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!

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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.”

Featured image: WWE

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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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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!

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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.”

Natalya Neidhart (@natbynature) is a professional wrestler with WWE. She sits down with Chris Van Vliet at her home in Tampa, FL to talk about her 16-year WWE career, what keeps her hungry, her favorite matches, training in the Hart family Dungeon in Calgary, her family memory of her father Jim “The Anvil” Neidhart, learning from her Uncle Bret Hart, how she met her husband TJ Wilson (Tyson Kidd), her memories of the night of TJ’s spinal cord injury in 2015, their wrestling training center in Florida also called “The Dungeon”, being in the best shape of her life and much more!

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Quote I’m thinking about:”You just can’t beat the person who never gives up.” – Babe Ruth

On being in better shape than ever:

“So last November, I had to have nose surgery I had a severely deviated septum, and my nose was off the joint. I didn’t know about any of this until I had to get it fixed, a nose joint. So my nose was broken and it was off the joint. So I had to get my septum and my nose fixed. And when I did that, I had to take some time off from WWE, which for me, I’ve been in WWE for 16 and a half uninterrupted years. So that three months that I had off, I was like I’ve got this time off I really want to get laser focused and dialled in on my diet and my fitness and my health and just getting in the best shape of my life. You know, before I go back to work, TJ, he does intermittent fasting and so I started doing that and I don’t eat anything past a certain time and then I don’t start eating until later in the day the next day. So I have this like 16-hour window of not eating. Yes, I’m 16:8 so then I do my cardio and my most of my training for the most part I do it in the morning on an empty stomach and then I’m able to eat after that. It just worked for me, and everything’s different for everyone. Different things work for different people. But for me, it really worked. And I would go to bed a little bit hungry and I would see results because I wasn’t eating a lot at night. In the past I would get done with the show and I’d be really hungry and I would feel like okay, I want to go to McDonald’s. I would just kind of let my hair down and you just start to kind of pick around at junk and you have some pizza and you have a glass of wine and so when you go to sleep right after that, it’s just kind of you know, for me, it didn’t work. And so I didn’t realise like, For me, I’m five foot five I got up to like 172. Again, not a bad weight by any means, but I was like, Whoa, I can’t believe like that was a little high for me. So I got this time off with my nose surgery I want to come back to work in the best shape of my life and I just got really dialled in and I love to work out it’s like a passion for me. I do Olympic training. John Cena’s coach Rob McIntyre. He runs Cena’s gym that Cena has in Florida and it’s kind of like an invite-only but when I started getting really serious about weightlifting and weight training, I learned how to do all those Olympic power lifts from Cena’s coach Rob and Rob trains, John, he’s trained Claudio, he’s trained Rusev, he’s trained Windham, Roman, pretty much everybody, Big E. He’s trained everybody. And he taught me about, like, taught me a lot about weight training. So as a woman, I can’t stress enough how important it is to lift weights as much as it is to do cardio, if not more important.”

On moving better:

“It’s funny because TJ said the other day, we were at the dungeon. And TJ said, you’re moving so well, you’re moving so fast, and I feel so good. Like, I wake up knock on wood, wake up every single day pain-free and as a pro wrestler that’s been wrestling since I was 18 years old, which for me, like I just love this so much that I feel like I’ve never taken a break really ever longer than three months. But to wake up from wrestling 20 years, 20 plus years, it’s actually like a little over 22 years and wake up pain-free. It’s because I am in such good shape and being lighter has helped me move better. I feel like I’m actually like hitting my stride which is crazy this deep into my career for a woman. No woman ever in the history of WWE has ever done that, has ever been there. As long as I have. Even Bret was in WWE for 14 years. So it’s like, it’s funny when I think about that. I’m like, I’m just so lucky. So lucky, so blessed.”

On not retiring any time soon:

“I just feel so good. That’s the crazy thing is that, like people always say oh, when are you gonna wrap it up? When is it gonna be done? It’s like, Listen, this is Hotel California. You can check out anytime you want, but you can never leave. Once you do this, like I’m a wrestler through and through like it’ll never ever, ever, ever, ever leave me ever. It’s a community. It’s a family. It’s a lifestyle. It’s a way of life and it doesn’t mean that I’ll be competing forever but like, it’s like, you know, when I saw Rey Mysterio, I was watching him in a match. I was live at a show and I went into the crowd and like put a hat on and watched him you know, I was incognito and I watched Rey perform live, it was in Mexico and he was wrestling Roman Reigns. And I was just like Rey is almost 50 And he is doing the best work of his career. He’s so inspiring, his gear, his look his energy, his vibe, his ability to move around to make people feel something and granted he was in there with one of the greatest of all time Roman, but Rey is one of the greatest of all time. He just inspires me so much and like I’m you know, I’m not close to being done when I look at like what Rey’s doing. I’m like Rey inspires me to want to do so much more and to also help people you know, because you look at who Rey’s worked with and how much he’s helped people even with Santos right now you know. I look up to so much as Rey, what he’s done.”

On where does the drive come from:

“I think that because, and this is gonna sound crazy. But when I really think about it, because my career wasn’t picture-perfect. And because it didn’t work out exactly how I wanted it to in my head. It has driven me so much. Because when like it back in the day, you know, even when I was first starting when I was an FCW, it’s like this for everybody. I want to be a champion, I want to have this I want to have that I want to win the Royal Rumble, I want to, you know, I want to have all these different titles. And I want to do this and I want to do that. And for me, because it didn’t always work out perfectly, it’s left me really, really hungry. And it’s left me in a place in my life where I don’t want to stop. I don’t want to take it for granted. But I won’t stop reaching for greatness because I feel like the second that you get comfortable, the second that you get complacent, the second that you stop fighting and the second that you stop trying is when it’s over. And for me, I love what I do. I love the women that I work with I love and thrive on working with new talent. I feel like that’s really one of my special niches. I love, love love working with new talent like when Charlotte Flair was first getting started, like I was I remember being presented with the opportunity by Triple H to work with her and I was like I want to do that. That sounds like so much fun. And you know it’s funny that match we had Charlotte and I at TakeOver Triple H said you, you know you asked him what our time limit was I was like how long do we have? He’s like you don’t have a time limit. Just do what you want. And it was the first time, I think about that match was the first time in my career that somebody told me I didn’t have a time limit. And it was like diving in with this new talent that like I had met Charlotte backstage and she and I had this like Heart to Heart together and she was just before she was Charlotte Flair. She was just Ashley and I know what it’s like to just be Nattie before you become a WWE superstar. You’re just like you’re nervous and you’re in these big you have these big shoes to fill like you know, the Hart family Ric Flair like you got these larger than life boots to fill and she just wanted to make her family proud and she was dealing with the loss of her brother and she was the super athletic girl but she just needed to kind of rein it in and I  was so excited about working with somebody that was new and that just needed a chance, because it sparked a fire. You know what I mean? And I think and I look and strive for that all the time, whether it’s me working with Xia Li on Main Event, whether it’s me working with, against Charlotte Flair, whether it’s me working with, you know, a brand new girl, whether it’s me, I mean, I think about my match or the Aliyah. You know, when that was presented to me where she was gonna beat me in three seconds, I was like, What can we do to make a great story out of this so we can really help get Aliyah over because then if we get Aliyah over, we have another girl for our division, it just it’s about making the division strong, where you can’t have a strong division with just one girl that strong. So I always saw myself as the kind of person that helped bridge the gap with that.”

On Jim The Anvil Neidhart going into the Hall of Fame:

“He [Bret Hart] made my dad, he helped my dad so much. When I look at it, Bret always says, you know, Jim helped me come out of my shell and Jim helped me find my personality. But when my dad and Bret were going into the Hall of Fame. It’s funny because I was very, very, very adamant. At one point it was approached, you know, it was, I was basically presented with the idea of my dad going in by himself. And I said, you know, I want my dad to go in with, I want my dad and Bret in there together as the Hart Foundation because that was my dad’s favourite time in his career. That’s when he had the most fun. That’s when he was the most alive. That’s when he just did his best work. And Bret just looked out for him so much. And they were just so close and such a well-oiled machine. And so as much as like, in that moment, Vince was like, we can put your dad in by himself. I was like, I want my dad and Bret together. I want them together because my dad would have wanted that. You know, and so that was really cool to be able to do that for my dad. It was something that he really I know he would have been so excited to be part of the Hall of Fame.”

On Natalya being advised against wrestling: 

“My dad did not want me a part of wrestling at all. He was very like, against it. Because my dad at the time there were only a few women in it. And my grandfather Stu didn’t train any girls down in the dungeon. And so my uncle is we’re all brought up with this is just a man’s world. Because back in the day in the 80s there wasn’t a lot of you know, there was Wendy Richter there was sensational Sherri, there was just a few you know, Miss Elizabeth, but there wasn’t really a lot of women wrestling so I wasn’t overly encouraged by anybody in my family, especially the men to do it because it wasn’t really seen as something for the women. And so for me, I had to break down that barrier even in my own family, like I want to do this and my dad was really afraid I was gonna get hurt, not just hurt physically, but like hurt emotionally because he’s like, this is such a hard business. And then when I started to succeed, I went to Japan. and did my very first tour of Japan. That’s where I met Becky Lynch actually, blew out my ACL and that’s why my dad was like, he didn’t want me doing it.”

On changing perceptions:

“Once I really started to prove myself to my dad, he was like my biggest cheerleader. In his office before he passed away, like his office just had like pictures of us, you know, my sisters and I everywhere and like, every wrestling thing I ever did was like on the walls, my action figures and his action figures and Bret’s action figures. And he really celebrated that so much. He became like my biggest fan, yeah, he became my biggest, biggest biggest fan.” 

On Bray Wyatt training at the dungeon:

“Bray Wyatt, before he made his return back to WWE. Last year he approached us about training and coming to work in the dungeon. And so we kept it all extremely private because if somebody doesn’t want to be filmed, or they don’t want to, we don’t post about it. So it can, you know, can be very private, but he was so excited to like get in the ring and like he was giving everybody promo advice and he was in there like just you could just feel him get excited about it. And it’s funny because he said to me, when he was in our at the dungeon, he’s like Natty, I want to do something for you guys. Like what can I buy for you? He was so giving, you know, and he was like, I want to do something I want to buy something for the school. And I said Windham, you don’t have to buy anything. I was like you just coming here and you giving advice is just everything. Because he would go around after he would be in the ring. He would go around every single person that was there. And again, it’s it’s usually you know, between 10 and 15 people. And he embodied what TJ and I want our dungeon to be, it’s just where you give back. It’s just all about giving back. It’s about helping people. It’s about helping people from every walk of life and Windham was giving everybody advice and saying, you know, what, if you said it like this, or what if you did that, like this? Or what if you did, he was like, so he was just so giving, that’s what the dungeon is, the dungeon is about us giving back.” 

On TJ Wilson:

“He can’t do anything that would require him to take a bump. So he can show little techniques, and TJ is like a wrestling savant. I think in the same way that like Daniel Bryan did. He sees the industry in wrestling and everything like he could ask him about a finish from a Bret Hart match. That’s very obscure, he’ll be able to tell you, he could tell you any single girl’s move set. He could. He could, if you if you said, TJ, when did I have that match? Who was it against what arena what town, he’s like that with moves too. He just knows how to dissect it, pick it apart. He was working with Nia Jax on something. And he was just helping her figure out exactly how to do it so that it was just perfect technique. And I was like, I didn’t even know TJ ever knew about that move. And he’s just so gifted, and he’s so good, but he just can’t bump. And that’s the thing when you have an injury, like what TJ had, where it’s a C1 injury, and not everybody’s familiar with what a C1 injury is. But it is where TJ broke his neck was at the base of his brain. So it’s where like the brain and the spinal cord meet. So it’s a very, very vulnerable area. And the actual medical term for that injury is called The Hang Man fracture. So when people say, Oh, TJ, you know, we want to see you get back in the ring. And they see that he is very healthy, and he is in very great shape. Because he had a C1 injury with a C1 C2 fusion, he just can’t take a bump. And he has to be very careful. So he can’t ever come back to wrestling. I mean, he can do stuff, you know, he can do stuff, but he can’t take a bump. It would be really dangerous.”

On having many Guinness World Records:

“It’s funny because I didn’t even know I had a Guinness World Record until one day I was tagged in something with Randy Orton. And it was like the most, I can’t remember whether it was the most wins of the most pay-per-views or something. And I sent Randy a text like Randy did you know that we have a Guinness World Record and then Rey Mysterio got one too for the most SmackDown matches. I said, Rey, we both have the most SmackDown matches and then all of a sudden, I just kept getting them and I was like, damn, I’ll take it. There’s one that they’re looking into because a fan on Twitter pointed out to me that I have the most submission wins of any man or woman in WWE history, and I was like I have more wins than Bret Hart? Well, submissions because TJ pointed out the wrestling savant that TJ is he’s like Bret didn’t always win with the Sharpshooter. He’s like you’ve won a lot of matches with the Sharpshooter. But Bret won a lot of his matches with roll-ups and quick pins and things. So I was like, damn it, I’ll take it another world record. I’ll take it. But it’s fun. I mean, at the end of the day like it’s cool what my world records are really for. It’s just having worked a lot. I worked a lot. I haven’t really had a break in almost 17 years. I had an ankle injury where I had surgery and I was out for three weeks. I was out for three I had surgery and I was out for three weeks and TJ goes Natty you just had surgery three weeks ago and I was like Dr. Andrews Clinic says that I’m like ready to go. I want to get back in the ring. So I took three weeks off after having surgery on an ankle injury but in January I’ll have been signed by WWE for almost 17 years and I’ve had three months off in 17 years.”

What is Natalya grateful for:

“An amazing family, security and my health.”

Featured image: USA Network

Karrion Kross (@realKILLERkross) is a professional wrestler signed to WWE and also known for his time in IMPACT Wrestling, MLW and Lucha Underground. He sits down with Chris Van Vliet in Hollywood, CA to talk about returning to WWE, his relationship with Triple H, his hilarious Jesse Ventura impression, how the Govenor himself tweeted that he liked Karrion’s impression over Will Sasso’s, his wife Scarlett Bordeaux, the book he wrote about his life and when it might be published, his love of Brazilian jiu-jitsu and much more!

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Quote I’m thinking about:If you can’t fly then run, if you can’t run then walk, if you can’t walk then crawl, but whatever you do you have to keep moving forward. – Martin Luther King, Jr

On Bray Wyatt:

“I didn’t want to get too much into it until we were here. It’s not a double-talk conversation. But so Windham and I were talking on and off for like, a long time when I was an extra in WWE, he would always talk with me like backstage. It was never about wrestling, but about like horror movies or tattoos or music. And then, like, I wouldn’t see him like, we weren’t like friends but he was very warm to me. And I think it was around 2018 2019 he reached out to me and he was like, we need to dance. And I was like, all right, I was blown away. Somebody that I look up to as a performer talking to me, like, indie Killer Kross who hasn’t made a name yet or drawn any money. As we got close to that time, I went to getting on board with NXT. We do the entrance. suplex Leon Ruff on his head a couple of times choke him. And he reaches out again. He was like, it’s gonna be me and you at WrestleMania one day. And I was like, my God. I always thought like, I just always thought him and I were gonna do this in a different capacity, you know?” 

On potential plans for a match with Bray Wyatt:

“So we fast forward. I haven’t talked to like anybody but my wife about this. So fast forward we were supposed to work last WrestleMania nobody knew that except for a collection of writers and some people in the office. [Was this WrestleMania 39?]  Yeah. We were slated to do something. And we would talk for hours about how we wanted to get into it, what we wanted to deliver creatively for people where we thought we both needed to be. We had you know, ideas with like Alexa and Bo and Scarlett. You know, and then everything happened the way it did. But he left a mark on anybody and everybody that he ever met. And it’s just very strange the way everything kind of just played out, like, beautiful and tragic. And he was always an inspiration to me and always showed me warmth. He showed everybody warmth, you know what I mean? But I just have so many, I have more stories than we have time to share. But we were cool and I’ll never forget him.”

On multiple people getting Bray Wyatt tattoos:

“I was just approached in the middle of the day by a lot of the staff, they had let us know that there was a local artist in town. We’re all upset, you know, it’s still unsettling for a lot of us, what happened. So we just decided to collectively all do it. You know, it was something we all wanted to do together and that’s kind of how it came about. It was very spontaneous, but it was a no-brainer.”

On growing his hair out:

“Eventually, it’s going to grow so long that it’s going to take over the earth. That’s the plan. That’s pretty long. I think I want to grow my hair, maybe to like Taker 98 length. I always thought that was a really cool period in his career. And that whole vibe, that whole look was awesome. And yeah, I was telling you initially I was supposed to do the film, it got like, we never finished it never held off like a bunch of things that went wrong. We never got to it. I just decided to keep my hair.”

On returning to WWE:

“When Hunter reached out to Scarlett and I and basically just asked us, Do you guys want to come home? We’re like, absolutely. So he had just said to us, I would like to kind of reprise, you know, what we had created in NXT and translate that to the main roster. And so without needing to have much more of a conversation beyond that, because we had worked together, he doesn’t have to over-explain himself, I get the idea and the vision. So did she. We were like, well, let’s, let’s give the audience what they wanted that they never got when we came up. Like I can’t even, it was inescapable. When I was released, everywhere her and I went, fans were saying we just wanted to see you guys together and get that murder run on the main roster that you had on NXT, we wanted to see that translate. They wanted to see the guy, you know, come out of the ground and start fighting people on the mountain of the main rosters. It’s like, that whole thing. And we were just like, this is exactly what they want to see. It’s what we want to do, it was a no-brainer.”

On the Karrion Kross entrance:

“So Hunter asked us what sort of musical vibe and direction we wanted to go in. And I had mentioned something heavy, melodic. If we could find some sort of chorus or riff that was something haunting. He sent, I guess those details over to the music department. They develop the music and he sent it to us and we had some ideas about how long it would take walking from the curtain to the ring and how much time we’d have in the ring before the bell rang. So we came up with some choreography in our apartment at that time. And so when we got to work like Hunter, I already had like, the idea for the mood with the lights. And he had put the bird up on the Tron, which was a play off Karrion. He, I don’t know, just all the conversations that the three of us had. We were all so on point. It was crazy. It was like, didn’t have to over-explain anything. Like we all just kind of had a good working chemistry. So he had that whole thing set up for us when we got there.”

On possibly facing John Cena:

“I can’t say it’s not. I can’t say it’s not impossible. So during the lockdowns, fans were fantasy booking tonnes of stuff. They started fantasy booking me versus John Cena. That blew my mind. I was still in NXT. I was expecting maybe ideas and concepts like that would come at a later time one day when I’m on main roster, they were already saying they wanted to see that. Then I think one day John posted a picture of me on his Instagram with no caption, no context, and people went crazy over it. You know, unfortunately, some things happened from that point to where we are now where I was no longer with the company. And now I’m back and he’s here as well. Just thought I’d put it out there and see if people still felt about it.”

On calling out Batista in 2019:

“So it’s crazy how it can either happen immediately, or it can happen over time how people will attach like a crazy context to something that might not totally be accurate. So like when I called Dave out. My intention was, first of all, he was in the hotel, we were wrestling and it was a GCW event. He was filming a zombie film. Someone told me right before I walked through the curtain that Batista was here, and I was like, I want to meet him. They’re like, No, no, not here, he’s in the building. I went, Where? Oh, he’s in the building filming a movie, of course, he’s filming a movie. And at that time, I was bummed to hear that he retired, I was a huge fan of his growing up. And just even being at the, you know, the smaller level that I was at the time. I love that. Like, I still love this. It’s hard for me to imagine not being in love with this anymore to the point where I would be comfortable and okay to retire. So I was thinking in that context at the time, like, there’s no way he doesn’t love this anymore. Maybe he just needs something creative that he would be really interested in. Because that’s all of us. You can hook us back into wrestling when we’re retired. If there’s something you’re genuinely interested to do creatively, and Dave has like a shoot background. He’s like a legit brown belt in jujitsu. Yeah, so I go out there and I do the match with Nick Gage, choke him, get up. And yeah, call Batista out with the intention hoping that if he really didn’t want to be retired, and he wanted to do something that he’s never done before that would be in his wheelhouse that people have never seen him do which would be like the shoot work stuff, I would have been happy.”

Did Batista respond?

“I doubt it, but Josh knows him. Maybe Josh may have told him but it was never in, in a way where it was like, you know, screw Dave Batista. No. Like you heard the reaction from people they really right away were like, it would be awesome to have Dave Batista on Bloodsport, it would be awesome. And like for people to see him move, legit. You know what I mean on the ground and free roll and flow with people that I think it would have been awesome.”

On being set up for Roman Reigns:

“I mean, so I landed, this is just my opinion, my opinion. I landed into a very interesting time in the programming. So if you notice, we’ve got three very strong heels with three titles for quite a while. Theory, GUNTHER, Roman, right. These guys all had very long title runs. Functionally, from a programming standpoint, these are the top dogs, right? Babyfaces gotta go up to the PLEs to fight the heels. You know, I kind of look at it and think about it like when I go back, and I watch NXT when I was a heel champion, I was the most dominant heel champion, I was the most dominant heel in the programme because I was champion. When you’re the heel, and you’ve got the belt. A lot of the programming of the show should go in that direction. Like if I’m writing and formatting a wrestling television show, that’s how I’m going to format it. So you know, a lot of the time really does need to go to the people who have the belts. And that’s like anyone, not just them, those three specifically, but anyone who has a belt. That’s the whole purpose of that. If like you were to compare, you know, Game of Thrones, everyone is trying to get the throne in there are subplots, but they’re not taking up a massive portion of the show, the show should be about trying to get the throne just like in wrestling, the show should be about trying to get the belts, but he gets some babyfaces around those belts.”

On writing a book:

“So I submitted the book to WWE because I would like to have it published through them. Everything that I do, I would like to do through WWE, I want to be a lifer, you know what I mean? I would like to think that it could be published by the end of this year. The book is being reviewed or has been reviewed. There are just a couple other moving parts that need to be set in place for it to be published. But when I submitted the book, I had the formatting down. It was edited, there’s photos in it, and I gave them like a totally finished product. So it’s whenever they have all of their ducks in a row for some things that they’re trying to line up for all of us. On the publishing side, the book will be published, but I’m really excited for people to read it. Again, I’m a little bit scared. But I think that’s probably a good thing.”

What is Karrion Kross grateful for:

“My health, the health of my family and to be able to do what I love for a living.”

Ric Flair (@ricflairnatureboy) is a legendary professional wrestler and a 2-time member of the WWE Hall of Fame. He sits down with Chris Van Vliet in Tampa, FL to talk about the recent passing of Bray Wyatt, his thoughts on his last match, why he wants to wrestle again, his WOOOOO Energy drink, the psychology of his knife edge chops, why he feels Charlotte Flair and Brock Lesnar are the best athletes in WWE, who he thinks is the greatest wrestler of all time, what went wrong with WCW, his personal issues with Eric Bischoff, his thoughts on The Rock, his son Reid Flair, advice for his younger self, the fact that Sting is still wrestling at 63 years old and much more!

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Quote I’m thinking about:If you don’t like the road you’re walking, start paving another one. – Dolly Parton

On losing Bray Wyatt:

“This year was really [hard] losing Bray Wyatt, who I wasn’t best friends with. But his dad and I were very close. As mother and I were very close and 35 years old. 36 rather. So he was the same age as my son. No, my would have been 35. And they were all together all of them together. And when I retired in Orlando WrestleMania 24, it was Bray, Taylor, his brother, Wes Brisco, and my son, all there at the same time in catering.” 

On multiple wrestlers sadly passing away:

“Well, I mean, it’s, well, this one had nothing to do with, it wasn’t drug-related or anything. Just a health issue that, they didn’t see coming. I’ve heard so many different stories, whether it’s COVID-related or not, but it just. Yeah, I mean, actually, Billy Graham, lived a lot longer than people thought, he had kidney issues forever. So The Sheik, at least it was normal. But the problem for me is that they’re all within a couple years of my age. It makes you it makes you aware.”

On skirting death multiple times:

“I know twice. I mean, the aeroplane crash would have to be considered one. And then of course, in 2017 when I was on life support for 13 days on ICU for 31. And then, which a lot of people still don’t understand. I didn’t know where I was for six months after I woke up. I had no memory of anything behind me. Just going forward. I didn’t even know that I lived in Charlotte. Didn’t know that I had lawyers. I couldn’t remember anything for six months. That’s how I got beat up so bad legally. Because I’d forgotten I had lawyers and when I was dying, you probably heard this everybody was taking away a lot of my sh*t. Including my agent who stole about 300 grand, it was on escrow. If I was dead, then it would have gone and so she took it all out of escrow. Put in her pocket, including $50,000 from ESPN for the 30 for 30.”

On his memory coming back:

“I had texts. When I woke up. I think I actually think I counted it because they wouldn’t give me my phone. But I had like 170 texts, right? And half of them I didn’t realise. I thought Who is this person? I mean, I saw 704 which is the Charlotte area code and I didn’t know who it was and then it just started at it and while I was sitting in recovery and I was basically sitting in a black chair. I had never watched Netflix in my life I’d never watched Prime I didn’t even know what they were. So then I started to watch Arrow and then after that I watched the Webster and I mean right down the line of seeing them all.”

On the correct way to spell Wooooo:

“It is a trademark for 5 o’s but I can afford to. McDonald’s did one where the guy went Woooo. And we went right to McDonald’s and shut it down, rather than put me into commercial or, pay me. I don’t know what it cost them to shoot down a commercial that a minute-long commercial has to cost them millions to put together I mean, based on my knowledge of it especially with the production values.”

Why was Ricky Steamboat not considered for Flair’s retirement match:

“It just didn’t work out. You know, for health issue wise. Rick had some minor ones. I don’t know for sure. You know, it’s funny. We’ve probably wrestled each other, without embellishing, we’ve probably wrestled each other between 1,500 to 2,000 times in so many times over an hour right? Or an hour and a half. But we became very close friends. But we didn’t socialise a lot. Does that make sense? Yeah, Rick is a quieter guy, sticks to himself, he drinks some beer once a while, but he just keeps himself and he’s too humble. He was so great.” 

On competing in his last match:

“Everything went great, including the 9,000 people we packed in there which was more than WCW or WWE had had in the building forever. And then I just walked on the ramp and I just you know, a combination. I guess I’d be nervous and everything started out fine though. So like I don’t know why I got lightheaded for a second. I made the mistake of saying to one of the guys I don’t feel so good. Well, they all went they all thought I was telling them like my heart or something like that. And that’s the worst thing I did and then I was like I got real lightheaded. And I know that was I was in and out all during the match.”

On making it through the match:

“Oh, yeah, I was fighting like hell to get through it. But it was just fighting here. Nothing that I felt, I wasn’t hurting anywhere. I just felt bad because the guys had been all panicking and worried about my health. And we had said we had constructed such a great match. If it had come off the way we’ve practised forever, it would have been a masterpiece, but, you know, when I walked back to the locker room Taker made me drink three Gatorades. Then I went to Kid Rock and drank all night long.”

On spots that got cut:

“Oh God. They were just gonna slam me off the top, suplex me, stuff on the floor. Everybody’s just panicked. You know, it all was a concern for me, they didn’t forget their parts. They just [went] let’s get through this. I mean, that’s why I had to fake that heart attack. I went slow down, slow down, I’m okay. Should have never said anything. So then we got a little bit more back in. But my son-in-law [Andrade] had to put the brass knucks on my hand. He’s going, Wake up sir. That was it.”

Was that Ric Flair’s final match?

“I want to wrestle again right now. Isn’t it crazy? I feel like because, Ricky Morton, the guy that I should have chosen for my last match would have been great. Ricky Morton is still wrestling. You know what the best thing for me about it was, is I forced myself to really get in shape. I’ve heard this from guys over the years. And when they were older, I was like, in my prime. The older guys would say a man, I’m tired of working out. And there gets a time when you just get bored working out. You don’t have a goal. I mean, they gave me a goal and I just attacked it. I didn’t stop drinking or anything but I was training literally training three hours a day, five days a week in the ring, or I was doing the sled, the ropes. Yeah, I got my bench press up for two and a quarter. I mean, so from being dead to all that was pretty cool.”

On Charlotte Flair breaking the championship record:

“I certainly hope it happens. I don’t know what they’re doing right now. But who knows? It’s got to happen. It’d be the biggest thing in the business. If they’re really interested in doing something. Because I feel like the women have had more empowerment right now than they ever had, and deservedly, right. But the biggest thing that could happen, John and I talked about this, John Cena. Can you imagine us walking down and congratulating Charlotte? What kind of rating would that get on TV? To see that finally happen? I think it’s the biggest thing they could do right now.”

On Brock Lesnar:

“She’s [Charlotte] the most skilled athlete. She and Brock Lesnar are the two best athletes in the company. It’s not even arguable. Brock is a phenomenal athlete, and Brock has learned how to work. I sent him a text the other day I just said, you know, he was so intimidating when he first came in. I had to work with him too. But you know, he’s just a big guy with incredible athletic ability. I mean, that’s almost a 40-inch vertical jump when he jumped up on top of the apron, I would have to say that’s close to 40 inches, right? At 280 pounds to do a 40-inch vertical jump. I don’t want to be there the day that he misses and falls. I don’t want to be his opponent. Now he’s an incredible athlete. And they’ve got some really good athletes in the company. But Ashley could have gone and played 3 D1 sports if she wanted to.” 

On his relationship with WWE:

“It’s fine. I don’t work for them. I mean, I’m always gonna be indebted and be thankful for the relationship over the years. But when you work with them, you’re pretty much locked up to, you know, to anything, and they have a real tough, enforceable contract. So I wouldn’t be able to do the marijuana. I certainly wouldn’t be able to have the energy drink unless I gave them 50% of it or something like that. I mean, you know, and in all fairness, I don’t like that. But I can understand they’re gonna give you the TV time and help give you the opportunity for yourself to become a star if you have that star quality, then they deserve to get a part of the money. I understand it. I don’t like it. But if it’s only fair, I’ve seen a lot worse situations for people.”

On who is the GOAT:

“Well, I think to me, the goat is the guy that did the most for the business. Not necessarily, had to be the best wrestler. But the guy that did meant the most to our business, and the guy that saved [it] in my eyes, saved the WWE. Steve Austin. Yeah, I mean, what Steve did, and then to be injured and retire at 39. I mean, I keep forgetting this and until people remind me, well, I don’t see Steve as much as I used to. But he quit. He had to quit because of a broken neck at 39. Yeah, he got back in and out. But I mean, think about that. I mean. And he took a couple of swings. They put one label on him, but when he found that niche, him and Vince The Attitude Era, but it was Stone Cold, Shawn, Mike Tyson. And we were arguing about the NWO who’s gonna win a match? And can we go with three minutes instead of 10? I mean, it’s just bullsh*t. But that’s, that’s when all of a sudden where Bischoff didn’t know how to run a company. Then he put himself into it, which made it worse.”

What is Ric Flair grateful for:

“The relationship I have with my 2 girls, [my wife] Wendy and having 20 close friends.”

If you are a content creator looking to take things to the next level, be part of the Full Time Creator community at http://fulltimecreator.coWe are back with another AskCVV episode! Chris 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:What you are is what you have been. What you’ll be is what you’re doing now. – Buddha

What are your thoughts on Edge, or I guess it’s Adam Copeland now, signing with AEW?

“It’s big. It’s a big one. And I’ve seen the debates of like, is this the biggest signing that AEW has ever had? I think objectively, the answer is no. I mean, it’s big. It’s top two or three. But the biggest one has got to be CM Punk. When CM Punk walked out of WWE in 2014, it sure sounded like he was never going to wrestle ever again. So him coming back, and I’ve talked about this before, but him coming back at the time that he came back it was one of the very first shows with a full audience in his hometown. That crazy Chicago crowd. I don’t know if AEW will ever beat that return, I guess it’s technically a debut, but a wrestling return like that. That’s one of the biggest wrestling returns/debuts really, ever. I think that Adam Copeland is a close second. And I’m surprised, I mean, if I’m being honest about it, I’m really surprised. We all saw the rumours. We all saw the reports that his contract was going to be up, oh my gosh, I can’t believe WrestleDream happens to be the next day. What are the odds? Wow, that lines up too perfectly. I didn’t think it was gonna happen. I really thought that the way that things wrapped up in Toronto, in his hometown, 25 years of Edge, they made that entire SmackDown episode around him. It just felt like a family type of thing. It felt like you’re one of us. And I guess from the sounds of it, it sounds like Edge, I keep calling him Edge. I don’t know. I guess we’ll call him Adam, I don’t know. I guess Adam wanted to do more and WWE didn’t really have that plan for him. So he’s open to doing those matches in AEW. Now he’s with his best friend, his new rival, but his long-time tag team partner Christian Cage who is on fire right now! The work that Christian Cage is doing is incredible. So it’s surprising. But I’m so excited to see what’s possible here. And what was so interesting was we all thought yeah, maybe he’ll be there and then when Christian was in the main event at WrestleDream, it felt like okay, this could be like possible that they’re setting something up here. But then when you heard “You think you know him.” And it was “You think you know him.” Not “You think you know me.” and then they paid for, you know, Edge’s theme song like, it was good, it was magical and it was a great moment. And I will say whether you are an AEW fan, WWE fan, Impact Wrestling fan, or whatever it happens to be, you can’t deny that it was a great moment. That was such a great moment. Him coming out through the smoke, the look on Christian Cage’s face. And then we saw the payoff, or at least the setup for a feud between Christian and Edge on Dynamite, Go F yourself. So good. That’s what pro wrestling is all about, is creating moments. That’s what we got at WrestleDream. That’s what we got on Dynamite. And I’m sure with two veterans, like Adam Copeland and Christian Cage together, they’re gonna make magic in the match when they end up having that. So I’m excited to see what’s possible here. But I’m surprised, if you had asked me last week, is Adam Copeland gonna sign with AEW, I’d say no, I don’t think so. Like I feel like if things ended really well in WWE, he spent 25 years there, lifelong WWE guy. And look, I was wrong, but I’m glad I was wrong. Because it’s the fans, we win here.”

So I’m trying to get my content out to reach more people, but it feels like I’m not marketing myself well enough, any tips to help promote my stuff better?

“Well, look, I like that you use the word marketing here. Because that’s a really key part to putting out whether it’s a podcast, or it’s content on YouTube, you really can’t just put it out and hope that people find it, especially when you’re starting out. And, of course, everybody starts at zero. So you got to remember that, so stop comparing yourself to people who have 1000s of followers, 10s of 1000s of followers, hundreds of 1000s, millions, whatever, everybody starts at zero. So when you put your stuff out there, I think you got to do whatever you can, with whatever channels you have to promote it in the best way that you can. So if you’re putting out a podcast, put it out on Twitter/X, whatever we’re calling it, put it out on Facebook, put it out on LinkedIn, if you have an email list, send them an email, put it on Instagram. And I think the biggest thing and if you guys follow me, you know that I capitalise on this as much as I possibly can, put out as many reels, shorts or TikToks as you can. They’re like these little advertisements for the whole show. Because if you have a podcast, and I know this full well here, we are 520 episodes in. If you have a podcast, asking someone who doesn’t know who you are and has never heard your show before, asking them to invest an hour of their time, or even five minutes of their time to see if they like the first five minutes. That’s a huge investment. If someone were to text you a link and said, Oh, this podcast was so great, you’ve got to listen to it, and they send you a Spotify link or an Apple podcast link, you’re going, Yeah, I don’t think I’ll be getting to that anytime soon. Maybe on a long drive, like two weeks from now, maybe that’ll find its way into my rotation. But if that same person sent you a 43-second clip of a really interesting moment of that podcast, I’d say 10 out of 10 they’re going to be clicking on that clip. And if they’re not watching all the way through, they’re watching most of the way through. So I like to think of these clips, the shorts, as breadcrumbs. These are the little breadcrumbs to give people just a little taste of what your show is all about, and what your channel is all about. Then hopefully that leads them to the slice of bread, which is the longer clips, you know, maybe that’s a two to five to eight-minute clip. And that could be on Facebook, that could be on Twitter, that could be on YouTube. And then hopefully if they liked that slice of bread, they want to go find the full loaf of bread, and that full loaf of bread, obviously being the main piece of content. So I really don’t think you can put out enough content. I get that you’re at the mercy of how much time you have, and how much time you’re able to spend on that. But if you have the time to do that, that I think is a huge, huge technique. And, look, I know that you’re not alone in this. And this is the whole reason that I set up Full Time Creator. You’ve probably heard me talking about it on social media, the website is fulltimecreator.co This is the whole reason we set it up. Because I’ve been doing this now for 12 years, I’ve been doing it full-time as my entire job for four years. And my buddy Travis Chapell has been doing it full-time for almost his whole career. We’ve made a tonne of mistakes, and we don’t want you to make them too. And we’ve also got a lot of things right. So we built Full Time Creator as a mastermind for people who are in the same situation that we were in years ago to be able to learn from that and grow in a community of people who are also going through the same stuff. So we started like two weeks ago and I’m just jacked. I’m so excited with how it’s going. We’ve got a huge expert guest joining us for a private conversation for just the people who are part of Full Time Creator, that’s happening on Tuesday. So if you’re just like on the fence about it, not even on the fence about if you’re just even thinking about it, if it’s a thought that has entered your mind, go to fulltimecreator.co And just sign up, it’s $1. If you don’t like it after a week, that’s it, cancel. You don’t need to be part of the group at all. But all you’ve got to lose is $1. And if you’re not willing to invest in the content that you’re making, and you’re not willing to invest both time and money into your future as a creator, then you’re probably going to keep spinning your wheels here. So that’s why we built this out. Go take a look. I think you’ll like it.”

Given your own busy schedule, which now includes Full Time Creator as well. What’s the best approach for other podcasts to get you as a guest?

“I really haven’t been a guest on a lot of other podcasts and the few that I have been on, they’ve just been friends of mine, and they happen to live in town. And I think you guys know I’ve talked about it enough that I’m trying to do as many of my own interviews as I can in person. Because nothing beats in person if it’s a possibility. If you have the ability to do an interview in person with someone, shake their hand, look them in the eye, feel their energy, nothing beats it. So I’ve been trying to do as many of my own interviews in person as possible. And if I ever am a guest on someone’s show, like I was recently a guest on my friend Kia’s show, it’s just like, well let’s do it in person. You know, you live not far from me, I was a guest on Denise Salcedo’s show. She lives not far from me in person. I guess in short, the answer is that I’m just not doing a lot of podcasts because I’m focusing on the content that I’m creating. And also really trying to balance my time with a baby at home, and Logan’s four months old. And I’m trying to put out as many podcasts as possible, as many clips as possible. Working on Full Time Creator like you mentioned and building out that amazing community. And it’s just like, I only have so many hours to do so many things. So I’m really just trying to focus on telling other people’s stories. I’ve done a lot of interviews. So if someone’s listening to this and just wants to hear like, Oh, how’d you get to where you’re at? There are a lot of interviews out there that you can go check out. The recent one with Denise is really good. Kia Nalbandi, the one I was just talking about, that’s another great one. Sean Ross Sapp had me on. And we had a great conversation about how all of this came together. So if you’re just curious about like, what’s the journey been? And I haven’t heard enough of it from your own podcast episodes, or from these Ask CVV episodes, go check those out. But I’m sure there’ll come a point where our paths will cross and we’re in person together. And, you know, I’m able and have the time to do more of these, but I’m really just trying to focus my efforts on like, how many more episodes can we put out here? Like, how many more episodes can we record? Whether that’s flying to Tampa like we did to do six interviews there Ric Flair, and Hulk Hogan, of course, but then for other ones there, whether that’s flying to Chicago for Survivor Series. If you’re going to Survivor Series, I will see you in Chicago. Whether that’s flying back to Tampa for the Royal Rumble. I’m trying to maximise that time. That’s a Cody Rhodes quote isn’t it maximise your minutes, he said that was the best advice he got from Dusty “Maximise your minutes.” So I’m trying to maximise my minutes.”

When you look back on your career. Is there anything you tell your younger self as you travelled into the world of content creation and media?

“Look, it’s changed so much. I got my first radio job in 2004 and I was on TV for the first time in 2005. I was still in school in 2004, still in college, so it’s changed a lot. Facebook didn’t really exist. Facebook at that time was like you had to be going to one of these select few colleges to be invited to be part of Facebook. MySpace was like really just starting to take off. So it was really just like traditional broadcasting and it’s changed so much. I think the biggest piece of advice is twofold. The biggest number one would be just to enjoy it. There’s been some really cool moments and it’s been fun seeing some tweets lately and people being like, Man, I love seeing these big things happen to you like you interviewed Hogan, you interviewed Flair. Yeah, that’s my fourth interview with both of those guys, it’s been a heck of a run. It’s been a heck of a, you know, a career thus far. And I mean, in the last 12 months, you’ve seen some of the wrestling interviews, but I’ve also interviewed Christian Bale, Arnold Schwarzenegger, George Clooney, Julia Roberts, it’s been some big ones. So I would say enjoy the moments. Like the moments like being on the red carpet at the Oscars, was able to do that a few times, reporting live from the Oscars, the biggest night of entertainment. Enjoy the moments like when you’re at the Grammys, enjoy the moments like, you know, WrestleMania, and I’ve been starting to do that more often. Like, really take it in, look around, look for small details and commit them to memory, the sights, the smells, the sounds. I mean, if you’re drinking something or eating something, the taste. Yeah, I think that’s, that’s number one. I think number two is, if I had had the foresight to do this, start earlier in terms of creating content start earlier. And that’s kind of like saying, like, oh, you should have invested in Apple 30 years ago, or you should have invested in Tesla 10 years ago. I always come back to that Chinese proverb of the best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago, the second best time is today. But I was, I guess, I was one of the first at the time, like broadcasters and local media who was doing a little bit more social media stuff. So I’m grateful for that. But if I could have been giving this the commitment that I’m giving it now 10 years ago, I don’t know, who knows. But I don’t ever live in that idea of like, Oh, what if I have regrets about this? Not at all, no regrets. I don’t ever go, what if? I just think to myself, if I could go back in Back to the Future DeLorean, I would just say to myself, like, Yeah, I know that right now in 2014. Do you think that posting twice on Instagram is a lot? Maybe try upping that.” 

Do you honestly think Cody will finish the story at WrestleMania 40? Just want to know your personal feelings on this as of now. 

“And this is always such an interesting one to answer because as of right now, as of October 2023, I think yes. I think they find a way to bring the story back around. It’s Cody and Roman. Cody couldn’t do it last year, he does it here. And I know that there’s been this wrench thrown into the plans of is The Rock gonna be at WrestleMania, The Rock was very close to being at WrestleMania 39 and for whatever reason that didn’t happen. I don’t know. I think my personal opinion right now is The Rock came back on SmackDown because he happened to be in town. Or I guess you could look at it from the flip side that he happened to be in town because he was going to be on SmackDown. But I really think it is the other way around. I feel like he was in town for like, College Game Day and everything that was going on there. And then it was like, alright, well, if you’re in town, we just had this really big merger with the UFC and WWE and this Endeavour deal. If you’re in town Rock, could you show up? Could you make an appearance? I think that’s what happened. I really do. I could be totally wrong here, but I think that’s what happened. Obviously, we’ll find out in the next few months if The Rock is part of the programming if he shows up at the Royal Rumble or something like that. But I just think as of right now, if The Rock is part of WrestleMania 40 It doesn’t feel like it’d be for a match. Because if it’s Rock Roman, I mean Roman wins, right? There’s no point for The Rock to win that, actually could be The Rock’s retirement match. If it’s Rock, Roman, Roman wins and then what does Roman do? Does Roman hang on to it until WrestleMania 41? I just don’t think that makes sense. And it doesn’t make sense for Cody to go for the World Heavyweight Championship. That doesn’t feel like the WrestleMania match that everyone’s talking about. So I think we’re months away now, right? We’re seven months away from WrestleMania, it just still feels like yes, Cody will finish the story. But hey, I’m sure this will be the topic of almost every Ask CVV until we get there.” 

Who are the top five wrestling hand-shakers?

“That might be one of the best questions I’ve ever been asked. A lot of good wrestling handshakes. A lot of not-so-good wrestling handshakes. And not because we just talked about him but Cody Rhodes has a shockingly large hand, he’s a pretty big guy, right? He’s like maybe six, six foot one. But when he shakes your hand, he has the handshake of someone who’s like six inches taller than that. And I’ll never forget that he shakes your hand and it is just big, meaty wrestler hand. When I say that, I mean like an amateur wrestler hand. It’s a big meaty hand. I don’t know if I can give you a top five. But almost every wrestler whose hand I’ve ever shaken has been a very firm, great handshake, or a handshake followed by a hug. But yeah, like Cody Rhodes, that one kind of threw me off of like, that’s a big hand. And Kurt Angle, obviously, great handshake, also makes you like, it’s one of those. It’s one of those handshakes that when you shake his hand, and Ken Shamrock, I’ll throw Ken Shamrock into this too. It’s one of those handshakes where you’re like, oh, this man could literally kill me. That’s the kind of handshake that it is. So I don’t have five but there’s three right off the top of my head. Now every time you see Cody on TV, you’re gonna be like, oh, yeah, his hands are really large.” 

Would you rather be able to speak to and communicate with animals? Or be able to speak every language in the world? 

“Oh, what a would you rather? I’m gonna go with the animals. Because lots of people can speak, not every language in the world, lots of people can speak many languages. Nobody can speak to animals. I mean, not at least communicate with them. So I’m gonna go there. Can I communicate with all animals? Like are you saying, like, I can have a conversation with my dog Luna and know what she’s thinking and doing? Incredible! Cats, just walk down the street and talk to a cat. Birds flying in the sky, dolphins jumping in the ocean? Can I go to the zoo and just be hearing voices everywhere? The Tiger’s saying something, elephant’s saying something? What’s that, Mr. Monkey? Sign me up for that. Although, if you had the ability to speak to and communicate with all animals, you’d be the only person in the world who’d be able to do that. And I feel like people would think you’re crazy. Because you’d be the only person and be able to hear that. And you’d be telling people like, oh, yeah, that leopard over there says this. And people go oh, yeah, sure, buddy. I would choose the animals at the risk of sounding crazy.” 

When will you interview Jim Cornette? 

“I would love to have Jim Cornette on the show. He’s such a fascinating figure in wrestling and I think it’d be just such a great conversation. So whether you love Jim Cornette, or you hate Jim Cornette, you feel something about Jim Cornette and that’s what’s important. That’s the essence of pro wrestling. So I would love to be able to talk to Jim Cornette and just figure out who he is. I would just love to like learn a little bit more about him. I think that he’s wildly entertaining, whether you agree with him or not, he is wildly entertaining. So I don’t have a direct line of communication to him. I’m not even sure like, how to reach out to him. So if you’re listening to this right now, and you know which email I should send an email to, please let me know. But if Jim Cornette would be up for it, and we can find a path of communication so that I can reach out to him and we can set this up. I’m in. I would love that. I think that’d be one of the best episodes of the year.” 

What’s your favourite Backstreet Boys song other than I Want It That Way?

“I frequently sing around the house Backstreets Back. That whole Millennium album was really good. Yeah. I think Backstreets Back, although I’ll give you a deep cut here. Perfect Fan. I remember hearing Perfect Fan for the first time. And for those of you who aren’t Backstreet Boys fans, it’s a song about Brian’s mom and just talking about like Mom, you always were the perfect fan. I remember hearing that for the first time like tearing up. I thought the song is just so sweet. And made me think about my mom. So I think that that that’ll be a deep cut there if you ever want to get real sentimental, real mushy, put on Perfect Fan by the Backstreet Boys.” 

Any tips to get a newborn to sleep? 

“Congrats to you. We now have a four-month-old Logan. And I wish I had a tip because we’re not getting much sleep around here. And that is not a complaint at all. That is simply the delivery of some information. I’m never going to be one of those people that’s like oh man, I didn’t get enough sleep last night. I’m never going to be one of those people. I am so incredibly grateful to have this beautiful, smart, healthy little baby girl. But the truth of the matter is she wakes up three or four times a night. So we put her down at like 7:15 or 7:30 If we’re lucky, she sleeps until like 11 to 12, somewhere around there, wakes up once and then wakes up like every two-ish hours after that. So then wakes up again around 2, maybe 4. So it’s like three or four wake up tonight. So I wish I had some advice for you. I certainly do not. And if you figure this out before me, please send me a message and let me know.” 

Several podcasters are arguing over which is the best rocky film in the series. Can you help settle this, please? 

“Oh, man, that is such a good question. I think objectively, this isn’t even like opinion, I think objectively Rocky is the best film in the series. Is Rocky the best Rocky film in the series? When you think about Rocky you think about the training montages and the big fight sequences. Rocky just has the one fight really. So is Rocky the best Rocky movie? Probably not, that’s probably Rocky three. Yeah, you got Clubber Lang in there and Thunder Lips, aka. Mr. T and Hulk Hogan. I think the storyline of number three is really good. So I’m gonna go with number three as the best fighting movie. But when it comes to like, films, I think you can’t beat Rocky, just as a film, as an Academy Award-winning film. I think that Rocky is the best film in the franchise. But Rocky really in its core is a love story. And I don’t know if a lot of people talk about that, like, oh, Rocky, yeah, it’s a great, you know, it’s a boxing story. But it’s a love story. It’s a love story between Rocky and Adrian and that blossoms into what we see after that. But I mean, look at all the Oscars that won, if you want to just talk objectively like what is the best film? Best Picture? Best Actor in a Leading Role, Sylvester Stallone. Best Actress in a Leading Role, like all the amount of wins and nominations. I could keep going. I don’t know why I didn’t Burt Young got nominated. Best Director, best writing, the soundtrack? Best Film Editing, best music. Yeah, it’s a lot of nominations. So I hope that settles a score. I get where the arguments come in. I think a lot of people also say Rocky 4. I mean, I don’t know if there’s a better fight than Rocky versus Drago, you will lose, really good. I’d love to hear what you think.” 

What kind of gear do you use?

“I get this one a lot. I’m gonna put it out here. And hopefully, you know, if this is where you’re at right now in your content creation journey. You’ll grab onto this right now. I’ll tell you what I use and then I’m going to tell you it doesn’t really matter what you use. I use a Sony A74 as my main camera. That’s the one that I think looks so crisp. When you’re looking at the webcam or when you’re looking at it like I used it for a lot of any of my recent interviews that looks extra juicy. And the lens on there is a Tamron 28 to 75 millimetre F 2.8. You’ll figure it out, it’s the only Tamron like that. It’s the DI3. Yeah, it’s a great lens. It’s a very juicy lens, that setup with that body and that lens is like $3,500. All of that is to say you do not need that lens. I shot most of my interviews for the first 10 years, 12 years on an iPhone. And I think that the reason I say that you don’t need to buy great gear is because I think that too many aspiring creators use gear as a crutch. They go, I’ll be a great creator when I buy that camera. Oh, by the way, the mic is the Shure SM7B it is the gold standard of podcast mics. It’s the black cylindrical mic. You see Joe Rogan using it, it’s that every top podcaster uses. But I think that a lot of people use the gear as a crutch, they go oh, I’ll be a great creator when I get that mic or when I get that camera, use the gear you have right now. Use what you have in front of you and then continue to grow from there. Don’t go breaking the bank on a $3,500 camera and lens and a $400 microphone. If you have the money to do it, and you have the means to do it and that’s something that you want to do, I completely recommend it for sure. And I would definitely recommend buying a good mic, especially if you’re a podcaster, over a good camera first. Because if your podcast sounds like crap, like if you’re recording it like this, and it sounds like you’re across the room, everyone’s gonna think that your podcast is crap, perception is reality when it comes to content creation. So if you are going to spend some money on something, I would say buy the Shure SM7B. I’m sure there are other mics that are good. I can’t speak to them personally, because I haven’t used them. But I do know that Tony Robbins always says success leaves clues. There’s a reason all the top podcasters are using the mic that I’m speaking into right now because it’s the best. So if you want to have crispy audio like this, and you have the ability to pay for that or buy a used one. I have actually bought a second one here sitting right in front of me. I bought a used one. So it’s a $400 microphone, I bought it used on eBay for like $220. So if you an the ability to do it, that’s where you should be spending your money. And then find that audio interface, plug it into your computer with a USB port, Bada bing, bada boom, your Zoom interviews, your Zoom meetings, they’re all gonna sound so much better now.”

Who was really better, Bret or Shawn? 

“I mean, it really comes down to are you a Bret person or are you a Shawn person. Both are so good. Both are arguably the greatest in-ring workers in the history of the business. I just feel like Bret got shortchanged a little bit. If the screw job hadn’t happened, and he hadn’t gone to WCW I just think that we would be talking about Bret without question being the greatest of all time. But that’s what life’s all about, right? It’s like these what ifs? Because he had great matches in WCW. But I don’t really think a lot of people talk about them. I mean, everyone talks about, and that’s not to say that they didn’t exist, I just feel like everyone goes back to like the matches that he had in WWF. Oh, just off the top of your head obviously matches with like Mr. Perfect and matches with Owen, like, there’s so many. And I’m gonna, if I start listing them off, you’re gonna be like, Oh, I can’t believe you forgot about that one. Look, Bret versus anybody is a great match. Shawn Michaels versus anybody is a great match. I just think that if you look at their careers as a whole, Bret’s kind of went on a real decline when he went to WCW. And you could just tell he wasn’t happy being there. And then Shawn Michaels, you know, had his own demons and had his own issues. And we saw him come back and I mean, one of the greatest matches ever is him and The Undertaker, really both of them. I mean, we’ll never get a better retirement moment than the super kick or the sweet chin music the I’m sorry, I love you with Ric Flair. I think they’re both good, but who was really better? You can’t go wrong. It’s really like flavours of ice cream. You know, I think if you like mint chocolate chip, and I like Rocky Road, I was gonna go like chocolate or vanilla but it’s too plain, strawberry Neapolitan. I think it’s just choosing ice cream flavours in it can’t go wrong with ice cream. It’s all good. Being a Canadian, I think I’m a little biased to Bret. Although I’ve talked about this a lot. I’ve never been a huge fan of the pro-Canada gimmicks because it’s just the cheapest of cheap heat. And it’s cool like it was cool growing up and seeing them wave the Canadian flag because as a kid growing up in Canada, you didn’t see that a lot in pro sports in general, especially not in pro wrestling, so it was cool to see that. And I think in pro wrestling, Bret was so proud to be Canadian that it made me even more proud to be Canadian as well. But I’ve just never been a big fan of like he did it, you know, with waving the flag, and then there was Team Canada in TNA. And then there was the Un-Americans. I’ve just never been a big fan of like, the cheapest of the cheap heats. And I know that pro wrestling is all about this, but I’ve never been a fan of like the I’m better than you because I’m from a different country. And then you go to America, and like, it’s just boo! You saw the same thing with La Resistance like they were so French that you were supposed to boo them because they were French. I don’t know, I’ve just never been a fan of that type of stuff. But again, all that to say is Bret and Shawn, two great flavours of ice cream. You can’t go wrong.” 

What is one lesson your daughter Logan has taught you so far?

“She has taught me a lot, just one lesson? If it’s just one lesson, I think the lesson has been patience. And I think the lesson has also been like, be flexible. Because you’ve got a plan to do a certain thing at a certain time. And if that baby isn’t sleeping well or isn’t eating well, you can throw those plans out the window because Logan’s at a stage right now where she doesn’t enjoy going in the car seat. So the second we put her in the car seat, and a lot of babies fall asleep when they go in the car. Not our little girl, at least not yet. We put her in the car seat. And she suddenly screams her head off. And then we put her in the car in the truck. And it takes a good 5, 10, 15 minutes and she will calm down. Although we drove home from the airport the other day. And it was a 52-minute drive from LAX and she cried for all 52 minutes. Again, the lesson here is patience. And I think another lesson and I know I was only asked for one. But you got me thinking here. Another lesson is just like wonderment. She looks at everything with such wonder and there’s a real magic in that. Because she is quite literally seeing everything for the first time. And I love that she’s seeing it with these new eyes, these fresh eyes. And then it allows me to see things through new eyes, through fresh eyes. And it makes you realise how much wonder exists in the smallest of things. The things that we see all the time that we take for granted. And she looks at them and she’s like, wow. So that’s been a big one for me, is a little bit of sense of wonder. And that’s going to be a thing for a while. And I love that that. That’s the real thing, like the patience and the making the plans thing. Yeah, sure. That’s definitely there. And I think we could all use a little bit more patience. But I think we can also all use a little bit more wonder in our lives, especially in pro wrestling. Guys, it’s not all negative. And that’s why I’m trying to be a tiny little glimmer of positivity in this often very negative landscape. Think about if you were watching wrestling for the first time, not even the first time, like the first six months the first year or something. There was a real wonder, seeing stuff for the first time or hearing an entrance song, and I feel like sometimes because we’ve been fans for so long we forget. We forget like yes, I get that the Canadian Destroyer is completely overused. I’m with you on that. But the first time I saw Petey Williams do a Canadian destroyer. I literally couldn’t understand what he was doing. I remember watching the clip back in slow motion like pause, play, pause, play, pause, play like frame by frame, trying to figure out exactly what was going on. There’s a real wonder in that and those moments are so rare. And wrestling also has so few surprises now. Which is why the moment like The Rock coming out on SmackDown completely unannounced because he happened to be in Colorado are such big moments. Sure they could have popped the rating and they could have said The Rock is gonna be on SmackDown tune in this week. And then you just tune in and every single segment you’d be going is The Rock coming out yet? Is The Rock coming out yet? And the crowd would be chanting Rocky, Rocky it literally every single segment The rating might have been better. But now you get the like, wonderment the surprise of The Rock coming. Oh my gosh, he’s here. This wasn’t even rumoured this wasn’t even talked about he came out of nowhere. And another one of those really big moments was the start of WrestleMania 30. How good was that? Like, Hogan? Surprise, Stone Cold surprise, The Rock’s here too, surprise oh my gosh, like, that was so cool to be able to see that moment, the greatest intro to WrestleMania ever the greatest opening segment ever. So, wonderment. Maybe that can be the word that we like, think about here into weekend, wonderment. There’s literally wonder and magic and everything.” 

Hulk Hogan (@hulkhogan) is a legendary professional wrestler and a 2-time WWE Hall of Famer. He sits down with Chris Van Vliet for a candid conversation at Hogan’s Hangout in Clearwater Beach, FL to talk about whether Chris Hemsworth is still going to play him in an upcoming movie, where Hulk Hogan ends and where Terry Bollea begins, joining the nWo and turning heel in WCW, his iconic match with The Rock at WrestleMania 18, the last minute plan for the nWo to turn on him after that match, his Voodoo Child entrance music, does he think John Cena should have turned heel?, his match against Vince McMahon at WrestleMania 19, how close we were to having Hulk Hogan return at WrestleMania 39, the biggest regret in his career, why he never had an official last match, his favorite thing about being in TNA, the advice he would give to his younger self, his pro wrestling Mount Rushmore, 3 things he is grateful for and much more!

Visit: http://hulkhoganstore.com

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Quote I’m thinking about:
Nobody can go back and start a new beginning, but anyone can start today and make a new ending. – Maria Robinson

On the Hulk Hogan biopic starring Chris Hemsworth:

“Yes, I do. So it was a situation where business-wise, Netflix kind of like missed the date, you know, as far as a business situation. And so I had the choice at that time to switch gears. Scott Silver wrote the script, you know, he wrote The Joker and a bunch of different movies. And of course, Todd Phillips has done the Joker Wolf of Wall Street and you know, whatever. All the crazy stuff that he did. But yeah, the script came back. It was amazing. I mean, because my favorite movies are like Scarface, The Godfather, True Romance, it was there, it was there. And I just thought, Whoa, but all of a sudden there was a business glitch, you know, and then they tried to fix it a few days later. And I’d already decided to move on. So, my life rights and stuff are somewhere else now. And there are a lot of things that are getting ready to happen. And hopefully, Todd Phillips and Chris Hemsworth will still want to play. But there’s still a huge opportunity there.”

On Chirs Hemsworth being the choice:

“Well, Chris [Hemsworth] was the one I always [wanted]. Even before we get into this. I said, if anybody ever played Hulk Hogan, I want to be Chris Hemsworth. You know, his birthday is the same day as mine. So we talked, I think once about the whole situation, he was all excited, because he told me he’d never played a real person before. [He said] Oh, my gosh, your life is so interesting. This is so crazy. This could be the biggest thing I’ve ever done. And yeah, and Scott Silver, the writer who wrote The Joker uses, this is the most amazing script I’ve ever written. So it’s powerful. It’s in a different place, but there will be an opportunity for everybody to regroup.”

How much pain is Hulk Hogan in?

“That’s kind of funny. Because I had a physical therapist asked me yesterday, if you could be out of pain or you could have a perfect championship walk what’s what would you rather have? I said I’d rather have the walk. She goes, You’re out of your mind. I said, Yes, I am. Because everything hurts, like, just like, it’s hard to explain. Like, if I’m gonna brush my teeth, and I’m leaning on the counter to brush my teeth. I can’t push away. So when I’m done, brush my teeth. I have to lean in like that and then pull back. You know, I can’t push like a glass door open. Everything in the gym is short strokes. You know? I can’t straighten my arms out. And then it’s the same with my knees, my hips, my back my neck. You know, but that’s because I probably wrestled too long. And I didn’t get the memo that stuff was fake. You know? So I don’t complain about it. Because you know, like, I was telling Sky. The lady I’m getting ready to marry tomorrow. She goes Well, how much per year and I said, Well, I’m in pain all the time. But I’m used to it. You know, in my go-to in the morning, just to get me rolling is two cups of coffee and two Tylenol. And then that’s it. That’s as far as I go. As far as the pain pills go. But I could probably lose the Tylenol at this point, because they don’t do much. Yeah, but it’s just kind of like a habit. Now the two Tylenols with two cups of coffee.”

On John Cena not turning heel:

“Well, the thing was when you’re at your prime that’s where you turned all you know, the Cena fans who Never Give Ip and just look at him go, You know what, I did it for the money, you know? And he would be one of the hottest heels ever. And then, you know whether it’s running six months or six years or two years. When you repent, and you beg for forgiveness, he would be hotter than he was before as a babyface. So yeah, it’s a natural flow. That once you get the vibe, you know, out there and you kind of like feel the crowd you can tell. You know, and John would be John could probably tell better that honestly better than Vince once he’s out there. I know. Vince has been in the ring a lot. And he’s very good. Because I’ve been in the ring with Vince. He’s one of the best deals I’ve ever worked against. Everything he does hurts.”

On what hurts the most from Vince McMahon:

“His punches are brutal. I mean, I was at WrestleMania 19 doing this all night long. I am going brother Lighten up, brother. I’m on the team with you, lighten up. You keep doing that you’re gonna be in here by yourself. It got to the point where we started laughing. You know? And but yeah, I told him to go up on that ladder on the outside to drop the leg on the table. He goes, You sure? I said, Yeah, I’m sure, you go up there. And he did it.” 

On having one last match:

“I would have loved to have had that last match. But now it’s completely out of the picture. You know, I’m just too beat up from the surgeries. I think if I took a couple of bumps, you probably have to cut up me again. But no, I really wanted to have that last match. [Against who?] I wasn’t sure you know, I had I think it was WrestleMania 25 in Orlando.”

On the opponent possibly being John Cena:

“Vince had me all hooked up with Cena and I said I’d do it. And Vince and I were talking every week and we were putting the plans together you know, like the old days where I was in the office every day him and I were talking every day and all of a sudden I’m on the phone with Vince I was like, Oh my God. Oh, my back went out when I was talking to Vince on the phone. I just had back surgery number three or four at that time, and I had to go right in immediately and get cut up. So that was it for that but I thought that was going to be my last match and then you know, but that never happened and then it just kind of like faded away.”

On his many surgeries and cannabis use:

“Well, I mean, you know, I’ve been down that road with the pain pills. You know, last 12 years, I’ve had 25 surgeries. So I mean, you know, the knees, the hips, 10 back surgeries, a couple of shoulder surgeries, abdominal surgeries, orbital socket surgeries. So I know what it’s like when the doctor goes, here’s a prescription. You know, and I mean, you’re sometimes when you’re in such pain after 7,8,9,10 back surgeries, you’d rather just jump off a cliff than live another day. So it’s really easy to fall into that situation. And you know, a lot of other wrestlers that have passed away have fallen into that situation. And then there’s a lot of people that have been deployed to Afghanistan and Kuwait that, you know, have serious issues. So it’s just like, a more natural way to walk things back. A more natural way to get on track and get back to normal. So it makes a lot of sense for a lot of reasons.”

On WrestleMania 18:

“Well, to get there, there’s a huge backstory. Okay. And the backstory is working for Ted Turner for 9 or 10 years, trying to put Vince out of business. You know, basically trying to beat him in the ratings to do whatever we could to be competitive. Because when I did leave the WWF at the time, Vince pretty much told me my run was over and the red and yellow was done. And after the Warrior beat me there were a couple of years actually, after the Warrior beat me that night. I said well, I giving the belts. I go down out I mean, do the three surgeries, three stooges slowly I turned. I want to be Triple H Hollywood Hulk Hogan. Oh, you can’t do that. You can’t be a heel. I said brother, your dad brought me in as a heel. Of course, I can do it. So a couple years later, as I kept floundering around there, Vince pretty much told me my run was over and I said, really? So I went into Thunder in Paradise and I got bored with doing that craziness, went to WCW and did what I did there. And then it was a situation where I was in a hotel room in New York, called the Parker Meridien. And I was actually sitting on a toilet doing number two, right? All right, I saw Triple H on the phone. That’s interesting. So I picked the phone up and I go What’s up, brother? He goes how are you doing? So we heard your contract is done. This is not in the other whatever the verbiage was? Vince would like to talk to you so so cool, you know. And so one thing led to another and before I get to WrestleMania 18. The backstory was the verbiage with me, and Vince was things have changed up here. And when I kind of knew that The Rock and Stone were the two guys that they cater to. Because before during the day when they’d go out to the ring of it would be Hulk Hiogan, and this is what we’re doing that’s what we’re doing. Now, I knew it wasn’t my time but it was the new guy, sorry knew that. But Vince went Oh no, you’re coming up here then you got to really bring it. I was like okay, I mean, I got to run faster, jump higher, what do you mean really bring it? So I knew what he meant the work rate was quicker and faster and stuff which to me doesn’t mean anything. You know, my fault I didn’t say it but if you want me to bring it you will want to ask me to take it back you know, because I will, but I would never do anything to hurt the boys, that hurt Rock. But I just kept my mouth shut and the backstory still was they didn’t think I could pull it off. Or I think they thought that maybe I wasn’t up to snuff to be Hulk Hogan, they said they wanted me to go down to Miami rehearse the match, which I’ve never done in my life. And so I went down there and Rocky Johnson was there, my boy and Pat Patterson was there and there was this ring in a warehouse it was 100 degrees plus, and The Rock told me everything he wanted to do and walk around and go here and there and spit his fist and you go over the top rope go through all the stuff that match was pretty much laid out. And then Rocky Johnson went Dwyane, listen to Hogan. Rocky was just like, cheered for me. You know, which was kind of fun. Me, because he was a good friend of mine the whole time when in the WWF and then Pat Patterson said ok Terry let’s go to the mat. I went, are you kidding me? So if I fall down in here, I’m gonna get hurt. I can’t wrestle with no people here. He goes, Yeah, I gotta Vince wants to go through the match, I can’t do it. I said, believe me, we get in front of 20, 40, 50, 60, 70, 80,000 people, I’ll be fine. And so you know, I was kind of wondering if this whole thing is planned out? What if you start doing this and the people fart at it? Are you going to keep doing what you planned out? And so I really didn’t say much. And then we were in the dressing room and rocking out. We’re actually in the same dressing room that night. Not a lot of conversation. But Rocky Johnson was in there Dwyane, listen to Hogan So we get out there and I expect fully expected them to boot me out of the building. After hitting him with a hammer, put him in the ambulance running in mode with a semi. Yeah, I did everything I could to get heat.” 

On bringing the red and yellow back after WrestleMania 18:

“The referee told me they were coming down. All I remember is being on my knees and looking up at Big Kevin. Kevin’s got arms over his head with a chair. He’s like ah! I’m like Oh my god he’s marking out. And I never put my hand up. I put my forearm up, hit my forearm and I went to the back and I said Kevin, what is going on bro? He goes I never thought I was going to hit Hulk Hogan with a chair. I said we’ve been working together for the last seven or eight years. I’m your boy. He goes yeah but it was WrestleMania and I had to lie down. I said Yeah, but if I hadn’t put my arm up you were gonna kill me. But yeah, we laughed about it afterwards. But I thank God I looked into his eyes to see that he wasn’t even there. You know, but it was a lot of fun. And then Vince ordered me to go back and get the red and yellow immediately.”

Why Hulk Hogan returned to the WWE:

“My whole reason for going up there was of course to wrestle The Rock, you know and of course, heels are meant to be beat, it was a fluke, I slipped on a banana peel he could ever do it again, you know, whatever, I could have kept my heat because my little intention was to have a two-year run with Stone Cold because he was red hot at the time I was dying to get in his shorts, man and make some money, you know. And so it was kind of like, you know, because I know Steve had some physical issues and stuff with his nerves and his legs and stuff. Yeah, so I was just like, the air was let out of the balloon when I didn’t get a chance to run with him because that would have been crazy.”

On joining the nWo:

“Well, first off, we didn’t tell anybody, Hall and Nash didn’t know if I was coming or not. [They didn’t know who the third man was?] Well, there was a possibility because Eric had been [in contact]. I was out filming a movie out in LA. And Eric had approached me about turning heel. I said no brother doesn’t work for me right now, you know, I was making really good money there, you know, guaranteed money and I just want to keep things going the way they were. Even though the red and yellow thing was starting to lose a little bit of lustre and it was getting old. And I saw you know, Scott came out I’m like this looks like a shoot, you know, and I’m watching this from LA. And then big Kev came out and powerbombed Eric through the table. I called Eric and said I’m your third man. He said oh thank God, because we were gonna go with Sting I said, bro, you can’t go with Sting. He’s not WWF from head to toe. It’s in my blood. I mean, I’m the guy. So Eric didn’t want to tell anybody you know. So up until the time I went to the ring. Eric goes, Hogan is not here yet. Which of course I was outside hanging out. Hogan is not here yet. And if he doesn’t come up, we’re sending Sting. So Scott and Kevin went out not knowing if I was coming, right. So it’s really weird because when I look back at the tape, I know Eric was talking about Yeah, well, we spent time outside and we discussed the promo and stuff and I don’t remember any of that because I just went out when Gene came in it was let me tell you something Mean Gene I just rolled with my normal crap you know, I was sought out the world you guys are pumping gas to get high school. I just rolled with one of my heel promos, you know, and it was I never think about what I’m gonna say until I get out there. So you know, everything was really cool. And all of a sudden I felt that cold white heat where it got sour from it and they started throwing stuff. I told Mene Gene I said you need to go bro. You need to get out. We may have a riot in here and then his nose was bleeding. You got hit with something and he kept his head down. He was scared us it bro you need to run. Because if we start lighting this place up, we could have a riot there because it was that type of heat I hadn’t felt for a long time.” 

On debunking false Hulk Hogan stories:

“But some of the Hulk Hogan stories like oh my gosh, my dad says, Hello, he played basketball with you for 15 years and Venice Beach. will tell your dad I said hello. But I’ve never played basketball. I don’t say Hey, kid, your dad is a liar. I mean, you know, you just can’t go there. But I think she’s [Sky] to the point now where she understands that the people have been endeared by this character so much. Everybody’s got a Hulk Hogan story, whether it’s good or bad, true or false. They tell that story. And sometimes I wonder, what are they still getting out of that story? A lot of wrestlers will tell stories about me that I hear. And it’s just not true. Some of the guys are Main Event guys, and I hear these stories. I wonder what they’re still getting out of telling that story.”

On that doesn’t work for me, brother:

“Well, if I knew the individual stories, I can tell whether it happened but that was my catchphrase. That doesn’t work for me brother. You know, like, there were several times when Ric Flair and I were travelling, and we do like the Maple Leaf Gardens, the main event, and then there’d be like Brantford, Ontario, which I would always make the double shot, but every once awhile I had other stuff to do. So I’d say Rick take my car, you know, jump back on the plane because that doesn’t work for me, brother. But that was my go to line, you know.”

Who is on Hulk Hogan’s Mount Rushmore:

“Well, that’s a tough one. You know, because Andre has to be there. There’s no doubt about it. Andre has to be there. And there’s just not enough headspace there. You know, because up there, you know, it would have to be Ric Flair. You know, I tell Ric Flair you’re the greatest wrestler that ever lived and I’ve had other people tell me other things, you know, but as far as I’m concerned with him loving this business and being a complete sellout, he gave up everything. Family, friends, his own health, everything to be in his business. That’s kind of crazy type of dedication, way more than I could give. You know, and he did it because he loved this business. And plus, he was a top guy like forever, you know, so it had to be Andre. It has to be flair. I’m just going with the older guys, you know, because there are some new guys like Seth Rollins, who I really admire. You know, Kevin Owens caught my eye really early when a lot of people didn’t believe in him. And I saw him down there and said see oh my god that brother has got it figured out. You know, and so I’m all over the place with it but for me the quick fix would be Andre, Flair, Rock and Austin. That’s a quick fix for me. Yeah, those four guys deserve it.”

On still being a part of WWE:

“You know, I still work with the WWE all the time. I just renewed my deal with them, you know. And [Deos that mean, we can hear your music hit sometime soon]. I hope so. It’s always fun to go out there. And maybe I can hang on to one of the wrestlers to get me out to the ring. But it’s really crazy. Because when I was the world’s champion, you know, we sold a tonne of merchandise. We didn’t have the vehicle to the internet and the stuff that they have nowadays. But we sold a lot of stuff you know, back in the day. The cartoon were very supportive of the merchandise and stuff like that. And you know, it was kind of strange because I think I had 350 licensees which are like individual deals, Frisbees, watches, headbands, chalk, kites, potty seats, tennis shoes, whatever it may be. And now that I’m kind of like Jimmy Hart says, well, baby, baby, what’s old is new again. What’s old is new again. And I said, Jimmy, you’re right. Because, you know, I’ve been approving merchandise every day, I get new stuff coming in. And I’m up to like, 850,000, you know, like, 900,000 pieces of merchandise. I’m sorry, I’m mistaken it’s 300 different agencies. I’m up to 900 licensees not 900,000. I’m thinking wrong. But instead of 300 deals for Frisbees, or whatever, it’s up to almost 900. Yeah. So it’s like, I’m Elvis is still alive. You know, it’s kind of scary. I don’t know. So but it’s just amazing how the fans have made this live forever, you know, it’s amazing.”

What is Hulk Hogan grateful for:

“My saviour Jesus Christ, my children and I have now met someone who can be my soulmate.” 

Samantha Irvin (@samanthairvinwwe) is a singer and ring announcer with WWE. She joins Chris Van Vliet at the Blue Wire Studios in Las Vegas to talk about her original tryout to be a wrestler that lead to her becoming a WWE ring announcer, growing up as a wrestling fan, who her favorite wrestler was, how she met her fiancé Ricochet and their crazy first date, meeting Lilian Garcia and getting feedback from her, borrowing techniques from Howard Finkel, her approach to her ring announcing style, memorizing all of the superstar’s stats, how her background as a musician influences her style, her preshow vocal warmups, why she announces Chelsea Green’s name in the unique way she does, her memories of announcing the main event at WrestleMania 39 and much more!

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

BONCHARGE: Go to http://boncharge.com/CVV and use coupon code CVV to save 15%

MYBOOKIE: Get a 50% welcome bonus when you use the code CVV and sign up at http://mybookie.ag

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Quote I’m thinking about:
Nobody can go back and start a new beginning, but anyone can start today and make a new ending. – Maria Robinson

On Mark Henry scouting Samantha Irvin:

“He just started tweeting me and was like, You should be in wrestling. Have you ever thought of WWE, WWE is calling. And I was like, I slid in his DMS. I said sir, yes. What can I do? And he said, Well, you’d have to do like a tryout like a real physical tryout. That’s what he would be able to do. I was like, I’m not an athlete. I’ve never stepped foot in a ring. Never played a sport. Nothing. But I was like, Well, if that’s what I have to do, I’ll go there and and do it. I had a tryout. I did the tryout, like, like with collegiate athletes taking bumps, running the ropes. Yes, I did the actual tryout.”

On transitioning from wrestling to announcing:

“I think that in the process of the tryout, I obviously wasn’t the fastest or the strongest or anything impressive. But we did cut promos, I did have a chance to announce a couple of matches and just kind of show my personality. And Mark Henry did tell me he’s like just get in there and let them know what you think you’d be good at doing. So they saw that I wasn’t athletic. But they thought that I was good at some other stuff. So luckily, I was able to connect with Michael Cole from there and get the ball rolling.”

On advice given prior to announcing:

“Oh, man, the first piece of advice. When I got the offer, Mark Henry called me right away. And he said, listen to the greats, listen to the legends. And I said, dawg, you already know, like Howard Finkel, Lillian, love them. They are the sound like, they’re just my childhood. Like, I just know their voices. I know how I felt when I listened to them. So just educating myself on what the role has been and how the fans have connected to that role in the past. That was the first real bit of advice that I got.”

On finding her unique style:

“Well, I think that probably kind of from the beginning, I think I came in at a time where things were changing. We were in the pandemic. And live audiences were starting to come back 205 Live was turning into Level Up, NXT was turning into NXT 2.0. There were just a lot of things shifting at that time. And Michael Cole just gave me the go-ahead. He was like, I want you to do your ideas, whatever your ideas are, I know you know, this is what we always have done. But if something moves you he’s always been very supportive and given me a lot of credit. Like, I know you’re a performer. You have a lot of time in doing this. So he gave me his trust. And that gave me the confidence to, you know, if Michael Cole says Go ahead, you are like alright, Michel Cole said go ahead. So yeah, it was great.”

On announcing some of the legends of WWE:

“Okay, so I’ve had a few. The first one that pops to my mind is Edge, The Rated R Superstar because that was such an iconic announcement from Tony Chimel. Everybody knows that. And I would never want to like jack that announcement or copy it, but you always want to, like, still capture the essence. I got to announce him at Clash at the Castle. That’s actually the only time I think that I’ve announced him, and it was crazy. But I said I’m gonna go for something different. I’m just gonna go for what I interpret him as, what we know now, Edge, he’s returned. We never thought we would see Edge again. And now he’s just killing it. Who is Edge right now? And it was the Rated R Superstar! And it just happened and he liked it. And that meant everything to me. And he came up to me like I saw him a couple of months after that. And he was like, Hey, I’ve been meaning to tell you. You know, I really liked what you did. He’s like Superstar! and I was like, okay, good. He liked it. So him Shawn Michaels I got to announce Shawn and I just basically said it the way I probably would have said it when I was seven. I was like Shawn Michaels! You know, Triple H, you know, I just whatever they make me feel and I do take a lot from Howard if it’s an older announcement or something I take a lot from him because I still want that. That nostalgia, a ring of nostalgia to be there for the people who know.”

On announcing during commercial breaks:

“We got a whole lot going on you know. We got t-shirts to tell the people about, we have cameras that we like to put on the crowd and people like to put their signs up and show off their dance moves. We do the DX cam, you know, we teach the kids all the good stuff that they need to know. We got the people’s eyebrow cam, we do the you can’t see me cam. We were in North Carolina, we did the woo cam, the Ric Flair woo cam. So yeah, you know, we have a lot going on, like to get the people up on the screen as well.”

On learning all of the Superstars’ hometowns and weights:

“That process is whack. Okay, it is so much pressure. And you know, hey, I have a theatre background. So, you know, memorization has always kind of been my thing. It’s the hardest part, but it is something that I’m used to, you know, doing shows and having lines and all that kind of stuff, doing auditions for jobs that you never get, I’ve learned a lot of lines.”

On not coming to the aid of Richochet:

“Yes, it is. Yeah, it’s very nice. It’s nice to let the fans know because I do support him and I do care a lot about his journey and his goals and what he wants to accomplish. So I’m proud to support him. But of course, I have to do my job all the time and he knows that and I don’t think the fans understand that necessarily. Some of them don’t get it because they’re always like, how come you’re not helping him? And I’m like, What do you want me to do? Like I got a little skirt on, I’m about to go in here? I told you I can’t wrestle. Everybody wants me to wrestle. I’m like, why?”

On the aftermatch of SummerSlam:

“I was not happy. And definitely not happy to have a camera in my face while he’s saying that to me. So not my favourite. And it’s crazy because it’s such a rewatched replayed moment. And it’s like the wackest moment that I’ve had, but you know it’s fine. No matter what I was gonna get the announcement off no matter what. But I was not obviously I was in shock. I have not seen anyone assault my fiance with brass knuckles before so that was a first. It was just lazy, but I think we probably know what would have happened.” 

On her favorite Ricochet moment:

“Favourite Ricochet moment? Ooh. Well, I loved it when he won the Intercontinental Championship. That was a great, great, great, great moment. And I was so happy I was able to announce that. But I also love the SmackDown World Cup. His match with Santos Escobar was crazy. But I honestly, he’s great. Ricochet is like, he’s the one for you know, you know that every match is going to be incredible. You know, he’s going to do everything in his power to try to win. So I love everything that I’ve seen him do. I’ve never seen him have a bad match.”

On the how Samantha Irvin announces Chelsea Green:

“It was just because of her, it’s just her. She came back, and her attitude and everything was just she was so sassy and I just loved it. And I just thought she’s not, you know [flatly] Chelsea Green like, no, she’s Chelsea Green! And it just, I did it one time. I think now it’s like obviously now it’s over the top but the first time I did it, I think I just was like Chelsea Green and like some people noticed, you know, and then well now she will not let me say it any other way. She helped me fine-tune it perfectly for her.”

On nerves and anxiety:

“I was nervous to come here and do this. So the nerves for me are always there. I have a lot of anxiety, a lot of performance anxiety that I just don’t think is ever gonna go away. I think about it all the time of how I can try to [reduce it]. People like you’ve done this, you’ve done this so much. Why are you still nervous? But I’m a perfectionist, and I want it to be great. The main thing with the vocals is when you have like, I had to check myself a couple of weeks ago because I was like, I lost Rhea’s announcement. I can’t do it. I told Ricochet, I told my brothers I’m like, I lost it. I can’t do it, my voice is tired. And they’re like, What do you mean, you lost it like you made it up. Like I made it up. Nobody told me I had to say it that way. So it’s like I hold myself to this standard and I just want to nail it every single time. So it is nerve-wracking, especially when things maybe have to change, you know, on the fly. Say, we had a match yesterday that kind of got swapped. So you know you got to you just kind of have to adapt. But I’m always nervous. There’s never ever a time where I’m not nervous.”

On the scariest ringside moment:

“I mean, Gable and Gunther had a crazy little situation over in my area a few weeks ago, but I was sitting right there when Big E got hurt. So a lot of times like I am scared honestly, like I’m I am scared. What they’re doing is a big risk. And it’s and as a fan, you know, as long as I’ve been watching, I’m not stupid, things can happen. This is not like a guarantee, you know, so I am always just hoping my one memory that pops in is the women’s Money in the Bank ladder match this year. I’m sitting, there Charles Robinson, the ref is sitting there watching and he’s got tears in his eyes. And we’re both and I hope he’s not there. No, I’m just now I’m just see. Now I’m like, Just me and you, chillin’. We’re just chilling. But honestly, he just, they were they were doing some crazy stuff in that match. And we both were just watching and just it was emotional. Like you just we want everyone to be okay. And you know, my reactions are genuine. When some crazy stuff is going down.”

What is Samantha Irvin grateful for:

“My daughter, my fiance, my siblings and my friends.”

Becky Lynch (@beckylynchwwe) is a professional wrestler with WWE. She joins Chris Van Vliet to talk about becoming a Grand Slam Champion when she won the WWE NXT Championship, her thoughts on Tiffany Stratton, how becoming a mother has changed her, what Seth Rollins is like as a dad, the defining moment when she became ‘The Man’, working with The Rock when he returned to WWE in 2019, her recent steel cage match with Trish Stratus, how Mick Foley inspired her to become a wrestler, her “shameful” WWE debut, her advice for younger talent, the ‘Big Time Becks’ wardrobe and much more!

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Quote I’m thinking about:
In any given moment we have two options: to step forward into growth or step back into safety. — Abraham Maslow

How has becoming a mom changed you?

“Gosh, it makes me worried about everything, but also grateful for everything. You know, like there is just this extra bit of gratitude around everything. I think when you see how much they progress over [time]. We went to a live event yesterday, I came home this morning, and she was different. She had learned more. She was telling me that a dinosaur was a dimetrodon, I didn’t know what a frickin dimetrodon was. And so you realise, like the time that passes, and how you have to be grateful for every moment to be very present and enjoy all of it. And then that also applies to this, to what we’re doing here. You know, because of our schedule, because of how crazy it is, we’re on the road 52 weeks a year, there’s no breaks, nobody’s going on vacations. Unless you roam and raise chicken. Then you just get into the grind, what’s next and you never really appreciate what’s in front of you and what you have. But when you have a little baby and she’s just magic and every day, she’s coming out with these magical phrases, and she’s doing different things and she learning and then it’s just, you just realise just how quickly life moves and you just have to take stock of everything that you have. And you have to be very, very grateful for it.”

Isn’t it so funny that I’m a little bit behind you. So my daughter is about to be four months old. Isn’t it funny that at what right before the baby’s born, everyone’s like, enjoy this, like enjoy it, because they’re never gonna be this young again. And you’re like, yeah, it’s great advice. And it is but there’s not much you can do to like, you know, actually enjoy it. Because the moment just, you know, passes all the time.

“Yeah, I think that’s one of those things where people say that to you, right? Like they say, enjoy it. And you’re like, okay, is this it? Am I enjoying it right? I remember, and this is totally different, but when I main evented WrestleMania. And everybody was like, enjoy it, enjoy it, soak it all in. And I remember standing there with titles going, am I enjoying it? Am I soaking it in enough? You know? Like, because what does that mean? I think it just means letting all the chatter dissipate and just appreciating what it is. And I think when you’re sleep deprived the four months and the house is chaos, and you know, you haven’t had a hot meal in a long time you go okay, what the hell. But I think it’s just, like, knowing that all of those things are gonna fall away and you just get to stare at this cute little baby doing cute little weird things with their hands. The cute little weird things they do with their hands, you know?”

Was there a moment before Wrestlemania 35 where it hit you like, oh my gosh, we’re gonna go out there and we’re gonna make history? And at the end of this, I’m gonna be the one standing there with my arm raised.

“Yeah, I think several times. I think the week before, I was like, oh no, oh, gosh, oh, I like the gravity of what we were about to do like, what it meant, what it meant for the business what it meant, you know, just culturally and the fact that this predominantly male-dominated industry was now for the first time being main evented by three women and that I was going to be the one standing at the end holding two titles. Like am I ready for this? What preparation needs to be done? Did I do it or not? You know, all of these things go through your head. But then I remember when the day came just rocking up to the building like walking past Undertaker going yeah, this is my WrestleMania. So I do think I really tried to enjoy it as much as I could on the day. Though when it came to like midnight, and we were about to go out, the nerves then hit.”

And now you’re the NXT Women’s Champion. I’m curious about what it means to have that narrative there. What does it mean to have that championship now versus the other times that you’ve had it?

“Well, I never had this. Do you mean just championships in general?”

Yeah. Like, what does this one mean? 

“So look, it is the one that got away, it is the one that I was never pegged for when I was coming up to NXT. And I was very close to being fired constantly, constantly. And not like one of those things where I was unjustly on the brink of being fired like I probably deserved to. I sucked, it wasn’t very good. But because I was so in my head, I just had left wrestling for several years. I don’t know if anybody knows my story. But, when I was a teenager, young, started at 15. I left home to move over to Canada when I was 18. I was like making waves all over the independent circuit. And then I stopped wrestling at 19. And I got very lost and it got very lost for many years. I always felt like I had this thing, but it couldn’t go back to when I didn’t know how to get back to it and it was scary. I didn’t know what women’s wrestling looked like because it didn’t look like it does now and there was nobody just showing me that it could look like it does now. And so anyway, when I got to NXT I was like, Oh no, this is it. I’ve got it. But it was like holding a flower, you know like I was like suffocating it because I wanted it so badly. So nobody, nobody, ever thought I was going to win the NXT Women’s Championship. Nobody probably thought I was going to ever win any championships they thought I was probably just going to be there and be a fine little hand. Enthusiastic little hand that I was. And so going back, you know, all these years later, in a way feels like vindication. But the other thing is that it’s more than that it’s more than the past. And the righting of the wrongs that I felt done to me in the past, which weren’t even wrongs done to me, it was just, it was other people’s time. And I’m so very grateful that I was never pegged for this, I’m so very grateful that I was never one of the people that they strapped the rocket to and said this is going to be our girl. I’m very grateful that I have to strive and work and grind and push myself and bring myself out of the dirt because one, I feel like it’s given me a connection with the audience, two, it’s always left a chip on my shoulder. And three, it brings it all back to what is the love? What is the love of this? Is the love of this just the gratification that I get? Or is the love the business? And how I can make the business better? And what do I do every day in the ring? And so with that, bringing it all the way back, winning this, it’s bringing the future with me, you know, it’s going down there, it’s seeing who they have. Who wants this? Who is hungry and who wants to main event WrestleMania because I can’t make history on my own. So let’s frickin do this. Let’s make it the coolest thing. But you’re gonna have to bring an edge out of you to do it, because I ain’t giving this up easy. You know, I ain’t given this up easy, I want to push people. I want to push them to their limits. I want to see what they’re made of and see who’s hungry enough because the person that’s going to take this from me has to be hungry.”

Tiffany Stratton seems pretty hungry. And I guess we’ll find out you know, it’s you guys against each other at No Mercy. I guess we’ll see what happens. 

“We’ll see what happens. But now look, Tiffany is one of those people that has got a rocket strapped to her, right? She’s one of those people who comes in and looks a million bucks and can do everything under the sun. She can flip she can lift, she’s strong. She’s got a character, we hate her, she’s got everything. She’s got everything. How much do you love it? What do you have in here? Because that’s what matters. And it’s a thing that the audience picks up on. It doesn’t matter how good you are, it doesn’t matter if you’ve got all the tools in the box, if you’ve got all the right, they pick up on something. And that’s an energy that is a love for this. That is being a student of the game. And so I think Tiffany has everything that it takes to be to be a Superstar. But it comes down to what’s in your heart, you know, and so that’s what I wanted. That’s what I want to do. I want to push her. I want to see how extreme she’s willing to go. Like, how much can she take and keep coming back? That’s what an Extreme Rules match is, you know?”

Very few superstars get that defining moment. And you had that defining moment when you know, became The Man and I think that some other ones that immediately popped into my head are like, the Austin 3:16 promo or Hulk Hogan slamming Andre at WrestleMania 3. At what point did you realise you know, you’re standing in there that the nose is broken, you’re posing? At what point do you realise? Oh, my gosh, this is the moment. 

“Oh no I didn’t have a clue what was going on really. I was so concussed out of my mind. I had no idea where I was. I walked back through those doors. I said, Where are we? How did we get here? I didn’t have a clue. Like I had enough wherewithal to be like cameras still on me enjoy this moment. The crowd is going wild. This is cool. Like I knew I had blood coming down my face just didn’t really care. I didn’t think of it as, Oh, this is a cool moment. I was just like, oh yeah, we’re doing the thing the crowd is going wild, this is awesome. You know, this is awesome. And I think it wasn’t till the following days, that people really started to celebrate. But really, it’s crazy. When people think about us, like that was the defining moment. Because I really kind of think that it was the slap that was the defining moment for me, that was what brought my character into this metamorphosis. And really, it was the blood on the face. That was like the crescendo. But up until that point, I was just having a blast, I was having the time of my life, because it was booked like the bad guy. But I was a good guy. So I could do no wrong. And that is the most beautiful place to be in this business, you know, where you can just do no wrong. So you’re just having a blast. And after that then I was a babyface and then ended up hobbling my way to WrestleMania. And kind of as great as that ultimate moment was there were more struggles on the back end of that nose being broken than there were before it if that makes sense.”

The Man, though, is a great nickname. Like you took it and you ran with it. And you made a great shirt that everybody bought. I don’t know if you realised you had lightning in a bottle when you created The Man.

“I think I did. Yeah, yeah, you could feel it like you could sense that upswell around it like okay, this is cool. This is a movement almost you know, people are getting behind this and so it’s very cool. Very cool.”

You know what people got behind? This steel cage match with you and Trish Stratus. This was something really special at Payback.

“Yeah, we crushed it we stole the damn show, started it off, it was all downhill from there. No, it wasn’t, it was actually a great, great show. But we started off hot, I think like a few chips on our shoulder story had been going on for a long time, maybe not getting the steam that necessarily we wanted, and being left off SummerSlam obviously, I understand why these decisions are made, but really wanted to go out there and prove it and getting that time, getting that steel cage match was the perfect way to finish it. You know, match of our life.”

I mean, seriously it might be?

“Yeah, so I mean, look, when you have a legend like Trish Stratus come on back. Like you want to remind the people of why this person was so great. And I think there’s no doubt after that match of the greatness.”

It’s so interesting when you go back and you watch your WWE debut to like the contrast between who that person was and who this person is that is sitting across from me. 

“Are we talking about the Irish jig? We talking about the Irish Jig.” 

Yeah and that very green attire that you had.

“Yeah, there we are. Look, if that is not proof that you can dig yourself out of any hole, then I don’t know what is. Because that is, I would put that over Shockmaster in terms of shameful debuts. Yeah Like he just fell over, you know, like he fell over. Okay, fine, that sucks. I went out. I was committed to that, you know like that was my, I think the difference is he didn’t intend to fall over. I intended to go out there and do an Irish jig like that. And thought that I was worthy of being on WWE television. That happened.”

But here’s the thing. How do you get out of that? Because there are a lot of superstars that debut as one character, and then they’re stuck is that and they can’t make it work?

“I think there’s always a catalyst for change, right? You just got to figure out, you just got to figure out what it is. Winning a match can be a catalyst for change, losing a match can be a catalyst for change. You just sometimes need the right story, the right antagonist or protagonists, depending on what way you’re going to go. But I think that’s the fun thing about wrestling, man, we can do anything. You can go from being a stupid, silly Irish dancing clown, to being The Man of the business and main eventing WrestleMania, holding two titles over your head, you know, and that’s the thing. I suppose in a way, that’s the thing about life, right? You don’t have to be stuck as the person that you were or with the thing that you did, you can move on. And you can learn from your mistakes and hope you never go back there. And I hope I never go back in my green attire and doing the Irish dances. I don’t even listen to Irish music anymore. That’s a lie, I love it. I rock it with the gym, it’s very good.”

That championship that you have there. I feel like that was kind of the last thing that you had on like the bucket list to cross off. Now you’ve won it, what could you possibly have that you need to accomplish now in your career?

“Gosh, that’s kind of one of those questions that I do get asked fairly regularly. And it’s a nice point where you can say, Yeah, I want to main event Wrestlemania again, I want to do this again, I want to do that. Again, I want to do this, I would like to win the Elimination Chamber, you know, like, I want to win Money in the Bank. And but really comes down to cementing the legacy. And how do I make every match that I have great? How do I elevate the women in NXT? How do I push the business forward? How do I leave it better than I found it and I already feel like, I’ve left it better than I found it. But I want to continue that, I want to keep pushing that. I want to make myself proud, my daughter proud, my family proud and the audience proud. I want them to enjoy watching me I want them to go what’s next and be invested in the matches that I’m having the people that I’m wrestling. So I suppose that it, it comes down to consistency and the love of the business. I just love this. I just love this, I love going out there love going out there in front of the crowd. And given them given them all that I have put my body on the line put my mind on the line, taking risks. I think it’s more right now it’s more of just the love of the game, then what else do you have to accomplish? I’ve been lucky enough to accomplish many things. And there’s probably many more things that I will accomplish. But I just love this. How do I make this better?”

Yeah, I love that. And you mentioned your daughter and when you’re her mom, when Seth Rollins is her dad. I mean, what kind of superstar do we have on the way here in like 18 to 20 years?

“Oh man she has so much more charisma than both of us combined. She is electric she is magical and magnetic. She is amazing, I’m so proud of her, she’s just such a great little girl. She’s so funny. And she’s so smart and she’s so sweet and she’s so decisive. And yeah, she’s brilliant. And if she wants to do this, then well, we’ll train her up well, and we’ll make sure that she’s the best in the world at this. But I don’t know, currently, she doesn’t really like watching. Yeah, it’s too loud.”

What is she watching instead? Like Blippi or something?

“Yeah. Blippi, Ms Rachel. Anything dinosaurs.”

We watch a lot of Miss Rachel in this house

“I love Ms Rachel. I invited her to to Madison Square Garden Show one time. She didn’t come. Ms Rachel if you watching that invite is open anytime you want. You don’t even have to come in full costume. No, she’s great. I love her. She taught Roux so much.”

I don’t think people can picture Seth Rollins being a father though.

“So he’s the best. He is so good. He’s so patient. And so kind, like, he never loses his temper, she respects him, she respects him a bit more than she respects me. You know, like, I try to lay down the law but I’m a softy, you know, but like he’s so good. He is so good. They’re the best. They’re the best of buds.”

So we saw The Rock come back on SmackDown not long ago. And when you think about it, the last time The Rock was in a WWE ring. It was four years ago, it was with you and Baron Corbin. Take us backstage before you guys went out for that segment. Walk us through how everything went with The Rock.

“I mean, look, when you’re working with Dwayne, it’s, well, one, it’s so easy because anything you do gets a reaction and he’s so good. And he’s so in tune with with the energy of everyone, the entire universe, I think you can see that by how he’s just, you know, taken over the world. But he also makes everybody feel so comfortable. And he wants everything to be the best. And he takes care of everybody that’s around him. But also then you are just so wracked with nerves because you’re going toe to toe with The Great One. He’s The Great One who’s got, you know, more charisma in is Pinky than, I mean, him and Roux could compete maybe, yeah. But it is like a bit of a nerve-wracking experience because you want to hold your own and you have to hold your own. Because he’s giving you the torch, he is saying, Here you go. Let me give you the rub, kid. And no, he really looked after all of us, getting to work with him and being out there and feeling the energy of the crowd. And then you go, that’s what I want. I want people to react to me that way. And that’s a very cool thing. Because you get to experience it and you go, Okay, I knew I was hot. This is a different level of hot. How do I get this level of hot?”

Yeah, there’s an interesting thing when The Rock comes out there’s a pop for his music. And then there’s a bigger pop when he actually walks out and people like Oh, my God, he is here.

“Yeah, and to be able to experience that while you’re in the ring, about to work with him. Wild energy and I’m very privileged I got to do it.”

You’ve gotten to this interesting point of your career where you’re now working with people who I’m sure are saying, You’re the reason I’m doing this or I grew up watching you. What’s the advice that you have when you work with some younger talent?

“I suppose there’s many different advices, it depends on what the question is. But I think it’s kind of bring it down to fundamentals and always think about the long game, and the purpose, and the crowd, and what it is that we do, what are we selling? Where are we selling them stories, we’re selling conflict. How do we make them care? How do I make them care about me beyond the superficial things? How do I get them to care about the person that I am? And then of course, there is the thing of TV time and okay, I’m not getting as much TV time as don’t want that. Or I’m not winning as many matches as I want that. How can I make this work for me? Well, the thing is, you can always make it work for you, no matter what it is, whether you’re getting time or you’re not getting time, and it’s harder when you’re not getting time, but there are things that you can do. And I was always told by William Regal, that when you’re not on the show, you go and you find the digital team, and you tell a story or you do something, and that was what I did in my early career that really endeared me to the audience. I think that was always my secret ingredient. Whether I was doing silly Instagram posts or I was finding a backstage interviewers so that I could cut a promo that I wasn’t getting time to put on TV. So then there is some contingent of the audience that watches this that knows who I am. When they started hearing my message. And then they will get behind you. And I think that is kind of one of those secret ingredients that you could sit around and be annoyed, or you could take matters into your own hands and tell a story. I think my dad used to always just tell me that when I was bored, you know, just tell yourself a story. And I think William Regal was kind of telling me the same thing. It’s always been the same thing, tell yourself a story. But now it’s not yourself, it’s tell the audience that story.” 

Who was it for you who got you into pro wrestling? 

“Mick Foley told me a story, man, his promos. Yeah, so like I remember being a fan when I was a kid you know, Hulkamania, Warrior all that kind of jazz, dressing up in my mom’s clothes and wrestling with my brother on her bed. But I fell out of watching it I think mostly because my brother fell out of watching and then he started watching again in the Attitude Era. And I’d come along when he was watching it. And I was one of those. I was the worst. I was like, oh, no, you know, that’s so fake, that for babies. And [he said] no, no, just it’s gotten really good. Yeah, sure, whatever. But then Mick would come on and would be like the way he talked you know, and the stories he would tell and this underdog that he was in this unlikely superstar that he was. I was a bit of a misfit as a kid non a bit of a misfit, very much a misfit. And I could see myself in him like there was just that relationship that rapport of like, No, you’re not the picture-perfect superstar. And so he became my hero. You know, I really wanted him to win and then he had that match with Triple H where he was going to retire if he lost and I remember staying up late watching it on him lose and me just being in floods of tears. And of course, he came back like four weeks later, whatever. But, that was really what hooked me and then I was there to stay you know? And then I saw Lita and she was so cool when I wanted to be like her and then everybody else. I mean it was just such a hot time in the business. But I just fell in love with it.”

Do you have a favorite Mick Foley match?

“Probably, I mean, maybe it’s Triple H and Mick Foley and the Hell in a Cell just for that nostalgic reason, you know?”

Yeah, it was so good. I think everyone points to the Undertaker and Mick Foley. I mean that that was his defining moment for sure.

“His defining moment but I think for me as a fan to get to the point where I was crying over and over over this man losing was a defining moment in my fandom.”

The match he had with Randy Orton where we kind of went, Oh, Randy Orton will do this stuff.

“Oh, Randy, what a legend. What a legend that man is.”

You’re working with a lot of legends right now.

“I Am. We’re in a great time in the business. Very great time at the business. Everybody’s hitting, everybody’s taking off. The fans are excited, the buildings are sold out. There’s an energy around the places. It’s a very, very cool thing to be a part of.” 

I feel like the way that our generation talks about the Attitude Era. I feel like there’s gonna be another generation that talks about exactly what is happening right now. 

“Damn right they will and they will talk about the greatest NXT Women’s Champion.”

What’s it like going through TSA with that? 

“Yeah, they stop you all the time. Take it out of your bag, and I’m always late for flights.”

Big Time Becks might be one of the best catchphrases or nicknames.  

“I had so much fun with that run. I want to bring it back.”

Your wardrobe, and I mean this with great love and great respect. your wardrobe is atrociously over the top.

“I love it, man. I love it. I will say it’s kind of my real-life wardrobe. You know what I mean? Like there is I love a bit of Peacocking, you know, walking down the streets of Los Angeles.”

I don’t know who has a better wardrobe. Is it you? Or is it Seth?

“It’s Seth, I can’t argue with that. Like I have a, you know, like, I want to recycle all of his clothes. I just want to have them all tailored to fit me. Yeah, then they get to be worn again. We all get to relive these amazing looks that he’s been churning out. He came in dressed like a fire hydrant just a second ago to deliver me some delicious coffee.” 

When you look back at everything you’ve done, the matches, and the championships and everything. What in your career are you most proud of?

“I don’t know that there’s any one thing that I’m most proud of, I think I’m most proud of many things. I think what I’m most proud of right now is being able to balance everything. Being able to balance being a very present mother and wife, and being on every single show that we have. I was on a SmackDown dark match on Friday, I was on the live events, you know, I’m on NXT, I’m on Raw. I think I’ll just be most proud of elevating where the women were to where they are now. And just that I’ve never once phoned it in. Like, I think you can accuse me of several things, nobody will ever be able to accuse me of phoning it in of not trying my hardest, not doing my best. Oftentimes I won’t hit the mark, I won’t get to where I want to be. But I’m always trying to do my best. I’m always trying to bring the best out of everybody that is in the ring with me. I’m trying to do the best for the audience. And as long as I continue to do that, which there ain’t no sign of that stopping. And I think I’m going to leave behind a career that I am extremely proud of.”

So the last question I want to ask you, I end every interview with this. You’ve mentioned it a few times, gratitude is such an important thing. What are three things in your life that you’re grateful for as we sit here right now?

“Oh my gosh, I mean, my daughter, my husband, my job, they’re the first three that come to mind. But there are just so many things that I’m grateful for, and I’m very lucky to be so grateful for.”

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