Latest / NO FILTER / FULL EPISODE_ Cody Rhodes talks WWE return_ legacy and more with Austin _ Broken Skull Sessions

Transcript

FULL EPISODE_ Cody Rhodes talks WWE return_ legacy and more with Austin _ Broken Skull Sessions · NO FILTER

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: Everybody.
• 0:01
  Speaker 2: My name is Stone Coach Steve Austin. Welcome to the
• 0:04
  Speaker 2: Brokens Call sessions. My guest today is a sixteen year
• 0:07
  Speaker 2: veteran of the Squared Circle and a second generation performer
• 0:11
  Speaker 2: as well. My guest today makes as long a way
• 0:14
  Speaker 2: to return to the WWE. He is the American Nightmare.
• 0:18
  Speaker 2: Cody Roach.
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: Cody, how are you?
• 0:26
  Speaker 3: I am wonderful.
• 0:27
  Speaker 4: Thank you for having me, Thank you for I finally
• 0:29
  Speaker 4: got my hands on the broken skull IPA cheers, cheers,
• 0:34
  Speaker 4: thank you, sir, And as an IPA guy, it's wonderful.
• 0:39
  Speaker 3: This is legit, the first taste for me. Really waited.
• 0:42
  Speaker 4: I text you once before I wanted to get some
• 0:45
  Speaker 4: and finally.
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: To have it.
• 0:47
  Speaker 3: It's wonderful, big IPA guy, So it was worth it.
• 0:50
  Speaker 2: Hey, Off camera, we were talking a little bit about watches.
• 0:53
  Speaker 2: I've been watching a lot of your interviews and you
• 0:55
  Speaker 2: just laid a story on me. So tell me about
• 0:58
  Speaker 2: the watch your wearing and your dad gave you little
• 1:00
  Speaker 2: bit of advice and I'm such a watch guy. I've
• 1:02
  Speaker 2: got a story for you as well. So should I
• 1:04
  Speaker 2: have rate about this time piece you're wearing?
• 1:06
  Speaker 4: Okay, any time piece connoisseurs out there will probably offended,
• 1:10
  Speaker 4: but it is a Rolex submarin. It's a new beast here.
• 1:13
  Speaker 4: It's got the blue, the classic rolelex dial. But this
• 1:19
  Speaker 4: was a gift from one of my students at the
• 1:22
  Speaker 4: Nightmare Factory where we teach wrestling, and I specifically teach
• 1:26
  Speaker 4: the beginner's camps because that's the fun some people in
• 1:29
  Speaker 4: the beginning. Once it gets after the beginning, i'm.
• 1:32
  Speaker 3: Not helpful to you, But in the beginning, I'm helpful.
• 1:35
  Speaker 3: But this is a shout out to my man, Diamond.
• 1:38
  Speaker 4: Chic, who gifted me this beautiful rolex, which was apropos
• 1:42
  Speaker 4: first time I said it. Today perfect timing because I
• 1:46
  Speaker 4: knew I was going back to WB and I was
• 1:49
  Speaker 4: going back at WrestleMania, and I wasn't wearing rolexes when
• 1:53
  Speaker 4: I was there the last time.
• 1:55
  Speaker 3: I wasn't wearing any nice time pieces.
• 1:57
  Speaker 4: And time has changed and gone on, and ultimately I
• 2:03
  Speaker 4: was afraid to wear a rolex because Dusty had told
• 2:07
  Speaker 4: me that you don't wear a rolex unless you won.
• 2:09
  Speaker 3: The world title.
• 2:12
  Speaker 4: Man, like that's a lot of you know, especially now
• 2:14
  Speaker 4: that he's gone. I'm positive I have asked him today, Hey,
• 2:17
  Speaker 4: I got this rolex. Oh looks great, you know, but
• 2:22
  Speaker 4: I was always afraid of wearing it. And then there
• 2:24
  Speaker 4: was this really touching recent situation where you know, when
• 2:28
  Speaker 4: he passed away in twenty fifteen, a lot of his
• 2:31
  Speaker 4: estate in his valuables would go to his four kids
• 2:36
  Speaker 4: and my mom. Of course, you got Christian, you got
• 2:38
  Speaker 4: Dustin Teel myself. There was a land somewhere in Texas
• 2:41
  Speaker 4: that him and Blackjack had, but he had this beautiful
• 2:45
  Speaker 4: gold Rolex that he had got when he won the
• 2:49
  Speaker 4: world championship. I don't think the first time. I think
• 2:52
  Speaker 4: when he had won it from Flair at the gathering
• 2:56
  Speaker 4: potentially or at the bash, whatever it made, but that
• 2:59
  Speaker 4: was always to be mine, and he had verbalized to
• 3:03
  Speaker 4: me that it was going to be mine. So there'd
• 3:05
  Speaker 4: be no bad blood between Dustin and I because he
• 3:08
  Speaker 4: with my sisters. He didn't verbalize where the Louis Vuitton
• 3:11
  Speaker 4: luggage was going. It was a bit of a there's
• 3:13
  Speaker 4: some heat.
• 3:14
  Speaker 3: It was heat.
• 3:15
  Speaker 4: But with this I was expecting the rolex come to
• 3:17
  Speaker 4: find out, you know, he passed away, rolex doesn't come.
• 3:19
  Speaker 3: I'm not looking for it. You know, there's more trauma
• 3:22
  Speaker 3: going on than me looking for this time piece.
• 3:24
  Speaker 4: But I did ask my mom and she told me, oh, well,
• 3:29
  Speaker 4: you know, I didn't want to tell you, but he
• 3:31
  Speaker 4: had pawned it so that I could go to la
• 3:34
  Speaker 4: and join the Howard Fine acting studio and live in
• 3:37
  Speaker 4: the most expensive city to live in at the time
• 3:40
  Speaker 4: that my family was completely broke, but we weren't telling
• 3:43
  Speaker 4: anyone we were broke because he was Dusty Rhodes. How
• 3:47
  Speaker 4: was Dusty no way, and that he had pawned that
• 3:50
  Speaker 4: rolex so that I could go do it. So I
• 3:54
  Speaker 4: was always afraid, and finally I was like, you know,
• 3:57
  Speaker 4: I can. I'm my own guy.
• 3:59
  Speaker 3: My legacy is always tethered to the specter.
• 4:02
  Speaker 4: And the you know, the man that he was, and
• 4:05
  Speaker 4: I'm more comfortable with that now than I ever was.
• 4:07
  Speaker 3: But for me, I was I didn't get my own Now.
• 4:10
  Speaker 4: You know, somewhere out there, somebody's rocking this giant because
• 4:13
  Speaker 4: he had these huge, stupid, big risk giant no one,
• 4:17
  Speaker 4: I don't know who's wearing that comfortable. I had to
• 4:19
  Speaker 4: change the links on it, but I hope someone has
• 4:21
  Speaker 4: it and is enjoying it.
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: So but the role's looks good on you.
• 4:24
  Speaker 2: It fits the attire for which you present yourself and
• 4:27
  Speaker 2: the way you carry yourself. And my watch store was
• 4:30
  Speaker 2: you know, off camera you were talking about Omega. Of
• 4:33
  Speaker 2: course I had an Omega seamster chronograph out of titanium.
• 4:36
  Speaker 2: Work at an angle with the Undertaker and somehow the
• 4:39
  Speaker 2: thing gets knocked off my wrisk. I powdered out of
• 4:42
  Speaker 2: the ring. I'm on the floor looking over the apron
• 4:44
  Speaker 2: and I'm watching the Undertaker walk across the ring and
• 4:47
  Speaker 2: he doesn't see this is that was the first watch
• 4:50
  Speaker 2: that I'd ever bought that was a value and really
• 4:53
  Speaker 2: meant something to me because I'm a time fanatic. And
• 4:55
  Speaker 2: it just crunched and he just absolutely demolishes, you know,
• 4:59
  Speaker 2: the band watch. So to see a fellow watch guy,
• 5:02
  Speaker 2: I just had to start talking watches with you. So
• 5:04
  Speaker 2: some of the fine things in life I saw in
• 5:06
  Speaker 2: your ipage. Are you a kind of sure now of
• 5:09
  Speaker 2: whiskey or bourbon?
• 5:10
  Speaker 4: So I did a pilot hopefully it will be out there.
• 5:15
  Speaker 4: The show is called American Spirit. It's the journey of
• 5:18
  Speaker 4: the Bottle? Right, where's this thing?
• 5:19
  Speaker 3: Ben?
• 5:20
  Speaker 4: I like Bourbon's but I'm the first. It's a rudimentary knowledge.
• 5:24
  Speaker 4: I don't know what I'm talking about.
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: I'm with you, so I know what's good or I
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: know what I like. I don't know what I don't like.
• 5:30
  Speaker 3: That's so that's all I think.
• 5:31
  Speaker 4: That's all that I offer to the trio of the
• 5:34
  Speaker 4: bourbon men, you know, because they know what they're looking for.
• 5:36
  Speaker 4: It's a lot about who brings that bottle in, what
• 5:38
  Speaker 4: this bottle mean to you to come from someone in
• 5:40
  Speaker 4: your life, and things.
• 5:41
  Speaker 3: Of that nature.
• 5:42
  Speaker 4: But for me, it's just that I like this, I
• 5:44
  Speaker 4: don't like that, and it's your own palette and journey.
• 5:47
  Speaker 4: But I learned a lot just just filming. I didn't
• 5:50
  Speaker 4: know how to nose bourbon. I'm sitting there. You put
• 5:52
  Speaker 4: your whole nose, but you keep your mouth open. It
• 5:55
  Speaker 4: felt like an idiot for a second, but it's a it's.
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: A whole thing.
• 5:59
  Speaker 2: We're not just gonna wind count and watching people's glasses
• 6:01
  Speaker 2: around it, like look at legs, look at legs. I'm like,
• 6:04
  Speaker 2: no legs, let's just taste it.
• 6:06
  Speaker 4: Speaking of we hit you with the triple threat here,
• 6:09
  Speaker 4: one of them is gonna you're gonna feel like a rib.
• 6:12
  Speaker 4: But so as we stocked a nightmare bar, so I
• 6:15
  Speaker 4: had a winery and Walla, Walla, knocking Point, they threw
• 6:19
  Speaker 4: down a little champagne.
• 6:20
  Speaker 3: That was the dream champagne.
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: That is amazing.
• 6:23
  Speaker 4: This was the GSM they had made for me. It's
• 6:25
  Speaker 4: got good legs on it. Our friends at knocking Point, Walla, walla,
• 6:30
  Speaker 4: the that's the good red there. That's the best of
• 6:32
  Speaker 4: the bunch. And I don't say that selfishly. And then
• 6:34
  Speaker 4: this is a drink you'll probably never have. And I'll
• 6:36
  Speaker 4: probably be the only guy I'd ever past Steve Austin
• 6:39
  Speaker 4: or Rose.
• 6:39
  Speaker 3: But that is Brandy's whoa baby?
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: Whoa baby? I'll dig it? Whoa baby?
• 6:45
  Speaker 3: Also from knocking Point. Yeah, so that was you know,
• 6:48
  Speaker 3: Dustin sober so he can't join us.
• 6:50
  Speaker 4: In the in the in the revelry, but yeah, that
• 6:52
  Speaker 4: was the family, the family trio there and thank you
• 6:55
  Speaker 4: very much.
• 6:55
  Speaker 3: Oh yeah, thank you.
• 6:57
  Speaker 2: Hey, so you brought up Rusamane. Let's jump right into
• 6:59
  Speaker 2: it because as we got to start somewhere and you
• 7:02
  Speaker 2: made your illustrious return. We've got some footage from the match.
• 7:06
  Speaker 2: Let's just jump into some footage, Okay, then we'll come
• 7:08
  Speaker 2: back from there. The American Nightmare Cody Rhodes versus Seth
• 7:13
  Speaker 2: freaking Rollins.
• 7:34
  Speaker 3: I never thought i'd see that logo, and I never
• 7:37
  Speaker 3: I didn't either.
• 7:37
  Speaker 2: I was surprised to see that logo and it's a
• 7:39
  Speaker 2: great logo.
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: Thank you. Okay. For the past few days, I've been
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: watching you or here we are, I see.
• 7:57
  Speaker 2: Insane feeling it is and if you could bottle that
• 8:00
  Speaker 2: up and sell it, you'd be a millionaire. Several times over,
• 8:04
  Speaker 2: I've heard you talk about this moment very eloquently, very articulately,
• 8:10
  Speaker 2: and talk about maybe the trance type state that you
• 8:12
  Speaker 2: were in down that first half of the ramp and
• 8:17
  Speaker 2: you got give or take what's seventy five thousand people there,
• 8:24
  Speaker 2: and there's.
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: Nothing like that feeling.
• 8:26
  Speaker 2: And I know that you went into this with an expectation,
• 8:30
  Speaker 2: but then also with that expectation, there is that hope
• 8:33
  Speaker 2: because there's a fine line there, right sure, and you
• 8:36
  Speaker 2: live and die by that response and there with you.
• 8:39
  Speaker 2: And I've heard you describe this moment, but I'll give
• 8:41
  Speaker 2: it to you in three words. And you can appreciate
• 8:43
  Speaker 2: this because as young as you are, you're truly old
• 8:46
  Speaker 2: school rugue warrior pop oh breed.
• 8:50
  Speaker 4: The highest that's the highest of honors, right, that is
• 8:53
  Speaker 4: the highest of honors.
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: Do you feel it?
• 8:56
  Speaker 4: I felt it, and I think that's part of the
• 9:00
  Speaker 4: trance itself. Was of course you want that. Yeah, of
• 9:05
  Speaker 4: course you're thinking. You got a lot of people telling you.
• 9:07
  Speaker 2: I think it's just about open hot spot here, nice
• 9:10
  Speaker 2: ass run ropes. There is that ard we were talking
• 9:13
  Speaker 2: about off care, there's that little strut.
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: It's kind of.
• 9:17
  Speaker 4: Where did where did did that come from?
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: The cart will Well.
• 9:22
  Speaker 4: I think it's so funny because when I spoke with
• 9:25
  Speaker 4: everybody at WW, I said, you know, i'd really love
• 9:27
  Speaker 4: it if you don't really mentioned start Us. So yeah,
• 9:31
  Speaker 4: it's part of me. And if I mention it, or
• 9:34
  Speaker 4: if a bad guy gets in there and he's mentioned it,
• 9:36
  Speaker 4: I understand it. It's not the end of the world. However,
• 9:40
  Speaker 4: I never thought I'd be referencing it ever again. And
• 9:42
  Speaker 4: start Us was cartwheeling, hands in front of the face, hissing.
• 9:46
  Speaker 4: It just felt so this was one of those moments where, Okay, wrestlers,
• 9:50
  Speaker 4: we all think the world revolves around us, so they
• 9:52
  Speaker 4: should know every piece of our story. They've they've known
• 9:54
  Speaker 4: my journey, they've known everything since I was a child.
• 9:58
  Speaker 3: In this situation, I felt like they really did get it.
• 10:01
  Speaker 3: It wasn't about oh, well I wonder why I left aw.
• 10:04
  Speaker 3: It was more, oh, we're so glad to have him back. Well,
• 10:07
  Speaker 3: this is nice, a perfect Harry watch.
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 10:14
  Speaker 4: But and I think Corey Graves put it best on
• 10:17
  Speaker 4: commentary when we did the start Us by instead of
• 10:19
  Speaker 4: shedding skin and I and I thought, that's that's what
• 10:22
  Speaker 4: it feels like because probably my number one attribute as
• 10:27
  Speaker 4: a wrestler in the actual nitty gritty is I'm an
• 10:31
  Speaker 4: angry guy. And part of being angry was being start Us.
• 10:36
  Speaker 4: I didn't want to be start Us, and then when
• 10:38
  Speaker 4: I was start Us, I was angry. I want to
• 10:40
  Speaker 4: be the best start Us. I want to make it
• 10:42
  Speaker 4: work and all that. But that's one of those moments
• 10:45
  Speaker 4: whereas anger and vindication all together, like, you know, we're
• 10:51
  Speaker 4: not going to harp on it. Me as a wrestler,
• 10:53
  Speaker 4: I'm not gonna harp on it, but I know where
• 10:55
  Speaker 4: I came from. And thanks so much at and T
• 10:58
  Speaker 4: Stadium and everybody for for feeling it with me.
• 11:03
  Speaker 3: Yeah, because they really did understand the story.
• 11:07
  Speaker 2: There's a trademark left jabs like yeah, buying Cobo.
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: Good fire. People are there letting it loose.
• 11:20
  Speaker 3: Rip my forehead up with that, a lot of kicks.
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: Clean in the meddal strong wind.
• 11:31
  Speaker 2: I was in the my dressing room watching this match.
• 11:33
  Speaker 2: A lot of guys here in the studio were there
• 11:35
  Speaker 2: with me, and as I was watching this, I'm just
• 11:38
  Speaker 2: sitting there, man's I'll use the correct language, and.
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: Just a good this is this is a great effing match.
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: Oh it's a good effing match. Thank you, this is
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: a good effening I just.
• 11:48
  Speaker 2: Kept saying that, just watching the moments, watching the build,
• 11:51
  Speaker 2: watching everybody soak it in, and you guys are both
• 11:54
  Speaker 2: zoned and great synergy out there. Having a chance now
• 11:57
  Speaker 2: to digest it. I know everything is still surreal to
• 12:01
  Speaker 2: you because everything is moving so fast. You didn't and
• 12:04
  Speaker 2: I were the media afterwards. But now when you look
• 12:07
  Speaker 2: back at that match and can that kind of digest it,
• 12:10
  Speaker 2: how do you feel about it?
• 12:14
  Speaker 4: I think an old school train of thought maybe was, hey,
• 12:19
  Speaker 4: don't the match itself could be a freebe I think,
• 12:23
  Speaker 4: and this isn't my thought. Other people might have said, hey,
• 12:26
  Speaker 4: it's a freebie. They're gonna be so.
• 12:27
  Speaker 3: Happy to see you. Don't.
• 12:30
  Speaker 4: It was never don't worry about the match, But there
• 12:32
  Speaker 4: was kind of this underlying feeling that it's more about
• 12:34
  Speaker 4: this moment, But in my mind, it was about the
• 12:39
  Speaker 4: moment and the match.
• 12:41
  Speaker 3: Because Seth's a wrestler. Yes, he's a wrestler's wrestler.
• 12:45
  Speaker 4: And I know, you know, I've been saying wrestling a lot,
• 12:48
  Speaker 4: but if you're putting me who worships and loves and
• 12:53
  Speaker 4: studies and all I ever wanted to be was a wrestler,
• 12:56
  Speaker 4: and there with another one at the top, it's got
• 12:58
  Speaker 4: to be a match.
• 13:01
  Speaker 3: It has to be.
• 13:04
  Speaker 4: I know there are people who there's always that discussion
• 13:07
  Speaker 4: about Okay getting over versus having a good match.
• 13:09
  Speaker 3: I think in this case they were one and the same.
• 13:13
  Speaker 4: It needed to happen because there is a portion of
• 13:15
  Speaker 4: this audience that only knows a little bit about where
• 13:17
  Speaker 4: I went. They only know a little bit about it,
• 13:19
  Speaker 4: and they may have already wrapped a perception about it.
• 13:22
  Speaker 4: So this was a starting point, and I thought the
• 13:24
  Speaker 4: match needed to be classic.
• 13:27
  Speaker 3: Wrestling.
• 13:29
  Speaker 4: I mean, the show's called WrestleMania and just all the
• 13:33
  Speaker 4: things that ended up being a rare time in my
• 13:35
  Speaker 4: career where my expectations are just my romantic outlook on it.
• 13:39
  Speaker 4: I afterwards thought Sean Michaels I remember once he told me,
• 13:42
  Speaker 4: He's like, don't ask fifty people what they thought, right,
• 13:45
  Speaker 4: at least it's okay to ask a few people.
• 13:47
  Speaker 3: But you should know.
• 13:48
  Speaker 4: I never forget that because I was kissing somebody's ask well,
• 13:51
  Speaker 4: what'd you think any feedback something like that, and he
• 13:53
  Speaker 4: stopped me and told me you should know. I've been
• 13:56
  Speaker 4: doing it long enough, you should know. And that was
• 13:58
  Speaker 4: the moment where I walked back and I felt like,
• 13:59
  Speaker 4: I know that that was maybe the biggest to me
• 14:03
  Speaker 4: at this point, the biggest thing I've done in my career,
• 14:05
  Speaker 4: but it also could have been maybe the biggest thing I.
• 14:07
  Speaker 3: Ever do, depending on what happens now. And I didn't
• 14:10
  Speaker 3: take that for granted.
• 14:11
  Speaker 2: You've been gone six years, allegedly for the enemy, as
• 14:14
  Speaker 2: you would put it, so you need to come back
• 14:18
  Speaker 2: and going to the pop I've heard you say, hey man,
• 14:21
  Speaker 2: there was an extreme positive response, and you thought maybe
• 14:24
  Speaker 2: there were gonna be some contrarians out there, some negativity.
• 14:27
  Speaker 2: But at the end of the day, whether it was
• 14:29
  Speaker 2: or not, it's about decibels.
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: There's reaction. Do you see what I'm saying.
• 14:35
  Speaker 4: Oh, I'm going to take what you said and use
• 14:37
  Speaker 4: it on a regular basis now, because I've heard Tully
• 14:40
  Speaker 4: Blanchard describe it similarly. Loudest, the longest decibels is dead on.
• 14:47
  Speaker 4: I have never been angry when a crowd is going
• 14:50
  Speaker 4: different routes. I just want y'all having a good time.
• 14:54
  Speaker 4: My favorite part of your introduction to me was that
• 14:56
  Speaker 4: you said a sixteen year pro.
• 14:59
  Speaker 3: That blows my mind.
• 15:01
  Speaker 4: It feels like I just started. I have been doing
• 15:04
  Speaker 4: this since before I could legally buy alcohol for WWE.
• 15:08
  Speaker 4: I signed it twenty years old. All that matters to
• 15:12
  Speaker 4: me is everyone's having a good time, and if they
• 15:13
  Speaker 4: go a different route, I can play with that too.
• 15:15
  Speaker 4: That strut, that strut has a different version. Yes, there's
• 15:18
  Speaker 4: a different version of the struck. You know, there's the
• 15:21
  Speaker 4: dusty kind of natural, Oh this is fun and chrism,
• 15:24
  Speaker 4: and then there's there's a different version of the strut.
• 15:26
  Speaker 3: When you're when you're not getting them all all loving you.
• 15:28
  Speaker 4: You know what I'm saying, Yeah, here's to you right
• 15:31
  Speaker 4: exactly exactly.
• 15:32
  Speaker 3: Yes.
• 15:33
  Speaker 2: So you come in and you know you're riding this
• 15:36
  Speaker 2: wave of momentum, and you know it's kind of like
• 15:38
  Speaker 2: you say, almost like a surfer. You're trying to pick
• 15:40
  Speaker 2: that big wave and you ride it. You're riding one
• 15:42
  Speaker 2: right now, and almost take some words from your father's
• 15:45
  Speaker 2: you said you're living on the edge of light and bolt,
• 15:48
  Speaker 2: and you're doing that right now. So I was doing
• 15:50
  Speaker 2: research and I'm thinking, this young man is only thirty
• 15:53
  Speaker 2: six years old. I mean, but he's a freaking sixty
• 15:56
  Speaker 2: in your vet. You're in business longer than I was.
• 15:59
  Speaker 2: Filling good with work. You're at all the decisions that
• 16:01
  Speaker 2: you've made to push you in this moment right now.
• 16:04
  Speaker 4: I think it would be easy for me just to
• 16:06
  Speaker 4: be on cloud nine, and I was. I allowed myself
• 16:09
  Speaker 4: to be on cloud nine in this moment right But
• 16:13
  Speaker 4: the moment I came back and saw some of the
• 16:19
  Speaker 4: luminary figures Michael Hayes All uses as an example, some
• 16:23
  Speaker 4: of the figures who help the machine roll, because I
• 16:27
  Speaker 4: don't think they knew what the American Nightmare really was.
• 16:29
  Speaker 4: I don't think they knew what I meant, who I've become.
• 16:32
  Speaker 4: I don't think they understood my attention to detail when
• 16:35
  Speaker 4: it comes to my stuff and what I.
• 16:38
  Speaker 3: Want it to be. I think when they saw it,
• 16:42
  Speaker 3: I now have a responsibility to them.
• 16:45
  Speaker 4: I just joined the team right, I'm putting the jersey
• 16:47
  Speaker 4: on for the first time, putting the hat on. I
• 16:49
  Speaker 4: just this trade, this moment just happened. But also I
• 16:53
  Speaker 4: do feel like, Okay, if you picked me for business,
• 16:56
  Speaker 4: well then I want business to go up. I don't
• 16:59
  Speaker 4: know how so to describe it other than I really
• 17:01
  Speaker 4: enjoyed it. But I instantly felt like, okay, it's on now.
• 17:05
  Speaker 4: I want to play quarterback. So every game that's there
• 17:09
  Speaker 4: put me.
• 17:09
  Speaker 3: In, I'm ready to go.
• 17:11
  Speaker 4: And this was one of those times I got to
• 17:13
  Speaker 4: enjoy it for the classic twenty four hours, right, and
• 17:16
  Speaker 4: let's move on.
• 17:16
  Speaker 3: Let's go.
• 17:17
  Speaker 2: Let's move on to you know, the formative years for
• 17:20
  Speaker 2: you because as a kid growing up in South Texas, man,
• 17:24
  Speaker 2: I was changing the channels on TV and I came
• 17:26
  Speaker 2: across Houston Wrestling. Your dad was passing through the territory.
• 17:29
  Speaker 2: He was bleeding like a stuck pig, and I couldn't
• 17:32
  Speaker 2: believe it. There was a rope banister around the ring
• 17:35
  Speaker 2: and just you know, the smoky crowd because everybody could
• 17:38
  Speaker 2: smoke back in the days, and there's a security guard
• 17:40
  Speaker 2: walk with a sidearm on his hip and Dusty was
• 17:43
  Speaker 2: just getting shell ACKed. And I said, I said, God, dang, Mom,
• 17:46
  Speaker 2: I said, the security guard's got a gun. Why didn't
• 17:48
  Speaker 2: he help Dusty?
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: You know it's t that's the ptenure that it paid him.
• 17:53
  Speaker 2: So I forever fell in love with wrestling, and your
• 17:55
  Speaker 2: dad was a big inspiration, one of the number one
• 17:57
  Speaker 2: reasons I got into the business. So you growing up
• 18:01
  Speaker 2: in the business, like, what are your first memories of
• 18:04
  Speaker 2: the business.
• 18:05
  Speaker 4: So my first memory it sounds almost fictional in terms of, hey,
• 18:09
  Speaker 4: this sounds like he's writing it for his autobiography. It
• 18:11
  Speaker 4: sounds like carne bs. But the truth is, my very
• 18:14
  Speaker 4: first memory is Dusty actually puts me in a wrestling ring.
• 18:18
  Speaker 4: So of course this wasn't fair at all. He placed
• 18:21
  Speaker 4: me in a wwe ring, had you know, his hands
• 18:25
  Speaker 4: under my armpits, not letting me move too far. And
• 18:27
  Speaker 4: I remember seeing the buckle with the gold letters, and
• 18:31
  Speaker 4: that was my first introduction to all of this. My
• 18:35
  Speaker 4: mom says, oh, I didn't want him to be a wrestler,
• 18:37
  Speaker 4: but y'all never gave me any other breadcrumbs.
• 18:39
  Speaker 3: There was no other options. U.
• 18:41
  Speaker 4: There was never anything else that would be any cooler
• 18:45
  Speaker 4: than being not just a wrestler potentially, but being his
• 18:50
  Speaker 4: son in wrestling, and I've gotten so much more comfortable
• 18:53
  Speaker 4: with this over the years. But when I first would
• 18:56
  Speaker 4: go to shows with him as a kid, We're talking
• 18:58
  Speaker 4: Halloween Havoc. You and Dustin have this banger and my
• 19:01
  Speaker 4: brother's getting the big chick pop from the crowd, and
• 19:03
  Speaker 4: I barely you know, I'm six seven, I don't know
• 19:05
  Speaker 4: him that well, but just think he's the coolest human
• 19:08
  Speaker 4: being alive. But Dusty backstage was respected so much. I
• 19:12
  Speaker 4: didn't get to see him in the prime of his career.
• 19:14
  Speaker 4: I didn't get that. I got Dusty at home most
• 19:17
  Speaker 4: of the time, really all the time, and then he
• 19:19
  Speaker 4: would take me to the show's UTC Chattanooga, Montgomery, Birmingham,
• 19:24
  Speaker 4: everywhere around.
• 19:25
  Speaker 3: The w CW. You know, the wheel and the way
• 19:29
  Speaker 3: the boys would interact with him. I knew there was something.
• 19:35
  Speaker 4: Special about him, or I knew he was in a
• 19:38
  Speaker 4: powerful position. I was very attracted to that very and
• 19:41
  Speaker 4: I ultimately would be informative for me in terms of
• 19:44
  Speaker 4: getting when AW started and wanting to somewhat model a
• 19:48
  Speaker 4: little bit after what I had seen him do. But
• 19:50
  Speaker 4: the thing that sold me, I tell people, I saw
• 19:54
  Speaker 4: Brad Armstrong hit this arm drag, which I did, and
• 19:56
  Speaker 4: the crowd goes nuts again another big chick pop, which
• 19:59
  Speaker 4: those aren't a thing anymore, and I wish they were right.
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: A lot when rock and roll would come out.
• 20:04
  Speaker 3: Right, Oh my gosh, I jut about it. So he
• 20:06
  Speaker 3: had this arm dragon. I thought that.
• 20:08
  Speaker 4: And at the time it was, you know, the undercard
• 20:10
  Speaker 4: or the middle card of the show. And I still
• 20:12
  Speaker 4: he was so popular as a babyface and that that
• 20:16
  Speaker 4: that is what I need to be doing. But when
• 20:18
  Speaker 4: we would leave the arenas and Sting would go out
• 20:21
  Speaker 4: Brad arms from whatever, and they'd get this nice reaction
• 20:24
  Speaker 4: by the fans weighed by the cars.
• 20:25
  Speaker 3: When we would leave and my dad would come out,
• 20:29
  Speaker 3: it was nuts.
• 20:30
  Speaker 4: And even as a kid, you find the sense of
• 20:35
  Speaker 4: I'm real proud of you.
• 20:36
  Speaker 3: I don't know why, I don't know what you did.
• 20:39
  Speaker 4: But you're proud of him, And uh, it definitely channeled
• 20:43
  Speaker 4: me towards this, and yeah, there is Uh.
• 20:46
  Speaker 3: He used to go to the pool in those trunks,
• 20:48
  Speaker 3: by the way.
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: I believe it, and all the boys did back in
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: the day.
• 20:51
  Speaker 4: So so he did it in a way that our neighborhood.
• 20:56
  Speaker 4: There were two celebrities in our neighborhood. Gabe Simpson, who
• 20:59
  Speaker 4: called Braves. He was on the other side, then Dusty
• 21:02
  Speaker 4: on the other street in Jefferson Township where we lived,
• 21:06
  Speaker 4: and everyone would meet at the pool in the center.
• 21:08
  Speaker 3: All the parents loved Gabe. They respected him.
• 21:11
  Speaker 4: Oh with Braves baseball that and then most of the
• 21:14
  Speaker 4: families and such where we live, which is a little
• 21:16
  Speaker 4: bit pretentious East cop area, they kind of looked at
• 21:18
  Speaker 4: us like the Adams family wrestling white people. You know,
• 21:22
  Speaker 4: this is this is in South Georgia. This is North
• 21:24
  Speaker 4: Atlanta where we're living. So he'd go to the pool
• 21:27
  Speaker 4: in his trunks, big ray bands. He'd get on the
• 21:30
  Speaker 4: diving board and this diving.
• 21:31
  Speaker 3: Board would literally touch the water.
• 21:33
  Speaker 4: He was so heavy, but it would still hold him
• 21:35
  Speaker 4: and he'd come off with this Rodney Dangerfield beautiful dive.
• 21:39
  Speaker 3: It was absurd. He get out, go, sit back down.
• 21:41
  Speaker 3: No one would ever bother him.
• 21:42
  Speaker 4: But I feel like he did it to make a
• 21:44
  Speaker 4: bit of a statement about this is my pool too, y'all.
• 21:47
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I'd find an interesting about this Fisher Well.
• 21:49
  Speaker 2: First of all, loved the championship belt there. But when
• 21:51
  Speaker 2: you look at the Dusty right there. In today's day,
• 21:54
  Speaker 2: and age. If he walked into a building and said, hey,
• 21:57
  Speaker 2: I had like a tryout, they're probably gonna tell not
• 22:00
  Speaker 2: so much.
• 22:01
  Speaker 3: Very unlikely.
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: Yes, you know.
• 22:02
  Speaker 2: And he was that guy, you know, with the charisma,
• 22:06
  Speaker 2: the promo, the just the presentation everything, the everyman He
• 22:11
  Speaker 2: just got over and he transcended the business.
• 22:15
  Speaker 3: He was a really wonderful athlete.
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: He was.
• 22:18
  Speaker 3: He was.
• 22:19
  Speaker 4: There's a coupletall players and a former football player, great
• 22:22
  Speaker 4: baseball skills, able to throw us one foot drop kick
• 22:25
  Speaker 4: with Tully wind was there. If you look at some
• 22:28
  Speaker 4: of the stuff when he's working guys off the horseman
• 22:32
  Speaker 4: path a little where you see classic arm drags and
• 22:34
  Speaker 4: chanceries and things of that nature. He had an athletic
• 22:38
  Speaker 4: background and he had fundamental skills.
• 22:40
  Speaker 3: He at a certain point didn't.
• 22:41
  Speaker 4: Need them anymore once the persona took over. But I
• 22:46
  Speaker 4: bet there was a lot of hey, don't do that, Dusty,
• 22:49
  Speaker 4: you want to be a heel. And I think he
• 22:51
  Speaker 4: just did what worked for him and then it really
• 22:54
  Speaker 4: worked for him.
• 22:55
  Speaker 2: So if he's robbing his breadcrumbs and were you was
• 23:00
  Speaker 2: destined to be a professional wrestler.
• 23:04
  Speaker 4: My mom never really played a big role in terms
• 23:06
  Speaker 4: of let's find an alternative.
• 23:07
  Speaker 3: There we are.
• 23:09
  Speaker 4: She never played it, and there's the watch by the way. Yeah,
• 23:12
  Speaker 4: she never played a big role in finding an alternative.
• 23:14
  Speaker 4: She did always make sure you know I was doing
• 23:17
  Speaker 4: well in.
• 23:17
  Speaker 3: School and things of that nature.
• 23:19
  Speaker 4: The only time I think he got worried about me
• 23:22
  Speaker 4: getting into wrestling was around the Attitude era and Dustin's cooking,
• 23:28
  Speaker 4: because his industry is changing.
• 23:30
  Speaker 3: It's evolving.
• 23:31
  Speaker 4: How would I fit into that industry, especially because maybe
• 23:36
  Speaker 4: younger but very old soul in old school minded. That's
• 23:39
  Speaker 4: the type of wrestling I like, It's what I grew
• 23:40
  Speaker 4: up on. It's him of course, so he got into
• 23:43
  Speaker 4: this tick of maybe be an actor. That was a
• 23:45
  Speaker 4: big thing for him. He'd always tell people, you shouldn't
• 23:47
  Speaker 4: be right. This is when I'm wrestling on the road
• 23:49
  Speaker 4: at WW Yeah, he shouldn't be wrestling.
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: He always thought you were so good looking.
• 23:52
  Speaker 4: It was really adamant that I was incredibly handsome, at
• 23:55
  Speaker 4: the point where he'd set you up for failure.
• 23:56
  Speaker 3: Like, hey, he's a good looking guy with the great Yeah,
• 23:59
  Speaker 3: like you're putting two much into this.
• 24:01
  Speaker 4: But he was big on the idea of maybe becoming
• 24:04
  Speaker 4: an actor, and I think part of that reason wasn't
• 24:06
  Speaker 4: so much his fear for me.
• 24:07
  Speaker 3: I think it's a regret he had.
• 24:09
  Speaker 4: You know, he did a few television shows things of
• 24:11
  Speaker 4: that nature. I remember he met Johnny Cash on gun Smoke.
• 24:14
  Speaker 4: He had there's a couple of those moments. I know
• 24:16
  Speaker 4: he thought he could do more as a character actor
• 24:19
  Speaker 4: because he as every wrestler finds out when they go
• 24:23
  Speaker 4: on and he set, oh my gosh, we can do this,
• 24:26
  Speaker 4: We can roll with these punches far more than most.
• 24:28
  Speaker 3: Of the actors.
• 24:29
  Speaker 4: Because you're used to live television and a synergetic entertainment.
• 24:34
  Speaker 4: I think that was a little bit of living vicariously. Hey,
• 24:36
  Speaker 4: if you decided to be an actor, that would be cool.
• 24:38
  Speaker 3: Because I didn't.
• 24:39
  Speaker 4: I think everything got a little jumbled when I started
• 24:43
  Speaker 4: taking off an amateur.
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: Wrestling just signed Georgia State champ.
• 24:47
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I was very I was obsessed with it. You
• 24:49
  Speaker 3: ever seen the movie Vision Quest? Yes?
• 24:50
  Speaker 4: Okay, so that was legit all I wanted and that
• 24:54
  Speaker 4: was my high school experience. I trained three, sometimes four
• 24:56
  Speaker 4: times a day, and he didn't them. In no secret,
• 25:00
  Speaker 4: he didn't know anything about folk style, freestyle, Greco Roman.
• 25:03
  Speaker 4: He sometimes would get the scores you'd see him on
• 25:06
  Speaker 4: the side of the mat throw up at two when
• 25:08
  Speaker 4: it was a one, and you could see he's like
• 25:09
  Speaker 4: a man, come on, I'm getting it. But when that
• 25:12
  Speaker 4: took off, him and my mom thought things might go
• 25:16
  Speaker 4: differently for me. They actually, I think both thought I
• 25:18
  Speaker 4: might get into the MMA world because there is no
• 25:21
  Speaker 4: wrestling beyond college, so that was something I was starting
• 25:24
  Speaker 4: to get into. I was doing Brazilian jiu jitsu in
• 25:26
  Speaker 4: the last two years of high school, and I was
• 25:28
  Speaker 4: just so wanting to be this awesome folk style freestyle
• 25:33
  Speaker 4: team Georgia wrestler, and the whole inspiration for this it
• 25:36
  Speaker 4: always circles back to Dusty, which is fine, was because
• 25:41
  Speaker 4: people looked at him. I mentioned the Adams family thing
• 25:43
  Speaker 4: and I mentioned it in Jess, but people looked at
• 25:45
  Speaker 4: him in a way that I always wanted to show them, like, no,
• 25:49
  Speaker 4: I know he's legit tough, I know he's athletic.
• 25:51
  Speaker 3: You might think he's.
• 25:52
  Speaker 4: Fat and talks funny and shouldn't be this, shouldn't be that,
• 25:56
  Speaker 4: But I know he's these things. One of the reasons
• 25:58
  Speaker 4: I wanted to have that vision quest the folk style
• 26:01
  Speaker 4: freestyle and have success at amateur wrestling was to, I guess,
• 26:08
  Speaker 4: shut up some of the critics of what Dusty did
• 26:12
  Speaker 4: for a living in the non believers, the non believers
• 26:15
  Speaker 4: in the entertainment side, because you get in some of
• 26:16
  Speaker 4: these South Georgia schools, some of these meats, they don't
• 26:19
  Speaker 4: care that they're wrestling Cody Runnels.
• 26:21
  Speaker 3: They just see the black hat and.
• 26:24
  Speaker 4: The Dusty sitting over there, and that's beating Dusty Rhodes
• 26:26
  Speaker 4: if you beat this kid, which is absurd when you're
• 26:28
  Speaker 4: fifteen sixteen. But I took it on and when that started,
• 26:33
  Speaker 4: that's where I started getting offers from schools that I'd
• 26:36
  Speaker 4: never even considered.
• 26:37
  Speaker 3: On my radar.
• 26:38
  Speaker 4: You know, the letter from Penn State's coming in. It
• 26:41
  Speaker 4: was jumbled up in my locker when I had left,
• 26:43
  Speaker 4: thinking how I didn't even save it. That's where my
• 26:46
  Speaker 4: parents started to think, oh my gosh, maybe he's not
• 26:50
  Speaker 4: going to go into pro wrestling.
• 26:52
  Speaker 3: But the truth was there was there was never any
• 26:55
  Speaker 3: doubt for me. It was the way to go.
• 26:57
  Speaker 2: Okay, let's start talking about a little bit of your training,
• 27:00
  Speaker 2: because I think, you know, maybe your dad was you know,
• 27:02
  Speaker 2: at eight years of age, I've read like maybe at
• 27:05
  Speaker 2: twelve years of age, he's showing you a little bit
• 27:07
  Speaker 2: about bumping or sure stuff like that.
• 27:09
  Speaker 4: My dad started. He allowed me to take a bump
• 27:12
  Speaker 4: and run the ropes at fifteen. The rule was he
• 27:16
  Speaker 4: had TCW his school there in Georgia. The rule was
• 27:19
  Speaker 4: that I could not have a match, but I could
• 27:21
  Speaker 4: come to train with the guys. Most of them were
• 27:23
  Speaker 4: power plant kind of cast offs, and they'd help me
• 27:26
  Speaker 4: a little. But as soon as the door shut. As
• 27:29
  Speaker 4: soon as the door shut, whether it's Ray Lloyd or
• 27:31
  Speaker 4: somebody else, they'd grab me in a headlock and start
• 27:33
  Speaker 4: calling a match soon as the door shut, and literally
• 27:36
  Speaker 4: the door would open back up and he'd look and
• 27:38
  Speaker 4: I'd just be running the ropes again. Or I could
• 27:39
  Speaker 4: run the ropes and I could take a bump at fifteen.
• 27:41
  Speaker 4: And the only things he ever did with me in
• 27:43
  Speaker 4: the ring ever where he gave me a body slam
• 27:45
  Speaker 4: on day one, asked me how I felt. I was okay,
• 27:49
  Speaker 4: He goes, all right, I'm gonna be a hip toss now,
• 27:50
  Speaker 4: and he gave me a hip.
• 27:51
  Speaker 3: Toss and that was it.
• 27:52
  Speaker 4: That was the extent of my formal training with Dusty,
• 27:56
  Speaker 4: and then everyone else took over. Paul Hayman took over
• 27:59
  Speaker 4: when I went to ov W, Greg Gania Uh, Danny Davis,
• 28:04
  Speaker 4: Al Snow, Al Snow who primarily trained me.
• 28:09
  Speaker 3: God he is And.
• 28:10
  Speaker 4: I feel like I was in a group of When
• 28:13
  Speaker 4: I was at OVW, everything was changing, right what NXT
• 28:17
  Speaker 4: was happening in people's minds, and it was going to
• 28:19
  Speaker 4: slowly become a thing. FCW would turn into that. But
• 28:22
  Speaker 4: when I was in Louisville that I loved the training
• 28:25
  Speaker 4: I was getting because it was different from what I'd
• 28:28
  Speaker 4: hear from my dad, and I talked to him on
• 28:29
  Speaker 4: the phone and things of that.
• 28:30
  Speaker 3: It was different. I feel like Dusty talked to me
• 28:33
  Speaker 3: from the perspective he was already over. So you hate
• 28:36
  Speaker 3: your finish, he was already over. It was nice to
• 28:39
  Speaker 3: be around people who who.
• 28:40
  Speaker 4: Were not or who were getting or who had learned
• 28:43
  Speaker 4: from mistakes that didn't move them forward, and things of
• 28:46
  Speaker 4: that nature. So all my trainers, Greg, Paul, Al Danny,
• 28:50
  Speaker 4: all of them were so helpful. I mean these still,
• 28:52
  Speaker 4: I'm sure you remember what the gentleman who trained you.
• 28:55
  Speaker 4: Still some of the things they said are etched in
• 28:57
  Speaker 4: my brain, Like I won't start a comeback with a
• 28:59
  Speaker 4: duck right, because one time Danny Davis came out and
• 29:02
  Speaker 4: just ripped me to shreds over why all that build up,
• 29:06
  Speaker 4: all that build up, and then you're ducking You got
• 29:08
  Speaker 4: to get in there, and then you know, as Arn
• 29:10
  Speaker 4: Anderson said, hot tags, the most exciting fifteen seconds of
• 29:13
  Speaker 4: the night, it used to be like.
• 29:14
  Speaker 3: The most exciting two minutes of a night. It used
• 29:17
  Speaker 3: to be far different.
• 29:18
  Speaker 4: But those guys were really helpful at They didn't hold
• 29:21
  Speaker 4: the bias towards me over Dusty, but they eliminated Dusty
• 29:25
  Speaker 4: from my repertoire. They eliminated everything I had known, and
• 29:27
  Speaker 4: they just trained me there in Louisville in the best
• 29:30
  Speaker 4: possible way.
• 29:31
  Speaker 3: And I didn't get much time.
• 29:32
  Speaker 4: Because I was Dusty's son, so they were gonna zip
• 29:36
  Speaker 4: me up sooner than I was ready to be zipped up.
• 29:38
  Speaker 4: I could have used probably two more years to bake.
• 29:41
  Speaker 4: But it worked out the way it worked out, and
• 29:42
  Speaker 4: I got to learn on the road after that.
• 29:44
  Speaker 2: So I got a chance to work with Danny Davis
• 29:46
  Speaker 2: down to Tennessee. And I was working with Dannya Davis
• 29:49
  Speaker 2: one night in Louisville, and since I was driving to
• 29:51
  Speaker 2: the building with Prichard and I was thinking, hey, well,
• 29:54
  Speaker 2: you know, I was calling my manches at a very
• 29:56
  Speaker 2: early age, and I said, well, I'm working with Danny.
• 29:58
  Speaker 2: I'm not gonna thinking about anything because I'm listen to Danny.
• 30:00
  Speaker 2: He's the vet. We get there and say, hey, man,
• 30:02
  Speaker 2: what do you want to do? He goes, I'll just
• 30:04
  Speaker 2: listen to you, Steve, I said, Danny, I said, man,
• 30:06
  Speaker 2: I'm working with you. I said, this is my chance
• 30:08
  Speaker 2: to learn. He goes, No, I've seen you. If you
• 30:11
  Speaker 2: get in trouble, I'll help you out. And that's the
• 30:13
  Speaker 2: kind of guy Danny was for me. He was one
• 30:17
  Speaker 2: of those guys, like you said, was always, you know,
• 30:20
  Speaker 2: helping people. If your dad is over to the degree
• 30:24
  Speaker 2: that he is, and these guys and various people you're
• 30:27
  Speaker 2: working with or training with aren't over, what do you
• 30:30
  Speaker 2: sum up or how do you describe getting over or
• 30:34
  Speaker 2: the ability to get over?
• 30:35
  Speaker 3: Okay?
• 30:39
  Speaker 4: I have I feel like I'm sure you, far more
• 30:42
  Speaker 4: than anyone, have seen the misuse of wrestling terms. I
• 30:47
  Speaker 4: have never heard a more misused term than the term over.
• 30:50
  Speaker 4: And that was throughout my whole run as a management
• 30:55
  Speaker 4: or as an EVP. I kept thinking like, I don't
• 30:57
  Speaker 4: want to say that, because over something different. Over is
• 31:02
  Speaker 4: what you and Rock are doing, selling out Anaheim, selling
• 31:07
  Speaker 4: every shirt in the building, and then moving forty miles
• 31:09
  Speaker 4: down the road to Ontario or La and selling it
• 31:12
  Speaker 4: out again.
• 31:13
  Speaker 3: That over is a consistent takes years.
• 31:16
  Speaker 4: As Dusty would always describe to me, a loyalty that's
• 31:19
  Speaker 4: built up between you and the fan that they'll follow you.
• 31:23
  Speaker 4: They'll follow you and they'll follow you because they trust
• 31:25
  Speaker 4: you and you can't abuse that trust. So that, to
• 31:28
  Speaker 4: me is over when I would like to me, I
• 31:31
  Speaker 4: don't think many people in wrestling are over. I think
• 31:35
  Speaker 4: a lot of us, myself included, are trying. We're doing
• 31:38
  Speaker 4: every damn bit we want ours and we're trying, and
• 31:41
  Speaker 4: we're moving. But the remaining ones that are help still
• 31:45
  Speaker 4: pull us up and pull the ship. To me, over
• 31:49
  Speaker 4: is the level of business that the mid eighties had,
• 31:53
  Speaker 4: in the late nineties had, And I know it's hard
• 31:56
  Speaker 4: today people will want to all cord cutting and they
• 31:58
  Speaker 4: want to quantify. There's still tons of data out there
• 32:01
  Speaker 4: to let people know Okay, no, no, this is working,
• 32:05
  Speaker 4: this is on a trend upwards. Is That's one of
• 32:07
  Speaker 4: my favorite things is the moneyball era of wrestling. We've
• 32:10
  Speaker 4: entered where you can look at these stats, these minute
• 32:12
  Speaker 4: by minutes. Well, no, they're following this person or just
• 32:15
  Speaker 4: these little but it's it's small numbers that are becoming
• 32:18
  Speaker 4: medium numbers. And that's why I think wrestling and sports entertainment,
• 32:22
  Speaker 4: the whole thing is very healthy right now. I think
• 32:24
  Speaker 4: it's very healthy, but it needs in my opinion, it
• 32:27
  Speaker 4: needs to and it's going to get much healthier because
• 32:30
  Speaker 4: the other piece of it is how how old were
• 32:33
  Speaker 4: you Attitude Era Steve Austin.
• 32:36
  Speaker 2: Well, I've retired at thirty eight. Yeah, so I mean,
• 32:38
  Speaker 2: you know, thirty four or five.
• 32:40
  Speaker 4: Grown man, Right, you'd worked with Danny Davis. Yes, you'd
• 32:45
  Speaker 4: travel so shot by them, right.
• 32:47
  Speaker 3: So you you'd worked with these guys.
• 32:49
  Speaker 4: And to me, that's I always jokingly tell all my
• 32:52
  Speaker 4: buddies and a lot of the students we have, I say,
• 32:54
  Speaker 4: pro wrestler prime is thirty five to forty two. That's
• 32:56
  Speaker 4: a great That's what I'm loving about what I'm seeing
• 32:58
  Speaker 4: is all of these guys and girls have grown up
• 33:02
  Speaker 4: a little bit.
• 33:03
  Speaker 3: It's different.
• 33:03
  Speaker 4: You know, everyone's got kids now and everyone's got to
• 33:07
  Speaker 4: be Hey, I worked with the Undertaker one time, and
• 33:09
  Speaker 4: he told me this. Hey, I had this conversation with
• 33:11
  Speaker 4: Tully Blancherd once and he told me this, Hey, arn,
• 33:13
  Speaker 4: it's all coming together. Yeah, and to me, that's what
• 33:16
  Speaker 4: over is, and we got to do it. But I'm
• 33:20
  Speaker 4: so trepidacious about the term over. When people start saying,
• 33:22
  Speaker 4: all this kid's so over, I just want.
• 33:24
  Speaker 2: To But also when you're getting those different tidbits from
• 33:28
  Speaker 2: this person, that person or whatever, and they can tell
• 33:30
  Speaker 2: you how they did it, but you've got to make me.
• 33:32
  Speaker 1: You've got to turn that to make it work for you.
• 33:35
  Speaker 2: The advice is great. I just got to use it.
• 33:38
  Speaker 2: You might not use it like the person that told you.
• 33:40
  Speaker 4: And when you're twenty years old, you're gonna use it verbatim.
• 33:43
  Speaker 4: Ricky Steamboat tells me, hey, hit the ropes. He's gonna
• 33:45
  Speaker 4: low rope you, no comeback whatever. Of course, Ricky, you're Ricky.
• 33:49
  Speaker 4: But when you're thirty five you start to go, you know,
• 33:52
  Speaker 4: I'm not I'm gonna do this, and if I'm wrong,
• 33:56
  Speaker 4: I'm gonna tell you, hey, you were right.
• 33:58
  Speaker 3: That's my big thing.
• 33:59
  Speaker 4: Now, no one's we haven't had this interaction yet, but
• 34:01
  Speaker 4: I'm waiting for someone to test me on what I
• 34:04
  Speaker 4: know as far as in the ring, and if it's
• 34:06
  Speaker 4: something I believe in, I'm gonna say, I'm gonna do it.
• 34:08
  Speaker 4: And if I'm wrong, I'll come back here and tell
• 34:10
  Speaker 4: you to your face I was wrong, you were right.
• 34:12
  Speaker 4: I'll do one hundred squats right there in Gorilla if
• 34:14
  Speaker 4: you need me to, just because I think like that's
• 34:17
  Speaker 4: a big I'm sorry I got on this rant about over,
• 34:19
  Speaker 4: but I just love what I'm seeing with seeing all
• 34:21
  Speaker 4: these guys and girls who have collected all this experience
• 34:25
  Speaker 4: and kind of building up for this really healthy wrestling
• 34:28
  Speaker 4: economy and healthy the industry being looked upon very well.
• 34:32
  Speaker 1: Man.
• 34:33
  Speaker 2: I love the buzz coming out of russ Many thirty
• 34:35
  Speaker 2: eight being able to participate and be their first hand.
• 34:38
  Speaker 2: It reinvigorated my passion and love for the business. Sure,
• 34:41
  Speaker 2: I always loved the business, but I just thought there
• 34:44
  Speaker 2: was a great vibe and a great swell momentum coming
• 34:47
  Speaker 2: out of that. But going back to you in two
• 34:49
  Speaker 2: thousand and seven, when you and your brother Dustin conducted
• 34:52
  Speaker 2: Dusty into the ww Hall of Fame, what did that
• 34:56
  Speaker 2: moment mean to the Roads family?
• 35:00
  Speaker 4: Just going into the Hall of Fame? It was it
• 35:02
  Speaker 4: was the year in Detroit. He's headlining the Hall of.
• 35:04
  Speaker 3: Fame and DUSSI was not a WWE.
• 35:08
  Speaker 4: Guy, correct, he was. He had a wonderful run people.
• 35:12
  Speaker 4: Actually the Pokadon run wasn't good. It was it was
• 35:15
  Speaker 4: just was in polka dots. It was good though. He
• 35:17
  Speaker 4: was wrestling Teddy Biassi, big boss Man, macho man.
• 35:20
  Speaker 3: He had hell of a run.
• 35:20
  Speaker 1: But when I think Dusty, I think Nwa.
• 35:22
  Speaker 3: I think Nwa.
• 35:23
  Speaker 4: You think the World Championship, you think the you know,
• 35:25
  Speaker 4: the superpowers, all the things, the promos, him and Flair,
• 35:28
  Speaker 4: of course, but for this I told you about when
• 35:31
  Speaker 4: you know the family was broke and we went genuine
• 35:34
  Speaker 4: in a no pun intended hard times.
• 35:37
  Speaker 3: This was everything coming back.
• 35:40
  Speaker 1: You know.
• 35:40
  Speaker 3: He came to ww in two thousand and five.
• 35:42
  Speaker 4: I think it was they took a picture of him,
• 35:44
  Speaker 4: they put him on the website. I was so proud
• 35:47
  Speaker 4: of him. He started working with Stephanie on the SmackDown
• 35:49
  Speaker 4: writing team. He was finding his confidence, he was finding
• 35:53
  Speaker 4: his groove because he got very non confident. And two
• 35:57
  Speaker 4: people that were really instrumental in helping his confidence. One
• 36:00
  Speaker 4: is Stephanie of course, the other's Paul Hayman. Paul Hayman
• 36:05
  Speaker 4: had him come to ECW and he didn't know what
• 36:08
  Speaker 4: ECW was, and he said, hey, i'll pay you.
• 36:11
  Speaker 3: You don't have to do anything. But here's what's going
• 36:13
  Speaker 3: to happen.
• 36:14
  Speaker 4: Steve Corena is going to make fun of you in
• 36:15
  Speaker 4: that ring and we're gonna shoot you, you know. And
• 36:17
  Speaker 4: he's ready to get into this if you are. I mean,
• 36:19
  Speaker 4: this was a real situation. He left it up to
• 36:23
  Speaker 4: him to decide does he make that junk to the
• 36:25
  Speaker 4: ring and does he hit the elbow? And does this
• 36:28
  Speaker 4: fan base he thinks doesn't love him, do they? And
• 36:31
  Speaker 4: that was to watch his confidence fill up. Same here
• 36:34
  Speaker 4: in two thousand and seven, to be together with Dustin
• 36:39
  Speaker 4: and him and to have such a great you know,
• 36:41
  Speaker 4: to be at the Fox Theater in Detroit, Oh my gosh.
• 36:44
  Speaker 3: But it also was the best thing for me, slash
• 36:48
  Speaker 3: the worst thing for me. I am.
• 36:50
  Speaker 4: It's easy to talk about my dad. A lot of
• 36:53
  Speaker 4: people will say, oh, that's a great promo about your dad.
• 36:55
  Speaker 4: It's not a promo. I'm just telling you about my dad.
• 36:58
  Speaker 4: Like promo's hard.
• 37:00
  Speaker 1: You know.
• 37:00
  Speaker 4: You asked me to make fun of the produce section,
• 37:02
  Speaker 4: which is a big thing my dad would do because
• 37:04
  Speaker 4: he cut a promo on.
• 37:05
  Speaker 3: The produce and he'd say, oh, let us, and.
• 37:08
  Speaker 4: He'd start in on let us. He always did a
• 37:10
  Speaker 4: big he would let us. I couldn't do it to
• 37:12
  Speaker 4: the level he did, so this wasn't a promo to me.
• 37:14
  Speaker 4: But I remember I came back and Bruce Richard hugely
• 37:17
  Speaker 4: instrumental in my life in career, even though I don't
• 37:20
  Speaker 4: think I've always realized it. I remember he told me
• 37:22
  Speaker 4: he's like, hey, Vince wants to speak with you. And
• 37:24
  Speaker 4: I went and spoke with him and it was just
• 37:26
  Speaker 4: a nice conversation. He knew I was working at OVW
• 37:29
  Speaker 4: at the time, but that interview catapulted me up to
• 37:33
  Speaker 4: TV and I wasn't ready.
• 37:35
  Speaker 1: I was.
• 37:36
  Speaker 4: I didn't even know how to put like a cravat on.
• 37:37
  Speaker 4: I remember Dean Malingo, I throw a cravat on and
• 37:39
  Speaker 4: I just winged it. You know, I wasn't ready, but
• 37:43
  Speaker 4: that was such a significant moment that this also darted
• 37:47
  Speaker 4: me up to Monday Night Ross far sooner than I
• 37:49
  Speaker 4: would have been.
• 37:50
  Speaker 1: I didn't know that.
• 37:51
  Speaker 2: I remember, though, being blown away by how articulate and
• 37:55
  Speaker 2: eloquent you were at such a young age, and I
• 37:58
  Speaker 2: didn't know you. Of course, I following your dad's screen.
• 38:00
  Speaker 2: It was great to see him going to the Hall
• 38:01
  Speaker 2: of Fame. But I was blown away by the articulation
• 38:04
  Speaker 2: with which you delivered your speech.
• 38:06
  Speaker 1: I said, Ben, this freaking kid is good.
• 38:08
  Speaker 4: Well, I mean, I come from a defensive posture when
• 38:11
  Speaker 4: it's Dusty, so I'm always very prepared. It's almost like
• 38:14
  Speaker 4: a debate with me when it comes up with Dusty.
• 38:16
  Speaker 4: I'm very prepared because I felt you know this because
• 38:19
  Speaker 4: you worked with Dusty, you were around it. The industry
• 38:21
  Speaker 4: was great to Dusty, hands down. But also there are
• 38:24
  Speaker 4: these periods of time where oh he was the booker
• 38:27
  Speaker 4: and he made himself champion and all this, and I'm
• 38:29
  Speaker 4: thinking it's cause he's the most over guy on the show,
• 38:31
  Speaker 4: and Flair's got the most heat. This works here like
• 38:35
  Speaker 4: that was a big thing.
• 38:36
  Speaker 3: He wins the title. I think it's the bash, he says.
• 38:38
  Speaker 4: Look up at section four O eight, the farthest section
• 38:40
  Speaker 4: of the building, and you can see silhouettes jumping up
• 38:42
  Speaker 4: and down.
• 38:43
  Speaker 3: He says, that's all we do. That's it. That's it.
• 38:46
  Speaker 4: If you really need to get any confusion on what
• 38:48
  Speaker 4: we do, that's what we do. So I always was
• 38:49
  Speaker 4: really defensive about him. So it is articulate and it
• 38:52
  Speaker 4: is prepared, and whenever I would speak about Dusty. Plus,
• 38:55
  Speaker 4: I was doing it for my whole family. My sister
• 38:58
  Speaker 4: is like the guardians the legacy of Dusty. If you
• 39:01
  Speaker 4: say a bad word about Dusty, she's looking for blood.
• 39:04
  Speaker 4: So I needed to do it for everybody. And I
• 39:06
  Speaker 4: hadn't talked to Dustin at all, so I thought, I
• 39:08
  Speaker 4: don't know how much of a speech you have, right,
• 39:11
  Speaker 4: but I do for both of you, because Dustin's is
• 39:14
  Speaker 4: a big part of the attitude Aaron.
• 39:15
  Speaker 3: What you all guys.
• 39:16
  Speaker 4: Did, it was just a great full circle moment for
• 39:20
  Speaker 4: the family. And it's technically my debut at ww was
• 39:24
  Speaker 4: this hall of fame.
• 39:25
  Speaker 2: Okay, with that being said, let's go to your WWE
• 39:29
  Speaker 2: debut match, and it's going to be against one of
• 39:31
  Speaker 2: your good friends, one of your mentors. We'll get into
• 39:34
  Speaker 2: more of that, Andy Orton. So let's play a little
• 39:38
  Speaker 2: footage from his match, and let's talk about this because
• 39:41
  Speaker 2: do you guys have a lot of history, Oh god,
• 39:44
  Speaker 2: A lot of Shenanigans, a lot of great stories.
• 39:47
  Speaker 3: So that's terrible. His music is.
• 39:50
  Speaker 4: Generic track two oh one?
• 39:57
  Speaker 1: How are you feeling here? Are you nervous walking down there? Hey?
• 39:59
  Speaker 1: I got It's all good?
• 40:01
  Speaker 4: Or it's like walking into a fight. You know you're
• 40:05
  Speaker 4: not gonna win. Is the best way to is the
• 40:08
  Speaker 4: best way to put it?
• 40:09
  Speaker 2: Good jabs, good jazz. But but I love that Randy's
• 40:12
  Speaker 2: always taking his time. Oh see the way he's pulling
• 40:16
  Speaker 2: you up and you say okay.
• 40:17
  Speaker 3: Also communicating when you yes, notice and you don't see it.
• 40:22
  Speaker 4: But but I could tell that I was beyond nervous
• 40:25
  Speaker 4: because I'm mouthing not real things saying. I'm doing what
• 40:28
  Speaker 4: I call wrestler talk, where I always tell my students, like,
• 40:31
  Speaker 4: have something to say if you're mad at him, or hey, come.
• 40:34
  Speaker 3: On whatever, don't don't just oh yeah, I move your
• 40:37
  Speaker 3: mouth around.
• 40:37
  Speaker 4: And I was just fully, you're moving your mouth around,
• 40:39
  Speaker 4: got you fake chewing gum?
• 40:41
  Speaker 3: I didn't have any gum. Dean Malinko was the producer
• 40:44
  Speaker 3: on this match.
• 40:46
  Speaker 4: I'll never forget that, because Dean was really adamant that
• 40:48
  Speaker 4: they would come up for that missile drop kick, and
• 40:51
  Speaker 4: he was not wrong.
• 40:53
  Speaker 2: And Deane was such a talented performer himself, and just
• 40:58
  Speaker 2: a great eye.
• 40:59
  Speaker 1: And the business.
• 41:00
  Speaker 3: Good details guy.
• 41:02
  Speaker 2: Yeah, detailed guy and one of the funniest guys you
• 41:04
  Speaker 2: could ever talk to, Very quick witted. All Randy behind you.
• 41:09
  Speaker 2: Taking your time here, taking your time here, okay.
• 41:12
  Speaker 3: He told me, he said, even if it feels weird, Yeah,
• 41:14
  Speaker 3: just hang.
• 41:15
  Speaker 2: On slow feed boom boom, deep hooke on the leg.
• 41:22
  Speaker 2: Good respect here. With Dusty being out there was that
• 41:26
  Speaker 2: added pressure.
• 41:28
  Speaker 4: I think in when I watched this and I noticed
• 41:31
  Speaker 4: that the cameras and they're focused on Dusty's eyes, Randy's eyes,
• 41:34
  Speaker 4: my eyes. I think I wasn't privy are smart enough
• 41:38
  Speaker 4: to the whole story as me. I'm wanting to move forward,
• 41:43
  Speaker 4: not get out of his shadow. But I established my
• 41:46
  Speaker 4: own identity. Randy's one of my favorite wrestlers. I don't
• 41:50
  Speaker 4: think I'm on that level yet. Like I said, I
• 41:52
  Speaker 4: got yanked up super early.
• 41:53
  Speaker 3: My body's developing.
• 41:55
  Speaker 4: I'm just this is the peak of the business at
• 41:57
  Speaker 4: the moment with Randy. But looking back at it, I
• 42:01
  Speaker 4: realized it was.
• 42:02
  Speaker 3: All the right time.
• 42:03
  Speaker 4: The totality of being, you know, a second generation young kid,
• 42:07
  Speaker 4: to have your dad out there. They were in their
• 42:09
  Speaker 4: their rivalry. Dusty did one bull rope match with Randy.
• 42:14
  Speaker 4: I also think I had the license that most kids
• 42:18
  Speaker 4: don't get.
• 42:18
  Speaker 3: The license. I was introduced as a rookie, as a beginner.
• 42:22
  Speaker 3: That's a godsend because you can make mistakes. Yeah, because
• 42:26
  Speaker 3: you're a rookie.
• 42:27
  Speaker 4: Yes, Like Jim Ross used to say, talking about you
• 42:30
  Speaker 4: and Dustin and these guys are five year pros or
• 42:32
  Speaker 4: six years, he'd always say X amount of year pro
• 42:36
  Speaker 4: And at a certain point you couldn't make those mistakes anymore.
• 42:39
  Speaker 3: You're working to.
• 42:40
  Speaker 1: There's a level of expectation, expectation.
• 42:43
  Speaker 4: So I tell all our kids at the school, I'm like,
• 42:45
  Speaker 4: you'll love being a rookie because I'm not trying to
• 42:47
  Speaker 4: set you.
• 42:48
  Speaker 3: Up for failure. You can f up. You can f up.
• 42:50
  Speaker 4: And the way WW presented me, they even though I
• 42:55
  Speaker 4: went to the hard battle for you know, three years,
• 42:59
  Speaker 4: but had a lot to say and all that, it
• 43:01
  Speaker 4: still doesn't change the fact that it's the house that
• 43:03
  Speaker 4: built me. These are the lessons I learned. This is
• 43:06
  Speaker 4: my real mentor and my father in my opening debut.
• 43:10
  Speaker 4: So I love the fact that they introduced me as
• 43:11
  Speaker 4: a rookie.
• 43:12
  Speaker 3: I was beyond nervous.
• 43:14
  Speaker 4: And then the power of television the day after I
• 43:18
  Speaker 4: went to the airport, which now we just expect, and
• 43:20
  Speaker 4: they're asking for an autograph with a photo already, and
• 43:23
  Speaker 4: I thought, oh, I'm famous, I'm famous, And it was
• 43:27
  Speaker 4: just such a you.
• 43:28
  Speaker 1: Were It's just famous.
• 43:31
  Speaker 3: I just thought. I did it one night on TV.
• 43:33
  Speaker 3: It's all I mean one night in front of.
• 43:37
  Speaker 4: Sean Michaels was talking to me a little bit at
• 43:39
  Speaker 4: WrestleMania about how big it all is.
• 43:41
  Speaker 3: Yeah, you forget, yeah, and.
• 43:44
  Speaker 4: Then moments like that where all of a sudden your
• 43:48
  Speaker 4: people know you, and then again that it's the same thing.
• 43:50
  Speaker 4: It's the bellicheck out look okay on in next week. Also,
• 43:54
  Speaker 4: by the way, you mentioned WrestleMania thirty eight, I would
• 43:56
  Speaker 4: be remissive.
• 43:57
  Speaker 3: I didn't say thank you for the house, because that.
• 44:00
  Speaker 4: Was I got to be out in front of the
• 44:03
  Speaker 4: most people I've been out in front of a long time.
• 44:07
  Speaker 2: I think it was a team effort, but it's it's
• 44:09
  Speaker 2: nice to there's there's traditions in the best.
• 44:12
  Speaker 3: Oh, no team effort.
• 44:13
  Speaker 4: But the biggest picture outside of AT and T Stadium
• 44:16
  Speaker 4: is your giant head.
• 44:17
  Speaker 3: His that that to me. I look at those things.
• 44:21
  Speaker 4: I had this conversation events, I look at those things
• 44:22
  Speaker 4: and go, Okay, how do I how do I get
• 44:25
  Speaker 4: my head up there?
• 44:25
  Speaker 3: How do you know? And and not by bitching and
• 44:28
  Speaker 3: politic how do I do it? How do I really
• 44:30
  Speaker 3: do it? And when I saw that, I thought, what
• 44:32
  Speaker 3: a great WrestleMania.
• 44:33
  Speaker 4: To be on Steve Texas, you know Van Eric territory
• 44:37
  Speaker 4: here like.
• 44:38
  Speaker 2: Just a it was a great, It was a good
• 44:41
  Speaker 2: I was shooting the breeze with Becky lynch Her and Bianca,
• 44:44
  Speaker 2: but bell Aic just tore the roof off the place
• 44:48
  Speaker 2: and she's she told me, thank you for the house.
• 44:50
  Speaker 2: I said, I just I popped big because it was
• 44:53
  Speaker 2: you know, it's old school.
• 44:55
  Speaker 1: It was so cool.
• 44:55
  Speaker 3: I always whoever's on top, you gotta think them.
• 44:58
  Speaker 2: Let's go to uh two thousand and eight. You can
• 45:00
  Speaker 2: get replaced with Randy Orton, Ted Dibiasseijnor as part of
• 45:05
  Speaker 2: the legacy. Take me through this period of time because
• 45:10
  Speaker 2: now you know you've worked against Randy, now you're with him.
• 45:14
  Speaker 1: What did you learn from Randy.
• 45:16
  Speaker 4: Everyone's talking about Randy a lot lately, and I don't
• 45:19
  Speaker 4: think I've ever been able to fully put it out there.
• 45:21
  Speaker 4: I always tell people it was a great mentor. But
• 45:24
  Speaker 4: the part of it was Randy had a perception and
• 45:27
  Speaker 4: a presentation that the rest of the locker room saw
• 45:30
  Speaker 4: trouble maker, not playing by any rules. He had that reputation, and.
• 45:36
  Speaker 1: I remember those all days. Oh I was gone, but
• 45:38
  Speaker 1: I remember hearing about it.
• 45:39
  Speaker 4: Randy was a trouble maker. But when it came to us,
• 45:43
  Speaker 4: we didn't get that at all. I remember that before
• 45:45
  Speaker 4: the group was even a thing, he pulled us up
• 45:47
  Speaker 4: into the stands and said, Hey, the group's gonna happen.
• 45:50
  Speaker 4: Here's what I'd like it to be. I really need
• 45:52
  Speaker 4: you guys to do this. I'll be there for you,
• 45:55
  Speaker 4: but I need you guys to do this. Listen to
• 45:57
  Speaker 4: these people. If you get a little heat in the
• 45:59
  Speaker 4: line locker room, that is a good thing. I mean,
• 46:02
  Speaker 4: everything that Randy told me over the course of several
• 46:05
  Speaker 4: months has happened on multiple times now.
• 46:09
  Speaker 3: In my he was just dead on.
• 46:11
  Speaker 4: He very much valued being the leader of the group.
• 46:14
  Speaker 4: I think at one point the group was pitched to
• 46:16
  Speaker 4: be far bigger.
• 46:17
  Speaker 3: There were going to be.
• 46:17
  Speaker 4: Other second generation and third generations, and he just found
• 46:20
  Speaker 4: us a knack with Ted and myself, and I didn't
• 46:27
  Speaker 4: know it at the time.
• 46:28
  Speaker 3: I still don't know.
• 46:29
  Speaker 4: It to this day, but they really, when I say,
• 46:33
  Speaker 4: I don't mean to say they management really made efforts
• 46:38
  Speaker 4: to put me in ted at odds, to put us
• 46:41
  Speaker 4: at I want to be better than you he's I mean,
• 46:44
  Speaker 4: really did to the point where I think after a
• 46:45
  Speaker 4: while we started to dislike and because we were trying
• 46:49
  Speaker 4: to get over. But now I see a little bit
• 46:52
  Speaker 4: more of the method to the madness.
• 46:54
  Speaker 3: Okay, which one of you is it going to be?
• 46:56
  Speaker 1: Right?
• 46:56
  Speaker 4: And not that it couldn't have been both, but which
• 46:58
  Speaker 4: one of them is it going to be? However, this
• 47:01
  Speaker 4: period of time, we got to ride these Randy's coat tails,
• 47:06
  Speaker 4: We got to ride Hunter's co tails through their WrestleMania rivalry.
• 47:10
  Speaker 4: That's gonna shape your mind. Ultimately, Randy was on top.
• 47:15
  Speaker 4: We weren't on top, right, we were with Randy. But
• 47:17
  Speaker 4: that's also what poisoned to a little bit. You feel
• 47:20
  Speaker 4: it's like a drug.
• 47:21
  Speaker 3: You get a little taste of it, and then you're like, well,
• 47:24
  Speaker 3: I need it. When's mine? When's mine?
• 47:26
  Speaker 4: And that was part of my impatience, my jadedness all this.
• 47:28
  Speaker 4: But Randy was a invaluable mentor, like on the road
• 47:32
  Speaker 4: and in the ring.
• 47:33
  Speaker 2: A lot of your work during this time, you would
• 47:35
  Speaker 2: work a lot of matches, or y'all would with Triple
• 47:38
  Speaker 2: H and John Minkalls. How important was this and some
• 47:40
  Speaker 2: of the foundation of defining your body of work and
• 47:44
  Speaker 2: your timing and mannerisms in the ring.
• 47:47
  Speaker 3: There is no better education.
• 47:49
  Speaker 4: I remember in Belfast Island, I shot We didn't talk
• 47:53
  Speaker 4: about anything, Danny Davis style, right, we didn't talk about anything.
• 47:58
  Speaker 4: I shot Sean off you revert that went for a backdrop,
• 48:01
  Speaker 4: told him as I was passing by, I said, kicked
• 48:02
  Speaker 4: me up. I kicked him up, thinking that's just a
• 48:06
  Speaker 4: normal thing.
• 48:06
  Speaker 3: It's a kickup.
• 48:08
  Speaker 4: I hope run back at you, Stott Will who knows
• 48:11
  Speaker 4: you charge me at whatever? I'm thinking of all the
• 48:14
  Speaker 4: computations in my mind.
• 48:15
  Speaker 3: Is what's going to follow this kickup? I had him
• 48:17
  Speaker 3: with this kickup, and he just sold.
• 48:19
  Speaker 4: He threw his hair back, He's still on his feet,
• 48:22
  Speaker 4: he's not dying, he's moving around the ropes.
• 48:24
  Speaker 3: He just sold.
• 48:26
  Speaker 4: And it was not just one of my favorite three
• 48:28
  Speaker 4: wrestlers of all time, but it was also me watching
• 48:32
  Speaker 4: the difference between paint by numbers and a frickin' master.
• 48:36
  Speaker 3: Well said, I mean a master and just watching and
• 48:39
  Speaker 3: like that. Education.
• 48:41
  Speaker 4: I had told Vincent when I spoke with him about
• 48:43
  Speaker 4: coming back, I said that education, I have no use
• 48:46
  Speaker 4: for this unless I'm doing this. I got to wrestle
• 48:49
  Speaker 4: guys that are no longer full time. I got to
• 48:51
  Speaker 4: get their wisdom, whether they wanted to give it to
• 48:53
  Speaker 4: me or not, which I don't think. Hunter Sean were
• 48:55
  Speaker 4: particularly in love with working me and Ted because we
• 48:58
  Speaker 4: didn't know anything and we didn't have anything. You ever
• 49:01
  Speaker 4: work guys like, hey, what do you do right? And
• 49:03
  Speaker 4: they don't have We didn't have anything. We'd have signature moves,
• 49:06
  Speaker 4: we didn't have taunts. We didn't we were just bad guys.
• 49:09
  Speaker 3: They did teach us.
• 49:11
  Speaker 4: I mean, I learned how the difference between TV wrestling
• 49:14
  Speaker 4: and live event wrestling the hard way from Hunter himself.
• 49:18
  Speaker 4: And it only took one clothes line, and I knew it,
• 49:20
  Speaker 4: but specifically Sean, Hunter and Undertaker, working with them for
• 49:25
  Speaker 4: more than just one loop fundamentally changed how I look
• 49:29
  Speaker 4: at what we do. It took the training and the
• 49:31
  Speaker 4: fundamental training I had and go, okay, let's get into
• 49:33
  Speaker 4: the crowd side of it now.
• 49:35
  Speaker 2: But and back to your there's just a big difference
• 49:38
  Speaker 2: between painting by numbers and the master of class.
• 49:42
  Speaker 4: When Seawn took that kickup, it was is a euphoric
• 49:46
  Speaker 4: moment watching him.
• 49:47
  Speaker 3: Oh my gosh. And it didn't just Matt. It wasn't
• 49:50
  Speaker 3: just that it was Sean. It was over. It's that
• 49:52
  Speaker 3: they cared, that they felt it, that he moved his head.
• 49:55
  Speaker 3: You know, Steamboat was always famous about you.
• 49:57
  Speaker 4: Gosh, you'd worked Ricky, but how he would his face
• 50:00
  Speaker 4: and how he would react to things.
• 50:02
  Speaker 3: Just the difference between pay my numbers and an absolute.
• 50:06
  Speaker 2: Master bottom line legacy for me, the rumed legacy or
• 50:10
  Speaker 2: a button on it.
• 50:11
  Speaker 4: It could have gone one more year and should have
• 50:14
  Speaker 4: gone one more year, which was Arn's point. This is
• 50:16
  Speaker 4: where it culminated, which was our first WrestleMania to take
• 50:20
  Speaker 4: the real walk, because there is a difference, no offense
• 50:24
  Speaker 4: between the Battle Royal and the real walk. So this
• 50:28
  Speaker 4: to take the walk to have developed a little bit
• 50:31
  Speaker 4: to begin there that Pat was a big help.
• 50:33
  Speaker 3: Pat Patterson was very helpful.
• 50:35
  Speaker 4: With this match and to have his confidence ted and
• 50:38
  Speaker 4: I could have kept moving forward, but Randy was percolating
• 50:40
  Speaker 4: and getting hot as a babyface.
• 50:43
  Speaker 3: And for us to.
• 50:44
  Speaker 4: Be the ones to be fully responsible now we're gonna
• 50:47
  Speaker 4: shift that into it's real.
• 50:48
  Speaker 3: He is a good guy. Cheer him on.
• 50:50
  Speaker 4: For us to be responsible for that was perfect. That
• 50:53
  Speaker 4: was Hey, he had educated us. Apply the education.
• 50:57
  Speaker 2: You're going to develop your first real character. Wwe as
• 51:01
  Speaker 2: you come into your own as dashing Cody Rhoads and uh,
• 51:06
  Speaker 2: you've got some a couple of We've got a really
• 51:08
  Speaker 2: nice video teed up here as we take a look
• 51:12
  Speaker 2: at this promo, and these are really well executed and
• 51:16
  Speaker 2: very confident fashion. The songs great, very catchy.
• 51:23
  Speaker 4: Uni bushy, out of control, brough maintenance, uneven.
• 51:27
  Speaker 3: Eyebrows are a thing of the past.
• 51:30
  Speaker 4: My name is Dashing Cody Roads, and I'm here to
• 51:34
  Speaker 4: show you that you two can be dashing.
• 51:39
  Speaker 3: One of the most revealing features of the face is
• 51:44
  Speaker 3: the eyebrow.
• 51:45
  Speaker 4: That's why it's so important that your browscape browscape.
• 51:52
  Speaker 3: What I dwike about these theyre I'm sure you can
• 51:56
  Speaker 3: guess who. These were specifically.
• 51:58
  Speaker 4: Written by one guy who had specifics on grooming, including
• 52:03
  Speaker 4: clear lip gloss, which I did not know was a thing. Also,
• 52:08
  Speaker 4: it was really adamant about continuously saying dashing, which was
• 52:12
  Speaker 4: based on someone had called Errol Flynn the actor dashing.
• 52:20
  Speaker 4: The whole thing was a godsend because I was going
• 52:22
  Speaker 4: to SmackDown Ted was going to raw and dashing Cody
• 52:25
  Speaker 4: Rhodes was going to either take off or not. And
• 52:28
  Speaker 4: I thought I got enough for this to take off.
• 52:30
  Speaker 3: And it took. The vignettes were a big part of it.
• 52:34
  Speaker 4: It took it took a while to develop, but everyone
• 52:36
  Speaker 4: was pretty patient with me, fans included in terms of
• 52:39
  Speaker 4: developing what it is and ultimately not hitting me in
• 52:41
  Speaker 4: the face and that aspect, which is a you can
• 52:45
  Speaker 4: take that psychological component, throw it into a cold match
• 52:48
  Speaker 4: and you've got something.
• 52:50
  Speaker 3: I'm shocked when people remember it because it just it
• 52:54
  Speaker 3: wentn't like that.
• 52:55
  Speaker 2: But what year was it that you started going out
• 52:57
  Speaker 2: to La to see Howard Fine for acting less.
• 53:00
  Speaker 1: So before before this? And how did you apply any
• 53:03
  Speaker 1: of what you learned from Howard to this? Because you're
• 53:07
  Speaker 1: really committed.
• 53:08
  Speaker 4: Oh, Howard's hoole thing is, don't indicate hey, if it's cold,
• 53:11
  Speaker 4: don't pretend you're shivering. Think about when you were cold
• 53:14
  Speaker 4: and you might naturally feel that. Think about it. The
• 53:18
  Speaker 4: sensory recall things of that very applicable to wrestling. I
• 53:23
  Speaker 4: give a Udah Hagan wrote a book. You might have
• 53:25
  Speaker 4: seen it, Challenge for an Actor. Yes, I give it
• 53:27
  Speaker 4: to all our students because that's good biography. It is,
• 53:30
  Speaker 4: but it's really helpful towards wrestling because here's my I
• 53:34
  Speaker 4: don't mean to this is going to sound pretentious, but
• 53:37
  Speaker 4: when people say, oh, don't worry about it's just wrestling,
• 53:40
  Speaker 4: all right, When you're putting a match together where you
• 53:42
  Speaker 4: can't think of the logical reason why this would happen.
• 53:45
  Speaker 3: Oh, it's I hate that. I bet we can find
• 53:49
  Speaker 3: a reason, you know. And sometimes it's pretty like how
• 53:52
  Speaker 3: do we.
• 53:52
  Speaker 4: Find a reason for arn Anderson to punch this guy
• 53:55
  Speaker 4: in the face. So it's hard, but you can find
• 53:58
  Speaker 4: a way.
• 53:58
  Speaker 3: And that was something I picked up from Howard. He
• 54:01
  Speaker 3: taught me.
• 54:02
  Speaker 4: I think as he's as formative to my wrestling career
• 54:05
  Speaker 4: as many other trainers, just because the element of performance
• 54:09
  Speaker 4: and what we do and the ability to be fully
• 54:13
  Speaker 4: in it, commit not panic, not develop a checklist in
• 54:16
  Speaker 4: your mind of oh, where's this going? I don't know,
• 54:18
  Speaker 4: knowing and trusting where it ends, and you're going to
• 54:22
  Speaker 4: have him. The people Howard is a great wrestling trainer.
• 54:26
  Speaker 4: Now they think about it.
• 54:27
  Speaker 2: But now that you added the dashing part and Cody Rose,
• 54:30
  Speaker 2: I think it just referred to it. I mean going
• 54:32
  Speaker 2: into a coal mash, because now you're a guy who
• 54:34
  Speaker 2: didn't want to get pushed in the face. There's that
• 54:37
  Speaker 2: added element. So now that you're becoming somewhat more of
• 54:40
  Speaker 2: a defined character, did that help you as far as
• 54:43
  Speaker 2: your decision making and give you a base from which
• 54:46
  Speaker 2: to operate as a character, because this is only simplistic
• 54:51
  Speaker 2: to where you are now.
• 54:53
  Speaker 4: I think it was. It gave me the perfect way.
• 54:56
  Speaker 4: You just put it perfectly a base. Okay, So as
• 54:59
  Speaker 4: a wrestler, my dream growing up is not to be
• 55:02
  Speaker 4: the grooming tip offering a bad guy who doesn't want
• 55:07
  Speaker 4: to get hit in the face. However, when that's what's
• 55:09
  Speaker 4: handed to me, and it's the first thing that's been
• 55:11
  Speaker 4: handed to me, that's not just your dusties kid, it's
• 55:14
  Speaker 4: your your.
• 55:15
  Speaker 3: Own thing, well I'm running with that. We're cool, Gid.
• 55:18
  Speaker 3: Put a mirror on the back of this jacket.
• 55:21
  Speaker 4: Uh, you want me to put lotion on my legs
• 55:24
  Speaker 4: before the bell rings in front of this on the
• 55:26
  Speaker 4: live events? And for sure, I want to fully explore
• 55:30
  Speaker 4: what works. And I was I think everyone has this
• 55:34
  Speaker 4: natural element of vanity to them.
• 55:36
  Speaker 3: And I was able, let's just it just.
• 55:38
  Speaker 4: Be gluttons for it, the most vain and let's be
• 55:41
  Speaker 4: gluttons for it. And I was very lucky in terms
• 55:44
  Speaker 4: of how it all worked out. I was just starting
• 55:47
  Speaker 4: to get that next coat of paint. You and I
• 55:50
  Speaker 4: and I and dashing Cody Rhoads was not me at all,
• 55:55
  Speaker 4: but it was if I could capture it was a
• 55:57
  Speaker 4: very fun time and the grooming tips were entertaining.
• 56:00
  Speaker 2: Very entertaining, entertaining, and it's it's it's those moments. I mean,
• 56:03
  Speaker 2: you know again, you got to go back to that
• 56:06
  Speaker 2: twenty by twenty. That's that's rooming ground. But that that
• 56:10
  Speaker 2: X factor, that that that show is.
• 56:12
  Speaker 1: Part of the character part of it. Those vignettes, yeah,
• 56:15
  Speaker 1: super important.
• 56:16
  Speaker 4: It's one of those things where I was happy to
• 56:19
  Speaker 4: be fans started to gravitate towards being entertained.
• 56:21
  Speaker 3: So it wasn't hey, we're gonna boo, We're gonna cheer.
• 56:24
  Speaker 4: And this was my first experience with, oh they might
• 56:28
  Speaker 4: what do I do if they start to like this?
• 56:30
  Speaker 4: But I need them to not like this. And I
• 56:32
  Speaker 4: remember Wrestling Big Show. I've told this story before. But
• 56:36
  Speaker 4: you know, when you're this right here, you're gonna do
• 56:37
  Speaker 4: a lot of ha ha, do a lot of comedy.
• 56:40
  Speaker 3: But I will never forget.
• 56:41
  Speaker 4: I thought I manned up one night and I told
• 56:44
  Speaker 4: him in the locker room and I said, hey, you know,
• 56:45
  Speaker 4: I'm not I want to do a little more, you
• 56:48
  Speaker 4: know it, Let get a little gritty. And I don't
• 56:50
  Speaker 4: even know what I was saying at the time. I
• 56:52
  Speaker 4: just I don't think haha is going to help me.
• 56:54
  Speaker 4: And I remember he just kind of like smacked his legs,
• 56:58
  Speaker 4: got up and goes, well, then go get over and
• 57:01
  Speaker 4: walked out.
• 57:03
  Speaker 3: I thought, oh, he's right, damn it.
• 57:07
  Speaker 4: Okay, that night he found a rubber chicken in the
• 57:10
  Speaker 4: crowd and beat me half to death with that rubber
• 57:12
  Speaker 4: chicken and the crowd loved it.
• 57:15
  Speaker 3: And I in one night kind of wrapped my head around.
• 57:18
  Speaker 4: Yeah, you're totally this is part of the process of
• 57:23
  Speaker 4: getting over.
• 57:24
  Speaker 3: But yeah, that was This was a very fun time
• 57:26
  Speaker 3: to experiment.
• 57:27
  Speaker 2: You know, you're going to go into break your nose
• 57:30
  Speaker 2: in a match with Raven Stereo, and you know the
• 57:33
  Speaker 2: setback what it actually cause you to wear a protective
• 57:36
  Speaker 2: mask for a while, and you were able to turn
• 57:39
  Speaker 2: this negative into a positive.
• 57:41
  Speaker 1: And I think you know you were very proud of
• 57:44
  Speaker 1: this body of work.
• 57:46
  Speaker 2: Let's thart to some footage first, and then well, let's
• 57:48
  Speaker 2: talk about this body of work because it allowed you
• 57:50
  Speaker 2: to expand.
• 57:51
  Speaker 1: And once more, don't don't look at me, don't look
• 57:55
  Speaker 1: that Ray.
• 58:01
  Speaker 5: That feeling, that feeling you have that's festering in the
• 58:09
  Speaker 5: pit of your stomach right now because you heard Ray
• 58:13
  Speaker 5: Mysterios music.
• 58:14
  Speaker 3: You thought you'd see Ray Mysterio, but you don't.
• 58:17
  Speaker 5: That feeling is disappointment. And I know disappointment. Lately, I've
• 58:31
  Speaker 5: been the king of disappointment every day when I wake up.
• 58:38
  Speaker 3: And I see what once was.
• 58:43
  Speaker 6: Dashing reduced to this pain, the pain, and I.
• 58:55
  Speaker 5: Wonder, why you people, oh wow, why you people shooes
• 59:05
  Speaker 5: to applaud a man who chooses to wear a mask?
• 59:12
  Speaker 6: Where was my choice?
• 59:16
  Speaker 4: Oh my gosh, I put so much pressure on the
• 59:20
  Speaker 4: undashing side of Dashing Cody Rhoads and.
• 59:25
  Speaker 3: To me, so this was.
• 59:31
  Speaker 4: Some of the best ever for me, and I felt
• 59:35
  Speaker 4: like I was approaching further up the card. On the
• 59:39
  Speaker 4: live events, I was wrestling Ray, I was wrestling Randy.
• 59:42
  Speaker 3: They really did.
• 59:43
  Speaker 4: And I say they but Michael Hayes and everyone, they
• 59:46
  Speaker 4: let me just go in terms of.
• 59:50
  Speaker 3: I'd get some of these specifics.
• 59:52
  Speaker 4: Words like albatross and these fifestering, some of these specifics
• 59:57
  Speaker 4: that somebody wanted to hear, and I'd layer them in.
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 3: But it was really so much. It was based on
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 3: just what I came up with. And it's a.
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 4: Little bit of a American psycho. You're Patrick Bateman, American psycho,
• 1:00:10
  Speaker 4: a little bit of Phantom of the Opera. Also just
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 4: a little bit of standard This is ridiculous. The mask
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 4: is see through, sir, Ye you're okay. But it was
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 4: so I found one of these masks the other day
• 1:00:23
  Speaker 4: because I got the mask from you remember Rip Hamilton,
• 1:00:26
  Speaker 4: the basketball player. Yeah, the same guy.
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 3: Made my mask.
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 4: He was wondering while I was ordering like five ten
• 1:00:33
  Speaker 4: at a time for five hundred bucks apiece, and he
• 1:00:35
  Speaker 4: had legit. Doc Samson had molded my face and everything.
• 1:00:38
  Speaker 4: This mask was genuinely molded as if I my nose
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 4: would fractured and destroyed and if you touched it again,
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 4: it would go down. But this was a very very
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 4: fun period for me, and also I was always mad
• 1:00:54
  Speaker 4: we were cooking here and I wanted to keep going
• 1:00:57
  Speaker 4: and it kind of came to us stop to a degree.
• 1:01:01
  Speaker 4: It has its moments wrestling, it's highs and lows. But
• 1:01:04
  Speaker 4: this was such a big high for me, especially winning
• 1:01:06
  Speaker 4: the Intercontinental title.
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 3: God, you dream of I want to be.
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 4: I mean literally, my dream is over my shoulders right there,
• 1:01:14
  Speaker 4: right you dream of that? So growing up, the Intercontinental
• 1:01:17
  Speaker 4: title was a dream of mine as well. When it
• 1:01:19
  Speaker 4: was handed to me, I just I was so happy
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 4: because it made me feel like, Okay, all these guys
• 1:01:26
  Speaker 4: who taught me, everybody who's everybody's been on board with me,
• 1:01:29
  Speaker 4: they were right, they were right, this is the process.
• 1:01:31
  Speaker 3: I had really trusted the process.
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 4: Which now I hate that vernacular, but I had and
• 1:01:36
  Speaker 4: it did turn out very well for me. Yeah, undashing
• 1:01:39
  Speaker 4: Cody Roads was a very very fun experience.
• 1:01:42
  Speaker 2: But in feathering, you know it's undashing, but it's a
• 1:01:46
  Speaker 2: take on dashing gathering. The strength and character work made
• 1:01:51
  Speaker 2: the work easier. I mean, sure enough, another level of psychology,
• 1:01:56
  Speaker 2: but the work aspect is easier just because the stakes
• 1:01:59
  Speaker 2: are higher and there's something to focus on.
• 1:02:02
  Speaker 4: It made any any match easier because they're more familiar,
• 1:02:06
  Speaker 4: they have their's equity, their understanding of your character.
• 1:02:08
  Speaker 3: There's stakes in it, the mask itself.
• 1:02:10
  Speaker 4: And I was able to take time, take time as
• 1:02:14
  Speaker 4: I as I wrestled, and I was wrestling guys who
• 1:02:16
  Speaker 4: forced me to take time. Ray Masteria, as much as
• 1:02:18
  Speaker 4: he's fast, he still forces you to take.
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 3: Time in those moments.
• 1:02:22
  Speaker 4: This was just so much fun and I was so
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 4: happy they let me just do it so much fun.
• 1:02:28
  Speaker 2: Well in the rip was I mean, the thing is
• 1:02:31
  Speaker 2: I mean, through the clear mask, you're still as good
• 1:02:33
  Speaker 2: looking as you ever were.
• 1:02:34
  Speaker 4: No issues, that's the heat, no, no, yeah, and there
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 4: were people like they should have made it black or no,
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 4: it's a mental yeah, it's a mental problem.
• 1:02:43
  Speaker 3: There's nothing actually wrong with my nose, guys.
• 1:02:46
  Speaker 1: It kid's fun.
• 1:02:47
  Speaker 2: Yes, So this is gonna lead to a WrestleMania match
• 1:02:49
  Speaker 2: against Raymysterial. I know it's one of your favorite matches
• 1:02:52
  Speaker 2: from WrestleMania twenty seven, and let's check it out. Because yeah,
• 1:02:56
  Speaker 2: as much and as fast and as dynamic as Rady is,
• 1:02:59
  Speaker 2: he's not a guy that ever rushes anything. He has
• 1:03:02
  Speaker 2: the gear changes, he has acceleration, but.
• 1:03:05
  Speaker 1: He's a pros pro absolutely.
• 1:03:08
  Speaker 2: Okay, now you've got the hood pulled down and you're
• 1:03:11
  Speaker 2: about to adjust it a little bit.
• 1:03:13
  Speaker 1: Just a shame because of all the.
• 1:03:15
  Speaker 3: Disfigure you see too much.
• 1:03:17
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's just take this.
• 1:03:22
  Speaker 4: Oh yeah, well it's not, oh man, As you know,
• 1:03:29
  Speaker 4: it's not. It's about everything from when you get really
• 1:03:32
  Speaker 4: on the plane to getting off.
• 1:03:33
  Speaker 3: The work is constant. So now I'm starting to learn.
• 1:03:35
  Speaker 4: About what I call no man's land. When you're walking
• 1:03:38
  Speaker 4: to the ring, what do you do? What do you
• 1:03:40
  Speaker 4: do in no man's land?
• 1:03:41
  Speaker 3: How do you get them caught up? And that was,
• 1:03:43
  Speaker 3: you know, hiding my face was part of that.
• 1:03:46
  Speaker 2: And no man's land is when you are not a
• 1:03:49
  Speaker 2: character and do not have a charac You're just going
• 1:03:51
  Speaker 2: out to do an athletic endeavor.
• 1:03:52
  Speaker 1: Sure, that's a bad place.
• 1:03:54
  Speaker 3: To be an athletic endeavor.
• 1:03:58
  Speaker 1: Damn I side walk.
• 1:04:04
  Speaker 3: Oh man, I'll.
• 1:04:05
  Speaker 4: Never forget this because this is a WrestleMania singles match.
• 1:04:08
  Speaker 3: But this was awesome.
• 1:04:09
  Speaker 1: This is wonderful because let's just start counting here.
• 1:04:13
  Speaker 4: This is my first match singles match on a pay
• 1:04:16
  Speaker 4: per view ever? Really was that a WrestleMania Yes.
• 1:04:19
  Speaker 1: Just holding you, bob, let's start kicking legs.
• 1:04:22
  Speaker 4: There, he said, put me down, then he down, put
• 1:04:25
  Speaker 4: me down.
• 1:04:26
  Speaker 2: Down, good sales job by you yourself. Obviously, Ray selling
• 1:04:31
  Speaker 2: boo kicks a sin out down. You go, okay, right
• 1:04:35
  Speaker 2: looking for six one nine? Will you find?
• 1:04:38
  Speaker 4: No, It's always nice when a guy has something that's
• 1:04:41
  Speaker 4: so signature that you can move the you can make
• 1:04:43
  Speaker 4: the music just off that physical drop kick to the
• 1:04:46
  Speaker 4: back or all there you are.
• 1:04:49
  Speaker 3: He taught me.
• 1:04:52
  Speaker 4: When we were doing big six man's and stuff. You
• 1:04:54
  Speaker 4: know he do multiple six one nine, two or three guys.
• 1:04:57
  Speaker 4: He was always adamant, please don't push that rope down.
• 1:05:00
  Speaker 4: And I now found out why, because one time all
• 1:05:02
  Speaker 4: three of us are pushing that thing down, he went
• 1:05:04
  Speaker 4: and just flew right out of the ring. He couldn't
• 1:05:06
  Speaker 4: hold the four wide birth of it. And then he
• 1:05:08
  Speaker 4: just got up and started on. I said, oh my god.
• 1:05:11
  Speaker 3: That's what you meant. That's what you meant.
• 1:05:14
  Speaker 2: We'll race in the receipt right, yeah, Ray will Yeah.
• 1:05:19
  Speaker 4: And you know what, though ram Rai's receipts are probably accidental,
• 1:05:24
  Speaker 4: as you've the knee brace from hell that Ray has.
• 1:05:28
  Speaker 4: That slice taker put me in the head sins one night,
• 1:05:31
  Speaker 4: and I thought I was gonna die.
• 1:05:33
  Speaker 2: Man, we're the double knee braces. I jacked up a
• 1:05:36
  Speaker 2: lot of guys.
• 1:05:36
  Speaker 1: Oh what are you gonna do?
• 1:05:38
  Speaker 2: You know.
• 1:05:40
  Speaker 3: That might have been your receipt right there?
• 1:05:41
  Speaker 1: Very nice? Oh good kick.
• 1:05:48
  Speaker 2: Oh as a weapon, surely you're not. First of all,
• 1:05:53
  Speaker 2: I won't call you surely again.
• 1:05:54
  Speaker 1: And you did.
• 1:05:55
  Speaker 4: But and the good thing was the ref was focused
• 1:05:57
  Speaker 4: on the other one.
• 1:05:57
  Speaker 3: As I used to gosh, man, watching this is nuts.
• 1:06:04
  Speaker 1: I was so.
• 1:06:07
  Speaker 4: To me, this was a big multi I'd say this,
• 1:06:11
  Speaker 4: and there's your preferred cover.
• 1:06:19
  Speaker 3: Yeah, there it is.
• 1:06:20
  Speaker 2: I didn't even realize that I did this at rest
• 1:06:22
  Speaker 2: my thirty eight. You know, I hooked Kevin deep because
• 1:06:25
  Speaker 2: you know stunner about a hooking deep. Also with the
• 1:06:28
  Speaker 2: left arm covered his wrist. Oh yeah, yeah, a little
• 1:06:32
  Speaker 2: extra protection.
• 1:06:33
  Speaker 3: That's I mean, we're covering the shoulders. You can't kick
• 1:06:37
  Speaker 3: from those legs. You can't move that le bit of respect.
• 1:06:40
  Speaker 3: Oh okay.
• 1:06:41
  Speaker 2: So following program with Ray, you're gonna focus your attention
• 1:06:45
  Speaker 2: on the Icy Championship Interconmental Championship. That's kind of like, uh,
• 1:06:49
  Speaker 2: that's a worker's title. Sure, so you're gonna have that
• 1:06:52
  Speaker 2: belt for about eight months, give or take. But I
• 1:06:55
  Speaker 2: mean that's you know, the World Championship is Macdaddy right
• 1:06:58
  Speaker 2: right by that icy belt kind of that that worker's belt.
• 1:07:01
  Speaker 3: Sure, how did you.
• 1:07:03
  Speaker 2: Feel, you know, having this belt bestowed upon you and
• 1:07:05
  Speaker 2: you defending this night in night out.
• 1:07:09
  Speaker 4: I was incredibly enthused that I got to change it
• 1:07:12
  Speaker 4: to be the original design, which I thought was a
• 1:07:15
  Speaker 4: pipe dream, and I asked so frequently and then ultimately
• 1:07:18
  Speaker 4: it would.
• 1:07:18
  Speaker 3: Come to be.
• 1:07:19
  Speaker 4: And I remember I got some really good advice before
• 1:07:21
  Speaker 4: I changed it that said, don't you want to change
• 1:07:24
  Speaker 4: it something that's like you? And that was a business
• 1:07:28
  Speaker 4: piece of advice in terms of money. Oh, if they
• 1:07:31
  Speaker 4: sell these replicas, it will be your money. And I
• 1:07:33
  Speaker 4: was so caught up in nostalgia and the vintage. What
• 1:07:37
  Speaker 4: I knew was the AFC Champion. I wanted that one.
• 1:07:41
  Speaker 4: Here's it is the work you know, traditionally, the workhorse belt,
• 1:07:47
  Speaker 4: and it goes back and you look at your situations
• 1:07:49
  Speaker 4: where you've got Razor and Sean in the ladder match,
• 1:07:52
  Speaker 4: and sometimes the best match on the card could be
• 1:07:56
  Speaker 4: the intercondinal title. My big thing with the Intercontinental title
• 1:08:01
  Speaker 4: and any title that's not the world title is really
• 1:08:04
  Speaker 4: it's beholden upon who gets it to make it something more.
• 1:08:09
  Speaker 3: Fans now are caught up in the idea that there
• 1:08:11
  Speaker 3: are there are secondary belts.
• 1:08:15
  Speaker 4: I understand if it's not the World Championship, then it's
• 1:08:17
  Speaker 4: a step down.
• 1:08:18
  Speaker 3: That does make sense to me. But there's been examples
• 1:08:21
  Speaker 3: in history where the most over guy or girl has.
• 1:08:26
  Speaker 4: The secondary belt. If you look at the Ultimate Showdown,
• 1:08:28
  Speaker 4: you know, with Ultimate Challenge or whatever with Warrior Hogan,
• 1:08:31
  Speaker 4: where Warrior was really cooking and he was the intercontinental champion.
• 1:08:35
  Speaker 3: I always like to get it to that level.
• 1:08:37
  Speaker 4: So as much as this was a huge honor in
• 1:08:39
  Speaker 4: my life and it was, it also was another one
• 1:08:42
  Speaker 4: of those moments where it I don't know if it
• 1:08:45
  Speaker 4: gave me false hope as to what was next, but
• 1:08:49
  Speaker 4: it did make me think I'm next, I am next
• 1:08:52
  Speaker 4: in line. I need to have this run and then
• 1:08:55
  Speaker 4: I'm next in line for the big picture, which wasn't
• 1:08:58
  Speaker 4: great to put that in your mind, knowing that the
• 1:09:01
  Speaker 4: path that I would ultimately take.
• 1:09:03
  Speaker 3: But this was so much fun.
• 1:09:06
  Speaker 4: And when people look at my run at WW, this
• 1:09:10
  Speaker 4: is often what I point.
• 1:09:10
  Speaker 3: To as the best period.
• 1:09:13
  Speaker 4: Okay, the stuff with Dusty was great. Stuff with ten
• 1:09:16
  Speaker 4: Randy was wonderful and beautiful, but this was me me
• 1:09:21
  Speaker 4: doing a lot of me and being able to be
• 1:09:24
  Speaker 4: in this position.
• 1:09:25
  Speaker 3: It was just a really great opportunity.
• 1:09:27
  Speaker 2: We'ren fast forward a little bit and you're gonna get
• 1:09:29
  Speaker 2: paired up with your real life brother dustin oh bag team.
• 1:09:33
  Speaker 2: And the high point would become when you would face
• 1:09:36
  Speaker 2: Seth Rolin's Roman Range and Battleground and your dad.
• 1:09:40
  Speaker 1: Would be ring sad.
• 1:09:41
  Speaker 3: Look at these cats.
• 1:09:49
  Speaker 1: Love that music.
• 1:09:51
  Speaker 2: Well, there's just a lot of history there just because
• 1:09:53
  Speaker 2: of where Roman is right now, where Seth is right now,
• 1:09:57
  Speaker 2: where it was back in the day as your father
• 1:10:00
  Speaker 2: was a fan of his, and where all you guys
• 1:10:05
  Speaker 2: are now and you recently just fighting him at trust.
• 1:10:08
  Speaker 1: Many of thirty eight.
• 1:10:10
  Speaker 2: I used to travel with your brother. She was jerking
• 1:10:13
  Speaker 2: the curtain or midcard. He was working at mains with Sean,
• 1:10:17
  Speaker 2: and he had so much heat. It was just unbelievable.
• 1:10:21
  Speaker 2: We had so much fun traveling together.
• 1:10:29
  Speaker 6: Good Dream, Good.
• 1:10:33
  Speaker 2: Dust Big Pop for Dusty good Sell by Dean.
• 1:10:40
  Speaker 1: So oh Man.
• 1:10:44
  Speaker 4: There was so much happening on this day with this match.
• 1:10:49
  Speaker 4: But what this boiled down to this is hilarious that
• 1:10:52
  Speaker 4: it's Seth and I. This is the greatest cross roads ever.
• 1:10:55
  Speaker 4: By the way, this is well, this is the one
• 1:10:57
  Speaker 4: that's held the standard.
• 1:11:01
  Speaker 2: Well, that's the coverati on body, that's the cover road.
• 1:11:14
  Speaker 3: So much happened in terms of this angle and us.
• 1:11:19
  Speaker 4: On television playing the role of the family that was
• 1:11:25
  Speaker 4: not beloved to the degree that some of these other
• 1:11:27
  Speaker 4: families in wrestling are, specifically the McMahon family at the
• 1:11:31
  Speaker 4: highest level, how they thought about us, but also behind
• 1:11:34
  Speaker 4: the scenes. Every aspect of this, from him getting punched
• 1:11:39
  Speaker 4: to me getting fired initially, to Dustin coming back in Toronto,
• 1:11:43
  Speaker 4: all of them were really moments of.
• 1:11:45
  Speaker 3: Let's let's legit, prove it. That's legit.
• 1:11:48
  Speaker 4: And that's why you know when it's real, it's you
• 1:11:53
  Speaker 4: can't it's nothing's better. This is just a real thing. Yeah,
• 1:11:57
  Speaker 4: Dustin and I are sixteen years apart. I loved Dustin,
• 1:12:02
  Speaker 4: but we didn't get a lot together. And the three
• 1:12:04
  Speaker 4: of us, my gosh, I think we got one other
• 1:12:07
  Speaker 4: big opportunity legacy together. So for us to be a
• 1:12:10
  Speaker 4: family in front of the audience actually helped us be
• 1:12:14
  Speaker 4: a family not in front of the audience. I'm coming
• 1:12:18
  Speaker 4: off of that Intercontinental run, so I don't know if
• 1:12:20
  Speaker 4: people understand, but I was very frustrated. I wanted to
• 1:12:23
  Speaker 4: get away from dusty stuff, and I wanted to get
• 1:12:26
  Speaker 4: away from legacy, the actual legacy in car of my own.
• 1:12:31
  Speaker 4: And looking back at this, I'm so glad that we
• 1:12:33
  Speaker 4: stopped and found this piece of business, because this is
• 1:12:39
  Speaker 4: his last go round. This was the last bionic elbow.
• 1:12:43
  Speaker 4: He couldn't get up the steps. Jamie Noble, who's a
• 1:12:46
  Speaker 4: great guy, very much like Jamie, he told Dusty earlier
• 1:12:50
  Speaker 4: in the day, he said, don't take your belt off
• 1:12:52
  Speaker 4: because he was afraid that my dad's pants would fall
• 1:12:55
  Speaker 4: that right, Well, my dad took his belt off anyways
• 1:12:58
  Speaker 4: and swung it around, and we'd been working for ten
• 1:13:01
  Speaker 4: fifteen minutes and the crowds getting there, getting there. It
• 1:13:03
  Speaker 4: was a very hot environment there in Buffalo. But when
• 1:13:06
  Speaker 4: he did that and they all came up, I remember
• 1:13:09
  Speaker 4: looking and being like, Yep, that's it, that's that's that's
• 1:13:13
  Speaker 4: what makes him him, and that's what kind of makes
• 1:13:16
  Speaker 4: us us. We're seth Roman mocks, we're all trying to
• 1:13:21
  Speaker 4: get there, but then hey, here's a reminder of what
• 1:13:24
  Speaker 4: there looks like. And it was just that elbow and
• 1:13:26
  Speaker 4: that throwing his whip around a.
• 1:13:28
  Speaker 3: Very real moment. Yeah, we're gonna talk about dustin. I
• 1:13:31
  Speaker 3: gotta grab one of the Can I get one of
• 1:13:33
  Speaker 3: these white ones?
• 1:13:33
  Speaker 1: Absolutely? There you go right here.
• 1:13:35
  Speaker 3: American Nightmare has to have the American logger for sup top.
• 1:13:39
  Speaker 1: Let's shift gears here.
• 1:13:41
  Speaker 3: Cheers, cheers, sir.
• 1:13:45
  Speaker 2: So you're gonna continue working with the old dust and
• 1:13:48
  Speaker 2: you're gonna become star Dust. I know you've told the
• 1:13:50
  Speaker 2: story many times. You did a fantastic job with it,
• 1:13:54
  Speaker 2: but I mean, it didn't seem like you really enjoyed
• 1:13:57
  Speaker 2: this time or was this you.
• 1:14:01
  Speaker 4: You know we were talking earlier about dashing Cody Rhoads.
• 1:14:03
  Speaker 4: Was a departure and it was fun. It was like, hey,
• 1:14:06
  Speaker 4: you know you use use the term base. This is
• 1:14:08
  Speaker 4: my new base.
• 1:14:09
  Speaker 3: I'm gonna do all the things. It's like when you
• 1:14:10
  Speaker 3: get a new tag partner.
• 1:14:11
  Speaker 4: I'm gonna train with them, I'm gonna learn about them,
• 1:14:13
  Speaker 4: We're gonna build the chemistry. This was one that was
• 1:14:17
  Speaker 4: so hard to start with because originally it was silver Dust,
• 1:14:22
  Speaker 4: and originally I had walked into a production meeting with
• 1:14:25
  Speaker 4: a silver suit on and a paint proto look and
• 1:14:28
  Speaker 4: it was so just uncomfortable. It was definitely a step
• 1:14:33
  Speaker 4: down from where we had been just in that angle alone.
• 1:14:36
  Speaker 4: I don't think it's intentions were to bring me down.
• 1:14:39
  Speaker 4: I'm a believer that everyone's intentions are to make it work.
• 1:14:44
  Speaker 3: And the initial stage, a lot of it was.
• 1:14:49
  Speaker 4: Challenges like okay to sing wish upon a star and
• 1:14:53
  Speaker 4: fully commit to it, and they were like accepting challenges
• 1:14:56
  Speaker 4: you didn't want.
• 1:14:57
  Speaker 3: Okay, I can make it a thing.
• 1:14:58
  Speaker 4: I'm gonna make start Us separate entity, almost like the
• 1:15:01
  Speaker 4: symbiite to who I was as Cody. I'm gonna make it.
• 1:15:04
  Speaker 4: But they weren't fulfilling even if you got the job done.
• 1:15:07
  Speaker 4: And that's another thing about the start Us run. We
• 1:15:09
  Speaker 4: had these great matches with usos, we won the tag titles,
• 1:15:13
  Speaker 4: but it was too much of a departure off my
• 1:15:16
  Speaker 4: map right as to who I wanted to be, and
• 1:15:19
  Speaker 4: it was short term and it ended up not being
• 1:15:22
  Speaker 4: short term. So he has these phases in the beginning,
• 1:15:24
  Speaker 4: it's like a mini gold Dust. Then start Us veers
• 1:15:28
  Speaker 4: off and I had a British accent. I'm hissing and
• 1:15:31
  Speaker 4: I'm working Steven Ammel and I got that arrow crossover,
• 1:15:34
  Speaker 4: which was huge.
• 1:15:37
  Speaker 3: This is peak start Us. So there were these great
• 1:15:40
  Speaker 3: moments to it.
• 1:15:41
  Speaker 4: It really was, and I was able to get a
• 1:15:43
  Speaker 4: whole new lease on my career based on this specific match.
• 1:15:47
  Speaker 3: But also this is after my dad had passed away.
• 1:15:50
  Speaker 3: So I don't blame WWE.
• 1:15:55
  Speaker 4: For keeping me as start us. I don't think I
• 1:15:58
  Speaker 4: could have been anything else at the time. I wasn't
• 1:16:00
  Speaker 4: ready to emerge and basically, hey, he's gone. Now you're
• 1:16:05
  Speaker 4: going to be Cody Rhoads, the head of this family. Essentially,
• 1:16:09
  Speaker 4: I wasn't ready for that at all, like legit, and
• 1:16:12
  Speaker 4: I was very angry and bitter and jaded when I left,
• 1:16:14
  Speaker 4: and I it's a lot of those things. I still
• 1:16:16
  Speaker 4: would say, but this was a good place to be
• 1:16:19
  Speaker 4: actually behind the paint. And I don't know how many
• 1:16:22
  Speaker 4: times people have heard that, but this was I needed
• 1:16:24
  Speaker 4: to be here. Wasn't ready to be Cody Rhoads. Everything
• 1:16:26
  Speaker 4: at home was terrible. We'd lost Dusty unexpectedly. I didn't
• 1:16:30
  Speaker 4: know how to handle that. I didn't know what to
• 1:16:32
  Speaker 4: do with my mom.
• 1:16:32
  Speaker 1: I didn't know why did you process that?
• 1:16:34
  Speaker 2: Because it cut me off guard because I didn't know
• 1:16:36
  Speaker 2: anything about his health and I heard he.
• 1:16:38
  Speaker 1: Was gone, and it shook me up. And I can
• 1:16:41
  Speaker 1: only imagine for.
• 1:16:41
  Speaker 3: You hm, I mean.
• 1:16:47
  Speaker 4: I thought we had more time. I think that's always
• 1:16:50
  Speaker 4: what you think. You know, he wasn't in the best
• 1:16:53
  Speaker 4: of health, but he didn't have any chronic issues. Like
• 1:16:56
  Speaker 4: at one point people thought he had stomach cancer. He
• 1:16:58
  Speaker 4: didn't have stomach cancer. Asking me, right, this is the
• 1:17:03
  Speaker 4: worst thing ever, Right, lose lose the man, right, lose him,
• 1:17:06
  Speaker 4: and especially considering all the stuff that's gonna happen that
• 1:17:09
  Speaker 4: he's not gonna see. But if you'd asked Dusty, he
• 1:17:15
  Speaker 4: might say, this is how it was going to go.
• 1:17:17
  Speaker 4: Because he hated the idea of being an old man.
• 1:17:20
  Speaker 3: Hated it.
• 1:17:21
  Speaker 4: He hated watching his older colleagues wrestle past their time.
• 1:17:27
  Speaker 4: And I think if you'd asked him, yeah, that makes sense.
• 1:17:31
  Speaker 4: I didn't process it. I didn't process it. Stardust was
• 1:17:35
  Speaker 4: a way, so okay, I'm gonna focus on this. Oh,
• 1:17:38
  Speaker 4: there might be a TV show opportunity. I'm gonna focus this, this, this, this.
• 1:17:41
  Speaker 4: I bought a new house, I was living in Dallas.
• 1:17:43
  Speaker 4: I didn't process it. I did not begin to process
• 1:17:47
  Speaker 4: that that everything had changed until I left. Until I
• 1:17:52
  Speaker 4: left WWE and kind of went out on the independent scene.
• 1:17:54
  Speaker 4: That's where you start meeting fans, doing these meet and greets.
• 1:17:57
  Speaker 4: It goes on for hours and hours start these one
• 1:18:00
  Speaker 4: to one connections, which, come to find out, is the
• 1:18:02
  Speaker 4: most important piece of this sauce as a wrestler is
• 1:18:06
  Speaker 4: actually connecting with the fans, which is shocking that that's
• 1:18:10
  Speaker 4: what eluded me for so long. But I didn't process it.
• 1:18:15
  Speaker 4: I didn't want to flinch. Today, I get very emotional
• 1:18:18
  Speaker 4: when I talk about Dusty. So I'm on Brawl the
• 1:18:20
  Speaker 4: other week I'm telling the story about Dusty. I get
• 1:18:22
  Speaker 4: emotional and I see people, you know, small pockets of
• 1:18:25
  Speaker 4: people thinking that that's an act.
• 1:18:29
  Speaker 3: What the act was was the six years.
• 1:18:32
  Speaker 4: Or whatever where I didn't move, where I didn't flinch,
• 1:18:35
  Speaker 4: where when asked I didn't didn't bat an eye, I
• 1:18:37
  Speaker 4: didn't shed a tear because I thought that was what
• 1:18:41
  Speaker 4: my family needed. No Dusty, Well, what is my mom's
• 1:18:45
  Speaker 4: going to need me? And then what do I do
• 1:18:47
  Speaker 4: in terms of how do I represent all of his
• 1:18:50
  Speaker 4: assets and all the things that he brought to the industry.
• 1:18:54
  Speaker 3: But yeah, I mean.
• 1:18:58
  Speaker 4: It's a very specific story when you you know, I
• 1:19:01
  Speaker 4: was there with him for the full thirty six hours
• 1:19:04
  Speaker 4: that he died and watched it, and I went from
• 1:19:08
  Speaker 4: wanting him to live to please man, go, like you
• 1:19:11
  Speaker 4: have no quality of life, Please go. I watched him
• 1:19:13
  Speaker 4: get paddle boarded and come back, even though it was
• 1:19:16
  Speaker 4: a purposeless situation. I watched my mom just try to lie,
• 1:19:21
  Speaker 4: even though she'd worked in the medical field and knew.
• 1:19:23
  Speaker 3: What was what. It was a very difficult, difficult situation.
• 1:19:30
  Speaker 3: And it does. This is the thing. And Brody Lee
• 1:19:32
  Speaker 3: told me this, and I was.
• 1:19:35
  Speaker 4: I was really glad that I was somewhat able to
• 1:19:38
  Speaker 4: tell his own son this. But he said, people will
• 1:19:41
  Speaker 4: be bothered by how much it hurts. They'll say eventually like, hey, man,
• 1:19:44
  Speaker 4: get over it. You know it's been x amount of time.
• 1:19:47
  Speaker 4: His dad had passed away ten years prior to him
• 1:19:49
  Speaker 4: telling me this, And he told me nothing's changed since
• 1:19:51
  Speaker 4: the day. It feels like it just happened yesterday. And
• 1:19:54
  Speaker 4: that's really probably the best I could tell anyone who
• 1:19:56
  Speaker 4: goes through that type of trauma, that type of death
• 1:19:59
  Speaker 4: is a father or someone in their family, doesn't go away.
• 1:20:02
  Speaker 4: You live with it forever, which there's a positive side
• 1:20:07
  Speaker 4: too too, And a prime example is the bionic elbow
• 1:20:10
  Speaker 4: at WrestleMania. Like I do live with it when I
• 1:20:13
  Speaker 4: choose to, I can pee. I can pull it out,
• 1:20:16
  Speaker 4: you know I can. I can let us all. Heal
• 1:20:18
  Speaker 4: from it to a degree because his death affected That's
• 1:20:21
  Speaker 4: the thing. When a wrestler dies, there's an ownership of him.
• 1:20:26
  Speaker 4: Oh I'm so sorry, but I feel so bad. I'm yeah, no,
• 1:20:30
  Speaker 4: me too, you know, like he's it's but I learned
• 1:20:33
  Speaker 4: to just yeah understood. He was like, hey, your dad
• 1:20:35
  Speaker 4: was my favorite wrestler. Yes, he was mine as well.
• 1:20:38
  Speaker 3: Today, I'm just happy that the business is really kind
• 1:20:42
  Speaker 3: to him.
• 1:20:43
  Speaker 4: And he's got this A and E documentary that's coming
• 1:20:45
  Speaker 4: out that I'm really looking forward to because the.
• 1:20:48
  Speaker 3: More people know about what he did.
• 1:20:51
  Speaker 4: Just again, this little kid who wants to be proud
• 1:20:53
  Speaker 4: of their dad, like he did a lot behind the
• 1:20:55
  Speaker 4: scenes that is very important to what this would become today.
• 1:20:59
  Speaker 2: Yeah, before I move on, I'll never forget. I was
• 1:21:03
  Speaker 2: down in us w A and I'd gotten a word
• 1:21:05
  Speaker 2: that w CW was interested in me. So I flew
• 1:21:09
  Speaker 2: down to see Dusty. He was booking the territory at
• 1:21:11
  Speaker 2: the time. Go to the CNN Center. Yeah, maybe I
• 1:21:15
  Speaker 2: see you the heel and he brought me in and
• 1:21:19
  Speaker 2: not too long after that he put the TV time
• 1:21:21
  Speaker 2: on me. I couldn't lace Bobby's boots, but I mean, yeah,
• 1:21:24
  Speaker 2: your dad did so much for me and everybody. He
• 1:21:27
  Speaker 2: touched everybody. I don't want to tear up either. Following
• 1:21:30
  Speaker 2: the Stephen a male match, let's move on, Yeah, let's
• 1:21:34
  Speaker 2: start up. Things just wasn't working out. WWE seemingly did
• 1:21:38
  Speaker 2: not know what to do with you. And that's a
• 1:21:40
  Speaker 2: great picture right there, which prompted you to request your release. Sure,
• 1:21:45
  Speaker 2: and so the decision to do that took a lot
• 1:21:48
  Speaker 2: of guts. Put it that way, you have a job,
• 1:21:51
  Speaker 2: your wife has a job. You're not where you want
• 1:21:54
  Speaker 2: to be, but you're both gainfully employed, and so you
• 1:21:58
  Speaker 2: put it out there and you want to leave. They said, okay,
• 1:22:01
  Speaker 2: see you later.
• 1:22:03
  Speaker 3: A decision, very but one of those decisions.
• 1:22:08
  Speaker 4: I feel like all my heroes in wrestling or in
• 1:22:11
  Speaker 4: entertainment have had to make the decisions that maybe others
• 1:22:14
  Speaker 4: wouldn't make.
• 1:22:15
  Speaker 3: I just made one recently. And at the.
• 1:22:20
  Speaker 4: Time, there were all these factors that was going in
• 1:22:24
  Speaker 4: to start us, was supposed to end. I was gonna
• 1:22:27
  Speaker 4: be Cody, I was gonna be start Us. All this
• 1:22:28
  Speaker 4: was supposed to happen and it wasn't happening fast enough.
• 1:22:31
  Speaker 4: And all the advice I was getting, will go talk
• 1:22:33
  Speaker 4: to such and touch, go talk to such and touch,
• 1:22:36
  Speaker 4: And at this point I'm thinking, okay, so I don't
• 1:22:38
  Speaker 4: feel very welcome, and I released myself. I just put
• 1:22:44
  Speaker 4: out a statement on social Somebody in talent relation said
• 1:22:48
  Speaker 4: I'll see you next week because I had vented to them,
• 1:22:50
  Speaker 4: and I said, no, you won't. And then I put
• 1:22:52
  Speaker 4: that thing out.
• 1:22:53
  Speaker 3: And that was it.
• 1:22:54
  Speaker 4: It was an incredibly unprofessional way to do it. I
• 1:22:57
  Speaker 4: broke the ties I had to go I needed to go.
• 1:23:00
  Speaker 4: I didn't even sign my release papers. Everything that came
• 1:23:03
  Speaker 4: I didn't care. I worked for you for ten wonderful,
• 1:23:06
  Speaker 4: beautiful years. I met my wife here, I had this
• 1:23:08
  Speaker 4: great run with my brother, I got to work with
• 1:23:10
  Speaker 4: my heroes in the business.
• 1:23:11
  Speaker 3: This just isn't how it can end this way for me.
• 1:23:14
  Speaker 4: So I'm moving on no hard feelings, which was the
• 1:23:18
  Speaker 4: best possible thing I could have done at the time,
• 1:23:20
  Speaker 4: and maybe the only there was no way out of this.
• 1:23:23
  Speaker 4: I was so embarrassed. I talk about the good side
• 1:23:25
  Speaker 4: of startists, and I really do mean it, but I
• 1:23:27
  Speaker 4: was so embarrassed by this that I do appearances in
• 1:23:30
  Speaker 4: full gimmick and people would be like, oh, it's the commitment. No,
• 1:23:34
  Speaker 4: it's the fact that I can't bring myself to be
• 1:23:37
  Speaker 4: Cody and telling them, oh, I'm also you know, I'm
• 1:23:40
  Speaker 4: also startust.
• 1:23:41
  Speaker 3: I'm all, you know, and doing the best I needed
• 1:23:43
  Speaker 3: to be I need. It's a sad cloud thing.
• 1:23:46
  Speaker 4: Yeah, but there was no way out other than the
• 1:23:48
  Speaker 4: nuclear option, which is what I did, and I am
• 1:23:51
  Speaker 4: so glad I did it. And if it pissed anyone off,
• 1:23:55
  Speaker 4: or if it affected anyone adversely, I do apologize.
• 1:23:58
  Speaker 3: I don't think it did. We're all here now now.
• 1:24:00
  Speaker 3: But yeah, it was a huge moment.
• 1:24:02
  Speaker 1: Huge What was the transition?
• 1:24:04
  Speaker 2: Because you go from a weekly paycheck, the both of you,
• 1:24:08
  Speaker 2: to whatever, and then you're all over the place. I mean,
• 1:24:12
  Speaker 2: you're you're making the rounds. I mean, you're gonna end
• 1:24:15
  Speaker 2: up going doing some stuff with Japan, but it's not
• 1:24:18
  Speaker 2: The pay structure is not the same.
• 1:24:20
  Speaker 4: As I was thinking, you know, and I'm going over
• 1:24:22
  Speaker 4: it's like breaking out of a prison.
• 1:24:23
  Speaker 3: A little bit.
• 1:24:24
  Speaker 4: You're thinking, how okay, how am I going to keep there?
• 1:24:26
  Speaker 4: I'm so I'm so well paid here and institutionalized.
• 1:24:30
  Speaker 1: You're on schedule, So how.
• 1:24:32
  Speaker 3: Do I do it? What's the money?
• 1:24:34
  Speaker 4: Like, one of the best people was Kevin Owens because
• 1:24:38
  Speaker 4: he had come from that scene. So Kevin kind of
• 1:24:41
  Speaker 4: gave me a real indication. He goes, here's what you
• 1:24:43
  Speaker 4: could make. He goes, some guys.
• 1:24:44
  Speaker 3: Make even more.
• 1:24:45
  Speaker 4: But you're gonna work Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and it's not
• 1:24:49
  Speaker 4: the ww loop. You're gonna fly every day because you're
• 1:24:52
  Speaker 4: not on a loop. So I might be an all
• 1:24:54
  Speaker 4: pro wrestling in San Francisco and then I might be
• 1:24:58
  Speaker 4: a pro wrestling magic in New Jersey the next day.
• 1:25:01
  Speaker 3: And I got myself a big show again just jumping
• 1:25:04
  Speaker 3: in and a moment in need in my career.
• 1:25:07
  Speaker 4: Big Show hooked me up with an agency in LA
• 1:25:09
  Speaker 4: still my agent to this day, and that guy helped
• 1:25:12
  Speaker 4: out with some wrestling bookings on the side a little
• 1:25:14
  Speaker 4: He's got a little Carnie in him as well, right,
• 1:25:16
  Speaker 4: He hooked me up with that and that individual set
• 1:25:20
  Speaker 4: me on a path that was the most important thing
• 1:25:23
  Speaker 4: I could have done as a wrestler at the time,
• 1:25:25
  Speaker 4: which was I was going to go to every independent
• 1:25:27
  Speaker 4: wrestling company that ever existed, everyone, and I was gonna
• 1:25:30
  Speaker 4: come suit and tie professional. I was gonna work their
• 1:25:33
  Speaker 4: young guy, whoever they wanted me to work. I was
• 1:25:35
  Speaker 4: gonna do anything that they asked me to do. I
• 1:25:37
  Speaker 4: needed to work and I needed to interact with fans again.
• 1:25:41
  Speaker 4: Nobody in my family, God bless him, was understanding my
• 1:25:44
  Speaker 4: need to heal and move on, not just from w
• 1:25:47
  Speaker 4: TOB but from Dusty and everything. And that run that
• 1:25:50
  Speaker 4: hadn't have been a run in the list which is
• 1:25:52
  Speaker 4: now up here. So everyone on the list I got
• 1:25:55
  Speaker 4: to except Roderick Strong, right, who happens to work here.
• 1:26:01
  Speaker 3: So it's available, it's free.
• 1:26:03
  Speaker 4: I don't know if I could handle one backbreaker, judging
• 1:26:05
  Speaker 4: by how I've seen them beat guys half to death.
• 1:26:07
  Speaker 4: But this whole list I got to do, and I
• 1:26:10
  Speaker 4: was just glad the list kind of caught fire.
• 1:26:12
  Speaker 3: That was my favorite part.
• 1:26:14
  Speaker 4: I know there was an ANTIWW sentiment to it, and
• 1:26:17
  Speaker 4: that wasn't the intentions, but the main sentiment was that
• 1:26:19
  Speaker 4: people followed this cool.
• 1:26:22
  Speaker 3: I'll get on board with this.
• 1:26:23
  Speaker 4: I'll go to this independent show I've never been to before,
• 1:26:26
  Speaker 4: and it did introduce them to some names that were
• 1:26:29
  Speaker 4: now rocking and rolling on TV.
• 1:26:31
  Speaker 3: And the rub goes both ways.
• 1:26:34
  Speaker 4: It's cool if you jump in and you're the WB
• 1:26:36
  Speaker 4: guy at the mom and pop indies that most people recognize,
• 1:26:39
  Speaker 4: but there's also someone that they've been wanting to make
• 1:26:42
  Speaker 4: it up there and now you're going to cross paths
• 1:26:44
  Speaker 4: with them on the way, and that rub would go
• 1:26:47
  Speaker 4: both ways. This was just the best I been told
• 1:26:50
  Speaker 4: I need to make a new list for WW.
• 1:26:52
  Speaker 2: I've been heard about that, yes, but before we talk
• 1:26:55
  Speaker 2: about the new you're having a lot of great matches
• 1:26:57
  Speaker 2: on the indies. You're you're busting your you going to Japan,
• 1:27:01
  Speaker 2: you're working with the Bullet Club. You start identifying yourself
• 1:27:05
  Speaker 2: as the American Nightmare. Yeah, Cody Rhase, you go to
• 1:27:09
  Speaker 2: the trademark platinum blonde hair. Yeah, the decision to do
• 1:27:14
  Speaker 2: the platinum blonde hair and then the American Nightmare. Talk
• 1:27:18
  Speaker 2: to me about this because I really you're a good
• 1:27:22
  Speaker 2: looking kid, good looking young man with the brown hair,
• 1:27:25
  Speaker 2: with the platinum look. I'm being I'm being serious. I
• 1:27:29
  Speaker 2: think it completes the package.
• 1:27:31
  Speaker 3: So if you will, oh, perfect, cheers say if you will? Perfect.
• 1:27:39
  Speaker 4: When I went to New Japan, I was slowly starting
• 1:27:42
  Speaker 4: to carve out the American Nightmare identity, but they specifically
• 1:27:46
  Speaker 4: wanted to have that connection the American Nightmare because Dusty
• 1:27:49
  Speaker 4: was the American Dream and their audience, who does not
• 1:27:52
  Speaker 4: watch a lot of the American wrestling, even though we
• 1:27:54
  Speaker 4: think they do.
• 1:27:55
  Speaker 3: Their audience needs to be educated just like any audience. Okay,
• 1:27:58
  Speaker 3: who is he?
• 1:27:59
  Speaker 4: And then they had clips of Dusty from the seventies
• 1:28:02
  Speaker 4: and the nineties and the American Dream and now his
• 1:28:05
  Speaker 4: son is the American Nightmare. And I remember Gato and
• 1:28:10
  Speaker 4: Rocky Romero asking me about the Bullet Club and I thought, no, way,
• 1:28:15
  Speaker 4: doesn't work for me because I like stories and I'm
• 1:28:18
  Speaker 4: a different type of cat.
• 1:28:19
  Speaker 3: But taking the challenge everyone I talked to her.
• 1:28:22
  Speaker 4: I remember talking to Zach Ryder Matt Cardone and he
• 1:28:24
  Speaker 4: was like, you gotta do it. It's like it's out
• 1:28:26
  Speaker 4: of your comfort zone. Yeah, but you got to do it.
• 1:28:28
  Speaker 4: That's the difference. You get out of your comfort zone
• 1:28:31
  Speaker 4: and to be around Matt Nick and Kenny it's.
• 1:28:33
  Speaker 3: A different type of psychology.
• 1:28:35
  Speaker 4: And for me to get out of my comfort zone
• 1:28:37
  Speaker 4: and be around those guys, that's where the American Nightmare
• 1:28:39
  Speaker 4: was able to really develop. And you mentioned the Bullet Club.
• 1:28:43
  Speaker 4: I was for Bullet Club purists. For me, to be
• 1:28:46
  Speaker 4: part of the Bullet Club was their worst nightmare, Like no, no, no.
• 1:28:50
  Speaker 3: No, this is WB guy. No, he doesn't do what
• 1:28:53
  Speaker 3: we do strong style. No no.
• 1:28:55
  Speaker 4: And then to present myself as the leader of the group,
• 1:28:57
  Speaker 4: you know, as Kenny and I kind of came to
• 1:29:00
  Speaker 4: odds was perfect. It was perfect. Finn Balor who started
• 1:29:05
  Speaker 4: the whole Bullet Club. He started this whole unique group
• 1:29:09
  Speaker 4: where we got to play and bounce off each other.
• 1:29:12
  Speaker 4: And the Bullet Club and what was happening in New
• 1:29:14
  Speaker 4: Japan and specifically Ring of Honor when we would wrap
• 1:29:17
  Speaker 4: the show and all the fans would say for us
• 1:29:20
  Speaker 4: to do whatever the thing was, bring a fan in
• 1:29:23
  Speaker 4: the ring, drink a beer.
• 1:29:25
  Speaker 3: Do something.
• 1:29:26
  Speaker 4: I got the sense something's happening. There's something bigger happening.
• 1:29:31
  Speaker 4: They followed me. They've been on board with these guys.
• 1:29:34
  Speaker 4: It's this perfect storm which would lead to what would
• 1:29:37
  Speaker 4: happen next.
• 1:29:39
  Speaker 2: So were you alluding to the fact of the way
• 1:29:43
  Speaker 2: everything is clicking here?
• 1:29:45
  Speaker 4: All in so everything's clicking, you know how it is
• 1:29:49
  Speaker 4: with social media? The discussion becomes people keep trying to
• 1:29:52
  Speaker 4: move the damn goalpost.
• 1:29:54
  Speaker 3: All these guys aren't No one likes these guys. Oh
• 1:29:56
  Speaker 3: they move the goalposts. Oh, these guys.
• 1:29:57
  Speaker 4: Couldn't do this, And Meltzer was the one who ultimately said,
• 1:30:00
  Speaker 4: no way can ring them on or put ten thousand fans.
• 1:30:03
  Speaker 3: I knew we could.
• 1:30:04
  Speaker 4: I actually knew we could in a heartbeat. And I'm
• 1:30:07
  Speaker 4: all pre workout up at the gym, ready to go,
• 1:30:09
  Speaker 4: which is when I.
• 1:30:09
  Speaker 3: Tweet my worst and best stuff.
• 1:30:11
  Speaker 4: Yeah, and that was where the bet happened, and I
• 1:30:13
  Speaker 4: said I'll take that bet.
• 1:30:15
  Speaker 3: And then it was I think twenty something minutes.
• 1:30:19
  Speaker 4: Yeah, eleven two hundred and sixty three tickets in the building, full,
• 1:30:23
  Speaker 4: full building. Yeah, and that is my first great crowd too,
• 1:30:26
  Speaker 4: first night as an executive.
• 1:30:28
  Speaker 1: That was it was the hell of nine dollars.
• 1:30:32
  Speaker 2: You set out the building, you meet Nick Altos to
• 1:30:35
  Speaker 2: become the NWA champion.
• 1:30:36
  Speaker 1: Yeah, which ties in some history of your father.
• 1:30:39
  Speaker 3: Oh yeah, and you.
• 1:30:41
  Speaker 2: Set the wrestling world on fire. Now, how was this
• 1:30:44
  Speaker 2: for you? From a production standpoint or being from behind
• 1:30:46
  Speaker 2: the scenes.
• 1:30:47
  Speaker 4: Along with performing, this gave me false hope that I
• 1:30:52
  Speaker 4: would be able to always do it.
• 1:30:55
  Speaker 3: So I'm okay, I was able to wrestle.
• 1:30:57
  Speaker 4: I think we went on fourth, Nick and I and
• 1:30:59
  Speaker 4: Nick and I had a really wonderful match, and it
• 1:31:02
  Speaker 4: is one of the loudest I've.
• 1:31:04
  Speaker 3: Ever heard in an arena. And that's all I ever want.
• 1:31:07
  Speaker 3: The decibels.
• 1:31:08
  Speaker 1: Decibels, brother, all I.
• 1:31:10
  Speaker 4: Want the decibels. So that moment was very fulfilling. But
• 1:31:13
  Speaker 4: then I was able to produce the Battle Royal, which
• 1:31:15
  Speaker 4: I had done earlier. I was able to come over
• 1:31:17
  Speaker 4: here and communicate with you know, Ring of Honors production
• 1:31:20
  Speaker 4: about what we wanted because we were all in is
• 1:31:22
  Speaker 4: very real. We paid for as much as we could
• 1:31:24
  Speaker 4: have paid Florida, and we also booked the car, did
• 1:31:28
  Speaker 4: all these things of this nature.
• 1:31:29
  Speaker 3: So it made me think, and Matt Nick will tell
• 1:31:31
  Speaker 3: you to this day if you ever speak to.
• 1:31:33
  Speaker 4: Them, I kind of thought everything we did after that
• 1:31:35
  Speaker 4: would be like all in, Like, oh, we're gonna be
• 1:31:37
  Speaker 4: doing this every night, every night. And it was just
• 1:31:40
  Speaker 4: a moment in time, a good night at the office.
• 1:31:43
  Speaker 3: They come and go. But this one was one that
• 1:31:46
  Speaker 3: changed a lot of people's outlook on what the other
• 1:31:50
  Speaker 3: offering is, what's the alternative? Who might we see down
• 1:31:54
  Speaker 3: the road at WW who's cooking? Who's this?
• 1:31:56
  Speaker 4: And above all this weekend that because Conrad Thompson and
• 1:32:00
  Speaker 4: jumped on board with star cast.
• 1:32:02
  Speaker 3: This was the most This was like a woodstock.
• 1:32:04
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:32:05
  Speaker 3: I ordered a security.
• 1:32:06
  Speaker 4: Detachment for us, not out of ego, out of I
• 1:32:09
  Speaker 4: thought it'd probably be hard to go from.
• 1:32:11
  Speaker 3: Place to place with everyone wanted to talk. We definitely
• 1:32:14
  Speaker 3: needed it.
• 1:32:15
  Speaker 4: It was I felt like the word over, like, oh
• 1:32:18
  Speaker 4: my god, I think we're getting over a little bit.
• 1:32:20
  Speaker 4: All In was a beautiful thing and changed everything for me.
• 1:32:26
  Speaker 1: That in the New Japan shows did great business.
• 1:32:29
  Speaker 4: Yeah, you've heard the story about you at the New
• 1:32:31
  Speaker 4: Japan show right the mystery?
• 1:32:33
  Speaker 3: No, I thought you'd heard this before.
• 1:32:34
  Speaker 4: Okay, I wrestled Okada, Yes, and after somebody said you
• 1:32:39
  Speaker 4: were at this show.
• 1:32:41
  Speaker 3: Long Beach. Right, So I go out in the parking lot.
• 1:32:43
  Speaker 3: I just took a beat, and there you are, big
• 1:32:46
  Speaker 3: Bicep Austin. You know what I'm saying. Like, walking across
• 1:32:48
  Speaker 3: the parking lot, I'm like, oh my.
• 1:32:50
  Speaker 4: Gosh, it's one of the you know, one of the goats,
• 1:32:53
  Speaker 4: one of the mount Rushmore is we're randomly walking at
• 1:32:56
  Speaker 4: this New Japan show in Long Beach, not La Long Beach.
• 1:33:00
  Speaker 4: So you came up and he talked to me a
• 1:33:01
  Speaker 4: little bit about the match, and you were talking about
• 1:33:04
  Speaker 4: one particular hold and how to really sync it in
• 1:33:07
  Speaker 4: a little bit, and you were just very very kind
• 1:33:10
  Speaker 4: and flattering and helpful. But as you were talking to me,
• 1:33:12
  Speaker 4: people couldn't believe that Steve Austin was in the parking.
• 1:33:15
  Speaker 3: Lot at this New Japan show.
• 1:33:17
  Speaker 4: So slowly but surely, the Japanese contingent and the American
• 1:33:20
  Speaker 4: contingent starts to circle up on you circle up, and
• 1:33:23
  Speaker 4: right as they got close, you just tapped me on
• 1:33:25
  Speaker 4: the shoulder said good job, kid, and you turned around
• 1:33:27
  Speaker 4: and walked off into the dark.
• 1:33:29
  Speaker 3: And dude, I don't know where.
• 1:33:32
  Speaker 4: You went because you'd only walked about five feet and
• 1:33:35
  Speaker 4: you disappeared.
• 1:33:36
  Speaker 3: It was like legit the Batman.
• 1:33:38
  Speaker 4: In my mind, I was like, did he just sprint
• 1:33:40
  Speaker 4: or did he leit just disappear.
• 1:33:42
  Speaker 3: It was unreal were you being there?
• 1:33:44
  Speaker 4: I mean, here, you are the man, the fricking the man,
• 1:33:47
  Speaker 4: and you came to the New Japan Show to see
• 1:33:49
  Speaker 4: what we had cooking.
• 1:33:51
  Speaker 3: Oh man, great night.
• 1:33:53
  Speaker 2: It was an exciting night at Dolphus. But all of
• 1:33:55
  Speaker 2: the success parlayed into the formation of an all the
• 1:33:58
  Speaker 2: stars aligned you would become an EVP along with a
• 1:34:03
  Speaker 2: couple of other guys. My question specifically reviews. Was it
• 1:34:06
  Speaker 2: a difficult transition going from being one of the boys
• 1:34:10
  Speaker 2: to a management position, because now you're still on the boys,
• 1:34:13
  Speaker 2: but now you're a boss as well.
• 1:34:16
  Speaker 3: I think it's still a difficult transition. And I'm not
• 1:34:18
  Speaker 3: at the EVP anymore.
• 1:34:19
  Speaker 4: Yep, I'm not anyone's boss, but to a degree, I'll
• 1:34:24
  Speaker 4: have always been their boss for that period of time
• 1:34:27
  Speaker 4: when I was at AW So when I cross paths
• 1:34:29
  Speaker 4: with them now or when I check in on what
• 1:34:30
  Speaker 4: they're doing, we still.
• 1:34:32
  Speaker 3: Talk that way. That's just the way it is.
• 1:34:34
  Speaker 4: I don't think I can turn the clock back and say, hey,
• 1:34:38
  Speaker 4: I'm just one of the boys.
• 1:34:40
  Speaker 3: I always feel like I.
• 1:34:41
  Speaker 4: Am because I like wrestling, I like telling stories, and
• 1:34:45
  Speaker 4: I like taking bumps, and I like violence and I
• 1:34:47
  Speaker 4: like blood. That part of me is always one of
• 1:34:49
  Speaker 4: the boys. But it doesn't feel like I can turn
• 1:34:53
  Speaker 4: the clock back on the three years as EVP because
• 1:34:58
  Speaker 4: I was so active.
• 1:35:00
  Speaker 1: I was.
• 1:35:01
  Speaker 4: I wanted my hands in everything, and Tony did as well.
• 1:35:04
  Speaker 4: You know, Tony was really active, but as far as
• 1:35:05
  Speaker 4: an EVP go, I really was on the surface, just
• 1:35:09
  Speaker 4: waving the flag and everything about the brand at the time,
• 1:35:12
  Speaker 4: going to every meeting, to the sales consultants, how to
• 1:35:15
  Speaker 4: teach people how to sell the product to investors. It
• 1:35:19
  Speaker 4: was a really good education. Not useful now that I'm
• 1:35:23
  Speaker 4: not an EVP anymore. It's more this piece of history.
• 1:35:26
  Speaker 4: It would have been a great job for me at
• 1:35:27
  Speaker 4: forty five.
• 1:35:29
  Speaker 1: I've heard you say that, not a thirty five great job.
• 1:35:31
  Speaker 4: And anyone who has anyone who have any issues with
• 1:35:34
  Speaker 4: in terms of because of I was their boss, and
• 1:35:37
  Speaker 4: there's not really any heat that exists. I always tried
• 1:35:42
  Speaker 4: everything I could to give, and I was overly generous
• 1:35:48
  Speaker 4: and greed and my overly generous in my run. And
• 1:35:52
  Speaker 4: I know like, had Dusty been here, there's a few
• 1:35:55
  Speaker 4: things he would have told me, but that would have
• 1:35:57
  Speaker 4: been one for sure, because Arn was the one telling
• 1:35:59
  Speaker 4: me on the side, the cave man, get some.
• 1:36:02
  Speaker 1: For you here, you know.
• 1:36:03
  Speaker 3: Yeah, so great, great time.
• 1:36:06
  Speaker 2: And listen to you talk about matches. You have said
• 1:36:10
  Speaker 2: violence three or four or five times in other interviews.
• 1:36:13
  Speaker 1: You've said that as well.
• 1:36:15
  Speaker 2: I enjoy hearing someone say that because I felt like
• 1:36:18
  Speaker 2: I'm just not this cave man who was a pro wrestler. Right,
• 1:36:21
  Speaker 2: I believe in violence in the ring and it's not
• 1:36:24
  Speaker 2: a dance. I mean, it's an art for them, sure,
• 1:36:26
  Speaker 2: But I love the way you talk about the business.
• 1:36:30
  Speaker 2: What was the highlight of your time in AAW. I'm
• 1:36:35
  Speaker 2: thinking of a match.
• 1:36:37
  Speaker 4: Okay, so I peaked, really, I peaked soon. The highlight
• 1:36:41
  Speaker 4: of the time in AW was the match that essentially
• 1:36:44
  Speaker 4: made AW, which is Dustin and myself.
• 1:36:47
  Speaker 1: Okay, thank you.
• 1:36:48
  Speaker 4: And I don't mean that in a braggydosha. Since AW
• 1:36:50
  Speaker 4: was cooking, there was a lot of investment, WarnerMedia was
• 1:36:54
  Speaker 4: behind it.
• 1:36:55
  Speaker 3: But I've heard the man himself.
• 1:36:57
  Speaker 4: Say this is the match that made this place, and
• 1:37:00
  Speaker 4: that I don't think was ever in my intention. I
• 1:37:03
  Speaker 4: just wanted to have the singles match with Dustin for
• 1:37:06
  Speaker 4: our own say again, like it was, it was real.
• 1:37:10
  Speaker 4: Here's my older brother, here's me, and here's me trying
• 1:37:14
  Speaker 4: to get over the hump at his legacy. Yeah, by
• 1:37:16
  Speaker 4: defeating him. That match probably stands the test of time.
• 1:37:22
  Speaker 4: Sold at MGM Grand. A lot of blood, a lot.
• 1:37:25
  Speaker 2: Of violence, yeah, you know what, A lot a lot
• 1:37:27
  Speaker 2: of blood and that's red. But the beauty of that
• 1:37:30
  Speaker 2: match was the simplicity of it. You know, hey, you
• 1:37:34
  Speaker 2: borrowed a couple of each other's moves, but there there
• 1:37:36
  Speaker 2: was no a bunch of bells and whistles. Sure early
• 1:37:39
  Speaker 2: gigsis sets and whatever's. It was a basic, simple professional
• 1:37:44
  Speaker 2: wrestling match between two brothers, and it was a story
• 1:37:47
  Speaker 2: I put it was.
• 1:37:48
  Speaker 1: It was a story.
• 1:37:49
  Speaker 2: Let's say what, maybe you were thirty three at the time,
• 1:37:52
  Speaker 2: thirty four, so then it was thirty.
• 1:37:54
  Speaker 1: Three years in the making.
• 1:37:56
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you know ever since you came into existence, you know,
• 1:37:59
  Speaker 2: behind your brother along with your father, and then there
• 1:38:02
  Speaker 2: you two guys were in the ring. So I just
• 1:38:04
  Speaker 2: thought it was a beautiful story and I love that match.
• 1:38:06
  Speaker 2: I'm glad you said that. Touching back on something that
• 1:38:08
  Speaker 2: you said while ago with respect to being an EVP
• 1:38:13
  Speaker 2: with the promotion building momentum aw success, did you ever
• 1:38:17
  Speaker 2: feel like you were on a runaway train as far
• 1:38:21
  Speaker 2: as subsess goes, but you were getting away from your
• 1:38:24
  Speaker 2: goals that you set out to achieve as a performer,
• 1:38:27
  Speaker 2: meaning exactly what Arn said, Hey, brother, gets some for
• 1:38:30
  Speaker 2: yourself because your guy who says when's and losses matter,
• 1:38:34
  Speaker 2: you would rack up a lot of losses in being
• 1:38:37
  Speaker 2: generous because I think of your position, you weren't looking
• 1:38:40
  Speaker 2: out for yourself as a performer, or didn't want to
• 1:38:43
  Speaker 2: be selfish and put yourself over at the expense of
• 1:38:46
  Speaker 2: the boys.
• 1:38:47
  Speaker 1: And get heat.
• 1:38:49
  Speaker 4: So I did everything I could possibly do diplomatically to
• 1:38:55
  Speaker 4: approach it. A lot of it was trepidation based on
• 1:38:58
  Speaker 4: the fact that I had seen this already, happened, seen
• 1:39:03
  Speaker 4: it okay, So I'm going to be different In hindsight,
• 1:39:07
  Speaker 4: completely wrong concept. Dusty was on top because he was over.
• 1:39:12
  Speaker 4: He was not on top because he was the booker.
• 1:39:14
  Speaker 4: Now is there synergy, sure, but he was over. So
• 1:39:18
  Speaker 4: in the beginning of this company, there's not that many
• 1:39:21
  Speaker 4: guys who have this connection with the fans.
• 1:39:24
  Speaker 3: Why would we forego that this is me? This isn't
• 1:39:26
  Speaker 3: on Tony Matt nick Kinney. These were my decisions.
• 1:39:30
  Speaker 4: It was very hard for me to figure out. I
• 1:39:32
  Speaker 4: needed someone in my life to say, hey, am I
• 1:39:34
  Speaker 4: doing the right thing?
• 1:39:36
  Speaker 3: Is this right? Is this the guy or the girl
• 1:39:38
  Speaker 3: that we need to push forward? And I didn't have anyone.
• 1:39:41
  Speaker 4: The closest I had was on at Ringside. But also
• 1:39:44
  Speaker 4: you know, I didn't want to bother him with such
• 1:39:45
  Speaker 4: a deep, deep question or make him overthink because we
• 1:39:49
  Speaker 4: were it was a train that was flying through and
• 1:39:52
  Speaker 4: we were having so much fun. It was a different environment.
• 1:39:56
  Speaker 4: I know specifically, you might your stand especially after WCW.
• 1:40:02
  Speaker 4: For you, when you go to ECW and you're playing
• 1:40:06
  Speaker 4: and you're having fun and you're around that more punk
• 1:40:08
  Speaker 4: rock scene, that scene is amazing until you want to
• 1:40:13
  Speaker 4: start playing something else, right, And and I just got
• 1:40:16
  Speaker 4: there where I had the potency of me doing the
• 1:40:19
  Speaker 4: honors and went from doing the honors to just doing
• 1:40:21
  Speaker 4: the job. And the moment we're doing the job, hey,
• 1:40:24
  Speaker 4: I've done plenty. I started us happened, Man, I've done
• 1:40:26
  Speaker 4: so I do And as Arn pointed out, you got
• 1:40:29
  Speaker 4: to get some for me. I mean he would not
• 1:40:31
  Speaker 4: chew me out because technically I was his boss, but
• 1:40:33
  Speaker 4: he would pretty much let me know.
• 1:40:36
  Speaker 3: He was very helpful, and I aren't is always right.
• 1:40:39
  Speaker 3: I probably should have listened to him far more when
• 1:40:41
  Speaker 3: I was there.
• 1:40:43
  Speaker 1: What was the bottom line on your departure from AAW.
• 1:40:47
  Speaker 4: The bottom line was it was my baby and it's
• 1:40:53
  Speaker 4: growing up and people are having fun, and it's it
• 1:40:58
  Speaker 4: doesn't need me, makes any sense? And why I thought
• 1:41:03
  Speaker 4: it didn't need me.
• 1:41:06
  Speaker 3: Was Okay, I'm not being totally honest. Maybe it didn't
• 1:41:10
  Speaker 3: need me.
• 1:41:10
  Speaker 1: I was gonna question it.
• 1:41:11
  Speaker 4: Maybe it didn't need but here's what I needed. I
• 1:41:15
  Speaker 4: did not want to be a gatekeeper wrestler. I did
• 1:41:19
  Speaker 4: not want to be, Oh, this is Cody's thing, aw
• 1:41:24
  Speaker 4: you know, which is you know some people look at
• 1:41:25
  Speaker 4: it that way.
• 1:41:26
  Speaker 3: I'm not saying everybody.
• 1:41:27
  Speaker 4: Does, oh, first program, they wrestle Cody, then they do
• 1:41:31
  Speaker 4: Chris's podcast, then they there's a whole meme about it. Yeah,
• 1:41:35
  Speaker 4: And I just didn't want to be a gatekeeper. At
• 1:41:39
  Speaker 4: the time, we were getting this kind of split reactions,
• 1:41:42
  Speaker 4: which was very fun and fun to experiment with because
• 1:41:45
  Speaker 4: I had worked with Sena a lot on live events
• 1:41:47
  Speaker 4: and to see how he did it and be able
• 1:41:49
  Speaker 4: to look okay, all right.
• 1:41:51
  Speaker 1: It takes a lot to deal with that.
• 1:41:52
  Speaker 4: It takes a lot of discipline, I feel like to
• 1:41:56
  Speaker 4: know when you can kind of give him a little something,
• 1:41:59
  Speaker 4: or when you got stick to who you are, Hey,
• 1:42:01
  Speaker 4: do that. I'm gonna stick to who I am. I
• 1:42:03
  Speaker 4: just didn't want to be a gatekeeper. And I'll put
• 1:42:08
  Speaker 4: it in the most simple of terms. It's right there,
• 1:42:12
  Speaker 4: that's it, And that you have the winged eagle, which
• 1:42:14
  Speaker 4: is the ultimate one. But I grew up in the
• 1:42:17
  Speaker 4: business wanting to be the WW champion because it's the
• 1:42:23
  Speaker 4: one that got away, right. We've spent a lot of
• 1:42:26
  Speaker 4: time talking today about Dusty and that.
• 1:42:29
  Speaker 3: Part of me.
• 1:42:31
  Speaker 4: I can't it never will escape me, the good, the bad,
• 1:42:35
  Speaker 4: that's Dusty. It's a he was a massive person in
• 1:42:38
  Speaker 4: our industry, and I want to round it up, round
• 1:42:42
  Speaker 4: it totally out this This one got away from you,
• 1:42:46
  Speaker 4: but I don't want it to get away from me.
• 1:42:50
  Speaker 3: That just just it's it's it's right there.
• 1:42:56
  Speaker 4: I mean literally, that is the number one reason I left.
• 1:42:59
  Speaker 4: I'm so proud of it. I am, and I just
• 1:43:04
  Speaker 4: I hope everyone hears that and listens to I'm so
• 1:43:06
  Speaker 4: proud of AW and of all the people Matt Nick, Kenney,
• 1:43:10
  Speaker 4: Tony and Chris Jericho.
• 1:43:12
  Speaker 3: Everyone's origin story for AW is different. I'll give you
• 1:43:15
  Speaker 3: the real origin story. It took all of us, took
• 1:43:19
  Speaker 3: all of us, so one can tell you it didn't
• 1:43:20
  Speaker 3: take this person. We can rewrite history. It took all
• 1:43:23
  Speaker 3: of us. But it's a thing.
• 1:43:24
  Speaker 4: Now people are eating and have a good lifestyle. I
• 1:43:29
  Speaker 4: like arn said, maybe time to get something for me,
• 1:43:33
  Speaker 4: And there was one thing left, so go for it.
• 1:43:37
  Speaker 4: Whether it goes unobtained, that's one thing. But I couldn't
• 1:43:39
  Speaker 4: let it go unsaid or untried.
• 1:43:42
  Speaker 2: I've heard you in some other interviews saying, don't play small,
• 1:43:46
  Speaker 2: you're playing big.
• 1:43:47
  Speaker 1: I respect that.
• 1:43:48
  Speaker 2: Yeah, how do you start talking with WWE? It's been
• 1:43:51
  Speaker 2: a while? Who calls?
• 1:43:53
  Speaker 3: Who the first person I spoke to?
• 1:43:59
  Speaker 4: And it's much later than people think. I think there
• 1:44:02
  Speaker 4: was this thought process that I had this grand scheme.
• 1:44:05
  Speaker 4: The grand scheme presented itself to me later than others thought.
• 1:44:09
  Speaker 4: The very first person who actually made contact was Bruce Pritchard.
• 1:44:13
  Speaker 3: Bruce Prichard had called me, and one thing led to
• 1:44:16
  Speaker 3: the next, and Bruce didn't think it was real.
• 1:44:19
  Speaker 4: He didn't think I was actually he thought we were
• 1:44:21
  Speaker 4: working a thing, and to a degree, we were working
• 1:44:25
  Speaker 4: a real story, but it was also real and formal
• 1:44:29
  Speaker 4: meeting would come after that, and then rising up in WrestleMania.
• 1:44:34
  Speaker 2: How was the first conversation with the old man? After
• 1:44:36
  Speaker 2: not seeing him for so long.
• 1:44:40
  Speaker 4: That conversation needed to happen in two thoy fifteen? Right,
• 1:44:46
  Speaker 4: and I owed a man in twenty fifteen, and I
• 1:44:49
  Speaker 4: didn't get that opportunity. So I almost looked at the
• 1:44:51
  Speaker 4: conversation more of the way of hey, just you understand
• 1:44:54
  Speaker 4: where I was and why this happened, then we can
• 1:44:57
  Speaker 4: talk about what maybe next. But I don't think a
• 1:45:00
  Speaker 4: lot of people, and him included, realize.
• 1:45:03
  Speaker 3: The importance they had. Again the house that built me.
• 1:45:07
  Speaker 4: And I took that everywhere I went, so I needed
• 1:45:10
  Speaker 4: him to hear that. So the conversation was very about
• 1:45:13
  Speaker 4: who we are human beings. Wise, far before I got
• 1:45:16
  Speaker 4: the business, part of me thought what will be said
• 1:45:21
  Speaker 4: will be uninteresting, but I'll be able to thank them
• 1:45:26
  Speaker 4: and love them and be flattered by the fact that
• 1:45:29
  Speaker 4: I went from someone they could have cared less about
• 1:45:32
  Speaker 4: to having this conversation is very I feel good. But
• 1:45:37
  Speaker 4: what they said wasn't wasn't anything less than just freaking spectacular,
• 1:45:43
  Speaker 4: And it was so much of it.
• 1:45:46
  Speaker 3: Was just time.
• 1:45:47
  Speaker 1: Timing seems to be a key issue.
• 1:45:50
  Speaker 2: Just because of the contract expires, your TNT champ, you're
• 1:45:53
  Speaker 2: still working without a contract. All of a sudden, this
• 1:45:56
  Speaker 2: opportunity presents itself. Russell MANNI is on a horizon some
• 1:46:01
  Speaker 2: forty seven give or take days away, and it seems
• 1:46:04
  Speaker 2: just like I don't know, I believe some things were
• 1:46:09
  Speaker 2: meant to happen or oh do you believe in stuff
• 1:46:13
  Speaker 2: like that?
• 1:46:14
  Speaker 4: So I'd like to consider I feel like there's a joke,
• 1:46:17
  Speaker 4: a running joke with Matt and Nick the Young Bucks
• 1:46:20
  Speaker 4: where they always say I'm an atheist.
• 1:46:21
  Speaker 3: It's this dumb joke. I go along with it. Whatever
• 1:46:23
  Speaker 3: it may be, it's funny.
• 1:46:25
  Speaker 4: But more than ever, my journey in wrestling has made
• 1:46:30
  Speaker 4: it very clear that something is operating this big wheel
• 1:46:33
  Speaker 4: in the sky because think about all the synergy. Dallas
• 1:46:37
  Speaker 4: is where I wrestled my last Mania as starred US
• 1:46:42
  Speaker 4: and watched my friend Matt Cardona, who also talked to me,
• 1:46:46
  Speaker 4: gave me the advice to go back. Not just joined
• 1:46:49
  Speaker 4: the bull club, but he was the one guy who said, absolutely,
• 1:46:51
  Speaker 4: that's the ultimate win.
• 1:46:53
  Speaker 1: Go back.
• 1:46:54
  Speaker 3: So that was my last piece of business there.
• 1:46:56
  Speaker 4: I'm returning to that stadium with Seth Rollins, who is
• 1:47:00
  Speaker 4: one of Dusty's kids from NXT, and I get to
• 1:47:04
  Speaker 4: show them. Okay, well, here's what Dusty's actual kid looks like.
• 1:47:07
  Speaker 4: Maybe a slow learner because Seth got to the mountaintop
• 1:47:10
  Speaker 4: and I didn't. Right all of that. The synergy around it.
• 1:47:14
  Speaker 4: There has to be someone pressing the buttons in the switchboard.
• 1:47:17
  Speaker 4: There has to be something, because I don't think you
• 1:47:20
  Speaker 4: no offense any writers, But there's no way to write
• 1:47:23
  Speaker 4: a better story than what's happening, whether I succeed or
• 1:47:26
  Speaker 4: whether I fall flat on my face. We're going for it,
• 1:47:29
  Speaker 4: like you said, playing big and refusing to play small.
• 1:47:33
  Speaker 2: You're set to face seth problems in a rematch this
• 1:47:35
  Speaker 2: Sunday at WrestleMania Backlash. How do you feel right now
• 1:47:40
  Speaker 2: going into this match, not physically, but where you are
• 1:47:43
  Speaker 2: as a whole, character wise, as a professional, everything that
• 1:47:48
  Speaker 2: you've learned and what you came out of from thirty
• 1:47:51
  Speaker 2: eight as you head into this match as the American
• 1:47:55
  Speaker 2: Nightmare this version. We've been talking about finding this identity
• 1:47:59
  Speaker 2: all throughout the show, and I think you're doing your
• 1:48:03
  Speaker 2: finest work right now.
• 1:48:04
  Speaker 1: Thank you.
• 1:48:07
  Speaker 4: Still a wrestler still, Like we talked about love, violence,
• 1:48:10
  Speaker 4: love mixing it up.
• 1:48:12
  Speaker 3: At the end of the day, the guys who win.
• 1:48:15
  Speaker 4: The matches and not just win the matches, win them
• 1:48:18
  Speaker 4: at the big ones. The wins and losses and what
• 1:48:20
  Speaker 4: we do matter, and I heard from many years that
• 1:48:23
  Speaker 4: they don't and found out damn well that they do.
• 1:48:26
  Speaker 3: So I'm just looking to forward the momentum. Take nothing
• 1:48:29
  Speaker 3: away from what he's.
• 1:48:31
  Speaker 4: Doing and the work he's doing right now, because it's
• 1:48:34
  Speaker 4: next level.
• 1:48:35
  Speaker 1: But I just.
• 1:48:38
  Speaker 3: I don't think he can stop the train.
• 1:48:41
  Speaker 2: Upon your return, you tweeted out that wrestling is a
• 1:48:43
  Speaker 2: love story.
• 1:48:45
  Speaker 1: What did you mean by that?
• 1:48:51
  Speaker 4: I think wrestling really is a love story. I think
• 1:48:54
  Speaker 4: it's a love story between the wrestler and the fan.
• 1:48:59
  Speaker 4: And if it's a real love story, that means it's
• 1:49:02
  Speaker 4: going to go through a lot. There's a lot of
• 1:49:04
  Speaker 4: highs and lows. There's time apart, there's time that's jealous,
• 1:49:09
  Speaker 4: there's time that's angry, but ultimately we're serving the same
• 1:49:15
  Speaker 4: beast at the end, which is the show itself.
• 1:49:19
  Speaker 3: So for that, it's a love story.
• 1:49:20
  Speaker 4: To me. I love this. I love why I got
• 1:49:23
  Speaker 4: into it. I love the fans who don't love me,
• 1:49:25
  Speaker 4: and I love the fans who do love me. It's
• 1:49:28
  Speaker 4: all one big, true love story. And the thing I
• 1:49:32
  Speaker 4: wanted from the time I was eight years old again
• 1:49:35
  Speaker 4: is right there over my shoulder. And the opportunity, Hey,
• 1:49:38
  Speaker 4: I feel like I'm good enough. I found the identity.
• 1:49:41
  Speaker 4: I can go for it.
• 1:49:42
  Speaker 2: So then I think you almost answered my next question
• 1:49:45
  Speaker 2: and my second to last question, does Cody Rhodes finally
• 1:49:48
  Speaker 2: know who he is?
• 1:49:50
  Speaker 1: At this moment? On a professional level.
• 1:49:54
  Speaker 4: Cody Rhodes found out exactly who he was the moment
• 1:50:00
  Speaker 4: I came up at WrestleMania and peaked out because I
• 1:50:04
  Speaker 4: had all these ideas, Hey, I know what I am.
• 1:50:06
  Speaker 4: I told plenty of people I'm the best wrestler in
• 1:50:07
  Speaker 4: the world. How I define it, I.
• 1:50:09
  Speaker 3: Let them all know.
• 1:50:10
  Speaker 4: But when I came up and was able to be
• 1:50:14
  Speaker 4: received warmly like that and know what I was going
• 1:50:17
  Speaker 4: to do next, I felt like I truly was in
• 1:50:21
  Speaker 4: command of all that I have to offer. And that
• 1:50:25
  Speaker 4: doesn't mean that there aren't a bazillion people now around
• 1:50:29
  Speaker 4: me who are there to help.
• 1:50:31
  Speaker 3: Well, we could try this, or what about this, or
• 1:50:33
  Speaker 3: hey this happened one time.
• 1:50:35
  Speaker 4: I love all that in terms of that, But for
• 1:50:39
  Speaker 4: the first time ever in my career, I'm going off
• 1:50:42
  Speaker 4: my gut. So not such and such as advice, not
• 1:50:46
  Speaker 4: this rule that exists. I'm going off my gut and
• 1:50:49
  Speaker 4: it will fail or succeed based off that.
• 1:50:52
  Speaker 3: So, yes, it's the best way to put it.
• 1:50:55
  Speaker 2: Well, I think I was going to wrap it up.
• 1:50:58
  Speaker 2: I mean, you're in the prime of your life. You're
• 1:51:00
  Speaker 2: in the prime of your career. Everything's firing on all cylinders.
• 1:51:06
  Speaker 2: I've watched you from day one. I followed you when
• 1:51:10
  Speaker 2: you left WW said, man, what is this guy doing.
• 1:51:12
  Speaker 2: He's got a job, his wife's got a job, and
• 1:51:15
  Speaker 2: he's just gonna go gamble, and you gamble on yourself
• 1:51:18
  Speaker 2: and you won. I'm proud of you. I don't know
• 1:51:22
  Speaker 2: if that means anything, but I know Dust he's proud
• 1:51:25
  Speaker 2: of you. I know your brother's proud of your family's
• 1:51:26
  Speaker 2: proud of you. And I'm looking forward to seeing the
• 1:51:32
  Speaker 2: rest of you run. They've got a couple good years
• 1:51:34
  Speaker 2: left in the tank. I'm looking forward to seeing that.
• 1:51:37
  Speaker 2: And I know that your dad would be proud that.
• 1:51:40
  Speaker 2: As Hank Junior would say, you're carrying on the family tradition.
• 1:51:44
  Speaker 2: Oh wow, congrats on everything you've done. I look forward
• 1:51:48
  Speaker 2: to seeing what you have yet to accomplish.
• 1:51:50
  Speaker 4: I'm gonna had another bottom line, I'm gonna break the
• 1:51:52
  Speaker 4: rules here. Of course, it means something to me when
• 1:51:55
  Speaker 4: the biggest box office wrestler of all in time says
• 1:51:59
  Speaker 4: they're proud of you.
• 1:52:00
  Speaker 3: Yep, that means something to me. So E choose the
• 1:52:03
  Speaker 3: f bomb. But my god, thank you very very much, thank.
• 1:52:07
  Speaker 1: You, thanks for coming out.
• 1:52:09
  Speaker 2: Hey, my name is Stone Coach tve Alston. This is
• 1:52:11
  Speaker 2: the American Nightmare Cody Rhodes and that's the bottom line
• 1:52:15
  Speaker 2: because I said so.