D-Von Dudley (@testifydvon) is a professional wrestler and an inductee into the WWE Hall of Fame and the Impact Wrestling Hall of Fame. He joins Chris Van Vliet to talk about his legendary career as both a singles competitor and part of arguable the greatest tag team of all time The Dudley Boyz, how he got his start in ECW, what he learned from Paul Heyman, why AEW is the perfect place for his twin sons Terrence and Terrell (TNT) to wrestle, the origin of the WASSUP and how Vince McMahon loved it, why he says a Dudley Boyz reunion is possible, he squashes the rumors that there is heat with Bully Ray and much more!

On a return to WWE as an employee: 

“I’m not interested. I’ll be honest with you. I had a great run. You know, I had a seven year, I’m sorry, eight year, including the year that we came back. And then the producing years, I had a great time. I did, there was some stressful times working behind the scenes. But, you know, again, I basically did what I was supposed to do there and my time is up. I believe God puts you in places where he needs to put you for that time being and I think that’s what happened with this. Now here’s what I’m also going to say, you know, when we left in 2005 the first time it didn’t, it didn’t sit right with me. It didn’t sit right with me at all. And even though we went to TNA, we went to Japan, we did what we did, it just didn’t sit right with me. So I basically always felt that we needed to go back and we needed to leave the right way. And so I felt this time we didn’t leave the right way. There’s nothing left in the basement for me, talent wise to go back, or producer wise. I’m okay. You know, I said in my tweet interview, which I messed up a couple of times, some of the verbiage, because my hands are too big when I’m starting to type and I didn’t bother to look at it again. But you know, I think, you know, Vince, I think Triple H, Stephanie, and the whole McMahon family for allowing me to come in there. And to do what I did, I have no hard feelings. I have none whatsoever. We agreed to disagree towards the end. And that was when I knew that it was time to leave. You know, a lot of it was autograph signings and things like that. But, you know, again, they allow, you know, their talent to do certain things and things like that, or their employees. And then there’s other points that they don’t allow to do it, you know, whatever. I just felt that I should have been able to do certain things outside of the company, if the company was not working at the time. So, you know, again, I was told no, and that was made public with the ECW arena, I got pulled from that show. And it caused a little bit of controversy. And then, you know, there was another issue. So my thing was, you know, again, agree to disagree. You know, I don’t have any ill feelings but I’m done. I think I think I’m finished. I’m not gonna say never. Because in this business, you never say never. I do know that. But at the same token, the way I feel right now, there’s no reason for me to go back. There’s nothing there for me anymore. You know, everybody who I came up in the business with talent wise is pretty much almost gone. And, you know, and this and that, but, you know, again, that shouldn’t matter, because you’re not there for friends. They have to make money and to have a job. But at the same token, I just feel that that’s not the right fit for me. So again, I thanked them for the opportunity that they gave me since 1999, up until, you know, January 23 of this year, but it’s just not for me anymore.”

On the false reports that there was heat between Bubba and D-Von:

“It might have been on me because I said, somebody asked me would, you know, we see the Dudley Boyz, I did an interview. They said, would we see the Dudley Boyz back together? And I said, No. Because at that time, I had a stroke, my back was giving out on me, and I spoke the truth. I said no. I said, because I can’t do it anymore. I said, but here’s the deal. Bubba is still doing his thing, and I’m doing my thing as a producer. So he’s doing his thing, and I’m doing mine. So we’re separating, we’re going our separate ways and doing our own thing and we’re happy doing that. But just because I said that doesn’t necessarily mean that there’s animosity between us. You know, are there things that I didn’t agree with?  Yes. Are there things that he didn’t agree with me? Absolutely. But guess what, we squashed it, whatever that little disagreement was, and we’re, and we’re together, but we would never apart. That’s the thing, we were never apart. We had it, we were agreeing to disagree on certain things. You know, and like every other tag team or any other brother, you know, you do your own thing for a little bit. I do my own thing for a little bit. And guess what? We were united again, no different. Listen, Bubba likes to use analogies, and I heard him say it on your show a couple of times KISS, you know, you know, when KISS took off the paint and all of that they weren’t as big as they were once they took all that off. And they started getting rid of members in the band and this and that because of whatever demons that they might have had, so they had to replace certain members. But then all of a sudden when they put the paint back on, they were able to bring everybody back together. Even those that had demons in the past and they would have bring them back together and form the group KISS. Not taking anything away from anybody that filled in the void when those members were gone, but I feel like Bubba said, we’re like KISS, we’re gonna put on the face paint one more time. And we’re gonna do it. And when I say we put on the face paint one more time, autograph signings, things like that. Is there a possibility for the Dudley Boyz to ever get back into the ring again? I’ll put it this way. I can say yes and I can say no. And I’ll say this, in terms of like I told Bubba, I said, you know, the only thing is, I don’t know about going up on the top rope and doing a Wazzup no more. I say because, you know, I don’t know how much my back, I’m not willing to put my back at risk like that. There are certain moves that I would have to fix. A 3D would be great, I could do a 3D no problem.”

On meeting Batista for the first time:

“Well, you know, I mean, this big guy, you know, I mean, he was massive, 10 times the size he is now. And I just remember looking at him going good God. I just went, What the hell are they gonna do? I said I hope they don’t have them turn on me. Because as they do, he’s gonna beat the shit [out of me], it’s gonna hurt. And I just remember, Dave didn’t really know anything. You know, like, for instance, we did a spot in the match with myself and Triple H, where I would throw Triple H on the outside, take the referee, Hunter would be getting up, leaning up against the post. Batista sees him, does the sign the cross goes to clothesline him, but Hunter it gets out the way and Batista hits the post and goes down. And I remember, Batista came to me and said, Rev. I gotta ask you a question. I said what’s up? He goes, How do I do this? I go, how do you do what? He goes with Hunter? I go Batista what are you talking about? How do I clothesline him when he moves out the way and then hit the post? I go you messing with me, right? He goes, No, I’m not and I just went you’re not messing with me? He goes, No. I said, Wait a minute. You’ve never done anything like this? He goes, No, he goes, in OVW, All they had me do was come in and do run-ins. Because I was so massive and big they never really worked with me the way they did with Brock and Randy and Cena. I was just the guy that came in and nailed people. And that was it. I was like oh my god, I go, you got to be kidding me. I go. Okay, so I’m trying to get a character over, Reverend D-Von. Okay, after being in a tag team match for almost 12 years at that time. Now you putting me in singles, and you putting me with a guy who’s green as sh*t. And now I gotta help him get along and help him get over, as well as myself. How the hell am I gonna do this? And I’m already scared to death about going on my own. And it worked though, it worked for a little of time that we did it. And then they went out and then somebody pulled the plug on it.”

What is missing from tag team wrestling today:

“Well, outside of The Bloodline, you know, storytelling, taking your time, letting the people digest what you’re giving them. And when you’re putting a match together, make sure the story is something that people can invest in. Something that the people can understand and relate to. We need to have a definitive heel and definitive babyface so that people can move and cheer. Let them understand the story that you’re telling, as opposed to just putting a bunch of crap together with a bunch of high spots and nothing because listen, our fans are not looking for rocket scientists here. They want to be entertained. They want to be able to go home happy, and giving them a good storyline that they can relate to and invest in, that’s going to send them home happy, that’s going to make them cheer in the arena. That’s exactly what Bubba and I did the whole time. That’s why the TLC match was so good, because we didn’t just use a bunch of Tables, Ladders and Chairs, we actually put meaning and story behind it. Not only that, but we did it safely. And we did it to where we added three other people to it, which was Rhino, Spike and Lita, you know, at WrestleMania 17, and made it work. I mean, so many people tried to duplicate that match, and yet came up short. I mean, kudos for them trying. But at the same token, you know, you really have to put effort into it. This is something that all six of us got together, put our creative juices and put it together, you just can’t just say, Okay, I’m gonna do a TLC match. I’m gonna hit you with a ladder, I’m gonna hit you with a chair and put you to a table, you have to put meaning and time and thought into it and that’s exactly what we did.”

On his sons Terrell and Terrence being in AEW: 

“They’re doing their thing, they’re doing their thing, they’re still doing Dark in AEW. They’re having a good time. And, you know, they’re just enjoying themselves, which I’m very, very happy with. I’d rather them be with AEW right now, then probably go to NXT or WWE. I mean, you know, in my opinion there’s so much going on over there right now that I just feel like they might get lost in the shuffle somewhere. And things like that right now, I think AEW is the best fit for them. I didn’t always think that, you know, because I used to work for the company, WWE, and all the turmoil that’s going on right now started. So I just, you know, figured probably maybe that WWE was the best fit. But I’m a very biblical person, to the point where I feel God does everything for a reason. And if they had a couple of tryouts, and they were told no. And, you know, they were told not right now, but you know, we’re definitely gonna be looking at you in the future, then there was a reason for that, because long and behold, look, what’s going on there now. You know, there’s so much disarray, I like to say that’s probably going on, because no one knows what’s going on. You know, is Vince back. Is he not back? Is Triple H in control. Is he not in control? You know, I mean, it’s one thing for people to come out and say, you know, business as usual. You know, I’m still going to be whatever. But is it really the case? I don’t know. I don’t think anybody knows, except for the people that are working within the company.”

Why The Dudley Boyz have stood the test of time:

“Well, because we were on the same, we were on the same page. You know, a lot of tag teams, there’s always one that deviates from where they’re supposed [to], you know, what they’re supposed to do as a team. Bubba, and I never did, we always wanted to be one of the best tag teams that was ever put together. And in knowing how tag team wrestling is, in terms of how entertaining it could be, we were both on the same page with that. Now, at first, I never really wanted to, you know, wrestle in the tag. Bubba always did. I know Bubba did, I saw in an interview that Bubba always said he wanted to be in a tag team. And I never did. I wanted to be the black version of Hulk Hogan. You know, minus the hair. But, you know, we were able to just gel together, you know, we were just able to be on the same page with everything. And we were both perfectionists when it came to in-ring work. You know, if something didn’t work, or if we messed up on something, we would go over it 1000 times, you know, until we got it right, and we were both on that same page. Neither one of us took drugs. We were casual drinkers. In other words, if we went out and hung out with the boys, we had a beer, a couple of beers or you know some Jack Daniels, but other than that, that was about it, but we weren’t drinkers. So there was nothing clouding our minds to prevent us from achieving our goal, and that was to become a very successful tag team. We just had no idea it was gonna be at this level. You know, the most decorated tag team in the history of the world, voted the greatest tag team of all time. Again, and I say this with respect to a lot of the other tag teams, you know, each generation has their tag teams, has their singles wrestlers, and I’ll even go back, I’ll even say basketball. This is one of the things I like to bring up, say, for instance, Dr. J. During his time, you know, everybody thought Dr. J was the greatest of all time, nobody would ever beat Dr. J in terms of that title. And then all of a sudden, here comes that guy from North Carolina, you know, Michael Jordan, that just changed the scope of everything in basketball. And in my opinion, is the greatest of all time. He’s my generation. And then of course, now, Kobe comes along, and then LeBron comes along. And now we always have that feud of who’s the best LeBron, or Michael? Well I’m a Michael fan.”

On the WWE management structure:

“Well, if I’m, if I’m correct, I believe yes, there’s new ownership. But I think Vince is still very much a part of the company still, from what I’m reading. And from what I understand, Triple H, Paul Levesque is still in charge of creative. That’s what I read. But then that’s what people are saying. Again, unless you work for the company, you just don’t know what’s true and what’s not. So you just got to wait and see how it plays out.”

On which matches D-Von produced while in WWE: 

“Well, again, The Usos and The New Day. The Bludgeons when they were together. I was mostly doing tag team, and then it got to the point where I was doing a lot of Main Event matches, the show Main Event, that was you know, seeing on the network at the time, I had a lot of those matches, I worked a couple of times with some of the females, not all the time, because at the time that Finlay dealt with a lot of the females within the organisation, but I dealt with the females every so often, and had a good time. I’m not gonna lie, I was nervous about it. Because I didn’t know if the way I did business, I would do business, would the women understand, you know, and this and that. And in general, the ones that I worked with Nattie was perfect. Dana Brooke, Lacey Evans, who, you know, Lacey and I have a great relationship, friendship relationship. She’s called me many times for advice. And we’ve always just done shooting the stuff. She was there for me when I had my stroke. Her and her husband and daughter came over to the home and spent some time with me. And, you know, our families, pretty much, you know, we’re hanging out and talking. So I built the relationship, you know, as a producer there as well with some of the talent.”

On a possible match between TNT and The Usos:

“I mean, that’s one of the things that we talked about the twins and I, Terrence Terrell. And it’s also something that me, Jimmy and Jay talked about. A couple of years back when I was producing for the company and I was pretty much doing all the time, The New Day and The Usos rivalry, those were pretty much my matches. So, you know, I remember the Usos and I used to talk about that because my sons are very big fans of The Usos. And, you know, they, they, you know, love their work and you know what they’re doing in the ring, so and I would like to say that they might even idolise them a little bit. It’s kind of like Bubba and I, you know, wanting to work and wrestle with the Legion of Doom, Hawk and Animal, but we never unfortunately had the opportunity to do that, because Hawk passed away in 2003. So we never got that chance. But then long and behold, in TNA, I forget the year, but Animal teamed with Rick Steiner, you know, so we didn’t get the Legion of Doom, but we got the best of both worlds in the Steiners and the Road Warriors combined, to tag together to face the Dudley’s. So that was still a heroic thing for me and Bubba, just like I’m Sure, the Usos with my twins, TNT Terrence and Terrell, I’m sure that would be a huge feather in their cap.”

On watching the WrestleMania 17 spear in the ring:

“Yes, yes, I did. And I was jealous. Because I like to say that even though the SummerSlam TLC match when I was hanging with Jeff, you know. Bubba took a great bump off there, Matt took his bump, Christian took his bump, I mean Edge too, you know, took quite a few bumps in that match. Well, everybody took bumps. But I always felt in my heart. This special bump was me hanging because I was so fearful of heights, and how devastating it looked. So when Edge did that, I went, Oh, damn that gets more play than me now. And he teases me all the time about that.”

On splitting The Dudley Boyz in the WWE Draft:

“It was Vince’s [idea]. Vince had this idea of us going our separate ways. Also, there was talks about Vince having a hard on, no pun intended, maybe I shouldn’t use that phrase what I’m about to say. But he had it, he had it in for the Catholic Church. Because remember, at that time, we had people picketing, protesting us. And this and that and being hypocritical, especially people from the church. But meanwhile, this was at the time when the church was having controversy within his own home, with the priests, with little boys and things like that. So there was always an issue when people are being hypocritical, especially back in during that time, you know, we’re doing what we’re doing, but yet they’re doing what they’re doing and getting away with it for so many years. But meanwhile, you want to chastise what we do in the ring. So it was, and then plus, you know, Benny Hinn, you know, some of the TV evangelists. Who’s the other one? Jim Baker, and the other one, [Chris – Billy Graham, maybe?] No, Billy Graham, there was no controversy with him. But no, who was the other one? God, I can see him now because I guess he had an affair with his secretary. He’s on the, he’s actually doing TV evangelists now. But anyway, he was basically making a dig at them. That’s what he was doing, and he used me to do it. And I just remember going home and asking my parents, I was like, listen, they want me to do this. You know, I would like to do it, but I would like to get your blessing. My mother was a little against it. But my father was like, when you’re done doing that, in the ring, you come to where it really belongs in the pulpit. That’s what you really do, it spread the words. I was like, You got it, sir. And it took off from there. You know, a lot of people. And Bubba makes fun of me. You know, when he says, oh, you know, we don’t talk about that Reverend D-Von, you know, because it didn’t get over. I’m like, bullshit it didn’t. I’m like, Look, let me see who the people that I beat, Randy Orton, John Cena, Val Venis. Mark Henry, and the biggest one Triple H, you know. And I always said this, if Triple H didn’t believe that the Reverend D-Von gimmick was getting over the way it did. Then he would have never in a million years, especially at that time, laid down for me. He would have never let that happen and Hunter had a lot of power and a lot of say. So back then. I’m not gonna say even more than he does now. But he had a lot of say back then he had just married Stephanie you know him and Vince are so freakin tight, they’re not butting heads or anything like that. They’re, they’re full blown. They’re here they go. If he had a disagreement at all, he would have said, No, I don’t think so, I’ll beat D-Von, I’m not going to let D-Von go over on me.”

What is D-Von Dudley grateful for:

“My kids, my love for God and how blessed I am that during my career the bumps I have went through I was able to get out of this unscathed.” 

Featured image: F4WOnline

Freddie Prinze Jr. (@realfreddieprinze) is an actor, producer and former writer for WWE from 2008 – 2009 and 2010 – 2012. He joins Chris Van Vliet in Hollywood to talk about becoming a part owner of the Premier Streaming Network, his involvement at the Premier Streaming Network Showcase on September 9 in Metuchen, NJ, his thoughts on the new WWE World Heavyweight Championship design, why he thinks Cody Rhodes lost at WrestleMania 39, how he and his wife Sarah Michelle Gellar have stayed married for 20+ years, does he think MJF will go to WWE, pitching to Ken Griffey Jr. in the movie “Summer Catch”, the brilliance of Dolph Ziggler and much more!

On why Freddie Prinze Jr. has not started his own wrestling company:

“I have been working on it. I’ll actually talk a lot about the process I wrote, I wrote a wrestling show. And it was also a promotion. It was partially scripted, and then wrestling matches as well. And depending on the talent, you can let some people do their own thing. Some people need to be written for, some people shouldn’t talk, they’re more skilled in the ring than on the microphone. Right? Yeah. But it was different than what is out there today. I felt in a good way. And I started going out with it the traditional Hollywood way, which is find a producer who’s passionate about the material and or showrunner, attach them to the material, and then you add that showrunner producer, and go to networks. I don’t like this process. It adds people that weren’t an organic part of the process to it at a very early stage. And it makes it seem like it’s okay to change everything. It doesn’t always go down like that. But more often than not, it does. And the producers that I found all wanted so much ownership, that by the time I would be done with the network and the showrunner, I’m making less than both of them. And it’s my idea. And that’s normally how it goes when you sell a half hour, or an hour long television show, right? So I wanted to shift or switch tracks, I guess is a better way to say it, and completely self finance, produce and create something that then already exists and licence it then to studios once I can establish what it is the way Vince does Monday Night Raw with the USA Network. He licensed it to them. They don’t own it. He licences it the same way. He doesn’t own the arenas he’s in; he leases them for that night. And that there are ownership laws that exist. But that’s not ownership, right. So I wanted to own it. And it’s an independent wrestling promotion. But I needed an education in independent wrestling from the distribution side, and from the actual physical promotion side as well. Matt Cardona, who we both love, introduced me to the wonderful people that helped create FITE TV, and they’ve created the premier streaming network PSN, you can go on a phone and go to the app store and download it right now. And they have it’s almost like a new cyberpunk territory system, where they’re bringing all these independent wrestling promotions to their network, and you can watch everything they’re doing, but more importantly, everything they’ve done. So a lot of the wrestlers that you can watch are wrestlers that you would see on AEW and WWE, but now you can watch their early matches. You can watch Generico matches, you can watch Kevin Steen, you can watch, you know, all these guys doing their thing at a young age. And with all the new wrestling coming in, they have something, and I usually need to go to my phone for this. But on September 9, in New Jersey, and you [Chris Van Vliet] are actually a part of this, which is so awesome. You’re going to Madison, New Jersey at the Madison Sports Plex. And they’re doing their premier showcase there, which is basically and I love this. Each independent promotion that they represent, sends their best wrestlers to this one show in the hopes that their wrestler will win the Premier Championship, which is a championship that PSN has created and will allow to be defended on any independent promotion that the wrestler wins it from and then goes to. It’s so old school it feels like kumite from the old school Van Damme even though Frank Dukes was a fraud, you heard it. Straight up. That’s real talk. The real ones, no, but it feels like a kumite tournament and you get to have this sort of winner at the end.” 

Will MJF go to WWE?

“I don’t know. You know, the character of MJF will go where the money’s best. But I think special stars get special treatment, and exceptions are made for exceptional people. And I feel like any offer WWE would make Tony Khan would match. And MJF has a tonne of freedom, a tonne of freedom where he’s at. And a WWE you simply don’t. It’s a publicly traded company, there are people to answer to, and I’ve heard that when I worked there. Yeah. So it’s just a different environment. And I don’t know if Max would trust the process there at that company to get him as over as he is at a smaller company. And AEW, by the way, they’re doing fine. They pre-sold over 35,000 tickets in London for a pay-per-view that’s technically two pay-per-views away. So they’re doing well. That’s a big win for them. So as long as they keep producing like that you know, I don’t [know]. If I were him I wouldn’t leave because like the storyline they put him in with the other three, they’re the four pillars. They’re  the young ones that helped build the company with Jericho laying down the foundation right, and Cody. But yeah, man, I don’t, I get the MJF hate, I just don’t agree with it. And I don’t think he would leave. Listen, WWE does great stuff. All right, the whole Bloodline Sami Zayn thing was great stuff. But they also do stuff that feels very tight and constrictive and you feel like the talent is being someone that they don’t believe in. And it’s hard to ask a professional wrestler to just get rid of who they are and be someone else. They’re not a trained actor 99% of the time. They’re amazing in the ring. They know how to do that kind of psychology, but they don’t know how to break down a monologue, which they call a promo. When I was there, that was, I mean, I was literally teaching them what I was learning in acting class on how to break a scene down as far as like, goal, objective route. That’s what I want, that’s what stops me from getting what I want as an actor, what choices am I going to make to get that? Am I going through the objective? Am I going under it? Am I going around? Those were all the things that we talked about with their promos. Like what is it you want out of this promo? I want to get over. Everybody wants to get over, what is it the character wants? He wants a shot at the title. Okay, what’s preventing you from getting that shot at the title? Well this guy is, you know, he’s making me wrestle all these other guys to earn a shot. He’s interfering in all the [matches]. Perfect. What are you going to do? Now what’s the promise you’re going to make to the crowd? What’s the promise going to be? Doesn’t matter how many things he throws at me, it doesn’t matter how many times he cheats, I’m still going to be here. You’re not gonna, you know, then that’s how we would develop a promo basically. But even then, when it was done, sometimes it would get changed last minute, because you know, Vince, caught a wild hare and all of a sudden it was Oh, this sucks. Like he was great an hour ago. Those were your words, this is great, this is sh*t. Like what happened in 60 minutes? You know what I mean? Like who talked to you, man who got to you? What’s his name Kevin? So yeah, man, so things change last minute there at a much higher rate. And I’m sure there’s pros and cons to both companies that people that are more on the inside are far more aware of than I am. But if I were him, I wouldn’t leave. Would you? You finish building your perfect castle, your perfect castle with all the defences you need. You have, the people are happy, they’re well fed. Everyone’s starting to make money. And then you’re just gonna go to this castle over here. No, man, why would you start over? [Cody Rhodes did that]. Yeah, but I think for situations with an older [wrestler] kids and had different priorities than what a young 20 How old? Is he? 24 25 26 is that somewhere in their mid 20s? I mean, your priorities and the way you look at the world is completely different in that age gap between the two men.”

On Cody Rhodes’ journey:

“Check this out. So a buddy of mine, who knows way more about wrestling than me. He’s a Broadway actor and he loves [wrestling]. I don’t want to say his name, because if he got it, right, I don’t want WWE to like prevent him from getting tickets. But he’s, he’s so cool. And he loves wrestling and he hits me up after Cody lost at Mania and he goes, What if it wasn’t Vince that made him lose? I said okay. And he said, he goes what if when he [Cody] talked to Triple H and he says and you know, Triple H is a student of the game like he knows every storyline that’s ever been told. He loved all those old guys. Yeah, said what if the plan was for him to lose all along and they recreate the Dusty Rhodes hard times storyline. So for the whole year, Cody’s just getting F’d time and time and it takes him a year to earn his way back till the very next WrestleMania and Romans The Champ all the way and so I was like well what happens at Backlash? He goes Brock squashes him. Brock kills him. And I go, Dude, you don’t think it kills his career? He goes, if they’re doing the hard time story it doesn’t because that’s what Magnum TA did to Dusty on his road to the title. And I’m sitting there and he pitched it so nice. And I if I could do my impression of him if I could do the whole story, but that would give away who it is. But it was just his pitch was so good. I was like I’ll be damned if they’re not, I’m completely convinced now that that’s what’s gonna happen. So watch backlash. [I think it comes out after then]. Oh, well then you’ll know whether we were right or wrong at that point. But even if he loses, even if he wins, they could still do it. I think they just have to connect it more to The Bloodline story again.”

On the origin of Dolph Ziggler:

“I had to direct the very first Dolph Ziggler segment ever, the first three actually, when he was just coming to [shake everybody’s hands]. Yeah, and Jamie Noble’s [like] I know your name. Like, we were just trying to do anything we could to make this not suck. Because I’ve fought against this idea so much that Vince made me do it. They were like, What are we going to name him? They said Dirk Diggler. And Vince was like, that’s great. And I stood up and I’m looking at the guy who pitched it and I’m like, Dude, you’re gonna we’re gonna get sued. It’s from Boogie Nights. You can’t do that. Why can’t we just give them a normal name? Why does it have to be goofy? And then they were like throwing all these names out there. Well, he looks like Dolph Lundgren. And he’s like, What about Dolph Ziggler? And I literally was like, we’re not doing Dolph Ziggler. And I think this guy, DJ had my back too and was like, Yeah, I don’t, I don’t love that. And I fought so hard. And Vince was like, alright, it’s Dolph Ziggler. And he goes, Freddie, you’re gonna handle that segment. And I looked at him, I was like, what kind of middle finger is that? Just tell me to f*ck off. Why would you do this? And so I went to him, and I think it was either me or Freebird that broke the name to him. And he was just like, okay, and he just went for it, man. The same way he goes for it in the ring, like he committed right away. He knew it was crap, and people hated it till they loved it. It was very reminiscent of The New Day, people hated The New Day. And the same chant that was you suck became Oh my God, we love you guys. And they became and it was the work on the mic in the work in the ring that got those guys over. In Dolph’s case, it was his work in the ring. And then his mic work which developed about a decade into his career now, we’re all of a sudden you were like, here we go. Here we go. Career versus Miz. And those promos were top shelf that I remember that storyline, and I shouldn’t but I do. You know, I mean, that’s how good those guys were in that. And I genuinely thought he was going to lose and that was going to be it and he was gonna retire from wrestling. I mean, that’s how well he made me. But yeah, I was there when they conceived the name, fought against it and was punished for my efforts.”

On the new World Heavyweight Championship:

“I don’t care about the titles. I only care about the person wearing it. I mean, do I have favourite titles that I go oh that looks cool. Sure, but it’s more about the person who wore it and did they make it mean something? Did they need the title to get over? Did they help get the title over like, I think more about the individual than the jewellery and that’s all it is. To me. It’s just jewellery.”

On the success of Freddie Prinze Jr’s podcast:

“Thank you man, it’s Wrestling with Freddie. We call it Wrestling with Friends because my buddy Jeff Dye has been my co-host on it now for two years. And I love talking wrestling. That’s all we do. He’s a stand up comic, so he’s really funny, and his takes are ridiculous and often right. And yeah, it’s just two guys, we don’t talk about the stuff we hate. Although if there is somebody I love that I see something bad happened to, we definitely talk about that because I try to keep things positive and I don’t want to talk about stuff I don’t like.”

On people getting mad at the podcast:

“Some people get mad, but that’s okay. You’re allowed, you’re allowed to get mad and you’re allowed to think my opinions suck. You’re allowed to think, you know, anything you want. I still do the show that I do every week because I love it. And if you think I’m wrong, party on man.”

On being married to Sarah Michelle Gellar for over 20 years:

“I think we’re past 20 Now, I think we just hit 21.I think we hit 21 and I don’t know. I’m a guy. I don’t remember that stuff. But dates, I forgot last year’s birthday until I saw it on Instagram, somebody was like, [I forgot] my birthday, not hers, my own birthday. I was like, Oh, damn. And I said I’m 46 and Sarah said, No, you’re 47. Like, so I’m just not, I’m not that guy. My mind isn’t isn’t on that stuff.”

What is Freddie Prinze Jr. grateful for:

“Health, my kids and sushi.”

Featured image: The Hollywood Reporter

Chavo Guerrero (@mexwarrior) is a professional wrestler known for his time in WCW, WWE, TNA, Ring Of Honor, AAA, Lucha Underground and AEW. He sits down with Chris Van Vliet at his house in Orange County, California to explain the recent controversial tweets he sent to Rey Mysterio about him “prostituting” Eddie Guerrero’s name, his thoughts on Dominik Mysterio’s heel run in WWE, his time in Lucha Underground, his iconic “Ooooh Chavo” theme music, we discuss whether he is the only wrestler to appear in WCW, WWE, TNA, Lucha Underground and AEW, his favorite memories of Eddie Guerrero, his beer called “Los Guerreros” and much more!

On Chavo’s reaction to Rey Mysterio talking about Eddie Guerrero:

“Look, and I’ve said it before, and Vince 100% believes this, just like Jerry Jarrett, Jeff Jarrett’s father. Real issues create real money. This is nothing that I didn’t do in 2007, it’s the same thing. ‘You want to be a Guerrero, you will never be a Guerrero, you’re jealous of us…’ that whole thing. And people latched onto it. Did they forget? I don’t know. What happened was I did a virtual signing with Nick from Captain’s Corner, and somebody asked if I am happy about Rey Mysterio coming out at WrestleMania with the Los Guerreros’ music, not Eddie Guerrero’s music, Los Guerreros’ music, my voice, Eddie’s voice, we recorded that theme. Viva La Raza, we lie, we cheat, we steal, that was our voice, mine and Eddie’s voice. So I looked at him and he looks at me and I just started playing with it a little bit. Because right before that on the interview I said that I am all about love. I think he gave me a Bud Light, so I was drinking a Bud Light, who are doing the LBTQ thing, and I said I don’t know why everyone is so mad about it. Who cares? If you are cool then you are cool, if you’re a jerk then you’re a jerk. I don’t care what your sexual preference is or your ethnicity or your gender. Then I said this, nobody is listening to that part, they just want to hear what they want to hear. But, so I said that, and kind of tongue in cheek a little bit. I kind of laughed and was like Dominik is probably a Guerrero. It was 100% sarcasm. When we got done, he looks at me, Nick looks at me and he is like wow. I was like come on it was a total work, but he was like it felt so real, people could really jump on that. I was like, just watch. So Nick Hausman texts me and goes hey man, your stuff is all over the news. I’m like what do you mean? He goes New York Post picked it up. I’m like really? I was literally being tongue in cheek and laughing about it and whatever. I’m going hey, I’m sorry that nobody knows who Rey Mysterio Sr. is, you always wanted to be a Guerrero, very tongue in cheek. I text him back and said watch my next Tweet. That was when I said about him wanting to be a Guerrero and using the Guerrero’s name to his own benefit. It could be real. I mean, if I was really, really p*ssed off I could really latch onto it. But people just started going nuts and going crazy. Finally after I started messing with them and messing with them, [I said] Ok guys, hook line and sinker, I was being a heel. One thing that Vince McMahon told me and my dad, talking about Eddie as well, he goes, You know why I like you Guerreros? I’m like why? He goes, Because you aren’t scared of heat! You love it! I’m like of course, me and my dad want to fight our way from the ring to the dressing room every single night and sneak out of the side window. He [Vince] goes Oh I love it! You guys have balls! But it’s the art of heat, and people forget that yes I am doing stuff in Hollywood, but I am still a pro wrestler. That has what has fed my family for over 85 years. For over 85 years wrestling has been the only thing. Now I am doing pro-wrestling stuff in Hollywood, but I am still connected to that world. So I just had a little fun, and still literally people, I just had someone, I could literally go through the tweets. They don’t want to look at the other tweets where I say OK guys, it wasn’t real. They are like yeah, you are just backtracking. Oh my God really? Are you guys that easy? I love wrestling fans because they are that easy. But at the same time it is like guys, come on, really?”   

On the line between work and shoot being razor thin:

“They want to believe anything that they want to, and I don’t think I know anything else like that except for maybe a soap opera. You know, soap operas start to get people believing like Luke and Laura were really together back in the General Hospital days. I’m going back, that was when we used to watch it and stuff. They want to believe so bad, you know, Eddie and Rey, Eddie and Rey. But wait a minute, you all hated Eddie when he was telling Dominik I’m your papi. You guys hated him but now it’s like oh they were like brothers. I’m like, well they had a fondness of each other, like Rey says. But when people say oh they were like ebay friends, no they weren’t best friends, they were not best friends. I know what you perceive now, but that’s not what that was. Even when Eddie passed away, the day that Eddie passed away Rey found out like everybody else. I didn’t call Rey. I called Chris [Benoit].”    

Was Chavo closer to Eddie Guerrero than Rey Mysterio was?

“Eddie was my brother. Like we grew up together as brothers. Like he is 3 years apart. We joke because he was my grandfather’s late mistake, and I was my dad’s only mistake. We were both not supposed to be here. But 100% we were like brothers. We grew up like brothers, we fought like brothers, it was a whole thing. He didn’t meet Rey until he was 18 years old. So there is a massive history, 100% we were brothers. We were all close, but you know, it doesn’t say Rey Mysterio on this shirt, it says Eddie and Chavo. I had to put Chavito because of my dad. We might add Dominik, but I don’t think that Rey will make it. You see how fast that is? That is the art of being a heel right there, like oh, he got us again. When I turned on him in 2007, everybody knew that it was going to happen. But because we let it go on for like 3 months, they forgot. So when I ran into the ring and cost Rey the championship, he dropped the championship to Booker T and I hit him with the chair, people are like oh, we forgot, he’s a Guerrero. Well yeah, it’s just the art of perception and the art of heat. And with heat you say stuff that is real. I think that’s a lot of what we are missing today. We want to be mean in the ring but people want to believe, they really really do, and we’ve just seen it. It was that easy.”          

On some misunderstood things about Eddie Guerrero:

“Eddie was very gracious. He wore his heart on his sleeve, good and bad. There is a saying in wrestling that the real giant in wrestling was Eddie Guerrero, because when he got mad you could not calm him down. That was because he felt slighted, he gave you his heart and you did something to him and we had to calm him down. I remember one time when we were all out and the singer Baby Bash, somebody had messed with him and we had to calm him down like, Eddie, relax. He really wanted to kill this guy. I remember talking to Bash again recently and [he said] Man, I was scared. I got really scared. But we would grow really fast, me and him were like Bruce Banner and The Incredible Hulk. We are both totally mild mannered until we get really mad.”

On appearing in AEW:

“You know what? That was fun, I had a good time there. It was real quick, we were just getting into what we were starting to do, then Young Rock called for that other season. I knew that it was coming and I told Tony I’ve got to do Young Rock at some point. He told me that we would deal with it when it comes.Then it came and I said look man, this is what I am making over there. He was like ok that’s a lot! But he said go and do what you’ve got to do. It was originally only supposed to be for 2 months, it ended up being 3 months. When I came back, [originally] he said come back and you’ll still have a job here. But when I came back, things changed. I’m still on good terms with those guys.” 

On Kerwin White:

“I was a little longer than that  [3 weeks], but I wanted to go all the way with that. I wanted to do all of that and Vince loved it. To me, it’s like playing a role on TV or in a movie. So if I am doing that on TV then it is what it is, no one will think twice about it. I kind of think about it that way, not everyone does. They can’t blur the lines.”

On the Ooohh Chavo theme song:

“So when they made me that music, I actually had some other music that I was using in WCW that boiled over there. Kevin Dunn comes up and he goes, Hey, we want to come up with a new theme for you. I’m like Ok. So Jim Johnston came up with something, and when I first heard it I was like hmm, alright, it’s ok. Kevin was like, trust me, it’s going to be good. So I listened to it and of course he was right because now all I hear is Ohh Chavo, bam!”

On being a heat magnet:

“It’s heat man, I know how to get it, I had some good teachers. Eddie was, you forget how good of a heel Eddie was, people hated Eddie. Then when we were doing Los Guerreros, they remembered the funny parts, but at first they hated us. That’s where the whole lie, cheat and steal came from. They would call us every derogatory hispanic name in the book and throw stuff, that’s what we liked. The office would ask us like, why don’t you guys do two double frog splashes as a finish? We are like why? If we do that, they can only clap you. It’s like they suck, but that was a good finish. That’s why we would cheat to win. Every single night when we won and we retained those championships, we did it through cheating. [At first] They hated us. They would boo and boo us out of the building until we went to Vince McMahon and we said, Hey, we have this idea, we want to do some vignettes about some lying, cheating and stealing. [Vince goes] I love it! Let’s do it. We just thought it would be backstage vignettes. No, I was already out in LA, they flew Eddie out and they rented a house in Beverly Hills. We had a shooting crew and we had catering and trailers. I said Eddie, we have got to knock this out of the park. That’s where we filmed the baby that sleeps, stealing the baby bottle one, we did the pool party one, we did one where we would steal the guys’ girls. We did 3 in a single day. We went from being heels where people would boo the heck out of us. When the baby bottle vignette aired, we came out the next week, our music hit, nothing changed, we walked out all greasy and slimy and oiled up, and they cheered us. We were like oh no, we are babyfaces, we messed up. That was not our goal, we wanted to be heels until the very end. We talked to Triple H, Triple H said guys, you got entertaining, you started to make them laugh. Right from there we became babyfaces. We still lied, cheated and stole, but we did it in cute ways.”     

On Roman Reigns potentially transitioning to Hollywood:

“It’s awesome man, I love it. It’s a tough transition, not everybody gets lucky, not luck, but right place at the right time like Rock and Cena. Those guys, they’re good actors. Dave Bautista is a good actor, they’ve got better and better. I don’t know how good Roman Reigns can be, because I have only seen him play Roman Reigns. Batista has played Drax, serious guys, mean guys, he’s got this range.”

Why Chavo left WWE:

“Eddie had a great mind for the business, he just didn’t want to be on the road anymore. He loved his family a lot, he really really did, and he wanted to be home with his family. I remember before he passed, like 6 months before, I remember him coming to me and saying I don’t want to be here anymore. I said what do you mean? He said I don’t want to wrestle anymore. I said, Dude drop out and do something else. He got real mad, [and said] what am I going to do? What else am I going to do? This is what we do, we wrestle. I said that it doesn’t matter, your family life is more important. What good is it if you are away from your family all of the time? That’s why I left WWE. My kids at the time were 8 and 11 maybe, and I just didn’t want them growing up without a dad. I had already been on the road for 20 years, I didn’t want to be that casualty and divorced from wrestling and the whole thing. Everything you work hard for and you lose it. I didn’t want to get divorced, I didn’t want my kids to grow up without a dad. That’s kind of why I left. It’s funny because they don’t really remember me being gone all the time.”  

What is Chavo Guerrero grateful for: 

“My faith, my family and my health.”  

Featured image: WrestleZone

On today’s episode, the tables are tuned and I’m a guest on The Danny Miranda Podcast (@heydannymiranda). Danny is a fantastic interviewer who does incredibly deep research allowing him to ask questions of people that they’ve never been asked before. We sat down together in Los Angeles for this conversation and talked about why I’m obsessed with chasing greatness, the interview I recently did with my wife, how Tony Robbins impacted my life, the morning routine I have for interviewing The Rock, why I think there is a science to interviews, my thoughts on Logan Paul in WWE and much more!

On a lot changing in a year:

“A lot has changed since the last time I spoke to you. We had a really big year, and when I say we, I mean, me and my wife. I didn’t have a wife the last time we spoke, I had a girlfriend, I don’t even think we were engaged yet. So yeah, in the last year, we got engaged, got married, found out we were pregnant, bought a house. And now in May, our daughter is gonna be joining us. So a lot of massive changes. I also turn 40 in May. So a lot of big things are happening. But man, I’m so excited for this next chapter of my life and entering into that chapter of my life with the person I’m going to spend the rest of my life with.”

On Chris interviewing his wife Rachel:

She had never done an interview before [was she nervous?] Very, very, like I was like, I think this is something I want to do. And she’s like, I don’t know, we’ll see what happens when we get up there. And I packed just the audio equipment. So I packed just the microphones, the XLR cables and the Zoom recorder, put it in my suitcase and I said look when the moment is right, I think we’re going to hit record we’re going to do this. I really want my audience to like know who you are like they’ve been on this journey with me. I mean really since my career started in 2005, but they’ve been on this journey, specifically, since the YouTube channel really got underway 12 years ago, the podcast is almost four years old. And I’ve always kind of let the viewers and the listeners behind the curtain a little bit to see, you know, what is going on in my life. And with all those big announcements that I just listed off, I wanted them to meet my wife, I want them to meet this incredibly important person in my life. So we had just got married, we got married on December 17, this was right before Christmas, we went to the mountains. We went to Idlewild, which is about two hours from here. And it’s kind of in the middle of nowhere. It’s just this little mountain town. And we went up there and it was just this beautiful setting. It was me and her and our little chiweenie dog named Luna. And I just hit record, and I didn’t have any questions prepared. I just want to have a conversation and see what would happen. And I’ve been doing this thing in my life for years where I feel like you can never go back and relive moments. And it’s been so important for me to go, I’m just gonna hit record on my phone, and just like usually a video, and just kind of see like, what’s going on right now, like a video diary. And then watch this back in two years or five years ago, oh, man, I thought that was cool at the time, or that was important at the time. And just it’s a snapshot in your life. And I figured this would be like an hour long snapshot of who we are at this exact moment. And I want to make this a yearly thing that we always do.”

On the price to pay for success:

“That is such a great question. And this is, this is why you’re so good at this. Because you ask questions like that. I don’t think it’s a price that you pay, other than I’ve always had a vision for what I wanted to do. And even if it seemed completely out of the realm of possibility, I still kept it on my radar as if this might be possible. And if it’s not, I at least want to go all the way to the end and find out it’s not possible. But if you really think about it, like I grew up in Pickering, Ontario, the fact that I now live in Los Angeles, and I’m able to work in Los Angeles, is crazy to me, you know, I immigrated from Canada to make this happen. So I think it was just the idea that I was clear on what I wanted to do. And you know, I always say vague goals get vague results, so the flip side of that is specific goals get specific results. And no two people’s paths are the same. But if you can go along the way and get over those bumps in the road, get over those hurdles in the road, and figure out your path, then I think you’re going to be really successful.”

On Logan Paul in WWE:

“I think it’s just the fact that he’s doing it at such a high level. Because the bar for a while in pro-wrestling for an outsider to come in was pretty low. And then Bad Bunny came in and crushed it at WrestleMania. So then the bar was like insanely high, because that match was so good. So then Logan Paul came in, all eyes are on him. People, you know, can say what they want about Logan Paul, but whether you love him or you hate him, you feel something about him. And that is the essence of wrestling. Like whether you’re a good guy or a bad guy, it makes you feel something. And so many people wanted Logan Paul to fail. And then he went in and his first match and like knocked it out of the park at WrestleMania last year. And then he had his second match at SummerSlam and was so good. And then he had his match with Roman Reigns. And again, so good, and people went, Okay, well, I don’t like him. But he’s very talented. And the fact that he’s put in the work is so impressive. Obviously, he’s a natural athlete, but he looks the part and is acting the part. And I think that if you’re a wrestling fan, and you’re not respecting what Logan Paul’s doing in the ring, then you’re not really a wrestling fan.”

On if someone is at a crossroads:

“I really think that there’s things in your life that end up leaning, like showing you which way to land. And you really can’t make a wrong decision. Like, whether you make this decision or you make that decision, you’re making the right decision based on the information that’s in front of you. And make the decision based on what you feel in your heart. And don’t be influenced by your family or your friends saying, Actually, you should probably do this thing like you know what feels right. And if you’re a week or a month or two months into and it doesn’t feel right, you can always go back and do the other thing. So I think for me, just you got to listen to your gut. You got to trust it.”

On interview preparation when Interviewing The Rock:

“Usually you are on location somewhere. So I wake up, the gym is a big part of my day. So it’s go to the gym. Sometimes I’ll listen to a podcast that that person has been a guest on and just kind of like get a feel for the conversation. And then it’s just like, specifically write out the questions. A lot of times I would write out topics, but if it’s only got four or five minutes, I want to try to get to an actual question. So the morning routine is, it’s gratitude always, I start the day with three things I’m grateful for that takes like 10 seconds. Everybody should do it, because it really sets the tone for the day. Gym, eat, and then it’s just write out questions. And I’ll go to Google News and go. Alright, so it’s The Rock, for example, what are some big news stories that people are talking about that maybe he hasn’t addressed yet? And I can get his first comment about it? Oh, that’s a good one. I’ll add that in. And there’s been some really cool moments with people like The Rock, for example, where they give us a little piece of advice, or a little piece of news. And you go, Oh, I never would have thought about that if I hadn’t gone on Google News this morning.”

Who inspires Chris Van Vliet:

“You’re inspiring me right now. For sure. You’re inspiring me the fact that you’re chasing after this. Like so much of what I did. And what I still do of like looking for the yes, in every situation, which your podcast is continuing to grow. I know that you have that specific goal of impacting a million people every month, and you’re on your way. And I’m really excited for you about that. So you inspire me, as we sit here right now. I’m just inspired also just by greatness. Like, I’ve always been a football fan. So cool watching the Super Bowl yesterday and seeing the people who are the very best in the world at this. I’m inspired by greatness and seeing people who like excel at things like that, like Tom Brady blows me away with not just the fact that he’s the best in the world. But the fact that he’s 45, and just wrapped up the greatest career as a football player. And he spent more than half his life doing this thing. Like I’m really inspired by people who look to be 1% better, like they’re already so good. And they look to just get 1% better than everyone else.”

Featured image: Danny Miranda

Omos (@thegiantomos) is a WWE Superstar and former college basketball player. He is also the tallest wrestler on WWE’s active roster at 7’3″. He joins Chris Van Vliet to talk about how he got discovered by WWE, the original WWE try-out that he was supposed to have in 2014 and why it didn’t come to fruition, his match with Brock Lesnar at WrestleMania 39, making Brock Lesnar look small in the ring, what he learned from working so closely with AJ Styles, the difficulties of flying on a plane at his height, his match against Seth Rollins at Backlash, his goal to become WWE Champion and much more!

Omos, so good to see you. Life must be pretty good for Omos. You’re coming off of this match with Brock Lesnar at WrestleMania. And now you got Seth Rollins come on up at Backlash.

“Life is wonderful man. I remember when I talked to my business partner MVP, and we had a couple of ideas of what we wanted to do. He said, like the universe heard what we were planning for and is giving us those gifts in highest stake matches. And now we are truly grateful.”

This is what I think is so interesting about you. And I’m a big believer that things in life happen for a reason at the time that they’re supposed to happen. You were supposed to have a WWE try-out in 2014 and because of you know, various different circumstances that didn’t happen, do you think about what life would look like had that happen at that time?

“I do. But I don’t think I was mentally ready for it. I always think back to, you know, back then and you know, when I didn’t come for the try-out, everything I was actually able to do in that 4 year time span. And I think I get to go through that growth and truly try and give my best to basketball and for it to come to a full stop before I jump into wrestling. Because I don’t think if I just came up at that time, I think I’ll have some oh, what if I do this in basketball if I did this. But I actually exhausted all options to a point where it does really nothing else for me to do and I had to pivot in my life you know and so happens to be that you know, wrestling was presented presented to me and I fell in love with it on the first try-out whenever I got into the ring and it was you know love at first sight. Truly love at first sight.”

What was your first introduction to the WWE and to pro wrestling? Like is it something that’s popular in Nigeria?

“To be honest, I didn’t think it was until I went back home last year and I truly just understand the magnitude of fans we have. Not just in Nigeria but there’s all over Africa as a whole and how people keep individuals watching you know, going back home actually for the first time in 14 years and just having regular day workers seeing me on the streets saying Omos! Omos! And I’m kind of shocked because I wasn’t expecting that type of reception. But, like it went down to meeting, you know, the current vice president of Nigeria and like his kids are watching the pay-per-view, you know right after we did Saudi last year Braun and I. You know go back going back home and the President’s like we saw you what are you doing here? I’m like I came to visit my family. He knows WWE, he goes we just saw you a couple days ago in Saudi Arabia I’m just like wow, like this is like I did not know it is extremely popular back home. They have this [show], it’s called Jumbo on the cable network. They get 24/7 programming for WWE, they can watch WWE 24/7 everyday.”

I think that people think Omos is your real name. What’s the story behind the name of Omos?

“So the fun fact is that Omos is part of my last name. Right? So my last name is Omogbehin, which is very difficult to understand. When I was a kid, I didn’t know what caught up, you know, whatever, my dad said that he wanted to change it to Omos. So for a while for like, 12 years of my life in Nigeria my last name was Omos. And then about three years before, when I said play basketball before I came to America, I made a decision. You know what, I want to change back to Omogbehin. And you know, as it goes, you know, as it goes we all change our names back. So Omos is my last name, I just don’t go by it.”

I don’t think that people realise how big you are until they see you live at a WWE event. I’m curious. At what age did you become six feet tall?

“I think it was at 11 years old.”

That is not fair. By the way!

I’m sorry, man, you know, I don’t make the rules. I just follow them. So whatever people give to me I just stick and ran with it. But I will say also about 11.

Okay. And then like, at what point are you seven feet tall?

“So 11 years old. I was about six feet. And then I think my time was 13 I went through a 7 inch growth spurt. So my time was 13 I was starting to play basketball. Then by 15 I was 6 foot 11, 7 foot.”

Now is the same thing that you had, is that the same thing that Andre had growth on you pituitary gland?

“So yes, similar but different. Mine is different because those guys just had acromegaly, which is a tumour on the pituitary gland. I had that, but also have gigantism, and also something else called Partial Cushing’s Disease. And from on they said it was the first case they’ve ever seen that had those three diseases together, because it was all diseases that that make you large. And I kind of have all the, you know, like a, like a risk spot, you know. I had all the fixings and it was already funded. I had all this study by this medical journal about my condition to help other divisions of kids that have a similar case like I do, you know. I had an opportunity, you know, for residents to talk to me about my experience. You know, what it’s like to have all three diseases because it’s rare to find someone that has all 3 like I do.”

But this isn’t just like something that makes you tall, like, this is something that if not treated, I mean, you could die, right?

“Yes, absolutely. So for me, it’s just like I have to monitor my problem. It’s called an IGF1, which is a growth hormone. And I’m pretty much on medication every day to help stop my body from using the hormone. If not, if I don’t do that, I keep on growing, which I don’t want to do anymore. I’m satisfied, you know.”

Do you have to duck to walk into every room now?

Pretty much. Every room, it has become [a habit]. Even when the doors are about like 10 foot tall, it’s just a natural reaction where I have to do it just in case. You know, I don’t want to like No, I’m fine. And I go and I hit my head and this has happened a couple of times, but I always try to make sure I duck, it just has become a natural instinct now.”

Okay, how about sitting on an aeroplane? What does that look like?

“There’s a video that I think MVP posted last year of what it was like, getting out of my seat, going to the bathroom, visit the bathroom, then coming back and it’s like, being in a hut, for lack of better terms. You know, because you know, those planes are designed for a human being. So this is how to make the best. I always had a feeling oh, my life has been a thing of wrath to figure out okay, how do I manoeuvre into small and tight spaces that aren’t necessarily designed for me?”

Who were some of the big men that you looked up to when you were a fan growing up?

“Oh, man, Undertaker, The Undertaker. Both watching him in the ring and as an individual, I have such great admiration for him. Kevin Nash, Razor Ramon, may he rest in peace, I actually miss him a lot. Because, you know, since I have been in this business I’ve had the privilege of having such great mentors who would call me and give me advice. Who else? Mark Henry, Big Show. You know those are guy’s you know that I’ve watched a lot of Kane and just try to take a little bit out of how they work and implement it to how I work. I’ve seen him do the snake eyes and big boot, I don’t want to take his famous moves. I think the right guy can do that. But with his permission I was able to so you know, way to honor people who are trying to look up to.”

I think that people think Brock Lesnar is a big dude. And then you see you guys in the ring together at WrestleMania 39. You make him look so small, but what I think is a true testament to Brock’s strength is he picks you up for that F5 Like you weigh nothing.

“That is what I was telling somebody the other day, I think the two strongest individuals I’ve ever been in the ring with are Brock Lesnar and Bobby Lashley. I have no idea how those guys are as amazing as they are. And this is gonna sound right coming from me, because I’m a physical specimen, but they are such physical specimens and phenomenal athletes.”

When you talk about phenomenal, I mean, I think it’d be remiss to not bring out AJ Styles. I’m really curious. What’s something that you do in the ring now, that is something that you learned from working with AJ?

“Being vicious. That’s the thing, that’s what separates AJ from everybody else. AJ knows you are meant to be vicious, and you see it in his eyes when he truly wants to kill somebody. That’s what I learned from him as you know, when I was also under him, he mentored me, which he still does today because he’s one of my closest friends. The look like you want to kill somebody, that is art. It’s not about what you do, it’s what’s in here what you conveyed in your eyes. And that was something I learned from him and I still do today, looking like I want to kill this guy, I want to murder him.”

I feel like you’re just getting started in WWE, like you really are. And you’ve already accomplished so much. So if we look ahead now five years 10 years plus, what are some of the long term goals you have for yourself in WWE?

“Oh, man, of course I want to be WWE Champion you know, that’s the kind of top of the list you know, when I first started I had goals I wanted to accomplish and I think I’ve met some of those goals. And there’s things that I wanted to do that, you know, wrestle at WrestleMania, and I have wrestled at WrestleMania three times. You know, one with it as with former WWE Champion with AJ Styles, going solo wrestling Bobby Lashley last year in Dallas, and then starting to show with one and only Brock Lesnar. So I think there’s a lot of plans left and a lot of things I want to achieve. But I think the top of the list is becoming [champion] and holding that gold over my head. Here, look at me now. I’m the biggest, baddest son of a gun you have ever seen. Now we are here, you know. So that’s the top of the list, you know?”

Give me some travel tips here. If I’m going to visit Nigeria for the very first time, what do I need to do?

“First things first, make sure you are vaccinated. That’s the first thing to do first. I will say figure out a good amount of money you want to spend. So I never suggest this, [using] credit cards for anything. I always say bring cash, cash is king in Nigeria.”

Who’s the most famous Nigerian that we might know?

“There’s a lot man. There’s UFC fighter Israel Adesanya, Kamaru Usman. Go to Hollywood, John Boyega, Damson Idris from Snowfall. So a lot of these guys doing a lot of a lot of great things, man. So it’s, it’s alive and everywhere, everywhere. It’s fun, and I see basketball. Same thing. You know, it’s truly an amazing time to see, you know, our country put on the world map and all these great people.”

What would you say is the best piece of advice that you’ve received, you know, right before you are going to get onto the stage that you’ve got on in WWE. What’s the best piece of advice that you got that you now carry with you?

“Enjoy it. I think sometimes those moments are so huge that we forget to be the present and and enjoy it and soak it in. And I always try to make sure wherever I go out there, I take my time and I truly absorb it and I truly you know, enjoy it and be in the moment and be present because you know, we go to perform and as a performer. You get nervous, you get tense and you know you like get in your head. But sometimes that takes away from just enjoying and understanding I’m going to go out in front of 5000 people who are either going to scream or boo me, and they’re going to have an amazing time. And they will go crazy like that is an accomplishment in itself. So always make sure to always be present and just enjoy the moment.”

Look so many of the things that you did, you were getting over when there weren’t any fans in the arena. So what was it like when you did get in front of fans for the first time they knew who you were. And they knew where you were all about?

“A lot of nerves. I think the first time we had a pay-per-view in front of fans was at SummerSlam. No, no, no, it was Mania in Tampa. And it was such a good experience for me because before I wrestled I wanted to play basketball, wanted to go pro, obviously, that didn’t happen. I had goals I wanted to accomplish, I went to college in Tampa, University of South Florida. I had goals I wanted to accomplish there, which I didn’t get to do due to health reasons and other things right. After I graduated in 2014. And then to go back there a couple years later, and to do what we did, at a large stadium in Tampa, but everybody knew who I was. And the audience knew that, it was like a full circle moment for me to go back. But also an extremely emotional one, because a lot of what I went through happened in Tampa, the stuff with my surgeries, my brain, ACLs, everything, everything that kinda all the all the logic hurdles I kind of faced happened in Tampa. So to go back there and do what I did at WrestleMania that was forever was at the top of the list of you know, being there and truly experiencing the crowd and seeing them go crazy. Granted it was only, I think it was only about 25% capacity because of COVID. It was still like top of the list, because I still feel the energy. I remember, you know, we had introduction on the first day, they brought us out and they introduced us to the fans for the first time since the pandemic. And I just remember going out there that I could just feel the energy from the audience. And I got emotional, when I came back I saw Kevin Nash he just gives me a big hug. He told me to breathe and to relax. I was talking with [him] that there’s no energy like the energy the WWE fans bring to a WWE arena. You know that there’s nothing like it. I don’t care where you’ve played baseball, basketball, UFC, there’s nothing like it. Once you get into the experience, you feel the energy it’s just how truly different and passionate these fans are. And I remember and I felt that for the first time.”

I end every conversation, talking about gratitude. Because it’s such an important part of my life. I always wake up I say out loud three things that I’m grateful for. And I do it before I go to sleep. What are three things in your life that you’re grateful for right now?

“I’m grateful to be alive. I’m grateful to be able to do what I’m doing, and I’m grateful for my loved ones.”

Featured image: WWE

Here we go again with another edition of #AskCVV! Chris Van Vliet answers questions that were submitted on Twitter, Facebook and YouTube from Insight listeners just like you and you sent in some GREAT ones this time around. This is a monthly tradition so if you have a question that you’d like answered in the next edition, just send it with the hashtag #AskCVV. Here is a look at some of the questions from this month:

What was your initial reaction to the unveiling of the brand new WWE World Heavyweight Championship? 

“I gotta be honest, I think it looks amazing. It’s a perfect mix for me of that old school design, a throwback to the classic big gold with a new spin on it. So I love it. And I think that, I hate to say it, but I think the WWE has dropped the ball with a lot of their belts. I mean, I think that four years ago, almost to the day, actually four years ago, everyone kind of laughed and giggled when Mick Foley unveiled the 24/7 championship. And obviously, they have done away with that now, but I saw this belt and I went, Yes. And that’s actually a championship that I would want to purchase. And it’s been a long time since I’ve wanted to add another belt to my collection. I know we’re not supposed to call them belts, right Vince McMahon, but I’ll call it a belt, belt, title, championship. All the same thing, right? You know what I’m talking about. But I understand, I understand where he’s coming from. I understand when Vince says it’s not a belt, because a belt is what’s used to hold your pants up. It’s a title. It is a championship and it’s prestigious. But I love the look of this. My only problem here, it’s not to do with the design of the belt at all. But here’s what my problem is, whenever the big gold or the WWE World Heavyweight Championship comes back into the picture. For me, it’s never the world title being the number one being the top prize. The WWE Championship, or the two titles that Roman has right now, that will always be looked at by fans as like the main prize. And then unfortunately, I think that the World Heavyweight Championship ends up being this secondary belt, the secondary championship, and I just think that it’s unfortunate. Like there’s a lot of superstars and I’m sure that some names pop into your head right now that have won the WWE World Heavyweight Championship, but haven’t ever become the WWE Champion. So it’s like okay, they were so close, but they got the world title, but they didn’t get the WWE Championship. So my issue here is whoever holds the two belts, and I’m hoping, at some point soon, that those two belts hopefully soon become just one belt. But whoever has those championships right now, it’s Roman Reigns, and it has been Roman Reigns for like, almost three years now. Whoever holds those belts or that championship, or championships, but whoever has that title is like the main person. And then I just, it’s so unfortunate to me that the World Heavyweight Champion becomes like one tier down from that. So that’s my only issue with this whole thing. And I know the WWE wants us to believe that they’re both in the same tier, but they’re not. And fans will never look at it that way. Fans will always be like, oh, yeah, that’s cool that he won the World title, but that’s only the World Heavyweight Championship. And it’s also kind of unfortunate, because that championship comes from this, you know, incredible history. Think of all the names that have won that championship, and it just kind of sucks that in 2023, that that title gets introduced. And it’s like, it’s not, it’s not the title. So that’s my issue with it. I think that the design is beautiful. The meaning behind it, though, I just, I just feel like it’s a little bit lacking. And I hope I’m wrong, I hope I’m wrong. But it just seems to me that whoever is fighting for the main titles are the main focus, you feel where I’m coming from here. but the championship itself, I think they nailed it. I think they did such a good job here.”

Who would win in a shoot James Bond or Jason Bourne? Not the actors, just the characters?

“I mean, I think we gotta we got a lot of questions we gotta ask here, like which version of Bond? Because I feel like the Daniel Craig version of Bond would annihilate all of the other versions of Bond. But I think if it were really to come down to it, if we’ve got Jason Bourne, who was Matt Damon, I guess, in most of the movies, except for that one, you know, I’m talking about where it was Jeremy Renner. If I think if it’s a fight here, a one-on-one fight. It goes to Jason Bourne easily. Like James Bond, he’s innovative, he’s obviously great at convincing people and an incredible conversationalist. But Jason Bourne is like a government killing machine. Like, I don’t think that anyone could top that. So I’m going with Jason Bourne here. I love those movies. I think that Matt Damon absolutely nailed that role. And he’s one of those actors that played that role so well that you can’t even like picture it being played in that version, without giving too much away here. You can’t imagine being played in that version by anybody else. I mean, this really isn’t a spoiler alert, but I guess we find out that there’s more than one Jason Bourne, right? That Jason Bourne is just like an identity given to these types of people. Okay, all I’m saying. So, I’m going to Jason Bourne here.”

Since Cody will probably win the World Championship, who do you think will be the guy to dethrone Roman? 

“Well, I actually disagree here. I still think that Cody is going to finish the story with Roman Reigns. I think that Roman gets dethroned by Cody. I don’t know when that happens, but it sure seems to me like WWE is lining up that somebody else will be winning the World Championship. And I think that if this were to take a left turn and veer off into a different direction, and Cody won the World Championship, I think it just kind of, you know, springboarding off of what I was saying earlier. I really think that this would take away from that whole chase that Cody has been on. So I still think that it’s Cody, who dethrones Roman Reigns. Maybe that’s a SummerSlam thing, maybe I don’t know. It’s crazy. Maybe it’s not till WrestleMania 40 Next year in Philly, but I think that the next person to hold the WWE Championship, that the two titles that Roman has, that will be Cody Rhodes.” 

What’s your favorite place that you’ve ever visited?

“I’ve been so fortunate to be able to travel to a lot of different places. So I’ll give you, I’ll give you two, I’ll give you two. But there’s a lot. And there’s a lot of places that I haven’t been to yet. And there’s a lot of honorable mentions here. So if I don’t list where you live, right, if I don’t list your favorite destination, it doesn’t mean that I don’t love it. Like I love Australia. Love it. But I need to go back there. I haven’t been to Australia for over 10 years, so that would definitely be a place I need to revisit. But I think number one for me is Hawaii, there’s something so magical about Hawaii, like from the second you get off the plane, and by the way, like the closest American city to Hawaii, the closest mainland American city to Hawaii is Los Angeles or like that’s a relatively in quotes quick flight because it’s like five and a half hours. So it’s five and a half hours into the middle of the Pacific Ocean. And then you get off the plane. And there’s just something about being there. The energy there, like the people are so kind they talk about the aloha spirit that people are so kind there. And it’s just a beautiful place with beautiful scenery and so lush. So Hawaii is great, I’ve had so many beautiful memories there. I was most recently there last year with, she was just my girlfriend at the time before we were even engaged, and now we’re married. But I went with Rachel, we just had an amazing time, the time it was there before that was when I was interviewing The Rock, Kevin Hart and Jack Black for a little movie called Jumanji. So that was another great memory there. But there’s just something about Hawaii. And all the islands have a bit of a different feel there. I love Maui. I love Kawaii and obviously spent a lot of time in Oahu because that’s where Honolulu is. I just love Hawaii. So Hawaii is number one and then Paris is such a special place. And there’s something about the sun, which is the river there and seeing the Eiffel Tower light up. And the food and the people and the wine and the atmosphere. I need to go back to Paris, that is high on my list of places I want to go back to. But then there’s like the dream list of like where have you not been that you want to go to? Iceland is really high on that list. I’ve never been to Japan. And before the world shut down. Will Osprey invited me to go to Wrestle Kingdom with him. Obviously Wrestle Kingdom didn’t happen that year because the world shut down. But I was so ready to take him up on that invitation because I’ve never been to Japan and I would love to do that. So there’s a few destinations. I of course love London, and before the world shut down I was in London, three, four or five times a year doing different interviews and different movies. I kind of mentioned this. But yeah, part of my real job as an entertainment reporter is not just interviewing celebrities, but going to see movies early. I’m a movie critic, I vote on the Critics Choice Awards. I’m part of the Critics Choice association. So as I’m recording this right now, as soon as this is done, I’m going to drive into Burbank, that it’s just outside of Los Angeles. And I’m going to a screening of Guardians of the Galaxy three. So I get to see the movie like two weeks before it comes out. And I’m super stoked about that. So when I’m allowed to talk about it, I can let you know what I think about it. I think right now there’s an embargo that you can’t, you know, give your thoughts or your reaction or your review on it. But all of that is to say that I would love to go back to London to do some more interviews there.” 

Favorite thing about any indie that you don’t get at big WWE and AEW shows? 

“I would say the biggest thing is the interaction that you get with the wrestlers. Like they are right there. A you know, bad seat and putting that in quotations at an indie show is like the fourth row. So you’re right there, you can hear everything that is going on in the ring, you can smell the sweat. I know that’s probably not an attractive thing, but you feel like you’re part of the show. And then during intermission, and then before the show and after the show, you’ve got a chance to interact with all of the superstars on the card, all of the wrestlers that are working that show and I think that that’s what’s really cool about it, they’re accessible. And that’s not to say that they’re not accessible at a WWE show or an AEW show but you’ve got to be sitting like first or second row for them to even have a chance to like, you know, give you a high five as they walked by. And to do like an autograph signing or meet and greet, that’s a completely different event. So I think that what you don’t get at those bigger shows that you do get in your shows, is just a real community feeling there. You feel like you and however many other people are in the crowd, whether that’s a few 100 or 1000 people, you feel like you’re part of something special that’s happening that night. I would equate it to like going to see your favorite band at an intimate venue or going to see your favorite comedian at the local Comedy Store improv, whatever it happens to be. And you’re seeing them with, you know, 100, 200, 300 other people, rather than going to see them on an arena with 5000 or 10,000, or sometimes even 20,000 people. So I just think there’s something special about that atmosphere.”

Does the wrestling you watch change depending on who you’re interviewing? 

“I would say the wrestling that I watch on a regular basis doesn’t really change. But if I’m interviewing someone, likeI’ll give you an example, I recently did an interview with Bubba Ray Dudley, Billy Ray, whatever you want to call him. So I was like, man, some of his best stuff was in WWE, obviously, was in ECW, he’s now doing stuff with IMPACT and NWA. So I’m watchingIMPACT and NWA now. But I was like, Man, I want to go back and watch some of like his best moments, like his greatest hits. So it’s more of like a diving back into the archives. And seeing like, man, what are the moments that everybody talks about with that person? And you might have noticed with the videos that I’ve been putting out on Instagram, Facebook, YouTube shorts, Tik Tok. I’m trying to like dig into, like, what are the moments everybody talks about what that person like Dolph Ziggler is a great example. So fortunate to be able to sit down with him for the 16th time for the interview that we did recently. And one of my favorite moments with Dolph is his Money in the Bank cash-in on Alberto Del Rio. And I went back and I rewatched, the moment I felt all of the things that I felt when I watched that for the first time, so that was a really cool thing. So I would say that the day to day week to week stuff that I watch doesn’t really change that much. But I love to go back and brush up on the best moments, and I don’t want to miss anything there.”

What’s the toughest interview that you ever had to do? 

“Man the one that pops into my mind here is I was covering the red carpet for a movie called The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus. Which is probably not a movie that, you know, you really know of. It’s a deep cut. But the reason that this movie is so important is because it was the last movie that Heath Ledger filmed before he passed away. So I was covering the red carpet for this. And you know, obviously, one of the biggest things that you want to talk to the cast about was like, what was it like when you found out that he had passed away? What were your memories like working with him? So that was really difficult phrasing those questions and look, red carpet is a bit like a party. Like it’s a premiere, it’s a celebration of like, all of our hard work is going to be shown to everybody for the first time here. This is exciting. And for this thing to be looming over it, of the death of the star of this movie, in fact, he passed away during the filming of this movie, and they got other actors to play his role in the film. They did a really good job with that, but like, this is a big party juxtaposed with like, while we’re celebrating the performances in this movie, and we’re paying tribute to Heath Ledger, you know, we’re also remembering that he’s not with us anymore. So I remember talking to Verne Troyer may Verne Troyer Rest in peace, and he’s in that movie and I was like asking him about his like, favorite memories of Heath Ledger and where he was when he found out that he had passed away. So yeah, that was a difficult one. And that’s a while ago. So I’m actually pulling this up. Yeah, that movie came out in 2009 But Heath Ledger was the star of that movie when he passed away. His role was played by Johnny Depp and Colin Farrell and Jude Law. So, you know, three incredibly talented actors filling the shoes of the incredibly talented Heath Ledger who was taken away from us far, far too soon. So that was a tough one. But a great film and yeah, just a really, really interesting situation. I feel like I learned a lot from that, from that experience there. So yeah, that’s a really good question. Thank you for that.” 

How did you know that she was the one, and that you were ready to propose?

“Well, Rachel is so special. My wife, Rachel, is so special, and she’s just the greatest person that I’ve ever met. And I know it’s gonna sound cliche. And I know that before I met Rachel, and people would say this. I was like, Man, that sounds real nice and you roll your eyes. But honestly, when you know, you know. And I know, that’s super cliche, but seriously, when you know, you know. And when I met Rachel, and we met on our first date, and if you go back and listen to the podcast that we did, the last episode of last year, we talked about this, we met at a rooftop in Huntington Beach. It was supposed to be for like a drink and just like a first date, and like, meet each other. And it ended up turning into like us spending like five hours together and the conversation just flowed, and like, I just felt like this is someone that I had known my whole life. And, yeah, just everything about it just felt so right. And I’ve never questioned anything about it since the second I met her. Actually, I don’t even know if I’ve talked about this, but even before the moment I met her, I was like, trying to look for a parking spot in this huge garage. And I was getting a little bit lost, I’ve never been to this place before and I felt terrible, because I was running a little bit late. And I I pride myself on always being on time and always being like super respectful of people’s time. And I was running a little bit late. And I was like, Hey, I’m just finding the parking, I’m heading over there, I’ll be there soon. And I was walking out of the parking garage and I saw her from a distance. I was like on level two, and she was on the ground floor. And I saw her from a distance and I just went wow! Wow, she’s amazing. So she took my breath away before I even met her, and then I did meet her and she’s the best. And as I stand here right now and record this, because I’m standing right now, in my closet, because the acoustics are really good in here. As I stand here, right now, we’re about a month away from our daughter being born. And I’m just so excited to see Rachel as a mom, I feel like she was put on this earth to be a mom. And I’m so excited about that. So that is my long way of saying I am a lucky, lucky man to have such an incredible wife and incredible partner, and incredible mother to our daughter. So super exciting.”

What’s a regional thing that you’ve tried everywhere that you’ve lived and it’s just not for you? 

“Man, as you know, I’ve lived in a lot of different places. So I’m from Pickering, Ontario, Canada, went to university in Waterloo, Ontario, so you know, an hour and a half ish west of Pickering. And then after that lived in Toronto, Vancouver, Cleveland, Miami bought a house in Fort Lauderdale. I lived in Cincinnati, Los Angeles, and now we live in Orange County. So I’ve lived in a lot of different places. And I will tell you the regional thing that I tried that I was like, I don’t know what are you guys talking about here. And I know I’m gonna get a lot of angry people because of this. But Skyline chilli in Cincinnati, it’s just not for me. It is just not for me. It’s not even chilli, it’s like spaghetti sauce, and they serve it with a tonne of spaghetti. Then they put on this soupy sauce. It’s not chilli and then they give you about 73 pounds of cheese on top of that. So it’s a lot, and I was just like I was expecting chilli like I was expecting like the chilli you get in a bowl and you eat on a cold day and that was not what this was. So the Skyline Chilli, and look, this is the thing, people in that area love it, swear by it and eat it all the time. I tried it twice and I was just like this is not for me. I’m so sorry, I was expecting something different. And even though I was expecting something different this did not deliver. So I apologise for not enjoying it but Skyline chilli. It’s not for me. And I’m gonna get a lot of hate from this. But I’m just saying, that’s it. Skyline chilli, not for me.” 

Will you ever move to New York City? 

“That’s such an interesting question. Because I just talked about all the places that I’ve lived. And I feel like for me, I went from Cleveland, to Miami, Cleveland to South Florida. And I was like, and I moved in December. And I was like, Oh my gosh, I’m never gonna have to see winter ever again. I’m never gonna have to shovel snow ever again, I’m never gonna have to deal with icy roads ever again. I spent five years in South Florida and love the weather. I love palm trees, there’s something about being around palm trees. It’s just, it’s a nice reminder that the weather is nice. You know where I live right now. It’s like, quote unquote, cold when it’s 50 degrees Fahrenheit, which is like, I don’t know, do the math real quick, like 10 Celsius. I don’t even know if that’s correct. I should probably look that up. Because we’ve got all the world’s information in front of us. Let’s see 50 degrees Fahrenheit to Celsius it is 10 Oh my god. It’s exactly 10. Wow. What a guess! Wow! That’s better than a guess, that is just knowledge right there. So all of that is to say that I don’t really want to live somewhere this cold again. And I know that after I left Florida, I lived in Cincinnati for nine months well technically lived in Northern Kentucky. It didn’t snow at all that winter. So the entire winter whenever, there’s like a few flurries, but it didn’t snow that entire winter. And then I moved to Los Angeles and Southern California. And I’m like, Man, I just don’t know if I could ever escape. Like I don’t know if I’d ever want to escape the beautiful warm weather. But why this is interesting, is because Rachel is from New Jersey. She’s from Sussex County, New Jersey, for anybody who’s familiar with the area. And that’s relatively speaking, close ish to Manhattan, like maybe an hour or so away, you know, give or take. So it’s like, alright, I don’t know, I don’t know what the next like steps are for us. I don’t know if I’ve ever like said this publicly. But I love living in California. I just think that there are some other things like, you know, when we’ve got to a small child, that will be our responsibility in a month. I think there’s some, you know, priorities change. And her family is in that area, in the New Jersey area. My family is not far away, like a six hour drive from there in Canada. And it’s like, it might be nice to be a little bit closer to family. But that’s the trade off, right? It’s the trade off of yes, we’re closer to family, and yes, you can get a lot more house for your dollars, a lot more bang for your buck. But it’s like what about the weather? Man, what about that weather? I don’t know. So the answer to your question is maybe, maybe.” 

What advice would your 40 year old self give to your 30 year old self? 

“What am I now three weeks away from my 40th birthday? Also three weeks away from the big goal. You know, I want to be in the best shape of my life by my 40th birthday and we are definitely, we’re dialling it in. We’re dialling it in, all the abs are back, and it’s just a matter now of dialling this in even more so big shout out to AJ Sims, my nutritionist who I’ve been working with. We’ve been working real hard on this. He’s @Cementfactory on Instagram. If you want to check him out. He’s done the transformations for a lot of your favorite wrestlers like Apollo Crews and Tommaso Ciampa, Johnny Gargano, EC3, Rockstar Spud. So all of this is leading up to the 40th Birthday Bash of my life, going to be a father right around that time, May 21 is the due date, it’s coming up. So excited, so excited. The advice that my 40 year old self would give to my 30 year old self is just have patience. I feel like especially in my 20’s and definitely when I was 30 you want stuff to happen right now. And the advice I would give is, have patience. And it’s interesting that sometimes things don’t work out the way you thought they were supposed to work out. And then you realise a year or 2 or 5 or 10 later and you go, Oh, wow, hmm, that happened to allow for this to happen now. So I would just say be patient. And what’s really interesting about that, and you know me, you know that I say vague goals, get vague results, specific goals, get specific results. But let’s say your goal is you want 10,000 followers on Instagram, this is a very arbitrary example. And you’re at 5,000. So like, oh my gosh, I want to double my followers, huge, that’d be amazing. Once you get to, like 9,600 followers, it now becomes inevitable that you’re gonna get to 10,000. And you’re like, oh, wow, 10,000 doesn’t seem that exciting anymore and you move the goalposts. And I find that really interesting that the goal you’ve set is an achievable goal. 10,000. But you know, in the next 12 months, whatever happens to be 10,000 in six months, and then you get close, and you go, Oh, yeah, I’m gonna do that. So the goal is no longer 10,000, it’s 15,000 or 20,000. And I’m just saying that, like, patience. Maybe set a bigger goal. Two words that Tyler Perry told me that I’ll never forget, was dream bigger. Stop setting such low goals for yourself, dream bigger, and like shoot for something that’s bigger than what you think could ever be possible. So that is the advice that I would give myself.”

“Stone Cold” Steve Austin (@steveaustinbsr) is a WWE Hall of Famer, actor and television personality. He joins Chris Van Vliet to talk about his new A&E series called “Stone Cold Takes On America”. He talks about what scares him, why it’s important to takes chances, who he thinks takes the best Stone Cold Stunner, his reaction to the WHAT chant after 20 years, the possibility of seeing him wrestle again, why he hates rollercoasters and more!

I’m watching this trailer and you’re doing all these things. You’re drift racing, you’re flying a helicopter, bowling, all these things. I’m wondering, is there anything that scares you?

“Yeah, predicting the weather on live television scared the hell out of me. I made a living being on live TV, and you know, we went up there. First of all it was a 12:45 wakeup call, I didn’t sleep, 2:15 call time, I’m not a morning person. Then I go in and this wonderful lady Madison Macay is breaking down how she does the weather, and she is taking a [big] paragraph and taking the pertinent information and just condensing it down just on the fly. I am thinking hey I’ve got to do it just exactly how she is. And you’re never going to step into someone else’s shoes or someone else’s job and be that good automatically, but that’s what I expect out of myself. So moments like that crushed me, because I thought I did terrible. I love live television, because when that red light is on I am at my best, and I failed. But anyway, it was a ton of fun to make this show, I’m happy to have the opportunity.”

Were there any lessons that you have learned from diving all in and doing everything on this show?

“God dang. You know, I got the chance to do a lot of things that I didn’t [get the opportunity to] when I was focused on my wrestling career, and I’ve been gone for quite a while. But I kind of stayed in that mindset but ventured into a lot of things that I wanted to delve into on a personal level, to try these things and to be a fish out of water. But man, if you are on the fence about something and you are looking for something to try and do, don’t be afraid or don’t be hesitant, just go and do it. Just get the backbone up, go out there and try some things, that’s the best that I can say. I’m not a guy who is so philosophic about life who can articulate the meaning of life and say here’s some advice. But, you know, you’re not here for a long time, and life can be rough, so enjoy the moments that you can and chase your dreams and passions. If you’re on the fence about something, get off the fence and go and do it.”

You’ve given the Stone Cold Stunner to just about everybody. Can we settle this once and for all, who takes the best Stunner?

“Well you got those different athletic presentations from Scott Hall, Shane took a good one, but I always go to The Rock. The Rock would always take that extra effort to careen around the ring in a way over sell fashion. But it meant so much more when he did that, because in the big matches we had, whether it was [WrestleMania] 15, 17 and 19, those moments meant so much. But I would go with The Rock, and here is the thing people don’t understand. When you give The Rock a Stunner, that guy is so jacked and so hard, when he is bouncing around the ring, sometimes he would flop off the ropes and end up landing back on me. I was like Jesus, you’re killing me. So giving The Rock a Stunner can be painful when he flops back on you, but that’s the name that I am going to give you.”

It sounds like we were pretty close to you having another match at WrestleMania 39 and it didn’t end up happening. Do you have another match in you?

“I could. I’m not necessarily going to lobby for one, because that would be silly. That’s a year away, but a year away in this business is like that [clicks fingers]. They asked me to be a part of 39, they really did, but I couldn’t do it, just because there is no way. I knew what my life was going to look like due to the filming schedule of the show. We had some internal stopdowns where the show took about 5 months to film, that’s a long time. We finished filming about 5 to 7 days before WrestleMania 39. And the position that they were going to put me in, which was a big one, you can’t prepare for WrestleMania and do yourself justice or do that crowd justice. Dallas was set up for a Stone Cold return, and the way we framed that with KO, who I love, was perfect for the time and setting. For this match to play out, I needed to perform at a high level. I didn’t work out before 38, I haven’t thrown a working punch in 19 years. I was killing KO right there, I truly was, ask him. When we got to the back I said, Man I can’t believe you didn’t throw a receipt. And he just laughed because his job was to just take care of me. So anyway, in the future, I am not lobbying for it, but could anything happen? Yes. Because I say never say never.”

So the first time you said What was back in 2001. Here we are 20 plus years later, and this isn’t just a WWE thing, this is a wrestling thing. Every wrestling promotion across the world does the What chant now. Does it surprise you that this is still a thing 20 plus years later?

“It really does, but it’s a testament to how impacted people were to that. You know, that started off as me leaving a voice message on Christian’s phone. I was working heel at the time and I said hey man, this is a really good way to F with people and get on their nerves and under their skin. Because if you tell me something I just say What? And I throw it back at you, and it’s irritating, it’s what it was designed to be. Then I turned it into something that worked for me as a babyface as a way to mock a certain situation. With cadence and delivery, people can escape it as far as talent doing a promo. But it’s very, it’s flattering to still see it around, but I have had so many people cussing me out and hating it. We ended up putting it on the t-shirt for God’s sake, and it sold a ton. So I am thankful for the word, but if it disappeared tomorrow then I wouldn’t complain. I’m honored that it is still here.”

I saw this thing you did on A & E’s social media, it was hell yeah or hell no? You said Hell no to rollercoasters! What do you have against rollercoasters?

“Man, I’m not a big thrill seeker, you know. I’m not looking to go out there and just do a bunch of crazy stuff. When I used to travel down the road with Lord Steven Regal, one of my really good friends. At Blackpool where he’s from, they have those gimmick circuses. We talked about how people in England are really tough, and if the rollercoaster went off of the rails and squashed a load of people, they just pass out a bunch of free tickets. Oh, it’s ok, here’s a bunch of free tickets for the next one. That’s always in the back of my mind, as safe can these things can be, I am always wondering about the one that I get on is going to careen off the rails. Then it’s like what happened to Stone Cold? Well you know that rollercoaster that went off of the rails? He was on that rollercoaster. So it’s stuff like that where I look at the worst case scenario, and when they leave you at the top because they are trying to mess with you, and it works. You know, the clack clack clack on the way up, then you go way down, not fun.” 

Featured image: ABC

Austin Romero (@austinmromero) aka Mike Rome is a WWE ring announcer. He joins Chris Van Vliet in Hollywood, CA to talk about how he got hired by WWE, his approach to ring announcing, memorizing everyone’s name, weight and hometown, working at Universal Studios before his WWE job, his love for comics, the meaning behind his tattoos, his favorite wrestler to announce and much more!

On auditioning for WWE:

“So, I used to work at Disney doing American Idol, which was Fremantle’s thing. And I hosted over there and I was a warm up host. And as that was going on, Greg, who was here before me, he had ended up getting a job, when Idle kind of like was closing down. His agent got him an audition for the WWE. And he was like super hush, hush about it, like super kayfabe, I can’t talk about it, whatever. And then, you know, he got the job, and then he was posting all this stuff, and he kept hitting me up. He’s like, dude, you’d be perfect here, you need to come here. And I’m like, well, I’m still over here, there’s, you know, whatever. He goes through their hosting, like, you can do all this stuff. And I was like, okay, cool. So I think it was roughly 2015 at some points, I think it was like the beginning of 2015. I’d heard about that. And I’d gone through this process of showing up to tapings. I’m like, Hey, guys, it’s me, and then you know, nothing. And then hey, guys, it’s me, and then finally I got an audition. I was Greg’s guest, and he can like introduce me to people. And then he’s like, you know, when something pops up, whatever. And I’m like, okay, cool, you know, whatever. He texts me, Hey, we got to taping today, I put my suit on and I run down there. I’m like, Hey, guys, what’s up? How’s it going?” 

On the WWE audition itself:

“I 100% do [remember it]. I remember it like it was yesterday. So when I finally got the phone call, it was a guy named Johnny Greco, who’s a master of, he wears a lot of hats. He’s been everywhere, he was working in [Vegas] for the Las Vegas Knights. Is that what it is, is that the hockey team? And then he’s kind of been around, he puts together these programmes for in arena hosts. He’s just just a great guy. And so he’s in there, and we’re doing this process and Greg’s there. And you know, they had me ring announce something, they give me the stats ahead of time. [You have to memorize them?]. Yeah, they memorize them, you turn around, they give you a couple seconds, and then you do that. And then we did a whole thing where I was backstage. And because at the time in the PC, you know, like they’re doing classes in there. So you’re doing your audition when classes are in there and Triple H is working out inside the thing next door and he like walks in, I was like don’t mess up. Like it’s crazy. During that time, it was just kind of crazy because the PC was so small and it was whatever. So they grabbed Bull Dempsey at the time, and he came over and we did a backstage thing. And I was supposed to talk to him about his thing with Tyler Breeze and they’re like, hey, you need to stall. And so they’re telling me I need to stall so I’m like stalling trying to ask him questions. And then they’re like, Alright, we’re gonna go. I’m like, Alright, thank you for your time back to you guys, like it was that kind of stuff. So it was a lot of like, intensive like, whatever. And then we did an arena thing where I like walk down. I’m like, “What’s up WWE Universe?” You know, tonight, you’re gonna see the Intercontinental Championship’s on the line, the WWE Championship’s on the line, and then kind of putting over the audience talking to them a little bit and then throwing to a video package. So it’s like little stuff like that. I don’t know what the process is now, but I did, that was what it was when I first auditioned.”

On doing backstage interviews that not many people remember:

“No, no, no, I think the one everybody, Jericho is only stuff that like people really, really remember from that. But I was backstage in 2016 through the time that I took over ring announcing, I think at the beginning of 2019 or 2018. I don’t remember what year it was, it is whatever year JoJo got pregnant. Because I remember getting the call and they’re like, Hey, you’re going back to Raw and I’m like, yeah, and they’re like, you’re gonna be ring announcer and they’re like, it’s temporary. I was like, okay, cool. It’s just temporary. It’s temporary, and I’m still here.”

Austin Romero’s favorite match that he has announced:

“Man, there’s a lot. I will say like announcement wise just riding emotion Cody, the Cody Rhodes thing at WrestleMania was awesome for me. Like it was just one of those things where it just kind of happened like I didn’t actually didn’t put that much thought on it. Like I just was like alright, the audience was hyped, the music, like everything, like that song slaps, so I was like, I was vibing out and then I’m like, Alright, let’s hit this and then kind of did a thing and it was great it worked out well. But you don’t know, like you have no idea when you do something like that you’re just doing it and then you know people are like oh my God. But like getting to be in the ring like with John Cena or Undertaker, Big Show, getting to announce legends, like interviewing the NWO. Like I’ve had the opportunity to pretty much be a part or have words or talk with people that were such a huge part of my childhood. Dude, I got to have a like a 20 minute conversation Undertaker just sitting around like just, you know, whatever. Stuff like that is so cool because like, you know, I remember the first appearance, like I remember him coming out. I remember being terrified and like you’re just sitting here having this conversation with this guy. Just getting to be around. I mean, obviously the only person that I missed and I was a huge, huge, huge fan of [was] Ultimate Warrior, and Macho Man.”

On a WWE return that Austin Romero didn’t know about:

“It’s been a long time, I’d have to really put some thought into that. I’m sure there has been, I think I wasn’t, when the big returns were happening, I wasn’t ring announcing. So like when Undertaker came back. I was kind of like just chilling out backstage and Scott Aycock, one the security guards, was like, Hey, you should come out here. Oh crap, what did I do? He’s like, stand right here. And this is back when the desk was on the left side of the stage. So I was kind of just standing there. And we were in New Orleans. I’ll never forget this. [It was] Mick Foley and Stephanie McMahon, [she] was given Mick Foley the business in the middle of the ring, just about how bad of a GM he is and how worthless, whatever. I’m like, why am I standing out here? And then all of a sudden you just hear Bong. And I’m like oh, and I’m right there, the pyro starts going like the fire, the flames and like, the smoke starts bellowing and I’m just like this is so freakin cool. And I remember sitting on that side of the stage. And so it’s the one time I visibly remember, like, kind of fangirling, I was just sitting there, because I’ve never I’d never seen his entrance live. I’d never seen it live like that. So I was just kind of sitting down. I watched that happen. And that was one of [the times] I had no idea he was going to be there. And a lot of times for most of that stuff, you know, it’s better that we don’t know those things. Obviously, you kind of have to be prepared for whatever’s going to happen, you got to know stuff. Sometimes if, the storyline goes you can kind of figure out where it’s gonna go. But other than that, we just got to prepare ourselves and be ready for whatever’s gonna happen.”

On studying other ring announcers:

“Yeah, definitely. I mean, Howard [Finkel] [Tony] Chimel, Justin Roberts. I did watch Lilian [Garcia] and Brandi [Rhodes] even. And Jojo. I Think JoJo kind of slipped into it when I first started, like a little bit before but I was listening to all that stuff, obviously, because I’m a male announcer I’m going to pick up more from those. But there’s cadence things that I’ve picked up from Lilian and it’s just, it’s interesting where you can kind of like, when you, depends on what era and wrestling you came from, on who you tie your ring announcer to. If you were like a huge edge fan, obviously like you’re like, Chimel’s my guy, right? [Rated R Superstar] Yeah. That’s fantastic. Love that thing. Couldn’t do that now if we wanted to. And then you know, Justin Roberts obviously has tonnes of announcements, he was a voice of an entire generation and still is still doing his thing. And obviously, Howard, like, just the microphone coming down, his announcements, you know, MSG, like the things that he did, he was a lovely human. Meeting him, he was just one of the nicest, most genuine guys. Getting to pick his brain when I first saw it was really, really cool. But like he’s got such a unique voice, everybody had these unique things. So like, there’s little bits and pieces, you know, like any, you take the things and you make them into your own thing. And then you go to it.”

On introducing and advice from John Cena:

“I think in the moments like as they’re happening, we’re just kind of like, I’m going from segment to segment and whatever. But obviously, it’s John Cena, you know what I mean? Like, he’s this. He’s larger than life. Like just a really, he’s a cool guy. Like in general, like, he’s somebody that I’ve actually learned a lot off of, through the years of the company. And I was fortunate enough to crossover with him while he was still active there and before he kind of stepped away. But he always, you know, I want to make sure that I give respect to him, and that’s kind of the one way I can do that is just trying to help. But he’s also so it’s interesting, because like John is a big guy on, he’s so smart dude, he’s so smart about wrestling, but he’s very much like, alright, you know, don’t push the crowd too far here, because it takes away from the pops in the match or whatever. Like he’s very, like, he’ll ask, we used to sit down before like house shows, and he would be like, Oh, what do you see out there? And I would look at the shirts in the audience because I told him, you know, one of the things I worked when I was working on Nickelodeon, I was really good about looking at the audience and kind of gauging how it was going to do my show, based off of what I saw out there. And he’s like, Okay, what do you see? And I was like, alright, well, at that specific town, the first time he ever asked me that, I think we were in like West Virginia or something like that. And I was kind of looking around, I’m like, All right, I see DX, I see Prototype, I see really old shirts, like older shirts. And he’s like, Well, what does that tell you? And I’m like, that it is an audience that is familiar with our brand, familiar with the superstars of before and not as familiar with what’s going on currently. He’s like, okay, so what are you going to do? How do you adjust to that? I was like, well, when I’m putting over the beginning of the card, because in the house shows we basically host the whole thing. Premium, what are they like, not Premium Live Events, but live events, basically. I would go out there and kind of put over the reason who they’re facing, why they’re facing them. Like it would be more of me telling a story, as opposed to me just going hey, the champions here, there are the titles on the line tonight, it can be very vague on some of that. So it was really cool. And he would look around. He’s like, how many? How many? How many kids are out there? It’s like, it’s a kid heavy audience. Okay, cool. And he would talk about how, you know, there’s psychology to wrestling and, and all that and he would just tell me. I asked him, I was like, because in the you know, Performance Center, when you’re learning things are like, Alright, cool. You know, you start out, the babyface is hot. And then, you know, there’s a cut off and the heel kind of lays down and I asked him, I’m like, Why do you typically do that? And he just kind of said, everybody knows what I’m about, everybody knows me. They know what they’re getting with me. They know once I go into my thing, they know everything is gonna happen. He’s like, my job in the beginning of that match, is to put over the other person to let them show what they’ve got to get everything in there. Because once I go, it’s over. And he’s like, it doesn’t hurt me at all, but I want to help them, it was just his In the way he looks at stuff and the guy like he knew everything he was, he’s invested in every portion of that business. And it’s just it was really cool.”

Who has Austin Romero learned the most from:

“I think between, I learned, obviously, in the Performance Center, there’s guys like Coach Bloom and Terry Taylor, those guys, obviously a lot, coach Smiley. Robbie, the coaches down there, I learned a lot from, and then obviously, Scotty 2 Hotty, one of my neighbours like talking to him a lot and kind of learned a lot from him. But as far as like, on the road learning stuff, I definitely learned a lot from him [Cena]. As far as like, using what I know. And then like what he knows, and kind of helping my psychology as far as like working with the audiences and stuff. Because I, as an arena host, you want to, when you say thank you, you want to, you know, get the crowd crazy, and you want to whatever and like thank you, thank you, thank you, whatever. And to his point, he says, you know, because he looks at it from whatever you watched, you know, 6 matches maybe. And that 7th match is the big match, one they’ve been waiting for all night. But the audience is gassed, obviously at that point, because they’ve been cheering all night, they’ve gotten these crazy matches. So me pushing them one more time before that he’s like, there’s ways you can do that. And still get what you’re trying to get without having to get that, you know, response back. And I’m like, you know, you’re right. Because as a host you want, obviously you want people to like cheer and clap and whatever. But there are ways to do those things without sucking the energy out of the audience before they’re about to get these, you know, big things. So he helped me think in different ways on how to do things, to where I’m not affecting anything, if that’s the case, if that was one of those things. So that was really cool. And also big show Big Show was another one, Big Show was another guy when I was on tour, who really kind of helped me out and did that. And Michael Cole’s helped me out and just a lot of people.”

On being destined for show business at an early age:

“I think like at a young age, my mom was like, you know, you’re gonna do stuff. So I was like modelling and like doing acting and like I shot a film when I was still in like middle school. So like, I was homeschooled for a while and did this whole like feature film, I was doing a lot of acting and stuff. [Chris – can we see this film?] I don’t [know], I have no idea. It was about, it was a ghost story about this thing, something called the Pink Lady and it was like this, I don’t think it was a Memphis [thing]. It was filmed in Tennessee, I don’t think it was a Tennessee thing, but I think they filmed it there. But it’s some urban legend somewhere about the Pink Lady and like, just kids, very Stranger Things esque, please find it. I think it was like the Monta Vista productions. I don’t even know, that’s all I remember, because I found [out], my mom sent me a bunch of stuff. And I found that in there was like, Man, I forgot about that. But I played this little nerdy kid, had glasses, and then halfway through the filming I had a growth spurt, so I grew like two feet. So like, they had to use a stunt double for me in close up scenes and filmed me from behind and all the long like the faraway scenes. Whenever they were running, they would run ahead of me. And I’m like, Wait, guys, and I’d be running in the back just so that you couldn’t tell how tall I was. That has cursed me forever. The same thing, same reason I don’t get in the ring. Because I’m too tall.”

Why Austin Romero didn’t pursue acting:

“You know, I don’t think it was ever, it wasn’t. It was something I enjoyed, but it wasn’t something that I was like, yeah, I want to be an actor. I was just like, I want to just want to do things. Like I want to go out there and like, I don’t know, be funny, get on camera and whatever, but I don’t necessarily want to be an actor. Like it’s that weird, like halfway point. And then I remember stumbling into kind of the wrong audition. And I stumbled into like Nickelodeon on accident, and then started hosting. And I was like oh, this hosting stuff is great, I want to do this. And then that’s kind of how I went down that route. And was like, you know what, this is what I was trying to do this whole time and didn’t know what it was called. Had no idea. I didn’t realise what the difference between acting and hosting was. I just thought oh, if you’re an actor, if you’re on TV, but then you’re like, okay, cool. You can host and now go to WWE to be a ring announcer and all this stuff, which I’d never done before.” 

What is Austin Romero grateful for:

“The people closest to me, the WWE and the opportunities.”

Shawn Spears (@shawnspears) is a professional wrestler with AEW and is known for his time in WWE under the name Tye Dillinger. He joins Chris Van Vliet in Hollywood, CA to talk about why it has been so long since we have seen him in AEW, recently becoming a father to his son Austin, how his wife Cassie Lee is doing, we reflect on the 20 chops I took with him and Tyler Breeze at their wrestling school Flatbacks, what they look for in a great student, life lessons from your 20s, 30s and 40s, his friendship with Cody Rhodes, how he became “The Chairman” with the chairshot to Cody Rhodes at AEW’s Fyter Fest and much more!

On returning to AEW:

“I hope, I’ve tried, we put some feelers out there, and some ideas out there. It’s just a matter of trying to get the wheels in motion. It was also, they’ve been very, very good. Last year was tough. I lost my mom last August. [Chris – So sorry]. Thank you. It was just, we kind of knew it was coming. But then it happened very suddenly. So that was tough. But at the same time, Cassie was five and a half, six months pregnant. So like, I’m expecting and losing at the same time. And then, you know, I’m in Florida, and I’m trying to settle my mom’s estate, all my family [is in Canada]. I have no family here. Just so everybody’s home. And you know, my family doesn’t come from any money. They don’t, we didn’t have anything growing up. So it’s just a matter of making sure everything is handled and taken care of. And my, my sister, my older sister, she’s doing a lot of the running around and like basically, a lot of them didn’t have a chance to like mourn, I didn’t have a chance to mourn because I’m way over here and I’m not with them, and then you go home quick. And then you have to get back to your wife and like it’s, it was just a lot and AEW is very good about kind of allowing me that time.”

On the infamous chair shot to Cody Rhodes:

“Swing for the fences was the term. I said, Okay, put your hands up, and he goes, No. I was like, buddy, you gotta put your hands up. And he says, No. I was like, damn it. So again, it’s Cody, I trust him. He trusts me. [was it supposed to be a gimmicked chair?] Yeah, but it’s, you can shave down a chair as much as you want. It’s not the flat part, it’s the lip of the chair that is always the most dangerous part. And that’s usually the part that catches somebody and in this case, it was. And it was just a fraction off, but he’ll take the wrap himself, I’m swinging, so I take the rap for it, and it’s my fault. But I hit him and it was a wonderful reaction and it got the shock value that it did and you hear the term red equals green and it’s you know, blood is money and all that kind of stuff. I just remember hitting him, listening. And I have a look at Brandi, and we have a little moment there. And I look back at Cody, and that’s when I see the pool. And I just went Oh sh*t. And I look at Brandi, and she’s kind of looking at Cody and she looks at me and I go sorry, I gotta get out of here. I got to the back and like I was, I had tears of like, tears in my eyes. I was profusely apologising to her, because I felt so bad, I loved that guy, was like a brother. And then I go to check on him and he’s on the table face down and go, I go, Hey, man, look, I’m so sorry, you okay? He’s like you are the most unsafe professional wrestler I’ve ever seen in my life. He starts just busting my balls. And I’m like, you can’t, you don’t understand where I’m at right now man. I’m having a hard time he goes, Yeah, I’d have a hard time too. I am having a hard time getting stitches put in my head. And I’m just like this guy. But that was the night it got, business wise, it got a lot of buzz. It set us up for what would happen at All Out.”

On trying to capitalize more on the chair shot:

“I thought we could have capitalised on it a little bit more. I thought it, you know, when you come into a company like that, starting out, I don’t think we had TV at the time. That was the other thing about [it]. We had either just gotten it or we were in the works of getting it. I can’t remember the exact time. But a lot of people will say to me, do you think the match, you know, with Cody, do you think you should have won, like coming in, and you know, do you think that would have propelled you? That’s not the match, no, because this match started on the internet. And we did the Road To’s on YouTubes and stuff like that. And the big blow off was the match at All Out. I’m a big believer in when the good guy and the bad guy are having battles, it’s okay for the heel to win a few battles here and there. As long as the babyface wins the war. That was our babyface winning the war. Because we didn’t have the three months of television time to kind of bounce back and forth. There would have been five times more promos there would, that’s the part that kind of bugs me the most is I wonder what we could have done verbally against one another because again, he would have forced me to up my game or he would have left me behind. So I was looking forward to that aspect of things, we just didn’t have the luxury of television time.”

On future AEW dream matches:

“There’s no one’s, this doesn’t mean I don’t want to wrestle anybody. But I’ve had, I’ve wrestled almost everybody I’ve set out to wrestle in my career in some way, shape, or form, whether it be a live event when the cameras are off or on tour somewhere in some city that people have forgotten about or whatnot. I’ve been very lucky, very fortunate to wrestle a lot of people that I set out to wrestle. There’s no one that really jumps out at me. Because there’s still a lot of things I would like to do in AEW. But I had a blast wrestling as many people as I did there so far. Maybe Wardlow. I think Wardlow in a one on one singles, give us about 20 minutes and just let us wrestle, no cage, you know, even a cool, I’ll take a cold match with Wardlow. Let’s do it on a Dynamite, Rampage can be 20 minutes. And let us just go, because that guy is still untapped. In my opinion, he’s very untapped. He’s been decorated. He’s a two time TNT champion and stuff like that. But you’ve seen a little bit of his athleticism, but he’s still untapped on what he can do. And I think I can pull it out of him. He is massive, sweetheart of a man, incredible talent, incredible human being.”

On becoming a father:

“So, I have a lot of friends. I’m a little older, like I had my child, what many people consider later in life. You know the deal when you’re growing up, everybody [says] you’re supposed to get married and have a house and kids by 30. Just kind of what society has thrown out there, at least for me growing up. So some people might say I’m a little late, but a lot of my friends have children, and they’ve had kids for years now. And they’ve given me so much advice, and hey, wait till this happens and wait till that happens. And it’s, you can get all the advice in the world, nothing prepares you for when you’re holding your own than everything just, you kind of forget everything that somebody had told you. And then things kind of make sense, but they’re not supposed to. And it’s just, it’s a whole new world. And I’m still trying to figure it out, that’s why I’m still trying to find the words for it. But it is the absolute greatest thing that I have ever done and will ever do in my life. We might have another or whatnot but like this, that will be by far my greatest achievement will be my children.” 

On the viral video of Chris getting chopped being a great advertisement for Flatbacks Wrestling School:

“It is, but a lot of it, you see a lot of kids come in they’re like so like, are we doing chop day? And I was like, Well, it depends. But like, I think there’s a little bit of a misconception. So this is perfect. Because you were there live. So the reason why we do chop day, the main reason is because you can actually feel a little bit of pain, a slap to the chest. Which allows you to sell it, gives you something to tap into mentally that okay, so I know what this feels like, I can sell this for real. Well, I can sell a punch the same way, I can sell a kick the same way. It helps them. If they’re having a hard time coming out of their shell or making noise or selling, it gives them a starting point. The other part is what you saw firsthand is that the camaraderie that it builds, because in pro-wrestling, you know, this, like, as much as anybody else, you’re trusting each other with your lives. So I just met some of your guys today, right here helping out in the studio. If they’re pro wrestlers, and I don’t know them, and we showed up today at a show and we’re wrestling each other like, that is a very, that’s a reality, I don’t know how safe or dangerous this person is. That’s where professionalism comes in. That’s why professional is in the whole professional wrestling. But the camaraderie that it builds is something to be seen. So when you see a lot of these young kids come in, they’re 19 20 21. And they’re shy, and they’re nervous, and they’re kind of scared and they’re like, I don’t know what I’m doing, but I just love wrestling and just want to be here. Yeah. And they’re like, Hey, man, have some fun and smile, and they go, okay, loosen up. Okay, breathe. Like, there’s just, I remember what it was like to be in that spot. So once they hit chop day, it’s like they just go oh, ok.”

On Tony Khan:

“I have never seen him yawn, so I’m assuming no [he doesn’t sleep]. He might be half a cyborg, who knows? But that guy has a tonne on his plate. And just a steel trap of a mind, remembers everything, every detail. When I first met him, we were having conversations, he’s like, Oh, I remember the match you had, I forgot about it. I was like really? Yeah, it was in such and such city. I’m like, holy sh*t. I was like, Oh, you’re just buttering me up? No, he remembers everything. But he’s not just like that with wrestling. I’ve walked into his office and I’ve seen him, he’s got his iPad, I hope I’m not gonna get in trouble for saying this. But he’s got his iPad set up. And he’s watching like a Jags game and they are at you know, he’s watching a Fulham game. And he’s, he’s, he can multitask like, like no one I’ve seen before. But in the midst of putting a card together and getting everything done. And so I mean, yeah, and like I was saying before, just what a sweetheart of a man, gave me all the time in the world when my mom passed. And now that Austin’s been born, I had all the time in the world to be home with my wife, cuz it’s just us here, like just a good man, a busy man, but a good man.”

On Tyler Breeze:

“He’s fantastic. That guy’s he’s, I always tell him he’s the smartest dumb person I know. And I mean that in the most loving way, but I wish I met that guy [years ago]. I’ve known him for 10 years now. But business partner, my best friend, Yeah, he’s very smart. He’s multiple properties. He’s got his fingers in everything, still works for WWE. He’s got the school going. He’s got a lot going on for himself, very happy, very healthy, and that’s, I keep bugging him now. I say Hey man, you got to have a kid cuz my kid needs a friend. You’re my only friend, my kid needs a friend. And he’s like, leave me alone. So but yeah, things things are very well.”

What does Shawn Spears look for in aspiring wrestlers: 

“Heart. Heart. Our biggest thing is, and I know that might sound a little cheesy, our biggest thing that we harp on most of the safety and footwork technique, because if you kind of get that down then the danger levels kind of drop. But like, man, just the will to not want to stop or not quit, it is so hard to instil. And it was, it was great cuz I was out last night a little bit in LA. After we did the Live With FTR, I went to the Comedy Store, and I saw Ziggler and Ryan and yeah, so they were performing. But the best part is I had like my kids out there. And when I say kids, I don’t mean that their children. I mean, like the kids that I’ve trained. So like Austin Gunn, Colton Gunn, Kiana James in WWE, what half the Women’s NXT Tag Team Champions. Harley Cameron, who’s now with AEW, like, when you kind of stand back for a second, you look and like, you’re so so proud. And then you kind of remember, you know, they were sweating their guts out and basically dying during training, and I’m in their ear, I’m in their ear, all of them, you can quit if you want, you can stop at any time. You can take a break, you want to get some water, go ahead. And they refuse, some of them tell me f*ck off. Like just but that’s me going you don’t know your limits yet. It’s my job as a coach to find your limits. So I’m going to push you towards them, they’re going to be uncomfortable. But if you’re able to break through those limits, not only will it help you in pro-wrestling, it’ll help you in life. You got to remember I’m getting young kids, right, so I push them because that’s what they’re paying me to do. I don’t push them to a point where they completely fold, because they’re still very impressionable, they’re still very young, but they don’t know their limits yet. Push yourself to find those limits, you might surprise yourself. You might surpass them. And you know, if you get the ball rolling for them like, who knows what you’re capable of. It’s a very powerful thing, if you can kind of wrap your mind around it. But it takes a long time to wrap your mind around. If someone in your ear saying you can quit or you can keep going, choice is yours.”

What is Shawn Spears grateful for:

“My son and wife, I can be a good man, a good father, and that I have a life worth living.”

Featured image: EWrestlingNews

Will Sasso (@willsasso) is a comedian and actor and is known for his five seasons on Mad TV from 1997 to 2002. He joins Chris Van Vliet in Hollywood to talk about how he got started in comedy, growing up in British Columbia, Canada, who his comedic heroes were as a kid, what he had to do for his Mad TV audition, his AI podcast called “Dudesy”, what show or movie he gets recognized for most, why John Candy in “Planes, Trains and Automobiles” is his favorite performance, the match he had with Bret Hart in WCW, taking a stunner from “Stone Cold” Steve Austin in WWE and he does hilarious impressions of Jesse “The Body” Ventura, British Bulldog, Bret Hart, Hulk Hogan, Stone Cold and Arnold Schwarzenegger.

On there being an AI version of Will Sasso in the future:

“I think we’re already there. You know, and look, it doesn’t mean no pleasure to say all this stuff, because I’m a humanist first and foremost. And I, you know, we’ve been doing this podcast for a year with an AI. Dude’s the AI, essentially curates the podcast, and what it does is it goes, you know, it’s gone through, okay, we signed up to do this thing, this company has this proprietary AI, wants to research and develop further into the podcast space, and says, Hey, we’re going to use these two guys, who the two of us have done a podcast together before, we both been in show business a long time, he’s a writer, producer, I primarily act and stuff, right. And then also, we’ve been good friends for almost 20 years. And it’s going to sort of see how we do it and move us forward in order to make the next episodes better and better. And the way that it’s done that is it has full rein of all of our social media passwords to everything, search histories, purchase histories, more than the Feds or the CIA combined could have on us because f*ck it, we’re there.”

On moving to the USA from Canada:

“I feel bad particularly for people who are, young people who are trying to get into the business now. It’s just getting harder and harder to get here. You don’t need to get here because the internet is everywhere, so it’s a whole whole new ballgame. But particularly, you know, in my sort of line of work young actors, they’re like, you know, it’s harder and harder to get a work visa and all that stuff. The stars kind of had to align, and you have to bust your ass and all that nice, nice stuff. But I’m very fortunate that I was able to even get down here, because when you’re a kid, you know, I’ve been working since I was a little guy, a little young or younger, I was teenager, whatever. And that’s how I say teenagers, young, younger guy. I say younger guy, because I looked like I was 40 since I was 15 years old, so it doesn’t matter. Now I’m 48 and I look like I’m [old]. So for me it was that I was always dreaming of coming down here. And then to be able to, you know, again, the one visa their little job that you know, sort of under the table, you know, come down. I did a movie down here for like, you know, it wasn’t supposed to. You know, I just went over and they, you know, they paid me and in cash literally.” 

On how to develop a character:

“Well, you know, look we have on Mad TV and on every sketch show, although something like you know, Monty Python and The Kids in the Hall. They had the great Gary Campbell and Brian Hart, they have writers. You know, we have writers at Mad TV. The writers were absolutely incredible, of course. And just it really was truly the inmates running the asylum between the writers and the actors. You know, we were all just just goofing around constantly and different people bring different stuff in. If someone’s from, you know, Mike McDonald, you know, has a history with the Groundlings and had developed, you know, a popular character like Stewart that was really popular on Mad TV at the Groundlings and was doing it with Mindy Sterling. And then was like, I want to do it here on Mad TV and did it with Moe Collins, and there’s a new spin on it for the show. And you’ve got other people involved and network and stuff. I don’t know if he’s ever talked about where that came from. But the story is hilarious. Anyway, it’s based on real children, which is just so mean. But it’s like when you go like oh man! But then it’s on TV, and it’s very ingestible you’re like f*ck, this is so evil and funny. Which is the name of Mike Macdonad’s comedy special. And, you know, you’re doing that, there are people that are coming from the Groundlings that are writers, that are coming from performing strictly from writing. And, you know, look, they’re coming up with stuff too. They’re going, writers, and being like, can you do this impersonation? You sit around, goof around and you do it. And other times actors, you know, as performers, were coming in, were writing, were going I want to do this, I want to do that. Some things happen completely by mistake, like I used to, I used to sit in the script coordinators office, I basically would never leave my first season. I never left, I didn’t have any friends. So I you know, I just sort of moved to LA like a while before that, but still couldn’t find any friends. But then it was, you know, the people that Mad TV were my pals, and then they all went home. So I stayed at Mad TV until the last writer would leave. And a lot of times I just sit there in the script coordinators office and just literally read scripts out of the recycling bin. And that’s how I found like, there was a sketch, it was a Kenny Rogers sketch. And it was based on his restaurant, Kenny Rogers Roasters. And I was like, who, who wrote this? And they’re like, oh, Blaine Capatch wrote that. He was a brilliant, brilliant performer and writer who was a writer on Mad TV and would sometimes perform. And Blaine’s like the funniest guy in the world. And he wrote this down, I was like laughing, it went to the table read a year or two before I was [there], like at the beginning before I was there. And I was like, what? It just didn’t make it. So I go into Blaine’s office, I’m like, Hey, man, this is really funny. Yeah, I’ll try it. So we pitched like, hey, Will wants to do it at the table read. Wow. And then it just sort of worked out. But it was the real like, you know, Hi, I’m Kenny Rogers, I love barbecue, Kenny Rogers Roasters. But then, um, but then I immediately get bored and I’m like [more enthusiastically] Hey, I’m Kenny Rogers!”

On Mad TV helping to develop a character:

“Good question, and yes. But a lot of times, the character is nowhere near done. And you’re like, I think he sounds like this, I got this much of it, this wig is pretty cool, that’ll carry it. What a slack ass way to approach it, well I got a funny wig, it’ll be fine.”

On having a match with Bret Hart:

“Well, I don’t know if you could call it a match. Bret Hart had a match, and I was there. But Bret Hart had a match with like a, you know, a 300 pound bag of flour. And yeah, it was crazy. Yeah, I didn’t, I don’t know anything. I go, I just run at it. And I felt my ribs go like pop, And I was like oohh, and I’m like, oh, that’s that’s an interesting pain. And so I’m like, Oh, this could be dangerous. Just doing anything could be dangerous in here. I don’t know [how to wrestle]. You know, I only grew up watching it. Then he just grabs me and does a Russian Leg Sweep. I will say this for myself, I know how to land flat on my back. Okay, so that’s at least part of it. And then he goes, Don’t move until I move. You just just stay there. And I go what’s gonna happen? I mean, look, you know, if he’s going in there with whomever, one of them’s going to call the match, I would imagine in all throughout Bret’s career, he’s calling the match. These guys, these incredible artists, get in there and call this shit or just by knowing what to do, it’s unbelievable. Yeah, it’s unbelievable. And as a wrestling fan, it’s still my entire life later, I still I still don’t get it, what they do, it’s really, really remarkable. And it’s a testament to how incredible Bret Hart is. Really is the best there is, best there was and best there ever will be. Because again, he took like a bag of potatoes and tossed me around and did all this stuff, and I didn’t get hurt. And he’s stomping me in the corner and I’m like the foot is coming in at 100 miles per hour and then it’s stopping. It was insane. It was insane. And he, you know, I’m laying on the ground who picked me up, he shoved me out of the ring. He’s like kicking me out of the ring. I’m happy to fall face flat with my arms at my side because I just love doing that stuff, you know, on Mad TV. So hopefully it was a nice combination of you know, this, you know, the greatest wrestler, one of the greatest performers ever in professional wrestling on the Mount Rushmore. And, you know, some fat dude from a late night show.”

On Robin Williams:

“He was always an incredible actor. He just happened to be the clown prince of the universe of like, the one of the funniest people to ever make anyone laugh, God rest his soul. But he Good Will Hunting, your move chief. Like it is, that scene by the lake. Yeah, I’ll tell you what, I ask you about poetry, you’ll quote a sonnet. But you don’t know the first thing about life and falling in love with a woman and how she makes you feel and this whole thing? It’s unbelievable. And it’s all the more you know, now it’s just all the more gripping because he’s no longer with us in the way that he left. But dude, look. I believe that if Planes, Trains and Automobiles came out now John Candy would be nominated for Best Supporting Actor. Best Actor? No problem.”

What is Will Sasso grateful for?

“My wife, my health and my stupid career.” 

For this episode, I had the privilege of being a guest on my friend Travis Chappell’s (@travischappell) podcast called “Travis Makes Friends”. Travis is an incredible interviewer and since we are friends, this felt more like a conversation or a masterclass on what it takes to be a content creator in 2023. We talk about podcasting as a hobby vs. as a job, how to book great guests, the importance of taking the first step and actually getting started, the missing piece when doing a Zoom interview, why in-person is always preferred, how to find advertisers and much more!

On content consistency:

“I think that people like Ryan Panetta are doing it, right. Yeah, it’s just like, keep putting stuff out. And if you’re giving value in every single video, right? Because you can’t just put stuff out just for the sake of putting it out. There has to be something there that’s worth sharing.”

On carving out a niche:

“I was always doing some wrestling interviews. It was just like, I would do a celebrity interview, and then the wrestling fans would go, what the heck, like I didn’t know this person was in WWE hahaha. And then I would do a wrestling interview. And then the people that had come for all those celebrity interviews were like, who’s this? So it really just came down to I love talking to people, and I love having interesting conversations with interesting people. And when you work as an entertainment reporter or a TV host, you get to talk to everybody. Like I was talking to actors and comedians and directors and some pro-wrestlers, some athletes, who just like, everybody has an amazing story. I want to talk to everybody. But with the access I had to wrestling before, there weren’t as many podcasts as there are now, a lot of podcasts now and a lot of YouTube channels now. But when I was really starting this and like 2011-2012 When I was doing these pro wrestling interviews, nobody else had this access. So I was just like, I’m gonna take it and run with it.”

On possibly being contained into a bubble:

“It’s interesting now. I just posted an interview with Gerard Butler from the other day. I interviewed Ron Howard last month, Margot Robbie last month. It’s so interesting, because there’s so many people that just know me for the wrestling interviews. And I get it, you know, those interviews have got millions and millions of views on my YouTube channel. I’m super grateful for that.”

On always interviewing the big stars: 

“[The comments online] They’ll be like, Oh, my God, my man CVV is doing big things, got an interview with Margot Robbie. It’s like, well, actually, that’s my third interview, but thank you. It’s just amazing when I’ll post an old photo of like me with Steven Spielberg or something. And people were like, I can’t believe you got, you know, I can’t believe these things are happening for you. It’s like, no, no, this is what I’ve always done. It’s just I took that niche, I kind of saw some white space there that nobody else was doing it, and I just kind of ran with it. Because up until that point, of course, actors are going to be promoting their movies, of course directors are promoting their movies, comedians are promoting their tours, athletes are promoting their books, or whatever it happens to be. It really took a very specific type of person to have an in depth interview with pro-wrestlers back then. Because for the most part, they’re going to the local morning show, right? Just simply promote that Raw or SmackDown [is in town]. And a lot of times they would be like “So we’ve got John Kenna here? I hear we can’t see you. hahaha! Anyway…” I would like get someone, like an early one, like Jeff Hardy. And I would be like, I used to do a Swanton Bomb in the year 2000 onto my friends and he’d be like, No way, man. That’s like, immediately you connect. So I had this ability from like being a wrestling fan for most of my life, being able to connect with massive stars in the pro-wrestling space, that like when I would bring in these people into the TV station, my boss was like, Hey, Chris, we got to cool it on the wrestlers for a little while. Nobody knows who this person is outside of wrestling fans.”

On going it alone:

“It was more of just like the wrestling was really growing like, and I had a tremendous amount of access in 2018 and 2019 was a really exciting time in pro wrestling. With the advent of AEW, coming in as a competitor, WWE hadn’t had a real competitor that was on cable television for 20 years since WCW got bought by WWE in 2001. So like, this hadn’t happened. So it was just like, I had a lot of real momentum that was happening. And any of my wrestling interviews were getting hundreds of 1000s of views on my YouTube channel. So it’s just kind of like, alright, I saw that this was starting to happen. I also saw that, like, I was getting a lot more opportunities and called it new media with like influencer space. And this wasn’t, I wasn’t allowed to do a lot of that stuff with my TV job. And I was just like, how many more opportunities am I leaving on the table? Because of this really great job that I have in TV, and I’m super grateful for this job. But how many other opportunities am I leaving on the table? And I just started to kind of weigh them out. And when I’m already getting this many subscribers, this many views on this content that I’m doing in my spare time, right? What would happen if I put a little bit more effort in full time, right? And it was almost like I saw the writing on the wall, because the guy who ended up taking my job, he was loving it. And then the world shut down. And the show that we were both on, he is still on, kind of had to be paused. Because, you know, who wants to hear about entertainment news, when, who knows what’s going on in the world right now. So it was almost like I was I, without even knowing, and I picked a great time to get out. Because that wouldn’t have been as fun.”

On making money on YouTube:

“I remember finding out about YouTube AdSense. I remember finding out about that, like 10 years ago, yeah. My friends said, Oh, how much money are you making from those videos you’re posting? I’m like what do you mean money? Like I said, I’m just doing it so people can like see these interviews and see this content? He goes, Oh, yeah, there’s this thing called AdSense. If you just go in there, you click a few buttons, and once you reach $100, they’ll pay you out. I said, Are you kidding me? So I’ve been like, this has existed the whole time. Yeah. So I clicked the button, and it was within like, two months that I had reached that $100 threshold. I couldn’t believe it. Yeah, it’s like free money! So the cool thing about that is you don’t have to put in any effort to find the advertisers. And I think that what’s difficult sometimes with podcasts is, you’ve got to sell somebody on buying that ad space. And you’ve got to really show some results, or else they’re not going to buy again. Whereas YouTube’s just gonna go, those ads didn’t work for your channel? Just try these ads instead.”

On growing your podcast:

“The biggest thing within that is if you treat podcasting like a hobby, it will be a hobby that pays you like a hobby. If you treat podcasting like a business, it will start to pay you like a business. I think there’s too many people that will record one or two episodes, take a week off because life got too crazy, pick it back up in three weeks, your audience is not going to show up when you do that. I think that you need to make the commitment to your audience that you’re going to show up every Monday, or every Monday and Wednesday, or whatever it happens to be, then your audience is going to start to show up for you. And I think that that’s the biggest thing. I say this all the time. The best thing about podcasting is anybody can do it. The worst thing about podcasting is anybody can do it, there’s no barrier of entry. If you are going to get in I think you need to fully commit to actually doing it. You can’t just go man, me and my friends are funny, so let’s record and do this thing. We love talking about the Maple Leafs.”

On going to the next level:

“I’ll tell you the thing that really really escalated my YouTube channel was I was willing to do things that other people weren’t willing to do. I was willing to drive to go do an interview, I was willing to fly and pay for my own flight, my own hotel to go do an interview. All I needed was someone to say yes. I would reach out to someone, all I needed was them to say yes and I go great, well, now I gotta find my way to Phoenix somehow, you know, get to Las Vegas. And that was a big thing. Especially before Zoom interviews were even a thing. I hadn’t done an interview virtually before the pandemic. And actually, I put a tweet out like the first week of the pandemic in March of 2020. And I said, guys never done a virtual interview before, what do you suggest? I had a lot of people throwing out suggestions. I ended up in a Zoom kind of place where everyone was flocking. It was easy, right? But up until that point, they were all done in person. I was driving five hours, this is one where like I had a scoop with Chris Jericho, I drove five hours to do this interview. I was editing it on the way back on my laptop as my buddy was driving and then the laptop died. We pulled over to a service station to plug it back in to finish the export. Like that was the type of stuff I was doing. And I think that now, there’s a lot of podcasters that are so conditioned to just here’s the Zoom link. These conversations aren’t the same. I put a tweet out and I asked people I said, if you only do a virtual interview with somebody, did you really meet them? And it was interesting seeing the responses, because there were a lot of people who had only ever done virtual interviews going yeah, absolutely. Of course I met them. Yeah, we had a great conversation. And then there are a lot of other people that said, No, you didn’t really truly meet them. Because when you do see them in person, you say to them, it’s so good to finally meet you in person, the same thing you say every time, right? There’s just something about this.”

On people thinking the Mike Myers interview was fake:

“I just don’t understand it. I spent my whole career interviewing everybody. And that video went viral first on Facebook Reels, then on TikTok, then on YouTube. And there were so many comments being like, nice fake interview, or This guy’s pretending to interview Mike Myers. [why do people pick that video?] So he was in a studio with great professional lighting and wearing a lapel mic? Like it was being produced by Netflix, quoting his TV show called The Pentaverate. Yeah, I was in at the time. I just moved in with my now wife. I was in her spare bedroom with like, terrible lighting and my laptop. I get when you put the two images next to each other. Yeah, it didn’t look the same. But isn’t that every zoom interview? Somebody has a better mic or somebody has a better camera. And it was just my framing was a little bit tighter, his was a little bit wider. So the way that it was edited together. I had so many comments from people being like, why did you fake this interview? And then it was getting liked on Facebook by hundreds of people. So I started responding to people and going well, here’s the full interview. Yeah. And then no one would even bother to look at that. And like during the full interview, like Mike Myers grew up, like 10 minutes from where I grew up in Canada. So at the start of the interview, I’m like, Hey, I grew up in Pickering. He’s like, Oh, Pickering, which is known for having a nuclear power plant. And he’s like, Were you close to the nuclear power plant? I’m like, How could you tell? He’s like, Oh, you do have a bit of a glow about you. And like, the fact that we had this back and forth, right? People thought that I just like, took an answer that he had already given in another interview. And then I recorded myself asking a question that might lead to that answer. The time that person took to write the comment, they could have Googled my name and Mike Myers and seen the interview. That was like, that’s just the internet summed up right there. I’ll never understand that one.”

On preparing for a 5 minute press interview:

“So I spend hours doing it because I want something that’s going to be a) entertaining, b) relevant, but c) and most importantly, memorable. So am I asking them about a recent role that they are rumoured to be playing? Am I asking them about their workout routine? Am I  asking them, am I tying this character into an iconic character they played years ago? Sometimes it’s a person I’ve always wanted to interview like Sylvester Stallone. I’m like, I’ve got to ask a Rocky question here in some sort of way. Even if it doesn’t tie into this film, I’ve got to do that right? Or like my favourite movie of all time is Back to the Future. I’ve got Robert Zemeckis, the director of Back to the Future sitting right here. Like, I have to ask him a Back to the Future question. So I think it comes down a lot for like, for me of like, Who’s the person? What have they done in their career? How can we somehow tie that all into this project right now?”

Advice for people to start an interviewing channel:

“I think you’ve got to take the opportunities that are in front of you right now. And I think that aiming big is a great thing. But I don’t think that you can go man, this podcast is only going to work if I can interview these NBA players, or these NHL players or this actor or whatever, like, take the opportunities that are in front of you. I’ll speak specifically to the wrestling niche. I think there’s a lot of people that go, Well, man, WWE won’t write back to my emails. AEW, won’t give me any interviews, Impact Wrestling won’t do it either. It’s like, I bet there’s a wrestling school near where you live. Or I bet there’s an independent wrestling promotion that runs in and around where you live. Go there. Talk to the promoter, ask if you could interview some of the people that wrestle on their show. Start there, and then get better from there. And I think that you need to start with what’s in front of you right now and build from that, because you’re gonna get better with every single one of these that you do.”

Featured image: Great American Syndicate

Renee Paquette (@reneepaquette) is a television personality, podcaster and backstage interviewer for All Elite Wrestling (AEW). She was previously known for her time in WWE between 2012 and 2020. She joins Chris Van Vliet to talk about her decision to sign with AEW, what her husband Jon Moxley is like as a dad, her favorite Jon Moxley match, how becoming a mom to her daughter Nora has changed her, the decision to move from Las Vegas to Cincinnati, being part of the infamous Talking Smack segment between The Miz and Daniel Bryan, the best celebrity parenting advice she has received, why the name of her podcast changed from “Oral Sessions” to “The Sessions” and much more!

On WWE commentators changing frequently:

“I’ll tell you exactly why. Because they put somebody in to do commentary and I don’t think that there, I don’t know, I don’t know how to frame this the right way. It’s not that there’s not enough respect put on what commentary means and to be good at commentary, they do understand that. But a lot of times, they’re like, Okay, well put Renee on, she’ll be good, she’s good in these other things, let’s put her on commentary. I was not ready to do commentary, I wasn’t ready to do Raw commentary specifically. And that happens a lot. Adnan Virk was like a great broadcaster, fantastic broadcaster, I think it’s like, well, let’s bring in somebody from the outside world, from outside sports that really knows that space, he had never done it [play by play commentary]. And it’s like, you put it’s really just not setting people up for success. When I think sort of the training programme like we had with doing NXT being in that phase, then you get called up, because it’s also very different doing a show at NXT versus doing Raw or SmackDown. The game completely changes once Vince is in your ear, once you’re doing a three hour long show. It’s just such a different dynamic. And you know, I’m sure having Vic on I’m sure he’d be able to talk about that as well. But yeah, I think it’s just really putting people in, and it’s a sink or swim mentality. And it just sucks because most people end up sinking. And it’s not for lack of talent or like not being good at that position. It takes a really long time to become a great wrestling commentator, you can be a sports commentator, and I think probably get better at that because you’re really just dealing with calling what you see and talking about facts. That’s not what we do as a wrestling commentator, now you’re telling stories. You’re putting over the babyface, you’re talking about the heel, you’re talking about them in different ways. Sometimes there’s just like the different nuance, subtleties of things that are happening. So yeah, wrestling commentary is just so different from being a hockey commentator, a football commentator, whatever it may be. And as much as I think it’s interesting to try to I mean, you know, Pat McAfee is such an anomaly. He’s so great at what he does, but he’s also a huge wrestling fan. So that, of course helps, he’s just a huge personality. But yeah, I think it’s, I think it’s really just that I think it’s putting somebody in that’s not ready and that not giving them the time to develop to be where they need to be. Michael Cole has been doing commentary for what, like 20 years or something? He’s so good. I could literally dedicate like an hour of this time to just talking about how good he is at what he does. And I think now he finally does get the credit for everyday. Michael Cole is pretty great. Like he’s so fantastic. ”

On becoming an on air personality for AEW:

“Well, it was more so for myself. You know, as much as I love doing my podcast, I love being able to do these long form interviews. I feel like there’s just something really fun about that, that you really don’t get to do TV wise, unless you get one of those sweet Netflix deals like Letterman, let’s get that going. I love doing that. But for me, it’s like, also, being able to work from home as a new mom was like a blessing and a curse, I sort of needed to get out of the house, I needed to get back to being me. And as much as like, yeah, it was awesome to be able to sit in my sweats and do my work and do all those things. TV has always been my number one love in terms of like, career aspect thing. So when I started to really get that itch and feeling like I was, I was really in a good comfortable spot. They’re like, well, Nora’s, you know, a year and a half at the time now. I’m feeling good about maybe stepping back into that world. And I had been having sort of like, like preliminary conversations with WWE about me maybe going back there and just maybe doing like pay-per-views or some specials, we really didn’t hash it out or get that far in those conversations, but some conversations were starting to happen. And then it you know, it really kind of dawned on both me and Jon that we’re like, man, if this is where it’s gonna go, and this is what we’re going to do, of course it makes more sense for me to be in AEW. And just to kind of see all the things that AEW had to offer us, like not only being on the road with my husband, but to be a part of this, like young, upstart fun, you know, really kind of changing up the whole scene of pro-wrestling, that was something that I really want to be a part of. And not only be a part of it as a broadcaster, and kind of lend my experience in that world, but also as a producer to a degree. I mean, if I can help with stuff like different backstage promos help with, you know, all that stuff, all the things that kind of fall under that umbrella, that’s something that really, really appealed to me. So yeah, the more those conversations kind of started to happen, and those conversations were really just between John and I, then it was just like, Okay, let’s see what Tony thinks. And yeah, and Tony, of course, was on board. And I feel like, I mean, that’s the quickest I’ve ever really had a contract, just come through and be like, okay, come on, let’s do it. Let’s start it, and let’s get this ball rolling. So it was cool. And of course, it made sense for me to be able to make my debut in Toronto, and that just made it that much more special. It was really, really a fun time.”

On the similarities between working in AEW and WWE:

“Yeah, of course. I mean, in terms of like, wrestling’s day of show is always a little bit crazy of like, what’s happening? Are things changing? And what’s happening? Like, that happens in both places, for sure. But yeah, so that fun energy is it’s a different energy in that something that took me like a little bit of a second to adjust to. I’m so used to, you know, I was at WWE for eight years, so to now be in a similar environment to that, but it’s not the exact same environment. It’s cool to kind of like figure that out and figure out the ropes. And it’s fun doing like the backstage promos, there’s, it’s cool. You know, I think WWE having the writers and having written promos for you know, a majority of the people, that definitely serves a purpose, and there is a benefit to that. But it’s fun being able to hop on the set and go, What are we saying? What are we doing? What do we need to try to accomplish here? How do we do that? Like just trying to like connect the dots to make the most sense of those promos? It’s a fun challenge. I like it.”

On the Talking Smack promo between The Miz and Daniel Bryan:

“I don’t really remember much happening in my earpiece during that except for at the very end. It’s funny Mike Mansouri, when I had him on my podcast and now he’s co-executive producer of AEW, what a huge asset he is for us to have. But he was a producer of the show during that time. And he I remember him while all of this action is happening, he’s really, he’s not saying anything in my ear. I think he kind of knew he was following Mike; he was following this to see what he was going to do, follow that promo, follow what’s happening with Bryan. And I remember like, while they’re in the midst of all this chaos, he’s saying to me, take us off the air now. And I’m like, what the f!? Like What do you mean take us off the air right now? Like we are in the moment right now but it was like his genius to have it just kind of wrap up as it was with no real outcome or like we didn’t know where things were gonna go after that moment with that promo. So yeah, that’s really kind of what I remember and just being in the middle and like being between Bryan and between Miz. And to see Miz Cutting this promo on why he wasn’t wrestling, why the Intercontinental Championship meant so much to him and like to see though his eyes welling up in these tears happening. I’m like, Oh my God, he’s crying, he’s gonna start crying. Oh, my God, this is happening. And then he starts digging into Bryan who like, I’ve got so much sympathy for this man that has had to retire from his in-ring career. We don’t know what this means. Where’s things gonna go for him? The injuries rattling off all these things? Then I’m like, do I have to fight The Miz right now? Like, holy sh*t. This is crazy.”

Did anyone get mad about the original name for Renee’s podcast, Oral Sessions?

“Honestly, nobody got mad about it. No one cared. It was more so a thing for me that I was like, Oh, if we want to get other advertisers or different ads, I just didn’t want people to be weird about it. People were pervy about it, obviously. So I was like, Oh, well, let’s just change it. And I kept just calling it The Sessions anyways, I kind of short form everything. So yeah, I just kind of kept referring it to The Sessions in the intro to the show and blah, blah. And as I’m talking to like Emilio, our producer, James, some other people at the volume like, do we want to just change it to The Sessions? I was like, yeah, yeah, I like it. Why not? Sure.”

On being a mom:

“Oh, my god, it’s so different. It’s different in that it’s weird, because I feel like even though my daughter, she’ll be turning two in June. And I’ve had a kid for two years now. But everything constantly is changing. So you go from having like a tiny little baby, to figuring out whoa, I’m a mom for the first time. What am I doing? How do I figure this out, what’s happening, to then like, you kind of get in a little bit of a groove. And then as soon as you figured out that game, the game has changed. And now she’s walking, she’s running, she’s doing things she’s active. She’s like, she I feel like she’s like a little girl. Now she doesn’t feel like a little baby. But juggling that, with working and staying ambitious and creative and creating space for myself to do that, that’s really what the challenge is.”

On people finding it difficult picturing Jon Moxley as a dad:

“I think a lot of people have a hard time picturing Jon doing anything aside from wrestling. It blows people’s mind, it’s like watching like a dog walk on their hind legs, it freaks people out. Very funny.”

On marrying a wrestler:

“It’s really funny because I think of like, so when Jon and I first started dating, and I feel like Jon and I like even when we first started dating, it was just kind of like, Oh, I’m with this person now, and this is my person, and we’re just going to be together. Like there was never really any kind of conversation of like, who we are and what our relationship is and what our dynamic is any of that. It just sort of like it always has been since we’ve been together. But anyway, so I’m on the road with WWE at the time, of course, and my mom doesn’t know what kind of life I’m really living. Of course, I’m calling and checking in with her, but she doesn’t really know anything about pro wrestling. She really doesn’t know anything about who Jon Moxley and or at the time, Dean Ambrose was. So when I’m telling her that I’m dating this guy, and she starts looking him up. Then she stumbles upon Jon Moxley, looking up his old promos, his old matches, and she I remember her like, she called me or she texted me and she was like, so like, wary of him. She’s like, I don’t know about this. Like I don’t, he seems like really like, it seems a little scary and mean and rattling off all these other adjectives. And I was like, Mom, it’s fine, like don’t sweat it. But now it’s so funny because my mom is like so obsessed with Jon like, my mom loves Jon more than she loves me, I can almost guarantee you that. My mom got a Mox tattoo. Yeah, I did not see that in my, in my bingo cards.”

On Jon Moxley being wrestler of the year:

“For sure he is, and I mean, I got to give a little bit of love to Hangman here too, because I do feel like the two of them have such incredible chemistry in the ring together. And you know, the four matches that they’ve had, that series, like I think that they’ve done some really incredible storytelling like obviously, their matches have been so hard hitting, and they beat the absolute p*ss out of each other. But the storytelling that they’ve been able to do without any championships involved, I think that they’ve done such a great job to string us along for four different matches, it’s pretty impressive. I will say, watching their Texas deathmatch at Revolution, it started to make my stomach turn a little bit. I’m watching it. I’m like watching it and talent viewing and I’m like, Oh, my God, like when John is stabbing, Hangman in the forehead with the fork and it starts like spewing everywhere like all over Jon. I’m like, because all I’m thinking during this, I’m like, There’s got to be a receipt for this somewhere. It’s coming back for you 100%. So I’m kind of holding my breath until the very end of the match. They’re crazy.”

On who has given Renee the best mom advice?

“Oh probably Becky the most. Becky is like, I mean she has been the best from like, day one, even like when I first found out I was pregnant. I mean, just in terms of even just like, you know, she sent like cute little Doc Martens for Nora and like some cute little outfits and stuff. But she’s somebody, anytime like her and Seth are in town, we’ll get the girls together and get to like see our babies together. It’s such a trip to like, see that with our friends to be like man, we’ve spent so much time together, now to see like this next generation of these like little babies that we’ve made to see them together. So cool, Roux is about, just about six months older than Nora but yeah, it’s really cool to be able to see them together. But yeah, definitely. Definitely Becky Of course. You know, Brandi and I were pregnant at the same time, Brani Rhodes and I and she had her daughter I think it was like five I think only five days after Nora was born. So in terms of pregnancy wise, we’ve been able to kind of check in on each other and with our kids being the same age kind of checking in on certain things. But yeah, those are the two that come to mind.”

On MJF:

“He’s really hard to bet against. You know, yeah, he’s a great promo, he’s a great storyteller, he’s definitely one of them. But you know, I think you know, you look at somebody like Ricky Starks, I think he’s somebody who’s really got that charisma and that charm too. And there’s just something interesting about him. And I think there’s a lot to him that has not been discovered yet, character wise, on camera all that. And I think that that makes him very exciting. He’s like, there’s just like a really cool charisma with him that I like so he’s somebody that I would definitely like to see do some more stuff to do.”

What is Renee Paquette grateful for:

“My husband, my baby and stability.”

Featured image: Wrestling Headlines

Natalya Neidhart (@natbynature) is a professional wrestler who has been signed to WWE since 2007. She chats with Chris Van Vliet at WrestleMania 39 in Los Angeles about her record-breaking 13th WrestleMania appearance, her favorite WrestleMania moments, what makes her the BOAT (Best Of All Time), her thoughts on Owen Hart’s WWE career, who is on her Canadian Mount Rushmore of wrestler and more!

How many WrestleManias have you been to?

“So this is actually a world record. I have a new world record, I have the most matches of any woman in WrestleMania history. This is my 13th appearance and my 11th match. It’s something, honestly Chris, I never take it for granted. Because my dad was a part of the 2nd WrestleMania with Bret and Andre The Giant, they were in that Battle Royale. My dad, up until his last year on this Earth, he was talking about that match, that moment, that was Wrestlemania, and how it was special and it meant something to him. I always just feel like it so important. I know that it is a crazy, crazy time in the world, it’s so fast paced and we are scrolling through social media, turning on the news and racing to get from one place to the next. But you never take it for granted how hard it was to get here, how hard it is to stay here, how hard it is to have competed against, you know, across so many like different generations of these, you know, I went through the Divas era, I went through the women’s evolution, we are here right now, and I don’t take it for granted. To be a part of this WrestleMania in particular, it is the biggest WrestleMania in WWE history, it’s the highest grossing gate. Every year we smash records, we are about to smash a new record with this one. To be a part of it and to be doing what I love, my 16th year in WWE, it is just a massive honor.”

What do you attribute your longevity to?

“To be perfectly honest, I take care of myself like it is a religion. It’s so crazy to say that, but I think that it is important for people to know. Look at Tom Brady for example. I don’t watch football, or I tried to but I don’t understand it. Tom Brady, it’s not a secret, Tom Brady, LeBron James, they take care of themselves. They are on a table several times a week, I’m on a table 4 times a week. I work with an active relief therapist, I work with an adrenal specialist, I work with a massage therapist, I work with a professional stretcher who stretches people in the NFL. I am religious about my vitamins, I am religious about my diet, my workouts. I take it very seriously because not everybody should do this. There is only a handful of men and women in the world that can do this at this level. For me to have had thousands of matches in WWE, thousands of bumps and bruises and broken bones and broken ligaments, you can’t stay doing this unless you take care of yourself. My health is key, and also staying safe, staying safe in the ring. I take a lot of pride in safety with each other, you know, having fun and taking risks, but above all else, you gotta protect each other.”

It’s always great talking to a fellow Canadian. This is always such a difficult one, but give me your Mount Rushmore of Canadian wrestlers.

“First and foremost, Bret Hart. Bret is, to this day, he inspires the new generation. To inspire, you know, your favorites, that Bret was their favorite. It’s funny hearing Roman Reigns say it was, because you know, Roman grew up in a dynasty of wrestlers as well, with the Samoan dynasty. But I have heard Roman say so many times that Bret made him want to do this. So Bret Hart, I would say Stu Hart, because my grandfather was the amateur wrestling champion of Canada, God this is going to get really good. Bret Hart, Stu Hart, Owen Hart, and if I were to pick one more for that Mount Rushmore, I am not going to be arrogant, I am humble Nattie. I won’t put myself in that list because I am the best of all time. I will throw in Edge, 31 time champion in WWE. His longevity, he is in his late 40’s, he looks phenomenal, he makes you forget about his age, age is just a number. But Edge, I think that every time he performs, you always go wow, he has still got it, he’s still got it after everything that he has been through. So yes, Bret Hart, Stu Hart, Owen Hart and Edge.”

Do you have a favorite Bret Hart match?

“Oh I have so many. It’s funny because my husband and I have a dungeon, we call it the dungeon but we model it after where we trained. I mean, it’s not only cats [laughs]. My grandfather had a place where he would train the greatest pro-wrestlers in the world, it was called the dungeon. But we have a dungeon that we train in, we have a ring set up. We love our training, it is very special to us, we just stay ready. I always say to people don’t get ready, stay ready. I feel like I am so blessed to have that ring, it is a WWE ring, my husband, he asked for it, and TJ has such a great relationship with talent, it is so nice for people to go hey, I need help. He especially works with them and helps them.”

So you completely avoided the question of what is your favorite Bret Hart match?

“Oh my gosh, I forgot what the question was, I got off on a tangent. I would say my favorite Bret Hart match, I am so biased, I would say Bret Hart vs. Owen Hart, WrestleMania 10, Madison Square Garden, it was the greatest opener of all time. I always tell people that if you want to be a wrestler and want to get into this then watch that match. A lot of people would say Bret vs. Steve Austin or Bret vs. Shawn Michaels, because only Bret would make a 61 minute ironman match, Bret and Shawn could make that exciting. Everyone else was like oh my God, how are we going to get through an hour of wrestling? Then they did an extra minute, that was a phenomenal match. But I just think that from a storytelling standpoint, the simplicity of Owen vs. Bret, and Owen getting that [victory], I’m always cheering for the underdog. A lot of people don’t know this, Bret was a huge catalyst for Owen getting a huge push in WWE. Vince McMahon, there was a different direction they were going to go with Bret that year, and it wasn’t with Owen. Bret stood up and said no I want Owen to have this moment, to be a part of this match, I want him in this. I love that he stood up and fought for his brother, but the storyline was that they were fighting each other when Bret was creating this magical moment that has lived on forever when you think about great humans. Owen played the role of this bad guy but he was such an amazing person. He and Bret manifested that magic, so that is my answer.”

I feel like if you ask someone what is their favorite Bret Hart match, the answer is just yes.

“He just had a way of elevating everyone that he worked with, and that’s true leadership. You look at his work and it stands the test of time today. You see it and it is so real and believable. I know people think sometimes too that Bret, and Bret is so serious about his career, every single match he took so seriously, and I think that is important to have that pride.”

Do you think that if Owen was still with us he would have won the WWE Championship? 

“Yes, I do. I think Owen has on par. It’s funny, Bret was the most serious and Owen just wanted to have fun. But Owen had this character, look at Dominik’s [Mysterio] character in WWE and I see little shades of Owen, that little mischievous side in Dom. I think Owen would have definitely won a World Heavyweight Championship. Owen, he won in so many other ways and did so many other things that a lot of people didn’t say. When he had 2 days at home he would go to a children’s hospital and visit sick kids. No cameras, no Twitter, no media attention, something he would do privately. He helped so many family members and it was so unsung with the things that he did. He was an unbelievable person.”

Featured image: talkSPORT

Nic Nemeth (@HeelZiggler) is a professional wrestler better known as Dolph Ziggler in WWE. He joins Chris Van Vliet to talk about being called “underrated” his whole WWE career, his debut match against Batista, the emotions he felt when he cashed in the Money In The Bank briefcase on Alberto Del Rio, his love for standup comedy, his brother Ryan Nemeth crushing it in AEW as the Hollywood Hunk, becoming NXT Champion, why he ended up becoming the most successful Spirit Squad member and more!

On never being the WWE Champion:

“So this will, I don’t know, maybe it’ll sound not bitter, whatever. The rest of the interview is bitter, we will take a little break. But I feel I was never in their conversation to be their guy. I understand that. But I go every day I can try and whittle them down and maybe in five years, they’ll go hey, we got to let this guy go over. Or hey, in five years, this guy is ready. I know he’s not our top guy. But when this guy has knee surgery, he can slide right in there and I go that’ll be my chance, so just always be ready for that. And that happened a couple of times, I got put into I just thought of something, I got put into a world title match against Sheamus. Man I want to say is like northeast somewhere a long time ago. I’m basically wrestling on Superstars or getting beat by somebody in a couple minutes. Sheamus is World Heavyweight Champion and crushing everybody, and I don’t really talk on the show, anything. I get, who is it Del Rio or Khali? Somebody gets taken out. And they go you’re gonna wrestle him and we get one week build and it’s like, I don’t even know what the goal is just like I’ll see you, I don’t know. So I go this might be really bad, no one might care, I don’t know. If you check the footage 19,000 People are chanting my name against the established World Heavyweight Champion. I’m a bad guy who doesn’t talk and loses every single match. And I go whoa, there’s a clip of Lawler he goes do you hear these fans saying let’s go Sheamus? I go, is that what they’re saying? But it was and it was like a fun match. Sheamus is fun, and we do crazy stuff anyway, so it’s like, that was really cool. But I was nervous that they weren’t gonna give one damn, because I don’t, I mean, I deserve to be there. But on a television show this character did not deserve to be fighting for the title. Story wise, it didn’t make sense. So I was very nervous. I go man, they’re gonna hate me. But let’s steal the show, we start, we kicked off the show. Let’s tear it down, make them follow us. I go. And then hopefully, maybe I won’t get booed on the building. I don’t know. But it was one of the hottest crowds other than like working Cena in New York or something. But like, it was amazing. And we had fun and we beat the hell out of each other and we didn’t steal the show, but we kicked some ass and kicked it off, right? And I go man, maybe this will be the thing, and the next Monday, right back to business as usual. So that happens sometimes, I try and fight it, but I can only do so much. But I fight it screaming and yelling every single Monday, just so you know.”

On having the greatest Money in the Bank cash-in:

“A bunch of people make other arguments, but here’s why mine’s different than if you want to say Seth’s at WrestleMania, or like the first ever one or whatever. I mean, the first one was pretty cool. I didn’t understand the idea, it was Edge, right? And Vince is there and like, it’s, whoa, you know. But here’s why mine is better, because of what I just said. I lost every single match. Vickie talked for me, I got Vickie, and then we go on to AJ and Big E. So I now have a group of three. And I’m losing every single match, except for the ladder match, which was so fun. There’s a great gif of Tensai throwing me into the chairs and I fly around on my head. I win, and I win that and I go how are we going to build on this? Because I can’t just lose 900 matches in a row when this one and then lose 900 in a row again, and the boss goes now you’re gonna lose even more, and not in a devious way, he goes because you have this briefcase, and when that contract gets cashed in, everything is erased. And I go, Okay, that’s a fair point.”

On what the cash-in felt like:

“I have never witnessed even watching Attitude Era Stone Cold come out on TV, I’m sure it was louder. But me witnessing that in person and feeling like the prickles up my body, not me getting goosebumps, this rush of noise hitting my body. I was like man, I again, I go, I hope they get into this. Again, a good guy is injured and he’s laying on the mat. And a bad guy who loses all the time is going to come down and become world champion maybe. And I’m like, Are they gonna buy it? I don’t know. But I go, I was really proud, I go early in the day like he’s hurt you come down, you hit him with the briefcase bah, bah, bah, 123 new champ, the place is going to lose it! I go, this is me. I almost get the big prize for nine years in a row, let’s make them feel like Dolph is getting Dolphed one more time. So I had, I wanted like, I almost orchestrated it exactly how I wanted it, but I wanted one more little thing. But I go let’s have that, I’ll beat him up, with the thing, I’ll stomp on his ankle, hit a Fameasser to a corpse, 1, 2,  kick out. And you can just see the crowd go, they’re doing it again. They got us, they teased us, we thought he was gonna be the guy and they are rubbing it in our face. And then we get one more little false finish. I go, I’ll have him just come kick me in the head, kicks me in the head. I go down and they’re like, no, he’s rolling me over. I’m like, it was one of the most beautiful Shakespearean three minute movies I could ever create, other than when we gave it back with him kicking me in the head 500 times and like, putting me out. We did a double turn, that was really fun. But we do that we have one more false and then he gives me that kick. I kick out, I go for something, and he puts on his finisher, the armbar. So I’m locked in, I’m scrambling around. I wanted to scramble for like another minute, but I go, let’s not push it, they’ve gone up and down 3 times in 90 seconds, like more than you could ever imagine. And I’m like good, I’m good at that. And then again, storytelling. He has a hurt ankle. I go back to that ankle, and I go, we sometimes forget it in that moment you don’t always need that story, but I wanted the story. Yeah, here it comes. He’s got it. No, they’re screwing him. Oh my God, you’re gonna make them tap out. He’s gonna win. And as I’m selling up and he’s coming up with his back, everybody starts to realize oh my god, it’s going to happen but then I’d like to have think that like 10 or 20% on the Zigzag one two, [pauses] they’re like three okay, okay. Okay, like you never know like, and if I had my way I would have had him kick out of that Zigzag and why I would have went with something else. I’ll never have that WrestleMania hot crowd, hot moment, right place, right time. I’m the guy that they want it to be the guy whether the office wanted it or not, yeah that I just I was so spoiled. It’s like three and a half minutes and I am so proud of Del Rio was great in that too, and great in that double turn but that three and a half minutes is so beautiful for the business that I’m very proud that I was a part of it.”

On Dolph Ziggler’s WWE longevity:

“I mean, I love like, if we’re joking around, like, Oh, I’m somehow built to do this, meant to do this, love comedy, love theatre, love acting, love sports, fighting, athleticism, all these things, and it just perfectly worked out for me. But also that group was for Kenny and it hurt, but it was like, I’m [new], I don’t know how to do anything. I’m six months, eight months in and I go, I don’t know what to do. I love being in this group, because Kenny is really good. And he’s like 19, it’s so funny. And he’s teaching me stuff that you wouldn’t learn behind the scenes for 10 years. And I go, man, this guy’s way ahead of me, he’s got it figured out. But then you get to a point where it’s like, you’re six months into the Spirit Squad and it’s like, everybody can get pinned except for Kenny and you’re like, I gotta get pinned again. And like this kind of and we’re kind of getting beat up. And then it’s a bummer. But those guys embraced it, loved it. I loved what we had, my math is probably a little bit off, I want to say it’s right around 12 months, like exactly a one year run. And we had tons of ups and downs. But man, we friggin [faced] Ric Flair, Dusty Rhodes, every weekend for five months a different version of DX on a live event match to where you can do 20-30 minutes. And so, say I’m coming from six months of training, and even me going in early on off days and coming out late. I got 20 years of experience in five months from some of the greatest of all time. It was Shawn, Hunter and Flair and they rotated like two of the three each weekend, and it was the coolest thing in the world. Like whether we were dorks and losers booed out of the building, like almost like how they booed Vickie Guerrero, just as they hated us. And then they have two of the greatest of all time still wrestling in tags. And we’re and we’re having a like, I’m scared to death. And I’m like, I don’t want to like mess up and like hurt Shawn Michaels while I’m doing a neckbreaker or something. But I’m scared to death, but we’re doing great. And we’re listening to what they say. And we get to a point where we’re like comfortable with them. But I got so much training from those three guys in a couple of months that it was all of us, not just me. But I don’t know there’s a school in the world. You can go to Shawn Michaels’ wrestling school and have him teach you, but it’s not Shawn Michaels Triple H and Ric Flair live in front of a crowd. So I don’t know what better training anybody could have. And I was just very lucky.”

On winning the NXT Championship:

“That was really cool. One, because I thought it was going there to do what I do, help a young guy out. But also they go hey, you get a little more creative to just kind of do what you want, talking wise. And I go, that’s been a problem for me for 15 years. It’s like you have to say it like this and I go well if I just do it, [they’re] like no. Okay. So some people get leeway, some people don’t. Once in a while I do but I wasn’t getting it on important ones and I was like man I really wish I could be more me. So they go in NXT like you got a little leeway with what you want to do. And I was like cool, I’ll be me. What I wish I had been doing 15 years ago is like just saying and being me, a jerk, not even turned up to 10, that’s just me right now. But I walked in there, and it was so fun because a lot of people didn’t know I was doing it. And I thought it was for like four weeks, work with Steiner, help him out and see if he’s ready for the main roster. Oh, okay, cool.”

On the WWE debut:

“I want to say I wrestle R-Truth as Dolph Ziggler. I shake a bunch of hands. And then I think I have like a double count out or roll in and beat Truth. And then I’m not on TV for a month, month and a half and then I come back and it’s against Batista and I go oh this is my last day at work. If you’re a new young guy you don’t know what’s going on. I’m not a legacy, I don’t have friends in the meeting. And you’re like man, I don’t know what I’m doing, they gave me this weird name that I’ve tried to fight them on, and my debut was a count out win against R-Truth, who is beloved, especially by me. If you’re debuting and you’re fighting Triple H and winning, they got plans for you. When you’re debuting against R-Truth who wasn’t doing anything on TV at the time, and you’re barely scraping by, and then you go away for a month, and then they go, it’s you and Batista and it’s one seg, and you go, okay, I got it. Luckily for me, Batista is not just a sweetheart, he’s great and wanted to have a good match. I’m like oh hell yeah. So it was, I just saw that and I go oh, this is it. And instead, we have a really fun match. And, and they’re like, you never know, like, some established guys might be like, here’s what we’re doing, and what do you think, and you give some pointers. But he was like it’d be cool if we did this, like, what about this? I go, this is great. So it ends up being, I’m making this up, maybe it was two segs, but it’s like eight or 10 minutes, and it’s kind of a good match. But he’s going on to a pay-per-view world title match. So he definitively beats me, I totally get that. But I go oh, I don’t, I don’t have to like, check the wanted ads next Monday. Like okay, I’m still here. And then I come back. And I feel like it was very positive with everybody. Okay, he needed a match. And I was back like, okay, great. I feel a little bit better now.”

On the similarities between stand-up comedy and professional wrestling:

“So many. Every time I talk with somebody, whether it’s a comic or not, we have the same grievances, the same complaints. We all fly into a city, we don’t know anybody. I’ll bounce around to four different cities 300 miles away, they’ll do four shows in the same town and they do, it’s the same process. There’s no offseason, you go wherever you go. And I was explaining this to someone else. The first time I ever did an open mic it was just Nick with a black hat in the back room, Silverlake coffee shop. And it was just an open mic. And so everyone is just on their phone, they’re not even listening to you, they’re just waiting to go and go over their stuff. But there’s a handful of people that were like getting coffee and sat down to listen. I’m so nervous. My friend Lauren Greenberg [and] I wrote like a five minute Chipotle story or something. And I’d gone over it like nonstop, just tightening it down for a week or two. And then that day is like 12 hours straight just getting it and switching words and trying not to just memorise it but have this little story, and I’m freaking out. I get to this little coffee shop, it’s in the backroom, it’s smaller than this area, it’s so funny. But Sean O’Connor, he’s a wrestling fan and we just made jokes. And he was like, Hey man, I can get you on this show. I was like, whoa, what? And he goes, Well, since you don’t really belong on this show, and you don’t know what you’re doing, it’s all open mic guys and a couple of pros. But we got Andy Kindler going up and everyone’s doing like five minutes. And they don’t know, you know, [know what they are doing, they are] bombing and whatever. He goes, but he’s [Andy Kindler] gonna crush it for 25 minutes, because he’s a killer. And he’s been around for 45 years doing his stuff. And he goes, so we’re gonna put you after him, because that’s where, you know, we need to have a better in-between. Okay, all right, I get it, I don’t deserve to be here. And they go, he’s gonna do a set and he says 25 [minutes], but he’ll just go and when he’s done, he’s done. So he does about 25 and he walks off, I’m shaking. I go up, grabbed the mic, don’t drop this, I’m so scared. I don’t know why no one’s even paying attention, it’s just so nerve racking. And I say this first sentence, it’s kind of like a little just like, I don’t even remember what it was, but it’s supposed to be a little joke and I just pause and it feels like two minutes goes by but it’s 1/1000th. People are like on their phones like ha, all right. I look to the left, Andy Kindler who I thought left, is laughing. He goes haha, I’m like what okay, and then I totally forget the other three and a half minutes that I have. I get back into it, I rushed through it, I think I do it in like two and a half minutes, like I just run through it. I don’t pause, I don’t even know what I’m doing. Like, man, I’m so scared. Once it’s over, I got like two more chuckles from people not paying attention. I’m scared to death, I can’t wait to do this again, this feels so great. And then their locker room is just like our locker room. I come to the back, Andy Kindler is like the veteran, he’s sitting and everyone’s standing around him asking him questions, and he’s giving pointers. And they’re bitching, just like we are, this guy, this comic doesn’t deserve this push, he’s getting the show, he’s getting the LA show, we should have it. I go you guys are exactly like us, it’s mind boggling. And he’s telling them to settle down and don’t worry, if you know, if you’re good, you’ll get it. It’s identical in so many ways. And it’s like, it’s also getting the reps in, being comfortable talking, all those things like that. You just take for granted, but the more you do it, the better you get.”

Does Dolph Ziggler feel like a comic?

No No, I’m a wrestler that does comedy. I think I have so much respect for it because I’m such a fan that I don’t want to be like, Yeah, I’m a comic. I say that on social media, just to make wrestling fans mad, and it’s funny. But in real life, you need something along the lines of like, 3, 4 or 5 thousand reps. And then you figure out what your voice is and what you’re really doing. Because for the longest time, I’m like, I write this joke. I’m like, oh, that’s like, I think I just stole an [Anthony] Jeselnik joke, subconsciously. And then you write some stuff down, like, Oh, David Spade just did a bit like this. And like ah, so you got to figure out what your voice is. And make sure you’re not stealing people’s stuff. And you’re just constantly grinding down. And it’s just, I’m not a comic, you need 5000 reps. I’m at like, 60 or 50, or something like maybe, maybe way less. It seems like I’ve done a bunch of shows. But I’ve just done a couple of shows a year for eight years. You know what I mean? So I think it’s like, I’m at like, 50 ish.”

Ricochet (@kingricochet) is a WWE Superstar and is also known for his time in Lucha Underground where he worked under the name Prince Puma. He joins Chris Van Vliet during WrestleMania 39 week in Los Angeles and talks about his favorite matches in Lucha Underground, the reaction to his infamous match with Will Ospreay, reaching a wider audience when he signed with WWE, his fiancée Samantha Irvin, what he is grateful for, his favorite Adam Sandler movie and more.

I’ve been such a big fan of your work, dating back to Lucha Underground Prince Puma. Take me back to that time. What are some big moments that stand out from Lucha?

“Me versus Rey Mysterio, that was a big one for me. And actually, just the whole thing really, because it was like, it was different. It was a different thing. It was, you know, like, I feel like the WWE is a wrestling show, it is wrestling on television. You know what I mean? But like with Lucha Underground, they wanted to do like a TV drama about a wrestling company. It was a TV drama about a wrestling company. And so they still wanted to add the wrestling aspect, but so like the way they did the backstage and the way they did everything was like you shooting the movie scenes and cutscenes and stuff. So that was an experience for me. That was something that I had never really been, you know, introduced to until Lucha Underground. And so that was a big eye opening experience. But then obviously, like, meeting Rey and Konnan and a couple of those guys, it was really, really cool for me.”

That match with Will Ospreay is mind blowing, and I show it often to people who aren’t wrestling fans, and I go, this is wrestling. And as you know, that match is very divisive, right? There’s people that go I love this, it’s amazing! And there’s people on the other side who go this is not wrestling. Were you surprised when you saw that reaction?

“No, it’s funny, because going into it, like we obviously wanted to put on a good match, I think it was the main event that night. We obviously wanted to put on a good match and just, you know, give the people something to enjoy. We weren’t, we were just gonna go do Ricochet and Ospreay stuff and we were just going to be us. We weren’t expecting like the, what I guess either backlash or praise it got. like we weren’t expecting like that. We were just kind of having a good match.”

You weren’t planning to have the match of all matches?

“Like literally you can ask like some of our friends who knew us before, like we’ve had matches before, you know, in England and other places. Like they were like, Yeah, that was just a Ricochet Ospreay match. Like that was just the normal, you know what I mean, because we’ve had kind of, we just took stuff from other matches that we’ve done, and put them into this match. So we just weren’t expecting literally like, well, we’re gonna break the internet. We’re gonna like go crazy viral with this. We were literally just trying to play the match. And so literally like the next couple days, it was like an influx of just everything. Again, good, bad like it was just everything. But I get it I get it like, because wrestling can be anything, wrestling is comedy, wrestling is hardcore, wrestling is strong style, wrestling is high flying, wrestling is a lot of different aspects. Some people, although they don’t just like a certain style, they rather than saying I don’t like this style, they just say that’s not wrestling and it’s like, well, you’re an idiot, because wrestling can be literally anything you want it to be. Like from the Santino Marella to Stone Cold Steve Austin, to you know, Rico and Chuck, to Undertaker, you know, Rey Mysterio, like, it’s just wrestling is so versatile, like you can do whatever you want with it. And as long as people are talking, hey, that’s good.” 

When you got signed to WWE, I felt like it was like my favourite band started getting played on the radio, because I was like, Oh, you’re gonna be able to see what he can do. And it was cool, because it opened you up to a whole new audience.

“Yeah, which is great. And not only that, but like it opened me up to a lot of new things to learn because on the independent scene, and in Japan and overseas, you do learn a lot. You learn different styles, you learn different techniques and different things that people go through and do. But like coming here and learning from Triple H and learning from Shawn Michaels and learning from you know, all these guys was crazy for me. And you have the William Regals, and you have, you know, all these guys in the back that I get to pick their brains and talk to. So that was amazing for me to come here, and then use all of that, plus all the stuff that I’ve learned from Japan and my travels, like you said, really get to show who Ricochet is to a huge audience, which was amazing, still is amazing.”

That spot at the Royal Rumble this year with Logan Paul was amazing. And I feel like everybody’s talking about Logan Paul here and they’re not talking enough about your role in this.

“I mean, it’s kind of, I guess it goes, I think, again, it’s, I don’t want to compare myself. But it’s when I sit here and think about it’s kind of funny because I’m a fan. I think of like LeBron James, who’s since high school came into the league as the chosen, like literally, the pressure was put on him, right. You know what I mean? And he’s kind of delivered for 20 plus years in basketball, I feel like LeBron has delivered a pretty good resume, right? So much so that now he’s almost 40 years old and people are like, LeBron is not winning. He’s, he’s not good. It’s like he’s still averaging 30 points, 7 assists and 7 rebounds a game. So like, I think, once you go so long, and like you do like good stuff, like you do good things for so long. Like I’ve had good matches for so long. People just expect me to have good matches or expect me to like. So like, when you’re in Royal Rumble, and you’re doing a crazy spot and Ricochet does something crazy. It’s just like, Oh, that guy did something crazy because Ricochet just did something normal.”

I saw the way that you timed that, it was Logan got up and jumped. And you’re like, Oh, you’re jumping? Okay, I got you. 

“I told him like, guys don’t like secrets, whatever, who cares? Going into it, I told him Listen, I want you to be as comfortable as possible. So I don’t want you to wait on me. I don’t want you to think about me. I don’t want you to even worry about me at all. So whenever you’re comfortable, you just go and I’ll go and time it off of your jump, I’ll time it off of you. I’ll go with you to make sure that we’re good. It’s like don’t worry about if I’m gonna jump or if I’m gonna go, don’t worry about me. You just go. And then I follow you. I follow suit.”

How proud are you of Samantha? She is crushing it!

“I mean, there’s no words to even explain it. There’s no words. She’s literally the best person I’ve ever met. And not only that, but we are all here because we love wrestling, right? I don’t think there’s anyone here who loves it more than her. I know you right now are like no way. Yeah, I promise you. When she was a little girl bro, she was watching Royal Rumble. She was watching all the stuff. She was writing down the names of the entrants. She was writing down who eliminated who, she was writing down the times. She was making Shawn Michaels storyboards. She was literally like dude, it as a kid like what she loved like her dad got her into it at a young age. And she just, as she’s so talented, her talents got her here, not because of wrestling, but because of her singing, because of her acting, because of her other talents got her here. And then now she’s able to sing and she’s able to show exactly what she can do. Because honestly, she’s probably the most talented person in the company. She probably is the most talented person. She is the most talented person and she can play the flute She’s a master flautist. She’s probably the best voice I’ve ever heard. She can act, she can dance. She’s funny. I mean, how much time do we got? I could go all day. Yeah, I’m so proud.”

I end every conversation talking about gratitude. Because it’s just such an important part of my life. What are three things in your life you’re grateful for right now?

“I am grateful for, honestly, professional wrestling. I’m very grateful. Because since 14, it’s kind of I mean, I’ve been watching it since I can remember watching TV. But since 14, since I’ve started doing it’s literally all I’ve dedicated my life to, and it’s gotten me here. And it’s gotten me in a place in my life to be able to support my family and do things so professional wrestling, that will kind of always be my number one love. And even Sam, we talk about it all the time, she understands. I am grateful for my fiancé. I am grateful for Samantha Johnson, because without her I don’t know, really where I would be or like as a human being right now these past two years with her. She’s really helped me get to a place of gratitude of just being one with awareness and being aware of what’s going on right now. And like right now, this is all crazy and like. I’ve gone a lot of my life just not being aware of the present, but you gotta be aware of the present, and she’s taught me a lot. So pro wrestling, and Samantha. And then the third thing that I am grateful for would be God, baby. He’s the one that got us here. He’s the one that got me here. He’s the one you know, he’s led me here. He’s kept me safe. He’s kept me healthy. He’s kept me comfortable. He’s kept my friends safe. He’s kept my friends healthy. He’s got all my friends here. I mean, without him I don’t think any of this is possible. And that’s something else that Sam and I have talked about a lot recently is that part and I think man like without, you know, going up above I don’t think you know, any of this will be possible especially at least for me. I’ve given a lot of things to him and he’s the reason why I’m here.”

Featured image: WWE