Brad Williams (@funnybrad) is a stand-up comedian, actor and massive wrestling fan. He sits down with Chris Van Vliet at West Coast Creative Studio in Hollywood, CA to discuss his love of comedy and wrestling and why the two work so well together, if he is taller than Hornswoggle, making jokes about wrestlers on The Jericho Cruise, his issues with Peter Dinklage, possibly wrestling a match, the viral spot between Omos and Micro Man, dressing up as Scott Steiner, and more!

Maybe you’re El Grande Americano?

“You never know. No, with this forehead, a mask couldn’t even fit over this thing. Although that would be so funny. El Grande Americano is a dwarf, but yes, this is one of the non-wrestler episodes, so no doubt, huge crash in the ratings, huge dip.”

But anybody who has been on the Jericho Cruise knows that you love wrestling?

“Yes, I’m a mark, as they say, and it’s been really cool doing the Jericho Cruise. I’m now the official comedian of the Jericho Cruise. I am the director of laughs of the Chris Jericho Rock and Wrestling Rager at Sea. I book the comedians. So if you ever see a show at the Jericho Cruise that sucks, blame me. But so far, they haven’t, because it’s been really fantastic. There’s so many comics that are really big wrestling fans, and I think it’s because comedians look at wrestling, and we get it. It’s performance art, and it’s playing an elevated version of yourself. It’s playing a character, and we can see that some wrestlers are actually good on the mic, which pisses me off so much when a wrestler is good on the mic. So I’m like, you don’t get all the skills. Nic Nemeth, he’s good. His brother Ryan is good, but in a completely different way.”

When wrestlers do comedy it works:

“What Toni Storm is doing right now in AEW is brilliant. It’s great comedy, calling people slop tarts and tits up. It’s awesome. I love it because sometimes wrestling fans get so into wrestling that it becomes this sacred cow that cannot be silly or funny or whatever. No, wrestling is supposed to be silly. Wrestling is supposed to be fun. Once we got past the 70s and 80s, where it’s hard to believe that at one point in our country, people were still like, ‘No, they’re fighting. That guy legit hates that guy, and they are legit fighting.’ Once we found out that it is predetermined, I think that opened up the world. You could have your grapplers, you could have your street fighters, but then you could also have your Orange Cassidy’s. You could have your Iguana man’s. You could have your very silly people. You could have Santino with the freaking Cobra. You can do that, and it’s silly. And we all just acknowledge because if you take away The Undertaker’s mystique, it’s silly. He’s a zombie. He throws lightning. There’s fire that he can summon, he’s got way too much eyeshadow on. He looks like a My Chemical Romance fan going through a midlife crisis. But then it’s because it’s The Undertaker, that’s like, okay, but it’s the Undertaker. I went slight Vince mode there. But wrestling is supposed to be fun. Wrestling is supposed to be silly and it’s performative. And that’s one of the reasons why I love it.”

Give me your Mount Rushmore of comedy wrestlers:

“Well, if I’m doing it, it’s more like a molehill. So Brad Williams’ Molehill Rushmore of comedy wrestlers. All right, you got to put The Rock on there. Had so many funny moments, so many. I would put Santino on there just with all the mispronunciations of everybody’s name. I would put mutual friend Chris Jericho on there, not known for being a comedic wrestler, because he’s so good at everything else. He made clicking a pen be threatening! R-Truth, for him saying that John Cena was his favorite wrestler as a child, as a childhood hero, and R-Truth is three years older than John Cena or whatever he is. It’s a basic joke, but it’s so good. I got one more. This will make a lot of people mad, but I love Orange Cassidy. He made it work, and he’s done so many good things, and I will usually laugh at some point. When he and Sting did the back and forth, and Sting said yes to it, which I found out later was improvised.

Because one thing you find out in wrestling, and it’s true in comedy too, is you have to commit fully to the bit. You cannot second-guess. You cannot be like, I’m not sure about this. I know Jericho has talked about the pen, where he would tell the wrestlers, you have to sell the pen. Think about the time when Mick Foley came out and he just got beaten up by Triple H as Mankind. And now he reveals that now he’s Cactus Jack and Triple H acts like Mick Foley just shot his brother in the ring, he just throws his hair. No, not Cactus Jack! Anything but the same guy I beat last night. Wrestling, inherently, if you break it down, it’s kind of dumb, but it’s just so much fun when you actually go for that, and you get fully into it, and you believe it, because that kind of stuff isn’t going to happen in real life. I can’t be about to fight a guy and be like, ‘You know what? You beat Brad Williams, but now you face Half Pint!'”

Is that your alter ego?

“All right, I’m not gonna lie, Half Pint was what I would always put myself as a create a wrestler. I always did half pint, and I would always give myself like Big Show move sets, just because I thought it was hilarious.”

Was your create a wrestler small?

“Of course, yes! But the problem was that they couldn’t make them small enough. I stopped playing wrestling video games at SmackDown: Here Comes the Pain. Which arguably is the best one ever. But the create a wrestler had Rey Mysterio height, and that’s the shortest it could go. I need to go lower!”

Who’s taller? You or Hornswoggle.

“All right. This is a debate which I hate saying this because I hate giving Hornswoggle any credit for anything. I feel bad saying another dwarf was funny, because it’s like we’re Highlanders. There can be only one. So Hornswoggle, I would say, is probably an inch taller than me. But because of his spinal surgeries, I think he’s back down to my level. There’s a video online of one of the greatest moments of my life, of me getting in the ring with Hornswoggle, the dream match, not a match, but the dream run-in happened on the Jericho Cruise. We stood eye to eye, which is the only person, literally, I could stand eye to eye with, and it was an awesome moment. Whenever I would go on the Jericho Cruise, people would ask me to get in the ring. I’m like, No, I’m not gonna get in the ring. These guys are trained. I’m not trained. But when Hornswoggle was booked on the Jericho Cruise, and I was on the Jericho Cruise, I’m like, okay, Chris, I know what you’re doing, and it’s working, because it’s gonna happen. We saw each other in the check-in line to go on the boat, and we immediately started chirping at each other, and we saw the crowd reaction of everyone just going, what the f*ck? Two dwarves are gonna fight? Two dwarves are gonna fight! I don’t know what happens when two dwarves fight. Do portals open up? Do rainbows fly out of the ring? Gold Coins get showered from the sky? I have no idea what happens. And we saw people really get into it. So then we had to do this thing, because, you know, people have pulled back the curtain on this podcast many times, me and Dylan are friends. I love the guy.”

At the core, comedy and wrestling have one thing in common, storytelling.

“It’s just storytelling. Yes, when you see two wrestlers fight, you haven’t been to a situation like that. You haven’t had a guy do that to you or backstab you, but you’ve had a greater theme happen that relates, like, Stone Cold and Vince. You all had a boss you hated. I doubt many of you poured cement into your boss’s Corvette, but you wanted to. So that relates. I’m a little person, not my whole crowd is in dwarves. But the stories I’m telling, they relate to, they identify with. You know, when I talk about my wife, when I talk about my kid, when I’m doing that kind of stuff, people out there have wives and kids and spouses that annoy them sometimes too.”

Do you have some ideas in your notes app for when you’re gonna roast wrestlers on the cruise this year?

“Yes, so that’s one thing I do. One thing I do every time is I roast the wrestlers. Because when else is a guy my size gonna walk up to a guy like Wardlow and make fun of him to his face. The roasting started accidentally. I didn’t know I was going to do it, and then it just became a thing, because it was me and SCU and we were all talking in the back. Frankie Kazarian and Christopher Daniels Scorpio Sky. Scorpio mentions casually, just in conversation. He’s like, ‘Yeah, I was kind of nervous coming on this boat, because I don’t know how to swim.’ I went, Okay, put that in the back. Go on stage that night for the comedy show and I talk about how Scorpio Sky can’t swim. ‘Really, you can’t swim? You could do a springboard somersault, Hurricanrana inside of a steel cage, no problem. But this move is too hard? This is too hard for you to do?’ And that got a big laugh. And when I did that, I was like, okay, so then it just became a part of it where every time I get up there. No one’s gotten mad at me directly, but guys I’ve mentioned, like, ‘Yeah, I let that one slide.’ It’s kind of their warning shot of like, Hey, that was fun. Don’t really do that again. But for the most part, the wrestlers have been amazing. They really like it. You could always make fun of The Gunns. You make any kind of Nepo baby jokes you want to them, they’re fantastic. The fact their dad still looks better than they do and he’s 30 years older, they’re awesome. I love them, they are so much fun. But then sometimes, all right, so the one when I can get a holy sh*t chant on a joke. So this one was last year. I did Will Ospreay earlier. ‘If Will Ospreay is here and not on TV, then what is Dave Meltzer jerking off to this week?’ That was fun. This was the one that got a holy sh*t chant where I said, ‘I actually stopped watching AEW for quite a while, because, let’s face it, AEW is being run by an egomaniac wrestling mark who nobody likes, and they’re all afraid to call him out on his bullsh*t. But enough about CM Punk.’ So it’s fun. If Punk were here right now, I would say that joke to his face. To me, that’s the rule, you have to be able to say it to their face, because then if you do it and they’re not there, which I did, but I would say that joke to his face, and if he had a problem with it, whatever. But it’s all in good fun.”

You also recently introduced us to Little Poppa Pump on The Jericho Cruise:

“Another crazy story. So Little Poppa Pump, it’s the last match, again, where oftentimes it just descends into chaos. Scott Steiner had been on the cruise, and he had done some podcasts, done some autograph signings, and they wanted him to do this run-in at the end. Right near when it was about to go he’s like, ‘I’m tired. I’m gonna go to bed.’ So Scott Steiner goes to bed, and now they’re like, Okay, what are we gonna do? And then Jericho texted me, ‘Where are you right now?’ Where I was last year, buddy. I’m on the side of the ring. He goes, get back here. So I run to the back, and he goes, ‘Hey, Steiner is out for the main, so we were thinking about you doing a run-in at the end.’ And I go, ‘Wait, Steiner’s out? How much time do we have?’ And he’s like, maybe 10-15 minutes. I’m like, I got this. So I run down to my room, and I don’t know why I brought this with me. I have a fan who, every time I go to a city in Ohio where he lives, he makes me art that is just soda pop tabs that put together like chain mail. He’s made me vests. He’s made me wrist things. It’s an amazing talent. It’s ridiculous. Also, I never asked for it. It’s not like I’m on stage going, if only I had a pop tab vest. No, he just brings them to me. He asked me one year, he goes, ‘Can I make anything for you? I just bring you sh*t. Is there anything you want?’ I’m a wrestling fan, so I go, ‘Oh, let’s do the Steiner chain mail.’ I sent him some photos. He’s like, Okay, I could do that. He made it for me, and I brought it on the Jericho Cruise. There was no plan. I just had it. I think I did a signing with it on, because all the wrestlers always do autograph signings. I tried to flex the whole time, but that didn’t work. That’s hard to do. But I had it with me. So I run, and I grab this chain mail armor, throw it on, get some sunglasses, take off my shirt. It’s Little Poppa Pump. And thankfully, the wrestlers were really cool. I did a step suplex and then I did What’s up headbutt as Steiner, which was just fun. But yeah, Little Poppa Pump was a character, but the fact that it was Scott Steiner that walked out and that I had the outfit, so it’s like we planned it.”

Do you have the same disdain for Peter Dinklage that Hornswoggle does?

“Yes! Yes, I do. That is where Hornswoggle and I will absolutely be on the same page. That is where the Mega Powers will collide and we will unite as a tag team over our disdain for Peter Dinklage. Now, I have disdain for Peter Dinklage for a couple of reasons. Is this a shoot? Let’s go! First of all, I have disdain for Dinklage because he’s really freaking talented. He’s really amazing. He’s a really great actor, pure jealousy. If they made a movie and called The Brad Williams Story, it would be starring Peter Dinklage. All right, let’s be honest. The guy gets everything. But the real disdain comes for the same reason why Hornswoggle doesn’t like him is that he came out and was really angry that the live-action Snow White movie was going to use real dwarf actors, and he thought that was offensive. If someone else gets work, that’s really offensive to him, and it’s not to his cultural standards of what a dwarf should do to be a respected member of this business. Now I get it, Dinklage, you went on Saturday Night Live and instructed all the writers not to make any dwarf jokes. I know you did that for a fact, because I know several writers on that show. And that’s fine. That’s your preference. He made a stand and said, I’m not going to take offensive dwarf roles, or so he thought. Because I remember Dinklage that you were in a movie called Tiptoes. And Tiptoes is the most offensive movie to little people ever made. This is where in the podcast you will run the preview for Tiptoes, because it looks like a Saturday Night Live sketch. When you watch it, you’re like there’s no way that’s real. Now, you’re like, Tiptoes is probably a nothing movie. Nobody’s in it, right? Wrong! It stars Matthew McConaughey, Kate Beckinsale Patricia Arquette, Peter Dinklage, and in the role of a lifetime, which the narrator says in the preview, he goes, …And in the role of a lifetime, Gary Oldman.’ Because Gary Oldman plays a dwarf. Now you’re thinking, okay, yeah, you were like, they probably did some CGI stuff, right? Nope. They got Gary on his knees, put some shoes down there. They tied his arms back so his arms would be shorter. Doesn’t look like a little person at all, and he’s a dwarf in the film. Yeah, it’s the most offensive movie to little people ever made. Dinklage has an accent in the movie, which doesn’t make any sense because it switches three times throughout. It starts off, he’s like, ‘I’m from Brussels…’ and it’s like French. And later, I don’t know what it is, it just changes. There’s a fight scene between Gary Oldman as a dwarf and a guy who’s having sex with his girlfriend. His girlfriend in the film is played by Bridget The Midget, the porn star. Yep, she’s in that movie as well. It’s bonkers, they ignore all laws of genetics, and the movie is horrible. And Dinklage has been in that film. So my point is, you can’t be in Tiptoes, the worst movie, also shout out to David Alan Greer, who’s in the film. You can’t be in Tiptoes, the most offensive movie little people ever made, and then come out and try to take work from dwarf actors and say you can’t play the role of a dwarf because it’s considered offensive to you. That’s where me and Hornswoggle agreed.”

Would you have liked to have been a dwarf? 

“Yes, literally the role I was born to play, genetically. I would have loved to. I don’t care which one, happy, sleepy, dopey, I’ll be grumpy. I don’t care. By the way, one of the funnier things is whenever I’m out in public and someone is wearing a grumpy t-shirt and they see me, they’re like, Ah, f*ck! That is one of the funnier things that I’ve experienced.”

Has anyone pitched for you to be in a full-on wrestling match?

“I have been in one. Not for any of the major companies. There was a fayre, and they had wrestling at the fayre, and they needed some wrestlers, and they called up a wrestling school where I had taken literally one lesson back in my early 20s. I thought, maybe I’ll give this a shot. I took one lesson, after the one lesson I was like, this hurts. No, I’m out. So respect to everyone who does it. But they called up this wrestling school. ‘Hey, we need some wrestlers, also one of our minis couldn’t make it. Do you guys have a mini?’ That’s code for little guy. They go, yeah, we got one. I had taken one lesson, one lesson! I show up to the fayre pretty much dressed like John Cena, I think I had jorts. They go, this is your opponent, the crazy clown is the guy I’m facing, and he doesn’t speak English, so we have to go back and forth with a translator, and he’s a pro. He’s like, ‘What can you do?’ And I go, nothing! So he’s like, okay, so he plans out a match. I did get a really nasty bump during the match, though, because I was like, let’s do a dive to the outside and I’ll dive, and he’s like I’ll catch you. I dove, he caught me, but then adrenaline, I dove too far, and moved back, caught me, and then took two more steps back, fell, and then my head on the railing, bam. I had a lump. This is a big head. I don’t need it to be any bigger. I won the match on a sunset flip, undefeated, pulled off a hurricanrana during the match. That was fun. But if anyone wants me to get into the ring again. Oh, okay. But the thing is, is I have so much respect for the business. I just watched the WWE Unreal, and they talked about when Jelly Roll was gonna do his match, and shout out to Jelly Roll, friend of mine, good guy, big fan of comedy. He took it seriously, and that’s what I would want to do. If I’m going to do anything now, I’m going to take it seriously. I’ll do a run-in, sure. Run-ins are fun. But if anyone ever wants me to actually go, if you want me and Swoggle to go, all right, I gotta do some training.”

What about you and Omos? Did you see that moment with Omos and Microman?

“That would have to be me, Swoggle, there’s another dwarf wrestler, I think he just retired, but his name is Short Sleeve Samson. We’d have to get all of us in there. We’d have to get dink, mink, pink, stink, all of them. They’d have to all come back, and we’d have to all form up and like a Voltron or like a Power Rangers and like fight him. That’s madness, man. But I would. My phone is open. I love doing things in this business that scare me. I love doing things that I enjoy. So it’s like, if someone wants me to do a wrestling thing, I’ll do a wrestling thing, but I’m not doing the county fayre show again. It’s gonna have to be something where it’s like, I have to tell my wife, like, Hey, I’m gonna go get myself in danger and beat up a little bit.”

What is Brad Williams grateful for?

“The lack of gatekeepers in this space, to anyone who buys a ticket to see live comedy, and that I get along with my family.”

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Darby Allin (@DarbyAllin) is a professional wrestler currently signed to AEW. He sits down with Chris Van Vliet at West Coast Creative Studio in Hollywood, CA to discuss climbing  Mount Everest, crashing through a pane of glass during Sting’s last match, getting launched onto the announce table by Claudio Castagnoli, whether he sees himself becoming AEW World Champion, whether he thinks his spots ever go too far, winning the TNT Championship, breaking his foot in the ring, getting hit by a bus in New York, and more!

What do you feel like your relationship with fear is like?

“I love it. Honestly, goes back to when I was in middle school. I would look at the wall in my room and just think my whole life’s gonna amount to nothing. I was so just life’s over. There’s nothing to look forward to. I had no confidence in the world at all, but the more fear [I had], I went straight on and started doing crazy stuff. It gave me all this confidence, and it made me believe anything was possible. So fast forward all these years later, I’m doing the most crazy stuff, like Everest and everything, but I feel the most confident and I feel the most at peace with myself. So that’s why I constantly love fear.”

7,000 people have climbed Mount Everest. That’s it.

“Yeah, I don’t know. It just puts things into perspective, kind of how small your problems are, what you think is so big really doesn’t mean a thing. It’s very humbling when you’re up there, because it’s hard to have an ego when you’re fighting for your life on a daily basis. Because you don’t care about how you look, you don’t care about how you smell. You just want to survive. So it’s pretty cool to be in that type of energy.”

There is a real possibility you could die up there. Did you say your goodbyes before you went up there? Did that hit you?

“Yeah, absolutely. I climbed with my mom and my brother to base camp, and the base camp hike, to a lot of people it’s no joke, it takes like 10-12 days. The elevation is like 17,000 [feet]. But the reality hit me when my mom and my brother were leaving base camp, and now I had to stay behind to actually go for the summit, and I was going to be there for another month after they left, but when I saw them walking away, the reality hit, oh sh*t, this might be the last time you see them. Then it just thought about, this might be the last time you’ve seen anybody. I was like, Oh crazy. So I went in my tent and I cried, and I filmed a little vlog about it and stuff, being like, there’s no way I’m gonna die on this mountain. I’m gonna summit, then I’m going to come back down and see a lot of people. So it was a commitment I made to myself when I was up there.”

What was the reason you wanted to do it?

“What I said earlier, I wanted to tell myself I was capable of anything, because you find yourself on this hamster wheel and wrestling. There’s no off-season. It’s all year long. And sometimes you feel like you’re living your life for somebody else. I wanted to really find out who I was going to be on the other side of Everest, and I didn’t want to live my life for somebody else. I wanted to really prove to myself what I was capable of. Because it goes back to the politicking and everything like that and the egos. I can’t stand it.”

Growing up, how does wrestling get into this?

“I always remember wrestling being there. I always remember it being in the background. I remember, we’re going to talk about Jeff Hardy, but I remember when I was in kindergarten, I’d watch Jeff Hardy, and then I would climb on top of top of my piano, and there’d be a concrete floor, and front flip off and just knock the sh*t out of myself, just rolling around, but it’s always there. It was always a form, like an outlet to entertain, plus just to have an excuse to go crazy in front of a live crowd.”

Was Jeff Hardy your guy growing up?

“Him, Mick Foley, a lot of those guys really spoke to me as a kid, especially coming from skateboarding and stunts and wildness, they weren’t your traditional wrestlers, so they were very appealing in that sense.”

Are you in any pain as you sit here right now?

“No. I’m not lying. I’m completely straight edge. I don’t take pain pills, I don’t take anything. I asked for this, and I want to deal with it mentally and with the human brain, and all the meditating and everything that I do, I feel like I can deal with anything.”

When you started talking about this match with Jeff Hardy, are both of you guys going all right, how are we gonna one-up each other? 

“For the first time in my career it did feel like I was calling a match with myself, and that was a fun feeling. Because originally it was supposed to be just a straight-up wrestling match, but nobody wants to watch Darby Allin and Jeff Hardy trade wrist locks. We got to bend the rules a little bit. Then one thing led to another, and it was for the Owen Hart Tournament. So, all right, this is relaxed rules, whatever that means. And the next thing you know, we’re out here talking about, all right, I’m gonna do this. And then he’s like, I’m gonna do this, and it’s just super fun, because, to me, I love traditional wrestling, I love World of Sport, I love all of that. Not a lot of people would think I do, but I am obsessed with all that technical wrestling. But you got to think of the big puzzle of what AEW is and where you can fit on that, what makes it different. I’m not going to go in there and be like, oh, I want to be a technical wrestler, because you take a guy like Danielson, he’s the best at that. So I’ll be the guy who will be willing to go places no one’s willing to go physically. That’s where I fit in, and everything like that. So it was just super fun, because you got that energy match with somebody like Jeff, and now you’re like, Oh no, this is a car crash. This is everything I would love if I was watching TV flipping through the channels. Oh my god. It was a really great experience.”

You jumped off a ladder onto Jeff Hardy, and then there were chairs there too. Talk me through that spot.

“Well, I don’t know. I felt like it wasn’t so much of live up to the hype of what people expected, it was to live up to the hype that I expected. So it’s like, man, because I expect a lot out of myself any night of the week. I don’t save any big things for a pay-per-view. I’ll be going ballistic on Dynamite, Collision. It don’t matter. I’ll be going ballistic every night. But with this Jeff Hardy match, I was like, Dude, we gotta go, and all I kept thinking is, all right, there’s this ladder, and then there’s a stack of chairs. I don’t know where it came from, but it just seemed like the most logical step. But also, I’ve never seen it done before, because everyone’s like, how are you supposed to even land that safe? I honestly don’t know.” 

You don’t think that through?

“No. And also I’m very chill with going to the hospital and breaking things. I don’t care. It doesn’t bother me, which I think, in the long run, actually, that helps me, because when you’re afraid of stuff, that’s when you get hurt. But if you just go with the flow, like it’s nice and loose, you’d be surprised what your body can handle.” 

Have they ever told you that’s too much? We don’t want to do that. 

“The Sting spot, easily, the Sting spot. [So this is off the ladder through the glass?] Yeah. I remember the moment I hit it, my adrenaline was just going through the roof and the referee comes up, ‘How are you feeling?’ I feel good. He’s like, oh sh*t. My insides got sliced into the glass, and then he’s like, ‘We got to bring you to the back.’ I was like, There’s no way you can bring me to the back. So if you see me come back into the match at the very end, I’m wrapped in duct tape. And I was like, just wrap it up, I only have one more spot. So let’s finish strong. I can’t go to the back. I remember Tony saying that could have been really bad.”

You splatted when you hit, it looked like the glass barely breaks your fall. Did it hurt?

“Surprisingly not. But a couple of weeks later, I’m still pulling glass out of myself. I don’t know. It wasn’t like, oh my God, that was miserable. I was like that was chill. If you look back at when I did the front flip off of the ladder onto Jeff, I whisper in his ear when we’re laying down, I’m like, that was fun, just to let him know, because a lot of these spots, when you do some crazy stuff, you don’t know how the person you’re wrestling is going to be after it. So it’s kind of good to give them the whole like, Dude, this is cool.”

What do you say to those people that don’t like the way that you wrestle. 

“Oh, I don’t know. There’s so much different things to like or not like. You don’t have to pay no attention to me if you don’t like it, just go complain about something. There’s just nothing to say. I’m just gonna keep doing what I do.”

Do you look at your style and think that you will have to adapt it?

“I think everybody has to shift their style to a degree, absolutely. But that’s the beauty of wrestling, to me, is you can’t have a pro athlete playing NBA or NFL at 64 or a skateboarder. But you can have Sting going out there having a rememberable retirement match at 64, so there’s ways around it, obviously. But also you got to look at Sting. He was jumping off balconies, which is something he never did in his early years. He was doing that at the very end. So there’s ways to keep the craziness but also, you know, mirror it. I’m not going to be able to run as fast or do my dives as hard as maybe I want to. But that doesn’t mean I can’t jump off 30-foot balconies. There’s just ways around it.”

Have you seen the comparisons to Spike Dudley?

“Yeah, I don’t really see it to be honest, because I’m way more of a wrestler, wrestler. I don’t feel like Spike was ever a technical wrestler.”

I think it’s because he took some nasty bumps too:

“Definitely, but I definitely feel like I’m way more of a wrestler’s wrestler than that. I sh*t you not. I feel like I could out-wrestle a lot of people from a technical standpoint, but ain’t nobody want to see Darby Allin do a lot of technical wrestling. But when I do, it’s super fun, because I feel like people always forget that I know how to do this. But I got a ring at my house, and I train all the time. So, yeah, I don’t personally see it, but that’s just the nature of the business. I feel like a lot of wrestling stuff is very small-minded. You think about, oh, he’s with Sting because they have face paint. It’s like, Dude, it goes way beyond that. I feel like, yeah, a lot of people are very small-minded in wrestling.” 

You also have a win over Gunther:

“It was so fun. It was incredible. I just remember I was supposed to originally wrestle him a month prior, but I had this crazy, crazy injury where I was bleeding from the brain, and it was like a double shot where I wrestled in the morning, and I was supposed to wrestle Gunther at night. It was two shows in one, then the morning show, I hit the concrete on my head so hard that I just started feeling everything start to get quiet and feel like something was swelling, and I could barely hear people. I was like, Oh, this ain’t normal. Went to the hospital and you’re bleeding from the brain, we had to put you under and stuff like that. So it’s pretty crazy. But imagine if I didn’t go to the hospital, I probably would have died that night against Walter. But yeah, fast forward, I end up having the singles match with him, and it was incredible. It was so fun because when I’m in there, I love being in the ring with guys where you can actually be lost in the moment, guys like Gunther, Brody King, all these people, feels like I’m in a real fight. That was incredible.” 

Then there’s Claudio launching you from the ring through the announce table.

“Like I said earlier, a lot of it’s like, Okay, what’s something that’s [crazy]? Because there’s a lot of craziness in AEW, a lot. I actually love watching people push the boundaries. But I’m also trying to be like, what’s a bump that no one would want to take? I’m looking around. I was like this guy is strong as sh*t, just throw me. Just chuck me. I don’t know there’s nothing to it. It’s just kind of rag doll it.”

Did you guys both know that he was gonna be able to hit the announce table?

“Not 100%, but he’s so strong. I’m like, whatever happens, happens. Let’s just go, wing it. Because if I come short and I actually hit the corner of the table it might look cooler, you don’t know. But it was super fun.”

You’ve been thrown onto the stairs a lot!

“The worst one is definitely the one with Christian Cage at WrestleDream. If you watch that back, that one’s the worst. Way worse than the PAC one. My head is like that far away from actually breaking my neck on those stairs.” 

Not only did you get set on fire, you also set people on fire. You set Jack Perry on fire. You set Jon Moxley on fire. You had a flamethrower. It’s a wild spot!

“I don’t know what to tell you. Sometimes Darby has to get his revenge. He can’t just clearly get his ass kicked every single night.”

Was there a point where you broke your foot, when that first trip to Everest got put on hold, were you worried that it wasn’t gonna happen?

“No, absolutely not. The very first thing I did when I was in the hospital is I called Tony and I said, promise me that I can do this next year. Because Everest was such a spiritual journey for me that I felt like I needed to do it. Then he’s like, yeah, absolutely. So once I got that promise, I was like, okay, cool. I’m just gonna hit it harder and train my ass off even more. But yeah, it was incredible. I wouldn’t change a single thing.”

Do you have the goal of being AEW World Champion one day?

“I don’t know. It’s a weird question. It’s something I talked to Sting about. I never really cared about championships. Care more about just good storylines. To me, that’s where I feel like my head is on that thing. Would it be cool to be the face of a company? Yes, absolutely, considering I do feel like I best represent what AEW can give. Because you take a guy like Darby Allin, where would have Darby fit in the grand scheme of pro wrestling if it wasn’t for AEW? But you just see, hey, here’s a guy, be you.”

Do you think about if, if Jackass had been around, 10 years ago, like just starting how different your life might have looked like. You might have been the star of Jackass instead of a pro wrestler?

“You never know. Honestly, because back then I was just going crazy on my skateboard, doing all these stunts and stuff like that. I was trying to go the Evil Knievel route, because I had no confidence to being a wrestler. But then, with all the craziness, I think I can do way more for wrestling, because people aren’t willing to go the lengths I’m willing to go. I am not just saying that. It’s not a catchphrase. I do believe there’s no one in the world of wrestling that is willing to go the places I’m willing to go, physically, mentally. I love a challenge.” 

What is Darby Allin grateful for?

“My health, my family and AEW.”

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Eva Marie (@natalieevamarie) is a professional wrestler and podcaster best known for her time in WWE. She sits down with Chris Van Vliet in Orange County, CA to discuss how she was fast-tracked to the main roster after signing her contract and the resulting backlash, being on Total Divas and how much of the resentment was real, her signature red hair, why her 2 runs with WWE came to an end, helping others battling with addiction, and more!

What keeps you busy these days?

“I mean, one, we’re sitting in the studio, so, I mean, we just had you as a guest on the Hopeaholics podcast. So I think that really has kind of transitioned my life, it has drastically shifted since July 28 2023 because that’s when I originally first came as a guest on this podcast, the Hopeaholics podcast, or the studio that we’re in. And then that’s really where everything kind of changed the trajectory of my life, because I was living in Texas, and then all of a sudden, after being on the podcast and seeing what the guys were doing out here with the treatment facilities, from helping our veterans to having other facilities for people to come and detox and get well from drug and substance abuse. I really put all my chips into this bucket over here to open up my own treatment facility and to be on the podcast and just kind of go all in with everything, breaking the stigma with addiction.”

So if somebody’s watching this and they want to reach out and they’re seeking treatment, what’s the best way for them to do that?

“There’s so many ways. You can go to the Hopeaholics on Instagram. You can go to nemrecovery on Instagram. You can go to a website. You can go to nemrecoverycenters.com. We have numbers everywhere for anyone, like on any social network. We have our very own AI tool as well of both Chad and myself. It’s amazing, and you can text that number anywhere you go on my personal socials, you can contact a number or go to a website and find help.”

What does your life look like without recovery?

“It doesn’t. There’s no way. If I wasn’t sober, I wouldn’t have WWE. WWE was literally a monumental moment in my life, because it was the setup, I came public with my sobriety on Season One of Total Divas without me knowing what I was really doing by coming public with it, it was just I came public to hurry up with my story so that I didn’t walk into the locker rooms and have like Nikki or Brie holding up my mug shot. Me trying to skirt around something that I was so shameful of. So that’s really why I kind of put that out there myself. Because I think if you own all of your own stories or your own transgressions, how are you gonna tell me anything I’ve already told you? “

Like that scene in 8 Mile?

“That’s my go-to, that’s my analogy that I always use and I always reference, because I feel like everyone’s seen that movie, and they kind of understand what I’m talking about. When it’s like, you own your own story, you own your own narrative, it gives you so much power, because nobody can say anything to you then, because you’ve already owned it. So that’s really what I was doing at that moment, without really knowing how powerful it was going to be for me, not only to be so open and honest about me working a 12-step program or struggling with alcohol and drug addiction, but it really did set up my life fast forward 10 years later to what I’m doing now. Because when I got out of treatment, because I don’t know if people really understand that not only was WWE such a life-changing experience for me, on a magnitude of reasons, from the fact of like me always wanting to be a professional athlete. Soccer was really my sport, but the fact that God gave me that element back into my life, because, as you know, having to handle the physicality inside the ring and being able to perform and travel and do all the things within that company is something that my soul was yearning for from not being able to pursue soccer, my dream, but also I was fresh out of treatment five weeks so I had gotten originally, my first audition, because we don’t do them anymore, but they were diva searches at the time. I had gone to my first one a couple of months before, and I was still kind of in my addiction. I mean, I was able to show up to the first call, but then I ended up going into treatment, and when I got out, that was when I got the call back, and it was like five weeks after I had just left treatment. So my life changed really quickly and really fast.” 

How quickly did your life change after signing with WWE?

“So, how it went down was actually really wild, because we had the in-ring physicality tryout, and that’s obviously where I met and totally hit it off with JoJo and a couple of the other girls from our camp, CJ was in there as well. So it was a four-week tryout. I fell in love with it because I was missing that competitive edge in my life, too. So the fact of doing something and getting into a ring, it’s like, especially if you don’t have that type of physicality background. I feel like dancers, gymnasts, they kind of pick it up a little bit easier. I’ll never forget my body. I couldn’t even pick up my legs. I was so sore. It was insane. So how it went with that is, after the four weeks, if they thought that they saw some type of potential in you, you would end up getting a developmental contract move to Tampa at the time, because that’s where the facility was, not in Orlando yet. So it was just a developmental contract, and then you would go out there, learn how to wrestle, learn whichever character you’re going to try to work on and learn about the business, and then hope to get called up to the main roster on Monday night Raw or Friday night SmackDown. I always refer to it as AAA baseball, but even at AAA, you know how to play the game. But when you’re going in, how we got the developmental contract, none of all of us knew how to kind of run the ropes and kind of take a back bump by then, and we’re doing, forward backward rolls. It’s not like we’re really knowing how to wrestle. We’re knowing little basics, and that’s about it.”

So how long after you started training did you have your first match? 

“Well, it gets better. So that’s why my whole sh*t is like, no one will ever walk into WWE the way that I did, I can almost guarantee it, because it’s insane, in a good way, though, for me. Because it’s like I’m so blessed that I was able to have that opportunity. Because if I didn’t, I don’t know what I would be doing. So that’s why I’m so thankful. So after those four weeks, I get my developmental contract. Me and JoJo actually got it together. They told us together. I was so excited. I was like, Oh my gosh. And they’re like, Okay, well, you guys have a couple months get your things together, because you’re gonna have to move to Tampa. No problem. I ain’t got sh*t out here, I was saying I was sharing a bed with a girlfriend of mine, because I had too much pride to move back in with mommy and daddy. So I was just like sharing a bit with her, because that’s how bad my life was, or my decisions, I guess you could say had put me. But then I get a call because I was in LA and they go, how do you feel about going in for this audition? We can’t really tell you much about it. We don’t know about this project if we were gonna green light it, or whatever it is, but they want to see you. I was like, Yeah, sure, no problem. I don’t care. So I sit down, green screen, shout out to Russell, the producer of the reality show Total Divas. I had no idea that’s what the casting was for. But cameras kind of like this, and you’re sitting in front of a camera, he’s drilling you a million questions, just like who you are, where you’re from, family, this, that and the other. Three hours later, interview is done, and he goes. Just so you know, this project is moving really, really fast, and if you do get it, your life will be changing pretty quickly. So it’s only happened to me probably twice in my life, this being one of them. When I walked out of that interview, I was like, I mother f*cking murdered that. I just had that feeling of wow, I think I just killed it, for sure. So I ended up leaving that interview and drove back up to the Bay Area. It was a Friday night. Drove up to where I’m from, was with my parents, got a call on Saturday. It’s Russell saying, congratulations, you got the job, and they mentioned something about my hair. Totally go deaf, because I don’t care, because now I’m like, you have to think I’m a chick that had all these hopes and dreams of being a soccer player, then that kind of shattered. Got heavy into my addiction, went to rehab, just got out maybe five weeks or so ago, and now I’m getting a call saying that I just got this opportunity to not only be in the WWE, but now I’m going to be on this reality show that showcases what that looks like on the road. So I get the call Saturday. So that’s 24 hours after my interview, saying that, congratulations, you got the job. First day on the job is going to be New York WrestleMania. You’ll be on a flight on Monday morning. So my life changed within 48 hours, just like that.”

So how long were you on Total Divas before you actually worked a match?

“So my first match? Not long at all. That’s why I was f*cking terrible, which played in my favour character-wise. But it was so horrifying because I hadn’t had a real match in practice or anything. I barely even knew how to take kind of a back bump. So I think, what happened, because things were happening so quickly that Total Divas started to air, and then immediately they were like, Oh my gosh, we need to put these girls on and kind of coincide with them on Monday Night Raw. But you have to remember too, when Total Divas started airing, women did not have the time they have now on WWE TV. So it was even more difficult to kind of paint a picture and paint a story. Because, I mean, the first year or first season, you get to watch the disappointment and then you have to think the twins and the Funkadactyls. They were just valets for the guys at the time for WrestleMania, and they got cut. Their match got cut during that first season. But that’s kind of how it was for women at that time too.” 

What was the story behind your red hair? 

“So best business decision I have ever made without me knowing it. My mom’s a hairdresser, so I’ve been dyeing my hair since I was stealing all her stuff since I was like, 15. So I had black, dark hair. That’s my natural hair color. You see my eyebrows? That’s the natural color. When I got a call on Saturday saying that I got the job, they mentioned a lot of the girls that have left were platinum blonde. Because the twins are Mexican-Italian too, so we don’t want you to look like one of The Bella Twins. Are you okay with changing your hair to platinum blonde? I didn’t care. I was like, Yeah, sure, whatever. I’ll dye my hair freaking purple, whatever. So I get to New York for WrestleMania. That was my first day on the job, also, which is unheard of, and they had set this appointment and everything with this really nice salon in New York to dye my hair blonde, we’re going platinum. Well, I’ve been blonde, not like a really cute blonde, whatsoever, in high school, and it was horrible. It was so bad. So in the show, season one, or I think it’s like the first episode. That was real sh*t That was literally like, I’m in the chair, and they’re stripping my hair color from previous colors and stuff, and it starts to kind of look orangey. I literally look at JoJo and I was like, I can’t do it. I literally say in the chair, I look like Mufasa from The Lion King. I look insane. It looks terrible. It’s orange. There is no way. Well, I was listening to Rihanna’s album at the time, it was when she had that crazy fire-red hair. I think her album was called Loud at the time. I was like, dude, her hair is sick. It was just such a fire engine red. I was like, f*ck it. Let’s go red. I don’t know exactly what really sparked me to kind of go against the grain, because it was a big gamble, because the Vince and the higher ups were the ones that were requesting this to happen, but deep down, I knew if I were to really go platinum blonde, like Maryse or Kelly Kelly, like that type of blonde, I would be bald, and there’s no way that I would be able to maintain that type of white color for very long without it just ruining [my hair]. I literally would be bald to have that colour hair, because my hair is so dark. So I just really took a gamble, and at the time, because we were called Divas, my saving grace, because I got in trouble, and the girls thought that I was gonna get fired, and I’m sure, looking back, they probably hope that I did. But my saving grace, why I went red and went against the grain was because being a WWE Diva, being a WWE superstar, even to this day, is all about your inner confidence and showcasing that and feeling good about yourself, and then being able to hopefully radiate that from inward to outward. I said that if I went blonde, there’s no way I would be able to put forth the most confident individual, because I would be insecure and self-conscious from the very jump, and that’s not what a Diva embodies.”

How long do you think it took you to really start to figure out the moves in the ring, to really start to feel confident with putting together a match?

“I don’t think until I decided when I went to Vince and asked him to go back down to NXT. I was probably already on the road for like, a year and a half or two before I went. I made a rocky decision by going and asking him. No one steps down, but we were on the road so much, and we were filming with so much that I didn’t really have the time to put energy into training because our time was really limited at that moment. Then you can work on the road at house shows and stuff, but it’s really a big ask to ask some of the other Superstars to kind of get to the arena early and try to roll around with you, and it’s not the same either, and they have a show that night. Trust me, there was a ton that wanted to do, Nattie was great, Fit was also awesome, because he would always get there early. But usually people are getting there early to try things, and they already know how to wrestle. They already know how to put together a very basic match. So it’s a little bit different than what I really needed.”

When you were filming Total Divas, was there legit beef?

“Oh, that sh*t was real. I mean, we’re all good now, but that’s why I can laugh and talk about it, because that sh*t was [real].”

Was it the idea that, like, Hey, you don’t belong here, you’re an outsider coming into our world?

“For sure, and I totally get it. Pay your dues. Who is this bitch? We’ve been going hard for the last X amount of years. You have to think too. Not only were there two-minute matches, there is one storyline for the girls, so it’s a dog-eat-dog world. When you’re on TV, that’s also how you get paid, and also how you get known, how you get [fans], which the WWE has the best fans in the world, and when you’re on TV, you get the love or the hate from the Universe. So you want to be on television, and that’s the whole point of being in the WWE and on a show, so that you can go perform. So now all of a sudden, they have two new girls stepping into the locker room. They know that they don’t know how to wrestle. So there’s one ping against us is that they’ve been putting in their blood, sweat and tears for years to get up on the main roster now that they think they have the opportunity for their time to shine. Now we have these two new girls that know nothing about the business. Don’t even barely know how to do a back bump or a suplex or run the ropes, and you expect us to, one, help them, and two, I’ll be damned if they think they’re going to take my spotlight. So you already had that, which I completely understand, that like, how could you not? But at the same time, when opportunity knocks, you better be ready to f*cking take it, because nobody else is going to do it.”

The segment of you having the wardrobe malfunction has 47 million views on the WWE YouTube channel. What was the whole pitch for that segment?

“So that whole kind of storyline was fun. There’s always going to be an excuse for me not to get in the ring. One I got stuck in traffic. The other one I hurt my knee, and then the wardrobe malfunction. I can’t remember who exactly thought of that idea, but it was pitched to me. I’m obviously easy, I’m really am, especially because I’m a bad guy as is, so I have removed really quickly being the hero or being like, the one that doesn’t look silly. Because I think that also is a big component in going into WWE. Sometimes some superstars have a really hard time with [being the butt of the joke], or not being the man. I kind of let that sh*t go, because it was like, it’s fine, here we are, and it worked. People really did hate me. There’s a sign, and I can’t remember what city it was, it was like, if Eva Marie’s here, we riot. Or just this crazy little section of this is Eva Marie’s section or something so obnoxious, but it was fun, because they couldn’t wait to just talk sh*t to me when I came out. But the wardrobe one was gnarly, because it’s live television, so to make it realistic, we had to do like we did a run through with it, because the last thing that we needed me actually dropping my top. So cameramen were paranoid, freaking out, so I was securely taped, but it came off pretty good.”

So what actually happens, because you actually do have a wardrobe malfunction:

“I do, yeah. But the way that I’m holding it looks like, Oh, my God, it’s really happening, but I’m taped up. So if I literally let my hands go, it’s just flapping in the wind.”

What happens to your straps?

“It basically just clips off and it just falls forward. And how it kind of came off on TV looked great. It liked how it just really did look like this is happening, like her top is literally falling off, and Becky played off it great.”

Why did your first run with WWE come to an end?

“It was actually odd. I still don’t know exactly. The timing of it was. I mean, I got my first movie, so that’s also kind of what happened, is I stepped away to do that. Inconceivable, you can still watch it on Netflix. Had an amazing time on that film. So when I left for that I kind of still have a feeling of like, if I didn’t leave for that movie, maybe I would still be in the company, because I think that probably was as much as they gave me their blessing. I’m sure it hurt me internally in some capacity.”

What led you to go back to WWE in 2021?

“I love the business. I love it. There’s nothing like it. I owe everything to WWE. I’ve learned so much. I’ve grown as an individual. I feel like I have a love-hate relationship too, because I feel like I never really got a solid shot, a solid storyline. I never did. I never even had a title run. I went for the NXT title. But when you really look at the grand scheme of things, of storylines, and me on the main roster.”

So why did the most recent run with WWE come to an end?

“That one is actually f*cking a little bit odd, because it was supposed to be longer than that, and it wasn’t. But I think there is going to be changing of hands in management, and that’s kind of what happened with my contract. So it kind of got messed up within kind of that communication.”

What is Eva Marie grateful for?

“My family, my health, my relationship with God, and endless opportunities.”

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Rusev (@ToBeMiro) is a professional wrestler currently signed to WWE. He sits down with Chris Van Vliet at West Coast Creative Studio in Hollywood, CA to discuss his journey from Bulgaria to WWE, how he was paired with Lana, wrestling John Cena at WrestleMania 31, and making his entrance in a tank, the success of Rusev Day, being in the League of Nations and taking a Stunner from Steve Austin, the Bobby Lashley and Lana romance storyline, his Good Ol’ Fashioned Donnybrook match with Sheamus in Paris, and more!

It’s crazy that if we were to look at a photo of you when you debuted in WWE and we look at you now, I think to a new wrestling fan, it’d be difficult to explain that’s the same person.

“Yeah, I got this the other day from Roman. We were in Saudi Arabia, and he says, ‘Hey, talking to my kid the other day, and he was like, “Oh, is that Rusev?”‘ So he had to explain that it’s me. We fought all over the world before, and now I’m back. Just look different. But yeah, it’s a bit of a change.”

Let me ask you this, because my son was born on December 17. What’s it like when your birthday is on Christmas, you’re sharing it with Jesus?

“Well, when I was a kid, we didn’t have money, so presents were not always there. But now that I’m a grown-up and I can afford a couple of things, I go to town.”

You talk about growing up and you didn’t have much, what are we talking?

“In Bulgaria in 1996, you see the hyperinflation. People line up. There was no bread, there was no food, there was nothing. You just had to wait, and you might end up going home with nothing. So yeah, when we had nothing, it was nothing. Our electricity was always on and off, on and off.”

What age did you learn English? 

“So I have been interested in America, always been interested in movies and wrestling, obviously, and English. So I signed up in third grade. I signed up for English, which not everybody did, I just loved it. I just loved everything about America, getting myself ready to go.”

What age were you when you moved here? 

“20 years old. So I had to go to college for a little bit so I can do this work and travel thing over the summer. So as soon as I was able to do that, landed here in Richmond, Virginia.” 

Why Richmond?

“So when you sign up for these programs, they give you a job. My first job offering was to paint houses. I’ve never painted anything in my life, maybe at Easter some eggs, that’s about it. But they say, Hey, if you deny it, you may not have another shot. So I was like, I just want to get there. So I came in painting houses, got fired a month later, walked out on the streets because it was a community house for the workers, and after they fired me, they kicked me out, so I was literally on the street a month in with $100 in my pocket.” 

What’d you do? 

“Well, there’s a couple of guys that I met through work, and they were really cool guys, and they accepted me in their apartment, and we lived in a two-bedroom apartment. I think it was six of us sleeping on the floor, whatever you got to do.” 

Were you already training to be a wrestler? 

“No, there was the first month. Then I started working cleaning stores, Dollar General stores, traveling around half of the country with these chemicals, we were cleaning Dollar Generals. I worked in Wendy’s for a week. It was the weirdest place I’ve worked at. Especially with the burger they tell you to draw a W on it. I’m like, ‘Well sir, if you turn it the other way, it says McDonald’s, M for McDonald’s.’ They were looking at me like I was reinventing the hot water. But then it was even embarrassing to go get my check back because I was there for a week, I didn’t call because I was so embarrassed. I didn’t want to go back to work, but I didn’t want to call, Hey, I’m not coming back to work. So that was weird. And then my friend said, ‘Hey, I’m moving to California. I’m gonna drive cross-country with this 1988 Oldsmobile.’ I said, count me in brother, all the dreams are in California. I left, I jump in the car with him, and we drove for three days, I think, to San Pedro, California.”

How long did it take you before you started to get noticed by WWE?

“So I remember getting pulled in the office in the school one day. At this point I’ve been training not even two years, probably. They said, ‘Hey, you may have an opportunity to go with TNA or WWE.’ I said No freaking way. These guys are giants, man. They’re Titans. What am I? A 24-year-old Bulgarian gonna go through that? I just didn’t think it was a possibility. Then I just kept training, kept training, kept training. Then Rikishi pulled me aside and said, ‘Hey, we’re gonna have this [try-out].’ Because I trusted him, because a lot of people like to go out there and do their own thing. I trusted Rikishi. I trusted his training, trusted Gangrel and his training, and I know that when I’m ready, they’re gonna set me up for success. And they set up a tryout for me. Was 2010 Summer Slam in LA. I went out there with a torn ACL. Had to go through the bathroom, wrap my knee with duct tape because it was giving up. I wrapped the motherf*cker, hiding away from everybody and going to the tryout, almost in a fight with one of the other guys.” 

What do you mean? 

“It was like you’re in and you get in. Then we go in and we work, and this guy, boom, clotheslines me, right in my mouth and my nose. I was like, All right, whatever. Kickout, then work again and again, boom, right in my mouth again. I lay down, all right, cover me. He covered me, and I kick out with my elbow in his face, because I got tired. I get it. We all want a job, but you can’t be just like killing over here, because I’m trying to succeed as well. They stopped us. Then we kept going a little bit. After that, Johnny Ace came and he offered. He said, ‘Hey, do we have any problem relocating to Florida?’ I said, No, sir, I don’t. And yeah, that’s where they offered me a contract, and I had to wait another year to fix my paperwork, because still a little issue with the paperwork situation. So there was another callback that I had to take. There are these people they’re saying, Hey, we’re going to sign you to your dream, it’s about to come true. But then you have to go back and work and everything else, that was so hard. It was probably one of the hardest things I’ve ever done is to be like, hey, it’s right here. No, you can’t get there yet. But anyways, everything got arranged in 2011 in March, I believe I went to Florida, to Tampa, to FCW.”

Were you worried at any point? You’ve got this basically agreement that this thing’s gonna happen, but you got to get the paperwork to come through. Are you worried at any point, like, maybe it won’t?

“No, I couldn’t be worried. I just have to stay focused. Because once you start worrying, you start getting distracted and negative thoughts come in. I didn’t want any of that. I just put my head down, keep working hard, keep doing whatever I can, because at the end of the day, when you have a huge desire, when you have a dream, and it’s not like an ill intent, it’s not like, oh, I want to make money to screw with all these guys. It’s not like a bad intent, and you pray to God, he’s always going to be there with you. He’s always going to help you out.”

You were booked so strong once you figured out who Rusev was, how did you develop that character?

“Trial and tribulation. So I was in developmental, after a few months, they found out my knee was broken at my ACL, so I had to get the surgery. So six months. But the American Dream [Dusty Rhodes] always kind of believed in me, even if I’ve never done promos before. In KnokX Pro, I used to train with Rikishi, they never taught us any promos. So now we have back in FCW, on Monday and Tuesday practice and then Wednesday was always promo class. But I’ve never done a promo in my life. It was kind of my first time I went out there did a promo and Dream liked me, the way I talked, I was big, I was able to move. So he gave me an opportunity. Unfortunately, my knee gave out, and we had to go and replace my ACL. I came back, starting climbing a little bit. Two months later, I broke my neck. I don’t even know how I broke my neck. I thought my shoulder was hurt, and I went and got my shoulder checked. He said, Yeah, your shoulder is bad, but your neck is broken. That’s what causes the problem. It was something leaking, blocking some pathway. Couldn’t move my arm, and so I had to repair the neck after that, which is another big setback. I thought after that, I was trying to be realistic, probably gonna fire me, it makes sense. I’ve provided nothing for this company, and besides, they had to pay for all these surgeries. Probably gonna fire me. But I was okay. I was gonna go to Japan or something. I was not gonna give up, for sure. But they didn’t fire me. They call me and they said they are gonna fire me if I don’t show them anything, I think they gave me a month or two to say, hey, we’re gonna give you this time and to show us what you got. If not, we’re gonna have to let you go. No problem at all. I love fighting for something when there’s not just a purpose, but what do you call it, like a goal. They stuck me in a beginner’s class, and I was extra motivated. You’re gonna put me in a beginner’s class? Watch me. So I was just f*cking go, doesn’t matter. I always do everything extra. It doesn’t matter what it is. So I was showing a boom, boom, boom, boom. After the first month, instead of firing me, they gave me an award for the most improved or whatever it was. But once again, I had nothing before that because I wanted to try something else. I went back and watched Kickboxer, I watched Bloodsport. Then all the bad guys that I grew up watching, I love it. So I was like, I’m gonna take something from this guy, something from this guy. That’s why I started changing my stance, my gear, my attitude. I went barefoot, start showing a different thing. And they loved it. They absolutely loved it. I started buying it more and more. Then eventually we moved. We started moving to Orlando, to the new system after Triple H took over, and it was a completely different thing. That probably saved me a lot, because there was such a structure. It was a program. It was you follow it. You go this coach, this coach, this coach. Everybody had a different level. It’s not just like figure it out. I had thrived in that system. I loved it, and it was very random. It’s not like I was ever prepared for anything. It’s not like anybody was like, oh, Rusev is going to be the next thing. It’s just one day. I had a random match, Dolph Ziggler came to NXT. They volunteered me for their Ziggler match and I haven’t even been on NXT TV at all, nothing. I was just doing nothing. And then I had this match, and Dolph was the nicest man. They wanted him to squash me pretty bad. He’s like, no, that’s not gonna do anything for you or me. We had a match, and let me showcase my moves, and thank God Triple H was there. He noticed it. He’s like, Who’s that kid? And from then on, fast-tracked. Once he saw me, once he saw my big traps, I guess my wild moves, and then they start figuring it out. Then Lana was there at this point, because she just started, so they figured out she can speak Russian. I’m a foreigner in that part of the world. And then they paired us together. We started doing promos. I showed CJ Rocky 4; she’s never seen it, not big into 80s and 90s movies as much as we are. Showed her Rocky 4. We said, This is what we’re doing. We’re gonna take this inspiration, and they loved it. From then, it was not a matter of if, but when.”

Rusev Day was so hot. When did you start to realize that Rusev Day was getting over?

“I don’t know. It was never meant to be over. It was never supposed to be anything. It was just supposed to be a celebration and here’s the key from the mayor of Plovdiv, my hometown. And it just worked for some reason, I was a heel. But then I started to relax a little bit, show more of my personality and I guess people started buying that. Then Aiden [English], of course, Aiden is such an essential part of this, with the songs, with introductions, with everything. Without him, probably wouldn’t even be the same. But just the combo work, man, it was just me having fun and doing the backstage with the New Day, and then the first shirt. Oh my God. They did one shirt of Happy Rusev Day, which is the first one. I remember putting it out in a backstage promo and there’s the huge reaction from the crowd. What? It’s just a shirt. It’s not that big of a deal. But then it just starts picking up steam and people love chanting Rusev Day and celebrating Rusev Day. I got that sweet treatment. I have a beach towel, I have sunglasses now that says Rusev Day. I have all these things that say Rusev Day. I was like, what is happening here? I couldn’t believe it. And then, yeah, we’re just getting over little, little by little. It was a good time, even to this day, Hey, happy Rusev Day.”

Was there ever talk of making you a full babyface?

“I don’t know if there was any direction for it necessarily. I remember I’ve been off TV, and I’ve never been off TV. I remember being off TV for a couple of weeks, and I was like, What is going on? Why are we off TV? Before the shows, these people are chanting Rusev Day, and it’s not like, oh, let me get my sh*t in. I thought it was good for the show. If these people were chanting something, we should give them what they want. That’s why I started fighting for it, hey, let’s do something. Then it was getting a little more traction. But I became a United States Champion.”

Just felt like it could have been so much more.

“A lot of things could be. I went over there, I talked to the boss, and I laid my cards in front of him. Everything I can, I did, but what comes after that? It’s not up to me.”

Every day is Rusev day:

“There was a calendar. I remember January, every day, Rusev Day, Rusev Day… That was one of my favorite things was the calendar.”

What brought you back to WWE in 2025?

“I wanted to wrestle. I wanted to mix it up with the best. I know that the roster is stacked. I don’t remember the last time it was this stacked, but I just want to mix it with everybody. I wanted to wrestle more and more, and all these European tours and everything. I love all that, I love the grind. Because when we first started, we were five days on the road, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, you go home Wednesday, you’re out on the road again on Friday. And that’s just how life was, as hard as it was, that’s how you get better, just by putting in the work. Because every day you work different towns, you travel. Now the people can only hear about that and be like, Oh, really, that’s what it was. It was so cool. Wrestling, getting beaten up, getting the rental car driving three hours to the next town, getting the hotel, waking up, working out, doing the same thing, makes you feel like a real professional wrestler. I miss the grind.”

When you got let go from WWE. Did you think your path would bring you back to WWE at some point?

“Only if I wanted to. Well, look so I got fired. It sucks, right? Nobody wants to get fired, especially in the pandemic. There was just something else. But I jumped right away, I started doing the Twitch thing, because I had the three months no compete and jump on Twitch. I had fun on Twitch. I was making money. I was playing video games. I was having fun. I was gaining my audience, little by little, and that was fun. And then AEW came through, and I started wrestling there. The same thing. I just wanted a short contract, just to feel them out. Everything was great, signed a bigger contract. Then did I ever think I was going to come back to WWE? If I wanted to. I really meant that if I wanted to. If I didn’t want to, I didn’t have to come back. But I love WWE. I love what they’ve made for me, and I love how they’ve taught me since I was a young kid. And I just love the organization.”

You had this moment recently where you scared this little kid in the front row. Did you see the reaction on his face when it happened?

“I did. I did see he panicked, but it was his fault. At the end of the day, it’s like, you can’t blame me for that. I think I met him earlier backstage, and maybe that’s what made him so comfortable. That’s what I keep thinking. But then you can’t just be so comfortable to touch the animals, you can’t reach in the cage. And if your dad didn’t teach you that, your mom didn’t teach you that, I will. I always said don’t touch me kid, and he’s like ah! It was the most shocking face I’ve ever seen. Like before, they used to replay when The Undertaker lost. This is probably the next thing close to it.”

WrestleMania, 31 you’ve got this match with John Cena, US Title on the line. What an entrance. How’d they come up with this idea for you to come out in the tank?

“Manifestation, brother. Manifestation, nothing else. I couldn’t even believe that, because CJ sometimes reminded me, No, we literally took a paper and we just kind of, Oh, what if it’s this, what if it’s this, what if it’s this? We’re not gonna go to [Vince], it’s my first few months. I’m not gonna go, ‘Vince, what about this?’ But then all of a sudden, a few days before the show, they call us in the stadium, oh, there’s a tank. Whoa, there’s the guns. Whoa, there’s a Russian soldier. It was just something, I couldn’t ask for or dream for anything more. And it was all because, like I said, just we thinking about it, manifesting it, and then somehow it’s getting to Vince’s head for him to put it up there.”

What do you think is the biggest thing you learned from John Cena?

“Just timing, take my time. There’s no such thing as a TV match and a live event match, like there’s no such thing as a bad crowd. If they’re not reacting, it’s because you’re not giving them what they want to see. Him listening, ‘Okay, is it a high pitch? Is it low-pitched? Who’s out there tonight? What’s the vibe?’ He’s always there, watching and learning the crowd as much as everything else. Not everything has to be like [fast paced] it’s got to make sense, and it’s got to take your time and listen to the crowd. I think that’s the most important thing. Just listen to the crowd. They’ll tell you what to do.”

League of Nations, they come up with this idea. So it’s Sheamus, Alberto Del Rio, Wade Barrett and you

“I think they needed somebody for Roman, to be honest. I think that’s how they came up with it. It was not like, oh, we have this great idea for these four guys. I think they needed somebody for Roman to be a babyface, and that’s why they put us together, which was fun. We got a WrestleMania match. I got to eat the stunner from Steve Austin, which was another dream come true.”

The storyline with Bobby and Lana and you, how was this originally pitched to you?

“WrestleMania match. That’s how it was pitched to me. I said, Great, I can deal with that. We just never got there. But it was a good story. I understood the story. It was not my favorite story, but I understood it. And when they told me what the final goal was, I said, All right, that sounds good to me. We have a direction, we have a dip, we have a comeback. We have a good story to finish it.”

This is your wife, and she’s making out with another guy:

“It’s acting, though, it’s nothing else, all these Hollywood people, and she’s the only one. How many other WWE female Superstars have made out with so many people? It’s just part of the business. If you start selling it, of course it’s gonna go bad for you, but as long as you take it just to work, it’s nothing else than just to work.”

Do you think about how much longer you want to wrestle? 

“I said 45 and then reevaluate the body, see how it feels. But so far, I feel great. I haven’t felt that good in a long time, because it’s not like you have matches every day. So the body is way more protected. I take care of my body a lot more. I do a lot of stretching and massages. I eat a lot better. I train a lot smarter. So I just take care of my body, and I know that the body’s going to take care of me.”

What is Rusev grateful for?

“God, my wife and the fans.”

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MJF (@The_MJF) is a professional wrestler signed to AEW and the reigning World Champion. He sits down with Chris Van Vliet in Las Vegas, NV to discuss winning the AEW World Title for a second time and how this reign is different from his first, how he defied the odds to make it in professional wrestling, how much interest there really was from WWE, his rivalry with CM Punk, starring in Happy Gilmore 2 with Adam Sandler and beating up Eminem in the movie, why his scene from The Iron Claw was cut, his ultimate dream match, and more!

You said that we would do another interview when you were the AEW champion, and here you are.

“I don’t remember any of that, but it sounds like me. When I set a goal, about 110% of the time I achieve it. For example, when I was five years old, I was on the Rosie O’Donnell Show, and I said I was going to be a professional wrestler, and here we are. “

You said opera singer or professional wrestler

“I’d say one out of two ain’t bad. But to be fair, I was told to say opera singer for the cameras. That was not something I had any interest in whatsoever.”

What do you remember from that day with Rosie O’Donnell? 

“She was a big woman and she smelled. Outside of that, I was given Shrek ears, WWF Restaurant tickets. The restaurant shut down before I could go, which was typical Rosie O’Donnell. I want something. I want money, and I was given a lot of strawberry Dunkin Donuts, my mom must have told her those were my faves, because they were at the time.”

So you’re the type of person where if I tell you can’t do it. You look for a way to make happen?

“Yes, I look for a way to make it happen. I live on spite and hate. It drives me. I’d love to sit here and pretend I’m just saying that for the cameras. No, it’s a very real thing. I don’t know if it has to do with my upbringing or what, but I think I’ve been driven to go down as legitimately, one of the all-time greats, simply because people wanted to deny a dream.”

At what point in your life do you feel like people were trying to deny this?

“Oh my God, in my entire childhood, up until the time I was 18. Pro wrestling right now is pretty, pretty hot. It’s white hot, you know, between us and WWE and Impact, and there’s, a lot of great independents now. When I was a kid, it was a bit of a cold period. Cena didn’t get the ball exactly yet. You saw a lot of tarp and drape, you know what I mean. So, people in my friend circle and I would bring it up, it was something to be made fun of for, being severely neurodivergent and having probably the world’s worst attention deficit disorder, which I still have to this day. But I’ve learned how to use it. It didn’t help that caused a lot of bullying in school. Being Jewish certainly caused a ton of anti-Semitic bullying in school. Coaches, because I was on the smaller side, especially when I was younger, didn’t expect me to be able to excel in sports. Teachers didn’t expect me to be much of anything in the classroom, so I pretty much just had doors slammed in my face from the time I was born all the way until the time I jumped into this, and then when I jumped into this, it got even worse, because I busted my ass to become a legitimate premier athlete in high school that had multiple Division One scholarship offers.” 

Which sport?

“Football, I was a middle linebacker. I broke the record in tackling in my high school. I was an all-state middle linebacker. At the time, five nine, which was unheard of, but again, that’s because people looked at me and they said, ‘Oh, you’re Jewish and you’re short. This isn’t gonna happen.’ I was like, Okay, I’ll f*cking bite. I will bite people if that means I’m tackling them to the ground, because you just said that. If you have the ball, I’m going to hurt you. Then when I entered wrestling, I’m a loud dude. I’m unapologetic about how great I know I am, and people don’t care for that. People like humble. Humble bores me. Humble doesn’t feel right to me. Humble to me has always been worse than being cocky. I’m honest about what I think about myself every time somebody goes, I’ll watch interviews with famous athletes, and they’re like, ‘Oh, it’s the team, and they’re the ones that threw up 50 points in the game.’ Is it the team, bro? You’re annoying me. Just be honest, you’re carrying them to the promised land, no different than how I’m carrying AEW to the promised land since I’ve won that championship. Ticket sales up, ratings up, intrigue up, the level of competition in the world title scene up. We’re hot right now, man. People are talking about All Elite Wrestling in a very positive way. And there was a period of time there where everybody was saying, ‘Restore the feeling, restore the feeling.’ I am the feeling. I’m the feeling, I’m the face, I’m the main character, I’m MJF. When people think of AEW, they think of me. The reason I have a chip on my shoulder when I say that, and the reason I’m not going to be humble about it, is because people constantly want to deny me of what I’ve accomplished in the sport, and you can’t do that because I’m a proven draw, I’m a proven top act, I’m a movie star, I’m a top guy. I’ve had some of the greatest matches, moments, promos, rivalries in the modern era, hell, probably in the history of the sport. I do all of that because I think some people chase the hug. That’s not why I do it. I think what I’m chasing is vindication and validation for the child that was told, who do you think you are?”

What’s this version of you look like compared to the version of you who first won that AEW Championship in 2022

“I was a child. I was immature. I wasn’t ready. I was ready to talk the talk, and at moments, I walked the walk. But I slipped and I fell and I had a long cry over it, as opposed to picking myself up, dusting myself off and going, No, I’m still the best. Nobody’s better than me in the ring, nobody’s better than me blow for blow on the mic, nobody’s better than me outside of the square, that’s me. That’s not just MJF, that’s Max Friedman talking. I’ve been doing this for over a decade now. I’ve been doing it since I was 18 years old. I got signed to my first contract at 19 with MLW. Then I got signed. I had an opportunity to either go to WWE or AEW when I was 22. I went to All Elite Wrestling, and during this entire time span, I’ve proven over and over again that I’m the most complete professional wrestler in the world. There was three months that thankfully now, when I look back on them, I could laugh. I could not laugh when Adam Cole broke his ankle. I could not laugh when my friend betrayed me. I could not laugh when my left hip and my left shoulder were essentially Jell-O pudding. I could not laugh when people went from talking about me as being the guy to talking about me as being the problem. It took a lot of hard work, a lot of effort, and a lot of shining a mirror up to wrestling fans’ faces, and going, oh sh*t, no, he is everything he said he was. I’m not going to sit here and tell you that those three months didn’t suck a bag of donkey dicks. They did, but I feel what I’ve done now has more than made up for it. What I’ve done for the whole span of my career has more than made up for it. I’m noticing now people are talking about me in the same reverence that they did before those three months.”

You turn 30 next month in March. How would you describe your 20s?

“I can’t sit here and pretend I wasn’t the fastest and youngest rising star probably in the history of the business. If I did, I’d be full of sh*t. My 20s put me on the map, and made me a genuine household name, which a lot of the time if you want to be a household name in pro wrestling, people don’t think of those three letters. They think of WWE. I’ve proven that’s not the case by being in the most-streamed movie of all time, by having Violent Night 2, where I have a huge role in that’s coming out in December of this year, by doing Stranglehold, by being executive producer in Iron Claw. I get stopped wherever I go. You know who else does, whether I like it or not, Hangman Adam Page, Swerve Strickland, Kenny Omega, Jon Moxley, Samoa Joe. If we’re just naming the guys that haven’t ever worked for WWE that have become household names just based off of those three letters, you have me, Darby Will Ospreay, Hangman, again, we’re changing the narrative. Now, am I the biggest star out of all the homegrown stars? Yeah, it’s not even close. I mean, people talk about me in the same reverence as top acts across the board in this sport, right? I have Hollywood, I’m getting auditions left and right, and there’s a lot of interest there. And there’s interest there because of what I’ve done on this platform, because our platform matters, and our platform is an incredible alternative, and it’s not taking anything away from WWE. So what I would say to a WWE fan, you don’t even have to necessarily be disenfranchised by your company that you call your home base being WWE, if you’ve not watched us yet, I truly don’t understand what you’re waiting for. I feel that we make gourmet food and we work very hard. I think our pay-per-views are the best. It’s not even close. I think our matches are the best, and we have the best promo guy in the business who’s sitting right here. So if you’ve not watched our product before and you’re watching this interview, we’re on at Wednesdays at 8 pm on TBS and HBO Max. We’re on Saturdays on TNT and HBO Max at 8 pm both Eastern Standard Time. Give us a watch. And if you don’t want to give us a watch because you somehow feel indebted to one company. A, you’re weird. And B, I feel bad for you because you’re missing out on me. That is the biggest crime of them all.”

Do you think you’re the best wrestler to never wrestle in WWE?

“Yeah, it’s not even close. It’s not even close. Before me, the answer would have been Sting. And then he wrestled there.” 

Kenny Omega? 

“Omega? No, stop it. I love Kenny to death. If you put our names into a search engine, I can assure you, more people are looking my name up than his. Now, is he gonna go down as one of the greatest professional wrestlers of all time? Yes, but that’s not the question you just asked me. The question you just asked me is outside of the wrestling bubble. Kenny Omega has done some awesome voiceover work. He’s been involved in some massive video games, but he’s not MJF, and by the way, that’s no shade. I’m sure people are going to try to clip this and make it seem like I’m talking sh*t about Kenny Omega. Kenny Omega is great. I’ve talked about Kenny Omega’s greatness when we wrestled on Collision a couple of years ago. I can’t say enough nice things about Kenny Omega, but he’s no MJF.”

When the bidding war was happening, when your contract with AEW was coming to an end, how much interest was there from WWE?

“You know the answer, there was a lot. I had some nice calls with some nice folks who are high up on the chain, and they were interested in me. They’re still very much so interested in me, and I understand why. But for all my faults, one thing I am not is unprofessional. If you put a contract in front of me with the right amount of money, I’m going to do this. I’m going to broadcast how important those three letters are. Those three letters are just as important as these, because you’re paying me to say that. Now, do I believe it’s true? You’ll never know, and that’s the beauty of it. No matter what promotion I’m working for, I’m going to shamelessly shill what’s going on. Now, can I look in the camera and say I really do believe everything I’ve said prior to this? Yes I can, but they’ll never know.”

Give me your top five MJF matches of all time.

“Bryan Danielson, Iron Man match. CM Punk, dog collar match, I’m gonna throw MJF versus Hangman at Revolution. I believe that was last year. Darby versus me Full Gear, we were the opening match. This is where it gets hard. I will throw in the Mistico match as well. We can do this all day. I can do a top 50, because I’ve had it. But I think those are the ones that, when people think about my career, that’ll come up. The match against Kenny Omega on Collision also. These things can be swapped and switched. The match against Samoa Joe at Grand Slam was insanity. My match with Adam Cole in front of 82,000 people, we pretty much broke the sound barrier that night. It was absurd. It was the loudest I’ve ever [heard], my ears hurt. Both of my matches with Will Ospreay. But the difference between me and somebody you ask this question to, I get frustrated naming these matches because I didn’t win all of them. Sure, they were great and they were entertaining, but I didn’t win all of them, and that p*sses me off. I won a good amount of them that I said, but not all of them.”

Do you think the wrestling now compares to the wrestling when you grew up?

“Listen, I think you’re always going to look at things with rose colored glasses. For example, I loved CM Punk growing up, and now if he was dying in front of me, I’d do nothing but laugh. So the things that you loved as a child are not going to be things that you love now, I think the style of professional wrestling has changed immensely, but that happens after every decade. At one point in time, they thought Harley Race was like a clown. They were like this guy wrestles like a buffoon. Why is he doing all of these things? This is dumb. If somebody wrestled like Harley Race today, people would be like, this is tame. What’s going on? Why is this plodding and slow? Whereas I love Harley Race matches. Don’t get me wrong. I like CM Punk matches too. I just think he’s a piece of sh*t. So the sport evolves, much like how football, the way they run plays now, and the way a defense has to check audibles and the way a free safety is now utilized as opposed to the way they were in the 80s and the 90s, it’s an entirely different game. Basketball is played differently. It’s a three-point game now. When I was growing up, people were going hard in the paint. You look at a guy like Shaq, for example, that was before my time, but you look at a guy like Shaq, for example, like the Magic dominated. I think if you put that exact team with him and Penny [Hardaway] now I don’t know how they do because it’s a three-point game. The game’s changed. The way the game works has changed. I’m a raging traditionalist. I approach my opponents in a very old school manner to get the W. I’m not looking to be flashy. If something flashy happens, it’s because I see an opening to take my opponent out in a unique way. But outside of that, I’ll pull your hair, I’ll bite your face, I’ll scratch your eyes, I’ll do whatever I have to do to win. And I think that’s been lost a little bit on my generation.”

How old were you in that now famous photo when you’re a kid meeting CM Punk?

“I believe it was the year after my Bar Mitzvah. I think I was just turning 14.”  

So fast forward 10 plus years later, you’re in the ring, toe to toe, cutting promos with him. But it’s like you had met your match.

“Match? No. I mean, watch the tape. You tell me who got the better of who verbally during that entire rivalry. I hope he’s able to enjoy what he’s accomplishing over there. I have no idea, because the things that he said in my company do go against the things that he’s saying now. Some people might say that’s hypocritical. That’s not my place. All I know is since I’ve jumped into pro wrestling, I’ve been saying the same thing since the jump, my tune has not changed. I’m Maxwell, Jacob Friedman, and I’m better than you, and you know it. I also won’t sit here and lie to you and tell you that I didn’t learn so much through my hatred of that man. I learned the difference between good and great. That’s what I learned. Now, do I like him? I’ll reiterate, no, I wouldn’t piss on him if he was on fire to put that fire out. But I’m not going to sit here and pretend I didn’t learn from him.”

Do you still keep in touch with Cody?

“Absolutely. Look, I’m not sitting here without Cody Rhodes. Cody Rhodes booked me for All In, which got me in front of Tony Khan, which got me signed to a contract. Like Punk, I hope whatever he’s doing, he’s happy right now. I mean, you would think he would be.”

So when you say you were close to it was either signing with AEW or signing with WWE? 

“Are we referencing when I was in MLW and it was time to make a choice? [Yes] I wouldn’t say I was close. So the version of pro wrestling that I love, now it does [exist], but it didn’t exist. The only option I had was WWE, until I got older and I heard about Ring of Honor and I heard about PWG and Evolve and so on and so forth. When I talked to Tony Khan for the first time, we were on the phone together for two hours, two hours with a kid who was 22 turning 23 and all we did was discuss the territories and our love of territory professional wrestling. It was a no-brainer for me. I know I would have been successful if I went over there. I know I’d be successful if I go over there now, that’s why they’re still interested in me. I respect what they’re doing. I respect their product. I know that they respect our product because about a million times they’ve tried to counterprogram us, slash us any way they can, hurt us any way they can, which, by the way, I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, that’s smart business. Try to kill me. Try to kill me before I kill you. It’s f*cking smart. I’m not going to take that away from them. But I knew I would have a better opportunity, and I would be given more of a leash. Now there’s no leash at all because I’m just stupidly over and I just do whatever the hell I want, but I know I’d be given more of a leash based on the way my now boss was talking about what his vision is for professional wrestling.

I’m already annoyed at Twitter because somebody’s gonna make it seem like I was sh*tting on Cody or Punk or WWE when I’ve literally sat here and whatever, it is what it is, that’s the fun of the app. I’ll just go on there and I’ll just probably make it even worse.” 

With how busy you are. You’ve been in so many movies recently, you’re the AEW Champion. Do you think about how much longer you want to wrestle?

“No, because I’m young, the idea hasn’t even entered my head, like when I was watching that John Cena retirement, or the AJ Styles retirement.”

Cena has got 20 years on you:

“So does Cody, so does CM Punk, so does LA Knight, so does Jey Uso, so does essentially every top guy, Roman, all these dudes are 40s to 50. I’m 29. So yeah, I do think it’s silly to even go there to Oh, when am I going to hang them up? I’m a baby, you know what I mean? I’m a top act, and it’s very rare for somebody my age, if ever, to be in the situation that I’m in. But I’m also very cognizant of the fact that I’m just getting started, I don’t know what my prime is going to be. I don’t think I’m going to have a prime. I think I’m just going to be great for at least the next 20 to 30 years, and it’s crazy to say that out loud, because when you hear 20-30 years, you’re like, Oh, that’s a lot of time. 30s, 40s, 50s, it’s all ahead of me. It’s all ahead of the viewers. I personally feel that year over year I’ve only evolved and gotten better. And I’m very curious to see what I look like as a wrestler when I’m 35 when I’m 45 or when I’m 50.”

So how did Happy Gilmore 2 come together?

“I had an audition. I actually auditioned to be the evil golfer that would have been beside Becky’s character. Becky rules, by the way, if you don’t like Becky Lynch, go f*ck yourself. Anyway, so I auditioned for that role, and Sandler saw it. I didn’t find this out until later, and he was like, this kid is funny, and he kind of looks like me. Can we try him out to be one of the sons? So he specifically out of God knows how many people that auditioned were like him. Then when I got to work with him, it was so apparent to me, obviously you already know how talented he is, but how much of a good, down-to-earth human being he is. Whatever happens to my career now is because no different than Cody and Tony taking a chance on me is in my career in LA is because Adam Sandler took a chance on me, and that’s something I’m never gonna forget. When I make it big, which I will, it’s something I’m never gonna let him forget.”

I think one of the biggest things that’s not talked about in Happy Gilmore 2 is you beat up Eminem

“I did beat the sh*t out of Eminem, yeah. Marshall Mathers, he rolls deep. He showed up on that movie set with a big crew, probably 10-15 dudes, and they were all easily as big as Luchasaurus. It’s like massive human beings, and I get it because he’s seen some sh*t. So I’d imagine it’s no different than when a wrestling fan might see me out and about, being next to who is arguably the greatest rapper of all time was one of the only times in my life where I was star struck was that moment.”

What was your scene, or scenes in Iron Claw supposed to be?

“I had a five-minute talking scene with Zac Efron, who I became really tight with on set, and I would hang out with him in the trailer. He was the nicest guy. When I brought my belt onto the set he was like, let’s take a photo, which was hilarious. His work ethic was insane. He got rhabdo on set because he was working out so hard and hitting the rope so hard and wrestling so frequently.” 

So at what point are you told I’m so sorry, your scene’s not in the movie?

“As an EP [executive producer], I wasn’t even upset, and I know no one’s gonna believe me, but this is the honest-to-God truth. I just wanted the movie to be true to the Von Erich story, because I’m a huge World Class fan. When I got the call from the director, who’s a mensch, by the way, he was like, ‘Max, I’m so sorry…’ I’m like, Dude, this movie is too long, and this scene, while incredibly entertaining, does not help the length, and also is like a sub story. It’s not part of the A story. So I wasn’t upset at all, and I would like to think the movie came out pretty damn well, and I was really proud to have my name on it.”

What would be on the top of the list of I can’t believe I said that on TV. The line to Jeff Jarrett is a pretty good one.

“That was hilarious. I’m gonna say when I called my boss a f*cking mark, and then we had to cut to a commercial break in the middle of me talking, and they cut my microphone. So I’d say that’s the only time my microphones ever been cut. So I think that’s probably the right answer for the time I crossed the line. Yeah, it’s a pretty good one. Yeah, that’s probably numero uno.”

Give me your dream match. If we could make any match possible. Doesn’t matter what company they work for.

“Piper. Or is this alive? Piper is always going to be the answer.”

Give me someone who is alive:

“I think this answer is going to shock people, because also, I will say I can’t pick people that are retired. John would have been my answer, but he’s retired, so I’m gonna say Kevin Steen.”  

Not Kevin Owens?

“No, I want Kevin Steen, the one that I watched in Ring of Honor. Not saying Kevin Owens isn’t spectacular. Kevin Owens is one of the best wrestlers in the world, and it sucks that he’s hurt right now. It kills me. But Kevin Owens can’t exactly say some of the things that Kevin Steen was able to say back in the day. So I want Kevin Steen. That’s a dream match for me. I think that would probably go down as one of the greatest matches of all time and one of the greatest promos of all time. I think I also have to say Seth Rollins, for sure.”

What is MJF grateful for?

“My wife, my house, my jobs.”

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BDE (@itsbrandonde) is a YouTuber and professional wrestler signed with TNA. He sits down with Chris Van Vliet in Albuquerque, NM to discuss his success on YouTube and how that led to him making his pro wrestling debut, competing at TNA Bound For Glory 2025 and signing a contract, overcoming criticism from fans, why he spent $20,000 on a ticket to the WWE Royal Rumble, when he realized BDE has another meaning, dream matches, a possible NXT appearance, his goal to win the X Division Championship and more!

It’s funny, you and I go way back. You were making thumbnails for my channel while you were still having a very successful YouTube channel of your own. But to see your growth over these last five, six years has been crazy.

“If you would have told me five years ago that I’d be wrestling, I would say you’re crazy.” 

Was this ever the goal?

“It was something I always wanted to do, but I wasn’t sure how to get into it, or if it was even possible for me. But once I started training back again in 2024, I was hooked. I was like, I got to keep doing it. Then I had my first match, and I was definitely hooked after that.”

Here’s the thing, a lot of wrestling fans watch it and go, I’d love to do that one day. I dream of doing that one day, and then they never take the steps towards doing it. What for you went from I’m a fan of this to I’m going to give this a try.

“Surprisingly, it was just because my friends at the time wanted to go to training. So they wanted to train to be wrestlers, and it was something that I was interested in. I wanted to see what a bump felt like, because I was watching it for a decade at this point. So I was like, well, if I’m gonna watch and critique it, I gotta at least try it. So I start going as a referee. Because I was like, I won’t be a wrestler. I took like, one bump, and my trainer at the time was like, ‘You’re not a ref. It’s not happening.’ So then it all just kind of fell into place after that.” 

How’d that first bump feel? 

“It was pretty jarring. My neck was hurting. I had a headache. It was bad.”

It’s funny, because people online love to play Monday morning quarterback, right? ‘Oh, I would have done this, or they should have done that.’ So many of them have never taken a bump, right? So now that you’ve gone in there and you’ve done it, you know what it feels like, you know how it should be, and it completely changes everything for you.

“Yeah, it changes how you think. It changes the moves you want to do for your own move set. It changes how you watch wrestling, too, after getting into the business and wrestling, I’ve only been wrestling for a year, but now it goes from when I watched wrestling, it used to be as a viewer. Now I’m studying. So it’s a lot different.”

Congrats on signing with TNA. How did that come together?

“I think it was the Bound for Glory match, the call your shot gauntlet. And then after that, it was the Turning Point match with AJ, and then I heard about it from Carlos in the back. He pulled me to the side, and he said, ‘I want to offer you a contract.’ I was happy as hell, man. I actually hugged him.” 

How’d you even get on their radar?

“What an opportunity. You know, I’m forever grateful for that. But I think it all came to be because TNA wrestling has this creator program. So we were coming out to Slammiversary, and like doing vlogs and filming. So we’re meeting people and getting accustomed. I think Sami Callihan put in a good word, and just the Bound for Glory match happened. I don’t know how it happened, but it happened.”

Because it’s difficult. You’re already cast in the certain light of, Oh, you’re just a YouTuber, you’re just a content creator, and then people, I think, are already painting you in a certain light, you won’t be able to do this because you didn’t come from this. Do you feel like you have to overcome that?

“Yes, and no, there’s a certain chip on my shoulder that I feel like I need to prove. But at the same time. I don’t mind being called a YouTuber. That was my first dream job when I was a kid, so being called a YouTuber doesn’t bother me. But I also want to prove that just because I’m a YouTuber doesn’t mean I can’t be a wrestler either.”

How did this debut match with AJ Francis come together? 

“Honestly, that’s above my pay grade. I just get booked in these matches. I just get surprised every time. But I think it just came together because the Bound for Glory spot that we had, eliminating him from the call your shot gauntlet. I think it just led to that. We have a lot of history from the Indies as well, so I think that was just a way of seeing how I could hang in a one-on-one.”

I think you have to give a ton of credit to AJ Francis, you got to give him his flowers. He is so good at making his opponents look great.

“He does not get enough credit. He really doesn’t. I completely agree.”

It’s pretty crazy that you went from playing as someone like Nic Nemeth Dolph Ziggler in a 2K game. Now you can have a match with him.

“Yeah, I don’t appreciate him unplugging my switch, but at the same time, I am excited for the match. Everyone knows, if you’ve been watching me for a while, Nic is the reason I got into wrestling. The very first wrestling match that I remember watching had Nic Nemeth in it, and I’ve been a fan of him ever since.” 

Now that you’re in TNA, what are the goals in TNA? 

“I want to win a championship. That is definitely why I’m here. I want to win the X Division Championship, eventually the World Title. That’s way down the line. I still got to earn my stripes. But, you know, debuted in the call your shot gauntlet. I would absolutely love to win that 100%. That’s like goal number one, really.”

You recently had a match with Mr. Anderson, Mr. Kennedy. Talk to me about that

“Speak about dreams come true. Just being able to share the ring with people that I grew up watching is something that I never thought would happen. I feel like I’m still having imposter syndrome sometimes.”

How do you deal with that?

“Yeah, I think it’s just time. Over time, it’s gotten more normal. But I don’t even think I’m still there yet, truthfully, but I think it just comes with time and just asking questions too. That’s what makes me feel more comfortable, because I really want to understand what I’m doing in the ring, so the imposter syndrome fades the more I ask questions backstage with some of the wrestlers.”

I know that Jeff Hardy gave you some advice. What was the advice? 

“Really, it was just to be yourself and be authentic. I was asking, what do you think is the best way to connect with the audience? He told me, just be authentic. Be yourself. You’re already doing that because you have your content and stuff like that. But that was really the gist of it. Was a quick conversation. He was putting his makeup on, so I didn’t bother him. But yeah, he was, he was very kind about that. So, yeah, the authenticity for sure.”

Have you officially come up with a name for your finisher?

“Yeah, yeah. So the knee of glory, that’s like the running knee. The Frog Splash, I call it the Fall From Glory. And now we just named the springboard cutter, the clip cutter. The clip cutter.  I was trying to figure out a name for it for a while, but I was like, I’ll just leave it until I find something I like. And then it was actually at TNA last week where I came up with it, and I was like, that’s staying, I like that.”

With your videos, titles and thumbnails are crucial. They’re the most important thing. When you have a video titled, ‘I bought a $20,000 seat to Royal Rumble’ I’d click on that.

“That was a risk. That was a really big risk, because I’ve never [spent that much]. I’ve spent a lot of money on videos.”

You actually bought a $20,000 seat?

“I dropped $20,000 of my own money. That was the biggest risk I’ve ever taken.”

The video got 4 million views. So you made your money back. But what are you thinking when you hit purchase?

“On one hand, I was excited, because I was like, I’ve never sat that close at a wrestling show before, so I was like, either way, it’s gonna be awesome. But I was like, I really hope the ROI is gonna be there. It all came about because I was playing video games with Brent, and we were just chilling, and we were like we want to go to this event. He was like, why don’t we just get tickets? And I was like, hold on, that’s a good idea. So then I call my business manager, and I was like, ‘Hey, I kind of want to drop $20,000 on a ticket. What do you think about this?’ He was like, ‘What are the plans to make that back?’ I was like, ‘Oh, we’ll do streams. We’ll do whatever we got to do. I don’t know. We’ll make it back.’ We ended up doing streams to make it back. So the video before we even filmed it, we had already made some of it back, but it was still a big risk. I’ve never dropped that much money in my life.”

So when you’re thinking about titles and thumbnails, what are kind of some do’s and don’ts?

I like to keep my titles relatively short. I don’t like to go above 60 characters. I would even say 50, because some devices, it gets cut off. So I like for a viewer to be able to know exactly what the video is, and especially with the thumbnails too. I don’t like repeating myself in the thumbnail and in the title.”

What’s your relationship like with criticism? Whether it’s helpful or maybe it’s hurtful? 

“I invite it because at the same time, even if it’s negative, I feel like there’s some truth in it to an extent, right? If it’s overly negative, I think you can tell the difference, you know. You can tell the difference between someone who’s hating and someone who is just giving their opinion. I don’t mind someone critiquing me or giving me constructive criticism, because I’m only a year in. So there’s things that I need to get better at. There’s things I still need to improve on. I think the only thing is, is like, if I wouldn’t trade places with the person that I’ll just take it with a grain of salt.”

If you’re here with TNA full-time now, what does that do to your full-time content-creating job?

“So the content is still going to stay the same. I would say, since full-time with TNA, the content is not necessarily on the back burner, but it’s not my primary focus anymore. My primary focus is getting the gym, studying practice and promos, all that. This is the main goal now, because I feel like, with content after I hit a million subscribers, that was my real last goal for YouTube, it’s something that I’ll still do. I tell my viewers all the time, I’ll be making content till I’m old and gray. My mom gave me my first camera when I was, like, nine years old. I used to make family movies, skits with my friends. That’s just something I enjoy doing, like it was a hobby before it was a job, so I’m always gonna be making content.”

With the partnership that TNA has with WWE and NXT. Is that another goal for you.

“Yeah, that’d be sweet. Obviously, my main focus is TNA. But if the opportunity ever rolls around, I’m definitely down. I’m a team player, whatever TNA wrestling needs me to do. I’m there.”

What is Brandon grateful for?

“This contract and the opportunity to show what I can do.”

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Chaz Warrington (@ChazMosh) is a professional wrestler best known for his time in WWE as Mosh, one-half of the tag team The Headbangers. He sits down with Chris Van Vliet at West Coast Creative Studio in Hollywood, CA to discuss how he was paired up with Glenn Ruth (Thrasher) to form the tag team, how Jim Cornette created their name and look, his Beaver Cleavage gimmick, returning to WWE in 2016 for a match on SmackDown, getting set for his final match with The Headbangers in 2026, and more!

Buy Mosh’s book “Beneath The Skirt” here: https://chazmosh.com 

Congratulations on the new book. What went into telling your story now? 

“It actually started probably seven or eight years ago, and it all started with me just wanting to jot things down for my son. My son never saw me wrestle at the point that we wrestled at WWE. He’s 21 now, he wasn’t even born [when I wrestled]. He was born in 04, I left WWE in 02. So he didn’t know anything about anything. So I just wanted to jot things down for him, just to give him a perspective of what I went through. If he hears about stuff I did, or something kind of like, I don’t know, like a journal or memoir for him, and the more I started writing, the more things just started coming back. But it was a lot of off and on. It was more off than on, because you get sidetracked. Life gets in the way. Then I went back to a high school reunion on October of 24 and someone there, her name is Tori. She’s the writing coach. She’s an editor/ghost writer and she was like, ‘Oh, I’d love to work on that project, can you send it over to me? I’d like to read it.’ I was like, Yeah, sure. So I sent it over to her, and she called me up. She’s like, ‘This is amazing. You got something here.’ She goes, ‘You need to finish it.’ At that point, I was probably 75-80% done. So what happened was, she started from the beginning, going through, editing, making notes for me on the side of the paper of Word and everything for me to go back and look and maybe add something here, it’s just really needed, and kind of helped me with it. But that motivated me to get it done, and I got it done, and here it is now.” 

It’s a crazy concept to think that your son wasn’t there for your best wrestling memories. 

“Yes, and the craziest part about that is, so when I lived in New Jersey before I moved to South Florida, where I’m at now, my basement in New Jersey was my man cave. I had a pool table, an air hockey table, you had the dart board, you had the bar, you had the big screen TV. But on the walls it was all of my pictures, the magazines, the belts, anything I had to do with us, I had framed. It was up on the walls. That was my mini Chaz shrine, I guess. But when I moved to Florida, there’s no basements, so I had nowhere to hang it for all those years. So I just moved probably about two and a half years ago into a three-story townhouse, and the first floor, I was like, this is perfect. I have shelves up with my figures on them, with the action figures. Then I was able to take all of those, because all the years, every time I moved, I kept all of this stuff in the big frames. I never got rid of them. So once I had that room, I was like, Oh, this would be perfect. So that’s what I did. I started going through it, but I had so much extra stuff that I actually went and bought one of those big art books. I bought a giant one. I was like, this is perfect, because now I have a coffee table book of me. So my son came home from college one time and he was downstairs, and I’m like, ‘Are you coming up?’ He’s like, ‘Yeah, I’ll be up in a minute. I’m busy.’ So I walked down, he was sitting on the couch flipping through. He was reading. He read the stuff that I had hung on the wall, which was WrestleMania 13, the belts, all the big, important stuff, are the cool things I thought we did when I had enough room, I reframed it and hung it. But he was going through the book of newspaper clips, and when I threw out the first pitch at the Phillies game, he’s going through all that, and he stopped. He looked at me and goes, ‘Dad, I knew you were kind of like a big deal. I’ve never seen this stuff before. This is cool. I never realized how big you were.’ I guess he didn’t even know how to put it into words. He was like, ‘You’re a bigger deal than you played off or than I ever thought. This is some cool stuff you really got to do because you did this.’ Now he starts going through it, like showing me stuff that really stood out to him. Then it dawned on me at that point, he really has no idea to the extent of what I did. So the cool part about the book now is when he does get around to reading, and no he’s not gonna read it anytime soon, but when he does get around to reading it, he’ll be like, oh sh*t, I didn’t know that happened. My dad did that?”

So you’ve been at the PC quite a bit. You’ve been doing a lot of guest coaching. How did that all come together?

“It kind of came together, I don’t want to say it’s kind of just a joke I threw out, but Steve Corino and I, we’ve remained friends all these years out of nowhere, and he’s a Phillies fan also. So during baseball season, we’re always texting back and forth about something. He is awesome. So for someone who never, and I don’t mean this in a negative way, the way it may sound, because he made it, but he never made it like WWE status. ECW status is unreal. What he’s done in Japan, what he’s done is what most people haven’t done. But the knowledge that he has, and watching him work with these kids and pass it down is just amazing. So we were texting one day, and I was like, ‘Hey, just throwing it out there, if you ever need a coach up there, or is there a chance or an opportunity to come up and help out or something?’ He was like, ‘Yeah, absolutely. You have Bloom’s number?’ I’m like, I think so. He goes, ‘Just text Bloom.’ He came back to me. He goes, ‘You text Bloom?’ I’m like, ‘No, not yet.’ He goes, ‘I just talked to him. He said, Yeah, he’d love to have you come up here. So just text him and you guys figure it out.’ And two weeks later, there I was.”

At what point did you start to realize I love wrestling, this is something I might be able to try to do for a living?

“Well, I used to go with friends of mine, especially my best friend Mike, every month if the WWF was in the Spectrum in Philly. So we would jump on the Speed Line, take the subway down, and we made a whole venture out of it. But we would go, and I used to joke around with him and my other friends going, one day you’ll see me in that ring. But never thinking [anything of it], that was just kind of a funny thing, because I was just a huge fan of it, and I love the promos. The promos sucked me in. So that was it. Then riding down there was a town in New Jersey, which was like 10-15 minutes from my house. It was an old rundown flea mart, like you would walk in there and you would go, Oh, this is where the thrift stores come to buy stuff to sell at the thrift store, used underwear and bras with pink stitching in them. It was crap, stuff you would not really wear. But out front every now and then there was a big, giant white truck, and it was spray-painted on the side. ‘Pro Wrestling Saturday night at 8 pm.’ So one Saturday, I had nothing going on, let me go check this out. Now, meanwhile, the only wrestling I ever saw was WWE or WWF, and then WCW started running more. So they would run the convention center. So there’s the lights, there’s music. I had no idea what indie wrestling was. Never been to anything like it. I walked in and I sat down going, what is this? Because that’s where the Monster Factory was. I see the Monster Factory, I see WWE up on the wall, but I have no idea what any of that means. I watched it, the guys came out, and I was like, this is awful. Where are the lights? There was music. I’m like, where’s the lights, and the guys’ outfits weren’t anything. Everyone just had a singlet on. There was no flare. I’m like, where’s the Macho Man? I was expecting a production like that, and didn’t get it. But then I saw the Monster Factory logo and WWE logo on the wall. I’m like, I gotta find out what this is. I kind of lingered after the show, and at the time, the heavyweight champ was The Spider, and I saw The Spider hanging over by this door. The ring was here. There was a balcony to sit on, and then there was an office door. So I saw him standing there. Then as everyone was running out, I saw him take his mask off. I went, guy kind of looks familiar, so it turns out it’s Glenn, my partner. We started talking, and we never started talking before. We realized we knew of each other, because our high schools wrestled one another. So we never wrestled each other, but we kind of knew each other. So I started talking to him, and that’s when he explained to me, Oh, this is a school, just like a show that Larry does every month, and blah, blah, blah, and that’s when he convinced me to come and try out. And I was like, yeah, let me try out. What the hell? What else am I doing? At that point, I was in my fourth year at community college.” 

What were you studying?

“Nothing. It was college because my parents would let me stay at the house rent-free because I was still in college. So that was it. I went down to the school, and I tried out, and I signed up for the school, and at that point I was like, I’m in the ring. I did what I said I would do, and I had no idea it was gonna go where it went. It was just me getting in there, it was never one of those things where I was like, oh I can see myself being heavyweight champ or a tag team champion like that. It was always like, Oh, this would be a cool thing to try.”

Did you have aspirations to be a singles wrestler or a tag wrestler?

“At that point, the only aspiration I had was not to get hurt and just try to figure out life. Because at that point I was 22 I had no idea what I was doing with my life, and I was just trying to figure it out. So it was just one of those things. But then when Glenn and I started tagging together, and I realized, oh, there’s something here, that’s when it kind of started clicking with me that this is something that could really work or could really take off.”

What was the idea behind forming the tag team in the first place?

“So Glenn had been around for two or three years already doing independents, so he was kind of known in that northeast area, and he had gotten a herniated disc in his back, and his thing was, he approached me because the moment we met, we clicked. We just clicked. We got along really well. We were hanging out all the time together. He just kind of took me under his wing. He was helping me more than others, and his thing was he tried to do it by himself. He had been to Japan. He had been to Puerto Rico, and if anyone’s watching out there, I’ve never been to Japan. I want to go to Japan at least once, now put it out into the woods. Out there you go. I mean, NOAH’s got an agreement with WWE, and I am under contract with WWE, the legends contract. Yes, it’s still a contract. So, yeah. So I think Glenn’s thing was hey, I’ve been doing it singles by myself. I really haven’t gotten anywhere. Let me try a tag. We get along really well. Our body types at that point were very similar, except that was just a smaller, skinnier version of him, to the point where he was the heavyweight champ. I went out dressed as him and lost the belt for him, but I never took the jacket off, but no one knew that was me and not him. One time we had the masks on. We were at a show. His mom came over and had a 10-minute conversation with me thinking I was Glenn the whole time. So we just gelled like that right off the bat. So that’s why he was like, ‘Hey, we should try this. Are you interested in trying it?’ At that point, I was trying to figure out who I was and when I was in the ring. All I did was laugh and giggle because I was like, I’m in a wrestling ring. So the mask helped hide me laughing and smiling the whole time. I’m getting the sh*t beat out of me. I’m supposed to be selling, and I’m looking up at the crowd like laughing and smiling.”

Weren’t you training with some pretty big names at The Monster Factory?

“Yeah, D’Lo was down there. Boo Bradley [Balls Mahoney] was down there. Then when we had left, Big Show had come, but this was months later, Big Show was there. D’Lo actually was a huge part. So D’Lo kind of trained himself, did the backyard thing, and him and his friends would come down and rent the ring, and they put on a whole production. They were great. They had lights, they had ring music. They had their own matches. They videoed it all. It was great. Glenn and I would stay and watch, because they would rent the ring on a Saturday afternoon. So after we got done training, Glenn and I would sit there and watch. So when Larry convinced D’Lo to join the school. D’Lo is actually the one who helped us perfect the Stage Dive, our finisher. So he was a huge part of that.”

What a finisher! It’s one of the greatest tag team finishers in the history of wrestling.

“It’s not one of, it is the greatest tag team finisher of all time, the most underrated finisher. And we say that, and Glenn’s way more passionate about than I am. He gets hot when it comes up. But what’s so great about it is the timing, nothing else. You need timing for the 3D, LODs finisher, really no timing. You just stand up and jump off. Matt and Jeff’s finishers, The Hart Foundation, there’s really no [timing required] because you’re just holding one up. Even Demolition, as much as I love them, it’s just across the knee with the elbow coming off the timing. With ours, the timing is important. But what else is important is what you have to do. If I’m giving you the Power Bomb Leg Drop. There’s a way you have to land so you don’t get hurt, and Glenn doesn’t get hurt. You have to turn your head, you have to put your arm down. There’s a lot more to it, and it’s never been duplicated.”

So where did the idea come from to make you guys The Headbangers?

“That came from Jim Cornette. So we left, we packed up the car and I started in June of 93 we packed up the car in April of 94 and went to Memphis for USWA as The Spiders. So we worked as The Spiders there, and then we were in Ozark Mountain wrestling with Burt Prentice in Arkansas for a little over a year, maybe a year and a half. And what happened was, at the end of that, Burt started bringing in Ricky and Robert, The Rock and Roll Express, Tracy Smothers was bringing them in for our big show we had every Monday night. And then it was just Ricky and Tracy coming and we were working them. And the good part is that Larry would bring guys in. So he brought Jerry Lawler in back in the day, and then Cornette was there. So Glenn knew them and they knew of Glenn, and from being around and with Tracy and Ricky coming, we were giving them tapes like, ‘Hey, can you give this to Cornette? Can you give this to Cornette?’ Because USWA had the gateway into WWE back then, and so did Smoky Mountain. USWA, we went there as The Spiders. We were there a few months, and then we were gone. We couldn’t get back in. And so we’re like, okay, so Smoky Mountain is another way for us to try to get in. So Cornette called us one day, and he goes, ‘Hey, I got this idea. I’d like to bring you in. The Gangstas are getting ready to finish up. I’d like to bring you guys in.’ We’re like, Yeah, because with Burt Prentice, at that time, we were making 4 or $5 a night. 

So when Cornette called us, he goes, ‘Hey, I had this idea. I want to bring you guys in, but I don’t like the masks. I don’t like masked wrestlers.’ Which is funny, because when he brought us in at Ring of Honor, what did he do? He put us under a mask first. But yeah, so he told us that, and you’re gonna laugh at this knowing Jim Cornette, he was at a Danzig concert in New York. He goes, ‘It was the craziest thing I’ve ever seen. These guys had earrings and their noses were pierced, and they had makeup on their face. They’re wearing dresses and they had tattoos.’ He goes, ‘With your guys’ attitude from the northeast, I think you could pull this idea I have off. I don’t really know what the idea is, other than you’d be Headbangers.’ He goes, ‘You would come out, listen to loud, obnoxious music. I want you to spit on people.’ I mean, the first TV we did, I walked down the ringside and I spit on every single person in the front row, right in their face. He didn’t care. He was like, if you find roadkill on the road, throw it in the back of the car, put it on a leash and drag it to the ring. We didn’t want to go that far. But I knew what he was talking about, the music he was talking about. I knew what he was talking about. I knew I had been to the heavy metal concerts at the bank, and I’ve been to him in the spectrum in Philly with my buddies, so I knew exactly what he was talking about. I’d been in the mosh pits.”

You were part of that scene?

“Yes, I had done it. So we were like whatever you want us to do, it’s the opportunity, it’s gonna get us seen, it’s Cornette. We knew who was there, and we knew it was another gateway into WWE. So we’re like, Yeah, sure. So we show up at TV, and it’s actually funny, because we show up and The Gangstas were there. We walk in, and New Jack walks over to Cornette. He goes, ‘What the f*ck are these guys doing here?’ And Cornette’s like, ‘What do you mean what are they doing here? They’re coming in because you’re finishing up, they’re taking your spot.’ They’re like, ‘Well, f*ck you. We quit now then.’ The idea was to bring us in, give us two matches, and then do two interviews. So before weeks of TV, we’re on TV, and then we’d start doing the spot towns. Cornette was like, ‘All right, so leave.’ He turns around. He goes, ‘You guys doing anything this weekend? Now you’re booked.’ So we instantly got booked on everything, and he said, ‘I can’t guarantee you the world, but I’ll guarantee you 75 dollars a night.’ We’re like, 75 hours a night for three nights a week?! I’m like, that’s 225 dollars a week. Gold mine!”

What was the idea behind the makeup you wore and the way that you guys had it on your face?

“So when we showed up to the first TV, Cornette had the black acrylic paint you can buy in a tube at Walmart or any store. We were trying to put it on, trying to be nice and neat about it. We kept washing it off and then we would try it again. After like, the fourth or fifth time, Cornette comes over. He goes, No. He dips his finger like this, and he goes, swipe, swipe. He goes, That’s it, go. So there was no rhyme or reason. So some nights we would do it that way. Some nights do it this way, we’d let it run down. Then I learned that if I put water on my face first, and I just did a thick line here, it would kind of just run now, sometimes we just did it thicker, which spurred whatever it felt like that night. That’s what it was.”

Take me back to some of those early matches. So like, you’re super green, incredibly inexperienced, and you’re in the ring with people like Adam Bomb, people like Papa Shango. You punch Papa Shango in the face? 

“So, this is great too, because now it’s my second night. So, there’s a bunch of us from the school. We all went out that night, we had a few drinks. So I’m sitting there, I’m feeling confident. I’m like, I had a match last night, this is going to be good. They roll the board out, and it says Papa Shango versus Chaz. I’m like, Oh, another giant, okay. Then Glenn said to me, ‘Oh sh*t.’ I go, ‘What’s wrong?’ He goes, Larry [Sharpe] and Papa have heat.’ I don’t know what it is. There’s heat there, because Papa Shango went through the Monster Factory. Now I’m thinking, I knew Papa Shango went through the Monster Factory, I see that, and I’m golden. We went to the same school, we can talk about it. He goes, ‘Him and Larry have heat, it’s real heat.’ And I go, ‘What’s the heat?’ He goes, ‘I don’t know, but just don’t mention you went to the Monster Factory.’ So now I have to go over and introduce myself to him and say, ‘Hey, I’ll be sitting over here when you’re ready to tell me whatever you want to do to me.’ And now I’m thinking, what if he asked me what school I went to? What do I say? All this is going through my mind, so my confidence of being here quickly got squashed. So Papa comes over. He’s like, ‘Come on, let’s talk about it.’ We went through a couple of things. Then he says to me, ‘How do you throw a punch?’ I go, ‘I punch you right there’, and I’m pointing to his neck, I don’t want to hit you up here. I’m trying to talk him through what I’ve been told or what I’ve seen. I haven’t thrown a punch at the school. I’ve done nothing offensive at the school. I’ve just taken bumps and hit the ropes. So I’m like, ‘I punch you right there.’ And he’s like, ‘Okay, yeah, but how do you throw a punch?’ I’m like, ‘Well, I hit you down here.’ And he goes, ‘How do you throw a punch?’ And I’m like, ‘I don’t know what you mean.’ Now, looking back like me today, if I get into the locker room with someone and someone’s having that conversation back, I most likely would be like, kid I’ll see you out there, don’t worry about it, and I’m thinking I’m not gonna let you do anything. I’m just gonna bump you and that’s it. He had such patience. He looks at me, goes, ‘Throw a punch.’ I go, ‘You want me to punch you right now?’ He’s like, yes. I’m like, Okay. I punched him so hard. His head spins this way. He turns around. He’s like, ‘Kid, tonight you’re gonna throw kicks.’ I was like, ‘Okay. Do you want to see how I kick?’ He goes, No. Because I had never thrown a kick, and no offensive moves whatsoever. And then it’s great in the match, because we go through the stuff, and he shoots me to the corner, and he comes charged in, and I move, and I’m like, one, kick, two, kick, three, kicks. And he comes out of the corner, wham, and just squashes me. But those were my first offensive moves. And the best part about that story is, all the years we were in the locker room together, I never told him. I don’t know why. It’s just insecurities I always had, I never really felt like I fit. I guess maybe that was kind of why.” 

When The Headbangers won the Tag Team Championships the titles were vacated at this point?

“Technically, yes, because that’s when Dude Love and Stone Cold were tag champs, and Stone Cold had hurt his neck wrestling Owen at SummerSlam, so he couldn’t defend the belts. So we found out four or five days before the pay-per-view that we were going to be slid into that spot, and we’re just ecstatic to be on another pay-per-view. And yeah, so it was LOD, the Godwins, and then Owen and Davey Boy, and The Headbangers were, all of a sudden, just thrown into that mix. And again, we had no idea about anything other than we’re just in another pay-per-view. So every time we were on a pay-per-view, we tried to step up our outfits. So we went to the thrift store, we bought wedding gowns and we dyed them black, specifically because we’re in a title match on a pay-per-view, we need to have something a little bit different. To be in there with them, and, I mean, you know, we had worked the Godwins. We had worked Davey and Owen, we worked LOD, so we’ve worked all of them before. We wrestled Davey and Owen a night after WrestleMania 13 for the belt. So that was one thing. You know, we had a title shot, but to be in that environment, on the pay-per-view like that, we were just all jacked up.”

How many matches did Beaver Cleavage have? 

“One match. Four vignettes, undefeated.”

You have one match, but it lives on forever. Here we are, 27 years later, still talking about it.

“I have one of the worst gimmicks in the history of wrestling.” 

Do you think it was one of the worst gimmicks?

“Probably. I still to this day don’t know where it truly came from, how the idea came up. I mean, I think the vignettes could possibly be some of the best vignettes ever done. They’re hysterical. I mean, I’m sitting there, and I come out of a room, and I tell my mother that I can’t find the cat. I can’t find a cat anywhere. She turns around. She goes, ‘You can’t find pussy?’ I go, ‘No, I can’t find pussy anywhere.’ Meanwhile, she’s peeling a zucchini, and she goes, ‘Well, Pussy is probably under the bed. I know what would get pussy…’ I have a scrape on my knee, and she’s cleaning my knees, and I go, ‘When it comes to working on your knees, my mom knows best.’ I mean, they’re priceless. There were no rules back then. Do whatever you have to do to get over, to draw ratings.”

So you have no idea where this idea came from?

“I have a general guess. First overseas where we went to Kuwait. It’s the first overseas tour I was ever on. Jerry Brisco was the agent in charge of the trip. He gets my passport. He starts laughing. Now, my passport picture at that point was from when I was 20 years old. So he looks at it, and he starts laughing, and he goes, ‘Oh, look at you. You look just like Leave It to Beaver.’ I’m like, Okay? So like that trip I was called Beav, and then I found this out the other day. I didn’t know this. Bruce Pritchard was a huge Leave It to Beaver fan. So everyone wants to blame it on Russo. I mean, Russo helped with the vignettes, and he was there when we did all the vignettes. But I don’t know who actually came up with the idea of, let’s have a Leave It to Beaver character, and we’re going to insinuate that he’s having sex with his mother. I don’t know who came up with it, but when it was presented to me, I was like, okay. I was home, Glenn was hurt. He was rehabbing his knee. I’m gonna get used, I’m gonna be on TV. If I’m on TV, then I go to house shows. I make money when I’m on house shows, because back then, we didn’t have a guaranteed contract. So I’m like, sure, whatever. I’d never done singles before, other than those three matches I had my first when I first started down at Monster Factory. I was like, Yeah, this will be cool. The vignettes were funny. Then for me, it was a character. So I was able to dive into this big kid wearing a propeller hat, burying my face in my mother’s boobs every time I went out to the TV or staring at her boobs. Everything revolved around my head being in her boobs. So I was like, This is funny. It’s fun, I don’t know, we’ll see what happens.” 

I don’t think people realize it lasted like a month. 

“No, it was literally five weeks. Yeah, it was five weeks. So I did the four vignettes. Then I had the one match with Christian, and then I think it was maybe one or two weeks later, they had me walk off the set live. It was in Memphis. It was live on TV.”

What was the idea to kill this character? 

“I think there were things behind the scenes. Owen had just had his accident and passed. There was some sexual harassment charges being discussed or thrown out. I don’t know if they ever happened or not. So anything that was edgy like that, they were squashing right away.” 

So then were you like, well, what’s my character now? Where do I go?

“Yeah, so they said to me, ‘You’re just gonna be Chaz from Jersey. You’re just here to have fun.'” 

What kind of description is that? 

“So I’m like, here I am, Headbanger Mosh, who I know. Now I’m this Beaver Cleavage guy, I knew what I had to do. I just acted like a big kid, just wanted to make my mom happy. Then it was like Chaz with a girlfriend, because Mariana, the girl, they were like, oh, that’s gonna be your girlfriend. And the whole idea was she convinced me just to be Chaz, a kid from New Jersey, and I didn’t know what to do. I’m like, Who is Chaz? I had to try and figure out who Chaz was. And then they came up with the storyline of me beating my girlfriend. So now I’m a woman beater on TV, and which actually leaked into my personal life a little bit, because some people don’t realize it’s TV, it’s entertainment. Guys at the airport, TSA. Same TSA agents going through Philly. All of a sudden, they’re like, ‘What’s up with this new thing?’ I go, ‘Dude, it’s work. It’s not real. I’m not beating my girlfriend up.’ But you got treated differently, my bags would get searched more at TSA because of this. But Glenn and I, when we were Tag Champs, we’d put our belt in the bag and boom, go through. Now I go through, ‘You have nail clippers in your bag? You can’t have those.’ I’m like, what? That’s not real. But, yeah, it just kind of leaked in, but the whole time I was trying to figure out who Chaz was. It wasn’t easy to try to figure that out, because you had to figure out, Okay, what moves do I want to do? I didn’t know what to do.”

Did you end up figuring it out?

“I think I started to. Then they brought Glenn back, and then they put us back together as The Headbangers. So I think as I really started feeling my groove and figuring out and I’ve started having decent matches, other than just me going out there and trying to act like a goofball or just getting beat up because the locker room was now against me, because they showed vignettes at the locker room throwing me out and I wasn’t allowed in the locker room. There was times I wasn’t allowed in a building because I was a woman beater and all these other things. I think I literally started to get comfortable, and then Glenn came back.”

Was it a huge surprise when you get called to come back to WWE in 2016?

“Yes. So what happened with that is, I would see Road Dogg at indie shows, and whenever WWE was in town or anywhere near me, I would call. I would try and get a hold of Hunter and say, ‘Hey, is there any way for me to [do one match]? I’m not looking to come back, just want to do one match.’ At this point, I had a son. My son was born in 04. He had seen me do hundreds of indie shows, then when Glenn came back and him and I started tagging again, he’s seen that. All I wanted was one time for him to see me in a WWE ring. That’s it, in an arena, or whatever it was, that’s all I wanted. Every time I reached out to the office, I got no because of insurance purposes. ‘You don’t have physical.’ I’m like I’ll get a physical. I’ll get blood work, I’ll do whatever you want. I’ll sign a waiver. I’ll sign all the waivers you want. I just need one match, please. That’s all I’m asking for. And I kept being told no. But I would see Road Dogg, and I’d be like, ‘Dude, you’re still close with Hunter, can you talk to him? Just one match? That’s all I want. I don’t care where it is, what it is. Then so all of a sudden, 2016 I got a text and it said, ‘Hey, are you and Glenn available to do SmackDown Live on Tuesday night?’ And it was like, Foxwoods Casino or something up in Connecticut. I’m like, okay, yeah, nice rib. Then immediately he called me, and it was Road Dogg, and he goes, ‘No, no, it’s not a rib. We got the storyline we’re doing, we’d love to have you on.’ I couldn’t say yes fast enough. Then a couple of days later, I get a text, ‘Sorry, dude.’ I didn’t realize in Foxwood, wherever the casino was, you had to have full blood work done, full physical. He goes, ‘We won’t have enough time to get that done by Tuesday. I want to try and keep the storyline going to bring you to Dallas the following Tuesday. But no promises. I’ll do my best.’ I text him back, ‘Thanks, Brian. Appreciate you thinking of me. I’m like it’s not happening. So I actually hadn’t watched WWE in a while, I hadn’t watched anything. I was a little bit bitter and salty about being the way I was, not re-signed and all it says I just kind of separated myself. But at Tuesday night, I’m watching SmackDown, and I’m trying to see the storyline where we would have fit in, never saw it. I’m like, oh, I don’t see where [we’d be], so I let it go. Wednesday comes and goes, nothing. Thursday comes and goes, nothing. And then I got a message on Twitter from Howard Finkel, saying, ‘Please call me at this number.’ Before I even saw it, five minutes later, my phone rang and it said it was a 203 number, so which I know is Stanford. So I’m like, hello, and he’s like, ‘Chaz, Howard Finkel here. I don’t know if you saw my message on Twitter, but you and Glenn are needed in Dallas, Texas on Tuesday night for SmackDown Live. Are you available?’ Hell yeah, we’re available. So that and that was three, four o’clock on Friday. So that’s when I’m like oh my god, this is really happening. Hadn’t been there in 15 years, on TV in 15 years, and now it was the opportunity for my son to actually see me [wrestle]. But not only see me, but see it on TV, live in a WWE ring, which was even better. So leading up to that, I had said to him, ‘What can I do?’ Because that whole thing for me was for him, that it’s all I wanted. In 2016 he was 12, so he I talked about him earlier. He had no idea the level that I did it, or anything like that. So I said to him, ‘What can I do for you so you know it’s just for you when I get to the ring?’ We went through a bunch of stuff. He goes, ‘I want you to dab.’ I looked at him, and that’s when the dab was big with Cam Newton. I looked at him and I go, ‘I hate the dab. I think it’s stupid, I’m not doing the dab.’ He goes, ‘That is exactly why I want you to do the dab.’ So I went, Okay. So we went back. It just worked out perfectly. Because a lot of times when you’re doing stuff in the ring, you want to make sure your camera gets it. You talk to the camera guys or production and say, ‘Hey, I do this, can you get this camera over here?’ I didn’t talk to anyone about it, was just a perfect thing. I did my roll in, I hit that corner, and bam, there it was. The greatest part about is my wife at the time, she set up her phone behind Tyler and she videoed him watching me. So I got to see his reaction. I got my entrance coming down. I watched the TV, but the TV was here, and he was here. I got to see the whole thing. As I’m coming down, and you could see his face, he was smiling. But the reaction of when I hit the dab, he was like, [cheers]. I go, ‘You teared up?’ He goes, ‘No, I had something in my eye. The ceiling fan was going, wind blew in my eye.’ But that’s probably the greatest two minutes. I have it saved on my phone. That’s the greatest two-minute video I have of him. I’m so grateful to my ex for filming that, because all I wanted was for him to see me, but then I got to watch him watch me. It’s goosebumps. And for him to be able to do that. At the end of the book, I write kind of chronological order of my top 10. So the only reason it’s not number one is because I did it chronologically, but that’s got to be the highlight of my career. Watching him watch me get in that ring, was just, and then we had a decent match with Heath and Rhino, because we knew them also. So they were like, ‘No, whatever you guys want to do, let us know what we’re going to do. We want you to get your stuff in. And it was just amazing.”

When you go back to catering, are you seeing some faces you recognize? 

“So what happened was we heard stories about how the locker room was so different than when we were there. Because when we were there, it was guys playing dominoes and guys playing cards, and guys just ribbing on each other. It was just fun. We got there, was so quiet and reserved. We’re walking down the hall, and we see the signs, it says male locker room on this door, and then it said extras on this door. We’re like, are we extras? Are we male wrestlers? We didn’t know where to go. Matt Cardona, back then he was Zack Ryder. He pops out of the locker room and he sees us. He’s like, ‘Oh, Headbangers, come on in here with us.’ So we were like, Oh my God, thank goodness Matt ran out and saw us, so we sat with him. But then the next thing was, all right, let’s go somewhere. And because the thing was, when we were there and somebody would come, you could tell it was awkward for them. Then we felt awkward, this isn’t our house anymore, we’re guests here. So you want to kind of just be quiet, stay out of the way. So the idea was going to catering and to eat, but then to find someone we knew that we could just sit down with right away, you kind of get out of the way. Our idea was, where’s Chioda? We’re looking for Mike Chioda. He’s awesome, or Chimel. We walked in, and we kind of stood there and kind of looked around for a second, and then from across the room, it was instant eye contact. It was John Cena. Cena jumps up. He’s like, ‘Sh*t, Headbangers are here! Heard you guys were coming.’ He comes running across, literally running across the thing. He gives us a hug and he’s like, ‘Man, I’m so happy you guys are here, this is great. I heard you were gonna be here. I’m so excited. You know what? Grab some food and come over and sit down and talk to me, because I’d love to catch up with you guys and see what’s going on now.’ Before then, we only met Cena one time. We did an indie show in California when he was Prototype. He was just starting. So, I never met John Cena. I met Prototype. So for him to do that, we were like so maybe we do still kind of fit in. We didn’t feel like outsiders, but we sat down with him for 10-15 minutes, and then he was like, ‘Guys, I’d like to talk more…’ We’re like, ‘No, John. We understand, go ahead.’ But it just eased us so much. Then when we went out, we started talking to Heath and Rhino and Mike Rotundo was our agent. We walk over and we say hi to him, and he’s like, ‘Oh, this is going to be easy.’ We’re like, ‘All right, cool. What are we doing?’ He goes, ‘Whatever you want. Just tell me what you’re doing, here’s the time limit you have, you guys figure it out. Just tell me what you’re doing. I have no worries about this match.’ We were like, cool. So then Heath and Rhino were both like, ‘So we want to make sure you guys get your [stuff in]. Heath’s like, ‘You got your drop down clothesline. I want to take your flapjack. We want Power Bomb leg drop in here. We’re like, oh sh*t. This is awesome, they want to take all of our stuff. We expect to just come and bump around and bounce for you guys. But yeah, it was awesome.”

What is Mosh grateful for?

“My son, my ex and life.”

Nia Jax (@LinaFanene) is a professional wrestler currently signed to WWE. She sits down with Chris Van Vliet in London, England to discuss her WWE return and why it has been much more successful this time around, punching Becky Lynch and the backlash that followed, responding to online critics, taking an RKO from Randy Orton in the Royal Rumble, yelling “My Hole” during a match on Raw, taking a stinkface from Rhea Ripley at a WWE live event, crushing Lyra Valkyria, getting hit by a drunk driver before her wrestling career started, being cousins with The Rock and more!

Chelsea Green said you were a locker room leader, nothing but love for you!

“I love that. That’s awesome. She’s great. I honestly feel the same about her. But it is funny, since I come back, I have kind of taken on the role of a little bit of the locker room leader. I’ve been here longer than most of the girls in the locker room, I’m older, and I’ve seen it all, so I feel as though you kind of have to have a little bit of a tradition in the locker room, and I think it kind of gets lost in this new age. Some of the new people, they didn’t come up when I came up. My coach was Bill DeMott when I got hired for the WWE, and he was very old school, very traditional in the ways, you know, shake hands, introduce yourself to everybody. You guys set up the ring, you break down the ring, you watch every match. We never had the opportunity to not go to a show, even if we weren’t working. I had to learn how to ring announce, how to time keep. I had to learn everything from the ground up, and it’s different now in NXT. So it’s not really their fault. They just don’t know better. So I feel like, since I do know better, it’s my job to help.”

Do you look at your career in 2 parts of when you got released and when you came back?

“Yeah. I mean, it’s hard not to.”

It could have picked up where it left off. But I don’t feel like it did

“No, because I had that break. I feel like I changed in a better way. I got better and I elevated my game a little bit more. Not that I didn’t think I had the opportunity in my first part, but I think because it was a different schedule, and I wasn’t really locked in as I could have been when I had the break, and I was able to see what I could improve on. I was able to change it coming back.”

It feels like maybe it’s a different style and a different approach compared to your first run. How do you contrast the two?

“I feel as though before, I was taught a certain way, ‘You’re a certain size. You can’t do these things. Stay away from this. Don’t let them do this to you.’ So I was kind of like pigeon-holed into a little bit of a [situation where] I was afraid to get out of it, because the person telling me is somebody who runs the show, you work for an audience of one. So this time around, Hunter was more like, ‘Be you. You show them what you can do, because I know what you’re capable of.’ So I feel like the difference is just me kind of like being myself a little bit more. I’m more adding who I am into my character, instead of I gotta stay here and make sure that somebody’s happy.”

I don’t think that people appreciate how athletic you are.

“It was something where it was like, Oh no, you shouldn’t do that. Somebody said you shouldn’t [do that]. [Because of] Your size, stay in this kind of in this lane, because this person does this, and this person does that, and you are special here. So I’d always get sh*t on like, ‘Oh, you’re boring.’ I’m like, actually, no, I can do things, just you stay in the lane that you’re told to stay in. Now, I mean, I’ve played sports my entire life. I’ve never not played sports. I played basketball, soccer, baseball, anything I could. I’m a pickleball player now.”

How often do you play pickleball? 

“Well, since we’ve been on the road, not as often. But when I was off, when I was trying to lose weight, I got bored with certain cardio and I would just play pickleball all day with my church group. We’d go at like 7 am to noon and it was so much fun.” 

You look amazing:

“Thank you. It’s funny because right now, I just told one of the girls, and they were like, No way, because they hadn’t seen me at my biggest. My fitness journey started three years ago. At this point, I’ve lost 100 pounds since I started. Not a lot of people saw me when I was that big, because I wasn’t really working here, and I tried to stay off the internet. But yeah, this is actually the weight I started in NXT at when I got hired. So it’s kind of like people haven’t seen that because I never really had the opportunity to lock it in, and I’ve been locked in. My nephew was like, ‘I’m 100 pounds.’ I’m like, ‘I know, I just lost you!’”

You’re the only female WWE wrestler I know where they announced your weight. What was the idea behind that?

“I know everybody went nuts and they’re like, ‘How dare you announce your weight?’ I was like, whatever. So I think the idea was just to be like, I know she’s big, but this is how big she is. I’ve always been a heavier girl. If I showed you a picture of me at my thinnest, you wouldn’t even believe I was like 225 pounds at my thinnest. So when I was that way, I was heavier than Roman. I was heavier than all The Shield guys. So I think the thought was it’s impressive that you’re this weight and move the way you do. I think they announced me at 270 and that’s a lot of weight. To be able to move and do what I’ve done at 270 is difficult. So I think it wasn’t like, oh, let’s embarrass her and shame her. It was more of like, no, we’re trying to show you that’s impressive. Yokozuna, he was a big man, but that guy moved. If you go back and watch his stuff, he can move, and Vince was like, that’s the impressive part about it. I think that’s where the idea came from.”

When did they stop announcing your weight?

“I couldn’t even remember because it wasn’t something [bad], I didn’t have an issue with it. It wasn’t like, I’m so upset. I was like, yeah. They asked me before.”

How did you find out that you were going to be in the Men’s Royal Rumble?

“So we had rehearsals that day, the Women’s Rumble, because it was me, Becky and Charlotte at the end of that one. So the doors were opening, and we were in Arizona, I believe. I was walking back, and Johnny Ace was like, ‘Hey kid, you got to rehearse more.’ I said, ‘Oh, what are we doing?’ He was like, ‘You’re in the Men’s Rumble.’ I said, ‘What?! Doors are open Johnny. When am I going to rehearse?’ [He said] ‘Oh, we’re just gonna rehearse this part with Truth, and then you go do the Women’s Rumble, and then we’ll talk about the guys after.’ I thought he was kidding. But then when we rehearsed it with Truth, me beating up Truth and everything, entering at number 30, I was like, this is happening. So then I had to focus on the Women’s Rumble, because I had stuff to do with Lana in that match, and then Becky and Charlotte, and then run back. I had to go into a room with a bunch of the guys, and they’re going over stuff, and they’re like, ‘Hey guys, Nia’s in the Rumble. So run through with what you’re gonna do with her.’ I was like, I don’t get to go into a ring?”

Did you know who you had spots with? 

“Yeah, it was Andrade. It was Ali, Randy, Rey and Dolph. So they were in at the time, and they’re like, ‘Yeah, now you’re gonna come in, you’re gonna drop Truth, and then when you slide in, you’re gonna start cleaning house and then you’re going to eliminate Ali, and then there’s going to be a spot with Andrade and Dolph and Rey, and then you’re RKO’d.’ And I was like, ‘I’m going to get what?’ They’re like, yeah, you’re going to take an RKO. Before that, it was like, ‘Yeah, you’re going to go to tackle Randy, and then this happens.’ I was like, Okay. So I was just sitting there going but what if I f*ck up the RKO? That’s one of the most iconic moves in WWE history. Everybody already hated me. So then I look at Randy, and Randy’s super cool. But you know, Randy has a reputation of being like, you know. I was like, Oh, f*ck. I’m like, Randy. He’s like, Yeah? I’m like, ‘I’m nervous. I don’t want to fuck up your RKO.’ And he was like, ‘Don’t worry about it kid. Just when you turn left, I’ll take you. You just turn to the left, and the rest I’ll handle.’ I was like, okay. So out of that whole match, that was the most nervous. I was like, f*ck. I just can’t f*ck up the RKO. We get into it. I beat up Truth, poor Truth, and beat the sh*t out of Truth. Go in there and run the spots. Go to tackle Randy. He takes a bump for me, and I was like, f*ck, did I just hit him too hard? In my mind, I’m thinking sh*t, did I just hit Randy too hard? Meanwhile, I hear Kim cussing me out. She’s yelling at me. I’m like, oh sh*t. And then whatever we run through, do the RKO, I take the 619, the RKO. I’m like, Holy sh*t, this is not happening. Then they dump me, then they drop kick me off the apron. When you’re in the moment, you don’t realize that. When I was done, I was like, that was a massive moment for me that those guys didn’t have to. They could have said no, that they just did for me.”

Did you feel like this might lead to more intergender stuff?

“So at the time, we did have something. I think I went to a storyline with Dean Ambrose right after, where I hit him, or I bumped him the ground or whatever. I think there was supposed to be something that went to into a storyline there, but it just kind of fell off. There was a promotion that we were promoted to have a match at a live event. I think in that state, it couldn’t be inter gender matches. So then they had to scrap it. Then after that, I think they just kind of let that story fade away.”

When you got released from WWE in 2021 you didn’t work anywhere else. You have never worked a match outside of a WWE ring. When you got released, was there the thought of, I’m gonna do the Indies or I’m gonna go elsewhere?

“Not really. I didn’t think that I wanted to wrestle anywhere else, but I did know that I wanted to still wrestle. I didn’t even know if I was gonna come back to the WWE honestly, it was just kind of, like I said, it was my whole life at the time. So when I was released, it was kind of a shock. Or it was like, What is my life? It’s kind of like I had to reset. I’m like, What is my life right now? Because my whole life has been WWE and I really didn’t think about an after, which, you know, a lot of wrestlers get caught up in that. Because it happens to be like that. When we’re on the road five days a week, you don’t really think about the after. So I didn’t think about wrestling anywhere else. I, you know, everybody kept saying, try here and go there.”

Do you think about how much longer you want to wrestle?

“No, because as many times as I’m like, Well, maybe after this, or I’ve won this title and I’ve done this, I’m like, Oh, I can still do this. Then I see all this new talent, I’m like, Hey, I would love to work with this new talent and do stuff with them and help them out. So I haven’t really said, Oh, this is when I’m going to be done. I hope it just happens naturally, where it’s like, Okay, I think, I think it’s my time, where I’ve kind of given enough back to the business that’s given a lot to me. So we’ll see.”

I had Rhea on the show, and we were talking about the stink face, and she said it was all your idea. So how did this idea come about?

“Well, I mean, it was my idea to stink face. It wasn’t my idea for her to get them freaking cheeks out. So obviously, that’s what I do. I do the stink face, and as a heel, I like to rub it in, literally. I just thought we were on the live event. I thought one night, let’s change this up. Why not? Because it was a cool Triple Threat moment, me her and Shayna, and I was like, ‘Why don’t you give me a stink face?’ She’s like, really? She was like, ‘You mean like Rikishi style?’ I was like, ‘Yeah, do the full Rikishi. Get it, get it!’ And then we did it. And obviously, like, the crowd went nuts, and then it was a viral moment, and yeah, and then we had a good time. We actually switched it a couple nights because everybody was expecting it and I was trying to be a dick about it. Then I did it to Shayna, where Shayna was like, ‘Let me have it.’ She closed her eyes, and then I freaking took out Rhea, and then she didn’t realize it was me. It was funny. It was a good time.”

You’re no stranger to viral moments, so when you said, ‘My hole…’

“So it was a table match with Lana. And I don’t know if you remember, but during that time, I kept putting her through the table, nine times. I put her through the table nine times. Then we thought we’re gonna have her redemption moment at Survivor Series, but it didn’t happen. So then we ended up having this table match, and when we were rehearsing it, it was suggested that I do a leg drop on the apron. I was like, Oh my gosh, that will bust my tailbone. Then I was like, ‘What about my hole?’ Just as a joke. I remember saying it to Hunter and being like, you know, my hole, before the show, and he was like, ‘Yeah, that’d be funny.’ Because it was COVID, there was nobody in the audience, so you could clearly hear everything people were saying in there. And me, personally, it was like, I’m gonna say it just to pop everybody in the back, Vince and all them, as a joke, and Hunter, because he knew. We were joking about it before. So yeah, I did it, and it was like, ‘My hole!’ Then I literally was just like, This is gonna be hilarious for us, right? And then it was trending everywhere. By the time I got to the back, I was like, What the f? I thought I was in trouble. I was like, ‘I’m like, sorry.’ And they’re like, oh my gosh, this is great. They actually had a shirt made. There was gonna be ‘My hole’ shirt. The first time I ever got real merch. I don’t know what happened, literally, it was about to be printed out and sold, because it was trending for a few days.” 

Could you imagine if that shirt got released?

“It would have been a big, big deal. It would have been a huge hole.” 

When you did this bullying storyline with Alexa Bliss, it was so perfectly done, because how else are we gonna get you over as a babyface

“I mean, it’s something; everybody’s been bullied or hurt at one point in their life, and there’s something you can pull from, I feel like, in those moments. Lexi, I just remember her being like, ‘I don’t really want to say this. This is really mean. I don’t really want to do this.’ She had a hard time because she’s a great human being. I was like, ‘Dude, we got to sell this story. We want this. We want to pitch this like this is supposed to be a major storyline.’ We want this. So, yeah, I have been bullied, my biggest bullies in my life are my brothers. So I really have thick skin, nobody can really hurt my feelings. But there have been times where it’s like, yeah, I’ve been made fun of for the way I look and how big I am and whatnot. So it wasn’t that hard to pull from, but I’m really proud of that storyline, because we both gave it our all, and she’s such a great little actress.”

Did you know you were going to be able to cry on camera?

“No, I didn’t. So we had an acting coach, and it was something to where it was like, in NXT they wanted us to have some acting experience before we get out to the main roster. Now, it’s different. I think people on their own go and have acting coaches for their promos and stuff. But he just said, Hey, like, if you’re an emotional thing, like, try to pull from something that really hurts in your life. So I have something in my head that will literally make me cry on cue. So I used it.”

How do you handle it when the criticism is maybe not just at the Nia Jax character, maybe they’re taking personal shots at you?

“I don’t know these people, they don’t know me. They think they know me. And you know what good I’m glad. I’m glad they can somewhat relate to a Nia Jax character and take a shot at me. I find that to be something like unfortunate for them if they have any kind of anger in their heart to come to attack people. So it never really bothers me. It’s usually like a personal problem for them.”

The moment with Becky Lynch, when she became The Man. Did you realize in that moment how big this affected both of your careers?

“No. I do realize in the moment when I hit her, I felt on my knuckle a little [contact], and I was like, f*ck. Because when it happened, this will be funny. Go back to the beginning, where we came in and they were like, ‘Hey, we got to sell this match, go in there, give it your all. Say sorry later.’ A producer said that to us. I was like, All right, we’re in there. And naturally, I feel like I’m an easy target because I’m the biggest girl. So I kept getting punched, hit from all angles, and I’m like, mother trucker. I’m in the corner with Naomi, and we’re fighting, and somebody comes and just clinks me in the back of my head, and I just turn around. I’m like, ‘Get the f off me.’ Didn’t realize it was Becky. I thought it was Lana. I turned and connected, and I felt it, and I was just like, oh sh*t! I didn’t realize how bad it was until I looked down and I just saw her bleeding all over the mat. Then she rolled out, and Dana was looking at her, taking care of her. Then we get done, and we go to the back, and I’m sitting there going, like, Oh my gosh, I’m in so much trouble. This is it. I think they’re done with me. I was getting my papers. Then Becky was in the trainer’s room, and I couldn’t go in there, they were checking her out, and I was just trying to make sure she was okay. Then I had to go talk to Vince and the producers, and they were all quiet, but talking to each other and not saying anything to me. Then in gorilla they had it on the screen, he was talking to Kevin, ‘Let me see the footage.’ They were replaying it from every angle. And I was like, oh, man, it was a tough time. Then Vince was like,’It’s not ballet, sh*t’s gonna happen.’ I was like, okay, because I’ve been cussed out by Vince before for other things, so I thought oh for sure I’m gonna get cussed out for this. He was like, ‘It’s not ballet. Sh*t happens, is she okay?’ I was like, ‘I don’t know.’ He said ‘Go check on her.’ He’s like, go check on her. Then from there, it just exploded all over the internet. Then I think when I tweeted out, it was a joke, and I asked Becky about it if I could, it was like I had a cut on my hand from the punch. And it was from the movie The Campaign, ‘Is anybody asking me how my fist is doing?’ I thought it was funny just like every heel is justified. But it was definitely that people were way too sensitive to it. That’s when I went nuclear heat. I’ll never forget the next week was Survivor Series, and I wasn’t supposed to win that match, whatever it was supposed to be. I think it was Sasha was supposed to win that match. I was still trending about the punch, and everybody was telling Vince the internet is still going nuts about Nia punching Becky in the face. Then right before the doors open, he was like, ‘Finish change, Nia over.’ He said, ‘Yeah, when you go out there, you show your fist and you smile.’ I was like, All right.”

Was it a similar moment when you threw Jade into the steps? 

“That was weird, because I know I’m strong. But yeah, I didn’t realize that even happened. I didn’t realize she hit her head that hard on the steps. So when I saw it, because I didn’t actually get to see the full extent of it until later, I was very shocked that she split open that badly. But it was definitely different. It was a different moment, for sure. But yeah, that was pretty scary.”

You had this moment with Lyra, and you crushed her!

“Well, she’s a tough cookie. I’ll tell you that Lyra is a tough cookie. But, yeah, that was something that somebody had pitched for the match, let’s try this, something different. We rehearsed it, but we didn’t go full in rehearsal, right? I’m like, ‘Hey, this is a one-time shot, you don’t want to keep taking this if you don’t have to.’ So then we did it in the match, and I just remember landing, all 270 pounds of me were into Lyra’s rib cage. So she took it like a champ. I give her all the credit, because she’s tough.” 

On the infamous Charlotte Flair match:

“My match with Charlotte, where we kind of got into a little tiff, a little back and forth there. It was a miscommunication. I will say I’m going to call it a miscommunication. Things got heated, like legit got heated in that match. I did warn her a few times to stop, to chill out, and she didn’t, so then I two-pieced her. We came back and we were calm and we were level-headed, we all kind of were just like, ‘All right, got kind of out of hand.’ But sometimes it happens. But yeah, it just got a little out of hand. It got hot and we just started swinging.”

Are you guys good now?

“Oh, yeah. We’re good. But it was definitely, everybody was like, ‘What just happened?’ Even the crowd, because when it happened in the moment, I couldn’t hear anything because I was angry. I was legit pissed. So I didn’t hear anything. But then when I felt the dead silence of the crowd, I think the crowd was kind of like, ‘Is this really happening?’ I could hear Corey Graves. Commentary is the only thing I could hear because that crowd was dead silent, because I think they were kind of in shock, like, ‘What just happened?’ So, yeah, it was definitely a moment. So that was a match where I’m like oh. But then we were able to redeem ourselves after that.”

Your career almost ended before it started, because you were involved in this incredibly scary car accident. 2014, hit by a drunk driver. Yeah. What do you remember from that?

“So that night, we went to my uncle Afa’s wrestling school. He had an end of the year party and award ceremony. I went with my auntie, because she always goes and enjoys it, because wrestling is her passion. She loves wrestling. I remember asking to go to that off of live events from Coach Bill DeMott, and after the ceremony, we were all going to a restaurant to have dinner, and we were just driving, and it wasn’t really that late at night. It was kind of like evening time, and we were pulling up to a stoplight, and literally, it just felt like an explosion happened. We weren’t expecting anything. It just felt like a bomb went off. I just remember at the moment, like my ears were ringing. I couldn’t breathe, and I just kept trying to say something to my aunt, but I couldn’t speak. I didn’t know at the time, I guess my collarbone just snapped in half, and it was like cutting in, but I couldn’t breathe or say anything, and I’m looking at her, and she was pinned behind the wheel. But yeah, it was a crazy moment. We didn’t realize at the time that a cop was chasing a drunk driver. They pulled her over, I think, and then she took off, and then she just, without the brakes, had no brakes, she just hit us full speed, dead on. Thankfully, the car protected us. I feel like the airbags came out and all that stuff. Then I got out of the car and the ambulance came, it was real quick. The cops were there already, because the cop was, you know, chasing the drunk driver. And so the ambulance came quick, soon after, they had to get the jaws of life to get my aunt out.”

What is Nia Jax grateful for?

“My relationship with God, my family, and my outside WWE family.”

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Matt Hardy (@MATTHARDYBRAND) and Jeff Hardy (@jeffhardybrand) are professional wrestlers currently signed to TNA. They sit down with Chris Van Vliet in Albuquerque, NM to discuss their legendary careers as individuals and as a tag team, retiring Team 3D at Bound For Glory and if they have thought about winding down their own careers, their most extreme moments, Jeff being attacked with a screwdriver by Randy Orton, Matt suplexing Ric Flair off a ladder, their epic WrestleMania 33 return, crazy Swanton Bombs, Leon Slater’s Swanton 450 and more!

What a testament to where you guys are at in your career.

Matt: “I gotta tell you, Chris. So Jeff’s had this neck issue, and we had our big pay-per-view match at Genesis against The Righteous. I tried to do the majority of the match, I was in there, I was taking the heat and the bigger bumps, we’re trying to protect him as much as possible. The meet and greet was massive at the end of that. We signed for like five and a half hours, we got back to the hotel, slept 90 minutes, two hours at the most, and got in the plane, flew back home. I remember getting out, and I was like, Oh my God. I felt like I was crippled at the end, it’s wild. These meet and greets are great, but sometimes they are tough, especially if we don’t have the ample time to sleep afterwards.”

Jeff, how’s your neck doing?

Jeff: “It’s better. This past Monday and Tuesday, it felt really good. Then we flew out here, and I fell asleep a little funky on the plane. I remember jerking my head up one time, and it hurt. So it was hurting a little more than it did Monday and Tuesday. But overall, man, it’s feeling good. It’s definitely better. So this has been a little over three months now. I’ve been dealing with two bulging discs on the left side of my neck, and this happened when we dropped the titles at the NXT Halloween Havoc show. It was one of those things, you couldn’t even tell, it looked completely fine. I landed flat, but I was on the big guy’s shoulders. The one guy jumped off the ladder, clotheslined me off. The idea was for me to go through the table, but I kind of overshot the table, and he just broke the table, and my head just hit the mat, and it was a little whiplash like that. It felt terrible. I mean, it definitely felt like a concussion, and I was close to being knocked out, but that’s when it happened. Two bulging discs on the left side of my neck, but I’m feeling much better.“

So on a scale like one to 10, how much pain do you think you’re in right now?

Jeff: “Right now, I would say maybe a five. It’s not bad at all.”

Matt: “But his 5 is massively different from a normal person’s five. We’ve also just been very cognizant of, you know, it’s been protect Jeff at all costs. So done what we’ve had to do to try and work smart and not make things worse in this issue. So far so good.”

The Swanton is always going to be your finisher, and that’s such a high-risk move:

Jeff: “Yeah, and back to AMC. This is such a big deal for TNA, but we did a commercial where we had to go through a table, and Matt was gonna do something.”

Matt: “I don’t know if you saw that. We were the first people that found out that it was 100% definitely AMC [as TNA’s new home]. We had to go do the shoot with the AMC people, and it was the closer of the commercials. I did a leg drop through a table, and he did a swanton, and it was his first time doing anything since he knew he had this neck issue.”

Jeff: “The whole building up to that [I was going] I don’t know if I should, this might be one of those times I just say, I got to stand my ground and say, I can’t do that. My necks hurt, I can’t do that. But I knew it was something big. I didn’t know it was AMC, so I said it’s kind of like riding a bike. I’ve done it so many times, I can do it, and I think I’ll be all right. So, I mean, it hurt a little bit doing it, but man, a few days later, when we found out officially it was AMC, I was like, that was totally worth it. But that was a scary morning for me, not knowing and I hadn’t had my MRI done yet. I think the week after we filmed that was when I got the MRI, and that’s when I found out it was two bulging discs. I got the call and they said, Oh, here we are. You got two bulging discs, and the options are to speak to [a doctor], or a pain management plan. I was like, Oh, I don’t know. I think I’ll just deal with the medical team at TNA, and maybe they can help guide me through the healing process. Luckily, I’m feeling much better. But that was scary. On that phone, I was going, oh my god, this might be the end of my career, the beginning of the end, because I haven’t been hurt in four or five years, I’ve been super good since I’ve been doing the ice baths. It’s the first major injury I’ve had since doing cold plunges. I remember telling the DarkState guys after that match, oh, it ain’t nothing a little cold water won’t fix. I got home the next day and I got in the cold water, and when I got out, it’s like it made it worse. It’s like it hurt more. I did it on the second day, and I was going, Oh, my God, maybe I don’t need to do the cold water. So my mind was just freaking myself out. So I laid off the ice baths for a while, and it seemed to feel better, but, yeah, now I think I’m back to the points where I can rebuild. I’ve kind of rebuilt my armor, and now that I’m healed enough to get back in the cold water and to hopefully avoid injury from here on out.”

Jeff, when you talk about thinking like this might have been the end with this injury, how much do you guys think about the end of your career?

Jeff: “I try not to think about it, especially with seeing the Cena retirement tour, naturally, because we’re the same age. He’s a little older than me, but I’m 48 and I’m like, oh man. AJ, same age, he’s talking about maybe retiring soon. I mean, I think about it, but the way my career has went over the years, the ups and the downs, I just hope I can do it for as long as I can. I think that’s the way I’m going to do it, because after this neck injury, I feel like my performances are naturally going to get 1,000% better, because I’m so excited about this whole AMC deal and being in TNA and continuing to evolve. But yeah, I try not to let the thought of the end enter my consciousness.” 

Matt: “Wrestling Twitter has been trying to retire us for years now, and they still do. They’re trying to book our retirement matches nonstop. But we feel good. As long as we feel good, we’re gonna keep going.”

On potential AMC cinematic matches:

Jeff: “I can’t help but think about the first cinematic match that’s going to be on AMC. I think it’s going to be a very, very powerful thing, man. I’m not a big show guy, but like shows like The Walking Dead and Breaking Bad, to know those shows were on this in this place. Oh my god. I think anything’s possible when it comes to a cinematic match on AMC.”

Matt: “We told AMC we’re ready to this first cinematic match. We only have two requests in our first cinematic match, whatever it is, we need two cameos in there. We need, Gus Fring. We need Rick Grimes, you know, make it happen. AMC, make it happen. We want zombies roaming through the woods in the Hardy compound. That can probably actually happen.”

Is ultimately the dream to retire as the Hardys?

Matt: “I think so. I just feel like as we’re a little older, it’s nice when we kind of get to share the workload, as opposed to doing a singles run. [But] who knows? I mean, with TNA, maybe if that’s something they need. And it’s funny, you were talking about the whole AMC deal earlier, like we both take a lot of pride in that, because we were a major factor in this AMC deal happening. We’re both so proud of TNA for getting to this point and being on this major platform and we really want to lead it into the future. I want TNA to be a place that is a stable wrestling company where people can come and make a living and it is in the conversation with all the other top companies.”

Jeff, does it hurt more to land a Swanton or when the guy rolls out of the way?

Jeff: “It’s a good question. Yeah, definitely, when the guy rolls away overall. But if it’s a big guy, like Big Show, for example, I’ve done one to him before, and it’s like broke my back, I’m arched over him, I was just laying there on top, I got knocked out as well. But it’s almost bend your back to where it actually hurts pretty bad. But, yeah, depending on the size of your opponent, but I would say overall, missing in them is the worst.”

Matt: “Yeah, that Big Show is a massive piece of meat.”

Jeff, what is the craziest move that Matt has ever done?

Jeff: “Craziest move that Matt’s ever done? I would have to say it’s got to be a leg drop off the top of the cage.”

Matt, what’s the craziest spot that Jeff’s ever done?

Matt: “I still think it’s that Swanton that he did in the impact zone, because it is so crazy. Was that the first Bound for Glory? He did a Swanton, it wasn’t just off the stage, it was to Abyss. He went up on whatever the structure was behind that and jumped over the stage. I mean, he just had so many hurdles it felt like he had to get over. And if he missed, it would have murdered him if he had been off in any capacity, and he pulled it off to perfection. It was wild. He calls it the sketchiest Swanton he’s ever done, and it really was. It’s still crazy. Jesus Christ, I mean, you make one little mistake on that, like you’re done.”

It’s crazy looking at the highlights and somehow realizing you guys can still walk.

Matt: “Especially like after that leg drop, I never walked the same. Well, also if 51-year-old me could go back and talk to 23-year-old me when we’re just starting, I would say, like, first and foremost, I know you guys think it’s cool, because you guys do that leg drop splash. We did that every single night, and our schedule in the beginning was 10 days on, 4 days off. It’s a bunch of house shows. We would do that every night, whether we’re winning or losing. And just like the wear and tear from doing that leg drop, especially when it was the real hard rings. Before they made the ring bumping rings in WWE, it’s when they were built for the big guys, for 360-pound guys that were Earthquake and Typhoon and Hogan and guys that didn’t do a lot, so we’re doing that leg drop splash every single night. I’d just say get a more simple finish, you know, figure out something that isn’t so hard on your body and use the leg drop when it counts on a big show, whatever else, that’s the first thing I would do. But I have so much scar tissue in my lower back and pelvis and hips and whatnot. That was the time, whenever I did that one off the cage, I gotta change this to I’ll do an elbow to the back of the head from the second rope. I smartened up.”

There is so much history with you guys and Team 3D. What a special moment to be in there with the Dudleys for their final match. Were all of you guys crying in there?

Matt: “It was definitely emotional. So I’ll tell you this, I’ll be fully transparent. D-Von, we just wanted to get him through this last match, we knew he was retiring, this was it. We want him to go out on this great match with career rivals. We had no idea they were going to both take their boots off, and we definitely didn’t know they were going to give them to us. Jeff had just asked at the end, ‘Hey, is that a thing?’ I said it wasn’t, but I think it is now. He said what we’re going to do at the end to show you the respect and say you guys have won this battle. Whoever wins this is the greatest of all time. We have something we’re going to do, but we don’t want to tell you, is that fine? I said, that’s great. Let’s just do in the ring. Let’s get a very authentic, genuine reaction, and that’s what that was. More than anything, we just wanted D-Von to be okay in that match. We tried to protect him as much as we could. He’d had some serious health issues over the years, and we were going to bust our ass to work as hard as we could, because those guys haven’t been working a lot. Bully has been working here and there, doing some stuff. But we wanted to bust our ass and we really wanted to tap into the emotion behind the match. What was great, even in the beginning, we had to start the match so the crowd would stop chanting. So the crowd was so involved in it, and they were so emotionally invested, and that’s what made it feel so special.”

Both of you had your very first official match in WWE May 23 1994. Jeff, you were 16 years old, and your first match was against Razor Ramon.

Jeff: “It was terrifying, man. One guy didn’t want to take his finish. Keith Davis. I was Keith Davis that evening. I became Keith Davis after Keith Davis didn’t want to take the razor’s edge.” 

And that was your first match at that point?

Jeff: “Ever. I didn’t know what I was doing.”

Matt: “Also, he had to lie about his age, because I said, my brother’s 16. Can he go there? Someone said, your brother? Yeah, it’s fine. Just have your dad write a note and say it’s okay.”

How much did the screwdriver in your ear with Randy Orton hurt?

Jeff: “It hurt a little bit. That’s my hell in a cell moment. For years after seeing Mick Foley and Undertaker, naturally, I was like, Man, I want to do something like that. When he went off that first time through the table, I totally get why he does stuff like that. But then the chokeslam, when that gave way and he hit that, and that was back in that when that ring was super hard. Actually being in a Hell in a Cell with Randy, and it was the first one time it had been painted red, and it was awkward and strange, but just seeing how big that structure is, and even the splash I missed when I was hanging, it’s just such a massive structure. So thank God for that screwdriver and Randy and the twist that he did, because I consider that my hell in the cell moment that it’s kind of hard to forget.” 

How’d you come up with that?

Jeff: “It was somebody else’s idea with the screwdriver. He [Orton] had used his fingers and pulled me around by it, and I think a chain or a rope. But somebody mentioned that screwdriver. It might have been Michael Hayes or somebody else. But anyway, it was somebody’s idea that was out there with us talking about the match, but twisting it like that, and just watching the way it looks, how it was turning purple, it was gruesome.”

Matt: “That’s the essence of pro wrestling. Those moments that are memorable like that, pro wrestling has gone down such a path now where people are like oh, my god, I gotta get all these spots in, let’s put together a lot of choreographed combos that we’re gonna do, whatever. But those moments are what people remember.”

That spot at WrestleMania 22 with Ric Flair. When you suplex him off the ladder is wild. They’re reiterating he’s 57, so he specifically asked you to do that spot?

Matt: “Yeah, so they needed a spot. They wanted a spot where Ric was going to say he was hurt and be carried out of the match and he was going to come back in the end, and he said, ‘I have an idea. Matt, I trust you. I know you’re one of the creators of this ladder match. Will you suplex me off?’ He said, ‘I’ll be honest. You’re the only person I trust doing this match.’ And he also told Edge that whenever they had the match, he said, You’re the only person I trust to have this match with, because I know you and The Hardys created this ladder match nonsense. And I said, Sure, that’s cool. I remember we talked about the spot, and we had a rung Ric was gonna be on, then I was gonna suplex him off. I remember we’d got to that rung as we were fighting, and I said, ‘All right, you ready?’ He said, ‘No, higher, higher, higher.’ I was like, Okay, we went up one more, and he took that bump like a champ and got him over. He was safe and sound. And he said it was great. He said it was an easy bump. He would always do that. He would do the deal where he would flip over the corner, run to the other side, coming off. He said, If I can do that every night, it shouldn’t be that bad off the ladder. Afterwards, he said, it was easy. Thank you. He said, Yeah, it was good. Thank you. He said, ‘You took care of me, made sure I got over. I didn’t land on my head, and that’s all I wanted. Thank you. You’re the only person in this match I trust to do it with.’”

What are The Hardys grateful for?

Matt: “My health, my family, and the fact I have a brother that is so amazing.”

Jeff: “My health, my family and pro wrestling.”

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Kit Wilson (@KitWilson_PD) is a professional wrestler signed to WWE. He sits down with Chris Van Vliet in London, England to discuss his catchy new theme song and how much input he had in creating it, his solo run following Elton Prince’s injury, being Matt Cardona’s WWE return opponent, getting thrown through a wall by Damian Priest, whether “Pretty Deadly: The Musical” will happen, and more!

Your theme song has been stuck in my head ever since I heard it.

“Yeah, it’s super catchy. That was what I was going for. That was what I was hoping for. I didn’t think I realized how catchy it was going to be, and how much it’s kind of clicked on and sat with people, but I’m not complaining.”

How much input did you have into the song?

“So I ended up having a fair amount of input. I was pushing for new music when I kind of found out what the situation was going to be and maybe I was going to go solo, I started messaging a lot, saying I would love new music. Can I get new music? Then eventually I got into contact with Neil, I believe, and then he called me. We had little discussion on the phone. He said, ‘What kind of thing are you looking for?’ So I said, ‘Can I send you an email?’ Got off the phone, and I started writing this email, just with all my references, with all the songs I like, with all the ideas I had, lyrics, kind of the theme of it, the vibe of it. So I had so much. There’s a Charli xcx and Billie Eilish song called Guess, and that opens with a phone call. Actually, there’s no phone call, but it opens and it goes, Hey, ‘Billie, are you there?’ That I loved. I really wanted that. So that was my first thing. I wanted a phone call. I wanted to ring, I wanted to pick up. I wanted a ‘Hey Kit, are you there?’ I originally wanted an English voice, and I still would like to have it with an English voice. We’re American for now, but I think we’ll be okay with that. So that was a big one. We got that. Then there was just so many other influences. There’s another Charli xcx song called Speed Drive, which I really liked. JENNIE from BLACKPINK has a song called like JENNI that is very poppy, there’s a lot of girly pop music at the moment that has come out which is just very catchy. It’s very iconic. It’s very chorus, chorus, chorus, Chappel Roan, Femininomenon, very good song. That was a big one I pushed for. There’s also some Harry Styles influence. 1975 was a big band that I liked, and Pretty Deadly actually used their song on the Indies for a theme, Love Me. There’s kind of a guitar riff in that we used to really like, and I feel like I can kind of hear that in this song. Jade, who’s a UK artist, she used to be in the band Little Mix. So there’s just so many references there. I sent them all. I timestamped the bits that I like, the choruses, I’m always trying to give as much as I can, so as much of me is there. And then they came back. Gave me the first draft. It sounded great. Few tweaks, few tweaks, few tweaks, and I felt like we hit it.”

You’ve had this theme song for a few months though:

“I feel like this character in this new iteration of Kit Wilson has kind of been brewing, and we’ve been kind of like testing a few things, working on a few things. The theme song was, was one of those, and we created the Tron, We had that loaded for a little bit of time. I was doing those main event matches, the tapings before SmackDown using the song, just kind of getting used to it, trying to figure out my entrance was. And then the SmackDown came with the Tron, and kind of everything clicked. And now everything really feels like it’s coming together as a whole package.”

There’s a lot of examples of great wrestlers who, as soon as they change their song, boom, they get over. This is the thing that makes people connect with you right now:

“It was scary going from Pretty Deadly being a singles guy, because our whole career in this company was Pretty Deadly. And I remember kind of having a discussion, and I think I was talking to Triple H, and he said, Do you still want this music? Do you still want the “Yes boy!” Do you still want this aspect? And I did. I cherish so much of that, and that was so much of who I was as a person. I was scared, but I just felt like if we go into this new chapter, we have to go. So I said, I want to get rid of all of that, and then obviously it comes back, if it comes back, but I just wanted to start new. I think, as you say, a fresh new start is going pretty good.”

On his cats:

“[They’re names are] Socks, Luna, Arrow, Bowie. Then we’ve got two fosters that are going to my mother-in-law, Moon Boots and Moon Beans. They’re all space themed because my first cat, we’ll talk cats. We’ll do it. My first cat in England was called Rocket. I love Rocket. We just recently had a bit of a scare, got shot, it was a whole thing, bad neighborhood. It was kind of crazy. It was a pellet gun. It wasn’t a real gun. “

Who’s shooting a cat?

“Well, you’re telling me! We called the police straight away. Maybe it’s getting too political, maybe it’s getting too crazy. But my English cat, Rocket, I love him, but I couldn’t bring him over to America when we moved, so my sister now has him. So shout out to Lucy. She is incredible with him. And then we go Socks, which is Buzz Lightyear’s cat, then Luna, obvious, Arrow, Bowie. Bowie is a bit of a stretch, but we’re going there, Ziggy Stardust. And then Moon Boots and Moon Beans, you know, you can judge that if you wish.”

We’re in London right now as we record this. Does it feel good to be back home?

“Yeah, it’s just really nice to know there’s a Gregg’s close by always. There’s a Wetherspoons near me, there’s a Nando’s, a Wagamamas, there’s a Toby Carvery. I think Nando’s is so popular because it’s a comfort food now, in England, it’s not even necessarily the best food, but it’s pure comfort, happiness. It’s a lot of first early dates as well.”

So what was the original idea behind the new character?

“So I guess with all of this, you have your character, and then often there’s only so much of the character that you see on screen. Then as certain people, and especially me and Elton and Pretty Deadly, we have so much of the character behind the scenes that never actually comes to the forefront, but we’ve got it in, and a whole big section of the Pretty Deadly character was toxic masculinity. I’m sure there’s tons of early promos, even on the independents, even maybe in stuff that we sent over to the company, maybe when we were trying to practice for promos that had stuff based on toxic masculinity. It just didn’t end up being the main thing we focused on. So it’s always been there, it’s always been a part of how we saw the characters and if everything was needed, then we would explain that, and we would bring up to the forefront. So then, when it came to me being on my own, I was pitching ideas. I had five big pitches I went for, and then the one that turned out to be the toxic masculinity one, I think the word document was labeled Limited Edition Kit Wilson, because again, actually shout out to [my cat] Luna. We call Luna Limited Edition, because she’s got no tail. Can you see how I’ve loosened up and got more excited when we talked about the cat? Maybe part two is cat-exclusive.”

Were you nervous about going out on your own? 

“Oh my goodness, God yeah. So the first day I went to SmackDown without Elton, I felt like I was five years old going to school for the first time. Because, again, we are best friends. We met on the independents. We signed together. We’ve done everything together. When we moved over to America, we live together. We talk every day. I love him, and we viewed each other as one person. We never talked to anyone and tried to talk as individuals. It was always about the team. So to do it on my own, I’ve never been more nervous in my life, but he’s been really supportive. We talk all the time. He’s always saying, What have you got? What you’re doing, you’re gonna smash it. He always says, Good job. So it was nice to have his support, but it was so nerve-racking going in, and now I feel like I’m finding my footing and I feel comfortable. It’s kind of fulfilling doing this whole new part of it, but it is scary, and I miss him.” 

How’s Elton doing? 

“He’s doing good. Surgery happened, and it was nice that he could then talk about the surgery, because he’s quite a private person. He wasn’t really putting anything out there. People didn’t really know. Some people thought it was just this. Some people thought was just that. So it was nice for people to get clarity and understand what was going on. The surgery went well, and so far, it’s been like a week and a half, maybe two weeks. Everything’s on track and good, but it’s just a touch-and-go situation. It’s the neck. So it’s such a specialist area, that I think we’re just kind of taking it day by day. But he is doing good, which is fantastic. It’s just a scary thing, yeah, and I want to talk about him, but I don’t want to get too sentimental, because I’ll start going.”

He had his neck fused?

“Yeah, he’s got a double. At 28 years old.”

That sounds scary. What was the spot?

“He took a reverse DDT, and I think I was in it as well. I think it was maybe a reverse DDT and a flatliner. I think he just, it was obviously an accident. Things happen. We know what we’re getting into, but I think he just landed wrong, and he says he felt a certain kind of shock, and then he didn’t feel anything. Yeah, it happened, and then it’s crazy, because you watch it back, and his fingers kind of curl up, and it’s really a bit horrible to re-watch, knowing what it was. He got injured. He got hurt. It was a reverse DDT, and then when he’s trying to figure out in the ring what’s going on, he took that, he took another thing which cut him open. So he’s bleeding a fair amount. I think initially everyone, including myself and other people, thought that was a big injury, because it was a lot of blood. I remember I was on the floor, and he makes his way to the corner, and I’m kind of looking up at him, thinking, something’s up. Obviously, I didn’t know how serious it was, so I’m kind of starting to shout at him and say things. I can’t remember what he was saying, but he was kind of saying, like, ‘I’m fine, I’m good, I’m good, I’m good.’ I think they maybe make their way to the top rope. I get on the apron, and again, I’m kind of just assessing. Then I just realized, all right, I’m getting in. I kind of tag in. I think, like hesitantly again, I’m kind of still slowly walking in, trying to figure out what happens. Then there’s at some point in there, I’m just screaming, get down. Get down. Get down. Because we were in a position I think I was going to electric chair him. And I’d assume we would have gone for our old independent finish, which I used to have. He used to jump off and do a European uppercut. The OG spilt milk. Then I just realized something was up. So I just said, ‘Get down. Get that. Get down. Get down.’ And then I just, I think I power bombed Nathan Frazer at the time, and then he was out for the whole for the rest of the match. I remember the doctors were with him, and I think I was in there for maybe like a minute and a half or more, kind of just trying to survive. And then just the next. The next few days were kind of trying to figure out what it was. And then we had some phone calls. It was this, and it was that, and it was tears, and he’s going through it is his thing. It’s his, is his challenges, his battle. He’s doing great, but it’s such a hard thing. It was just so horrible to see him go through it, especially because I love him so much. Elton, I love you.”

So how did it turn to the conversation of ok Kit, we are going to do something solo with you?

“I don’t know if it was so definite, but again, it was just trying to figure out what we had, or what was there. I think slowly it went from okay, we’ll try something to okay, this could be something to things clicking. And with the help of a lot of the producers, Road Dogg, a lot of guys giving advice, I think there was some kind of point where people clocked on backstage and okay, we’ll see how this goes. Then this music hit, I think we’ve got something.”

You guys are the personification of wins don’t matter. You go out there and you’re memorable. You leave the audience with something to think about, something to remember. It doesn’t matter if you win or lose in those matches. 

“Well, look, we’ll win the championship matches. It just doesn’t really matter about the other ones. So we were just focused on the gold. We’re yet to do that on SmackDown, and we will get there. But, yeah, we win when it matters. You’re always going to lose, you’re always going to fail, and I think you’re a positive, motivational guy, the failures are just lessons for the future. So anytime you know, I’m going to be at Smackdown the next week, I’m going to be at NXT the next week. So if we lose this farm, we’ll just move on. We’ll just improve. So yeah, I mean, shout out to maybe The Miz, another guy who proves time after time again, you can take a loss, you can move on. It doesn’t matter, you can make the most of it. I think that’s maybe a category that we sat in, and maybe I sit in now. I’m just going to take the wins when they’re big, you know, I’m going to wait for the opportunity.”

You had a memorable moment with Damian Priest. He threw you through a wall!

“Growing up as such a big fan, there’s kind of bucket list things, and there’s some kind of backstage antics that you always think are quite a bucket list thing to tick off. I just didn’t think I would go through the wall. I just thought I would be putting someone else through a wall. But I guess Priest doesn’t like me. He’s kind of growing on me, though, can I say this? Damian Priest has some, has some toxic masculinity. I do think he needs to address that. However, with the terror twins, he’s not afraid to be side by side with a female who he views as his equal, someone who raises him up as much as he raises her up. So I actually publicly would like to say to Priest, I would shake your hand and apologize and say, I think you’ve grown. I think you’ve matured. I think you’ve come a long way in this emotional journey. And I’m proud of you. I think we can be friends. I just will tell him that when no walls are close to me. Because that hurt. I didn’t like it. I do want revenge. I am going to try and put him for a wall eventually, I will say that, but I think he’s kind of shown some emotional maturity that others are lacking on the roster.” 

How was the match with Matt? Because Matt told me, and I can ask you about this, he said he was laying in a little extra hard. He’s like, I want to make sure my stuff looks good.

“Yeah. You know, you think being good friends with the very slay Chelsea Green, that maybe there would be some kind of friendship there. But I didn’t know who my opponent was. I’d asked Nick for the opportunity, Nick Aldis, shout out to the fellow Englishman. I didn’t know who it was going to be. And then, you know, Matt Cardona comes out. Fantastic. I’m very excited. Messed my nose up. I don’t know if you can see I got a makeup here. This was a mess for two weeks. I had two big boot marks here, which are still faintly there. I’ve chipped my tooth. I went to the dentist.”

Today is a huge day because your theme song finally arrived on Spotify. Why was there such a delay?

“Hey, that’s out of my control. I don’t know. I sent an email, and I said, Hey, can I can I get a day? Can I get a time? Let me know I’m a big Spotify guy. I’m a big music guy, and I think that’s a beautiful thing. Music brings everyone together. My Music brings everyone together. We’re on Spotify. It took a while, but, yeah, here we are.”

So you still think of yourself as a tag guy? 

“Again, let’s see how emotional we get. I’m a singles guy now, but again, my mindset was always tag. I just never even remotely considered being a singles guy. And now I’m here, I’m going to commit just as much as I’ll commit to everything. So yeah, I am a singles guy. I will come for the US title. I really want the IC title. Love the Intercontinental Championship. It’s always been a favorite of mine. So those are two big goals. Now I think we’ll get there. So when we get there, let’s come back to this video and see.”

Now that you’re in the singles division, yeah, who would you love to have a one-on-one match with? 

“Oh, that is very interesting. I mean, there’s so many people. I’d really like to wrestle Finn Balor. He was always someone coming up on the independent scene, he was so big in Japan at the time, he was always someone kind of all of us looked up to. We always looked up to him. Right before he actually joined with the company, he did an independent show at the company I was training at. I don’t know if he remembers any of this. He had an incredible match. He had the body paint on. He did in-ring photos in the in the middle of the [ring] in the interval in the show. I was just starting. I was maybe a few months in, I got a photo with him, and I remember I was, I think I was just wearing all black, but I had black shoes on black jeans on white socks. And then I’m just like, awkwardly next to him, being like, ‘Oh, thank you for the photo.’ And he goes, ‘Nice socks, like Michael Jackson.’ I was kind of like, yes, like Michael Jackson. Maybe don’t want to compare yourself to Michael Jackson, but I felt like a fashion compliment, so I will take it. Then that night, unfortunately, when I was driving home, I did crash my car and totaled my car. Not ideal, but I had to jump out the window. But the point of the story is I jumped out the window, the car was ruined, but I jumped back through the window because I had to grab a little photo of me and Finn Balor. I have that photo somewhere, so I will find it. But that photo was kind of precious to me at the time, and it was kind of, you know, it was just this guy. There’s this kind of guy from an area that I was from that was kind of making it big and going to the WWE. So I’ve always followed his journey because of that. So I would like to wrestle Finn there’s a little story there that I feel like we can play into.”

I remember seeing a sign in the crowd that said, Pretty Deadly: The Musical, or we riot.

“Hey, the musical was big, and we had some big plans for that musical, and it’s still coming. Yeah, I don’t want people to riot. I don’t want people to riot. So it is coming. I just don’t know when I’ll say that.”

The musical is a real thing?

“The musical is a real thing. We have 10 Songs. We had lyrics. We were learning them. We were trying to do it properly and do a proper, like, good job of it. We wanted to go full force with it, the celebration we did with Nia. I think, as characters we were trying to find the line of being bad in a funny way, if that makes sense. We were trying to be annoying, obnoxious characters, but thought they were good at this kind of performance and celebrating our wonderful queen, Nia. But that was that. But behind the scenes, yeah, we were prepping. We were preparing with a few more of the guys backstage. We had songs written. We had lyrics written. We had a story. We were looking to find a place to perform it. If you have ever seen Always Sunny in Philadelphia and the musical episode, we’ve kind of based it around that. So we had a lot in place. So, you know, it still might happen, if this career goes well, I think there’s a good excuse to hit it.”

Where are you going to find time in a WWE show for 10 Songs?

“Well, here’s the thing, what we were originally aiming for, you can’t find the time on a SmackDown. But as we know, WrestleMania weekend is so big, we’ve got an extra show here. We’ve got an extra show there. We were trying to find a venue in a location to have a theater performance.”

Could be here in London?

“Okay, all right, when WrestleMania is in London, Pretty Deadly: The Musical will debut.”

What is Kit Wilson grateful for?

“This new opportunity, Lewis, Lucy, and my cats.”

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Paul London (@LondonFU) is a professional wrestler best known for his time in WWE. He sits down with Chris Van Vliet at West Coast Creative Studio in Hollywood, CA to discuss his memorable WWE debut segment with Vince McMahon and match with Brock Lesnar, having one of the best Royal Rumble eliminations in WWE history, facing a young John Cena on an episode of Velocity, getting in trouble for smiling at Vince McMahon, and more!

You had a break from wrestling, what was going on?

“I think I got a little burnt out on it. I think the social media thing was a part of it, too. I was brought in by all territories, legend types. The first trainer I ever met of name would have been “Exotic” Adrian Street, didn’t teach me a damn thing and ripped me off. I was 16, and basically stole our money and used it on eye surgery and then tried to sell us paintings of naked Native Americans with wolves in front of their dicks and stuff. It was ridiculous.”

You could have said, what kind of industry is this?

“But I didn’t, and I stuck it out, because as I was growing up, it was constantly, ‘Are you kidding me? You’re never gonna make it.’ Because it was still the land of the giants. So that’s why now the standards have been removed. I mean, when I was coming in, and I feel like back in my day, I would have been looked at like, ‘Where’s your ticket?’ You know what I mean? The first person that really kind of beat the tar out of me was Polish Power Ivan Putski. So I had gone through this whole quest to try and get trained. Went to like I picked all the colleges that I applied to. They were all outside of Texas, because I was destined to get out there. But I picked them all based on if there was a wrestling school with a credible trainer nearby them. My father didn’t know that, but that was my plan. So that saw me go up to Pittsburgh, where I was going to train with Shane Douglas and Dominic DeNucci spoke to Shane Douglas on the phone. He left me a voicemail. He was like, ‘This is Troy Martin.’ I was, Oh, my God! He used his real name. This is real! It’s really happening. And I got up there, I went to Duquesne, but he tore his bicep. So they were like training is off. I was like, What am I doing up here? I have to go to class. So it’s the only time in my life I ever made the Dean’s list.”

So you were jaded a few years back, what brought you back?

“Well, okay, so what happened was I was going to return I believe in 2018, I was going to dip both feet back in the water with Ring of Honor when they were in Vegas. If I’m not mistaken, I want to see my buddy Jay Lethal was setting that up, and this was the last show they had when they canceled it because of the pandemic. It started getting crazy, people were looting and all this.”

So that was 2020?

“I’m getting my dates all mixed up. So that got canceled. Ring of Honor still paid me, which was really cool. But then nobody knew what was going on, and I was still kind of burnt out. I was doing the work, delivering and doing all this bullsh*t, you know, jobs that you hate, but you have a kind of freedom to do whatever you want to do. I like putting myself in situations where people don’t know everything about me. That’s why social media is such a silly tool, because for me, it is just that, it’s a tool. It’s a tool to promote things. For the most part, it’s an edited illusion, right? Everyone living their best lives and we’re so happy and all this stuff.” 

“I’m not saying that doesn’t happen, but I mean, it’s basically a photoshopped life, it’s an edited life. And so many people put all their chips in on it, and it ruins things. When I talked about it hurting the wrestling business, I don’t know what came first, it might have been the Speaking Out thing when there was cancelations all over the place, and a lot of those were warranted, but I think it put a net of fear over everybody. So it did allow voices to be heard that should have been heard in the first place. But it also didn’t just open the doors, it just took the doors off the hinges. So now anybody can be a wrestler who isn’t a wrestler. Now, I mean, you just stumble upon just whoever it’s like pro wrestler, ‘I do the graps!’ Shut the f*ck up. What are you talking about? So to allow these people to play the business has to compromise itself and look sh*ttier and phonier, more cooperative and more planned, more rehearsed, and it’s just unwatchable. It gets to where I can’t watch any anything on TV.”

So back then, what got you onto WWE’s radar?

“Selling and being a generous worker. I credit Dory Funk Jr. for giving me the opportunity to even get to WWF at the time, that’s the first time I had a trial was for WWF. I was able to be in the WCW locker room because of Dory Funk Jr. I was a plant in the crowd on the last WCW Pay Per View ever, Greed, where I’m in the crowd wearing my Funk t-shirt, and we had these plastic pie plates or something. And so it’s DDP and Steiner, and both super cool. I’m cheering, and Steiner’s beating up DDP in the entranceway, and I’m right at the corner, and Steiner comes over to me, and he, like, pulls my pie plate thing away, and he pie faces me, and he’s like, ‘Sit down, you white trash!’ It’s still a highlight of my career to be called white trash by Scott Steiner. Then something happens, and then DDP turns it around, and I get another pie plate, and he smashes it. Then I was a security guard for a contract signing, I want to say between Booker T and Scott Steiner on that Thunder. It was maybe the last Thunder or the second-to-last Thunder ever. But anyway, so Dory had set up these tryouts for Adam Windsor, who was his kind of project franchise guy, which was a whole other kind of situation. Rest in peace, Adam Windsor. But he was a kid from England who weighed about 170 and his parents basically funded Bang TV in order for his kid to get signed, because that’s what they guarantee. ‘We’ll guarantee we’ll get your kids signed, just fund our TV show.’ So that went not as planned. I don’t even know if that show still exists, but Dory is a fabulous trainer. He’s incredible, but he got this kid a tryout on house shows, and I was the third last guy. So that’s what put me on the radar initially, my first tryout was at a WWF house show in Fort Myers, Florida.” 

“Had a look all three nights against a different guy from the camp, so I was able to see what each guy did that got massive critiques, like a guy doing a spear on the same show as Rhyno. Some guy was lathered up in hot stuff or something that burned somebody’s eye. Yeah, just ridiculous. But I came to the back, and I want to say Pedro Morales was there at the time as an agent, and Jack Lanza. Everyone was super complimentary. Long story short, I ended up getting in touch with Kevin Kelly, my first real look that they were like, oh, okay, was against Perry Saturn in Austin for a show called Jakked Metal back in the day, was still WWF, and Perry gave me a ton. But the thing was, I was brought in by big, tough guys, Ivan Putski, Dory Funk Jr., even Terry Funk, you know, took a few licks and stuff. And even Rudy Boy Gonzalez is a big guy. He’s like if a baked potato lifted weights. So my thing was selling. You have no story if there’s no selling.”

You had an early match with John Cena on Velocity. Is it true he got in trouble letting you get in too much offense?

“Yeah, that was in Dallas, Texas, when he had B Squared ringside. Super cool guy. John’s amazing, by the way. I think he’s the Mick Jagger of pro wrestling, and he was just super cool. Mind you, I went out to UPW in California after he had left, so I was very familiar with him. I knew he was The Prototype, and I’d watched that documentary on Discovery Channel or something like that. That’s how I found out about UPW, and that’s what led me out to California. But they had already gotten their developmental deal taken away from them, but they didn’t tell me that before I moved out here, and then they told me that they still had it. I moved out here, and I was like, What the f*ck?! But John was amazing, and the funny thing with John is, so we went out to the ring, and he said, ‘What do you want to do?’ We start talking. I’m like, ‘I do this slingshot…’ Because he’s asking me. I was always taught when the veteran, or who the match is engineered for, when they’re asking you questions, you just shut up. For any vet, you just stop and listen when they ask you questions, then you answer, but you give your input when they ask you for it. One of the things for most academies is etiquette is not taught, because lot of these mixed schools are taught by people who taught themselves, or they couldn’t get booked elsewhere because they sucked. So now they’re teaching people, and they’re the champion of their promotion, and they’re like, ‘You can’t work anywhere else, or you’re never coming back.’ It’s garbage. It’s all crap. But it was hard to get back in it. So selling, I was taught to make yourself available. So that’s what happened with Perry Saturn, which allowed him to give me a ton of offense in that match. That’s what really put me on the map, was that match with Saturn. Because he came to the back, he was like, ‘Oh, kid, I was so awesome.’ [He’s] hugging me. Perry? Who did you work with? He’s in a good mood. And Heyman’s running down the hallway. ‘Sign this kid. Sign this kid, I swear.’ What the hell is happening here? I think I wasn’t signed for another year and a half later, but that match with John was another tryout match, dark match, or it was on Velocity, but it was for him. I wasn’t signed, but he said ‘What do you do?’ I do this slingshot head scissors. [He said] ‘Show me.’ We get in the ring. This is before the fans get in the building. I’m parallel to the ropes coming over. He’s supposed to catch my ankles here and go this way. But it went [crash]. I was like, oh sh*t, I’m f*cked. I’m done, I’m done, I’m done. He’s like, ‘It’s not ballet. Come on, let’s do it again.’ And we hit it and it worked in the match, so just super generous. I didn’t find out until later at OVW, when John came to work out with us, he’s like, ‘Why are you here?’ He was like They got mad at me for giving you what I did.”

After you got signed, your first televised appearance, the first time we see you on TV, is a segment with Vince McMahon.

“But that was not the first time I met Vince McMahon. So I was also a professional plant. Because I was a plant in WCW, after the Perry Saturn match, I was also a plant for SmackDown. This is leading up to WrestleMania 18. So Undertaker is a heel, Flair is a babyface. They stumble into the crowd. Flair goes to punch Undertaker, Taker moves, he decks a fan, I’m the fan. So he decks me. It’s a live SmackDown. We go upstairs, we’re coming back in like, two minutes. ‘Okay, you’re gonna say that man punched me.’ I’m like, Flair, right? ‘Don’t say his name.’ The f*ck kind of a fan am I who deosn’t know his name?! I’m wearing a Stone Cold shirt. I want the wheeling, jet stealing, limo driving… that dude, the money dude, yeah, he hit me. ‘No, say that man [Undertaker] hit me.’ Okay. So at the end of that night in San Antonio, all the local guys are waiting to say, Oh, thank you. We’re all waiting. So Vince is power walking. He’s got shoulder pads in his suit, and I’m last So Vince is walking, everyone is like ‘Oh, thank you sir. Remember me and hire me, and change my life forever. Thank you, sir.’ I went in for an aggressive handshake, and this is what I did. I went in for an aggressive handshake on Vince McMahon. I caught these two [fingers], but I had committed to it. I was already committed. He wiped my handshake off and power walked off. I was like, I’m f*cked. Never working here. I’m done. I’m done. I just clipped his two fingers. He didn’t say anything to me. So when I got to Hartford, I think that’s where they said I was from. This is before the dress code, and I had gotten called up to do house shows after two months, and out of the blue. I got to the TV taping, I expected to have a dark match with Brian teaming against whoever. I remember Arn Anderson came up to me. He’s like, ‘You ready kid? Your big day today.’ Oh, really, what’s going on? He’s like, ‘You might want to go get some better clothes, you got this thing with Vince.’ Oh my God. So I ran across the street. I don’t know if it was Brooks Brothers or something, I don’t know, but I spent money on slacks and basically what you see in that shot. I wasn’t gonna remind him I’m the guy who grabbed two fingers a couple of years ago. But he was cool, he seemed to like it. It seemed fine.” 

So the first time we see you in a televised match right after that segment with Vince. It’s Brock Lesnar, and it’s for the WWE Championship

“I think that stemmed out of that thing where he had decimated Brian [Kendrick]. He took that crazy F5 into the ring post bump, which is still, I have no idea how he did that. He even took a weird back bump from the floor up against the turnbuckles. Brian did an amazing job, incredible worker. But then he did the thing with Zach Gowen, where he bled him out like a stuck pig. Then it was me. But the same thing happened where I’m in the ring with Brock going over it. Arn is the agent. I love Arn Anderson. I actually have one of his trading cards, I carry it with me everywhere. But he’s like, oh, ‘What can you do, kid? Gotta make this guy look like a son of a bitch.’ I’m like, I think he’s doing a pretty good job on his own. He doesn’t have a neck. He’s shaped like Ram Man. And I’m like, ‘Well, if he clotheslines me right off the bat, I can do a 360.’ So I wouldn’t say Brock took a liking to me, but we were always cool, always cool after that. I mean, he wouldn’t say hi to anybody a lot of times, but he was always cool to me.” 

Did you piss Vince McMahon off by smiling in that segment?

“Yeah, it’s funny, it’s cute how sensitive millionaires are. If you think about it, the money, the power, the image, the persona, all of this becomes a big smoke screen. That becomes an illusion that you use as leverage to create some sort of fear, or try to keep everyone on their heels so they’re easier to move around. I don’t know, whatever you want to call it, but extremely sensitive, like very easy to hurt their feelings.”

So this is the segment when it was going to be who killed Vince McMahon when the limo exploded:

“We were in Hershey, Pennsylvania. We were coming off of a house show, and I had been pulled into the office right as I got there. I still had my bags, and, you know, I was already in trouble for another before-mentioned hillbilly backyard wrestler from North Carolina, who sabotaged me by putting out online that I had leaked a magazine reveal to a fan. I had revealed Ashley being on Playboy; I had revealed that online, so that had been put out there that I talked to a fan. So I was getting reprimanded for that. I was like, you know who did this. You know who’s behind this. ‘I know, we still have to talk to you.’ Why? If you know who did it. So I was already in trouble for that. Then they called everybody over that they didn’t have any plans for. Just okay, the rest of you, this was going to be going on here. Okay, we have this segment going on the ring now. Vince is going to be acting very queer, okay, very odd, unusual, very, very queer. They kept saying queer, I don’t know why, okay, I think they mean odd. That has to be what they mean, right? ‘He’s gonna come back here and we’re gonna line you all up, and he’s gonna just walk along acting very queer, very odd and just very bizarre and very queer.’ I was like, Okay, I get it. Now, if he looks at you, just play off of it. The best part of that segment is watching everybody else in that thing, their faces. That’s my favorite kind of part of that scene, because they were really trying. I’m like, What are y’all doing? So that was the only description. They filmed the limousine explosion the night before. Didn’t tell any of us that was what was happening. Didn’t tell us anything other than he was bizarre, odd and queer. So every take he looked in my face. I’m sitting here thinking, whatever is up this guy’s ass is making him so bizarre.

I did that every time. We did it nine times, every time he [looked at me]. All right, thanks, everybody. And then it was that Oompa Loompa that used to walk Khali to the ring, who was in the office, and I’m not talking about Davari, because I love Davari, but the non-athletic Oompa Loompa guy who used to walk Khali out to the ring, he’s like, ‘Hold on, sir. Do you think anyone’s gonna notice this’? He pulls out like a stencil and points out my smile. I don’t know if you’re familiar with Mekaneck from He-Man or a periscope in a submarine. His head, literally, he power walked over to me. ‘Why were you smiling?!’ Because you’re like, acting bizarre, and I don’t know? Don’t kill the messenger. I don’t get that.”

You have one of the greatest Royal Rumble eliminations of all time

“It wasn’t as glorious as that. But at the time, they hated it. Royal Rumble is my favorite event. That was my favorite of the traditional four, as it should be still, pay per views. And you know, that was one of the four pillars, Royal Rumble, Survivor Series, WrestleMania and SummerSlam. So Royal Rumble is my favorite. That was in the first magazine I ever picked up, coverage of the Royal Rumble. So I had to figure out what pro wrestling was. I had to figure out what the hell a battle royal was through images and in a magazine, and it was just these Gladiators, and it appears that they’re trying to tip each other out over the top. I love the Royal Rumble. We get to the building, I think it was in Fresno. How does this work? How does the Royal Rumble, the battle royal of all battle royals. How does it work? I was super intrigued. Get us into the room. There’s these big dry erase boards with like 30 names here, and like 30 names here, it was basically like, in parentheses, I think who’s eliminating you, and I love Snitsky. Always have Gene’s always been awesome. I love him. He’s who I would hire to be Jason Voorhees. But that’s just me.”

He was a punter before WWE:

“I believe it. So when I saw him eliminating me, it wasn’t like I wanted Shawn to super kick me out or whatever. But I think this is well after his not my fault stuff. So I thought I feel like that was just kind of like an afterthought. Well, who’s gonna eliminate [London]? Well, just have him [Snitsky] take this guy. That’s what it felt like. So I thought, well, how can we do this? I love David and Goliath. Easiest story to tell in wrestling. So easy. I said to my students all the time, and so it was a matter of just, how do I get [eliminated]? There are moments in that spot that I don’t like. There’s a pube of hesitation on my part before he clotheslines, but that was my idea. Gene’s like, ‘You know I’m gonna have to bring it.’ I was like, ‘Yeah, please, as long as you bring it.”

What is Paul London grateful for?

“My family, the career I’ve had so far, and the experiences I’ve had.”

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Buff Bagwell (@Marcbuffbagwell) is a professional wrestler best known for his time in WCW. He sits down with Chris Van Vliet at the DDP Yoga Performance Center in Atlanta, Georgia to discuss what led to his leg needing to be amputated and why he let Maven document the surgery, his battles with addiction and what led to him getting sober, possibly competing in one more match, how DDP helped him turn his life around, having one of the best physiques in wrestling, inventing the Blockbuster, and more!

How are you feeling right now?

“I’m blessed. I’m not sure who has their leg amputated, and five months later says they’re blessed, but I am blessed. It’s been crazy, this journey I’ve been on with this thing. But it all came at me at once, like from the leg getting amputated, to my sobriety, to my relationship with Jesus Christ, to my relationship with Stacy. I have 12 grandchildren, and I love it all.” 

What led to the decision to allow Maven to film you getting your leg amputated?

“To be honest with you, ratings. I felt like it would be the best way to let people know, and we could get a rub off of the YouTube channel. I like Maven a lot. Funny story about Maven, and this probably is actually the true answer behind what you just said. Chase Brogan, my YouTube producer, called me up and gave me this bill that 1,000 other people have gave me, I said, Brother, there’s no money in that. There’s no money. It’s very hard to make money, if any, it just don’t work. He goes, but you’re sober now, and it hit me. I went, Okay. So I’m listening. So he flies into town and puts a Maven video on. I’m looking, and I’m watching, and I was not impressed at all. He goes, ‘Hey, that guy makes $200,000 a year on YouTube.’ I said, ‘Two things. Number one, I don’t believe he makes $200,000 a year. Number two, if he does make $200,000 a year, we’ll make four. We’ll do it. Because what I’m looking at, if that’s 200 grand, then we’ll do four.’ I was wrong on both. He did make that money, and we’re not going to double him. It’s some kind of crazy magic in the bottle thing that guy has got. He puts a video out about Waffle House, it gets a million views. I put one out that I think, personally, is a little better, and it gets 30,000 views.”

So you reached out to Maven?

“I reached out to Maven and said exactly what I just told you. I said, ‘Hey, brother, what do you think about you being the person that breaks the news on me losing my leg and me getting a little rub from you? You help us along the way, build my channel?’ And he goes, absolutely, let’s do it. And that’s what we did.”

You are a completely different person now:

“I’m a completely different person. I am sure why, God. I believe I was always a pretty good guy. Matter of fact, Marcus Alexander Bagwell in 1991 was a great guy. Everybody in the locker room loved Marcus Alexander Bagwell, and I think through drinking and pills, drinking and drugging, I lost that Marcus. I really believe that’s what happened. I believe when the drinking and drugging stopped, Marcus instantly started, slowly coming back, and now Marcus is fully back to where. When I walk in a room, it lights up again, but not just from eyes I see. It lights up inside of me.”

When did your addiction start?

“I would say the time I feel in my head that it really started was when I got my own prescription bottles. That would have been 1998 when I broke my neck. It started legitimately with, Hey, man, I’m hurt. My neck is hurting, and I would take a pain pill, and it just climbed crazily from there.”

How were you still able to look like you did?

“I’m going to say something that nobody’s going to believe, but in the height of the best I ever looked, it was a case of beer a day, and 20 Lortabs, without exaggeration, 15 to 20 Lortabs, and 30 to 35 Somas every day of my life. We just a bodybuilder makes a really good drug addict or a really bad one, however you want to look at that, but it’s very organized. I had severe sleep apnea, and I wouldn’t sleep good, so when I woke up in the morning, again, I don’t feel good. I deserve this. So I would have my first party. I would take five or 10 Lortabs tabs, and eight to 10 Somas, party one and I did that kind of party on an empty stomach three times a day.”

When did you realize it was a problem?

“I realized I had a problem through all that. I went to rehab several times. My first rehab was early 2000 right after the WWE thing and all that. I went to rehab. I went for five days. They told me it was a medical detox. That was the word, but it’s not true, it doesn’t happen that way, but that’s what they said. Day eight, I was right back, taking pills again and drinking again. So I tried, I did five, five or six rehabs throughout that journey, but the last rehab before I got sober was 2012 and I did an interview with you right after that. I’d got it under wraps. I got a little bit of grip with it. But I wasn’t sober. It was the closest I got to being sober in 2012, but when I had that car wreck in 2020 and I really had hurt myself that I couldn’t fix it, I was angry. I was so mad at myself that I couldn’t fix this problem. I’d had other wrecks and knocked my teeth out, but fixed it. I would have a bad injury, but I fixed it. I couldn’t fix this one, so I fixed it by fixing me. I got sober.” 

How long have you been sober now? 

“Three years and five months. August 27 of 2022 is my sobriety birthday.”

For people who don’t know what happened with your leg, that car accident was kind of what started this?

“Absolutely. So in 2020, I had a car wreck where I was under the influence of pills and alcohol, and I drove through a bus station, it’s a bus station bathroom, men’s and women’s and nobody was in it, thank God. In that car wreck, my right knee cap exploded. So with it exploding, 40 surgeries over the next 3 or 4 years trying to fix it. Infections in and out. Knee replacement, I think it was 41 surgeries total. Then I was just going to deal with this leg that didn’t bend anymore, and it got infected again. And the doctor goes, ‘Let’s cut it off.’ And I went, Whoa, wait a minute, brother, we did 40 something surgeries. Let’s try to fix it one more time. I can’t just cut my leg off. So I went to that appointment to see what it was like to save my leg. In that appointment is where I stopped the doctor, as he was explaining, he was talking about pulling a skin graft off of this shoulder to close it up. I said, Whoa, what? So it was so devastating what I was hearing. I said, What’s the percentages of all that working? And he said, about 20%. I said, let’s cut it off.“

Were you able to come to peace with that decision?

“No, not at all. I was devastated. I did not, and you cannot see this. I tried to see it, but I just don’t think you have the eyes to see this part of it. The truth is, I should have done this two years earlier. I really believe if it would have been proposed to me two years ago, I would have thought they were crazy. Now, I’d have said no, no, no, like I did this time. But if I would have done it, I’d have been two years ahead. So this has been with my situation of the leg I had, this is unbelievably good what happened to me, but you just don’t see that when you’re going through it.”

If you weren’t battling addiction, would your knee have healed up quicker?

“Absolutely not. I think that whole process may have been a little quicker. I mean, I may have got to cutting it off a little quicker. But there’s no alcohol or pill addiction that was going to make that situation worse.”

But was it hurting the healing process?

“I think it prolonged everything. I think I would have just got to the amputation much earlier, probably if I would have been real healthy and eating good. It wasn’t going to make my leg bend, you know, so with it not making my leg going to bend, I kept drinking and taking pills because I was trying to make me better mentally. I was trying to throw a curveball at that leg. I was devastated that I was never going to be able to walk correctly again. So I sedated myself, and I was under sedation for 20 consecutive years. There wasn’t a day that didn’t go by for 20 years that I wasn’t some percent sedated.” 

I’ve heard you say you want to wrestle again?

“I know I could wrestle again, another match or two, but if I can’t do it, I’m not going to do it. And I’m not sure that’s possible. I don’t want to be ugly. If it’s ugly at all, I’m not going to do it. So, for example, this $135,000 leg. Because of this, there’s no way to make steps look good. So that will be the first thing you got to conquer, is getting in [the ring] or sliding in and getting up fast. But again, if I can’t do those things without them being I’m not going to do it, but I think I can. I think I can do it where it’s not ugly. I just don’t know yet, so we’re definitely going to, in the next couple of months, I’m going to get in the ring and just see what I can do. But I really do think no matter what I will do one match just because that’s one of my goals.” 

Have you connected with Zach Gowen?

“Several times. Zach’s a great guy, and he’s been very helpful with everything. And it’s just a different situation all around. One is he’s had his leg for years.”

You are walking right now though:

“So that’s only two weeks old without a cane, so two weeks with no cane, but just how weird that was. I didn’t believe I was ever going to walk without a cane, because that’s how much I needed a cane. I didn’t get it. I was at PT one day and a guy walked in with my deal with no cane. I said, ‘How long would it take you to do that?’ He said, ‘About a year.’ I went, Okay, that makes a little sense to me, because I couldn’t see doing it ever, ever putting the cane down. Then about another week goes by with PT and everything. And I realized that the cane was only there because of the hurting inside the socket. All there is you’re a cut off leg, an ace bandage about this big that they call a liner, that goes on real tight and it goes inside of that. I said, is there no pillow or comfort thing there? And there’s not. It’s just that finally gets tough, and it’s in the process of my journey. I’m five months in right now. Five months ago, I cut my leg off, and it finally started getting tough to wear. That was a big part of the cane that it didn’t hurt. So I’ve been walking with no cane for about two weeks and getting better and better every day.”

You’ve been documenting this right?

“Yes, we just started shooting on that. Still Buff is what we’re going to call it, and it’s just going to document the whole journey of God, sobriety and my leg, the whole journey of that. Because in that order, no matter what order you come up with for you sobriety, for your career, for your business, for your children, the number one thing should always be God, and in mine, it was God, Stacy, and then myself. In that order, I was able to put together three years and four months of sobriety, and that’s been magical for me in that order.”

It seems like you’ve been able to now make the distinction between Marcus and Buff, and for a long time, you were just Buff:

“That’s a perfect, perfect analogy. It’s funny you say that I remember the boys, Disco Inferno in particular, we would be talking, and he’d be like, ‘Is that Buff or is that Marcus?’ We would laugh and joke about it because it was funny. After all, back then, there was a Buff and a Marcus, and then somewhere in there those lines get they get cloudy, they get not so clear. That happens, you live the gimmick. I didn’t think I was doing that, but obviously I was, but I do believe that comes with also the alcohol and the pills just really clouded it up. It’s not just, you know, Macho Man lived his character. I could care less about living my character. I just believe that your character ain’t far from who you are anyway. Buff, when you saw Marcus Alexander Bagwell in the wrestling ring, Buff’s there too. I’m just a babyface. I’m a good guy. But when you’re Buff, you got to turn it up. It’s just turned up a little. But I think that gets confused even more with alcohol and pills.”

Do you feel like you had one of the best physiques in wrestling?

“I really do. But I don’t think the business does, which kind of upsets me. I remember Flex magazine came out with an article of the 10 top guys, and I wasn’t in it.”

Who was on the list?

“Steiner, Luger, Sting was on it. So it was guys that, you know, and my buddy sent a thing in, the guy at Flex sent back ‘We were talking about A talent.’ And I went, Whoa, but they still put my picture back in there anyway. But it’s just like when Razor Ramon was in there. And I love Scott Hall and Diamond Stud, I thought he looked great, but he really wasn’t a body guy after that.”

Do you think if WCW didn’t go under you were on course to win the World Championship?

“100%. There’s not a doubt in my mind. Very early in WCW, I knew that I would be hated because Missy taught me this. Missy showed me and taught me that you’re going to have to work 10 times harder. And I’m like, why? She goes, ‘Because you’re good-looking and because you’re young. If you don’t walk in every single time and shake hands and thank everybody and work hard, you’re going to get buried.’ She goes, ‘You will get buried anyway.’ And she was right. I walked in and I was hated. I was hated by all of them. I made friends, not trying to, but I made friends with Sting. Then one day they met me, and they were like, ‘Wow, he’s really a good guy.’ I remember Sting coming to my house to play basketball one day, and when he got to my house, remember the old school answering machines? Both Steiners were on my answering machine and Sting was amazed. He said, ‘Did I just hear Robbie?’ Because he called Rick Robbie. ‘Did I just hear Robbie and Scottie on your answer machine?’ I go, Yeah. He goes, what happened? I go, we ride motorcycles and stuff together. He goes, what? Because those guys hated my guts and we were best friends for a while. They hate my guts now too. I think they do. I did a video on Robbie, a bad video that I thought was funny, that he took personal. Looking back on it, I think it may have been a bad idea, but I really thought it was just funny. I thought everybody knew it anyway, but he got mad about that, I heard. Scottie, I think he’s mad at everybody.”

Did you invent the Blockbuster?

“I invented the Blockbuster. So glad you asked this, and it’s a great question, and I’m just now going through this personally with seeing a Mark Henry video that he got upset over this, and I said I knew it was a big deal that the guys are using the blockbuster. It’s a giant deal that the move that I named and created is on television right now. That was 25 plus years ago. That’s amazing, bro, and I’m so glad and happy from it. Logan Paul did it just two weeks ago, and 10 texts came through. ‘Hey, they used your move.’ I mean, I wish they called it the Buff Blockbuster, but at least, at least call it the name I created and this bothers me. I always got to tell the truth. Disco Inferno named it. He asked me if we could call it that. I said, Sure, I love it. Let’s call it the blockbuster. So he named it and the old school knock your block off, it’s your head. So it’s the Blockbuster. But where that came from is I was a huge Rick Rude fan. Rick Rude may have been my favorite wrestler, and he had the rude awakening. I hit Scottie Riggs with the Rude Awakening to join the NWO That’s how much I loved the Rude Awakening and Rick Rude, but you can’t copy it exactly. So I said, How can I make it different? I want to add somebody and that helped me. But nobody did. It was just me. I mean, back up in a minute. Scotty Riggs helped a lot, but I came up with off the ropes, some type of neck breaker. And then me and Scotty Riggs in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, before Souled Out, was in the hotel room, and we were practicing it on the beds, how to land. And the next day, when we got there, we were going to do it in the ring, practicing it in the ring. That day was swamped with pre-tapes, so we never practiced it once. The first time I hit it ever was on live television, Souled Out, and it was probably the best one I ever did. So that’s where it came from, and just thrilled to death that they still use it. It makes me feel important. It makes me feel like I did something that counts. It’s a big deal for guys and girls, the girls use it too, and they still call it the Blockbuster. I just love it that they kept the name. And here’s the problem, I don’t think they know it’s mine, but I know it. So I wish the world knew it was Buff Bagwell’s move, but I know that a big part of the people do, and it means a lot to me.”

What is Buff Bagwell grateful for?

“God, my wife and my leg.”

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Jackie Redmond (@Jackie_Redmond) is a broadcaster and interviewer currently working with WWE. She sits down with Chris Van Vliet in Washington, DC to discuss how a phone call from Michael Cole led to her joining WWE, the unique way she got into broadcasting, her dream job of reporting on the NHL, interviewing Triple H and The Rock after the wild WrestleMania 40 press conference, if she has any interest in getting in the ring, and more!

How long have you been broadcasting for?

“Since 2011. I know it’s crazy. It’s nuts. I feel like I’ve been doing it for like, five [years]. It doesn’t feel in the moment like I’ve been doing it as long as I have, although, until you start thinking about all the things that you’ve done, the successes, the failures, then you go, oh yeah, I guess it’s been that long.”

Your first appearance was in NXT, right?

“No, I never did NXT. Never did NXT. I did studio shows in Stanford starting in 2020, 2021. I did Raw Talk and Talking Smack. It’s been a lot of wrestling. I owe a lot to WWE because when I first started in broadcasting, I was cutting highlight packages. I was not on the air in a consistent capacity at all. One of the first opportunities I ever had to cut my teeth as a host was Aftermath. It was a wrestling show. I got a call and they said, Renee is leaving. Do you want to host the show? Do you watch wrestling? I said, Well, I watched it for like, four years as a kid. I had an obsessive phase. I haven’t been watching it, but I can absolutely get back into it. So that was my first ever real hosting gig.” 

But your dream job was hockey?

“I always wanted to be on Hockey Night in Canada. That was my dream, and so that’s what I chased for a really, really long time. I’m so lucky that I now do that for a living. I work with Wayne Gretzky, which is so weird. The idea that even in my wildest dreams as a kid, right? Dreaming of being on Hockey Night in Canada, I was like, well, maybe one day I’ll work with Don Cherry. I never imagined a scenario where Wayne Gretzky would be on the panel in the studio talking to me out in the field. That was never something that I thought could be a real thing.” 

And for those who don’t know, this is a really big deal:

“Hockey in Canada, I guess would be what you football is in America. That is the upper echelon of sports in Canada. And that’s what I always wanted to do. So that’s what I chased for a long time, and then I got it, and I was happy, and I was doing a two-hour studio show every single day, covering hockey, covering the entire league. I still to this day, owe everything to that show, and WWE has been a really great bonus.”

The way you got into broadcasting was pretty crazy too:

“I was on a reality show. I won a contest, because a lot of people told me when I first started out, you’re just a contest winner and I was like, I’ll show you. I will show you that I’m not just a contest winner. Yeah, the show was called Gillette DRAFTED: The Search for Canada’s Next Sportscaster, and so it was very like American Idol, but for broadcasting, that’s what I did. I was on season three, and there was different iterations of the show. The show I was on, there was a top 10, we had a challenge every week. There was a bottom three, and then someone would get eliminated. The whole tagline of the show was, ‘You will not be drafted.’ And at the end, one person gets drafted, they get a one-year contract to work at the Score Television Network, which doesn’t exist anymore, but it got bought by Sportsnet.”

Wasn’t Renee Paquette one of the judges?

“Yes, Renee Paquette. WWE knows her as Renee Young. She was a judge, and to this day, I always say Renee is literally one of the reasons that I got my start in sports. She’s the best, and she’s an amazing human, and we’re still friends to this day, she has been so, so, so great to me. There aren’t words, really, to describe how great she’s been to me. So I love her.” 

Did you reach out to her when you got into wrestling?

“You know what’s funny? So Renee and I, for a long time, sort of had these parallel careers, a little bit. So when she left The Score, I started hosting Aftermath, which she had hosted before me. Actually, when she came to WWE, I wrote one of her reference letters to get her Green Card or visa, or one of those things. I remember her reaching out and asking me to write a letter. So I wrote her a letter of recommendation as a former co-worker of hers.” 

You also knew CM Punk:

“I crossed paths with CM Punk prior to joining WWE because he’s such a hockey fan. So I knew him through hockey. So when he came back, I instantly DM’d him. I was leaving the venue, and I was like, ‘You little sh*t! I didn’t know you were coming back.’ This is crazy, and I was still pretty new at that time. So for me, I was like, Oh my gosh. It’s an intimidating world. Everyone’s so nice and welcoming, but it’s a big world with big personalities. Everyone’s focused on what they have going on. So when I first started, I was very much in my shell, I was shy. So when Punk came back, I was like, Oh, my God, a friendly face. I know this person, which is so crazy because his reputation prior to coming back, it just amazes me some of the things that people say about him, because for me, he’s always just been an absolute pleasure, so nice, so professional, just awesome.”

I feel like you have one of the toughest travel schedules in WWE:

“I like to think I’m on the podium at least. I’m sure there are a couple of people that might be able to compete with me, but I do customs every week, and I get direct flights maybe once every three months.”

Did you realize you had a Canadian accent when you started working for WWE?

“I realized it before, because I worked at NHL Network in New Jersey. So NHL Network, for people who don’t know, 24-hour hockey network airing only in the US, which is weird, because hockey is so popular in Canada. It has to do something with SportsNet’s rights deal with the NHL. Anyways, they boxed out NHL Network. So NHL Network and MLB Network are in the same place, and they’re run by the same people. So in the offseason, I before I got tapped on the shoulder to come join WWE. I would cover baseball, and I would do a show called Quick Pitch, which was all highlights. On that show, you have to say the word out a lot. So my Twitter, every time I hosted that show, would just be full of people being like, ‘Ah, the Canadian is hosting the baseball highlight show because I love the way you say out, or I hate the way you say out.’ But when I go home, my friends and family all say I sound American now. So there’s certain words I guess that I say that now sound American. And now that I’ve been living in Nova Scotia for six years, there are certain words people say I sound like I’m East Coast.”

So how did WWE bring you in for this job originally?

“So I was in Montreal covering the Stanley Cup final between Montreal and Tampa. I mean, this business is funny, right? Because years prior to this, because that would have been 2021. Around 2016 2017 again, Renee Paquette calls me and is like, ‘Hey, WWE might be interested in you. What do you think? I told them I’d call you first just to see kind of what you think. And she’s been such a great person to me. I know we talked about her earlier, but whenever I’ve reached out to her for any type of advice, she’s always been there, even as the years have passed. So she had called me and told me that my name had been brought up, and asked me what I thought. I said, ‘Well, what is the gig?’ And I was still in Toronto at this time, and just like, it would be hosting. She goes, ‘I see everything you’re doing in Canada right now with misplays of the month, and you’re hosting our equivalent to SportsCenter on the weekends. You’re doing all this great stuff. I feel like they might put you in NXT, you might be in the middle of nowhere.’ Experience outside of WWE isn’t the same as experience inside of WWE. And she goes, ‘So I don’t know if you’d be into it.’ So I said, ‘You know what? Let me think about it.’ And at the same time, I got an opportunity at NHL Network, and so I ended up not doing the WWE thing, and it never went further than a convo with Renee on the phone. It was very much like early stages, like, ‘Hey, your name was mentioned by somebody.’ So I end up taking the hockey show. My dream job, right? I’m covering hockey two hours a day, live television. Best thing for me to ever happen as a broadcaster, because when you’re live for two hours straight, oh, man, you make some mistakes, but you learn how to kind of roll with the punches. So years go by and I’m covering the final in Montreal, and I am not even joking, I get a phone call. I don’t know the number. I pick it up and it’s Michael Cole and he’s like, ‘Hey, I know your agent. I got your contact info from your agent. We are looking for someone to host our post-shows, our Raw Talk and our Talking Smack, and we’re kind of changing them a little bit. We want them to be a little bit more like a real sports post-show where you come into a studio, you talk about what happened. Maybe you go back to the venue, there’s an interview, yada yada yada.’ So I literally get a cold call from Michael Cole, which is so weird. I’m in Montreal, and I’m like, I can’t wait to text my sister after this and be like, Michael Cole just called me. How weird is that? I guess my agent was supposed to give me a heads up, but didn’t get me the heads up in time that the call was coming. So I had been on their radar, and yeah, he called me, and I said, ‘Do I have to stop doing this hockey show that I’m doing?’ And he said, ‘Well, where’s the hockey show?’ And I said, it’s in New Jersey. He said, ‘Well, Connecticut’s 90-minute drive. It’s only twice a week, Mondays and Fridays. You do both. It’s fine with us if it’s fine with you.’ So I did the audition, and he called me pretty much after the audition, and said, ‘You got it, if you want it, it’s yours.’ Those were crazy days, because our show was four to six Eastern time. So on Monday, I’d be on the air four to six live, and then I would leave from NHL network and drive right to Connecticut, get there basically, with the traffic and stuff right on time for Monday Night Raw to start, watch the show and then go live again.”

What was the audition like? Did you have to do a fake interview?

“No, we didn’t do a pretend interview. It was with Matt Camp, who was with the company at the time. I think they gave us an old show of Raw a couple of weeks prior. And obviously watched that show before I went in, and we just had to go in and do basically that show, minus the interviews. So honestly it felt more like a chemistry test as opposed to like a traditional audition. So we just talked about what happened on Raw and I threw to break and did those types of things and that was that. I’ve never been a big teleprompter girl, so even if they wanted me to, I would be like, unless it’s like a sponsor read, I don’t want it.”

You make it so authentic:

“Okay, well, thank you, because that’s like the best compliment you could give me. Honestly, it’s funny because when I first started, I felt like I did not do a good job of that at all. I think I got very in my head about saying exactly what I was supposed to say, and not screwing it up. But I think over time, one of the things I love about what we’re doing with WWE right now is we are trying to be more authentic, and we are trying to be more real about what we’re doing. WWE has really been great for me in terms of being like, Hey, you don’t need to follow a script. If we talk beforehand that, like, this is the question that we need you to ask. However you get there is fine with us, if you do it within the allotted time. And so that’s been really helpful for me, that I kind of have that support where it’s like, hey, just do it how you would do it in hockey. So this is the angle, this is what we’re trying to push, but you don’t have to ask it in the way that it’s written.”

Is there a switch you flip to go from hockey to WWE?

“I don’t know if there’s a switch that I flip, but it’s definitely different. Because with hockey, and this is a credit to TNT and some of the other people that I’ve worked for, I am sort of able to push in the directions that I want to push, and so I have a little bit more freedom in terms of what I want to ask or what I want to report on, and those sorts of things. But with wrestling, I get to have more fun. I get to sort of show a little bit more personality when the opportunity is there, especially on something like the countdown show or the post-show and some of the long-form interviews that we do. I don’t know if there’s a switch, but it’s different. I do think it’s a different hat, for sure.”

What does a typical day look like for you?

“Oh my gosh, coffee first. I usually like to do a lap just to see, like, who’s kicking around. So I try to shoot the sh*t with some people in the morning. Then I go to hair and makeup. That’s the first stop, and then usually I’ll know what the plan for the show is the night before, I’ll have an idea of what’s going on, and then it’s just about prepping for either a pre-taped backstage segment or a live [segment]. PLE days are really different because we’ve got a two-hour live show. So that is like a whole other different type of prep. But I’m always trying to talk to Superstars and talk to people that aren’t Superstars, that cover the product just about what’s going on and where we think things are going, and what are we clinging to as fans, what are we interested in? And how can I work that into a report that I’m doing or a question that I’m asking? Because I don’t want to ask, ‘How do you feel?’ If I’m going to ask that, I want to at least before I say, ‘How do you feel?’ Give some sort of context or something that either the Superstar, it either triggers the Superstar or it triggers the audience, one of those two things. So for me, a question can never just be a question. You need to give a reason for the question, or you need to have the lead-up to the question be something that evokes an emotion in someone. It doesn’t have to be the person you’re interviewing. Maybe it’s the audience. But I’m always trying to come up with something, because if I just ask, and there’s clips of me just asking, ‘How do you feel?’ Or, ‘What’s next for you? But just know inside, I’m dying that I’m asking it that way, like I hate when I ask questions like that.”

You were interviewing Triple H at the WrestleMania 40 press conference, then The Rock interrupted:

“The jaw drop, the most natural crazy jaw drop of my entire life. The crazy thing about that situation was I didn’t even know I was interviewing Triple H until eight minutes before that. So we’re getting close to the end of this presser, and a producer comes up to me and is like, ‘Hey, we weren’t planning for this, but some sh*t is about to go down, and I think we need to hear from Hunter after this. We need him to give us something to kind of put a cap on everything that’s going on.’ So okay, that’s no problem. ‘So just pay attention. As soon as it’s done, he’s gonna come out of Gorilla, and he knows he’s gonna chat with you to get this instant live reaction from the craziness that just happened.’ So I find that out late, and I’m like, oh. I’m still only a year into this job, maybe. So for me, Hunter is still a very intimidating presence. I’ve met him, I’ve talked to him. He’s lovely, but we’re not buds. I don’t know him that well. I’m like, Oh man, I’m interviewing Hunter, can’t blow this, this has to be good. And then I interview him, and I like, I should know better at this point that basically 99% of the time when I’m interviewing someone, it will be interrupted, that’s pretty much a staple of what I do. But I had no idea that Dwayne The Rock mother f*cking Johnson was gonna come out, yell at Hunter and drop F bombs all on live television. People do not believe me to this day, that I did not know The Rock was gonna do that. I did not know, hand to God did not know that that was gonna happen. And so when it did, that was a very real reaction from me. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. I felt like I was teleported back to being 10 years old, it’s the Attitude Era and The Rock and Triple H are yelling at each other. What is going on? It was a very surreal, surreal moment for me. I don’t say that a lot, like that was one where I was like is this my life right now?”

Do you think you’ll do anything in the ring?

“I mean, I don’t have any desire to be in a match or anything like that.”

If this was 20 years ago, you’d probably be in a storyline:

“I do wish that superstars yelled at me more. I’m not gonna lie, that’s not really a thing that we do anymore, but I want them in my face. I want them to be mean to me. I actually really want that, please be a dick, be a jerk to me. But it’s a different time, maybe one day. No, I don’t want to be in the ring, but I wouldn’t be opposed to slapping someone or taking a bump.”

What is Jackie Redmond grateful for?

“My family, I get to do this job where the possibilities are endless, and that I am getting a reminder to enjoy this whole thing.”

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The Miz (@mikethemiz) is a professional wrestler in WWE. He sits down with Chris Van Vliet in Washington, DC to discuss his unlikely journey from reality TV to WWE by entering Tough Enough, getting kicked out of the locker room and how he was let back in, winning the WWE Championship and defending it against John Cena in the main event of WrestleMania 27, finally getting his flowers, whether he feels respected from the fans, that iconic Talking Smack segment with Daniel Bryan, how he met his wife Maryse in WWE, a possible babyface run, and much more!

At what point did you feel like your career wasn’t going to happen?

“The entire time. As soon as I started at UPW and feeling my first bump that I ever took, I was like, oh my god, this is rough. Am I really going to be able to do this? Then going through the three years of basically trying to go into dark matches, trying to get a notice from WWE or even Japan, was very difficult. Trying to get any type of booking was very tough. I was getting booked on college circuits because I was on The Real World I was going to these colleges, and everyone would always ask me, ‘Could you do The Miz?’ I would cut promos as The Miz. There’d be 1000s of kids there listening to my speech, listening to my stories, and then I would go and perform in back alleys for like 20 bucks, or I wouldn’t get paid. It was in front of 20 people, and literally, it was like that kind of contrast. But I was learning the art of professional wrestling while also doing speeches in front of 1000s of people. It was preparing me.”

Do you remember being told you were going to be on Tough Enough?

“So that was the first break in wrestling, Real World, then The Challenge. I kept doing all the Miz stuff on those challenges. So I remember the call. I wanted to try out for Tough Enough season two, because I found out they’re doing Tough Enough. I didn’t realize they were doing it. Then when I found out they had a show, I asked MTV, I said, ‘Hey, I want to try out for this.’ And they were like, you can’t try out. Because back then, you couldn’t mix and match, you couldn’t mix and match reality shows. It just wasn’t thing back then. They [Real World & The Challenge] were both on MTV, and they were like, it would be confusing, this, that and the other. So I couldn’t do that. So I had to stick with UPW in Los Angeles, continue learning the art of professional wrestling. Plus, I wasn’t sure if I really wanted to be on Tough Enough because I started hearing rumblings. I was kind of, I guess you’d say in the know of wrestling. I would hear stories that if you were on Tough Enough, you weren’t respected. I wanted respect, right? I felt like people were going to see me on a reality show and instantly say, he just wants his 15 minutes of fame, which, by the way, I did, I’m not gonna lie, but I did. I did love being famous or doing things that get a clap, a pat on the back. Maybe it’s because, with my childhood growing up, Dad never patted me on the back and said I was doing great. I don’t know what it is, but I kind of always like that whenever there’s a camera around, I always wanted to be in front of it, no matter what. Even when I was in high school, I remember when news was around us. I remember watching the Cleveland Guardians play, and we were at some sort of concert venue to watch them play, because it was sold out in the stadium. I remember there was a news team and I ran down just to try to get on the news. I was like poking my head, you know. I ended up being on it, and I thought it was the greatest thing in the world. Then cut to what people really don’t know about, I don’t even think, but I’ll tell you, I was on a show before the Real World, on MTV. I went to spring break, and I was in college, went with a bunch of my college buddies, and I saw MTV Spring Break was there, and I was like, oh my god, I got to be on this show. So I went there and I went through the casting. It was at Fat Tuesdays, and they were like, ‘What would you do to get on TV?’ I was like, anything we need me to do. They’re like, ‘Would you eat a bunch of peppers?’ Yeah, no problem. I’m not a spicy food type of person. So it ended up being a part of spring break. It was me versus a guy that was getting his tongue pierced, a girl that was flashing the camera and that was it. So it was us three. I ate peppers. I swear to you, I ate so many peppers, you could see the red just start forming from the juices of it. I’m telling you, I was crying. The entire week was ruined by this senseless act of spring break. But I thought I could win. I thought I could win on spring break when the girl was flashing the camera, and she ended up winning. I know, what a surprise! I ended up having to put ointment on my skin because it was burnt.”

But you got to be on TV:

“But I got to be on TV. So then when I tried out for The Real World, that next August, they almost didn’t want me on the show because they thought I just wanted to be famous. But luckily for me, I went through all the interviews and made it on the show, and once I made it onto that show. Back to Tough Enough. So I wanted to try out for Tough Enough, they wouldn’t let me do Tough Enough. So I started doing that, and then I got a call from WWE saying, Hey, would you like to try out for Tough Enough? We’re doing it in Venice. There’s 50 people that will show up, and you have to just try out. I said, Absolutely. Actually, I think I said yes, or I might have said, Let me think about it. And I called Rick Bassman, who got me in touch with Simon Dean, who was also from UPW and was on the show at the time. I remember asking Simon Dean, I was like, ‘Would you do this? I want respect in the business, I don’t want people to look at me as the Tough Enough guy, and just, I’ll be out.’ Because you watch the Tough Enough people, back then they got it, and they weren’t respected, and everyone wanted them out. If they wanted you out, you’re out.”

 I think Maven would tell you that

“Yeah, if they want you out, they’ll get you. So I knew I needed people to teach me inside the ring, and I knew I needed the respect, and if I went on Tough Enough, I wouldn’t get that. He was like, ‘Dude, have you gotten your foot in the door at all?’ I was like, No, he goes,’ It’s for a million dollars. It’s a million-dollar Tough Enough, it’s a lot of money.’ This is gonna sound really weird, and it might be to some people, but I don’t care about the money. I see the big picture. I just need my foot in the door. Every time I would go backstage for dark matches, they never would pick me. They never wanted me. People knew who I was. I remember me working out with Charlie Haas and Shelton Benjamin. And I remember Bill DeMott walking out going, ‘Real World’s here!’ I was like, oh man. I remember, I was like, Oh man, maybe they know I’m on The Real World. Maybe I can utilize this. Then I remember everyone had to get out of the ring, and Taker wanted to see Chris Masters wrestle. Chris Masters looked like a superstar, and he was like, 20-something, and he was in the same class that I was in. They tried him out, and he got a contract. I didn’t. So I was like I don’t know if I’m gonna get a contract ever. So I tried out for Tough Enough. And Tough Enough was tough. The first day was like 500 bumps. Just bam, bam, bam. All right, flip bumps, boom, boom, boom. I remember a guy, he was a Green Beret or a Navy SEAL, but he was some sort of Armed Forces dude, was stacked tough. I remember him calling us to his room, and he had ice everywhere after that first day. He was just blown up, his elbows were just total inflammation everywhere. And he was like, Dude, I’m quitting. I was like, Whoa, that fast. So one guy quit, and then all of us were just stuck together from that Tough Enough crew, and we’d go out every night, and it was tough. All the things like going backstage, and I know during that time, we’re coming on to Tough Enough we’re there to take a segment out of SmackDown, which takes a segment off of someone in that locker room. Not only that, they fired like 18 people the first day we were there. So we walk in and we’re these guys. I knew, but none of the other guys knew they weren’t trying to become WWE superstars. They were doing all different sorts of things, but I was trying to be a wrestler, so I knew, I was like, oh, man, this is not good. So they put us through the ringer on Tough Enough, but you had to earn it. You had to see who wanted to be there. I made it all the way to the end, but I’ll never forget when Daniel Puder’s name was called, I was like, oh man, that was my chance. I always said, if you have a microphone, you have a time to really get the crowd back into you. I didn’t do that. I don’t know if I was inexperienced enough, where I just felt the emotion so much that I couldn’t think, but when they gave me the thing, I just kind of just said, thank you everyone, and kind of shook hands and didn’t really encapsulate that moment. It was heartbreaking. So I get backstage, Tommy Dreamer comes up to me and goes, you’re probably going to get a contract for developmental. I was like, oh, man, that’s awesome. And then I thought, okay, if I go to developmental, I need to be on TV in a year, right? So if I’m in a year, MTV called and said, Hey, we have another challenge. I was like, Hmm, maybe I shouldn’t do this contract yet. I should get on MTV’s The Challenge again. Hopefully win that thing, and then I’ll be on TV for a year, so the fans will never forget about me being on there. So I kind of told WWE I’d like to wait a couple months just to get my bearings back. I don’t know why I said that, because that’s dumb, like they’re offering you a contract, and you’re like, Yeah, I’ll do it in two months. Yeah, this is my dream job. But I also knew I had a fan base, and I wanted to keep that fan base, and I also wanted closure with MTV. So I went on the inferno part two. I won. And while that show, before that show even started airing, I signed my contract for WWE. Then they were like, Yeah, you’re gonna have to move to McDonough Georgia. So moved to McDonough Georgia, and it was a brand new territory at the time, and, oh, man, it was in a shopping plaza. We were right next door to any type of shop you would see at a shopping plaza.”

I’ve mainly seen The Miz as a heel, but there have been moments of you being a babyface:

“My character doesn’t really work as a baby face, if I’m being honest. It’s a person that can lose, and then the next day, you’ll forget about that loss, because I’ll just cut a promo and just make you believe. But with the babyface, babyfaces can’t really lose a lot. If a babyface loses too much, you lose [appeal]. Everyone always says winning doesn’t matter, winning doesn’t matter. It matters. It really does matter. Especially if you’re a babyface, because in my opinion, if you’re a babyface and I’m a kid out there, my kids always ask me, ‘Did you win? Did you win? Did you win?’ I always have to go, ‘Ah, daddy didn’t win this week. But you know, I’ll get him next week.’ You can only say that so many times to a kid where they’re just like, I want a winner. I want a winner. I want to cheer a winner. People like winners, people like first place, they don’t like second place, they don’t like third place. They want the guy, their guy, and they want their guy to win, so if he doesn’t win… So that’s why I feel like my character, I’m so good at losing and then making you forget about that loss, and then making you believe the next day that I can beat the biggest superstar in the world. I could lose to whoever. Guy comes up from NXT, Je’Von Evans, and beats me. The next day, I can be in the main event. I can go up against John Cena, not anymore, but I go up against your biggest superstar, and I can make you believe I can beat that person, and you will believe that I will beat that person. But as a babyface, it’s a little tougher. It’s been weird these past couple of years, though. I would say this past year has been weird.”

In what way?

“So the things I do that I know in my rolodex of being a heel and being a bad guy, I’ll do and it doesn’t get the boos anymore.”

Because people want to cheer you:

“If you’re gonna cheer me, cheer me. If you’re just gonna go Ah! He’s so good. I don’t want that. I don’t want that. That’s the death, because that’s just, I don’t know what to really do.” 

But do you feel the respect? 

“Yes, I feel the respect. I feel it in the locker room. I feel it in the crowd, but I’ll hear you say it. ‘Oh, Miz has gotten his flowers.’ You know what kind of flowers I get? I get the ones that are half dead, that you give to me and they’re gonna die the next day. You don’t give me a full bouquet of flowers that are like, here are your flowers. John Cena gets the flowers. I don’t get the flowers. I get the half-dead flowers that are like, Here you go, here’s your flowers. We’re giving you your flowers. It’s the half assed flowers.”

Why do you think that is?

“I don’t know. Maybe it’s because, maybe because I don’t want them.”

Have you always been locked in with the fans?

“No. Cena got me there. I would say three or four years in I separated from John Morrison, which was an amazing tag team, for me, at least, it was a very educational tag team, because he was more experienced than I was, he is more out of the box thinker than I am, and he would make me do things that I normally wouldn’t do. But since we did them, it made it awesome. Anyway, I separate from John Morrison. I go to Raw and they’re like, your first feud will be with John Cena. Wow. Excuse me?! I’m wearing shorts, a fedora, a bandana. I’m like, Oh my God, this is it! This is the moment I’ve been waiting for. This is my chance. This is my shot. And by the way, John Cena is not going to be here for the next six weeks. So you’re just gonna call him out. He’s not gonna show up, and you’re just gonna say, I win one, nothing, two, nothing, three, nothing, four nothing, until seven, nothing. Then I’m gonna have a pay-per-view match singles against John Cena. I’m thinking, Oh, my God, I’m coming up with ideas. I’m thinking, Oh, I could do this, I could do this, I could do this. I could do this. Literally, we called that match in the ring. John called the match in the ring, and he gave me, it wasn’t a squash by any means, because I got heat on him. But he literally did his five moves of doom, and pinned me 1, 2, 3, and then wiped the floor with me and walked out. I was like, oh my god, it’s over. I mean, all that work that I just put in, like, I thought I was really getting over. I thought I was really getting steam. And then he just mopped the floor with me. I remember going backstage and I see Arn Anderson. He was like, ‘Great job kid.’ I was like, ‘Great job? That was like, five minutes. That wasn’t the barn burner that you want to put on a pay-per-view match.’ He’s like, ‘You’re not ready for John Cena.’ I go, ‘But I just did all these promos. What are you talking about? Not ready?’ He’s like, ‘You haven’t been through the wars.’ I was like, ‘I was a Tag Team Champion.’ He’s like, ‘Yeah, you were Tag Team Champion. You need to go through the wars to get to John Cena. You need to go through years of just preparing yourself and going through and big builds of big stories that really get you to a John Cena. You can’t just walk in there.’ I was like, oh, that’s how a top guy knows, like John knew. So now I had to go back down and dig deep and start building myself little by little. Find stories, find ways to make a story bigger than it was supposed to be. I started doing that. I started getting the United States Championship. Then all of a sudden, I had the Tag Team Titles. I had three titles at one point. Then I had the Money in the Bank briefcase and I was like, Oh my God. I got three titles, Money in the Bank. I’m really doing it. I’m doing exactly what Arn Anderson told me for the next year.”

Did you have any idea of when you might be invited back into the locker room? 

“I had no idea. I knew the person that told me that, hey, you’re kicked out of the locker room. He said you’re not coming in until I say so.”

Was that The Undertaker? 

“No, that person went away. So then when that person went away, I was like, oh boy, how am I gonna get back in the locker room? So I had to wait another three months. I asked Taker. I was like, ‘Man, I’ve been out of the locker room for a long time.’ He goes, ‘Oh, you have?’ Yeah, I’ve been out like six months. ‘What’d you do?’ I ate a piece of chicken in the locker room, and it got all over. I still believe it did not, but other people will tell you differently, and they can have their opinions. That is fine. I was under a microscope of, let’s get this guy. A lot of times in a locker room, someone could say he ate a piece of chicken over my thing. And, [someone else says] ‘Oh, man, what are you doing? Why are you doing this?’ And then another guy walks in. ‘Oh, you ate chicken over his his bag?’ Another guy walks in. ‘He did what?!’ Then another guy is outside the locker room. And then he heard he ate chicken and he got it all over the place. Then by the time the telephone game was played, I was throwing chicken all over the locker room, I was smearing it on stuff, that’s what it felt like. So yeah, I went to Taker and I said, I ate chicken over a bag. Yeah, it’s real.”

But you have to realize how ridiculous that must have been. 

“It was so ridiculous. I’m a grown man, and people are always like, ‘Why don’t you fight them? Why don’t you stick up for yourself?’ Because back then, if I would have done something like that, I probably would have been fired, or I looked at it as if I stand up to this person who is a locker room leader and very respected, and the reality guy steps up and talks and mouths off at that person, they’re never going to teach me. I need them to teach me. I’m not going to learn this. These new up-and-coming NXT Superstars, as much as they’re going to learn, and trust me, they have an excellent training facility and excellent trainers. But they’re going to learn so much more by being in the ring with people that have been there. Cody Rhodes, when you get in the ring with Roman Reigns, and you get in the ring with these guys, it’s another level that you can’t teach in front of your colleagues, like you can’t teach at a school. You have to teach it in front of an audience. It takes reps and reps and reps and reps. They’ll be the first to tell you it. So I knew I needed reps with stars, with main eventers so I could wrestle like a main eventer. I can watch all the footage I want of it. But there’s a difference between watching it and actually doing it. Everyone can watch it, not everyone can do it.” 

So take me back to the day where you won the WWE Championship:

“I didn’t walk in knowing, that was a day of situation. Same thing when I won my second WWE Championship. I had no idea. I thought I was losing it the second time. I thought the reason they took it off of Otis was so he didn’t have to lose, so they’re giving it to someone that can just lose the Money in the Bank and be done with it. The first time, I didn’t know. It was Orlando, I walk in the arena, and I got into meeting with Vince. Usually I didn’t have a meeting with Vince, but this day they were like, ‘Hey, you got to meet with Vince.’ I wonder what’s happening. Honestly, I was starting to believe I was going to lose it. If you remember, I had three titles. They were giving me the rocket without me realizing I had the rocket. Most people didn’t think I had the rocket either, because even though I had three titles and everything like that, people still just like, Go away, go away. So I get in there, and he’s like, ‘We’re gonna put it on you.’ I go, Huh? Oh, my god, wow, I’m not losing?  No, we’re putting it on you. Okay. I’m gonna do my best to make sure that this is the biggest thing ever. I will do whatever it takes. He’s like, ‘I know you will. You’ve worked hard for this.’ I really have, and I’m about to work even harder. So I remember kayfabing everyone, not telling a soul. I remember I had a match that day, or I had something where I had my gear on, and everyone was asking, Dude, why are you still wearing your gear? I was like, just tired, man, just tired. Everyone’s kind of peeping over. I remember Randy going through the Nexus, Wade, Barrett, everyone. I remember the day because we had a promo class that day, and the promo class was about being animalistic. I think I remember, I think it was Wade and Sheamus having a promo battle where they were barking like dogs. The lesson, as stupid as it sounds, the lesson is sometimes you don’t need words to translate exactly what’s happening in a match, you need that raw, primal [energy]. So I envisioned myself as a wolf attacking. You ever see a wolf trying to attack and the other person’s trying to get away, and you’re just like, it’s locked in on the injury. It sees the blood. When you see the blood, you’re going for it. So that promo class taught me that. So that’s when I walked out and when I got into the ring. I remember I was like a wolf, locked in, saw the injury. His leg was injured. I was going after it. I could feel, and this is whatever, you can call it acting, or whatever, method acting. I could feel my mouth just watering for it, almost foaming for that, because I knew I was getting that title, and I’m going to get that title. So I went after Orton’s leg, tore it up. He goes for his RKO, I hit the move, and while I’m hitting the move, I’m going, yes, yes, yes, yes. Boom, 1, 2, 3, it’s real. It’s real. So many things go through your mind when a moment like that happens, it’s like you see pictures. You see, as a kid, watching wrestling, playing with my red, white and blue ropes, and flinging my action figures, going to Toys R Us, asking my dad, ‘Hey Koko B Ware’s at Toys R Us. Can we please, please, please, please, go, go wait in line and get his autograph?’ ‘No, I don’t have time for that.’ You know, walking in and seeing which one I didn’t have. I don’t have Undertaker. I don’t have Ultimate Warrior yet. I don’t have this one. I don’t have this color. I remember those, it’s going through my head while I’m winning. Then going through meeting Hulk Hogan for the first time in Toronto, and him asking me about The Real World, that’s going through my head. Going to UPW for the first time, meeting Rick Bassman, saying, ‘Hey, I’d really love to train here.’ $2,500 and you can train as much as you want. Absolutely, no problem paying the money. Going to Deep South Wrestling, the hardest stuff I ever had to go through, the blood, the sweat, the tears, then going through getting kicked out of the locker room, winning my first championship, Tag Team Championship, almost getting in a fight the same day that I won my tag team titles. United States Champion, first singles title. Oh my god, climbing up the ladder, grabbing the Money in the Bank briefcase going, oh my god, this is happening. The crowd booing in awe saying, Oh my God, you just threw Randy Orton, our hero, off. This is going through my all of it while I’m winning, while I’m sitting there. This is how fast it’s going through my head, bubble, boom. Then having the Money in the Bank. Everyone’s saying, all the critics and everyone online saying ‘He’s going to be the first to lose. We hate him. We don’t want him, give it to another person. There’s so many better options. Give it to DiBiase, give it to Cody, give it to someone, anyone but The Miz.’ Then going in there and winning and holding it up. And then you’re like, Oh my God. And then all those things go through. And then you feel the eyes, the water starts to happen. And you’re like, No, wait, this is my first moment as a WWE, I can’t be crying. No, don’t cry. Don’t cry. So then what do I do? I get up and I go to the top rope to kind of walk it off. Walk off those tears that are about to happen. I hoist the title up, and I’m like, oh my god. I remember Alex Riley, hugging him, being like, I did it, we did it. Oh my god, I don’t know what to say or do, because that’s not supposed to happen. Dreams supposed to happen when you’re sleeping, not when you’re there, and this is the dream. I walk backstage and everyone’s clapping. Nowadays, no one stays after the show, but back then, everyone stayed after the show. It was mandatory, everyone was there and everyone was clapping. Maybe they were made to do that, I don’t know, or maybe they felt compelled to do it, but, man, that was a really cool moment, really cool moment to have all these people there. Man, this is crazy. And then afterwards, me and Maryse went to Denny’s, and I had a breakfast slam to celebrate because nothing was open and I didn’t plan a party.”

So you remember winning the WWE Championship so vividly, What do you remember from Wrestlemania 27?

“So I remember my entrance. I remember not seeing that vignette. That Hate Me Now vignette is so good. I still think it’s the best. People say Rock and Austin, My Way, they say that one’s the best. I beg to differ, and the reason is what that vignette did in that moment. I wonder if that vignette was put on SmackDown, there would have been a different feeling energy going in. Because going in, I remember I was swallowed up. You’re the WWE Champion, I’m going up against Titans, The Rock and John Cena, titans. Then there’s me with the WWE Championship. Back then, it still is very, very competitive. But man, everyone was fighting for it. Everyone’s fighting for that spot, that main event spot. I’m like, Man, I want this main event. I have to get this main event. This main event is everything; we have to get it. I mean, I have The Rock, I have Cena, this has got to be it. But there were so many great matches and great superstars on that card. It could have went either way. So I remember that leading up to it, the promos everything, oh my God. I remember the promo I cut, where I walked out as The Rock. I didn’t think it was gonna work at all. I went out, did the whole Rock thing, and then I cut a promo, and I remember The Rock calling me, leaving a message, being like, ‘Dude, that was it. That was amazing. That’s how you step up to the plate. Blah, blah, blah.’ I’m like, Oh man, I’m ready. So then for the match portion of this, I remember seeing Hate Me Now vignette for the first time, right before I’m about to go out. I remember hearing the audience go, oh! As I walked out, I had bubbles. In my head I was like bubbles?! Awesome bubbles?! I’m the main event. I’m WWE Champion. People get Pyro, huge displays of pyro. I got bubbles?! I actually ended up loving the bubbles busted out. No one’s ever done that. And then when I remember them saying, ‘You have Pyro for 30 seconds, so make sure you keep it there.’ I’m like, oh, man, this is gonna be great. They’re sparklers. I’m going, I thought these were gonna be big, huge. This is freaking sparklers. It’s like, all right. There we go. Then I remember looking over to my friends and telling them, literally, we did it. I remember being in Parma, Ohio, in Sandpiper at my condominium, and we would watch every pay-per-view, ECW, WCW, WWE all the time. I just remember all of us watching, and they were all there in front row watching me with the WWE Championship that we watched Rock and Austin fight for all the time. So I was like, We did it. I remember Cena’s his choir. I was like, Oh, this guy gets a choir. Then he comes out, does his thing. I remember that the heat spot, if you will, because it wasn’t a heat spot. It was just me beating him up in the corner. I remember that. I remember the pop of the crowd when I kicked out of the AA. I remember Cena saying, ‘Just grab onto the ropes kid, grab onto the ropes. We got you. We got you.’ Boom. Rock. Boom. I remember Chioda going, ‘Cover him kid, cover him.’ I’m just like, Huh, what’s going on? 1, 2, 3, winning. And I remember Chioda telling me, ‘Throw your title at The Rock. Throw your title at The Rock.’ I’m like, Yeah, okay, threw the title at The Rock. Remember The Rock coming in. I got you kid. Don’t you worry. Don’t you worry. We got this. I have no idea. Boom, boom. And then it was over. I remember, I see stuff on the internet. I was like, I don’t remember that. I don’t remember that. I don’t remember that. I don’t remember being backstage and me just being like, ‘Was it good?’ I don’t like seeing myself like that. But some people are like, oh, what would you have done if they stopped the match? That would have been the worst possible scenario, the worst possible scenario, if someone would have stopped that match, I was in good hands, and I trusted the two people in there, and I will always trust them and always be thankful for them, all three of them. It’s not just The Rock and Cena, Chioda as well. They all protected me. They all looked at me, and they all allowed me to do what I needed to do to make that whole situation a success.”

You’ve been there so long that you’ve seen so many of your friends, so many of your colleagues get released. Did you ever think that maybe that call was coming for you?

“Yeah, honestly, every time there’s a release, I’m like, Oh no, is it me?”

Especially when it’s people like Dolph Ziggler get released:

“That was a tough one for me to see him go, because it was kind of like the last of my really core group of friends. I have friends, obviously, in the locker room and that, but that was my core group of friends. I was like man, I’ve had such great matches with Dolph too. Him putting his career up and me the IC Title. That whole IC title reign he was a big part of elevating that title as well. During that time for me, and so to see him go is tough, but that’s the name of this business, it happens, those type of things happen for me, this is going to sound very cocky and arrogant. I know how valuable I am. I know how good I am, and whether the audience sees it or not, I know people know. If you’ve wrestled me, you know. So yes, there’s always in the back of your mind, oh, is it me? Is it me? Is it me? But then there’s also that other part that goes, I’ve done a lot in this business, and I still got more.”

What is The Miz grateful for?

“My wife and kids, to call myself a WWE Superstar, and to wake up every day.”

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Raven (@theraveneffect) is a professional wrestler best known for his time in ECW and WWE. He sits down with Chris Van Vliet at the DDPY Performance Center in Atlanta, GA to discuss his new documentary “Nevermore: The Raven Effect” and why he wanted it to be warts and all, what was the hardest topic to cover in the documentary, an update on his current health and his early onset Parkinson’s Disease, the inspiration behind his iconic look, the chair shot heard around the world, almost knocking out the power at WrestleMania 17, and more!

Visit Raven’s website at: https://theraveneffect.com

You have stopped watching wrestling?

“I stopped watching. I saw some pay-per-views where I was a guest at a party. You know, they pay you to come in and sit around and watch the pay-per-view with everybody. I’ve done some of those. So I’ve seen some stuff, but not a lot, just a couple of reasons. One, I got so disenchanted, and then I just never started watching again, because I’ve already seen everything that there is, and I’m a completist, so I’d have to watch everything. There’s no time to read books or to watch other TV shows. With my sleep disorder, I need to take a nap every day, I need 9-10 hours sleep, so that cuts into my day. Watching wrestling would just take up way too much time. I’m already addicted enough to the UFC and MMA, to get addicted to back to wrestling again would be too much.”

What’s the sleep disorder that you have?

“They don’t have a name for it, but I know another person that has the same thing. The gist is that as you wake up so many times in the night that when you wake up in the morning, you’re still exhausted. So I have to wear a special CPAP that makes me breathe the air. I’m sure, from years of drug abuse and chair shots to the head and stuff like that, and abusing my body, I’m sure this is the price I’m paying. So I go to bed, I can fall asleep, no problem. But then I start waking up. After about two hours, I’ll wake up, and I’ll wake up like every 20 minutes for the next six to eight hours. So when I wake up for good, I’m exhausted, so I’m waking up like 15-20 times a night.”

How would you say your overall health is right now?

“It’s good. I mean, I got the early onset Parkinson’s, which I’m of the mind to say that I don’t have it. But it’s why I have the tremor, and that’s what they think it is. There’s no 100% proof tests, so I didn’t [get tested]. The test they give to prove it only proves it like 90% and there’s a lot of false positives and negatives in it. So there’s no reason, because he said he would treat me the same way, which is nothing as of now, because nothing’s bad enough, although my tremor is really bad right now.”

You’re not on any sort of medication?

“No, no. So there’s no reason. So I’m just going to declare that I’m not, that I don’t have early onset Parkinson’s and then and convince myself that I don’t, because I’ve had it for like 8 to 10 years, and all this is a tremor so far.” 

What causes this? 

“They don’t know. I haven’t put enough study into the diagnosis. Usually I figure out, read the doctor’s notes and all that. But I’d rather just play along. I say I have it, but I’m convinced I don’t. That it’s just a tremor, and I figure mind over matter. Hopefully it’ll stay just a tremor, as it has all these years.”

And you think it’s tied to the way you wrestled?

“Yeah, as I’m saying, I think it’s chair shots to the head. It’s like Ali swore that he didn’t have Parkinson’s, and it was just all the shots he took to the head. That’s what I like to think it is, that and all the drugs. I’m not proud. I used to be proud of my drug abuse, my ability to handle drugs. Now, I’m just embarrassed by it.” 

Are you sober now? 

“I’ve been sober for years.”

I loved the documentary. Was there anything you were afraid to show?

“No. I always wanted to write a book, because I thought my story was interesting and it could help people, [but] I’m too lazy to write a book. You know how much work goes into a book? Because you got to edit everything. I’m a perfectionist, though, so I’d be re-reading it and re-reading it and re-reading it. I don’t see how directors, when they make movies how their view must be. You must get so jaded when you’re editing down, and you’re going through something and you’re like, I gotta tighten this up. Should I tighten it up? Should I not? You look at it, your perspective must be so hard to keep because you’re looking at it over and over and over again. Like, if you look at doing a funny bit and you think, this is funny like this, it could be funnier like that. Could be funnier like that. What about this? Now, it’s not funny at all. Wait, where am I, you know? That’s how I’d be with a book. So the director came along and heard me on Steve Austin’s podcast and thought I was really fascinating. His words, but I’ll agree, just kidding. And he wanted to write a documentary about me. I said, I’ll do it, but as long as it’s warts and all, because I wanted to tell my story as the truth, not just rah, rah, you know, not just a happy-go-lucky piece and not just yay Raven, because that’s not what I’m about.” 

How did you come up with the name Raven?

“I was watching The Crow for inspiration, and the character’s name was Eric Draven. I go, ‘Draven. Raven. Quote The Raven. Nevermore.’ All right, I got a name and a catchphrase. Boom, now I need an outfit. I put the outfit together in like two minutes, because it wasn’t hard to figure out. Then I came up with the idea of a concert t-shirt, because I’m a big believer in ring jackets. You gotta have a bunch of ring jackets, because to be a star, you gotta look like a star. But Raven’s character wouldn’t care about looking like a star. I had to get an anti-star look, that still was a star, made me look like a star. So I figured with the concert shirts, I’d have a different shirt every day. So every match I could have a variety without having to change my jacket. Plus, I had no chest. I always wanted to be a bodybuilder, but I never had the genetics for it. So I had a thick waist, no abs, flat chest but I had big arms and shoulders, at the time, until injuries took their toll, but that’s a long story. So I figured I would wear a concert t-shirt with sleeves cut off, show off the arms. You want to accentuate your strengths and hide your weaknesses. And I hid my weaknesses. And another weird thing about that is I had really good legs, like really good thighs, but I had such a thick waist that it took away from it, but my thighs were really good. But for the look I needed to cover them, because I would have wore short shorts, I would have looked lik Steve Richards. So sometimes you have to pick one or the other, you know what I mean. But it’s such a unique thing, trying to get the most out of everything you can with the least amount of effort.” 

What bands were you listening to to create the character?

“Soundgarden, Alice in Chains, but also listen to a lot of black funk from the 70s too. That was always one of my favorites. I find that once you reach 40 years old, 40 to 50, you stop listening to current music, and you start listening to the stuff you listen to when you’re 10 or 12. So I went back to that, and I listened to a lot of the O’Jays and The Spinners.”

You guys were taking straight chair shots to the head in ECW. Was anyone putting their hands up?

“Yeah, some guys were, but then they get chastised by the rest of the locker room. The smartest thing ever, and it’s such a great spot, is Sabu used to take the chair and he’d throw it at you. Not only could you make it make a great clattering sound and make it fly off, but it didn’t hurt and it didn’t cause damage. We all should have been doing that, but that was brilliant to come up with.”

So what was the story behind the chair shot heard around the world?

“I had beaten up Dreamer so many times that they needed to get some revenge on me, and to give the people something. You had to give them something to hope in their babyface and give them something to look like it was over the feud. I forget exactly what led up to the chair shot, but when we got there, Paul is like, ‘I’m gonna have Tommy hit you 10 times with the chair.’ I’m like, ‘No, you gotta hit me once. It’ll mean so much more.’ He goes, ‘No, 10 times. You got to take it 10 times.’ I’m like, ‘No, I’m not going to do it, Paul.’ He goes, ‘What are you scared?’ And I’m like, ‘No, I’ll take nine chair shots back here, but I’m only taking one out there, because it’ll mean more if you hit me with a bunch of them.’ He goes, ‘Yeah, but Axl Rotten is hitting three chair shots in his match, and New Jack’s hitting five in his.’ I’m like, it doesn’t matter. This is something Roddy Piper taught me, doesn’t matter what happens in anybody else’s match, as long as they believe in your stuff. So I said, ‘I’m just taking one.’ He finally goes, ‘All right, I trust you.’ So if Dreamer gave me the one shot and it’s remembered. Imagine if there was five more coming after it, it wouldn’t have meant anything.”

Did you think the crucifixion angle was too controversial?

“I didn’t think it was pushing the envelope. I didn’t think so. I understand why Paul E made me cut an apology afterwards, but partly it’s because my family’s Jewish. I don’t follow the religion, but my family’s Jewish, and my last name is Levy, so people just assume I’m Jewish, and Paul E is Jewish, and Todd’s Jewish. Todd Gordon, the owner. So they thought it was a mockery of Christianity, but had nothing to do with that. I mean, Madonna masturbated with a crucifix on MTV., I’m thinking this is tame compared to that. To me, it was just a metaphor. It was a metaphor. The Crucifix with Sandman was just for him to feel my pain. Because Raven was always. I considered him a martyr for society’s dysfunction.”

While you were in ECW, was the goal to get back to WWE or WCW?

“I was really happy at ECW but yes, I wanted to go back to WWE. I wanted to be the top guy in the top promotion. I got to be the top guy in the number three promotion. And for a long time, I felt like my career was a failure because of that. I think I talked about it in the movie, in the documentary, but it took a lot of time on a therapist couch to let myself off the hook. Because you hold yourself to such a high standard that I can’t see the forest for the trees. If anybody would have came up to me and told me what my career was, and it was theirs. I said, Man, you got a really successful career. But I couldn’t count it as with that for me, because I didn’t get to be a World Champion of the WWE.” 

Is it true you guys nearly knocked out the power at WrestleMania 17?

“That’s true. I’m driving the golf cart, and Show’s choking me. I didn’t expect Show to be choking me, so I wanted to swerve a little bunch because I didn’t want to just drive straight, because we’re supposed to drive all the way around the Astrodome, make a full 360-degree drive. And that was my favorite spot of the match, and I totally ruined it because there was a fence, a chain link fence from ceiling to ground, and the sidewalk dropped off on the other side of the chain. So I went to bounce off the chain with the car, figuring I bounce off and swerve back on, and the wheel just went off the edge and just died right there. The car wouldn’t move, you know, to try the golf car wouldn’t move because the wheel was off the road, and so I tried to get it back on, and Show is going ‘No, no, leave it. Leave it.’ I’m like, I want to go. Kane’s going to chase us in the other golf cart. It’s going to be so cool. So then I just ran out in the traffic and got run over by Kane.”

That could have been so bad:

“Yeah, but I had do something to make in my mind to make up for the spot that I screwed up. But when I found out after the show, one of the production guys grabbed a hold of me, and he said, ‘You know you came within millimeters of cutting off the power to the entire show. You landed right on the wire that has runs the power to the show, if you would have cut through, you would have killed power to the entire event.’ That would have got me so much heat, I would have definitely been fired for that.”

How many hardcore championships did you win?

“39, they only give me credit for 27 though.” 

So where’s the extra 12?

“I don’t know. At some point, I go, Yeah, I wonder how many of these I’ve won. And so I counted back and then I counted forward after that, I got 39. But they get 27 so, yeah, but then a lot of times it would change hands three or four times in the night.” 

Do you feel like you were underutilised in WWE?

“They should have pushed me. They didn’t really push me at all. I should have been used, at least as a strong mid-carder, if not a main eventer. But that’s me. I mean, I could be biased, and I’m sure I am, but looking at it objectively, I think I could have drawn money for them.”

What is Raven grateful for?

“Selina takes up all the spots.”

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