Steve Austin (@steveaustinBSR) is a professional wrestler and WWE Hall of Famer. He sits down with Chris Van Vliet at Broken Skull Ranch in Nevada to discuss his legendary wrestling career, iconic theme song, how beer became a part of his celebration, why he came out of retirement to wrestle Kevin Owens at WrestleMania 38, a possible in-ring comeback, why he and Bret Hart had great chemistry, a dream match with CM Punk, who took the worst Stunner of all time, his cats Pancho and Macho, and more!

On his cats Pancho and Macho:

“The cats are out in the horse barn. Solid ass cats. They’re out roaming around. Macho is prowling by the pond. He’s a hunter, and Pancho pretty much stays by the horse barn. He has really befriended one of my wife’s horses, and so he’ll jump on her back, and they’ll hang out together and nuzzle each other. The solid ass cats are alive and well.”

What makes a cat a solid ass cat?

“I don’t know. I just came up with that. It’s turned into a thing. People love to see those cats on Instagram. So, you know, I was out there shoveling horse sh*t, I think it was two years ago, around Christmas, and I just addressed the camera on my iPhone. I said, ‘Hey, man, this is Steve and Pancho, wishing everybody Merry Christmas.’ I didn’t expect anything of it, and just in subsequent posts, not trying to make it a thing. It turned into a thing. So it is what it is.”

On the rumour that he no longer drinks beer:

“Yes, I still drink beer, but it’s kind of like the old timers used to come up to you in the dressing room when you first started breaking into business, ‘Kid, you got to pick your spots, you don’t have to take all those bumps.’ So, yeah, these days you don’t need all those hangovers. You pick your spots. Friday night is kind of like I still eat, and watch what I eat pretty strictly. So Friday is usually my beer night when I’ll have a couple IPAs, and that’s when I pick my spot.”

What’s the most beer you drank in one night?

“It was over in Japan, and I’ve talked about this before, because the Dudleys were there, and Stacy Keibler was there, and there’s a whole bunch of people that were in the ring. So I just started tossing out beers, but I think we went over 100 and this isn’t an Andre story that, but I believe there was 100 beers involved in that. Now, did they all get drank into Completion? No, it was spilled everywhere and thrown here, there and wherever. But I think that was about the biggest one ever, over in Japan. I used to like to get Goldberg in the ring and toss him beers on a few occasions that we did that, because Bill don’t drink. He’ll drink a beer ot two, but he doesn’t really drink. And so I’d keep force-feeding him beers, because if you’re in the ring with Stone Cold, you got to drink the beer. And I’d try to get him as hammered as I could before I left the ring. It’s kind of an ongoing rib between me and Bill. I still keep up with him.”

How did beer become part of the celebrations?

“I don’t know. Someone else asked me that a while back, and Sandman was way before me. So always give Sandman credit, and then we evolved it somehow, some way, in a fashion that I don’t think was copying Sandman, and I think he bashed them over his head. But always throw respect to Sandman, and because I wasn’t trying to rip him off, but we weren’t even thinking that when we started doing it. I don’t even know how it came to be, if it was something where I took a can from somebody in the audience, and then it turned into a thing or what, as we were talking on the phone before you came here, I told you, I said, Man, there’s a lot of my career that I remember, but there are certain pieces that I don’t remember, and I can’t remember exactly how that got started, so that that would be one of those occasions.”

You look like you could still go:

“I could. God dang it. And just saying that takes me back to when we did that WrestleMania match with Kevin Owens in Dallas, Texas, and they didn’t send a ring down for me to work out in to get any kind of timing or hit the ropes. I remember going down there, and I was running the ropes and taking a couple of flat back bumps before we got into the ring, but you can’t get your timing or any kind of anything back, much less your wind. I was over here in my gym doing all kinds of cardio, because when that glass breaks, or whoever’s music hits, and you start walking to the ring, man, just the buzz of the crowd. I’ve seen people blow up walking to the ring, because that’s just what a crowd can do to you. So just going there with Kevin Owens and trying to have that match with him, where we didn’t bill it as a match, but it was going to be a match, so to speak. I remember telling Kevin, and I was knocking the sh*t out of him. I was potatoing him so bad because I hadn’t thrown a punch in 19 years, and he never threw a receipt. I told him, because we keep in touch with each other every now and then. I just wish that he could have been in the ring with me when I was really going, you know, full speed and had my timing, because he’s a great worker, and I really like him a lot. I wish he would have got a chance to experience me when I was in my prime, because that would have been a great contest. But I could still do it, and I’m not advocating for nothing, so I’m not selling a match here, Chris. But you asked me, could I? Yes.” 

Would you?

“Probably not. I’ll say that, but you say never. But with the knee replacement I had last year? God dang, I was limping around so bad, and I didn’t know I was limping, and people would ask me, ‘What’s wrong?’ I said, ‘What are you talking about?’ [They said] ‘You’re limping.’ F*ck, I didn’t know, because I don’t watch myself walk. And then finally, after everybody kept pointing it out to me, I could feel it, no doubt that’s why I was limping. And then it just started getting really bad because of all the arthritis in there. And finally, last year, I had it replaced. I was thinking why didn’t I do this sooner to get out of so much pain? And I’ve always wondered what arthritis felt like. Man, I found out firsthand. And it’s an it’s chronically over time, years and years and years of it. It’ll change your personality. It just puts you in a state of mind where you just want some relief, so to get that relief and come out on the other side and still be active.” 

Why was Kevin Owens the right opponent?

“It was in Dallas, Texas. Vince flew down here, and we had a conversation, and I thought about it for a minute. I love Kevin Owens, and I think, from a safety standpoint, they picked Kevin. And when they threw out just a couple of names, Kevin was the guy.”

Was it because Kevin Owens was doing the stunner?

“No, they just hand-picked Kevin because they know how good he is, and he cuts a good promo. I remember meeting Kevin 100 years ago in the airport, him and Sami Zayn, it’s a well-known story. But anyway, I gave him some advice about learning how to promo and talk instead of taking all those bumps. And you know, he’s turned it up. Kevin Owens will end up in the Hall of Fame. So, I mean, why not pick Kevin Owens for Stone Cold Steve Austin’s opponent?”

How did it feel getting back in the ring?

“Well, it was interesting, because there were different people that were making comments about that. Triple H says, ‘You never know what you got until you get in there.’ He was right. Hulk Hogan, God rest his soul, says, ‘You’re not calloused up because you haven’t been on the road, you haven’t been taking bumps in the ring.’ He was right. Undertaker says, ‘There’s no way that you can have timing because you haven’t been in the ring over and over every single night.’ And he was right. So on that night, walking to the ring, I remember I couldn’t hear the crowd like I wanted to, just because of the acoustics of that building. And, man, I’m just real in tune with how the crowd responds to anything particularly as anybody would, your entrance, we blew the roof off the place. So anyway, we go into the match, and it was fine. I blew up because I hadn’t had any reps in the ring. But when I look back at that, I rushed through so many things, I wish I would have slowed down more and savored a little bit more and just entertained the crowd a little bit more. And it was what it was, we got away with it because it was anticipated. It was billed as my last match, because Dallas is where I started and Dallas is where I would finish. So for all the right reasons, it was there to have that match, and we pulled it off. But God dang, I could have been better prepared, and I would have loved to have been better that night for Kevin Owens.”

On the incident the night before WrestleMania 19:

“It was just a thing where I was running hard and dehydrated and drank a lot of caffeine. I remember my legs were kind of shaking at the gym that day, and it was just kind of a precursor for what was to come. I was working out with Kevin Nash, and we were sitting there doing cardio and talking on the recumbent bikes. Then when I got into the hotel, I think was at Grand Hyatt, and I was up on one of the top floors, 27, 28 and goddamn, my heart just started beating out of my chest. It was like about 180 beats a minute. That sounds crazy, but that’s what it was. Then the doors opened, and I’ve told this story many times, and there’s a lady that worked in the office. Her name was Liz, real nice lady, and God damn, I looked at Liz. I said, ‘Liz, I’m in trouble.’ My room was right there. Went in my room, and she called 911, and a couple of ambulances came and all that stuff, and they told me about the hospital. But they had to kayfabe me to the hospital because, you know, I was in the main event. So anyway we get there, they do a bunch of tests on me, check me out and everything, and thought I had a pulmonary embolism and stuff like that. Turns out, man I was just running ragged. And so anyway, doctor never really cleared me. I’ve said this before, and went to the ring the next day and put over the Rock and took care of business. I think the match is okay, but that was just a product of running too hard, too fast.”

On his theme song:

“I remember when I was down in WCW, I had a pretty decent little entrance song. It was pretty rocking for as cocky as Stunning Steve was. Then when I came into WWE, as I was using the Million Dollar Dream as my finish, and I was a Million Dollar Champion, they had this dreamy slow music. I’m like, man, what the f*ck? How do you walk to the ring with any kind of swagger to this? I was lost. Finally, they want to redo my music, because I turned into Stone Cold Steve Austin, and I just hit Jim Johnston with, ‘Hey, man, I like Bulls on Parade from Rage Against the Machine.’ So if he listened to it once, twice, or didn’t listen to it, and he came up with what he came up with, and he put the siren in there and the glass breaking, which wasn’t part of that song. So I’ve always given him just the nth amount of credit, because, man, he made winners. And yeah, God dang if that ain’t one of the best entrance songs, or top three, I don’t know what is.”

On why he and Bret Hart had great chemistry:

“Because Bret Hart is the best there is, the best there was, there ever will be. I love working with that guy. We just had instant chemistry. He was a student of the game and a student of other promotions. He had seen what I was doing in WCW as Stunning Steve Austin, and he knew his style and my style would work well together. And it did. Just trash-talking heel that I was, and he was at that steady workaholic working babyface, blue collar, if you will, from Canada, wearing the pink. Just two styles that would work really, really well together, and it did. I’m very thankful to that guy, because he meant a lot to my career. I’ll never forget that one time when he was just coming back from getting his knee cleaned up, and he needed an opponent for Survivor Series in the Garden, and he picked me as he picked me as his opponent. That was a real classic, an understated classic. And if you go back and watch it match, the rings were miked differently back then, so that match sounds different and the crowd is different, and I was not at the level that I would be, but people were into that match, and I had some mixed reactions. Of course, Bret was the babyface, but for some reason, when they ring the bell, Bret and I click in the ring. There’s just mutual respect, and for some reason, with some people, you just have great chemistry. You and I could be best friends, and we could go out there and work, but we might not have the best in-ring chemistry, although we’re best friends. So sometimes that just happens, like with The Rock, great chemistry, with Mankind, great chemistry.”

How did you end up working with Vince McMahon?

“I don’t remember. I just remember he was interviewing me one time. He was talking about whoever was the President at the time. But I said on the interview, I said, everybody knows you’re the boss, Vince. And I think maybe that was when he woke up and said, Hey, let’s do this. I don’t know. He was the mastermind. I don’t know what he’s doing now, but that was a feud that transcended the wrestling business. And even if you didn’t, even if you weren’t a wrestling fan, per se, you were interested in being entertained. So you put on to see what this motherf*cker from South Texas is terrorizing his boss from New York City. Of course, Vince is from North Carolina, but you know, he’s the guy with all the money, and here’s this guy that he’s trying to give a hard time to and make everything hard for him. He’s outsmarting him, and he’s kicking his ass. At some point in anybody’s life, they’d like to punch their boss in the mouth. When it was time for me to get mine in, I did. When it was time for Vince to get that heat back, he did, to keep feathering the storyline. So it was just, you know, master at creating a storyline and feuding with him as long as we did, and really, it never became boring.”

Were you surprised at how far Vince was willing to go in your storylines?

“I’ve always said that Vince will go to any length to further any angle. And obviously, considering himself, he wants to be the leader of the pack and the king of the mountain. So he’ll do anything, sacrificing himself as part of it. I loved it, we were the perfect rivals.”

Did you think Austin 3:16 was controversial at the time?

“I did, yeah. Religious people could consider it as blasphemy. I remember walking through airports, and I would get priests and stuff like that. You could see they were because they were wearing their stuff in the airport, wearing the gimmick, You never wore your gimmick. You don’t wear Austin 3:16 shirts. If anybody wore their T-shirt to the airport, dude, you’re a mark. You can wear the sh*t in the building. But anyway, so I would be signing autographs for preachers and stuff like that and the airports. I said, ‘Man, you ain’t mad about the Austin 3:16?’ [They said] ‘Oh no, Steve, it’s okay. But at the time, could it be construed as [controversial]? Yeah, but certainly it was by some.”

On the “What?” chant still being used today:

“Yeah, a lot of people wish I wouldn’t have done that. But it just turned into something to do, because when I turned heel, not everybody wanted me to turn heel, but I was just set on turning heel, because I’ve always liked working heel so much. [That was your call?] Yeah, and I wish Vince would have shot me down, or I wish I felt it in the ring at night. I should have just said, ‘Hey, man, we’re changing this. Watch the stunner.’ And I should have just stunned his ass and never went down that road. But as a means to an end, I was leaving Christian a voicemail and kept saying, What? What? I just turned it into this thing to berate somebody, to belittle somebody as a heel. So I use that as a mechanism to do that as a means to an end, to try to get heat. And that whole attempt was over-trying just to compensate and gain ground on getting heat. I remember Hunter and myself as a Two Man Power Trip just whacking people with chairs. I mean, you know, trying so hard through violence to get heat, which is not always the best way to get heat, and by laying stuff in. It was an interesting period, the heel thing. If I could go back in time, I would not have done it, because I didn’t need to. I think Jim Ross said it best, nobody ever wanted to hate John Wayne. I wasn’t John Wayne, but I was the anti-hero. I got over by being the way I was. So to turn bad, to try to do worse things, I don’t know, just it didn’t work. It wasn’t successful. We got a chance to push the character in different directions, in different dimensions, but I don’t think we were really ringing up the box office doing that.”

When you broke your neck in 1997, did you think that was it?

“When I got fused up, had a great doctor in San Antonio, and I was starting to kick out a little bit. I had my collar off, and I was riding around on my four-wheeler, and I had a cooler on the back of my four-wheeler. I was out there just drinking beer, riding around, and my phone rang. Just back in day, we had those Star Trek flip phones and those Vince calling me. He just asked me how I was doing. He goes, ‘I was just thinking about what we need to do for your comeback.’ I was kind of almost offended. Man, I almost got paralyzed, and you’re asking me to get ready to come back into the ring. I said, I don’t f*cking think I’m taking any more bumps. That’s what I’m thinking. And I told him, I said, ‘Vince, I don’t think I’m coming back.’ I can imagine him on the other end of the line when I said, I don’t think I’m coming back. Because it kind of scared me. When you get paralyzed, which I was a transient quadriplegic for a length of time, 60 or so seconds, it scares you, and so you don’t want to go back to that place again. I didn’t think I was coming back. And so anyway, we had a few more phone calls. And it’s funny, because when you get into any endeavor that you love or brings you joy, and what I set out to be in my life a professional wrestler. Once you come out of those tender stages of healing, and you start getting solid, and you turn back into the man that you are, a physical person who played football, track, hunted, thrive on physical, manual labor. Once you start getting solid again, you start regaining that confidence and that sense of, hey, there’s things to be done, and I’m not through yet. So, yeah, once I started getting more solid, then it was time to start talking about that, come back and indeed, make a return.” 

But there was some doubt there?

“Oh, definitely doubt. I don’t think that there’s anybody that comes out of a I can’t say that. But yeah, when I came out of surgery, and you’re kind of all f*cked up, and I remember I had my hard collar on, and I was bored, and so because I was just being on the road, and I lived on 120 acres right outside of San Antonio, and just because I wanted to feel like I was still on the road, I would drive to Fredericksburg, which is about 25 miles away, because they had a Sonic. I’d go through the Sonic and I drive back home, I’d feel like I was on the road. I’d get a jalapeno burger and some onion rings or whatever, and that’s what I did to feel like I was on the road. I don’t know if you’ve ever had a hard cervical collar on before, but man, and they’ll tell you this anytime you get your neck fused, sometimes you’re gonna have a hard time swallowing. There was a couple times like when you swallow food, it just gets lodged in your throat. It’ll scare sh*t out of you. So I’d be driving my truck down the country road choking on a jalapeno burger thinking, God damn, am I fixing to die? Wash it down with that vanilla coke that I’m drinking. Yeah, things started getting solid. It was time to get back in the ring.”

Who took the worst stunner?

“Easily Vince is the worst.”

Worse than Linda?

“Well, because there’s multiple occasions with Vince where, Jesus, you can screw one up. Of course, me and Linda, she was like a second mom to me. I didn’t see her often, but when she was there, she was just so nice to me, and we would always have great conversations. So I felt bad that that one didn’t turn out good. But Vince had so many opportunities, and they were always so awful, especially the one at WrestleMania [where I wrestled] Kevin Owens, it was just terrible. So I had to start laughing, because you got to let everybody know that, hey, that’s really bad. Rock took a good one. Scott Hall took a good one. A bunch of people. There’s so many, I can’t list them all.”

How about how Austin Theory sold it at WrestleMania 38?

“Oh, premiere. I don’t know what the kid’s doing now. Is he still in WWE? [He is]. Okay, yeah. Good kid. I mean, I thought, Man, the sky was the limit for him. He took a great one. McAfee took a great one, just the fade back, money. And of course, when he tumbled out a ring, he was still drinking the beer while he’s laying on the mat. F*cking classic. What an entertainer. And he was thinking about it, you know, I knew his ad lib. He wasn’t planning that. It just happened, and it was straight money.”

How close were you to being a part of WrestleMania 40?

“Things just didn’t line up. I had other things going on. I remember when they pitched that to me. I said, dude, I got some things going on. I don’t see myself being there. That was way in advance. Was it pitched to me, or did they want me there? Yeah. But I wasn’t in a position to go.”

So there was never a possibility?

“No, there was a possibility that I could have been there had I chose to go there. I had other sh*t going on. WWE is this multi-billion dollar corporation. I got a metal shop that we’re sitting in. So sometimes the multi-billion dollar company has an idea that the dude that has the metal shop [should make an appearance], it just don’t work. So it didn’t work. I’m over here in my metal shop. I like to do as much as I can with WWE when it works, when it works for them, when it works for me, and when it’s going to be fun. But in that and saying that not everything lines up on a timeline basis, I had other sh*t going on.”

Who is on your Mount Rushmore?

“Man, I won’t build one. Because right now, there are so many people that did so many things for the business, it’s hard to pick four. You can pick four. Anybody can pick four, but my list is greater than four. I’ll say this though, Shawn Michaels is probably one of the best to ever get in a ring, if not the best. If he would be 1A, then 1B would be Eddie Guerrero. I don’t know if those aren’t interchangeable, because Eddie Guerrero was straight money, so good at so many things. I was watching a promo a few months back that he cut on Brock Lesnar, and Brock Lesnar was talking about winning championships. I love Brock, but he was talking about winning championships, and then Eddie flips it over, and he talks about coming back from being addicted and stuff like that. It was about a minute, two-minute piece of business. I think Brock was damn near about to start crying, because Eddie was just laying it on and shoot, how good he was in the ring with the things that he could do, and just the character that he created. Hulk Hogan, just larger than life. Brock Lesnar, Undertaker, Cena with the longevity of his run there. Flair is my favorite wrestler of all time, and he’s the greatest traveling world champion of all time, because no one ever did it at his level. All over the world for a shoot. Harley Race is another one. But Ric Flair for what he’s done for as long as he did it, and just the way that he did it. There’s a lot more, but I won’t build a Mount Rushmore.”

How close were we to getting Stone Cold vs. CM Punk?

“It was teased at one time, we were promoting a video game, and I think I just had an ACL, PCL [surgery]. Maybe it was teased, but it just never happened, just like me and Hogan never [happened]. Many things never happened. There’s so much good sh*t that did happen. Not everything can happen.”

Why didn’t we get Stone Cold vs. Goldberg?

“I don’t know. I think we pitched it when he first came in, but he wasn’t at the level that he needed to be. He had just come into WWF, and he needed to get going or get over first. He was certainly over from his WCW days. I think a little bit of time had elapsed, but I watched him down there in Atlanta, but we were all on the road at the time, and that was during the Monday Night Wars. If you set your DVR to record back in the day, you kind of knew what was going on. I watched Dallas Page kind of go down a parallel path as me too as far as this timeline of getting over. But yeah, you know, Goldberg just needed to put some time in WWF before we could go, and then it just never happened. Bill is a good friend of mine.”

What is Steve Austin grateful for?

“My wife, my health, and the friends I have found along the way.”

Please support our sponsors!
PURE PLANK: The future of core fitness! Use the code CVV to save 10% on Pure Plank designed by Adam Copeland & Christian: https://gopureplank.com/cvv

AMERICAN FINANCING: NMLS 182334, nmlsconsumeraccess.org. APR for rates in the 5s start at 6.196% for well qualified borrowers. Call 866-721-3300 for details about credit costs and terms or visit https://Americanfinancing.net/Chris

SEAT GEEK: Use my code for 10% off your next SeatGeek order*: https://seatgeek.onelink.me/RrnK/CVV2025 Sponsored by SeatGeek. *Restrictions apply. Max $20 discount

NORDVPN: Exclusive deal! https://nordvpn.com/cvv Try it risk-free now with a 30-day money-back guarantee!

Frankie Kazarian (@FrankieKazarian) is a professional wrestler currently signed to TNA and the reigning World Champion. He sits down with Chris Van Vliet at West Coast Creative Studio in Hollywood, CA to discuss the controversial way he won the World Title, why he left AEW to return to TNA, how close he came to signing with WWE and why his first run didn’t lead to more, being a part of the first Ultimate X match, his wife Traci Brooks possibly returning to wrestling, and more!

You became TNA World Champion at 48 years old. Did you think at one point it wouldn’t happen?

“Absolutely. I mean, there was a time early on, like 2007-ish, where I was kind of on the come-up as a singles babyface, getting some good matches, and had a lot of good momentum. But just seeing who was above me on the ladder was like, just don’t think it’s going to happen for me. I will say, at the time, from an in-ring standpoint, I think I was a very good wrestler. I don’t think I had developed my personality and promo skills to what you need to be a World Champion. Then years went by and kind of became a fleeting thought, it’s just not going to ever happen. But I always like to say this, dreams do not have an expiration date. So, 48 years old or 28 years old, doesn’t matter. I got the job done.”

You look better now than you did in your 20s:

“I am. With weight training, nutrition, all of that, diet, it’s trial and error. Just in terms of how if you want to be big, if you want to be lean, if you like all of that, and you figure out eventually what kind of works for you. Like we were discussing earlier, when I broke into the business to get even looked at by WWE, you had to be big, like big. I was always told when I would be scouted by WWE, ‘Just put on some size, put on some size.’ I would put on 10-15 pounds, and I just would look soft and kind of dumpy, and I realized that after a while, after a long while, my frame is only going to support so much, so just look like an athlete. It’s better for me. I move better when I’m leaner, when I’m not carrying extra weight, I have a lot more energy and stamina. So yeah, now it’s just a matter of looking as good as I can possibly look, as lean as I can possibly be, and it’s a constant battle, man. It takes a lot of hard work and dedication, but it’s my lifestyle.”

When do you feel like you flipped the switch on character work?

“Honestly, really, when Chris Daniels and I started teaming in 2012, because I could feed off of him. Him and I were best friends in real life, and his timing and his wit and just everything. It was just incredible. We worked because the way we talked and the way we did promos, everything was just like how we were in the car. So I became very, very confident and very comfortable, especially when I had him out there with me, because we just fed off of each other so well, and he helped me a lot in that aspect. And then, from then on, I really just started to focus more on that.”

People hate how you won this championship:

“Good. You know, it’s show business. Sometimes the Joker beats Batman, sometimes the bad guy wins. What matters to me is that they’re angry, and that tells me that they care, tells me that they’re paying attention.”

You picked your moment perfectly:

“From a character standpoint, why would I not go after a wounded animal when I see one? That’s kind of bad guy 101. We’re still in the storytelling business, and the business has evolved and gotten rather complex, but at the end of the day, it’s still kind of black hat versus white hat. At least that’s the way I approach it.”

So as we are recording, you, AJ Styles and Samoa Joe all hold championships:

“It’s nuts. It’s crazy. It’s cool. I didn’t even really realize that until after the match happened. I went and started looking at my phone and everything. I was like, wow, Joe and AJ have belts. They’re my buds. I still talk to them, but I didn’t realize, Oh, that’s right, AJ is one of the tag champions. And just so it’s cool, man. That’s just heartwarming. That picture in particular, that’s my wedding party right there.” 

And you are all holding championships in 3 companies:

“Part of me wishes we were all together, because that was some of the best years of my life. Like I said, that’s my wedding party. That was our van, that was our hotel room, those four dudes in one room for years. We would have a suite, but still four dudes in that close quarters, you form a pretty unbreakable bond. But it’s cool. Those guys are all so successful. No matter where they are, no matter what they do, they’re gonna succeed just because they’re all so immensely talented.”

What made you return to TNA?

“So I was with AEW before AEW was a thing, essentially. There was the group of us from Ring of Honor, we all, coincidentally enough, had contracts expiring at the end of that year. The Bucks and Cody, Hangman Page, myself, Scorpio Sky, and Christopher Daniels, we had been privy to some information about this guy, Tony Khan, and he’s a huge wrestling fan, his father’s a billionaire. You know how many times I’ve heard that story? ‘This guy has money. He’s gonna start a wrestling company.’ I’m like, Okay, I believe it when I see it. But ended up meeting Tony and he told us, kind of his vision and everything, asked if we were interested, and it’s like, yeah. All of us kind of collectively are like, we’re doing this. And bam, AEW was born, it burst onto the scene and exploded. It kind of changed wrestling for a while, at least. So I was there, 2019.”

You won their first-ever tag team championships?

“First ever there. Yep, me and Scorpio Sky. They switch it up and put us as the team, we had teamed in Ring of Honor as well. So another one of my best, dear friends and guy have amazing chemistry with best, one of my best buds still to this day. Had that first initial tag run, then that stopped, and then kind of just bounced around, did a pretty cool storyline with myself and CD [Christopher Daniels], where he had a match against The Young Bucks, where I put the stipulation out where if we don’t win this match, if we can’t win these titles, we’re done as a tag team and lost that and that story. If anyone hasn’t seen that story, I recommend go back and looking, because it’s really good, some of our best work, and The Young Bucks as well. Then kind of was starting to do my own singles thing, and then just kind of being used as a utility player. For example, when Christian came into the company, who’s another friend and wonderful wrestler, one of the most underrated dudes on Earth, I had his first match because he trusted me and he hadn’t wrestled in seven years. So they put me in there with him, and we had a great match. When Adam Cole comes, [I’m] his first match. So I was kind of the guy, I could have great matches with anybody, but that was it. That was kind of my role. A lot of times I was kind of relegated to sitting on the bench, and I don’t do well like that. I’m not wired like that. I cannot stand complacency. There came a point where I was thinking to myself, in my opinion, the most valuable thing you can give me, or that I can give you, is time, because that’s the one thing we’re all running out of. Money, possessions, all this stuff, fine, whatever. But for you to give me some of your time, I appreciate that. And so I just thought to myself, with the time I have left in pro wrestling, and this was the end of 2022, I needed to give that time to somebody that valued it and appreciated it. I don’t know if I have five years, ten years left, but I know there’s more years behind me than they’re in front of me. But with the time I have left, I want to give that time to somebody that is going to value and appreciate it more so than I felt it was being valued and appreciated at the end of AEW.”

So your contract came to an end?

“No, I just re-signed the year before. I just re-signed for another three years. And then December of 2022, I get a call from a representative in the office, and they’re like, ‘Hey, just wanna let you know we’re gonna roll you over and we’ll just see.’ I go, ‘Whoa, wait about that. I don’t want that to happen.’ They’re kind of taken aback, and had a long conversation. I said, ‘Look, honestly, I would like you if I could just get my release.’ Everything I just explained to you, I explained to the people at AEW. They were, I don’t want to say shocked, because it’s not like I’m such a giant star, but they were like, just taken aback, because nobody had left AEW this point, Cody did. Cody had left a few months before. So it was like, wow. ‘Well, what if we do like a per-show? What if we do this?’ I go, thank you, but I need to bet on myself. I need to just sever ties and go. A little bit of back and forth, and eventually the message came down to go, Okay, well TK respects you as a man and as a wrestler, and if this is what you want, we can do your release. Can you please have it to me in writing by today? Because I hadn’t talked to anybody, WWE, TNA, I just needed out. I needed that safety net pulled away.” 

Why do you think they let you go?

“Obviously, they probably didn’t see anything long-term in me, you know, which was astonishing, because I was like, why would you re-sign me for very good money, for another three years, if they didn’t see anything? I get it, of course, that’s how it is. I could probably still be there today doing what I was doing, but I’m much, much, much happier where I am now.”

How did that lead to TNA?

“Had conversations with TNA. Scott D’Amore was the boss at the time. Had some conversations with WWE. They were very, very gracious, and some really good conversations with them too. But talked to Scott, and previously, the year before I’d gone over there, I did a miniature feud with Chris Sabin. I won the X-Division title from Speedball [Mike Bailey], and I wrestled Josh Alexander, so I had seen what they were kind of like cultivating over there. And was like, Scott, I would love to be a part of this. He said, ‘Well, we’d love to have you. They just happened to have a pay-per-view coming up in two days.’ I was like, I could start at the pay-per-view. And he said, ‘Oh, it’s great. We’ll fly you, won’t tell anybody.’ So we talked some numbers. He sent a contract over, got it signed, and the next day, flew to Atlanta, Center Stage and made my re-debut.”

How close were you to joining WWE?

“There were conversations, but logistically, it probably wasn’t gonna work. I wasn’t a signature away, but there were a lot of really good conversations. A matter of fact, I can say this, when I re-debuted in January of 2023 I just came out and basically promo saying, I was here as a guest last time, but now I’m back for good. I signed a multi-year deal.”

You had a few matches in WWE back in 2005:

“They put five matches on television. They put me on the road immediately, just to let me get a little bit of money and some reps. So I went on the road the first couple weeks and did some more matches, and then went home, and they’re just like, ‘Well, when we have something for you, we’ll call you.’ Because I wasn’t on a developmental deal, was just a deal. And then it was like, I’m not doing indies or anything. So time is going by and going by. I would call them like, ‘Hey, can I do something?’ At one point they said, ‘Well, do you want to move to Atlanta?’ I’m like, No, I don’t want to move to Atlanta. I didn’t sign a developmental deal. But, if you want me to. But it’s no, just hold tight. We’re working on stuff. I got called again, like, why don’t you go to OVW for a week? They sent me and Kid Cash OVW for a week, which is cool. Trained under Ricky Steamboat, one of my heroes, awesome master class. Had a match, look great. Everything’s great still. And then finally, I get a call from one of the writers. He’s like, ‘Okay, we got something for you. We’re gonna start you. We’re gonna call you “The Future” Frankie Kazarian.’ I’m like, it’s brilliant. I’ve been calling myself that for the previous five years, but I’ve been sitting at home for months, and that’s what you came up with? It’s befuddling. But anyways, yeah, you know, the whole premise of even signing me was they’re revamping the cruiserweight division and this and that. And when I got there, I kind of saw the writing on the wall very early on. Look, I was not ready to be there. I was physically ready. I was ready as a pro wrestler, but I didn’t have the business mentality, WWE is a business, and before I got there, it was just my passion, and I was having fun. And, you know, TNA was a business, but there was a lot more freedom. You know, WWE is a very structured environment, and I just was not ready. I was not mature enough, just as a man to be there. Just wasn’t my time.”

Did you think you made it when you signed that WWE contract?

“Yes and no. Well, because it’s funny, I remember, right before I signed, WWE had just put on a mandate. I don’t know if this was a weird Vince thing. It’s like, no more guys under six foot or 200 pounds, you have to be over. I’m like, kind of right, hovering right there. So I’m like, Well, okay, you know. And then I got a call from Tommy Dreamer, my deal with TNA had lapsed, and TNA wasn’t aware of it. And he told me the revamp in the cruiserweight division, and they were hiring Cash and Juventud, Psychosis and all these guys. And I was like, oh, okay, yeah. When those WWE cheques start showing up, it’s pretty surreal. But then when I got there and started working, I was like, why am I not [happy]? This is everything I’ve dreamed of. Why am I not over the moon about this? That took me a long time to figure out why.”

Do you remember how they pitched Ultimate X to you?

“They pulled us aside, us being myself, Chris Sabin and Michael Shane, and said, ‘We have this idea for a match, like a ladder match without ladders.’ So the original concept was chains going in the form of an X, and the belt is going to hang in the center, and it’s just like this new, innovative match. We’re like, okay. So they’re like, we’re going to fly you in a day early so you can see the structure and kind of get used to it, because they had never been done. So we all got flown into Nashville, and we go down The Asylum, the National Fairgrounds, and they’re still figuring out how to even build it. The original concept they had steel poles inside the ring posts. And they nixed the chain idea, and it was just cable. And they finally got it to where, structurally, it looked good. It’s getting late at night now, and they’re like, ‘Alright, who wants to try it?’ I go, ‘I do, I’ll try it.’ I just jump up, grab and start shimmying. I start shimmying, and all four of the posts just go, then all of a sudden, I’m standing on the ground. So now you got a bunch of these engineers, construction guys, scratching their head like crap, and the pay-per-view is the next day. So, you know, uh oh. So they try to do something else. It doesn’t work. Now it’s like, midnight, one o’clock. So it’s like guys, we’ll figure it out. So we get there the next day. Still don’t really have it figured out. Eventually, they did the lighting trusses, the four lighting trusses on the corners and that could support the weight and the cable and all that. But they didn’t have it set up until 10 minutes before doors opened. So we had all these ideas, but had no clue if we could pull them off. We did not get to practice, rehearse, nothing, all that stuff that happened was just in our head.”

So you didn’t get a chance to climb up?

“Nothing. So we went out there on a live pay-per-view, we knew it would support our weight, and that’s all we knew. But we had these ideas, and it’s not a regular match. You have ideas. One guy’s climbing, the other guy power bombs him, or this guy spears him. Thank God I was in there with two guys that were very, very capable wrestlers, and Chris Sabin and Michael Shane. But we somehow pulled it off, man. It’s become an iconic novelty match in TNA, and in wrestling really.”

You were part of that scary moment where Christopher Daniels almost died:

“I did too, yeah. But it was [the wrestler] Suicide, so nobody cared about him.”

So what was it supposed to be?

The original idea was supposed to be, again, we thought, because it was a multi-man, eight or nine guys in, in there. We thought they were going to have the lighting trusses, but they had cables. Because the idea was, if they had the lighting trusses, myself and Chris Daniels were going to fight to the top. Chris was going to eventually hook me for Angel’s Wings, and I was going to backdrop him off. But we didn’t have the truck. He’s insane, by the way. We’ve established that, obviously we couldn’t do that. So we had the idea of, why don’t we go up there and we can both sit on the cables, and where he takes me and he gives me like a flatliner, and we both go straight back. Well, we both didn’t go straight back. We both went straight down. We both landed pretty high on our head and shoulders, but I hit and I immediately didn’t know where he landed. So I’m just like, through the mask, ‘Is CD Okay, CD Okay, is CD okay?’ And they’re like, ‘Are you okay?’ I’m like, ‘I’m fine. Is CD okay?’ Like, he’s fine. He’s moving. He’s good. I’m like, okay, good, and yeah, I got in trouble with the wife on that one. I’m not allowed to do that anymore.”

I feel like what’s happening with TNA now is similar to the magic of its heyday:

“It is. And I always tell the locker room that, I always say that it’s like, especially with this new AMC deal, I was there when we got the news that we’d be on Fox Sports West, whatever it was at 4 pm on Friday, whatever. But that was TV, and it was an hour, but it was TV. We were thrilled. Then hearing that we’re going to Spike network television, massive. Yeah, this is even bigger. There’s so much excitement. Like I said, TNA’s strength has always been its locker room. Just the work ethic of the guys in the locker room, management changes and all that, but that attitude has always been there. And this team, this crew we got there, the management team, everybody on the roster, is just a joy to be around. And again, a united front all wanting the exact same thing.”

How did you come up with Kazarian?

“So that’s a name, my father’s background is very strange. He was adopted, but he knew his real mother, was raised by his real mother and his two aunts, my aunt June and my grandma. I called her my grandma, June and my aunt Buddy, but never knew who his father was. I think they’re weird, old school, Russian, secretive. I think they all knew, but they wouldn’t tell him, because it was back in the day, it was like, ‘Oh, his mother got pregnant very young, and we don’t want to tell who the father is, blah, blah, blah.’ My dad has three different birth certificates, and one of the names that he thought he was was there his father was this guy named Lester Kazarian or something. So I think he had a birth certificate that said Kazarian. I always remember thinking, that’s a cool name. That’s what I’m going to use when I become a wrestler. Because it just has a z in it, and it just sounded cool and unique. I’d never heard it. That’s it. Frankie Kazarian.”

Does your wife Traci Brooks want to make a comeback?

“No, no, she is very, very comfortable being a mother. She spends a lot of time volunteering at my son’s school, and that kind of was always our vision. What we wanted. We wanted her to be home with my son, because I travel so much, and her doing that. I’ve missed so many moments, but we both would miss those moments without her there. The reason our son is the wonderful young man he is is because of his mother being there with him. So 2023 TNA brought her back, put her in the Hall of Fame. We did her last match, a mixed tag match myself and her against Alicia Edwards and Eddie Edwards, and that was real closure for her. She’s like, I didn’t know I needed that, but I did. So she got that, she got the Hall of Fame, and she’s been back to some of our bigger pay-per-views like Slammiversary, and Bound for Glory. She was part of the Hall of Fame ceremony this past year when Mickie James went in. She still loves it. She still follows her friends who are still involved in it. She still knows what’s going on. But, no, she’s very, very satisfied with her career. She did more than she ever thought she could or would. She’s been asked to do things on smaller scales, it just comes to convention stuff and like in terms of being employed. But we are very, very blessed that she can be a mom and she can spend time volunteering, and she can spend time going home to Canada and visiting her family and everything. So, yeah, it’s worked out well.”

What’s your TNA Mount Rushmore?

“I mean, you got to put Jeff Jarrett on there. I think you have to put Jeff Jarrett on there, 100% you have to put Jeff on there. And now this is where it gets dicey, because you can say Yes, Sting, you say Kurt, but those guys also came from somewhere else, but, like, it’s hard to not put Kurt on. There has to be Jeff, Kurt. Of course, you have to put AJ on. Of course, Jeff, Kurt, AJ and probably Samoa Joe or Sting? I would go with Joe, just because Joe made TNA and TNA made Joe. Sting was already a massive global star, and I’m not discounting what Sting did for our company.”

What is Frankie Kazarian grateful for?

“Friends and family, the male mentors in my life, and the longevity I’ve had in my pro wrestling career.”

Please support our sponsors!

PURE PLANK: The future of core fitness! Use the code CVV to save 10% on Pure Plank designed by Adam Copeland & Christian: https://gopureplank.com/?ref=tibcloux

AMERICAN FINANCING: NMLS 182334, nmlsconsumeraccess.org. APR for rates in the 5s start at 6.196% for well qualified borrowers. Call 866-721-3300 for details about credit costs and terms or visit https://Americanfinancing.net/Chris

SEAT GEEK: Use my code for 10% off your next SeatGeek order*: https://seatgeek.onelink.me/RrnK/CVV2025 Sponsored by SeatGeek. *Restrictions apply. Max $20 discount

NORDVPN: Exclusive deal! https://nordvpn.com/cvv Try it risk-free now with a 30-day money-back guarantee!

Shayna Baszler (@QoSBaszler) is a professional wrestler and MMA fighter best known for her time in WWE. She sits down with Chris Van Vliet at West Coast Creative Studio in Hollywood, CA to discuss her WWE release and still doing some work for the company as a coach, if a return as a wrestler is still possible, her dominant main roster call-up and feud with Becky Lynch, being Ronda Rousey’s final WWE opponent and a possible Rousey return, her love of WarHammer 40K, and more!

On life since her WWE release:

“Well, actually, strangely enough, I feel like I’m busier and away from home more than I was before, just by the nature of taking every available opportunity there is to just do everything that I want to do. So I don’t know.” 

So what’s keeping you busy?

“I mean, I’m still taking indie dates and doing stuff like that. I’ve been doing a lot of like guest coaching and shadowing producing at NXT. So pretty much if I’m not on the road, I’m helping out there if I can.” 

So are you working for WWE? 

“I’m not officially hired, but I have a good relationship with them. I’m officially guest coaching when the opportunity comes. I don’t hate it. I actually like it a lot more than I thought I would. So how that all came about is that Daniel Bryan, it was during COVID, and Daniel Bryan was always the guy sitting in Gorilla. It’s kind of like, I don’t know if it’s still the same way now, but it’s kind of like only the top guys can sit back on a headset in Gorilla. There’s just too much, it’s not enough room, so you don’t want to crowd the place. But he was talking to me about, if you ever get a chance to sit in the truck or sit on a headset, it completely changed my wrestling. I feel like my wrestling went to another level, because you get to see what they look for, and how they call things, and the time it takes. So you feel weird making a face for too long, but they have just TV stuff.”

And you realize these are being done for TV?

“Yes, and you wrestle differently for television than you do for a live crowd. So I wasn’t in a position at that time where I could do that on Raw or SmackDown. So I thought where I could do that is at NXT, and NXT does live TV, so I kind of was down there, and just asked one day, ‘Hey, do you mind if I just sit on a headset back here during the show?’ Coach Bloom was like, yeah. And if you’re gonna do that, you follow around Mossy, [he] is producing the women’s match tonight. You just as well follow him around all day so you can see the whole process. So I kind of just started showing up there when I was able to and when I wasn’t completely dead from travel. So when I got the call about being released, I also got a call that was like take some time, but if you’re still interested and keep on doing that, we’re open to that idea.”

So this could be a full-time thing?

“If I don’t suck too bad at the guest part of it. You know, it’s pretty smart of them, because during my 90 days, I’d be lying if I didn’t say I wasn’t a little salty at first, but I kind of was like, You know what? What’s the worst that’s gonna happen? I hate it, and then I tell them I don’t want to do it? So let’s just go in and do it. But they’re smart to have done that, because then I got emotionally invested in the athletes that are there, that I’m working with, and some of the girls, even some of the guys, seeing their growth and seeing collaboration ideas. I’ve been a talent, so I know how to go from creative to the talent and kind of bridge the gap of what creative is looking for and what the talent wants to do. So, I don’t know, I got emotionally invested in everything, so they kind of got me coming back. But yeah, it’s been a lot more rewarding. I’ve enjoyed it a lot more than I thought I would, to be honest.”

Do you feel like your career as a WWE Superstar is over?

“Never say never in this business. I mean, weirder things have happened, right? If I get over with something crazy on the Indies or something, and I get an offer. It’s a strange question, because I don’t know that I’m ever going to be someone that’s like, Yeah, I’m ready to be done. I’ll always feel like I can go.”

You’re at the Performance Center, there could be a call to say they want you on Raw or SmackDown?

“I’d be open to something like that, even when they had, it wasn’t in-ring, but on NXT Homecoming. I was there that day, shadowing, and they just came up to me and they were like, ‘Hey, so it’s Homecoming, and we just thought it’d be cool if you appeared in this segment.’ I was like, ‘Well, I got to run home and get my cool jacket’, and kind of just did that. So I wouldn’t be against something like that, but on the other side of that, I wanna knee jerk and say I’m 45, but it’s not even my age, it’s the miles. I had 20 years of MMA, I had over 10 years total of pro wrestling. So it’s just about a quality-of-life thing for my body. I have found on the Indies that for right now, things change a lot with how I feel. But for right now, I don’t have that same indie hustle I had in me as before. I don’t want to lug a checked bag of T-shirts like Cardona, that dude has hustle. That dude makes money, and it works. There’s people like that on the Indies, and I’m just like I just want to wrestle. I did that [hustle], and I wouldn’t say I loved it to the same degree, but I didn’t mind it. But I think now that I’m just at a different stage where the wrestling I’m doing now is less about let’s see what I can do and get as far as I can go. It’s more to whet that creative appetite in me. But also, this sounds so cheesy, I really feel this sort of responsibility to kind of pass on what I have to give and to keep alive this shoot style catch wrestling, it’s just not something you see, especially out of the women. I think that I am finding that I’d have more concern for wanting to carry this banner than it is about all right, I want to make all this money doing this now. Maybe some of it is that I know I have the coaching thing as a safety net. So whereas before it was like, gotta make this work. So maybe there’s something to that, but I don’t know. My purpose in wrestling is different than it was when I first started.”

You come from MMA, how difficult is it to pull a punch?

“It’s not difficult to pull a punch. It’s difficult to throw a punch that looks good. Pulling a punch isn’t a thing.”

So throwing a working punch?

“I think just habits that you’ve trained for years. So you talk about throwing a punch. If I throw a punch, I’m not gonna telegraph to you at all that I’m throwing it. I’m just gonna crack it from here. But if we’re in a wrestling ring and you’re way up there and I throw this, it looks really dumb. So we have to wind up and show everyone in this place I’m throwing this big punch. That type of stuff, and getting it out of my head. I had to find this balance, because I come into pro wrestling as this, I represent real fighting, right? So I’m gonna not do the cheesy pro wrestling stuff. But then seeing it on film and being like, Oh, I get it, that looks kind of lame, okay. I explained it to my fight friends that it’s sparring. So I was Ronda Rousey’s sparring partner for years. She’s fighting someone coming up that always drops their left hand when they throw their right well, then it’s my job in the sparring to give her this look, and get cracked. So pro wrestling at its best is sparring. We’re improv stunt work, and I’m giving you looks for the stuff that I know you do.”

On kicking Asuka’s teeth out:

“We worked the whole finish because we knew. Yeah, it was terrible. And she’s so badass. She came to the back afterwards, and was kind of covering her mouth because she’s embarrassed, whatever. But she was like, ‘No pain. I don’t know why.’ She was so jovial. I’m like, ‘I am so sorry. Oh my gosh.’ And she was like, ‘It’s okay. No pain.’ Crazy, just soccer kicked her in the face. She was like, ‘Yeah, it’s fine. Doesn’t even hurt.’ But yeah, I mean, I have to make contact. And so I think doing 20 years of MMA, where I’m working my accuracy lends to this. I’m pretty confident in gaging my distance, in placing a shot properly. So I don’t know, does everyone have the time to spend the years it would take to learn how to do stuff for real? I get it. I get that. That’s not how it is, but I think there should be some aspect of that, or at least if there were that things would be.”

After NXT were you ready for the main roster?

“I think there’s a learning curve regardless of moving from NXT to the main roster. I don’t think I understood at the time that the main roster audience is so much bigger than NXT that most of them don’t know who you are. There is that hardcore crowd, and they show up at pay-per-views and whatever that know [who you are]. But the majority of people who watch SmackDown and Raw do not watch NXT, and so I think that was a bit of a wake-up call for me, because I debut at the Rumble, but the Rumble is a big-time pay-per-view, so you’re talking about like the die-hards are there. So they did know me when I came out at the Rumble. So that feels good. So then they lay out this general plan, we’re gonna put you in a feud with Becky, and this is gonna be your thing. I’m doing house shows and stuff, and people not really knowing in the audience about me, yet, they just know, this is that NXT girl that they called up. There is a learning curve there.” 

Do you feel like you have to win them over?

“I feel like I have to reintroduce myself. I don’t know if that’s about winning them over. They don’t know my signature stuff. They don’t know what I do. They don’t know my style, especially my style. I’m already behind the ball because my style in the United States at that time, it’s a lot better now, but at that time, it was not a style you see very often, so people aren’t as familiar. So just yeah, reintroducing myself to an entire new audience. It helps being put into programs with people like Becky, these people that are really well known, Becky and Bayley and these guys. But I think it was the hardest to get my footing as far as that, especially because a lot of what I do is very up close. So I think at first, before COVID, that’s not something easy for those people we were talking about to see, which is why I think to some extent, COVID helped me, because we didn’t have a live crowd, so the only view that people got was the camera that zoomed in on me. So now, when we get back to an audience, everyone’s seen what it’s about. But yeah, just trouble getting my footing as far as that, and then even just finding, I think Vince, at the time, didn’t watch NXT religiously. So he would get told stuff like, ‘Oh, this is Shayna, she’s a badass.’ I’m just surmising that he’s told about what we kind of are. ‘She’s a badass. She did MMA, she’s friends with Ronda Rousey. Here’s Shayna.’ So even he doesn’t know what I’m about in the ring. So even introducing yourself to him is kind of a thing. So, and then just being generally aware that when you get called up from NXT, you’re gonna get this little push, because you’re the new thing, whether it goes anywhere or not. I don’t want these stars, Becky and Bayley and these girls to think I’m coming in like, ‘I’m the new thing. Guys, Everyone move over. ‘So being very like, I don’t know like it is. It is less about like, I don’t know if I’m ready, skill-wise, but more just finding your place.”

You had one of the most dominant performances ever at the Royal Rumble:

“That’s actually a really funny story about that. So I was in the Rumble, and all I knew was they were talking about me being one of the people that wins it. There’s like a handful of people that they’re like her or her or her, and then two nights before the Rumble, I get a call from Paul Heyman, and he’s like, ‘Hey, I just want to let you know…’ because he was a part of creative at that time, ‘You’re not going to be in the Rumble. It’s not because we don’t want you. It’s because we’ve decided you’re not going to win and we don’t want to waste the opportunity. Everything’s still gonna go to plan. You’re just not gonna be in the Rumble.’ Okay, cool. NXT had a pay-per-view on Saturday. They had their pay-per-views on Saturdays. I go to watch, and then the girls on that pay-per-view that were at Rumble, they have NXT showing up in the Rumble. We’re all getting ready to get on a bus to leave the pay-per-view as soon as it’s done, to go to rehearsal for Royal Rumble. And one of the TR comes up to me, and they’re like, ‘Shayna, did you bring stuff with you? Could you get in a ring right now and do rehearsal?’ Yeah. ‘Okay, well, they want you to go to rehearsal tonight, the Rumble.’ Okay. So I get on the bus, and they’re like, ‘All right, so we decided to put you back in the Rumble. We’re gonna protect you. You’re still not winning. Here’s the plan.’ So it was like, Yeah, I’m in it. Oh no, I’m not. Oh, yeah. Oh, okay. This is crazy. I think there was some discussion, because Santino was in the women’s Rumble, and I think originally he was supposed to be number 30, but I think there was this big to do about that’s such a down. It’s funny, whatever. But as number 30, that would be late, the fans, there’s gonna be backlash. So then I got switched to number 30, and I think that was Hunter going to bat for me too. I think he was like, if Shayna is not in the Rumble and we put Santino at number 30, everyone’s expecting the NXT champion to come out, and it’s gonna be Santino, that’s gonna be bad. So I think he kind of went to bat for me to get me put back in the Rumble.”

It feels like you were being booked like a female Brock Lesnar?

“Yeah, so I had some issue with this, because I don’t think even black and gold, I don’t think I was female Brock Lesnar ever. I think that’s a bad analogy. I think it’s an easy comparison to make, because oh, this badass. And also MMA.”

I think also because you ran through people at Rumble and Chamber:

“I think in that sense, yes. I feel like there was some setup. And it’s hard to say. I know I get a lot of times, and I very much appreciate fans that are like, ‘Oh, man, they really fumbled the ball with you.’ ‘Man, that Elimination Chamber. What were they thinking?’ But it’s hard to say because of what happened in the world. I was originally told, and who knows in this business, but I was originally told, ‘Yeah, you’re gonna go into a feud with Becky and eventually win the title off her.’ COVID happens, and then we all get told, well, there’s gonna be no audience, so we want a title change like that to happen in front of a live crowd. And remember, at that time, we didn’t know this was going to be like a year. So we’ll wait till we get back to live crowds, and we’ll just keep extending the thing, and then Becky gets pregnant, and they don’t want to just award a title to me. So then it was like, okay, Asuka, so maybe we’ll put you in a feud with Asuka. Funny story about that, by the way, I’ll tell this. Nobody knows this story. So COVID happens, and they’re like, ‘Yeah, in front of no audience. What we’re gonna do is we’re gonna shoot cinematic Money in the Bank. You’re gonna win that and then carry your feud on with Becky as the Money in the Bank winner.’ Okay, great, cool, whatever you need. We fly in, which was really weird, because everything was shut down, so it was like a ghost town at the airport and everything. That was really weird. But we get there, and they’re reading us the general idea for Money in the Bank in Titan Towers. And we’re like, all right, and then Asuka climbs and wins. But they had told me, ‘Oh, you’re gonna win Money in the Bank.’ And then so my newly called up NXT fresh meat is going, ‘Oh my god, they’ve lost faith in me. They hate me. They don’t want me to be in this. They’re taking me out of the thing. I don’t know, this is so bad.’ So I’m just beating myself up. And then it was totally kayfabe to the locker room, and everyone, Becky comes out and announces this whole thing about being pregnant, the winner of the Money in the Bank won the title. And I was like, ‘You guys couldn’t have told me, because I’ve been thinking this whole time that I’m the worst and you guys hate me. But you couldn’t have been like, ‘Hey, it’s not you. We can’t tell you why. You’ll find out.” You were like, ‘And then you’re gonna win Money in the Bank.’ Come on, guys. So like, you have no idea I was beating myself up, like, oh crap, it’s the end of my career.” 

Did that match with Becky Lynch still feel like WrestleMania?

“So I remember pulling up to the PC that day for my WrestleMania match, and sitting in my car, I parked outside, and sitting in my car and being kind of down. This is my Wrestlemania match. I have three nieces and a set of twins and then an older one. And at the time, they were five and seven years old, and the twins, five-year-olds, were still at a stage where they believed wrestling. They watched me fight, so I don’t know that they knew that it was any different at that time. I had gotten them all tickets, and they were going to come and sit in the friends and family section at freaking WrestleMania. They love wrestling. They believe it. I’m going to have a title match at WrestleMania. They were going to be there and see this. Anybody that’s seen WrestleMania, could you imagine being five and being a super fan and your aunt that you think is a hero is wrestling, and you’re gonna see this huge thing. And then they couldn’t. I remember being pretty down about that. I am proud of the match that we had. I wish I could have that match with Becky in front of a WrestleMania crowd, because energy changes everything. And definitely the energy, WrestleMania, it definitely would have changed stuff. But I do feel a sort of pride in the fact that we did that, because it was at a time when nothing else was going on in the world. There was no sports, even TV stopped shooting stuff for a while.”

Is that your WrestleMania moment?

“I’ll be honest, I think the tag match I had, me and Nia against Tamina and Nattie. I know it wasn’t like super feature, big time main event title match like Becky was meant to be, but it was emotional for all of us, because it was like the first time back in front of an audience, even though it was only what, like, it’s like 50, 25% maybe.”

Did you sell Ronda Rousey on WWE?

“Ronda has said in interviews that she saw me pro-wrestle. She watched me fall out of love with MMA, pro wrestle, be happy, love it, and therefore fall back in love with MMA. I’ve heard her say that she saw that in me, and it made her want to try it. I was the one that reserved the TV in the house. We were all living together, and I was gonna watch Raw and SmackDown, and we’re gonna watch all the pay-per-views. And at the end of a hard training day, you guys were doing two a days fight practice, you don’t want to move. So Ronda would just park herself on the couch, and then I would turn wrestling on, and she got sucked in. And yeah. Not saying Ronda wouldn’t have done wrestling if it wasn’t for me.”

Did you know that match at SummerSlam was going to be Ronda’s last?

“So I knew, because I’m very close with her. That was the last date on her contract, because she had planned to have another baby, and that was the plan. I mean, Ronda loves nothing more now than being a mom, and so I knew for a while, for so long we wanted to start that story. I think if we would have had longer, I think that would have benefited us a lot, because I think we did a great job with the time that we had. But we were begging for this tag team to start, because we knew it started with us being this tag team. Starts with us being this tag team. And I think, to my understanding, Vince, it might not be true, but somebody had told me that he didn’t believe that the crowd knew that Ronda and I were friends. So if you go back and watch me, and Ronda tried to create these moments for crowd reactions, so that he could see that people know, like when she showed up as a surprise in the Rumble, and then I came out at number 30 that year, I did my thing, cleaned house, and then it was me and her, and it was just me and her and the crowd [cheered]. Then, you know, Charlotte came and took it away. We were like, Oh, for sure, he’s got to know now. Then we had another one where we had a tag match, but we were on opposing teams, and we were like, All right, we’re not going to touch because we don’t want to give that away, but let’s have this moment. And the crowd came for that as well. We’re like, God, he’s got to know. I think I was just in a different place at the time. She was like, top of the card, Ronda Rousey, and I was doing my own thing on the mid-card at the time. So I don’t think he saw our paths crossing, really, but we were begging for it like forever to start this, like, that’s the reason Ronda started wrestling, I think, is we want to do this fun story. But it didn’t work out that way. And like I said, I think we did a good job with the time that we did have.”

Do you think Ronda is done?

“I never think Ronda is done. She’s a crazy person. I don’t know. She loves being a mom. It would take a bit, but CM Punk came back. Ronda Rousey can come back.”

What is Shayna Baszler grateful for?

“My family and loved ones, the opportunities WWE has given me, and that my parents instilled in me that you work hard, stuff will happen.”

Please support our sponsors!
PURE PLANK: The future of core fitness! Use the code CVV to save 10% on Pure Plank designed by Adam Copeland & Christian: https://gopureplank.com/?ref=tibcloux
FACTOR: Get 50% off your first box, plus Free Breakfast for 1 Year with the code INSIGHT50OFF at https://factormeals.com/INSIGHT50OFF

STASH: Go to https://get.stash.com/INSIGHT to see how you can receive $25 towards your first stock purchase and to view important disclosures
SEAT GEEK: Use my code for 10% off your next SeatGeek order*: https://seatgeek.onelink.me/RrnK/CVV2025 Sponsored by SeatGeek. *Restrictions apply. Max $20 discount
NORDVPN: Exclusive deal! https://nordvpn.com/cvv Try it risk-free now with a 30-day money-back guarantee!

FACTOR: Use code INSIGHT50OFF at https://factormeals.com/INSIGHT50OFF to get 50% off your first box, plus Free Breakfast for 1 Year!

GLD: New customers get 50% Off with code INSIGHT at https://GLD.com

PRIZEPICKS: Download the app today and use code INSIGHT to get $50 instantly after you play your first $5 lineup!

TIMELINE: Go to https://timeline.com/insight to get 10% off your order of Mitopure!

VUORI: Get 20% off your first purchase! Get yourself some of the most comfortable and versatile clothing on the planet at https://vuori.com/cvv

ROCKET MONEY: Join Rocket Money today and reach your financial goals faster: https://rocketmoney.com/cvv

MIRACLE MADE: Upgrade your sleep with Miracle Made! Go to https://trymiracle.com/CVVand use the code CVV to claim your FREE 3 PIECE TOWEL SET and SAVE over 40% OFF

ZOCDOC: Instantly book a top-rated doctor today at https://zocdoc.com/insight

BONCHARGE: Use the code CVV to save 15% off your infrared sauna blanket at https://boncharge.com/cvv

BLUECHEW: Get your first month of BlueChew for free with the code CVV at https://bluechew.com

Diamond Dallas Page (@RealDDP) is a professional wrestler and WWE Hall of Famer. He sits down with Chris Van Vliet in Atlanta, GA to discuss how he feels approaching his 70th birthday, his recent hospitalization and what caused the health scare, the comparisons to his career and LA Knight’s, fans calling for him to receive another Hall of Fame induction for helping legends, losing the WCW Championship to David Arquette, his thoughts on John Cena’s last match, Cody Rhodes’ Championship run and more!

We got a little worried when we saw that photo of you in a hospital bed:

The funniest part about that was I was just coming off that, got a little buzz going, and I was just stretching the back of my hamstrings. This is so important. If you’re over 50, do not work out without a heart monitor. I wear my watch when I’m doing that, or my regular heart monitor. It connects to my app; there’s no excuse if you’re over 50. I’m working with a buddy of mine right now, Joe Gomez, it’s all me on the phone back and forth, and he’s going through rehab because he had a stroke, and he’s like 55. He was overweight, and now he’s dropped a bunch of it. Eventually, he’ll come to my house and stay with me for a while, because he’s one of the boys and I love him. He’s an awesome human being, and he gives to everybody. So I will pull him in and we’ll help get him back on track. But a stroke that takes away this arm and his leg. Now he’s got to learn how to use those again. So I had afib, and I had it also three years ago. I got it again for the same reason, overtraining. I mean pushing myself. I’m gonna be 70 in four more months.”

You look great. 

“Looking is great too. But I want everything to be looking great on the inside. That’s why I developed the heart monitor so long ago. But I couldn’t find it, and I didn’t take the time to go looking for it. I just started working with my two brother-in-laws at a gym, and I’d already done the cold blood, I’d already done the hypoxia, where I’m running backwards with oxygen at 8%, and then doing sprints with that, then getting on the mat, doing DDP Yoga, and then finish it with power cuffs. Now I just knew I was training too hard. I knew it. Then later that friggin night, I was doing one of those yoga swings where you hang upside down, which is really phenomenal for your hips and everything, your spine. When I came back up, and I can do that for 10 minutes. I was only down there for like two [minutes]. I came up, and I was like, whoa, whoa. What the hell was that? I got off the thing, and Paige’s family was here. We’re all on the porch, and she goes, ‘Well, what’s the matter with you? You’re perspiring.’ I go, ‘I gotta tell you, I pushed myself too hard today, I don’t know, I feel kind of weird.’ She goes, ‘Let’s go upstairs and put a heart monitor on you.’ So she got her watch out. Now my heart rate is stuck at 140 to 150 and normally it goes down to 42 up to 180, it goes all through that. I call my doctor, Dr Asgar. I don’t care what time it is, if I call him, he answered the phone. I call him, he goes ‘Go to hospital right now, they’ll give you something to take you down.’ So it brought me down there for a couple hours, and then I turned around, and now I gotta go see my cardiologist, who is the best. He’d already done a test for me. When you get afib, they hit you with the paddles, and they put you out to do that. So they hit you with the paddles, and you might go online, meaning your heart rate goes back, or it might take two times. They won’t do more than three. Bottom line is, I went right on the first time, and when I was talking to him, he said, you don’t really have to do the ablation, meaning where they’re going to go up to your groin up into your heart and burn you. He said, you don’t really need it. But it’s way easier to do it to you when you’re not in afib. So bottom line, he goes, ‘The way you train, you probably should do it.’ I said, Oh man, let’s just do it. So that was three years ago. Now this time, the one you’re talking about, when I got out, it was just stretching, and I was going, Hey, Paige, just hit record. I just said, I want to make sure you guys, if you’re over 50, you’re wearing a heart monitor so you don’t end up like me here with afib. I want to get the ablation and but you’re feeling good. But you only feel as great as you do right in this moment. So if you’re pushing yourself too hard and the whole thing with no pain, no gain, especially as you’re heading into your seniors, where I’m right on path, you got to be really smart.”

When did you think it would be possible that Lex Luger would start walking again?

“I don’t really know. I told you this story, when Lex went down, it was in San Francisco. I went to take this because I heard he was born again, and I had to see that for myself, because Lex is the one who taught me about the four degrees of celebrity. And I said, Really, what is that? Well, number one, anticipation. Back when I played for Green Bay, I wasn’t a starter, or any of that. I was at the bottom of the totem pole, but is anybody going to ask me for my autograph? And then there’s avoidance, you wear baggy shirts, you wear sunglasses, wear hats, you never look at anyone eye to eye in an airport, because it’s going to be [attracting attention]. I said. So what’s number three? He goes. That’s where I’m right now. Back then he was married. He’s like, My wife hates it, because recluse like I am. I don’t go to the mall, I don’t want to go out to dinner, I don’t want to go anywhere, I have to do what I have to do to get on the road, to do what I do when I come home, I want to be home. I go, Okay, I go, what’s number four? He goes, Well, we hope we never get there, but at one time or another, we all do. I go, what is it? He goes, aggression. I have this favorite story of mine. Me and Lex are going through Terminal C in the Atlanta airport, and it’s 1997 or 98, paparazzi, and me and Lex are just power walking, and there’s this one kid just clicking and clicking and clicking, and Lex goes, ‘Okay, that’s enough.’ He just knocked the camera out of the kid’s hands. I go, ‘What the f*ck are you doing?’ He’s like, ‘I told him, that’s enough.’ And that was Lex back then, the Lex that I would later be with in San Francisco, complete opposite, like the antithesis of that guy. Now we still got Lex in him, but the bottom line is, he’s one of the nicest human beings on this planet.”

What did it mean to see Lex Luger inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame?

“A lot. It should have been Sting, because that’s the real brotherhood of those two. But the bottom line is, we even tried to make it so we could both do it, because Sting is Sting. So being able to do that was strong. People have heard this story, but don’t realize that down Panama City Beach, where we built Page’s retreat, when you get off the bottom floor, there’s four floors. So you would come around and come out the door, which you can just roll out, and then you roll right onto my boardwalk that comes around the house and then goes straight out to the beach. I did that for Lex so he could roll and get out there and then get up and walk the rest of the way. We had great footage of him just putting his hand on my shoulder and walking like 15 feet, 20 feet. We had that, and we were getting we were going to rehearse it like once we get to Vegas. And when Lex went to get out of the car in Atlanta, the Uber, the guy came around with the chair, but he didn’t hold on to it. So when Lex went to sit on it, it slid, boom. He hit that concrete, and he felt so bad. He’s like, ‘D, I feel so bad I can’t walk, and I want to do this for you.’ This is about you, and we’re doing a documentary.”

So there’s going to be a Lex documentary at some point:

“That’s the goal. And it’s got to be when he’s hit that spot where he feels really comfortable, his physical and mental action will tell us when that is, and we’re not there yet, if anything for that hurdle. But he did get up those last, two steps and and he did stand up there. And that was, that was really special. And his bonus son, as I call him, Jonathan, was right there to roll him out. And it was a special, special, special moment. It’s long overdue. I love Triple H. He made all that possible.”

So when someone asks you for their help, what makes you say yes?

“I’ve been asked that a lot lately when it comes to legacy and sh*t like that, Why do you still do it? And this is my new line, because I’m selfish. Because you do something for somebody. You’ve read a lot of stuff that people, I don’t even know them, but they’re thanking me and like I say, it’s not just me. I’ve got just an unbelievable team here, from Steve Yeu to Nadia to Dylan to Kimberly. I mean, we have so many people who really care about other people, and it’s really good. If this is a simulation, I’m going to a good spot.”

But this is the least selfish thing:

“Because it makes me feel good about me. I’d say going into my 60s, I really look at every decision. How does that make me feel about me? Because there are things that are heading my way that aren’t rainbows and unicorns and stuff, and some of them were tempting, but nah, not gonna do that. I had a chance, I won’t get into who was or whatever, but they wanted me to play a pedophile. It’s an acting gig. But I wouldn’t do it because one of the things, there’s so much I learned on that little bit of run with WWE. One was know your worth. When someone really wants you, you can’t be afraid to get up and walk away from the table. That’s what Vince McMahon taught me, and I learned that lesson the hard way those first six months I was there, and then I was gone. But he taught me that, and it’s a valuable, valuable, valuable lesson. The other side of it is make sure you really want to do it. If I spend time at four months from 70, and the reason why I say it like that, a lot of people are like don’t tell anybody you’re 50. I was told so many times I could never make it in professional wrestling because I was too old. So I eventually stopped telling people how old I was. I remember I came up with this one day. Someone said, ‘So DDP, how old are you?’ I said, ’29 again.’ [They responded] ‘Oh 29’, and no one listened to the other part. And at some point I think I was turning 40, because my career hadn’t taken off yet. I was just turning 40, and someone said to me, ‘What’s your birthday?’ I said, ’29 again.’ He goes, ‘You’re not 29.’ I said, ‘I didn’t say I was 29. I said, I was 29 again. I can’t afford to think any older.’ And from next year, my career exploded, at the end of my 40s, going into 41 it exploded. So then it became like, this is the 11th anniversary of my 29th birthday. I took that right up to 49, and when we had a party, and someone said, ‘So how old are you now?’ I said, ‘I’m 12 months from 50.’ He went, ‘You’re 50?!’ I went, ‘I didn’t say that.’ So that’s why I lead him with four months now, once it gets to the six-month part, tacking it down, because every time I get older, so far, that’s a positive thing, getting older, I’m still in really good shape, and I don’t beat my body up. I’m smarter.”

Have you seen the comparisons between your career and LA Knight’s career?

“I love that kid, man. I love the tenacity of the stick to it, it took him a long time to get to that character. And he was good before that, but now he’s great. Hopefully at some point he gets a chance to really get that ball, because he can run with it, give him that damn ball, because that cat, he’s got it all. And people who say that he’s mimicking this character, that character, that’s so wrong. He’s a piece of all that. He grew up on all of us coming up wanting to do what we do, and now he’s doing it at its highest level. So I saw that article actually sent it to him, because it was really cool the way they [did it]. I thought it was just going to be a little blurb, but just comparing our careers.”

You know there’s a good chance that Bron Breakker could be a World Champion in 2026:

“I would love to see that. I haven’t talked to him probably in about a month or two, but humble, feet on the ground, and you got to know who you are. You don’t forget that, but you want to always try to keep your feet on the ground, because that’s the guys who continue to excel. You don’t want to be too much of a headache. And we know part of stories about guys that I won’t mention, that I’ve been a bit ahead of a headache to work with.” 

Were it not for you, do you think Jake Roberts would still be here?

“Well, Jake would tell you that. It’s pretty unbelievable. When I think about knowing Jake as long as I have, and as well as I have that Macho Man, Roddy, Scott, Hulk, Jake’s outlived everybody, wow, and been sober for over 14 years right now. When I see him and Cheryl together, boy, it’s amazing. Because you would think there is no way, but yeah, because when you have that real love, you just have to be in the right set of mind, and Jake is that guy now.”

Change or Die is so powerful. How did you approach the Marcus Bagwell episode?

“There was only a certain time limit that I would allow myself to be with Marcus. I’ve always loved Marcus. I stopped calling him Buff because Buff’s an asshole. I don’t want to be around him, so I would have my 15-minute meter. And the other night, a couple of weeks ago, my daughter, her boyfriend put together a dinner party. His real name is Rock, a great, great guy, but the last to come was Marc and his fiancée, Stacy, who is like Brittany’s second mom. And I thought, oh God, how long am I gonna be able to handle Marcus? We’re sitting right there, we can’t help but talk the whole time. I called him up later. I said, ‘Dude, that’s the best time I’ve had with you since you were like 24.'”

Is he clean now?

“He’s clean now, yeah. [He’s been sober] for three years.”

I feel like you could get another Hall of Fame induction with all the work you have done helping people:

“That’s flattering, and thank you. It was so funny, my first acknowledgement came from the NWA. They were the first ones to acknowledge me as a Hall of Famer. The next one was The Circle, Cauliflower Alley Club, and Brian Blair called me and he said, ‘We want to put you in as the humanitarian this year, bro. We want you, it’s the 50th year, it’s coming up, and we want you.’ I just remember saying to myself, at some point, what we’re doing today is going to dwarf my wrestling career. I said that to Bryan Alvarez like, 16 years ago, 17, it was before DDP Yoga took off, and he’s like, ‘Bro, that’s a bold statement. You had a hell of a career.’ I said to Brian [Blair], ‘God, Brian, how the hell am I not in your Hall of Fame as a wrestler?’ He goes, ‘Oh, you’re in for that too. You’re going to be the first one where we’re going to give the awards to the same guy.’ I was like, wow, I’ll be there. And it was two different nights. It was great to be able to do that, because it was like, I consider the best thing I’ve done in wrestling is my Hall of Fame speech. Because the Cauliflower Alley Club was good, but it was the same speech, but not. It was so much better. It was like it was great for me to do that. Okay, I like what I did there, but this needs to go to a different level. I was bummed because I forgot Big Show, because we rode together, and he took care of me, looked out for me all the time. I forgot Medusa, I forgot Tony Schiavone, so I put them all but boy, I felt bad because they were pivotal people in my life. When I was with the AWA, I was managing Medusa. Medusa and Sherri Martel could have ran with these women today. So hard. Oh, my God, if you could have just pop them over and watch Charlotte Flair and Medusa. I mean, there’s a lot. Mami vs. Sherri Martel, please show me that match. I mean, these girls are beasts today. There’s some of those matches. I don’t want to discriminate against guys, but some of those matches unbelievable. Whoever’s idea was to do the all-women’s Battle Royale, that was a legendary move.”

Did you know you are the answer to the question who David Arquette won the championship from?

“Well, he beat Eric Bischoff.”

But who was the champion heading into the match?

“I know, so stupid. That was stupid. I love David, go see You Can’t Kill David Arquette. Pull that documentary up, because he really won the hearts of the wrestling fans. I’m an actor, I’m playing a part there. And Bischoff reminded me of that beforehand, because that’s when him and Russo just came back together. That was the first big decision that they made. It is what it is. But, you know, look at it today. I mean, you got Jelly [Roll] out there. You got so many celebrities out there. I think if you go back and look at the match of me and [Karl] Malone against [Dennis] Rodman and [Hulk] Hogan, as far as celebrity matches, man, it’s at the top of the heap, that Main Event spot. I was really proud of Jelly Roll though.”

What is DDP grateful for?

“My wife and my kids, my health and that I’ve been able to have an impact.”

Please support our sponsors!
PURE PLANK: The future of core fitness! Use the code CVV to save 10% on Pure Plank designed by Adam Copeland & Christian: https://gopureplank.com/?ref=tibcloux

FACTOR: Get 50% off your first box, plus Free Breakfast for 1 Year with the code INSIGHT50OFF at https://factormeals.com/INSIGHT50OFF

STASH: Go to https://get.stash.com/INSIGHT to see how you can receive $25 towards your first stock purchase and to view important disclosures

SEAT GEEK: Use my code for 10% off your next SeatGeek order*: https://seatgeek.onelink.me/RrnK/CVV2025 Sponsored by SeatGeek. *Restrictions apply. Max $20 discount

NORDVPN: Exclusive deal! https://nordvpn.com/cvv Try it risk-free now with a 30-day money-back guarantee!

FACTOR: Use code INSIGHT50OFF at https://factormeals.com/INSIGHT50OFF to get 50% off your first box, plus Free Breakfast for 1 Year!

GLD: New customers get 50% Off with code INSIGHT at https://GLD.com

PRIZEPICKS: Download the app today and use code INSIGHT to get $50 instantly after you play your first $5 lineup!

TIMELINE: Go to https://timeline.com/insight to get 10% off your order of Mitopure!

VUORI: Get 20% off your first purchase! Get yourself some of the most comfortable and versatile clothing on the planet at https://vuori.com/cvv

ROCKET MONEY: Join Rocket Money today and reach your financial goals faster: https://rocketmoney.com/cvv

MIRACLE MADE: Upgrade your sleep with Miracle Made! Go to https://trymiracle.com/CVVand use the code CVV to claim your FREE 3 PIECE TOWEL SET and SAVE over 40% OFF

ZOCDOC: Instantly book a top-rated doctor today at https://zocdoc.com/insight

BONCHARGE: Use the code CVV to save 15% off your infrared sauna blanket at https://boncharge.com/cvv

BLUECHEW: Get your first month of BlueChew for free with the code CVV at https://bluechew.com

Todd Grisham (@Grishamfight) is a commentator best known for his time in WWE. He sits down with Chris Van Vliet at West Coast Creative Studio in Hollywood, CA to discuss how he got the job with WWE, being hazed by members of the locker room during the start of his career, bizarre advice from Kevin Dunn, why he made Vince McMahon furious, his infamous announcement of Christian’s return, getting slapped by Mickie James, his thoughts on Logan Paul and Jake Paul, and more!

On how he got the job in WWE:

“I was working in Tucson, Arizona as a local sportscaster, used to do similar stuff for the CBS affiliate, and I was covering the Arizona Wildcats and the Diamondbacks. I was there for game seven when the Diamondbacks beat the Yankees after 9/11. Crazy, great experiences. This guy that I know, said, ‘Hey, WWE is hiring. You should send an audition tape in.’ Because at the time we would do this Friday night high school football show me and this guy named Scott Killbear, and we do these outlandish skits where we do funny things, dress up like The Matrix or cheerleaders, crazy stuff. I was like, I’ll send a tape in. Sent a VHS tape in, and I forgot all about it. Six months later, out of the blue, I get this phone call on I believe a Thursday afternoon, ‘Hi. This is Sue from WWE. We like to bring you in for an audition.’ I’m like, Whoa, cool. When? And she goes, ‘Monday.’ I go, ‘Like, in four days?’ She goes, yeah. And at the time, I wasn’t watching WWE. I grew up loving it, of course, but I was 27 at the time. I’m like, wow. Okay, well, sure. So I’m just crash-coursing and I’m watching reruns of SmackDown and Raw, and I’m buying the magazines at the grocery store, and I printed out all the bios of every wrestler on the roster, made a binder, because I had to call matches on this audition and do these things. I did my research. So they flew me into New York City. This guy picks me up in a limo in New York City. I’m a small-town Alabama boy, so this is incredible. So I go to the audition, and I remember there was like five other guys on the audition at the same time. I was like, this sucks. But they were all taking it as a joke. They’re like ‘This is stupid.’ One of the guys I remember worked in Anchorage Alaska as a sportscaster, and he was like, ‘I’m not even gonna take this job. I just did it for a free trip to New York. ‘I’m like, bro, you could be on a worldwide TV show juggernaut like this, but you’re working in Anchorage Alaska, and 40 people are watching you? Anyway, so they brought me in and Hacksaw Jim Duggan was there, and he was the guy I was playing off of. They’re like, ‘Interview, Hacksaw Jim Duggan. Do this with Hacksaw Jim Duggan.’ So we did that. And then I called matches, and I called it with Josh Matthews. I remember the first match. They were like, it’s Val Venis versus Stevie Richards. So hold on. So open my binder. I find the Stevie Richards page, and I find the Val Venis page, and they were blown away that I had done that much research, and I felt like I nailed the audition. Michael Cole called me the next day and said, ‘You killed it. I’ll get back to you, but I’m just letting you know we work at a snail’s pace sometimes. It may be a while.’ It was like four or five months, I didn’t hear anything. And then he called me and said, ‘Bro, the fact that you haven’t called and checked up on it is a good thing that you’re not driving us crazy. Just stay patient.’ And then a month later, they called and offered me the job.”

On working play by play:

“Well, Vince would always say, ‘Don’t tell me what I can see.’ If you go clothesline. He’s like, ‘I could tell it’s a clothesline, damn it! Tell me, “Look at the impact and look at the force of that shot, and that might have decapitated him!'” So you’re almost like, just kind of giving a feel of what it’s like to be in there. You’re not necessarily saying first and 10 wide receivers open 10-yard pass. You’re not doing play-by-play.”

On “advice” from Kevin Dunn:

“This is a funny story. Kevin Dunn said, ‘Listen, you’re really good, but your voice is too high-pitched. You got to get it lower.’ And I go, ‘Well, what do I do?’ He goes, ‘Maybe you should start smoking cigarettes.’ I said, really? And everyone laughed. And he’s like, ‘I’m serious, you should start smoking cigarettes.’ Because JR was chain-smoking all day long. And I was like, should I start smoking cigarettes? But thank God I didn’t do it.”

On his first WWE assignment:

“Well, when you get hired, it’s kind of like they don’t hire you for a specific thing, and they just kind of bring you in almost like a scout team player. Come in, let’s see how you do against the starters, and maybe we’ll put you at wide receiver, who knows? So they just kind of bring you in. Mark Lloyd was doing WWE Bottom Line, and they were like, maybe you can start doing one of these shows one day. So I was there for like four or five weeks, and I started doing Bottom Line, which was a show that recapped the week’s events on Raw and SmackDown. So I started doing those kind of shows, and then they said, All right, we’ll put you on the road. I did backstage interviews. I remember the first one I ever did involved Booker T. No one gave me any direction. They said, ‘Alright, you interview Booker T.’ So I thought, usually when the wrestler kind of gets in your face, you know that you’re supposed to act scared. So that’s what I did. Booker T didn’t say anything to me. He’s like, ‘Real fool. I’m gonna go out there tonight and I’m gonna beat this guy down!’ And I’m scared to death. I totally overacted it, but no one said a word to me. Then I watched it back, this looks stupid. So I kind of worked on acting scared, but not scared to poop my pants scared, just like I’m worried here, but he’s not gonna put his hands on me, because I’m a professional. So that’s kind of a skill that I developed. But that’s it, they don’t really hire you for a specific job. They just throw you into the deep end and see what you can do and where you can go. Eventually, I just kind of get a bigger opportunity and more visibility and up and up and up. But I do remember the first time on the road that I had an in-ring experience. They give you this sheet at the end of the day after the production meeting and say, Here’s the rundown of the show. I was looking through there, you’re looking for your name. Am I doing an interview? And it said ‘Todd Grisham is hosting a debate between Edge and Shawn Michaels.’ And I’m like, Whoa. And I told Coach, look at this. He goes, ‘There you go kid, your first in the ring [segment].’ Then I look down at the bottom, and it goes, ‘Todd Grisham takes a super kick.’ I’m like, whoa. Wait a minute. I’m just worried about saying my lines, right? So I get in during the day, in the build-up, I’m all nervous and stuff. And finally, someone walks up to me, I think with Shelton Benjamin. He goes, ‘Hey, you ever taken a bump before?’ I’m like, no, no. He goes, ‘You just can’t flinch. Whatever you do, don’t flinch.’ I said, Okay. And right then he throws a fake Super Kick to me. I’m jumping back here. [He said] ‘Whoa, you can’t do that. Let’s try it again.’ I’m like, okay, so he does a fake Super Kick, kick again, and I don’t move. He goes, ‘There you go. That’s it.’ And then Shawn Michaels walked up to me and said, ‘All right, whatever you do tonight, don’t move.’ So the storyline was, I host this debate. It gets out of control. Shawn Michaels shoves Edge into the corner or something, and I’m kind of pushed back behind Edge. And then Shawn Michaels goes to Super Kick Edge, who gets out of the way, and Todd Grisham eats the shot, great. Okay. So the show happens. I do my lines, there’s the moment. Edge is right in front of me, and I’m thinking in my brain is, do not flinch and do not move, but as soon as it hits, you got to crash like you’ve been killed. Edge gets out of the way, and I’m against the ropes. And Shawn Michaels, he looks so far away from him, like he seemed to be able to kick me. Sure enough, he couldn’t kick me right, so his foot almost kind of comes into my chest, right? Well, I sell it like the JFK assassination, but it hit me in the chest. And even JR’s commentary goes, ‘Well he took it in the chest, it’s really got to hurt.’ And afterwards, I remember, of all people, Mike Chioda was so mad at me. He came out. He goes, ‘What the f are you doing kid? You got to feed into that you’re too far away. You’re making Shawn Michaels look stupid. What are you doing?’ I said, they told me don’t move. They said, do not move, and I did not move. He lights up a cigarette, ‘My God!’ I don’t get it. I was like, they’re gonna fire me. But thank God, they didn’t.”

On being hazed:

“They’re like, ‘Look, you’re the new person. People are going to haze you. They’re going to do dumb things. They’re going to test you, play practical jokes on you. That’s what the boys like to do. They’re bored all day waiting around, you’re the new guy, whatever. So just don’t sell anything. If someone says you said something, go, okay.’ The Brooklyn Brawler was the backstage guy that kind of helped run the interviews behind the scenes, and he started telling a rumor to everybody that I say wrestling is fake, the new kid’s here, and he says that wrestling is fake. So people were coming up to me, going, ‘Hey, man, you working? You really think wrestling’s fake?’ And I’m like, ‘Yeah, I think wrestling’s fake.’ Because if you say no, they’re gonna say, ‘Are you calling this veteran of 20 years a liar?’ So I was just like, yeah, yeah. So then somebody, they’re doing the practice matches in the ring, and then somebody goes, ‘Hey, that’s the idiot that says wrestling’s fake, bring him into the ring.’ I’m like, oh god. So I get into the ring, and Jazz was in there. She’s like, ‘You really think that?’ And I’m like, ‘Yeah, I think wrestling looks fake.’ So next thing you know, Batista is in the ring, and they’re like, ‘Give him a Power Bomb, Batista.’ And I’m like, Oh my god. So Batista sets me between his legs, grabs my underwear and freaking rips them straight up. Just like a saw going, and he keeps acting like he’s gonna do it right, and I’m scared to death, and thank God he didn’t Power Bomb me, but my freaking butt crack was bleeding afterwards, raw as hell. I remember Hardcore Holly getting in my face going, ‘You think this is fake? I’ll kill you in the parking lot right now.’ I never backed down saying wrestling was fake. I remember after I was in the ring, and finally Stone Cold walked out, and they go, ‘Stone Cold, what do you think about that? Him saying that?’ And Stone Cold, to his credit, was like, ‘God damn, get the hell out of my ring. Just get him out of the ring.’ Someone told Bubba Ray Dudley this, and Bubba Ray Dudley, I’m sure he won’t even mind me saying this, is the biggest asshole the WWE has ever seen. Everyone else was kind of in on the joke. He treated it like it was the real deal. He was like, ‘You got to go apologize to every single one of these people. You don’t belong here. You should never be hired.’ He was very serious. And I remember thinking, bro, come on, I’m 27 years old, I’m not saying anything, and he just berated me in front of people, like I thought he was gonna get physical with me.”

Did you enjoy Byte This?

“Yes and no. It was kind of the wild west of the internet. It was a call-in show. But very quickly we found out people would call in, and they would screen the calls. Hey, what do you want to talk about? What do you want to ask? And they’d be like, I want to talk about Batista’s world title match against Jeff Hardy, or whatever it would be. And then as soon as they’d get on the line with me, they’d say something stupid, or call me an idiot. At first I was doing the like, oh, well, obviously that’s not the kind of calls we want. I’d do that. And then eventually I just got to the point where I was like, calling people the R word, ‘You retard. Stop calling here.’ [They said] ‘TNA is great.’ I’m like, well, call their show, you idiot. It became that kind of show. Eventually they just took it off the air, because it was just basically me arguing with random 13-year-olds.”

On Matt Hardy calling the show:

“We had a pretty cool thing going with Matt Hardy and Edge with the Lita thing. That blew up on Byte This, they acted like it was a surprise call where we had Lita on and then Matt calls in, and that was at the time that we found out that she left Matt and was cheating on him with his best friend behind her back, which was Edge. So Matt Hardy called into the show, and they had their little back and forth. And I remember thinking at the time, I didn’t know what was real and what wasn’t. You’re like is Matt Hardy gonna kill Edge? What’s gonna happen? People still ask me about that. Did you know that Matt Hardy was gonna call into that show? Yeah, but I didn’t know what he’s gonna say.”

On possibly being lined up to replace JR:

“So eventually they said ‘All right, here’s what we’re going to do. We’re going to give you the keys to Raw. You’re going to be the face. You’re going to call Raw. JR, we’re retiring him.’ He had a retirement tour, or something similar to that, where he was going to retire after WrestleMania. He’s going to call the WrestleMania match, and that was it. But the receptions he was getting in all these buildings, and eventually they’re like we can’t take him off the air. He’s too big. Even though Vince tried to squash it. Vince hated Jim Ross for whatever reason. He fired him 10 times. One show, I don’t remember where it was. It was in Oklahoma, in front of his home crowd. So the show ended and they were gonna have Jim Ross speak to the crowd. Thank you very much. Blah, blah, blah. So Jim Ross is in the ring, and Vince tells me grab a mic and go down there, and he gave me some questions. I go down there. ‘Sorry to interrupt you, JR, in front of the crowd, but how does it feel to be getting released by WWE and fired by Vince because he just doesn’t think you’re that good…’ and all these antagonizing things. The number one rule, you probably know this when you’re an interviewer, is to never give up the mic. Boxing, UFC, they take the mic. You’re out of control. So you sit there no matter what. But at that point, Jim Ross looked at me and goes, ‘Could I please have the microphone?’ And I’m thinking, Vince is gonna kill me if I give him the mic. But I was like, I just handed him the mic. I was like, I’m not gonna do it, and I’ll take the abuse. And JR went and said, I know those weren’t your questions. Those were his. And so anyway, long story short, they don’t fire JR. Maybe that’s when they put me on. ECW, I don’t remember, but we’re gonna give you this show. Well, you’re the guy in waiting until Jim Ross is done.”

On his biggest WWE blunder:

“Vince McMahon went insane on me one time because I said that John Morrison, who was a heel at the time, loved poetry. Normally, I wouldn’t say that, but there was a new WWE magazine. They just transformed it from being like a results-based boring magazine, like last week, Eddie Guerrero beat JBL by pinfall, here’s the description, to more of a Maxim-style lifestyle magazine. Get to know the superstars better. So they’re like, anytime you can incorporate stuff from the magazine, io it. It helps sell the magazine. It helps tell their story. It syncs everything up, great. So they did a whole thing on John Morrison; his finisher was called Starship Pain. So he wrote a poem called Starship Pain. So he’s in the ring and I go, ‘John Morrison, Starship Pain, he’s a big fan of poetry, and wrote a poem about the finisher Starship Pain.’ Vince goes insane in my ear. ‘Did you just say that our number one heel is an effing poet, you stupid F! What the f*ck! Shut up. Just shut up. Don’t say anything else! Jim Ross, you call the rest of this fight. I don’t wanna hear another effing word out of you.’ So literally, the match starts and I don’t say a single word for like five minutes, and then the match ends, and we gotta do a promo going to the next fight, and he goes, ‘Okay, you can talk now.’ I’m like, ‘Coming up next Shelton Benjamin goes one-on-one with The Heartbreak Kid, Shawn Michaels.’ But he was so angry at me over that.”

What was the most upset Vince McMahon was with you?

“Well, it started at WWE headquarters. I’m in the gym, working out. I’d only been there for like three months, just been hired, and I’m walking out of the gym, Vince is walking in, and he goes, ‘Hey, Todd, how you doing?’ I’m like, Vince knows my name. This is cool, right? So that was on a Thursday or Friday. So then Monday, I’m backstage about to do an interview with Edge and Christian, I believe. So we’re standing there waiting to do the interview, and Vince is walking by and he goes, ‘Oh, hey, there’s my boy.’ I’m like, he’s talking to me? He says, ‘I’m your boy, right?’ He starts walking a little closer, and he’s like, ‘I saw you going into the weight room the other day.’ I said, Yes, sir. He goes, ‘You were lifting those weights, weren’t you?’ I said, Yeah. He goes, ‘You put the weights on the bar, right?’ I said, Yeah. He goes, ‘But you forgot to take them off.’ I said, Oh. He goes, ‘No, no, no, it’s okay. It’s okay. I did it for you, which [yells] makes me your f*cking boy!’ He’s like, this close to my face, screaming, I’ve only been there three months. Everyone’s like, backing up. I feel like I’m pissing my pants at this point, he’s turning beet red, and then he just stops and just walks away. And I look over and Edge looks at me, and he goes, ‘That’s pretty cool. Vince is your boy. ‘When I talk about micromanaging John Gaburick, they call him Big, he was one of the producers backstage. He would later tell me that he was in the gym. It wasn’t me, by the way, that left the weights on, there was someone else, but he just thought it was me. And he said that Vince thought about how to how to approach me about that all weekend. [Vince said] ‘I can’t call him the N word. I’m not his N word. What can I call him? I’ll call him boy, yeah, okay.’ He planned it. He looks psychotic. That’s the maddest he’s been. But to be fair, later that night, I did the show, walked backstage, and he gave me the nod, he’s on to the next subject. Almost I felt like, you know, every once in a while, the mafia boss himself has to kill somebody just to be like, Oh, he’s capable I was the guinea pig. Do not do anything to piss this man off.”

On the unenthusiastic Christian return:

“Christian was one of my better friends at WWE. We’d hang out in catering all the time and talk. He was the most, I mean, I think even most superstars or wrestlers will tell you that you got to be a little bit insane to be a wrestler. He was the most normal person backstage him, and like Shane Helms, The Hurricane and Edge, those were kind of the guys I would hang out with. And Christian we would play this game called Words with Friends, which is like an app back and forth. So he left WWE to go to TNA for a while. We’d still hang out and text and talk, and he was coming back. So I was excited all day long. Yeah, that’s great. Here’s the match, was talking to him about his match, and I’m thinking, I gotta nail this when he comes out. I had something to say. I’m standing in Gorilla about to walk out, and Vince had glasses on his nose, and he did one of these [come here gestures]. I’m like, Okay, I walk over. He’s just said to me, ‘When Christian walks out, I want you to just say “it’s Christian”, and that’s it. Understand?’ I’m like, Yes sir. And I’m thinking, Oh my god. So that’s how I did it. But I felt like, How do I do it? So I almost did it, like in my brain, like I couldn’t believe it. I was stunned silence, like, ‘It’s Christian. How can this possibly be?’ So that’s how I tried to do it. And, man, that’s probably the most criticism I get from fans. Like, ‘Why does Todd hate Christian? Why did he do that? He ruined it.’ But Vince just did not like Christian. I think he thought he liked big guys, and he thought Christian just didn’t look the part. But he was such a good in-ring performer. I mean, has he ever had a bad match?”

On getting slapped by Mickie James:

“If you were an announcer and you got physicality, they would give you hazard pay. So I remember one time Mickie James slapped me. That was the worst thing ever. I’ll take 20 AAs before a slap, because they don’t trust you to sell the slap, because you’re not a worker. So they slap you, and she hit me right here.”

She slapped you for real?

“As hard as she could. I get slapped, and I’m like [groans]. You got to sell for the camera for, I call it the TV novella shot, like your husband’s dead, you got to hold it for like, five seconds. So they go to commercial break, the camera is on my face, and people like, ‘Oh, you were you were selling pretty good.’ I was like, I was not selling. I felt like my face was gonna get ripped off. But, the hazard pay, so after she slapped me, they give you 500 bucks. Literally, they’d be like, and cut. Nice job, Todd. And someone walked over and goes, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, here you go. Cash. So I’m like, beat the hell out of me. You want me to go in the ring and let her slap me again? But Max Brettos, who I believe was the shortest tenured employee of all time. I talk about they hire you just to see where you fit in. He was there for a cup of coffee, but they asked him, did he want to do it? And he was like, No, I don’t really want to do that. I was like, I’ll do it, okay, that’s how it went. I was like, yeah, and you’re gonna pay me 500 bucks? But people remember you more for the physicality moments than anything else.”

On Logan Paul in WWE:

“Man, it’s incredible. You’d have more insight than I would. But I mean, he’s a freak of nature athletically, he’s willing to do moves that a lot of guys aren’t willing to do and nail them. He’s got, obviously, the charisma and the personality to carry it. If you didn’t know that he was a celebrity making the cross-over, I think you’d say he’s a lifer.”

What is Todd Grisham grateful for?

“My daughters, my wife and my mom.”

Please support our sponsors!
PURE PLANK: The future of core fitness! Use the code CVV to save 10% on Pure Plank designed by Adam Copeland & Christian: https://gopureplank.com/?ref=tibcloux

FACTOR: Get 50% off your first box, plus Free Breakfast for 1 Year with the code INSIGHT50OFF at https://factormeals.com/INSIGHT50OFF

STASH: Go to https://get.stash.com/INSIGHT to see how you can receive $25 towards your first stock purchase and to view important disclosures

SEAT GEEK: Use my code for 10% off your next SeatGeek order*: https://seatgeek.onelink.me/RrnK/CVV2025 Sponsored by SeatGeek. *Restrictions apply. Max $20 discount

NORDVPN: Exclusive deal! https://nordvpn.com/cvv Try it risk-free now with a 30-day money-back guarantee!

FACTOR: Use code INSIGHT50OFF at https://factormeals.com/INSIGHT50OFF to get 50% off your first box, plus Free Breakfast for 1 Year!

GLD: New customers get 50% Off with code INSIGHT at https://GLD.com

PRIZEPICKS: Download the app today and use code INSIGHT to get $50 instantly after you play your first $5 lineup!

TIMELINE: Go to https://timeline.com/insight to get 10% off your order of Mitopure!

VUORI: Get 20% off your first purchase! Get yourself some of the most comfortable and versatile clothing on the planet at https://vuori.com/cvv

ROCKET MONEY: Join Rocket Money today and reach your financial goals faster: https://rocketmoney.com/cvv

MIRACLE MADE: Upgrade your sleep with Miracle Made! Go to https://trymiracle.com/CVVand use the code CVV to claim your FREE 3 PIECE TOWEL SET and SAVE over 40% OFF

ZOCDOC: Instantly book a top-rated doctor today at https://zocdoc.com/insight

BONCHARGE: Use the code CVV to save 15% off your infrared sauna blanket at https://boncharge.com/cvv

BLUECHEW: Get your first month of BlueChew for free with the code CVV at https://bluechew.com

Kyle Fletcher (@kylefletcherpro) is a professional wrestler currently signed with AEW. He sits down with Chris Van Vliet in Houston, TX to discuss his breakout year in AEW, the match where he felt he had his breakout moment, how close he came to signing with WWE before joining AEW, his steel cage match with Will Ospreay that included a Spanish Fly off the top, why he wears pink gear, how the screwdriver became his weapon of choice, future AEW dream matches, and more!

On his breakout year:

“I think it’s one of those things where I’m doing my best to just take it as it comes and just approach every opportunity and just do the best I can with it. And then, it’s weird, because doing that, it just accumulates, and everyone starts going like, ‘Oh my God, look at this run you’re having.’ And I’m like, ‘Oh, thanks, man.’ I’m just thinking about next week, thinking about the next match type thing. So it’s cool to look back on, but yeah, I try my best to just look forward and to live in the present and just focus on what I’m doing right now.”

On the head shaving segment:

“So it started off that we knew we were going to do this Ospreay feud, and that was what we were leaning towards. It was just one of those things where I was getting sick of my hair, my blonde hair, and I was wanting to change it anyway. So I just broached the idea. I can’t remember who I said it to originally, it might have been in the room with Tony. I was like, ‘Hey, I want to get rid of my hair. Is there some way we could use it in this storyline?’ The way we landed on was me shaving it myself. It felt like a definitive change, a definitive moment to me, I was literally shedding the skin of being in Ospreay’s shadow, I was trying to get out of that. So yeah, it started with me, but then it was, oh yeah, that’s a pretty good idea, let’s run with it. So yeah, it was cool the way it came off in the end.”

Were you nervous?

“Oh, totally. I also hadn’t had a buzzed head since I was five or six years old, or something like that. So I’d never seen the shape of my head as an adult. So I’m like, man, what if I go on TV and I have weirdly shaped lumps or something like that? I don’t know. So yeah, it was pretty nerve-wracking.”

On his promo inspirations:

“This always gets a bit of a laugh. Growing up, I’m a little bit younger than a lot of wrestling fans. One of the people who first drew me with their promos was The Miz. A lot of people have things to say about him now, but I still think he’s one of the best. I think I’ve always thought that. That’s always how it happens as well. It’s like, when they’re on the way out, it’s like, oh yeah, you know what? He’s pretty good. But I was 12 years old in 2011 going, This is the best. ‘I’m awesome!’ So, yeah, that was probably my first one. I think Cena is far and away the best promo guy I’ve ever seen. The stuff in his final run, there have been a couple where I’ve just been sitting there glued to the screen like how is this guy just so amazing at what he does? Roman, obviously, now. Then there’s Hangman, I think is one of the best guys on the mic. Joe, every time he’s on the mic, I’m so drawn into him. MJF, as well. Those are kind of probably where I draw the most inspiration from. I’d say those guys.”

On previous comparisons to Will Ospreay:

“It’s one of those things where for a hot second you take it as a compliment, and it’s like, at surface level it’s like, Oh, thanks. I think Will’s incredible at what he does. So I take that as a compliment. But then I feel like, the more I sit with it, and the more I hear it, the more it makes me go, No, I don’t want to be anyone else. I don’t want to be the second coming of Will Ospreay. I think after shaving the head, I got a lot of Randy Orton [comparisons], and it’s like the same feeling of at first, that’s really cool, that’s a great comparison. But I really want to start carving my own path, and I don’t want to be the second anybody else. So, yeah, I think that’s kind of what I’m focusing on, and just trying to carve my own path.” 

On wearing pink gear:

“Yeah, so that kind of started earlier this year. I think it was a random tweet that jogged my memory. It was like not enough men wear pink in wrestling. I screenshotted it, and I sent it to my gear designer, the guy that designs all my gear. I was like, I have this idea, I’d done a triple red gear before, but in my brain, it just like popped. I was like, triple pink, just for whatever reason, that was my idea. Then I just sent that to him, and then we were like, All right, great. He cooked this thing up, I saw the design, and I was like, this is the best gear I have ever had. I’m so excited. Then it ended up coming in time, just as I found out I was going to be in the Owen tournament. So I was like, Oh, that makes sense. I’ll just wear it for the Owen tournament. That’s great. It’s perfect. So I wore it for that. It was Dynasty earlier this year. I wore that gear for the first time, and just the reaction that it got was polarizing. It was like, people loved it, people hated it, whatever it was. But I think whenever something like that happens, it sets something off in my brain. That’s something, whatever that is, something that organically gets that much reaction either way, it’s like, that’s something to tap into. So I was like all right, I’m gonna keep wearing this gear for a little bit, see what happens. I think I wore that one set of gear for a month or two, and by that point, everyone was like, pink is your thing now. I think it’s just synonymous with you. So I was like, Okay. And then since then, it’s just been every set of gear I’ve had. It’s like, all right, what can we do with pink this time? Let’s change it up. Let’s do something else. And then, yeah, the suits and stuff as well. I think I’ve just found my thing, my found my niche.”

On whether he feels the pressure of being told he is a future star:

“In a lot of ways, yes, but I think none of it even comes close to the pressure that I put on myself. I think my whole life, I’ve kind of felt this. Even before I knew I wanted to be a wrestler. I felt this calling that I was meant to do something big, that I was meant to be somebody. So when I fell into wrestling, and I was like, Yes, this is my thing, I always knew I wanted to be the best. I knew I wanted to be world champion. So I think it’s more so the pressure that I put on myself. I think when I hear other people say things like that, it’s almost more reaffirming to me that this thing that I felt, this drive, that I feel, that it is paying off, and it’s for a reason, and that I’m just exactly where I’m meant to be.”

On early memories of Australian wrestlers:

“Nathan Jones, but that was even before me. That was early 2000. So I was born in 98 so at that time I wasn’t watching wrestling. Tenille and Buddy, I think, were the first ones I saw.”

On possible WWE interest before signing with AEW:

“It was a toss-up for a while. We had one kind of like official [call]. At the time it was myself and Mark Davis as Aussie Open, we had like a Zoom call with them. We kind of spoke about what the deal would entail, and that sort of thing. I think when it got to that point, it just didn’t feel like the right fit at the time. So we didn’t get super close. It was kind of like at the point where there was options there. But AEW was just the right fit for us at the time.” 

What made it the right fit?

“We were lucky enough that we’d worked there a couple of times. We got brought in as a part of New Japan to do a couple of things. And I think it was the vibe there. I think to me, it was, I don’t want to say the freedom, but I think there’s a lot of trust there to that I can produce the wrestling I want to produce, and I can wrestle the way that I love to wrestle, and I think experiencing that beforehand and knowing that, I think that was what kind of drew me towards AEW for sure.”

On his breakout match:

“I think it has to be Full Gear with Ospreay, for sure. I think maybe before that, the first match we had on Dynamite. But before that, we wrestled right after he had signed full-time, back in March of 24, we wrestled on a dynamite and that was the first time I’d been given a Dynamite main event. We got given three segments. It was my first big TV match. I think after that, a lot of people came out, and they were like, I didn’t know you could wrestle like that. Then, before that, it was in one week, I wrestled Bryan Danielson and Kenny Omega in the same week. I think that was the first one where I was like, Okay, this is weird. Then that and then to go out there, have a cool match, and then afterwards, have them be so, like, complimentary and like, putting me over and like that. That was a mind trip, for sure. But yeah, I think the first one where I kind of felt comfortable, I felt that confidence, for the first time was that full gear with Ospreay, I think was the real turning point.”

On the top cage Spanish fly:

“Well, the funny thing is, I don’t think we did entirely [know it would work]. I think it’s a lot of trust in each other. I think that was the main thing. I think we have this level of trust with each other, where it’s like, no, I literally trust you with my life, and I feel like he feels the same. So I think we both went out there and we wanted to make a moment. We wanted to make it something people would remember forever. So I think that was kind of where we landed. We were like, yeah, why not?”

On landing on the tacks:

“So the funniest part was it was mostly like my bare thighs and my quads that got the tacks. So for the next two weeks, or whatever it was, it was like just all these dots all over my quads. That was pretty funny. But, yeah, it’s funny. In those big matches, especially one like that, the adrenaline is so high that even if it hurts a little bit, it doesn’t even register in my brain. I’m thinking about camera shots and selling and my face. There’s so many things going through my brain at the time, so it didn’t even cross my mind.”

How has the screwdriver become your weapon of choice? 

“Blame Don Callis for that one. Yeah, I don’t know. I’d like to think I’ve gotten pretty good at stabbing people. I like it because it’s something that a lot of people, not can relate to, they can’t relate to being stabbed with a screwdriver. But most people have held a screwdriver in their hands. I think they could pick up a screwdriver and go, he got stabbed with this. What the hell? That’s crazy. So that’s kind of why I like it.” 

On his most painful moment:

“I think it was the Continental Classic match I had with Mark Briscoe. I was just climbing up the guardrail. He came and stopped me, and we did like a little baby superplex, is what we called it. Baby superplex, off the guardrail to the floor. For whatever reason, whatever angle I hit the ground, it was like all tailbone. I swear I felt like I was pissing blood. I felt like my butthole had fallen out, it was the craziest feeling I’d ever felt in my life. I was laying on the ground like, please leave me here for a good 10 seconds at least. I need to figure out if I’m okay right now.”

Did you actually piss blood? 

“No, I did not. I was totally fine. But, like, whatever feeling I felt at that time, I was like, it felt like everything had exploded, and I was just not having a good time at all.”

Is there a line you won’t cross?

“Haven’t got there yet, so I’ll let you know. I think the Spanish fly was probably the one where I was like, this is getting close to the line. I was pretty we were pretty close to not doing that one.”

What made you say yes?

“I think it was that trust that we have in each other. I think if it was anybody else, he probably would have said no, but I think because it was me and we have that real-life trust in each other, he was fine. I kind of pulled his arm a little bit.”

On a future dream match:

“The one that I keep talking about is I really want to get in there with Samoa Joe. I think that would be a really cool one for me, and a really cool test for me. It’s someone that I’ve been watching for a decade plus, so that’s someone that I would love to get in there with. Other than that, I’ve been pretty blessed, I’ve been lucky enough to get in there with a lot of the people that I looked up to growing up.” 

On signing a new AEW contract:

“It felt really cool. I was on a beach in Jamaica when I signed my contract.”

What is Kyle Fletcher grateful for?

“My health, my career and the people in my life.”

Please support our sponsors!
PURE PLANK: The future of core fitness! Use the code CVV to save 10% on Pure Plank designed by Adam Copeland & Christian: https://gopureplank.com/?ref=tibcloux

FACTOR: Get 50% off your first box, plus Free Breakfast for 1 Year with the code INSIGHT50OFF at https://factormeals.com/INSIGHT50OFF

STASH: Go to https://get.stash.com/INSIGHT to see how you can receive $25 towards your first stock purchase and to view important disclosures

SEAT GEEK: Use my code for 10% off your next SeatGeek order*: https://seatgeek.onelink.me/RrnK/CVV2025 Sponsored by SeatGeek. *Restrictions apply. Max $20 discount

NORDVPN: Exclusive deal! https://nordvpn.com/cvv Try it risk-free now with a 30-day money-back guarantee!

FACTOR: Use code INSIGHT50OFF at https://factormeals.com/INSIGHT50OFF to get 50% off your first box, plus Free Breakfast for 1 Year!

GLD: New customers get 50% Off with code INSIGHT at https://GLD.com

PRIZEPICKS: Download the app today and use code INSIGHT to get $50 instantly after you play your first $5 lineup!

TIMELINE: Go to https://timeline.com/insight to get 10% off your order of Mitopure!

VUORI: Get 20% off your first purchase! Get yourself some of the most comfortable and versatile clothing on the planet at https://vuori.com/cvv

ROCKET MONEY: Join Rocket Money today and reach your financial goals faster: https://rocketmoney.com/cvv

MIRACLE MADE: Upgrade your sleep with Miracle Made! Go to https://trymiracle.com/CVVand use the code CVV to claim your FREE 3 PIECE TOWEL SET and SAVE over 40% OFF

ZOCDOC: Instantly book a top-rated doctor today at https://zocdoc.com/insight

BONCHARGE: Use the code CVV to save 15% off your infrared sauna blanket at https://boncharge.com/cvv

BLUECHEW: Get your first month of BlueChew for free with the code CVV at https://bluechew.com

Chelsea Green (@ImChelseaGreen) is a professional wrestler currently signed to WWE and the reigning Women’s United States Champion. She sits down with Chris Van Vliet at INSIGHT Live in San Diego, CA to discuss winning the Women’s US Tile for a second time, being paired up with Ethan Page in NXT and why they work so well together, her husband Matt Cardona (Zack Ryder) recently making a return to WWE, her infamous dumpster match, being featured on Unreal and the pitch to have her win the Royal Rumble, and more!

On her creamed line with Ethan Page:

“Actually, that just came off the top of my head. No, I can’t believe they posted that. I am shocked. I came back from the creaming, I said it, and I was like, ‘Okay, do we need to redo that?’ And he was like, ‘No, I’m gonna post it.’ I’m like, what?! Ethan was like, ‘No, no, please God no!’ The things that I make that man do, oh my gosh. God bless him. But yeah, then they posted it, and it went viral. I was shocked. But they do be posting crazy things, because sometimes Rhea and Dom were saying some crazy sh*t, right? So maybe I shouldn’t be surprised, and I should do that more.”

On Zack Ryder’s recent return:

“Okay, so I’ve never really worked with Zack Ryder. I mean, we were ships passing in the night for years at the beginning of our relationship, and then we only really came together in TNA and kind of on the Indies for two years. Then I was re-signed again. I kept yapping, running my mouth, telling everyone he was going to return as Matt Cardona, and I had to eat my words when he came back as Zack Ryder. But it was really cool, because I’ve never had a chance to just sit in the crowd and listen to everybody react to Zack Ryder. I’ve never really been there for the Woo Woo thing, except when I did it at Saturday Night’s Main Event, or when I did it at All In, then I felt a little bit of it. But it was really surreal. I knew that moment was going to come. I think we had been hoping for that moment to come every Rumble for the past five years. And it didn’t, obviously, there was no Rumble moment. So I just didn’t expect that this was going to be the moment.”

On preparing for the Zack Ryder return:

“So the crazy thing is that with WWE, they can say something’s gonna happen, and until you are, I want to say at the show, but even at the show, things can change, because it’s live TV. So until I knew that LA Knight was walking to gorilla, I couldn’t get excited, because I have been on the receiving end of many of, ‘Oh, you’re gonna get this.’ ‘No, maybe next week.’ ‘Oh, you are gonna go out there and win.’ Oh, no, you broke your arm. You know what I mean? All those little moments. So it’s crazy how you just [can’t control it]. So no, I could not get excited. But I was a little excited when he was flying with me to New York. And the morning of the show, I had Good Day New York, and he came, and then as I’m walking out, TMZ was outside, and he panicked, because it’s like, oh my god, everything’s gonna be blown, and then he’ll never get the moment if TMZ sees him.”

But it’s not unusual to see you and Matt Cardona together?

“But on the day when there’s a surprise opponent, do you know what I mean? So we didn’t get too excited, but we hoped. We really hoped this is gonna be the moment.”

On the success of the hats:

“My husband bought 20. They actually only sold out because Matt bought them.”

On the gear with her face on it:

“I had that gear sitting waiting for a year. It needed to be the perfect moment, that gear was worthy of a WrestleMania moment, a hometown moment or a championship moment. So I kept it all pristine, all wrapped up, and I was just waiting for that moment.”

What went into making gear with your face on it?

“I’ve got so many different gear makers, but I’ve got my one PLE gear maker, who we kind of bounce ideas off of each other. First of all, I live for the girls and the gays, and he’s gay, so he has the same really ridiculous sense of style that I do. I want the biggest, the most, the brightest, the most obnoxious that I can possibly get, and what’s more obnoxious than having your face all over you? I don’t know how I’m ever gonna top that. That’s the problem. And when I won the title the second time, I was like, Well, I’m gonna go Mexico [themed]. I’m gonna bring the AAA to SmackDown and go and go Mexico themed, because I don’t know how I can top me.”

On the pairing with Ethan Page:

“I don’t know who in NXT thought to put us together, but I owe them a lot of money. When Ethan gets called up, I owe them a lot of money. Yes, I don’t know, but it’s crazy. I remember being backstage and listening to him out in the ring when I was going to come out and do the first promo with him. His facial expressions, and the sh*t that was coming out of his mouth was just like, Oh, my God, I couldn’t have said it any better. And we actually get along too, which that’s rare. There’s also, like, something very unique about putting a man and a woman together who are in no way related or partners or anything. We just have a different dynamic than anyone else.”

What was the idea in putting you guys together?

“I would love to know. I have no clue. I don’t know. I got a call like the day before, being like, ‘Hey, you’re gonna come into NXT.’ I said, Sure. I just assumed I was gonna have a singles match. I showed up, and they said, ‘Oh, you’re gonna be with Ethan.’ And I’m like, Ethan who? Then they said, ‘Ethan Page.’ I had to Google him, and then I was like, Okay, I do know Ethan. He’s Canadian. I know him. But I didn’t really know anything about him. I didn’t know anything, and now I’m like, yeah, duh. We belong together on screen. I think it’s perfect. My sister called me the other day to tell me that he’s stealing my spotlight, and I think that that is a perfect partnership.”

On her 2014 debut segment with Stephanie McMahon:

“Okay, so it actually goes back to the day before. It was at the time when you always heard about extras getting try-out matches and actually getting a job, which I feel like you never hear about anymore, because we’ve got these crazy, elaborate try-outs. So I had just started wrestling, we were in Abbotsford, I was an extra. I’m in this tiny, little broom closet of a locker room. I heard one of the girls outside talking to our talent relations guy. And the talent relations guy was like, ‘Hey, if you have a passport tomorrow…’ So that would have been Sunday, and then tomorrow would have been Monday night Raw. [They said] Tomorrow we’re going to do a spot we need an extra for [TV]. It’s going to be quite a big spot. You’ll be speaking, but it’s in Portland, Oregon.’ She was like, ‘I don’t have a passport.’ In my head, I’m like, ding, ding, ding! I got a passport. So I waited till she came back, and then I excused myself to go to the washroom, and I found that talent relations guy, and I said, ‘I can do it. I got a passport.’ And that is how I became Megan Miller. So it was so crazy. I was dating this very sweet guy at the time, he had to drive me to Portland, Oregon, sit in the crowd while I declared that I had slept with Daniel Bryan. The funny thing is hours before they gave me this script, one thing about WWE is they tell you things without telling you things. They’ll give you a script or they’ll tell you that you’re winning a title without telling you, ‘Hey, you are winning this title tonight at this time.’ They don’t do that. It’s kind of all like wishy-washy talk. So they gave me this script, and it says, ‘Stephanie, Megan, Stephanie Megan, Stephanie, Megan.’ I’m like, okay, who’s Stephanie and who’s Megan? I don’t know why I have this script. Nobody tells me I’m Megan. Nobody tells me it’s Stephanie McMahon. Nobody’s telling me anything. I get out there and it’s like, Okay, we need you for rehearsal. I haven’t even looked at this thing because I don’t know who the f*ck Stephanie and Megan are. I go out with the script, and Stephanie McMahon is in the ring, and Vince is standing there with a microphone ready to rehearse this segment where I’m Megan. So I’m trying to read through like, Oh my god. I’m sleeping with Daniel Bryan. Oh my god, I’m getting slapped by Brie Bella. Oh my god, I’m with Stephanie McMahon. The whole thing was just [crazy]. I was delusional. I was way too new to be in there. It’s the first time I had ever spoken on a microphone, ever.”

That was your first promo?

“Ever! I had never picked up a microphone, I don’t even think in high school. I’d done presentations in university, that’s about as far as my public speaking skills went. So imagine [how I felt]. They kept saying at the end, ‘Oh, you did so good. You looked so nervous.’ Yeah, no, sh*t! I’m like, how do you hold a microphone? I don’t know. The whole thing is so crazy, but so iconic. And Brie slapped the hell out of me, popped my eardrum. It was amazing, honestly, it was everything I could have ever dreamt of and more.”

On just being a part of the show regardless of winning or losing:

“I think it goes back to when I played Laurel Van Ness. I quickly realized that character work was my forte. I was trying so hard to be a professional wrestler. Then when I became Laurel Van Ness I was like, oh my god, I’m doing way less work, and people like it way more. What have I been doing this whole time? From then, it kind of spiraled and I realized okay, if that’s what I bring to the table, then who cares if I win or lose? They’re not watching to see if I win or lose. They’re watching to see the ridiculous stuff that comes out of my mouth, the bumps that I take and stuff like that. Life has been so much better since I stopped trying to be a professional wrestler. It really is. It’s great.” 

What are you now? 

“An actress, a glorified actress, a little bit of a stunt woman. And then, every now and then I do a roll up. It’s great. I love it.”

On her dumpster match:

“I came up with that spot [the powerbomb ending]. Not to toot my own horn, but toot, toot. I was gonna die on that hill. I kind of talk about that often, like there are only certain hills I’m gonna die on. Winning is not a hill I’m going to die on, or getting a certain move in, that’s not really a hill I’m going to die on. But when it comes to the Money in the Bank ladder spot that going through the table, being power bombed into the dumpster, those are hills I’m going to die on, because those are the things that people are going to talk about forever. I believe that was the first female dumpster match ever in WWE, there had to be something huge at the end. Everyone’s going to talk about the match, because it is a first, but it can’t just be a powerbomb into a dumpster. That’s kind of boring. The boys would never just do that. I always have to think about, like, what are the guys gonna do? Because the guys are out here doing crazy, crazy stuff. I want to make sure that we’re doing equally as crazy stuff, so that there’s no women’s wrestling and men’s wrestling, it’s just wrestling. But do you know that the salsa that was in there was spicy? I asked for salsa and cake to be in there, and they got spicy salsa, and it was in my eyes, because I had to dump it on my head to pop out, it was so painful. I don’t know if you’ve ever had spicy salsa on your head, but don’t. I do not recommend.”

Why are you ok being the butt of the joke?

“Because it gets me views and it gets me a new contract, and it gets me a raise, and it bought me my new house, and honestly, hopefully in the next year, it gets me numerous auditions. You know what I mean? Hopefully this parlays into something even bigger than we could have ever imagined, because I was able to tuck my tail between my legs and be the idiot.”

On a possible Women’s US Open Challenge:

“Okay. So obviously, for three years, you’ve seen me duck and dodge any match possible. I really tried to avoid wrestling, but we’re here, we’re a double champion. Ethan is teaching me to face our fears head-on, so did I pitch to have an open challenge? Yes, because I’m a fighting champion now! I’m gonna need a sauna and some ice packs, but I will be a fighting champion!”

On the WWE Unreal pitch to have her win the Royal Rumble:

“God bless Ed. I wish he never said it. I wish it never aired, because now it won’t happen, that’s my thought. Is it now we have to wait at least five years for it to happen, and who knows where I’ll be in five years? When I watched it, I didn’t know that. Everything that you saw in Unreal, we’re not told these things. I thought that was such a good idea. I hope that they use it. Well, for me, yes. But if not on me, we need a Carmella to come back and do that. You know what I mean? Somebody with some spice, a Billie Kay, someone funny, who really would take that.”

On her Money in the Bank fall:

“Seriously, that ladder is high, and then when that ladder is in the ring, it’s very high, because I think it was a 20-foot ladder, and then it’s in the ring, and the ring is so high. And you can tell because I’m clinging on for dear life as I’m going up it trying to look all like I’m a badass, and I’m like, Dear God, please let this be over. I want to go home. I need a glass of wine. But it was all worth it. I knew what that moment was going to be. I died on that hill getting that moment because the boys tried to take it away from me. The boys tried to have that exact same moment. So we bargained. We gave Chad Gable a spot, and I took my spot. Also, and this might not be that popular of a thing to say, but also, IYO was going to be on the ladder with me. I said no. I came up with the spot. I wanted the spot, and I didn’t think going through it a second time with somebody else was going to be as impactful. I already did the spot in TNA for Queen of the Mountain, and I did it with my best friend, Deonna. I don’t think you can get better than going through tables off of a ladder with your best friend. So I wanted the moment, and I fought for it to be just me, and I fought for it to be the very, very, very last spot before Tiffany won.”

On wrestling Penta:

“The best decision I ever made was that match. Because now, when someone says I suck at wrestling, someone else says, ‘But did you see the Penta match?’ And I’m like, yeah, yeah, that one match in 2018. He literally wrestled himself. Watch it again. He literally wrestled himself. But I digress. He is amazing, and so am I.” 

On a custom Women’s US Title:

“I asked. I really did try. I tried so hard. I wanted to do a Divas open challenge. I want to do the whole shebang, but I understand that the women before me, it’s fun for me, because I wasn’t a diva, but the women before me fought so hard to kind of end that stigma. I don’t know if bringing it back right now would do those women justice. Maybe in 10 years, maybe the girls from NXT can come up and do it in the future, but I will continue trying. I will keep pushing.”

What is Chelsea Green grateful for?

“My puppy, to everyone who came here, and that my meet and greets are sold out.”

Please support our sponsors!
PURE PLANK: The future of core fitness! Use the code CVV to save 10% on Pure Plank designed by Adam Copeland & Christian: https://gopureplank.com/?ref=tibcloux

FACTOR: Get 50% off your first box, plus Free Breakfast for 1 Year with the code INSIGHT50OFF at https://factormeals.com/INSIGHT50OFF

STASH: Go to https://get.stash.com/INSIGHT to see how you can receive $25 towards your first stock purchase and to view important disclosures

SEAT GEEK: Use my code for 10% off your next SeatGeek order*: https://seatgeek.onelink.me/RrnK/CVV2025 Sponsored by SeatGeek. *Restrictions apply. Max $20 discount

NORDVPN: Exclusive deal! https://nordvpn.com/cvv Try it risk-free now with a 30-day money-back guarantee!

PRIZEPICKS: Download the app today and use code INSIGHT to get $50 instantly after you play your first $5 lineup!

TIMELINE: Go to https://timeline.com/insight to get 10% off your order of Mitopure!

VUORI: Get 20% off your first purchase! Get yourself some of the most comfortable and versatile clothing on the planet at https://vuori.com/cvv

ROCKET MONEY: Join Rocket Money today and reach your financial goals faster: https://rocketmoney.com/cvv

MIRACLE MADE: Upgrade your sleep with Miracle Made! Go to https://trymiracle.com/CVVand use the code CVV to claim your FREE 3 PIECE TOWEL SET and SAVE over 40% OFF

ZOCDOC: Instantly book a top-rated doctor today at https://zocdoc.com/insight

BONCHARGE: Use the code CVV to save 15% off your infrared sauna blanket at https://boncharge.com/cvv

BLUECHEW: Get your first month of BlueChew for free with the code CVV at https://bluechew.com

John Cena (@JohnCena) is a professional wrestler and actor signed to WWE. He sits down with Chris Van Vliet at West Coast Creative Studio in Hollywood, CA to discuss the last match of his legendary career, planning his Farewell Tour for 3 years, turning heel and the criticism from fans, what winning a 17th WWE Championship meant to him, becoming the Intercontinental Champion, why his match with Brock Lesnar at Wrestlepalooza was so short, his love letter to wrestling with his match against AJ Styles, wrestling Dominik Mysterio in 3 of his last 4 matches, who he feels is his wrestling soulmate, and more!

How he feels heading into his last match:

“Great, truly great. We’ve been able to put programming that’s held the attention of folks out there for a year, been able to leverage individual intellectual property and create attention through things like the time is now tournament, stuff like that’s important, even when you can’t be there, you kind of help him get eyes on the product. Gosh, I’m super excited about the 13th because they bought what I sold them. I would love for it to be, rather than just a tribute show, I want it to be a look ahead. I’ll have my last in-ring performance. That is for certain. I’m not doing anything after that. But in doing so in the night too, we get big WWE Superstars so they can say they were on the card in non-canon exhibition matches against the best and brightest we got in NXT. So gosh, what a way to go out. Using those few hours that Peacock has given us and Netflix internationally to be able to say goodbye to a chapter in my life that’s very important, and in doing so, hopefully get eyes on what could be the next two-decade run, or maybe give somebody that boot in the butt that like, Yo, this is what the noise sounds like. I’m really, really happy, man. I feel great.”

How did you pitch the farewell tour?

“We have two options. At 48, I feel I can compete using magic, hocus pocus and all the tricks and wisdom I have, but the pace of the product has passed me by. I either post, ‘I’m done’, which is a post, or I can pump the brakes on all other activities for the year and dedicate this to being the last year. I know it hasn’t been done, but this is what I think could possibly happen creatively. I’m allowing you to do whatever you want. I just want to try to use whatever energy I have to pass on and hopefully give audiences memorable moments. I think, I don’t know if people understand it right away, because no wrestler ever retires, I’ll be the first, but it’s been great to see audiences get it and audiences understand. So now to be at these shows is something special, and we’ve had great moments come out of these shows. I’m not saying I’m the sole driving force behind it, but a lot of people are showing up to be like man, this is the last time I can see John, and then the show’s been great enough to be like yeah, but I want to watch them fight too. So I’m very happy they bought it, and I think I would say everyone internally is happy, and I would say everyone externally has an opinion about it, which is good. Here we are in early December, looking forward to the 13th. I don’t think there is apathy out there. I know some people are critical of it. Some people may be upset, some people may be overjoyed, but there isn’t apathy, and I think that means we did okay.” 

How do you feel about that criticism?

“It’s part of what we do. That is absolutely part of what we do. I love it because it’s vocal and it starts a conversation. That’s the thing. I’ve been part of this live criticism pit since WrestleMania Triple H or fighting Kurt Angle. That’s what people don’t understand, I am criticized all the time.”

How much planning went into the schedule?

“The whole thing was like 3 years. So by then [2022], I knew I had a lot of opportunities outside of WWE, and those are very difficult to balance, not just being everywhere like the first half of this year for the tour, I was flying back and forth to Budapest and Morocco, making PLE dates. The day I announced, Jan 6, I left to land in Budapest to shoot the next day. That’s a scheduling. The biggest hurdle to climb is insurance, and insurance is super pricey. Every date, the cost goes up, whether it be $500,000, $1,000,000.” 

Because you might get hurt?

“Because you’re doing a picture, and you’re being like, ‘Hey, I have Saturday off.’ That’s the thing a lot of folks don’t understand. It’s like, but you have the weekends off, you can do this. Or they can shoot Tuesday through Saturday if they want. You can do every Monday. You’re right, but the liability of, hey, I’m doing this action movie, and then I’m gonna go do, albeit choreographed action, but with a high variable that I could get hurt. If I get hurt, I can’t come back to shoot. Or I get my nose broke, or if I get a black eye or something, we’ve already captured these moments on camera, and now I got to stop and wait for the thing to heal before I can shoot another frame. So that’s something that I had to learn the hard way of like, my schedule is open. I can do it. It’s an insurance thing, and this is what it costs. So trying to get a studio to leverage that to let you go play stunt man is impossible. So you got to a lot of times you got to come out of pocket, and that’s a tough balance.”

So you paid out of pocket for the insurance?

“There are ways to get everyone to play nice. A great way to start a diplomatic conversation is saying, I will invest. So whether it’s 100% of the cost or a fraction of the cost, or like, Hey, can you help us out? Can TKO help us out? And I’ll chip in. There’s a lot of ways to be diplomatic, and when you want to do something, and when it’s not purely about financial gain. With this year, it was like, I thought I was going to take the whole year off for WWE, but then when they said, ‘I only need you for 36 [dates]’, a few opportunities came up, and I was like, Okay, if I do the opportunities, I’m going to be on the hook for insurance. Insurance is this. I knew what I was signing up for. This will travel a long way. Thanks for your patience. Three years ago, I started getting these opportunities, and so I’m filming three, maybe sometimes squeezing in four movies a year. I’m on set all the time, which means I can’t make any dates. Then I know my year in advance, these things going to pre-production earlier, so you know kind of what you’re doing the next year. That’s like 2022 booked, 2023 booked 2024 looks pretty busy. Okay, in 2022, what if we outline 2025? Why do you want to do that? Because I won’t be able to physically do it past 48. So in 2022, we kind of laid the groundwork for the idea of this, and then in early ’23, we pitched to TKO. We pitched the idea of a year, call it as you see it and again, lead with diplomacy. I think it’s worth this, but you can think it’s worth whatever. Please allow me to bet on myself. You want to run on incentivized contract, I want to do this. And I want to make everybody win. If you put down a buck, I want to give you back 10. And at the same time, I want to give everybody out there a run for their money, like we’re really gonna go for it. I will do my best not to suck. I’m not just gonna go do the five moves of doom. I think we can do something real special. And they bought it. But it also takes a while to put that through the engine, so as soon as they bought it in like mid to early 2023, now I’m like, Okay, give me a list of all possible cities I got out. 60 cities put on my desk merchandise uniform for everybody, because I know it takes like nine months to clear IP design to get in production. Hats and wristbands take longer than T-shirts. When I announced in Toronto, 15 months out, we were like lasered in for everything. So we had every city, every potential city. Cool thing about the uniforms is they become awesome because we did so many. I actually, no kidding, I did 17 extras, and I’m trying to get Fanatics to release the never-seen 17 [merch line]. Houston’s on there, Sacramento’s on there.”

Was the heel turned planned in all this?

“No, that stuff you see on Unreal is real. ‘We need to make Chamber big, so let’s do something that’ll shock everybody.’ ‘Hey, man, we got this idea.’ No problem, I’ll do the best I can.” 

Were you excited about it? 

“I’m excited about everything. I like the riddle. You see my stuff. I’m not exactly the most gifted athletic performer. I give you all I got.”

How did you feel about the turn and the months that followed?

“This is just my perspective. What I like is people are talking about it. And the cool thing is, people who are critical of it, apparently had some idea in their head about what they wanted, which is great, because that means you’re attached, that means you care. I enjoy that, and I hear that criticism. When we did it, we did it as a big moment, but with a purpose. Hey, this is going to ignite something with you and Cody. It’s going to start in February and end in August, because you only have 36 broadcasts and Intuit and Rumble are gone. So now we’re down to 34. Then we need some on the back end, with you actually being a good guy. So let’s take it down to 24. We kind of have to tell a story that should be two years long, 52 weeks a year, plus 14 to 18 PLES. We got to do it in like 20 episodes of television. Okay, so it took my focus on Cody, on the championship and on frustrations that I’ve had, it all comes from a genuine place, things I could say. I’m so happy to say that I wouldn’t retread the course, because I gave everything I had my poor wife. I’d wake up in the middle of the night writing promo lines and thinking about spots and stuff. The opponents I had were great, but I remember everyone talking in February and be like, this is how things change. Yes, this is a good plan. Okay, guys, if I’m gonna ruin this thing, like I’m gonna I’m gonna wrestle methodically, I have an idea of what ruining wrestling is.”

What was the original plan for The Rock and Travis Scott?

“Who cares? It doesn’t matter. We can talk about what could have been until the cows come home. And I think that’s what’s great about the people who are left standing. Certainly me and Cody. What’s the change? this? All right, let’s go. I don’t dwell for one second on what could have been, because what could have been is Brock doesn’t leave for the NFL and there’s no John Cena.”

Could there have been a match with The Rock?

“Could there be anything? That’s the thing that sucks about what could have been, it’s not what it is.”

Was it talked about?

“I don’t care. First of all, I’m always the last to know. It doesn’t trickle down to me. If you watch Unreal, that process is genuine. ‘I talked to Rock and then the last guy I gotta call is John.’ I’m usually the last guy they call because I’m the easiest. ‘Yeah, let’s do it. No problem. I’m in.’ So I don’t sweat the [small stuff]. ‘Yo, we don’t have those guys anymore.’ Cool, what do you want to do? We would like to do this. We need you to start being more competitive. We want to put you in these matches. We were going to build to this. That’s over. I didn’t even get that. Okay, fine, great. What are we doing now? That’s what’s tough. I think it’s great to talk about. It gives good argument, gives good perspective, of like, how do they book this stuff? A lot of that stuff’s beyond control of even the people who own the sandbox. If I decide to walk, I have contractual obligations, but they I’m not gonna be there on the 13th. Like, if I decide that, you know, and they’ll figure it out. I saw Austin get fired, you know what I’m saying. I saw Brock leave. I saw, you know, Dwayne take his break, and I don’t sweat any of those guys for what they did. Austin was worn out. Brock was probably going to assault somebody in an airport, and Dwayne had such great opportunities, I don’t fault people for being like, I can’t do this right now. McAfee being burned out behind the booth. The guy has got so many opportunities, dude, you got to just focus on what you can do. I don’t sweat them for that, but sh*t changes. Open opportunity for Wde Barrett, and I love listening to that guy on TV. Not that I didn’t like Pa,t but I really like listening to Stu [Bennett]. So I don’t really sweat it, but could there have been? That’s why I don’t choose my opponents.” 

You didn’t choose a single opponent this year?

“Only thing I wanted to do, the only idea I gave was about Saturday Night’s Main Event on the 13th, saying it should not be a John Cena show. If everybody’s saying you’re going out on your own terms, which is BS, because I want to do it forever. Okay, you have an idea of this is how I want John to go out. You do. I have an idea of how I want to go out. And how I want to go out is not by folks remembering what I did. I want a chance to perform and do some good. You want to sprinkle in moments and memories to understand and make that last match more meaningful, fine, but let’s use the rest of our two hours and show the future of the business. That’s how I want to go out, because when I came in, there was a gold medalist who’s like, I’ll work with the kid. To be on a sold-out show in Chicago and hear that noise, I was already hooked, but that’s it. I want to give NXT kids a chance to be there, and I want to give major WWE superstars a chance to be on the card. It’s a limited thing. It’s not WrestleMania, it’s only limited spots, but that’s how I want to go out. And there’ll be people to criticize that. My theory, or my perspective was, if you do a whole show on John, two things can happen. Too much, not enough. No one’s ever gonna be like, nailed it.”

What did winning that 17th championship mean to you?

“I want to choose my words carefully. I have been apprehensive for quite some time for that, because I love Ric, super mentor to me, always been a great guy to me, and I love him. I meant what I said in the press conference at Rumble, and this is another thing, like I never wasted a second. We want you to do the press conference. How do I make these moments meaningful? I want to win 17 so I can shake the hand of the performer that wins 18. So what it meant to me, personally, was, ‘Hey, young uns, one of them is going to be you. You better get working, because I don’t want to be in the ground when 18 happens.’ I want to shake somebody’s hand. And something that’s impossible is now possible. So that’s what it means to me, hopefully, by my actions, this is possible. Holy hell, this guy wants to shake my hand when I pass it, and I can’t wait to do that.”

What about winning the Intercontinental Championship?

“What is special about that is I was able to work with Dom Mysterio three of my last four matches. And, gosh, that was really special. And honestly, the most special thing about winning it was being able to lose it how I did. That was really cool. I got to experiment with the US title and create an open challenge. And before that, I got to experiment with the US title and turn it into a spinner Bell. Turn it into a spinner belt. Twice, I was given what we in the company view as a secondary achievement, and was relentless in making it a primary objective. The guy on his way out. I said something in passing I’m like, that late IC title run just like Stone Cold had. You don’t touch that stuff at the end. You’re a champion. You’re of this pedigree. You don’t mess around with secondary objectives. In Boston, I made it mean something, and it did. It’s a nice it’s a nice win, and then the person who had it before me certainly gave value to it, but him beating me again for it, and now having it gives him even more value.”

Why was the Brock Lesnar match so quick?

“Well, I guess quick is perspective, because my frame didn’t feel like it was.”

Quick relative to the other matches you have worked this year:

“Again, I love the public’s ability to weigh in. You have this guy who’s returning, who absolutely looks like he hasn’t aged a day, moves like it. He can split his pants and still move like a ballerina, slip on his Pyro and do a ninja roll and be okay. He’s a beast. It’s his first time back. I’ve been in this seat before. It’s like I’m always in the seat when Brock comes back, Rock after Miami, who’s the next guy? SummerSlam with Roman, here he comes again. After he beats Taker for the streak, I’ve sat in this seat before. You have to figure out who gets the shine that night and if, in his return again, only my perspective. This attraction where we are going to build until he goes into the sunset, which is, I think, in Minnesota? Creatively, it’s very soon. To create a mountain to climb for someone, you have to build the mountain. I’m on my way out. It’s not like it’s gonna hurt me, but I’m a viable commodity, and it’s a great main event. See these two titans for the last time, and it’s ok. Sometimes your team gets blown out. We were first on the program. I did the best I could. We all did the best we could to make it a competitive fight into the middle. People forget I was in that arena when Brock fell down for the first time on the shoulder tackle, and then I was able to give them all the stuff. They were into it, and then just a bunch of gratuitous F5’s. That’s how you build Brock.”

That intro for AJ Styles was great:

“I just wanted to do something nice for my guy. I didn’t even show Alicia until I handed her the paper. You don’t get those moments unless you get the sh*t beat up. I wanted to do something special. I went about it the wrong way. I went into business for myself. I should have gotten permission to do that, and I would have gotten permission to do that, but I told no one about it, because I wanted to do something special, and in doing so, the people running the show felt surprised, and that’s not a position I ever want to put them in because they award me such creative liberty.”

I can’t imagine anyone had a problem with it?

“We’re all trying to make these moments special, and we’re all on the same team, and it shouldn’t be me doing something outside that realm. If I tell my teammates, hey, let’s do it. I can keep it from AJ, I can keep it from Alicia, but if I tell my teammates who are crafting this show, maybe they make it look better. The first thing I did was thank AJ, the second thing I did was pull a few creative individuals aside and say, ‘I’m sorry. That will never happen again. I know where I f*cked up. I’m so sorry, and I went into business for myself. That’s not me. I hope you look at my body of work, and all the times I’ve asked for permission, and this is the one time I ask for forgiveness.’ It got the best of me, but I wanted to do something nice for AJ.”

That match was so much fun:

“I just want to get that ball rolling. All right, they’re wasting the heel turn at WrestleMania, and they’re like, Oh, the Randy thing. And then the Punk, and then Cody, and then Logan in Paris was even kind of dope. And then you go to Brock, what? What are they gonna do next? And then you get the payoff, and we look at them all in individual moments, but it’s why, until now, I have refused to give anyone any information about any of this, because I don’t want to lead the witness. The last one is going to be the last one. We have told the story, everybody knows the drill, a tournament to decide, this is going to be it. I want the last one. I want people to look at the road ahead, 26 and beyond. I want them to take away some Superstar’s name from the 13th. But now we can reflect on the year. We get caught up in these moments, thinking that’s all you get and not realizing that this is the commercial spot before the reveal, before the big finish. We’ve just had to digest it as it has been a year storyline, and reflecting back on it, I get excited and again, I don’t feel I could have given anything else. So I’m very happy with how it’s gone so far.”

How nervous were you that you might get injured?

“That’s a concern we have all the time, not just in my perspective, you don’t think about it. I don’t really try stuff I haven’t done before on TV. I don’t debut stuff for the first time out there. So I think that helps knowing what you’re capable of. I’ve seen it firsthand. A lot of performers getting to the age and think there is good once as they once were, and again, I’ve leaned on what strength I have left, I’ve leaned on the wisdom I have and some of the tricks I’ve learned, but all the stuff I’ve done is within the realm of what I can do. You’re seeing me do some stuff for the first time, but you’re seeing it for the first time. I make sure to go through it a bunch so that I can bat 1,000 out there. And if I can’t, it’s just out, it gets cut. So I just don’t think about that. I try to set the performance up for success, and then if you dwell on getting injured, it’s gonna be all you think about in your mind elsewhere, and it’s not in the moment.”

You know there are some people who still don’t think you are retiring:

“I love that, and I don’t knock them for that. Because this has never been done before. Wrestlers don’t retire. So to be the first one, you’re gonna run into some scepticism.”

What do you think is the one thing that allowed you to have the success you had?

“I have thought about life a lot. I’m super lucky. I know that. So luck, but it’s very difficult to nail down an answer, because it could be tons of things. There’s so much unpredictability in that to do this. I think what is certain from a mathematical standpoint, I’m borrowing from Johnny Carson and Charlie Munger, is how to fail. I think how you can fail in life is be uninvested, unprofessional, unreliable and uncoachable. I think if you repeatedly do those things, no matter how gifted or talented you are, you will fail. I have never been the most gifted or talented, but I’ve always tried to be invested, professional, reliable and coachable, and I have not failed because of lack of those dimensions. But I guarantee you, if you, if you do those four things, you’re gonna, you’re gonna crash and burn.”

I’m gonna throw out some names, can you give me a word or phrase to describe them?

Cody Rhodes – Resilient

Randy Orton – Smooth

R-Truth – Beautiful. He makes everybody smile

Logan Paul – Underrated

CM Punk – My Wrestling soulmate

Drew McIntyre – A story of resilience

Sami Zayn – Underdog

Brock Lesnar – Once in a genre. There will be one Brock Lesnar in wrestling, and that’s from like carnival time to the time we shut the lights out if we’re lucky enough to get another. I don’t know who it is.

AJ Styles – Best to ever do it. Shawn’s gonna be p*ssed, and God did Shawn ever take care of me. There’s not a lot he [Styles] can’t do, and he makes difficult look easy. But that is not God given talent. That is practice. When you see difficult become seamless, it’s because it’s been done 10,000 times, and the amount of sh*t he can do seamlessly. Man, he’s best to ever do it.

Sheamus – This is way inside baseball, and only he’s gonna get it. The World’s Tallest Wrestler.

Rey Mysterio – Mentor, and someone who allowed them to be a part of their family when he didn’t need to.

What are 3 things you are grateful for?

“The love and connection I have in my life, my health and the understanding that I am a part of the opportunities, but I have not done this by myself.”

Please support our sponsors!
PURE PLANK: The future of core fitness! Use the code CVV to save 10% on Pure Plank designed by Adam Copeland & Christian: https://gopureplank.com/?ref=tibcloux

FACTOR: Get 50% off your first box, plus Free Breakfast for 1 Year with the code INSIGHT50OFF at https://factormeals.com/INSIGHT50OFF

STASH: Go to https://get.stash.com/INSIGHT to see how you can receive $25 towards your first stock purchase and to view important disclosures

SEAT GEEK: Use my code for 10% off your next SeatGeek order*: https://seatgeek.onelink.me/RrnK/CVV2025 Sponsored by SeatGeek. *Restrictions apply. Max $20 discount

NORDVPN: Exclusive deal! https://nordvpn.com/cvv Try it risk-free now with a 30-day money-back guarantee!

PRIZEPICKS: Download the app today and use code INSIGHT to get $50 instantly after you play your first $5 lineup!

TIMELINE: Go to https://timeline.com/insight to get 10% off your order of Mitopure!

VUORI: Get 20% off your first purchase! Get yourself some of the most comfortable and versatile clothing on the planet at https://vuori.com/cvv

ROCKET MONEY: Join Rocket Money today and reach your financial goals faster: https://rocketmoney.com/cvv

MIRACLE MADE: Upgrade your sleep with Miracle Made! Go to https://trymiracle.com/CVVand use the code CVV to claim your FREE 3 PIECE TOWEL SET and SAVE over 40% OFF

ZOCDOC: Instantly book a top-rated doctor today at https://zocdoc.com/insight

BONCHARGE: Use the code CVV to save 15% off your infrared sauna blanket at https://boncharge.com/cvv

BLUECHEW: Get your first month of BlueChew for free with the code CVV at https://bluechew.com

Bryan Danielson (@bryandanielson) is a professional wrestler and announcer currently signed to AEW. He sits down with Chris Van Vliet in Houston, TX to discuss his new role on AEW commentary, if he has retired from the ring, why he left WWE to sign with AEW, the segment that got hijacked by fans, the YES Movement, losing to Sheamus in 18 seconds, winning in the main event of WrestleMania 30, if a Brie Bella return is possible, and more! 

On making the move to commentary:

“It’s been interesting because I wasn’t anticipating being a commentator. So I was at home, and then they asked me to come in because Taz was getting shoulder surgery, and to come and help out a little bit. But traveling has been difficult for me. That’s one of the things I didn’t expect, because I’ve traveled my entire adult life. It’s no big deal. But with my neck as bad as it is, all of a sudden, it was almost, gosh. It was like eight or nine months where I was only traveling maybe once a month. I’d go to the pay-per-views and all that kind of stuff. But yeah, the weekly travel has been a lot, and it’s just been made sleeping hard and that sort of thing.”

Is it the sitting on the plane the whole time?

“It’s also just lugging luggage around. So I typically just have a carry-on in a backpack, or whatever it is. But then it’s like being uncomfortable in the chair. I’ve made some adjustments, so I have a cervical pillow now that I travel with me, because for a while I was just sleeping with one of those hand towels underneath my neck, just so it’s not being pushed up or anything like that. But it’s impossible. I live on the West Coast, and then I also live an hour and a half to two hours from the airport, so it’s impossible for all these cross-country flights to stay in good posture the whole time, that kind of stuff. And then, heaven forbid, I fall asleep and I do this, and then I wake up like, oh no, I can’t feel my hand.”

On preparing for commentary as opposed to preparing for wrestling:

“It’s way different. From a performer’s perspective, I really just need to know what my match is, what they’d like for a finish, how much time you’ve got, and then it’s like, okay. Then you talk with your opponent, whatever it is, and then it’s the physical preparation. I would take 30 to 45 minutes to warm up for a match. I learned that from Randy Orton. Randy Orton was the best guy at warming up in WWE. He would do all these things, and if he had to do something on short notice, he’d get pissed. He’s like, ‘I don’t have time to do my shoulder routine’, or whatever. Just think of how many matches Randy’s done. His entire career has been in WWE, and during that time where they’re doing tons of live events every year and all that kind of stuff, so his body’s been through a lot. So he prepared it, and I would see it, and I had my own 10 to 15 minute warm-up. But then as I’ve got older, it became much more like, Okay, I need 30 to 45 minutes to warm up. So yeah. But now from a commentator perspective, I tend to go around and talk to people about their matches. I tend to be in Tony’s office trying to understand what the main story is that we’re trying to tell throughout a match, or whatever it is, and then I write a bunch of notes. This is the thing, with most things, you write a bunch of notes, most of them you don’t ever use. But there have been times where I’ve sat there and Excalibur asked me a question, and I just go like this [blank face]. So I found out I was doing full-time commentary while I was doing a media tour of Australia, I found out it was like, ‘Okay, starting this Wednesday…’ And I was like, Oh no, I have to get from Brisbane, Australia all the way to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and then I have to do commentary and all this kind of stuff. I was so jet lagged and tired when I got [there], there were a couple times during that, obviously Taz and Excalibur carried the bulk of the thing. There was one time Excalibur asked me a question, and I just went like this. I didn’t even say, ‘Er?’ And then Excalibur just goes, ‘Well, Taz?’ But it’s been good and fun. Commentary is a skill, so it’s something that you have to learn. I’ve been really lucky and grateful to have Taz and Excalibur and then Tony. I asked Tony Schiavone when he’s not busy backstage, and he’s super busy, and said, Can you give me some tips? Because it’s not something that I’m naturally good at.” 

On his neck issues:

“So I have degeneration from C1 all the way down to T2. [Your entire neck?] Yeah. So it’s like I’m on the cusp of needing surgery. It’s this weird line. I’d like to avoid surgery as much as possible. So my last neck surgery, I never fully recovered from it in the sense of getting back the strength gains and the mobility and all that sort of thing. So I’d really like to avoid it as much as possible, especially because my son is a menace. I had a broken arm, you have a big cast, I’m in a sling. I was like, ‘Buddy, you can’t touch daddy’s arm.’ And he’s jumping on my arm and all this kind of stuff. And I’m just like, Oh no, if I get neck surgery, it’s not like you wear a neck brace, not like you walk around in a neck brace. He’s pure boy. No matter how many times Brie tells him, and I tell him, but not as forcefully as Brie does, but Brie is, like, ‘Get off of daddy’s neck!’ And he just can’t not do it. It’s just like a boy thing. Our daughter is super good about it, but he’s all boy.”

Are you retired from the ring?

“I hate the R word because I was forced to retire before. So I never consider myself fully retired. This is how I think, and this is how a lot of wrestlers think, Well, I think I could do this in this situation, if needed, or called upon, or whatever it is. But effectively for the Bryan Danielson that I used to be, yeah, that guy doesn’t exist anymore.”

Do you want to go back if you can’t be that Bryan Danielson?

“I would love to, but not on TV. So, for example, I spent a large portion of my early career doing Butlins shows in the UK, because I was very bad at performing and being entertaining. William Regal hooked me up with Brian Dixon. We’d go over and do these Butlins holiday camps. So you pay $500 for a weekend, and your whole family can go. It includes food. It includes entertainment. So you see magicians, you see musicians, you can go to a dance hall, and oh, in the afternoon, there’s wrestling. So these people aren’t wrestling fans. They just want to be entertained. You know what I mean? So William Regal had me go over there, because although I naturally picked up the wrestling aspect of it very quickly, I did not pick up the entertainment aspect very quickly. So I spent a lot of time, and I learned to love it. I’d sing the American National Anthem, very poorly, and forget the words. There would be times where I’d be like, Okay, how many times can I accidentally hit myself in the crotch and all these sorts of things. We were doing it six, seven days a week, every week. The first time I went was 2003 and I was there for six months, and in the last 15 days I was there, I wrestled 21 matches. So you kind of have to with this kind of schedule, and you’re doing long drives every day and all that kind of stuff. With that kind of schedule, you had to be more entertaining. That’s what Regal said. He said that stuff saved me when I was hurt. When you look at William Regal’s career, I remember all the great wrestling matches. But what I think a lot of fans remember is his comedy skits backstage and how funny he was. Then, if you look at his ring stuff, when he was doing a lot of flexing and then pushing his bicep up and all that kind of stuff. But that’s all stuff that you learn from doing these holiday camps versus, at the time, I was doing a lot of independent wrestling that was very much geared towards having great matches, right? So yeah, I think I could go have fun matches and have fun doing the fun matches. But then I don’t think that’s the kind of wrestling fans would want to pay to see Bryan Danielson do.”

On his first WWE contract:

“I got signed in February of 2000 and then got let go in June or July of 2001. I think my career, and I think my life was better because I got fired then. But that’s all hindsight, at your time, it was just like I thought it was the richest man alive. At first they hired us at $500 a week, which is $26,000 a year. I thought it was so rich, because I grew up below the poverty line, and I was just like, ‘Oh, my God, you’re just gonna give me $500 every week to wrestle? This is unbelievable!’ So we were in San Antonio when they first gave us the deal. Then we moved to Memphis, and they paid us $750 a week. And I’m like, this is the most money. I can’t even imagine having this much money. What is this? Then they fired me, and it’s like, oh no, but then they pay you for 90 days after that and I’m like, Oh, wow, this is just free money. But it was weird because then I had to start building a name on the independent scene, and then you’re going back to the idea of like, okay. There was this great company called ECCW. I’m pretty sure, and I could be wrong, but I’m pretty sure it stood for Extremely Canadian Championship Wrestling. But they would do like 150 shows a year, they were based out of Vancouver and Surrey, British Columbia. So I moved back home, lived with my mom, started going to community college, worked two jobs, and then I’d go up on the weekends, and they do like three shows every weekend, and so I’d go up and I do those shows, and they’d pay me $75 Canadian, which at the time was like $45 American, and it did not include my gas money. So by the time I was paid, I was barely breaking even, or whatever it is. But the time making $750 a week allowed me to have that kind of savings. So it wasn’t a bad gig.”

On being The Miz’s rookie:

“I thought it was great, because what you want in WWE is some sort of story. So this is one of the things that I had a hard time with. When they signed me, I had longer hair and a little bit more of a wilder look. I liked that look, but they said, Okay, you’re gonna do this thing with The Miz. You’re gonna be a rookie. So I really without anybody asking me to, and maybe that’s one of the things that I should have said was, ‘Hey, how much are we going to play [into this?]’ The reality was they didn’t put much thought into that show at all. So it was like, looking back on it, it’s like that was their main priority was they’d film SmackDown on Tuesdays. Their main priority was SmackDown, then they just threw NXT together before that. But I thought this is, and it was, a huge opportunity to be on TV. So what I did was cut my hair more to look more generic. I tried to look as generic as possible with the idea, and me and Miz were collaborating on this stuff. Of some ideas, Miz was great about pitching ideas to the writers and all that kind of stuff about all these things of, okay, I can’t learn wrestling from Miz, but he’s going to teach me to be a Superstar, and me being frustrated like, ‘That’s not important. The only thing that’s important is the wrestling.’ That kind of thing that people think that I actually think, or that people think he would actually think, this could be a really good TV dynamic, and we both thought that, and then none of it ever happened. So then I just looked like a nerd for no reason. Not to say that I’m not a nerd. I’m just saying that I went out of my way to look less.” 

Was your passion for wrestling the reason you signed with AEW?

“Yeah. Also the idea of wanting to try something new, I always kind of wanted to push myself. I knew it was probably the last wrestling contract I’d ever sign. I had watched Cody wrestle Penta, and I used to ride with Cody. They’re both standing on the top and Cody did this top rope Frankensteiner I was like is that what you have to do? Part of it is scary, and part of it is intriguing, like, Oh, can I do this? I used to be able to do this style. Can I still do this style? The style that I gravitate towards is a more athletic, sports-based style, so I wanted to see that. There was also the idea at the time, the pandemic was just kind of ending, and we’re starting to do live shows again. I didn’t know if WWE was going to start doing the live events and stuff again, because at that point we had two kids, and I was like, I don’t want to do that schedule anymore. At AEW, it’s just Wednesdays. At the time, it was just Wednesdays. And I was like, that was a very appealing schedule to me, for my family. And then I also wanted to see if my body could still do some of these things. Some of it could, and some of it couldn’t. You learn that the hard way.” 

On coming back from retirement:

“When I came back in 2018, it was really weird. Because I was trained by Shawn Michaels, he told the whole class, The day that you stop being nervous before you go out there is the day that you need to retire, right? When I came back from being forced to retire, I thought that first match I’d be nervous, and I wasn’t. I was just happy, and I never really got nervous before a match again. There was one match that I was nervous for, and that was the match I had with Okada at Forbidden Door in 2023. The only reason why I was nervous is because it was a five-hour show, we were on last and we had to follow Kenny Omega and Will Ospreay. I watched that match and I was like, Oh no. Then there’s still two more matches, and then me and Okada have to go out there. Then I was just stressed, and I was like, ah, but that’s the only time I remember being nervous before a match.”

What did WWE say was the creative for the Sheamus match at WrestleMania?

“What they said is, it’s one move. So yeah, that was the direction.” 

Did you ask why?

“No. I wasn’t at that point in my career. Also, I’ve never been somebody who’s been like, ‘Wait a second, why would you beat me in 18 seconds?’ Or ‘Why would you beat me with just one move?’ Or whatever it was. It’s like, okay, that’s the creative direction. I’m going to do the best that I can with it. I find that a lot of people put up stinks about a lot of things, or whatever it is, but I think, Okay, if you have an idea, it’s like well what if we do this? ‘Nope, we want to do that.’ I mean, you can put up a little resistance if you really don’t like something, but then if this is what the boss wants, you’re better off to do your absolute best at what the boss wants, and then try to get over from that. I think a great example in AEW is Swerve Strickland. He came in and he lost a lot of matches, but it was always like, ‘Yeah Tony, whatever you need. I’ll go out there and do it.’ Then now look at him. He’s main evented pay-per-views. He’s a world champion. He’s fantastic. There will be people who will take the other idea of, oh, I don’t want to do that, or I don’t even want to lose, or this or that, or whatever. Man, it’s not real [laughs]. I mean, there’s a couple guys in wrestling who would do well in MMA, there’s a couple, not many [laughs]. So it’s like, okay. I mean, if you want to win every match, you can go try MMA. You could even just try out the best guy at the local gym here in Houston in your weight class and see how it goes. Not to say that guys in wrestling couldn’t do it. It’s just we haven’t spent time training together. But yeah, I’ve always been a little bit perplexed by some of that kind of stuff.”

On fans hijacking and winning Money in the Bank: 

“But even in the sense of like, then when Batista won that Royal Rumble. I feel bad for Batista, because he worked hard to come back and all that kind of stuff. You do that with Batista now, he gets a great reaction, or any other year. I don’t think it was necessarily me. It was okay. The crowd had gotten behind a Dolph Ziggler, the crowd had gotten behind a Kofi Kingston, and they got up to a certain level, and then they were during that era, it was like, okay, then they would always kind of be pushed back down, or whatever it is. I think fans were starting to get upset by it. Even Punk, me and Punk had wrestled a match on a pay-per-view, must have been 2012 for the title. We were in the middle of the show, and the main event was John Laurinaitis and John Cena. I think the fans were ready for something new, or whatever it is. I mean, that’s just time and place, there’s a lot of my career that’s been like that. I’m of the firm belief that you could have [anyone]. I was in a very fortunate position, even winning the title. I wasn’t even supposed to. I wasn’t even supposed to be there that day. The thing that whole led to me Yes-ing was I had won the Money in the Bank, and the only reason I won the Money in the Bank is because they had two Money in the Banks. They had one for Raw and one for SmackDown. They knew for sure they wanted Alberto Del Rio to win the Raw one. The SmackDown one, they thought they wanted Wade, Barrett, Cody Rhodes or me on the day of the show, they all decided it was me because they didn’t want a bad guy to win the Money in the Bank on the SmackDown side, because they had a bad guy winning it on the Raw side. But the most important thing was the Alberto Del Rio thing. But then they gave me the Money in the Bank, and they’re like, oh no. Now Daniel Bryan has the Money in the Bank, and nobody at that point had cashed in and lost. And so, you know, we did a couple things with it for a couple weeks, and then it was off TV for like six weeks, or whatever it is. Then they inserted me in a story with Big Show and Mark Henry, which got me on TV or whatever it is. But it was great. It put me in a story, but then Mark Henry got hurt. This was at the TLC pay per view in 2011. Mark Henry gets hurt. I wasn’t scheduled to be at the pay-per-view. I had a Walmart signing that same day in Baltimore with Kelly Kelly, and came over to the building because Brie was there; I think Brie had a match on the show. So I was there, and then Vince found out that I was there, and then Daniel Bryan’s here, and then it’s like, oh! Because I had been involved in this thing with Mark Henry and Big Show. Okay, well Mark Henry’s hurt, so they had to do like a real smoke and mirrors type chair match, and then Mark gets mad at Big Show. And then, just because I happened to be there, it’ll be shocking that Daniel Bryan comes in and cashes in on Big Show. So even that was just a circumstance. If I hadn’t been booked, if Walmart hadn’t asked to have two WWE wrestlers sign at that on that particular day, that whole thing would have never happened. And Vince’s direction to me was go out there and celebrate like you just won the Super Bowl. Then that’s how the yes thing happened. A lot of these are just circumstances. If they had let me at WrestleMania go out there and wrestle Sheamus for 20 minutes, and then he beats me, I don’t know if it would have stayed as hot. I mean, it was more angering that they just had him beat me in 18 seconds with one move. So it’s like all of these things are things beyond my control. I have nothing to do with any of these things. And they’re just these weird little gifts, right?”

On being told he was winning at WrestleMania 30:

“I don’t even remember. I honestly don’t. WrestleMania 30 was a very difficult time period for me, because my neck was really bad. I had gotten a concussion that I had to hide, not had to hide. But I realized I was in this thing, this trajectory of going to WrestleMania 30. I had gotten a bad concussion, but I had to hide it, and was doing live events with the concussion. Then I was wrestling one match. After the match I was in the shower, and I couldn’t even stand. I was riding by myself, and I had to ask a friend to drive me to the next town. So WrestleMania 30 happened. I was not in a great headspace, to be honest. I got married on Friday, my wife and I went on a honeymoon. I’d never been to Hawaii before, so we went to Maui, and we stayed at this eco retreat, and it was awesome. But I was looking up, and you had this portal to the moon, but the room just wouldn’t stop spinning. At this point, the Chris Nowinski concussion book had come out, and I knew that I’d been lying about concussions for a while. Then we get back from our honeymoon on Saturday, we fly to Baltimore, which is the place where I first won the World Heavyweight Championship, cashing in that Money in the Bank. Then I found out the next morning my dad died. That’s completely unexpected. So it’s like, so people ask me about WrestleMania 30. Honestly, that whole thing was a blur. So I don’t remember them telling me.”

How many concussions have you had?

“So I’ve had 13 documented concussions. [Is the actual number more?] Who knows? I don’t know. It’s just weird, because when I started in 1999 the idea was, Oh, you just got dinged. You got your bell rung. So, with all the stuff that they’ve discovered about concussions since then, it’s probably too many. I would say it’s probably too many.”

Did you have an inkling in 2016 that you had too many concussions?

“So what had happened is I’d had some post-concussion seizures that I never told WWE about. So then Brie who had been there to witness a post-concussion seizure. She said, ‘The next concussion you have…’ and she was worried about me when we were on our honeymoon, the room was spinning, and this is supposed to be the best week of our life. There was also a semi-funny incident, but she became worried that it was because of concussions, rather than just my overall aloofness. We were in Maui, and we had rented a car. You’re going along the east side of the island, you’re doing this drive, and then we stopped at this beach. We made a million stops just to see all the different things. We stopped at this beach, and the waves looked great. And I’m like, I’m gonna go body surfing. So I got in the car, and then Brie took this picture of me as I’m emerging from the water, just like, Oh Bryan must be the happiest man alive. And then she goes, where are the car keys? And then I was like, Oh no. And we lost them to the Pacific Ocean, and then I had left him in my pocket. I don’t think that was because of concussions. I think it’s just my overall aloofness. But after that I had neck surgery, and I was gone for nine months. But she said, the very next concussion you have, you need to tell them about this.'”

On a possible Brie Bella return:

“Yeah, only in certain contexts. She doesn’t want to come back and do a singles run or anything like that. If she comes back, she would want to do it with Nicole. But I think there’s something in her too, and I can appreciate this, because our kids see her as just a mom, just a mom, as if that isn’t the hardest job in the world. Part of her, I think, has a desire to have the kids see her in that light too. I didn’t realize it until later, how amazing my mom was, right in the sense of, okay, we didn’t have any money. She was a single mom. She was working two jobs, going to college. I don’t know if it was my junior year or senior year of high school. She was going on a walk with a friend, and she just collapsed from exhaustion. She had to be taken to the hospital, to the emergency room. She was somebody who probably needed food stamps, but we lived in a small town, she didn’t want to [use them], she was ashamed. She didn’t want to go to the grocery store and pay with food stamps, all these sorts of things. My mom is also an inspiration to me. She went to college, got her master’s degree in psychology, and ended up working with underprivileged kids. She worked with the Native Americans. She worked in the prison. She got attacked in a prison being in a room with an inmate. You think about that, and you think of like, okay, I grew up knowing I was loved. Which is like, okay, Brie and I can fail at everything else in this life, but if we let our kids know that they’re loved. But all of that to say, I don’t understand how my mom did it. Now I’m in amazement, right? Because financially, we’re doing okay. We didn’t have any of the financial stressors that my mom had, and she still made a lot of time for us and like I said, made us know that we were loved. With Brie, this whole mom thing, one day our kids will realize what a great mom she is. But it’s fun to see when they don’t appreciate it. So it’s like, I was FaceTiming her and the kids this morning, and then just our son being as wild as he is, and then our daughter and part of me, but you never say that as a parent. You never say, “Do you realize how much I’m doing for you?””

What is Bryan Danielson grateful for?

“Family, the trees, and this experience right now.”

Please support our sponsors!
PURE PLANK: The future of core fitness! Use the code CVV to save 10% on Pure Plank designed by Adam Copeland & Christian: https://gopureplank.com/?ref=tibcloux
FACTOR: Get 50% off your first box, plus Free Breakfast for 1 Year with the code INSIGHT50OFF at https://factormeals.com/INSIGHT50OFF

STASH: Go to https://get.stash.com/INSIGHT to see how you can receive $25 towards your first stock purchase and to view important disclosures

SEAT GEEK: Use my code for 10% off your next SeatGeek order*: https://seatgeek.onelink.me/RrnK/CVV2025 Sponsored by SeatGeek. *Restrictions apply. Max $20 discount

NORDVPN: Exclusive deal! https://nordvpn.com/cvv Try it risk-free now with a 30-day money-back guarantee!

PRIZEPICKS: Download the app today and use code INSIGHT to get $50 instantly after you play your first $5 lineup!

TIMELINE: Go to https://timeline.com/insight to get 10% off your order of Mitopure!

VUORI: Get 20% off your first purchase! Get yourself some of the most comfortable and versatile clothing on the planet at https://vuori.com/cvv

ROCKET MONEY: Join Rocket Money today and reach your financial goals faster: https://rocketmoney.com/cvv

MIRACLE MADE: Upgrade your sleep with Miracle Made! Go to https://trymiracle.com/CVVand use the code CVV to claim your FREE 3 PIECE TOWEL SET and SAVE over 40% OFF

ZOCDOC: Instantly book a top-rated doctor today at https://zocdoc.com/insight

BONCHARGE: Use the code CVV to save 15% off your infrared sauna blanket at https://boncharge.com/cvv

BLUECHEW: Get your first month of BlueChew for free with the code CVV at https://bluechew.com

CJ Perry (@TheCJPerry) is a professional wrestler and valet best known for her time in WWE as Lana. She sits down with Chris Van Vliet at West Coast Creative Studio in Hollywood, CA to discuss the launch of her new podcast “Identity Crisis”, taking time away from wrestling, her husband Rusev and his return to WWE, how the Lana character was pitched to her, being part of a hilarious moment with Nia Jax, being involved in multiple romantic storylines, and more!

How the first episode of her podcast went down:

“It went shockingly well. People are subscribing, people are commenting, people are invested. Our editor actually reviewed everything. They were shocked. They were like, This is the best podcast, the highest we’ve ever performed. So it’s really encouraging. You’re actually a big inspiration to me.” 

What do you mean? 

“I’ve studied your podcast like no other. Probably about two years ago, I really wanted to start a podcast. I shot my first pilot, and it was not up to par. I was like, Ooh, I need to go and do more research. I’m a big person that when I decide to go after something, I dive in full-heartedly. So for two years, I would spend about four hours a day watching podcasts, dissecting it and everything, what works, what doesn’t work. I’m always amazed, because you do mainstream media, but you also do wrestling, and yours just always perform so well. I’ve been following you for five years.” 

On being the host of the show:

“I thought, oh, it’d be easier, because I love talking, I love being on podcasts, but I’m always on this side. So I always felt like I could almost control my own interview, even though I was the guest. I’ve already done 10 episodes, art edited them in the process, just to have some ahead of time, and I noticed I was having challenges controlling it.”

On taking time away:

“I was really unhappy for a long time, and I think I first got triggered when I got released in 2021 from WWE. It was like my whole life. It was my dream, and I loved it. All my friends are there. You spend 300 days of the year with these women and men, and then you can’t even come backstage again. I struggle with being very ADHD and severely anxious, and it just triggered me into this manic time of my life that I didn’t understand that was an issue for me. So, actually it was Kendall Jenner on Jay Shetty’s purpose podcast that she was talking about anxiety in 2021 and I was like, wow, that’s me. I didn’t realize how much my relationships were suffering from anxiety, and my marriage was suffering from me being severely ADHD and severely anxious. I think divorce rate is 50% more in ADHD people, depression and anxiety is 50% more in ADHD people, and suicide is 50% more in ADHD people, because nothing’s good enough and you get bored and you want to move on. And so WWE was the perfect storm for me, because I was go, go, go, new city. Stimulation, stimulation, dopamine hit when you go and perform. Then when I didn’t have all that and I had to make myself happy, I was turning to all the wrong things. I was even turning to Miro too much to make me happy, and also he was turning to me to make him happy. In reality, the only person that can make us happy is ourselves, and I had to do some severe changes. In 2023 I got MRSA, remember, with my finger. It was so bad. I think a lot of it was because I was so stressed and so anxious, and it shows you that your body, stress can kill us. And so we really have to take care of our mental health and our emotional health first, because that will affect our physical health.” 

Did your WWE release in 2021 come as a surprise at the time? 

“I was shocked. I was on television and in big, big storylines the whole time. Had a great relationship with Bruce and Vince, everyone. I was devastated. But now looking back, I’m thankful, because that’s life, and sometimes our hardest moments is our moments that teach us. Now looking back, I realize, not in a mean way, but nothing’s guaranteed in life. We can’t compare ourselves to other people, because we all have a different journey. And also, we don’t live forever, so everything has to come to an end, so let’s focus on all the great things I was able to have, versus it may be finishing too soon.”

On her relationship with Miro:

“Things are really good [now]. He did file for divorce. We were very much like on, off, on, off for about a year before that [the separation], got separated and almost divorced several times before that. Yeah, the story on my podcast is true, according to me, he served divorce papers. Wanted them to get to me on my birthday, for whatever reason. I know it sounds so insane. I don’t know what I did to my brain, the kind of the whole time I thought he was doing a storyline or something. I know that sounds so weird, like, now looking back, I’m like, I think I did that to protect myself, like, oh, he doesn’t mean this. He doesn’t mean this, he just wants to be separated. That was really hard for me, but it was one of the greatest moments of my life, because that was when I really cut myself off from the world. It was right after I got released from AEW, so it was like divorce papers, AEW release all in like a week. That was really hard because I felt like and me, Miro even talked about that, even if we got divorced, we want to work together still. So he had gone to Bulgaria. I was waiting for him to come back, and I was like, okay, I love Miro. He’s my family. Even if we maybe at different moments, didn’t see eye to eye, we weren’t on the same page. We wanted different things there for a moment, we still had incredible love for each other, because I don’t know, we’re family, we’re best friends. We wanted to work together regardless. So Miro was really unhappy too when I got released, because he was also looking at AEW as like, take care of my wife, you know, ex-wife. So it got really complicated, but everything happens for a reason, and that’s when I decided to take time off and not do any anything in wrestling. I wanted to go into the indie scene because I love wrestling, but I just felt like I needed to focus on my mental health and my health. And that was when severe change started.”

What did that look like for you?

“So when I got the papers, I literally couldn’t get out of bed for two weeks. I Then finally, I was watching Jay Shetty again, and Jay Shetty is like, if you’re depressed, change your music, get outside in the sun for 15 minutes, take a walk, maybe move, if you can, be around new people. I literally did all of that, besides moving, I got out of bed, I started walking every single day for 30 minutes in the morning, and that already helped my mood. That already helped me become happier. I just think when I really focused on wellness, like going to therapy, acupuncture, working out better, eating very organic food, taking more vitamins, and then, just like really pushing myself to have an active life in nature, like go to the beach, go hiking, get into nature, that really helped me get so much happier. I also got sober. I stopped drinking. That was a huge part. I was prescribed prescriptions for my ADHD, and I had to come off of that. That was also a really big change. It’s hard for me to read. I’m very dyslexic, so I do have other challenges, not having medication, but my happiness and my well-being and my relationships are so much better now.”

On signing a WWE Legends deal:

“I’m still processing it. It’s funny, because I would say it’s been kind of controversial. One of the biggest things that I had on my podcast last week was announcing that I’m a WWE legend, and you thought I stole their Christmas presents or something, people were so mad. People were like, it’s a stretch, and they’re fighting, and then other fans are coming in and defending me. So I just want to acknowledge I understand, I was that shocked too. I absolutely understand that there’s a huge difference between the character Lana and Randy Savage on the legend scale. I get it, but this is what WWE calls their contracts, being a full WWE superstar. My agent called me. I was crying. I was shocked. Yeah, they gave Miro a contract, and they gave me the WWE legend contract at the same time.”

On how she got on WWE’s radar:

“So in college I was the most downloaded screen saver.” 

What photo is this? 

“Just me in bikinis on the beach, I know it’s it’s crazy. I was shocked, too. And then I was on a big calendar, the cover of it and the big poster in there. And WWE saw that, and so they recruited me. They brought me down to Miami to a show. I was 22, I was amazed.”

On how the Lana character was pitched:

“So Lana in NXT would come to promo class with Dusty Rhodes with at least five different characters and promos, not even kidding, with boards of storylines. I don’t know if you ever saw GLOW, when I watched it, I was like, I think she took my real life story, because that’s what I was doing. And Dusty loved it. Because, I don’t know about everyone else, everyone else was like, You’re doing the most. But was just working hard and Dusty loved it. He’s like, you’re going to have a very long career in this business. Because I was always like, Oh, you don’t like this idea. What about these other five? And so me and Rusev started working. One of the five ideas I was working on was me and Rusev, but we were doing more comedy, and he was the Bulgarian trying to un-brainwash me. I was the Russian that became Americanized, and he wanted to un-brainwash me, and it was very comedy and fun.” 

Were you guys dating at the time? 

“No, no, we were just friends. He would come over and we would shoot a bunch of promos, and I guess that’s how we became close. Then the next thing I know, Dusty said to me, ‘We only want you to do one promo. We want it to be serious and see what it looks like.’ I did it, and then the next thing you know, Miro was like, let’s do something serious. And then we were put together. We did one serious promo. He’s like, let’s not do comedy, let’s do serious. And then next day, I was on NXT with him. I was just serious without an accent. And then Hunter pulled me aside. He’s like, ‘I want you to only talk Russian. Let’s start this and we’ll see how far [it goes.’ And then it was just an evolution. Triple H was very hands-on. He’s a genius. And he was like, ‘Okay, let’s try a different hair, a different suit or something.’ So that’s how the suit and the bun came about.”

On the negative reaction to the Russia storyline:

“It was insane. People booing you, in comments, people telling you to go back to Mother Russia, it was crazy. I think I did notice a lot of hate. Partly the reason why I don’t post on my family on social media too much is because I would post it like my little nephew, and people would just come for the child, like, ‘Move back the Russia, you stupid child.’ I was like, Oh my God, that’s so inappropriate right now. So you know, I have to just remember I’m that character. It’s kind of like Game of Thrones. Everyone hated the king or Cersei, right? And people see us as that character. They don’t see me as CJ with my little nephew. They see me as the evil Lana who’s being mean to their children in America. So we’re going to be mean back.”

On an early Joe Hendry segment:

“I remember he was better than the Americans that were trying to play it. His accent was way more believable. So we did something in America for a ceremony with American actors. I was traumatized, because I’m like, that is very bad. We need to work on your accent. I was actually really impressed by him, and I’ll never forget. That’s what I said to him, and he brought that up. He was like, ‘You put my accent over.’ I was like, ‘Because I was impressed with how well you were doing.’ So I thought he was very believable as our lawyer, and I was so happy to see him at WrestleMania, I couldn’t believe it. It’s those stories that just make me love this business and make me love life, because it’s like, yeah, you had a dream, and you persevered. Chelsea Green the same way, they played these little parts on the show years ago, and then they kept going, going, going. And the see their payoff now is so beautiful.”

On wrestling Nia Jax in the “My Hole” match:

“I had no idea that it was gonna become an international meme. That was nuts. I push her through the table, she goes through the table, and I believe it was Triple H and Johnny [Ace], I can’t remember exactly who gave [the line] about joking about “my hole” in rehearsal, and then that’s what she did. I did hurt her hole, and it became an international meme, which I’m very proud of. It’s so funny. I honestly can’t believe that I put her through a table and hurt her hole [laughs].”

On getting put through the announce table every week:

“I was just the biggest heel at the moment in the business because of the Bobby Lashley story. I was teaming up with Nattie, and we were heels. Vince wanted to have his new schtick for Nia that she was going to put someone through commentary every single week, and he was going to turn her into a massive babyface. So I was like, ‘I want to go. I’ve always wanted to go through a table. It’s my dream.’ That was told to Vince, and Vince thought that was so hysterical that I ever dreamed of going through a table. He thought it made the most sense if they were trying to make her as a babyface, to put the person that was hated the most through the table. Because everyone, Liv wanted to go through it, a whole bunch of other girls were like, No, me, me. So she put me through [the table], and it was the same day that Miro had an AEW interview on a podcast, and it was just something with his interview and me doing that at the same time that the fans assumed I was being disciplined because of Rusev, but it wasn’t that way at all. It just really worked into my favor that the fans really had my back like that. One second they hate me and like that, they turn. God, I love our fan base. You guys are the best. So then the following week, I think originally, the plan was to put another girl through the table. And Vince was like, No, I want to try again, Lana. And then by the third week, I had become a full-blown babyface online. And it was so much heat for Nia and Shayna, he was like, I think this is going to make them a bigger heel and you have bigger babyface. So let’s run with it and see where it goes. So that’s what happened.”

On her romantic storylines:

“Yeah, it was a little awkward when I had to practice that kiss with Dolph and my, at the time, boyfriend was in the room. The whole thing was so funny, because Johnny Ace and Vince show what we need to do, and they get up real close, real super close.”

To each other? 

“Yeah, showing how it needs to be done. We’re giggling, and Vince is like, ‘No, we’re all professionals here. We’re all grown adults.’ So that already helped me go, okay, these grown men are very, you know, it is very professional. I come from a performance background, and I can easily pretend to be a friend, assassin, lover, mistress, and then leave work and turn it off, go back home, do chores, and do life and be together with Miro. We both understand that. He takes acting class. He’s been in movies. He’s been a husband in different things as well. So I think we always had that understanding. He’s very confident, though, he’s a man who feels totally secure and confident in me playing something that is believable, and I give him his props and flowers, because maybe for me it would be a little bit harder vice versa, but he understood that was what was bringing good money into the household.”

On Liv Morgan interrupting her wedding to Bobby Lashley:

“So this, again, was a Paul Heyman story, and I thought it was great, because I thought someone was going to interrupt. I thought Liv was gonna interrupt for Bobby Lashley, and I liked the spin on it. I didn’t know it was gonna be Liv Morgan. He originally said, we’re thinking about maybe Ruby, Liv, Daria. All of them really made sense to me. All of them, yeah, it really connected to me. We were just told that week by week, we’re gonna figure it out. And so me and Liv wanted to commit to it fully. We are very close friends. We had spent a lot of time together, and yeah, I had, throughout my life, dealt with my own sexuality. Not issues, what’s the right word? I guess, not being fully straight, questioning my own sexuality throughout my life. So to me, I identified to it completely. The fans [thought] it was polarizing. Some people really loved it, and other fans didn’t. And so who knows how the fans’ reaction affected it, I don’t know. But it leaves the door open, anything can happen. It’s wrestling, anything can happen.”

What is CJ Perry grateful for?

“That I am still married to Miro, my sobriety, and that I am a WWE legend.”

Please support our sponsors!

PURE PLANK: The future of core fitness! Use the code CVV to save 10% on Pure Plank designed by Adam Copeland & Christian: https://gopureplank.com/?ref=tibcloux

FACTOR: Get 50% off your first box, plus Free Breakfast for 1 Year with the code INSIGHT50OFF at https://factormeals.com/INSIGHT50OFF

STASH: Go to https://get.stash.com/INSIGHT to see how you can receive $25 towards your first stock purchase and to view important disclosures

SEAT GEEK: Use my code for 10% off your next SeatGeek
order*: https://seatgeek.onelink.me/RrnK/CVV2025 Sponsored by SeatGeek. *Restrictions apply. Max $20 discount

NORDVPN: Exclusive deal! https://nordvpn.com/cvv Try it risk-free now with a 30-day money-back guarantee!

PRIZEPICKS: Download the app today and use code INSIGHT to get $50 instantly after you play your first $5 lineup!

TIMELINE: Go to https://timeline.com/insight to get 10% off your order of Mitopure!

VUORI: Get 20% off your first purchase! Get yourself some of the most comfortable and versatile clothing on the planet at https://vuori.com/cvv

ROCKET MONEY: Join Rocket Money today and reach your financial goals faster: https://rocketmoney.com/cvv

MIRACLE MADE: Upgrade your sleep with Miracle Made! Go to https://trymiracle.com/CVV and use the code CVV to claim your FREE 3 PIECE TOWEL SET and SAVE over 40% OFF

ZOCDOC: Instantly book a top-rated doctor today at https://zocdoc.com/insight

BONCHARGE: Use the code CVV to save 15% off your infrared sauna blanket at https://boncharge.com/cvv

BLUECHEW: Get your first month of BlueChew for free with the code CVV at https://bluechew.com

Swerve Strickland (@swerveconfident) is a professional wrestler currently signed to AEW. He sits down with Chris Van Vliet in Houston, TX to discuss becoming the first black AEW World Champion, levelling up in AEW, wrestling Sting at All In 2023 and Bryan Danielson the year after, his brutal matches with Adam Page, the needle spot in his steel cage match, why he re-signed with AEW, and more!

On bulking up:

“I am definitely bigger, and it’s miserable maintaining it. Because there’s times where I’m in bed, and I’m like, I gotta get one more something. Because Applebee’s is my go-to, at like, 11:45-12, most places are closing down. So let me order just a salmon and asparagus and rice. It gets there, and I’m like, I don’t even have the energy to use a fork. I’m just picking at it with my hands to my mouth and, in bed, just feeling like [crap].”

How big are you looking to get?

“I don’t even know. I didn’t even know I could get to this. Honestly, I got to a point where it was like, I didn’t know I could do this. What more can I do? So it’s like that’s the addiction to it.” 

On getting out of his comfort zone:

“It’s facing fear, in a sense, but it’s not always the feeling of fear. It’s just a feeling of discomfort. I think people confuse the two. It’s like you’re not afraid of it, you’re just uncomfortable. There’s nothing to fear in any of this stuff. That’s why I relate to Fight Club, it is my favorite movie, I relate to it so much, because once you hit rock bottom, now there’s everything you can do. Once you go so low that you can’t go any lower, all the fear is gone. What’s the worst that can happen? It already happened. You’ve experienced it. And if you’re still around and you’re still alive and you can still make money, you can still make things happen at rock bottom, now you have no ceiling.”

What was the rock bottom point for you in your pro wrestling career?

“I would say just the independent grind between 2011, 12, 13, it was the point of just spinning wheels over and over again. That’s also when my both my daughters were born. So it’s just like, Okay, now it’s making very little money, no car, two daughters to feed, two different households. I still had the military, but I have all these commitments. But it took me a good couple of years to really find my footing and my groove, to really get into, just to maintain okay, that’s settled, that’s handled. All right, this is still behind, but I can figure something out. I think that’s where it was. It was just the process of figuring it out.”

On splitting the time between wrestling and music:

“I feel like they’re kind of one in the same now. I’ve done so much with wrestling that’s kind of got me into the doors with the music in a lot of different ways. Artists look at me a little bit more in a unique kind of space, because I know what I’m talking about, because I do it weekly on TV. So I was like, okay, he’s not full of sh*t, there’s something here to it. Now, we just got to see if he’s good. But I’ve done all the work and all the writing camps. I’ve studied and performed, and I’ve actually competed in songs with super MCs, like Mickey Factz, who’s literally teaching college courses on hip hop with Lupe Fiasco and competing against some of the greatest lyrics that’s out there in the world, getting nurtured and tutored by him and John Connor, who’s a Shady Aftermath former artist. Just all these guys, like Benny the Butcher, I have to compete on songs with these guys lyrically. So once again, it’s uncomfortable to step in a booth or I’m really not that seasoned yet, but these guys have been doing it for like 15-20 years, have gold plaques and are on songs with J Cole and songs with Eminem and Dr Dre produced records. These guys is who I’m on songs with. So that’s an uncomfortable room I have to put myself into to feel like I can compete, to have these dreams and aspirations to do like the stuff that I really want to do.”

On saying he wanted to be the first black AEW World Champion:

“I wasn’t sure, but that’s something I was just putting in the universe because I felt the momentum that I was gaining at the time. I was like, it has to be some point soon, has to be. I was never sure. I was never reassured. It wasn’t even written in my contract that I had to be World Champion by X amount of time. I didn’t have any of those specialties, I didn’t have any of the commitments. I didn’t have any promises. It was just like, that’s something I have to believe. And if I believe it, the fans will believe it. And if the fans believe it, that’s what gets you to those championship moments.” 

On why he is presented differently in AEW compared to WWE:

“I would explain it to somebody like this. It’s like, you can have a talented quarterback drafted number one, if he’s not in an organization that allows him to be a franchise quarterback, he’s not going to play like a franchise quarterback. Your quarterback and your talent on a team is only as good as your organization allows you to be. If they don’t allow you to be as great as you possibly could be, then you’re not. Imagine a lot of these great quarterbacks that came through in franchises, if they had Bill Belichick [they’d be even better].”

When did you feel like that about yourself:

“It takes losing the job to really believe it. I also felt like I was too giving, especially when they handed me Hit Row. I felt like Triple H wanted me to be LeBron in the [Miami] Heat, scoring, not passing the ball. That’s why I don’t think we did as well. I think I should have gotten the ball and been the LeBron with the team. Like when he lost it in the finals with the Mavericks, I felt like I should have been like, No, give me the ball. I felt like that was one of those moments. I didn’t take that initiative enough, strongly enough, and have been the franchise guy.”

On not being that well-known when he signed with AEW:

“Which worked in my favor, because they didn’t have anything to compare me to. A lot of people were like, ‘Who’s that?’ ‘Who’s this?’ On the day that I did the contract signing at Revolution, I was just like, I can take this as a disrespectful way and be bitter about it and feel petty, or I could use this in my favor and be like, okay, they know me, this is a fresh start. Once again, that rock bottom feel, there’s nowhere else to go but up. I’m not having to compare myself or work towards what I did in the past; I felt like that was so tough for a Bryan Danielson, because he was coming from being Daniel Bryan. He’s a Hall of Famer, just that in itself, is a Hall of Famer. So Bryan coming into [AEW], and for people that only know him as being Daniel Bryan to doing what he did as Bryan Danielson in AEW, that’s a whole other Hall of Fame career. Just like 2 to 3 years of him doing what he’s done here in AEW, so I feel like he had huge shoes to fill. Moxley the same way. Moxley reinvented himself three, four times here in AEW. Those guys had it harder than I did, I feel like, because they had this huge reputation. They had the big names when they came in. They’re coming in and already had super successful careers in WWE to like, Oh, I hope he’s better than what we’ve seen there. Or like, Oh, he’s not as good as what we saw over there, they already had the comparison.”

On wrestling Sting at Wembley:

“Wembley was great, but it was like, Sting, and one of my good friends, Darby, and a legend I grew up watching with Christian as my tag partner is just like, man, I couldn’t [imagine] that scenario in my career, once again. It’s exceeding what I thought I could do.”

On the moment where Sting’s bat saved him from the coffin shutting:

“Because we always get the tease of, like, no, no, no, no, no. So I was like, the speed of, especially if you’re watching from way up there. Oh, it’s over. Yeah, it’s done. Wait, what?”

Do you ever feel like you push it too far?

“Not to a point that’s overly dangerous, as far as I go.”

You’ve never felt uncomfortable?

“No, no. Like I said, I’m in the ring with the best in the world. There’s no reason to ever feel uncomfortable with these guys and girls.”

On Bryan Danielson saying their match was his favorite:

“Which always blows my mind to even being considered, even in a top five or 10 or 15 of Bryan Danielson’s matches. After what he did with Will [Ospreay], after what he did with Kenny [Omega], and rest in peace, after what he did it with Bray [Wyatt]. After what he did with so many greats, Orton and Triple H and Batista, then over here, this it blows my mind. But once again, telling moments and making stories and playing the role that I need to play to get the most out of it. I always like to go into any match like, What elements do I have to play with that can make this match not better, but just different from those other great matches that I named, and I had Brie Bella sitting right there with the kids, that was the key element to the match, was the fact that he wanted to wrestle in front of his kids, and he never got to do it. So I was like, I get the honor of being with the guy to face off and take advantage of that. But that’s where the story elements of Swerve the character always uses family against the opponent. I always pick at the heart of the opponent. That’s what took Hangman down, playing with his child. They know the elements of teasing him with that. I beat Darby because of Nick Wayne. I’ve played with that. I played mind games with The Acclaimed with Billy Gunn. Always tug at the heartstrings, which is something that Shawn Michaels told me. So I tug on the heartstrings of Bryan Danielson’s family being there, but Bryan used it as a strength, as his power, and it turned against me. So that’s what actually fired him up and got him to turn it back against me. I’m the only one that’s been able to actually tell and carry that story all the way through that whole year.”

Why do you and Hangman have such great chemistry?

“Because we are both sick individuals. The thing is, the chemical romance between us is that we need each other. I think that’s why it works.”

Hangman burned down your home:

“Well, the whole point was I wanted to drag him down to show him that you’re just as bad as I am. And I proved it. It’s like Joker with Batman saying, you’re no better than me. They just glorify you for what you do. Deep down, you’re just as willing, or just as dirty as I am.”

On handing Hangman the chain at All In:

“To me, when we had the conversation right before All In on Collision, I don’t extend to the world title without him, but I also don’t lose that all in without him. So we kind of need each other. We hate each other, but we need each other. We also made each other better. People were talking about Hangman being done as a main eventer, as a World Champion in 2023. They were like, we got to look past Hangman, it’s Will Ospreay’s time now, because he just wasn’t there. Mentally, he just wasn’t there. I broke him, but I also did it intentionally, because I know Hangman is that guy. The character of Swerve respects Hangman. That’s why I went after him. I wouldn’t go after anybody that I wouldn’t get anything from, because I had motive. I want to get to the World Championship. I wanted to make history and be the first black world champion in AEW, he’s how I can get through to it. So I’m not talking him down. I’m actually talking him up, because I know if I move him out of the way, I can get there.”

What do you think broke Hangman?

“Oh, his child, because he’s a family man. Because the week prior to that, I had a number one contendership match with Bryan Danielson, which is the two times I’ve lost to Bryan Danielson because of Hangman. So I had the crown, he takes the crown from me, and Bryan Danielson beats me, so he took me away from a title opportunity. So I’m going to take something from him. All’s fair in love and war, in this whole thing. So that’s what caused me to go into his house and invade his house. Because people remember the moments, but if they go back and watch closely, there’s a reason why we got to that moment.”

What made you think you could do the syringe spot:

“It was just something that I don’t think has been seen on American soil, television-wise, in a major promotion like that in a while, because it’s something that’s like, why would you do that? Why would anybody do that? Good, that’s why I’m doing it.”

People have a fear of just seeing needles:

“That’s the point. If you’re sitting at home, you’re already getting uneasy, which we have so many little, small things that make people uneasy. I knew a syringe would make people feel uneasy. [It went through your cheek] Yeah, all the way through. I think I still have the needle.”

It got a lot of reaction online:

“[People said] “That’s dumb.” “Why would you do that?” Well you’re talking about it, it’s the moment, and I wouldn’t do that with anybody else. Right there, unsanctioned cage with Hangman, like, somebody that, like, I was just already depleted because I got power bombed on a cinder block right before that. So I’m like, it’s just punishment. We’ve already took it so far. He already burned down my house. Where else further do you go with someone that you hate? And it was just like he hates me that much to just do something like that. That came out of his boot, he had that. So that was something he just wanted to just punish me with.” 

On the chair shot that followed:

“It felt like I got punched in the head from two fists. It was like from two different sides of the skull. Honestly, it was very John Wayne, Clint Eastwood, end of a movie, pow, you’re dead. It’s just as simple as that, there’s nobody coming to help you. We’re off in the middle of nowhere. You’ve gone so far as doing bad things. From doing bad things to earn the success. It’s going to catch up to you, and that’s what happened to my character. I’ve done all these bad things, invaded people’s homes, kidnapped people, beaten an 18-year-old kid up to a bloody pulp in this ring where his dad passed away, done horrible things, just despicable things, all for my own glory and all my own success. I did it for selfish reasons. I made history but it was ultimately for the wrong things. It’s like the character at the end of a movie, a drug movie, you’re doing horrible things to make it to the empire. We’re rooting for you because deep down, we understand why you’re doing it, but ultimately, you’re ruining the community. You’re hurting people, innocent people. There are people that are getting hurt from the things that you’re doing that you don’t even know about. So there’s all these residual effects from what you’re doing as well. Dude, it’s just so much bad karma. It’s got to come back to you. And that’s basically what it was.” 

On why he re-signed with AEW:

“Everything. Me and Tony Khan were bonding as well. I didn’t get that trust yet from him, and once I finally did, not only just to trust to do what I want on TV. I think people think it’s like, oh, just do what you want on TV. It’s like, No, it’s not like that. It’s trust to be like, I need something done on TV that will work. You’re the guy to do it. That’s a different trust. I got this information from Paul Wight, Big Show. We’re sitting at catering one day. Also one of the times I was just coming off tagging with Keith Lee. So I was like, in that little singles void, which happens to everybody. It doesn’t happen just at AEW, it happens everywhere in wrestling, when a tag team has been tagging, then you split off into like, alright, what are these two guys do? Who’s going where? So he was just like, you know, one thing that I’ve always respected about John Cena, and you talked to the man, I was like, he always brought Vince what he wanted. He always made sure Vince got what he wanted. He’s the only guy I’ve ever seen, I sat in Gorilla and watched him, where before he would go out there, he would say, ‘Vince, what do you want? What are you looking for?’ And he would go out there and gave him exactly what he was looking for, exactly what he wanted. He came back, and Vince was like, ‘That’s what I was looking for.’ So Vince was like, That’s my guy to get exactly what I’m looking for, whether you agree with it or not, whether you like it or not, he’s going to come back and give this guy what he wants. And that’s why Cena is where Cena is. I was like, You know what? Let me flip my mindset for like, always thinking, I know what the best thing is. Let me just find out. What does he want? Tony, what are you looking for out of this? And if it’s just a good match, cool, simple. You got it. Hey, Tony, what do you need out of this promo? I need these things. You got it. No bickering back and forth. No, I don’t think it should go this way. I was just like, No, what do you need? How do you see it happening? How much time do you want? You got it. And that’s where I started building the trust with Tony. And that’s where things start opening up more and more and more.”

On a future dream match:

“Kyle O’Reilly. Man, I’ve been asking for Kyle O’Reilly for so long. We interacted in a battle royal, the two-ring battle royals and stuff. But that was it, and that was when Bobby Fish was still here. Buddy Matthews, rest up, hope he comes back soon, because he’s a beast.” 

On some people thinking the staples were fake:

“Not one staple has ever been false. Not one thumbtack has ever been trimmed off. All of that stuff is legit.”

What is Swerve Strickland grateful for?

“The experience I’ve had, the flaws, and the ability to care.”

Please support our sponsors!
PURE PLANK: The future of core fitness! Use the code CVV to save 10% on Pure Plank designed by Adam Copeland & Christian: https://gopureplank.com/?ref=tibcloux

FACTOR: Get 50% off your first box, plus Free Breakfast for 1 Year with the code INSIGHT50OFF at https://factormeals.com/INSIGHT50OFF

STASH: Go to https://get.stash.com/INSIGHT to see how you can receive $25 towards your first stock purchase and to view important disclosures

SEAT GEEK: Use my code for 10% off your next SeatGeek order*: https://seatgeek.onelink.me/RrnK/CVV2025 Sponsored by SeatGeek. *Restrictions apply. Max $20 discount

NORDVPN: Exclusive deal! https://nordvpn.com/cvv Try it risk-free now with a 30-day money-back guarantee!

PRIZEPICKS: Download the app today and use code INSIGHT to get $50 instantly after you play your first $5 lineup!

TIMELINE: Go to https://timeline.com/insight to get 10% off your order of Mitopure!

VUORI: Get 20% off your first purchase! Get yourself some of the most comfortable and versatile clothing on the planet at https://vuori.com/cvv

ROCKET MONEY: Join Rocket Money today and reach your financial goals faster: https://rocketmoney.com/cvv

MIRACLE MADE: Upgrade your sleep with Miracle Made! Go to https://trymiracle.com/CVV and use the code CVV to claim your FREE 3 PIECE TOWEL SET and SAVE over 40% OFF

ZOCDOC: Instantly book a top-rated doctor today at https://zocdoc.com/insight

BONCHARGE: Use the code CVV to save 15% off your infrared sauna blanket at https://boncharge.com/cvv

BLUECHEW: Get your first month of BlueChew for free with the code CVV at https://bluechew.com

Sal Vulcano (@SalVulcano) is a comedian best known for his role on “Impractical Jokers.” He sits down with Chris Van Vliet at West Coast Creative Studio in Hollywood, CA to discuss the success of the show and how it was pitched, how the show’s rise to fame made filming more difficult, getting to meet Steve Austin and sharing a beer with the WWE icon, why he wasn’t a part of the AEW segment with Chris Jericho, which punishment was the worst, why he doesn’t like cats, and more!

On being able to watch any episode of Impractical Jokers at any time:

“I think that’s what led to a lot of its successes. They play it all the time. But also, it’s like, I think the perfect thing to just have on. So many people tell me this. I hear all the time. I hear it plays in prisons, huge in the prison population, huge in hospitals. And everyone tells me, which sounds weird, but it’s like, oh my god, I fall asleep to it every night. They can’t follow a narrative or a prison in a hospital.”

On the pitch for the show:

“So we had gotten some pitch meetings. They call them general meetings. I’ve had many general, they feel like a waste of time. They have bullsh*t meetings, right? It’s like, go and they’ll meet you, and they’ll keep you in mind. And then you establish your connect, your relationship, get on their radar. I mean, these things are such bullsh*t meetings. You go, and it’s people that you’ll probably never talk to again, and you’re all trying to make nice and be funny for them, and show who you are in a 10-minute meeting. So we have a bunch of generals lined up, and this is after a long time, we just happened to get an agent, because we won this online sketch competition. One thing led to another, and then we got an agent, and then they’re like, alright, let’s meet some of these networks. So we decided, why don’t we go on with some ideas? Even though these aren’t necessarily pitch meetings, we have them in a few days. There are a few days away. So we met for lunch, and we thought of like three ideas over lunch. One of them was Impractical Jokers, and we called it Mission Uncomfortable originally, and it was kind of the show, an iteration of what you see right now. We went out into Times Square, two nights later, the four of us with our cell phones, and we filmed each other doing like three or four bits, just with a little lav mic and our cell phones, we cut it together, and then two days later, we had a meeting with MTV and a bunch of our networks, and a few days later, with Tru TV, and MTV offered us to buy it in the room, which for people that don’t know how this industry works, that never, ever, ever, ever, ever happened. It’s never happened before or since. I’ve pitched 500 things. I’ve only sold like a couple of other shows out of like 500 never, never in a room again. So they offered it. They wanted to make it a strip show, which is like a game show that they film every single day. They didn’t want us to be involved. They wanted to have contestants competing, different contestants, and then comedians rotating, any comedian, just telling them regular people what to do. And we were like, we kind of like, are an improv troupe, and we kind of wanted to do it ourselves, so people can, like, learn our characters and be rooting for someone, and kind that creates a stake of interest in the show, and they didn’t see that vision. Then two days later, we met with TruTV, and they offered to buy it in the room. And we’re like, we had an offer. And they were like, is it MTV? They kind of knew. We were like, Yeah. And they were like, Oh, don’t go to MTV. They don’t have any budget over there. They won’t do it the right way. And we said, well, they want to make it a ship show. They’re like, We’ll do it how you want to do it. And we said, okay, and like, it was sold, it in the room, the idea didn’t exist five days before.”

On raising the stock of TruTV:

“So when we got on TruTV, there was no comedy on there. There was three towing shows, a pawn show or two, the storage shows, the dumbest criminals, and that’s all it was. It was just trash reality TV. And we were the first show that actually had that kind of thing, and then we resonated right away. Then, lo and behold, they changed the angle and focus of the brand and the network based on that, which I never really talk about or think about, but it is mind-blowing that that happens. They then competed as one of the only other comedy-exclusive networks with Comedy Central. It’s kind of wild.”

On pranks being more difficult now that the crew are more recognisable:

“On a bad production day, that delays stuff. So if we’re on the streets, it’s anybody’s call. We’ve learned what neighborhoods to avoid. People know us everywhere, but there are certain areas that are hot spots. Like, if you go to Times Square, like a tourist neighborhood like that, we can’t film there anymore. It’s hard to film in Central Park anymore. Those were [possible] in the beginning seasons. But now it’s really tough. But if someone knows us, the next person doesn’t, or if the first three people know us, the next three don’t. If we infiltrate an office, or do a focus group or something like that, we have so much in place to avoid people knowing us. We wrote the book on this now. So we have a Bible, we have innovation in hidden camera between audio and video. Our crew has been pushed to innovate because of the creative that we’ve done and hiding stuff. We have other hidden camera shows come to our people now to try to hire them or to ask how to do things, because our crew have set the bar on how to do this stuff, which is wild, but we also have all these techniques on how to vet and weed out people that might know us. They get questionnaires a month ahead of time, saying everything. It’s like a book this big, where they talk about what foods they eat, what entertainment they like, what stations they watch. And we weed it out. Somewhere deep in that thing is like, do you watch TruTV? Do you watch this? If they check that, they’re gone. When they come, we have way more people than we need because of this. There’s a burn rate. So if we have to have, let’s say we want 10 people in there. We’ll book 25 and then they’re in a holding room, and then we take them one by one to seat them. And then as they come down the hall, individually, one of us is in that hallway. And when they turn the corner, they’ll see us. And if they have zero recognition, you know? But you’d be like, No one can hide when they know us and they and they just turn the corner and they’re like, Ah! They’re gone. We pay them. Because when you pay someone for focus group, they don’t come in vain, we just cut them and we say, yeah, sorry, here’s the pay you would have got today.”

On meeting Steve Austin:

“Yeah, that was wild, too. So he had a show a couple of years ago where you spent the day with him, so I got a call saying he heard I was a fan, I wanted to be on the show, and I was like, Yes! I flew out to LA just to do it, just for a night, just for a day, just to do it. I was like, I don’t care, I’m doing it. They wanted us to meet for the very first time on camera. So he picked me up at my hotel in a Jeep that had cameras on it, so it’s just him. It was all outfitted already, so there’s nobody there. I met with the crew ahead of time. They followed us in another car. But he picked me up and I met him on camera. So on the show is when I actually met him, and it was surreal. I’m like, this is insane. This is Stone Cold. I can’t believe [it], because I mark out. [He seems like the coolest guy ever] That’s what makes it so great. Some of the guys, yeah, little hesitant to meet. Now that I am in the public and I’m a known wrestling fan, go all the time, and I go backstage, and I met all these wrestlers, and so many wrestlers are my friends now, which young me would never believe, it would be mind-blowing. Even now, when I’m backstage, you never lose that. You still feel like a kid back there. It’s like, when you watch sports now, every single athlete is half my age, but I still look at them like, Oh, I was such a big [fan], it’s just that whole dynamic. So he picked me up. He’s a lunatic. He picks me up, and we were in this Jeep, and we just started. He goes, I’ll just cruise around and we’ll talk. So I’m like, Alright, so we’re driving around and and we’re just BS-ing and stuff, and talking about stuff, having some laughs. Out of nowhere, we’re on a road, and the beach is to our left. He cuts the wheel,  tops the curb, goes onto the beach, he’s driving toward the ocean, and he steps on the gas. I’m just thinking, Oh! I’m holding on to the bar, the tops open and everything so and then he just starts driving toward the water, and he just steps on the gas. I’m like, what? This is crazy. But I thought he’d just hit the brakes and like he was messing with me. He didn’t. He drives straight into the ocean, and the Jeep turns into a boat. They didn’t tell me that. So I literally was like, what the f*ck is going on? And then we just slam into the water. The wheels go up, and it turns into a speed boat, and he just starts driving around, and we just start driving around in the water on a speed boat. And I was like, this is already exceeding expectations. And then we went to a gym, and I took bumps from the ring, I held the Intercontinental belt. He just showed me how to do the stunner and everything. And then after that, we went to his actual brewery, and we sat down and had flights of all of his different beers, and literally got drunk together, he literally got tipsy. He was so nice. It was his first time filming in like a year or something, and it was his first episode filming this series. He was like, I’m a little rusty, and I was like, No, I love this! He’s like, you were a perfect first guest, because you were so easy to talk to, and you really helped keep it light and stuff. And I was like, please. I love you so much.”

On how that led to sharing a beer with Stone Cold at Raw:

“We kept in touch, and I’m at a Raw and I texted him, I’m here tonight, and he was coming out. No one knew he was there. So it was like the last match of Raw, his music hit. He comes out. It’s a crazy match and everything. And of course, at the end, he’s up there slamming beers, whatever. And unfortunately, it just went off air. I think it was at, he was either at MSG, or is at a Barclays. He grabs the mic, and he goes, ‘My buddy Sal Vulcano from Impractical Jokers is here. Wherever you are, come to the ring right now!’ And I was like, Oh my god. So I walk to the ring, and he takes me, and I go right up to the gate, and he’s like, takes two beers. He throws me two. We slam them in front of everyone and just drink them. They put it up online on socials after, but I did also slam beers with them on the show too. So of course, I kept those cans. I have four cans at home on my shelf, just, you know, like, I got to get a lot of this in my mouth, you know, but it’s just all over me and everything. It’s like, it’s like Make-A-Wish come true. If I had a genie lamp, that’s what I would wish for.” 

On missing an AEW opportunity:

“I unfortunately got ill and wasn’t able to do a spot that the guys did, where they got jumped on AEW by Jericho and his crew with a bat and everything. It’s so funny, because Murray’s not a wrestling fan, Q is, but I got really sick, and this is a dream of mine, and I couldn’t go, and I had to watch them do it. But Murray was no selling getting hit with a bat. He didn’t know, but they were hitting him, and he didn’t realize that. He was no-selling it, which is so funny to me.”

On MJF being on the show:

“MJF, I think, is a throwback for me. He’s one of the most exciting things that happened in wrestling in quite some time. He’s such a big wrestling fan. I mean, really, every wrestler is a big wrestling fan. You just don’t become a wrestler unless you’re in love with wrestling. That’s how it works. But I have friends like Bayley or MJF, who just really respect the passion, they’re marks for themselves. And he just was, was so cool. I met him through somebody, and got on a text chain with him, and we joked around and really liked each other. Then I met him at a show and stuff, and we invited him on. He’s great. He just stays him. He was really, really good, and he really played off us well. And he was definitely like, heeling it up. I don’t know what happened, but it just happened that he was gonna chop all of us. And he did. I took a real chop from him, it’s not good. It really hurts. One is like, Oh, man. But like, you know, you see them do it to a job, 5, 10, 15 times in a match, like, you know, you’ll see Bryan Danielson get the palm of blood on their chest.”

On the worst Impractical Jokers punishments:

“I would say in recent memory, there were two. One was Murray. We had this idea to punish Murray. He writes books and he does his own audiobooks. So I was like, why don’t we strap him to the roof of a race car that’s going around a race track, tie him to the hood of it, and make him do his audiobook on the hood. So everyone loved that idea, so we did it. We got this racetrack, we got a stunt driver, we got a race car driver. We tied him down to the hood, put a helmet on him with a GoPro, and he had the book, the car is doing donuts, racing on track, and he’s reading the chapter of his book, and that’s going to be his real audiobook. We’re filming this thing for like, 15 minutes. It’s amazing. It’s fun. It’s exactly like we planned, this guy’s doing hairpin turns, the tires are smoking, Murray’s screaming, and he’s reading his novel. And then the car is going down a stretch, doing 90 miles an hour, and makes a turn, and Murray flies off the hood and just goes rolling into the grass. We’re like, 300 yards away, and the whole crew just stops and like, Oh my God. Everyone just freezes. And then it’s like get a medic, get an ambulance right now, and everyone just stops the cameras and starts running toward him. And I was like, oh my God. So we start just running toward him. And dude, I’m running as fast as I possibly can. It was so far away. Halfway through a car pulled up like, ‘Get in, get in!’ We all jump in this car, and we’re flooring it to him. We jump out right before it, and we’re running up to him, he’s surrounded by the ambulance and the medics, and I hear someone say, ‘Get a bird.’ I use that to mean a helicopter, thinking he’s about to get airlifted out of here. Someone yells out, ‘He’s not responding. He’s not moving.’ The feeling that I felt in my stomach was I didn’t know if he was gonna be paralyzed, I didn’t know if he died. I didn’t know how severe this was. I had such a knot and pit in my stomach, and I charged up to him, and he’s not saying anything. I thought my friend died. I thought he was paralyzed. And then one of the medics turns around, pulls off a wig, and it’s Murray. The person that was dressed as Murray on the floor was just a stunt person. When they took a turn around the stretch, they went past a bunch of trees. The car stopped really quick, he jumped out, and the stunt car came. A guy jumped on the hood, then the car kept going. He jumped in an ambulance put a wig on. He had the clothes underneath. That guy rolled off the thing, and then Murray pulled up, and was one of the medics. It was my punishment all along. Honestly, when he turned around, I actually had to take a knee because I literally felt like I was gonna vomit, because my stomach was in knots. I was like, How is this funny? I thought you were paralyzed? It turns out that that was the lesser of the two evils, because he was going to pretend to die in another punishment, and that got waved off. There was an idea, he’s afraid of heights, so we were going to put him in a room like this, but smaller. He was supposed to do zoom interviews over zoom in an office, and what he didn’t know was it was going to be one of those storage containers made to look like an office, and the bottom floor was going to be Plexiglas. And the idea was it was going to be attached to a crane. And when he got in and sat at the desk and the Zoom started, the crane was gonna lift him in the air, and he was gonna see underneath him was just clear, and then he was gonna have to do these Zoom interviews, hoisted in the air. He found out that that was the idea, and then pitched to double-cross me. He wanted, at one point, the crane to drop the box, and the box to come down and just smash onto the ground. And me think that he got crushed and died. And that was in play for a year and a half because he kept pushing it until they kiboshed it. And then this was the settle for that. So he was going to make me believe he died. That was very this was a traumatic one to go through.”

What was the other one? 

“Another one was they locked me in a room with a 600-pound Bengal Tiger. They locked me in a motel room, I didn’t even know we were filming. I thought we were taking a break at a roadside stop, and Joe went to speak to me about something, and we were outside of a door of a motel room, and it’s actually on camera. We’re just BS-ing, I didn’t know what camera was on me, and he shoved me and slammed the door closed, and I turned around, and there was no handle on the door to get back out. And I was like, what? I didn’t even know we were filming. And I just heard a growl, and I just turned around. I was like, I could not move an inch. And then a tiger walked out of the bathroom and it was on a chain, but that chain was tied to the bar of the shower, so it was just tile and sheetrock. I mean, if the tiger wanted to rip out of that thing, I believe that it could, and then the chain was long enough so the tiger couldn’t get to me, but it was only six feet short of me. And I honestly didn’t think it was funny then, and I don’t think it’s funny now. The first thing I say on camera is, I understand what it means to be frozen in fear. I don’t know if you’ve ever had where your body won’t move and you can’t speak. I was frozen, and I just the first thing I said was, ‘How did we get insurance?’ And then I don’t know how they got it. And I just was like, this isn’t going to be airable. I was so angry and couldn’t express it because I didn’t want to show any emotion whatsoever. I was so scared, and I felt that the tiger could sense my fear from their instincts or whatever, it’s a sense how scared I was, because then I thought it would try to attack me, and so I was in disbelief that they did this. I was as angry as could possibly be. They put me in this position, and I was as scared as possible, and all three of those things were bottled up because I couldn’t move or speak. I didn’t think we would be able to use it, because I didn’t think it’d be funny. It turned out, people thought it was funny.”

On not wanting to do malicious pranks:

“No, that’s not what we’re really going for. My favorite sentiment in the show like to evoke from someone is confusion. Confusion, bewilderment, mildly entertained, wary. When we are interacting with someone, they don’t know what to make of it. I think is the funniest thing for me. I love to live in that space where I’m towing the line of is this guy kidding me or not?”

What is Sal Vulcano grateful for?

“My family, that I am a comedian, and that I have people I love.”

Please support our sponsors!

PURE PLANK: The future of core fitness! Use the code CVV to save 10% on Pure Plank designed by Adam Copeland & Christian: https://gopureplank.com/?ref=tibcloux

FACTOR: Get 50% off your first box, plus Free Breakfast for 1 Year with the code INSIGHT50OFF at https://factormeals.com/INSIGHT50OFF

STASH: Go to https://get.stash.com/INSIGHT to see how you can receive $25 towards your first stock purchase and to view important disclosures

SEAT GEEK: Use my code for 10% off your next SeatGeek
order*: https://seatgeek.onelink.me/RrnK/CVV2025 Sponsored by SeatGeek. *Restrictions apply. Max $20 discount

NORDVPN: Exclusive deal! https://nordvpn.com/cvv Try it risk-free now with a 30-day money-back guarantee!

PRIZEPICKS: Download the app today and use code INSIGHT to get $50 instantly after you play your first $5 lineup!

TIMELINE: Go to https://timeline.com/insight to get 10% off your order of Mitopure!

VUORI: Get 20% off your first purchase! Get yourself some of the most comfortable and versatile clothing on the planet at https://vuori.com/cvv

ROCKET MONEY: Join Rocket Money today and reach your financial goals faster: https://rocketmoney.com/cvv

MIRACLE MADE: Upgrade your sleep with Miracle Made! Go to https://trymiracle.com/CVV and use the code CVV to claim your FREE 3 PIECE TOWEL SET and SAVE over 40% OFF

ZOCDOC: Instantly book a top-rated doctor today at https://zocdoc.com/insight

BONCHARGE: Use the code CVV to save 15% off your infrared sauna blanket at https://boncharge.com/cvv

BLUECHEW: Get your first month of BlueChew for free with the code CVV at https://bluechew.com

David Otunga (@DavidOtunga) is a professional wrestler best known for his time in WWE. He sits down with Chris Van Vliet at West Coast Creative Studio in Hollywood, CA to discuss his journey from NXT Season 1 to the main roster, the Nexus’ shock debut on Raw, whether John Cena winning at SummerSlam buried the group, winning the Tag Titles with Cena, how the coffee cup became a part of his character, getting to wrestle Bret Hart, the transition to announcing, what he is doing now, and more!

On being in better shape than he was in WWE:

“I would say so. Well for me, because from a physique perspective, I’ve always weighed 235 since I was 22 years old, no matter what. But my body fat percentage is way down. The detail, the condition used to be all just about size and just getting big for me, and I did that, got really strong and all that. But then it’s like, all right, been there, done that. I want to refine. I want to look like a superhero. So it’s like, I want to maintain the size, but just lose fat and etch in the details. I love it.”

On sharing a moment with Arnold Schwarzenegger:

“That is one of the crowning achievements of my life. It’s one of the best moments. Because the reason I got into working out was looking at Arnold on the cover of Muscle and Fitness and just seeing his physique and saying, Man, I want to look like that. Then fast forward, I am at Gold’s working out. He comes up to me and wants to work in. But then he’s messing with me and he tells me how I’ve got the greatest physique, I’m better looking than him, bigger than him. He’s like, Get away from me. And then I was like, Wow, he really said that. Then it’s like man, I wish I had that on camera so that he let me record it. He did it again, which was the coolest thing, man. I mean, 10-year-old, going crazy right now, never imagined this.”

So what are you up to these days?

“Well, I’ve just started my YouTube channel, which I’m really passionate about, has been so much fun. I did a video covering the Raja Jackson incident, and covered it from a lawyer’s perspective and a wrestler’s perspective, because I’m probably the only person qualified to talk about this in that regard, because I understand the wrestling lingo, the definitions, all that, what was going on behind the scenes, the setup, and then talking about it from a legal perspective. Anyway, I did a complete breakdown on that, the video blew up, and I realized I really enjoyed this and was getting great feedback. So since then, I’ve started making more, and people have been asking me to cover different cases that were famous in wrestling that would apply to the legal standards, and just being able to break all of those down, which has been awesome.”

On how the coffee cup became a part of his WWE character:

“I’ll tell you. I had just started doing the lawyer character, and I was getting ready to go out for a promo. I think it might have been during People Power with big Johnny. I was getting ready to go out to do a live promo. I had my coffee with me in the back, as I always do, and I started to walk out through the curtain. Then I was like, wait a minute. I went back and I grabbed it. I was like, something tells me, just bring it, because I just wanted to be natural. It’d be as like I wanted it to be as obnoxious as I could. At first I would take really loud sips with it and stuff. But anyway, I went out with it, and then Vince loved it, and I came back in. And ever since then, it was part of my character, backstage shots, you name it.”

On whether he considers himself to be retired:

“No, I just consider myself as having not wrestled in a long time.”

On when he knew it was time to step away:

“It wasn’t necessarily my last match. That’s the thing, in my mind, I’ve never had my last match. It’s just where I was in the company and becoming an announcer and doing all that they didn’t really want me doing in ring stuff. You actually get a different contract where you are on an announcer’s contract instead of a talent one. So it just was they weren’t even thinking about me, booking me creatively, although I did pitch some ideas, and was gonna have my own stable. I wanted to, got a little bit of traction.” 

Who was gonna be in your stable? 

“Well, I don’t know. I pitched something, I don’t know if I called it The Firm or what it was, but it was kind of what The Hurt Syndicate ended up becoming. But it was before that, so it was three years before that. I don’t know when they came out. It might even been longer, because it was 2019, this is before COVID, at least. But anyway, I was going to be the leader of that as a heel lawyer. And, yeah, they liked it, but it obviously didn’t [happen], they liked me better as an announcer.” 

On transitioning to an announcer role:

“Okay, so it went like this. I’ve never even talked about this, but I stepped away from the ring in probably 2013 or so. My son’s mom was my fiancée at the time. She was going through some stuff, and they needed me at home. That’s what I’ll say about it. So it was a choice I made on behalf of my family, where I put my career aside for a while to be the man I needed to be in our relationship, for her, for my son, and it was what it was. So then Vince and I always had a great relationship, and they liked me enough as a talent. So it’s like I want you to see what you can do announcing. I always cut a good promo well, so they say. So anyway, I started doing the Raw pre-show every week, and I do it with Corey Graves, Scott Stanford, shout out to Scott, that’s my guy, Booker T, and we had so much fun doing this. We’re laughing all the time, like nobody even watches this, and then the office would tell us, ‘Yeah, but there’s one person who watches this every week. It’s Vince, and he loves it.’ So then I did that for maybe a year or two, and then I get a call one day like, ‘Hey, we want to try you out as an announcer on Raw.’ Whoa! I never considered that. I never saw myself as an announcer. That was never something I wanted to [do]. The whole time I was doing the pre-show, I was thinking, I’m doing this now, and because it allowed me to have more time at home, that was the thing, and how I was able to do that still, but eventually I’m going to get back in the ring. But then, when they gave me this option to be an announcer, they’re like, ‘We really want you to do this. Try it out.’ Alright, I’ll try it, and I did. Announcing is tough. It’s fun, but that’s a tough job. But anyway, they liked my work in that so much. That was it. It’s kind of like they tell you be careful, if they offer you a gimmick when you first start out, be careful how well you do with it. Because if you do really well with it, that’s going to be your gimmick, and they’re just going to go from there. So it’s one of those things where I gave it a shot. I did well enough, and then they just saw me as an announcer after that.”

How much was Vince in your ear as an announcer?

“Well, he’s always there. So, personally, he might give me something funny to say, to rip on Cole, or somebody, whoever was out there with me. He never yelled at me, but I heard him get a hold of some of the other guys, but he was right there the entire time.”

On his WWE exit:

“Until COVID. Ultimately, I was laid off with COVID, the grand layoffs in that. But before, so I called my last match on SmackDown, and then I was doing the pre-shows up until COVID.”

Do you want to go back? 

“I mean, if they called, yeah, absolutely. Like I said, it was so much fun, although, now I’m still doing announcing with 4th Rope, which has been awesome. And I’ll tell you what, it’s pretty cool, because of the training that I received at WWE, like, prepared me so much for doing that. But the difference is there. I really can say anything I want. I’m still pushing forward the stories, but there’s nobody in my ear. So really, hey, that’s kind of how I really feel this.”

On Dawson Alexander:

“So Dawson Alexander was my first ring name at FCW, because when you’re in FCW, whatever your ring name is down there isn’t necessarily going to be the same when you get up to the main roster. So I was a babyface for the first part of the run and but I chose Dawson Alexander because I wanted his initials to be DA, like a district attorney. He was all lawyer themed, yeah, but he was my very first character.”

On getting to use his real name in WWE:

“Well, I pushed for that too. That’s where being an actual lawyer comes in. Because, yeah, I knew what I was doing, and I wanted to own my own IP, although technically they own it in regards to wrestling. Which is fine. I have to get into that on a video on my channel.”

Isn’t that the same with John Cena?

“I remember this clause vividly is that they control your name and likeness in relation to professional wrestling. So let’s say John Cena wanted to go to AEW, he couldn’t just use the name John Cena, because WWE has the rights of that in wrestling.”

On knowing how big Nexus would be:

“No, not at all. None of us had any idea how big the Nexus was going to be. In fact, I think part of what made it work so well is it was so real because we were the guys who were on NXT the first season, which I don’t know if people remember, but it was a reality show.”

On the viral Nexus debut segment:

“I think part of it was too, because it wasn’t that well-staged. They just told us, ‘Go down there. Tear the place up. We’re gonna leave box cutters for you and different things, all right, tear up the ring. We have another one. I don’t care what you do to this one.’ It’s like, wow, this is the first time we got to expose what’s under a ring, and how it’s made, and it was something. I remember, for me, I was really green then, and at the time, I had to be the one to kick this off. I had to punch the referee when we first got in the ring. That’s a lot of pressure to put on me, because this is the first shot. This is gonna set the tone. If this does not look good, we’re done. We’re done. I was just learning how to throw good punches, so I was like, I’m just gonna have to haul off and hit Chad Patton. He might just have to eat one. Sorry, Chad, but it looked great, and luckily, that was probably the best punch I ever threw. He didn’t lose any teeth. And it looked awesome.”

And Justin Roberts got taken out

“And that was the first time that had really happened, and anything on that level. A story I heard that I think was so awesome is, while this is going down, you can hear somebody ringing the ring bell, that was a fan in the audience who really thought these guys went crazy. ‘Hey, get some people out here to help!’ They bought it that much.” 

On interacting with legends:

“Every week they would threaten us, ‘Hey, you gotta beat up Ricky Steamboat. If this doesn’t look good, you guys are fired.’ And the thing is, at that time, he was at FCW with us helping us train. This is one of our coaches, and he’s an older guy. I don’t want to hurt him. They’re like, ‘No, this has to look bad.’ So every week, it just ratcheted up, we became those guys, and then they wanted us to stay together, make this real, which I thought was awesome. They wanted us to maintain kayfabe outside of the ring. Wherever we were, we had to have our arm bands on, and so it was kind of like a fraternity, you didn’t want to be caught without your arm band on, because there could be repercussions. I didn’t want to take a photo with a fan and not have my arm band on. Then we weren’t even supposed to take photos with fans, we were serious heels. I remember one time I was with my nephew, and a little boy came up and wanted a picture, and I turned him away, and oh my gosh, I felt terrible. It’s like, no pictures. I ended up doing it anyway. I felt too bad. I just snarled at the picture something badly. I can’t do that. But it was so real. And you’re right. I mean, the push was amazing. It’s too bad that you know what ended up happening to it, but what could have been, never know.”

Do you think John Cena buried The Nexus?

“Oh yeah, that’s 100% accurate. I mean, that’s what happened, that is what happened.”

Is it because Cena wanted to go over in that match? 

“Yes. And I don’t know why he wanted to go over, but we knew all day we were supposed to go over, and then things started getting weird, and then they tell us, no, the finish changed, and it’s because John wanted to go over, and we weren’t happy about that. The other guys in the match weren’t happy about that. And if I’m being honest, I think John probably knows that wasn’t the right idea. I mean, maybe obviously, at the time, he thought that was the right call, but in retrospect, I don’t even think he would agree that that was the right thing to do.” 

So what was the finish supposed to be?

“I know we were supposed to go over. I don’t know how. I don’t know how many of us there were [supposed to be left in the match], but there were some shenanigans [planned] and ultimately, we went over.”

For those that don’t know, Cena takes a DDT on the concrete, it’s 2 on 1, and he still wins:

“But either way, you spend six months or however long it was building this faction, and we’re the strongest thing, we’re the hottest thing they have. Then now, why would you have us lose that? This is the main event. To really build these new stars, you want us to keep going. We could have rode this all the way to Mania, but then after that, we’ve now lost and that took us down a few pegs. After that, we never regained the steam. They ended up separating us. Even then they started to have a good storyline going where we were gonna oust Wade Barrett, and I was gonna take over. I remember, I kicked him out of the group. I think it was Raw, and then the next week, I was supposed to then become the leader. However, then it’s hey, surprise guys, we got a new leader for you, CM Punk. Wait, what? How does this fit in? And I guess he needed a faction. Straight Edge Society was done and he needed a new faction. So I don’t know why they decided just to give him Nexus. So then the storyline that we had going just stopped, and now we’re The New Nexus with CM Punk, which, eh. It never really took off, I think, because it was a disconnect for the fans too.”

On the rumour that Vince wanted SummerSlam to end on a happy note:

“I’ve heard that before too, because I know on house shows they would do that, have the babyface up at the end, but not necessarily on pay-per-views. Maybe that did come into play, and they thought about that, but that still wasn’t the right idea. That’s like, you know, winning the battle, but losing the war ultimately.”

On how much potential The Nexus had:

“I think we would have had a major run kind of like The Shield. Because if you ask me, I feel like The Shield was Nexus 2.0. What they did with The Shield, everything they did wrong in Nexus, they made sure they did it right with The Shield. That’s my opinion. So I assume we would have had a run kind of similar to that.”

On winning Tag Team Championships with John Cena:

“Well, that was part of the Nexus storyline when we’re gonna make John Cena join the Nexus. So we went over on Cody Rhodes and Drew McIntyre. The whole story of the match, it was pretty cool was that Cena was supposed to do all the work, but I took all the credit for it. So that’s what happens, and then we win. I think Cena gets a pinfall. Obviously, I run in, I get both belts. I’m going crazy, this is awesome. It was awesome too, it was really, really cool. Then I get down off the turnbuckle, and he AA’s me, completely ungrateful. And then, takes both titles and walks out. But the thing of it was, we were only supposed to have it for 24 hours. So for me personally, it was an awesome moment. But I never really felt like I earned the Tag Team Championship yet. My second win with McGillicutty was much more satisfying, because I felt like we’d earned it, like at that point, whereas this was just a cool story we’re doing for 24 hours. So I never really celebrated it like when you win a championship.”

But you still won the titles with John Cena:

“That’s the thing. It is Cena. Which was cool, but he tried to rib me over that. So he didn’t really let me enjoy it, to be honest. Because he tried to rib me by taking the titles, and then he told me, ‘Hey, make sure you grab the titles and take them to the next town.’ Because there’s the TV titles, and then there’s the live event ones. So the TV ones travel, he wanted me to get the live event ones, which I had to go get from Cody and Drew. I was like, okay, all right, I’ll do it. But then he got on his bus and took off, but I guess he had already taken the titles, but didn’t tell me what his plan was. He wanted me to go crazy backstage, searching for it, and freak out. So I went and asked Drew for the titles, and he’s like, ‘Oh, I already gave them to Cena.’ Okay, that was the end of that. So I got in my car, I think I was with Heath Slater or something. We drove to the next town. I get to the building the next day, ‘Oh, man, what did you do? Cena is pissed at you!’ What? ‘Yeah, he’s mad. He’s looking for you. You gotta apologize to John Cena.’ For what? ‘Well, apparently you didn’t get the titles last night.’ Yeah, I know, but he has them. They’re like, ‘No, he said you should have looked for him, and then you should have looked for him and been upset you couldn’t find them.’ What? So hold on a second. You’re telling me I need to go apologize to him and tell him I’m sorry that I wasn’t upset about not finding him and I didn’t look hard enough? I’m like, You do realize this sounds nuts. I can’t remember who’s telling me this. This must be an agent or somebody, because they actually give me advice, ‘You need to go talk to him.’ He’s like, ‘Yeah, I know, but just do it.’ So I literally went and apologized to John. ‘Hey, John, I’m sorry, I looked for the title. I didn’t understand. You know, I thought you had them.’ He was shoot mad at me though, [because his prank didn’t work out?] That’s the thing. That’s what I always said, which is always kind of funny to me. Hey, yeah, your joke didn’t work and you’re mad at me about it. But doesn’t that kind of fall on you playing your joke a little bit?”

On who could be John Cena’s final opponent:

“I could see Bron Breakker, I think that would be a great one. Really, just give him an amazing push, somebody like that. Dominik Mysterio would be a good one too, absolutely.”

On sharing the ring with Bret Hart:

“That was awesome. Just to share the ring with him, and getting to talk [to him]. Bret is one of my favorite people in WWE, period, in all of professional wrestling. So just getting to talk to him, getting to know him, that was awesome. He’s so humble and so knowledgeable, and then being able to share the ring with him, it was awesome, but it was nerve-wracking a little bit because we didn’t want to hurt him. We know that he’d had some injuries and some health problems before. So we were very, very careful with him. But it was awesome.”

On the possibility of a Nexus reunion:

“I mean, there is, somebody just has to call for it. We still have a group thread. We still talk. We have a Nexus group chat.” 

Who’s in it? 

“Everybody but Daniel Bryan. I mean, he turned on us at SummerSlam. Everybody else is in it. We’re all for one. You’re either Nexus or against us. But in all seriousness, we went through a lot together. We knew each other in FCW, became friends, and then started on the road together, went through NXT, we formed real friendships. Also, it was nerve-wracking and stressful, and we were rookies, we’re in a class together, we felt like we were being hazed and whatnot. But going through all that together, it makes you bond.”

What is David Otunga grateful for?

“My health, my son, and great memories.”

Please support our sponsors!
PURE PLANK: The future of core fitness! Use the code CVV to save 10% on Pure Plank designed by Adam Copeland & Christian: https://gopureplank.com/?ref=tibcloux

FACTOR: Get 50% off your first box, plus Free Breakfast for 1 Year with the code INSIGHT50OFF at https://factormeals.com/INSIGHT50OFF

STASH: Go to https://get.stash.com/INSIGHT to see how you can receive $25 towards your first stock purchase and to view important disclosures

SEAT GEEK: Use my code for 10% off your next SeatGeek order*: https://seatgeek.onelink.me/RrnK/CVV2025 Sponsored by SeatGeek. *Restrictions apply. Max $20 discount

NORDVPN: Exclusive deal! https://nordvpn.com/cvv Try it risk-free now with a 30-day money-back guarantee!

PRIZEPICKS: Download the app today and use code INSIGHT to get $50 instantly after you play your first $5 lineup!

TIMELINE: Go to https://timeline.com/insight to get 10% off your order of Mitopure!

VUORI: Get 20% off your first purchase! Get yourself some of the most comfortable and versatile clothing on the planet at https://vuori.com/cvv

ROCKET MONEY: Join Rocket Money today and reach your financial goals faster: https://rocketmoney.com/cvv

MIRACLE MADE: Upgrade your sleep with Miracle Made! Go to https://trymiracle.com/CVV and use the code CVV to claim your FREE 3 PIECE TOWEL SET and SAVE over 40% OFF

ZOCDOC: Instantly book a top-rated doctor today at https://zocdoc.com/insight

BONCHARGE: Use the code CVV to save 15% off your infrared sauna blanket at https://boncharge.com/cvv

BLUECHEW: Get your first month of BlueChew for free with the code CVV at https://bluechew.com

Paul Walter Hauser (@paulwhausergram) is an actor and professional wrestler. He sits down with Chris Van Vliet at West Coast Creative Studio in Hollywood, CA to discuss his roles in “Cobra Kai” and “I, Tonya”, why he turned down the opportunity to be in a movie with John Cena, having wrestling as a side quest, not being discussed in the celebrity wrestling conversation, taking bumps through glass and onto thumbtacks, working with AEW and MLW, which spot hurt the most, his upcoming role as Chris Farley, potentially starring in a Mick Foley biopic, and more!

On the Jamie Taco sketch in “I think you should leave”:

“It was like a nine-page sketch. It was so long. We shot for like a 13-hour day. It was like the last day of shooting before they shut down for COVID back in 2020. He’s a line stealer, he’s so fast, and I’m so emasculated by it, you know, as a man and as an actor, which is also funny the way they cast it, because the guy looks like he’s a senior in high school and he’s the mouthy guy working behind the snack shop or something after school. He just doesn’t seem like a real threat. It’s so funny the way Tim Robinson had me play it. He literally gave me line reads like, Tim Robinson would be like, say it like this, honey, I auditioned for a play, and I got the part, and it’s like, when you see him do it, you’re like, oh, and then you see me doing it’s like, clearly there’s Tim’s DNA in the delivery.” 

On playing Chris Farley in a biopic:

“We’ll see. The movie is not greenlit. The script is great, though, dude. They sent me a brand new draft. This is like the fifth draft or something. I read it on the plane ride here to come here this week, and I was like, Oh, it was like this funny feeling in my belly. It was like, Oh, wow. Based on where the script is, it’s like there’s nothing else to do. It’s truly ready. Now it’s like the baton is about to get past to me, and it’s all my responsibility to not screw it up.”

On which role he is the most associated with:

“It’s definitely Cobra Kai, the stingray character, that would be number one. Number two is probably Richard Jewell. That movie’s really grown on people in a sense of like, I think people found that on Amazon Prime to rent, or it was free if you have the subscription. And then Airplanes, people were watching Richard Jewell on Airplanes. It’s still on Delta. I was flying Delta the other day, and they had, I Tonya, Richard Jewell and Luckiest Man in America.” 

Do you put it on and look around?

 “No, can you imagine? I did it once with I, Tonya, though, where I did purposely, but it was me going, Oh, I haven’t watched this in a minute. So I threw it on. Was like, it’s such a weird little movie.”

On turning down a John Cena movie:

“I got offered Ricky Staniki at one point, the Efron Cena movie, and it just wasn’t a lot of money. They didn’t want to fly my whole family first class to Australia. I was like, that’s a long flight. That’s not mad chill. I kind of had that Matt Riddle moment, he had that thing where he’s like, You guys put me in second class with a ham sandwich between three people squished like he had that. But this was me seven weeks out, going, I don’t think that makes sense for me. I passed and I felt horrible because I think Zac Efron is really fun.”

On wrestling being a side quest:

“My pay differs based on the company too. If I were to do something with TNA, and they were like, Hey, come do a match with AJ Francis, or a tag match, you’re gonna be paired with the Rascalz against three heels. I would want 10 grand for that match, because, to me, you’re also getting eyeballs and press and whatever else comes with it, and I’m going to go out of my way to make it as good as it possibly can be, at the risk of hurting myself. But if Action Wrestling down in Georgia is like, Hey, do you want to come fight, take an L to Adam Priest or tag with your buddy Darian Bengston, I’m not going to charge them more than three or 400 bucks. I still got to drive down there and drive back. I don’t know if I’m selling merch or not. I don’t know if they’re not going to have catering, there’s X amount of things that you give up to just wrestle and have fun.” 

On not being considered a celebrity wrestler:

“I know, and it’s frustrating. I’m not gonna pretend it doesn’t bother me a little bit. I’m working really hard, and I’m, you know, not every match is a banger. For goodness sake. I’ve had some smelly ass matches. There’s probably six or seven of those 22 that I would like to hide somewhere and never show anyone. But there’s probably four or five, even six that I’m very proud of. You should watch me and Joey Janella at DEFY, you should watch me and Steve Maclin at Revolver. You should watch this promo I cut in MLW.”

On what his wife thinks to it:

She does not like it at all, but I also tell her the truth. I take calculated risks. There was a time when I was taking edibles and drinking scotch and partying around this city in Hollywood, and that was way more dangerous than wrestling. 

So this is your outlet?

“It’s one of them. Yeah, I think cooking, screenwriting, wrestling, I have a couple different outlets that really serve me. I would love to take up golf at some point. Wahlberg helped me get my first pair of clubs, and was really sweet and gifted something to me. But I just haven’t gotten out there yet. I need to do that.”

On the conversation that if he gets injured, it could delay shooting:

“I did a pre-tape in 2024 for MLW. We did a match that was famously panned by the online community. They despised it. I had a match with Tom Lawlor, and it was cinematic. Re watching it, there were a couple of things I would do differently. I would shave off three or four minutes, and I would also make it more 60 or 70% of him, I would change the ratio a little bit on who takes what. But that match, we had already shot, and I was doing whatever I was doing that summer. It must have been the Wahlberg movie, because I was in Australia, and they’re like, Is Paul fighting a match tonight? Because they saw it on Instagram or something. And my manager is like, no, he already taped that. They’re just gonna air it. But they were freaking out, ready to read me the riot act, because they thought I was wrestling while I was shooting.”

On which weapon hurts the most:

“First off, that kendo stick hurt like hell. Kendo sticks, the only way to fake a kendo stick is for a guy to hit you very lightly. And nobody does that because they know you can’t sell that. So that hurt a lot. The thumbtacks, I didn’t even feel. The thumbtacks were my idea. They’re all like, Are you sure you want to do this? I’m like, Yeah, I’m gonna be doing this in match. Just wait. But when I poured out the thumbtacks, I didn’t pour them out in the middle of the ring, which I should have, because that’s the softest, bounciest part of the ring. Not thinking. 15 minutes into a match or blown up, I poured them near the turnbuckle, which is arguably the hardest part of the mat, pretty equivalent to the apron that everybody’s like. That’s the hardest part of the mat. The turnbuckle is too. So when I took that Power Bomb, well, for one you can see me pulling up my shirt. I was hoping he was going to pull up my shirt like a hockey fight, to expose the back, and then we could see the tax, see the blood. That was the plan. He didn’t for whatever reason. So I’m literally trying to pull up my shirt as I’m in the Power Bomb position. It looks so goofy and stupid. He powerbombs me, and the wind got knocked out of me. I couldn’t breathe, I couldn’t talk, so him and the ref were like, Let’s close this up. And then he didn’t want to get thumbtacks in his hands or body, so you see him roll me up with my legs, but it was weak, so I could kick out easily, and and then I was trying to set something up in the corner, and of course, he hits me in the ball bag and got me with the diamond cutter, which was more offensive, because I’m dear friends with Diamond Dallas Page.”

On what will happen if WWE tickets keep rising:

“It’ll become this douchey, uppity thing that only a bunch of rich tech bros and investment bankers go see. Average people won’t be going to that.”

So the hardcore fans are being priced out?

“I think that’s factually happening. Yeah, not, not, not that everybody’s destitute, but the country, if you look at the trends, because I’m only going off trends, I’m not saying like I’ve arrived at this knowledge. It’s more me tracking and with AI and with job loss and us being on the verge of another recession, all the trends tell you that people have less and less disposable income, and it will be more necessity-based income. So the way the world’s going, people aren’t going to be able to afford it.”

On possibly working a match with Mark Wahlberg:

“I’ve talked to Mark about it. He’s talked to Ari Emanuel about it once or twice. So you never know that could happen. I’ve met Jelly Roll. We got along really well. We got a lot of commonalities with being Jesus guys, being wrestling fans. I could see doing something with him. He and I do a no dq, you know, hardcore tag team match where we get to be these big burly white dudes showing up, looking like we came off the couch, but still doing some cool stuff.” 

On his favorite storylines:

“If that’s a story or a movie, the movie of McMahon Austin is kind of like R-rated Looney Tunes, almost. It’s kind of just bizarro set piece, absurdity stuff, but it’s also hyper violent woth the stuff they’re doing to each other. I think for me, I always go back to, can I say a handful? I don’t think I can choose one. But I would say, like, Ric Flair and Vader in 94 at I think it was SuperBrawl. Flair is saying goodbye to his kids and being documented in the car, in the limousine, going to the fight. And it’s kind of like him saying, like, I might die in that ring, that’s the best acting Ric Flair ever did, you believe everything he’s saying, and you believe that Vader is this other worldly power that kind of can’t be beat, and that he’s the savior at WCW, in this moment. That I think was tremendous, albeit kind of brief. I don’t think that dragged out longer. I honestly think that my favorite story lines have been Sting and Darby Allin teaming up and him having that third act in wrestling. I think that is an awesome story, and how it started as one cinematic match, and then it just grew and grew and grew. Another one I’m obsessed with is Johnny Gargano and Tommaso Ciampa. That lasted a while, and I never got sick of it. I always liked it. I always cared about both guys, even if I was mad at one or the other.”

On the match that hurt the most:

“The elbow drop I delivered onto BRG at Battle riot for MLW, [off the ladder?] Yep, that hurt. And by the way, it wouldn’t have hurt that much. There was a padding outside next to the ring. We weren’t on the padding. Had we just moved it slightly and I landed on the padding would have been fine. I hit the elbow perfectly in the middle, but then my butt cheek, my right butt cheek, and my hips slammed into concrete, seven, eight feet off the ground. Hard to recover from that and fake that, that sucks. Also, I didn’t want to put too much of my body on him to crush him. I was like, just hit the elbow. Maybe you’ll twist your ankle or something, but you’ll be fine. In the moment, you’re not thinking totally you’re just like, I believe I’m going to be okay. That’s a, that’s a big belief thing, too. I believe these guys are going to catch me if I do a Senton off the apron. You know. The other thing is, of course, the Power Bomb from Qt Marshall. Maven, who I’m a big fan of his YouTube page, I loved your interview with him recently. Maven, I want to see him make some form of a comeback in a company, and be an active member of a company. I would like to see that. But Maven said, of all the moves he took in his video, where he takes all the finishes, he said the Power Bomb still hurt the most. And I was like, You’re telling me, man! I took one Power Bomb and I felt like I was out of commission. So, yeah, falling on a concrete and getting a hematoma in my ass cheek and being power bombed in the corner turnbuckle area, that was the worst.”

On his Mount Rushmore of future stars:

“So you named you named two that I knew for sure were gonna be in there, which was Dom and MJF. I was gonna say them for sure, and I was going to say Kyle Fletcher and Bron Breakker are the other two sure. But I now have a little hesitation and pause because I’m like Rhea Ripley man. But who do I eliminate from that group? Rhea Ripley deserves to be up there. I’m gonna have her replace MJF, because I could see MJF not wrestling in the future because he’s enjoying Hollywood, it’s way safer and he can make the same amount of money eventually.” 

On possibly playing Mick Foley in a biopic:

“I won’t get into details, but I’ve been approached about it, and we’re talking to the producers right now, and we’ve been in discussion for a while. I also got approached to play two other people in the wrestling world in the last couple of months alone. So I’m just kind of like waiting it out to see what what rises to the top. Because movie making is so weird. It might seem like a sure thing, and it goes away, and then sometimes something just pops up out of nowhere. The way we’re talking about it, I want to do a Mick Foley limited series, do like a four to six episode thing, and be able to tell the story a little more fully and not just be like, remember the time you fell off the cage? It’s like, the guy’s done so much more than that. He deserves more respect than that, too.”

What is Paul Walter Hauser grateful for?

“The dinner I got to have with Sting, and my wife and kids.”

Please support our sponsors!
PURE PLANK: The future of core fitness! Use the code CVV to save 10% on Pure Plank designed by Adam Copeland & Christian: https://gopureplank.com/?ref=tibcloux

FACTOR: Get 50% off your first box, plus Free Breakfast for 1 Year with the code INSIGHT50OFF at https://factormeals.com/INSIGHT50OFF

STASH: Go to https://get.stash.com/INSIGHT to see how you can receive $25 towards your first stock purchase and to view important disclosures

SEAT GEEK: Use my code for 10% off your next SeatGeek order*: https://seatgeek.onelink.me/RrnK/CVV2025 Sponsored by SeatGeek. *Restrictions apply. Max $20 discount

NORDVPN: Exclusive deal! https://nordvpn.com/cvv Try it risk-free now with a 30-day money-back guarantee!

PRIZEPICKS: Download the app today and use code INSIGHT to get $50 instantly after you play your first $5 lineup!

TIMELINE: Go to https://timeline.com/insight to get 10% off your order of Mitopure!

VUORI: Get 20% off your first purchase! Get yourself some of the most comfortable and versatile clothing on the planet at https://vuori.com/cvv

ROCKET MONEY: Join Rocket Money today and reach your financial goals faster: https://rocketmoney.com/cvv

MIRACLE MADE: Upgrade your sleep with Miracle Made! Go to https://trymiracle.com/CVV and use the code CVV to claim your FREE 3 PIECE TOWEL SET and SAVE over 40% OFF

ZOCDOC: Instantly book a top-rated doctor today at https://zocdoc.com/insight

BONCHARGE: Use the code CVV to save 15% off your infrared sauna blanket at https://boncharge.com/cvv

BLUECHEW: Get your first month of BlueChew for free with the code CVV at https://bluechew.com

Mick Foley (@realmickfoley) is a professional wrestler and WWE Hall of Famer. He sits down with Chris Van Vliet in Irvine, CA to discuss how his career could have been different without the Hell in a Cell match, winning the WWE Championship on WWE Raw, his legendary hardcore matches with Randy Orton and Triple H, getting The Rock with his “It doesn’t matter” catchphrase, if November is too early to put up the Christmas tree, and more!

On whether November is too early to put up the Christmas tree:

“No, because I’m working on a year-round, not just a room, a year-round cabin. It’s going to look incredible when it’s done. I won’t be there all the time. The secret is, don’t overdo it. You don’t have to turn the lights on all the time, because then you get tired of it. But it’s there for you if you want it. And that’s why the cabin is actually too small to live in full-time, but it’s a great place to visit and get recharged out there in nature and see animals, things like that.”

On his current health:

“The crazy thing is I’m moving better. I dropped like 90 [pounds]. At one point I’d gone from 372 to 273, and then I may have taken it too easy for the next four or five months and crept up towards 300, but I think I’m down around 275, and hip and knee replacements, those were game changers. I remember talking to Kevin Nash and saying, Kevin, something amazing happened to me today. I said I passed somebody in the airport. I was always the guy where people were like, ‘Hey, sir, you move to the side.’ And I was starting to pass people, which didn’t mean I was fast, and I don’t want to over exaggerate the amount of pain I was in, but I think I’ve got a pretty high threshold. So when I say it was, I don’t want to say agonizing, but it was more than severe. If it was not agonizing, it was agonizing at moments. I would need five minutes to get going after I got off, I stood up out of my seat on a plane, or when I was driving my car, and my kids said that this is what I would do for hours at a time, I punched my right thigh to try to get some feeling in my nerves. When I went at a friend’s request, who’s a physical therapist, she said, I think that’s your hip. And I was like, but the pains in my lower back. But then she explained something about the piriformis muscle gripping onto the nerve, mimicking sciatica. And when I went to that doctor, orthopedic guy, and I saw the hip, I wasn’t dismayed, I was actually happy, because I saw, you can fix this. He said, ‘I’ve been doing this for 25 years. It’s the worst hip I’ve ever seen. I don’t know how you’re walking.’ Once I realized there was hope, and then once I had the hip followed by the knee, it was like a new lease on life. Now, if you were to suddenly transform someone else into my current body, sure, they might think it was hell on earth, but compared to how I felt for like, 10-15, years, yeah, I am doing a lot better.”

On if he is scared of anything:

“I’m afraid of a lot of things. I maintain Shane McMahon was fearless. You could say I was courageous. Courage is action in the face of fear. I was terrified of the cell. When I looked down the entirety of Undertaker’s entrance was spent with me thinking, How do I climb down this thing without ruining my career? I couldn’t think of it, and that’s why the match unfolded the way it did. But yeah, when I drive through the Sierra Nevadas, I get really dizzy. Anything with heights, I can’t look over, even if I’m going up to Lake Arrowhead in the mountains, I can’t look over. I’m really scared. I’m more fearful of many things that people would believe.”

On how his career would have looked if he didn’t get thrown off the Cell:

“Even though it wasn’t the end of my career, it put an exclamation point, and it gave me the moment. There are football players who are known literally for one play. Basketball player Willis Reed, great career. He’s known for playing two minutes in game seven with an injured ligament in his knee. Joe Montana’s career, great, great quarterback. But it’s the catch, I think they just called it a catch. I don’t know if I would have had one of those moments, you know, beating The Rock for the WWE title was a great moment for WWE and for me, but I’m not sure if that would be something that would be passed on to the next generation. That’s what stuns me about the cell is that half of the people who talk to me about it, and this is like, where I don’t write it down, but I would estimate half of the people that talk to me about that match were not born when it took place. There’s even a story I’ll mention from time to time, and I did it on the 20 Years of Hell tour, saying it was really powerful when my wife said my kids wanted to watch the Cell match. I said, ‘How do they even know about the Cell match?’ And she said, ‘Well, kids are talking about it in school.’ I said in preschool? But it’s something that parents have handed down, and it’s the go-to for wrestling fans to show their non-fan friends who don’t understand what it’s about.” 

What hurt more, falling through the cell or the chair?

“Chair to the face. I stopped kidding myself. I stopped wearing the bottom flipper. Because my feeling is, I know it’s not a good look. My son, Huey, broke it to me this way, like eight years ago, ‘Dad, don’t take this the wrong way…’ and first of all, you know no sentence ends well [when they say that]. [He said] ‘Don’t take this the wrong way, but you still kind of cool with your top teeth missing. Now you look like a crack addict.’ I said, ‘Son, I believe you were thinking of a meth addict, but point well taken.’ But my feeling is like, I know it’s not a good look, but it’s my look, and I earned it. So I don’t mind at all. And plus, you know, Jay Lethal and Kurt Angle could attest for the fact that I was, I would say, was more than an interrogation in Amsterdam, where apparently I was suspicious, because these teeth, one of them was knocked out. The other was knocked in and chipped in half, but they put the other tooth back in. When I got back from that match, it was in a glass of milk to keep it vital. And on the 20th anniversary of the cell, when I did my show in Pittsburgh, the dentist or orthodontist, whatever it was, who was on call said he was there that night. They said, we’ve had an accident at the Civic arena, and the first thing he asked me was, how long did they last? About eight years. I was like, yeah, yeah. Then they started turning [a different] color. And you probably heard how people, guys in our business, will say, Well, I would do it, but would my character? And so my version of that is, I don’t mind having gray and blue gnarly teeth, but would Santa have gray and gnarly? No. So I pulled one out with a ball peen hammer and a pair of pliers. Because even though dentists will let children keep their teeth, for adults, it’s considered medical waste. I was like, No, I don’t want to lose these. I want to make jewelry. I took one of them out, but I’ll admit the other one was too tough. And then my son found a dentist. But yeah, I got interrogated in Amsterdam. I mean, if you have Jay Lethal on, ask him. My memory is that guns were at the ready. I finally was like, ‘Do you have a computer?’ And they said, Yeah. I said, ‘Can you Google Mick Foley Hell in a Cell.’ That’s my tooth. So you can tell, if this was 15 years ago, I probably would not want to talk about the cell. You know, I had a love-hate relationship with it. And then as you get older, I think it’s in the same way that Adam West accepted that he was Batman, guys who feel like their career was pigeon holed because of an iconic role. Even Norman Bates, Anthony Perkins, couldn’t get work, you know, outside of a few like knockoffs and sequels. But you come to appreciate it. And I realized, wow, this is even before I started really doing the conventions. I’m so lucky to have anything people remember me for after the fact, let alone, probably two or three things.”

On his greatest match:

“My favorite match was Backlash against Randy Orton. Crazy thing is, if he has a new favorite, I don’t want to know about it. He’s technically, probably had better matches. But the idea of being in that spot, people ask me, you will just say you made somebody. No one person makes anybody. It takes a lot of people, a lot of factors, and even if the bases were loaded for Randy, it’s still up to him to knock it out of the park. And he did, and one of the wisest decisions I ever made, much wiser than working at the Huntsville auto show the day before my street fight with Triple H, much wiser than catching a red eye and getting into New York City at 6 am for the Royal Rumble. I did a lot of stupid things that way, as far as travel, I actually canceled a talk at a community college so that I could come in the night before, as opposed to the day of the show. I like people to be able to read between the lines, rather than just spill the [beans]. But in this case, I think it’s beneficial to know Randy came up to my room, and for only the second time my entire career, I had an A through Z plan, and I’ll never forget, he was just taking it all in. I’m getting the tingles here, because you’re talking about a moment that changed his career, and I don’t know if we could have had that type of match if I’d gone through that speaking engagement. And the other key factor is that Michael Hayes heard some of the things we want to do. He goes, ‘You’re going to need more time.’ So instead of rushing through, we had time to let things breathe. And it just felt really good. Even though I had many trials and tribulations getting back home. My luggage was delayed for four hours. I did throw up in the parking lot of Tim Hortons in Edmonton, because my brain had jogged a little bit, but I made it back in time for Raw the next night, and it was like the fans looked at him like he was a completely different guy. And it really made me feel good. Now, they turned him babyface in two weeks, which I thought was a big mistake, but it was hard not to like somebody who’d been through that type of ordeal.”

What was the other match you went through?

“The street fight with Triple H. So when two of my five favorites are on that list, maybe I should have done more that way. The only other one that was A to Z was when I got to Japan. I only worked two FMW shows. A lot of people think I worked FMW. I actually worked IWA and I did two anniversary shows for FMW. So. It was Wing Kanemura, and he was a good worker, and he did a lot of crazy things, and he had like five notebook pages written out in English. And I’m a guy who likes to have a lot of say, because, it’s not a matter of pride, it’s, I think I have something to offer. And then when I looked at this thing, I just, I like it. If you watch that match with Wing Kanemura, I had zero input in the creativity, but then it’s up to you as a performer, to pull everything off. I asked my kids, ‘Hey,  see if AI can just come up with a hardcore match.’ And a minute later they’re telling me the, you know, the spots, the moves. I was like, it’s not a bad match, but it’s all dependent on how it’s carried out. And you see some guys who can do so much with so little, and you see other guys do so much, and it doesn’t mean anything.”

On taking a Pedigree on thumbtacks in his match with Triple H:

“I knew if I turned my head when I landed and closed my eye really tightly, that the chances [were good]. This is the infamous Foley instantaneous risk reward ratio analysis, where, first of all, we weren’t supposed to do the tacks. Mr. McMahon said, no thumb tacks. And as soon as he walks away, Triple H says, Did you put the tacks under the ring? I was like [yeah], so we weren’t sure whether we’re going to do it or not. But then when I kicked out of the pedigree, I don’t think anybody had at that point, maybe the tacks were already out, I’m not sure, but it was like, Yeah, we’re going to go for it. And I thought to myself, Okay, okay, you could lose an eye, but imagine the pop. I just closed my right eye as tightly as I could, turned my face, and so there was a few sticking in there. But again, trying to compare that risk to the risk of doing a no rope barbed wire match with Terry Funk, you’re going to probably come out better with the tacks than you will with the barbed wire.”

On the origin of Have A Nice Day:

“I mean, that was just a throwaway. Jim Ross told me, you know, do your promo and just have a nice day. We might want to edit that in case Jim wants a piece of that marketing pie.”

On the mandible claw:

“I apologize to every younger sister or brother who had that happen. Jim Cornette gave me the idea, and it’s based on Dr Sam Sheppard, who was the physician that both the TV show and later the movie The Fugitive was based. I’m not a historian like Corny is, but I believe that he was not guilty, but in that state, that wasn’t the same as being exonerated. So whether he would not practice medicine or could not, I don’t know, but he wrestled for a while in a couple of the Southern territories, and kind of slight a build, and they explained away his lack of physique by amplifying his knowledge of the human anatomy. So the idea is mandible claw, two fingers under the tongue. They press down simultaneously on the nerves lying underneath the tongue while also simultaneously pressing up with the thumb on the nerve underneath the chin. And if you do it, you cannot move. So that hurts. And if a guy like Danny Hodge had that incredible hand strength, if Danny Hodge were to put that on somebody, that person’s life would change.” 

On his I Quit match with The Rock and it being featured on Beyond The Mat:

“Plan was yeah, for five. But I was still in the ring at five. I didn’t realize that your body has the ability to give with a chair shot. That doesn’t make it fake. It’s just like anything. It would be like all of a sudden now, instead of having an ability to give, somebody’s punching you square in the face while your head is up against the wall, the impacts would be so much worse. This isn’t an exact analogy, but once my hands were cuffed and anyone at home could do that be like, Oh, I can see why. If you were hit in the head, it would be far more painful. So I literally could not believe how much that first chair shot hurt, more than any one I’d ever taken. And so instead of being halfway up the aisle on five, I was still in the ring. And so I wanted to do the best job I could. But even as I was getting there, I did not know my children were crying. The original finish, which was supposed to be the camera sees my family crying, I see my family crying, and I quit. I don’t want to do that. Now, if you go through history, it was like, within two weeks, Triple H did the same thing that I wanted to do with Chyna, but it was just done so quickly, there’s so much in wrestling you can’t digest at all, and that wasn’t something people were able to sit down and, like, really enjoy. But that was the original idea. And my worry was that I’d spent their whole lives telling them that I was just playing and that dad that couldn’t be hurt. I thought they’d come over to the kids, they’d be like, reading. I didn’t know they’d be crying, but to borrow a line from John Candy in Home Alone. Kids are resilient. They came around and started talking after a couple of weeks.”

On getting The Rock with a “It doesn’t matter…”

“I’d like to say it was his idea. I don’t know. I don’t know if I would have been bold enough to say, Can I use your catchphrase against you? But part of the fun of being with Rock is that nobody gave us a script, we went out there as the Rock and Sock Connection. So even when I started playing off his catchphrases, it worked so well because it was live, whereas if I’d said, ‘Hey, how do you feel about this?’ Maybe it would have gotten shot down. I remember I was doing a signing somewhere, and they were playing like the best of Rock and Sock Connection. And I had to remember, I’m at a signing, because I was marking out so much for our own work. And by the way, I only use the word mark in a positive way towards myself. I think the idea of referring to your fans in negative terms is self-defeating. You’re talking about your fans, people who like what you do, and then you’re going to give them a name based on them liking what you do? What does that make you? I consider what I do to wrestling is an art form, it really is. It’s anything you want it to be, and if you take pride in what you do, then you should not be criticizing the people who like it. So when I say marking out, I only do that in happy terms, and usually about myself.”

What is Mick Foley grateful for?

“Family and fans.”

Please support our sponsors!

PURE PLANK: The future of core fitness! Use the code CVV to save 10% on Pure Plank designed by Adam Copeland & Christian: https://gopureplank.com/?ref=tibcloux

FACTOR: Get 50% off your first box, plus Free Breakfast for 1 Year with the code INSIGHT50OFF at https://factormeals.com/INSIGHT50OFF

STASH: Go to https://get.stash.com/INSIGHT to see how you can receive $25 towards your first stock purchase and to view important disclosures

SEAT GEEK: Use my code for 10% off your next SeatGeek order*: https://seatgeek.onelink.me/RrnK/CVV2025 Sponsored by SeatGeek. *Restrictions apply. Max $20 discount

NORDVPN: Exclusive deal! https://nordvpn.com/cvv Try it risk-free now with a 30-day money-back guarantee!

PRIZEPICKS: Download the app today and use code INSIGHT to get $50 instantly after you play your first $5 lineup!

TIMELINE: Go to https://timeline.com/insight to get 10% off your order of Mitopure!

VUORI: Get 20% off your first purchase! Get yourself some of the most comfortable and versatile clothing on the planet at https://vuori.com/cvv

ROCKET MONEY: Join Rocket Money today and reach your financial goals faster: https://rocketmoney.com/cvv

MIRACLE MADE: Upgrade your sleep with Miracle Made! Go to https://trymiracle.com/CVV and use the code CVV to claim your FREE 3 PIECE TOWEL SET and SAVE over 40% OFF

ZOCDOC: Instantly book a top-rated doctor today at https://zocdoc.com/insight

BONCHARGE: Use the code CVV to save 15% off your infrared sauna blanket at https://boncharge.com/cvv

BLUECHEW: Get your first month of BlueChew for free with the code CVV at https://bluechew.com