Steve Adcock is an entrepreneur and a writer who retired from his IT job at the age of 35 with his wife Courtney. He joins Chris Van Vliet to talk about how he was able to retire early (without doing something like winning the lottery), why you don’t have to work at a job that you hate, how you can be more financially responsible in your everyday life, what financial freedom looks like and much more!

On a common misconception:

“Most people assume that I won the lottery, got an inheritance or sold a business. None of those things actually happened, I did it the old fashioned way. But I don’t think the government should define when you retire. That should be your choice based on your decisions and the goals you have maintained throughout your life. That is the bottom line for me.”

On what life is like for him right now:

“I get to wake up whenever I want without an alarm clock, and do whatever I want for the rest of the day. I can go to bed whenever I want. Then I can get up whenever I want the next day and do it all again. To be honest I can’t think of a better way to go through life.”

On his career background:

“I worked 14 years in information technology. So there’s a good and a bad there. Obviously if you work in technology, you make a good salary, that part is great. But for me it also drains the life out of you. This is because you are always on call, work never stops. In my case, I could not see myself doing that for the rest of my life. The job was draining and I never got any satisfaction out of it. So for a while, the first half of my working career, I would reinvest that money into my happiness. My garage had a new Corvette, a new Cadillac and a new sports bike. I was living like a Rockstar. I will remember this day for the rest of my life. One day I walked out to my garage and looked at all of my toys, and there was something missing. I’m not happy and yet I have all of these things. What is going wrong?”

On a possible alternative career:

“I was seriously considering becoming a truck driver. I don’t know what it is about it. But I was considering packing up and hitting the road full time in a cab. Ultimately I am glad I didn’t go that route, I don’t think I would have enjoyed it. I thought I can’t retire but I don’t want to take my work home with me, why not be a truck driver? Never happened and I am glad it didn’t.”

On when the process started:

“I think it was around 30. In my late 20’s I was like there’s no way I can retire. But I never put the pieces into place until 30 or 31. Then the ball got rolling when I met my future wife. We combined out resources and the snowball started to build.”

On the first steps:

“The very first step has nothing to do with money. We talked about our future and what we wanted it to look like. We did this every day while walking the dogs. It was always at the forefront of our minds. Strangely it never involved either of us working a full time job. It involved travel, adventure and having fun. Talking about that future goal kept that idea planted in our heads. The more you talk about it, that is going to help you to go in the right direction.”

On how the little things add up:

“There’s the latte effect, I’m sure people have heard about that. Those little, tiny expenses that over time add up into something that is significant. I never encourage people to live their life by sacrifice. If you like that $5 Starbucks just do it. That doesn’t mean your going to spend $15 on lunch and $20 on dinner. You just have to be honest with yourself. Spend money on things that make you happy, and be honest with things that don’t make you happy. If you cut back on those things that don’t make you happy, it does help.”

On how he made his money:

“We tracked every dollar that we spent. It got to a point where my wife could tell you how much we spent on sweet potatoes over a year. We were really anal about it. Cable TV was easy to cut out. We never took expensive vacations either. We did do things, but we budgeted $50 a month for restaurants. A lot of the recurring expenses that are funded in the background, we looked at our statements. We cut out what we were not using or wasn’t making us happy. All of that added up to several thousand dollars a year. We would invest that money, and through compound interest, all of that adds up.”

On some people not being able to save a lot:

“That is a common concern and I get it. We can’t all save 70%. But if you don’t like what you are doing and don’t have the money there are 2 things you can do. You an either increase your income or decrease your expenses. It’s more fun to increase your income of course. Or you could take a look at your expenses and see what is not making you happy. What can you cut out? It’s not a fun process, but going through that statement can add up to something you can be proud of.”

On when he realized the job wasn’t for him:

“About a week after I started! I graduated from college and took a look at everything around me. It was nothing like what I had expected. I had no concept of early retirement when I started. But my late 20’s and early 30’s was where it really started to come to a head. I didn’t know what the solution was but I knew I couldn’t do this for the rest of my life.”

On how he quit his job to retire:

“Luckily I worked for a very cool boss. I gave him 6 months notice that I was going to be quitting at the end of the year. Giving him notice alone was so freeing. I knew I had the next 6 months to finish out my career without a lot of stress and pressure. It was like nothing I have experienced before. Hopefully I never have to work again for the rest of my life. I also had enough confidence to know that it was going to work out.”

On where he lives right now:

“We are out in the middle of the Arizona desert. We are not filthy rich, we have enough to sustain our house. Also We have solar on site and we collect our own rainwater. We are self sufficient, so we have no utilities. That has been wonderful for us and helps us keep our expenses on the ground. I spend my day going on Twitter and doing podcasts. I get to experience the creative side too.”

On what’s next:

“We had considered international travel, but that has stopped because of COVID. I think the next goal is to have 2 separate residences. One in the desert for the fall, and a house on the lake for the summer. That’s going to be an expensive thing, but it’s a good change of pace to move around with the seasons.”

On what he is grateful for:

“My upbringing, the love of my life and the opportunities I have had throughout my life.”

Steve can be found on Twitter here.

Featured image: Marriage Kids & Money

“Suga” Sean O’Malley is a mixed martial arts fighter in the UFC’s Bantamweight division. He sits down with Chris Van Vliet to talk about his fight on July 10th against Louis Smolka, how he got started as a fighter, the decision to have multicolored hair, how being a father has changed him, his podcast “Timbo Suga Show”, his thoughts on a dream match with Conor McGregor, what is non-negotiable in his life and much more!

On what he was like in middle school:

“I remember late middle school being the entertainer and the class clown. I remember getting in trouble with my parents. I’m like well no one wants to be there and if I can make everyone laugh and make their day enjoyable then why not. I always got in trouble at school, most of the time just for being goofy. But I was trying to make friends.”

On what he first thought he was going to be:

“I thought I was going to be in the NFL. It was 5th grade and you don’t know any better. I played a lot of football and watched the NFL a lot. I was just an average kid in Montana. At the time I didn’t realize that I wasn’t going to be this 6 foot 5, 280lb guy. I thought I was going to be in the NFL until about 8th grade, then I was like this isn’t going to happen. Then I didn’t know what I was going to do, I didn’t find fighting until I was 16. I didn’t stress about it too much. Growing up I hated school so I knew I wasn’t going to college. I was an athlete my whole life.”

On how he got into MMA:

“I did just kind of stumble across it. I was 16 years old and on vacation in Utah. My friend called me and asked if I wanted to check out this fighting gym. We went down when I got back. The first class was a jujitsu class and I wasn’t really into it. But the second class was kickboxing and oh sh*t I loved that. I didn’t do any wrestling or jujitsu, I just did kickboxing from 17 years old. I had 4 fights up until I was 18. With school I went Monday to Friday and had practise afterwards.”

On a dream match with Conor McGregor:

“Yeah Conor is quite a bit bigger, but styles make matchups. I am at 158 and he is at 170. It’s not impossible for me to fight him someday. I have to establish myself as a legend first before I can even talk about getting the big matchups. I’ve been knocking people out since I was 16, I’ve had over 30 fights. Most of those have been knockouts.”

On deciding to dye his hair:

“Well I put about as much thought into that as getting face tattoos. I thought about having crazy hair for my debut, but I didn’t have name, I wasn’t established. I had done a couple of fights and I was on the Xbox with my buddies. One of them said ‘You should do your hair like 6ix 9ine.’ My girl does all my hair, I went to her and I’m like lets do it. We went back to the salon and did the rainbow. It took 9 hours and I got back at 3am. It makes people look. The hair is definitely real. We cut 4 inches off because it wasn’t healthy, but now it is healthy and alive.”

On being a dad and how it has changed him:

“I think whoever is running this world had me have a baby at the right time. I’ve never been into partying or going to crazy clubs. After my last fight, we went out in Vegas. All these opportunities presented themselves, I’m taking advantage to get my name out. It could get very easy to get lost in the partying world. Now I can’t wait to get back to my family. It keeps me grounded and it’s a good thing. It’s fun to go out but now it’s training, gaming and raising a baby.”

On what is non-negotiable:

“Training every day, you have to find things to motivate you. Once you have made a lot of money, you start to think do I need to go to the gym today? But a lot of fighters take off more than they need to. In my personal life, I am not too set in anything. My sleep is money though. Every morning I do a 10 minute meditation. I enjoy the mediation, it makes me feel better throughout the day.”

On creating content:

“Yeah the podcast has been going for a couple of years now. That’s only one hour a week. We record it on Wednesdays at 10:30. I just show up and talk and the guys have stuff to talk about. My little brother just moved down from Montana and is trying to figure things out. So we are going to do stuff for YouTube. But shooting content is fun, I enjoy YouTube, podcasts and TikTok. I also enjoy making money from it. You don’t have to train all day every day. Only 3-4 hours a day, so I can have a lot of free time.”

On his upcoming fight and fighting style:

“Yeah if I go out there and win by decision, it’s boring. I don’t go on to fight someone with a name. If I go out there and knock someone out, I can call my shots. I think we are close to a big one though. Louis Smolka has a ton of experience and I probably won’t just run through him. For the next 10 weeks, getting in 15 minute cardio shape is my goal. People get tired of beating him up and then he finishes people. I’ve got to be ready to beat him up for 15 minutes.”

On what he is grateful for:

“Being surrounded by my family, my friends and having a passion to look forward to.”

Featured image: Montana Sports

Scorpio Sky is a podcaster and professional wrestler signed to AEW. He joins Chris Van Vliet to talk about Double or Nothing, full capacity crowds returning to All Elite Wrestling, the break up of SCU (SoCal Uncensored), partnering with Ethan Page, his sense of style, the biggest influence in his career, his Mixed Martial Arts career and much more!

On what’s changed the most for him as a person:

“I think I have grown as a performer. I felt like I was a very good performer heading into the beginning stages of AEW. But I’ve learned a lot from Ricky and Chris. Now I’ve been able to work with guys like Dean Malenko and Jerry Lynn and Arn Anderson. And just performing, you’re going to learn so much by just getting out there and performing. I have grown so much and I still have a long way to go.”

On what he applies to every match:

“They talk about it a lot in basketball, when things start to click, the game slows down for them. That’s how it is for me in wrestling. It’s slowed down a lot for me, you can just see things coming. It’s like in the fight game you can see punches coming and you can slip them. Now I’ve become so calm in the ring, there’s no jitters. I don’t really get nervous before I go to the ring. There are times where I will fly into the town and head straight to the building. From the time I am walking onto the ground at Daily’s Place, I might be in the ring 15-20 minutes later. Sometimes there’s no warm up you just jump in. But I am so calm with myself and the people that I am with that I don’t really worry about it at all.”

On how excited he is to have fans back for Double or Nothing:

“Almost as excited as I am to leave it in July. I’m very happy with Daily’s Place, it has been a great home for us. But I’m very excited to get back on the road and fill some arenas like we used to. That’s why I got into the business, to put on the kind of shows we put on before the pandemic. But Double or Nothing is going to be awesome, it’s going to be great to fill that place up. I can’t imagine what that will look like filled up. I’ve gotten so use to pandemic wrestling. I keep looking ringside and seeing Austin Gunn. I’m very excited to not see Austin in the front row.”

On praise for AEW fans:

“A lot of people forget that one of the best things about this company was the fanbase. It was the reason why this company started. The fans have such a passion and a fire. It’s exciting to get back in front of them. I can’t say enough how exciting it’s going to be.”

On his partnership with Ethan Page:

“I don’t know if its because they decided to put the two best dressed guys together [laughs]. But we bounce off of each other well. The funny thing is he has his style and I have mine. They are different but at the same time they go together. We don’t plan it, we just wear what we wear and stand next to each other. It all just falls into place, we have this weird chemistry I didn’t see coming. People didn’t get it when they put us together. But it’s working. Sometimes magic just happens.”

On being a heel:

“It’s so much more fun being the bad guy. People look at me and think ‘Oh he’s such a nice guy, he’s a natural babyface.’ But everyone has different sides to them. I am a legitimately a nice guy, which makes you a bad guy in this day and age. People don’t like the nice guy. It’s very easy for me to go out there, smile and be like I’m a better athlete than most the guys I am in the ring with. The fans will look for reasons to down play my talent, but I’m going to out perform everyone.”

On mainly being complemented for just being a good athlete:

“They tend to describe black performers in sports as great athletes. I don’t take that as an insult, I believe that is a great compliment. But that’s not all we are. I will read tweets and things that people write from time to time. I don’t want to be just known as a great athlete, people already know that. I’m also a great wrestler and great performer, it’s just one of those things. When they write about Adam Page, they will say he’s got a lot of charisma. It’s never just he is a great athlete. That’s a narrative I want to call attention to and start changing. We are more than athletes.”

On the shift to MMA:

“It was always something I just wanted to do. I always loved MMA as a kid and martial arts in general. I always wanted to fight, but I got so wrapped up in wrestling. So I’m like let me do this before I get too old. That’s when I started, I got linked with a great team who I am still close with. I’m really competitive, there’s nothing like going out there and stepping into a cage. Even training for the fight and earning it. I can’t tell you what the rush of winning is like. It’s like a drug without putting anything in your body.”

On possibly continuing a MMA career:

“It’s not a likely chance I will fight again but if the right opportunity comes along I will. I had multiple fights lined up that guys pulled out of. That was one of the things that frustrated me about the sport. You take the fight, train for 6 to 8 weeks and a week before the guy pulls out. They won’t say why he pulled out and there isn’t a replacement. So then it’s like can you go up 2 weight classes and fight someone that is 50lbs bigger than you. That happened to me a lot. I had 2 or 3 fights that fell through. There was that and trying to refocus with wrestling, it is impossible to try and train for a fight while you’re on the road.”

On his goals to be champion:

“If you don’t want to be a champion then what are you doing. I get that winning a championship in NBA is different to winning a championship in professional wrestling. It’s like getting an Emmy, it’s an award. It’s also that the company has their trust in you. Also, people will not see you as a high level performer until you are a champion.”

On what he is grateful for:

“My health, that I am able to live the dream and the people around me.”

Scorpio Sky can be found on Instagram here.

Featured image: Instagram

Xavier Woods (aka Austin Creed) is a professional wrestler, YouTuber, podcaster and TV host. He joins Chris Van Vliet to talk about his entire career including his time in TNA and WWE, forming The New Day, being ringside when Kofi Kingston won the WWE Championship at WrestleMania 35, his popular YouTube channel “UpUpDownDown”, what he learned from his Achilles injury, becoming a father and much more!

On being the host of G4TV:

“G4 is the job that I’m going to transition to once I am done being a bump boy! But also I am learning bass guitar, I have aspirations to be a studio bassist. Hopefully in the next 5 to 7 years. It’s music, so there are components that I already understand with playing trombone. That part is easy, I’ve got the music theory. Translating it to bass has been fun. All of your favourite songs are driven by a bassline. It feels good to play and to spread positive energy.”

On how he got into playing trombone:

“The trombone found me. So I wanted to play drums, but 6th grade me had no idea what the word percussion meant. When they called out percussion and we went into a room, I was like I don’t want to do that. Then they went on to the next instrument. Later I asked when are they doing drums? They told me that they called that 10 minutes ago and that door is closed now. So instead it was try to make some noises on these other instruments. Saxophone is sexy, maybe I can get good at that. They gave me a brass mouth piece and asked what I thought I should do with it. I made the sound instantly and then they asked can you do it with this smaller one? I could and then they tried the smallest one, which is the trumpet, which I couldn’t do. Then they said cool you are a trombone player.”

On how the trombone was first introduced:

“At that point we were trying to see what they would say yes to us doing. They had an idea after we won the titles in New York and they wanted us to sing a song. They wanted us to sing ‘New York, New York.’ We were in the car and I said do you think they will let us have a trombone, because I could figure it out on that. The guys were like lets see. We texted them back and they told us yeah we can get a trombone. We played it during the show and I’m supposed to give it to someone so we can do our match. In my head I’m thinking I’m never going to be in this situation again. I get to take my passion of professional wrestling and my passion of trombone and experience this feeling again. So I’m going to keep the trombone and play it during the match. One of the camera guys is crying as he is trying to record. We go to commercial and the camera guy says ‘You got to keep playing that trombone. Vince is loving this.’ We got to the back and everyone is loving it. Vince told us ‘I never want to see you without a trombone when you go out there.'”

On why the trombone is so significant:

“In my head I think back to the old school wrestling. A guy would bring a water bottle or a mirror to the ring. That inanimate object means the world to him. The more you put into this inanimate object, the more people perceive it as important. If this is the most important thing in your life, people will feel that. I was excited to explore that side. Those auxiliary things have always been what is most interesting to me. I knew I wasn’t going to be 6 foot 5, but what can I do to stay in WWE. That’s why I put so much effort into it.”

On his colorful ring gear:

“That’s why my gear is always so crazy. That’s my canvas to show my personality and express myself. When you see the Xavier Woods figure on the shelf, you go oh my God there is orange, pink, blue, there’s unicorns, there’s pancakes you’re like what the hell is this? Even if you don’t like wrestling as a kid, you see the bright toy and pick it up. To me, it’s important to market yourself to different demographics. Like in our promos it’s like with Shrek. There’s the adult jokes but you can always talk to the kids.”

On the process of getting hired by WWE:

“It’s very weird. The first time I did the whole thing of sending a cover letter and resume. I got made fun of by people and I’m like it’s a job right? I’m supposed to come and talk to you, be respectful and be professional. I don’t understand why I am being made fun of. I did that and brought stuff to them and WWE was the only group to actually send a letter back. I sent my stuff to a load of indies but WWE was the only one to send something back. They told me I wasn’t the right height at the time, but try again in 6 years. I got lucky enough to get a job at TNA 6 months before I went to college. When that run was over I sent my stuff to WWE again. Luckily they remembered me sending in a resume. They appreciated that I went somewhere else to get experience, I had a try-out and went from there.”

On what he learned from his injury:

“I guess it was to not stress things I could not control. I am a big perfectionist and a big control freak. Before I tore my Achilles, I was at a birthday party with my 3 year old at a trampoline park. We were doing flips and it was so much fun. We were planning to do it every Saturday. The next week I tore my Achilles, I immediately thought I can’t go to that trampoline park. Then it’s I can’t dance with my kitchen with my kids, the third thing was not being able to wrestle. That’s how much having kids has affected me. Before it was I want to wrestle everywhere and I want to have my name in lights and help change the industry. That was my focus and my motivation. I realized that my motivations changed when my kids were born. You feel that when you see them, it’s a crazy experience. But to have a life changing injury happen to you, everything rushes forward for you. This is what is most important, it’s cool to see that change happen. By the time I was jogging again and playing with the kids, it hit me that I would be able to wrestle again. Some months later I got to come back to wrestling and everything felt great. Learning that wrestling is not the be all and end all is the biggest takeaway. I filled up my diary with conventions to keep my busy. I had surgery on the Thursday and did a convention on the Saturday.”

On who he thinks is the greatest tag team:

“I’m bad at picking the greatest. My favourite is Billy and Chuck, mainly because of their matches with the Hardys. It was the first time I noticed that The Hardys are not huge but they could still knock the huge guys down. In my teen head I was like this is how wrestling should be. This is where you put your ego aside and have this good match. I’ve always been a fan of tag team wrestling. But I like groups too. I was into 3 count in WCW too. I love so many teams for so many reasons.”

On KofiMania and if he knew Kofi would win:

“I didn’t know it was going to happen. I said don’t tell me. If the outcome changes mid-match I don’t know what I am going to do. I said don’t tell me a thing. I knew what we had to do at the end, but I didn’t know anything after that. I assumed [the result]. But it was all so real, not that it wasn’t real before, but this was the thing that said it’s not just us having fun and having a good time. We’ve created something worth what we believe it is worth. Now everyone sees what it is worth. It’s for everyone who walks into work and they do everything in their power to possibly move ahead. But you just can’t. As your crushing it, you see people with little or no experience, they haven’t been through what you have, they are flying past you with no one saying a word to you. At that point in that moment, it made every decision I’ve made in my life correct. You never know if you are making the right choices. You have an idea but you never know.”

On what he is grateful for:

“That I woke up this morning, because you never know. For all my friends and for this experience I’ve had during quarantine. I’ve created bonds through this whole mess.”

Xavier Wood’s YouTube channel UpUpDownDown can be found here. Xavier Woods can be found on Twitter here and Instagram here.

More podcast quotes can be found here.

Featured image: WWE

Anthony Trucks is a motivational speaker and former NFL player. He talks to Chris Van Vliet about the idea of shifting your identity and the powerful effects it can have on your life. Think about it, we are the projection of who we think that we are. But what if we shifted that? Anthony says it can have a massive effect on your life and that anyone can be anything that they want. He also talks about his time in the NFL, how a shoulder injury ended his football career, how being a father has changed him, and much more!

On what is an identity shift:

“So it’s first about going to the root of it, what is an identity? When we hear that, a lot of people think it’s this separate thing like a soul. I’m like it is not. It is a very tangible and very real thing that people have rocking in the background, but are completely unaware of the power that it holds. Think of it like a computer, we have the hardware of the screen and the microphone. Then we have the software, the programs. The programs are the things that run it all. When the operating system gets bogged down, what happens to the programs? They crash. Doesn’t matter how good the hardware is, if the operating system goes kaput I’m done. It’s always in the background so you never see it. But in our life, that’s our identity. Things like our health, relationships, hobbies etc. When we talk about identity, there are things running our background life and we are not running it. It’s just there and just created. It got woven in and we just started living our life that way. Then when we wonder why don’t I have certain things? It’s not a matter of the lack of information, it’s who are you with it? When I say identity shift, the identity you have right now has everything you have. It’s responsible for all the things you have and the things you don’t have. When I talk about a shift, I’m saying let me shift you into the identity that has all the things you want.”

On being self aware:

“I love the statement ‘It is hard to see the label when you are inside the jar.’ How do you see it? You don’t know, you are just living your life. People are like what are you doing, I’m like what do you mean by that? I’m not 100% self aware, but I am highly self aware. You don’t have to live in self awareness, you just have to take a moment and go ‘I don’t like this life, wife, husband body etc.’ Wake up and instead of going it’s OK so you can sleep better. Wake up and go this doesn’t feel right. We can all say this about anything in life. We make excuses on why we don’t want to change, and it is hard to change. It tests the ego, it makes us think there is something wrong with us, which there never was. If you can give yourself permission to suck, you can give yourself permission to improve.”

On people limiting their identities:

“I don’t know if that’s a limiting factor or a lazy factor. I know I’m not a runner, but if I think about it I could be. When I saw ‘I’m not that [runner]’ it’s because I am too lazy to do that. The problem isn’t whether you are or not, it’s whether you think you are or not. It’s what you choose you want to be. If I got a letter saying if I can’t run a marathon in 60 days someone will kill my kids, bro I’m a f*cking runner! I am a runner now and will run all day long. That is the difference, am I motivated, do I want to?”

On having the footballer identity:

“The problem with the football identity I tell people it’s like a tree. It’s the fruit of our labors, the apple tree. The apple falls off the tree and it sucks, something changes. Lose my job, lose my money etc. The apple can last on the ground for a bit, eventually it will rot. That’s how you will feel inside, and some people will always feel like that. They never realize that you have never been the fruit, but always the tree.”

On his career ending injury and how he reacted to it:

“It sucks. It’s the journey, I think it happens many times, and by accident. The problem is most of the time we are reacting and not responding. When I go into a situation and it all falls apart, we have this reaction to do something. Quite literally that is your identity, it’s who you are without thinking about who you are. The beliefs and thoughts come flying through in moments. Like I’ve said that thing, it’s not PC but it’s who I am. When I respond, that’s a vastly different situation. This happened, I would love to punch that dude, but I’m not that kind of guy. who punches dudes in the parking lot. We react to life, and then we are haphazardly creating an identity. Like I’m broke but I’m not going to be a stripper.”

On his process to realize an identity shift:

“There’s a process I created called the shift method. There’s a lot of in-depth work that we do. The three steps are see, shift, sustain. The Shift portion is the work, that’s the planning process and execution we take to complete the shift. Most people in life will jump to a certain level of work. The will go ‘I’m going to work like so and so.’ And they will start doing those things. They get to 50 years old and go who am I? They were following their boss or some guy on TV, they got to the top of the ladder and it was on the wrong building. The see phase allows you to look for your individual sticking points. When you have that, you can’t dream something that’s going to be great. If I think I’m stupid, I don’t think I can be a teacher. But if I realize I am dyslexic, I can do it but do it different. When you see the blind spots, you can see who you want to be. Third thing is sustain, basically stay the course and sustain it over time, or else it will fall back. If you get to the top, you get lazy and slide back down again.”

On going from husband mode to dad mode:

“I was actually a dad before I was a husband. At the end of the day, being a great dad is the same as being a great example. When I look at what I want my kids to have in terms of spouses, it’s kind of like what me and my wife have. I want my daughters to be around certain people and I want my boys to treat people correctly and respect them. Look at qualities and aspire to be those qualities. They all tie together, my marriage wouldn’t work if I wasn’t a great parent.”

On what he learned from the NFL:

One thing is getting comfortable being uncomfortable. The NFL is a very uncomfortable environment. I’m going to say this, I don’t believe people don’t really grasp what that means. Whenever I hear people say comfortable being uncomfortable, people just think it means just be OK. I took it to a level of understanding in NFL. If I think comfortable, I think winter time with a hot chocolate and my favourite movie. That makes my stomach warm. If you don’t have that level with problems, you will struggle. Everyday the NFL could say you’re going to get cut and you won’t have a job. You made a mistake, you’re home. You’re away from your family and no one cares about you, because you are taking money away from their mouth. It pulls at every emotional string. The only way to stick around is to find a weird way to enjoy it.”

On lessons learned from being a father:

“The biggest lesson is that I know far less than I think I know. I’m not talking about parenting I’m talking about life. Kids can teach you a lot if you listen. They teach you through their experiences of you and it’s like a reflective mirror. How they live their life tells you if you are doing it right. That has taught me a lot as a dad. There is also teaching the position of power. Knowing that your kids will put their foot down and stand up for themselves. If I do something wrong, I will tell them. I’m dad but I’m not perfect.”

On what he is grateful for:

“My wife, the family God has given me and the heart of me.”

More information on Anthony Trucks can be found here.

Featured image: GDA speakers

Chuck Palumbo is a retired professional wrestler, mechanic, and TV Host. He joins Chris Van Vliet from his home in San Diego, CA to talk about his YouTube channel “Chuck of All Trades”, his passion for motorcycles, being trained at the WCW Power Plant, wrestling with the faction “The Natural Born Thrillers”, going to WWE after WCW was bought by Vince McMahon, being part of Billy and Chuck with Billy Gunn, his biker gimmick being compared to The Undertaker and more!

On what he is doing now:

“So right now it’s a restoration of a home built in 1924. It’s basically ripping the thing down to the studs and rebuilding it with modern touches. But we are also preserving the 1924 style. It’s a lot of work but a lot of fun.”

On his original path:

“I originally thought I was going to go into law enforcement. First I went into navy and then college. I got a scholarship for college from the navy, but I had no plan but I was always interested in trying different things. I was also naïve so I took a lot of chances. But sometimes you have to take those chances.”

On what went through his head when he saw a WCW Powerplant advert:

“Opportunity. I knew nothing about wrestling, I didn’t know what was a work and what wasn’t. I knew who Hulk Hogan was, but that’s about it. During final exam week, I’m flipping through the channels and it came onto Nitro. I saw 2 guys being very athletic and physical. At the end of the match, the commercial came up. I wrote the number down and called the number. Next day I get a call and they ask if I’m an athlete. I said I played basketball. They tell me to get $300 together so I can try-out. I saved up some money and flew to Atlanta. I make it through the try-out and take me into the office. They say take your shirt off, I did and they said I look good. Then they ask me ‘What’s your plan?’ I didn’t have one. Next thing they said was ‘Alright. Come back with $3,000 and we will come and train you.'” I was 26 years old and the ad said I could make 6 figures. I’m thinking I’ve got to go for this. I sold everything I owned and drove cross country with our clothes in garbage bags. Then it’s off to the Powerplant 5 days a week.”

On the potential of a 6 figure contract:

“That’s what it was for. It’s all it was. I started training, and when you are young and naïve you don’t know the adversity that you are going to face. If I had known that I was going to face that type of adversity at that time, I wouldn’t have made that decision. No guarantees of money, no benefits, no place to live. I started off in a hotel living daily. At the time I wasn’t thinking that though. 7 or 8 months later I have a training contract, about $1,000 a week. Going from nothing to that was a big deal.”

On if talent paid attention to ratings during the Monday Night Wars:

“Not as much. This business is about self promotion, what’s going on that night. Guys are more wrapped up in staying alive. If you’re taken off TV for 2 weeks, things change. There’s a backstage dynamic to navigate through to stay current. Some of the senior guys who have that navigation down, may have space in their brains for that part of it. At that time we are just happy to be on TV and stay on TV. We weren’t thinking dollars and cents, we would have done it for free.”

On cutting his hair:

“It wasn’t long after I was finishing the Discovery shows. Long hair is a lot of work. It is a nice change and you can look back now with the internet. When I had the long hair, I was recognized all the time. When you are big with long hair, some people know. But California is not that big into wrestling, the fans are more diluted.”

On when WCW closed their doors:

“We were looking for answers. Shane McMahon walks into the locker room, you know it’s real. Next thing is am I going to have a job? Is this ride going to end? OK if we go over there, are we going to survive. Vince doesn’t accessorize a guy from another company. There’s double the roster but the same TV time, where do we fit in? When we get there, it’s such a challenging time. The Monday Night War, the guys were taking it personal. A lot of guys were not that welcoming. If we bonded, we would have all made more money. It ultimately reflected in the product, it went downhill. But it was a fantastic time to be in the business, that will never happen again.”

On the Billy and Chuck partnership:

“It was pitched on a whim, like all things at that time. I think the first person that told me was Triple H or Sgt Slaughter. Later Vince outlined it. We were going to have our hair platinum blond and wear robes. We were like alright. Little did we know that cable television network week was coming down the road. The wedding was where they wanted to peak out. We were number 1 rated that night. But the characters were just 2 guys having fun, and the audience saw that. When they saw that, they read that. It was like we were 2 bros. A lot of straight guys were like wow that looks so fun. It was just a character and we never took it personally. The storyline at the time was cutting edge. It also paid well.”

Chris mentions Billy Gunn telling him that his kids found the storyline difficult:

“I’m glad you brought that up. My daughter was super young at the time. I don’t think she believed that it was real, she was like dad what are you guys doing? Some of the guys were like tell them you don’t want to do it. We were actors playing a role, and some guys were trying to live their gimmick too much.”

On what he is grateful for:

“My daughter, my health and people around me.”

Featured image: Instagram

Chuck can be found on Instagram here.

Nick Gage is a professional wrestler and the “King of the deathmatch”. He sits down with Chris Van Vliet at Slingshot House in Santa Monica, CA to talk about his episode Dark Side of the Ring on Vice TV, how he became interested in his ultra-violent style of wrestling, being inspired by Cactus Jack and Terry Funk, his dream opponents, going to prison for bank robbery, dying during a match and being brought back to life, almost killing actor David Arquette in a match, what scares him and much more.

On being a featured episode on Dark Side of The Ring:

“At first, I turned them down. I didn’t want to do it and put my life out there. After I sat down and talked to people I trust, they said it was a good idea and I changed my mind. I’m glad I did, because the creators are very nice people. They treated me great.”

On his love of hardcore wrestling:

“I fell out of love with pro-wrestling in the 90’s. WCW was getting corny and WWF was already corny. All of a sudden I am watching TV and I see these guys going through tables and wondering what the hell is this. It got me back in love with it. It was awesome so shout out to ECW. I wasn’t a daredevil. I was a sports junkie and loved baseball, but all of my friends loved it and my brother loved it. We did the backyard thing with the trampoline but took it a level up. We would set up barbed wire around the trampoline and have no rope barbed wire. Also we would hand out flyers in high school and charge people. We had a whole venue, hotdog stand and merchandise. It was dope, we also gave out our own videotapes.”

On his first hardcore spot:

“It wasn’t light tubes, they came later. I would say barbed wire. I’ve been thrown off the roof of my house, chokeslam through tables on fire. I loved it when I got hit with barbed wire. My brother always had to win, so he would take things so seriously. He would whip me so hard with that barbed wire and I got tangled in it. But I’m alright, that sh*t is cool.”

On not going to the hospital ever:

“It’s a pride thing. I take pride in not going to a hospital unless I really have to. I want to be able to take my pain tolerance to be top notch. If I go to the hospital every time, it’s going to mess with me mentally. I would never go when I was a kid either.”

On going to prison and nearly dying in the ring:

“I would have loved it [dying in the ring]. But thank God I didn’t. It might sound crazy but thank God I didn’t die and thank God I didn’t go to prison. With prison, I was able to sit down and work out. I also met my Eastern Block Crew. Three guys who would have my back, they taught me sh*t man. I started going to pro-wrestling [before prison] but I was getting tired of it. Once I got locked up I was like man I love this sh*t. When they take it away from you, I was able to figure it all out. I figured out the business and my character. I didn’t need 7 years, I could have had a year or 2 and I would have been alright. But it is what it is. If you rob a bank you’re going to do some time.”

On robbing a bank:

“There was no thinking it through. I woke up one day and I was down on my luck, really down. People were tired of my sh*t and I got kicked out, which is bullsh*t. It was cold out too. Firstly I walked into one bank and I pussied out. So I was walking down the street yelling at myself, went in the next bank and robbed that motherf*cker. Then I changed my clothes and as I am leaving there is a cop there. I walked right past him and walked down the street. The plan was I didn’t want to go in there and getting caught without spending the money. I know I am going to get caught but I want to enjoy it. Even if I had a mask on, people were eventually going to know. I never had jailtime before this, but I knew it was going to be for a couple of years.”

On process and aftermath of the robbery:

“I had a note saying ‘Give me the money, I have a gun.’ I thought I was nice until I had to yell at the bank worker. I felt bad doing that. The lady quit her job after that, which I feel bad about. The attorney I had didn’t argue anything. The first time I went to court I never got the details [interview with police, report etc]. The attorney is cutting deals, and it’s sitting on his desk. I’m looking at it and I’m like I didn’t say that or that, I’m freaking out. I’m not taking this deal, I didn’t say I was going to shoot the bank worker. They came in and cuffed me, got me out of there. I’ve never been in trouble before, and they wanted me to take this 5 year deal. I’m like can I get 3, they don’t give me the deal.”

On his first night in prison:

“It sucked. The first night they put you in this tank, it’s a cell that’s holding 20 people in their first night too. It takes 24 hours to get you to a block. I just laid there and fell asleep. People left me alone. I had my weight up so no one messed with me. 24 hours later I grabbed my sh*t and they out me in the murderers block. I was myself, stayed quiet and all of a sudden my sh*t is on the news. I never ran into any trouble, because I was lifting those weights hard. Also I never backed down, I have no problem dealing with that.”

On how he gets ready for events:

“On show day I definitely turn it up a notch. Then we are ready to f*cking wrestle. On show day, I start zoning in and thinking about the match. This day and age, the deathmatch guys are tough! In tournaments, every round someone is an animal, especially GCW.”

On what scares him:

“Heights. I hate heights. Also I love life and death scares me. I am getting older and with life you never know. I do get yearly check-ups at the doctors, the last one was great. The doctor thinks I am insane though, especially with all the cuts. All of my cuts are hard way [no blading]. I was trimming my nose and it got caught, that killed. I’m fine with light tubes and barbed wire but that hurt.”

On when he decided to go back to wrestling after prison:

“Right away, that’s why I was training so hard on the inside. Couple of months down the line, I was like yeah lets do this. I scream 326 because that’s my boy who taught me everything. The guy is locked up right now, but he taught me how to lift, diet and train. He was a natural athlete. He was on the high school football team. I remember he told me this story that he smoked crack in the bathroom before a college football game on ESPN. The cameras are in his face and he was like never again.”

On critics of the deathmatch style:

“I understand what they are saying and I get it. But I just think it’s another art form of wrestling. I’m pretty sure back in the day when Dusty was bleeding, people were saying this isn’t wrestling. When guys started high flying, people were probably saying sh*t about that. I don’t listen to the critics. I am easy going, when I went to prison I learned patience. I’m also not big on the internet, becasue there are a lot of haters on there. They are keyboard haters that say sh*t, but if you meet them they won’t say it to you.”

On nearly killing David Arquette:

“My wife was like you’re on TMZ! He needed to stick to the script, but he went off of it. It wasn’t my fault, I know how to do things to take care of my opponent. I think he got scared, but relax, you’re not the first guy. We had the discussion, it’s entertainment. I’m not going to cut you badly if you stand still and relax. He spun when I had the glass in my hand, it went in his neck. In my head I thought I killed him. To get the glass, I had to go in the back and I saw Chris Hero. Man, I hadn’t seen him in ages but I saw him in the middle of the match. I think David was just doing it for the documentary. I went out and explained it to him the night before at a steak house. He wanted to do fire, I said no, it’s dangerous. I tried to explain that all of this is real. I think when I turned it up a notch he thought I was shooting on him. But what do I do, take it easy on the actor? I treated him like I treat everybody else.”

On trying to get paid for the documentary:

“He has called my house a couple of times where he used the footage for the documentary. I asked for some money and he told me he didn’t give out money for documentaries. He kept calling and his wife called [who produced the documentary]. I’m like when are you going to pay me? You used my footage and will make money from the documentary. Instead of money, they sent me a king sized mattress. It’s a little weird. I’ve still not opened it to this day.”

On if he could keep going into his 50’s:

“I don’t see why not, but I am a day by day kind of guy. We will see if I survive one if I can do another one. This is in my blood and I plan on doing it until I can’t anymore. I hope that when I can’t go no more, I can find a job in wrestling and I can stay in the business all my life.”

On what he is grateful for:

“My wife, the people I’m surrounded by and my health.”

Featured image: PW Ponderings

Stevie Richards is a professional wrestler, podcaster, and entrepreneur. He joins Chris Van Vliet to talk about his legendary career, starting his fitness company “Stevie Richards Fitness”, his time in ECW, being part of The Right to Censor, why WWE’s version of ECW didn’t work, being inspired to lose weight after Ivory called him “fat”, his time in Impact Wrestling, the Blue World Order, whether he would want to return to WWE and much more!

On his physical transformation:

“It was at the end of Right To Censor. That was when I was in the worst shape of my life, 262lbs and a 44 inch waist. I remember stepping on the scale in Milwaukee Wisconsin next to Bull Buchannan. You know how big that guy is. I weighed more than him, this was when I stopped making excuses. Ivory would walk buy and say ‘My God you’re getting fat.’ That sounds mean today but that was the best thing that every happened to me because it snapped me out of it. From that point on Jim Ross told me that my job was on the line. In all likelihood they were probably going to fire me anyway, but I should probably try to get in shape anyway. That started the process, even though it seemed like it was overnight. All I did was cut out fast food and cardio twice a day. I returned for a match on Heat, it was me and Justin Credible vs. The Big Show. I was 193. It wasn’t a transformation, it was getting lazy and needing a kick in the ass.”

On eating healthy while on the road:

“I was a protein shakes and bar guy, mostly because it was cheaper. Also I was so nervous before shows that I couldn’t eat. Catering was good but I would take it back to my room and gorge on it.”

On whether wrestling with a shirt affected his physique:

“That’s an interesting question, because there is a psychological thing to that. My personal life led to me making a lot of different excuses, things at home. People around me were caring about me going ‘Oh it’s only 10lbs.’ But they were enabling me. But I put a shirt on and it put 60lbs on me. You don’t have the accountability because you are covered up and start the diet tomorrow.”

On the origin of the Stevie Richards name:

“It was Steve Richards at first. At the time Jimmy Jannetty was a coach and J.T. Smith was another one. They had told me to think of a name of something. I wanted a name that was real, because no one would make up a name like Stevie Richards. Back then it was a thing that the business was still protected. It would be a big deal for someone to find you if they found out your name. That’s a whole different era, but it was a big thing if someone found out where you lived. I said my name was Steve Richards, and no one asked me ‘Well what’s your real name?’

On what he learned from Paul Heyman:

“Just about everything. It’s not just Paul Heyman, there’s also Raven, Tommy Dreamer and everyone at ECW. But Paul had patience and the talent. Paul could do me better than me, he could do everyone’s gimmick for them. Paul could cut my promo in my voice. I was nervous and wasn’t sure if what I was doing was good. Paul would produce me. He would ask me questions.”

On his vocal cords implants:

“The initial thing that happened was the Terry Funk guardrail thing on May 10th 1997. The guard rail thing messed me up for a while and had some neck injuries. In December it was bad, a lot of numbness and stingers from regular bumps. December 22nd 1997 I had neck fusion surgery. I woke up and I was thinking my voice wasn’t there because of the intubation tubes. It turned out that they had paralyzed one of my vocal cords. About 3 months later, they put the first vocal cord implant in. Then I had the second one when I was training with Shane McMahon for Saturday Night’s Main Event. Shane was training for a match with Shan Michaels. It was years of wear and tear and that was where the second implant came in. They also cut down the number of surgeries in a promo, because the number was too much for someone at my level. I had 19 throat surgeries, they were opening up the cords with minor surgeries to put the implant in the major surgeries.”

Chris asks if he could speak post surgery:

“I was able to speak then but it was very raspy. After the first neck surgery, I wasn’t able to speak up until about 3 months until the March surgery.”

On the origin of Right to Censor:

“Before that I was in obscurity and occasionally doing the parodies. Vince came up to me and pitched it himself. Aside from the first day, that was the only time he had talked to me. The interesting thing about Right to Censor was that it wasn’t supposed to be long term and I don’t think it was supposed to turn into what it did. It was supposed to be a political statement against the parent television council, it was supposed to be a middle finger to that. But at the same time it really gave me the opportunity to look at myself and have people look at me in a completely different light. I can talk and not just do silly comedy. A political thing can last a month and die out, but a cult, that can gather some steam. The writer Jacob Israel had the idea to turn it into a cult. He brought a whole new layer. I have to thank Jacon for that.”

On a possible Royal Rumble return:

“No not really. People ask me that all the time. People also ask me if I am retired. I guess I am because I don’t actively wrestle. If I was in a Rumble, I would politic so hard to get out of there the quickest. I want to beat Santino’s record. I would have to be TV ready. If someone wanted me to be on TV I would say no. I have to look a certain way, get in the ring and roll around. I don’t want to get in there and embarrass myself and the product. If it were to happen I would want a month to get ready.”

On the botch on Chris Master’s debut:

“So I have watched the Chris Masters interview [that Chris Van Vliet did]. I had no idea that Chris Masters had food poisoning. I wish that he would have told me, because I would have hyped him up that day. His debut live on RAW after those vignettes, his stomach would have been turning no matter what. I wish I knew that because I would have calmed him down. People were telling him ‘This is your one chance, don’t f*ck it up.’ I wish I could have countered that. I wasn’t aware. So when we went out there and the accident happened, that was the hardest I had ever been hit. My orbital bone was broken and my nose was over my eye. I needed root canals and canals for my teeth. What happened was my instincts knew, I got up and fed for The Masterlock. I’m amazed that wrestlers in worse conditions can finish matches.”

On the aftermath of the incident:

“I am visibly upset, but what are you going to do at this point? I just feel bad for the kid [Masters] I don’t want them to take him off of TV. Blood is gushing out of my nose, mouth and eyes. I walk in front of the monitors like that and go ‘Excuse me, has anyone seen Chris?’ Someone just points in his direction. I see Chris and if he wasn’t crying before he was on the verge. I say to him ‘I only have one question, how are your hands?’ And that was it, I just wanted to make sure he was OK. Also the office was watching me. He apologised and I forgave him. We shook hands and that was it. He’s a good guy.”

On if he went to the hospital after:

“I couldn’t fly because of the altitude, so I drove 357 miles from Penn State to Connecticut where I lived. When I dropped the rental car off, it looked like someone got murdered. It was brown leather with bloody hand prints everywhere. I was like it was like that when I rented it. They were fine with that but if I scratch the bumper with my bag it’s $100. I didn’t go to the hospital, I went to the gym. There’s 2 cops in there and I have 2 cuts on my face, it was the only thing I could do to feel in control.”

On why WWECW didn’t take off:

“That could be said for a lot of things that Vince McMahon didn’t create. He protects a lot of things that are on his brand. But I have heard that if it’s a star in another place, it’s the kiss of death. I was never known as a top guy in ECW, so I wasn’t that well known it was a blessing. But I loved the different look though. I think the whole thing was a vehicle for CM Punk. I heard from Joey Styles that ECW was the most profitable of all 3, because the investment vs. the return. You didn’t have to put that much money in and the Rise and Fall of ECW TV helped.”

On what he is grateful for:

“My health, the people that love and care about me and my faith.”

Stevie Richards can be found on Twitter here and Instagram here.

Featured image: WWE

Ring of Honor wrestler Danhausen joins Chris Van Vliet for a very rare out-of-character interview. He talks about how he created the Danhausen character, quitting his day job to be a full-time wrestler, what inspired the makeup and the voice, being of fan of Conan O’Brien and The Simpsons, being a guest on Conan O’Brien’s podcast, The Rock tweeting him, signing with Ring of Honor, his goals in wrestling and much more.

On his character:

“Well if you’re not going to do it, no one is going to. You need to at least get the ball rolling and put yourself out there. It was all about taking the risk and hoping people would catch on and want to help.”

On why he changed from his old gimmick to his new character:

“I would say frustration and uncomfortableness. As much as this character is out there and weird, this is way more naturally me than me trying to be a tough guy. It’s more natural than me pretending I’m going to beat everybody up, that’s not me. I was just trying to find myself and it was not working, I was striking out constantly. I was having good matches here and there, but it just doesn’t matter until you are comfortable.”

On what he was before Danhausen and what the character is:

“It was like a standard tattooed, bearded, independent wrestling guy. You just emulate the guys that you are watching, until you figure out what you actually want to do. So Danhausen, some people have said it’s like if Conan O’Brien got possessed by a demon. That’s probably the closest you can get to it in terms of describing it. It kind of just is what it is. I don’t have a set thing of what Danhausen is.”

On how the transition came about:

“It was being the indie guy, and it didn’t matter what I was doing. I was having good matches and getting opportunities, but no one cares really. I had wrestled Johnny Gargano at the beginning of my career, which is awesome. That was followed by wrestling Ricochet almost straight after. I’m like this is great, but I can have good matches with those guys because they are amazing. But no one cares, because I am just another dude. That carried on for about 4 or 5 years. I was just a guy doing shows here and there trying to figure it out. There was something that people wanted to like about me, but I don’t know if I had it at the time. I had moved onto Florida, and discovered that there is not much of a wrestling scene down there. It’s literally NXT and a few indies here and there.”

On frustrations and final developments of the character:

“Florida didn’t work out, and I came back to Michigan. I started hammering down on wrestling every week that I possibly could. But it was still going nowhere and I didn’t feel like I was getting better at wrestling. I was getting increasingly frustrated, hurt and I was losing money. In 2017, I thought about quitting, because it sucked. Before I decided to quit, I wanted to give it one more real go. I did literally whatever I felt like doing, and waiting to see if it pays off. At that point it was entirely on me. I switched over to a horror based character, full on evil. I also switched up my makeup depending on the show I was doing. Eventually I settled on an Exorcist style makeup, because I wore it at a Halloween party once. I thought it was cool, so I decided to modify it to make it my own thing. It was the easiest to do, and that’s what caught people’s eye. I kept getting fan art from it. We did the evil thing for about a year, and it was catching on. But horror fans are niche, so it needed to evolve more. It took another year for the process to evolve. I took the idea of a vampire thinking he is wrestling, the inspiration is from Shadow of the Vampire. It was fun, and the videos were doing better than the more serious ones. So lets try and mix this with my current character. The humour got the ball rolling more.”

On promoters reaction to the new character:

“So the promoters saw that I had more fun wrestling with this character. I just let loose because it is kind of like wearing a mask, you don’t feel like yourself. I remember someone being iffy about it, because guys with makeup are generally not that great. But they let me do it and they were happy that they took the chance.”

On when he noticed the character taking off:

“I would say when the fan art started to come in a lot. October 2019 was when it really took off, because promoters were like ‘Oh you want the scary guy for the show.’ I had only been doing the very nice/very evil part for about 6 months, but it was slow build. In October it was every weekend. People thought that I might be leaving after October, I was like I can’t. I had to make the most of being booked 3-4 times a week during that month. I showed that I could keep this character going.”

On getting signed to Ring of Honor:

“That was thanks to Alex Shelly. I rode with him a couple of times and we really bonded on the car rides. He saw what I was doing and he liked it. He thought that it was something that ROH needed. Ring of Honor had booked me a couple of times already, just based on me being weird and different. They allowed me to be full on Danhausen without changing anything. I have been thankful for that, if you change it, the character won’t work. So Alex said ‘you should sign this guy.’ ROH said yes and that was it.”

On how his character is not too over the top:

“Everything I do is based in reality. I can’t shoot lightning from my fingers or do any supernatural stuff. But the character thinks he can. Like the tequila spot, I get the fans to dance along and I get their energy. That’s a real thing, you can feed off of that. You get excited from it, so it makes sense. No swearing makes sense, because it will get you taken off the air. The teeth thing is a “legal” way to cheat. I can argue with the ref that I am just putting more teeth in. It’s not thumbtacks, it’s just gross.”

On finding his voice:

“So before I found this voice, I used to just have this deep voice. The current one came from me just liking voice acting. Conan O’Brien does voices as he is doing skits, so it came from that. I am also a huge fan of The Simpsons. Also Mark Hamill from Batman the animates series. I will practice them in the car and cut promos by myself. It helps a lot on the long drives to shows. Filming the videos and hearing them back helped me to tweak them.”

On his future goals:

“One goal is I would like to be on television more. I would like to get some sort of cartoon that is not wrestling related. I think that the Danhausen character can translate over into a mainstream audience. The Conan O’Brien interview sort of proves that. There are legs for it outside of wrestling, but I don’t want to leave wrestling, but I want to draw more people to it.”

On potentially running out of content:

“I do fear it but it hasn’t happened yet. I keep thinking what can top this? But then something happens and it does. I think as long as I stay true and have fun with it, I will always have content. All of my stuff is just me reacting off of real life things, and life doesn’t stop. Theoretically I should always have content.”

On what he is grateful for:

“My wife, Davis and Nick for filming things for me, and my fans.”

Featured image credit: Instagram

Danhausen can be found on Twitter here and Instagram here.

Dark Side of the Ring airs on Vice and takes an in-depth look at some of the most memorable and controversial stories in the world of pro wrestling. Co-creators Evan Husney and Jason Eisener join Chris Van Vliet to talk about season 3 of the show. They discuss some of the most memorable episodes including Brian Pillman, Chris Benoit, The Montreal Screwjob, Owen Hart, and others, where they came up with the idea for the show, how they pitched it to Vice, how Covid changed their production plans, making their re-enactments look so good, the films they worked on before and much more!

On pitching the show to VICE:

Evan: “Oh man, it was actually a lot of fun. It was one of those pitch meeting where everything was clicking and everyone was having fun, In terms of looking back at 80’s wrestling. I remember that it went so well, I could have elbow dropped the table and went right through it. It would have totally fit the tone of the pitch meeting. I think that everyone was really excited about it. There was a world where a lot of it can be explored. It was right around the time that tails from the tour bus had come out. It was about the sex, drugs and rock and roll lifestyle of the 60’s. This is like that but with wrestling. There’s the territory side, there’s the kayfabe side, it’s got all this stuff. I think that it seemed to click. That being said, there’s still the process of getting the budget approved and the money. It took some hurdles to get to that point eventually. But the original pitch meeting was a lot of fun.”

On TV executives not being receptive to wrestling:

Jason: “It’s funny that you say that. Originally Evan and I wanted to make a narrative, scripted series. Basically the wrestling territory days. We went to Hollywood with a pitch that’s like The Sopranos of the wrestling world. That just went over every studio executives head. Every time we mentioned wrestling, they would just tone out of it. We did all this research and we have all this energy, we really wanted to tell wrestling stories in a cinematic way. Then we applied that to Dark Side of The Ring. We get to tell these stories in a documentary format. Maybe someday we will get to take some of them to the big screen.”

On what they were know for before Dark Side of The Ring:

Jason: “I guess it was the first feature movie I made, Hobo With a Shotgun. It was this crazy genre action movie starring Rutger Hauer. That’s probably what I was most known for. I worked on a couple of films, made a couple of anthologies. I worked on Goon 2 and the Netflix Death Note movie. Me and Evan have also got a couple of projects we hope to develop in the future.”

Evan: “For me, I kind of bounced around a lot in the film industry. When Jason and I met 11 or 12 years ago, I was actually in film distribution. I worked at a lot of companies re-releasing cult movies. A lot of older, weirder bizzaro movies I have unearthed. From there I started Alamo Drafthouse, and we released a couple of awesome movies. From there I found myself on VICE. I started producing documentaries for the YouTube channel. I wanted to do something with wrestling so bad, because it was such a huge part of my childhood. We had this opportunity to make stuff at VICE, so lets do something with wrestling. It took a while, actually until VICE’s TV channel really started, where there would be a budget to do something.”

On how they retell stories already well known:

Evan: “Well specifically with The Montreal Screwjob one, back in the beginning of the show we didn’t have the name Dark Side of The Ring. We just knew it was going to be this wrestling documentary series. We wanted to cover all of the big stories and the controversies. But we really wanted to turn on broader audiences to this world. We wanted to bring them into the fold and have them just as riveted and excited about these stories as we are. At the time we were like The Montreal Screwjob is such a great entry point for a non-wrestling fan to get into understanding the inner workings of the company. Understand, kayfabe and backstage politics and all that stuff. But also it came from Jason and I just really wanting to see wrestling covered in a way that takes shoot interviews on YouTube and elevates it. We wanted to combine our documentary experiences with wrestling.”

On finding lookalikes for the wrestling re-enactments on the show:

Jason: “Well we shoot the show in Toronto, and luckily there’s a few independent wrestling crews there. We reach out to them and work closely with them and their roster. It’s also searching on Instagram ‘Toronto gyms’ and trying to match the silhouette. The effect of shooting it in slow motion and the noire vibe of it where everyone is back lit. In wrestling, once you see a character like a Hulk Hogan or Randy Savage, if you just saw the outline of them, you know who they are. It looks cool with the slow motion, but we are cheating a lot. If you turned on the light, we would be laughed out of the room.”

On Jason and Evan having to be lookalikes:

Jason: “I play Mick Foley in the Herb Abrams episode. Even you placyed Rick Mercer in the Gino Hernandez episode.”

Evan: “Well I played Jimmy Hart, lets not just breeze over that. I don’t look anything like Jimmy Hart, that is the best example of someone not looking like who they should be. When Jason said I was going to be Jimmy Hart, I had no choice in the matter. It was basically lets see how this works. When they put the wig on and drew all of the facial hair on me, then there’s the sunglasses. Then there’s the suit too, once you gimmick it up, you realize how iconic some of the wrestlers were. Now if it’s like we need a Randy Orton, you got to get really specific.”

On who helped them the most in getting the connections needed for the show:

Jason: “There’s so many people. From the very beginning when we did the Bruiser Brody episode as our pilot. Having Dutch Mantel, he was an incredible resource. He helped so much with that episode and other episodes in the season. He also narrated the first season. Also Barbara Goodish, Bruiser Brody’s wife, we have to thank her so much. When we wanted to tell that story, the very first episode, we knew we had to have Barbara on board. She was the first one to check us out and trust us. Then from there, people have so much respect today for both Brody and Barbara. We would contact wrestlers, they would be on the fence but then they would call Barbara. She would give the OK and then the wrestlers would say it’s cool. That happened a lot in the binning stages of the show. Barbara really batted for us, we owe her so much.”

Evan: “Even in season 2 we had to call Barbara a few times. I remember David Schultz, who is now a good friend of the show, but at the time didn’t know who we were. He got cold feet at one point, but the respect he has for Brody, especially Barbara, that runs so deep. She came to the rescue and made it all happen. She’s just the best. There have been others along the way. Jim Ross is a guy I think about in terms of Steve Austin coming on board. I think the Martha Hart inclusion in the Owen Hart episode has been a big calling card too.”

On a list of future episodes:

Evan: “Yeah we have kept a list over the seasons of the years. We always ask viewers what they want to see. We have to credit our viewers too. They have definitely shown the enthusiasm of what they really want to see. That has definitely forced us or motivated us to try and make those episodes happen. Also there’s a ton that for personal reasons we want to get in there. There’s definitely a few in this season. The Road Warriors was a personal one we wanted to get in for season 2. For season 3, I know during the lockdown my wrestling viewing was strictly FMW. It was something I had always passed over, so we are doing an FMW episode. But we all try and get together, hash it out and try to find those elements that will transcend the wrestling bubble and try to hook an audience outside of it. I think that wrestling is an oddly perfect setting for a lot of these stories. Because there is this blurred lines aspect, the fourth wall aspect. Wrestling becomes this microcosm of society. It’s an interesting way to look at politics or human dynamics or entertainment through that lens. We always try to look at what stories can we look at through the lens of wrestling. That helps us weed out the other stories. Some don’t fit that bill, there isn’t the strong connection or first hand information. As soon as we get one, we are off and making it as quick as possible.”

On the impact of COVID during filming:

Evan: “When COVID broke out in a big way, it was during the filming of season 2. In March 2020, we were filming the last scenes of our re-enactments for season 2.”

Jason: “We were shooting in studio, and we were getting word that this was happening, this was on our last day. The next day, Toronto completely shut down. But we still had to go to the office to finish the episodes. It was a really weird experience. Evan and I are just walking in downtown Toronto to work with like no one around. It’s just us in the studio with a couple of editors. Eventually it shut down to the point of closing the studio and giving me a giant hard drive. We ended up having to finish the episodes remotely. It was like how do we make the show during this. It was weird when we released the show too. We were going to have a premiere and everything. That got shut down days before. Thankfully people watch it. We hear a lot people thanking us for creating content that people could watch during the lockdown. I felt bad that we didn’t get to celebrate this hard work. But at the same time people were being so appreciative. Then it’s time to make season 3, and this stuff is not over. How do we do this? But we started figuring out all of the COVID protocols. We got an RV, me, Evan and some camera operators criss-crossed America. The worst thing is that Evan and I are normally living together and producing the show together. But now he is handling the American side and I am handling the stuff here in Canada. But we do video calls with our team every day.”

Evan: “Yeah it was daunting because we’re going to make another season during this pandemic. There’s also the fact that it’s 14 episodes. I wasn’t anticipating that, it’s almost twice the amount of episodes that had already existed. We really had to figure out how we were going to do this. Other shows had been filming already, and the RV model was working. That was wild, we were travelling from LA to Charlotte, North Carolina. We were going around multiple times, but it was the safest way to do it. I think for us it was safety first. We definitely did not want to put anyone at risk. Secondly, we did not want to sacrifice the quality of the show in any way. If we could do both, then lets do this. We didn’t want to do zoom interviews, we wanted to do it like we did before. I’m grateful that we maintained safety and the show is still the same. That comes down to our team who has been amazing this year. Everyone has been firing on all cylinders.”

On a future interview that they want to get:

Evan: “So for this season, we are doing an episode about the steroid trials. That’s one of the more significant events outside the ring in the wrestling world of the 90’s. We were able to interview Vince’s long time attorney Jerry McDevitt. To us, that is a new threshold in terms of access. He still is a part of the company in some ways. I’m hoping that will allow us to interview more folks behind the scenes at WWE. Maybe stories that aren’t related to their time in WWE, but could appear on the show. For example, Michael Hayes works in WWE as The Freebirds. I could see a future episode on The Freebirds.”

On what they are grateful for:

Evan: “My parents, our team and the family members we talk to for the show.”

Jason: “My friends and family being healthy, our crew and everyone for staying safe.”

Jason Eisener can be found on Twitter here. Evan Husney can be found on Twitter here.

Featured image credit: Twitter

QT Marshall is a professional wrestler for All Elite Wrestling (AEW) and is the Director of Creative Coordination behind the scenes. He is also the head trainer at the Nightmare Factory wrestling school in Atlanta, GA. He talks with Chris Van Vliet about his faction “The Factory”, turning heel, his match against Cody Rhodes, the correct pronunciation of his last name, how AEW has pivoted during Covid to continue running shows when AEW might start touring again, and much more!

On how the past year has been:

“It’s been a heck of a year. Unfortunately the pandemic has been happening, but professionally it’s one of the greatest things for me. It gave me the opportunity to showcase what I could really do in the ring. It has led me to a lot more opportunities.”

On what has changed in the last year:

“I think it would be the fact that I am almost now a key player on Dynamite, before I was just doing the backstage thing. I dipped my toes in wrestling, but in the past year I’ve really been able to prove myself. And also, take my spot into my hands and take what I have deserved in the last 17 years.”

On how he got to wrestle in the pandemic:

“When the boss asks you to go out on live TV because there aren’t many people that he trusts, that kind of gave me a bit of confidence to start speaking up and asking for more opportunities. One thing I didn’t have to learn was how to wrestle. It was more about waiting for the right time, getting that opportunity and getting the ball, not fumbling it.”

On being a heel:

“I love it. I’m not a meet and greet kind of person. The way the fans talk to the wrestlers through social media, [Mike] Tyson thinks it’s because they won’t get punched in the face. But I challenge anyone who says anything to me to come down to The Nightmare Factory and try. As long as they sign the waiver, I don’t want getting sued. But I don’t want fans opinions, they are not critics.”

On AEW being unopposed on Wednesdays:

“Firstly I think it’s exciting, because there’s going to be more eyes on our product. But also, MTV Challenge, I didn’t know it was a thing. They have the top spot on TV every week and we are competing with them. I just think we need to give people the best product and get people interested in what we are doing. In our stories, characters and personalities. Just hope each fan will watch and tell a friend.”

On his shift in character:

“It was around the time that I started teaming with Dustin [Rhodes]. All the comments from the fans [saying] ‘I don’t deserve to team with Dustin. It should be this person it should be that person. QT doesn’t deserve TV time.’ Wherever they got that from was the narrative from the beginning. If AEW actually presented me as who I am, a 17 hear veteran who has travelled the world. A guy who busted his ass… But we didn’t present me as that, we presented it as Cody’s coffee getter. Think about the first match, I was presented as this guy who couldn’t anything. Then we flipped the opinion of the fans by the end of the match. That was planned. We wanted to get me over and for me to succeed. We were able to do that, but not able to capitalize. Little by little that hard work I’ve been doing, I was offered a backstage deal. So the moment I got in the ring, this was my time. But when I realized I was just going to be in the shadow of the Rhodes family, I started building my own team. I decided it’s now or never, and got Cody to do that exhibition match. No turning back now, lets go full speed ahead and take no prisoners.”

On having 3 roles: in ring, behind the scenes and training talent:

“Those are all of my passions. I love teaching and I love behind the scenes, I have one on ones with Tony [Khan] all the time. It’s very fun, but it is time consuming and tiring. I can definitely see a difference if we are up all night and I have to be in the ring the next day. With that there is pressure. But deep down I know that the money for me is behind the scenes. I have to go above and beyond to make sure I don’t mess that up. If one gets taken away, it will be the wrestling.”

On how dynamite was moved to the factory:

“The whole world was shutting down but I knew our building was shutting down too. One thing led to another, the building guy got in touch with our facility, we were able to make a deal. We closed the building, turned 4 rings into 1, curtains up. We were able to film a live Dynamite that Wednesday night. But the next day the World got closed. We filmed 6 weeks worth of TV in one day. It was a very tiring day, but we did it. I didn’t wrestle on any of those, which killed me. I realized when I saw that setup, I could do it for our facility. The setup is really cool. We teach everything from lights, audio, video, everything you could think of.”

What he has learned during this time at Daily’s Place:

“So one thing about wrestling in front of a wrestling school is that I have wrestled in front of wrestlers almost every night. For me, it was kind of like home. But for the big stars, I’m sure it’s harder for them. It’s nuts that we are watched by 1 million people but have 1 thousand in attendance. Of course you can redo stuff, you have the option if there is no audience. We try not to and don’t want to, but you have the audience. It’s weird because we always teach that there is no second take, but that’s TV magic for you.”

On whether AEW will be going back on the road:

“I think so. As more states open up, I mean look at UFC. They just had a sold out crowd in Jacksonville. I haven’t been following, so I don’t know what happened afterwards. I hope the effect wasn’t that bad and with vaccinations we can get back to normal. The one thing I want is a sold out crowd. My biggest fear is no noise. But wrestling with no noise on AEW Dark, I think we will be OK now.”

On meeting Cody for the first time:

“It was backstage at Ring of Honor. I was doing commentary at the time for Women of Honor, that was the deal. I met him and he was nice. He asked me if I could let Brandi [Rhodes] in the back door. Damien Priest told Cody that I had a facility, because Brandi wanted to train. One thing led to another, he wanted to train somewhere for All In. He wanted someone with passion and thought the same way he did. When AEW started he was presented with the opportunity to have an assistant. I remember him asking me to join and telling me what I was going to make. Man, I was like Jesus, I just want to wrestle. I didn’t want to ruin anything that I already have. But I’m always going to be known as Cody’s guy, but that’s not what I want. I want to be someone who gets opportunities by working hard.”

On what he is grateful for:

“My health, the support I have and my overall success.”

Image credit: ewrestling news

QT Marshall can be found on Twitter here and Instagram here

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Jeff Jarrett is a professional wrestler inducted into both the WWE and TNA Hall of Fame. He is also a businessman and wrestling promoter. He joins Chris Van Vliet to talk about his new podcast called “My World with Jeff Jarrett” that he is co-hosting with Conrad Thompson, his legendary 35-year career in the wrestling business, some of the controversial storylines he was involved in with Kurt Angle, Hulk Hogan and Chyna, his favorite memories of Owen Hart, why he started TNA Wrestling, bringing in the 6-sided ring, how he came up with the phrase “Slap Nuts” and much more!

On whether he thought he would ever be starting a podcast:

“No I didn’t. It goes without saying that from business perspective you can and should learn from the past. I’ve always been thinking forward and raised in the business. No matter how good or bad your last match or story was, it’s in the past. You got to be better next week. I’ve never really looked in the rear-view mirror. Certainly growing up in this business, being in locker rooms and car rides, I’ve told a lot of stories and I’m not interested in telling them again. But with the world we live in and on demand entertainment is fascinating to me. I’m excited, Conrad has a unique way of diving into the story that highly interests me. There’s lots of narrative that swirls around the stories. And I was a wrestling fan before I was anything else, I love the industry in that aspect. And whether they love you or hate you, just keep talking.”

On what he is the most proud of in his career:

“The perseverance. Because this is not an easy industry at all. I’m one of 5 kids and I was the only one that got into the business. Many folks have said that my father being the promoter for you is either the best or the worst. I agree, it is both a blessing and a curse. But I’ve always loved it, got a passion for it. I was always fascinated by it as a young kid. Not just the product, but everything that goes around it. But I’ve just celebrated 35 years in the business. Whether it was USWA, WCCW, WWF, WCW, TNA Global Force, Hall of Fame all of that. When I look back, the perseverance and the drive, it’s up to me to get up and put on my work boots.”

On the genesis of slap nuts:

“That’s a funny story. My grandmother used to call folks “slappies.” That is people who slapped their gums. They know more and more about less and less every day. So just during that time, the slap nuts just rolled off. I was called in at Nitro when slap nuts was taking off. They said ‘We need to ask you a question.’ They were dead serious ‘What does slap nuts mean? We have looked in the Urban Dictionary and we can not find it.’ I’m like wow this business has come a long way, I’m being questioned about where slap nuts came from.”

On how to do a good guitar shot:

“Swing it as hard as I possibly can. You got to swing it as hard as you can, same as with a chair shot to the back. If you stutter, edges can get in. I don’t bat 1000 but not bad, accidents do happen, ask Kurt. There was a time where I busted him open a few times, it can happen. There was a time where WCW ordered prop guitars, if there was a gust of wind you had to be careful/ But the best ones are store bought ones with magic tricks I did to them.”

3 things he wish he knew if he started TNA:

“I started when I was 35 years old, that’s a young businessman for a start up company. It’s one show a week, but it is consuming. In 2002, we didn’t have the tools or capabilities. I used to say phone calls wouldn’t accomplish what a face to face would do. Video calls have somewhat advanced it though. Time management is something in the early days of TNA. It wasn’t like it was back then. Delegation would be number 2 and not to get hung up on single decisions would be number 3.”

On what is his favourite work of his career:

“There’s different eras. I’ve always said my early days in Memphis, working with Lawler, who was my idol. In my opinion he is right there at the top. I had a series of matches with The Moondogs, there’s WCW with the World Championships, I could go on. There’s TNA with me and Sting, it goes without saying he was a gamechanger. He got some momentum. There’s also Kurt Angle. Kurt’s timing and in ring skillset is unbelievable. His timing is incredible.”

On if any podcast subjects are off limits:

“When you say off limits. Look, I’m here to tell my story. I’ve had many screw ups and mess ups. At this stage of life, if there’s one thing that somebody hears and goes that’s interesting and they learn from it. Whether I can pass on experience I’ve had in the ring or a wrestler can hear it. It might be a business tip and I can tell people how not to do things. But in 2021 it’s on demand entertainment. If I can be a part of that, I’m happy to do that. We are in the world of sports entertainment. Today, the art of podcasting is as much of a part of sports entertainment as a headlock.”

On Vince knowing Jeff would lose to Chyna at No Mercy 1999:

“It’s like any promotor, Vince had to have faith in me. At the end of the day, he’s been around longer than I have. If I didn’t do it, so what? There’s tomorrow’s RAW to fix that. I’m banking on the odds that he has faith in me. The following day he took his company public. You can talk about WrestleMania and you can talk about Summerslam, but it doesn’t hold a candle to the day he went public. He built a 3rd generation business. He spent 16 weeks in 1999 saying he was going to take a professional wrestling company public.”

On alleged heat with Vince McMahon:

“That is something I’m going to get into with Conrad. Vince didn’t have to pay me to do the Chyna match. He’s the promotor. But he gave me the cheque, I tried to give my effort as much as I could. The storyline was marvellous. But to get the opportunity, we hugged after the match too. When my wife got sick, Vince called. I’ve talked to Vince about TNA, we are businessmen. There was never really anything there, but it’s a business. But why bring in someone who was on the other side of the fence?”

On Owen Hart:

“A lot of people say tell me a funny Owen story. The one thing Owen taught me was integrity. He didn’t drink or smoke, I wished I listened to him. He knew how to take a boring journey and make it entertaining. That in of itself, he enjoyed everyday. That’s one of the things that rubbed off. There’s no such thing as a bad day for Owen. But also the way that he conducted himself. He would stand up for what he thought was right but in a respectful way.”

On what he is grateful for:

“My creator God, my saviour Jesus Christ and the spirit that keeps me going every day.”

Image credit: WWE

Jim Johnston is a music composer who worked as the music producer for WWE from 1985 – 2017. He is the man responsible for the legendary theme songs for Stone Cold Steve Austin, Triple H, Mick Foley, Degeneration X, The Undertaker, Vince McMahon, Shane McMahon, Randy Orton and countless others. During the course of his 32-year career with WWE he composed more than 10,000 pieces of music before he was released in 2017. Jim joins Chris Van Vliet from his studio in Greenwich, CT where he talks about how he started working for WWE, his process behind creating music, some of his favorite themes, why he doesn’t think he will be inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame and he ends the interview with a beautiful piano rendition of The Undertaker’s theme song.

On music always being big in his life:

“Early on my grandmother was always singing. My family is from Pocahontas Arkansas, she got a scholarship to go to Julliard to study opera. That wasn’t on the cards, she wasn’t going to leave her husband in Pocahontas to study opera. But she played the organ and she sang every week of her life in church. She would also play when we visited in the summer. My dad also had an organ, and my parents listened to a lot of different kind of music. I’ve just always noticed music, I would hear it in other rooms. There was this pivotal moment where my parents had taken me and my brother to an amusement park. We’re walking around and I hear music playing. I go round the turn and there is this band on a stage. They are very Beatles-esque, just playing away. If there are music drugs, I had 48 needles hanging out of my arms at that point. That was all I needed to hear, I’m doing that. It’s pretty interesting, because I have massive stage fright, I can barely play my wife a new song. So I never became a performer, nor did I want to. I wanted that feeling, I could have stayed there for as long as they could have played. Everyone has moments where they are truly moved by music. From then on I begged my dad to buy me a guitar. He wouldn’t, but he rented one for a year.”

On music being a potential career:

“I wanted to, but my father had doubts. If you want to go into music as a living, that’s a long shot. You’re playing the long odds on that one. You need a bunch of things to come together. You need a certain innate skill. If you don’t have that, you have to be a combination of tremendous performer and really good PR skills. Some people pull that off, they can surround themselves with others that can carry the load. I always did the plastic arts, meaning physical arts, painting etc. I was going down the path of being an architect or graphic design. I had been accepted to architectural school, but right before I was going to go, I said to my dad I can’t go. I said I had to try this music thing. He was disappointed.”

On trying to balance work and music:

“I was supporting myself as a carpenter and falling into the forever trap of doing it during the day and working on my music at the night. But of course by the time 6 o clock comes around, you want to go out for a beer with your friends, you’re tired and you want to go to bed. Music isn’t a 9 to 5 job either, it’s like a 16 hour day job if you want to accomplish something.”

On how he got to WWE:

“I was coming up the ranks by doing a lot of work for HBO and MTV. I was scoring stuff and doing anything I could get my hands on. My favourite food was sushi and there was only one place in town that had it. The guy started with 4 seats and it turned to 8 seats. It was like a local bar, you would see the same people in there when you went in. One night I went in and someone said to me ‘Didn’t you say you write music?’ He then explained that he worked for WWE and he was the art director for them. He had been asked to put together a video for a cable TV convention, and he needed music for it. Through that I met Vince McMahon, we hit it off really well. This was when there wasn’t entrance music. Vince’s father told him ‘If you put music to this programme, you will completely kill this business.’ So big miss by dad there. Vince and I just sort of kept developing the idea. First it was show themes, and a couple of guys had a theme. It was just an organic process, there was no long term plan. For a while, it was only babyfaces that got themes. That was something I pushed back on, heels needed good music. Finally, that turned too and heels got good music too, they are no different to babyfaces. Heels you love to hate, faces you love to love.”

On his first piece of music he heard live:

“I think it was the theme for WrestleMania 1. It was a big saxophone theme, and it was such a rush to hear my music played for the first time in an arena. That was the closest I was going to get to that feeling people talk about when they do concerts. I get that connection with the audience and that rush and that feeling.”

On Jim’s contract status while in WWE:

“For the first 15 years, maybe longer, Vince and I just had a handshake agreement. I wasn’t an employee. It wasn’t like he didn’t want me as an employee or I didn’t want to be, it’s just we were fine with the way things were. It wasn’t until the company went public, and it was bring on the lawyers. They come in and do risk assessments. They are like this guy can just walk out and work for the NFL tomorrow, that wouldn’t be a good thing. So then I got a contract and became an employee. In my admiration for Vince, I think we would have worked until my last day with a handshake and both be perfectly happy.”

On the process of writing a new theme:

“I never really got a whole lot of information. If I could see any video, that helped tremendously. Where I start, I want to know a basic tempo and vibe. If it’s a giant guy, it’s going to be a slower theme. The tempo reflects he’s a big guy. The guys that are smaller, you want to reflect the energy. You start there and I just try to find something that resonates. I just start playing stuff and something will make me go that’s it.”

On quick turnaround times for themes:

“[Chris pitches the scenario “We’re debuting this new guy tonight and he needs a theme.”] Oh that happened all the time. That was not rare in the least. Sometimes like an hour and a half. I would get a call from where they are shooting TV and they needed something. The writers decided this guy was in a tag team but now he’s solo, so they say give me anything. It’s easy to say that, but I felt a great responsibilities. Part of these guys successes were in my hands. I think the music in WWE and AEW is all really homogenous and mediocre. It doesn’t have anything to do with the character, and that’s why there are less big stars. I don’t think that there are no potential big stars on the rosters. Before Steve Austin was Steve Austin, he was The Ringmaster. These guys need the right story, the right costume and the right music. These themes are serving multiple masters in a way. It’s entertainment for the audience, a big boot in the ass for the wrestler, and to get them in the right headspace of their character and to get them jacked up to do a great performance. You’re supposed to go out there and be your character with generic wrester guy music. You’re supposed to be out there and be on top of the world. I think that’s a big ask.”

On the importance of entrance themes:

“I always saw WWE as a live movie. I always felt the stories and the characters were like from the movies. Their themes need to be like from Jaws or Darth Vader. You have to hear it and think like yeah, OK, here comes Steve Austin. You don’t need to know anything else. You don’t need to know the storyline, you don’t need to know who he is wrestling tonight. You don’t need to know what happened last week or what’s going to happen next week. All you need to know is that Steve Austin is coming out, and it’s like boom I’m good to go. You’re instantly in that defiant, go screw yourself frame of mind. You take that out of the wrestling business, I think that’s an enormous component. It’s like you’re putting too much responsibility onto the audience. If you are watching a movie, and the movie isn’t very good, you’re not following the movie. If the audience reaction is confusion, you’re fighting a losing battle.”

On if AEW ever contacted him:

“No and it always amazed me from a business angle. If I was in that work room, I would say ‘Vince just fired Jim, this is a way we could really stick it to them. Find that guy and get him in here this afternoon.’ It doesn’t make sense to me.”

On his favorite collaborations:

“I guess the ones with Motörhead we’re really exciting. I think that was a lesson in don’t ever pre-judge. Lemmy has a pretty formidable reputation of being a bit of a wild guy and a well known drinking problem. But then to finally meet him and be in the studio with him, he could not have been more of a gentleman. He was a really interesting guy to talk with, things are never what you think.”

On writing Billy Gunn’s Ass Man theme:

“[I got it] from him because he already was the ass man. He had Mr Ass on his ass. To this day the thing that gets me is the double entendre pun of that song. It still makes me laugh right now. It comes off as a sexual thing, yet his character was a little bit of a buffoon. I’m not sure if it was on purpose or the way he played it. But put the comma in ‘I’m an ass, man.’ But that kind of stuff was the best of WWE, they were having fun. But now everyone is just so serious. All the top guys, Austin, Rock etc were fun. It was more dry humour, sarcasm.”

On some of his final projects:

“I wrote quite a few things, but they weren’t being used because I was being politically squashed. It was End of Days for Baron Corbin. Which was very apropos, if you look at the lyrics, there’s always something personal to the themes. A lot of the times it’s very personal. Baron’s was purely an epic I’m bringing end of days on you, it’s very biographical. Also I’m talking about the end is coming, I’m bowing out. The big goodbye was my end of days. There’s a lot of stuff in there, anger and disappointment. But that happened a lot. I wrote No Chance In Hell when I was really angry with Vince. It was a literal telling of what I saw, you have no chance against this guy. He doesn’t play by the rules.”

On himself singing on themes and the use of outside music:

“Certainly not that many, and for a couple of reasons. Firstly, I didn’t sing a whole lot. Generally speaking, finding good singers is the most difficult thing I deal with. Once you find the singer, they are part of the gimmick. I couldn’t use Chris Warren [singer of DX theme] on anything else. But you can expand it out, because Triple H was in DX. But you can only stretch it out so far, because people will hear a different theme and think that’s the guy from DX. For me, I always thought it was so crucially important. When WWE started to use pieces of outside music, people thought it was bigger if you use outside music. I believe that’s true for something like a pay per view theme, to brand the pay per view, such as Highway to Hell [Summerslam 1998]. But not as a theme. When you hear someone’s theme, you have no associations with that other than that person. You can’t have Undertaker coming out and people thinking about the first time they made out with their girlfriend. You just want hyper focus, and people to be immersed in this world of this character. Outside music, whether they like it or hate it, they associate it with that.”

On royalty cheques differing on where they are played or length of theme played:

“Timing yes, definitely, and where yes. If you have a piece of music that’s played for 1 minute on USA network, lets say that $100. If that played on CBS in primetime, it could be a couple of thousand dollars. I’ve never tried to [compare], it’s hard unless you have the same piece played on multiple shows. There’s actually a controversy going on right now with performance rights societies. So many people are getting their content through streaming, and composers are getting less. It has to change, because it is happening exponentially fast. The bigger problem now is what are the terrestrial TV stations going to do? How are they going to transition, is regular TV going to fade away?”

On being able to use his music in other projects:

“Every piece of music has 2 owners, the composer and the publisher. In a situation like mine, I’m the sole composer and WWE is the sole publisher. There are 2 ways at looking at it. Either I won 50% and they own 50%. But the music industry is 200%, I own 100% of the composition side and they own 100% of the publishing side. The weirdness to that system is if you’re the publisher, you have all the power. For example, Ford could come to us and say they want to use Stone Cold’s theme for the new F150. I could say great idea, and the publisher says no, and they are not doing it. Along with that, I can’t do anything with my own music, because they are the publisher. I have to go to them and get permission to sell it. If not I am dead in the water. It’s very weird not to use my own music for something. Post WWE, I found myself where I have to recreate a reel of music which is mine. Even a few songs that were my songs, they are mine. But the master is owned by WWE. So I can’t use that recording. This is what is happening with Taylor Swift, she is re-recording the masters. There are a lot of unfairness’s in the music industry.”

On a possible Hall of Fame induction:

“I think if they haven’t already they’re not going to. It’s one of those pesky things where you don’t want to be petty about it. But it’s like you guys did fire me, but you want me to come back and put me over by doing the Hall of Fame. Would it be an honor? Sure. But at the same time it would be uncomfortable. There are people there that I don’t want to see and don’t want to shake their hand. But it’s not a big aspect of my life now. But one of the positive things after doing WWE for so long is to write whatever you want.”

On what he is grateful for:

“This period of time. Chapter one was WWE and chapter 2 is imminent. My wife and just being blessed by God to live a great life.”

Image credit: Sports Illustrated

Jim Johnston can be found on Twitter here.