Latest / The Breakfast Club / INTERVIEW: Swerve Strickland On AEW Career After WWE, Beef With 'Hangman,' Sean Michaels Influence, Music + More

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INTERVIEW: Swerve Strickland On AEW Career After WWE, Beef With 'Hangman,' Sean Michaels Influence, Music + More · The Breakfast Club

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Wake that ass up in the morning.
• 0:02
  Speaker 2: The Breakfast Club Morning.
• 0:05
  Speaker 3: Everybody is the j n Vy, Jess, Hilari, Charlamagne, the guy.
• 0:09
  Speaker 3: We are the Breakfast Club Law and the rolls of
• 0:10
  Speaker 3: filling in for Jess. We got a special guest in
• 0:12
  Speaker 3: the building.
• 0:13
  Speaker 2: Yes it is.
• 0:14
  Speaker 4: We have Swerve strictly ladies and gentlemen.
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: What's going on, Star, Yes, sir.
• 0:19
  Speaker 4: Former AW world champion. Congratulations.
• 0:21
  Speaker 5: Yes, first black AW World champion and one of the
• 0:24
  Speaker 5: last ones in the last decade in the industry wide.
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: So I'm really proud of that.
• 0:29
  Speaker 2: Why is the AW so red hot right now?
• 0:31
  Speaker 5: We had Yeah, yeah, Chouda Mercedes, thank you for coming
• 0:37
  Speaker 5: in and opening this door for AW to come in,
• 0:39
  Speaker 5: for me to come and do it again.
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: But it's our.
• 0:43
  Speaker 5: Roster, it's our talent, it's our drive, it's our revolution
• 0:46
  Speaker 5: of the style of pro wrestling. It's also the vast
• 0:50
  Speaker 5: variety that we offer. And for me, it's like also
• 0:53
  Speaker 5: the inclusivity. It's the like the top Japanese wrestlers in
• 0:57
  Speaker 5: the world, the top lucha doors in the world from Mexico,
• 0:59
  Speaker 5: the top talents from Canada, like of all time, where
• 1:01
  Speaker 5: you're getting all of it, you know, it's also that
• 1:05
  Speaker 5: hunger that we have. We're always feel like we're fighting
• 1:08
  Speaker 5: to prove it, you know, We're always feel like there's
• 1:10
  Speaker 5: something to prove, there's something to fight for and progress
• 1:13
  Speaker 5: to every single week, three times a week on television,
• 1:17
  Speaker 5: TBS and TNT.
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: So there's a lot to fight for and there's a
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: lot to prove.
• 1:21
  Speaker 5: And I think and I feel like you see that
• 1:23
  Speaker 5: and you feel that in our matches and our promos,
• 1:26
  Speaker 5: our product.
• 1:27
  Speaker 4: You know, Now, how did you get into wrestling? Tell
• 1:29
  Speaker 4: us that story?
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: What made you say?
• 1:31
  Speaker 4: You know what, Mom, Dad, I want to be a wrestler.
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: It was mainly mom.
• 1:34
  Speaker 5: So I went to the military right after high school.
• 1:37
  Speaker 5: Was like two weeks after I graduated high school. My
• 1:39
  Speaker 5: mom literally was my recruiter, and she was also my
• 1:43
  Speaker 5: sister's recruiter, so she got us. She both recruited us
• 1:46
  Speaker 5: civilian wise civilian recruiter got us. Both recruited the same unit.
• 1:50
  Speaker 5: And I went three years after my sister went in
• 1:53
  Speaker 5: did my week two months, and basic training did my
• 1:58
  Speaker 5: eight weeks eight months after that, So I didn't come
• 2:00
  Speaker 5: home for like another ten months after this. I'm sixteen,
• 2:03
  Speaker 5: seventeen years old, do and this on my own come back,
• 2:06
  Speaker 5: and I was just like, you know what, Like I
• 2:07
  Speaker 5: was working a job.
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: I was.
• 2:09
  Speaker 5: My first job was at Comcast Cable. I was like
• 2:12
  Speaker 5: installing cable in people's homes. Then I went to like
• 2:16
  Speaker 5: I got laid off from that job. Then I went
• 2:18
  Speaker 5: to just packing trucks and ups at.
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: Four in the morning.
• 2:22
  Speaker 5: I was like, you know what, if I'm going to
• 2:25
  Speaker 5: be doing this, I'm going to be working hard I
• 2:26
  Speaker 5: want to do.
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: I'm going to work hard.
• 2:28
  Speaker 5: At something that I'm passionate about, something that like I
• 2:31
  Speaker 5: don't think I can do. I want to try to
• 2:32
  Speaker 5: do something that I don't think I can do. And
• 2:34
  Speaker 5: pro wrestling was just something I was just passionate about
• 2:36
  Speaker 5: since I was twelve, and I was like.
• 2:37
  Speaker 4: He was watching as a wrestling fan.
• 2:39
  Speaker 5: Oh yeah yeah, yeah, Like it was the video games
• 2:41
  Speaker 5: that really got me hooked. It was my friend SmackDown,
• 2:45
  Speaker 5: shut your mouth.
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I was the one.
• 2:48
  Speaker 5: It's just like the roster was crazy, like the stories
• 2:52
  Speaker 5: was crazy, and this is the athleticism.
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: But Raymonsterial is the one that really got me.
• 2:55
  Speaker 2: And very underrated wrestler. I think Ray Mysterio is.
• 2:58
  Speaker 5: He's the greatest loutator of all time, and I think
• 3:02
  Speaker 5: like his impact is just like crosses over so much
• 3:06
  Speaker 5: and so big. Respect Uncle Ray. He's still a good
• 3:08
  Speaker 5: friend of mine. So I would say it was just like, Okay,
• 3:14
  Speaker 5: I had the military to fall back on if anything
• 3:16
  Speaker 5: was to happen.
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: So I have that.
• 3:18
  Speaker 5: Let me move down to Virginia from Pennsylvania. Let me
• 3:20
  Speaker 5: start my wrestling career. I called this promoter, Dave McCleod
• 3:24
  Speaker 5: told me to come through. I moved down Sunday. I
• 3:27
  Speaker 5: was training on Tuesday. My mom paid my first months
• 3:30
  Speaker 5: tuition and then I had a month to get a
• 3:32
  Speaker 5: job to pay for the rest of the way.
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: And sure enough, that's what That was the rest of
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: my journey.
• 3:36
  Speaker 6: So you come from a military family though, right like
• 3:39
  Speaker 6: your parents both of them are.
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: My dad was served in Desert storm damn.
• 3:45
  Speaker 6: So what made you want to get into it just
• 3:47
  Speaker 6: because your dad did it?
• 3:48
  Speaker 5: It was some My mom thought it was a good
• 3:50
  Speaker 5: foundation to start my soda.
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: Hey yeah, sixteens. Yeah, I graduated at seventeen. I was
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: like boom. Two weeks later I was on a bus.
• 4:04
  Speaker 4: Yeah yeah, but it wasn't bad.
• 4:06
  Speaker 5: It was just like I'm actually like at the time,
• 4:09
  Speaker 5: I was like, man, I want to just go out
• 4:10
  Speaker 5: and do what my friends are doing.
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: I wanted to, like you see the world. I want
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: to like have fun.
• 4:14
  Speaker 5: Let me at least like sleep on the couch for
• 4:15
  Speaker 5: two weeks, give me something. But that's what started me
• 4:19
  Speaker 5: to learn how to be a man and to go
• 4:22
  Speaker 5: after things, not because like man, oh, this is something
• 4:26
  Speaker 5: you can kind of put off. No, if you don't
• 4:28
  Speaker 5: do it yourself, it's not getting done. Like you know,
• 4:31
  Speaker 5: I gotta learn to shave, I gotta learned to do
• 4:33
  Speaker 5: my laundry. I got learned to buy a plane ticket.
• 4:36
  Speaker 5: I got to learn to do all these things. And
• 4:37
  Speaker 5: I did it because I was in the I was
• 4:39
  Speaker 5: put in a position that I didn't have the choice.
• 4:42
  Speaker 5: I had to learn it. I had to be these
• 4:44
  Speaker 5: I had to put myself in these situations. And so
• 4:46
  Speaker 5: when I started my wrestling duringey in my career, I
• 4:50
  Speaker 5: was like comfortable. I was like, well, what's the worst
• 4:53
  Speaker 5: that could happen? Oh, you know what, let me try that,
• 4:55
  Speaker 5: Let me do that. And it's like that fear and
• 4:56
  Speaker 5: that confidence, that fear went away. My confidence grew and
• 5:00
  Speaker 5: that's like resonated with my work in my wrestling.
• 5:03
  Speaker 7: And you entered into WWA at first.
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: No, No, that came like ten years later.
• 5:08
  Speaker 7: Okay, so what was the building, like, what was the
• 5:10
  Speaker 7: journey up?
• 5:10
  Speaker 5: Like independence? So my first year in wrestling two thousand
• 5:16
  Speaker 5: and eight. I started training August two thousand and eight,
• 5:19
  Speaker 5: and my first match was until March of two thousand
• 5:21
  Speaker 5: and nine. Within that time I was training, I had
• 5:25
  Speaker 5: the military, so I had to do my drills from
• 5:27
  Speaker 5: Virginia all the way back up to Pennsylvania.
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: It's a four hour drive once a month.
• 5:31
  Speaker 5: Had to get a job, started school, I t tech
• 5:34
  Speaker 5: and drafting and design and then so all that was
• 5:37
  Speaker 5: going on. But then later of two thousand and nine,
• 5:40
  Speaker 5: my oldest daughter was born. So now I was like,
• 5:42
  Speaker 5: oh that's ok I'm taking on that money. I've taken
• 5:45
  Speaker 5: on too much at that eighteen. Something has to go,
• 5:49
  Speaker 5: and so school had to get rid of school, found
• 5:54
  Speaker 5: odd jobs here and there. My mom got me a
• 5:56
  Speaker 5: job working at a cemetery and like just doing like
• 6:00
  Speaker 5: groundskeeper work, picking up on the grass and all that stuff.
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: And then uh.
• 6:07
  Speaker 5: Just that's that's really what my daughter being born, my
• 6:11
  Speaker 5: oldest and I is, that's really what sparked me as like, Okay,
• 6:13
  Speaker 5: this has to work.
• 6:14
  Speaker 4: Now, so what are these wrestling matches happening?
• 6:16
  Speaker 3: Because you know when you google stuff, you see like
• 6:18
  Speaker 3: wrestling matches in Mexico or Yeah.
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: That's that's the independence, that's the grind, So that's what
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: you would wrestle.
• 6:23
  Speaker 5: So you yeah, I'll do tours in Mexico, Like I
• 6:26
  Speaker 5: didn't start doing tours so the UK twenty thirteen. But
• 6:29
  Speaker 5: other than that, like before that, I was just like
• 6:32
  Speaker 5: I would get a connect that guy would link me
• 6:35
  Speaker 5: to this promoter, and then I would just go to
• 6:37
  Speaker 5: the show and just sit and watch the show in
• 6:39
  Speaker 5: hopes of like hopefully I can get booked. So I
• 6:41
  Speaker 5: would help stack put the chairs away. I would help, like, hey,
• 6:44
  Speaker 5: anything you need, I'm here. I'm like I live like
• 6:47
  Speaker 5: not that long, not far away. I can be back here.
• 6:49
  Speaker 3: How do you know who you're wrestling? Because usually wrestling
• 6:51
  Speaker 3: is like we have to know what we what.
• 6:53
  Speaker 4: Each other's doing. So now just be like, go you
• 6:56
  Speaker 4: just figuring it out. Just figure it out.
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: That's part of the that's part of it.
• 7:00
  Speaker 2: It would you do you mimickan moves you saw in
• 7:02
  Speaker 2: the video game.
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: All the time. Okay, when I first got in, I
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: was just doing like.
• 7:05
  Speaker 5: I thought this was cool. I thought, like I used
• 7:08
  Speaker 5: to do this all the time to hit the button,
• 7:09
  Speaker 5: it would work. So I was like that I translate that.
• 7:12
  Speaker 5: But then when I started training, I was like really fine,
• 7:14
  Speaker 5: and I was like, yo, that this doesn't this isn't me.
• 7:17
  Speaker 5: I shouldn't be doing this. Then, like, but getting in
• 7:20
  Speaker 5: the ring you find that stuff out. So that's why
• 7:22
  Speaker 5: I was like, I need to get in the ring more.
• 7:24
  Speaker 5: I need to get in the ring with people I like,
• 7:26
  Speaker 5: I don't like that match me, that don't match me.
• 7:29
  Speaker 5: I need to give people a variety of talents and
• 7:31
  Speaker 5: body shapes and all this stuff tags this and all that.
• 7:33
  Speaker 5: So I just like spread my variety of like knowing
• 7:36
  Speaker 5: who I am and figure out who I am and
• 7:38
  Speaker 5: then like also understand how to get better and how
• 7:40
  Speaker 5: to make myself an asset on any show with any promoter.
• 7:44
  Speaker 5: How do you think they swerve Big Sean man, I'm
• 7:47
  Speaker 5: a big Big Sean fan.
• 7:48
  Speaker 8: Oh yeah, so does he know that hopefully hopefully this
• 7:53
  Speaker 8: gets out there and a big Sean I'm a big
• 7:54
  Speaker 8: Faniels I actually talked to say it ain't tone a lot,
• 7:57
  Speaker 8: and he was the one that helped write I don't
• 7:59
  Speaker 8: f with you and stuff.
• 8:00
  Speaker 5: So I'm like a degree away from Sean. I never
• 8:04
  Speaker 5: met him, but when Mercy came out, that was over.
• 8:08
  Speaker 5: That was that was hard. I was like and I
• 8:09
  Speaker 5: was looking for like a nickname. I was like Shane Strickland.
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: At the time. I named my.
• 8:13
  Speaker 5: Same myself Shane because I like the the rhythm of
• 8:16
  Speaker 5: like Shane Strickland. It was like a cool But also
• 8:18
  Speaker 5: I had a cat named Shane that ran away and
• 8:20
  Speaker 5: when I lived in Germany, but.
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: That's another story itself. But it was just like I
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: need like.
• 8:25
  Speaker 5: A boxing acronym, like Sugar Shane Mosley something something something
• 8:28
  Speaker 5: like you know, And I was like swear. I was like,
• 8:31
  Speaker 5: that's it because it just felt like it was like
• 8:33
  Speaker 5: a hip hop crossover and it felt smooth and it
• 8:35
  Speaker 5: felt right big Sean.
• 8:36
  Speaker 2: So how different is it is it? Stephan?
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: Yeah? Yep?
• 8:39
  Speaker 6: How different is Stephan Strickland from Swerve Strickland.
• 8:44
  Speaker 5: I feel like Swerve Strickland is a persona that's just
• 8:48
  Speaker 5: my child, like wander just put on display. I have
• 8:51
  Speaker 5: a lot of things about myself as a child, watching
• 8:54
  Speaker 5: a lot of cartoons, watching a lot of like anime,
• 8:56
  Speaker 5: playing a lot of these video games, doing like listening
• 8:59
  Speaker 5: to music, I listen to watching the movies that I watch.
• 9:01
  Speaker 5: I take all those things and it's combined to make
• 9:04
  Speaker 5: what Swerve is. And as the years, if you watch
• 9:07
  Speaker 5: me from twenty thirteen the twenty twelve, I would say,
• 9:09
  Speaker 5: it's really when it started taking off. And then thirteen
• 9:12
  Speaker 5: fourteen fifteen you saw the Swerve persona just mature and grow.
• 9:17
  Speaker 5: So that's why I'm really proud about what Swerve has become.
• 9:21
  Speaker 5: Because you saw you've ultimately seen Swerve's age of ten
• 9:24
  Speaker 5: years plus and now a lot of people are just
• 9:27
  Speaker 5: seeing it from like twenty and twenty two, twenty three
• 9:31
  Speaker 5: on now. But if you go back in my career,
• 9:33
  Speaker 5: you've see and Swerve the origin of that twenty twenty twelve.
• 9:36
  Speaker 6: You know, I asked Mercedes the same question because you know,
• 9:39
  Speaker 6: I'm from the era.
• 9:40
  Speaker 2: Where it WCW and then WWE with everything.
• 9:43
  Speaker 6: When you see people leave WWE, the go to companies
• 9:46
  Speaker 6: like ae W. To me, that's unheard of because I
• 9:49
  Speaker 6: thought WWE was the creem of the crops.
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: What made you walk away from w W wasn't my choice.
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: It was just like we got fired. Oh okay, but
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: it was like my own, my I did something.
• 10:01
  Speaker 5: It was just a political landscape of things. It was
• 10:05
  Speaker 5: like the pandemic. People coming out of the pandemic. There's
• 10:08
  Speaker 5: a lot of like layoffs going up and down offices talent.
• 10:12
  Speaker 5: Like you were me and you would have a match Wednesday,
• 10:16
  Speaker 5: you fired on Friday and like what happened, Like you
• 10:18
  Speaker 5: were literally booked, So you didn't do anything wrong, But
• 10:20
  Speaker 5: it's just like these cutting costs left and right. So
• 10:23
  Speaker 5: a lot of people felt the effects of that. And
• 10:25
  Speaker 5: it was out of our hands. It was out of
• 10:26
  Speaker 5: like Triple H's hands. There's nothing he could do. It
• 10:29
  Speaker 5: was just like it was just so high up. Then
• 10:31
  Speaker 5: eventually we got drafted to smack down as a group
• 10:34
  Speaker 5: as hit Row. And that's why I was like like
• 10:36
  Speaker 5: with the Vince McMahon finally listening to him now and
• 10:39
  Speaker 5: talking with him.
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: It wasn't very long.
• 10:41
  Speaker 5: I didn't get a lot of time up there, but
• 10:43
  Speaker 5: just that little bit, that little glimpse of that window
• 10:46
  Speaker 5: is enough to like change my mindset, to make me better.
• 10:49
  Speaker 6: Is it someplace you would want to go back to, Like,
• 10:50
  Speaker 6: you know, let me build myself up in aw then
• 10:53
  Speaker 6: maybe go to w No.
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: I'm happy with building AW.
• 10:56
  Speaker 5: I'm happy with building myself in aw AW is giving
• 10:59
  Speaker 5: me something that I don't think WW could ever get me.
• 11:02
  Speaker 5: And I'm really, I'm really proud of that. And I
• 11:05
  Speaker 5: weighed the flag proudly because Tony Kahan didn't take a
• 11:11
  Speaker 5: chance on me. You know, he knew what he wanted
• 11:13
  Speaker 5: from me, and he put me in the position and
• 11:15
  Speaker 5: he was like, now grow and I'm like, Okay, what
• 11:17
  Speaker 5: adaman news do I have to grow?
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: He's like, whatever you want.
• 11:20
  Speaker 5: There was no parameters, there was no red tape, and
• 11:23
  Speaker 5: I learned how to just become like a true businessman
• 11:27
  Speaker 5: on top of just a professional wrestle. That's why the
• 11:29
  Speaker 5: mobile persona is truly personified in a w It's literally,
• 11:34
  Speaker 5: let me be my best self as a man and
• 11:37
  Speaker 5: a professional.
• 11:37
  Speaker 2: So that's what they gave you. They gave you that,
• 11:39
  Speaker 2: they gave you instilled entrepreneurial.
• 11:42
  Speaker 7: It's crazy, you Mercedes answers are basically identical kind.
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: Of Yeah, it's beautiful. I haven't even listened to.
• 11:48
  Speaker 4: Her this morning.
• 11:50
  Speaker 2: It's dope also too, because it just shows how much.
• 11:52
  Speaker 6: The game is changed, right, And it's because to me,
• 11:55
  Speaker 6: that's just a reflection of how the whole world is
• 11:57
  Speaker 6: now like all the non traditional institutions.
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: It's out of the window.
• 12:02
  Speaker 5: And like so last night I came in you know,
• 12:05
  Speaker 5: Kazu shout out cast. He invited me on a B
• 12:10
  Speaker 5: to the Pollo Theater to watch the unveiling of the
• 12:13
  Speaker 5: evolution of the Black quarterback. And Roger Goodell was there.
• 12:18
  Speaker 5: This is like the Pole Theater. Roger Goodell was there.
• 12:20
  Speaker 5: I'm watching Michael Strahan on stage, Michael Vick, Jalen Hurts
• 12:24
  Speaker 5: all like all talking about the evolution where they went
• 12:29
  Speaker 5: all these like struggles that the black quarterback and went
• 12:33
  Speaker 5: through that like coaches in the league, the infrastructure really
• 12:37
  Speaker 5: thinking like the black man is not capable of playing
• 12:40
  Speaker 5: quarterback because they're not smart enough to all plays and
• 12:42
  Speaker 5: do these things and stuff and talking about like he's
• 12:46
  Speaker 5: not he shouldn't be paid this wage, he's above market value.
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: And I'm listening here.
• 12:51
  Speaker 5: Like, man, there was an article like a month ago
• 12:53
  Speaker 5: about me getting my new contract, one of the highest
• 12:56
  Speaker 5: contracts in wrestling recently, and I'm I'm paid a.
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: Above market value.
• 13:00
  Speaker 5: I'm like, these are like fifty years apart and we're
• 13:02
  Speaker 5: still having the same conversations. So I like, we're still like,
• 13:07
  Speaker 5: that's what AW is beautiful for, and that's what I'm
• 13:10
  Speaker 5: proud to be there because it's like we're shaking the
• 13:12
  Speaker 5: foundation again like they did fifty years ago, and we're
• 13:15
  Speaker 5: doing it now with pro wrestling. And if I got
• 13:17
  Speaker 5: to be the person do that alongside Tony Kahn and
• 13:22
  Speaker 5: we stand strong, I'm like, No, that's our world champion,
• 13:25
  Speaker 5: that's the lead of our company at this moment, and
• 13:26
  Speaker 5: he's going to be the face of the franchise for
• 13:28
  Speaker 5: years to come, and I'm riding with that. It took
• 13:31
  Speaker 5: a coach from nineteen seventy to do the same thing
• 13:34
  Speaker 5: for his quarterback, for Doug Williams to win a championship,
• 13:37
  Speaker 5: and Somedy said at the end of the documentary, it's
• 13:40
  Speaker 5: on Amazon when you can watch it now. He said,
• 13:43
  Speaker 5: when Michael Vick asked him, He's like, what's the legacy.
• 13:48
  Speaker 5: What's your legacy that you want to leave behind? And
• 13:51
  Speaker 5: Doug was like, if you write the history of the league,
• 13:55
  Speaker 5: can they leave your name out of it? That's how
• 13:58
  Speaker 5: you know you made an impact. Eventually, when the history
• 14:01
  Speaker 5: books of AW gets rewritten or however that story's told,
• 14:06
  Speaker 5: you can't leave swear Strickland out of it, and I
• 14:08
  Speaker 5: feel like that's why I need to be an aw.
• 14:11
  Speaker 6: You bought your mother's childhood home or your childhood home,
• 14:15
  Speaker 6: I did in a sense.
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: Okay, break that down, so a man, no not hear manager.
• 14:25
  Speaker 5: As soon as we got that contract, we took the
• 14:27
  Speaker 5: bonus money and we went back to where a spot
• 14:31
  Speaker 5: where I grew up on where we moved from back
• 14:34
  Speaker 5: from Germany when I was a military brat, and we
• 14:38
  Speaker 5: settled on the place and it was like, yo, we
• 14:39
  Speaker 5: got a chance to actually make a bid for it.
• 14:41
  Speaker 5: So we make the bid, actually bought the property, and
• 14:44
  Speaker 5: sure enough it's still in my name. The property in
• 14:48
  Speaker 5: the land is still in my name. But as you
• 14:50
  Speaker 5: can see if you watch aw Rival of Mind, that's
• 14:53
  Speaker 5: we've been going on blood feud for a year now.
• 14:56
  Speaker 5: Hangman page, I despise this man and he hates me,
• 14:58
  Speaker 5: probably more in real life.
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: You gotta watch the seat, y'all in Yeah, you're invested. Yeah,
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: he so.
• 15:13
  Speaker 5: Went to the contract signing on TV on Dynamite. He
• 15:16
  Speaker 5: doesn't show up, pops up on the screen. You see that, Uh,
• 15:23
  Speaker 5: hangman is actually at the house that I purchased, and
• 15:26
  Speaker 5: it's like, hasn't been remodeled or anything. Yet this man
• 15:30
  Speaker 5: walks in, pouring gasoline all over the place, all over
• 15:33
  Speaker 5: the place, and I can't do anything. I don't know,
• 15:35
  Speaker 5: Like he's there, I'm here. I don't know if it's
• 15:38
  Speaker 5: a live feet don't know if it happened already. We
• 15:39
  Speaker 5: don't know if it's pretaped to nothing. Goes in, sits
• 15:44
  Speaker 5: down on a couch on a like and it's an
• 15:46
  Speaker 5: old couch. I remember this couch when I was little.
• 15:48
  Speaker 5: It's an old couch. He sat back, sat down on
• 15:50
  Speaker 5: on the out on the front lawn lights a match,
• 15:54
  Speaker 5: and the match runs all the way around and goes
• 15:56
  Speaker 5: in the house and burns down right in front of
• 15:58
  Speaker 5: me on live TV.
• 15:59
  Speaker 7: Did y'all playing that?
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: I couldn't plan that. Yeah, I'm asking the same thing.
• 16:07
  Speaker 2: You got to turn the snitch script.
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: I'm asking the same thing.
• 16:10
  Speaker 2: You got to tell the script a lot. Now you
• 16:20
  Speaker 2: got to be.
• 16:23
  Speaker 7: How did your family feel?
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: Yeah, if you have to talk to my mom about that,
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: you know, I.
• 16:27
  Speaker 7: Should call her when.
• 16:28
  Speaker 5: Like maybe two three weeks ago, maybe any longer belong
• 16:31
  Speaker 5: three weeks ago?
• 16:33
  Speaker 4: Have you seen him in the street? And of these
• 16:34
  Speaker 4: do you have to fight in the in the in
• 16:36
  Speaker 4: the ring. Do you see him in the street and
• 16:37
  Speaker 4: just put.
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: The next time I saw him? Since after that we
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: had all out the pay per view in Chicago.
• 16:42
  Speaker 2: You had the cage match the Cage Man.
• 16:44
  Speaker 5: That was the last time I saw him, and ten
• 16:46
  Speaker 5: thousand people sold out. Matter of fact, that was like
• 16:49
  Speaker 5: maybe what four days between then we were at six
• 16:52
  Speaker 5: seven thousand tickets sold that aired, we went to ten
• 16:56
  Speaker 5: thousand sold out.
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: Boom.
• 16:59
  Speaker 5: We may event an unsanctioned match. Unsanctioned means a w
• 17:04
  Speaker 5: wipe wipes the hands, cleans of anything that happens.
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: In this match.
• 17:06
  Speaker 4: Oh, y'all can kill each other.
• 17:08
  Speaker 5: We can do whatever we want, and then there's no lawsuits.
• 17:11
  Speaker 5: So we take we have to take it a little
• 17:13
  Speaker 5: bit above, you know, the ramifications of what just a
• 17:16
  Speaker 5: regular street fight, a hardcore regular cage match usually is.
• 17:19
  Speaker 5: So I have the cage match. I bring out the
• 17:22
  Speaker 5: center block. I drop him his head on the solence
• 17:25
  Speaker 5: in the block bow. He power bombs my back on
• 17:28
  Speaker 5: the center block solid. I still have ciadic nerve damage
• 17:32
  Speaker 5: on my back from this. Then he takes he pulls
• 17:36
  Speaker 5: out a from his jacket coat, a syringe hipidermin and
• 17:41
  Speaker 5: he takes it and pokes it right through my cheek,
• 17:43
  Speaker 5: stabs me, and it goes all the way through.
• 17:47
  Speaker 7: Is that why you still getting yourself together?
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: I'm still trying to figure myself.
• 17:53
  Speaker 4: A syringe.
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: I don't know. I didn't put it in there.
• 17:56
  Speaker 4: You didn't check.
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: How could I check? It came out of this hell?
• 17:59
  Speaker 2: You can check?
• 17:59
  Speaker 5: This stabbed me and then he takes uh uh holding
• 18:06
  Speaker 5: metal chair, bashes over my head, goes right through.
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: I knocked out, completely won. He won. He wants one
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: my knockout.
• 18:14
  Speaker 5: But still this day that man has yet to pin,
• 18:16
  Speaker 5: has yet to actually pin me or make me some miss.
• 18:19
  Speaker 4: Questions beat during that your people that they jump and
• 18:21
  Speaker 4: ring and help you.
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: It's a cage be locked out.
• 18:25
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so you're not you're still not medically clear.
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: I'm not medically No, I'm not medically clear. So I
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: won't be at Grand Slam to night.
• 18:31
  Speaker 7: So what's the point in doing all of that? Because
• 18:35
  Speaker 7: then you can't fight right now?
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: It's passion the money that that case to his crib.
• 18:40
  Speaker 5: Like I said, I already saw my new contract extension.
• 18:43
  Speaker 5: I'm sad, but I still want to do these matches
• 18:45
  Speaker 5: because I'm passionate about this business.
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: I'm passionate about my company.
• 18:48
  Speaker 6: She asked you if the money was good. It's something
• 18:50
  Speaker 6: something was said about you that I've never heard. They
• 18:53
  Speaker 6: said people in the w W E felt your contract was.
• 18:56
  Speaker 2: Above market price.
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 18:59
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I've never heard nobody complaining they got too much money.
• 19:03
  Speaker 5: They only complain when a black person gets paid. I
• 19:05
  Speaker 5: won't say that when it gets paid. And that's what
• 19:07
  Speaker 5: once again, we shake the foundation of things like that
• 19:10
  Speaker 5: because it's like, oh it snap, wait and it's not
• 19:12
  Speaker 5: what we would pay. And like, then why are you
• 19:14
  Speaker 5: calling me? Why are you asking me? You know, like
• 19:17
  Speaker 5: if if I'm not your concern, don't worry about it. Yeah,
• 19:20
  Speaker 5: don't worry about my pockets and our money. We're good,
• 19:23
  Speaker 5: like you got, you have your talent and you had
• 19:25
  Speaker 5: like you made your decision with me two years ago. No,
• 19:30
  Speaker 5: no hard feelings from me, boom. I keep it moving.
• 19:32
  Speaker 5: I'm gonna figure my way out and I'm gonna build
• 19:34
  Speaker 5: myself up.
• 19:34
  Speaker 2: Is it true they tried to resign you.
• 19:37
  Speaker 5: Yeah, okay, Well it wasn't like the words resign. They
• 19:40
  Speaker 5: asked about my availability, you know, so that was like
• 19:44
  Speaker 5: came up. But they never contacted me. They contacted my representation.
• 19:48
  Speaker 5: And I'm in a stage now which I enjoyed the
• 19:51
  Speaker 5: fact that I don't have that direct contact. When when
• 19:54
  Speaker 5: you are progressing and getting higher and you like in
• 19:56
  Speaker 5: rooms with guys like like people like you and stuff,
• 19:58
  Speaker 5: you got to kind of keep a little of a
• 20:00
  Speaker 5: space in between these type of conversations because it's like
• 20:03
  Speaker 5: you can't check my phone. It's never been there, Like
• 20:06
  Speaker 5: I never had direct contact. It's always I want to
• 20:08
  Speaker 5: keep that little space. But it has been. It has
• 20:10
  Speaker 5: been a communication has been reached out.
• 20:13
  Speaker 2: Now I've seen the reaction.
• 20:14
  Speaker 6: I met you in the airport and like just are
• 20:16
  Speaker 6: stopping to have a conversation.
• 20:18
  Speaker 2: People was walking by, you know what I mean. Yeah, yeah,
• 20:21
  Speaker 2: so people. You definitely having an impact.
• 20:23
  Speaker 5: In New York. It's bigger than I thought. We just
• 20:25
  Speaker 5: me and my man flash garments. We just did Sneaker
• 20:28
  Speaker 5: Con in Coney Island like two days ago, and there's
• 20:32
  Speaker 5: like big names.
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: Walking around, you know, like Queens Flip walking around.
• 20:34
  Speaker 5: You got like, you know a lot of like step
• 20:36
  Speaker 5: On Marbury's walking around there.
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: But I'm getting a lot of shout outs and.
• 20:39
  Speaker 5: Like like yo, I watched it all the time, like
• 20:41
  Speaker 5: we're like they're like oh man, like, oh my god,
• 20:44
  Speaker 5: I just watch the people.
• 20:45
  Speaker 4: Are you okay?
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: Are you like checking on me?
• 20:47
  Speaker 5: And I'm like there's a lot of people and it's like, wow,
• 20:49
  Speaker 5: this is like growing bigger than I ever expected, like
• 20:52
  Speaker 5: the impact. And so it's like, how can you with
• 20:55
  Speaker 5: that kind of stuff. It's like you can't see that
• 20:58
  Speaker 5: kind of interaction on social media in Twitter interactions and
• 21:01
  Speaker 5: comments are never going to show you the impact of
• 21:04
  Speaker 5: actual person in like giving you that type of love.
• 21:08
  Speaker 5: And I appreciate that. That's like that's my market value
• 21:10
  Speaker 5: right there. That explains it to me, because it's like
• 21:13
  Speaker 5: these these people aren't comment and telling you all this stuff.
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: These people are here with you in person. These people
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: are going to show up wherever you go.
• 21:20
  Speaker 5: These people are going to buy your product and like
• 21:23
  Speaker 5: are gonna wear it with pride and show like, Yo,
• 21:26
  Speaker 5: this is my guy.
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: I'm root for him no matter what he does. I'm
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: going to be there.
• 21:29
  Speaker 7: You know.
• 21:29
  Speaker 4: That's that What are you getting?
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: You get back? Man?
• 21:31
  Speaker 4: When you get in a hangman again? When's that match?
• 21:33
  Speaker 4: Get back bro?
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: Soon as I get my medical clearance, man, it's side.
• 21:36
  Speaker 7: Of my hands right now for another like retry for
• 21:39
  Speaker 7: the clearance right.
• 21:41
  Speaker 5: Now, we'll see, like maybe another week or so. I
• 21:44
  Speaker 5: got to go to La between that time, so I
• 21:46
  Speaker 5: got some other business ventures in between this.
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: But yeah, so where man live? Man?
• 21:51
  Speaker 4: You got to pull up on his crib.
• 21:53
  Speaker 5: I've been to I've been to his old house. If
• 21:55
  Speaker 5: you can watch look back. I've literally trespassing. Started this
• 21:58
  Speaker 5: whole thing because I went to working with the.
• 22:01
  Speaker 7: Cops because how y'all be doing all this and don't
• 22:02
  Speaker 7: nobody get locked up?
• 22:03
  Speaker 5: And I was a bad man, bro, he'd be he's
• 22:06
  Speaker 5: a bad man. He'd be hot and like he'd be,
• 22:08
  Speaker 5: he'd be talking his way out. He talks to me
• 22:12
  Speaker 5: out of situations into him some.
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: Good, some bad here and there.
• 22:16
  Speaker 2: What do you want more? You want to you want
• 22:18
  Speaker 2: to get back on Hangman?
• 22:19
  Speaker 4: More?
• 22:19
  Speaker 2: Are getting your title back?
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: M M. That's a good question. M hmm.
• 22:25
  Speaker 5: Maybe one day it might be one and the same
• 22:28
  Speaker 5: because Hanging is on a streak right now. He's like
• 22:30
  Speaker 5: on a war path in a lot of ways. Him
• 22:34
  Speaker 5: him pressing me has made him better, and I brought
• 22:38
  Speaker 5: out something great in him that eventually, with my absence,
• 22:43
  Speaker 5: he probably will be a world champion again. So maybe
• 22:46
  Speaker 5: at that time I'll get both. I get my get
• 22:48
  Speaker 5: back in the World Championship at the same time. But
• 22:51
  Speaker 5: that's the effect of what Swerve brings to this roster
• 22:54
  Speaker 5: of All Lee Wrestling. I make your guy better and
• 22:58
  Speaker 5: in turn, he makes me better. So it's almost like
• 23:00
  Speaker 5: we're slinking each other. Like he pulls me up to
• 23:03
  Speaker 5: the main event and I become this main event and
• 23:04
  Speaker 5: I make history, first Black aw World Champion, first Black
• 23:08
  Speaker 5: World Champion to main event Wembley Stadium ever in history
• 23:11
  Speaker 5: of that building. And then boom cage match. I can't
• 23:16
  Speaker 5: do nothing with him. He takes me out. My body's wrecked.
• 23:18
  Speaker 5: He becomes better, bring I bring him back to the
• 23:21
  Speaker 5: main event scene. So it's like it's it's we're killing
• 23:25
  Speaker 5: each other, but at the same time we're bettering each
• 23:27
  Speaker 5: other at the same time in the product. And you
• 23:30
  Speaker 5: do music tour, yes, sir, you wrap up? Yeah yeah, okay, okay, yeah, yep.
• 23:34
  Speaker 5: I got three albums out with my group members. Swart
• 23:40
  Speaker 5: in Swarft City, Mantizi he's been signed with Rough Rider
• 23:44
  Speaker 5: back in the day when he was like seventeen years old,
• 23:46
  Speaker 5: and he taught me everything I know about rap, and
• 23:49
  Speaker 5: then me and my man flash garments, like last month
• 23:51
  Speaker 5: put out a project Motion Sickness, and he's took me
• 23:54
  Speaker 5: to another level because he's been on the writing team
• 23:57
  Speaker 5: with Kanye West on the Donda album.
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: You know, we went to the Grand he Is together two.
• 24:01
  Speaker 5: Years ago, watched our producer Prophet win two Grammys for
• 24:05
  Speaker 5: the songs that he put out. So I'm in a
• 24:07
  Speaker 5: great team and window with these guys.
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: You know. So I'm learning front.
• 24:12
  Speaker 5: I'm learning at the later stage of my life, but
• 24:14
  Speaker 5: I'm learning the right way rather than trying to go
• 24:17
  Speaker 5: ten years of doing it wrong wrong.
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: Wrong, wrong wrong.
• 24:19
  Speaker 5: So yeah, we're doing great stuff with music right now.
• 24:22
  Speaker 5: We're going to continue to do more. I have songs
• 24:24
  Speaker 5: with Benny the Butcher, west Side Gun's been on our records.
• 24:27
  Speaker 5: West Side big wrestling fan, Big Big. I just know
• 24:31
  Speaker 5: that he's a big wrestling hilarious dude, fun dude. Bunn
• 24:34
  Speaker 5: Bee is a mentor of mine, becoming a mentor who
• 24:37
  Speaker 5: kids hosting our records. You know, did you it walked
• 24:43
  Speaker 5: out of something? Yeah, yeah, yeah, Wembley Wembley Stadium. Yeah,
• 24:46
  Speaker 5: We're doing We're doing a lot of great stuff.
• 24:47
  Speaker 2: Man, how'd you connect with them? Just all just through
• 24:49
  Speaker 2: the wrestling.
• 24:50
  Speaker 5: Oh yeah, my man Albert until he's he's honestly the
• 24:55
  Speaker 5: one that really personified the mogul character, the person zone
• 25:00
  Speaker 5: of what Swerve is is when I first came out there,
• 25:03
  Speaker 5: really started getting motioned to tag team Champion and stuff.
• 25:06
  Speaker 5: He brought Kevin Gates and we had Kevin Gates two
• 25:09
  Speaker 5: something on the show. We brought Rick rosson he'd done
• 25:12
  Speaker 5: something on the show fabulous. Came out with us on
• 25:15
  Speaker 5: Grand Slam two years ago in New York. Recently had
• 25:20
  Speaker 5: Jim Jones do my intro man you name it like lash,
• 25:26
  Speaker 5: brought Floyd Mayweather to sit front row in Vegas when
• 25:29
  Speaker 5: I did my world title match.
• 25:30
  Speaker 2: How important did the merge culture with wrestling?
• 25:34
  Speaker 5: It's really big because people don't know what it is,
• 25:38
  Speaker 5: what wrestling truly is, until you like or I would
• 25:43
  Speaker 5: say support it. You gotta like something, whatever it is.
• 25:46
  Speaker 5: You gotta see what you like, and then it becomes
• 25:48
  Speaker 5: then you start supporting it. But you don't know what
• 25:50
  Speaker 5: you like if you don't watch it, and something has
• 25:52
  Speaker 5: to attract you to like it.
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: And so doing all these.
• 25:55
  Speaker 5: Things like oh that's a familiar face, if he's there,
• 25:58
  Speaker 5: let me peek at it.
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: Let me just check it out. And if it out,
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: you're like, oh, you know what I do like this?
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: You know when does the show come on? When the
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: next time they in town? I got the kids, I
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: got my girlfriend, I got this, like I got my friends.
• 26:09
  Speaker 5: You just get You got to pique that interest a
• 26:11
  Speaker 5: little bit, just just enough to get people to like something.
• 26:14
  Speaker 5: Then they when they like it enough and they want
• 26:15
  Speaker 5: to see it again, then it becomes an investment. Investment
• 26:18
  Speaker 5: becomes like a group. The group becomes a community, and
• 26:22
  Speaker 5: then the community community.
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: Becomes a fandom.
• 26:24
  Speaker 5: And that's slowly but surely, how like you kind of
• 26:28
  Speaker 5: grow a product, and it may take two weeks, may
• 26:32
  Speaker 5: take five months, may take three years. But my philosophy,
• 26:38
  Speaker 5: my personal trainer now shout out to him. He tells me, like,
• 26:43
  Speaker 5: when we started training a year and a half ago,
• 26:45
  Speaker 5: I was like one ninety three.
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: Now I got up to two twenty.
• 26:48
  Speaker 5: He got me to two to fifteen, two hundred fifteen
• 26:50
  Speaker 5: pounds and three months, he said, one percent a day.
• 26:54
  Speaker 5: It's three hundred and sixty five percent a year. So
• 26:57
  Speaker 5: just move one percent a day in a year, you're
• 27:00
  Speaker 5: gonna triple your investment. But you gotta just move one bit.
• 27:04
  Speaker 5: And that's my philosophy everything I do. Music, just get
• 27:07
  Speaker 5: one new fan, just get one new stream and wrestling,
• 27:11
  Speaker 5: just get one new fan. Just get one guy to
• 27:13
  Speaker 5: buy one shirt, just one and you know, you just
• 27:17
  Speaker 5: move something forward every single day.
• 27:20
  Speaker 7: You got this, you drop it.
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: Sneakers down right, yes, yeah, Actually that's why.
• 27:22
  Speaker 7: You're a sneaker car. Yeah yeah, okay, So with the
• 27:25
  Speaker 7: you have them forgot to.
• 27:26
  Speaker 5: Get you in beside, he never takes me back about
• 27:31
  Speaker 5: we brought him in last, brought the big pressures right here.
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: That's my logo.
• 27:35
  Speaker 7: So is this too just a part of you know,
• 27:37
  Speaker 7: understanding that like even fashion as culture connect. Absolutely, Okay, it's.
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: Fine, yeah, and that's what it's about.
• 27:43
  Speaker 5: Like it's still light very These are the shoes I
• 27:47
  Speaker 5: literally won the world championship in Jordan's that it's on purpose.
• 27:52
  Speaker 4: I designed it and then I hadnake it.
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: Shout out.
• 27:56
  Speaker 4: She's a legendary.
• 27:58
  Speaker 5: Yeah, he's designed shoes and put him in like his
• 28:01
  Speaker 5: design shoes for like step On Diggs he wears on.
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: The field and stuff like Curry, like Lebron.
• 28:05
  Speaker 5: He's given like these designs and shoes and mixed them
• 28:09
  Speaker 5: all up but I'm the first wrestler to have his
• 28:11
  Speaker 5: own brand shoe.
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: Wow.
• 28:12
  Speaker 6: Okay, yeah, that's why I didn't text you. That's what
• 28:17
  Speaker 6: That's literally why I got to text you. I don't
• 28:18
  Speaker 6: think you should text another man after his shoes.
• 28:22
  Speaker 2: Eleven.
• 28:22
  Speaker 7: You know you got your That's that's an eleven he needed.
• 28:30
  Speaker 2: So I'm bigger than you. Oh wow, okay, okay, he's.
• 28:36
  Speaker 7: Bigger than you.
• 28:38
  Speaker 6: So Emery, we got biggest Jones sneakers up there and
• 28:43
  Speaker 6: chop you said, Joe.
• 28:46
  Speaker 2: Oh fat Joe.
• 28:47
  Speaker 5: Okay, okay, that's a that's a huge honor to be
• 28:50
  Speaker 5: up there with these guys. I was and I was
• 28:52
  Speaker 5: at rolling Chopper Drop drop the shoes and.
• 28:56
  Speaker 2: The song dope. Can they order these?
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: Oh?
• 28:59
  Speaker 5: We got to be dropping a link very soon. But
• 29:01
  Speaker 5: Mas is gonna have. It's gonna be it's gonna be lit.
• 29:03
  Speaker 5: We have a we have like we had like seventy pairs.
• 29:06
  Speaker 7: Speaker World Embrac's.
• 29:09
  Speaker 5: It's still new and it's fresh because it's like this
• 29:11
  Speaker 5: is like an all purpose shoe. It's like you can
• 29:14
  Speaker 5: play basketball them, you can dance on them, you wear
• 29:16
  Speaker 5: them as fashioned. I've literally like had multiple matches on
• 29:19
  Speaker 5: pay per views and TV and main eventded with these shoes,
• 29:22
  Speaker 5: and they had like the most comfortable shoe I've ever had,
• 29:24
  Speaker 5: and I've rustled in fifteen years. It's probably the most
• 29:26
  Speaker 5: comfortable foot where I've ever had in the ring. So
• 29:30
  Speaker 5: we're gonna start bringing them out more. Because we had
• 29:34
  Speaker 5: to get like branding, we had to get the trademarks
• 29:36
  Speaker 5: and logos. We had to like do a sample then
• 29:39
  Speaker 5: bring it back you know, how the production works.
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: But now it's ready and Jody.
• 29:43
  Speaker 4: For people that want to buy them, how can they
• 29:44
  Speaker 4: buy them if they want.
• 29:45
  Speaker 5: We're gonna be it's gonna be two fifty and we're
• 29:47
  Speaker 5: gonna be bringing them out solely one by one, like
• 29:50
  Speaker 5: by a link. And when we're gonna drop that link
• 29:52
  Speaker 5: very very soon, So be ready and when that when
• 29:55
  Speaker 5: the link drops, as soon as you click on make
• 29:58
  Speaker 5: the order, it's coming to you.
• 30:00
  Speaker 6: You know, I want to ask you one more question
• 30:01
  Speaker 6: if you go, how big of an influence with Sean
• 30:03
  Speaker 6: Michael's on you huge?
• 30:05
  Speaker 5: Growing up watching him. I had to go back and
• 30:08
  Speaker 5: look at his tapes from like his prime years, but
• 30:12
  Speaker 5: he was huge and he still to this day, like
• 30:14
  Speaker 5: he'll text me like happy birthday, Happy Father's Day and
• 30:17
  Speaker 5: I'll text him back Happy Father's Day and stuff like that.
• 30:19
  Speaker 5: We still have a good, a good relationship. He was
• 30:24
  Speaker 5: the influence on when I really took off in my
• 30:27
  Speaker 5: w W NXT era, because I was just like stuck
• 30:30
  Speaker 5: and like hitting this wall over and over again weekly,
• 30:34
  Speaker 5: and like I was having these conversations with Triple Age,
• 30:37
  Speaker 5: I was getting this run around. I wasn't really getting anywhere.
• 30:39
  Speaker 5: Then I got a promotion one day, and I was
• 30:42
  Speaker 5: just like not happy about it. I was like, I
• 30:43
  Speaker 5: don't feel like I earned the promotion. I feel like
• 30:45
  Speaker 5: you're just paying me to keep me here rather than
• 30:48
  Speaker 5: like paying what I earned, you know. And so like
• 30:51
  Speaker 5: I spoke out about it. I was like, I want
• 30:53
  Speaker 5: to be learning undershawn. It's like, well yead YadA YadA.
• 30:57
  Speaker 5: Matt Bloom was like saying, yeah, yad YadA YadA whatever.
• 31:00
  Speaker 5: But his officer over there, I'm like, oh bat.
• 31:02
  Speaker 1: I walked over to Sean. I was like, hey, can
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: we can we do tape study?
• 31:05
  Speaker 8: I didn't know you could do that me neither, But
• 31:09
  Speaker 8: it was like, but like but that's those little unwritten
• 31:12
  Speaker 8: rules that's like it's there.
• 31:13
  Speaker 1: But it's like, oh, I could just do this?
• 31:16
  Speaker 5: Why am I not? But there's no rule of saying
• 31:17
  Speaker 5: you can't. But there's no rule saying you can. There's
• 31:19
  Speaker 5: no there's no push to give you that. You got
• 31:22
  Speaker 5: to find it within yourself to be like, you know,
• 31:23
  Speaker 5: I am good enough. Let me take that leap, and
• 31:26
  Speaker 5: worst case scenario, I'm right back to square one where
• 31:28
  Speaker 5: I was. So I just took the lead and I
• 31:30
  Speaker 5: was like, Sean, can I watch tape with you sometime
• 31:31
  Speaker 5: like an hour?
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: So I'm like that.
• 31:33
  Speaker 5: He's like, give me three matches, email them to me,
• 31:36
  Speaker 5: and well, I'll pick one and we can watch it
• 31:37
  Speaker 5: on on Tuesday. Sure enough, he was up lived up
• 31:40
  Speaker 5: to his word. We watched a match of like me
• 31:41
  Speaker 5: on the Indies from like four years ago. He's like,
• 31:43
  Speaker 5: I want to see the reason you got here, what's
• 31:45
  Speaker 5: the reason that we signed you to this contract to
• 31:49
  Speaker 5: be here?
• 31:49
  Speaker 1: I want to watch that.
• 31:50
  Speaker 5: So we watched these stuff and he's like he's quiet,
• 31:54
  Speaker 5: just watching, watching, and like guys like that, they're not
• 31:59
  Speaker 5: gonna go oh ah no, they're just gonna watch. Like
• 32:02
  Speaker 5: William Reegal was very much like that too, and he's
• 32:05
  Speaker 5: just like matches over.
• 32:06
  Speaker 1: He stopped. He's like, I know exactly the kind of
• 32:09
  Speaker 1: performer you are.
• 32:10
  Speaker 2: Now.
• 32:10
  Speaker 1: Now I know who you are. Now I know what
• 32:12
  Speaker 1: you can offer.
• 32:13
  Speaker 5: Next thing, you know, he's in meetings talking about TV
• 32:17
  Speaker 5: the night before and he's texting me. He's like, Okay,
• 32:19
  Speaker 5: they want to see you get a little more aggressive
• 32:20
  Speaker 5: and stuff like that, so bring it next match.
• 32:22
  Speaker 1: I'm like, that's it.
• 32:23
  Speaker 9: That's all I gotta do.
• 32:24
  Speaker 1: Next match.
• 32:26
  Speaker 5: The hell out of me and Bronson reed going back
• 32:28
  Speaker 5: and forth. He comes back and he was like it
• 32:30
  Speaker 5: was like a football coach. After the match, he was
• 32:31
  Speaker 5: like smacks him and the like that's what I'm talking about.
• 32:33
  Speaker 5: There you go.
• 32:34
  Speaker 1: Yeah. So I was like, yeah, I got that from seawing.
• 32:36
  Speaker 5: Next thing, you know, North American Championship match happened. Next
• 32:39
  Speaker 5: thing you know, TV, I'm getting the microphone to talk
• 32:42
  Speaker 5: now live, I get to show my personality more, because
• 32:45
  Speaker 5: anybody can just be a wrestler, but show who you
• 32:48
  Speaker 5: are and be comfortable on the camera to really like
• 32:51
  Speaker 5: flash or stuff like I'm wearing. I'm wearing like T
• 32:55
  Speaker 5: shirts that aren't even a WW approved. I'm wearing like
• 32:58
  Speaker 5: my friend's shirt.
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: From back in the day.
• 33:01
  Speaker 5: I'm like, I don't know, I'm getting away with this,
• 33:02
  Speaker 5: So I'm gonna try some more stuff. When you get
• 33:05
  Speaker 5: like that, you get comfortable. Then when you're comfortable, the
• 33:07
  Speaker 5: crowd's comfortable, right, And when the crowd's comfortable, the crowd's having.
• 33:11
  Speaker 1: Fun, and then they're having fun with you. Now it's
• 33:13
  Speaker 1: a vibe.
• 33:13
  Speaker 5: It's like a concert, a comedy show if comedians having
• 33:17
  Speaker 5: fun and joking. I'm comfortable enough to laugh with this
• 33:20
  Speaker 5: guy the stranger. I'm comfortable enough to get.
• 33:22
  Speaker 1: Loud yell back hey yeah, yeah, yeah yeah.
• 33:25
  Speaker 5: You gotta open them up like that. And when that's
• 33:27
  Speaker 5: where I really start opening up. And that's what got
• 33:30
  Speaker 5: me ready for a w to do it in stadiums
• 33:33
  Speaker 5: weekly in the arenas. It got me to do it
• 33:36
  Speaker 5: with black audiences, white audiences in Canada, got me doing
• 33:40
  Speaker 5: in UK, got me to do it in like all
• 33:42
  Speaker 5: these other places. Now it's like I can just own
• 33:45
  Speaker 5: a room and be comfortable in it, not like that
• 33:49
  Speaker 5: feeling of anxiety because I can overtake you. But now
• 33:52
  Speaker 5: like I shut that down and I'm zoned in. So
• 33:54
  Speaker 5: but all that started from those tape studies with Sean.
• 33:57
  Speaker 6: The reason I love that is because you know, a
• 34:00
  Speaker 6: lot of times folks will just be like, either they're
• 34:03
  Speaker 6: not gonna give me no mentor ship, or you know
• 34:06
  Speaker 6: they're not gonna want to.
• 34:06
  Speaker 2: Talk to me. But close mob, don't get faid, just
• 34:08
  Speaker 2: the fact you win. Then hollered at him. He was
• 34:11
  Speaker 2: willing to share information.
• 34:12
  Speaker 5: And I think he respected the fact that I was
• 34:15
  Speaker 5: like looking dead in the eye as a man like
• 34:17
  Speaker 5: I want to get better because I know I can.
• 34:20
  Speaker 5: As like, if you're coaching a football team, you want
• 34:26
  Speaker 5: to put people on the field that you that know
• 34:29
  Speaker 5: they can win.
• 34:30
  Speaker 6: That.
• 34:30
  Speaker 5: You don't want people that are like I don't know.
• 34:33
  Speaker 5: You hire, and that translates to regular life. You don't
• 34:37
  Speaker 5: want to hire the plumber that's like I might.
• 34:42
  Speaker 1: Be able to fix your toilet. I'm kind of, but
• 34:45
  Speaker 1: I don't know.
• 34:45
  Speaker 5: No, I'm like, I'm the best plumber in the freaking
• 34:47
  Speaker 5: he's Western hemisphere and out south of the Mississippi.
• 34:52
  Speaker 1: You want people that know that they can do the job.
• 34:54
  Speaker 1: And and if you know.
• 34:56
  Speaker 5: That you can do the job, you're gonna pay him
• 34:57
  Speaker 5: whatever price because I need it done.
• 35:00
  Speaker 1: I needed done well then, and I need it done
• 35:02
  Speaker 1: fast right now. All Right. It's gonna cost you, though,
• 35:06
  Speaker 1: but it will be done.
• 35:08
  Speaker 5: You know, what here's a tip that's market value.
• 35:13
  Speaker 4: Strickland, Ladies and gentlemen.
• 35:14
  Speaker 1: That's right, we appreciate that swerve.
• 35:17
  Speaker 5: Confident on all social media platforms, Man myself, flash Garments.
• 35:21
  Speaker 5: We got the Motion Sickness album out that has the
• 35:23
  Speaker 5: big Pressure Trill remix with Bumbee and Westside Gun on
• 35:26
  Speaker 5: there with who kids hosting the entire album.
• 35:29
  Speaker 9: Let's play it, play it, please play the Love of God.
• 35:32
  Speaker 9: Play that you got a clean version, Crestball, Let's play it.
• 35:35
  Speaker 9: Not to mention the night at Grand Slam Man or
• 35:38
  Speaker 9: Grand Slam author Ash Stadium this Wednesday.
• 35:40
  Speaker 4: It's going on with the swerves Strickland. It's the breakfast Club.
• 35:43
  Speaker 4: Good morning, wake that ass up in the morning.
• 35:46
  Speaker 1: Breakfast Club.