Latest / The Christian Reeve Podcast / Jarod Shorrock | The Christian Reeve Podcast #232

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Jarod Shorrock | The Christian Reeve Podcast #232 · The Christian Reeve Podcast

• 0:00
  Hello and welcome to another episode of the Christian Wreath
• 0:03
  Podcast. Today's guest is an actor and a
• 0:07
  huge wrestling fan. So you already know that I'm
• 0:10
  gonna absolutely love this show. His name is Jared Shark.
• 0:13
  Welcome to the show. How you doing man?
• 0:15
  I'm doing all right, man. How are you, man?
• 0:17
  I'm yeah, I'm doing well, man. I'm a little bit tired, but I
• 0:21
  know that this is going to, like, immediately wake me up,
• 0:24
  especially after free coffees as well.
• 0:26
  When we get into it, we start arguing and stuff.
• 0:28
  No, I'm just kidding. So this is an interesting one
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  because on my podcast I've been doing this about three years
• 0:36
  now. There's only been a few people
• 0:37
  I've had on the show that I've actually met in real person,
• 0:40
  either people I've known from a young age or people I met later
• 0:44
  on through online. So for those who don't know, me
• 0:48
  and Jared actually worked on a film together recently.
• 0:52
  So before we get into your acting journey and stuff like
• 0:55
  that, how did you actually find that specific role and what was
• 1:00
  your experience? I'd like to kind of go back and
• 1:02
  forth on and perspectives of that.
• 1:05
  Yeah, of course it was. It was really interesting.
• 1:07
  Obviously my dad was also working on it, and he actually
• 1:11
  brought up that apparently he needed someone to be tied up in
• 1:16
  a chair and pretended to be shot.
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  And so we asked my brother if he wanted to do it.
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  He's the one that does all the all the camera work and stuff I
• 1:22
  easily want into into films. And he said, yeah, he hasn't
• 1:26
  given me a response yet. And I said oh I'll, I'll, I'll
• 1:28
  do it if you want. Like I don't, I don't mind.
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  I've got spare time. Chair apparently was too small
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  for me to fit in. I'm 6/4.
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  So you know, it's going to be a bit difficult to find a chair
• 1:40
  that'll that'll fit in and then be able to fall on safely, but
• 1:46
  essentially. Because I was 6/4, I think Andy
• 1:50
  and my dad kind of came up with this decision to have him be a
• 1:55
  bodyguard of sorts. So they kind of, I don't know if
• 1:58
  they create a whole new character for me or if they kind
• 2:01
  of just brought me in to do that, but.
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  It was a lot of fun. Obviously I didn't have any
• 2:05
  speaking role. It would just kind of be off to
• 2:07
  the side sometimes not even on camera, but I've just got to
• 2:10
  still act and kind of be in the right place for people's heads
• 2:14
  to look towards the. But yeah, it was, it was a lot
• 2:16
  of fun. I really enjoyed the the two
• 2:17
  days that I was, that I was there, really cool and like what
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  would you say was your kind of like maybe take away from that
• 2:23
  experience? Take away from that experience,
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  it was. I think I learned a lot about
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  what it actually means to. Act in something like acting for
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  me has never really been on my radar.
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  I've very much into my wrestling, very much into my
• 2:41
  video games. I'm currently trying to become a
• 2:43
  games designer. At the moment I just this
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  opportunity came up and I thought this would be a really
• 2:50
  cool, fun thing to do. I feel like I learn so much
• 2:54
  about just how. Like stuff works.
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  Like Dad would tell me like, yeah, you're going to do a bunch
• 3:00
  of texts, you can do that. So yeah, that's fine.
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  I could do that, no problem. But also as as the film, they do
• 3:07
  the first take and then it's a complete rerun.
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  Do the second take, do the third take, do the 4th take.
• 3:11
  I'm just thinking mom, you've got to do this on repeat all
• 3:13
  day. This is this is nuts.
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  But yeah, it's it's really good to see kind of like a behind the
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  scenes look of how how everything works was was super
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  interesting, I have to say, my personal experience, those 33
• 3:27
  takeaways, I had four actually. One interesting location.
• 3:34
  So a bit of behind the scenes, yeah.
• 3:36
  So for those who don't know, we we were recording in essentially
• 3:41
  a storage lockup like they'd sort of fashioned into an
• 3:46
  office. One of the people on set
• 3:49
  happened to own it, and I believe he's a musician as well
• 3:52
  as an actor. My dad, my dad's someone that
• 3:54
  owns. That's your dad.
• 3:56
  OK, cool, cool, cool. Yeah, cool guy.
• 3:58
  And yeah, just just interesting, I suppose.
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  Like the use of space, you know, whatever space you're in, you
• 4:06
  can always kind of manipulate it.
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  And you know, for what it's worth, I mean, it's everything's
• 4:11
  filmed pretty much in one space, which is is really cool.
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  And so that was cool. I thought obviously everyone on
• 4:19
  set was really professional. As you know, I'm about 5 years
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  into acting right now and it ranges as far as like the
• 4:28
  opportunities I get. Right now it's split largely
• 4:32
  between voice acting roles and extra stuff.
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  So when I get something like this where it's a short film
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  chance to be on screen, it's like ticks all the boxes and
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  it's really exciting and some of the people I work with on this
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  particular production I've worked with previously, so.
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  The cinematographer, Slash director Giuseppe ABBA is is
• 4:55
  who's amazing. I worked on with him and also
• 4:59
  Dan McGee on a film earlier this year and I'd actually met Dan
• 5:06
  through extras work and he mentioned that he was a
• 5:09
  filmmaker and I was like oh cool.
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  And I I will say just an aside though, like with extras work
• 5:15
  and I covered this in in the previous episode, it has a lot
• 5:18
  of opportunities potentially and it really depends on your
• 5:21
  perspective of what you get out of it and and so on.
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  And for me, one of the biggest things last year was meeting Dan
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  and obviously we finally worked together on something this year.
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  But I never acted alongside him other than the extra stuff,
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  which is largely just, I don't know if you've ever done extra
• 5:38
  stuff. It's just mucking around, you
• 5:41
  know, You know, I mean, sometimes you have to be a bit
• 5:43
  more serious, but a lot of the time you're just in the
• 5:44
  background afterthought, whatever.
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  And we just had fun with it and we cracked jokes and whatnot,
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  but now we were working together.
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  But this was the first opportunity to actually see him
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  act. And he was, I believe, like the
• 5:57
  main character in this particular And yeah, cracking
• 6:03
  actor. Like, really, really.
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  Yeah, really, really, really good actor.
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  It's just I had moments where I'd be stood like it'd just be
• 6:12
  him acting on his own and I'd be stood around the very back and I
• 6:15
  was scared to look at him, just like put him off so that like I
• 6:18
  understood that staring. I mean awe of what he's doing.
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  Like it's it was really cool to just watch him something,
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  something that was really cool about this particular film,
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  which I don't normally pay attention to things like this,
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  but I do when it's with acting. So Dan is a little bit smaller
• 6:36
  than me, I'm a bit taller than him and obviously he's playing a
• 6:39
  boss, right? And his height doesn't really
• 6:42
  matter in the context of the scene, but it does in the sense
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  that I like once I learned, like, okay, this is what my
• 6:51
  character is. He's a guy that, like, owes some
• 6:53
  money. He's nervous, right?
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  I I understood then, like, okay shrunk soldiers, you know, like
• 6:59
  kind of like try to lessen yourself as much as possible,
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  like, reduce yourself down. But you still can't change the
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  size differential. It's there.
• 7:09
  Yeah, of course. But it doesn't really matter.
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  I mean, if you think, for example, Al Pacino and The
• 7:15
  Godfather, I mean, he's a short man, but like you always feel
• 7:19
  that he's powerful and he demands respect, it's that.
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  Presence about him and it's the Dan nailed it.
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  He just had that presence. He had that kind of angry kind
• 7:31
  of sadistic nature in in that and and it was there and it and
• 7:36
  it and it really came through and and it was such a pleasure
• 7:40
  to work alongside him and act him on side him.
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  I actually turned to him at one point and I just said like like
• 7:45
  you're really fucking good, man. Like just really good.
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  And like I could tell it meant a lot to him.
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  I don't know, like, because I think he's sort of focused more,
• 7:53
  I think on like writing and and and directing and stuff.
• 7:56
  And he's been doing this a lot longer than I have, but he's
• 8:00
  really. He's yeah, he's just very good.
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  Yeah. It's good because because the
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  way my character worked, I, like I said, I had died.
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  No lines. I just had to sit off to the
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  side and just kind of essentially be an extra on the
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  on the on the set. And so I just literally got to
• 8:14
  watch all of you just act out. And you were incredible too with
• 8:17
  you, like you were saying when you had a whole shrinking down
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  nervous energy and stuff like that.
• 8:21
  Like you were really, you were really cool.
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  Just kind of, I almost got like a first front row seat into just
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  watching everybody. Do a perfect job on the on the
• 8:28
  show. It was really cool, really
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  interested size differential thing.
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  I know, I'm just giving away a lot right now.
• 8:34
  But yeah, the film's called chalk chips.
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  It'll be out probably, I reckon maybe later this year, maybe
• 8:42
  early next year. Yeah, certainly.
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  I will be plugging it everywhere though, so look out for that
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  chalk chips. But yeah, there was a scene
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  later on where there's another guy, His name escapes me right
• 8:56
  now, but he's a fantastic actor and he's really medicine.
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  And it was just a very simple scene originally the the, the
• 9:04
  actual direction for the scene was very different.
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  Originally it had me, this guy bursting through and then like
• 9:12
  the door would like smack me in the face and I'd be on the floor
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  like cowering or something. And I said this to to Andy, who,
• 9:20
  who was running the whole thing. And he was like, oh, no, no, no.
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  We've changed it up. So like, now you're just passing
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  each other. And I was like, okay.
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  And I was thinking, I can't remember if I I might have
• 9:31
  pitched some ideas. I like that.
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  I like, like a collaborative process.
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  Yeah, like, you know, you got like an idea.
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  Like, well, what if we try it this way?
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  What about this? What do you think?
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  And it was funny because the. I know that How is his name
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  escapes Damian. I think his name is Damian.
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  Right? So Damian, like, knew.
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  Exactly. I didn't.
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  I barely even had to say anything.
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  He was just on the same wave lift as me as like, right, Yeah,
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  just you know what I mean. Like he'll be medicine, he'll
• 10:01
  stand his ground, I just cow around him.
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  But because there's the size differential thing I have to be
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  even more awkward and be like. But it worked perfectly.
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  It was. It was brilliant.
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  Plus there's the and I guess we'll see on the final part of
• 10:16
  how they do this. But because we've got a lot of
• 10:18
  different angles. But I hope that what we see is
• 10:21
  me cower, step back and then boom, there's the reveal.
• 10:27
  Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because he's cracking, man.
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  He really is. But you know, it's funny like
• 10:33
  that specific scene, which sounds so easy.
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  It's just two guys passing each other through a door.
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  Yeah, took ages. Just Oh my God, it's always the
• 10:46
  little things as well. Everything else was really
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  quick, but that like how many? How many takes do we do?
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  I don't even know anymore. I don't even know what would
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  have ever 8-9 times and I just said it was like, what if we
• 10:57
  tried to cover here and it was just like it just wasn't working
• 11:01
  and then we got there in the end, but it was just like
• 11:04
  compared to the scenes. Earlier where we did like maybe
• 11:06
  2-3 takes per thing, that was just a nightmare.
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  And there's actual, there's actual lines in the other takes
• 11:12
  that we're doing too on the other scenes, But with this one,
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  it's just two people passing by, scared and then walk away.
• 11:18
  It's so much longer than anything else we ever did.
• 11:22
  It's bloody typical, isn't it? Let's move on.
• 11:26
  I want to kind of just get a good idea of you in acting.
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  So, like, how did you get into acting?
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  How long you been doing this? Well, I like, like I said
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  before, this is my this is actually my first acting role,
• 11:37
  if you will. This is my introduction into the
• 11:39
  world. Like I said, it's never been on
• 11:42
  my red or as such I've always been into my films and into
• 11:47
  movies and stuff like that. But but yeah, it was my dad that
• 11:51
  was just asking if needed anyone, if I would be willing to
• 11:56
  do. This film that he's making, and
• 12:00
  I said, yeah, sure, absolutely. I've got, like I said, I've got
• 12:01
  the time too. I've got nothing else pondered
• 12:03
  at the moment, so why not? It's my introduction into the
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  world. Do you think you'll keep doing
• 12:09
  it or potentially? It was a lot of fun.
• 12:12
  I'd love to definitely work on some other stuff if I'm
• 12:16
  available to do it. It's not something I'm actively
• 12:19
  pursuing, but it was a lot of fun.
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  It was a lot of fun. Well, Speaking of things that
• 12:23
  you're actively pursuing, you mentioned before it was a games
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  designer, graphic designer, games designer.
• 12:29
  Let's talk about that. Man, where did that dream start?
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  I mean, I've always been interested in video games, ever
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  since I were younger. It's always been every time I
• 12:39
  come on from primary school, it's always immediately on the
• 12:42
  PlayStation, playing whatever whatever games I had at that
• 12:44
  time. Xbox 360, I've had all the
• 12:46
  consoles and I've got my own PC. You know what I mean?
• 12:48
  It's it's always been. Video games in my life, and it
• 12:52
  wasn't until maybe my last year of high school when I was
• 12:56
  deciding A secondary school, if you will, when I was deciding
• 13:01
  what I wanted to do in my future.
• 13:03
  Obviously college is on the way and a friend of mine said that
• 13:06
  he's going to be doing games design, he's going to be
• 13:08
  creating video games at college. And I went, oh, I didn't even
• 13:11
  know that was a. There was an option to do at
• 13:13
  college. I thought it was just, you know,
• 13:15
  some of that you've got to do on the side and there's courses.
• 13:17
  There was a course at Blackburn that I went to.
• 13:19
  I went to Bob and college did that for two years.
• 13:23
  Most focused on the art and design of video games and then
• 13:27
  started university in 2018 doing actual games design.
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  So I've created a bunch of different games during that
• 13:37
  time, obviously with COVID and stuff like that.
• 13:40
  That really derailed a lot of the lucky though that it wasn't
• 13:44
  because I felt bad for the people.
• 13:45
  Like their first year was 2020, because obviously your first
• 13:47
  year would have been, was it 2018 to 2019?
• 13:50
  Yes. And then 2019 when it.
• 13:52
  So it was halfway through my second year that.
• 13:54
  Yeah, that covered it. But that's, you know, OK, I
• 13:57
  don't want to say it's good because it isn't.
• 13:59
  But in a way like at least you got your first year, you got
• 14:01
  your party in, you got a bit of this experience in the second
• 14:04
  year and then obviously once it starts getting a bit more
• 14:06
  serious like degree wise, well. Yeah, I mean, you'd already be
• 14:10
  studying indoors anyway. Yeah.
• 14:13
  So that's it. I'd already learned all the
• 14:14
  stuff that I need to learn. It was then just putting it into
• 14:17
  practice with, right? Yeah.
• 14:18
  The only issue was suddenly became a thing of.
• 14:21
  Well, all the work experience that I meant to be doing over
• 14:24
  the summer in 2020 and 2021 and stuff like that to them prepare
• 14:27
  me for the industry, it just doesn't didn't exist Then COVID
• 14:31
  obviously happened. So we just didn't.
• 14:32
  Never, never happened. So this is interesting.
• 14:35
  OK, so you want to be a games designer.
• 14:37
  I know a little bit about this. I know someone who used to.
• 14:42
  I know someone who's a games designer and he does like indie
• 14:45
  stuff and shout out to Aaron Wise.
• 14:49
  I'll be doing well, buddy. So I think this is an
• 14:54
  interesting conversation because I think back in the day the idea
• 14:57
  of a games designer was like the coolest thing ever.
• 15:00
  And it still is. But you see there's always a lot
• 15:04
  of controversy when it comes to like the big productions, like
• 15:07
  people not getting treated very well or people being overworked,
• 15:10
  stuff like that. I want to kind of get your kind
• 15:12
  of thoughts on that. So there's a couple of questions
• 15:15
  I want to ask with here. Firstly, have you, have you
• 15:19
  thought about this like what your thoughts on that and
• 15:22
  approaching that? And secondly, given that in
• 15:25
  mind, what is your aim? Are you going to go down the
• 15:30
  indie route, which I mean there's a massive, massive,
• 15:34
  there's potential, there's opportunities there, it's
• 15:36
  growing. Or are you more focused on like
• 15:38
  the big bucks working on the big productions?
• 15:40
  Well, that's it. Ever since I was younger.
• 15:43
  It's always been you know Call of Duty, GTA, all that's the
• 15:46
  FIFA, it's always been about the big companies.
• 15:48
  But like I said with the with the way the employees have been
• 15:52
  treated and stuff like that over the years and within the games
• 15:55
  industry, it's it's weird because you can't on one hand
• 15:59
  you can't say no to a job like that like working at a big
• 16:04
  company like that. You know what I mean?
• 16:05
  There's definitely, there's definitely, you know, it has
• 16:08
  its, it has its flaws. But then on the other hand it's
• 16:13
  like I I at this moment in time I just need my first step in the
• 16:17
  door. So obviously my my initial
• 16:19
  thought process is well of course Indies is the immediate
• 16:22
  thing that I need to jump into and I need to get my foot in the
• 16:24
  door somehow. But yeah at this moment in time
• 16:29
  it's it's it's always been a dream to work at A at a big
• 16:32
  company. But I again, like like you said
• 16:35
  with the, with the way the people have been treated, it's
• 16:37
  it's looking less and less. Like the dream.
• 16:40
  But obviously with how big indie games are and indie development
• 16:44
  teams are, it's. Yeah.
• 16:46
  And I don't want to paint it with a negative brush because I
• 16:48
  think that one of the things that blew my mind when I saw my
• 16:52
  friend Aaron's work was just how far indie gaming has come and
• 16:57
  like what's possible to do with it and and everything.
• 17:02
  Like it's it rivals modern gaming.
• 17:04
  Like I think the problem right now is, is there's a lot of
• 17:06
  oversaturation. It's not to say there's not good
• 17:08
  video games out there, because of course there are.
• 17:10
  But there's just so much now, so much choice and abundance of
• 17:15
  everything. And I mean that that is a
• 17:17
  sentence. Sad city doesn't it?
• 17:19
  Is that always too much choice, just like rest, just like
• 17:21
  wrestling. We'll get into that but, and
• 17:24
  sometimes that can be a bad thing and now it depends on your
• 17:27
  perspective. I look at it as the main focus
• 17:32
  is people getting treated properly, people getting paid
• 17:34
  properly. But it does seem, but the shift
• 17:37
  is more towards games designers going into indie stuff because
• 17:40
  it's like, well, you hear these stories, like I mentioned before
• 17:43
  of like people getting treated, treated badly on big productions
• 17:46
  and it's like, well, why would you want to do that?
• 17:48
  Like, I liken it a lot to musicians going down the
• 17:52
  independent songwriters as opposed to going for a big
• 17:54
  contract. Now with what you said before,
• 17:57
  if you get offered something big, you'd probably take it, but
• 18:00
  at the same, but here's the thing, At the same time, I
• 18:04
  imagine games designers don't have to really worry about the
• 18:06
  idea of like signing away things in perpetuity and like people
• 18:10
  owning your ship for the rest of the time.
• 18:12
  It's like, it's, from what I understand, it's much the same
• 18:15
  as acting. It's like project by project,
• 18:17
  you work on this thing, right, for six months a year, you're
• 18:20
  done, you move on. And then that's a credit.
• 18:24
  I don't know. I mean, I think that from an
• 18:26
  enjoyment standpoint, it seems like there's a lot more you
• 18:29
  could do with indie games. There's a lot less pressure
• 18:31
  maybe. But yeah, I don't know.
• 18:35
  I mean, it's an industry that I know very little about.
• 18:37
  And it's, I suppose, yeah, it's exciting to be going into it.
• 18:41
  I mean, what you what you are you.
• 18:43
  Is there anything you're working on now?
• 18:44
  So you finish university, you're actively looking for
• 18:46
  opportunities. You have worked on some stuff
• 18:48
  before. Where we at now?
• 18:51
  Well, at the moment I'm going back to university, actually I'm
• 18:54
  going to do my master's degree. During that course I get to, you
• 19:01
  know, work in some VR tech and kind of create games around
• 19:04
  that. And then also actually release
• 19:07
  again that I'll have an actual, an actual credit for.
• 19:12
  So that can go straight onto the straight onto the CV, onto the
• 19:14
  games design CV. But like I said, it's just
• 19:17
  trying to get my. It's just trying to get my foot
• 19:19
  in the door. It's just trying to get that
• 19:20
  opportunity to say, hey, I am, I am good at what I do.
• 19:23
  I know what I'm what I'm doing. I know what I'm capable of.
• 19:26
  I just need that opportunity and that chance and I'll.
• 19:28
  I'll take it with both hands, man.
• 19:30
  I do. I relate to that right now.
• 19:32
  I feel you like, deeply. It's exactly what I'm looking
• 19:35
  for. Yeah, it really is like that.
• 19:37
  It's like I could do so much. I can give you so much.
• 19:40
  Just give me a chance, please. Just use that one person to look
• 19:44
  at you and go, yeah, you know what?
• 19:45
  That's it. All it is.
• 19:47
  That's one chance, one opportunity.
• 19:49
  Gosh. Oh, my God.
• 19:51
  Well, I listen. I wish you the best of luck with
• 19:53
  that. I'm sure you'll smash it.
• 19:55
  You ever need a voice actor? Give me a shout.
• 19:56
  I'll do it. Do I?
• 19:58
  I got you, man. I go.
• 19:59
  There you go. There you go.
• 20:00
  Let's look at this. What is your take on modern
• 20:05
  wrestling? I think it's the best wrestling
• 20:11
  ever, and that might be a controversial, controversial
• 20:15
  take. Interesting.
• 20:17
  I think wrestling is at its best that it's ever been.
• 20:21
  I said to to a friend the other week, no matter what the
• 20:25
  viewership says, no matter what, I think more people are
• 20:29
  interested in wrestling or watching wrestling at this
• 20:32
  moment in time in comparison to any other.
• 20:34
  You know, you can throw in the attitude error and say that, you
• 20:36
  know, there was 8 million people watching this episode of Raw,
• 20:39
  but I I think that there are more people watching and
• 20:44
  indulging in wrestling than there ever has been.
• 20:46
  In the world, I think wrestling nowadays is, again, like I said,
• 20:51
  the best it's ever been. I think there's definitely
• 20:57
  storylines that you could take from other things and matches
• 21:01
  from from the past that you could take that are better than
• 21:06
  matches these days. But I think as an as an overall
• 21:12
  opinion, oh, I'm back. I'm back.
• 21:15
  Lost you there. Oh no.
• 21:17
  What did that pals on? I don't know, but now I have to
• 21:23
  edit. Fuck sake.
• 21:24
  Oh no, I'm. Sorry, man.
• 21:25
  I'm sorry, God damn it. God damn it.
• 21:30
  Yeah, I think wrestling pretty much is the best it's ever been.
• 21:35
  I think it's more exciting than it ever has been in the history
• 21:40
  of the sport, at least in my whole opinion.
• 21:43
  What is that based on though? Is that based on the in ring
• 21:45
  product? Is that based on in ring?
• 21:49
  Absolutely. In ring 100% story.
• 21:52
  Like I said storyline wise you could definitely take stuff from
• 21:55
  the past and go, well this was this is way better than this
• 21:57
  shit that's going on now. I think I've always been more
• 22:03
  into the in ring work than the storytelling aspect of
• 22:08
  professional restaurant. I think that's why I like a UW
• 22:11
  more than. Justin then.
• 22:13
  I like WWE. Well, all I was going to add to
• 22:21
  that was Okay. You're more focused on the in
• 22:23
  ring product, so you're more kind of into the Flippy Dippy
• 22:27
  shit. You like that Flippy Dippy At
• 22:32
  the end of the day, the sport has progressed a lot physically
• 22:35
  over the last 20 years. That much cannot be denied.
• 22:38
  It's changed. However.
• 22:42
  One thing that I take issue with with the modern wrestling is how
• 22:46
  moves don't have the same meaning as they once did.
• 22:50
  So for example, the Super kick used to be a finishing move, now
• 22:54
  it's just a move that people use endlessly in a match.
• 22:58
  What do you sort of think when it comes to that?
• 23:01
  Because a W is really guilty for this. 100% And does that not
• 23:07
  suck you out of it a little bit? I I always immediately go to
• 23:12
  Jake the Snake Roberts finisher. The DDT.
• 23:16
  Yeah, Jake the Snake Roberts does the DDT is impactful.
• 23:21
  It's his DDT. It's his finisher.
• 23:24
  Shawn Michaels does the sweet chin music.
• 23:26
  That's his finisher. When he hits the Sweet chin
• 23:28
  music is over. It's done.
• 23:31
  Anybody else hits the Sweet chin music?
• 23:33
  Shawn Michaels looking out of it.
• 23:34
  No matter what, it doesn't matter.
• 23:36
  It's just a super kick. It's the same thing with a
• 23:38
  tombstone pile driver. It's the same thing with a with
• 23:41
  a set out pile drive, whatever, whatever move chalk slam.
• 23:44
  If I do a chalk slam or if if you know Hurricane does a chalk
• 23:47
  slam, that's not going to be as impactful as you know undertaker
• 23:50
  a care or big shore or anybody hitting a hitting a chalk slam.
• 23:54
  At least in my in my opinion, I think we have, we have to
• 23:59
  progress with the time. I understand that the Super kick
• 24:03
  analogy of people always hitting it, there's always the the.
• 24:06
  Fucking what's it called? The Canadian destroyer that
• 24:08
  people always fucking hit. I think I'm able to I must, I
• 24:13
  must be able to switch off my brain that much that he just
• 24:16
  doesn't. It doesn't affect me like I got.
• 24:18
  Yeah, well yeah, if Shawn Michaels hit that, the match be
• 24:20
  done. But because it's only Kevin
• 24:23
  Owens, because it's the young books, because it's the you
• 24:25
  saws. Because it's whoever's hitting
• 24:27
  the Super kicker man for me personally, I'm not.
• 24:30
  I'm not. I'm not that bothered, Just
• 24:33
  always sucks me out of it. I like the way you've kind of
• 24:36
  outline that, like it's only impactful from certain
• 24:38
  wrestlers. But I don't know.
• 24:41
  Like when I look at the box and I see them hit like 1000 super
• 24:45
  kicks and like endless just dives through the ropes and
• 24:49
  stuff, Like it feels like nothing means anything at all.
• 24:51
  It feels like you just know that the guys are going to get up and
• 24:54
  look, I'm not just piling on the box.
• 24:56
  There's a lot of guys that do it both in a www.e on the Indies.
• 25:01
  Like they're always bugs me because I feel like when I watch
• 25:05
  a match, say, that has like punk in it or rains in it or
• 25:11
  something like that, things feel more impactful than meaningful.
• 25:14
  They feel like there's more of a story being told in the ring,
• 25:20
  you know? I don't know.
• 25:23
  I just, I I, I see. I see your viewpoint.
• 25:25
  I completely agree with with what you're saying.
• 25:28
  Like I said, I've, I've, I've always been.
• 25:30
  Super interested in it, in ring stuff and the capability is what
• 25:33
  people could you know, luchares. That is something that I love to
• 25:37
  love to watch a rare Mysterio as a kid was one of my favorites.
• 25:40
  It's it's it's always been ingrained in me that the
• 25:43
  acrobatics and the ability to do to do all these super cool moves
• 25:47
  has always just been why I enjoyed wrestling.
• 25:50
  And then the storylines is just that.
• 25:52
  The ice on top. The cherry on top, if you will.
• 25:55
  Fair enough. Sure enough.
• 25:57
  Well, this next question is funny given your previous
• 26:00
  answer. So, but I still ask anyway, what
• 26:02
  is your favorite wrestling era? Oh, this.
• 26:06
  Do you know what? This is going to be even more
• 26:09
  controversial. I might have just said the
• 26:12
  wrestling is at its best now, but for me, the Ruthless
• 26:17
  Aggression era probably my favorite.
• 26:21
  I agree, you know. It's all good.
• 26:25
  I I this is no. I don't know if it's like
• 26:27
  because that's my childhood like that's why I I love it so much.
• 26:31
  But I just I just get to John Cena Randi or and Brock Lesnar.
• 26:35
  Eddie Guerrero. Rob Vandela did the list.
• 26:37
  Just it's. I totally agree with you.
• 26:40
  Like everyone goes on about the Attitude Era and like, yeah, I
• 26:43
  get it. It was exciting, the Monday
• 26:44
  Night Wars and all that. It was outrageous.
• 26:47
  I totally get it. But as a wrestling fan for like
• 26:50
  the most compelling big scale, big feeling matches, I feel like
• 26:55
  the Ruthless Aggression had more of that.
• 26:57
  And don't people don't forget forget this as well.
• 26:59
  Attitude error ended in like 01 kind of it.
• 27:02
  Was it was like 95 to to put all one something like that's the
• 27:07
  thing like ruthless aggression includes those initial years
• 27:10
  01020304 and there was still you know some of the biggest matches
• 27:15
  of all time happened in that time because of ruthless
• 27:18
  aggression's what like especially 02 to 08 something
• 27:22
  like that. But it was like some huge stuff
• 27:27
  happened and it progressed though throughout that time and
• 27:29
  it got only got better and better and better and it's like,
• 27:33
  I feel like it is the better you are really, I don't know, but.
• 27:38
  Like I said, like professional arrested at this time for me is
• 27:42
  better but like like I say it's it's that you can't I don't
• 27:45
  think you can beat. The roof, It's such a weird,
• 27:47
  complicated opinion to have. I just love.
• 27:51
  I love the roof as a questionnaire, especially the
• 27:53
  production value on the we shows to the way Ron felt.
• 27:57
  Completely different. And then obviously you've got
• 27:59
  the 2002 draft that happened, Flare and Vince McMahon on
• 28:04
  either show, that whole feud and stuff like it's.
• 28:09
  I must say, I do think right now is the best time to be a fan
• 28:13
  regardless of whatever the product is right now we have
• 28:18
  streaming services, you can go back and watch old wrestling,
• 28:21
  you can watch new wrestling, look at how many options we
• 28:23
  have. WWEAW New Japan impact you
• 28:31
  you've got a a million different Indies and then I'd like to see
• 28:36
  a different easy in America, England and Japan, etcetera.
• 28:40
  Mexico, there's just so many options.
• 28:46
  It is the best time to be a fan. But it's also I feel like a lot
• 28:50
  of where this tribalism shit comes from is the fact that like
• 28:53
  in a way you kind of do have to choose because this is too much.
• 28:56
  Like if you choose to be. I know how this sounds, but like
• 28:59
  if you choose to watch several brands, like several companies,
• 29:04
  your chances are you're picking to watch specific shows.
• 29:07
  So like when I do TuneIn, I'll typically watch like a W
• 29:12
  Dynamite. I'll skip everything else
• 29:16
  because rampages is pointless. Yeah, I've got off rampage over
• 29:20
  these last few. Like especially when Collision
• 29:21
  came out, I was just like, does literally know?
• 29:23
  But even even with Collision, man, I mean, it felt big because
• 29:26
  punk was on it for a while, but like, now that's died of death
• 29:29
  and now it's like it doesn't really have an identity.
• 29:31
  I guess we'll see what happens in the future, but they don't
• 29:35
  really need that many shows. But then hey, listen, WWE like
• 29:42
  RAW being 3 hours is just too much.
• 29:45
  Yeah, way. Yeah, way too much.
• 29:47
  Two hours I think is perfectly acceptable.
• 29:49
  Hour and a half for a wrestling show.
• 29:51
  Smackdown is a lot easier to digest.
• 29:53
  You've also got NXT which is completely different vibe.
• 29:57
  There used to be like, you know, the cruise away division as
• 29:59
  well, two or Five Live and all that.
• 30:05
  That's just two companies, three shows, two companies, six shows
• 30:10
  a week. If you wanted to keep up with
• 30:12
  everything, pretty much. And that's not including all the
• 30:14
  Do they still do the YouTube stuff?
• 30:17
  Aw, no. They stopped doing that when
• 30:18
  they brought out collision. Interesting.
• 30:22
  They were supposed to move all of that stuff over.
• 30:25
  So that's what Rampage was supposed to become, was supposed
• 30:27
  to come the aw dark of actual TV.
• 30:30
  But it's just not. So how did they end the
• 30:32
  developmental stuff then? Did you ever see the ending of
• 30:35
  that, what it looked like? I pretty much clocked out of AW
• 30:40
  Dark stuff by that point. I think usually it was just kind
• 30:44
  of like squash matches and stuff like that.
• 30:46
  That's why I didn't watch anymore, yeah.
• 30:47
  Throw down Wardlow against some random guy that you've never
• 30:50
  seen before and it's to me, and This is why I think storylines
• 30:54
  are important. I always thought AW, Dark and
• 30:58
  Elevation were pointless because for the most part, because there
• 31:06
  were storylines. There were a few that I even
• 31:08
  watched. Actually, they were pretty cool
• 31:09
  to unfold, but for the most part, as you say, it was squash
• 31:13
  matches and I can't get into wrestling that doesn't have a
• 31:17
  basic storyline. Now I'm not just talking about
• 31:21
  ongoing, I'm also talking about in the ring as well, because you
• 31:24
  can absolutely have one off matches.
• 31:26
  You can have a show where it's just, you know, random
• 31:30
  couplings, but there will always be a tangible story told either
• 31:32
  in the ring or just prior to you know, it's not that difficult to
• 31:36
  tell a story. I think Eric Bischoff one time
• 31:39
  said that there's like 5 rough cut like stories you can tell in
• 31:44
  resting. Obviously there's a ton of
• 31:45
  variations on the theme, but there's like 5 main themes.
• 31:49
  I don't remember what they are. You can Google it, find it
• 31:51
  somewhere, but that was kind of the crux of what you meant.
• 31:54
  And it's true. A lot of it does come down to
• 31:56
  like, good guy, bad guy in a lot of instances.
• 31:58
  Or, you know, if you have title. I want title.
• 32:02
  Yeah. Or like humiliation or or like,
• 32:06
  there's there's got to be some stakes.
• 32:07
  If there's no stakes, I feel like there's no interest to
• 32:10
  watch it. Like when I just see these
• 32:12
  matches, A W does this a lot where they're like, oh, it's a
• 32:15
  dream match. And it's like, OK, yeah, it's
• 32:18
  cool to see these two people together wrestling, but there
• 32:21
  still has to be a stake. You still have to make me care
• 32:25
  as to why these two guys are wrestling, like when Jericho had
• 32:30
  the match with Osprey in London. This is really interesting
• 32:36
  because, and this is this weird thing about wrestling where you
• 32:40
  can be like a good guy in one country and a bad guy in another
• 32:44
  another. I think this kind of started
• 32:45
  with like Bret Hart when in America he was the bad guy and
• 32:49
  then when he go to Canada he was a good guy and he just went with
• 32:53
  it and it it worked weirdly. And I feel like the same
• 32:56
  happened here. Like in going into this feud, as
• 32:59
  I understand, Jericho was the face and Osprey was the heel,
• 33:02
  and the basis of that was Jericho's the A W guy.
• 33:06
  Osprey is like the foreign foreigner Slash.
• 33:09
  He's New Japan, brought in by Don Callas to take out for
• 33:13
  Jericho. Right.
• 33:14
  And Don Callas is a bad guy, right?
• 33:17
  But then A W all in, they switched roles.
• 33:23
  Jericho is a bad guy. Osprey's a hill you'd never.
• 33:27
  And like Don Callas was there. And I I heard people say this
• 33:30
  after the fact, like it was weird having him there because
• 33:33
  he'd been a manager in like an upcoming previous tag match
• 33:38
  where it made sense to have him there.
• 33:40
  But when he walked out with Osprey, I mean look, guys,
• 33:43
  80,000 people, 72,000 people, 72,072 thousand people, 80,000
• 33:49
  in our hearts though 72,000 people screaming.
• 33:54
  It was, it was loud. He was over.
• 33:56
  Osprey is like a big bit. Obviously he's a London lad.
• 34:00
  Oh, England lad. Sorry.
• 34:01
  I think he's from Essex, he's an England boy and he's, he's for
• 34:08
  fantastic. Wrestler Paul Heyman said that
• 34:11
  years ago. Many people have said it over
• 34:13
  the years. One of the best absolutely
• 34:16
  deserves all the recognition in the world and they switched the
• 34:22
  roles. They did something different
• 34:23
  with it. It felt big, but there was still
• 34:25
  stakes. Jericho was an antagonist.
• 34:28
  They did stuff afterwards with him and and Sammy Guerra, like
• 34:32
  there was storyline there. Even during the match, there was
• 34:35
  storyline. Immediately I'd like.
• 34:37
  As we were saying, it's like the the dream match.
• 34:39
  Jeremy Cohen, Osprey were all they've always been destined to
• 34:42
  fire, you know what I mean? It was meant to happen before
• 34:44
  COVID, like 2019 or something. I was meant to happen.
• 34:50
  But then suddenly we'll osprey cut this promo and started
• 34:52
  talking about his steps on that he's taken care of and working
• 34:55
  in Indy the night before. I'm trying to trying to feed my
• 34:58
  family and stuff like that and you're you're in my way.
• 35:00
  I'm going to you. I respect, he said.
• 35:03
  This line was fucking beautiful when he said it.
• 35:06
  But he said something along the lines of, I respect you and
• 35:09
  everything you've done, but I'm going to use that as rocket fuel
• 35:12
  for my future. And then he signed the
• 35:14
  contracts. I went, Oh my God, what a
• 35:16
  fucking, what a, what a brilliant thing to say to build
• 35:19
  to him. I'm using you in order to get a
• 35:22
  bunch of money and make sure that I'm I'm a top star.
• 35:26
  You know I think part of the reason as well why they decided
• 35:29
  to do the old switcheroo as well because I think Jericho is still
• 35:34
  a bad guy Now I think I don't know I'm sticking with it
• 35:39
  somewhere in the middle it's a tweener.
• 35:40
  Tweener was stomach of ours right at the moment.
• 35:44
  So I think he's that promo you're talking about.
• 35:46
  The week before I heard that I remember hearing people cheer
• 35:50
  for osprey. America loves Osprey too.
• 35:52
  Americans love him and they love they also love the fact that we
• 35:55
  have that like dynamic. But they love UK fans because
• 35:58
  they know we're passionate and they also love how you can be
• 36:01
  cheered and come one country and brewed in another, cuz it is
• 36:03
  fun. It is, yeah.
• 36:07
  Same with Soraya, you know, huge in England.
• 36:09
  She's hated in a W She's playing the hill.
• 36:15
  I I think there's something to it but you can't deny people.
• 36:19
  I mean it's like MJF is is loved.
• 36:21
  He was super mega over like Oh my God when I tell you like
• 36:27
  these people were into him like he was so over.
• 36:29
  Like it's impossible for him to be a bad guy right now.
• 36:33
  Like he could do it they could do the switcheroo.
• 36:36
  But the the irony is you just the better they are at being a
• 36:41
  bad guy the more you love them. Because it's it's, yeah.
• 36:45
  The better we'll dive into this. Really.
• 36:48
  Really. But the better rivalry here is
• 36:50
  definitely Adam Cole. Turn it on.
• 36:52
  MJF. Cole becoming the heel?
• 36:55
  Yeah, keep MJF. That's to me.
• 36:58
  To me, MJ, it's always been planted there.
• 37:00
  The MJF is going to eventually turn it on.
• 37:02
  Cole Yeah, I think I I agree with you.
• 37:05
  I think it's more interesting to do that.
• 37:06
  Way more, especially with the whole Rodrick strong thing
• 37:08
  they've got going on. Which, by the way, the best
• 37:10
  character where Rodrick Strong's ever done in his entire career.
• 37:13
  You know another another thing they could do as well, which I
• 37:17
  think would be interesting if you want to bring back factions
• 37:21
  for a bit and do some of that warfare, this is a way to bring
• 37:25
  back pinnacle in a logical way and have them as faces against a
• 37:30
  heel undisputed error. Bring back Kyle O'Reilly when
• 37:33
  he's back from his injury. Yeah, and also Bobby Fish as
• 37:37
  well. 4V four. Yeah, yeah, He's not peed on the
• 37:43
  idea well. I like Listen, listen, Bobby
• 37:45
  Fish is a bad rap. Bobby Fish the rest is a great
• 37:47
  guy. Great.
• 37:48
  I love his in ring work. Deciding to.
• 37:53
  Jump, shift and and try and get Adam called, Carla Riley and
• 37:56
  Roderick Strong all back on an XT and begging Triple X for a
• 37:59
  job back. It was certainly a decision he
• 38:02
  made. Is that What is that?
• 38:04
  Did that actually happen? That's that's supposedly a
• 38:07
  family. He he left a W and tried to get
• 38:11
  Adam Call and Carla Riley to hop back over to an XT.
• 38:14
  Apparently that's the I don't believe.
• 38:18
  So I don't know. That's that's just what I've
• 38:21
  what I've seen. I I just.
• 38:23
  I hate it though because whenever I hear and think of
• 38:27
  Bobby Fish, even though he's brilliant, I can't help but not
• 38:30
  think of that impact thing where he's he's he's like, where's the
• 38:37
  lie? It's just silence.
• 38:41
  I think it's just unfortunate in that specific moment because
• 38:44
  sometimes that happens that you just don't like fans are not
• 38:46
  into something wrong. Just don't work.
• 38:48
  It doesn't connect, yeah, yeah. But it was just like and that
• 38:52
  Twitter just meaned the hell out of it.
• 38:55
  It was just pain I felt for the guy.
• 38:59
  But yeah, there's there's money in that.
• 39:00
  I think MJF is better as a heel. But I think it's worth testing
• 39:08
  the waters with him as a face because look, he's still saying
• 39:11
  bad guy things and he's he's more, he's kind of like playing
• 39:15
  like an Austin kind of good guy where he's still the same guy
• 39:19
  and it makes sense like why would he change?
• 39:21
  He's still MJF, he's still arrogant and stuff, but you love
• 39:24
  him for it and he plays to it, you know?
• 39:27
  And it's that makes sense to me. Yeah, don't change him, but
• 39:31
  maybe allow him to, like, somewhat celebrate the fact that
• 39:36
  everyone loves him. He said it.
• 39:38
  He said it. A promo really like this might
• 39:40
  have been a couple of weeks ago at this point now that he
• 39:42
  started saying it, but he said I'm still a scumbag, but I'm
• 39:45
  your scumbag. And I fucking.
• 39:47
  I fucking well, it's the perfect like you said, it's the perfect
• 39:50
  representation of of Austin as a character.
• 39:52
  It's. I like it.
• 39:54
  Yeah. It's like you love me.
• 39:55
  I'm an asshole and you love me for it.
• 39:56
  And it's like, yeah, we do. And it's like, OK, cool.
• 39:58
  That works. Yeah.
• 40:00
  But he'll be a bad guy again down the line.
• 40:02
  But they should do it at a time where it makes sense.
• 40:04
  And I totally agree with you. I think Cole turning on him is
• 40:08
  is brilliant. Cole is a good, good heel.
• 40:10
  Anyway he can do, he's, he can do anything, that guy.
• 40:15
  And it's natural, yeah. And it'd be interesting to see
• 40:17
  where they go with this to be honest, because they, I felt
• 40:20
  like they would just make do the turn there.
• 40:22
  They chose not to. So but obviously the story is
• 40:26
  still developing. I think it's going to lead to an
• 40:28
  eventual turn. I think that's it'll be everyone
• 40:32
  coming together and then yeah, because you can still do the
• 40:37
  Pinnacle FTI still there, wardlow's still there.
• 40:39
  I think it would be good for everyone involved, as long as it
• 40:44
  leads to something. Please, please.
• 40:48
  Yeah, There's something there, man, for sure.
• 40:50
  For sure. We've spoken quite a lot about
• 40:54
  the two big companies. So I just want to kind of like
• 40:57
  break them down a little bit as far as the future is concerned.
• 41:01
  So since we've been talking about AW, let's talk about them
• 41:03
  first. What do you think the future of
• 41:06
  wrestling will look like for AW? Well, from what I've heard, news
• 41:11
  wise supposedly. People have been saying that,
• 41:15
  aw, we're going to go on to is it still called HBO Max or
• 41:19
  they've changed it to Max. Really.
• 41:22
  Oh yeah. Yeah, they dropped the name,
• 41:24
  didn't they? It's called Max now.
• 41:25
  Yeah, it's stupid stupid, but yeah, supposedly because they
• 41:31
  had the what was that show called?
• 41:34
  Was it All Access? Was that the AW show that the
• 41:36
  backstage behind the scenes show they did?
• 41:40
  They had a behind the scenes show that I think went on to
• 41:42
  Max. And people have been saying that
• 41:45
  they're going to potentially put the show on Max and then also
• 41:48
  run more pay per views throughout the year.
• 41:51
  So I assume using like you know your blood and guts that's
• 41:53
  usually for dynamite you just make that pay-per-view and and
• 41:56
  shit like that. So ultimately I think it's it's
• 42:00
  even with all the drama and all the shit going down in a WI
• 42:03
  think they're still, they're still doing great things over
• 42:05
  there. It's it's clearly shit's working
• 42:08
  it's it's that's what I don't get though.
• 42:11
  Like you're right business wise they're still making big moves.
• 42:16
  But like as an investor looking into this, I mean, I don't know
• 42:22
  I can see money in it here and there, but more in the
• 42:25
  infrastructure, less in the actual content.
• 42:28
  I feel like the content largely is quite underwhelming, you
• 42:34
  know, like overall look at from a from a business perspective,
• 42:37
  right. If you're HBO, HPM, Max, there's
• 42:41
  definitely money and having a wrestling show on your streaming
• 42:46
  service 100%. But aw, I don't know.
• 42:50
  I mean if we're talking dynamite only and pay per views.
• 42:58
  Or no, fuck it. If it was pay Per views only,
• 43:00
  I'd say like maybe you got something there.
• 43:02
  Cuz AW does tend to step it up when it comes to Pay Per views.
• 43:05
  Pay per views. I don't think there's ever been
• 43:08
  a pay-per-view. I've watched of AWS where I've
• 43:10
  felt disappointed. Not even all out.
• 43:13
  I felt like all that was a bit underwhelming.
• 43:15
  All I really enjoyed all that actually.
• 43:17
  I don't think it definitely wasn't my favorite pay-per-view
• 43:21
  of all time, but it's definitely it's definitely.
• 43:23
  A decent. I enjoyed it.
• 43:25
  I just felt like after all in was such a big scale one.
• 43:28
  This one felt like a B tier. It was definitely a bad
• 43:31
  placement for for the next pair a whole week after like the the
• 43:35
  seven world 72,000 attendance. If I were to just then throw
• 43:41
  with a there was some good Mamas in it.
• 43:43
  I really like the mirror Hobbs stuff that he did there with
• 43:48
  with his wife coming back and she thought I was really
• 43:50
  interesting. I actually quite enjoyed the MGF
• 43:54
  call and dark or I know dark or to get a bad Rep these days
• 43:58
  about, you know, them even being on TV.
• 44:00
  But I thought our match was was pretty solid.
• 44:02
  I really, I really enjoyed that. So it's suffice it to say you
• 44:07
  think that like a W is going to stick around like yeah, there's
• 44:11
  clearly like like you said, the content it can be, it can be a
• 44:16
  bit off at times, but I think there's there's, there's hidden
• 44:21
  numbers somewhere. Because clearly, clearly they're
• 44:24
  doing something right like there's there's a certain
• 44:28
  whether it's you know because Tony Collins mentioned before
• 44:31
  the viewership in the UK is. I think he said something like
• 44:34
  three times bigger than I don't trust him on numbers anymore.
• 44:37
  Yeah, Do you know what? You're probably right.
• 44:39
  Let's stop that. There's definitely a number
• 44:46
  there that's clearly staying. Yeah.
• 44:48
  I will add though, WWE inflated numbers and still does to this
• 44:52
  day. It's just, I think the problem
• 44:54
  is we knew that WWE did it. Yeah, right.
• 44:59
  And it's kind of like a running joke at this point but with a W
• 45:03
  Khan has always been like quite like heavy on being accurate
• 45:09
  with facts and statistics that that was a big thing with a W
• 45:13
  from the presentation standpoint.
• 45:14
  He wanted it to be very sports like.
• 45:16
  So for instance, if you watch a W, you see when wrestlers come
• 45:20
  to the ring, it will often state like their win, loss, record
• 45:26
  over the course of the year or entire a W career, something
• 45:29
  like that. He's always been big on that.
• 45:33
  You know, he's obviously involved in Fulham Football Club
• 45:36
  and the Jacksonville Jaguars. Yeah, he's big on numbers, this
• 45:39
  guy, right? And it was always about
• 45:43
  accuracy. So to then report an inaccurate
• 45:47
  number on Twitter. No, okay Twitter.
• 45:52
  But you know, like that's that's mainly where he puts stuff out
• 45:54
  and he's, he's very opinionated. I'm surprised some of the stuff
• 45:58
  he responds to traps back at like sometimes I feel like he,
• 46:02
  his PR team should be like, listen Tony, you don't need to
• 46:05
  stop, stop quipping back at like people on Twitter who've got
• 46:09
  like 10 followers and they're just trying to wind you up.
• 46:11
  Like, you don't owe these people anything.
• 46:13
  You know, it's it's noble. It's cool to speak to the fans,
• 46:16
  and I get that he's a fan, but he's now also a business owner.
• 46:19
  Here's the thing, You're not a fan anymore.
• 46:22
  You're. I mean, you, you can always be a
• 46:24
  wrestling fan, don't get me wrong.
• 46:25
  But you are in the business now. You're going into your fifth
• 46:28
  year of business in the wrestling industry.
• 46:31
  You own the company that's considered largely #2 in the
• 46:34
  world for wrestling, and you've done some big stuff.
• 46:39
  Now's the time to get more serious, I think.
• 46:41
  You know, and it's. I don't know, man.
• 46:44
  I mean, it's, I agree with you. I think they will continue, but
• 46:47
  I think hard times are ahead. I mean, fire and punk is like a
• 46:51
  big part of that. And it'll be interesting to see
• 46:54
  how they move forward. I don't think ultimately it's
• 46:57
  going to lead to them losing, but I do think that they're
• 47:02
  going to, and the numbers don't lie right now.
• 47:03
  They're suffering and they spelled disaster for them.
• 47:08
  A sacrifice. Now, I'm just kidding.
• 47:12
  There's a lot of stuff they need to iron out, but they've got
• 47:15
  some big stars there, but they need to keep hold of them.
• 47:18
  Yeah, MJF the dude is a star. He'd be so good in WWE, like
• 47:26
  he'd be instantly top of the roster, 100%.
• 47:30
  Now we don't know what's in his mind, We don't know what's in
• 47:34
  the mind of other guys in a W but I feel like a lot of them,
• 47:37
  especially XWWE guys, I think a lot of them just see it as like
• 47:41
  this is a payday until maybe one day I'll go back, you know,
• 47:45
  like, I reckon Miro probably feels that way.
• 47:49
  I have a feeling. Yeah, it's like you said, we
• 47:52
  can't ever know what the people are actually thinking.
• 47:56
  I think Ondrada is definitely one of those guys that what
• 47:59
  happened there. I don't get it.
• 48:01
  I don't. I generally don't know is he
• 48:04
  still in the company or is he left he's.
• 48:05
  Still in the company, I'm pretty sure.
• 48:07
  See, this is what blows my mind. You've got people like that on
• 48:09
  the roster, but you just never see them.
• 48:11
  Like, what are they doing? Like, is he, is he just letting
• 48:14
  the contracts, like, I don't know, play out so they can't
• 48:18
  wrestle anywhere else? I don't get it.
• 48:20
  I don't know Well, so he literally he was in that sort of
• 48:24
  wedding collision was. Starting back up again at the Me
• 48:28
  roll, at Thunder rolls, so in Andrade things where there are
• 48:31
  funder Rosamond. I miss her so much.
• 48:33
  I found this just coming back soon about this.
• 48:35
  So fully healed from her injury, at least almost 100%.
• 48:41
  But yeah, they brought Andrade back for collision.
• 48:43
  Gave him a feud against the House of Black for about a
• 48:45
  month. I remember that.
• 48:49
  Yeah, he's just not done anything.
• 48:52
  At least I feel that that was a case of bad presentation.
• 48:55
  They let him talk. He's not a great talker.
• 48:59
  He doesn't need to be. He's an excellent wrestler.
• 49:01
  Give him the mouthpiece. He was brilliant with Zelina
• 49:03
  Vega in in WWE. Oh man, I wish they could get
• 49:07
  her in. Makes no sense, man.
• 49:11
  Makes no sense. What can you do it?
• 49:16
  Future of WWE, I'll add to this as well.
• 49:19
  Before you answer, we mentioned earlier that we get into this,
• 49:22
  so I think maybe consider this as part of the answer.
• 49:25
  So they've just signed, signed a WWE and yeah too much a www.e
• 49:34
  and UFC have now merged under a company called TKO.
• 49:38
  That's the that's the now, yeah. What do you think is the future
• 49:44
  of WWE with that in mind? I mean.
• 49:48
  What else can I say other than there's no way that anything
• 49:50
  could go wrong with They've been going for how?
• 49:53
  Who? What's that big statement?
• 49:55
  It's a big statement, but it's nothing can go wrong.
• 49:58
  I think, I mean ultimately this now, I'm pretty sure they're
• 50:01
  doing a bunch of layoffs at the company with they're doing a
• 50:06
  merger of both the UFC and WE backstage personnel, which is a
• 50:12
  shame. But I think in in terms of in
• 50:16
  terms of business and in the in the rest of the industry I think
• 50:18
  there's there's it's it's like you said it's the biggest
• 50:21
  company in the world it's the WE like there's no I I in my mind I
• 50:25
  don't know how you could fumble a bike that big.
• 50:31
  I agree. I feel like the the the way I
• 50:34
  look at WWE and I don't know maybe other people will say it
• 50:37
  differently. I look at WWE as existing on its
• 50:40
  own planet outside of wrestling. Like it's it is wrestling, but
• 50:44
  it's like it does its own thing and nothing is close to it.
• 50:48
  Like if you compare like a W and New Japan or you know CMML&MLW,
• 50:56
  whatever, like you can find similarities.
• 51:00
  So like if it's a W and New Japan, I think the their love
• 51:02
  for violence and blood is big. For example, in the
• 51:06
  presentation, less so in WWEWWE has this kind of like style,
• 51:12
  which some people feel it's watered down.
• 51:14
  I understand that. I get that sometimes they step
• 51:16
  it up, sometimes not. There's always surprises.
• 51:19
  I give them that. But it does kind of feel like,
• 51:22
  yeah, this is the sports entertainment company,
• 51:25
  everywhere else is for the restaurant.
• 51:30
  So there's that in mind. But then there's also the
• 51:32
  infrastructure, like, you can't deny it, that they have the best
• 51:34
  production, they have the best infrastructure.
• 51:41
  I mean, WrestleMania is the spectacle, isn't it?
• 51:43
  It's the Super Bowl of wrestling like you said.
• 51:46
  So many like you can skip like for nine months of the year WE
• 51:51
  But as soon as Roy Rumble starts and as soon as WrestleMania is
• 51:54
  their business picks, I wouldn't be surprised if business picks
• 51:58
  up for them. Like I said, more people are
• 51:59
  going to be tuning in or it's Rumble season, it's WrestleMania
• 52:01
  season, let's. What do you think about
• 52:04
  crossover between UFC&WWE? Do you think there's going to be
• 52:08
  like a lot of crossover there? You know, because obviously they
• 52:12
  are different, they're not going to be able to, I don't know that
• 52:20
  that that how many opportunities they'll have to do crossover
• 52:22
  because it is different fan bases, one is entertainment and
• 52:27
  one is real based sports. But I don't know what do you
• 52:31
  what do you make of that? Well, I think fan bases is the
• 52:34
  immediate thing like like a completely different ones,
• 52:38
  entertainment ones about real combat sports.
• 52:40
  But I think even just the way that UFC fans think about pro
• 52:48
  wrestling in general, like I know there's definitely some
• 52:50
  crossover there in the in the fan bases, but they don't.
• 52:53
  They don't. Give a shit about wrestling.
• 52:54
  They don't care. Like, no, I want to watch some
• 52:56
  actual people fight each other. Why would I watch this fake
• 52:58
  shit? So I think my my only issue
• 53:01
  would be is that you could potentially do crossover with
• 53:05
  with some people but I don't know how that I'd go over with
• 53:09
  with each of the fan bases. I don't know if you because if
• 53:10
  you try and bring over some UFC guys to the WE to do some some
• 53:15
  promos and some matches. It's just it's one of those
• 53:17
  things where it's like I don't know if I don't know what the
• 53:19
  purpose of it is. I don't know.
• 53:21
  I agree. I think that's the worst thing
• 53:24
  they could do because I feel like it exposes wrestling more,
• 53:29
  which don't get me wrong, everyone knows, but like, I feel
• 53:32
  it undermines what you're trying to achieve in WWE because the
• 53:34
  whole thing is like believability, isn't it?
• 53:37
  And like, yeah, I remember people saying the same thing
• 53:40
  when Leslie came back and they're like, how can we be
• 53:43
  expected to believe anyone can beat him when he's legitimately
• 53:46
  UFC heavyweight champion? And it's a fair point.
• 53:50
  It is. And you know he's he's put over
• 53:53
  guys over the years and it's they did a really good job.
• 53:57
  But I mean if if Rollins and Lesnar were in a legit match,
• 54:02
  Lesnar would eat him. Yeah, yeah, that much.
• 54:06
  No disrespect to Rollins and they'd probably say the same.
• 54:09
  It's yeah, I agree with you. I think I heard someone, I think
• 54:15
  it was that sent him like comments to Eric Bischoff, show
• 54:21
  strictly business. They said there might be some
• 54:25
  opportunities for crossover with the video games.
• 54:27
  I think that's a spot, a shout maybe with UFC5 or maybe you
• 54:36
  could have unlockable wrestlers in the TK series from UFC.
• 54:42
  But again, I mean, that's fantasy.
• 54:45
  That's great. That works.
• 54:48
  I think you could maybe introduce like UFC rules, MMA
• 54:51
  rules, matches, stuff like that. You've got people on the roster
• 54:54
  in WWE that are MMA fires, Lashley, Bobby, Lashley, Matt
• 55:01
  Riddle. There's a few other guys that
• 55:04
  are involved, but like, those are two that come to mind.
• 55:07
  Obviously Ronda Rousey, if she's still there.
• 55:09
  I don't know if she's still there.
• 55:11
  She's left. Actually, I don't know.
• 55:14
  Shana Basler. Yeah.
• 55:16
  So you got people that like do something if they wanted, but
• 55:20
  but then that's the thing. If they're in WWE and then they
• 55:23
  do stuff in UFC or vice versa. It's a bit, yeah, I don't know.
• 55:27
  I feel like it's one or the other.
• 55:28
  Isn't it? Especially if I don't know if
• 55:30
  people even want to be risking going to the to the you know,
• 55:34
  like Shannon Bezer clearly is enjoying wrestling.
• 55:37
  She loves she loves wrestling. I don't know.
• 55:39
  I don't know personally if you want to be different, actually
• 55:41
  actually getting hit and potentially breaking so much
• 55:43
  suddenly you're you're not rested all for.
• 55:46
  For a long period of time. I don't know.
• 55:47
  It's it's a weird. I feel like another aspect to it
• 55:50
  as well is the fact that not only is it more a risk, but the
• 55:53
  preparation is different. Yeah, exactly.
• 55:55
  I mean, all right, granted, when Punk did it, like, I don't know,
• 55:58
  I always bring up. Here we go again.
• 56:00
  You have to train for a long time to do it.
• 56:06
  I think he trained for like about half a year and a half.
• 56:08
  And granted, he's older, but like, you know, it's not
• 56:11
  something you could just do. Yeah, yeah, I give.
• 56:14
  Shana Basil was like, all right, I'm going to do some MMA now.
• 56:17
  She'd have to like take six months to 8 months off build up
• 56:20
  for a fight or something. I don't know.
• 56:21
  She wouldn't be able to wrestle, that's for sure.
• 56:24
  No, of course not. No.
• 56:26
  That's the risk that's involved in it too.
• 56:27
  You don't want to end up parenting yourself in the ring
• 56:30
  and suddenly it's you can't do the thing that you want to that
• 56:33
  you want to do. Do you think ultimately this
• 56:36
  merger with USA will be good for WWE?
• 56:42
  Now, I'm not a businessman, sure, but I I there's got to be
• 56:47
  somewhat there. That's like you don't sign the
• 56:50
  dotted line unless there's a reason to sign that dotted line
• 56:53
  Money, that's why. Yeah, exactly.
• 56:55
  That's why they did it. 9 billion I think Vince walks away
• 56:59
  with. Jesus, Yeah, I guess it just
• 57:03
  depends on how they what they do with the with the merger, how.
• 57:09
  Maybe not take advantage but what do they what do they choose
• 57:12
  to do when they I don't know maybe maybe maybe it will be
• 57:16
  good for business for for the WE.
• 57:19
  But again, it's been a company for so fucking long now that
• 57:22
  back I said before, I think it's a big bag to fumble, if you.
• 57:27
  Fair enough, man. I get you.
• 57:28
  Thanks for that, right? A bunch of random wrestling
• 57:31
  questions for you. Totally unrelated.
• 57:33
  Just random. In your opinion, why should
• 57:37
  people watch wrestling? So many different ways to get
• 57:44
  into wrestling, not even in just wrestling styles, but also kind
• 57:49
  of you know how like storytelling and promos and
• 57:54
  stuff. Like, there's so many, there's
• 57:55
  so many different avenues into why people become wrestling
• 57:58
  fans. And I think like, again, there's
• 58:00
  so many different companies, so many different tastes, so many
• 58:03
  different things that people want to watch that it's just.
• 58:06
  And again, it's like, it's like going to the theater, like
• 58:08
  there's just so there's so much shit that you can you can enjoy
• 58:11
  about pro wrestling that why? Why not just give it a chance?
• 58:14
  You know what I mean? I remember I went to an episode
• 58:18
  of Smackdown in 2017 and show in the UK, Manchester.
• 58:25
  It was the episode where AJ Styles beat Jinder Mahal for the
• 58:28
  WWE title the first time you saw that.
• 58:31
  The first time the WB title changed hands on UK soil, that
• 58:36
  must have been huge. Man it was.
• 58:38
  It was great. And it stopped Brock Clester
• 58:41
  versus Ginder Mahal happening at Survivors.
• 58:43
  So, but yeah, we watched that. It was me and my brother who
• 58:49
  were the wrestling fans. And then my mom took us to go
• 58:52
  watch it. And like, you know, my mom was
• 58:56
  just on her phone the whole time taking pictures of other spots
• 58:58
  for enjoying the show. And then like we mentioned
• 59:01
  before, two or five lives pops up afterwards and suddenly the
• 59:06
  fucking Khalid stalls, jumping around doing all these flips and
• 59:09
  stuff like that. My mom turns to me and she goes,
• 59:10
  why didn't they put this on at the start?
• 59:12
  Like, this is this is great. I was like, oh, you're enjoying
• 59:15
  you're enjoying wrestling. Well, you've been on your phone
• 59:19
  for the last two fucking hours. What do you mean you're
• 59:21
  enjoying? Yeah.
• 59:21
  Suddenly it was just all these acrobatics were happening and.
• 59:25
  She was suddenly invested. She was into it.
• 59:27
  And then suddenly, if you just hook them in with a fucking
• 59:30
  storyline too, and characters that you enjoy, all of a sudden
• 59:34
  it's a REST fan. Yeah, I mean, that's that's what
• 59:37
  I say to a lot of people. Like any if you just can get
• 59:42
  past the fact that it's choreographed, there is a lot of
• 59:46
  entertainment value in it, for sure.
• 59:48
  And on many levels. Absolutely, Yeah, I might as
• 59:54
  well just share with you as well.
• 59:55
  Like my experiences so obviously all in, but prior to that I saw
• 59:59
  WWE Smackdown in like 05 or 06 I believe in London.
• 1:00:07
  I the only thing I can remember was Kurt Angle being thrown
• 1:00:11
  through a table by Mark Henry announces.
• 1:00:16
  Table, I think. Cool.
• 1:00:18
  I've never been able to find the episode.
• 1:00:19
  I don't know if it happened on air or afterwards, but I
• 1:00:21
  remember that. So that was, that's that's a
• 1:00:23
  cool little memory. That's cool.
• 1:00:26
  I also saw, like, wrestling in like a tiny theater, right.
• 1:00:34
  And like, you know, I was like, oh, these guys, you know, this
• 1:00:37
  is interesting, I suppose. I don't know.
• 1:00:38
  I was young, I was a kid. But then who should I see in the
• 1:00:43
  ring? Gangrel.
• 1:00:46
  Oh. Shit was there.
• 1:00:48
  Yeah. This was like early, late two,
• 1:00:52
  late 2000s, I think. Gangrel in the ring.
• 1:00:55
  And he was amazing. Still.
• 1:00:57
  Still Just got it. Got it.
• 1:00:59
  That's so sick. I was.
• 1:01:01
  I was like, I couldn't believe it.
• 1:01:02
  I was like, that's Gangrel. I used to.
• 1:01:05
  I grew up watching him. I played him in video games.
• 1:01:07
  What the hell, Vampire. Vampire.
• 1:01:10
  Couldn't believe it. Oh my God.
• 1:01:11
  He was so good, so sick. Yeah.
• 1:01:14
  Have you seen any other shows in, in addition to that one, I
• 1:01:17
  have not seen any wrestling shows live in in that capacity.
• 1:01:22
  I was going to go to all in this year but I wasn't able to get my
• 1:01:26
  financial situation. So it's the tricky 1.
• 1:01:29
  So I I was unable to go, but while I'm planning on going on
• 1:01:34
  going next year or seeing if there's any other shows popping
• 1:01:37
  up from from time to time. There's always shows that going
• 1:01:40
  on, but yeah, that's another point is why do you think?
• 1:01:42
  A W Lin's 2 #2 is going to be any good.
• 1:01:46
  I think it's going to be if it's.
• 1:01:48
  If it's if it's if it's if it's essentially going to be at least
• 1:01:52
  what I think that your version of WrestleMania essentially, you
• 1:01:56
  know, you go into this massive stadium and show that, I don't
• 1:01:58
  think, I don't think. I mean, that's interesting to
• 1:02:02
  me. If.
• 1:02:03
  If they don't, you think that's interesting?
• 1:02:06
  OK, so WWE is like. Based in in America, right?
• 1:02:12
  And they've always done WrestleMania in America and
• 1:02:14
  there's been talks about bringing it to England and
• 1:02:16
  stuff. Who knows?
• 1:02:17
  But like, I feel like the most people probably ever get some of
• 1:02:20
  the big papers. Maybe we'll get like a Royal
• 1:02:22
  Rumble or something, right? We got, we got money in the bank
• 1:02:24
  this year. Cares, man.
• 1:02:26
  Come on. Right.
• 1:02:27
  Yes, fine. But we want the big ones.
• 1:02:30
  Imagine Royal Rumble in London. That would be insane.
• 1:02:34
  Imagine that, Wembley. Fuck me.
• 1:02:37
  That would be absolutely mental that yeah there's there's money
• 1:02:40
  there but I don't know like I feel like if you're going to do
• 1:02:44
  Wrestle Mania internationally or or you know a W all in Internet
• 1:02:49
  you need to go country by country That's that's what I I'm
• 1:02:52
  completely in agreement. Yeah, one year.
• 1:02:53
  London, one year, Australia one year.
• 1:02:57
  I don't know. Japan like just just, you know,
• 1:03:00
  mix it up and I don't know. It to me it feels weird to have
• 1:03:05
  your version of WrestleMania, your main show, in a foreign
• 1:03:10
  country to your company. Like, don't don't get me wrong,
• 1:03:13
  like I love, obviously as an English fan, I love to have it
• 1:03:15
  here, brilliant, like, But I that to me feels weird like WWE
• 1:03:20
  coming to London to do WrestleMania, to me is the
• 1:03:24
  beginning of a new business venture.
• 1:03:26
  It's like, OK, we're going to do WrestleMania internationally
• 1:03:29
  now. Now it's an international thing.
• 1:03:31
  They'll still come back to the States, but like it will, it
• 1:03:34
  will vary and it will start the beginning of the next 10-15
• 1:03:38
  years of business. That's the way I see that.
• 1:03:40
  And that would make sense because we've been building to
• 1:03:42
  that and they've been testing the waters over the years.
• 1:03:44
  But with a W establishing this now and then saying, oh, we're
• 1:03:47
  the biggest in in England and like they're fighting for that.
• 1:03:51
  It's like okay, I get it, but it just feels because they've not
• 1:03:55
  done anything like that on that scale in in America.
• 1:03:58
  So I feel like it alienates their American fans in a way.
• 1:04:02
  Yeah, yeah. I don't know.
• 1:04:03
  Maybe, maybe not. Maybe I'm just finding stuff
• 1:04:09
  where there is nothing. I don't know.
• 1:04:13
  What do you say to the question? Is wrestling fake?
• 1:04:17
  Why are you still watching it? My my mind?
• 1:04:23
  I don't know if you've ever seen the interview, but my mind
• 1:04:27
  instantly goes to what's he called this one of those late
• 1:04:32
  night talk shows, and it had it had Roddy Piper on it and his
• 1:04:39
  and his whole the the the horse. His whole thing was, well,
• 1:04:42
  wrestling's fake, Wrestling's fake.
• 1:04:43
  He was talking to Roddy Piper about it.
• 1:04:45
  And Roddy Piper immediately stands up from the from the
• 1:04:50
  chair, begins to unbuckle his belt, pulls down part of his
• 1:04:54
  pants and shows his hip and it's like this huge bruise on it
• 1:04:58
  there. And he goes, is this, this is,
• 1:04:59
  is this fake? This is, this is this.
• 1:05:01
  I've had to get surgery on this hip.
• 1:05:03
  I've had broken bones all over that.
• 1:05:04
  And that that was his, that was his immediate.
• 1:05:07
  He just immediately stood up, dropped his pants and said no,
• 1:05:10
  wrestling isn't fake. And I think that's immediately
• 1:05:12
  where where my mind goes anytime I hear the question of, you
• 1:05:15
  know, wrestling is fake. And it's like, well, it's.
• 1:05:17
  This is, this is the thing I don't get as well.
• 1:05:19
  Like, why are people so fixated on the fact that it's?
• 1:05:25
  Choreographed, or the fact that it's it's not like a legit sport
• 1:05:28
  like, you know, like why? Why?
• 1:05:30
  Like when you tell people it's entertainment, they just can't
• 1:05:34
  get their head past that. Well, why would you want to
• 1:05:36
  watch it? And you're like, well, to me,
• 1:05:37
  it's no different than watching a movie.
• 1:05:39
  I was just going to yeah, sorry to sorry to tell you guys, but
• 1:05:41
  Breaking Bad is fake. I'm sorry to reveal.
• 1:05:43
  This right? Do you know what I mean?
• 1:05:44
  Like like Arnold Schwarzenegger is not really the Terminator.
• 1:05:49
  Just sorry man. Like, so it's still on that
• 1:05:52
  didn't actually fight in the war and go into the jungle and you?
• 1:05:55
  Right. Yeah.
• 1:05:56
  It's it's a Rambo. It's not real.
• 1:05:58
  So you're an idiot for for thinking it's real.
• 1:06:00
  Like, I don't know. Like to me, I mean, don't get me
• 1:06:04
  wrong. There's a lot that's weird about
• 1:06:05
  wrestling in the sense that like, OK, so there's this world,
• 1:06:10
  it's like a reality they live in, right?
• 1:06:12
  If you look at it like that, right.
• 1:06:14
  But then. That whole thing I like, K Fade,
• 1:06:17
  doesn't really exist anymore. But some people play to it, Some
• 1:06:19
  people don't. On Twitter, you'll follow
• 1:06:21
  someone and like, one minute they're like, oh, screw you a
• 1:06:25
  lot, I hate you all. And the next minute it's like
• 1:06:27
  they're posting about some charity they donate to.
• 1:06:29
  And it's like, I don't really get it, you know?
• 1:06:32
  I don't stand. Some guys take it seriously.
• 1:06:35
  Some people don't. That's confusing.
• 1:06:39
  I'll admit that I agree with that.
• 1:06:41
  I agree with you on that one. But when it comes to just what
• 1:06:44
  wrestling is like, no, it's not fake.
• 1:06:46
  I mean, the fact that they have to get multiple surgeries a year
• 1:06:49
  and people die young in this business from injuries, from
• 1:06:53
  sicknesses, etcetera, I don't see how you could ever call it
• 1:06:56
  fake. I feel like predetermined is a
• 1:07:02
  good word. Maybe I feel like it's a slap in
• 1:07:04
  the face to all the wrestlers that have spent years of their
• 1:07:07
  time honing this craft trying to.
• 1:07:10
  But here's another thing as well that I don't really hear enough
• 1:07:13
  people talk about. As a professional wrestler, you
• 1:07:16
  have to essentially be a method actor 24/7 very much, do you?
• 1:07:21
  Know what I mean? You got to be excellent in the
• 1:07:23
  ring. You've got to be able to talk
• 1:07:25
  really well, you have to have good body language, and you have
• 1:07:28
  to be a convincing actor. Like, that's really fucking hard
• 1:07:32
  to do all of that. Like how do you know what I
• 1:07:35
  mean? Like there must be someone else
• 1:07:37
  other than yourself. That's the thing a lot of those
• 1:07:39
  guys in that industry, like, I mean people that surprised when
• 1:07:43
  you see like wrestlers become actors afterwards.
• 1:07:45
  It's like, it's not really that surprising, really.
• 1:07:47
  I mean, they spent the better part, 2030 odd years pretending
• 1:07:51
  to be these different people. So is it really that?
• 1:07:56
  Do you know what I mean? Like Dave Bautista.
• 1:07:59
  Brilliant. Yeah, amazing.
• 1:08:03
  And they've all done it. They've all, you know, whatever
• 1:08:07
  you think of The Rock and John Cena, like the end of the day,
• 1:08:09
  they've made successes of themselves in the acting
• 1:08:11
  industry. And I can see why.
• 1:08:13
  They have charisma. They got it.
• 1:08:14
  They've got what you need. Rest is don't get nearly enough
• 1:08:18
  credit when it comes to that. And it pains me to see that
• 1:08:20
  because they bust their asses and there's so much you don't
• 1:08:23
  see behind the closed doors, but people.
• 1:08:27
  I made fun of it and I I get it. There's always going to be
• 1:08:29
  people that make fun of it. I remember when I was a kid and
• 1:08:32
  people found out that it wasn't real and people would mock me
• 1:08:36
  for still being into it. They're like, oh, why would you
• 1:08:38
  still watch it? And I'm like, because it's fun,
• 1:08:40
  because it's good, it's interesting, it's entertaining,
• 1:08:43
  It's it never stopped being fun for me.
• 1:08:46
  Like, if anything, the more I learned about the business, the
• 1:08:48
  more interested I got. Like.
• 1:08:50
  When I started looking into the history of the business and how
• 1:08:53
  far back it goes, I mean this is the thing people don't know this
• 1:08:56
  wrestling comes from the carnival and it goes back as far
• 1:09:00
  as like the late 1800s, early 1900s, something like that.
• 1:09:06
  It used to be a traveling circus thing where you'd have a guy
• 1:09:10
  who'd be like world champion or self-proclaimed world champion
• 1:09:13
  and maybe you have like. A local guy, usually a plant
• 1:09:16
  like a local guy, would come and challenge the champion and most
• 1:09:20
  of the time they'd lose. Sometimes they'd win.
• 1:09:22
  People might make bets on who's going to win, and largely it was
• 1:09:26
  just a strongman thing. Few slams, I'm the champion.
• 1:09:29
  But there was something there. They built something there.
• 1:09:33
  And then eventually it it slowly became its own thing.
• 1:09:36
  People slowly started to get into the idea of, oh, this
• 1:09:39
  wrestling thing, this is interesting, then it.
• 1:09:41
  Then they started building it into something.
• 1:09:46
  That people would pay money to see.
• 1:09:47
  And of course, for many years people didn't know that
• 1:09:50
  wrestling was predetermined and they used that to their
• 1:09:52
  advantage and did a lot of business with that.
• 1:09:57
  And then eventually people start to learn that it's predetermined
• 1:09:59
  but like, it didn't really defect the business at all.
• 1:10:04
  You know what people in the 90s like were saying like, Oh my
• 1:10:07
  God, Vince has ruined the the industry for everyone.
• 1:10:09
  It's like people knew that wrestling wasn't.
• 1:10:11
  Legit for many, many decades they were.
• 1:10:14
  There were news articles in like the 40s, fifties about this
• 1:10:17
  trying to expose the business. You know, Jim Cornett's really
• 1:10:21
  good for this, like being historian.
• 1:10:22
  There's a few other people that are good to historians for this
• 1:10:25
  stuff. Interesting business.
• 1:10:29
  Lots to say, lots to delve into. I think people need to educate
• 1:10:33
  themselves better to really gain a full understanding of what
• 1:10:36
  wrestling actually is. It's not just a few seconds of
• 1:10:39
  city shit it can be. Don't get me wrong, there's
• 1:10:42
  plenty of stuff I can't defend and wouldn't try to, but there's
• 1:10:47
  a lot I will defend because I think wrestlers bust their
• 1:10:50
  asses. They work hard.
• 1:10:51
  They deserve respect. They they really.
• 1:10:55
  Give their lives to the business.
• 1:10:57
  Some people like Eddie Guerrero gave their life to the business
• 1:11:01
  and they've created a legacy that will last forever because
• 1:11:04
  of what they sacrificed and gave.
• 1:11:07
  And like you know, couple of final questions for you related
• 1:11:12
  to wrestling. Who are your current favorite
• 1:11:16
  wrestlers? I knew you were going to ask for
• 1:11:18
  this fucking question. Okay.
• 1:11:22
  So are we. So are we talking about at this
• 1:11:24
  moment in time, people that are arresting right now, Okay.
• 1:11:26
  So MJF is immediately on that list and it's just everything
• 1:11:31
  about him, man. He's just.
• 1:11:32
  So, again, going back to the Cafeb conversation, he's so good
• 1:11:38
  at being able to maintain that character, but also being able
• 1:11:43
  to blur the lines of what's actually real and what's fake.
• 1:11:47
  Like at this I feel like he's the only or at least from what I
• 1:11:50
  know of the only guy that I know of that where I actually
• 1:11:54
  sometimes look and go, where are you?
• 1:11:56
  Are you being the chit there? Is that actually, is that
• 1:11:59
  actually your opinion Like what? I don't know.
• 1:12:01
  Like I think that's that's what's been missing up for a
• 1:12:05
  long while within the rest of this someone like him.
• 1:12:07
  So it's I'm glad that there is now MJF in this, in this, in
• 1:12:12
  this business. It's really really cool thing.
• 1:12:15
  Anyone else particularly stands out.
• 1:12:18
  I think. I mean I've got to.
• 1:12:20
  I've got to give a shout to fucking can also get to Keshta.
• 1:12:25
  I know it's a bit of a rogue shout, but I think his he's.
• 1:12:29
  Got he makes rest some waves. He's rested ability.
• 1:12:32
  He's just fucking unbelievable. Supposedly.
• 1:12:36
  Well, I'll say supposedly during his time at I guess the
• 1:12:42
  university in Japan, he did a whole thesis on the physics of a
• 1:12:48
  German suplex. And I think from that day on I
• 1:12:52
  immediately fell in love with. It's a person.
• 1:12:55
  He did a whole like a hypothesis on how a German suplex where
• 1:12:59
  it's the physics of the whole thing.
• 1:13:00
  And as soon as as soon as my mate told me about that, I was
• 1:13:02
  like, I fucking love this guy. This guy's great.
• 1:13:06
  I remember years ago someone telling me that like someone did
• 1:13:09
  their thesis on like. Wrestling terms like a wrestling
• 1:13:14
  dictionary, which I thought was that's genius.
• 1:13:18
  That's really cool. For those who don't know,
• 1:13:20
  obviously I mentioned that wrestling comes from the
• 1:13:22
  carnival and there's all these different terms that exist
• 1:13:25
  within wrestling that people don't know.
• 1:13:28
  Like we mentioned, the word mark work.
• 1:13:31
  Mark is like a classic carnival term.
• 1:13:35
  Which used to be, I mean, still using a negative context, but it
• 1:13:38
  means something different now. But basically back in the day,
• 1:13:40
  what it meant was when you had someone that you had considered
• 1:13:44
  you put a mark on, that meant that's someone that you're going
• 1:13:47
  to try and like screw over. Basically.
• 1:13:49
  Like they're a mark. They're, you know, we're going
• 1:13:51
  to pull them in with this dodgy car game that we got, dodgy
• 1:13:57
  duck. You know, like like you know
• 1:13:58
  that you know the fix the carnival games that we know are
• 1:14:01
  a fix, right? That was where that term
• 1:14:04
  originated. For now, in modern wrestling,
• 1:14:06
  Mark means like someone who, I guess takes the business too
• 1:14:13
  seriously. Or is it always like too?
• 1:14:16
  It's it's like someone that thinks more about the business
• 1:14:19
  than. Well, I I don't know.
• 1:14:22
  I mean, well, that's a smart mark.
• 1:14:23
  That's someone. Yeah, you're right.
• 1:14:25
  Yeah. You're right.
• 1:14:25
  But but it's like being overly enthusiastic about things to the
• 1:14:31
  point of like. It's too far.
• 1:14:34
  But you know, I I agree with you.
• 1:14:35
  I think that well, it's very easy for us two fans to sit here
• 1:14:40
  and and know about the business. Everyone, everyone knows about
• 1:14:42
  the business. But now there's like this
• 1:14:44
  hierarchy within that. I I agree with the wrestlers.
• 1:14:48
  I think it's dumb as fuck. Like tribalism, seeing people
• 1:14:52
  attack each other attack wrestlers attack each other for
• 1:14:54
  what they like. And like all I know more than
• 1:14:57
  you. I know this.
• 1:14:57
  I know that. Like, who gives a fuck?
• 1:14:59
  Yeah, Why? Why are we bothering about
• 1:15:02
  whether? This company's better.
• 1:15:03
  This company like it just none of it matters.
• 1:15:06
  Yeah, and like like people clamoring over, like the
• 1:15:09
  knowledge they have from behind the scenes stuff even though
• 1:15:11
  they they get fed bullshit. At the end of the day, unless
• 1:15:17
  you were there in the room, you don't know.
• 1:15:20
  Like everything I mentioned earlier about the C and punk
• 1:15:23
  stuff and everything in A W, you heard me use the words allegedly
• 1:15:26
  and. I think this is the case.
• 1:15:28
  I don't know. This is my impression because I
• 1:15:30
  don't know. I don't know these people in
• 1:15:32
  real life. I don't know what happened and
• 1:15:34
  none of us do. And it's just and we and we know
• 1:15:38
  that there are people that we call them in the wrestling
• 1:15:40
  industry, the stooges, people that like give over information
• 1:15:44
  to the press who then report on said information.
• 1:15:47
  But like, we know that these people feed them false
• 1:15:51
  information to create false narratives or to.
• 1:15:55
  Put out the stories that they want to put out or support the
• 1:15:57
  people they want to support or whatever.
• 1:15:58
  Like this stuff is put out there on a reason guy for a reason,
• 1:16:01
  guys. Yeah, but like, I don't know.
• 1:16:04
  I think I mean, again, I agree. Like, I don't understand
• 1:16:08
  people's obsessions with like ratings and stuff.
• 1:16:10
  Yeah, like why? It's really dumb guys.
• 1:16:13
  For me, it's like, okay. Is the show good or not?
• 1:16:16
  Yeah, is it fun to watch or not? Like, who?
• 1:16:19
  Who cares if like, oh, last week it, you know, there was 150,000,
• 1:16:24
  now there's 125 shoes in the bin.
• 1:16:28
  It's like, no, it's it's when people stop watching for good,
• 1:16:33
  then it's in the bin. If people like, look, I might
• 1:16:36
  not be a fan of everything that's going on in a www.e, but
• 1:16:39
  the fact of the matter is loads of people watch it and continues
• 1:16:41
  to watch it and that's what matters.
• 1:16:44
  You know, Are people interested? It's really funny when people
• 1:16:47
  try and, you know, and they start comparing the two ways.
• 1:16:49
  Oh well WE did, you know, 2 million on Smackdown and AW only
• 1:16:53
  did. And it's like, but like you
• 1:16:55
  understand that those are the levels.
• 1:16:56
  Like we're not we're not out here trying to pretend that AW
• 1:16:59
  should be doing better numbers or WE should be doing like
• 1:17:02
  there's no, I don't know, like it's such a weird especially
• 1:17:06
  fan. Like I just.
• 1:17:07
  I don't care. For that it's just I don't
• 1:17:09
  understand like where that came from, like how that.
• 1:17:14
  Became what modern being a modern fan is.
• 1:17:17
  I mean it's not for me. I can hear it's not for you.
• 1:17:19
  And I think for many guys it's just like you just enjoy what
• 1:17:22
  you enjoy, right? Like wrestling is either good or
• 1:17:25
  bad or it's it's always. Do you know what I'll say this
• 1:17:29
  you go what back and watch like Ruthless Aggression attitude
• 1:17:32
  error, whatever. And.
• 1:17:33
  Whether WC, www.therewasalways bad stuff on the shows, there
• 1:17:38
  was always stuff that was questionable or you know, but do
• 1:17:41
  you know what? Like even of the stuff that
• 1:17:43
  people said was the shits, there were people that loved it as
• 1:17:45
  well. You know, people that kept
• 1:17:47
  tuning in. There were people that were
• 1:17:48
  still watching WCW in the dying days.
• 1:17:51
  So, you know, I mean, do you watch what you want to watch
• 1:17:54
  for? That right.
• 1:17:55
  Yeah, exactly. Exactly.
• 1:17:58
  Final wrestling question for you.
• 1:18:00
  Who are your favorite wrestlers of all time?
• 1:18:05
  Randy Orton, Chris Jericho. I've got to come up with a
• 1:18:11
  Batista. I think of my 3.
• 1:18:16
  It's a solid. I think Randy, I think I always
• 1:18:19
  fluctuate. It always depends on the day.
• 1:18:20
  I always fluctuate between who I personally think my favorite is.
• 1:18:24
  But I think Randy Orton is always the constant one.
• 1:18:28
  Actually one question I forgot to ask you earlier was how you
• 1:18:30
  actually got interesting, cuz I think it's interesting like how
• 1:18:33
  people get in to discover it. So like I said before, it's I've
• 1:18:37
  always been interested in the rest and ability of.
• 1:18:40
  How did you discover it? How did you discover it?
• 1:18:43
  So I I'm old but I have been think I might have been about I
• 1:18:50
  gotta say like 8 or 9 maybe. It's always young, and I know
• 1:18:55
  it's always. It's always childhood.
• 1:18:57
  And I don't know how I ended up actually getting the DVD, but I
• 1:19:03
  had a DVD from an episode of Smackdown in 2003, and I believe
• 1:19:10
  the specific DVD was specifically for one match or
• 1:19:15
  maybe even just like a bunch of matches.
• 1:19:17
  But I must have just put one match on repeat all the fucking
• 1:19:19
  time. And it was Brock Lesnar versus
• 1:19:22
  Kerr Angle in An Iron Man. Wow.
• 1:19:24
  That's a classic right there, 2003, that was the first
• 1:19:28
  wrestling match WOW I saw in my entire life and I just fucking
• 1:19:32
  fell in love with it. What a great match to start on.
• 1:19:36
  Classic amateur wrestlers going at it.
• 1:19:39
  The amount of times I've heard people tell me, like, Oh yeah,
• 1:19:42
  my favorite match is proclass risk angle.
• 1:19:44
  And I go that's the first match I ever saw.
• 1:19:47
  What? Like it's it's so it's such a
• 1:19:49
  weird I don't like I said I don't know how I got the DVD.
• 1:19:51
  I don't know how I actually ended up physically watching it
• 1:19:54
  but I watched it and I just instantly you know started
• 1:19:57
  grabbing a teddy bear doing German suplexes.
• 1:19:59
  I was I was trying to learn how to do shit and stuff like that.
• 1:20:01
  Like I just, I just, I get I was.
• 1:20:04
  I was always a kid that whenever I fell in love with someone, I
• 1:20:06
  watched it on repeat and I could very vividly remember finishing
• 1:20:10
  the match and it immediately rewind it again just to see the
• 1:20:13
  whole fucking thing again. I was the same, but very
• 1:20:16
  different. I'll show my age here.
• 1:20:18
  I discovered it in the late 90s, early 2000s.
• 1:20:22
  I had a childhood best friend who introduced me to wrestling,
• 1:20:26
  and there were a few videotapes that I learned of him.
• 1:20:29
  One was like a RAW, like 90s RAW compilation video or something.
• 1:20:37
  I introduced things like DX, Austin McMahon, stuff like that.
• 1:20:41
  But the one that I remember that I think maybe fall in love with
• 1:20:44
  wrestling was it was WrestleMania 18, the VHS tape
• 1:20:50
  with the classic Rock versus Hogan match.
• 1:20:54
  And I remember just watching that back and seeing like just
• 1:20:59
  like the spectacle of it. It just, it kind of swept me up
• 1:21:02
  in that. And then I just kind of a
• 1:21:03
  combination of that. And the video games were a huge
• 1:21:06
  component in that as well, which I think many people got into
• 1:21:09
  resting through the video games. They were excellent.
• 1:21:11
  There was that whole era from like the first Smackdown game
• 1:21:16
  right through to like Smackdown versus Raw 2011, like all those
• 1:21:21
  different games throughout the years.
• 1:21:23
  Just truly exceptional. Yeah, it's good stuff, man.
• 1:21:28
  But yeah, that was, that was wrestling, man.
• 1:21:31
  We spoke for like 2 1/2 hours about that for.
• 1:21:34
  So long. There you go.
• 1:21:36
  Couple of final questions for you, completely unrelated to
• 1:21:39
  everything we've spoken about today.
• 1:21:41
  I asked. I asked all my guests this, so
• 1:21:43
  I'll be interested to see what you have to say.
• 1:21:46
  Stay up. What's been the biggest mistake
• 1:21:49
  you've made so far that you learned a valuable life lesson
• 1:21:52
  from? First thing that came into my
• 1:22:05
  head, and it immediately links to wrestling.
• 1:22:08
  My biggest mistake is giving up on a dream that I want to do.
• 1:22:19
  I, with COVID happening and stuff like kind of stopped what
• 1:22:24
  I wanted to what I wanted to get into with games design, you know
• 1:22:27
  that suddenly that door was shut and then a few months went by.
• 1:22:33
  I decided to take a year off before I went back to uni and
• 1:22:38
  then my first ever girlfriend actually broke up with me and
• 1:22:41
  suddenly there was this whole I suddenly spiraled.
• 1:22:46
  And then literally for the last two years I've been, I've been
• 1:22:49
  unemployed and I've realized that my biggest mistake was
• 1:22:54
  giving up was just saying, you know what, I don't care.
• 1:22:57
  I'm just going to stay in bed, I'm going to play video games
• 1:22:59
  all day, I don't care. And now all of a sudden I'm
• 1:23:03
  going back to uni. I've got a part time job, I'm
• 1:23:06
  doing work experience for a games design company right now.
• 1:23:09
  I'm also looking for other part time work where I can get it.
• 1:23:12
  I've literally just done my first acting gig this year.
• 1:23:15
  On that thing that on chopped chips that we worked on like
• 1:23:17
  it's it's I think for for a while I forgot what it meant to
• 1:23:23
  to actually go out and do something and be needed
• 1:23:26
  somewhere. So now that suddenly that's
• 1:23:29
  that's back in my life. I'm really I'm.
• 1:23:30
  I should I should have never have let myself I'm give up like
• 1:23:34
  that. But that's that's what I've
• 1:23:37
  learned. I should never, I should never
• 1:23:39
  suddenly stop and say, Oh well, fuck it doesn't matter anymore.
• 1:23:41
  I'll a good sentiment for us all.
• 1:23:45
  Yeah. No.
• 1:23:46
  Well done, man. Proud of you.
• 1:23:47
  Well done. Thank you, man.
• 1:23:48
  Thank you. What's the best advice you've
• 1:23:51
  ever received? Best advice?
• 1:24:04
  I'm trying to go deep here. I don't think I've ever thought
• 1:24:08
  about advice that I've been, that I've been giving, or
• 1:24:11
  anything along these lines. The is so stupid, the only
• 1:24:26
  advice that is coming to my head, and I know you probably
• 1:24:28
  want a very deep whatever resonates for you, man, that's
• 1:24:33
  the main thing. The best advice I've ever
• 1:24:36
  received. When I was younger, I used to
• 1:24:39
  play. I used to play football a lot.
• 1:24:41
  I used to play Sunday League. Because obviously I'm a very
• 1:24:44
  tall guy, I'd I'd always play goalkeeper and I think the best
• 1:24:48
  advice I ever received was from my dad telling me that anytime I
• 1:24:54
  went for a dive to save a goal. Make sure you don't land on your
• 1:24:58
  elbow cuz you might dislocate your shoulder and that's
• 1:25:00
  probably the best advice. There you go, man.
• 1:25:04
  Many football fans keep that in mind.
• 1:25:06
  There you go. There you go.
• 1:25:09
  Solid advice. That's the first thing that I
• 1:25:12
  couldn't think of anything else. Thanks for that, man.
• 1:25:17
  Final question, final two questions for you.
• 1:25:20
  What's the biggest life lesson you've learned so far?
• 1:25:24
  Well, I guess it goes back to. The whole giving up thing you
• 1:25:27
  got to, you got to make sure you keep, you keep.
• 1:25:30
  Going you can't. You can't I'm I'm I'm so I don't
• 1:25:36
  want to say so far behind my mates but like you know my mates
• 1:25:39
  have got full time jobs they've got a bunch of money in their in
• 1:25:41
  their bank accounts now and I'm still just trying to find my
• 1:25:45
  foot in. And I know it's not the biggest
• 1:25:49
  deal in the world, because I've found my foot in now, finally,
• 1:25:51
  but again, like that that's. Just don't.
• 1:25:55
  Just don't give up, man. Just keep keep fucking going,
• 1:25:58
  man. Keep chugging, even if it looks
• 1:26:01
  dire and you go out. I don't want to get this job
• 1:26:03
  because I don't want to do that. I want to do this.
• 1:26:06
  I don't want to do that. I want to do this.
• 1:26:07
  But it's sometimes you have to do that stuff in order to get to
• 1:26:11
  where you need to be. And so I think that's the
• 1:26:15
  biggest live lesson I've I've learned.
• 1:26:18
  You've just got to keep going, man.
• 1:26:20
  Solid stuff. Now final question for you.
• 1:26:23
  Do you have any upcoming projects or final thoughts that
• 1:26:25
  you'd like to share with our listeners?
• 1:26:28
  I know upcoming projects that I'm aware of.
• 1:26:31
  Like I said, I'm doing work experience at a games design
• 1:26:33
  company, so maybe if shit happens there, maybe I'll have
• 1:26:37
  something still luck with that. Thank you, but the last thing I
• 1:26:41
  want to say to the viewers is pro wrestling is great and you
• 1:26:44
  should watch it. I'll agree more.
• 1:26:47
  And also watch chalk chips. When that comes out, it'll come
• 1:26:50
  out. Yes, yes, at some point.
• 1:26:52
  Chalk chips, listen, thank you so much, man.
• 1:26:54
  It's been an absolute pleasure. Thank you, man.
• 1:26:57
  It's been again. It's been an absolute pleasure.
• 1:26:59
  Stay here, man. You always welcome back, my
• 1:27:01
  friend. Thank you.
• 1:27:02
  I'll make sure when I'm when I'm working on a game or something
• 1:27:05
  like that, if anything's going on, I'll let you know.
• 1:27:06
  We can tell more about wrestling instead.
• 1:27:10
  Let's do it, man. Thank you to everybody listening
• 1:27:13
  today. Thank you so much for watching.
• 1:27:17
  For listening, make sure that you check out the Discord and
• 1:27:20
  the Patreon links to get extra bonus content and support the
• 1:27:24
  show. All the links will be in the
• 1:27:26
  description. You can obviously check out
• 1:27:28
  links to and find. Thanks to what Jared's doing as
• 1:27:31
  well. And yeah, just a massive thank
• 1:27:34
  you to everybody for watching, for listening.
• 1:27:36
  And as always, be safe, be well, and I'll see you in the next
• 1:27:40
  one.