes whenever Moolah and the ladies were not on the road, she rode with me. And bro, she used to tell me stories. She was like, You know what, Mark? I understand who you are in the business. And I was like, What do you mean? And she’s like, I see how you help these other kids that and I heard people talk about you when you first started. You know what? F*ck them people. She was tough. She said I went through the same thing. And she told me stories about the boys flashing her, like saying belittling and really horrible things to her, not letting her dress in[locker rooms], she just in broom closets, janitors rooms, stuff like that, so they wouldn’t rib her. Like somebody stole all our clothes one time, put them in a water bucket. Like they hazed the shit out of her. And she just started kicking people in the balls and punching people in the throat. She was like, Hey, if you talk trash to me, at least zip your pants. Gotta learn to look down, kick them in the balls, stomp the sh*t out. And she told me that. She said you know when I was young woman none of these girls in here could touch me, she was confident. I love that, especially with athletes and people that’s doing something like you confident that you’re good interview. I can hold my own against some of the best. If you don’t have that level of confidence, you’re not gonna make it. She had it man. She was just tough. When Bully Ray powerbombs her to a table from the ring to the floor she was like, Do not treat me like an old woman. You better lay it in.”

On breaking the ring with The Big Show:

“I think they told me that day when I got to the arena, and I was like, what? And I’m thinking we got to do it for real. So the easiest way to make a ring fold up cuz I’ve seen rings fold up before. Underneath the rings, they’re all on wires that wire them together to a central point in the middle. And I mean, it’s got so much support. So all you got to do is just not put the wires on. But what if in the middle of the match, something happens? So all of that stuff is set up it’s a magic trick to let all of that stuff happen at the moment that is supposed to happen. Not before. Because then you put people in danger. And I’ve been in the ring where I broke the ropes legitimately. I run to hit the ropes snap broke the steel ring in the corner, fly out tore my quad. So the danger of the ring breaking is a reality but that he and I are doing it. There it had been done before. Right. I mean, I think Show did with Brock before.”

On Paul Wight:

“He was a monster. Like one of the if not the best if not the best, big man athlete of all time. I will put him over me. I will put him over Andre he was a better athlete. Doing this stuff at 6’11 and change almost exactly seven feet tall. Like shoot height, he got billed at 7’1 or whatever. That dude is seven feet tall, basically. And 500 pounds doing Moon salts and Kip ups. Drop kicks. He used to do drop kicks. Just crazy athletic.”

What is Mark Henry grateful for?

“People who make wrestling their life, health, my career and my family.”

Christian Cage (@christian4peeps) is a professional wrestler signed to AEW. He is also known for his career in WWE where he was simply known as Christian and was part of a legendary tag team with Edge (Adam Copeland). He sits down with Chris Van Vliet at West Coast Creative Studio in Hollywood to talk about his legendary career that started in 1995, getting into the best shape of his life at 50 and why he created Pure Plank with Adam Copeland, doing the best work of his career right now in AEW, pushing the envelope with his patriarchy character, how he was able to come out of retirement after 7 years, his WWE return in 2020, being part of the Royal Rumble in 2021, signing with AEW a month later, the reaction to his debut, being part of the first ever TLC match, memories of his WrestleMania 18 match against DDP in Toronto, what made him leave WWE for TNA in 2005, proving himself as a singles wrestler, how much longer he wants to wrestle before retiring and much more!

Quote I’m thinking about: “Do not fear failure but rather fear not trying.” – Roy T. Bennett

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/

PRIZEPICKS: Download the app today and use code INSIGHT for a first deposit match up to $100!

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

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

ROCKET MONEY: Join Rocket Money today and experience financial freedom: https://rocketmoney.com/cvv

BETTERHELP: Get 10% off your first month with the code INSIGHT at http://betterhelp.com/insight

PLUNGE: Get $150 off your Plunge with the coupon code CVV150 at http://plunge.com

On the turtleneck:

“I mean, I’ve managed to bring the turtleneck back into fashion. And nobody wears it the way that I wear it, obviously. But you can see my influence, you’re starting to see it sprinkled out throughout not just wrestling, but also in pop culture. People starting to pull out the turtleneck.”

On accepting retirement and mental struggles:

“I accepted it only for the fact that I had a young child and because it was concussion-related injuries, I didn’t question it. My only thought was, I wanted to be able to have a conversation with my daughter when she turned 13 years old. So I took it at face value. I didn’t explore it any further and realised later on that I could come back, but that was the reasoning. Plus I managed to stay busy outside of wrestling, I was doing other things, managing to stay busy. I was doing a show on Fox at the time, Backstage, I was doing the pay-per-view pre-show panels, I was doing a number of other things outside of wrestling. Then when the pandemic hit, much like everybody else, everything that I had that I was working on went away, it all went away. So I found myself, it was a tough time in my life. I had just gone through a divorce, feeling pretty low after that. I’m a pretty private person so I haven’t talked about this much in public but I think it’s an important part of the story for Pure Plank. And yeah, I was going through a very dark period as far as that goes, my work had gone away. My marriage had just dissolved and now on weeks where I didn’t have my daughter, I was literally alone 24 hours a day, seven days a week and it was a very, very lonely existence. I found myself trying to do things to keep busy, I went on my old man walks at night, I would just put my headphones on and just go outside and go for a walk just because I had nobody to talk to, nobody to see, anything. And I got into a little bit of, I was probably a little bit of depression, I’m sure. Feeling low and down on myself and just feeling sorry for myself and I started making unhealthy choices. A lot of that was with the food choices, I was eating not great, I would sit down on the couch at night and what’s better than half a box of Cheez-Its? That’s pretty much what happened on a nightly basis at my house. Maybe drinking a little bit too much, and other things like that. Like I said, I just wasn’t making healthy choices. And my body was feeling it. One day, I happened to walk past a mirror without a shirt on and I did not like what I saw.”

On outworking everyone:

“I’ve always had a bit of a chip on my shoulder, I’ve always felt like [I’m] not being the biggest, the fastest, the strongest. I always felt like I was going to have to work a little bit harder. I used to have a saying every time I went into an arena. I would get out of a car, whether it was a live event, a pay-per-view or a TV, I stepped out of the car. And in my head, I would say to myself today, they’re going to know how good you are, and that was just something to motivate myself because like I said, I always felt like I was fighting from underneath, so to speak. And that was just my mindset that I was gonna just keep fighting.”

On fans who preferred Edge during their tag team days:

“Well again it’s just I go out there and you can’t control [the reaction]. You have to have thick skin in this business or any [business] when you’re out there in front of people because you’re gonna read things about yourself that aren’t flattering, that you don’t like, or people are always gonna have an opinion, especially now with social media. People just will say whatever they want and say things about you and think that. How do you convert them into being fans? You just got to keep going out there and doing your thing, putting in hard work and grinding. That’s what I’ve done my whole career. If people appreciate it, they do, if they don’t, they don’t. That’s where I’m at at this stage of my career. If people don’t like me, I don’t really care.”

On doing the best work of his career:

“So like I said, when I got my career back after being retired for seven years, it was a gift to get it back. And it wasn’t just enough to get it back for me. Okay, I got it back, that’s great. Now, it’s like, how far can we push it? How far can we go with it? I had seven years of lost time to make up for, I didn’t feel like I had accomplished everything that I accomplished. Was I content with what I accomplished? Yes. But did I feel like I’d accomplished everything that I could accomplish? Not even close. So the goal was even to prove at an advanced age that you can still go out there and do it if you apply yourself and you push yourself. It’s taking chances and risks to write. Sometimes you have to go and do things that other people are unwilling to do to stand out and that’s what I’m doing.”

On being allowed to say what he says in his promos:

“I’ve never told anybody what I’m gonna say. Never had it cleared with anybody. I’ve never asked anybody, I just go out there and do it. It’s one of those things, you have to be willing to go places that others are unwilling to go in order to stand out, especially in this day and age. I saw an opportunity that I could jump on, I took it and I rode it, and sometimes things happen you’re not expecting to happen. I said one phrase and it turned into a wildfire. I just embraced it and ran with it.” 

On ‘Go f*ck yourself’:

“When he hugged me, and most of the time, 99.9% of the time, you’d hear somebody say no, yes or no. I wanted to leave people’s jaws on the floor with my response, something so out of left field that they weren’t gonna believe that was my response to my childhood lifelong friend. Closer than friends, brothers. I just wanted something that would just get people talking, and it did. I was at a Tool concert. I went in to watch soundcheck and guitarist Adam Jones. I could see him whispering to his security guy that knew that I was there. And he pointed over to me. He’s playing, getting ready for his big show. He looks at me and goes ‘Go f*ck yourself’ from the stage.”

On targeting late fathers: 

“Yeah, like I said, I don’t even know how this happened, it just did. It’s like when a shark senses blood in the water, you attack it. So that’s what happened. I saw an opportunity in that and I attacked it. Like I said, the only way to stand out to me in this day and age is to be different. And it’s hard to be different when a lot of things have been done or are being done, and it’s very much a copycat business, if something’s working, you see people start to do it. I’m seeing the influence that a lot of characters not just on our show, but on other shows as well. So when that happens, you start saying, Okay, what I’m doing is working here.”

On where the viciousness comes from:

“I don’t know. It’s like something happens when you step through that curtain, you can’t explain it. I don’t know, I’ll just like look for one thing or one response from the crowd. And then we’ll just kind of roll with that. And go with it.”

On being told he couldn’t wrestle again:

“So the last one [consuccion] that happened, I was kicked in the back of the head. I didn’t lose consciousness but I did have spins, I was spinning, I couldn’t stop spinning and things like that. So they sent me to the concussion center at USF University of South Florida in Tampa. At that point in time too I’m pretty sure that I had post-concussion syndrome. And I probably should have maybe even rested before I started to do these other tests, because I was still having issues, obviously. And anyway, I failed the tests. And I didn’t think anything, they didn’t tell me that I failed them at that point in time. So then I had to go to Washington and this was right before WrestleMania. And I think I was in some sort of multi-man match. I can’t remember what it was. But I saw all the names on the board except for mine for this match, and I was like, that’s weird. So I went into the training room, and I was like, does anybody know why my name is not on this list? And they said I think somebody’s going to talk to you a little bit later. I was like, that doesn’t sound good. So yeah, we got pulled aside a little bit later and they said they were going to medically disqualify me. So it was taken out of my hands, I had no choice in the matter. I couldn’t say, okay, yeah, do you want me to rest for six months? [They said] We’re medically disqualifying you, you’re not allowed to do this anymore.”

Were they saying this was permanent?

“They said it was permanent. I never was sent back to have it reassessed after any amount of time, to be honest with you, so that’s why I took it at face value. I just thought that was probably what was best for my health and all those sorts of things. So then when I got myself back in physical shape at where I wanted to be, I decided that I will go back to that same place that retired me at the USF concussion center and that I wouldn’t tell anybody about it and I would just see what happened from that. So I did the tests and the doctor came in after the test and he said, your test scores were great, you were above average on everything. You weren’t below average on any of your test scores. He said, What are you looking to do? I said I’m looking to finish my career on my own terms, if you’re telling me that I’m crazy, then it’s fine. I’m in no different position than I was when I woke up this morning. But if you tell me that I can do this, it’s opening up doors and opportunities for me. He said I don’t think you’re crazy at all, If you want to do this, you can do it. So then I was motivated even more to get myself back in shape. I’ve never been of the opinion to be like, Hey, if you do this for me, I’ll do this for you. I’ve never been that kind of guy. I’ve always been like, this is what I bring to the table. So then I was super motivated to get back in the best shape of my life, and then go back to whatever entity it was and say, I’m ready to go. If you hire me, this is what you get, instead of hey, if you hire me, I’ll get back in shape in a couple of months. You can’t do that. That’s not the right way to approach it.”

Were you cleared when you had that unsanctioned match on Raw?

“I was not. [But you took a punt?] Probably not the smartest thing to do, but there were ways around it at the time in the Performance Center. So that’s what we did. But I was not happy about that day, because I felt that I could do more. And then when the ratings came in, it was the highest-rated show in a long time. I was like, wow, people really thought I was gonna wrestle and they were excited to see me wrestle. I feel like I kind of let them down. So that was another thing that was in my head that is this how I want to go out? It was unsanctioned. Do I want that to be the last memory people have of me being in the ring?”

On not returning to WWE full-time after the Royal Rumble return:

“I think we were back and forth a little bit and we never got as far as numbers or anything like that. I think it was more like scheduling stuff like what I was willing to do. I think we were trying to get some traction there. A friend of mine, Jon Moxley, called me and we were talking and when he found out that I wasn’t signed he was blown away by that. And he said you should have a conversation with Tony Khan. I was like, I don’t know. And he said, Well, you’re actually an idiot if you don’t, you hold all the cards here. He said you have the ability to pick where you refinish your career.”

On his hyped AEW signing:

“You know how wrestling fans are, right? Nothing’s ever good enough. So when my name was announced, there were some people that were thinking it was going to be somebody else, maybe hoping it was going to be somebody else. I mean, there were a lot of people who were happy with me too. But when you do something like that, that’s not a surprise. When you hype something, you’re giving people the opportunity to have an opinion. Either good or bad and they’re gonna voice that after. I heard all those things that were said after, that maybe it wasn’t big enough for the hype and all those sorts of things. When we were doing these press conferences after I took the TNT Championship, which was basically thrown on the scrap heap, and I revived that title to make it at one point, I’ll die on this hill, that it was as prestigious, if not more prestigious than the world title when I had that run. We were main eventing WrestleDream with it. We were sitting in the scrum after and I had my opportunity to basically say there were people and there’s a lot probably a lot of people in this room that thought that the signing was overhyped, and I just wanted to make them eat their words.”

On when he will retire:

“I always said that I would do it till it wasn’t fun. And that was my barometer on it. How can I not be having fun right now? have no timeline, I signed a contract. I think I have another three years left on this contract. So we’ll get to the end of that, and then see what happens. But you know, I feel like, I have a lot of knowledge. I feel like I don’t know everything, but I know a lot. And I feel like, I think the business differently and I layout matches and I see matches differently than other people do. I would like to, at some point, when the time is right to obviously give back to the business that has done what it’s done for me.” 

On having his original finisher stolen:

“Marc Mero stole my TKO. So funny story, he was training to come back from an injury and I was training at Bret Hart’s place in Calgary. When we were training, I did a version of the diamond cutter where I would scoop the guy up onto my shoulders, but I’d spin them off and hit a cutter out of the air. So I did it in the match. And Mark was sitting on the floor watching. He said hey, can you do that again? So I did it again and then he said to me, Hey, man, you want to grab a bite to eat And I was like, Sure. So when we grabbed a bite to eat and then we were just talking about some Japanese wrestling and some different stuff. And then he said, Hey, I’m going back in about a month. I said, okay, cool. And he goes, would you mind if I use that finish? I was like, this is a guy that’s already signed. This is when he was coming back with the boxer gimmick with the shorts and the jacket and the whole deal. So I was like, what are you supposed to say? This guy’s is where I want to be. I said Yeah, I’ll think of something else go ahead and use it, take it. And so he was nice enough to buy me dinner. But like I said, Everything happens for a reason and this finish suits me much more.” 

What is Christian Cage grateful for?

“Me, myself and I.”

Sonya Deville (@sonyadevillewwe) is a WWE Superstar appearing on the Raw brand. She sits down with Chris Van Vliet in Philadelphia during WrestleMania week to talk about recovering from her torn ACL, winning the WWE Women’s Tag Team Championship with Chelsea Green, how she met her wife, her particularly violent match with Liv Morgan, transitioning from MMA to WWE, being the Smackdown GM, a possible match with Rhea Ripley and much more!

Quote I’m thinking about: “When success finds you, it’s because you were looking for it.” – Larry Fitzgerald

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On not realizing something was wrong when she injured her knee:

“I had no idea. I must be so naive to this. I’ve been an athlete, I was like, I’m fine. I tagged out. Alright, I’m lying. I knew something was wrong. It felt a little weird. I kind of like my knee buckled and I was like, Oh, that was weird. But like, I’m fine. I have eight minutes left in this match. We’re about to go to a commercial break. I need to get it together. And so I tagged out to Chelsea and I got on the apron. Luckily, we’re in a commercial break. So I was like alright, let me suss out the situation. So I’m hopping on the apron and anyone in the live audience was probably like, What the heck is she doing? But I’m hopping up in down on the apron trying to gauge if I can trust my knee. And sure enough, it was sketchy at best. I was like, Oh God, well, I’m in a match with Bianca, Charlotte, Chelsea, it’s a tag match, no less. I’m not about to change the entire match right now on live TV. So I was getting the comeback run on me and I had another eight minutes to wrestle. So I was like, we just got to do this. So Chelsea tagged me in for the hot tag. I had two comebacks ran on me. We did some falsies, I think a superplex. And the whole time I was like, Oh my God, I hope I don’t fall flat on my face. And sure enough, we made it to the end and I limped back, I got my rental car, went to my hotel, tried to pretend like it didn’t happen, because in this business, no one wants to be injured and out of play. Because I just won my first title. I was so sad, I was like, It’s fine. It’s just a sprain, I’ll wrap it. Long story short, I woke up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom. And I fell face-first into the wall. And I was like, Oh, I think something’s wrong.”

How much pain were you in?

“No pain. I swear. I know that sounds very weird. I’ve torn my ACL and every ACL is different. We’re not all created equal in that sense, but I didn’t feel any pain. I just felt instability. And it wasn’t even swollen. And then the doctor looked at the MRI, and he’s like, your ACL has probably been torn for a long time.”

On having to vacate the championship:

“20 days, 21 days [before] who’s counting? 30 seconds. I was so devastated. I mean, I’d been with the company for nine years. And of course, part of being in the WWE is to one day grab that brass ring and get gold around your waist and that’s what I had been striving for, of course. So I finally got my first championship and I was so happy. I was so elated. I was ready to make those titles mean more than ever before. And the injury came, which is probably why I ran back to my hotel and hid in my room and didn’t tell anyone I was injured.” 

On common fan questions:

“Okay, it’s one of two things. Funny enough I think it’s mostly I loved you as GM. Which was always like, Oh, wow, really, because I loved I loved being GM. I think it was a natural fit. It was great. It was the evolution of my character. But when I think of, you know, I want to be in the ring. I want to be hitting people. I want to be hurting people. I want to be cutting promos and hurting people with my words too. But that’s what a lot of people say also a lot of people throw back to the pandemic era when me and Mandy had that huge rivalry, which was probably one of my favourite durations of my career also me and Naomi had a really cool feud. So those are like, I think the maybe the top three Yeah.”

On her amazing suits:

“My wife would love to enter this conversation. So we have our closet that we share. And then we have another bedroom in our house. It’s no longer a room. It is the Sonya Deville suit display. And my wife, you know, it’s the ongoing beef between us because I take up probably 60% of our closet that we share and the bedroom next door. She’s not happy about it. I think I need to do something we need to do some rearranging. But for now. Yeah, it’s the suit display. So basically looks like um, maybe 50 suits or so. And then it goes into Sonya Deville. Then we have the MMA gear from back in the day. So there’s a bunch of that. Yeah, there’s a wide variety.”

On the Otis and Mandy kiss in the pandemic era:

“Bittersweet, but life works in such mysterious ways. I always say everything happens for a reason. And I’m a firm believer in that. But it was one of those moments where I was like, wow, I think I just had the run of a lifetime. And it was in front of nobody, except the millions, of course watching at home. There was so much interaction and love on socials and online and everything. But being a performer, being in the WWE, my favourite part is walking out there and hearing you guys. I want to hear the audience whether you’re booing me out of the building, whether you’re cheering, whatever it is, I just want to hear and feel the passion from that. So walking into the empty arena, when we know we’re having iconic moments like the Mandy, Otis kiss, like the Sonya Mandy turn, like, all these moments, I’m like, oh my god, the crowd reaction would be so good. And, you know, at one point, it was like 20 NXT talent in the audience. And they’re booing and I’m like, This is crazy. This would be so iconic in front of in front of a crowd. But it was iconic nonetheless, to be a part of a cool story like that.” 

On future dream matches:

“So it’s not a real answer, but it’s an answer. One of my favourites, I’ve had a million matches with her but not a lot televised, and never a singles televised to my knowledge. Asuka is one of my favourite opponents. We would have awesome matches down in NXT seven years ago, eight years ago on live events and road loops. And it was my favourite match to this day, but we never got an angle on TV. And then it would be like, I go to Raw she got to SmackDown she go to SmackDown I go to Raw and we just keep playing tag and not catching each other. So I was like, if I could paint the perfect picture, I would love to have like a two-three seg match with Asuka and just mess each other up.”

On meeting her wife Toni:

“She slid in my DMs. Yeah, it works. Well, okay, I’ll give you the full story. She’ll kill me if I just say that. But she was following me for a while. So I followed her back. And, you know, we’d stalked each other’s page as us millennials do. And, yeah, I always thought she was like, dream, like goals, like, just everything I wanted in a future wife, but she was in a prior relationship and so was I, and we were respectful. Then we both got single. And she said, Hey, and of course, I saw it, because I stalked her page and then popped up in my little primary folder, because the algorithm knew that I wanted to see that. And I was like, Oh, she’s just saying hey, like, she want to just ask me a random question. And I was like, Hey, what’s up? And she was like, I haven’t done this in a while. Haven’t been single in a while, like something, implying she was newly single. And I was like, Oh, now I was like, Where do you live? Do you come from the northeast? And she’s like, Yeah, and I was like, awesome. I have a show in Albany, New York. Come, I’ll get you tickets. And I’ll take you to dinner after. And the rest is history.”

What is Sonya Deville grateful for?

“My wife and family, my health and being able to do what I love.”

Steve Lombardi (@brawlerreal) is a professional wrestler known for his 33-year career in WWE where he wrestled under the name Brooklyn Brawler. He was also known as Abe “Knuckleball” Schwartz and Kimchee. He sits down with Chris Van Vliet in Indianapolis, IN to talk about how his career got started, having matches with pretty much everyone including Hulk Hogan, Paul Orndorff, The Ultimate Warrior, Bret Hart and many others, being The Rock’s first WWE opponent in a dark mark in 1996, getting a win over Triple H on Smackdown in 2000, the hilarious backstage segment he did with “Stone Cold” Steve Austin, his legacy as the greatest enhancement talent ever, whether he should be inducted in the WWE Hall Of Fame and much more.

Quote I’m thinking about: “Going from being worried about what might happen to being excited about what might happen is only a mindset shift away”

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On his in-ring career:

“Well, the career is beyond my expectations. It all began when I was 16 years old. I used to watch wrestling on television in Brooklyn, New York, but it was called Lucha Libre, all the competition was in Spanish. I did not care about the commentary I was looking at the guys and I was saying holy cow. It was Bruno Sammartino, The Valiant Brothers, people like that, Superstar Billy Graham… and I’m 16 years old, I’m in my mother’s backyard, looking at wrestling magazines with my brother and my friends not realising I am going to wrestle every one of these guys on their way out. And I actually had Bruno Sammartino’s last match of his entire career, which he reminded me of every autograph session I was on, he was a great guy. He really was a fantastic person. He had no ego. And he just had all good intentions in life.”

Did you ever think this would be possible?

“It was possible to me because I got a spark inside that became confidence. And when you get confidence inside of you, and you believe it with all your heart and soul, people around you can feel it. But the people around me were telling me that I was never going to make it. [They said] It’s a dumb dream, you’re not going to reach that goal. I call those people inspiration. I said You’re telling me I’m not going to do it, you just drive me even more towards doing it. They said don’t you feel it? Aren’t you worried about it? I was 16, why is the 16-year-old able to say fear and worry does not exist? Because it has never changed the outcome of any situation. They looked at me like you’re too young to say that. And I knew it.” 

Where’d you get that from? 

“I always felt that I just made it up or I’m think I read it because I was 16, I said just crazy things when I was 16. The teacher says What’s your theory? I raised my hand, I said upon a possible explanation, why did I say this? It’s freaky things like that, the speed of light is 186,000 miles per second, things are retained in my mind. So anyway, just as I got older, I started getting more into wrestling, mostly bodybuilding because I was looking at the wrestler’s bodies. I looked at Bruno Sammartino and I worked my chest and I got really big. My brother was looking at Superstar Billy Graham, he got biceps like bowling balls. So it started like that. So then finally, someone gave me tickets to Madison Square Garden. I’m watching the show. The guy next to me says to me I could tell this is your first wrestling match you’ve been to. I said how’s that? He goes, because the way you’re watching the match, you’re watching it like you’re like you’re intrigued by it. You’re looking at it in a way that no one else looks at. I said, I’m fascinated. He said to me, Well if you want to meet all these guys, they go to this bar that’s about four blocks away. He goes, wait about an hour, first of all is gonna take you about an hour for The Garden to empty because it’s 23,000 people. Go to that bar, and you’ll meet all these guys that you’re watching in the ring right now. So I looked at my friends, because they were with me and I said what do you think? They said, We’re in. So we walked because you take the train, there are no cars in New York we were kids. I walk up to Mr. Fuji, I said, Mr. Fuji, I’m so I am so intrigued it’s my first wrestling match. I can’t believe it or not, I think I fell in love with this one. And he says to me, can you not see we are talking?! you’re interrupting me! I said, Okay, I apologise. I went and sat at the bar. And I said, Holy cow, who’s sitting next to me at the bar, Jimmy Superfly Snuka. So I say, Jimmy, he goes, brother, he became a very good friend of mine. And I said, Jimmy, I just wanted to let you know, I’ve never been to a wrestling match before. I watched you fly off the top rope and I watched you wrestle, it was amazing. And if for some reason, I want to put all my heart and soul, I want to be a wrestler. He turned to me and said, If you believe in what you want to do, and you have in your heart, you could do anything you want. If you want to be a wrestler, you will be a wrestler. I never forgot those words. Later, Jimmy and I became really good friends. I know his daughter. We travelled together, we shared rooms together. Just my first year in wrestling, when I first got into WWE, they give me a deal where they said, if you show up and somebody doesn’t show up, we’ll will pay everything. And if everybody shows up, you will not work, you will not get paid, you will not get your expenses paid. And I said fair enough, I’ll do it. So I did it. I made $43,000 That year, because everybody was, not screwed up but they had demons and they would miss shows and do all this and that.” 

“But the thing is, as time was passing I was getting better and better and better. Then Ricky Steamboat came in. They used to put a paper on the wall and show all the matches. And my name was next to Ricky Steamboat. And I wne tup to him and said Mr. Steamboat. My name is Steven Barnett I’m going to wrestle you tonight. He says, it’s a pleasure to meet you. I just want to let you know, I do not beat dish rags. He goes, I’m going to give you a competitive match, you’re going to have offence, and you’re going to really, really have a great match. I said, really? So then we go in the ring. Ricky Steamboat was a fantastic wrestler, he’s over in the Carolinas, and we had a great match. And I mean, this guy was selling for me. He’s doing double leapfrogs he’s doing this. He’s doing that. And then I come back and all the other wrestlers have seen it. I remember Tito Santana came up and says How did it feel? I said I could always do this. I said, you guys were always just not giving me any offence. From that day on they started giving me offence. Then time was passing and all of a sudden, four years pass or something, Bobby Heenan comes up to me. He says, Steve, I’ve been watching you, you learn how to wrestle, now I’m going to teach you how to make money. He goes, I am going to create you as the Brooklyn brawler. You’re gonna wrestle with a rival of mine who’s in my family right now Terry Taylor and I am going to take you under my wing, you are now in the Heenan family. So all of a sudden I go from Brooklyn Brawler getting beat every night. And now he says we’re a Yankee shirt.” 

On wearing the Yankees shirt:

“The only reason I wore a Yankee shirt is that in the 80s Everybody hated it. He says wear a Yankee shirt because you’re gonna get a lot of heat. He said wear a leather cap, and put on a cigar. And then we were in Hershey, Pennsylvania and he goes, come outside with me. He says you see that mud right there? He goes roll around in that mud. I said, Bobby, come on, stop joking with me. He goes, No. wants you to be a grimy, greasy, dirty-ass-kicking Brooklynite. I said anything you say, Bobby, I’ll do anything you want. And then I just, I just started winning every single night he was walking out with me. And people were weird. Like when I went to the God who they were asking for autographs of the Brooklyn Brawler and not knowing that I was Steve Lombardi because I had a leather cap on. They weren’t putting two and two together.”

On having The Rock’s first match in WWE:

“Then the magic phone rings, it was Howard Finkel. He said, ‘Steve, Vince told me to give you a call. We want you to wrestle a new guy who has never been in the ring, and never wrestled, ever. He is going to wrestle you in Corpus Christi, Texas, it was in 1996, that man’s name is Dwayne Johnson.’ I’m The Rock’s first match ever in front of 15,000 people. When I talk to Rocky he says, Well, you had my right dad’s first match in WWF too. And he actually did an episode on Young Rock, season two episode eight. But I met Rock. I was driving with Rock and I said, How many matches did you have? He goes, Steve, this is my first match. I said your first match in WWF? He says no. My first match ever in my life in front of an audience. Then we went to the dressing room, we wrote down, we talked about the match. I told him let’s do this. Let’s do that. First of all he said to me, we were walking with Michael Hayes down the hallway and he goes how’s the Brooklyn Brawler gonna beat me? I turned to him and I said, Vince did not bring you all the way here to lose. You are going over. And then Rock says going over? That is unheard of for a person’s first match, and in front of 15,000 people. I said to myself, this is going to be fun as hell for me. This is going to be so fun and so easy it’s ridiculous. Because he had a great look. People would say that’s 90% I say it’s 10% because I’ve wrestled football players, I’ve wrestled bodybuilders. I’ve wrestled guys that look like they could win Mr. Olympia, but they got two left feet. I knew he had agility, because I’ve seen him work out in the ring. So he walks into the ring in Corpus Christi. First of all, it goes to Bruce Prichard, he says give me some music. And then Bruce Prichard gives them some really crappy music. And he goes, that’s the last time I’ll for music. He says it in in the commentary in Young Rock and he and he walks out. And he just gives generic like, hey, and people are going get out here. We don’t want to see you, go back to Florida. And he’s taking it to heart. I loved it. Not because they booed him, but because I know psychology. The psychology is, the more they boo you, the more they’re going to cheer you. So I went to ring and I took him to the ropes. I said just listen to me, believe in me. Self-belief is the secret to success. And that is the bottom line. And he goes to me Kanaka, which means friend in Samoan. He goes, I will believe you. I took him to the ropes and I hit him once and I go I’m the man on the man. I went to throw him in he gave me a backdrop. And then people booed him again. And he says these people hate me. He’s whispering to me, these people hate me, I said watch the magic. Then I said to him, watch what happens. Then he did a bunch of high spots where he jumped to the second rope. He did a flying press and then he tried to show boat and he did a kip up, it was like showboating but he was showing me his athleticism. He was showing the people his athleticism. They were booing the hell out of him. I said, Watch. I kicked him in the stomach and I beat the hell out of him to the point where people thought he could never win. Then I flipped them over and I put them in a reverse chin lock, which means he’s on his butt. I’m on my knees. I got him in a headlock. Then he takes his hand and he puts it straight out. Then he starts shaking his hand. Then he starts raising it. Now this is the psychology of the business that no one realises. He says to me, first of all, he stood up he looked up at me. He goes, what do we do now? And then he says, this is where my dad taught me it’s not about the wrestling. It’s about what the people think. I said, if people believe in you, they are going to let you know. And you could hear us say that in Young Rock. And then as He’s raising his hand, people are going silent. Then all of a sudden, as his hand gets all the way up. We’re both standing up, I still got his head. I said, Now here’s your comeback, make it a good one. And then he gives me two elbows in his stomach. He throws me around like a rag doll beats the hell out of me. He gives me a sunset flip 1 2 3. 15,000 people stand up out of their seats yelling We love Dwayne. That was the creation of Dwayne Johnson. After that, he got a contract. Then he became The Rock and then he got confidence. He had confidence. And I just talked to him on the phone like, a week ago. I told him, I said, you believed in yourself. The guy is like, he’s not opening doors. He’s kicking doors open. Today’s the first day of the start of his football company and he just put a video out today. This man has got self-belief. He’s got confidence. He realises that you don’t get opportunity, you make opportunity. He sent me a giant picture that’s about the size of a 46-inch TV set. And it’s got him hip-tossing me in the first match we ever had at the top of the picture. And he’s got $7 in glass. And in gold on the bottom it says, Steve, I had $7 to my name when I had this match, I can never thank you enough. I mean, to me, it’s just hanging on my wall at home. I love it. Even though he was worth, millions and millions and millions and millions of dollars, that meant more than the money.” 

On being many top star’s first opponent:

“I had Bret Hart’s first WWF match. I had Mark Henry’s first match of his whole life. I had Ricky Steamboat’s first WWF match. I had so many, Warrior. I wrestled him about 47 days. One time during our tenure, they came to me and they said, We’re going to ask Warrior to have you win today to test his attitude. And I know he would have said f*ck this I don’t want to do this. I don’t care about this. I took him in the room and I said, Jim, I shouldn’t I don’t know if I should do this or shouldn’t do this. But you’re my friend and I care about you. They’re going to ask you to do a job for me. What I want you to do, and this is your choice, is to say anything for the business, I will do anything. And he did it. I beat the Ultimate Warrior that night. And then after that he became The Ultimate Warrior after they tested his attitude. And then after that he beat Hulk Hogan and was on top of the world. And he was on bad outs with the company then he was on good terms and he went into the Hall of Fame.”

On losing a lot of matches:

“You know what the funny thing about it was I enhanced talent, I didn’t lose. I chose to do that. I could have fought the other way and chose to be a big star and my longevity would have never been 32 years. But they realised my talent was I can hide their weaknesses, and I can accentuate their strengths.”

On becoming Doink:

“So The Rock match passes and it was always a phone call to me. I don’t know why my life is like a phone call. The phone rings, I’m washing my car in the driveway. My wife goes. Vince is on the phone and wants to talk to you. I said Vince? She goes yeah, it’s Vince McMahon. She’s covering the speaker. [Vince says] Steve, I need you to do something. I said anything you want Vince. [Vince says] I know that. I need you to fly to Calgary. I need you to wrestle Bret Hart in the WWF World Heavyweight Championship in his hometown, which is the biggest match you can be in. I says no problem. I had Bret’s first match in Cincinnati Gardens when he came in. I love Bret, I would do anything for Bret any day of the week. I said to him I’ll do it. He goes, but the only thing is I want you to do it as Doink.  I said to him, Vince, I don’t mind the wrestling. I have no worry of fear of wrestling Bret because I wrestled him many times and I’m comfortable with him. And I like him and he likes me. I said but the paint job? I mean, come on.” 

Was this the first time you played Doink?

“The regular Doink was suspended for some reasons that I don’t even know, so I can’t comment on. It was Matt Bourne. So I said to Vince, that’s the only thing I worry about. He goes, Oh, I knew you were gonna say that. I have the plan right here. Here he goes. The plan is we’re gonna follow you from Detroit. We’re gonna fly you to Cleveland, where Matt Borne’s wife is gonna give you the Doink outfit in baggage claim in Cleveland. Then you’re going to get back on the plane. You’re going to fly to Calgary. You’re going to meet Jill the makeup girl. She is going to teach you how to paint the Doink face and give you a diagram and all the necessities you need to paint it up as Doink that we’re gonna fly you to Calgary and you’re gonna wrestle Bret in the main event. I did all this in two days, I said to Vince, you can count on me. He goes, I know I can. I know I can count on you. And I did it. And the funny part about it was, it’s going from I’m The Brooklyn Brawler! I’m gonna get my hands on you to [clown music]. When I walked through the curtain, he was the hottest heel in WWF. People erupted and it was Brett’s hometown, sort of the pop was bigger than ever. So we had that match that was dark, unfortunately. But you could ask Bret.” 

On being called a jobber:

“They see it now. They used to say the word jobber. I don’t care, because my comeback used to be ‘Everybody’s a jobber and your boss is your jobbee.’ A job just means you have a job. They call it enhancement talent and they are starting to get it, then they call it an architect. Then they call it ring general and they even called me a ring general in The Rock’s show. [They said] ‘Rock, he’s a ring general, listen to everything he says.’ I said I’m not a ring general. I’m the most humble guy that you know because all I want to do is make everybody look great. I did fail at times, I wrestled bodybuilders that had come out of Mr. Olympia who looked like they could do it, but they had 2 left feet and they just couldn’t do it. They moved like robots.” 

On a possible Hall of Fame induction:

“I think The Brooklyn Brawler has more contributions more accolades to be in the Hall of Fame. I believe that being in the Hall of Fame is their choice. I am not losing sleep over not being in the Hall of Fame. But I believe that there’s no way in life that one day I won’t be in the Hall of Fame. I just hope it’s not when I’m dead. You know what I mean? I’ve done so much. And the one thing that no one can ever take away from me is my memories. My memories are second to none.”

On nearly becoming WWE Champion:

“Bret Hart said to Vince, and you could ask Bret this. He said ‘I will not drop the belt to Shawn Michaels’, that’s the Montreal Screwjob. ‘But I will drop it to Steve Lombardi.’ And he said that I quote him, and he would tell you right now if you interviewed him, he will tell you that he said that. But of course, Vince wouldn’t do it. I told him that and he goes to me if you did wrestle me in The Garden I wasn’t gonna kick out. I said, ‘You know what would have happened Bret? I would have got fired. Because if I didn’t throw my body off for you, Vince would have said it was my fault for pinning you.’ He goes, That’s not fair. I said, Life isn’t fair.” 

On his popularity in New York:

“I could walk out right now in Barclays Center on Monday, which I tweeted out. I don’t know if you’ve seen that. I said, ‘What would happen if the Brooklyn Brawler walked out in Barclays Center on WWE Raw?’ That’s all I said, 200 likes in like 20 seconds. People would become unglued because I was at one time the first show ever in the Barclays Center, and I won a six man match. It was me, The Miz and Del Rio against 3MB and I beat Jinder Mahal in a Boston crab, they call it the Brooklyn crab, whatever, they put a spin on it. But the funny part about it was now this is something no one knows about. After I did this, they put a picture on the wall in the Barclays Center of me and Jinder Mahal on the wall, right next to Madonna, and all these different people. And Vince hated it. He hated it. So Vince said, ‘You should take it down.’ So then all of a sudden, he’s like, it’s your fault the picture is up there. I said, ‘How’s it my fault? I don’t own the building. I don’t own anything.’ He was playing a stupid joke. But anyway, he took it down. He took it down and the picture the boys were loving it. They were like freaking out, I move the boys would take a picture of it, tweet it out, and it would do all this stuff. And then he said to me, ‘Well, I’m putting you in the ring with Ryback.’ He wanted to punish me the following day. Ryback comes up to me, he goes, You know what? I’m gonna give you a match like you are a main eventer.”

What is The Brooklyn Brawler grateful for?

“My past, my wife and the future.” 

Ivar (@ivar_wwe) is a professional wrestler with WWE. He is in a tag team with Erik called The Viking Raiders. He sits down with Chris Van Vliet in Philadelphia to talk about the incredible athleticism he has his size, how he got paired with his tag team partner Erik, working as a pro wrestler since 2001, the name changes from War Raiders to War Machine to The Viking Experience and now The Viking Raiders, William Regal being the reason they signed with WWE, his recent run as a singles competitor, Valhalla putting antlers on Michael Cole, how his match with Kofi Kingston changed his career and much more!

Quote I’m thinking about:
The biggest mistake we make in our life is thinking we have time.” – Kobe Bryant

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On being surprisingly athletic:

“When I was a kid, I had a trampoline and I definitely did a lot of flips on the trampoline. But having a trampoline builds the confidence to even attempt it. So having that confidence then slowly becoming a professional wrestler then trying in the ring. Having the confidence to do stuff on the trampoline gave me the confidence to do it in the ring.”

On building the confidence to do it in the ring:

“You just do it. At least for me it was just do it. I know guys who have to work on the backflip, go from the first rope or have someone in the ring and guide them over with the flip. But with me, it was just go and do it, that was it.”

On being paired with Erik:

“It was Ring of Honor, it was the 2014 Top Prospect Tournament in Ring of Honor, we’d never met before. And we ended up wrestling in the finals, where I won. I beat Eric in the finals, 2014 top prize for winning. But then Ring of Honor wonder what to do with us. And they put us together as a team and then we set the world on fire.”

On previous ring names:

“So the beginning half of my career I was handsome Johnny. So much so that there’s still a lot of guys who call me handsome, Kofi still calls me handsome, Tommaso, my wife calls me handsome, we get in a fight and she still calls me handsome, it’s hilarious. So handsome Johnny was a big one. I did the Duke of Elegance Don Chesterfield for a minute who was also a backyard wrestling character I brought into into pro wrestling. Todd Hansen, the brand new bad, Warbeard Hansen and then ended up in Ring of Honor as Hanson Rowe.”

On the name change when signing with WWE:

“We knew coming into NXT that our names had to change. Mainly because right around time that Ring of Honor names us War Machine there was an MMA fighter who got in a lot of trouble. A lot of things. We don’t want to mention it. So we had the conversation with Triple H, he said I can’t have kids Google that, right? So we’re like Alright, so then we came to a bunch of names and War Raiders is what we settled on. So we had a little bit of the element from the Indies where we were War Machine, and a little bit more Viking going forward with the Raiders, no problem, and the fans were fine with it. They were fine with it. And I think we asked if we could keep our Hanson and Rowe names because we were associated with that, with the titles in New Japan, Ring of Honor like so if people did searches they pop up, lineage. Hunter was totally cool with that. 

So that’s how it started but when we got called up, yeah, that was a little rough. So the way the story goes, Vince loves Vikings. So he found out there’s a team in NXT that were Vikings and he’s like yes, I want them, and now he wanted Viking in our name. And they couldn’t pass anything through legal, there’s already a Vikings football team, already a Vikings TV show. So none of the names they were trying, whatever they were, they weren’t getting through. Then somebody, I won’t say who, because it was asked in the meeting, what are they? How to describe them? Then somebody describes us as like oh they’re this, they’re that, they’re like a Viking experience and it was that’s it, they’re The Viking Experience. Not one person was happy or okay with that except for the one man. So we were stuck and then our debut, we find out last minute that were coming in. We get flight cancellations, it was in Montreal. We don’t land internationally in Montreal until, I didn’t even get into the building until almost 5 pm the day of our debut, so we couldn’t even talk to him. We get there and we just see like on the Tron Viking Experience, Oh man, what is going on? So we went to talk to him and be like, Look, we can’t be this amusement park ride name. And we talked to him and like, he respected it and we went there and we were told about the whole Viking thing. So we were told, like, if you’re gonna pitch names, just make sure it says Viking in it. So we had like, six or seven names like names that we had picked. We’d already given up on our real regular names Eric and Ivar, no problem, whatever. That wasn’t worth even trying. So we’re just trying to change because the tag team name was so bad. It was awful. Still haunts us to this day. And when we are listing off these names, we got to Viking Raiders. And he stopped to say look, this is how we’re going to introduce you to the audience, the main roster audience and if it doesn’t work, we’ll change it going forward. And literally two days later on the website, it changed.”

On how Erik is recovering:

“He was just here. We just did the meet and greet for the weekends. It’s just, I mean, it’s neck surgery. So yeah, it’s just a matter of time. And everybody’s neck and heels differently. So it’s a matter of getting cleared. So that I mean, he’s doing great, physically great. It’s just doctors need to clear him. And he needs to get back to in the ring and so it’ll take some more time.”

On who he has helped to train:

“I’ve trained guys like Kofi Kingston, guys like Tommaso Ciampa. Guys, like Dijak in NXT, Oney Lorcan for an NXT. I trained Mercedes Mone. I was one of her trainers, she had three trainers I was one of them. So it’s just it’s a long list. Pretty much most people who came through New England at some point, I helped train.”

On the match against Kofi Kingston:

“I mean, you could say that. But I think it’s because Kofi is an amazing human being. That’s what it comes down to, unselfish, and all the stars aligned. It was the night that started this whole singles run, it was the night that Eric was taken off TV because they discovered atrophy and he needed the the neck thing. So we were scheduled for two out three falls match with The New Day, that match got scrapped. And then they had they decided to put me and Kofi into a singles match instead, but they didn’t cut our time. So we had the same amount of time as we would have had for two or three falls match. Then I’m like, this is probably my last match because historically, when the one tag guys goes out, both tag guys, so I said to Kofi this is probably my last match, I’ll be out with while he’s getting fixed up. It’s like, alright, let’s just do it, let’s just do the match, let’s kill it. And that’s what we did. And after the match, I got called over and they said, Hey Ivar, do you mind sticking around in singles stuff, while Eric’s out? Absolutely!” 

What is Ivar grateful for?

“To be here, the love and support and I can still be here.”

Dylan Postl (@dylanpostl) is a professional wrestler best known for his time in WWE where he performed under the name Hornswoggle. He sits down with Chris Van Vliet in Indianapolis, IN to talk about his book “Life Is Short And So Am I”, how he started as a backyard wrestler, getting discovered by WWE, debuting with Fit Finlay, being involved in the storyline as Vince McMahon’s illegitimate son, why the WeeLC match was so memorable for him, taking Mr. Kennedy’s finisher off the ladder at WrestleMania 23, his friendship with Kofi Kingston, being named the Anonymous Raw GM, his son Landon wanting to be a pro wrestler, his podcast called “Going Postl” and much more!

Check out Dylan’s podcast “Going Postl” here: https://www.youtube.com/@dylanpostl

Quote I’m thinking about: “Don’t yuck other people’s yums”

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On the WrestleMania 23 bump from Mr. Kennedy:

“The first WrestleMania, we’re talking through the match and we’re planning it out WrestleMania week at the hotel. They always had separate rooms with practice rings or walkthrough rings. And we’re like, at one point Swoggle you’re going to try to climb for the thing and Kennedy is going to powerbomb me off it, the original plan was a Power Bomb. I don’t like power bombs never have. Because when I was backyard wrestling, I took a bad one like scorpioned weirdly, and it was very weird. And I never took them because I’m falling backwards really high. Every time he was like practising on the crash pad I would turn and I remember Fit and Johnny going, I don’t know about that. I’m thinking like, Sh*t, this is my WrestleMania moment. I’m screwing it up. So they’re talking through the match and I go over to Ken [Kennedy] I go, Hey, I have an idea. Can you give me your finish off the ladder? And he goes I don’t know, man. I go, let’s try it. So we set up another ladder while everyone’s talking on the outside of the ring we’re in the ring. We’re setting up our ladder. I’m climbing one. And he picks me up on the other crash pads here. He picks me up on the other. And all I hear is Finley. And with his typical echo, here we go, and it was one of those he did it under the crash pad. And I was like, Yep, it’s happening. I look right at Johnny. Let’s do it. And it was one of those things where I legitimately did not think it would be such a moment. At that time, the day of WrestleMania, we walked through the pickup, because now we’re in the ring, and the ladders are moving. And I’m going, alright, let’s do it. That’s what I knew. I was like, this could be big. And I didn’t think it would be such a lasting moment. I mean, that was 17 years later.”

On WrestleMania 24:

“I had that entrance and I just saw faces. And we had the whole thing with Bradshaw in that match. And it was such an awesome story, I come to find out years later it was supposed to be Finley and Vince at that WrestleMania. Not only that, but they were going to try to make it for a WWE title. I was like, man, if it was against Vince, the JBL match was enormous, build to it and everything. If it was against Vince, can you imagine how much of that build would have been like at that time? Yeah. But man, I am very grateful, the match was so fun. And JBL is just the man. He’s the absolute man. And he’d been nothing but great with me. There’s a spot with a trash can in that match that wasn’t talked about. Literally, the last second I saved my own life by just going no, he just whips his trash can because he saw me that’s him thinking on the fly. And he whips the trashcan. I had no idea of it. It wasn’t talked about. But it’s like the highlight of the match.” 

On being the punchline:

“It always made me laugh because it was like, Oh, we don’t have an answer. It’s Hornswoggle. Vince’s son, Anonymous GM. All of this stuff was like, Oh, we don’t have anything. Oh, it’s just it’s Dylan. But I love it. It was great. There’s two things I didn’t care for the whole time being there. And it was like when Mae Young gave birth to me as the New Year’s Baby. I remember that. And then when they dressed me up as a cow, again with Torito it was like those two I was like I can see the writing on the wall here guys. I was at my heavy stage in my life. I can see the writing on the wall. But I wasn’t about to go, nope. It was TV time, man, letting me live my dream. The only thing I wanted to do since I was four years old, was work for WWE, and be on television. Why would I say no? Why? So I can spend more time at home not booked or in catering not booked or all that? Why would I say no? Again, my dad put it very, very well, one time when I was home for a year straight I was home, not booked. He goes Dylan, there paying you to get you to live your dream. Whether you’re used once a year, or once a week, get to live your dream.”

On blood coming back in WWE:

“Why did people want blood? I truly feel it’s not because of The Attitude Era. It’s because we were told online absolutely no blood. No blood anymore. All these sponsors don’t want blood this, that, the only thing. When they got it. That’s like the f*cking Attitude Era. They’re just doing it. They’re just doing it. They’re not going back to the man we need to go to 96 we need to do 96 All over. Who knows if we ever see it again. I don’t think we’re gonna see it weekly like we did in the Attitude Era. But it’s cool man. Like, I truly feel like everything is compared. Why can’t we as wrestling fans, including myself, because I still find myself doing it. I’m a wrestling fan like we all are. Why can’t we as wrestling fans just enjoy wrestling?”

On when he didn’t enjoy wrestling:

“When I was unbooked at WWE and sitting home. I was bitter. I was still pitching stuff weekly.” 

Were you still watching?

“I was still watching it. I think out of spite, very unhealthy things. I think out of spite. Like I should be on this show that sucked, same as today’s fans. That sucks they should be doing something else. But I don’t think ever again I’ll ever not be a wrestling fan. Especially with my son now, man. We love it. We watch everything. Literally, we love wrestling. Love it. And it’s just fun. It’s our bond. It’s like, I don’t know, sports. Shocking. I wasn’t a sports player growing up. I didn’t have the body for it.”

On being paired with Great Khali:

“It was just a random Hey, you weren’t booked, we’re gonna do this. [Impersonates Vince McMahon] God dammit. Can you imagine them two next to each other? And then Natalya. It’ll be great! Misfits look at them! Damn freak show. [Normal voice] I loved it. I was on TV. It’s great. Khali was a buddy of mine. He turned into my first riding partner. Me, Daivari, Khali and Mark Henry. Daivari drove, Khali rode shotgun, me sitting behind Khali, I don’t need legroom and then Mark Henry behind Daivari. Mark Henry would fall asleep. Khali liked to smoke in cars, pissed all of us off but we’re not going to tell the giant, he was in the Longest Yard. But Khali would smoke and Mark Henry would smell it and would say God dammit put it out. It’s f*cking fires them up too. I would like to as I did with a few a good amount of locker rooms. I like to poke the bear I like to maybe start the anger and argument. And then I would just leave. I love it and makes me happy. I’m called the Cartman of group chats. I just literally just enter get people going and then I will not respond for a couple of hours. But I loved Khali man, I still do. He’s the best and he didn’t need to do it. He had an acting career. Didn’t need to do, he’s the best.”

On the scariest moment of his career:

“Wee LC. That’s the most talked about match I’ve ever done. I will never top it. I will never do anything cooler have never done anything cooler than that match. It was scary because it was in New Jersey, who behind Chicago is the most like heel crowd, wanting to get themselves over crowd. But it was like, I didn’t know how they would react, it’s two midgets. One a bull, a midget bull and a midget Rockstar going into a match on the pre-show. First thing that crowd sees that night. With mini ladders and mini tables, mini chairs, mini commentary and mini announcer I didn’t know how they’d react. I thought they’re gonna blow the sh*t up. I really did. And I remember being backstage in my heart knowing we’re going to kill it. In my mind going, if they start booing, we’re done. The coolest moment of my life match of my life, going into it is gonna be the worst thing ever. I never thought it would hold up like it has I never thought it would be such a not even talked about thing. [It was] A shove it up the ass moment. I’ll say to the fans, I guarantee the locker room didn’t take it seriously. Shove it up their ass. I get to gorilla and everyone is on their feet clapping for us. One of those moments where I was like, okay, it was pretty awesome. And then I remember being in my gear literally to like, two matches left and Torito was leaving. He goes ‘You Okay?’ I go I’m okay. [He says] ‘Why aren’t you changing?’ I go I’m still in the moment, man. All right. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

On injuries:

“I have no feeling in my feet. My legs are pretty much dead. [What can we do to fix them?] Nothing. I had another back surgery that I had two back surgeries about three years ago. One to try to fix the problem the other to try to fix that one. We’re good. I’m good. I truly am Okay. But my body tells me you need to stop. My mind tells me you need to stop. The ego in me and I fully admit it. It’s a full ego. All Ego told me it’s my ego. [He said] People love Hornswoggle you need to love Dylan from Oshkosh. And that’s when this stops, all of this and signing my fake name. I’m Dylan from Oshkosh, I’ve always been Dylan from Oshkosh, I have the mindset of Dylan from Oshkosh. But I still love Hornswoggle I still love being able to sign my fake name. I need to have a time where Okay, let’s go back to being Dylan. I don’t know if that will ever happen.”

What is Hornswoggle grateful for?

“My kid, my dad and that people give a sh*t about me signing my fake name.”

Liv Morgan (@yaonlylivvonce) is an actress and professional wrestler with WWE. She sits down with Chris Van Vliet during this WWE Priority Pass On Location event in Philadelphia to talk about being a huge wrestling fan growing up in New Jersey, how she got discovered at a Hooters, her time in NXT, how she came up with her Oblivion finisher, the love triangle storyline she was in with Rusev, Lana and Bobby Lashley that didn’t lead anywhere, winning the WWE Woman’s Championship, her role in on the CHUCKY series and much more!

Quote I’m thinking about: “If you don’t sacrifice for what you what, what you want becomes the sacrifice”

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On the Royal Rumble return:

“It was great. I mean, I had a very pretty serious injury that we kind of even haven’t really disclosed the details of. So basically, I dislocated my shoulder in a match with Ripley. And I went and got an MRI, the MRI showed a labral tear. I don’t know if you guys know anything about MRIs, but they’re only 60% accurate. I did not know that. And so pretty much they’re like, hi, we recommend getting surgery because of the dislocation. So you’re gonna dislocate it again, whether it’s in five years, whether it’s WrestleMania next year, you’re going to have another dislocation. And so I sat around with it, because I really, I really didn’t want to miss time, obviously, but I also didn’t want to have this injury again. So I opted for the surgery, but luckily I did because like I said, MRIs are only 60% accurate. So when my surgeon opened up my little shoulder, he was like well, bicep tear, rotator cuff tear, labrum tear. And so I had all these extra tears and rips in my shoulder that we wouldn’t have known about had I not gotten the surgery. So if I chose to just rehab I wouldn’t have healed properly and we wouldn’t have known why. And so I got the surgery. But I honestly forgot I’ve had the surgery. I feel normal. I feel great in the ring. I only remember when I see my suture marks. So it was it was pretty crazy.”

Are you pain free?

“Pain-free, full rotation, full mobility. Work on getting my full strength back. My right is a lot stronger than my left right now, but I’m feeling great. It moves great. Yeah, so I’m happy, I got very, very, very lucky because shoulders are a little bit iffy. I’ve asked a lot of people on some people with shoulder surgery, they said like, it kind of feels worse than it did before. And I’m very, very, very lucky that mine feels 100% normal.” 

On being murdered by Chucky:

“Honestly, I’d never thought ever in my life that I would get to be on the Chucky series and get murdered by Chucky so gruesomely. It was such a pipe dream come true, something that I genuinely did not think could ever conceivably happen. And it was so graphic, I don’t even think we’d allow it to happen. [How did it come together?] So I grew up just loving Chucky like I loved wrestling, I love Chucky. So I saw that they were working on a series and so I asked WWE, Hi, do you think we can just reach out and see if there’s any kind of way that I can be involved, even if it’s just like being on set and just like watching on set. And so WWE reached out to Don Mancini, the creator of Chucky. And I had a Zoom call with him that week, and he roped me into the show. And it was just as easy as that. And I had such a great experience. He treated me like family. And it was cool. I love Chucky, we have a great relationship despite the murder.”

What was the direction they gave you for that?

“None, just die, be Liv and then just get murdered. And obviously, I had never died before. So I didn’t know what that looked like. So I just tried to just like be in the moment and just die.”

From Hooters to WWE:

“So with a little backstory, everyone at Hooters knew I loved wrestling. I’d be doing my bar shifts I’d put WWE on the TV. I’d be serving with WWE on the TV like everyone kind of knew was my thing. And apparently before my time, there was a wrestler who will not be named that used to manage this specific Hooters. So anytime they came around in town they would go to Hooters. Me being the big WWE fan that I was I saw this wrestler coming to Hooters and I knew who they were exactly and I introduced myself. My manager was like, Hey, we have this girl. She just like loves wrestling and because you’re a wrestler, like maybe, you know, talk to her. So I talked to this wrestler for a while, and I was like I want to wrestle and they’re kind of just like, Haha, yeah. I kind of just spent all my wrestling knowledge to them. So they introduced me to this man, Joe DeFranco, he is like a world-renowned strength and conditioning coach, he only trains professional athletes, and he actually trains Triple H on a weekly basis. And so I went to his gym and he threw me right in with his NFL guys. I’d never worked out a day in my life before that. I didn’t even know what workout gear was, I think I wore sweatpants and a sports bra. And he’s like, Go, and I was like, Okay. So in my mind, this is my WWE tryout. So I’m giving it my all and I worked out with him for a couple of days. And I guess he just was impressed by my resilience, I don’t know, because I’m struggling through everything, but I wouldn’t quit. And so he reached out to WWE for me, it was like the nicest thing anyone has ever done for me so shout out to Joe DeFranco. He reached out to WWE for me and was like, Hey, we have this girl, I just think she’s worth a look. And I actually just missed the try-out camp and they were like, we have another one in six months. So keep training with her, then we’ll fly her in. And so I trained with Joe DeFranco every single day for hours a day, I train with him in the morning, and then go to my Hooters shifts. Then my trial finally came and I was very well prepared. Not in wrestling, of course, because I had no wrestling training. But as far as strength and conditioning I absolutely killed those cardio drills. And I got signed and it was just the craziest blessing in my whole entire life. It was bizarre.”

On improving:

“Honestly, probably when I got called up to SmackDown. I don’t know what it was, I think because in NXT, I felt like I was trying to make it to the next level so I felt, I guess very insecure because I felt like any mistake I made would enable me from making it to the next level. Then when I finally got called up I didn’t really have that fear anymore. So I don’t know, it’s just I was able to flow better. I had less pressure and less fears. And I had The Riott Squad with me, I owe so much to Ruby and Sarah for kind of taking me under their wing and guiding me and teaching me. So I feel around that time is when I really progress. Also we were doing so many live events. When you’re doing so many reps it’s hard not to get better because we were just working so much.”

On winning Money in the Bank:

“I feel like at that point it was probably the most opportunity I was given up to that point. I was getting promos in the ring, I was getting a lot of singles matches. They were kinda building me. I remember during that time, Sonya Deville was the GM and she would not let me into this match. So there were actually no qualifiers, she just was like, Yeah, you could be in this match, you could be in this match. And then I was qualifying and winning matches, and she still wouldn’t put me in this match. And remember, it was, week after week, I was having to prove myself, hey, please just give me the opportunity to put me in this match. And so I kind of had this build, leading into it and she finally let me in the match. And so I feel like there was kind of, the start of the rise.”

On cashing in on Ronda Rousey:

“I just knew with every fibre in my being that I had to pull this off. I was like, if it’s not right now, I’m probably going to never have another moment, an opportunity like this. And so I was just ready and willing to do whatever it took to grab that briefcase and be the last one standing at the end of the night. I didn’t think I was gonna cash in. I was in Vegas. I was like well I just won Money in the Bank, this is like the biggest victory in my whole entire life. I’m gonna go celebrate, I’m gonna go gamble, I’m gonna go have some drinks, I’m gonna celebrate my victory. And then I noticed that Ronda gets injured during the match and I’m like, oh, man, should I go? Should I not go? I’m kind of having this moment of what do I do? And then I finally was like, I’m gonna go. And so I just, again ran my little heart out and this time it paid off.” 

On becoming champion:

“It was so much more. And also, like I said, I was very bad for a very long time, so it was a validation that I needed. I just was like everything was worth it, I am quite literally at the top of the mountain, so I just wanted to really sit with myself and just appreciate what just happened to really absorb. So I sat in my room with my briefcase all night. And that’s what I did. That was my celebration, but it was the best celebration I could have had in that moment.” 

On helping CM Punk find his air pods:

“I’m on a Tampa flight heading to Chicago for Monday Night Raw. A couple of us live in Tampa so it’s a couple of us on the flight. He is just right in front of me in first class. And so I’m just like, Hi, I’m Gionna. And he’s like, Hi, I’m Phil, and we just introduced ourselves. I think I’d fallen asleep for most of the flight. I wake up to him kind of scrambling, he had lost his air pods, and everyone’s deboarding and I’m right behind him. So I’m like, oh, maybe it’s in my seat, maybe it fell in my bag. So I kind of just stayed to help him find the air pods, but he actually found the air pods, I think they were stuck in a seat. I wanted to help him find his air pods. And like I said, I’m right behind him, so it’s very possible that it’s maybe somewhere in my stuff or in my seat. And I like to give a helping hand when needed so I wanted to help out where I could.”

On saving herself and CJ Perry from disaster:

“So like two weeks ago, I fly home from Monday Night Raw and CJ is staying in my house, we’re best friends. So she’s staying at my house and she’s like, do you want tacos? And I’m like, yeah. So she puts taco shells in the oven because she wanted to toast them a little bit. And in typical CJ fashion, she hit broil instead of bake. I don’t know if y’all know what broil is, but broil is like fire. So pretty much my oven went on fire and we’re like, oh my god. I know I have a fire extinguisher and I only know how to use a fire extinguisher because of Extreme Rules 2022. So I swear, in that moment, you don’t even know I’m like, Thank you wrestling. So I put out the oven fire and then it burst into flames again. And I’m like, Oh my gosh, so I put out the fire again. And then that was it. I don’t know if you guys ever put out a fire but the fire extinguisher leaves a crazy residue, this crazy residue all over my kitchen. So then we were on our hands and knees with toothbrushes scrubbing the tiles and cleaning it all up. It was the best-case scenario for a house fire though there was no damage. We cleaned it up and it was kind of just ended up being a funny moment. But it could have been bad but luckily it wasn’t. No tacos. You know what’s funny about it is I don’t even like hard shells, so it would have been for nothing.”

What was the payoff to the Liv, Lana and Bobby Lashley triangle?

“The world may never know. I don’t know. But I was just down for the sickness. And who knows? You know, I’ll never know so you guys will never know.”

What is Liv Morgan grateful for?

“My health, my family and my job.”

Teddy Long is a WWE Hall of Famer known for his tenure as Smackdown and ECW General Manager and as a referee in WWE. Big thank you to Chris Hughes from Appalachian Championship Wrestling for helping to make this interview happen! Teddy sits down with Chris Van Vliet in Indianapolis, IN to talk about this legendary career as a WWE personality, his role as the Smackdown GM, his iconic lines like “One on one with The Undertaker”, “Lemme holla at ya, playa” and being part of the “Buckle up Teddy” segment. He discusses how becoming friends with James Brown led to him working in wrestling, how he got hired by WWE, working as a referee before becoming an on-air personality, his dance moves, being chased by “Stone Cold” Steve Austin on an ATV and much more!

Quote I’m thinking about: “Success is not final, failure is not fatal. It is the courage to continue that counts.” ― Winston S. Churchill

Sponsors:
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PRIZEPICKS: Download the app today and use code INSIGHT for a first deposit match up to $100!

RHONE: Upgrade your closet with Rhone and use CVV to save 20% at https://www.rhone.com/CVV

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

ROCKET MONEY: Join Rocket Money today and experience financial freedom: https://rocketmoney.com/cvv

BETTERHELP: Get 10% off your first month with the code INSIGHT at http://betterhelp.com/insight

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On his upbringing:

“Just God is your blessing. You don’t ever know where they are. I never dreamed I’d be running SmackDown [and have] a Hall of Fame ring, beyond my wildest dream man. I never really thought about [what I wanted to be], the way I come up. I don’t have any parents. I come up in the street, I was a heroin addict man, you’re looking at a guy that shot heroin into his veins. Okay, I survived all that, God brought me out of all that. So that lets me know that there’s a plan or there’s something here from me, so that tells me that you need to straighten up, buddy, or are you gonna be gone? So like I said after heroin I guess I went back to work for Jamie in wrestling and I’ve just been going ever since.”

On previously working for James Brown:

“He [was] a character. He was used to me, but he’s really serious. Here’s a guy who had no education, none whatsoever. But he could play every instrument in that band. And he was so critical of, he was a perfectionist, and they’d be performing on stage I mean live performance and he’d hear somebody that hit a bad note. He’d hear that but he didn’t stop performing, he kept on dancing but then he let him know he heard it so he’s telling them this is gonna cost you 5, 10, he’s doing that to them while he’s performing. That’s right a lot of people don’t know that.”

On managing Mark Callous [The Undertaker]:

“Mark is one of the greatest guys you could ever meet. Me and him started way back in the day when he was Mean Mark Callous. I had a chance to ride with him and stuff, even before I even start managing. We just became friends. But Undertaker is one of the nicest people you could ever meet. He’s a guy that don’t forget about where you come from, don’t forget about the young talent. Mark was always consistent. Whenever he got the TV he would always go to ringside and watch and sit down and observe. And always, if he saw something wrong out of some of the young talent, he would call them, take time to talk to them, and always want to try to help them. And there’s a lot of guys in this business who don’t give them time a day. But anyway, like I said, they don’t come any better than The Undertaker.”

On The Undertaker becoming a locker room leader:

“You started to see that when things were out of control, sometimes the locker room gets a bit out of control. You got some guy coming in with a big mouth, I’m gonna be the guy today. No, you’re not. Like when we were working for [John] Laurinaitis. I’ll speak for myself. I had this problem with John Laurinaitis with this racism. And so he told me one time, I went to him and I asked him why I did not have an action figure. He said to me, ‘Well, the reason you don’t have one is because we went and talked to the consumers and they said that they wouldn’t buy your doll.’ But I’m the General Manager of SmackDown. I’m the face of the company for nine years, but nobody will buy my doll? How can you tell somebody that? That got me so hot man, but I had to catch myself. Because you have to play the game here or you’ll expose yourself. So I just Okay, no problem. And I went straight to Taker. And I go you won’t believe what he just said to me. And I told that to Taker and I think Taker, I don’t know if Taker said anything to him. I’m gonna say it, because I don’t know. But anyway, I went to Taker with it and I just left it at that.”

On John Laurinaitis:

“I’m just saying the truth. And if the truth will get me in trouble, then I’m ready to go and get in trouble. Trouble sometimes can be good trouble. I’m just telling the truth. I got a lot of other people that I can speak out on, but I let it go. I’m done with it. That’s in the past. God has blessed me to make it, so I don’t have any reason to keep talking about all this mess that they’ve done back in the past. But to me to sit down and speak about this mistreatment, not because I’m not doing my job. I stayed in my position nine years. So Vince McMahon won’t have you on his TV as the face of his company for nine years if you’re not doing your job. But you fire me? He wouldn’t even give me my Legends deal. Nothing. Didn’t give me nothing.”

On Vince McMahon:

“I had a great relationship with Vince. Vince McMahon told me right to my face. He said Teddy, they wasted you down south. And the other thing he said to me that let me knew he was interested in me. He says I can’t believe I’ve had you read here under my nose all this time. That’s what he said to me. Those two things. So Vince McMahon, when he said those two things to me, that led me knew then my position. So that don’t mean go crazy. I don’t mean hey, look, I can do what I want to do. See, that’s the trick. You don’t do that. You still be the same guy, no matter what. Don’t let nothing go to your head. Then the other thing I found out, I went to Laurinaitis, I was trying to get a raise. He told me I didn’t qualify for a raise. Or somebody said to me, and then the next thing I knew, and he didn’t know one of the referees told me how much money he made. And he was making more money than me.”

On always telling people they would go one on one with The Undertaker:

““I’ll tell you how I put so much emphasis on that. One night we were in Madison Square Garden. Stephanie went out and she introduced somebody. She came back and Vince was talking to her. He said ‘Stephanie. I want to put emphasis on that when you introduce the guy.’ I was just standing back, so next time I did Undertaker [I said] ‘One on one with The Undertaker!’ That’s how I learned to do that. Well when they caught on to it and saw that it was catchy. People liked it then they always wrote it. They put it in there. I’m gonna do it anyway. Not that I’m going off, not doing what I’m supposed to do. But I know Vince didn’t mind, Vince gave me free rein to say what I wanted to say. But he knew I was gonna say nothing that would get the company in trouble. And I never really sat down, they’d write stuff. I just add my stuff to it.” 

On the origin of ‘Playa’:

“I had a golden retriever, his name was Boss. I got him as a puppy but as he got bigger and bigger and started getting in the way. So every time, I’m like ‘Come on Playa. Get out of the way Playa.’ I’m just talking to him and one night I went to TV I started using slang, calling people playa.”

On how the iconic dance started:

The way I got the dance, my grandson, he’s 19 now. Well when he was about 2 years old, we were trying to teach him how to walk. So we bought this walker that we put him in. At that time we were taping SmackDown on Tuesday night and then you could go back home on Friday. Every time we put him in this walker, all he would do was bop up and down like that. So I went to TV one night and I think they were playing my music but I was just thinking about him and having fun. So I was having fun and just started doing the dance. I get back home and we are getting ready to watch the show I say ‘Come here, look, I’m doing your dance!’ One night, I got ready to walk out, and just as I got to the curtain right there, Vince was standing up. He’s yelling ‘Do that dance!’ [I say] ‘What dance?’ And he starts doing it! And that’s how the dance started.”

Were you aware of the incidents alleged against John Laurinaitis:

“Not aware, but not surprised. I spoke to somebody, I remember a little bit, one of the girls one time came now I forget her name. Tiffany might have been a name. She was supposed to be my assistant. I was trying to help her as much as I could. Anybody they brought in, I don’t care what you do, you won’t be Teddy Long. Just that simple. I don’t care who you bring. They tried it, Palmer Cannon, you remember him? They stuck him there. Okay. All right. They brought in Santino Marello. He was my assistant at one time. Then it had been that when Johnny gave me the girl Tiffany or whatever, that she was my assistant at ECW. One day we were just talking she said Teddy. She said I thank you for all your help. But don’t ever mention this and I don’t care now, but Johnny brought me in to take your job.” 

On refereeing the match after Owen Hart’s fall at Over The Edge 1999:

“That night, Kansas City, Missouri. And on that day, it was me and Godfather and Owen.  Owen had been just pranking, he’s a prankster. And he was just pranking people all day. We just having fun. Just a fun day. And me and Owen and Godfather had been playing around all that day. And then finally, when the fall happened, I was standing there, and I was getting ready to go out. And I saw on they brought him back on this table. And he had his whole body like he had just turned white, like snow. And I don’t know whether he was dead or not. But it was just, I’ve never seen that colour before. But it was pretty rough.”

On refereeing the match between D-Lo Brown and Droz:

“This was a pure accident. D-Lo, I think he put a little bit too much oil on that night. A lot of guys did that, Tony Atlas, a lot of guys like that always oil up. And as I can remember, I think D-Lo went to pick Droz up like a Piledriver. But some kind of way Droz slipped right out of his hands. Like I said, I don’t know how it happened. Next thing I knew Droz was down and I never forget, I walked over because this is my first time witnessing an accident really actively happening. So I look over Droz and Droz looks up at me and he says Teddy, Teddy, I’m dying. I’m dying. I remember those words out of his mouth. I’m really scared now because I don’t know what to do. So they are on headsets, they’re talking to me and I give them a signal. Let them know that this was real. And I just like I said the first time I experienced that too. That was pretty shocking.”

On Buckle up Teddy:

“Taker brought that up. That was just his line. I remember the day we went over that. And this is another thing I have to say about Vince, that day as we leading up to all that. So that day before we talked about the coffin, putting me in the casket. And so Vince sent for me and Taker. So it’s just me and Taker in the room and Vince and we’re talking and I’m sitting here and the only thing I’m thinking about Wow, I’m sitting here with Undertaker and Vince that’s all the thing I’m thinking about, what a hell of a position on me. But I didn’t let it go to my head. So next thing you know we’re talking about the match. So I don’t say anything, because, you know like I’m saying I ain’t got business opening my mouth. Let me hear what y’all want me to do. Vince looks at me. ‘You gonna say anything? Goddamnit we’re going over the match here anything here you think you can add?’ I don’t know if I can add anything. I don’t know, I guess. So they started going over something man. And so I stepped in and I put Oh, the coffin. They were talking about breathing and all that, you know, and I’m like, I got it covered Vince. I say what I’ll do, when they start to roll me down. I’ll take one finger and I’ll ease that lid as much as I can so that you can’t see it but I get some air. [Vince said] ‘God damn it that’s good sh*t!’ That’s exactly how it went down. But my thing is, you ask me for input and that made me feel good. [Undertaker] just said that [line], that wasn’t written or none of that.”

Did you ever refuse to do anything?

“No. Do you know why? Because I learned that whatever Vince would ask me to do, he would do it. So how in the hell am I gonna do this man what I ain’t gonna do when he would do it? You’d watch Vince go out on TV and do stuff that he didn’t even really have to do, he’s the boss, the owner of the company. He got to go out and get in the ring and get beat up by CM Punk come back all bloodied, and he’s the owner of the company. So if this man can go out and do what needs to be [done], he let Rikishi sit as big ass right in his face. Vince don’t care, this is not real, it is a movie. You don’t want to do it, you don’t work here.” 

On a WWE return being unlikely:

“With the changes now, I think they’re going in another direction. You know that GM stuff is probably going to be played out a little bit. I don’t know. I just think I’m not gonna go. Somebody else may think of something else. I don’t know, but I just don’t think so. Unless there are some major changes there.”

What is Teddy Long grateful for?

“To be alive, to have the success I had and my wife.”