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Daria Rae Berenato (@TheDariaRae) is a professional wrestler best known for her time in WWE as Sonya Deville. She sits down with Chris Van Vliet at West Coast Creative Studio in Hollywood, CA to discuss her WWE contract not being renewed, whether a return to wrestling is on the cards, the scary home invasion that occurred in 2020, her work as a WWE General Manager and slapping Adam Pearce, why she didn’t enjoy her SummerSlam match with Mandy Rose, being injured while reigning as Women’s Tag Team Champion, her upcoming acting roles and more!

Quote I’m thinking about: “Maybe, it’s not too late, to learn how to love and forget how to hate.” – Ozzy Osbourne

On her WWE contract not being renewed:

“I’m not one to sit in things and sulk. It’s very hard for me to do that, I think, because I want to be doing stuff all the time. I have a high work ethic and work rate, and so there was no part of me that was going to sit home and cry about not getting my contract renewed. I have my family, I have my stepdaughters and my wife at home, I have so much I want to do. I have a legacy that I still want to leave. As much as I’m proud of the work I did in WWE, I very much feel like I’m just getting started in my footprint that I want to leave in this world. So I was excited. I was like, wow, now I get to go pursue those things, because I wouldn’t have left the safety net of the company. I had a steady paycheck coming in. I loved everybody there, I loved what I was doing, so I wouldn’t have left. But I think it’s the best thing that’s ever happened to me.”

On whether anything could have happened to lead to the contract being renewed:

“I can’t even comprehend thinking of it like that, because it’s so serendipitous and it happened so beautifully like that chapter closed, and now I’m doing all these things that I’ve wanted to do since I was 12 years old. So I can’t even look at it like that, my brain won’t let me, so maybe? I don’t know. I was training my ass off. I was always on point with my look and my character work. So I think it was just time. I will say transparently that I was feeling like I was in a rut for the past few years of my career there, I felt a little like I needed a change of pace, and I didn’t know what it was. I never would have left on my own merit, but I felt a little bit like I was in a loop, kind of in Purgatory, like I wanted an opportunity. I got the title with Chelsea finally, then the injury, got back from the injury, was finally getting my footing again in the ring after coming back from the ACL [tear], and then I got released. So it’s hard to look back and regret any of it, though, because I really feel like everything happens for a reason.”

On how long it took to process:

“To be completely honest, I probably haven’t processed it because, like you said, I was right on to the next [thing]. I didn’t sit and sulk or really feel it that much. I’ll have moments where I’m like, wow. Being a WWE superstar became my identity. I was Daria, the WWE superstar, in my personal life, to my family, to my friends, like that was my identity. Probably because I started when I was 21 it was who I was. So that like mindset took a minute to get rid of. Now, you know, when I talk to people and they’re like, What do you do? It’s so weird to not say I wrestle for WWE.”

On whether she has retired from wrestling:

“Definitely for now. Never say never. But right now I feel at peace with that. I’m not gonna lie, and I haven’t said this, but it almost is like an open wound, and if I think about wrestling somewhere else, it’s like I was so loyal to the company, it was my only home from 21 years old to 31. I’m a ride or die type of person in general. So it’s weird to even think about doing that, but not there.”

On acting dreams:

“My first dream was to be an actress. I was 12 years old. My mom found an acting school like 45 minutes from our house, and she would take me every Tuesday and Thursday night for three hours. It was in this woman’s basement, which sounds really creepy, but my mom would sit outside and wait for me and take me home because I wasn’t obviously old enough to drive, and I was obsessed. My dad took me to Vegas for this acting convention where I was doing monologs on stage, that was always what I wanted to do. Then I fell in love with MMA as well, and so when I was 19, I moved to LA and I was like, Oh I can pursue my acting career here, and I can fight MMA here. So that’s what I was doing when WWE found me.” 

On possibly returning to MMA:

“I can’t say no, because it has such a spot in my heart, but I will say acting feels more true to what I want in this very moment.”

“I do think Bare Knuckle is badass. So yeah, I can’t say never. I have a really great relationship with Invicta and Shannon Knapp, the owner of Invicta, which is the only long standing all female MMA promotion. So I’ve been doing a lot of fun stuff with them. I will say being around the girls and being like in that atmosphere again gives me some crazy nostalgia. [Are you training again?] I will be training while I’m out here. I will say that, yeah, I am training. The only time I trained MMA in New Jersey was when I first started when I was 15.”

On the scary home break in:

“Well, it’s funny because me and Mandy [Rose] are sitting on the front lawn being interviewed by the police. Then once we were done, they were like, ‘Why don’t you take some stuff that you need and go find somewhere else to stay, because it’s a crime scene now.’ It was insane. So I’m like, okay. So me and Mandy went in, and I packed a bag, and then we talked to WWE, and they were great. They were like, we’ll book you a hotel. I was like, I want to sleep in my bed. I was under the impression that I would be right back in that house. Then nightfall came, and we ran back there for something and I couldn’t even open the front door. It took me by surprise, because earlier that day when my adrenaline was high and I was still probably in fight or flight mode, I was under the impression I would go right back to my house as soon as the caution tape was down. Then yeah, nightfall came and I couldn’t even go in my front door. It was too close to home.” 

On the situation potentially being much worse:

“I’m the luckiest person on the planet. I tell people all the time, and when I retell the story, people often have the opinion of, ‘Wow, you got really lucky.’ Because if one thing went differently, me, or Mandy, or both of us would not be here right now.” 

On his motivation:

“His whole thing was he wanted to be my boyfriend, I guess. And he was mad that I wasn’t into his gender as a whole, and so he had no shot, and he was angry about.”

Had he contacted you before?

“So essentially, my ex-girlfriend at the time had gotten some creepy messages from a fan, and she was able to see her messages because she wasn’t getting a ton of fan messages. He was deep in my request folder. I’d never seen his messages to me, which he had been sending for three, four years. But she saw a message, and she was like, ‘Hey, Daria, this is concerning.’ He has my address. He had her address, her mother’s house, and he had sent the address and said, ‘I know where you live. I’m coming to get Daria, and I’m gonna kill you.’ So I saw that, I actually sent it over to WWE, and was like, ‘Hey, this is concerning.’ I guess they tried to trace it back, and nothing came of it. So we all kind of thought nothing of it. This is another scary fan. And then two months later, he was in my living room.”

On the night of the break in:

“So I had responded back to him on my ex’s account, saying, ‘You have the wrong address, idiot.’ Because I was so scared that this guy was going to show up at her house and try to hurt her. But by doing that, I let him know that he had the wrong address. So when he broke in two months later, it was to my address, and Mandy slept over that night. We were filming in Tampa or Orlando at the time, it is during the pandemic. So Mandy slept over and we went out to dinner, we went to Ocean Prime, we had a great night. We come back to my house and we’re watching Bates Motel on the couch, which was not the greatest show to be watching right before that, but we’re just hanging and Mandy fell asleep on the couch. It was like 1 am or something like that, and I was dozing off on the couch. I was about to just let us both sleep on the couch, because it was a very comfy couch, and we were so tired. I was like, no, let me wake Mandy up and tell her to go to the guest bedroom. I went to my bedroom. Thank God. I grab my phone, as I’m falling asleep, I turn on the alarm system from my phone. I throw my phone on the bed, and it was pitch black. 2:43 am I think it was, I hear my alarm system going off, and I’m like, What the f*ck now? My room’s pitch black. My phone is somewhere in the bed and I can’t find it. I’m freaking out. So I get up and I run to the alarm panel on the wall outside of my room, and it says, living room door open. So my immediate thought was, Mandy must have went outside. She must have not thought I set the alarm. Maybe her boyfriend called or something, and she ran outside. So I run into her room, and she’s f*cking dead asleep, and I’m like, Okay, well, if Mandy’s not outside, and it says, living room door open, what the f*ck is going on? 

So I started screaming. I’m like, ‘Mandy, get up!’ She’s like, coming to and she’s like, ‘What?’ I’m like, ‘Stay there!’ So I leave her there because it’s the back of the house, and I run to the living room by myself. I turn on all the lights, and my blinds are drawn over the two sliding glass doors, so I don’t know which one’s open. There’s two different doors. They’re kind of perpendicular. So I’m like, f*ck. Well, let me check the one that I always use, that’s probably the one that’s open. So I go to the small one, and I peel back the curtain, and the door shut, but I’m just checking the lock. It’s locked. Sorry I missed a part. When I’m going to check the lock, I look up and the man is standing right at the door, as close as you are to me right now. So he has a black mask on, a black backpack, all black clothes. I’m looking at him, and I scream. ‘What the f*ck do you want?’ At first you’re thinking did a neighbor lose its dog? Then I see the mask, and I’m like, something’s off. Then he advances towards the door, and if it was a burglar, it was a robbery, alarms going off, the homeowners there, you would run, right? You don’t want to get caught. I’m like, Well, it can’t be a robbery. So as soon as he advances, I run to grab Mandy to tell her ‘Holy sh*t, there’s someone in the house.’ We run out the garage door next to Mandy’s bedroom and take off in her car that was parked behind my car.”

Did you call the police?

“The ADT system called the cops automatically, but we also did call the cops, they were there within like three minutes. So we circled around the neighborhood, and then we saw the cop cars come, but they came in lights off, sirens off, quiet. Now, I don’t know where this guy is at the time. The whole time I’m running to Mandy’s room and out the garage door, I’m waiting to get hit over the back of the head with a bat or something, I don’t know what’s happening. Well, what actually happened was when I ran he already had the other door open, but he had a little blind spot when he had to cross through the curtain. So he thought I ran up the staircase, but I ran behind the staircase to Mandy’s room and out the garage. So when the cops got there two minutes later, he was waiting at the bottom of staircase with a knife in one hand, pepper spray in the other hand, looking up, and they f*cking tackled him and got him out. So when they asked him, ‘Why were you waiting at the bottom of the staircase?’ His response was, ‘I thought she went up there, and I know she has MMA training, and I didn’t want to get my ass kicked, so I was gonna wait till she came down and pepper spray her.’ So like this whole thing’s unfolding, I’m still not understanding what’s happening. So the cops come up to me, and they’re like, ‘What do you do? Who are you?’ Because they didn’t know anything about wrestling. It’s like, ‘Oh, I wrestle.’ [They ask] ‘Do you know this guy? He’s saying he knows you.’ And I’m like, No. [They say] ‘Well, he says he messages you on Instagram.’ So they’re having me look up his name, and then I find his messages, and it’s like four years worth of obviously unresponded to scary DMs, all the way to the extent the last message was that night when he was on my patio and it said, ‘I’m here, baby girl, I’m finally here. Look outside.’ While me and Mandy are watching Bates Motel He said, Look outside, baby. He’s watching us through the blinds. So, you can’t really see out, but you can see in kind of gimmick, he’s watching us through the blinds watching TV.

If one thing happened differently, like, had we slept on the couch? He had the door open, the doors right behind the couch. We would have both been maced before we could even wake up. Had I not set my alarm that night because I was being lazy and just went to sleep, which I’ve done many nights, we would be dead. Like one different move in any scenario, we wouldn’t have made it.”

On escaping serious harm:

“I’m very grateful. I’m very lucky, and I think about it all the time. I often feel bad for victims of stalking that don’t have that ending, because some people, stalking is a serious issue in the United States, specifically, where these women specifically are hounded and stalked by these people for years, but if they don’t cross a certain legal threshold, you can’t get them detained. So they’re leaving stuff in their mailbox, they’re showing up at their front door. You’ve heard the stories even with other women wrestlers, but you can’t do anything about it unless, I know it’s weird to say, but like him breaking into my home and actually attempting something allowed me to put him in prison for 15 years.”

On her new podcast:

“So it’s just supposed to be a modern lifestyle, relatable podcast, but with two women. So the irony is, we aren’t so traditional, but at the same time, we are so normal. So we talk about parenting, we talk about our chickens and our ducks and our homesteading. We talk about relationships and love and marriage and sex and all the things that people, I think, have been wondering about me for years, because I think I’m still a bit of like a phenomenon to some people, like, Oh, she’s in this lesbian relationship, especially in the wrestling world, it’s not that prevalent. So we’re answering a lot of the questions people have been asking for years.”

Did you think it was a big deal when you were on Tough Enough and you were openly gay?

“No, I was scared at first, because I was like, Oh, are they going to want a lesbian in the WWE? I was so naive at the time and young, and I just didn’t know what it meant when they asked me the question on Tough Enough, ‘Are you in a relationship?’ I was kind of sh*tting bricks, because I was like, Is there a wrong answer here? I wasn’t comfortable with myself at that point, so I didn’t know if it was gonna tarnish my chances. But then it became just this thing that was a big deal to a lot of people, and it didn’t feel like a big deal to me. I was like, oh, okay, it’s cool. I’m getting all these amazing messages, and people feel seen, and I’m now becoming, unintentionally this safe spot for other wrestlers or other younger people watching me. But it was a very unintentional path. It was kind of just me starting to become confident with myself, but it happened to be in front of live cameras.”

On being known as a former MMA fighter when she debuted in WWE:

“Yeah, it very much was so and because it was the natural fit, right? The notion behind my hiring was kind of explained to me that we’re legitimizing the women’s division, and with that, we want athletes and fighters. And so I was kind of the first female MMA fighter to be brought on. So I was like, Oh, I just gotta be me, and that’s what I did in NXT. Then when I got to the main roster, and kind of felt like I had done it, and it was time for a change. So I slowly started getting in touch with a different side of myself and kind of creating the Sonya Deville character that you came to see. But really it was funny, because when I got hired, I was this ass kicker, right? There was no need to give me a mic, because I was just there to kick ass. And then I started asking for promos, because I knew I had taken acting classes, and that side of it was actually where I was more comfortable. So I was like, I want to do that. I want to be a character. And so Vince finally gave me the opportunity during the pandemic era in the Mandy storyline, and I was able to cut some lengthy promos. And that was kind of when Vince gave me the nod of approval and was like, Oh, she could talk.” 

On the head-shaving storyline with Mandy Rose:

“Bruce Pritchard pitched it to me, and he’s like, we’re gonna do hair versus hair. You and Mandy, you’re gonna shave your head. You’re gonna turn into this GI Jane character, and you’re gonna just plow through the division.”

How did you feel about shaving your head? 

“I was scared. I just didn’t want to be ugly. I was like, I don’t know what I’m gonna look like with no hair. This is before AI was that big, but I was using this editing software to edit a bald head on myself, and it was all very traumatizing, but I was down. I told him, yes, let’s go. Let’s do it.”

On neither Mandy nor Sonya liking their SummerSlam match:

“Yeah, it’s not my favorite match. It pisses me off still, because it’s my favorite storyline I’ve ever been a part of, and I think it’s some of the best work I’ve ever done with promo and character work and even the whole lead-up. But yeah, we were a f*cking mess. Not to make excuses, but the attempted kidnapping happened two nights before SummerSlam. Vince wanted to scrap the match on our behalf. I told him absolutely not, we worked this hard, and this motherf*cker is not gonna ruin our moment. So we scrapped the hair versus hair because I had to go to court and testify the next day and I was like, I’m probably not in the right frame of mind to be bald right now during all this, there was too much to process. He agreed. And he was like, ‘Well, what do you want to do?’ And I was like, I don’t know. I got to think of something equally as high-stakes, another stipulation. So I came up with the loser leaves town. So we get to work that day, and the producers come up to us, and they’re like, ‘Okay, it’s now a loser leaves town match, but Daria is going to go over.’ And it’s weird, because the producer and Mandy felt like that wasn’t the right move, because Mandy was supposed to be the babyface coming out of this. I was obviously the heel, and I had been kind of kicking her ass the whole angle, so I agreed with them. So I actually went to Vince and Bruce and got the ending changed. I said, ‘Sir, I think Mandy should win, because I have a way to get me back from a loser leaves much better than we could get Mandy back. Why don’t I come back as like a schizophrenic the next week? And you’re trying to tell me that I don’t work here anymore, and I lost, but I’m under the impression that I’m somebody else, and we go with this whole angle.’ Vince’s exact words were, ‘I f*cking love it! God damn it. You can be hanging from my chandelier in the office, swinging around.’ And I was like, Okay!

 I didn’t see it like that. I didn’t see me hanging from your chandelier, but sure, and so we were on the same page. It was all good. Mandy was gonna get her comeuppance. I was gonna get an amazing character arc out of it, and all was gonna be well. And then the loser leaves happens, and I’m not needed for TVs, like, one week, two weeks, three weeks, four weeks, a month, two months, like, all this time’s going by, and I’m texting Bruce from texting Vince. I’m like, ‘Hey guys, what’s the deal? I thought I was coming back right after. It’s the only reason I agreed to lose was because we had this cool angle to come back and bring me back.’ They were like, ‘Oh, just, just stay tight. Hang tight.’ Then all of a sudden, finally, Bruce says, ‘You know, after a second thought, when we do a loser leaves, we have to honor the stipulation, so you have to stay gone for a while.’ I was like, ‘Oh, why didn’t you tell me that when we discussed this? I would have much rather have won.’ I don’t have many regrets in life, but booking myself to lose that match is probably my only one. And it was like a running joke when I came back in the writers’ room with, like, the head writers, they kind of busted my chops and were like, ‘Remember that time you booked yourself to lose a match that when we were trying to push you?’ And I was like, so much you don’t know behind the scenes, because you’re not having these conversations like, ‘Hey, when you win this one, we’re going to push you, and we want Mandy to go in a different direction. You’re going to go in a different direction.’ So it wasn’t that transparent. So I didn’t really know what I was doing to myself at the time. So I ended up sitting home for five months. Then I come back, I go into Vince’s office, I’m like, ‘Hey, sir, what are we doing? Like, what do we do now?’ He’s like, ‘What do you want to do?’ And I was like, ‘I don’t know. I have these really cool suits in my hotel room, and I think it’d be cool to have a boss vibe to me.’ He kind of looked at me and was like, ‘Where are the suits?’ And I was like, they’re my hotel room. He’s like, send a runner to go get them. I was like, Okay, what the f*ck is going on? He didn’t tell me anything. He’s like, ‘You’re gonna walk down the hallway in a suit and superstars lined on both sides, and they’re gonna be clapping for you.’ And he just walked down. And I’m like, and then what? ‘That’s it.’ Okay? So I put my suit on, getting hair and makeup, and if you go watch it back, my return was I walked down the hallway in a suit with superstars lined on both sides, and then that slowly evolved into the GM character with Pearce.”

On working with Adam Pearce:

“I had so many crazy pitches for that character. Vince would always say, we’re not booking Adam Pearce vs. Sonya Deville at WrestleMania. Because I always wanted to push the limit with Adam, but there was no payoff for him. He couldn’t get a comeback, so we couldn’t go too far with it, but I did get to slap him that one time.  He’s tough. He was, like, lay it in. I was like, Okay, careful what you asked for.”

On not revisiting her partnership with Chelsea Green:

“They just didn’t want to go back to it. They didn’t want to go back to it. I had pitched that it would be a natural angle to go after Piper and be like, What the hell? Bitch, that’s my f*cking championship! Very natural angle. But they had this idea for this faction, and so that was where we were gonna go. I will say, while I was out, I did pitch coming back in my MMA gimmick, like a modified version, but I did pitch going back to my roots, and I think Triple H had the same kind of idea. He was like, Yeah, that’s what I was thinking. Let’s do this group. When he told me the group, I was like, Okay, interesting. I didn’t know how the three of us were going to blend together, me, Zoe and Shayna, in PFC. So I was open minded to it, and of course, whatever he wants. I saw myself more as the mouthpiece in that scenario and I was like, okay, but we couldn’t get our footing. And then we were given the name Pure Fusion Collective, and I thought that was terrible. I don’t think it was ever going to be the thing, but we tried to make it work.”

On an upcoming film:

“So I’m doing a holiday film. You might see a fellow WWE legend in his own right, Mick Foley in there. So yeah, Mick Foley and Sonya Deville in a holiday film together. Who would have thought? So I don’t know if it’ll get out before this Christmas. Actually, I don’t know, but we just filmed it. I was just in Nashville filming it, really, really fun. It’s called Heartbreak, there’s some really funny, if you know, you know things in there that I think wrestling fans will like.”

What is Sonya Deville grateful for?

“The health of me and my family, the ability to spend these moments with my family, and the ability to pursue my dreams.”

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D-Von Dudley (@TestifyDVon) is a professional wrestler and WWE Hall of Famer. He sits down with Chris Van Vliet in Orlando, FL to discuss The Dudleys reuniting at Impact 1,000 and why a reunion looked to be out of the question at one point in time, losing 85 pounds with the help of Diamond Dallas Page and DDPY, being open to one more match with the Hardys, his time in WWE as a producer, The Usos using the 3D as their finisher, the creation of “D-Von, get the tables!” and “Testify!”, his scariest moment in ECW, the success of his YouTube channel, saving Maven from disaster and more!

Subscribe to D-Von’s YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@d-vondudley

On how much weight he has lost:

“I would say about 80 something pounds. Yeah, I was almost 300 pounds, and basically what happened was I had an issue, even after the back surgery, where everything was tight, I could barely walk. I was walking with a limp, like some of the old timers used to see, who never really took care of their bodies, and they paid for it in the end. It got to the point where I couldn’t even go out with the family without hanging onto something. Then someone told me, maybe you should try to call Dallas. Look at what Dallas did for so many people, and he basically helped out Scott Hall, Jake Roberts, so many people. Butterbean was the last one that I saw before I called him. I said, You know what? Let me call him. I called him and I said, ‘Dallas, I’m in trouble. The back surgery was supposed to make me walk straight, make me do things, and it’s not doing it.’ He was like, ‘D-Von, I’m going to send you something. I’m going to send you the DDP Yoga. I want you to do it, but I want you to watch it.’ And I was like, ‘Okay, what am I watching?’ He said, ‘There are two documentaries on food, and I want you to watch it.’ And I watched it and realized just how bad food is nowadays, how we think what we’re doing is healthy, but it’s not, even when we call ourselves being on a diet. Some of the foods, because of the HMO that’s inside the foods. When I started watching the documentary, I said, Man, all this stuff leading to cancer, elderly dementia, all of that stuff. I didn’t realize it how much even stuff as simple as corn, because corn is not when you eat the corn, and I hate to say this, it sounds disgusting, but you ever eat corn and poop and it’s still in a solid state. Same coming out. It’s like, it’s not real. So you think it’s healthy to eat that, and it’s not. I cut out so much stuff, wheat, dairy products, fried foods. I don’t eat it no more, and I don’t go out to fast food restaurants anymore, because the meat is not real meat. So everything has to be organic or grass-fed. And I enjoy it. It’s hard, because not everywhere is going to have that. So sometimes you do have to sacrifice and get a burger with nothing on it. Even though you know that meat’s not good, you still got to do something.”

On his kids:

“Everybody knows about the twins, Terence and Terrell, who are doing extremely well. They’re in Booker’s division now. They’re working with Booker now at Reality of Wrestling. They’re doing very good there. I have my son Matthew. So the twins are 30. My son Matthew is 23, my other son, Preston, he’s 17, going on 18. And then I have the three younger ones. I have Taliyah, who’s 6, about to be 7. I have Amaya, who’s 6, and my 17-month-old son. As far as I’m concerned, if I was 10 years younger, I’d have nine more kids. I just love kids. I love the stages. People go, oh my god, I can’t handle this stage. I love that stage. So it doesn’t bother me at all when I had seven. Now I understand, four are already grown and out of the house, so all I have left is three. So when you hear the word seven, it’s not like I have seven at one time, or what have you. It’s just that I spread it out, which was great for me.”

On why a Dudley Boys reunion looked unlikely at one point in time:

“No, it wasn’t my health. It was two reasons. Number one, it was the back surgery and that I didn’t know if I could, because the back surgery was supposed to make things so much better, and the rehab helped, but it didn’t help as much as I thought it was going to help.” 

What kind of back surgery was it? 

“They had fuse L4 and L5, and S1 when they fused L4 and L5 they cut open some more, and they saw S1 was collapsing. So they didn’t even tell me they were doing three. They saw it collapsing, so they fixed it.”

On how effective the procedure was:

“It made the pain running down the leg better. The hamstrings weren’t pulling as much, but the awkwardness of walking and doing things was very [painful]. For instance, you know I can swim. I got in the pool, and this was maybe four or five months after the back surgery, and I couldn’t move my legs. Couldn’t do it. It was so hard. It was like somebody had an anvil on my legs and was holding me down. And it was only until about maybe four months ago, after doing DDPY for almost two years, that I was able to get in the pool and start moving my legs where I could swim. It was very hard at one point. So that was a factor. That was a major factor. The stroke really wasn’t a factor like everybody thought it was going to be, because that was stress-related.

I was so stressed when I was a producer in WWE because, number one, I wasn’t ready to become a producer. I didn’t want the producer’s job. And I remember when the final night, when they said farewell to the Dudleys, Triple H pulled me aside, and he says, ‘Listen, we want to bring you in as a producer. Would you like that?’ And I looked at him, and I said, ‘Well, Hunter, thank you, but I’m not really ready to be a producer. I still have more to take.’ And he goes, ‘Yeah, but the old man, he wants both of you…’ and this and that. I said, ‘Okay, I get that, but at the same token, I’m not ready.’ I said, ‘Let me ask you a question. What happens if I say no, I don’t want to be a producer?’ And he says, ‘Well, we gotta let you go, D-Von.’ And I went, damn. And at the time, I was going through a divorce, my second marriage. I was going through a divorce, and there was a lot of stuff that was going on during that time, and I did not want to have to go to Japan and make a living and fly all over the place, so I just said, okay, and I took the producer’s job. It worked for about a good year and a half or so. In other words, I didn’t really care for it. Let me retract that statement. I didn’t care for it at all. I didn’t want to do it, but it held everything together, and I’m still getting a paycheck. I got benefits, I have insurance. I got everything. A 401K now. I’ve got everything.”

On whether he would consider a return to producing:

“I would do it again. I’ve never worked with Triple H in that part of the business, but yes, I would come back as a producer and I would do it again. I spent seven good years as a producer in WWE, had a great time, and great moments. But there was always that urge to get back into the ring and to do something one more time. I don’t want to be in the ring at 60 years old or 70, but I just wanted that one send off, something that would put the final nail in the coffin and say okay, I did this. I’m complete, now it’s time to just enjoy retirement. So again, to go back to the original question, the health wasn’t a concern so much. It was more of what I wanted, because I got comfortable in that producer’s role. I got comfortable with not taking bumps, getting paid without having to be in the ring, and that was just a rewarding feeling.”

On the Impact 1000 reunion:

“Well, Bubba called me as usual. ‘D-Von, let me ask you a question, could you go again? And of course, my ego, ‘Yeah, of course I can. I can do it, not a problem.’ And when he said it I said, ‘But why are you asking?’ He says, ‘Well, TNA is doing a 1000 episode, and we were thinking about maybe doing one more match for the Dudleys.’ I said, I could do it, it’s not a problem. But I’m going to tell you right now, I don’t want to do the wazzup, I don’t want to go up on the top rope and jump off the top rope into some guy’s crotch. Either you do it or we’re going to find another way of doing it. [He goes] ‘Can you go on the second rope?’ I go ‘No, Bubba I can’t go on the second rope. I’m not doing it.’ And of course, you know, when you watch the match, I did it anyway. I remember when I did that I went Oh, I ain’t doing that no more.” 

How did he convince you to do it? 

“It was more of him saying and asking, and then the adrenaline at the time, it was like my ego got in the way. And I was like, Okay, I’ll do it. Yeah, I can do it. I remember looking down at my family, and I went sorry before jumping. [Do you regret doing it?] No, I don’t regret it. Because, I mean, again, nothing happened. If I would have got hurt, then yes. Is there moments where I feel like if I get back in the ring, I’m gonna get hurt? No, I don’t. I have the wrestling school in Winter Park Florida, which is doing extremely well. And the great thing about that is that I roll around with some of the guys sometimes in the ring, so every once in a while, I take bumps, and I feel good when I’m in there. So there’s no hesitation in how I think or feel about what I do in that ring now. But at 50 years old, I don’t want to go in here and do it, like I said, until I’m 70 and 80. That’s not going to happen. If we were to do one more match, it would be the last one, and that would be it. There is no one more can you come back one more time? No, because, and I tell this to everybody when they ask, I go every time I do one more time, that one more time is over. Let a year go by. Hey, you guys look great. You can go another match. No, we can’t, stop.”

On how many more matches he has left:

“I would say, if I was to do one, it would be one. I would say one more.”

Would it have to be in WWE?

“I don’t think the powers that be would let that happen. Because the way WWE is now, they go through so much to get somebody to a point where you have to prove that you’re healthy. I mean, there’s guys that have a cracked rib, and they gotta go through hell and back to try to get the okay to be able to come back. Would it be WWE? I would do it definitely for WWE. WWE is my home. It always has been, just like ECW, those two companies have been my life. No other company would come before that.”

On the opponents being The Hardys or Edge and Christian:

“If I was to do anything in the ring again, it would have to be with Matt and Jeff. I would say Edge and Christian too, but they’re in the other organization, AEW, and I don’t think that would ever happen. When the opportunity came, when Edge left WWE and went to AEW you had Christian and Edge there, and then the Hardys were there, and it was like we were wondering why Tony, who is a huge fan of the business and always has been, why wouldn’t he take the opportunity to be the one to put those three teams together and to do that? But he never did. So I think that opportunity is lost. But you know, if I was to come back and do something, it would have to be with the Hardys, and those are the only two I trust, even though I think Jeff is out of his damn mind. But those are the only two I would trust for my body on the line, and go in there one more time.”

On the Swanton Bomb being the most painful finisher he took:

“Jeff, and you know it to be true. Oh God. You know sometimes Jeff can overshoot it a little bit where his back, his upper back, and his neck and stuff lands on you, which takes a lot out of you. But the man, when he gets his whole back and his ass and it just comes down on you, good night. You’re either sh*tting on yourself, farting or passing out.”

On ‘D-Von, get the tables!’

“Because it was my mess up. It happened, and I don’t know why Bubba always is like, every time I tell a story, he’s like, really? I’m like, Yes, I remember. We were somewhere at Raw and I had forgotten in the match to get the table. And he goes, ‘D-Von, get the table.’ I was like, oh sh*t, and I ran outside and got the table. I had, you know, a little bit of those moments where I would forget certain things. I had so many things going on in my mind, not to mention just a match. But just everything in WWE, and he would say it again. ‘D-Von, go get the tables.’ Alright, I got it.

So then the next few times he was saying it over and over again, I was getting mad. And I was like, ‘Okay, the first couple of times I get it, but now you’re overdoing it. I’m not a kid, I’m not a baby, I can remember things, so don’t tell me to get the tables.’ So we got in the back, and he goes, ‘Why’d you get so mad?’ I said, ‘Because I understood get the tables when we talked about it in the back at what part of the match I should do it in. So stop telling me to get the tables.’ He was like, ‘Alright, fine. Just know that I’m telling you not to get on you, but I’m telling you to just so you don’t forget.’ I was like, ‘I don’t forget, I’m fine! Stop!’ And he basically said, Okay. And then the next night, what happened? I forgot. I go, okay, okay, I got it. And then some nights after that, Bubba started listening, and I guess it was picking up on the cameras that he was saying, ‘D-Von, get the table.’ And he goes, ‘D-Von, I think we got something here.’ And I said, ‘What do you mean?’ He goes, ‘I’m going to try something out, and I want to see if it works.’ And we did something to where we did the What’s up spot. And then all of a sudden he went, ‘D-Von, get the tables! Then it was like, people would pop the crowd. He was like, ‘I think we got something.’ I was like, ‘I think you’re right.’ And it started from there. It was all because of a mistake that I forgot to get the tables.”

On The Usos using the 3D:

“The Usos wanted to do the 3D. I was producing one of their matches, and they had asked me about it, and I was like, ‘Well, you want to do it tonight?’ They were like, ‘No, not tonight, but we want to know if we can go forward doing it?’ I was like, ‘Hell, me and Bubba don’t do it no more, I’m retired, so why not do it?’ Then WrestleMania, I think my last WrestleMania where I produced, and I can’t remember which one it was. It might have been in Dallas, okay, so had to be 38, because Bubba and I were in 32 against The Usos. I believe Jey had said something about ‘Man, I would love to do 3D. Would you be okay if I did?’ I said, ‘Jey, I told you before we would love that for you to do that. You’re paying homage to us, and you’re keeping us relevant. Because you know people are going to say that’s the Dudleys. So for those that might have forgotten about us, will now remember us.’ So we don’t get upset, they’re paying homage. They’re giving you respect. So I don’t get angry or mad about that, neither does Bubba. We actually like it that they do that because, again, they’re giving us respect, they’re paying homage. And we were proud of it.” 

On helping Maven out:

“I saved his life in England. We were basically out drinking at a party and whatever, and Maven had way too much to drink. I had to take him to his room, and he passed out. I said, ‘Maven, where’s your key? Give me your key, just in case you’re not downstairs when the bus leaves and I have your key in my pocket, I’m coming in to get you.’ He gives me his key. He’s passed out, just face-first, right in his pillow, passed out, arm spread, everything. So I go to my room. I don’t even go to sleep because I’m wired. Even though I had been drinking, I was wired. I just couldn’t fall asleep. But I knew I had to get up in two hours, three hours. So I went, took a shower, packed my bags and everything.

I’m sitting down at my table in my room watching the news, and next thing, okay, it’s time to go. I get to the elevator, I go Maven ain’t downstairs. So because he’s like three doors down from me, I go check. I go in. I put the key in, and he’s still the same way I left him. I said, ‘Maven, get up!’ He said, ‘Huh? What?’ I said, ‘Let’s go now! We gotta be downstairs in 25 minutes.’ He said, ‘Alright, D-Von. Let me take a shower.’ I said, ‘You’re not taking a goddamn shower. You’re going to get up and get your stuff.’ I’m throwing stuff in his suitcase and everything, because I’m trying to make it downstairs before he’s the last one down there, last one down there on a WWE bus back then is the wrong thing to do, especially when you’re a rookie. I just remember throwing everything in his suitcase. He goes, ‘D-Von, I gotta take a shower.’ I go, ‘No, you’re not taking a shower. Let’s go.’ He goes, ‘Well, can I at least brush my teeth?’ I said, Fine, go. So he goes. He gets in the bathroom, he’s leaning over the thing. I’m like, ‘Maven, if you don’t brush your teeth faster, I’m gonna brush them for you.’ And he’s like, okay, D-Von, okay, okay, okay. And he’s still not brushing fast. I said, ‘Give me the goddamn toothbrush!’ I took it. I start brushing him. Blood’s coming out because I’m hitting him. I’m brushing his teeth. He’s like, ‘D-Von, okay, okay. Can I just spit this out?’ I was like, ‘Fine, spit it out.’ So now we get to the elevator, we get downstairs, the door opens, we have to go to the front desk to handle all of our incidentals from the room. Who’s there? JR. He says, ‘Hello boys.’ As I grab Maven I go, ‘Don’t you open your goddamn mouth. Don’t you say a goddamn word. I swear to God, I will drop you right in front of JR if you open your mouth.’ He [Maven] goes, ‘I promise I won’t say a word.’ I was like, ‘If he says hello, just nod your head.’ And that’s exactly what happened. He [JR] goes, ‘Boys out last night?’ I go, ‘No, JR. We had a couple of drinks and we went upstairs to our room, and that was it.’ He goes, ‘Okay. Maven, how you doing?’ I said, nod motherf*cker, nod. JR’s like, ‘What’s the matter? You can’t talk?’ I was like, ‘He lost his voice, JR.’ He’s like, ‘Oh, okay. Are you going to be okay to do the promo tonight?’ I said, ‘He’ll be alright. Just the less he talks, the better. We’ll get him some tea and lemon. He’ll be fine.’ He goes, ‘Alright. Well, I’ll see you guys on the bus.’ I said, Okay. Maven goes, ‘D-Von, thank you.’ I go, sh*t, this ain’t over yet. I said, Now we gotta get past JBL, so we get his stuff on the bus. JBL is not on the bus yet. I put him way in the back. I put sunglasses on him. I said, Just act like you’re sleeping. He passed out.”

On the worst bump Spike Dudley took:

“I think it was two. One was in WWE on SmackDown when we set the table on the outside and we whipped him off and launched him from the inside of the ring to the outside through the table, and he landed perfectly through the table. There’s no way in hell I can have anybody convince me to take that bump, but he did it. And then I think the second craziest bump was the first 3D. We nearly killed him because we were trying to perfect that move ourselves, and we hadn’t gotten it down yet. After we saw what we did to Spike, I was like, Okay, I know what I have to do on my part and Bubba knew what he had to do.” 

What’d you do wrong in the first one? 

“I held him up too long. In other words, I get him up, and instead of going to get him and start falling backwards, I just stood him up like this, and then I started going backwards. But it was too slow. Bubba was already coming down as he starts to come down. Now, I gotta force him down quicker. And Bubba grabbed him at the last minute and jacked his neck right into the mat.”

On actually being ordained as a reverend:

“Yeah, got my collar and everything downstairs. I’ve married people. I think I was about to do a christening, and it got canceled. But, yeah, I’ve been doing all of that. I go around, when I teach at schools, or what have you, it’s kind of like I’m doing my sermon in a sense, you know, I haven’t done it in a real pulpit yet, but I’ve done little things here and there.”

On the origin of “Testify”:

“That actually came from Paul Heyman, because Paul Heyman knew my background of being a preacher’s kid. I’ve said this numerous times, he took my character from Pulp Fiction, Samuel L Jackson and Mr T because I love Rocky III. So he combined those two together, and that’s when he said, ‘You know what, let’s make your tagline testify, because it coexists with your background and your beliefs in God.’ And I said, Okay, Let’s do it, and it just took off from there with the commandments as well. Because I had a little bit of problem doing the ‘Thou shalt not F with the Dudleys’, because, you know, biblically speaking, I shouldn’t say that. I remember when I told my father, I said, ‘You know about the gimmick?’ He said, ‘You know what? Let me tell you something, son, don’t listen to anybody. You go do what you’re doing, but when you’re done hooping and hollering in that ring, bring it to where it really counts, and that’s in the pulpit.’ I said, okay, and I hope I made him proud, because again, I go around speaking the Word of God. Am I a man that has followed every rule in the book when it comes to the Bible? No, I’ve fallen just like the next man, and I’m still falling in certain aspects, but my belief is strong. When I do mess up, I repent and I ask God for forgiveness, and I try not to make the same mistakes.”

On being in a TLC match despite being scared of heights:

“When you have Vince McMahon in the back, he’s writing those paychecks, and you know the world is watching, you suddenly get over your fear real quick. You just go, you know, if I’m gonna die, then I’m gonna die.”

What is D-Von Dudley grateful for?

“My family, health and my faith in God.”

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O’Shea Jackson Jr. (@OsheaJacksonJr) is an actor and podcaster. He sits down with Chris Van Vliet at West Coast Creative Studios in Hollywood, CA to discuss his podcast “No Contest Wrestling” with TJ Jefferson and interviewing CM Punk on the first episode, dream guests for future shows, why The Rock vs. Roman Reigns is looking less and less likely, who will John Cena’s final opponent be, possibly training to be a wrestler, the one wrestling moment from history he wishes he was there for live, his dream bar fight team and more!

Quote I’m thinking about: “The big lesson in life, baby, is never be scared of anyone or anything.” – Frank Sinatra

On starting a wrestling podcast:

“I had always thought about it. I had always, like, pondered it. I was gonna do something with my sister on Twitch or something like that. But then, yeah, Rich Eisen called and he gave me this offer. Even said if I wanted to bring my sister along and laid it all out. Then TJ Jefferson, my podcast partner, the way that our show is balanced is I’m new school, he’s old school. So he’s a bit of a historian, because he was literally there. I remember when we first started talking. He asked me when I started to watch. I was watching weekly about 98 you know, early 2000s and then he goes, ‘All right, I started watching in 1982.’ That’s what I’m saying. That’s a running joke on our shows. We don’t know how old TJ is. Gotta cut him in half and count the rings. But yeah, when it came time for it, it was like, I’m doing it on Twitter for free every day anyway, I might as well possibly get paid for it.”

On having CM Punk as the debut guest:

“To be able to get Punk, he shot our show up the charts like the first day. And, yeah, we kind of been riding that wave. So it was like this before, but especially now, no one can ever say anything about CM Punk, greatest guy in the world.”

On the dream guest:

“I really want a longer talk with Roman, because at the Rumble we had like six minutes with him. So to have a real sit-down 45 to an hour with Roman, that would probably be the white whale. But of course, Dwayne, too. Dwayne or Austin? That would be fun, just to get stories from there.” 

On watching movies more critically:

“No, that’s been ruined for me for about 10 years now. I watch things and go, that was probably annoying the film, like a movie where I’m supposed to be able to just turn my brain off, like Godzilla vs Kong. You’re just going, it’s Godzilla vs Kong. I’m sitting here critiquing it. But when I saw the scene where Godzilla flips the ship over and the lady is underwater, and she has to hit the button. I’m like, that was probably annoying as hell. Are you kidding? Because I was in Godzilla, so I know King Ghidorah; whenever he’s on screen, they had to bring a hurricane. So I’m getting doused with water all day. I can’t explain, you have to be there to see how much water they use on you, and it’s terrible. It’s terrible.”

Can you give an example from one of your movies?

“Den of Thieves, for example. You start, you see all this heist information, and you’re like, All right, yeah, they’re probably gonna shoot that like this. And then when I get there, Christian Gudegast goes, ‘All right, now, put on your rappel rope and jump down this elevator.’ I’m like, ‘Whoa. I’m pretty sure you know how to fake this a little bit better than me.’ They made us rappel down this elevator shaft. There’s certain shots where if they don’t show the face, you can get a stunt guy in there. But Christian be real up on you all the time. So yeah, me and Gerard [Butler] and everyone else, we had to rappel. It’s so weird. I thought we were playing pretend for money.”

On his upcoming projects:

“I got something funny on the way that I’m really excited about that I go to film in August with my man, Dave Franco, who’s one of the best friends that I’ve gotten from acting, and Peter Dinklage, who I can’t wait to talk to about Game of Thrones. I know he’s tired of talking about Game of Thrones, but it’s stuff I gotta know. It’s really gonna be fun. It’s a road trip comedy. We’re gonna have a ball on that. What I’ve been doing lately, in between, because before I just used to wait for majors. But I remembered after Straight Outta Compton, I didn’t get work for a year, and I was shocked by that. I was like, just had the number one movie in the country, number one on the call sheet, I’m expecting, at least, that’s what I thought it was going to be my phone was going to be blowing up. So I kind of had to find what the next thing was. And I did Ingrid Goes West, and Ingrid Goes West kind of fell in my lap, because I had saw Aubrey Plaza at an award show where I was presenting, and she was presenting too, and I went to go say hi to her, and these ladies, bless them, stop me and like, wanted to take pictures. Tell me how their grandson loves Compton. I’m like, I’m trying to get to Aubrey Plaza. Look up, Aubrey Plaza is gone. Get on Twitter, as I do, talked about how I almost got to meet Aubrey, but of course, that didn’t happen. So the night’s going well. She sees that, DMs me, tells me she’s got this movie and she wants me to play in it. I’m like, Alright, here’s my number, or she gave me hers. But anyway, I text her and say, ‘Hey, it’s Batman.’ From there she goes, Great. And then we set up a meeting. We get to the spot that the meeting is, she goes, ‘How do you like the script?’ I’m like, ‘What script?’ She’s like, ‘The script for the movie.’ I said, ‘You didn’t send me a script. What’s my email?’ She was like, ‘Well, then why did you say you were Batman?’ I mean, I’m Batman. I don’t know, I love Batman. And then she goes, ‘Well, your guy in the script loves Batman. And I kind of already told everybody that you said, yeah.’ So I was like, All right, so I gotta do it now. So that’s how I got Ingrid Goes West, and Ingrid Goes West has done more for me in circle wise then I would say Straight Outta Compton, which obviously still backed me, but I’ve gotten maybe four roles strictly because they watched Ingrid Goes West. I got Obi Wan Kenobi because of Ingrid Goes West.”

On some fans calling him a nepo baby:

“What do you do? It’s not nothing I chose, but it’s not nothing I’m gonna throw away either. It’s like, you there’s no way to make me feel bad about that, and I wear that with such a badge because, number one, how much I love my dad. But then number two, like, there’s no real disrespect there. There’s no real anything that can really affect the person you’re telling is a nepo baby. So I’m like, yeah.

I’m sorry I hit the baby lottery. What do you want me to do? Yeah, bro, don’t yell at me. Yell at your dad. I don’t know. What do you want me to do? What do I do with that information?”

On now being a great time to be a wrestling fan:

“Yeah, it’s such a [great time], and with this time, they found this pocket right now. Because with social media, with just how much access people have, it’s so hard to put things behind the curtain now, and when they do flip things on their head, it’s got to feel good. Whether or not we the fans are loving it or hating it, the fact that they still can do that is like, that’s got to be the best feeling for somebody who’s really behind there.”

On The Rock vs. Roman Reigns looking less and less likely:

“After the [WrestleMania] 39 thing, and it was kind of like The Final Boss situation when him joining The Bloodline, the thing that they did with Solo in the new bloodline. Kind of felt like what they were supposed to be doing with The Rock and Roman of having just like The Rock with the New Bloodline, Roman with the OG Bloodline. But then it kind of felt like Rock dipped and they gave it to Solo. And Solo has been doing great. He’s hilarious. But yeah, I don’t know if we get it now, and it’s always going to be there, but it’s so important that they put it in at the at the right spot and then get the proper buildup. Because if fans nowadays, when they can feel when it’s just thrown together, it just doesn’t have the build-up that it needs. So yeah, they have to treat that right.”

On who will be John Cena’s final opponent:

“The Punk thing hurt because I thought in my mind and my fantasy booking that all fans do, I thought they were going to save that for the Saturday Night’s Main Event in Boston. Because, you know, rewind a little bit when Punk and Cena were going at it, when the roles were reversed, and Punk was the one that was trying to take the belt and leave it was in Punk’s hometown. So I thought they were going to do that same thing in John’s hometown and have it that way, but they just did it in Saudi. So, man, I don’t know, but I think if I know how John is, it’s going to be somebody to pass a torch to a little bit, he’s going to put somebody over, as opposed to somebody who’s a vet, and who’s been doing it. So like a Randy Orton or any of his past rivalries, I don’t think it’s going to be the person. I think it’s going to be someone of the new school that he’s going to put over and kind of have that traditional wrestling look up at the lights for your last match.”

On John Cena not retiring as a heel:

“I was a part of the crowd who didn’t like Cena, because I was like, he’s so such a goody two shoes guy. Rey Mysterio, I never want to see Rey Mysterio turn heel. There were moments when John was the Doctor of Thuganomics, where I was like, this dude is dope, this guy is cool. Then once you do a couple of Marine movies, he just became this guy who just never veered. He was always face, face, face, face. And then the super Cena. So I had my issues with it. And even now, once he has turned heel, I agree he has to at some point give a nod to Cenation, they’re lost without you, right?”

On wrestlers taking time away:

“That go away sometimes is what you need. I remember Baron Corbin, who is my guy. Love Baron Corbin, man. When he poured dog food on Roman, I was like, This is crazy, this is insane. Then the next time I saw Roman, he didn’t lose forever, 1,316 days as champion. Usos did get a pin on him before that. But like, yeah, that go away is so pivotal, and sometimes they don’t want to accept that. They’re like, you know, maybe you should be off TV for a little bit. Get you some time with the family. But during that, that time, though, John was in your face all the time.”

On possibly training to be a wrestler:

“Right now I’m doing training for Den of Thieves 3. There is no date yet. I’m just getting training in right now. So when I get that, when I get ready, I’m definitely going to be hitting up Booker T, because Booker T every time he sees me, he’s like, when you coming to Reality of Wrestling? I’m like, Alright, chill out. It’s your birthday. I’m trying to tell you Happy birthday. So I’m definitely gonna check out book, and I want to, I definitely want to, but I don’t want the celebrity spot, because I don’t earn wrestling fans’ respect that way. You know, I don’t want the Jon Stewart spot. No disrespect to Jon Stewart. I love Jon Stewart. But like, I don’t want that type of spot. I want to go and Logan and Bad Bunny have kind of set the bar right now, so I gotta go, just so wrestling fans can give me that nod.”

On the most underrated theme song:

“They changed it a little bit. Alexa Bliss’ theme, bro, that bana, bana, bana, that if you listen to that, whoever was in the studio was on one killing it. It has a bunch of different layers to it, it’s all over the place, she’s so tiny, and the beat is so big. Shout out to Alexa Bliss, five feet of fury. It’s called spiteful. I think the name of the song is spiteful. But that song is a banger!”

On his bar fight team:

“Brock Lesnar, 100% because I took my sister to the Raw after Mania 39, and she had never seen Brock in person. We’re like, second row. We ended up getting bumped up to first row, and she saw Brock, and she goes, Shay, Brock is big as hell. I said, this dude is a refrigerator walking, and he will fight you, and he’s okay with that. So Brock Lesnar number one. Number two, because I just had a conversation with Rey Mysterio, and I’m gonna pick Eddie Guerrero, because Eddie will have your back. Eddie will have your back like none other, and Eddie will go. I gotta go, Jacob. Now four was Kurt. I’ve been picking Kurt because wherever I watch a few times during that week, I’m like, oh, yeah, he should be on my bar fight team. Now, if my man TJ was here, I would pick Andre, because nobody’s messing with Andre. But I don’t know what age Andre I’m getting. So I’m going Kurt Angle. Yeah, I’m going athleticism, speed, and then like, Jacob, I know, got my back.” 

What is O’Shea Jackson Jr. grateful for?

“The No Contest Wrestling Podcast, my nephew and health.”

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Saraya (@Saraya) is a professional wrestler best known for her time in WWE as Paige. She sits down with Chris Van Vliet at West Coast Creative Studios in Hollywood, CA to discuss the decision behind leaving AEW and what’s next, her current contract status, if returning to WWE could be possible, wanting to wrestle as Paige again, being cleared to wrestle after suffering a career ending neck injury, the movie “Fighting With My Family” being made based on her life, winning the Divas Championship on her main roster debut, being in promo class with Roman Reigns while in NXT, her book “Hell in Boots: Clawing My Way Through Nine Lives” and more!

Subscribe to Rulebreaker With Saraya here: https://www.youtube.com/@RulebreakersPod

Quote I’m thinking about: “Gratitude is a biological intervention. It lowers cortisol. Boosts serotonin. Rewires your nervous system. It’s as simple as taking two minutes in your car, on a walk, or in bed, to list 5 things you’re grateful for. And it will literally change the chemistry of your brain.” – Dr. Josh Axe

On her podcast Rulebreakers:

“It was actually my idea. Because going into the podcast space, it’s really oversaturated, obviously, but then you have people that are successful, like you, and The Bellas do really good and stuff. So you really have to try and figure out ways to make you stand out. I’ve always loved Jackass, Simple Life, anything that’s kind of physical and putting someone in an uncomfortable position, because then you see their true self. So I love that kind of stuff, because we could do a sit-down interview and I can be a success like you, but then I’m like, okay, but then I’m going to be just like you. So I need to find something that makes me just a little bit different. So I was like, we should incorporate torturing our guests a little bit. So we’re still adding more to it, but we’ll be doing the talking, and it’s really fun, then we go into a segment where we give them electric dog shock collars, or make them eat something weird. It’s getting bigger and bigger and bigger, this stuff that we’re trying to incorporate, but we also have to make it translate to the audio space, which makes it a little bit more difficult.”

On a prank on Titus O’Neil that backfired:

“Jeff Tremaine is the creator of Jackass, and he came to WWE once and was like, I want to do this prank show backstage with the WWE wrestlers. A lot of people didn’t want to be on the list. They were on a no-prank list or whatever. I love that stuff. I will do anything. I had to do this fake speed dating thing where everybody was on in on it apart from this one guy who I was doing a speed date with. So he just thinks he’s talking to a regular girl, that’s just part of this thing. The whole time I have the dog shock collar around my leg, and then he’s trying to chat with me and stuff. Jeff is zapping me, and I’m just like this [twitching], and he’s wondering why the f*ck I’m twitching like this. Then the waiter comes over, who is part of the crew too, and Jeff’s like, ‘Punch him in the face.’ I was like, Okay, I’m doing this. It was in my ear. I’m so old school, it was in my ear. So the waiter comes down, I pop him in the face and stuff, and then the guy was like, ‘What the f*ck is your problem? This chick is f*cking crazy!’ I was like, sorry, I just got out of jail and stuff. it was a whole thing. But, yeah, he would put me in uncomfortable positions all the time and I just loved it. I actually turned into a menace because they gave me a cattle prod. I was a nightmare with that. So they gave it to me and I was going around backstage and just zapping everybody with it. It was really bad. Then I got Titus O’Neil, who I didn’t know was on the no-prank list. So I zapped him, and he f*cking lost his mind, and he’s the nicest guy ever. Just an angel. I’ve never seen so mad. He didn’t speak to me for a couple of weeks after that, but he ended up going up to Vince and telling on me. And then Vince brings me into the office, and he was just like, ‘Paige, please stop assaulting people backstage.’ He thought it was hilarious, but I got scolded for a second. He was like, ‘Please put the cattle prod down. Don’t do it anymore.’ I was like, okay, that’s fine.”

On making up with Titus O’Neil:

“A couple of weeks later he was back to being an angel to me. I was like, ‘I’m so sorry, Titus. I didn’t realize you were on the no prank list.’ He was like, ‘But why would you want to shock me with a cattle prod?’ And I was like, sorry. I was younger. I was 23 or something like that. But I was like, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have done it. I assaulted a lot of people that day. It was really bad. I remember Neville. I did him, and he was like, ‘That’s assault. That’s assault.’ And I’m like, Oh, stop it. And then we run around doing it to everybody else too. Oh, my God. I was a nightmare. So anyway, that was the inspo for the podcast too. Because I was just assaulting people. It’s my favorite pastime.”

On thinking she would never wrestle again after retiring:

“Well, they told me I’d never wrestle again. So the first neck surgery I had, that went really well. Then they said, ‘Okay, you need to take a year or so out.’ So that’s what I did. Then I came back, and I didn’t want to look like I missed a step. So when I came back, I was like I’m gonna go full throttle into it, and I was back for like six weeks before I got kicked in the back of the neck again. But I had these newer girls up with me, which was Mandy and Sonya at the time. For some reason, the producers wanted me to keep taking the comeback bumps. I was like, well, we have these new girls. Maybe they can take the bumps for me, because I’m still fresh out of surgery. But they’re like, ‘No, we think you should do it.’ I was like, okay, and I didn’t say no. I should have said no, but didn’t say no, because I just wanted to be like, yeah, I got this. I’m fine. My neck is fine, whatever. So yeah, the second kick I remember, and there’s a video on YouTube of it, I lost all the feeling in my legs at first, and then I kind of stumbled, and I fell down. Then I lost all feeling in my arms. You can see me try and grab Mercedes’ legs at the time, and I just could not grab them. Then I remember just being completely paralyzed in the middle of the ring, and then just knowing in my head, I was like this is it. I’m never gonna wrestle again. I already knew. I was like, I’m done. There’s no way, because just the feeling in my body, it was like an electric shock, and then everything went numb. I was scared, but I just knew at that point that was going to be it. Then the ref threw up the X, and then they started bringing out the stretcher. I said, ‘I’m not going out of this ring on a stretcher, just give me some time.’ I’m sure the feeling will come back into my body again. So I’m just like, laying in the ring. This is not televised, but it is on the internet so you can see it. But the crowd were just dead quiet, there’s 1000s there, all just watching, and they’re dead quiet, just watching me lay there. And then all sudden, I started getting pins and needles. I was like, oh my god, the feelings coming back. So I get pins and needles. And then I sat up, and then the whole crowd started cheering, which is really sweet. They were just like, Yeah, she did it. There’s the girls on either side crying. Then I’m like, just take the stretcher away. I can walk out. I’ll be perfectly fine.” 

“So I end up getting out, I did walk back, and I was so proud of myself for doing that. A lot of pride there. If this is it, I’m not gonna be stretched out. I’m gonna walk my ass out the ring. I get back, the first person who saw me was Bray Wyatt, our boy, Bray. And he instantly just came up and gave me a hug. He’s like, ‘What happened?’ He was so stressed out for me. He’s like, ‘What happened? You’ve only been back a little bit.’ I was like, ‘Bro, that’s it. I don’t think I’m wrestling anymore.’ Then he was devastated for me, him and Mercedes both walked me to the doctor’s office. The next day I went to Pittsburgh, they did the whole [appointment with] Dr Maroon. They checked out my neck, and he was just like, ‘You should be completely paralyzed. That should have been it.’ It was like the equivalent to an awful car crash, like I got in a really bad car accident. The fluid around my spine, there was just none, there was no cushion there, and that’s what the fluid is for, is to protect your spinal cord. They didn’t have it, it pinched so tight, because my neck just snapped all the way back. It was crazy. He just said, ‘You’re never gonna wrestle again. There’s no way.’ I remember calling my mum and dad, and I was crying my eyes out. I was like, done. I’m done. And they were crying, because that’s my whole family’s life is wrestling. I’m just devastated. Then I remember just coming out of that year and a half, whereas, drinking, on drugs and stuff like that, I was like, I can’t go back to that. So WWE were amazing, and they instantly put me in a position of General Manager, which I was so grateful for. And Vince gave me the opportunity to say goodbye on TV, which is not something a woman usually does within the WWE back then; no one really got to say goodbye. It was always like, go to WWE.com and you’ll see Eve Torres saying goodbye for the last time, you know what I mean. So it was amazing. I had the opportunity to be like I am retiring guys, devastated, cry my eyes out in the ring, and the crowd were amazing, and then the next day, I was the GM. But I knew at that point, okay, I’m never gonna wrestle again. That’s it. I’m done.”

On being open to wrestling again:

“I was never open to the idea of wrestling again, because I just assumed I wasn’t going to do it. So when me and WWE parted ways, I was like, What the f*ck am I going to do with my life now? I can’t wrestle, what the hell am I going to do? I was a little stressed out, but then, within a couple of weeks, WWE was calling me again to come back. Hunter was the one that called me, and then AEW called me at the same time. So I was just like, well, what the f*ck do I do? Who do I go with? And then WWE was like, if you want to wrestle again at some point, we can check your neck and we’ll keep that coin in your back pocket. And I was like, Okay. Then I was just gonna do a GM role again there. So I was like, Okay, that sounds great. But then AEW called me, and they were just like, we’ll sign your brother. And I was like, ok.”

On her brother Zak Knight:

“The one thing for me is that I’ve had an incredible career, but my brother’s never had the opportunity to do it, and that’s been his dream since he could tie his boots. So I just knew at that point, I was like if I take this opportunity, I don’t know if WWE will ever sign my brother, but I know AEW has given me the opportunity to bring my brother in, and he can finally get his moment. That’s one of the big catalysts of why I went to AEW is because, obviously, you get freedom to do whatever you want. But they were going to bring my brother in finally. I was out here by myself for 13 and a half years without my brother. We grew up like twins, because we’re so close in age, 14 months. So I was so used to him being around, and then I got the opportunity, and he didn’t, and it always f*cked with me. I felt so bad for him that he never got the opportunity. So having this, I was like, Okay, I’m going to AEW, that’s it. My brother’s coming with me. He’s going to move over, I’ll have my brother back. So yeah, that was the biggest thing why I went to AEW. Then Tony was like, let’s see where your neck is at and stuff, and I’ve been dying to see where my neck is at. It’s been over five years at this point. So I was like, hell yeah, dude, let’s do it. But I said, I don’t want a wrestling doctor. Not saying wrestling doctors are biased, but you want someone that is a little bit more timid when it comes to physical activity. So I went to one here in California, and he does massive celebrities. I mean, like huge singers, you go into his office and they’re just A-List everywhere. I don’t realize how many people have f*cking neck surgeries around here. So I was blown away. So I was like, Okay, if he says, Yes, I can go back, that means I can go back, because he’s not going to put his career on the line here for me. Because, again, he has a roster of just amazing people.” 

On whether Mercedes Mone felt responsible for what happened:

“I feel like she does, and she went through a really bad depression too. Because the fans, they can get really hardcore. I have always said, It’s not her fault. It’s wrestling. We’re not going out there and dancing. It’s a physical sport. So accidents happen all the time. It’s like doing a live stunt and expecting not to trip and fall sometimes. So I never blamed her for it. I was always very outspoken about how it was never her fault, but she got attacked a lot. It doesn’t feel good to be the one responsible for an accident like that. So she went through a rough time, depression and stuff like that. A really, really rough time. So she was one of the first people I called because I was like, you don’t have to feel bad anymore, I’m back. She was over the moon for me. Then at that point, I was like, Okay, so I’m gonna f*cking wrestle now. This is crazy, this is wild. I wish I trained more, because Tony was like, All right, you’re gonna be wrestling in like, two weeks. And I’m like, I’ve had five years out. How do I get back in the ring again? I didn’t have much time to train or anything. So I was traveling for AEW, and then I was working when I was at home, and I was like, When can I physically go in a ring? My brother Zak flew over, and he took me to a ring a couple of times, and we just tried to get some of the ring rust off, but it was really hard. The only thing I regret about my AEW run is that I wish I tried harder when it comes to the wrestling side of things. I think I went too easy on myself, because I was a little bit worried that something would happen like WWE, where I would f*ck up and my neck would get hurt again. And I was too overly cautious.”

On leaving AEW:

“It got to a point, I loved my time there, I really did, but there was nothing really much for me to do. When I was there, all I wanted to do was help elevate the division. So I’m like, ‘I’ll eat a pin here and there, I’ll do it, whatever someone needs.’ I don’t think there was much room for me there. You have big stars there, and I just decided that this is probably the perfect time for me to take a step back, because the only thing left for me to do there would be to wrestle Mercedes. But she already had stuff lined up all the way up until All In that they’re about to do. So I was like, What am I gonna do, stay at home? It’s nice to collect a paycheck sometimes, sure, but I’d rather be active and doing something I’m really enjoying. That’s why I wanted to do the podcast, my book came out, all that kind of fun stuff, so I can put all my energy into that, rather than being like, well, when am I going to be on TV next? I don’t want to have to stress about that. So it was just easier, and Tony was great. He was agreeing too. He’s like, okay, yeah, let’s do it. So it was a very nice split, and great business, which is wonderful. And like I said before, the door is always open for these places, which is really nice. I leave on really good terms. But yeah, I feel like my time came to an end, what else do I do?”

Are you a free agent?

“I’m a free agent now. I could pop up anywhere. No, my contract’s done, done. That’s one thing that helped is because they gave me the opportunity to walk away from this contract. Not a lot of companies or businesses would do that, but Tony was really, really great about it. So I was like you can keep paying me, or I can just take a hike.”

Is there a non-compete?

“No, Tony was great. It was a clean split.”

On if a WWE return would be as Paige or Saraya?

“Paige, 100%. I miss Paige so much. I tell people all the time. So again, when I went to AEW, I didn’t want to be close to my character in WWE because of the comparisons. I was like, Okay. And then I ended up being like a chicken sh*t heel with AEW, which is all fun and good, but there’s a ceiling to that. Whereas Paige, I mean, she’s generational. I love her. She’s bad ass, tough as nails, just screaming all the time. I loved being her. She was a f*cking badass, and that felt more like an elevated version of myself, rather than doing what I was doing in AEW. But again, that was my decision to be like that. But then I was like, Damn I wish I leaned more into my original character, but it is what it is. You live, you learn.”

On whether she misses wrestling:

“I do. Wrestling, if you haven’t wrestled in a while, it really hurts your body, and you forget how much it f*cking hurts, because before I took the long break with my neck, I never had time off. So I was wrestling nearly every other day. Since I was 13 years old, I was constantly in a ring training, having wrestling matches, traveling, all that kind of stuff. So my body became one giant callous. I was just one giant scab, pretty much. So once my body healed and I took a bump, I was like, Oh, this f*cking sucks. This hurts like a bitch, especially when you have no adrenaline. So yeah, having a match after you’ve had time off, you feel like you’ve been hit by a car, you’re just like, Oh my god. So I do miss wrestling. I miss the adrenaline rush. I miss entertaining. I miss getting in the ring and feeling like Paige. But yeah, it’s just the feeling that you get afterwards, once the adrenaline is worn off.”

On possibly appearing at WWE Evolution:

“It’s like a bittersweet thing, because the first one, I couldn’t be on it because of my neck. So if I had the opportunity to be on this all-female pay-per-view, of course, yeah, I would think about it.”

On her favourite wrestling moment:

“So obviously, NXT was amazing. I got the opportunity to be the first ever NXT Women’s Champion, and I so thankful for it. I was 20 years old. I was a kid, it was incredible, and I’m so f*cking grateful for it. But my ultimate moment was my debut and winning the Divas Championship, because that’s all I ever wanted to be. I wanted to be a WWE Diva, and to do it at 21 too. And the day before, Dwayne is in his office backstage, and he’s like, ‘I’m gonna make a movie on your life.’ And I’m like, what? Then he’s like, ‘And you’re gonna debut tomorrow, and you’re gonna win the Divas Championship.’ And I was like, what? I’m just f*cking sobbing, dude. A lot of crying, obviously, but I’m sobbing because I can’t believe this is happening at such a young age. I never thought I’d get a movie of my life. I never thought I was actually gonna debut on the main roster. So to have Dwayne The Rock Johnson tell you these things too, he’s a f*cking real-life superhero, an icon in wrestling and in movies. And you’re just like, This is f*cking insane. Then he’s like, ‘But you can’t tell anyone the day before.’ So I’m walking around like, trying to keep my sh*t together, waiting for someone to tell me that I’m actually gonna be debuting. It was so emotional. And then I finally got Fit Finlay telling me 10 minutes before doors were opening, ‘Come to the side of the ring. AJ and Tamina need to speak to you, you’re gonna win the Divas Championship.’ And I was like, Okay, Let’s f*cking do it. And he’s like, but no one knows. And I’m like, Why do I have to keep f*cking secrets, dude? That’s insane. So I’m crying again, and then I go to the side of the ring, and AJ was just amazing. Obviously, everyone knows that I was really close to AJ. She’s like my fairy godmother, is what I called her for so long. And, yeah, she just kind of took me under a wing and protected me. She was like, All right, this is how it’s gonna go. And she was like, ‘What kind of finish do you want to do?’ And I was like, ‘Well, I do have a submission.’ She was like, ‘No, you need to 3 count me, solidify that sh*t.’ So I was like, okay, so then we did the Paige Turner in the ring, but I didn’t explain how to do it properly, because I was just too nervous. So I ended up looking like a Leg Sweep. And I remember coming back and Randy Orton’s just like, ‘Did you just beat her with a Leg Sweep?’ I was like, ‘Absolutely, yeah I did, but it’s supposed to look different.’ But I’m like, Who gives a f*ck? So yeah, that was probably the most magical moment for me, is finally getting what I’ve wanted. And I’ve been traveling since I was 13 years old by myself to all these different countries, because all I wanted to do was get experience for WWE to take notice of me and to finally come over to America. So yeah, I was traveling solo since I was 13 years old, and now eight years later into my career, which is crazy, because I was only 21. Eight years later into my career, I finally got that moment that I’ve been dreaming about.”

On the hardest part of her book to write:

“The childhood abuse, probably. Because I didn’t really talk about it. I got brought up in a family where you kind of just dusted yourself off and kept going, right? You don’t just sit there and bitch and complain or talk about your problems. So it’s been really hard for me to fully open up when it comes to trauma, especially. I’m like, it happened, but I need to focus on other things now. So, yeah, it took me years and years to open up to my family about it, and it only happened when I was about 30, and my brother called me. He was crying his eyes out because it affected him really, really bad for a long time. He called me crying. He was like ‘Saraya, we need to talk about this.’ I was like, Okay, let’s do it. So we spoke about it, and he was like, I’m gonna talk to mom and dad about it. And I was like, Okay, do it. Then we had, like, these heart-to-hearts, and they were really bad. Because there was a couple of times, this part is really hard for me to talk about. It was really hard, because I was trying to do the audio for it, and that was probably the hardest chapter to go through. It took me all day to get through that f*cker, dude. I was like, Oh my gosh, it’s so hard. But yeah, that was probably the hardest chapter.” 

On what’s next for her:

“I don’t know. That’s the exciting part is that is everything so unexpected that comes along. So I’m excited. I didn’t think I was gonna be taking another break from wrestling and to focus on a podcast.”

On how much longer she wants to wrestle:

“I think I can squeeze 10 more years out of me. Yeah, 10 more years on and off.”  

On possible WWE dream matches:

“I always get Rhea to either be a tag team partner, the original goth sister to now, the ultimate goth sister. So I’d love to be in a team with her or wrestle her, because that’s what people want. I would love to wrestle Mercedes down the line, because it’s a built-in storyline. All the girls now, they’re all superstars, dude. I would get in the ring with anybody at any point in time. They’re all amazing. Probably Nattie again. I love Nattie. I’ve wrestled her a billion times, but, oh my God.”

On being in promo class with Roman Reigns:

“Oh, my God. Rest in peace, Dusty. I f*cking loved him so much. But the promo classes were difficult, and you had to learn to adjust on the fly, which I am grateful for. Because I had that experience once I got on the main roster. But we’d have promo classes where we’d have to cut these promos. But then he’d be like, ‘Yeah, it wasn’t good enough. So here’s something you talk about, go.’ And so he goes, ‘Leeake [Roman Reigns] baby, get up, go sit next to Paige.’ So he gets up and sits next to me. And then he was like, ‘Okay, Paige, baby, he’s your ex-boyfriend. He dumped you and stole your toaster.’ So I’m like, Oh, f*ck, what do I say to this guy? I just met him as well. I’ve already been with WWE within two weeks or something, I was already cut these promos. ‘Hello, stranger, I have to pretend you’re my ex-boyfriend who stole my toaster.’ So I just start talking to him, and I’m so embarrassed, because he’s a big, strong guy, he’s f*cking Roman Reigns, dude. He’s like, f*cking Hercules. And like, I’m so sorry. He made me do a bunch of stuff like that. He was like, ‘Okay, Paige, baby, you open a letter, and then he was like, you have to go through all your emotions while reading through this letter.’ Again, I’m getting dumped constantly, apparently, because he’s just like your boyfriend is dumping you. I’m like, f*ck all right. So he was like, ‘You have to go through happy, sad, emotional, angry and stuff.’ So I’m like, okay, but I’m not allowed to say a word either. So you have to do it all through facial expressions. So I’m just like, looking through it, and I think I’m doing a good job. I was so embarrassed. 

I was in it for a year at that point. So I was really comfortable with Dusty. And he was just like, ‘Okay, I want you to limit what you say. I want you to be more mysterious.’ So I was like, Okay. So he wanted me to cut these certain length promos, but then I couldn’t say anything. So I was just like, well, what the f*ck. How do we do this? So I remember I was so tired one day, so f*cking cranky, and I was f*cking done with this, so I come in, I cut a sh*t promo, and then in front of everybody, he was like, ‘I asked for chicken dinner. You give me chicken sh*t?’ And I was like, ‘F*ck you Dusty!’ I f*cking walk out, f*cking stomp up to the girl’s locker room, slam the door, and like, I just heard a knock on the door. He was like, ‘Is my porcelain princess in here?’ [I said] ‘Go away Dusty. I don’t want to talk to you.’ He was like, ‘Get out here.’ So I was like, Okay. And I was like, ‘I’m really sorry.’ Because he’s my boss. ‘I shouldn’t have talked to you like that, Dusty. I’m really sorry.’ He was like, ‘It’s okay, baby, come sit down.’ So we sit on the steps. And he just said to me, ‘I want you to be a success. You have to give 110% every single time, even if it’s in front of your peers, even if it’s in front of five people in the crowd, you have to give 110%.’ He was like, I’m always gonna be honest with you, whether you like it or not. And I understood. I was like, ‘I’m sorry, you were completely right.’ I was out of line, I came in, half arsed my promo and did a bad job. He said that I was like his broken toy compared to the rest of the Divas, because I was like the little misfit of everybody, again, the women with beautiful blonde hair, tanned. I was this pale, little f*cking goth chick. He was like, ‘You’re my broken toy, baby. I just want to fix you and put you back together again.’ I was just like, Yeah, you’re right. I miss Dusty so much, rest in peace. Been like 10 years. That was it. He goes to me, ‘Nobody calls me a motherf*cker.’ And I was like, ‘You’re so right. I’m so sorry, Dusty, I should not called your motherf*cker in front of everybody.’ But I was very mad at him. I love him.” 

What is Saraya grateful for?

“My health, my happiness and my dogs.”

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Steve Blackman is a retired professional wrestler best known for his time in WWE. He sits down with Chris Van Vliet in Harrisburg, PA to discuss being known as one of the toughest wrestlers in the locker room, becoming seriously ill and coming very close to dying before he signed with WWE, his match with Shane McMahon at SummerSlam 2000 and McMahon’s fall, showing his comedic side with Al Snow as part of Head Cheese, the real story behind his fight with JBL at an airport in St. Louis, being a part of the infamous Brawl For All tournament, what he is doing now, whether a WWE return could be possible and more!

Quote I’m thinking about: 
“Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance, you must keep moving.” – Albert Einstein

On what he is doing now:

“After I got out of wrestling, I had an MMA school. I had that for about 13 years, and then once my kids were born, I just didn’t have the time for that. But I had also started a bail bonds business two or three years after the MMA started. So I’ve been focusing on my bail bonds business for the last 17 years now. They pay a percent, you put up enough assets to write a certain amount of bails, or you write through an insurance company, and they license you to do a certain amount of bails. But I mean, when I first started, it was all on your own. Then the insurance companies got involved six years ago, and don’t even get me started on that, that kind of screwed everything up. But nevertheless, I’m fortunate in Harrisburg, because I know everybody at MMA school here, Bail Bonds business. I’ve lived here many years, so I get a lot of bails out of this county.”

What if they don’t pay?

“We’re supposed to go track them down. And in the beginning, that’s actually why I started the bail business. When I had the MMA school, there’s fighters of mine, which I had dozens and dozens of fighters. They’re always broke. So they’re like, ‘Blackman, what can we do to make some money?’ I’m like, let me think on it. So I came up with, well, let’s start doing bounty hunting. So when I did my homework and I saw I can put up more money and make a lot more money doing bails than I can just tracking people down. Plus, I don’t feel like sitting there and staring at somebody’s house for a week either. So that’s how that came about.”

On the terrifying thought of being chased down by Steve Blackman:

“Well, in the beginning, don’t hold me to it, but this number is close. In the first few years, I took in 88 guys myself and my other bounty hunters took in the same number. It was funny, because we took in almost the exact same number together, 176 guys we took it in the first three years. That’s just brutal. Then you start learning how to get better co-signers, more co-signers, get people to post bails that own something, have something to lose. So if the person doesn’t show up, you go after them for it, or you just hound them till they turn the person in.”

On whether he would have been interested in UFC if it existed earlier:

“Probably. I would have loved to have done it, and I would have even liked to have done it when I was in WWF. I just had so many neck issues. I was so tired of having migraines every other day. It wasn’t the fact of going out there and fighting. I’m not being funny, but any of us can go out there and just go balls to the wall for a minute. It’s just being able to train properly. And every time I go out and train for a couple of days hard, I get headaches, my neck would hurt even rolling with the guys in my school, I would roll hard with them the whole time. But I tell them, let’s avoid the guillotines for this match, and we’ll go for everything else, just because it would kill my neck all the time.” 

Did you look into it when you were in WWF?

“I had talked to [Ken] Shamrock about it and stuff before, and he had said that someone had enquired to him about it, see if I want to come out there and do it. And I did it desperately, especially the days when I had a day where my neck didn’t feel bad, and I’m banging cardio up that day and stuff, it’s like, Man, I’d like to get out there and do that, but they just didn’t work out. I mean, I had neck issues.” 

On wrestlers saying he was the toughest in the locker room:

“I appreciate that. I will say this. There’s a lot of tough guys in WWF. When you look at the size and speed of most of the guys, most guys that played football, wrestled, have that athletic ability. Most of them have the ability to hold their own. It’s just how hard they want to go. One thing with me I always had in my head. When they say that I never cared who it was, if there’s a problem, I don’t care who you are, we’re going to go. And that’s just the way I’ve always looked at it. If you don’t like me and I have a problem with you, we’ll do it every single day, I just don’t care. It happens. You know, it’s happened before, but that’s one thing, no matter who it is, I don’t care if you got a problem, just walk up, lace your shoes up and let’s go.”

On looking like he could still wrestle:

“Sometimes I feel good, especially after my second neck operation. I don’t have those headaches all day, every day, where I sit there and just do this, because I had four bone spurs digging in nerves in my neck. So every time I’d land or move, it was like pencil points digging in. So once I had those removed, [I used to] sit there all day just trying to find a spot where I could sit in where it wasn’t jagging me. So now that that’s been fixed, some days I feel good. I’m like, Man, I could go out there and do a couple matches. It crosses my mind.”

On his early days in wrestling and battling illness:

“I started wrestling in 86 in wrestling school in Connecticut. I was there for about a year, and then I went to Japan. Spent six weeks over there. I went, but I was still green, so to speak, because I had just done small promotion matches all across Connecticut and those places. I wrestled in Eastern Canada for four months, where you wrestle every day you’re there for four months. I had been in contact with Owen [Hart] because in Japan, ‘I said, What do I have to do to get to WWF?’ He goes, ‘You need to come to Calgary, wrestle with us up there and my dad and polish up.’ So after that four-month run in Eastern Canada, Owen got me over there with his father, and that’s where I wrestled. When I say every day, you wrestle every day, you don’t have days off. I don’t remember having a day off period. We did have one, but his brothers, being like him, scheduled us in a charity race three hours from Calgary, and we all wanted to kill him. So that was our one day off. I’ll never forget it, because we were so mad. I was up there with Pillman, Benoit, Gary Albright, he wrestled up there. Norman the Lunatic Mike Shaw was up there. The British Bulldogs were with us for six months because they were taking a break from WWF at that time. This was 88 and so we had a hell of a crew up there back then. We’d wrestle long matches, and non stop moving. It’s funny, because when I finished up there, and I was starting with WWF, I was supposed to start with them in 89 and I said to the office, I told this guy I’d wrestle for him in Africa. I gave him my word that I come down there for three weeks. And they said, Well, just go ahead start with this when you get back.”

“So for me to keep my word, I went down there, became deathly ill, came home, long story short, spent five and a half years till I got better. I was two and a half years on my deathbed, another two and a half years on medicine. They said I probably had dysentery and malaria. It was so bad. When I landed in Africa on Thursday, I weighed 267 the next Thursday, when I left the hospital and Gary Albright helped me get to a flight and finally make my way home, I weighed 232. I was 35 pounds lighter in six days. I started getting sick Friday, and it was insane, and it felt like I had sand in my mouth. I had to carry drinks everywhere I went. I thought I was gonna die from just complete dehydration, which is pretty much where you die from with dysentery, just it’s one end to the other nonstop. I drink, go, drink, go, drink, go. I went through IV bag after IV bag. I said to Gary, he came to the hospital, ‘Gary, you got to get me out of here, I’m going to die here. I can’t keep anything down here.’ Well, he got me to the airport. I was down in Durban, South Africa. I flew from Durban to Johannesburg. Once I got there, I had to wait for a ticket from home to come through. That came through 15 minutes before my flight left, where I’d been stuck in Johannesburg with nothing, and that came through. Then, don’t hold me to the exact hours, five hour flight to Kenya. We get to Kenya, we had a nine-hour layover on the runway with the doors open. It was 120 degrees and no air conditioning, and I’m feeling like I’m dying every second. All I do is keep grabbing every sodium bottle of water I can do and drink, drink, drink. Then we leave from Kenya and we fly to Amsterdam. We get to Amsterdam, I have a 12-hour layover. I’m laying on the floor. I just crawl into the bathroom, crawl out. They took me to the medical station in that airport, and they’re like, ‘We’re not gonna let you fly.’ I said, ‘Look, dude, I don’t have anything contagious. If I’m going to die, I’m going to die in the States. I’m not going to make my family come halfway around the world to retrieve me anywhere I’m getting home.’ So they let me get on the plane. I flew to New York. I had a five-hour layover. I’ll never forget some kid wheeled me off in a wheelchair. I don’t even know what money I had in my pocket. I don’t even know what currency it was. I just gave it to him. I said, ‘Get me as much to drink as he can and something to eat.’ He comes back with a big bottle of water, some juice. I don’t know what I remember what it was. I was delirious. I remember he brought me a sub. I ate the whole sub and drank the water. And I sat there for 5-10 minutes. I’m like, it stayed in my stomach. That’s the first time in seven and a half, eight days. Now I actually kept something in there, and so I fly from there to Harrisburg, I go to the doctor and all that. I weighed 232 the next day at the hospital. But you gotta remember now I’ve eaten and drank stuff while I’m at home before I even got to the doctor the next day. I might have been lighter than that, but it was pure hell. And then I was just sick for years, and then eventually, I finally started getting better, and I went and saw Vince, that’s how I got back in.”

Did you think you were going to die?

“There were many nights where I went to bed, where I felt so sick. I’ll give you an example, if I tried to do push-ups one day, I would do as many push-ups as I could. For one set, I would literally stand up, crawl over, lay down, and sleep till the next day. It was so debilitating, I couldn’t even function because it turned into some sort of infection in my intestinal tract after I got over that stuff, and it just lingered and lingered till one doctor figured it out.”

On the name The Lethal Weapon:

“That was when I was up in Canada. So I used that for a while, and then came down. And then when I started doing the sticks with my entrance I started doing routines with those. And then I would use a kendo stick and the matches, or the nunchucks, stuff like that. So it was, it was fun doing that.”

On wrestlers trying to test him:

“Well, there are people that try to test you in wrestling and out of wrestling. I can give you examples with numerous guys I wrestled with that went through that. One guy tested Shamrock. Shamrock dropped him. He gets sued. Another guy tested British Bulldog, just harassing his wife for 15 minutes. Finally, Davey Boy drops the guy on his head. And then they’re looking for him to arrest him and sue him, and their wives are just being hounded. I think Big Show was tested at a hotel one time, dropped the guy. I didn’t see this. I heard that the guy just wouldn’t leave him alone, and finally, Big Show dropped him, but they had a tape of that one, and he got out of it. That I heard through a couple of the other guys. The one with Bulldog and Shamrock, I rode with those guys all the time, so I know it does. I mean, people would test me. I walk into the Cleveland arena one day, and I don’t know who it was. A guy was seven feet tall. I’m just walking in and he’s like, ‘I think I can take you.’ I never even saw the guy in my life. I dropped my gym bag. I said, ‘Let’s go.’ I’m like, Is this guy a basketball player or something? I don’t even know who he was, but that’s just how people are. It’s like, as soon as it doesn’t go their way, and they get cracked, now they want to sue you. Well, then don’t start it to begin with. I’ve had people come up to me and start mouthing. Look, dude, just sign a waiver and we’ll go. [So what happened with the seven-footer?] He walked away.”

So if everybody has you at the top of the list for being the toughest guy in WWE, who’s on your list? 

“I think, to me, there’s a lot of tough guys in there. Because, like I said, when you’re a big guy and you can move, you can usually throw a good punch, and you’re usually not that easy just to tie up with and take down, they can usually fight back pretty well. But obviously, when Ken was younger, he would bang with anybody, even when Severn was in with us for a while. Dan never had fast hands or feet, but he was tough on the ground. And anybody that has 100 cage fights has a set on him, because you have to have a lot in you to go through 100 cage fights. But even when you look at Taker and Kane and Farooq, a lot of those guys, all of those guys were athletic, and they’re big guys, so they can move, they can throw you. Obviously, Kurt’s a hell of a wrestler, he was great, the best in the world at one time at that. But you can look at a lot of the other guys in there, obviously Brock. But most of the guys in there have a pretty hardcore attitude, so I think most of them can hold their own pretty well.” 

On the SummerSlam 2000 match with Shane McMahon:

“That was pretty much the plan. I don’t remember much being discussed differently than what we did. Most people don’t realize, it was rare that I’d go out there and talk about the match and stuff in the ring before we go out and do an appearance. I didn’t really walk through much with people. That was a rare one when we went out there to go up to the Titan Tron, we actually climbed up and that’s high. And the worst thing was, there was nothing on the floor from the TitanTron until you’re seven feet, eight feet away. Then there was a mat the size of a bed way out here. And I’m like, he’s going to land on that backwards from up there? What if he falls straight down? This one guy, he’s one of the stunt coordinators, goes, ‘If he just steps back and falls this way, he’ll land out there.’ I’m like, You’re kidding me, right? I said, well that’s insane to me. So they said, ‘Okay, we’ll do it.’ He didn’t drop, but he said, Okay, he’ll do that. And I said, All right.

So we get up there the next day, I hit him with my stick, and he drops. Well, I’m supposed to drop an elbow on him, and I’m like, I have two feet to land there. How am I going to drop an elbow on this guy from 50 or 60 feet, whatever we were, I shimmy down. I might have still been 25 feet up. So I shimmy down halfway and jump from there and landed. But what happened is, overnight, somebody encased the mat with three-quarter-inch plywood around it. So if you have a limb sticking out, it’s just going to snap off. So I had to land right there, drop an elbow on him and try not to completely pancake him. So I landed there, hit him with the elbow and pulled it off. But during the match, our runners would grab props anywhere, and sometimes they were real street signs. I’d be like, Guys, where are you grabbing this stuff? This is a real street sign. Well, don’t ask Steve. So he gets out there, he hit me with a street sign one time. If you watch that match, it felt like it ripped the nose off my face. That metal thing just went peeling right down my face. I thought, Holy hell. Then Test and Albert interfered, you know, we had a good match. You know, everybody was getting beat on in that one.” 

On whose idea it was for the Shane fall:

“Well, it had to be him. I don’t think it was his dad. It had to be Shane. And never forget we were out there going over it and talking about it. I’m like, I’ll crack him, crack him, crack him. But the worst part was that I was so sweaty from the match for 15 minutes, trying to hold on to those bars. I was just drenched in sweat. I kept worrying about slipping and dropping, so that’s why I stopped where I did, held the bar and then cracked him because I just kept sweating so bad. And we were out there. I’ll never forget, Vince is like, ‘You need to get that stick out of the way. If you crack him and your stick’s here, and he drops, he’s going to [fall differently].’ I said, You know what, you’re right. So it’s good you thought of that. I had to crack him and make sure I got the stick out of the way so he didn’t land on it and flip or something like that. It hits me, because you think of crazy little things like that that you wouldn’t most of the time.” 

On Steve Blackman’s elbow drop afterwards:

“Well, I mean, he dropped twice the distance. I had a narrow area to land in, and even at that 25 feet I was at, that’s still hard to land right in that spot. But yes, he overshadowed it with the way he dropped. But I thought the match was pretty good. We did a lot, we hit hard in that match. We hit with all the weapons hard in that match and stuff like that, and took hard bumps. So I thought it went well.”

On being pitched the Brawl For All:

“[Rolls eyes] All right. I’m at home on one of my days off, the office calls me and they go, ‘We’re having this Brawl For All and it’s a real fight. You wear boxing gloves and you can do whatever you want.’ I thought it was just somebody in the office ribbing me, because you got to remember those wrestlers do nothing but rib each other. So I’m like, ‘Yeah, sure we are.’ Then, I think it was Bruce Pritchard, he’s like, ‘Steve, we’re having a Brawl For All, and you can do whatever.’ I said, ‘Let me get this straight, we’re gonna have a Brawl For All. I can kick, shoot, punch, knee, elbow…’ And they’re like, yep. I said, ‘What’s the prize?’ And they said, Well, you get an extra five grand a week and then the prize at the end, whatever it was. I said, ‘Well, I don’t believe you, but go ahead and sign me up.’ I didn’t believe him. I thought the whole thing was a rib, one of the guys playing a joke. So we get to the next TV, I haven’t trained for this in a while, and I never forget. We get there, and they’re like, you’re fighting Mero tonight in the Brawl For All. I’m like, this thing’s real?! Okay. So we go out in the ring, and there were 16 of us in it, we’re going over the different things we could do. I said, ‘Well, he told me I’m allowed to kick when he called me.’ When we were out in the ring, Vince is like, ‘What kind of kick do you mean?’ And I should have thought faster. I stood there, and you know how in the MMA, most of us do fast, hard shin kicks. I flew with one and Vince was like, ‘No, no. ‘And Bradshaw’s like, ‘There’s no way we’re taking those.’ I’m thinking, why didn’t I just do a slow side kick or front kick or something just slower? I went out there and flew with it because I was warmed up. I’m like, Oh! So now they insisted no kicking, because I’m the only one out of 16 that wants to kick. Well, there’s no knees, there were no elbows, there’s no head butts. It’s a boxing match with takedowns. So they put me against Marc [Mero], who in boxing was probably the best in there. I think he won New York Golden Gloves five years. So, great. So we go out there and they said, ‘What are you gonna do?’ I aid, ‘I’m gonna take him down every 10 seconds.’ Well, if you counted, I took him down 13 times in three minutes. I shot a jab. I threw a jab. Shot through a jab. Shot the third or fourth time I threw the jab, I faked the shot, and it came over top with a bomb. He was pretty quick. He ended up dropping his chin just a hair because I caught him here, and his feet staggered, or I finally caught him on the chin a couple of inches lower, I dropped him. But it was funny, because those gloves were massive, brand new. It was like wearing mittens like this to box with. I’m like, Who came up with this idea? Then three of the guys got hurt, and it just was horrible for the business. The people didn’t even know what the hell was going on. I keep taking him down. People in the crowd are like, what is this?” 

On at first thinking he could win the Brawl for All:

“I did think that. And then after I fought Marc, I’m like, Okay, let me go home and train now, and let’s get moving here. So one of my friends at home was about 6 foot 3, 300 pounds, amateur wrestler his whole life. So I started working, we started training, and he waist locked me, and just as he waist locked me, I wasn’t expecting him to sit so fast, he sat on the side of my leg and tore the cartilage in my leg. I’m like, Oh, my God, this can’t be happening. We were just starting to do warm-ups. I was going to throw, he’d throw, I’d throw, and he just sat on the side of my leg. I couldn’t believe it. I had to get my leg worked on then, and I couldn’t finish the thing. And I was livid, because I wanted to get out there at that point. And so that’s what happened there.”

On whether he has put wrestling behind him:

“I did at the time because, again, knowing I needed a couple, they told me up front, I need a couple of neck operations. Because when they go through the front, they can only do a certain amount of area one time. Had one done, cut my headaches down about 40%. Had another one done, cut it down again, so now I can function. I’m not in pain all day, and if I am, I can still work through it and go about my business. I can do sprints again, do stuff again. But at that time, for those years, it’s like I didn’t even want to think about it, because I knew I couldn’t go back, knew it wasn’t going back. And I thought, You know what, it’s time to move on. And I just started focusing on my other stuff.”

On being in pain throughout his WWE career:

“Yes, I think it would be like Monday I’d wrestle and get a migraine, and I don’t mean a little headache where, oh, I have a headache. No, I mean feels like you’re being stabbed in your head. Throw up, lay down, throw up, lay down, go to bed. The next day, sleep all day, wrestle the next day the migraine again, go through that next day resting. So it’d be like every other day I’d have a migraine. I’m not being funny, but you can’t imagine what it’s like getting forearmed or body slammed when you have a migraine, you feel like a grenade went off in your head. I wrestled Kane one night in a hardcore match. I landed on the back of my head on the floor. My foot got caught. I jumped off the rail, kicked him, my shoe hit him on the chest, and I landed on my back. The migraine kicked in in one second, just shot up through my spine. Every time he hit me, I felt like a grenade was going off. And that was the beginning of the match. We had 15 minutes more to go, and I’m like, Oh my God. I’m just fighting through it, fighting through it. I’d sit out in the hall and just squeeze my head. And then a night in a hotel, I’d literally lie on my side. Sometimes I’d have a baseball in my bag. I’d put a baseball under my back, try to lay on it. I’d find a spot where I could pinch off the nerve going to my head. So finally, after about an hour, I could fall asleep, and then sleep the whole night and the next day I would just be tired from the pain, but I’d wrestle again, and that’s what I went through for years.” 

“I’m going to say, 80% of my run. It was brutal. I’m like, Man, if I had that stuff done before I went back, what got much worse in there. But if I’d had that done and then gone back, I just could’ve done a lot more. There were nights where I wanted to do more crazy stuff, and I just couldn’t. My head hurt too bad. So I just do what I could to get by. But the hardcore stuff worked out great for me, because I could just showcase weapons and speed and things like that. It sounds funny, but I was getting cracked as much as them, but it was still easier on my neck.”

On Head Cheese:

“I don’t know how that came about, but it got over, the vignettes were comical. People pop like crazy on them. It’s funny because it got over great for three months, here’s another one, we were going to get the tag belts at that time. And one of the guys in the office said something to, I don’t know if it was Vince or whoever was pulling the shots that night, it’s usually Vince said, ‘I don’t think we should give him the belts yet.’ And they just squashed it and squashed our gimmick. I don’t want to say who it was. That’s not me, but I’m like, Really, dude? I didn’t find out till a year later. But I’m thinking that’s brutal. So he goes up there and uses some clout to put a stop to it.”

On whether he realised it would be that popular:

“I did not. It did. It got a heck of a pop. That place popped. Al was a comical guy, so the stuff that he would have me do and stuff, it was entertaining. I’d get to the arena and they’d be like, ‘Steve, you’re going to milk a cow tonight.’ I said, ‘Yeah, sure, I am.’ I’d walk to the locker room, then I’m on the farm milking a cow. The next week of TV, they’re like, ‘Steve, you’re doing a comedy skit at a retirement home.’ I’m like, Yeah, sure, I am. And yeah, that woman’s yelling that unscripted ‘Blackman, you suck!’ You remember that? I just remember her yelling that at me.” 

On possibly making a WWE return:

“I haven’t even really discussed anything with anyone. Don’t get me wrong. I mean, there’s times where I thought, oh man, it’d be fun to go back there and do a hardcore match or something like that, and just flow with it, and just to do it again. You know, it’s been 20 years, but I don’t really bring it up. I haven’t talked to anybody about it.”

What is Steve Blackman grateful for?

“My wife and kids, to be healthy again and the way my business worked out.”

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Christopher Daniels (@facdaniels) is a retired professional wrestler currently signed to AEW where he is the head of Talent Relations. He sits down with Chris Van Vliet at West Coast Creative Studio in Hollywood, CA to discuss his retirement match against “Hangman” Adam Page, the terrifying spot during TNA Ultimate X where he almost died, competing in the Unbreakable 2005 triple threat match against Samoa Joe and AJ Styles, the rumor that he was going to be The Higher Power in WWE, the inspiration for the Best Moonsault Ever and his thoughts on Tiffany Stratton’s version, the origin of Curry Man, the true story behind his gruesome eye injury in AEW and more!

Quote I’m thinking about: “I am who I am today because of the choices I made yesterday.” – Eleanor Roosevelt

On knowing it was time to retire:

“So at the beginning of 2024, I knew my contract as a performer was coming to an end. I sort of said to myself at the beginning of the year, All right, you’ve been doing this for a while. Your body feels eh, and you’re not wrestling that often. So let’s try and make this a good year and see how we feel at the end of the year. So I said to myself that I’m gonna try to make this a good year for me. So I started working with Cezar Bononi to try and get in good shape, and I just said, let’s see how we feel at the end of this year. I’m gonna wrestle this year like it’s my last and see how I feel. But one of the things I sort of kept in mind was I only wanted to wrestle if Tony wanted me to wrestle. I didn’t want to go to him and be like, ‘Hey, please can I wrestle?’ Because I felt like if Tony needed me for the show, or if Tony wanted me for the show, then he would think of something for me to do on the show. But I didn’t want to be that guy that was like, ‘Hey, I’m not doing anything this week. Can I do something this week?’ And have him possibly feel obligated to give me something and then jam it into a show that’s already [full]. We’ve got a very wide roster, and we’ve got two hours of time on a Wednesday, two hours of time on a Saturday, and I didn’t want to conceivably take time away from something that was important just to scratch my wrestling itch. I wanted to sort of be cognizant of like, hey, this isn’t good for the show. If he doesn’t want it, if you’re just getting on to get on, that’s not fair. Especially as someone who I felt like was sort of like in the office, it felt wrong to try and take time away from stuff that Tony really wanted.” 

“So I didn’t ask Tony. I never went to Tony and was like, ‘Hey, can I do this? Hey, can I do this?’ I just wanted him to organically go, ‘Hey, I need you to wrestle this person tonight. I need you put this guy over tonight.’ Whatever, if he wanted me, I would do it. So one of the last things we did, or one of the last times he asked me to wrestle, was the tag match with me and Matt against the Young Bucks. Going into that, I knew the finish should be on me. And right before that, I said What would happen if they pinned me and then they fired me? In my head, I thought the natural progression was okay, they would fire me. They’re misusing their EVP powers. Tony would hire me back, and I would wrestle them again, whatever. But then once it happened, I thought, Oh, wait, what if they made me an EVP to sort of like offset them, I’m the babyface version of what Matt and Nick were doing as EVPs. And so we pitched that. And I think once I sort of got that position, I think Tony didn’t want me to wrestle and be an EVP. In my head, the EVPs wrestled all the time. So I was like, Oh, I’ll wrestle every once in a while. But I don’t think Tony had that same mentality.” 

“So it then turned into me only being an EVP and from May to almost the end of the year, he didn’t ask me to wrestle again. The last match I had before the end of the year, I actually volunteered for the one with Jack Perry on Collision, because it was Jack Perry versus TBD. And I was like, ‘Hey, what if that was me?’ And he was like, Oh, that’d be great. That’s better than an enhancement match, whatever. I was like, okay, cool. But then, I felt like he already didn’t really need me to wrestle as often. So right around that period of time, I would be pitching different ideas to different guys, but not to Tony directly. It was like, I remembered going to John Morrison once, and ‘I was like, hey, what if you and I were like a tag team, like an LA tag team. What if we were called like, the LA riots?’ Then he started to get more involved with mXm. And I was like, Okay, well, that’s a good thing for him. I don’t need to be weighing him down. And I went to Hangman one time, and this was in the middle of the time when he was getting booed out of the building. He was in the midst of the thing with Swerve. He was just starting this thing with Jay White. And I was like, ‘Hey, man, what if you ended my career? That would be great heat for a heel to be if you crippled me so bad I couldn’t wrestle anymore, that would be cool.’ I didn’t think anything of it after that, just Oh, that would be cool. That’d be a good way to go out. And then, near the end of the year, he was like, ‘I went to Tony, and I think we’re going to do this thing with you and me.’ I was like, oh, okay, cool. So, I mean, if it wasn’t for Hangman asking for that, I don’t think it would happen. I might have ended my career with that match with Jack and just said, I’m done.” 

On going into his retirement match:

“I also didn’t want people to know it was my final match. To me, you watch television. You watch dramas or whatever. They never advertise okay, this is the last episode for this guy, because he’s gonna die at the end. Tony had asked me too. He’s like, ‘Hey, why don’t we call this a retirement match?’ I was like, ‘No, you’re missing the point. I don’t want people to know it’s a retirement match. I want people to be shocked.’ It’s more heat, even though it wasn’t really heat on Page at that time, because by that time, he was sort of turning babyface again. But to me, I thought it was more meaningful, and it sort of lent itself to the reality of professional wrestling that we don’t always know when our last match is. So what I wanted was to have the match and then announce the retirement the week later and say, ‘Hey, man, I got so messed up I can’t do this anymore.’ It’s funny how the original idea went from not putting heat on him, but when I pitched it to him what if at the end I say, ‘Hey, I can’t wrestle anymore. Are you happy now?’ I said to him, ‘We can do this one of two ways. Either you start to feel bad, or you double down and you say, “No, I wish I killed you.” And they’re dependent on where he was going to go. You could go either of those routes.’ So, yeah, I went into it thinking this is a good way to go out. And the surprise of it would have been cool. Then the night it happened, I read online, ‘This may be the last match for Christopher Daniels.’ I was like, who told everybody? It was like oh, Sean Ross Sapp told everyone this might be my last match. So I wish he hadn’t done that, but I guess that’s sort of the danger of pro wrestling at this point is everybody wants to know the secrets behind so we don’t let stuff happen organically. People have to know what’s this? What’s going on. Where are we going? But I mean, honestly, I was really happy with how it played out, and happy that I got to do it with Hangman. And honestly, I don’t feel like it was the starting point of where he’s going now, but I feel like it was a step towards what’s happening with him now, which I think is pretty cool.”

On if his body told him it was time to slow down:

“Yeah, and that was part of the reasoning of the beginning of the year, thinking maybe you should think about cooling this off. Because I’ve always had knee problems since maybe 2002. Then, maybe in the middle of 2023, I was realizing I was seeing atrophy on my left side, like my left shoulder my left bicep. It was always weak after I got injured in WCW, in 2001. I kept wrestling. I had to keep wrestling, obviously, but yeah, it was always weak, but it wasn’t visible. And then in the middle of 2023, I started realizing that’s a lot smaller, and it got weaker quicker when I would work out. I could tell I was getting weaker as I was wrestling on this side, I was like, okay. So that put a lot of thought into my head, like, okay, maybe this should be it. And then the way everything just sort of played out, it sort of like led to that being it.”

On possibly being the only wrestler to work WCW, ECW, WWE, TNA, AEW, NJPW and ROH:

“I think so. I had put out a tweet not too long ago because I had an opportunity to work for All Japan. I listed what I thought were the major companies in professional wrestling over the last like 20 years. I listed WCW, WWF, ECW, TNA, ROH, AEW, New Japan, All Japan, 1 Fall, Michinoku Pro, all the places that had television in the US, all of the Japanese companies that sort of made an impact in the US, and then the Mexican companies like AAA and CMLL. So I feel like I’m the first guy to wrestle for all of those. And, yeah, that was a pretty neat accolade, a neat little like badge of honor to sort of wear, especially as much as I was sort of a spokesperson, I guess, for the independent wrestling scene in the early 2000s like the late 90s, early 2000s Yeah, it’s pretty cool to be to say I did all of these places.”

On the terrifying spot with Suicide during Ultimate X:

“I was holding on so tight to Suicide that he ended up taking the brunt of the fall. And the funny thing is, that wasn’t the original plan, because Frankie and I, who’s doing Suicide, we had an idea of what we wanted to do, and I’ll tell you the story. So we had both jumped off the top of the trust before in these Ultimate X matches, we were the only ones. So I had an idea, what if we did this? I’ll get on this truss, and you get on this truss, and you jump first, and then I’ll jump and I’ll land on your back, and then we’ll stand on the ropes, and I’ll hook you for angel’s wings, and then you backdrop me, and that was what we were going to do. I was full on ready to take this backdrop from the top of the truss into the ring. Then we get to Irvine, and they’ve got a ceiling on it. They’ve got these trusses over the top that cover the X, and we couldn’t do that because every time we had done Ultimate X in Orlando, they had bolted the trusses to the floor. But we didn’t own Irvine. This was UC Irvine. So we had to have the truss on top. We couldn’t bolt it to the floor. We couldn’t use it to secure the trusses. So we had to have the X over top. So then we came up with this idea of all right, well, I guess we’ll climb down and I’ll try and do this complete shot to you, and it turned so my legs got hooked. And instead of just going flat on a flat back, which still would have been an insane bump, it ended up being like almost upside down and landing like this.”

“Joe really yelled at me that day. The actual danger was coming to the back and having Samoa Joe grab you by the neck and go, ‘Don’t you ever do that again!’ Really, really frightening. I was like, oh my God. I was fine. I literally landed, and the referee comes over to my face. He goes, ‘Oh my god, are you okay?’ I’m like, ‘Yeah, I’m good. What’s up?’ But I could hear that the air escape the room. In the end, I wish we hadn’t done that, because it literally the match just stopped right there, like poor [Amazing] Red is still fighting and trying to get the X Division belt, and the world thinks, Oh, my God, we just witnessed a death like they’re not even thinking about the match anymore at that point. So I feel bad that it ended up being what it was. But I mean, that’s the thing everybody remembers, is my near-death experience. Well, that’s not really what we wanted to get. I tell people all the time, ‘Chris Daniels almost dies’ is on YouTube.” 

On why he never joined WWE when WCW got bought out:

“Well, it was a developmental deal, because I had that match with Mike Modest on Nitro, and we did the angle at the end where Scott Steiner came out and broke our legs. So the idea was going to be like, we would heal, and at some point we would come back. That was January of 2001, then by March of 2001 they had closed. And so basically, WWE took all the contracts, and they just went down the list. They’re like, All right, we’ll keep you, we’ll keep you. We’ll keep you. And like all the guys at developmental, they’re like, Oh, well, we don’t need you.” 

On the rumour he was going to be the higher power in WWE:

“I didn’t hear this until years later. [So is there any truth to it?] Maybe, but it was never anything that they told me, and honestly, it was a terrible idea anyway. Because the idea would have been Undertaker is answering to this higher power, and then I unmask, and it’s me, and it’s like, Who the f*ck is this guy? It’s sort of like what was going on in my first WCW contract as well. When I first signed with WCW, they had an idea, the way they described it to me was, if Vampiro is Darth Vader, you’re the Emperor. And I was like, Okay. But also, at this point, Vampiro was feuding with Sting, and I was an unknown indie guy, so whatever the reveal was gonna be at that point was gonna be a letdown to me. And so I thought, Okay, we’ll do this. I remember going to WCW one day, cutting this promo backstage with Vampiro, I’ve got this hood, and they’re talking to me, like, ‘All right, talk about harvesting souls and things like that.’ I’m like, okay. So I cut this promo. We get it live, and then I’m back in the locker room, and it comes on live Nitro, and we watch it. And as soon as it’s done, Jeff Jarrett, who happens to be there, and I haven’t really even met Jeff at this point, goes, ‘Who the f*ck was that?!’ And I was like, ‘That’s me sir.’ Then that flopped so quickly that they didn’t go forward with that idea. Then I was just under contract with WCW. I was traveling with them for like, four months, and then they let me go. That was the first contract that I had with them that ended like, JJ Dillon called me, is like, hey, you’re not wrestling a whole lot for us. And I was like, Well, you’re not booking me, so that’s why. It’s not like I’m wasting your money on purpose, sir. But they let me go.”

On how he found out about the rumour:

“It came out on the internet. I think maybe Bruce Prichard mentioned it? But yeah, everyone was like, ‘Christopher Daniels was almost the higher power.’ I was like, was he though? I don’t think that’s true. I think maybe it was discussed because I had been going to do WWE dark matches as an extra, and Jim Cornette was always sort of high on trying to get me there early on when the light heavyweight thing was a thing, and they knew I was doing the fallen angel. So I think they thought, Oh, well, maybe this is something that we could use him as. But honestly, I think once Vince saw me, and, you know, I’m 5 10 and this is the time when everybody is six feet something, it’s like, we can do better. And I was like, that makes sense.”

On whether he knew the Unbreakable 2005 match was going to be something special:

“Yes and no. We knew we could do a good match, we had all worked with each other. I don’t know if we had done a three-way prior to this, but I know I had worked with AJ a bunch. I had worked with Joe a bunch. I know Joe and AJ had done some stuff, and we were always very similar in our mindset of let’s get the match over. Let’s show off. Let’s show our best stuff. But also, we weren’t afraid of I need to get my stuff in. None of us were like that. We were like, All right, well, is this good for the match? Great! Let’s do it. And then that day, come to find out, Oh, you guys are the main event. And we’re like, Oh, okay. And I think we might have asked, and they said, ‘Well, the heavyweight title match was Raven vs. Rhino. And while that’s got star power, and it’s a different vibe, it’s not going to be able to follow what you guys do in terms of action.’ Okay, that’s fair. So that night, as we’re going through it, and at that point too, the impact zone fan base, I felt was very protective and possessive, I feel like they felt like they had found this uncovered gem that no one else knew about and so, yeah, these are our guys, and a lot of the X-Division wrestlers were beneficiaries of that goodwill. So I feel this match sort of cements the mentality of the last component to a five-star match to me is the atmosphere and the environment. Because everything we did that night, they were there for. It sounded like the Tokyo Dome to me, the people, everyone’s going nuts for everything as it’s going 20 minutes long. Everybody was there for everything. We knew at the end. I was like, okay, that went really well. That went really well. I didn’t know that we’d still be talking about it 20 years later. But yeah, I mean, I felt like we could go out there and do something good. I just didn’t know it’d be that good until after the bell rang, and I was like, Oh, that was something.”

On his shock TNA release:

“I feel like there were times where I butted heads creatively with guys like Vince Russo. You know, sometimes it’s easier to eliminate a problem than try to solve it.” 

You were the problem?

“I tried to make sense of stuff, and I never was like, ‘Hey, I’m not going to do that.’ But I also tried to make sense of things. I remember, I went to Vince and I said, ‘What do I need to do? What can I do?’ And he said to me, ‘Hey, your work is gonna get you over.’ I was like, okay. But then he would write me into these situations where he would say, ‘All right, don’t do any of these hand symbols and stop wearing ring jackets to the ring.’ It was almost like he wanted me to stop doing anything that had some sort of personality to it. He just wanted me go out and wrestle. And I tried to make the best of that. But then I would come back to the back. I would never say, ‘Hey, was that good?’ I would say, ‘Hey, was that what you wanted?’ And then with the mindset of if that’s what you wanted, and then it didn’t work, then what’s the problem here? If I went out there and I didn’t do what you wanted me to do, then I understand that’s my fault. But if I go out there and I do what you want me to do, and you tell me, that’s what I wanted, and then it doesn’t work, well, then the problem seems to be what you wanted wasn’t good. So that was sort of my issue with that. So I got let go, and then a year later, he’s okay to bring me back. I remember we had a meeting in front of the entire locker room, and he singled me out. He goes, ‘You know, Chris, the reason we let you go is because you weren’t over.’ And I went, ‘Okay. But also I’m doing the stories you’re writing, and I’m doing the things you want me to do, and I’m not over. Maybe those aren’t good ideas.’ I’m sure if he reads this or hears this now, he’s gonna pipe back and be like, ‘No, Chris, you just wanted to do high spots.’ I was like, No, I wanted to do what would work. But you never really, you didn’t really, I don’t know.”

On winning the ROH World Championship:

“It did not become a possibility until after we had the match in Boston, me and Frankie versus The Young Bucks versus the Motor City Machine Guns at that all star extravaganza where we lost the titles in basically, that TLC match, a ladder war. Maybe even the next day, Kevin Kelly said to me, ‘You know, maybe we should think about making you World Champion after that performance.’ Because I went out there and bled buckets and got my ass kicked for however long we went and took all these wacky bumps. I feel like it was one of those things where I won in losing that night. So I think that was the first time where Kevin Kelly was like, hmm, maybe we sort of ride this into you becoming world champion at some point. So it was sort of at that moment that I started to turn babyface, and then started this story. And Hunter [Delirious], who was also doing creative, had this mentality of like, okay, maybe this is the time where we actually, finally end the story of your drive to the World Championship. And along the way, I was like, Listen, if this isn’t good for us, the company, don’t do it. Don’t do it just to give me this accolade. Because if it’s good for me and not good for us as the company, it’s not worth it. Because I don’t want to be the guy that’s like, oh, look, he politicked to get the World Championship. Okay, this guy’s a world champion. I didn’t want that. So I kept telling him, if this is no good, we don’t need to do it. I don’t need it. And they’re like, No, this is good. It ended up being great. I think it ended up being great for everything. It was one of those things that we didn’t write it that way in 2002 to where I didn’t win the belt and never won the belt and never got it in 2010 and finally got it in 2017 but it ended up being that way. And I was like oh, long-term storytelling. Sometimes it just happens that way.”

On losing the title to Cody Rhodes:

“Yeah, that was fun. That was a lot of fun to be able to work with Cody. And I remember, I think me and Hunter [Delirious] at the same time decided Cody should be the guy. Because I remember going to him, I was like, hey, what about Cody? And he was like, Hey, we think we’re about putting the belt on him. I was like, Yeah, that’s right, because he’s the guy right now. And so when we were going over this thing and talking about, I remember it wasn’t until right before, I think maybe the first time I had ever called a match the night before the show was that latter war thing. And so I did it then, and then I did it the night before the title match with Adam Cole. And I remember getting with Cody the night before, and I was thinking like, Hey, man, if anybody should appreciate the romance of the idea of finally winning a world championship and becoming world champion, I think it would be you, because of his history throughout this business. I was like, I think I feel like you would appreciate this idea. And so let’s, you know, we put this thing together, and it went great. It was really fun working with Cody. I had a great time.”

On the inspiration of the BME:

“Okay, so I was always a moonsault guy. I always wanted to do a moonsault. The Great Muta inspired me to do a moonsault. And so I started to learn a moonsault, like early 94 95 I was even doing it. I remember doing it for the first time in Puerto Rico when I was in WWC. So I was training one day in windy city, and there was a Mexican wrestler that was there, it wasn’t anybody famous, I don’t even remember the gentleman’s name, but I saw him bounce from the second [rope], bounce to the top, do a cross body. And I thought, Oh, that’s cool. At the time, I was playing with this moonsault where you stand on the top rope and then you jump up and bounce. You basically turn and bounce, like Mark Mero had done. So I was doing that for a little bit and having sort of good success with it. But then I thought. Oh, maybe it’d be easier if I just did this bounce-bounce thing. And so for the longest time, I just called it the double bounce moonsault. I wasn’t doing it on television at that point, so no one was calling it the double bounce moonsault, no announcers were calling it. It was just me when I would say, Hey, okay, this, this, this, and then I’ll hit you with the double bounce moonsault. So somewhere along the lines in TNA, you know, I’m a Simpsons fan. So everything that Comic Book Guy said was like best comic book ever. And I thought, haha! So I was like best moonsault ever. So that was where I got that from.”

On Tiffany Stratton having the prettiest moonsault ever:

“Which was very, very cool of her. I don’t know Tiffany at all. I’ve never met her. But the fact that she didn’t just copy it, she sort of adjusted it, which is what the greats do. I feel like they don’t just steal. If we are inspired by something, we try to put our own little spin on it. And so the fact that she goes from the bottom all the way up and then to sort of like, pay homage, call it in that same vein, PME, I was like, that’s pretty cool. I can’t be mad at that.”

Is there a secret to it?

“Yeah. I mean, for me, the idea was using the top rope to sort of balance yourself until you bounce, and then once you bounce, it’s basically push from the top and bounce off the second at the same time to go straight. And you just got to keep your eyes on the ropes. So, I mean, I wasn’t perfect all the time, but I very rarely flubbed it. And just very lucky to be able to do it and keep doing it as long as I did.”

On how long his eye took to heal:

“So, news flash, that was never real. So I had the match with The Young Bucks, all right, and all of you that are watching now, you’re gonna feel this. So I had the match with The Young Bucks where SCU split up. I got super kicked into the post, and the next day, I had this huge black eye, and it started to fill with blood. I thought, Man, that’s pretty cool. Then three days later, it healed. I was like, Oh, that’s too bad, but then I thought, what if? So at the time, Abadon was working for us, and they wear these contacts. And I said, ‘Do you have a guy that does these contacts, because I want to do this thing?’ They’re like, Yeah. They put me in touch with this guy. I was like, Listen, this is what I want. I just want to make it look like a hemorrhage. I had pitched this idea of I had lost everything. I made this video that I presented to AEW and Tony. And I was like, Hey, here’s the story. I was the ring general, but my plans failed, and because of that, SCU is no longer a thing, and now I have this scar to show for my failure. But I’m going to come back, and all I have left is my career and my fighting. So I sent this in, and at the end of that match, I even said to Matt and Nick and Frankie, this might be my last match. I could retire from this. And if I retire because of this, cool.”

“So I didn’t wrestle for like, three or four months, and then I came up with this idea, gave it to Tony, and then I started doing a little bit of the Indies. I thought, Okay, well, this will get me back on television, but we never really capitalized on that. Then I came back six months later to do the match with Bryan when AEW bought Ring of Honor. That was my first match back from whenever I made the match with The Bucks. So yeah, so that was the mentality of let’s do this thing. So I kept it for a long time, and then later down the line, I was like, Oh, we’re not really concentrating on this. This isn’t really a thing anymore. So I was like, Yeah, you know what? Maybe it’s time for the eye to heal. I wore it for like a year and a half, and I wore it everywhere. The first time I debuted it out in public, I went to the Heels premiere, I met Stephen Amell. He’s like, ‘Oh my god, your eye.’ And I was like, yeah, man, it’s okay. And then the next time he saw me was that we were at Grand Slam and Arthur Ashe, and he comes up to me, goes, ‘Hey, your eye has healed.’ And I was like, ‘Hey, that was fake.’ He was like, ‘You son of a bitch!’ I was like, ‘Listen, we just watched a television show about a caped man. So what did you want?'” 

Could you see through it? 

“Oh, yeah, perfectly fine. 100%. The funny thing is, one time I was at a signing, and this lady comes up. She goes, ‘Oh, how’s your eye?’ And I go, ‘Well, you know, it’s still like this, I don’t know.’ And she was like, ‘Oh, well, that’s weird. You know, I’m a doctor.’ And I went, Yep, cool. And she’s like, ‘Yeah, that’s not really typical.’ And I go, ‘No, ma’am, it’s not.’ Sorry, doctor. I didn’t mean to lie to you either.”

On whether Curry Man has retired:

“Well, that was Curry Man’s final match. The last match for Christopher Daniels was the match with Adam Page, and that shall be his last match. And then Curry Man also decided to hang up the boots after wrestling the masked brother. So it was easy for me to decide to do a Curry Man match because it was with a friend of mine, my best friend and to have that moment be the official last time I ever take a bump in a wrestling ring for a wrestling match. That was cool. But also, I don’t feel like it takes away from anything that happened in the match with Adam, because that is the last time you’ll see this human wrestling a wrestling match.”

On the story behind Curry Man:

“Okay, so every four years at the time, Michinoku Pro would do a masked man tournament. It was a big round robin, month long thing, and they did it in 95. I want to say Jerry Lynn was in it. Gorgons Cross was his character. This was May of 99, so in April of 99 I do a tour with Michinoku Pro as Christopher Daniels. And afterwards, they’re like, ‘Hey, we’d like you to be in this tournament.’ Because they would have their regular masked wrestlers, Great Sasuke, Tiger Mask, and then they would make these characters for the tournament to fill it out. So they wanted me to be one of the guys. There was Jason Cross from the UK, was one of them. Jody Fleisch from the UK was one of them. And so there was a guy named Kendo, an older Mexican wrestler, and he was translating for me, but his English wasn’t great.”

“So he comes up to me the day I get there, and he goes, ‘Ah, you are Karema.’ And I go, I don’t know what Karema means. Okay, I’m Karema. And then I get to the building, and I see the t-shirt, and it has all the names of the wrestlers in the tournament, and it says Curry Man. And I go, I guess I’m Curry Man. So they explained to me there’s a cartoon in Japan called Kinicumin, which is muscle busters, muscle wrestlers, something like that. And there was a character called Curry Cook. And the gimmick was this Curry Cook had a plate of curry and rice on his head. So curry man had this plate of food on his head. And I was like, Oh, okay. And honestly, as racist as this sounds, I didn’t know how to play this character. They just said I was from India. And so at the time, being a Simpsons Mark, I became Apu, and I would wrestle like Apu. I would hit something. I’d be like, ‘Oh, so sorry’, and I was like eugh. So for a while, I thought, Oh, this is weird. I just wanted to wrestle, and so I got depressed. I’m not really feeling this thing. And finally, Grand Hamato, who is one of the older veterans, he comes up to me, goes ‘Hey, just wrestle.’ And he walks away. Then I was just like f*ck it. I’ll just have fun.

So then I came up with this idea of, like, in addition to wearing this mask and doing this nonsense, I would come out and dance, and I would do all this fun stuff, and I changed my gear from the yellow Sabu singlet and baggy pants that they gave me, and I just wore what I would usually wear. I had a cut-off T-shirt like Billy Gunn used to wear to hide the tattoo, because Curry Man wasn’t Christopher Daniels at that time. So then I started doing all this stuff, and that’s where it started to catch sort of fire in Michinoku Pro, and that became a real popular character for them.” 

What is Christopher Daniels grateful for?

“Wrestling, my wife and my kids.”

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Sam Roberts (@notsam) is a professional wrestling podcaster. He sits down with Chris Van Vliet in New York City to discuss whether John Cena could be the greatest of all time and his heel turn, The Rock’s work as The Final Boss, the worst worked match, Royal Rumble winner and fan chant, R-Truth showing his more serious side, his favorite Undertaker entrance and more!

Quote I’m thinking about: “A man is great not because he hasn’t failed; a man is great because failure hasn’t stopped him.” – Confucius

On what makes someone the greatest of all time:

“First of all, I think that, greatest of all time is not necessarily based on the number of championships. I do think that you’re not wrong about that, because it’s hard to think that The Rock, if he had had a longer career, it’s not like he wouldn’t have been in the main event scene. That’s the only scene you put a guy like The Rock in. I don’t see that character evolving out of the main event space. So I think that you’re right about the 17 championships. I also think the thing about the Attitude Era is that Stone Cold had the title more times than he probably should have, and a lot of people did because they were switching around that title like crazy. I think what’s amazing about The Rock is that he came up in the Attitude Era. It’s one thing for Stone Cold, who had this really nice career under him. It’s not like he was guaranteed a main event spot at all. It never looked like he was going to get there, but the fact that he had this foundation meant that once he got there, he was ready to be there, whereas The Rock was just there naturally. He’s Flex Cavana in USWA for a couple of months, then he’s showing up at the Garden, getting booed out of the building, and less than a year later, he’s quickly becoming the hottest act in wrestling, and he doesn’t buckle under the pressure.”

On The Rock being The Final Boss:

“I do wonder, with The Rock though, had he stuck around longer, and how much longer? Because The Rock, and smartly so, never gave himself a chance to get stale. We don’t know what that would have been like. Is there an ability to evolve consistently enough? And I think there is, and maybe he takes a year off here and a year off there. But yeah, I feel like The Rock is just one of those characters, and there’s very few of them that’s meant to just exist in this bottle, and it was just lightning in a bottle for the period that it was, and then he can come back. Honestly, especially once we get removed enough from it, and you and I can have the conversation when it’s time, there’s going to be a moment in time to have a real conversation about The Final Boss character and how good it was and how impactful it was, not to say it’s over, but that build to WrestleMania 40 with The Rock becoming The Final Boss, and again, what is that character around for two months? That’s it. I mean, he pops up here and there, still. But really, the run of The Final Boss is Las Vegas press conference to night after WrestleMania 40 say. People can get frustrated at the lack of Final Boss since then, but the reality is that run in a bubble, is one of those untouchable character arcs.”

On whether The Final Boss could be The Rock’s best character work:

“I mean, to me, definitely by far the best thing he’s done since being a full-time wrestler. You would have to go back to $500 shirt, people’s eyebrow, coming on TV every week with a new catchphrase every single week. It’s that, and Final Boss, and that’s your conversation today.”

On whether he saw the John Cena heel turn coming:

“The real answer is no. It was, of course, part of the conversation, in the sense that it was like in the realm of possibilities of what could happen with this build-up to Cody selling his soul, and we know that WrestleMania is next. Of course, the idea of John Cena could turn heel is one of the places where that conversation organically goes. That’s one of the sort of on-paper possibilities. But no, the reality of it, and in that moment no, and I think that’s what made that moment so amazing. There are people who put on their hindsight goggles and go, ‘Yeah, I knew. I saw that coming.’ No you didn’t dude, you did not. You knew it could happen, but you didn’t see that coming in that moment. I didn’t see it coming. I thought it was, in that moment, perfectly executed.”

On there being no real explanation for the heel turn:

“I’ve said, Let him cook a million times, and people will kill me in the comments for saying you got to let him cook. But you sometimes you do. I think that there could be a payoff to this coming. I think that to say there is no payoff before we’ve had the opportunity for a payoff beyond WrestleMania, to be upset at the end of WrestleMania, and go there was no WrestleMania payoff. I get that. But to go there’s overall no payoff to this heel turn. I don’t accept that, because we’re in the middle of it. You can’t go, ‘Hey, I’m in the middle of this thing. Where’s the end already?’ That’s not how storytelling works. And I think that there have been enough breadcrumbs throughout. Cody consistently brings up The Rock in these promos. So it’s not like they’re going, ‘No forget that Rock thing ever happened,’ because Cody is not letting us forget it happened. And then on SmackDown, John Cena said, ‘I made you think I sold my soul to The Rock? I didn’t do that.’ So we are getting these slow but sure answers along the way, and maybe this character is taking months to really flesh out, and people didn’t expect it. But I do see a payoff in the future, because I don’t see Cena leaving as a heel.”

On the possibility of John Cena vs. Roman Reigns:

“I would like to think so, but I’m not sure that we’re gonna get a Roman match, to tell you the truth. Do I want it? Yeah, I really want to see a Roman match. I think the idea of Roman coming back, I think there’s such a wonderful story to tell, because when John and Roman had that match, that was the passing of the torch match. John Cena made it very difficult for Roman Reigns. ‘You need to learn to cut a promo kid.’ You know what I mean? He made it really tough for him. And the idea that this Roman Reigns could come back and go, ‘Okay, John, guess what I learned how to do?’ This is the Roman Reigns that John has to deal with, I think would be an incredible story. I just don’t 100% know where it fits in. I think it could. I just don’t know where it fits into the timeline with the fact that Roman, his priority number one would be where he left, which is getting laid out by Seth Rollins and Bron Breakker. I personally feel like Seth Rollins and his Money in the Bank briefcase is going to be used for the WWE Championship. I don’t think it’s a World Heavyweight Championship win. I think Seth Rollins, whether it’s John Cena or Cody Rhodes, Seth Rollins is going to use his briefcase to get the WWE Championship. Then that could lead to a WrestleMania match where Seth is defending that title against Roman Reigns.”

On Roman Reigns never officially turning babyface:

“No, and I don’t think he ever will officially turn babyface, because I don’t think he’ll ever abandon that character. But I remember saying on NotSam, I was like Roman Reigns’ babyface turn is the minute he loses the championship. Because the minute he loses the championship is the minute we all get a second to breathe. It’s the minute we all get a second to reflect. It’s the minute we all get a second to appreciate. And lo and behold, he loses the championship. This new Bloodline starts to form. Next thing you know, Roman’s fighting Solo. Cody’s teaming with Roman, and Roman is a baby face without ever changing.” 

On John Cena’s final match:

“I would want it to be Bron Breakker. because he’s a heel. It’s like, you’re not going to give an up-and-coming baby face a victory over a heel John Cena, because the whole point is that nobody’s going to beat him. What I would like to see is John Cena to turn babyface with enough time left that he can tell a great story with Drew McIntyre. Although now that Drew McIntyre has gone away, he may be a babyface when he comes back, because I mean the same Roman Reigns rule applies to Drew McIntyre. Everybody’s just waiting for the opportunity to express to Drew how much they appreciate him. But if he’s going to stay a heel, I would like to see Drew beat John Cena Post World Title loss as a John Cena baby face, and then the very last match is whatever that is, maybe the Saturday Night’s Main Event in Boston is the rumor, and I would like it to just be old school. I’m talking Bret Hart, Terry Funk, I mean, literally not kill John Cena. Bron Breakker just gets him with a small package. 123, John Cena made one mistake. Bron Breakker wins. Bron Breakker gets to celebrate. And then, because John Cena didn’t get killed, we can then still have a moment for the heels to leave and the babyfaces can come out and congratulate John.”

On R-Truth:

“Honestly, the thing that’s cool about it is that it is happening when he’s 53 years old makes it special. But if he was 33 it’d still be special. It’s good work, and it’s years of doing stuff that resonates with fans. That’s what it is. You’ve built that equity with the audience, and a lot of it sort of just by trudging along and making things work that otherwise wouldn’t have worked, and just taking these little moments and making them memorable, and just making it so that you talk to any wrestling fan and you go, what do you think about R-Truth? I love R-Truth. You could go back to a decade ago, and he’s trying to get in the Money in the Bank ladder match, and say my bad. You could go to more recently. I think people breeze by the fact that The Judgment Day felt like it was gonna end a little while ago, and Truth coming in and doing that whole Judgment Day run with Tom and Nick Mysterio and making a joke out of being the top merch seller and trying to give Judgment Day their share of the money and everything like it not only breathed life into R-Truth, but that life was breathed back into the Judgment Day and boosted them for years.”

On the more serious side to R-Truth:

“But you forget that he is a two-time NWA World Champion. You forget that he was literally wrestling in the Attitude Era, and has wrestled consistently since 1999. You forget that this is a guy who has seen and done everything and has somehow in this business, not only gotten the entire audience behind him, and this is not a nostalgia act, this is an audience of people who might have started watching wrestling two years ago, and they love R-Truth. But also talk to anybody who works in wrestling. Talk to anybody who’s ever shared a locker room with him. He is universally both beloved and respected. And if the audience doesn’t get you, the locker room will. And I think that that doesn’t happen by accident, and it certainly doesn’t happen just by being a fun comedy act. I think that Truth is just the type of performer where it’s like, I can do this well, and this is working. I work here. If this is what you would like me to do, I’m gonna do it better than you’ve ever seen it.” 

On the worst-booked match of all time:

“It may be obvious, but it’s literally a match that bothered me when I watched it, and it’s bothered me every day since. It is in 1997, so it’s been a lot of days. I can’t tell you the amount of anger that I feel when I think about Starrcade 97. I get so mad when I think about Starrcade 97 more upset than any other wrestling match that’s ever existed, and I’ve seen a ton of them. People need to understand that the nWo was the hottest thing in wrestling, and the Hogan Sting story was the best booked wrestling story, maybe since Hogan Andre like it was incredible. They kept our attention for 16 months, over a year. Sting shows up the night after Fall Brawl 96 and says the only thing that’s for sure about Sting is nothing’s for sure. And we finally, you talk about getting a payoff. We finally get the payoff in December of 97. This is not only the payoff to Sting and Hogan, this is the payoff to this entire nWo story that we’ve been so invested in. And then this finish happens, and you’re like, What the hell was that? This finish happens where they have a standard count, Hogan just wins. Bret says it was a fast count. You go, what is he talking about? They’re going to restart the match. Why? Did the babyface screw the heel to win this thing. And then you follow that up with just the messiest, oh, okay, we’ll have a rematch here. Okay, you’ll lose the title there. I mean, the whole thing. People talk about the finger poke of doom. People talk about the Goldberg streak ending. It was already done. It was already done because you had the best story in wrestling in 97 going into 98 literally the hottest time up until that point in the history of professional wrestling. All eyes were on you. You had it all. Why didn’t WCW beat WWE Oh, I think it was because of Time Warner, the merger. I think it was Vince Russo. I think, no, it was Hogan Sting, Starrcade 97.”

On the best entrance of all time:

“It’s hard to say that The Undertaker does not have the best entrance of all time. I mean, this is an entrance that people stop watching wrestling, and it’s like they remember The Undertaker’s entrance. If you show them one thing, it’s going to be The Undertaker’s entrance. I think if I could pick one Undertaker entrance, there’s so many good Undertaker entrances, probably the Limp Bizkit WrestleMania. No, I’m just kidding. I love Limp Bizkit, though, so maybe, and maybe this is just one that I love. I’m not going to sit here and talk to fans and go, like, Nope, this is the best one fight me, like I do with most of my takes. But for me, and it was because I was in the building, is because I was a kid, it was because it was really one of the first times that they said, What can we do with this entrance? I go back to SummerSlam 92 and I go to The Undertaker entering Wembley Stadium in a hearse. And it was just one of those things in 92 you weren’t seeing that much spectacle from WWE at that time. You weren’t seeing people riding vehicles to the ring. You weren’t seeing 88,000 people all watching this show. And to see the Undertaker who was just kind of getting his feet wet in babyface territory, and how this character, because, to me, also, The Undertaker turning babyface is what made it go. Okay, is this like a short-term character that was cool, but I don’t know, we kind of ran out of ideas. Or is this a character with real lasting ability, and I think that’s why it’s so important that that guy played The Undertaker, because nobody else could have pulled that off. But yeah, I think The Undertaker is, that’s my like, fight me, The Undertaker is the best. But my favorite Undertaker might be that 92 Summer Slam entrance.”

On the most annoying fan chant:

“The most annoying wrestling chant is very easy. ‘We want tables’ is the most annoying, dumb wrestling chant that exists. And I think Bubba Ray Dudley takes this the wrong way. This is not anti-table. This is not anti-use of tables. It’s certainly not anti-Dudley’s, perhaps the greatest tag team that’s ever existed in professional wrestling. This is anti the execution of ‘We want tables’ by active wrestling fans. They will chant it in every match where tables may even be a slim possibility, if it’s a triple threat, and they’re not even really taking advantage of the no DQ, they’ll figure out, oh, wait, this is triple threat, no DQ ‘We want tables. We want tables.’ And it’s like, stop with the ‘We want tables’ for several reasons. Number one, we know you want tables. Everyone knows you want tables. There has never, in the history of professional wrestling, been the use of a table where you go boy, the fans didn’t want a table. They’re like, nobody’s ever going through a table? Boo! We don’t want a table. Everybody has always wanted a table. So it goes without saying that you want a table, okay, but understand that tables come at the appropriate times and when people are trying to tell a story in the ring that builds to a certain thing, and you’re like, Screw your story. We want a table spot now. We’ll get to a table spot, and maybe there will be a table spot in this match. But you know what? Maybe the reason there’s not a table spot in this match is because there’s gonna be a table spot two matches from now, and you can’t do table spots in every single match. But what you could do is not chant. We want tables and have it take away from what is going on in the match. It’s disruptive, and there’s no getting rid of it. And people go like this, the what chant is worse. The ‘What?’ chant is not worse. The what chant is hideous. It’s terrible, but it’s not worse, because the ‘What?’ chant is avoidable. Stone Cold Steve Austin gave the formula in interviews previously to avoid the what chant, which is just change up your cadence Don’t leave these rhythmic gaps open for that what to hit. And you’ve seen people effectively do it. ‘We want tables.’ The only way to get around it is to pull out a table. And it’s like, we’re not pulling out a table right now.”

What is Sam Roberts grateful for?

“That Sirius XM has launched a 24-hour wrestling channel and that you accepted my invitation.”

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Rhea Ripley (@RheaRipley_WWE) is a professional wrestler currently signed with WWE. She sits down with Chris Van Vliet to discuss her rise in WWE, working with Dominik Mysterio and being called “Mami”, intergender spots and being compared to Chyna, her favorite WrestleMania moment, her viral stinkface spot with Nia Jax at a house show, an unwanted fan visit to her house, how she came up with the Riptide as her finisher, overcoming anxiety, her husband Buddy Matthews and more!

Quote I’m thinking about: “The more you practice the art of gratitude, the more you have to be grateful for.” Norman Vincent Peale

On the celebrity she wants to meet the most:

“I think everyone knows who it is, David [Howard Thornton], good old Art the clown. I want to meet him so bad. I’m just waiting for that day. I’ve been trying to get him to come watch WWE, and it’s just like our schedules just don’t line up. But one day I will meet him, and I hope that I’m not too annoying. I really hope I’m not too annoying. I love my fans, but I really hope that they haven’t made my name stale to him, because he’s probably heard it over and over and over again, ‘Do you know Rhea Ripley?’ He’s like, ‘Yes, I know Rhea Ripley.’ So I’m excited to meet him one day.”

On whether she thought this success was possible:

“Honestly, no. I always talk about my Riot City Wrestling try-out, and it’s funny, because my coach, he went around the room after the try-out and was like, ‘Where do you want to go in wrestling?’ He asked everyone in the tryout, and everyone said, ‘I want to make it to WWE.’ He straight up got sick of that answer. He’s like, ‘I don’t want to break your heart or ruin your dreams, but that’s probably not going to happen. We’re in Australia. We’re very, very far away. WWE doesn’t really come here, so making it to WWE is going to be extremely difficult and probably won’t happen.’ So for me, I was a little bit realistic about that, and I was like, I just love wrestling. I find it fun. I find it entertaining. I like going out there and entertaining a crowd and showing people that they can do whatever they want to do, especially a female in such a male-dominated sport. I liked that challenge.

I’ve always been someone that likes a challenge, but I never thought that I would be able to make it as far as I’ve come. Even by the time that I did get signed and I moved to America and I started NXT, I never thought that the name Rhea Ripley would be as big as it is now, and it’s just wild to see, especially the last couple years how much I’ve blown up. I forget who I am sometimes. I’m walking around and I’m like why are these people looking at me? Do I look like a 13-year-old boy? Just staring at me because I look stupid, what is wrong with me right now? Is my hair staticing to my face or something? Why are they looking at me? And I get mad. I’m like, look away. Take a photo. It’ll last longer. And then I’m like oh sh*t. They probably know who I am. I just get mad sometimes. I just forget that I’m known. If I knew that they knew who I was, I wouldn’t feel bad about it. I’d be like, oh you want a photo? I’d be really nice. But it’s just like, I forget that I’m Rhea Ripley sometimes.”

On the inspiration behind the name Rhea Ripley:

“So when I first started, they asked me for five combinations of names, and I went through trying to make combinations of names that I liked from either band members or just strong women in general.” 

What were you going by before? 

“Demi Bennett, which is my name. I don’t know why. They just didn’t want to change my name. They’re like, ‘Yeah, Demi Bennett is good. It’s a good wrestler name.’ It’s really not. I’m glad because some people have three, four wrestling names, and I’m glad that I just have two.”

On how the names paired together:

“Oh man, this is a long time ago. I really like the name Isla. I love the name Isla. And that was one that I didn’t actually pull from anything, but it was Isla Radke, because at that time, I really loved Falling in Reverse and Ronnie Radke. He’s the main singer, so I loved his last name, just because it was so different. You don’t really hear Radke, especially not in Australia. I don’t know about America, but I like that one. And then there was something Ashby. I can’t remember what the start of that one was. It was something Ashby. And [Alan] Ashby was the guitarist for Of Mice and Men. And then Rhea Ripley came from, Rhea is a Goddess’s name. And I was like, she’s cool. I like that. And then Ripley came from Alien [Ripley played by Sigourney Weaver]. She was a badass, and I was like, I want to be like that. I want to be a badass. They just mesh so well together with the RR, it just always works out. I mean, you see Roman Reigns, Ronda Rousey, Ruby Riott, Raquel Rodriguez, I don’t know what it is, it just works. But yeah, Rhea Ripley just stuck, and we were getting ready for the first Mae Young Classic, and I think it was Bloom, I believe, just walked past and he goes, ‘Rhea Ripley.’ I go ‘I guess so?’ I got no choice. I sent you my five names. You guys pick one.”

On still feeling the pressure:

“I feel that pressure all the time. I’ve said it before, but WrestleMania 40 against Becky Lynch, I was terrified. I worked myself up so drastically that whole day, and I put so much extra stress on my own shoulders with things that I couldn’t even, they weren’t my responsibilities. I worked myself up because Becky was sick, and I was like okay, well, I need to be at 110% so that I can help her wherever I need to help her. Then I hadn’t had many matches, so I was like, I need this to be a good match. I need people to remember that I can actually go and I can actually wrestle. Because a lot of the times back then, when I had the championship, I wasn’t wrestling a lot, and that made me a little rusty, then I got self conscious, and I’m just like, I don’t want to sh*t the bed. I don’t want to go out there and have a stinker and then have people say, ‘Oh, this is why she shouldn’t be champion.’ ‘She sucks.’ ‘She can’t wrestle.’ ‘She’s overpushed.’ ‘She’s Rhea Hogan.’ I didn’t want all of that to start spiraling, because it does, and it’s hard to escape from.” 

“So I just had so much stress on my shoulders, and I get ready super late too, which doesn’t help the fact. I remember sitting in hair and makeup, and I was just freaking out, because I think the show started at 8. I was in the chair at 7:30 and I wasn’t dressed yet. I was like, Okay, well, Gorilla is a good 10-minute hike. It’s all the way on the other side of this building, and I also don’t know how to get there, because I haven’t been there all day, and I’m just sitting there panicking, and I’m like, I need to put my boots on. I had these boots that I’ve never worn before, and they go over the knee, which is a lot of tying. My normal boots take a good five minutes for each boot. It’s going to take a long time, and they’re brand new. Am I going to be able to walk in them? Am I going to be able to move and wrestle in them? Are they too tight? I just overthought everything and that happens so much more than I would like to admit, but it’s such a stressful thing going out there and being on live television, where anything could really happen. We’ve seen injuries happen. Zoey Stark got injured and Kairi and I had to go out there and have a singles match when we were supposed to have a triple threat, and it was Kairi’s first match back within months. She was gone for months, and I haven’t wrestled Kairi since an NXT house show. So it’s like, okay, how do we do this on live television? If we stuff up, no one’s getting blamed but us; they’re not going to blame anyone else. We’re the two in there, and we’re the two going at it and on live television. We got to put this stuff together.” 

On her favourite WrestleMania moment:

“Honestly, the WrestleMania moment, I always said my match with Charlotte [at WrestleMania 39], because it’s everything that I wanted my first Mania to be. Because it ended up being the COVID Mania. I didn’t get my family, I didn’t get the crowd, I didn’t get anything that normally goes into a Mania. And it was just like, wow, I’m back at the place that I really didn’t like going to every day, and this is my WrestleMania. So to then go and face Charlotte again, but it being in front of a crowd, and I saw my family in the front row, I had all the adrenaline in the world. Everything was so perfect, and then I beat her for the first time. I won the SmackDown Women’s Championship, that was my WrestleMania moment. But then now I feel like the match with IYO and Bianca has triumphed that. I am literally so proud of that match. I love those two so much, going through NXT with them, overcoming things with them, watching them overcome things, watching them grow as performers, and then me growing as performer to get to that point where we could go to WrestleMania and have such a stellar match, and have people chanting, this is awesome, and us being the opener. I couldn’t ask for anything more. I understand I lost, it doesn’t matter at that time. It really didn’t, because that was IYO’s moment, but we all got a moment from it at the same time.”

On her husband Buddy Matthews saying she’s his favourite wrestler:

“It’s safe to say he’s mine too. He really is. He moves so incredibly well for the size that he is. He’s so smooth with everything, and he’s so crisp. And just everything that he does is perfect. I don’t think I’ve seen this man have a bad match. And I’ve watched him since Australia. I used to go to Riot City, he used to be in the ring, wrestling, doing his thing. I don’t think I’ve seen him have a bad match. I used to hate him. I think he said this when he was [on Insight]. I hated him. I hated him with a passion because I loved Sway, which was a female wrestler, and he was from Melbourne. He came from the back, and he just punched Sway straight in the face. I was like, sir, how dare you? I don’t think I saw him before that too. I think that was my introduction to Matt Silva at the time. And he punched Sway straight in the face. And then Jimmy Scarlet jumped the barricade and chased him away. And then they had a whole feud and all that. But, yeah, I didn’t like him.”

On an impromptu dog adoption:

“It was the day that I got back after vacating the title, because I was in the sling, and I was just depressed. I was so depressed. So this guy was in the middle of the road. It was this slither of an island in the middle of the road, and he’s just holding this dog like this, and she’s all four feet just dangling. He’s got a sign. And we drove from behind, and we didn’t see what the sign was. As we got to the other side, I tried to turn around, and he half turned I was like, I can’t read it. [Buddy said] ‘Do you want me to go around again?’ I was like, yeah. And he knows, the verbiage better of what we said, because we both have different memories of it.

He went around again, and we missed it again. He turned and he’s like, if I go around again, I know that we’re going to have a dog. I’m going to get the dog if it’s for sale, because it doesn’t look healthy; it looks very malnourished. So we went around again, and by the time he went over the 7-Eleven, it was just like a wild goose chase, just trying to track this guy down. Then he was walking around the dumpsters, and I was like, Matt, he’s going to dump this dog. We need to get this dog off of this person, because I don’t know what he’s going to do with it.

So then when we pull into 7-Eleven I literally rolled down the window, and I didn’t even finish my sentence. I was like, ‘How much?’ And he’s like, $100. Okay, first time I’ve ever had cash on me as well. I was like, it’s meant to be. Then he starts talking, and then this lady comes over, and she’s just like, ‘We had a whole litter of them, and this is the last one, and if we had to keep her, then we’d keep her. But we got six dogs already.’ I was like, These people don’t have six dogs, not a litter of puppies. I was like, take your $100 go do what you got to do with it. Give me the puppy. I was in my sling, and I gave him the money, and he just holds her up to the window. I was like, ‘Sir, I cannot grab the dog. Can you please just put it on my lap?’ He’s just holding it. I’m like, ‘I gave you the money. Now give me the merchandise, give me the dog.’ But as soon as she’s out my lap, she curls up in a little ball, and she’s just the cutest little potato that you could ever see.” 

On working with Dominik Mysterio:

“Honestly, I think that was like another turning point in my career, being partnered with Dom and also being a part of the Judgment Day. It made me open up as a performer. It made me have to work a lot more because I was doing nine segments in a 16-segment show. Sometimes more. We were doing everything as a part of Judgment Day. I was running around helping Finn and Damian, and then helping Dom and doing promos, making business deals, wrestling myself, doing women’s storylines. And I was just like, I had no time to think about absolutely anything. I just had to go. I was like, What do I need to do? Cool. Going live in 3, 2, 1, do what you got to do.

Then being partnered with Dom, it just helped my character transform into something different. Because I feel like in NXT, I was doing the same thing, but on different brands. I was on NXT UK, and I was that force that came from the second Mae Young Classic, and then that kind of transferred onto NXT, but in a babyface sort of manner, which was a little bit different, but kind of the same. And then as soon as I came to the main roster, it was in COVID. So Vince didn’t know what to do with me. He didn’t know if I was face or heel. And he’s like, Well, she looks like a heel. And everyone was like, You don’t understand, she’s a babyface. People actually like it. He’s like, Nah, she’s a heel. So then going out there and being so confused on what I’m doing, but not having that crowd reaction to actually feed off of and prove my point that I was a babyface at the time. It made it really hard. And then after that, like, obviously the trial and error with the tag team stuff, but also, holding on to who I was in NXT. I feel like when I got partnered with Dom, I could actually blossom a little bit into something different. Instead of being the hard ass all the time, I was Mami.”

Did you know Mami would become so popular?

“No, I was trying to push the Papi agenda. And they were like yeah, we can’t do that. And then Priest was like, ‘What about Mami?’ I was like, Okay, guess I’ll be Mami. I was really set on the Papi thing. I was like, I can be a little sh*t stirrer, just be Papi this, Papi that. But they’re like, we just can’t go there. And I was like, Okay, I respect that. Mami’s gonna grow on me, though.” 

On her unique pin:

“So that actually started in Australia. I’ve been doing it for a long time. I pinned Zack Sabbath that way, which was an intergender match that I had. But I’ve been doing it for a long time. And I think the reason that it’s really stuck with me is because Matt and Chris Basso, my trainers, they used to call it the sexy pin, and we used to laugh about it every time we’d do it, we’d be like, ha sexy pin. So it’s just like, I think that’s just stuck in my head. I don’t know why. It’s just my automatic movements now. It works. Very Rhea.”

On slamming Luke Gallows:

“I got him up there, and literally, I think you could see the smile on my face like, Oh my God, I’m doing it! And then once I threw him down, I got so in this man’s face. I was just screaming, ‘Do you know who I am? I am Rhea bloody Ripley!’ I’m just so hyped that I got this man up and held him for a couple of seconds and then slammed him because he’s a big dude. He’s long. When you pick up someone that tall, their body proportion, it rocks you around. So I was really proud of myself in that moment. And it’s funny because Priest comes back afterwards, and he’s like, ‘Course, you had to go all Rhea on him. You just got so excited afterwards and just started screaming and made it look like it was nothing.’ Sorry dad [laughs]. I was there to help you.”

On the Chyna comparisons:

“I love them. I really do love them. I think she was such a unique being in this industry, and she really did open up so much for women, especially intergender wise, and just like being part of DX and all of that. She’s done so much incredible stuff, and she’s really someone that I look up to, especially being different, being bigger and bulkier and and just having a different build to a lot of the women, she’s someone that I really do look up to. So I’m glad that I get the comparisons, but at the same time, like, I want to be the first Rhea Ripley. I love that the whole storyline with Dom, him being Eddie, me being Chyna, it kind of just flowed. And a lot of the stuff that we did, we didn’t actually mean to match up with stuff that they did. It just kind of worked out that way. Even mannerisms, it just came so naturally that that would be what we would do. And we did it, we’d come back and then on Twitter, people would have like, comparisons of us doing it next to Chyna and Eddie doing the exact same thing. And we’re like, wow, we didn’t even mean to do that. So, I love that there’s that comparison, but at the same time, I want to be like the first Rhea Ripley.”

On the stinkface spot and the reaction:

“I knew it was gonna be big, but that sh*t exploded. It wasn’t even my idea. It was Nia’s idea. She’s like, ‘Yeah. And then you stink face me.’ I’m like, ok, if you want. But then, before all of that, I was like, I think I should do like the Rikishi pull them up, just do the little dance beforehand. I was like, I’m not gonna get it spot on, so I’m just gonna do my own thing. But I’ll do the whole gimmick and yeah, it still pops up on my Twitter, it’s wild. I got so much publicity off that, but I also got so much like, negativity. I was like guys, you need to calm down.” 

What do you mean? 

“Just people were saying that I’m taking the women’s division back 20 years. And I’m like, That’s not what’s happening. It’s a fun moment, and it’s a house show. Am I not allowed to have fun? If it was anyone else, you’d be supporting it. I feel like people love to hate Rhea Ripley. And you know, the more you talk about me, the more you act like a fan, so continue talking. It wasn’t even my idea, Nia wanted to take my ass to her face, just trying to make the wishes come true.”

On some fans being jealous of her husband:

“I get a lot of people saying that on Twitter, the Dolph Ziggler meme is a massive one. ‘It should have been me!’ It’s just funny to me at this point, because I’m like, I love my husband, and there’s no way that I’m ever going to do anything bad to ruin what we have. But it’s really funny watching people try.”

On a fan turning up to her house:

“We looked at the Ring camera, and there’s some chick at our door, and I didn’t think anything of it. And I was like, Why does she keep ringing the doorbell and just stand there for eternity? And then we had our Australian friends who live near us, and they came to pick up our mail, and they go, ‘This is for Rhea Ripley. I think it’s fan mail?’ I was like, Oh no, who the hell has my address? That’s just something that people shouldn’t be doing. That’s kind of like crossing the line. We are normal people outside of work, and we like our privacy. We like to have our normal humanity. But I went back and I watched the Ring doorbell, and this chick was like she just came out of the movie Smile. I’m sorry if you’re watching this lady, but you were terrifying. She was scary, she rang the doorbell, she got real close to it and just [smiles creepily].”

“Then she looks at her phone and she [smiles again], and she did this for so long. She was there for like 10 minutes, and then she left, came back, did it again, and then she left, and then she came back wearing something different and rang the doorbell. I was just like this lady really thinks that we’re home, the cars are there because we left them there. If I was home, I wouldn’t know what to do. If I opened the door and she was just standing there, what could have happened? She could have done anything, I don’t know you; you could have attacked me, and I don’t know how she got her car in the gate. We have a gated community, no one lets you in, terrifying.”

“This stuff happens all the time with everyone. Like Liv had one the other day as well, and then there was a whole Roxanne stuff that was going on. People need to understand that wrestling is our passion, that’s our love. But at the same time, you have to understand that that’s our work, and it’s like we go home and we’re different people, and what you see on TV is not what you get outside of TV. So it’s like we’re normal people. Please do not come up to our house. Do not stalk our property, do not threaten to kill us over a storyline on WWE. And it’s craziness like that, and people need to understand boundaries sometimes.”

On deciding on the Riptide as a finisher:

“My finish from the first Mae Young, I was doing that for a hot minute, and I was like this is sh*t. It doesn’t look impactful. It doesn’t look good if people don’t help me, I can’t do it myself. Because, literally, if they’re a little bit taller, I can’t pick them up very high. So I was like, I need to work on something. I went to the PC, and Shane Haste, he was there, and he’s like, I’ll help you work on something. So him, me and Tegan Nox went into this squishy ring that we had, it was like a padded ring where you could do high flying stuff to practice. And it just a nice landing, instead of landing on the normal mat, which sucks when you’re learning.

He was throwing out random moves and then we got onto the pump handle slam. And I was like, that’s kind of cool, I like that one. I’d watch the video a little bit to see how it was performed, looks like it could be really impactful. So I did it with Tegan in the squishy ring for the first time. I said I like that. I think I’m gonna stick with this. It was at the time where everyone’s trying to find a finishing move, and if you’re not on TV, you’ve got to keep your stuff hidden, because people will steal it. So it was like, I hit it a couple of times, and I was like, Okay, I think it’s good. Filmed it, had it on camera, and then I hid it away until the second Mae Young Classic. I hid it away for so long, and I was like, I can’t let anyone see this move, because someone’s going to do it on TV before me, and I can’t get booked to save my life. I had to wait all the way to the second Mae Young Classic, where I finally pulled it out and hit it.” 

On whether anything hurts due to wrestling:

“Normally my lower back, especially lately, I don’t know what’s been going on. I think it actually started from the match I had with Raquel in NXT, where she gave me the back body drop onto the announce table, but we undershot it and I hit the very edge of the table, like right on my lower back. After that, my lower back was never the same. But I mean, I do whatever I can to try and make it better. I have a masseuse Matthew come over and he works on it. He helps stretch me out, and puts my hips back in line pretty much, and just fixes all that. And thank God for him that he comes over to help. Because sometimes it gets really bad. I didn’t think that I would be able to wrestle at WrestleMania 41.“

On possibly missing Mania 41:

“WrestleMania 41, I didn’t think I was going to be able to compete because my back was so bad leading up to it. The two nights beforehand, I got [my masseuse] Matthew to come to my room, and he worked on me the night before Hall of Fame and the night of Hall of Fame. I was like, I need you to make sure I can walk tomorrow. And he worked on me those two nights, and it loosened completely just in time for the match. Then after the match, it was okay, and then, slowly, because I’ve been wrestling more, it’s just slowly tightens up, but that’s because I just don’t stretch on my own, so that’s my fault as well. It gets really bad. I don’t know if it’s a sciatic thing or whatnot, or just my body in itself, the shape of my body and how I’m put together. I don’t know what’s going on, but it’s something. But it does go down, and it definitely revs up sometimes, and sometimes it’s just bearable.”

What is Rhea Ripley grateful for?

“My husband, my dogs, family, my journey and my fans.”

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Ethan Page (@OfficialEGO) is a professional wrestler signed to WWE and the current NXT North American Champion. He sits down with Chris Van Vliet at Insight Live at the Hollywood Improv to discuss his brutal match with Ricky Saints where he won the title, his backstage segment with The Rock, taking a GTS from CM Punk on the NXT on CW premiere, possibly becoming a Grand Slam Champion and more!

Quote I’m thinking about: “When everything seems to be going against you, remember that the airplane takes off against the wind, not with it.” ―Henry Ford

On his brutal match with Ricky Saints:

“Haven’t been arrested! Well he hasn’t been back to work. So, I mean, there’s a good and bad in that, depending on who you’re asking. For me, I think it’s good. I would like to just add it to the list of terrible things I’ve done to human beings at work and gotten away with it.”

On his mean streak in NXT:

“A part of me that I’ve known has been there my whole life, and then Shawn Michaels pulling it out of me. I don’t know, maybe he just sees a little of his crazy ass in mine, and he’s just like, hey, let’s be some pricks together.”

On a possible babyface turn:

“That’s an interesting question. It would take a lot in me to be nice to strangers [laughs]. At this stage in my career, with the amount of things that I feel like fans expect from me, I don’t know if I would ever like to be nice.”

On being NXT North American Champion:

“What an interesting question. It means a lot to me, and the more I think about it, I think it should mean a lot more to NXT. There was a moment in my NXT career where I was challenging Tony D for the North American Championship, and I told him in the locker room that this championship was beneath me, and now I’m sitting here holding this same championship, and I wanted to address that. After some time and thinking and using my logical brain in professional wrestling, which usually doesn’t work out, I came to the conclusion that the North American Championship is actually the most prestigious championship in NXT. I mean, Oba Femi, current NXT Champion. In description he’s the champion of NXT, which its home base is in Orlando at the Performance Center. So Oba Femi is the champion of the Performance Center. Ethan Page is the champion of three entire countries. Meaning that this championship is also higher than the United States Championship. So I wanted to actually thank Jacob Fatu for doing such a great job representing the US, as his superior. Because, born in Canada, made in America, and tomorrow will be beating some Mexican luchadors. I am the greatest North American to ever hold the North American Championship, and this is truly the championship in NXT. Prove me wrong.”

On his NXT debut:

“[It came together] Very quickly, within like a week or two. I just ended up getting a phone call. This story might already be out there, but I was in between events. I was flying from Winnipeg. I had to go to Detroit and then drive from Detroit to Ohio for Revolver wrestling. And in between my connections, WWE called and offered me a job. And I did not think the call was real. The first call happened, they hung up, and I was like, Yep, that was a crank call. Then the second call came, and I was like, ‘Whoa, whoa, wait, this is real?!’ And they’re like, ‘Yes, we would like to offer you a contract.’ I was like, very nice.”

On winning the NXT Championship in record time:

“Let’s just add to that stat as well. Magically, because of how amazing I am. I won both singles championships in less than 365 days. It was 364, but still less than a year.”

On taking a GTS from CM Punk after losing the title on the CW premiere:

“Let’s also talk about how that was the last thing people saw on that episode is confetti falling in my stupid face after CM Punk knocked me out in the middle of the ring. You know what? There was some joy that I got out of it. It was the fact that Trick Williams won the championship. But the last thing people saw was my stupid face.”

On his segment with The Rock:

“To me, doing anything with him was always the dream. I was very fortunate enough to be given the chance to pull him to the side and tell him what it meant to see something that I created on my own and envisioned my whole life would be on screen with my favorites. To do it with my actual number one, and in the position that he’s in, and what he’s been doing for the last couple of years. The amount of things that needed to fall into place for this to happen, pretty crazy. But I was very glad that I was able to express that to him and to get some one-on-one time, and then it just kept extending, he gave me great advice, and he’s turned me into an absolute menace. Because, I mean, when the person you look up to the most, pretty much tells you to not hold back. Yeah, you ain’t gonna hold back. I’m sorry Ricky Saints about your throat.”

On how much inspiration he took from The Rock:

“Quite a bit, honestly. Mostly, I would say just in the confidence to say and do whatever you feel like out there, like on a microphone or in front of an audience. He’s someone that’s completely comfortable in doing some ridiculous things, or what he finds entertaining, or what he finds funny, but he’s always, I feel like just at that perfect level of charisma, and I tried to keep the energy the same and give people their money’s worth when I’m entertaining them.”

On the biggest pinch-me moments:

“The obvious one would be to be on screen with The Rock, but having Undertaker backstage very often because they’re filming the LFG stuff, and he’s just constantly there, that is sometimes the most surreal. Mostly just because, I mean, I’m just having a conversation with a wrestler of that status and the amount of, I mean, just for him to compliment me at all is a pinch me moment. I won’t get too much into it. But yeah, I’ve had a couple with him, and those have all blown me away.”

On working with Shawn Michaels:

“I mean, that’s crazy too. There are many days where I show up to work and I can’t believe the cast of characters that I’m around. Yeah, I can’t say enough good things about working for and with Shawn Michaels, I’ve never had that good of a relationship with anyone in that position in my career. So it blows my mind that I get along with one of the greatest wrestlers of all time.”

On getting put through a table at the 2300 Arena

“D-Von brought that table out. What a jerk. Okay, I’ll give you something positive out of this, and then I’ll give you a little funny story too. The positive is that I had one of the worst matches of my entire career on my 19th birthday, which is ironic, because I turned 19 in America, would have made me legal drinking age in Canada, but I decided to go have a bad match in the ECW Arena instead, that match haunted me my entire life. So I have spent many years in that hole in the wall of a building. So to get to redeem myself and to go back there with the WWE was very cool. And a little backstory, I ended up winning that match, even though I was dealing with an infection that day, and my entire body broke out into hives, and we had to get that under control before the match. So yeah, I’m pretty much the most hardcore guy that’s ever wrestled in the ECW arena. Just saying, your little cuts on your forehead, don’t give a crap. My whole body sucked that day.” 

On his SmackDown appearance:

“To actually perform on SmackDown, yeah, that was last week or the week before, and I was on commentary, which caught me off guard. Was very happy that so many people got to hear my voice for that long.”

They just let you run your mouth 

“Oh, they sure did. They sure did. And I’m happy that they did. And if you would like to keep letting me Triple H, I would love it.” 

What is Ethan Page grateful for?

“My family, my health, and the professional wrestler WWE has made me become.”

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Elayna Black (@ElaynaBlack) is a professional wrestler best known for her time in WWE as Cora Jade. She sits down with Chris Van Vliet at West Coast Creative Studio in Hollywood, CA to discuss getting released from WWE and why it wasn’t a surprise, leaving school at 15 to chase her dreams of becoming a professional wrestler, the first time she met CM Punk and getting to work with him in WWE, dealing with criticism about her wrestling and launching an OnlyFans page, her matches in AEW and possibly becoming All Elite, her current dream match and more!

Quote I’m thinking about: “Think like a man of action, act like a man of thought.” – Henri Bergson

On being able to process everything that has happened:

“I have. Because I feel like I’ve just sat in my apartment, me and my two little dogs, and I have all week now to just do whatever I want. As opposed to before, I was doing stuff Monday through Saturday, Sunday was my only day off, so it was constant, go, go, go, go, go. It’s the first time I actually feel like in my life I’ve been forced, especially I was forced for 30 days, to just sit and do nothing except think and process and yeah, it was a time, but here we are.”

On messaging Mandy Rose about the release:

“I feel like everyone kind of has a sense. I feel like it just happens. The cuts happen all the time. You see them all the time. I feel like at any time, anyone who works there is going to have some thought in the back of their head that it could be over. So I feel like it could be a shock, and it was. But at the same time, I was always ready for it. I think it was like two weeks before I had texted Mandy, and I was like, ‘Hey, I think I’m getting fired. I need to have some advice.’ She was like, ‘Girl, whatever happens, you’re gonna be fine.’ Immediately, she got all the research resources for me, all the advice. She’s literally so helpful. She’s been not only like a wrestling mother to me, but like a business and management type mother to me, just seeing what she’s been able to do with her life and how much she’s helped me, just in this short period of time of me, it’s literally been the month since I was released. She’s helped me so much, and I can’t say enough good things about Mandy.” 

On how she feels now:

“I feel good. I feel like the up and down has kind of passed now, where it would be like I was feeling okay some days, and then I would be really sad the next day. At this point, I feel good. I’m at a very emotionally calm state. I feel free. I feel like I have the world ahead of me. I feel like I have so many creative ideas that now no one is able to tell me no or not listen to the ideas. It’s all in my hands now. And yeah, a little bit of that can be scary, that it’s all in my hands now. But that’s also the best feeling that it’s all in my hands now, and any idea I want to do, any avenue I want to pursue, anything ever is mine, and that’s all I ever wanted. So I feel really good.”

On why she felt like the release was coming:

“I don’t know. I feel like people have asked me that a few times, and I don’t know exactly what it is, nothing specific happened. I’ve just always kind of been like that. I feel like a handful of my friends that I had talked to. I specifically remember talking to Roxanne, she’s my best friend, and I was like, I know I’m gonna be gone and [she said] you’re crazy, no no. But I always know, in my intuition, when something is happening. I don’t know what that is, I just had that feeling. And at the end of Vegas, we had that whole WrestleMania week. I remember on my flight back, I was just like, well, that’s a wrap. That was it. I just knew. And then what was it? I got fired, May 2. It was two weeks later, after Mania, it was like, well, I already knew that was happening.”

On whether she was surprised by the release:

“I feel like, overall, yes. But if you had asked me, just because of my intuition, in those like few weeks leading up to it, I would have said no. I kind of felt that it was coming, again, not because something specific had happened. It was just that gut feeling. But I feel like, overall, I was a little bit surprised. Because two days prior to my release, I had went in and had a meeting with said person two days before and I had given so many ideas. I had set aside my personal feelings for this person, given so many ideas, was very professional, we had what I felt like was a great conversation. He’s pulling out his laptop, typing all these ideas, basically gaslighting me, and then two days later I get fired. So it was like, why even do that? Why have me give you all these ideas? You asked me to come in for this meeting. I had asked to have a meeting prior, but you asked me to come in on that day, at that time, typing in all these ideas. And then two days later, you can’t even respond to a text.”

On missed opportunities in WWE:

“I feel like, obviously, there are things that I didn’t get to do. But at the same time, like you said, that was my dream. I was eight years old, I watched wrestling and I immediately wanted to be a WWE superstar. Then I would look at all my little notebooks, I would have these bucket lists, little lists, and I would cross them off every time I would do something. It would say, get an action figure, have merchandise, wrestle this person, wrestle here, do all this stuff. And then I looked and I was crossing off so many of those things. Really, the only one I didn’t cross off was wrestling at WrestleMania, or winning the NXT Championship, or obviously any other championship. But I had gotten to do so many things that my little eight-year-old self [could only dream of]. I would lay in my bed and dream of doing those things at night. So again, obviously there are things that were disappointing and stuff like that, but never will I sh*t on WWE or trash WWE. I loved my time there. Obviously, when you care about something and you’re passionate about something, things are going to bother you. It’s because I care, it’s not because I’m like, oh f*ck this, whatever. I care about wrestling so much, and I love wrestling so much, and it is my dream and it is my passion. So yes, things did bother me, and things did upset me, because I’m only human, and I’m a human who cares about my passion, my job. So obviously, that’s gonna come up, but at the same time, I can’t say enough good things about the people I got to work with, the things I got to do, all the dreams I got to accomplish. I loved my time at WWE so much, and especially those last six months, I got to do it with Roxanne, with Bayley, with Giulia, Stephanie, all these girls I became so close with and I got to travel with them and do all these great matches and storylines with them. I loved my time at WWE so much. Were there things that upset me? Yes. Am I bitter or anything like that? Absolutely not. I’m only 24 years old. Who knows what the future holds? I’ll never burn a bridge because I don’t know what the future holds. I don’t know if I’ll be back there one day. I don’t know where I’ll end up, but all I know is that I loved WWE, and I loved my time there, and I have no bad things to say about them.”

On dropping out of school at 15 to chase her dreams:

“I don’t know. I was always pretty good at school, just by nature, but it was never for me. I never participated in any sport in school, besides soccer when I was in middle school. But I never wanted to do any extra activities. School was just not my thing. I hated it. I just wanted to be home watching wrestling. I remember, I think I was like 15 years old, and I had found a wrestling school that was 45 minutes to an hour away, and they were training. Obviously, indie training is very different. It’s kind of like do it yourself, create your own times, and whatever you want to do. It’s not like a college sport where you train from 6 to 8 pm, it was kind of we just did whatever we wanted. So I had found this school, and they would train sometimes from 7 pm to like 1 am sometimes, just because we just did whatever we wanted. Everyone loved wrestling there, and it was like this little warehouse in Chicago with no heat or air no matter the time of the season. So we’re just either freezing or sweating to death at all times. But that’s what wrestling was, and that’s what I loved about it. But I found that place, and they were training like that, and I couldn’t drive. So my poor mom, she would drive me to training. It was like 45 minutes to an hour away, and then sometimes she would sit there till one in the morning and be freezing to death. She would have jackets and blankets. Or in the summertime, she’d be sweating to death because it was either so hot or so cold in there, and I couldn’t drive, and she wasn’t going to just pick me up because it was far away. So I remember I was just like, I can’t do this while being in school and having to wake up at six in the morning. I think they agreed with me, especially because she was driving me and seeing the dedication it was taking and the hours it was taking, and the toll. It was kind of hard to go to school when they kind of knew I didn’t really want to do anything with college. So I remember I asked them if I could, or I think I had found a place that you could get your high school diploma in a year online, or whatever. So I found that, and then I remember I either wrote them a really, really long note or made a PowerPoint. I don’t remember what I did, because I also tried to do that when I wanted a hamster one time, I made them a PowerPoint. [Did you get the hamster?] Yeah, it’s very convincing. So I was like, I’ve done it before. I could do it again.”

On why she thought she could be a success at 15:

“Honestly? I don’t know. I feel like at first I didn’t realize that it was something normal people could do. I remember just watching it and not really realizing, and then one day, my dad was like, you know that real people do that? You could be a wrestler. And I don’t know why in my head, it didn’t click. I just thought, I don’t know, they were like superheroes, because that’s what they look like. But for some reason after that, I was like, okay, maybe I can do this. And from that moment on, I just wanted to be a wrestler. I think before that, I wanted to be a dolphin trainer at the zoo. I don’t know, but, like I said, it’s so completely far opposite. But once I become obsessed with something, that’s all I see.” 

On meeting CM Punk as a child:

“It was a Christmas present from my family, because they used to do the holiday tour, and they would always do Chicago and then Madison Square Garden. I believe Chicago was always the day after Christmas. It was always December 26, so that was my Christmas present. They got me floor seats. Punk was my favorite, obviously. I remember he came out at the end, and he just went around and signed stuff for everybody, and I was like, now’s my chance. I was so happy. I think I cried after, but that picture is just ridiculous. And then I think he quit WWE like, a month after that picture, and I took it so personally. I was the saddest person in the entire f*cking world. But, yeah, that’s that picture. Then I after he quit WWE, then there’s that video of me crying, meeting him again. I think it was the second time I met him, but it was after he had quit WWE. It was a year and a half later, and I was like, Oh my God. I thought I’d never see him again.” 

Did he remember you when you got hired by WWE?

“Yeah, it was weird. My return. It was right after I had come back from getting my boobs done in December of 2023, it was for Deadline. He was coming to NXT, and that was the first time I had seen him since I was a fan. But he remembered me because anytime he would do anything in Chicago, because I lived in Chicago, and so did he, I would be the first in line for every single thing, borderline crazy, now that I’m thinking about it. [How many times?] Probably like 10 times I was there, every time it got to the point where he would remember me in the line, and he would laugh at me because I would be first in line every single time. We laugh about it. Now I’m like, Jesus Christ.”

On the best advice she has received from CM Punk:

“I feel like he’s told me a lot of things, in very different situations, but I feel like the number one thing is to just drown out what everyone else is saying, because I feel like he knows it better than anybody. Everyone has an opinion on him, whether you absolutely love him, or you absolutely hate him. Everyone has an opinion on CM Punk, and I’ve always wondered, how does he just continue to be himself and not give a sh*t when there’s a million different opinions from a million different places. But he’s really, really always helped me just understand that it doesn’t matter. People are always going to say something. They’re going to love you or they’re going to hate you, and either way, it doesn’t matter, because you just have to be you and do what you feel is right and stay true to yourself and if people support you, great. That’s great motivation. But if they don’t, and they don’t like you, and they don’t want to watch what you do, or they want to watch what you do and criticize it, that’s still your name in their mouth, and someone’s talking about you and you’re doing something right.”

On dealing with criticism:

“I feel like my work is one thing, because everyone’s entitled to their own opinion. I grew up a wrestling fan. There were people I didn’t like and I didn’t know them as a person. I feel like you’re entitled to your opinion about my work. If you don’t like me as a wrestler, as a character, that’s fine. When you come for me as a person and you start saying things that aren’t true, like the injury prone thing when you had no idea that I literally almost died, that’s where it’s like f*ck you, because you want to say all these things and expect me to be quiet because you don’t view me as a person. You view me as an object, online or on TV. But then when I snap back, it’s like, whoa, relax. No! You just thought you can poke and poke and poke and poke, but I am a human being. Am I going to sit there and respond to every comment? No. But there comes a point where it’s like, no, you need to understand that you’re wrong. And I just don’t think enough people do that.”

On backlash for launching an OnlyFans:

“I feel like I’ve gotten as much hate for it as I thought I was going to. I didn’t think I was gonna do it, and people were gonna be like, Oh, f*ck yeah. I knew I was gonna get hate for it. But again, it’s just, I don’t care.”

Why do people have a problem with it?

“That’s what I don’t understand. I’ve said this before. I’ve never once in my life looked at someone else’s life and what they’re doing with their life. If it’s not affecting me, my money, or who I love or anybody in my life, I don’t care. I’ve never thought about that. So the fact that people are so concerned with what I’m doing with my body, my career and my life, and being that angry about it. Most of them are going to subscribe anyway, it’s ridiculous.”

On how the launch has been:

“Probably the best career decision I’ve ever made. My grandkids will be rich.” 

On getting advice from Mandy Rose about the content:

“She’s been so helpful. I knew I wanted to do OnlyFans after wrestling, whenever that was, but just seeing what Mandy’s been able to do. Obviously she, I don’t wanna say she came from nothing, because she did swimsuit modeling and stuff like that before WWE, and Tough Enough and stuff like that. But she was not nearly what she is right now. So being what she was doing WWE, and yes, she used the WWE platform to build her name and WWE gave her followers and stuff like that, but what she has taken from her time in WWE and what she is now. She’s like one of the craziest businesswomen I’ve ever seen. She knows what she’s doing, she knows how to handle her money, she knows how to make new money, she knows what opportunities to take. She’s so smart, and I don’t think people give her enough credit where credit’s due. I guess you don’t really realize that until this is all new to me. So having her help and her guidance, and I can call her and be like, hey, Mandy, I don’t know what the hell I’m doing. Can you help me? And immediately, she has a list of ways to help me. She knows what she’s doing. Same with her husband, Sabbi, they are such smart business people, and they know how to help and they know what to do with their money. So I’m so grateful for them, and just seeing what Mandy has become inspires me.”

On who Elayna Black is:

“I feel like Elayna Black originally, was a very timid, kind of still finding herself, kind of creepy little outcast. And then that kind of blossomed into mean girl Cora Jade. Cora Jade was many things. I feel like it got kind of surface level, though, where it was just like, Okay, I’m just this mean girl, and all the ideas I was giving really weren’t being used. So it kind of just felt like I was the surface level, meh. There was so much more I feel like I wanted to be or could have been, but Cora Jade towards the end, I feel like kind of just felt like a very flat surface-level character.”

On how close she came to signing with AEW:

“I don’t know. I wanted to be because I had seen a lot of my friends and people that I had worked with on the Indies all starting to do Dark, and then they were getting signed. So I did want to go to AEW because I just wanted to go anywhere. I wanted to be a wrestler signed to a company. But I did feel closer to signing to AEW than WWE, because I was doing Dark. I was friends with The Bucks. I had people there that I was close with, and I was having fun there. I loved AEW. I did think I was going to end up there, but WWE randomly, just same month. It was the same month. But the only reason I signed with WWE obviously, I love WWE as well, and wanted to be at WWE one day, but I thought I was going to end up at AEW, but WWE just ended up offering me a contract first.”

On possibly signing with AEW:

“I’m open to whatever. I’m not in any rush to sign anywhere right now. I’m not like sitting here waiting for that. Because I feel like for the first time in my life, I’m trying to be present and just enjoy life now and what’s happening now. Because I feel like a lot of times I was always worried about what’s next, and this business is so go, go, go, go, go. It’s hard to sit and be present. So I feel like I’m trying to just enjoy where I’m at right now and not worry about that,. But if the call came, I would definitely be open to talking and whatever. I’ve watched all the AEW shows since 2020, I never stopped watching them. Just couldn’t talk about it. I love AEW. I love wrestling. I want to continue to wrestle, wherever that is. If the call comes, hey, I’m here, but if it doesn’t for a few months or never, I don’t know, I’m not sitting here stressing about it, but I’m open to it.”

On the WWE storyline that made her feel more at home:

“I feel like once I wrestled Natalya, that was when I was still doing the babyface Cora Jade skater stuff. She really is the best. Not only is she just such a great wrestler, and she knows everything about the business, she’s a genuine, great person, and she’s another one of those people who are so giving and helpful, and doesn’t necessarily have to be. She’s been around forever, her family’s great, she doesn’t have to be as humble and nice as she is, but she is. I was a big fan of her, too. I have a picture of me and Natalya when I was a kid too. But after that match, I just remember, not only was she so helpful to me in the process of putting it together and even in the ring and stuff like that, but I just remember after that match, I felt like, Okay, if I can get through that, I can get through anything. Because it was a hard match to put together, at least more than what I had done before, more intricate. And just listening to Nattie and the way she puts matches together, and how she structures it, and everything like that was all very new for me and felt very overwhelming, but it was a challenge for me, and I felt like, once I overcame that challenge, I felt really, really good. So I feel like, in WWE, after that match, I felt okay, I kind of know my place. I kind of know what I’m doing, and I feel like after that, I felt more confident in myself.”

On her ectopic pregnancy:

“Not only was it an ectopic pregnancy, but it had ruptured. So I lost my entire left fallopian tube. So now I only have one left, which I’m still able to have children and stuff. But now it’s like, I don’t want to risk anything. If I get pregnant, I need to have a healthy pregnancy and make sure it goes through and everything like that. So I want to have kids, and I want to have a family one day. So I don’t want to keep putting a lot of damage on my body. I’m 24, I don’t know how long that is, but I guess it all just depends on where I end up and what I’m doing. But I would like to have a family and stuff like that. So I don’t know how long.”

On the surgery:

“Again, just my intuition. It was nothing really crazy had happened yet. Having the IUD. I don’t know if you’re super familiar, anyone watching, many women won’t get a period on it. You just don’t have your menstrual cycle on it’s just kind of what happens when you’re on it for that long. So I had never really gotten that and then I remember my boyfriend, at the time, was sitting on the couch playing video games. I was sitting there, and I was like, something just doesn’t feel right. I went to the restroom, I was bleeding, and I was like, this isn’t right, and it wasn’t crazy, but I was like, this is not okay. I have a bad feeling. So, long story short, ended up driving me to the hospital, and they had like five or six people ahead of me. So I remember, I got there at like 11 pm and I was already waiting an hour, two hours, and still no one was taking me in. I’m freaking out, I had went to the restroom, and I’m bleeding even more now. So I knew something really, really wasn’t right. So I remember telling them I need to leave. They had already gotten my vitals and stuff, but I don’t think they were taking it as serious as I knew that it was. I had told them you need to discharge me. I need to go to a different hospital, because this is not okay. And I think me saying that made them realize maybe okay, it was more serious than they had thought. I think they thought I was just being dramatic. And it was like, no offense, but the guy who was taking my blood was a male doctor, and I was like, I’m having an ectopic pregnancy, I think. And he’s like, aren’t you on birth control? I’m like, somebody help me, Jesus Christ! But then I think once I said that, they rushed me into an ultrasound, and I think they had told me it’s still gonna be a two-hour wait before the doctor could see me, but they had given me the ultrasound.”

“With an ectopic pregnancy, for anyone who doesn’t know, the egg gets implanted in the fallopian tube. It’s supposed to be in the uterus, but then, obviously, eventually, if it gets the baby grows too big, it ruptures the uterus, and that’s when the internal bleeding happens, and that’s when it’s very, very dangerous, because you can die pretty quickly after that. Most people catch it before it ruptures. I guess I didn’t. I just didn’t know. And they’re doing the ultrasound, and I knew something was off, because she starts taking a little bit longer than I think it was supposed to. Then they’re wheeling me back, and then they’re like, Okay, the doctor is waiting for you. I was like, the doctor is waiting for me? You told me it was gonna be a two-hour wait. What the hell is going on? Then they roll me in and they’re like, Yeah, you’re having an ectopic pregnancy. It ruptured, so your left fallopian tube has completely exploded, and you’re internally bleeding pretty bad, so we need to rush you into emergency surgery. I was supposed to wrestle Lyra Valkyria the next day on NXT, and I remember thinking, thank God I didn’t, but I remember thinking I’ll go to the hospital after the match tomorrow, I just need to get through the match. Just need to get through the match. I would be dead. So thank God I listened to my intuition and I went, because they skipped everybody and rushed me into emergency surgery within an hour. I have like, three scars, one here, one in my belly button, and then one on the other side. But they had to remove my left fallopian tube, and now I only have the right one, which is fine. You can still have children and everything, but like I said, it’s a little bit more risky now. So I don’t know how long I want to keep putting all this damage and stuff on my body. I want to have kids.”

How long were you out for?

“I think it was like the end of January. I missed Stand and Deliver, but I remember I was cleared right before Stand and Deliver, and I was really upset that I was missing it, because I was like, I’m cleared. So I think it was only two months, but then just the postpartum depression after that, which I didn’t even realize. I always knew it was a thing, but I guess I didn’t realize how serious it was, or that it was so serious. Even in that case where I didn’t even technically have the baby, but I was still, I didn’t know what the hell was going on. I was borderline about to kill myself. It got really, really bad, so I just had to take time off. And that’s when I went and I got my boobs done, which I had always wanted to get done, but I used it as an excuse to take time off because I needed it mentally. And then I was like okay, maybe I’ll feel more confident, and I’ll have taken this time off mentally and everything like that. So I went and I did that, and I did feel better mentally after I took that time to really get myself together, therapy and all that kind of stuff. Then when I came back, I felt really, really good. And then came back in December, tore my knee January 12, I think it was. Then I had just went through, like, a horrible breakup, too. Yeah, then I was living on like, the third floor of an apartment complex with no elevator, I had a dog, and I’m living newly by myself. Just tore my knee. My mom had to live with me for two months because I couldn’t do anything. It was the worst time of my life.”

On how she feels now:

“I feel great. I feel like probably the best mentally I have in, I want to say years. Obviously, sh*t has happened and you get through it and stuff like that. But I feel very at peace. I feel okay financially, I feel great in my career now with the freedom that I have, I’m excited for the things I have coming up. I just feel like, I don’t know what the term is, but the world’s in the palm of my hands.”

On a possible Mercedes Mone match:

“That’s my current dream match. I feel like her and Bayley were my favorites out of the four Horsewomen. I loved all of them, but I feel like I really, really looked up to them two specifically. I feel like I just felt the most connected to them two because Mercedes was always writing in her notebook too. And I feel like I look at her and see aspects of myself too. So to be able to wrestle her now, where we both have had our time in WWE and we’re both doing our own thing now and doing whatever we want creatively, I feel like that is the ultimate dream match.”

What is Cora Jade grateful for?

“My dogs, the opportunity to continue what I love and friends and family.”

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Shotzi (@ShotziTCB) is a professional wrestler best known for her time in WWE. She sits down with Chris Van Vliet at West Coast Creative Studio in Los Angeles to discuss her time in WWE coming to an end and what’s next, missed dream matches, how her tank entrance was created and where the tank is today, suffering an injury on NXT and the return, getting married in Las Vegas and wrestling that night in her wedding dress, her love of horror movies and more!

Quote I’m thinking about: “Do not let what you cannot do interfere with what you can do.” — John Wooden

On her time in WWE coming to an end:

“My situation is different than others, because I had my injury for like nine months that I was gone from that. Then I was at NXT for a small stint, and then I wasn’t on TV for a little bit. So I was ready for it. I feel like I had already done the grieving process, and I was already out of the locker room for a little bit. So it didn’t come as a shock to me. I was just like, Okay, now I get to work.” 

On expecting the call:

“I don’t know. Honestly, I felt like I had a good run at NXT, and I was hopeful that there would be something for me at SmackDown. I kept getting little glimpses of ‘Okay, we’re gonna run with this storyline,’ or this or this. It wasn’t until around Mania that I started to think maybe they’re not gonna re-sign me, because it was just like storylines getting cut week after week. Then I was just like, Okay, I see where this might be going.”

On a storyline that was cut:

“I mean, they had teased that I would start something with Chelsea, but it just never happened. They called me into SmackDown a few times, and then every time I would come in, it was cut.”

On what’s next:

“I just want to wrestle again, because I was gone so long for my ACL injury, and then I was off TV for a little bit. So I’m just so excited to get back into it. I miss it so much. I might have already made my debut by the time this airs.” 

On her social media promo:

“I had a lot of coworkers message me saying that it was like the greatest promo that they’ve ever seen me cut. A lot of people thought I was released, and that was me saying that I was released, but I hadn’t gotten the call yet. [It came] maybe, like, two days later, maybe.” 

Because of the promo?

“No, because they were making their cuts the next day and then it just lumped me in with that. So, yeah, I don’t think that that promo stirred the pot. I mean, it could have. I’ll never know.”

On the segment that meant the most to her in WWE:

“The first thing that comes to mind is shaving my head on TV for my sister. That was something that just meant a lot to me. I didn’t get a ton of storylines in my time there, but that was the one that was just personal and for my family.”

On how the segment was pitched:

“So I went to Hunter. I went straight to him, and I was just like, ‘Hey, my sister’s going through this, and I really want to support her in a big way. I just want her to see this and know that I’m connected.'” 

On her green hair:

“So my hair was red before this, like bright red, Eva Marie red. At the time, Eva Marie was there, and she had red hair. I was going in for tryouts, and I would run into her, and I’m like I should probably dye my hair. I should probably stay away from her look, because that’s her thing. So I was like, I’ll do green, no one really does green. So, yeah, that was kind of the backstory behind that. Also I love monsters, like Creature from the Black Lagoon, Frankenstein, all that stuff, it’s such a monster color.”

On her first tattoo:

“My dad took me to get my first tattoo when I was 15, and it was the drama masks, the happy and sad, because I was super into theater, that was my first love, I wanted to be on Broadway. It took my mom some convincing to let me get a tattoo that young, but my dad was like, hell yeah! If your mom says yes, let’s go. I still have it. It’s here on my shoulder.”

On coming up with the name Shotzi:

“So I was in this musical when I was a junior in high school called Starmites, and I played Shotzi, who’s this evil Banshee, alien lady. And yeah, it just kind of stuck. Everyone called me Shotzi after I played that role, and I just took it with me. So I’ve been Shotzi since I was 16.”

On returning to Hood Slam:

“I think I’m just excited more than anything. I know the Hood Slam crowd is crazy. It’s just a wild party, and it always sells out, so I know they’re going to be hyped. I don’t know if they’ll know who I am, just because most of the Hood Slam crowd is just like college kids partying. It’s not truly wrestling fans, but I hope that some will remember me. It’s been like five years since I’ve been at Hood Slam.” 

On hosting Halloween Havoc:

“It’s crazy, because I didn’t even know that Halloween Havoc was coming back. I thought to myself, because I’m a huge Elvira fan, and she would show up at Halloween Havoc a bunch. I was like if I could just host a Halloween Havoc like Elvira, that would be chef’s kiss, that would just make my life, that’s all I need, and for it to happen in my first year at WWE was just crazy.” 

On the tank:

“So I found this Mini Tank at Walmart, and I bought it for the Indies. I used it only on a couple of shows, because obviously I can’t travel with that tank, I don’t have the buses that WWE does. So for local shows, I would come out in the tank. There were actually some indie promotions that were like, we bought one for our show, and they would bring me in, and I’d have a little tank there, but I sent Hunter a video of my little mini Walmart tank, and he was like, ‘Can you get it to Full Sail tomorrow?’ And I was like, Oh, yes. And I ordered an Uber XL to get this Mini Tank over to Full Sail.”

On whether the tank will make an appearance post-WWE?

“I’m still trying to get that tank back. Because Okay, so my little tank, they actually cut in half to make the bigger tank that you see on TV. So half of that is mine, which is the point that I made. I was like, ‘Can I have half of the tank, or maybe all of it?’ So, I mean, I’m willing to drive to Connecticut and get it out of the warehouse, if I have to.”

On her NXT injury:

“It was just kind of a freak accident. It’s not that far of a drop, and it was a move that I had done like a million times, and I just landed funky. I heard the pop. I felt it. It was painful to where your ears ring. But I think adrenaline kicked in a few seconds after that, and then I thought I was good, even though I heard the pop and it hurt really bad, I don’t know, I think when adrenaline kicked in, I was just like, ‘Wait, no, I’m fine. I can go. Please, let me go.’ But I had already told the ref that I heard the pop, and when he heard me say that, he was like, ‘Yeah, we can’t let you continue.’ I was like, ‘No, I’m really good, please let me just wrestle.'”

On her return from injury:

“At the time I came back, I kind of thought okay, I’ll probably be a surprise for Rumble. It was like December, so I figured, okay, they’re probably gonna wait for Rumble, and I just didn’t want to wait that long. I was like I’ve already been sitting at home for 10 months. I don’t want to wait any longer. So that’s when I asked if I could do some stuff at NXT. They were immediately like, yeah, absolutely, and I think I started that week.” 

On missed dream matches:

“Asuka was always a dream match of mine. I got to wrestle her on a bunch of live events, but never one on one on TV. So I would have loved to do something with her. Alexa Bliss I was always a huge fan of. I loved tagging with Charlotte. But I mean, more recently forming the group with Gigi and Tatum. I really loved working with those girls and I thought we would be the new chick DX. I was really in love with us.”

On her wedding and wrestling that night:

“That is something that I’m so grateful for that WWE let me do. So I got married in Vegas, and this was completely unplanned. We had been engaged for a few months, and we were planning a big wedding, and I got booked on a Vegas live event after the holidays. I turned to my husband, and I was like, ‘What if we just eloped in Vegas?’ He was like, ‘Yes! Absolutely, let’s do that.’ I’m so glad we did it, because it was so stress-free and so much fun. And then when we decided that we were gonna do that, I hit up Road Dogg. And I was like, ‘Hey, I’m getting married before the Vegas live event. Can I wrestle in my wedding dress and can we make it a whole thing?’ He was like, Absolutely. Road Dogg is so down for the fun stuff. So yeah, he was game on. That’s probably my favorite WWE memory.”

On hitting Baron Corbin with the tank:

“It actually took 30 takes. Corbin wanted it to be good. He was on a mission. So I was just like aiming, so ridiculous. It took so long. So he had to do that whole promo, and then boom. Then if it missed, then do that whole promo again and hit him. But even the last take he was not satisfied with. He just sold it really well. But I really appreciate that he cared so much that we got him in the balls that well.”

What is Shotzi grateful for?

“My community, my health and my creativity.” 

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James Storm (@JamesStormBrand) is an actor and professional wrestler best known for his time in TNA. He sits down with Chris Van Vliet at West Coast Creative Studio in Los Angeles to discuss his legendary TNA career, his partnerships with Chris Harris and Bobby Roode, becoming World Champion, being a part of the infamous blindfold steel cage match and reverse battle royal, the train track segment with Mickie James, why his time in WWE didn’t turn into more, making the transition to acting, when he plans on retiring and more!

James Storm and Chris Van Vliet star in “The Worst Man”, which is out in the fall

Quote I’m thinking about: “Count your age by friends, not years. Count your life by smiles, not tears.” ― John Lennon

On whether it is difficult paying his dues in another industry:

“Yeah, in a way it is, but also I had to learn to dumb it down a lot, especially in acting. Because in wrestling, you got to be loud and you got to make sure the people in the back row hear you, and that’s who you’re catering to. Whereas acting, you just have the camera and you have a microphone on you, so I had to be sure to reel it in a whole lot and just kind of tone it down.”

On how acting differs to cutting a wrestling promo:

“The funny thing is in wrestling, I’m “The Cowboy” James Storm, so it’s okay to have the southern accent and everything. Whereas in the movies, I’ve had to take dialect classes to kind of tone down the southern accent. But I’m learning now that a lot of these directors and movie people are going toward at least one character in their film with a southern accent, because it’s so desirable now, which is good for me.”

On his love of acting:

“I really wanted to find something that gives me that same adrenaline rush. Being in front of the camera, in front of five to ten thousand people to me now it’s the same as when I’m in front of five or ten people in a room. As soon as that director says action, it’s just something about being in front of that camera and that adrenaline rush. I think that’s what hurts a lot of wrestlers when they want to get out of wrestling, is they can’t find that thing that fills that desire of that adrenaline rush, because it is one of the craziest things ever. I tell people it’s a drug. Once you experience it, especially at a high level, it’s hard just to go to a nine-to-five job. It’s almost impossible.” 

Is that why you’re still doing it? 

“I think it is. It doesn’t matter if it’s in front of 30-50 people. When the music hits, it’s just something that kind of comes over you, and you just go out. To me, what I’ve learned and what Mr. Perfect taught me a long time ago. He goes, you’re going to learn as you get older in your career that it’s not about the wrestling moves, it’s about the emotions that you leave people with. Because people will remember that emotion that you left them with long after you’re gone. They won’t remember what moves you did in the match, but they will remember, oh man, it was awesome. That’s how I was as a kid when I went to the Nashville fairgrounds. My grandfather took me. I don’t remember anything else that night, but I remember Jerry Lawler picking up Tojo Yamamoto and let my grandfather hit him. I was seven years old, just the expression on my grandfather’s face, I’ll never forget it.”

So you’re still wrestling now? 

“Well, yeah, I call it wrestling [laughs]. But I enjoy it because now I’m getting to help teach these young guys. I don’t teach them how to wrestle. I try to teach them how to work. That’s why I try to tell a lot of guys is WWE and AEW and all these other promotions, they have people that can do every move you can think of doing. What they’re really focusing on now is people that really know how to work and relate to a crowd and stuff.” 

On his first break in wrestling being WCW:

“There was a guy named Bert Prentice that used to run in Nashville. I always tell everybody, I think he ran the best local indie promotion that’s ever been, because he had access to guys from OVW, and then also he had in with WCW as well. But also, when he was running Music City Wrestling, he had me, Chris Harris, AJ Styles would come up, David Young, Elix Skipper, and then also the Hardys would be there, Shane Helms, Shannon Moore, all these guys would come in. But then I was working, installing home security systems, and my boss came to him. He goes, ‘Hey, you might want to take this one, this guy’s a wrestler.’ I looked at it, and it said Ronald Harris on it. I was like, Huh? So I go to it and ring the doorbell, and Ron Harris opens the door. I’m like, oh man, it’s really him. So I go in and I install this alarm. But of course, after I get done, I do this dumb, rookie thing, ‘Hey, man, I’m training to be a pro wrestler too.’ He’s like, ‘Okay, kid. Hopefully we get to work together one day or whatever. It was three weeks later I wind up going up to WCW, and the first person I saw was Ron Harris, and he comes back, goes, ‘Alarm guy! You did it!’ So, yeah, that was kind of my big break. It was really cool. I remember going up there and I had to work Chavo, and everything was basically called in the back. I was not used to that, because in Nashville, we just call the finish, and then everything else was called out there. So you can’t see it in the match, but I actually had my spots written on my hand, because I was just like, there’s no way I’m gonna memorize all these lines, all these spots and stuff. But it winded up being a good match.”

On whether there was a possibility of signing with WWE after WCW closed:

“I heard rumblings about it, because they were also looking at AJ, because AJ was one of the guys that went up with us too, to WCW. It was me, Chris Harris, AJ, Cassidy Riley, and Air Paris, where Air Paris and AJ got signed as Air Raid at the time. Quick, funny story. So when the whole deal with me and this guy named Cassidy Riley, we were doing a paramedic gimmick on one of the WCW pay-per-views. It just happened to be the pay-per-view where Sid breaks his leg. So we’re sitting there, and we’re like, oh, that’s horrible. And the guys come back and start yelling at us, ‘Get out there! He broke his leg!’ We’re like, ‘We’re not real [paramedics]. I have no clue what I’m doing.’ They were just dog-cussing us, ‘Get the f out there! He broke his leg!’ Thank God the real paramedics finally came through. But that’s one of the stories I had there. But yeah, there were ramblings about it. But then TNA was starting up, and they were doing a dry run in Nashville at Bert Prentice’s show for their announcers. So Bert wanted to kind of get the best of best talent that he had to put on the show. It just so happens me and Chris Harris were working each other that night, and we actually got signed that night because of our match that we had at the Nashville fairgrounds for TNA. They had no clue what to do with us when they signed us as well.”

On an alternate timeline where he could have been working with WWE while at TNA:

“I mean, it would have been unbelievable, but that’s one of those things. Don’t ever ask what if? Just keep on moving.”

On Joe Hendry entering the Royal Rumble as TNA World Champion:

“I actually almost shed a tear. Because I was happy for Joe, but I was really happy for TNA. People can say whatever they want to say about oh, this was not a good look. No, it was a good look. It’s the biggest show of the year, and they have another company’s belt in shot.”

On wanting to be a tag team performer:

“I did, and it’s funny, because a lot of people want to be that big single star and have all the glory and stuff. But I grew up with the Rock N’ Roll Express and watching Demolition and The Road Warriors. So I always wanted to be a tag team wrestler, and there’s an art to it. If you can get two really good tag teams together, I think, especially with four guys, they can put on a way better match than just a singles match. But at that time in TNA, and a lot of times in WWE now, it seems like the tag teams are just a second thought. That was really good with Beer Money, we kind of brought tag team wrestling to the front because it was us, then the Machine Guns and LAX, and then you bring in Dudley Boyz, Team 3D as well, and it was just all these teams now coming together, and now we’re main eventing these pay-per -views and stuff.”

On being paired with Bobby Roode:

“We were coming to the end of our contracts, and I don’t think they really knew what to do with us. So Dutch, he was just like, ‘Just put them together. If anything, we fire them together.’ That’s how I got the Dutch was looking at it. So they put us together, and me and Bob was like, You know what? We’re gonna make the best of this. We’re gonna do what we can to it. The thing with Bobby is, whereas me and Chris had to rely on each other, me and Bobby was already kind of established, so we can just go out there and have fun and just act fools. So they had us as heels, and I made up some dumb merchandise that said Beer Money on it. So they slowly kept pushing the name Beer Money, but they were coming out with a toy line, so they didn’t want to put Beer Money on this toy line that was going to be in Walmart. Which I understand that.”

On where the name Beer Money came from:

“So we were at the Bell House in Orlando, and I’m sitting there, and so it’s like me and Eric and Bobby and somebody else. I’m sitting there, and I’m like, feeling around like, oh God. I said, Well, I’m out of beer money now. Me and Bobby go, let’s try it. Then I said, we got to come up with something so stupid that people will boo us every time we do it. So that’s why we came up with the Beer Money suplex. That is what actually made us over every time we set up for it and we do it, and we go ‘Beer!’ ‘Money!’ We knew we were over when we go to England and we’re facing the British Invasion, and we’re the babyfaces, we were supposed to be the heels, but we had this whole match set up, and when Nick and them come out, they just get booed out of the building. Nick goes, ‘All right, well, I guess you guys are babyfaces now, we’ll take the roles on the heel.’ That’s when we knew that we were over.” 

On becoming TNA World Champion

“It was great. A lot of the stuff leading up to it kind of went off course or whatever. Because I beat him, and then the next week I lost it to Bobby, which is fine, because Bobby was going on this big heel run, and then I was supposed to beat him in Arizona in a hardcore match that we were having as well. So the night before he wrestles Kurt and loses, and they didn’t tell him until that day, I believe. They didn’t tell him that Kurt was going to keep the belt, and they didn’t tell me that I was winning the belt until about an hour before we were supposed to go out. So I had this huge match planned with Kurt. It was really cool, because he believed in me enough to put a match together, which was really cool. This is awesome. Then about an hour he came to me and goes, ‘Hey, man. My hamstring is messed up really bad. I can’t really…’ I was like, ‘Hey, man, no problem, we take it easy.’ He goes, ‘How about we do this instead? How about I go out there and just beat you up for a little bit? Then you kick me out of nowhere, and then you take the rest of the time to do you. You’ve earned this spot to go out and celebrate. You do whatever you want to do.’ So when I beat him, I roll over, and I said, thank you very much. He said, ‘Quit laying there, get up and celebrate.’ Yes, sir. So, I mean, it was really cool. I did a lot of driving with him and stuff, and just learned stuff from him. I always say I’ve been very fortunate, because I’ve been able to learn from Dusty Rhodes, Curt Hennig and Kurt Angle.”

On using the Superkick as his finisher:

“When I went to NXT the first time, they had me use a different finisher. Then my second match there, Hunter was like, ‘Hey, what do you want to use?’ I said, Well, my super kick. He goes, ‘Well, everybody uses a Super Kick.’ I looked at him, and I said, ‘Hey man, that’s fine. They knock people down with their Super Kick. I knock people out.’ He goes, ‘All right, you can use it.’ I got to use it in my second match, and then I was going to use it there going forward and everything. It’s fine if people want to use it as a spot, but because that makes mine look all that more devastating, because I actually beat people with mine, especially if you do it right and make it look good.”

On the blindfold steel cage match:

“Oh, man, me and Chris were in this big feud. I was supposed to have put his eye out and everything. So they’re like to even the field, you should have to see like he does, and be in a blindfold match. This isn’t 80s no more. That match is so hard to pull off, especially in those times, even today. I was just like all right, well if that’s what you want to do. Then I was like, Wait, this is inside of an electrified cage too? There’s so many gimmicks going on in here. But thank God the cage wasn’t on when we did it. But it wasn’t until like 30 minutes before our match started that they realized that they didn’t have the blindfolds, so they ran to somewhere and just got two black bags and just put them over our heads that didn’t have draw strings or anything, so they keep falling off. There’s a point in the match when I look at Chris and I said, ‘No, to hell with this, we’re taking it home.’ He’s like, really? I was like, yep. I think it was the beer bottle and for the finish or whatever. I was like, we’re going home. I got to the back, and to his credit, Vince Russo, he was standing right there, he knew it too, and I just lit into him. He goes, ‘I am so sorry, blah, blah, blah. I understand if you want to punch me.’ I said, ‘Oh, I’m not going to punch you. I want to.’ He goes, ‘To make it up, I’ll let you do any match that you want to do.’ And then that’s when we did the Texas death match.”

On getting in trouble during the Hogan/Bischoff era:

“I remember I got in trouble. I got fined. Of course, I got fined so many times, just because I did a promo where I was saying, ‘The days of someone coming out here and talking for 30 minutes and taking up time for the younger generation is over. These people are paying to see the people that have brought this company to the forefront’ and all this. I remember Bischoff calling me. He’s like, ‘Why would you say that?’ Blah, blah, blah. I’m like, ‘Well, you asked me to speak from the heart, this is what I believe. This is what all of us kind of built this company on, is priding ourselves going out there and working.’ Then when I start seeing Hogan not really plugging TNA, when he would do these talk shows and everything, he would talk about everything else, except for TNA wrestling, it’s like, that’s what they’re paying you all this money for? So that’s when I was just like, all right, this is not good.”

On why never signed with WWE:

“Man, it was a lot. Mostly had to do with my family. Had a little bit to do with money, which is not like they didn’t pay him a lot of money, so he’s not coming. It wasn’t like that at all. They gave me a contract, I went home and I got a call from Regal. He goes, ‘Hey, we definitely want to sign you.’ I was like, Oh, great. So I was going to sign the contract and all that stuff, and then he asked me, ‘Can you tighten up a little bit? Lose a little weight?’ I was like, Yeah. I busted my ass and I lost 20 pounds. I got in really good shape when I got back down there. Everybody’s like, Oh, my God, you look totally different. Because I always tell people, you give a man motivation, he’ll work his ass off if. So I did it, and then when I got down there, the contract had changed. They added 25 more dates, but the money didn’t move. I even told him TNA had offered me another contract to come back because they heard about me wanting to sign with WWE. I said, ‘Look, this is what TNA is offering me. I’m not trying to hold this over your head at all, because you don’t have to match this at all. I’m just saying this is what I’m willing to give up to come and work for this, but it has to be right.’ Because my wife, she wanted to have another child at the time, but she had to take the shots and all this stuff, so I was basically kind of giving that up as well, because I was going to be on the road a lot. We came to an agreement, and she was like, ‘Well, if they can just give you this, then you have my blessing to sign.’ Hunter is like, ‘I just can’t do it.’ I was just like, ‘All right, well, I’m sorry, my wife gave me permission not to sign, so I’m going home.’ Three days later, Canon Ceman called me. He goes, ‘Hey, man. Paul wants to know if he can call you.’ I was like, ‘What? Hunter?’ He goes yeah. I go, ‘He has my phone number. I just talked to him not too long ago.’ He goes, ‘Well, since you’re not signed, we had to go through the proper channels, and I had to make sure, you’re on a recorded line.’ I was like, whatever, yeah, he can call me. So he called me and I talked and he’s like, ‘Look, you’re not gonna be here long, because Vince loves characters and you know how to work, so you’ll probably be shipped off real quick.’ I was like, ‘Well, can you give what I was asking?’ And like I said, it was not much at all, and he’s like, ‘No, I just don’t have the authority to do that.’ I was like, ‘I’m sorry, man. I’m gonna have to say no.'” 

Was that a tough decision? 

“That was the hardest phone call I think I’ve ever had to get off the phone with a man. Usually I just hang up the phone. I was like, oh, man. Am I making the right decision? But in hindsight, I didn’t know at the time, but it was the right decision for me and my family at that time, because I was able to have my son that’s eight years old now, and everything. So I can’t imagine what if I would have taken that.”

On the Mickie James train angle:

“The funny thing was, a lot of people don’t know it, I actually had cops come to my house to make sure, they thought it was legit. My brother, who was a detective at the time, he called me. He goes, ‘Hey, man, did you kill somebody on TV?’ I was like, bro, it’s wrestling. He goes, ‘That’s what I try to tell him.’ But there was this cop that had just started on the beat with him, so he was messing with him. He had that guy come to my door and ring the doorbell and ask me about all this stuff, and my brother sitting in a car just laughing his butt off. So I had to bring the cop in and put the episode on and show him it’s part of a wrestling angle. I was trying to, me and Mickie and Nick, all three of us are trying to tell John this is not a good idea to murder somebody on TV. I came up with a plan of having a flash of me, this is what would happen if she wouldn’t agree with me, like, I would push her off and she would die, you know, but they didn’t like that idea. I was like, All right, well, I guess I’m pushing her.” 

On his Elevation X match with Rhyno:

“I hate heights, and Rhyno didn’t like it either, and they wanted me to take this big bump. They wanted me to take the gore and basically him hit me and me just go right off of it and land onto the mat. I said no, that’s not going to happen. I said, I’ll do something where I’m hanging or something, and either I can go through a table or I can just hit the ground or something, but I’m not just taking a bump and just going backwards off of it, and I think they got kind of upset with me but I told them, I’m not doing it. And so we wound up setting up a table, and I wound up going through the table and everything.”

On his TNA Mount Rushmore:

“Jeff Jarrett. AJ Styles, of course. People can say, and this is just me talking. I hate to put myself on there, but as the tag team, because I always look at Mount Rushmore as like, there should be people from different parts of the company, not just like all singles wrestlers. I look at me as like, I helped carry the Tag Team division in TNA, especially during the startup years and everything. I’d put Jeff Hardy on there, because he came in very early. A lot of people say Kurt, but I’m looking at guys who helped build the company before the Kurts and Samoa Joe and all these other guys were in there.”

What is James Storm grateful for?

“My wife, my kids and wrestling fans.”

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Snitsky (@therealsnitsky) is a professional wrestler best known for his time in WWE. He sits down with Chris Van Vliet in Indianapolis, IN to discuss his memorable WWE debut angle with Kane and how it led to further appearances, punting a baby on Raw and how that has become part of his legacy, his shaved look in ECW, the foot fetish storyline, the brutal Paul London Royal Rumble elimination, his recent appearance on WWE Raw with Chelsea Green, what he is doing now, if he has stopped wrestling and more!

Quote I’m thinking about: “I’m a great believer in luck, and I find the harder I work, the more I have of it” – Thomas Jefferson

On having an emergency landing on his way to the convention:

“I had an interesting trip, basically a two-hour flight from Philly to Indianapolis turned into a whole day of hoping that I make it to Indianapolis alive, because we had a fire emergency landing in Pittsburgh. That’s the last thing you really want to hear when you’re flying somewhere. I was actually watching Varsity Blues, the movie. I have my headphones on just chilling. I can see the stewardess doing these brace for impact things. I’m like, they don’t usually do that. So I pulled my earphone. They’re like, Oh, we may be having a crash landing and blah, blah, blah. I’m like, what? So, your mind starts racing, it was crazy, dude. Never in all my life I thought I’d be in that situation on a little two-hour flight. We literally took off from Philly, emergency landed in Pittsburgh. I texted my wife, she’s a mess.” 

On what could have happened if he didn’t get injured playing football:

“Well hindsight is always 2020. I mean, I considered myself an elite athlete at the time. I was playing offensive tackle, I went to NFL combines, the whole nine yards. I was moving pretty good. I played a lot of basketball, so I always had good feet, and actually got a lot of Division One offers for basketball too. But I figured with my size, six-six, have a better chance of going pro football and pro basketball because I played in the Keystone State Games. I was a starting center for the Northeast region of Pennsylvania, believe it or not, as a six-six white guy. So I could hoop. I was always really good at basketball. Just came natural. I was always good at basketball and baseball and football, but I always wanted to be a professional athlete, so I was like, well I’ll stick with football. It’s my best chance. But I mean, not to sound arrogant or anything, but I could have probably went pro in all the sports, because I was pretty good. I just got inducted into the Pennsylvania Sports Hall of Fame in 2018.”

On getting to WWE:

“So like I said, I trained at the Wild Samoan person Training Center in Allentown. Pops, Afa, was my mentor. He brought me up to Wilkes Barre at the time for a house show, myself and another gentleman had a dark match. Tommy Suede, he was also training at the Samoans, and him and I had our dark match. That was October of 2003. May of 2004, Johnny Ace called me and he’s like, ‘Hey, we’re going to bring you in. We’re gonna have you move to Louisville…’ Blah, blah, blah. I was literally sitting in my underwear and I was like, Ah! I’m running around the house in my underwear. My mom’s like, ‘What the hell is wrong with you?’ I’m like, ‘I just got signed!’ It’s like winning the lottery. It’s crazy. I can still vividly see it in my head, sitting there in my underwear on the phone with Johnny, and running down the steps and around the house. So then June, I moved to Louisville. Started Louisville as Mean Gene Mondo. I was Mike Mondo’s little brother, and we did a gimmick together. Then just one day, Fit Finley came down to OVW on a Wednesday and worked me in the ring. I wrestled probably 30 matches that day. One as a heel, as a baby, work the arm, work the shoulder, work the neck, every single scenario you could think of I had a match to show Fit what I could do. So Fit, I guess, apparently liked what he saw, went back to the office and gave me the thumbs up. That weekend, Howard, the awesome Howard Finkel, called me and told me I’d be traveling to Seattle. I was like, sweet. I didn’t know what I’d be doing. I had no idea. They just told me I needed to be at T,V so that’s what I did. I went to TV, hung out at catering, waited till somebody came to get me. Dean Malenko came over, and he’s like, ‘Vince needs you at the ring.’ I’m like, Okay. Go out, it’s kind of cool. So it’s me, Lita, Kane, Vince, the producers. We’re walking through this scenario, the match, and blah, blah, blah. ‘Then you’re going to hit him with a chair. He’s going on Lita, she’s going to miscarry.’ I’m not thinking anything of it. I’m happy to be there. I’m like, This is great.”  

On whether the appearance was supposed to be a one-off:

“They never came out and told me that. But in the past tense, that’s what I had heard. But it probably was because the next week I’m at training and we’re doing our drills. Tommy Dreamer is like, ‘Hey, Vince just called. They’re wondering where you’re at.’ I think he’s ribbing me. Why the f*ck would Vince want to be calling looking for me like, that’s what I’m thinking. He’s like, ‘No, you got to get to Raw.’ I’m like, Yeah, okay, so I’m still doing [drills]. He’s finally come up to the ring. He’s like, ‘You have to go.’ I’m like, ‘Are you f*cking ribbing me?’ He’s like, ‘No, you got to get to the airport.’ I’m like, Okay. So I go. We’re staying at this hotel, I shot back to my room, got all my sh*t together, and I’m literally through the airport running. I’m soaked through my clothes. I get to the door, and they’re starting to close the door. I’m like, I gotta get on that flight! So I get on that flight, which I got all sweated for nothing because I ran there. Get on that flight, that flight’s delayed, so we’re sitting there. I’m soaked through my clothes. I’m like, I’m not going to make my connection, so I’m calling the office, ‘Hey, I don’t think I’m going to make my connection in Dallas.’ They’re like, ‘Okay, well, call us when you get there.’ I’m like, Alright, I get to Dallas. I call them, missed the connection. They’re like, take the shuttle over to the private jet area, they’re going to fly the WWE corporate jet to get you. I was like, sweet. I’m glad I missed the flight. Here comes the WWE jet.” 

They sent the jet just for you?

“I don’t know if somebody got fired over that, but it was a very costly mistake for not getting my travel that week. But yeah, so I get on the WWE corporate jet, Dave Lagana was the agent they sent to get me. So he’s going over all the stuff we’re going to do, blah, blah, blah. So I ultimately get to Arizona, and I just do an interview with JR, and that’s kind of where the catch phrase started. Because he was like, ‘You’re in a ring, don’t you feel bad that Lita lost her baby?’ I’m like, ‘No, it’s not my fault she was in there. She shouldn’t have been in the ring.’ Literally, that’s just off the top of my head. [It wasn’t written?] No. And then that just took off. Stephanie came to me the next week. She’s like, ‘We’re gonna have you cut a promo every time before you do a match and always say “It’s not your fault.”‘ I’m like, okay. That’s literally how it started. It’s crazy. Now every day of my life, I get it at least 10 times a day. I wish I had $1 every time I heard it. Seriously, at the shop, people will come, ”It’s not my fault.’ So it just kind of took a life of its own.” 

On punting a baby:

“Well, here’s the thing, going back to like I was saying about football and all that, I was actually an all area punter my junior year of high school. I averaged like 37 yards as a junior in high school, so I had always had the leg to do it. And ironically, all these years later, that’s one of the things I’m known for. It’s kind of funny.”

Did they know this when they were setting it up?

“No, like I said, I sat in catering and just waited for somebody to come and get me. Dean Malenko came and got me and said, they need you to ring for the first shot. But when we were doing a baby thing, Vince was there as well with that. A little bit of a funny story, we’re walking through it, Vince was like, ‘Then you’re going to kick the baby into the crowd.’ I’m like, Cool. I’m thinking to myself, I’m going to try to kick it as high as I could to hit the Tron thing up top. Then they give me the baby. I’m like, man, it’s gonna be kind of hard to do. Have you ever tried to kick a baby? It’s not easy.

You think it shouldn’t be that hard, but it’s actually pretty hard to kick a baby, though. But anyways, so in my head, I’m thinking I’m gonna whack this sh*t out of this thing. I’m gonna kick it as high as I can. And then Vince is like, ‘Whatever you do, don’t miss the baby. Make sure you kick it.’ I’m like, ‘Listen, Mr. McMahon, I was already a punter in high school. This is gonna be f*cking amazing.’ And he just looked at me and just left it at that. Then we went out. We did it in the whole spiel, and then back through the curtain, he gives me a big hug, he’s like, that was great. I’m like, I told you. I don’t have a confidence issue. I’m pretty confident in my ability, so I knew it was gonna be great.”

On whether the fan might still have the baby:

“If you watch the footage back, I’m kind of giving Lita the evil eye, and I kind of go like this. He threw it back at me, and it skimmed right over top my head, so he didn’t like it.” 

On the baby punting being part of his legacy:

“I don’t really know how to respond to that. When I got into wrestling, I never in a million years would have thought that whole storyline, just being thrown into it, because I had never done a dark match. Nobody knew who I was. I was just there, and then all of a sudden I’m the biggest heel on the show. It’s crazy, literally that quick.” 

On his foot fetish storyline:

“Well in real life, I like ladies’ feet. It’s funny because my wife, when we first got together, I was like, you gotta take your shoes off. I have to see your feet, because there will not be a second date if you have ugly feet. I get right to the point, there’s no beating around the bush. I’m not going to stay with somebody who has ugly feet.”

On how it made it to WWE TV:

“I went right to Vince, because they were like, come to us with ideas, come to us with storylines. I know Vince, he’s kind of off the wall. He’s a little wacky. So I was like, Yeah, I’m gonna tell him about the foot fetish and see if we can incorporate it in the characters. I was like, ‘Mr. McMahon, I got this idea.’ Told him my idea and in a second, he’s like, That’s great. We’ll do it. Literally, that quick. So that’s kind of how that started, just trying to be different, trying to stand out a little bit. Because at the time, it was just kind of like a revolving door. Guys were coming and going. I mean, I was there for five years, but I saw a lot of guys come and go. So just to differentiate, and the baby thing was kind of off the wall. So let’s keep it going. Then I did the tag team thing with Goldust for a while where, like all the oddities and all that kind of stuff, got the suck Mae Young’s toes at WrestleMania. She loved it.”

On his shaved look in ECW:

“It wasn’t really pitched. It’s kind of weird. I’m out at the ring, working out, and Vince was on the way over. I’m like, ‘Hey Mr. McMahon.’ And he’s like, ‘Hey, go home and shave all your hair off, even your eyebrows, and go over to the makeup lady and see if she could get something to make her teeth look nasty.’ I’m like, Okay. I wasn’t feeling it, but you don’t tell Vince McMahon no.”

There’s no explanation for this?

“No. I guess maybe because of the ECW thing coming up, and he knew they were going to be drafting me to the ECW, that’s the only thing I can think of. Because I got a whole new character. I got a new action figure, whole nine yards. So I was like I’ll go with it. But I literally had to dry paint the sh*t on my teeth every night.”

On the segment with Heidenreich:

“I don’t know. They came to me, you got this segment with Heidenreich. I’m like, sweet. Paul [Heyman] was with Heidenreich at the time, and we’re going towards the angle with me and him and Glenn and Mark and, I don’t even know, it just turned into this creepy homoerotic sh*t, but it got the point across. It did what we wanted to do. I didn’t think anything of it, but watching it back, I’m like, That’s kind of creepy, but that’s what we were going for so but it’s funny, because he’s like, ‘I like what you do to babies.’ I’m like, ‘I like your poetry.’ This is funny, though. And then the poem I did for Edge and Lita’s wedding, that was pretty good, too. [Do you still remember it?] Oh yeah, most of it. But another funny story with Vince, they get me this tuxedo to wear. So I’m like, Well I can’t just wear a tuxedo that’s too plain. So I rip the arms off it. They’re like, well, we have to clear it with Vince. I’m like, okay. So we go in, and it was a rental but he’s like, okay, so off with the sleeves. There goes the rentals. So I don’t know what that ended up costing the company, but it was pretty funny, because it was a rental tux and they cut the rental sleeves.”

On the Paul London Royal Rumble elimination:

“I dare say it’s the top elimination ever, in my opinion. Not because I was involved in it, but because just the crowd reaction, the bump. All things taken into consideration, I don’t think anything else really matches it. So Paul and I, he took me off to the side, I’m like, ‘Hey, what do you want to do?’ [He said] ‘Well, you know, this, this and this, let’s try this…’ and then it evolved into that. And he’s like, ‘Well, just clothesline me’, because I wanted to somehow to make it impactful. He’s like, ‘Why don’t you just clothesline me off the apron?’ I’m like, ‘Okay, well, how do you want to do it?’ He’s like, ‘Well, I’ll miss something, and then just hit me and I’ll flip off the apron.’ I’m like, ‘Sweet, but I’m going to have to clothesline you hard, pretty much in the face to get the momentum.’ Because if I was lower, he wouldn’t have room to flip. So I had to hit him high so he could get up and still rotate. So it’s almost like physics, I dare say. So I was like, ‘Well, it’s gonna be probably in the face or the throat area or the head.’ And he was like, fine. I f*cking crammed him, dude. I ain’t gonna lie, I hit him hard! But that f*cking bump. The crowd, they thought he was dead. It looked unplanned, that’s how vicious it looked as a fan watching it. Even watching it back, I still Ooh, because it’s like, if you slow it down and see where I hit him, I hit him square right where your nose meets your forehead, and I f*cking hit him. He took it like a champ. He’s awesome. Paul’s great. Another guy they could have done so much more with. I always loved working with Paul. But yeah, that was pretty awesome, even all these years later, looking back on it, because that was 2005, 20 years ago.”

On whether he is done wrestling:

“No, I still wrestle here and there. I just got stem cell shots in my knee though, on March 29. I’ve been dealing with a little bit of a meniscus issue. So I went down to the great people at Lifemed Institute in Maryland, and they gave me an injection with that and did some vitamin infusion with the wife. It’s freaking amazing, that stuff. I don’t know the science behind it but I’ve had the best freaking workouts the last few weeks since I went down there.”

On his recent cameo with Chelsea Green:

“It just happened. Daivari is one of my best friends. I traveled with him at WWE. He’s one of the road agents now. So he was like, ‘Hey, are you stopping by the Wilkes Barre show?’ I’m like, ‘Well, I wasn’t planning to, are you going to be there?’ He’s like, Yeah. I said, alright, we’ll take a ride up. So me and my wife took a ride up, and we’re just sitting and catering with Daivari, John Cohen comes up to me, he’s like, ‘Hey, they have an idea for a backstage segment with Chelsea Green.’ I was like, Oh, cool. I’ve known Chelsea forever, plus I think she’s awesome, the character is great. So I was like, hell yeah, I’ll do it. And then literally one take, and that was it, it was crazy. She’s just so good. It’s funny, just trying to stay in character is half the battle sometimes, because it was funny.”

On some fans thinking that the baby that was punted was real:

“There were a lot of people who thought that the baby was a real baby. I don’t want to by any means talk down about wrestling fans, but there is a small majority of them that see things on TV and whatever they see, they think is real. I’m telling you, as I’m sitting here right now with this amazing beard and ruggedly handsome good looks, I’m telling you, it’s crazy. I’m just like, this TV show is fake. We’re not kicking real babies.” 

What is Gene Snitsky grateful for:

“My health, my wife and still having my mom.”

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Kacy Catanzaro (@KacyCatanzaro) is a professional wrestler best known for her time in WWE as Katana Chance. She sits down with Chris Van Vliet at West Coast Creative Studio in Los Angeles to discuss her WWE release and what’s next, her rise in popularity after competing on American Ninja Warrior, having her first WWE matches against Raquel Rodriguez and Rhea Ripley, her viral Royal Rumble save, the back injury that nearly brought her pro wrestling career to an end, getting paired up with Kayden Carter, breaking her nose twice in the ring and more!

Quote I’m thinking about: “Hard work beats talent when talent doesn’t work hard.” — Tim Notke

On being in WWE for 8 years:

“It’s funny. I always say that there was something, I don’t know that I’ll be able to explain it well. But no matter how long I was in wrestling, I always felt like no matter what, I was the newer person there. Because I had never wrestled before, when I walked into the Performance Center, I’d never wrestled. No matter how long I was at the PC or in the company, I always felt like wherever I was I’m still the newer person here, even though it had been almost a decade that I worked there. It’s hard, I just could never shake that feeling.”

Was that a beginner’s mentality or having trouble picking it up?

“I think an in-between. Not so much trouble picking it up, as much as it was trouble feeling like I belonged there, I think. No matter how much work I put in, or I felt like I’m doing what I’m supposed to, I’ve been here, I’m putting the work in. In a room, I still always felt like I don’t know if I’m supposed to be here. I just always felt a little bit out of place, I guess. That might be a deeper thing to explain, that maybe I’m not sure how to. But yeah, I never fully felt like, okay, I belong here right now.”

On going into the PC with no wrestling experience and how things have changed:

“Yes, 1,000,000%. When I got to the Performance Center eight years ago, it was very rare. Just to give you an example of who I started with, who was in my class. I walked in with Candice LeRae. At that time, I think she had been wrestling for over 10 years. War Raiders was in my group. People who their entire life, for a decade, had already been wrestling, and then it was me. At the time, yes, there were obviously people who were home made at the Performance Center, but it was very, very rare. So I felt very out of place, and very much like, ‘Why is this person here?’ Because it’s also such a sacred thing, which I understand. When you know you want to be a wrestler your whole life, then you work really hard, specifically at wrestling to get there, I understand why it’s so sacred. With my journey being different, I felt like really, really stuck out in that time of how it was compared to now.”

On her first matches being against Raquel Rodriguez and Rhea Ripley:

“Yeah, on the Mae Young Classic, that was my first TV match. So that’s wild. Actually, I talk a lot about my first matches with Raquel, because she has such a special place in my heart, and she was my very first match on a live event as well. So my first match outside of practice was with her, and then my first match on TV for the Mae Young Classic was with her. So we always talk about how important that was to me, and how good she was to me, she didn’t have to be. So those matches always have, like, a very special place in my heart. And obviously, Rhea as well.” 

On being a legend in American Ninja Warrior:

“I’m very, very grateful to have that. I feel like it’s something very special to me to have done that, and sometimes I kind of forget about it. I feel like when I’m going through some rougher times, like I said, it feels like different lives. So sometimes I forget about that, and it’s good to look back and be like, I put really hard work in and I made a difference. I feel like that’s my main goal to inspire people to make a difference, kind of that you can overcome anything. I’m a lot smaller than most people, so that was a huge thing with American Ninja Warrior and in wrestling as well. So I feel like having that little reminder sometimes is nice.”

On no longer being with WWE:

“I think at first I thought that I was in shock and not able to process it, because I feel like when you work there, there is a joke of you could literally be fired at any time. We’re nervous about it often. Not like I’m sitting there upset every day. But enough that someone will make a random joke every now and then like oh, something happened. Well, what if we get fired? It is in the back of your mind because it does happen, and you know how the business works. But I actually was very surprised. It wasn’t on my radar. Then as I was telling the story of kind of how it led up to it, at first I was like, Yeah, I really didn’t have any notice. Then as I told the story, I was like wait, maybe I could have taken some of those as signs that something could have been coming. But also things change so often. If every time something got pushed, or every time we didn’t travel I went into a spiral thinking that we were gonna get fired, I wouldn’t have enjoyed my time. So I feel like I was surprised. It was a shock, but I had been there for so many years that I think that’s normal. So now I’m just working on really letting myself process it and kind of feel everything, figure out how I feel. So I’m not really sure. I’m bummed because I know that I have a lot more potential that I could have shown that I didn’t get to. But if I think about it, I could really say that about anything I’ve done. There is no top, there’s always more you can do. So I think I will come to terms with that. It’s just you kind of have to grieve it, appreciate it, be grateful. Be okay that it’s sad and then be kind of excited for whatever’s gonna come next.”

On whether she still wants to wrestle:

“That’s a good question. I’m not sure. I’m gonna say I’m not sure, because it could go either way. I feel like most people, they know right away. The second it happens, they’re like, Okay, I’m doing this. I think part of it is because I didn’t wrestle beforehand. I never got those experiences that people who did are like, Okay, I’m gonna go back to that. I know that I wanna do that. For me, I feel like my whole adult life I’ve always really gone right from one challenge to the next. I did gymnastics for four years. I had a scholarship. I couldn’t really do anything else. I was really locked in. Right after I graduated, I went to American Ninja Warrior for five years. I was in contracts with them each season, which WWE took me right from there. I didn’t have any in between. I had to choose to leave, to go there. So eight years there, now I’m like, I really have never not been in a contract, and just thought what does Kacy want to do? And so I think that takes more than a week or two. I’m hoping it’s not just me that can’t figure it out, but I think it’s a really important question to ask myself and figure out. I know the core of things that I’m passionate about, but I think just what direction that’s gonna take me is gonna maybe take a little time.” 

On signs that the release may have been coming:

“So I didn’t realize there were clues until I was explaining how the last few weeks went, and then I was like, Okay, maybe? So we got moved from Raw to SmackDown in the switch-ups. So it wasn’t like a draft, but people were getting moved around. I’m like, Okay, well you always kind of have to take both sides. Everything that happens can feel like it’s a bad thing, and then I just won’t survive that way. So then I always have to try and make it positive. So we got moved from Raw to SmackDown. Originally, you’re like oh man, Raw just got moved to Netflix. That’s really big and now they’re taking us off of it. Is that bad? But then people are like, well, there’s more time on SmackDown, we want more storylines for you guys. Cool, that’s believable. I love that. So we get to SmackDown, there’s a big pay-per-view coming up, so the stories are all kind of already happening for the pay-per-view for the next two weeks. So we’re like, okay, we’re not doing anything yet. Again, makes sense. That’s how things happen. That totally makes sense. So then the pay-per-view passes. Now it’s another month or so, we’re pitching stuff. We’re pitching all the angles, sending storylines in, trying to get in. We’re trying to fit into what’s already happening, trying to pitch off the wall stuff that could be cool and different, whatever. So as it gets closer, now we’re getting to Mania season. So now it’s like a month before WrestleMania. We’re like, okay, I know that if something that we’re doing isn’t in WrestleMania, anything can happen, because everything has to lead up to that. Times get changed and stories need more time or get changed. So we were supposed to be leading to this six-woman tag with me, Lacey [Kayden Carter] and Zelina against Chelsea, Piper and Alba. So we’re like, okay, cool, it’ll be some tag stuff, some single stuff. This will be great. They start having their singles matches, which is supposed to lead to a tag, which is supposed to lead this, whatever. Things keep changing where it just keeps getting pushed. So they had a singles. The next week was supposed to be the six woman, then it didn’t happen. We were like, Oh, well will there be a backstage? But then it didn’t happen. Zelina had something, and we’re like, Oh, are we gonna be there with her? And they were like, no, no, we’re just gonna do this first. Then it was the week of WrestleMania and it was supposed to happen, and then the day before it got pushed. We were like, Okay, again, it’s WrestleMania weekend. Of course something more important having to do with the show happened. Not very weird. Move on.

Now we’re post WrestleMania, and there was a charity event that I do often with someone who has worked with NXT and with WWE. It wasn’t a WWE event, but they would let us go there. We weren’t signing anything. It was just for a good cause. I’ve done it for years, and one of the NXT girls that was invited had messaged me and said something to the effect of I can’t do it, and they’ll let me know why soon. I was like, sounds weird, but people are weird. Who knows? My boyfriend says, I wonder if it’s because they’re gonna do releases. I was like, but that wouldn’t really make sense because it’s not a WWE event, so they wouldn’t care. It wasn’t being posted anywhere, it was just for a good cause. I’m like, that’s weird. Then the person doing the charity event messaged me and said another wrestler was like, Oh, I wonder if releases are happening. I’m like, Okay, two people is weird. I actually made a joke to my boyfriend when he said it. I was like, if I get released, will you still love me? You know how girls are crazy? And he was like yes, of course. But I only made that joke because I didn’t actually think that it was happening. Then another joke is, if you get a 203 number because it’s a Connecticut area code, you’re in trouble. We didn’t travel that week, another sign. But I was like, Okay, we don’t have a story yet. No big deal. 

So I’m working out in my garage, and I get a phone call, and it’s not a 203 number so I ignore it because I’m working out. Then it calls again. You know how sometimes it’s like, might be this person? It called a second time, and I was like, Okay. I look and it said, might be so and so. I was like, oh, no. I knew right away. I picked up the phone, and I was like, hello? Then I was like, Oh, this is it. I’ve thought about that moment so many times that when it happened, I felt like I wasn’t in my body. I was on the phone answering and then when I hung up, I was like, I feel like I should have said more or asked more questions. I think I was just like, okay, okay, bye. It’s such a weird feeling. So at the moment, I had no idea. Then as I retell the story, I’m like I was trying not to be like, negative and nervous. But as I say it, I’m like, okay, these were probably signs.”

On her 2019 back injury:

“I don’t really ever talk about this, but there was a time back in 2019. I had started in 2018, I was about a year or so in. I had just done my first Royal Rumble in 2019, and I had a back injury from that. I was struggling with this injury. It was kind of the most serious injury I had had since being there. Also, the Performance Center was mentally very, very tough at that point for me. So there was a period where I was dealing with this injury and really like, can I come back from this? The injury wasn’t that serious that I wouldn’t be able to come back, but in my head, I was like do I really want to do this? And kind of having this crisis about it, is this something I’m going to continue to do? I was open about that with my job, and they were very supportive about it. They were like, We want you to heal, we want you to come back, and we want you to be here, it’s important to us. So when the big releases were happening in COVID, I was like, they’re gonna let me go. Because I wasn’t sure if I could do it. I didn’t know if I would be good enough, or if I could survive, or I was having these doubts, so I really thought they’re gonna let me go because they’re letting people go that wanted to be here and I didn’t know if I could. I’ll always be very grateful for that, that they believed in me and they stuck with me even when I was having these struggles. So those big releases are always very, very scary. So when it comes down to it, I’m so grateful to have survived so many of those. To think about it in a weird way that, yes, it’s sad. But also, again, trying to spin things and not live in the negative. Yes, I wish I had done more. I wish I had been able to show things, but I was with WWE for eight years, that is the dream. That is a huge accomplishment, something that a very small percentage of the world gets to say that they’re doing. So whenever I start thinking about that, I try to lean more towards I am just so grateful I was there and I did that, and it’s another section of my life story, if that makes sense.” 

On the moment that changed things:

“I want to try to explain it correctly. I was struggling mentally, really struggling at the Performance Center, going back to what I said earlier, really feeling out of place, which just imagine if eight years later I feel that, how much I felt it one year in, and it being that different environment. So I really was struggling with that, and when I started to get physically better from this injury, I really had to make this choice of I either need to be all in and do this or not, I decided that I needed to change my mentality in order to succeed there. So with feeling out of place or feeling like I didn’t belong or I wasn’t good enough because I didn’t come from wrestling, I could either let that eat me up and essentially let me not accomplish this goal, or I can let let the feeling suck, feel that and not live in it and realize okay, I can have these insecurities, and this might be a rough road to go through, but I want to accomplish this, and I want to work hard enough to prove that I can do it, prove people wrong, prove myself wrong even, and go after it. I feel like once I told myself I was going to do this mental switch, I knew that if it didn’t work out, I would be okay that it didn’t work out, because then that meant that I really gave everything, and it would be okay if it wasn’t for me.” 

On getting scouted by WWE:

“So it’s funny. After my American Ninja Warrior run, I don’t know if I’m gonna say this title correctly, but it was something like Sports Illustrated’s 50 fittest women athletes, something like that. They do a list, and I was on that list after American Ninja Warrior and WWE, I guess, had seen it and called me and asked me to be on Tough Enough.“

On Royal Rumble 2019:

“That was really, really cool. I had only been at the Performance Center for a year at that time, and there was about five or six of us from NXT that got to go and do the Royal Rumble. So that was my first really huge thing. I really wasn’t even doing NXT TV at the time. Honestly, I didn’t have much experience. So the Royal Rumble was, I remember, when my number got called and I walked out, I think I actually did a full spin. When I walked out, I looked around, and then I was like, Okay, you need to go. I almost forgot where I was. I was in such awe of the arena and how many people were there, and the excitement and the energy. I was like, oh my god, this is what people feel like. This is why people love this. I hadn’t had any really cool experiences yet, I was just grinding at the PC. So I was like, Oh my gosh, I get it, this is incredible, this feeling. I get what this feeling is now. So I feel like that was my first understanding of how huge it could be. It was really fun to be in it, to be in there with all the women and people I looked up to, legends and stuff like that.” 

On her Royal Rumble save:

“I am so grateful for that moment. Because another thing that people will bring up is that was literally seven years ago, something like that. I don’t know if that’s a good or bad thing that I haven’t done anything that cool since, or was it just that cool, but people still will be like, Oh, yeah, your Rumble save was so cool. So I’m really grateful to at least have some really cool staple moments that people can kind of remember.

So I remember when it happened, I had to have a backup plan. If this doesn’t go perfect, my feet can’t touch. So how do I save this if that happens? So when I do it, I do a back roll to get up to kick up into a handstand. I had always said, okay, if I’m walking and I fall, I just have to fall into a roll where I land on my back and my feet still don’t touch so that I can shimmy around to something else and do it. Because that’s the other thing too about being in front of a big crowd. I could have done 1 million good handstands in my whole life, and it does not make me not nervous to go out in front of thousands and thousands of people and do a handstand and not screw it up. It’s one of my favourite moments.”

On getting paired with Kayden Carter:

“It’s crazy. On paper and in real life, we are complete opposites. Opposites attract; that’s us. We could not be more different. But when it comes to in the ring, immediately, we randomly just got put together on a live event because they just want more people to wrestle and get experience. So a random Florida live event, we got put together, and she had wrestled before that, so she had more experience, more of that mindset, and she would basically be like, okay, I’ve seen you do this thing. I can do this first, and then you can do that. Then we would try things, and randomly we were like, this is kind of cool. All right, what if we add this thing to it? It kind of just flowed naturally. The beauty about us being so different is she is more rebellious, and I’m more like, let’s rein us in. So it was the perfect combination of some of the stuff that we have done, when she said it originally, or had shown me originally, I would be like, I don’t know if we can do that, that’s crazy. Then she would be like, Okay, well, how can we make it work? Then I’d be like, okay, do we change how I’m landing? Do we change where the person is? Do we change where this is? It would be this amazing idea I wouldn’t think we could do, but she would have the confidence. Then I would be able to rein in a little bit, and then it would become what we’re doing.”

Like the kegstand?

“Yes, exactly like that. When we were talking about it, there, it was originally a different idea, without the spin. It was like a handstand, something and I remember being like, Can we do that? Also, I’m the one coming from the ceiling. How am I gonna land? Am I gonna get hurt? Am I gonna hurt them? How can we have more control of this? Then, when we added the spin, obviously, it’s me landing forward on somebody felt a lot safer for me, for them, in a normal splash, compared to coming down on my back, or blindly, whatever it might be. So all of these things that I’m so grateful that she had that confidence and that creative mind for this huge, amazing thing. Then, being able to adjust it, to make it actually work for us, it was amazing chemistry for a move like that.”

On breaking her nose for a second time:

“That one was worse. That night the doctor actually, three times was trying to put my nose back in place. It was crazy. I forget which way it was, but when I was walking up, they were like, Oh my God. I think I have a picture of it. I’m sure I have a picture of it. But also that one, I got cut on the outside of my nose too. So there was a lot more blood for that one, so you couldn’t really see how crooked it was. So yeah, that one was a lot worse. I was bleeding on the outside. They had to adjust it. Lacey’s not good with blood and stuff like that. So she was trying to support me and be in the doctor’s area with me. Then they went to adjust my nose and I was like, you can go, you don’t have to be here. I’m okay, you should leave because she isn’t good with blood and stuff like that. So they were just moving my nose and I was just like, okay. So they got it back really well, but it basically was when you put it back, sometimes the bones can be next to each other instead of exactly where they’re supposed to be. So it looks good enough. Whenever I’d say my nose is broken, people are like, oh, you can’t tell. I know I can tell, but most people are like, oh, you can’t tell. So now I basically have to decide if I want to fix it or not. Because it messes with your septum and your breathing and you’re sleeping and stuff. So I have to decide.”

What is Kacy grateful for?

“My health, people in my life and the opportunities to come.”

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Santino Marella (@milanmiracle) is a professional wrestler currently signed to TNA. He sits down with Chris Van Vliet at ACW in Oshkosh, WI to discuss his favorite comedic moments and mispronunciations, how he became TNA’s Director of Authority and was able to keep his WWE name, working with his daughter Arianna Grace, the inspiration for the Santino walk, the Cobra battle with Mick Foley and Mr. Socko, a possible Hall of Fame induction and more! 

Quote I’m thinking about: “Continuous improvement is better than delayed perfection.” – Mark Twain

On his Italian accent not being real:

“I used to be Russian too. There were times in OVW, I would go out and I’d be in character as Boris Alexia the whole night, just talking to people, just in character to pop the guys. But there was one girl, because she liked Boris, she actually liked Boris. And then later on in the night, I was kind of speaking in my regular voice, she was so upset. She started liking that guy and realizing that person doesn’t exist. Who’s this jerk that’s left behind? So she was a little upset.”

On the differences between him and the Santino character:

“There’s probably a lot of Anthony in the character Santino. It’s funny, my wife says that I’m not funny, but she says Santino is funny, I’ll give you credit, but you’re not funny. I’m like, I am Santino. What are you talking about? So anyway, I guess there’s elements of me that are blown up in the character Santino.”

On his favourite catchphrases:

“‘Those are the bottom lines’ was a funny one. The reason it was funny is because Stone Cold put a spotlight on it and said, ‘It’s that’s the bottom line.’ We were off script too, and I was like, ‘Well, sometimes I have more than one thing to say.’ I saw him kind of bite his lip a little bit. So the things that were brought to light or that were focused on, remember those. But I still, to this day, I’m constantly trying to come up with [new ideas].”

On becoming TNA’s Director of Authority:

“Scott D’Amore kind of asked me if I was interested a few times, and it’s just timing wasn’t right. Then coming out of COVID, I’m like, you know what? I think it’s time. Everything kind of lined up, talked to my wife and we went back in. So anyway, I got a call from Robert Evans, who was one of the writers at the time, and he had this vision of the Director of Authority. We started talking about that FBI kind of in the beginning, I was wearing tactical pants, and I had like, an FBI jacket, which someone scooped up. I don’t know who it was. We had some TNA shows at Battle Arts back in the day, and during cleanup, someone scooped it. So, yeah, it was one of one. Then we switched to the tracksuits, which came in super handy, it’s one of our sponsors. But being able to wear a uniform on a weekly basis, it just saves so much decision-making. What am I going to wear? I have a uniform. I wear the tracksuit with the badge, it’s good for now.” 

On his daughter Arianna Grace:

“She’s something special. She was identified from a young child as just exceptional with regards to her speech, her presence. Luckily, she turned out pretty too, because that’s kind of a you’re born with that or not, right? I mean, you can work on it, I guess. But she’s tall, she’s athletic. So when she finished her degree, we kind of, for the first time ever, we never talked about it before she finished university. And I was like, do you want to do this? She was like, you actually think I can do this? Of course, this is not rocket science. It just takes dedication and hard work, which anyone can do. You don’t have to be naturally gifted to be a hard worker and dedicated. So when you have these natural, raw abilities and this potential, and you apply. All she had to do, in my opinion, was be the hardest worker in the room, and she became the hardest worker in the room. So her first tryout, she was not ready, and she didn’t get hired. Then the switch went off, she packed up, moved to Orlando. She was training at multiple schools, busting her ass, got in great shape. And then when she received another tryout, she just blew them away. She was the talk of the tryout, and she got hired from that, she was just in shape, and this time she was ready. So it was no freebies. When you’re a second-generation talent, the idea of receiving a freebie is a horrible thing to be accused of. Some people will also understand that you’re going to be given an opportunity, but it’s up to you to capitalize on the opportunity. I remember talking with Cody when he was younger, that was one of the worst things you could say to him ever, was you’re only here because your dad. So he became super hard working to eliminate and remove the potential for someone to even say that. I think he’s done a great job, working so hard that no one could say that to him anymore.”

On his first comedy moment:

“I remember the exact moment, actually. The babyface Santino was around for a few months, I think, April, May, June, July. So somewhere in a few months in the summer. As you know, the WWE Universe does not like to be force-fed anything. They will spit it out. They were being force fed this new guy who was in the audience; he beat Chris Masters, and he beat Shelton Benjamin, and he pulled off a victory against this guy and that guy. They’re like, Yeah right. BS, don’t tell us to like this guy. Then I had a match with Umaga where he regained the Intercontinental Championship, and he’s murdering me. They were like, one more time, thumbs down, kill this guy. Then I guess they had the conversation where they said, okay, the audience is not kind of accepting this. Let’s turn him bad guy, I guess, and if that doesn’t work, maybe see you later, I don’t know. The moment I turned into a bad guy and complained with the accent, apparently Vince popped. He’s funny. He thought it was because as soon as I turned bad and I got the mic as a bad guy, had the mic every week, guest commentary in ring promos. So I popped the right guy, and I was given the ball. Michael Hayes said it once, ‘Every promo is like a first down, getting first down, first down, first down. Then you work up to getting in the ring with Stone Cold Steve Austin, he’s like, ‘You’ve been getting all these first downs. Can you cross the goal line now we’re watching?’ That was an awesome segment. I remember backstage, Vince looked at me, and he went like he just went up a level. And I was like, Oh, I know what that means, man. Those days were crazy, because it was just like when I debuted, it was, ‘Welcome to the team, now go home and pack your bags, you’re on the road now.’ I was on like 95% of live events. I remember coming home, taking my dirty laundry, washing machine, dryer, back in the bag, out the door, for like, years and years and years and years. It’s funny, when you look at some recognizable figures in wrestling and you’re like, yeah, they were on Raw for like, five years. I was on the road longer than that, I was in the company for 10 years. You don’t realize at the time, because you’re just so focused on what you’re doing. But yeah, I’m proud of the 10-year career there.”

On whether there was anyone he didn’t get to break character:

“Well, it’s funny, because some guys like, for example, Mark Henry backstage, spitting out his water laughing when he goes out there, he’s flicks that switch and he would not break character on TV. He is scary when he’s out there. He scared the hell out of me once in gorilla just by saying, ‘Hey, just so you know, when I go out there, I’m indestructible, protect yourself.’ I was like, Oh my God, what’s about to happen? Then he’s like, ‘I’m just messing with you, man.’ I’m like, don’t do that.” 

On Santina:

“Santina was funny because it was only like three months, but there was so many memorable moments crammed into three months. It was supposed to be one night, but again, it tickled the funny bone of the right person, and it ended up lasting for three months. But I tell you what, I got a lot of respect for the makeup process that girls go through, it’s like an hour. The fake lashes are hard. It’s no joke, your face is burning from makeup and stuff. Yeah, they go through a lot.”

On how Santina was created:

“Well, the storyline with Beth Phoenix was that I was an insecure boyfriend. She was the alpha in the relationship, and I was desperately trying to show that men are better athletes. So by dressing up as a woman and winning the battle royal and then revealing, Ha, I’m a man, I just won the women’s battle royal, therefore men are better athletes. That was the idea. And then it was just executed so well that it stuck around for a while.” 

On working with Beth Phoenix:

“We used to do little things that like when she’d flex, and I’d come around and bite her bicep like an apple, and she was the perfect [straight person]. You need the comedy guy and that straight person and stuff. She was excellent at the role, and then she’s an awesome wrestler too. She was a high-level collegiate wrestler. They used to wrestle boys and stuff. And just watching her in the gym, sometimes you’re like, she’s doing more than [me], squatting two plates for like, 20 or something, really legitimately strong, standing shoulder pressed a plate, really impressive lifts and then going out there and having great technical matches.”

On the pitch to do the splits:

“It was one of those things. I was a bad guy, and when you’re the bad guy, the jokes on you. So me trying to do it, and it backfiring; the egg was on me. Back then, it was a lot of Brian Gewirtz. When Santino was a bad guy, it was a lot of Brian Gewirtz, were kind of married there for a while, and he’s brilliant. He was one of the writers that really could visualize how I would deliver something and write for it. So some writers, they’ll try and write like, ‘I’m gonna go and fight you…’ and try and write as Santino. But he wouldn’t. He just, he’d write it normal and let me bring it to life. But he had a really good understanding of how I would bring it to life. So a lot of the golden stuff from Santino, when he was a bad guy, was all Brian Gewirtz.”

On the Santino walk:

“It was something from judo. We had a training camp one time and I think at a training camp, we were doing it as a part of a fun warm-up to try and do the speed walk and race without running, and I was good at it. So there’s actually a story where 1995, the summer my daughter was born, I worked at a warehouse, and there was four warehouses or factories that had this Family Day. There’s all these hot dogs, and you can throw a baseball and dunk your manager or whatever. Then the culmination was this big Olympic race walk event. I think I was 20 at the time, and someone said, ‘Yeah, there’s a big race walk event.’ I go, ‘I’m gonna win that for sure.’ Because I was at the peak of my athletic career. I was a young, 180-pound athlete that was like twisted steel. I just won national championships and all this stuff. Anyway, around that time, I was in really good shape, and they go, ‘No, no, you’re not gonna win. There’s this guy from Argentina. He wins every year. He’s a former pro soccer player.’ I’m like, what? I see the guy. Oh, damn. He looks like he has big legs, and he took it seriously. So there were two heats, I won my heat, and then he won his heat, and then it was the finals. It was me and him, and gathered around, but it was a square like baseball, running the bases, so to speak. I played baseball, so he was really tight to the line, and I was out a little bit. I knew I had to round the corner. Everyone’s like, move in, move in. Stay close. I’m like trust me, I got it. So anyway, he took the lead, but he took the corner wide because he was so tight. And I came on the inside, and I had the lead, and then I just had to, as I see him again, I wish I had mirrors. I kind of move over and, not let him pass, and then anyway, I won. I was a bad, bad sport. I was doing flips and cartwheels like I won the world championships. So I was telling someone that I won this race before, and they thought it was hilarious and I should incorporate it into the entrance. It was one of those things where I kind of jinxed myself, because Vince thought it was very funny. He wanted me to do two laps of the ring in my entrance. The ring is huge, and the second lap was always so awkward, because they saw it. I try and get away with one lap sometimes, but because it also ate up a lot of time, I wanted to have a match as well, but then I even tried to stop, and he said, no, no, no, do the race walk. Every time there’s an Olympics, there’s a clip of a race walk people like, oh, Santino inspired a generation. I wonder how fast I really am against those guys.”

On the cobra vs. Socko spot with Mick Foley:

“It was funny, because I kind of pitched the whole thing to him, and he was so giddy during my pitch, he was loving it. Anyway, I wanted to do the whole back into each other, a couple of gun fighters in the Wild West, and then kind of turn and then see each other, and kind of get ready. We didn’t time it out, but it took us the exact same amount of time to put our respective socks on, and then we kind of did that. It was perfect timing. Then we circled, there was other guys in the ring, but everyone just kind of got small. You can see Big Show just watching and enjoying it. And yeah, then we did the battle. We were supposed to do a little more. You know like in movies, wizards will have rays kind of hitting each other, they’ll go back. We were supposed to kind of do that across the ring but Cody jumped in a little early, and I was like, we had more planned, but anyway, it was still memorable, because people understood immediately what was happening. Oh, damn, It’s sock versus sock, and he’s the right guy. That was actually probably one of my most fun things.”

On the snake charmer segment:

“So I talked to a person, it was a foreign student from India, and he’s like every single person in India knows this clip. I mean, you’re with two famous Indian athletes, Jinder Mahal and The Great Khali. So just by their fame alone, everyone’s gonna have a look at it. Not that it’s cultural representation by any means. But, yeah, it was funny. There’s one part I’m actually proud of when I’m holding my own hand back from getting me, I thought the acting was good, it was serious, that’s one of those things. So sometimes I’ll go to a convention or something, and I’ll meet somebody, a father, and he goes, ‘Oh my son loves you.’ I’m like your son’s like seven, how? [He goes] ‘YouTube, TikTok, all your stuff’s on there, and they love you.’ And it’s just strange because my neck surgery was 11 years ago, and then for the last several years I was just running Battle Arts Academy, and we had our family business, that’s where I’ve been up until TNA. I was just a home body guy, so there wasn’t a lot of new material. But I guess it’s now to the point where it’s vintage. I had that realization recently. I’m not popular current, I’m popular vintage, and I’m okay with vintage. I guess I’m a little vintage these days. I’m in my 50s.”

On Santino’s reaction to the pitch:

“At first, I didn’t want it to be offensive. You know what I mean, culturally offensive. But it’s one of those things, when I speak to people from Indian culture, they’re not offended at all. So I was really happy with that. Because there was one time too, I think it was Jinder, where I was arguing with him and I was pretending to speak Indian, but I was just whatever kind of how it would sound to me. You see that sometimes online, how English sounds to foreigners, and actually kind of sounds like English, but they’re not really saying anything. I just didn’t want to be offensive to anybody, but it wasn’t. So I talked to people that they thought it was cool. So that helped me a lot, be cool with it myself.”

On a possible Hall of Fame induction:

“Well, it depends what you go to wrestling for. If you want macho tough guys, and some people just don’t like comedy, they want to see slobber knockers each and every match. It’s pretty polarized. I think the vast majority of people appreciate the comedy, but there are people that they have no place for comedy.”

On being able to keep the Santino Marella name in TNA:

“So that was actually almost bigger news than me appearing on TNA, was the fact that I was Santino Marella. So in 2021, I imagine the COVID confusion or whatever, there were people getting fired and hired, and it seemed like it was team Hunter and team Vince, and they were changing regimes or whatever. Somebody didn’t renew the trademark. So Scott D’Amore, as a habit, because if he’s getting a former WWE guy, he kind of checks the trademark to see if they’re available, because he has to get creative and come up with a name. If it’s not Fandango, it’s Dango or something that’s legally not going to be too close to the intellectual property. He checked, and all of a sudden he goes, damn, Santino Marella is available. So he bought it. It’s not as simple as you can just buy it and it’s yours. There’s a case that they created the character, they developed the character. It’s still on their library. I mean, there’s still tons of Santino stuff in the library. But when it’s library use, I think it’s not considered like current use, because it’s from a library. So they sent an email or a phone call to Scott, and they say, ‘Yeah, you’re using our intellectual property.’ And Scott’s like, ‘Actually, I own the trademark.’ So they’re like, ‘Let me get back to you.’ It’s kind of sitting there for a while. Then they filed an extension to the time they can appeal it, and then when Scott was no longer with TNA, Ariel [Shnerer], in hopes of having a good relationship with WWE, kind of just gave it back to them. So they own it, but I’m not sure if a part of the deal was we’ll give it back to you but can we use it? And we’ve been using it.”

On the cobra being a protected finisher:

“No, I think it’s where it kind of was originally in the roster. It wasn’t like super main event guys. The only person ever kicked out of it once with the sleeve was Daniel Bryan, and one person kicked out of it without the sleeve, and that was Sheamus, and that was it. So when you factor in all the live events, yeah, it’s like 99.9%. If I’ve done 1,000 cobras, two guys kicked out. I probably did 2,000 cobras, and two guys kicked out.”

What is Santino Marella grateful for?

“Family, health and where we live.”

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