Latest / ABJ / Ben The Bean

Transcript

Ben The Bean · ABJ

0:18
What is going on everybody? It has been quite some time
0:23
since I said that we are back live ABJ podcast.
0:28
And just before we get anything going here, just let you know if
0:32
you want to be on the show, we're doing these every Tuesday
0:35
night around 7:00 live. So DM me.
0:37
You do not have to be a professional wrestler.
0:39
I'm open to talk with anybody. I'm sick of these wrestlers.
0:43
I'm tired of them. No joking.
0:45
But we have so many opportunities for people to come
0:48
on and chat. I cannot wait to do that with
0:50
all of you. There may be sometimes you'll
0:51
see this show pop up on a Sunday too, because sometimes wrestlers
0:54
cannot get me on a weekend, but they don't have a booking.
0:57
So we'll figure something out on weekends.
1:00
Yeah. And if you see me out in shows,
1:01
hit me up. We'll do a five question ABJ.
1:03
We're going to keep this content rolling.
1:05
There is other shows coming back as well.
1:07
Tornado Tag is back on Thursdays live on this channel as well.
1:10
And then you're going to see some of the other stuff popping
1:12
up, the banging beers and the true behind illusions and all
1:15
that fun stuff. So keep your eyes peeled.
1:17
We're back, we're grinding, we're doing our thing.
1:20
Today's guest I got to meet at a few different independent
1:24
wrestling shows. A very interesting fella, one of
1:28
my favorite people. Just a very, very great
1:30
character work. I love what this kid does.
1:32
He's grinding. He's doing doing big things.
1:34
From Philadelphia area, out of Catch Point Wrestling.
1:38
Let's bring in Ben the Beam. What's going on?
1:41
What's going on? I'm still I'm stoked for this.
1:46
When did we actually meet? Was it the the suplex battle
1:49
royal? But I feel like I've seen you
1:51
before that show. It has to have been before that.
1:54
I just don't know where because here's the thing, I think the
1:57
first couple times I met you, I'd never seen you wrestle.
2:00
I think you just came to shows and helped set up because you
2:03
have that work ethic, you have that grind aspect to you.
2:07
Yeah, it probably was probably just being at a show, maybe one
2:11
of like, I know we've done that was like November of 2023 when
2:16
Tony Deppen had the Bruce Giving Show.
2:19
Could have been right around that time.
2:21
Just even just showing up somewhere.
2:25
But yeah, just that was probably the first time that we actually
2:28
got to like meet. And then obviously you got to
2:30
see me wrestle for the first time.
2:32
We were in a we, we, we were a team together at one we were in
2:35
a match. We were that's.
2:37
Crazy to think about. You unfortunately got beat up
2:41
and everybody else so bad that I had to be involved and I didn't
2:45
like that. I didn't like that because then
2:46
I got hit by Travis Huckabee and Max 0, which if you gave me a
2:52
list of people I don't want to get hit by a professional
2:54
wrestling, they are very close to the top.
2:57
Yeah, I, I, I think I'd have to agree with that as well.
3:02
I was. I mean, I got chopped.
3:03
You got like slingshotted into a big boot, which looked like it
3:07
sucked. Yeah.
3:12
Awesome. I'm sorry.
3:14
We'll switch letters. Yeah.
3:16
No, no, I definitely. I think if you would went in
3:19
first it would have it would have been totally different.
3:22
If the if the Wild LLC would have just been so annihilated
3:25
that that we would have for 15 guys to come in, it's a whole
3:29
nother story for another day. We'll tell those stories again
3:32
in high, high tension wrestling. So tell us about yourself.
3:34
Tell the people who you are and what you do.
3:37
So I'm Ben the Bean, if you haven't heard yet.
3:40
If you didn't see like down right here, the name thing.
3:44
I'm a wrestler. I've been wrestling for about
3:48
two years now. It's something I've loved
3:52
forever. And yeah, I mean, just I love
3:55
having fun with wrestling. So I think that's a big thing
3:58
for me. And a lot of people don't fully
4:01
understand me sometimes. So I'm glad I have a platform
4:05
where I get to explain what I am and get deeper into that.
4:09
Yeah, well, let's I, I, well, let's start with that there.
4:12
I know we're going to go a little off the notes already and
4:14
we're only one question in, but where did the name Ben the Bean
4:18
come from? How do you get this moniker?
4:20
How does and and what is the character of Ben the Bean for
4:23
people who have never seen you wrestle?
4:25
So I got the name. It's just like a nickname.
4:29
It was just, you know, we were messing around, it was goofing
4:32
around, kind of just one of those things that you come up
4:35
with and it kind of just stuck. Obviously, I thought it was fun
4:41
to also mix it together with my frame.
4:44
So string bean, like the size frame.
4:46
So it's like, makes sense to have that name too, because
4:49
you're, you're expecting that kind of visual with somebody
4:52
with a name like Bean, you're not expecting, you know, £300
4:57
like Muscle. Head Yeah, yeah, I cannot wait
4:59
for the the bean transformation when you Oh yeah, when we get
5:02
you on the gas and we throw like 3 we turn you into over Alistair
5:06
Overeem like or you just guessed.
5:09
Yeah, I can't. I can't walk through door frames
5:10
anymore. It's like now I can I can just
5:13
breeze right through. Yeah, that'd be amazing.
5:16
I, I just, I cannot wait for the day where Ben de Bean turns into
5:18
Ben de Brock or something like that.
5:21
We'll let you borrow Gavin's little muscle suit.
5:24
That'd be hilarious. Yeah, there we go, team.
5:27
Go with ABS, it'll be the the greatest transformation in
5:29
professional life. But yeah, so for the character,
5:34
it's just kind of the people that like the people that you
5:40
see in wrestling that you've gone and watched and you
5:42
thought, wow, that guy looks like a goofball.
5:45
Or you think maybe that guy, he's got a lot of heart because
5:49
you see the he just keeps getting up.
5:50
He just doesn't stay down. Maybe when he should stay down,
5:56
but that's not how you roll with it.
5:58
You got to keep getting up, to keep fighting and keep living to
6:01
see another day, you know? We do you need to get like a a
6:05
bend the bean rocky walk out jacket like.
6:08
Yeah. Just as Bean instead of Rocky on
6:11
it. Yeah.
6:12
Just like you're coming out for a fight and just, you don't
6:15
quit. You just.
6:15
Yeah. Well, for the people who didn't
6:18
see the thumbnail or anything like that, you are a smaller
6:20
guy. You're tiny.
6:21
You're height. You have a little bit of height
6:22
to you, but you're you're very tiny.
6:25
Now when you go and tell your friends and your family I'm
6:28
going to be a professional wrestler, do they say, Ben,
6:32
what? What are we doing?
6:34
No surprisingly, because when I was really, really young about
6:39
probably like 5 or 6, I'd always loved wrestling.
6:42
So the love for wrestling has started.
6:44
There's literally footage of me as a baby.
6:46
So 1999, I'm trying to remember the exact month, but it's a
6:52
footage of me watching Sunday Night Heat and it's Chris
6:56
Jericho on TV. So it's been since I was a baby.
7:00
But the older you get, you're like, man, I want to be a
7:02
wrestler. And my parents said, well, you
7:06
got to do amateur wrestling if you want to be a professional
7:09
wrestler, to like, understand what it feels like to get
7:12
slammed around a lot and learn how to fight.
7:15
So I was like, OK, great, if that's the sign off, I'll do it.
7:20
And so from about like 5 or 6 all the way up to about like
7:25
freshman, sophomore year of high school, I wrestled.
7:28
And, you know, I've got accustomed to getting slammed
7:32
around and accustomed to learning how to take people down
7:36
that are a lot larger than you, avoiding pins, things like that.
7:40
And it, you know, of course, built up character and helped me
7:43
figure out how to, you know, handle myself in those
7:48
situations, whether I'm, you know, on the street or if I'm in
7:51
a wrestling ring. Yeah, no, I I think you have a
7:55
very interesting aspect to wrestling, right, because it can
7:58
go two ways. I think some people who aren't
8:01
of size like professional wrestling, at the end of the
8:03
day, there's people who look like world championship
8:06
wrestlers and then there's really good characters, but a
8:08
really good character. You you have to be a great
8:11
character and a mediocre wrestler.
8:14
But when you could be a good wrestler and a good character,
8:16
that's that's your difference that where you crossover world,
8:19
they could be a world champion because their character work is
8:22
so good and they can handle themselves in the ring.
8:25
But how do you find your role of like when you go to these places
8:28
or even now in the scene where you try to sell yourself to a
8:31
brand new company and you walk in and you look like you're
8:33
very, very young and very tiny and your name's Ben the Bean.
8:36
Like how do you sell that to a promotion?
8:39
I I think the best way to sell that for me has been just
8:44
putting in hard work, you know, showing up, you know, taking
8:47
care of green crew stuff, even just helping out with coming up
8:51
with ideas. A lot of people, a lot of people
8:54
that I'm like with my peers will always come up to me and ask me
8:57
for like ideas for things. Sometimes if they're like, then
9:00
I need a place to, to come from for this character.
9:03
And it's like, here's here's an idea.
9:06
So I might spit ball ideas. So I think having that aspect of
9:10
being able to like, find, you know, background things for
9:15
people where it's not necessarily a wrestling role,
9:18
but a more creative role sometimes can help.
9:22
And a lot of people can recognize that.
9:24
Or if you explain an idea to somebody of like what you'd like
9:27
to do, they might go, oh, wow, he's really got like a lot of
9:31
ideas for what eventually could happen.
9:35
So maybe we'll give him a shot at doing that idea.
9:39
Yeah, I another thing too that I think makes you stand out and
9:42
helps you as well as you you leave the ego at the door.
9:45
You're you're very well of who you are, what your style is,
9:48
your character and and the Ben the bean aspect.
9:51
And you're like I I I know I'm going in there.
9:52
I know I'm bumping, I know I'm selling and my job is to make
9:56
someone else look like a monster tonight and if I can get a
9:59
little bit of shine to make people feel for a second you won
10:02
that. That's your win for the match,
10:04
whether you win, lose or draw, the second you get the crowd to
10:07
get behind you after they watch you get killed for so long.
10:10
Like that's my enjoyment of watching your character like and
10:13
I'm I'm commentary for the times I have done it for you.
10:16
I just bury you. I just absolutely trash you.
10:19
I I make fun of your size, your height, your look, everything
10:22
because I'm selling the character of this.
10:25
He has no shot so that when you get the shine and you feed off
10:28
of that of like he's he's doubting me.
10:31
It works and and it's like we did a brew fest one time where I
10:35
was just like this. If you this guy not even off the
10:37
drink, what are we doing here? And then you got that little bit
10:39
of shine and people popped and then you get squashed again.
10:43
But it's a it's a fun. It's a fun dynamic.
10:46
And I think you understanding what you are at this point in
10:49
time in your career and what you're working to like I'm Spike
10:52
Dudley, you know what I mean? Like I'm going out there to get
10:54
to get make someone look good. And I'm necessarily, I'm not
10:58
getting wing columns, but the in the entertainment aspect, I
11:01
probably will be more remembered at the end of the show than most
11:04
of the people in the roster because you, you will find a way
11:06
to stick in someone's brain. Yeah.
11:09
Yeah. So when did you fall in love
11:12
with wrestling? Was wrestling always in the
11:13
house for you? Were your parents into it?
11:15
Did you just stumble across it? Yeah.
11:17
I would say so. My parents were into it back
11:21
then. That's probably why I was
11:22
watching it like when I was a baby.
11:24
Like it's on TVI mean, there was always the video games.
11:29
Those were fun, the action figures, just all that stuff was
11:33
kind of fun to like mess around with because it was always,
11:36
especially at that time period. I mean, the early 2000s going
11:39
forward was full of characters that just looked ridiculous.
11:43
You know, you had the you had the undertaker with all the
11:46
tattoos with, you know, the, the giant, like the bat wings they
11:50
used to have, like just all the elaborate outfits and just stuff
11:56
like that really stuck out to me.
11:58
And yeah, going back to like the video games, just the way that
12:02
they made that video games just look insane with all the, you
12:04
know, camera flashes and every every move was slowed down.
12:09
So you can see exactly how this big moment was happening.
12:12
I think stuck out a lot. And then, you know, later on, I
12:17
would discover independent wrestling outside of, you know,
12:21
WWE and all the other companies that were around at the time.
12:25
And I was kind of understanding that there was different types
12:28
of wrestling. There wasn't always this, like
12:31
you'd said, the championship caliber wrestlers going against
12:34
each other. There were like smaller guys
12:37
were like over the top characters that were going at it
12:41
and having just kind of the most fun matches.
12:44
And I think that stuff definitely stuck out to me and
12:47
helped along my journey as well. What do you remember, what
12:50
promotions you would go to? So I didn't go to any because I
12:53
was too young and I couldn't, you know, couldn't convince the
12:56
family to take me all the way to Philadelphia or Heller's town
12:59
for for Jakara or like I couldn't fly to PWG.
13:04
But just seeing that stuff on YouTube and trying to like go on
13:08
YouTube and find any clip that I could find of, of just what
13:13
shows were happening outside of like, just like a small snippet
13:16
of the show. I was finding whatever full show
13:19
I could find, Yeah. So what type of kid were you
13:23
growing up because you played a little bit of sports?
13:24
Were you, were you a book smart kid?
13:26
Did you fit in with everybody? Did were you picked on?
13:28
Were you bullied? Where did you fall in?
13:30
What in line there? Yeah, I was the kid that was,
13:33
you know, the the, the little scrawny, nerdy kid that
13:36
definitely got picked on like wrestling way too long,
13:39
sometimes a little longer than everybody else.
13:42
Everybody kind of picked like wrestling's out.
13:45
Nobody likes wrestling anymore. You were raised in, like, the
13:50
prime UFC phase, yeah. It was, it was one of those
13:54
times where everybody just finally shifted away and thought
13:56
you were, thought you were an oddball for still liking
13:58
wrestling because it was, it was.
14:00
It wasn't the thing anymore. The craziest thing about being a
14:04
wrestling fan, then AUFC fan, then back to a wrestling fan is
14:08
now in 2026. To watch WWE is going to cost me
14:13
more at the end of the year than AUFC because UF CS pay per views
14:18
are all free now in 2026. And like I never thought I'd see
14:22
that day. Yeah, WVS like you have to pay
14:26
like $350.00 a year to watch our product and UF CS like 10 bucks
14:31
Paramount plus watch whatever you want.
14:34
Like wild. What a what a turn in in the in
14:37
the universe. So when, when did you get your
14:42
your start in this where you're like, OK, I'm really going to
14:45
start looking into this wrestling thing.
14:46
I'm going to look for a school. And and how did you find your
14:49
school? So at first I had gone to, I had
14:54
gone to school because I was like, well, I'm not going to do
14:57
wrestling. It's too expensive.
14:58
Maybe not, not my thing. I kind of was like, let me go do
15:02
some, do some education, try and get a little smart, see if that
15:06
was going to work out. And it wasn't a fit for me.
15:10
So I decided to keep looking at schools still.
15:13
I think before that it was like it was the debate between going
15:18
to the Wrestle Factory at the time because it was like really
15:21
into Chikara. So I was like, maybe, maybe I'm
15:24
not going to go. So it never like fully hit me
15:27
until finally after the pandemic, you know, 2023 kind of
15:34
rolled around was catch point I'd seen was posting like there
15:39
was a school opening up and I it really interested me because I
15:42
was like, OK, there's a school in Philly now.
15:46
It's not going to be like a big, probably a huge class to start
15:51
out. It's going to be something
15:52
that's a little more intimate because I don't think everybody
15:55
fully knew it was just there yet.
15:58
And I think that kind of was where I was like, OK, maybe I
16:01
feel a little more comfortable because I'm not going to be in
16:02
like this big giant class of wrestlers and nervous that
16:07
somebody's going to say something to me.
16:08
Like you got to get out of here. So I signed up.
16:14
I went early. Actually, I think it was like
16:16
June, July of 2023 before we had our first class because it was
16:20
like, let me do these open house, like see how I'm feeling
16:23
about it. And I think those moments really
16:27
like helped me figure out, Oh, this is, this is something I
16:31
feel like I'm comfortable doing. I'm not worried about it being
16:35
like, there was no pressure to do it.
16:38
And I think that helped. And of course, going in early,
16:42
seeing all these different people that were just coming in
16:45
to stop in and see the school was kind of fun.
16:49
Then when that first week started, it really was just
16:53
amazing because we were, it's a class of 8 and we were there
16:58
pretty much every day for six weeks, just training Monday
17:03
through Thursday. No, nobody missed the day.
17:07
That's awesome. Crazy to think about.
17:11
When when you were signing up and going to the catch point,
17:13
were you aware of the coaching staff or were you just like, oh,
17:16
this is kind of close to me, Like what was what was some of
17:18
the things that pushed you over when when finding the school?
17:21
So I think that was probably part of it because I know that I
17:25
think it was probably Drew who posted about it on his page.
17:29
I think I was like following his page and I think I'd seen him
17:31
post like. The guy who teaches me the
17:33
tutorial, the video game is going to teach me how to.
17:35
Actually, yeah, exactly. And it's like great, I can I can
17:38
do that now. I can, you know, from a video
17:41
game to real life. Perfect.
17:45
But that was always the thing too, was when I was younger, I
17:47
would look through the websites and I would like comb through to
17:49
see who was training who, who would be your like trainer.
17:52
Because I remember Claudio used to train at the Wrestle Factory.
17:56
He was the trainer. I remember being like, wow, the
17:58
the guy from WWE is training the school.
18:01
What? So I think those things
18:04
definitely do stick out because you want to find somebody that
18:06
you you know, you know, and you want to have seen some something
18:10
from them so you can see what kind of things you might learn
18:14
from them. Of course, yeah.
18:15
Header was part of the Cesaro days or Claudio days at Chikara.
18:20
Yeah, he trained a little bit when he was there.
18:22
I'm like, that's crazy. Like that's, it's like the, it's
18:26
like the worldwide Dojo before, before, like what It was the ROH
18:29
Dojo and then and then that and like that Jakara school just
18:33
being like 90% of what's on TV right now came through those two
18:37
buildings. You know what I mean?
18:38
That's crazy, crazy to think about.
18:42
Yeah. So going into those things, were
18:45
you in shape? Were you prepared for that
18:47
because of your high school wrestling thing or did it help?
18:50
Did it not help? Or how hard was that first week
18:53
of just conditioning and going through everything?
18:55
So I'd say 5050 because you have the grappling skills still there
19:00
and you're like, OK, I I understand that, but what you
19:03
don't understand is the actual move.
19:07
So you're, I think like the very first match I had was a lot of
19:10
just like the headlock, you know, grappling, moving around
19:14
and that was it. Like you're, you're just getting
19:18
accustomed to the ring really, and just feeling things out
19:21
because a lot of people don't know, you know, the school's
19:25
ring is 20 by 20, which is what WWEA&WWEW use.
19:29
So you're, you know, a lot of indie rings are a lot smaller.
19:32
So you're, you're, you know, you're very accustomed to a 20
19:36
by 20. Then you, I always say you have
19:37
to recalibrate at the new ring. Like like it's one of those
19:40
little smart boards at school. What is what is the average
19:43
Indies? The 14, right?
19:46
I think it's 16 by 16. That's the average like.
19:49
The. Average.
19:51
Yeah, 18 by 18 I've seen a couple times.
19:54
I I don't think I've ever seen a 20.
19:55
I mean like unless I was added WB or AW show I don't think on
19:58
the indie scene I've seen a 20 by 20 ring.
20:01
Yeah. I've seen a really, really,
20:04
really tiny one that was like it literally was 5 by 5.
20:07
Like I don't where literally you you hit the rope, you hit the
20:10
middle and you're on the next rope again.
20:12
Like I watch a show in a ring like that.
20:14
That was wild. Or and at any point in time you
20:17
can tag, you can tag into the match.
20:18
It was that tiny. That's that's we need to bring
20:21
those rings to every show now. We should just that.
20:23
That's the new challenge. It's just like you have to
20:26
wrestle in this small like. A four way tag match, Like could
20:29
you imagine four way tag Lucius? Lucius tag also is available.
20:34
Like fucking chaos. Yeah.
20:37
And where does the ref go? Yeah, where does the ref go?
20:41
It's the outside ref that's you. Know no, I want the ref in the
20:44
ring. I want the ref to literally be
20:46
in the way the whole time. Mystery wrestling hit your heart
20:52
out. We'll come up with some crazy
20:55
shit. So how was the beginning stages
21:00
of wrestling finding your place? You said you said you went there
21:02
by yourself. Was it easy to make friends?
21:06
That was the connections there. Yeah, I would say, I mean,
21:10
obviously when we're there all the pretty much every day, you
21:13
kind of have to become this, you know, close knit family of
21:17
friends. You can't just be like, Nah, I
21:19
know I don't care about these guys.
21:21
Like you're there together and you are this, you know, first
21:25
class, you kind of have this like mindset of like, OK, well,
21:28
we got to like we got to keep things together.
21:30
We got to be supportive of each other, of course.
21:34
So I think that that kind of helped.
21:35
And of course, once we once we got out onto the scene, of
21:39
course, we would tell each other about shows we were going to or
21:42
hey, we're going to go set up for the, you know, ring crew.
21:46
Do you want to ride with me? Those kind of things were like
21:49
very beneficial to the start of it.
21:51
We're just like having a close knit group, which I don't think
21:57
sometimes happens at a lot of schools either.
22:00
I think some people just go into it thinking just I'm going to
22:03
get myself good and then, you know, get get on to wrestling.
22:07
But I think that's why our course at Catch Point really was
22:10
kind of like it's different, but in the best way.
22:13
It's that it's the six weeks of being together and just learning
22:17
something with the same group of people.
22:20
Yeah, and I, and I've been in situations where I've heard one
22:24
person have something, someone to say about somebody who was a
22:26
catch point kid and another catch point kid be in the same
22:29
room. And I'm not saying it was like
22:31
bad, but they're like, hey, he's with us.
22:34
Yeah, easy. And I was like, oh, I like this
22:38
catch for like that. You guys definitely bond and
22:40
stick with each other and make sure you got each other's back,
22:42
which is which is super sick. What are some setbacks or
22:46
adversities you've had overcome so far?
22:49
I think that when I was kind of starting out, it was figuring
22:55
out the travel, figuring out the distance of travel, of course,
23:00
figuring out tolls for the first time, kind of because I don't
23:03
really travel outside of the state that much and I was always
23:06
worried about the I. Pay so much tolls on Philly
23:09
shows. Oh, it's so expensive.
23:11
Paying tolls and worrying about having enough money for tolls
23:15
because it's back then it was still cash.
23:17
Like I was always like, man, I'm not going to have enough, you
23:20
know? I just say bill me every time.
23:22
I'm like, bill me, There's my license plate.
23:25
Now it's billed to you, you don't have to really worry about
23:27
it anymore. But I think also just having
23:33
having my own like mental health setbacks where I just felt like
23:37
I needed a break from things. I didn't want to stay just kind
23:42
of, I know some people like to keep doing their things and and
23:46
staying at what they're doing to try and distract themselves, but
23:49
I felt like I needed a break for a little.
23:52
So I took a break for maybe around a month just to get away
23:56
from things to kind of reset myself.
23:58
I felt like that was the most appropriate answer because I
24:00
think a lot of things in wrestling, I think a lot of
24:04
wrestlers don't acknowledge they're in mental health
24:07
sometimes and just kind of keep pushing through and bury.
24:11
It deep down inside, yeah. It's not good for you.
24:16
I think you should take the, the time off if you need it to like
24:19
just reset yourself, find, find your, your moment to be like,
24:23
OK, I'm ready to go back to doing what I like or OK, I'm
24:27
ready to keep working at this specific goal.
24:30
I, I, I don't think going into it with a, you know, a foggy
24:34
mind will help you. Yeah.
24:38
What are some key moments or accomplishments that you have
24:40
done so far in your career that really make you proud?
24:44
So I think the Fighter Tainment show around Mania, I got I, I
24:51
remember being asked if I wanted to wrestle on that show.
24:55
So that was when WrestleMania was in town and I said, yeah,
24:59
I'd love to. I've been helping out.
25:00
I'd love to be on the show. I'm waiting to hear who I'm
25:04
going to wrestle. I'm just waiting, just waiting,
25:07
going to training, doing the, the seminars in the area,
25:10
helping out on other shows that were around, you know, just
25:13
waiting for the announcement to come out.
25:14
And of course, this was April 1st, I believe, or March 31st
25:19
when you got put out of who I was wrestling.
25:22
So I kind of take a second and I go, OK, they're, they're messing
25:27
with me now. They're they're playing a joke
25:29
on me. OK, I get it.
25:30
But no, I ended up wrestling speedball like Bailey six months
25:35
into my career. So I want you to, I want you to
25:39
hear the story from my aspect. We're all split up WrestleMania.
25:44
I am at suplex, I'm at labor of love.
25:46
I'm all these different places. So morning of I'm at Suplex and
25:51
I was at Labor of Love the day before because the fighter
25:53
tainment was the day before. And then yeah, so the day before
25:57
we're at Labor of Love and Brian is we're at we're at the bar,
26:01
we're having a couple and Brian just goes, you're never going to
26:04
believe this. I go what?
26:06
He goes Ben the Bean has a win over Speedball by Bailey and I
26:11
go, what? He's like Speedball's losing
26:14
every match he's in this week. Like I used to say it was Mr.
26:17
WrestleMania weekend and the whole time I was like,
26:21
Speedball's going to have the weekend again.
26:22
He's going to go and tired of lost every match.
26:25
And I think we started off by losing to you.
26:29
And I just remember seeing you at suplex.
26:30
I was like, fucking speedball. You're like, yeah, yeah,
26:37
awesome. That was probably one of the big
26:40
ones, I mean, and then eventually.
26:42
Kind of go on that real quick. Now I know it's a no ring, it's
26:45
a no ring show. It's very comedy driven, it's
26:47
very entertainment based. But what do you, what do you get
26:50
going over a match, putting things together with speedball
26:53
and, and what do you pull from that of being in the ring or
26:56
being working with somebody who's been around as long as
26:59
they have and has been as accomplished as they have and
27:02
has touched some of the best names in this business?
27:04
And then what do you pull from that when you get a chance to do
27:07
something with them? So the first thing I remember
27:10
doing was just basically listening, just sitting there
27:14
and listening, you know, I mean, you take that moment and you
27:17
understand that like, so I, I will go back a little bit in the
27:20
timeline here, but I think the very first like week or so of of
27:25
catch point training, speedball had come in and like, you know,
27:29
getting to learn a little from speedball there was great.
27:33
And then that like that match, just putting that together was
27:37
kind of, you know, figuring out what what we were going to do,
27:40
figuring out what works well for us, especially when there's no
27:45
early on in your career, you're doing a lot of very simple stuff
27:48
in the ring and stuff that is very like rope involved or maybe
27:53
you're doing something off the top rope.
27:55
So it was another part of the six month experience where
27:59
you're like, OK, now I got to figure out how to wrestle with
28:02
no ring. And I think that comes.
28:06
Bounce on the floor. Yeah, how to bounce on the
28:08
floor, figuring out the that that kind of helped build that
28:14
character aspect of figuring out, OK, how do I interact with
28:17
the environment that I'm in and make this fun and keep this fun
28:21
for for everybody around me and also keeping it safe.
28:25
So I mean, thinking of everything in my move set where
28:28
I'm like, OK, well, this is something I would do.
28:30
That's probably going to be a little safer than like say, hey,
28:33
I'm going to do this, you know, big dropkick, you know, because
28:37
that's not going to feel great for both of us.
28:41
Yeah, speedball was so instrumental to for catch point
28:44
worldwide Dojo just to like off top of my head of those fighter
28:48
tainment shows like they really put it on.
28:50
They really put an emphasis on hey, Jimmy Lloyd's here.
28:53
Hey, so is Janella. So are these big GCW guys that
28:56
you know with Deppen, but also here's journey who they put over
29:00
you. The lost boys, Harleen Lopez was
29:04
a big on the couple first couple fighter tainments and these are
29:06
people who all a journey wrestled.
29:09
I think Jordan Oliver and I think Janella and speedball like
29:14
one of her first entertainments. And I was just like, that's,
29:17
that's such a good exposure for someone that early in their
29:19
career and, and for Speedball to acknowledge both of those
29:22
schools and see both of your groups of kids who were really
29:25
busting their ass and speedball acknowledging your hard work and
29:30
saying, well, I have a spot for you.
29:31
And I, I, that's one of the reasons why I will always be a
29:34
speedball Mike Bailey fan because they, they are so
29:37
selfless. Like they work so hard to put
29:39
themselves where they need to be, but also notice, hey, I can
29:43
also uplift somebody else around me who's working really hard.
29:46
Yeah, I yeah, Words out of my mouth.
29:49
Yeah, so good. I love them, love them so much.
29:53
Who are your influences and role models, whether it's in the
29:56
business or just personally in general?
29:59
So a lot of my like wrestling influence came from like the
30:03
Chikara era. So I was big I'm, if you
30:06
couldn't tell, big Chuck Taylor fan, obviously the colony love
30:12
the colony stuff called Cabana was another inspiration just
30:18
just for the the the mix of the grappling work and also comedy,
30:22
because I think that was another thing that I liked was that you
30:25
could mix the two. You didn't have to just be this
30:28
comedy wrestler. You could mix your, you know,
30:31
skill and show like, hey, I'm really good at what I do, but I
30:34
can also be really funny with it too.
30:38
And then outside of that, I mean, it's tough to like, pick
30:42
one specific person. I mean, like, I love a lot of
30:47
like sports stuff. I think I like taking character
30:51
inspiration from people on the court.
30:54
I mean, I'm wearing a Charles Barkley shirt right now.
30:56
I love his his just brash attitude in in the early 90s of
31:01
like there's a quote where he he threw some guy out of a window
31:05
and they. Did he choke his coach, too?
31:07
I I think he no, no, no, no, there was somebody else that did
31:10
choke the. Coach, I just remember him.
31:12
Throwing a guy out a window and saying my only regret was that
31:15
it wasn't from a second story window.
31:18
Like just being able to be sad like.
31:21
He just got in trouble for saying that a bunch of girls
31:24
from a certain town are ugly and then they told him to go on TV
31:26
and apologize. He's like, I'm not apologizing
31:28
that they're all ugly. Like get your shit together.
31:31
Great heel, great heel. Worth.
31:33
He would be, yeah, They, they picked up the wrong Dennis
31:36
Rodman, Karl Malone, all those people they messed up.
31:38
They should have got Barkley. But yeah, like Dennis Rodman's
31:41
another great one too, where I love, I loved his, his work
31:45
ethic of like he was a guy who went for just rebounds.
31:49
You would see him literally like fall into the crowd going for a
31:52
rebound, even if it meant like it was still out of bounds, he
31:56
still dove for it. And just the way that he like
31:59
took care of that, the like understanding his role too, of
32:03
like if you look, there's one like stat sheet where he's got
32:06
like no points, no anything else, but he's got all the
32:08
rebounds for that night. And then like Allen Iverson, I
32:14
obviously being in Philly area just watching him growing up, he
32:17
was a smaller guy seeing in tear apart teams, you know what I
32:22
mean? Like again, you didn't expect
32:24
somebody that was only 6 foot to.
32:26
Took them off in the other room. I I actually own a pair of
32:29
Iverson shoes, and the reason I bought them is because they're
32:31
also pro wrestling shoes. I got their Iverson 3 swerves.
32:34
I was like, that's just so good. Yeah, Yeah.
32:39
So a lot of so and and you do have been, you have been adding
32:42
a lot of the the Philly aspect to your character.
32:45
You you wear the gritty headband or you're trying to throw in
32:47
like Philly colors or stuff like that.
32:49
So you are throwing that little sports sports reference in
32:52
there. You're almost like a a younger
32:54
Weber Hadfield coming up, You know what I mean?
32:56
Like, you have that, that sports guy steal his mask and come back
33:00
as Weber. Tall Weber, Yeah.
33:02
Tall. That's just fucking hilarious.
33:08
Outside the business. Do do anyone like in your family
33:10
or anything like that you look up to or like that really helped
33:13
you in tough spots? I mean, yeah, like my my parents
33:17
obviously, of course, and even my brother, like, you know, it's
33:21
just fun to have people that are like in your corner and
33:25
supporting you that aren't, you know, some people will have had
33:28
the problem of family that might not want to be involved in that.
33:33
Like, they might think it's it's odd that you're doing wrestling
33:36
where they might think that that's, you know, a waste of
33:39
time, things like that. And I don't ever really feel
33:41
that aspect on on my side of the family.
33:43
It's never been beautiful. I love that for you.
33:45
Stop that. You know what I mean?
33:50
Wow, goals you have set for yourself personally or in the
33:54
industry? So one of my big goals it has
33:59
been to just at least appear on TV in wrestling.
34:04
I mean, I get, you know, people want a match, that's always
34:07
great. But I always feel like even just
34:10
being able to help out at some point anywhere on TV, at A at a
34:14
promotion at a higher scale means I've done something well
34:18
enough that somebody has felt well enough about me to say,
34:22
hey, let's bring him in to do this, you know, thing for us.
34:27
You would be an amazing undersized security guard that
34:30
just gets that like you're part of a, a breakaway or like they
34:35
beat up everybody. You're the last one standing and
34:37
you're like, like, you know what I mean?
34:38
Like Leo Sparrow when Wardlow threw him through the cage, like
34:42
because he at the time he wasn't he, he was tinier at the time.
34:44
He didn't really, he didn't start bulking up as heavy
34:46
because he was in the early stages.
34:48
But when Ward, he was tiny and Wardlow was just like, all
34:50
right, security guy, I'm chucking you like.
34:53
Yeah. Like that'd be great.
34:54
I think you'd fit perfectly for that.
34:56
Some of those extra roles that are needed for TV.
35:00
And then I've I've started to like look through and I mean,
35:03
just being able to travel, of course, seeing new like places.
35:09
I've been putting this one out there now because I really would
35:11
love. Speaking in the distance.
35:13
I would love to work for DDT. OK, I feel like I'd fit.
35:17
I'd fit in pretty good at DDTII. Would hope otherwise.
35:22
I'm not funny enough if I'm not on DDT yet.
35:26
That are have you? Didn't you just do big Kaiju?
35:29
Didn't you say you were part of that?
35:30
Yeah, I found some Kaiju stuff that's been very fun too.
35:33
Just being able to like experience that as well.
35:36
Helps with character. Just getting comfortable being
35:39
able to be ridiculous. Yeah, well, don't you guys do AI
35:43
don't want to pull too much behind the curtain, but don't
35:45
you guys do a drill at catch point where like they'll just
35:47
give you each a random thing that you have to act like?
35:51
There, there has been times where that has happened where
35:53
we've had matches where you're told throughout that match you
35:57
are this specific animal. So it's like somebody will be
36:01
the cat and somebody will be the mouse and that match your your
36:05
move set is going to be based on that.
36:07
Your character work is based on that.
36:09
I love that. I think this is a cool idea.
36:11
Yeah, and I like the, I mean, this is a straying away from the
36:15
match stuff, but we've had like promo stuff where we've had to
36:18
do where it's like you got to remember the sponsor, you got to
36:23
remember the name of the event and you have to remember that
36:25
you know the date because it would be like something longer.
36:28
It would be like. I need that class sometimes.
36:30
Like you know what I do a PPWI get a paper.
36:34
So there's a posters of the show, the whole everywhere.
36:37
So I take the poster off a wall and I write down the next show
36:41
name, the date and all the information.
36:44
So I'm doing the promo. I'm like, and the next month is
36:47
this show and we'll be here this date.
36:49
See you next time. Like I have to cheat.
36:53
So like the drill I remember was was just we gave it the most
36:56
ridiculous name because you had to remember, I think it was
36:59
thewish.com magic genie scramble match and you had to remember
37:03
the date that it in like probably the show, because it's
37:06
like there's always going to be a moment where you're going to
37:08
have one of those like ridiculous things, but you're
37:11
going to have to stay in in your character while doing it.
37:14
You can't just like I'm going to deliver it normally.
37:17
You, you got to be the big bad heel and and say I'm going to be
37:21
in the wish.com scramble. Match some magic genie
37:25
Rent-A-Center 500. What is I love this one?
37:33
This is the newer question I don't get to ask a lot of people
37:35
this one, but what is your favorite and least favorite type
37:38
of fan? So that's I like this one.
37:44
So this, this is probably where I'm going to I'm going to start
37:47
interesting. I'm going to start with my least
37:49
favorite. Love it.
37:51
And I think that's the the fan that will not let themselves
37:55
just enjoy what's going on, I think.
37:58
People to enjoy it sitting on their hands.
38:00
And that we're just the, you know, anybody that feels that,
38:04
you know, let's complain about everything going on in the show.
38:07
You could you could have this great, you know, big stacked
38:10
show that has had perfect matches throughout the night.
38:14
But maybe there's one match that really didn't sit well for you.
38:18
Are you going to complain about the whole show?
38:21
Do you even really need to complain about that one match?
38:24
I think that's just there's no need for it.
38:26
We let's bring some more positive aspects to wrestling
38:29
instead of negative, especially I.
38:31
Think it's a set of different curve too.
38:32
You can't compare what you're seeing at AW and WB and GCW to a
38:38
bar show at a wrestling show, you know what I mean?
38:39
Like you're, you're trying to, we're playing with different
38:42
cards, you know what I mean? And budgets, you know?
38:46
I I just think that that can happen where it's just one of
38:48
those things of if you want to bring more people into
38:52
independent wrestling too, I think that it should also be
38:55
kind of let's keep things a little, you know, positive and
38:58
bringing in new fans, of course. And because if you're telling
39:02
everybody, ah, that show, that show was a stinker.
39:05
Or is anybody going to come to a stinker show?
39:08
Sometimes the worst enemies to a culture could be the people in
39:10
the culture, yeah. Yeah.
39:13
And then for yeah, favorite. So my favorite fan would have to
39:19
be anybody that seems to be just glued to the action, loves
39:27
everything no matter what. Like they they just are, they're
39:31
soaking up everything. Even because I know that I might
39:34
be a smaller guy and I might do some goofy stuff and some people
39:37
don't fully enjoy comedy wrestling.
39:40
It can be, you know, it's can be hit or miss with people.
39:44
So I think having you know, somebody that really enjoys that
39:48
aspect really feels great too. And just finding people to
39:53
interact with. I've noticed a lot more people
39:57
that are on social media that I've been able to interact with
40:00
and talk with that our fans of wrestling that are in the area
40:04
and they've kept up with wrestling.
40:06
And I think that that's the best fan.
40:09
Anybody that's willing to support independent wrestling
40:12
and and keep boosting it is probably the best because
40:16
they're not just saying. Yeah, I'm going to go to a
40:18
couple independent shows like, or even anybody that's willing
40:24
to, to love everything in wrestling.
40:27
If you're willing to support, you know, WWEAWTNA and
40:32
independent wrestling all at the same time, you are the best fan
40:35
because you are, you are keeping wrestling alive.
40:38
You're not. You're not causing any wars of
40:41
wrestling. And if we were to look up that
40:44
in the dictionary, his name is Anthony Fazio.
40:46
That guy, he literally shows up to place.
40:49
I'm like, you are five hours away from the last place I've
40:52
seen you. He's like, I'm here.
40:53
Like he's like, this is my second show today.
40:56
I was actually at another one earlier.
40:57
I'm like, you're a fucking nut and I love you.
41:00
I wish we can clone him. We would all be rich.
41:05
A show full of Anthony's? Yeah.
41:07
It's beautiful. Do you ever, do you ever when
41:09
you look at your character and your, I know this is kind of
41:11
jumping around, but you look at your character and you look at
41:13
like what you try to bring to the table.
41:15
Who who like do you look at when it says like, Oh, I'm going to
41:18
bring this element out of this or the comedy aspect of that.
41:21
Because I remember talking to you a while ago about one of the
41:23
biggest things I told you to tape study or look at is like
41:26
old Mikey Whipwreck. Because Mikey Whipwreck was the
41:28
guy who defined that underdog wrestler or really, really made
41:33
it special. Like like he even hit like that.
41:36
The Whipwreck has like a key. Like I want to go out there and
41:39
pull up Mikey Whip Rec. Like you're going to be the
41:41
underdog, you're going to come back and win.
41:42
Like, have you ever tried to pick his brain or have you met
41:45
him or anything like that or whoever some other wrestlers
41:47
that you look at? So I have met, I met him once.
41:52
This is a fun little story. I so for the school, we kind of,
41:56
you know, we had the seminars during Mania week and I got to
41:59
be able to pick up Jerry Lynn to take the school.
42:02
And of course he's at the table at Wrestle Con.
42:04
We're picking him up with, you know, all the ECW guys.
42:08
So I got to really quickly, you know, talk with Mikey Whitbrack
42:11
about it and explain like, hey, you know, any advice?
42:14
Because I'm a I'm a smaller guy, you know, you know, just, yeah,
42:17
just keep, just keep at it, of course.
42:19
And just obviously, you know, finding your role was one of
42:23
those big things I think that I got to briefly also during
42:29
Mania, talk to Chuck Taylor about because so some people
42:34
don't know this fully, but I have I've been challenging him
42:38
sending out these these matches. This was before he had retired
42:42
and I was fighting his action figure because this was this was
42:46
this like build up. And I remember the thing he had
42:49
told me was like, this is weird, but I appreciate it being weird
42:54
because a lot of newer students don't fully do anything outside
42:59
of, you know, maybe staying in in their role of, OK, I'm going
43:02
to be a wrestler. They're not delving into maybe
43:05
something odd or, or they they haven't fully fleshed out their
43:09
character. I didn't fully flesh mine out
43:11
either. But being an oddball fighting an
43:14
action figure is definitely a little bit different than most,
43:17
you know, new wrestlers go for. So getting advice from him on
43:23
that, just being like, you know, keep keep building your
43:26
character out and just being odd, of course.
43:30
I I love showing highlights to Lily when he used to make kids
43:33
cry he would just pull off on a kid in the crowd.
43:39
Chuck Taylor making kids cry is the best the best thing you can
43:42
look up on the Internet. Yeah.
43:46
Yeah, that's that's another really good one.
43:48
In fact, he's amazing. What are some interests that you
43:52
have of hobbies inside or outside of professional
43:56
wrestling? So I play a lot of video games,
44:00
you know, watch movies, listen to music.
44:02
But I mean, I do some other sports that are loosely
44:06
wrestling related. We've been, we have a baseball
44:09
team in the Doc Ellis League called the Kensington Cafe.
44:14
It is pretty much a. Team of Cried meeting Lily.
44:17
Cried meeting Chuck Taylor. Yeah, she made Chuck.
44:21
She seen Chuck Wheeler and Orange on the same night at
44:23
Labor of Love, and she almost had a heart attack.
44:26
And I was like, act like you've been there before.
44:28
Calm down. I'm going to put my Orange
44:30
outfit on. That's not helping.
44:34
I'm sorry. Go ahead.
44:36
So we have, yeah, we have. There's a baseball team that is
44:39
pretty much all the wrestlers that are in the area and it is
44:45
called the Kensington K Fave. We play in in the area.
44:48
Who's shockingly the best baseball player that we would
44:51
not know about as a professional wrestler?
44:54
I, I want to say, I want to say this, but I feel like you should
44:58
know that this would be the best baseball player slash wrestler
45:01
and it's Weber Hatfield. Yeah, I would.
45:04
I would expect that also. The best hugger in professional
45:07
wrestling. Best hug so little and you get
45:10
such a powerful hug. Yeah, so he's not shocked.
45:16
Who else? Who was a shocking one?
45:17
Like who's like, you watch them playing?
45:19
Like holy shit, they're really good at baseball.
45:23
So I don't have you met it from the from the Dojo Wildflower?
45:29
Yeah. OK, Wildflower is a great
45:31
pitcher, great picture. You just wouldn't expect it
45:35
because I, I all I really know is is wildflowers character.
45:39
So I, you know, didn't fully delve into, Hey, did you play
45:42
any sports? Showed up, played for us,
45:45
pitched and you're like, OK, all right, we've we've got on the
45:49
team. Who's your big hitter?
45:51
Like your big power hitter? So we have, we've got big Calyx,
45:56
of course, on the team. Does he play the mask?
46:00
Because that would be awesome. There have been times, there
46:02
have been times we have Weber on the team.
46:09
There's such a good mix. I mean, like Billy Avery's on
46:11
the team. There's a lot of like people
46:13
that that of course that if you're in the Philly independent
46:16
wrestling area, you'll, you'll know them.
46:17
That's. Awesome.
46:19
And we've just kind of, we just started the team, so we're
46:22
trying to get more because I know there's like games that are
46:24
played on the road. There's some teams that'll come
46:26
from Pittsburgh or Baltimore that'll come to us to play.
46:30
We should get a bunch of fans, like independent wrestling fans,
46:33
to come and watch the team play baseball.
46:35
That'd be super. And we just like bring the
46:37
wrestling crowd to a baseball. You fucked up, you fucked up.
46:44
That would be like the home field advantage.
46:46
Like if if if the wrestling fans show up and were the obnoxious
46:48
wrestling fans at the baseball stadium.
46:53
But yeah, I think I like it just because it's a very, so the Doc
46:56
Ellis league is just a very easy going league too.
46:58
I haven't played baseball in like since I've like T-ball.
47:03
So it's it's fun to not have to worry about like, oh, I'm going
47:06
to play up against like, oh, I used to be AD 3 college athlete,
47:10
you know, team full of, of ringers basically.
47:13
Yeah, yeah. It's like I can, I can play and
47:15
not feel like, oh, I'm going to get like smoked by a 95 mile
47:19
fastball. Now you said video games.
47:23
What are you playing currently? So I got accepted into the the
47:27
skate demo, the the new demo thing, which I think they're
47:31
doing like an early release soon.
47:32
So that's why I was like, that's why I got accepted.
47:34
They're they're like you're at the bottom of our list.
47:36
So we're going to give it to you right before we do the early
47:38
release. Oh my God, I can't wait.
47:39
And that's going to be free to play, right?
47:41
That's not supposed to be like a giant MMO style free to play.
47:45
I cannot wait. From what I've played, I.
47:47
Suck at real skateboarding but the skate games are so much fun.
47:52
I enjoyed playing it just it's it.
47:55
I'd go in and mess around with the settings a little to get it
47:57
like to feel like Skate 3 again. But it's so much fun just being
48:02
able to like finally have a Skate game on PlayStation again.
48:06
Because if you're Xbox, you can just top right on and play Skate
48:10
3. But there's nothing.
48:12
There's nothing close. Compatibility.
48:14
I'm trying. I actually just turned on my
48:17
Xbox for a second because I started playing a game and I
48:20
want to tell you about it because I think it's really,
48:22
really good. It's something South, South
48:26
something it's like it reminds me of an old school Jack and
48:29
Dexter game where it's like just like a collect them, like find
48:32
this and collect and do this and do that.
48:35
But then it's also like, oh, you learn how to double jump and
48:37
then do this jump and then that jump.
48:39
But it's it's called South of midnight.
48:41
So you play like you're like Louisiana, Deep South
48:44
Mississippi. And it's very like Southern lore
48:48
and paranormal and spookiness and this her mom's house gets
48:52
swept away in a in a storm and she has to go save her mom, but
48:56
she ends up finding out she's part of this like supernatural
48:59
being. And there's all these creatures
49:01
and stuff. It's really, really dope.
49:03
But it's a really fun, simple game.
49:05
South of Midnight. That's what I'm playing.
49:08
Have you tried out a Bilatro yet?
49:10
The card game. No, what's?
49:12
What's that? So this is the, this is
49:15
speedball's favorite game. It is the the basically like
49:20
poker Texas hold 'em, but with roguelikes.
49:23
So you you you go against boss battles, you have to do joker
49:27
cards. It's very just like taking the
49:30
basic game of like poker and flipping it on its hand.
49:34
Interesting, I have a look into that one.
49:38
You know, and movie wise, what have you seen anything or
49:40
documentaries or TV shows lately that you would recommend to
49:43
people? I like the new Fantastic Four.
49:46
Really great saw that. Anything new on TV?
49:50
Not yet. I haven't really.
49:52
I don't really keep up too much on TV, as much I like going to
49:55
it's. Hard If you're watching modern
49:57
day wrestling, there's nothing else to watch because you're
49:59
you're consuming wrestling every day of the week.
50:02
Exactly. I mean, and I go back to watch
50:04
some older stuff too. Like I really loved Eastbound
50:07
and Down. Such a funny show, Curb Your
50:13
Enthusiasm. Just a lot of like things that I
50:15
can go back and like finally catch up on.
50:18
Yeah. Because I'm like, oh, I didn't
50:20
watch that when it came out. Let me watch it now.
50:23
I'm doing that with RuPaul's Drag Race.
50:25
I'm watching. OK, there we go.
50:26
I'm watching from Season 1 all the way.
50:28
Through from Season 1 going forward, OK.
50:30
I'm trying to learn more about drag.
50:31
I think it's a awesome art form. It's pro wrestling without
50:34
suplexes. Like it's very pro wrestling.
50:37
It's awesome. So much fun.
50:39
Music wise. Anything you're listening to?
50:41
Any artists that you recommend to people?
50:44
I've been listening to anything that is just on like some
50:48
soundtracks that like some old video game soundtracks, like
50:52
skate stuff. I know that my friends and I
50:55
have started this thing. It's called Music League.
50:59
So you start it with a group of people and then you create
51:01
playlists and then you give like I think they have their own
51:05
generated prompts. So it's like music you listen to
51:08
in middle school. So then you submit songs onto
51:10
this playlist and all your friends are basically
51:13
collaborating in like a game. Because at the end, once you've
51:17
all submitted songs, you vote on which songs were like the best
51:20
ones. I love that.
51:22
That's pretty fun. Yeah, that's been like one of my
51:24
new like things that I've been doing.
51:26
I know we did like the last round was songs from video
51:29
games. So we like, you know, looked
51:30
through and figured out what we were listening to and think
51:34
simple and clean one from Kingdom Hearts.
51:37
OK, so I so here's my problem. I don't remember, I don't know
51:40
like music video game stuff, right?
51:43
Like, I don't, I couldn't tell you that, but when they put like
51:45
a real live song in a video game.
51:47
And we would put those in, too, yeah.
51:49
Yeah. So like the one that stands out
51:51
to me is I think it's Saints Row two or three, but there's a
51:55
scene where you jump off a helicopter into a rooftop party
51:59
and just destroy everybody. But as you're on the copter, all
52:03
here is. Hey, Kanye is.
52:06
Ours playing and everyone jumps in the 21st century like yo this
52:11
is the Best Song Ever for this God.
52:14
Remember when Kanye was not crazy and awesome and made
52:17
amazing music? I always wanted one of those
52:20
fake MAGA hats to say make Kanye normal again and make Kanye
52:23
great again Like bring give me call and drop out Kanye again.
52:29
What a what a. Fucking he's like, he's the Hulk
52:33
Hogan in the music industry, right?
52:34
Like he's the he just broke. Breaks your heart with the way
52:37
they feel about the real world. Yeah.
52:40
I would be maybe spot on with that.
52:42
Yeah, I'm really aging myself. Yes, I'm very old.
52:46
I know I I was there for the first kind of album before he
52:49
was crazy. If you can change something
52:52
about the professional wrestling industry, what would it be?
52:56
That's another great question. I think that finding a variety
53:05
in your wrestling shows, I think that would be the big change.
53:08
I think there are some people that might feel that wrestling
53:11
needs to be always super shoot style serious, you know, and I
53:18
don't think that every show should have that type of match.
53:21
I think there should be a good mix up of maybe comedy.
53:24
There should be a good mix up of like big man versus little man,
53:28
a good mix up of A tag match, a good mix up of how you're
53:32
telling these stories and making your show stand out.
53:36
I mean, there's a lot of great promotions, don't get me wrong.
53:38
But I think that like one of the big things in wrestling in
53:41
general, I think that I would change would be that that just
53:46
mix of variety because it makes it makes everything look
53:50
interesting and it keeps new and old fans interested because then
53:55
they can go, oh, I'm more interested in this type of
53:59
wrestling, but I'm also into this type of wrestling.
54:03
Having everything mixed into one big nice melting pot of
54:06
wrestling. Perfect.
54:09
Is there is there anyone on the scene or that's another style
54:11
comedy wrestler that you would like to work?
54:18
This is such a You're putting me on the spot, now you're putting
54:20
me on the. I have, I have one just by now
54:22
with your longer hair and you kind of, I don't know if I want
54:25
you as a team. I think I write you a team up
54:26
and not wrestle each other. I think you'd be fun, dynamic.
54:29
I think you and the dude would be really funny, dude.
54:32
OK. I think the dude is one of my
54:35
favorite comedy workers right now on the independent wrestling
54:38
scene. I think they're really, really
54:39
good wrestlers, but I also think they just, I, I don't think you
54:43
could have a bad match with him. I think, I think he just works
54:45
so well with everybody. I think used to be like magic
54:49
beans or whatever your team would be like, because he's all
54:51
about like gummies. He's feeding people gummies and
54:54
stuff. But yeah.
54:56
And, and Styles is a really good, really good technical
54:59
wrestler, but also is a great comedy character.
55:02
Stan Styles. Yeah, I'm.
55:05
Just I'm trying to think like I wouldn't consider them fully
55:08
like comedy wrestlers, but they understand humor.
55:10
I think the big one would be CPA.
55:14
Oh my God, he's great. It would be very fun.
55:17
And then just because of our size difference and I feel like
55:20
there's a lot of fun that you can have with that.
55:22
And because we share a name, Ben Bishop.
55:25
OK. I think a match between the Tale
55:28
of Two Bends could be a very fun match.
55:30
Yeah, you and Big Calyx would be a fun match too.
55:35
Like you and Billy Avery versus like Big Calyx and Max 0.
55:40
Like, there we go. Yeah.
55:45
I just think they don't. You don't see tag teams that do
55:48
the big man, little man, who's the other guy that's on the
55:51
scene? I'm really, really sorry.
55:52
I'm forgetting their name, but their whole gimmick is they're
55:55
tiny and they're undersized, but they just fight super hard.
55:57
They wrestled at the Wrestle Wrestle 360 show versus Big Dan.
56:03
They do the whole gimmick where they're tiny.
56:05
Yeah, very good at that character too.
56:07
Like you, you, you kind of give me Sean Henderson vibes too.
56:10
Like used to would be a fun team because you guys have a similar
56:13
underdog fight from behind Won't quit, yeah.
56:18
Yeah, I I like that you said so you I like that you have the
56:22
match up of 22 smaller framed guys against the two larger
56:25
frames. But I've always loved the idea
56:27
of us swapping where I where because I've I've been trying to
56:31
pitch that as me and Big Calyx would be a ridiculous tag team
56:35
just. What if the bit was though, that
56:38
it's like a mixed tags rules where the big guy could only
56:42
fight the little guy. So like you tag big Alex and
56:46
their small guy has to get in. I I thought you said mystery
56:50
wrestling's my favorite. I love.
56:52
Did you see the one where the big the Bigfoot keeps get like
56:55
he keeps going in and out of the ring and Bigfoot can only go
56:57
over the drove by the top, but he's not quite big enough, so he
57:00
ranks his renats every single time.
57:02
So fucking stupid and funny. I can watch that shit all day.
57:06
I love Mr. That's another promotion you should shoot for
57:10
getting a mystery wrestling. You'd be a.
57:11
Good fit for those. Yeah, I've been, I've been
57:14
looking, been looking into it because I know I need to, I need
57:17
to get a passport obviously to get there.
57:20
So just getting that passport ready and then, you know, making
57:24
my pitch, making my pitch of why I should be on Mystery
57:27
Wrestling. Yeah, I think it'd be funny.
57:29
Get that character work done. Words of encouragement for a
57:33
beginner, someone who wants to enter their dreams.
57:35
It doesn't necessarily have to be professional wrestling
57:37
anything in general. I think just if you have a, you
57:43
know, mindset to what you want to do and you have like an idea
57:48
of what you want to do, sticking with that idea and just kind of
57:51
going into it full force. Like don't don't let anybody or
57:56
any outside thing tell you you shouldn't do it because if you
58:00
trust your gut enough to be like, yeah, I feel like this
58:02
would be a fun thing to do or this is something I really want
58:05
to do, Do it. I mean, the best example I can
58:09
give from my own personal experience was being able to
58:12
show up to a bunch of shows and and help out at a bunch of shows
58:16
and just offer any type of help. Got me different spots and
58:22
different things that like I probably wouldn't have gotten at
58:26
six months in. I think just being able to like
58:29
willingly help out and try and find ways to make things work
58:33
really helped me. So I think that's another like
58:37
part of it too would be maybe just like just show up sometimes
58:41
if there's a show that you really feel like you want to be
58:43
able to help out with, just show up, talk to people, you know,
58:47
get get involved with whatever you're doing.
58:52
And I think those things can really help you get what you
58:55
want out of out of the thing that you're doing.
58:58
Because if you don't ask either, I don't think you're going to
59:01
get it. Yeah, I totally agree.
59:03
And you got to, you got to put it out there.
59:05
What are you grateful for and are you currently happy?
59:11
I'm grateful for the the ability to travel, to be able to
59:19
perform, to be able to have people that are interested in my
59:23
stuff. I mean, recently a real rumble,
59:28
somebody had made a sign for me, which is like the very first
59:31
like fan sign I've ever gotten. I have my very first one right
59:34
behind me. Yeah, that kind of stuff.
59:36
I think it just really opens my eyes up and I'm like, oh, OK,
59:41
this is this is happening. This is actually happening.
59:45
It's funny, every single time I'm at Pilgru and I'm walking
59:48
to, let's just say, get my medicine at the at the corner, I
59:52
walk past the pole and see your little Bean sticker.
59:54
Every time I think I put it, you gave it to me during the match
59:58
and I stuck it on the pole and it's still there.
1:00:00
But if I put my own sticker somewhere, someone immediately
1:00:03
rips it down without been. The Bean sticker's been there
1:00:04
for three years downtown. Possible Bean is still alive.
1:00:11
But yeah, I think that like, I'm just grateful, like for those
1:00:14
moments of like people being interested in my stuff or even
1:00:17
people willing to, like, wrestle with me because some people
1:00:20
don't fully commit to those ideas of like being, oh, you're
1:00:24
a smaller guy. So some people don't like the
1:00:26
ideas that you might bring up. I've never ran into that problem
1:00:31
yet where anybody has been like, no, you're too small to be doing
1:00:35
that. Don't do that.
1:00:36
Like I'm very grateful that people trust me enough to work
1:00:40
with them as well. I think that just any of these
1:00:45
big things that I've been able to do really mean a lot.
1:00:48
Even just training means a lot. Like not many people can be able
1:00:51
to say they can go to a wrestling school and and feel
1:00:54
like, all right, I want to keep doing this.
1:00:56
Some people don't fully do it, or maybe they don't keep up with
1:01:00
it. They just don't want it, you
1:01:02
know, they feel like it's not for them.
1:01:04
So I'm very grateful that I still have the mind for it and
1:01:08
want to keep doing it. And to answer that, yes, I am
1:01:12
very happy with what I'm doing. If I wasn't, if I wasn't happy,
1:01:17
I wouldn't be doing it. I'd be I'd be hitting, hitting
1:01:20
the door and staying, staying out the door.
1:01:22
Yeah, well, I'm very proud of you, man.
1:01:24
You've, you've come a long way in such a short time.
1:01:26
You work your ass off. Like I said, you're just I, I, I
1:01:28
generally enjoy seeing you every time I see you at a show.
1:01:31
And I and and I've been promising you this for forever,
1:01:33
but I know my personal life was going through some shit.
1:01:36
So thank you for staying patient and because of your, your, your,
1:01:39
your patient and always expressing interest and you do
1:01:42
all you also have really put me over a lot too.
1:01:45
Like I remember when I, my car broke down and I was going
1:01:47
through a lot of shit. You even said like, hey, man,
1:01:49
this guy helps out a lot. Time to give him back like that.
1:01:52
That shit means a lot, man. And, and, and you've always
1:01:54
shown me that support and gave me that respect and, and that
1:01:56
that's definitely why I wanted you to be the first guy back,
1:01:59
because you've always shown that love to me and it does mean a
1:02:01
lot. So keep doing what you're doing.
1:02:03
I'm very proud of you. You're killing it out there.
1:02:06
Hopefully we get to cross more paths and work more shows
1:02:09
together. Please where can people find and
1:02:11
support you so they can all of my listeners listen to this?
1:02:14
Will go follow you on a on on your social medias and comment.
1:02:17
I just heard you on the ABJ podcast.
1:02:21
So we've got we've got our the twitters, the OR X, whatever
1:02:26
we're calling it now, whatever it is, we've got the bean of PA
1:02:31
that is also the Instagram is the bean of Pai.
1:02:34
Think I I got to start getting into blue sky a little more.
1:02:38
I have Ben the bean. That was the only social media
1:02:41
account I could snag Ben the bean on.
1:02:45
Those are those are like the big the big ones.
1:02:48
If you want to buy shirts, I'm I'm at pro wrestling Tees.
1:02:52
Just look up Ben the bean. I also have on my Instagram on
1:02:57
on there. It's been the
1:02:58
bean.bigcartel.com. That's where you can buy like my
1:03:01
directly printed shirts. So everything I've already
1:03:04
printed out and like ship out myself, always include a little
1:03:08
note with it. Sometimes I'll throw in like a
1:03:09
sticker. I feel like if you're getting it
1:03:12
from me personally, I'll do I'll do you a solid, but pro
1:03:16
wrestling Tees will have some more designs on there right now.
1:03:20
Makowski's do that. If you order from Makowski, he
1:03:22
would put a business card in or write a little note on it.
1:03:24
I thought that was a cool touch, yeah.
1:03:28
And then I guess for shows coming up, the next show that I
1:03:31
I'm I believe I'm seeing you at we will be at the fighter
1:03:37
tainment that is the 29th of August do.
1:03:42
You have any 2 XS? Yeah.
1:03:45
Bring a 2X The Fighter tainment. I got it off you.
1:03:47
I'll buy it off you. Yeah, I'll even I'll even throw
1:03:50
you on my shirt of the day. I've been, I don't know a good
1:03:52
film of these lately. Have you been seeing them?
1:03:54
Yeah, I have. Yeah, pretty fun.
1:03:55
They're pretty. People are enjoying them, Yeah.
1:03:59
So that'll be yeah, that's perfect.
1:04:00
I'll I'll get I'll get you a Bend the Bean shirt put
1:04:04
together, put one to the side. I always do that.
1:04:07
I always talk to some of them like if you need one, let me
1:04:09
know so I can put it to the side.
1:04:10
Get it out of the merch. Yeah, yeah, bring it to fighter
1:04:13
tame and I'll definitely I'll definitely rock it on the on the
1:04:15
pod. But thank you so much.
1:04:17
Thank you so much for your time. Thank you for hanging out.
1:04:20
Thank you everyone for tuning in live.
1:04:22
If you watch this live and you made it this far, please send
1:04:24
up, put a comment, thumbs up. Even if you're watching the
1:04:27
replay later, if you're still listening to this and you're
1:04:29
listening on either Spotify, there is comment sections that
1:04:31
you can put stuff in there. Apple, all of that.
1:04:34
A five star review goes a long way.
1:04:36
The audio side of things has taken a huge dip.
1:04:38
But he also, if you want to watch this, Spotify has the
1:04:40
video as well as YouTube. And so and we're going to be
1:04:44
going live pretty much every day of the week be doing Monday
1:04:46
night raws on Mondays. Tuesdays will be interviews
1:04:49
back, Wednesdays will be Dynamite, Thursdays will be
1:04:52
tornado tag and then Fridays will kind of be up in the air
1:04:55
depending on if there's wrestling paper views or if I'm
1:04:57
not booked, maybe we'll squeeze another episodes or some other
1:05:00
stuff coming. We are doing pre recorded
1:05:02
episodes of Knockholon High School and Knockholon High
1:05:04
School horror. So there's tons and tons of
1:05:06
stuff coming. Just stay patient with me.
1:05:08
It probably all won't be weekly all the time.
1:05:10
Just give me some time to film and put it out there and if you
1:05:13
do see me out in the wild, stop me and let's film A5 question
1:05:15
with ABJ and and if you see me I'm blogging.
1:05:18
Don't make fun of me because I'm still self-conscious about doing
1:05:20
it. But Ben, thank you once again
1:05:23
for hanging out. I'll see you on the the 29th in
1:05:27
Pottsville, PA. You guys can all come out to
1:05:29
fight retainment. It is for a good 'cause we're
1:05:31
raising money for for Cannonball who's who's just recently got
1:05:34
diagnosed with ALS. So please, even if you come buy
1:05:37
a ticket, maybe donate if there's something going on
1:05:40
there, a raffle or whatever it may be, throw some extra cash in
1:05:43
there for, for Cannonball. The guy is, he's going through
1:05:46
it and in this industry, you know, it's not always the most
1:05:50
rewarding or the most paying, but he has a family to take care
1:05:53
of after this all goes down and anything we could do in the rest
1:05:56
of the community to help would be fantastic.
1:05:59
I will say real quick, I think there is going to be a stream
1:06:01
for it. Yeah, has been the bean stream
1:06:05
cuts off our mind cut off. I don't know what's happening.
1:06:09
Oh God, please don't my live. Can you everyone hear me?
1:06:13
Well, anyway, if we're not, we're going to we'll probably
1:06:16
end it here. Well, thank you guys so much for
1:06:18
tuning in. We'll see you on the next time
1:06:21
for ABJ podcast. I don't want to announce it, but
1:06:24
it'll probably be next Tuesday and then I have another one
1:06:27
scheduled for next Sunday. So stay on the loop up for that
1:06:29
and we'll see you on the next one.
1:06:31
We're out of here. I think Ben died.
1:06:32
I don't know what happened to Ben.
1:06:33
Ben, Ben. Ben disappeared on us.
1:06:34
So we'll see you guys next time we're out of here.