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Transcript

YOU'RE FIRED Q&A - FROM THE VAULT! · The Major Wrestling Figure Podcast

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: It's that time of the month.
• 0:02
  Speaker 2: Time to get H-A-R-D. It's the Hard Foundation bonus episode
• 0:09
  Speaker 2: with your hosts, the Major King Matt Cardona, Maximum Effort
• 0:16
  Speaker 2: Brian Myers, and Dr.
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: Silver Balls himself, Smart Mark Sterling!
• 0:24
  Speaker 3: What's up everybody, hello and welcome to a bonus edition
• 0:28
  Speaker 3: of the Major.
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: Wrestling Figure Podcast.
• 0:32
  Speaker 4: I am your host, the Prince of Bo- nope.
• 0:43
  Speaker 3: The most professional wrestler, Brian Myers. Welcome.
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: Holy shit. You almost said the Prince of Queens.
• 0:49
  Speaker 3: That was a joke that you clearly didn't get. I did.
• 0:53
  Speaker 4: You forgot to say Impact Wrestling Star.
• 0:56
  Speaker 3: Well, guys, this is about our transition in 2020. That's
• 1:01
  Speaker 3: why I did that. I don't know why I have
• 1:02
  Speaker 3: to paint this for you guys.
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: I see.
• 1:05
  Speaker 3: Thanks for being a friend.
• 1:06
  Speaker 4: And I am your host, Matt Cardona, a.k.a. the Internet Champion, a.k.a.
• 1:13
  Speaker 4: The married man himself.
• 1:16
  Speaker 3: We're going to save this all for the pod.
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: We talked a little on the MC pod. Well, I
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: am also your producer of the show, Smart Mark Sterling,
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: but today I am the moderator and we are answering
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: questions from you, the Heart Foundation members only, about post-WWE
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: firing and the year of 2020. I said you can
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: also ask questions for me because I was there for
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: all of it. I was there. And I also did
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: awesome things in 2020. So, We're here. We're about to
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: answer some questions. Should we set the stage? You guys
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: want to set the stage at all?
• 1:49
  Speaker 4: Set the stage. We get fired.
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: So here COVID hits.
• 1:55
  Speaker 3: 2020, COVID hits.
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: Well, hold on.
• 1:56
  Speaker 4: You got to go back. We talked about this at
• 1:58
  Speaker 4: the end of the last episode. We read the Paul
• 2:01
  Speaker 4: Heyman email. We did it all.
• 2:02
  Speaker 3: We get fired. Yeah, the Heyman email. I mean, the
• 2:04
  Speaker 3: last thing we do is we wrestle the Vikings on
• 2:07
  Speaker 3: that pay-per-view in the kickoff. I wrestle Lashley. Which I
• 2:10
  Speaker 3: think I forgot a little note of that. Pat Buck
• 2:13
  Speaker 3: was the producer of that, and at first he was
• 2:15
  Speaker 3: like 15 minutes, the Vikings, and then I remember he
• 2:19
  Speaker 3: came back later in the day and was like seven
• 2:22
  Speaker 3: minutes with the Vikings. It might have been like five
• 2:24
  Speaker 3: at the end, because I think they realized no way
• 2:27
  Speaker 3: is Hawkins and Ryder having a competitive match with the
• 2:29
  Speaker 3: Viking Raiders. I can only guess who made that call.
• 2:35
  Speaker 3: Either way, Philly. No, a different guy. In Philly, awesome match.
• 2:41
  Speaker 3: Crowd was buzzing. I actually thought it was a pretty
• 2:43
  Speaker 3: cool experience. Drive through Raw, Brodsky gets murdered by Lashley.
• 2:47
  Speaker 3: And I want to say that was a similar situation
• 2:50
  Speaker 3: where they were like, it's three minutes, it's two minutes,
• 2:54
  Speaker 3: it's one minute.
• 2:54
  Speaker 4: No, no, no. The day before, it was like, get
• 2:56
  Speaker 4: it done as fast as possible.
• 2:58
  Speaker 3: I felt like that was just as the day went on.
• 3:00
  Speaker 4: Oh, maybe they cut it from three minutes to one.
• 3:03
  Speaker 3: That's what I'm saying. I think it went three, two, one,
• 3:05
  Speaker 3: as fast as humanly possible.
• 3:06
  Speaker 4: I think at one point I was like, just fuck him.
• 3:08
  Speaker 4: ding-a-ding pin me at this.
• 3:10
  Speaker 3: Point right just run at me yeah um so yeah
• 3:15
  Speaker 3: and then i guess we have about a month there
• 3:17
  Speaker 3: well we're just kind of home yep and uh.
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: We watched wrestlemania that year brian me you alex johnny
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: caster bear bronson we were all on zoom.
• 3:30
  Speaker 3: You're right i forgot all about that we did that.
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: We watched WrestleMania night one, all of us in.
• 3:35
  Speaker 3: A Zoom party. I totally forgot about that.
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: At one point, we all had Dorian Graves masks on.
• 3:41
  Speaker 3: Yeah. Oh, God. I forgot about that, too. Wow.
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: It's crazy to think that.
• 3:45
  Speaker 3: I'm still employed when that happened.
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: You were still employed.
• 3:47
  Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly. Right?
• 3:49
  Speaker 4: I'm trying to think. I know you had that Liger
• 3:51
  Speaker 4: gear made. I'm trying to think if I had gear made.
• 3:52
  Speaker 2: Oh.
• 3:54
  Speaker 3: You know what?
• 3:55
  Speaker 4: I think everything ended so early that I didn't even
• 3:58
  Speaker 4: have it get made yet.
• 4:00
  Speaker 3: Like you knew there was no point?
• 4:02
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 4:04
  Speaker 4: I can't recall if I had gear made.
• 4:06
  Speaker 3: I don't even remember when the call was made, like,
• 4:09
  Speaker 3: who's going to Mania or not, you know?
• 4:12
  Speaker 4: Well, because, no, they were doing, like, the PC Raws,
• 4:14
  Speaker 4: and we weren't going. And then, yeah, I guess you're right.
• 4:18
  Speaker 4: And then, like, we got the word, oh, there's not
• 4:19
  Speaker 4: going to be an Andre Battle Roll, because it couldn't
• 4:21
  Speaker 4: fit enough people in the building, let alone in that ring.
• 4:24
  Speaker 3: Yeah, because of the protocols and the numbers and stuff. Yeah,
• 4:27
  Speaker 3: I guess we didn't know that early on, so there'd
• 4:28
  Speaker 3: be no sense in that, yeah.
• 4:32
  Speaker 4: And then we talked about it. Brian literally wasn't able
• 4:35
  Speaker 4: to travel from New York. I wrote an email to
• 4:39
  Speaker 4: Heyman on like a Sunday. He responded on a Monday.
• 4:44
  Speaker 4: And then we were fired on a Wednesday. Let's just
• 4:48
  Speaker 4: pick it up from getting fired.
• 4:49
  Speaker 3: I was sitting out back eating La Piazza with my family.
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: Love La Piazza.
• 4:55
  Speaker 3: Yeah, La Piazza's so good. But they ruined it. WWE
• 4:57
  Speaker 3: ruined it for me that day.
• 4:58
  Speaker 4: I had a crab cake in my oven that I
• 5:01
  Speaker 4: got from Jimmy's Famous Seafood. And we talked about it
• 5:05
  Speaker 4: in the last episode, but we'll reiterate for those who
• 5:08
  Speaker 4: didn't listen. You probably should, though. We got texted this
• 5:12
  Speaker 4: mass text of Vince McMahon, like, reading off a teleprompter,
• 5:17
  Speaker 4: basically saying there were going to be cuts. It doesn't
• 5:20
  Speaker 4: necessarily say there's going to be talent cuts. He made, like,
• 5:22
  Speaker 4: company worldwide cuts. And I knew right away, like, here
• 5:25
  Speaker 4: it comes. And we're all in different group chats, like, speculating.
• 5:29
  Speaker 3: Right. I think I said last time, I thought initially
• 5:33
  Speaker 3: it was office stuff. Right. Like, oh, they have to
• 5:37
  Speaker 3: get rid of the live events team if we're not
• 5:39
  Speaker 3: going to have live events for months and months and months.
• 5:42
  Speaker 3: I thought it was stuff like that, not like, let's
• 5:45
  Speaker 3: get all the boys. Because I also thought there was
• 5:48
  Speaker 3: still very much the fear of AEW, you know, like
• 5:50
  Speaker 3: that they would keep guys around.
• 5:53
  Speaker 4: And it was also like the very, very beginning of
• 5:55
  Speaker 4: this pandemic. I mean, think about it. It's two years later.
• 5:57
  Speaker 4: We're still living in it. This was like a month
• 6:00
  Speaker 4: in and they're making all these drastic cuts.
• 6:01
  Speaker 3: Yeah, not even. It was like three weeks.
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: At this point, I remember there's indie shows that would
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: still pop up like, we're going to run next month.
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: Here's the show poster. And I remember thinking to myself,
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: you guys are idiots. Nobody's running. But anyways, my point is,
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: no one knew what the hell was going on. There
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: were still human beings that thought, we'll be back, Raleigh, Ellen.
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: We'll be back by April.
• 6:28
  Speaker 3: That was a Raleigh Allen quote that I was like, oh,
• 6:31
  Speaker 3: he's probably right. But how are you to know?
• 6:34
  Speaker 4: Right. And like I said, almost two years later, we're
• 6:36
  Speaker 4: still dealing with it. We had to cancel our live
• 6:41
  Speaker 4: show that was in Tampa. Thank God we didn't spend
• 6:44
  Speaker 4: that money because we had to refund all those tickets.
• 6:46
  Speaker 3: It was a nightmare.
• 6:47
  Speaker 4: And we put it out. We record the video. Then
• 6:51
  Speaker 4: we get fired, and then we put out the video,
• 6:53
  Speaker 4: but it's like we had already been fired, so we
• 6:55
  Speaker 4: had to add in like, oh, these guys got fired thing.
• 6:57
  Speaker 4: Because we're talking about it as if it's live, but
• 7:00
  Speaker 4: it's not live. We filmed it before we got fired.
• 7:02
  Speaker 3: How does that match up? I'm so lost on that.
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: So we filmed Live 5 the week before you guys
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: got fired. You get fired.
• 7:11
  Speaker 3: On a Tuesday. And we aired it after Mania? Yes.
• 7:14
  Speaker 3: That's why I'm confused.
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: We aired it that Friday.
• 7:17
  Speaker 3: Got it.
• 7:17
  Speaker 4: Because we didn't have to air it live anymore, you know?
• 7:20
  Speaker 3: I know, but we didn't. In my mind, it's like, oh, yeah, duh,
• 7:22
  Speaker 3: it was the Thursday or Friday before Mania, but it wasn't. Okay.
• 7:27
  Speaker 3: I know we had to dub that thing in, and
• 7:28
  Speaker 3: then Dreamer even makes a comment about getting fired, right?
• 7:31
  Speaker 4: That I'm going to get fired.
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 7:32
  Speaker 3: All right, they did.
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: All right.
• 7:35
  Speaker 3: Anyway, you're fired.
• 7:36
  Speaker 4: We're all in these group texts, and we're like, I
• 7:39
  Speaker 4: don't know who was the first to go, but Brian
• 7:40
  Speaker 4: says he's gone.
• 7:41
  Speaker 3: For sure, out of our close friends, it was me.
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 7:46
  Speaker 4: And I said last time, I was worried because Gallows
• 7:48
  Speaker 4: and Anderson kind of go back to back. But I'm like,
• 7:51
  Speaker 4: why didn't I go? Oh my God, are they going
• 7:54
  Speaker 4: to let me rot until my contract ends in August?
• 7:56
  Speaker 4: And I was like, fuck, fire me now. Please fire
• 7:59
  Speaker 4: me now. And it's a couple hours later, I get fired.
• 8:03
  Speaker 4: But the writing was certainly on the wall. I had
• 8:05
  Speaker 4: already started my Pro Wrestling Tees site and was like
• 8:10
  Speaker 4: ready to press live.
• 8:12
  Speaker 3: Which, when we get into this, we just had like,
• 8:16
  Speaker 3: two completely different mindsets and journeys, actually, like, entirely, because
• 8:22
  Speaker 3: this is something that you had kind of been already
• 8:25
  Speaker 3: thinking about, daydreaming about, whatever, and this being an independent
• 8:29
  Speaker 3: barista couldn't have been the furthest thing from my mind
• 8:33
  Speaker 3: at this point. I mean, like, not even.
• 8:34
  Speaker 4: Liz is pregnant, right?
• 8:35
  Speaker 3: Yeah, Liz is very much pregnant. That's April. Madison's born
• 8:39
  Speaker 3: in June, so.
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: So let me ask you this question, because I never
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: really asked you this. So we all know We're talking,
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: the three of us, and obviously not publicly, but we're talking, hey,
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: I don't know what's Broski's going to do. Because actually
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: when you think about our mindset as a recording team,
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: you guys team together so you record on Raw together.
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: So we never thought of doing it any differently from that.
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: And I remember thinking as a producer like, fuck, if
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: Broski does not resign and he goes somewhere else or
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: he doesn't work for the WWE, How are we going
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: to do this podcast? Brian's on the road, whatever. So
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: these are all the things I'm thinking about. But you
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: re-sign for multiple years. What's going through your head when
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: you re-sign? Are you thinking, like, I got some more
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: years to give as a wrestler, then I'll try producing?
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: Or what are you thinking about this contract?
• 9:35
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, A, it just has to be said,
• 9:38
  Speaker 3: if we're being honest, the money was astronomical. More money
• 9:41
  Speaker 3: than I ever even... imagine that I could possibly make
• 9:44
  Speaker 3: in this business, to be honest with you from, from,
• 9:46
  Speaker 3: you know, day one type thing. So that was like
• 9:48
  Speaker 3: a no brainer. Uh, I had already, I don't have
• 9:51
  Speaker 3: to rehash on it, but I had that little stint
• 9:52
  Speaker 3: as a producer where I was very comfortable doing that.
• 9:55
  Speaker 3: And I saw like, you know, where my, you know,
• 9:58
  Speaker 3: future lied, but I, and, this is flat out what
• 10:00
  Speaker 3: I told Vince when it was done. I said, Hey,
• 10:02
  Speaker 3: I just got cleared and I'm healthy. I said, I
• 10:04
  Speaker 3: just wanted to wrestle until I can't anymore. You know,
• 10:06
  Speaker 3: father time is going to get us all, please don't
• 10:09
  Speaker 3: take me out of the ring just yet. Like I'm
• 10:10
  Speaker 3: not ready to do that. And he was super cool
• 10:12
  Speaker 3: about it and let me go on. So that, that
• 10:14
  Speaker 3: was my mindset, you know? Um, And as far as
• 10:18
  Speaker 3: the podcast goes, we were living in like almost like
• 10:21
  Speaker 3: so different from when we started. It was almost like
• 10:23
  Speaker 3: a lawless WWE, but it was in a great way.
• 10:26
  Speaker 3: Like it was laid back and the dress code wasn't insane.
• 10:31
  Speaker 3: And then people had all these, you know, side things
• 10:33
  Speaker 3: that they were doing, you know, whether it was twitching
• 10:36
  Speaker 3: or a podcast or a clothing line, you know, and
• 10:39
  Speaker 3: WWE was kind of hands off about it or kind
• 10:41
  Speaker 3: of just looking the other way and everything was fine,
• 10:43
  Speaker 3: you know? So I never thought like, oh, me re-signing
• 10:46
  Speaker 3: here or Broski going there would ever affect the podcast.
• 10:49
  Speaker 3: If anything, I thought it would help it grow, you know?
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: We did talk about that.
• 10:53
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: We did talk about that.
• 10:54
  Speaker 4: Once we get released, they do crack down on everything
• 10:58
  Speaker 4: where it's almost like, thank God. That's why it's hard
• 11:00
  Speaker 4: to like, yeah, it's hard to even like compare. They
• 11:02
  Speaker 4: would have tried to take it.
• 11:04
  Speaker 3: I mean, everything got absolutely annihilated, you know? All those
• 11:09
  Speaker 3: side projects. Yeah.
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: This is when... So, now, also, you guys get let go,
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: but there's like 60 employees, right? Or more that get
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: let go.
• 11:23
  Speaker 3: Producers. I think the entire live events department, like everyone
• 11:29
  Speaker 3: who had anything to do with that.
• 11:31
  Speaker 4: So many people have gotten let go over the past
• 11:33
  Speaker 4: two years. It's hard for me to.
• 11:34
  Speaker 3: I honestly can't keep up with it anymore.
• 11:36
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I don't know when people got released.
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: John Carlos' team is somewhere around there.
• 11:40
  Speaker 3: Yeah, like someone mentioned somebody to me today, and I went,
• 11:43
  Speaker 3: are they fired? I don't even know. I've lost track. Yeah.
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: All right. Well, there's a lot that happens this year.
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: Hopefully we fill in all the cracks with these questions,
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: but there's a lot of them, so let's just dive
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: into it. Marcus Avetia. Marcus Avetia. Where were the first
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: places you wanted to work after you guys were both released? P.S.
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: Matt and Brian both rule, and in Matt's words, prove
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: that WWE was their developmental. Keep it up.
• 12:13
  Speaker 4: Before I got released, I already was talking to Cody
• 12:16
  Speaker 4: on the phone. Because I knew I wanted to go there.
• 12:19
  Speaker 4: But also, we've talked about before, when Brian got released
• 12:23
  Speaker 4: last time, he was working at Indy the next day. A,
• 12:25
  Speaker 4: you couldn't do that anymore. And B, there were no
• 12:27
  Speaker 4: fucking Indys. Everything was shut down.
• 12:28
  Speaker 3: The whole world was shut down. That was the scary thing.
• 12:30
  Speaker 3: It was like, I mean, it had to be a
• 12:34
  Speaker 3: little easier for you because you've been thinking about it,
• 12:35
  Speaker 3: but I'm literally going from being a WWE superstar to
• 12:39
  Speaker 3: now I have to like, I have to like, like
• 12:42
  Speaker 3: I was like, what am I doing? Like I hadn't
• 12:44
  Speaker 3: even thought about this. And now I'm like trying to
• 12:47
  Speaker 3: imagine myself as an indie wrestler when the indies don't exist.
• 12:52
  Speaker 4: And also it's like, what is that?
• 12:54
  Speaker 3: Yes.
• 12:54
  Speaker 4: I've been thinking about it, but I had to make
• 12:57
  Speaker 4: a split second decision of what my new name would
• 12:59
  Speaker 4: be in a matter of like five minutes, you know,
• 13:01
  Speaker 4: where I'm like, okay. I got to put up this promo.
• 13:04
  Speaker 4: Am I going to go by Matt Cardona? I think
• 13:07
  Speaker 4: with this show, it became kind of a no-brainer. Of course,
• 13:10
  Speaker 4: but I still didn't know. I still didn't know. And
• 13:12
  Speaker 4: if we never did this show, it sounds ridiculous saying
• 13:16
  Speaker 4: I wouldn't have been comfortable being called Matt Cardona.
• 13:18
  Speaker 3: I definitely not.
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: It would have been so silly if you were Brett Matthews.
• 13:23
  Speaker 3: Right. Ice Z, bro.
• 13:25
  Speaker 4: Ice Z was what I was thinking.
• 13:27
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 13:28
  Speaker 3: I'm serious. That's real.
• 13:29
  Speaker 4: It all worked out that it was that, you know,
• 13:31
  Speaker 4: I had the podcast. I will fuck. I'll just be
• 13:33
  Speaker 4: Matt Cardona. And then, you know, I was doing the
• 13:37
  Speaker 4: still here.
• 13:37
  Speaker 2: What?
• 13:37
  Speaker 3: Fuck.
• 13:38
  Speaker 4: I'll make a not their shirt, whatever.
• 13:40
  Speaker 3: Um, that, and that was the other thing that would
• 13:43
  Speaker 3: be like back to being like lawless. Like they never
• 13:46
  Speaker 3: asked me to take down my person T stores. Like,
• 13:48
  Speaker 3: so the whole time I was there for four and
• 13:50
  Speaker 3: a half years or whatever. I never promoted it or tweet,
• 13:53
  Speaker 3: you know, tweeted the links to it or whatever, but
• 13:55
  Speaker 3: I just left it up and I'd get the two,
• 13:57
  Speaker 3: three sales a month, you know, trickle in shit and
• 13:59
  Speaker 3: just left it alive because no one ever said anything.
• 14:01
  Speaker 3: So there was no point. So that was already like
• 14:03
  Speaker 3: literally already good to go when we got fired. Right.
• 14:07
  Speaker 4: And I hadn't done the Indies. Listen, I don't, I
• 14:09
  Speaker 4: did like what, two years of Indies with Brian before
• 14:11
  Speaker 4: we got signed. I had no real experience with that,
• 14:14
  Speaker 4: but I credit the podcast because he taught us how
• 14:17
  Speaker 4: to do stuff with the merch and all the hustling.
• 14:19
  Speaker 4: So like, Yes, I had not done indies a long time,
• 14:21
  Speaker 4: but I have done the hustling for the past two
• 14:23
  Speaker 4: years with the podcast. So the podcast, I credit for
• 14:26
  Speaker 4: so much. I wouldn't have known what to do, how
• 14:28
  Speaker 4: to make merch, set up a pros and T-store. Luckily,
• 14:31
  Speaker 4: I had one for the Major Wrestling Podcast. Okay, now
• 14:33
  Speaker 4: I just do one for me. So I wasn't going
• 14:35
  Speaker 4: completely blind, at least.
• 14:37
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: It was actually a really long time before you ended
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: up doing an indie.
• 14:43
  Speaker 4: There were no Indies. Bro, there were nothing. Yes, there
• 14:45
  Speaker 4: were random ones with like 20 fans wearing masks. I
• 14:49
  Speaker 4: didn't want to do that. I didn't want to do it.
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: I know Brian went out and did a couple.
• 14:52
  Speaker 3: My first thing that was an impact was ACW Wisconsin
• 14:56
  Speaker 3: for Mr. Postle. And you would have thought there was
• 14:59
  Speaker 3: no pandemic going on.
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: I remember that.
• 15:02
  Speaker 3: I was blown away.
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: But then Broski's first was.
• 15:06
  Speaker 3: The show was super fun and it was more packed
• 15:08
  Speaker 3: than he thought. And they had restrictions and stuff and
• 15:10
  Speaker 3: it was still pretty packed. And then we went out
• 15:13
  Speaker 3: to eat after to like the spot. You would've thought
• 15:16
  Speaker 3: it was the summer of 2005. People just like, I,
• 15:20
  Speaker 3: I flat out told Dylan, I said, dude, I'm so uncomfortable.
• 15:22
  Speaker 3: Like we gotta go somewhere else. Like this is crazy. Yeah. Anyway.
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: Um, well, Brian, going on into that question, once you
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: did sort of like, I mean, obviously you had to
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: take a few days. You guys did great, man. Uh,
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: You sold your stuff. The group was so supportive.
• 15:46
  Speaker 4: We can't say that enough. All the shit we sold
• 15:49
  Speaker 4: in there and the fans kept us alive literally because
• 15:53
  Speaker 4: we weren't able to work other places because there's nothing
• 15:56
  Speaker 4: to work.
• 15:57
  Speaker 3: Honestly, selling and packing and shipping and doing that kept
• 16:00
  Speaker 3: me productive too where I didn't just sit around and
• 16:02
  Speaker 3: lose my mind. Obviously, financially, I can never thank the
• 16:08
  Speaker 3: Patreons enough for that, but That part too, you know,
• 16:11
  Speaker 3: just that I had something to like focus on and
• 16:13
  Speaker 3: do or get up every day and kind of like,
• 16:16
  Speaker 3: you know, tend to was like just nice too. Yeah.
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: And we had such an upswing. I mean, obviously there
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: was a lot of stuff going on at the time.
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: The world was shut down. Nobody had anything to do.
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: Our YouTube videos were really taken off. You guys got
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: let go. And we had such an upswing in Patreon
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: supporters at the time, like hundreds and hundreds of people
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: flocking in. It was some of the biggest. sort of
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: upticks on, on members. And, and I'll always look back
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: at that as, uh, you know, very grateful for, for
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: that time and, and everybody coming in.
• 16:46
  Speaker 3: And we were, we were, we've said it a bunch, man.
• 16:48
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 16:48
  Speaker 3: We thought the pandemic was going to be the death
• 16:50
  Speaker 3: of the show because we're like, if people are losing
• 16:52
  Speaker 3: their jobs, the last thing they're going to do is
• 16:54
  Speaker 3: spend money on collectibles. It was the fucking opposite. It
• 16:56
  Speaker 3: was the complete and utter opposite. People were like, this
• 16:59
  Speaker 3: is the only money I have to my name. God damn,
• 17:01
  Speaker 3: I'm going to get that ultimate warrior hazard rack I
• 17:03
  Speaker 3: had when I was five. And that seemed to be,
• 17:06
  Speaker 3: it was crazy. That was like the mass kind of sentiment.
• 17:08
  Speaker 4: And not just with wrestling collectibles, collectibles all across the board.
• 17:11
  Speaker 3: Oh yeah, everything. I don't know if I said it
• 17:14
  Speaker 3: last episode, but before, in the three or four weeks
• 17:18
  Speaker 3: before we got fired, I was so like just bored
• 17:22
  Speaker 3: with the pandemic. I would like work out every day
• 17:24
  Speaker 3: and then I was addicted to like card breaks. It
• 17:25
  Speaker 3: was Papa Bear, just show me what it was. And
• 17:28
  Speaker 3: it was like gambling. And I would just pop in
• 17:30
  Speaker 3: all these like filth bomb breaks because like, I had
• 17:33
  Speaker 3: nothing else to do with myself or my time. And like,
• 17:34
  Speaker 3: it was something, like I said, I look forward to
• 17:36
  Speaker 3: and get excited about because I didn't know when I
• 17:39
  Speaker 3: was going to work again.
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: So once you gather yourself, Brian, what, like once you
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: sort of, you get yourself, you know, your feet under yourself.
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: Now what's the, what's the plan? What's the first plan?
• 17:53
  Speaker 3: Um, I mean, obviously like letting people know about my
• 17:55
  Speaker 3: pro S and T store, letting them know, like my
• 17:57
  Speaker 3: booking email, I never took down or whatever. I didn't,
• 18:00
  Speaker 3: you know, making that like a public thing again. And
• 18:02
  Speaker 3: then I just, I didn't really know. I just assumed like, okay, I,
• 18:06
  Speaker 3: you know, I think I said last show, you know,
• 18:08
  Speaker 3: it was the 48 hours of where like I, my
• 18:11
  Speaker 3: world was rocked, man. I couldn't even sleep and I
• 18:13
  Speaker 3: didn't know what to think or what was up or
• 18:14
  Speaker 3: what was down. But then I was like, okay, you know,
• 18:17
  Speaker 3: you've been the Prince of Queens before. You can do
• 18:18
  Speaker 3: it again. Let's see where this takes you. And just
• 18:21
  Speaker 3: kind of refocused. And I want to say within the
• 18:26
  Speaker 3: first four or five days, Tommy Dreamer called me and
• 18:29
  Speaker 3: gave me the hard pitch on impact.
• 18:33
  Speaker 4: Oh, okay.
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: Then that starts to become sort of a reality right away,
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: I guess.
• 18:37
  Speaker 3: Yeah, like pretty quickly, yeah. All right.
• 18:40
  Speaker 4: Dreamer had also called me, which was a great opportunity,
• 18:45
  Speaker 4: but I knew that he called Brian and the Good
• 18:48
  Speaker 4: Brothers and Heath and EC3 and Eric Young. I'm like,
• 18:51
  Speaker 4: I don't want to go with everybody. That was my mindset.
• 18:58
  Speaker 4: Of course.
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: Okay, now, Broski. Matt, can you tell us anything about
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: your AEW run? What was pitched that made you decide
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: not to move forward with them? Do you want to
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: talk about this?
• 19:10
  Speaker 3: Can I just say my one favorite thing? Sure.
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: What is your one favorite thing?
• 19:14
  Speaker 3: That Broski, like, he famed us even that he was
• 19:17
  Speaker 3: going to talk to Tony. But then, like, multiple friends
• 19:21
  Speaker 3: within the business were just sending us pictures of them
• 19:23
  Speaker 3: just sitting outside, clear as day, in a place where
• 19:27
  Speaker 3: there's clearly, like, Dare I say hundreds of people. I'm like,
• 19:30
  Speaker 3: what a secret meeting. What a secret meeting this must
• 19:35
  Speaker 3: have been.
• 19:36
  Speaker 4: I thought it was going to be a secret meeting.
• 19:39
  Speaker 4: After they do shows or before they do shows, when
• 19:42
  Speaker 4: they're all in Jacksonville, they meet up on the fourth
• 19:44
  Speaker 4: floor and they have a big hangout. And that's where
• 19:48
  Speaker 4: it was. And I was like, oh, fuck. Well, I
• 19:49
  Speaker 4: guess not secret. um i remember actually harper texted me
• 19:53
  Speaker 4: and he's like where are you at he's like i
• 19:54
  Speaker 4: heard your laugh in the hallway hotel room that's great
• 19:58
  Speaker 4: um so my i the whole thing started off as
• 20:03
  Speaker 4: a disaster like it was right away i had this
• 20:06
  Speaker 4: this feeling of this is not gonna work Of course,
• 20:09
  Speaker 4: I'm trying to be very positive. But I also don't
• 20:12
  Speaker 4: even think Tony knew I was coming. Where I thought
• 20:16
  Speaker 4: it was going to be this private meeting. So, like,
• 20:19
  Speaker 4: I had, like, this whole pitch laid out. I was already, like,
• 20:22
  Speaker 4: I had this idea that the night I debut, like,
• 20:25
  Speaker 4: my figure's up for pre-order. It's going to be a
• 20:27
  Speaker 4: ringside exclusive. Like, I had, like, talked to Jeremy beforehand
• 20:30
  Speaker 4: to see if it was even possible. Like, I had
• 20:32
  Speaker 4: this whole, like, hard pitch. And it was just, like,
• 20:35
  Speaker 4: I could already tell, like, there is no plan for
• 20:38
  Speaker 4: me here.
• 20:38
  Speaker 3: Like, at all.
• 20:40
  Speaker 4: And a couple weeks later, we do the Cody run,
• 20:42
  Speaker 4: which was great. But there was no crowd, but that
• 20:46
  Speaker 4: was the time we were living in, you know? So
• 20:50
  Speaker 4: it was awesome. I was like the number one shirt
• 20:52
  Speaker 4: on Shop AEW that week.
• 20:54
  Speaker 3: It was cool.
• 20:55
  Speaker 4: We only agreed to do three appearances, and I think
• 20:58
  Speaker 4: I do one extra.
• 21:00
  Speaker 3: Maybe I do four.
• 21:01
  Speaker 4: And then, you know, long story short, we do all out.
• 21:06
  Speaker 4: It was what it was. It was fine.
• 21:07
  Speaker 3: A big 10 man with a dark order or whatever.
• 21:10
  Speaker 3: Forget that you worked at a W pay-per-view, right? Like
• 21:13
  Speaker 3: that's a trivia fact that, that slips my mind.
• 21:16
  Speaker 4: You know, I'm thinking, okay, well, and I'm being told,
• 21:21
  Speaker 4: all right, well, the contract's coming next week. Contract's coming
• 21:24
  Speaker 4: next week. A week turns into two weeks, turns into
• 21:27
  Speaker 4: a month, turns into two months, turns into three months.
• 21:30
  Speaker 4: All the while impact has reached out a couple of
• 21:32
  Speaker 4: times and I'm turning them down. I think like, well,
• 21:33
  Speaker 4: I can't, sorry guys. Like I got this, this deal coming.
• 21:36
  Speaker 4: what never comes. So I told myself, fuck it. January 1st,
• 21:42
  Speaker 4: if there's no deal, I'm doing my own thing. I'm
• 21:43
  Speaker 4: reaching out. And that's exactly what happened. January 1st, I
• 21:46
  Speaker 4: reached out to Impact, like, sorry, we have nothing for you,
• 21:48
  Speaker 4: which that's on me because I turned him down, fuck,
• 21:51
  Speaker 4: by that time, three times.
• 21:52
  Speaker 2: Wow.
• 21:54
  Speaker 4: So it just- You know what?
• 21:56
  Speaker 3: It's crazy to think, like, from when we got fired
• 22:01
  Speaker 3: to now, how many people have from WWE have gone
• 22:04
  Speaker 3: to AEW. Because at the time they were like, oh no,
• 22:06
  Speaker 3: we don't want to be like the WWE ex-guy place.
• 22:10
  Speaker 3: And there's been, because I think that's another reason why
• 22:13
  Speaker 3: I don't think a lot of us were like, oh,
• 22:15
  Speaker 3: we'll just go to AEW. Everyone was like, they've made
• 22:17
  Speaker 3: it known that they don't want ex-WWE people. So I
• 22:20
  Speaker 3: think that's why a lot of us weren't like, oh,
• 22:23
  Speaker 3: right away that's the option, even though it really should have,
• 22:26
  Speaker 3: could have been, you know, for everybody.
• 22:27
  Speaker 4: In retrospect, I'm so fucking glad it didn't work out.
• 22:30
  Speaker 4: Because if I would have went to AEW, I'd probably
• 22:34
  Speaker 4: be making great money doing fucking Dark and Elevation right now,
• 22:38
  Speaker 4: which is fine.
• 22:39
  Speaker 3: That's not what I want to do. You'd have a
• 22:40
  Speaker 3: sweet nightmare family track jacket.
• 22:43
  Speaker 4: Actually, I got the track jacket at all out. I
• 22:46
  Speaker 4: never got to wear it backstage because I never got
• 22:48
  Speaker 4: brought back. I forgot it. But everything works.
• 22:55
  Speaker 3: I don't believe in.
• 22:55
  Speaker 4: I say this in my vows. I don't believe in fate,
• 22:57
  Speaker 4: but I do believe everything happens for a reason. And
• 23:00
  Speaker 4: if I had signed with AEW then, Of course, I
• 23:04
  Speaker 4: would love to... I know what I'm capable of. But
• 23:09
  Speaker 4: I don't think they did. They didn't want me at
• 23:13
  Speaker 4: the time, which is fine. And in retrospect, it's the
• 23:17
  Speaker 4: greatest thing that could happen to me besides getting fired.
• 23:19
  Speaker 4: Two horrible things, really. Turned out to be two great things.
• 23:22
  Speaker 4: It's all how you look at it.
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: For sure. And we know what you end up... When
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: do you do... The Gage match doesn't happen until.
• 23:33
  Speaker 3: 2021, right?
• 23:34
  Speaker 4: July.
• 23:35
  Speaker 3: Yeah, but he doesn't... Do you not do an independent
• 23:37
  Speaker 3: wrestling show for a full year? Swoggle Mania?
• 23:40
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 23:41
  Speaker 3: Swoggle Mania?
• 23:41
  Speaker 4: Because I did not... Do you.
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: Remember us watching him, Brian?
• 23:45
  Speaker 4: With the money. With the money.
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: He's getting the dollars. He's throwing it in a suitcase.
• 23:50
  Speaker 3: It was, yeah.
• 23:52
  Speaker 4: No, I had done a couple... Like a hassle. I
• 23:54
  Speaker 4: did a couple signings. Toy vomit. Shockingly, signings were... Plentiful,
• 24:00
  Speaker 4: which like not conventions like I was used to the
• 24:03
  Speaker 4: first time I was fired. That eventually comes.
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: But the virtual signings.
• 24:08
  Speaker 3: Man, when we first realized what virtual was, I was like,
• 24:11
  Speaker 3: this is genius. Like seeing K & S do what
• 24:14
  Speaker 3: they did in a pandemic.
• 24:16
  Speaker 4: High spots we did.
• 24:17
  Speaker 3: High spots, which was crazy fun.
• 24:19
  Speaker 4: So doing the high spots and, of course, the major
• 24:22
  Speaker 4: wrestling podcasts, I didn't have to go to Bumblefuck and
• 24:26
  Speaker 4: wrestle in front of 30 people with this fear that
• 24:29
  Speaker 4: I'd get fucking COVID. This is before vaccines and all
• 24:32
  Speaker 4: that shit.
• 24:32
  Speaker 3: But I was doing both, my friend. And I was not.
• 24:37
  Speaker 3: And I have zero regrets about that. Zero.
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: Yeah, well, you didn't need to until you did that thing. Now,
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: and I do want to say, the second or third
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: day you were fired, I said to you, Broski, you
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: got to, when Nick Gage comes back from his ankle injury,
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: you got to have a program with Nick Gage. You
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: got to. And I think you were receptive. You were like, oh, sure,
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: I'll do it.
• 25:01
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I do recall Mark saying that.
• 25:03
  Speaker 4: I remember Giancarlo trying to get me to work at
• 25:06
  Speaker 4: Angle with Effie, but, like, the summertime, like, in Atlantic City, like.
• 25:12
  Speaker 4: During the middle of the pandemic, like there's no way
• 25:13
  Speaker 4: over Atlantic city in the middle of the pandemic to wrestle.
• 25:16
  Speaker 3: No way.
• 25:16
  Speaker 4: Like did that show even happen? I think they were
• 25:19
  Speaker 4: doing them. I think like Joey Janela does something crazy.
• 25:22
  Speaker 4: It jumps off.
• 25:23
  Speaker 3: Oh yeah. Those are outside. They're outside. They're like on
• 25:26
  Speaker 3: the boardwalk.
• 25:27
  Speaker 4: I've been wrestling for fucking 10 plus years in WWE.
• 25:30
  Speaker 4: I want to do something cool. I'm not wrestling in
• 25:31
  Speaker 4: the fucking, the boardwalk in Atlantic city.
• 25:34
  Speaker 3: No way.
• 25:34
  Speaker 4: Like I eventually sure. That's not the first thing I'm doing.
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: Still limited fans to Boardwalk and Atlantic City.
• 25:38
  Speaker 3: Oh, God, horrible.
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: Limited to 100.
• 25:40
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I do think there is that, like, first thing thing,
• 25:43
  Speaker 3: you know? I was fine with doing that at Dillon's
• 25:45
  Speaker 3: because I had worked there a bunch, you know, pre-getting fired,
• 25:49
  Speaker 3: and I had, like, an established kind of thing there.
• 25:52
  Speaker 3: And I was surprised in, like, a Royal Rumble, which
• 25:54
  Speaker 3: I thought was fun.
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: Right, but also ACW doesn't have some sort of, like,
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: internet buzz. Brodsky shows up.
• 26:00
  Speaker 4: And is wrestling.
• 26:00
  Speaker 3: It ripped the Band-Aid off is what I'm trying to say,
• 26:02
  Speaker 3: you know? Like, I was able to just kind of.
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: But if Broski comes from being Zack Ryder and his
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: first show he does is in front of 50 people
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: in masks on the boardwalk.
• 26:10
  Speaker 3: Ego-wise, I couldn't do it. And luckily I didn't have
• 26:13
  Speaker 3: to do it for the wall. Yeah, but then a
• 26:14
  Speaker 3: gif comes out of that and it looks like no
• 26:15
  Speaker 3: one's there and then you look like a loser. It's
• 26:17
  Speaker 3: like the perception is reality type shit.
• 26:20
  Speaker 4: I hate that fucking phrase, but it is the truth, brother.
• 26:22
  Speaker 3: Especially in this business.
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: We're 26 minutes in and we've answered three questions, but
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: I think this is a good conversation. I just want
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: to ask this question right now. If you guys can
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: answer me on Patreon in the post. Do you enjoy
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: this kind of conversation? Is this what you like? I'm
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: wondering if this is interesting to you guys. We're going
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: to keep going no matter what, but I would like
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: to know.
• 26:46
  Speaker 3: I said it last week. Some of this stuff is
• 26:48
  Speaker 3: so candid and it speaks volumes of how loyal our
• 26:53
  Speaker 3: fan base is because it never... hits the sheets or
• 26:56
  Speaker 3: like it's such clickbaity shit that could come out of
• 26:58
  Speaker 3: this but it's just us being honest and it never happens.
• 27:02
  Speaker 4: At the same time it can we're saying this in
• 27:05
  Speaker 4: a public forum so if it gets out it gets
• 27:06
  Speaker 4: out we're not saying anything no i'm.
• 27:07
  Speaker 3: Not saying that it's just i just appreciate that i
• 27:09
  Speaker 3: guess i.
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: Don't know um okay jamie ogden what's the best thing
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: about working for impact and has matt striker ever talked
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: about that weird dating show.
• 27:21
  Speaker 3: I want to say, like, my flight out had Dreamer
• 27:23
  Speaker 3: and Striker on it. It just felt like it's that, like,
• 27:25
  Speaker 3: wrestling thing, like, people you haven't seen forever, and then
• 27:29
  Speaker 3: it feels like you hadn't seen them in no time
• 27:31
  Speaker 3: at all. You know what I mean? No time to
• 27:32
  Speaker 3: pass at all kind of thing. It was crazy. It
• 27:33
  Speaker 3: felt like I was in a time machine just sitting
• 27:35
  Speaker 3: there bullshitting with Dreamer and Striker and LaGuardia to go
• 27:38
  Speaker 3: to their show. So that was, like, very comforting. I
• 27:41
  Speaker 3: might have busted his balls about that in that moment,
• 27:44
  Speaker 3: but I don't remember what the answer was or anything else.
• 27:48
  Speaker 3: And my favorite thing about Impact, easily is the um
• 27:52
  Speaker 3: creative freedom you know you know impact has um robert
• 27:56
  Speaker 3: and jimmy who write the show and they do a
• 27:58
  Speaker 3: great job and are very detailed and they have great
• 28:00
  Speaker 3: ideas and stuff but that's not like the be all
• 28:03
  Speaker 3: end all like when they come to you with it
• 28:05
  Speaker 3: because you can say well can i say it like
• 28:06
  Speaker 3: this or how about we did like and there's this
• 28:08
  Speaker 3: cool you know vibe where you can collaborate and that's
• 28:12
  Speaker 3: totally fine whereas and you know where we came from
• 28:16
  Speaker 3: it was like the not the case at all this
• 28:19
  Speaker 3: is what you're doing and there's If you bitch and
• 28:22
  Speaker 3: moan about it, you're still going to do it, and
• 28:24
  Speaker 3: then you also have heat for doing that. That was
• 28:26
  Speaker 3: kind of it. It kind of sucked. Very, very, very
• 28:32
  Speaker 3: certain circumstances do you have ground to stand on in
• 28:35
  Speaker 3: WWE to get things changed. Top, top guys, obviously, different story.
• 28:39
  Speaker 3: To me, pro wrestling is art. I am an artist.
• 28:44
  Speaker 3: I'm performing as Brian Myers, the most professional wrestler. It's
• 28:47
  Speaker 3: my vision, collaborated with other things. But at the end
• 28:51
  Speaker 3: of the day, it's mine, you know? So for someone
• 28:53
  Speaker 3: to tell you entirely how to walk, how to talk,
• 28:56
  Speaker 3: how to wrestle, what to do, what you would do
• 28:57
  Speaker 3: in this situation, I think is kind of bullshit.
• 29:00
  Speaker 1: Hmm. Michael, a Puma, not really a question, but it's
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: so nice to see you guys be able to show
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: the world.
• 29:06
  Speaker 4: Can answer that question too, by the way. Well, I mean,
• 29:09
  Speaker 4: impact was great. Still is great. But I, I started
• 29:12
  Speaker 4: there in the beginning of 2021, but instantly felt very,
• 29:15
  Speaker 4: very comfortable. Uh, and like Brian says, I got to
• 29:18
  Speaker 4: back it up. Like, yes, there is, You're handed a
• 29:21
  Speaker 4: script where they're told what to say, but it's not verbatim.
• 29:26
  Speaker 4: And I think we've told it once time on one
• 29:28
  Speaker 4: of these shows. I did a backstage promo, and Dreamer
• 29:31
  Speaker 4: was like, what the fuck was that? I'm like, well,
• 29:33
  Speaker 4: it was on the page like that. He's like, talk
• 29:35
  Speaker 4: for like 30 seconds. Like you could, this is just
• 29:37
  Speaker 4: the idea. Just go off. And once he did that.
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: They gave you bullet points. You read the bullet points.
• 29:41
  Speaker 3: And you're like, what is going on? Dreamer loved telling
• 29:43
  Speaker 3: people that story. Pretty much.
• 29:45
  Speaker 4: So I'm Matt Cardona and I'm always ready because I'm
• 29:48
  Speaker 4: still here.
• 29:50
  Speaker 3: On AXS TV and like that was it and then
• 29:52
  Speaker 3: he's like bro do a promo what are you doing
• 29:54
  Speaker 3: like you could just you don't say whatever you.
• 29:56
  Speaker 4: Want and also you know when I was in AEW
• 29:59
  Speaker 4: I loved the time that I was there in AEW
• 30:01
  Speaker 4: it wasn't miserable by any means I could just tell
• 30:04
  Speaker 4: like there's nothing really for me here but I loved
• 30:08
  Speaker 4: everyone was super cool Tony was awesome Bucks were awesome
• 30:11
  Speaker 4: Kenny was awesome Cody of course I had a lot
• 30:14
  Speaker 4: of fun working with Alex Reynolds and John Silver you
• 30:17
  Speaker 4: know I joke about it but I chose them as
• 30:21
  Speaker 4: my opponents, and they end up getting signed right after
• 30:23
  Speaker 4: that match. I'm not saying I got them signed, but
• 30:26
  Speaker 4: it's funny how things work out.
• 30:28
  Speaker 3: What did Cody say? You said, let's pick those two
• 30:31
  Speaker 3: jobbers so we can squash them?
• 30:33
  Speaker 4: That's what he tells me, but that's not what I said.
• 30:36
  Speaker 4: I did pick them because I was comfortable to stiff them.
• 30:38
  Speaker 1: That is true.
• 30:42
  Speaker 3: You're comfortable to stiff everyone you've ever worked with, so
• 30:44
  Speaker 3: what does that mean?
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: You wouldn't feel bad about it.
• 30:47
  Speaker 4: I wouldn't feel bad about it.
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: Especially the first match you come in and then if
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: you know I don't know Scorpio Sky walks in the
• 30:53
  Speaker 1: back and says this guy's stiff and then everyone's like
• 30:55
  Speaker 1: oh crap.
• 30:56
  Speaker 4: I remember when I first got there it was Daily's
• 30:59
  Speaker 4: place so it's in these trailers no real locker room
• 31:01
  Speaker 4: and at the first locker room I walk into I
• 31:05
  Speaker 4: got there early and no one was in it so
• 31:06
  Speaker 4: I sat down but then like LAX come in Santana
• 31:08
  Speaker 4: Ortiz and that's how I met them and kind of
• 31:11
  Speaker 4: still friendly with them to this day is because of
• 31:13
  Speaker 4: just spending those days that I was there in the
• 31:15
  Speaker 4: trailer with them because I'm like alright I guess I'm
• 31:17
  Speaker 4: going to change with these.
• 31:17
  Speaker 3: Guys How many guys fit in a trailer? Like three
• 31:20
  Speaker 3: or four. Oh, really?
• 31:21
  Speaker 4: They're small.
• 31:22
  Speaker 3: Oh, damn.
• 31:25
  Speaker 4: So everyone was super cool. I got like three.
• 31:27
  Speaker 3: T-shirts out of it. Mark has a bus outside though, right?
• 31:29
  Speaker 3: He's riding his own bus.
• 31:30
  Speaker 4: That's another interesting fact. I had more T-shirts at AEW
• 31:34
  Speaker 4: than I had matches. I had three T-shirts and two matches.
• 31:38
  Speaker 3: That's the truth. That's an insane McDonald's trivia fact for
• 31:43
  Speaker 3: you folks. Think about that.
• 31:46
  Speaker 4: Three t-shirts and two matches.
• 31:50
  Speaker 1: Your t-shirts are no longer there. I checked.
• 31:52
  Speaker 3: I know, I know.
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: By the way, I also.
• 31:54
  Speaker 3: They're taken down from shop A-Dub?
• 31:56
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I searched Macardona. If you search Macardona, the only
• 32:00
  Speaker 1: thing that pops up is the pay-per-view.
• 32:01
  Speaker 3: The DVD. Yeah.
• 32:03
  Speaker 1: Also, I have had more t-shirts at AEW than matches
• 32:06
  Speaker 1: as well.
• 32:07
  Speaker 4: Yeah, but at least you're there.
• 32:09
  Speaker 1: I'm just kidding. Michael LaPuma. Not really a question, but
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: it's so nice to see you guys be able to
• 32:13
  Speaker 1: show the world that you're wrestling skills and not have
• 32:16
  Speaker 1: these two-minute matches.
• 32:17
  Speaker 4: Oh, fuck. Sorry, sorry. I don't want to cut you off.
• 32:19
  Speaker 4: Tony Khan did our podcast. I remember we were just
• 32:23
  Speaker 4: all high. I said, oh, I want to do your podcast.
• 32:24
  Speaker 4: That's how great it was, how cool of a guy
• 32:26
  Speaker 4: he is. That was awesome, too, because- Unreal episode. That's
• 32:29
  Speaker 4: how I met him, but since it's a Zoom call,
• 32:31
  Speaker 4: you really do feel like you met somebody, right?
• 32:33
  Speaker 3: Right, right. Then he came almost- The next month or two,
• 32:36
  Speaker 3: he came to Impact, and he was coming all the
• 32:38
  Speaker 3: time for the tapings. I hung out with him a
• 32:41
  Speaker 3: bunch of times.
• 32:43
  Speaker 4: Tony's the man.
• 32:44
  Speaker 3: Awesome. Awesome dude. I don't know him as a boss
• 32:48
  Speaker 3: at all, but we hit it off as nerdy wrestling
• 32:51
  Speaker 3: fans talking, which obviously I love.
• 32:55
  Speaker 1: LaPuma says that you guys are showing the world that
• 32:57
  Speaker 1: you can do more than two minute matches. Thanks, LaPuma.
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: Matt Norris. Was there anyone in the business after the
• 33:02
  Speaker 1: release who reached out to you that surprised you that
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: they took the time to talk to you?
• 33:07
  Speaker 4: I'll say right now, I was shocked that Bruce Prichard
• 33:10
  Speaker 4: called me that day.
• 33:11
  Speaker 3: Same. Same.
• 33:13
  Speaker 4: I was very appreciative of it. Did not think that
• 33:17
  Speaker 4: was going to happen. Did not think it wasn't going
• 33:20
  Speaker 4: to happen. I just didn't even, you know, when I
• 33:22
  Speaker 4: got the call from Bruce Prichard, who is now in
• 33:26
  Speaker 4: charge of the company, Uh, pretty much.
• 33:28
  Speaker 3: I was like, you know what?
• 33:29
  Speaker 4: He didn't have to do that, but that was very
• 33:31
  Speaker 4: nice that he did.
• 33:32
  Speaker 3: He did the same for me. And I felt like
• 33:34
  Speaker 3: he felt the sense of like somewhat of a friendship
• 33:38
  Speaker 3: with us because of the way, you know, it all
• 33:41
  Speaker 3: came about.
• 33:43
  Speaker 4: Not that we, first of all, his podcast is phenomenal,
• 33:45
  Speaker 4: but I think we were the first two who really
• 33:48
  Speaker 4: put it out there. And it would have blew up
• 33:50
  Speaker 4: either way, right?
• 33:50
  Speaker 3: Of course.
• 33:51
  Speaker 4: But I think we were the ones who were in
• 33:53
  Speaker 4: WWE wearing his fucking shirts. We were talking about it.
• 33:58
  Speaker 3: When he was like, basically, you weren't allowed to mention him. Right.
• 34:01
  Speaker 1: By the way. I hate to break this to you,
• 34:04
  Speaker 1: but he wasn't actually calling you because you got fired.
• 34:06
  Speaker 1: He was just catching up on his shirt calls.
• 34:09
  Speaker 3: That's a good joke. That is a good joke. That
• 34:12
  Speaker 3: was good. I mean, it's weird because time stands still,
• 34:18
  Speaker 3: but I do remember I got a couple nice texts
• 34:20
  Speaker 3: from people in the company that surprised me.
• 34:25
  Speaker 2: Rock?
• 34:26
  Speaker 3: Not Dwayne, and Dwayne doesn't really work there, but I
• 34:28
  Speaker 3: would love if Dwayne messaged me. Dwayne, if you're listening.
• 34:32
  Speaker 3: The worst part is, and someone can fact check this,
• 34:35
  Speaker 3: but I'm pretty sure the very next day Howard Finkel
• 34:38
  Speaker 3: passes and Carano called me to talk about that. So
• 34:41
  Speaker 3: it's like he called me to fire me and then
• 34:43
  Speaker 3: he called me the very next day to talk about
• 34:45
  Speaker 3: our mutual friend that had unfortunately passed. A couple of
• 34:49
  Speaker 3: days later. Yeah. It's like within two or three days.
• 34:52
  Speaker 3: I want to say it's the very next day.
• 34:54
  Speaker 2: Wow.
• 34:54
  Speaker 3: Pretty, pretty horrible. All right.
• 34:57
  Speaker 1: So this is a weird question. Um, I'm going to
• 35:01
  Speaker 1: read it, Broski. I don't know if you guys can
• 35:03
  Speaker 1: take portions of it or whatever, or you can answer
• 35:06
  Speaker 1: it all. Dan Servia.
• 35:09
  Speaker 3: This is cringy.
• 35:10
  Speaker 1: How much of a match is scripted before the match?
• 35:12
  Speaker 1: Do you map out a majority before and is it
• 35:14
  Speaker 1: basically freestyle in the ring? But here's the cool one.
• 35:17
  Speaker 1: How different was it going over a match with, say,
• 35:20
  Speaker 1: WB Talent versus doing it with Nick Gage? And what
• 35:23
  Speaker 1: was Nick's response when approaching him about a figure? Was
• 35:26
  Speaker 1: he excited or didn't really care?
• 35:27
  Speaker 4: This has nothing to do with this year, so I'm
• 35:29
  Speaker 4: going to pass on it. Okay.
• 35:31
  Speaker 3: Passing.
• 35:32
  Speaker 4: Well, because we only have so much time.
• 35:33
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and that's like, yeah, I agree. It's a question
• 35:37
  Speaker 3: that would take too much time to answer and it's
• 35:40
  Speaker 3: not pertaining to the subject that matter.
• 35:41
  Speaker 1: Ivan Gomez, if you want to know about scripting of matches,
• 35:45
  Speaker 1: by the way, you can watch one of those VHSs
• 35:47
  Speaker 1: from 1997 that gave away the biz.
• 35:50
  Speaker 3: Harley Race made those.
• 35:52
  Speaker 1: What possible matches intrigued you the most after the firing,
• 35:54
  Speaker 1: whether that was on the indies or bigger promotion? Matches,
• 35:58
  Speaker 1: people to wrestle.
• 35:59
  Speaker 3: My favorite is I want to say the day I
• 36:02
  Speaker 3: got fired, you know, of course your phone just blowing
• 36:04
  Speaker 3: up with, like I said, sincere stuff from people or
• 36:07
  Speaker 3: just nonsense or whatever. A number I don't have in
• 36:09
  Speaker 3: my phone goes, I got your number from James Ellsworth.
• 36:13
  Speaker 3: I want to book you. And I'm just like, it
• 36:17
  Speaker 3: couldn't have been more just passed over, like way more
• 36:21
  Speaker 3: important shit going on here. Didn't even engage with it.
• 36:25
  Speaker 3: And a couple of days later, it's like, hey, I
• 36:27
  Speaker 3: know you want to wrestle Shane Douglas and I can
• 36:29
  Speaker 3: make that happen. So now I go, okay, what's going
• 36:32
  Speaker 3: on here? Then I engage, and that person happened to
• 36:35
  Speaker 3: be Gary Damron.
• 36:36
  Speaker 4: Gary Damron, there he is.
• 36:38
  Speaker 3: And he's the one, and that might be... I want
• 36:42
  Speaker 3: to say that's my... I definitely did Swoggle Championship Wrestling first,
• 36:46
  Speaker 3: and that might be the second thing I did. I
• 36:48
  Speaker 3: wrestled Shane Douglas in the main event for Gary Damron
• 36:50
  Speaker 3: in West Virginia, and it was like an awesome dream
• 36:53
  Speaker 3: come true thing for me. And I really want to say...
• 36:57
  Speaker 3: It's just something that I might have said on the
• 36:59
  Speaker 3: actual podcast, like during the Q & A maybe or whatever,
• 37:04
  Speaker 3: something like that. I definitely said it, and then he
• 37:08
  Speaker 3: called me on it and made it happen. So as
• 37:10
  Speaker 3: a man of his word, which I've worked for him
• 37:12
  Speaker 3: a ton since, and it's been just a wonderful relationship.
• 37:15
  Speaker 3: He's an awesome promoter, great dude, runs cool, great family-friendly
• 37:19
  Speaker 3: shows and stuff.
• 37:21
  Speaker 1: One of my favorite indie experiences of my life.
• 37:24
  Speaker 3: Yeah, there you go.
• 37:25
  Speaker 4: I didn't have like a list per se. I knew
• 37:29
  Speaker 4: I wanted to be a heel. However, rest in peace, Fink,
• 37:33
  Speaker 4: I knew I'd be a fucking fool to come out
• 37:36
  Speaker 4: of the gate as a heel, waste that gimmick money,
• 37:39
  Speaker 4: that sympathy run. I also did not want to come
• 37:42
  Speaker 4: across as bitter ex-WWE guy. I was very conscious on
• 37:47
  Speaker 4: the interviews I was doing to say how grateful I
• 37:49
  Speaker 4: was for my time at WWE, which is still the truth.
• 37:51
  Speaker 4: And it was the truth.
• 37:53
  Speaker 3: And I knew that.
• 37:54
  Speaker 4: If I was going to AEW or Impact, it wouldn't
• 37:57
  Speaker 4: make sense to be a heel right away. And yes,
• 37:59
  Speaker 4: it took a while to naturally get there because you
• 38:01
  Speaker 4: can't just turn heel on the indies. Something has to happen,
• 38:07
  Speaker 4: and it organically did happen a year or so later.
• 38:10
  Speaker 4: But I knew I wanted to.
• 38:14
  Speaker 4: Reinvent myself, but you can't just sit down and plan
• 38:18
  Speaker 4: it out. It has to happen. Timing is everything in
• 38:20
  Speaker 4: this business and in life too. If I were to
• 38:24
  Speaker 4: debut in Impact or AEW with a new look and
• 38:27
  Speaker 4: a new name, new gimmick, it wouldn't really translate, I
• 38:30
  Speaker 4: don't think. I'd have to come in And I already
• 38:35
  Speaker 4: stopped doing a lot of the Zack Ryder stuff. People
• 38:37
  Speaker 4: didn't know that because we weren't on TV, but I
• 38:39
  Speaker 4: knew that. I already knew Vince told me to stop
• 38:41
  Speaker 4: doing the woo-woo-woo a year prior. I hadn't been doing it.
• 38:44
  Speaker 4: And I think the perception of me, for a lot
• 38:47
  Speaker 4: of people, it's like, oh, he's still the guy doing
• 38:48
  Speaker 4: the woo-woo-woo, the headband and glasses. I haven't worn the
• 38:50
  Speaker 4: fucking headband and glasses for seven, eight years at that point.
• 38:53
  Speaker 3: You know?
• 38:55
  Speaker 4: So I knew I just had to be me, whatever
• 38:59
  Speaker 4: me is. And even, I think we talked about it,
• 39:02
  Speaker 4: In the last episode, Brian Flynn, Super 7, calls us
• 39:06
  Speaker 4: up instantly. Hey, we want to make figures. Oh, that's great. Fuck,
• 39:08
  Speaker 4: we don't have gear. TDD, we need gear like tomorrow.
• 39:12
  Speaker 4: You know what I'm saying?
• 39:13
  Speaker 3: Tomorrow is like when I said I just had to
• 39:15
  Speaker 3: reimagine myself as who I'm going to be without the
• 39:19
  Speaker 3: shows to be who that person ultimately would become. It's
• 39:23
  Speaker 3: like the weirdest scenario.
• 39:25
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 39:26
  Speaker 4: So I knew I wanted to recreate the internet title.
• 39:29
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 39:30
  Speaker 4: Knew I wanted to you know I didn't know exactly
• 39:33
  Speaker 4: what the game plan was I just knew little pieces
• 39:35
  Speaker 4: of it like Brian said there's no shows at this
• 39:37
  Speaker 4: point to be doing especially we had those 90 days
• 39:39
  Speaker 4: and So you have 30 days to reinvent yourself without
• 39:42
  Speaker 4: having a real platform to do it. But luckily we
• 39:45
  Speaker 4: live in this internet age where we're able to put
• 39:47
  Speaker 4: out little hype videos and pictures, which we both did.
• 39:50
  Speaker 4: You just got to roll with the punches, baby.
• 39:54
  Speaker 3: I forgot about that, actually.
• 39:58
  Speaker 1: Michael Puma, before you guys figured out how nice and
• 40:01
  Speaker 1: easy it was for the three of you to do
• 40:03
  Speaker 1: the pod from home, were you worried that it was
• 40:05
  Speaker 1: not going to be able to get it done every week?
• 40:08
  Speaker 1: I will say. No, I never was worried. I was
• 40:12
  Speaker 1: slightly concerned that maybe we'd have to do it over
• 40:14
  Speaker 1: a few times if Brian forgot to press record or.
• 40:16
  Speaker 3: Something like that. I think that's all on me, not
• 40:19
  Speaker 3: knowing a thing about a computer. I still don't. I
• 40:21
  Speaker 3: know how to set up this stuff to record, and
• 40:24
  Speaker 3: that's about it.
• 40:25
  Speaker 1: Actually, I'm impressed by your technical prowess as far as
• 40:28
  Speaker 1: that connection go. I don't really often have to walk
• 40:31
  Speaker 1: you through things. I still sometimes have to walk Broski
• 40:33
  Speaker 1: through his course, so.
• 40:35
  Speaker 3: I think the most unsung thing of all time is
• 40:38
  Speaker 3: you leaving me the equipment that Sunday night.
• 40:41
  Speaker 1: Bro, so weird, right? I'm like, you know, something weird's
• 40:44
  Speaker 1: happening with the world. Let me give you this mic.
• 40:46
  Speaker 3: That's like the ultimate saving grace of this show, I'd say.
• 40:51
  Speaker 1: Yeah, wow. That would have been so, bro, we would
• 40:53
  Speaker 1: have had some episodes with you calling in on a telephone.
• 40:56
  Speaker 3: I mean, who knows? I don't even know. I remember, wait, no,
• 40:59
  Speaker 3: one of them, Max Caster came and watched me do it,
• 41:03
  Speaker 3: so I didn't know if I'd come. I did. Oh, yeah.
• 41:06
  Speaker 3: What was that? And maybe Johnny Clash once, too?
• 41:12
  Speaker 1: Actually, oh, man, I don't remember what that was. Maybe
• 41:15
  Speaker 1: that was when you were hurt, and I couldn't do it.
• 41:18
  Speaker 1: I was away.
• 41:21
  Speaker 4: I don't know.
• 41:21
  Speaker 1: But, yeah, Caster had, because Caster's an audio producer, so
• 41:25
  Speaker 1: he just basically made sure that you press record.
• 41:27
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 41:30
  Speaker 1: All right. Rigoberto Herrera. What? Is one promotion or match
• 41:37
  Speaker 1: you said, no matter how bad it gets, I will
• 41:39
  Speaker 1: never do it?
• 41:42
  Speaker 4: I don't really think I have any of those.
• 41:44
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I don't think there's... I told Cody to his
• 41:46
  Speaker 3: face over the weekend that I don't think I'd ever
• 41:49
  Speaker 3: do anything with fire. Oh, really? And after hearing his
• 41:52
  Speaker 3: experience firsthand, I could probably confirm that after that conversation, yeah.
• 41:56
  Speaker 4: I definitely want to do a spot with that.
• 41:59
  Speaker 3: It's just so not in my... wheelhouse or bucket list
• 42:03
  Speaker 3: shall i say a pro.
• 42:03
  Speaker 4: Wrestling my bucket list for sure um but i think
• 42:07
  Speaker 4: i would do it i.
• 42:10
  Speaker 3: Mean he's doing it for a multi-million dollar company with
• 42:15
  Speaker 3: taking the precautions and you know even in that situation
• 42:19
  Speaker 3: i don't think i would do it but and his
• 42:21
  Speaker 3: back looks fucking gross he told me it all and
• 42:23
  Speaker 3: that's his information disclosed i was keeping myself but no
• 42:27
  Speaker 3: thank you.
• 42:27
  Speaker 1: Yeah Corbin Joslin he asked a question that you sort
• 42:32
  Speaker 1: of already answered about the pitching the Tony Khan figure
• 42:35
  Speaker 1: thing so I feel like you've answered that John Doyle
• 42:39
  Speaker 1: you guys can pass on this but I'm going to
• 42:41
  Speaker 1: ask it I think you guys talked about it at
• 42:42
  Speaker 1: the time not knowing what the deal was regarding royalties
• 42:45
  Speaker 1: and the edge head figures did you get paid if not.
• 42:48
  Speaker 3: Yo got one today and that same thing crossed my
• 42:53
  Speaker 3: mind I don't think we were.
• 42:53
  Speaker 4: Ever paid for that you know what I don't think
• 42:55
  Speaker 4: we were either.
• 42:56
  Speaker 3: I don't think we were ever paid for that, I
• 42:57
  Speaker 3: should figure. I've never seen it on. And they give
• 43:00
  Speaker 3: you an itemized thing.
• 43:01
  Speaker 4: We should text our friend.
• 43:03
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I don't think we were ever.
• 43:04
  Speaker 4: I feel like we deserve something from that.
• 43:07
  Speaker 3: I mean, yeah, I agree. It's our like this. That's
• 43:10
  Speaker 3: part of the deal. You can't really get out of that.
• 43:12
  Speaker 3: But I think that one slipped through the cracks.
• 43:14
  Speaker 1: We all love Uncle Adam, but the majority.
• 43:16
  Speaker 3: I think that all went to the Copeland family, yeah.
• 43:18
  Speaker 4: I wasn't checking one bit.
• 43:20
  Speaker 3: I feel like I've checked, and it's never been there.
• 43:23
  Speaker 3: And there certainly wasn't there. Just the one I got.
• 43:27
  Speaker 3: I literally got it today.
• 43:28
  Speaker 4: That's very, very interesting. Yeah.
• 43:31
  Speaker 3: Huh. All right.
• 43:33
  Speaker 4: Make a mental note of that, Brian.
• 43:36
  Speaker 1: Just say pass if you want. Max Heron, has your
• 43:39
  Speaker 1: journey since been more lucrative now than when you were
• 43:41
  Speaker 1: with the company?
• 43:44
  Speaker 3: Depends. It's so hard to actually figure that out. I'd
• 43:50
  Speaker 3: say it ended up being a lateral movement for me,
• 43:55
  Speaker 3: I think.
• 43:56
  Speaker 4: I think.
• 43:58
  Speaker 3: But the happiness is like, well, you can't put a
• 44:01
  Speaker 3: price on. The freedom.
• 44:02
  Speaker 4: I was going to say this.
• 44:03
  Speaker 3: The freedom, you can't put a price on it. So
• 44:05
  Speaker 3: it's like, even if it's a couple grand less, like
• 44:09
  Speaker 3: who gives a shit?
• 44:10
  Speaker 4: Probably more than a couple grand. But 2020, because we
• 44:14
  Speaker 4: had like, not half the year, but with the 90 days,
• 44:18
  Speaker 4: almost half the year, plus the podcast and the science,
• 44:20
  Speaker 4: it was the most money I ever made in wrestling. 2021,
• 44:24
  Speaker 4: I haven't sat and calculated it yet. I don't know
• 44:26
  Speaker 4: if it beats that number or not, but whether it
• 44:28
  Speaker 4: does or doesn't, I don't give a fuck because I'll
• 44:31
  Speaker 4: say this and there's people and that's fine. It's just
• 44:34
  Speaker 4: my opinion. This is not fact. I think success should
• 44:38
  Speaker 4: be defined by happiness and not fucking dollar signs. And
• 44:41
  Speaker 4: I'll tell you what, 2021 was my favorite year of
• 44:44
  Speaker 4: my career and the most fun I've had in my
• 44:46
  Speaker 4: career and the happiest I've ever been in my career.
• 44:49
  Speaker 4: I argue that say maybe the most successful my career's
• 44:53
  Speaker 4: ever been, even though I didn't work for WWE, which
• 44:55
  Speaker 4: is crazy. Did I make the most money? I'd have
• 44:59
  Speaker 4: to calculate. I would guess probably not. But listen, I
• 45:05
  Speaker 4: just ordered Uber Eats, sushi, second time I ordered Uber Eats,
• 45:08
  Speaker 4: third time I ordered Uber Eats today.
• 45:09
  Speaker 3: That's not something to be proud of.
• 45:11
  Speaker 1: That is so ridiculous.
• 45:16
  Speaker 3: Mondays are busy days, guys. That's where your now wife
• 45:19
  Speaker 3: has to be like, stop. Make your fucking self a sandwich.
• 45:24
  Speaker 4: Because of the podcast and because of the life that
• 45:30
  Speaker 4: we've worked our ass off for this. You know what
• 45:32
  Speaker 4: I'm saying? Luckily, I don't have to live paycheck to paycheck.
• 45:38
  Speaker 4: That's because of wrestling. That is a huge reason why
• 45:42
  Speaker 4: I'm grateful for my time at WWE. Because if it
• 45:45
  Speaker 4: wasn't for WWE, let's say we never got signed to WWE.
• 45:48
  Speaker 4: Nobody would want to listen to these two schmucks talking
• 45:51
  Speaker 4: about wrestling figures.
• 45:52
  Speaker 3: You know what I'm saying?
• 45:54
  Speaker 4: It's because of the name we built, WWE.
• 45:55
  Speaker 3: Yeah, absolutely. That's the kind of things that you're almost
• 46:00
  Speaker 3: forever in debt. Of course, of course.
• 46:03
  Speaker 4: If I was just starting out on the indies, I
• 46:06
  Speaker 4: wouldn't be able to do the kind of matches I
• 46:07
  Speaker 4: have now where it's like character stuff and talking on
• 46:10
  Speaker 4: the mic. They'd want gif moves and crazy shit. I
• 46:13
  Speaker 4: can't do that stuff. You know what I'm saying? It's
• 46:15
  Speaker 4: because of the name value and the equity I built
• 46:19
  Speaker 4: in WWE that now I'm able to tweak it and
• 46:21
  Speaker 4: flip the switch and be like, no, what you used
• 46:24
  Speaker 4: to like, now I'm going to make you hate. I
• 46:26
  Speaker 4: couldn't just come out of the gate doing that.
• 46:28
  Speaker 3: You know?
• 46:28
  Speaker 4: Mm-hmm.
• 46:30
  Speaker 1: WWE was your developmental.
• 46:32
  Speaker 4: WWE was my developmental, and I don't mean that in
• 46:34
  Speaker 4: a negative way. It taught me how to be a superstar.
• 46:36
  Speaker 4: It taught me how to carry myself. It taught me
• 46:39
  Speaker 4: how to handle money because there are a lot of people,
• 46:43
  Speaker 4: not just in wrestling, sports, music, entertainment, they get that
• 46:46
  Speaker 4: first taste of success. They buy a brand new fucking car.
• 46:49
  Speaker 4: They waste it away. I was good with my money
• 46:54
  Speaker 4: because honestly, full disclosure, and this is going to sound
• 46:56
  Speaker 4: horrible to say, in the grand scheme of things of
• 46:59
  Speaker 4: all WWE wrestlers, Brian and I did not make a
• 47:01
  Speaker 4: lot of money.
• 47:02
  Speaker 3: Oh, my God, especially early on.
• 47:04
  Speaker 4: In comparison to if I had a regular job, yes,
• 47:07
  Speaker 4: we made a lot of money. But compared to even
• 47:10
  Speaker 4: middle-of-the-range guys in WWE, we did not.
• 47:13
  Speaker 3: Yeah, or at least for the perception of people that
• 47:15
  Speaker 3: we're like millionaires, which is scary.
• 47:16
  Speaker 4: Even to this day, people think we're like fucking rolling
• 47:19
  Speaker 4: in the dough.
• 47:19
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 47:20
  Speaker 3: You know what I'm saying?
• 47:21
  Speaker 1: First of all, let me just tell you this. We've
• 47:22
  Speaker 1: talked about this a little bit on the MC podcast.
• 47:26
  Speaker 1: And me coming from the real world, I'll tell you this.
• 47:30
  Speaker 1: Compared to the real world? No, you did not make
• 47:32
  Speaker 1: a lot of money. There was years that you made
• 47:35
  Speaker 1: what an entry-level office associate would do.
• 47:39
  Speaker 3: Our early WWE contracts are $ 52, 000.
• 47:42
  Speaker 4: Main roster.
• 47:42
  Speaker 3: Main roster, superstars, $ 52, 000. With expenses. And paying for everything.
• 47:46
  Speaker 4: That's at least $ 15, 000, $ 20, 000 a year. Yeah, it was
• 47:48
  Speaker 4: not glorious.
• 47:48
  Speaker 3: So $ 52, 000. Gals told Johnny he wanted to work at
• 47:58
  Speaker 3: McDonald's when he wasn't on the road because he needed
• 48:00
  Speaker 3: extra money. Yeah. And he shot him down. He goes, well,
• 48:04
  Speaker 3: you buy a case of beer at night, right? How
• 48:06
  Speaker 3: much is that? 20 bucks? There you go. 20 bucks
• 48:08
  Speaker 3: a night. Back in your pocket. Stop drinking beer. Real
• 48:12
  Speaker 3: conversation they had.
• 48:13
  Speaker 1: Bro. But honestly, college graduate goes to be a customer
• 48:17
  Speaker 1: service agent in a company, $ 52, 000. That's a starting salary.
• 48:21
  Speaker 1: So you guys could have worked nine to five and
• 48:23
  Speaker 1: made the same amount of money. Um, and, and if
• 48:28
  Speaker 1: you want information on, uh, my, uh, money in the
• 48:31
  Speaker 1: past couple of years, you just have to email doc
• 48:33
  Speaker 1: gallows at gmail.com. He knows all of my financials.
• 48:36
  Speaker 3: Maybe my favorite joke from the wedding weekend.
• 48:39
  Speaker 1: I don't even understand it. Oh, uh, all right. Uh,
• 48:44
  Speaker 1: Chris D Giovanni described the behind the scenes of an
• 48:47
  Speaker 1: indie booking and the event itself. Any bad business dealings
• 48:50
  Speaker 1: or interactions?
• 48:53
  Speaker 3: Um, my, my, run-ins i've been very fortunate like gallows
• 48:57
  Speaker 3: just did this show i hate to keep name dropping
• 49:00
  Speaker 3: him but he uh he just had this show it's
• 49:04
  Speaker 3: too good to be true thing in south carolina he
• 49:06
  Speaker 3: got all his buddies booked like dilo and carl anderson
• 49:09
  Speaker 3: and i think john skyler and the promoter wound up
• 49:13
  Speaker 3: writing bad checks for everybody and nobody got paid.
• 49:16
  Speaker 1: Oh my god yeah i have not had a.
• 49:18
  Speaker 3: Bad and even in my first fire i never had
• 49:21
  Speaker 3: a bad running and it's been a certainly even easier
• 49:25
  Speaker 3: this time because i've already established a lot of those
• 49:26
  Speaker 3: relationships you know what i mean john thorne texts me
• 49:29
  Speaker 3: to work aiw it's not like this like what's gonna
• 49:32
  Speaker 3: happen there you know he's like my buddy and i
• 49:33
  Speaker 3: worked there but it's like There's not that many of
• 49:36
  Speaker 3: those scenarios for me.
• 49:38
  Speaker 4: And even though this doesn't pertain to this year, I'll
• 49:40
  Speaker 4: say it quickly for 2022, I'm just trying to do
• 49:44
  Speaker 4: a lot of repeat booking. So I don't have to
• 49:45
  Speaker 4: deal with that.
• 49:46
  Speaker 3: Exactly.
• 49:47
  Speaker 4: I'm going to pay, but I don't have to negotiate
• 49:49
  Speaker 4: this where like, if someone comes to me and says,
• 49:51
  Speaker 4: I want you this month, this month, I'm trying to
• 49:53
  Speaker 4: fill up my calendar with those dates and repeat dates.
• 49:56
  Speaker 4: Of course, every once in a while I would do
• 49:57
  Speaker 4: first time coming to, you know, Lincoln, Nebraska, you know,
• 50:02
  Speaker 4: I'll do all that shit. Uh, but other than that,
• 50:04
  Speaker 4: I want to, You know, just keep going to the
• 50:07
  Speaker 4: same places for the comfortability. Is that a word?
• 50:10
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 50:12
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Similar question. Same guy. Matt, did you ask Brian
• 50:17
  Speaker 1: or anyone else for advice before dealing with indies slash promoters?
• 50:21
  Speaker 1: And Brian, how have the indies slash promoters in locker
• 50:25
  Speaker 1: rooms changed since your last indie run?
• 50:28
  Speaker 4: So I asked a couple people advice. And things that
• 50:31
  Speaker 4: I did in the beginning, you know, people– Some people
• 50:34
  Speaker 4: really agreed with, some people didn't agree with. Here's one
• 50:36
  Speaker 4: of them. Getting a quote unquote agent, which I now,
• 50:42
  Speaker 4: do I still have them? I guess technically, but I
• 50:43
  Speaker 4: do 99.9% of things myself. In the beginning, I mean,
• 50:48
  Speaker 4: I don't want to sound conceited. The amount of emails
• 50:50
  Speaker 4: I was getting was in fucking sane. And I would
• 50:54
  Speaker 4: say half of them is some fucking mark who cannot
• 50:57
  Speaker 4: even write a sentence, you know? So it's probably not
• 50:59
  Speaker 4: even a legit booking. So I had someone who would
• 51:02
  Speaker 4: go through the BS and Uh, but now, like I said,
• 51:06
  Speaker 4: cause I have made these relationships nine times out of 10,
• 51:09
  Speaker 4: it's a, a repeat booking.
• 51:12
  Speaker 1: Hmm.
• 51:13
  Speaker 3: Uh, I can decipher a, uh, an email, man, within
• 51:18
  Speaker 3: 10 seconds. I know it's bullshit or just, you know,
• 51:21
  Speaker 3: a real offer. Not even that.
• 51:23
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 51:23
  Speaker 3: I just, I'm just so used to it. Like, yeah.
• 51:25
  Speaker 3: Even if it's someone I'd ever met, whatever. Um, and
• 51:28
  Speaker 3: he's definitely have changed for sure from my last run
• 51:31
  Speaker 3: to this run. Um, but you gotta think like when
• 51:35
  Speaker 3: I was in the Indies last time, it was like
• 51:37
  Speaker 3: that Bullet Club era, you know, and like some of
• 51:42
  Speaker 3: the guys end up being like some of the best
• 51:44
  Speaker 3: wrestlers in the world. You know what I mean? Like
• 51:46
  Speaker 3: AJ Styles and the Young Bucks and like Adam Cole.
• 51:49
  Speaker 3: I mean, there was like some top, top dogs, you know, PWG,
• 51:53
  Speaker 3: which I don't think is like controlling the Indies anymore
• 51:57
  Speaker 3: like it used to. Like that was kind of like
• 51:58
  Speaker 3: the be all end all kind of thing. And it's
• 52:01
  Speaker 3: a lot more, Not that that athletic style has gone away,
• 52:07
  Speaker 3: but you don't have to offer that. You can be
• 52:09
  Speaker 3: an entertainer and have a great social media presence like
• 52:13
  Speaker 3: that to get over, which I think is great because
• 52:15
  Speaker 3: wrestling is entertainment. So you need both, for sure.
• 52:19
  Speaker 4: Bubba Dudley just put out a tweet a couple days ago.
• 52:21
  Speaker 4: He says, if they pop more for your move than
• 52:24
  Speaker 4: your music, you're not over. And I agree 100%.
• 52:28
  Speaker 3: To a degree, I agree with that, yes, for sure.
• 52:31
  Speaker 4: To a degree? Yeah.
• 52:32
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 52:33
  Speaker 4: I agree 100%.
• 52:35
  Speaker 1: If they pop more for your move than your music.
• 52:37
  Speaker 3: Yes. Okay.
• 52:40
  Speaker 1: I can see what you're saying.
• 52:41
  Speaker 3: I totally get what you're saying. It's great.
• 52:44
  Speaker 1: I will say this about the indies because I've sort
• 52:49
  Speaker 1: of been doing them for many years. If you compare
• 52:53
  Speaker 1: the indies from like 2014 to now. I would say
• 52:57
  Speaker 1: a lot of things have changed, and I tweeted this.
• 52:59
  Speaker 1: I talked about this somewhere. A lot of things have changed,
• 53:01
  Speaker 1: and I'm talking for the better because the community, the
• 53:07
  Speaker 1: professional wrestling community years ago, 10 years ago, was really
• 53:10
  Speaker 1: bad and toxic. There was a lot of, like, sort
• 53:14
  Speaker 1: of bullying and ribbing and just sort of, like, not
• 53:20
  Speaker 1: including certain people, and I will say that things have
• 53:25
  Speaker 1: moved for the better. And a lot of those, there
• 53:29
  Speaker 1: used to be a lot of Carney promoters. I feel
• 53:31
  Speaker 1: like I see those less and less to be a
• 53:33
  Speaker 1: lot of shitty, shitty shows. There are shitty shows, but
• 53:37
  Speaker 1: there's a lot of actual business people running shows nowadays,
• 53:40
  Speaker 1: which is something that didn't happen. Like I'd say 2007.
• 53:45
  Speaker 1: So anyways, the wrestling business is doing better now, I
• 53:49
  Speaker 1: would say than it used to. And, and it's because, um,
• 53:53
  Speaker 1: things have changed. Um, That's my two cents on that.
• 53:59
  Speaker 1: John Fisher, is there anything you would change about how
• 54:02
  Speaker 1: you reacted to getting fired? I guess you'd be elated.
• 54:07
  Speaker 1: Brian would not be upset for two days.
• 54:08
  Speaker 3: Yeah, but I don't have a fucking crystal ball. I mean,
• 54:11
  Speaker 3: it all worked out. I'm very happy. It's been incredible.
• 54:15
  Speaker 3: And like, bro, shit, everything happens for a reason.
• 54:17
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I don't regret not going to Impact at Slammiversary
• 54:23
  Speaker 4: and trying AEW because... I think I would have always
• 54:26
  Speaker 4: wondered kind of like, what if? As opposed to, I
• 54:28
  Speaker 4: know what happened when I went. Great time, just didn't
• 54:31
  Speaker 4: work out for me then. Who's to say it won't
• 54:33
  Speaker 4: work out in the future? But I know now, you know?
• 54:37
  Speaker 4: And I know that, like I said, everything happens for
• 54:40
  Speaker 4: a reason, that you can't look back and what's the
• 54:42
  Speaker 4: point of even saying, I wish we would have done this? Like, okay, well,
• 54:45
  Speaker 4: you can't. So don't even waste your time.
• 54:47
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and it's kind of cool to your lore that
• 54:49
  Speaker 1: you've been everywhere. I'm pretty sure it's two matches. Yeah, exactly.
• 54:55
  Speaker 1: Aaron Ortiz, amidst the pandemic, many toy collectors faced a
• 54:58
  Speaker 1: loss of employment. For some, this brought much free time,
• 55:02
  Speaker 1: allowing their collections to flourish. For others, it meant a
• 55:05
  Speaker 1: purge of their collections just to get by. After being
• 55:08
  Speaker 1: let go from the WWE and facing a pandemic, how
• 55:10
  Speaker 1: has your toy collection affected as a whole?
• 55:14
  Speaker 3: Zero percent. Yeah, zero percent. It hasn't been reduced by
• 55:19
  Speaker 3: any means.
• 55:21
  Speaker 1: Yeah, actually, I think that now that the world is back...
• 55:25
  Speaker 1: and we're so busy, we have less time to look
• 55:29
  Speaker 1: at your room and be like, hmm, I'm going to
• 55:31
  Speaker 1: buy a new cabinet to move. I'm doing that less.
• 55:34
  Speaker 4: I don't have time to take a shit now. During
• 55:36
  Speaker 4: the pandemic, I reorganized my whole garage.
• 55:39
  Speaker 3: I actually love the time I have when I'm in
• 55:42
  Speaker 3: here to record because I sit in here and just
• 55:43
  Speaker 3: admire all my shit.
• 55:44
  Speaker 1: Do you remember when we would just like, Let's do
• 55:47
  Speaker 1: a history of New Jack figures today.
• 55:50
  Speaker 4: How many guys can we interview this week? Bro, Mark
• 55:55
  Speaker 4: Yeager wants us to fly to New York. Mark, what
• 55:58
  Speaker 4: fucking day am I going to fly to New York, Mark?
• 56:00
  Speaker 1: Mark Brock Lesnar Lake.
• 56:02
  Speaker 4: Yeah, middle of the week, let me just go. Mark,
• 56:07
  Speaker 4: some days I can't even shit when I have to shit.
• 56:09
  Speaker 4: I'm going to just fly to New York. Mark Yeager.
• 56:14
  Speaker 3: I love you, Mark.
• 56:15
  Speaker 4: But back to the collecting question with people purging and
• 56:17
  Speaker 4: stuff like that, that is collecting.
• 56:20
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it's part of life. Yeah, it's part of like,
• 56:23
  Speaker 3: it's part of the risk you've taken in getting involved, right?
• 56:27
  Speaker 4: If you're in over your head, that's always the out.
• 56:30
  Speaker 4: It's a never ending cycle. People are going to purge.
• 56:32
  Speaker 4: People are going to go all in. Someone's going to
• 56:35
  Speaker 4: come in, but fuck, I got to buy all these
• 56:36
  Speaker 4: guys I haven't collected in five years. Then someone's going
• 56:38
  Speaker 4: to be like, you know what? All these guys I've
• 56:39
  Speaker 4: had in the past four years, I got to sell.
• 56:41
  Speaker 4: That's fucking how it is.
• 56:42
  Speaker 3: Dude, Jerry Cook just unloaded elites in the group at
• 56:47
  Speaker 3: unreal prices and stuff, but that's like... That's it? For
• 56:50
  Speaker 3: whatever reason, I hope nothing bad happened to him or
• 56:53
  Speaker 3: whatever he had to do that for or needed money for. Like,
• 56:56
  Speaker 3: that's part of the game, though. That's the risk he
• 56:58
  Speaker 3: took by getting involved, and then that's the benefit of
• 57:02
  Speaker 3: everyone else that he's purging. You know what I mean?
• 57:03
  Speaker 3: That's right. But that's like... I feel like.
• 57:06
  Speaker 4: The circle of life!
• 57:07
  Speaker 3: Mustafa here. That's the circle of life. The circle of collecting. Like,
• 57:10
  Speaker 3: that's how it rolls, man.
• 57:12
  Speaker 1: But getting it and opening it, looking at it... disposing
• 57:15
  Speaker 1: it that's like the fun part but also it's kind
• 57:17
  Speaker 1: of fun purging because you're like oh now i have.
• 57:19
  Speaker 3: 400 bucks disposable cash yeah.
• 57:21
  Speaker 1: Yeah yeah um and then so you end up losing
• 57:25
  Speaker 1: some money i guess sometimes.
• 57:27
  Speaker 4: Sometimes that's life dude but you also that money that
• 57:30
  Speaker 4: you lose you pay.
• 57:32
  Speaker 3: Bang on your figs or doo-doo and chocolate like there's
• 57:35
  Speaker 3: always money to get back out of your collection whether
• 57:38
  Speaker 3: you have a card loose whatever if you have.
• 57:40
  Speaker 4: The time and sell it piece by piece, you will
• 57:44
  Speaker 4: not lose money. If you purge it in one shot, yes,
• 57:48
  Speaker 4: you are going to lose money.
• 57:49
  Speaker 3: Spoiler.
• 57:50
  Speaker 4: But if you take the time and do it correctly, yes,
• 57:52
  Speaker 4: it's going to take time and effort. But you will
• 57:56
  Speaker 4: not lose money.
• 57:57
  Speaker 3: You will not.
• 57:58
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm going to purge soon. Some things. Brian chairs. Mark.
• 58:04
  Speaker 1: Can you talk about how the match with Jon Moxley
• 58:06
  Speaker 1: came to be and any memories or backstage details you
• 58:09
  Speaker 1: can give? What was your reaction when you found out
• 58:11
  Speaker 1: you'd be wrestling Moxley on Dynamite? Did you ask Matt
• 58:13
  Speaker 1: or Brian for advice since they had wrestled him in
• 58:15
  Speaker 1: the past? Well, I can tell you that I was
• 58:21
  Speaker 1: told about it, but I didn't believe it until it happened.
• 58:25
  Speaker 3: Like you probably should at anything in wrestling.
• 58:27
  Speaker 1: Yes. I was like, oh, that sounds cool. And then
• 58:30
  Speaker 1: in my mind, I'm like, yeah, right. Uh, and I've
• 58:34
  Speaker 1: said this before, you know, uh, I was MJF's lawyer
• 58:39
  Speaker 1: on the Indies and the storyline called for a lawyer.
• 58:43
  Speaker 1: So who else is he going to call? So, you know,
• 58:47
  Speaker 1: amidst the pandemic, you know, I flew down on my
• 58:51
  Speaker 1: own dime the first time. Um, but it all worked out.
• 58:57
  Speaker 1: And I, I did say, I didn't ask Matt and
• 58:59
  Speaker 1: Brian about wrestling Moxley, but And you can go back
• 59:03
  Speaker 1: to the silver linings. I did a silver linings where
• 59:05
  Speaker 1: I kind of just talked to the camera the night
• 59:08
  Speaker 1: before the match happened. I'm about the main event dynamite.
• 59:12
  Speaker 1: Something I never thought that ever happened.
• 59:14
  Speaker 3: That's like one of the best parts of it. It
• 59:15
  Speaker 3: was the main event.
• 59:16
  Speaker 4: Unreal.
• 59:16
  Speaker 1: Yeah. And I'm sitting in this hotel room and I'm
• 59:19
  Speaker 1: going to have this match the next day and there
• 59:22
  Speaker 1: is not a single ounce of me that is nervous.
• 59:26
  Speaker 1: Not nervous. And I said, I am not nervous because
• 59:29
  Speaker 1: of Because of Brian and Pat and the way that
• 59:33
  Speaker 1: they prepared me and all the work that I had
• 59:35
  Speaker 1: done up until that point to know that I am
• 59:39
  Speaker 1: going to be able to handle this situation and this
• 59:41
  Speaker 1: match and whatever happens on live television with Jon Moxley,
• 59:47
  Speaker 1: I was just fucking excited. Also, Broski was there.
• 59:53
  Speaker 3: I was just going to ask, did you guys cross paths?
• 59:56
  Speaker 1: Pretty much the entire time. Brodsky was there, I think
• 59:59
  Speaker 1: the week before, and then we had two weeks together
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 1: and then he was at the pay-per-view and I wasn't there,
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 1: but we were there for a couple of weeks or
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 1: two tapings or whatever it was. So he was there backstage.
• 1:00:10
  Speaker 1: No way. We talked all the time. He introduced me
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 1: to a lot of people actually, which was a huge
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 1: help because he was one of the only people that
• 1:00:19
  Speaker 1: I knew other than MJF. But, um, yeah, I was
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 1: ready to go. I was very excited. Um, And that's
• 1:00:27
  Speaker 1: all thanks to Cap. Creative Pro Wrestling, we got an
• 1:00:30
  Speaker 1: open house coming up, right?
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 3: Yes, we do. The 17th or something like that.
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 1: John Fisher. Why did Brian join Impact almost immediately after
• 1:00:41
  Speaker 1: his 90 days were up? But Matt, wait, we already
• 1:00:42
  Speaker 1: answered that. Michael Dahliger, would you re-sign with the WWE
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 1: if they batted the lope?
• 1:00:49
  Speaker 3: I don't think it's possible.
• 1:00:52
  Speaker 1: No. So hold on, let me finish. Even if it
• 1:00:54
  Speaker 1: meant giving up some of your success after being released,
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 1: creative freedom on major pod, major bendies.
• 1:00:59
  Speaker 3: No, we've beat the system. Okay.
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 1:01:04
  Speaker 3: We beat it. Well, this is the key to success
• 1:01:07
  Speaker 3: and pro wrestling is having another outside source of, um,
• 1:01:12
  Speaker 3: enjoyment and revenue. And that's what we have now with
• 1:01:14
  Speaker 3: this podcast franchise. So like last time I got fired,
• 1:01:19
  Speaker 3: they left me with nothing, nothing, just the, artist formerly
• 1:01:23
  Speaker 3: known as Curt Hawkins. That's it. I own nothing starting
• 1:01:26
  Speaker 3: from scratch. This time they let me go. I already
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 3: have this flourishing business. WWE was just my main business.
• 1:01:34
  Speaker 3: That's it. You know? So like that makes a huge
• 1:01:37
  Speaker 3: difference and I've learned my lesson for sure from it.
• 1:01:41
  Speaker 3: And I don't, I can't think of any logical amount
• 1:01:45
  Speaker 3: of money that they would ever pay Matt and I
• 1:01:47
  Speaker 3: for us to go back unless it was a completely
• 1:01:49
  Speaker 3: hands off thing with this podcast. And, their current business
• 1:01:53
  Speaker 3: model is not doing something like that.
• 1:01:54
  Speaker 4: Sometimes, and this is going to sound negative, I'm not
• 1:01:57
  Speaker 4: meaning to be negative, but sometimes I see the graphic like,
• 1:02:00
  Speaker 4: 10-man SmackDown Battle Royal. I'm thinking, if I would have stayed,
• 1:02:03
  Speaker 4: this would have been me. If I'm watching Raw, it's
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 4: like fucking 20 guys running around the ring for that
• 1:02:07
  Speaker 4: 24th title. If I would have stayed, this would.
• 1:02:09
  Speaker 3: Have been me.
• 1:02:10
  Speaker 4: Fuck no. Listen, I'm not saying never.
• 1:02:13
  Speaker 3: I'm trying to think, has anybody, and I don't watch closely,
• 1:02:16
  Speaker 3: has anyone gotten a break in this pandemic time? Who
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 3: was there from it? Yeah, like who wasn't being used
• 1:02:27
  Speaker 3: in like a stop. Apollo a little bit, but he's
• 1:02:28
  Speaker 3: already not being used. Oh my God, no, that's the gout. What,
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 3: like a mania match and out? That's what we did. Yeah.
• 1:02:34
  Speaker 3: I don't think so. So that's not great. Or not motivation.
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 3: That's not a lot of motivation. Once they see you
• 1:02:42
  Speaker 3: in a certain light, it's very hard to overcome that.
• 1:02:46
  Speaker 4: Yeah, and they saw us as two 21-year-old kids, and
• 1:02:49
  Speaker 4: I don't think that perception ever really changed, even though
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 4: when we left, we were fucking... 34, 35-year-old men.
• 1:02:55
  Speaker 3: And on top of that, has good hands, which for
• 1:02:57
  Speaker 3: those who don't know, people that are really good at
• 1:02:59
  Speaker 3: making other people look good, which is certainly a spot,
• 1:03:03
  Speaker 3: and I did it proudly for years, but when you
• 1:03:06
  Speaker 3: love wrestling as much as we do, you just naturally
• 1:03:09
  Speaker 3: want more. It's just the way it works. Yeah.
• 1:03:12
  Speaker 1: And I think sometimes some people look at the indies
• 1:03:15
  Speaker 1: as being some sort of negative thing or whatever.
• 1:03:20
  Speaker 4: I think back in the day it was, right?
• 1:03:21
  Speaker 3: You would change.
• 1:03:22
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I would change my name to Z-A-C-H-R-I-D-E-R and it
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 4: was just like, all right, here's like, I'd give them
• 1:03:28
  Speaker 4: the fucking hits. But it's not like that anymore. Like
• 1:03:31
  Speaker 4: you said, the indies have changed. It's not, this stuff's
• 1:03:33
  Speaker 4: on fucking Fight TV and people are making a living
• 1:03:36
  Speaker 4: off of it. We're starting to fucking action figure a lot.
• 1:03:39
  Speaker 4: There's so much shit that could be done.
• 1:03:41
  Speaker 3: Even now, like, Because I'll get paid a significant amount
• 1:03:44
  Speaker 3: of money. I love a good shindy. You know, I'm
• 1:03:46
  Speaker 3: not showing up there.
• 1:03:47
  Speaker 4: Yeah, good.
• 1:03:49
  Speaker 3: I'm not showing up. You know, it would be different
• 1:03:52
  Speaker 3: if I was showing up for 75 bucks or whatever.
• 1:03:54
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 1:03:54
  Speaker 3: But I'm getting my money.
• 1:03:55
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 1:03:55
  Speaker 3: And I've never half-assed a match in my life whether
• 1:03:59
  Speaker 3: there was 17 people in the crowd or 17,000. So, like,
• 1:04:03
  Speaker 3: that part doesn't matter, you know. So I just, it's
• 1:04:06
  Speaker 3: a day at work.
• 1:04:07
  Speaker 4: We went to fucking Alaska and probably the worst match
• 1:04:10
  Speaker 4: of my career. We're fucking laughing on the fucking A bridge.
• 1:04:14
  Speaker 4: I'm like, what the fuck is this?
• 1:04:15
  Speaker 3: In front of like 75 people.
• 1:04:17
  Speaker 4: Well, that one we didn't get our fee for, but
• 1:04:19
  Speaker 4: at least we went to Alaska.
• 1:04:22
  Speaker 3: Made a nice chunk of change that we're fortunate to
• 1:04:25
  Speaker 3: be able to do.
• 1:04:25
  Speaker 1: You know who did? VSK. He got his fee.
• 1:04:29
  Speaker 3: VSK got his fee. Five star hotel. But Broski, we
• 1:04:32
  Speaker 3: had- Shelford around.
• 1:04:34
  Speaker 1: Like- Okay, I'm sure it's really fun to win the
• 1:04:37
  Speaker 1: IC title at WrestleMania, but it's a different kind of
• 1:04:40
  Speaker 1: fun to have a 35-minute with match with Ted Goods
• 1:04:43
  Speaker 1: in front of 400 people where people are just throwing
• 1:04:46
  Speaker 1: up on the floor out of excitement.
• 1:04:48
  Speaker 4: Listen, I love that match so much because I knew
• 1:04:51
  Speaker 4: that that's not the style of that promotion. I said,
• 1:04:53
  Speaker 4: I guarantee this is match of the night. And then
• 1:04:55
  Speaker 4: the promoter said it was one of his favorite matches
• 1:04:57
  Speaker 4: they ever had there.
• 1:04:58
  Speaker 1: Of all time!
• 1:04:59
  Speaker 4: Of all time! But that's for another podcast. We're talking
• 1:05:03
  Speaker 4: about the pandemic.
• 1:05:03
  Speaker 1: Okay, you're right. A couple more and then we'll take
• 1:05:10
  Speaker 1: off here. Michael Dahl-Lugger. How were you guys first received
• 1:05:14
  Speaker 1: by the boys in indie locker rooms? Do they come
• 1:05:17
  Speaker 1: for you for advice or stay out of your way?
• 1:05:20
  Speaker 3: That's something I got to say of shock that's like
• 1:05:23
  Speaker 3: gone away. And more than ever, it's like, yeah, this
• 1:05:26
  Speaker 3: is like such toot my own horn, toot toot shit.
• 1:05:29
  Speaker 3: I was in WWE for, fuck, I don't know, 12
• 1:05:32
  Speaker 3: years combined or whatever. I have trained some very, very
• 1:05:35
  Speaker 3: successful people, and it's a known fact. I will go
• 1:05:37
  Speaker 3: to these shows, and I don't know if people are
• 1:05:39
  Speaker 3: intimidated by me, But they don't ask me for nothing.
• 1:05:42
  Speaker 3: I mean, don't even think to even offer me a
• 1:05:46
  Speaker 3: chair in the locker room. It's like, whatever, man. You're
• 1:05:49
  Speaker 3: just fucking yourself. And to be honest with you, if
• 1:05:52
  Speaker 3: you're some dipshit with a bad attitude like that, I
• 1:05:54
  Speaker 3: don't want to watch your match anyway. But it blows
• 1:05:57
  Speaker 3: my mind. I want to say maybe less than a handful.
• 1:06:03
  Speaker 3: It's crazy how little.
• 1:06:04
  Speaker 4: At WrestleCade, some fan, not fan, I guess he was
• 1:06:07
  Speaker 4: someone in training. He wasn't on the show. Maybe he
• 1:06:09
  Speaker 4: wasn't a battle royal or something. He asked if he
• 1:06:11
  Speaker 4: could stand and listen to me and Jay Lethal put
• 1:06:14
  Speaker 4: the match together. I said I appreciate it, but absolutely not.
• 1:06:17
  Speaker 4: He was trying to learn.
• 1:06:18
  Speaker 3: That's a cool thing. No one's ever asked me that,
• 1:06:21
  Speaker 3: but that's a great way to learn something.
• 1:06:23
  Speaker 4: I said absolutely not. But I think one person at
• 1:06:26
  Speaker 4: Gary Dameron asked me to watch the match, and I
• 1:06:28
  Speaker 4: can't recall any other time.
• 1:06:31
  Speaker 3: And then the other thing is, if they do ask
• 1:06:34
  Speaker 3: me that, I have to kind of cover ground for
• 1:06:35
  Speaker 3: the people that have. I'm so focused on having the
• 1:06:40
  Speaker 3: best match that night on that show that I don't
• 1:06:42
  Speaker 3: have time to watch Timmy's match. I agree. I will probably,
• 1:06:47
  Speaker 3: if you were to ask me, I'd say, hey, man,
• 1:06:50
  Speaker 3: you could Facebook message me this match and I'll watch it.
• 1:06:53
  Speaker 3: When I have the time to really give it feedback,
• 1:06:54
  Speaker 3: I don't want to bullshit you or pretend that I
• 1:06:56
  Speaker 3: watched it. Because I've seen, I couldn't even tell you
• 1:06:59
  Speaker 3: how many times I've seen people ask or not ask
• 1:07:02
  Speaker 3: or just come back and say, hey, did you see that?
• 1:07:04
  Speaker 3: And guys just go, oh, yeah. And they just lie
• 1:07:06
  Speaker 3: to their face that they watched it. I'm like, you
• 1:07:07
  Speaker 3: didn't just watch it. You were bullshitting with me. Hang on.
• 1:07:09
  Speaker 3: No way. I've seen that so many times. And there's
• 1:07:12
  Speaker 3: no need to do that. But it is what it is.
• 1:07:15
  Speaker 3: It's just kind of surprising.
• 1:07:17
  Speaker 1: Yeah, interesting. I can't explain why that is.
• 1:07:20
  Speaker 3: Entitlement, it's called, Mark. Yeah.
• 1:07:24
  Speaker 1: All right, two more. Julian, as veterans, how much of
• 1:07:28
  Speaker 1: the business.
• 1:07:28
  Speaker 3: I appreciate Julian. If I could pronounce his last name,
• 1:07:32
  Speaker 3: I'd say it, but....
• 1:07:37
  Speaker 1: As veterans, how much of the business is you calling
• 1:07:39
  Speaker 1: promotions to say you want spots versus promotions calling and
• 1:07:42
  Speaker 1: booking you guys?
• 1:07:42
  Speaker 3: Zero percent the other way around.
• 1:07:44
  Speaker 4: I have not asked to work one.
• 1:07:45
  Speaker 3: I've never asked to work one place in this whole
• 1:07:47
  Speaker 3: time we've been firing. And I think that's not the
• 1:07:51
  Speaker 3: death of you, but you really have to be careful
• 1:07:55
  Speaker 3: doing that. Because if you're a businessman, obviously your rates
• 1:07:59
  Speaker 3: are already in half. That's one thing that Kevin Matthews
• 1:08:03
  Speaker 3: has about Alaska that's incredible. He gets a lot of top,
• 1:08:06
  Speaker 3: top pro wrestling talent that want to come there because
• 1:08:08
  Speaker 3: they're like, oh shit.
• 1:08:09
  Speaker 4: I would never have worked that show if it wasn't
• 1:08:11
  Speaker 4: in Alaska for that money.
• 1:08:13
  Speaker 3: Because they were like, I've never worked there. I don't
• 1:08:15
  Speaker 3: know if I ever will. Let's do this. It's a
• 1:08:18
  Speaker 3: big deal for me to go. So Kevin has that
• 1:08:21
  Speaker 3: unbelievable luxury of getting people at pretty great rates.
• 1:08:27
  Speaker 1: All right, last question. This is a good one to
• 1:08:29
  Speaker 1: end on. Junya Boy. I don't know what that is.
• 1:08:35
  Speaker 1: What is all three of your guys' favorite moment after
• 1:08:38
  Speaker 1: your time in WWE, which I was not in the WWE,
• 1:08:41
  Speaker 1: Like a match or debut for an indie show or
• 1:08:44
  Speaker 1: AEW or Impact. So let's say 2020. Favorite moment of 2020.
• 1:08:49
  Speaker 3: Oh, man. I wish AIW was 2020, but it wasn't.
• 1:08:53
  Speaker 1: Our AEW match?
• 1:08:54
  Speaker 3: Yeah. That main event. Oh. AIW. Main event. Cool. like
• 1:09:00
  Speaker 3: if you think of an indie uh venue oh yeah
• 1:09:04
  Speaker 3: that's like an indie cool any venue to a t
• 1:09:07
  Speaker 3: you know some beat up concert hall people just crushing
• 1:09:11
  Speaker 3: pbr tall boys they had it was split down the
• 1:09:14
  Speaker 3: middle with major marks and like Fanboys burying us. The
• 1:09:19
  Speaker 3: atmosphere was electric. Dylan, pretend to retire after. There was
• 1:09:26
  Speaker 3: a lot of fun stuff. Even if you got the
• 1:09:28
  Speaker 3: whole weekend, the next day was Toy Haya, which was
• 1:09:31
  Speaker 3: my mastermind that it would be one of the best
• 1:09:33
  Speaker 3: things we ever did, and it was. It was just
• 1:09:35
  Speaker 3: a great trip. But it's not 2020.
• 1:09:39
  Speaker 4: You did some cool stuff for Impact. Listen, I'll be honest.
• 1:09:41
  Speaker 4: When I'm sitting around waiting for this AEW phone call,
• 1:09:45
  Speaker 4: course i'm second oh fuck maybe i should have went
• 1:09:46
  Speaker 4: to impact with everyone else they're all on fucking tv
• 1:09:48
  Speaker 4: doing shit of course i'm thinking that in retrospect i'm
• 1:09:51
  Speaker 4: glad that's not what happened but i'll be honest of
• 1:09:54
  Speaker 4: course i'm thinking that seeing brian and heath and good
• 1:09:56
  Speaker 4: brothers and fucking they're on fucking doing pay-per-views they're on
• 1:10:00
  Speaker 4: tv every week you know and i'm sitting home sticking
• 1:10:03
  Speaker 4: a fucking bone crudger in my butt you know.
• 1:10:06
  Speaker 3: The thing that sticks out the most for me uh
• 1:10:10
  Speaker 3: was at the end of that first loop and we
• 1:10:12
  Speaker 3: all the fire dudes took a picture that like is
• 1:10:15
  Speaker 3: all over the internet. We're backstage at the front of
• 1:10:17
  Speaker 3: the impact, like a Tron thing. And it's me, Eric Young,
• 1:10:21
  Speaker 3: the good brothers, EC3, um, Heath. And we're all just
• 1:10:25
  Speaker 3: given like the bird. And it's just like, okay, I, I,
• 1:10:29
  Speaker 3: I don't want to say I figured this out, but
• 1:10:31
  Speaker 3: I was like, this is going to be fun. And
• 1:10:33
  Speaker 3: you know, everything's going to be pretty good because I
• 1:10:36
  Speaker 3: had a great time and I'm surrounded by like so
• 1:10:38
  Speaker 3: many friends and, you know, it was pretty nuts to
• 1:10:40
  Speaker 3: go to a new place and already be so friendly
• 1:10:42
  Speaker 3: with so many people and stuff and just, even then,
• 1:10:45
  Speaker 3: like there wasn't like a concrete thing of how I
• 1:10:48
  Speaker 3: would debut. And then I kind of said, how about,
• 1:10:50
  Speaker 3: you know, everyone's on this show. How about I have
• 1:10:51
  Speaker 3: been yet? So it's different. And they were like, sure.
• 1:10:53
  Speaker 3: Like something that simple, which would never have happened in WWE.
• 1:10:57
  Speaker 3: You know, I just, it was all very comforting. And
• 1:10:59
  Speaker 3: I was like, okay, let's, let's rock.
• 1:11:01
  Speaker 4: And, you know, I didn't do anything really of note
• 1:11:05
  Speaker 4: in AEW, but All my experiences were great there. In fact,
• 1:11:11
  Speaker 4: you know, the social reaction to me debuting was great.
• 1:11:15
  Speaker 4: And I think, listen, I don't want to toot my
• 1:11:16
  Speaker 4: own horn, but if you check, and this is legit fact,
• 1:11:20
  Speaker 4: what WWE superstar showed up and then the ratings went
• 1:11:23
  Speaker 4: up the next week, I think the only one is me.
• 1:11:26
  Speaker 3: So I think that's legit fact. What did you do
• 1:11:28
  Speaker 3: on the next episode? Were you even on?
• 1:11:31
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I debut and then I have a tag match.
• 1:11:33
  Speaker 3: Oh, it's the following week right away.
• 1:11:34
  Speaker 4: And my Super 7 figure... that comes out, is my
• 1:11:38
  Speaker 4: AEW gear. So for all you AEW people out there
• 1:11:41
  Speaker 4: who collect the figs, you need it.
• 1:11:44
  Speaker 3: Dude, Reynolds told me that Cody's Series 4 Chase gear
• 1:11:49
  Speaker 3: is that gear, and I looked into it and almost
• 1:11:51
  Speaker 3: bought it for him for a lot of money and
• 1:11:52
  Speaker 3: then realized it's not. But it's very, very similar, but
• 1:11:55
  Speaker 3: it's not. It's not it. I would have needed it too. Yeah.
• 1:11:59
  Speaker 1: Well, let me tell you guys one thing as far
• 1:12:02
  Speaker 1: as things that we did in 2020. And this is
• 1:12:04
  Speaker 1: something that is never going to go away. And I
• 1:12:07
  Speaker 1: think we're going to hang our hats. And I think
• 1:12:09
  Speaker 1: it's going to be the top thing that we've done
• 1:12:11
  Speaker 1: as a group. The complete history of WWF Hasbro figures
• 1:12:14
  Speaker 1: came out in 2020. Oh, shit.
• 1:12:17
  Speaker 3: That was an all-nighter, bro.
• 1:12:19
  Speaker 1: We will never have the time to do something that
• 1:12:24
  Speaker 1: insane again.
• 1:12:25
  Speaker 3: We could do that again, but I wouldn't want to.
• 1:12:27
  Speaker 3: With the B-roll and stuff? No way. I don't know.
• 1:12:31
  Speaker 4: Take the collection apart?
• 1:12:33
  Speaker 3: Never say never, but.
• 1:12:34
  Speaker 1: Never say never, but.
• 1:12:36
  Speaker 3: I went to bed at 4.30, I want to say.
• 1:12:38
  Speaker 1: That almost killed me.
• 1:12:39
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 1:12:40
  Speaker 4: I was reorganizing my stuff for days.
• 1:12:42
  Speaker 3: Same, and I was like, if I go to bed
• 1:12:45
  Speaker 3: at 4.35 in the morning, my family's going to be up.
• 1:12:48
  Speaker 3: I can't chance them coming in. I had to put
• 1:12:51
  Speaker 3: it all back. It was a nightmare.
• 1:12:52
  Speaker 1: Well, we wouldn't have been able to do that if
• 1:12:55
  Speaker 1: it wasn't 2020, but that video right now. 196,000 views.
• 1:13:00
  Speaker 1: If you type in WWF Hasbros, it's right at the top.
• 1:13:03
  Speaker 1: Love it. You can't take that away from us.
• 1:13:06
  Speaker 3: Is that our number one? Or that big show vlog
• 1:13:08
  Speaker 3: is like number one?
• 1:13:09
  Speaker 1: Actually, I think the random kind of not that great
• 1:13:12
  Speaker 1: vlog with Finn in the Finn Balor.
• 1:13:16
  Speaker 3: Very early days where I buy him that shitty figure.
• 1:13:18
  Speaker 1: It's like a half a million.
• 1:13:21
  Speaker 3: That's just dudes want to check out Finn.
• 1:13:24
  Speaker 4: Okay.
• 1:13:25
  Speaker 1: That's it for this bonus episode. Great little bonus. I
• 1:13:28
  Speaker 1: don't know what we'll do next week. I mean, next
• 1:13:30
  Speaker 1: month we're changing the whole Patreon. We will have two
• 1:13:33
  Speaker 1: bonus episodes for you. What they are, we will get
• 1:13:36
  Speaker 1: back to you on that. We don't want to make
• 1:13:38
  Speaker 1: any decisions right now.
• 1:13:40
  Speaker 3: See you guys.
• 1:13:40
  Speaker 4: Thank you.
• 1:13:41
  Speaker 3: Peace. One, two, three.
• 1:13:42
  Speaker 4: I'll be back, Jack.
• 1:14:29
  Speaker 3: Thank you.