Will Sasso (@willsasso) and Dan Soder (@dansoder) are actors and comedians. They sit down with Chris Van Vliet at West Coast Creative Studio in Los Angeles, CA to give us their hilarious impressions of Macho Man Randy Savage, Jesse Ventura, Hulk Hogan, Andre The Giant, “Stone Cold” Steve Austin, Dave Chappelle and more! They also discuss their shared love of wrestling, thoughts on the Hulk Hogan documentary, celebrities in wrestling, an incredible story of Will driving Bret Hart to a WCW show, Dan meeting Randy Savage, and more!

Dan Soder: “There’s been some good stuff coming out of the Hogan doc, which I was very excited to talk to you guys both about, because you were at WrestleMania 18, you knew the greatest Hulk Hogan known to man. Was there stuff in the doc that you were surprised they put in?”

Will Sasso: “Yeah, a bit. Well it was so personal, although they skipped, from what I understand, they skipped an entire wife. Nothing was too shocking. I mean, didn’t they get into the racism a little bit? That’s good that they didn’t shy away from a lot of his misgivings.”

Dan: “As I watched it, I was like, Oh, no, is this going to be one of those things where it’s just like, and then he was the best, and then he wasn’t the best, and now it’s sad. But I was like, no, they went. Keeping Bret Hart in there [chef’s kiss].”

Will: “I was watching something where it was like, Kevin Nash was talking about, I recorded for 90 minutes, and then they kept a sound bite, which is fine. But the fact that they kept a good minute and a half of Bret going,’ I thought he was my friend, and he’s a piece of sh*t.’

Dan: “The two parts that really made me laugh my ass off. Number one, that it was surprising that they kept a Bret Hart compliment in there, because he was like, promo-wise, he was 10 out of 10. But the thing that made me laugh the hardest was when they were talking about WrestleMania 9 and when Yokozuna beats Bret, and then Bret’s on the side, and they show Hogan coming down, and he goes, ‘It’s only a match Hogan can dream of.’ And he goes, ‘Oh yeah, my good friend, Hulk Hogan.’ that had me laughing my ass off.” 

Dan: “I love Jesse Ventura in the doc. He gave him respect…”

Will: “[Impersonates Ventura] Because that’s where the money is. You wanted to be in the A town. Where would you rather be? Would you rather be Hogan versus Nikolai Volkoff, or do you want to be over with Bundy and Stud? I like John, he’s a great guy, one of the nicest guys. I like Chris too. I like Bundy.” 

Dan: “Did you watch the Hall of Fame?”

Will: “I keep it on the laptop when I’m in the hotel, so I don’t really watch it. Steph’s was very long.” 

Dan: “That’s what I heard. I heard that was an hour that it should have been its own special.”

Will: “I really was wishing Sid’s family would have got time. Sid was the man, and the ruler of the world!”

Dan: “No disrespect to Dennis Rodman, you did the nWo thing. It was great. Sid gave us a lot more. Sid gave us all the WCW years, the WWF years, when he came.”

Will: “They got rid of the celebrity wing. Get rid of the celebrity wing, because that doesn’t make sense. Just induct Pete Rose because he did some WWE sh*t. Induct Dennis Rodman, because he did some WWE sh*t. You get the name recognition at the show. But they’ve replaced that with, like, here’s the match so they can slow down these inductees and have a show for years. That’s fine. The match is fine. But the legacy wing?  There are people who have gone into the Hall of Fame who haven’t done anywhere close to what Sid did, yeah, and they’re just in the Hall of Fame as the show changes. Now, with different ownership and everything, and the whole business of the WWE is completely rethought behind the scenes, I would imagine, I’m talking out of my ass. But when you’re given sort of the MO of what this thing is and what our TV time is. Somehow along the line, it’s like, oh, Sid got f*cked over. What is the legacy wing? There’s no physical Hall of Fame! Just put him in the f*cking thing!”

CVV: Not everyone has to have a match. People forget Snooki had a match at WrestleMania

Dan: “By the way, all over the internet, people who love to act like this is new, that celebrities are a part of wrestling. Celebrities have always been a part of wrestling, but it’s the recipe of how they’re put into the event. I think management is the way to go, having them be a manager, because you’ve got the legends like Paul Heyman, and there’s great managers. But management was such a fun thing in wrestling that they used to do so well that they can bring back so easily.”

Will: “You can do it just for a minute, like they did Alice Cooper with Jake the Snake. That was great.”

CVV: “Will Sasso was there in the early days of the Raw guest host era.”

Will: “We’re at Raw in Washington, DC, promoting the Three Stooges thing. Three Stooges the movie. I say this as a wrestling fan, there was a celebrity every week. This is almost sh*tty to say out loud, but I was like, I don’t think this is because [of us] We’re all behind the movie. I just understood wrestling fans, they fucking hate that stuff. I had done it, and I’d seen the sort of the way people had reacted to it.” 

Will: “There was one time I drove Bret. Bret comes to LA and he goes, ‘You know, I’m gonna go do a little surprise thing at the forum. But I don’t want anyone to know that I’m going to be there, can you drive me into the forum?’ I said, Yep, yeah, I’ll clear my calendar.”

Dan: “What is a car ride conversation with Bret Hart, like? Is it about the Calgary Flames?”

Will: “I’m from Vancouver, Canada, and he’s of course, from Calgary, so we’ll talk about that sh*t. We’ll talk about where to eat in Calgary, just stuff, mutual people we know. Bret is a wonderful dude and has always been so kind to me. Well, the one thing I asked Bret to tell me anytime I’ve seen him, I can’t tell the story, because it’s his private memory, sure. But they ribbed the sh*t out of Outback Jack. They f*cked him up. It was him and Neidhart and the Bulldogs, and it is the most legendary story. Anytime I’ve asked him to tell me the story. There’s another part that I didn’t know about. ‘Then, Jack’s passed out. We finally got him back to his bed. And then you know, Davey boy just got up on the bed…’ This f*cking horrifying story of the sh*t they did.

But anyway, I drove him into the forum, and he’s underneath a jacket in the back of my truck, like this. I just drive up to the thing, and I roll down the window a bit. They’re like, ‘Hi, who are you?’ I roll down the window a bit, and Bret goes, ‘It’s me, I got it.’ They’re like, Okay. Then I drove right in, and Goldberg was doing a photo shoot right there, and then Hulk is there, and then Goldberg throws a t-shirt at my face, like he throws a t-shirt at me, it’s like we’re playing around, like we’re friends. Then Hulk was in the red and yellow for a minute and was cutting a promo. Bret’s music hit, and no one had seen him in WCW for a year.”

CVV: I love that the cool thing about wrestling is that it brings in all fans. It can fool people like us, and then new fans, or casual fans, can go, do those guys actually hate each other?

“That feeling when someone you know doesn’t watch wrestling and they ask a question like that, you go, I got you. Come on in. The water’s very warm. But I do love that, and it really reminds me of every time they get us fooled on kayfabe. It reminds me of when you see an old married couple that’s happy and they always go, he always finds new ways to surprise me. That’s what wrestling is. You keep making me fall in love, you keep bringing me back, because I got lucky. I told you about that. I met Macho Man when he was doing the rap album. He came through KMFA in Tucson. I was a DJ there, but I did overnights and stuff while I was doing stand-up. I went in to get my paycheck, and my old program director, Matt Spry, RIP, he knew I loved wrestling, and he knew I was really into it. He was just at his desk program, and he was like, ‘You should go in the production studio.’ I went, Oh, do they need something for the weekend promo? He’s like, ‘Just go in the production studio.’ Those heavy ass doors, and I opened it, and I hear, ‘You’re listening to Tucson’s New Rock, 92.1 and 101.3 KFMA.’ I was like, Who is doing this? I opened it, and it was him, and he had his back to me. Consummate pro. Does it, looks at Rick the producer, and he goes, ‘Was that all right?’ They go, yeah, that’s all right. He has sunglasses on, and Rick, my friend, Rick Berg, was there, who’s doing the production. He went, ‘This is Dan. He works here.’ I remember he turned around, he Oakleys on, and he had the black leather hat backwards. But I remember he took his glasses off, and I remember going, like, your eyes are so deep in your head. Like, that was my first thought was, like, Damn Macho, your eyes are deep in there. But he was like, ‘Very nice to meet you.’ And it was just very calm. I was like, when’s the album coming out? He’s like, ‘We’re doing a little press, that’s a little something, couple of weeks.’ You’re like, wow. He was very low, very normal guy, and then left.”

Dan, how do you feel when people say you have the best Macho on Earth?

Dan: “I disagree. It’s just cool that people like it.”

CVV: Will, how did you dial in Jesse Ventura? Because you can go on for 20 minutes doing it

Will: “I was doing Jesse Ventura when I was a kid. Because you’re watching wrestling, and it’s, ‘What do you think, Jess?’ It’s like, ‘Close only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades,’ and it was like that. Even when I did it on Mad TV, it wasn’t good, because he’s like, ‘I’m from Minnesota,’ I would just hit the A’s. Because Jesse’s voice, as we know, these impressions change over time, and his timbre is changing.”

CVV: I interviewed Jesse Ventura. I said, it’s been 35 years. Do you think you’d want to bury the hatchet? And he goes, “No!”

Dan: “Damn. Well, you know what? And honestly, when you see about why Jesse Ventura is so mad about it, he’s got a point. He’s like, You f*cked over all the future wrestlers just so you can stay the top guy.”

CVV: Instead of me asking you guys what you’re grateful for. How about I ask each one of your characters what they’re grateful for? Andre the Giant, what’s one thing he’d be grateful for?

Dan: “Bordeaux!”

CVV: What would Hulk Hogan be grateful for?

Will: “Well, hold on dude. Hold on Chris. Hold on Dan. Well, hold on brother. Because I’ve had a long life, dude. I’ve had a big, long career. But more than anything, brother, I’m thankful for Hogan’s Hangout. We do karaoke on Tuesday night. Rest in peace.”

CVV: What would finally, Macho Man Randy Savage be grateful for? 

Dan: “For the top turnbuckle. Let me say again, for Elizabeth.”

CVV: The very last one. What would Jesse Ventura be grateful for?

Will: “Well, I’m grateful for a lot of things, but I’m most grateful for the American people, because they’re the only thing that’s going to get us out of the predicament that we’re in. Power to the people, and that’s how I became the mayor of Minnesota. But stay tuned, because I’m bringing some things federally that you’re going to hear about soon. I’m not going to break it here, but you know, pretty soon you’ll see.”

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Rico Constantino is a professional wrestler best known for his time in WWE. He sits down with Chris Van Vliet in Arizona to discuss the many jobs he’s had on top of being a pro wrestler, winning American Gladiators, starting wrestling in his late 30s, wrestling John Cena and Brock Lesnar in OVW, how he became Billy and Chuck’s manager and The Stylist, why he was released from WWE, his appearance in AEW, if he is open to one more match, and more!

You might be the most interesting man in the world. When you think of all the different careers that you’ve had before wrestling. Then wrestling is kind of like this window of time for seven years or so, and then a whole other life after that. So it’s police officer, paramedic, American Gladiators.

“That was fun. Then I went to France, and I did their version called Conquer Fort Boyard with a team, and I won $25,000.”

Also bail bondsman, bodyguard, pro wrestler, of course.

“I was in the Conan show at Universal Studios. I was in the Conan the Barbarian show. I played a bad guy named Missoura, and then I was the Michael Keaton Batman for Six Flags in Valencia. Yeah, I was a stunt man.”

How’s your health doing? Because I know for a while you had some complications.

“When I was an officer, 2014-2015, I caught blood clots. I had three of them in my femoral artery, and I tried to overcome them. They put me on blood thinners. When it came time for the state to make a decision, I was a liability because I was on blood thinners. So I was forced to medically retire. I went vegan. I did juicing every day, did everything, and then I got rid of the blood clots. My health came back. I went back to working out, and in July 2019, took me six months. I went back into work, I got a job as a security officer, and then I got back into what I really love, investigations, detective work. But I couldn’t be an officer, so I became an investigator for a commercial insurance company called Bell United. We did limousines for a number of hotels, insured them, did accidents. I did the same thing I did as a cop, except I didn’t arrest anybody or give anybody a ticket. I wrote reports, and higher-ups would decide what was going on. The insurance company, you know, you take photos of the accident or a passenger gets injured, or stuff like that. So I did all that, I did that as a police officer too. I wrote a report, and I passed it to the detectives, and who passed it on a district attorney or city attorney, and they decided to proceed or not proceed with the case. But I never took anybody into physical custody or wrote him a ticket as an insurance investigator.”

Has your health recently been?

“It was great, but last March [2025], I was doing great in the gym, everything. Joe Matthews, a promoter, brought me to New York, and my fiance has never been to New York, and I did a Friday, Saturday morning, Saturday night signing, and Sunday, when I was leaving, the promoter, out of his good graces, took Julie and I to New York and gave us a tour of Times Square and everything, and took pictures with Julie and everything. It was great. He dropped us off at the airport three hours delay, and so by the time I hit my seat, I was exhausted, and it’s five and a half hours to get back to Phoenix, and I didn’t get up once, so I developed DVT [Deep vein thrombosis]. That’s a blood clot in the legs. So I got one more in my femoral but what other one that’s more dangerous is I got one in my popliteal artery, which is harder to get rid of, and it was causing me pain behind the leg and stuff like that. Since then, I’ve been on a new blood thinner and the pain behind the legs has gone away. I go for an ultrasound next month to see if all of it’s gone away. And in that, within that, I was getting my physicals and stuff like that, they found a small blockage on the left side of my heart. So I’m going through that now. And my sleep apnea returned, so now I do a CPAP machine at night.”

We recently saw you in the ring with AEW. You look like you could go again.

“I could, and I wanted to. But I was a manager, and things didn’t happen. I told you off-camera what I thought of, and it was shot down.”

Because what a wonderful surprise. When people think of you, they think of Billy and Chuck. For you to be in a segment in a match with Billy Gunn in there, it just seemed perfect.

“Oh yeah. I just wish we could have told a story in the in a pre-tape, because people weren’t really getting it, because the crowd had changed over 20 years, and Billy just off the cuff, went down, and he cut a promo off top of his head, saying, ‘You’re the guy that almost made me marry Chuck.’ So then maybe brought some stuff back, and we did the match, and Billy got his revenge at the end. I interfered with the match and stuff like that. Then Billy snuck up behind me, and all of a sudden, you saw the match, and oh, I know this face. I know that ass, turn around, ‘No Billy, No!'”

Do you consider yourself retired? I don’t just mean from the ring. Are you retired now? 

“Well, right now, as I’m going through the blood clots and the blockage right now, I am retired, but if they can clear the blockage, either with a stent or remove it, and these go away, I’ll return to part-time work. I’ll go and work again. Maybe, you know, if somebody wants me to make a special appearance, I’ll get right back into ring shape.”

Would you wrestle another match?

“I would. As soon as I get into ring shape, I would, and it won’t take me long. I’d love to in one of the bigger promotions and stuff like that. I’d love to do a tag match. Not ready to do singles yet. I would love a tag match.”

So at 38 you’re looking at wrestling. You’re going maybe for your first wrestling training. Were you thinking this is going to be a career, or was this just something fun you were going to do with your brother? 

“I was going to do it with my brother and eventually tag with him and stuff like that. We went down to school of hard knocks, Empire Wrestling Federation with Jesse Hernandez. So I go there, and Jesse starts giving me hints. I’m listening, and he asked me to come back. So once or twice a week, my brother and I would drive to San Bernardino, work all day at the bail bonds, three-and-a-half-hour drive, work out three hours, three-and-a-half hours back, and then go to work the next day. I ended up being the heavyweight champion. I took it from The Ice Man, and while I was champion, I got to wrestle Honky Tonk Man in a title defense, and Jesse told me, you won’t go over clean. There’ll be a disqualification this and that. I said, I’m fine with that. I’m getting to wrestle one of the guys I saw on TV. And we go on the match, and I give him a headlock takeover, and at the end he tells me to pin him 123, in the ring. Then he tells me, as I go over to him, he goes, ‘Go smash my guitar.’ So I get his guitar, and I smash it on a ring post and everything like that. And Jesse’s like, ‘What are you doing?!’ I get to the back, and Jesse goes, ‘What did you do?’ I said I did exactly what he said. You’re kidding. Let’s go see him right now. Yes, sir. We saw him, and Wayne gave me a great compliment. And Jesse goes, Why? He goes, ‘When he gave me that first headlock takeover, I knew this kid knew what he was doing.’ Kid? I’m over 38.”

If this is your brother’s dream, how does he feel when you get signed to OVW, eventually signed to WWE you’re the one living his dream when you’re just along for the ride, at first:

“Very supportive, because the developmental contract is not that lucrative. Very, very, very small. I had a wife and two stepchildren at the time, and he would help make ends meet. I went through OVW, and I only wrestled eight months and was in 12 matches, and Finkel calls me at the bail bonds office going, ‘Hey, kid. You want to try out in Connecticut? 10-day tryout?’ Yes! ‘Okay, give me your information.'”

Had someone sent you a tape in or something?

“I don’t know who did. I’m assuming it was Jesse, but they gave me a tryout, and that was the last Dory Funk dojo, and Mark Henry was part of that. Nicole Bass was part of that. Dory and his wife were interviewing people, and they did about three or four and then he gets to me, and they spent about three or four minutes with everybody, and he gets to me, ‘What’s your name? Where you from?’ I said, Las Vegas. ‘How long you been in the business?’ I said, eight months. They all stood up and walked away. Oh, that is not good.”

Before you had the stylist character that everybody knows from WWE, what was your gimmick in OVW?

“The American gladiator champion. That was it red, white and blue, all American hero. And then I was having a match with Flash Flanagan, he was supposed to give me hip toss, and I was supposed to flip out of it and hip toss him. Well, my leg hit the ring and my quad snapped right in the middle of the title fight. So I was down. I mean, from the knee below, it was just like this. So Nick Dinsmore did a run-in on those two and then they got me out, and I was gone, and the doctor said, You’ll never wrestle again. I said, Oh, okay. He goes, ‘So you might want to think…’ I said, Wait, wait, tell me that part again. He goes, what? ‘You will never wrestle again?’ I said, Yeah, that one. Say it again. ‘You’ll never wrestle again.’ I said, keep telling me, keep telling me. He put me back together. I went to rehab, and the rehab was where famous people went. I mean, Andre Agassi and his wife went there. Every day I was on the bike, I was sitting next to Tiger Woods, who was a wrestling fan. I was a golf fan from my father, and I’m sitting next to Tiger Woods. This is before he married his girlfriend. So we’d sit there, and I’d tell him about wrestling, and he’d tell me about golf, and who was the heel in golf? Vijay Singh was the heel. We were talking, and he’s wearing Nikes all the time. He looked at me, and he goes, ‘You got the wrong shoes on.’ Because I was wearing Reeboks or something. And then one day during therapy, he comes in, he’s not wearing Nikes. And I said, what happened? He goes, ‘All those shoes gave me blisters on my heel.’ I said, ‘Yeah, you’re wearing the wrong shoe.'”

So when you’re in OVW, did you ever think you’d get a call to go on the main roster?

“I was hoping for the call, but my age played something on it. I was too old. I’d get the reports, you know, they’re saying you’re too old. So here I am trying to do everything and just get a shot. It finally came down to you’re going to be cut in 90 days. [Well] there it goes. Well, Cornette was upset at it. So Cornette, Danny Davis, JR, because I was always in the JR report, and I got to do a spot with Stone Cold at Christmas Chaos in Louisville, they stood up for me. So when SmackDown and Raw came to Louisville, Cornette had a meeting with Stephanie and said, ‘You’re going to cut him anyway. Just call him up to be on the road do dark matches, maybe you’ll think of something.'”

You had dark matches with some legends. There’s one. It’s you and John Cena versus Shelton Benjamin and Brock Lesnar. 

“Benjamin and Brock were the Minnesota stretching crew. Cena and I were the Southern Tag Team Champions. I was the role model. He was my prototype. So we’re going to go out there and titles are going to switch. So we go out there and do this big bang match, really good match, and they win, and we go to the back and they say, Good job, good job. And then Kenny [Bolin] comes up. He goes, ‘We’re going to have to gonna have to go back out.’ I said, What? ‘We’re gonna have to go back out, do another match and switch titles again.’ And I go, why? He goes, because the first match isn’t ready. And I went, oh no. So we got together and start talking, and we were in gorilla 30 seconds ready to go out of the curtain and do a rematch, and then the first match pops up. This is in a WWE ring.”

So how did you eventually get the call that you were going to be the stylist?

“I’m doing a dark match. I’m wrestling Raven, so now I’m a face, and I’m stretching and stuff like that. Stephanie is at this house show, and she’s talking to Jacqueline, and they’re laughing and stuff like that. They’re looking at me and then giggling. I’m like, Is my zipper down? I look down, I’m going, I’m in tights. There’s no zipper. So they’re laughing and stuff like that. So I got wrestled, and I get Jacqueline later, because I’m not going to confront Stephanie. And I said, what was going on? ‘Nothing.’ You know how women say that, nothing. But she said, ‘I do have one question, would you be willing to dye your hair blonde?’ I said, Yeah, why not? ‘Oh, okay, thanks.’ And left it at that. Few weeks later, I’m at home. I’m on an off week, I get a call saying they want you in Ottawa. For what? You’ll know when you get here. So I just pack things, and I don’t know what I’m doing. So I get to Ottawa, I go in, and I meet with Vince, and he goes, ‘You’re going to be Billy and Chuck’s stylist.’ I said, Okay, hair stylist, foot stylist, what kind of stylist? He goes, ‘Flesh it out.’ And he turned around and walked away on me.”

When you think about this being almost 25 years ago, what Billy and Chuck were doing was miles ahead of their time at that time.

“But when we agreed to do that, when I got there, we had a meeting with Vince and said, Listen, as long as we don’t embarrass that lifestyle or show it in a bad light, we’ll keep going. I also did the same thing with Vince when I turned into the Adrian Street flamboyant character. I said, I will not degrade these people. I will not embarrass these people. So I said, So how far do you want me to go? Quote from Vince, ‘Strap a rocket to your ass and take off. I’ll tell you when to stop’.”

Is it true that during that time with the Billy and Chuck gimmick that there were wrestlers that didn’t want to work with you guys? 

“No, it wasn’t the Billy and Chuck gimmick. It was my flamboyant [gimmick].”

There were wrestlers that didn’t want to work with that gimmick?

“No, they thought it would hurt their character. I don’t know, Charlie was trying to explain it to them, and he said, ‘Listen, this is the easiest it’s going to get. All you have to do is have facial expressions, no bumps, longevity, just react to what Rico does.’ And everybody took it. There was a lot of people, Dreamer, Richards, Spike, Val Venis, I could keep going on even now. You know how hard Bob Holly is. He wanted to keep that character, but he did it the right way. Charlie and I were Tag Team Champions going into Judgment Day. So Bob Holly and I had a one-on-one prior to Judgment Day. So I did my flamboyant stuff in there, and Bob would look at me and go and mouth the words, I’m not doing that. I’m not playing that. And of course, I continue with it. And then I go behind him, then he goes behind me, and then I bend over. So I get my stuff over, and he pushes, and he’s pointing. And then I go prance to the corner, and then I come back to go do something flamboyant, and he clotheslines me. And then he gets to sit there as his character, Bob Holly. I told you I don’t play that. I want you to wrestle, and you can read his lips. I want you to wrestle. And then we get into a hell of a match.”

There was an issue with Bubba Ray Dudley. He didn’t want to do this, right?

“Well, yeah, there were a couple of things. We’re in Chicago at the Allstate Arena, and we’re going to do the match, and Dudley’s are going to be the 18th tag team champions. So we go there, and we’re doing the match, and Bubba has to throw me out of the ring. So he throws me out of the ring, and my leg bounces, top rope, bottom rope slingshots, and I tear my hamstring. I hit the floor, and I know I heard a pop. So D-Von grabs me to slam my head into the steel steps, and I told him, ‘I’m hurt. I’m hurt.’ So he throws me back in the ring to give me back to Bubba. And then as Bubba’s picking me up, I say, I’m hurt, I’m hurt, and I’m in a suplex so he can hear me. I’m right next to his ear. Well, he suplexes me, and I hear it go pop again. And then they sling shot me from one side to the other, and I’m limping because my legs not working. Then I tried to do a little fire back, and I threw the punch, stomped my left leg, and I couldn’t stand up. I fell down again. So when it’s time to pin me, Bubba knows I’m hurt. He pulls me to the corner, steps on the second turn buckle, and bends my left leg over by my shoulders. I hear it again. So they win and go off and I just lay there. There’s no way I’m getting up three, three pops, one match. I never got an apology. I never got an apology. 

Before that, there was No Mercy. It was Jackie Gayda, me and Charlie against Dawn Marie, D-Von and Bubba. I forgot who the agent was, but we’re discussing what we want to do. Bubba, ‘I ain’t doing that. I’m not doing that. I’m not doing that.’ And I go, Well, I guess I’ll just stay in the corner, always giving respect. So I think it was Pat Patterson, as a matter of fact, all of a sudden, Pat says, I got to go. And he walks away. A few minutes later, over the loudspeaker, ‘Bubba Dudley, meet in the green room.’ Well, you know what that means? That means Vince is in there. So he comes back, and he has a totally different attitude. So from not wanting to do my little ride on cowboy, pinch the butt, pitch the cheek, kiss on the cheek, or whatever, he comes up with a spot he does where Jackie’s in the ring and he’s not supposed to be touching the girl, so he gets her by the hair, gets her on her knees, and says, kiss me, baby. Kiss me, baby. And he closes his eyes and puckers his lips, and he puts both hands behind his back, and Jackie rolls over, tags me in. I tiptoe in, and then I kneel down next to Bubba, and I stroke his head. He’s going, Oh yeah, baby, oh yeah, oh yeah. And then I go and give a big kiss. He looks and he’s like home alone. He runs out and he’s guggling water, and he walks out of the arena, just walks up the platform. And then now I’m around there with D-Von and I’m doing the small packages and try to get quick pins and stuff like that, and we continue to match. But for somebody who didn’t want to go through any of that, thought of one of the best spots.”

So you debuted in WWE in March 2001, got released in November 2004 

“Well, I wasn’t going on any shows. My final release was 90 days later. So I was under contract until February 2005.”

Were you surprised when you got released?

“Yeah, and I went and asked Vince for a raise because I had already fulfilled my three-year rookie contract. I’ve held the tag titles twice, once with Rikishi, once with Haas. I was going to almost every show and on TV. I said I want $1,000 a week.”

What were you making before?

“Minimum, which was $75,000 a year.”

But $1,000 a week is less than that?

“No, I wanted a $52,000 raise on top of the $75k. I thought I was worth it, and Charlie and I and Jackie were about to come out on the SmackDown magazine front cover, and he told me I wasn’t popular.”

So that’s what led to you being released?

“Yeah. Vince didn’t like me because of my age in the beginning, he was forced to put me there. And if anybody out there looks at my background, I’m an Action Man. I’m a straight to law enforcement. I’ve been to two police academies, graduated number one in both of them, I’ve got life-saving awards. I was voted one of the officers of the year by Crime Stoppers for catching a person who was escaping her parole, who led me to a person who was wanted for murder, and I caught a homicide suspect and shipped them back to LA. So I’m that type of guy. EMT, paramedic, people running this way, I’m running to trouble. I want to help people. So here Vince gives me this style in some feminine character, they may be hoping I fail. Well, I turned it around.”

One spot I need to ask you about is the way that Rikishi gave you the stink face.

“Oh, yeah, I’ve talked to Rikishi since then. He says, that’s gone viral. What happened is, the week before I made my debut on SmackDown, and I kissed Charlie Haas right in the mouth, I’m talking a pucker, and he couldn’t get back in the ring, so he was counted out. Well, the next week, he was in line for the Tag Team Championship, and it was Rikishi and Scotty. Now I’m a face, those two are faces, and he’s a heel. So I relied a lot on Rikishi to figure this out, and we wanted to get the flamboyant over. So one part before the stink face, Rikishi got tired of me fooling around, and he shot me off for a clothesline. I did a sunset flip on him. You know when he smacks his butt to sit on you. He smacked his butt. I reached up and I smacked his butt. He went, Oh! He sold it like a million bucks, and went and tagged in Scotty. So now they’ve had enough. They don’t want me in the ring, and they’re beating up on Charlie Haas and Rikishi is going through his finish, and he puts Charlie in the corner, gives him the squash. Charlie starts to do this, and everybody knows. Rikishi walks to the center. Charlie falls. And I’m like, oh no, I can’t have him take a stink face. I jump down, and he gives us the turn, and I get Charlie by the leg, and I drag him out of the ring, and all of a sudden, a loud boo. I went, Wait a minute to Jackie, and I jump in the ring, and I get into position, and then everybody went from boo to falling out of their seat. So then I stick my hand out to Jackie. She pulls some Chapstick out of her bra. I put it on, throw it up, and I go, come on! He goes, okay, and he gives me the stink face. I’m like woo! Give me a cigarette or something.”

You still have this like excitement for life, even to this day:

“I do. I thank God every day that I open my eyes. Not to bring a downer, when I was sick, I had the blood clots, one in each lung that made me medically retire. But I didn’t get better. I was getting sicker. I got peripheral neuropathy in the legs because of my spine, my neck, two joints were degenerating, ligaments in there, and then I got vertigo, where I couldn’t even get out of bed. I was crawling down to get to the bathroom, crawling up and down the stairs. Then I got migraines, and they were giving me Botox shots in the head to get rid of the migraines, plus medication. So for three years, I was down, and after about the second year, trying to fight, I think it worked through me, and I had sleep apnea, so I was on a CPAP machine on top of all that. I just finally came to terms with my condition because of everything I’ve done. Like I said, it wasn’t my age, it was the mileage, all the mileage I put on my body is traveling around the world twice, all over the United States, being part of the Power Team with John Jacobs, breaking bricks, ripping phone books, snapping bats, and being an ordained minister, doing programs and stuff like that, Gladiators, stunt man work. I’ve run my life in the red my whole life, until now. Now I’m driving around like a Prius. I just motor along. I’m not a NASCAR. But came one time where I just finally look up to God, and I went, Okay, God, going to bed. If I wake up in the morning, I’ll take my medicine, and if not, I’ll be next to you.” 

Did you really not think you were going to wake up?

“Yeah, after that, the last year. I really thought it was over, because I kept getting worse, stuck in a house for two years.”

But look at this new chapter of life. It’s brought you to reconnecting with your sweetheart from when you were 18-19 years old, living here in this beautiful house on this acreage with your animals. 

“Cowboy mountain shooting, got my aquarium over there and got the best woman in the world. We’re having a blast. And I surprised her on July 4, I drove out, and when I saw her, and I asked her the same thing when I saw her, in that moment when she walked out with these three huge dogs, there was another dog before Odin. But once I saw her, it’s like we were never apart.”

What is Rico grateful for?

“Through God I was cured, I’m still here, and that I am still useful in this life.”

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Joe Hendry (@joehendry) is a professional wrestler and a member of the WWE Raw roster. He sits down with Chris Van Vliet at Insight LIVE in Tampa, FL to discuss his latest parody song “Fire Logan Paul”, future plans for more parody songs, how he hilariously messed up a WWE try-out, why he decided to dye his hair blonde, making his WWE main roster debut, his WrestleMania 41 match with Randy Orton, how close he got to wrestling John Cena, which Championship he has his sights on next, and more!

So what’s the process when you’re writing a parody song about one of your opponents? What is the thought process of putting this together, and how do you pick the melody?

“So I think it’s a huge challenge to try and get something that is going to make the audience laugh, they’re going to remember, and you hope it goes viral as well. I remember I was working on this song, and I just wasn’t really sure what the big hook was going to be. The song was about me signing to Raw. So it started off with the ‘Raw, Raw, Joe Hendry’s signed to Raw.’ But then if I’m struggling with an idea, I’ll watch the previous week’s TV. Anytime I saw Logan about to speak, he wouldn’t be able to, there’d be so many boos. So I was like, I have to go straight after Logan. Sorry, Logan.”

What’s the thinking behind it? Is it to try to get the crowd to sing along? You’re trying to also embarrass your opponent? What are all the components there?

“You’ve nailed it right there. So basically, it’s two things. One is you want to say something that’s relevant to what you’re doing and the story and who you’re working with, but you also want the audience to be able to sing along, and the easiest way to do that is to use a song that everybody knows. That’s where it gets really challenging when you have to create a song that you’re going I have to write something so catchy that’s not only relevant to the situation, but the audience is going to be able to sing after hearing it only one time. That’s a really hard thing to do, but when you nail it, you know you’ve nailed it.”

I feel like your career took a huge upward turn when you dyed your hair blonde. So what went into dyeing your hair blonde?

“So there are two reasons, I would say. The main reason is that it was around Christmas time. You know when you’re gift shopping for people. I was kind of walking through a store and there was a bunch of wrestling figures. I was like, I’ll take a look at this. I was looking at the action figures, and at the time, I just looked a bit generic. I just thought, if I had an action figure, it would be a bit of a boring action figure. I remember, in various wrestling video games, people would make me, and I’d go it’s a bit of a generic wrestling character. Then I thought, well, what if I dyed my hair? It was when we were in lockdown in the UK, I started watching wrestling that I hadn’t really seen before. I’d kind of missed that period of the 90s where Sycho Sid was starting to get towards the world title. I was like, he’s awesome. This guy’s wrestling! That kind of inspired me as well. So I decided I’d dye my hair blonde, and that’s why I was doing Power bombs and choke slams when I had no business to be doing them.”

Where are you actually recording these, are you recording them in your apartment, your house. What’s the deal?

“Actually, I could drop an exclusive right here for people. Because this is actually very relevant. So this is an exclusive. I haven’t told anyone anywhere, but I have recorded an album with WWE Music, and it’s going to drop this summer. We recorded most of that in New York at the WWE Studios. So what I’ve done now is the microphones that we have there, I have basically replicated the setup back home now, so I don’t need to fly to New York to do it. I can send stuff in, and we can work on it back and forth. So that’s one of the things that makes these songs work, is because they’re fast and they’re topical, so we can basically, we obviously did the Logan Paul song on TV, but we were able to just get it done that week, because we could send files back and forth. But yes, there is an album coming out.”

Is it an album full of all original songs, or have we heard some of these songs already? 

“Well, I will say, they are all original songs. I won’t say any more than that; they are all original songs.”

You’ve had these moments with WWE in 2014 you’re probably thinking, it’s right around the corner, I’m going to get signed, and then you end up becoming the 10-year overnight success.

“There was a time, I think, in 2016 where it was looking like I might have been a part of the UK tournament, and I’m glad that I wasn’t, because I don’t feel I was ready for it. Because I feel like, back then, I was doing my entrances, they were getting views, and I was operating on this level of my entrances. But at that point, I had my debut two or three years previous. I would have been up against guys like Pete Dunne and Trent Seven, who were seasoned in-ring professionals at that point. So I feel like it was almost good that I didn’t get that opportunity then, and kind of took a different path, and I feel like everything has happened for me when I’ve been ready for it and in the right order. I wouldn’t change a thing. I love the path that I’ve taken.”

How did your WWE tryouts go? Were you ever close?

“So I’ll tell you now. I’ve messed up a WWE tryout worse than anyone ever has. I’ve never told this story before. So yeah, we do the tryout, and we’re getting a bunch of feedback. So William Regal is telling us, ‘You’ve done a good job, need to focus on physiques. You need to focus on your technique.’ I’m thinking, all right, cool. So I go into catering. All the other guys are talking about how good the cake is in catering. I’m like, these guys, we’ve just been told to work on our physiques, and they’re eating cake. I’m going to show them that I’m eating rice and chicken. He’s going to see that, and he’s going to go, he’s coachable. So I’m sitting there with my rice and chicken. So, William Regal comes down, sits with us all. This is the awesome thing about William Regal, he sat down with us for like two hours and just told us, this is what wrestling is. I can remember almost every word that he said, and it helps me to this day. But the main point was that you as a wrestler is about building trust with the audience, so when the audience see you, they know that they are going to get value. They’re going to be entertained. It’s not just the big wins, like we talked about, the pay-per-views and the TVs, it’s the house shows, it’s the fan interactions, it’s everything. He made me realize that about the business, but he’s given us these amazing lessons. I’m sitting there with my chicken and rice, and he’s in the middle of this very impassioned speech, and while I’m chewing, this little piece of rice just falls down the back of my throat, and I just try and clear my throat a little bit to get rid of it, and I inhale the piece of rice. So I’m in a situation where I got two choices, right? I can either just cough and interrupt this story, oh, sorry, my bad, and move on. Or you can just say, You know what? I’m going to try and clear my throat silently. So he’s telling the story, and I go, I’m going to do that. I just end up accidentally inhaling another eight grains of rice. So he’s telling this story, and I’m there, and I’m like, and the guy sitting next to me is like, What are you doing? He’s in the middle of a story. I basically spat rice all over the table where everyone’s eating, and he’s telling the story. So from his perspective, he’s telling this story, and I’ve just gone, oh yeah [coughed up rice]. So maybe that was the reason. Who knows? But no, he sold it beautifully. He just says, ‘Can’t take you anywhere, Joe.’ And then walked off. So that was a comedy gold response.”

Well, you’ve been the TNA World Champion. You’ve been the NXT Champion. What’s the next one you have your sights set on?

“That’s such a tough question to answer, because you have different focuses at different points. I used to be like, I have to sign with WWE. I have to be there by this year, and I have to do that. Actually, when I was on the Indies, that got quite exhausting, that way of thinking, and I shifted my focus. I remember the day it happened. I was wrestling for a company called North Wrestling in Newcastle, England, and I did a parody video of Bon Jovi on Scotty 2 Hotty. I remember the audience just went nuts. There was like 200 people there, but they all went nuts. I thought, You know what? If this is as big as it gets, that’s cool. This is my job. I’m committed. I am a pro wrestler. If it never gets bigger than this, I know I killed it. I know I entertain those fans, and I’m going to give my best to entertain the fans no matter what I’m doing. When I shifted my focus to delivering value for the fans, rather than I want this belt. I want this. I want that. That’s when things really took off. I feel like now I’m in a phase where I feel like if I just commit to entertaining the audience as best as I can, and doing the absolute best job I can, all those things that I want will come to me. That said, Intercontinental Championship, please.”

You made it really clear that you wanted to have a match with John Cena before he retired. The last time you were on my show last year, you said, I’m going to put this out on the world. I’m manifesting this. How close were you to having that match with John Cena?

“I mean, I don’t know. I think the thing is, to me, it’s something either happens or it doesn’t. Ultimately, I have to put the responsibility on myself. I didn’t wrestle John Cena because I didn’t do enough to make me an obvious choice to wrestle John Cena. So I didn’t do enough somewhere along the way, and that I feel led into the motivation that I needed in NXT, because it made me realize. Because if you think about it, I’m going, I’ll wrestle at the Royal Rumble, I’ll wrestle at WrestleMania, and I’m saying this crazy stuff, and it’s happening. So I think that gave me a reminder that you just can’t take progress for granted. You have to work for everything. I was like, All right, okay, I got to take things up another level now, and I think it inspired me to work harder. So again, I have no regrets, because I look back and go, yeah, maybe could have been stronger in this area, this area, this area, but I won’t let that happen again. The next thing I want to put out there, I’ll make sure I get it.”

Take us backstage to WrestleMania. 41 Randy’s music hits. He’s out there. There’s this long, long, long pause before your music hits. What are you thinking in that moment?

“I mean, that is hard to put into words. I was standing there for what felt like a long time. When all this is going on, it feels pretty surreal. There were definitely a few moments where I was like, This is real life, isn’t it? This isn’t like some elaborate dream that I’m having. But I remember being in Gorilla, I was watching the video package for Randy’s 20th WrestleMania and I was like, this is a really good video package. I was like, This is great. Then I was like, oh, it’s me, all right. I’m about to go out. Just a moment where I kind of got lost in it. And then they were like, right, go. And then so I’m standing in front of the video wall, I’m doing my pose, and I’m just like, This is nuts. I was there the whole time he was doing the promo, it’s almost impossible to put it into words. The door opens, I do the spin, and it was just like this wall of energy and noise. I was just like, wow. I still remember exactly what I saw. That’s one of the things about wrestling, is I don’t know if, like, fans realize this, this is kind of a wrestler thing, but sometimes, if you have a moment in wrestling, if you watch it back on YouTube or whatever, you kind of don’t remember it from the first person point of view, through your own eyes, you’d remember it as you’re watching two people wrestle or whatever. But that’s why I make sure, with these big moments, to just really try and take a mental picture of what’s going on. I’ll never forget making the walk at WrestleMania. It was surreal. It was incredible.”

How many blue shirts and pairs of white pants do you own?

“So this is a point of major contention. It’s less than you think, and the reason I say that is because people are like what? But if you think about it, the shirt is actually only worn for probably 15 minutes a month really. Because it’s like, I’ll wear it maybe one segment a month. It’s not one, that’s what I’ll say. It’s not one, but it’s not much more than one.” 

What about the white pants?

“Again, it’s not one. It’s not much more than one.” 

What is Joe Hendry grateful for?

“Opportunity, that I got to learn new skills in NXT, and family.”

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James Yun (@jimmywyang) is a professional wrestler best known for his time in WWE as Jimmy Wang Yang. He sits down with Chris Van Vliet in Indianapolis, IN to discuss how meeting DDP on Halloween led to the start of his pro wrestling journey, Vince McMahon forgetting he had fired him, how he was pitched the Jimmy Wang Yang character, wrestling as a flying Elvis in TNA, running a party bus company, his daughter Jazzy Yang now wrestling, and more!

I think that there’s certain people who only know Jimmy Wang Yang, and they think that that’s who you are.

“You know, I was actually born in Hollywood, California, so I’m half Korean and half redneck, I guess. My mom’s white. I was born in Hollywood, but I grew up in Atlanta.”

Where are you living now?

“Hiram, Georgia, like, 20 minutes west of Atlanta. I have built a wrestling school in my backyard. I know you like backyard wrestling. I’m a backyard wrestler in my past. As a kid, I would have loved to have a ring in the backyard. I built a school, Yang’s Dojo, and it truly is backyard wrestling.”

What you’re doing in the backyard is not really wrestling. It’s like pretending to be the people you see on TV. What does that transition look like for you?

“So that was pretty crazy. I was obsessed with wrestling in high school, the Monday Night Wars. The new generation would have hated me because I stalked. I did my research. I went everywhere. If I knew where they were going to be, I was there. In high school, I was so crazy about wrestling, and then everybody knew it. Some of the classmates were like, ‘Hey, Jimmy, we have a wrestler that lives in our neighborhood.’ I was like, ‘You do? Who?’ ‘We don’t really know, but he has a blonde mullet, and he goes “Bang!”‘ I said, ‘DDP lives in your neighborhood!?’ Oh, my God, this is crazy! I was like I gotta find him. I was on the internet and stuff. It’s like, DDP’s real name is Page Falkinburg? Okay. I know he lives in this neighborhood. So me and my friends, we came up with the greatest plan ever. Halloween was coming up. It was like, Okay, we know he lives there. So this is our plan. We’re all dressing up as wrestlers, and we’re going to go to every single house until we find him. So I dress up Sting, paint face, all that kind of stuff, and friends, DDP and Ric Flair. Was awesome. So it’s like we went to every single house, we knocked on the door, and Kimberly Page opens the door. She was the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen in my life.” 

“She’s like, ‘Oh, you guys are so cute, I gotta go get Page for this.’ I was like, what? He’s here? No way! Page was so awesome that night, he came to the door. He’s like, ‘Bang!’ We’re going crazy. So then he said, Come on in, kids, let’s take some pictures. Put my friend in the diamond cutter. My friend tried to get out, got a diamond cutter on the floor. I was like, that is so awesome. Then we left, and then Eric Bischoff drove down the street and he saw us, ‘DDP sucks nWo rules!’ And it was like, Oh my God, there’s Eric Bischoff. Then I forgot my book bag at Page’s house. So I went back down, and I knocked on the door. Said, Hey, Page, I forgot my book bag. Oh, come on, get it. I grabbed it, I turned around and said hey, DDP, I know how to wrestle. I wrestle in high school, and I do backyard wrestling. And he’s like, ‘Kid, that’s awesome. When you get old enough, come back and I’ll take you down to the Power Plant.’ That sentence changed my life, because I didn’t think I was gonna be able to become a professional wrestler or anything. And DDP said, Hey, kid, you can get old enough come back, I’ll take you. I was like, Oh, my God, that’s crazy.”

So you were the youngest person ever signed a WCW contract at 19 years old. How did that come about?

“I was 18 years old. So, it was a crazy day. So what happened, we were wrestling at that bar in Atlanta, and all sudden, a Sunday comes, and the promoter calls, saying, ’Hey, Jimmy, I need you and Ryan down here right away. Chris Canyon is coming to look at you guys. You’re gonna have a trial match in front of Chris Cayon.’ I was like, what? The thing is, I was such a fan, I was like, oh my god, Chris Canyon is gonna be there. It’s like, I’m there, you know.”

How were you received in the locker room? Being a lifelong fan. Because in that era, especially in WCW, there were a lot of people that just got signed because they were big, or they just got signed because they played football. You’re someone who went in with the knowledge of being a fan. Were you received differently?

“So I must have been kind of good at hiding it. That’s another big moment for me is when I got my first WCW Saturday Night Main Event match. Growing up in Atlanta, I only had two channels growing up, PBS and TBS. But WCW Saturday Night was my show. It was WCW wrestling, Atlanta Braves baseball. Then when I got the call saying, ‘Hey, we need you in Amherst, Massachusetts for Saturday Night main event.’ I’m like, Oh my God, this is actually happening. So I got there, going to the arena, and I’m such a mark. I’m telling you, I walk in, I was like, oh my god, there’s El Dandy. Oh my god, Bob and Steve Armstrong, the Armstrong brothers, Juventud Guerrero, all these guys. I’m like, oh my god, this is so awesome. I think I was taught properly about respect in wrestling. DDP knew who I was, but they didn’t know the crazy wrestling fan. But it was pretty awesome.”

Could you kind of see that the end was near for WCW? Could you tell that things were going downhill there? 

“Not at all. That’s the thing, I grew up on WCW. No more WCW? That was never in my mind. But it was crazy, but I’m 18 years old. I don’t know what’s normal. I went from that bar wrestling and see New Jack stab somebody in the parking lot. Seriously, first time I met him. But then, yeah, going to WCW, and seeing some of the guys and seeing the environment, like I said, Oh, this is just pro wrestling, this is crazy life, the wild wild west. But I just knew I was very young, and didn’t know any better. I had about five different bosses during those two years. I’m like, this doesn’t sound right, but I didn’t think WCW would ever end. That’s a stake with my life.”

So when WCW got bought out by WWF, at the time your contract went over to WWF, where you’re like, Great, now I work for WWE?

“So that last Nitro, I can’t believe it’s 25 years.” 

Why didn’t your time in WWE at that time last very long after you got picked up?

“So what I think, because they bought WCW, they had bought our contracts, they just bought ECW, and then they had the WWE roster. At the time, they didn’t have the separate brands, they had just one show doing Raw and SmackDown. So I just think the roster was overloaded at that first time in WWE. I don’t know how many people were on the roster, but you can only have so many matches on Monday, you can only have so many matches on Friday, and then whatever else But that first run, I think it was just so many people and they couldn’t find me a spot.”

What do you think your career looks like if Jimmy Wang Yang isn’t a character that’s given to you?

“I don’t know. Because I was still wrestling in Ring of Honor and Japan and all that kind of stuff, and then just crazy timing and situations that turned me into an Asian redneck.”

What was the situation that turned you into that?

“So, yeah, me trying to get laid turned me into an Asian redneck. I was in Ring of Honor. Personally, I think I was doing the coolest celebrity wrestling angle of all time. My favorite movie Berry Gordy’s The Last Dragon. I brought Bruce Leroy into wrestling, and was starting this angle with Jimmy Rave and the Embassy. But during that time, I started to talk to this really hot blonde, she was on the Diva Search and everything like that. Then I saw that WWE was coming to Lexington, I would live in Cincinnati. I’m like, Oh yeah, making my plan baby. You want to go to the WWE pay-per-view? I’ll hook it up, free tickets, all that kind of stuff. She’s like, Oh yeah, that’d be awesome. Ok here’s the plan. Get down there early, go in there and find my boy, Steve Rubin. Steve Rubin used to hook us up with tickets. Take the girl out, wine and dine, all this kind of stuff. So I go down there. I get to the building, I’m standing around greeting everybody, and all sudden, Vince is walking down toward me. I’m like, ‘Hey, Vince.’ ‘Jimmy, where the hell you been?’ You fired me! ‘What I did? Oh, we got to talk about that. I want to talk to you in a minute. Just stay here. I gotta go do this. I’ll be back.’ He didn’t know he fired me. Okay, whatever. So I go to catering, I’m eating a steak, and all of a sudden, everybody comes running me. ‘Jimmy, what are you doing?’ I’m eating a steak? ‘Can we use you at the ring?’ I was like, Sure. I go to the ring, they had the Spirit Squad and Shawn Michaels out there, and that’s the pay-per-view with Vince versus God. Then Spirit Squad does a run-in and they do their finishing move to Shawn. So me and Shawn are the same size. They want to make Shawn feel comfortable getting thrown 20 feet in the air through a table. ‘Hey, Jim, can you do the spot for Shawn?’ Okay, sure. Then I get in the ring, and Michael Hayes is like, ‘Hey, Vince, you think we should let Jimmy do it? He’s not under contract.’ [Vince said] ‘He should be under contract. Let him do it!’ So, hey, throw me 20 feet in the air, go to the table. How was it? My answer, it was okay, it’s a 20-foot bump through tables, but it won’t kill you. It didn’t kill me. It’ll hurt, but whatever. Okay, cool. Anything else? ‘Can I get some tickets for the show?’ Oh, yeah, we’ll take care of it, whatever. So I’m there, and then got the tickets. I’m about to go do my thing. I’m like, oh yes, it’s Yang time, baby. Then they say, ‘Hey, Jimmy, what are you doing tomorrow?’ I know what I’m going to do tonight. So I don’t know how tomorrow’s gonna go. ‘Can you come to Raw?’ Raw was in Columbus, so three hours away, but then I got this hot blonde. Okay, yeah, I’ll be there. I did go to Raw. I show up, ‘Hey, Jimmy, can you have a match? You got your gear?’ Wrestlers’ rule, we always have our gear. Yeah, I’ll do a match. Okay, now I’m really impressing this girl. Got her the tickets last night. Now she’s coming to the show. She gets to see me perform. So they put us on Sunday Night Heat versus Charlie Haas. I think we had a great match, then afterwards I’m like, Ah, yeah, your boy is in tonight. Then I come back and they say, ‘Hey, Jimmy, what are you doing tomorrow?’ I said, I know what I’m gonna do tonight. I don’t know about tomorrow?’ So SmackDown is in Cincinnati, in my hometown. Hey, can you come to SmackDown? Sure. I walk into SmackDown and Johnny Ace pulls me and says, ‘Hey, Jim. So we’re gonna hire you again.’ I was like, Oh, really? Cool. This is my third run with WWE. So I was in developmental, Akio and Jimmy Wang Yang. This is so crazy. Now I’m getting these opportunities. I want to go thank Vince. I go down to his office, knock on his door, ‘Hey, Vince, it’s Jimmy.’ ‘Oh, Jimmy! I didn’t even know you were fired.’ [Vince said] I got this idea. The last time I didn’t let you talk because you’re this Korean dude from Georgia, you got a southern accent. So this time, we’re going to make a positive out of a negative. I’m going to turn you into the Asian redneck [laughs].’ I’m like man, this is f*cking weird. ‘And your name’s gonna be Jimmy Wang Yang. Because it rhymes! That’s hilarious.’ Cool, man, as long as that check comes every Monday, I’ll do whatever you want. Okay, good, all right, get out of my office. What just happened? That was so weird. Then your boy got really lucky that night.”

Did you have any idea what this gimmick would be for you?

“No. So all I was told was you’re being an Asian redneck coming to SmackDown. I was like, cool. When they pitched the character to me at that time, I was like, sweet. I’m gonna be the new Doink the Clown, comedy character kind of thing. That will be cool to have. As a Korean kid in Georgia, I got my material a lot from the people I knew, and I just made it as ridiculous as possible. So then the debut, and then having a match, all of a sudden it was this switch of being kind of like a celebrity, I didn’t know how that would take off so well. Because I just remember after debuting, and then, like, I’m going to the airport and wear my goofy ass cowboy hat, I get mobbed by everybody. I’m like, holy crap. This really took off. I was kind of surprised how well that took off.”

So what did you think when you heard your theme song for the first time?

“I know people love that theme song, but I hated it. I hated it as a wrestling theme because I couldn’t get fired up to some bluegrass. I was like, Man, how am I supposed to get fired up to this song? I need to get fired up for this match that we’re about to have. But it is a good song when you’re sitting on the porch and all that kind of stuff. But as wrestling music, it was kind of too slow for me.”

You’re paired with Torrie Wilson for a length of time here. What was your reaction when they paired you with Torrie?

“So Torrie was with me in WCW, and actually, I helped train her at the Power Plant at the time. But even back then, she was so hot, so smoking hot. I was a young man seeing this beautiful woman, and I was like, Oh my God. Then finally, whatever amount of years later. Jimmy, Torrie’s gonna be your girl, your valet, and she’s gonna be your girlfriend. Nobody’s gonna believe that. Are you kidding me? That was awesome. I know it’s short because she had an injury, but Torrie is awesome. Beautiful, sweet girl, and she actually put her time at the end at the Power Plant, and really learned how to learn about this business.” 

What made you want to start a party bus company?

“I was just looking at all the different types of businesses that I could do. Then I saw the ad and this guy is selling a limo business. I’m not the smartest dude, but I could drive. So, okay, this is a business I can do. So I went to go look at his limos, and then when I saw the limos, I’m like, I don’t know. He said wait, I got a party bus, but it’s a redneck party bus. I’m like, bring it on out, baby! They bring it out, it’s like, Oh, my God, I’m in love, this is the greatest thing I’ve seen. Then I think in marketing, advertisement, the character and all this kind of stuff. I’m like, how much you want for all of it? This much? Okay, here, boom, here. I’ll take it like this. And then it just kind of exploded from there.”

You must have seen some wild stuff on a party bus.

“That’s the thing. People definitely do wild stuff, and a lot of people and customers are like sorry, we were so crazy, so wild. I said I was a professional wrestler for 20 years, WCW, the crazy times, I was in all Japan with those guys, and WWE is, like, you think you guys were crazy. You’re not as crazy as the locker room and the wrestling life. So it’s definitely crazy, but I’ve seen more in locker rooms and hotel rooms and bars and stuff with wrestlers.”

You got vignettes, and not everybody gets a vignette. That sets the character up so that by the time you do debut, people know exactly what to expect. When you were reading these vignettes, were you like, ‘You want me to say what?’

“Yeah, that’s really because they didn’t know how the audience was gonna react to me. But it was different times. When I see it, I kind of am ashamed of some of the stuff that they wanted me to say, because it is like, ‘Oh it’s funny when you say it because you’re half Korean. I couldn’t say it, but you can say it because you’re Korean.’ No, it’s gonna be funny to you guys. I understand what’s going on. I say this is funny to you guys. But for my culture and my people, it is offensive.”

What was the most offensive thing?

“The most offensive thing is me wearing the Confederate flag on my back. They said ‘Hey, we want you to be an Asian redneck.’ Okay, what do you think of? I think of rodeos. I think of NASCAR. I think of Dukes of Hazard and General Lee. I’m like, Oh yeah, I’m an Asian redneck, so I gotta wear the Confederate flag on the back of my vest and go out there. But if anybody knows what that symbolizes, it’s God awful, and it’s horrible. I wish I hadn’t done that. Undertaker is the one that told me. He saw me wearing it, ‘Jimmy, take that f*cking sh*t off!’ I said I’m playing a character, an Asian redneck. ‘That sh*t means some horrible sh*t. Take it off.’ All right. Then I take off, and they said, ‘Hey, where’s your jacket at?’ [I replied] ‘Undertaker told me to take it off.’ Okay.”

What is Jimmy Wang Yang grateful for?

“My daughter, professional wrestling and the fans.”

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James Fullington (@ecwsandman) is a retired professional wrestler best known for his time in ECW, WCW and WWE as The Sandman. He sits down with Chris Van Vliet in Las Vegas to discuss his retirement match against The Invisible Man in Las Vegas, how the Singapore cane became his signature weapon, making his entrance to “Enter Sandman” by Metallica, his legendary entrance at ECW One Night Stand, the controversial crucifixion angle with Raven, and more!

So who got a really stiff Singapore cane shot? 

“I don’t know if it was in the ring with Taz. Yeah, he would have got one. You got to understand, back in the day, we were setting a different standard where stuff was a lot more real than things were in the rest of the wrestling world, on the planet. So we were laying stuff in, mostly all the time. Chairs, it didn’t matter what it was, you were getting a chair shot. Punches are different. I mean, if you get stiffed with a punch, then the guy screwed up. Really, you really shouldn’t be stiff with some guy with a punch. But a Balls Mahoney chair shot is a Balls Mahoney chair shot. It’s gonna be stiff, and that’s just the way it is.”

How did this become your weapon?

“So there’s this kid, Michael Fay. He was in Thailand. He’s an American, and he got hooked up with some big kids over there, and they spray-painted some cars. So it was big news that this kid’s going to get these eight lashes with whatever the hell they call it. We’ll call it a Singapore cane. It’s like an oak tree or something like that, and it’s wrapped with vines and thorns and stuff like that. One shot and it’ll bring blood on you. So Todd Gordon calls me and goes, ‘Listen Paul wants you at the studio.’ I just happened to live like 15 minutes from the studio. So I’m like oh darn, Paul’s got something for me. So I show up there, Paul takes me outside. We’re standing in the parking lot and he goes, ‘Listen. You know about the kid? Michael Fay?’ Yeah. He goes, ‘Well, you’re gonna bring a Singapore cane to the ring.’ I’m like, Well, what am I going to use for a Singapore cane? He looks up. We were standing under a tree. He pulled the branch off of the tree, pulled the twigs off of it. He goes, ‘Here, cut a promo with this.’ I had seen Tojo Yamamoto use one of these in the 70s, in an old video somewhere. I’m like wow, I’m not going to the ring with a regular stick. So that’s what I came with, this thing. It took me a little while to find one.”

Is this last match at Joey Janela’s Spring Break your last match? 

“Yeah, my son told me I would have thought it probably was like 2018 or 19, but I just told me it was probably more like 2010 for Bubba Ray in Philadelphia. That was the last time I was actually in a match. Now, there’s tons of times like when people hire me to go all over the world, it’s usually to go out there with some beers, play my music, pour some beer down people’s throats, go in there and whack a couple guys. I don’t do tackle, drop down, hip, toss, arm drag. You know what I mean? I go in there to drink some beers and whack some people. It’s pretty easy pay too.”

How did this come together for you to have a match with The Invisible Man?

“I found out about it, and I loved it. I don’t remember exactly how it came about. I can’t remember.”

So where are you at right now with your relationship with pro wrestling? 

“I’m on the road maybe 25 times a year. I took a couple of my sons along, and then I got a couple of my sons here with me now and then I think we’ll go to Germany this summer. So it’s like, take my boys on little vacations and you get paid to do it.”

So when you look back at the start of your career and now, how do you encapsulate this insane ride you’ve been on?

“Too many drugs, honestly, too many drugs. A lot of smiles. I get a lot of fan mail and stuff at home. Just some of the things that people write to me and they tell me how I got them through a hard time in their life, or when their dad passed away, or something like that. Those are the times when it’s really, really worth it. I mean, it’s great when you’re living your life dream. When I was five years old, all I ever wanted to be was a pro wrestler. That’s it. Not a cop, fireman, doctor. All I ever wanted to be was a pro wrestler, so I got to live my life and make decent money out of it and make people really happy. You know, when you get some people come up to you and they’re like, ‘Oh my God, you’re the greatest thing ever.’ That just gives you goose bumps. That’s cool sh*t.”

With so much respect for you. Are you surprised you’re still alive sitting here today?

“Yes, my doctor just told me the other day. He’s like, ‘You’re about out of your cat lives. You’ve used like three of them in the last couple of years.'”

How often do you think you were high when you wrestled?

“I didn’t start drinking until, let’s say, 200 matches in.”

You were in the mid-90s at this point?

“By ’96. I’m rocking and rolling. I’m snorting in the 80s, drinking a 30-pack of beer before the show. Not the whole 30, but you’re drinking 15, because you’re there early too. And a lot of times, if you’re working the main and it’s an ECW show, freaking, you’re there at five o’clock in the afternoon, you might not go on until 11:30, so you got a lot of time to drink and party.”

So how do you go from the surfer gimmick that you debut with to this guy who’s sitting in front of me?

All right, let me tell you the reason I got my Sandman name was because Joel Goodheart, the guy that I gave the $3,000 to, is driving down 95 and he sees a billboard, ‘Mr. Sandman box, bring a mattress.’ Me and my wife, she’s holding Tyler in her arms while I’m at the wrestling school. He comes in, he goes, ‘You’re going to be Mr. Sandman, and you’re going to be Miss Peaches.’ So that’s how I got the name that night off of a billboard. Now he gets me a job down in Memphis. Memphis wrestling is dying. It was dead within like a year and a half of this point right now. So this is maybe September. So I started my first match in June. So by September, early October, I’m in Memphis, working with Jerry Lawler in main events. So Lawler wanted somebody with more of a gimmick. I had the name, and what do you go with a name? A surfboard. So I went to the Pit Bull. I said that Lawler wants me to have more of a gimmick, a surfboard. He goes, ‘You guys come down to my house.’ I pick him up. We go to this club called Rock Lobster on Delaware Avenue. He walks in because the Pit Bulls, the bouncers and all the clubs, the Pit Bulls were like the bosses of all those days, so that anything they want, any drug you wanted, freaking anything in the world you wanted, Gary could get it for you, like that. He walked right in and told a bouncer, ‘Get that surfboard off the wall.’ That bouncer got the surfboard off the wall. He gives it to me. I put it in my van. I drove to Memphis with a surfboard.”

So then how do you go from that guy with the surfboard to your famous gimmick? 

“Okay, so I get back. The very first time that I meet Paul in the locker room. We’re at Valley Forge Military Academy. I go into the locker room. As he looks at the surfboard, he goes, ‘We’re breaking that over your head tonight.’ I’m like, yes! So I had an exacto knife out of my van. I gimmicked the surfboard. I cut it with the exacto, and I had Rockin’ Rebel break it over my head that night. It was a pain in the ass to carry around anyway, and I didn’t like it anyway, and I wanted to get rid of the wetsuit also, because the wetsuit was a pain in the as to put on and off, it stunk. So that was good, just so Paul E gave me the okay to boom. Then a couple of months later, we’re wrestling in Montgomery County at this big marketplace, and I forget my wrestling boots and Paul comes in the locker room. I’m like, Paul E. ‘I’m so sorry I forgot my wrestling boots.’ He goes, ‘I don’t give a f*ck if you wear wrestling boots or not.’ I’m like, dang, wrestling boots gone. I’m gonna as I come to the show, is how I’m gonna go to the ring. So I don’t even have to change.”

How did you get Metallica’s Enter Sandman?

“So I had a job working for the Philadelphia Inquirer. I had had a thing we called the Sandman van. It was a custom van. There’s like four captains chairs, a bed in the back, TV and everything. I would pile 10-12 kids in there and drop them off in a neighborhood. They would knock on doors, and they would get people to sign up for The Philadelphia Inquirer. So one of those kids that work for me, he keeps telling me about the song, but I didn’t know what he was talking about. Then he got a tape. It was like an eight-track. I hear it, and I’m like, boom. I think I was coming out, the Big Shot to Billy Joel, and then I switched over to that. Look how great that was.”

So you get the song, but then how do you get what comes along with it?

“Just get drunker and drunker before shows. I’m like, All right, that’s it. So, all right, here we go. So this is how I stopped coming out of the freaking locker room and I started coming in from the front door, side door, whatever. Me and Missy Hyatt were at Queens, I think it was the strip club the Elks Lodge. So we’re in the Elks Lodge, and they’re playing my music, so they had to loop it again. Somebody comes running out. He goes to find me. I ended up going through the front door, and I’m like, All right, this is pretty cool. I think I’m gonna start doing that. Another happenstance thing.”

The entrance you did at ECW One Night Stand is legendary. Do you remember before your music hit that night?

“You know what I always regret? I should have surfed that crowd. I could have surfed that goddamn crowd all over the place. I wish I would have done that. I never even thought. I just saw it because it been years since I saw it. I guess I saw it in the last couple of years. I’m like, damn it, should have surfed the ground. That would have been nasty. To me, that would have been epic.”

I had Stone Cold on the show earlier this year, and he credits you for drinking beer and being part of his gimmick. Did you realize that you were kind of innovating with that?

“Yeah. It was very important to me that I was the one that did all these things. I didn’t care, like some people, if you’re getting to the point where, ‘Oh, you made it Austin because of a beer?’ No, it’s two different things. I’m doing mine on the entrance. I’m bashing it against my head and I’m bleeding. He’s doing his on the way out. And thank you, Steve, anyway, thank you very much.”

So you’re in your prime, ECW, is in its prime in 1998 and you leave for WCW, what ends up happening with that? Why does that happen? 

“Oh, dude, I almost got to sit home for the whole contract. So they signed me and they gave me a $10,000 signing bonus on September 9 or something like that. They didn’t use me until the beginning of March, but that company was going down, was going to be closed soon, less than two years. So I thought maybe I was going to sit home for the whole contract. They had me do some stupid stuff with Raven, but that wasn’t going anywhere. I did some vignettes with him as his brother. But then Nash gets the book. Nash gets the book Saturday afternoon, later on Saturday afternoon. J.J. Dillon calls me and says, ‘Nash just got the book. He wants you in Minnesota Monday night.’ I’m like, Okay. I was like, damn. Half of me is like, okay. The other half is like, wow, I really could have sat on this whole contract.”

You didn’t want to wrestle?

“Well, no. Dude, it’s nice sitting home making $5,000 a week doing nothing. There was a lot of guys doing that. I’m like yeah, I could be that guy, save your body.”

When ECW goes under. Was there talk of you going right to WWE at that time? 

“No.”

Why not?

“I don’t think I was interested in them right then, and I don’t think they were interested in me. I had a reputation at that point, though, too. They were trying to do everything away. At that point, they’re testing guys. I don’t know where their health freaking policies were at that point. They’re like, No, we ain’t touching that.”

Do you remember Raven telling you about this idea of him wanting to crucify you?

“No, I can’t remember, but I made it. I made it out of wood. If you guys go back and you watch Tommy Dreamer against Brian Lee in the scaffold match, I built that scaffold. It’s hanging down by chains from the ceiling, made out of the same four-by-fours that this thing’s made out of. So I made that thing too. So this thing was easy. I thought this was great.” 

Did you think that doing that crucifixion angle crossed the line?

“Well, yes, that’s why I did it, but I didn’t care. I don’t know. I’ve never been a God-fearing person. I think there’s something, but I don’t believe in that. I don’t believe in like, the Father, the Son, the Holy Ghost kind of part of it. So to me, it wasn’t really blasphemous, for one, and for two, it’s professional wrestling, you know what I mean, and for three, f*ck anybody that didn’t like it.”

Do you think Raven shouldn’t have gone out and apologized? 

“Oh, no, I told him not to. I told everybody. It’s Paul, Todd Gordon, Shane, Kurt Angle me and Raven. I told all of them, You’re all f*cking assholes. This is bullsh*t. He should not be going out there, and walked away.” 

Wasn’t this a big reason Kurt Angle was like, I cannot be seen on this:

“I can’t blame Kurt. First of all, I can’t blame anybody for the father and son the Holy Spirit sh*t. It’s his first delve into professional wrestling, and I could see how he’s a little bit aghast at it. He’s trying to dip his foot into the waters. ‘I’m not sure I want to be involved with this.’ So I can understand his perspective. I can’t understand Paul’s perspective of even considering letting Raven go and doing that. That’s f*cking bullsh*t.”

What is Sandman grateful for?

“My kids and my family.”

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Eric Bugenhagen (@ericbugenhagenofficial) is an American Gladiator, bodybuilder and a professional wrestler best known for his time in WWE as Rick Boogs. He sits down with Chris Van Vliet at West Coast Creative Studios in Los Angeles, CA to discuss how he got the role in American Gladiators, why he is named “The Bull”, which pro wrestlers would make the best gladiators, his insane workout videos on social media, averaging 12 minutes on Cameo requests, his injury at WrestleMania, if he is really done with wrestling, his time in WWE coming to an end, and more!

So how’d you get on the radar for American Gladiators?

“I just found an email address for a casting director that was involved in that. Emailed them, ‘Hey, my name is Eric Bugenhagen. I hoist, heft and heave mega loads.’ Sent some clips and stuff whatnot, told him what I’ve done in the past. They said, Okay, we’ll set you up with the Zoom call. So give me the Zoom call a couple of days later, and I don’t know what to expect. Luckily, I have the 20,000 hours of promo practice from the WWE Performance Center. If that Performance Center has done anything well, for me, I don’t know about anyone else, but grinding those promos in. Because I learned if you wanted to stand out in that business, you got to be different.”

You got all the promo practice like you’re talking about, how did you blow them away in that Zoom call?

“First and foremost, I know you gotta have a gimmick. You gotta be recognizable. ‘Who is this guy?’ One sentence: Who is he? So what I pitched was, I’m The Max. I’m The Maximum. Maximum entertainment value, maximum intensity, right? So I said, ‘I am The Maximum, aka The Max, you will call me The Max.’ They asked me a bunch of questions about where I’m from, if you had 30 seconds or whatever, you just whooped someone’s ass, what would you say? That kind of stuff. So I felt like it was grand slam home run. But then months go by and I never hear back, and I’m like, wow, now I can see why WWE fired me. I just don’t have what it takes. But apparently, they were just extending. They wanted to be sure they had the cream of the crop.”

That’s how casting goes a lot of times. You’ll audition for something, think you nailed it, then it’s like six months to a year later…

“So I think it was a week or two [later]. It’s like, we got the in-person tryout. It’s gonna be push-ups, sit-ups, pull-ups. There might be some wrestling. So all I did, because I’m a man of specificity, I understand the thing called specificity. Alright, normally I lift heavy barbells. Lots of deadlift variations. I’m like, for this next couple of weeks, all I’m doing is push-ups, planks, sit-ups, and the wrestling part I had. So when I went to that tryout, if Amazon Prime is watching this, Amazon MGM, release the tryout footage. Release the footage. Please put it on YouTube or something like that. The Bull’s tryout, the first thing I did was as many push ups you can do in 60 seconds. I hit 100, or maybe it was 99. After the try-out, it was like you got the most push-ups. I weighed, I think it was 274 or something, 100 push-ups. Then we did pull-ups. I think I got 36 or 37, just put myself over. Sit-ups, I can’t remember, but I did okay with these gym class sit-ups. Hadn’t done those since gym class, PE elementary school. The rope, climb up and down as fast as you can twice in a row. It’s a big rope too, and then a little tussling, like it was sumo wrestling stuff. I mean, I’m a Greco-Roman state champion.”

Were they putting you in any of the gladiator events to see how you do?

“No, because those have a lot of props and stuff like that. So it really wasn’t any of that. If anything was kind of like the breakthrough and conquer classic event.”

It’s funny that in WWE your freestyle background was never talked about at all. Probably because, with great credit to you, you were so entertaining

“Well, funny enough, when I first got to the PC, I wasn’t that entertaining. I kind of leaned into being more serious and stuff. Then I kind of lost my mind a year in. I think that’s very common to the PC. And then you just are like I don’t even know what’s gonna happen, I gotta change somehow. Promo classes were great, man, they were long, but they would sometimes put you on the spot.” 

How did you become The Bull in American Gladiators?

“Well, I think they saw my bullish vigor at the tryout. Just like a bull rush. The main thing is, I was still promo-ing, because much like the PC at the tryout, also you had the physicality. Like I said, pull-ups, push-ups, sit-ups, wrestling, rope climb, tire flip thing, like a football-type drill, which is pretty funny. But then it was like, Okay, you’re gonna go in that room now and cut some promos. So I just went all in on The Max still, because at this point I’m The Max and I’m like, and I told them whatever you call me, just include “the” that’s all I care about. Because you got all these names, Laser, Nitro, Turbo, Titan. But when there’s “the” it’s like, wait a second, yeah, pay attention to this guy. Why does he have “the” in front of his name?”

What is The Bull’s best event?

“Anywhere where I can freaking tussle, man. So basically, if you did a power ball or a ring, I’d rip them apart. But I don’t know if that would be good entertainment. Then it’s well, this guy’s such a force, let’s throw him on this balance beam and see if he’s got it. Anyway, you’re asking before, do you get to practice and try this stuff out? Yes and no. Because I understand how life works. You get where I’m going with this? That podium is like, almost 10 feet up in the air, and it’s not like a crash pad you’re falling on. So for practice, it’s like, alright, just have a go at it. I’m like, I think I’m just gonna take my chances and not. Because if I fall in practice, say, I rupture my Achilles tendon or something like that, break my hip. This is serious. You watch these events, and some people might be like, Oh, this is silly. It’s all very serious, even the steel cage balls. The last day, I’m like, I’m gonna just smash this guy. I’m just a freight train. So I’m pushing that ball as hard as I can. I gotta smash him and that steel cage ball and this thing, with that one hand, all that force went into my tricep tendon. And it’s the very last hit of the very last day. I was okay, but I was like, if my tendon was a little bit weaker, maybe that thing would have ruptured. So the risk of injury, and you’ll see it, I want to say it’s episode six or something. People get hurt. It’s serious.”

I feel like this is a perfect thing for you to be doing in your post-WWE career. It feels like you were put on this earth to be an American Gladiator. 

“The funny thing is, I’m very competitive. Well, that was the thing with WWE. That was very hard for me. I get there’s definitely a competitive nature, of course, this is just an incredible art form of pro wrestling. But people would always tell me too, ‘Man, why don’t you just let loose and ragdoll people?’ Because I can’t. I’ll get fired if I do that, and I ended up getting fired anyway, so I should have just done it.”

Did you see that coming?

“Getting fired? Absolutely.”

Why did you know this was going to happen?

“Well, all right. I mean, I can only speak from [my perspective], nothing factual, we’ll just put that out first. But when I was brought back, the day of TV, people were like, ‘Where’s his guitar? Where’s all this?’ Brother, I didn’t know that either, until the day of. I had a double guitar! I was like, This is gonna be the sickest return ever. Double, like freaking Jimmy Page. But this one was way more heavy metal and stuff. I was like, this thing’s gonna be so sick. Then that was stripped and I’m like, well what’s my gimmick? Because that was my gimmick. It was cut a promo on the mic, rip a little tune, because I had my own theme song, but I made sure to learn that sucker. Because I’m like, I’m just gonna play that little diddly on the guitar when I go to the ring and stuff. So then after that, it’s just like, alright, well, back to square one on the day of TV. I mean, where do you want to go? LA Knight, Boogalicious Knights. Man, that would be freaking awesome.”

So it was supposed to be you and LA Knight?

“Well, for that little bit. But then when we did the filming it’s like, ‘All right, he’s gonna eat the pin, then you’re gonna beat him up afterwards, and then the next match, you’re gonna eat the pin again.’ Where does it go then? It’s done? Oh ok.”

Are you done with wrestling?

“I don’t think so, man.”

Because you haven’t wrestled in almost exactly three years as we sit here right now, and when you were on the show two and a half years ago, you weren’t really sure?

“I was a little soiled, sour flavor in my mouth.”

Are you a little more open to it now?

“Yeah. I mean, as I get older and wiser. 3 years, you’ve almost graduated high school. That’s a freshman to a senior. Look at how much you’ve developed in that point in time. Or in college, baby-faced freshman to, like, grizzled, a real man. I’m going out to the real world. But I’m also glad, though, because if anything would have happened, it’s hard, man, pro wrestling is tough. What if I had a kink in my shoulder, I can’t do the tryout, I can’t do any push-ups. So I missed the tryout for American Gladiators because of that. Or what if I can go but I got a kink in my shoulder, and I can only do 6 push-ups instead of 100.”

How did you get paired with Shinsuke Nakamura?

“Totally random. Originally, I was supposed to be with Alpha Academy, I believe. I’m an amateur wrestler, it would have been great too. Freaking Otis! You kidding me? This is great.” 

There’s a great moment where Berto steals your guitar and trying to play guitar, and out of nowhere, Shinsuke leg sweeps him

“But then they stripped it for no reason!”

They didn’t say why?

“I think they wanted to make Shin more dark and serious and look where that got him. No disrespect, Shin is awesome.” 

You got released from WWE in 2023 and now we see you on American Gladiators almost three years later. With great respect, what were you doing the last three years?

“So before even WWE I kind of was a strength coach, but my side hustle was YouTube, and I always kind of maintained that, just not with as much vigor. So like, I’m out now. I’ll try different things, and I’ll try to go all in on this. But then also partnered with Psycho Pharm, which I’m still with them, then they’re great, and we’re growing more than ever. We’re going international.”

You’re on Cameo. I’m on Cameo as well. I do a few a week, I was blown away to see that your average duration 11 minutes and 57 seconds!

“I got them normally at the 20-minute max.”

Most people are 30 seconds to a minute.  So if someone orders a cameo from you, they’re getting a conversation:

“I don’t ever like to disappoint people. So I’m like, man, they’re paying for something. I want to freaking deliver you. So even if it’s like, Hey, say happy birthday, I’m like, All right, we’re gonna get we’re gonna get down and dirty. We’re gonna get to the philosophy of life and what a birthday means. Honestly, I saw Vince Neil do [a bad] one once, and I don’t ever want to be like that.”

Which WWE stars do you think would make great American Gladiators?

“I like that we’re going back to American Gladiators right now. It depends on the event. For Power Ball, I mean, Bron Breakker, obviously, right? Freaking Atlaspheres, Drew McIntyre, he’s a big guy. Joust, Omos. I’ve learned the hard way. If they can, like, hit your head, get you down, like, then it’s over. Because you can’t move them unless you hit their head. I’ve learned this the hard way. I’ve learned from experience. I’ve tasted experience.”

Give me your personal best for lifts.

“I’m a dead lifter for the most part. I mean, zercher squat, I’m great at zercher squatting, maybe not the best ever, but I’m pretty good. 635 zercher squat, 960 trap bar. I can do more than that. It’s just like the thing with lifting is you have to peak, and then once you stop doing it, your strength tapers off. Because a lot of it is nervous system adaptation. It’s not just like, oh, you get big, you get strong. Yes, you’re gonna get stronger the bigger you get, but it’s also specificity. It’s like, the more pro wrestling matches you have, the better gonna be a pro wrestling. The more you do a zercher squat, the better you’re gonna be at it. Your body gets more efficient, more comfortable with it. Romanian deadlift, that’s probably one of my best. I’ve done 785, Romanian deadlift, that’s where you just hinge the barbell just past the knees. My Romanian Deadlift is equal to that in my conventional though. I blew out my patella tendon many years ago and still haven’t gotten the quad strength back, unfortunately. Bench isn’t my best, I’ve done 520.”

Do you think your knee is not at 100% still?

“No, definitely not. I don’t know if it’ll ever be. But my 90% is still exceptional. I’m running now. I’m trying, because it’s one of those things that I’m like, Okay, I’ve lifted, I’ve done tons of rehab. Obviously, I did rehab for a year after surgery, and I’ve gotten very strong again. Still doesn’t have the snappiness. What have I not done? I need to sprint on it. I need to get that frickin tendon rigidity, stiffness, recoil, snappiness, and how do you get that?” 

Do you feel like you wrestled differently after that injury?

“100%. Just slower. Because if you think about it, tendons are basically what make you athletic. It’s not your muscles. It’s strong tendons, jumping and stuff like that, sprinting and all that. That’s power, and you don’t have to be a big, bulbous balloon man to have power. You just have to have freaking stiff, strong tendons. So when you lose that, it’s like, yeah, I could squat. I think when I returned, I was able to squat 600 pounds, but jumping rope? I couldn’t do it for more than 10 seconds because my knee, just the tendon was like jello.”

What is Eric Bugenhagen grateful for?

“American Gladiators, my wife and daughter, and health.”

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Maven (@mavenhuffman) is a YouTuber and retired professional wrestler best known for his time in WWE. He sits down with Chris Van Vliet at INSIGHT Live in Las Vegas to discuss the success of his YouTube channel, getting ribbed by Fit Finlay, if there are any plans for a 1 million subscribers celebration, whether he is still in the 2002 Royal Rumble, taking a bump on thumbtacks, who was the worst guest on his YouTube channel, possibly coming out of retirement to wrestle Chris Sharp, answering questions from the audience, and more!

Can we settle this once and for all? Are you still in the 2002 Royal Rumble?

“Evidently. I’ve always been under the impression that that was a mistake, and that once the WWE, once the top brass, once management found out, oh gosh, Maven was not officially eliminated. Their answer was to have me face Jericho the following week. Happy accident, it worked out. It’s something that I still get asked to this day. Yes, I’m still in the damn Royal Rumble. I ain’t gonna win, though.”

At what point throughout the day, 2002 Royal Rumble, did it go from, ‘They’re pranking me, there’s no way I’m actually eliminating Undertaker, that’s funny’, to ‘Oh, they’re serious about this!’

“I think when I saw the seriousness on Taker’s face. He’s walking me through and spoon-feeding me what I’m gonna have to do to find success for that night, and then I’m like, holy cow, the way The Undertaker and the way Shane McMahon are reacting, no one’s going to remember Hunter wins this Rumble. People are only going to remember this spot if we pull it off. But then that became a big if. Because what happens if I miss that drop kick? Taker and I aren’t starting a wrestling match. My whole career revolved around hitting that one drop kick. And I’m glad that I was in there with Taker. I probably bugged him like a little lost puppy looking for a belly rub the entire day. My career was made from one man and one drop kick.”

Can you put into words how much YouTube has changed your life and your career?

“I promise, not more than you love you guys. Here’s why. I get emotional about this. Years ago, five years ago, I was getting up every morning at 6 am, rushing to take my dogs out, getting on a 6:36 train, two hours to work, working all day, two hours to get home, getting home at 7:30. I knew I had something, but I just didn’t know how to get that something out. When we started the YouTube channel, there were no promises. Zach didn’t tell me, ‘Yeah, this is going to be X amount and we’re going to make X amount of dollars, or this is going to get this many views.’ He just said, ‘Let’s take a chance.’ And now man, I don’t do a damn thing during the day I don’t want to do now, and that is because of you guys. Thank you. I don’t know if I deserve it, but I’ll damn take it.” 

How many times did you get color in your career? How many of them were you giving yourself color? How many was you getting color the hard way? 

“Well, the match I had with Undertaker, the hardcore match. I got hard wayed. True story, he hits me, or something happens with a trash can lid and it cuts the top of my head, and I’m laying on the ground on SmackDown, looking up at Undertaker, and he’s so good, he looks down at me, and he’s in character, and he’s like, ‘That’s what you get!’ I’m like, What did I do wrong? Because I’m bleeding, we didn’t call for it, but, gosh, they had me get in color in OVW on week 2, just wrestling, yeah, you gotta love it. I can’t give you how many times, I just know that every time I had to get color, I remember thinking it wasn’t as bad afterwards as I thought it was going to be going into it. Adrenaline takes over and you really don’t feel it, as weird as that sounds.”

You shared a video of the most painful moment in the ring was this match with Viscera. What was so painful about this?

“Might have been a little prideful pain. Yeah, big Vis, he was just a good dude. Does anybody know offhand how much viscera weighed? He’s 500, he’s a quarter ton. And when he sits down on your chest, it hurts. Again, wrestling culture, if you can rib someone, you’re gonna do it. I think he was ribbing me a tiny bit that night. He was Yoko-ing me a little bit that night.”

Do you feel like because of the way you came in? You’re the guy on the MTV show. You win Tough Enough. Is it just ribs for the first six months? Is it ribs for the first year? You have to win over the boys?

“Here’s what I think it was. I think it was, we’re going to see if we can run you out. We’re going to find out. Do you love the business, do you respect the business, or are you going to easily be ran out of the business? Because wrestling is tough. It’s hard to be on the road, it’s hard to be in pain, it’s hard to be away from your family, and if you don’t have just something on the inside that makes you be able to be okay with living uncomfortable, be okay with pain, you’re not gonna last. It’s just the WWE’s way and wrestlers’ way of just mixing out the people that think they want to be there, as opposed to the people who truly want to make a go of it. There were countless, muscled-up guys that would come in, roided out freaks, look phenomenal, that thought they wanted to wrestle, and they would put them in the ring. You find out really quickly, when someone’s in there for six minutes, you’re making them just move, then they’re gasping for air, you find out really quickly who wants to wrestle and who doesn’t.” 

So after winning Tough Enough, what’s the match where you felt like, I finally feel like a wrestler.

“It was years. It wasn’t immediate. I did a couple of house shows, a couple of weeks of house shows with Bob Holly. I did three weeks, Orton did eight, and after every match with Bob, he’s back behind the curtain waiting for me to bitch, and every time I went back there, [I said] ‘Thank you. Is there anything I can do better?’ That’s the way to get the respect of the boys. Because I have no doubt in my mind, they sent him out, ‘See what the kid’s got.’ And if you complain, that’s not the job for you. If you can get through Bob Holly, okay, that’s one rung of the ladder that you’ve climbed. That’s one step of just not being the Tough Enough kid. Okay, maybe that was when I saw okay, I belong.”

You taking the thumbtacks is your most viewed video. It has almost 6 million views. I gotta ask you, you took the thumbtack bump at the end of the video. Why’d you do it with a shirt on? 

“You want the honest answer? Because I’m about 15 years too old to be going on a bunch of cycles to be taking my shirt off for anybody anymore. But I knew, and when we were talking about the thumbtacks, Zach said it kind of as a joke. He was like, ‘Yeah, the video would just do better if you took the thumbtack bump.’ I said, ‘Well, if you can find a ring, I’ll do it.’ I’m thinking there’s no way he’s gonna find a ring. 30 minutes later, text me, I got a ring. I got people that are gonna let us do it. And at that point, I’m like, sh*t. But that’s another one that it wasn’t as bad as I [thought]. I built it up into my head. I mean, it wasn’t great, but it wasn’t as bad as I thought it was gonna be.” 

How did the thumbtacks compare to the staple in the head? You took a staple gun right to the forehead:

“The thumbtacks hurt worse in the shower later that night, because I went back to our Airbnb, I took a thing of alcohol in my shower, and I dumped it down my back, and I felt every thumbtack. Whereas the staple was just [once]. So the thumbtacks hurt worse later.”

So since you asked me who my worst guest was, and I said it was MJF. I gotta ask you, Maven, who’s the worst guest that you’ve had on the channel? 

“All right, the word worse isn’t what I mean here. We did a video with Enzo, it was a great video. We actually filmed the video with Enzo the same day we did the video with Justin Credible. So, yeah, we started our day off with Enzo, then drove two hours, met with Justin, did the video with him, and then was done. By the time we got back from filming with Justin, at the end of the night, I’m dropping Zach off at the Airbnb, just a long day, tired, but still better than getting up at six and getting on a train, I’ll still take it over that. I get a text from Enzo, and he asks, ‘Hey, man, remember when we were talking about this? Can we not put it in the video?’ It just sucked, because we’re not going to do half of anything. Zach and I talked, and we were just like, if we can’t, it’s the one thing people would have wanted in the video, and to not add that we chose not to put the video out. I would have loved to have put the video with Enzo out. That video is sitting in our vault doing nothing, and it’s all because of a text. His text wasn’t sure. I mean, it was substantial, giving reasons as to why he didn’t want it out. He even put something in there, like, legally, and I don’t want to have to go the legal route. It wasn’t worth it. I wanted the Enzo video out, but at the end of the day, if he didn’t want it out, that’s not the hill I’m dying on.”

What is Maven grateful for?

“The fans, opportunity and family.”

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Dakota Kai (@imcharliegirl_) is a professional wrestler best known for her time in WWE. She sits down with Chris Van Vliet in Las Vegas to discuss being released from WWE, her first match in over a year against Kris Statlander at Pro Wrestling EVE in London, being a part of the Damage CTRL faction with IYO SKY and Bayley, Wrestling Trish Stratus, Lita and Becky Lynch at WrestleMania, training with Stephanie McMahon for her match with Ronda Rousey, what’s next for her in wrestling, dream opponents, and more!

You just had your first match in a year last month. How are you feeling about that?

“I took almost a year off. I don’t know, I think after leaving WWE, I didn’t want to necessarily rush back into anything. I wanted to get back into wrestling on my terms and just find that passion and that love for it and just do it for fun. Basically, I wanted to do it for fun, and it was just a matter of the perfect time. Then when Will Ospreay hit me up. He’s basically like, we’d love to have you on the show, here’s what it is. When I found out I’m like wrestling Kris Statlander I’m like, oh my god, perfect. She’s been on my bucket list for years, literal years. So it just worked out. It was weird, because during that time off, the longer I was away from wrestling, which was needed for me, personally, just mentally and emotionally, it was like the thought of wrestling again was looming over me. I have very severe performance anxiety, so the longer I was away, the more anxious I got about it. But then she made it so easy, she’s the best.”

Did you have an idea of how long you wanted to be away, because it was almost a year from your last match in WWE to your first indie match?

“There was no real time limit of I want to be away for this amount. It was just more of a feeling, I guess. As soon as the opportunity came up that it was going to be there at that show on the big Wrestle Queendom show against Kris, I was like, Ah, this was meant to be. Yeah, it was cool. I mean, I just really needed to take a step back for me in terms of just finding the passion and the love for it again. I didn’t mean for it to be a year. I know everyone was like, Why did you take a year off? I’m like, I didn’t mean to, and for that to be that amount of time, I just kind of took the time I needed. Then when the opportunity came up to be against Kris, it was perfect.” 

But the goal was to always get back to wrestling?

“100% I always wanted to get back. It was so funny too, because I wasn’t really saying much of anything, because I’m not on social media a lot, especially during that time off, I wasn’t posting. Not for any reason, I just didn’t know anything to talk about. There was no reason for it. So, yeah, I don’t know, it was just needed.”

Are you looking at some point to maybe get signed somewhere again?

“If that happens and everything works out that would be awesome. But I think at the moment my path right now is just indie bookings here and there, just have fun and wrestle.”

I feel like you’d be a great fit in AEW or TNA. Have you had those conversations?

“Not necessarily on that level. Yeah, nothing too crazy. But also, I took the time off. So I think getting back into it, they might happen, who knows. But at the moment, I just want to, like, focus on me and just, do you know, fun matches and shows here and there. Yeah, have fun with it.”

How did this release in 2025 differ from the release in 2022?

“It’s so crazy because in 2022 I got re-signed with the company within three months. So that felt different. With this one here. It almost felt like I, especially with the IC Championship tournament, it felt like we were doing this, you know, I’m getting more opportunities. So it was more of a shock, I guess. But that’s kind of why I need to take the step back, just for me and emotionally and things like that. So, yeah, 2022 didn’t really even feel like it was that long at all. So I kind of forget that happened, because then SummerSlam came around and that was all last-minute.”

I had read that in 2022 you didn’t want to renew your contract? 

“No, that was a release.”

But you weren’t intending to re-sign when that time came around?

“I don’t know when it was coming up, but I think when the opportunity came up and it was going to be with Bayley, because she has been talking about a woman’s faction for years, and was just like the perfect thing, a reason to come back, as opposed to, like, just re-signing for the sake of re-signing, and then it was just meant to be.”

How did you find out the news this time that you were released?

“A phone call. They usually do it like that. Then not long after it will be online and things like that. So I had to take a step back from social media, just because it is a lot. Losing a job in any sense is rough. But I never, ever thought I would make it to WWE anyway. I think to me, the whole experience was just like a pleasant surprise. Then, coming back in 2022, I was just very grateful to be there, because I never saw myself in that position at all ever. I don’t know why. Maybe I just don’t look at myself in that light. But also, being from New Zealand, a tiny country on the other side of the world, it’s hard to envision that for yourself. If you come from there, it’s just very like, ridiculous, like, oh, that American Hollywood lifestyle and TV whatever. Then when things started going and I started doing more international shows, and I finally got a tryout, and I didn’t get an immediate yes on my tryout, although I think they were impressed. They’re kind of, like, it will just keep in touch kind of thing, and we’ll, you know, let you know, and just stay in touch every six months. So I did that with the thing of, like, ah, that’s okay, it didn’t work out this time. And then the Mae Young Classic is what kind of brought it all together for me.”

What made you even believe you could do it? New Zealand’s not exactly a factory of pro wrestlers. When you think of wrestlers from New Zealand, it’s the Bushwhackers.

“Yeah, I know, those are our guys. So I watched wrestling with my brother from a very young age, and he was the one that got me into it, because he would sit down and watch Friday night SmackDown and whatever, and I would always be sitting there, like, when is this over? Can I change the channel, please? But it wasn’t until I actually sat down and started watching the storylines. I kind of got into it a little bit later than a lot of people my age. I didn’t watch the Attitude Era or anything like that. I got into it around 2004.”

What was the main storyline that got you into it?

“I think it was Stone Cold. Maybe I remember Stone Cold and The Rock, but I don’t know if that was before then, and I was still, like, in this mindset of wrestling? I don’t want to watch this! Put on Full House or something.” 

How’d you get the name Dakota Kai?

“I wanted something Tom-boyish, I guess, for the first name. There’s not many boy Dakotas, but there are a few. I wanted something like that. And then Kai is obviously Pacifica. So I wanted to tie in my Samoan roots with that. That was the first name that I kind of pitched to them, and then it was the one that they greenlit. So I was happy about that. And then it just sounded cool. I wanted a last name and a first name. Right now, I’ve just got one name.” 

When you turned on Tegan Nox, this was wild, and what a reaction that you got to it.

“So I was in NXT probably for a couple of years at that point, and I was like this happy-go-lucky, bubbly babyface, which is a much easier character for me. When I got told about this WarGames situation happening, I didn’t want to get my hopes up, because, you know, things change last minute. You never know. But I wanted, and also needed to make this as vicious as possible, to make the change be believable, if that makes sense. So if you watch it back, it’s quite like intense. I wanted to lock into that, because I really wanted people to believe that I could pull this off. And it was in Chicago too, so the crowd was there. Everything was set up, and that war games match without my heel turn was amazing too. You had like the best girls in the black and gold brand like Rhea Ripley, Candice, IYO Shana, so everything was just perfect. It was the perfect melting pot of like, all of us working together. But I needed it to be vicious for the reason of like these people, I need to make them believe that I can be a savage.” 

You also had Shayna Baszler’s debut match in NXT. What a scary spot.

“I did, yeah, that’s so funny, because we had so much more planned. But obviously, for her debut match, they wanted her to look like a killer, so it was just literally, boom. Or there was like me trying to do some things, and she just stomped my arm. They played that damn moment in every one of her promo packages for the next four years. I’m just like, we can’t update it? She stomped on so many other girls since then, what are we doing? But it looks sick. Even watching it back, I’m like, damn, all right, freaking double-jointed in my shoulders, I guess maybe, not my knees. I have to laugh. But yeah, it looked nasty, so, yeah, I’ll take it as a compliment.” 

That feels like one where like there’s the margin of error is small.

“Yes, because there’s a lot that can go wrong. But obviously, she’s a very trained and skilled fighter too. So when we were going through it, it’s like, okay, your wrist needs to be on the mat like this, and you kind of have to roll into the stomp basically. So it wasn’t just a case of her just doing it. We had to make sure it was all safe, because it does look nasty, and if you set it up wrong things can go wrong for sure.”

So talk to me about this release in 2022, then you get called a few months later and you make your return at Summer Slam 2022 in Nashville. 

“That whole thing came out of the blue. It was probably two days before SummerSlam, and Pam, Bayley, just texts me out of the blue. She’s like, ‘Hey, I just pitched this to Hunter.’ I’m like, What are you talking about? So she was talking about an all-women’s faction for years, like, since I was starting at NXT, she’d always been pitching this idea of, I want an all-women’s faction. Think this would be so cool. I hope we get the chance. And then the year before SummerSlam, we actually were at the Performance Center. It was me, IYO Bayley, and also Raquel and Alba Fyre, and we were taking photos together as a female unit to try and have Pam basically pitch to Hunter and like, be like, Hey, this is what I want. This. Nothing really came from that. But then she texts me a few days before SummerSlam,  ‘I pitched it again, I really want you to be a part of this.’ And even at that point, I’m not with the company. I’m like, yeah, right, dude. You really think this is gonna happen? And then next thing [I’m there].”

Were you prepared for what’s next?

“I was in the mindset of doing things away and outside the company. That’s a big deal to try and fall into that space of being mentally out of there and then Hunter sent a message, I think it was the day before, basically confirming that he loved her idea and that it was going to be Bayley, IYO and myself. Holy sh*t, I need to pack, because it’s the day before, and get my hair done, there’s too much to do. Oh my gosh. And then, yeah, and the day of is very chaotic, just hiding in a bus. I’ve never been in that position where I’ve had to be hidden before. I thought that was so cool, because you always see it happen with others, where they have a surprise and they’ve been hiding in the bus or wherever during the day. So we got that, and they took us over to Gorilla in a golf cart that had like, black curtains on the side.”

Did you fly in?

“Yes, the morning of. So I wasn’t there. They flew us in, and I think no one really knew. I don’t think it was spoiled at all. I think it was genuine surprise, right. I actually remember I brought it up a few times, but the golf cart with the black curtains on the side, it kind of moved, Tommaso was standing right there, and he was like, oh, and I’m like, hello. So that whole moment was so special, especially because Bianca was in the ring, and she’s one of my closest friends in this business, too. So her reaction, I don’t know. People watch that clip back, her reaction to me was like, coming from a place right here. So that was that felt special, too.” 

Did you feel like things levelled up with Damage CTRL:

“Yeah, like from the start. I think they had big ideas for us to be this dominant faction. Obviously, things change here and there, and I don’t know, and it felt good for me to be part of a group. Like I said, I work better in a group, but there could have been better opportunities for us. Bayley was doing her darndest to try and pitch more for us. But it’s just the way it goes sometimes.”

When you won the tag team championships with IYO SKY, tell me about this golf cart celebration. 

“And with Bayley driving it. I forgot about all of that stuff. I don’t know. I just, it’s so funny, because some of the ideas we don’t know until the day of, and then they’re just like, ‘Oh yeah, we got this golf cart.’ I’m like, oh, cool. So we’re just gonna go down the ramp and Bayley is driving it. So hopefully nothing bad goes wrong with that. Yeah, that’s so random. I loved it. I think it was just like, we’ll just put you guys on a golf cart and just celebrate. And I was like, All right, I’m all for it. I love when wrestling gets weird and just like, does stuff for the sake of doing stuff. So, yeah, we had a golf cart, no reason, and we never had it again. I was like I wish we could have that as our entrance.”

Do you have any dream opponents on the indies?

“I have dream opponents, just in general. I would love to wrestle Willow Nightingale. I know she’s all over the place right now, but there’s a bunch. Obviously, I’d love to run it back with Shotzi too. And there’s a lot of new, newer girls coming up too, that I just want to be able to wrestle and, not show them the ropes, but help them get to a point where they can have more matches and things like that. So, yeah, I don’t know, it’s so weird. I’ve got a list on my notes app of girlies I want to wrestle. Steph DeLander, another one that I’d love to wrestle again. We kind of had some matches in NXT, but not many. But I would love a singles match with her too, because she’s another one that’s insanely strong and just, I love being able to, like, be rag-dolled around, kind of my thing. But yeah, I don’t know, just having fun with my opponents and just looking at that perspective.”

After that first match, after a year off, how much did you miss it?

“I was, and I think the longer I was out of wrestling, the more anxious I obviously got. But to have my first match back, because obviously I didn’t plan for it to be a year. It kind of just worked out to be that way. Everyone thinks I’ve retired, and that’s the thing. People so adamantly on social media, which is why I don’t go on there a lot, because I’m like, Oh, you guys just make things up. ‘She’s definitely retired.’ I’m not retired yet! But I think with the year off, I can understand why people were like maybe thinking that way, I wouldn’t just leave people hanging. I’m gonna give them a reason or something. But I think after I had my match against Kris, everything fell into place, and then even being in front of the crowd again, that was something I missed, too.”

You got to work two Wrestlemanias. Take me to the first one. What’s that day like and everything leading up to that match?

“So we had the six woman tag, myself, IYO and Bayley against Trish, Lita and Becky. So that was an insane moment, not only because it was my first ever Wrestlemania, and I obviously didn’t think I would ever get one, but to be against like two women and Becky, I love her too, but like Trish and Lita I watched growing up. I took the Stratusfaction and the Stratosphere, it was just such a very surreal moment. I think that was the main word that we were throwing around that day, because the whole day just felt like I was dreaming, like it was just very strange.”

Stephanie McMahon had some very nice things to say about you on her podcast. Recently, she talked about how you helped her prepare for her WrestleMania 34 match against Ronda Rousey.

“Yeah, that’s so weird. I mean, she’s the sweetest person in the world and always said hello to me, but the fact that she remembers that is insane to me. Because I don’t know, again, I don’t look at myself in that light, you know what I mean? But she’s honestly one of the most sweetest people ever, and I was just grateful to be able to be in the ring with [her], training with her and Ronda and Kurt and Hunter as well. She got to DDT me. I was like, yes! Beat me up, Stephanie. This is so freaking cool. But she’s the nicest person. I think that was our first ever time meeting. Every time after that, backstage or wherever, she would always make a point to come up to me and be like, ‘Dakota!’ I’m like, Oh my God, you know me.”

How did you get chosen for this?

“I think I just got told, I think coach Sarah, just pulled me aside one day and was like, hey, you’re going to be flown up to Connecticut to train with Ronda. It was very hush-hush, obviously, because it was their first match. So yeah, just kind of got told that I was getting flown up there to train with them. So that was cool.” 

What is Dakota Kai grateful for?

“Life, family and animals.”

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Billy Gunn (@realbillygunn) is a professional wrestler with AEW and a WWE Hall of Famer. He sits down with Chris Van Vliet in Indianapolis, IN to discuss still being in amazing shape at 62 years old, if he wants one more singles title run, if he plans to wrestle into his 70s, working with his kids Austin and Colten, if DX was a greater faction than the nWo, his hidden gem match with Brock Lesnar on SmackDown, his friendship with Mike O’Hearn, who was the best person he has been in the ring with, and more!

You don’t just look like you’re in great shape at 62, you’re in great shape, period. 

“So here comes my Titan Medical plug. Everybody’s going to take this the wrong way, and it’s what it is. Everybody has their opinion. But you need help in longevity, help in health, help in nutrition, help in your fitness. And I have all that. Titan Medical is one of the leading peptide companies in Tampa that has just made me an ambassador, whatever, a sponsored athlete. So it’s not Mike [O’Hearn’s] company. Mike is also a me, Mike did it first and then I jumped on board. When you work or do what I do at a level that I do. Am I a WrestleMania five-star guy? No, I’m not anymore, and I know that, and I’ve never once said that I was, but there’s still a part of me that loves to do this. It’s not for egotistical things, it’s not for any of that. It’s because I genuinely love what I do, and I work for 1FW, which is QT Marshall’s company. It’s a Georgia company. We just had a huge show in Rome that was awesome, little Arn Anderson thing, because that’s where he’s from. I will break it here. I was in a cage, not for long, but I was in there and I touched it. But yeah, Titan Medical is one of the leading people in helping you be that way, getting you through those injuries, make you feel better. I’m not going to go on a peptide thing here, but they’re naturally found in your body anyway. As we get older, we’re just kind of losing that so we kick it back in gear for longevity, health, hair, whatever you need it for.”

It’s not just that you look good. You have agility still in the ring, like you really haven’t lost a step.

“Well, to me, I’ve lost a step, but I appreciate that. I fake it very well. I think it was, like a few months ago, I was like, getting too heavy, because I was really eating and trying to put on size for some ungodly reason.” 

What do you weigh now?

“260. 260 for me right now is really good. I could be 255 and be okay. But anything over that I start getting like, I feel it. I know the minute I start gaining weight, because I can instantly feel it, and I know what I can do and what my body feels like. But yeah, 260 is good. I was doing something. I would run, I was leaving my feet behind me, and it was driving me absolutely batty. I was like okay, this isn’t a thing. So now I’m in class running spots and stuff with every one of the students trying to figure because they all move differently. So I’m trying to figure it out, and just going, Okay, you’re too heavy and you’re just being sluggish and you’re being lazy. So I dropped some weight, and now I feel amazing.”

Do you want to wrestle into your 70s?

“I don’t. So I want to do it while I still can, and while I’m still having fun. I mean, you can ask my wife, she hates watching me, because I’m just such a goof. I’m such a goof because I just don’t have any stress anymore. There’s no stress for me to go out there and have everybody go, Oh, watch, it’s going to be an unbelievable wrestling match. They’re going to go, we’re about to have so much fun and be interactive in what we do, because that’s what he does, you know. So that’s what I’m doing. Do I want to? No, I don’t want to work until I’m 70. But is it possible? Sure, anything’s possible. But I’m getting to the point where I’m kind of slowing down a little. I think it’s because the gym is taking over my life.”

What does training look like specifically?

So my training now is I just stopped my six-day split. I went back to the five days so I could have two days off. About two weeks ago, I had to take a week off. But for me to take a week off, the gym has to happen here first, because I was playing catch-up with my body, I was really aching and I was hurting. But I said every morning I just go to the gym and it’ll go away. Sure, it goes away, but it comes right back, because I’m one. I’m not recovering as fast. So I have to put the brakes on that and realize, hey, I’m just spinning my wheels. I just need to take a week off. But that takes a couple of days of mental preparation, and my wife telling me, and then I’m going go to her and go, Hey, I’m going to take a week off.

Do you want another run at a singles title?

“No, I’m not a singles guy, I know that, and I’ve always known that. Plus, I really don’t have the air for that anymore, just being older and stuff. I guess it’s because I don’t really put an effort into that, because it’s not something I want to do. I feed better off of more chaos, and I can work better like that than I can working on my own. Can I direct a little better? Yeah, I can direct a little bit, but I can also direct in tags or trios or whatever that looks like as well. I’ve always been a tag guy, because I love the structure of how to get all these pieces together and put it together so it makes something good. Yeah, singles negative.”

What do you think of this discussion that goes on in wrestling so often of what was the better all time? Faction, DX, or the nWo?

“It’s people’s opinion, and you can have one of those, right? Of course, I say DX is number one. Kevin [Nash] is going to say nWo. They were both super impactful that literally, I don’t think, even as today, there’s not one wrestling person that doesn’t know what each one of those are. Because it was so impactful and it was so good. I know the only thing that hurt the nWo is it was so good, and then everybody jumped on. Where DX was so good, and you couldn’t get on board with, I don’t care if you had a golden ticket from Willy Wonka, you weren’t getting on that ride.”

What’s the career highlight for you? You’ve done it all, like you said. But what’s the one moment that you’re most proud of?

“Working with my kids. Above anything, and above all, is being able to work with my kids. I get all weird when I talk, because it was so good, and it was so, I don’t know, I can’t explain it, because you’re a parent, right? Every time they do something, it’s like, that’s the most amazing thing. Then they do something else, and you go, that’s the most amazing thing. My kids were awesome. They really were just amazing kids. Great in school, go to school, go to college, do all that stuff. But then, when Austin did it, it was one thing, and then Colton doing it, and then being able to be in the ring and work next to them while I yell at them when they’re working, and them going, Dad, stop it! There’s nothing that tops that. There really isn’t. I wish there was, but it ain’t getting better than that.”

Who was the best person you’ve ever been in the ring with?

“Although Eddie probably was one of them, because even though our stuff that we did wasn’t long, him, Chris Benoit, I know that’s a no, but it’s just a fact, the intensity that he was was amazing to work with. Of course, The Headshrinkers, because they had to take us for the first year. The patience and the way that they taught us, and they never got frustrated. They just knew. The cool thing was they knew what their job was, to help new guys, and they did an awesome job. I like to say that everybody that I’ve been in the ring with is good in one way or another, because I hate picking out just one thing, because that would mean that I kind of feel like I diminish everybody else that I’ve been in there with. But the most significant, of course, would be Ron and Don Harris, because they’re the ones that got me started. Then it would have to be The Headshrinkers, because they had to teach us. And they literally taught us everything that they knew in a year, you know, that made us kind of start understanding what we were doing and understanding where we had to go, and how to put stuff together and psychology and stuff, because they were stuck with us. So that would be the most significant part of my wrestling career.”

I don’t know if you know this or not, but WWE Vault just uploaded one of your matches from February 26, 2004. It was a SmackDown match with Brock Lesnar. Do you remember that? 

“So I do a little bit, and somebody sent it to me, and it’s not bad. It’s pretty good. The people don’t realize is that if he likes you, he would work with you, and me and him always got along. He is awesome. I’ve worked him a couple of times, I think that was one of the only times I really worked him on TV. But we would do some house shows together, and he was amazing. He really was and he was good because he was one that would never take over either. It was kind of like he let me kind of put some stuff together, then we kind of just kind of went where he wanted to go. That’s how stuff happens. When lead guys, and I’m talking like the most experienced one of the one that thinks he’s got to control everything and call everything and not listen, is not how you have good things. It’s okay, this is the direction we’re going. It’s not working. If you have something, give it to me, let’s go. I’m super open to go there. What’s the worst? It doesn’t work either. We just go another direction. That’s the working part of what we do.” 

What do you think is the biggest difference you’ve seen in the business now versus, say, 30 years ago? 

“Oh God, this is where I get laced. I feel it’s all about moves now. I feel it’s just moves. It’s just, you want to learn how to wrestle? Okay. I’m going to show you a bunch of moves. Okay, we have a show tonight. You want to go work it? Sure. What are you going to do? You’re going to do everything I taught you. There’s no structure to it. There’s no sense to it. There’s nothing you’re just doing all the moves that I taught you how to do in however long we have. So the problem is the people won’t know any different, other than it’s the first time that they see you. But you’re diving out of the ring, you’re landing on your head. You’re getting slammed on the apron for some ungodly reason, which seems to be a thing these days. If they took their time and did them in the middle of the ring where they’re supposed to, they get the same reaction if you do it right as they do when you get slammed on the hardest part of the ring, because now it’s cool to be killed halfway through your match. But it’s just moves now to where back then it was, yeah, there was no moves, because everything was structured so good, and the storylines were so good, that it’s where the people are at. Oh, The Rock comes out, or let’s say, Stone Cold comes out, and the place goes absolutely ballistic, right? How do you get them out of the ceiling? Oh, you punch him right in his mouth and get him down. Get him to where the people don’t want him. Is he going to get there? No. Does he know that? Yes, because Steve’s probably not a good one, because he’s just such a butt-beater upper. I don’t want to cuss on your show. So let’s go with The Rock. I’ve worked him a couple times in singles. To get the people out of the ceiling to so we can go somewhere to where you get a reaction. He’s already got a reaction, because they’re already doing all the stuff. So you punch him in the mouth, right? You put him on the sell. Now the people are down here because they’re going, Oh, now it’s come on. They’re just waiting. And the minute you spin him around, and he pops me, and I flop around like that. The people lose their minds. So now we’ve done really nothing, but got a monster reaction, because we’re just playing with the people. We’re just taking them where I want to take them. If we’re here, how much higher can they go? Nowhere. So they have to come here so I can get them back to here, so I just feel that it’s just a bunch of wrestling moves now.”

So what’s a match that you would point to and go, this is my kind of match?

“So I thought Brody King and Kyle Fletcher on our show did a great job. Brody took him out of all his stuff. Those two, Kyle and Takeshita, so is Will [Ospreay]. But I think Will, he knows so much that you can’t rope him in. But the last one that I saw that was really good like that was Brody and Kyle. Because Brody literally took everything away from Kyle every time he tried to do something, he jerked it out from under him, and never gave it to him. Then at the right moment, he let Kyle could start doing his stuff, and it was amazing of what the reaction and how that match felt do it, because I literally couldn’t stop watching it. It was that good.”

What is Billy Gunn grateful for?

“My wife, my kids and my job.”

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Fabian Aichner (@VinciWWE) is a professional wrestler best known for his time in WWE as Giovanni Vinci. He sits down with Chris Van Vliet at West Coast Creative Studio in Los Angeles, CA to discuss his WWE release, getting kicked out of Imperium, his repackaged character, losing to Apollo Crews in less than 10 seconds on SmackDown, the way he was introduced by ring announcer Samantha Irvin, staying in NXT when Imperium was called up to main roster, his match with John Cena and Seth Rollins in India, and more!

You posted this photo on Instagram in March, and you basically said, new chapter, and you’re flexing, and you look like you’re ready to go. What does that new chapter look like? 

“When I got that call about a year ago, the first thing I did was, immediately after that, I thought, Okay, I’m taking a month off the gym because I’ve been going really hard. In NXT, I made the decision, okay, it’s time now to get in the best shape of my life. So I did step up my workout regimen pretty intensely. Did cardio twice a day. Worked out five days a week, wrestling three matches. I did make good progress, but you can only maintain that for so long. I just kept going, kept going, and then got called up to the main roster, so I definitely didn’t want to slow down. Yeah, it’s just one of those things where I got the call. I knew this was the first time for sure that I wasn’t going to step in the ring for three months. So I definitely gave my body the break, because I didn’t get the results that I was used to getting, my body started getting really stubborn, if I dieted, things just didn’t move as fast. So I gave my body a break, gave my mind a break. Just been resting up a little bit. I live in Vegas, so there’s always something to do. I like racing. Always been a Formula One fan, so tried a couple of spots out there, just took some trips, enjoyed the fruits of my labor and just recharged, because I didn’t want to come back too quick. I didn’t want to get into things too quick, because I didn’t want to have acid, basically. So I gave myself the time. Didn’t really have a timeline in mind of how long I was going to be out for, or whatever. But then as time went by, batteries recharged, I started feeling better and started working out again. That was a lot of fun again. And just for the first time, go by how I feel. I feel like it’s obviously when you listen to your gut, and go by how you feel, then it’s not that drag or forcing things to do. I just felt ready, that’s what I basically had in mind. I’m going to take the time that I need, and when I’m ready, I’ll be back and I’ll go all in.”

We didn’t hear from you for over a year until you posted this photo on Instagram. Was the idea to go away for a year?

“Not really, no. I just knew that after the call, because it was such a surreal feeling, man. It was like, on the one hand, it sucked that that chapter was over, because that’s what I wanted to do since I was 13 years old. But on the other hand, because it was such a roller coaster leading up to that, it felt freeing, in a way. I told a friend of mine, he asked me if I was okay. I said, ‘Yeah, man, I’m good.’ It’s almost like when you’re in school and school ends and you’re going on summer vacation, just all the weight was off because at least I knew there was no more thinking about it. And really, after that, all I did was I just knew I was taking some time. Didn’t know how much it was, and, yeah, I didn’t think about how long exactly I was going to be out for. Just like okay, we need some space. Take some time for myself, figure myself out, and yeah, enjoy life a little bit.”

How surprised were you by that call that you were getting released?

“I was and I wasn’t because, I mean, during the summer of the year previous, I wasn’t on TV, but I knew there was a plan to come back eventually. We did those vignettes and everything, but that didn’t last long, unfortunately. So after that, I noticed when some thoughts started to creep in. I tried to focus on the positive, and I always had high hopes. Like, for example, when the new year started, I know SmackDown went from two hours to three hours, and I was told, you know, there’s a quote from one of the producers, we have all the real estate in the world, there’s just not enough land. Basically, you have all the great wrestlers, there’s just not enough time on the show. So when SmackDown went to three hours, I thought, well, maybe now it’s gonna happen, maybe here’s the chance, and whatever. Then, yeah, I wasn’t needed for TV for a couple of weeks. You don’t want to hear that call. But when it happened, I can’t say that I was really surprised at it. So it was kind of a weird mix of feelings.”

A lot of people, right after their 90 days are up, they hit the Indies, or they start doing conventions. You haven’t done any of that, How do you feel about wrestling right now? 

“It’s funny, because this is what I wanted to do since I was 13 years old, and when that chapter ended, I knew I wanted to take some time away, but I feel like there’s way more things to do for me. I feel like I haven’t reached my full potential yet. I feel like some people know what I can do, but I know I can do a lot more. I just really wanted to take enough time to not come back and go in halfway. So I definitely work out, I want to wrestle again. I feel like there’s many things still to do, nothing set in stone yet, but when that opportunity comes, I know I’ll be ready for it.” 

Do you have a timeline in your own mind of when you want to have another match?

“I mean, we’ll see. We’ll see what’s coming up. I did have some talks with a couple of people, some really good talks, and we’ll see. I always believe in the timing of the universe, that everything happens for a reason. Yeah, it’s just a feeling that I got. At some point, I just felt like working out more. At some point, I just felt like dialing in my diet again, just getting more serious with cardio and all those things. I don’t have to force myself to do that. So I know when that opportunity comes, it’ll be the perfect timing. I’ll be in the perfect spot, mentally, physically, and I’m gonna kill it.”

 So if you fell in love with WWE when you were a kid, and this is the dream, this is the goal, you’re working your way up through the Indies, you finally get signed by WWE, and you’re there for eight years. Then you get that phone call that you released, that’s got to be heartbreaking?

“I mean, it did suck to know that that chapter was over. Especially because you make big sacrifices to come here. You leave your family behind, you move halfway across the world. You start out at the bottom of the ladder again, with people who have never done a roll in their life, basically, even though you’ve been wrestling for six, seven years. But you just got to not let your pride or your ego take over when it comes to that. So you go through the whole process again, eventually get to the main roster, and then it’s so weird, because I really did put a lot of effort into those vignettes, I planned out where to shoot what, where in Vegas with the guys there. I loved how the vignettes turned out. I was super happy with those, and I thought, man, here we go. This is it. This is the time, and then it just went the way it did. So, yeah, just having that thought in your mind, okay, here we go. But then it’s kind of taken away. It sucked. But like I said earlier, it was such an emotional roller coaster leading up to that that it’s okay. I do believe everything happens for a reason. So, especially in wrestling, never say never. So we’ll see what happens from here on out. But I’m more focused on the future and the present now and looking forward to it.”

Right before you got released, you were kind of repackaged. So you had these vignettes that you’re talking about. It’s like Italian elegance. You’re driving a Ferrari in Las Vegas, and then you come out and you lose to Apollo Crews in less than 10 seconds. So what was the original plan with these vignettes and where your character would go?

“I thought the plan was to get me going right away, and I didn’t find out about that till basically the day of the show. So at the end of the day, you’re a professional. Whatever the plan is, you try to make the most of it. I do have to say, as far as entrance-wise, that was my favorite entrance I’ve ever done. Because in the group, I always felt a little bit like I tried to fit in. That’s why I didn’t stand out. Whereas with that character that I did in NXT, and it worked great there, doing that on the main roster, I just felt like, Okay, I have some sort of direction, who I am, what I’m supposed to do. Was my favorite entrance, personality-wise, charisma-wise and everything, and then the plan changed the day of. Looking back now, I feel like from a business standpoint, if you look at the positives, it definitely got attention, definitely got people talking. The unfortunate thing for me is just that not more came out of it, because I feel like we could have done a lot of cool stuff with that character on SmackDown. I know Apollo and I could have tore it up in a match. We did in NXT. We did on Main Event. We have great chemistry. It was just things just kept happening. We moved to a different channel two weeks after then the next thing happened. I wasn’t on TV for a little bit. And, yeah, that’s just one of those things that are a little unfortunate. Because I saw myself actually having really good matches with the guys in the United States title picture at the time, like Melo, LA Knight, Andrade at the time. I think we could have done some cool stuff there. But, yeah, it is what it is.”

Is wrestling still the main focus for you right now? 

“Yeah, it’s been my passion since I was 13 years old. It gave me purpose in life. It was the one thing that drove me, motivated me, made me realize my dream of moving to America and doing what I do. It gave me the life that I have now, so I could never be bitter about wrestling itself. I just needed some time away, like you do sometimes. I had my first match in 2011, so 14-15, years, non-stop. I wouldn’t have made the decision myself, but the decision was made for me, and when it happened, because I was determined. When I signed with WWE, I’m WWE all the way, stick it out till the end. But when it happened, I was like, Okay, well, that’s that. I’m gonna take some time away. I’m gonna take some time for myself, and when I’m ready, I’m going back to doing the things that I love.”

How did you get on WWE’s radar in the first place for the Cruiserweight Classic?

“So I actually started out, like I said, I always watch wrestling and whatever, and I was always really into it. So I read up on backstage news the whole time. There was a page, a German website called wrestling infos, where I always read up on the results and whatever. One day I went on it and there was a picture of a guy pointing at the screen, and it said, Do you have what it takes? So I clicked on it, and it was Alex Wright, and it said Nuremberg, Germany, which was like a four-hour drive for me every time I wanted to get in the ring. But I knew he was the guy that was where I wanted to go. He was in the States. He worked for WCW for nine years, and I texted him asking if he trains people from Italy. He said, Yeah, sure, come by. I just did the four-hour drives like, 200 times, there and back, worked all week. I’m very grateful because he allowed me to be in the ring as much as I wanted. He had like, 14-hour days on Saturday and 14-hour days on Sunday, and I hung around all day. End up wrestling with him after that, and then driving home. I remember one time that a 4-hour drive turned into an 11-hour drive because I just couldn’t keep my eyes open anymore. And yeah, I did that for a little bit, got on his shows eventually, because he has his own promotion there. I think my big break was when I went from wrestling once or twice a month in Germany to England, where I worked for All-Star Wrestling. Sheamus has worked for them, I think Drew, Stu Bennett/Wade Barrett. So a lot of guys work for them. You go from wrestling twice a month in Germany, maybe, if you’re lucky, to wrestling 50 matches in seven weeks, like all summer, you work once or twice a day. The promoter there, Brian Dixon, actually had some good contacts to WWE, and he was like, You got to check this guy out. I did actually have a tryout a year after I started in Munich, where WWE did a tour in Germany; they had me do a tryout, and they actually flew me into Orlando to train a week in the PC. But at the time, they weren’t really looking for [what I had]. They said they were looking for a seven-foot, 300-pound monster. So I was like, it’s all good because I’ve only been wrestling for a year, and I knew it wouldn’t hurt me to get some more experience, which is exactly what I did in England. Then I just got a message from one of the talent guys back in the day. He asked me, How much do you weigh? I tried to get big. I went from 205 to 230. He said, Can you get yourself to 205 or less? Sure, no problem. He said, Yeah, we have this tournament coming up in June. Just be ready for it. Okay, sounds good. So I did my last show in England, and the last day of the tour, I break my shin. Yes, it was three months before that tournament. I was like, man, what am I going to do now? Everything was up in the open. I had never broken my leg before. I didn’t know how long is this going to take? All the guys kept saying, Dude, I feel so sorry. I was like I think I’ll be all right, just making it. So I spent like eight weeks on a couch in England just sitting there watching wrestling matches because I didn’t want to be home, sitting in my room doing nothing. At least I had the guys that were coming back from the road, had a couple of good days there, and then just slowly started walking in England, eventually flew home, and I think six days before the Cruiserweight Classic was the first time where I started jogging a little bit. My leg kept swelling up and everything. Then, yeah, did the Cruiserweight Classic, which originally wasn’t really supposed to happen, because they thought I was German, just because I speak German naturally and Italian. I said, Well, I’m Italian, but I mean, could be cool if you have an Italian guy in the tournament too. They agreed to it, thankfully. There was actually one spot in the match where I did that double Springboard moonsault. I remember when I landed, I was like, Is my leg whole? I think we’re good. Covered the guy, finished the match, thank God.”

Your leg is still pretty much broken at that point.

“Yeah. I mean, it’s very fragile. Well, it was strange. Yeah, I lost a lot of weight because my leg got so small. I was like, Oh, well, I’m 210. 205 is gonna be a piece of cake. But then I put the muscle back on and I was 230 so I had to lose like, almost 30 pounds in three weeks.”

That’s so funny to me that you had to legit be 205 to enter the Cruiserweight Classic, even though it’s pro wrestling:

“I actually asked Brian Kendrick, because he was here before. I said, ‘Do you really think they’re going to do a shoot weigh-in?’ He said, ‘Man, I don’t know. I don’t want to tell you they’re not.’ But he’s never experienced it, but I just didn’t want to risk it. The day before, I still had to do two hours of cardio with a hoodie on and whatever, brought my own scale. I think I was, [205] would have been 93 kilos. I was 92.8 when I stepped on the scale, right on the dot. So yeah, that was actually the thing that I think really got me noticed, because Triple H saw me for the first time actually wrestling on WWE platform. William Regal was a big fan at the time. He said, You need to be here as a heavyweight. It was weird, because the tournament happened in June, and then I think they did 205 Live right after, and I didn’t hear anything for a while. So like everyone told me I did good, but we’ll see. So I kept wrestling that schedule in England again, and then I had a show in Germany that year in December, and we went out after the show, just partying a little bit. When I got back to the hotel room, I set my alarm for the next day, and an email popped up from Canyon Seman at the time, why is he texting me now? I’m getting goose bumps already. He said, William Regal and Triple H told me to put you in the hiring process. Best Christmas present ever. I couldn’t wait to tell my coach the next day. And, yeah, that’s, that’s that’s how it all started. I got my visa six months after, moved here, and got started in NXT.”

You guys were a standout tag team in NXT UK, and then NXT as well, two-time Tag Team Champions. When do you go from there to the main roster?

“Well, that all came a little bit unexpected, because we were that group in NXT, where it was the three of us. When the call-up happened, they got called up. I didn’t. So that was a bit of a mix-up. That was also a bit of a like, what’s going on here. We started at the same time, Walter came over after that, but they went up there said, you guys, do your thing. I’ll do my thing in NXT, it will all workout. But it was a little bit like, like, an avalanche of emotions at the time, because you don’t know what’s going on here. Am I not going anywhere? What’s happening? Like, do I have to move back or whatever?”

You feel like you’re being left behind?

“A little bit. Yeah, yeah, but I didn’t really know why, because we did everything together all the time. Everything went well with the matches and all that. But after three days, I had a great talk with Shawn. He’s like, Hey, don’t worry about it. We’re gonna figure it out. He’s the man. Matt Bloom as well. They were both great. And I remember three days after that, I got myself three burgers. I’m like, I’m gonna eat these, and tomorrow we go to work, show them. That’s when we came up with that character, that Giovanni Vinci character, which I had a ton of fun with. I think I did more in those three months in NXT that I had done in five, six years prior to NXT. Did promos every week, had great matches, did commentary. So that was great. And then I heard rumors about me getting called up. But you know, in wrestling, you never get too excited until it actually happens, because nothing’s ever set in stone. I mean, the debut was great, in front of 70,000 people at Clash at the Castle.”

I think the way that Samantha Irvin introduced you really helped to get you over, especially early on 

“Oh, for sure, she did an amazing job. I was actually looking forward to the introduction every time myself, like, oh, here we go. ‘Giovanni!’ She did amazing.”

Did she tell you she was going to do that? 

“No, no. Caught me off guard myself. Like, oh, that was cool.”

I’ve heard a lot of people saying that this new El Grande Americano looks a lot like Ludwig Kaiser. I don’t know if that’s true or not, but what do you think of the work that he’s doing? 

“I think he’s killing it at whatever he’s doing. I think he has a good feel for what the people want to see and what people want to get out of it, and the reaction speak for themselves.”

You had a match where it was Imperium versus John Cena and Seth Rollins. I don’t know if a lot of people know that you were in the ring with John Cena. How did that match come about?

“Man, was such a surreal moment. It was announced that Cena was going to be on that show in India. It was kind of last-minute. It was kind of thrown together, or was announced that Seth and Cena against Ludwig and I at the time, and I tell you, that was the loudest reaction I’ve ever heard in my life. That building of the floor was vibrating. It was shaking when we were standing there. He did his entrance, and then it was one of those. It’s almost like you wear a real-life VR, you know, those virtual reality things. Because he was my brother’s favorite wrestler. Growing up in 2004 2005 obviously watched him my whole life myself, and then he gets a tag, and I get a tag, okay, wrestling John Cena now, crazy moment. Obviously you want to still be professional like 99%, but that 1% in the back of your mind is like, Oh, this is cool. This is very cool.”

You had some really fun moments with Kevin Owens. So there’s this moment you’re in the ring with Kevin Owens and Sami Zayn, and he’s talking about everybody in Imperium. He’s like, we never hear from this guy, what’s up with baldy? And the crowd starts chanting baldy

“Whatever can entertain the crowd is great. The fact that they got into it was surprising to me. Yeah, same thing with there’s this video out there of him at commentary, like we said, wipe the sweat off your head and you see me.”

Right after he says it, you wipe the sweat. Could you hear him? 

“No, no idea. It was just a crazy coincidence, great. I saw a couple of days after it happened. I was like, well, look at that. Like, who would have thought?”

So your 90 days would have been up, I think around May 8, 2025. Did you have conversations with AEW or TNA about doing something with them? 

“Not really. I did eventually have some good conversations. But nothing is set in stone yet. I just know that the way I’m working out now, I think I’m good to go already, and the longer it goes on, the better setup I will be. And when that opportunity comes, wherever it is, I know I’m going to go all in and I’m going to kill it, because that was the whole point of taking that time off just to completely recharge the batteries and come back fresh.”

What is Giovanni Vinci grateful for?

“My family, my health, and that I get to live my dream.”

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Becky Lynch (@BeckyLynchWWE) is a professional wrestler with WWE. She sits down with Chris Van Vliet at West Coast Creative Studio in Hollywood, CA to discuss her time away from wrestling and her return at WrestleMania 41, her new theme song performed by The Wonder Years, having to keep Seth Rollins’ fake injury a secret, fans believing that she doesn’t put other wrestlers over, her upcoming 10th WrestleMania match against AJ Lee, auditioning for Happy Gilmore 2, her new coffee company, and more!

I have to say I’m a huge pop punk fan, so The Wonder Years doing your theme song, amazing. 

“I love it. When Dan, he first started off by telling me the lyrics. There was a few tears as well.” 

What lyrics hit you? 

“Well, the lyric about my dad, which is, ‘I talk to your ghost every night in my sleep.’ It’s a reference to my dad and, you know, he has little easter eggs about ‘they’ll rue the day’ and ‘burn it down’ and watch something better grow, like it’s all little references to my family. Yeah, so got me good. Then I heard it all together, and I was like, Oh, damn.”

How did that come together? Because not a lot of WWE Superstars get an outside band to be able to do their theme song. 

“It was a bit of a struggle. I was thinking of coming back, and I was like, you know, I just don’t feel like my entrance music represents me anymore, probably didn’t represent me for about seven years, didn’t feel it. It always felt too happy-go-lucky, so I reached out to Dan Campbell from The Wonder Years, and I was like, ‘If I can get it through, is there any chance you guys would be interested in writing me a new theme song?’ Instantly, he wrote back, yes, hell yes, and he got to work, and I was like, okay, but let me just clear it through Hunter. They have ways of doing things where they want their guys to write the song and then the other band does the cover. Dan was already too far gone, and I was already too in love with his song that it ended up being a whole thing. But we got it done. There was a lot of phone calls and a few fights. So we got it done.” 

You were already friends with The Wonder Years. How did that come about? 

“From Colby, aka Seth Rollins, my hot husband. I wasn’t really in on the pop punk scene at all. I’m mostly a 90s grunge kid and 70s rock and The Beatles and Dylan, you know, that’s kind of what I tend to listen to. He would play his music, and most of the time I was like, Oh, God, these lads with their whiny, nasally voices. Then he puts on The Wonder Years, and The Ocean Grew Hands to Hold Me came on. I was like, Oh, damn that, that guy’s voice, oh, this band. Then he played me more and I was like, oh, I love this guy. Then we were supposed to get married in 2020, the pandemic happened and all that. For the day that we were supposed to get married, Colby surprised me with having Dan make a cover of a song Fala Amo by Bring Me the Horizon, which is a song that Colby played me when we were first getting together, then Dan did the cover, and it was all lights out, and that became our wedding song. You may have seen on Unreal, we put the phone in a bowl, and that was the one song that we had at our wedding.”

You had some time away before WrestleMania 41:

“It was mostly like, Okay, let me just be at home. Let me enjoy my home and my child, and be there for her and take her to all her classes. Let’s have a steady life for a second. Let’s try this out. How is this? Oh, it’s very nice. Then acting roles came up. So then I was doing Star Trek, and I was doing Happy Gilmore, and then we got the pilot for movies and did that.” 

What’s the balance look like? Because it’s WWE, it’s acting, the new coffee brand. It’s being a mom. It’s also staying in shape, and it’s getting rest. So what’s the balance look like? 

“I don’t know that there is balance. Is there ever balance? I think the schedule now helps a lot. We do TV one day a week, we don’t have the live events that we used to. I mean, the beginning of this year was insane. We had a European tour. I was also filming Star Trek. We had Saudi Arabia, so that was pretty intense. But other than that, week to week is pretty easy. We’re not gone very often. We’re gone for one sleep in her eyes, and yeah, and then the other stuff, you know, you just try to make it all work, wedge it in here. I mean, I need sleep.” 

How hard was it to lie about Seth’s injury leading up to SummerSlam?

“Not hard to the public. I mean that with love for everybody, but that’s what we do. The job is acting. I’m letting you in on a story, here is the story that we were telling. To our friends and family, that was a little bit trickier. Yeah, that was the hard part.” 

So who knew?

“Roux, she knew. A few of our friends and family. I let my mom know, she wasn’t gonna tell the dirt sheets. His mom knew, yeah, but the worst part was I had people texting me. Bianca was texting me. She was like, ‘I think Colby got hurt. Do you want me to go check on him?’ I was like, ‘Ah, no, that’s okay. I’m sure he’ll text me back whenever he is ready.’ She was like, ‘Oh, are you sure? Oh, wait, no, I think this might be work now, never mind. I’ll stop asking.'”

Do you share the same disdain for AJ Lee that your husband has for CM Punk?

“Not on that level, I just want her gone. To me, she’s like a fly I gotta get rid of. Get out of here. Nobody wants you. Nobody wanted you back. Be gone. You weren’t here for me when I was wrestling, when I was coming up. So I don’t want you now. Saying she’s proud of me. She wasn’t proud of me when she left. She was scared of me. That’s what happened. She was scared of me. She saw it in my eyes. She saw the fire. She went bye-bye, so long. But then, you know, she didn’t go ahead and say crap about me for years. It’s a little bit different.”

Who has the home-field advantage in Las Vegas? 

“Oh, that’s me. Because WrestleMania is my home. This is my 10th WrestleMania, which makes it an anniversary, which makes it special. Started WrestleMania 32, here we are, 42. I missed one because of the child.”

Was 32 special because it was your first one?

“Yeah. But also what that match meant. We got rid of that stupid butterfly belt that AJ Lee is so proud of, got rid of that crap, and we brought in the women’s title. So it was really ushering in a new era. I know we say that a lot, but that one really was. That was a game changer for women, the way that they spotlighted that match, and dare I say, best match on the card, in front of 100,000 people.”

You recently said that this contract you’re on right now is your final contract. This is your final run.

“I mean, I didn’t say it with such assuredness as you did, right? I said it’s probably my last one. I think I said this is likely my last one. That’s not a sure [thing], but, yeah, no, it might be, could be.”

What makes you feel that way? 

“I don’t know, it could be longer, but you never want to outstay your welcome. Although, I’m in my prime, I can go, plenty left in the tank. But I also have my daughter at home, and maybe I’ll want another one, and at some point, you have to just be happy with what you’ve done. But again, the love of what I do, that’s not going anywhere, but there’s a lot that goes in, around it and behind it. I suppose you never want to just leave spinning your wheels. You always want to move up. But again, that’s also not true, because sometimes I just go, what do I want to do? What would I think is fun? Maybe nobody else will, but this is what I want to do, and this is what I’m happy doing.”

Well, what do you want to do?

“I just want to tell good stories, have good matches. Want to make sure that the business is better when I leave it than how I found it. I know that what I have done is prove that women could be the biggest stars in this company, and they are and can be. I think sometimes we need to fight to make sure we’re positioned as such, because you can be a huge name, but if you’re not positioned in the main event. It’s very easy when we condition the audience, this person’s the main event, this person’s the main event, this person’s the main event, we see them as the main event. When we don’t condition the audience, then it becomes a little bit harder. And for the last few years, I think we’ve, for the most part, those main events have gone to two, maybe three, four dudes constantly. I think we need to change that again. I think we need to. I don’t know what that means, whether that means fighting a bit more, whether it’s me or somebody else. Do you think we need to get our backs up a little bit again?” 

There was this idea online that you don’t put people over. I’d like to go through the list of all the people. Liv Morgan, Bianca Belair, Rhea Ripley, Maxxine Dupri, Zoey Stark, Lyra Valkyria, so I don’t know where this idea comes from. 

“I don’t know. I think that’s when you’re the top of the card, it happens to everybody. Nobody is unscathed. It was Sami Hogan. It might still be Sami Hogan. It’s Cody Hogan, it’s Roman Hogan, Seth Hogan, we’re all Hogan, which say what you will about the man, one of the biggest stars to ever exist. So, yeah, I think it becomes this thing. People don’t understand how creative happens and if they see somebody that is in a preferable spot for a long period of time, they go, okay, that’s because that person is politicking and trying to hold everybody down. So, you know, it’s just people don’t know how it happens, and they don’t know what goes into it, and that’s fine, you know? They’re entitled to have their opinions. I want you to have your opinions, go nuts with your opinions. But now I’m just gonna do what I do, and how you feel about me is how you’re gonna feel about me.”

What’s been the most fun you’ve had going toe to toe with someone on the mic? 

“Oh gosh, I don’t know. Bianca comes to mind. But really, anybody, even this absolute joke, Loser Lee, Nasty Nikki, seeing Loser Lyra come out of her shell. Even watching Moody Maxxine progress, all of them. Getting to see them bring something out of themselves, because they’re like, I don’t want to be walked over here. She might do that, but they step up to the plate and they bring it, and I love it.”

How has your time on Happy Gilmore two and Star Trek helped you as a performer? 

“I don’t know. I think it’s all just transferable skills. I mean, they both help each other, but it’s just a transferable skill of being able to perform and tell a story and what’s your role and know your lines.”

How was your audition for Happy Gilmore?

“Oh, yeah, that was a fun one. They gave me a kayfabe script and it was two different roles. So they gave me a role of some guy, like, I had to play this guy and then this girl. They just said, just do both of them. All right, what would this character be like? This character would totally be from the manosphere. Yeah, okay, all right.”

You got to wrestle with and against Trish Stratus

“That was awesome. That cage match was one of my favorite matches. Trish Stratus, I mean, I’m the greatest female wrestler of all time, it’s not just me saying it, other people are saying it. Sports Illustrated says it, The Bleacher Report says it. But, you know, she is always going to be in that list of the greatest female wrestlers of all time, and she’s out there taking superplexes off the top of a cage! Good on you. I’m like, you got kids, two of them. She’s dedicated, man. She loves this, and she wanted to put her all into it.”

I feel like Molly Holly could probably still wrestle.

“Can still bust out that Molly Go Round. I’ve hit it a couple of times. She’s let me know it needs improvement. I don’t do it like she does. I’m not really a high flyer. As Mick [Foley] said, can’t jump high, but I can jump off of high things.”

What is Becky Lynch grateful for?

“My family, my husband, and nature.”

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Stephanie Vaquer (@Steph_Vaquer) is a professional wrestler with WWE and the current Women’s World Champion. She sits down with Chris Van Vliet in Las Vegas, NV to discuss winning the Women’s Championship at Wrestlepalooza and celebrating with her father afterwards, her upcoming championship defense against Liv Morgan at WrestleMania 42, her new finisher and new entrance theme, how Booker T reacts to The Devil’s Kiss on commentary, possibly turning heel, how she has improved her English and more!

What have these last six months or so been like since I saw you?

“Many things happened. I’m always saying my life is like a crazy TV show. When I have a dream or something, in my head, it always happens differently, but better. So the last six months, the last year, was amazing.” 

So how does it feel going into your first WrestleMania, and not just your first WrestleMania, but you’re going into this match defending your world title?

“Yeah, I remember, one year ago, I was in the WrestleMania arena. I saw all the arena, and I said, one day I really want to be here. But in that moment, I never think I can do that so fast. This year, I’m not just there with the title, I’m with my WWE Women’s Championship. So it’s amazing. It’s more than my dream.” 

What a special moment when you won this championship. It was at Wrestlepalooza, and your dad is sitting there in the front row, and on top of that, it’s his birthday. Couldn’t be a better birthday present for him? 

“No, but this is amazing, because that’s a long history. Before Wrestlepalooza, [it was] supposed to be I go to Clash in Paris. I was really, really sick, so they cancel my participation in Clash in Paris. I’m so, so sad. So after, WWE said, Don’t worry, we have iced the story for you. Wrestlepalooza is a big event; it’s the first Wrestlepalooza, so I’m excited. One week before, I get sick again, I feel like sick again. So medical say, Okay, I’m sorry, but you can’t go to Wrestlepalooza. I already have the ticket, the flight for my dad and everything and like that. That was so hard in that moment, but I talked with Triple H, and I talk with many people in WWE and say, No, I’m ready. I’m not sick. I feel good. I can do that. Please just let me go, I can do that. Finally, I was there, and that was amazing, because it’s not just Wrestlepalooza, big event with IYO SKY, my dad was there and my dream that Women’s World Champion.”

You’ve had this championship now since September, you’ve had some amazing matches. I want to start off with this one that you’ve had with IYO SKY. You guys stole the show in Indianapolis at Wrestlepalooza. What was the idea putting that match together? Because it was just a banger.

“I really enjoyed that a lot, because I respect IYO so much. She’s amazing. She’s really so professional. I really enjoyed that match. It was an amazing match. I always say, I’m not just the Women’s World Champion, I won with IYO SKY, the best, one of the best in the world. So it’s like, for me, it’s really special. I respect IYO SKY so much. I remember after that show, many people say, Yeah, you really make that show amazing, because that match the more important match that day. I remember Randy Orton saying you made Wrestlepalooza, because that was the best match.”

Why do you feel like you have so much great chemistry with IYO SKY?

“I don’t know. I think maybe because I trained in Japan. So I know the Japanese style and language. Not perfect, but we can have good communication, and we can understand that the style. We have many, many things in the same style. So I think for that reason, we can have really good chemistry in the ring.”

The promos you’ve been cutting in Spanish are great, and even if someone doesn’t understand what you’re saying, they understand the passion that you’re speaking with. I think that’s the great thing about it. Even if the audience doesn’t speak Spanish, they’re like, oh, I can tell she’s getting angry, or she’s getting emotional, or whatever the case may be. Is it easier for you to cut a promo in Spanish?

Yeah, because, I mean, many people on social media sometimes say she cut a promo in Spanish because she can’t in English. No, I can do it, but if WWE want it in Spanish, for me, it’s better because I’m Latina. I love my language, and I love when people can understand that, and I love people can know about me, about my language, and I feel different. I mean, when I speak in Spanish, I can feel different, because if I speak another language I need to think about the translation to say it. It’s not the same when I say in Spanish, just say in Spanish. I really enjoy the promo in Spanish, and I can do in English too. But I love that mix between Spanish and English promo.”

You made Liv Morgan cry with one of your promos in Spanish, yeah?

“But you know what? I think maybe, I don’t know why, but I think maybe crocodile tears, fake. Maybe because she’s a really good actress. So I don’t know if Liv is sometimes fake crying.”

When Liv Morgan won the Royal Rumble, she had the ability to go after your championship or after Jade Cargill’s championship. How did you feel when she chose you and your Women’s World Championship?

“Really happy. I love that. I am sure we can have a good match in WrestleMania, and I really hope Liv work hard, because we have a big responsibility in WrestleMania. I’m happy. I’m really happy with this history, with this match.”

How do you feel about your new entrance theme?

“I like it. I love my old song. But, you know, many issues, so we need a new song. I just hope people can understand that.”

How do you feel when people say that you’re the best wrestler on the planet right now?

“I don’t want to believe that. Because I tell you this, if I think I’m the best, I’m still learning, and I don’t want that. Humble, I think that’s important always. Yeah, I feel like I always try to be better than before, just me, against me or with me. But, yeah, I don’t want to stop. I don’t want to think about that.”

Your new finisher is a little bit like AJ Styles’ spiral tap? 

“One time he said to me, oh, it’s like my move. I’m like, Oops. And he say, No, you look better. And I say, No, I can’t believe you say that. I love him.”

You had quite the moment with Rhea Ripley. You guys did the double Devil’s kiss, timed out perfectly, too.

“That was so funny. She’s so nice. She asked me first, I have an idea. I’m like, yeah. She said, “It’s okay for you? She asked me. I say, of course, I mean, it’s an honor. And she said, can you show me how? And I say, Yeah, sure. She does it perfectly.” 

The move itself is great, but how much do you think Booker T really helped to get that move over?

“You know what? Before WWE, I did that move for a long time. But when I did that move before WWE, was little different than now. When I sign with WWE, I think, Okay, I want to stop doing that move for many reasons. I think sometimes people take that move different ways, and I don’t like that. In NXT one day, and we were training, and I showed that move, and the coach is saying, No, that’s good, people know that move and people like that move. I’m thinking yeah, but I don’t know why I don’t like it anymore. I don’t want to do that move because I hate what people say, it’s just because that move and like no people can sometimes understand that move, and I’m gonna start to do it again. I feel good because Booker T make that move so people love this move, so I’m starting to love this move again, because Booker T make me feel like that.” 

In 2025 you won the Slammy Award for breakout star of the year. What did being called the breakout star mean for you?

“It’s great because many, many different things happened at that time. I never believed that can happen. So in that moment they say, and I didn’t know in that moment. Wait what? People say that? And they say yes, and I’m so excited, because when I came to WWE, I worked really hard. Istill work really hard every day. So that kind of thing made me feel like, okay, people can see how hard I work here.”

Do you remember getting that call that you were going to the main roster? 

“I remember because when I was in NXT, I love NXT. I felt at home. I remember many people say, okay, many people are waiting for you on Raw, on main roster, but at the same time Shawn Michaels is like, we need you here, and we want you here. At the same time, I want to stay here, but I want to go for main roster. In that moment, I didn’t feel very good, because I’m still learning, and my English was not good. Now it’s better, not perfect, but better. Sometimes I feel like, no, I need more time. But at the same time no, I talked to myself and okay, I need to be brave and just do it. So I feel good, because people on Raw and main roster made me feel so good. Made me feel at home too. Many different challenges and big challenges.”

What is Stephanie Vaquer grateful for?

“The support for all my people, health and I don’t have injuries.”

Quotes have been edited for clarity.

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Liv Morgan (@YaOnlyLivvOnce) is a professional wrestler with WWE. She sits down with Chris Van Vliet in Las Vegas, NV to discuss winning the Women’s Royal Rumble after being in the match every year since it began, the upcoming WWE Women’s World Championship match against Stephanie Vaquer, her return from injury at Survivor Series and her low blow John Cena, why she believes she and Dominik Mysterio are the greatest couple in WWE history, her memorable NXT debut and much more!

This is your eighth WrestleMania. How’s that feel?

“Iconic. We’re just going, and we’re just getting better matches every single year.”

Do you feel the pressure going into this one?

“Not right now, and not in a bad way. I don’t know. I feel like since I’ve come back from my injury, I’m very much just trying to stay in the moment and be present. Obviously, WrestleMania is heavy on my mind, but I’m not feeling any anxiety or pressure yet. I’m just kind of taking everything day by day and just preparing as best as I can. So no, I don’t feel pressure right now in this moment.”

What happened with this injury, and did you immediately know something?

“Yeah, I just took a weird fall, tried to brace myself, which is stupid. As soon as it happened, I knew, just because you can’t feel anything. But first of all, it’s like such an intense pain, then it just goes away, and then you can’t feel anything because your shoulder is just not connected. So yeah, I knew. I rolled out the ring. I tried to pop it back in. Medical came and tried to pop it back in, and it was kind of just like, I can’t continue, I can’t do anything else. So I had to throw in the towel, which I hated. I think I tried to be really optimistic until my MRI news, I was like, I think I’m okay, but I had done the same thing two years prior. So I knew it wasn’t okay, but I didn’t really want to speak it into existence.”

What a return at Survivor Series. The look on your face just sold that moment so perfectly.

“I don’t even know how I did that. My eyes, I was like, Whoa, dilated. I must have tapped into something right there. I don’t know. But yeah, it was so iconic, and I couldn’t have written a better return, and I mean that so wholeheartedly. I couldn’t, first of all, I would not even have come up with that myself that was so much more grand and special to me than anything I could have thought of myself. So I was just so happy and honored.”

Walk me through winning the Royal Rumble, and what that moment meant, eliminating Tiffany Stratton

“I’ve been in every single Royal Rumble since we started doing these in 2018. I think myself and Natalya are the only women that can say that at this point. I’ve had every position in that match. I’ve come out first, I’ve come out last. I’ve had the fastest elimination time. I’ve had the time for the shortest elimination. To finally be the bride and not the bridesmaid this year, and not only that, but to solidify myself a WrestleMania spot where I was able to pick a champion of my choosing. None of that is lost on me. Even 11 years in, none of that is lost on me. So I don’t know, I kind of felt like how I felt when I won the Money in the Bank match. Just kind of like, overwhelming awe and gratitude and it just being so surreal that all I can do was just look out into the audience, just because I wanted to really remember that feeling and try to, like, I said, just be really present in the moment. So it was a dream come true.”

You are on a whole new level over the last two or three years. Do you recognize it too? 

“For sure, yeah, I’ve been saying, ever since the Liv Morgan Revenge Tour, I feel like I’ve just, been able to tap into something else. I think I just really needed something to sink my teeth into, and that was that for me. Then I feel like I just understood everything better after that.”

Then you and Dom being paired together leveled both of you up. What is it about that chemistry that works so well?

“I think, ultimately, we just understand the assignment. I feel like the fans love to hate us, or they hate to love us. It’s such an intriguing, complex, messy, wholesome, love story that we haven’t seen for a while, and I feel like the audience really loves that. I think, honestly, we’re just iconic. I know I say that word a lot, but we’re just iconic together. I think we are the greatest couple in the history of WWE. I’m not just saying that. I mean that wholeheartedly. We’re better than Becky and Seth, we’re better than AJ and CM Punk. We’re better than Macho Man and Miss Elizabeth. I stand on that. I feel like we’ve resurged couples in WWE. What couples were couples before Dominik and I? Now you have tons of people coupling up, trying to do what we do, but they just can’t.”

I feel like fans are so used to seeing you in this role now, but if we go back to your NXT debut, Tyler Breeze is making his entrance, and you’re a crazed fan who jumps out and jumps on him.

“I guess I’ve always been a little bit crazy, huh?”

What was your gimmick even at that time?

“I don’t think I had one. I think that was my very first feature on WWE TV, and I think they just wanted to have someone obsess over Tyler Breeze, so they chose me and I was like, okay. It was just very, we’re gonna give you a little spotlight on this takeover I just started. I probably was there for like, two months maybe. So I was surprised. I was like, okay, yeah, I totally will do it. I just got a phone call while I was at home, ‘Come to rehearsal,’ and I was like, why? And they’re like, ‘We have something for you.’ I was just like, okay, and it was just that. Then I think I was also in his entrance a couple of months later.”

So how did you become Liv Morgan?

“I walked into work one day and they were like, ‘Okay, you’re either Liv Morgan or Liv Gallow, pick.’ I was like, oh. I had known we had Luke Gallows at some point in time there, he wasn’t employed in that moment in time when I was there. But I had known of him and his history. So I was like, I’ll be Liv Morgan, and that was really it. I never really liked Morgan, now I like it. But I remember, first time signing an autograph, I was like, I’m just gonna sign Liv, and that’s all I’ve done. That just stayed with me my whole career. Only because I didn’t like Morgan.”

Do you have a favorite moment from the last 11 years? One that you come back to, one that maybe replays in your head.

“No, and not in a bad way. But no, I don’t think that there’s a moment that stands out to me multiple times. I just feel like my career as a whole, I guess I think of so many moments in my career as a whole. I just feel like, I don’t know, I’m just so grateful, really, I’m just so f*cking grateful. I don’t know how else to put it, I just feel blessed. I feel lucky. I feel like I’m living the life of my dreams.”

You were on the receiving end of one of Bianca Belair’s hardest, loudest hair whips ever. How long did it take for that to heal up? 

“I had a scar for quite a while. Honestly, I haven’t looked at it in a bit. I still think I have a very bit of a tail end mark still. Also my back too. I have a scar on my back from some injury I had taken from the Elimination Chamber. So yeah, it scarred me up pretty well. But honestly, that’s like one of my favorite matches ever. That was one of my favorite matches ever, and like the final two with Bianca and I is one of my favorite moments. I feel like the audience really didn’t know who was going to take it. I think just that Chamber specifically in and of itself, with Jade and Naomi. I just think it was so well done. I think that was like one of the best Chamber matches, in my opinion, for the women.”

What is Liv Morgan grateful for?

“My family, my job and my health.”

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Paul Wight (@PaulWight) is a professional wrestler currently signed to AEW and known for his time in WWE and WCW. He sits down with Chris Van Vliet in Indianapolis, IN to discuss how much longer he intends to wrestle, the amount of times he has turned face or heel throughout his career, working with The Rock, being cast as Captain Insano in The Waterboy, a hilarious Arnold Schwarzenegger story after starring in Jingle All The Way, the scary stretcher spot with Rey Mysterio, Floyd Mayweather breaking his nose for real before their WrestleMania match and more!

So are you feeling good now?

“I’m feeling real good. I think my main thing now is I understand there’s a short window left, and listen, I’m not in any way, shape or form delusional that I’m going to go out and compete for championships and pull the wagon, those days are done. Also, in fairness to the younger talent that’s digging and striving now, they don’t need to see my ass every week, taking up TV time and ring time. There’s nothing I can do that’s going to make my career any bigger or better. All I can do is enjoy some of the last years that I have under contract with AEW and hopefully have some fun with some of the younger talent and teach them some of the lessons that have been passed down to me and just, you know, have a little bit of fun. I’m in a really good spot. I got a good boss that believes in me, supports me, and gives me an opportunity to be a part of the business.”

Do you have a number in mind for how much longer you want to keep doing this?

“It’s funny, with wrestling, I think for me to get back in the ring and compete, I’m going to have to be a certain level. I’ll never be what I was. Got two fake knees and two hips. The proprioception is different. The connection between your joints is different. You feel different as an athlete, so I have to accept what am I now, and does that enhance the product that I’m doing? Sure, I’m smart enough and old enough. There are certain things that I can do that will still give a little kickback to nostalgia, will still look like a big, dangerous giant that is my character and teach. But at the same time, if it looks like, oh, put a bullet in [him], well, I’m not going to do that. So that’s what all this hard work now is, okay, what’s the one thing that I can really control? That’s conditioning and weight. I don’t need to be 500 pounds anymore. I need to be about 350.”

What were you at your very heaviest? 

“537. But I’m doing it right. It’s not rocket science, I’ve tried to shortcut so many ways with it. This gimmick, we’ll do carb cycling, and we’ll do keto, and we’ll do this. Dude, it comes down to the same thing. You have to take in less calories than you burn, and it takes 3,500 calories to burn a pound of fat. So in a week, I have to at least minimally create a 3,500-calorie deficit. Right now, I’m almost a 7,000-calorie deficit a week, so that puts me right at a pound and a half, two pounds a week. It’s slow. It sucks. You look worse before you look better. There are some days I get in the gym and I’m like, Oh, all right, something’s happening. And then, you know, a couple of pounds change, I go, wait, I went down in weight and look worse. WTF? But that’s just part of the cycle. Your body changes and grows. And unfortunately, fat is not targeted. It’s like, okay, yeah, well I’ve got two, three abs on one side. They’re coming in really good. Then I got one side that’s just smooth. It’s like the other side didn’t show up.” 

What’s the thing that you’ve been most proud of in your career?

“I would honestly have to say respect of the guys that I worked with. I never effed anybody over behind their back. I never intentionally hurt anybody. I was always careful with them, and guys that would come up and tell me that they enjoyed working me, that it was easy working with me, that meant a lot, because it wasn’t that way in the beginning. In the beginning, I was too athletic, I was too strong, guys were scared, they didn’t want to help. As the business went along, and I got better and seasoned and trustworthy. That means a lot. I have guys now that will still call me and, just good buds that call me, and we laugh about old stuff, and they tell me what’s going on with them. That means a lot to me. It does. I got a few guys. I’ve been in a group text chat with a couple of guys for going on 16 years, something like that. It’s pretty cool. It’s nice to have that you made a difference in other talent’s lives, other co workers lives, you meant something to them. I think that that means a lot to me, and I’m always grateful, of course, for the fans, you know, because, I mean, I wouldn’t be anywhere without them. But just as a personal note, I think the respect to the guys that I worked with means a lot.”

Your size is obvious, but I think your athleticism gets slept on sometimes

“You know I used to jump over the top rope. You know why I stopped doing that? Because Vince fined me 500 bucks for doing it.” 

What do you mean? 

“Because that’s not how giants move. He was in a different mindset. That was the thing that I was battling. Vince had Andre. Vince wanted Andre. ‘Andre ruled the locker with an iron fist. Andre did this, and Andre did that…’ I’m not Andre. I’m not a raging alcoholic and I’m not a mean person. Don’t get me wrong, if you talk to Woods and Big E, they’ll say that I’m grumpy, but that’s just from traveling. I’m not really that grumpy person. But I think he was always struggling with that. Everyone had an opinion of how I should work. Some people wanted me to work like Andre. When I was younger, I had so much athleticism, I was like, oh, I need to show this. I need to show this. And then it was like, No, take it away. I had Hogan call me. Rest in peace. I had Hogan call me in Japan. I threw a drop kick in Japan off the top rope and hit Yasuda with it. I got to my room, there was a blinking light in my hotel, and the message says, ‘Please call Mr. Bollea when you get to your room.’ Oh, hell, they didn’t even say Hulk. It’s Mr. Bollea. I’m in trouble. So I called Terry collect from Japan back then, ‘Brother, did you just do a drop kick off the top rope in Japan?’ I went, ‘Yeah, I did.’ He just goes, ‘Brother, you ever do that again, I’ll never work with you.’ Click. Because there were guys who wanted Andre. I wasn’t Andre. I wasn’t Kane or Taker either. Those guys are tremendous athletes like Kane and Taker, two of the best big men I’ve ever seen in the business. In my opinion, they’re two of the best big men ever. So I wasn’t them either. I was kind of a weird hybrid. So we tried to find along the way.”

How was it working with The Rock? 

“Easy, other than the fact that he wouldn’t look at me when he punched me. Rock used to love to tell the story of me being on one knee and him being the same height with me on one knee. So he would spread his legs out really wide when he’s throwing those punches. And he loved that visual. Here’s this giant on one knee, and here’s The Rock. But most of the time he’s looking at himself punching me on the Titantron. It’s like, Hey, if you looked at me, you might not potato me every time. But no, I’m just breaking his balls. He was great. Rock was always fun to work with, and he always knew what Rock was gonna do. Rock was gonna pop the crowd. He’s gonna make fun. Just sell for him. I used to love to sell for rock making fun, like, ‘Somebody got a haircut.’”

It’s become an observation of how many times you turned face or heel

“Arn Anderson told me, ‘The dumbest thing you ever did is learn how to work.’ So any minute, I was able to be a good opponent for what we were doing. I knew that me, personally, I don’t think I should ever have been champion. You don’t need a giant to be a champion. You need a giant to be an obstacle for the upcoming champion. You need somebody, something, a wall, a mountain, something that has to be overcome so that the next talent can be on its way. There’s a damn good living to be made in that position. I think the last time I got the title was just because I had been five or six years in title matches all the time, hadn’t won the damn thing. ‘Well, he’s been in here while, we might want to put it on him, so get some validity out of it.’ But I was okay with that. I enjoyed that, because I look back at my career now, I got to help create some big, big stars. I was working early with Roman and working early with Cody. There are a lot of talents that I had a great [time with], Kofi and Woods and Cesaro. Big moment, Cesaro at WrestleMania, those are all good moments for me. I always understood that I’m not, and this is no way am I putting myself down. I’m not a leading man, I’m not Rock, I’m not Stone Cold. I’m not John Cena. I’m not the leading guy, I’m the funny sidekick, or I’m Thanos, the villain. That’s where I fall in, and that’s okay.”

It’s great to hear the perspective of why you turn face or heel so many times. If you were working a heel, you’re a babyface. If you’re working a babyface, you’re a heel. Yeah, you’re trying to make them look good. 

“That’s the whole name of the game. My philosophy is different. What I took to the business and brought to it, not that it’s any super algorithmic formula that’s going to guarantee success. I looked at what I brought to the table, and what are my responsibilities? Get the match over, get my opponent over, and the third thing is going to happen, I will get myself over. I didn’t know how to do those things early in the beginning, because it was, oh, do I just go out, get myself over? Do I do this? Just figuring out how to respond on things, just a couple of little tweaks, and then also trusting the other talent, and talking to them, explaining to them what we’re doing. And once you explain to guys now, if we do this right, and we build this here, this will get a bigger reaction, and then guys get crazy, like your buddy, Rey.”

The stuff on the stretcher is crazy! 

“I hate that spot! That gives me nightmares. That went so bad. Oh, that went terrible because it was my idea, because Rey was tied in it, and then I thought I’d rib him in the afternoon, whereas I’ll just pick him up scare him. Oh, I can [pick him up]. This isn’t that tough. So what about swinging the pole? My God, that’ll look crazy. But the whole thing was, I was gonna swing him on the pole, swing him on the pole again, and I was gonna shove him back in the ring. Somewhere, somebody before us, because it sure as hell wasn’t me, the guys used to put this conditioner crap on their hair. And sometimes it would get on the ropes, and it makes your hands so slimy, like even if you grab the top rope, getting out of the ring, your hand just comes right off. So when I swung Rey into that pole, that thing popped right out of my hands, like it squeezed, like a hard-boiled egg or something. It just popped right out, then I saw Rey go, and I went, Oh, I just killed Rey. Oh, Jesus. So I’m freaking out on the inside, but we’re still doing our thing. He’s moving. Oh god, they’re putting him in the ambulance. Oh my god. So I ran back to the locker room, grabbed my clothes, threw them in the car, and drove to the hospital in my rental car, because I’m thinking, man, if Rey’s seriously f*cked up, I’m done. I’m quitting. I’m done. Because I really cared about taking care of the other guys. I get there and Rey sits in the hospital bed with his hands behind his head, just chilling. ‘Hey, man, that was good, huh?’ I’m like, ‘You’re okay?’ [He says] ‘Oh yeah, man, I’m fine.’ I’m like, ‘You know what I went through driving over here worrying?!’ Rey used to love in the house shows when he worked, he used to love to sit on the top turnbuckle and have me chop him in the chest. And he would bump from the top turnbuckle to the floor, and it looked like he got assassinated. There’s a loud smack, and then boom, there’s no more Rey. He just disappears and goes down. Arn Anderson was the agent. Arn said, ‘You know, when I see you do that to Rey, I want to call the police on you.’ It’s not me. It’s his idea. That’s not me doing that. That’s Rey. That’s getting me in trouble.”

Captain Insano was legendary:

“One take. And that was just me blatantly ripping off Hulk because I wasn’t even going to do it. They were doing interviews at Orlando and I heard Jim Duggan had gone and read for it. I was like, Oh, well, Duggan will get it. He’s amazing. Captain Insano, Jim Duggan, yeah, he’ll get it. Then the casting director, she saw me, ‘Would you please just come read?’ I was like, Sure, okay. So I just took the verbiage and did Hogan, ripped him off, and then she said, ‘Oh, my God, that’s what we’re looking for. That’s it. Congratulations. You’re Captain Insano.’ I’m like, Okay, what did I just do? I didn’t know. Funny thing about Adam Sandler, too, that whole group, his whole crew, dude, they’re so amazing. They were so nice to me and Adam’s mom. I would run into them at the Super Bowl, this little Jewish lady comes up and she grabs my hand and she says, ‘You’re in a movie with my son.’ I said ‘I was?’ [She said] ‘Yes, yes, my son, Adam.’ Oh, you’re Adam Sandler’s mom. Yes, ma’am, I sure was. ‘You’ve got to come say hello to Adam.’ So she held me by my hand and took me over to where Adam’s people were at the Super Bowl. And she’s like, ‘This is Adam’s big friend Paul. He’s a pro wrestler.’ But she was so darn sweet, you know? And Adam was like, Hey, man. I said, Dude, it’s awesome. But all those guys were super cool. And that was a great, great moment. And then I did Jingle All the Way.” 

I love that every Christmas we get to see you in Jingle All the Way. 

“I’m pretty proud of that. It was a lot of fun. I had a good time on that set, hanging out with Arnold. Again, I shot myself in the foot on that movie, too. So I’m sitting around, we’re waiting on a lens for the warehouse scene, and I guess it was like a million dollars to rent this lens, and there’s only two of them in LA and the original crew that had it rented was six hours late, and our production is held. Anyway, I don’t know how those things worked, but apparently it was a big hoodoo, and a lot of producers are mad and everything. So I’m just sitting around in my Santa suit chilling, you know, I’m sitting next to the little monitors and stuff. This guy comes in like a jogging suit, short hair, round glasses, like he’d gone for a run, obviously, to work out some stress. So he sits down, and I thought he was a sound guy. I didn’t know who he was, the number one rule I learned, everybody’s important. Be careful who you talk to. So I’m sitting here, I’m like, ‘Hey, can you believe how much f*cking money they waste doing this sh*t. Really? A million dollars on a lens, whose f*cking dumb idea was that?’ He said, ‘I know it’s crazy, you know, some of these shots are just sometimes got to have it.’ Yeah, it makes me want to be in the lens business, whatever my stupid conversation was. He goes, ‘Hi, I’m Christopher Columbus.’ [The director]. Yeah, the guy that’s making all these decisions. You went for a run because you’re so pissed because production is being held up because you don’t have your lens? Yeah. And then hanging out with Arnold, which was great.” 

How was he on set? 

“He was awesome. At one point, he was supposed to hook my suspenders in one of those hooks, and it was supposed to yank me through the warehouse. But they couldn’t figure out how to rig it up. So while I’m hanging the harness, I’m just hanging there, my feet off the ground. He slaps me in the nuts and goes, pay attention. I’m like, Oh! I’m swinging. You know, it’s fun, guy sh*t. So then we were doing a shot where Verne Troyer was supposed to get zip-lined when I punched him off Arnold’s back. But they were trying to figure out how to do the close-up without getting the wires and the harness and all that stuff. So I said, I can just stand off camera and chunk him. I can do it safely, he’s like, 40 pounds, yeah, I got it. So the part where poor Verne Troyer hits the toy boxes, I’m off camera, like this, holding him by his little Santa suit, like this, and they go, Okay. Meanwhile, Verne Troyer is mad as sh*t because I treated him like a pillow. You know what I mean? He was a big fan of mine, so he went from talking to me every day to not talking me to the rest of the rest of the entire shoot. So all right, well, learned a lesson there.” 

“I have a story for you about Mr. Schwarzenegger. I felt like Arnold and I bonded on Jingle All the Way. I had met a childhood hero. We talked about cigars, we talked about Andre, I felt like I know Arnold Schwarzenegger. I can call Arnold Schwarzenegger at least an acquaintance, and quite possibly a friend. A couple of years go by, doing something, Arnold’s there. I come up. ‘Hey, Arnold.’ He looks at me, ‘Arnold Schwarzenegger, nice to meet you.’ Oh sh*t. He doesn’t remember me. Wow, that sucks, but hey, I get it. He’s Arnold. Who am I at the time? Then some time goes by. Meanwhile, I’m getting a little bit more famous, a little bit more recognizable. I’m starting to understand that people don’t forget me. Run into him again. ‘Hey, Arnold Schwarzenegger, nice to meet you.’ I’m like wow, he really doesn’t remember meeting me. Okay, well, it’s Arnold, you know, busy dude. Lot going on. So now he comes to WWE Raw. I think he’s the Governor at the time, actually, because he had security. So I went by to say hi to Arnold. Again, I’m still looking for that, ‘Oh, I remember you.’ We bonded. Dude, really? So I go in. I talked to the security, says, ‘Oh, Big Show. You want to say hi to Arnold?’ I said, Yeah, man, absolutely. So he’d open his door. I go in the dressing room. Joe Manganiello’s there. Meet Joe. Joe and I became fast friends. We had D and D, just a good dude. So Arnold’s in a conversation. Arnold turns around, looks right at me, goes, ‘Arnold Schwarzenegger, nice to meet you.’ I’m like, Oh, damn. Really? Now this is four times you’ve met me. I get if you don’t remember my name, but now you don’t remember me. Okay, didn’t sell. Even Joe’s looking at me like, oh, that’s kind of rough. Even Joe goes, ‘Weren’t you in Jingle All the Way?’ I’m like, Yeah. All right, man, I gotta get to work. I’m pissed. So now this is going on. I’m on the wall in Gold’s Gym in Venice. I’m on the frickin wall, okay. I know he’s walked by and seen that picture. I know he has. So I see Arnold. He’s walking I just went, ‘Hey, what’s up, Arnold?’ He stops, turns around, sticks out his hand, and goes, ‘Arnold Schwarzenegger, nice to meet you.’ I’m like this over dramatic, like it’s the first time we’ve ever met. I couldn’t work out. I was like, wow, this son of a bitch. I mean, Arnold was living in my head, rent-free. You know what? Next time he’s around, I’m not gonna say hi to him. I’m not gonna do it. Not gonna do it. So then I get a call from WWE that I have to go to the Arnold Classic. He’s getting an award. WWE had done something, and he’s getting an award, so they want me to get it. So I’m there with Mark Henry, and Mark Henry knows this whole story, and Mark Henry’s trying to calm me down, because I’m like, No, you know what? If he pulls that ‘Nice to meet you’ sh*t, I’m gonna go off. I said there’s respect, and there’s like, Nah man, you’re gonna remember me this time. You might not ever like me, but you’re gonna remember me. This is bullsh*t. And Mark’s like, calm down, dude. It’s not that big a deal. I’m like, nah, dude, he’s gonna remember me. No, this is bullsh*t. So I’ve created this whole scenario in my mind, that I am so unmemorable that Arnold can’t take the time to remember me, but he knows all these stories about Andre. So it’s like, Really? Okay, all right, you’re gonna remember me now. So while I’m waiting off to the side to go out to get this award that he’s presenting. He starts telling stories, ‘My good friend Paul, we were in Jingle All the Way together, and so big and such a tremendous athlete…’ He goes into his whole spiel where he puts you over, and I go out there to get there, where he looks at me and winks. He ribbed me for 12 years! Because that’s how brilliant Arnold is. What’s the one thing that I know I bring to the table? Not the most handsome, not the most athletic, not the strongest, none of that. But you’re going to remember meeting me. I know that I have that gift. You don’t forget meeting me. That’s my ticket to the dance. Sure he knew that would be my card, and he took that from me for 12 years!”

What’s the story behind working with Floyd Mayweather?

“Great. That was a happy accident, too. Originally, that was supposed to be a tag. It was supposed to be Floyd and I against Rey and Dave [Batista]. Unfortunately, due to injuries, Dave tore a lat or a bicep, and Rey messed something up, all before we got to the TV part to start the angle. Then they were like, ‘Will you work with Mayweather?’ I’m like, hell yeah! Split the payoff between two guys? Well, really, Mayweather got most of the payoff, and I got thanks for showing up. But anyway. I thought, Yeah, that’s great. When we were doing that, we’re trying to talk to Floyd, there was such a size difference. I remember they were like, ‘How do we make this believable?’ I said, ‘It’s easy. I’ll get on one knee,’ because I’m so big and arrogant, I will get on one knee in front of him, and I said, ‘Yeah, just break my nose.’ They were like, what? I said, ‘Dude, I just spent the last year boxing, getting punched in the face. It’s not that big a deal.’ I told Floyd, because Floyd’s a pro. I said, ‘Don’t break the bone. Just give me a little tap.’ It’ll bleed because you get tapped in the nose, it’ll bleed. It’s not broken, it’s just cartilage. So he was like, ‘You want me to punch you?’ Yeah, man. I said, ‘Don’t shove it through the back of my head. But you got to. If we don’t make it look like something’s happening, nobody’s going to buy it. We need to get this off the ground and running, where people go, Oh, damn. That’s what we need.’ I said, ‘But when you bust me in the nose, and it bleeds, run, because there’s gonna be 5-10 seconds that I’m not going to be in the right frame of mind. If I get my hands on you, I might hurt you, and you’re worth half a billion dollars, so just make sure you’re not around.’ He got that point, and we went out there and did it, and just as soon as that hot blood hit the back of my neck, I was pissed. Even though I know it’s work, I was pissed.”

I can’t believe you asked for it.

“It’s for the business. It’s for the industry. It’s within the realm of what we’re doing. It’s a punch in the nose, like shit. I’ve been punched in the nose for free, we’re trying to suspend belief. We’re trying to pull you in. We’re trying to make you think, Oh, wow. We weren’t expecting that. That’s crazy. What’s gonna happen next? And it’s part of doing business. I remember tearing after him. I remember I grabbed one of his guys that I thought was him, and that guy started going, ‘Not me, it’s not me. It’s not me.’ He started screaming because I had him by the upper hip, the lower love handle in the ribs. I had him like this, and he wasn’t going anywhere. It’s almost like a big dog grabbing a little dog, a little dog yelping. That’s what was going on. So then he tore ass out of there, and nobody came around me, not a camera man, it was like I smelled bad. There was nobody within 20 [feet]. I remember Shane coming over. I love Shane to death. Shane and I have been through some great battles together, too. Shane looks at me, goes, ‘You’re all right.’ I was calm. I was like, I remember going because I licked the butt off my lip, ‘Yeah.’ Shane looks at me, goes, ‘That was f*cking awesome!’ So then I was like, okay, good. We did good. Then we get to the back. I’m excited to see Floyd. He left. He got in his car and left like, nope, not hanging around. This is not for me. I don’t want any part of this. Then we had to call him and his manager to come back. He stuck his head in Vince’s office. He says, ‘We cool, man?’ I said, ‘Dude, you did awesome. Come here, man.’ I gave him a big hug. And then we were off and running. He was so great to work with. We had to talk him out of doing stuff. And thank God they pulled in. Hunter, who I think is brilliant on ideas and putting stuff like this together. Hunter gets the story of it. Hunter was like, wow, this guy wants to do everything. I was like, I know. What are we going to do? He’s like, ‘Well, he’s worth a lot of money. Let’s be careful what we do.’ I got it. But he wanted me to chop him and body slam him through a table. He wanted all this crazy stuff. When I threw the guy out of the ring, we had to do a double, because he wanted that to be him. Nah, dude. They’re not going to let us do that. Then I remember after that WrestleMania, getting assaulted by his grandma. She slapped the bejesus out of me for beating up her grandbaby. Floyd had to come over and calm her. She was mad because I stood on him. That’s what she was mad about, that I stood on him. She was not having it. I mean, her and I became friends a little bit later on, but when we first got back there, she was ready to rip my ass apart. We did good business.”

Did you know Goldberg could get you out for that jackhammer? 

“Oh yeah, with ease. Well, here’s the thing. I could take suplexes, I could take hip tosses, I could take all that stuff. I think one of the first big bumps I took that freaked everybody was I took Kurt’s angle slam one time. Just fed and took it. Kurt was like, ‘You took that so easy! Oh my god’. Yeah, it’s kind of why I have a job, because I’m big and I’m also good. I mean, you know, that’s how I took Hennig’s Perfect Plex. Unfortunately, I’m a giant that’s good at taking finishes. So there you go.” 

What is Paul Wight grateful for?

“My family, my health and my cats.”

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Drew McIntyre (@DMcIntyreWWE) is a professional wrestler currently signed to WWE. He sits down with Chris Van Vliet in Nashville, TN to discuss his shock WWE Championship win in Berlin and bringing the title home to Scotland the next night, a possible match with SmackDown GM Nick Aldis, why he faced The Big Show at WrestleMania 36 after defeating Brock Lesnar, not getting a singles match with John Cena on the retirement tour, being in The Undertaker’s final live match, and more!

You look like you’ve taken it up a level with your fitness recently. What’s been the biggest change?

“Roughly nine months ago, I’d had five weeks off, which was the first five weeks off I’ve ever really had in my life. I came straight from school to WWE to being released back on the road a few weeks later, where I was like, oh my goodness, I’m not injured. I’m not doing rehab. I’ve actually got this time off, let’s have an honest look at myself, especially approaching 40 and wrestling 25 years, everyone thinks I’m as old as Punk or something, but I’m not, old man. But honestly, I looked at myself in the mirror and said, what’s going on with you? Let’s take some inventory here. Okay, good shape, one of the best built guys in WWE, that’s cool, but things are starting to catch up. Things are hurting. Is there anything you can do about that? I never really followed a diet. I was still eating burgers all the time, pizza all the time, sometimes eating two times a day, sometimes eating eight times a day. I decided to get a trainer who actively came to my garage and worked with me and helped me out with training and diet and the big thing, mobility, which I’ve never done, proper mobility work. I worked with Rob McIntyre for years. He’s phenomenal, but he was sending my workouts, especially when I moved to Nashville five years ago, and it was a lot more difficult not working one-on-one with him. Having this new trainer, Jeff, coming to the garage and pushing me. He’s five foot tall, five foot wide. He’s a very angry little man, and he was pushing me through my paces. But the big difference was the mobility work. I couldn’t throw a super kick, not that I wanted to, because everybody and their mother throws a super kick these days, but I’d love to be able to and have the choice to do it, but my hips were so tight, it just wasn’t physically possible. Things were locking up. I was aware, oh, my goodness, maybe you’re closer to the end than the beginning, not just because of your age, but because of how my body felt and going through all this mobility work. The new diet, which reduced inflammation dramatically, I not only saw a difference in how I looked on screen, but how I felt overall. I was throwing head kicks, I could literally kick Omos in the face right now, and I feel better now than I did at legitimately 30 years old.”

So what is range of motion? Is it more stretching?

“It’s more active stretching, and these things I never heard of, called CARs [Controlled Articular Rotations]. So all the boys and girls out there, if you’ve not heard of CARs, it’s just basically creating space in the joint, with the hips, with the shoulders, you can do it with anything, the hands, the fingers. But it’s for me specifically, the biggest difference maker was in the hips, the knees and the shoulders. I really thought to stretch my shoulders, I would spend 20 minutes in the gym just holding stretches made zero difference whatsoever. But now doing some active stretching and some prehab, instead of rehab, like when I tore my bicep, for example, and I had rehab, I was doing things to strengthen up the knees, strengthen up the shoulders and these CARs creating space in the joints and movements I may actually do in the ring. And I just could not believe how good I felt as the month started passing by.”

You turned 40 last year. Do you think about how much longer you want to do this?

“Yeah. I mean, I know my wife feels like it’s gonna be a lot shorter than I probably feel it’s going to be, especially with how I feel now and how creatively fulfilled I feel these days. But as long as I’m happy, as long as she’s happy, and as long as the fans are happy with what I’m doing, I don’t see any reason to slow down anytime soon, especially when I see guys getting up there in age right now and moving as well as they’re moving right now, because we’ve just moved so far forward with athletes. Look at LeBron James or Ronaldo, for example, the same age as me, and they’re just still at the top of their game.”

So creatively fulfilled at work right now?

“Very creatively fulfilled. There were a couple of moments where I was like damn, it sucks personally, but I can also look at the big picture these days. I’ve been knocked down enough times and fed a few disappointments sometimes where I didn’t always deal with it the right way for the bigger picture and understanding, okay, the company needs this right now. How does this screw me up? It doesn’t really. It actually works for the character, and as long as it works for the character, I can be personally disappointed, but professionally, I know we’re still on the right track, and the fans are still going to be emotionally invested, and that’s all that matters, because I’ve been in situations where they were not emotionally invested. And the worst thing in the world in pro wrestling is silence.”

Have you had silence?

“Not for years, but I’ve had it. It’s not fun. I can still clearly remember moments. Actually, the worst one ever, if anyone wants to get on the YouTube, as those older people call it, my first pay-per-view match was following Randy Orton versus John Cena, Hell in a Cell, the peak of Cena vs. Randy, their first big feud. The end of their blood feud, Hell in the Cell, beat each other to death. Hell in a Cell finished, and the next match was R-Truth versus Drew McIntyre, not with Broken Dreams, just me strolling out, hi everybody, and I’m 1,000% sure I could have heard a pin drop as I walked out there with that many people in the building. It was very depressing. But never want to feel that again. I feel bad for anybody when I see I want to message them and go, Okay, let’s figure out how to get any kind of noise. If you have to show your arse, then show your arse.”

You’re in an interesting spot because, like you said, you’re speaking the truth. You’re doing things that make sense, but you’re still doing it from a heel’s point of view. 

“The way that I just see is a very logical, human point of view. I always tell everybody when they call me a heel, debate me, and you will lose. Every interview I do, when they say you’re a heel, whatever, every fan goes I am the bad guy, explain to me how I’m the bad guy. I’ll explain my point of view, how I got to this point, the PTSD I’ve suffered, the trauma I’ve suffered. The things I went through with The Bloodline and the likes, the amount of titles I was screwed out of, the moments have been taken away from me, including even recently. And I react the way I react. If you’re in my position, you’re as big as me with the job I’m in, would you do what I do? Of course you would. I’ll win every single debate, because I’m very, very conscious about the details. And just tell them the truth like a good relationship. If you never lie, you never have nothing to worry about.”

How is Cody Rhodes the champion right now? He was not supposed to get a rematch ever.

“I was under the impression that contracts, not someone’s word. If you’ve looked back at the clips, I literally said I got the clause put in there that Cody Rhodes will not get a title match if he loses against me in Berlin. That was in there in a contract. Those exact words, I said it in London. I said a few times, go back and fact-check, but I definitely said it in London for sure. Then he was in the Royal Rumble, [but] wait a minute, if he wins the Royal Rumble, he’s gonna get a title match. That’s not what the clause says. So I have to fix that, helping Nick out to do his job properly. Suddenly, Elimination Chamber, I had to get in there as well. Wait a minute. It says no title match, not go ahead and win this match, or go ahead and win that match. So all I’m doing is trying to do the right thing. Make them not breach contract. And they still breached the contract, because they’re always screwing Drew McIntyre.”

What did this most recent championship win mean to you? 

“Awesome. Nobody saw it coming, for one. I think everybody assumed that the Cody Express would keep moving on forward. He’s been in that position for a long time. After he finished the story, he was on fire. I’m not saying he wasn’t doing a great job. He’s a great champion, he’s a great performer, but it was a lot of the same. I think there needed to be a shake-up, and there was a shake-up that no one saw coming when I won in Berlin. I could hear the crowd, I could hear the response, I could see the response, and it put Cody in a position where he had to chase. Gave Cody a bit of that edge back, which he, in my opinion, desperately needed. For me, it gave me some of that legitimacy. ‘Oh yeah, Drew can win the big one,’ and not going to be so sympathetic that we need to start cheering for this guy if you feel so bad for him. Where I could be more of a, like I mentioned, if I got the title and people challenge me to fight, what would I gain? No, I’m Gollum from Lord of the Rings. This is my precious. I’m not letting this go, no matter what. So it did a lot of things, but I know it made SmackDown way more compelling at the time, especially so many people hate me for some reason. So now you’ve got the champion right in the middle with the target on him. And as Cody mentioned, you know, it’s not just we want the title. It’s because you’re an arsehole, they’re all coming for you, which made SmackDown more interesting for me personally. I win it in Berlin, and the next night was Glasgow, so I got to walk out in Glasgow with the title for the first time as champion, with live fans, with a whole family in attendance. I tell Scotland, I promised you would bring you the championship, and I brought you the championship, and the only ever, not just Scotland person to do it, but British person to do it.”

And there was a moment there where the WWE Champion and the NXT Champion were both from Scotland. 

“I text Joe Hendry all these facts. I don’t have them off the top of my head, but the percentage of people from Scotland who are legitimately from Scotland, you know, [in American accent], ‘I’m from Scotland.’ Yeah, sure you are, mate. Everyone always says, ‘I’m Irish’ or ‘I’m Scottish.’ No one ever says I’m English. No one ever admits to that. But there’s legitimately 5.5 million of us. I’m just pulling these off my head. I had to text them to Joe, the actual figures, but there’s about 63 million English people, America is like 362 million? It doesn’t matter. It’s a lot. But the percentage of the world who are Scottish is so significantly lower than people think. We’re a tiny country. We invented everything, television, radio, penicillin, you’re welcome, cloning. We invented literally everything for such a small nation. And the fact that two of the three top male WWE champions were Scottish was unbelievable.”

The feud with CM Punk is now behind you. How do you feel about CM Punk now? 

“A piece of crap. Can’t stand him. I watch him every week, and I see he is doing good things with the world title, good for you. That’s a good run right there. As a fighting champion, I think fighting champions are stupid, because I was one, and why would you defend it all the time? That’s just disrespectful to the title. The opponent should earn it. So I did it before, that’s why I can say that stuff. But at the same time, he’s nowhere close to what he did with me, and it pains me to admit I’m still chasing the dragon for what I did with him. So opposites attract.”

We talked earlier about how Cody Rhodes got this rematch, Nick Aldis made this thing happen. A lot of animosity with Nick Aldis. There are a lot of fans calling for maybe a match with Drew McIntyre and Nick Aldis. Would you love to go in there and have a match with him? 

“Oh yeah, I can feel it when I’m out there with him. Whenever we go back and forth on the microphone, I can feel the people starting to get into it. I don’t feel it with Jacob. And I think Jacob and I turned a big corner after fighting like Peter Griffin and the giant chicken for three straight hours before we fell off a giant platform where I dragged him to hell with me. So we’ve turned a big corner for our feud, even though Jacob and I, you look at the basics of it. It could just be Godzilla Kong, two big guys fighting. People are happy to see it. But we have this story. We’ve screwed each other along the way. He took away the biggest moment for me, being champion at WrestleMania. We have the story built in, and then we have the physicality and how good the match is going to be, how good the people know the match is going to be, and then the big fight on SmackDown, and who knows where it’s going to go. I’ve got plenty of ideas about what I want, so it’ll be good. But at the same time, there’s this Aldis thing simmering at the side, and every time we go back and forth, you can feel the tension. You can cut it with a knife. We’ve known each other a long time. I name-dropped his son because I have known him for that long. But what a corporate stooge he is, his Donovan must be ashamed of him having such a corporate stooge for a father instead of backing me, the one who’s in the right and the one that he’s known for years, and his one is his actual friend. So when the time is right, be it Mania, be after Mania. I think we should have a match, and I don’t think there should be any sanctioning around it. I don’t think anyone should be allowed to interfere. He tapes up the fists. He’s been up in the ring a long time. He thinks he can go with a four-time former world champion in WWE in the big leagues. He’s probably the greatest NWA champion of the modern era, since Billy took over NWA. But he’s not been in there for a long time. He’s a big guy. I would love to get in there with him, and I’d love to see what damage I could do, and no one’s allowed to interfere, then come up close and ask me to stop politely.”

You talk about winning the Rumble in 2020 which leads to the WrestleMania match, which right before they decide there can’t be any fans there. I’ve always wondered, why was there this extra match with Big Show, like a dark match main event. What was the story behind that? 

“I don’t know. I mean, I guess I do know that the story is, but we’re just trying to throw things against the wall and see what sticks. I guess it was some kind of hook for the next Raw rather than just, I come out as champion, and here’s a promo in an empty warehouse with zero people reacting. Oh, by the way, there was also this match that happened once the cameras went off the air. I’ll never quite know, but it does allow me to say I beat Brock Lesnar and The Big Show in one night within about 15 minutes. That’s pretty cool.”

So how did Highlander come about?

“I don’t go into the ins and outs backstage in these things, but I had the chance to talk to a couple of people and get offered an opportunity. When we talk about this next time, if something’s out there and it’s not edited, and I don’t feel like an arse, because some people have been edited out, we just look like arses. And then we will go into details about it. But if it comes around the way you just mentioned, and Dave ends up killing me, I have an idea that we just keep doing feature after feature after feature where he murders me. I think he even mentioned me one time, ‘We can keep this going, and then you can get me the next time.’ No, screw that, I want it to be like Undertaker’s streak. I want it to be like 20 films in a row [where] I just get murdered, and then just out of nowhere, I go, ah! Like Robin Hood, Prince of Thieves, where he gets the Sheriff of Nottingham, just out of nowhere, and the whole place pops and lose their minds. I finally broke the streak.” 

You had a match where not only did you beat Kurt Angle, but you made Kurt Angle tap out to his own finisher, the ankle lock. 

“I did it twice.”

How did this come about?

“Well, the big one is obviously in WWE. I believe they were both in Manchester? That’d be crazy. Someone can fact-check it for me and get it in the comments. But yeah, the one in WWE, I want to say there was some kind of injury, or somebody was out, and it might have been when Roman was sick, and we had to start building some big, credible main event performers, and I needed some significant moments. That’s what makes you a top-level Main Event performer, racking up moment after moment after moment. I believe it was maybe when Roman went out sick initially, especially to build an opponent for when Roman came back, and that’s what came of it. I wasn’t going to not just beat Kurt Angle, I was going to annihilate Kurt Angle, and I was going to tap him out to his own submission, the ankle lock. Thankfully, Kurt was gracious enough to do it, because obviously, he could tie me up like a pretzel if he wanted to. But, you know, he was great. I was in his face. I was mocking him, basically tears in his face. I was ripping on his family, his kids, beating his arse and just being a terrible, terrible human being. He did so much for me that night, but he’d also done that for me a few years prior, in TNA, where he told me, I want you to not just beat me, but tap me out, because we’re trying to make me in TNA as the top babyface at the time, and I believe it was Manchester. I’m almost convinced they’re both in Manchester. Maybe Kurt likes to tap out in Manchester. Someone definitely needs to check that out for me. But I was tagging with Johnny Gargano at the time, Evolve Tag Team Champions. I couldn’t think of a submission. I’ll do the Gargano escape as a tribute to Johnny there. So I got Kurt with a Gargano escape there, then the ankle lock. So thank you, Kurt.”

When you talk about plans changing, John Cena said in an interview on the No Contest wrestling podcast that it was supposed to be you versus him at Crown Jewel. Do you feel like your match with John Cena got taken away from you? 

“It sucks, and I wish I did get that opportunity with John, not just for a one on one match, which we never had, as long as we were around each other, but a chance to get the microphone with him after showing what I could do with like CM Punk and so many others that are known for being the best on the mic. John is unbelievable. I would love that moment. Love the chance to go back and forth with him. I mean, the public never knew about it. I knew there was a plan before that, actually, that had to change. Then there was that plan, and there was a pivot again. I believe it came down to like John said, because initially people thought, Oh, my God, you see what Cena said? What? The match with Drew never happened. And then the match with AJ happened, and the way they worded it was like, you know, John said it was public, or whatever it was. It wasn’t public. Nobody knew. He tweeted, ‘Want to see me and AJ’ and they went hell yeah we do! If he tweeted, ‘Want to see me and Drew?’ They probably would have been happy to see both as well. So like, yeah, behind-the-scenes stuff, you know, that did happen, and it was disappointing. But at the same time, a great match with John and AJ. They got John’s last few months back on track, which I was happy for him, because I felt like we could have done a little better in that first part of the journey, and maybe I would have got one of the matches. But again, crap happens. Sometimes you go one path. It doesn’t work. You got to go back on the path and just fall out from it. I can be personally upset, or I can be like, All right, I’m in a tag match here. It’s disappointing, but I was around him. I learned for years, and he’s retired now. I was the World Champion for a few months, so I’m fine.”

This fact is crazy to me. So it’s you and Shane McMahon versus Roman Reigns and Undertaker at Extreme Rules 2019, it has 107 million views on the WWE YouTube channel. That’s Undertaker’s last match in front of a crowd. You get to be part of it.

“I’ve talked about this publicly in my book, My Chosen Destiny, still available now, where Vince put Undertaker in charge of me. ‘You don’t listen to anybody but The Undertaker, he’s your mentor.’ I spent so many years with him, around him, learning from him, and to have his last match in front of a live audience was insane. Obviously, we didn’t know that was the case at the time, but looking back, it’s absolutely wild. The match was coming off the other match, it was a big disappointment. We don’t have to mention what it was, but we know, and we really wanted to give Taker a match to remind everybody who The Undertaker is, that he can still go. We went out of our way to make sure that night he was The Undertaker and back whole again. At the start, I got in his camera shot. Shane and I were in the ring, and I used to stand chest up, shoulders back, and I felt like I always had to be the big, tough guy. I see people doing it now, and I’m like, relax, relax. But it’s easy for me to say, because Triple H every week going relax. We know you’re a big guy. You don’t have to stand like this the entire time. Your money’s here, body Lucy goosey, you’re blowing yourself up. But I was standing there waiting for him to come in the ring. I didn’t realize I was in his camera shot. He’s doing the whole presentation, taking off the jacket, getting ready for the hat. Looks at me and says, ‘Back the f*ck up.’ Oh, f*ck! Got out of his camera shot. Didn’t realize I was blocking his camera shot, yeah, that was my first so far, so bad. But the crowd were unreal. We were on first, the match was unreal. You could say whatever you want at the end for the tombstone, like being a little split second off. But there’s something to things not going perfect in pro wrestling, because in real fights, nothing goes perfect.”

You are now the US title away from being a Grand Slam champion. Sheamus is the Intercontinental Championship away from being his Grand Slam champion. Who becomes Grand Slam champion first?

“Me, definitely. I’ve got no plan to do it, or don’t know when it will happen, but if he keeps talking about it, then they’re just gonna rib him and just give me the US Title.”

It’s funny, though, like you’re both one title away, and you’re right, he mentions it just a little bit more than you.

“It does mean a lot to him. He’s achieved so much and he really would love it, but, yeah, he gets driven and driven. He wears his heart on his sleeve, and it’s going to happen. It’s just, yeah, it’s hilarious how much has been mentioned at this point, and I’ve not mentioned the US title, and it’ll happen. Then I will make it a big deal, and I’ll make it seem like I really cared so much about it. I’ve got four world titles now, That’s what it’s all about. It’s a storytelling aspect of our business. I’ve already achieved everything I wanted to achieve. If we keep those stories going, the fans interested, I’m good. If it happens, cool; if it doesn’t, cool.”

What is Drew McIntyre grateful for?

“My wife, health and the world we live in.”

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