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

It’s that time of the month again when we hit you with another edition of #AskCVV! Chris Van Vliet answers questions that were submitted on Twitter, Facebook and YouTube from Insight listeners just like you. 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’s been your favorite interview so far this year? 

“We’re only like three months into this right? So I guess that’s a quarter of the way through the year. But my favorite so far has got to be The Undertaker. That’s an interview that I knew might be possible but I was like man, when is this interview ever gonna happen? And if he checked it out, I hope that you enjoyed it. I enjoyed it. They told me it was going to be about 15 minutes, we ended up going a little longer than 20 minutes, and what a down to earth guy Mark Callaway is. And so great to just hear him telling stories about the legacy that he left. I mean, he is truly one of the greatest of all time. And to be able to sit down and share a bit of a conversation with him was so cool. So that for sure is the favorite episode of the year so far. So if you haven’t checked that one out, it is available. It’s just a few episodes ago, so you can go see that thing, it is episode number 452. So it’s just 1,2,3,4 episodes ago, you can go check that one out. So thank you so much for that question.”

Have you ever interviewed a wrestler or a celebrity who was way way late for the interview? Or who just didn’t show up, but was scheduled to show up? 

“Yes. And I think that when you do, I think last year we had like 120 episodes, you know, some stuff is gonna fall through the cracks. But there was one this year, and I’m not going to name any names. But there was one this year where we set it up, and we were going to do this in-person in LA. We set this one up, we agreed on the date, we agreed on the time. I gave them the directions, the instructions, everything. And I got to the studio now 15 minutes early, we’re getting all set up. And I just messaged him and said, Hey, let me know when you’re on the way. And usually, that gets you a response just a few minutes later, I’ll have like, Oh, I’m on the way, see you in five, or, Hey, I’m running a little bit late, but I’ll see you in 15-20, whatever it happens to be. I message them and I didn’t hear anything back. And I went, Oh, this isn’t good. And I looked at my audio engineer and I said this isn’t, this isn’t good. So the interview was scheduled for I think it was like one o’clock. And it was like 1:05. And I’m like I still haven’t heard from them. And then it turned into 1:10. And then it turned into 1:15. Then it turned into 1:20, and I’m standing outside the building like looking around. I’m like, maybe they’re lost, like, and they’re just not responding to me. But I don’t know what’s going on. And I finally turned to him, the audio engineer, and I said I don’t think that’s what’s happening. I just, I I’ve got a bad feeling about this. I feel like I would have heard back from them in some sort of way. And then finally, after like 45 minutes, they were like, Oh my gosh, I’m so sorry, I was double scheduled during this time, and it just, it didn’t happen, let’s reschedule for another time. But that’s okay, like stuff comes up. It was just so strange that we had this schedule that locked in and it didn’t end up happening. It still hasn’t happened, we haven’t rescheduled them. So don’t, don’t go like looking through the previous episodes trying to figure out who it was. I will tell you right now, the episode has not been rescheduled yet. And when it does get rescheduled, perhaps we’ll make a joke about this. And you’ll know exactly what I’m talking about. But yeah, that was one.” 

“I did another one, actually, not that long ago either, where this one was gonna be over Zoom. And I sent them the Zoom link, and I was dealing with like, their people. I wasn’t dealing directly with the person, I was dealing with their people who scheduled this. They gave me the date, they gave me the time. I said, Yep, that works, let’s do it. I sent them the Zoom link, and I thought we were good to go. And I logged into the Zoom room a little bit early. And I think this is the thing, especially with the Zoom interviews, if a Zoom interview is scheduled for like, let’s call it 10. And that person is not there and hasn’t messaged you by like 10:05. It’s not looking good. So it was like it was 10:05. And I messaged them, and I was like, hey, yeah, I’m in the Zoom room, ready when you are, and there was no response. And then I got an email from their people. And they said, Hey, can you give us a quick call? I was like, this isn’t gonna be good. So I called and they said, Oh, we are so sorry, we scheduled this with you, but it didn’t get put onto their calendar. So we’re so sorry, let’s reschedule it. So we ended up rescheduling that, you’ll end up seeing it at some time in the next few months. But all of this is to say that this is the communications business. And I think the most important part about this is not just the communication that happens when the camera is turned on or the microphone is turned on, it’s all of the communication that happens before and afterwards too. And it’s just so funny how, I get it, some things slip through the cracks, and it sucks, but that’s just the way it goes. So if you have a podcast, or you have a YouTube channel, or you’re doing any sort of interviews, you know what I’m talking about. And you just can’t take it personally, that’s the biggest thing I’ve realized none of this is personal at all. They just, it just happens. It just happens.”

You are seemingly genuinely positive person most of the time, which is really refreshing, by the way, out of curiosity, what is something that someone does or says that immediately annoys you? Or upsets you? 

“That’s such an interesting question about pet peeves. And I travel a bunch, right? And this is so silly, and it’s so petty. But my biggest pet peeve is people in airports, who like, have no sense of the space around them. So here’s what I’m talking about. Everybody’s kind of walking at like a similar pace. And this is the same thing you know, when you’re going anywhere, a train station will be a similar thing to so in the airport, you know, you’re going from point A to point B, and it’s fascinating that when you’re keeping up with the pace of the person walking in front of you, and they’ll just stop dead in their tracks, they’ll just stop. And you have to do everything in your power to not crash into them with your suitcase. And it’s just amazing to me how someone can be so unaware of their surroundings. If you got to stop to, you know, check the signage, or you want to stop to go Oh, does that store serve Fiji Water, have Fiji Water? Or oh my gosh, are those Skittles there? I think you need to like, kind of like you’re on a highway, you can like pull over to the side and look? Like, it’s just amazing. The next time you’re in an airport, you’ll know exactly what I’m talking about if you aren’t already with me on this ride here. But it’s this idea of like, walk, walk, walk, and they just stop. And then you’re like, woah, oh my gosh. So that’s it. It’s so small. It’s so petty. And I think, you know, kind of tying into the last thing that we talked about just lack of communication in general. Not just talking professionally, but personally to like, when someone, you ask someone a question, I think that, you know, response is, like, when you’re talking to a friend, a family member or someone you like, have an ongoing relationship with, and you send them a message and they don’t respond. I get that people get busy. But I think that that’s another one for me is just like, oh, man, come on, like, we were, we were going back and forth, we were ping ponging with these messages. And then you’re like, hey, so whatever the question happens to be, and then there’s no response. And then you know, you follow up a few days later, and then they go, Oh, my gosh, I can’t believe I missed this. I’m so sorry. So I think that that’s, that’s it for me. I know, the airport one is so silly. If you ever see me in an airport, you’ll know I mean, doesn’t happen all the time. It doesn’t happen in every airport trip. But when it does, it’s like I just kind of wish, just kind of wish you knew you knew there were you know, dozens of other people walking behind you.” 

What’s the funniest interview you’ve ever done? 

“Wow, I’ll give you two. I’ll give you two, and they’re just hilariously funny people. One is Will Ferrell, who is just a naturally hilarious person. And the way that he says things and his delivery. It’s so funny. I’ve had the good fortune of interviewing him a few times. And it’s just something you always look forward to because I mean, you want to talk about someone who’s always positive, geez, he’s great. And he just yeah, really naturally funny. And the second one is Kevin Hart. And he like brings it every single time you talk to him, I think I’ve talked to Kevin Hart, I think I’ve interviewed him like, seven or eight times. In fact, there was a point when I was living in Miami, and working for the Fox station in Miami, where he had just so many movies coming out, it was back to back to back to back. And there was a point when I interviewed him for like, the fourth time in six months or something like that. And I said, this is gonna sound crazy, but I’ve actually seen you more than I’ve seen my family over the last six months, and it was true. I hadn’t seen my, I think I’d seen my family like once, and I’d seen him like on four different occasions. And he’s like, Well, I guess that I guess that makes us family. So those two people are just effortless, effortlessly funny. And I feel like they’re the type of people that were put on this earth to do what they’re doing, and they are living in their passion and he just loved to see that. Yeah, just love to see it.”

What do you do when you have trouble sleeping? 

“Well, first of all, I love sleep, like so much. And I think that that old thing of like the old mantra of like I’ll sleep when I’m dead. I think that we’re starting to realize now, like this generation is starting to realize now that no, like sleep is so important for like, the rest of you know, restoring your body and like being at your peak. So I’m a big fan of sleep. And I know that sometimes your mind just races and you lay down and that’s like when all those thoughts enter your head. So for me, I try my best to just like think of like nothing, and I physically like picture it in my mind of like, I am looking at a black space, I’ve actually closed my eyes right now as I’m saying this I’m like just looking at a black space. And my focus then becomes on like, just looking and thinking about just darkness and nothingness and really focusing on my breathing, in through my nose and also out through my nose. And that’s been it for me. And it’s been difficult because my wife is almost eight months pregnant right now and our baby is due very soon, as I’m recording this due in May. And she’s obviously for you know, very obvious reasons having trouble sleeping right now. So me talking about how much I love sleep and here’s what I do to get to fall asleep makes me feel bad because she’s got a baby kicking her at all hours of the night and pushing on her bladder and making her go to the bathroom. So I get that’s not, I get that that’s not a you know, there’s a real dichotomy there. Between the two but that’s it for me.”

Where do you stand on cinematic matches? It still feels like it can be spun off into something original to me, especially given the number of sci-fi crossovers. 

“Really great question. And I think that cinematic matches serve an amazing place in time. And I think for a lot of us, that will be, those will be some of the best matches that will remember from what I’ll call the pandemic era of wrestling. And I think that the matches that we saw before and the matches that we may see after, are matches that are going to serve a real specific purpose. Like when Matt Hardy did The Ultimate Deletion, it made a lot of sense. You know, like that was kind of the world that he lived in, or Bray Wyatt doing something like that, that was the world that he lived in, and it made sense for that match to happen. And I think that when there were arenas that had you know, they were having WrestleMania with no crowd and they were doing all those shows with no crowd. ThunderDome was a really great way to kind of like, make the best of a bad situation. But nothing, nothing is better than having a live crowd at a wrestling show. So I think that they were really good at during that time going, man, if we can’t have a live show, let’s do the best that we can with what’s in front of us. So, I think that they were a great thing in 2020 and into 2021. And I think that if we’re gonna see another one beyond that, it just has to make sense. Like it just can’t be two people for the sake of having a cinematic match doing it. And I also think that if you were to have a, you know, if this was a pay-per-view match, I’m sorry, Premium Live Event match. It wouldn’t make sense to, you know, have a match in-person. And then basically be like, tell everyone like, we want to draw your attention now to the jumbotron to the TitanTron, to watch a match, it just wouldn’t make a lot of sense to have an arena full of 15,000 20,000 Maybe if it’s a WrestleMania 80,000 people just watching a screen for 15-20 minutes. So I think that was very much a product of that era and did a really good job. Like the boneyard match. So, so good. And it also allowed Undertaker to do some things that maybe he wasn’t able to do in front of a live crowd. So if I, to answer your question where do I stand on them? I liked them. I just think that they serve a certain purpose and a certain time.” 

Can you describe the feeling of having your own action figure? 

“This is pretty cool. If you follow me on Instagram, or you follow me on Twitter, Rush Collectibles, announced that I have a figure coming out later this year, and it’s so cool. It’s like me wearing a suit, I’ve got a microphone there, and it’s, man, it’s hard to describe the feeling. Because I grew up collecting action figures. I was a big Triple H fan, of course a Rock fan, had their action figures, so to be able to have one of my own is pretty cool. So you can see the prototype right now; it’s unpainted, but we’re working on it. You can see that on my Instagram. And once I have all of the details, I will get them to you. As soon as I get them on how you can buy them, we’re going to do I think two editions, we’re going to do just like the action figure in the very cool packaging that we’ve been working on, and then we’re also going to have one that’s an autographed version of that. So two different versions. And as soon as I get the details, you’ll be hearing about it here and of course on all social media. So yeah. Oh, really, really cool. Like, super cool to have that be a thing.” 

What’s the first match You’ll show your child? And at what age will I show my child this match? 

“So our baby girl will be with us in less than two months, it’s coming up real quick. I don’t know, I think that my favorite match of all time has got to be a match that I show someone, or show my daughter, Rock versus Hogan WrestleMania 18. Just because that crowd tells the whole story. It’s the way that the crowd gets into it. And look, if you’ve listened to the show for a long time, this should come as no surprise to you how much I love that match and just that I love the storytelling in that match. So that’s got to be up there. And I think that if I were to show my daughter or just a non-wrestling fan a match to say look how good these wrestlers are, like, look at how good the athleticism is, look how good the storytelling is. I would show them my second favorite match or I guess my favorite like in-ring like wrestling. Like if we’re talking in terms of like athleticism. It’s the TNA match. With Christopher Daniels, AJ Styles and Samoa Joe. And that match is just so so good. And I always go back to that one too, just because the athleticism in that match is crazy. It’s the epitome of what TNA was all about. That match is so so great.” 

I noticed the Batista interview, your time is cut, but Batista asked for one more question. Do you know how much time you’re allowed during celebrity and movie interviews? And how do you deal with a celebrity that is either unresponsive or disinterested in your time? 

“So yeah, that was a really cool one. If you want to check that out It’s on my YouTube channel. It’s fun when Dave Bautista was in the James Bond movie Spectre. And I went to ask him a question. And I knew that it was being wrapped up, but I want to squeeze in a wrestling question. And he said to the person who was doing the timing in the room, like oh, no, it’s okay, let’s do one more question. It was like, Oh, my gosh, thank you so much, Dave. Like, I appreciate that. So yeah, you do usually know how much time you’re gonna have. And for those celebrity junket interviews, as they call them, you’re usually given four to five minutes. And not only do you know how much time you have, when you’re walking into it, there’s someone that’s standing right by the camera that’s over the shoulder of the celebrity, and they’re giving you time cues. So the interview starts, you do your thing. So there’s a camera over their shoulder and a camera over my shoulder. And you’ll see someone they have cards, and they will hold up a card for two minutes left. They’ll hold up a card for one minute left, and then they’ll start doing the wrap sign, you know, like the waving the finger, the wrap sign. So yes, you walk into it knowing exactly how much time you’re, you’re gonna have. So if it’s a four minute interview, I would usually prepare four to five questions and hope if the conversation goes well that you can get to all of them. But that’s also not to say that if something that you ask springs off into another conversation that you can’t follow it down that path. So that’s just always something you got to keep in mind so it’s an actual, like, true conversation. And how do you deal with a celebrity that’s either unresponsive or disinterested in your time? I think the thing is, you just got to try to build rapport from the second that you walk in the room. And I think that a big mistake that a lot of interviewers make when they’re just getting started, is they think that the interview begins the second that they say, Okay, we’re rolling, or the you know, the second that red light turns on or the second that you hit record on your recorder, the audio recorder. The interview really begins the second that you walk into that room, or the second, that Zoom window pops up if it happens to be a virtual interview. And I think it’s important to set the tone, set the mood, try to build rapport, as much as you can, attempt to find some sort of common ground. My friend Kevin McCarthy, who is blowing up right now on TikTok, give him a follow if you have TikTok, he’s @KevinMcCarthyTV, he’s so good at talking to actors or directors and like, his enthusiasm for film is just off the charts. And I love the way that he will talk to a director about their use of a certain lens. Or they’ll he’ll talk about how much he loved the score and a movie or like, the cinematographer doing something. And I think that that brings the person that he’s talking to, it brings the connection in a different way. So, you know, obviously, you know, the same things are not going to work for different people. But if you could find something, find some sort of way to just win them over a little bit. That’s how I find the conversation will flow that much better. So that’s what I always attempt to do.”

Top three airports?

“Oh, probably should have thought about this before I answered this question. Man, top three airports, I can give you a few of my least favorite airports. And we’ll start with Atlanta. It’s nothing against the city of Atlanta. But everything is so far away there, and very rarely running on time, so Atlanta is a tough one. And like, there’s nothing that’s more frustrating to me than having to take a train to get to another terminal, and that’s Atlanta, that’s also Dallas, where it’s like, you land on one side of the airport and you’re like, Oh, sure, I’ll just walk there and you’re like, Oh, I can’t, I can’t actually walk there. Even if I wanted to walk there, I have to take a train there. So that’s always a frustrating one. Toronto is a favorite airport of mine for obvious reasons. That’s my hometown, that was the airport that I flew out of as a kid and as a teenager and in my 20s and when I go back, like I did this past weekend, I was at the awesome toy show in Mississauga, Ontario and had such a great time there hanging out with everybody at the show and just such a great, so much fun. Can’t wait to go back there for another awesome toy show. But there’s just something cool about especially going back home after being away for a few months. Or in the case of 2020 and 2021. I hadn’t flown back in like a year and a half just because of all the silly travel restrictions that were going on at that time. And there’s something great about going back and seeing the Canadian flag for the first time. It’s just so exciting. So top three airports, I don’t know and I’ll give you my favorite and my least favorite right there.”

WarGames? Elimination Chamber or Hell in a Cell? 

“I think for that, boy I like them all for different reasons and I disliked them all for different reasons. So my favorite there is WarGames just because of how unique the setup is and how many different possibilities there are, so I’m gonna go WarGames. Hell in a Cell, out of those three is actually going to be my least favorite. I guess it’s my, or at least one of my least favorite pay-per-views. I don’t like the fact that there’s a Hell in a Cell match, just because the pay-per-view or Premium Live Event is called Hell in a Cell. Like I like when it serves a purpose. Like when it’s WrestleMania, Finn Balor and Edge, like I love that it’s like, this has gotten so out of hand that a regular match can’t contain this. We’ve got to put it inside Hell in a Cell. So just having a Hell in a Cell pay-per-view, it’s like, hey, let’s throw these two people in Hell in a Cell and see what happens. I’ve never been a fan of that. I like, I like storytelling a lot. So yeah, and I think Elimination Chamber is really interesting. I prefer the old setup of Elimination Chamber, and you know what I’m talking about here.”

“Suga” Rashad Evans (@sugarashadevans) is UFC Hall of Famer and the former UFC Light Heavyweight Champion. He joins Chris Van Vliet at the Blue Wire Studios in Las Vegas to talk about growing up in Niagara Falls, NY, how he got started in MMA, getting an offer to appear on Season 2 of The Ultimate Fighter as a Heavyweight, knocking out Chuck Liddell, beating Forrest Griffin to become the UFC Light Heavyweight Champion, his beef with Rampage Jackson and settling it on the set of the movie “Boss Level”, his function mushroom company called Umbo, does a hilarious impression of Mike Tyson and much more!

On Vegas being special for fighters:

“It brings back a lot of memories. When I first started to come here during The Ultimate Fighter days, it just brings back that whole familiarity. My whole fight career for the most part was born in, you know, Vegas. It’s one of those things that every time I come here, as soon as the plane is about to touch down, I feel the butterflies. But then it’s like, oh wait, I don’t gotta fight. Because it just becomes ingrained in you for so long, but it is home to me. I have my routine here in Vegas, and I love it here in Vegas.”   

On what it is like to walk through the curtain:

“Oh man. It’s one of those things where you are battling yourself, and that’s when you realize that competition is not about your opponent, it is all about you. When you are battling yourself and you are sitting in the room 8 hours before you gotta walk out, it’s like fight purgatory. You are just sitting there and battling yourself, the good one on one side and the bad one on each shoulder. You’re battling your mindset. You’re battling those thoughts of giving in. When you get to that point of I’ve got this and you’re confident, you start making that walk. Every once in a while, you know, you train so that you don’t have to think. Like when you are warming up, you don’t think about what will happen, you’re just in your routine. As you start to walk, every once in a while, the you comes out, and you’re like oh my God, this is about to happen. When you walk out and the lights hit you, it’s like oh sh*t, this is happening right here and right now, I gotta get ready.”      

On the importance of a routine:

“When you have all eyes on you, it is important to have a routine, because the routine can help to eliminate all of the thinking parts. When you are getting ready to fight, you want to eliminate the thinking component of your mindset. You want to just be able to react, and that is what training is about, it is teaching you to just react.”

On original career plans:

“You know what? I was going to be a police officer, that was what I was going to be. I loved the police officer lifestyle. One of my biggest mentors at the time was my karate teacher, and he was a police cop. I just love the whole mindset of what a cop brings, so I wanted to be a cop.”

On the journey ending:

“Once I graduated from Michigan State I tried to become a police officer but they had a hiring freeze. So I started to work in the hospital as a security guard, biding my time. But then I discovered MMA, which started as a hobby and led me to where I am now.” 

On being on The Ultimate Fighter:

“So Dan Severn was being inducted into the UFC Hall of Fame, and at the time the first season of The Ultimate Fighter had just wrapped. They said that they were going to do a second season of The Ultimate Fighter, do you [Dan Severn] have any talent that you think might be good here? He said yeah I might know a guy. So he reaches out to me and said, Rashad, have you heard of the series The Ultimate Fighter. I’m like, yeah I am crazy about it. He then said, Well they are doing another season, and they want to know if I knew anybody. The problem is that it is heavyweight, and you are like 190 lbs, so there is no way you can do this. I was like no Dan, I can do it. I put on all kinds of weight, I put on 20 lbs, but not good weight. It was mashed potato, mac and cheese, that was what I ate until I got to 220 lbs.”

On the fight that put Rashad Evans on the map:

“I would say it has to be the Chuck Liddell fight. I’ve had great fight with Rampage and feuded with Jon Jones, but the fight with Chuck Liddell was the one that made me realize. I had a couple of KO’s until then, but it was still like eh. I was still being doubted, they were like all you are going to do is wrestle hump people. They were tired of it [decisions]. When I laid that punch out, it was like wow this kid has got some punch. Dealing with fear and uncertainty is something that a lot of fighters fear, they fear it all the time. But not a lot of fighters articulate it, not a lot of fighters would speak on it. Back in the day, to admit that you were afraid and had doubt, that was a taboo thing. It was like you were the shield and be like I will smash him up, be the uber tough guy. But inside, you feel scared, you know. George St. Pierre was one of the first ones who started to speak about how he really felt. He’d be like ‘My God my friend, this is crazy. This is my last fight, I’m done! I’m finished!’ The buildup got into his head, but he would battle out and he would win. When I saw him go through that mental preparation, it was like alright, it is alright to feel these feelings. It is important to ot only train your body, but to train your mind too.”

On the head kick against Sean Salmon:

“It did it [knocked out Salmon] and it came out of nowhere. I was training with Mike Winkeljohn, who has a really good eye on what you can capitalize on. I would train again and again and throw that kick all the time. In the first round, he was just taking me down and I couldn’t land any of the kicks, I was getting embarrassed. That fight was on the launch on Spike TV, and we only had a limited time. The UFC was like yo, this card is going longer than we want it to, we need to finish. Here I am being served up a guy, he wasn’t the original guy I was supposed to fight. I’m going out there and losing the first round. I look over and I see Dana [White], and he has this look when he is disappointed in you, it is worse than your parents. I’m like relax, I got this. So the next round I am p*ssed off, this dude is embarrassing me. Then I saw the opening, I threw it, and I hit him. When he went down, I didn’t know if he was out so I hit him again, and he was super out! Then I got nervous like, what did I just do?”

On beef with Rampage Jackson:

“Oh yeah, there was beef with Rampage. It was to the point where it was almost like on site, like whenever I would see him, we were about to fight. It was like that because I don’t like it when someone tries to raise a leg on me, p*ss on me, you know. If felt like every time I tried to interact with him, he would always try to do that. So I’m like, I’m not going to be your whooping boy, so I’m going to try and be more offensive and take him by surprise. It was a combination of that and us both being in the same room. It got to the point where it spilled over. We were training in Vegas and had to coach, so we would see each other in the same places. One night he jumps in my face, the security guys get involved, and I get kicked out of the club!”

Are you both Ok now?

“Yeah, we actually just did a movie together called Boss Level. We both play German twins. When I read the script, I was like this is awesome man, I thought it was excellent. But for me, the caveat was getting to work with Rampage. Up until then we were like ok, but we didn’t get to sit down and talk. When you talk to somebody that you fought, it is amazing how you see things from their narrative. It was good to talk to him and bury the hatchet and know him as a person. We are so alike.”

On Sean “Sugar” O’Malley using the same nickname:

“At first I was like hmm, that’s interesting. But I’m like, it’s flattering. If I couldn’t have carried the name sugar then he wouldn’t have picked sugar if there already wasn’t one who was very flavourly. He bit, but that is the age and the time that we are in right now. I look at it as flattery, and I wish the best for the kid, he has made it his own.” 

Who is Rashad Evans now?

“I am at peace, which is something I couldn’t say during my fighting career, which I can’t say if that’s a good thing or not. Me not being at peace was part of the fuel that allowed me to be such a savage. This is not a civilised game, you are trying to separate a man from consciousness or take a limb home. Not being at peace helped me be successful, but I could have avoided some of the pitfalls.” 

What is Rashad Evans grateful for:

“The ability to be here right now, health and the understanding and relationship I have with God.”

Chris Masters (@chrismasters310) is a professional wrestler known for his time in WWE and also in NWA and IMPACT Wrestling where he works under the name Chris Adonis. He joins Chris Van Vliet in Hollywood, CA to talk about how his upcoming match for the NWA Worlds Heavyweight Championship was manifested in our last interview, what his thoughts are on Tyrus, the difference between Chris Masters and Chris Adonis, the story of how he saved his mom from a burning house, breaking Stevie’s Richards’s nose in his WWE debut match, what working with Shawn Michaels was like and more!

On wanting to face Bobby Lashley at WrestleMania:

“Yes, he did [react to the last interview]. And I just noticed today that Wyatt is out for WrestleMania. So Bobby, he is looking for an opponent and I told Bobby under his Instagram posts that I left that date open for him. So maybe one day, we will get this Hurt Lock, Master Lock match. Believe me, I’m pushing for it. But um, you know, couple loose ends I got to tie up there.”

On if a Bobby Lashley match were to happen:

“I mean, it would be really cool. But it’s one of those things where oh my gosh, it’s just so, it feels so far fetched that it could actually happen. But like, if it did, I mean, just imagine the surprise, it would be like. Let’s just say he didn’t have an opponent, and they didn’t know. Although, you know, I have a feeling they could fill that spot. Obviously they have a big talent roster. But you know, it definitely be a very interesting surprise to out of nowhere have a Hurt Lock vs. Master Lock. But it would kind of hurt to not be able to properly build it either if we weren’t able to do that, because, you know, the build for that thing would be freaking great. You know, Full Nelson versus Full Nelson. And, you know, I have so many ideas just based on the fact that he is still as big as he is, and I’m much different. So I mean, the matchup would just be completely different.”

On Tyrus being the NWA World Heavyweight Champion:

“Well, here’s the thing. What as he calls them, the trolls, what I will give him is this. What the, as he would call them, the trolls, don’t understand is Tyrus does love professional wrestling. He does have a love for [it]. But what he doesn’t understand is the trolls. It’s not they’re not woke, it’s not a right or left thing, it’s a professional wrestling thing. And quite frankly, the wrestling fans are resentful of a guy who comes in to, or back into professional wrestling, as kind of, say, a side hustle. Or, you know, let’s put it this way. If he lost the NWA title, he’d be just fine because he’d be out there hosting Greg Gutfeld, he’d be doing his thing on Fox News. And you know, the wrestling audience, what it comes down to is they want the best wrestler in that position, and they want the best wrestler holding the most prestigious title in professional wrestling. And quite frankly, they don’t think that Tyrus fits the bill.”

Why does Chris Adonis feel like the number one contender?

“Well, I mean, I felt like I was the best wrestler in NWA for a long time now. Every time I’ve gone out there, I feel like I’ve had to go out there and, and prove myself. And, you know, I see a guy like Tyrus, who now you know, sits in his ivory tower back in New York at Fox News, holding the NWA title hostage. And when I see that, all I see is a guy, you know, using the NWA title as a prop for his own personal vanity, and I’m not cool with that. And when I come into Chicago, April 7th, for the NWA 312 Pay Per View, I am going to represent all those trolls representing all the wrestling fans representing all the marks representing all the smart marks. And how ironic is it that formally Chris Masters, the guy who was never an internet darling, will come into Chicago, a wrestling town, if there ever was one, and will represent the wrestling audience against big bad Tyrus?”

On an upcoming NWA World Championship match against Tyrus:

“Yeah. You know, Chris, I mean, quite frankly, we spoke it into existence. A lot of people are wondering what the heck is Chris Adonis, Chris Masters doing back here. But yes, we did speak it into existence. From my perspective, I feel like I’ve been one of the best wrestlers in the game for the last year. And it’s just taken everybody else this long to kind of catch up. So like, I’ve seen this all in my head and it doesn’t surprise me. But it is nice to have hard work pay off. And you know, based on our last interview that I’ve put everything into professional wrestling and being the best professional wrestler, and to see it pay dividends in the form of a world title match with Tyrus on pay-per-view, is pretty cool.”

On the prestige of the NWA World Heavyweight Championship:

“I do every day, Harley Race, Nature Boy Ric Flair, just to name a couple. But those are two of the most influential guys in my professional wrestling career. Nature Boy, Ric Flair, obviously being one of the goats in Harley Race. Being a guy who kind of took me in right outside of WWE. I don’t actually get to talk about that very much. But the first time I got released, Harley Race really took me under his wing for a good 6 to 12 months. I met his then wife BJ, and they really taught me the game from the independent aspect. And they let me stay at their house and like, it was just, it was an incredible experience. So when you bring up the NWA title, those are the first two that come to mind of many.”

On Chris Adonis being different to Chris Masters:

“He’s just so much [different]. It’s just night and day. Chris Masters started out focused, but I mean, just completely lost his way and, you know, didn’t prioritise what he needed to and didn’t focus solely on professional wrestling, his ultimate love, which it’s always been. And now Chris Adonis is a guy who is a polished performer, a great in-ring worker, a guy that understands psychology, one of the best sellers in the business, not to completely break the third wall. But I mean, honestly, these are the things I stand by when it comes to me. So like, he’s different physically, he’s different mentally, he’s different spiritually, he’s different emotionally.”

On saving his mother’s life:

“Okay, so I’m at Gold’s Gym, which we both worked out at, just not too long ago. And what happened, I received a phone call from my mom’s neighbour saying that something was going on at her apartment. She didn’t know what was something funny was up. So then I go to call my mom. And anytime I call my mom, I get a voicemail without fail, like, you know, it’ll ring but then it’ll go to voicemail. This particular time, it just kept ringing, which doesn’t sound like much, but for me was a big red flag. Why is the answering machine? It always goes off. So I immediately hopped in my truck, and I went from Venice to West LA, it’s only about 10 minutes. Thank God, I was in town, by the way, and I get there and it’s an odd scene, I get there, and my uncle who was staying with my mom at the time is locked out. That’s all I see is him at the door. So I get out of the truck. And I don’t know what’s going on. I’m like, What is going on? And I get to the door. And you know, I’m trying, I don’t even know what my uncle told me. But I start trying to make communication through the door. And somebody starts speaking to me, it’s a voice I don’t recognise and they are just speaking. Like I’m asking about my mom, and this person is like talking crazy. They’re like, she’s my mom too now. And, you know, we’re gonna go, I don’t even know he said something like, we’re gonna go to heaven together. Like it was, yeah, it was out. But here’s the thing, so I realized within, it didn’t take long for me to realize oh, this guy’s tripping on something. Like he’s either tripping on meth or crack like this is not what comes out of a straight even a crazy person’s mouth. It just sounded too bizarre. So I had found out also to another twist this whole thing that the cops were actually there and had left so like, I don’t know where the confusion was like they didn’t obviously, didn’t know she was locked in the house. But somehow they come by and did not read the situation and left. Okay, so I’m in so I’m trying to figure out what to do. And I’m looking at the door. And I’m thinking about kicking it down, obviously, because there’s a madman in the house with my mom. [Chris – The house isn’t on fire yet]. No, no, no fire. No, I don’t even know that. It’s barricaded. [You’re just trying to get in]. Yeah. And he’s not letting me in. And so like, you know, your first instinct is like f*ck, this guy’s you know, I’m sure doesn’t matter. And I’m gonna kick the door down. Thank God I didn’t. I had the smarts to know that, like, what if I don’t get this door down? What if I can’t get in and then I escalate the situation. So you know, I took a breath. I walked out to the street so he couldn’t hear me and I called the police. And I told them hey, you know, I heard you guys were here. I need you to come back. I don’t know what happened. But my mom was barricaded with a madman. And I’m about to kick the door down and I need some help.”

Did you know this guy?

“Well, it turns out no, I don’t know who it is initially. But it turns out he’s actually staying with one of the other neighbours. But like, this is a guy who’s on the outs. And he’s just, he’s a mess I guess apparently. I don’t know I wasn’t around there at the time, except for right this instance. But so where are we? So I tell the cops and then they come back. The cops are back now. And they form a perimeter and they put me on the perimeter, right? And like, you know, this whole time, man, this whole thing sucks. Like your mom is [inside], and here’s an important detail left out. As I’m communicating with her through or him through the door. I hear my mom yell something about fire. She’s like speaking in code. And I can tell that she’s saying that he’s basically, he’s threatening her to start a fire in there. So I already knew that much. So and that’s why I didn’t also didn’t kick the door down because she had said that and it made me think he’s gonna start a fire and I can’t get the door down then I’m screwed. What do I do? Okay, so anyways, now the cops come, they form a perimeter, I’m on that perimeter. And they start trying to communicate obviously, same thing. And then they start trying to get the door down. And again, this just kind of solidifies my position. They couldn’t get the door down. They get the battering ram. I did, a cop bigger than me with boots on because I had like athletic shoes too. He couldn’t get the dirt on it kicked it three times and they get the battering ram and it takes about three to four tries to get the door down. This is because the door first of all is very sturdy, but it’s also barricaded by a tonne of sh*t. Like just he took whatever he could and put in front of the door and barricaded it. But hold on a second now. So while all this is happening, this is where it gets intense. Okay, they forced me on the perimeter, right? So I’m watching this all happen. And as they’re trying to get this door down in the corner window, I see a fire emanate. And so right at that moment is where everything starts for me. I’m like, Oh, hell no. I sprang into action because I’m just like, I’m on, like I’m, because while all this is happening to once they get the door down, like actually I’m going a little forward like okay, so I see the fire. I come over there, and I grabbed the hose, and I think one of the cops breaks the window and I stick the frickin hose through there. I don’t even know what that was. That was probably the stupidest thing I did out of the whole exchange but like you see a fire and you’re just trying to like, you know, it’s also it’s the house, its possessions you’re trying to like, what can I do to preserve that, in addition to more importantly, save her life. But okay, so now as this is happening, I stick the hose in there for whatever reason, and I come around the corner, they’ve gotten the door down with the battering ram, but like smoke comes burrowing out. So the fire had already been starting for like the little bit of time elapsed between these two, you know what I mean? As far as the story, but and I see all the cops back like they basically they take steps back. And you know, this is my mom. So I’m completely irrational, I’m like thinking in my head, what are they doing? Like she and then you know, like, why are they backing off. And again, we’re talking about smoke burrowing, so they can’t, they have no choice, but it’s my mom. So I’m completely irrational. And that’s when I realized this is the moment. Once the smoke came burrowing out, I realised she might die, and it’s not gonna be from the fire, she’s gonna die from the smoke. And it felt and that was the moment that it all, it was real the whole time, but that was the moment where the adrenaline shot through the roof and I just knew I have to save her right now. And so what I did is I knew exactly where her room was. She had two windows, and one of the windows was blocked by a tree. So I told the cop break these windows break these windows, she’s in this room because again, they can’t enter because the smoke and she breaks one, no sign of her. Now the other window is blocked by a tree. So I freaking grabbed the tree and I bear hug it, and I basically rip it to the ground. Like I like come to the ground with it. She breaks that window. Nothing. Nothing. All of a sudden my mom pops up. But it was like for me, it was like, Oh my God, thank God and I got up, I scooped her out, I brought her about 50 feet from the scene. I made sure she was okay. And then the last bit to the story was the next thing I know, I’m checking on her and I see them wrestling him out in front of the apartment. And I rushed over there and I give like, you know what I can only describe and what most people identify kind of as like almost an RKO punt to his head when there was an opening. So and that was I mean, that’s pretty much the story, you know. And like I’ve and that’s as detailed as I think I can get with I’ve had to tell that story a lot of times, but it’s been a while. And this is also the perfect platform for it. So yeah, that’s what happened, man and this guy. You know, you ended up going to jail for four years. I think he’s out now and I’m pretty sure I’m assuming he was on meth or something like I don’t know. He was really, the behaviour was just so odd.” 

On working with Shawn Michaels:

“By far for me, he was, even to this day still, by far the easiest working experience I’ve ever had. And not to say I wasn’t like nervous working him or anything. But like, there’s something about first of all, when you first of all, it goes without saying he’s the best in-ring guy ever. He’s over, which is also a very important thing to like, have the crowd invested in him. But um, when it’s your favourite wrestler, there’s something like you already know, like you know, you know what I mean? Like, the only thing I remember early on is I was trying to like, as super excited. I was trying to get him to do some of the like, some of the things he did back in his first run. He’s like, whoa, whoa, kid, we got to create the illusion of movement of which, you know, so you rein me in and I kind of understood like, oh, okay, so this is why he does it and this is how we worked things. But like, yeah, it was the easiest, easiest experience in my life and one of the greatest learning lessons because after I gained his trust after like one or two matches, which, by the way, just kind of happened. It was in a, it was during Raw on a break. And I remember I took Shawn and we’re in commercial and I’m going to ram his back into the post, like I got him like a body slam. And I can hear, I’m running full force, and like, this is a second time in the ring, I can hear that fear in his voice. He’s like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. And like really last second, I put my hand in between his back in the post. So he didn’t get any of it, if anything, my hands took all of it. And I always feel like that was one of the moments where he at least he trusted, okay, the kid won’t kill me. And then we worked a live event. And it was our first live event and the match was okay, like it felt okay, but I just remember after he had this confidence, it’s like, whoa, kid, if that’s the worst day you got for me, then we’re gonna be all right. And then from that point on, he just let me call all the matches, which, you know, when you’re 20 year old, I mean, you’re a 20 old kid, calling the matches against your favourite all time wrestler growing up, it was just like, everything was phrased in a question. I couldn’t help it. Yeah, I mean, it’s just like, duck, one baseball slide. I don’t know, chop, chop, you know. So anyways, but like it was amazing.”

Featured image: WrestleZone

Austin Theory (@austin_theory) is a professional wrestler signed to WWE. He joins Chris Van Vliet to talk about his upcoming match at WrestleMania 39 against John Cena for the United States Championship, his dream to become a pro wrestler at age 8, looking up to John Cena, what he learned from working closely with Vince McMahon, what happened when he was just known as “Theory” on WWE TV and how he got his first name back, taking an unforgettable Stunner from Stone Cold Steve Austin at WrestleMania 38, what his diet and workout routine look like, his aspirations to be at the top of the WWE and much more!

The last time we did an interview together was like the start of 2019. And you manifested what’s happening right now you, manifested this match with John Cena.

“Yeah, it’s so funny you bring that up, too, because this is the interview you’re speaking of specifically, that’s the one that’s floating around all over the place right now. Just because of this. Yeah, it was definitely manifested for sure.”

Like, I feel like you weren’t just talking about like, oh yeah, I want to match with Cena because he was the top guy. You want to match with Cena because you feel like you deserve a match with Cena, and I love that about you.

“Yeah. And it’s funny, because all of that is. It’s kind of tying into how I feel now. And that’s feeling inevitable. Because when I really look at the, you know, the timeline of how long I’ve wanted to do this, since I was eight, I said I would be in WWE. And when I did that interview with you, I said I would face John Cena, you know, like I wanted to come after him. That’s the guy I wanted. And here we are at WrestleMania 39 man.”

What made you feel like when you’re eight and you say I want to be in the WWE? A lot of eight year old say that. But what made you feel like it was actually possible for you to do that?

“I think it was just one of those things where I completely, I don’t know if you’ve had an experience where you just completely know you’ve got it. And it just felt that way at eight, like there was no man, but what if I don’t grow up to be tall enough? Or what if I don’t grow up and I’m not strong, or I don’t have this, like it was none of that. I just knew it. And it was like 8, 10, 12, 15, 17, 20, 25, it just never changed, and I’m grateful to be able to have that mindset and stay, you know, in that one lane. Especially, you know, since I was eight, but it was a constant drive to just, you know, make sure that it was going to happen.”

So if that’s what you were manifesting when you were 8, what are you manifesting now at 25 for the next 5, 10, 15 years?

“Man, you know, I gotta really think about this, because I know in 5 to 10 years, this interview will come up, and I will be right again. Honestly, I will say, just really being at the top of the WWE. And people really fully understanding that. Because I get it, right now I’m making my climb to stand at the top of that mountain. But I think once you get to the top of that mountain, it’s about staying there. So I would say on manifesting being at the top of that mountain, and making sure that nobody gets up there with me.”

I love it. So when we did that interview the last time, you hadn’t met John Cena yet at that point, he made a very cryptic Instagram post about you, which was so cool to see. But now you have met John Cena. So what was that first conversation with him like?

“Man, the first conversation came about. And it’s funny because I brought up that photo that he posted on his Instagram. It was at the Performance Center one day, and we were all leaving. And we got told, hey, just everybody stay, we’re gonna have a little meeting before everybody leaves, and out comes John Cena. And he took the time out of his day to come down there and talk to you know, everybody that’s aspiring to be on the main roster. And a lot of us weren’t even on NXT TV then. So this was the very beginning for me. And he told us, you know, I’ll answer any questions you guys have, but if there’s anybody that wants to talk to me, you know, personally, I’ll stay here all day I’ll go in this room in the office, and you guys one by one can come in there. And I remember waiting, like three hours to talk to him. And I just went in there. And I remember the first thing I showed him was the picture of me as a kid, where I couldn’t afford the actual, like, the shirt and the wristband, so I made my own kind of off brand stuff. But I was eight years old, and I showed him the picture. I was like, Man, this is probably crazy. But check it out. He’s like, man, that’s not crazy, that’s awesome. And we got to sit there and I kind of just really just asked, you know, everything I could, you know, because this is the source. This is the man that’s, you know, held it down for well over a decade. And it was just, it was a lot for me to take in though at the time, you know, because he was spitting knowledge. But you know, I’m still, you know, whoa, this is John Cena, you know, so I’m, I’m just trying to take everything in, man. But that moment specifically, I’ll never forget. And I just remember like, leaving that room that day like, whoa, like I’m here, like I met the person that inspired me and motivated me, and now it’s on me to build this journey and to actually make it happen. And I know I can do it, because I’m the inevitable Austin Theory.”

I feel like there’s a new attitude since you grew this beard, like what’s changed since having a beard?

“Man, I guess, just growing up man, just not being a kid anymore. And just really, you know. And it’s funny, too, that you mentioned attitude because the attitude has certainly changed when it comes to, you know, you’re the next John Cena. That’s something that, I used to hear and maybe when you interviewed me, that would have been really cool to hear. But now it’s something that I don’t want. Because when I realized as a kid, every day, I went to the gym and worked on this dream. And every little thing in between that I did to work on this dream, John Cena was never next to me. He was never standing there, inspiring me, it was me, I did it all. And then getting here now, and being away from home, doing all these shows, being away from media, you know, appearances, and I love it all, that’s why I do it all. And I show up with a smile on my face. But it’s me putting in that work, and it’s me putting in that grind. And that’s why everything I do is my own way and my own unique way. And that’s why I want to be the first Austin Theory and not remembered as Oh, that’s the kid that’s the next John Cena. It’s like, no, that’s Austin Theory.”

You did such great work when you were on camera every week with Vince McMahon. And I’m curious to know how much of that fast track you to become a better performer working with Vince, week in week out?

“I will say the first thing that hits me when you say that is really just, you know, the first thing he ever said to me was before I went out and I did my first ever thing on Raw, he goes, you’re confident, so go out there and be confident like I know you are. And I noticed in my situations with him, there wasn’t a lot of time to prepare, because these segments would come together so fast. And you know, you’d have your promos so last second. So it taught me how to just be, you know, in the uncomfortable. So, you know, expect the unexpected. This is really how it was. And I was just in a situation where it’s like, oh, man, I really got to figure out like, what do I want to say? Like, how can I make this really genuine? How do I know what’s really going on here? And in those situations, it just prepared me to be ready for anything last minute, and just be out of that comfort zone. Because honestly, in the WWE, there’s not really a comfort zone. And if you find yourself in one, you’re probably not doing what you should be doing.”

That moment you had at WrestleMania 38 last year. So you’re in the ring, Vince, Stone Cold. And I think that your sell of the Stone Cold Stunner is right up there with the best to ever do it.

“I think it is the best. I don’t think it’s right up there. I think it’s right past [the others].”

The Rock, Scott Hall, they take pretty great Stunners

“I mean, you know, we didn’t say they didn’t. But you know, if we’re, what are we going based off of height here? You know, cuz your boy was a rocket ship.”

What went into that? Because like, there’s a bunch of ways you could take the Stunner. 

“Yeah, so when I was on the independent scene, I would wrestle in Evolve. And sometimes on other shows, if somebody hit me with a Stunner, I remember one time, I just jumped as high as I could, and just with the roar of the crowd, you know, you want to bring that energy. So I remember being really high in the air and landing on my back. And then I’m flipping and I’m on my feet again and then I’m flying into the ropes. And I was like, man, and I knew at WrestleMania, the day of, Austin is there’s there’s the little, you know, golf cart pulling up. And it’s right out front front of the locker room and Stone Cold has his back to me. And I go up to him, and I’m like, Hey, how’s it going? I just want to introduce myself. I’m Austin. And he’s like, very nice to meet you, I’ll be seeing you later, and then that was it. And I was like, what? So that’s how that day went? And then I find out you know, no, I’m gonna get Stunned. And sure enough, and I knew the entire time that that is how I was going to do it. And I didn’t tell anybody because I didn’t want anybody [saying] no, don’t do that. Because that’ll make this look, you know, like this or it’s like, Nah, I’m gonna take my moment and that’s gonna be it.”

That whole gimmick with like taking the selfie in the ring, like you legitimately did take some pretty great photos and I’m wondering if there’s one that you’re most proud of?

“Man, there’s so many I think one of the funniest ones was when Brock Lesnar put the cowboy hat on my head in the corner, you know, trying to downgrade me and I just took a selfie with it on you know, I thought that was a great one. A funny quick story about those selfies though, is, I guess the phone that I was using is tied to like the company tablet, which I guess like certain people have the tablet and Wade Barrett it specifically has the tablet. So at NXT every Tuesday after all, even from the live events he would see every selfie that I took, he can see them all. Yeah, so it’s cool but I mean, in some matches man I probably took 30, like it would be a lot of photos. Like I was just clicking away man you know you want to try to get that perfect one and you’re sweating and you just you know beat somebody up it’s a lot of work.”

The thing is you’re just looking for one right, you just need one good one.

“That’s all you need, man. Just one”

I love that you’re wearing the hat right now representing when you first heard A Town Down when you first heard your theme song What did you think?

“Well, the song was actually my idea. I had the idea of some like ring, like you know everybody knows once you hear, ‘You think you know me’ everybody’s pulled in. When you hear the glass break when you hear, you know, ‘If you smell what The Rock is cooking’ sounds like what can I use? And you know having Atlanta and being you know from Atlanta and going to a wrestling school in Atlanta and starting Austin Theory there. You know Usher says it best in the Yeah song with Lil John, peace up, a town down. And that was it. I was like, yeah, that’s perfect. So I was looking for something that could really engage the audience. So A Town Down, get everybody, and then here comes the song. But it was cool. I got to specifically go through. And if you listen to the lyrics, a lot of them are what I’m trying to do and what I’m trying to say I am, you know. Like going straight to the top, you know, all day this, all day that, that’s it, that’s true. So I had a lot of input on the song for sure.”

This ride you’ve been on is so amazing to watch, especially from like the outside looking in for me, like I knew you before you were signed, who do you think’s helped you the most during this journey?

“Man, I always like to say AR Fox. I like to start with him just because, and people that don’t know who that is, that’s somebody that you know, he’s an independent wrestler as well. But that’s the guy that trained me from the beginning and really took me under his wing and and you know, sped up the process for me and I was doing you know, shows in front of nobody to doing really good shows like with Evolve and WrestleMania weekend independent shows, and then getting noticed by the WWE. But he’s definitely somebody I owe a lot to just because of the the time he put into me and you know, the limits he was willing to break to go that extra mile for me.”

I’m so happy that as we sit here right now, you’re back to being Austin Theory. Like what was the conversation like when you lost your first name? And then you got it back?

“Yeah, so I remember walking into, this is the time you know, Mr. McMahon was head of creative. And I remember the writer bringing my promo and the promo said, you know, don’t call me Austin, it’s just Theory. And I was like, what, like, the names gone? And, you know, I was wondering why. And I spoke with Mr. McMahon about it, and he felt that, you know, Theory could be a name that stood alone, he felt it had enough power behind it. And also, I think he just wanted to get away from that comparison of Stone Cold because we just did the WrestleMania stuff. So I think maybe out of circumstance, that’s maybe why it happened. But the funny story about Austin Theory coming back, is I just got a text one day, or like that just pretty much said, like your Austin Theory. And then I show up to the show and the, you know, the matches are on the wall, and there was my full name again. And I’m like, I guess I’m Austin Theory again, you know, so I thought it was kind of funny. Like, that’s how I find out, you know what I mean? But, uh, I never, I never felt like, I guess like negative about it. Because Theory just meant the most to me, because I’ll always have my first name, people are always going to know me as Austin. But Theory was just that name I came up with as a kid. And even as a kid I was searching for, you know, besides it being a cool name that I came up with, and nobody had it like how can I give it meaning. For the longest [time], Theory was supposed to mean, you know, a Theory is unproven. But to me when you’re unproven, that means you’re not proven so you can always get better. If you’re somebody that’s proven, that’s it for you. So me being a Theory always being able to change to adapt to evolve. That’s what it’s all about. And I still feel like to this day, it still works for that.”

One of my favorite stories of spending time with you is after that show, we all went out to eat. We were having chicken wings, fries, whatever. You demolish it, and then you’re like, Dude, I got to see the dessert menu. And I’m like, but you get to look like that by eating dessert? And you got the biggest piece of chocolate cake and you destroyed it.

“Man, it’s so funny. You bring up chocolate cake, because that’s still my thing, brother. That’s still my thing.”

So is that the secret to look like Austin Theory? All we got to do is eat chocolate cake?

“You know what? To all my haters, absolutely.” 

What does the workout split look like right now?

“So it’s, it’s kind of the same as it’s always been one thing that I have changed maybe in the last few years is the legs have changed. I don’t do legs together anymore, I like to do quads separate from hamstrings. So I have an extra leg day now, but uh, the routine is pretty much the same. I’ll go two days of upper body parts that I train, and then I’ll go a day of lower body and then two days of upper, and it’s just simple stuff like chest day back day, then quad day, then arm day, shoulder day, then hamstring day, and then it’s just the rotation just keeps going.”

And then a whole chocolate cake day?

“Every day, probably six times a day for all my haters, make sure you write that part down.”

I’m gonna write that down for you.

“Just write it on the wall behind you. Just real big.”

You talk about being inevitable. I feel like when you won the Money in the Bank, it was inevitable you were going to become WWE Champion. Why was the decision to cash-in for the US title?

“Well, I think you know, I was in a situation where every time I did try to cash in, yeah, it wasn’t even The Bloodline that was stopping me. You know, and that’s already its own, you know, fence to try to get around that [Tyson Fury stopped you]. That’s what I’m saying, Man, how ridiculous you know. And, and even that same night, you got to, you know, like, Tyson Fury did that, and then that’s when we seen the debut of Solo [Sikoa]. So it’s one of those things where I was like, man, what can I do? Because I’m kind of stuck. I know that, you know, we’re gonna be around to the next Money in the Bank coming up. So what can I do? And I looked at Seth Rollins, the guy that had the United States Championship, and I realised like that championship is the championship of Monday Night Raw, it is. And it’s on its way of, of getting to the top. So how can I make that much better? I decided to cash-in. And once again, because that’s just how my life went when I was Mister Money in the Bank, Bobby Lashley ruins my moment, and I had enough. I had enough. And I did what I needed to do. And the vision I had for the United States Championship, I am seeing it clear as day now. I’m making it happen. Nobody’s stopping me. And if John Cena thinks he is he’s out of his damn mind, because after WrestleMania 39 I’m gonna go to my show Monday Night Raw, and John Cena is gonna go back to his little set, put on a skirt, put on his heels and go about his day.”

What did you think about him saying if you win, you lose. If you lose, you lose.

“Yeah, I get it. I get it. Because he wants everybody to believe that I don’t have it, that I am screwed. But that is a man that says that because he knows when he looks in my eyes, he knows that I have everything, I do. And he has a legacy, he has so much, everybody knows John Cena, he’s the top of the top. But I think when he looks at me, and he sees that I’m 25, and he sees that the level that I’m on, and the things that I’m doing and the growth that I’m going at, it can’t be touched. It really can’t be, so you have to look me in my eyes and tell me that if I beat you that I lose everything. But we all know that’s wrong John, because why? Why? If it means nothing, why does he even want to have this match? He wants to have this match because I’m the most important thing in the WWE. I am, and it’s clear as day. And there’s a lot of people that want to sit there and you know, they want to go like this and go no, like I don’t I don’t want it to I don’t want to but then they’re gonna have to go okay, Theory is the guy. They’re gonna have to, it’s just where we are man. So him saying me winning me [losing] is going to mean I lose everything. Okay. I can’t wait to lose everything when I show up on Monday Night Raw, my show holding my title because that’s the inevitable. And all those people that he says don’t believe in me, I could care less. Guess how many people believed in me when I was 8 when I told him I wanted to be a WWE superstar? Guess how many people laughed at me when I was 12 sitting at the table in school when I told them I wanted to be a WWE superstar. I don’t need people to believe in me, that’s a proven fact that I don’t. And I’ve always shown that and if I believe that, I don’t think at 25 I would be where I am today. So it is what it is, WrestleMania 39, it’s my night, it’s my show. And I’m going to own that and I’m going to show that and that is all day that is the inevitable.”

So after this match with Cena you look at the entire WWE roster, who’s someone there that you want to work with but haven’t had a chance to work with yet?

“Roman Reigns. The Big Dog, The Tribal Chief, whatever you want to call him. That’s it. And you know, maybe Cody Rhodes puts down The Tribal Chief, that’s something that I’m very interested in. Because when I’ve been asked about that match, that is, I’m a little caught up there, because I don’t know man, I have, something tells me Cody might have it man. I think with enough fire and his dad being brought into this, that is his wheelhouse. That’s what the American Nightmare’s you know, named after Dusty Rhodes. And I think Roman Reigns bringing that in and saying, hey, you know, your dad taught me and he never talked about you, and he didn’t teach you anything. Man, that’s got to really take you know, a man to a deep place when that’s his route, his fire, his why.”

That’s two Atlanta guys too, you know, so make sense. What do you think is the best piece of advice in this journey that you’ve been given, and then you’ve taken and ran with it?

“You know, something that kind of pops up that, uh, it’s like the one thing that Mr. McMahon said to me before I ever did anything on Monday Night Raw, and it was the thing about, you know, I know you’re confident, so go out there and be confident. And I think that’s something that always sticks in my mind, because it’s like, remember that, remember how confident that kid was the eight, that was eight and really didn’t have anything, you know, and didn’t, you know, have a connection to WWE, didn’t know how he was going to get there, was skinny was small, didn’t look like a WWE Superstar, didn’t look like I had the genetics. And it’s just that confidence that I had of just knowing and manifesting that. And I think that’s something to this day, every time I go out there, remember that confidence. Remember that. Because that confidence has that, you know, those years of work built in. All the times you went to the gym, all the parties you missed, all the opportunities of you know, just I guess having fun you missed but really just being on that grind and making this happen at 25 and going to the biggest show there is, the grandest stage WrestleMania 39, against the guy that you idolised, and that’s John Cena. It’s confidence. And that’s, that’s it, you know, go out there with the confidence that you know you have.”

Looking forward to seeing it, Austin Theory, John Cena, WrestleMania 39 for the United States Championship before we wrap this up, gratitude is a big part of my life. So I end every conversation with this, what are three things in your life, Austin, that you’re grateful for right now?

“Man, I’d have to say, the position I’m in just with my work. My body being being healthy and being able to do what I can do. And definitely my family, being able to inspire them, especially my little brothers seeing me what I do, getting little text messages from them after something I did on TV, that means the world to me and just knowing that I’ve created that picture for them. If that confidence isn’t there for them right now, it has to be, you know, because I’m showing them their own brother they hang around and joke around with is doing it every single week and the world is talking about him.”

Featured image: USA Network

The Undertaker (@undertaker) is a legendary professional wrestler and a member of the WWE Hall Of Fame. He joins Chris Van Vliet to talk about his 1 deadMAN SHOW at The Cosmopolitan in Las Vegas on March 24. He also talks about lifting the curtain on his character after an incredible 30-year WWE career, Brock Lesnar breaking The Streak at WrestleMania 30 and the decision to lose to Roman Reigns at WrestleMania 33, other wrestlers trying to get him to break character, the biggest lesson he learned from his friendship with Vince McMahon, whether or not he believes that kayfabe is dead, three things he is grateful for and more!

You know, we’ve gotten to know you so well since your retirement especially with The 1 deadMAN SHOW. I’m curious, as we’re getting to know you more, are you also getting to know yourself more?

“I’m becoming more comfortable sharing myself, I can say that. I’m in touch with who I am and all that, but it has been a challenge to lower the curtain and lower the veil and let people see behind the hat and coat. I still find myself at times, I’ll get immersed into a story, and I’ll be halfway through the story, and then I go, Hmm, how much of this do I want to [tell]? Because I still, I fight, I fight it. I’m an old school guy, and I don’t think that’ll ever change regardless of you know, how we progress and how we evolve. I just, there’s certain things that I struggle with, and that old school mentality of protect this and protect that I think will always be with me. But it’s all, you know, I’m coming to grips with all of it.”

When you talk about being an old school guy, you know, letting us kind of peek behind the curtain a little bit. Do you feel like is kayfabe dead?

“I think, yeah, I think kayfabe died for sure when I came out and started talking as Mark Callaway. I shouldn’t say that, no, you know what, because there are a few guys that are out there that are, they’re living their gimmick, and doing a really, really good job at that. And I think, obviously, we go out of our way now to let everybody know what sports entertainment is. But I think, and we did that even while I was working, right. But the way I approach things and even with my character and my over the top gimmick as, you know, as The Undertaker, especially the last probably 10-15 years of my career. I really, the way I set my matches up and I tried to, I always tried to suspend that sense of reality. I didn’t want people thinking, like, I wanted people, when I threw a punch, I wanted people to go ooh, that’s different. Or the things that I did to make sense, even like before I do old school, which is a stretch for somebody to grab someone’s arm and to be able to walk [the top rope]. But so I would take the time to work that arm over and it hit that shoulder with the shoulder tackles and the shoulder tackles and this and that. I tried to have things make sense, and I always tried to get people invested and to forget everything else that we’ve told them about what sports entertainment and wrestling is, and try and let them immerse themselves into what’s going on. And that’s the way I approach things, and I think there’s some of that that is still applicable if you make the effort to do so. I think enlarge there’s just this okay, everybody, everybody’s in on it, and, you know, this is the way it is. But I think, I think there is room for kayfabe still. I just, I know everything’s evolving, and people have different perspectives on it, but that’s mine. And I’ll be the first to admit, I’m a dinosaur.”

You look great, though. Come on! 

“Well, I’m a dinosaur, but I’m a T Rex. So, you know, take that for what it’s worth.”

Your relationship with Vince McMahon is well documented what you guys both mean to each other. But I’m really curious, what’s the biggest lesson that you’ve taken away from your friendship with Vince?

“Um, there’s several. You know, and I mentioned it last year in my speech at the Hall of Fame, perception is reality. And, you know, I think sometimes he may have forgotten that, but I never did. And so that went a long way. Perception is reality and how I dealt with people through my career. I always, I didn’t want anybody to ever think that, you know, that I swerved them or that I had to go behind their back or do anything. What they saw is what they got, and I think that was probably a large factor in people always considering me the locker room leader. Everybody knew my relationship with Vince and Bruce and all of those, Pat Patterson, everybody knew my relationship there. But those same guys that I was on the road with, that I was hanging out with and partying with, you know, they knew what happened there was safe, and there was never going to be any crossover. Don’t let what we’re doing at night get in the way of business. I mean, that was a, that was a really strong rule with me. I don’t care what we do, don’t be late, and work hard. That was, that was the only thing that I [told people], don’t get in trouble, don’t make us late, don’t embarrass us, don’t be late to work and work hard. And I think that was why I garnered, I guess the respect because people trust me. And they knew that the two never the two never cross, I was going to do what was best for business, and that’s something that I learned from Vince. With Vince, regardless of what anybody thinks, deep in his heart he’s one of the boys, he really is. And he has that mentality. Things had to change, obviously, whatever, things changed, when the business, when the company went public, there were a lot of changes that had to happen, changes for the better. Everything’s, you know, we’ve evolved into a whole I mean, it is a, I think, I think WWE is in a lot of [ways], a lot more now is regarded in the same way as as other major sports franchises, you know, NBA or the NFL, we’re on that, if we’re not on that level, we’re really close, and the company is run that way. It is not that circus, you know, carny kind of thing anymore. It is a big, huge business, as everybody knows. And that’s the way it’s treated. The product has evolved, and it’s evolved for the better.”

I know everyone wants to talk to you about the streak and I was there at WrestleMania 30 when it ended. 

“What happened? I don’t remember.” 

We don’t need to talk about that! I want to ask you about WrestleMania 33. And what went into the plans of the loss to Roman Reigns, because I don’t feel like that is given nearly as much attention.

“Yeah, so I was extremely beat up. And, you know, I had toyed with the idea of hanging it up. I knew it that year when I got to the Rumble, I wasn’t going to be ready, I wasn’t gonna be ready for Mania, but I’d already committed to the programme. Didn’t know that, didn’t know what we were going to do yet, I just knew that I was going to work with Roman, and we got there that day, and I was like man, I knew I was in bad shape. And my hip, my right hip, which I had surgery right after that, to have it, a Birmingham hip resurface done after that. You know, it was just the right thing to do. Not knowing if I was going to be able to come back again, and work anymore. So there I was, he was on the, you know, he was coming up, and he was going to be the face of the company, and it was the right thing to do. And I didn’t, you know, I’d already [lost], the streak had already been beat, so it was the right thing to do business wise, because I didn’t, like I said, I didn’t know that I was going to come back again. I mean that all that hat, the hat on the coat, all that being placed in the ring was 100% legitimate. At the end of it, I was done, and that was my way of saying goodbye. And yeah, it wasn’t, it wasn’t a plan or staged thing. And then I get my hip fixed, I get a call, and they want me to work with Cena. I’m like oh crap, man. So I trained, I know I’ve given you more than you asked for, but it was like, Okay, this is my chance for redemption. Because I was so just, if you watched The Last Ride, you know how disappointed I was in my performance, and that I put myself in that situation because I just couldn’t physically get to where I needed to be for Roman, and how important that was. And just as hard as I tried, I mean I trained like a like an animal, but I mean my hip just, it just, it held me back and I’m not making excuses, but that’s that’s the extent of it. So now I’ve got a new hip, and I’m like oh man, and it’s Cena and I was like, oh crap. So Vince called me and said what do you think? And I was like I don’t know, I don’t, I haven’t really, I’ve rehabbed my hip and I’m working out again, but I had no plans of getting back in the ring. And so I said, give me, give me a few weeks. So I get a ring shipped down here to Texas, and I rent a place and I build this, I put the ring in this building, and I start training and lo and behold, I can move again. So, probably the hardest that I’ve ever trained, not ever I trained, but the hardest I’ve been able to train in probably 10 years. And I was ready, man. I was, my cardio, I trained for like a 45 minute [match].” 

But that match was so short though.

“Yeah, I didn’t know it was gonna be short till I got there that day. So I’ve trained for a 45 minute war, right, and all right, here’s redemption. I’m gonna, man, I am going to light this place on fire, I felt good. And Vince calls me into his office and he goes okay, he says it’s just gonna be about five minutes, you know, you’re gonna squash him. I’m like, what? What? And, you know, Vince, he just thought that was the funniest [thing], because he knew how hard I’d been training. I mean, he, and I’m like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. I said, I’m going. I said, I’m doing 30 or I’m not going out. And he’s like, Mark, that’s not what we need. And I’m like no Vince, I was like, Where’s John? Where’s he at? So John comes in he goes, Oh no. He goes I talked mad smack about you dude. Yeah, you need to beat me quick and get this over with. I’m like are you kidding me? It’s like we’ve never worked on pay-per-view are you [serious]? And this is WrestleMania, give me a break here. And they both, they ganged up on me. I was finally, I threw my hands up. I was like, I can’t believe [it], and Vince just thought that was the funniest thing because like I said, I trained like an animal, I was so unbearable at home. I mean, as far as my diet and the training and just all my protocols of you know recoup, rehab, I was a nightmare. I get there and yeah, five minutes. And it was like that was it.”

When you did finally say goodbye to WWE, and you hung it up and you had the farewell at Survivor Series 2020. Is there a part of you that wished you were doing that in front of a sold out arena?

“It’s funny. Yeah, I can, you know, I can see where you’re coming with that, but I, I didn’t [want to]. Even though I knew I was done, and it was over, like I didn’t want to, I didn’t want to cry, I didn’t want to break down, you know, I was like I was still trying to protect that character. And I was like man if I, if I’m out here in front of a live audience, like, I mean you saw how hard of a time I had at that at the Hall of Fame, and I you know, that’s another year or two later, I would have been a wreck man. Because I didn’t, I didn’t want to retire. In my mind, in my heart, there’s nothing more that I want to do than get in the ring and perform. You know, it was my body that just said no, you’re done dude, we got everything out of this we can get, and it’s time for you to move aside and let these guys come up. So I would have been a wreck if there had been people there and, you know, all that all that kayfabing I did and protecting, the character would have been destroyed in one, in one promo, I would have been balling.”

So Triple H tells this great story about how everyone’s trying to always get The Undertaker to break and that the genesis of the People’s Elbow was The Rock creating this ridiculous move to try to get you to break. Do you remember that?

“I do. You know what, I always thought that was the hokiest ever, but iconic, right? And always to get me to laugh. There was such a time period there where, I think that was the company’s goal was to see who could get me to break. I mean, it was nonstop. We spent an hour and a half one night after a TV event in Seattle trying to get me to the Spinaroonie. Booker T swerved me, we’ve been doing this same match after TV tapings that was our advertised dark match. We’ve been doing it for weeks, and, you know every night I’d get on there and say let’s have Booker do a Spinaroonie, everybody go crazy. Well, Booker gets the microphone one night and completely swerved me, which was all set up. Vince was in on it, everybody was in on it. You know? He tells his sold out crowd and Seattle that he wants to see a Takeroonie, and I was like you son of a bitch, I was p*ssed. And here they come, one after another, just I mean everybody on the roster, everybody, Rock comes down, Triple H comes down, Big Show’s down, everybody’s down and doing these absolutely awful Spinaroonies. and I remember, I remember seeing my spot to leave because the ring is full of people now, right? And the crowd is going nuts trying to get me, everybody’s chanting Takeroonie and all this. And I finally saw my spot and I jumped out of the ring and I headed back to the back. And I looked over my shoulder and here comes Big Show, Vince had sent Big Show to come get me right and he came through that curtain. I said, I said you may kill me and eat me, but I’m gonna punch you in the face if you touch me. Vince, never forgive me. Because I always told him, I don’t care who you are, what you do, you’ll never get me to do that. And you don’t tell Vince that you can’t or won’t do something, because it becomes his passion in life. But I can honestly say he never got me to do a Takeroonie. So, I won. That’s the one battle I won with Vince.”

As we wrap this up, you’re one of the greatest of all time, but you’re also so humble. Well, for a second, don’t be humble. And I want to ask you, what do you think it was that made you have the success that you had in WWE?

“I think it was, the one thing that kind of really put the fire under me was being told by WCW that I would never draw money. I mean, to this day that motivates me, you know, being told to my face that hey you’re a great athlete, you’re never gonna make money. And, you know, so that and then just the passion that I had for this, and then I knew, right, really early on what I was doing with the character. I mean, that was such a gift, that character. I mean, it hit me. I mean, it just hit me right between the eyes. I knew when I got it I was like, wow, this is special, this is really special. And then it just, it just became part of me and I lived it. And I think the dedication to always being that guy everywhere I went, every time somebody saw me, it was that guy. And, you know, it, there was probably to, you know, probably to a fault, my personal life, everything kind of took a backseat to being The Undertaker, which is probably not fair, I mean, to my older kids, and I’ve made amends with them. But you know, I’ve heard different guys, I’ve heard Austin talk about this, you can’t be, or we couldn’t figure it out, a lot of guys do it now. But back then we just, we grinded everything and everything that we were as human beings were poured into our characters, and I just, it was the most, probably the most important, you know, outside of my kids, it was the most important thing in my life was to be Undertaker, and for that to be genuine, and for people just to like, even if they didn’t understand or they didn’t know, or there’s like, there’s something different about that guy. It wasn’t a character for a long time. It was just, I think that guy’s really like that. Not whether I was a zombie or whether I was dead. They, I mean, obviously they knew that I was a live human being. But they genuinely believed, I think, that I thought I was The Undertaker. And I think that came off, you know, I think that’s the way that I was perceived, like, this dude is just different and different from what everybody else was doing. So I don’t know, I think it was just like the dedication to the craft and the character that and nothing else came before that.”

That’s such a great answer. And you’re so good at telling stories. And we’re all looking forward to seeing you. Friday, March 24, the 1 deadMAN SHOW at the Cosmopolitan in Vegas. And I have just one final question for you. Because I’m all about gratitude is such an important part of my life. And I wake up every day, I say out loud three things I’m grateful for and I do it before I go to bed too. So what are three things in your life that you’re grateful for right now?

“I’m grateful for, I’m very grateful for my wife and my kids. And I’m grateful for the people that I realised that I don’t get to where I’m at, or do I have the career that I had, one without the people who paid their hard earned money to come and see me perform, and two, the people that I performed with, because you don’t you don’t get to the heights that you’re that I got to. There you go, that’s me not being humble. You don’t get to that level without a lot of people staring at the lights for you, and putting their gimmicks and everything else aside to make mine what it was, and that’s something that you know, I probably don’t say it enough because I didn’t do this by myself, and you can’t, no one does. There has to be a lot of people involved to help get guys over and to stay over. So yeah, my family, my fans, and my co-workers.”

Featured image: WWE

Ben Reinberg (@therealbenreinberg) is an entrepreneur, real estate mogul and podcaster. He started building his commercial real estate empire at 24 years old with nothing but shoe leather and a lot of hustle. Today he owns over $500 million dollars in assets across the country and shares his wealth building, commercial real estate investing, self-improvement and leadership insights and knowledge with his audience around the world. He joins Chris Van Vliet to talk about what “Owning it” means to him, how he built his business from the ground up, the lessons he wished he knew when he was starting out, what he has learned from his podcast, the important of fitness, his morning routine and much more!

What does “Owning it” mean to Ben Reinberg?

“Well, I’ve been in commercial real estate for under 30 years as a principal, which means to your audience, I am an owner, like a landlord, not a broker. And I’ve owned commercial real estate, pretty good [for] over half of my life. And when we were creating the show, we said what really creates success in our industry in business? And it was really looking at your inner self and being responsible for everything in your life and your actions. And it was something that I had to learn at a young age. And as I aged, I’m now 53 years old, I spent the last five years working on myself. And I realised for a long time I didn’t own it, I wasn’t responsible, I couldn’t keep my word at times, and I looked at myself and I didn’t like the version of myself. So I transformed myself, and the meaning behind the show is owning it, owning every aspect of your life. Now through our life, Chris, we don’t own everything. We’re not responsible. We don’t have the knowledge. And as you get older and you develop you really start realising what it means to own it. And so when I bring guests on my show, like yourself, it’s people that own it. It’s people that are responsible for lives, they make their decisions, they own their decisions, and they own their behaviour. And it’s such a key aspect in your personal and business life that I found, I said well, we want to create content and knowledge to help people so they can own it too. So it’s not about commercial real estate, my podcast, it’s about, really, it’s bringing on celebrities, it’s bringing on icons and commercial real estate, it’s bringing on ultra ultra high net worth people that are in my circles, and we bring them on and we talk about success to significance. It’s about them owning their entire world. And so these people come on, and I’m just so grateful, because I learned tremendously from my guests, and I take great notes, and they provide me a lot of knowledge. And it really has taught me a lot having a podcast. So the people you meet can share a tremendous amount of knowledge with you. And when I seek the truth, and when, when I meet people, I see how they contribute to my life. And so what I want to do is I’m on a mission to help people and give back in my industry. And so the I Own It podcast is just the genesis of where I’m going for the rest of my career.”

On becoming a better version of himself:

“As you get older, you evolve and you learn and you gain more knowledge, you interact with different people. But by the way, as you’re going through your life process, people are dumping things into your brain and your thoughts, and that’s what ends up happening. And you have a couple of paths in life you want to go, you could stay the same or you can continue to grow. And I always felt for years, I want to grow. I want to become the best version of Ben Reinberg that I can. Why? Well, it impacts my family, impacts my personal life, impacts my interaction with you, impacts my employees. When I show up as the best version of myself, I create a lot of value for others, and it fulfils me. It’s something that I love to do. And so I took a step back and I realised that I could become a better version of myself. I could become a better listener. I could love people more. I’m in a ruthless cutthroat business and commercial real estate. And it Jade you when I started this when I was 23 years old, you know People are beating on Yeah, you know, we’re in a no business. No, no, no, no, yes, you got the deal. Or you get a loan or hey, Chris, you want to invest in our fund? No, you go through a lot of no’s and a lot of failure being in commercial real estate, you have to have thick skin. Well, as you go through this for a period of time, it changes you, it creates things in your mind that aren’t really reality. So you start taking a step back and start breaking things down and taking care of your limited beliefs. And you start looking at yourself and say, who is really Ben Reinberg. And I started looking at myself and five years ago, I looked at myself in the mirror, and I didn’t like what I was looking at. I said, I don’t really like, well, I need to learn how to love myself, so I can love other people. And that’s what started I’ve hired great mentors, I’ve spent, I’m not going to tell you the money that I’ve spent on incredible mentors, I have some of the best top minds in the world that I work with. And so I’ve learned to work on myself every day, Chris. I meditate every day, I do a sun salutation I do it morning and night. Before I came on the show, I meditated, because I want to make sure I was in the best state to make sure I can be on point and provide the best knowledge and content I can for you. And that’s how I carry my life. I work at a high integrity level, and personal development and being able to control my mind and emotions are critical to how I show up in life, because I want to show up as the best version. And that’s what personal development, that was the journey I went on five years ago. And I’m extremely grateful for all the people who have helped me, because now I’m in an incredible place in my life. And by doing personal development and becoming the best version of yourself, it attracts money, it attracts opportunities, it brings new relationships into your life, it allows you to provide a lot of value, you learn and you grow faster. And all these things have culminated into just a fulfilling life for me, that has really showed me. People always ask me like, what happened if you knew about this 20 years ago, and really did it, I would be an incredible version of myself. So just happy and grateful for where I’m at, and I owe my gratitude to a lot of people that believed in me and help support me.”

On how to find the time for everything:

“Well, I’ll tell you, I’ll tell you my morning routine. You’ll think I’m crazy. I’m a huge health nut and I love to work out. And so I wake up at about 4:45 in the morning, every morning, and I meditate for 36 minutes. [why 36 minutes?] That’s just what I was ingrained in my head through all my mentors. I don’t [question it] I’m just surrendering. I don’t question it, okay, all right, I’m not the expert, I’m just listening, right. So then I do a 36 minute sun salutation that he walked me through, then I get ready. And I drive and I train with a trainer five days a week. And I get in there, and I warm up, and I’m 53 years old, so I got a warm up, I always encourage people to do like eight to 10 minutes of just walking on a treadmill or do the gauntlet, the stairs and get your body warm. I stretch. I’m very into stretching now, as I’ve aged to keep me loose, because I don’t want to get injured. And I’ve worked out with some of the best trainers in the world, I found a great trainer here in California and I really have a good vibe with, because that’s important, you got to really connect with your trainer. And we go at it and he trains me like I’m in my 20s. And we go at it, and there’s nothing better. I mean, when you can wake up and challenge yourself and really go through a grinding workout, you’re ready for the day. So that’s my routine. And so I realized that where I struggle is if I don’t get to work out and do my routine in the morning, like it agitates me a little bit because I’m like, I’m not living in that world that I’m normally used to. So I enjoy it. And then that’s part of my routine. So we do different body parts, we challenge each other. When I get to fly back to Chicago, see my headquarters there. I have one of the best workout facilities in the world in the north suburbs called BPC, and I work out with my boy Josh Ellis. And I was working out with him for years before I moved to California. And I just bring it every day. I just bring it, I changed my mindset, I focus, and it’s a routine for me. And that’s the way I do it. Because I figured in my business to grow this business to where I’ve been, and the success I’ve had. I need to work on my health and fitness, I needed to understand what it takes to get through a day. When you’re in commercial real estate, you do a tremendous amount of travelling in your career, and it wears on you. And if you’re not in good health or good shape, you’re just you’re doing a detriment to yourself. So I do that for working out and then I eat healthy. I’m big into intermittent fasting. I’ve been doing that a while I do change it up a little bit. One of the doctor’s good friends said you should change it up a little bit so I changed it up a little bit. But generally speaking, I intermittent fast ate a tremendous amount of fish and chicken. I’m a Chicago kid, so I do eat my steak once in a while, and I’m a huge foodie. And I collect wine too, so once in a while, I’ll have a glass of wine. I love wine, I love learning about it, but I don’t really drink alcohol anymore. I mean, when you’re out to dinner with me, Chris, you’ll see I don’t really drink, and I drink sparkling water. And I do that because again, it goes back to how do I show up in life? How do I become the best version of myself? How do I connect with people on a deeper level? And I realise if I’m drinking, or I’m not my authentic self, I’m not doing myself justice, and I’m really not helping the other person that I’m interacting with.” 

How to start tomorrow:

“I think the first thing is you write down your insecurities. Look at yourself, and you say where am I insecure? Where am I struggling? Do I have trouble showing up in a room and might be having challenges networking? Am I having challenges listening? When I was younger, I had to learn how to listen. But I would listen, but I really wouldn’t understand because I wasn’t seeking the truth and what someone was telling me. So what I would suggest to a young person that is just getting started is write down your insecurities and look at yourself and become a good listener. And find a mentor that has whatever industry you’re in, or whatever you want to accomplish in life, whatever your mission is. And you look at yourself, you say well, who do I know, that’s high in the learning curve that can help me get there, that’s already had tremendous amount of success. And by talking to those folks, they’ll help you figure out where your deficiencies are and how to get better. Because we’ve all been there, when you’re a successful businessman or woman or an entrepreneur, a lot of us go through these experiences, we go through ups and downs, we go through challenges, it’s a good way to start to pick someone’s brain. And that’s what I always encourage is hire a mentor that’s been there, done that, shorten that learning curve. When I was younger Chris, I didn’t know that. Like, you know, it was all this green ledger paper and stamps and envelopes and cheques, and it wasn’t the internet. So there wasn’t the knowledge and the content that you have. Now, what’s beautiful about being a young person, I could, and I look at my kids, and I’m jealous is they can go on and go on Google and Instagram and all these different technology platforms and social media platforms, and really gain knowledge on items and topics that I didn’t have an opportunity when I was a kid. And so using the internet and Instagram and following people and see what they do, you can hire or go to a mastermind and put yourself in a room to really learn how to empower yourself to become a better version. So I always encourage, if I’m a young man or woman out there and you’re listening to this show or you’re watching it, just look at yourself, write down where you struggle, write down what you want to achieve. And on the internet alone, you can go and ask people as well, and on the internet alone, you will figure out who you need to connect with. And once you connect with that person, hold on to him and learn and listen and be open minded, not judgmental, and have the opinion saying I’m here to learn and grow. And when you can open that filter in that mind, you will grow. And that would be my suggestion. That’s what I would have told my younger self when I was younger is work on yourself. I just didn’t know.”

What is a skill that Ben Reinberg wishes he worked on more:

“When I was younger what I realised, especially today I look back, working on my communication skills, and listening. I’ve been writing a newsletter for almost 20 years now. It’s called a blog. And it was a labour of love for a long time. And when I was younger, communicating better with a lot, something that someone would have taught me how to read body language, how to interact with people, that would help me tremendously in my career. Over time, in small increments, I’m now an outstanding communicator. But I realised that when I was younger, that would have been a huge win, to really learn and double down on communication skills.”

On the power of social media:

“I realized that how you make it in social media is being your authentic self, being vulnerable. And I think a lot of people have, you know, a lot of people build this house of cards, like, you know, I gotta show someone, the McLaren, or I gotta show someone that I do this, or where I have this stream of women hanging around me. I think people pull up this house of cards, and I don’t know if that’s the best value to provide. So I found that the way for me to go about social media is I’m going to provide value. And if you like me, great. If you don’t, that’s okay, too. You might not like what I’m shooting out there or my staff is, but I’m going to do it consistently and we’re going to provide value and knowledge and see if it helps you. And if I could touch one person, or impact one person through social media, then I’m doing my job, that’s how I look at it. But I look at it that it’s, you know, it’s a lot of it’s a lot of content out there, and it’s a lot of moving parts. And if you’re going to follow someone, follow someone that’s authentic, follow someone that cares, maybe has some empathy, willing to share and give back. And I see a lot of these, I see a lot of the people on your show, that’s what they do and how they live their lives, and that’s their social media, and those are the people I like to follow. So I think you got different sides of the coin when it comes to social media. That’s how I approach it.”

What is Ben Reinberg grateful for?

“My family, the people who have supported me, my health, being on your show and everyone that is around me. I could go on and on.”

Featured image: Commercial Search

Santino Marella (@milanmiracle) is a professional wrestler known for his time in WWE and is currently signed to IMPACT Wrestling where he serves as the Director of Authority. He joins Chris Van Vliet at the Blue Wire Studios in Las Vegas to talk about his legendary WWE career, making his WWE debut at 31 years old, some of his most memorable moments like becoming Miss WrestleMania as Santina Marella, almost winning the Royal Rumble, setting the record for the fastest Royal Rumble elimination, how he came up with The Cobra finishing move, nearly beating Daniel Bryan at Elimination Chamber to win the WWE Championship, his daughter Bianca Carelli who wrestles in NXT as Arianna Grace, a possible dream match with Orange Cassidy and much more!

On shifting from serious to comedy wrestling:

“The shift happened, so the WWE Universe, as you probably know, they do not like to be force fed anything. And all of a sudden, this guy comes out of the audience. And, you know, he beats Chris Masters and, you know, Shelton Benjamin, he sneaks a victory, and it’s like, if he’s not fully trained, he’s beating the roster kind of doesn’t make sense. And, you know, there is a pay-per-view in the summer and Umaga was like, killing me in Houston. The audience was like one more time, and like the audience wasn’t taking to the initial babyface Santino that was kind of like, just thrust in you know, into them. So they said okay, we’re gonna have to turn him heel, and if that doesn’t work, you know, see you later repackage. And immediately upon turning heel, Vince found it very funny, because once I did my first heel promo, I did guest commentary next week, another promo, another promo, another promo and another pre-tape, because I actually separated my shoulder, this one. So it was an opportunity to get to speak on the mic. And, you know, people that were in Gorilla are like, dude, Vince is cracking up when you’re out there. He loves the character as a heel. So, if you can pop Vince you got a job, right? That’s, that’s the idea. So Vince was a fan and from what I hear, and you know, and there was actually no competition for a long time in terms of the comedic, the comic relief character. R-Truth a little bit at the time, he’s kind of doing now but at the time, there was really no no one was like, like Hornswoggle a little bit, but I was on Raw. So for a long time. I just kept quiet and didn’t draw attention to it, but there was no competition.”

Who was Santino Marella’s favorite person to break:

“Oh, that’s a good question. Probably John Cena. When it comes from John Chainer. It’s funny because people come up to me like signings or conventions, and they’re like, you know, we can’t call him John Cena for like, the last 15 years. We call him John Chainer. And like, it’s changed the way a lot of people speak to, but it was just so sudden, like the pop was just kind of like, just caught himself, but it actually became a goal of mine to try and pop everybody.”

On going all in on the pitches:

“Yeah, my philosophy was always if you’re given lemons, you make lemonade. And if this is going to be the character, then you know, I’m going to be the funniest guy I can be and you have to be very giving, you can’t take it too [seriously]. Santino got beaten up a lot in the beginning. And you can’t take it personally, you know, it’s a show, it’s not real competition. And, you know, I was known for being very giving in matches in general. Yeah, and that was really, the base of it was just swing for the fences every single time, whatever you’re given. I was appreciative from day one. When I first got there, there seemed to be a little bit of a locker room culture of people being dissatisfied, you know, like, you know, what, what’s the point? They chose that guy, and you know, whatever. I’m gonna do jobs. And, and I’m like, this is the WWE, I love being here, you know, and this is amazing. I was 33 years old when I debuted, and I was green. And I’m five foot 10. Like, I’m already defying the odds just being here. So I was appreciative from day one. And I was super grateful my entire career. And I had people at the end of my career come up to me and say, you know, you’ve always such a pleasure to work with, thank you. You never had a problem doing anything with anybody. And you made it really easy, and you make it fun. And as we’re having an awesome time, look, this is our job, this is amazing. You know, so I was very conscious of that the whole time.”

On WrestleMania 25:

“Is that the Santina one? Yeah, no, I’m bad with the years and the numbers. It’s oddly enough, that was my biggest WrestleMania moment actually. I was the captain of Team Teddy, I had a match with Kofi against Big Show and Kane, so I had some matches. But that was like, the most highlighted, spotlighted moment in Wrestlemania. [What was the lead up to that?] So the lead up was the storyline with Beth Phoenix in my life where I was just trying to, I was battling to be the alpha in the relationship. So the relationship dynamics was what we were going after. And you know, I was insecure, and I’m trying to show that men are better athletes. So I’m going to dress up as a woman and enter the Women’s Battle Royale. And the whole idea was just for the storyline with Beth and I, and it was supposed to be a one off. But it was so funny that it ended up lasting for months and months. I had to get fake lashes every day and all that stuff. I had to go shopping in Houston at a mall for like the gear that day.”

On the fastest ever Royal Rumble elimination:

“I know how to beat the record. I’m the only one that knows how to do it. Well, no one’s done it yet. But that’s a perfect example of when you’re given lemons, you make lemonade. You know, when they were going, we were going through the Rumble and Dean Malenko was like, Yeah, you’re coming out getting eliminated pretty fast. I said, you know, can we try and break the record? He’s like, let me get back to you. [The record was] Like two seconds? I think it was Warlord. And he [Malenko] came back to me and said, By the way, you’re good on trying to break the record. So Kane had a huge part in that he had to be there at that moment, right. I’ve slid under, stood up and I’m gone. I’m going. And he was there. I mean, he was there. Like it was perfect.”

On being Santino Marella in IMPACT Wrestling:

“Yeah, so the big thing, I guess in 2021, somebody did not renew the trademark. And as a habit. When IMPACT gets guys that were former WWE guys, they look up the trademarks, you know, they have to come up with a name for me. Well, what can they call me? St. Tino? Or you know, something? [Santino’s real name is Anthony] Anthony? No, nobody wants to see Anthony. I found out you know, nobody really wants to see Anthony they’ve in fact disappointed when they see Anthony. But it [Santino] was available, IMPACT grabbed it. And it’s great news, you know. I was gonna have a great time anyway. But the fact that I can be Santino Marella and be the genuine article, and not a knockoff, it was just the icing on the cake.”

On the origin of The Cobra:

“I was in Japan. So for most of 2004 I was living in Japan. And after the shows there, we all go to the bar restaurant every day. There was a gentleman named Carl, who was friends with my coach, Mr. Ishikawa. And he’s just sitting at the table and just showed me this thing where he transforms his arm and his little kind of wooden puppet type thing. And I remember looking at Mr. Ishikawa like, I don’t get it. What is that? He goes it was a funny thing he does, you know. So he made me try it. The next time I saw him say, do you remember how to do it, you know, and that was it. Like that was it? That was the little funny thing between us. I’m guessing about five years later, I believe it was Atlanta. And I was wrestling either Chavo or Carlito I think it was Chavo. I go I am I try something during my comeback. So it’s like you know jab and clothesline or whatever punch and then next I stop and this transformation in my arm and I hit them they turned away into a schoolboy. And without seeing it on TV, the audience immediately laughed. So Cena, I always stand beside Cena, you know. So he came back, I came back through the curtain. He’s like, I would keep that if I were you, that was funny. And so I was doing it only on live events. And then one day I go to TV and Ricky Steamboat was my producer, and he’s like, I was wrestling Zack Ryder, he goes you know, you’re going over with the Cobra. Vince wants to see the Cobra. Vince knows about the Cobra? He goes yeah, he reads the reports and I go okay, so then yeah, I did The Cobra. The Cobra was crazy, like in three weeks. Really quickly, I would gesture for it. I would see in my peripheral vision like entire arena, like jumping up. I’m like really? Ok, they like it. I mean, I didn’t find it that spectacular, but they loved it. So and then I think they did it for like a year without the sleeve, and then we introduced the sleeve.”

On the WWE debut:

“Someone was talking about it yesterday, there was, people believed it, people really believed it. I can, I watched the footage, I can break it down to the moment where I got them. It’s when Vince says, you know, you and I’m like, you talking to me kind of thing. [Not] the guy [behind me] But I think I even point to the guy beside me like him. And they’re like, no, no, you and the confusion I had with like, is for real me? That was the moment people like, this guy’s really coming out of the audience. And so now, okay, that’s like 15 years ago, 16 years ago, in then April. So there’s kids that were 10 years old that are now 26 years old. And they’re telling me, you know, like, they thought it was real for years and years and years and years.” 

On learning Italian:

“So Dusty came down to kind of see Cody and talk to the class. And he said, if anybody ever calls you and says can you do something? The answer is yes, of course. And then you better learn how to do it. And like a month later, they call me and they say, can you speak Italian? I’m like, yes. And then after I said a few lines, because I used to work downtown Toronto in rush hour traffic. I had a cassette in my car that will just play and like flip over and play in rush hour traffic. I listen to this tourist Italian tape, and so I said a few lines from the tape. Like ‘Voglio comprare mezzo chilo di formaggio.’ I want to buy a half kilo of cheese. It’s something you would say at a market.”

From learning Italian to the WWE debut:

“And I could see them sitting at a boardroom table with a speaker and they’re all like, sounded good to me. And they go okay, you’re gonna fly out tomorrow. You might debut on Monday. So they sent me my passport. Like that day I flew out. Well, first I went to Borders, And I bought the eight CDs for Italian. I downloaded them to my iPod, and the entire flight. I’m just drinking espresso, was trying to learn Italian the way there. And that was it. Yeah, then like so I got there Sunday morning. And then I had a day in Milan by myself and then maybe the next day. And then like, I come home and it’s like pack your bags, you’re on the road. And so it was zero on the road, and then I was on the road for like a year straight.”

On Santino Marella’s Italian accent:

“Well, it’s funny, my high school, like almost my entire high school, all the parents were from another country. So it was a Catholic school. So Maltese, Polish, Portuguese, Italian, Croatian, and so all our parents had these funny accents. You know, they all spoke English, but they had accents. So I have like tonnes of material just from my friend’s parents. And that was kind of a lot of my friends even call me out on it like, because my neighbour Simon Maganivan, is where I got Sonnamagun from. And he’s literally my next door neighbour. And it caught on but yeah, I have a plethora of material to choose from.”

On moving to northern Canada:

“COVID had a lot to do with it. You know, we just kind of got a little just fed up and we just wanted to change and, you know, it was in our plan to do that. But it just got sped up and man, I’m still in the honeymoon stage. It’s been over two years and I wake up and look out my backyard. And I’m like, I can’t believe we live here. It’s amazing. [We have] Deer every night, we put corn out for them. You back on to 500 acres of environmentally protected land. We have a couple of acres and we’re like a minute walk from the beach. And that’s fine like you know like we go to the farm to get our growing vegetables in the summer and stuff. It’s honestly, it’s incredible.” 

What is Santino Marella grateful for?

“My children, my health and my lifestyle.”

Featured image: WWE