Chris Jericho (@iamjericho) is a professional wrestler with AEW and was previously in WWE. He is also a bestselling author, actor, podcaster and the frontman of the rock band Fozzy. He sits down with Chris Van Vliet in Hollywood, CA to talk about his legendary pro wrestling career that has spanned 34 years, his decision to sign with AEW in 2019, how much AEW has accomplished in its first 5 years, the differences and similarities of working with Tony Khan and Vince McMahon, his ability to reinvent himself, the popularity of his entrance theme “Judas”,  being the main event of WrestleMania 18 instead of The Rock vs. Hulk Hogan, being in the ring when Triple H tore his quad, standing up to Brock Lesnar, whether he still thinks he will be inducted in the WWE Hall of Fame, how much longer he wants to wrestle and much more!

Quote I’m thinking about: Choice, not chance, determines your destiny. – Aristotle

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For more information about Chris and INSIGHT go to: https://podcast.chrisvanvliet.com

On 5 years in AEW:

“Well, I was gonna say I don’t think things could have gone better. Obviously, I think there’s always things that can go better. But I think overall, I think it’s far exceeded what most people expected. I don’t think it’s exceeded what Tony Khan expected, because I’m sure he was thinking big right out of the gate, which we know he was. And I can’t say that it’s exceeded what I’ve expected. But I can’t say that I’m not a little bit pleasantly surprised. It’s just, how big the company is after, like you said four years, five years now. It is unbelievable to think about that, you know, any company wrestling, or if you have a pharmacy, or if you’re a band, or whatever it may be if you’re a law firm to grow that big, in less than five years is inconceivable, but yet, here we are.”

On Chris Jericho adding value to AEW when it was first announced:

“The short answer to that is yes. I knew what the value that I had, which is one of the reasons why I really wanted to do it. Because you know, it’s been well documented that that my last run in WWE, even though it was super popular, and super over, was still, you know, not a main event programme, which in my opinion, it should have been, and it was, at least from the fan interest in the reactions and stuff. So I remember thinking, I could stay in WWE for as long as they want and just be a guy here, because that’s basically, I sort of feel like I did when I left WCW, where I had this great storyline with Goldberg, but I knew it was never going to get me any higher. So I got to go somewhere else, which was WWF at the time, same thing in WWF to where it was I can do more than this in WWE. I can do more than a second match on the show. So I went to New Japan and headlined the Tokyo Dome, you know, three years in a row. First Tokyo Dome was around the time when Tony started talking about AEW and I thought I can stay in WWE and be a guy or I can be the guy, which I’ve never been in WWE just it was never really worked that way. And not from like a fame and fortune standpoint, but from like really changing the business and adding like, a huge checkmark to my legacy. Because if you think about it, and you’re right, because besides Chris Jericho you had, Jim Ross, who everyone knew. And Cody Rhodes who some people knew, but he’d been gone out of the mainstream for a few years. And other than that, there was really nobody. I knew that if I signed up with AEW, it would help them which would help them get their deal with TBS and put the company on the map right away and my hunch pay was real. And that’s what happened.” 

On the similarities between Vince McMahon and Tony Khan:

“I mean, the passion is the similarities. You know, and you have to have it. The enthusiasm, for sure, the wrestling knowledge, even though Vince was in his 70s and Tony’s in his 30s. But I always think back to what was Vince like in 1982, when he took over WWF. And he was probably a lot like Tony, you know. The ways of running the companies are different. Vince has more of an iron hand and Tony is more of a people person when there’s pros and cons for both of those. But the two different people, and that’s never going to change. So the coolest thing about working for both of them is you almost become like a billionaire whisperer, you got to know how to talk to these guys. And when you can figure out how to talk and relate. You can have a great relationship. I had a great relationship with Vince, I have a great relationship with Tony. And I have a lot of respect for both of them. You know, Tony’s my boss, I have never once disrespected him. Not done what he’s asked of me, talked back to him caused any problems whatsoever because he’s my f*cking boss. And if we’re on set for a movie, and frickin Steven Spielberg goes, Hey, Chris, I want you to take this soda can and pour it over your head and I go, that’s f*cking stupid. He’s like, Okay, well, then they’ll hire some other dude to come in and pour the soda can over his head. This is show business and we played a role in a part in a show. And it doesn’t matter if you like it or not. You have to make it work. And you have to make it good. It’s what Pat Patterson taught me. He used to say what Vince said. You know, some days he likes chocolate, some days he likes strawberry, but it is his f*cking ice cream shop. You got to make the ice cream you’re doing he wants you to do. You don’t like the chocolate? Who gives a f*ck. You make the ice cream. And that’s my big thing, it’s Tony’s Ice Cream Stand. So whatever he wants me to do, I’ll do my best.”

On Vince McMahon stepping away:

“I mean, once again, there’s the reasons why he was stepping aside, and I’m not talking about that side of things. I never thought he would step down. And then I think had those other issues not come up here, there’s no way that he would have. But also too, Vince is also smart. And I bet you he was like okay, I’m at the point now where this is not good for me to be here. So he trained, and groomed Triple H for 20 years, and probably felt confident enough that things are gonna continue without him. And I say this all the time in AEW, I think everybody could use six months working for Vince McMahon. Because that’s what you really understand what wrestling is, the wrestling business and how the business works. And I loved working for him and I loved going head to head with him and creating ideas and debating ideas and arguing ideas. But he always used to say I’m not here just to teach you wrestling lessons I’m here to teach you life lessons. And he did teach me a lot of life lessons, the guys really f*cking a cool guy. You know, from my experiences with him and not easy to deal with an asshole sometimes, but he’s your boss. You’re not supposed to be friends with your boss all the time. But then you can still get on the private jet and drink for four hours. [What does he drink?] I think it’s Dewars. He drinks whiskey, but I think it’s Dewars, it might be Macallan or something like that. [And you are a vodka guy?] Yeah. So he could never understand that. That actually was great. When I was hosting Tough Enough in Orlando. I had a press day in New York the next day, and he would always fly in and out of White Plains. That’s close to where he lives. And they said you can just jump in on the jet with Vince. It was me and Vince, Triple H and Kevin Dunn. And we’re flying back from Orlando and actually they oil-spotted me and left me at the venue. And then, [they say], where you at? We’re at the plane, where are you? [I say] You guys are supposed to give me a ride. [They respond] We weren’t supposed to give you a ride, haha. F*cking assholes. So then I get there and I get on the plane and we start to fly. And he and I are drinking and Triple H and Kevin decided to go to sleep. And so Vince and I are just kind of hanging out listening to The Stones and AC/DC because there his two favourite bands. And when we land he goes, Let’s go to the gym. I’m like, dude go to the gym? It’s like literally like 4:30 in the morning. Like, I gotta get up at seven. He goes I gotta get up at six. We’re f*cking drunk. He’s like, let’s go to the gym! I’m like you’re not going to the gym. I’m not going to the gym, I’m going to sleep. So I get to my room and go to sleep at 4:30 and wake up at 6:30 I got a text on my phone picture of Vince flexing in the gym. And he writes Vince one Jericho zero. He was probably 73 at the time. But he has that work ethic, he would always say, I don’t expect you to do anything that I wouldn’t do myself. And that rubs off. There’s a way that the WWE works where you don’t say no to anything. I mean, they asked you to do press you do it, they ask you to sign 1,000 action figures you do it because if you don’t, you know there’s gonna be consequences and big ones. And that’s just kind of I think everybody in AEW needs to understand that sometimes.”

On a possible WWE Hall of Fame induction:

“I always like going against the grain. Like I loved it when Axl Rose didn’t show up to the Hall of Fame and sent a note saying not only am I not showing up, but you’re not allowed to say my name. I love that sh*t. Like, that’s f*cking rock and roll, man. So I don’t really understand the point of a Hall of Fame. If you think I’m in it, that’s great, there’s no real Hall of Fame. It’s all kind of in WWE’s mind in their chambers of the mind. And, I mean, it doesn’t really matter if I’m in it or not. You go up there and give some approved speech where you have five minutes to f*cking encapsulate 33 years. Because I was at the Hall of Fames when you had, Hillbilly Jim talking for 45 minutes. F*cking hell, dude. You’re on Saturday Night’s Main Event once you don’t have a lot to say, nothing against Hillbilly Jim Yeah, he’s a cool guy. And he deserves to be in the Hall of Fame. and then you get the frickin Undertaker. And he gets 15 minutes. I’m not interested in that at this point. And like I said, it’s not a disrespectful thing. It’s just like, I don’t really see the benefits of it. And I kind of like doing the opposite things.”

On being the greatest of all time:

“If I died tomorrow. Everyone would say I’m one of the greatest of all time. I think because I’m still here, still doing it at the highest of levels, there’s a lot of people online that just hate that. So you know if Chris Jericho says the sky is blue, I’m an asshole because this guy says it’s obviously red. So you deal with that. Like, there’s a lot of Chris Jericho haters right now. It’s kind of in vogue to hate Chris Jericho, for whatever reason. And once again, I’ve never cared. I mean, sometimes it gets to you, but I only judge myself. And, am I still able to have the best match on the show on any given night? Yes. Not every night. But on any given night. And am I still doing entertaining segments and having great matches and thinking of ideas and building the company and helping build others? Yes. When that starts disappearing, then I’ll, you know, reevaluate. But for now. I mean, dude, I don’t know. At the risk of not sounding humble. I don’t know who’s had a longer career than I’ve had with as much diversity, evolution reinvention. And actually, just the opponents that I’ve had. I mean, I don’t think there’s anybody in the history of the business, who has worked almost everybody. I worked Dick Murdoch. And I worked with Takeshita. I worked with just like anybody in between that kind of falls in there. You name somebody of top value from the last, let’s say the mid-80s till now, and I’ve worked with 99% of them.” 

On the popularity of Judas:

“I mean, yeah, it’s one of those things where, like I mentioned it’s part of the show, and we always try as professionals to get organic reactions. You want people to “If you smell what The Rock is cooking!” Or whatever it may be, whatever the catchphrase is, you want people to be able to say that, on their own. And to have them sing it is amazing because, I don’t know how these people knew the words, knew the lyrics or if they knew the song or they just heard a bunch of the, you know, Judas was a big hit for Fozzy, right out of the gate. I remember we did 3 million views on YouTube, in the first week or so it was just, I couldn’t believe it. But then when we started playing on TV, it went through the f*cking roof. We got a gold record for Judas now with Fozzy. And I’m sure you know, being on TV every week didn’t hurt, but it was already a hit. But what prompted people to sing along with it? I don’t know. I’m not sure. But you don’t mess with it. And then the crowning glory for that was when we were in Houston. When MJF and I were doing our feud, which was exactly 365 days, we were both very proud of that. It was a whole year that MJF Jericho story. And the story that night was that Max said, if I wanted to get the match with him, I had to come to the ring with no song. So for the whole week, we are kind of like what what are we going to do? How do we do this? Are we going to have the words on the screen and maybe not film it or people that will put lyrics under the chair and finally, Tony and I were just like, You know what? When you go to a concert, you know when to sing. You don’t pull up the lyrics or have a lyric sheet or like prompting you to do it. You just do it. So if they do it, then it’s just going to be one of the coolest moments ever. And if they don’t, then the evil heel’s plan worked. Which is always good, too. And I remember walking out just walking out wandering out into the stage and within I think two, two bars everybody was in sync and because of course at first it was a little bit off and then and then everybody was singing it was one of the coolest moments maybe ever in wrestling of these people just singing along the Judas with no music and no prompting. It was amazing.”

On being the main event of WrestleMania 18:

“Full disclosure, I didn’t think our match should have been the main event. How do you follow Rock and Hogan? I mean, there’s the buffer match, and then ours, right? The buffer match would be the match that was put in between the two main events of the show. But I was like, How can we compete with this? I mean, dude, this is huge. When Hogan came back. I don’t think anybody expected him to be as over as he was. Because Hulk in WCW and Hulk in WWF are two different fan bases and Hulk and WWF is f*cking Hulk Hogan, like dude, it’s all going against The Rock. Are you kidding me? And Rock kind of played heel, but nobody gave a sh*t. It was just basically like having the two biggest teams in the Superbowl and you don’t even care who wins, you just know it’s gonna be amazing. And if you watch that match with the sound off, it’s not so great. You watch it with the sound on it’s one of the best matches I’ve ever seen. And I was like, I remember talking to Triple H, and he had said something off the record that really pissed me off. And I remember confronting him about that beforehand. And it was kind of we were at odds already and I was like, f*ck, man, you really want to go on after? He’s goes, it’s the world title, the world title should go on last. And in theory, it should. But guess what? The world title match went on before Stadium Stampede in AEW. Because how do you follow Stadium Stampede? So I just knew they’d already been f*cking blown away by this because people are gonna go so crazy for it. And our angle had steam but it wasn’t like Hogan and Rock, this is Tyson and Ali if you’re playing a video game of wrestling. That’s probably the match you’re going to choose at the time. So yeah, I did not want to go on after. But we did. And I’ve never watched that match back. Never watched it back ever. I didn’t like it. I didn’t feel it. I thought it was not good. It probably was better than I remember. But I just was like, wow, for me, my main event match was versus Shawn at 19. Even though it wasn’t the main event, it was one of the main events.  So that was kind of my retribution to myself where we had this match. So that was the main event. And I still have the card at home, where it’s the main event of WrestleMania Triple H vs Chris Jericho.”

On when retirement will be:

“You know, it’s funny when people ask me that because I never think about stuff like that. I told you earlier kind of my criteria for Chris Jericho and how I would want to continue and why I would want to continue and like I said, still able to have the best match in any given night and still contributing and helping the company and helping grow whatever company I’m with and helping to grow the careers of other guys younger guys. So I don’t know, man, I feel great. I mean, I think when I got into the 2010s, I started feeling really sh*tty. And that’s when yoga came up. That helped me a lot, DDP Yoga. Yeah, helped me so much. In the 2020s, I lost a lot of weight which kind of gave me more momentum, I lost about 30 pounds a couple of years ago. So I just, you know, I don’t really lift weights anymore. I just do kickboxing and bike riding. Because weights started to bother me. And why am I sitting here doing three sets of eight, when I can barely get it up with my shoulders are f*cked, or whatever it is? So let’s just not do that. There’s other ways to stay in shape. So I kind of, I talked about reinventing myself in the ring. It’s also reinventing myself outside of the ring as well. AEW started, there’s no house shows. So there’s a limited schedule. You know what I mean? I mean, I think I’ve had 26 matches this year, which is probably a little bit more than usual. I think it was 22, 26. But f*ck. [In] WWE do you do in four days a week? 50 weeks a year? Are you doing 200 matches a year, right? Couldn’t do that now if I wanted to. So I think as long as you continue to keep going the way they’re going, there’s really no end in sight. I mean, look at Sting, he’s kind of the watermark of being 64 and still being awesome. I don’t know if I’ll be doing when I’m 64. But I’m 53 now. And I’m still having a great time and feel great. And think I’m doing some pretty good work.”

On CM Punk returning:

“I mean doesn’t surprise. I mean it’s the Vince attitude like if you can make money with somebody then you bring them back. He brought back the nWo, he brought Bischoff in. Yeah, and Vince isn’t in charge. But Triple H learned from Vince once again and the fans, keeping the fans entertained and happy man look, he came back and it was the highest viewed social media segment that they’ve ever had. So once right out of the gate, it was a benefit to them. So it didn’t surprise me.”

What is Chris Jericho grateful for?

“I took a chance at a young age and having this attitude of just going for it.”

Swerve Strickland (@swerveconfident) is a professional wrestler with AEW and is also known for his time in WWE’s NXT and Lucha Underground. He sits down with Chris Van Vliet in Hollywood, CA to talk about his Texas Death Match with Adam Page at AEW Full Gear, the viral Prince Nana dance during his entrance, Swerve City Podcast, why he originally didn’t like the song “Big Pressure” as his entrance theme, wanting to make history as the first black AEW World Champion, his time in Lucha Underground as Killshot, what he learning from his time in NXT, studying his matches with Shawn Michaels, how he balances music and wrestling, how he approaches wrestling like cinema and much more!

Quote I’m thinking about: No amount of regret changes the past. No amount of anxiety changes the future. But any amount of gratitude changes the present.

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On Being in the recording studio:

“I’ve been doing that lately. I’ve been doing these for five years. And like, the first year I was just like playing around, see if I can if I am good at it. Or if I have potential? Or if I would like it though, because like, it sounds fun to make music. But when you’re actually doing is like, Oh, this is a process. It can be tedious, every little thing and you’re spending hours and like days, like trying to get one little thing right. I was like am I going to enjoy that process? I was always like, taking the first year, like really understanding that process. And then after a while, I was like, Oh, I know my voice. I know my vocal cords. I know my muscles. I know where to sound at what point and when to do this. And so like all that stuff was like all that stuff was like was became the fun part of it. But it can be taxing, but I still enjoy it.” 

On wanting to make music:

“I grew up listening to it. Like it was in my, I wouldn’t say it’s in my blood, but like I just grew up attached to music. Um, and I didn’t know what my attachment really was. And I didn’t know if I would even belong in it. But like my parents played every CD you could imagine we lived in Germany at the time. So my dad had this huge CD collection, my mom had the R&B and all that stuff. And then my dad had vinyls, played records and stuff. So it was like I was always attached to it, but nobody was like a musician and my family. So it wasn’t till like later, actually, like right before the pandemic, my co-host of the Swerve City Podcast, Monteasy, put me on to like a do I think you actually do this because we have these hip hop music conversations. You sound like you kind of know what you’re talking about. Or like, I don’t know, I just listened to a lot of podcasts, a lot of musicians that I like. And he was like, No, you talk like you’d actually kind of have an intuition on what you’re doing. So I was like, Okay, so I’m in the studio, we put a song together, it was trash. I threw it out. Nobody’s ever gonna hear it. Like I even bought the beat then I was like, No. It was it was just wasn’t it didn’t sound like I wasn’t confident. And I wasn’t comfortable with it. And then we came back again and wrote Broke Boys with a Big Swole was on the song too. And we like got pretty well received. So I was like, Okay, I think I got the bug now I want to try this kind of song. With like more rapping more of this. I’m going to put more of this. And it just snowballed into actually making an album with Monteasy, Swerve City. And then we were like, Okay, we need to get our own producer so we got in house music like coming strictly specifically from one guy. So we got brought like Rich Lada in who does a lot of the music on the AEW the albums and the video games. So we brought him in is a friend of Teasy and we were like all together he would bring his laptop to the house and Orlando from Tampa. And we would all just work together well during this 2020 In the pandemic, that’s where our second album came from. And then the third arm was like okay, I want like to reach out to other producers and like everything was just levelling up but I want more features. I want like Like real name features like we had like other guys that are like on the second time we had guys from like the UK and like other like Mickey Facts stepped in and helped us out with some features. I was like, third album I want like Music Soldier, was like one of the greatest R&B singers of all time. I was like, we can we get him? And sure enough, we got him. And we got like Grammy Award winners and stuff like that in our projects and our producers and stuff. And that’s where our third album came from. Then the music videos, like progressively got more and more expensive and the quality grew. It wasn’t just like three guys walking around with a camera anymore. It was like, No, we have a set, we have like three, four cameras, we have like then we moved on to like now I just did my first solo project You Couldn’t Be Me that came out in May. We just dropped two music videos At WrestleDream. Like the weekend WrestleDream I dropped two back-to-back music videos, one was wok it in the next one was these dreams that Flatbush Zombies on there. And Anthony King as features in Monteasy. And I was like shot in the church in Atlanta. And they used to shoot the Walking Dead episodes. And they’re now so we progressively progressively moved up more and more. And then the director is Prophet who has Grammy wins with Kanye. So like everything just constantly push the bar more and more. And that’s where the fun, it felt like my indie wrestling, in music again. Okay, I gotta do more. How do I do the next? What’s the next thing? So it just became a huge thing.”

On his family:

“As a person, being a father helps me understand who I am. My girls, like, because you learn patience, you learn understanding, you got to learn how to truly listen and take yourself out of situations, because you have two beings that you have to care for. And you have to, they have to learn from you. And they learn by watching what you do and how you are and how you act, how your temperament is, like how do you fix problems? How do you solve, problem solve? How do you come to an understanding, but also how do you lead? And as a father with girls, like, that’s where I really became comfortable with who I am as a person, you know? And as they age, 14 and 11 years old, I become more important because now they’re becoming adults.”

On being his authentic self:

“For sure. Man, it just, it literally became like, I don’t think too much anymore. As they were like, how are you going to look at this? I’m like, I don’t know I’m five minutes before going through the curtain. Or I’ll like, make someone laugh make Nana laugh and tell a joke, or like, even when I was tagging with Keith Lee at the time, I would riff a joke to him and have him cackling. And the song would hit and they were like I see out there. Just because, like, then you felt that energy coming out to the curtain because you felt like it was genuine. Like us just having a good time. And then going out to the curtain. Now you’re seeing us carry the energy through, you know, and then like, there are times where I love improving in the ring. I love improving on the entrance. I love improving. In music, I love improving on the podcast, like, Oh, that wasn’t a question we were supposed to ask. Like, I know, it was just popped up. Yeah, because it was flowing and stuff. And that’s what I feel like people become like, all this is the most genuine me, because like, a lot of times I have no idea what I’m about to do. Like I had no idea what I was about to do with Bryan Danielson. I was like, Okay. But that becomes like, I think that people truly like, gravitate towards that so much.” 

On being aware of Prince Nana’s dance:

“When I watched it back on Twitter, and then people are like really, like really making traction and it’s Yeah, I was like, Oh, this is funny. I like the one time like when I had the match with Hangman at WrestleDream. I did the stomp on the apron. And I like sold into the guardrail. And Nana just zooms past me doing this really fast. I didn’t know that happened. Until I watched it back. And then that became a thing. And I was like, That’s hilarious. I couldn’t tell him to do that. There’s no way I could have told him to do this. Like, you make sure you do this. There’s no way. And that’s one of the things that like, he’s so loose, because I’m so loose, and I’m so loose, and he’s so loose, if I was so uptight and it like so over producing, like, hey, you need to be here. You know, I want this and don’t do this because like that’s not what managers do. That’s not what heels and bad people do. I’m like, No, who are you as a person? that’s going to bleed through no matter what people are going to understand what you are who you are your motive, your feelings towards this your purpose if you just be the person you are. And that’s what I like to just be.”

On the home invasion:

“I’m letting the people’s imagination run wild by not showing it it’s almost like Blair Witch Project was so ahead of his time, because you didn’t see the ghosts you didn’t see, they didn’t show you anything. [Same with] JAWS, like the idea of just going to the water is now a fear of and causes a lot of anxiety to a lot of people go into the beach now. And there’s nothing out there. But the idea that something could be out there is your imagination. You’re letting the viewer really take hold, like Paranormal Activity. The first couple was like, the idea of something bumping and swaying you have no control of your life. It’s not the house. It’s the person, it’s haunted. You can’t control that. And then the boyfriend trying to like, like, I’m going to handle this because I’m the man of the house. I’m going to like, protect you. No, you can’t we have to do these things. I’m like, No, but I’m going to take care of the problem. You’re helpless. You can’t do anything. That’s a real fear of men. And like and just like that’s just like taking a paranormal viewing of it but real fears like not having control of your own life in your own situations.”

On taking part in tape studies with Shawn Michaels:

“So that was a process of like, frustration. It came from frustration like a lot of those like moments. Matt Bloom brought me into the office with Canyon at the time and I was getting a promotion. I was like going up in pay and stuff. But like early on that week. Here’s the frustrating parts of this. When WWE and NXT is like promoting this and doing this and this and that and that and like you’re tweeting supporting everything like oh, this is coming to the Peacock. Yeah, we’re doing this, retweet it. Hey, this is the new show coming out yada yada and we have this promoted tweet yada yada mass tweets and stuff like that. But then like when you like they’ll say nothing, whatever. Like okay, you’re doing your job, but when you say something like unappreciated tweet, no context, just you just tweet unappreciated. They call you hey man, We see you tweet underappreciated, what was that all about? But you miss all the other stuff that I did? You didn’t see anything about me like that two-minute promo video I put out nobody like mentioned, but you’ll see that though. So that was one of the things I brought up in the meeting. I was like, exactly what I say I feel unappreciated. I feel like I can do more. And I think y’all know that I can do more, like Canyon was right there. The guy who can like hire me fire me at any point? And I was like, oh, yeah, I have a year left here on my contract. And like, I would love to make something make an impact on that time, you know, because I have options I can do. I can go anywhere. And I was like me like laying that out to him. I was like, oh, I want to be in Shawn Michaels’ class. He was like, well, he’s not really having a class right now. He’s doing this. He’s gonna write TV. So he’s not really hands-on with them. Like, can I like watch tape with him? He’s like his office is right over there. Like, okay, and then one over the Hi, Shawn, can I have a good time with you? Yeah, absolutely. Here’s my email. Send me three matches, we’ll watch them. I was like, and then that’s the crazy thing about a system like that. It’s like, like, Oh, I could have just gone to his office. Because I happen to do these mind games of like let me change my hair. Let me do this. Let me say some wild stuff for like, let me do this, I’m gonna get their attention. Or you could just go knock on this door. who’s like, right there. We walk past it every day. And stuff like that. And that’s like this wild. Like, it can all be so simple, especially if you’re already performing well. I understand. Like, you got to pick your spots too. And like, You got to earn the equity in order to be able to do that. By that time I was already doing the NXT TakeOvers, and like the Worlds Collide, I was already being on everything and weekly TV. But I always told Triple H at the time, first two months there was like, Hey, thank you. I appreciate everything that you’ve given me. I’m happy to be here. What can I do to be one of your guys? Then three months later, I appreciate everything. Thank you. This has been awesome to experience appreciate you having me here. What would I have to do to be one of those guys? Three months after that like a year now? I’m like, What’s stopping you from making me one of your guys? Now it’s like, I’m putting the pressure on him. Because like now the equity has grown. Now. He knows I’m serious. I know what I have to offer, and stuff like that. And that may be like, I don’t know that maybe like, it could be taken as a disrespectful, like, you don’t know what you’re talking about. You’re not seeing me here. But that’s those risks I gotta take, you know, like, giving me the chance to fail.”

On Tony Khan:

“I think me and him had so much more. I love Tony, I’ve had way more conversations with Tony than I ever did with Triple H, even Shawn, that came up last in my NXT [run]. And then I was like, called up and stuff. But like, I had those conversations, I was not going to allow me to have those conversations late with Tony, I wanted to get right to it at the beginning. This is what I do. This is what I can offer. This is where I want to be. Boom. But once again, I had to earn the equity to be able to like back up those words. You know, I always made sure like, that’s where my style has changed so much in a way that just complements the match not me. It complements the match.”

What is Swerve Strickland grateful for?

“My children, my mind and loved ones around me.”

Zach Gowen (@zachgowen) is a professional wrestler and motivational speaker known for his time in WWE and IMPACT Wrestling. He sits down with Chris Van Vliet in Hollywood, CA to tell his inspirational story of losing his leg to cancer at age 8, becoming the first one-legged WWE Superstar when he was 19-years old, making his debut with Hulk Hogan, Rowdy Roddy Piper and Shawn O’Hare, feuding with Vince McMahon, getting beat up by Brock Lesnar in front of his mom, having Brock Lesnar push him down the stairs, his battle with drug addiction and how he beat it, being a father of 4, sharing his story as a motivational speaker to students around the country and much more!

Quote I’m thinking about:
“Life isn’t about what happens to you, it’s about how you react to what happens to you” – Epictetus

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On what he’s doing now:

“Your story parallels mine a lot in the sense that I was already doing my dream job as a professional wrestler, making a living, travelling all over the country all over the world doing that. And then on the side, I started speaking, doing motivational talks, going into schools, working with different speakers and trying to get better that way. And it was kind of a side hustle. And then at a certain point, the scales tipped, the teeter-totter tipped, and then all of a sudden, I’m on the road full-time as a motivational speaker, over the past 10 years working with over 200,000 parents, teachers and students from all over this country, sharing a message trying to plant seeds of inspiration, kind of like how you’re doing here by you doing your dream job, you’re affecting other people impacting other people in ways that maybe they wouldn’t have been impacted hadn’t you stepped into this space? You know, and it’s kind of interesting to me.”

On getting clean thanks to the WWE Wellness Policy:

“That is, and what’s funny is that we don’t understand the real meaning behind what we’re doing when we’re going through it. It’s only in retrospect, yeah. Because if you’d have asked me at 19, 20 years old, like, alright, you know, what’s the end goal here? What’s the ultimate goal? It’s man, to stay a WWE Superstar forever. And that’s all I can see. Because that was what was in front of me, you know, and that’s what was interesting to me at the time. But no, that planted the seeds to allow me to tap into the WWE wellness policy for them to pay for my rehabilitation at 26 years old, literally saving my life. Because when I was 26 years old, and I was at rock bottom, and I was at the most miserable I’d ever been in my life and the most hopeless I’ve ever been in my life. I didn’t have the resources. I didn’t have any money. I didn’t have any connections. I didn’t know anybody who was sober. I didn’t know anybody who walked that path before. And it was those letters that I got every six months from WWE that said hey, listen, if you were ever under contract with WWE, and you’ve reached a position in life where you need help, we are willing to help just call this number, that’s all I had to do was call that number. And then within three minutes they’re booking flights and putting me in rooms and at the you know, world-class treatment centres and all of this stuff and you know that that was the foundation of everything that is that is good in my life now is a direct result of my sobriety.”

On his WWE debut:

“You know the Vince McMahon gulp he does? I had a real one when they told me about that. It became insane at that point, like it was surreal, even signed the contract and for them to fly me to New York and then go to the headquarters and meet with the writing team and do all of that. Like this is wow, this is surreal. This is insane. And then when they told me that the following week, we’re going to tape SmackDown and I’m going to be with Hulk Hogan and Roddy Piper. I wish I could go back and just relive that and just enjoy that moment. Because I wasn’t able to really appreciate or enjoy that moment because of how big it was and how like life-changing that moment was, you know, and how much pressure that is on you and it’s your debut. You want to make a good first impression and you want to man, but it was wild. It was wild just walking into the locker room and seeing Vince McMahon to my left or Roddy Piper to my right, and Hulk Hogan coming out of the shower all at once. Like okay, here’s my childhood literally in this one space. Hello. Nice to meet you. Glad to be here. How are you? You know.”

On hitting Roddy Piper:

“[I] hit him with a flagpole that way literally this thing must have weighed like 35 pounds. Right and so I had to sit there in the front row as a fan and waited for like a half hour before my shoulders were on fire five minutes in but I’m like, I gotta keep doing it. And then so this thing was heavy and it hurt. And I told Piper I go listen, I go I don’t know if I can swing this without like hurting you. I don’t know if I can work this heavy-ass flagpole. He looked at me. He goes, kid, you better hit me as hard as you f*cking can. You know? Like, okay, all right. Roddy Piper tells me to hit him as hard as I possibly can with this heavy flagpole, I’m gonna do it. And so that’s what I did and the thing bent man and then Sean O’Haire Spears me across the ring, which was wild because he was such a large man. incredibly large, fast and strong. And but the moment the key moment for that debut, was the look on Piper’s face after he ripped off the prosthetic leg. It was a look of horror, a look of disgust, a look of regret, remorse, guilt, like all rolled into one. I don’t think there was a wrestler on that roster that could have pulled off, pardon the pun, that angle other than Roddy Piper.”

On his time in WWE:

“It was, um, and you have to think about this. I had less than 20 matches before I had that match with The Big Show, which was my first official WWE match. I have one leg. I’m 20 years old, less than 20 matches before I have my first official WWE match. So what you’re watching is a live experiment of like, can we make this work? Do we have enough WWE magic? Is Zach enough? And can we come together like peanut butter and jelly to make this thing work? And so it was a wild time. I wrestled Vince one-on-one on PPV. A 53-year-old non-wrestler, okay, versus a 20-year-old kid with one leg who has been in the business about a year at this point. And Vince is catching Asai moonsault to the outside, you know, in the match, and he’s bleeding all over the place. And it’s, it’s something that you will never ever, ever, ever see again. Because now they have a system. Right now they have the NXT in Florida and you come up and you learn. You learn how to work, you learn how to work the cameras, you learn what production, there’s a lot that goes on when you’re a wrestler on TV, right for AEW or WWE. You have to think about the lights, you have to think about the crowd, you have to think about your time cues, you have to think about where the cameras are, you have to think about what commentary is saying about you. You have to you have to do something that you have gone over before in the production meeting. And you have to allow commentary to talk about it, allow it to breathe, while not getting the live crowd bored. You have to do all of this. And so they have a great system now with NXT right? You do the exact same thing you’re gonna do on Raw you have the same cameras, you have the same commentators the same setup. I did not have any of them. They said go out. And like the like the clip you just posted they said cut your forehead with a razor blade and have Brock Lesnar F5 you in front of your mom twice, Like and figure it out live, you know, and so there was no coaching. There was no like, hey, why don’t you do this for six months or a year, whatever. We did it live and all of that considered, it’s kind of hard to look back and watch those matches, because I’m like, man, it would have been so much better if we did this, this that and the other hindsight, you know, but considering all of those variables, I think we did a very, very good job. And I’m very proud of myself. And I thank WWE to this day.”

On facing Vince McMahon on pay-per-view:

“Vince did not carry me through that match at all. Listen, I’m not going to speak ill of the man because I love Vince McMahon. And he saved my life literally. And, and he put me in that position and gave me that platform, which launched me into the rest of my life, you know. But we did that. And it might have been one of the first ones to do that style of match. It’s the way that Logan Paul does his matches now. So it’s move for move figured out 2, 3, 4 weeks beforehand. They fly me to New York. I’m in a warehouse with the ring. It’s me it’s Vince. And this is like three weeks before a match in the agents. So you got Bruce Prichard there and you got Pat Patterson’s there and there were all this huddled around Mike Chioda, is there the referee? And we just talked about Alright, well what can we do? You know? What can you do Vince What? Zach, what can you do here? Well, I can do that. Okay cool and then we piece it together move for move for move for move. The day before the pay-per-view they fly me to Denver early. They rent a local community college gymnasium. They set up a ring me and Vince again go over it the day before move for move with the agents there and in the referee.”

On Brock Lesnar:

“He was he was a very mean man to me on camera. And he’s a very sweet man to the off-camera. I love Brock Lesnar so much. He’s the type of dude that I get along with the best just the salt of the Earth shows up, respectful, does a great job. And that’s it. There’s not a whole lot of accoutrements around Brock Lesnar with this too, and genuine. And there’s no like ulterior motives and there’s no like sales many type of hey, I’ll shake your hand here and then stab you in the back later. It’s like what you see is what you get exactly like you said, and those are the type of guys that that I get along with most not only in wrestling, but in real life.”

On the wheelchair spot:

“So the wheelchair spot that wasn’t a wheelchair spot to begin with. The original idea. I don’t know if we’ve talked about this. The original idea was for Brock Lesnar to F5 me off of the SmackDown fist through the stage. That was the original idea. Do you ever the smackdown fist? So we were going to be on top of this SmackDown fist, Brock Lesnar was going to toss me off this bad boy and I was gonna Go through the stage but okay that we had to and that was the plan for like two or three weeks, we had to a pivot so to speak to the wheelchair spot down the stairs because creative we couldn’t figure out a plausible way for me and Brock Lesnar to be on a reason for us to be on top of the fist. Like how do we get up there? Did he drag me up there? Did he climb up? Is there a secret ladder like we couldn’t figure that part out? I was really excited about that. Because you remember back in the day dude Shane McMahon falling off the set Jeff Hardy doing all this crazy stuff and I’m like, Man, I could I can’t wait to you know, to me like that doing that stunt was was exciting.”

Using a stunt double:

“They brought in this Hollywood stunt double and this dude look just like me. He was like my twin, man. And how we did it was I was wearing my prosthetic leg. And I had my real leg in a brace because of because Brock broke it in a couple of places. And so the whole idea was that I was wearing my prosthetic leg I had black pants on so it looked like I had two legs. The stunt guy had two legs. They shoved him down. He took the bump, one take done boom. And it was brutal. It was a wild, it was a wild bum to take. Right before we did it. The stunt guy did it. Vince pulled me aside and he goes Zach, you know, you can take the bump if you want. And I said what? He goes yeah, if we you know, we can make it real. You know, we can do it one continuous shot you taking that bump all the way to and I’m like, Vince. I’m not taking the bump. I’m all for everything that we’re doing and all of that, but I don’t know how to fall down stairs was a was a 40 pound wheelchair following me. Like I have no experience in doing that.” 

On nearly signing with TNA:

“Truth Martini, the guy who trained me. You know, like, there was a lot of like, Lemony Snicket’s Series of Unfortunate Events, but the opposite of that. I’m the one-legged Forrest Gump. I’m not very bright. But I’ve done a lot of cool che and I’ve been in a lot of cool situations. Yeah, they handed me they wanted me to sign at the taping. So they handed me a physical contract and I go listen, I mean, I was dumb, but I wasn’t dumb enough to sign a contract right there. And I go, I’m going to take a home and look at it. And then on that road trip home Truth Martini said loan Listen, man, like I’ve never seen this in wrestling before. Like there is a serious buzz about you. From all over he goes do not sign that contract. At least reach out to WWE before you do it tell WWE that that TNA is offering this and if there’s anything that you know if they’re interested, and before I can call WWE. The next day, WWE called me Johnny Ace called me. And so that was a surreal, surreal phone calls. And they’re talking to Johnny Ace, about coming to work for WWE, you know, and I loved everything that he said, great salesman, but also I was a 19-year-old mark, too. So he could have said anything to me out of it. Like, yeah, let’s do it, of course. But then I called Jeff Jarrett, because they just offered me the deal. And I told him about the phone call I had with WWE. And Jeff said, listen, Zach. We can’t match that money that you’re gonna make in WWE. We can’t. But what we can do is protect you as a talent as a young talent, as someone who is an attraction. He goes, I can’t promise you that WWE is going to do the same. So it was kind of like money versus creative versus like, what’s best for me moving forward, you know, so I had to weigh those options out. And ultimately, I chose WWE simply because I didn’t know if that opportunity would ever be offered again.”

What is Zach Gowen grateful for:

“My relationship with God, my sobriety and the life I get to live.”

GUNTHER (@gunther_AUT) is a professional wrestler and the longest reigning WWE Intercontinental Champion of all time. He joins Chris Van Vliet to talk about making history in the WWE, whether or not he celebrated on his record-breaking night, who his favorite title defenses have been against, the difference between WALTER and GUNTHER, how he made a major body transformation and lost over 65 pounds, the viral photo of him and Ludwig Kaiser, how he learned to speak English from wrestling, wrestling against Chad Gable, why he thought WWE was never going to sign him, long-term storytelling and much more!

Quote I’m thinking about: “A work of art does not answer questions, it provokes them; and its essential meaning is in the tension between the contradictory answers.” – Leonard Bernstein
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I feel like the world of pro wrestling moves so fast. I’m curious if you’ve actually had the time to sit and realise just what you’ve done and what you’re currently doing with the Intercontinental Championship.

“I’m aware of everything that happens. But I don’t allow myself to lean back and rest on that to be honest. I don’t think that’s the time for it right now.”

You don’t seem like the type of person to celebrate. But I’m curious when you did break the record, did anything happen that night? Was there any sort of celebration in Charlotte, North Carolina?

“Well, we have the celebration in the ring to be fair, that was very nice with the fireworks and everything that I enjoyed a lot. But no, that day nothing happened Because my flight home the next day was at 6 am.”

Did anything happen when you got home?

“No, not really, I like to celebrate personal events a lot. But professional things is we got to put the work in first and then later on, there’s going to be enough time in my life where I can celebrate it over and over again.”

So what does a personal celebration look like? Is it smoking a cigar? Is it having a drink?

“Yes, depends, smoking a cigar and having a drink and being with the people close to you. That’s very important. And that’s actually all I need to be honest.”

I think at the end of the day, with everything that you’ve accomplished here, what’s so cool is seeing that long-term storytelling is a thing right now in WWE moments on this incredible historic run. You’re on this incredible historic run as well. What does long-term storytelling mean to you?

“Good long-term storytelling, I think like often doesn’t get realised, because the point where you realise it that the dots connect happens later. Almost the same when you watch a TV show and you go like they forgot about that thing. They don’t bring it up again. But at the end, it’s like a major factor for a big happening. And everybody goes like, Ah, now I get it. And I think especially in the WWE, it’s super important because we have a weekly program. And I think it’s one of the I don’t even know if any other entertainment company faces the same challenges as WWE does with bringing on let’s say innovative content, week by week that keeps the people hooked. And just with that, it’s not just writing for like a TV show or something. And it’s you got to add all the physical action into that so that means people are gonna get injured people can’t get in the ring for many other reasons. That makes it even more even more tricky.”

At what point during this run did you realise this was something special?

“It sounds weird. There’s a certain reaction I want from the audience. When I wrestle I have zero interest in the match where it’s always loud and everything gets like a signature chant this and that a blah, blah, blah. I love it when people are just silent at the beginning of the match and don’t say anything and just watch it because there’s nothing where they can go. Yeah, boo, anything like that. They just watch the action. But once the first important thing happens. They come up and tear into it. And I try to get people drawn into the competition when I’m in the ring, and I try to develop drama in the competition and it’s often when that is successful and you get a different reaction to what you do in the ring than most of the other matches. I just had that feeling again, we just did live events in Tennessee and Virginia and I was wrestling Sami Zayn and I was very happy with those matches we had there because the people yeah took what we did as an important match, was an Intercontinental Championship match something was on the line and both gave it their all and there was exactly yeah, that effort was reflected by the audience. Those are like the moments where that’s what I’m looking for with like people watching the matches and go like, okay, we’re witnessing something here that is important that has some magnitude. It’s about a title. And that title is really important. I think, yeah, I just tried my best to explain the vibe I’m looking for in the audience when I wrestle.”

So look, we’re sitting here right now, you’ve been the Intercontinental Champion for 520 plus days and counting. At what point it was at a weekend? Was it a month in? Was it six months in that you went? Oh, I’m starting to make this feel maybe more important than it’s felt in a long time.

“Oh, yeah, definitely. But that’s something I could kind of tell almost from the get-go, I would say the latest from Clash at the Castle match where I felt like, Okay, people are looking at his title, or whatever the title is on the line in a different way now. But that’s what I’m aiming for having a title, obviously, that title can elevate a wrestler. But in the end, it’s always the champion himself who makes the title. And I’ve always been when I try to do something in life, but especially professionally, I go full in or I don’t bother doing it at all. So ever since I became the Intercontinental Champion, the only thing I’m doing is focusing on how to be the best Intercontinental Champion possible. What do I have to do? How do I have to carry myself? How do I have to act in the ring to give it that recognition? And it all worked out worked out very well, so far.” 

I feel like The Miz was the person before you. It’s so fitting that you guys are wrestling each other at Survivor Series because I feel like he was the person before you who really made the title mean something. And I’m curious if you remember something specific from any of his previous Intercontinental title reigns that he had?

“No, I don’t remember anything specific out of Miz’s career, I can promise you that. As I said before, because I don’t know. I forget the years, I don’t know, maybe it was like, I’m really bad with the 2010 to 12, or something like that. I don’t know. But there was a time when I came up as a wrestler, or even later, I didn’t bother watching WWE because it was really not my thing. I liked Japanese wrestling. I love some of the indie stuff. And that’s where my focus was. And I watched a personal entertainment, but also like the guys too like Japanese matches stuff that happens there. How can I use that? So The Miz for me was always the embodiment of that area, when I didn’t like to watch WWE at all. So getting in the ring with him now is fantastic. Especially in WWE, and it’s about the Intercontinental Championship, and it’s basically the matchup of who really is the greatest Intercontinental Champion of all time. And I’m really excited for the match. It’s honestly because I think when I joined, the main roster was clear for me, I need to make a statement. I’m not a guy out of that system I have been in NXT UK, I’ve been a little bit in NXT, but all my development, all my whatever, like character building, figuring myself out, and all of that happens way before WWE. So I’m not the typical [Superstar]. The Miz, on the other hand, is a prime example of how good their development system is. Because he started with them and he’s one of the most decorated names they have. And I feel like especially in the presentation of the company in the general media world, he’s just a very few have done better than him. So I wanted a challenge there’s like, Okay, I need to, I’m still a little bit of a new guy here. I’m definitely still in WWE and a little bit outsider, if that makes sense. That’s at least how I feel when I watch it. I’m not the typical WWE wrestler. So I always wanted to be in the ring with The Miz because first of all, he has that background with the Intercontinental Championship. And secondly, that’s a great measuring stick for me if that makes sense, because it’s a little bit of clash of two worlds.” 

So with all that said, what’s really interesting about your career is it was almost 14 years into your wrestling career that WWE, you know, found you and signed you. Was there any point along the way, when you didn’t think you were gonna get that big break?

“Yeah, always, I was sure. In 2005 I had my first training right. And then a few years in whatever the wrestling scene in Europe and especially the German-speaking countries was still small, like nobody gave a damn about it. It wasn’t on free TV like in general, the public, you get looked at weirdly when you watch wrestling like most people didn’t even know what was going on. Like it wasn’t, it was not a topic in the mainstream entertainment world. So all of that was so far away, it’s like, even like 10 years ago, if somebody from England I think like Sheamus and Drew and Stu [Bennett] were like one of the first exceptions for Europeans to go there and actually make it or be somebody or Cesaro. And then for a long time, there was nothing and it was just something that is, well, that’s not realistic. So don’t aim for that. My goal was always I want to make a living of being a professional wrestler, that was always my goal. I want to make this my profession because I know something about it now. It’s like I have a passion for it and I don’t want to work a job that just bored the hell out of me. So I always wanted to make it a profession when I achieved that. That was already something unheard of. When I became a full-time wrestler and I had to be self-employed basically. And to every agency or every government body I had to go for whatever it was, pension, health insurance and all of that stuff I got looked at, yeah, like an alien like what are you what is your job? Because I think at that time, I was the only person in the whole of Germany who was a wrestler by profession. That was already like a big step and then everything else just fell into place over time, the indies changed big time. There was before COVID There was such a big boom in the indie scene in England especially but all like in the States as well. And WWE decided to open the doors to Yeah, the independent wrestling world and also to Europe. So that’s brought up a lot more possibilities, obviously. And then everything just fell into place. So yeah, it was never my big dream to go there. I think it was more passionate to wrestle All Japan once at some point. As like a big dream than being with WWE.”

How old were you when you learned how to speak English? And how did you learn to speak English?

“We had it at school, but I wasn’t good. I was really bad. I only picked it up for wrestling. So maybe. I started speaking English I would say 2000. And like, more regularly like 2012 13 When WWE always had English and American guys around and you just have to make it your second language a little bit. But my first language now I feel like I don’t speak German that often.”

The fact that you can speak more than one language I think is this. It’s almost like a superpower.

“Thank you very much. I’m still learning it. It’s like whenever I have like a conversation going on or hear word that I don’t understand all of the context and stuff. I try to google it right away and remember for next time, so I know that. But yeah, obviously my wife is English as well. So it’s the language of the house as well. stuck with it, but I gotta be. I mean, I’d say thank you. It’s a compliment. But also I have to say, English is very easy to learn compared to German or like French, for example. Those are the languages that are way more complicated than English. And there’s a reason why it’s the world language, it should be easy to learn it.”

So there’s this photo that has been floating around online for months. Have you and Ludwig Kaiser, have you seen this photo of you guys? You’re very young, you know, the one I’m talking about? How old? Are you guys in this photo and talk me through what’s what’s happening here?

“I can tell exactly what happened to him because we just talked about it. Yeah, on Monday at Raw, because somebody backstage was asking us about that. It was literally I think the first time we actually met was that day, because that must have been after a wrestling show in northern Germany where it was booked. And I think Marcel’s was booked. So he was around and there was a little bit of a party afterwards. I don’t know the occasion for in the wrestling school myself was training and that’s where yeah, that picture happens. So basically we all got drunk after wrestling.”

But the funny thing is both of you guys are pretty much unrecognisable in that photo.

“Oh, yeah. I guess the weight I dropped he gained over time. But yeah, it’s very nice. It’s just a reminder of like, why you should take pictures for your own collection because that’s a good example of like, obviously, it’s really nice to look back now. Like, look at us now and then look back where basically, we ran into each other the first time. Yeah, it’s nice to look at them.”

If you put a photo of Walter and Gunther side by side, I think there are a lot of people who wouldn’t believe that that’s the same person.

“Oh, yeah, it’s like when I see it now, like when I see them, I’m shocked. I’m like, Oh my God. But before when I was my old me, I didn’t feel like somebody that was a little it too heavy that. Like I didn’t feel like an overweight person was up to like that because it was always very comfortable. Like looking back now and seeing the difference like oh my gosh, like how I mean, you know, you work on yourself you know how it is like because you never started to like you can be on a diet and feel really shredded, but then you go out to one really good meal and the next day you feel like oh my gosh, yeah, everything’s out the window, right? So I’m just feeling Why is it going. Like, I don’t know. I’m good most of the times anyway, but then we go out for a nice dinner or something. Have a few drinks the next day and body-feeling-wise, I feel like the old me again. But that’s that’s obviously not true. But that’s how your mind tricks you a little bit.”

But what was the first step towards making that transformation? Because I mean, you truly do look like a totally different person now. 

“Yeah, it is definitely I mean, like, the first step was like we’ve been during COVID Like we have a friend that is like a bodybuilder and he’s coaching people. I think he’s owning a gym now and runs it and stuff. And he was he started to help Kiaser and Gio with their diet a little bit and they were following a diet they got in incredible shape. So we had that guy around and I was never really that’s the one thing I have to say and usually was always on top of things in my adult life. But the diet is always something I kind of like neglected because I was good the way I was when I signed for the main roster and I knew Okay, moving over now I know I’m gonna be on national TV I thought okay, let’s bring the best version of yourself you can you got to be in front of millions of people every week. I think that step is necessary now and yeah, I’m glad I did it. I feel like the independent wrestling Walter that was a little bit bigger and it looked like a butcher from the next-door shop. That was cool. I think that was fine for them. And I feel like for the wrestling enthusiasts yes. On the independent market. They like when you think back like Stan Hansen or Terry Gordy like the bigger guys, I think it has its place in wrestling a little bit. But I felt like it was time to make a step and progress.”

I’m always so curious. I’ve always been so curious when you were WALTER, why was it in all caps like you were yelling your name at us?

“Because of KENTA and was the other guy called. I thought I was first on the Indies as a babyface I was Big Daddy WALTER so I was like oh I’m gonna be a heel now so what are we doing? I said you know what just Walter but do all caps I think it looks amazing and yeah that did that because like in when you watched NOAH back then Pro Wrestling NOAH you will always see the match lineups, but it was all Japanese. So you want to understand KENTA was always the five big letters. I went, you know what is a good way to stand out I am going to do that as well.”

So with the correct way to spell Gunther now with that, is that all caps? 

“That is all caps. Definitely.” 

Everyone talks about how hard your chops are. In fact, when I saw you last time you were talking about how you use your hand and your forearm. Who’s chopped you the hardest?

“Um, I don’t know. I was shocked one time I remember I wrestled in Germany back then. I was wrestling Pentagon actually and I chopped him and he chopped me once and I was bleeding right away. It was like What? What is going on? Some of the Mexican colleagues are gonna say they chop like it’s, the movement is a little bit like it’s a whip, if that makes sense. It’s because they chop from overhand and most of them do. That is painful I gotta say.”

What would you say give us like maybe three what have been your three favourite championship defences that you’ve had as the Intercontinental Champion? 

“I would say WrestleMania for sure, Sheamus and Drew. I was very happy with that, in general was a great day and weekend for me. My family was there and stuff like that. It was overall a really awesome experience. I would say Chad, Chad Gable, it felt good. I love an underdog scenario like the David and Goliath scenario. Who would be number three? Clash at the Castle is good. But I already mentioned Sheamus and he doesn’t deal too well with too much attention. So I can’t mention him again. Well, I think Drew the thing is SummerSlam against Drew, I think it was a match I was really proud of as well. Because Drew is such an established guy in WWE. And if you look at his story, it’s very impressive. I think he was the young guy that got kicked, but he wasn’t like, I’ll let it be. He grit his teeth and worked himself up again. And then he worked himself up to the he was the champion. He beat Brock at WrestleMania. And even though nobody was there was still WrestleMania. He figured out a way to like really belong in that top picture of the company. It’s like they would see Drew McIntyre. Okay, that guy. People turn around when that guy enters a room, right? So yeah, so being in the ring with him and having that kind of match with him at SummerSlam. I really liked that. It was like it for me, it was a big test to have to match with Drew. And just to see if I can, yeah, just hang with him in there on that stage and have a matchup and magnitude.”

You’re certainly the person that people think of when they think of this current design of the Intercontinental Championship, as you called it for so long. Who was the person that you thought of when you were a kid when you thought of the Intercontinental Championship?

“Um, I think Shawn, I grew up the first time watching the WWE VHS back then there was a time when Sean had the ladder match with Razor and Shawn against Jeff Jarrett Rumble 95, for example. And Shawn had his thing of, like walking out with the title right and getting counted out. So it doesn’t lose the title. They should have been really quicker with adjusting that rule. To be honest, he got away with that quite often. Likewise, I have to say, but by management, no, but Shawn would be the guy I would connect with that.”

Were you a Shawn guy growing up?

“Yeah, like, I wasn’t anybody’s guy to be honest. I really enjoyed wrestling and a lot of aspects of it. So I didn’t really have that one favourite where I was like, yeah, there were times I enjoyed the undercard and mid-card matches more than the actual main events because I feel like, especially like in the early 2000s, sometimes they felt or late 90s It was always the big outside brawl. In the main events, before something happened in the ring, and I like the matches more when it gets to the actual quick.”

I feel like we get such tiny little slivers of who you are outside of the ring. And sometimes you give them to us like when you got married. Congratulations on that. What makes you decide to give us these little slivers into your personal life?

“You make me seem like a big strategist when it comes to that.”

Are you?

“I’m totally not. In general, often I just operate like and I just do what feels right, if that makes sense. Even if it’s something that would benefit me, but it doesn’t feel right for me to do then I’m not gonna do it. And sometimes it feels right for me to share a little bit of my private life but I like to have that. In general. I like to have that as minimal as possible. I don’t like the idea of oversharing your own life or whatever reach or interaction and stuff like that. At the end of the day, I don’t think it’s healthy if that on-screen persona Gunther and my personal self would melt and become the same person. I like to have to a little bit separated for me.”

But I mean You scroll through your Instagram. It’s like it’s all you know your accomplishments in WWE, and you keep scrolling, and you scroll some more. And then you’re like, oh, there, he’s a real person here. And then you keep going and its’ WWE.

“Oh, yeah, of course. I mean, especially on social media and stuff. That’s what it stands for. To promote my career and promote myself. It’s a tool for that. And most of the personal happenings get only shared in the very small circle.”

I don’t know if everybody has picked up on this, but there are occasions when you call it the Intercontinental Heavyweight Championship. When did you start working heavyweight into it?

“Um, when I was reading it, when I was reading that was on the title actually, it says on the title heavyweight. Like, okay, I have to say it, that was all it was. I was I wasn’t really paying attention to that. But at one point, I was just looking at the title and was like it says heavyweight, intercontinental heavyweight champion.”

It just feels like a little thing that is like, I don’t know, it’s taken up just even another notch now?

“Yes, um, obviously, it helps. It’s I feel like because we all grew up with, like, what was the most popular boxing matches heavyweight fights, we grew up? What are the most popular wrestling matches the big heavyweight matches? It’s, you know, I mean, what’s the main event in Olympia weightlifting? The heavyweight? It’s always that, I think, because we grew up with that a little bit. So when you add that to the title, it just helps. Yeah, just makes it appear even more significant than before.”

When you’re at home like you are now. Is there a place for the Intercontinental Heavyweight Championship? Does it live in a certain spot?

“Um, yes, on top of my suitcase, and I’m ready to go again. And because I got to pack it in Wednesday, today, in two days.” 

what has been your greatest story of taking that championship through TSA? The airport? 

“So in Orlando. It’s actually good. Because there are so many wrestlers living in Orlando, that by now they kind of know when they see it. Okay. It’s title. They did. Look who is that? Those guys again? They know us there that’s good. But sometimes people get carried away a little bit. I had there were a few situations where I had to be like, can you do your job, sir. Thank you. When they start, like taking it or showing it off, or whatever it is, it’s not a toy, but a guy do your job. Thank you. But as the champion that my Well, it’s my job, that’s why I carry it with me, so nobody can mess around with it.” 

I can only imagine a TSA agent bringing it out and like attempting to challenge you for it or something like that. 

“You hear everything there was one guy actually was quite funny because I had a streak of like, annoying incidents there. And then it takes forever. And I gotta go to the flight. And this time, I was annoyed already. And it went to the side and I said to guys, I actually was like, not again, and he was like, no, no, that guy he looks, he looks serious. He looks like he knows what his job is. Like, talk to him and I turn around and I see that guy grabbing my suitcase lifting it like that over his head walking towards me that he slammed it on the table opened it up took the title out. Said something stupid I was like I had enough was like, Okay, guys, do your job. Put the title bag. Come on. But that’s part of it, in general. But I like the idea of the champion carries the title by himself always did that. I was on the indies when I was the PWG champion. I said, I take the title with me 100% Wherever I go, and on the Indies, it’s a little bit. It’s a good gives you a little bit of leverage as well. So they got to book here again.”

You know, I really can’t see you losing this championship at any point with the run that you’re on right now. Do you think it might be possible for you to hold both the Intercontinental Championship and the WWE Championship at the same time?

“I think that is possible. But we will see. It’s just so hard to get to there. Once a year. I have the chance when the Rumble comes around. I came very close last year. Let’s see what happens this year. I think that it’s absolutely possible. And that’s also not my focus right now.”

Is the focus just are you going to take this to 1000 days? Is that Is that what the focus is?

“I don’t plan on losing it. I think no champion does that. At all. So I know that there will be a time where I lose it. That’s nothing lasts forever. And it’s the same case or my battle, right? That will not last forever either. But it’s on me to hold on to it as long as possible.”

Is there a number? 

“I gotta be fully honest. It’s like I have not once I’ve taken a break or like if I look how many days or I was never paying attention to that I only find out mostly through Twitter because it was linked into something where it was like reached that new thing that it’s nice to see but I never have to number my add myself because I  don’t like to compare myself with others, the others do their thing. I just focus on myself and compete with myself and I don’t think it’s healthy to Yeah, you can endlessly compare yourself to others there will there will always be somebody that is better than you.”

One of the best things about talking to you is you’re just so you’re so kind, I don’t know if people like realise this, like you’re just so kind in real life. And I appreciate that. It’s always great to talk to you.

“Thank you. Um, yeah, I try to not change who I am. Or even though with all this stuff that happens because life changes dramatically when you make good money and stuff like that, and you get recognised and you get you can do this for free and no jump in front of the line. It’s you and sometimes that’s comfortable. And sometimes I don’t you know, it’s not necessary because at the end of the day, work is work and the person who I am is who I am. Let’s do different things.” 

I end every conversation talking about gratitude. So what are three things in your life that you’re grateful for as we sit here right now?

“My wife, my friends, my family.”

Featured image: WWE

Welcome back to another AskCVV episode where Chris answers your burning questions from Twitter, Instagram and Facebook. We got some great questions about wrestling, movies, content creation and everything in between on this one. If you have one that you want answered next month, don’t forget to send it in using the hashtag #AskCVV!

Quote I’m thinking about:“If you know the way broadly you will see it in everything.” – Miyamoto Musashi

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For more information about Chris and INSIGHT go to: https://podcast.chrisvanvliet.com

Does Randy Orton show up at Survivor Series? 

“Starting out hot here! The big questions. I think the answer is probably yes. And look, the thing with Randy Orton showing up is very different from CM Punk showing up. Randy Orton’s return is imminent. Like it’s happening at some point in time. So I think that probably it happens at Survivor Series but if it doesn’t happen at Survivor Series, I feel like it happens on the Raw after Survivor Series. But I don’t think that we end 2023 Without Randy Orton back in WWE, but yeah, so Randy Orton is coming back. It’s just a question of when it’s not a question of if he’s coming back, it’s a question of when he’s coming back. Survivor Series feels like it makes a lot of sense. And then it builds up to something like a match, maybe Royal Rumble. I feel like that’s what we’re gonna see here. CM Punk on the flip side, I know you didn’t ask about CM Punk, but there have been a lot of people asking about CM Punk. And the last Ask CVV we did a question about CM Punk and I went into a whole deep dive there about that whole situation. So if you want the full answer on that one, go check out the last Ask CVV which was like four-ish weeks ago. But I think that everything seems to be lining up to have CM Punk back at Survivor Series. I mean, it’s in Chicago, Survivor Series. It just feels like a lot of things make sense there. I won’t be surprised if he shows up. And at the same time, I won’t be surprised if he doesn’t show up. But I think what I would be most surprised by is the fact that we’re even having this conversation right now. I mean, when he walked out of WWE nine years ago in 2014, it felt like he had completely left pro wrestling in general. So when he returned to wrestling in AEW, that was a huge shock. And that is arguably one of the biggest returns in all of pro wrestling. I recently did a social media video where I was like, What’s the biggest return in pro wrestling? Is it Triple H returning after the quad surgery, that massive reaction at Madison Square Garden? Was it John Cena coming back from the pec injury and the huge reaction that he got there? Was it CM Punk? And I think that I mean, CM Punk was such a big return because you didn’t think it was going to happen. Whereas the other two that I just listed off there, Triple H and John Cena, you knew they were coming back kind of like this Randy Orton situation like you know, he’s coming back. It’s just a matter of when. With CM Punk, I feel like his life could go on completely fine for the rest of his existence if he never returns to wrestling. And I think that he’d be okay with that. And that’s what makes that whole CM Punk situation so interesting because him coming back creates a whole other storyline here, but him not coming back, I feel like also makes a tonne of sense. So all of this is to say, Survivor Series certainly seems to line up for a probable return from Randy Orton. And also, everything seems to line up here than the hints that WWE has been placing. I think we could see CM Punk there as well. But we’ll see. I will be in Chicago for Survivor Series. So if you happen to be there, it’d be awesome to be able to say hello to you.”

Who do you think is the new AEW signing? 

“This is what’s really interesting. So this episode is going to come out on Friday, we’re going to have the answer the next day. So if you’re listening to this, after the signing has been announced, just know that this was the speculation that we’re talking about here. Of course, this came from Tony Khan, tweeting that AEW has agreed to terms with one of the world’s best wrestlers, a pro who is known and respected by virtually every AEW van. They’ll come to LA to sign their contract this Saturday, November 18, on Pay Per View at AEW Full Gear. There has been so much speculation here as to who is this going to be and the three names that keep popping up here are Will Ospreay, Mercedes Mone and Dolph Ziggler. And I think we need to scratch Dolph Ziggler off that list. I don’t know why people are bringing his name up here. His contract will not be up until December. This is that’s what happens when you get released from WWE. You have 90 days where they continue to pay you and then your contract is done. And then you’re free to go wherever you want. So I’m not sure. I understand why people are saying is Dolph Ziggler especially when they’re saying one of the world’s best wrestlers, a pro who is well-known and respected by virtually every AEW fan. Yes, of course, that sounds like Nick Nemeth/Dolph Ziggler. But he’s out of the question here not possible with the terms of the contract and the release that he had. And that goes for everybody else who was released at that same time, they’ve got the exact same situation here. So I think that that leaves us to Will Ospreay and Mercedes Mone. Will Ospreay has been very vocal about the fact that his contract with New Japan is not up until February, there could be some sort of situation here. Tony has a great relationship, it seems with New Japan. So it could be some sort of situation here where his contract got bought out from New Japan, or they have some sort of working agreement here. So I guess that’s possible. But Mercedes Mone seems like the most likely person here. So that’s who I’m going to put my money on. I could be completely wrong here. Maybe it’s not even one of those three names. But we will find out. And I’m sure that there’s gonna be a lot of people listening to this episode, who have already found out. So that’s where we’re at here, as of Friday, November 17. Anything can happen, you know, between now and Full Gear, but that’s where we’re at here.” 

Do you remember the first time that you were ever publicly quoted in the same sheets that you once read as a kid?

“That’s a really good one. And yes, I do remember it. I remember the interview very specifically. It was the interview I did with The Miz. Right before he threw out the first pitch before the Cleveland Indians game in 2011. So we’re going way back here, quick interview. It’s up on my YouTube channel if you want to go check it out. But we talked for, I don’t know, maybe four minutes. But he said something, right before we really got into the questions where I was like, Oh, I was just at WrestleMania 27. And he was like, Oh, I don’t remember it I was concussed, and that ended up making headlines. I didn’t even put two and two together when we were having the conversation, that that was a big headline that would be coming out of that. He also said during that, and this was during the CM Punk pipe bomb time. He said that that storyline was as interesting as what was going on in the Attitude Era at that time. I knew that that was an important thing. I knew that that was a big statement, that also ended up making headlines. And I was so unaware of this. I had been posting interviews on my YouTube channel at that point for, I don’t know, a few months. And most of those interviews were some of the celebrity interviews that I’ve done. I’ve done some interviews at WrestleMania 27. That year. So you’ll see an interview with Cody Rhodes and Dolph Ziggler from Atlanta that year. There’s also an interview with Quentin Tarantino and Oprah on there. So we’re going way, way, way back here. So I didn’t have a lot of subscribers on my channel, I think I put that interview up. And I had a few 100 views. I woke up the next morning, and it had 6,000 views. So I know that that’s not viral. But that was a big step up for any videos that I’d ever put up. And then I went to bed. And then the next day, it had 36,000 views. And I was like, Oh, something is up here. And I started going into analytics and YouTube. And realising that some of the quotes from that interview were getting picked up on some of the dirt sheets. It was being spread everywhere on Reddit, and I was like, Oh, wow, that’s a thing. And because I worked in media because I worked in broadcasting and was familiar with how this worked. I was like, Well, next time I do an interview, and something newsworthy comes out of this, I’m going to take that quote. And I’m going to let the websites know about this. And that, honestly, that was a little thing that I did that nobody else was doing. And we’re talking 12 years ago now, nobody else was doing that. And my interviews were getting picked up so much more as a result, a tiny little thing like a tiny little sentence from a 10 or 15 or 20-minute interview, I would send that sentence or that quote over to the dirt sheets over to the websites, and they would all get picked up. So that was something that I feel like more people should have been doing at that time. And I saw real whitespace. So to answer your your question, that was the interview that first got picked up. And that’s when a light bulb went off in my head and I went, Oh, these websites are starving for content. So if I can make it as easy as possible, I can type this out, almost like a press release. I Chris Van Vliet spoke with so and so at such and such event. They talked about this topic, this topic and this topic, a link to the full interview is here. And some of the most interesting quotes are below. That’s literally the framework of the email that I would send out and still do send out if I’m being completely honest. And that was I think a real game changer for my YouTube channel, then, and it has continued to be a big game changer for the YouTube channel as well.” 

I love the episode that you recorded with your wife Rachel last year, will you be doing another one again this year? 

“That was one of my favourite episodes that I did last year. It was the last episode that we uploaded of the year. And it was my wife and I and I had this great year we had actually just got married like a week before we recorded that. And it was also like a way to introduce Rachel to the audience. I think a lot of people have heard about her or maybe seen a photo but like Who is she? What’s she really about? What’s her whole story here? So that episode served two purposes. It was one, to introduce Rachel to you, you know, obviously a hugely important part of my life. And you’re also a very huge, important part of my life. So I wanted to kind of put those two worlds together like, hey, this person meet this person, there you go. And the other thing was kind of served as a time capsule for that slice of life at that exact moment in time. And that is honestly an episode that I will go back and listen to, to just remember where we were because, at that time, we had just got married. We had bought a house about six months before that. She was pregnant at the time. So a lot has changed and evolved since then. So my goal here, my plan, is for this to be an episode that we do every single year. So it’s gonna be the last episode we have every single year. And we did that one. While we were up in the mountains of Ottawa, California we had this beautiful cabin that we were in. And we’re just sharing this moment together. So we’re going to Lake Arrowhead in December, and the plan is the same, to bring out the microphones, hit record, and do another episode. So keep an eye out for that in the next six weeks, like the end of the year. It’s crazy to think there are only six weeks left in the year. I don’t know about you, but 2023 has flown by.”

How was The Iron Claw? 

“So I was so grateful to be able to see The Iron Claw last week at the world premiere in Dallas. That was so cool. I was in the theatre, watching it with the cast and the filmmakers. It was really cool. I can’t give you a full review yet. Reviews are embargoed until the week of the movie release comes out here in the US on December 22. So we can’t give you a full review at that point in time I can give you a reaction. I’m allowed to give you a reaction. And I will say this is the best representation of in-ring wrestling that I’ve ever seen in a movie. So the actual in-ring work that you see, like Chavo Guerrero just did amazing, amazing work here. You’d never know that Zac Efron only trained for I think it was seven weeks to do what he did, he looks like a veteran in there. The story is, I mean, if you know the story of the Von Erichs, this is going to come as no surprise. It’s heart-wrenching and very emotional at times. And we’ll be able to give you a full review in a month. But right around the episode or right around the release of the movie. I’m also gonna have Chavo Guerrero, back on the show to just talk about The Iron Claw. And also all the work that he’s doing with wrestling in Hollywood. Like Chavo is the guy when it comes to wrestling in Hollywood. So if there is a scene in a movie or a TV show, that involves pro wrestling, Chavo is the guy they call now. So it’s not just The Iron Claw. It’s also Young Rock and Wow and Glow. Like he’s the guy. And it’s amazing the sense of realism that he brings to this, especially if you’re a wrestling fan, I think that The Iron Claw is gonna be perceived very differently if you’re not a wrestling fan, like I think everybody’s obviously aware of wrestling, but if you’re not in the weeds, like as a huge wrestling fan, I think you’re gonna view it differently. And I’m not saying it’s gonna be better or worse. It’s just you’re gonna view it differently because there’s a lot of inside baseball in there. There’s a lot of like, they are speaking the language of wrestling. They’re talking about heat and going over and it’s not really explained there. So as wrestling fans for us, it’s kind of like a hey, not know what they made here. Hey, I get that reference.” 

Does Trish Stratus actually smell like a unicorn fart? Or is that just some sicko fantasy?

“So Trish Stratus was at the world premiere that we were at in Dallas for The Iron Claw and I was so grateful to be able to do an interview with her there. I told her during the interview you smell fantastic because she does I don’t know what perfume it is that she uses. I highly doubt the perfume is called unicorn fart. But she smells great. And she is great. She is personable, kind, funny and Canadian and I love it. So quick story here. I’m on the red carpet. This is how red carpets work. They give you a printout of all of the people that are planning to attend the red carpet and there’s like they call it a tip sheet. And there’s a headshot of the person and then their name so you know exactly who they are when they come onto the red carpet so you can prepare a little bit. Her name and her photo was not on this tip sheet and there were four pages of different people who were supposed to be coming and did. Her name was on there. So right when the red carpet opened up, and they started taking photos, she was on the red carpet. I looked down and I’m like, is that Trish Stratus? And I’m like asking around like, Guys, I think that’s Trish Stratus? And they’re like, oh, I don’t know, is it? And sure enough, it’s Trish Stratus. She walks onto the red carpet, takes the photos for the photographers like, the professional photos that you’ll see on all the websites now. And then she leaves the red carpet. I’m like, oh, no, like she is not coming around. She’s not doing interviews. And then I see her behind the red carpet area. And she’s like, just taking some photos with some of the other cast members. And some of the other people like, just photos like on their iPhone. And I’m like, oh, no, I don’t think she’s doing interviews. And she walked by me and I’m like, Hey, Trish, could we at least take a photo? She’s like, of course. So we get to chatting. And I’m like, Are you gonna go back on the red carpet? She’s like, well, I already took the photos. I said could we do a quick interview? And she’s like, well, let me see if I can. She had to ask for permission. And she came back and she’s like, yep, we can do it. And that’s the interview that you see on my YouTube channel. She was so kind and gracious to be able to share, like five minutes with us. And, I’m working on getting her on the show for a longer sit-down, hopefully, an hour-long interview. So we can just talk about her incredible career. And we are both from almost the exact same area, just outside of Toronto, the Greater Toronto Area. There’s a lot of there’s a lot of synchronicities here. There’s a lot of similarities. So I would just love to be able to spend some time with her and it’s in the works. So just remember this conversation that we’re having right now. And remember this when you see the episode in hopefully a month or two, or three or something like that.” 

What is your honest opinion of Logan Paul? 

“Like I’ve said it many times, he has surpassed everybody’s expectations as a pro wrestler. And I feel like he has, I think he’s now graduated past the idea that he’s just a celebrity wrestler in there. I think people forget, like, I think that there’s this like, mentality when it comes to quote unquote, celebrity wrestlers that everybody just like lumps them into the same category as David Arquette. We all know the story of David Arquette and him winning the WCW Championship and like how people feel about that even 25 years later now. But I think that Stephen Amell came in and really changed that. And Steven Amell crawled so that people like Bad Bunny could walk and Bad Bunny, by no means is just walking here. He’s crushing it, but I’m saying is like, he broke the mould. So then other people like Logan Paul, like Pat McAfee could take this and just completely run. So you can have your criticisms of Logan Paul, and whatever you think about the videos that he’s posted or the person that you believe that he might be from what you see on social media because I doubt you’ve actually met him. But of all the criticisms that you might have, the least of which can be his wrestling ability. Like he looks like a veteran in there, he looks like a guy who’s been wrestling for 10 years, and he’s had eight matches, not just eight WWE matches, he’s had eight matches, total. That’s it, not eight Indy matches, not eight tag team matches, eight matches. That’s it. And each one of them has been great. And each one of them has also been that much better than the last one. So now he’s the United States Champion. And he’s doing with the United States Title, what he did and is also continuing to do with Prime, where it’s just like, it becomes part of his brand. He’s bringing it everywhere he goes, he’s incorporating it into all the posts that he’s doing. He’s doing interviews on major networks while wearing the title like, this is not just a hobby for him. And I feel like that’s what people thought for a long time. They just thought that this was something he was doing on the side because he thought it was cool. It is very clear that he’s taking this super seriously. And, again, whether you love him, or you hate him, he’s bringing a lot of eyeballs to pro wrestling in general. And I think that that needs to be applauded.” 

What’s your honest opinion of Seth Rollins? 

“So good, so good. And I think he’s gonna go down as one of the greatest and it’s amazing that when you talk about like these three matches, like, if Will Ospreay goes to WWE. It’s gotta be a match with Seth Rollins. It’s amazing. Like when Cody comes back to WWE, it’s gotta be a match with Seth Rollins, like, he’s kind of in that spot right now where not only is his character work amazing, but he’s one of those people who is going to have a great match with absolutely anybody that he’s in the ring with. And I know this really hasn’t been teased or talked about, but I feel like we’re gonna see Randy Orton and Seth Rollins work on a match together. At some point soon when Randy Orton comes back. And those are two guys that everybody just heaps preys on when it comes to like, how good they are in the ring, how good they make everybody else look. So you know, he put those two guys together, that’s just going to be absolute magic. Seth Rollins still clearly has many, many years left, but he’s already doing such great work and the way that he’s reinvented himself. Every new reincarnation of Seth Rollins feels like it’s just that much better than the last one. So yeah. Big Seth Rollins guy. I haven’t done an interview with him said like 10 years, something like that. Yeah, that was 10 years. Yeah, go back. It’s on YouTube. It’s fine. It’s brief. It’s 10 or 15 minutes. Well, I would love to have him back on the show again sometime soon to talk about everything that’s happened between that and now.” 

I know you always talk about The Rock versus Hogan being your favourite match. But do you have another match that stands up there as one of your all-time favourites?

“I think for me, of course, Rock Hogan. It’s not just my favourite match. It’s also The Miz’s favourite match and Cody Rhodes’ favourite match. It’s the match that I would show to anybody who’s never watched a wrestling match before in their life. Because just that crowd reaction is so good. That match tells such a great story. And of course, you know, I’ve told you this story a million times. I was there, you know, my first ever WrestleMania I’m the same age as Wrestlemania. So it’s WrestleMania 18. I was 18 Blah, blah, blah. The other match that is super rewatchable for me. And perhaps my favourite in-ring match in terms of just the actual wrestling that happens is Christopher Daniels versus AJ Styles versus Samoa Joe Unbreakable 2005. That match I think made me rethink what’s possible in a wrestling ring. Like that match. I already knew TNA was great. I was already a TNA fan. I saw that match. And I went, Oh, well. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anybody quite do this stuff before. And that’s a match that here we are almost 20 years later. That stands the test of time. That’s a match I go back and watch often. And if for whatever reason you’ve never seen that match from TNA. I invite you to go watch that at some point today or this week or this weekend. So, so good. And it also really shows you how great AJ Styles was back then, how great Samoa Joe was back then, how great Christopher Daniels was back then, and how much better they’ve gotten since then. So you know, I’m a big TNA fan. You know how excited I am. If you listen to the last Ask CVV about TNA coming back and that being the brand again. And this was one of the matches that I think was like the real like taking the flag and planting it down and going. This is what TNA is all about.”

What would be the base of how to start being a creator?

“And this is gonna sound so simple perhaps maybe overly simplified, but you just got to start. I think that there are too many people who get into the idea of this analysis by paralysis, they overthink the idea of like, well, it needs to be perfect. It needs to be this, it needs to be that. No, it just needs to be done and I know it’s never done, right? Perfection is the enemy of progress. I love that quote. And it’s something I come back to all the time. But I just think you need to put your first video out, your first podcast out, your first piece of art, whatever it happens to be. And then you’ll put out your next one, it’ll be better than your last one. And then you’ll put out your next one after that. And it’ll be better than the one before. And you’ll just keep building on that. So I think the most important thing you can do is, is just start and also get around other like-minded people who are doing the same thing as you and facing the same problems that you have. That’s the whole reason I started fulltimecreator.co. It’s a brilliant mastermind, where we’ve got a whole bunch of people who are like-minded doing the same thing and chasing after the same goals. And me and my buddy, Travis Chappell, who have been there, and we’ve done it, we’ve made a tonne of mistakes, were the ones heading this up, and you can learn directly from us pick our brain about everything. I mean, we really serve as your mentor for this. So if you’re a creator at any point along your journey, I feel like you’d be foolish to not jump in Full-Time Creator. And really expedite your process here. Like instead of trying to figure this out on your own and making a tonne of mistakes, why not jumpstart your progress here and skip ahead a few months or a few years by really tapping into the knowledge that we have here. So fulltimecreator.co I talk about it almost on every episode, because I’m actually blown away that more people who are in the creative creator space or call themselves creators haven’t joined in here. So if you’re listening to this, and that sounds like you, and you’ve thought about it, go visit the website fulltimecreator.co And check it out. It’s $1. To start, you can spend two weeks with us for $1. And what do you have to lose? $1 You haven’t $1 to lose. So I’d love to see you in there.” 

Do you think that too much posting can almost be as bad as not posting enough? 

“I don’t think so at all. And I think that when it comes down to metrics, look, I’ve 300,000 followers on Instagram. And my posts get, I don’t know, a few 1000 likes, you know, a few, maybe 10, 20 50,000 interactions are like impressions. So I’m well aware that there’s a big portion of my audience that is not seeing these posts. So if you follow me on Instagram, or Facebook, or YouTube or Twitter, or TikTok, for that matter, you know that I post a lot. And that’s kind of our MO is just like, take all the posting and just throw it out there. So I’m posting five to 10 pieces of content a day. And I’m well aware that most of my audience is not going to see all those posts. And I think that that’s the fear here. I think that the fear for some people is like, Oh, you’re gonna get so annoyed by all the posts that I make out there. And the honest to God’s truth is, most people aren’t going to see all those posts. So if you post three times on Instagram, the majority of your audience is only going to see maybe one of them, maybe two of them, because that’s the way the algorithm is set up. So my whole thing is to just keep putting content out. And again, it does not need to be perfect. It just needs to be telling a story of some sort does not need to be perfect because it will never be perfect. And if you’re striving for perfection, you will never post anything because it will never quite be perfect.” 

Had you stuck with wrestling, what did your definition of success/I’ve made it look like to you? 

I don’t know if I thought that far ahead. I really, I really don’t. I was doing the backyard wrestling thing for two years, I guess maybe a little bit over two years when I was in high school. And then I trained and I’ve told the story many times but I trained in Toronto at Squared Circle, had kind of a fork in the road moment where summer was coming to an end and I had needed to decide was I going to put all my effort into wrestling school and continue with that, or is it gonna put all my effort into school school, which was starting back up in September. And I was like, You know what, I’m gonna get my degree and I’m going to continue with school and wrestling will always be there, which it has been so grateful for that. I don’t think I’d really thought ahead. But you got to remember here, I was going to wrestling school in 2003. I went to wrestling school in 2003. So at that time, like, as a kid from Ontario, Canada, there were not a lot of other people I could look to to go, oh, that’s the way it’s done. Of course, there were the anomalies, Edge, Christian, and Trish Stratus, being like the main ones you could think of, but in that like group of people at that time, there were just a few that went on to do anything whether that was in Impact Wrestling, or WWE. And off the top of my head here, they were Shawn Spears, who got signed, I believe in like 2006 or 07 in WWE. There was Eric Young, who of course, had a great career in Impact and WWE, Tyson Dukes, who did some stuff for WWE and Impact Wrestling, but there wasn’t like a tonne of people, not like it is now the Indies at that time weren’t what they are now. And I just didn’t see. And again, I didn’t fully complete my wrestling school training. But there really wasn’t a trail blazed. There really wasn’t this roadmap of like, really crushing it in Canada being able to go to WWE tryouts and them offering you a visa because you had to obviously go work in a different country, that roadmap didn’t really exist. And the Indies weren’t what they are now, and really didn’t become what they are now till really to like the mid-2010s. Like the Indies really didn’t start becoming this huge thing til I guess a little bit later on. But The Bucks and Cody, like really started to do something there with getting people noticed, and getting a lot of eyeballs on indie companies, but it just didn’t exist at that time. So I would think that if I trained in 2003, it would be an indie debut in 2004 ish. And of course, the goal would be to get signed. And at that point, it would be Impact or WWE, that would have been the goal for me. But it just didn’t feel like that roadmap was out there. And I say it all the time. Sometimes the best things in life are the things that don’t happen. And that’s how I feel like my entire life has gone. I’m 40 years old right now. Like when I get out of bed in the morning, my neck doesn’t hurt my back doesn’t hurt my knees, and my elbows, and shoulders don’t hurt. And a lot of my friends who are the same age as me, who have been wrestling for the last 20 years. They can’t say the same. So I’m never one of those people who lives in regret. I’m never one of those people that looks back and goes Oh, what if what if this happened? Or what if that happened? Not at all. So I can’t say that I really gave it that much thought. But I will say this. If Chris Sharp were to have been what I would have wanted him to be I don’t even know where I was going with that all I was just trying to say the name Chris Sharp. That was my wrestling character. I hadn’t even given it a lot of thought of like, I knew what I didn’t backyard wrestling, which didn’t really make a lot of sense in terms of the psychology of wrestling. What would I have done as an indie wrestler? I have no idea. I don’t know. I feel like I would have been like a black trunks and black boots guy. But I didn’t really put a lot of thought into that.”

When you have an off day creating content. What do you do to get over that slump?

“That’s a great question. These look, these are all great questions. And they really are. I think for me, the thing is creating content is now my job. And Brendan Schaub, when I had him on the show a few months ago, he put it in the best possible verbiage and terminology that I thought about it that way, but I had never found a way to vocalise it. He’s basically saying, like, when I worked for ESPN, or CBS Sports, or whatever it happened to be, I had to show up to work in the same way that you have to show up to your job, whether you’re feeling it or you’re not, you show up, and you give your best for that day. And that’s how I feel about content creation. Like, no matter what, we’re gonna have an episode on Tuesday, and we’re gonna have an episode on Thursday. And then every few weeks, we’re going to have an episode like this on a Friday for Ask CVV but it’s like, whether you’re feeling it or you’re not. It’s just like you’re going to work. And it’s not like you can just like boom, turn it on and like automatically, like, be creative. You can just flick a switch and like the creative switch has been turned on. But I feel like you kind of always get the creative juices flowing, whether they’re flowing a lot or they’re just kind of dripping out, creative juices are there. But I think the biggest shift for me was being accountable to my audience. And as the audience continued to grow, I wanted to be accountable to them. And when I say accountable, what I mean is, I am going to show up every Tuesday, and every Thursday, I’m going to put out an episode. And in me showing up every Tuesday and Thursday, I will hope that you will also start to show up every Tuesday and Thursday. And it’s become like a job again, back to that quote earlier, Perfection is the enemy of progress. It doesn’t need to be perfect. And I think that that’s a big thing here is like, the episode doesn’t need to be, if we’re talking about a podcast, it doesn’t need to be like, perfectly edited with the best content ever. It just, you know, you got to put it out there, you got to show up in the same way that if you’ve got a job a nine to five, and you’re working Monday to Friday, you’ve got to show up Monday, and you’ve got to show up again Tuesday, and Wednesday and Thursday and Friday. You know, that’s just how it works. So that’s it for me. And yeah, some days you’re not feeling it as much. I don’t think I’ve I certainly haven’t talked about this actually, one of the things that really is its take it’s difficult to do is putting the ads together that you see on the YouTube channel. Because when I have the conversations, when we record the actual episodes, those are easy. I do all the research. We turn on either the camera, whether we’re in person, or the Zoom conversation, if we’re doing you know, one of the rare virtual ones that we’re doing. Those are you know, it’s kind of just like, Okay, let’s hit record, boom, an hour later, we’ve got it. With the ad reads that we’re doing. It’s like, okay, there are so many things about this product or service that I love. What’s the best way to tell my audience in the most succinct way possible whilst also telling them to go to the website? I find that to be difficult. How can I find a new way to be passionate about this thing, because these are all products that I use? These are all the things that take extra effort, but it’s all part of the job” 

How did you find the balance between an interview being enough like a conversation while also being strongly focused on the interviewee? 

“That has truly been one of the toughest balances ever. Because when I started out, I was a news reporter. And when I was a news reporter for Checks TV in Peterborough, Ontario, Canada. You’re trying to extract facts out of people, you’re trying to get sound bites out of people, so that you can start to tell a story. So a lot of what you’re doing when you’re a news reporter is you’re asking the who, what, when, why, how questions. So who did the thing? When did they do the thing? Perhaps why did they do thing? And if this is some sort of event, where are we I would also often start those interviews with so where are we right now? Because I was not only the reporter, I was also the that was cameraman and the editor and the producer. And you know, the news of order, you have all these different hats that you’re wearing when you’re at a small station, which also made me appreciate all of the many various jobs that exist in broadcasting. So to go from that, the who, what, where, why, how type of interviews that we were doing for the news station to the next job I had, which was being an entertainment reporter slash TV host on MTV2 Canada. And you’re interviewing celebrities and musicians and my first interview with Bobby Lashley. You’re doing all those kinds of interviews. They start to evolve from like, okay, we’re telling a story here to like we’re promoting something or trying to like dig in deep on an album or a movie or whatever it happens to be. I think it was just the doing it. To me, it was doing it there day in, day out, that helped me to get better at it. And also watching people who are masterful at this, like you would watch a Howard Stern interview, and it never felt like an interview. And another name that you probably don’t hear a lot, but he’s a huge name in Canada is George Stroumboulopoulos. He had a show called The Hour on CBC. And he was so good. Go check out some of his interviews with Chris Jericho, or there’s tonnes of interviews. But George Stroumboulopoulos, the hour with the show was called, he was so good at just making these sound like conversations. So I would watch these people, I would study the greats. And I would just try to pick out moments of like, Oh, look how he transitioned from this point to this point. Oprah is also really good at that, Barbara Walters, so good at that, like we’re talking goat-level here. And we just study those people. And I would go, Oh, wow. Because at that point in my life, a year or two into my career, I would rule I would cringe if someone saw my full uncut interview that was at that point 10 or 15 minutes long and be like, oh, man, because I’m clearly just going. Here’s one question, then here’s another question, then here’s another question. And it really took me a while. It took me many years of honing this and working on it. And I would test myself, I remember working in Toronto, would have been three, or four years into my career. And I remember going into interviews like, with like, no notes, I would just like I would have some general knowledge about a person. And I would know about their album, book or movie that was coming out. And I would know a lot of like, general knowledge about them. And I would just go in and I would test myself like, Can I have a great six-minute conversation with this person live on TV without a safety net? And that was a real test. And I think that this platform of having a podcast has benefited me so much to be able to have even better conversations because you’re not restricted by a time limit of like a four-minute celebrity interview or a 10-minute radio segment. It’s like you hit record and you say to the guests, oh, this might be 45 minutes, it might be an hour and sometimes an hour and a half later, the episode ends. So I think that just the format of an open-ended conversation has helped so much. And I also a long time ago, stop thinking about them as interviews and just started thinking about them as conversations. If you bump into someone at the grocery store, what’s the conversation? How does it flow? You’re not thinking question answer, question answer. You’re just flowing with the conversation. So that was that’s been a that was a real test. But I look I constantly think that I’m working on this all the time. It’s it’s a work in progress all the time with every single episode that we put out.” 

What is it like to have a birthday on the same day as Kane’s favourites and a famous storyline?

“So yeah, my birthday is May 19. Remember, that was the big storyline with Kane because See No Evil came out on May 19. And it’s funny anytime I bring up my birthday, and I brought it up a lot last year because that was the goal date for when I was going to be in the best shape of my life by my 40th birthday. So I kept saying May 19, May 19, May 19. And people were like, don’t say that date. If Kane hears you say that day. I want to do an interview with Kane just to let him know, like, Hey, thanks for like making my birthday. Like a thing. Like thanks for putting it on the map. And a side note, I think, See No Evil might be the best WWE Studios film, certainly of that era, but maybe in the entire library. Like I think some of them were just a little. I don’t know. They were direct-to-DVD, or direct-to-home video. For a reason. I feel like See No Evil was a legit horror movie with some pretty great performances and a fantastic script. I don’t know. I don’t know if that’s an unpopular opinion or not. But See No Evil is great.” 

Tyler Breeze (@mmmgorgeous) is a professional wrestler with WWE. He is also a professional wrestling trainer and owns “Flatback Wrestling School” in Apopka, FL with AEW star Shawn Spears. He sits down with Chris Van Vliet in Hollywood, CA to talk about his current job with WWE working as a producer for UpUpDownDown, his wrestling school with Shawn Spears, the advice they tell new students, the importance of doing a good promo, how he almost got fired before coming up with the Tyler Breeze character, what Dusty Rhodes saw in that character, forming Fashion Police with Fandango, becoming a new father and much more!

Quote I’m thinking about:
“The measure of intelligence is the ability to change.” – Albert Einstein

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On living the best of both worlds:

“I mean, don’t expose me here. We got a good thing going, we’ve got a good thing going. I got my hands in a lot of different stuff, irons in the fire, diversifying.”

On the WWE job:

“I work for Up Up, Down, Down. So Up, Up, Down, Down, obviously, as you know, WWE’s YouTube channel, strictly for gaming, myself and [Xavier] Woods are on there. We just kind of get into all sorts of stuff. There’s not really like, you can say gaming, but like we just did Up Up Down Down Summer Games, for example. And it was basically just a bunch of people having fun and you know, running around like their kids again. And that’s work. That’s work.”

On playing video games as a job:

“My mom, it’s funny, because like, when Twitch started to like, when we started to do like Twitch stuff and, and YouTube stuff, and whatever, couple years ago, trying to explain of like, how it is and how it works. My mom a couple of times was like, so you’re playing the game? And they’re watching? And I said, Yes. She said why don’t they play the game? I don’t know, maybe they don’t want to maybe they just want to see me do it. And then you’re trying to explain that like, Okay, well, they know me and they know Woods, and they know, whoever they’re watching, from, you know, what we get to see and you know, for five minutes, 10 minutes on a Monday or a Friday or whatever, so they know, that person. But they don’t really know the person who’s sitting here now with a hat and do whatever, you know, I mean, they don’t know this one. So that’s the side that they want to see. And actually, I believe even Triple H said, at one time in an NXT meeting, we were kind of talking about, like having a presence online and social media and being smart and all that stuff. But he goes, You don’t understand that, like the people want to see anything that you want to do. So like, they want to see you brushing your teeth, you know, I mean, because they never get to see that. But if all of a sudden you’re there and you’re talking to them about everything they want to see like every part of your life because you’re the one that they like to tune in for. And you don’t really think about it like that until, you know, you do start thinking about it. And you go oh, I guess that makes sense. Like, I know, for me, like the people, you know, if I like Brad Pitt as an actor, okay, I see him in a movie and I see some other stuff. But like, I’m also interested in what he’s like, what does he do for a workout? What does he do in between time? What does he do when he’s you know, hanging out? Does he watch movies? Does he play video games? I don’t know. But I’d be interested in knowing.”

On celebrities being more accessible: 

“So that was the other part where I explained it to my mom. I said, like, you’ve got to understand if you know if Matt is shy in real life, and maybe you know, I don’t get out, and I don’t have a lot of friends, or maybe you know, high school was, you know, a bad time for me. Or maybe I’m just a little bit awkward. In a chat room or in a chat on, you know, a Twitch stream or anything like that you almost get a fresh start to where like, and again, I don’t have to be Matt, I can be gamerguy23. And now, maybe Matt, again, is a little bit awkward. And maybe you know, I don’t have a lot of friends. Or maybe I had a bad experience or something. But gamerguy23. He’s cool. And now he’s got more friends in here, because we show up all the time. And we watch this go down. So now in here, you get to like, almost escape a little bit and become somebody else. And now you’re making friends, where again, you may have never actually met each other. But you guys talking. And it’s kind of that it’s almost like, Blind Date. You would learn about someone, but you don’t get to see them. And you don’t get to make those like those natural first impression assumptions, or whatever it is, right. So instead, like, I know, in, like in our Twitch stream, people have become really good friends. And then all of a sudden, they start hanging out, you know, in real time, like on their own or meeting up because they’re all in different cities. And now you’ve just become, you know, a part of something that again, in your everyday average life, unless you’re going, Hey, Chris, you know, come and hang out with me and play games, you’re not going to get that but all of a sudden, you can all meet up here and do that. And again, it’s almost like a fresh start or a little bit of like you get to live like two lives at the same time. And you’re your favourite celebrity or whoever happens to be there too.” 

On having multiple projects:

“So I think it’s also, I don’t know if we can just say like wrestlers, I think it’s athletes in general, or someone who, you know, very quickly comes into money or fame or whatever. It’s kind of an easy trap to fall for that, like, that’s gonna last forever. And unless someone clues you in that, like, it doesn’t last forever, then it’s very easy to kind of get tricked in that way. And luckily, you know, he was just on the show, Lance Storm was the one who clued me in on everything, even getting in where it’s like, hey, just so you know, like, you’re not taking the safe route here, you’re gambling. You’re gambling that you might do this for a living, you might get an opportunity, you might get hired, you might have a one-year run, you might have a five-year run, like everything is just kind of luck. And, you know, obviously, you put in work to make your luck a little bit better. But the average person I think he told me was like five years, you have a five-year career of actually making like good money. Even if you make astronomical money, five years is not a long time, it goes very quickly. So even getting into it, you have to have that mindset of like, what am I going to do after this? What am I going to do when the money stops, when all of a sudden your monthly income goes to $0? That’s terrifying, right? Again, especially when you get to a certain spot you go, I don’t want to get a normal job, like I don’t want to go back to doing what I did before. So you need to create opportunities for yourself. Because when you get that call, nobody’s really knocking and going, Hey, we need you to do this as this, you have to have things in place. So luckily, again, I was with WWE for like 11 years. So I long kind of you know, made it past my five-year average. But I was ready to go, you know, way before those 11 years, I was putting little things in place and everything else was a bonus at that point going, alright, here’s this, okay, here’s this, okay, now my monthly income isn’t zero, it’s, you know, $5 $10, whatever you add to that little, you know, investment, it just kind of goes up and up and up. And again, that’s kind of one of those things where, especially now, man, if you look like at social media, like if you look at Instagram, or Tiktok, or all that stuff, and it’s kind of funny, because you see the like, the trends, right? So I remember, I can’t remember what it was, but like, chains, and like, all those things were really cool way back. And then they kind of went away. And now they’re back, like everybody I see has like these big, you know, blinged out chains and whatever you like, if you’re gonna blow your money on that stuff, just so you know, like, you can’t pay your mortgage with that, if you have no job. So you know what I mean. You fall into the designer, you know, lifestyle and everything else. So you just have to kind of take a step back and also go, Alright, I have a whole, you know, life to live after this. So what am I going to do? And then you know, kind of put pieces in place.”

On being ever mindful that a WWE release was coming before Tyler Breeze:

“I felt like they were numbered, like every week. It was a crazy time. And again, it’s just it’s just how it is. It was 2010. And it’s a way different time. This was pre-NXT, FCW was still kind of like you’re a part of WWE but WWE is here and FCW is like over there. It’s like around the corner and like you don’t really see it. But you’re there and again even just looking at the hiring cycles that they do, so when I came in, it was right at the end of like, where they wanted everybody to be really big and really jacked. So me obviously, I’ve never been a gigantic guy. So I got hired and it came in and I went, oh my god, like, there’s no way I’m gonna last here because these guys are huge. And like, how am I supposed to compete with this? But you’re hired for a reason. And all of a sudden, you see those people and they’re kind of going and they drop off here, or they go up or they do whatever they’re doing. And now all of a sudden, they started to hire a lot of people who knew how to wrestle and they wanted to wrestle. And that was when all of a sudden you see Cesaro come in. And, you know, Bryan Danielson has come in, Moxley, and Seth and all those guys, that kind of, you know, got away from that, that look or more into the work kind of hiring site. Again, same thing, like you’ll see that that lasts for a while, and then all of a sudden, they go, man, we should probably get some big guys in here. And all of a sudden they’re back in you know, I mean, and I saw that cycle go a bunch of times. So when that happened, again, you just kind of have to be realistic with yourself and not live in the delusion of like, I’m here. I’m safe. Like you’re never safe, you’re never safe. And the second that you think you are, you’re out. So you have to be proactive to where I made sure that I was building connections. And again, a lot of this was just imprinted on me by Lance [Storm]. He was the one who out kind of said, Hey, man, like when you’re there. This is when the work starts. This is when you need advocates in those meetings that you’re never going to be in. You need people to speak up for you if they go I don’t know. I don’t really see it with this guy. You need someone to go I do. Or hey, just give him a chance or Hey, he actually had this. Otherwise, that’s the new perception of you. Like someone says it and if nobody shoots it down, that’s you.”

On being saved by Cesaro:

“That was the one yes. So that saved me just because it was like that he’s gonna be gone the next round of cuts and then all of a sudden Hold on. There might be something here that saved me. The next one was a tester show for NXT. So they were seeing a Full Sail was going to work for it. And my buddy Tom Latimer was just supposed to he was a part of the original Ascension. And he was just supposed to kind of kill me and you know, they knew that I could bump and sell and do whatever. So it was supposed to be short and sweet. Here’s Ascension. They loved Ascension at the time Dusty, loved Ascension. And so he went okay, you know, it’s gonna be a singles match or whatever. And because he was my friend, Tom was like, You know what he was? Let’s put in like a little bit more. So I added in a couple things and Triple H was sitting next to Dusty and he literally looked at him went, who is this? Why haven’t I seen him at all? And all of a sudden I’m saved again. Um, I think, oh man within? Well, at least like this was when cuts were fairly regular like three, three months at the latest like six months. So like you never really, if you got off the chopping block, you were back on there like very quick unless you were progressing. And then the next time I was on there, and again, going into this, this was kind of the main one where we had evaluations and they would kind of sit you down and they tell you, you know how you’re doing and everything else. And I went into an evaluation, I got tore apart, and I just went, what happened here, like, I was just on cloud nine, like all of a sudden, I thought I was going to be like this thing. And I got tore apart and they tore me apart for about five minutes. And finally I went, you know what? The writing’s on the wall, I’m out of here. So if I’m going down, I’m going down swinging. And I started firing back and I was like, I was like, No, man, I’m pitching this. I’m trying this. I’m doing this. And you told me to do this. And I did this and blah blah. And as it’s happening, I just went, I’m so out of here. Like, there’s no way that this is going well. So I finish up, I walk out and Woods is standing right there. And he goes, how’d that go? And I said probably the worst evaluation of all time. I said, literally, I’m out of here. 100% I’m out of here. And he went, well, he goes, if you’re going down he goes, let’s at least like go down swinging and where he goes, let’s give them more ideas. If they you have no ideas. Let’s give them a bunch of ideas. Is it okay? So he finished up training he came came home. We filmed three of the vignettes which we filmed the Kale Cove one we filmed the Tyler Breeze one and we filmed Mike Dalton one. I sent them to every WWE email that I had every every single one that I had all the coaches everybody higher up that I’d never even met. I just sent it and I just went out hope for the best. And nobody got back to me except for dusty and dusty. You said, hey, there might be something with Tyler Breeze. Let’s talk about it when you come back. And I said, Okay. And, that was that was the beginning. And then I went and talked to him. And again, it wasn’t really like a this is why it’s good. Or this is why it’s bad. It was just like, okay, so what do you think of this? And I went well, like I’ve been trying to be a wrestler for so long. I said, Let’s go the complete opposite. Let’s go to where I don’t know how to wrestle. Tyler Breeze does not know how to wrestle. He’s a male model who thinks wrestling is easy. And he loves it. There are cameras and video, video cameras, and I can be shown to the world in a moving fashion instead of in pictures like a model. And he went, Yeah, I see that. That’s kind of cool. And I go, but, I said I don’t want to wrestle like I want to go out there and like I happen to be out of my element because I’m wrestling now. But I said I don’t want to be you know, drop kicking and doing all this stuff. And he goes, I get that, he goes, Okay, and so we kind of went that route until it was like, Okay, well, you need to do some stuff. So we found kind of the happy medium of like, little bit of wrestling, but mostly not wrestling. Even when I debuted, like, you’ll see I didn’t really do a lot, it was more of like, I punched I kicked I showed a vicious side because when you do it like you know a male model kind of thing. You can’t just be a male model and then not beat somebody up because then there’s nothing to it. So we made sure that it had a perfect balance. And then it started to kind of just people started to take interest in it. And someone had an idea. And then someone had an idea and someone had an idea. And then I started figuring it out. And I went, Oh, why didn’t I do with this the whole time like this is way better than what I was trying to do. And then it just kind of went where it went.”

On day one at Flatbacks Wrestling School:

“Day one of the school is, you know, you get to meet us, obviously, we double check with everybody make sure that you’re, you know, you know, what you’re signing up for, like, you’re healthy enough to be here, everybody’s good to go. And then we get into it. And we just kind of go here, here’s an introduction on you know what this takes, and for the most part, we’re getting into like cardio stuff. So not even in, we’re not in the ring. We’re not doing, you know, bumps and moves and stuff like that. We’re kind of just showing you like, hey, we know what wrestling is, and you have an idea of what it is from watching it. But you need to be in shape, I need to be able to rely on you. Because once we get into all the stuff that you want to do, if you’re tired, you’re going to hurt me. And I need to know that even when you’re dead tired, you’re going to protect me. And that’s usually where we get to where, okay, like, if you haven’t prepared, if you haven’t hit the gym, if you’re not in shape, if you’re not watching what you eat, you’re going to struggle a little bit. And again, it’s not to like discourage you or weed you out. It’s to let you know, hey, you should probably work out while you’re here. Because again, if you’re holding me up in the air, I need to know that I’m going to walk out of there.” 

On advice for aspiring wrestlers:

“Please prepare. This is so me and Spears have it’s once you start coaching people, you kind of end up in like these, like endless loops of the same thing. We’re going on four-plus years now. And we’re, it’s funny because we’re gonna let the secret out. And then we’re all of a sudden, we’re gonna break the streak. We probably won’t, because this is just how people are. So we tell them day one, again, when you come in, we give you the talk of what you’re getting into. And we go, just so you know, we will be doing promos. Please prepare a promo. That doesn’t mean sit in your, you know, apartment, car, whatever. And think about a promo. This means pull out your phone, because everybody has one, film yourself doing it. And then watch it back and do it again and write the promo out and actually prepare and try to do this. Again, we’re not doing it off the top of our heads. We’re not just feeling it, we’re not doing that. We are preparing it and then doing it to the best of your ability when it comes time. We can’t stress that enough. Every time that we get to promos, we go did you prepare that? And they go? No. We go Why? Well, you know, I thought about it a couple of times. Hmm, cool, man. Like it just doesn’t compute in my head of like, why am I begging you to prepare for what you told me you want to do so badly? It doesn’t add up to us.”

On pandemic gaming:

“Which Funny enough, we just stumbled on. We literally just stumbled on it. We were trying to do the same thing that everybody at home was doing. I think just trying to pass the time trying to have fun with our friends. And it turned into what it turned into. But same thing like you know, battle the brands with me and Woods was the same thing too. We just had the funniest story where he moved in, and he was moving in and I see him pulling out all his video games, everything else I’m looking through when I go Smackdown vs Raw 2006. I love that game. He was Yeah, me too. And I said, I’d usually just play the GM mode, he goes, me too. And all of a sudden, we just start playing it on our own. And then we go, let’s just film this and see if they want it on the channel. And all of a sudden, it’s the staple of the channel. And now all of a sudden, we’re you know, the spokespeople for the mode in 2K23. So it’s like, it’s you just start something. And I think people genuinely see that you’re enjoying yourself and not just sitting there like putting it on, this game is really cool. I mean, if they see that you’re into and you’re having fun, which, you know, Uno was exactly that it was, you know, all of us just going out. Let’s log on. Let’s have fun. We happen to be recording, but we’re just going to play until you know, most of the time we’d start at like 11 or midnight, and then we would just deliriously play into the night and, and recording, send it in and just forget it even happened. And then people would watch it. And all of a sudden, like these catchphrases would live on, you know, we get to the point where we had our own Uno deck like the official Uno deck came out like it got way bigger than we ever thought or intended that it would be. It was just for friends having fun.”

What is Tyler Breeze grateful for:

“My family and friends, my health and that I will be having a kid in 6 weeks.”

Mike Chioda (@mjcchioda) is a professional wrestling referee who is known for his 35 year career in WWE. He sits down with Chris Van Vliet in Tampa, FL to talk about his legendary career and being the third man in the ring for matches like Eddie Guerrero vs. Chris Benoit, The Rock vs. Hulk Hogan, Kurt Angle vs. Brock Lesnar, 123 Kid vs. Razor Ramon and so many others. He talks about what goes into being a great referee, the cues he hears in his earpiece, being released from WWE, his time in AEW, working Ric Flair’s last match and much more.

Quote I’m thinking about: “Life isn’t about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself.” – Geroge Bernard Shaw

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On Mike Chioda’s unique voice:

“You know, it’s not the first time I’ve gotten that. I get that I started doing this podcast for Conrad Thompson on Ad Free shows. Paul Bromwell hosts and he’s coached me through all this stuff. And it’s going on three years now. Yeah. And you know, it’s our shows doing great on Ad Free and everything we talk, you know, sports, wrestling, of course, sports, food, all the good places and countries and all this stuff that you tried all the food and yeah, and it just gone so well. And I get so many, you know, like, oh my god, are you are you part of the mob boss? I go my father was kind of over there in Jersey. My father was, my mom remarried when I was three. But my paternal father used to sing for to do praise. And he had a very deep voice like me. But when he sang he, you know, it was it was all doo op. And then he was calling it was Joey Van and the Duprees. And you know, my real name is Michael Joseph Conzanno.” 

On being part of an era where wrestlers were referenced: 

“I mean, you know, it was great. They said our names a lot, especially like, you know, Jim Ross and King Lawler and Michael Cole years ago. You know, used to say our names a lot. Which I thought it was cool. But it was just one day, you know, was one day. Some years ago. Vince had just heard somebody’s name, you know, in gorilla and he heard this name. And he’s like, Well, that’s not the talent’s name. He was like, Who? Whose name is that? Oh, that’s the referee. Well stop saying it. Like he doesn’t sell tickets. It’s true. I mean, referees comp tickets. We don’t sell tickets. You know, my comp list. I’m probably about 10,000 or 20,000. Tickets comped in my career.”

On The Rock vs. Hulk Hogan staredown at WrestleMania 18:

“I mean, you know, very few spots where I’d have to get into the centre but you know, that moment is on them and that’s the one thing like you know, you don’t want to, a referee shouldn’t be in business for themselves. You have to focus on your talents to draw your talents in the ring. Now if my scrawny ass got up in the middle of them, okay, I’m putting my face right there. You know, it’s just not right for the referee. You know, it’s, you got to give that moment. To be honest, we had to I froze because I was just marking out on the staredown marking out on the crowd reaction.”

On relaying the face turn to Hulk Hogan:

“Because they didn’t expect the crowd back in Horilla. Whether it was Pat Patterson, Michael Hayes, Vince everybody, they didn’t expect that reaction. You know, and I’m sure when they went through that whole reaction, it changed Hogan from heel to babyface again into the yellow and red trunks and all that yellow trunks and you know, and it was just, they’re probably going Oh shit. I should have put that match on last.”

On the first big match he worked:

“I want to say, I want to say you know, one of my biggest matches I first worked was Razor Ramon and 123 Kid, Manhattan Center, you know, I was still green. I mean, we’re at the Manhattan Center, you know, from Jersey, I’m always setting up at Madison Square Garden. And we’re always now we got this Manhattan Center, and it’s like God what a pain, that was getting the ring in every time. Took us like six hours just to take these parts of this little elevator piece by piece with the ring. Wow. So it just was a great wrestling atmosphere. The New York crowd unbelievable. And razors got to do the job to 123 Kid, you know? So X-Pac at the time 123 Kid of course so, and I remember Razor pulled me over he’s like, Coyote, you got this match, right? I’m like, Yeah, Raz, you know, and he’s like, bro, I know that you got to watch counts and stuff like that. But I want the quickest one two three count without really making it look obvious. But I want the quickest count brother. I’m like, yeah Raz no problem. You know, you don’t want to mess with Razor Ramon, Shawn Michaels. And the Kliq. I’m like, No problem Raz. So I’m just stressing. I’m like I had How do I make this like 123? Like, quick, you know? So I did. I sped up my cadence on account, that’s for sure. You know, but and it worked out perfect. But it was what a pop. What a reaction.”

On Shane McMahon vs. Kurt Angle at King of the Ring:

“You know, that night whoo. I’ll never forget, you know, I thought I may not have a job coming back. You know, during there was several times during that match. You know, Shane had a lot to prove. You know, he rocks this match out. He gets through it. You know, it puts him on the chart of being a wrestler, you know what I’m saying? And he can hang with the toughest. And you know, Kurt’s not in the business that long at that point really, too. But boy he picked up the wrestling business professional wrestling business quick. And, one of the best, you know, and he’s a tough son of a gun in that ring. Man, I’ve done many matches where Kurt and Kurt don’t let up and he just keeps going. He’s like a machine. So, you know, Shane had a lot to prove. And getting to the spot where he goes through the glass. And it just, you know, he didn’t go through the glass. I’m thinking are we at the wrong f*cking panel? You know, because there were certain panels and certain panels were breaking certain panels Weren’t you know. So at one point, I’m thinking now is this the right panel, you know, the glass panel. And Vince is all in the background going. Tell him not f*cking throw him through the glass. No, no more like this. After the first time. Gorilla position was screaming. Everybody was screaming. And then all of a sudden you hear Vince just taken over. Like, tell him, tell Mike Chioda, and I’m going, Kurt. Don’t put him through the f*cking glass. No more. Don’t try it. No more. Don’t try it. I’m on his right side. He tries it doesn’t work again. I’m like, holy shit. And it finally occurred to me. Like, oh, no, I couldn’t stop anything. I couldn’t stop anything because that would have been disrespectful to Shane. And Shane had a lot to prove. And I know Shane is you know, Shane, he’ll go through anything. It’ll do anything. I mean, tough, tough guy, man. I was just like in shock. You know, I’d seen all this glass and Shane’s head and those slices and stuff. And I’m thinking, was that the fake glass that we were supposed to use? Or is this real?”

On Brock Lesnar’s shooting star press:

“Yeah, he was gonna do it and as athletic as Brock Lesnar is and was and is now still, you know, I definitely thought he would make it and when I went up there and I’m telling me like acting like get it down, get it down. You know, it’s always gimmick to like, get it down from the top rope, like it was an illegal move, you know? And I just said, hit that f*cking thing Brock, you know. And I see Kurt because he was so far out. And, you know, Kurt did the right thing. Because you know, you just can’t be in the middle of the ring when all eyes are on you now. And imagine him just fishing wobbling over to get in position to get closer. It will look stupid. And when Brock fell a little bit short on that, it was like, Oh my God, and then I just looked at Brock’s eyes and we’re kind of all blurry and stuff and, and everything. So I was just like, are you okay, brother and he man, he fought right through it and finished it.”

On refereeing Undertaker vs. Goldberg in Saudi Arabia:

“I mean, you know, the travel was brutal, Chris. I mean, it was brutal. We get to Saudi Arabia. I remember we got in the night before. Everybody was on a totally different timezone sometimes jetlag kicks in, like the day later, when these long trips occur and stuff. And I remember, you know, we just didn’t go [home], we came off a TV and we did this and we had to go to Saudi might have come off some live events, probably that weekend into TV than in the Saudi. So we got to Saudi Arabia. And I remember like, you know, people weren’t really getting to sleep like you didn’t get in there at 9 10 o’clock. Okay, I’m getting ready to go right to sleep just slept a lot on a plane. Time Zones are different. I remember was about 125 degrees. And I remember we went out to the malls didn’t open till nine o’clock at night. And a lot of stuff, it was just not even colder. But it was maybe about 100 or 90 field 95 degrees at night or 100. So it was just, you know, the sun went down. And that’s when people went to work, construction and stuff like that their hottest time of the year. So I remember we you know, a lot of us didn’t get good sleep. We get to the arena. We’re there all day. Taker, I believe we went on it like midnight. And I remember going through the locker rooms it that like 9 10 o’clock, you know, the show was going on to show it for a while. Everybody was sleeping in the locker rooms passed out because of the jetlag everybody was tired, man. So I know we were exhausted. Totally going into midnight. I was Taker I’m sure it was. But you know, take and some people were always saying like, you know, Goldberg came out of dress room. It was hitting his head on it on the thing, but I was in the ring at the time. So and I didn’t see you know, they showed a little gash when he came out. But Goldberg was fine to me because when he came in the ring, he called the whole match back to me, you know, when he got in the ring, because Taker this phenomenal entrance. It was an awesome entrance. Of course, it takes like 10 minutes, which was you know, that’s one of the best entrances in wrestling my opinion. So, I mean, and he called me and he goes, Hey, let me call this back to you. And I’m like, okay, cool, you know, and he just gave it was one of the best spots, two spots and it was cool. I wanted to hear it too. So I made sure I had everything straight. Nothing changed before the match. Yeah, so everything was good until he hit that turnbuckle and in the post. You know, and then it just went on down from there, man.” 

On the Jackhammer that went wrong:

“That was scary, real scary man and you know if you watch that match back again when Taker at the finish on the end of that match he’s just sitting up looking around p*ssed like just kind of looked upset, you know, frustrated because I know Taker got jammed up a little bit too you know, it almost like he went out of character right there. You know, it wasn’t in his normal Undertaker character. He just had a lot on his mind. He was just looking around. I’m just sitting on the outside or ring going Oh, sh*t, man he’s p*ssed. Like they Oh, thank God, everything worked out. You know, like everything we got through that night. I remember trying to talk to gorilla going, what do I do? You know, what do I do, man? Do I stop it? He’s getting worse. He’s getting worse. He’s getting worse. Billy’s like standby Chioda I’m like, guys, let me know. He’s just he’s getting worse. Because he didn’t come off the rope. He was on that rope one time he wouldn’t come on from like, yo, yo, when he first asked me it’s like, I’m okay. I’m okay. But then he just started getting worse, you know, as the concussion really kicked in. And I didn’t hear anything from Gorilla at that point. I’m thinking holy sh*t. Like, I know, they paid us a lot of money to be here. I know. They paid the talent I think a lot of money. I think Goldberg got a couple million. This one got this. I got my 200 You know, you know, but it was like, you know, they paid us a lot of money.. I gotta finish this, like the old-school way. You know, and he did finish it barely, you know. And that man’s leader rang man, he’s the he’s the godfather of business. So anybody to be in there with? It would be Taker, that’s for sure.”

What is Mike Chioda grateful for?

“The beautiful mom and sisters I had in my life, my wife and my health.” 

TJ Wilson (@TJWilson) known by his ring name Tyson Kidd is a retired professional wrestler and wrestling producer with WWE. He sits down with Chris Van Vliet at his home in Tampa, FL to talk about his role as a WWE producer, some of the recent matches he’s proud of producing, his iconic hairstyle when he was an active competitor, being tag team partners with Cesaro (Claudio Castagnoli), his career-ending injury in 2015, why he says he will never wrestle again, The Dungeon that he and Natalya Neidhart opened in Florida, what he learned from Bret Hart and much more!

Quote I’m thinking about:
Happiness is not by chance but by choice. – Jim Rohn

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On not coming back to the ring:

“I mean, I know they say never say never. But I’ve said never for the last eight years. No, the truth is I can do probably in some things I can do like 99% of the move. I just can’t do the actual bump, or you know, and I’m sure maybe I could take a couple but at what cost? I don’t know, like I haven’t taken one. So there is no point to me.”

On having a creative outlet:

“I am very fortunate, you know, I really enjoy my work as a producer. If I didn’t and if I didn’t have that outlet, I could understand why I would try to venture out and maybe try taking a bump and see how that felt and kind of go from there. But look, I’m very, very blessed. And luckily, I don’t have to go down that avenue. So I just don’t think I’m going to well, not I don’t think, I know I’m not gonna go down that avenue.”

On people thinking neck injuries are all the same:

“I get those messages a lot and I get that mindset. I understand where that comes from. I believe Steve Austin has the second highest, at least in terms of WWE wrestlers, in terms of how high their fusion is. His was, I think a C three and C four. Most of the normal one is like C five and six, or six and seven, mine C one and C two, the very top two vertebrae in your body minor fused. That’s the difference. That’s why even when it happened when I posted the picture of the scar, the staples in the back. One of the benefits of joining the broken neck club is, as I refer to it, Steve Austin becomes a friend of yours and he reaches out to you and your text and phone call all the time. But I posted that picture and within like 20 minutes, Austin was either calling me or texting me. And he’s like, Kid why did they go through the back. Why not through the front? And I explained what Steve it’s the equivalent of where they went is the equipment in my mouth. That’s when my fusion is adjacent to my mouth.”

On the matches TJ Wilson has produced recently:

“I’m proud of Charlotte, Bianca, and Asuka. SummerSlam triple threat. I was really proud of the women’s Royal Rumble this year. I loved it. I thought all the drama and the suspense on the end with Liv, Rhea and Asuka was exactly what we are. We’re looking for and the truth is I had a whole different finish planned using Nia, who I got okayed to come in as as a surprise entrant. She wasn’t resigned yet at that point. And I had a whole different finish involving her. And it got changed, maybe two days before, and um, everything in like, Oh, I’m not going to come up with anything better, you know, felt a little frustrated, not mad at anybody, that’s the game, sometimes, your idea goes through, and sometimes there’s little tweaks. And so what’s funny is we ended I learned a very, very valuable lesson, and I’ve come up with a way better finish than the one I had mapped out. In my mind. It was way, way better. So I learned a lesson to not fall in love with these not get married to these ideas, because things change, and it’s all moving parts, and we’ll figure it out the talent is good enough that we will absolutely figure this out.”

On the day-to-day process:

“Yeah, well, first of all, I’ll have the production meeting in the day, that’s the first thing I do. Then get out of the production meeting, then yeah, then get with the talent, then start kind of strategizing and figuring out, you know, a lot of things factor into these matches how much time we have? Is it two segments? Is it three segments? Is it a one? Where are we on the show? Is there another? Since I work with the women almost exclusively, is there another woman’s match on the show, okay, what are they doing that, then we’re going to do very different. So that if there are two on that show, or three, keep them all very different from each other. There are a lot of moving parts and a lot of a lot of different aspects that go into it. I mean, you know, it sounds so crazy, but a four-minute match and a seven-minute match are very different. In terms of putting it together, it’s very different. Just in terms of like, there’s just a lot more, I’ve had this conversation a bunch with Bayley but like, so a four-minute match, or a seven or eight-minute match. Again, let’s just say even set, let’s say 10. A 10-minute match, you know, if you mess up a couple of things in the beginning or maybe your ideas when you’re putting it together, maybe they weren’t exactly hitting in the beginning, you have a few more minutes to like, get out of that and be you know, in the whole match by the end can be totally different. In a four minute match every, you know, you might plan let’s just say six things, let’s say five things, each thing is worth 20% of that match. Sure. So each thing now has so much more importance in the shorter matches, it’s crazy, they’re a lot trickier to put together than the longer ones a 20-minute match is obviously you know, you have to feel that 20 minutes and if the story is right, that actually shouldn’t be that hard, honestly, but a five-minute match is a little trickier to put together than a 20-minute match if you can believe that. Again cardio and all that is a whole different ballgame. But a five-minute match is tricky because you know whoever is losing they want to make sure that they look good before the losing, you have, you know three or four minutes to do that you know it’s the time crunch is very different.”

What happens during the matches:

“I’m in Gorilla and have the headset on. I always joke that you haven’t really worked in WWE to put that headset on at least one time it’s crazy you put that headset on and you’re talking to a lot of people at one time. Every camera guy can hear me when I press the ring channel whatever. Every cameraman can hear me. The truck can hear me the referee because the referee I can talk to the ref Hunter. Triple H Bruce Prichard. I mean, whoever’s got the headset on Billy Kidman who is timing the show you put you put that headset on you’re talking to at least like 15 people but like maybe five or six are talking back to you and you’re trying to watch the match and you’re trying to communicate to the truck of like what you know you don’t want to miss shot so what’s happening next and a lot of times the town will come to the back and they’ll ask me what I thought of the match and I can give them a general view of the match. But I always tell them I have to go and watch it after by myself because there’s too much stuff going on. I’m checking the time I’m talking to the truck I’m talking to the ref Hey make sure Hey tell them plan the plan B plan B I mean that happened a few weeks. A match few weeks was very proud of the Becky and Zoey Falls Count Anywhere match and there were a lot of lot audibles going on on the fly that if you were just watching it and I didn’t know you wouldn’t catch them but when at home watching it back I caught that when I cut that one cut down okay.”

Plan B in terms of what’s going on in the mat or like an actual different finish:

“Not a different finish but just either making something longer or making it shorter depending on time, especially when you have that last segment on SmackDown or Raw, there’s not an overrun anymore. It’s tense, it stands like on headset, they’re, you know, they start, they’ll, they’ll hit you, we have five minutes to drop dead. I remember the first time I heard drop dead. That’s pretty intense.”

On making wrestlers better:

“And what’s cool is what my ultimate idea of it would be is basically what it is now. But I kind of needed everybody to get there but exactly where it is just a workshop where we kind of just throw around different philosophies and different psychologies and then almost like play them out and see if we feel it works or doesn’t work and kind of just trying different things. But you know, it kind of needed everybody to get to a certain level before we could get there. Like I trained a couple of guys from scratch who have improved immensely. It’s just, it’s a good, sorry, it’s not even good. It’s a great, it’s just a great environment. Like I’ve had a lot of guys come and say to the two guys that train from scratch, they’ve told them I don’t know if you guys realise it’s not like a normal wrestling school. Like there’s no, there’s not a lot of like, BS or backstabbing or, you know, that toxicity going on of? Yeah, just and that’s not to say that only happens in wrestling, it just is sometimes it’s human nature, you know, gossip, and that kind of thing happens. But at my ring, I feel like we don’t have much of that. There’s no point it’s not about, you know, getting booked on this local show. We have a bunch of guys like, Dawkins who’s on SmackDown Apollo, who’s I believe on Raw at the moment. B-Fab again, who’s on SmackDown. You know, you have Moose from Impact Wrestling, I get to all these people from all these different places. And then it’s almost like we all kind of come together and then everybody kind of disperses and like, all right, go spread the information and go.” 

On training Natalya:

“I trained her from the beginning from the very, very beginning. Yeah, that’s where like, I’m very proud, obviously, of Natalie’s career, having the most matches of any woman in WWE history, and she just keeps adding on to that. You know, that’s like Cal Ripken thing. You can’t manufacture that, you know, you have to show up, you have to show up and you have to, you know, buy the whatever the star, whatever, but to not be injured in this in any sport. You know, that’s why Cal Ripken’s record. It’s, it’s hard to play a sport. You know, all in baseball, 162 games, you know, basketball 82 games, hockey, it’s hard to do that in wrestling. WWE is 52 weeks a year. Yeah, there’s no offseason I, you know, we would do WrestleMania which would be our Super Bowl, the next day is Raw. So like, we do the Super Bowl, and then very next days, the regular season game. And then generally the week after that, then we’d go to Europe. So it’s like then we’re in Europe for two weeks as a talent like you just you do the Super Bowl. Imagine doing the Super Bowl and then like the very next week is a game again, and off you go and I get it. it’s only in our world. And there’s a reason for it. It’s just interesting when you look at it, compared to anything else, it just is a different animal altogether. So these accolades that Natty has, it’s going to be it’s, I say nearly impossible to beat but I use the Dr. Tom quote of what’s possible has been done, what’s impossible will be done. So again, never say never, but I don’t know. I don’t know how anyone’s gonna get close to touching these numbers that Natty has.”

What is TJ Wilson grateful for:

“Wrestling, my health and I wake up pain-free.”

Jonathan Coachman (@thecoachrules) is a broadcaster and commentator known for his time in WWE and also ESPN’s SportsCenter, the PGA Tour and CBS Sports. He sits down with Chris Van Vliet in Aliso Viejo, CA to talk about his stints in WWE as a backstage interviewer, commentator and on-air personality, turning heel, his hilarious promos with The Rock, being trained to wrestle by Chris Benoit, working with John Cena, why he is so impressed by MJF, his current job hosting “The Early Edge” podcast on CBS Sports, his advice for aspiring broadcasters, why he would never work for WWE again and much more!

Quote I’m thinking about: The past has no power over the present moment. – Eckhart Tolle

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On what he’s doing now:

“It’s funny, because I find social media funny. And I tell anybody who asked me, you can’t believe almost anything on social media. I won’t say everything, but almost anything. Because I have people tweet me. Oh, where have you been? You’ve done nothing with your career. Oh, I mean, your career stopped in 2008. Did it really? I mean, 10 years doing sports Center. And now at CBS Sports. I work for the PGA Tour, I do all the betting content for the PFL. The only MMA League that has a regular season, playoffs and a championship night coming up in November. So the thing that most wrestling fans don’t realise is in their minds, they think everybody aspires to be in the WWE aspires to be in pro wrestling, I never did. I stumbled into it, I backed into it, I was lucky to even get into it when I’m 23 years old. But my dream was always sports. And part of the reason I left ESPN in 2017, is I wanted to do more golf. And I knew that after 20 years of doing things my way, it’s time for me to start helping. And what I mean by that is, that there needs to be diversity in everything. And in the world of golf, especially when you have Tiger Woods, who’s a black man, as your most popular golfer of all time for the last 25 years. But yet, that’s not represented on television or in, in golf in general. So that’s what I wanted to do. And now I’m a big part of what the PGA Tour does. And I just love being in the world of golf.”

On meeting The Rock for the first time:

“I’ll never forget the first day I met him, August 24 1999, which just happens to be Vince McMahon’s birthday, as well. And we were in Kansas City. And we were still kind of figuring out, you know, if I was going to come, I’d already done the interview. And I remember standing there and you can imagine you’re in the early 20s. And this was when The Rock really took off. The WWE was really taken off. And I remember standing in there at Kemper Arena in Kansas City, we’ve had a lot of things happen over the years, obviously, and watching him walk in and thinking this is the coolest human being I’ve ever seen in my life, and how he interacted with the security guards, with people in catering and things like that, and then getting to work so closely with him for the next two or three years. Watching how he treats people, even to this day, is amazing to me. And he also he brings it up all the time, he never forgets $7 in his pocket coming out of college never had that opportunity. And that’s what drove him. I feel like now, I’ve been given the opportunity in my career to do more. And I always think about that, because he never stops. And he never stops. But people love working with him. Even when he gets in a spat, he figures out a way to make it positive. You know, I mean, whether it’s Vin Diesel, whether whatever it is. And I’ve said this many times, nobody has taught me more about performing, interacting with people at a macro level than him.”

On not wanting to be a wrestler:

“But it’s usually people that their lives are wrestling, you know what I mean? That’s what they aspire to be. That’s not who I aspired to be, I got lucky. And then there were things that happened in the last five years that make me not want to go back, you know, I was 100% loyal to that company and to Vince. So when things happen, sometimes you got to draw a line in the sand and say, I can’t be treated that way, and still go back and be loyal to that company. It’s not like they need me anyway, they’re not crying over spilt milk. But I like to think I treat people a certain way. And I want to be treated that way. So yeah, I would never go back. So I reflect now. And when I think about the the cool things that people have done for me when I was in the WWE, whether it’s fans, wrestlers, whatever, that might still be the coolest thing. And it was my very first night on the air. I’d already been there for a few months, but the first time for him to do that was still such a cool thing. And I have people that will send it to me every now and then on Instagram or whatever but completely unselfish. Which a lot of people I hate when people say oh, The Rock was selfish back then. Everybody had to be selfish back then. People don’t understand they look at what it is now. You hear it all the time the best time of wrestling was the Attitude Era was 2000 to 2004. Because you had Imagine having 15 LeBron James, and then your NBA finals or your Super Bowl is only two guys. And you got 15 guys that can be in that spot. Well, that’s what you aspire to be. You’re talking about a million-dollar bonus to be in the main event at WrestleMania would you be unselfish or I mean would you be selfish? 100% You would be. So when I hear that narrative about The Rock was selfish back in the day, you had to Stone Cold was selfish. Triple H was selfish. Undertaker was selfish. Shawn Michaels was selfish. Mick Foley was selfish. They had to be because everybody fought to get in that spot. If more people in wrestlers thought today to get in that spot, I think we’d have better storylines, we’d have more competition, we’d have better promos we’d have quicker, whatever. I really believe that.”

On closing the door with WWE:

“So I went back in 2017. And I kind of instantly knew. This is not really where I need to be where I want to be. But it was a nice bridge between ESPN and what the next full-time thing was going to be. So in my personal life, I was moving to California. So I didn’t really know what I was going to do next. And so I went back, and it was it was fun. But the people I worked with on the shows, I don’t know what it was, but didn’t really want me to be there. So when I got switched to the pre-show, that was fun, because that was just once a month, I had to show up. And that was cool. But then I missed and part of the reason this is so Vince, when they called me and they said, hey, we’d love for you to come back. I said, I’m already doing golf. So I had five events already booked. And I said I’m missing the shows that week. They went Oh, no problem, no problem until it was a problem. And so I missed one show in 10 years. In my first run. I missed five shows in the first seven months of my second run. But I think everybody would agree and the schedule has changed now they were running people into the ground. Nobody should be working 52 weeks a year, nobody. They shouldn’t be having new shows 52 weeks a year, let’s be honest. And everybody inside WWE says it. They just don’t want to admit it. But no company should work that way. But for me what it was, I’ll just be honest with you, Chris is they came to me and they said XFL 2020. And Vince needs somebody there that he trusts that can do it the right way. So I was flying from California to New York every week to do the pre-show. And because they hired a lot of people who never worked for him before. So I trust Vince, implicitly, like I’ve done so much for him with him. Everybody knows that. And so you turn in invoices, right? Well, I didn’t turn mine in right away. Because I’d worked for him for 20 years. He had always paid me. Right. So COVID happens. And I have a fairly large check. And I hold on to it for a couple of days. I go put in the bank. It bounces. It bounces. And so I called or texted a high executive there. And I got a response. Oh, that’s a lot of money. I said, I agree. I agree. I said can you just call Vince let’s take care of this quietly no big deal. Yeah. And ghosted me, absolutely ghosted me. And, you know, Vince has the amount of money in his back pocket. You know what I mean? And it really hit me hard. And it wasn’t the money. It was the process. You know what I mean? That and I sit there I’ll never forget Chris. I sat there one day and I said man, they really bounced a check to me. Oh, I did get a second text. It was like, oh, that’s another company. I don’t think there’s anything we can do. So basically telling me, people I’ve worked with for 20 years. Oh, that’s the XFL. It’s not the WWE. There’s no. But the same guy owns the two. Yeah, right. And he, I mean, everything was a crossover. So that to me was a complete slap in the face. And but some people there just don’t care. And I’m not gonna name names. It’s not my style. But even to this day, and anybody who watches this interview will agree with me because it’s true. There are certain people, and they’re usually the ones that get the biggest bonuses that do not care what happens below them. And I had literally done everything I had ever been asked to do. And this is how you’re going to treat me? And literally, they didn’t care. They did not care. And I even gave it months because they were going through remember there was no there were no shows. The company’s losing money I felt for all of that. But then eight months later when you start advertising biggest year we’ve ever had financially making all this money, and then you can’t make things right. So again, that’s why I’ve never really talked about it. I’ve mentioned it in a couple of interviews, but I can’t at this point in my life. I can’t work for people like that. I cannot work for people who do not care about human beings to the point that in a spot where you really need it. Because we all are lost our jobs during COVID. And that’s when you’re going to decide to now let’s just turn our back on a guy who’s been loyal for 20 years, like to a point, the things that I’ve done for that company really bad, you know, would blow your mind would blow your mind. I was 100% loyal, but they were not loyal to me. And that’s it.”

On wearing multiple hats:

“What’s crazy is that my ego was so big at one point that I actually thought that people cared if I bought my own action figure. So I borrowed a credit card that had somebody else’s name on it, and bought 10 of my own action figures. And as I look back on that, over the years, I was like, literally, nobody cares. Nobody cares if you [bought it] because I think we all would buy our own action figures. And the way it’s done just so people know, WWE doesn’t make these action figures. It’s a company and they license them. So the company is not in the business of giving you Yeah. Hey, Chris, here’s 100. You know, because that would mean, they would lose money? So you kind of have to buy your own. But I was happy to because when you’re growing up, you think about really two things, being in a video game, and an action figure. And I was able to not only get that I was able to get my own entrance music, which I loved. And those $17 checks that I still get every three months. It somehow somebody is still buying that album. I have no idea. But I get a check every three months for $17.”

On wrestling fans:

“Wrestling fans need to understand, especially new wrestling fans, and I don’t know how it got this way, Chris, but wrestling fans think they know everything. Like I know everything about everything. I have been in the business of pro wrestling. And I tell them all the time, literally, you could not walk one day in our shoes. You couldn’t do it. And I remember years ago at WrestleMania they used to set up a thing where we would call matches with fans. And I wish you could do that today. Anybody that wants to be a troll or a hater. Guess what? You’re gonna sit down at that table and you’re gonna call that match you know everything about everything. Let’s see. Let’s see you call it with somebody screaming in your ear. Let’s see your call when you’re trying to weave storylines into a match and call the moves all at the same time. Wrestling fans I wish could take a step back. Just enjoy it for what it is. Because it is entertainment, and quit trying to guess what’s going to be on the show quit reading the dirt sheets, quit reading all these things. Because oh, by the way, all these Dirt Sheet writers, I’ve never seen one of them backstage ever, ever. So how do they know all this stuff? You know, and most of the time, it’s wrong. But people don’t realise in wrestling media, that if you throw something against the wall, most of the time, people don’t care, because it’s not real journalism, right? So when you do get a story, right, that’s when you’re going to run with it, I was right. I call that right there. But most of the time, you’re wrong. And I wish wrestling fans could realise that. Listen to people like me, or people that have actually spent time not only in the business, but doing the business and living the business, not just somebody who is guessing at what’s going to happen.”

On the merger:

“100%. And that’s the other thing you have to think about. And you gotta remember, when I started the WWE, they were just becoming a publicly traded company. In fact, I came like six months after, so I didn’t get any stock or anything like that. But things started changing, then, I mean, the show was pretty risque back in the day. And then when you have to start answering the people that are investing in your company that changes everything, some would argue that that was the beginning of the non-risque part of Monday Night Raw was when you have to answer to people who are saying I hated that last night, my young daughter or my young son can’t watch that. Well, you got to answer for that now. And that was a big difference.”

On how he impressed Vince McMahon:

“I don’t know if it was one moment, but because we had shows early on Wednesday morning, I had to fly back on the private plane every Tuesday night with him. And everybody was oh it must be so cool. You’re flying on a private jet with Vince, It kind of sucks. Because the rule was, and I don’t know what the rules are today. But you can only sleep when Vince sleeps well, he doesn’t sleep on the plane. He drinks red wine. And so you’re back there you somewhere over in Nebraska, and you’re like, oh my god, three more hours. And this is torture. And all your buddies are back partying after SmackDown. You know? So I think what was that triggered him. Because I was such a good talker. I hosted all the press conferences. I hosted the first three Tough Enough, I was a part of the first three Diva Searches. So all the ancillary stuff, the shoulder programming, I was the host of it. So he got to see firsthand because he was always there for everything, I would always introduce him. And he saw how good I was at all the different scenarios that he put me in. And then I was also big, meaning I’m six, three and a half, I walk around between 240 and 280 pounds depending on the year, right? And so I was doing an interview. And it was a tag team interview that was going to end in a fight. Well, whoever I was interviewing, we have a little secret, and you spread your legs out and make the guy look and put them in front of you. And it makes the person look taller. Well, the problem was that the camera cameraman widened out too quickly. And all of a sudden, I’m standing there with my legs completely. And all sudden, the other tag team came in late. And it was just a bad segment altogether. And Vince was furious because it kind of gave away a couple of our secrets. Yeah, so he’s like, You can’t do interviews anymore. You’re bigger than half the roster. You know what I mean? So we’ve got to figure this out. And so he came up to me in the gym at the WWE headquarters in Stamford, Connecticut. He goes, Hey, we have an idea. Would you want to be an in-ring performer? But before you say yes, you will have to get into the ring. And you will have to train before shows every single day. And that’s how I started doing house shows. I would go on the road Friday through Sunday. And I would either have a match because it wasn’t on TV, or I would be the ring announcer. And at the end of the show, it would allow a heel to win, because you never want the heel to win because the fans go home unhappy. So with me, the heel could win. And then the babyface would put me through a table or they would beat me up. And that’s how the show would end. And so I agreed to do that. And so I get them trained quietly, so to speak. And that’s kind of the scenario that happened. So it wasn’t one moment [who trained you]? Chris Benoit trained me.”

What is Vince saying to announcers:

“A lot, a lot. The more he trusts you, the more he’s going to lay out. But in the height of when I was doing it, because they moved me around. I did Sunday Night Heat then I did Monday Night Raw. And you know, and obviously, JR is the greatest. And he would still scream at JR and I got so good. Because Vince would say something. And if you didn’t say it, because he wanted you to say it, then not wait for Jr to get done not wait for King to get done. I want you to say now. So after a while, I was like I don’t care if JR and King are mad at me, I don’t want to get screamed at by Vince anymore. So he’d be he’d say something and I was so good at regurgitating it that I would say it within a second. Probably I could talk as he was talking in my ear. That’s how good we got together. But there’d be sometimes if you said you didn’t tell the story the way he wanted you to tell the story. Because this business is all about stories as we’ve talked about and you just ruined his character. You just killed him. You just ruined it. Like that’s the kind of stuff you’d scream at you if you told a story the wrong way, which is why it was so paramount. The show’s going on. It’s at a big spot in the match and he’s screaming at you and you’re trying to get back on track. And it was paramount to meet with the agents and the superstars who are wrestling We had to, you’d go round during the day and meet with all of them, because you had to know the story they were telling. And the really great ones can have a match and tell a great story. And if you’re just watching it like, Man, this is amazing. But the commentary adds to it.”

On getting in trouble with Vince McMahon:

“Real trouble? Yeah, there’s one story that still kind of rubs me the wrong way to this day. And back between, you know, after 9/11. Unfortunately, there obviously was a war. And we started going to Afghanistan in the Middle East or Iraq and, and it was supposed to be a volunteer trip. So I went I actually wrestled Ric Flair in Afghanistan, one particular trip. And again, I was right next to Vince. It was three groups of six and man I never said no, I took pride. I never say no, I’m the ultimate team player. So I get married and my wife is pregnant with our first child. And yeah, they said, Hey, if you don’t feel comfortable going, there’s no pressure whatsoever. Like do you believe that? So they didn’t believe it I told them from the jump. I never said I was going. I said, No. I show up the day and they take your bags, and because it has to go through screening at the Pentagon or whatever, and they’re like, where’s your bag? And I was like, I told you, we thought you were kidding. I said, at what point did you ever think I was kidding? Did I ever laugh? Did I ever not look you in the eye I say, I’m not going there’s like you’ve never told us know, before, [because my wife’s pregnant]. Thank you. And she didn’t feel comfortable. Yeah. So they had to scramble at the last minute. You got to get passports. It’s a whole big thing. I think it was actually Chris Masters that took my spot on that particular trip, if I remember correctly, but I should have known. I should have known that. It wasn’t just going to end there. So fast forward a week. And at that time, I was out doing commentary, and the show ends and the Undertaker ends the show, and he’s getting ready to walk up the ramp, and the referee comes over and the music’s playing. He’s like, go hit Taker from the back I’m like, why would I do that? That makes no sense. They’re like Vince’s is telling you. There it is. So he was angry that I told him no, and that I went against you know, God forbid you say no to anybody, especially Vince. And so like the team player that I am, I go over and attack the Undertaker he turns around apologises to me and says, I’m sorry, I don’t want to do it throws me for Batista to beat me up. And as he gets done, but Batista’s, music hits, down comes Batista. He does the same thing. Does his 3  finishes, I was so irate, you know that few times in life where you get so angry, you start to cry, like it’s just your emotions are just overwhelming. That was one of those moments. And I didn’t sell. I mean, I just took like five finishes from the two of the biggest stars of all time. I got up and walked to the back, like just in like completely disrespecting them. But I wasn’t thinking about that. At the time, I was thinking, how could I get beat up? When for all these years? I was completely loyal. But yeah, that was that was one of the times where I was so angry because I didn’t deserve it. I didn’t deserve it.”

What is Jonathan Coachman grateful for:

“My family, my career and good people.”

Joseph Ruud (@erickredbeard) is a professional wrestler known as Erick Rowan when he was in WWE as part of the Wyatt Family. He currently wrestles under the name Erick Redbeard. He sits down with Chris Van Vliet in Hollywood, CA to talk about the passing of Windham Rotunda (Bray Wyatt) and Jon Huber (Brodie Lee/Luke Harper), how he joined the Wyatt Family, being The Rock’s last opponent at WrestleMania 32, having the distinction of being one of the last 4 people to pin Roman Reigns, what got his wrestling journey started, his brief appearances in AEW, will he return to WWE, forming The Bludgeon Brothers with Luke Harper, the original plan for what was inside of his cage, his recent acting roles and much more.
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Quote I’m thinking about: Stop being afraid of what could go wrong and start being excited about what could go right.

On the sudden passings of Brodie Lee and Bray Wyatt:

“I’m doing okay. I mean, it’s obviously been rough for the wrestling world. And, you know, it’s just one of those things. And with, you know, the passing of Jon, you know, Brodie, it was a shock. And then with, with Windham, it’s like, you don’t know where to start or begin. And it’s, it’s one of those things that, you know, when you experience loss, it’s like, you don’t know how to react, then I still don’t know how to react. And no matter what I do, I always feel, you know, them with me. And wrestling’s worse, I think, because when I’m in the ring, I spent so much time with them that when I do any show lately, it’s constantly reminded, either by just popping myself in the ring by doing a move and thinking of somebody yelling in the corner at me and laughing or the crowd, reminding me it’s just one of those things. And keeping busy is, you know, my key, to just kind of moving on and, you know, concentrating on my family and myself.”

On becoming a family:

“I mean, each journey is different for everybody. You know, there’s some wrestlers that can’t stand each other, don’t talk to each other outside the ring. It’s just what happens. And, you know, of course, I think me and me and Jon, we went through that stage early on, that’s well publicised that we had this friction between us. And I think it wasn’t until like, towards the end of the Wyatt stuff. And like really, like, when we did The Bludgeon Brothers stuff, that we just had this mutual respect of each other, and basically said, Hey, we’ve been stuck together, we wanted to do single stuff. And for some reason, like, it brought us closer together, which, you know, would have torn apart many teams. But, I think the more time we spent together, the more we gelled as a team. And the more we gelled as friends. And, you know, Windham was no different he was, he was always there, you know, then when I don’t know life, it’s just hard to reflect on these memories and to be able to come up with the correct thing to say because there is no correct or right things to say it’s just, we spent so much time together. And you have tiffs with your family. We have tiffs as a team, we have, and but like, the good thing with the three of us is we usually had one, you know, like, oh, woah guys, calm down, this will be good, like, so like, we never had like crazy fights or anything I can remember it was, it was literally just a family dynamic. And I think that’s what I always remember, especially when we’re riding together early. And we learned really quickly, that we needed to all ride. Nothing, nothing ever happened. But I like I remember, in the beginning, we had to share rooms, and I’m a horrible snorer, like, I need to go get a sleep apnea machine or something because I’m loud. And if you’re sleeping in the same room with me, you’re not getting much sleep. I’m getting great sleep. But getting a pillow thrown at you every night in the middle of the night. And me waking up mid-sleep straight up being like, I can’t help it. Like, I don’t think that’s really gonna help, you know, it’s gonna cause a little friction. So I remember that once we stopped riding together, I think that really helps, you know, all of our friendships because I think we’re all getting better sleep. You know, plus, it’s always good to have a little bit of privacy on the road. You know.”

On being challenged to a fight out of nowhere:

“I mean, it happened to me today. I went to the signing today. It was at 7/11. And this guy was up front this frail individual. And he basically said, you tough, you can fight. And I was like, I don’t fight. I said, and then he’s like, Well, I do. And then he, like, try to get my face. I just walked past him I wasn’t going to start anything. I go in, I buy some energy drinks, whatnot. And as I’m checking out five cop cars are outside, five, which was nuts and obscene to me. And I look, look around with the guys, you know, being talked to by five police officers. And I’m like, as people are working on, like, what happened? Well, I guess the guy’s been threatening everybody that’s been walking through the whole day. So they called the cops and they said, This is LA. So usually the cops don’t show up. But five is pretty overkill.”

On the original Wyatt Family pitch:

“I don’t think there was an original type pitch. I know Windham was trying out this Waylon Mercy-type cult character but there’s no way the company was gonna have a 30-person cult come out you know and travel on the road every week. So I know with Dusty Rhodes’ class we had different people in different versions of people come out with them, one was Rick Thicke who was later in The Ascension. Brodie and me and like one promo we did we kidnapped Enzo for making fun of us, just weird stuff we would try. And when it came time to like they did like a video, but I wasn’t included in this video. I think it was like Eli Cottonwood and I think Audrey Marie and Brodie and they all did like this video concept for the Wyatt family. And then Brodie debuted as the first son on NXT. And then like, two weeks later, like a day before TV they said alright, we want you to be the second son. Okay. Because me and Brodie have been taken for a while down in NXT. It made sense. So I was like, okay, but all I have is trucks. You know. And I was doing like this, this Viking stuff, which I was told it would never work by the way. Viking gimmick won’t work and would never work. So luckily in the trunk of my car, I had pyjama bottoms you know I had jeans but I didn’t want to wear what Brodie was wearing because he was wearing the jeans and the flannel and a shirt. I was like, What the heck am I gonna wear luckily I had a pair of coveralls from a rally shot in Norway from a farm with the bird green coveralls with reflective yellow on them that looked horrendous. But I cut the sleeves off and it seemed to be a good look. Because I was a fan of horror movies just the same as Windham and the Michael Myers aesthetic, the slipknot aesthetic of the coveralls and like cut the sleeves off. So you can actually show some, you know, like physique, because those things don’t really show much physique at all. And they’re very hard to work in. So my movements were extremely limited.”

On AEW:

“I mean, I think there was always something about like, possibly in the future. And it’s always that possibly in the future thing that I always hear. It’s like if it’s the right time, it’s the right time. If it’s the right thing, it’s the right thing. What I loved about wrestling was always surprises. And guys would come out and it’d be like holy crap, this guy just came out. Oh, now he’s got this storyline, this feud, and now he’s a hot commodity. Instead of like, Oh, this guy just came out, where is he now? He hasn’t been on TV for like three weeks. That’s not exciting to me. Like what was exciting to me was these guys like I remember when Nash, Hall and Hogan came. And this was during No Way Out With WWE and it was like, Holy crap. These guys are here now and like then they got stuck in all these top feuds with like the rock, and it was like, it was exciting, because it was like something different to watch. And you are instantly. Hey, this is who I am and this is what I’m going to do and here’s why I’m doing it. Like, and I don’t think there’s a lot of that happening right now.”

On possibly being in The Dark Order:

“So we talked a lot like up when he was doing it because I was always like, I’m so happy for you, you look you’re having a blast. He’s never was given much promo time in WWE. So like watching them do even the BTE episodes, I would watch that just to watch his segments because he’s having fun. He’s speaking and is being this character he wanted to be. And he was a fan of mobster movies and stuff like that. So here I’m watching this giant man doing a Joe Pesci like, it’s crazy, like just is drawing papers that people and you can tell, he’s just having a blast. And I was on the phone with them talking about how happy I was for him. And like he had this like, spark under him about how much fun he was having. And at the same time, I think I had started doing some films, and he was throwing back the same things to me and how excited he was for me, and like what was gonna happen for me in the future. So it was that kind of mutual thing. And then there was never any talk of it. I mean, we talked about maybe doing some signings together, or maybe like doing a couple, you know, like, shows, maybe in Japan or something, but like, we had never talked about doing anything there because he was building something for him. And we had fought so hard to like, get out of each other’s shadows for so long, because we were always connected. And we wanted something for ourselves. And to see him start to get something for himself and for me to be able to branch off and do stuff for myself. Like, those were great conversations to have, you know, and as far as like, after he passes, like, I wouldn’t want anything to do with Dark Order, ever. And it’s not because I don’t think those guys are cool. It’s because that was his legacy. He created that in such a short amount of time, he made them something very special. And nobody should try to replace that. And those guys do good by honouring him, but I don’t see them ever being as big as they were with him.”

On possibly reuniting with Bray Wyatt:

“Windham talked to me about wanting to involve me. But you know, it’s all about timing, and places, and story, and what works best for the company, you know, and it’s not all an individual’s decision. So, yeah, we’ve had conversations about like things we’d like to do and like stuff in the future, but like, you know, life happens and things happen, and unfortunate things happen that are way more important than anything to do with this fictional wrestling that we do.”

On the match with The Rock at WrestleMania 32:

“Well, it was a short one. I don’t know why you gotta remind me of this.  You know, you say it’s an honour. But then I started really thinking about some fan came into the signing today and he was wearing The Rock’s Brahma Bull shirt and I was like, really? Like, come on. You gotta put this in my face and he starts laughing. And it got me thinking, What does Brahma Bull stand for? So what does the Brahma stand for? So I looked it up. Because I was I was curious. Brahma is the Hindu god, that means the creator, the creator bull. So it got me thinking, what the hell does that mean? I really want to know like, how did he come up with that? And you’re gonna gotta be able to ask him that question. Let’s find out why he wanted to be the Brahma Bull. That’s like me being the Loki sheep to the God of mischief. I mean, it’s ridiculous sounding but it actually might work. [How were you selected for that?] Because Braun couldn’t be beat, they had to protect Windham and Jon had just suffered a torn patella. So it would have been paper rock scissors between me and Jon taking the quickest pin. So yeah, I just happened to win the short straw on that one. As Joseph Ruud Yes, it was an honour. As Erick Rowan, that was humiliating.”

On the Daniel Bryan team:

“I mean, we were on the pre-show as tag champions. I mean, what’s that tell you about how they viewed the tag teams at the time, especially when Daniel Bryan was, you know, just World Heavyweight Champion and the Eco Champion. So to go to trying to make the date titles mean something and then being on the pre-show. You know, it’s kind of like kind of like an insult, I guess. But like we, we tried the best we could and at least led some sort of feud. You know what I mean? And then to me, I was happy with the end of it because I finally got to get a microphone and start talking for a few weeks. You know, so, which again, was probably the most fun I’ve had when they’re letting me talk and, you know, kind of like, be a character that I want to be and then the cage stuff happens. But like, you know, I can beat that in the head all I want, you know, but like when you go from talking about a microphone and having a story to basically having no direction and being told not to speak Yeah, it’s kind of a creative headache. It’s kind of like being cast in a TV show and every every week you got like, you know, like your own backstory. And like, you’re like, explaining more yourself to the audience at home and people are getting invested. And then all of a sudden you’re like, in like three episodes in the background, it’s kind of like a deflator.”

What is Erik Rowan grateful for?

“My wife, my kids and my health.”

Carmelo Hayes (@carmelo_wwe) is a professional wrestler with WWE and is currently in NXT. He joins Chris Van Vliet to talk about the meaning of being “Him”, what being the NXT Champion meant to him, his match with opponents like Ilja Dragunov and Bron Breakker, sharing a moment with The Undertaker on NXT, the advice he received from John Cena, how he came up with the name “Christian Cassanova” that he used on the independent circuit, his favorite wrestlers when he was growing up, looking up to Eddie Guerrero, the pressure of being referred to as the future of WWE and much more!

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Quote I’m thinking about: As we express our gratitude, we must never forget that the highest appreciation is not to utter words, but to live by them. – John F. Kennedy

I actually want to start with this. What does it mean to be him?

“I don’t know, if you watched NXT last night, you know, I had a kind of come to Jesus moment. If I’m not champion, and I’m not, you know, the top of the card, am I really him? I think, you know, going into this match with Ilja Dragunov, it really is a question I need to ask myself as what you know, what does that mean to be him? If I’m not champion can I say that I’m him? So that’s kind of the battle that I’m faced with myself. But you know, it’s easy to say you are him when you’re successful. And everything’s going your way and you got all the championships and you’re killing it. But to really ask yourself, What does it mean to be him with nothing to show for it is a question I’m still trying to find out.”

You know, that brings me to a really interesting question. Do you think you’ll learn more from a win? Or do you learn more from a loss?

“Yeah, absolutely a loss. If you look at my track record in NXT, I’ve had a title longer than I haven’t. So you know, that chasing kind of story that I’ve had to do has been few and far between. So I’m finding myself on a lot of these losses. You know, it’s easy, you when you’re at the top and everything is going your way, but down at the bottom, you have to climb your way back to the top. That’s where you find yourself.”

I feel like you’re right. It is weird seeing you without a title around your waist, around your shoulder.

“It’s nice, though, because you know, the pressure in the microscope of having a championship isn’t always on you. That’s the one difference that I think about not being champion, but at the same time, when you get into anything, you know, especially with wrestling, you want to be champion. If you’re not trying to be a champion, then what’s the point? You know, what’s the chase for? So, you know, obviously, I want to be back champion again.”

You had a heck of a show a few weeks ago, a lot of people are calling this NXT WrestleMania. And here you are in the main event, you’re doing stuff with John Cena, you’re doing something with The Undertaker who shows up, walk me through what that day was like for you.

“It was like a dream. It was like a fever dream. And like, it’s funny, a lot of people kept, you know, hitting me up the day after and you know, that night. It was like, I almost couldn’t believe that it happened. But there was that moment where you’re like, Look, I’m a pro. And I’m gonna be in this moment and I understand the assignment, I remember there was a moment where I was a little kid and I’m like, shoot, this is freaking cool, man. This is really cool. The whole thing with Taker at the end, you know, I didn’t know that was gonna happen. I just, didn’t know what to do. I just kind of was like, let me just walk back with him. And he walked me through the whole thing with the pose and everything. I was just sitting there like a kid. And I remember walking back through I was like, that was so freakin cool. He just patted me on the back. But it was a great moment. Just a cool experience. And something I will never forget.”

You did the move at the same time. Like, how did you figure all that out? If you didn’t know he’s gonna happen?

“Well, he told me, he said, All right on 3, 1, 2, 3. Now don’t mess this up. Don’t mess this up. But it was just cool. Man. Those guys were just great to work with. And like I said, just a dream. The kid in me was screaming but the pro in me was like, run the play.”

Did you have a chance to spend some time with Undertaker after that and maybe pick his brain a little bit?

“So I actually talked to Taker a bunch of times before that. So like we you know, he actually sat down with me one time for like an hour. And we just talked. Same thing with Cena. So I mean, it wasn’t my first interaction with these guys, which is probably better, because now they’re familiar with me. I’m familiar with them. But yeah, I mean, any opportunity I get to talk to Taker, any opportunity, I get to talk to Paul Heyman and John Cena. I take every single one. And those guys are more than generous with their time, especially with young talent that wants to learn. And we all want to learn in  NXT so you know, they were very, very gracious with their time for sure.”

And let’s add one more name to that. I mean, you get to work with Shawn Michaels week in and week out. 

“I mean, just this morning, just getting to talk to him for a little bit. Just you know, just relays how proud he is of the work that we’re doing. And you know what we’re creating at NXT it’s just reassuring. But I’ve learned so much from him and not even what you would think you know, I mean, a lot of people be like, Oh man, the in-ring stuff, you know, but no, it’s not. It’s there’s way more to this than what people realise. It’s a lot to do with the facials a lot to do with the demeanour and character, we’re at that stage right now.”

I’m glad you touched on that. Because I think there’s a lot of people that are in the position that you were in a few years ago where you’re making a huge name for yourself on the Indies. And then I think that people think if you’re a great independent wrestler, you’re going to be automatically great in NXT, or on the main roster. Like you said, there’s a lot of elements, a lot of components that you don’t do in the indies, that you now do where you’re at right now.

“For sure, I mean, when I first came in, it was right on the tail end of black and gold. So that was like a super work rate style. And going into 2.0 it was a lot more character-based. And I kind of realised I said, Man, I got to do the best of both worlds. Not that I was a super character on the indies. But I understood kind of now what it’s gonna take to do television, wrestling, entertainment, World Wrestling Entertainment, I kind of understood that, and realise that you gotta have an equal balance of, you know, work rate, but at the same time, entertainment value. I think that’s what helped me excel. And I’m still learning how to this day.”

So let’s talk about your time on the indies. How did you come up with the name Christian Casanova?

“So when I went to do a one day fantasy camp, so it was like a tryout camp one of my buddies brought me and he said, let’s do this. And I loved wrestling. I wasn’t, to be honest, I wasn’t really paying attention to WWE at that time. So I’m like, 18, you know, 19. And he’s like, come and do this one day, we used to love wrestling as a kid. And I wanted to because I always wanted to be a wrestler. It just seems so far out of reach. You know what I mean? You just didn’t know how to get into it. You didn’t know how to do it. And I was small. So I’m just thinking, it’s just, you know, I’m not these guys. But so we went and, you know, we were going to do a promo, I needed a name. I remember thinking to myself, my name is Christian, my real name is Christian. And I’m like, Cassanova. And I am like that sounds smooth, and I was just kind of ran with it. Never forget my first show. One of the Bookers was like, oh, that’s an awful name, we’re gonna change that. And just never got changed as ran with it.”

So then, how do you go from Christian Casanova into the position you’re in right now? What goes into picking the name Carmelo Hayes?

“Sure, it was just understanding that evolution is required in wrestling in general, in this business. Me as a person, like the best part about it was I was a kid in the business, and I grew up, you know, through wrestling, and I had to evolve because of, you know, my circumstances, and then my experiences and you know, I was just seeing my evolution as a human being, as well as a wrestler and, you know, transformed the whole Carmelo thing. Obviously, you know how that works. You get signed to NXT, you know, you’re not going to take the same name. So I’m thinking of, like, names that are relatable that people can know but that’s not like an overused name. And I’m thinking sports and I’m thinking, you know, music and pop culture. And I just remember Carmelo was just one of many names I threw out. The Hayes name was like purple haze. I remember the conversation was with Hunter. He maybe I thought it might have been a little bit too, you know, gimmicky with haze, like so they changed it to like Michael Hayes. So it was like, you know how that works. And you give them a couple of names. And then they kind of put them together in a name generator, it’s true. But I love my name now.”

Does this mean you have some sort of distant relationship to Michael Hayes?

“Every time I see him, I call him my pops, he goes this is my son right here. Every time I see him.”

When you started watching wrestling, who was your guy? 

“So when I first started watching wrestling, I loved Rey Mysterio. I remember I watched his debut. So that’s how I can like put a timeline on when I was watching. I remember when he debuted. Edge I loved Edge. I loved Eddie Guerrero. Cena, of course, like Taker, Kane RVD. Booker, Rock obviously, Stone Cold man, all those guys. There were so many big names back then.” 

I think one of the biggest things with you is when your name gets brought up. Everybody goes Melo is the future. Does that put pressure on you? Or does that make you excited for what’s possible?

“No, it puts pressure on me just holds high expectations. And I love it in that way. It’s not a bad thing at all. Like it’s a super compliment. But I do understand that in a lot of fans’ eyes and other people’s eyes. They’re just looking at me kind of like Oh, everybody says you’re the man, they’re looking for faults. And it’s hard. It’s tough. You know what I mean? Because it’s like, you just want to go out and do what you do. And you don’t want to be super microscoped. But it comes with the job. And it comes with, you know the pressure of that. And I’d rather that than say you know he’s underrated or whatever, I’d rather people rate property. Because I truly do believe I am the future. And it’s nice to know that your peers at the same.”

You just came into WWE. It’s such an interesting time, like when you were in the PC, you’re one of the few people in the PC at that time who has a background in wrestling, like you were an indie star. And there’s a lot of people in the PC at that time who are collegiate athletes or, you know, something along those lines. How different was that being in the PC where you’ve got this background but maybe you’re not what they’re looking for at that time? Maybe you’re not what they were recruiting?

“Sure. Yeah, I was one of few. There wasn’t a lot. It wasn’t too many, especially now. It’s even fewer. But I knew you know, it was, a lot of people could look at that like maybe being envious that they didn’t have to go through what I had to go through but truly I was not envious at all because I felt leaps and bounds ahead. Like I’ve got so many cool experiences that I feel like I’ve been in most situations before that set me up for success in WWE. So you know, a lot of them are experiencing things for the first time. I’m like, Man, I got my butt kicked about five times for messing up something like this is nothing you know, or I’ve been in this position before in a match where something goes wrong. Or you know, they’ve experienced it for the first time on live TV. Thankfully, I got to experience it in front of 50 people, you know, for 50 bucks. But it’s just it’s one of those things where I root for everybody because I understand like, this is not easy, man. This is not easy. And if you’re willing to give up your life for this because it is that bro, like it’s 24/7. And, you know, I commend these guys coming in and opening up to a new world. This is a new world, man.”

So when you look at these matches with you and Ilja Dragunov, these are intense. These are stiff. What’s the conversation like before you get in the ring with him? Because it sure feels like you guys are giving it to each other.

“There’s no conversation. It’s just what’s understood is understood. You know what I mean, he’s so fantastic at what he does, that there’s like you almost have that expectation of hey, I’m going to get into the ring and it’s not going to be a night off. Not like anybody has nights off in wrestling but it’s not going to be, you’re going to fight for your life in a good way, you know I mean because those are the matches that are most highly regarded you know my matches especially. People love those matches so to me it’s like whatever we got to do let’s go all out, it’s what happens and if they’re happy I’m happy.”

How sick are you of people talking about Melo and the main roster because you get it every day I’m sure.

“Yeah, I’m not sick of it. But it’s just kind of like I wish people would just appreciate the time that I’m in right now and stop trying to future-book me. You know what I mean? Just like let’s living in the moment because I’ve been able to do that. And if I can do that, you all can do that. I’m super excited for what’s to come. A year ago, I was like, you know, a little bit antsy about it. And then I realised I said, You know what, let me just embrace the spirit in my life. Because, you know, we’re gonna have all those moments down the road, but you know, this period right now, you only get this one time, you know, I mean, the come up, you know, the rise, and I’ve been grateful enough to be in such a great position and then ecstasy where it’s truly been an uphill rise. So, you know, I couldn’t complain if I wanted to. So I just want the fans to just enjoy this process right now and see me grow. Because you know, once you get to the main roster, it’s like starting from scratch. It’s like a baby. So you know, this form of Carmelo Hayes is probably not gonna be the same form of Carmelo Hayes on the main roster. So to say, Let’s just enjoy this now while it’s there.”

I’m gonna put you on the spot here. What’s your favourite Shawn match?

“You know, an underrated match man. I loved him and Jeff Jarrett. I really enjoyed that match. A lot of people don’t give that match a lot of credit. I really enjoyed that match. I mean, he has so many I love that version of Shawn. And then obviously you know his matching taker like For the storyteller, his metric, Kurt, you really can get into that. And it’s so funny because he’ll joke about he’s like, I don’t know why they show. You know, here at the PC, they show you guys me and Takers like we had 30 years. You know, he’s like, tell you guys to do it like this when we had 30 years of you know what I mean? Of building up our names like, you guys can’t do this for another 20-some years. But yeah.”

I thought it was so cool to see you in the ring with Cody Rhodes like to make sure that he would have the clearance to be able to wrestle again. How were you selected as that guy?

“So I know Cody had like, he’d been reaching out and helping me out give me like little pointers and telling me that things are good and giving me like, you know, just talking to me a little bit about certain matters prior to that. And then I know he was getting ready to come back from the Rumble. And he had picked Joe Gacy myself to kind of work around with him. I think it had a lot to do with you know, Joe Gacy being a little bit bigger, me being a little bit more agile and faster. And then obviously Cody, you know, just want to get to know us younger talent and stuff like that. But it was a huge honour. And like I said in his documentary, I didn’t feel like I was helping him. I felt like he was helping me. He was fine. He was chilling but I was like, Oh my god. This is how these guys do it. This is such a difference when you get in there with guys like that. Is such a difference like you like oh, this is that pacing this is that you know I mean, this is that energy. This is where you turn it up here. Like I learned a lot with Cody. I really did.”

There was a video that I think you posted of John Cena backstage with you and Trick and he’s wearing your glasses and putting you guys over. Did that just kind of randomly happen?

“Yeah, he is cool when he just was like, whatever. Yeah, sure. Like you can because people forget that. That dude was like the coolest man so funny when they’re like on the tail end where they’re just kind of like, I used to be this back in the day. I’m like, dude, Thuganomics. That was so cool. I got Yeah, I told him. I said, Can we do the bang, bang and then do the Thuganomics thing he thought about it first. He’s like, Yeah, I was like, let’s go. I’m thinking man, that was cool.”

There’s a lot of fans that saw that moment with The Undertaker and putting the arm up as kind of a passing of the torch moment. Do you see it as that?

“I don’t know. I mean, it was cool to be in that moment. You know, it’s hard to say like, when you’re in it, and it’s you. It’s different. You know, I mean, I’m sure it’s like other people can interpret things like from the outside perspective on the inside. To me, it was like it was business. It was like this is this is what we’re doing. And you don’t get too caught up in. What does this mean? Does it just mean, I’m the next guy. Like, we don’t get caught up in that because we got TV next Tuesday. And John Cena is not going to be there. And The Undertaker is not going to be you know, I’m saying so it’s like, we don’t get caught up in those things. I know a lot of fans do. And that’s awesome. You know, I mean, I love that for them. But truly, as entertainers, and as you know, being those guys in there, and pros like we have to focus on what we got to do. So I don’t get caught up in any of that. That was freaking cool as hell, I can’t deny that. But you know, if I’m the guy or whatever, whatever, that’s not on my mind. Just thinking about our we got to TV next Tuesday. Let’s kill that and just focus on that.”

When I put out on Twitter that I was going to be sitting down with you today. Everyone’s like, You got to ask him. Why did he attack Trick Williams?

“Right. Why did I do it when there’s no proof that I did it? What a crazy question I’m telling you, man, it feels like a witch hunt, it is crazy. I post a thing with my girl on her birthday people like Oh, happy birthday, but also why did you attack Trick? Can I live? I mean, listen, like people just say things you know. I’m holding my ground on now. I’m staying on my business. You know, I mean, assume on that. And you know, people are going to get an apology. I would never do this on my boy. Especially not over a championship.”

What are three things in your life that you’re grateful for right now?

“Well, for my health, my mindset, and I’m grateful for just the people around me and the positive support that I have and the love that I get from a lot of people.”

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Welcome back to another AskCVV episode! Chris Van Vliet is answering your questions from social media about wrestling, movies, content creation and everything in between! If you have one that you want answered next month, don’t forget to send it in using the hashtag #AskCVV!

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Quote I’m thinking about:
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You posted a poll about it. But do you think CM Punk or Randy Orton or maybe both of them show up at Survivor Series?

“It’s a very good question, and that’s why I put the poll out because I didn’t want to vote. I didn’t want to vote on that poll. I wanted to see what you guys had to say. According to the poll results, the winner of that poll was everybody thinks Randy Orton is coming back. And then the second was Randy Orton and CM Punk. Third was CM Punk. And then fourth was neither of them are coming back. I don’t think that neither of them are coming back. I think we’re getting Randy Orton, for sure. And it’s gonna be massive because it feels like he’s been gone for so long. And we already knew how good Randy Orton was. But him coming back is going to be this nice reminder of man, he’s even better than I remembered him being. But everything seems to be lining up for CM Punk to be there in Chicago for Survivor Series. And WWE has been dropping these little hints, whether they are on purpose, or they’re accidental. I just feel like there are too many that have been going on for this to be a coincidence. WWE could just be completely trolling us at this point. And I feel like when you go to any WWE post on Instagram, the USA Network account is totally trolling people. Like they’ll make these posts and they’ll say, like, Look in my eyes, what do you see? And it’s like, okay, we see what you’re doing here at USA Network. And I like it. Even if CM Punk doesn’t show up. I feel like everybody’s going to be looking at the show and watching the show thinking that he might, because it’s a big question mark. Right. It’s not like when he showed up on AEW, it got to the point where Tony Khan basically said without saying like, hey, there’s a really big surprise and if I was you, I wouldn’t miss Collision tonight and basically said without saying like CM Punk is gonna be there. And maybe that’ll happen between now and Survivor Series, but that hasn’t happened yet. So I think what this does, is it brings a lot of eyeballs to Survivor Series. Maybe it brings a lot of casual fans who haven’t watched in a while maybe it brings a lot of AEW fans who haven’t watched the WWE PLE in a while maybe it brings them over, spend that $4.99 on Peacock to watch Survivor Series. And even if he doesn’t show up, you’ve got a pretty stacked card. And if he doesn’t show up, you just gained a bunch of people who watched probably a very solid show. That probably also had a return from Randy Orton. So I don’t know. I mean, nobody knows, right? This is the best guess from anybody. But it sure seems like CM Punk is not quite done with pro wrestling. And it just doesn’t feel like an accident. Remember there was that run there where he was making amends with everybody. He showed up at Impact. And then he showed up at WWE and very quickly got told to leave. I don’t feel like he did that just because. I feel like he was planting some seeds and just seeing what was possible, seeing how he’d be received. And it just feels like with Triple H in charge. I feel like Triple H could book this in a way where it’s very interesting to watch on TV and it’s also booked in a way, done in a way where behind the curtain. Maybe there aren’t the issues like there were in AEW alleged issues, we really don’t know what happened behind the scenes, we can speculate all we want. But we really don’t know what happened there. And so it’s all third and fourth-hand information and hearsay. But what I think is that Triple H would lay down the law and be like, Look, if you are coming back, you are coming back under these very strict rules here. But if you think about it, it’s been nine years since he left, it’s almost 10, actually, in 2014, but like the beginning of 2014. So it’s been almost 10 years since he was in WWE. And there are a lot of people who credit their fandom now to the pipe bomb bringing them back into this like new era of like, is this real? Is this a work? I don’t know what’s going on. I think that there’s there’s something there. And even if he doesn’t show up, and I don’t know this for a fact at all. But even if he doesn’t show up, I feel like those options have been explored in great detail. But I will tell you this, I will be there at Survivor Series. This will be no surprise. So if you’re going to be there in Chicago, it’d be awesome to be able to say hello to you and give you a high five and shake your hand. But I will be there. You may see me in the post-show press scrum. Hopefully, I’ll have my hand up. Hopefully, I’ll be able to ask a question, but you will see me there. And I hope to see you there.” 

What do you think about TNA coming back?

“I love it. I love it because there was no one that was a bigger TNA fan from about 2005 to about 2007-2008. I went to so many shows, they came to Oshawa, Ontario, which is maybe like 20 minutes from where I grew up in Pickering, Ontario. I remember sitting online and refreshing the screen and getting front-row tickets for a house show. And then they came back not long after that I got second-row tickets to a pay-per-view. I don’t want to get it wrong here. But I was let me see. TNA No Surrender 2008. And what a card there, September 14 2008, at the General Motors Center in Oshawa, Ontario. So all of this is to say, I love it. And I get why they’re doing it. Nostalgia sells. Like I think that’s a really big thing that works in the pro wrestling industry is nostalgia. That’s why we see these returns from people like the Undertaker, from Sting or Stone Cold Steve Austin or The Rock. Because nostalgia is this drug that cannot be replicated by anything else. It takes you back to a time and a place. And when you hear that music hit, you go, Oh my gosh, I remember whatever the memory happens to be insert it there. And with TNA I think that even though it’s officially been Impact Wrestling for the last many years, there’s still a giant portion of the fan base that has just continued to call this TNA. They’ll even be wrestlers that work there currently that will refer to it as TNA. So I think for everybody, it really has just been TNA. And I think that when you think about TNA and Impact Wrestling, everybody automatically goes back to TNA being like the time that they loved and the superstars that they loved there. And the roster that was just so incredibly stacked, AJ Styles, Samoa Joe, Christopher Daniels, Kurt Angle, the list goes on and on and on and on Motor City Machine Guns and Beer Money Inc. You know, Abyss, I mean, like look, I’m gonna miss so many people, but you get the point here. This is a stacked roster. But here’s what I think. If they are going to go all the way in here, to borrow a line from TNA. If they are going to cross the line then they’ve got to go all the way in here. They can’t just dip their toe in and call it TNA but still looks and feels a lot like Impact. Like, it really comes down to this. If it’s going to truly be TNA wrestling, you know where I’m going with this, they’ve got to have the six-sided ring. Without the six-sided ring, it just still feels like Impact Wrestling with a different name. So if you’re going to do it all the way if you’re going to cross the line, you’ve got to go with the old logo, you’ve got to go with the six-sided ring, you’ve got to go with everything that made TNA TNA with of course, the exception of you know, a lot of the roster is already signed the contracts elsewhere, which you’re obviously not gonna get. But the six-sided ring is a must. And I don’t think that information is going to be leaked out at all. I think when that first TNA event happens in January, in Las Vegas, I think that we’re going to all look at that, and we’re gonna go oh, my gosh, it happened. It’s a six-sided ring. And I think it’s gonna be a lot like what they’re doing with the CM Punk thing. It’s one of those like, could it be? Is it we’re not sure. I don’t know, oh, my gosh, and then you tune in and you see it. So it’ll be very, very interesting. It’ll be very, very interesting. When that happens, Hard To Kill January 13 2024. And what a fitting name for the pay-per-view. Because if nothing else, TNA has been very hard to kill. And I for one will not just be tuning in, I will be there. So if you happen to be in Las Vegas for Hard to Kill in January. I will see you there, my friends.”

Will LA Knight be a one-shot wonder or will he continue his hot shot run post Crown Jewel?

“Well, look, I think we’re all going into Crown Jewel expecting LA Knight to not win. And I don’t think that that’s a big surprise. Roman Reigns has been the champion for the better part of three years. But I don’t think that it is a bad thing. That doesn’t mean that everybody who’s faced him over the last three years and has lost has looked bad, there is a way to lose and still look strong. I actually think that this puts him in a better spot than he was a few months ago when he was so close to getting that Money in The Bank briefcase and didn’t get it. Now he has a title shot on a huge show, but I will say that Crown Jewel just falls into this kind of weird. Like, it’s just you know what I mean? It doesn’t feel like it’s totally within canon. It kind of feels like an alternate reality. It just feels like it’s another universe in Crown Jewel and things could happen there that I don’t know, maybe don’t make a lot of sense. And you know, we’ve seen some strange returns happen there and some strange matches happen. So I think we’re all going into that expecting we know the outcome of that match. And no, I think that LA Knight continues the momentum because he’s the most over wrestler I was gonna say in WWE, but he might be the most over wrestler on the face of the planet right now. And I don’t think the WWE gives him a title shot at Crown Jewel and then that’s it, he doesn’t get another title shot, doesn’t get anything else ever again after that. So I think that this is actually gonna be a true test of like, how over is he? We know he’s pretty over. But when you see a crowd overseas chanting for him cheering for him louder than anywhere else. I think that that’s a true test that he is the most over so I think that win or lose. In terms of the actual match, he comes out a winner. For sure.”

Who do you think was the most entertaining interview?

“It’s got to be The Rock. Because what you see with The Rock on social media is who The Rock is, when you interview him, you know, on camera, off camera, that is who The Rock is. And he brings it, just bring it, I didn’t even mean to do that. Just bring it! But The Rock brings it. The Rock is very hyper-aware of the fact that like there are cameras there, this is going to be a moment that is going to get shared everywhere. And he does whatever he can to make it such a great moment. And I just have a huge respect for the celebrities that do bring it. And even though maybe he’s not looked upon with a great amount of favour right now, Will Smith brings it when you interview him. He brings this massive amount of energy and this charisma that’s so infectious. And he’s just so engaging in the conversation. So Will Smith’s another one Anthony Mackie, same thing, just this magnetic personality. So there are just a few right off the top of my head like entertaining, fun. Yeah, it’s just a great time and Will Sasso recently. How good was that? If you haven’t gone and checked out that episode, from the second we started rolling, he was making funny faces and doing voices. And the whole hour that we spent with him was just like me, trying my hardest to not laugh over what he was doing to ruin the audio of it. So good.” 

It feels like you’ve interviewed everyone. Is there anybody that you haven’t interviewed yet?

“Yeah, the list is pretty long. And I know it’s been a really good run over these last few months. And I appreciate you for being with us no matter who the guest has been. But yeah, there’s a lot of people, if we’re talking just wrestling here. I still haven’t done an interview with Bret Hart, which I’m working on. I mean, I just interviewed Nattie and I said, Hey, next time you see your uncle Bret, could you find a good word for CVV here and she said she would. Shawn Michaels, I haven’t interviewed yet. Randy Orton, Samoa Joe. Although I met Samoa Joe years ago at an indie show in Ontario, Canada. But I haven’t interviewed him. Christian Cage who I also met if you saw the way back Wednesday post that I put out, I met him in 2001. The same day, I met Kurt Angle and Trish Stratus, she’s another one I haven’t interviewed before. Edge. I guess we’re calling him Adam Copeland now, which let me just go off on a very, very short tangent here. It’s so interesting to me. How when someone changes their name and pro wrestling, just like that, you’re not calling him Edge anymore? it’s Adam Copeland. That’s great. But How funny is it that when the stadium where your favourite sports team changes their name, you can’t use like, I’m not calling it that anymore. And it’ll always be the Staples Center to me, I’m not calling it the crypto.com arena. And I’ll always be Skydome to me, even though I changed his name to Roger Center, like 15 years ago, it’s just so funny to me how people are like, I would rather call it this corporate name, I would rather call it Staples rather than crypto.com arena or whatever it happens to be. I find that so funny. But in pro wrestling, the person Edge is actually a perfect example. On Saturday, he was Edge and then the next day hours later, he was Adam Copeland and fans will not call him Edge anymore. And I just find that so interesting. That is a little side there. AJ Styles who I’ve met but never interviewed. I did an interview with Kevin Nash years ago. And it’s such a sad story. But the audio cable for the mic wasn’t completely plugged in. This is when I was recording all my interviews on an iPhone. It wasn’t completely plugged in. And we got the video of the interview. But the audio wasn’t there. And I was so sad. We were driving home from this, it was in Orlando was driving home and I said to my buddy Jamil. I said Oh, hit play on that interview. And I’m like, Yeah, turn the volume up. He’s like, the volume is up. I’m like, What do you mean? Like, turn it up what’s going on here? I don’t hear anything. And he’s like, I don’t hear anything either. And then we very quickly found out that there was no audio. So there is a lost Kevin Nash interview. That’s it we lost it. So I feel like I need to do another Kevin Nash interview. And in terms of celebrity interviews, there’s a bunch, but quickly off the top of my head, Matthew McConaughey, and I love who he’s become and what he’s become. And if you haven’t read Greenlights, what a fantastic autobiography, and I would encourage you to listen to the audiobook on that one. He says so many great little stories that he adds on there. Martin Scorsese, I haven’t interviewed him yet. And Christopher Nolan, who I think is the best director working today. And every movie that he puts out is so good. And I would just love to talk to him specifically about his fascination with time. Because think about it, think about the way that he views time. It’s so interesting, every movie, from Inception to Dunkirk to Interstellar to Oppenheimer, they all play around Memento, of course, they all play around with time, and I would just love to dive into a conversation about that.” 

Why did you interview Hulk Hogan? All he does is lie.

“What a great question. And it’s so funny to me when I put that interview up on YouTube. It was up for like four minutes. And there were already like a dozen comments that were like all he does is lie. Look how many lies there are here. Why would you even give this person the time of day when it’s just going to be an hour of lies? And look, I get it if you don’t like Hulk Hogan, the wrestler it’s fine. If you don’t like Hulk Hogan, the person, that’s okay, too. But what was so fascinating to me about those comments was if I go back through them now, and there were like 100,000 views in that YouTube video. There’s not anyone who actually like bullet-pointed out the lies. I know it’s this cool thing right now, because of that Jim Cornette episode, or it’s this cool thing right now because of some threads on Reddit of like, Hulk Hogan is a liar. And sure I get it. He embellishes a lot of stories. And there’s also a lot of apocryphal things that he says, but I don’t think he’s like going into these going, I’m gonna pull a fast one. Like, I don’t think he’s, he’s trying to like, lie, I really think that he has a terrible memory. I’ll give you a perfect example of this. When I asked him about like, a final match, he said he wanted to have one with John Cena. And he’s like, oh, yeah, we were talking about it happening at WrestleMania 25 in Orlando. And everyone’s like, Oh, there he is lying again. Everybody knows WrestleMania 24 was in Orlando. WrestleMania 25 was in Houston. Hulk Hogan, What a liar. It’s like, come on, he’s almost 70 old. Like I’m sure that he doesn’t know the location of every single WrestleMania all the way back from, you know, 39 all the way back to one, just because he said that WrestleMania 25 was in Orlando. he misspoke, it’s not a lie. He misspoke. We make mistakes all the time. And I just think it’s so funny that he gets picked on. Like, there’s plenty and I get it. I get it. There’s a lot of crazy stories out there. They are well documented. I get it. I just think though, that it’s become this fad to just like, instead of appreciate the conversation for what it isn’t. And sure, maybe there are a few Apocryphal Tales inside of there. But instead of appreciating the conversation for what it is, there are just these garbage comments, and I just don’t get it. I just don’t get if you don’t like Hulk Hogan, that’s fine. But I will tell you this. When Terry walked into the room, we shook hands, and it gave me a hug. And he introduced himself to my videographer who was working with me in Tampa, Harry Aaron, who’s fantastic. He said, Hey, good to meet you. I’m Terry. It wasn’t like, oh, what’s going on there, brother Hulkster here, like Terry himself, was fantastic. And I loved being able to sit across from Terry at Hogan’s Hangout in Clearwater Beach, and have a conversation for an hour. It’s one of my favourite episodes of the year. And I know that other than that very loud, very small minority of people who are leaving those trash comments. I know that I’ve had more people reach out to me over the last few weeks since that Hogan episode came out saying that they loved it. And it’s one of their favourite episodes too. And yeah, he’s an absolute legend. Pro Wrestling is where it’s at right now because of what Hulk Hogan In and Vince McMahon built in the 1980s. And you know this, and I’ve talked about it a great length Rock Hogan, my favourite match. And in my opinion, the greatest wrestling match of all time.” 

What are your favourite dad moments?

“Oh man, there’s a lot. She turns five months old on Sunday, the 29th. It’s just the little moments, like her smiling for the first time. She laughed the other day, for the first time. And there’s just something about the way that a baby looks at you with this, like, excitement and wonder. And that’s it. And it’s just those moments where you are their world. They’re looking at you, they’re looking at Mommy, they’re looking at the dog, and there’s just this excitement. And yeah, look, there’s gonna be so many more moments I could, I could be asked this question on every single one of these Ask CVVs. And I’d have a different answer as she continues to get older. And don’t worry, I won’t do that for all of the non-dads out there. The non-parents out there, I will not bore you with this. But I’m just saying it gets, it’s just so exciting. Every single day, there’s something new every single week, there’s something new, it’s all these new milestones. So it’s all of that. It’s all of that. And I love being Logan’s dad, she’s the best.”

What’s been the biggest challenge for balancing being a content creator and being a dad?

“I think the biggest thing is time, the biggest thing has been time, like, especially with workouts. I would drive to the gym so that’s, you know, 10-ish minutes, I would work out I would sauna, then I would drive home. So that’s, you know, an hour and a half-ish, maybe a little bit more. And now it’s like, if the baby goes to sleep, let’s go to the garage and bang out some squats and do whatever we can with the dumbbells and kettlebells in there. So that’s been the biggest thing is managing time. And it’s also so hard like I travel a tonne with work. And I’m going to be I don’t know if I’m supposed to like be leaking this out. But I’m going to be at the world premiere for the Iron Claw in a location to be announced later. The time and date to be announced at another time. But that’s in Dallas, already said it. It’s a trip, right? So I’m travelling for that I’m going to be in Las Vegas next week. It’s balancing that too. And I just feel like it’s so much harder every time to leave get on a plane and to sleep away from both Rachel and Logan. And but I will say it makes it feel so much more special when I come back. It’s just so exciting to come back. So that’s I think that’s been the biggest thing is time is balancing all the time.” 

When you moved houses, how did you know what room was right as your new podcasting studio? How did you move all your equipment without being damaged? 

“For me, I’ve moved a lot. And I think the biggest thing is, if the interview is going to be happening on camera, I just need good lighting. That’s it, whether it’s natural lighting coming through a window, or it’s the studio lights that I have inside my office right now, lighting is the most important thing. But when I first moved to Los Angeles three years ago, I didn’t have my furniture, hadn’t made it yet. I just had what I packed in my car when I drove out. So I did a few interviews where I set up my laptop on moving boxes, and I was sitting on a separate moving box. So if you go check out my interview, specifically with Wade Barrett, the lighting is fine, because I had a big bright window in front of me. But you’d never know it. But I was using a moving box as the desk. So that was a big thing for me was just finding good lighting. And when we moved into the house that we’re in now, it was pretty clear there was like an office space on the main floor of the house. The bedrooms are upstairs on the second floor. So on the main floor of the house where I’m sitting right now is very clearly like an office although didn’t have a door. So we had to like get a door installed here. So that you know, keep some of the sound in here. For the second part there. How did you move all your equipment without being damaged? I just packed it carefully. It’s not a tonne of equipment. For me at least it’s a microphone which I’m speaking into right now. I just put that in my suitcase. I wrapped it up in a bunch of clothes and that was it. I actually travelled with it on occasion with the camera. I put it in a camera case and the lights, I just folded them down. And that was it, I put them in my own car. I didn’t trust those to the movers. I didn’t trust those to like put it in a box. And I’ve moved, I’ve moved a tonne l I’ve moved from a different country to the country I live in now I’ve moved from Canada to the US. I mean, look okay, I’ll go over Toronto, Vancouver back to Toronto, Cleveland, Miami, Fort Lauderdale, Cincinnati, Studio City, Costa Mesa, California. Now I live in Orange County, California. So a lot of moves there. So I don’t trust anything that I really want to keep tabs on to the movers or to boxes, those things go in my car. So I think that that’s a really big thing. That’s camera equipment. That’s, you know, other personal effects if you will, but yeah, that’s it for me.” 

Have you seen Wrestlers on Netflix?

“Yes, of course, I’ve seen wrestlers on Netflix. And it’s fantastic. And I always get a little bit worried when there’s going to be a show about pro wrestling because I don’t feel like it’s always shown in the best light. But Wrestlers far exceeded any expectations that I had. And I’ve been to Ohio Valley Wrestling and Al Snow is awesome. I would call Al Snow a friend. Oh, yeah, I stayed in a house with him and some other people. And Dave Hero WrestleMania two years ago in Dallas, and he’s awesome. We were like, late at night 2 a.m. eating pizza. And he was telling great stories, I love Al. And I love how wrestlers have showcased who Al is and what he’s all about. I love that it shows the good and the bad of the wrestling world. So with that said, I’ve been trying to get Al on the show and sounds like we’re going to be able to do an interview when he’s in Los Angeles next week. So keep an eye out. Keep an ear out for that one coming up real soon. But I love the show. And I love what they did with it and the way it’s shot, the way it’s edited the stories they tell there, so so good.” 

Do you think we’re in the best era for wrestling? 

“That is tough. That’s so tough because I don’t think you can really gauge an era until the era is done. And going back to that concept of nostalgia when we were talking about TNA. I think that the Attitude Era is looked upon so favourably now because it has the rose-coloured glasses of nostalgia that we are looking at it through and don’t get me wrong, the Attitude Era was great. But for every Stone Cold Steve Austin, Triple H Undertaker, Mick Foley, The Rock, for all the great stuff that was going on there. There were also some pretty questionable storylines that were happening there. Naked Mideon is one that like immediately pops to mind. There was just you know, for everything good that was happening there. There was also some bad stuff sprinkled in. So I will say we are in an incredible time right now. And if not the best time in pro wrestling. It’s certainly one of the best times. And I think we all kind of understand that wrestling is cyclical. Wrestling gets hot for a while, and then it kind of cools off and loses the excitement and then it gets hot again. It’s hot again right now. It is red hot again, right now. Whether that’s WWE, AEW, TNA now, New Japan, or whatever it is wrestling is exciting again, now. So if it’s not the best era, it’s certainly one of them. And I think there’s gonna be an entire generation of people who either weren’t born during the Attitude Era or were too young to really appreciate the Attitude Era that are going to be talking about this era, whatever it’s called, that’s going on right now. They’re going to be talking about this in 10 and 20 and 30 years, there’s going to be a whole lot of people in 10 ish, 20 ish years, who are going to go I became a wrestling fan because of that era that was happening in the early 2020s. And I wanted to become a pro wrestler because of what was going on in the early 2020s. And we’re gonna see, I think, some amazing talent coming out of being fans of this era in the same way that we’re seeing amazing wrestlers now, and we have for the last 5-10 years because they were huge fans during the Attitude Era. So I’m super excited for that. But I think it’s so hard to be able to pinpoint and like put your finger on of like, is it the best? I don’t know. Let’s judge this in 20 years asked me that again on Ask CVV number 614 or something like that.” 

What is the best piece of advice that you’ve ever received? 

“Three words from John Cena, control the controllable. That’s it. And I’ve talked about this before, but you know, quickly, it’s just the idea of, we can’t control the things that happen to us. What we can control is our response to the things that happen to us. And when John Cena whittled it down and summed it up in just those three words, control the controllable, that was so powerful for me. So if you haven’t checked out that interview, it was 2019 WrestleMania 35 in New York City. I had the chance to talk to him. That’s that interview where like I went to wrap it up and he’s like, Oh, we got more time. And then I went to wrap it up again. And he’s like, You got time for one more question. So gracious with his time there. But like so profound, with so much of the things that he was talking about during that interview, but control the controllable. Best piece of advice I’ve ever received for sure.” 

Would you be in the 2024 Royal Rumble? 

“I mean, look, anything could happen in the WWE. Doing a Vince McMahon impression. I mean, I wish it could be in the Rumble. I will be at the Royal Rumble though. I’ve already booked my flight. So I will be at the Royal Rumble. I will see you in Tampa. But I don’t think I’ll be in the Royal Rumble but look. Stranger Things, no stranger than me being in the Rumble. I don’t actually think that’s happened. Stranger things have happened in wrestling. But no, that’s probably not gonna happen.”

When will you interview the man who’s your first wrestling interview? Bobby Lashley. 

“Hopefully, soon, I’ve been talking to Bobby Lashley about making this happen. For like, two or three years, we’ve gone back and forth on DMs who’ve gone back and forth on text messages. I will say that we’re getting closer to making this happen. And I feel like Survivor Series if he’s there, real good possibility, although that is Thanksgiving weekend. So I feel like there might not be as much stuff going on around Survivor Series because it’s Thanksgiving weekend. Maybe it’s Royal Rumble, I don’t know. But if I had to give it a timeline here. I’d say within the next six months, this seems very possible. So let’s throw that out into the world. And I can make up for that very silly interview I did with him in 2007 with that ridiculous blonde patch in my hair. But seriously, in all seriousness, what a hell of a career Bobby Lashley has had. And I would love to be able to sit down with him for an hour plus to just go over everything. Everything WWE Impact Wrestling, MMA stuff, all of it. So cross your fingers for me.” 

Would you like to interview Pat McAfee? 

“Hell yeah. He is so insanely good at what he does. And I’m not just talking about the commentary in WWE. I’m talking about what he does with his show what he does on College Game Day, and everything with ESPN, so talented. And he has that magnetic charisma that when you turn on the TV and you see him or you turn on your laptop or your phone and you see him, you’re just drawn in. So I would love to have a conversation with him. And I tried really hard like two years ago, I was going back and forth with one of his people back, you know, and we were super locked down and everything was happening over Zoom. And it just kind of kept getting punted. See what I did there, it just kept getting punted, it was like, He’s not available now try again, you know, we’ll see what his schedule looks like next month. So I hit them back up. He’s not available, you know, hit me back up next month, and we just kept punting this down the road. And I finally said, I’m like, Look, we’ve gone back and forth on this for months. It doesn’t sound like it’s gonna happen, does it? They’re like, well, you know, anything could happen. And I’m like, alright, well, like we’ll see if it ends up happening one day, but yes, I would love, love, love, love to have a conversation with him. If you listen to the Baron Corbin episode, which just got put out yesterday. Baron Corbin told some great stories about sleeping on Pat McAfee’s couch. I think that Wikipedia has it where they were roommates. But he’s like, I wasn’t his roommate. I just slept on his couch. So he had such great things to say about Pat McAfee and everybody that I’ve talked to, has great things to say about Pat McAfee. So I would love to meet him if that means me flying to Indianapolis and making it happen if that means our paths cross in a College Game Day, city. Sign me up. But I would love to make it happen.”

What is the best platform for recording virtual podcast interviews? 

“That sounds like a Full Time Creator question right there. And I love it. I guess we’ve had a few creator-ish questions here, like balancing time with being a dad, a creator. By the way, if you are a creator, and you haven’t even just looked at the website Full Time Creator.co. And what I have going on there, take a second today and go take a look. If you’re a creator who truly wants to take things to the next level, and you’re not willing to spend $1 How serious are you really about getting to that next level? Because I know that if I had the opportunity to learn from someone whose podcast is in the top 10, who is getting millions of views on YouTube a day, who has many followers on the platform that look I’m not trying to pat myself on the back here. What I’m saying is, I want to help you. And that’s why Travis and I have built this out, we want to help you. So if you want to be helped, which I would hope that you would want to be helped if you’d want to shortcut things just a little bit, maybe take a few months off of the process, maybe take a few years off of the process, maybe get to making some money as a creator quicker, boom, than you would if you did this on your own. If you are serious about that, go sign up for $1. Give it a trial, see what you think. But we’re building out a community in the Full Time Creator mastermind to help other creators just like you. So what’s the best platform for recording virtual podcast interviews? I love Zoom and all the interviews that WWE sets up are over Zoom. I’ve used other platforms, I use Streamyard, and I lost an interview as a result of it like it just didn’t save. And I had to very sheepishly and embarrassingly message that person and say, Hey, so you’ll never believe it. But that interview that we did, doesn’t exist anymore. And that really soured me. Steamyard is great for going live. But I was using Streamyard for recording interviews, and then it led me down. And then I think Riverside’s really good. The quality of the interviews that you get from that is really good. But it only works great if both people have a rock solid internet connection like I’m talking if both people are plugged into the Ethernet cable because otherwise, it’s kind of frustrating to record on Riverside. And sometimes there’s a slight lag and you’re talking to the person, they look all fuzzy. I did an interview with Sean Ross Sapp when I was still using Riverside, and the sync was off. And it was just so frustrating. So I had a subscription to Riverside, if you don’t know, I’m talking about Riverside.fm. And records 1080p, which is great. When it’s great. And it’s not always great. So I just use Zoom. And I think the biggest reason I use Zoom is because it’s kind of just like the currency of online meetings. Yeah, there’s Google Meet, and there’s Riverside, there’s Streamyard and there’s Teams, there’s all these things, but I think that people just kind of associate a video call a video meeting with Zoom. It’s definitely the like industry leader. So I just send people Zoom links. Because with everything that happened with the world being shut down, everybody has Zoom, whether it’s on their phone, or their tablet, or their laptop, everybody has Zoom. So I think kind of the international language of video calls is Zoom. So that’s why I use Zoom, I am well aware that the audio quality would be better if I use something else. I am well aware that the video quality would be better if I used something else, but I’ve been burned too many times. And I’ve heard good things about Zencaster haven’t used it before, but I’ve just been burned too many times. And since this is such a big part of what I do for my job, I just need something that’s reliable and Zoom has never let me down ever. So that’s why I use Zoom.”

Do you feel good slash proud when an interviewee says that’s a great question, because you should. 

“It is a good feeling. It is a good feeling, especially when you’re doing those celebrity interview movie interviews, junket stuff like where the person is sitting in the room, and a different reporter is cycling in every four to five minutes. And they’re doing 20, 30, 40 interviews in a day. And if you’re able to ask them something that they haven’t heard, number one that day, or number two, just ever, and they say that’s a great question, and they’re trying to buy time to answer it. Yeah, it’s a good feeling. It just makes you feel like you’ve asked something original and interesting. Instead of them just flicking on I’m in publicity mode. And I’m gonna give you the standard answer that I gave the other 46 people that came before you, I love that it actually makes them use a different part of their brain and actually, like, think of an answer. So yeah. I also love when you ask the question, that person goes, That’s a great question and gives you a super insightful answer. My favourite part of all of that is when somebody that’s watching or listening to the interview, gets something out of that they either learn something about that person that they didn’t know before or they hear a story that that person went through in their life, and then it inspires them to do something in their own life. That’s my favourite part about that whole thing. That’s my favourite part about just the medium of podcasting, in general, in the medium of broadcasting in general, is being able to tell stories, that’s always been my favourite part. Ever since I got into this, it’s my favourite part is just telling stories, and then the effect that those stories can have on the rest of us. Because at our core, if you go way, way, way, way back here, to like when we were sitting around campfires, and trying to keep the, you know, bears away from eating us. I’m talking 1000s of years ago if you couldn’t tell, it all came down to stories, and the stories that were passed down from generation to generation to generation. And that’s the thing I love about all of this, it comes down to stories.” 

Baron Corbin (@baroncorbinwwe) is a professional wrestler with WWE. He sits down with Chris Van Vliet in Tampa, FL to talk about his recent move to NXT, how he went from the NFL to being signed by WWE, his friendship with Pat McAfee, the highlights of his 11-year WWE career so far, being select as Kurt Angle’s opponent for his retirement match, being in the ring with The Rock and John Cena, what “burn the ships” means to him, his new theme music, winning the Andre The Giant Battle Royal, the original plans for his Money In the Bank cash-in, his run as King Corbin, his Happy and Sad Corbin characters, being Constable Corbin, his love of cooking and BBQ and much more!

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Quote I’m thinking about:We are going to be perpetually disappointed by life if we spend our days anticipating something greater while doing nothing to obtain it.

On getting to WWE: 

“So at the time, I was on a cruise and I kind of got linked in. And the person I was with, they were interviewing managers for their band. And one of the managers was like, oh, man, what do you want to do if football doesn’t work out because I have just been released from Arizona, with a little bit of a shoulder injury. And I said, I either want to go to UFC and fight or I want to go to WWE, so I’ve always been a fan of WWE and, and he’s like, go to WWE, it’s a better career, more longevity. It’s just, you know, and so he put in a phone call to WWE and was like, hey, this guy’s interested. He’s, you know, six foot seven 335 pounds, he can move. He’s an NFL offensive lineman. And I think after he put that call in, like three days later, Johnny Ace called me, he was like, hey, we want to bring you in for a tryout. So it was one of those things where that’s what I wanted to do. And I just had an opportunity and timing there. It was pure luck that this guy knew Neil, who’s in charge of the music for WWE. He knew Neil and he sent my name to Neil and Neil passed it on. And that’s how I got there.”

On right place, right time:

“It’s funny, there’s a lot of things like for me, wrestling Pat McAfee at SummerSlam at the NFL stadium, you know, we were on the Colts together. And we just clicked instantly as buds and we played golf and we went to howl at the moon and we just did all these fun things. While we were there and just really became tight and we knew of this impending lockout in the NFL. And we clicked over wrestling was one of the things we’ve both massive wrestling fans. You know, me being from Kansas City we had you know, Harley Race’s whole territory that ran Kansas City, we’ve gone to shows as kids seeing Kamala, seeing Flair all of these amazing people. So I’ve been a fan and Pat and I were like, well, like what if we get locked out? Let’s go train to be wrestlers. Wow. And so we were looking at at the time OVW was the only thing the only way I knew because I was naive to the whole independent scene, like I knew of wrestling in Japan. And then I knew of WWE like I was very naive to any other company that was out there. And we knew OVW was where you know Cena, Batista, Lesnar, all those dudes came out. Okay. Well, if that’s the funnel, like let’s go there if we are locked out and train. And that was the whole plan. And then I got released and went to Arizona and Pat had an amazing NFL career and the lockout was short, you know, when we did get locked out. I stayed at his he was a draft pick, so he had good money. And we either stayed at the Candlewood Suites, I think was the hotel that Indy put us in, or you, you know, like for him, he got an apartment and he had so I hung out slept there for a little while, instead of just staying in the Candlewood Suites. So we were roommates for a hot minute.”

On Pat McAfee:

“There’s just special people in the world. And I think there’s a lot that goes into it. I don’t think it’s just a personality trait. I think you got to be a good human, I think you have to have a positive aura, vibe, energy, all of these things and it just creates this special entity. And he is one of those special entities where, you know, despite things that he’s done, like, whether it was the one time he allegedly jumped in the river behind and you know, got in trouble a little bit, but like, people didn’t care, like that’s just Pat McAfee, like, whatever, who cares where other people that could have ruined a career. But he had a successful NFL career. Then he went into comedy. And he went into Barstool Sports and those things and was super successful, like his comedy and he did that himself. He took his money, and he would rent out an arena or amphitheatre or whatever he wanted to perform, and he would sell the tickets, and then he would do the show. And he had massive success in that. And then, you know, he decided to take a chance on himself with his own show, The Pat McAfee Show and the success is obviously you see him now on ESPN every day, like the success is unreal. And it’s then come to WWE and be a competitor. How many people can do that? Not just, you know, he’s not just an average guy walking in there. Like he’s been in the ring with Vince he’s been in there, you know, like WrestleMania moments.”

On elevating others:

“It’s just the massive things, you know, singles matches at WrestleMania. And how many people get those opportunities, singles matches at SummerSlam I’ve had several you know, I had a singles match against John Cena that opened SummerSlam in New York. Like what? Like, and I think people discredit it because I don’t win those matches. But you know, somebody has to lose and I’m fine with being that guy. Like if I can elevate somebody else. Awesome. That’s my job. That’s what I take pride in. You know, as a bad guy. I want to go, How do I make this guy the absolute best? And I eat a lot of crow for it man. When I’m done and hopefully that’s, you know, a few years from now. People go man, I didn’t realise it at the time. That dude was really really good. I really appreciate that. I think Miz is getting into that right now where people are like dude, if you look at our win-loss record and like you know, Dolph is another guy like you look at our win-loss record, it’s abysmal. I mean, it’s terrible. But we’ve elevated some certain people to a level and I want to go hey, man, like part of your success is mine. Nobody’s gonna give me credit for that. But I know it is. You know whether it was I spent three years running the main event I went Seth Rollins, Braun Strowman, Kurt Angle, Roman Reigns, it was like three years straight. And I was the constant every main event, every show, every pay-per-view, every Europe tour, running the main event, I was the constant. I think you gotta have a lot of pride in yourself to be able to do that too. And I think that comes maybe from the grunt work of an offensive lineman, never the glory, all the blame, like in a sense, and I think it’s the same thing in wrestling. Like, I’m never gonna get the glory, at least I don’t think [I am]. And I’m okay with that because I take pride in what I do and I love what I do and I love laying flat on the mat with my back down in here in a crowd erupting for a Seth Rollins when he stands up and holds the title up or Roman Reigns and those guys are obviously on a whole other level with themselves and they could probably do it on their own, but I like to think that I played a part in helping elevate those guys.”

On being a workhorse:

“The whole COVID [era]. Like I think I was aside from Bayley getting injured at the end. I was the workhorse for that. Like I was pulling both shows. I was doing Raw on Monday at the ThunderDome. Then I’d come back and do Smackdown and there was a show where they had a whole show written and I think everybody was out and I pulled eight segs of a SmackDown where I opened with a promo on The Undertaker and it went into a brawl with Jeff Hardy and then it ended up with like a three seg, like eight segs during COVID Like I was the constant everybody else was come and go and things happened or people if they have never taken time off. I’ve never taken six months off television. I’ve never had a break or any of those things and I take pride in that and I think it So when people say yeah, workhorse like I am, and I’m all about that, that’s what I take pride in.”

On scrapped plans:

“I mean, there’s always plans like when I worked with Kurt Angle. Vince had these ideas of now I have the gold medal. I’m the gold medalist like, it was super awesome. And then it just didn’t happen. Like something changed and we went in a different direction. But same with the Andre, like the next week, you know, you work with Dolph. If you’re new on the roster, you work with Dolph, Dolph is one of the best on the entire planet at elevating guys, and I did that and then, you know, the Lone Wolf did well and had Money in the Bank was US champion all of those things. And I think there’s been a few times where there’s that moment and it’s like, but how do we capitalise and then, you know, things change? I don’t know if somebody gets hurt, like I’ve had moments, we’re supposed to have a match with somebody that gonna lead and you know, they get dinged up and they got to, you know, we got to go this way now. So it kind of, you know, hurts that flow, but that’s the nature of the business. That’s the nature of the beast. And you know, they’ve got a lot of really talented writers that write these shows and maybe it’s something idea that they think is better than what they had. We go with that and maybe it doesn’t work. Maybe it does. It’s just It’s random. I mean, sad Corbin was random. I think we could have ran that for another six months and just really looked horrible. My hair would have been so bad.” 

On retiring Kurt Angle:

“People even ask me, like, if he came back for one more match. Would you be mad? No, he’s one of the greatest of all time. Like, did we make something of me retiring him? You know? Yeah, it’s awesome. It’s something I’ll have in my belt forever. But like I would love to see Kurt compete again, like just one of those things I was listening to him on Rogan’s podcast today. And I’m like, I love that guy. Like he’s just so good. And the things he’s done and fought through and accomplished and changed his life around to like, you know, be a better father, husband, wrestler, everything, competitor. And I mean, that was a huge moment. That’s something I will have forever. I have a six foot poster in my house of it like because it was just such a cool thing. And to get the win. Like, I thought for sure, going into that I was like, man, we’re gonna send Kurt out on a high horse hand raised, me laying flat on my back. I was like, that’s gonna be awesome. And then they’re like, Hey, man, you’re going over and I was like, huh? Can you say that one more time? And like for Kurt to do that, like Kurt could have said no. I would have respected Kurt for that would have made sense. It would have been, you know, I would not have been any bit upset for that. Like I’m working Kurt Angle at WrestleMania. A guy who was in the Hall of Fame a guy who was a gold medal, a guy who has been in the ring with every superstar you can imagine from Taker to Brock to me just the list goes on and on and on. And I’m having a singles match at WrestleMania with this person.”

On The Rock and John Cena returning:

“Yeah. And now you’ve got Batista. Like whispering Hey, man, I got nothing to do right now. You know, part of me is like, Hey, guys, come on. We’re all trying to work here. Just because you guys are taking a little breather, obviously not by choice. But you guys are you know, then they’re going hey, let’s go. Let’s go back to this thing that’s so amazing. I’m going Ah, you rascals, you know it’s but it’s amazing for the business. It’s amazing for the superstars for a Grayson Waller. Like, I don’t think he ever sat there and be like, Man, I’m gonna be in the ring with John Cena. Like, that’s just not something you think about this day and age, because you don’t, Cena is a movie star. What he’s doing is incredible. And the level he’s reached is amazing. So you’re like, No, he’s not going to come back and wrestle. And if he does, it’s going to be Roman. And it’s going to be Seth. But he’s like, John is so giving back to this, this industry, this business, because he loves it with every bit of what he does. And I’ve soaked up an immense amount of knowledge from John and I see John on a regular basis because I go to his gym, and we talk or we’ve been to dinner and his mind for this is just leaps and bounds above 99% of the people in this in this industry. And so when you soak up that information, now he’s passing it on the guys like Grayson Waller, and, you know, stepping in the ring with Solo, and all of these guys, they’re getting an opportunity to be in there with greatness, where they may never have thought they were going to do that. I never thought I was gonna stand in the ring with The Rock on the very first smackdown on Fox and do an eight-minute segment and take a Rock Bottom and a spine buster. Like that was never my wildest dreams. And then it happened. And then I spent the afternoon talking to The Rock, like how do I capitalise on this? What can I do about this? How do I get embedded like, asking information that I can apply and use that will benefit me?”

On advice from The Rock:

“Absolutely. Just with like, there’s the ability that those guys have, which I take a lot of pride as a heel is listening to the crowd for my timing, and where John and Rock are the absolute best and you can hear it, they look up and they just listen, what am I hearing, and then they can dictate what they’re doing to that and amplify it where some people don’t hear it and just run over it. And you could have made a moment out of you know, you hear these rumblings and you’re going okay, man, they for me as a heel, like, if I’m in the ring with Cody Rhodes and I’m starting to hear that rumble and I’m going okay, man and they want to see him do something. So what can I have him do? Okay? He beats me up and does something and then I cut him back off and go not this time, you know. But that’s I’ve learned that ability from Rock and from Cena, like, Listen, don’t, don’t rush things, take your time. And then you can do the same in promo you start to you have to be able to multitask. And some people just don’t, and they miss out on an opportunity to get a better reaction or those things. I’m trying to implement that with the guys in NXT. Like, slow down like it is a faster-paced show. And that’s what’s cool about it, it is different if it’s the same product, we’re just gonna watch Raw and SmackDown. It needs to be different needs to stand out in its own way. And it is that fast pace. It is that exciting, physical, constant movement thing, but I’m going hey, you can still listen while you’re doing these things. And if you hear that, you can take it from a six to an eight. And now all of a sudden you’re going from an eight to a ten. Like, you can do that. And that’s two things I’ve just learned from those guys, you know, to listen and take your time.”

On Baron Corbin’s finishers being invented by accident:

“Not a joke. Same with deep six too. We were playing around at the Performance Center, we have a CrashPad ring. And we can go in there and try things and a kid named Sami Callihan. I was playing around with him in the ring. And he does this thing where he springs off the bottom rope and catches you for a DDT. And I was just messing with him. And he jumped and I caught him. And I did the End of Days on him. And we both sat up and looked at each other like wait a second. What was that? Yeah, like, that’s something cool. And then I just did it. And I was like, dude, and I filmed it. And at the time I sent it to Billy Gunn. I was like, Yo, I think this is my finish because I was really trying to find a finish at the time. He’s like, That’s awesome. I’m going to use it tonight against The Shield. And I said, Don’t you dare, I will fight you when you come back. And he didn’t he was just messing with me. But so it was a complete accident. And it’s just been something that really kind of put me on the map. It’s a cool, unique first time ever seeing this finish. And then I protected it with every bit of my might.”

On advice from The Undertaker:

“I talked to Undertaker one time when he came. And I was just asking him questions. And I think I stumped him on one when I asked him like, how did you know when it was time to evolve? And it was like he was perplexed. He was like, that’s a good question, he’s talking to all of us. And I felt real good that I asked that awesome question. I was like, but I was genuinely curious. Like, especially because I’ve had to evolve several times in my career. And then afterwards, because I asked that question, he pulled me aside and was like, Dude, what, uh, you know, and I was like, well give me some other just little tidbits, and he’s like, protect your finish. Don’t let people kick out of it. He’s like, there’ll be a right moment sometimes. For you to do that. Hopefully, it’s 10 years into your career. He’s like, That’s what I did. And so I took that to heart. I mean, obviously, when Taker is telling you something you listen. Same with all those guys that we’ve listed today. So I did I protected it. I mean, when I worked with John Cena at SummerSlam. He said, What do you want to do? And I said, Well, I can tell you the one thing I don’t want to do. I don’t want to kick out your finish and I really would appreciate it if you wouldn’t kick out of mine. He said done. And I said then let’s have an awesome opening show match. He’s like, can we keep it all in the ring and said absolutely. And then we did and I take a tonne of pride in that match because I liked the old-school mentality of building the card. And that night we built the card like we kept it in the ring. We didn’t kick Out of finishes, we put on one heck of a match. That was on first that was a first match. And so with the end of days, that was something I took to heart, like even with Roman, with Seth, with The Shield. That was always something I was like, Hey, man, I just want to protect it. We can do whatever you want. That’s the one thing I’m asking that we don’t do. And Romans like, Yeah, we don’t need to do that. We don’t need to kick out of it, Seth, same thing, like those guys are so talented and so creative that we can get the reactions we want without doing that. And I’ve never kicked that anybody else’s finish because I’m not going to ask you to not kick out of mine. But hey, let me kick out of yours. Sure. It’s just something I’ve always done. I’ve never kicked out of anybody’s even when someone is like, Hey, man, let’s do that. I go, Hey, let’s find a different way. I don’t want to kick out of your finish, you know. And so, to me, I’m not going to ask somebody to do that. Not kick out of mine. And like, Hey, man, you know, it’s just I think, to me a respect thing. So that was what the end of days was built in. We’ve only had one person in my career kick out of it.”

On hitting Becky Lynch with End of Days:

“And that was Vince’s idea. I was shocked when I got to the building. And it was in Philly, which I knew they were gonna go nuts for. That was Vince’s idea. And it was just like, what? Like, it’s crazy. And like the death threats after were all worth it. Totally worth it. Oh, dude, you have no idea. My Instagram messages and Twitter and all of those things. People were like, dude, I’m gonna stab you the next time I see you for what you did to Becky. I mean, if I get stabbed? Yeah, if I get stabbed? Yeah, definitely arrest that guy. But like, Yeah, cuz people, man like people buy into what we do. Like, that’s the art of what we do. Can we suspend disbelief? Can we make people think what we’re doing is 100% real and that people bought into that moment? They’re like, a grown man put his hands on a woman. I want to fight that guy. Like invoked this rage and people. And it was awesome.”

What is Baron Corbin grateful for:

“My wife and kids, the opportunities and being able to have a conversation.”

CJ Perry (@thecjperry) is an actress and professional wrestling manager with AEW and she is known previously for her time in WWE under the name Lana. She joins Chris Van Vliet to talk about joining AEW alongside her husband Miro, why she took 2 years away from pro wrestling, the biggest difference between being Lana in WWE and being CJ in AEW, her famous promo with The Rock and Rusev, what fans can expect from her website cjperry.com, what it means to be “hot and flexible”, the popularity of Total Divas, missed opportunities with Rusev Day and much more!

Join Full Time Creator for $1 at http://fulltimecreator.co

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GHOSTBED: Get 40% of your purchase with the code CVV at http://ghostbed.com/cvv

MIRACLE MADE: Upgrade your sleep with Miracle Made! Go to http://TryMiracle.com/CVV and use the code CVV to claim your FREE 3 PIECE TOWEL SET and SAVE over 40% OFF

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Quote I’m thinking about:We are going to be perpetually disappointed by life if we spend our days anticipating something greater while doing nothing to obtain it.

On debuting in AEW:

“I was really excited. I was so excited to return the wrestling and especially in Chicago. I love Chicago, I actually debuted in WWE in Chicago my first live promo was in Chicago. I can’t remember the exact date but it was the beginning of March, CM Punk had just left so everyone’s like are you gonna be okay there are gonna be CM Punk chants. And I feel like I held my own I with Miro and so then we did, the first time that “We want Lana” chants happened was in Chicago and Miro came out. At the time he was Rusev came out with a really bad Russian lawyer. And it was on my birthday and they started chanting, we want Lana. So that was cool. And my official babyface turn happened there in WWE. So it’s really cool to be able to have that special moment with AEW debuting there because I love Chicago and the fans have always rooted for me so much. So it’s really awesome to be able to, like have that special connection with them now with AEW as well.”

Was the Chicago debut a coincidence:

“No, it definitely was not that way. It was all Tony Khan, Tony Khan wanted it in Chicago. And when I heard he wanted it in Chicago was like, Oh my gosh, that’s so cool. Because I love Chicago is my favourite American wrestling city. I mean, I say that about every city, but you know, I like trying to find the silver lining of everything. So there was, Miro was pushing, a lot of this was his idea. And a lot of the story and he wanted it to be in London. But Tony really had a vision for it to happen in Chicago. And he is from Chicago, I love Chicago. And so when I heard all that, I was like, Oh my gosh, that’s amazing. Because he loves Chicago, and I love Chicago. So here we go.”

On possibly joining AEW at the same time Miro did:

“Well, when Miro first joined AEW I was still in WWE. So that was in 2020. And he started there September I think, and so I couldn’t, I was in, in WWE still. And I had a very lucrative contract I was on and on TV every week. So we both thought it made sense for me to stay. And then I finished my time a year later. And Miro wanted me to come over to AEW, and he was plugging me into the story. And that’s how I got the name hot and flexible. So I needed a little bit of a break. At the beginning. I wanted to be home for a little bit and I wanted to do things. I didn’t want to jump right back on the road. And so I took a little bit like about a year, and it was just trying to figure out the time, you know, like, Tony Khan has great things going on his show, and it’s just I had things going on and Miro had things and we just it’s all about timing.”

On the promos being better in AEW:

“Thank you. I really appreciate it. Yeah, I think it’s getting a little bit more creative control. And I thank you so much because I love acting. I love storytelling. And I think at WWE I often would just for better or for worse, do what I’m told, you know. I’m not the director or the showrunner and so like sometimes people would want me a little more over the top or a little bit more annoying. And okay. And I feel like I did it very well. I was the annoying heel. And I don’t think people realise like, they’re like, Oh, she’s so annoying. And they didn’t really realise that that was a choice. You know, that’s a choice. They tried to be that egotistical, narcissistic character that thought everything was about her, you know. And so that can be annoying. So I was really happy to be able to have something that I could be a little bit more grounded.”

On leaning into hot and flexible:

“Oh, yeah. So I think that Miro named me hot and flexible because he was so annoyed that I was so, I guess exploited, in WWE. And I, you know, I don’t really look at it that way, I look at it as more of like, I’m thankful for the opportunity. And you know, thankful that yeah, and apparently I was believable to be someone’s girlfriend, someone’s wife someone’s ex-wife adulterous, you know, the revenge. And it’s TV, it’s television, you know, and so it has to be believable. So because of that, and I was always stirring the pot of being the bad guy, the heel. In men storylines, the only way that they felt creative that they could pay off getting like punching me in the face because they couldn’t punch me in the face was basically calling me like a streetwalker, like The Rock called me or an escort or, you know, all the flexible things that I did with The Rock.”

On wrestling again:

“Hmm, such an interesting question. So I want to be the best of all time, I want to be the best wrestling manager of all time. I want to be when people think of like, people often want to be managed by Paul Heyman, because he is the best manager of all time right now. Right? I wanted that spot. And so I want people to be like, I want CJ Perry to manage me, I would rather do that than try to become champion or fight whatever for championships, and be the best hustler for those people to be champions, and create a legacy and a name that way. I just feel that’s my calling. So if at some point I gotta like fight some bitches in the ring, of course, I’ll fight some bitches in the ring.”

On not using a Russian accent anymore:

“I mean, I don’t know, it definitely still comes up on social media. And I’m always like, I find it so fascinating because I haven’t really been starting 2016 I started talking with my normal voice on Total Divas, which was a long time ago. And then in the storyline with the Bobby Lashley story I talked with no accent and that was like really big. And that was 2019 And I’m like, Oh, I guess they haven’t been watching the product much but anyway.”

On meeting Miro for the first time:

“So the first day I met Miro, I don’t remember and he does. So that’s like. And it was at NXT. It was my first day at his first day at NXT too was when it opened. So we just hit our 10-year mark in July. So I remember him at the tanning salon the following day. And I went into the tanning salon and all the wrestlers were going there and he’s clearly a big guy. And I’m like, Oh, are you a wrestler? And he’s like, What? Why do you think that? I’m like because you are a big guy, and we’re all coming here. I’m like, where are you from Russia, and he’s like, No, Bulgaria. And I’m like, okay, cool. And then we started talking. I grew up in Latvia, I had been to Bulgaria. And then the following day, Dusty Rhodes saw my promo. I spoke Russian and he pulled me aside he goes, I want you to work with Rusanov. I was like, Who’s that? Oh, I know him. And then that was we started working together the following day.”

On working with The Rock:

“Oh, yeah, that was really funny. So we get a promo. Like, in the middle of the day, we were working Big Show at the time. And this is when Miro was undefeated and he was a hero of the Russian Federation. So they give us this promo, it doesn’t make a lot of sense. And they’re like, look at 715 meet us back by this door and this bus and you’re gonna know what happens here. Like, okay, so I’m learning that we go back there. And then they open the door and it’s Dwayne in there. And I’m like, wait, what? And they’re like, scratch that promo. So we had 45 minutes, it was maybe an hour, we had to learn a whole new thing, but it was great. It was a lot of fun.”

What is CJ Perry grateful for:

“My dogs, that I’m on this podcast and that I have returned to wrestling.”

Featured image: Wrestling Headlines

Tommaso Ciampa (@ciampawwe) is a professional wrestler with WWE. He sits down with Chris Van Vliet in Ontario, CA to talk about his incredible matched in NXT, winning the NXT Championship twice, being trained by Killer Kowalski who also trained Triple H, his friendship and rivalry with Johnny Gargano and their tag team DIY, making his WWE debut in 2005 and playing Muhammad Hassan’s lawyer, getting chokeslammed by The Undertaker, how his work in Ring Of Honor got him on WWE’s radar, the psychology of being a heel, his diet and workout plan with our mutual friend nutritionist AJ Simms (@cementfactory), being a girl dad and much more!

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Quote I’m thinking about:”The quickest way to succeed is to start now and figure it out as you go. You can’t learn to drive in a parked car.”

On being Muhammad Hassan’s lawyer:

“Similar to being in the right place with Chaotic, they called up the promoter at the time Jamie and they said hey, we need, which is a weird suggestion from WWE for what we need, but we need guys under six foot tall, who look like they could be like fresh out of law school. So I forget how they worded it but because it was for Hassan and Daivari like they wanted you to have a certain look, I think their wording was. So three of us got sent it was me this kid Matt Logan and this kid Chase I’m I want to say maybe I’m like at that time six months older than Matt younger than Chase. But we didn’t have anyone who was like 20, which is just so weird now thinking about wrestling but we didn’t have anyone who was 26-30. It was all kids and we all went there. I borrowed my brother’s suit because I didn’t have one and the three of us are in catering and John Laurinaitis comes in he just like looks at us and he’s like, Yeah, I think he’s gonna do, and that was the end of that. You’re like, Okay, I didn’t know exactly what we’re there for. And then all of a sudden, like it was the whirlwind of a day. Stephanie McMahon comes up to me, next thing I know, takes me for a tour. And I’m like, What the heck is going on? So like an individual tour. This is the backstage, this is where we do this this is that and I remember like to this day her just say it’s just like the independents just with like, a lot more money behind it, and but she was the nicest person ever. And I was like, This is crazy. And then finally, like, you know, I did the whole thing and stuff and they were like, you know, you’re gonna read this, this script and you have a writer Ed Koskey, who still like to this day with the company head writer. And they kind of let it slip to me later in the day as the day went on there. This is super important. Like, at that time, they did something with Hassan. I forget what it was, but it was like, I want to say something happened with terrorist attacks too and UPN was under crazy heat.”

On being onscreen after Hassan’s departure:

“Yeah, he disappeared after this, but they were like you have to do an apology for his actions last week. And it has to come off as sincere and real because we’re actually apologising to the network on live TV, because that’s what they requested. And it was just bizarre because in my head at this point, I’m like, with Jamie the promoter. I’m like, why didn’t they just hire an actor? Why didn’t they hire somebody professional? And I was like, This is so bizarre. He’s like, you know, but I was a promo guy I’ve always been a promo guy, he’s like it’s just like your penmanship promo, just go do whatever your penmanship problems. I’m like, Thank God, I have this script. I can read it and like they were like, you’re reading it. You don’t have to memorise it. So I like, okay, and then I did. I did an in-ring rehearsal with Undertaker, with Hunter, Steph and Vince and everybody watching me.”

On being in the ring with The Undertaker:

“It was likely when I read the script type of thing. And because the day was insanity, like because you did the in-ring thing. Then I had to go. I remember being outside Vince’s office because I passed that test. And now I had to go read it for him in his office, just us and you hear screaming and a door slam. And Michael Hayes looks at me. And he’s like, What are you here for? And I tell him he’s like, You got no f*cking chance kid, walks away, hahaha. I’m like, Oh, God. I walk into Vince’s office and like, I’m super nervous Vince’s there, he’s super polite. And then Hunter just walks out. And he’s making muscle milk shakes. And he’s like, and I don’t know why. But like the jock in me was just like, oh, this is just a couple of dudes you just worked out, it just like eased me completely. So I read the thing for tape for Vince. He took one word out because I couldn’t pronounce it properly. Put in a different word. It was one of those days where you’re just like, what is happening like, by the time I got in there with Taker and did it like, even that was surreal. Because I want to say gives me a chokeslam and then a tombstone. He gives me the chokeslam. And we used to have this thing where we’d go for we called them treats. We’d go every day after class. It was just to the 99 it was food. We’d say treats. And we always like to say when we left each other was thank you, Daddy. Hi, Daddy. That was our thing. I’m not kidding you at all. He chokeslams me. And he’s picking me up he goes, Nice and easy, Daddy. Even that moment, like his crotch about to take a Tombstone. So like laughing and smiling to myself. Like, this is just what we do. This is so weird. You know? It was the weirdest like they let me keep the suit. They gave me a cool payday. It was nuts. Like nuts. It almost became my career. Like, it was a career break. But it almost became a massive break. Like I got a call the day after from I think Laurinaitis who was like, hey, they loved it. You’re gonna come back next week, you’re gonna be in a wheelchair with a neck brace. We’re gonna really push this thing. And I never heard back after that phone call and then Hassan lost with the pay-per-view and disappeared. Yeah, it was like a legit heat that happened.” 

On the quick progression:

“Yeah, I was on like the Kofi track, man. And then they sent me trying to think of what happened first I want to say they sent me to Deep South with this guy Arch Kincaid. I don’t know if you’ve ever heard of him. But if you are ever bored one day, go on YouTube. And you can go on an awesome Arch Kincaid promo thing. One time we were backstage and extras used to always have matches, always. They don’t anymore. But we had we’d have matches to be in front of like Arn and Randy and it was so much pressure. And Arch one day was like, I’m just gonna referee us odd duck like the coolest but like this is like a genius like a master’s do like three master’s degree like that. And he’s like, I’m just gonna referee today. I don’t feel like getting a sweat. I’m Like, Oh, okay. Sure. And at one point in a match, Stephanie McMahon’s like, hey, please don’t spill my water. The rest of the match, anytime they went near [Arch said] Don’t go near other waters! It’s Mrs. McMahon’s, you don’t want to spill it. He would just do these crazy Arch Kincaid things. And like, I remember watching him that day be like, Oh my God, he’s gonna get signed because of a guest referee thing. Anyways, fast forward a few months and him and I go to Deep South for a tryout. I remember that critique being if we could give you his character or him your ability, you guys would be signed in a heartbeat. But unfortunately, they felt like I was lacking the character. He was lacking the ability.”

On finding his way back to WWE:

“So to be honest, it was it was kind of my last shot. Because I was doing the Ring of Honor thing. And I remember towards the end of the Ring of Honor thing, like having that moment I was like, Oh, this is clicking like something new is clicking. I don’t know what it was whether it was connecting with people, or how to have more Main Event style matches that something was there. However, at this ham, Sinclair had owned Ring of Honor, and they were doing all the contracts and stuff. And there’s no way I could sign with where we were at because like, I could feel myself on the brink of something that I don’t think they agree. But I had this one conversation with the owner, Joe Sinclair. I forget what his first name was. But at the time, he was just like, he offered me 20,000 A year and I could still do Indies. And I was like, Man, I can’t make a living off that. And I was running a gym at the time. And I mean, I was up at like, 4:30 Every day, I was exhausted. I was like, Man, I gotta either make money wrestling or just focus on the gym. And I remember saying, I’m like, I need like a legit contract. [He said] No one’s gonna ever pay you more than 20,000 to wrestle. And I was like, oh, like literally in this is the conversation. I just went, Oh, I was like, Oh, hey, so yeah, we’re just done. And he was like, she was me. I was like, oh, no, yeah, I’ll just wrap up at and I think it was April. And he said, What do you mean, I was like, I didn’t realise that’s how you viewed me as I thought we were gonna have like a conversation. I was like, if you think that I was like, I’m not gonna waste my time. I just I don’t know. I felt real confident. Yeah. And so that was it. I wrapped up in San Antonio, I think I had a match with Lethal maybe. And that next year was crazy. Because I, me and my wife had a conversation. I was like, Listen, I’m gonna give it one year. I was like, I think I can do this. But if I can’t, it’s fun because we wanted to start a family. We had a house. I was like, one year. And I left them in May. And in September the next year, DIY debuted the next day. But even if that didn’t happen, I definitely would have extended the year thing because that next year, I made six figures.”

On the bizarre main roster call-up:

“So here’s the scenario. I’m like three matches away from TakeOver in New York. I gotta get through a couple more NXT tapings. And I’m like, I know I can get there. I think I have one more left and this is great. I’m gonna get there. At the same time, completely randomly, me Ricochet, Aleister and Johnny get called up to the main roster. And I’m sitting there going, I have a broken neck that 100% needs surgery. The surgery date is literally already set, early April. Maybe I shouldn’t go do extra stuff. So no one knows what’s going on. It’s confusing. So I’m like, I must be the mouthpiece. We must be coming in as a group of like NXT invaders and I must be the mouthpiece. This is fine. It’ll be fine. We get there, we don’t hear much all of a sudden, like I think Johnny and I have like a tag match with someone. I don’t know if there’s The Bar or Revival. And we’re like in a feud. And we’re like, what? And I wish I kept saying to myself, just don’t do this. Tell them no, like, go have a man the man I conversation with Vince and explain to him passionately, why you think this is a bad idea. And then the other part of me was like, I mean, this is just your job, and they’re the boss and then they know what they want and just go to your job. So I’m gonna do my job, you know, and we were on Raw SmackDown flew back did the taping Raw SmackDown it was just a bizarre like, for me, like just sitting there going like, I know, I need surgery. Why am I tripling my workload? I just gotta get to this thing. And we’re tagging and this is weird. So my regret of it is like, I just wish, seeing how my conversation with Vince went when I finally met him. I was like, I’m pretty sure if I explained it he would have just been like, I didn’t know that. Because, you know, not everything’s communicated. Yeah, I’m fairly certain he would have just gone I wasn’t aware, forget it. And but I didn’t I didn’t do it. I didn’t initiate the conversation, you know, and I just did. So that’s the regret because I’m like, if TakeOver New York happens, we have that moment Johnny wins the title, that feud ends the way it’s supposed to. And because it didn’t happen, the frickin feud never ended. You know, it just never had its ending, it just kind of kept having hiccups.”

On DIY:

“I mean, we got lucky in so many ways once we got in the door, just Regal helped a lot top just keeping us in the game. And because there were like, if you see the beginning of DIY, like we’re tagging, we’re not we are and then we finally have the shirt thing where we become DIY. But then that Brooklyn TakeOver match that was the one with Revival that like really, even before that, actually, we had a match with Alpha. And I remember for the Alpha one, so what would happen with us is we would get a text from one of the writers of like you’re needed for this taping, you know, a couple days in Full Sail, but it’d be pretty last minute, and I had this UK tour I was doing. So I remember, contacting right away, hey, do you think I’m gonna be needed for this coming taping, because maybe they just left us off one or something. He was like, oh, man, I wish I would know, I’m not going to know. So like, Okay, I told John, I was like, Listen, I’m just gonna buy myself a flight back, and hope I can refund it if they don’t use us or whatever. Figure it out. So I’m like doing all this stuff in Scotland and progress. And the UK. I get the text the day before the taping of like, we need you. And I’m like, Alright, cool. I have a flight in three hours. Like it was that close to like, of doing it. And I flew back for it, not knowing what we were gonna do. And just thinking like, I hope this is worth the investment right now. And we got put with Alpha, and had a match that people liked at that time I loved it was short, it was 10 minutes. People loved it. And that was like what solidified them to go like, hey, we have a thing with them. And thank God, I did it. So I flew, I did that match, and went right back to finish my UK tour. But that match catapulted us to get the revival thing. And then we did take over Brooklyn. And all that happened before we were signed. Like before I even went to Pittsburgh, and they found out about the shoulder and stuff. So like, I think that that helped us so much because we were in such good grace with them. Have we got plans for these kids? Yes, kids are over, you know, so it was just like if any of those things just don’t happen at the right time.”

On original plans for teaming with Johnny Gargano:

“No, no, I wish I could say it was. We pitched being like, so we pitched them weird stuff. We’re like the Panda Express or something. Like we wanted whatever we pitched we kept going back to we just want a panda to be our mascot. Because I think to the early DIY, we were just doing skits glorious bombs, you know, like we were to us we’re like we’re just a funny tag team, you know, and it was Jo Belle Castro as far as I know who came up with DIY and hashtag DIY thing but yeah, I mean, so easy to chant got over super well. We’re talking currently about like because we don’t know if it’s going to become a thing on the main roster or not. I know people are hoping for it. We have like you know, you always have your fantasy booking and your own plans. But we’re doing a lot right now with the whole concept of DIY of like how to because, with the main roster, you quickly realise there’s this whole other world of like marketing and presentation and just a lot of stuff that for a guy like me specifically who is they ring the bell wrestler, I’ll do it in the ring. I’ll do it on the promos. They want a whole different thing, you know, on the main roster, which is it’s great. It’s why the guys become global stars, but it’s just not who I am naturally. So like both of us have been, how do you make DIY like, something that is globally attractive and like dream-inspired unify type of things? We’re doing a lot right now on our end, hoping that if the time comes, like we can present something to them, that’s like, okay, yeah, we can we can run with these guys. But who knows?”

On the near career-ending neck injury:

“I wouldn’t say worse [than the ACL tear]. Well, I think what happened, essentially why they got totally shut down is I went. It was after the last taping for NXT, so NXT is done. I’m done with NXT as far as telling the story for me and Johnny, but I had a couple of stingers. And then I had to go get the shot that was supposed to help calm some stuff down, but they were like, Hey, it’s might get worse before it gets better, whatever. And then I had to go to Raw or Smackdown whatever came up next. And medical was like, hey, so every time I’d go I had to pass a physical before I’d wrestle. Like you got to come into your physical and I wasn’t, none of my nerve reactions were working at all. Like, like tap, tap whatever. I just remember seeing them and their faces were like, and I was like, What is going on? And that’s so that’s when I found out they were like, you’re you’re not medically cleared to have any more matches. I was like, I just remember even that I was like, Wait, what if I just take two weeks off? And then we’ll do this one day. It was all taken out of our hands, man. So that was a hard one to stomach, and I didn’t know if I was coming back.”

On life after wrestling:

“I hope I get what I want out of this. Because I felt like there was a time in NXT where I felt very satisfied I guess, I don’t know if that’s the exact right word. But I felt very accomplished with like what we did and created. When we were in NXT. Like, there’s this false, awful narrative that has now since been created that drives me crazy because people will look back at some of the NXT stuff and just be like, Yeah, well, they didn’t want to go up or they didn’t want to get called up or like they were scared of this or it’s like no, no, we were creating, like, that group of guys. NXT blew up when it came from, like Sami Zayn and Claudio Cesaro, to the Kevin stuff to Bayley and Sasha and then our group coming in like with Finn and Shin and then into like Johnny and I and Undisputed. Like if you were in that room at that moment, like you knew how special it was, it’d be like going to ECW and saying like, Hey, Tommy Dreamer, and Sandman and Raven. You guys don’t want to leave this place and go, you know, because WWE that’s where the big stars are. You’re wanting to do like WrestleMania isn’t like, yes, but yeah, I want to see if we can make this WrestleMania first. That’s literally what it was like. It was like, can we get 10,000 people? Can we get a million-dollar gate? Can we do that multiple times? Can we get TakeOver to be equivalent to Mania? Can we can we do 20,000? Like our mindset was like, Oh, we’re gonna get TV now. How far can [it go]? It wasn’t like it was a weird us against them. And it wasn’t like we don’t want to go there. That same company, same umbrella, we’re not stupid. We know. We want to make this thing. Bigger than that.”

On returning to NXT:

“Performance-wise I don’t think so. I think there’s a door that’s very open for guys like myself and Johnny because of loyalty because of the way we handle ourselves outside of the ring, professionalism and stuff that like there’s a spot producing coaching something. Yeah, I’m just not done performing. Like, physically. I know, my body sometimes just tells me like, hey, stop. But really, mentally, I’m not anywhere close. So like that wouldn’t. Before I would do something like that. The option would be well, no, it’s the Ring of Honor option. It’s the I think I can do this thing that’s really special. I’m gonna go do it. Yeah, like, Please give me the opportunity to do it here. But if not, I’m still gonna go do it.”

What is Tommaso Ciampa grateful for:

“My wife and child.”