Linday La Rocque (@lindylarocque) is the head coach of the women’s basketball team at the University of Nevada , Las Vegas (UNLV). At her time of hiring, she was the second-youngest coach in Division I women’s basketball at age 30. She joins Chris Van Vliet at the Blue Wire Studios at the Wynn Las Vegas to talk about her style of coaching, what she looks for in an athlete, why a team is different from a family, he favorite quotes, what she learned playing basketball at Stanford University and making it to four NCAA Final Four tournaments under coach Tara VanDerveer and much more!

A lot of people watch sports and I think that they only think about the game day. There’s a lot of preparation that goes into what practice will look like.

“You know, I sleep and dream practice plans. I just put a lot of thought and detail into it, because you want to be really efficient. I want to be extremely prepared for young women and not waste their time. With practice planning, someone once said that it takes twice as long to make a practice plan to how long the practice is.”

So if practice is an hour, it takes two hours to plan?

“Well there is at least two hours of thought along with film and analysing what yesterday was and what we need for the next day.”

Is practice easier after a win or a loss?

“That’s a tough question. Sometimes after a loss there are some glaring things that you have to work on, so practice can be easier then, because that is as clear as day. Obviously when you are playing really well, you have to continue to motivate them, even when they think they are riding high.”

Was basketball the first sport that you played?

“Yes. I grew up in the gym and my father was a high school coach in town. He never forced it upon us, but we were there. My sister and I played soccer and some other sports growing up though.”

So what was it about basketball that really drew you to it?

“I don’t know. Obviously as a kid you are fascinated about a ball that bounces. You throw it and it comes back to you. I think growing up in the gym and being exposed to it so much at a young age, I found a lot of the intricacies, and you just find your love and your passion from it. I was blessed to see a lot of that at a young age.”

Was basketball the main sport you watched growing up?

“I think it was because of the exposure. I don’t remember watching a lot of sports on TV as a kid, but we had a sports family. Whatever was on and around, we were playing it. I think we made up some sports sometimes.”

Did you ever think that you would be able to do this professionally?

“I do remember a moment where there was a lightbulb clicking for sure. With the exposure, I was a ball girl right here at UNLV [University of Nevada, Las Vegas]. I think I was 10 or 12 at the time, so still pretty young. My sister and I had done that for a few years, but it was mainly so we could get out of school early in 2002. At the time Backy Hammon was playing for UNLV and for Colorado state, she was small and I was a little small kid. I remember watching her with the best seat in the house and being like well this is something that I can do. If she can do it, I can do it too if I work hard. That’s a clear memory of me knowing I could play basketball.”

So many people think that you need to be over 6 foot to play basketball, but that is not the case.

“There’s a lot of things. There’s the speed, the skill, the athleticism. I think watching Becky as a young girl, she didn’t have the size, but she could shoot that ball. I think I kind of adopted that, I didn’t have the height but I perfected the skill and worked hard at it.”

It’s easy to do the things that you are good at, but what was the skill that you had to work on?

“It was probably my defense. I think any coach that I have ever had will know that it was not my expertise. But the offensive side, I loved it. Everyone loves scoring, I practised the shooting so much and the ball handling. But for sure the hardest thing was being as excited for defensive playing as I was for offensive.”

Do you think there is more pressure on you now as a coach or when you were playing?

“Oh for sure as a coach. When you are playing, ultimately you have more control. As a coach, it is not in my hands, it’s about all the things I can do beforehand to put the team in a successful situation.”

How do you go from being a player to being a coach?

Everyone has their own unique path and perspective. I had such a great playing career, I didn’t play past college. When the light is coming and you can see it and hit the crossroads and you either go overseas or commit to coaching. To me, it was all about contempt and fulfilment. I was really fulfilled with the outcomes and was not going to regret not trying to play professionally. I was at peace with not playing on a team again, and I’m good with it.” 

What was that moment for you?

“I wanted to step away from basketball. After graduating, I worked for a software company, but everyone knew I wanted to coach. I needed to take off my playing hat and have that closure and start a new chapter. I worked at the software company for about 8 months, but when football season was over, I had that moment of yeah I’m ready now. So I kind of had a gap year and tried to dive back into coaching.” 

Does anything hurt now from your years of playing?

“Oh yeah. All of the joints and my hips, but luckily I never had any major injuries, so I am fortunate. But I do think I have some joint inflammation and wearing of the bones, but it’s alright.”  

What do you think is the best advice you have been given about coaching?

“I think for coaching, there are so many layers to it. But if I am not having fun with it, how can I expect those around me to enjoy it? Yes you do set the tone for those things as a coach, but if you are not having fun, it is a big red flag.

Is it still fun after a big loss?

“It is and it is challenging. It is such a big challenge, and I love that. Basketball is a game of mistakes, it’s like who can be the most imperfectly perfect. No two games are the same, it’s a fun puzzle to try and put together.” 

What do you look for in an athlete?

“Well obviously there is the basketball side of bigger, stronger faster. There’s the size and the athleticism as well. Our recruiting philosophy is looking at the full picture, if you don’t take your academics seriously, then there is a piece of you missing. How you study a math test shows me how you would study a scouting report. Also there’s the intangibles of body language, being a teammate, communication.”

You seem so calm and mellow. How do you calm down after a game?

“I think especially as a young coach, that has been one of the big challenges. I am lucky that I live 20 minutes from campus, it’s close but not so close that I can walk. In my commute I can prepare for the day on the way there and decompress on the way back. It’s a constant roller coaster ride everyday. But calming down, I rely on my support system, my husband is the opposite of me and is so calm all the time. I rely on my parents to keep me grounded and see the perspective of things.”

You’re probably not a 10/10 excited every day. How do you show up every day?

“It’s tough. There are different days where it is tough. We talk about the drive, some days I need the music to get pumped up. There are good days and bad days, and sometimes the compartmentalisation is good and bad. I just need to remind myself of who I am doing this for and why I am doing it. Doing that can get you pumped up enough to get you where you need to be.”  

So in collegiate sports, you only get these girls for 4 years maximum. What’s that like?

“Well it may be different to the pros, it’s a time in their life when they are most able to find themselves. I think it is a blessing to be a part of. Yes it’s only 4 years, but it might be the most impactful 4 years of their life. If they only remember 4 years, it might be those 4. It’s all about having a good feeling and investing as much as you can, having a lifelong relationship and writing those recommendations and send them into the world.” 

I end every conversation talking about gratitude. What are 3 things in your life that you are grateful for?

“My health and my family’s health, to be in this position and my husband.”

Featured image: Las Vegas Review-Journal

Killer Kross (@realkillerkross) is a wrestler FKA Karrion Kross in WWE. He joins Chris Van Vliet to talk about what lead him to sign with NXT over AEW and NJPW. They also talk about winning the NXT Championship with a separated shoulder, his fiancee Scarlett Bordeaux, advice from Jon Moxley, his infamous main roster run in WWE, inspiration from director Christopher Nolan films and more!

It’s so good to see you. I think now more than anything people are surprised to see that you actually have hair.

“Oh my God, it’s non-stop!”

Is it because people just thought that you didn’t have hair?

“I think that it’s a mixed bag based on perceptions and opinions of the subject. You know this about me, I have become very committed to character work. I thought that the character would be best presented as being bald, because there are a lot of character patterns and behavioural personalities associated with people that shave their head. You can’t style it and you can’t put product in it. For someone who is tactical and doesn’t want to participate in society in levels of social dynamics, they would shave their head. It’s like they are going into war or going into combat, something like that. I felt that the character presentation would not be concerned with having hair, I would go that deep into it. I went to a lot of acting workshops and learned about how actors would approach their craft. I also love wrestling and I want to be the best version of myself, so I would apply that to what I was doing.”

You look at wrestling as an artform, as opposed to it being a sport. You are really into the character work.

“Yeah totally. To me it’s all of that. Some people put themselves into really specific lanes in what this is to them or what it should be. I think that it is comprised of many lanes, that’s the place where I come from with this. I think a person can become frustrated with themselves either in this industry or out of it if they try to over define exactly what this is. It just encompasses so much.”

So the last time we talked was September 2019 at All Out weekend. I feel like a lot of people thought that you might be going to AEW, was that ever an option?

“Yes. Yes it was. So at that time, I was trying to swerve people as to where I was going to go, because when I put the post out on Twitter I already knew. I was trying to do my best to protect that as much as I could and protect my work. So I put out the post saying ‘Hey, where would you like to see me go next?’ And it was an overwhelming amount of people saying that they wanted to see me go to AEW. I was like [groans]. I had that Peter Griffin moment [with the knee]. I know that there’s a lot of different ways to look at that, but one way I looked at it was that it kind of p*ssed me off. This is my own doing and I know it wasn’t meant to be this way, but at the time, when I saw the amount of people that wanted me to go to AEW instead of WWE or New Japan, I was like well why are people so convinced that I would find more success in AEW? Do they think I can’t become successful in WWE? So I was going to show them that I can and I will. It was pretty much a done deal at that time. I understand that as time went on, they were not saying it in a resentful way, they probably thought that I would find the best version of myself [in AEW].”

So what made you decide that WWE, or specifically NXT is the place where you can go and succeed?

“I feel like there’s a lot of people out there who are going to relate with this, and a lot of people who will not. But I want to be honest with you. I knew since I was a little kid and watching this on TV that I could be there [WWE], do this, and perform on the highest level. I knew it since I was a little kid, and little kids know everything. So it’s hard for your parents and your friends to get behind these statements that you have as a child, because they want to steer you in the right direction, but don’t want to burst your bubble. No one in my family has ever done anything like this, they live in a practical world and are very realistic. This seemed like [them saying] ‘These people are on tv, what are you going to do, climb in there?’ It just seemed like such a foreign idea to them, but it felt like something that I could do as a kid. And as a kid, I watched WWF/WWE. Part of me always wanted to be there, I initially went to wrestling school so I could do this at the highest level and eventually go there. Over the years, I would meet people that would discourage me, and I wondered if I could hang with these people? But you find places that you love working with people, and finally I made the decision to pursue it.”

You mentioned on Renee Paquette’s podcast that it was Jon Moxley who said ‘You can go to WWE and you can do this.’

“Yeah and I really needed to hear that. That feeling that I had since I was a little kid, I let people subconsciously chip away at it. I feel like that happens to all of us in life. For some reason, validation or confidence, we ask our friends and family ‘Hey. Do you think I would be good at this?’ And that isn’t always the best thing. Sure we need our support system, but I let the wrong people, not maliciously, take that feeling away, and I got really far away from something that I was certain of. When he [Moxley] said that to me, and he could absolutely not care, he is telling me that because he thinks that. This is a message from the universe and I need to pay attention to this.”

So after that, did you send a text message to Triple H? Did Jon Moxley give you his number and say reach out?

“He did. I waited for the appropriate time to contact him. I was on the subway at the time and I spoke to him, and it was a super pleasant conversation. I did have a correspondence over the years with WWE with try-outs and background stuff. But that was the conversation that really cemented a lot of different things, and just having the ability to get to know him and understand exactly what he is looking for. I had the feeling from the conversation that he [Triple H] was looking for guys that were 110% in, and then some. I’m not going to wait to be told, I am going to be committed and bring everything into this and embrace the process. I was very protective about being signed there, I didn’t want people to be stooging this off. When I first arrived in NXT, I put on a luchador mask. I’m in a 3 piece suit with a lucha mask, which I used to use when travelling to Mexico. Fans and media would be at the airport. If there’s a car outside, you can only mess around with so many people in the airport. So I was walking around NXT in the mask, and I wondered if anyone would recognize me? I thought I would have to get this close [puts hand in front of face] before he would recognize me.”

Did you have to take the mask off?

“I think he just knew. But he started laughing and I started laughing. I walked up to him and shook his hand and said ‘I’m sorry, I just wanted to protect this. I didn’t want anyone stooging this off.’ Then he just started laughing and said ‘I appreciate your commitment.’ But I thought it would be a funny ice breaker.”

I feel like you endeared yourself to Triple H or someone in NXT, because you moved up the ranks lightning fast.

“I had such an awesome experience there, I don’t know how else to put it. I was introduced to the entire chain of command that I had to answer to, asked a lot of questions and wanted to understand the operation at every level. If ever there was any time to go into the truck and look at the production and the camera angles, I really wanted to learn as much about all this as I possibly could. I even recreationally would research what the company was doing outside of what we were directly involved in. I wasn’t waiting to be told exactly what I needed to do, I just thought to myself that I bet the people at the top of the food chain probably did this, or someone smartened them up to it. I’m going to get ahead of this and I really want to know this. I don’t want to be somebody here who is in a privileged position, I want to learn every step from the beginning. If I am asked a question, I don’t want to say I don’t know, I want to know.”

As an in-ring performer, what would you say are the differences between NXT and IMPACT?

“Respectfully, it just feels like a completely different operation. Respectfully, it feels like there are more hands on deck in NXT. There are more moving parts and the days are much longer, not in a bad way, but you arrive early and there are a lot of things to do. There are pre-tapes, scripts will switch and you have to improv. God forbid that someone gets hurt and you have to go on early or they switch something. I had never encountered anything like that prior to working there. Before I was even working on the roster, I would show up for tv, hang back, mind my own business and just watch things on ground level. You see the speed that everyone is working at, and not to eavesdrop, but you politely listen in on how people are communicating, what sort of verbiage they are using and just trying to learn the lingo. So when they call your number, the transition makes sense, and you are a pleasure to work with.”

I feel like your entrance with Scarlett was just lightning in a bottle. It was set up to succeed from the start.

“Yeah it was amazing, and I had the best possible people to work with. I’m grateful for it all, but I wish we had full attendance and that we could have some NXT house shows. I wish that I got a little bit more time with people, some people were so fun to work with. When you get out of the ring, these equations start going off in your head of a dozen different ways to do things. Aside from Finn Balor, I didn’t get the chance to re-work with many people.”

I want to talk about the NXT Championship match. At what point did you realize that you were really hurt?

“I was in denial about it. It was a simple bump, I can’t tell you to this day what happened. Our rhythm was off that night, it can happen to anybody. As soon as I began passing the middle of the ring, I knew something was going to go wrong, and it did, it was hard to explain. But as soon as I landed, my whole mind went into slow motion. My body made a strange noise, I can’t really describe it, it was like a crunch. But when that adrenaline is running you can run through a wall. So it made a crunch, and I felt something move and shift, and I’m like ‘No, they are not seeing that in the truck.’ So I grab it and push it back in, because my fear right now is that something is wrong and they will stop the match. So I’m like no way, I am shoving this back in. So many years to get to this one night and this happens! So I try to shove it in and it won’t go in, I roll my shoulder a little bit to see if it comes out, and sure enough it is sticking out and I’m like [grunts]. The referee asks if I am alright and I’m like ‘Yep! I’m doing great!’ I could tell you all the things that happened in that moment, but ultimately, the main thing was to persevere through this. It immediately came to me that this is an opportunity to show people that you can tell people how tough you are every single week, some might believe it. But this is an opportunity to show your peers and all the people that have put equity in you. This is sincere as sh*t, so you’ve really got to prove it. I took it as an opportunity to do that.”

So when you get to the back are you like ‘Well I’m not going to defend this.’ Or do you think you can work through it?

“It was slowly creeping in to me, and I was getting so upset. After the match, Hunter, Road Dogg and Johnny Russo walked up to me in the middle of the stage before I could get back there. They just walked up to me and I could see the look on their faces, and it’s worse than I think. I was just becoming perpetually devastated. They had to walk by me, because it was Keith Lee’s last night. I’m trying to play it down, and they are not overly concerned. They were also doing Keith’s farewell speech, and I didn’t want to be rude. So I stood there with my shoulder broken for as long as I could through Keith’s ceremony. I switched the belt from one hand to another, then I just saw it [shoulder] just shift forward. I waited until that was done, and then I went to medical, then they gave me the news. I just thought about all the years I put in, and it just sucked.”

Did you think that all the momentum had just gone at that point?

“Absolutely. I didn’t think there was any reason for them to revisit that at all. It’s business, and business is business. You take one cog out and put another one in. I have nothing against them for that, it is what it is. But I was totally blown away with what happened. They had every single right and reason to do something like that, and it wouldn’t be their fault. But they gave me a second chance, and I have privately thanked them for that. I was very grateful for that.”

Then you go to the main roster, and talk about momentum going away. Were you as shocked as everybody else was?

“[Laughs] I don’t know. But I think everyone else was really shocked. But I felt that coming too. I don’t know what else I can really say about it. All of us are watching the same thing and going ‘What is going on here?’ My thought process was that there would be some master plan behind it. From my point of view, look at the guys that I have been working with,  they were all incredible. I was just used to some type of premeditated energy, so I assumed that it would be there tenfold, because it’s their flagship show. I had my reservations, but in the beginning, I was trying to be optimistic and there are some wheels on this thing.”

Do they assume that when you go to the main roster that fans are unaware of your previous work?

“I can’t say what the overall consensus is, because I feel like it is different with every person. I feel like every person has a different conceptualisation as to what happens when a person transitions from NXT to Raw. But I feel some people feel that way.”

So it’s meant to be against Jeff Hardy, which is awesome. And it’s 10 minutes, again that’s awesome. But it gets cut to 90 seconds in the ring?

“Pretty much. Just unusual. It’s easy work, but most of us would rather have the 10 minute match, easy work is available anywhere. But that happens, and unfortunately it happened to me. I was hoping that me and Jeff were going to get into a longform program. We worked a lot of house shows actually, and we got our time. Man, being able to maestro the audience, especially in the Carolinas, I wish we got that time on television. I wish more people got to see it, but if we got to Extreme Rules with our TLC match, it would have been something that you haven’t seen in a long time.”

When you texted me about the release, you said it was the most bizarre 4 months of your life. What was the most bizarre part?

“The most bizarre part was the transition of the outfit [laughs] and the lack of explanation we were able to provide to the audience. Continuity is extremely important, especially in storytelling. We are conditioning the audience that they are expected to have things explained. If they are not explained immediately, they have to be at some point. That patience only lasts for so long.”

When you were called up to the main roster, did they say who your first program would be with and it would lead to x y and z down the road?

“No, but I did have several people tell me that there were conversations of me working with Randy, Bobby, Drew, Bray and maybe Roman. But nothing was concrete, it was just mentioned as possible matchups, which I was thrilled for, who wouldn’t be? You want to work with these people, they are the best of the best. But when I got there, it was showing up and doing what they want you to do.”

Did you start to think that they might release you? 

“For sure I knew that I was getting released. I knew that the segments weren’t getting over, it was obvious to me. A smart fan knew what was happening, it was only a matter of time. The snap reaction of the debut on the main show without any vignette or notice, it was out of nowhere. There was no ‘Next week…’ I thought that was weird and intuitively a red flag. I thought that was a sign of things to come.”

So what now?

“A lot of things. I realized that I like to create things. I create music, paint, I love to wrestle and create short films. It’s just something I like to do, anything in that field is an interest to me. Being bound to a script or the ideas of others, then being released from that, it’s made me hungry to create more. I am very inspired to create more, so wherever the opportunities arise, I am going to be there.”

Who came up with the name Karrion?

“I did.”

And was this one of many names that you came up with?

“I don’t remember, but that was the top one in a series of names. I’ve always been interested in Greek mythology. Chiron was a centaur and Charon was the ferryman that took the souls from the land of the living to the land of the dead. I was trying to guess between those 2 names, but sometimes something translates into a different language as something different. Karrion means dead flesh, and I felt it was close to those 2 characters. It rolls off the tongue and is a nice expansion of Killer Kross. You were never going to sell Killer Kross to that market.”

I end every interview talking about gratitude. What are 3 things in your life that you are grateful for?

“To be alive, that my family is in good health and I get to marry Scarlett in January or February.” 

Embedded images credit: Instagram

Featured image credit: F4WOnline

Happy New Year my friends! I hope 2022 is off to an amazing start for you! It’s that time of year again where people make resolutions that they don’t actually plan to keep. These seem to be set up more like a wish list for the year, rather than things they actually resolve to change. In this solo episode, I list off 5 simple things you can do to stay on track and actually accomplish your goals this year. And by the way, it doesn’t have to be the start of a new calendar year to start making change. Get after it! As Aristotle said: “We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.”

In talking about New Year’s Resolutions, did you know we are almost at Quitter’s Day? January 19th is Quitter’s Day! Research shows the day most people are likely to give up on their New Year’s Resolutions is January 19. That’s sad, isn’t it?

So I put together 5 quick tips to help you actually achieve your New Years Resolutions this year. Not only to achieve them, but crush them!

Write it down.

write it in the present tense, like it has already happened. Write it down every day. I know that’s a tough one.  A recent study by the 3M Company shows that humans process visuals 60,000 times faster than having to imagine things. So when you write down your goals, it means that you can visually see them. This is an important point because when we see something, it affects how we act. You’re more likely to be productive if you can see what you have to do, instead of just thinking about it.

Be specific.

I know you’ve heard me say it 1028 times before… but let’s make it 1029! Vague goals get vague results. Let’s flip that so that it is specific goals get specific results. Setting a goal of I’d like to lose some weight this year is an AWFUL goal! Because if you lose 1 pound, congrats, you’ve achieved your goal. Instead, make it in the present tense like “I am 15 pounds lighter on July 15th” How specific is that! Instead a flimsy goal like “get more downloads on my podcast”. Which is a nice goal, but how about “I have double the podcast downloads on December 31, 2022.” People who vividly describe or picture their goals are anywhere from 1.2 to 1.4 times more likely to accomplish their goals than people who don’t.

Hold yourself accountable

In addition to writing it down, put it out into the world:

• Put it on social media. I just saw Matt Rehwoldt [Aiden English] do this on his Instagram:

• Tell your friends or your co-workers. If you’re serious about losing those 15 pounds and they see you eating your 4th donut of the day, they are going to slap that out of your hand!

Engineer Your environment

• Pay for a gym membership or a personal trainer. It’s going to make you accountable and make you not want to waste your money.
• Put your workout clothes next to your bed. It’s the first thing you see How are you going to step over your running shoes and then make the excuse?
• Want to eat more fruit? Keep a bowl of apples on your desk. Want to eat less ice cream? I know I do, so I make sure ice cream never makes it into our house.

Be consistent

• Put it in your calendar. If you want to go to the gym tomorrow, set a time and stick to it. Say “I am going to go the gym at 7:30am, or 9pm.” Whatever works best for you. Make an appointment in your calendar and stick to it.
• If you want to for example write a book this year, figure out how many pages that is. Perhaps it’s 200 pages… and make sure to write a page every single day for the next 200 days. Congratulations, you have finished your book in 200 days. Then take the rest of the year to proof read it and edit it.

Final thought:

It was Aristotle who said:

“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.”

What are your goals for 2022? Shoot me a message on Twitter, Instagram or TikTok. Also let me know what topics you want to hear next in these solo episodes.

Until then, be great and be grateful!

Jen Kramer (@JenKramerMagic) is a magician with a headlining show at Westgate Las Vegas Resort and Casino. She joins Chris Van Vliet at the Blue Wire Studios at the Wynn to talk about where her love of magic came from, moving to Las Vegas to chase her dreams, how a magic trick is developed, the Christopher Nolan film “The Prestige”, her appearances on Fool Us With Penn And Teller, being inspired by David Copperfield, David Blaine and Harry Houdini and at the end she performs a few mind-blowing tricks!

Do all magicians carry cards with them at all times?

“It’s a requirement. We have to sign the magician’s oath and carry cards with us everywhere. It’s literally part of the deal. I do feel naked without a deck of cards on me.”

Well you do have that occupation where as soon as you tell someone they are like “Show me!”

“That’s true. Either that or ‘Oh what instrument do you play?’ Because they think that I said musician instead of magician.”

So how does it go from magic just being a passion to something that you can do for a living? 

“So I started learning magic when I was 10 years old. It all began when my uncle Steve, who enjoyed it and studied it for many years, he gave me a book called The Royal Road To Card Magic on my 10th birthday. I loved magic ever since I was 10. When I was in college, those years were all about how do I take this thing that I love so much and turn it into a practical reality? So I took an internship here in Las Vegas and had the opportunity to learn what the Vegas showbiz shows are all about. I worked at it through middle school and high school, I founded the young magic society, so I had many years experience performing while I was in school. I worked my way through birthday parties, corporate events and private shows. When I moved out to Vegas to do that internship, I think that it solidifies that Vegas is where I wanted to launch my full time career. Once I graduated from college in 2014, I thought that if there is any time to take a risk and just go for it, this is the time. So I moved out here and had the opportunity to launch that full time career.”   

So many people say that they are going to move to LA or move to Vegas, but they don’t think about what to do when they get here.

“I wanted to have something that I could rely on. So especially after my last couple of years of college, I really started reaching out to venues in Las Vegas. It was mainly cold calls and cold emails to people I didn’t know at the time, just pitching shows. I got a lot of people saying no, which is a big part of it. I’m sure there are people reading this and going ‘Yeah sure you moved out to Vegas…’ No, it wasn’t the first thing I tried. I reached out to many people. At the time in my dorm room, I knew that people didn’t know me, so if they said no, I wasn’t going to take it personally. You just have to keep reaching out until you get one person to say yes, because one yes is all you need.”   

With a musician, you can see there is a path. You play someone’s wedding, you form a band… How do you make money as a magician when you are not headlining a casino?

“A lot of it is charting your own course. In magic, there are so many successful magicians who are successful in different ways. There are so many different markets, you could be exclusively a corporate magician, you can be a college magician, close up magic, illusions, or even be an online magician. I think that is part of the exciting field of magic, there’s so many ways to be a magician.” 

So you went to Yale, I assume not to study magic?

“So I went there because I couldn’t get into Hogwarts [laughs]. With the architecture there it reminded me of Harry Potter, so I assumed there would be a magic society, but there was not. I managed to meet up with a bunch of young magicians, and I think that sense of community, to this day, is part of the reason why I love being in Las Vegas. I’ve valued community since I was 10.”

What did you study?

“I was a theater studies major, I wasn’t a major in witchcraft and wizardry. I knew that magic was what I wanted to pursue, I’m just grateful that I get to headline my own show now.” 

Is there a difference between a magician and an illusionist?

“I am happy with either term. The way that many magicians and illusionists explain their set is that illusionists will do more of the illusion stuff. Things like making someone disappear or sawing in half. Magic is more of a general term, it can describe stage magic or close up magic. I do either in my show, I do illusions, close up, sleight of hand, audience participation.”

When you meet a comedian, people want to say ‘Ok well tell me a joke.’ And you know, they are not always on. When someone says to you ‘Well show me something.’ Does that ever get old?

“I enjoy it, I am always working on something new. To get that time and to get those real experiences from real people. There is nothing that replaces that feeling. You can prepare as much as you think you can to prepare, but there are only so many things you can learn from being in front of a live audience. That’s one of the valuable things about learning to perform in day to day life.”   

So how does the germ of an idea form into a trick?

“I think that every trick is different. For me, it’s all about the context, where do I want to do this trick? A trick that will be done on stage in Las Vegas will be very different to a trick that I would do on YouTube or Instagram. First I will think what is the scenario and what is the audience? Then I think what will have to work with? Will it be for someone specific or something just to have in the pocket? If it’s for someone specific, then I will try and customise it and make it about their interests. Once I have figured all that out, I will think what is the dream scenario? Then I reverse engineer and think of the possible ways to make that happen, because there can be multiple ways. Then it’s about the best way and the performance. I think it’s fun to figure out all those pieces and put them together.”

Have you ever had a moment on stage where it hasn’t worked?

“Of course. I think that any magician who says otherwise hasn’t had enough shows, it’s inevitable. I think a big part of being a magician is being able to handle all of the unexpected situations that in live theater are inevitable, but that’s part of the excitement. In my routine, several routines involve audience participation, and people say or do unexpected things.”

Can you give us an example?

“There was this one guy who was super enthusiastic about being a part of the show, which is good. But he went into this monologue and was going on and on about his story. It’s not a heckle, but it can be distracting to the audience. As a performer, you have to bring it back. I am mic’d up and they are not, so if they say something funny, I can repeat it and it can get a laugh. Audiences can sense when something is real, they know when something happens that shouldn’t. But if the person is not saying something constructive, for example I do a family friendly show, I can just not repeat that. Beyond the first few rows, the rest can hear what was just said.”    

What do you think is the biggest life lesson that magic has taught you?

“Wow, I think that there are a lot. One is that when you do something you love, it shines through. When you do something that you really care about, audiences can sense that, they are really smart. People can sense when you enjoy something. Magic has also taught me how to connect with people, because that’s what it is all about, that genuine human connection.”  

I’m sure every day people ask you “How did you do that?” What is your stock response?

“A magician can’t reveal her secrets. That’s the stock response. But also I think it’s more fun to not know.”

When you go on Fool Us, is the goal to actually fool them?

“I think that fooling them is part of the way that the show is constructed. But I also think that it’s really a showcase. It’s an amazing showcase for magicians to perform. Ultimately the show isn’t about fooling Penn and Teller, it’s about performing for Penn and Teller. I can’t speak more highly of Penn and Teller and their team, I appreciate it so much that I get to work with such amazing people.”

I end every interview with gratitude. What are 3 things in your life that you are grateful for?

“The people in my life, the family, friends and my crew. I’m so grateful for my health and that I get to do something that I love.”

Featured image: Las Vegas Review Journal

Embedded image credit: Instagram

Scott Garland is a professional wrestler best known for his time in WWE as Scotty 2 Hotty. He joins Chris Van Vliet to discuss how Too Cool was formed, the origin of the iconic Worm signature move, memories of Brian Christopher (Grandmaster Sexay), The WWF Attitude Era, getting back into the ring at 48 years old, being a coach in WWE and knowing exactly what they want from a new recruit, his love of theme parks and more!

So you put out this new video launching your YouTube channel. People were going “Not only do you look youthful, but you look good.”

“Thanks man, I appreciate it. What a crazy time in my life. I am taking this crazy step where I am 48 years old and I am going back into the ring. But I feel like I can go and deliver, if I couldn’t, then I wouldn’t do it. It just felt like the perfect time to do it.”

Is it that you just missed being in the ring?

“Yeah I missed being in the ring, and I never said that I was retired. I took the job as a coach in WWE at the Performance Center back in 2016, I had my last match in August 2016, and that was it. I never said that I was retired, but I also never really saw myself having another match again. But I was ok with that, I look back at some of that Attitude Era stuff, and it is crazier than I remember. Nobody can take that away from me, my career peaked at the peak of professional wrestling. It was such a cool time with cool energy and cool characters, so I feel like I did everything that I wanted to do. But I missed the travelling, NXT wasn’t doing any live events, all the tv was shot in house. I wasn’t travelling and I wasn’t having fun, and I saw people from AEW right down to the small independents having fun, the independents are on fire right now. So I started asking around things like “Well what can I make?” I was doing the numbers and thought to myself that I can go out there and kill it. There are very few guys from the Attitude Era that are still going, Al Snow, The Headbangers, Billy Gunn. Val Venis does a bit and The Godfather does a bit, but there are very few that are still going. I can still deliver, so I am excited.”

How much time and thought went into this? It’s got to be a big thing to leave a sure-fire job at the PC?

“It was over the last couple of months. Once the pandemic happened and all the releases started happening, I think the releases took a big toll on me. When I became a coach, I had no idea how much I would love that job, and those guys are then like your children. You create these relationships with people, and you see them get released, and you find out with everyone else when they come up on Twitter. My buddy in Nashville texted me ‘Oh the releases are happening again…’ So then I jump on Twitter and I see somebody released that was in my class and I just saw 3 hours before. That’s how I am finding out, and dude, this is not cool.”

So you find out when everybody else does. Is there not like a company wide email?

“No, towards the end they started doing a group text when they let people go. That was one of my beefs when I left. I don’t want to know when talents are getting released before they do. But once it’s done, can’t you send something out to you know, have an intern who is sitting beside the person doing the cuts send a text to their coach and say ‘Hey I just want to let you know [this person has been released].’ Me and some of the other coaches had talent texting us saying ‘Hey thanks for everything.’ and we respond with ‘Hey no problem. It’s great having you in class.’ And we think they are talking about being in class today, but no they’ve just got cut. There were just so many releases, and I wasn’t having fun, and I saw people outside that appeared to be having fun.”

When people saw you in the ring and in day to day life with how much fun you were having, this feels like a disconnect from the Scotty that we know and love. 

“Don’t get me wrong, it was the last 6 months to a year that it started to get that way. It wasn’t like every day was this horrible thing, I don’t want that to be what people think when they think about me. I had an awesome career, 30 years from day 1. From the first time I stepped into a WWF ring in 1991 to now, that’s 30 years, and I did some awesome things. You and I wouldn’t even be talking if I hadn’t gone there. They gave me a platform to make a name and to do what I am going to do now and I am thankful for that. I just don’t know if the thought was reciprocated, I don’t even know if Vince McMahon knew I worked there. I was on the contract for 5 years and they never did anything with me as far as the Scotty 2 Hotty character.”

That’s crazy. You would think there would be something like a Royal Rumble return.

“You would think. But they or he [Vince] believes that. But it’s his company and it’s his opinion. That’s what I keep saying, anything I disagree with, like how they want to train their talent, it’s their company. So I can either train their way and take the pay check, or I can walk away. I chose to walk away, and honestly, it’s one of the proudest moments of my life to say that I walked away on my own.”

So the independents is the next step, but what is the next step after that?

“So for 6 years I have been a coach at The Performance Center, and I was one of 8 to 10 coaches. Now I have that in my back pocket, I can do the independent shows and then I can do a seminar during the day, very few people can say ‘Hey, this is what they [WWE] are looking for right now.’ Of course it changes from day to day, and maybe I’m wrong. But this is a thing that I have struggled with. When I was 40 years old, I was still wrestling the independents and thought to myself what am I going to do [after]? I put myself through firefighter school and EMT school, and what a great transition, because most firefighters do 24 on and 48 off. I could do that job, get a pension in 20 years and still take my bookings. So I went through the whole thing, started volunteering and trying to find a job, but my heart just wasn’t in it. I went to real estate school, got my licence, but again that wasn’t it. After that was when the Performance Center thing happened. When you are at WWE and everything is going at 100mph, it’s hard to think about anything else. I now have time to think about what that next step will be.”

So you mentioned that you know what WWE are looking for. What are they looking for?

“Well it might be different now [laughs]. But when I left there a month ago, they want young. [Chris asks if they want people who have been in a ring before] It doesn’t seem like it. I know that they are doing try-outs for people who have never done this, they are hiring all these college athletes. I have always said that you can’t teach passion, and you need passion to do this. No matter how much money you are making, if you are on the road doing 200 shows a year and you are travelling, which adds about 50 days, you are looking at 250 to 300 days a year on the road. No matter what you are making in money, you need passion. I think at some point it will swing back the other way and they will go ‘Where are the men at? We need men!’ And then you will see a bunch of guys come in who are a little bit older and more experienced. Putting green on green on live television can be dangerous.”

Can you still use Scotty 2 Hotty?

“No I can’t legally. I say that I am lukewarm now [laughs].”

Whose idea was it to have you go from a singles wrestler to have you paired with Brian Christopher?

“We were just thrown together at WrestleMania 14. We were just thrown together in that battle royal, which is crazy, because he had been a heel at that point and I had been nothing but a babyface. All of a sudden we are thrown together, I have no idea why, I think it was supposed to be a one off. I had actually wrestled as Scott 2 Hot Taylor on the indies and I pitched the idea to Vince McMahon in catering at WrestleMania 14. So I said ‘Hey, thanks for putting me on the show. I know me and Brian together, he’s “Too Sexy” and I  wrestled as Scott 2 Hot Taylor on the indies.’ Sure enough, the next TV we were thrown together as a team on Shotgun Saturday Night. They called us Too Much.”

When did you decide that The Worm was going to be a signature move?

“It was once Too Cool started. I would lay the guy out by the ropes, hit the other ropes, stop, hit the brakes and worm across and drop an elbow or a headbutt. But I was getting a reaction from the crowd, so I was onto something. Once I started doing the Too Cool stuff, I started hopping around the ring, there weren’t 4. But one night on Raw, Jerry Lawler started going ‘W O R M.’ Then I asked him if he would keep doing it, and a month later, the crowd was doing it along too. It’s crazy how Brian’s dad helped to get that over.”

Was there a specific moment where you were like ‘Ok, this thrown together tag team between me and Brian Christopher is really taking off?’

“We were getting good reactions when we were doing the Too Much stuff. We were getting good reactions, but it didn’t feel like it was for us, it was like we were there to help somebody else get along. Once we switched to Too Cool and they put Rikishi with us, that first night that we did the dance, that was special. We felt something with that. That snowballed fast and it was crazy, the 3 of us were on the chopping block at the time. They weren’t doing anything with any of us, and it just clicked.”

From the outside looking in with Rikishi, it didn’t feel like it would work. But for whatever reason, it was lightning in a bottle.

“That was something that I would tell my guys and girls too as a coach. If I said to you ‘I’m going to lay this guy out by the ropes, stand over him, hop to the other side of the ring and hope they spell out the word worm. Then I’m going to drop down and do the breakdancing worm across the ring, stand over them and drop a lousy chop on their chest.’ On paper, that sounds awful. Don’t tell anybody about it, just go and do it. If you have an idea and you feel that it’s going to work, then don’t let anybody shut it down, just go out there and do it. Probably 90% of the time, you might fail. But all it takes is that one time, whether it’s The People’s Elbow, The Worm, The Stink Face, Al Snow had Head. Whatever that thing is, you’ll feel it, the audience will feel it and the office will feel it.”

What is your favorite memory of Brian?

“We were never close. But after I was released in 2007, we did a weekend for Hermie Sadler in the Carolinas, and we did some Rock ‘n’ Roll Express tournament. Brian, it [the tournament] was 3 days long, and on the first night he showed up and he was in a bad place. I could smell it on his breath, he was a mess. By the time Sunday had rolled around, we had a big fight in the locker room, not a physical one, just a verbal one. I was like ‘Dude, I don’t need this.’ We were just different people, we didn’t speak for 5 years. Then on our first appearance back, he pulled me aside and apologised for everything, we both apologised. Over the next few years, I felt like we got closer than ever. There were a bunch of shows in the UK with me, Rikishi and Brian, and I bought my son, who was 10 years old at the time. I have a picture of Brian showing my son Keegan how to use a payphone. It’s from behind of both of them, but it’s so cool. Brian was in a good place and cleared himself up, but towards the end was when we got closer than ever. I also was taking everything with a grain of salt, if he said let’s meet up at the hotel at 1am and go to a show, I would be there at 1 o’clock and he wouldn’t be there. I go and knock on his door, he’s half asleep. But I don’t let it bother me as much as it once did. Towards the end it was getting worse and worse, he had a fight and got beat up, then was arrested again. That last mugshot I saw, I knew he was in a bad place. Brian always smiled when he got his mugshot taken, because he knew that it would be publicity. This was in Memphis, where his dad was king. But that last one was where he was in a bad place, and he ended up passing away in jail.”

So you were never close with him when you were on the road?

“No. I’ve always said that we have never roomed together, but we did at Owen Hart’s funeral, because the company paid for us all to go out there. So they doubled everybody up in the rooms, and because we were a tag team I guess they just threw us in the same room together. But that’s the only time, we never rented cars or anything. Him and Rikishi travelled a little bit, but I was always with Kane or with Edge or Funaki.”

Did your personalities not mesh or were there issues between you guys?

“We were just different people. He would like to go out and was a party guy, I was never a party guy. I think that part of Brian’s problem was that he liked Grand Master Sexay better than he liked Brian Lawler. He liked to live that character 24/7, we would do shows and he would leave in his gear, he would be in his Too Cool gear while we were sitting in a restaurant. But that was Brian, and I think he went down that bad road and just couldn’t get away from it. But I was never into that lifestyle, I’m a theme park nerd.”

When you are at the PC, who was one of your students that you developed a connection with and were like a proud father when they made it?

“That’s easy, Rhea Ripley and Raquel Gonzalez. Those are the 2 that I feel like I helped the most. Talk about a reward, Rhea will say I’m like a father figure to her, how much better can it get than that? She was a 20 year old kid when she came in, and I’ve seen both her and Raquel grow up over the years. My last show that I produced for WWE was the WrestleMania on sale, the last segment was Rhea and Raquel standing in the stadium together, it can’t be any better than that.”

We’ve talked about all the amazing Too Cool moments. What is your favorite Too Cool match?

“My go to is February 7th 2000, right after the Royal Rumble where we danced at the Garden. So it was me, Rikishi, Brian, Cactus Jack and The Rock against Perry, Benoit, Malenko, X-Pac and Hunter. Eddie was on the outside, Stephanie was on commentary, Kane and The Outlaws came out at the end… It was in Dallas and the crowd was just electric that night. That’s my go to, but people always bring up the Malenko match from Backlash. It still holds up and it’s 2 different styles, which makes wrestling cool. The problem with the Performance Center is that it’s all the same style. It can all be right or it can all be wrong, it’s just different opinions, it’s wrestling. The only thing that is right to me is what sells tickets.”

I end every interview talking about gratitude. What are you most grateful for right now?

“My girlfriend, my kids and just being able to still do this.”

Featured image: Wikipedia

René Duprée is a professional wrestler known for his time in WWE as part of the tag team La Résistance with Sylvain Grenier. He joins Chris Van Vliet to talk about signing with WWE at 18 years old and making his debut at 19, becoming the youngest WWE tag team champion ever, how he was able to get so muscular at such a young age, his legendary father Emil Duprée, his new podcast called “Cafe De René” and much more!

Before we get into everything I just want to say congrats on the new podcast.

“Thanks. Well I had a lot of downtime and this guy from the UK interviewed me for his podcast. He asked me if I was interested in doing one too? Well I can’t travel anywhere and I’ve got the time, so why not? It’s actually quite fun and it keeps me updated on wrestling. Otherwise I would have no clue, I don’t watch it on tv anymore.”

I find it fascinating that so many former wrestlers just don’t watch it anymore.

“I think you just get sick of it and burned out when you are there. When you are in that system it’s like 24/7. You are technically an independent contractor, but you are at their beck and call 24/7. Now I am with Pro Wrestling NOAH and they are feuding with New Japan, if it wasn’t for these lockdowns I would be out there in Japan right now.”

Who do you look at on the New Japan roster and be like “I need to have a match with this person.”

“I wrestled ¾ of the roster already. I was in All Japan already and wrestled all the guys before. But the guys I haven’t wrestled are Okada, Tamahashi, Naito. I haven’t worked Ospreay yet, but I know exactly what I would do with him. I compare him to a Paul London, put it that way.”

You are obviously not with WWE anymore. Would you say that it has gotten better or worse since Vince has gotten older?

“Do you watch the product? [laughs] If I’m not a fan of something, I can’t fake it and I can’t pretend. I get asked all the time if I would go back? Firstly, would they have me back, because I have been so outspoken. But also, I can’t watch the show. I know the process that goes into it, and it’s not what I was brought into, it’s more Hollywood now.”

At what point were you ok with being so outspoken about all this stuff?

“Honestly it was when my friends started dying. That was when I lost it. When I left initially, I was being professional and just wanted to do something else. It actually happened when my friend Lance Cade died at age 29 of an overdose. I just snapped. But I’m glad that guys dying has decreased and it has gotten better. At one point guys would drop down every other month, especially when I was there, which was from 2002 to 2007.”    

When you look at that time, far too many people passed away too soon. What do you think it was?

“Drugs. Opioids. We are talking opiates. Right now unless you are living under a rock, North America has a serious opioid addiction problem. It’s out of control. Then you put yourself where your job is being bashed over the head with chairs, and you had no time off. At that time, you were scared to lose your spot. I can remember a fellow Canadian named Andrew Martin [Test], when he broke his neck, they fired him. So what kind of message does that send to the rest of the locker room? You can’t even show you are in pain, because they think that you might get injured. Here’s the thing, all it takes is 7 to 10 days of consistent opioid use and you are hooked. If you’ve got a torn knee, you’re still working, and you take that stuff for 60 days, you’re hooked.”

Is this something that you’ve struggled with?

“Oh yeah. The first time I got introduced to it was my first month in the United States. It was when I got sent to developmental, which was in Cincinnati. This was HWA, Heartland Wrestling Association. We did a match and I did a dive, I hit myself on the corner ring post. I broke all 4 of my front teeth, chipped in half and it was brutal, I’ve had them replaced 3 times. I went to the dentist and he gave me a bottle of Vicodin. That’s how a lot of people get started, by doctors getting prescribed an opioid.”

How did you kick it?

“I asked for help, and they provided it. So I got help and 2 weeks after I left, Chris Benoit killed his family. The writing was on the wall, I needed to take a vacation and get away from this place.” 

What was the reason for asking for your release?

“It was Benoit. I went to the rehabilitation center for 4 months, and when I got out I felt great. But then, it was the biggest catastrophe in wrestling history. So I’m like ok, people, places and things. If you are in a toxic environment, then you’ve got to change it.”  

At what point in WWE did the excitement die down and you thought ‘Oh, this isn’t exactly what I thought it would be.’

“It’s like anything else, it just becomes Groundhog Day. All you care about is when your cheque will come in, but that’s not a reason to do anything. When you don’t care about the job, it’s time to do something else.”

We are both the same age. I remember watching you debut at 19. When I was 19 I didn’t look as jacked as you did. When did you start working out?

“I started lifting weights at 11. I knew what I wanted to do. My father was very frugal, so he wouldn’t buy the food I needed. So I got a part time job pumping gas in the Canadian winters. I would skip school to lift weights, I had no life. My inspirations were British Bulldog, Macho Man, Ultimate Warrior… I knew Vince liked bodybuilders, so that’s what I did.”

Do you have any residual injuries from when you get out of bed?

[Laughs] I’ve got like 1 brain cell left! Memory loss, I’ve had a lot of concussions. I’ve had my teeth knocked out 3 times and my nose broken 4 times. There’s dents in my head too, but as far as body wise my shoulder is screwed up from Goldberg, he’s a dick. But you don’t want to show them you are weak.”

Did you have words with Goldberg after that?

“No, not really. I think he has one speed, I think he is so OCD that I think he was apologetic, but he was so concentrated on his character.”

I interviewed Spike Dudley a while ago and I asked him about that bump he took from La Resistance and he just shrugged it off. Who’s idea was it?

“Bubba [Ray Dudley]. Anything involving the Dudley Boyz, it was all Bubba. Nobody likes him, I just have the balls to say it. I guarantee nobody is like ‘Yeah I get to work Bubba tonight.”

Are you saying that as a person or a performer?

“Either. Try working professionally with him. Try that sh*t with me now, I’m not a kid anymore. From a professional standpoint, he would yell stuff in the ring. I’m like ‘Dude, what the f*ck are you doing?’ I don’t rank him that high as a quality wrestler, I just don’t. I don’t rank The Dudley Boyz, their schtick was entertaining, but as far as great wrestlers, no.”

Is this D-Von too?

“No D-Von is a better wrestler than Bubba.”

What is it about being in the ring with The Rock or Austin that was so great?

“Just the energy from being in the ring and from the crowd. When the music hit, you would literally hear the wave from the crowd. It’s like going to a Metallica concert and they hit Enter Sandman. When I hit The French Tickler, that was when the crowd reacted.”

So for somebody who has not seen any of your matches since WWE, who are you now and what is your character now?

“I just go by Renee Dupree all over the world. The latest stuff I did was for Pro Wrestling NOAH. I usually travel through Europe but can’t due to the pandemic right now. They’ve just shut the Japanese borders due to the new cases.”

What’s the character now?

“There is no character, I just wrestle, that’s it.”

I feel like you are walking this thin line where when you are talking about certain subjects, people will just think that you are jaded.

“No, I just tell the truth. If it wasn’t for their exposure, you wouldn’t be talking to me and I wouldn’t be able to do all I have done in wrestling, and that was 17 years ago. But at the same time, am I bitter? Well I was re-signed in 2011, but I felt like I was lied to. I couldn’t get into the United States, because I didn’t have the proper paperwork. I was told one thing, when I went and got it fixed and tried to contact them again, there was no answer, and that was 10 years ago.”

If you could change anything about that time, would you?

“I wish I would have been a little bit older before I got on the road. That lifestyle under the age of anyone under 21 is too much.”

So what happens when all the boys go out and you can’t drink?

“Well I didn’t want to go out drinking anyway. I one time that I did decide to drink, I was in my room alone in the UK. I nearly missed my flight the next day and got a whole lot of heat. So I decided I’m not going to do that again.” 

Do you think about life after wrestling?

“Well I got into real estate. My family owns 19 buildings and I own 2, it’s a comfortable income. My dad told me ‘It’s not how much money you make, it’s about how much money you save and invest.’”

I end every interview with gratitude. What are you grateful for right now?

“My mom and dad, that they are still alive and support me. I’m grateful for my wife for always supporting me and for the internet so I can always stay relevant.”

Featured image: Sportzwiki

Sean Ross Sapp is the managing editor of the pro wrestling and MMA website Fightful.com. He joins Chris Van Vliet to talk about how he got started in journalism, how he was able to break the news that CM Punk had signed to AEW, his favorite interviews, working with Denise Salcedo, how he trained and worked as a pro wrestler, his favorite and least favorite parts of the job, what he learned working for Bill Apter and WhatCulture, his thoughts on whether or not kayfabe is dead and much more!

Is Ross actually your middle name?

“Yes, and I hated it growing up. I almost wouldn’t acknowledge it, but then professionally I thought that it would be more memorable if I went with a 3 part name.”

Did Ross from Friends not make it cool?

“It absolutely encouraged me to not use it. When I was growing up, that show was huge, and there weren’t a whole lot of people around with the name Ross. But then by the time that was out there people were like ‘Sean? You mean like S E A N? Like Puff daddy?’ I’m like ‘Yeah, it’s the same way. We are exactly the same [sarcastically thumbs up].’”

At what point did you think to yourself ‘I’m going to be the 3 name guy?’

“I think a couple of years into it maybe, I can’t think of a defining point. I remember a point where I decided to go with it, I wrote for Bill Apter, and he put something like SappoMania as the header. I said that doesn’t work for me, brother, so I figured that maybe something else would work a little bit better to define that difference, and thankfully it did.”

“I pitched to Bill Apter’s website, also to a website called Obsessed With Wrestling, that had a bunch of profiles and some articles. At WrestleZone, I pitched a column that I was going to do for January 4th 2010 actually, which was the TNA Monday night show and the Bret Hart and Shawn Michaels thing [on Raw]. I was getting so into MMA, I had fallen out of love with wrestling a bit, so I pitched a column. I would wait until WrestleMania and see if I still loved it and decide if I want to keep watching it, knowing full well that I was probably going to still keep watching it. But Bill Apter said yes and OWW said yes, and I wanted to write for Bill Apter, that was what I wanted to do at that point.”

So your pitch was ‘Can I write an article for you for free?’

“Yes. So at that point it was a weekly column, and it was absolutely for free. I didn’t make a dime off of pro-wrestling writing for years.”

When was the first time you made money off of pro-wrestling?

“Maybe when I did some freelance stuff in 2012 or 2013, I got $20 if that. But I would ghostwrite a lot of stuff for entertainment articles and stuff like that, anything to keep me afloat. But gosh I was working 10 different wrestling and MMA jobs for free at that point anyway. Through 2009 to 2013 or 2014, I wasn’t making any money doing this, I was surviving on student loans and stuff like that pretty much.”

What were you doing to make money?

“Just trying to freelance. Any little thing that I could get to live within my means as best I could, I was broke. I would be checking my bank account before I ordered pizza, there was not a lot of money coming in. I taught kickboxing locally and that made me a little bit of money here and there, but at the start I did it so I could get free gym memberships. They aren’t going to say to you ‘Oh you teach kickboxing but you’ve got to pay your monthly fee too.’ Then it became that I got cut in on the revenue, so I stepped it up from once a week to two or three times a week to increase revenue. But it was a lot of living within my means and just the bare essentials.” 

You made the decision that this was going to work no matter what though?

“I mean kind of. In 2009 I started to train in MMA and pro-wrestling, I just wanted to see what it feels like and how I do. By then I had decided that I was going to do something, but I was afraid of my own failure. That was what prevented me from writing for the first time or going on camera for the first time, I was so afraid. I knew I could be good, but what if no one cares? What if I am not as good as I think I am? It kept me from it a lot longer than it should have, and I don’t regret that because if you see me on Twitter, I am not the most mature person, but back then I really wasn’t the most mature person. But when I taught that first MMA class, this was when it was something that I knew I wanted to do for the rest of my life.”    

You still have a passion for MMA, even though we all see you as the pro-wrestling guy.

“That was one of things, I didn’t miss covering an MMA event for over 10 years. It is so different from pro-wrestling, the audience is so much worse in MMA. It is so much more angry, which Shayna Baszler speaks about a lot. Then when there is someone like Ariel Helwani, you won’t beat him on scoops or interviews. I so badly wanted to be the best at anything for a period of time. I don’t care if I was the best at mopping a floor, just as long as for 10 minutes, a year, 10 years, just the best at something. I looked at MMA news and am I going to be the best at it? I don’t think so. I was very realistic with my skillset there.”               

Does wrestling feel like a job to you?

“There have been a couple of times, like when I was going through depression it did. There are a lot of times where I will be making an observation about a show, someone won’t like it and they will go ‘Well why do you watch?’ And I will say ‘Because it’s my job.’ Then they will say ‘Well I wouldn’t do a job that makes me miserable.’ I would much rather watch and cover terrible wrestling than do anything else. If I did a normal job, what would I do when I get home? I would probably watch wrestling and wrestling interviews. But I am very fortunate that I have got to this position and to where people care about it. The travel sometimes, I don’t know how the wrestlers do it, I travel a couple of times a month, and it zaps me for a week.”      

What was that thing that really stepped you up to that next level? You are working for free and working freelance, but then finally someone sees the value in your work, or they just take a chance on you.

“I saw the value in my work. I worked for 4 years for Bill Apter, before that there was a local gym where we learned all the MMA stuff. I would do their social media, their YouTube, promote their house events for them. All of that would lead to MMA promoters getting me to coordinate their fights, tape up wrists, do commentary, that was a big help too. When I got paid for commentary, I was like maybe I am not terrible at this. I still wasn’t getting paid for wrestling or MMA writing. Then it was 2014, and I got hired by FanSided to be a shift writer. Then I got hired at WhatCulture, and within a couple of weeks, their guy hired me and he went ‘Hey I want you to do this full time, you’ve got a knack for news writing.’ I’m like well that’s awesome, that’s what I need. He told me the amount, and it was enough for me to live comfortably. But then I realized the amount was actually in GBP, so I was making more than that because of the conversion rate. I almost cried because I was so excited. That’s when from this point on, this is what I am doing. However within a couple of weeks the vision did not quite go the way that he wanted, it really put me at a low point. But fortunately after that, I’m like I am not going to give this up, I will keep at it and a couple of weeks later I was at Wrestling Inc, one of the biggest wrestling websites in the world. In 2014, I had put a firm if I am not making full time money, I’ve got to do something that will make it happen.”  

What exactly happened with WhatCulture?

“Oh boy. I just want to establish that none of the former video personalities were there when I was there. Simon Miller, I have nothing but love for him, great guy. Adam Blampied and Adam Pacitti, I never knew them until last year. There’s a fellow by the name of Matt Holmes, I don’t normally care to name him. He runs the site and he was the one who hired me and interacted with me directly, and I was hired to be a news writer. If you remember WhatCulture back then, that wasn’t really what they did. They did top 10s etc. I had put myself through media journalism school with student loans, and there is no real top 10 class that you take, you have to learn their format. Within the first day of me doing writing full time he was like ‘Hey you’ve got to step back and do some top 10 stuff.’ I’m like well you are paying me, so I will do whatever. That wasn’t to his liking, but they were trying to expand into the US, so they hired me and David Bixenspan, who was my editor. The idea was that the people in the UK office are out by 5pm local time, that’s noon over here, and wrestling does not stop at noon on a weekday. So the idea was let’s have some US people to contribute over there. The final conversation after weeks of criticism, and it wasn’t constructive, was ‘I don’t think you should be news writing anymore. I don’t think it’s going to work out, you are not very good at it.’ It was basically Matt Holmes encouraging me to get out of this completely. I was looking at the work, and I sent it to Bill Apter, who is like the kindest guy. He said to me ‘That guy doesn’t know what he is talking about, keep doing what you are doing.’ After a couple of weeks, this job where I signed a contract, he cut me and I thought I was the worst in the world. Fortunately I had made enough high level contacts to send my work to them and be like, please be honest, and they said that he [Matt] didn’t know what he was talking about, but he wanted to aggressively expand into the US. When he didn’t see immediate results from wrestling news writing, he was like `let’s nix the whole thing.’”

So you were at Wrestling Inc. and then Jimmy Van, who owns Fightful saw something in you?

“Kind of. I’ll preface this by saying that I will never ask anybody to work for free ever. But if they offer, I might give them that opportunity, that’s what I did with Bill Apter. So after that 2014 that was really integral in me positioning myself, I got at Wrestling Inc. and they put me on screen, which is very important to me obviously, that was where a lot of people got to discover me. I got to expand into ROH and New Japan news, because somebody was already covering all of the WWE stuff, so I had to find my niche. In finding my niche, I made a lot of contacts because I was covering something that nobody else is, that goes a long way. I remember very vividly that I was going to write for Bill Apter for free, out of respect and what he has done for me in giving me an opportunity. I don’t care if nobody read it, the fact that he associated himself with me, that meant a lot to me. In January 2015, I just joined Wrestling Inc. and he hit me up a message asking if I had left. I said no I will still contribute, and I didn’t hear back from him up until about 10 months later to promote his book. Other than that we didn’t really talk much. Jimmy Van came to me and said that he got a nice recommendation from Bill Apter, that’s what made him reach out to me. I was not a prominent name, but Bill Apter said it would be right for me, you never know what might come from that work.”      

There’s a lot of people who want to be doing what you are doing, and in the last 2 years the cream has really risen to the top. You’ve risen to the top, how?

“I always find that it is important to be versatile, do everything. Anybody can start up a free Patreon account and post things. I would start taking photos, making videos, editing, learning the ins and outs of it all. Also, I would learn how to news write, do opinions, transcribe interviews… There is no job at Fightful that I have not done myself. When I am able to teach each person this, I can find out what they are great at. We hired a guy 5 years ago who had no experience, he did our social media and he made it the fastest growing wrestling Twitter. So I said to him ‘Ok, you are going to do this full time.’ That has branched off into him doing a clips channel. Jeremy Lambert is great at finding quotes and making headlines that will make you smile. That allowed me to focus on the podcasts, media and wrestling interviews, because that’s what I am good at. Even though I can do the other tings, getting information and determining what is true or false, podcasting and interviews are the 3 things that I should focus on. When you have crafted all this, it is hard to delegate, but when I delegate to those who are better than me, the results speak for themselves. As far as expanding the news stuff, don’t lie and don’t be hurtful. If you make something up, then you will get found out.”  

What was the first big story that you broke when you were breaking your way out of just being another writer?

“I can tell you the first story I ever broke was that Brock Lesnar was going to take a curb stomp at the end of Night of Champions 2014. I was there and I happened to know somebody who was teaching Brock Lesnar how to take a curb stomp, it wasn’t Seth Rollins. But there were a bunch of people who confirmed it to me, I sent it to Raj, who ran Wrestling Inc. But I think the first story outside of an interview was that Ronda Rousey was training to be a wrestler about 6 months before she debuted at the Royal Rumble. I knew she was going to be at WrestleMania when she did that thing with The Rock, but then I was getting pictures sent to me of her training and also some footage, so I was able to confirm that. I broke that and I was fortunate that it got picked up by a lot of major media outlets too.”   

To get it straight from the source, how do you do that?

Ok there were a couple of people initially, who I won’t name because people will be like ‘Oh they’re his sources.’ A couple of people early on in wrestling would treat me like a normal human being, and they would tell people I’m a good guy and not screw up anyone’s career. That helps a lot. Now I am fortunate where Fightful is 5 and a half years in, people who were reading Fightful 4 or 5 years ago did not grow up in the Meltzer copy and paste era, they know Fightful is reporting accurate news. A lot of people wanted news to change in wrestling, the fact that we were reporting accurate stuff says a lot.”  

What’s in it for the sources? If I give you a scoop, then what’s in it for me?

“Well that’s the thing. You have to decipher the agenda of people. Some people, it just makes them happy. Some people I ask and they tell me. Then there are some that the company wants out there. The CM Punk news getting out there wasn’t the worst thing for AEW. Then I hear Goldberg is coming back, and they don’t care that it got out. You have to determine if the source has an agenda, and if they do, you have to consider that before running with it. I’ll get someone saying a wrestler is problematic, and then they sign with somewhere else, oh they are saying they are problematic because they didn’t re-sign. I am talking to the best liars in the world, and that’s not an insult. They make you think they are hurt when they are not, care about stuff they don’t and vice versa, all that in front of 10,000 people.”

You said before that your goal was to get to 69,000 followers, and now it has almost doubled. Do you think that is down to the CM Punk story?

“Unfortunately I think it is mostly down to the WWE releases. I won’t put that behind a paywall, if someone is getting fired I will tweet that out. However, if there are supplemental details, I’ll put it behind the paywall. But unfortunately I get the release before other people, I don’t like that it makes me feel all scummy and dirty. I am reporting the news, but I think that has a lot to do with it.”

You recently put out a tweet saying that you are going through depression and if something was said that wasn’t very nice you were sorry. Where did you collect the self awareness to realize you were going through this?

“Well first of all I want to say that everyone I have been mean to absolutely deserves it and they are terrible people. A lot of people say I am not self aware, and a lot of times I am not. But I went through some depression for the first time last year, I think a lot of people did during the pandemic. I was fortunate enough to recognize it, early on I told my wife that I am depressed and I have to do a few things. So I switched my business out of a dark and drab room and into a lighter and more vibrant room. I familiarized myself with some things that made me happy, and that helped out a lot. So now when I face these bouts of depression, I have ways that can pull me out of it a little bit more. I am very fortunate to have a good support system, and yeah sometimes tone doesn’t reflect through social media. Sometimes, unintended responses can happen, and things are lost on Twitter. But the sides get deeper when you have a break throughout the day, am I looking forward to this? Am I looking forward to that? Am I devoting the right amount of attention to the people who care about me as opposed to the people you will never convince otherwise. Taylor Hendrix and Wale gave me the same advice of don’t pay attention to them, you will not change their minds or say anything to make them feel a certain way. And coming from people who have been under the microscope, that means a lot. I have had dozens of people reach out to me and give me nice words. I’ve had a lot of wrestlers reach out to me too, I don’t want to name names because they will be accused of being sources. There was a lot of positivity out of that and I really appreciate it.”

I realized recently that you are not going to change people’s minds on Twitter. People respond to my tweets with something that is blatantly incorrect. There was a version of me that 6,12 or 18 months ago would go ‘Well actually…’ And I would waste my time and waste my energy. Now I’m like ok, they are wrong and it’s ok that they are wrong, but I don’t need to point that out.

“That’s the point that I am trying to get to, I will not argue with someone over their wrestling opinion. I love that someone cares about my wrestling opinion, but it means as much as everybody else’s. My wrestling opinion means as much as the guy up the road who doesn’t watch wrestling, it’s just an opinion. As long as they don’t doubt my wrestling news credibility then ok, but then people are still going to do that, despite a positive track record. If they do, that’s ok, there’s other wrestling media to ingest, that’s where media literacy is employed. We are doing good, they can do good, you can block people on Twitter if it improves your experience, you don’t have to have a reason for it. Whatever makes you happier and doesn’t hurt somebody else, that is what I am ok with.”  

AEW have always been very transparent with their media scrums since back in 2019. Do you ever think we will get to that stage with WWE?

“Well Triple H did, he set the trend. Triple H did those media calls before and after the TakeOver shows, and I loved those, I miss them. I think Triple H set the trend, but Tony Khan is from a sporting background so was always going to do that anyway. Some people are like ‘Well why doesn’t anyone ask any kayfabe questions?’ We do cover wrestling in kayfabe as well, it’s about getting that good headline. If Triple H gets more control then we might see that happen. But WWE did do it briefly for international media years ago, but they kind of stopped doing it. If they give it to one outlet, then it gets picked up by all of the others.”

Does it bother you that you are going to make some people upset with your reporting? Enemies is a strong word, but you are going to have some people that will be upset with you because of this.

“So as I pointed out earlier I live in a town of 200. This has put it in perspective for me, if someone in this town doesn’t like me, I had to do something wrong, like my dog got loose and killed a cow, it hasn’t happened to me. But in wrestling, I can just report news about them in general, it can be positive, and people get mad. To put that in perspective, no matter what I write, dozens of people are going to be mad. That is not the easiest to come to grips with when you come from a small area.”

What would you say is the best advice you would give for someone who wants to be in your position?

“Produce content, do a lot of it and don’t lie. Do not lie, not to your staff or not to your people. Don’t take it too seriously, I mean it’s pro-wrestling, it won’t all be hard hitting journalism. A lot of people are like ‘Why are you reporting this story?’ Well it ain’t always going to be CM Punk coming back to AEW. Sometimes I will find out information that I find interesting and I will relay it to the world. If you find it interesting, other people will find it interesting to some degree. Be familiar with everything, but find out what your wheelhouse is and zone in on it.”

What are the goals as we head into 2022?

“I never thought that being the most viewed wrestling website was realistic. Now, not in 2022, but somewhere down the line. We are at 3 or 4 million a month, Wrestling Inc. are at like 20 million. But we have doubled recently, and we are the most subscribed wrestling  product on Patreon in history. Eventually we will get off that platform, that is a goal, but we will take a financial hit. Also I want to get to 100,00 subscribers on YouTube. At first we hurt ourselves by producing too many videos, too short videos, putting everything on one channel. If I could do it again, I would split it up and maybe the numbers would be higher.”

I end every interview with gratitude. What are 3 things you are grateful for right now?

“My family and my wife. I don’t put my wife out on social media a lot because people are weird. But a lot of support in a period where people wouldn’t have supported me, telling me to keep going because I can be the best. Our following I am so thankful, because we came out of the middle of nowhere, if you are subscribed to Fightful Select, I can’t tell you how important that is, because you are investing in what we do. And finally Jimmy Van, the guy who founded Fightful. He financed Fightful and said ‘Whatever you want to do, go for it.’ He had his own ideas but he allowed me to hop on to this right now. He has trusted the vision, we have lost money for a long time and he could have pulled the plug. I got a lot of offers from other places, he told me to stick with us and I have. I have remained loyal to him and he has remained loyal to me. I’m very thankful that I got a once in a lifetime opportunity to do this.”                    

Image credits: Instagram

Stephan Bonnar is a UFC Hall of Famer and pro wrestler. He joins Chris Van Vliet at the Blue Wire Studios at the Wynn Las Vegas to talk about his legendary MMA career, his Ultimate Fighter finale match with Forrest Griffin, and how it changed the course of UFC history, he explains his actions in a recent viral Instagram video that he posted, why he got into pro wrestling at age 39, his favorite matches and more!

How are you feeling? I saw you limping as you were coming in today?

“Yeah I’m just getting off of my deathbed, again. I keep having these near death experiences man, it’s f*cking killing me. But I got severely injured, I had a broken vertebrae in the lumbar spine and a blown out knee, so I was hospitalised for a while. Then a staph infection built around the broken vertebrae, and it got really bad. They wanted to keep me in there for 10 weeks, but I was able to negotiate a 5 week stay with 5 weeks on the picc line where they leave the IV in your arm and administer it 3 times a day. It was probably the most traumatic set of injuries that I have ever had. The staph was so painful that I couldn’t move without help.”

Did you actually feel like you were close to dying in that hospital?

“Yeah, I went pretty delirious in there. I kept having visions in there and I was really out of it and really loopy. I was really scared and the doctors told me that the staph was really bad and we often see it leak to the valves of the heart, that shut me up pretty quick.”

And this all came from a pro-wrestling injury?

“It’s weird. I finished the match and I felt alright. I went back to the hotel, took a shower and crashed out. Then I woke up in the middle of the night and I felt it, it was like a delayed reaction in my spine. I tried to tough it out and see the orthopaedic doctor that I go to to get x-rays so we could see what’s going on. I had a cast on my wrist, and you can’t put a cast on the spine, so you try and tough it out. Little did I know that I had the staph infection brewing in there around the fracture, that’s what got worse. Then a week later I am in more pain than ever from the accident, this doesn’t make sense, I need treatment. I didn’t know what, but I knew that something was wrong. Then sure enough, they think at the hospital that I am trying to fake it just to get medicine.”

The thing about painkillers is that they can be a slippery slope. You take one then you take two… You’re probably still in a lot of pain right now?

“Yeah but the District Attorneys were involved and they give you a script. There is no way you can get anymore than what they are prescribing you. I’ve had a ton of surgeries and a ton of injuries, I think Dana said I had the most injuries of anyone in the UFC. When you get my medical records, it’s like a bible.”   

You started a pro-wrestling career in your 30’s. I mean no one really does that apart from Diamond Dallas Page.

“Yeah I was almost 40 when I started. I would have been fine if I stuck to my big guy moves. But I am learning, I’m feeling good and I just had a great match with Nick Aldis in Minnesota. It was a 20 minute match and I was really happy with it. But I was insistent on flying off of the top rope, and when you are 44, you’ve got to be a bit smarter than that. But it felt good, I did it 100 times. Then I had this one landing and I don’t know what happened. I landed like I normally do, but my bo0nes couldn’t handle it. Maybe the ring was a bit harder I don’t know, but my vertebrae just gave out.”      

What made you want to start wrestling in your late 30’s?

“I always knew growing up in the 80’s as a little kid. We didn’t have the UFC back then, we had Hulk Hogan and The Ultimate Warrior. I always saw myself doing it. Me and my brothers would pretend wrestle, take some mattresses into the yard and pretend that we were pro-wrestlers. Going through classes as a kid the teacher would ask ‘What do you want to be when you grow up?’ And I said ‘I want to be a pro-wrestler.’ I always envisioned myself doing it, and then of course in the 90’s the UFC came out and I fell in love with it from UFC 1. I had been wrestling since I was 10 and joined the taekwondo school when I was 12. For that era, I was pretty well rounded with striking. Unfortunately there was no boxing in Northwest Indiana, so it wasn’t until I moved to Chicago that I started going to boxing gyms and learning the art of boxing. You go through these phases of loving each martial art and learning the sweet science of each one.”

When you started to get into UFC were there any opportunities for pro-wrestling back then?

“No not really, I never really explored it. No one really reached out to me back in 2005, I was just getting my UFC career started and pro-wrestling was the furthest thing from my mind. I had to get sick of MMA first, and life is about getting those childhood fantasies come to life.”

I want to take you back to The Ultimate Fighter. What was the auditioning and the casting like for The Ultimate Fighter?

“It was something I heard about last minute in terms of sending my tape in The week before I was trying out for The Contender, that boxing show hosted by Sylvester Stallone. I was in there with this guy jacked up on steroids, but he didn’t know how to box, so I beat the sh*t out of him! I was excited and thought I would probably make the show. Then at my jujitsu school and the guys ask me if I am going to try out for The Ultimate Fighter. I told them I just did and they’re like ‘No that was The Contender, it’s a boxing show. The UFC is doing one.’ So I go home that night and go on the website, this was before phones could look things up. They wanted one of your fights on tape and a little interview type thing, like a 2 minute bio of yourself. I put it together on Tuesday, it was due by Friday, and that’s how I got the original call. That was my first time in Vegas. They took you for medicals, background checks and interviews, then they narrowed it from 40 to 15.”   

So many things from that show made the UFC blow up from there, and you get a contract.

“It’s like when Dana White said ‘The heavens and the stars aligned perfectly. It was exactly what we needed. “ The UFC was hanging by a thread. After that, the show got signed for 3 more seasons and it cemented UFC. I was really confident that the fight with Forrest Green was going to be a barn burner, and it was.”

Do you think we are now starting to encroach on that with boxing? There were a lot of people who didn’t care about boxing until about a year ago, and then Jake and Logan Paul made it interesting.

“That’s actually a really good point. What they are doing for boxing, bringing in the eyeballs and turn people into boxing fans, not just Jake Paul fans. When you get that big, a lot of people are going to hate you and judge you though.” 

With the way that it’s structured, do you think it would be harder for you to break into the UFC now?

“Yeah definitely. The guys have evolved in the way the UFC has. I think it would be harder overall.”

What was the goal when you went into pro-wrestling? Was it to win a championship or just to have some fun?

“It was just to have a new weekend hobby. I needed to get that adrenaline high, break a sweat and just to entertain. It was me being able to travel, not be too serious, make a little money, I made a bit of money on merch too. So that was always fun for me, it was a chance to scratch the adrenaline itch and go to the gym and lift some weights.” 

Who did you train with?

“I trained at FSW with D’Lo-Brown. I learned to run the ropes there and it was the main school to learn the basics, take the bumps. But you really learn pro-wrestling by going out there and experiencing it, reading the crowd, and putting together a good match. At first it was easy doing 5 minute matches, but I had a big problem remembering the longer matches.”

What have you got going on right now?

“I’m going into stand-up comedy. I need a new weekend hobby to heal up the injuries from wrestling. I’ve done it enough times to know that something is there. Last time I did a set it was a tough crowd, but I went up there and had a great set. At the time I had a bunch of wrestling gigs going on, so I didn’t go after it, my weekends were scheduled up. Early September I went into the hospital and it gave me a lot of time to think, so why not go into comedy? There is not a better city to learn the art of comedy than in Las Vegas. I’ve been studying it more and writing down material, but the hardest thing is getting it all started. I’m putting it out there that I will do this, so now I have to be accountable.”

What are you are grateful for right now?

“Just to be in a country where you are free. I’m seeing this tyranny going around the world, I’m so thankful I’m in a country where you can be yourself and speak your mind. I’m also thankful for my car and my family.”

Embedded image credits: Instagram 

Curtis Hussey is a professional wrestler best known for his time as Fandango in WWE. He talks to Chris Van Vliet to talk about how he went from sitting in catering every week to becoming Fandango, including his debut match against Chris Jericho at WrestleMania and his catchy entrance music. He also talks about what it is like playing a comedic role in WWE, how Drew McIntyre helped him get a foot in the door in NWA, what’s next for him and more!

I’m glad that we delayed this interview, because now we can talk about NWA. I was sat there watching it, you show up and it’s like oh my God! Curtis is on NWA!

“Yeah I was at Drew McIntyre’s wedding a couple of years ago, Drew and I are really close. Billy [Corgan] was there too. When I got released, and when you get released you find out who your real friends are. People who you think you will hear from, you don’t, and the people you don’t expect reach out to you. But understandably it’s weird, when someone gets released that you are not really close with, it’s like you know they are getting a thousand text messages, it’s a weird situation. But Drew reached out to me and he goes ‘If you ever want to try and get in there with Billy, here’s his contact.’ So I gave Billy a call and he said that they are doing some tapings in December. I actually just flew back today, we just did 3 or 4 days in Atlanta. They were long days of filming, but it was like a family reunion down there. All my old buddies, Mike Knox, Sam Adonis, a bunch of guys from Deep South Wrestling. There’s just that cliche saying of you have to be nice to everybody on your way up. I’m not saying that the NWA is on the way down but it is so connected and we all know everybody. If you are a prick to somebody, there’s a good chance that you will run into them again. But if you’re cool and you are nice to people, which I think I did, it’s cool man to see all my friends again.”

How did you decide that you were going to be Dirty Dango?

“Well Vince didn’t own it. I could have just been Dango, but I’m just so goddamn dirty Chris. We were doing NXT season 4, they didn’t micro-manage it or think of our promos that much, it was really loose. I think there was some crazy overseas tv deal, so they had to continue content to provide in the syndicated tv deal. So they would film the NXT Redemption shows, which were after the game show but before Hunter’s vision of it. It was me, EC3, Percy Watson, TJ Wilson, just a bunch of performers that were not in a storyline on SmackDown or Raw. So pretty much they just wrote a bunch of stories, and matches and you could come up with your own character. I was doing a bunch of these weird, creepy things as Creepy Johnny Curtis. So now I am back on the indies, I can play that character I started in 2011, which is kind of cool.”

When you are in WWE for 15 years and you survive so many of these cuts, do you just sort of assume that you might be here forever?

“I started to think like that. When the COVID cuts first came, I’m like we [myself and Tyler Breeze] are f*cking out of here. But then we never got fired, so I’m like well maybe we will just keep being here and I’ll be the next Brooklyn Brawler and retire when I am 60. But when [Nick] Khan came in and he started cleaning house, I think me and Breeze were still on some kind of main roster pay scale, so I think we both kind of knew that it was coming. It sucks, because you are not getting paid as much as you were, but for me it is exciting, because I can go off and do different stuff. You can’t work at that same place forever, I started investing from day 1 of me getting onto the main roster. Any young talent out there, you need to prepare for your exit from when you start. Any athlete should do that, if you don’t, it will be rough later on.”

But you were able to do it for 15 years. Some people only do it for 6 months and they have to figure life out after that.

“Yeah but 7 of those were in developmental. For 3 or 4 of those, you’re making $500 a week. For those 6 or 7 years, you are not on national television, you’re still in the system getting paid, but it’s not like Randy Orton. You know what I’m saying, Randy has been on tv for [15 years plus]. So it’s good in terms of equity in the company where they wanted to bring me in as a coach, but monetarily I was not making decent money up until 2013 when I started doing the Fandango thing.”

Did you have a moment before Fandango where you didn’t know what was going to happen with the Johnny Curtis character?

“Yeah that was right before NXT Redemption. They were going to bring me up as a babyface, and I think I had a bit of an attitude backstage, which Vince came up as crying over spilt milk promos with Johnny Curtis, and just didn’t really do anything with my debut. So I was just there in limbo and anticipating getting released in the near future, which was in like 2011. Then there was a writer called Tom who was writing for the Redemption show, we were filming in Manchester and he was like ‘Hey, we want you to be on the show.’ The idea was I was going to be a love interest for Maxine and do this, this and this. I’m like yeah ok, cool. It’s a lot better than just going there and sitting in catering, you are mentally stimulating yourself instead of trying to think of something. At that point I was just showing up and waiting for the axe to fall. You are one week from a great run, or another from just getting released. It’s a weird spot man.”

So how did Fandango come from all of this?

“So this is a good story. So I was tag team champions with a guy named Tyler Rex, a good friend of mine. We were Florida tag team champions, he came up and was doing some stuff in ECW, and Hunter put Gabe and Curt Hawkins together. He had this idea where each week on SmackDown they would come out dressed as strippers, firefighters, basically Breezango. Gabe didn’t want to do it, asked for his release, we all supported him. Hawkins went to whoever is in charge and said ‘Hey what about Johnny Curtis? He has done dark matches but he is just sat there in catering.’ The next week they came up to me and said ‘We want you to do the gimmick, but don’t tell Hawkins.’ So I went and I told Hawkins [laughs]. I said that they want me to go to dance school and learn how to be a stripper, and he wasn’t in to it, it was not his first choice. So they sent me to a stripper and dance school in Tampa, this is around the time they were filming at Full Sail and I was tagging with Joe Hennig. I would come out pole dancing on the ring post and grinding real weird. We were doing the live events where I’m doing that and he is like what the hell?”

“So it gets to November 2012 and Hunter comes up to me and says ‘Hey we’re not going to do the stripper thing.’ I’m like thank God, I’m going to be in The Shield or something. But then he says ‘Now we are going to send you to a hard dancing school.’ Oh great! So I move out to Houston and I go to a ballroom dancing school there, that’s super hard bro. It’s trying to learn a whole alphabet in a couple of days, but all they can teach you is one letter just so you can fake it. I was getting frustrated, but make me good so I can fake it. I was training for 3 or 4 months, then Vince flew me up to Manhattan where we started filing vignettes. He rented out the Highland Ballroom, and we filmed for a couple of days there. Vince didn’t like the way I said Fandango into the camera, so he cut all the vignettes. One day I am working out and I think Mark Carrano called me 10 times. He’s like Vince has been waiting for you for half an hour. Vince was going to produce the vignettes for me, but no one told me that, so he is just waiting there for half an hour for me. They had this whole room set up and everything, so I ran over and Vince produced the vignettes. He turned the whole thing into an angle where no one could pronounce my name correctly.”

How much do you think your music helped to get you over?

“A lot man. Jim Johnston came up with that catchy beat, and when it hits, you know. Like you know who the character is coming through. To me entrances are so important, if I have time cut, I would rather they cut it from the match than from my entrance. That’s where you make all your money, the camera is all on you so you can get your sh*t in. That entrance and that music, it’s so important. It’s crazy that Jim is not there anymore.”    

Was it the Raw after WrestleMania crowd that really got you over to that next level? They are singing to it, they are dancing to it…

“That was great man. The timing of it was a perfect storm. We did Raw and then we went straight to Europe, it all just worked out perfectly.”

I think a lot of people were questioning the decision for you to go over Chris Jericho in your debut match at WrestleMania. What was your reaction when they told you that you would be going over Chris Jericho?

“I was kind of p*ssed because I knew that he would be p*ssed. I couldn’t care less and I didn;t give a sh*t. I knew he was in a tough spot, because he was supposed to work Ryback. I wasn’t p*ssed, but I was like oh f*ck he [Jericho] is going to be p*ssed about this. But I didn’t sit at this table in Stamford and hatch this scheme with Vince. If there was a list of 100 characters, the evil ballroom dancer would be at the bottom. But if you are given an opportunity straight from the old man, alternatively I could have just sat backstage and got released in a few years. This is probably my one shot, I’m going to have to try and make this as best as I can. It’s tough when you’re working a guy who is working somebody else. To his credit, he could have sandbagged me and got his payday. But he wanted to make chicken salad out of chicken sh*t. I’m not saying Fandango was a chicken sh*t character, but it was hard to make it work in a short amount of time. It was hard to sell a WrestleMania program of a guy who hasn’t wrestled on tv in just 4 weeks.”

Well just like with Tyler Breeze, you went all in with your character.

“You have to bro. People are coming like they are coming to see a magic show. They know it’s not real, but they want to believe it is. If I give them only 92%, it’s like you are letting them behind the curtain a bit. If you throw only one fluff punch, a guy in the front row will be like ‘Oh man.’ You can’t let them behind the curtain, if you let them know that there is trepidation, it looks like sh*t.”

Well when you look at it, wrestling is you dancing around in your underwear.

“I remember I was due to do some dancing in a dark match, I think I was dancing with Naomi. Hunter comes up to me and says ‘Vince knows that you’ve been going to dance school and he is going to see this dark match. If you do well, you’ll get a good run. If you don’t, then sorry.’ I’m like well f*ck. I think I worked Sami Callahan, so I thought it’s either dive into it or sit in catering for years. So I went out, gave it 100% and faked it as best I could. Vince was like ‘Kid’s got balls, I like it!’

So at what point did the Fandango character kind of start to fizzle out?

“So they were going to put the Intercontinental Title on me, but I got concussed working The Great Khali. I think it got to a week or 2 before and I didn’t tell them that I was concussed. I worked Khali a couple of weeks before the pay-per-view, then I worked the week before I think. If you get concussed and you get hit again, it’s easier to get concussed again. I was concussed and I kept performing, but I didn’t tell anybody. I took a shoulder tackle from Zack Ryder and I was out. When I got back, I thought I had just wrestled The Great Khali, it goes back to where you originally got f*cked up. Then I said it, stooged myself off, and to the company’s protocol, I was wrong. But if they put the IC title on you, you don’t want to say. But they took me off for 3 to 4 weeks, and Curtis Axel won the title instead.”

Do you feel like you are in the twilight of your wrestling career?

“Dude I thought a year ago when they were making cuts and everything you really start to think. When all of your friends start getting fired, 30 or 40 of them, it starts to become more of a reality of what do I do next? I started in 1999 and thought I never would wrestle again [after the release]. But there’s 2 different directions you go when you get released. There’s either being fed up with the business, or you get motivated that you can do some sh*t you couldn’t before, Matt Cardona is a great example of that. The dude is an inspiration, there’s so many different platforms now. I thought I would retire, but I have been busier in the last 3 to 4 months than I was in NXT for the 2 years prior to that. But it reminds me why I got into this business, it’s really cool. It’s not just work for me, it’s why I got into it.”

So the passion has come back?

“Yeah and I’m not trying to talk sh*t about WWE, but it’s just that grind bro. That schedule is tough when you are making $2 million a year. But then there’s someone like Heath Slater, who shows up to tv every week, probably lose, and that’s your job. You’re the guy who may get a little push now and again, but the grind is tough. Also the equity is sh*tty, and you are on like Main Event every few weeks.”

Now that your passion has been reignited, how much longer do you want to do it?

“I want to have like 7 retirement tours bro! I guess at about 40, I’m 38 now. I thought I was going to retire when I left WWE, but who knows? Maybe I do something cool in 6 months, maybe I don’t. But right now I am having fun and seeing my old friends. But 42 is younger now than it was in the 90’s. Look at AJ Styles, he is like a 30 year old guy now. I don’t know if it’s the evolution of nutrition, but guys don’t look as old as they used to.”

Was wrestling always the goal for you?

“I grew up in a really rough trailer park man. I think I was just trying something to lean on. Two or three kids I started wrestling with were from the trailer park. I was the skinniest, most unathletic and timid, I was the worst out of the whole class of 15. I thought it was my ticket out of there. It’s not like it was the ghetto, but it was a tough place. As I tell the kids at the seminars, it’s not always who is the best, but it’s about who stuck with it the longest. Morgan Freeman didn’t get his break until he was like 50. Any young guy or girl, if you are not the best just stick with it and you will get better.”

Did you feel like going back to NXT was sort of like a rebirth for you?

“The most emotional thing in my whole career was winning those tag team straps with Breeze. All we ever wanted was respect from our peers and Vince. We just wanted that respect from the people we respected. When you grow up as a wrestling fan and you see guys like Hunter, you are almost intimidated by them. When the younger guys and girls are backstage, they are more comfortable because it’s like ‘Oh here’s my boss Paul.’ But to go back to NXT and get the tag straps, it meant a lot to me. It showed that we are not just a comedy act, we can go out and we can work. The last couple of years on SmackDown, all we did was skits, which was cool because it showed our personality. But it’s hard to shake that, you get typecast. Santino did his job so well, but if he came back as a badass, it’s so hard. But he was so good at it. But you can do 10 years of comedy with a good pay cheque, or you can do 3 years and be a world champion.”

What are 3 things in your life you are grateful for?

“My sobriety, my girlfriend and God.”

Image credits: Instagram

Anthony “Pretty Boy” Taylor is a boxer, MMA fighter and entertainer. He joins Chris Van Vliet for an in-person interview recorded at Chris’ apartment in California, where Anthony talks about his hero Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson and why he wants to be the next electrifying man in sports along with how WWE influenced his style as a heel in sports. They also discuss the boxing career of Jake and Logan Paul and how a social media exchange led to a training session with Jake and then a boxing match with Tommy Fury, the prediction for Jake’s next fight, the origin of the “Pretty Boy” name and more! 

Are you more of a boxer or a fighter now?

“Overall Chris, I look at myself as an entertainer, because an entertainer does everything. He can sing, he can box, he can do MMA fights and stuff. I can do it all, that’s why when people ask me ‘Are you a fighter?’ I say ‘No I’m an entertainer.’ This is where I want to take my career, and part of my fighting career is entertainment.”

So much of the fight is now the leadup to it, it’s about how entertaining you can be.

“Right. And growing up watching WWE, you look at Triple H and you look at The Rock, and it’s ok to play the heel. Without the heel, there is no hero.”

You look at guys like Conor McGregor, Jake Paul and Logan Paul, what do they all have in common?

“They are playing the heel and playing the bad guy, so I’m like ok, let me play the heel. I’ve been playing a heel my whole career in MMA and boxing since I started off in the amateurs and stuff. What you can do is build your character, which is what you want to do with your character. You can take little things here and there and start to build it into your own personality.”

Are you worried that because you are playing a heel that people will think you’re an asshole in real life?

“Not really. I’ve been this consistent heel since the amateur days. So people have seen me be charismatic and loud. I walk loud, talk loud, wear loud and live loud.

So you said you watched wrestling growing up. Who were your guys?

“Well The Rock was definitely the number one guy who made me go this is something that I want to do. I want to be the best and most electrifying guy there is part 2. Triple H was one of those guys that I used to hate, but without Triple H there is no Rock. I hated Triple H because he was so good [at being a heel]. Mike Tyson was definitely one of those guys that I looked up to as well.”

What was it about The Rock that drew you in?

“The swag and the charisma, it was me thinking that I want to be just like him when I am older. Now I have the opportunity to be just like him but better than him. [Chris mentions dropping The People’s Elbow after a Bellator fight]. Right, I am The Rock of MMA.”

Were you surprised at the reaction to that?

“I was. I didn’t expect so many people to see that, hundreds of millions of people have seen it. The Rock is ready to pass the baton, and I am here to take the baton, carry that torch and continue his legacy. There it is, I am going to continue The Rock’s legacy and make it my own.”

I was watching the trash talk for your fight against Tommy Fury. I laughed out loud when you said that he looked like Shrek’s better looking cousin. Did you come up with that beforehand?

“Man I was just there pumping all those shot right on the spot! Literally just on the spot.”

I think a lot of people thought you had a lot of balls in taking that fight. Tommy Fury was significantly bigger than you, what was the mindset going into that?

“When you look at Tommy Fury, it’s like he is the perfect looking boxer. They are supposed to look gorgeous, have a chiselled body and have the perfect package. Me, I’m there being the pretty boy and this is going to be an ugly fight. I knew where my capabilities of fighting were and I knew where his was. I knew he didn’t have the knockout power to knock me out and I knew I had the power to knock him out. Unfortunately, it didn’t go my way, but I came, I saw and I conquered. In a way I won that fight, not as far as winning the boxing match, but I won in the sense that he was the bigger fighter who was supposed to knock me out in one round. I went four rounds with him, it was a unanimous decision that I should have knocked him out. I made him look mediocre, and I’m an MMA fighter, he’s a Fury.”

Walk me through this. You are on a card with Jake Paul, that’s amazing in itself. But the fact that you were training with Jake Paul, how did you even get on his radar?

“Well I Tweeted it out. I’m on Twitter and I have my guy Donagh Corby, who was a news anchor on MMA Island. I wrote on Twitter to Jake Paul’s trainer that Jake keeps ducking these fighters and he needs to come and fight me. BJ Flores, Jake’s trainer said ‘If you want to fight Jake, come to Miami and come and spar next Friday.’ So I book my ticket, I book my hotel, flew to Florida and I sparred with him. Jake walks up to me I’m like holy sh*t this guy is huge. I’m 5 foot 6 he is 6 foot 2. We spar in April and in June I’m getting ready for my next fight. I get a message from BJ Flores asking me to train in 6 weeks with Jake in Puerto Rico. I’m like ok, I go out there for 2 weeks. They took a liking to me and they warmed up to me.”

It makes sense because you are an MMA fighter, they wanted someone who could emulate Tyron Woodley.

“Absolutely. Then all of a sudden Jake is like ‘You heard of Tommy Fury?’ Of course I have. He then says ‘Well I want to give you the opportunity to fight Tommy Fury.’ I’m like woah, this just hit me hard! But let’s do it, let’s go!”

So you booked your flights and hotels. You bet on yourself, and look where it got you.

“Absolutely, and it could have gone two ways. Either I could have fought him, talked crap and left it at that. It would have got erased in the books after a couple of days. Or I could have gone out there and sparred with Jake Paul, built that relationship so there is a bridge between his team and our team. Let me get the opportunities and build on them. They say if you can’t beat them then join them. I don’t have the fanbase to be able to fight Jake, so let me join him. That’s what I did, I joined him and he has put me in a great position for the rest of my life. Without Jake, I don’t think that I would be here. Jake is a humble and sweet guy, he is very caring and supportive, a lot of people don’t know that about him.”

So you went from paying your way to get there to getting paid to train with Jake?

“Yeah and Jake has paid me more money to train with him than I have ever made in my entire career in MMA. I made about $40,000 in my whole career in MMA in 6 years, and I made more than that in 6 weeks with Jake.”

What’s interesting about both of the Paul brothers is that they have surrounded themselves with so many great people, they have been boxing for 3 years, that it’s almost like it feels like 9 years.

“Their dedication to the sport is unreal. A lot of people just see them as YouTubers, well who cares? You can be a YouTuber and be an actor, firefighter, NFL player, it doesn’t matter. If you set your goals, manifest it into mini goals and work on that, you can achieve your dreams. And Jake and Logan have achieved their dreams. When you think of boxing, you are going to hear Jake’s name in that conversation. It will be a top 10 name.”

So you’ve been in the ring with Tommy Fury, and now Jake is going to get into the ring with Tommy Fury. What do you think the outcome of that fight is going to be?

“It’s going to be just like the Anthony Joshua vs. Usyk fight. You look at Tommy and he is a big brute, 1 2 puncher. When you look at Usyk he is more the light on the feet and moving around, punch, move. You look at Jake Paul, he mimics Usyk in that way, he moves around and picks his shots. Tommy is a good boxer, but Jake is going to come out on top, 7th round TKO.”

Doing my research before this interview, I can’t believe you started out as a male stripper!

“Yeah before I turned pro in MMA, I was doing my amateur circuit and I took the greyhound bus to Stockton, California. This girl who knew my coach said ‘Hey, if you need money, I got a job for you.’ So I started stripping for a couple of months. I had no shame in what I do. This was similar to Magic Mike, bachelorette parties. You just light it on fire, twirl it sound and it’s main event time!”

If we look ahead to 5 years from now, what are you going to be doing?

“I’ll probably be walking the red carpet with Michael B. Jordan, I want to be a household name. I want to be marketable, have my own clothing brand, just to be successful and have financial freedom.”

The next goal right now is the fight on December 18th. Does this have to be a win?

“Absolutely. This is a fight for my legacy. If I can’t win on pay-per-view then what’s the point? What’s the point of being entertaining if you keep losing? If The Rock keeps losing his matches, it just doesn’t make sense.”

Who gave you the name ‘Pretty Boy?’

“The girls [laughs]. Well at first when I fought in MMA I used to fight in these orange shorts, and the girls used to call me ‘The Orange Crush.’ So some of the girls say ‘Yeah The Orange Crush, he don’t like being hit, he’s a pretty boy.’ I’m like Pretty Boy, Ok I’ll borrow it.”

I’m all about the little wins. What have been some of your little wins between your last fight and leading up to this fight?

“My little wins are just connecting with people. Whether it is on social media, speaking with family, speaking with friends. Also I got another opportunity to fight on a Jake Paul card, that’s another win.”

I end every interview with gratitude. What are 3 things in your life that you are grateful for?

“Family, friends and God.”

Embedded image credits: Instagram

Jay White is a professional wrestler currently signed to New Japan Pro Wrestling. He joins Chris Van Vliet at the NJPW Dojo in Los Angeles to talk about his upcoming match with The Fallen Angel Christopher Daniels, growing up in New Zealand, how winning a trip to WrestleMania 27 in Atlanta made him want to become a pro wrestler, moving to England to go to wrestling school, getting signed by NJPW, working for Ring Of Honor, his favorite matches, the best advice he’s ever received and much more!

On what a ride it’s been so far:

“Yeah it has been, It kind of took over since I left New Zealand in 2012. I didn’t start training until the beginning of 2013, but since then it has kind of consumed my life in great ways. It’s given me a lot of opportunities and I have done alright with it over the last 7 or 8 years. I managed to accomplish quite a bit in that time.”

On whether his success has been down to luck or skill:

“It’s both. I think you are going to require some luck in terms of meeting the right people and being in the right place at the right time. But also it’s arguable whether that is luck or not, because you have to put yourself in those positions. That’s the kind of advice I give to younger talent, you have to put yourself in those positions, you can’t go there expecting it. You have to be in it to win it as the cliché saying goes. It’s going to shows, whether you are on the show or not, there might be an opportunity there. You may meet the right people, so put yourself in the right position.”

On what wrestling teaches you:

“All the lessons cross over into life. You’ve got to be prepared for every opportunity, especially in something like wrestling, or just trying to work to any kind of goal that requires time and effort. You’ve just got to be prepared.”

On winning free tickets to WrestleMania:

“I think it was just being young and having that belief in myself. I have said this story a few times, I actually won a competition on the radio for tickets, flights all paid for to go to WrestleMania. I won that when I was 18, I just finished school. It was WrestleMania 27 in Atlanta and that got me back into wrestling. I thought if I was fortunate to win this, why not become a wrestler? From there, it kind of felt like it was meant to be, so I did everything I felt like I needed to. But there was never a blueprint, it wasn’t a guarantee. For me, I thought that I knew, and I was right to get out of New Zealand, there was no wrestling scene there.”

On the beginning of the wrestling journey:

“I couldn’t work in America because of the visa situation, but I could work in the UK. The way I thought about it, I had no knowledge of the independents, was that the states in the number one place, the UK is the little brother in terms of opportunities, so it went from there.”

How he won WrestleMania tickets:

“Out of school I went straight into the New Zealand army. I did the pre-training, but I left before I completed that, so I didn’t know what I was doing. I got a job labouring for a friend’s father who had a construction company. I heard on the radio that there was a competition on the winner would go to WrestleMania all paid for. I had to call up, and you had to debate with another person. They would just tell you if you were for or against it, and on the spot you had to win the debate. The topic they gave us was ‘chick-flicks were the best thing in the world.’ They said I was for it and the other person was against it. I managed to talk about how there were vouchers on the back of receipts for Video Easy [New Zealand’s version of Blockbuster] and you can get chick-flicks 2 for 1. They appreciated my sales pitch and I was in the draw. They did the debates multiple times a day for 2 weeks, everyone goes in the draw. At 8 in the morning a couple of weeks later, my phone starts calling and I answered it and won, it was crazy.”

On keeping the training a secret:

“Honestly I think I was too dumb to know any better. I just had this really stupid belief in myself and that it was went to be. After years of not being into it and then winning that competition, it was like it was meant to be and this is what I’m going to do now. It was a young and dumb belief, now I would be like this is not possible. I didn’t tell my parents at the time that wrestling was what I was going to do, I just went to England and started from scratch. I just got in contact with a wrestling school, stayed in a student house with 3 other guys and eventually paid 3 months in advance so I could stay somewhere while I got my start. The first time I told my mom was right before my debut, I had to tell somebody at some point. I didn’t want to tell someone that I am training and then it all goes to sh*t.”

On being a natural in the ring:

“I picked it up pretty quick. At my first training session I said that I hadn’t trained anywhere else before, which they found hard to believe. I’m not trying to big myself up too much, but like I could see people running ropes on tv and I could do it. Playing sports and the coordination helped me pick up things pretty quickly.”

On how the New Japan signing came about:

“I met Finn Balor about a year into it. I started in January 2013 and we brought him over to do some of our shows in February 2014. I think the way that he puts it, because he didn’t see me wrestle that much, what impressed him was that I was doing all the other jobs. I was building the ring with a broken thumb, I had a cast on, and Finn knew that I wanted it. So he spoke to the New Japan system, mentioned me, spoke to the right people, and I landed in Japan on January 1^st 2015.”

On the language barrier:

“When I was first in the Dojo, I was with Sho and Yoh, who didn’t really speak any English. They didn’t speak English and I didn’t speak Japanese, so it was tricky to begin with, a lot of hand gestures used. When I first got there, I couldn’t communicate with the guys in the Dojo at all, you just try and find items or use your phone and translate. Luckily some of the older guys knew some English, so there would always be somebody who knew some broken English some of the time. Sho and Yoh learned some English and I learned some Japanese, so we kind of communicated.”

On going to the Tokyo Dome for the first time:

“The first time going there, I got to watch a show in 2015 before I did the jobs there. Seeing that for the first time, I didn’t know too much about New Japan, I didn’t do too much research at all. Just seeing it from a beginning stage, it takes your breath away more than if I was prepared. I had no expectations but it was awe inspiring. The big difference to me was experiencing that crowd, because I am mainly used to the WWE crowds. Going there and experiencing that Japanese crowd, you can feel the difference and how they are feeling about it.”

On becoming leaner:

“I’ve just tried to get leaner over time. There have been times where I have tried to put on size while going away on excursions. To be honest, at times I didn’t have an accurate idea of how I was looking. I think it was late 2018 where I realized it was time to lean down. I just feel more comfortable at a lighter weight and it’s better for training as well.”

On his upcoming match with Christopher Daniels:

“People call him ‘The Fallen Angel,’ but recently I have been calling him ‘The Fallen, Forgotten, Failing Angel.’ Because with Chris, it could be coming to an end, but I’m giving him an opportunity to see if he can spark something and get his name out there again. A guy like him needs one opportunity and he can get his career going again.”

On a dream opponent:

“I think I have mixed it up with most of them. There is no one that I am particularly after in New Japan Strong, because everybody is after me. That’s why I put the challenge out there to New Japan Strong, maybe somebody from Ring of Honor will come across, maybe AEW, maybe IMPACT. There’s the forbidden door but I have my own open door.”

On what Jay White is grateful for:

“Custom suits, meeting Finn Balor and Tanahashi so I can beat him.”

Embedded image credits: Instagram

Featured image credit: Daily DDT

Fred Rosser is a professional wrestler currently signed with New Japan Pro Wrestling Strong and is known for his time in WWE as Darren Young. He joins Chris Van Vliet at his home in Los Angeles to talk about working for NJPW Strong, his dream opponents, working for WWE under the name Darren Young, his tag team with Titus O’Neil called “The Prime Time Players”, his “Block The Hate” movement, being the first active pro wrestler to come out as gay, how that has changed his career and much more!

On wearing a New Japan branded jacket while filming a WWE documentary:

“The last time I wore this jacket [which is New Japan branded] was this past May with WWE. I was doing a Nexus uncut/uncensored documentary, they invited me and I said sure no problem. I came in with my New Japan jacket on, and before we started the producer said ‘Do you mind if you take off the New Japan jacket?’ So I’m like ‘So you are asking me to take it off? I hope not!’ I knew they were going to say it, so I said ‘Look I worked hard to get this jacket, and you guys have just inducted Jushin Liger into the Hall of Fame. This is supposed to be uncut and uncensored.’ Not only did I say that, I said ‘I just talked to John Laurinaitis, because he reached out to me about maybe doing a collaboration between New Japan and WWE. So let me just be me, this is supposed to be an uncut/uncensored Nexus documentary. Let me just be proud of this jacket. Then the producer said ‘No problem, you sold me on it.’”

More details on The Nexus documentary:

“Man I have worked hard for 10 or 11 years since Nexus, and they wanted to interview us guys. I am not some washed up wrestler, I’ve still got a lot left in the tank and I am proud of this. At the time when they did the interview I asked who they interviewed for this? I was one of them, there was Stu Bennett [Wade Barrett] and Daniel Bryan. So they ultimately shelved the documentary, maybe because of what I did and also because of Daniel Bryan going to AEW.”

On wanting the documentary to be released:

“I said to them ‘Come on man. Don’t rob the people of a good documentary.’ It was good, because I mentioned on the documentary that Daniel Bryan was not part of The Nexus. That’s coming from Wade Barrett, the leader of The Nexus. He [Bryan] was not part of it, he was part of the chaos we caused that one night, but the original were us. I know we are one on one right now, so don’t test me, I’m keeping the jacket on.”

On WWE reaching out for a possible partnership with New Japan:

“At the time when John Laurinaitis took over talent relations he reached out to old talent that he had hired, just seeing how things were. I said ‘Hey John, everything is going great. I’m with New Japan and doing my thing.’ And he goes [impersonates John Laurinaitis] ‘Yeah, you know, I did a run in All Japan.’ I told him that I watched his stuff and then he said about a possible partnership with New Japan and WWE. I said that’s great and that was that. Who knows what that relationship could have been, but that’s what he had told me. But never say never, bucket list for me is Daniel Bryan. We did original NXT and we trained together, but come to New Japan Strong. It’s a new show with New Japan and work me, put us on the map. That’s my challenge to Daniel Bryan. That forbidden door is so wide open.”

On starting the NJPW journey:

“Before this interview, I wasn’t doing much. I kept speaking into existence my goals and aspirations of working New Japan. I think it was probably September 2019 at a show in California where I ran into Lance Hoyt, who was still with New Japan at the time. He asked me how I was doing and I’m like I’m just keeping it moving and I’ve always had dreams and aspirations of New Japan. If we were at my place, I would show you the flyer he gave me about the New Japan show at The Globe Theater in November 2019, right before the pandemic.”

On the New Japan style:

“So I went to the New Japan show. It started at 7pm, I got there at 5pm, because I wanted to be able to feel the ring, meet the wrestlers and meet Rocky Romero, who is like my heart and soul. If it wasn’t for him, I wouldn’t be with New Japan Strong. So I sat there at the New Japan show, always intimidated in the style since I was a kid, it’s physical. So I watch the show in November 2019 from beginning to end, and the one question running through my head was do I fit in? After watching the show at the Globe Theater, I said to myself that I can hang with these guys and I can go and elevate these guys. At this stage in my career it’s about elevating guys and I can get my sh*t in. After the show I talked to Rocky Romero and I said ‘What do I have to do? Do I have to try out at the Dojo? Whatever it takes I will do it.’ that’s what my mindset was when I got signed in WWE.”

How the pandemic delayed things:

“The pandemic hit, and Rocky reached out to me in June or July of 2020. He asked me about working for New Japan Strong. I said ‘It’s a great opportunity, but we are heavy in the pandemic, so I’ll get back to you.’ He let me talk to my family, they are all doctors, and they assured me that if New Japan are all COVID compliant, then go for it. My family blessed me with this opportunity, so I called Rocky and said let’s do it.”

On acting aspirations:

“I moved to LA because I wanted to do some acting. The move was in August 2017 and I got released from WWE in October 2017, just before my birthday. I was very upset. I was hurt as well, I was injured in January 2017, came back to wrestling in August 2017 and was already moving out to LA. You just get that feeling, nothing lasts forever. I was out here developing a reel when the release happened. The goal can’t be money driven, you’ve got to suck it up and do the free stuff to develop.”   

On coming out to his immediate family:

“I came out to them 2 years before I came out publicly to the world [which was in 2011]. I came out to my immediate family, but I was nervous about my grandfather and what he would think. I said to my mom, because he saw it on the news ‘Mom, what did pop say about it?’ He said ‘I don’t give a damn if he’s green, yellow, brown, blue, that’s my grandson and I love him.’ We don’t talk about it but anytime that I am home, he’ll be like ‘Come on sonny. Let’s hit the town and find some chicks!’ I’m like ‘[sighs] Alright pop, let’s go.’ He knows, but he’s just joking like that.”

On coming out publicly:

“I tell people all the time that you need that support system, the sky’s the limit. There are many reasons why I wanted to come out publicly. I wanted to bring my boyfriend with me to red carpets at the time, which I did. Also I wanted to bring him backstage to the masculine world of professional wrestling, and I was able to do that. I hear the wrestlers talk about their relationship problems and I can be sassy. I can be like ‘mmm, honey thank goodness I am gay.’ I can just be me, before I wouldn’t be able to do that, I’d be very tough. But now I can just be me, and that is very important to me. When you come out as an athlete you have a duty to instil confidence into our youth and to lead by example. So that’s why I am always representing.”

On telling TMZ before WWE:

“I mean I did it, I thought that it was the biggest decision that I made in my life. At the time I regretted it, I was like oh my God, what did I say? At the time, we were approached by TMZ during The Nexus days, but it is what it is. And when they approached me, I said what I said and I’m like, big mistake. That was when I approached WWE, I had told them what happened, they supported me and the rest is history.”

On telling WWE and how the roster was supportive:

“They didn’t know, so I had to come out again. I remember that I had to do a Be A Star the next day. I told Stephanie McMahon that I can’t do it, I can’t be in front of a crowd because of that guilt feeling and that fear of the unknown. The next day when the news dropped, I remember Mark Henry being the first guy to text me. He said ‘Hey man, come down to the hotel.’ This was before SummerSlam. ‘Yeah come down to the green room.’ I met in the green room and he said ‘man, how come you didn’t tell me?’ I said that I was just fearful, Mark responds by telling me that he has cousins that are gay. From then on, me and Mark were just tight. We were tight with guys like Randy Orton and CM Punk. Those guys made it a lot easier for me to walk into a locker room.”

On being in incredible shape:

“I’m about 10 lbs lighter than I was with WWE. I go between 225 and 230, but slow feet don’t eat. I’m always on the agility ladder, always jump roping. You see any boxer that is lean, they do a lot of jump roping. For me, at 38 years old, functional training works for me. I move a lot better in the ring and I look great. I’ve incorporated yoga and incorporated mobility workouts, but I feel great.”

On WWE possibly pitching a gay gimmick to him:

“I get asked that a lot, I was just happy to be myself, I wasn’t worried about whether they would make it a gimmick or not. I just wanted to be me and live out my dream as a WWE superstar. Being gay is masculine, feminine, it’s anything you want to be, it’s just me. I just wanted to be me. Titus and I would implement it as a joke, little stuff like that and I would be cool with it. But if you’re going to have me dress up, I don’t know what I would do with that character.”

On the Block The Hate movement:

“The Block The Hate movement originally started with me being the first openly gay WWE Superstar. But it’s more than just a LGBTQ movement, it’s for anyone that gets bullied. If someone says you can’t achieve your dreams, as a kid I had a speech impediment and I was overweight. But I don’t let those disabilities hold me down, I tuned out the noise and blocked the hate, and achieved my dreams. My fight is bigger than the ring, I do my advocacy work and can’t wait to do more in 2022. Whatever it takes to share my stories with the masses, I’m going to do. You tell me I can’t achieve my dreams, well F you.”

On what Fred Rosser is grateful for:

“My health, my God babies and I can be me.”

Images obtained from Instagram

Charlie Haas is an amateur wrestler and also a professional wrestler best known for his time in WWE. He joins Chris Van Vliet to talk about his new podcast called Wrestling’s Greatest Podcast, how his love of watching pro wrestling as a kid led him to start amateur wrestling, forming a tag team with his brother Russ Haas, how Russ’s death effected him, getting signed to WWE, becoming part of Team Angle with Shelton Benjamin and Kurt Angle, his marriage to Jackie Gayda and their recent divorce, his return to pro wrestling and new look and more!

On his new podcast:

“So my podcast is called Wrestling’s Greatest Podcast. We are covering all aspects of wrestling. Everyone knows my background and how important amateur wrestling is to me and was to me. So what we are doing is covering all aspects, we go into amateur wrestling and interview the high school prospects across the country. We talk about their work ethic and what universities they are looking at, and where they want to be if they continue into college. Then we go out and we interview the top wrestling coaches in places like Penn State, Iowa State and Oklahoma State just to name a few. We will ask them what they look for in a top prospect and in a student athlete in general. They are building for 4 to 5 years, and they want to make sure they have the right people to be successful. Penn State right now has the perfect blueprint for it, although they did get beat by Iowa last year.”

On the importance of women’s amateur wrestling:

“It’s also really important for women as well. Women’s wrestling in amateur wrestling is starting to take off. Iowa just announced a women’s team for next year, there’s over 1,300 scholarships for women, but only like 1,100 women wrestling. We are trying to get as much notice out there for women to let them know that if you continue in the sport, you can get your college paid for. Amateur wrestling is great for women, it’s the kind of sport where you have different weight classes. Say you have a woman who is slightly bigger and wants to play center mid in soccer, but it’s impossible for her to play that. If you go to wrestling, you have a chance to wrestle girls at your own weight, your own experience and maybe win a state title. Even if they don’t win but they are successful, they have a chance to get a scholarship, and you are building something up right there. The skills they learn can help them in all aspects of life.”

On being a wrestling coach:

“So I coach new programmers from kindergarten all the way up to high school. I look at what is the long term goal, which is to get a scholarship and hopefully get your education paid for. It is hard work and we want that work ethic. From there, it can go to winning a national title or becoming an All-American. We just have to keep the parents focused and say to them ‘Look. They might not be good right now, but in 5 or 6 years, they may become the person that is pinning everybody.’ The green light turns on at different times for everyone, but you have to stick with it and have fun.”

On what wrestling teaches you:

“Wrestling puts you in an uncomfortable position. You are on your back, getting your arms twisted behind you, and you have to learn how to get out of that. It taught me that if I can get out of these moves in amateur wrestling, and I apply that work ethic to life, I should be able to succeed and overcome adversity when it is thrown at me. My divorce with Jackie was very hard on the kids, but it taught me to stay focused and that things will work out in the long run and will be the best for you and the kids. It was the same when my dad and my brother died, you have to learn to overcome that. But I keep my head straight on and I will overcome and will figure out a way to get out of these uncomfortable positions. I won’t forget, but I can move on.”

On getting back into the ring:

“I was done and Robert Langdon brought me back in. They were honoring me to go into the Texoma Hall of Fame. They just wanted me to come out and take a look at the new talent, I didn’t really know what was going on. So they brought me into the ring and presented me with the Hall of Fame ring, which I didn’t even know about. While I was there James Beard said to me ‘Hey why don’t you get back into wrestling?’ I was like I am in no shape to do this, but my kids were like ‘Come on dad!’ They hadn’t seen me wrestle for a good 2 or 3 years so I didn’t even know where I would be at. We started throwing around at Texoma Pro, and I told James that my look wasn’t great but my cardio was fine for SWE. We went out to SWE and I tried the first match. Kevin Sullivan and Teddy Long were there and they said I had this different gear that they hadn’t seen there before. But I am a heel now and my style is a little bit different. I’m not worried about the moves, I concentrate on the work between the moves. I am bringing it up to a higher level and it is intense. It’s something that people haven’t seen in 4 years. I have a new look, a new attitude and I am healthy.” 

On when it was time to turn his life back around:

“Yeah it was when I was going through all the divorce papers back and forth. I remember what the exact day was, I signed the papers and my son says ‘Hey dad, there is someone in the kitchen eating my cereal.’ I’m like what? And then he says ‘Yeah he is living here, get used to it.’ I’m thinking what is going on? I had no idea there was someone like that and boom he is living there, the kids had never met him. That was when I was like you know what, it is time to move on. Evidently she has moved on, the papers are signed, it’s time for me to move on, and that was it.”     

On making the transition from amateur to professional wrestling:

“It’s easy to transition if you are a fan and if you grew up with it. It’s like if you are a fan of the UFC and you know all of the holds and all of the techniques that Joe Rogan is calling out in the middle of the UFC match. For me, when I heard Gordon Sully or Jim Ross call out the headlock takeovers, Irish whips, arm drags… It was easy because I knew everything that they were talking about. So when I started training, I knew some of the stuff because I was a fan. I knew some of the moves already, because I started practicing at my parents. We didn’t have a ring, but we destroyed a lot of king size bed frames. I could do dropkicks, suplexes and bodyslams, so it was an easier transition, especially when you add in the work ethic of an amateur wrestler.” 

On losing his younger brother Russ Haas:

“It destroyed me. It was like the divorce from Jackie, they are your best friend. You grew up with them, he’s your little brother, then you find him dead and it’s like, man, is this really happening? It was tough, it really was. But then you have to call your mom and dad and tell them that you found your brother dead, that’s not good. I didn’t think I was going to be able to get out of that, I really didn’t. I didn’t know how to survive that and I didn’t know what WWE would do. They signed the Haas brothers, not Charlie Haas. But thank God that Jim Ross saw that we could still do this with Charlie and Shelton, and Arn Anderson said ‘Let me take Charlie and Shelton and let me see what I can do with them.’ We basically just travelled with Arn, he put us in the ring prior to the house show matches and in the dark matches, and he taught us everything he knew. His heart was into it as much as ours was, and that was when I knew that someone really cared, he really put everything into us. Shelton was a guy who I found as a partner just like my brother, he is my brother and it just worked. Shelton had the same goals as I did, and I am just very lucky.”

On Team Angle splitting up:

“It should have been longer. What people don’t understand is at the time that we were getting hot on Team Angle [on SmackDown], who was getting hot on Raw, and that was Evolution. But when they have 4 guys and you have 3, when they do the mixed pay-per-views, we are starting to get a better reaction than them. I don’t care what they say, you can ask Kurt that, Shelton may not say because he is with WWE now, but we were getting a better reaction than they were. And I think that had a lot to do with ok it’s time to split them, because they kept Evolution going. That’s just the way it is.”      

On finding his character after the split:

“I’ll be honest with you man, I was lost. I was always a tag team wrestler, I was never a singles wrestler. Then all of a sudden, who is Charlie Haas? I had a really great match with RVD and a great match with Rico, and they put me with Rico, and we won the tag titles there. That was tough because I loved the character and I loved working with Rico, but other tag teams refused to work with us because they didn’t want to be in the ring with Rico because of the character. It hurt him a lot and I knew he was upset about that, and some of them took it out on him in the ring physically when they had to, it was uncalled for with some of the stuff that he went through. I think today he is suffering through concussions and all that stuff, he is having some mental issues right now. But we had a great tag team, we won the tag team titles, that was really cool.”

On a gimmick he wasn’t proud of:

“But when they separated us, I went into singles. That was really tough, because I didn’t know who Charlie Haas was as a singles wrestler. [Chris mentions the impersonation gimmick] Yeah I think that was when they were really trying to get rid of me and find a way to get me out of there. But I looked at it as a chance to honor the people that I grew up watching and embrace it. I did the best that I could, I didn’t want people saying ‘He has a bad attitude, let’s get him out of there.’ It’s crazy, I get so many people coming up to me about me doing this character or that character. It’s part of my career that I look back at and I did it because I had to. I am not proud of it, it was not something that I wanted my career to be based on. But I guess a lot of people watched it, because I get more people coming up to me, I guess they liked it.” 

On who he regrets impersonating:

“If you are honoring them and they enjoy it, then that’s good. The only one I didn’t like was when I had to do JR. I don’t know what was going on with JR and WWE at that time, but they wanted me to really make fun of him. He’s the guy that signed me to my WWE contract, and my feet were put to the fire with that. I wasn’t too happy about that. I apologised to him for it, and I wish I put my foot down and said I don’t want to do that. But I didn’t have the pull to say we were not going to go in that direction. It wasn’t fair to him and it was wrong.”   

On what he is grateful for:

“My kids, my family and God.”

Featured Image: Charlie Haas

Bruce is a ring announcer best known for working for the UFC as the “veteran voice of the octagon” for the last 25 years. He joins Chris Van Vliet to talk about how he got started as a ring announcer, meeting his half-brother Michael Buffer when he was 31 and Michael was 47, his business ventures outside of the UFC, his favorite names to introduce, his fight day preparation and more!

When we see you in the octagon we see that passion personified. I’m curious to know, do you live your life with that same passion for everything?

“Yeah absolutely I tried to. Passion is something that I feel that if you are waking up for something, especially for work, if you are not passionate about what you do, then you have a job. That’s ok and that’s great, as long as you are into your job. But if you are passionate about what you do and you are monetising it, then you are living a life by design. So you are waking up to go after what you love, and the UFC, with the travelling around the world and everything involved, it’s more than just announcing 13 fights in an evening over 6 to 8 hours. There’s prep work, sacrificing spending time with your family and being on the road. People look at the glorious side and the trick is to make it look easy. But you know, it’s definitely a lot of work. And that combined with all the other businesses I run and everything else, it gets a little overwhelming at times. But if the passion is involved you deal with it and you get it done.” 

Yeah tell us about everything else that you have going on. I think that people only see you looking dapper on a Saturday night in the octagon, but they don’t know everything else that goes on.

“Well for instance last weekend and next weekend, I’ll use last weekend as an example. I’ll fly to Vegas on the Friday, do UFC on the Saturday, stay the night and then open up the Raider game at Allegiant Stadium for the Las Vegas Raiders, that’s one thing I do. It was awesome and a big boost to my career, I’m not just a performer and an announcer. I do motivational speaking and I have a few tv commercials coming out in the next few months. My latest Manscaped commercial got released. I always have a kick in doing those, I am very self-deprecating, I don’t mind giving a giggle to people over what I do. But at the same time, with what I do with businesses, the business I expanded with my brother Michael, who is known for his ‘Let’s get ready to rumble!’ catchphrase. We got together some 30 years ago, where I properly trademarked and built his career worldwide along with a half billion dollar brand with him. During that process, I created my career in the octagon, which is now 25 plus years. But in business, you should start from a base and build out of the base, which I did with Michael with all the toys and video games that we created. So I am doing the same thing with myself. To me, all business is the same, it’s just the product that is different.”

We know you as the UFC announcer, but what else do you have going on?

“I have 3 or 4 huge things happening. I just launched a site called millions.co. What that does is something that has never been done. We start it with fighters, and I’m all about the fighters making a million dollars a night when they put their blood, sweat and tears in the octagon. That doesn’t happen, except for a choice few, but that’s the same with any business. The UFC pays more than anyone, I don’t care what anyone says, I can argue that point all day long. The fighters are making good money, but when they are not fighting, they need to train, and having a second job takes up a lot of time, so we are trying to teach them how to market themselves. We will take a fighter, or an NCAA athlete, there’s also NFL and MLB athletes coming in. What millions.co does is that we will create merchandise for them. We will make them money through things like Cameos. It gives them a chance to market on social media to their direct market, which is what business is about these days. I want to teach this to the athletes.”

What are some of the more bizarre Cameo requests that you have gotten?

“Yeah the championship intros, the fans love them. I introduce you like a champion in the cage. If you go to Cameo, you’ll see the examples. But I’ve had things like eulogies, people want this played at their funeral, they haven’t even died yet. I had a request to introduce Jesus Christ against The Devil in a battle for a sermon in a Sunday church. I also did a ‘It’s time to move on…’ for a guy because I thought it was for his girlfriend’s new job or something. In fact he was breaking up with her, that went viral everywhere, but I didn’t know from looking at the script. You got to keep it classy or I won’t do it.”

Talk me through fight day. What does your routine look like before you get into the octagon?

“You know, a good night’s sleep, power breakfast, meditation, workout. I don’t rehearse, I will go over the names and make sure I am saying them correctly. I’ve got about 4 hours prep on the fight cards that I hold in my hands, which have also become huge collectables. One of those cards sold for $4,200. I’m big on sports memorabilia collectibles, I know how to make a market for it. But it’s just about being prepared for the show. Once I walk out into the arena, I feel the energy of the crowd and that’s what gets me going.”

What’s the toughest type of name to say?

“Believe it or not, the single syllable names like Mike Swick. Give me Khabib Nurmagomedov all day long, the more meat, the more fun. With single syllables, it’s just ‘Mike Swick!’ I mean he is a great friend of mine but it’s just Mike Swick. There’s so much more to Khabib Nurmagomedov.”

Your speaking voice is so different from your announcing voice. How did you find that voice?

“My dad was a Marine drill instructor, he served in World War 2 and in Korea. I used to walk into a room when I was 5 or 6 and say ‘Hey dad.’ He would say ‘Son! Project your voice! Chest back, shoulders out. Let them know that you are in the room.’ Ok dad. This is what I grew up with, my dad never hit me but his voice could scare the pope. If I knew that my dad was mad at me, I did not want to reap that wrath of God when he got home. I loved him to death, he is not with me anymore. But I have never been trained, I did motivational speaking but I built it up like a tool. If you look at the first fight I did in 1996, it’s a completely different voice, it’s an evolutionary process.”

How long did it take you to create your own style?

“I said to myself that if I can’t create my own distinct style then I wasn’t going to do it. No disrespect to him but I didn’t want to be Frank Sinatra Jr. I didn’t want to be known as Michael Buffer’s brother. I had no interest in that, I manage Michael but I don’t ride his coattails. If I was going to stand out by myself, I needed to make my own mark in life. I would say over the course of 3 to 7 years, I was standing still for the first 3 years, but then I had this lion inside of me and I wanted to introduce the warriors the way that I would have wanted to be introduced. So I started to move, and I don’t know what I will do until I do it, but I know that octagon like a basketball player knows their half court. I know where I am all of the time. Like I said, it’s passion, the show is not about me, it’s about the fighters and the fans, and I am there to entertain them.”

On how much meeting Michael Buffer means to him:

“If I didn’t then we wouldn’t be having this conversation. I started my first business at 19, I’ve always known how to make money. I’ve gone broke and I have made 7 figures, you have to know what it is like to fail before you succeed. Thank God me and Michael did meet for 2 reasons. First, I found my long-lost half brother, who I love dearly. I was able to get into sports entertainment, which I wouldn’t have if I didn’t meet Michael.”

What Bruce Buffer is grateful for:

“My family, my health and I have the attitude that I have.”

Embedded image credit: Instagram

Featured image: New York Post

Terry Fator is a ventriloquist, impressionist, singer, stand-up comedian and the winner of season 2 of America’s Got Talent. He has a residency at the New York-New York Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas, NV. He joins Chris Van Vliet at the Blue Wire Studios at the Wynn Las Vegas to talk about how he got his start as an entertainer, the art of learning ventriloquism, why you should never give up on your dreams, how he created all of his characters, his incredible impression skills and more!

On wanting to be an entertainer all his life:

“The goal was to become an entertainer, and I tried everything. Before I became a ventriloquist, I was a singer, a magician, a hypnotist… I tried everything. I just wanted to get on stage and make people feel good. So once I discovered that I can do it, I am a big proponent of trying to find something that is unique and different and a talent that not many people have. If you have that and you hone that, then you are going to find an audience.”

On just wanting to perform:

“The stage made no difference at all. I thought well maybe I will be an actor, maybe I will be a tv news anchor, I didn’t know. When I was 10, I auditioned for The Bad News Bears Go To Japan. The problem was that I had seen the other Bad News Bears movie, and when I got there the first thing I said was ‘I’m a Christian, I don’t swear.’ So we can guess that I did not get the part [laughs].”

That defining moment:

“My first memory as a child was me standing on a church cafeteria table at 3 years old and singing. I remember looking at the sea of adult faces that were smiling and clapping. I remember vividly saying ‘This is what I want to do.’ It’s interesting because if you look into entertainment and the psychology of entertainment, almost every big entertainer had a defining moment that said ‘This is it.’”   

The first voices he could do:

“Probably Michael Jackson and Donny Osmond. As a kid, I had to do all the high voices until my voice changed. I got lucky, because when my voice changed, I would talk on the phone and people would say ‘Yes ma’am.’ I’m like, this is a guy. Then I realized it was a blessing, because I can sing male and female voices. It’s a perfect sweet spot and I am happy with my voice.”   

On his amazing vocal chords:

“Well firstly I try to find someone who has a very distinctive voice, like Sammy Davis Jr. He’s got that Kermit the Frog type sound where it’s very deep. Oddly, I can do things with my throat, that sounds dirty, but I can do things with my voice that other people can’t do. I can actually change my vocal chords where I can still do voices even if I have a cold or something. It truly is a gift that God gave me, most can’t understand it.”

On the hardest sounds to make:

“It’s any of them that use your lips. Words that start with br or bl are hard. It’s about practicing them. The books tell you to substitute the b’s for d’s, but I’m doing that and it does not sound good. So I started recording myself, playing it back and substituting for what sounds better. All the ventriloquists do this, which I didn’t know, I am self taught. What you do is put the tip of your tongue against the back of your front teeth, instead of the roof of your mouth. Then the d’s sound more like a b. When you try to do it, you won’t do it as well, but give yourself 50 years and you will be really good.”

On being a good ventriloquist:

“Everyone has to move their mouths. If you see a ventriloquist who does not move their mouth at all, then there is a tape. The only way to do it is to have a little tiny slit open, so the sound can come out. My doctor, who is the doctor to the stars, he worked on Mick Jagger recently. In a recent interview he said that ‘Terry Fader makes sounds that are physically impossible.’ I get a full tone, and it sounds like I am singing. I am doing it all with just a little bit of my mouth open. But all I can say is that it’s a gift.”

On getting the America’s Got Talent audition:  

“That was kind of an accident in Providence, Rhode Island. In 2006, my entire show was my puppets doing impressions of singers. 2006 was also the year that America’s Got Talent was on. So people were coming up to me ‘You need to get on America’s Got Talent.’ I was thinking that I would consider it, but unbeknownst to me, hundreds and thousands of people are writing and calling NBC saying ‘You’ve to see this ventriloquist, he does impressions of singers.’ I randomly get a call in October 2006 from America’s Got Talent. They said that they were getting a lot of buzz about me, and would I like to audition? I was like sure, but I was really busy. I happened to be performing at the schools in Los Angeles, and it was 15 minutes away from where the auditions were being held. So I drove over, didn’t have to stand in line. I was told I got 5 minutes, if I go longer then they will yank me off the stage and that’s it. There’s 6 producers there, I do my 5 minutes, but then they want more. I picked a few songs off my iPod, did 5 more minutes, and then 5 more…”

The judge’s reactions:

“The judges thought I was cheating. After my audition they said there was no way I was doing this, they thought that there was a tape recorder in the puppet. So then I was told to get right up to the table and do Etta James. I got 6 inches from their face and did it, they were stunned, and I was on the show.”  

On a midlife crisis:

“From the time I was a kid, I knew that I was talented. I knew I had a lot of talent, could do amazing things that no one else could do, and that I was good at it. I just assumed that I would hit it and that I would get discovered. When I hit 40, I hit a midlife crisis and was a little depressed for about 6 months. I was like I am 40 years old and I never made it. I was a little depressed, but I knew that I wouldn’t have to go to work as a janitor again. There’s nothing wrong with that, I just don’t like physical labour and I don’t have that passion. I can perform at fairs and for kids, I am living the dream! But every time someone gets kicked off America’s Got Talent and they are crying and blubbering. Not me, if I can get on 3 episodes I can double my price at the elementary schools. I was not worried about getting kicked off.”

On what happened after America’s Got Talent:

“I did not know I was going to win, but when I did it all became this whirlwind. It all happened so fast, I’m headlining Vegas, then The Mirage asks me to perform and I headline for 11 years there. I then get a call from my agent asking me if I want to move to New York-New York, because they are really stoked and want me. I was ready for a change, New York New York is my favorite casino, it’s a match made in heaven.”     

How many voices can he do and advice to others:

“We stopped counting after 200. I can pretty much do any singing voice with practice, it took me 5 years to master Frank Sinatra. I can do any voice that I want to do. My advice to people is to not stop working on your craft. If you put the guitar in the closet, the dream will die. If you practice for 15 minutes a day, in 20 years you will be really good, anything can happen. It may not happen, but you will get that satisfaction of getting better and better.”   

What he is grateful for:

“God, my wife and Winston.”

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