Nia Jax (@LinaFanene) is a professional wrestler currently signed to WWE. She sits down with Chris Van Vliet in London, England to discuss her WWE return and why it has been much more successful this time around, punching Becky Lynch and the backlash that followed, responding to online critics, taking an RKO from Randy Orton in the Royal Rumble, yelling “My Hole” during a match on Raw, taking a stinkface from Rhea Ripley at a WWE live event, crushing Lyra Valkyria, getting hit by a drunk driver before her wrestling career started, being cousins with The Rock and more!

Chelsea Green said you were a locker room leader, nothing but love for you!

“I love that. That’s awesome. She’s great. I honestly feel the same about her. But it is funny, since I come back, I have kind of taken on the role of a little bit of the locker room leader. I’ve been here longer than most of the girls in the locker room, I’m older, and I’ve seen it all, so I feel as though you kind of have to have a little bit of a tradition in the locker room, and I think it kind of gets lost in this new age. Some of the new people, they didn’t come up when I came up. My coach was Bill DeMott when I got hired for the WWE, and he was very old school, very traditional in the ways, you know, shake hands, introduce yourself to everybody. You guys set up the ring, you break down the ring, you watch every match. We never had the opportunity to not go to a show, even if we weren’t working. I had to learn how to ring announce, how to time keep. I had to learn everything from the ground up, and it’s different now in NXT. So it’s not really their fault. They just don’t know better. So I feel like, since I do know better, it’s my job to help.”

Do you look at your career in 2 parts of when you got released and when you came back?

“Yeah. I mean, it’s hard not to.”

It could have picked up where it left off. But I don’t feel like it did

“No, because I had that break. I feel like I changed in a better way. I got better and I elevated my game a little bit more. Not that I didn’t think I had the opportunity in my first part, but I think because it was a different schedule, and I wasn’t really locked in as I could have been when I had the break, and I was able to see what I could improve on. I was able to change it coming back.”

It feels like maybe it’s a different style and a different approach compared to your first run. How do you contrast the two?

“I feel as though before, I was taught a certain way, ‘You’re a certain size. You can’t do these things. Stay away from this. Don’t let them do this to you.’ So I was kind of like pigeon-holed into a little bit of a [situation where] I was afraid to get out of it, because the person telling me is somebody who runs the show, you work for an audience of one. So this time around, Hunter was more like, ‘Be you. You show them what you can do, because I know what you’re capable of.’ So I feel like the difference is just me kind of like being myself a little bit more. I’m more adding who I am into my character, instead of I gotta stay here and make sure that somebody’s happy.”

I don’t think that people appreciate how athletic you are.

“It was something where it was like, Oh no, you shouldn’t do that. Somebody said you shouldn’t [do that]. [Because of] Your size, stay in this kind of in this lane, because this person does this, and this person does that, and you are special here. So I’d always get sh*t on like, ‘Oh, you’re boring.’ I’m like, actually, no, I can do things, just you stay in the lane that you’re told to stay in. Now, I mean, I’ve played sports my entire life. I’ve never not played sports. I played basketball, soccer, baseball, anything I could. I’m a pickleball player now.”

How often do you play pickleball? 

“Well, since we’ve been on the road, not as often. But when I was off, when I was trying to lose weight, I got bored with certain cardio and I would just play pickleball all day with my church group. We’d go at like 7 am to noon and it was so much fun.” 

You look amazing:

“Thank you. It’s funny because right now, I just told one of the girls, and they were like, No way, because they hadn’t seen me at my biggest. My fitness journey started three years ago. At this point, I’ve lost 100 pounds since I started. Not a lot of people saw me when I was that big, because I wasn’t really working here, and I tried to stay off the internet. But yeah, this is actually the weight I started in NXT at when I got hired. So it’s kind of like people haven’t seen that because I never really had the opportunity to lock it in, and I’ve been locked in. My nephew was like, ‘I’m 100 pounds.’ I’m like, ‘I know, I just lost you!’”

You’re the only female WWE wrestler I know where they announced your weight. What was the idea behind that?

“I know everybody went nuts and they’re like, ‘How dare you announce your weight?’ I was like, whatever. So I think the idea was just to be like, I know she’s big, but this is how big she is. I’ve always been a heavier girl. If I showed you a picture of me at my thinnest, you wouldn’t even believe I was like 225 pounds at my thinnest. So when I was that way, I was heavier than Roman. I was heavier than all The Shield guys. So I think the thought was it’s impressive that you’re this weight and move the way you do. I think they announced me at 270 and that’s a lot of weight. To be able to move and do what I’ve done at 270 is difficult. So I think it wasn’t like, oh, let’s embarrass her and shame her. It was more of like, no, we’re trying to show you that’s impressive. Yokozuna, he was a big man, but that guy moved. If you go back and watch his stuff, he can move, and Vince was like, that’s the impressive part about it. I think that’s where the idea came from.”

When did they stop announcing your weight?

“I couldn’t even remember because it wasn’t something [bad], I didn’t have an issue with it. It wasn’t like, I’m so upset. I was like, yeah. They asked me before.”

How did you find out that you were going to be in the Men’s Royal Rumble?

“So we had rehearsals that day, the Women’s Rumble, because it was me, Becky and Charlotte at the end of that one. So the doors were opening, and we were in Arizona, I believe. I was walking back, and Johnny Ace was like, ‘Hey kid, you got to rehearse more.’ I said, ‘Oh, what are we doing?’ He was like, ‘You’re in the Men’s Rumble.’ I said, ‘What?! Doors are open Johnny. When am I going to rehearse?’ [He said] ‘Oh, we’re just gonna rehearse this part with Truth, and then you go do the Women’s Rumble, and then we’ll talk about the guys after.’ I thought he was kidding. But then when we rehearsed it with Truth, me beating up Truth and everything, entering at number 30, I was like, this is happening. So then I had to focus on the Women’s Rumble, because I had stuff to do with Lana in that match, and then Becky and Charlotte, and then run back. I had to go into a room with a bunch of the guys, and they’re going over stuff, and they’re like, ‘Hey guys, Nia’s in the Rumble. So run through with what you’re gonna do with her.’ I was like, I don’t get to go into a ring?”

Did you know who you had spots with? 

“Yeah, it was Andrade. It was Ali, Randy, Rey and Dolph. So they were in at the time, and they’re like, ‘Yeah, now you’re gonna come in, you’re gonna drop Truth, and then when you slide in, you’re gonna start cleaning house and then you’re going to eliminate Ali, and then there’s going to be a spot with Andrade and Dolph and Rey, and then you’re RKO’d.’ And I was like, ‘I’m going to get what?’ They’re like, yeah, you’re going to take an RKO. Before that, it was like, ‘Yeah, you’re going to go to tackle Randy, and then this happens.’ I was like, Okay. So I was just sitting there going but what if I f*ck up the RKO? That’s one of the most iconic moves in WWE history. Everybody already hated me. So then I look at Randy, and Randy’s super cool. But you know, Randy has a reputation of being like, you know. I was like, Oh, f*ck. I’m like, Randy. He’s like, Yeah? I’m like, ‘I’m nervous. I don’t want to fuck up your RKO.’ And he was like, ‘Don’t worry about it kid. Just when you turn left, I’ll take you. You just turn to the left, and the rest I’ll handle.’ I was like, okay. So out of that whole match, that was the most nervous. I was like, f*ck. I just can’t f*ck up the RKO. We get into it. I beat up Truth, poor Truth, and beat the sh*t out of Truth. Go in there and run the spots. Go to tackle Randy. He takes a bump for me, and I was like, f*ck, did I just hit him too hard? In my mind, I’m thinking sh*t, did I just hit Randy too hard? Meanwhile, I hear Kim cussing me out. She’s yelling at me. I’m like, oh sh*t. And then whatever we run through, do the RKO, I take the 619, the RKO. I’m like, Holy sh*t, this is not happening. Then they dump me, then they drop kick me off the apron. When you’re in the moment, you don’t realize that. When I was done, I was like, that was a massive moment for me that those guys didn’t have to. They could have said no, that they just did for me.”

Did you feel like this might lead to more intergender stuff?

“So at the time, we did have something. I think I went to a storyline with Dean Ambrose right after, where I hit him, or I bumped him the ground or whatever. I think there was supposed to be something that went to into a storyline there, but it just kind of fell off. There was a promotion that we were promoted to have a match at a live event. I think in that state, it couldn’t be inter gender matches. So then they had to scrap it. Then after that, I think they just kind of let that story fade away.”

When you got released from WWE in 2021 you didn’t work anywhere else. You have never worked a match outside of a WWE ring. When you got released, was there the thought of, I’m gonna do the Indies or I’m gonna go elsewhere?

“Not really. I didn’t think that I wanted to wrestle anywhere else, but I did know that I wanted to still wrestle. I didn’t even know if I was gonna come back to the WWE honestly, it was just kind of, like I said, it was my whole life at the time. So when I was released, it was kind of a shock. Or it was like, What is my life? It’s kind of like I had to reset. I’m like, What is my life right now? Because my whole life has been WWE and I really didn’t think about an after, which, you know, a lot of wrestlers get caught up in that. Because it happens to be like that. When we’re on the road five days a week, you don’t really think about the after. So I didn’t think about wrestling anywhere else. I, you know, everybody kept saying, try here and go there.”

Do you think about how much longer you want to wrestle?

“No, because as many times as I’m like, Well, maybe after this, or I’ve won this title and I’ve done this, I’m like, Oh, I can still do this. Then I see all this new talent, I’m like, Hey, I would love to work with this new talent and do stuff with them and help them out. So I haven’t really said, Oh, this is when I’m going to be done. I hope it just happens naturally, where it’s like, Okay, I think, I think it’s my time, where I’ve kind of given enough back to the business that’s given a lot to me. So we’ll see.”

I had Rhea on the show, and we were talking about the stink face, and she said it was all your idea. So how did this idea come about?

“Well, I mean, it was my idea to stink face. It wasn’t my idea for her to get them freaking cheeks out. So obviously, that’s what I do. I do the stink face, and as a heel, I like to rub it in, literally. I just thought we were on the live event. I thought one night, let’s change this up. Why not? Because it was a cool Triple Threat moment, me her and Shayna, and I was like, ‘Why don’t you give me a stink face?’ She’s like, really? She was like, ‘You mean like Rikishi style?’ I was like, ‘Yeah, do the full Rikishi. Get it, get it!’ And then we did it. And obviously, like, the crowd went nuts, and then it was a viral moment, and yeah, and then we had a good time. We actually switched it a couple nights because everybody was expecting it and I was trying to be a dick about it. Then I did it to Shayna, where Shayna was like, ‘Let me have it.’ She closed her eyes, and then I freaking took out Rhea, and then she didn’t realize it was me. It was funny. It was a good time.”

You’re no stranger to viral moments, so when you said, ‘My hole…’

“So it was a table match with Lana. And I don’t know if you remember, but during that time, I kept putting her through the table, nine times. I put her through the table nine times. Then we thought we’re gonna have her redemption moment at Survivor Series, but it didn’t happen. So then we ended up having this table match, and when we were rehearsing it, it was suggested that I do a leg drop on the apron. I was like, Oh my gosh, that will bust my tailbone. Then I was like, ‘What about my hole?’ Just as a joke. I remember saying it to Hunter and being like, you know, my hole, before the show, and he was like, ‘Yeah, that’d be funny.’ Because it was COVID, there was nobody in the audience, so you could clearly hear everything people were saying in there. And me, personally, it was like, I’m gonna say it just to pop everybody in the back, Vince and all them, as a joke, and Hunter, because he knew. We were joking about it before. So yeah, I did it, and it was like, ‘My hole!’ Then I literally was just like, This is gonna be hilarious for us, right? And then it was trending everywhere. By the time I got to the back, I was like, What the f? I thought I was in trouble. I was like, ‘I’m like, sorry.’ And they’re like, oh my gosh, this is great. They actually had a shirt made. There was gonna be ‘My hole’ shirt. The first time I ever got real merch. I don’t know what happened, literally, it was about to be printed out and sold, because it was trending for a few days.” 

Could you imagine if that shirt got released?

“It would have been a big, big deal. It would have been a huge hole.” 

When you did this bullying storyline with Alexa Bliss, it was so perfectly done, because how else are we gonna get you over as a babyface

“I mean, it’s something; everybody’s been bullied or hurt at one point in their life, and there’s something you can pull from, I feel like, in those moments. Lexi, I just remember her being like, ‘I don’t really want to say this. This is really mean. I don’t really want to do this.’ She had a hard time because she’s a great human being. I was like, ‘Dude, we got to sell this story. We want this. We want to pitch this like this is supposed to be a major storyline.’ We want this. So, yeah, I have been bullied, my biggest bullies in my life are my brothers. So I really have thick skin, nobody can really hurt my feelings. But there have been times where it’s like, yeah, I’ve been made fun of for the way I look and how big I am and whatnot. So it wasn’t that hard to pull from, but I’m really proud of that storyline, because we both gave it our all, and she’s such a great little actress.”

Did you know you were going to be able to cry on camera?

“No, I didn’t. So we had an acting coach, and it was something to where it was like, in NXT they wanted us to have some acting experience before we get out to the main roster. Now, it’s different. I think people on their own go and have acting coaches for their promos and stuff. But he just said, Hey, like, if you’re an emotional thing, like, try to pull from something that really hurts in your life. So I have something in my head that will literally make me cry on cue. So I used it.”

How do you handle it when the criticism is maybe not just at the Nia Jax character, maybe they’re taking personal shots at you?

“I don’t know these people, they don’t know me. They think they know me. And you know what good I’m glad. I’m glad they can somewhat relate to a Nia Jax character and take a shot at me. I find that to be something like unfortunate for them if they have any kind of anger in their heart to come to attack people. So it never really bothers me. It’s usually like a personal problem for them.”

The moment with Becky Lynch, when she became The Man. Did you realize in that moment how big this affected both of your careers?

“No. I do realize in the moment when I hit her, I felt on my knuckle a little [contact], and I was like, f*ck. Because when it happened, this will be funny. Go back to the beginning, where we came in and they were like, ‘Hey, we got to sell this match, go in there, give it your all. Say sorry later.’ A producer said that to us. I was like, All right, we’re in there. And naturally, I feel like I’m an easy target because I’m the biggest girl. So I kept getting punched, hit from all angles, and I’m like, mother trucker. I’m in the corner with Naomi, and we’re fighting, and somebody comes and just clinks me in the back of my head, and I just turn around. I’m like, ‘Get the f off me.’ Didn’t realize it was Becky. I thought it was Lana. I turned and connected, and I felt it, and I was just like, oh sh*t! I didn’t realize how bad it was until I looked down and I just saw her bleeding all over the mat. Then she rolled out, and Dana was looking at her, taking care of her. Then we get done, and we go to the back, and I’m sitting there going, like, Oh my gosh, I’m in so much trouble. This is it. I think they’re done with me. I was getting my papers. Then Becky was in the trainer’s room, and I couldn’t go in there, they were checking her out, and I was just trying to make sure she was okay. Then I had to go talk to Vince and the producers, and they were all quiet, but talking to each other and not saying anything to me. Then in gorilla they had it on the screen, he was talking to Kevin, ‘Let me see the footage.’ They were replaying it from every angle. And I was like, oh, man, it was a tough time. Then Vince was like,’It’s not ballet, sh*t’s gonna happen.’ I was like, okay, because I’ve been cussed out by Vince before for other things, so I thought oh for sure I’m gonna get cussed out for this. He was like, ‘It’s not ballet. Sh*t happens, is she okay?’ I was like, ‘I don’t know.’ He said ‘Go check on her.’ He’s like, go check on her. Then from there, it just exploded all over the internet. Then I think when I tweeted out, it was a joke, and I asked Becky about it if I could, it was like I had a cut on my hand from the punch. And it was from the movie The Campaign, ‘Is anybody asking me how my fist is doing?’ I thought it was funny just like every heel is justified. But it was definitely that people were way too sensitive to it. That’s when I went nuclear heat. I’ll never forget the next week was Survivor Series, and I wasn’t supposed to win that match, whatever it was supposed to be. I think it was Sasha was supposed to win that match. I was still trending about the punch, and everybody was telling Vince the internet is still going nuts about Nia punching Becky in the face. Then right before the doors open, he was like, ‘Finish change, Nia over.’ He said, ‘Yeah, when you go out there, you show your fist and you smile.’ I was like, All right.”

Was it a similar moment when you threw Jade into the steps? 

“That was weird, because I know I’m strong. But yeah, I didn’t realize that even happened. I didn’t realize she hit her head that hard on the steps. So when I saw it, because I didn’t actually get to see the full extent of it until later, I was very shocked that she split open that badly. But it was definitely different. It was a different moment, for sure. But yeah, that was pretty scary.”

You had this moment with Lyra, and you crushed her!

“Well, she’s a tough cookie. I’ll tell you that Lyra is a tough cookie. But, yeah, that was something that somebody had pitched for the match, let’s try this, something different. We rehearsed it, but we didn’t go full in rehearsal, right? I’m like, ‘Hey, this is a one-time shot, you don’t want to keep taking this if you don’t have to.’ So then we did it in the match, and I just remember landing, all 270 pounds of me were into Lyra’s rib cage. So she took it like a champ. I give her all the credit, because she’s tough.” 

On the infamous Charlotte Flair match:

“My match with Charlotte, where we kind of got into a little tiff, a little back and forth there. It was a miscommunication. I will say I’m going to call it a miscommunication. Things got heated, like legit got heated in that match. I did warn her a few times to stop, to chill out, and she didn’t, so then I two-pieced her. We came back and we were calm and we were level-headed, we all kind of were just like, ‘All right, got kind of out of hand.’ But sometimes it happens. But yeah, it just got a little out of hand. It got hot and we just started swinging.”

Are you guys good now?

“Oh, yeah. We’re good. But it was definitely, everybody was like, ‘What just happened?’ Even the crowd, because when it happened in the moment, I couldn’t hear anything because I was angry. I was legit pissed. So I didn’t hear anything. But then when I felt the dead silence of the crowd, I think the crowd was kind of like, ‘Is this really happening?’ I could hear Corey Graves. Commentary is the only thing I could hear because that crowd was dead silent, because I think they were kind of in shock, like, ‘What just happened?’ So, yeah, it was definitely a moment. So that was a match where I’m like oh. But then we were able to redeem ourselves after that.”

Your career almost ended before it started, because you were involved in this incredibly scary car accident. 2014, hit by a drunk driver. Yeah. What do you remember from that?

“So that night, we went to my uncle Afa’s wrestling school. He had an end of the year party and award ceremony. I went with my auntie, because she always goes and enjoys it, because wrestling is her passion. She loves wrestling. I remember asking to go to that off of live events from Coach Bill DeMott, and after the ceremony, we were all going to a restaurant to have dinner, and we were just driving, and it wasn’t really that late at night. It was kind of like evening time, and we were pulling up to a stoplight, and literally, it just felt like an explosion happened. We weren’t expecting anything. It just felt like a bomb went off. I just remember at the moment, like my ears were ringing. I couldn’t breathe, and I just kept trying to say something to my aunt, but I couldn’t speak. I didn’t know at the time, I guess my collarbone just snapped in half, and it was like cutting in, but I couldn’t breathe or say anything, and I’m looking at her, and she was pinned behind the wheel. But yeah, it was a crazy moment. We didn’t realize at the time that a cop was chasing a drunk driver. They pulled her over, I think, and then she took off, and then she just, without the brakes, had no brakes, she just hit us full speed, dead on. Thankfully, the car protected us. I feel like the airbags came out and all that stuff. Then I got out of the car and the ambulance came, it was real quick. The cops were there already, because the cop was, you know, chasing the drunk driver. And so the ambulance came quick, soon after, they had to get the jaws of life to get my aunt out.”

What is Nia Jax grateful for?

“My relationship with God, my family, and my outside WWE family.”

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Matt Hardy (@MATTHARDYBRAND) and Jeff Hardy (@jeffhardybrand) are professional wrestlers currently signed to TNA. They sit down with Chris Van Vliet in Albuquerque, NM to discuss their legendary careers as individuals and as a tag team, retiring Team 3D at Bound For Glory and if they have thought about winding down their own careers, their most extreme moments, Jeff being attacked with a screwdriver by Randy Orton, Matt suplexing Ric Flair off a ladder, their epic WrestleMania 33 return, crazy Swanton Bombs, Leon Slater’s Swanton 450 and more!

What a testament to where you guys are at in your career.

Matt: “I gotta tell you, Chris. So Jeff’s had this neck issue, and we had our big pay-per-view match at Genesis against The Righteous. I tried to do the majority of the match, I was in there, I was taking the heat and the bigger bumps, we’re trying to protect him as much as possible. The meet and greet was massive at the end of that. We signed for like five and a half hours, we got back to the hotel, slept 90 minutes, two hours at the most, and got in the plane, flew back home. I remember getting out, and I was like, Oh my God. I felt like I was crippled at the end, it’s wild. These meet and greets are great, but sometimes they are tough, especially if we don’t have the ample time to sleep afterwards.”

Jeff, how’s your neck doing?

Jeff: “It’s better. This past Monday and Tuesday, it felt really good. Then we flew out here, and I fell asleep a little funky on the plane. I remember jerking my head up one time, and it hurt. So it was hurting a little more than it did Monday and Tuesday. But overall, man, it’s feeling good. It’s definitely better. So this has been a little over three months now. I’ve been dealing with two bulging discs on the left side of my neck, and this happened when we dropped the titles at the NXT Halloween Havoc show. It was one of those things, you couldn’t even tell, it looked completely fine. I landed flat, but I was on the big guy’s shoulders. The one guy jumped off the ladder, clotheslined me off. The idea was for me to go through the table, but I kind of overshot the table, and he just broke the table, and my head just hit the mat, and it was a little whiplash like that. It felt terrible. I mean, it definitely felt like a concussion, and I was close to being knocked out, but that’s when it happened. Two bulging discs on the left side of my neck, but I’m feeling much better.“

So on a scale like one to 10, how much pain do you think you’re in right now?

Jeff: “Right now, I would say maybe a five. It’s not bad at all.”

Matt: “But his 5 is massively different from a normal person’s five. We’ve also just been very cognizant of, you know, it’s been protect Jeff at all costs. So done what we’ve had to do to try and work smart and not make things worse in this issue. So far so good.”

The Swanton is always going to be your finisher, and that’s such a high-risk move:

Jeff: “Yeah, and back to AMC. This is such a big deal for TNA, but we did a commercial where we had to go through a table, and Matt was gonna do something.”

Matt: “I don’t know if you saw that. We were the first people that found out that it was 100% definitely AMC [as TNA’s new home]. We had to go do the shoot with the AMC people, and it was the closer of the commercials. I did a leg drop through a table, and he did a swanton, and it was his first time doing anything since he knew he had this neck issue.”

Jeff: “The whole building up to that [I was going] I don’t know if I should, this might be one of those times I just say, I got to stand my ground and say, I can’t do that. My necks hurt, I can’t do that. But I knew it was something big. I didn’t know it was AMC, so I said it’s kind of like riding a bike. I’ve done it so many times, I can do it, and I think I’ll be all right. So, I mean, it hurt a little bit doing it, but man, a few days later, when we found out officially it was AMC, I was like, that was totally worth it. But that was a scary morning for me, not knowing and I hadn’t had my MRI done yet. I think the week after we filmed that was when I got the MRI, and that’s when I found out it was two bulging discs. I got the call and they said, Oh, here we are. You got two bulging discs, and the options are to speak to [a doctor], or a pain management plan. I was like, Oh, I don’t know. I think I’ll just deal with the medical team at TNA, and maybe they can help guide me through the healing process. Luckily, I’m feeling much better. But that was scary. On that phone, I was going, oh my god, this might be the end of my career, the beginning of the end, because I haven’t been hurt in four or five years, I’ve been super good since I’ve been doing the ice baths. It’s the first major injury I’ve had since doing cold plunges. I remember telling the DarkState guys after that match, oh, it ain’t nothing a little cold water won’t fix. I got home the next day and I got in the cold water, and when I got out, it’s like it made it worse. It’s like it hurt more. I did it on the second day, and I was going, Oh, my God, maybe I don’t need to do the cold water. So my mind was just freaking myself out. So I laid off the ice baths for a while, and it seemed to feel better, but, yeah, now I think I’m back to the points where I can rebuild. I’ve kind of rebuilt my armor, and now that I’m healed enough to get back in the cold water and to hopefully avoid injury from here on out.”

Jeff, when you talk about thinking like this might have been the end with this injury, how much do you guys think about the end of your career?

Jeff: “I try not to think about it, especially with seeing the Cena retirement tour, naturally, because we’re the same age. He’s a little older than me, but I’m 48 and I’m like, oh man. AJ, same age, he’s talking about maybe retiring soon. I mean, I think about it, but the way my career has went over the years, the ups and the downs, I just hope I can do it for as long as I can. I think that’s the way I’m going to do it, because after this neck injury, I feel like my performances are naturally going to get 1,000% better, because I’m so excited about this whole AMC deal and being in TNA and continuing to evolve. But yeah, I try not to let the thought of the end enter my consciousness.” 

Matt: “Wrestling Twitter has been trying to retire us for years now, and they still do. They’re trying to book our retirement matches nonstop. But we feel good. As long as we feel good, we’re gonna keep going.”

On potential AMC cinematic matches:

Jeff: “I can’t help but think about the first cinematic match that’s going to be on AMC. I think it’s going to be a very, very powerful thing, man. I’m not a big show guy, but like shows like The Walking Dead and Breaking Bad, to know those shows were on this in this place. Oh my god. I think anything’s possible when it comes to a cinematic match on AMC.”

Matt: “We told AMC we’re ready to this first cinematic match. We only have two requests in our first cinematic match, whatever it is, we need two cameos in there. We need, Gus Fring. We need Rick Grimes, you know, make it happen. AMC, make it happen. We want zombies roaming through the woods in the Hardy compound. That can probably actually happen.”

Is ultimately the dream to retire as the Hardys?

Matt: “I think so. I just feel like as we’re a little older, it’s nice when we kind of get to share the workload, as opposed to doing a singles run. [But] who knows? I mean, with TNA, maybe if that’s something they need. And it’s funny, you were talking about the whole AMC deal earlier, like we both take a lot of pride in that, because we were a major factor in this AMC deal happening. We’re both so proud of TNA for getting to this point and being on this major platform and we really want to lead it into the future. I want TNA to be a place that is a stable wrestling company where people can come and make a living and it is in the conversation with all the other top companies.”

Jeff, does it hurt more to land a Swanton or when the guy rolls out of the way?

Jeff: “It’s a good question. Yeah, definitely, when the guy rolls away overall. But if it’s a big guy, like Big Show, for example, I’ve done one to him before, and it’s like broke my back, I’m arched over him, I was just laying there on top, I got knocked out as well. But it’s almost bend your back to where it actually hurts pretty bad. But, yeah, depending on the size of your opponent, but I would say overall, missing in them is the worst.”

Matt: “Yeah, that Big Show is a massive piece of meat.”

Jeff, what is the craziest move that Matt has ever done?

Jeff: “Craziest move that Matt’s ever done? I would have to say it’s got to be a leg drop off the top of the cage.”

Matt, what’s the craziest spot that Jeff’s ever done?

Matt: “I still think it’s that Swanton that he did in the impact zone, because it is so crazy. Was that the first Bound for Glory? He did a Swanton, it wasn’t just off the stage, it was to Abyss. He went up on whatever the structure was behind that and jumped over the stage. I mean, he just had so many hurdles it felt like he had to get over. And if he missed, it would have murdered him if he had been off in any capacity, and he pulled it off to perfection. It was wild. He calls it the sketchiest Swanton he’s ever done, and it really was. It’s still crazy. Jesus Christ, I mean, you make one little mistake on that, like you’re done.”

It’s crazy looking at the highlights and somehow realizing you guys can still walk.

Matt: “Especially like after that leg drop, I never walked the same. Well, also if 51-year-old me could go back and talk to 23-year-old me when we’re just starting, I would say, like, first and foremost, I know you guys think it’s cool, because you guys do that leg drop splash. We did that every single night, and our schedule in the beginning was 10 days on, 4 days off. It’s a bunch of house shows. We would do that every night, whether we’re winning or losing. And just like the wear and tear from doing that leg drop, especially when it was the real hard rings. Before they made the ring bumping rings in WWE, it’s when they were built for the big guys, for 360-pound guys that were Earthquake and Typhoon and Hogan and guys that didn’t do a lot, so we’re doing that leg drop splash every single night. I’d just say get a more simple finish, you know, figure out something that isn’t so hard on your body and use the leg drop when it counts on a big show, whatever else, that’s the first thing I would do. But I have so much scar tissue in my lower back and pelvis and hips and whatnot. That was the time, whenever I did that one off the cage, I gotta change this to I’ll do an elbow to the back of the head from the second rope. I smartened up.”

There is so much history with you guys and Team 3D. What a special moment to be in there with the Dudleys for their final match. Were all of you guys crying in there?

Matt: “It was definitely emotional. So I’ll tell you this, I’ll be fully transparent. D-Von, we just wanted to get him through this last match, we knew he was retiring, this was it. We want him to go out on this great match with career rivals. We had no idea they were going to both take their boots off, and we definitely didn’t know they were going to give them to us. Jeff had just asked at the end, ‘Hey, is that a thing?’ I said it wasn’t, but I think it is now. He said what we’re going to do at the end to show you the respect and say you guys have won this battle. Whoever wins this is the greatest of all time. We have something we’re going to do, but we don’t want to tell you, is that fine? I said, that’s great. Let’s just do in the ring. Let’s get a very authentic, genuine reaction, and that’s what that was. More than anything, we just wanted D-Von to be okay in that match. We tried to protect him as much as we could. He’d had some serious health issues over the years, and we were going to bust our ass to work as hard as we could, because those guys haven’t been working a lot. Bully has been working here and there, doing some stuff. But we wanted to bust our ass and we really wanted to tap into the emotion behind the match. What was great, even in the beginning, we had to start the match so the crowd would stop chanting. So the crowd was so involved in it, and they were so emotionally invested, and that’s what made it feel so special.”

Both of you had your very first official match in WWE May 23 1994. Jeff, you were 16 years old, and your first match was against Razor Ramon.

Jeff: “It was terrifying, man. One guy didn’t want to take his finish. Keith Davis. I was Keith Davis that evening. I became Keith Davis after Keith Davis didn’t want to take the razor’s edge.” 

And that was your first match at that point?

Jeff: “Ever. I didn’t know what I was doing.”

Matt: “Also, he had to lie about his age, because I said, my brother’s 16. Can he go there? Someone said, your brother? Yeah, it’s fine. Just have your dad write a note and say it’s okay.”

How much did the screwdriver in your ear with Randy Orton hurt?

Jeff: “It hurt a little bit. That’s my hell in a cell moment. For years after seeing Mick Foley and Undertaker, naturally, I was like, Man, I want to do something like that. When he went off that first time through the table, I totally get why he does stuff like that. But then the chokeslam, when that gave way and he hit that, and that was back in that when that ring was super hard. Actually being in a Hell in a Cell with Randy, and it was the first one time it had been painted red, and it was awkward and strange, but just seeing how big that structure is, and even the splash I missed when I was hanging, it’s just such a massive structure. So thank God for that screwdriver and Randy and the twist that he did, because I consider that my hell in the cell moment that it’s kind of hard to forget.” 

How’d you come up with that?

Jeff: “It was somebody else’s idea with the screwdriver. He [Orton] had used his fingers and pulled me around by it, and I think a chain or a rope. But somebody mentioned that screwdriver. It might have been Michael Hayes or somebody else. But anyway, it was somebody’s idea that was out there with us talking about the match, but twisting it like that, and just watching the way it looks, how it was turning purple, it was gruesome.”

Matt: “That’s the essence of pro wrestling. Those moments that are memorable like that, pro wrestling has gone down such a path now where people are like oh, my god, I gotta get all these spots in, let’s put together a lot of choreographed combos that we’re gonna do, whatever. But those moments are what people remember.”

That spot at WrestleMania 22 with Ric Flair. When you suplex him off the ladder is wild. They’re reiterating he’s 57, so he specifically asked you to do that spot?

Matt: “Yeah, so they needed a spot. They wanted a spot where Ric was going to say he was hurt and be carried out of the match and he was going to come back in the end, and he said, ‘I have an idea. Matt, I trust you. I know you’re one of the creators of this ladder match. Will you suplex me off?’ He said, ‘I’ll be honest. You’re the only person I trust doing this match.’ And he also told Edge that whenever they had the match, he said, You’re the only person I trust to have this match with, because I know you and The Hardys created this ladder match nonsense. And I said, Sure, that’s cool. I remember we talked about the spot, and we had a rung Ric was gonna be on, then I was gonna suplex him off. I remember we’d got to that rung as we were fighting, and I said, ‘All right, you ready?’ He said, ‘No, higher, higher, higher.’ I was like, Okay, we went up one more, and he took that bump like a champ and got him over. He was safe and sound. And he said it was great. He said it was an easy bump. He would always do that. He would do the deal where he would flip over the corner, run to the other side, coming off. He said, If I can do that every night, it shouldn’t be that bad off the ladder. Afterwards, he said, it was easy. Thank you. He said, Yeah, it was good. Thank you. He said, ‘You took care of me, made sure I got over. I didn’t land on my head, and that’s all I wanted. Thank you. You’re the only person in this match I trust to do it with.’”

What are The Hardys grateful for?

Matt: “My health, my family, and the fact I have a brother that is so amazing.”

Jeff: “My health, my family and pro wrestling.”

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Kit Wilson (@KitWilson_PD) is a professional wrestler signed to WWE. He sits down with Chris Van Vliet in London, England to discuss his catchy new theme song and how much input he had in creating it, his solo run following Elton Prince’s injury, being Matt Cardona’s WWE return opponent, getting thrown through a wall by Damian Priest, whether “Pretty Deadly: The Musical” will happen, and more!

Your theme song has been stuck in my head ever since I heard it.

“Yeah, it’s super catchy. That was what I was going for. That was what I was hoping for. I didn’t think I realized how catchy it was going to be, and how much it’s kind of clicked on and sat with people, but I’m not complaining.”

How much input did you have into the song?

“So I ended up having a fair amount of input. I was pushing for new music when I kind of found out what the situation was going to be and maybe I was going to go solo, I started messaging a lot, saying I would love new music. Can I get new music? Then eventually I got into contact with Neil, I believe, and then he called me. We had little discussion on the phone. He said, ‘What kind of thing are you looking for?’ So I said, ‘Can I send you an email?’ Got off the phone, and I started writing this email, just with all my references, with all the songs I like, with all the ideas I had, lyrics, kind of the theme of it, the vibe of it. So I had so much. There’s a Charli xcx and Billie Eilish song called Guess, and that opens with a phone call. Actually, there’s no phone call, but it opens and it goes, Hey, ‘Billie, are you there?’ That I loved. I really wanted that. So that was my first thing. I wanted a phone call. I wanted to ring, I wanted to pick up. I wanted a ‘Hey Kit, are you there?’ I originally wanted an English voice, and I still would like to have it with an English voice. We’re American for now, but I think we’ll be okay with that. So that was a big one. We got that. Then there was just so many other influences. There’s another Charli xcx song called Speed Drive, which I really liked. JENNIE from BLACKPINK has a song called like JENNI that is very poppy, there’s a lot of girly pop music at the moment that has come out which is just very catchy. It’s very iconic. It’s very chorus, chorus, chorus, Chappel Roan, Femininomenon, very good song. That was a big one I pushed for. There’s also some Harry Styles influence. 1975 was a big band that I liked, and Pretty Deadly actually used their song on the Indies for a theme, Love Me. There’s kind of a guitar riff in that we used to really like, and I feel like I can kind of hear that in this song. Jade, who’s a UK artist, she used to be in the band Little Mix. So there’s just so many references there. I sent them all. I timestamped the bits that I like, the choruses, I’m always trying to give as much as I can, so as much of me is there. And then they came back. Gave me the first draft. It sounded great. Few tweaks, few tweaks, few tweaks, and I felt like we hit it.”

You’ve had this theme song for a few months though:

“I feel like this character in this new iteration of Kit Wilson has kind of been brewing, and we’ve been kind of like testing a few things, working on a few things. The theme song was, was one of those, and we created the Tron, We had that loaded for a little bit of time. I was doing those main event matches, the tapings before SmackDown using the song, just kind of getting used to it, trying to figure out my entrance was. And then the SmackDown came with the Tron, and kind of everything clicked. And now everything really feels like it’s coming together as a whole package.”

There’s a lot of examples of great wrestlers who, as soon as they change their song, boom, they get over. This is the thing that makes people connect with you right now:

“It was scary going from Pretty Deadly being a singles guy, because our whole career in this company was Pretty Deadly. And I remember kind of having a discussion, and I think I was talking to Triple H, and he said, Do you still want this music? Do you still want the “Yes boy!” Do you still want this aspect? And I did. I cherish so much of that, and that was so much of who I was as a person. I was scared, but I just felt like if we go into this new chapter, we have to go. So I said, I want to get rid of all of that, and then obviously it comes back, if it comes back, but I just wanted to start new. I think, as you say, a fresh new start is going pretty good.”

On his cats:

“[They’re names are] Socks, Luna, Arrow, Bowie. Then we’ve got two fosters that are going to my mother-in-law, Moon Boots and Moon Beans. They’re all space themed because my first cat, we’ll talk cats. We’ll do it. My first cat in England was called Rocket. I love Rocket. We just recently had a bit of a scare, got shot, it was a whole thing, bad neighborhood. It was kind of crazy. It was a pellet gun. It wasn’t a real gun. “

Who’s shooting a cat?

“Well, you’re telling me! We called the police straight away. Maybe it’s getting too political, maybe it’s getting too crazy. But my English cat, Rocket, I love him, but I couldn’t bring him over to America when we moved, so my sister now has him. So shout out to Lucy. She is incredible with him. And then we go Socks, which is Buzz Lightyear’s cat, then Luna, obvious, Arrow, Bowie. Bowie is a bit of a stretch, but we’re going there, Ziggy Stardust. And then Moon Boots and Moon Beans, you know, you can judge that if you wish.”

We’re in London right now as we record this. Does it feel good to be back home?

“Yeah, it’s just really nice to know there’s a Gregg’s close by always. There’s a Wetherspoons near me, there’s a Nando’s, a Wagamamas, there’s a Toby Carvery. I think Nando’s is so popular because it’s a comfort food now, in England, it’s not even necessarily the best food, but it’s pure comfort, happiness. It’s a lot of first early dates as well.”

So what was the original idea behind the new character?

“So I guess with all of this, you have your character, and then often there’s only so much of the character that you see on screen. Then as certain people, and especially me and Elton and Pretty Deadly, we have so much of the character behind the scenes that never actually comes to the forefront, but we’ve got it in, and a whole big section of the Pretty Deadly character was toxic masculinity. I’m sure there’s tons of early promos, even on the independents, even maybe in stuff that we sent over to the company, maybe when we were trying to practice for promos that had stuff based on toxic masculinity. It just didn’t end up being the main thing we focused on. So it’s always been there, it’s always been a part of how we saw the characters and if everything was needed, then we would explain that, and we would bring up to the forefront. So then, when it came to me being on my own, I was pitching ideas. I had five big pitches I went for, and then the one that turned out to be the toxic masculinity one, I think the word document was labeled Limited Edition Kit Wilson, because again, actually shout out to [my cat] Luna. We call Luna Limited Edition, because she’s got no tail. Can you see how I’ve loosened up and got more excited when we talked about the cat? Maybe part two is cat-exclusive.”

Were you nervous about going out on your own? 

“Oh my goodness, God yeah. So the first day I went to SmackDown without Elton, I felt like I was five years old going to school for the first time. Because, again, we are best friends. We met on the independents. We signed together. We’ve done everything together. When we moved over to America, we live together. We talk every day. I love him, and we viewed each other as one person. We never talked to anyone and tried to talk as individuals. It was always about the team. So to do it on my own, I’ve never been more nervous in my life, but he’s been really supportive. We talk all the time. He’s always saying, What have you got? What you’re doing, you’re gonna smash it. He always says, Good job. So it was nice to have his support, but it was so nerve-racking going in, and now I feel like I’m finding my footing and I feel comfortable. It’s kind of fulfilling doing this whole new part of it, but it is scary, and I miss him.” 

How’s Elton doing? 

“He’s doing good. Surgery happened, and it was nice that he could then talk about the surgery, because he’s quite a private person. He wasn’t really putting anything out there. People didn’t really know. Some people thought it was just this. Some people thought was just that. So it was nice for people to get clarity and understand what was going on. The surgery went well, and so far, it’s been like a week and a half, maybe two weeks. Everything’s on track and good, but it’s just a touch-and-go situation. It’s the neck. So it’s such a specialist area, that I think we’re just kind of taking it day by day. But he is doing good, which is fantastic. It’s just a scary thing, yeah, and I want to talk about him, but I don’t want to get too sentimental, because I’ll start going.”

He had his neck fused?

“Yeah, he’s got a double. At 28 years old.”

That sounds scary. What was the spot?

“He took a reverse DDT, and I think I was in it as well. I think it was maybe a reverse DDT and a flatliner. I think he just, it was obviously an accident. Things happen. We know what we’re getting into, but I think he just landed wrong, and he says he felt a certain kind of shock, and then he didn’t feel anything. Yeah, it happened, and then it’s crazy, because you watch it back, and his fingers kind of curl up, and it’s really a bit horrible to re-watch, knowing what it was. He got injured. He got hurt. It was a reverse DDT, and then when he’s trying to figure out in the ring what’s going on, he took that, he took another thing which cut him open. So he’s bleeding a fair amount. I think initially everyone, including myself and other people, thought that was a big injury, because it was a lot of blood. I remember I was on the floor, and he makes his way to the corner, and I’m kind of looking up at him, thinking, something’s up. Obviously, I didn’t know how serious it was, so I’m kind of starting to shout at him and say things. I can’t remember what he was saying, but he was kind of saying, like, ‘I’m fine, I’m good, I’m good, I’m good.’ I think they maybe make their way to the top rope. I get on the apron, and again, I’m kind of just assessing. Then I just realized, all right, I’m getting in. I kind of tag in. I think, like hesitantly again, I’m kind of still slowly walking in, trying to figure out what happens. Then there’s at some point in there, I’m just screaming, get down. Get down. Get down. Because we were in a position I think I was going to electric chair him. And I’d assume we would have gone for our old independent finish, which I used to have. He used to jump off and do a European uppercut. The OG spilt milk. Then I just realized something was up. So I just said, ‘Get down. Get that. Get down. Get down.’ And then I just, I think I power bombed Nathan Frazer at the time, and then he was out for the whole for the rest of the match. I remember the doctors were with him, and I think I was in there for maybe like a minute and a half or more, kind of just trying to survive. And then just the next. The next few days were kind of trying to figure out what it was. And then we had some phone calls. It was this, and it was that, and it was tears, and he’s going through it is his thing. It’s his, is his challenges, his battle. He’s doing great, but it’s such a hard thing. It was just so horrible to see him go through it, especially because I love him so much. Elton, I love you.”

So how did it turn to the conversation of ok Kit, we are going to do something solo with you?

“I don’t know if it was so definite, but again, it was just trying to figure out what we had, or what was there. I think slowly it went from okay, we’ll try something to okay, this could be something to things clicking. And with the help of a lot of the producers, Road Dogg, a lot of guys giving advice, I think there was some kind of point where people clocked on backstage and okay, we’ll see how this goes. Then this music hit, I think we’ve got something.”

You guys are the personification of wins don’t matter. You go out there and you’re memorable. You leave the audience with something to think about, something to remember. It doesn’t matter if you win or lose in those matches. 

“Well, look, we’ll win the championship matches. It just doesn’t really matter about the other ones. So we were just focused on the gold. We’re yet to do that on SmackDown, and we will get there. But, yeah, we win when it matters. You’re always going to lose, you’re always going to fail, and I think you’re a positive, motivational guy, the failures are just lessons for the future. So anytime you know, I’m going to be at Smackdown the next week, I’m going to be at NXT the next week. So if we lose this farm, we’ll just move on. We’ll just improve. So yeah, I mean, shout out to maybe The Miz, another guy who proves time after time again, you can take a loss, you can move on. It doesn’t matter, you can make the most of it. I think that’s maybe a category that we sat in, and maybe I sit in now. I’m just going to take the wins when they’re big, you know, I’m going to wait for the opportunity.”

You had a memorable moment with Damian Priest. He threw you through a wall!

“Growing up as such a big fan, there’s kind of bucket list things, and there’s some kind of backstage antics that you always think are quite a bucket list thing to tick off. I just didn’t think I would go through the wall. I just thought I would be putting someone else through a wall. But I guess Priest doesn’t like me. He’s kind of growing on me, though, can I say this? Damian Priest has some, has some toxic masculinity. I do think he needs to address that. However, with the terror twins, he’s not afraid to be side by side with a female who he views as his equal, someone who raises him up as much as he raises her up. So I actually publicly would like to say to Priest, I would shake your hand and apologize and say, I think you’ve grown. I think you’ve matured. I think you’ve come a long way in this emotional journey. And I’m proud of you. I think we can be friends. I just will tell him that when no walls are close to me. Because that hurt. I didn’t like it. I do want revenge. I am going to try and put him for a wall eventually, I will say that, but I think he’s kind of shown some emotional maturity that others are lacking on the roster.” 

How was the match with Matt? Because Matt told me, and I can ask you about this, he said he was laying in a little extra hard. He’s like, I want to make sure my stuff looks good.

“Yeah. You know, you think being good friends with the very slay Chelsea Green, that maybe there would be some kind of friendship there. But I didn’t know who my opponent was. I’d asked Nick for the opportunity, Nick Aldis, shout out to the fellow Englishman. I didn’t know who it was going to be. And then, you know, Matt Cardona comes out. Fantastic. I’m very excited. Messed my nose up. I don’t know if you can see I got a makeup here. This was a mess for two weeks. I had two big boot marks here, which are still faintly there. I’ve chipped my tooth. I went to the dentist.”

Today is a huge day because your theme song finally arrived on Spotify. Why was there such a delay?

“Hey, that’s out of my control. I don’t know. I sent an email, and I said, Hey, can I can I get a day? Can I get a time? Let me know I’m a big Spotify guy. I’m a big music guy, and I think that’s a beautiful thing. Music brings everyone together. My Music brings everyone together. We’re on Spotify. It took a while, but, yeah, here we are.”

So you still think of yourself as a tag guy? 

“Again, let’s see how emotional we get. I’m a singles guy now, but again, my mindset was always tag. I just never even remotely considered being a singles guy. And now I’m here, I’m going to commit just as much as I’ll commit to everything. So yeah, I am a singles guy. I will come for the US title. I really want the IC title. Love the Intercontinental Championship. It’s always been a favorite of mine. So those are two big goals. Now I think we’ll get there. So when we get there, let’s come back to this video and see.”

Now that you’re in the singles division, yeah, who would you love to have a one-on-one match with? 

“Oh, that is very interesting. I mean, there’s so many people. I’d really like to wrestle Finn Balor. He was always someone coming up on the independent scene, he was so big in Japan at the time, he was always someone kind of all of us looked up to. We always looked up to him. Right before he actually joined with the company, he did an independent show at the company I was training at. I don’t know if he remembers any of this. He had an incredible match. He had the body paint on. He did in-ring photos in the in the middle of the [ring] in the interval in the show. I was just starting. I was maybe a few months in, I got a photo with him, and I remember I was, I think I was just wearing all black, but I had black shoes on black jeans on white socks. And then I’m just like, awkwardly next to him, being like, ‘Oh, thank you for the photo.’ And he goes, ‘Nice socks, like Michael Jackson.’ I was kind of like, yes, like Michael Jackson. Maybe don’t want to compare yourself to Michael Jackson, but I felt like a fashion compliment, so I will take it. Then that night, unfortunately, when I was driving home, I did crash my car and totaled my car. Not ideal, but I had to jump out the window. But the point of the story is I jumped out the window, the car was ruined, but I jumped back through the window because I had to grab a little photo of me and Finn Balor. I have that photo somewhere, so I will find it. But that photo was kind of precious to me at the time, and it was kind of, you know, it was just this guy. There’s this kind of guy from an area that I was from that was kind of making it big and going to the WWE. So I’ve always followed his journey because of that. So I would like to wrestle Finn there’s a little story there that I feel like we can play into.”

I remember seeing a sign in the crowd that said, Pretty Deadly: The Musical, or we riot.

“Hey, the musical was big, and we had some big plans for that musical, and it’s still coming. Yeah, I don’t want people to riot. I don’t want people to riot. So it is coming. I just don’t know when I’ll say that.”

The musical is a real thing?

“The musical is a real thing. We have 10 Songs. We had lyrics. We were learning them. We were trying to do it properly and do a proper, like, good job of it. We wanted to go full force with it, the celebration we did with Nia. I think, as characters we were trying to find the line of being bad in a funny way, if that makes sense. We were trying to be annoying, obnoxious characters, but thought they were good at this kind of performance and celebrating our wonderful queen, Nia. But that was that. But behind the scenes, yeah, we were prepping. We were preparing with a few more of the guys backstage. We had songs written. We had lyrics written. We had a story. We were looking to find a place to perform it. If you have ever seen Always Sunny in Philadelphia and the musical episode, we’ve kind of based it around that. So we had a lot in place. So, you know, it still might happen, if this career goes well, I think there’s a good excuse to hit it.”

Where are you going to find time in a WWE show for 10 Songs?

“Well, here’s the thing, what we were originally aiming for, you can’t find the time on a SmackDown. But as we know, WrestleMania weekend is so big, we’ve got an extra show here. We’ve got an extra show there. We were trying to find a venue in a location to have a theater performance.”

Could be here in London?

“Okay, all right, when WrestleMania is in London, Pretty Deadly: The Musical will debut.”

What is Kit Wilson grateful for?

“This new opportunity, Lewis, Lucy, and my cats.”

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Paul London (@LondonFU) is a professional wrestler best known for his time in WWE. He sits down with Chris Van Vliet at West Coast Creative Studio in Hollywood, CA to discuss his memorable WWE debut segment with Vince McMahon and match with Brock Lesnar, having one of the best Royal Rumble eliminations in WWE history, facing a young John Cena on an episode of Velocity, getting in trouble for smiling at Vince McMahon, and more!

You had a break from wrestling, what was going on?

“I think I got a little burnt out on it. I think the social media thing was a part of it, too. I was brought in by all territories, legend types. The first trainer I ever met of name would have been “Exotic” Adrian Street, didn’t teach me a damn thing and ripped me off. I was 16, and basically stole our money and used it on eye surgery and then tried to sell us paintings of naked Native Americans with wolves in front of their dicks and stuff. It was ridiculous.”

You could have said, what kind of industry is this?

“But I didn’t, and I stuck it out, because as I was growing up, it was constantly, ‘Are you kidding me? You’re never gonna make it.’ Because it was still the land of the giants. So that’s why now the standards have been removed. I mean, when I was coming in, and I feel like back in my day, I would have been looked at like, ‘Where’s your ticket?’ You know what I mean? The first person that really kind of beat the tar out of me was Polish Power Ivan Putski. So I had gone through this whole quest to try and get trained. Went to like I picked all the colleges that I applied to. They were all outside of Texas, because I was destined to get out there. But I picked them all based on if there was a wrestling school with a credible trainer nearby them. My father didn’t know that, but that was my plan. So that saw me go up to Pittsburgh, where I was going to train with Shane Douglas and Dominic DeNucci spoke to Shane Douglas on the phone. He left me a voicemail. He was like, ‘This is Troy Martin.’ I was, Oh, my God! He used his real name. This is real! It’s really happening. And I got up there, I went to Duquesne, but he tore his bicep. So they were like training is off. I was like, What am I doing up here? I have to go to class. So it’s the only time in my life I ever made the Dean’s list.”

So you were jaded a few years back, what brought you back?

“Well, okay, so what happened was I was going to return I believe in 2018, I was going to dip both feet back in the water with Ring of Honor when they were in Vegas. If I’m not mistaken, I want to see my buddy Jay Lethal was setting that up, and this was the last show they had when they canceled it because of the pandemic. It started getting crazy, people were looting and all this.”

So that was 2020?

“I’m getting my dates all mixed up. So that got canceled. Ring of Honor still paid me, which was really cool. But then nobody knew what was going on, and I was still kind of burnt out. I was doing the work, delivering and doing all this bullsh*t, you know, jobs that you hate, but you have a kind of freedom to do whatever you want to do. I like putting myself in situations where people don’t know everything about me. That’s why social media is such a silly tool, because for me, it is just that, it’s a tool. It’s a tool to promote things. For the most part, it’s an edited illusion, right? Everyone living their best lives and we’re so happy and all this stuff.” 

“I’m not saying that doesn’t happen, but I mean, it’s basically a photoshopped life, it’s an edited life. And so many people put all their chips in on it, and it ruins things. When I talked about it hurting the wrestling business, I don’t know what came first, it might have been the Speaking Out thing when there was cancelations all over the place, and a lot of those were warranted, but I think it put a net of fear over everybody. So it did allow voices to be heard that should have been heard in the first place. But it also didn’t just open the doors, it just took the doors off the hinges. So now anybody can be a wrestler who isn’t a wrestler. Now, I mean, you just stumble upon just whoever it’s like pro wrestler, ‘I do the graps!’ Shut the f*ck up. What are you talking about? So to allow these people to play the business has to compromise itself and look sh*ttier and phonier, more cooperative and more planned, more rehearsed, and it’s just unwatchable. It gets to where I can’t watch any anything on TV.”

So back then, what got you onto WWE’s radar?

“Selling and being a generous worker. I credit Dory Funk Jr. for giving me the opportunity to even get to WWF at the time, that’s the first time I had a trial was for WWF. I was able to be in the WCW locker room because of Dory Funk Jr. I was a plant in the crowd on the last WCW Pay Per View ever, Greed, where I’m in the crowd wearing my Funk t-shirt, and we had these plastic pie plates or something. And so it’s DDP and Steiner, and both super cool. I’m cheering, and Steiner’s beating up DDP in the entranceway, and I’m right at the corner, and Steiner comes over to me, and he, like, pulls my pie plate thing away, and he pie faces me, and he’s like, ‘Sit down, you white trash!’ It’s still a highlight of my career to be called white trash by Scott Steiner. Then something happens, and then DDP turns it around, and I get another pie plate, and he smashes it. Then I was a security guard for a contract signing, I want to say between Booker T and Scott Steiner on that Thunder. It was maybe the last Thunder or the second-to-last Thunder ever. But anyway, so Dory had set up these tryouts for Adam Windsor, who was his kind of project franchise guy, which was a whole other kind of situation. Rest in peace, Adam Windsor. But he was a kid from England who weighed about 170 and his parents basically funded Bang TV in order for his kid to get signed, because that’s what they guarantee. ‘We’ll guarantee we’ll get your kids signed, just fund our TV show.’ So that went not as planned. I don’t even know if that show still exists, but Dory is a fabulous trainer. He’s incredible, but he got this kid a tryout on house shows, and I was the third last guy. So that’s what put me on the radar initially, my first tryout was at a WWF house show in Fort Myers, Florida.” 

“Had a look all three nights against a different guy from the camp, so I was able to see what each guy did that got massive critiques, like a guy doing a spear on the same show as Rhyno. Some guy was lathered up in hot stuff or something that burned somebody’s eye. Yeah, just ridiculous. But I came to the back, and I want to say Pedro Morales was there at the time as an agent, and Jack Lanza. Everyone was super complimentary. Long story short, I ended up getting in touch with Kevin Kelly, my first real look that they were like, oh, okay, was against Perry Saturn in Austin for a show called Jakked Metal back in the day, was still WWF, and Perry gave me a ton. But the thing was, I was brought in by big, tough guys, Ivan Putski, Dory Funk Jr., even Terry Funk, you know, took a few licks and stuff. And even Rudy Boy Gonzalez is a big guy. He’s like if a baked potato lifted weights. So my thing was selling. You have no story if there’s no selling.”

You had an early match with John Cena on Velocity. Is it true he got in trouble letting you get in too much offense?

“Yeah, that was in Dallas, Texas, when he had B Squared ringside. Super cool guy. John’s amazing, by the way. I think he’s the Mick Jagger of pro wrestling, and he was just super cool. Mind you, I went out to UPW in California after he had left, so I was very familiar with him. I knew he was The Prototype, and I’d watched that documentary on Discovery Channel or something like that. That’s how I found out about UPW, and that’s what led me out to California. But they had already gotten their developmental deal taken away from them, but they didn’t tell me that before I moved out here, and then they told me that they still had it. I moved out here, and I was like, What the f*ck?! But John was amazing, and the funny thing with John is, so we went out to the ring, and he said, ‘What do you want to do?’ We start talking. I’m like, ‘I do this slingshot…’ Because he’s asking me. I was always taught when the veteran, or who the match is engineered for, when they’re asking you questions, you just shut up. For any vet, you just stop and listen when they ask you questions, then you answer, but you give your input when they ask you for it. One of the things for most academies is etiquette is not taught, because lot of these mixed schools are taught by people who taught themselves, or they couldn’t get booked elsewhere because they sucked. So now they’re teaching people, and they’re the champion of their promotion, and they’re like, ‘You can’t work anywhere else, or you’re never coming back.’ It’s garbage. It’s all crap. But it was hard to get back in it. So selling, I was taught to make yourself available. So that’s what happened with Perry Saturn, which allowed him to give me a ton of offense in that match. That’s what really put me on the map, was that match with Saturn. Because he came to the back, he was like, ‘Oh, kid, I was so awesome.’ [He’s] hugging me. Perry? Who did you work with? He’s in a good mood. And Heyman’s running down the hallway. ‘Sign this kid. Sign this kid, I swear.’ What the hell is happening here? I think I wasn’t signed for another year and a half later, but that match with John was another tryout match, dark match, or it was on Velocity, but it was for him. I wasn’t signed, but he said ‘What do you do?’ I do this slingshot head scissors. [He said] ‘Show me.’ We get in the ring. This is before the fans get in the building. I’m parallel to the ropes coming over. He’s supposed to catch my ankles here and go this way. But it went [crash]. I was like, oh sh*t, I’m f*cked. I’m done, I’m done, I’m done. He’s like, ‘It’s not ballet. Come on, let’s do it again.’ And we hit it and it worked in the match, so just super generous. I didn’t find out until later at OVW, when John came to work out with us, he’s like, ‘Why are you here?’ He was like They got mad at me for giving you what I did.”

After you got signed, your first televised appearance, the first time we see you on TV, is a segment with Vince McMahon.

“But that was not the first time I met Vince McMahon. So I was also a professional plant. Because I was a plant in WCW, after the Perry Saturn match, I was also a plant for SmackDown. This is leading up to WrestleMania 18. So Undertaker is a heel, Flair is a babyface. They stumble into the crowd. Flair goes to punch Undertaker, Taker moves, he decks a fan, I’m the fan. So he decks me. It’s a live SmackDown. We go upstairs, we’re coming back in like, two minutes. ‘Okay, you’re gonna say that man punched me.’ I’m like, Flair, right? ‘Don’t say his name.’ The f*ck kind of a fan am I who deosn’t know his name?! I’m wearing a Stone Cold shirt. I want the wheeling, jet stealing, limo driving… that dude, the money dude, yeah, he hit me. ‘No, say that man [Undertaker] hit me.’ Okay. So at the end of that night in San Antonio, all the local guys are waiting to say, Oh, thank you. We’re all waiting. So Vince is power walking. He’s got shoulder pads in his suit, and I’m last So Vince is walking, everyone is like ‘Oh, thank you sir. Remember me and hire me, and change my life forever. Thank you, sir.’ I went in for an aggressive handshake, and this is what I did. I went in for an aggressive handshake on Vince McMahon. I caught these two [fingers], but I had committed to it. I was already committed. He wiped my handshake off and power walked off. I was like, I’m f*cked. Never working here. I’m done. I’m done. I just clipped his two fingers. He didn’t say anything to me. So when I got to Hartford, I think that’s where they said I was from. This is before the dress code, and I had gotten called up to do house shows after two months, and out of the blue. I got to the TV taping, I expected to have a dark match with Brian teaming against whoever. I remember Arn Anderson came up to me. He’s like, ‘You ready kid? Your big day today.’ Oh, really, what’s going on? He’s like, ‘You might want to go get some better clothes, you got this thing with Vince.’ Oh my God. So I ran across the street. I don’t know if it was Brooks Brothers or something, I don’t know, but I spent money on slacks and basically what you see in that shot. I wasn’t gonna remind him I’m the guy who grabbed two fingers a couple of years ago. But he was cool, he seemed to like it. It seemed fine.” 

So the first time we see you in a televised match right after that segment with Vince. It’s Brock Lesnar, and it’s for the WWE Championship

“I think that stemmed out of that thing where he had decimated Brian [Kendrick]. He took that crazy F5 into the ring post bump, which is still, I have no idea how he did that. He even took a weird back bump from the floor up against the turnbuckles. Brian did an amazing job, incredible worker. But then he did the thing with Zach Gowen, where he bled him out like a stuck pig. Then it was me. But the same thing happened where I’m in the ring with Brock going over it. Arn is the agent. I love Arn Anderson. I actually have one of his trading cards, I carry it with me everywhere. But he’s like, oh, ‘What can you do, kid? Gotta make this guy look like a son of a bitch.’ I’m like, I think he’s doing a pretty good job on his own. He doesn’t have a neck. He’s shaped like Ram Man. And I’m like, ‘Well, if he clotheslines me right off the bat, I can do a 360.’ So I wouldn’t say Brock took a liking to me, but we were always cool, always cool after that. I mean, he wouldn’t say hi to anybody a lot of times, but he was always cool to me.” 

Did you piss Vince McMahon off by smiling in that segment?

“Yeah, it’s funny, it’s cute how sensitive millionaires are. If you think about it, the money, the power, the image, the persona, all of this becomes a big smoke screen. That becomes an illusion that you use as leverage to create some sort of fear, or try to keep everyone on their heels so they’re easier to move around. I don’t know, whatever you want to call it, but extremely sensitive, like very easy to hurt their feelings.”

So this is the segment when it was going to be who killed Vince McMahon when the limo exploded:

“We were in Hershey, Pennsylvania. We were coming off of a house show, and I had been pulled into the office right as I got there. I still had my bags, and, you know, I was already in trouble for another before-mentioned hillbilly backyard wrestler from North Carolina, who sabotaged me by putting out online that I had leaked a magazine reveal to a fan. I had revealed Ashley being on Playboy; I had revealed that online, so that had been put out there that I talked to a fan. So I was getting reprimanded for that. I was like, you know who did this. You know who’s behind this. ‘I know, we still have to talk to you.’ Why? If you know who did it. So I was already in trouble for that. Then they called everybody over that they didn’t have any plans for. Just okay, the rest of you, this was going to be going on here. Okay, we have this segment going on the ring now. Vince is going to be acting very queer, okay, very odd, unusual, very, very queer. They kept saying queer, I don’t know why, okay, I think they mean odd. That has to be what they mean, right? ‘He’s gonna come back here and we’re gonna line you all up, and he’s gonna just walk along acting very queer, very odd and just very bizarre and very queer.’ I was like, Okay, I get it. Now, if he looks at you, just play off of it. The best part of that segment is watching everybody else in that thing, their faces. That’s my favorite kind of part of that scene, because they were really trying. I’m like, What are y’all doing? So that was the only description. They filmed the limousine explosion the night before. Didn’t tell any of us that was what was happening. Didn’t tell us anything other than he was bizarre, odd and queer. So every take he looked in my face. I’m sitting here thinking, whatever is up this guy’s ass is making him so bizarre.

I did that every time. We did it nine times, every time he [looked at me]. All right, thanks, everybody. And then it was that Oompa Loompa that used to walk Khali to the ring, who was in the office, and I’m not talking about Davari, because I love Davari, but the non-athletic Oompa Loompa guy who used to walk Khali out to the ring, he’s like, ‘Hold on, sir. Do you think anyone’s gonna notice this’? He pulls out like a stencil and points out my smile. I don’t know if you’re familiar with Mekaneck from He-Man or a periscope in a submarine. His head, literally, he power walked over to me. ‘Why were you smiling?!’ Because you’re like, acting bizarre, and I don’t know? Don’t kill the messenger. I don’t get that.”

You have one of the greatest Royal Rumble eliminations of all time

“It wasn’t as glorious as that. But at the time, they hated it. Royal Rumble is my favorite event. That was my favorite of the traditional four, as it should be still, pay per views. And you know, that was one of the four pillars, Royal Rumble, Survivor Series, WrestleMania and SummerSlam. So Royal Rumble is my favorite. That was in the first magazine I ever picked up, coverage of the Royal Rumble. So I had to figure out what pro wrestling was. I had to figure out what the hell a battle royal was through images and in a magazine, and it was just these Gladiators, and it appears that they’re trying to tip each other out over the top. I love the Royal Rumble. We get to the building, I think it was in Fresno. How does this work? How does the Royal Rumble, the battle royal of all battle royals. How does it work? I was super intrigued. Get us into the room. There’s these big dry erase boards with like 30 names here, and like 30 names here, it was basically like, in parentheses, I think who’s eliminating you, and I love Snitsky. Always have Gene’s always been awesome. I love him. He’s who I would hire to be Jason Voorhees. But that’s just me.”

He was a punter before WWE:

“I believe it. So when I saw him eliminating me, it wasn’t like I wanted Shawn to super kick me out or whatever. But I think this is well after his not my fault stuff. So I thought I feel like that was just kind of like an afterthought. Well, who’s gonna eliminate [London]? Well, just have him [Snitsky] take this guy. That’s what it felt like. So I thought, well, how can we do this? I love David and Goliath. Easiest story to tell in wrestling. So easy. I said to my students all the time, and so it was a matter of just, how do I get [eliminated]? There are moments in that spot that I don’t like. There’s a pube of hesitation on my part before he clotheslines, but that was my idea. Gene’s like, ‘You know I’m gonna have to bring it.’ I was like, ‘Yeah, please, as long as you bring it.”

What is Paul London grateful for?

“My family, the career I’ve had so far, and the experiences I’ve had.”

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Buff Bagwell (@Marcbuffbagwell) is a professional wrestler best known for his time in WCW. He sits down with Chris Van Vliet at the DDP Yoga Performance Center in Atlanta, Georgia to discuss what led to his leg needing to be amputated and why he let Maven document the surgery, his battles with addiction and what led to him getting sober, possibly competing in one more match, how DDP helped him turn his life around, having one of the best physiques in wrestling, inventing the Blockbuster, and more!

How are you feeling right now?

“I’m blessed. I’m not sure who has their leg amputated, and five months later says they’re blessed, but I am blessed. It’s been crazy, this journey I’ve been on with this thing. But it all came at me at once, like from the leg getting amputated, to my sobriety, to my relationship with Jesus Christ, to my relationship with Stacy. I have 12 grandchildren, and I love it all.” 

What led to the decision to allow Maven to film you getting your leg amputated?

“To be honest with you, ratings. I felt like it would be the best way to let people know, and we could get a rub off of the YouTube channel. I like Maven a lot. Funny story about Maven, and this probably is actually the true answer behind what you just said. Chase Brogan, my YouTube producer, called me up and gave me this bill that 1,000 other people have gave me, I said, Brother, there’s no money in that. There’s no money. It’s very hard to make money, if any, it just don’t work. He goes, but you’re sober now, and it hit me. I went, Okay. So I’m listening. So he flies into town and puts a Maven video on. I’m looking, and I’m watching, and I was not impressed at all. He goes, ‘Hey, that guy makes $200,000 a year on YouTube.’ I said, ‘Two things. Number one, I don’t believe he makes $200,000 a year. Number two, if he does make $200,000 a year, we’ll make four. We’ll do it. Because what I’m looking at, if that’s 200 grand, then we’ll do four.’ I was wrong on both. He did make that money, and we’re not going to double him. It’s some kind of crazy magic in the bottle thing that guy has got. He puts a video out about Waffle House, it gets a million views. I put one out that I think, personally, is a little better, and it gets 30,000 views.”

So you reached out to Maven?

“I reached out to Maven and said exactly what I just told you. I said, ‘Hey, brother, what do you think about you being the person that breaks the news on me losing my leg and me getting a little rub from you? You help us along the way, build my channel?’ And he goes, absolutely, let’s do it. And that’s what we did.”

You are a completely different person now:

“I’m a completely different person. I am sure why, God. I believe I was always a pretty good guy. Matter of fact, Marcus Alexander Bagwell in 1991 was a great guy. Everybody in the locker room loved Marcus Alexander Bagwell, and I think through drinking and pills, drinking and drugging, I lost that Marcus. I really believe that’s what happened. I believe when the drinking and drugging stopped, Marcus instantly started, slowly coming back, and now Marcus is fully back to where. When I walk in a room, it lights up again, but not just from eyes I see. It lights up inside of me.”

When did your addiction start?

“I would say the time I feel in my head that it really started was when I got my own prescription bottles. That would have been 1998 when I broke my neck. It started legitimately with, Hey, man, I’m hurt. My neck is hurting, and I would take a pain pill, and it just climbed crazily from there.”

How were you still able to look like you did?

“I’m going to say something that nobody’s going to believe, but in the height of the best I ever looked, it was a case of beer a day, and 20 Lortabs, without exaggeration, 15 to 20 Lortabs, and 30 to 35 Somas every day of my life. We just a bodybuilder makes a really good drug addict or a really bad one, however you want to look at that, but it’s very organized. I had severe sleep apnea, and I wouldn’t sleep good, so when I woke up in the morning, again, I don’t feel good. I deserve this. So I would have my first party. I would take five or 10 Lortabs tabs, and eight to 10 Somas, party one and I did that kind of party on an empty stomach three times a day.”

When did you realize it was a problem?

“I realized I had a problem through all that. I went to rehab several times. My first rehab was early 2000 right after the WWE thing and all that. I went to rehab. I went for five days. They told me it was a medical detox. That was the word, but it’s not true, it doesn’t happen that way, but that’s what they said. Day eight, I was right back, taking pills again and drinking again. So I tried, I did five, five or six rehabs throughout that journey, but the last rehab before I got sober was 2012 and I did an interview with you right after that. I’d got it under wraps. I got a little bit of grip with it. But I wasn’t sober. It was the closest I got to being sober in 2012, but when I had that car wreck in 2020 and I really had hurt myself that I couldn’t fix it, I was angry. I was so mad at myself that I couldn’t fix this problem. I’d had other wrecks and knocked my teeth out, but fixed it. I would have a bad injury, but I fixed it. I couldn’t fix this one, so I fixed it by fixing me. I got sober.” 

How long have you been sober now? 

“Three years and five months. August 27 of 2022 is my sobriety birthday.”

For people who don’t know what happened with your leg, that car accident was kind of what started this?

“Absolutely. So in 2020, I had a car wreck where I was under the influence of pills and alcohol, and I drove through a bus station, it’s a bus station bathroom, men’s and women’s and nobody was in it, thank God. In that car wreck, my right knee cap exploded. So with it exploding, 40 surgeries over the next 3 or 4 years trying to fix it. Infections in and out. Knee replacement, I think it was 41 surgeries total. Then I was just going to deal with this leg that didn’t bend anymore, and it got infected again. And the doctor goes, ‘Let’s cut it off.’ And I went, Whoa, wait a minute, brother, we did 40 something surgeries. Let’s try to fix it one more time. I can’t just cut my leg off. So I went to that appointment to see what it was like to save my leg. In that appointment is where I stopped the doctor, as he was explaining, he was talking about pulling a skin graft off of this shoulder to close it up. I said, Whoa, what? So it was so devastating what I was hearing. I said, What’s the percentages of all that working? And he said, about 20%. I said, let’s cut it off.“

Were you able to come to peace with that decision?

“No, not at all. I was devastated. I did not, and you cannot see this. I tried to see it, but I just don’t think you have the eyes to see this part of it. The truth is, I should have done this two years earlier. I really believe if it would have been proposed to me two years ago, I would have thought they were crazy. Now, I’d have said no, no, no, like I did this time. But if I would have done it, I’d have been two years ahead. So this has been with my situation of the leg I had, this is unbelievably good what happened to me, but you just don’t see that when you’re going through it.”

If you weren’t battling addiction, would your knee have healed up quicker?

“Absolutely not. I think that whole process may have been a little quicker. I mean, I may have got to cutting it off a little quicker. But there’s no alcohol or pill addiction that was going to make that situation worse.”

But was it hurting the healing process?

“I think it prolonged everything. I think I would have just got to the amputation much earlier, probably if I would have been real healthy and eating good. It wasn’t going to make my leg bend, you know, so with it not making my leg going to bend, I kept drinking and taking pills because I was trying to make me better mentally. I was trying to throw a curveball at that leg. I was devastated that I was never going to be able to walk correctly again. So I sedated myself, and I was under sedation for 20 consecutive years. There wasn’t a day that didn’t go by for 20 years that I wasn’t some percent sedated.” 

I’ve heard you say you want to wrestle again?

“I know I could wrestle again, another match or two, but if I can’t do it, I’m not going to do it. And I’m not sure that’s possible. I don’t want to be ugly. If it’s ugly at all, I’m not going to do it. So, for example, this $135,000 leg. Because of this, there’s no way to make steps look good. So that will be the first thing you got to conquer, is getting in [the ring] or sliding in and getting up fast. But again, if I can’t do those things without them being I’m not going to do it, but I think I can. I think I can do it where it’s not ugly. I just don’t know yet, so we’re definitely going to, in the next couple of months, I’m going to get in the ring and just see what I can do. But I really do think no matter what I will do one match just because that’s one of my goals.” 

Have you connected with Zach Gowen?

“Several times. Zach’s a great guy, and he’s been very helpful with everything. And it’s just a different situation all around. One is he’s had his leg for years.”

You are walking right now though:

“So that’s only two weeks old without a cane, so two weeks with no cane, but just how weird that was. I didn’t believe I was ever going to walk without a cane, because that’s how much I needed a cane. I didn’t get it. I was at PT one day and a guy walked in with my deal with no cane. I said, ‘How long would it take you to do that?’ He said, ‘About a year.’ I went, Okay, that makes a little sense to me, because I couldn’t see doing it ever, ever putting the cane down. Then about another week goes by with PT and everything. And I realized that the cane was only there because of the hurting inside the socket. All there is you’re a cut off leg, an ace bandage about this big that they call a liner, that goes on real tight and it goes inside of that. I said, is there no pillow or comfort thing there? And there’s not. It’s just that finally gets tough, and it’s in the process of my journey. I’m five months in right now. Five months ago, I cut my leg off, and it finally started getting tough to wear. That was a big part of the cane that it didn’t hurt. So I’ve been walking with no cane for about two weeks and getting better and better every day.”

You’ve been documenting this right?

“Yes, we just started shooting on that. Still Buff is what we’re going to call it, and it’s just going to document the whole journey of God, sobriety and my leg, the whole journey of that. Because in that order, no matter what order you come up with for you sobriety, for your career, for your business, for your children, the number one thing should always be God, and in mine, it was God, Stacy, and then myself. In that order, I was able to put together three years and four months of sobriety, and that’s been magical for me in that order.”

It seems like you’ve been able to now make the distinction between Marcus and Buff, and for a long time, you were just Buff:

“That’s a perfect, perfect analogy. It’s funny you say that I remember the boys, Disco Inferno in particular, we would be talking, and he’d be like, ‘Is that Buff or is that Marcus?’ We would laugh and joke about it because it was funny. After all, back then, there was a Buff and a Marcus, and then somewhere in there those lines get they get cloudy, they get not so clear. That happens, you live the gimmick. I didn’t think I was doing that, but obviously I was, but I do believe that comes with also the alcohol and the pills just really clouded it up. It’s not just, you know, Macho Man lived his character. I could care less about living my character. I just believe that your character ain’t far from who you are anyway. Buff, when you saw Marcus Alexander Bagwell in the wrestling ring, Buff’s there too. I’m just a babyface. I’m a good guy. But when you’re Buff, you got to turn it up. It’s just turned up a little. But I think that gets confused even more with alcohol and pills.”

Do you feel like you had one of the best physiques in wrestling?

“I really do. But I don’t think the business does, which kind of upsets me. I remember Flex magazine came out with an article of the 10 top guys, and I wasn’t in it.”

Who was on the list?

“Steiner, Luger, Sting was on it. So it was guys that, you know, and my buddy sent a thing in, the guy at Flex sent back ‘We were talking about A talent.’ And I went, Whoa, but they still put my picture back in there anyway. But it’s just like when Razor Ramon was in there. And I love Scott Hall and Diamond Stud, I thought he looked great, but he really wasn’t a body guy after that.”

Do you think if WCW didn’t go under you were on course to win the World Championship?

“100%. There’s not a doubt in my mind. Very early in WCW, I knew that I would be hated because Missy taught me this. Missy showed me and taught me that you’re going to have to work 10 times harder. And I’m like, why? She goes, ‘Because you’re good-looking and because you’re young. If you don’t walk in every single time and shake hands and thank everybody and work hard, you’re going to get buried.’ She goes, ‘You will get buried anyway.’ And she was right. I walked in and I was hated. I was hated by all of them. I made friends, not trying to, but I made friends with Sting. Then one day they met me, and they were like, ‘Wow, he’s really a good guy.’ I remember Sting coming to my house to play basketball one day, and when he got to my house, remember the old school answering machines? Both Steiners were on my answering machine and Sting was amazed. He said, ‘Did I just hear Robbie?’ Because he called Rick Robbie. ‘Did I just hear Robbie and Scottie on your answer machine?’ I go, Yeah. He goes, what happened? I go, we ride motorcycles and stuff together. He goes, what? Because those guys hated my guts and we were best friends for a while. They hate my guts now too. I think they do. I did a video on Robbie, a bad video that I thought was funny, that he took personal. Looking back on it, I think it may have been a bad idea, but I really thought it was just funny. I thought everybody knew it anyway, but he got mad about that, I heard. Scottie, I think he’s mad at everybody.”

Did you invent the Blockbuster?

“I invented the Blockbuster. So glad you asked this, and it’s a great question, and I’m just now going through this personally with seeing a Mark Henry video that he got upset over this, and I said I knew it was a big deal that the guys are using the blockbuster. It’s a giant deal that the move that I named and created is on television right now. That was 25 plus years ago. That’s amazing, bro, and I’m so glad and happy from it. Logan Paul did it just two weeks ago, and 10 texts came through. ‘Hey, they used your move.’ I mean, I wish they called it the Buff Blockbuster, but at least, at least call it the name I created and this bothers me. I always got to tell the truth. Disco Inferno named it. He asked me if we could call it that. I said, Sure, I love it. Let’s call it the blockbuster. So he named it and the old school knock your block off, it’s your head. So it’s the Blockbuster. But where that came from is I was a huge Rick Rude fan. Rick Rude may have been my favorite wrestler, and he had the rude awakening. I hit Scottie Riggs with the Rude Awakening to join the NWO That’s how much I loved the Rude Awakening and Rick Rude, but you can’t copy it exactly. So I said, How can I make it different? I want to add somebody and that helped me. But nobody did. It was just me. I mean, back up in a minute. Scotty Riggs helped a lot, but I came up with off the ropes, some type of neck breaker. And then me and Scotty Riggs in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, before Souled Out, was in the hotel room, and we were practicing it on the beds, how to land. And the next day, when we got there, we were going to do it in the ring, practicing it in the ring. That day was swamped with pre-tapes, so we never practiced it once. The first time I hit it ever was on live television, Souled Out, and it was probably the best one I ever did. So that’s where it came from, and just thrilled to death that they still use it. It makes me feel important. It makes me feel like I did something that counts. It’s a big deal for guys and girls, the girls use it too, and they still call it the Blockbuster. I just love it that they kept the name. And here’s the problem, I don’t think they know it’s mine, but I know it. So I wish the world knew it was Buff Bagwell’s move, but I know that a big part of the people do, and it means a lot to me.”

What is Buff Bagwell grateful for?

“God, my wife and my leg.”

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Jackie Redmond (@Jackie_Redmond) is a broadcaster and interviewer currently working with WWE. She sits down with Chris Van Vliet in Washington, DC to discuss how a phone call from Michael Cole led to her joining WWE, the unique way she got into broadcasting, her dream job of reporting on the NHL, interviewing Triple H and The Rock after the wild WrestleMania 40 press conference, if she has any interest in getting in the ring, and more!

How long have you been broadcasting for?

“Since 2011. I know it’s crazy. It’s nuts. I feel like I’ve been doing it for like, five [years]. It doesn’t feel in the moment like I’ve been doing it as long as I have, although, until you start thinking about all the things that you’ve done, the successes, the failures, then you go, oh yeah, I guess it’s been that long.”

Your first appearance was in NXT, right?

“No, I never did NXT. Never did NXT. I did studio shows in Stanford starting in 2020, 2021. I did Raw Talk and Talking Smack. It’s been a lot of wrestling. I owe a lot to WWE because when I first started in broadcasting, I was cutting highlight packages. I was not on the air in a consistent capacity at all. One of the first opportunities I ever had to cut my teeth as a host was Aftermath. It was a wrestling show. I got a call and they said, Renee is leaving. Do you want to host the show? Do you watch wrestling? I said, Well, I watched it for like, four years as a kid. I had an obsessive phase. I haven’t been watching it, but I can absolutely get back into it. So that was my first ever real hosting gig.” 

But your dream job was hockey?

“I always wanted to be on Hockey Night in Canada. That was my dream, and so that’s what I chased for a really, really long time. I’m so lucky that I now do that for a living. I work with Wayne Gretzky, which is so weird. The idea that even in my wildest dreams as a kid, right? Dreaming of being on Hockey Night in Canada, I was like, well, maybe one day I’ll work with Don Cherry. I never imagined a scenario where Wayne Gretzky would be on the panel in the studio talking to me out in the field. That was never something that I thought could be a real thing.” 

And for those who don’t know, this is a really big deal:

“Hockey in Canada, I guess would be what you football is in America. That is the upper echelon of sports in Canada. And that’s what I always wanted to do. So that’s what I chased for a long time, and then I got it, and I was happy, and I was doing a two-hour studio show every single day, covering hockey, covering the entire league. I still to this day, owe everything to that show, and WWE has been a really great bonus.”

The way you got into broadcasting was pretty crazy too:

“I was on a reality show. I won a contest, because a lot of people told me when I first started out, you’re just a contest winner and I was like, I’ll show you. I will show you that I’m not just a contest winner. Yeah, the show was called Gillette DRAFTED: The Search for Canada’s Next Sportscaster, and so it was very like American Idol, but for broadcasting, that’s what I did. I was on season three, and there was different iterations of the show. The show I was on, there was a top 10, we had a challenge every week. There was a bottom three, and then someone would get eliminated. The whole tagline of the show was, ‘You will not be drafted.’ And at the end, one person gets drafted, they get a one-year contract to work at the Score Television Network, which doesn’t exist anymore, but it got bought by Sportsnet.”

Wasn’t Renee Paquette one of the judges?

“Yes, Renee Paquette. WWE knows her as Renee Young. She was a judge, and to this day, I always say Renee is literally one of the reasons that I got my start in sports. She’s the best, and she’s an amazing human, and we’re still friends to this day, she has been so, so, so great to me. There aren’t words, really, to describe how great she’s been to me. So I love her.” 

Did you reach out to her when you got into wrestling?

“You know what’s funny? So Renee and I, for a long time, sort of had these parallel careers, a little bit. So when she left The Score, I started hosting Aftermath, which she had hosted before me. Actually, when she came to WWE, I wrote one of her reference letters to get her Green Card or visa, or one of those things. I remember her reaching out and asking me to write a letter. So I wrote her a letter of recommendation as a former co-worker of hers.” 

You also knew CM Punk:

“I crossed paths with CM Punk prior to joining WWE because he’s such a hockey fan. So I knew him through hockey. So when he came back, I instantly DM’d him. I was leaving the venue, and I was like, ‘You little sh*t! I didn’t know you were coming back.’ This is crazy, and I was still pretty new at that time. So for me, I was like, Oh my gosh. It’s an intimidating world. Everyone’s so nice and welcoming, but it’s a big world with big personalities. Everyone’s focused on what they have going on. So when I first started, I was very much in my shell, I was shy. So when Punk came back, I was like, Oh, my God, a friendly face. I know this person, which is so crazy because his reputation prior to coming back, it just amazes me some of the things that people say about him, because for me, he’s always just been an absolute pleasure, so nice, so professional, just awesome.”

I feel like you have one of the toughest travel schedules in WWE:

“I like to think I’m on the podium at least. I’m sure there are a couple of people that might be able to compete with me, but I do customs every week, and I get direct flights maybe once every three months.”

Did you realize you had a Canadian accent when you started working for WWE?

“I realized it before, because I worked at NHL Network in New Jersey. So NHL Network, for people who don’t know, 24-hour hockey network airing only in the US, which is weird, because hockey is so popular in Canada. It has to do something with SportsNet’s rights deal with the NHL. Anyways, they boxed out NHL Network. So NHL Network and MLB Network are in the same place, and they’re run by the same people. So in the offseason, I before I got tapped on the shoulder to come join WWE. I would cover baseball, and I would do a show called Quick Pitch, which was all highlights. On that show, you have to say the word out a lot. So my Twitter, every time I hosted that show, would just be full of people being like, ‘Ah, the Canadian is hosting the baseball highlight show because I love the way you say out, or I hate the way you say out.’ But when I go home, my friends and family all say I sound American now. So there’s certain words I guess that I say that now sound American. And now that I’ve been living in Nova Scotia for six years, there are certain words people say I sound like I’m East Coast.”

So how did WWE bring you in for this job originally?

“So I was in Montreal covering the Stanley Cup final between Montreal and Tampa. I mean, this business is funny, right? Because years prior to this, because that would have been 2021. Around 2016 2017 again, Renee Paquette calls me and is like, ‘Hey, WWE might be interested in you. What do you think? I told them I’d call you first just to see kind of what you think. And she’s been such a great person to me. I know we talked about her earlier, but whenever I’ve reached out to her for any type of advice, she’s always been there, even as the years have passed. So she had called me and told me that my name had been brought up, and asked me what I thought. I said, ‘Well, what is the gig?’ And I was still in Toronto at this time, and just like, it would be hosting. She goes, ‘I see everything you’re doing in Canada right now with misplays of the month, and you’re hosting our equivalent to SportsCenter on the weekends. You’re doing all this great stuff. I feel like they might put you in NXT, you might be in the middle of nowhere.’ Experience outside of WWE isn’t the same as experience inside of WWE. And she goes, ‘So I don’t know if you’d be into it.’ So I said, ‘You know what? Let me think about it.’ And at the same time, I got an opportunity at NHL Network, and so I ended up not doing the WWE thing, and it never went further than a convo with Renee on the phone. It was very much like early stages, like, ‘Hey, your name was mentioned by somebody.’ So I end up taking the hockey show. My dream job, right? I’m covering hockey two hours a day, live television. Best thing for me to ever happen as a broadcaster, because when you’re live for two hours straight, oh, man, you make some mistakes, but you learn how to kind of roll with the punches. So years go by and I’m covering the final in Montreal, and I am not even joking, I get a phone call. I don’t know the number. I pick it up and it’s Michael Cole and he’s like, ‘Hey, I know your agent. I got your contact info from your agent. We are looking for someone to host our post-shows, our Raw Talk and our Talking Smack, and we’re kind of changing them a little bit. We want them to be a little bit more like a real sports post-show where you come into a studio, you talk about what happened. Maybe you go back to the venue, there’s an interview, yada yada yada.’ So I literally get a cold call from Michael Cole, which is so weird. I’m in Montreal, and I’m like, I can’t wait to text my sister after this and be like, Michael Cole just called me. How weird is that? I guess my agent was supposed to give me a heads up, but didn’t get me the heads up in time that the call was coming. So I had been on their radar, and yeah, he called me, and I said, ‘Do I have to stop doing this hockey show that I’m doing?’ And he said, ‘Well, where’s the hockey show?’ And I said, it’s in New Jersey. He said, ‘Well, Connecticut’s 90-minute drive. It’s only twice a week, Mondays and Fridays. You do both. It’s fine with us if it’s fine with you.’ So I did the audition, and he called me pretty much after the audition, and said, ‘You got it, if you want it, it’s yours.’ Those were crazy days, because our show was four to six Eastern time. So on Monday, I’d be on the air four to six live, and then I would leave from NHL network and drive right to Connecticut, get there basically, with the traffic and stuff right on time for Monday Night Raw to start, watch the show and then go live again.”

What was the audition like? Did you have to do a fake interview?

“No, we didn’t do a pretend interview. It was with Matt Camp, who was with the company at the time. I think they gave us an old show of Raw a couple of weeks prior. And obviously watched that show before I went in, and we just had to go in and do basically that show, minus the interviews. So honestly it felt more like a chemistry test as opposed to like a traditional audition. So we just talked about what happened on Raw and I threw to break and did those types of things and that was that. I’ve never been a big teleprompter girl, so even if they wanted me to, I would be like, unless it’s like a sponsor read, I don’t want it.”

You make it so authentic:

“Okay, well, thank you, because that’s like the best compliment you could give me. Honestly, it’s funny because when I first started, I felt like I did not do a good job of that at all. I think I got very in my head about saying exactly what I was supposed to say, and not screwing it up. But I think over time, one of the things I love about what we’re doing with WWE right now is we are trying to be more authentic, and we are trying to be more real about what we’re doing. WWE has really been great for me in terms of being like, Hey, you don’t need to follow a script. If we talk beforehand that, like, this is the question that we need you to ask. However you get there is fine with us, if you do it within the allotted time. And so that’s been really helpful for me, that I kind of have that support where it’s like, hey, just do it how you would do it in hockey. So this is the angle, this is what we’re trying to push, but you don’t have to ask it in the way that it’s written.”

Is there a switch you flip to go from hockey to WWE?

“I don’t know if there’s a switch that I flip, but it’s definitely different. Because with hockey, and this is a credit to TNT and some of the other people that I’ve worked for, I am sort of able to push in the directions that I want to push, and so I have a little bit more freedom in terms of what I want to ask or what I want to report on, and those sorts of things. But with wrestling, I get to have more fun. I get to sort of show a little bit more personality when the opportunity is there, especially on something like the countdown show or the post-show and some of the long-form interviews that we do. I don’t know if there’s a switch, but it’s different. I do think it’s a different hat, for sure.”

What does a typical day look like for you?

“Oh my gosh, coffee first. I usually like to do a lap just to see, like, who’s kicking around. So I try to shoot the sh*t with some people in the morning. Then I go to hair and makeup. That’s the first stop, and then usually I’ll know what the plan for the show is the night before, I’ll have an idea of what’s going on, and then it’s just about prepping for either a pre-taped backstage segment or a live [segment]. PLE days are really different because we’ve got a two-hour live show. So that is like a whole other different type of prep. But I’m always trying to talk to Superstars and talk to people that aren’t Superstars, that cover the product just about what’s going on and where we think things are going, and what are we clinging to as fans, what are we interested in? And how can I work that into a report that I’m doing or a question that I’m asking? Because I don’t want to ask, ‘How do you feel?’ If I’m going to ask that, I want to at least before I say, ‘How do you feel?’ Give some sort of context or something that either the Superstar, it either triggers the Superstar or it triggers the audience, one of those two things. So for me, a question can never just be a question. You need to give a reason for the question, or you need to have the lead-up to the question be something that evokes an emotion in someone. It doesn’t have to be the person you’re interviewing. Maybe it’s the audience. But I’m always trying to come up with something, because if I just ask, and there’s clips of me just asking, ‘How do you feel?’ Or, ‘What’s next for you? But just know inside, I’m dying that I’m asking it that way, like I hate when I ask questions like that.”

You were interviewing Triple H at the WrestleMania 40 press conference, then The Rock interrupted:

“The jaw drop, the most natural crazy jaw drop of my entire life. The crazy thing about that situation was I didn’t even know I was interviewing Triple H until eight minutes before that. So we’re getting close to the end of this presser, and a producer comes up to me and is like, ‘Hey, we weren’t planning for this, but some sh*t is about to go down, and I think we need to hear from Hunter after this. We need him to give us something to kind of put a cap on everything that’s going on.’ So okay, that’s no problem. ‘So just pay attention. As soon as it’s done, he’s gonna come out of Gorilla, and he knows he’s gonna chat with you to get this instant live reaction from the craziness that just happened.’ So I find that out late, and I’m like, oh. I’m still only a year into this job, maybe. So for me, Hunter is still a very intimidating presence. I’ve met him, I’ve talked to him. He’s lovely, but we’re not buds. I don’t know him that well. I’m like, Oh man, I’m interviewing Hunter, can’t blow this, this has to be good. And then I interview him, and I like, I should know better at this point that basically 99% of the time when I’m interviewing someone, it will be interrupted, that’s pretty much a staple of what I do. But I had no idea that Dwayne The Rock mother f*cking Johnson was gonna come out, yell at Hunter and drop F bombs all on live television. People do not believe me to this day, that I did not know The Rock was gonna do that. I did not know, hand to God did not know that that was gonna happen. And so when it did, that was a very real reaction from me. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. I felt like I was teleported back to being 10 years old, it’s the Attitude Era and The Rock and Triple H are yelling at each other. What is going on? It was a very surreal, surreal moment for me. I don’t say that a lot, like that was one where I was like is this my life right now?”

Do you think you’ll do anything in the ring?

“I mean, I don’t have any desire to be in a match or anything like that.”

If this was 20 years ago, you’d probably be in a storyline:

“I do wish that superstars yelled at me more. I’m not gonna lie, that’s not really a thing that we do anymore, but I want them in my face. I want them to be mean to me. I actually really want that, please be a dick, be a jerk to me. But it’s a different time, maybe one day. No, I don’t want to be in the ring, but I wouldn’t be opposed to slapping someone or taking a bump.”

What is Jackie Redmond grateful for?

“My family, I get to do this job where the possibilities are endless, and that I am getting a reminder to enjoy this whole thing.”

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The Miz (@mikethemiz) is a professional wrestler in WWE. He sits down with Chris Van Vliet in Washington, DC to discuss his unlikely journey from reality TV to WWE by entering Tough Enough, getting kicked out of the locker room and how he was let back in, winning the WWE Championship and defending it against John Cena in the main event of WrestleMania 27, finally getting his flowers, whether he feels respected from the fans, that iconic Talking Smack segment with Daniel Bryan, how he met his wife Maryse in WWE, a possible babyface run, and much more!

At what point did you feel like your career wasn’t going to happen?

“The entire time. As soon as I started at UPW and feeling my first bump that I ever took, I was like, oh my god, this is rough. Am I really going to be able to do this? Then going through the three years of basically trying to go into dark matches, trying to get a notice from WWE or even Japan, was very difficult. Trying to get any type of booking was very tough. I was getting booked on college circuits because I was on The Real World I was going to these colleges, and everyone would always ask me, ‘Could you do The Miz?’ I would cut promos as The Miz. There’d be 1000s of kids there listening to my speech, listening to my stories, and then I would go and perform in back alleys for like 20 bucks, or I wouldn’t get paid. It was in front of 20 people, and literally, it was like that kind of contrast. But I was learning the art of professional wrestling while also doing speeches in front of 1000s of people. It was preparing me.”

Do you remember being told you were going to be on Tough Enough?

“So that was the first break in wrestling, Real World, then The Challenge. I kept doing all the Miz stuff on those challenges. So I remember the call. I wanted to try out for Tough Enough season two, because I found out they’re doing Tough Enough. I didn’t realize they were doing it. Then when I found out they had a show, I asked MTV, I said, ‘Hey, I want to try out for this.’ And they were like, you can’t try out. Because back then, you couldn’t mix and match, you couldn’t mix and match reality shows. It just wasn’t thing back then. They [Real World & The Challenge] were both on MTV, and they were like, it would be confusing, this, that and the other. So I couldn’t do that. So I had to stick with UPW in Los Angeles, continue learning the art of professional wrestling. Plus, I wasn’t sure if I really wanted to be on Tough Enough because I started hearing rumblings. I was kind of, I guess you’d say in the know of wrestling. I would hear stories that if you were on Tough Enough, you weren’t respected. I wanted respect, right? I felt like people were going to see me on a reality show and instantly say, he just wants his 15 minutes of fame, which, by the way, I did, I’m not gonna lie, but I did. I did love being famous or doing things that get a clap, a pat on the back. Maybe it’s because, with my childhood growing up, Dad never patted me on the back and said I was doing great. I don’t know what it is, but I kind of always like that whenever there’s a camera around, I always wanted to be in front of it, no matter what. Even when I was in high school, I remember when news was around us. I remember watching the Cleveland Guardians play, and we were at some sort of concert venue to watch them play, because it was sold out in the stadium. I remember there was a news team and I ran down just to try to get on the news. I was like poking my head, you know. I ended up being on it, and I thought it was the greatest thing in the world. Then cut to what people really don’t know about, I don’t even think, but I’ll tell you, I was on a show before the Real World, on MTV. I went to spring break, and I was in college, went with a bunch of my college buddies, and I saw MTV Spring Break was there, and I was like, oh my god, I got to be on this show. So I went there and I went through the casting. It was at Fat Tuesdays, and they were like, ‘What would you do to get on TV?’ I was like, anything we need me to do. They’re like, ‘Would you eat a bunch of peppers?’ Yeah, no problem. I’m not a spicy food type of person. So it ended up being a part of spring break. It was me versus a guy that was getting his tongue pierced, a girl that was flashing the camera and that was it. So it was us three. I ate peppers. I swear to you, I ate so many peppers, you could see the red just start forming from the juices of it. I’m telling you, I was crying. The entire week was ruined by this senseless act of spring break. But I thought I could win. I thought I could win on spring break when the girl was flashing the camera, and she ended up winning. I know, what a surprise! I ended up having to put ointment on my skin because it was burnt.”

But you got to be on TV:

“But I got to be on TV. So then when I tried out for The Real World, that next August, they almost didn’t want me on the show because they thought I just wanted to be famous. But luckily for me, I went through all the interviews and made it on the show, and once I made it onto that show. Back to Tough Enough. So I wanted to try out for Tough Enough, they wouldn’t let me do Tough Enough. So I started doing that, and then I got a call from WWE saying, Hey, would you like to try out for Tough Enough? We’re doing it in Venice. There’s 50 people that will show up, and you have to just try out. I said, Absolutely. Actually, I think I said yes, or I might have said, Let me think about it. And I called Rick Bassman, who got me in touch with Simon Dean, who was also from UPW and was on the show at the time. I remember asking Simon Dean, I was like, ‘Would you do this? I want respect in the business, I don’t want people to look at me as the Tough Enough guy, and just, I’ll be out.’ Because you watch the Tough Enough people, back then they got it, and they weren’t respected, and everyone wanted them out. If they wanted you out, you’re out.”

 I think Maven would tell you that

“Yeah, if they want you out, they’ll get you. So I knew I needed people to teach me inside the ring, and I knew I needed the respect, and if I went on Tough Enough, I wouldn’t get that. He was like, ‘Dude, have you gotten your foot in the door at all?’ I was like, No, he goes,’ It’s for a million dollars. It’s a million-dollar Tough Enough, it’s a lot of money.’ This is gonna sound really weird, and it might be to some people, but I don’t care about the money. I see the big picture. I just need my foot in the door. Every time I would go backstage for dark matches, they never would pick me. They never wanted me. People knew who I was. I remember me working out with Charlie Haas and Shelton Benjamin. And I remember Bill DeMott walking out going, ‘Real World’s here!’ I was like, oh man. I remember, I was like, Oh man, maybe they know I’m on The Real World. Maybe I can utilize this. Then I remember everyone had to get out of the ring, and Taker wanted to see Chris Masters wrestle. Chris Masters looked like a superstar, and he was like, 20-something, and he was in the same class that I was in. They tried him out, and he got a contract. I didn’t. So I was like I don’t know if I’m gonna get a contract ever. So I tried out for Tough Enough. And Tough Enough was tough. The first day was like 500 bumps. Just bam, bam, bam. All right, flip bumps, boom, boom, boom. I remember a guy, he was a Green Beret or a Navy SEAL, but he was some sort of Armed Forces dude, was stacked tough. I remember him calling us to his room, and he had ice everywhere after that first day. He was just blown up, his elbows were just total inflammation everywhere. And he was like, Dude, I’m quitting. I was like, Whoa, that fast. So one guy quit, and then all of us were just stuck together from that Tough Enough crew, and we’d go out every night, and it was tough. All the things like going backstage, and I know during that time, we’re coming on to Tough Enough we’re there to take a segment out of SmackDown, which takes a segment off of someone in that locker room. Not only that, they fired like 18 people the first day we were there. So we walk in and we’re these guys. I knew, but none of the other guys knew they weren’t trying to become WWE superstars. They were doing all different sorts of things, but I was trying to be a wrestler, so I knew, I was like, oh, man, this is not good. So they put us through the ringer on Tough Enough, but you had to earn it. You had to see who wanted to be there. I made it all the way to the end, but I’ll never forget when Daniel Puder’s name was called, I was like, oh man, that was my chance. I always said, if you have a microphone, you have a time to really get the crowd back into you. I didn’t do that. I don’t know if I was inexperienced enough, where I just felt the emotion so much that I couldn’t think, but when they gave me the thing, I just kind of just said, thank you everyone, and kind of shook hands and didn’t really encapsulate that moment. It was heartbreaking. So I get backstage, Tommy Dreamer comes up to me and goes, you’re probably going to get a contract for developmental. I was like, oh, man, that’s awesome. And then I thought, okay, if I go to developmental, I need to be on TV in a year, right? So if I’m in a year, MTV called and said, Hey, we have another challenge. I was like, Hmm, maybe I shouldn’t do this contract yet. I should get on MTV’s The Challenge again. Hopefully win that thing, and then I’ll be on TV for a year, so the fans will never forget about me being on there. So I kind of told WWE I’d like to wait a couple months just to get my bearings back. I don’t know why I said that, because that’s dumb, like they’re offering you a contract, and you’re like, Yeah, I’ll do it in two months. Yeah, this is my dream job. But I also knew I had a fan base, and I wanted to keep that fan base, and I also wanted closure with MTV. So I went on the inferno part two. I won. And while that show, before that show even started airing, I signed my contract for WWE. Then they were like, Yeah, you’re gonna have to move to McDonough Georgia. So moved to McDonough Georgia, and it was a brand new territory at the time, and, oh, man, it was in a shopping plaza. We were right next door to any type of shop you would see at a shopping plaza.”

I’ve mainly seen The Miz as a heel, but there have been moments of you being a babyface:

“My character doesn’t really work as a baby face, if I’m being honest. It’s a person that can lose, and then the next day, you’ll forget about that loss, because I’ll just cut a promo and just make you believe. But with the babyface, babyfaces can’t really lose a lot. If a babyface loses too much, you lose [appeal]. Everyone always says winning doesn’t matter, winning doesn’t matter. It matters. It really does matter. Especially if you’re a babyface, because in my opinion, if you’re a babyface and I’m a kid out there, my kids always ask me, ‘Did you win? Did you win? Did you win?’ I always have to go, ‘Ah, daddy didn’t win this week. But you know, I’ll get him next week.’ You can only say that so many times to a kid where they’re just like, I want a winner. I want a winner. I want to cheer a winner. People like winners, people like first place, they don’t like second place, they don’t like third place. They want the guy, their guy, and they want their guy to win, so if he doesn’t win… So that’s why I feel like my character, I’m so good at losing and then making you forget about that loss, and then making you believe the next day that I can beat the biggest superstar in the world. I could lose to whoever. Guy comes up from NXT, Je’Von Evans, and beats me. The next day, I can be in the main event. I can go up against John Cena, not anymore, but I go up against your biggest superstar, and I can make you believe I can beat that person, and you will believe that I will beat that person. But as a babyface, it’s a little tougher. It’s been weird these past couple of years, though. I would say this past year has been weird.”

In what way?

“So the things I do that I know in my rolodex of being a heel and being a bad guy, I’ll do and it doesn’t get the boos anymore.”

Because people want to cheer you:

“If you’re gonna cheer me, cheer me. If you’re just gonna go Ah! He’s so good. I don’t want that. I don’t want that. That’s the death, because that’s just, I don’t know what to really do.” 

But do you feel the respect? 

“Yes, I feel the respect. I feel it in the locker room. I feel it in the crowd, but I’ll hear you say it. ‘Oh, Miz has gotten his flowers.’ You know what kind of flowers I get? I get the ones that are half dead, that you give to me and they’re gonna die the next day. You don’t give me a full bouquet of flowers that are like, here are your flowers. John Cena gets the flowers. I don’t get the flowers. I get the half-dead flowers that are like, Here you go, here’s your flowers. We’re giving you your flowers. It’s the half assed flowers.”

Why do you think that is?

“I don’t know. Maybe it’s because, maybe because I don’t want them.”

Have you always been locked in with the fans?

“No. Cena got me there. I would say three or four years in I separated from John Morrison, which was an amazing tag team, for me, at least, it was a very educational tag team, because he was more experienced than I was, he is more out of the box thinker than I am, and he would make me do things that I normally wouldn’t do. But since we did them, it made it awesome. Anyway, I separate from John Morrison. I go to Raw and they’re like, your first feud will be with John Cena. Wow. Excuse me?! I’m wearing shorts, a fedora, a bandana. I’m like, Oh my God, this is it! This is the moment I’ve been waiting for. This is my chance. This is my shot. And by the way, John Cena is not going to be here for the next six weeks. So you’re just gonna call him out. He’s not gonna show up, and you’re just gonna say, I win one, nothing, two, nothing, three, nothing, four nothing, until seven, nothing. Then I’m gonna have a pay-per-view match singles against John Cena. I’m thinking, Oh, my God, I’m coming up with ideas. I’m thinking, Oh, I could do this, I could do this, I could do this. I could do this. Literally, we called that match in the ring. John called the match in the ring, and he gave me, it wasn’t a squash by any means, because I got heat on him. But he literally did his five moves of doom, and pinned me 1, 2, 3, and then wiped the floor with me and walked out. I was like, oh my god, it’s over. I mean, all that work that I just put in, like, I thought I was really getting over. I thought I was really getting steam. And then he just mopped the floor with me. I remember going backstage and I see Arn Anderson. He was like, ‘Great job kid.’ I was like, ‘Great job? That was like, five minutes. That wasn’t the barn burner that you want to put on a pay-per-view match.’ He’s like, ‘You’re not ready for John Cena.’ I go, ‘But I just did all these promos. What are you talking about? Not ready?’ He’s like, ‘You haven’t been through the wars.’ I was like, ‘I was a Tag Team Champion.’ He’s like, ‘Yeah, you were Tag Team Champion. You need to go through the wars to get to John Cena. You need to go through years of just preparing yourself and going through and big builds of big stories that really get you to a John Cena. You can’t just walk in there.’ I was like, oh, that’s how a top guy knows, like John knew. So now I had to go back down and dig deep and start building myself little by little. Find stories, find ways to make a story bigger than it was supposed to be. I started doing that. I started getting the United States Championship. Then all of a sudden, I had the Tag Team Titles. I had three titles at one point. Then I had the Money in the Bank briefcase and I was like, Oh my God. I got three titles, Money in the Bank. I’m really doing it. I’m doing exactly what Arn Anderson told me for the next year.”

Did you have any idea of when you might be invited back into the locker room? 

“I had no idea. I knew the person that told me that, hey, you’re kicked out of the locker room. He said you’re not coming in until I say so.”

Was that The Undertaker? 

“No, that person went away. So then when that person went away, I was like, oh boy, how am I gonna get back in the locker room? So I had to wait another three months. I asked Taker. I was like, ‘Man, I’ve been out of the locker room for a long time.’ He goes, ‘Oh, you have?’ Yeah, I’ve been out like six months. ‘What’d you do?’ I ate a piece of chicken in the locker room, and it got all over. I still believe it did not, but other people will tell you differently, and they can have their opinions. That is fine. I was under a microscope of, let’s get this guy. A lot of times in a locker room, someone could say he ate a piece of chicken over my thing. And, [someone else says] ‘Oh, man, what are you doing? Why are you doing this?’ And then another guy walks in. ‘Oh, you ate chicken over his his bag?’ Another guy walks in. ‘He did what?!’ Then another guy is outside the locker room. And then he heard he ate chicken and he got it all over the place. Then by the time the telephone game was played, I was throwing chicken all over the locker room, I was smearing it on stuff, that’s what it felt like. So yeah, I went to Taker and I said, I ate chicken over a bag. Yeah, it’s real.”

But you have to realize how ridiculous that must have been. 

“It was so ridiculous. I’m a grown man, and people are always like, ‘Why don’t you fight them? Why don’t you stick up for yourself?’ Because back then, if I would have done something like that, I probably would have been fired, or I looked at it as if I stand up to this person who is a locker room leader and very respected, and the reality guy steps up and talks and mouths off at that person, they’re never going to teach me. I need them to teach me. I’m not going to learn this. These new up-and-coming NXT Superstars, as much as they’re going to learn, and trust me, they have an excellent training facility and excellent trainers. But they’re going to learn so much more by being in the ring with people that have been there. Cody Rhodes, when you get in the ring with Roman Reigns, and you get in the ring with these guys, it’s another level that you can’t teach in front of your colleagues, like you can’t teach at a school. You have to teach it in front of an audience. It takes reps and reps and reps and reps. They’ll be the first to tell you it. So I knew I needed reps with stars, with main eventers so I could wrestle like a main eventer. I can watch all the footage I want of it. But there’s a difference between watching it and actually doing it. Everyone can watch it, not everyone can do it.” 

So take me back to the day where you won the WWE Championship:

“I didn’t walk in knowing, that was a day of situation. Same thing when I won my second WWE Championship. I had no idea. I thought I was losing it the second time. I thought the reason they took it off of Otis was so he didn’t have to lose, so they’re giving it to someone that can just lose the Money in the Bank and be done with it. The first time, I didn’t know. It was Orlando, I walk in the arena, and I got into meeting with Vince. Usually I didn’t have a meeting with Vince, but this day they were like, ‘Hey, you got to meet with Vince.’ I wonder what’s happening. Honestly, I was starting to believe I was going to lose it. If you remember, I had three titles. They were giving me the rocket without me realizing I had the rocket. Most people didn’t think I had the rocket either, because even though I had three titles and everything like that, people still just like, Go away, go away. So I get in there, and he’s like, ‘We’re gonna put it on you.’ I go, Huh? Oh, my god, wow, I’m not losing?  No, we’re putting it on you. Okay. I’m gonna do my best to make sure that this is the biggest thing ever. I will do whatever it takes. He’s like, ‘I know you will. You’ve worked hard for this.’ I really have, and I’m about to work even harder. So I remember kayfabing everyone, not telling a soul. I remember I had a match that day, or I had something where I had my gear on, and everyone was asking, Dude, why are you still wearing your gear? I was like, just tired, man, just tired. Everyone’s kind of peeping over. I remember Randy going through the Nexus, Wade, Barrett, everyone. I remember the day because we had a promo class that day, and the promo class was about being animalistic. I think I remember, I think it was Wade and Sheamus having a promo battle where they were barking like dogs. The lesson, as stupid as it sounds, the lesson is sometimes you don’t need words to translate exactly what’s happening in a match, you need that raw, primal [energy]. So I envisioned myself as a wolf attacking. You ever see a wolf trying to attack and the other person’s trying to get away, and you’re just like, it’s locked in on the injury. It sees the blood. When you see the blood, you’re going for it. So that promo class taught me that. So that’s when I walked out and when I got into the ring. I remember I was like a wolf, locked in, saw the injury. His leg was injured. I was going after it. I could feel, and this is whatever, you can call it acting, or whatever, method acting. I could feel my mouth just watering for it, almost foaming for that, because I knew I was getting that title, and I’m going to get that title. So I went after Orton’s leg, tore it up. He goes for his RKO, I hit the move, and while I’m hitting the move, I’m going, yes, yes, yes, yes. Boom, 1, 2, 3, it’s real. It’s real. So many things go through your mind when a moment like that happens, it’s like you see pictures. You see, as a kid, watching wrestling, playing with my red, white and blue ropes, and flinging my action figures, going to Toys R Us, asking my dad, ‘Hey Koko B Ware’s at Toys R Us. Can we please, please, please, please, go, go wait in line and get his autograph?’ ‘No, I don’t have time for that.’ You know, walking in and seeing which one I didn’t have. I don’t have Undertaker. I don’t have Ultimate Warrior yet. I don’t have this one. I don’t have this color. I remember those, it’s going through my head while I’m winning. Then going through meeting Hulk Hogan for the first time in Toronto, and him asking me about The Real World, that’s going through my head. Going to UPW for the first time, meeting Rick Bassman, saying, ‘Hey, I’d really love to train here.’ $2,500 and you can train as much as you want. Absolutely, no problem paying the money. Going to Deep South Wrestling, the hardest stuff I ever had to go through, the blood, the sweat, the tears, then going through getting kicked out of the locker room, winning my first championship, Tag Team Championship, almost getting in a fight the same day that I won my tag team titles. United States Champion, first singles title. Oh my god, climbing up the ladder, grabbing the Money in the Bank briefcase going, oh my god, this is happening. The crowd booing in awe saying, Oh my God, you just threw Randy Orton, our hero, off. This is going through my all of it while I’m winning, while I’m sitting there. This is how fast it’s going through my head, bubble, boom. Then having the Money in the Bank. Everyone’s saying, all the critics and everyone online saying ‘He’s going to be the first to lose. We hate him. We don’t want him, give it to another person. There’s so many better options. Give it to DiBiase, give it to Cody, give it to someone, anyone but The Miz.’ Then going in there and winning and holding it up. And then you’re like, Oh my God. And then all those things go through. And then you feel the eyes, the water starts to happen. And you’re like, No, wait, this is my first moment as a WWE, I can’t be crying. No, don’t cry. Don’t cry. So then what do I do? I get up and I go to the top rope to kind of walk it off. Walk off those tears that are about to happen. I hoist the title up, and I’m like, oh my god. I remember Alex Riley, hugging him, being like, I did it, we did it. Oh my god, I don’t know what to say or do, because that’s not supposed to happen. Dreams supposed to happen when you’re sleeping, not when you’re there, and this is the dream. I walk backstage and everyone’s clapping. Nowadays, no one stays after the show, but back then, everyone stayed after the show. It was mandatory, everyone was there and everyone was clapping. Maybe they were made to do that, I don’t know, or maybe they felt compelled to do it, but, man, that was a really cool moment, really cool moment to have all these people there. Man, this is crazy. And then afterwards, me and Maryse went to Denny’s, and I had a breakfast slam to celebrate because nothing was open and I didn’t plan a party.”

So you remember winning the WWE Championship so vividly, What do you remember from Wrestlemania 27?

“So I remember my entrance. I remember not seeing that vignette. That Hate Me Now vignette is so good. I still think it’s the best. People say Rock and Austin, My Way, they say that one’s the best. I beg to differ, and the reason is what that vignette did in that moment. I wonder if that vignette was put on SmackDown, there would have been a different feeling energy going in. Because going in, I remember I was swallowed up. You’re the WWE Champion, I’m going up against Titans, The Rock and John Cena, titans. Then there’s me with the WWE Championship. Back then, it still is very, very competitive. But man, everyone was fighting for it. Everyone’s fighting for that spot, that main event spot. I’m like, Man, I want this main event. I have to get this main event. This main event is everything; we have to get it. I mean, I have The Rock, I have Cena, this has got to be it. But there were so many great matches and great superstars on that card. It could have went either way. So I remember that leading up to it, the promos everything, oh my God. I remember the promo I cut, where I walked out as The Rock. I didn’t think it was gonna work at all. I went out, did the whole Rock thing, and then I cut a promo, and I remember The Rock calling me, leaving a message, being like, ‘Dude, that was it. That was amazing. That’s how you step up to the plate. Blah, blah, blah.’ I’m like, Oh man, I’m ready. So then for the match portion of this, I remember seeing Hate Me Now vignette for the first time, right before I’m about to go out. I remember hearing the audience go, oh! As I walked out, I had bubbles. In my head I was like bubbles?! Awesome bubbles?! I’m the main event. I’m WWE Champion. People get Pyro, huge displays of pyro. I got bubbles?! I actually ended up loving the bubbles busted out. No one’s ever done that. And then when I remember them saying, ‘You have Pyro for 30 seconds, so make sure you keep it there.’ I’m like, oh, man, this is gonna be great. They’re sparklers. I’m going, I thought these were gonna be big, huge. This is freaking sparklers. It’s like, all right. There we go. Then I remember looking over to my friends and telling them, literally, we did it. I remember being in Parma, Ohio, in Sandpiper at my condominium, and we would watch every pay-per-view, ECW, WCW, WWE all the time. I just remember all of us watching, and they were all there in front row watching me with the WWE Championship that we watched Rock and Austin fight for all the time. So I was like, We did it. I remember Cena’s his choir. I was like, Oh, this guy gets a choir. Then he comes out, does his thing. I remember that the heat spot, if you will, because it wasn’t a heat spot. It was just me beating him up in the corner. I remember that. I remember the pop of the crowd when I kicked out of the AA. I remember Cena saying, ‘Just grab onto the ropes kid, grab onto the ropes. We got you. We got you.’ Boom. Rock. Boom. I remember Chioda going, ‘Cover him kid, cover him.’ I’m just like, Huh, what’s going on? 1, 2, 3, winning. And I remember Chioda telling me, ‘Throw your title at The Rock. Throw your title at The Rock.’ I’m like, Yeah, okay, threw the title at The Rock. Remember The Rock coming in. I got you kid. Don’t you worry. Don’t you worry. We got this. I have no idea. Boom, boom. And then it was over. I remember, I see stuff on the internet. I was like, I don’t remember that. I don’t remember that. I don’t remember that. I don’t remember being backstage and me just being like, ‘Was it good?’ I don’t like seeing myself like that. But some people are like, oh, what would you have done if they stopped the match? That would have been the worst possible scenario, the worst possible scenario, if someone would have stopped that match, I was in good hands, and I trusted the two people in there, and I will always trust them and always be thankful for them, all three of them. It’s not just The Rock and Cena, Chioda as well. They all protected me. They all looked at me, and they all allowed me to do what I needed to do to make that whole situation a success.”

You’ve been there so long that you’ve seen so many of your friends, so many of your colleagues get released. Did you ever think that maybe that call was coming for you?

“Yeah, honestly, every time there’s a release, I’m like, Oh no, is it me?”

Especially when it’s people like Dolph Ziggler get released:

“That was a tough one for me to see him go, because it was kind of like the last of my really core group of friends. I have friends, obviously, in the locker room and that, but that was my core group of friends. I was like man, I’ve had such great matches with Dolph too. Him putting his career up and me the IC Title. That whole IC title reign he was a big part of elevating that title as well. During that time for me, and so to see him go is tough, but that’s the name of this business, it happens, those type of things happen for me, this is going to sound very cocky and arrogant. I know how valuable I am. I know how good I am, and whether the audience sees it or not, I know people know. If you’ve wrestled me, you know. So yes, there’s always in the back of your mind, oh, is it me? Is it me? Is it me? But then there’s also that other part that goes, I’ve done a lot in this business, and I still got more.”

What is The Miz grateful for?

“My wife and kids, to call myself a WWE Superstar, and to wake up every day.”

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Raven (@theraveneffect) is a professional wrestler best known for his time in ECW and WWE. He sits down with Chris Van Vliet at the DDPY Performance Center in Atlanta, GA to discuss his new documentary “Nevermore: The Raven Effect” and why he wanted it to be warts and all, what was the hardest topic to cover in the documentary, an update on his current health and his early onset Parkinson’s Disease, the inspiration behind his iconic look, the chair shot heard around the world, almost knocking out the power at WrestleMania 17, and more!

Visit Raven’s website at: https://theraveneffect.com

You have stopped watching wrestling?

“I stopped watching. I saw some pay-per-views where I was a guest at a party. You know, they pay you to come in and sit around and watch the pay-per-view with everybody. I’ve done some of those. So I’ve seen some stuff, but not a lot, just a couple of reasons. One, I got so disenchanted, and then I just never started watching again, because I’ve already seen everything that there is, and I’m a completist, so I’d have to watch everything. There’s no time to read books or to watch other TV shows. With my sleep disorder, I need to take a nap every day, I need 9-10 hours sleep, so that cuts into my day. Watching wrestling would just take up way too much time. I’m already addicted enough to the UFC and MMA, to get addicted to back to wrestling again would be too much.”

What’s the sleep disorder that you have?

“They don’t have a name for it, but I know another person that has the same thing. The gist is that as you wake up so many times in the night that when you wake up in the morning, you’re still exhausted. So I have to wear a special CPAP that makes me breathe the air. I’m sure, from years of drug abuse and chair shots to the head and stuff like that, and abusing my body, I’m sure this is the price I’m paying. So I go to bed, I can fall asleep, no problem. But then I start waking up. After about two hours, I’ll wake up, and I’ll wake up like every 20 minutes for the next six to eight hours. So when I wake up for good, I’m exhausted, so I’m waking up like 15-20 times a night.”

How would you say your overall health is right now?

“It’s good. I mean, I got the early onset Parkinson’s, which I’m of the mind to say that I don’t have it. But it’s why I have the tremor, and that’s what they think it is. There’s no 100% proof tests, so I didn’t [get tested]. The test they give to prove it only proves it like 90% and there’s a lot of false positives and negatives in it. So there’s no reason, because he said he would treat me the same way, which is nothing as of now, because nothing’s bad enough, although my tremor is really bad right now.”

You’re not on any sort of medication?

“No, no. So there’s no reason. So I’m just going to declare that I’m not, that I don’t have early onset Parkinson’s and then and convince myself that I don’t, because I’ve had it for like 8 to 10 years, and all this is a tremor so far.” 

What causes this? 

“They don’t know. I haven’t put enough study into the diagnosis. Usually I figure out, read the doctor’s notes and all that. But I’d rather just play along. I say I have it, but I’m convinced I don’t. That it’s just a tremor, and I figure mind over matter. Hopefully it’ll stay just a tremor, as it has all these years.”

And you think it’s tied to the way you wrestled?

“Yeah, as I’m saying, I think it’s chair shots to the head. It’s like Ali swore that he didn’t have Parkinson’s, and it was just all the shots he took to the head. That’s what I like to think it is, that and all the drugs. I’m not proud. I used to be proud of my drug abuse, my ability to handle drugs. Now, I’m just embarrassed by it.” 

Are you sober now? 

“I’ve been sober for years.”

I loved the documentary. Was there anything you were afraid to show?

“No. I always wanted to write a book, because I thought my story was interesting and it could help people, [but] I’m too lazy to write a book. You know how much work goes into a book? Because you got to edit everything. I’m a perfectionist, though, so I’d be re-reading it and re-reading it and re-reading it. I don’t see how directors, when they make movies how their view must be. You must get so jaded when you’re editing down, and you’re going through something and you’re like, I gotta tighten this up. Should I tighten it up? Should I not? You look at it, your perspective must be so hard to keep because you’re looking at it over and over and over again. Like, if you look at doing a funny bit and you think, this is funny like this, it could be funnier like that. Could be funnier like that. What about this? Now, it’s not funny at all. Wait, where am I, you know? That’s how I’d be with a book. So the director came along and heard me on Steve Austin’s podcast and thought I was really fascinating. His words, but I’ll agree, just kidding. And he wanted to write a documentary about me. I said, I’ll do it, but as long as it’s warts and all, because I wanted to tell my story as the truth, not just rah, rah, you know, not just a happy-go-lucky piece and not just yay Raven, because that’s not what I’m about.” 

How did you come up with the name Raven?

“I was watching The Crow for inspiration, and the character’s name was Eric Draven. I go, ‘Draven. Raven. Quote The Raven. Nevermore.’ All right, I got a name and a catchphrase. Boom, now I need an outfit. I put the outfit together in like two minutes, because it wasn’t hard to figure out. Then I came up with the idea of a concert t-shirt, because I’m a big believer in ring jackets. You gotta have a bunch of ring jackets, because to be a star, you gotta look like a star. But Raven’s character wouldn’t care about looking like a star. I had to get an anti-star look, that still was a star, made me look like a star. So I figured with the concert shirts, I’d have a different shirt every day. So every match I could have a variety without having to change my jacket. Plus, I had no chest. I always wanted to be a bodybuilder, but I never had the genetics for it. So I had a thick waist, no abs, flat chest but I had big arms and shoulders, at the time, until injuries took their toll, but that’s a long story. So I figured I would wear a concert t-shirt with sleeves cut off, show off the arms. You want to accentuate your strengths and hide your weaknesses. And I hid my weaknesses. And another weird thing about that is I had really good legs, like really good thighs, but I had such a thick waist that it took away from it, but my thighs were really good. But for the look I needed to cover them, because I would have wore short shorts, I would have looked lik Steve Richards. So sometimes you have to pick one or the other, you know what I mean. But it’s such a unique thing, trying to get the most out of everything you can with the least amount of effort.” 

What bands were you listening to to create the character?

“Soundgarden, Alice in Chains, but also listen to a lot of black funk from the 70s too. That was always one of my favorites. I find that once you reach 40 years old, 40 to 50, you stop listening to current music, and you start listening to the stuff you listen to when you’re 10 or 12. So I went back to that, and I listened to a lot of the O’Jays and The Spinners.”

You guys were taking straight chair shots to the head in ECW. Was anyone putting their hands up?

“Yeah, some guys were, but then they get chastised by the rest of the locker room. The smartest thing ever, and it’s such a great spot, is Sabu used to take the chair and he’d throw it at you. Not only could you make it make a great clattering sound and make it fly off, but it didn’t hurt and it didn’t cause damage. We all should have been doing that, but that was brilliant to come up with.”

So what was the story behind the chair shot heard around the world?

“I had beaten up Dreamer so many times that they needed to get some revenge on me, and to give the people something. You had to give them something to hope in their babyface and give them something to look like it was over the feud. I forget exactly what led up to the chair shot, but when we got there, Paul is like, ‘I’m gonna have Tommy hit you 10 times with the chair.’ I’m like, ‘No, you gotta hit me once. It’ll mean so much more.’ He goes, ‘No, 10 times. You got to take it 10 times.’ I’m like, ‘No, I’m not going to do it, Paul.’ He goes, ‘What are you scared?’ And I’m like, ‘No, I’ll take nine chair shots back here, but I’m only taking one out there, because it’ll mean more if you hit me with a bunch of them.’ He goes, ‘Yeah, but Axl Rotten is hitting three chair shots in his match, and New Jack’s hitting five in his.’ I’m like, it doesn’t matter. This is something Roddy Piper taught me, doesn’t matter what happens in anybody else’s match, as long as they believe in your stuff. So I said, ‘I’m just taking one.’ He finally goes, ‘All right, I trust you.’ So if Dreamer gave me the one shot and it’s remembered. Imagine if there was five more coming after it, it wouldn’t have meant anything.”

Did you think the crucifixion angle was too controversial?

“I didn’t think it was pushing the envelope. I didn’t think so. I understand why Paul E made me cut an apology afterwards, but partly it’s because my family’s Jewish. I don’t follow the religion, but my family’s Jewish, and my last name is Levy, so people just assume I’m Jewish, and Paul E is Jewish, and Todd’s Jewish. Todd Gordon, the owner. So they thought it was a mockery of Christianity, but had nothing to do with that. I mean, Madonna masturbated with a crucifix on MTV., I’m thinking this is tame compared to that. To me, it was just a metaphor. It was a metaphor. The Crucifix with Sandman was just for him to feel my pain. Because Raven was always. I considered him a martyr for society’s dysfunction.”

While you were in ECW, was the goal to get back to WWE or WCW?

“I was really happy at ECW but yes, I wanted to go back to WWE. I wanted to be the top guy in the top promotion. I got to be the top guy in the number three promotion. And for a long time, I felt like my career was a failure because of that. I think I talked about it in the movie, in the documentary, but it took a lot of time on a therapist couch to let myself off the hook. Because you hold yourself to such a high standard that I can’t see the forest for the trees. If anybody would have came up to me and told me what my career was, and it was theirs. I said, Man, you got a really successful career. But I couldn’t count it as with that for me, because I didn’t get to be a World Champion of the WWE.” 

Is it true you guys nearly knocked out the power at WrestleMania 17?

“That’s true. I’m driving the golf cart, and Show’s choking me. I didn’t expect Show to be choking me, so I wanted to swerve a little bunch because I didn’t want to just drive straight, because we’re supposed to drive all the way around the Astrodome, make a full 360-degree drive. And that was my favorite spot of the match, and I totally ruined it because there was a fence, a chain link fence from ceiling to ground, and the sidewalk dropped off on the other side of the chain. So I went to bounce off the chain with the car, figuring I bounce off and swerve back on, and the wheel just went off the edge and just died right there. The car wouldn’t move, you know, to try the golf car wouldn’t move because the wheel was off the road, and so I tried to get it back on, and Show is going ‘No, no, leave it. Leave it.’ I’m like, I want to go. Kane’s going to chase us in the other golf cart. It’s going to be so cool. So then I just ran out in the traffic and got run over by Kane.”

That could have been so bad:

“Yeah, but I had do something to make in my mind to make up for the spot that I screwed up. But when I found out after the show, one of the production guys grabbed a hold of me, and he said, ‘You know you came within millimeters of cutting off the power to the entire show. You landed right on the wire that has runs the power to the show, if you would have cut through, you would have killed power to the entire event.’ That would have got me so much heat, I would have definitely been fired for that.”

How many hardcore championships did you win?

“39, they only give me credit for 27 though.” 

So where’s the extra 12?

“I don’t know. At some point, I go, Yeah, I wonder how many of these I’ve won. And so I counted back and then I counted forward after that, I got 39. But they get 27 so, yeah, but then a lot of times it would change hands three or four times in the night.” 

Do you feel like you were underutilised in WWE?

“They should have pushed me. They didn’t really push me at all. I should have been used, at least as a strong mid-carder, if not a main eventer. But that’s me. I mean, I could be biased, and I’m sure I am, but looking at it objectively, I think I could have drawn money for them.”

What is Raven grateful for?

“Selina takes up all the spots.”

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

On his cats Pancho and Macho:

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

What makes a cat a solid ass cat?

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

On the rumour that he no longer drinks beer:

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

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

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

How did beer become part of the celebrations?

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

You look like you could still go:

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

Would you?

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

Why was Kevin Owens the right opponent?

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

Was it because Kevin Owens was doing the stunner?

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

How did it feel getting back in the ring?

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

On the incident the night before WrestleMania 19:

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

On his theme song:

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

On why he and Bret Hart had great chemistry:

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

How did you end up working with Vince McMahon?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

But there was some doubt there?

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

Who took the worst stunner?

“Easily Vince is the worst.”

Worse than Linda?

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

How about how Austin Theory sold it at WrestleMania 38?

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

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

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

So there was never a possibility?

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

Who is on your Mount Rushmore?

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

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

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

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

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

What is Steve Austin grateful for?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

People hate how you won this championship:

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

You picked your moment perfectly:

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

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

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

And you are all holding championships in 3 companies:

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

What made you return to TNA?

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

You won their first-ever tag team championships?

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

So your contract came to an end?

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

Why do you think they let you go?

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

How did that lead to TNA?

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

How close were you to joining WWE?

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

You had a few matches in WWE back in 2005:

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

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

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

Do you remember how they pitched Ultimate X to you?

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

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

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

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

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

So what was it supposed to be?

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

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

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

How did you come up with Kazarian?

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

Does your wife Traci Brooks want to make a comeback?

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

What’s your TNA Mount Rushmore?

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

What is Frankie Kazarian grateful for?

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

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

On life since her WWE release:

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

So what’s keeping you busy?

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

So are you working for WWE? 

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

And you realize these are being done for TV?

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

So this could be a full-time thing?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

So throwing a working punch?

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

On kicking Asuka’s teeth out:

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

After NXT were you ready for the main roster?

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

Do you feel like you have to win them over?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Did that match with Becky Lynch still feel like WrestleMania?

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

Is that your WrestleMania moment?

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

Did you sell Ronda Rousey on WWE?

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

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

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

Do you think Ronda is done?

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

What is Shayna Baszler grateful for?

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

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

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

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

You look great. 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

But this is the least selfish thing:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Is he clean now?

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

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

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

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

“Well, he beat Eric Bischoff.”

But who was the champion heading into the match?

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

What is DDP grateful for?

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

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

On how he got the job in WWE:

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

On working play by play:

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

On “advice” from Kevin Dunn:

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

On his first WWE assignment:

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

On being hazed:

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

Did you enjoy Byte This?

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

On Matt Hardy calling the show:

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

On possibly being lined up to replace JR:

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

On his biggest WWE blunder:

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

What was the most upset Vince McMahon was with you?

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

On the unenthusiastic Christian return:

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

On getting slapped by Mickie James:

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

She slapped you for real?

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

On Logan Paul in WWE:

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

What is Todd Grisham grateful for?

“My daughters, my wife and my mom.”

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

On his breakout year:

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

On the head shaving segment:

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

Were you nervous?

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

On his promo inspirations:

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

On previous comparisons to Will Ospreay:

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

On wearing pink gear:

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

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

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

On early memories of Australian wrestlers:

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

On possible WWE interest before signing with AEW:

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

What made it the right fit?

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

On his breakout match:

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

On the top cage Spanish fly:

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

On landing on the tacks:

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

How has the screwdriver become your weapon of choice? 

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

On his most painful moment:

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

Did you actually piss blood? 

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

Is there a line you won’t cross?

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

What made you say yes?

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

On a future dream match:

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

On signing a new AEW contract:

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

What is Kyle Fletcher grateful for?

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

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

On her creamed line with Ethan Page:

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

On Zack Ryder’s recent return:

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

On preparing for the Zack Ryder return:

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

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

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

On the success of the hats:

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

On the gear with her face on it:

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

What went into making gear with your face on it?

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

On the pairing with Ethan Page:

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

What was the idea in putting you guys together?

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

On her 2014 debut segment with Stephanie McMahon:

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

That was your first promo?

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

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

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

What are you now? 

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

On her dumpster match:

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

Why are you ok being the butt of the joke?

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

On a possible Women’s US Open Challenge:

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

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

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

On her Money in the Bank fall:

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

On wrestling Penta:

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

On a custom Women’s US Title:

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

What is Chelsea Green grateful for?

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

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