Euro NBA Thoughts, Plus Cody Rhodes on Being the WWE’s Guy, Leaving AEW, Feuding With John Cena, and the Rules of Kayfabe

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The Bill Simmons podcast brought to you by the Ringer Podcast Network, where you can find the rewatchables.

We do them on Monday nights.

We're doing one-day movie month this month for August.

August is coming.

RoboCop is going to be Monday.

We're doing all bangers.

It's going to be an all-banger, one-day movie month month.

I think.

I think it's going to be all bangers.

Pretty confident in that one but you can watch that in the ringer movies youtube channel as well i think robo cops on amazon prime for free if you want to uh want to go check it out uh i was just in chicago for 24 hours um i'm a little delirious i'm too old to fly i don't know how the nba players do it flying back to chicago it's like four hours uh got up super early yesterday then flew back today but i was at the uh the national the sports collectors convention uh looking for stuff really for for the studio.

I put it on my Instagram.

I found one thing I was really excited about, this Bull Durham tobacco sign I got, but I got a couple other good things too

that I went out.

I'm going to do a studio tour on here.

I'll do like five minutes explaining a lot of the choices, but

it was really fun to go back to the Collectors Convention.

I had not been since COVID.

And it's just massive now.

And weirdly, there's less eclectic stuff than ever, just more old baseball cards from the 50s, 60s, and 70s.

I have no idea who's buying all, who under 40 years old is like out there looking for like a stand usual card.

I don't get it.

But I had a great time.

I was looking for all kinds of things for the background for hair, but just in general, I was looking for basketball cards.

10 minutes to go.

I found this amazing item.

Hold on.

So this is from 1924.

It's a Holy Cross football doll.

I'm pretty sure sure it's not a voodoo doll.

I'm not positive yet.

We'll find out, I guess,

if anything crazy happens to me.

But it says HC, back when Holy Cross used to be really good at football.

Found this with 10 Minutes to Go at the show.

You never know.

I got a bunch of good stuff, but this is obviously,

I think I had this in the 80s.

On the back, it has all the championships.

This was the 86, my favorite team.

Needless to say, I have a spot in the studio for it right behind the guest's head.

It's going to be really good.

Ah, very fun to go to the collector's convention.

The big piece I bought was this Bull Durham tobacco thing.

You can see OJ, the OJ piece behind me.

The juices on the loose.

So that's going to be a staple of the studio, but I wanted a couple more things like that.

Anyway, thank you for your patience with the studio.

I know it sounds a little echoey.

We're going to work on all this.

The lighting is going to be really good.

This is, we're in the exhibition season.

I think by the time we get to football season, it's going to be absolutely awesome.

So I'm excited about that.

Less excited about the Boston Red Sox, who

last time I checked had a chance to be like a pretty interesting playoff team with the amount of bats they have.

Maybe they weren't going to win the World Series, but I really have enjoyed this season.

Crochet, we have an ace.

Roman Anthony, best young Red Sox player I think I've seen since Nomar Garcia Pera in 97.

You might want to throw Mookie in there, but I don't even think Mookie was as confident as Roman Anthony is this first year.

nuts.

They just have a Bregman's back.

They have a likable team.

Rafaela's been really, he's cooled up a little bit, but he's been really good.

But

it's the kind of team where it's like, man, if this team got a number two starter, they'd be really one more bullpen arm.

They'd be really interesting.

So what do they get?

They got Stephen Matts and Dustin May, the Dodgers, who are trying to win a World Series.

We're like, take them.

The Red Sox were first in payroll in 2013, the second and last time they won the World Series.

They were third in 2018.

They were fifth in 2021, the last time they made a real playoff run.

Since then, 12th, 11th, 18th,

and 9th,

which doesn't make sense when you consider all the other teams that spend a lot of money are these big market teams that used to be like the Red Sox, the Yankees, the Mets, the Dodgers.

And,

you know, on the other hand, the Spenaway Sports Group, which owns, they they own Liverpool soccer and Penguins, a whole bunch of stuff.

But Liverpool has just been buying.

I mean, they're like, they're like a drunk guy at two in the morning, just buying cheeseburgers and pizza, just buying everybody, trying to get everybody.

And then the Red Sox get Dustin May and Stephen Metz.

I'm still going to watch this Red Sox team.

You're not driving me away this time.

The Mookie Bets, I lost four years of my Red Sox life.

And

you're not doing it again.

I like watching these guys.

You can try to drive me away, terrible Red Sox owners.

It's not going to work.

I'm still here.

One other thing I had for you.

There's been some stuff written this week about the NBA's ambitious foray into Europe with the Euro League.

The opportunity is that Real Madrid and FC Barcelona and the Euro League have not re-upped.

They have their licensing deal is expiring in 2026, and they're basically become free agents.

Adam Silver has been intrigued intrigued by this forever.

I feel like, and there's been some reporting about this too.

I feel like the league is cooling off on expansion for the NBA and kind of looking abroad at this Europe thing as a real opportunity.

And Adam's out there with his crew meeting with all of these possible investors, with some soccer teams.

Here's the opportunity.

Paris growing market with Wemby.

London completely untapped.

Like they don't even have like a regular

Euro league team.

They have to like play their will and weigh in with the results.

There's these massive soccer clubs that want to grow their footprint in basketball.

So you have that too.

So what's the NBA offering?

Well, from what I've heard and from what's been reported, it's probably a 10-team league, but they could get away with eight.

Maybe you grow it to 12.

You get a guaranteed spot in the league.

You get the voting rights, you get better TV distribution, better sponsorship.

You're not relegated.

You don't have to worry about like,

you know, that I think there's 12 teams in the Euro league that are in there, but there's another six that you can get bounced out or if you don't have a good season.

And there would be some sort of link to the NBA, which I think is the key here.

Their exhibition games, which they've already announced a bunch of them, Manchester City and Paris, London.

Maybe a tournament.

And I've heard a couple different ideas for this, and I don't even know if they've decided on what they want to do yet, but you could have maybe in October, you have the two best, three best NBA teams and the three three best teams from this NBA Euro League.

They have a little round robin.

Maybe it's just champ versus champ, best of three.

Maybe it's something in February with all the best teams.

There's some sort of synergy thing, and it goes beyond just we're going to have some regular season games over there and some exhibition games.

I think big picture, 20 years from now, what does this look like?

The leagues are probably a little more intertwined.

Not too intertwined, but a little intertwined.

So they are trying to lock down Real Madrid and FC Barcelona because they can get out of the Euro league next year.

They have AC Milan,

I think pretty much

on board.

They're owned by Redbird and they don't have a real hoops team attached.

The Milan team is Olympia Milano, who's re-signed in the Euro League for the next 10 years.

So AC Milan, count them in in some way.

In Paris, you could have PSG, which is owned by the Qatar Sports Investments.

Been reported all week that Silver met with them.

Paris Basketball won the 2024 Euro Cup, but isn't officially in the Euro League.

Maybe you have both of them.

London doesn't have, like, a, as far as I could tell, they don't have a set-in-stone Euro league team.

The London Lions is the best one.

They're a little independent.

They're owned by Tessanat.

I think it's called Tech Company.

But

you could have the London soccer, one of the Tottenham, Arsenal, Chelsea, any of those, buy one of those teams and launch their own, or who knows?

You also have manchester city which has to be mentioned because they're hosting this nba game randomly so i'm going to count them in as a possible one then you have the two greek teams boy i'm going to regret trying to say either of these names fennerbach olympios maybe i got them uh both of them have notoriously battled the euro league over the years so maybe one of those you have alba berlin which started this whole thing they're on a one-year euro deal right now and they said they joined the nba already that kind of got the ball rolling And then the Athletic Today reported that four existing Euro League franchises, already mentioned Real Madrid, Barker Barcelona, Asvo, which is in France, and then an Istanbul team, could all be potential defectors.

So

I think this goes London, Madrid, Barcelona, Milan, Paris, Berlin, and Greece as your definite seven that are in this.

I think Adam has those seven in his pocket and maybe doesn't know who the Greece team is yet.

Maybe you could add Tony Parker's French team.

That's at Asvo.

He's the president of it.

You could add the Istanbul team.

You could add Manchester City all of a sudden I'm at 10.

Maybe there's an Israel team down the road.

Maybe there's a third Spain team.

Who knows?

But

they could take this right away.

And if you look at the way the EuroLeague is, where

you basically have this ownership, it's called Euro League Commercial Assets.

That's the company that runs the league.

You have voting rights on league rules, financials, TV deals, et cetera.

And then there's a B license that that's a one-year thing that you got to play your way in based on results.

And then a C license that's like basically a wildcard.

They could challenge this.

They could offer the sponsorship, expertise, better TV deals.

They could shoehorn some of the TV stuff into their things.

They could do the schedule so that it complements the NBA schedule correctly.

And

I think this is going to be going.

I honestly wouldn't be surprised if this was going in the 26, 27 season.

And what's really interesting about this, and I mentioned this a couple of weeks ago, that I felt like the NBA is drifting against expansion, which was a lock forever until they got $76 billion from the media deal.

Then said, you know, need the media money and the teams that I mean, the owners don't need to give up the media money for expansion fees because they made so much.

I think this is the apple of their eye right now.

And I think that's why the reports are coming out this week.

That's why Adam is very publicly meeting with all these people, even though it's private, but it's not.

Stuff's leaking out.

And

I think this is going to happen in a real way.

And what's cool about it, I remember watching a bunch of Luca games when he was playing over there as a 17-year-old.

I can't remember what team he was on.

And the quality play was good.

The crowds were great.

It was FIFA.

So the style of it was pretty neat.

And it was.

a good enough product.

It was just the players weren't quite good enough.

And it still felt a little, not rinky-dinky, but just compared to the NBA, it just definitely felt second-class.

I think if you can move that up, where it's somewhere between first class and second class,

and then you could also be a place, this could be a place where you park some of your retiring players.

It's like, oh, you're last year, you're going to play for this team.

And maybe you go there.

Maybe they change the rules where you could get a little bit of an ownership stake if you go over for a year.

They could do some things with this league that they can't do with the NBA.

They, you know, they could bend the rules and make it a little more European.

I I don't think they would do relegation with it, but some of the ownership stake stuff,

there's a little bit of urgency with it just because of

those two Spanish teams are coming up on their license agreement.

I don't think this is a response to the Maverick Carter league that he's been trying to start that I talked about a couple of months ago.

That's a little bit of a different format.

It's like an F1 thing.

You move from city to city for two weeks.

Nobody really seems to think they're going to be able to get the kind of talent that they're bragging that they could get.

I just think they're going to get their legs cut off by this Euro league.

And I think this is a really,

really, really interesting wrinkle.

Oh, I'm thinking about when I'm 75, could the NBA have like a 45 team league?

Who the fuck knows?

Will we be able to fly from LA to London in three hours?

I don't know.

Will you be watching me at a virtual hologram, wondering when I'm still doing a podcast?

Maybe.

But keep an eye on all this.

Read all the stories.

Joe Barden had one in athletic today.

Like people are going to start reporting on this.

Just follow this because there's a lot of money at stake.

And I think it's a chance for them to weave in some soccer clubs, some Qatar money, some Saudi Arabia, like some of the stuff they can't really do with the NBA, they can do overseas.

And I think I think it's notable.

Okay, speaking of notable, Cody Rhodes is coming up in a second.

And

he

was awesome.

We hadn't done a podcast together before.

He came to my house.

We did it in the studio and

we had a great time.

So that's coming up next.

Let's take a break and we'll do Pearl Jam and then Cody Rhodes.

All right, we're taping this on a Monday.

Cody Rhodes is here.

We've never talked on a podcast.

I feel like we're both members of the Bet on Yourself Club.

Yes.

You're like an all-time bet on yourself guy.

I feel you are too, though.

Yeah, but I mean, for you, you leave WWE and it's like, what's that guy doing?

I remember seeing it from afar going, oh no.

Where's he?

And then it couldn't have worked out better, but it was, it was a bet on yourself staple.

I think part of of me, though, was also like, oh no,

a lot, a lot of um, well, you were married, right?

But you didn't have a kid, so I was married.

It's very important that I was married, and to the story, because I would always tell people, Hey, I'm the one Rhodes who saved his money, so I'm, I had, you know, I had 10 years with WWE, I'm good financially, I can make these swings and bet on myself and do this unprecedented stuff.

I'm going to try and do, but that wasn't entirely true.

It, it, It became at one point a little bit more, oh, we are going check to check.

I just bought a house in Denton, Texas, the first house I'd actually bought 10 years into my wrestling career.

And that's when I decided to see a buy and where I was going and some of these shows I was doing,

PWG in California, for example.

Yeah.

You have to want to be on PWG.

It's not a matter of them.

paying you big money or anything like that.

And then certain indies would pay great rates because you had the WWE name but then if you wanted to keep going and come back it was a whole you're flying to japan too right you're doing some japan stuff from here because at the i ended up with new japan i would come in i'd only come in for their big shows because they really loved like american cowboy wrestler i this and they'd they'd bring me in i had the wwe name they had a lot of respect and reverence for my dad uh yeah i'd come in like once a month with japan and that's was such a fun experience because it's a different type of wrestling very different style and so much you can learn i got to learn a great deal over there you're flying coach over there no no uh well

that's trying to be honest with myself here you say indie wrestler like going go just zooming down to japan i think because you're very right in terms of indie wrestler i was lucky that atlanta was my home for so long yeah 10 years with wwe so every status uh the greatest delta status you could ever have.

So I used, it was always my global certificates is what I use.

And sometimes you'd have to wait till you literally scan your boarding pass.

And they told you, I think it's going to be you.

There's four open.

And my wife and I would actually do that at the time, just praying because the other option was a little brutal for sure, especially if you're wrestling the day you land.

Like, oh.

So it wasn't.

So you did that.

I forget what you called it.

What was it called?

The all-in one where you guaranteed like, I'm going to sell 10,000.

It felt like once that, once you got the 10,000 fans right away to go to the show, I felt like you had momentum because I was falling on the, on the dirt sheets.

So I was like, oh, this Cody thing might actually, who knows?

Who knows how this is going to go for this guy?

I think probably the two

really large factors in it all going into the all-in, this was an independent show by itself.

Ring of Honor helped us produce it.

But I think the big factors for me was I had the list right when I left.

And that was a list of places I wanted to go, things I wanted to do.

uh nobody had really ever nervous when you said you had a list because like lists are very controversial

i was like on the edge edge of my seat for a second.

This was just a list of opponents, list of places, and also, nobody ever

quits WWE.

You, you end up, you they quit you.

Well, especially in your early 30s.

Yeah, that's really unusual.

And a legacy.

I had a great relationship with most people.

I had big moments up and down the card, and I just felt where I was at.

It was time to move.

But I had that list, and the whole purpose of it was to mobilize.

Hey, I'm not lying to you.

When I said, hey, I can do really cool stuff and

I can do it better.

And I'm going to go here.

I'm going to go here.

And they were all over the map.

So that was a huge piece of it.

And the other part of it was that underground scene was forming with

you could just see it.

For example, WrestleCon is this convention where it's a lot of legends, XWWE, independent talent, things of that nature.

It will piggyback off of a big WWE event usually.

We'd go, a group of us, we'd go and notice we had a line around the hallway to the elevator, down the stairs, and out the door.

And then we'd see one of the legends, God bless them, not have that same effect.

So, there was just this general underground rumbling that was happening.

That's why when the bet came up,

somebody saying, hey, nobody can draw 10,000 in America other than WWE, it had been true up until that point.

And I think fans felt they wanted to be in on that journey with us.

The only way I can describe that original, original event was it just felt like Woodstock, every piece of it.

It was just, we didn't know what we were doing, but,

but we, we were going to fake it.

We were going to fake it till we make it.

And the event, I mean, we had some talented people involved too.

I mean, that was the other thing.

There's this whole class of

whatever we're calling this era of wrestling,

which I'm scared constantly for everybody involved, mainly because I'm old.

In terms of the physical, what you're seeing them do?

Yeah, because I just, and this has been, we're going back.

Yeah.

We're going back almost 25, 30 years here, but you just keep raising the bar and raising the bar and raising the bar with the stunts.

I mean, mankind was what, late 90s, early 2000s going through the cage.

Going through the cage and off the cage.

With the tooth coming through his nose, but

there's come some point where it's like, I don't know if we can go any higher guys on the ladder jump.

And I don't know, it felt like we were hitting it.

In terms of sports and sports entertainment, I feel like one of the things about our game is the danger has just continued to go up in terms of high spots and physical things that you're seeing and unbelievable acrobatics and real cirque style motions, but

it's it's just evolved that way.

It's really at so at the nightmare factory, for example,

we get so many kids who can do a 630, who can do a you know, a sasuke special.

We do so and it's really great.

Once they have that, awesome, awesome, keep it.

You will need it.

You know, some of the, you'll hear people today say it's, it's not about the moves, it's about the moments.

And then you'll hear kind of the old timers talk about storytelling versus the action itself.

And the actual truth is it's right in the middle.

It's really right in the middle.

The modern audience has seen what can be done.

And I think that right now, WWE is probably at its absolute best.

And if they don't know why they're at their absolute best, that to me is one of the reasons why you've got the king of storytelling, in a sense, with say a Roman Reigns.

Yeah.

King of storytelling.

And you've got a Mr.

Heyman behind the scenes and Triple H at the helm.

But then you also have guys who are just so unbelievably, if you give them the time, which Triple H gives them the time to go out there and do something physical and impress and steal the spotlight and take it.

There's a lot of really special folks.

For example, Mexico, we were just talking about Mexico City, Monterey.

I had two shows this weekend.

WWE now works.

You know, we're overseeing AAA or however we're putting it, but that's part of the WWE family now.

And to see their level of talent and Lucha Libre skills in the ring, which is, again, next level, two people who are on all in for Pentagon, Phoenix, both of them with WWE now.

So to have it all seems to be the ticket to success in the wrestling industry and keeping it successful.

I'm trying to think of the levels to this because like I remember when Snooka was,

when he was jumping off the top rope, and by the way, we didn't have YouTube back then.

So when you jumped off the top of the steel cage, which I saw, I thought it was like 25 feet.

It was like, I don't know, 10.

In your head, it was 25.

Yeah.

But he was one of the first ones, macho man, and people got a little more airborne.

But it really felt like the Hardy brothers.

Those guys, when they started pushing in the 2000s.

But then we've had this other level of it in the last 10 years where I'm just scared the whole time.

I remember thinking like a pile driver seems scary.

I thought that's basically mostly been outlawed, right?

The pile driver?

It was outlawed actually at WWE up until Kevin Owens hit me with a package pile driver.

That was unfair of him.

Post the original our return to Saturday Night's Main Event, which, by the way, was laid out in this Netflix show, which was incredible.

Which you've seen and I've not seen.

Oh, really?

Yes, it's unreal.

We have not.

I know WWE has been saying it's an unprecedented look into our industry.

Certainly unprecedented.

Apparently it is because I haven't seen it.

I keep hearing it's a really great episode and they really did dig in there and

show a different side or a side people haven't.

I don't know what they're afraid of, but I think it's going to be great.

I've heard good things.

What did you think?

I mean, I had heard we were going behind the curtain.

I was like, yeah, right.

It's behind the curtain.

Is it?

Okay.

Yeah, it really is.

Like, especially

talking about the scene at Heel Turn is like almost a whole episode.

And just how that's laid out and whose idea it was, how they kept it a secret.

Oh, man.

And I'm intrigued.

I was surprised.

But I feel like a lot of people know this anyway.

So you're lifting the veil off for

very few people.

I thought it was really neat.

I actually thought it was,

it was the stuff I had always wondered about, but never knew.

Yeah.

And then you get to, to, I gave you new respect for like how much thought you have to put into every aspect of the behind the scenes stuff.

Maybe that's the goal.

I know when I you sound like down on it.

No, no.

Gosh, for me, my whole outlook on it has been seeing these people in a different light, not Rhea Ripley out there in the ring, not CM Punk out there or myself.

My whole thought process is if that's endearing to a completely new audience that now wants to come and check out what they do, you you know, what we do and see it.

For example, if you come to a WrestleMania, if you come to a SummerSlam, you're going to be a wrestling friend for life.

Usually, there's always something.

Well, there's the stages.

How old are you?

You have one kid or two?

Two.

No, one.

I'm sorry.

One.

Sorry.

I don't know why I said two.

How old is your kid?

Four.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So six is, it's like between five and a half and six.

That's when it gets you.

She's been, she came WrestleMania when we were in SoFi.

Yeah.

She was just because it was pre-bedtime because it was a West Coast show, so it ran earlier.

That's probably my favorite photo ever because I got to go see her, have a moment with her, and just this great photo in front of 70,000, 80,000 something people right before the first WrestleMania main event I ever got to do.

Yeah, it was really special.

But Unreal, my whole thought process is for new fans that don't know.

And then they see somebody like Rhea Ripley, for example, or punk.

they want to follow them into the actual now i'll watch the actual show that's how i've always thought it it would be a good thing.

The veil has been lifted a long time.

Certainly there's parts of it that haven't been seen, but

Kayfabe does not mean what Kayfabe used to mean.

Yeah.

And I always tell people, I'll give you $1,000 if you can tell me what Kayfabe means, if you can actually tell me, because it's a one-word definition and nobody ever gets it.

But

to me, it's all about

capturing a new audience because I feel the hardcore wrestling fan is, they're pretty much like myself.

We're in.

We're going through it.

I've watched my whole life.

I love it.

I'll continue to do it.

There comes a point where you're either in or you're out.

Yeah.

And I don't know what age it is, but it's just you're either at some point.

Having kids helps because it kind of regenerates a lot of it.

Having, having Liberty's only four, but just seeing her react to like a Bianca Belair.

Yeah.

Because we put Bianca in Clash of Clans as like a skin crossover where you can make the character look like Bianca and seeing her emulate the hair whip and sing the song a little very much opened my eyes to

I take it so seriously and try to get so nuanced and deep with pro wrestling and the story I want to tell that night in the ring.

Yeah.

It's sometimes not that deep.

Sometimes it's just big, bombastic fun.

But that's that's what was interesting about this show.

So I watched, I was with my son.

My son's 17.

He got sucked in around age five.

Okay.

And my wife and daughter were at a concert.

So it was just us.

And I got the, I got the screener.

I'm like, let's watch one of these, see if it's good.

And we're watching and we're all in.

We watch all five.

But it was the little stuff like

Bianca Belair was asking, I think it was Rhea Ripley.

Like she's like, I really loaded up my ponytail tonight.

You good with that?

Yeah, yeah.

And

Rhea Ripley was like, no, no, I'm okay.

And she's like, I'm telling you, it's like really heavy tonight.

Just be ready.

And it's like little stuff like that.

Where I was like, wow, that's really interesting that she's worried about the effect of,

but that's just the kind of stuff you wouldn't think about when you're watching this.

Yeah, let it well, also, too, Rhea Ripley, probably totally fine with it because most wrestlers I know have a weird sense of like, yeah, bring it on.

Yeah, yeah.

Nothing.

Yeah.

I'm so, it's so toxic.

Yeah.

For example, Cena turning on me, my hands aren't up once on those belt shots.

And by standards today, it's like, please put your hands up.

Please.

It's just this weird alpha toxic.

Like, yeah, let me.

It's, I don't even know how to describe it but i think well you had the craziest one what did the your pectoral ripped off your yeah this guy over here just went and you just said fuck it and you wrestled hell in the cell i did uh and you had like i mean it was kind of gross it was your whole side of your body was purple had no idea how hurt you were but obviously you were really hurt but what you could do and it was kind of an amazing match it's uh i think the idea

So many lies went into making it so that I could get in that ring that night because I was just refusing to do old school, hey, let me be laying there backstage.

And who did it?

I just like you get hit by somebody driving a van with a COVID mask on.

It was like, who was that?

It was the first

main event I'd had with WWE and Peacock had a bunch of like subs went up on it and they had told me that and it was Hell in the Cell with Seth Rollins.

This is spinning out of my coming back at WrestleMania.

Yeah, I screwed up the backstory.

This was like your big moment.

So yeah, I'm back.

And what I said all along is, hey, I can be in the main event.

I can.

I can handle it and I can be in it and I can do well for you guys.

So this was my first main event.

And here I am.

Oh, I'm going to have to go away.

I wanted to at least give them something to remember me by.

And is that some son of a wrestler shit, though?

Like where big time.

Like you kind of grew up in the world and you just kind of understand differently that there's a different level of respect with.

But going through an injury like that.

But here's the thing.

It's son of, it's son of a wrestler for sure.

However, had my dad been alive, he wouldn't have have let me wrestle because my dad didn't look at me like a wrestler my dad wanted me to be an actor and thought i was oh you're like michael corleone he he disappointed you had a family business he legit he was he was very happy when i got into it but my dad just babied i'm the baby of my family severely babied me and and just took care of me in the greatest way i i to me greatest dad ever but if all the other old school wrestlers were like yeah that's it right there that's that's old school All of the, he would have been the one to be like, this is the dumbest thing I've ever seen.

Why did you do that?

So I part of it was old school wrestler.

And really, again, like I said, I lied on the way.

I kept it so

the information was true.

WWE's doctors looked at me and said, he can't hurt it any worse.

That was true.

Couldn't hurt any worse.

But also, but it didn't mean it hurt.

It

was the part of it.

Yeah, I was like, oh, I'm good.

I'm good.

And was there a moment like 15 minutes in where you're like, shoot me in the head.

This is the worst idea I've ever had.

It's probably two minutes in.

Okay.

Because I hadn't done anything.

And so it, it

detaches here by my armpit.

But the other part is connected to your collarbone, right?

So when the detach here, it just falls.

There's nothing there anymore.

However, it would cramp up into the collarbone spot.

So anytime you did anything, it would cramp up.

It was giant.

It literally is sticking out this much.

And when that happened, it hurt more than anything.

I feel like your collarbone was just going to come out of your body.

You're going to explode.

You're going to literally explode.

That was the only thing for me where I thought, oof.

And also, everyone was under the impression, oh, they're going to go like six minutes.

This is, it's fine.

It's not going to be much.

That match was awesome.

You're in there with Seth Rollins.

There's nobody better.

And we got like 25 minutes.

There's tables involved.

He pulls out a toolbox at one point.

We just went for it.

Because, again, wanted them to have something to remember me by.

I was, I was, uh, I hate saying it, but I was really ashamed.

I'd never been hurt.

Yeah.

And then I finally got to the spot and I got hurt.

Like he's, he's in here and, you know, Nick and Triple H and all these guys saying, hey, we're, you're right, Cody.

We're going to go all in on you now.

And then I, I felt like I'd blown it.

So I wasn't going to do it.

I wasn't going to leave that spot that night without at least leaving a very large mark on hopefully the fans.

Yeah, you're like, I've come this far.

This is

what seven year odyssey to get back here in this moment.

I'm not, I'm not leaving now.

I think in my documentary, I said it's a peck well spent.

You know, like it's, it's just a peck.

And you know something crazy about the peck surgery?

Dr.

Dugas did my surgery and he's done like so many great athletes and wrestlers.

But right before,

right before the surgery, he goes, you know, this is mainly a cosmetic surgery.

And I said, what?

He goes, yeah, plenty of people don't repair it and they're, they aren't fine.

I'm like,

I don't want to sit out for six months for cosmetics reasons.

And then the next thing you know you're out and like i'm like well no he's just trying to make you feel better i think he was because i was like i don't know i was told this was very serious sir but yeah he said that right before it happened you're healthy now though right yeah that's the only injury i've had the entire time i've been doing this because you're right you're right in that wrestler prime wrestler prime's like do you know the exact age i would say it's like late 30s into like the 42 43 range because you have enough I would say enough experience.

It's 35 to 42.

Yeah.

You hit it.

Yeah.

And now your mic skills are going to be the best they've ever been.

35 to 40.

You nailed it, though.

But it's like, it's honestly like a stand-up comedian or something.

If you're a stand-up comedian, you're going to clubs for 10 years, perfecting how to feel in front of whatever crowd you're doing,

how to have heckers bounce off you, everything.

And then you kind of figure out who you are and what you're at is.

The big thing is who you are and how you can handle every situation.

And

what you do is stand-up comedy is such a great parallel because what you do in a live setting, we were in Mexico City two nights ago and we did this spot where bad guys are beating up my partner on the outside.

And they did it so many times that I used to watch Undertaker do this thing when I was the bad guy.

Undertaker came down on the floor.

He'd snap the chair together where the whole crowd could hear it.

So just the acoustic of, oh, and then he'd chase us around the ring, but nothing actually happened.

Yeah.

It was such a less is more situation.

And I got to do it the other night.

And it was just something that we felt in the moment and trusted the crew would know what's happening.

You hear that chair, you better run.

Otherwise I have to hit you with it.

And I felt so great because he actually was there at the show watching it.

So like, all right, we've passed on this knowledge and we can do things like that now, you know?

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media

i a lot a lot of the really great media moments that you'll go on and talking to really excellent people always ask the question what's your mount rush more

and i don't like that i don't like it i say i i don't think people realize i i basically say a different one each time I'm waiting for someone to be like, oh, this guy's full of shit.

So you just do different flames.

I think that's a good one.

Because

how how can you do that there's so many eras of wrestling so many uh different and when hardcore fans start breaking in on technical stills on promos i guess that's better than just saying here's the four and then you get into the situation where it's you just have to be really generic and be like well pro wrestling is about drawing money so okay here they are we've heard those four before you know like it's you know what it's like it's like actors are like this because in basketball it's easier because you actually can come up with a list that's going to look mostly like somebody else's list, right?

LeBron and Jordan and Russell, and there's like certain guys at the top.

I think when I think about wrestling lists or actor lists or comedian lists, it's almost more like who, if you start talking about it,

who has to be at least in the conversation as you're talking about it?

And it doesn't have to be like seven, four, ten, but like Hogan clearly has to be on it, right?

Stone Cold, your dad.

So it's so funny.

It's like a short list, but you kind of know who's on the list and everybody's list can be different but everybody's gonna have the same five people i just did uh there i don't there's a documentary on hogan that was coming out and i did the interview a month ago and i actually kept saying i'm like well from the business standpoint your one and twos of of that time period up until recently the one and twos were very clearly hulk steve austin so that you could interchange them and up until recently because we've been blessed that we're breaking all these records Um, so we'll see how if you're talking about one guy just selling out arenas everywhere who has a dramatic impact and it didn't matter whether they have the title or not.

See, Andre has to be on that too because Andre didn't even need the title.

So, you're you're probably definitely right with Andre.

The only issue with Andre, it's a similar issue I find with my father, is

the data isn't there succinctly.

You know, Meltzer certainly tries to do a good job putting data together.

Uh, Shoemaker,

a lot of people can look at it, but so much of it is lore and so much of it is fantasy.

I know there were 60,000 people.

There probably was, but now we're really, I mean, the fire marshal is going to tell you how many tickets we actually sold.

It's way easier to track now these days.

And so I feel like a lot of it gets lost to the lore.

And part of me, if you've ever seen the movie Big Fish, where if Big Fish is, it's like my childhood.

It's a great movie.

Who's in that?

It sounds familiar.

Big Fish is Ewan McGregor, right?

Oh, yeah.

Did I get that right?

Yeah.

yeah is it even mcgregor i'm sitting here saying it's one of my favorite movies yeah but the end the end the end is uh that's the that's the moral is all these tales yeah he heard growing up that he thought well they're just tales and then at the you know not to spoil it for anybody but the funeral you find out oh oh my gosh such so many of these things were real so i like to think like andre you're probably very right and andre

certainly I've got books in my basement, booking journals from late 70s, early 80s.

Yeah, great stuff.

And if you flip them open, there's the card.

There's how much money they made.

There's how much they made the last time.

And then typically on some of these, it will say Andre coming in, Battle Royal.

And then you'll flip to where next year, Andre, and always up, always up.

He truly was.

You had to come and see him.

You know, and Gorgeous George was the first ever to do that.

And Sam Martino was like that in the same way.

Oh, gosh, yeah.

Bruno.

There's some people that had really nice short runs, though.

Like, I still feel like Sergeant Slaughter and Iron Cheek was one of the great feuds of the entire last 50 years of WWE.

And it was only in like three, four months, but it really mattered.

And the crowds went absolutely fucking bonkers with the USA versus Iran stuff.

Sergeant Slaughter is,

I feel, really underrated.

100%.

He's got a street fight with Pat Patterson in the garden.

Oh, that's it was like match of the year.

Yeah, pre, and you have to, if I told my students about that today, they'd no clue, even the people I'm talking about, they wouldn't know Pat.

I don't think they'd know Sarge, but I do have a selfish little Sarge moment that I, I, I, you would be the first person I've shared it with, but it was, I mean, it gave me goosebumps, unbelievable, made me feel so good.

And also made me feel like, oh, man,

I hope he's right.

But we're standing there for the 10-bell salute for the Hulkster.

Yeah.

And I'm standing next to Sarge.

I saw him out there.

I was excited to see him.

And he's standing next to me.

And

afterwards, they're playing the video package.

And, you know, we're just out there.

And I, I shook his hand, shook Hunter's hand.

And he said something to me.

And I didn't really hear it.

And I think I just said, like, oh, yeah, yeah.

It was kind of like, and then he, I heard him and he goes, no, no, carry the ball.

And I thought, oh,

I mean, it made me feel like

10 feet tall.

Yeah.

I had a promo later that night.

And I'm thinking, I got to go.

Yeah.

Sarge, Sarge just told me, carry the ball.

I better not let him down.

I was so excited.

I got to hang out with the legends a little bit that day.

And I know the circumstances were somber, but to just be around Jimmy Hart.

Right.

Yeah, to be around Sarge, Hacksaw, who I, God bless, love, Hacksaw, Jim Duggan.

That was really nice.

That was a nice one, too.

Yeah, I was saying

we got sidetracked.

I sidetracked myself.

I was talking about the two ways wrestling's different.

Yeah, you know, sorry.

No, it's one is the moves and athleticism, which we talked about.

And then the other is the entrances are all the entrances are all great now.

You go back and you watch the old ones because I was thinking about that with Hogan when he hit Eye of the Tiger and it was one of the first great entrances.

Yeah.

The Freebirds had, what did they have, Leonard Skinner?

Well, they were the first to have music.

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

So it was very early on, only a couple.

Macho Man had the big

the big grand pommes.

Yeah.

But now it's like everybody, and a lot of them are designed for the crowd to be able to sing along at some point in the song which you have yeah um they sing along i had that song forever yeah and now they do now they get it yeah but that's how i think those are the two ways wrestling's better than hd so it's so the songs and randy was talking about this the other day randy orton because he was they sing his song like word for word now and it's hilarious new to him yeah and he was talking with me about it and one of the things though about it is it's really old school actually even though there wasn't music then yeah the whole point of what we're doing the whole point and i don't know if unreal points this out and i bet you it does is we're con we're trying to connect with them it's not completely sport it's not completely entertainment none of it functions though without them caring that's the whole thing you know john cena's rule if they start making noise he's coming up he's gonna fight back i to see your guy see your girl and then you do a thing so usually it was something that affected the matches we'll cheer for such and such in the matches we'll cheer against such and such in the match.

Now it's we conch.

We sing the song.

We say whoa.

We do the yeet.

That is as old school as it gets actually.

It's just done in a very new package because the entrances are so highly produced and part of it now.

But I remember Road Dog, Jesse James and Billy Gunn

when

wrestling made its big comeback for the WWE after WCW is kicking its ass.

But those guys would come in and do the entrance and sing the song and the crowd lost their mind.

Oh, you didn't know.

I mean, literally, he oh, you didn't know it was like they didn't even need to wrestle.

It was so good.

It was like, well, I'm just here to do this and sing with you guys.

So, if you were wrestling me tonight, and I came out, and the crowd was really receptive to Kingdom, the song, and they were whoaing like crazy, and then they started the soccer chance, the Cody, Cody Rhodes chants, I'd probably tell you, just kick me in the gut.

I don't need to do

they seem good with me.

I'm good, they seem good with me.

Kick me in the gut and let them boo you, and we'll just see how long it goes, you know, just because that it becomes part of your match now.

Well, when Punk came back finally to WW after 72 years of sitting out,

but that first time when he walked in and the crowd was just going nuts and singing his song, and uh,

he almost didn't know what to do.

You could just see he was like delirious, like, it almost seems like you pass out.

Must be a pretty cool feeling.

It's a pretty cool feeling, and Punk's had more experience with this feeling than I have, but

I feel like, and this is something I I was just talking about.

One of my favorite wrestlers told me as things started to take off for me.

Yeah.

He said, and this is right around WrestleMania 39, 40, right there in the spot.

And he told me that you're on the treadmill now.

The reactions are going to be through the roof.

It's always going to don't take it for granted.

Right.

Remember the first time that they went nuts and treat every time like it's the first time that they went nuts.

And it shocks me how right he was as far as

when

you find this, whatever this elusive thing is that they like about you,

it's the most beautiful thing ever.

Because then all the flips and the dangerous stuff you're talking about.

Yeah.

When you do it, it matters so much more.

Like, that's why this discussion about moves over moments.

No, that's not the discussion.

If you have that connection and you do that really cool thing they like to see, that's box office and that's real.

That's just a it's just that's the whole that's the whole thing and and all because you mentioned unreal and now i really want i really want to see this episode i think one of the funny that i know right you've seen it you've seen all five yes all of them i think one of the things that presents itself for wrestlers that hardcore fans may not be thinking

but the really smart smart smart super geniuses as i call them you know your michael hazes and your mr heymans

there's work that can happen within the work.

Yeah.

If you say, hey, this is all real, this is, look at this,

then it starts to become hard to figure out, wait, how, wait, no, that part's real.

And that's where you can do work within the work.

So you can still, again, the word that no one can ever tell me what it means, you can still do K-Fabe.

You really can.

It's just different.

And that's the fun experiment we get to take as we lift this veil, but we cover this thing up.

I don't know.

You know, I just, I think it presents options that wrestlers and maybe the hardcore fans who are a little worried about, oh, no, they're going to expose it all.

Yeah, maybe we expose this part.

Maybe there's a whole nother part you didn't see.

Yeah, but think about like, what was that documentary they did about Bret Hart?

Wrestling with Shadows?

One of the greats.

Yeah.

Which we cribbed some of that for the Vince McMiddoc, but the behind-the-scenes stuff for them being mad after.

After the match.

Yeah.

That was like, holy shit.

I can't believe somebody filmed this.

So here's my question for you.

Do you think that was a documentary or do you think that was part of it?

So it sounds like you have Ethereum.

I have had a,

whenever I tell somebody high-level confidential stuff, I use

Chris, who's in the corner, has probably heard me say this.

I say, Brett, Sean, level.

I have never heard from either that it wasn't as real as it possibly could get.

And maybe it was.

It certainly ended up being real, no doubt.

However, I have questions.

There was a documentary crew backstage at a company that never, ever allows anything like that.

There's Mike's in the room.

This is amazing.

Conspiracy.

You've just activated conspiracy.

He's about to take off his mind.

This to me is always the work within the work.

And Sean,

Sean Michaels was my favorite wrestler growing up.

And I'm probably sitting here making him mad.

He's still my favorite wrestler.

But then you get to him and Hogan when they wrestle at SummerSlam.

And they're like, oh, you can tell he's mad at Hogan when he was overselling all the moves.

But is he?

Or is this just seemed like the one real thing on the show where you knew everything else was fictional?

Two things that would be countered.

Conspiracy Bill loves this.

The Lugie that Vince McMahon spat at or Bret Hart

at Vince was disgusting and looked like a giant oyster and nailed Vince.

That's the worst bump Vince has ever taken.

If that was a bump.

Second,

Vince did get cold cocked and wobbled out and had a black eye yeah i don't know how they would have would have would have faked that one well it's pro wrestling you you wouldn't have faked it right it was talking like again so if the whole thing was a work from beginning to end yeah then part of it is he has to hit

we're talking about you saw ria and uh bianca talking about it's there's no way to pull that it's coming it's it's coming and i mean this is great i you really blew my mind with this one yeah i'm prepared i don't even want to do the podcast anymore I just want to go read it.

So, growing up around my dad, I always, when something would happen on TV that felt like a shoot, as we say, I'd be sitting literally front of the TV, as they say, like what, crisscross applesauce, whatever, watching the TV.

I have my Hasbro figures, even though I was way too old to have figures at that point.

I'm watching, and he'd be behind me, and I'd always look back like, oh, some, and he just always

smiled ear to ear.

And I felt like in that smile, I could tell he knew they were doing some high-level work and the whole world was doing exactly what they needed to do.

And I was like his litmus test, I was his test on

for because we're talking about Sean again, and I don't mean to, I love Sean so much, but he didn't understand why I liked Shawn Michaels because he was, he was past his run, he was just dad.

Yeah.

Uh, but he, I think, oh, that's funny.

He was like critiquing some of your choices.

So he'd never take my joy away, though.

He'd always ask, ask, What do you like about him?

Oh, my, are you kidding?

Look at him.

He's smaller and leaner, but he's jacked and he's, he's able to wrestle these big guys.

Are you kidding?

All the chicks like him.

And like, yeah, the whole and he'd never tell me otherwise.

He'd just,

and then I remember WrestleMania 12, Brett Sean, they go the hour, and I'm so disappointed.

Like, my guy didn't win again.

Yeah.

Again.

And then, oh, here comes, they're going to go go 15 more minutes.

And again, I looked at my dad, smile ear to ear, and I thought, yeah, this is, they got me.

They got me.

And they just, I don't know.

These could all be

to

conspiracy theorists.

They could all be true.

They could all be total shoots.

They really could.

But the way I look at it is anything and everything that happens in the ring, I always look at it with a, hmm,

that feels like it was part of it.

One of the best ones ever was CM Punk when he sat down cross-legged.

Oh, the pipe.

And

went after Cena in a real way, and then people were mad.

And I still don't know how much of that was real and how much of it was talked about beforehand.

I like with the pipe bomb, for example.

I always, even though we're getting into it now, I actually,

if it's so good, I almost don't want to know.

Right.

Right.

If it's so good that, oh, hey, that, the rest of that show, oh, that seemed normal, but this is, this, they're going to a place I wasn't expecting.

Then I don't need to know.

It's like the magic.

What was your first one?

Because my first one was when Killer Khan broke Andre the Giant's leg and then they got a whole thing about it.

And then finding out way later and working the documentary that it was actually an accident, Killer Khan felt really bad.

And it's like, oh man, why'd they ruin this for me?

I thought it didn't intentionally.

I don't know if I had a, I know, for example, Sting

got his ribs broken by Vader in the strap match.

Oh,

but

after

I saw him and he was good, normal, but he was also leaving for a while.

And then I asked my dad in the car, like,

he had to leave for a while anyway.

So the injury?

I asked my dad for a while, well, what's happened?

You know, what will he do?

He's like, oh, he's just going to drink milk and the bones will heal.

It was just a terrible answer.

Additionally, come back.

So, yeah.

But again, so I'd get to the shows as a kid.

Doug Dillinger, who was just on TV the other night, WCW's famous security guard used to knock on Goldberg's door.

Doug was like my guy.

He'd always print me this oversized, laminated backstage pass.

And I'd never want to be backstage.

I wanted to go sit.

I'd go find an empty seat.

And I wanted to see.

I just didn't care for the mystery of it because I could tell there's something off.

Like all these guys are shaking Dusty's hand and they're playing cards.

Something's off.

But I didn't want to know.

It was, it's still magic.

You know, it was a tough one in the mid-80s was when

Hacksaw Jim Duggan,

and I think it was the Iron Sheik got pulled over together.

I was in high school, and I was like, why were those guys together?

Must of them, one of them must not have had a car, and maybe the other guy was giving him a favor.

You give yourself all this stuff.

I tried to justify it in my head.

So you missed, I mean, obviously, because you were too young, but you missed Dusty's Apex.

So most of Dusty's prime is me watching it on VHS.

Right.

I didn't.

Because I missed most of it too, because I was in the WWF part of territory, yeah.

And you would see him sometimes.

And I, you know but i just did the week-to-week stuff that made him so great it was one of the best mic guys ever i didn't know how i missed it over dusty was until we did a show wcw did a show at the omni in atlanta yeah and he was the executive producer and i i was

eight i mean at that point i should have started to figure things out but sting went out the back door to go to his car And as we went to step behind him, my dad kind of threw his hand in front of me.

He was like, just give him a second.

Don't, Don't, you know, give him a second.

It was strange.

And they reacted like crazy for staying.

And I'm thinking, like, that's so cool, man.

Look at that.

All the fans out there.

What a cool job.

Oh, because he knew.

And then my dad went out there.

Yeah.

These people lost their minds.

Yeah.

And I, Dusty, Dusty.

And I just like,

I couldn't believe it.

Like, I get choked up about it, thinking about it today.

I couldn't believe like, what?

Like, tell me more.

Because we lived in this really snooty part of Georgia, East Cobb.

It was like Laguna Beach without the beach.

So the wrestlers, my dad, we were like the Adams family.

He'd mow the lawn in his DR trunks with Ray-Bans that his head was too big for that are like.

pulled into the side of his head and the bleach blonde hair.

And Gabe Simpson, you know, from the Braves was on the other side of the neighborhood.

And he was like the real sports guy.

And then we were the goofy entertainment side of the other neighborhood.

But I just didn't know because parents would would ask me about my dad, and I had no clue.

And then I started looking into our own VHSs and old school reels and all this stuff, seeing the Florida stuff, seeing all the Crockett stuff.

Because it's not like baseball or something where you just look up his stats on baseball reference and be like, oh, dad hit 400.

It really was Atlanta, the city, you know, Omni.

And

I don't go there anymore, but Linux Mall.

Man, he'd walk into Linux Mall.

And I mean,

a riot would start.

It just, he, he was

going to Atlanta, Hartsfield, Jackson, the airport, all the Delta Redcoats rushing.

I mean, no shots fired at Atlanta, but you could argue he's the best champion they've had in the last 50 years.

The sports teams haven't done great.

It's a tricky, uh, it's a tricky, it's a little tricky.

Uh, I, uh, I'm a, I'm a dogs fan, so it's always good to cheer for the dogs.

Always good.

Listen, the Braves are going to do okay.

You have a weird pro.

What's your pro football team?

You have something weird.

I'm, I, uh, currently,

I'm an Eagles guy.

Yeah, I didn't get that part so it's it's real easy and you'll be like i am college football this is my favorite thing love college football was so pumped when joe test came uh to do commentary because i've listened to him a hundred times but pro football is my sister cheered for the cowboys my oldest sister loved the cowboys because my family was all texans really minus me yeah so i'm like a fake texan kind of but By the time I was older, the Cowboys weren't the Cowboys like that anymore.

The Falcons.

So you fair-weathered it?

Oh, I continue to fair weather it.

This is how easy I am.

The Falcons, as a kid, not great.

Jamal Anderson doing the dirty dirty bird.

There you were.

Places losing their mind.

I'm in.

I'm in.

I'm a Falcons fan.

Doesn't go the way we think.

Okay.

Auditioned a new team.

So Michael Vick shows up.

Michael Vick, season tickets sell out.

I was Michael Vick number seven.

Jersey's everywhere.

It's Michael Vick.

That goes really terribly poorly.

To say the least.

And then really did lose like the franchise, lose a lot of the franchise then okay maddie ice makes it to the super bowl okay all right arthur blanks on the field okay it's uh uh-oh uh-oh and it's at that point get the helmet behind you yeah oh my gosh yeah so well brady's break so you're gonna you're gonna hate everything about what i'm gonna say that's at that point where i just said i'm if atlanta gets there i'll be there but i'm not I'm not against them, but I'm really not going to get on the for them train.

So Tom Brady becomes my favorite quarterback.

Okay.

Okay.

So Tom, I go to the COVID Super Bowl just to see him throw the ball one time when he's with Tampa Bay, which is an amazing story.

One season and they win a Super Bowl, whatever it may be.

But this is how easy I am.

I go to do media for WrestleMania 40

at the stadium for Philly.

And this is a massive, massive sports franchise.

They rolled out the red carpet for me.

They let me have a room in the stadium.

They had all this media coming in.

They gave me all these jerseys and they gave me all this stuff for my daughter.

An eagle, all this.

That moment.

Kids gifts.

Kids' gifts.

Kids are a great way to steal stuff.

100%.

And I knew I was going to be wrestling in the center of that field

the next year.

And I had a feeling.

I was betting on myself, but praying too.

I had a feeling I was going to be in the main event.

So forever, the city of Philadelphia, because Wells Fargo is actually my favorite arena, which is right in the sports complex there.

That is, that's going to be that's my wrestling other hometown is philly you know who i feel bad for the seven nfl teams you didn't root for yeah well in the course of that church well i i really wanted uh i wanted to root for a lot of people but listen it's like wrestling you get behind somebody yeah you gotta win And a winning season would work for me.

You just got to win.

But yeah, Philly, they became my team.

Yeah, I'm trying to think what wrestler I've stayed loyal to the entire time.

You do usually bounce around.

Yeah.

Shane gillis the comedian uh he's a big phillies guy i mean an eagles guy he came backstage and he's all eagles up and i i think it's on record now that i'm i'm on board with the eagles that's my team i'm going

but it's not i haven't been born and raised you know that way so i was really hoping he didn't call me on any uh Eagle Nation stuff, you know, like you need to do like a little backstory.

Yeah, I need to, I need to look in real quick before we started talking football, but it was really cool to see because he's so into them.

And I, they did become my team.

I mean, mean, the fact that I got to wrestle right there on the 50-yard line in the biggest match of my life and the, you know, WWE's biggest event ever.

And that

I'm linked to that stadium and that franchise.

I'll allow the same.

Thank you.

Favorite.

Thank you.

Thank you.

You know, it's funny you're talking about Dusty having all this old stuff.

There are all these pockets of wrestling happening in all these different ways in the 70s and 80s.

And like, even you think like Jerry Lawler is just huge in Memphis, right?

And that specific area, he's a god.

And your dad's a god in like basically the entire South.

But then when we did the,

when we did the Vince doc, one of the revelations, and I thought I knew most of the stuff at this point, but the revelation that Vince was choosing between Dusty and Hulk and wanted Dusty first and Dusty didn't want to go.

And you were interviewing the doc.

You talked about it.

Shocked me.

It's a pretty fascinating sliding doors.

Yeah.

Do you think Dusty,

I talked about this with Shoemaker ironically after Hulk died on my podcast, and we were talking about the three things that basically needed to happen for WWE to blow up, which was cable TV, Vince getting aggressive, trying to beat everybody else, but then Hogan.

Yeah.

Does it happen with Dusty, you think?

Gosh, I feel like the only thing I could think against him is the accent.

So one of the things that Vince actually told me,

I didn't believe the story.

When my dad told me the story again and then wrestling lore.

I never know what to believe.

My dad

telling me he was slotted for the spot walked out of the hotel room never came back because vince had booked recording studio time they were going to make an album with dusty wow all right i thought this is complete dad's nonsense years later vince tells me the exact story tells me how mad he was dusty walked out of the hotel room on me and i'm thinking what this is a he really was in line to do it However, part of the story, and he didn't say it in a mean-spirited way, he said, but it worked out better that I got Hulk and that your dad got to go do Jim Crockett promotions, help build WCW up from the NWA, him and Rick and everyone, of course, involved and all the great talented people they had.

I think it worked out better.

I don't know the answer to that, but I think Hogan was

more of the now than maybe.

Maybe he made more sense with the Stallone Schwarzenegger kind of

let's fight, let's have these superheroes that

basically fight the villains.

He just made more sense.

I think a lot of it, you could literally chalk it up to Dusty's subverting your expectations with his look

was one thing, but the look at the time and where it was going, especially if you look at the AWA, which most people don't realize, Hulkamania and St.

Paul at the AWA was happening.

So

I think it was probably the right call.

Dusty had a different delivery, a different way of talking people in, and Hogan was

Stallone, Arnold.

And Dusty was a little at the table.

That's also prime, right?

He had beat himself up.

He was moving through.

Dusty's real prime is there's very, very little footage of his real, not prime, but his hottest stuff is Florida.

Championship wrestling from Florida with the early mid-70s.

Yeah, Gordon Soli and Pac Song and Harley coming in.

And that was unbelievable.

I mean, they were scalping tickets.

This is the Bucks are, you know, this is Tampa's main sport was really championship wrestling from Florida at this brief onset with the armory and the Gramps.

It's crazy.

The only way you would know it was even happening was the wrestling magazines, which, of course, I was always going through in the news thing.

Oh, yeah.

And they would just have these little articles or photos, and that was it.

There was no video.

I think, I also think too,

Dad was really proud of the three in the garden with Superstar.

I think he wanted to walk off on the three.

I did the three in a city I thought would eat me up, you know, chew me up and spit me out in New York.

And they loved me and they took me.

I'm good.

I'm not going to overstay my welcome.

I think he was when Florida would make those trades, you know, Eddie Graham would make trades with Vince Senior.

I love when they used to do that.

They were just like, I'll send you, just make sure he doesn't get pinned.

Send touch and touch.

Do whatever you want.

Just make sure he leaves with a title or whatever it may be.

They had that trust, Vince Senior and Eddie Graham.

And I just thought he probably looked at it because he was so proud of those three i knew about those three matches before i knew about many things with him because that moment was video of those or no msg oh yeah yeah you can see i remember seeing at least one of them yeah uh the first one and i think the bull rope is on there too the ropes are loose as hell superstars flying all over the place i can't believe how much video there is of the 70s and 80s now yeah Like my whole childhood is on there, basically, but stuff you just assume would just disappear and you'd never even know about it again.

Those garden ones are fun to watch.

One of the things that was amazing with him was how athletic he was, your dad.

Like, he was like the most deceiving athlete.

I wonder, like, what other, did he play sports in high school?

He played everything.

And I remember I got really hot at, there's another wrestler who was, he did this interview, and he'll never know this because

he did this interview years ago where he was like, you know, it's not like Dusty was some sort of athlete.

And I wanted to explain to him, like, buddy, the whole point was he was an athlete.

He didn't look like one, and he could do a standing dropkick.

He was the best basketball player I'd ever seen in my life.

Yeah, he just seemed exceptionally coordinated.

He was just, he didn't look it.

Isn't there a video of him playing basketball?

Yeah, so there's some charity game or something, right?

And he looks like, he's like Charles Barkley, just flying by everybody.

Charlotte Police Department.

And if you ask, it's amazing.

You ask like Lex Luger or Sting, who are both in it, just running up and down.

Lex Luger, just a lot of like post-ups where

if you ask him about it, he said that Dusty had a meeting before where he said, if we lose to the police, you're all fired.

And then

they just went for it.

And all these just shots.

This is, it was a real bummer that that video exists.

And here's why.

Fanatics,

WWE and Fanatics have this great partnership, right?

They had me do the Fanatics Fest physical events

on the same day.

I'm doing a signing and photo ops and stuff like that.

And to me, when you meet the fans, it's the coolest thing on earth.

It's my favorite thing.

I could do it all day long.

If I complain about getting up early, by the end of it, I'm the happiest I've ever done.

I already feel the excuse coming.

Oh, I'm just the excuse you just heard.

I go out on the one I was worried about was basketball because I'm thinking, like, well, there's footage everywhere today.

There's footage of everything in every corner.

I'm in my suit and I'm thinking,

I'm not going to not try, though.

The suit's tough.

I can't say I didn't try.

I kind of tried.

I did not like just phone it.

And I miss every single shot.

That's where you blame the pictorial.

I think it's just not.

I just don't have the same motion yet.

I was legit like hot at WWE talent relations for a minute because

I, guys, the wrestler out there who they already think is an athletic.

looks you can't do that to me and i didn't i never said any of this because all of this is my fault i made like one great like slap shot hockey shot which nobody got footage of Did terrible in the football skills, golf skills bombed, but basketball where they're seeing all these clips of Dusty just float like a butterfly and these beautiful layups and this jumper he had.

And then I'm out there and it looks like my legs don't like I

it's so bad.

And the guy at the MC is going, all right, all right, okay.

Let's get all right, let's get up to Cody.

Let's get him one.

Let's get him one.

And it's so like, I couldn't make, I couldn't get in there.

It was so bad.

Yeah.

But yeah, Dusty was a deceivingly good athlete.

did he save a lot of his stuff because you mentioned like you had the journals do you have like this i have a war chest of things from his i have a team for the charter oak buffaloes uh the patriots he went to camp so

even going back there yeah he's got so i've got a program from uh patriots where he's listed on the team actually i've got a lot of his baseball stuff because baseball was his his better sport and uh my my nephew now kellen is kind of following that baseball journey and he's got he's got skills from his dad and pops as well.

What about the stuff from the 70s and 80s?

In terms of his wrestling stuff?

Yeah.

Because nobody ever, people just threw that shit out back then.

I didn't think to keep it.

I have a lot of stuff.

I'm trying to think if we got real good stuff.

From the 70s, I think the favorite thing I have is a photo album.

The photo album was a personal photo album.

So it's like him and Dick Murdoch on the boat

going from Victoria to, you know, Vancouver.

And then there's Hogan just randomly in the background as a young wrestler.

That you, it's these really fun him, Ric Flair, when Rick Flair wanted to be rambling Ricky Rhodes when he was just breaking in the business and he weighs.

I don't know if you ever saw a Flair in the 70s pre the back end.

Oh, he's huge.

He doesn't even look like the nature boy at all.

So those photos I have.

We've got some reels, stuff like that.

Anything that I find really valuable, I actually will send to Ben Brown at WWE, who's the archivist.

Yeah.

Because

it's sitting in my basement.

It's better that you, I could always get it back.

I just want, it's better that somebody takes care of it.

Because if you go to the warehouse in Stanford, I mean, they've got.

Oh, they have like a seven Hall of Fames in there.

Right.

And the things you don't know are valuable, you open up and it's, it's Pat Patterson's booking journals.

This is the most valuable thing in here, guys.

It's just, it's in the corner.

You know, just there's some real special stuff.

I remember when we did the Andre thing, they brought us back and it was like, here's Andre shorts from WrestleMania.

And you're like, ah, I got a good Andre one.

Okay.

I can't confirm or deny that Dusty was ever ever the Midnight Rider.

I should preface it with that.

But if he was the Midnight Rider,

the Midnight Rider, as a ruse to get people off his scent, other Midnight Riders would show up.

Hey, I know it's you, Dusty.

And then the next thing you know, there'd be Andre the Giant

or someone who looks like him wearing the Midnight Rider.

Oh, it can't be Dusty.

Right.

This guy, this isn't, no, this isn't the guy who's been winning these matches.

So when I was younger, I went downstairs and I put on a Midnight Rider mask in my basement.

And it was a size of this,

like yeah this table and i remember as a kid thinking oh that's what my head will be that big when i grow up not realizing that that was an oversized giant

andre the giants midnight rider mask yeah his size eight and three fourths unreal

unreal um because my sister has more memories with him than i do with andre because him and dusty were pretty close but that's one that i mean when anyone describes him the type of giant he was he was a real giant that's for sure this episode is brought to you by the wells fargo active cash credit card this is an ad for the active cash credit card from Wells Fargo.

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So you come in, WW, you're there for like, I don't know, nine, ten years.

Yeah.

2007.

And then they trap you with the Stardust gimmick.

Everybody knows all these stories at this point.

But did you, did you start feeling like this, this ain't happening for me?

Or were you thinking, this is going to happen for me?

And I'm in the wrong spot and I need to fix and solve this.

Man, it's kind of because I remember the Stardust part.

I was like, oh man, I don't know if this one's going to work.

I think I took pride in the first like six months, year,

which should have only lasted six months, a year.

I think I took pride in, hey,

this is like the wrestler opportunity to make the most of something.

The classic, okay, you got chicken shit.

You're going to turn it into chicken salad.

The classic, every wrestler who was ever good took the thing and ran with it.

You know, Polka Dots is a great example on the old man.

I think I took pride in the beginning, and then it still felt like a thing that, oh, no, I'm locked out.

You know what I mean?

You start looking at the roster and going, all right, that guy, I'm not getting by him.

I had a list of all the roster of the show I was on.

and like next to dolph zigler's name i remember i wrote abs i i had these it was a list of things that i thought all these guys are better than me yeah and i didn't realize the worst thing i was doing was competing with those guys was not the answer I was feeling sorry for myself, super pity party all the time.

I was losing my relationship with people I had worked years prior.

I had wrestled Triple H at a SummerSlam as part of Legacy.

And now we can't even get two words between each other backstage.

I was really just

kind of developing into a bad apple.

And no doubt the booking was terrible.

Oh, bad chemistry guy.

Yeah, so everything was going bad.

And I was, and I think I even wrote it, I was starting to hate a place that I loved.

And

maybe the most mature thing I could do was, I'm going to leave and hold on to the good stuff here.

No doubt there's plenty of, the booking is terrible.

There's plenty of issues here, but also I'm not helping myself at all.

I'm becoming the worst me.

As I get older, I take more and more of it on me than I do put it on, you know, Vince or Hunter or whomever.

I try to put more on me about it, but I think the thing that bummed me out the most was I talked to my dad every day.

Yeah.

And I told you, he babied me and thought I was so good.

And I had a great, you know, athletic career growing up as an amateur wrestler.

And he just saw things in me that I guess I didn't see.

And that was the thing I was most ashamed of:

that happened and then he died.

So

my dad

didn't get to do any of the good stuff for his dad.

Virgil Sr., the plumber, you know, he passed away before the American Dream had took over and really even got a good start.

I think he'd had a couple matches and getting beat up by Fritz in Texas and stuff like that, but he hadn't had his run yet or even a first run, whatever it may be.

That's the thing that bummed me out the most is I wanted to give my dad the WWE Championship.

There's nothing fake about that story and that quest.

I, yeah, this was the thing you didn't get.

I'm going to be the one to get it for you and we can have it.

And I, to this day, I, I still feel like a mint shame over he just missed everything.

Like

I, I couldn't get out of that spot.

I felt trapped.

I was trapping myself.

Uh, God bless Brandy for putting up with me during that period of time.

And uh, I needed to get out.

I've heard Nick Khan say it before.

I had to go away to

come back and be seen as an adult.

And I don't know if I, if I see it that way,

but there's certainly some truth to that.

I was a kid when I started there.

I was 20 years old when WWE hired me.

And I well, sometimes you have to think outside the box when you're on your own.

Well, it was.

I felt that way, by the way, when I got my, I left this.

Where's the Boston Herald?

They're over there.

When I left that place, I had to figure out how to write a column.

Yeah.

And I'm just on my own.

I just kind of had to figure it, but it made me better.

I made me ready for the next thing.

You probably had some of that.

Well, you bet on yourself.

But you also had the,

you have to start thinking like you're booking everything, you're figuring out everything.

There's a strategy

piece that you probably hadn't really considered before.

I used to strategize in my mind.

And the thing I'd always find myself saying, and I hate saying this, but this is during Stardust, I'd always find myself saying, I'm smarter than these people.

I'm smarter than this.

Why can't I get out of this?

All of these guys taught me stuff.

I worked with them all on a peer level.

They taught me stuff.

And I can't, somehow none of it's working.

I can't.

So

when I left,

it became this kind of amalgamation of all the things I'd learned from Dusty,

from John, from Randy, from Hunter, from Sean, from Undertaker, all these guys who I'd wrestled.

And

in the end, it's kind of like you're talking about figuring out writing this column.

In the end, I feel like I.

It had to be me.

It just clicked.

Yeah, maybe it was all that help.

Maybe it was all the feedback finally come to one, but in the end, it has to be my voice.

It has to be what I want to do.

Well,

you needed some momentum, too, that wasn't just

this is the Rhodes kid.

And

you needed, you created your own thing.

Yeah.

It was really cool and different.

You bet on yourself.

Yeah.

The promotion you had felt different than WWE and in like these little different ways.

And then, you know, it just was a home run.

Nobody had really challenged the WWE like that.

And

what, 20 years?

No.

I mean, since since the doors closing on WCW.

Yeah, but that was like, that was a long time.

And that challenge was a walking corpse for three years.

Exactly.

Very short-lived in a sense.

And for me,

I was very almost volatile in how I came at it.

I had love and reverence.

You're like, this is my one chance.

Yeah.

I'm not, I have no way I'm not doing this.

Right.

I had love and I had reverence for WWE.

This is the house that built me.

But man, I really wanted, I woke up every day thinking, I want them to know

what I could have done.

I want them to know what I could have done, which is why it's fun to talk about now because they came back and got me,

which wasn't on my, that was never part of the master plan.

Sometimes what people look at and be like, oh, he always was going back.

And Nick Con was always talking about it.

He would tell like the freaking gardener.

I didn't Cody in a year.

Yeah, no, I, I, I had, I kept making it appear that I had a plan.

I had a plan, but really,

I wanted to make as much noise and disrupt as much as I could.

And I can't ever think of anything because I was talking about the two things and momentum and all that in the beginning.

I found some of the best people around me

who were feeling the underground elements of that.

And really like the three that I'd always cite and I'd feel uncomfortable if I didn't, Matt and Nick Jackson, the Young Bucks, and Kenny Omega.

That group and Kevin Owens, God bless him.

He's probably going to hear this pod.

He's responsible for it.

because he linked us all together.

And that connection of my name and my equity and their skills and their moxie and the drive and just that anger that I had and what they had, all of that just set up a situation that couldn't fail, couldn't fail.

And also at the time, Triple H doesn't realize he's a big part of this because at NXT, he's bringing in every good hot gun off the independents.

Yeah.

So it's not about legacies.

It's not about tenure at WWE anymore.

It's about who has the hot hand.

So it was a matter of like, well, let's, I'm going to be the hot hand and I don't know if I'm going to come back with it.

What are we going to do?

and you know we're off to the races with it at that point but the that was a really huge part of all the skills i had combined with really great people around me really great timing great timing and you've never really talked about leaving aew

but yeah but it felt like it's locked behind a paywall yeah apparently it is

but uh but did you feel like that had a shelf life or did was there a moment during that run where you felt like this was home you're going to be one of the building blocks of this and that was going to be the rest of your life.

Gosh, it's hard to kind of put myself in that spot again, but I

started to get a sense.

You know, Michael Hayes is really famous for always leave the territory at your hottest.

I started to get a sense that all wrestling needs change.

Guys are going to go from company to company.

You got to keep it fresh.

Guys are going to go down for a minute.

Then they're going to come, whatever it may be.

I just got the sense that

it might be time for me to move into something else.

And I didn't know what that was.

I remember thinking, oh, that'd be crazy to be part of the Royal Rumble, to come home.

Yeah.

Because, you know, I've made another home.

I got kids at this home, basically.

I got a lot, you know, but to show everybody, because the first meeting I have with Vince and Bruce Pritchard, I didn't think I was coming back.

Yeah.

I was excited to go to that meeting to say, and this is going to sound crazy.

I wanted to tell them both, thank you.

I left on crazy bad terms.

No one can ever leave like I left because of how I left.

I didn't even sign my release papers.

Like, Chris probably could sue me over, you know, like I was, uh, I, I left in a terrible place.

They let it happen because of probably more respect for my dad than anything.

And then I went out and I fought so hard and filled with rage.

I mean, I'm smashing the throne.

I'm, I'm just, I'm bleeding.

I'm setting myself on fire.

I was just,

I don't know, going through it and living it out for everyone who was watching.

But I wanted to tell them both, thanks.

You guys helped build me and train me.

And I took all those skills and I took them everywhere I went.

I took them to every company, to every independent, to every, I got to reinvent myself on how I wanted to be here in WWE.

I got to be that outside.

And that's all I thought it was going to be, a sense of closure, a real sense of thank you so much

for lessons I never got to thank you for.

And then it turned into be something something else by the end of that meeting.

But, you know, was the fear like 2022 at AEW is going to, 2024 is basically going to be the same thing.

And you're just running back years, but nothing, you're not elevating anymore.

You're just kind of, you're kind of here and you can't go here.

Gosh, I know that.

That was my perception from afar, no, no.

Yeah, and I feel like maybe that's, maybe that's a little bit of it.

I think

I started thinking about writing a book the other day.

I've never even really considered writing a book, but we've done some fun stuff.

I think it would go well.

Right.

And I think that's the, I was thinking of what would I say?

How would I put it?

Because there's clearly bad blood, but there's also clearly respect

and love.

And in the end, the way I kind of see it is:

if I felt disrespected ever at WWE,

that's one thing.

That's a company that was built.

Look at at this glass.

You know, that's, that's a, that's, that's the Yankees.

That's the flagship of it all.

If I ever felt there, you know, I was, I was a, a, a number on a sheet, maybe, but feeling disrespected at something I built

with my friends and with us with that we built, feeling disrespected there,

I wouldn't stand for it.

And, and, and, and I think Brandy and I both, I'm so blessed to have her.

It was one of those where it was, fuck it.

i did way more here than you think and you're gonna find out the moment i'm out the door and i i hate saying that with any sense of anger or rage but i'm like the angriest person you're ever gonna meet i'm always i'd like to be in the top five right so like when you said that i was thinking about when i left espn i was like okay guys you're gonna say right same thing like i it made me so ready for the next thing to me the greatest i don't believe in like the cold-hearted backstabby type of revenge.

The greatest revenge on earth is success.

And I felt like we were sitting on something wonderful, something great, a huge potentially with what I was doing with the American Nightmare as a bad guy, as a good guy, something in between.

We're sitting on something magic.

And if I'm not going to do it in the house that I literally, with Matt, Nick, and Kenny built, then, buddy, I'm going elsewhere.

And every day, I am so blessed that Bruce Britchard, Nick, and Triple H got me, Vince got me back because I get to live it out now.

I get,

you know, it's funny the way you laid it out because I watched the first couple episodes of Netflix has this big cowboys documentary.

Oh, yeah, yeah.

That's coming.

And it's about the Jerry Jones era.

So I made

them send me a couple episodes because I want to watch it.

You get all the stuff, huh?

Well, I just badger people.

I badgered it all, man.

No, I just badger people

and they break them down eventually.

But the Jared Jones, Jimmy Jimmy Johnson thing,

where Jimmy Johnson brings him in, he's building through the team through the draft, he's coaching it, he's doing everything, and they have real success, and they win.

But at some point, there's a little bit of a schism, and the schism comes down to Jimmy Johnson and be like, dude, you brought me here to do all this.

Like, this is, let me do my thing.

And Jerry, as they had more and more success, started to think he was a little more involved with the success than maybe he was.

And just coincidentally reminded me of your situation, maybe.

I feel like

it's probably similar.

And it hurts even more when you're tasked to do something, when somebody sees it with their own eyes.

But then I don't look at any of it.

I said I was really angry and raged.

I don't look at any of it with really any negativity.

And here is why.

I got to be part of WWE again.

Right.

It all worked out great.

And I got to be part of WWE.

We're talking about Austin and we're talking about Hogan, two of the greatest ever to lace up their boots and draw people into the arenas.

And every one of those records has been broken.

And I got to be in the matches that broke those records.

I got to stand across from Rama Reigns at 39.

I got to do it again.

I got the quarterback spot at a company where I was

last

in the combine.

I am very grateful.

That's why I have such trouble articulating.

And that's why I want to write this book because

I'm very grateful for, hey okay this schism happened but the outcome is i got to be with the the biggest game in town and not only did i get the spot i got to show them i i could do it you know because what are we in now three three years or four i'll say it more simply it was a good career move good career move it really was yeah good career you join and all hell's breaking loose advince which i'm not going to put you in the position to talk about here um and then you don't want to put my media training to a test well i just like you're just because some because when you do interviews like this, and then people are like, Why aren't you asking about this?

It's like, because you're going to give a shitty answer, like no, nobody, neither of us want to talk about it.

It is what it is, yeah, no, you can Google it.

Well, some sometimes you give a shitty answer, and then somebody will ask a follow-up, and the next answer is even worse, right?

Like, it just goes, it's just like, there's no answer here, you know?

It's yeah, Vince was there almost 50 years, and now he's not.

And we, we all know what happened, yeah.

Um, but you have that, and then you have your, you get hurt.

so you you it's like two things like fuck is this and you start to think like is this is this is it am i yeah my snake bit here what's going on and then everyone thinks you're going to win wrestlemania you don't yeah but i thought that was kind of really smart in retrospect that you did yeah i think that was well played you'll be the second person uh but probably the first people ever hear this I had Jelly Roll on my podcast recently.

It hasn't come out, but I asked him what his most complete song was.

I don't know why I thought that was a good question.

I was like, you know, where you felt like you were checking every box, all your skills.

And I told him my favorite match is WrestleMania 39, which is the one where it doesn't happen.

It was really smart.

I probably would have been pumped to win, certainly.

Gosh,

but there's something about that night where things were happening in the arena that had, or the stadium that had never happened to me.

He's got me in the guillotine choke.

Yeah.

And you hear these old timers, and God bless them, I love them, talk about, you know, just stay right there and the people will react.

And they'll,

when, when you've seen the amount of cool flips and awesome stuff, sometimes that's, that seems like, I don't know, maybe that's not real anymore.

And then in that moment, I remember I'm just slowly wiggling my head out and I can hear an entire stadium where the sound goes up start to move.

And I thought, oh man, this, they're into this.

How, how blessed am I that they're into this?

And it just, when it's that good, it feels completely real.

Everything seems real.

Roman is the greatest enemy of my life, and I'm trying to climb a mountain that's impossible to climb.

And that just acoustic moment for me, it made it my favorite match of all time.

That's cool.

I couldn't tell anyone that, though, because it was the saddest ending and then like walking right back.

But yeah, it's my favorite match.

Roman's a good example of somebody who had to eat some shit and it made it better.

Like, that's a great example of, I'm going to show you guys.

Oh, you think, you think I got handed this or this was too early?

Fuck you.

How many years of Roman where he was he was in the spot that he was getting booed?

It was a couple, more than a couple.

It was like three or four.

He wasn't quite ready yet.

So, but all that's happened.

But it helped him.

Right.

And so this is when people today complain about Roman and, oh, he's barely ever there.

He's paid so much.

Whatever may,

I always think, guys, do you see what he, the run he had?

Yeah.

Who he went through, what he went through.

There was probably nobody on earth equipped with it and had the will and drive like a Roman.

So if he's decided, hey, I'm coming a few times.

I'm going to look great.

People are going to lose their mind.

Superman punched spear.

That's a gift to us.

It's a gift when he shows up.

I think people forget that, that he basically earned the right to call whatever shots.

he wants.

I think very highly of

he's great in the ring, he's great in person, yeah.

And that

I've been to a lot of these now over the years.

Presence is a thing that it's not a stat.

Yeah, somebody comes in and you can feel it.

Um,

people either have it or they don't.

He definitely has it, yeah.

And he had it even when they were trying to Vince saw it, I think, pretty early.

Like, this guy has it, and he just pushed him out.

But I think ultimately, I think anybody who really makes it, you have to walk out to a 60 to 80,000-seat stadium and carry it somehow.

He's another one.

And it's not just music.

Yeah, he's another one that reminds me of Dusty a little in a sense that his athleticism is also

that he could do a whole lot of

Undertaker is the all-time example, though.

Of athleticism?

Undertaker was like fucking Dr.

J.

When he would do the walking down the rope thing.

How many people on the planet could do that?

And just the

even harder thing is hook the top rope, fall backwards over and land on his feet because he could never come off his feet.

That early 90s

Undertaker is out of control.

One of the great athletes.

How you know is he's positioned as this monster, zombie, killer, what we would assume a heel.

Yeah.

And then, oh, no, people love Undertaker.

We're just putting with bad guys.

We don't have to make him a baby.

Just put bad guys and the idea.

And just, there's very few people who ever earn the respect that Undertaker has.

And I, I came to a show at MSG, I think it was 14.

Yeah.

Goldust.

Dustin was wrestling.

And he said, when I got there, he says, are you coming back stage i said i'd love to he goes well i need you to meet undertaker before you do that so that was the thing i said hello and he's super nice i'm 14.

yeah he was almost like the bouncer of the entire locker room bouncer i always used to because he's such a cowboy to me he was like the sheriff yeah he's legit like the sheriff so when he shows up at wrestlemania 40 uh in my match for any like younger fan that's like what what Undertaker?

To me, it made perfect sense.

Sheriffs coming in to even the odds, help out a good guy guy in need.

It was just, yeah, he had more respect than most people I've ever seen in a locker room.

I mean, to this day, he's such a great locker room leader.

More fun to be a bad guy or a good guy?

Everyone's going to tell you bad guy,

but I think that's because they haven't experienced what

good guy can really be.

Bad guy is fun because you can fall on your face.

and make a spot out of it.

Bad guy is fun.

You can stumble on your words in a promo and make a moment out of it.

Bad guy is fun because traditionally a bad guy leads the match.

But a good guy or good girl that they are actually invested in, that they came, they're wearing your shirt, they've got signs.

There's all this argument always about, oh, Cody turn heel.

Will he turn?

I don't think so.

They can boo all they want if certain people decide like, yeah, Cody's a heel to me, but I don't think I'd ever turn because it's just too much of a connection with those who were on board with me.

I think it's harder to be a good guy.

So that's the thing.

I think it's harder, but once we got on,

I guess I should say.

And for a while, they were extinct because they just wanted anti-heroes and social, like edgy social media.

TV, too.

TV and wrestling.

I was very happy.

Oh, my gosh.

Yeah.

An edgy social con, you know, yeah.

All everybody, every heel out there has got the best social media and the best one-liners that leave most babyface like

dick in hand.

Oh, what do I do?

You know what I'm saying?

Like, yeah.

So you've got, to be a really good babyface, you have to kind of rise above it.

And that's, that's, that's very hard.

Jey Uso, I look at as probably a great example is most so, so popular.

And it's not easy.

It's, it's not easy to make that connection with him.

And I feel like it's even harder to keep it because babyfaces get beat up a lot on TV.

And to me, it's just such, it's such a gift.

I certainly.

Yeah, you're selling the villains.

Yeah.

It's the

first when, so Bob Backlund, when I got into wrestling, Bob Backlund.

Yeah.

He was champ for like five years.

He was.

Yeah.

And he was like the perfect guy for back then because he was just the vessel to have all these awesome bad guys that they had there because they had all like they had great villains.

And, you know, he was an all-American guy and he had the crew cut.

But it's hard to have runs like that.

Cena did it forever.

But even as it was happening, the crowd was like, he was polarizing in the moment.

It's funny today because like John for so long was booed in certain markets, cheered in others he really was so unique and the you felt strongly about him that you weren't getting up and leaving you were going to boo you were going to cheer today i feel like we are so our attention spans are a little shorter when they start booing a good guy people think it's time for uh

no no it's just flip them to me to me

yeah i just call it an away game I always know too.

I know when it's an away game.

Hey, we're going into their arena tonight.

It's an away game.

Wrestling John right now, heading into SummerSlam.

That freaking traitor.

Right, right.

So

how dare he kicks you in the balls?

How dare?

And then how dare he make a shirt for every city featuring every sports team and every

we have to celebrate the farewell while he's in this nefarious state of mind.

That's why on SmackDown this past week,

how dare he sell his legacy?

Right.

Well, so we talk about like what's what's real, what's not.

I'll tell you something that's as real as it gets.

Last week on SmackDown, give me carte blanche what what i want to say in my promo what i said in my promo is very simple just be the real john cena they're already happy for you they already love you you spent years building equity with them i could care less

stop if you got to boo me if you say let's go cody cody sucks if you're fine well i'll i i'll take it i i got raised in the industry to be able to take it but let's be you if this is your last summer slam come like it's your first be you and and then i don't have to stare at a sea of nothing's weirder than you're my favorite wrestler, somebody telling me you're my favorite wrestler when they're wearing the entire Cena uniform, the entire farewell.

I'm like, all right, well,

didn't help me tonight, bud.

But

you know, so for me, it just, I want him to be John.

And I don't know, he's the most unique soul there is in the industry.

So we'll see what we get.

That was way too magnanimous because that guy is a jerk.

He sneak attacked you, right?

He completely let you down.

He let down all the

sneak fans

um

that whole travis scott kind of he took some liberties didn't he no no travis i travis scott uh i feel like if you're a wrestler and you can't take getting slapped in the face you're not that great a wrestler okay however the mark just looked really bad so it it was one of those where i could in the next few days everybody's like what happened right i don't i don't know i don't know there's a clear fan video of just it just happens it's just part of it do you get mad that the paul brother is actually good at wrestling?

I think it's bad for wrestling.

He just steps in and he's like immediately doing crazy moves.

I don't know.

If he had just stepped in and could immediately be as good as he was, I'd be furious.

Could he put the work in?

Oh, one of the hardest working people I've ever seen.

And the other thing is, really, if you consider him a heel, that's okay because the guy is a complete, like you keep saying jerk.

Logan is as prickly as it gets.

However, his story of doing the work is as accurate as it gets.

And his secret weapon is Shane Helms.

Shane Helms, who's a producer at WWE,

they're attached at the hip.

They're talking wrestling.

They're training wrestling.

He took it as seriously as anybody ever.

I have a feeling.

He's good.

He's going to end up being world champion or WWE champion at some point.

And the internet will explode and we'll all be fine.

We'll be, we'll all, we're going to be okay.

But he is very special, as legitimate as a prick as you could meet, though.

In a sense, like, oh, this is, this is good.

It's a a slap.

Cheers to this, but I love having him on the team.

He is as valuable.

I mean, he is, he is a massive asset to WWE, going to be a future champion for sure.

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What's the maddest you've ever been in the ring at somebody as you guys were going back and forth?

And it got actually

in a way where you're like, I'm going to actually fight this guy after we're done.

Maddest I've ever been?

Have you had one?

Because they did this.

They covered covered this on unreal where it got a little

it got a little testy with charlotte and uh what's her face on blank and who who did she wrestle

tiffany when they got they it kind of went back and forth and it got to a point where triple h actually had to get mad at them on the show is that that's in the show is it unreal or is it that's an unreal kind of from a conspiracy level what do you i don't know conspiracy bill bought off total real it's seemed relatively real

brett sean sean like where do you where do you put it it was real you're saying

seemed mostly real okay okay uh mine was like an eight out of ten real eight out of ten real okay mine was not even in the ring i did commentary me and my brother did commentary on a tag match as the rhodes brothers yeah and they had told jbl and i don't know who the they is but they had told jbl to eat me up on commentary And

he did.

It was like a roast?

It was not even like a rose.

I remember he said, he asked me a question.

I said, I replied with honestly, I'm about to make my answer.

He goes, no, I want you to lie to me.

And then he just kept going.

And I'm, again, nothing makes me feel weirder than when you're supposed to protect the good guy.

Yeah.

But you, I, but then also, it's like, hey, if you're, if you don't know how to defend yourself, you're not going to be that good of a good guy or whatever it may be.

I learned a lot.

JBL is one of my favorite people ever.

But I remember that night.

That's the most I've ever thought.

Okay.

He's going to hit him over the head with something.

Well, I just wanted to explain, like, what, what's the point?

Are you and I wrestling?

Are we wrestling?

Because if we are, that was great.

So we're not.

He's testing you.

Yeah.

And he tested me and I'm okay with that test.

And I failed that test.

Now that I look back at it, I'm totally okay with that test.

I'd probably want to test somebody too, but I failed that test, which again, as older I get, the more I started to put the impetus.

I put it on me that these were my screw-ups.

I said I was ready and I couldn't handle JBL on commentary.

Maybe I wasn't ready.

How do you do, you don't have to name a name, but how do you do a program and plan out stuff with somebody you don't like?

Like if you're doing a match, like you're doing like a, like a

six-week arc with somebody and you actually have to spend some behind the scenes time.

You do it with more love and commitment than you do with somebody you do like.

You, you, interesting.

Yes.

So it's like fake friendship.

You, I, I mean, like, hey, man, how you doing?

I think.

So you like hate the guy.

There's just a lot more of when you're talking, a lot more of

this.

So that you know I'm serious.

He knows I'm so that because okay, you if you come backstage at uh Rawl or SmackDown, you'll see wrestlers shake hands

to a level that's like, What, why, why you've shaken, we've shaken hands three times.

Why are we shaking hands?

My trainer, Al Snow, I remember him asking me, He said, Uh, he said, You know why we shake hands?

Thought it was a simple answer: we respect each other, it's about respect.

He goes, Yeah, you know, that's one of it.

He goes, The real reason, though, is we need each other.

You're supposed to pick me up, slam me, look like you hate my guts and want to murder me.

I'm supposed to get up safely and we're supposed to do that the next night.

Well, and you're putting your life in somebody else's hands.

You're putting your life in someone else's hands.

And WWE, I think,

is more of a team-minded unit than I've ever seen before.

There are plenty of people who dislike each other.

There's plenty of people who I, oh, he's great.

Love him.

But.

Never has it been more uniform in terms of Hunter is really good.

Hunter and Nick are really good about this.

Is the direction?

This is the direction.

We're a team.

We're all going.

And that's not just the wrestlers.

That's the whole company.

Everybody gets on board with the team.

So it's really,

you just go at it with more love and commitment than you would if it was one of your buddies.

Okay.

One of your buddies, you can almost like Jey Uso kicked my head off the other night on Rawl.

It's a replay of it.

My whole face moves.

It's like a boxing punch.

I loved it, right?

Yeah.

But when you're working with someone that maybe there's not that trust and empathy and love with, then you go at it a little differently.

But that makes great TV.

Who do you think is next generation, generation below you?

So I'm going to say in the 24 to 29-year-old range to look out for?

Who do you have your eye on?

Anybody?

There's so many guys.

By the way,

I think Rhea Ripley is incredible.

Unreal, huh?

And not to plug the.

Yeah, no, but I mean, I really like in person.

Yeah.

Probably the

most presence of any any female wrestler i've seen and also really talented i don't know how old she is i think ria well that's that's good she's probably in her prime though that's good she's in wrestler prime i think ria is but there's no there's no younger one where you're like whoa oh my gosh there's more women training to get into the business than there are men yeah so right now at the nightmare factory my school all my favorite students I'm waiting for a guy to come along and finally have the skills, you know?

I'm trying to think of a young up-and-comer at WWE because there are many.

Because there's probably some

stuff, right?

Dominic Mysterio will end up becoming a massive, he already is, but Dom

has a connection with the audience, and the work is coming.

It's kind of reverse.

The work is coming.

He gets heat.

I got to say, you can feel it in the crowd.

He also works with people that are really.

He can see some.

His father's the greatest example.

When you were around people like that, you learn things that no one can teach you.

Right.

And other than someone who is, I don't want want to use the overword, but somebody who's extremely popular, someone who's over.

So, Dom is someone definitely to look out for in terms of specialness.

My gosh.

And then there's just a whole, I mean, if you look at NXT, Oba,

who's coming up, Oba's really special.

Ricky Saints, Ethan Page, he's another one that if you meet Ethan Page, he could be 50 or he could be 25.

He's got a really unbelievable skill set.

That's what I like the most about about

the WWE currently is that if someone was to move to go, we've got people ready.

We've got people ready.

Now, it's going to take time.

We're talking about Roman.

It takes time and takes years.

My dad used to tell you it takes two years for a guy to really connect with the audience.

Cena will tell you it takes five years for a guy to connect with the audience.

But

right?

So

that bastard.

You know,

I think we've got a lot of, Sean's really trained a lot of people really right, but there's a lot.

So Sean was your guy.

He was your favorite?

I've talked about him way more on this podcast.

He was my favorite growing up, yeah.

Because I went to the Boston Guard in WrestleMania when Tyson was the referee.

Oh, he's sick.

And Sean had like basically a broken back, and they did the match.

Yeah.

And he sells it.

He does.

You wouldn't really know.

You knew he wasn't 100%, but you wouldn't really know.

The match ended, went dark.

But did you know he was 100%?

Hunt turned to be carrying him off.

Yeah.

Did you know he was 100%?

Or was that the story going around the building that day?

Are you conspiracy billing me again?

I think he's the best in the business at giving you something else.

I just said, oh, he was sick because my dad on the couch behind me, I heard the kid's really sick.

And he's pale and he's backstage.

And they show him, I think it's him, Hunter, and China.

They're all walking.

And then he goes out there and he looks super pissed off.

He's also throwing his head into the steel steps with that weird, toxic grit we were talking about.

He might have had a bad back.

He did.

I mean, he clearly had a bad back.

Because he disappeared for like two years.

He might have had all those things.

He might have had, I think it was bronchitis, was the rumor going around in the, in my home, or he might have just been Shawn Michaels and creating magic out of magic.

Unreal.

I'm telling you, really, give us the unreal.

That's why if any fan is worried about unreal, the work within the work.

I will never, I don't let Chris Van Bleat, who's a wrestling podcast guy, he asked me one time the scariest question anyone's ever asked me in a podcast.

And I, I didn't know how to answer it.

He said, you seem like you're always in character.

You're always wrestling.

You're always talking.

He goes, are you ever not?

And in the moment I realized, oh,

no, I think you really like this.

Right.

I think I am too, but I might be too deep in.

Andrew Schultz, I do his podcast and he's like, oh, he's just wrestler talking.

He's just, and I'm thinking,

am I?

Am I?

I don't know.

I grew up in this.

It's so hard for me to determine like, where are we at with all this?

So, yeah, that was a scary question.

That was the weird thing.

I remember

Hunter came in.

He has so many names.

What do we call him?

Paul, Triple H, Hunter?

Like, what do we go with?

I say, and I think it's the worst choice.

I say Hunter.

Yeah.

But then I hear others say Paul, but I don't know him as a Paul.

And then I see, I hear people like, hey, trips.

And I don't think I'm cool enough to hit him with a trips.

Hey, trips.

Trips.

I don't know.

Yeah.

So, but yeah, I see when Magic Johnson's teammates called him Buck.

Like he had like this extra nickname that it was like a special nightclub for the night.

I just say Hunter.

Yeah, he came in to see us like when I was at ESPN, Grant, we did a pod.

Yeah.

And just being around and watching like different, the different version of him, I was like, oh, I think this is probably who he actually is.

Like the low,

soft-spoken kind of intense guy.

Yeah.

But then you see him in wrestling.

He's a completely different human.

You seem like you're around the same at all times.

I, I mean, I'm a big, I'm a big fan of his.

When I left, I was doing things to,

I tried to steal a lot of his playbook

in terms of the EVP role, for example.

I've modeled a lot of stuff after Hunter, but I find it,

if I don't ever have the chance, this is a perfect chance to,

he is probably

one of the top three.

He's one of the most important people in my professional life.

And it's like, I didn't know he was until so recently.

So the first time you left, wasn't he like kind of shocked?

Yes.

He's like, really?

Shocked.

shocked, and he was one of the first people to text me when I won a world title outside of WWE.

Hey, good job.

He had no reason to be watching that show.

And maybe just the fact that he kept tabs on me, but all that kind of shame I had over not being able to

do

have this run that I've been so blessed to have that my dad never saw.

I do take some solace in the fact that I get to be around Hunter because they were tight.

So, you know, if my dad was to wake up and walk in the room and see Hunter and I hold my hand up at WrestleMania or at these press events or things of that nature, there's something special about that.

I don't know if it was destiny or what, but Hunter's been extremely, I watch him at all times almost because I love how he operates at WW.

I love how he runs the team.

you know, part of me inside wouldn't mind another shot at, I'd love to try behind the scenes stuff, right?

well if you get behind the scenes again i i'm just the two championship belts are too confusing two champions so like a world

championship and then the world it's like just we need to call one of them like the wcw belt just like make it easier in my head i'm i'm you need i'm one you need one title huh i i i like the old days when it was the wwf title and the intercontinental title and we had the two titles you're not wrong do you know the reason why two titles it's not wrestlers and it's not the booking you know why we have to have those

for the two different shows for the two different shows it's them it's their fault it's that well we want the champion on our show all right well this is that champion and then so can you imagine if the nba did this where it's like yeah oklahoma city won the title but the what's the what's the thing they do in vegas the commissioner cup oh yeah commissioner cup was elevated it was the same level and it's like there's the commissioner cup title the milwaukee bucks i'll say one thing about the two titles that helps us though is the guy who's wearing the world title and the guy who's wearing the WWB title always are looking at each other of the thought, like, I'm better than you, or I want to be better than you.

I want to.

And when you get to a live event, like, say you're just doing a non-televised live event, well, who's on last?

Right.

That's the, so there's a, again, the real competition that sits on the base.

That is day one, day two, because SummerSlam's two days.

Yeah.

So what's the better day?

Because like when I went to WrestleMania, I went to day one.

Day two is the prestigious day, right?

Or does it?

they both day so they both are technically main events so that's not a lie when we say oh wrestlemania main event they're both day would you rather be on uh sunday okay uh and that's just again back to old school wrestler toxic i want to be the last thing they see before they go home and uh well i like the two-day thing because i i went to the famous with my son the new york wrestlemania that was I think I'm still there, actually.

I know the red dad.

I love the guy who died.

Yeah, the one that was like seven plus hours is this met like i actually think i'm there still right now yeah those well that's why we have two nights yeah and it was the longest day of my life my son of course loved it didn't pee once and was locked in he was locked in locked in well also i love it he didn't pee one time he was he was didn't pee didn't want to miss one thing um

night one

there is a if a wrestler's told you're on night one often they might

say one thing outwardly, but inwardly, night one is a huge opportunity because the crowd is prime.

Yeah.

It's prime.

And I feel like it makes it so that night two, if you're a night two guy, it's a lot harder now.

Bar has been set.

We just saw how are you going to.

And then when a night one guy ends up on night two, they're in the same position.

So there's a beauty to night one as well.

There really is.

I like,

so I've had four WrestleMania main events.

My mom only would say it's three

because

she doesn't count night one, but she's not

night one.

Tough credit.

Yeah.

Well, she's as tough as they get.

I mean, she grew up around Andre the Giant and Dusty Rhodes.

So the very little I've ever done has impressed her.

But when I can get her, it's pretty solid.

It's pretty solid.

But you need

the title back.

It's funny when you're around someone who was around the business, my dad, and married to him.

the majority of his professional career and still says things like, I was sad you lost the title.

I was sad.

And then still asks you things like, nice, you get carried around.

Yeah.

Oh, my God.

It's great for moments like this.

Yeah, you could have brought it today.

You know what I mean?

Everyone takes a picture with it.

It's a whole thing.

But

it's sad, though, when she calls you the, hey, how are you doing?

Well, good.

It's just, she's still, she's still, I guess, it's real to her.

You know, that's hard to do.

The worst part is losing the title, but then you have to figure out when's the right time to do the

the roll the roll out of the ring oh the walk of shame it's like a roll of shame i yelled at somebody on my walk of shame um somebody was telling me to go side ramp which is also lovingly called by production loser's lane um

and uh

i will i would i would rather take a 25 000 fine than ever walk side ramp.

I will walk up the main ramp.

I will walk up the ramp with my sad face.

And I will, because I want to feel every bit of that.

Do you do the look back?

Depends.

The sad look back, wondering what happened.

I think sad look back sometimes that might be their moment.

And if sad, if sad look back takes away from their moment, I just want to know that I walked down this thing and I'm walking back up it.

Now, win, lose, or draw,

that's part of it.

So many poor, it's never their fault.

I apologize to them in advance.

If you tell me to go side ramp, you're going to have to hold the show 30 seconds because I'm not going side ramp.

It's, I, it's, as odd as that is, that is where I draw the line.

I will not be going side ramp.

But that's all that moment is, it's, it's their moment.

You roll out, you know, and we have to go because I kept you too long.

But I did want to ask you why, what managers, why we just don't have more of them and why it feels like the most unexplored terrain in wrestling.

Like, why couldn't Shane Gillis do like a three month?

He just starts managing somebody, getting involved, doing, doing stuff on the mic.

Like,

how did we get away from this?

Cindy Lauper,

way back when, when she got involved and did a little thing, and it was really fun.

I don't know why we're not messing around with this more.

I think managers, it's a great question.

It boils down to nobody wants to train to be a, they don't want to be a manager anymore.

For example, Bobby Heenan and J.J.

Dillon, two of the greatest managers ever, Jimmy Hart and other, outstanding.

They trained.

They could also be wrestlers.

They could take a bump.

They probably were referees at some point.

They were everything.

So if you're a manager, you're going to at some point take a couple bumps.

Exactly.

So today people will be like, well, how do I train to be a manager?

No, you train to be a wrestler.

And then maybe wrestling determines that you are a manager and that you can help build somebody up or help get heat for somebody or be a, like Bobby Heenan was, be a mouthpiece for somebody.

I forget about the smoking hot managers.

Miss Elizabeth was.

An iconic 80s person

for all teenage boys.

I would love for there to be managers everywhere.

Just bring them back, just experiment.

During the dead part of the WWE schedule, I just feel like they should start trotting them out.

I'm really trying to think of an example of somebody who would be an outstanding manager.

But I mean, so here's another reason why, and this is this, you're going to hate this answer, but this is a true answer why maybe there's no managers anymore.

It is hard to be a manager when Mr.

Heyman, when Paul Heyman's on the show, because

he's so much better than everyone.

But that's, that, that tells me there should be more managers then.

Well, there should be someone trying there should you know so when we had paul heyman's been involved in some of the best wrestling moments of all time oh and he's partly a mind behind some of these moments but you know and then you had cornet back in the day who was such an outstanding manager for his guys and and really helped

i just feel like more guys who get into wrestling schools and go to nxt or whatever i i don't be afraid to look into that it doesn't mean it's the end i mean when i was growing up we had blassey we had lou albano we had the wizard the grand the grandmother, what was that guy's name?

Yeah.

We had Jimmy Hart.

Yep.

There were some bad ones.

But then you just Missy Hyatt was popping up.

All those managers you just laid out were there for Macho.

Who's going to be Macho's manager?

And then instead of picking any of the greats, he picked Liz.

I remember she walks in and it's shocking.

He didn't go with the ones he

had a great gimmick that's sitting there for somebody.

You had, I liked when you did your, I'm so handsome, don't touch my face.

That's what he wrote.

Yeah, I like that one.

But I like the super rich.

I think that's sitting there for somebody.

The million-dollar man in 2025, that gimmick is just sitting there for somebody.

Here's what it would also take to get a good manager.

You need a young talent who wants to take care of his manager because often it looks like the manager takes care of the talent on screen.

Yeah, the relationships, the behind-the-scenes,

you have to make sure your guy gets there.

They're older at this point.

You know, some of the, your guy gets there.

Your guy's okay.

He's happy in his life.

He's happy to be on the road.

I don't know if a lot of young guys are looking for that person that they could have.

It's almost like getting a dog.

It's very much like fuck.

There's a dog out there.

I have a manager.

I got to go everywhere.

But that's the thing.

If it's going to work, you've got to go everywhere.

It's like a tag team.

If you and I become a tag team, well, then we have to drive to the show.

Do you think people in the 80s felt that way?

Like, fuck, I got Captain Luel Bano.

100%.

They fly with this guy.

This one showered in a week and a half.

Hunter talks about all the managers that Vince suggested that he hated.

And then ultimately, they found China and they were off and running.

So it does have to be a good fit.

You have to let the rich guy manager or rich guy wrestler thing sitting there for somebody.

Logan Paul with a manager would be really good.

Logan Paul would be really great with a manager.

Like a former hedge fund crypto guy who cashed out and now he just really wants to.

This word crypto amongst wrestling fans is we're booing.

If I ever did a manager, I would have them not, I wouldn't speak i'd have them speak i would no longer speak anymore if i ever you've had a couple like kane there were a couple wrestlers that just relied on the manager to talk yeah that's the other thing that's a big question that there's a whole room of people like well this oh we forgot about slick that was another manager that that's i think it's okay that you forgot about slick

he was there no no slick was a great he was a great man he had some good ones there's so many good managers yeah and they're just come back the managers that's my big note it's a freebie in front of a live crowd oh the manager gets tossed out the ref gets to to do this whole thing.

It's a freebie.

That's a free reaction.

The guest manager is great, too.

I think the Shanghai is just popping in for two months, doing one back and forth promo where he's just roasting somebody, but then just kind of being around.

I think if you get a manager today who's a bad guy manager, the audience needs to let up a little bit on the cancel.

They need to be able to

get a little buck with it, get a little wild.

Because if we're, if we're not, let's do it.

If we're not able to get heat, then none of this works.

Then it's just, we're all friends.

Just, hey, good guys wrestling, you know?

That shocked me.

So I went to the Netflix LA in January.

Oh, yeah.

When Hogan came out and he got booed.

Yeah.

And he didn't read where the room was and flip, which I thought was, was, I was like, oh, he's just too old now.

Because in the old days, he would have read the room.

Yeah.

But like, oh, the room's going this way.

I'm going to zag and be like, how dare you guys, brother?

He powered through.

Yeah.

Cause, cause The Rock's done that a couple of times where he's, like, oh, the room's going there.

All right.

I'm just going to zag, which is like, it's like wrestler ESP almost.

Right before he went out,

Hogan and I, we had a conversation backstage and he had Real American beer.

He was talking about the beer.

He had a duffel bag, like a custom Real American beer duffel bag with a bunch of beers in it.

And I wanted to try one of them.

I thought, oh, I want to try one of Hulk's beers.

And I talked to him, and then he decided he was going to give me the whole duffel bag.

So I had this whole refrigerated duffel bag and cause he was there with his son, Nick.

And

I'm so blessed that I got that moment because I thought the beer was good.

I thought the beer was good.

But my bus driver, thankfully he's not driving, drinking these while driving, but that's his beer.

Wow.

And that bag is still on the bus.

It wasn't like a thing that like

swag that didn't make it.

That bag is his bag.

He's about it.

So it was a nice gift I got from him because I didn't, you know, I didn't know things were going to go like they did.

But yeah, I got the real American beer duffel bag.

What was the number one most starstruck you've been by a wrestler?

It might have been him when he came to WCW when I was a kid because seeing him, I'd only ever seen him really on TV.

Gosh, but I didn't get it.

It's a real weird answer.

The most starstruck and more scared I ever was of, oh, man.

Dr.

Azzig.

That guy was, nope, close.

Oh, I say close, but Shockmaster?

Harley Race.

Harley Race.

shock master was married to my aunt bobby so i wasn't scared of shock master is that true yeah that's uh and berkeley this is just some fun lore for you guys berkeley his son is the uh beloved we love berkeley uh is the timekeeper at ringside he's been that for many years yeah he's very good at his job so harley race harley race was the first i felt like harley race who was older and vader's manager at the time seven-time nwa world champion i felt like he could still be nwa world champion he looked like harley race there's there's a couple guys where you just feel like these are the guys you want on your side of the bar at 1.30 in the morning.

I think he's like number one, right?

He was used to talk about how he could kick everybody's ass.

Him Haku.

You know, yeah, him Aku.

I feel today like it's an easy choice if you're going into a bar fight.

You hear all these creative answers.

Like, I'm just going to take Chad Gable because he's a former Olympian alternate and then any of the Samoans.

We're winning the fight.

We're going to, you know, I don't have to even get up.

Like, yeah, he got him.

Oh, like one little fake kick at the end.

Like, yeah, so I think Undertaker probably had a 15-year run there on the 90s, 2000s, where it's like, that's your, that's your choice in a dark alley.

Yeah, I mean, you could get creative with it.

There'd be some fun choices, but to me, I'm some of these athletes I'm around.

I'm like, yeah, no, just Chad Gable.

Everyone's getting twisted up.

And no, it's not going to be violent.

He's just going to put them down in that uncomfortable, humbling type way, you know?

Right.

Yeah.

That's smart.

Yeah.

This was great.

This was so much fun.

Good luck.

Good luck with that freaking turn quote jerk Cena.

I love how upset you are with him.

Well, he let down two generations of children.

I'll be upset if he doesn't show up like the John we all know and love.

I'll be upset if we just get this.

Maybe he can come back to some sense of human normality on his fan base.

John is a man of his word.

The reality is 11 shows left.

He might be that wrestler that like, oh, yeah, it's going to, oh, no.

And he's gone.

Well, if we've learned anything in the history of professional wrestling, it's that nobody ever actually retires.

So I believe it when I see it.

And I think that one you will see.

He might be the one person who is more serious than ever about it's time.

You guys are, you, you, unless there's some like Stone Cold like had a neck injury, like he had to stop.

You know, like that, there's some sort of physical thing where it's like, you can't do this anymore.

But for the most part,

I hard to walk away.

I don't even think we'll see John returning in cameo roles.

I think he, this is it.

Wow.

Which is why at SummerSlam, I'm very excited because as much as maybe he should retire and think about some of the choices he made over the last year.

You tell him.

You tell him, you know,

letting down entire arenas of kids crying.

Kids crying.

Really terrible.

Hit me with my watch, too.

Great to spend time with you in person.

Thank you so much.

Better on yourself, Club.

Yeah.

We're in it.

All right.

That's it for the podcast.

Thanks to Cody Rhodes.

Thanks to Eduardo and Gahau as well.

I'm maybe coming back on Sunday.

I will definitely have a podcast over the next seven days.

Don't forget about Rewatchables on Monday, and I will see you in a couple of days.

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