Paradigm Shift Episode 7: A look Into The World Of Professional Wrestling Part 1

Rob and Jesse Dive Deep Into the world of Professional Wrestling, Rob Takes you on a trip through some of his time as a pro wrestler, The UPs & DOWNs of the industry and Much More.

Dont miss Part 1 Of This Series.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:01

Welcome back to the Paradigm Shift. I am your host, Big Rob, alongside my co-host Jesse. What's going on, buddy? How are you doing today, man?

SPEAKER_02 0:10

Doing great, buddy. I've been looking forward to this particular episode of the shift for quite a while. Really want to delve into all things wrestling. And I know you and I have talked about uh this may be just part one of a series on wrestling because we could go all day on this stuff. So we're just gonna uh tee it high and let it fly and see what happens.

SPEAKER_00 0:32

Yeah, there's gonna be as time goes on here, we have more and more wrestling episodes. We will have special guests and stuff like that from the wrestling industry. Um, Jesse, as you know, I myself am a retired professional wrestler. Um, forcibly by my wife, of course, right? She hates that stuff, but um no, but the body did take its toll over the years, and uh I figured the best place to start, in my opinion, would be kind of how I got into the wrestling industry and uh the path I took to get there. And uh tell you it was a bumpy road, man. It was a bumpy, bumpy road. Um sorry guys if I sound off. Uh I do have a bit of a cold, so my voice isn't uh you know, isn't at its peak, but that's okay. Long as you can hear me. Um, so yeah, so I used to growing up, I mean we you know how we had the massive wrestling boom in the 90s, right? Where you had WWE versus uh WCW ratings wars and you know everything that went along with that, and what a time to be a wrestling fan that was. Do you remember those days at all?

SPEAKER_02 1:40

Yes, very, very vividly. I can remember um I can remember the very early, early days of uh The Hulkster, the real American. You know, I actually believe it or not, I I forgot his theme song for probably like 25 years, and then I randomly heard it and I was like, oh my god.

SPEAKER_00 2:01

I was like, I was like back to that little kid while watching that.

SPEAKER_02 2:10

Yeah, classic. Yeah, the real American. Um, but yes, I I I very um vividly remember it. I remember watching it on the USA network, like they always had the the you know, the wrestling where they'd be doing like the interviews with Mean Jean and you know, um God, what was that guy's name? Jimmy that had like the sunglasses and the comeback there. Jimmy Hart. Yeah, Jimmy Hart, the mouth of the South. Yeah, yeah, gods. So many of those as those guys were just uh what was it, the Road Warriors, and you know, um even even you know, I I can think of like like I liked how it got like political sometimes where it was like Sergeant Slaughter, you know, or the the Iron Jake, you know.

SPEAKER_00 3:01

It's it's funny you say that because I mean the WWE now does a show on Netflix called uh ah damn, I can't remember what it's called, but it's it's breaks Kfabe, right? So you know what Kfabe is?

SPEAKER_01 3:14

No.

SPEAKER_00 3:14

Okay, so it's a wrestling, it's it's a term in wrestling where it's uh Kfabe is like uh the the curtain kind of thing, right? The character. And when you break Kfabe, you're you're kind of breaking showing people behind the scenes kind of a thing, right? Like, or if somebody tells you, like, you know, if you're if you're starting to say something you shouldn't be saying uh about wrestling to people who don't need to know, people somebody will look and say, dude, Kfabe, right? Like shut up, right? Uh don't give it away. But so they break Kfabe on this new show on Netflix, and uh you know they talk about all that kind of stuff, like they they reveal a lot of that stuff behind the curtains. And uh a lot of a lot of people in the wrestling industry, like uh uh Paul Heyman, for example, he hates it. He hates that he thinks that it should be kind of you know behind the the curtain and it should stay there, kind of how the how the hot dogs made, so to speak, right? So um, yeah, that's it's it's pretty interesting. But I remember watching Roman Reigns, uh, a video of Roman Reigns in his early part of his career in the WWE where he was facing the Undertaker at WrestleMania, and there's a camera behind them and they're mic'd up, and there's a clip of the Undertaker is up at uh at the airport, he's up at the counter getting his tickets and stuff, and Roman Reign walk Roman Reigns walks up beside him, leans on the counter, and he says something you know, friendly to him or whatever, and Undertaker just turns and looks at him. He's like, Can you keep K Fape for five minutes? We're in public, we're supposed to be fighting at WrestleMania, and you're here chummy with me at the airport.

SPEAKER_02 4:54

That's really funny because you know, I bet Roman Reigns is probably a really nice guy. You know, he's Hawaiian, he's got that kind of different uh cultural aspect to him. Um, fun fact about him is he was actually in the NFL for a little while for the Jaguars, you know, where I live in Jacksonville. Um, no one knows that, you know. Well, he's uh he's the rock's cousin.

SPEAKER_01 5:18

Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_00 5:19

The whole Samoan family. Yeah, the whole Samoan family. Um it's actually a massive dynasty with uh uh Rikishi, uh Yokozuna.

SPEAKER_02 5:31

Um I think he was Japanese. Is he not Japanese?

SPEAKER_00 5:35

His character was Japanese, but he was actually uh Samoan. Yeah, he's part of the Yeah, he's he's part of the Rock and Roman Reigns family.

SPEAKER_02 5:42

He he didn't have the armed tat, though.

SPEAKER_00 5:44

No, he didn't have the tribal.

SPEAKER_02 5:46

Wow, that's surprising, huh? I didn't know that.

SPEAKER_00 5:49

The Usos are Roman Reigns cousins as well. Uh there's so many people from the uh from their Samoan uh dynasty family uh that have been through the WWE. Uh you had uh Rosie and Jamal, they were called three minute warning. Uh then he turned into Umaga. Um he was, I don't know if you remember him. Uh he was in the WWE as well. He passed away. Uh the Rock's father, or not the Rock's father, sorry, yeah. The Rock's father, John um Rocky Johnson, and um uh Roman Reigns' father. Uh Rikishi's actually the father of the Usos. So twins. I don't know if you know much about the Usos, but they're they're in the WWE now, so yeah. They're like the tag team champs right now or something. But that's a massive, massive family dynasty. Um and then you actually had the rock and uh Roman Reigns tagged up, I think it was at last year's WrestleMania.

SPEAKER_01 6:52

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 6:53

So they kind of broke K Fabe about about the fact that all these people are, you know, in their family and you know all that fun stuff. So um, yeah, so it's it's it's huge though.

SPEAKER_02 7:05

Um you know um you know what's funny about wrestling? I don't know if if you've what your thoughts are on this, but you know, I can remember like going back in time and everybody's like, oh, you know, wrestling's fake. You know, you get all the wrestling's fake people, right? And and I remember, you know, uh my whole group of friends, I mean, we loved wrestling. You know, we watched it every week, we watched all the big events, you know, somebody's dad always got the pay-per-view, and we all showed up for it, you know, and all that stuff. And uh, you know, you you would get those those people that were like that, right? And there was like a at least in my life, there was kind of a bit of a gap in time where I didn't really follow it for quite a while. And then I rediscovered it all like five, 10 years ago, and I was like, my God, like it's so entertaining. I love it. Like, I absolutely love it. And I remember I saw a uh an interview, I I think maybe it was on the Mr. McMahon documentary that Netflix did, and uh Hulk was talking about he's like, you know, it's a wrestling trick. He's like, well, you know, come and check out you know my eight back surgeries and whatever else, you know, and it's like, yeah, like like none of this, like, yeah, there's there's a script and it's entertaining, but all these, all this stuff, I mean, that's all real moves, like these are real bodies. Like when uh when what's his name, Mick Foley, you know, gets slammed into barbed wire and loses like five teeth, like that's real, you know.

SPEAKER_00 8:39

Yeah, yeah, you can't you can't fake that. Here's the thing fake to call professional wrestling fake is to basically try to label it as something it's not trying to be, right?

SPEAKER_01 8:53

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 8:54

Professional wrestling is not, nor has it ever tried to be like UFC or something like that, right? Right. When two wrestlers go out to the ring, the idea is they're telling a story with their bodies, right? They're not it's it which is an art, it's they're not trying to be UFC fighters, right? And I can tell you from experience right now, as a former wrestler, I've wrestled for 12 years. I can tell you, it is a lot harder to pretend to hurt someone while protecting them from getting hurt than it is to just punch somebody in the face, right? It's a lot harder, yeah. Um, but in terms of fake, I mean, I guess the only aspect that really that people might be referring to is you know winners and losers, right? Or who's going that's referred to as going over, who's going over in the match, because you're not really winning anything, right? And again, that relates back to storytelling, right? The person who's winning or going over is going over or winning to progress a storyline that that you're invested in in following, right? Um, a lot of times the it's the bad guy, it's the heel who continues to sneak out wins or cheat his way to a victory throughout all of the all the Monday Night Rods and Smackdowns so that you can lead up to the pay-per-view where the where the babyface, the good guy, finally gets his measure of revenge and gets the big win. It makes the pop, it makes the crowd that much more excited when the you're sitting there every week and you're emotionally invested in the story, and you're watching the babyface, your guy, get beat up and lose and get cheated, and all this stuff for like a month, and then finally, when he finally wins, it makes that excitement so much bigger, right? And that's the idea behind this Tory, this storytelling. Um, you know, it's and it's a lot more complicated than people think. They think that these like wrestlers that we go out to the ring and we um rehearse matches and stuff like that beforehand, and that's not how it works at all, right? So the way that it works is that if you and I are in a locker room and the promoter tells us who we're like, you put a thing up on the wall, this is who you're working that night, right? We call it working, this who you're working that night, and it's it's Rob and Jesse, right? In a in a in a match, and uh, so what I'll do is I'll walk up to you in the locker room at some point, uh, just before the show starts or as the show's going on, and then I'll ask you, what are your greatest hits? And what that means is there's always three or four signature moves that a wrestler does. John Cena, Hulk Hogan, the leg drop, you know, the all that stuff, right?

SPEAKER_03 11:36

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 11:36

I'll walk up, I'll say, What's your greatest hits? And then you'll sell you'll say, you know, okay, well, I I like to do this, this, this, this is my finish, this is what I go for. These are the four signature moves I like to do. So then, as the heel is the bad guy, the bad guy always leads the match, right? So the bad guy calls the match. So I'll sit down and say, Okay, so you've told me your moves, what you want to do, your four moves. And then what I do is I piece together a match in my mind, like, and I verbalize it to you. So, okay, so you know, we get down to the ring, blah blah blah blah blah. If there's gonna be a little bit of uh, you know, nuance in the beginning of the match, like you get in the ring, I I powder out, or I roll out of the ring, I give you the ring, I act scared as the heel, blah blah blah blah blah, right? Eventually, we lock up, you take the arm, throw me to the ropes, duck the clothesline, whatever the case may be. And I and this is what I tell you, right? I walk you through the match, and as I'm walking the match, as I'm creating the match and writing the story in my mind and telling it to you, I integrate your greatest hits into it. This is where you're gonna hit your elbow drop on me, or whatever the case might be, right? And uh, so I incorporate your moves and then we go out there, and as the match is going on, so we both know it, so we'll talk about the match three or four times so that we both kind of have it memorized, right, in our minds. But we don't go out there and physically practice it or anything, we just talk about it three or four times. Some people like usually I only talk about it once or twice, right? It's like okay, I'm leading the match, especially if it's someone who's less experienced, then uh then yeah, we'll be out there. And if you get lost in the match, right? All you do is you just say I'm lost or whatever, or a lot of times I'll be able to tell if you're kind of lost, you you can't remember what comes next in the sequence. So then I'll remind you, right? I'll say, you know, and and and usually, like if you get lost or something, I'll put you down into uh that's why you see those those breaks in matches where you see submission holds and stuff like that. A headlock, whatever the case might be. Usually one of the guys either got lost or there's a change in the match because backstage is radioing to the ref to tell the wrestlers to change this sequence or do that, right? And uh, so that we'll take that break, put you in a headlock, and I'll walk you through okay, the next this is the next sequence. Do you got it? You'll say yes or no, and then we go, right? But the thing is, a lot of people don't understand is everything's called right there in the ring, right? Like it takes if I throw you against the ropes and I say duck the clothesline, come back, uh you know, spear me, right? So when I throw my clothesline, I'm expecting you to duck the clothesline, come across the other ropes behind me. I'm gonna turn around, you're gonna spear me. Now it takes about 1.5 seconds for you to hit those ropes and be back for that clothesline. If you haven't processed what I said, or you're thinking you're daydreaming, you're thinking about something else, if you're not focused, I say duck the clothesline, I'm swinging as hard as I can for optics. So I'll take your head off if you don't duck the clothesline, right? And it's your fault because you know I told you it was coming.

SPEAKER_03 14:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 14:42

So like I I got I got a million stories for you, but when it comes to that kind of stuff, that we'll get through through the episodes and stuff, but um, I did want to kind of start at the start, so to speak. And when I got into wrestling, like I like I was saying, I watched it in the 90s as an avid fan of wrestling, right? Avid. And I came from a small town, it was only like a hundred thousand people that lived in my in my city, right? And uh wrestling was all the craze, and I would say, I'm gonna be a wrestler, I'm gonna be a wrestler, and you know how it is, and and this is kind of a message everybody, no matter what it is you want to do with your life, right? Don't let people with small minds, you know, laugh at you. Because I got laughed at when I was in my late teens, I was getting laughed at and stuff like that. People like, yeah, sure. Or people would just brush it off, like, sure you will, buddy. Like, we're you know, we're from this small city, and like, yeah, you're gonna go be a wrestler, right? I said, I'm gonna be a wrestler. And uh then what I did was uh I tracked down schools. I went I went online and I tracked down you know uh wrestling training facilities and stuff like that. And uh I found one in a city that's only about uh in Winnipeg, which is only about was only about eight hours away from where I was living. So from every video I saw, it said that like they you know, wrestlers would say, Man, like you need fantastic, you need to be in fantastic shape, right? To be a wrestler. They said, like, two minutes in the rings, like two hours of cardio, right? That's what they would compare it to. I was like, okay. So I knew, you know, I would watch these these videos from training facilities and stuff, and it looked hard. Guys were puking and fainting and dropping like flies, and I said, that's not gonna be me, right? I said, I'm gonna, I'm gonna train so hard. And I trained for two and a half years. I said, I'm gonna train so hard that when I get to that training facility, their hard stuff's gonna feel like me taking a break, right? I'm gonna push myself harder than they could ever push me, right? And I did, I was in the gym five, six hours a day, every single day, uh, training just a kid, right? Doing cardio, weights, swimming, everything I could do to get in peak condition, right? And uh, and then I went for it. I went to this training and I went to this guy's place, and in hindsight, I can tell you I never should have came to Winnipeg to wrestle. Never should have done it, right? Um, there's a lot of unprofessional um people in the industry coming out of a city like Winnipeg. Like, there's only a couple people I can think of off the top of my head who I actually respect in the industry. Most of them are off in the big time, Chris Jericho, Kenny Omega, right? Stuff like that from Winnipeg. Otherwise, I mean there's only a couple more that I respect, and that's about it because most of the most of the wrestlers in a city like this are way like don't even have gym memberships, don't take care of themselves, and they use they use wrestling as kind of an ego booster, right? They do bar shows, local bar shows and stuff like that, and consider themselves quote unquote veterans of the industry. And that's why you see a lot of professional wrestlers in the WWE or in the States, they don't respect indie wrestlers that much because it's kind of laughed at because so many indie wrestlers, uh, like I said, if for me, if you've never gone anywhere, if you've never done anything, if you've never achieved anything, you're not a veteran. Just because you've been wrestling in in a bar in bars for 25 years in front of 10 people, you're not a you're not a veteran of professional wrestling, right? You're just an old guy who wrestles in front of 10 people in a bar because you are bored with your life, right? Like that's that's kind of how it is. And a lot of guys are in the business a lot longer than they should be. Um, and I've seen all kinds of things in my training, but when I got when I got here though, the guy who who started my training, uh, who I do respect, uh, it was like it was like like uh Rocky One or something, like training, right? Hardcore, man.

SPEAKER_03 18:58

Yeah, hardcore.

SPEAKER_00 18:59

Uh he had he had like he's got a business and a facility and all this, but uh for me, because of the conditioning I had myself in, I was in far better physical condition than anybody on his roster at that point, right? Because I took it so seriously, and a lot of these guys just didn't, right? Um his his he had a lead guy, uh his his face of the company was uh John Cutler at the time. Tried out for WWE a couple times, but didn't didn't make it, which is a shame because John was pretty good and everything, but uh good dude, great dude, right? And uh so they wanted me to rival John because he was in amazing condition, otherwise, like the WWE wouldn't have given him a tryout in the first place on on Raw, right? Uh and then it was me, and then I was the only one in physical condition enough to make it believable that I could battle him size for size, right? Uh so I started training, and uh the guy who trained me his name was Easy Rider, uh, so call him Easy. And Easy had a ring in his garage at home. So I would drive out to the country to his garage, and this ring was one of the stiffest rings I've ever taken a bump in. It was like bumping on concrete, right? And he he specifically trained people with potential in that ring. He said, if you can bump, if you can train to bump in this ring, you will be able to take a bump in anybody's ring in the world for any other company that you work for, right? It will feel like a trampoline compared to this ring. So so I trained in this stiff ring, man. Holy smokes! And uh, but I was there every day. Uh I I became friends with a couple guys. There was a guy that uh one other young guy my age who took it seriously, and we would go out to Easy's and we would train in his ring. Uh, I remember one night it must have been one, two o'clock in the morning, and we're bumping around in his garage, and he opens the door and he goes, Guys, can you call it a night? We're still going, right? Like, yeah, I guess so. He's trying to sleep, and all you can hear is body slams and soup classes in his rest. So it was it was a good, it was a good time, good experiences, but I'll tell you, as he started to take me out on the road when they did tours, and uh, you know, when you're training, you're doing things like you're setting up the rings, you're working the cameras and stuff like that. Um, and you're generally just kind of you know helping out where you can, right? To learn learn the business from from the ring side, but without being the center of attention, right? You just kind of blend in with as the as so a lot of times you'll see people who are working cameras at shows or whatever the case might be. Usually, those are people who are training to wrestle, they're getting a bird's eye view of how to work the crowd and all that kind of stuff, right? So um, that's what I was doing at the time, but I would have to carpool in vans with a bunch of other. Wrestlers at the time, and I tell you, as time went on, my my love for professional wrestling was being eroded by yeah, just by the personalities around me, right? It just was becoming something that wasn't what I thought that it was, right? Um, it was more like after after shows, they would be going out to to the bars and to after parties and stuff, and they'd be like, Rob, you coming? And I said, No, I'm going to the gym to get in a workout. And most of the most of the guys that were taking it seriously, every once in a while, one of those guys would come and say, you know, Rob, it takes a lot to turn these guys down for partying and stuff like that, and go to the gym instead at 10 o'clock at night, right? And but that's I took it seriously. I was here, I moved here for this reason, right? I didn't move here to party with you guys, right? I came here to build a career, right? And I took it so seriously. But again, as time went on, I'd see things like for me, and we'll probably talk about this when we get like Tony on and stuff like that, but for me, um, when you're dicking around and treating a show like it's a circus, you're disrespecting the audience that paid to come and see you as well. I remember we, you know, we we had a show where um, you know, one of the wrestlers was working the the sound booth for the entrance music, right? And for me, presentation in professional wrestling is everything, is how you're getting over, whether you're a good guy or a bad guy, right? You have to take it seriously, no matter what. I mean, if you're just in training and stuff, you can dick around all you want, right? But when you're in front of a live audience, when somebody's coming out, there was I remember there was a hometown guy coming out, and he had been away for a while. He comes back, and the wrestler working the sound booth, instead of putting on the guy's entrance music to in his hometown to get that hometown pop, he puts on uh Humpty Hump or something like that, right? For the guy's entrance song, and because he thought it was funny, you know what I mean? And I remember sitting there thinking, you piece of shit, right? Because really what you were doing was you were upset that he was gonna get hometown heat from his hometown crowd, he was gonna be over, and you wanted to sabotage that. This is a show, presentation matters from your entrance to your music to what you're wearing and everything in between matters, right? You're trying to get over, and when someone does that, they're sabotaging your ability to do that, which goes against the very fabric of professional wrestling. Your job as a professional wrestler is to go out to that ring, and your concern is not to make yourself look good, your concern is to make the guy you're wrestling look good, and it's his job to make you look good, and when you both do that properly, you have a good match. But when one guy's more invested in how he looks, as opposed to making his opponent look good, you have a clusterfuck.

SPEAKER_02 25:03

Yeah, it it seems you'd have a battle of the egos at times, right? It's kind of like what you're saying. And some of these guys, I think it probably goes to their head uh in particular.

SPEAKER_00 25:14

All the time, yeah. All the time. I remember going to um a training facility, and there was a guy there, granted, okay. I didn't really like him. I thought he was kind of skeezy, but um he was the he was training, and I went there just to kind of I was coming back from an injury, so I went to to do some training with the with the rookies and stuff like that, just to get back in ring shape, right? Shake off ring rest, get my timing back up and all that stuff. And you'll see that all the time with wrestlers. They'll go to the training facility, they've been away for a while. They'll they'll be training off camera for probably a month or two before they actually come back in front of an audience, right? So I'm there, and there's you know, the guy training, he's this was the time when Tough Enough, you remember the series Tough Enough was on television? No, I think it was like the early 2000s or the late 90s, but um, there was a show called Tough Enough, and the trainers treated it like a boot camp for TV purposes, right? They would just drive these people into the ground. The Miz came from Tough Enough, actually. He was one of the graduates from Tough Enough, but uh so this guy was trying to act like he was he was a coach on Tough Enough or something, right? And he's like he's making them do all of these squats and push-ups and sit-ups and run uh run around the uh two blocks a couple times or something. And I looked at him, he's just a fat piece of shit, right? And he wouldn't, he doesn't even have a gym membership, doesn't take care of himself at all, doesn't respect the business, in my opinion. And I'm looking at him like, dude, how are you gonna make them do things that you can't do? Right? If you can't if you can't physically do these things, why are you qualified to be training somebody else and telling them how to do it? You know, you're your late 20s, you should be able to do this stuff. You call yourself a professional athlete, but you don't even have a gym membership. And the response would always be, well, it's my gimmick, it's my character. Oh fuck, I'll tell you right now, three-quarters of the guys in the indie scene being fat is their gimmick, right? Like, just get a gym membership, man, and get some conditioning in, right? Uh, but again, they would they don't want that. That's the path of least resistance, is just to say being fat is my is my gimmick. Now I don't have to go to the gym, now I don't have to take care of myself. I can just show up at a show, put some wrestling gear on, and act like I'm a professional athlete, right? Some guys who are overweight, don't get me wrong, they do go to the gym, they do take care of themselves. Most don't, though, right? And you have to be careful if you're thinking about getting into training, you have to be careful where you train, who is training you matters so much, right? It really, really does. Because as I as I said earlier, my passion and my love for the business was slowly eroding because of this stuff that I was seeing, right? And I started to travel. Um, I started getting bookings with other promotions and stuff like that. Um, I'll tell you. When I came down to the US, it was a completely different story.

SPEAKER_02 28:15

Really? How so?

SPEAKER_00 28:16

Black and white, black and white in Canada. Now, not everywhere. I trained in some places in Canada that I'll tell you about down the road that were great. But I'll give you an example. I went to a show down in um South Dakota, I think it was, right? And I was in a fatal four-way in the main event for number one contenders match at the heavyweight title. Um me and ironically, three other guys that came down from Canada with me, right? Um which was weird, but anyway. Uh, so we're in that match, and I get eliminated, so I'm coming to the back, and when you're done a match, you've got cotton mouth, you're gassed, you're swoop, you're soaked in sweat, you're done, right? You're spent. And um as soon as I came behind the curtains, there was a kid who had just finished, he told me earlier in the night, he had just finished his training with the Dudley Boys down in uh down in New U, I think, uh Brooklyn or the down in New Jersey or something like that, right? In the New York State, anyway. Um and he had just finished his co his his training with at the Dudley Boys training facility. And this is a key difference between training in the US and trading in Canada, okay? For anyone out there who's thinking about training to be a wrestler. I came behind the curtains, and this kid was standing there with a chair pulled up and an ice ice glass uh a glass of ice cold water for me, right? And no one asked him to do that, right? But he it was his way of showing respect to people in the main event who were drawing a crowd for everyone to to be in front of, right? Um so I sat, you know, I told him, I said, uh he asked me for any tips later. I said, just keep doing what you're doing, kid. But who taught him that? The Dudleys taught him that, right? Like if you want to get in good with people who can teach you, who can who can guide you in the industry, because you should always be trying to learn from everybody at every show that you do, you know, there should be one or two guys that you can kind of recognize that are more veteran in in the industry than others, and you want to be able to have access to them, to pick their brains or to have a conversation with them, right? And I told him, I said, that's what the Dudleys taught them. So you know, right there, the Dudleys teach their students properly how to show respect in the business and how to get respected really fast in the business as well, because people respect that you're putting in that work, right? Um, so I told him, I said, just keep doing what you're doing, man. I said, Don't let uh don't let people in the indie scene, don't let them jade you, don't take advice from people that are, you know, if somebody tells you something like you don't have to do this or you don't have to do that, and it sounds like negative, you know, negative uh advice, don't take it, right? The way you should look at it is I'm not gonna take advice from somebody who's not in a position that I don't want to be in.

unknown 31:26

Right?

SPEAKER_00 31:27

If you're not where I want to be, why do I want to take advice from you?

unknown 31:31

Right?

SPEAKER_01 31:32

Yeah, fair enough.

SPEAKER_00 31:35

Now, Canada training, training in Canada, okay. That same guy I told you about, well, we ended up for years having a having a personal problem, right? And um he was training people, like I said, he trains this kid. Now, here's a problem he was training this kid, but he was also taking this kid out to hang out with him in bars and nightclubs and stuff like that, right? Uh, after training, after shows, just on a regular Friday, Saturday night. You have to have a professional degree of separation, and I'm gonna tell you why right now. So this kid would be sitting at a table in a bar listening to this guy talk bad about me or talk bad about somebody else in the industry, right? Which made this kid feel like he then could be disrespectful as well, because he was sitting with people who were being disrespectful, so he taught his own trainee. Boy, did that kid learn the hard way, right? Because he started. So, what did I do? Well, put him in a match with me. He learned pretty quick, get a little payback. And he came up, he came up to me after a couple months of that. This kid at a show in a locker room, and he said, like, what's you know, he he wanted to know, like, what's going on, like why he didn't know that I knew you know that he was saying stuff about me and about other people. So I I broke it down for him, and another another one or two, you know, guys in the that have been around the business a long time came over as well, and I told him, I said, Look, just because you hang out with this guy, right? Like he gets dealt with, don't worry about him. He's not allowed to disrespect either, but he feels more comfortable doing it because he's been around for a long time. He's hung you out to dry. You're a rookie, you're new, you have no right to be talking about anybody in this industry, right? And uh after having a serious talk with him, he straightened up. I mean, he was doing things like he went out to a show in Calgary, and I was getting texts from um a friend of mine, um, and he he was texting me saying that this rookie that was trained by by this guy, right? He was down at a show in Calgary for the Hart family, and he was watching there was a trainee there from Lance Storm's training facility. You know who Lance Storm is, right? From WCW. If I can be serious for a moment, he led Team Canada in WCW, right? Veteran in the business for sure, Canadian guy, and uh, so definitely someone I would recommend getting training from, right? And uh this kid was out having a match. Now, the kid who trained with you know Joe Joe Bob over here from Manitoba starts giving advice to the other kid who trained with Lance Storm after his match. Well, you know what I would have done in the match is this, that, and the other thing, right? You've had two matches, right? Like you've had the same amount of matches this guy, and you're here giving advice. Big, big no, no. But so that's the degree it was at with this kid, right? And but afterwards, uh he straightened up, he straightened up, and he really started becoming professional and stuff because the right people got in his ear and told him, You gotta stop listening to this guy who's teaching you the wrong way to do things. You're gonna get bounced right out of this industry if you keep acting this way, right? And uh he did, he straightened up and he flew right. But there was all kinds of cases like that. There was a there was this little guy, we called him Tiny Tyler, because he was so short, he was like 5'4 cruiserweight, but man, he had heart, right? Good kid, and wanted to learn the business. And um he was showing up to shows, and that's that same guy that I was telling you about, that same trainer guy, he would go up to this kid at shows, and one night in particular, the kid was working the cameras and he had a hot dog and fries, and the trainer walked up and gave him gave him shit, took his fries and hot dog and ate it, and said, You shouldn't be eating while you're working the cameras. The camera's on a tripod, right? He there's nothing wrong with him sitting there eating his food while he's while he's not part of the show, but he stole his food, he took it, and he was they were doing things like they were taking cheap shots on him and training, they were punched, literally punching him in the face and bullying him. And one day I sat down with him and another guy, and I said, Guys, you know what? If you keep doing this, one of these days, one of these trainees is gonna show up with a gun and he's just gonna start shooting people. You cannot bully people like that, you cannot treat people like that because they're smaller than you, right? Because you think you can get away with it. Uh, I love and then uh I was down in the States doing a tour, and sure enough, I got a text. That kid showed up one night with a hunting knife and tried to stab the guy, the trainer, who was he showed up at a show. And I said, I said, I fucking told you guys, right? You can't you push somebody to an edge like that. You know, the he's got a passion for this business, and all he wants to do is learn how to have a career in this industry. You're punching him in the face, taking his food, bullying him, beating him, you know. Like, of course he's gonna come back eventually and snap on you, right? And that's a message, really, to every aspect of life. You can't treat people that way, right? In any aspect of life. It may come back and bite you in the ass, but people deserve more respect than that, right? And that's what I mean when I say that personalities in the indie scene were eroding my passion for the business because of the behavior that I was seeing. It's supposed to be an industry based on respect, but I wasn't seeing much respect going around, right?

SPEAKER_02 37:18

So, okay, so tell me about the Hart family and and all of that, and kind of like where they stand in the in the behind the curtain, right? From the amateur side on up.

SPEAKER_00 37:36

Well, I mean, I was contracted to the Hart family for two and a half years. Uh wrestled at Calgary Stampede with them. They do a show at Calgary Stampede every year. Uh, but I trained with the Hart family for and did shows for them for two and a half years. And I'll tell you, they do things the hard way. You train with them. They're not as as obviously as big as they were back in the 90s. Most of the, you know, Brett has had strokes, and you know, he's fairly old now and stuff like that. I think Natalia is kind of running uh the dungeon ever since uh Stu Hart passed away. I mean, Owen's gone, British Bulldog's gone. Um, but one of my really, really good friends in the business, one of my best friends in the business, Matt Hart, he's actually Bret Hart's nephew. He's a really good friend of mine. I used to crash at his place when I was wrestling up there with them. Uh, really, really solid kid, really solid dude. Uh, looks he looks like, honestly, I hope he never hears this because I don't want to go into his head. He looks like a smaller version of Davy Boy Smith, the British Bulldog.

SPEAKER_01 38:38

Oh, cool.

SPEAKER_00 38:39

Yeah, he's uh and he's good, he knows the business. He must, I mean, you better, you're being your heart, right? But uh they train in a ring that's half the size of a ring that you would wrestle in. So everything happens twice as fast. Right. So remember when I yeah, remember when I told you that um it takes 1.5 seconds for someone to hit the ropes and and be back at you in the center of the ring? Well, cut that in half because you throw somebody against the ropes in that ring, you know, 0.7, not even a second, it's like bam, bam, they're back in your face. It's tiny, right? But you get damn good. You your reaction time gets real damn good, and it's so much easier to wrestle in a full-size ring afterwards, right?

SPEAKER_02 39:28

I gotta I gotta ask you a quick question. Yeah, so this is a little out of left field, but I want to know. You know, um Brett Farr Brett Fur, sorry, Bret Hart. He always had you always had like the slicked back long hair. You know how like all the wrestlers do that? When you were wrestling, did you have long hair? Or did you have short hair like you do now?

SPEAKER_00 39:52

Short hair like I do now, yeah. Okay. No clue. He probably just paste or glue or or um gel, whatever, right?

SPEAKER_02 40:04

Well, well, a lot of those guys in the heart family, they all had the long hair, and it was all kind of that, yeah. I don't know if it was gel or whatever was in there, but uh, I always thought they looked really cool.

SPEAKER_00 40:15

Yeah, slick rick. I don't know how they do it, but and then um baby oil, you know, people often ask me about baby oil. Why do why do guys put baby oil on? Is it you know, and it's like, oh, it's because it makes them shiny and stuff. Yes, presentation matters, but no. Did you know if if you hit the ropes, for example, with dry skin? Oof, yeah, it will that's rubber, it will tear your skin for starters, right? And you'll have massive, I had massive bruises across my back, rope pattern bruises across my back on my upper lats and stuff like that from hitting ropes when I was training. Because you don't put baby oil on when you're training, right? So that's one of the reasons that guys put baby oil on so the ropes don't tear their skin, right? When they hit them. Another reason is when we're wrestling, when I've got you in a hold or whatever the case might be, it's very easy for me to bruise your skin and stuff or stretch a bicep or something when your skin sticks to mine, right? You can really get hurt, and you've got a big bruised bicep or something like that, right? So you need to be able to be slick, right? Right, because otherwise it doesn't come off smooth, it doesn't come off crisp when you're doing moves. Guys get hurt. Uh, so the baby oil, while a lot of people use it as a comical thing about show, it's actually there to protect the wrestlers from injury. So, yeah, a lot of people don't know that. Cool, yeah. But um, I can't remember where I was now. Well, yeah, anyway, it came in, came into the business, traveled when I got down to the states, so but that's the difference between learning how to wrestle in the states and learning how to wrestle in Canada, right? There are very few good trainers in Canada, in my opinion, that haven't gone into business for themselves. I've wrestled for a couple companies in Canada that I like, and that is about it. I mean, CWF, the Canadian Wrestling Federation, uh, my buddy Chris is the promoter there. They're great, they tour the whole country. Um, fantastic, fantastic organization, massive. Uh, yeah, what you and I have talked about Tony before, he'll be on the show. He's actually the promoter for the American Wrestling Federation. He used to work with the WWE ages ago, right? Um, but yeah, he's he's fantastic. He'd all he would always call me down because I'm Canadian, he'd call me down whenever he needed uh you know, some of his guys put over to make make them look good and stuff like that, right? Uh, because that that's what promoters do. So they have their roster, and then they'll call guys in like me from Canada or wherever, and he'll put me, you know, I'll get booed because I'm from Canada, obviously, right? So I'm gonna milk that as a bad guy, right? If I'm down in you know Atlanta or Florida or whatever, and he'll put me with one of his guys he's trying to get over as a baby face, as a good guy, right? And if I'm there for a few nights, then and we're doing TV tapings, then we'll do the whole thing where I get him, I get him, I get him, I cheat, uh, I get disqualified, stuff like that, right? And then we build up to him going over, kind of thing.

SPEAKER_02 43:29

Okay, wait a minute, wait a minute, hold on a second, though. You're telling me that you were a heel?

SPEAKER_00 43:34

Oh, I was always almost always the heel.

SPEAKER_02 43:36

Always the heel? Always you were never the good guy, you never had like uh like it, you know. I always thought um Hogan was funny when he was he was the real American, and then he became Hollywood Hogan. And it's like, oh, he became the heel, and we all hated him. Boo, you know, and then you're you're trying to r have a little redemption. But so you're telling me your whole time you were always the heel?

SPEAKER_00 44:00

Well, not the whole time, but the majority of the time. There was a couple times I went face. Um a lot of times it would be like for you know, for the states, if I was coming in and doing a like a one or two shot on a promotion that wanted to get a heel over or something like that, I'd I'd go babyface. But I just look like an asshole, let's be honest. I look like someone you want to boo. So let's let's be real. Um I did I did um I actually had a bit of a a spat with uh uh what was his name again? He uh he was in W or he was in TNA. Uh damn, it's gonna come to me. It'll it'll come to me. But anyway, um he was a real he was a real prick. Uh what was his name again?

SPEAKER_02 44:50

Are you referring to Rick Flair?

SPEAKER_00 44:53

No, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 44:54

Sorry. Wrestling jokes, sorry.

SPEAKER_00 44:57

No, it'll come to me. He was a big name in uh TNA. He was working, he was the camera guy for John Johnny DeV Johnny DeVoe, Johnny something like that. Anyway, um it'll come to me. He was a real freaking snake, right? So he would he would come to I was bouncing in a nightclub at the time as well. So he would come to that nightclub, and uh he'd be like, Yeah, he's like, I came here to see you, and we'd hang out and we'd chat, and he'd be all friendly and stuff. And he was coming down from TNA and we were chatting and stuff, and uh Johnny Devine, Johnny Devine, that's who that was his yeah, that was his gimmick. Real, real prick, man, right? Acts like your best friend, he's down there, he's saying hey, and you know, shoot the shit with you for hours and stuff. And then uh, so I did this, I did this show, this tournament. It was a steel cage tournament for a promotion, and the uh the promoter was putting me over as the new TV uh television champion, right? And um, so it's like oh, so I had to wrestle four matches that night because it was a tournament, right? Uh I had to do three matches and then a fatal four-way at the end uh to go over, right? I was exhausted by the end of it, and uh I ended up yeah, going over as the as the TV champion, and um it was it was a good show, in my opinion. We did it had some great matches. Um hit some great spots. And uh this uh there's one spot that I'll never forget. It was a smaller guy I was working, uh Leo, uh Leo London, good friend of mine, still still a good buddy, but he's up at the top of the cage, and uh I get up on the ropes in the corner, and I told him I'm gonna power bomb him off the top rope. He's up on top of the cage, and so you're coming all the way down to the ring, and he's like, Are you sure, man? He's so scared, right? But it worked out, right? And uh it worked. He's looking behind him. You can see in a frozen uh freeze frame picture, he's like looking behind him, coming for the bump. I'm like, never look behind you, man, right? But uh, either way, uh, it was a good tournament, it was a good show. Johnny Devine. Um he I don't know if he'd said it over on Facebook or something like that. He was um he was um bashing the whole show, basically saying it was a stupid idea, and yeah, then he tells me online, not to my face, he tells me uh it was a it was a big mistake for me to sign on to do a show that the whole show, like a tournament where the whole show is steel cage matches, right? That's what he said. He said he told he gave me shit, he said, you should never do something like that for, in his words, a jobber organization or a drop jobber promotion, right? Actually, he's as far as he was concerned, I should never even wrestled for that promotion in the first place. That's what he was saying to me. You shouldn't be doing matches for you know jobber promotions, he called it. And uh I was like, Well, hey man, you know what? For me, ring time is ring time. The more ring time I get in, the better I'm gonna get, right? And uh, it's all about ring time and whatever, right? Got paid to do the show, whatever, right? Anyway, fast forward like a few weeks later. Oh, Johnny, Mr. Johnny Divine did a show for the same promotion. Oh I said, Oh, Johnny, what happened to Jobber Promotions, my friend? Right? Uh, absolutely hilarious. But see, guys, they they pretend in the business that they care about your well. Nobody you you are responsible for your own career, and never let you know, in professional wrestling and never let somebody else dictate whether you're gonna work for a promotion or what you're gonna do. Because the next thing you know, you're gonna you're gonna see them talk you out of working for a promotion, and then two weeks later they're doing shows. What Johnny actually wanted was he wanted to be the he wanted to be uh in that tournament. Yeah, he wanted to win the TV title. It was about him, right? And he felt threatened by that, so that's what he had to say about it. So and then I just I lost all respect for him after that, and every time I saw him after, I was just like, dude, you're a job or yourself. Like, what are you talking about?

SPEAKER_01 49:12

You know, right, right.

SPEAKER_00 49:14

But there's been some great guys in the industry though, too. That I don't want people to walk away from this podcast thinking that you know it's all assholes in the industry and stuff like that, because it's it's really, really not. I made some of my closest friends in that business. Tony's a good friend. Um, but there was uh there's another guy, Coco Col Colt Cabana. I don't know if you ever heard of him. I think I do know that name, yeah. CM Punk's best friend. He was working with uh uh RO was it ROH? I think it was ROH. He was big in ROH. Um, but yeah, he's like CM Punk's best friend, Colt Cabana, good guy, solid dude, great worker, one of the greatest guys in the indie scene that never made it to the WWE, in my opinion, right? Um, so we were at a show, and it was in my hometown, right? And uh my my daughter, who was about four or five years old at the time, she was in the ring. This was before the show, doors were locked, you know, everything was set up. So I was just kind of standing ringside. My daughter was in the ring with a stuffed animal, and you know, she's she's never been in a ring before, so she's a little unsure if she's allowed to be in there or not, but she's you she's in there having fun. And cold cabana comes out from the locker room, gets in the ring, and I'm thinking this is either gonna go really good or really good or really bad, right? He goes up to my daughter, and uh he asks her what her name is, so she tells him, and he says, No, no, no, no, no, that's not a wrestling name, right? He says, Hey, she's got this stuffed animal, so he says, Your wrestling name is the pink porcupine, right? Because that's what she's holding in her hand, right? And uh he did an amazing job of making her feel like she belonged there instead of making her feel like she should leave, right? And this is coming from we call them names, this is coming from a name in the business who didn't have to give her the time of day, who didn't have to really give anybody the time of day, right? Uh, came out there, went out of his way to do that, and uh, you know, my daughter had a great time, and it's funny because later in the show, so I was wrestling in a tag match, and we were building a storyline on that tour. It was taped for TV, and it was my hometown, and these guys uh they the referee was distracted, and a guy came up. I was looking outside the ring, you know, or looking over the ropes outside the ring, yelling at somebody, and the guy comes behind me and you know sacks me from behind, gives me the old you know, arm under the under the crotch thing, right? So I'm like, so I'm I'm selling that. I turn and he puts brass knuckles on and he hits me with the brass knuckles, right? And then bam, and then he pins me, and then they you know they leave. I'm laying there selling it. My partner comes in the ring, he's like you know, wakes me up, kind of thing, and then we bolt out of there to go chase after them. Uh, but it was building up to us beating them later in the tour, right? Because it's tape for TV. So, but this was my hometown, right? So I get to the back, Colt Cabana says to me, This is your hometown, right? I said, Yeah, that's my hometown. He goes, We can't leave it like that, man. Can't leave it like that, right? He was wrestling the heavyweight champ in the main event. Cole Cabana was. So he said, All right, change of plans. He says, Uh, the champ's gonna cheat to go over. This is the finish, tells me what the finish is, and then he says, then he's gonna get his belt and he's gonna be winding up, like when I'm selling to get up, and he's when I get up, he's like he's gonna hit me with the belt in the head, right? He says, But instead of that happening, I'm gonna be selling. Your music's gonna hit, you're gonna come out, hit the stunner on the champ, save the day, right? And that's how we're leaving it on this on this show. As like, uh, does the promoter know that this is happening? Right? Because it kind of matters. He's like, Don't worry about him. So, okay, fine. So that's what we did. And um, you know, Colt grabs the microphone after, and uh he's he's putting me over in front of the crowd. Like, this whole tour would be a failure if it wasn't for for Rob, blah blah blah blah blah, right? Great time again, all stuff he didn't have to do. He could have sat there, minded his own business, done his part in the show, got paid, and went to his hotel. But he went out of his way to do all of this stuff, and those are the kind of guys you want to work with on tours, those are the kind of guys you want to book for tours and for shows and stuff because he gave a shit about the show as a whole, not just about his spot in the show, right? He cared about the crowd walking away from that show, going, fuck yeah, I want to come back to another one of those shows, right? Yeah, and that matters, that matters, and that that seems like it's a it's a a rare thing in the industry. So many guys are concerned with themselves in the industry that they don't worry about the presentation of the show as a whole, they don't worry about being able to draw a house next time they come through, right? And again, like you said earlier in the in the podcast, it's all about egos, right? Guys are so worried that they don't look good. I've seen shows where guys are like, no, I'm not putting that guy over. And the words of Hul Kogan himself the minute that you feel or are will say the words, I'm not letting that guy go over on me, you need to leave the industry. Because he's not beating you, right? You're putting him over to advance a storyline in the show, and the minute you think that you're too good to do that, you need to leave.

SPEAKER_02 55:13

Yeah, you know, really, if you think about it, wrestling is a lot like uh like a soap opera. Like if you think of some of the longest-running soap operas, they've been going for 20, 30, 40, 50 years, and the story always evolves, right? But it just it just keeps going, you know. Uh it's it's kind of like we we talked about in the uh Marvel episode, it's the endless storyline, you know, it's got to evolve.

SPEAKER_00 55:40

Well, that's just it. And I see people online, especially recently, and they just bash Triple H all the time, right? Oh, he's he's killing the WWE and stuff like that. And with all these, he's not putting this person over, he's not putting that person over. There's a lot of controversy about uh LA Knight not really getting over, like not getting he's over, but he's not getting like a belt, he's not getting you know a heavyweight title, he's not getting that push that the crowd feels that he should have, right? And the thing is, don't you think that's by design? Don't you think that this is getting built up to the point one could argue the same thing about Jay Jay Uso, who for a long time, almost a year, he was losing every match when he went solo, and people were expecting this big push when he went solo from his tag team with uh with his brother, and he never got a push, and people are getting frustrated. Oh, he's getting buried, he's getting buried, he's not winning anything, he keeps losing. WrestleMania, boom, wins the heavyweight title, right? You build up that anticipation with a character, right? And LA Knight, mark my words, he is massively over with the crowd, right? And I know you probably don't know who I'm talking about, but um triple H is not stupid. He's been in the industry a long time, in the WD a long time. He knows what he's doing, right? He's not not giving LA Knight that opportunity because he has some sort of personal problem with him, right? When he finally does put that strap around LA Knight, and I have no doubt that he will at some point, it's gonna be so big of a deal because of all the frustration that fans have about the fact that he's not uh getting it, right? The storyline is not always, in fact, it's more it's more beneficial to the company to give you what you don't want, right? Give you the opposite of what you want to see, because it emotionally invests you in the story now, right? Now you're pissed, right? If you just do what what's easy, like for crying out loud, putting the strap on Cody Rhodes. I mean, certain certain characters in the WWE transcend belts, right? They usually put a belt on someone who can't really get over as much as they want them to without the belt, right? Someone like The Undertaker, someone like Cody Rhodes, the rock, right? They don't need a belt to be over. I mean, how many times did the Undertaker was the Undertaker champion in his whole time in the WWE? Like five, six times tops over his whole career, like most of them weren't even memorable long runs. He didn't need the belt, he was the Undertaker, right? Right, right. So certain characters they transcend that. Roman Reigns is another one, right? He doesn't need a belt, he's like he's the tribal chief.

SPEAKER_02 58:47

You know, uh I used to love with the Undertaker, um, the guy that would come out with him that would always be holding the urn. Um Paul Bear. Yeah, Paul Bear. Like that was awesome when he would come out and he would he would hold the urn up, and it was like, Oh, it's the Undertaker, oh my god, you're he cops, you know, and then he's got like the urn, and you're like, Oh, shit's about to get real, you know, here we go.

SPEAKER_00 59:13

Yeah, and then they added Kane's character, which was genius. Genius.

SPEAKER_02 59:19

But uh, yeah, I was gonna ask you about uh Cody Rhodes, what you thought about him, because um, you know, obviously being was a Dusty Rhodes son, um, kind of a you know, a family affair, and even you know, the thing with Triple H isn't he married to Vince's daughter.

SPEAKER_03 59:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 59:35

So yeah, it's it's it's interesting how all that stuff goes, but I kind of feel like um I think Cody Rhodes just he's got that look about him, you know, like you could just tell that this guy could, like you said, he doesn't even need the belt, truthfully, you know.

SPEAKER_00 59:49

No, he's the golden boy right now, and that and that's fine. I mean, I mean that in an endearing way, not in a you know, not in a negative way. But yeah, he doesn't need a belt. He is so over with the crowd, you just have to find intriguing storylines to put him into, and he doesn't need a belt, right? The fact that they put the strap on Drew McIntyre and then took it off of him less than a month later to put it back on Cody Rhodes again. Like, listen, I get it, okay. The reason they did it is because a match that's become extremely personal between Cody Rhodes and Randy Orton is far bigger of a of a match than Drew McIntyre versus Randy Orton, right? That's a throwaway match. That's like a that's like a pay-per-view match down the road or something. We've seen feuds with Randy Orton and Drew McIntyre in the past. It's nothing new. But Randy Orton turning heel and doing what he's doing now, returning to the Randy Randy Orton of old, facing Cody Rhodes in a personal way like this. Yes, that's a bigger ticket seller. That's why they did it. But at the end of the day, Drew McIntyre, I like Drew McIntyre. I think that he is one of the guys who respects the business the most that I've seen. The way that he allows himself to be jobbed out and stuff like that without complaining about it, right? His character complains about it, but don't confuse his gimmick with who he is backstage, right? If he truly had a problem with what they've been doing to him over the last two or three years, maybe longer, in the industry, wouldn't be doing it anymore, right? He does it because it furthers the business, it furthers the story, right? So I I think that I have a lot of respect for Drew McIntyre for putting himself second and putting the industry first. But his character, I think, should have the belt. I think he should, right? His character does need it. I mean, he's hated, but it's you know, it's it's always the way that it should always be, and a lot of people in the business will tell you this: the face should always be chasing the title. That's what makes the storyline interesting. The bad guy, like Edge, right? You've got he's got the title, yet he always seems to squirm out of it. The Undertaker chases him and tries to get that strap from him time and time again, but he just manages to squeak out somehow, right? And frustrate the Undertaker and frustrate the fans. That makes a good storyline. You the face should be chasing the belt, the heels should be holding the belt. When you get a face who holds the belt forever, it gets stagnant because they're a face, it's not interesting, right? Right, right. Then you have heels chasing the belt. That's stupid. Like you have no emotional investment in that storyline. So that's why people were booing when Cody won the belt back from Drew a couple weeks ago, because they're they don't want to see Cody wearing the belt again. They want to see Cody chasing the belt.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:58

Right, right. Hey, what do you think about um I'm sure you've probably seen this a million times, but I I find it hilarious. The uh there's a video of uh Randy Orton, and he's looking over at you know, the Undertaker, and it's like the Undertaker's dead or whatever, and then the Undertaker reaches up and chokes him out, you know, and turns into this total melee. And they always take that video now, and they'll like, you know, put like your football team here that you know that they thought they were winning, and then that's like the football team that comes back and chokes him out of the game, you know. I love that that video, like I think that's so funny. And um, I always thought that Randy Orton was was really good. Uh just just wrestler wise, you know. I feel like he's got really good technique. I don't know. What do you think about that?

SPEAKER_00 1:03:51

Randy Orton's one of the best in the that they're left there will ever be in the business, in my opinion. His uh his longevity in the business, his character development, um, the way he can go face to heel to heel to face, uh, and and be a tweener at the same time. Um his work in the ring, his snap, his snap body slam when he throws somebody. Like, I'm like one of these days he's gonna snap someone's neck, but he's too good to do that, right? Like, so uh yeah, I really do think that uh and the way that he is able to hit an RKO and he's shown from so many different avenues is just phenomenal. You see guys coming off the top rope, doing a backflip, he catches them by the head and RKOs them in midair, and it just goes so seamlessly, you're just like, holy shit, this guy is like next level talented when it comes to the business.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:44

Well, what's what's your opinion on Brock Lesnar? What do you think there? Like, I I'm kind of torn on Lesnar, where you know, obviously I've seen him go back and forth between the UFC wrestling, kind of, you know, he seems to hop back and forth across that fence at different times. I almost feel like he like he's too intense sometimes for wrestling, like he takes it too far. Uh, I I don't know, you know, am I reading that wrong? What do you think about him?

SPEAKER_00 1:05:15

Brock Lesnar is a super athlete, right? Yeah, you don't see you don't see many super athletes come along in a lifetime, but he is a super athlete. I'm surprised he didn't do more. He played in the NFL, yeah, he won the UFC Heavyweight Championship. He's been a cornerstone in the WWE and professional wrestling for like what almost two decades, maybe? Like he yeah, two decades. He came up with John Cena. Um, from every report I've ever seen of guys who've worked with him and stuff like that. Um, he's not stiff, right? He has given receipts to people like Braun Strowman. I remember before. Um, Need. I don't know if it was an accident or not. I'm assuming it was an accident, need brought less. Lesnar in the head for real in a match, and Lesnar, you know, gave him a couple of stiff punches to the face in the match as a receipt. And you'll get receipts from time to time from guys, um, which that's a whole nother topic I'll get into. But uh Brock, from what I understand, he's he's always been very, very easy to work with because he's so talented, he's so athletic that guys find it easy to work with him, right? And he's not egocentric, like he doesn't oh it's me, me, me, me, me. I gotta look good, or else, right? He's not he's not that either.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:36

Have you seen um his daughter? There's a couple videos of her, and she looks exactly like him, but a girl, like yeah, like she is like ripped, you know, and it's like, holy cow! Like it's it's funny the how the physique kind of carried over, but you know, maybe the thing with Lesnar that kind of gets me is that weird, like knife tattoo thing that he has, you know, like it's it's a little it's a little much.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:02

It doesn't look good. It's it's no, yeah. Yeah. I think I wouldn't be shocked to see his daughter in the WWE five, ten years from now. Don't be surprised. Lesnar's daughter, you got Rick Flair's daughter in there right now. Don't be surprised. Brock Lesnar's daughter, she's gonna come in, she's gonna dominate the women's division. Don't be shocked. You've seen Rana Rossi there, like so yeah. She's I mean, she's a she's a champion, she's a champion in Greco-Roman right now, really.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:30

Oh, yeah. So uh speaking of Flair, let me ask you this. Um, are you shocked that Flair is still alive? How is he how is he the last man standing? I I'm having a hard time figuring out how Flair somehow keeps going, and it seems like the other guys of that era are like going down left and right, you know.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:54

Well, I think for one, Flair you he did use a lot of gear, a lot of steroids. Not as much as the other guys, though, in my opinion. Flair was never that muscle-bound, he wasn't the Hulk Hogan, he wasn't the ultimate warrior, he wasn't that guy. Neither was Roddy Roddy Piper, really. But those guys were jacked, but you know, they weren't heavy steroid user jacked, right? I think that could play a factor for sure, because it definitely weakens your heart and stuff like that when you use those kind of uh supplements. But uh, yeah, I mean it's it's kind of ironic, but because he's he's kind of like the the George Burns of wrestling, right? He's smoked cigars and drank boots every day and lived to be over a hundred, right?

SPEAKER_02 1:08:38

Yeah, yeah. I saw a uh I I think it was a 30 for 30 that ESPN did on him, and I watched it and I was like, this guy's completely insane, and it's like he's been that way like his whole his whole life. Like it's just completely out of control. And you know, everybody that you know, especially like the women in his life, that's like, yeah, we wanted him to just be like a father, and it's like that this guy is so far off the planet, you know, it's like he may as well have been like prince, you know.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:08

Well, is he he wrestled way later into his into his life than most of those guys did too, which tells me that he, I mean, he was an active wrestler on the roster for you know, must have been into his yeah, must have been late into his 60s, must have been, right? He was still doing matches, and I think that that really did help prolong his life because you you gotta be in great shape, you know. So I think his conditioning probably paid played a big factor.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:44

Well, yeah, you know, let's be honest, too. That that hand chop that he has, I mean, my god, to get hit with that, like that that one's leaving a welt. You get you get smacked with one of the Ric Flair hand chops.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:56

Yeah. Uh only one guy ever chopped me so hard that I couldn't believe it. And I can't I can't even remember who it was. But I I all I remember is that chop and thinking, no more of those. No more of those, please.

SPEAKER_02 1:10:19

Hey, you'll find this funny. I got in a loop at one point on Instagram, and it was a loop of like wrestling stunts, you know, and uh and one of the videos was like all the time somebody got hit with an acoustic guitar, and like my God, I mean, some of those where they hit them with the guitar, like it's like full-blown, crack them in the head, the guitar explodes. Like, oh my god. And you know, I always think about like the chair, you know, when they walk out and they hit you with the chair. I mean, yeah, it's a folding chair, but uh I don't know. I mean, I I could see where you could say, okay, well, if you're doing the chair right, it doesn't hurt. But I could also see something messing up somewhere, and you hit somebody with the chair and they're like out cold, you know.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:07

No, no, it hurts. There's no right way to hit somebody with a chair so that it doesn't hurt. It just hurts. It just hurts, it just hurts. That's it, right? Um, and that that's another thing a lot of people don't get is that when you're getting hit with something, when you're falling off something, like you said, there's no way for Mick Foley to fake falling off its steel cage and falling through a table. Oh god, yeah, or falling through the cage into the ring. Like what there's no way to fake that. That hurts.

SPEAKER_02 1:11:38

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, you know, uh along those same lines, I think there was an era of wrestling, especially kind of around when Shane McMahon was doing all of his stuff, that it was like they kept kind of like upping the ante of like, how much crazier can we go? How much higher can he jump from, you know, onto this table or or whatever. And you know, some of Shane's stunts are insane too. Like we're somebody like like duplexed him onto the concrete. I mean, it's like head straight into concrete, you know, and like it's it's insane some of his stunts that that he's done in particular. Like, like some of those ones where he's jumping and it's like, oh, he's 60 feet up, and there he goes.

unknown 1:12:26

You know? Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:12:28

I don't know, man. Those are those are nuts.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:32

Yeah, it's it's a small that was a different time too, though. They don't they don't do that as much anymore.

SPEAKER_01 1:12:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:38

Obviously, right? That was a time where it it definitely uh it definitely got crazy.

SPEAKER_02 1:12:46

So hey, speaking of it getting crazy, so um, you know, obviously I'm I'm in Jacksonville, and um uh the con family owns the Jaguars football team here, and Tony Khan, you know, starts up AEW. And kind of wanted to get your thoughts on AEW. I don't know how much you know about that. And yeah, you know, one at one point, this is kind of funny. So every year uh in the NFL, they do the NFL draft, and it's like a big event, right? And they'll show like the team's office, and you know, they draft somebody, everybody's high-fiving and stuff like that. And uh, so for the Jags, they show that, and Tony Khan's in there and he's got the neck brace, and they're like, Oh yeah, there's Tony Khan, and they're like, Yeah, actually he's wearing the neck brace because he was pile drive last night on AEW.

SPEAKER_00 1:13:37

Honestly, kind of funny. I don't think I've actually ever watched an episode of AEW.

SPEAKER_02 1:13:43

Really?

SPEAKER_00 1:13:44

I don't think I've ever watched a single episode. Uh, some of the things that you're doing over there, I don't know. It's just this none of the storylines have really captivated me. Um, none of the characters, like none of this, yeah, like it's just nothing has really caught my interest. Maybe I'll try to watch it. I'm not saying it's bad stuff. The guys over there are really, really talented, but I think that what ends up happening is uh you get people to go there and then they either they leave the WD to go there, and then they end up back in the WWE eventually. And I think the same thing will happen with uh uh what's what's his name? Um the guy from the shield that's over there right now. Can't remember his name. He'll be he'll be back over there. Um Dean Ambrose. Dean Ambrose, he'll be back. He's he's under a different gimmick over there, but Sean Moxley, but he'll he'll be back in the WWE, I have no doubt. I'm sure Chris Jericho will finish his career in the WWE at some point as well. Um, you know, he'll probably want to retire there and get into the WWE Hall of Fame, I'm sure, and all that fun stuff. So I think it's kind of just it reminds me of like a farm team for the WWE. There's some guys that are getting big there, and usually they end up leaving to go to WWE as well, right?

SPEAKER_01 1:14:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:15:00

So one thing I do find fascinating is uh Oba Fetty, Oba Femi, uh and Brock Lesnar. Uh, I know you're probably not following that storyline, but um Oba is this uh this guy that's come in from the NXT, right? He's a beast. He's a beast, he's got a really good gimmick going on, uh, the ruler. And uh Lesnar's been putting him over the last two weeks, making them look really, really good. They're wrestling at WrestleMania. Now I think it would be if they're gonna put Brock Lesnar over at WrestleMania in this match, it needs to be done in a way that like he cheats to win, and then it builds to another match with them at Backlash or something like that. And a continued storyline, right? Not some one-off, they have a match, Lesnar goes. I think that would be such a waste, and it would bury Oba. The crowd loves this guy, right? He's like, I think he's your next big name in the business in the WWE, he's your next big face.

SPEAKER_01 1:16:04

I'll have to look for him. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 1:16:06

Yeah, he's he's really good. He's out of uh, I think he's out of like Ethiopia or something like that. He's a beast. And um very talented in the ring. He's got presence, he's got size. Uh if they don't at some point, if they don't have the belt on him, mistake.

SPEAKER_02 1:16:23

Let me ask you something. Um kind of about the let's say the complicated legacy of WWE, right? With Vince in particular. And you know, Vince was so involved in literally everything, you know, for decades, right? And it's you know, I saw that the Netflix thing on the Mr. McMahon and kind of how he he got sort of just oddly kicked out of it and sort of lost it all and and whatnot. Um what what do you what do you think about all that with him? And do you think there was a passing of the torch to Triple H or you know, the baton, let's say the Triple H got it, and it what it what what do you think about how that whole thing kind of ended or or changed? Or do you think Vince is still in the background somewhere?

SPEAKER_00 1:17:21

I think that if Vince, if it was up to him, he would be there till the day he died running. Right. I don't think there's any way that he voluntarily left the WWE. Now, is he does he have some influence still? Probably, but I think that uh Triple H has the backbone to tell him no when he wants him to do something that doesn't make sense, right? So yeah, I I think that if Vince had his his way, he'd still be there. And listen, it's it's weird to me coming from somebody from the business. All the stuff that happens in the business is normal. We just we've now moved to a world where people are so sensitive to everything that like I remember watching uh it was a show I was watching on Netflix, right? It was backstage, it was that wrestling Kfabe show, and you had the road dog talking behind the scenes with um I don't know, one of the female wrestlers, I can't remember her name, but she was all upset because she was supposed to be in a match and then she was pulled from the show, so she was all upset about it, and she was she was making accusations to the camera that it was because of a personal personal problem between her and another worker. So she went to Road Dog, pulled them aside, they were mic'd up, and you know, he he tore into her a little bit. Not extreme, he wasn't swearing at her or anything. He explained to her in a respectful way, look, you know, the wrestling industry is about respect, it's about paying your dues, and it's about keeping your mouth shut if you're new to the industry. It's not about being some rookie who has all these complaints and wants to dictate that things should be done a certain way because that's the way the world is now, right? It's not the way it works in professional wrestling. So when he pulls her aside, well, she pulled him aside, and then he explained it to her respectfully. He said, Look, you're pulled off the card, it has nothing to do with you and a personal problem you have with another another wrestler or whatever. He said, You were pulled off the show for this reason, and this is what was best for the for the show and for the event. We needed to put something else in for storyline purposes, and he said that's why it was done. So he explained it to her. It had nothing to do with her, why she why she was removed from the card, and then he went on and told her, and also the next time, basically said, the next time you want to make an accusation like that, pack your bags because you're not going to be working here anymore, right? Of course, he didn't say it in those exact words, but that's what he said. You're new here, right? If you get pulled from a card, guess what? You're pulled from the card, right? And then you come here and you accuse me of being biased and pulling you off a card because you have a personal problem with some other wrestler, right? He's like, We don't we don't play these games here, right? So, and then like the internet took that, and like road dog is such an asshole, and blah blah blah blah blah blah. No, that's just the way the business works, and if you think that that was hard, my friends, there have there have been things that have been said to me when I was newer in the business that I was extremely offended that were a million times worse than that, right? But you know what? Kept my mouth shut and I kept moving forward, right?

SPEAKER_02 1:20:38

Yeah, you you know, where I come from in the world of the corporate America, I I often saw this kind of thing a lot, where we would bring on, you know, these contractors for this thing or that thing or whatever, and they would cause all this drama, right? And you know, it was just like, look, we we didn't bring you here to cause drama or to start a rift or some issue. And I would I would tell them all the same thing every time, like every time that we ramp up and in staffing like this, I'd say, look, show up, work hard, make lots of money, and I'll call you again next time. That's how it works. But like if you show up and you're memorable, you're either memorable in a good way or a really bad way. And if you're memorable in a bad way, then I mean, like your career is like done because we're gonna block you from that point on from ever coming back. And anytime I see your name pop up, blocked. No, you're not you're not coming in, you know.

SPEAKER_00 1:21:44

Yeah, oh, I remember that person. Yeah, that's because of that, right? Yeah, no, I don't want to work with them anymore. Yeah, you know, I'll tell you though, I love wrestling in the states. I cringe at wrestling in Canada, right? Like I get it, I get asked all the time, so I'm retired, I'm years retired now. I still get phone calls, texts. Um, every year there's a promoter that does uh a 50 man battle royal show every November, I think it is. And every year he calls me, hey man, you know, do you want to do the 50 Man Battle Royal? No, I don't. No. Like Tony messages me from Florida all the time, and he's like, Hey man, you know, why don't you come down, do some shows? I'm retired, but that's the only one that's really tempting me to come back down and and you know put some work in and maybe just help some of the young guys and stuff like that, right?

SPEAKER_02 1:22:42

Hey, you can always be uh you could be the next Paul Heyman or somebody like that, you know.

SPEAKER_00 1:22:47

Yeah, there you there you go. Yeah. I tell you, I'm not flying down to Florida every month to be Paul Heyman, though. It's funny. Yeah, but there's just there's so much to unpack when it comes to uh when it comes to wrestling. Um, but we want to save some for the next show. So uh I'm gonna see if I can get Tony on for the next show. Like I said, he's the owner and promoter of the uh American Wrestling Federation, and uh he's a buddy of mine, and we will uh we'll see if we can get him on.

SPEAKER_02 1:23:19

Yeah, I think that'd be really cool. I'd like to also kind of delve into um some of the wrestling type movies. Like obviously, there was the movie The Wrestler by uh Darren Aronofsky. That I thought that was awesome. I don't know if you ever saw the iron claw. We could talk about that too. That again, awesome. Um there's there's so much.

SPEAKER_00 1:23:41

There's a show on Netflix called Wrestlers as well. And um Al Snow, it's a it's following Al Snow, and he he owns a wrestling promotion down in the States, and uh it's about that wrestling promotion. It's it's a limited series. I would definitely recommend watching it.

SPEAKER_02 1:23:57

Okay, yeah, I'll I'll have to check that out. You know what's funny? Um a couple years ago, my wife and I were watching Glow. It was like the women of wrestling, and that that series was hilarious. Like I was I was you know, I thought multiple episodes were really, really good of that, and I had never even heard of that before.

SPEAKER_00 1:24:17

Yeah, I'm happy that the the women in professional wrestling, I'm glad they've started to focus on actual athletes instead of the the whole Diva thing with the brawn panties matches and stuff. And I mean, like, yeah, every guy's like, oh, it's a brawn panties match, but at the end of the day, uh, you know, I want to see I want to see these women who are athletic, who can impress me with what they can do in the ring, and you're starting to see that now with a lot of these women. Uh Rhea Ripley's one of them, right? Yeah, like phenomenal talent, and they have interesting characters, right? Before the Divas division or whatever it was back in the day, it was all they were all bimbos, it was all just like no one really cared about any of their gimmicks or anything like that. But now you've got such interesting uh character development when it comes to the women's division that um I really I really like it, you know. You your Rhea Ripley's your um your Liv Morgan's, right? Um Bailey's kind of a man on an island right now. I don't really know what direction her gimmick is going in, but um uh what's her name? Uh frustrates me that I'm I'm having a memory loss when it comes to names. Um Alexa Bliss. Another interesting character, uh, and many, many more, right? Um so I I love I love that they're developing characters that I can invest in, that I can care about on a weekly basis, as opposed to just throwing two girls in the ring and having a bra and panties match that they both look the same, and you know, one's wearing a red bra and one's wearing a black bra. I don't care. So I I like how how the how it's grown uh to make room for women in uh professional ref female wrestlers in the industry. I like that.

SPEAKER_01 1:26:05

So yeah, yeah. And it should grow more, truthfully.

SPEAKER_00 1:26:09

I mean, oh yeah, I mean they have their own pay-per-view um that they do now. What's it called? I I can't remember what it's called. Um, but they have they have that going for them now. They have women's tag team titles, they have women's intercontinental title, the women's US title. Um you know, so yeah, they have far more. And let I mean, honestly, the women's matches take up a lot of times more than half the matches in a show on an episode of Raw or SmackDown. It's mostly women's matches for the most part. You get a you know, I I find anyway, if you maybe I'm wrong, but it feels like it. A lot of times it's more women's matches than it is men's matches.

SPEAKER_02 1:26:47

So you know, I I wonder, I kind of wonder for I mean, you know as well as I do, like on something like YouTube, if you track it, you can kind of see where in every video it's like it starts high and then it trails off. There's kind of like a midpoint and then it trails off again to the bottom. And I wonder if they have those same kind of metrics that they're looking at between the women's and the men's matches, and maybe there's there's parts in there where they retain your attention longer or something like that. You know, maybe that's why. Maybe that's why they slightly slant it, you know.

SPEAKER_00 1:27:23

I don't think it's as as much women versus men as it is I have to give a crap about doesn't matter who's in the ring, I have to give a crap about what's happening. So if they've developed a storyline um and the characters are interesting, whether it's male or female, I'm gonna watch it. But if uh I mean, and it's not a knock against them, but if it's like uh if it's two guys, for example, that are having a match, and I don't really care about the storyline to what's going on with them or anything, I'll get up and go get some food or do what I gotta do and let the match play out, come back, and I'm okay missing that match, right? But if it's like Rhea Ripley. Versus uh you know Jade or something like that, I'm gonna watch that match, right? Because these are two interesting characters. This is an interesting plot storyline that's going on. It has my attention. So I think it's more that than it is male versus female.

SPEAKER_01 1:28:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:28:15

So gotta have the right people there. That's another thing, too. Like these people who get upset about wrestlers who get released from the WWE. It's like they didn't have anything for their characters going on. Like, what do you want them to do? Right. You know? I don't know. But I think we're about out of time, brother. I know you got some running around you gotta do too. So uh we will wrap it there, and we'll be back on Wednesday for the next episode.

SPEAKER_02 1:28:44

Another fine episode of the shift coming Wednesday afternoon, right?

SPEAKER_00 1:28:50

Absolutely, brother. And I'll uh I'll keep working on getting some guests so we can continue on the wrestling, uh, the wrestling episodes.

SPEAKER_02 1:28:58

Yeah, there's there's still uh there's so much to unpack there. Again, it's the endless storyline. I mean, how many how many decades of content do we have, you know, like 50 50 years worth, you know?

SPEAKER_00 1:29:12

Yeah, no kidding, man. No kidding. All right, brother. Well, this wraps up another episode. Uh, thank you guys for listening. Make sure you give us a five star review, as always, and let us know what topics you want us to talk about. We'll see you in the next one. God bless.

SPEAKER_01 1:29:28

Till next time.