Triple H: WWE Champs are Selfish, John Cena’s Heel Turn, & How Vince McMahon Never Loses

YERRR – the guys brought in none other than The Game himself, Triple H, to break down the wild world of professional wrestling. From getting punished by Vince and the rise of DX, Triple H opens up about everything: the business, the characters, the pain, the politics – even training Floyd Mayweather. Plus, his insane story of marrying his wife, internet trolls, and why being a babyface is actually harder than it looks. All that and more on this week’s episode of FLAGRANT. INDULGE 00:00 Everything is Wrestling 00:40 When Triple H was punished 4:25 Fans are super aware + Blurring the Lines 7:15 WCW was poaching talent + MSG show 12:58 Being punished by Vince + Inmates running the asylum 20:17 Going through it + Maximise your minutes 26:07 "S*ck it", Origins of DX + Being a mirror 37:50 Vince finally accepting + Pushing buttons 44:52 The rise of Stone Cold Steve Austin 50:12 Staying safe + Heel to Face 54:18 Being without Shawn Michaels + Reforming DX 1:00:14 Whatever it takes + WCW was doomed to failure 1:07:27 Developing character + Turning heel 1:12:17 How many now understand the game? 1:17:40 Being in the mix + Stephanie McMahon 1:27:37 Moms spot the love + Vince trying to stop it 1:31:51 Getting creative 1:37:28 Quad injury + intense commitment 1:42:06 Biggest pop at MSG + Being a good guy 1:52:13 Babyface have to be selfish + Bad guys' logic 1:56:44 Cena turning heel + The Process 2:00:01 Trump understanding heat 2:02:48 Being babyface is hard 2:10:30 Triple H training Floyd Mayweather + Understanding wrestling 2:16:19 Blending reality + Patience in your storytelling 2:19:58 Internet isn't real, Pivoting + Supreme skillset 2:26:17 Parallels with comedy + Schulz v Logan Paul 2:32:26 Never being full sure + Where is WWE now? 2:35:27 UFC jumping across to WWE 2:38:28 Tommy Invincible is phenomenal Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:01Speaker 00

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• 0:25Speaker 01

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• 0:40Speaker 02

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• 0:42Speaker 03

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• 1:07Speaker 04

  Guys, I'm sure you're all familiar with the old proverb, everything is wrestling. Politics, business, entertainment, every industry thrives on character development, storytelling, and building an audience. Wrestling is a mirror for whatever is happening in culture. So, if you want to understand culture, just watch wrestling. And no one understands the art of storytelling and brand building better than our guest today. He's a 14-time WWE World Champion, a two-time Royal Rumble winner, and now he's behind the scenes running world wrestling entertainment. He's a man of many monikers. Tara Risen, Jean-Paul Leveque, Hunter Hearst Helmsley, The Game. But today, we're going to call him Triple H. Give it up for him. Okay, first question.

• 1:50Speaker 04

  I'm doing some research on you, and I come across this story. I don't know if it's legend. You can break it down for us. But basically, one of the worst moments in your career, you get punished unjustly. And because of that punishment, one of the greatest superstars in the history of wrestling is created. Tell us how we get there.

• 2:08Speaker 05

  Yeah, I'll just, I'll lead you into what's supposed to happen. So at that point in time, I'm, I'm starting to get some momentum going in my career. And there's a plan in place that I am going to win a very... Especially at the time was a very prestigious tournament called the King of the Ring.

• 2:26Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 2:26Speaker 05

  I would be crowned King of the Ring, which would then launch me into a program or an angle with Shawn Michaels, who was champion, or I think at the time when they brought it up, he was either champion at that time or was going to be champion by that time. And I was going to sort of escalate myself up into that higher level of of being a heel, a bad guy. And Shawn was a babyface champion. So we were going to go into this program into that year. So it would have been a huge, what we would call push for me in the business.

• 2:59Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 3:00Speaker 05

  Yeah, yeah, it just would have really been the thing that launched me.

• 3:04Speaker 04

  Also, this is years into the business. This is not early.

• 3:06Speaker 05

  Yeah, it's years into the business, but early for me in WWE to a degree.

• 3:10Speaker 04

  Right.

• 3:11Speaker 05

  And at that same point in time, you know, the business was going through transitional changes, right? So I'm at that time, I'm still Hunter Hearst Helmsley. I'm the blue blood snob. There's still like, everybody's got to have sort of gimmicks and characters that are not necessarily just like you're a wrestler, you're a fireman or a cop or the clown.

• 3:33Speaker 04

  Lock on with the two by four.

• 3:35Speaker 05

  Yeah, whatever it is, the gimmicks are larger than life, sort of cartoony characters. But backstage, there's a group of us that hang out together that were known as The Click.

• 3:46Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 3:47Speaker 05

  Kevin Nash, Scott Hall, Shawn Waltman, Shawn Michaels, myself.

• 3:53Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 3:53Speaker 05

  And I was kind of, they were kind of just friends that all hung out together. Sort of Luger gave them the name The Click because they were always together. I sort of come in at that same time. For whatever reason, I get along great with those guys. We all end up as a group or known as The Click.

• 4:09Speaker 04

  Now, you're known as a group backstage.

• 4:12Speaker 05

  Backstage.

• 4:12Speaker 04

  Because onstage, some of you guys are babyfaces, some of you guys are heels.

• 4:16Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 4:16Speaker 04

  And from my understanding, the heels and the babyfaces never even really hung out that much backstage. They would never ride around together. There was like a real.

• 4:23Speaker 05

  To a degree. Slightly before that, you go a generation before that, yeah, nobody even associated with each other. If they walked into a bar and there was a bad guy in there and a good guy walked in a bar, he'd just leave.

• 4:36Speaker 04

  So you basically keep the kayfabe going.

• 4:38Speaker 05

  Keep it going though, all the time.

• 4:40Speaker 04

  Right.

• 4:40Speaker 05

  And you know, that was at a period of time where guys were getting into fights over. Is the, you know, if somebody came to you and said, ah, that stuff's fake, whatever, or, you know, try to criticize it.

• 4:50Speaker 04

  Shoutout to slapping a guy.

• 4:51Speaker 05

  Yeah, yeah, and there was a lot of badasses in the business at that time that were not afraid to, to do that. Yeah, guys like Harley Race and things like that, that would really, you know, they were legitimate badasses and if somebody questioned the business, they'd end up beaten up, knocked out, broken leg, whatever, you know.

• 5:13Speaker 04

  And the idea is that like you have to protect the business because without the business, there's no job.

• 5:17Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 5:17Speaker 04

  And it's all predicated on this idea that this is 100% real, not scripted, and the people need to believe.

• 5:24Speaker 05

  Yeah, though, as you move forward out of that, I think people became accepting of, it's just great entertainment.

• 5:29Speaker 04

  Yeah, so I want to get to this like later because I don't want to interrupt this story, but like, I think one of the coolest things that I've learned now, especially different from when I was a kid watching wrestling, is like how aware the average wrestling fan is of what's going on, and it's become really meta.

• 5:44Speaker 05

  To click away. Yeah, to click away, all the information.

• 5:48Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 5:48Speaker 05

  And what's fascinating about our business is, as interesting as the characters we put on TV, right, so there's a moment where there's some people that are just interested in what they see on TV. There are some people that are just as fascinated, if not more so, with what happens behind the scenes, the sort of the, who that person is in real life, the politics of it, they make up their own stories in some manner of the things that are going on. Well, I know that guy hates that guy and they don't get along at all.

• 6:17Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 6:18Speaker 05

  You know, we will even perpetuate that through the internet and things like that, where it might not have anything to do with a story that is happening on the show, but we'll perpetuate that partially and.

• 6:31Speaker 04

  As we get into this, I think that's important that you brought that up because I think that's a huge game change that I hope you get credit for in wrestling, and blurring the lines of what's happening backstage and onstage.

• 6:45Speaker 05

  So part of that translates into, or relates to this story of what you're talking about. So that group, The Click, were all very tight backstage. It's, it's not like common knowledge, I wouldn't say everybody knows it, but there's a. A section of fans that at that time, you know, this is before the internet are really beginning to understand what goes on behind the scenes and who's really tight and who's not. These guys are friends and that guy isn't and they don't like this guy and there's politics with that. Right. So Kevin Nash and Scott Hall make a deal with WCW to leave. The rival league who's throwing money around at this point, signing away a bunch of people.

• 7:27Speaker 05

  There's a thing, a Monday night war going on. Vince is coming off of trials and and all this stuff where the the business is sort of down. WCW goes on the attack and one of the things that they do is they start really coming after talent with big, big checks and right. Whereas Vince sort of put you into a position where you are participating in the revenue of the business. So if if we went to Madison Square Garden, it was sold out, the gate is this, there's a percentage of that gate that gets paid to talent. That's divvied up amongst the talent, right? There's percentages. So if the if business is good, you make more money. If business is down, you make less money. And that's why you protect the business. Yes. And so WCW, they were just paying guys money. Yeah, guarantees.

• 8:11Speaker 05

  So, you know, Scott Hall decides he's leaving. Shortly thereafter, Kevin Nash goes through this big thing where he doesn't want to leave, but they're offering him so much money. And, you know, our schedule in WWE was at that point in time, we were working, you know, 200, 250 days a year around the road all the time. Physically grueling. Yes, yeah, just, just nonstop. Just the travel wears out a comedian. Like, he traveled to sit on a stool on stage. I'm exhausted. You guys are flying through cages. And in the same business, right? Like, the best part of what you do is when you're on that stage, when you're in that ring. And that other 23 hours and 20 minutes of the day is the shit you put up with to get to do your job. Yeah.

• 8:54Speaker 05

  Right? And but guys are doing it. It's, it's, it's grueling. It's relentless. And, you know, Kevin gets in a place where they're offering ridiculous money. And but he still doesn't want to go. And there's a moment where he tells me right when he has to give the answer, I'm home. He calls me and he's like, I'm not going. Stay and I can't do it. And then like, two days later, we're at TV and he's like, I just gave Vince my notice. I'm like, I thought you weren't going. And he's like, basically, my wife said, you don't either take that money. I'm not raising this kid by myself with that schedule anymore. Like, you take that money.

• 9:28Speaker 04

  They shrunk the schedule for WCW.

• 9:30Speaker 05

  Yeah, WCW was working, you know, they would mostly just doing TV. You know, they were doing some live events, right? But it probably the schedule was half.

• 9:39Speaker 04

  Oh, wow.

• 9:39Mark Gagnon?

  How are they able to give out bigger checks if they weren't doing as much?

• 9:43Speaker 05

  That's why they're out of business.

• 9:48Speaker 05

  Yeah, it's, you know, it was Ted Turner. It was, it was TBS, right? A lot of money, a lot of, and there's a certain point in time where like, when you, when you're just paying a lot of money and the revenue's not coming in, like, well,

• 10:01Mark Gagnon?

  Yeah, it's a time bomb.

• 10:02Speaker 05

  Yeah, you know, any fool can run a business in the red. Take a genius to do that. So,

• 10:11Speaker 05

  Kevin and Scott are leaving. Sean and I are staying. Uh, there's another guy in the group, just Sean Waltman, but he isn't at Madison Square Garden, but we're doing a show at Madison Square Garden. It's their last time at Madison Square Garden. They're leaving shortly thereafter. And,

• 10:29Speaker 05

  Sean comes to me during the day and he's like, hey, I mentioned something to Vince about us all going out at the end of the show and having a moment together. And I said, what did Vince say? And he was like, um, yeah, I guess if that's means a lot to you or something like that. And so it's kind of very vague. But what was weird about it was.

• 10:47Speaker 04

  Funny, that's how.

• 10:50Speaker 05

  So what, what, what's weird about it is, to, to, to the business is, Scott and I are going to wrestle earlier in the show, like a street fight.

• 11:02Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 11:03Speaker 05

  And I beat Scott and the whole thing. And then Sean and Kevin are going to work a cage match for the WW, at the time, F, uh, I think WWE title, whatever.

• 11:15Speaker 05

  In the close of the show. So us coming out there to have a moment together is sort of contrary to the show.

• 11:23Speaker 04

  Of course.

• 11:24Speaker 05

  And but when now when the time comes to do this, Scott and I wrestle earlier, we have this knockdown, drag out, street fight, and then now Kevin, Sean go in there and we're kind of at the end of the show and there's a that the way the garden was set up in the past, there's a side vom that

• 11:41Speaker 05

  like guys would always stand at to watch the show. Vince would stand at this curtain, his dad would stand at that curtain, right? That's where they would watch from. And Scott and I were standing there and they kind of get to the end of the match and Sean is kind of looking back at us and Scott says to me like, are we supposed to go out there? Like, I don't know, dude. And then Scott looks at Vince and he goes, are we supposed to go out there? And he's like, kind of like we're all unsure. And then Scott's like, fuck it, I'm going. And he just goes, right? And I think in his mind like,

• 12:10Speaker 04

  I'm quitting.

• 12:10Speaker 05

  Yeah, I'm out of here anyways.

• 12:12Speaker 04

  No cost to it.

• 12:13Speaker 05

  Yeah, fuck it, I'm going. And I'm like, I'm like, well, fuck then. They were kind of looking, waving back at me and I'm like, shit, all right, here I go. So we go out there and we have this moment. And I mean, the garden sold out and they go ballistic.

• 12:28Speaker 04

  So the people are happy to see you all acknowledge that you are friends and break the case.

• 12:32Speaker 05

  Crazy moment, right? Like, it's this crazy moment of like, most people, I believe in that time, probably in the garden, especially in New York is so savvy to everything, like, they know we're all friends, they get it, right? And they know they're leaving. And this is like an incredible real, real life moment.

• 12:50Speaker 04

  First time in wrestling history this has happened, where you kind of break.

• 12:53Speaker 05

  Probably.

• 12:54Speaker 04

  That's my understanding.

• 12:55Speaker 05

  One of the big, yeah, one of the big moments where it actually happens. So we do it. When we come back, everybody's gone. Like, everybody. And like, usually there's at the garden, like, there's people back there, the agents, all this. So we come back, everybody's gone. I'm like, that's not a good sign. But so Sean goes and talks to Vince and Vince says, well, that was a lot different than what I thought it was gonna be. And Sean said, hope I was okay. And he said, well, did that mean something to you? And Sean goes, meant the world to me. And he goes, then I'm okay with it. And we left. And we used to stay in, at the time, we stayed in Newark. And there's a place we all diner that Business is different now.

• 13:37Speaker 05

  We all drive back. We would, if we were doing the Garden, Long Island, all that stuff. New York was a big hub. We'd go stay in Newark. Yeah, drive all that. At the airport and just make the bounce, right? So you could stay in one place. Yeah. So we went back. We all had dinner together at this diner and stuff like that. And we were all like, well, that was crazy. What just happened and all that shit? And, um, you know, big moment. So the next day I'm off. The next day I'm gonna, I'm driving up. I lived in New Hampshire at the time, driving back up and, uh, as soon as I get home, there's a message from Vince's office, his secretary saying, um, Vince would like to see you first thing in the morning tomorrow. And I'm like, fuck, like this is, this isn't gonna be good. Like he ain't calling to go like, do wonderful job.

• 14:23Speaker 05

  Like it's my day off. I gotta, you know, I gotta go there. So I like literally turn around, drive all the way back. Go, go back to the office the next day. And this is the, this is the meeting where like,

• 14:37Speaker 05

  everybody's freaking out. And, and Vince was even putting it on, I, I wasn't so sure that he was upset with it. Everybody else, and you have to understand all the producers and agents backstage and help with the show and everything are a generation before her. They're of the generation of protect the business at all costs. Bad guys don't ride with good guys, right? Yeah. To some degree, they all go nuts when they see this. And now, Kevin's leaving, Scott's leaving, and to those producers and agents,

• 15:10Speaker 05

  well, look, it looks bad to, for Vince, it looks like the inmates are running the asylum and he doesn't have control over these guys, these, this group, the clique has like is doing whatever they want and they spit right in your face. And if you don't do something, it looks bad. It's a disrespectful type thing. And I don't think Vince took it that way, but I think that's what he was, he always had a saying, perception is reality. And perception amongst them was this. And so, you know, as soon, I, I knew, I wasn't sure. I'm like, well, I'm either gonna get fired or this is going to be like, I'm gonna get like, this is gonna be heavy. And, um,

• 15:54Speaker 05

  What a drive from New Hampshire. Yeah. Right, yeah, so, so, but, but I was, you know, I was kind of like, well, it is what it is. Okay. And I'm a big believer in like, if you're gonna do something that in your mind, you know, is kind of fucked up, like, you cannot cry afterwards with whatever comes about from it. Like, you made the decision to do it, so. If the, if the ramifications of that are way worse than you thought, well, that's on you. It is. You made, you made the choice, so. Yeah, it's, it's a pretty heavy meeting and Vince is like, look.

• 16:28Speaker 05

  It's unfair, it's all these things, but Kev's leaving, Scott's leaving, I can't do anything to them. Kid wasn't there, but Shawn was there, but he's the WWE champion. Shawn Michaels is the champ, can't flash the champ. Not much I can do to him.

• 16:42Speaker 05

  So you're like, you have to call it a wash, right? Just move on, huh? And, uh, yeah, and he was like, well, you know, here's the thing, a lot of people are saying I should fire you. And I'm like, okay, what are, what are you saying? And he said, I don't want to fire you, I think you're incredibly talented, I think you, I want you here. But, you know, I've, I've got to do something. And so he was, you know, you were gonna win King of the Ring, that's gonna go away. You were gonna do this program with Shawn, that's gonna go away. You are going to, and this is one of Vince's favorite sayings, but this was the time when he said it to me when I hit the hardest, he said, you are gonna have to learn to eat platefuls of shit and like the taste of it. Damn. And, uh.

• 17:24Speaker 05

  Okay, and I said, so, well, the, the one thing, you know, I was, I was accepting of it, obviously he hit hard, but I was accepting of it, and I said to him, before I left, I said, here, here's a, because he said, but if you want to leave, he said, I understand, this is not all on you. If you want to leave, if you think you can get a job with Turner, with those guys, if you want to leave, I understand that, I'll, I'll make it where there's a loophole in your contract. Oh, that's decent. And you can get out. Did you consider it? No, I didn't, I didn't, I didn't want, I had come from there. Yeah, of course. Right, so before I came in, so I kind of knew, even though it had rose, risen dramatically and their business had gone through the roof, I was like, I, I don't want to be there, I'm here for a reason.

• 18:06Speaker 05

  This is the place where they can make me. What felt better, what felt different? They didn't have a clue what they were doing there. Okay. And it was, it was literally the inmates running the asylum, and I knew that like.

• 18:18Speaker 05

  You you you knew you had a boss right here. You knew that there was one place to get the final answer from and that it came from one place and that sometimes it's all you need is whether you like the decision or you don't, you need somebody to make a decision. It can't be, "Well, we, I think this," and then you go to this guy and he's like, "No, I don't want to do that. I want to do this." And he's got some kind of creative control, but this other guy's got creative control too. And it's just a mess, man. It's a mess. So, one of the things I said to Vince was, I said, "I don't want to leave." I said, "If, but if I have no choice, then, well, that's what I have to do." But I said, "Let me just ask you a question is, I said, "I'm, I'm, I did the crime. I'll take all the punishment, but I have to know is there, is there a point

• 19:02Speaker 05

  where this ends? Is there a light at the end of the tunnel? I'm willing to go through all the shit. I'm willing to take it. I'm willing to do the, do the time for what I did, but I gotta know there's an end point on it. If you say to me, "I can't get out of this," then I gotta go. But if you say to me, "No, no, it'll be a period of time and then you'll get the opportunity, as long as I'm still delivering to where you feel like I deserve that opportunity, if I can get that opportunity, then, um, then I stay." And he said, "As far as I'm concerned, there's no issue with me." He said, "As far as I'm concerned, when you walk out that door at my

• 19:42Speaker 05

  office, it's over. It's all, it's all done and you're on flat ground with me." He said, "But I gotta, I gotta, for a period of time, I gotta put this out to everybody else that you're fucked. And then, once, once I feel like that's been enough, then, as long as you're still delivering, you get the opportunity to come back up." So, um, I left there and one of the things that I said to him before I left is, I, I went to the door and I stopped and I said, "Hey, I just want to ask you one thing, and I just want it to be something that you think about, because it's been resonating with me, is I understand everybody's point of view, but the world is changing and the

• 20:23Speaker 05

  business is changing." And I said, "If what we did was so bad, then why was the largest or the loudest reaction of the entire night what we did?"

• 20:35Speaker 05

  Like if what we did was so bad, isn't our job to entertain those people that all paid? I guarantee you the one thing they left there saying is holy shit. At the end, they all came out. It was this moment. It was real, right? Like I said, this, the business is changing and we're either going to change with it or it's going to pass us by. And he sat there for a second and he said, you might, you might be right, but right now isn't the moment.

• 21:02Speaker 04

  That's actually wise, yeah.

• 21:03Speaker 05

  And, uh, and I, and I left and then, yeah, I went from being the guy that was gonna win King of the Ring to being the guy that was losing in the first round. And Jake Roberts, who was, you know, fairly old at the time, was sticking the snake down my pants as a haha thing and, you know, um, I had a, you know, I got every shit detail, every bad thing I got given to me.

• 21:26Speaker 04

  What are examples of that? Like, what are examples of you getting fucked?

• 21:29Speaker 05

  Um, whoever was the worst guy that they wanted me to get over, like just go put that guy, go, go get.

• 21:37Speaker 04

  So you would have to wrestle these guys that they're trying to build up and they all have to beat you.

• 21:41Speaker 05

  Yeah. And, and, and, you know, I'm not, I'm not on any media anymore. I'm not featured in the shows. I'm just.

• 21:47Speaker 04

  You're just there. You're a B-side fighter.

• 21:49Speaker 05

  I'm at best, right?

• 21:51Speaker 04

  In boxing, we call it a tomato can.

• 21:53Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 21:53Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 21:54Speaker 05

  At best. And then, so, um, yeah, time went on and, you know, eventually it got to a point where I'm, I'm a big believer in like, if you're talented and, and, you know, say that about myself, I guess in that manner, but if you're, if you believe in yourself and you believe in your talent, then they can't only hold that back for so long that that'll eventually come out and it'll eventually rise to the top. And it's not about the storyline they give you always, or the, the thing they give you. It's about creating your moments. This is something I tell talent all the time, maximize your minutes. So even if I went out there with a shit detail, I would find something in there for me to have a moment.

• 22:34Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 22:35Speaker 05

  Oh, that was good. Whatever. You know what I mean? Like I would have that one moment where I at least felt like I came back and I was like, that was horrible, but I at least got this out of it.

• 22:45Speaker 04

  Made the best of it.

• 22:45Speaker 05

  Yeah. And, and you sort of have to, you have to, you have to have those moments.

• 22:49Speaker 04

  This might be too vague to answer. If it is, that's fine. You can just move on. But what is an example, like a moment to like a noob like me?

• 22:56Speaker 04

  Yeah, that's too vague. It's fine.

• 22:57Speaker 05

  It could be anything, but it just could be when you have an opportunity. At some point as the heel, you're gonna have an opportunity to beat the shit out of the babyface. In what manner do you do it? So many people get into a place in our business, I think, or anything else, like in our business, where you believe in yourself and you believe in your ability. And as writers, we're not using you to the best of your ability right now. That happens to everybody, right? And there's ebbs and flows in your career. How you deal with that, though, is up to you. You can go out there and say, I'm gonna fucking prove it to them every single night. I'm gonna go out there and kill this, no matter what it is. Or you can go, they're not using me.

• 23:41Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 23:41Speaker 05

  They don't care. Fuck that. I'll show them and go out there and not try.

• 23:45Speaker 04

  Yeah, even getting your ass kicked, you can have a good performance.

• 23:48Speaker 05

  Phone it in, you know, right?

• 23:50Speaker 04

  Yeah, there's a, there's like, anytime I'm acting or like doing some movies, like sometimes you see some real pros there, right? And they might have like a line or two in the scene and they'll just find a way to make it the funniest line. Even when they're not even saying anything.

• 24:05Speaker 05

  Scene stealer, guy in the background that just like where you just can't help but look at that guy.

• 24:08Speaker 04

  Yeah, and it's like, it's not like they're being narcissistic. They're like, given one line, they're like, how can I add to this scene? And how can I make this good? And watching that is really interesting because a lot of times you look at the script and you're like, okay, who is the most lines? Okay, me, I'm delivering it or that person. So you can have one line.

• 24:24Speaker 05

  Exactly.

• 24:25Speaker 04

  And it could be all about.

• 24:26Speaker 05

  Exactly. And that's the thing, right? So you can either go negative on it. I can sometimes tell watching the show, like that guy walking out, he's about to get beat by this other guy and he thinks it's wrong that they're putting that guy over him.

• 24:41Speaker 04

  So he's bringing that energy.

• 24:42Speaker 05

  Doesn't want to do it. We call it boo boo face. And so he comes out boo boo face and he doesn't have that same fire. Now that same talent, sometimes, oh, they're going over. This is, this, this match is for them. This, they're gonna go over.

• 24:54Speaker 04

  Very excited.

• 24:55Speaker 05

  They come out like a big star and everything they do is they're putting all the effort in and like all that stuff, right? It's, it's, it's easy to put the effort in when they're going with you. Yeah, and when they're going with you and this is all about me. The trick is to put that effort in. You know, the trick is to still. You know, go to the gym, hit it just as hard, be in just as good a shape, be spot on on your game, and do all those things that you need to do because when that one time that they give you something and that you see that hole, I can do that and steal this scene. And you go out there and you do that. And now that's the after a couple of times that stuff starts to become undeniable. Yeah. Because the truth is, we just react off what the crowd does. Yeah. So when the crowd starts to see that and they start to get into a talent,

• 25:41Speaker 05

  now you're giving that crowd what they want and they're respecting it and they're going with it. We have no choice but to follow that. Yeah.

• 25:47Speaker 07

  Would you ever get upset at your opponent if it feels like they're just phoning it in during the match?

• 25:51Speaker 05

  Sometimes. And what do you do? Do you fuck them up a little bit more? Nah, you know, it just depends on who it is, you know. Sometimes you just talk to them like, come on, guys, come on, step up. Yeah. You know, whatever it is, sometimes you just can't help it.

• 26:03Speaker 08

  Also, guys, tour dates, Denver, I'm in Greenwood Village, Colorado, at Comedy Works South on Friday and Saturday. Sunday, I'm gonna be at the Comedy Works in downtown 420 show. You know what that means. I will be performing high the one and only time all year. Uh, May 9th and 10th, Virginia Beach, June 19th and through 21st, I'm gonna be in Salt Lake City at Wise Guys. All those dates and plenty more at akashsing.com. Also, June 4th through 9th, Brown basketball players, Brown, uh, Brown Ballers Tournament, compete for a million dollars in, where is this shit gonna be? Somewhere in North Carolina. Uh, Cary, North Carolina, June 4th through 6th. Check that out. I just wanna shout out my Brown brothers playing basketball. Keep doing great things. Love y'all.

• 26:45Speaker 07

  Hold on a second. Don't skip forward, guys, because it's the world's fastest ad read. My name's Mark. I'm coming to America, all right? We're going to Bangor, Maine, Portland, Maine, Charleston, Atlanta, Strasburg, Hoboken, Indianapolis.

• 26:56Speaker 08

  Several cities to suck his dick.

• 26:58Speaker 07

  Let's get a fuck Miles in the chat, by the way, to prove you didn't skip. We got Raleigh, North Carolina, Poughkeepsie, Portland, Fort Worth, Austin, Stanford, Philly, Leventown, Chandler, and San Diego. More dates to come. You can get it at my website, markgagnonlive.com. And I can't wait to see you guys there for a consensual time where no one's gonna have, no one's gonna suck my dick.

• 27:15Speaker 08

  Somebody suck his dick.

• 27:16Speaker 04

  Okay, and we're back. Okay, so yeah, I wonder if like eating shit for that, uh, that much time gave you like a real competitive advantage because you get used to not getting the thing. So now you're not bitter about not getting it. And also, you're not afraid about being the position where you're not getting put over.

• 27:32Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 27:33Speaker 04

  Because you went heel a bunch of times even after your success.

• 27:37Speaker 05

  Yeah, well, and I think it-

• 27:41Speaker 05

  I don't know, there's something like, uh, at that point now, I'm trying to earn my way back up, but at the same point in time, you start to begin to realize like, oh, fuck it. If, if it doesn't go well, then, who knows? Like, I could be here for a while, they could fire me, or maybe this, this isn't the right place for me, so I go someplace else. Whatever that is, you start to get to a place that is, you, I don't want to say you don't give a shit because you do, you care more than anything. But you start to realize, fuck it, I'm just gonna do my thing.

• 28:17Speaker 04

  You're free.

• 28:18Speaker 05

  Yeah, it's a free, it's a free. The outcome so much. Yeah, so when you see us get to a point after that, when I start to get sort of free of that junk, is the time we get to do DX. We had been on Vince for a long time, prior to Kevin and Scott leaving, that we wanted to do this group. We wanted to sort of take what we were doing personally and put it on TV because we thought people will really think this is cool.

• 28:44Speaker 04

  Right, right.

• 28:45Speaker 05

  And Kevin and Scott are gone. You're telling people to suck your dick.

• 28:54Speaker 04

  You need to sell those aprons.

• 28:57Speaker 04

  Suck the chef.

• 28:58Speaker 05

  Yeah, yeah.

• 29:03Speaker 05

  So, so that was sort of just us in, in real life, right? Just walking around the backyard. Austin, Austin gets to a place where he's allowed to flip. Oh, sorry. Yeah, so I'll get there, but like, Austin was in a place where he can flip people up, but prior to that, as we're coming out of that generation, you can't flip people off, you can't do that. Right. You can't do anything. As, as talent, this is before any of this happens, Kev, Scott, myself, like, we have this thing we would do where, you know, you'd get up on the turnbuckle and somebody'd be yelling at you, flipping you off or something, and you'd just look at him and be like, hey, buddy, right?

• 29:41Speaker 05

  You know what I mean? That's all it would be. Or you'd be like, you know, just, just,

• 29:46Speaker 05

  and they got it.

• 29:48Speaker 05

  Right? And you'd move on.

• 29:51Speaker 05

  As the Attitude Era begins to form and sort of I'm in a place where hey, I just want to get out of this purgatory I'm in and Sean's the guy, we get the Vince, Vince allows us to sort of partner up on screen and DX becomes a thing and in the beginning now we start doing all this crazy shit and he's like, "Fuck you guys doing?" Now, I've also, over that time when I'm punished, I think Vince liked the fact that he threw all this shit at me and I never blinked. You know what I mean? Like, the only one time I ever went

• 30:35Speaker 05

  to him and bitched in all of it, and it was because he put me in a match with a guy that was almost impossible to work with and then gave me like the worst referee that we had and like the whole setup was bad and it went really badly and I came back and I went off and it was like, "Hey, fuck it. If you're going to, if you're going to not allow me to have the chance to succeed, then fuck that, I'm out of here." Like, you cannot give me that, you cannot give, put me in a position where I cannot fucking succeed or cannot win and can't even do my job, right? Like, if you put me in that position, then I have no choice but to go because I cannot, I can't overcome that. What was it?

• 31:16Speaker 05

  I was working, I was wrestling a guy that was just terrible. They wanted me to have this long match with him. They gave me the worst referee, which a referee can help you work around people's inabilities. Like how? I can talk to the referee. So if, if I need a guy to do something, he's not doing something right, I can't just always walk over there and tell him like, "Fuck you."

• 31:43Speaker 04

  So you tell the referee?

• 31:44Speaker 05

  I'm like, "Fucking tell him to stop doing that and fucking," you know what I mean? Like, the referee can go over and tell him, "He said stop doing that, do this," right? And I have enough experience to where guys will listen, but I mean that sometimes you need the help, especially on live TV. Or even tape TV, you just need to have that.

• 32:02Speaker 04

  Who was the guy?

• 32:04Speaker 05

  Ahmed Johnson, a guy named Ahmed.

• 32:06Speaker 04

  Oh, I remember him. He was like injuring people in the ring, right?

• 32:09Speaker 05

  He was hurting people and he was just big and.

• 32:11Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 32:12Speaker 05

  Yeah, just.

• 32:12Speaker 04

  Big steroid looking dude.

• 32:13Speaker 05

  Yeah, and you couldn't understand him and he had an attitude problem and just, you know, um, that's him. And, um, you know, they, they, it was just one of those things. And when I came back, I was pissed and I went to Vince and I got a promo on him and I thought he was gonna go off of me. Well, fuck, I told you if you don't like it, fuck you, get out of here, whatever. And he didn't, he was like, that's fair. That's fair. And I was like, okay, well then fucking don't do it again. And he walked out.

• 32:41Speaker 05

  And he, but he was like, that's, that's fair. You can't, if I put you, if I give dump that much shit on you, that you just can never dig out of it, then, you know, so, um, so he, you know, cha-change that, but I think he respected the fact that I, you know.

• 32:57Speaker 04

  You ate.

• 32:57Speaker 05

  I did the time, I never bitched, I never did anything. And now it was time for me to get out of jail. And when he did, he was like, I'm gonna let you and Sean do this group thing.

• 33:05Speaker 04

  Okay, so that's your reward.

• 33:06Speaker 05

  It's sort of, yeah. And, but Sean and I immediately just go into like overdrive on it and start doing shit that he is just.

• 33:13Speaker 04

  So you get an opportunity, you immediately try to fuck it up as fast as you can. Make up for a long time. Why don't we just tell the whole arena to suck our thing?

• 33:20Speaker 05

  Yeah, I don't think, I don't think we were trying to fuck it up, but we just had that, like, we wanted that creative freedom to go do what we wanted.

• 33:26Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 33:26Speaker 05

  And the thing was, I believe that Vince was starting to see the change happening.

• 33:30Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 33:31Speaker 05

  And while everybody else was going, they can't do that, they can't say that, the TV network were telling us, they can't do that, they can't say that.

• 33:37Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 33:38Speaker 05

  He was being like, man, they fucking crowd is reacting to these guys.

• 33:41Speaker 04

  Is this around like the same time Stern is popping off too?

• 33:44Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 33:44Speaker 04

  So there's like. It's cultural. Yes, yeah, yeah. And as we, as we always said in the, in the documentary, did a brilliant job of displaying, it's like, you know, wrestling is this great reflection of culture.

• 33:55Speaker 05

  Yeah, it's, it's a mirror of what is happening. Sometimes we're in front of it, sometimes we're just following it.

• 34:00Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 34:01Speaker 05

  But there's a mirror of sort of what is happening. And I think about that period of time, like, you know, we were, you know, we were pulling our pants down on TV and, and telling people suck it and all the.

• 34:13Speaker 04

  Suck the chef.

• 34:15Speaker 05

  All, all the shit.

• 34:16Speaker 04

  Get a picture of the apron.

• 34:18Speaker 05

  Yeah, suck the cook.

• 34:19Speaker 04

  Yeah, not the cock.

• 34:23Mark Gagnon?

  Invited to the cookout.

• 34:24Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 34:25Speaker 05

  But it was politically correct because we didn't put the U and suck.

• 34:28Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 34:28Speaker 05

  So it was safe.

• 34:29Mark Gagnon?

  Who knows? Stick the cook, who knows?

• 34:34Speaker 05

  But I, I believe he was starting to see, you know, Austin's a bit edgier, we're a bit edgier. And that stuff's really starting to get a reaction. It's not following yet necessarily with ratings or whatever, but the crowd is telling us that's where we want to go.

• 34:48Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 34:49Speaker 05

  And again, you're seeing Stern, um, you know, the, like the Maury Povich shows and all these shows are like so edgy. Springer.

• 34:58Speaker 04

  Yeah. There's a lot of, I can't believe I'm seeing this.

• 35:00Speaker 05

  Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I remember there was a, there was a show like, was it Hill Street Blues or something like that where the actor at the time, and I remember his name, Dennis Franz. It was a scene where he, you know, uh, he's at his like apartment or something and he comes out and he walks down a hallway and they show his naked ass on TV for like, you know, 30 seconds.

• 35:19Speaker 04

  Dennis Franz?

• 35:20Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 35:21Speaker 04

  What an ass to show.

• 35:22Speaker 05

  But it, but it was like.

• 35:23Speaker 04

  Look up Dennis Franz.

• 35:24Speaker 05

  People lost their minds.

• 35:26Speaker 04

  They might have too, probably.

• 35:27Speaker 05

  How could they do that? And we were like, this is funny.

• 35:29Mark Gagnon?

  Yeah. I connect the South Park in wrestling.

• 35:32Speaker 05

  South Park.

• 35:33Mark Gagnon?

  I feel like.

• 35:33Speaker 05

  Beavis and Butthead.

• 35:34Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 35:35Mark Gagnon?

  Beavis and Butthead.

• 35:36Speaker 04

  Yeah. It was, it was like being inappropriate was very cool. There's like rebellious nature happening in media and entertainment.

• 35:42Speaker 05

  So there's a moment in time where Vince comes to us now that he's getting so much shit from the.

• 35:46Speaker 04

  Probably hip hop too. When is NWA popping?

• 35:48Speaker 05

  Same time.

• 35:49Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 35:50Speaker 05

  Yeah, same time.

• 35:51Speaker 04

  So it's like every form of media.

• 35:52Speaker 05

  Everything is rebellious and over the top and like.

• 35:55Speaker 04

  Attitude.

• 35:56Speaker 05

  Attitude and, um, holy shit.

• 35:59Speaker 04

  And this is what year?

• 36:00Speaker 05

  Shock TV.

• 36:01Speaker 04

  This is late 90s probably?

• 36:02Speaker 05

  96 ish.

• 36:03Mark Gagnon?

  Like Limp Bizkit, like break shit.

• 36:05Speaker 04

  Yeah. So 80s is like prim, proper. Everybody's got the suit on, hair slicked back.

• 36:10Speaker 05

  The overcorrection.

• 36:11Speaker 04

  And the overcorrection. Yeah.

• 36:12Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 36:12Speaker 04

  Okay. This is great. Okay.

• 36:13Speaker 05

  The pendulum swings.

• 36:14Speaker 04

  Yes, yes, yes, yes.

• 36:15Speaker 05

  And it's the overcorrection.

• 36:16Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 36:17Speaker 05

  And, um, we are the overcorrection.

• 36:19Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 36:20Speaker 05

  And we're pushing it to an extreme and, um, do things on that. There's a moment where the USA network was like, you know, we'd come back from the ring and Vince would be like, you guys are going to get kicked off the fucking air. Like USA is pissed. Like you gotta stop this shit. You, you know, I'm going to have no choice but to fire you guys. Right? And we're like, whatever. They're going crazy to some degree.

• 36:44Speaker 04

  You could say whatever.

• 36:44Speaker 05

  No, we were thinking whatever. Yeah, we weren't saying it. Yeah. And then there was two things on that. One is at one point, USA was out of their mind. We did a show and they sent us a letter that there's a skit that we do. That is, it looked like a presidential. Clinton had just done the, I did not have sex with that, you know, sexual relations with that young intern. He had just done that speech. USA Network sends us a letter saying, and it was ridiculous. Like DX has gone too far. So from, here's the controls. From the hours of eight to nine, they can no longer say these words. They can no longer refer to their genitalia. They can no longer say this.

• 37:28Speaker 05

  These words are acceptable, these are not.

• 37:30Speaker 04

  Raw was eight to 11, I believe, right?

• 37:32Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 37:32Speaker 04

  So you had two hours.

• 37:33Speaker 05

  It was eight to 10.

• 37:34Speaker 04

  Okay, eight to 10, okay.

• 37:35Speaker 05

  So then it was, you know, during the nine o'clock to 10 o'clock hour, they can say these words, but they can't say these. And we were like, this is ridiculous. And Vince came to us and he was like, you guys happy now? They put restrictions on us. And this is what we can and can't do. What do we want to do here? And we were like, this is gonna sound fucked up, but let us use that. Let us use that. We'll do a skit tonight to open the show. Where we say all this shit that's on.

• 38:02Speaker 04

  So now you're continuing to blur reality with wrestling. And it feels so much more real to the audience, because this is a real memo that you got from USA Networks.

• 38:09Speaker 05

  So we do this presidential, almost like this, we're in the Oval Office and we do this presidential thing, but it breaks down between Sean and I, where he's like, god damn it. I'm like, fuck, you can't say that, dude. Shut the fuck up. You know, like, right, we're swearing, they're beeping out the swears, and this whole thing. And then he ends it with, and I did not have sex with that young intern. Matter of fact, I was up all night.

• 38:29Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 38:31Speaker 05

  And that's sort of the skit. And.

• 38:35Speaker 05

  We do it and you know, I think Vince was partially nervous and he's a rebel and a maverick spirit. So I think partially he was like, fuck yeah. And we put it out there and the next week we got a letter back from USA, congratulations on the ratings. Funny how you used our skid against us, our own thing against us, but it worked. Congratulations. And that was the last they criticized.

• 38:58Speaker 04

  At this point, does Vince start to realize this thing that you're trying to usher in, which is blending reality and wrestling?

• 39:05Speaker 05

  Yes. And same with Steve and some other people, characters start to change. They're open to me not being called Hunter Hearst Helmsley anymore. Like, hey, what do you want to be known as? He came to me and was like, you want to use your real name? And I think, eh, not really. I have time and stuff invested in this. Everybody called me Triple H backstage. I was like, let's just break it down to the nickname Triple H. And slowly over time, I'll, I'll change the character from what I am to where I want it to be. And he was like, okay. But there also comes a time where now you're talking about like scripted and what he can control and he can't. Vince is a control freak.

• 39:39Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 39:40Speaker 05

  So one day we walk into TV and.

• 39:44Speaker 04

  Oh, I didn't consider that. You could push his hands now, now that we're blending things from the real world and the wrestling world. You could do something in the real world that forces him to incorporate it in a story in the wrestling.

• 39:55Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 39:56Speaker 04

  Ah, so if you're a control freak, you're like, I can't let the inmates run this. This is the ultimate, the inmates run the asylum. Okay. So how does he handle this?

• 40:04Speaker 05

  Blending, he's trying to blend his position from being the boss and us doing what we want to do. And I'll tell two stories about it. One, so one is that we walk into TV one day and Sean walks up, I walk in and he walks up to me. He's like, have you seen this yet? I'm like, no, what's that? He's like, it's a script. I'm like, what do you mean a script? He's like, this is what they want us to say tonight. I'm like, I read it and I'm like, it's terrible. He's like, yeah, what a fucking doing that.

• 40:27Speaker 04

  Wait, you never had scripts before for any of the promos you cut?

• 40:31Speaker 05

  He would give us the premise of what, you know, you need to talk about this or whatever. And we'd go out and do our own thing.

• 40:35Speaker 04

  Probably easier than memorizing like a whole script.

• 40:38Speaker 05

  Yeah, sure. The business has been flowed in this manner, right? Like, and so, yeah, like. So he gives us his script and Sean and I go to his office and we're like, what is this? And he's like, that's the script for tonight. And Sean's like, it's terrible. And he's like, well, that's what I want you to say. And Sean, Sean, cause Sean's the elder guy now, so he's, he's the stage man for the group. And he says, uh, he goes, well, fuck, now that this thing's over, you guys are gonna tell us how to do it? And Vince goes, yeah, that's what I want you to say. And Sean goes, well, it sucks and I'm not fucking saying it. And Vince goes, well, I need you to, I need you to go out there and I want you to read, uh, say what's on that paper. I want you to read it. And Sean goes, here's the fucking problem.

• 41:23Speaker 05

  You think like the honeymooners is funny. We think, we think Beavis and Butthead is funny and you don't even fucking know what that shit is. He said, you're not in touch with these kids and we're not fucking, this is not what we do. And Vince goes, well, I don't care. That's what I want you to say. And this is where Sean, sometimes Sean would do shit and I would think like, how is this guy get away with this without getting fired? Like he really crumbled up the paper and threw it at Vince and bounced it off his chest. And he said, why ain't fuck the saying it? He walked out of the office and I was like, yeah, I'm with him.

• 41:53Mark Gagnon?

  On the way out, you're like, whoop.

• 41:54Speaker 05

  Left and then, and we went and did our shit, but. Holy shit. That's why.

• 41:59Speaker 04

  I think it's so different from the perception of Vince.

• 42:02Speaker 05

  But it, but it, but it, you have to understand. He sees it working.

• 42:08Speaker 04

  And he, what he truly cares about is what works.

• 42:11Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 42:12Speaker 04

  So he's trying to exert power and force, but at the same time, you know, as long as it works, he's gonna ride it.

• 42:18Speaker 05

  Yes. He never, you better go, if you're gonna say, fuck you, I ain't saying that. And you're gonna walk in the other room and say, you better crush it and, and it better work. Otherwise, you, you, see ya. Thanks for coming. So you're, sorry, Al's been on us.

• 42:30Mark Gagnon?

  Do you think the pressure he was putting on your, on you guys was from like the old guard that wanted him to do something the classic way?

• 42:37Speaker 05

  Yeah, to a degree, and also he's fighting that. He's the old guard also. So he's fighting it, but he's seeing like, this is not.

• 42:44Speaker 04

  Ratings are ratings.

• 42:45Speaker 05

  Yeah, this is, god damn, this is crazy. This is not our business, but yet again, right? And then one, now, once he, now, once he realizes like, okay, shit's on.

• 42:55Speaker 04

  Once he learns it.

• 42:57Speaker 05

  And, and we're, and we're in this war with WCW where we're getting our ass handed to us. And he realizes like, wow, all of a sudden now. DX, Austin at the forefront of that, but DX, Austin, you know, all these guys that it's starting to change. We're starting to pick up momentum now again. So now he's going with it because he's in a, he's, he's in a war. So one thing about Vince, he ain't losing.

• 43:21Speaker 04

  So he'll do anything to win.

• 43:22Speaker 05

  He fucking.

• 43:23Speaker 08

  Sorry. When you look back on that paper moment, the script, is there any part of you, I just think Vince is such like a kind of a, he's playing chess guy. Do you think he's like, I know they're not going to do this. I just want them to rebel.

• 43:34Speaker 05

  Maybe, maybe.

• 43:35Speaker 08

  Like this is just going to rile them up and go cut a better promo.

• 43:38Speaker 05

  But there's also this interesting thing with him. I remember one time we, um, we did a, I don't even remember what it was about, but we did a, we did a promo where I was going to cut a promo on Vince.

• 43:50Speaker 08

  Okay.

• 43:51Speaker 04

  This is without him knowing.

• 43:53Speaker 05

  This is, he knows I'm going to cut a promo.

• 43:55Speaker 08

  Yeah.

• 43:55Speaker 05

  But it's live TV.

• 43:56Speaker 04

  But on Vince?

• 43:57Speaker 05

  Yes. I'm gonna, he knows I'm gonna cut a promo on him and he's going to be out there because at this point he's still an interviewer.

• 44:02Speaker 04

  That's right.

• 44:03Speaker 05

  He hasn't become, he hasn't become the boss. The Montreal thing hasn't happened.

• 44:08Speaker 04

  So, so this is important that everybody is understanding right now. So at this point in time, there is no like blend, right? With his role and his character.

• 44:15Speaker 05

  People know he's the boss, but he's in, he's the interviewer and we're starting to blend that where we're telling people he's the boss and he runs it, but he's still interviewing people like he's not.

• 44:23Speaker 08

  Right.

• 44:23Speaker 05

  So we haven't fully just gone all in. He doesn't become Mr. McMahon, the boss owner, until the Bret Hart Montreal stuff happens. Then he goes fully in on it, right?

• 44:34Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 44:35Speaker 05

  But so we're about to go out there and cut this promo and, and they're telling me, you need to cut a promo on Vince.

• 44:41Speaker 04

  And who is they?

• 44:42Speaker 05

  Uh, they're just the producer, creative. And Vince is like, yeah. So when, hey, when we get out there, you know, Sean's going to go off on me. I need you to go off on me, cut a promo on me. And I'm like, so I go to him beforehand and I'm like, hey, how, uh, how hard do you want me to go on you? And he's like, say whatever you want. And I'm like, you sure about that? He's like, say whatever you want. So we get out there and uh, I don't even remember what I said, but I, I start to cut the promo on him and like. Vince is a very intense person. So as I start to cut the promo on him, all of a sudden I see his eyes change. And his whole demeanor changes. And I'm like, fuck.

• 45:16Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 45:17Speaker 05

  I just crossed the line here and like, and, uh, but I finished the promo and I can see now he's like, that whatever I said, and I don't even remember what it was, sort of stuck with him. And so when we came back and he came back a little later, I was like, hey, you okay with that promo? And he was like, yeah, it's fucking fine.

• 45:35Speaker 04

  Wow.

• 45:36Speaker 05

  And he walked away. All right. But what he was basically was saying is, yeah, you crossed the line with me.

• 45:44Speaker 05

  But it was good. It was good business.

• 45:46Speaker 04

  It was good business. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 45:47Speaker 05

  So, you know, um, if it was good for business, he was all in.

• 45:54Speaker 04

  Right.

• 45:54Speaker 05

  And that was the thing. So to go back to the original story, which is the stone cold stuff. Yeah. So I get punished for King of the Ring. I'm not going to be King of the Ring. I'm out. All that stuff. Who they put in that spot is sort of coming out of similar thing. Uh, the ringmaster, Steve Austin, who was just like this technically gifted wrestler. Steve hates it. Steve goes and pitches to Vince. I don't like this character. I want to do my own thing.

• 46:25Speaker 05

  Stone cold Steve Austin starts to form. So they take me out of the spot. They go with Steve. Steve wins King of the Ring and cuts the Austin 316 promo.

• 46:36Speaker 04

  Well, keep in mind, he's going against Jake the Snake, who at the time became very religious.

• 46:41Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 46:42Speaker 04

  Which is a really important thing to understand.

• 46:44Speaker 05

  100%. So there's signs everywhere, John 316 in support of Jake Robich because he is very religious. Because he's sort of reformed.

• 46:53Speaker 04

  Evangelical.

• 46:54Speaker 05

  Maybe drug addict at the time.

• 46:57Speaker 05

  And so Steve goes out there and cuts this Austin 316 promo, which at the time, I believe, Vince was pissed about and hated it. You crossed the line into religion.

• 47:11Speaker 04

  People's religion.

• 47:12Speaker 05

  Yeah, like this is terrible. It's all this thing. And I believe they went with the Austin. Everybody else was like, not everybody, but there's a few people who were like, I'm telling you that was, did you hear the reaction? It was great. They made the first Austin 316 shirts as a, Vince was like, I, I make those shirts. I guarantee you none of them sell.

• 47:34Speaker 05

  And they did it and then they sold and Vince was like, this is great.

• 47:40Speaker 04

  But the line was, he goes, he goes, yeah, you got your, you got your John 316. Well, Austin 316 said, I just whooped your ass.

• 47:47Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 47:47Speaker 04

  And it's just off the cuff.

• 47:48Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 47:49Speaker 04

  If he's wrestling anybody else who's non-religious, he never says it and then he ends up becoming, that is like the defining.

• 47:56Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 47:56Speaker 04

  Line, I think, for Stone Cold's character.

• 47:59Speaker 08

  Yeah.

• 48:00Speaker 05

  One hundred percent. To this day, Austin 316 shirts are still one of our biggest selling.

• 48:08Speaker 04

  I think people know Austin 316 more than John 316. Like, the world is more aware of Austin 316. I don't know John 316 to this day.

• 48:17Speaker 08

  Yeah, I don't know it at all. And I started watching for like a few years in the Attitude Era after the Austin 316 and I'm not a Christian kid, so I was like, what, is that like a time of day that he beats somebody up or like, what's going on?

• 48:29Speaker 05

  Now it's become a day.

• 48:33Speaker 05

  Just talk about cultural relevance, right?

• 48:35Speaker 04

  Yeah. Oh, unbelievable.

• 48:36Speaker 08

  Oh, yeah.

• 48:37Speaker 04

  Okay, so what's happened? You're watching this transpire, right? That's supposed to be your shot. You're supposed to have that moment. You're supposed to cut some promo. Hunter 316.

• 48:47Speaker 04

  Are you pissed? Is there a part of you that's excited for him? Have you accepted a different fate?

• 48:52Speaker 05

  Steve was one of the few guys, like Steve, when I started in WCW, he was there stunning Steve Austin. He's in the middle somewhere. And, uh, but he was one of the guys that was, like, I'm a new kid coming in the door and, you know, that's, at that time especially, very tough in the business, breaking in and, you know, young and trying to get started and, uh, Steve was one of the few guys that would talk to me a lot and like come over and so like, hey dude, I noticed you were doing this. Maybe try that, whatever, like.

• 49:19Speaker 04

  Dude, this is, and the parallels with comedy are funny because I remember every, like, OG comedian that was nice to me coming up.

• 49:29Speaker 05

  Yeah, that was kind to you, that helped you.

• 49:30Speaker 04

  Because there aren't a lot.

• 49:31Speaker 05

  Right, exactly, exactly.

• 49:33Speaker 04

  There are not a lot and far more just ignore you or you're in the way or, and you remember those moments.

• 49:38Speaker 05

  You're just ignored.

• 49:39Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 49:40Speaker 05

  And, yeah, and so Steve was one of those guys. So even when Steve came in and, um, you know, I liked him a lot and, and I, it's a weird thing in the business, like, one, once that wasn't happening for me, I just put it out of my mind. And I was happy for Steve. As, as my career progressed later, it's a funny thing how life works like I look back at that now and I think if I wasn't ready.

• 50:08Speaker 04

  Ah.

• 50:09Speaker 05

  I fucking wasn't ready.

• 50:10Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 50:11Speaker 05

  And I thought I was.

• 50:13Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 50:13Speaker 05

  You always think.

• 50:14Speaker 04

  You always think you are.

• 50:15Speaker 05

  Right. And you believe that you're ready. I was not.

• 50:18Speaker 04

  Yep.

• 50:18Speaker 05

  If they would have put me in that role, I wouldn't have cut my version of an Austin 316.

• 50:23Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 50:24Speaker 05

  I wouldn't have been ready. It would have floundered and I probably would have.

• 50:28Speaker 04

  It's a great way of looking at it.

• 50:29Speaker 05

  Yeah. And um, I know that now. I can look back at that and say like, I was pissed at the time or I was upset or disappointed. I was using it to fuel me to do other things and, and become something more. But the truth is, I would have fucked that up.

• 50:45Speaker 04

  Dude, knowing failure, getting comfortable in failure is very liberating.

• 50:49Speaker 05

  100%.

• 50:50Speaker 04

  Because when you only know that the rise and the success and you go, you have some success WCW, then you come over to WWE and you're starting to rise and then all of a sudden you get the King of Ring and then you're online to get the belt and then you get the belt. You constantly have this monkey on your back where you're like, fuck, what if it all goes away? But once you've accepted it all going away.

• 51:09Speaker 05

  It's already gone away and, and what happened? I just came back from.

• 51:12Speaker 04

  It was fine. Exactly.

• 51:12Speaker 05

  Yeah, I just worked through it.

• 51:14Speaker 04

  So now you have that courage to be like, okay, I'll go heel. I'll fuck it up all over again. Where I bet a lot of guys, and I'm curious your take on this, but like they're at the top, they're a babyface and they're probably reluctant to go heel because they might go, what if I never get this chance?

• 51:29Speaker 05

  Play safe.

• 51:29Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 51:30Speaker 05

  Yeah. 100%. Well, you, you also get guys that are petrified.

• 51:35Speaker 04

  Of being booed.

• 51:36Speaker 05

  Of, of being a babyface because if you're a babyface and they start to boo you, you're failing.

• 51:40Speaker 04

  Oh, that's a different pressure. Yeah.

• 51:42Speaker 05

  They boo you as a bad guy. You're doing good.

• 51:45Speaker 04

  Yeah. It's easy to make somebody pissed off at you. It, it, I actually even.

• 51:49Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 51:50Speaker 04

  Yeah. Have you even thought about this?

• 51:51Speaker 05

  Well, and even just think about it this way. If you're trying to piss them off, but they start to like you.

• 51:55Speaker 04

  Awesome.

• 51:55Speaker 05

  It's why you find a lot of cool bad guys.

• 51:57Speaker 04

  This is the X.

• 51:58Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 51:59Speaker 04

  Like, weren't you guys supposed to be kind of here? And then you start bullying the baby faces? And then you guys kind of become baby faces.

• 52:06Speaker 05

  Well, we were bad guys. And then Sean gets injured and Sean leaves. And I reformed the group with these other guys.

• 52:12Speaker 04

  Right, right.

• 52:13Speaker 05

  In that moment, we almost like, they're so excited to see the group carry on.

• 52:18Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 52:18Speaker 05

  And the stuff, we just transitioned who we were doing it to.

• 52:22Speaker 04

  To.

• 52:23Speaker 05

  To the other side. And we, WCW at that point in time is on the attack. We DX do the unthinkable and we go to their show. I go to their show with a fucking tank and my crew. And I'm firing shots at the like fake shots at the building and on a megaphone, you know, yelling at their fans. We're outside and it's like a riot.

• 52:45Speaker 04

  Wow, okay.

• 52:46Speaker 05

  We go to their shows unthinkable, but it made us like the coolest.

• 52:50Speaker 04

  The real badass.

• 52:51Speaker 05

  Yeah. And now like, hey, these degenerates that six months ago we hated. And, and literally Sean and I had gotten to a point where we had some riots in towns because we, people didn't like us so much. Um, now all of a sudden we're like, as popular as it could be because we're defending the brand.

• 53:09Speaker 04

  Guys, very quickly, we have to interrupt this episode to give some credit for probably the biggest sports fan on the panel, Mark Gagnon.

• 53:18Speaker 07

  Let's go.

• 53:18Speaker 04

  For having the only winning bracket in the United States of America. He called the number one seed winning it.

• 53:25Speaker 07

  Yes.

• 53:25Speaker 04

  I can't believe it. I mean, how did you put that together? How did you?

• 53:29Speaker 07

  You gotta understand, this is what makes Mark's madness so amazing is you never know what's gonna happen.

• 53:32Speaker 08

  You call it Mark's madness? It is Mark's madness right now.

• 53:34Speaker 07

  Exactly. It is Mark's madness, bro. I just had a feeling, I'm from Florida, I just had, I had faith in the gator.

• 53:39Speaker 04

  Now, did you go to stake the leader in global betting in US social casinos to, to put some money down on this?

• 53:44Speaker 07

  I put some money down. How much you won? Twenty-five dollars.

• 53:47Speaker 04

  Whoa.

• 53:49Speaker 07

  Yeah. So I'm up, I'm up, I'm up big. I was like a basically a 10x win.

• 53:52Speaker 04

  Okay, now that we know that you can literally predict sporting events.

• 53:57Speaker 07

  Yes.

• 53:57Speaker 04

  Are there some?

• 53:58Speaker 07

  Trump wins third term. I have a good feeling, dude, he's running back.

• 54:02Speaker 04

  So, so outside of that guaranteed victory.

• 54:06Speaker 07

  Yeah, yeah.

• 54:06Speaker 04

  Um, what about UFC, what do we have, 314?

• 54:10Speaker 08

  314.

• 54:11Speaker 04

  Yeah, what about Volk? Is he gonna pull it off?

• 54:12Speaker 07

  Yeah, 100%.

• 54:13Speaker 04

  What, so you're going with Volk 100%?

• 54:15Speaker 07

  Second round knockout.

• 54:16Speaker 04

  Whoa. So that would be considered a top sport, UFC? Diego, no, not Diego Lopez.

• 54:25Speaker 07

  Because that changes things a little bit depending on who he's fighting.

• 54:28Speaker 04

  How you know he's gonna win?

• 54:29Speaker 07

  But no, I'm saying he's gonna win. It just depends who he's fighting. If he's fighting someone really good.

• 54:32Speaker 04

  It is Diego Lopez.

• 54:34Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 54:34Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 54:34Speaker 07

  Oh, if it's Diego Lopez, yeah, that's second round knockout.

• 54:36Speaker 04

  Okay, so Mark is going second round knockout. UFC 314.

• 54:40Speaker 08

  So you're saying Diego Lopez is a big fat pussy? Is that what you're saying?

• 54:42Speaker 07

  No, it's compared to Volk.

• 54:43Speaker 08

  Is that what Mark is saying?

• 54:44Speaker 07

  Compared to Volk, he's gonna lose second round knockout. To me, I don't know.

• 54:47Speaker 08

  I think he's saying Diego Lopez sucks.

• 54:49Speaker 07

  Well, let's get a picture of Diego Lopez.

• 54:50Speaker 04

  Mark talks shit about all the guys that don't speak good enough English to come on the pod.

• 54:55Speaker 07

  Leon Edwards, great guy.

• 54:57Speaker 04

  They're gonna learn that fucking English. Both of these guys are badass.

• 55:01Speaker 07

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 55:01Speaker 08

  Holy shit.

• 55:02Speaker 04

  Yeah, no, no. He's an absolute.

• 55:04Speaker 07

  No, this guy's on a level on the spectrum, dude. I've seen this guy.

• 55:07Speaker 08

  He's got Schultz's old haircut.

• 55:10Speaker 08

  What's going on?

• 55:11Speaker 07

  Yeah, no, that's second round knockout for sure.

• 55:13Speaker 04

  Okay, so if you were gonna bet on, if you're gonna bet on UFC 314 and other top sports and political events, use the promo code FLAGRANT for your welcome bonus at steak, man. Go to steak right now. Now, let's get back to this interview. I don't want to brush this one part off, because I think it's very important in your lore. Shawn has like a bad back injury, right?

• 55:33Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 55:33Speaker 04

  I think he wrestles, who's he wrestle, WrestleMania, is it Stone Cold?

• 55:37Speaker 05

  Austin.

• 55:37Speaker 04

  Yeah, he wrestles Austin, and then I think Mike Tyson is the ref?

• 55:40Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 55:40Speaker 04

  Like massive match. Austin, puts Austin over, retires for a little bit, right? Because of the back.

• 55:46Speaker 05

  Four years.

• 55:47Speaker 04

  Now, so far at this point in your career, you've always been like with the top guy.

• 55:54Speaker 05

  Because when I was with Shawn, right, I'm on the rise, but I'm in the middle somewhere.

• 55:58Speaker 04

  Sure, but like you're connected to Shawn. Now, or before you were maybe connected to The Click, even though it was backstage, but there was a connection. So this is the first time in your career where now you're at the helm.

• 56:08Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 56:09Speaker 04

  And you asked Vince, and I remember you cut a promo where you like acknowledged Shawn, but then you very quickly.

• 56:16Speaker 05

  Move on.

• 56:16Speaker 04

  Move on. Can you just tell me what's going on through your head right there? Because it's a big transition.

• 56:20Speaker 05

  So when we were doing DX, Shawn and I were, we had, we had wanted to make the group bigger. And we liked Road Dogg and we liked Billy Gunn.

• 56:32Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 56:33Speaker 05

  Billy Gunn. X-Pac was actually in WCW at the time.

• 56:36Speaker 04

  Right.

• 56:38Speaker 05

  So we had said, Road Dogg was like Jesse James and Billy was Rockabilly. I mean, he was terrible, terrible shit. And we were like, look, put these guys together as a tag team. Let them start to do their own thing. And if it starts to get over, when the time is right, we'll put them with us and we'll, we'll make the group bigger, but we can build two young stars out of this. They start to work together. It actually starts to work. They call them the New Age Outlaws and it starts to work on their own. So we're like, we're telling Vince, like, let them do their own thing. When the time is right, we'll pull them in, but let them do their own thing right now. And they're loosely associated with us. We would do things like, for example, they were trying to get going. DX was pretty over. They wanted to do a program with New Age Outlaws and the Road Warriors.

• 57:22Speaker 05

  Road Warriors didn't want to do it. They wanted to work with us. We just shot an angle with them on TV, where we beat the shit out of, we shave hawks, Mohawk off and all this stuff. They thought, Road Warriors thought they were getting into a storyline with DX. What we did was, soon as we started to get the heat, we let Billy and Road Dogg do it and we kind of stood off to the side. And they did all the big damage and they ended up, Road Warriors ended up in a program with them, which they didn't want to be in. Right? We just, we just backed out of it.

• 57:53Speaker 05

  So we had had those guys associated with us, but not with us. Shawn gets injured. Shawn goes to WrestleMania, which is like this nightmare. And, you know, at that point in time, Shawn also was legendary drug problems and all this stuff. But now Shawn goes away and I think a lot of people thought that was it. I'm done. You know, I'm never going to get past where I am. Whatever.

• 58:21Speaker 05

  We talked about, like, let's, let me take the helm. What is your pitch? Sort of, let's do the same group, but let me take the helm. Let's bring in Billy and, and Road Dogg, New Age Outlaws, which were kind of over on their own now. Let's put them in it. We'll reform DX. And X-Pac, whose contract, he was in WCW. So you bring him back over. His contract was up and he couldn't, he was dying to get out of there. Because at that point, they were pretty fucked up, that whole group. So he left. The timing was perfect. So we, he just signed with us. He popped over. So the night after WrestleMania, or whatever it is, I go out there and I cut a promo basically on Shawn, saying like, you told me Tyson was good. He wasn't. You told me you had this.

• 59:06Speaker 05

  Don't worry about it, kid. And you didn't, you know, like it was a problem. Well, you're out. I'm in. So now. So you act as if you kick him out of the group. Yeah. Now I'm taking the fucking lead. So now, what do you do if you need to, if you need to start an army? You go find your, your friends. You go find your blood, right? You find your soldiers. I bring in the New Age Outlaws. I bring in Kid. Are you scared at all? Are you like, maybe, is there like, what is that called? Imposter syndrome happening at all? Where you're like, they only like Shawn? Well, it's, it's the, you know, everybody else is saying, this isn't gonna work. There's a lot of people, this isn't gonna work. It's not gonna work. He, he doesn't, he doesn't have it. Those other guys are, they don't have it. Like, it's not gonna work. It's Shawn was the glue. Shawn was the key. Shawn was this. So what makes it work?

• 59:51Speaker 05

  We made it work. Cause it, some people would say, did it got even bigger? It got even bigger. Okay. It did. It got even bigger. And that was the thing. So the, the, at that point, you know, and we still had China with me, which she was a glue to that thing. But, um, sort of in that, in that realm, you know, I knew that night when I went out there to cut that promo with Kid and Billy and all that stuff and restart the group it needed to be. Like I needed to go out there and hit a homerun, or they're gonna, Vince is very quickly gonna go, everybody's right. And move on, because he's believing in it. Yep. And he wants to see it work. So he's giving me the ball. Um, and we just went out there and.

• 1:00:33Speaker 05

  You know, my opinion, we knocked it out of the park and then they went with it and the rest is history, you know, and it was it was set up well and you know, we had other people to work with Nation of Domination was coming up at that point in time with Rock and all that stuff. So we had all these other people to work with and it just it took off and and we would just do the crazy shit and then sort of as we that that version of the group started to become popular and then we get into the WCW stuff where we go on the attack after them and then it's just game changer.

• 1:01:03Speaker 04

  So when you go on the attack, right? Now we're blending the worlds again. That's a real business rivalry. This is not, you know, scripted storylines here. This is you guys are beefing and you are attacking their brand.

• 1:01:13Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 1:01:14Speaker 04

  And at this point, is Vince completely on with having to blend the worlds and now wrestling is has to be more real?

• 1:01:21Speaker 05

  Yes, and he's also into the whatever it takes. Gloves are off, whatever it takes.

• 1:01:26Speaker 04

  So there's no more like protecting the old guard?

• 1:01:29Speaker 05

  No.

• 1:01:29Speaker 04

  The old guard is deceased.

• 1:01:30Speaker 05

  There's a moment where when we're gonna do the first attack at WCW, we're gonna go because what they were doing was if we were going into an arena, they would book, they would book one of their TV shows like either same time or right before ours so that our ticket sales would tank, right? Like booking the club down the street.

• 1:01:53Speaker 04

  Yep, yep.

• 1:01:54Speaker 05

  Trying to kill you, right? And that was what was pissing us off. Well, they were right down the street. It was their show.

• 1:01:59Speaker 04

  You roll up with the tank.

• 1:02:00Speaker 05

  So we rolled up with the tank and when we were getting ready to go do it, our show at that point in time, we were like, they were live like an hour earlier than we were. And then we were live later.

• 1:02:16Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:02:17Speaker 05

  So we go there early, we shoot this stuff and we bring it back. And before we leave, we're all standing in a group because the only one that knew about this prior to us doing it was me. I was on a call with Vince and a few other guys on the writing team. Billy and Dog and Kid didn't know anything about it. They came to me like, see a military shit on our logo on it. Like, what the fuck are we doing? And I was like, dude, I can't tell you yet. Vince wants to tell you guys, but I'm telling it's fucking badass.

• 1:02:48Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:02:48Speaker 05

  And it all stemmed off of a phone call where we were on and they were like down the road and Vince was pissed and. On that phone call was said like, I'd fucking like to drive a tank down there and just fucking go nuts. And he was like, ding. Why don't we do that? Right? And, um, but anyway, so somebody says when we get, we're in the back end, ready to go. And they were like, look, we're going to go down there and do this early, but we're not on the air yet. What if they finish their show and they send a truckload of guys down here to our show? Like, we probably should get extra security and have this all beefed up so they can't. And Vince goes, why? He goes, if they, if they roll up with a truck full of wrestlers here, he goes, open the fucking door up and let them in. What show you gonna watch? The one with no wrestlers on it? The one with all the wrestlers on it? That's great.

• 1:03:34Speaker 05

  And I was like, this, this is why we're gonna win. Yeah.

• 1:03:37Mark Gagnon?

  Yeah.

• 1:03:37Speaker 05

  Yeah. And because what they did when we got there, we tried to go in their building. We went down the ramp and they put the door down. Wow. And they stopped us. And you're filming this whole time? We're filming the whole time banging on the door. Yeah. You pussies won't let us out. Yeah, yeah. Now they look scared.

• 1:03:51Mark Gagnon?

  You, yeah, you weren't worried at all shit getting real? Because like you're, you're hurting their business, their industry.

• 1:03:58Speaker 05

  It could, it could, like, we had a, this is so stupid. We had like a whole contingency plan of where like, if they come out, if somebody touches one of us, we had like a fake camera and a real camera. If somebody touches one of us, I'm going to go down and because they'll come at me first. I'm going to make such a commotion that everybody will look to me. Switch out the cameras, take the real tape and get the fuck out of here.

• 1:04:26Speaker 05

  So you destroy the camera, you smash it, do something?

• 1:04:29Mark Gagnon?

  Do whatever I gotta do.

• 1:04:30Speaker 08

  Destroyed, it doesn't matter.

• 1:04:31Speaker 05

  Yeah, do whatever I gotta do. Got it. But, but.

• 1:04:34Speaker 08

  So you're willing to get your ass beaten?

• 1:04:35Speaker 05

  Yeah, but the wrestlers aren't gonna.

• 1:04:37Speaker 08

  Okay.

• 1:04:38Speaker 05

  Aren't, yeah, everybody will talk shit and stuff like that, but for the most part. They know the business too. Yeah. And so what's funny is we're outside doing this. Kevin Nash is coming back from the gym with Lex Luger and he like looks at him, he's like, somebody's got a tank off. Right side of the business, which really just a Jeep with a cannon on it. He's like, what the fuck is going on?

• 1:04:55Mark Gagnon?

  You call it a tank?

• 1:04:56Speaker 05

  Yeah. It's a Wrangler. It has become a tank over the years, but it was never a tank. And, um, but Kevin said he's like stuck in traffic. They're coming back from the gym and now he like pokes his head out the sunroof and he's like, looks like Hunter. What are they doing? You know, so he goes in the building now and, uh, they used to call their production office the war room.

• 1:05:19Speaker 08

  Yeah.

• 1:05:20Speaker 05

  And, uh, Kev goes into war room and he said, like, they're all in there talking about the show and stuff. And he goes, he's like looking around the room and he goes, none of you guys are concerned with what's going on outside, huh? And they're like, what are you talking about? And he goes DX outside the building, shooting a cannon off and, uh, with a loud horn and thousands of fans all around him. Like, none of you worried about that shit? And they were like, what? And they, you know, that's how they got informed of it.

• 1:05:46Speaker 08

  Hilarious.

• 1:05:47Speaker 05

  And then that's when we started coming down the ramp and that's when they shut them.

• 1:05:50Speaker 08

  Do you think other wrestlers in WCW knew it was over at that point?

• 1:05:54Speaker 05

  I don't know.

• 1:05:55Speaker 08

  To me, that's like, oh, so.

• 1:05:56Speaker 05

  I think at that point, it's a funny thing. We were scratching and clawing. I think for the most part, the guys in WCW were less concerned about the company and more concerned about, they're paying me a ton of money and I don't work much.

• 1:06:10Speaker 04

  So it's interesting. It's like the incentive structures makes you want to put other guys over. And this might also be your personality, but even when you're telling these stories, you're talking about putting other guys over, which seems like the right thing to do for the business.

• 1:06:23Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 1:06:24Speaker 04

  It's a very rare thing in a narcissistic endeavor, which is entertainment, that there's someone who's going, how else can I put these different people over? What can I do? You've been talking about the different groups, right? Yeah, you're going to bring them into DX, but they're not ready. Once we, at this point, we'll do it.

• 1:06:42Speaker 04

  WCW's incentive structure is just show up. You don't have to worry about the business at all.

• 1:06:47Speaker 05

  And at that point, it had started to become, it doesn't even matter if you show up. Your pay is guaranteed.

• 1:06:53Speaker 08

  Oh, wow. I'm injured.

• 1:06:55Speaker 05

  So like you, you fast forward not long after that, because it was, this was, Austin was champ. And, uh, Steve and I wrestle in Chicago at Rosemont, which is now Allstate Arena. And then the United Center is on the other side of town, right? They were at the United Center the week before us, same what I'm talking about them booking, right? We had booked Rosemont.

• 1:07:16Speaker 08

  Yeah.

• 1:07:16Speaker 05

  They booked United Center, uh, like the week before us. Steve and I wrestle and made an event that night. We probably went like 40 minutes. We like, we give them a full on pay-per-view, like, cause. You know, Rosemont sold out like we're, we're all in delivering on everything we do. And so that night we go back to hotels, a lot of fans there and I'll have people telling us like, dude, you guys killed it. WCW was here last week. We went to that show, like six of the top 10 guys didn't show up. Wow. You know, the main event was Goldberg versus Big Show. Big Show, I mean, the giant at the time, giant walked out smoking a cigarette. They got in the ring, Goldberg kicked

• 1:07:57Speaker 05

  him in the gut, gave him the suplex and the whole match was like 15 seconds. They just didn't, they didn't care. Right? We were fighting tooth and nail. Like we're, we're turning this thing around and they didn't care. And they were just, they were phoning it in. And I think at that point, shit was so miserable backstage that they were just, they were phoning it in. Wow. And, and that's, you know, that's the difference, right? Like at, at the end of the day. So, you know, we were getting to a place where at that point, this, this might take a little time, but we're going to win this. We'll crush these guys.

• 1:08:35Speaker 09

  Wow. I wanted to ask about character development. Like you've mentioned a few different wrestlers that, you know, you've kind of been like, oh yeah, their, their gimmick at that time wasn't that good. And even in your own career, there's so many different iterations before we get to Triple H, the, the character that we know now. So I'm curious, how do you develop a wrestling character? Find the wrestling voice, the gimmicks that work? And if a young wrestler came to you today, like, hey, here's how I want to develop. Like what advice would you give them?

• 1:09:01Speaker 05

  It's, it's part of the difficult aspect of what we do is you teach somebody to do the moves, you can teach them when to do them. You can kind of teach them crowd psychology, but the charisma and who you are, your, your character. It's like, you know, in comedy, everybody's got like, not everybody, some people just very funny. Other, other people have to have a shtick. Yeah. Right? And, and a gimmick of, of what they are. And no one can really tell you.

• 1:09:31Speaker 05

  Like, hey, you know, you should like, when I was a kid, Bobcat Goldthwait was like a big thing. Crazy voice and all this shit. Like, nobody could go to him and go, you know what you should do?

• 1:09:39Speaker 04

  This will work.

• 1:09:40Speaker 05

  Yeah, you should do is you should do to affect your voice and do all this crazy shit and stuff like that, right? That was just him. It's really hard to tell somebody how to go do their thing. For us, as we were pulling into the Attitude Era, I say this a lot, Taker used to say to me all the time, as we got to be friends, he would seem like we'd go out or whatever, and then, you know, end of the night, he'd almost always say to me, dude, when you figure out how to be yourself on camera, you're gonna make a fortune. And I would always think to him, what the fuck does that mean?

• 1:10:11Speaker 04

  Is this while you're wearing the riding pants and you have the bow in your hair?

• 1:10:15Speaker 05

  Some of it, yeah. But when you, when, even then, after, right, when we start to, like, that was kind of the him saying, like, DX was way more us. But I still wasn't fully, like, I was trying to get out of the Hunter Hearst, Helmsley stuff.

• 1:10:31Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:10:32Speaker 05

  I didn't feel like it was right for me just to one day stop and be something totally different.

• 1:10:37Speaker 04

  You have to build to it.

• 1:10:38Speaker 05

  Yeah. So when we get to the end of DX, the run as baby faces.

• 1:10:43Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:10:44Speaker 05

  There's a moment where I go to Vince and I'm like, I want out of the group. And he was like, why? I said, I want to turn heel. Austin is white hot. Rock is on his way up, but he's going to be a babyface, a white meat babyface. Like, there's no...

• 1:11:03Speaker 04

  So you felt it early on?

• 1:11:04Speaker 05

  He's so charismatic. There's no way he doesn't become that babyface. We need the Darth Vader in this, right? You got, you got two good guys.

• 1:11:15Speaker 04

  This is so smart.

• 1:11:16Speaker 05

  You need the bad guy.

• 1:11:17Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:11:18Speaker 05

  I can, I'm confident enough in myself, I can be that bad guy, but I gotta get out of this group and I gotta make the shift.

• 1:11:24Speaker 04

  Now that you're...

• 1:11:25Speaker 05

  And the other guys were like, what are you doing?

• 1:11:28Speaker 04

  Yep, yep, because you're also white hot. You're like, why would you leave this?

• 1:11:30Speaker 05

  Yeah, don't ride this into the ground. We're making a fortune on merch and everything else.

• 1:11:34Speaker 04

  Yep.

• 1:11:34Speaker 05

  Don't do this. Like, don't do it. I was like, this is not what I want to do.

• 1:11:39Speaker 04

  So how, how, because you understand the only way that you're gonna get those big main events and then maybe get the belt, is that you have to play something opposite that is super white hot right now?

• 1:11:48Speaker 05

  It's not even necessarily, obviously, everybody wants to be champion at some point at that time in their career or something like that, but it's not even about that. It's about being on top.

• 1:11:57Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:11:57Speaker 05

  Right? Like... You don't have to be champion, you just gotta, how do you break through to be like? The Undertaker. One of the guys. Yep, yep. You know, and, and that where your, your shit resonates and sticks and stays generationally and all that stuff. Like, how do you get into that place? And I knew for me, it wasn't, while what we were doing was amazing, that wasn't, that wasn't the setup for me. When I leave the group, now it's a full transition. Now I go to trunks, now I take my hair down, I wet my hair, I start growing a beard a little bit. Like, I start to grow, now I become what I always envisioned myself being as a performer. Yep.

• 1:12:37Speaker 05

  And I sort of realized, like Taker's words were, when you can be yourself, when you can just go out there and be authentic. Yep. But the hardest thing in the world to do, when a red light is on you and there's 10,000 people there, is go out and just be you. Cause it's. Cause if you fail as you. If you fail as you. Crushing. And it's, it's so, um, it's a scary proposition. Yeah. And you're naked out there. Yeah, character is like a security blanket. Of course. If you don't like that, you don't like.

• 1:13:06Speaker 04

  If they hate the character, they hate the character, they don't hate you.

• 1:13:09Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 1:13:09Speaker 04

  When you start being yourself.

• 1:13:11Speaker 05

  100%. And so that, you know, and that's still even then, that becomes a transition of getting there over time. But it's, it's, it's a scary proposition, but I was all in on, I want to take that gamble and I want to see if I can get to be that guy.

• 1:13:26Speaker 04

  Okay, how many other wrestlers, and now that you're the boss, understand the game like you understood it at that time? And are coming to you and asking similar questions?

• 1:13:37Speaker 05

  And so there's a lot of people that do. I, I just had this conversation with Sean, and this will piss off everybody. I just had this conversation with Sean, and I had it with Taker as, as well, within the last year.

• 1:13:53Speaker 05

  Because we were talking about like people helping to guide the business into the next generation and and writing and storytelling and all that stuff. And I said it to Sean first, I said, Sean, think about your career, everybody that you've run up against in your career. How many people would you say absolutely 100% get it? Not a portion of it, not a piece of it, like get it, get the modes of storytelling, get the how to get the most out of something, get get all aspects of what we do. How many people would you say? And he was like, well, I'm wrong. I bet you I could count them on one hand. Right? And that's that's considering

• 1:14:37Speaker 05

  greats in our business, all that stuff. And he's like, I bet you I could count on one hand. I said, I think it would be a struggle to fill up all the fingers on one. Right? Like, it's it's a different thing and people don't get it. The amount of factors that go into creating something, getting a character, doing all those things. And then it's it's easy to look at it. And this is all stuff that I learned over, you know, 25 years.

• 1:15:06Speaker 04

  What are they? What are they? Bring it down like?

• 1:15:08Speaker 05

  It's it's it's so many things is hard to even put into context because like

• 1:15:14Speaker 05

  every everything matters. So why don't you just do this with this guy? This would get him over. Well, you can't do this at this time because this guy is doing this and this doesn't work with that. And this guy got injured and that takes away from this. Oh, by the way, they hate each other. They won't work together or won't be good. These factors don't work. I'm also getting pressure from the network to do this and I don't have this and we can't do that time wise. Right? There's all these factors of you're building out this elaborate set of dominoes setup. And then if one of them comes out, you start all over. They can say all affect each other, you know, and you don't think about it that way. So the amount of

• 1:15:55Speaker 05

  Thought and being able to see ahead of what's going to happen next is incredibly difficult. And that doesn't mean you're right all the time.

• 1:16:04Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:16:05Speaker 05

  It doesn't mean that at all. You could be wrong. You can understand all that and still be wrong 80% of the time, you know, whatever. But it's, it's the feel. Pat Patterson was one of the greatest Finnish guys in our business. And, you know, the generation that was just slightly before me of talent that came in, when I first came in, was all like, you know, as they're teaching you things, they'll be like, let me teach you something here. I learned this from Pat, right? But I was fortunate enough to sit under the learning tree that was Vince. And when I say learning tree, I mean, the things of what to do and what not to do. Right? I was fortunate enough to sit around Pat where when Pat was there, every day when we'd finish a production meeting, Pat would be like, what are you gonna do?

• 1:16:49Speaker 05

  I'm gonna get something. You want to meet me in the, meet me in the stands? We'll talk about this show. We'd start putting shit together and like, learning all these, from all these people. And, you know, Pat would always say, the wrestling business isn't here, it's here. Right? And he was the first one to say that to me would be like, think about everybody you know in the business. How many people feel it here? Not many. They, it's here, it comes out of here. But the guys that really feel, he's like this, they're few and far between.

• 1:17:17Speaker 04

  I imagine those are the guys that have the greatest longevity in the business.

• 1:17:20Speaker 05

  It is. It is because they can feel when the ebb and flow and change and move and do all those things. And Pat would say to me all the time, there's a lot of guys here that are amazing. They don't feel, they don't, this isn't, this isn't where it comes from, from them. And he, the first time he told me that, he said, you feel it.

• 1:17:39Speaker 04

  So you get this feeling, you're like, I can be one of those guys. This is my pathway to being one of those guys. How do you set that story in motion? You can't just go, I'm leaving the group. There needs to be a reason to leave the group.

• 1:17:50Speaker 05

  Yeah. So it's a little convoluted at the time, right? In that, in that moment in time, like I sort of. Vince has Vince has now become a full on character. He's got a faction called the corporation.

• 1:18:00Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 1:18:01Speaker 05

  I turn on DX to go with the corporation, but the corporation's like this hodgepodge of all these different people and it kind of really doesn't work out well. It just becomes this mess of stuff. So you're just trying to navigate. It's like I pop out of this thing that's working and I pop over here, but now I've it's like going back. A lot of times people think that that stuff like you're you're here. So then you move into something else and you just go here.

• 1:18:26Speaker 04

  You might have to take a step back.

• 1:18:27Speaker 05

  Very rarely works that way. You're here.

• 1:18:29Speaker 04

  Yep.

• 1:18:30Speaker 05

  And I want to get here, but over here, you gotta go here and then climb back up to that. Sometimes it can work where you go right there, but more times than not, I feel like whenever there's a a complete shift in what you do, you go back and start over at the beginning.

• 1:18:47Speaker 04

  Is this the Stephanie storyline?

• 1:18:50Speaker 05

  This this comes into it a little bit later.

• 1:18:53Speaker 04

  So which is the Stephanie one?

• 1:18:55Speaker 05

  Storyline.

• 1:18:55Speaker 04

  Okay, so you're already there.

• 1:18:57Speaker 05

  So I sort of get the opportunity. I'm I'm put in that position.

• 1:19:04Speaker 05

  Where I'm I'm world champion. You know, this is at a point in time where they're they're flipping titles around a lot, too. It's just different time in the business. But I'm in that sort of mix where I'm being seen in the the Austin Rock conversation, the Taker conversation. I'm in that mix. I've been I've been champ. I can't remember if I was champ once or twice at that point in time, but but I'm champ and Steph, it's a it's a funny thing because people's thoughts about how this happened are are different.

• 1:19:33Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:19:36Speaker 05

  I have this really strong creative relationship with Vince.

• 1:19:39Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:19:39Speaker 05

  I know he has a daughter, but I don't I've never even really met her. And then she starts to be around the company, but I'm not working with her much or anything like that. But she's in a storyline with another wrestler, this guy Tess.

• 1:19:51Speaker 04

  Tess, yeah.

• 1:19:51Speaker 05

  And they are engaged to be married.

• 1:19:54Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:19:54Speaker 05

  The the lead writer at the time. He leads he leads the company in the middle of this.

• 1:20:00Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 1:20:01Speaker 05

  And, you know, I've heard him say that he knew exactly where the storyline was going. Just nobody else did.

• 1:20:06Speaker 04

  Just this one guy.

• 1:20:07Speaker 05

  So when he leaves. There's like this giant gap where like Vince's daughter's engaged with this guy. To be honest, I hadn't even been paying that much attention to that storyline. This is concern of my shit more of, right? But and I had a great creative relationship with Vince, but so they so don't know where to go with this thing. That they've announced this wedding's gonna be on TV. They have to do a thing where she gets hit in the head with a garbage can and loses her memory and doesn't remember who the fiance is to just to buy some time. Right. So they can try to figure out how to get out of this thing. But there's gonna be a wedding on Raw, is it? On Raw. Yes, and everybody's. Yeah.

• 1:20:45Speaker 04

  Were they, were they involved in real life?

• 1:20:48Speaker 05

  No, no, no.

• 1:20:49Speaker 04

  Oh, guys, just.

• 1:20:49Speaker 05

  Were you guys at the time involved at all? I didn't even really know. Nothing? Yeah. Yeah. But so I know they're trying to figure out a way to get out of this wedding thing. Yeah. And meanwhile, I'm in a storyline with Vince. Yeah. Where Vince has made it like he is. He's a babyface at this time, right? He is, and he has said like, I can never have another chance at the title. Like, he's so pissed off at me, bans me from getting world title shots. And but so we're in the middle of the storyline. So one day I go to him and I'm like, this is thinking about our shit, right? Like, and how do, how do we get back to getting me in that mix after what we've done? And he's like, yeah, I'm thinking about that, too.

• 1:21:28Speaker 05

  And I'm like, the thing with Steph, I said, well, what if she, you know, right before she's gonna get married, she has a bachelorette party, blow it out like some big story on TV. She has a bachelorette party, but I show up and I, you know, it's a different timeframe. I make you your drink. And while she's unconscious, I said, you have it in Vegas. I drive her through one of those wedding chapel things. I end up, like, nobody knows about this, but I've filmed all of it. And now when the wedding happens, right when they say, speak now, forever hold your peace, I come out and I'm like, hold on a second, she can't marry him because she's married to me. And I show the footage and holy shit, I've ruined your life. And now we create this storyline where like, if in order to get your daughter like this wedding annulled and so she can marry the other guy.

• 1:22:13Speaker 05

  You, you and I have to fight. And if I beat you, I get the world title shot. If you beat me, I have another wedding.

• 1:22:19Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:22:19Speaker 05

  And he's like, god damn, I love it. So that's what we do.

• 1:22:23Speaker 04

  Right.

• 1:22:24Speaker 05

  And this starts Steph and I now. So originally, it's just supposed to be a one off thing. We'd shoot the video in Vegas.

• 1:22:32Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:22:33Speaker 05

  And.

• 1:22:33Speaker 04

  The video is hilarious when you are.

• 1:22:37Speaker 04

  I get this video.

• 1:22:38Speaker 05

  It's so ridiculous. Yeah.

• 1:22:42Speaker 04

  You going, I do.

• 1:22:43Speaker 05

  Yeah. Utterly ridiculous, but it just works, right?

• 1:22:47Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:22:47Speaker 05

  And this is the footage of me out there telling this story. So originally, it's supposed to be just.

• 1:22:53Speaker 04

  Look at Steph selling.

• 1:22:55Speaker 05

  She's a great actress.

• 1:22:56Speaker 04

  Yeah, she's good.

• 1:22:57Speaker 05

  So it's supposed to be this one off thing. That makes us have the match. I go over, I get my world title shot. She moves on, does the rest of the stuff with the testing, but at least gets them out of the wedding. Right. And now it's the decision whether he's gonna marry or not. The first time she goes on TV after this happens. Like this is the cynical world we live in. She goes out on TV and I'm sitting at gorilla position next to Vince where we run the show from.

• 1:23:23Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:23:23Speaker 05

  And like, I'm not working. I'm, I'm, I'm in the show, right? At this point, I'm just still a character, a, a character. I'm, I'm helping out heavy with creative and helping produce stuff, but I'm, I'm really just as a character on TV. And she goes out to cut the promo and I'm sitting next to Vince and she goes out there and they are booing.

• 1:23:41Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:23:41Speaker 05

  It's brutal.

• 1:23:42Speaker 04

  Oh, and this is unexpected completely. Well, oh, that's right. They're calling her like a slut.

• 1:23:47Speaker 05

  They're chanting slut and she's trying her hardest to be like. Yeah. To be this sympathetic baby phase and all this stuff. And Vince taps me and he's like.

• 1:24:02Speaker 05

  This is so good.

• 1:24:03Speaker 04

  20,000 people call your daughter a slut.

• 1:24:05Speaker 05

  Yeah, this is money, right?

• 1:24:07Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:24:07Speaker 05

  And.

• 1:24:08Speaker 08

  Sorry, what are you thinking in that moment?

• 1:24:11Speaker 05

  I'm a little bit like, like, holy shit, like she's got mega heat.

• 1:24:17Speaker 05

  And he looks back and he goes.

• 1:24:20Speaker 05

  And I'm like thinking to myself like, wow, there's, there's like, there's legs to this thing like that. We hadn't, I at least I hadn't considered, you know, I was just like, just trying to get to my storyline with Vince. And we throw this thing out there and there's legs on it. And now we're like, holy cow. So then, you know, the next week she goes out there as well, all this stuff. So then Vince comes to me and he's like, what if she, uh, like, what if the worst possible thing happens is like, she turns on me. We have this match at pay-per-view, right at the moment in time where holy shit, Vince might actually do this and beat Triple H. And who turns on him but his own daughter to join his worst enemy in the moment of time?

• 1:24:59Speaker 08

  Phenomenal. Yeah.

• 1:25:00Speaker 05

  And, and she comes with me and he like, he pitches it to me and he's like, and then like, I, I'm so distraught. My world is so turned upside down. I leave. I, I leave for a while and you guys run the show like as like the, the boss, like she's the boss's daughter. So she's got all the stroke and now you become this maniacal like.

• 1:25:22Speaker 08

  Tyrant.

• 1:25:23Speaker 05

  Tyrant talent that's, you know, world gets the world title and is just like out of control, firing people and just whatever. You know, and that's kind of starts to think, but so as this happens, like, I don't know Steph at all, sort of.

• 1:25:37Speaker 08

  Sort of.

• 1:25:38Speaker 05

  Yeah, well, I, I don't, but we're working together, right? So now our storyline is coming. We believe you.

• 1:25:50Speaker 05

  But I, but I don't, and, and the thing is, she's a sponge for the business, right? Like Steph is like, um, she wants nothing but to be in this business, right? So.

• 1:26:01Speaker 08

  So is she, sorry, have you talked to her about that moment and what she was feeling? Is she like her dad where she's like, she's thinking the same shit or is she like this?

• 1:26:09Speaker 05

  So she knows the game. Yeah. She is like, oh my God, this is the greatest thing ever. Like they're blowing the shit out of me. Like, you know, she's very savvy for this stuff. And she's, she's one of the few people, and I would say this as well, and people will think, oh, that's your wife. It's like, when, when I, when I make that small list of people on one hand, they get it. She's one of them.

• 1:26:27Speaker 08

  Back to the show.

• 1:26:29Speaker 04

  Promo where you go and the question isn't if we consummated the marriage, it's how many times? Okay. Does this just, are you riffing? You're feeling the audience and going for it?

• 1:26:39Speaker 05

  I didn't even think about that line until I got out there and I was like, oh, I gotta say something about. You know, consummating the marriage or whatever. Like this is the worst. I'm talking to her dad. This is the worst, worst possible thing I could say.

• 1:26:52Speaker 05

  So, you know.

• 1:26:53Speaker 04

  Does he react at all when you say like, do you see an eyebrow raise or anything?

• 1:26:56Speaker 05

  No, I mean, he reacts to the ring, but like, he's so good. And now like, we're, we're a full on attitude era. Like where this is like, he's all in and he's full character. And yeah, I mean, so.

• 1:27:07Speaker 05

  Like I know, like as we're doing it, I'm like, this is so good. And like, he knows it's so good. And this is just.

• 1:27:12Speaker 04

  He is crazy. Now all the attention is on this storyline in the biz or there's still other things.

• 1:27:17Speaker 05

  There's other things going on.

• 1:27:18Speaker 04

  But you're feeling it.

• 1:27:19Speaker 05

  But this becomes a thing and the, the sort of the McMahon, Helmsley era becomes like the, the main crux of the story. You know, like a fire McFoley and I, you know, I end up in a match with him and then get him retired and, you know, make, make him retire. And just all this, all this stuff happens, but sort of at that point in time, this is how Steph and I get to know each other because she's. Like if I have a match, she just wants to be there to hear how it all gets put together and how the, how that's all going to work and everything. So she's around all the time.

• 1:27:51Speaker 04

  Right.

• 1:27:51Speaker 05

  And what's a funny part of the story is.

• 1:27:56Speaker 05

  I'm talking to my mom one day on the phone and she's like, what's going on with you and that Stephanie? I said, what are you talking about? And she's like, I don't know. Like, you're not that good of an actor. I can see, I can see it in your eye. Like what, what's going on there? And I'm like, this is Vince's daughter. Like fucking nothing's going on. Like, don't be, don't be crazy.

• 1:28:14Speaker 04

  Presumptuous here.

• 1:28:15Speaker 05

  Right. I don't know this at the time, but Steph's mom says to her like, what, uh, what's the deal with you and Triple H?

• 1:28:21Speaker 04

  Oh, wow.

• 1:28:22Speaker 05

  And she's like, what are you talking about? It's one of the boys. Nothing. And she's like, I don't know. I see it in your eyes, the way you're looking at him and stuff like that. Like, you sure there's not something that, you know, like. My mom, her mom both see it on TV, but neither one of us.

• 1:28:35Speaker 04

  Dad got no clue.

• 1:28:40Speaker 05

  Steph will say this and I say this. I believe he started to see it and I believe he actually liked it.

• 1:28:47Speaker 04

  Ah.

• 1:28:48Speaker 05

  And was trying to push us.

• 1:28:49Speaker 04

  Wow.

• 1:28:50Speaker 05

  At that point. And then there comes a time when we do get together. And then there's a time where he takes that away, like it's gonna cause too much problem in the business. And you guys can't.

• 1:29:01Speaker 04

  Oh.

• 1:29:01Speaker 05

  You can't, can't see each other.

• 1:29:03Speaker 04

  Even though you guys are already seeing each other at the time?

• 1:29:05Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:29:05Speaker 04

  So he, so now the people know, do people know in the real world that you guys are seeing each other at this point?

• 1:29:10Speaker 05

  Yeah, I don't, I'm not like, I don't remember the exact timing of it, but yeah, they're starting to sort of get it.

• 1:29:15Speaker 04

  And then how, what's the storyline for tearing you guys apart?

• 1:29:18Speaker 05

  Well, there isn't. We're still in a storyline together.

• 1:29:20Speaker 04

  Right.

• 1:29:20Speaker 05

  But he's just saying personally.

• 1:29:22Speaker 04

  Put the.

• 1:29:22Speaker 05

  On the outside. You gotta, you guys can't, you can't do this.

• 1:29:26Speaker 04

  And did you guys listen as good obedient soldiers?

• 1:29:29Speaker 05

  We tried and then it just, you know, like when you, when you get want something, you guys gotta go get it, right? And so it, we tried and I honestly think at that point, like, you know, as you asked earlier, like, is he just saying this to try to see what you'll do?

• 1:29:43Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:29:43Speaker 05

  I, I believe there's.

• 1:29:45Speaker 04

  I was wondering about that.

• 1:29:46Speaker 05

  A lot of that, that he was like, no, you guys can't see each other.

• 1:29:48Speaker 04

  Let's see if he really likes my daughter.

• 1:29:50Speaker 05

  Let's see what he's willing to go through to get it.

• 1:29:53Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:29:53Speaker 05

  And, you know, for me at the time. I'm, I'm sort of gambling. Everything on, you know, when people say like, oh, well, that's how he got the position and all that shit like, nah, I'm not fucking gambling. I'm like, I'm gambling, if this doesn't work out, I'm fucked.

• 1:30:11Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:30:12Speaker 05

  Like I'm done, but at the same point, I was like, you know, when you meet the right person.

• 1:30:17Speaker 04

  You gotta go for it.

• 1:30:18Speaker 05

  You meet the right person and yeah, it becomes this. Yeah, it's just this crazy time. And so we're kind of doing this shit on TV and, you know, and, and now everybody's attitude towards me is changing.

• 1:30:32Speaker 04

  What do you mean?

• 1:30:32Speaker 05

  Well, I'm already. Sort of, you know, I'm going to production meetings before this ever happens. I'm going to production meetings. I'm creative. I'm having creative input with Vince. I'm, you know, people see me all day long. I'm with Pat Patterson, talking over finishes and helping with their shit, which they don't necessarily see as a good or bad thing, but like they just see. So there's a lot of, whether it's jealousy or whatever that is, right? Now, when the rumor starts that, hey, he's, he might be seeing Steph. That's a whole fucking different ballgame of.

• 1:31:08Speaker 04

  So you're saying other wrestlers were starting to get jealous?

• 1:31:11Speaker 05

  And I don't know if jealous is the right word, but I have a mega heat.

• 1:31:14Speaker 08

  I think the perception, if I'm an insecure entertainer is, which I am. He's trying to weasel his way into.

• 1:31:21Speaker 05

  I'm trying to get with Vince's daughter.

• 1:31:23Speaker 04

  So that you can be the guy.

• 1:31:25Mark Gagnon?

  Okay, so you were in a character, but how did you start having so much influence in the creative? Like, when did they tap you?

• 1:31:31Speaker 05

  So, so as I was saying a little bit ago, the guy that's gonna leave, the creative guy that's gonna leave. So at that point in time, I was already having, you know, I was talking a lot with Vince. Uh, Sean and I would talk a lot with Vince on the phone about creative directions. And he'd ask our opinions about different things here and there. And, and so I already had that relationship. Sean gets hurt, goes away. Shortly thereafter, the, the, the other writer leaves. When he leaves, I go to Vince and say, um, I just remember the TV that we were at where the guy left that day. He just didn't show up that day. He goes work for WCW. And, um, as we're getting ready to leave the show, I go to Vince and I say, hey, um, man, I know how hard this creative shit is.

• 1:32:14Speaker 05

  And when you're trying to do it by yourself with nobody to bounce shit off of, I can't imagine how hard that is. And he just left you high and dry. I said, that, that, we were done that show. I was going home for like three or four days. We would do like 18 day loops on the road or 10 day loops and then go home for three or four, and then back out on the road for another 18 or whatever. So I was getting ready to leave, to go home for like three or four days. And I said to Vince, um, I said, I know how difficult that's gonna be. I said, I ain't got shit going on and I didn't have a girlfriend or whatever. I was just going home and, uh. I said, um, if you need to bounce, I don't for whatever it's worth. If you need to bounce some ideas off of somebody, I'm gonna be home. And I, I sort of almost was, after I left, I was like, kinda like, that was fucking stupid.

• 1:32:58Speaker 05

  I don't know, I should have said it to him. It was kind of embarrassing, like, like he needs my fucking help.

• 1:33:02Speaker 04

  Right.

• 1:33:03Speaker 05

  But I said it and left and then I went home and like, I don't know, it was like the next day or day after or something like that. You know, home, my phone rings and it's his office and agents like talk to you and I get on the phone with him. He's like, hey, the other day you said, uh, if I needed to bounce some shit off somebody and, you know, you, you were home. You got any time right now? And I was like, yeah.

• 1:33:24Speaker 04

  What does he hit you with?

• 1:33:25Speaker 05

  He just started hitting me with creative stuff. Hey, we're thinking about doing this in the show. And it wasn't my shit. It was just.

• 1:33:29Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:33:30Speaker 05

  General creative. He was just asking me my opinion and then.

• 1:33:33Speaker 04

  But by this point, you've already proved to him that you look out for the business. You're trying to put other people on.

• 1:33:38Speaker 05

  I think so. And I think he also just sees like, for whatever reason, I have a knack for the.

• 1:33:42Speaker 04

  You understand.

• 1:33:43Speaker 05

  I see, I see the bigger picture.

• 1:33:44Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:33:45Speaker 05

  And, um.

• 1:33:46Speaker 04

  You are the game.

• 1:33:47Speaker 05

  Yeah, yeah, I guess. And then, so then shortly thereafter, he comes to me and he's like, hey, what, what do you, what do you think about coming to the production meetings? At TV, like when we get to TV, come into production meetings. And I was like, I mean, if you want me to, and he was like, look, it's a pain in the ass. You know, like call time for talent might be one o'clock. Production meeting might be a 10 o'clock.

• 1:34:06Speaker 04

  Yep. So now you're there all night.

• 1:34:08Speaker 05

  We're coming from another town, right? So if I'm, if I'm driving five hours from the other town to get to this town, now I gotta be there 10 a.m., not one, right? So different world. He's like, I understand that'll be, you know, tough, but, but I'd love to have your input in there. And I'm like, okay. So to me, like, I'm like, well, if he's opening that door, I'm not fucking turning that shit down. So, you know, I'd ride over to the next town with everybody and then in the morning, I'd be like, hey, guys, I gotta be in the building early today. I'm gonna go over there at 10 o'clock. They'd show up at one. I'd already have been in the production meeting. So, and once Pat sees me now in the production meetings, I think at first they were like, why is he in here?

• 1:34:46Speaker 05

  You know, and then once we all start to get into it, Vince is really good when he wanted to like, include you in shit. So we'd be in the production meeting and he'd be like, what do you think? Me? Oh.

• 1:34:59Speaker 04

  Do you remember the first thing you pitched?

• 1:35:00Speaker 05

  I don't, but I, you know, I just give my opinion or whatever. And I'm sure I came across as fucking to everybody else egotistic. What the fuck does he know?

• 1:35:08Speaker 04

  Right.

• 1:35:08Speaker 05

  Probably said a bunch of stu- really stupid shit, but it was enough for him to say like, he's, he's contributing here. And then Pat started to sort of like, hey, let's, you know, I got, I got these finishes I gotta go over. You wanna, if you come help me with those.

• 1:35:22Speaker 09

  Did it make you a better wrestler being involved in the person's side?

• 1:35:25Speaker 05

  Yeah, because all the shit that you don't, you just think about your side of it.

• 1:35:29Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:35:29Speaker 05

  And then you don't think about all the other side of it and the things that, you know, need to happen or how they're shot or camera angles or how they're thinking about this. And really what's important, oh, this is important. It's not even about me in that moment in time. I just need to be small over there and not be seen. That needs to be the big focus. So you, you just think totally, it's a 360 approach.

• 1:35:50Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:35:51Speaker 05

  As opposed to just a.

• 1:35:52Speaker 04

  Allows you to get out of your own way.

• 1:35:54Speaker 05

  Yeah, your, your little slice is different than, than all of it.

• 1:35:57Speaker 04

  Timing wise, is this before quad injury?

• 1:36:01Speaker 05

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:36:01Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 1:36:02Speaker 05

  Yeah, that doesn't, that, my quad injury is like 2001.

• 1:36:04Speaker 04

  It's just so funny, the lore around you because like, as I'm doing research, there's different stories. One story is during the quad injury, you cozy up to Vince and that's where you really start to soak up the game. But you were already doing it prior.

• 1:36:17Speaker 05

  Oh, long before that, lo- long before that. So my, my quad injury happens 2001 and, and I completely, my left quad completely like exploded, right? Like it, my, my capsule exploded, everything. So when I get to Birmingham where Dr. Andrews at the time is like, he is the orthopedic guy for like, you know.

• 1:36:39Speaker 04

  There's a lot of ethics to James.

• 1:36:40Speaker 05

  Bo Jackson and everybody, right? So I go see him and you know, one of the things they tell me is like, well, one, you have to. Surgery on this right away, like he was like, I don't even know how you finish this match. Like you have nothing attached. Like it's a, but you shouldn't even have been able to stand up, right? And, you know, we finished that match and everything. And then he's telling me like, look, um, there's nobody in a contact sport like this, an impact sport that's ever returned from this injury. If you do it, you'll be the first one. And, and to this day, he still uses it as a case study. Wow. So, um, he said, like, I'm gonna put the pieces back together, but whatever you can do after that is gonna be on you. So I never

• 1:37:24Speaker 05

  left Birmingham, Alabama for nine months. Wow. I checked into the Embassy Suites Hotel. I went and had my surgery. Um, I would, I would rehab, like the best, this guy Kevin Wilk is like the best rehab guy on the planet, especially at that time. Um, I thought, well, if I'm gonna be able to do this, I gotta be with the best. So I checked into the Embassy Suites Hotel. I lived there for nine months. I would go, every day I would go start, I'd eat breakfast at the hotel. I'd go to rehab this, the, the second they be open, I'd, I'd roll in, I'd stay till lunch. I'd go to lunch with Kevin and those guys, the therapists. I'd come back, I'd do a second session in

• 1:38:05Speaker 05

  the afternoon when they'd get done at like five or six. I'd go to the hotel, I'd drink a shake, I'd drive to the gym, I'd have some, the van take me to the gym across the street on like a fucking wheelchair at first. I'd go, I'd train my upper body. I'd go back to the hotel, I'd eat something. I'd watch wrestling tapes until I got tired. I'd go to sleep. I'd get up in the morning and do it again the next day. I did that for nine months.

• 1:38:26Mark Gagnon?

  Was this all on your dime or was this WWE?

• 1:38:28Speaker 05

  No, WWE covered my hotels. They pay for my surgery, all that stuff. That, that's one great thing about the company. They cover everything. But the commitment aspect of it is I didn't.

• 1:38:39Speaker 05

  I didn't, I wasn't taking a chance on not coming back.

• 1:38:44Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 1:38:45Speaker 05

  So, but at that point, so I'm like, I'm not even really talking to Vince at all.

• 1:38:48Speaker 04

  That's, yeah, like, so during this point, like, are you not part of creative meetings? Are you still consulting in any way? What's up with Stephanie? Are you guys away from each other?

• 1:38:56Speaker 05

  So what happens is this kind of now puts Steph and I into a position where this is where we really start to have a relationship. Because, you know, she comes to see me in Birmingham. Like, obviously, we have a relationship. She cares about me. I can't remember if we were at that part supposed to not be together, whatever. But like, I'm in Birmingham, she's coming to see me. We, yeah, that's where it all locks in. Like, she's basically, whenever she has off days, she's coming down to Birmingham to spend a day or two with me. Not every week, but like, here and there when she can. And, you know, she helped get me through it.

• 1:39:29Speaker 04

  Okay, so, real quick, so during this time,

• 1:39:34Speaker 04

  my understanding is, the chatter around the wrestling world while you're taking some time away is, uh, because you've been heel, you've been babyface, but you've been like hated. And some of the hate was so real because you're mixing like real life and wrestling. That like, it turns into real life hate towards you, a lot of people.

• 1:39:52Speaker 05

  To some degree.

• 1:39:52Speaker 04

  To some degree. My understanding is during this time, the audience kind of like flips and they start going, wait a minute, you know, this guy Triple H is really putting in the time. He's dedicated to the craft, so we really miss him, we really love him. And you're not doing anything, you're not making, doing any spots or anything like that. But there's this real like lust to have you back. Is this accurate?

• 1:40:13Speaker 05

  Yeah, so I go away, when, when I leave, I'm one of the most hated guys in the business.

• 1:40:19Speaker 05

  We had just done a thing where Stone Cold wanted a refresh on his character. So he turns heel. And we're together and we do this thing we call the two man power trip. And it's us just beating the shit out of everybody. Like, we have, he's like world champ, I've got the Intercontinental Title. At one point, we're tag champs, right? And, and we're actually... The match where I get injured, we drop the tag titles to another team that night. That's when I get injured. So, but we're on this killer run and we're both like the worst heels there. But I was already that sort of top heel. And, um, and I leave nine months later when I come back.

• 1:40:58Speaker 04

  I want to talk about this match specifically because my understanding is that the chatter in the wrestling world is we really miss him and maybe we're not giving him a fair shake. We really love this guy. And now there's like a real excitement about you coming back. And then MSG is when you come back and it's not even a match. You're announced that you're, you're just going to come back and cut a promo. What I've been told is by wrestling enthusiasts is that when you come out, it's the biggest pop they've ever heard at Madison Square Garden.

• 1:41:28Speaker 05

  For me, it was the biggest pop I'd ever heard, but it was also me. So like, you know.

• 1:41:32Speaker 04

  This is what I'm just saying from wrestling enthusiasts. What they said is when you come out, and again, you're leaving the company as the biggest heel. Nine months later, you haven't done anything. It's not like you're cutting promos. There's nothing going on. So it's pure just, you know what? I kind of miss that guy. He was really great for the business. Do you have it?

• 1:41:49Speaker 05

  I think it's.

• 1:41:49Speaker 04

  Can we watch this?

• 1:41:51Speaker 05

  I think it's Darth Vader leaving the franchise for a couple of films.

• 1:41:55Speaker 04

  And then you realize it was really nice having that bad guy around.

• 1:41:57Speaker 05

  Comes back and you're like, oh my God, right? Like, yeah.

• 1:42:00Speaker 04

  Can we watch this? So what's going through your head? You haven't said any.

• 1:42:04Speaker 05

  So, so pause it just for a second. So understand as a performer, it doesn't matter how big you are. You go away for nine months. When you come back.

• 1:42:15Speaker 04

  You don't know if they'll even remember you. There's like, yeah, you're like, would they care?

• 1:42:19Speaker 05

  You're scared to death. And it's funny, I'm, I'm backstage at Madison Square Garden and Austin comes up to me. Now Austin had been out for a long period of time with his broken neck and all that stuff. And Austin comes to me and he goes, what's going on kid? And I said, Just getting ready for this and he goes, you freaking yourself out? You think they're not gonna remember? Oh, so he already knows. Think they're not gonna care? And I said, yeah, I said, man, I fucking, I don't want crickets. You know, like, fuck, I don't know. And he goes, dude, you're gonna blow the roof off this place. He said, have you heard them? Every time they mention your name, they're going ape shit. They've been chanting fucking Triple H all night long. Oh, I didn't know that. So throughout, there's this excitement, there's a thirst. He's like, you're, you're fine. They're, they're, this is gonna be off the charts.

• 1:43:05Speaker 05

  But still, I'm like, I hope so. I really hope so. Yeah. And I'm standing at gorilla position, right outside the curtain, like I'm next, like, so they, they play a thing, they, the studio, this kid, Adam Panucci, who's an incredible editor, did a package for me about my return and it was set to U2's Beautiful Day. And he, he puts, so he builds this video, it's incredible. They put that out, it runs for the weeks leading up to, and then I'm gonna return at Madison Square Garden. Which when Vince told me, hey, we heard you're gonna get your clearance and all that stuff, he said, uh, I said, yeah. And he said, what do you think about returning at the Garden?

• 1:43:46Speaker 05

  And I was like, holy shit. Like, to us, that was the biggest of the big, like, Madison Square Garden was like, Nothing big. Our WrestleMania.

• 1:43:54Speaker 09

  Also the place where you had the controversial moments.

• 1:43:56Speaker 05

  That's, yeah, it's a beautiful full circle. So many moments at the Garden. And so I'm like, Jesus Christ, that's like a storybook thing, right? So they do these videos, but we get to that moment and I'm standing at that curtain while they go to, so they play a thing, they play that video and it says, up next, the game, right? The crowd just roars, they're chanting all during the commercial and I am standing like a fucking idiot at that curtain thinking like, please don't be silent, please don't be silent. Like, you know, I'm petrified, like I'm gonna walk out there and they are not going to give a shit. You know, and then, you know, and then, and then the music hits.

• 1:44:36Speaker 05

  And, you know, you're just, you're just so inside your own head that it's, it's crazy and, you know. Hit it.

• 1:44:49Speaker 05

  At this point, I'm just so, I am out of my mind geeked.

• 1:44:55Speaker 05

  Like, almost uncontrollable, so. That's awesome.

• 1:45:01Speaker 05

  Now, for me, this, like, even just riling up the crowd like this is, this is foreign to me. I'm like, I'm used to being, I did it when we were in DX, so obviously, I'm used to doing it. But to me, this is, I've been a bad, I've been the bad guy now for For so long. For so long, like, this is And how's your quad? This is just all emotion to me. Is your quad healed up? It's healed.

• 1:45:23Speaker 05

  You know, it's a funny thing that you, you can be 100%. You can practice, you can get on the field, you can do all the stuff until you go out there live. You just don't know. So the first few matches, it was a bit But you're not even doing anything, you're cutting a promo. This is a promo, and Kurt Angle's gonna come out, I do a little something. I'm basically just cutting a promo, saying, "I'm back, and I'm entering myself in the Royal Rumble." And so Are you supposed to be healed at this point? I think that we all knew that there's no, there's no way I come back and I'm a bad guy. Right, right. And the, the thing for me is, I've never been a good guy without a crew around me. So now you gotta do it so

• 1:46:06Speaker 05

  So now I have to do it, and I'm like, I'm not comfortable as a good guy. It's foreign to me. It's, it's almost like I have to go into the ring and think, what would I want myself to do if I was the bad guy? What would, what would, wait, wait, wait? If, if I was the bad guy, and I was working with me, what would I want me to do? Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. I have to, I have to, like, retro. It's another step in my process, because the business at this point is not me thinking, it's a feel thing. And you're just kind of doing what's right. Yeah. And I almost have to think about it in a way of like, what would I want? Because it's not instinctually. Yeah, what would I want my reaction to be? Yeah.

• 1:46:47Speaker 05

  And, um, so I, I'm not comfortable, and, and it's, I'm just not comfortable as a good guy. Are you recutting the promo in your brain, based on how much, like, support you have? This, I honestly, I know I'm gonna walk out there, and I'm going to say, "I'm back." Yeah. "I'm entering myself in the Royal Rumble," and then Kurt's gonna come out. I have zero, like, I remember thinking about it, like

• 1:47:15Speaker 05

  I just almost can't even lay this out word for word because I'm, I feel like I'm going to be so emotional when I get out there. Whether excited or whatever that is.

• 1:47:24Speaker 04

  Holding back tears a little bit?

• 1:47:26Speaker 05

  Yeah, yeah, it's just going to be so overwhelmingly emotional. Given everything that I went through to come back, that I don't know I'm going to be able to remember it anyways. So I just know. I'm back, I'm entering the rumble, you know, and then the Kurt shit.

• 1:47:41Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:47:42Speaker 05

  And so I just kind of say what I'm saying. I don't even really.

• 1:47:46Speaker 04

  Can we go to it?

• 1:47:48Speaker 05

  Good thing you have the water bottle. If the tears came, you could have just.

• 1:47:52Speaker 05

  And it's a funny thing is that you don't want to show that emotion, but the truth is the crowd just wants the emotion. They want the real shit.

• 1:47:58Speaker 04

  Oh, here it is.

• 1:47:58Speaker 05

  You can see it.

• 1:48:01Speaker 04

  So they're going crazy.

• 1:48:02Speaker 05

  Yeah. That's fire.

• 1:48:03Speaker 04

  You can't even talk.

• 1:48:04Speaker 05

  That's fire.

• 1:48:05Speaker 04

  You bring the mic to your mouth and they go even crazier.

• 1:48:07Speaker 05

  Yeah. But I also know I gotta get off the air because I think I'm the last thing of the show. So I like, I can't go too long.

• 1:48:13Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:48:14Speaker 05

  Just in case you've forgotten. Let me tell you just to know who the hell I am. I am the game.

• 1:48:33Speaker 04

  Ah, just great.

• 1:48:34Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:48:34Speaker 04

  Ah, just great.

• 1:48:35Speaker 05

  Bad guy interrupts and then I be, you know, big turd.

• 1:48:39Speaker 04

  Alright guys, let's take it back to the show. Do you think nice guys play better heels?

• 1:48:44Speaker 05

  So. It's a funny thing and this might be completely off. I have like a theory that. And I don't, I don't mean this in a negative way at all. You, to be the babyface, you have to have.

• 1:49:02Speaker 05

  You have to be a little bit more selfish. You have to be. And so.

• 1:49:10Speaker 05

  Austin was a great babyface, but he's not selfish. It's sort of. He was such a, because his character was a bad guy that they just loved.

• 1:49:20Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:49:20Speaker 05

  Right?

• 1:49:21Speaker 04

  But that's societal utility.

• 1:49:22Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:49:23Speaker 04

  Going against the man.

• 1:49:24Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 1:49:24Speaker 04

  You get to be a bad guy because there's a worse guy.

• 1:49:27Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:49:27Speaker 04

  That you're going to confront.

• 1:49:29Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:49:29Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:49:30Speaker 05

  So it's, it's a little bit different, but you know, you always hear the stories about the top sort of good guy. In the business and there's just um.

• 1:49:41Speaker 05

  Because it's all about you. As a bad guy, your job is to make the other guy look good. Keep yourself alive doing it, keep yourself hot doing it, keep yourself all that stuff. But the truth is, the biggest reaction that you get as a bad guy is when you give the good guy the the comeback.

• 1:50:00Speaker 04

  Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. It looks like you're gonna win and then.

• 1:50:03Speaker 05

  So I know I do all this horrible shit to this person. The biggest reaction we're gonna get, if I'm, if I'm working with Rock and he's the bad guy. I mean, he's the good guy, I'm the bad guy. I do all this horrible stuff to him. Well, I know when he starts to finally make that big comeback on me and kick my ass, I'm gonna fly all over the place for him. That's the magic.

• 1:50:23Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:50:23Speaker 05

  Right? The bad guy sort of creates that. You're only as, I feel you're only as good as a good guy in the business as you are the bad guys that you have to work with.

• 1:50:32Speaker 04

  Right. That's right, because the bigger the villain, the more the audience wants to see that villain go down. The more they celebrate the babyface.

• 1:50:39Speaker 05

  Talk, we talk about it all the time, like in, in the Rocky movies, right? Like so. In the, in the first Rocky, he just, you know, and, and Rocky's not about boxing, but it's about overcoming, right? But the bad guy in Rocky is Paul Creed. He's just this arrogant guy. This guy wants to prove himself against it. He doesn't have to win, but he just has to stay the distance and he does. They get to the second one. Okay, but now he has all these things he has overcome in his life and it's still the same bad guy. But he's gotta overcome that and the first one was a fluke and blah, blah, blah. He overcomes that. Now you get to the third one. Now he's succeeded as the babyface. So what do they do? They have to make Mr. T, the ultimate bad guy. That is so mean and so nasty, talks shit about his wife and ends up sort of causing Burgess Meredith so much stress, making that he dies.

• 1:51:23Speaker 05

  And now Rocky's got to avenge. He just can't fight. He gets a shit kicked out of him. Now he's gotta find a way to come back against all that and when they get to the next one, now he's the champ again, or whatever it is. They create a Russian guy, right? Cause it's the Cold War and all this shit, but they create the Russian guy that's so bad. They make Rocky befriend Apollo Creed.

• 1:51:42Speaker 04

  It's great.

• 1:51:43Speaker 05

  Who then gets killed by the big Russian guy and he's gotta go to Russia to like.

• 1:51:47Speaker 04

  To vent the loss.

• 1:51:48Speaker 05

  Right? It's, it's sort of, how can we make the, the bad guy? To give him something to fight against.

• 1:51:55Speaker 04

  Yeah, if I don't hate that bad guy, if I'm not rooting against that bad guy, if that bad guy doesn't stand for everything that I despise, then how can I really root for the babyface? So the core for the story is having a great villain. It's, we've talked about this a lot, even in like a Marvel movies is like, they, they do villains better than DC. Thanos is an amazing villain. Yeah, it's like, you want to hate him, but then also like, does he have a point? Is there something he's going after?

• 1:52:18Speaker 05

  It's what some of the things that we try to do now, a lot of it in our creative is like, I've always believed bad guys have to be justified. Might, might be fucked up reasoning.

• 1:52:29Speaker 04

  But they have to have.

• 1:52:30Speaker 05

  Their, their, their way of looking at it is really warped.

• 1:52:33Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:52:34Speaker 05

  They've gotta be justified. They can't just do like, you know, like, why are you doing that? Like, cuz I'm a bad guy.

• 1:52:39Speaker 04

  Exactly.

• 1:52:39Speaker 05

  You know what I mean?

• 1:52:40Speaker 04

  You didn't have to do the mustache thing.

• 1:52:41Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:52:43Speaker 04

  But, but I get what you're saying. Like, a lot of times with DC, it's just like, I'm space alien that wants to destroy the earth. And it's like, who cares? Why is that important? But Thanos going like, hey, it's unfair for people. It's unfair for most people in the galaxy. So why don't we just get rid of half of them and then nobody will starve? And you're like, wait a minute, he's kind of got a point. There's some empathy in that.

• 1:53:01Speaker 05

  Plus, they were already trying, they were trying to put that story out there to normalize it for the government. You know what I mean?

• 1:53:07Speaker 04

  This is actually a transition. Real quick, just real quick on this storyline, because specifically with Cena, you have this monumental task, taking this like super babyface, and you have to find a way to turn him into a bad guy that kind of justifies story, right? Like, like, I, I, cuz I was looking at, I'm like, looking at some of the stats and it's like, okay, what he is like 16 championships, he's like tied with Ric Flair. And it's like, you're going into WrestleMania and then without any storyline, it's like, okay, of course he's gonna win. And then he gets his 17th and then it's over. And then I'm watching this match and I see that great moment with The Rock and the face go cold. And that this idea that like, I'm gonna end wrestling.

• 1:53:45Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:53:46Speaker 04

  I'm gonna win and then retire and then nobody will ever win a belt for real again. And now all of a sudden, I'm like, if I'm a wrestling fan, I've gotta protect wrestling.

• 1:53:54Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:53:55Speaker 04

  I've, I've gotta find a way to, and now.

• 1:53:57Speaker 05

  And John's reasoning for that is like, fuck, for 20 years, I've had to listen to you people tell me Cena sucks, let's go Cena, Cena sucks. I've had to, you know, you shit on my ideas, you shit on these things, all this stuff like that. Every turn I've tried to make and all I've ever done is give you everything I have and it wasn't enough. You always want more. It's like, so there's this. Place of justification where you can go like, I kind of get that.

• 1:54:24Speaker 04

  Yeah, he's done with it. It's like, why haven't you given him up? He's done everything for the business. He's always done the right thing.

• 1:54:29Speaker 05

  Yeah, he should be the most beloved guy ever in anything. And now in his mind, he's protecting the business from somebody like Cody, who in his mind is just copying him and phony going into this thing. And they love him for it and he's angry about it.

• 1:54:49Speaker 04

  Yeah, why the fuck does he get all the love?

• 1:54:50Speaker 05

  Yeah, they love him for this and wait, you guys, I gave you everything.

• 1:54:52Speaker 04

  Why didn't I get the love? Yeah. So you get the resentment.

• 1:54:55Speaker 05

  She's justified in all of it. And it's kind of what, what works for the story, no matter how. And, and look, I'll say this from a, a bold standpoint. It would have been so easy for John, who's making movies and is one of the busiest people I know, to say, look, I'm coming back for a year.

• 1:55:17Speaker 04

  Just give me the fucking belt.

• 1:55:18Speaker 05

  I'm gonna go out there and do my greatest hits.

• 1:55:20Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:55:20Speaker 05

  And people will love it and I'll sell some merch and then it'll be done. And I'll say, thank you very much. And I'll ride off into the sunset.

• 1:55:26Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:55:27Speaker 05

  He could have very easily done that. But when we threw the heel idea at him, he was like, fuck, yeah.

• 1:55:34Speaker 04

  He jumped in it.

• 1:55:34Speaker 05

  Yeah, like, man, this is, this is challenging to me.

• 1:55:38Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:55:38Speaker 05

  Like, I love the challenge. When, when we pitched it and I, I got off the phone with John.

• 1:55:45Speaker 05

  And, uh, you know, he seemed very excited, but within like the next five minutes, I got like six texts from him, you know what I mean? Where I was like, oh my God, he's in, like.

• 1:55:53Speaker 04

  Oh, he started pitching ideas.

• 1:55:55Speaker 05

  Yeah, he's like, he couldn't stop thinking about it. And he's just, he had to talk to somebody about it because he was on a movie set. So he, he just kept texting me about it. And I was like, oh, and he's, this has piqued his interest. And, you know, it's cool to see John, who's, you know, he's been gone and in and out for a long time. And you're doing that, you know, you're not that same level to see him so.

• 1:56:18Speaker 05

  Engaged and so like passionate about this now and what he's doing and the whole thing. It's so cool to watch. So cool.

• 1:56:25Speaker 08

  No, it's I mean, what were you gonna say? I was gonna, I want to come back to story, but there's a question that occurred to me that I have to ask. And we always hear everything is wrestling. So you probably as wrestler, look at everything differently and I don't, you don't have to put opinions out there. But in 2015, when you're seeing Trump come out there and generate heat, which would be the wrestling term. Are you looking at that and you're like, oh, this guy's gonna win like I can feel the heat.

• 1:56:46Speaker 05

  Yeah, I'm a big believer. It's funny that Nick Khan, who's a president of the company of me.

• 1:56:50Speaker 08

  Shout out Nick. I like Nick, man.

• 1:56:52Speaker 05

  He's the best. He's absolutely the best. Like he's really, I couldn't do this without him, but like, he's the best, but he always has this thing like the most charismatic guy wins, doesn't matter. Doesn't matter your policy, doesn't matter anything. Whoever the most charismatic guy is in the debates wins. And you can historically look at that and it's pretty accurate, right? And I, I think Trump's ability as an order as, as like him or hate him, the way he does it.

• 1:57:20Speaker 08

  Yeah.

• 1:57:21Speaker 05

  But he's, he's charismatic in so many ways. And like, I think he likes getting under people's skin. I think he likes generating.

• 1:57:32Speaker 08

  I mean, he plays a great heel.

• 1:57:33Speaker 05

  The way he does. Yeah, it's, it's just, it's, it's, it's amazing and it's genius. And it worked in our business. Do I think he got that from our business? I think he innately understands that. It's been his whole life. You think about that, like, why, why, there's a lot of billionaires in the world, I suppose. Why was he the most famous one? Why was he the one that was in People Magazine every week? And, you know, with everybody under the sun, why was he seen as the epitome of that? You know, that, that billionaire sort of status and all that stuff because of his charisma and his character and who he is and the way he can speak about it and do all those things. He just captivates people and I think it's why he is where he is.

• 1:58:17Speaker 04

  Also, understanding heat and, and I thought the Vince Doc did a good job of explaining this. Like heat isn't necessarily everybody loves you.

• 1:58:24Speaker 08

  Yeah.

• 1:58:25Speaker 04

  You can have heat with everyone hates you. It's just energy towards you.

• 1:58:29Speaker 05

  Realistically, yeah, that is the, the, you know, heat is that everybody hating you. But like in our business, our parlance, right? But like.

• 1:58:38Speaker 04

  You can't have heat as a, as a baby face?

• 1:58:40Speaker 05

  I mean, you can, but like it's, that's not normally how we, we would just say the baby face is, man, he's over.

• 1:58:46Speaker 04

  Oh, so heat is only a negative thing?

• 1:58:48Speaker 05

  Sort of, in our business anyways.

• 1:58:50Speaker 04

  Negative meaning sentiment?

• 1:58:52Speaker 05

  It's a positive thing, it's about someone acting negatively. Like, man, he's got a ton of heat. That's me saying, man, that heel is over. As a baby face, I would say that baby face is, like, he's over, you know? Um, Cody Rhodes is over. Drew McIntyre's got a lot of heat.

• 1:59:08Speaker 04

  Hmm, got it, got it, got it, got it.

• 1:59:10Speaker 05

  Both, both very over. So it's, it's, it's a, it's a different, uh...

• 1:59:16Speaker 04

  As someone who's been top heel, do you have a little bit more, I don't wanna say respect, but like, love for the, for the, the people who bring heat, the people who are the, the heels?

• 1:59:28Speaker 05

  Yeah, especially if they do it well, right? The, the hardest job right now to me in the business is making a baby face that everybody loves. Because everybody's got something they like differently. And, um, so if you're too good of a good guy, they just like, ah, he's pimpy, pimpy, like, you know, goody-two-shoes, right? And they hate you for that. Like, it's hard.

• 1:59:53Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:59:53Speaker 05

  So it's hard to keep the majority of people liking a good guy for a long period of time. That's why, like, a CM Punk is so, he's so popular because he's kind of not a baby face.

• 2:00:04Speaker 04

  He has a rebellious nature. He's like, anti-authority.

• 2:00:07Speaker 05

  He's anti-authority, anti-this, anti-that, right?

• 2:00:10Speaker 04

  Also phenomenal wrestler. Like, I remember MSG, like, him and Seth, and Seth, too. Just like, if, even if you didn't know anything about their characters and you were just dropped into MSG that night, you just watched these guys go at it, incredibly engaging.

• 2:00:23Speaker 05

  And, and Punk, same with Seth, same with Roman, same with Cody, like...

• 2:00:27Speaker 04

  Yeah, Roman, too.

• 2:00:28Speaker 05

  They can verbally...

• 2:00:32Speaker 05

  Get all that reaction that you need. Like, they almost don't have to ever wrestle on TV or do much stuff on TV because they're, they're characters such and they can talk, you know, Punk can talk into just about anything on the stick. He's great.

• 2:00:46Speaker 09

  Did baby faces last longer in different eras?

• 2:00:49Speaker 05

  Yeah, because the business was set up differently. So like, in the generation prior to this, so like Vince's dad, Vince Senior, when he had the company, like, you know, he would have Bruno as champion or Backlund as champion, and then he would bring in heels. Sort of, it was a heel factory, right? Like, a heel would come in, so, you know, George Animal Steel, or Stan Hansen, or whoever, whoever the heel was, would come in, they'd beat up the number two good guy to get heat on them, then they'd get their way up to, like, Backlund or Bruno, then they'd do, you know, two or three around the horn with him, Madison Square Garden, do all the stuff,

• 2:01:32Speaker 05

  all the big clubs, do all that stuff, get all that out of it, then, once they blew that off and he was done with Bruno, he'd go back down to the number two guy who would now get his revenge, overcome, that guy would leave, he'd go to another territory, another bad guy would come in.

• 2:01:48Speaker 04

  And then cycle it out.

• 2:01:49Speaker 05

  And repeat to some degree, right?

• 2:01:51Speaker 09

  So, does that say something about culture today? That there's less of an affinity for, like, long-term baby faces? Like, how does WWE today reflect culture now?

• 2:01:59Speaker 05

  Yeah, I think, I think that's difficult. I think, like, I think everybody in the world wants to see you succeed, just not too long till they flip on it.

• 2:02:06Speaker 04

  That, they want to see you come up.

• 2:02:08Speaker 05

  They want to see you come up.

• 2:02:09Speaker 04

  Everybody wants to see you come up, but staying there.

• 2:02:12Speaker 05

  It's tough.

• 2:02:13Speaker 04

  Yeah, it's something we said here before, it's like, when you're on your way up, you represent people's dreams for themselves.

• 2:02:19Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 2:02:19Speaker 04

  And then, when you're on top, you represent what they may never achieve.

• 2:02:23Speaker 05

  They may never achieve, and what they'd like to achieve, but you're in the way.

• 2:02:26Speaker 04

  You're in the way.

• 2:02:26Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 2:02:27Speaker 04

  So, it's like, okay, you gotta get down.

• 2:02:29Speaker 05

  People always want to prove, there's a saying in our business, people want to see you do well, they just don't want to see you do too well.

• 2:02:33Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah. Okay, so now you know that, and you understand that's people's reaction to it, right? So, you have, like, this, what is it, white meat babyface in Cody, right? And he seemed to have maintained it, but is there a point where you're gonna have to go, uh-oh, like?

• 2:02:51Speaker 05

  It's on us to try to keep it, right?

• 2:02:53Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 2:02:54Speaker 05

  But, yeah, at some point, you'll probably get to a place where they're just... You know, look, John was white meat, baby face for a long period of time. I just saw him do an interview the other day where he said like, I don't remember what WrestleMania, it was like 22 or something like that. He and I wrestled in, at WrestleMania in Chicago. And I was bad guy. And John was the ultimate good guy. And I was the big bad guy at the time. But as we built that, no matter what we were doing, the more I beat up John, the more they liked me. The more John would try to make comebacks, the more they were booing John. And even in the match, it was like 50 50, right? And I remember having a conversation with John about it because it was bugging him. It was just starting to happen. And I remember saying like, ah, who cares?

• 2:03:39Speaker 05

  You're the Yankees and the Red Sox, all in one package. It's sold out, right? Who cares? Just go with it.

• 2:03:45Speaker 04

  But, and he was having trouble with this idea that he's supposed to be baby faced, but not everybody was buying in.

• 2:03:50Speaker 05

  Just there's a point in time in that where, yeah, you just like started, well, man, that's not the reaction I'm trying to get. Like, I'm not, not trying to make them say Cena sucks or anything else, but yet there they go with it. And I'm doing all the right things. They're just, for whatever reason, starting to choke on it.

• 2:04:07Speaker 04

  Well, maybe that's culture, right?

• 2:04:09Speaker 05

  It is. I truly believe that. Look, name somebody in, in pop culture that has been popular forever. No one says a bad word about him and it's just.

• 2:04:19Speaker 04

  There's only one. Leonardo DiCaprio. The worst thing they say about him is he has sex with hot girls.

• 2:04:25Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 2:04:27Speaker 04

  That's the, what a horrible guy.

• 2:04:29Speaker 05

  Yeah. And even just in saying that, you've just made half of the population love him even more.

• 2:04:34Speaker 09

  Keanu Reeves is maybe the only person I can think of.

• 2:04:36Speaker 05

  Yeah, Keanu Reeves. And because of who he is outside and all that stuff, but.

• 2:04:42Speaker 04

  I have a theory on these guys though. I have a theory on these guys. It's a lack of exposure. Yeah. So like, so like, if you're doing it week in and week out, it's tough for people to stomach that. If they don't actually like love you for you, for whatever reason, you start to be this like representative of infallible greatness, which makes a lot of people be like, well, I'm unfoulable. What the fuck is up with that? So, but if you put out one movie a year, or Denzel's another one, it's like, nobody's ever hated Denzel. We'll never. Hate to insult, but if you're putting out one or two movies here tops and then you go away. I think a lot of times with the even actors and this is like to to the point about everything's wrestling. It's like the actors that are like constantly in your face.

• 2:05:20Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 2:05:20Speaker 04

  Like Keanu looks like he's trying to get away.

• 2:05:23Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 2:05:23Speaker 04

  Like any picture of Keanu, he's like on the subway with his hat on. He's like, he's fighting. The actors that need the attention every second, people start to sour on them a bit.

• 2:05:31Speaker 05

  When you see them constantly at TMZ, you see them constantly in the paparazzi, you see them all this stuff and it and it becomes too much. You become desensitized to it. Then you start to be like, ah, it's.

• 2:05:41Speaker 04

  Fuck that guy's bullshit.

• 2:05:42Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 2:05:43Speaker 04

  And you're gonna fuck up.

• 2:05:44Speaker 05

  And you start to turn on it. Yeah. And I do. I do think that that longevity is is part of scarcity as well.

• 2:05:51Speaker 04

  But in your business, you can't go, hey, Cody, we're gonna need you to go away. He's gotta be there every night. He's the fucking champ. So you need to build up heels that people despise.

• 2:06:00Speaker 05

  And and that that wanna come at him in a way that sort of they feel like, oh, man, he's getting screwed over there. What? You know what I mean?

• 2:06:11Speaker 04

  It feels unfair. There's like something unjust.

• 2:06:13Mark Gagnon?

  Actually unfair.

• 2:06:15Speaker 05

  Yeah. Yeah, you you have to try to create that. It's the most I said all time. It's the most difficult thing in our business to do. Is create somebody that is universally loved and keep them there.

• 2:06:26Mark Gagnon?

  How do you have that talk with talent where it's like, if you think it's in their best interest for you to go away and have the audience miss you for a while, like, how do you have that talk with?

• 2:06:35Speaker 05

  You just have to tell them, like, I think, you know, hey, let's let's cool this down for a little bit. Let's step you out of it and let's, you know, there's always. You know, a lot of times we don't even, it's not our call because somebody will get injured or something will happen and you're just like, this was a kind of a. You never want to say that to them. Like, well, you got injured was a good thing, right? But like sometimes taking that time away is a good thing.

• 2:06:58Speaker 04

  There's a, you know, you're obviously familiar Floyd Mayweather, right?

• 2:07:01Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 2:07:01Speaker 04

  And, uh, yeah, I'm a big boxing fan. I was watching his career and.

• 2:07:04Speaker 05

  I helped him, uh, when he wrestled for us and fought Big Show. I trained him for that.

• 2:07:08Speaker 04

  How was he in training? Was he? And he was like, you know, good listener and he was down to do whatever went through.

• 2:07:13Speaker 05

  I I say this all the time. He would show up with like this massive entourage. Everybody hooting and hollering and just crazy and all that stuff and.

• 2:07:22Speaker 05

  We'd talk for a little bit and then he'd be like, all right, you want to get down to work? And I'd be like, yeah. And he'd whistle or something and he'd be like, all right, business, everybody out. And everybody would stop talking. Anybody that stayed would stop talking. Everybody else would get out of the room. And he was like a laser focus.

• 2:07:35Speaker 04

  Wow.

• 2:07:35Speaker 05

  Like, and like the first time we trained together, we did like two hours or whatever. And then I had to go on the road and then I came back, I think to like Vegas or something like, and we get same thing. Everybody's there. He tells everybody to get out. And I go, all right, I just want to review what we talked about last time. He goes, can I say it to you? And he like went on for like 20 minutes and told me like everything. And I was like,

• 2:07:58Speaker 04

  What?

• 2:07:59Speaker 05

  Damn, all right.

• 2:08:00Speaker 04

  I mean, that's like an unbelievable amount of discipline. Like the thing about Floyd is there's the antics and there's the character, whatever. But like when you watch him in the ring, it is.

• 2:08:07Speaker 05

  You know, he's like a huge WWE fan, right? Growing up. So like, that's where the whole Money Mayweather thing came from. He had that conversation with me about like, look, I knew pretty boy Floyd was only going to get so far. You can make the argument that I was the greatest boxer, but the, the real argument is what's the greatest box office? And how do you make that? I need to create a character and I need an avenue in which to sell that character. He created the character and then he went and sold 24 seven to HBO.

• 2:08:34Speaker 04

  Hmm.

• 2:08:35Speaker 05

  And then, then that was the avenue in which to sell the character.

• 2:08:38Speaker 04

  And think about it. When, when he goes up in weight and starts fighting these bigger guys and he's having some hand problems, he's not really getting these knockouts. He's fighting a much more defensive style. So how do you sell out pay per views fighting a style that like casuals might not care? I love it because I love boxing. I'm looking at the best ever.

• 2:08:55Speaker 05

  You like the science of it.

• 2:08:56Speaker 04

  I like, but not everybody wants the science. Most don't. They most don't. So what do you do? You make yourself hated. You make people root against you. And he becomes this ultimate heel and people were paying 70 bucks to watch him lose and he'd never fucking lose.

• 2:09:10Speaker 05

  And the genius of what he did. Was not only make people hate him, but I will make you believe this other guy.

• 2:09:18Speaker 04

  Might have a chance.

• 2:09:19Speaker 05

  Ortiz.

• 2:09:19Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah.

• 2:09:20Speaker 05

  All these guys, this is, this guy's got an, uh, an, uh, unorthodox style.

• 2:09:27Speaker 04

  Yep.

• 2:09:27Speaker 05

  And Floyd's starting to get older, like he's showing you flaws.

• 2:09:30Speaker 04

  Yep.

• 2:09:31Speaker 05

  In his buildup of 24/7, he's showing you the flaws and there's too much family drama going on. He's not focused.

• 2:09:38Speaker 04

  Yep.

• 2:09:38Speaker 05

  He's not training right. He's eating like shit, all these things. Meanwhile, they're showing Ortiz or these other guys.

• 2:09:44Speaker 04

  Incredible.

• 2:09:44Speaker 05

  He looks incredible.

• 2:09:45Speaker 04

  Remember one man, Walmarquez was drinking his pee?

• 2:09:48Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 2:09:48Speaker 04

  Like they're doing all these like crazy unorthodox training things. You're like.

• 2:09:51Speaker 05

  So you know, I walked him to the ring, right? So for the Marquez fight.

• 2:09:54Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah.

• 2:09:54Speaker 05

  The ring is one of the craziest things ever. First of all, I'm backstage with him. I go, I show up and uh, they're like, hey, Champ wants to see us. So I go in the back and he's laying on the couch watching basketball game. I come in and he's like, what's up? And you know, we talk for a few minutes and then I'm like, all right, man, I'm gonna get out of your hair. Let me go back out here. And, and he's like, no, I mean, you need my hair? I'm just watching the game. I got money on this. He's like, I'm just sitting here. You wanna hang out? Sit, sit down, man. Hang out. So I, I'm like, okay. So I sit down for a few minutes. We talk a little bit. Soon as he's breaking the conversation, I'm like, all right, man, I'm gonna get out of your, out of your way and let you do things. He's like, I'm telling you, man, I'm just sitting here. I said, well, I know it's game day, man. I know you got shit to do. He's like, if I haven't done all the shit I need to do before today.

• 2:10:37Speaker 04

  I'm fucked.

• 2:10:37Speaker 05

  I've already lost.

• 2:10:38Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 2:10:38Speaker 05

  I've done everything there is to do. Ain't nothing gonna change it now. I'm gonna put my gloves on a little bit. You sit through the whole thing. I'm gonna start to warm up, then I'm gonna go out there and fight.

• 2:10:47Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 2:10:48Speaker 05

  Simple as that. And like, okay, I sat down and he just went back to watching the game like he was Saturday on his couch.

• 2:10:55Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 2:10:56Speaker 05

  And then the other crazy thing was we sit there, I sit there, uh, at one point, he's talking shit to like Bernard Hopkins. He's in the corner. Marquez is throwing punches at him and he's leaning back, talking shit in between bobbing and weaving, talking shit to fucking Bernard Hopkins.

• 2:11:11Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 2:11:11Speaker 05

  Which I'm like, crazy.

• 2:11:13Speaker 04

  Yep.

• 2:11:14Speaker 05

  The, they get us up in the last round to walk us into the ring. And so like, we're in there like this, 10 seconds after it's over. And uh, he's walking back towards us. Bell rings, they get me in the ring. He's walking back towards us. And as he's walking back to us, I kind of look at him and he's like, very lightly covered in sweat, like very lightly. He's not like, like he wasn't working that hard. And as he's walking, he goes, that's motherfucking beat Pacquiao twice?

• 2:11:43Speaker 05

  I was like, Jesus, this guy is just, that's just too much.

• 2:11:47Speaker 04

  But he got it. He got the storytelling. He understood it.

• 2:11:50Speaker 05

  That, that ability, how many people did he make you believe this is the guy?

• 2:11:56Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 2:11:57Speaker 05

  Anybody ever, like I brought up the Ortiz, anybody ever hear that guy prior to that fight?

• 2:12:02Speaker 04

  No. I mean, rumblings in boxing, of course, but the average person, no, obviously Pacquiao was big and then Alvarez, I had heard of.

• 2:12:09Speaker 05

  Koto.

• 2:12:10Speaker 04

  I mean, Canelo, it's crazy to see what Canelo's done and what, I was at that Canelo fight.

• 2:12:14Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 2:12:15Speaker 04

  And I mean, it was like, Canelo didn't lay a hand on him. It was, it was unbelievable.

• 2:12:20Speaker 05

  Like that was the thing and, and he made it seem like, okay, Canelo's gonna kill this guy. And then he walked in there, maybe like the, the part when Canelo throws a big wild punch and he looks over there. See like, who are you trying to punch? You know, like, just, but, but that's the shit why people, every time they wanted to see him, somebody please shut this guy up and knock him out. And then he would, you know, just go in there and it was almost like it was easy.

• 2:12:46Speaker 04

  So what is it about us then? I mean, that's, that's where like wrestling is just perfect and understanding human condition. And I think now that, I think now more than ever, maybe you ushered this in now is there, as there's this like blend between reality and wrestling. People are much more aware of like what's happening with storylines. So it's maybe even more difficult for you to catch them off guard. But like, what is it about the human condition that, that we need these bad guys? It's this constant like David versus Goliath.

• 2:13:12Speaker 05

  I don't know, man. You know, it's a funny thing. Our business, you can make our business so complex. The truth is, is the same stories have been being told since the beginning of time.

• 2:13:22Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 2:13:23Speaker 05

  Bad guy, good guy, good guy fights bad guy, bad guy does something terrible to the good guy. And then good guy makes a comeback. Hopefully good guy wins. If you want to tell a good story, make people keep coming back. Sometimes you gotta have the bad guy win so that you get to, right? Like I use that as sometimes the, there's a, we'll be writing a show and we get to the end and, you know, there's people that filter through the show. So one of the producers will read the show and he'll be like, I'm just gonna say this, the whole show is heat driven. Like every bad guy goes over, every bad guy looks good. The whole thing is bad guy, bad guy, bad guy. Might not be the live, best live experience. And I'm like, Empire Strikes Back dude, we're good. Right? It's, it's the, today's the bad guys day and, and we're, we're good with that.

• 2:14:07Speaker 04

  So, so you're okay with? Not giving an audience what they want in the short term because the long-term payoff is that much more valuable.

• 2:14:16Speaker 05

  Look, sometimes you're wrong, but the truth is, you know, you can't,

• 2:14:23Speaker 05

  you can't judge the story you're being told by the moment in time you're in and how people are reacting to it because hopefully if you're smart, you know where the story's going.

• 2:14:34Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 2:14:34Speaker 05

  And if you believe in the story and the payoff, you're going to go through times where people are like, this sucks. I don't like this.

• 2:14:41Speaker 04

  And you're okay with that?

• 2:14:42Speaker 05

  Yeah. Yeah. Because, you know, most people are saying this sucks, I don't like it, but I'm gonna tune in next week and see if they fix this or whatever, because it's terrible.

• 2:14:52Speaker 04

  How long can you stretch that out?

• 2:14:54Speaker 05

  Yeah, you know, and that's the thing. And look, I'm not gonna say we're always successful at it. Nobody's got 100% batting average. I like to think we're pretty good at it, but you cannot panic.

• 2:15:05Speaker 04

  Dude, there's the, uh, do you watch White Lotus at all? You, you following this season?

• 2:15:09Speaker 05

  I'm just so busy, I haven't.

• 2:15:10Speaker 04

  Okay, so there's this great show called White Lotus, right? I've only watched this season and there's two other seasons.

• 2:15:14Speaker 05

  I've heard of it.

• 2:15:15Speaker 04

  But like, the first four episodes came out and people were panning it. They were going, ah, this is bullshit or like, oh, this season is, you know, it's what is it, you jumped the shark or whatever, like, oh, this is boring, whatever. And I bumped into one of the producers and he was like, just sit back, relax and enjoy the show. And I was like, oh, that's a really confident, that's a really confident take. And episode five, six, seven, it's like four episodes, just you planted all the seeds and when they went to harvest, dude, it shut the internet down.

• 2:15:46Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 2:15:46Speaker 04

  It was like the only conversation. So it's having maybe the balls to like put those.

• 2:15:51Speaker 05

  Rock says it all the time. You know, when, when they'll come in and they'll like, that was stupid, Rock did this thing and he's like, just shut up and enjoy the ride.

• 2:15:58Speaker 04

  Because he knows where it's going.

• 2:16:00Speaker 05

  Yeah, or we know where we're gonna get it to, or we're confident in the fact that we will get this places it needs to go. Sometimes.

• 2:16:07Speaker 05

  Sometimes you're in the build for something and you know, people don't take that in like, "Well, I wish they would have done this." "Yeah, well, yeah, we are gonna do that, but I can't do it today. The thing's not for six weeks still." "I gotta do it down here where, you know, like, you can't give them the payoff in week one."

• 2:16:23Speaker 09

  Yep, yeah.

• 2:16:23Speaker 05

  You know what I mean?

• 2:16:24Speaker 09

  Yes, of course. As comics, we're all familiar with bombing. Do you have any storylines or any, anything you've written in that you were like, "Oh, this is gonna pay off crazy." And then doesn't, and then you're watching in the back like, "Oh, fuck."

• 2:16:36Speaker 05

  No, I think because usually if you, and that happens for sure, but like usually, here's the beautiful thing about our world. The internet's not real life, right? And the bitching and the fucking complaining that is on there, it's not real life. Like, we can, you could, you could read the internet and it'll sound like this thing is dead. It's not, you know, like, and I'll use Cody as the example. Cody's already jumped the shark. He's dead as a baby face. He's like, "Really? Cause I don't know, I'm in an arena with 10,000, 15,000 people every night going ape shit for me, selling the most merchandise." He's like, "Yeah, like, but the, sure, whatever you wanna say on the internet."

• 2:17:16Speaker 09

  Right, right.

• 2:17:16Speaker 05

  That's the, that's the golden rule. So, the beautiful thing for our business, unlike a movie or a TV show or even a book or anything else, it's like, we have a focus group.

• 2:17:27Speaker 09

  Every single night.

• 2:17:28Speaker 05

  You go out and you do stand-up, right? Like, you do your stand-up for a year before you do the TV special or whatever, a lot of times, because you're trying out all the shit and you're seeing what works and what doesn't.

• 2:17:39Speaker 09

  Yeah.

• 2:17:39Speaker 05

  If you're terrible at your job, you just do it the way you wanna do it and it bombs. If you're good at your job, you tweak things, you change things, make it seem fresh still all the time, but you're shifting along the way until you get to where it's just right and then you go put it out there, right? We, as we begin to tell these stories, you know, this is working, this is not working. And whether people are bitching online or people, the reaction of people live.

• 2:18:04Speaker 09

  It's what you can trust.

• 2:18:05Speaker 05

  Right?

• 2:18:06Speaker 09

  Right.

• 2:18:06Speaker 05

  J U so terrible. It's never gonna, what are they doing?

• 2:18:10Speaker 09

  They're yeeting.

• 2:18:11Speaker 05

  Dude. Again, merch, reaction in the crowd, everything he does, like.

• 2:18:18Speaker 05

  Yeah, it's just opinion of a few people.

• 2:18:21Speaker 09

  Hmm. So if a story piece bombs, you guys can get back and be like, all right, let's just pivot. And then we can save it.

• 2:18:25Speaker 05

  Hey, man, wow, that didn't go the way I thought it was gonna go. And they didn't, they didn't, they didn't take that, or they didn't react to that, or that didn't click the way we thought it was gonna. What if we do this instead? And you pivot and you move, right? Um, we, we, that's, that's all the time. That's being a good storyteller. That's being, you know, and, and I think in our business, the, the, our business slightly has changed now because of TV and the, the live nature of it and stuff. So the guys in the back as they're doing this, a lot of them put their matches together beforehand, move for move, and then they go out there and they do it. My generation was taught differently and was a bit more like, um,

• 2:19:10Speaker 05

  have a premise of where you want to go, start to go there, but if it's not working, you have to go in a different direction. You can do that on the fly.

• 2:19:17Speaker 09

  Hmm.

• 2:19:18Speaker 05

  You know, um, not as a brag, it's just a different generational thing. So like I've gone, I wrestled Taker at WrestleMania one time and like, we sort of put together the finish and it was, you know, like, I don't know, the finish was probably 15 minutes long or whatever. We knew where we wanted to go with the finish and then we'd sort of put it together and now it's early that day and I went to take it. I'm like, all right, we get the, the finish finally down now. You want to talk about the rest? He was like, just call it out there?

• 2:19:49Speaker 09

  Wow.

• 2:19:50Speaker 05

  All right. That sounds like fun.

• 2:19:52Speaker 04

  I wonder if it's more believable that way for a viewer.

• 2:19:54Speaker 05

  I feel like it is.

• 2:19:55Speaker 04

  Cause you don't know.

• 2:19:56Speaker 05

  Yeah. And there's times, sometimes when you have all that stuff laid out where it starts to look dancy and people are just going

• 2:20:03Speaker 04

  To choreograph.

• 2:20:03Speaker 05

  To the next thing.

• 2:20:04Speaker 09

  You want to be like jazz, like everyone's improvising.

• 2:20:06Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 2:20:07Speaker 05

  I think that's the trick. Like in your business, I would imagine that comedians start to get to a place where they know the reaction and then they just start to go. With what they believe is going to happen like I'm always more impressed with a comedian that's like doing something and then somebody heckles them and he like just goes on for six minutes and rips this person a new asshole and does all this stuff that you know like there's no way that was planned. You know what I mean? To me, that's impressive like

• 2:20:35Speaker 04

  Yeah, it's off the cuff.

• 2:20:36Speaker 05

  Yeah, you just go do your shtick and and repeat your stuff. It's still, don't get me wrong. It's still an incredible skill set that I don't have and that, you know, very few, one, you know, tiny infinitesimal amount of people have that skill set. But the other one where you just off the cuff.

• 2:20:55Speaker 04

  You have it.

• 2:20:56Speaker 05

  You have it and you're just that to me.

• 2:20:58Speaker 04

  And the audience feels that too. And the the best version of it is if they think the entire thing is more or less that. So like you're in a joke, but then there may be are parts of that joke where the audience is going, wait, is he kind of riffing this? Is he reacting to our reaction?

• 2:21:13Speaker 05

  That's what I was gonna say. To me, then the art form becomes when you have it down to a science.

• 2:21:18Speaker 04

  How do you make it feel?

• 2:21:19Speaker 05

  But you still go out there and make it seem like it's the first time you've ever said anything.

• 2:21:22Speaker 04

  And sometimes you gotta lie, not lie to yourself, but sometimes you gotta trick yourself. Sometimes you gotta get into the joke, at least for me, differently.

• 2:21:28Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 2:21:29Speaker 04

  Like every night, I'm gonna purposely put myself in a situation where I haven't said it like this and then see what happens.

• 2:21:35Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 2:21:36Speaker 04

  And then maybe a new line comes around and but they can feel my excitement, energy. Dude, there's a weird thing in comedy where like you'll try a new joke and they'll like react to it and you'll walk off stage like, I got a killer. And then you'll listen to it and you'll be like, that bombed. What the fuck just happened? And it's simply like you're excited about it. So the little reaction that they give, you think is way bigger.

• 2:21:56Speaker 05

  They give me something.

• 2:21:57Speaker 04

  Exactly. Yeah. But like, I think they can get almost like they feed off of your excitement, authenticity.

• 2:22:04Speaker 05

  I think there's stuff in our business where sometimes talent, like I don't understand why, what like. Well, why am I not the top guy? I hear my reaction I get every night. You know, you hear the reaction you get every night. You're not out there for the other reaction.

• 2:22:17Speaker 04

  That's.

• 2:22:18Speaker 05

  You know.

• 2:22:19Speaker 04

  Also, the expectation might be way less for your reaction.

• 2:22:22Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 2:22:23Speaker 04

  Because you're not the top guy. You're a guy earlier in the card. And then when they're going crazy, they're not there to only see you.

• 2:22:29Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 2:22:30Speaker 04

  The main event expectation is a different fucking ballgame.

• 2:22:33Speaker 05

  It's different. And, and it's tough. You know, you need to explain that to somebody is tough, right?

• 2:22:38Speaker 04

  Like, it's their ego.

• 2:22:39Speaker 05

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It wasn't as big as you thought it was. No, it was. I heard it. Yeah, like, nah, I heard it too.

• 2:22:44Speaker 04

  You were saying you had a friend in comedy when you were coming up?

• 2:22:47Speaker 05

  Yeah, when, you know, I was, like, before I got into the wrestling business, trying to get in the wrestling business, I ran gyms where I lived and all that stuff. And there was a guy that, that, um, you know, he was trying to be a stand-up comedian. And I don't, you know, I don't think he even made it. And I never heard of him after that. But like, he was taking, there was like, it was at the time when, um, like comedy was really taking off.

• 2:23:08Speaker 04

  This is maybe eighties?

• 2:23:09Speaker 05

  Yeah, late, late eighties and shit. Like comedy was huge. Like just massive. And he was trying to do it. And he was like, taking, uh, like a class. I remember him telling me like, you know, I'm enrolled in this class with this guy who's like a famous comedian. I don't remember the name. And, uh, I was like, fuck, you're taking comedian classes? Like, I didn't even know that was a thing. It just seemed odd to me, right? But then I was like, well, I guess sort of like what we do, right? Like what I'm trying to do. And, but he would tell me, you know, he'd come in and he'd be trying shit out on me all the time. But then he'd be telling me things that he learned about like callbacks and.

• 2:23:39Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 2:23:39Speaker 05

  You know, different things. And it's the same, it's the same thing. We're just physically, you, you, you go out there, comedians go out there and they tell a story. And over a long period of time, they tell this story and there's bits and pieces of the story that ebb and flow and bring it back to the beginning. And when you don't know, the jokes come in and the guy's telling a story. They think, wow, all of a sudden he got real serious. Then he hits you with the thing, right?

• 2:24:02Speaker 04

  What you least expect it, yeah.

• 2:24:03Speaker 05

  Yeah, it's, it's the distract. It's the, right? Like all these things are the same in our business. Just the, the medium of which we paint the picture is different.

• 2:24:15Speaker 04

  I was the victim of one of yours.

• 2:24:18Speaker 09

  Oh, yeah. That was fucked up.

• 2:24:19Speaker 04

  I know, I, I know.

• 2:24:21Speaker 05

  Victim of Logan.

• 2:24:21Speaker 04

  No, no, I, I, be, be honest. Did you have any? I think, I think you had, who moved my seats? That's all I want to know.

• 2:24:30Speaker 05

  Logan, if a top star comes to me.

• 2:24:34Speaker 04

  Don't work me.

• 2:24:35Speaker 05

  Yeah, now he's getting all diplomatic. But the top star comes and says like, hey, so and so is here, right? Yes, he is. Where's he sitting? Over there. Hey, would they move him over here? I'd like to address him in the crowd. Like, okay.

• 2:24:49Speaker 09

  I mean, top star is generous.

• 2:24:52Speaker 04

  A part timer? You're gonna let a part timer do that?

• 2:24:55Speaker 05

  A guy that thinks he's a top star.

• 2:24:56Speaker 04

  Okay, fair. I'm just saying.

• 2:24:58Speaker 05

  Now he's gonna show me this and be like, you're serious, bro?

• 2:25:02Speaker 04

  Because we're seated initially with all the other dudes that are behind McAfee and Cole. Like, and then all of a sudden, last second, we get seated over there. And my stupid ego is like, oh, I've done Madison Square Garden before. Oh, they want to put me front row. And like, my wife is there, I'm like all excited, whatever, like that. And then Logan calls me out. And there's a moment where like, I kind of like look, and I look at Dove. Because I'm like, did you fucking do, like, what the hell is going on? And then he has no clue about what's happening. And then when he starts like, doing shtick, he's like doing like a work on me.

• 2:25:32Speaker 05

  Yeah. Well, put it this way. If somebody, I know that he knows you. I know that you guys know each other to a degree. So him saying to me, hey, I know, where's he sitting? Oh, he's over behind Cole.

• 2:25:44Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 2:25:45Speaker 05

  Hey, could you move him over here? Because he doesn't, he wants to be able to address hard camera and still.

• 2:25:51Speaker 04

  Oh, so that's how you get the look?

• 2:25:52Speaker 05

  To you, right? So to me, I'm like, okay, well, they're friends. Like, nothing, like, he's not gonna go over to you and go like.

• 2:26:02Speaker 04

  Do exactly that.

• 2:26:03Speaker 05

  Bang.

• 2:26:03Speaker 04

  They were friends. That's what I thought. I thought, literally, the week, and I think he fucking set me up because like, literally.

• 2:26:09Speaker 05

  Of course he did.

• 2:26:09Speaker 04

  Yeah. No, no, he sent me an invite to his fucking wedding.

• 2:26:13Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 2:26:13Speaker 04

  So then when he announced me, I'm like, what is he trying to pull me into? And then he does this whole fucking shtick where like, now I have to like co-sign his nonsense. And I'm like, I'm at home. Like, you get to wrestle. I gotta, I see these people every single fucking day. So I'm like, they're not gonna pull me into this bullshit. And especially when you're not even wrestling, that you're cutting a promo. That's why I showed up, to watch you cut a fucking promo, like, I give a fuck.

• 2:26:32Speaker 05

  Well, you do realize he's a guy that sort of. Pies his trade on getting clicks and downloads and like

• 2:26:38Speaker 04

  Yeah, so I'm not gonna let him do that to me.

• 2:26:41Speaker 05

  Well, you sort of did.

• 2:26:41Speaker 04

  No, well, let me tell you something.

• 2:26:44Speaker 05

  He kind of pulls you into it.

• 2:26:45Speaker 04

  Logan is fucking lucky that AJ pulled up. If I put hands on Logan in front of my people Madison Square Garden, I was shocked these pussy didn't jump in. We have a perfect opportunity to Jump in while you're in there. What, why not? This is wrestling. This is what it No, I'm not getting kicked out of Madison Square Garden. Eating popcorn like assholes.

• 2:27:03Speaker 05

  Also because if you get knocked out, this becomes his podcast.

• 2:27:08Speaker 05

  There's some potential upside to that.

• 2:27:10Speaker 04

  Yeah, exactly.

• 2:27:11Mark Gagnon?

  I thought you could take him, bro.

• 2:27:13Speaker 04

  I thought I could too, and then he sends it. You actually embarrassed me even more. Now I might have some beef with you. You send in this other guy, like, I mean, beautifully, does a great job. He's jumping over the ropes and everything like that. But I'm like, let me do it old fashioned in front of my people. I did, I did feel a little bit of disrespect from that. It almost felt like you, you thought I couldn't defend myself.

• 2:27:31Speaker 05

  No, no, look, the AJ part was already planned to happen. I didn't know he was gonna do the stuff with you beforehand.

• 2:27:37Speaker 04

  I mean, so, so you're basically saying that Logan has the keys to the business, that, that, that the inmates run in the asylum?

• 2:27:42Speaker 05

  No, I am, I am also saying that if I

• 2:27:45Speaker 04

  You might need a punishment is all I'm saying.

• 2:27:48Speaker 04

  What would Vince do? That's all I'm saying.

• 2:27:50Speaker 05

  I am saying that if I, I see a celebrity of the front row of your stature, that if something might happen, it's not terrible for us.

• 2:27:59Speaker 04

  Wow, okay, good to know.

• 2:28:02Speaker 05

  Whether you come out shining or whether it's a little bit at your expense, uh, it's not a terrible thing.

• 2:28:07Speaker 04

  All right, well, I just want to let you know, that's the last time something like that happens.

• 2:28:11Speaker 05

  I, I just feel like that if we go to Madison Square Garden again, I'd like to invite you. And then whatever happens to Logan at that event from you is just

• 2:28:20Speaker 04

  All I'm saying is I have a way of getting in there without the metal detectors. That's all I'm saying.

• 2:28:25Speaker 04

  So, you know, maybe you want to see me in the bleachers. You want to see me in a nice suite or something like that because I'm a front row. You never know what might happen.

• 2:28:31Speaker 05

  Yeah, I'm, I'm all for it. Look, WrestleMania is two weeks away, so if you want to like pop in.

• 2:28:35Speaker 04

  I'm, I'm busy. I can't go to something like that. I can't, I could not, I can't, you know, that's Easter weekend.

• 2:28:41Speaker 05

  Which is what a guy would say if he was gonna show up on an hour.

• 2:28:44Speaker 04

  I mean, I'll definitely be there.

• 2:28:48Speaker 04

  I'll definitely 100% be there.

• 2:28:49Speaker 07

  He's gonna get a paddle racket to the head.

• 2:28:53Speaker 05

  This is the beautiful thing about our business is people will debate this shit all day long. I say this about our business all the time.

• 2:29:02Speaker 05

  If you don't like it, there's nothing in the world I can say to you to make you like our business. If you do like it, there's no explanation necessary. You just get into it, right? But as, as into it as you are, there will be moments in time in our show where I could say like, somebody will say like, hey, those two really got at it. And I was like, not a part of the show. And then they'll be like, no, no, no, I saw that one. I was there. And I know that he did one thing that pissed the other guy off and then it got real for a second with those two. And you're not sure.

• 2:29:34Speaker 04

  Yeah. It's like trying to explain vagina to gay guys.

• 2:29:40Speaker 07

  I'm listening.

• 2:29:43Speaker 05

  Or you could flip that scenario too.

• 2:29:45Speaker 04

  Yeah, yes. Them explaining butts to us. But some of us have been in there.

• 2:29:49Speaker 05

  Or dick. I've got one, but I'm not, I don't know that I'm buying the explanation.

• 2:29:53Speaker 04

  Yeah, I guess that's true. But when we tug on it, it's fun. You almost understand him.

• 2:29:58Speaker 04

  Anyway, listen, Triple H, you're a fucking man. Yes, yes, yes. He's gotta get out of here.

• 2:30:02Mark Gagnon?

  Oh, sorry. You say, um, the pendulum swings. I was a big fan of the Attitude Era. Where would you say you guys are at right now?

• 2:30:10Speaker 05

  As far as, you mean?

• 2:30:11Mark Gagnon?

  Like are, is the WWE in the second coming, um, Attitude Era or a little, playing it a little sick?

• 2:30:19Speaker 05

  I say this a bunch. Well, look, you have to play to what is acceptable in the world. Because you can say like in the Attitude Era, well, a lot of that stuff wasn't acceptable. No, yeah, it was. My kids were going to school and saying it every day and doing all the stuff and wearing the shirts and all the things, right? Like there are certain things that are acceptable, certain things that are not in the moments in time. We have to work with our, our partners, obviously, and what, what can work and what can't work. And there's leeway in that. But as a guy that sat. You know, front row and center as the Attitude Era was becoming and then what it would become were in that same zone of Gotcha.

• 2:30:56Speaker 04

  Pushing the envelope.

• 2:30:58Speaker 05

  Pushing the envelope, but also of mainstream acceptance of like

• 2:31:01Speaker 04

  Oh, it's, you feel it. On my Netflix every day. You feel it.

• 2:31:05Speaker 05

  Yeah, it's, it's, you know, and it's global, right? We are, you see us now kind of, we've always been a global product, but now is sort of the first time that I think we can capitalize on that where we can go any place on the planet.

• 2:31:18Speaker 04

  You guys are in Europe. I was seeing you guys sell out these arenas in Europe. It was unbelievable. And they're, they're chanting their own soccer chants because they just want to be part of the show. They don't know how to do it outside.

• 2:31:29Speaker 05

  This year we'll be in France and Paris, that'll be off the charts. We're gonna go to Perth again and Australia, you know, the Middle East is always off the charts. You know, and we haven't even touched South America, go to Mexico, like all these things that are upcoming and we will be doing.

• 2:31:44Speaker 04

  Dude, you gotta go to the Middle East and then tell them all that Sami Zayn is really from Ireland. The biggest heel turn ever.

• 2:31:53Mark Gagnon?

  Very last question, you guys are under the same umbrella. Are we gonna see any UFC guys make that jump into?

• 2:31:59Speaker 05

  You know, you might, it's one of the things, like, it just depends on, on who's an entertainer and who's

• 2:32:05Mark Gagnon?

  Oh, so it's a possibility.

• 2:32:07Speaker 05

  Yeah, there's always that possibility. Look, Brock Lesnar, Ronda.

• 2:32:10Speaker 04

  Of course.

• 2:32:11Speaker 05

  There's always that possibility. We're always wide open to it. You know, I, I think there's also possibilities that as we are recruiting now D1 athletes coming out of colleges and our, you know, our NIL program and, and everything else of, of how we're recruiting, there are people that are coming into us that want to do WWE style entertainment for a living, but are like

• 2:32:36Speaker 04

  I might want some of that UFC stuff.

• 2:32:37Speaker 05

  Look, I'd dip my toe in that water of, of taking a shot at UFC if I could. And, you know, whether that's realistic or whether it's not, like, some of those guys have massive amateur backgrounds and have trained in that stuff, but are looking to do what we do, but would also throw their hat in that ring. So who knows? You know, the, the I would say never say never on that. I would say the bigger collaboration between us and UFC is what you're seeing happen now where we're like going into areas and sort of doing like a almost like a weekend kind of takeover thing where we go in with making this up but a SmackDown on a Friday night. And then UFC is in there on a Saturday and then we're in there with something on a Sunday and then we do a Monday Night Raw.

• 2:33:21Speaker 05

  And you know, we've, we've gone in there and done this whole sort of weekend takeover of stuff. I think seeing bits and pieces of things like that. And you know, with the inclusion also within TKO of with, you know, Pro Bowl riding and all that stuff now, there's, there's just

• 2:33:37Speaker 04

  It's an entertainment conglomerate.

• 2:33:38Speaker 05

  Yeah, there's a lot of avenues on that.

• 2:33:40Speaker 04

  And that's gonna breed crossover for sure.

• 2:33:41Speaker 05

  Yeah, and live events, you know, it's funny to me that people make sometimes the distinction between sport and everything's entertainment. The news is entertainment. You know, it's all entertainment. And what I love is that we are sort of the ultimate variety show and we can do a bit of everything. So we can have, you know, stuff can be serious. It can be emotional. It can be make you angry. It can make you laugh. We can have comedians on. We can have musicians on. We can have Bad Bunny wrestling in a match.

• 2:34:09Speaker 04

  He's awesome, by the way.

• 2:34:10Speaker 05

  Incredible, right? We can have Travis Scott there. We can have you there. We can have, it's, we can, we can include so many things and be a part of just everything. And I think you see that resonating across, across society where as big as it was in the Attitude Era, we were still seen as like this crazy offshoot thing.

• 2:34:32Speaker 04

  And now it feels like it's a part of culture.

• 2:34:34Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 2:34:34Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 2:34:35Speaker 05

  It very, it very much is just a part of culture and a part of everybody's sort of everyday vernacular. The amount of times I see, I hear our insider terms being used in the regular world now.

• 2:34:48Speaker 04

  K-Fay, babyface. This is just common parlance.

• 2:34:51Speaker 05

  It's just.

• 2:34:52Speaker 04

  Jabroni.

• 2:34:52Speaker 05

  Yeah, exactly.

• 2:34:53Speaker 04

  Dude, okay, last, I know you gotta go. There is a wrestler in New York City. His name is Tommy Invincible. He is the purest white meat baby face.

• 2:35:03Speaker 05

  Does he have a mustache and a?

• 2:35:05Speaker 04

  He's not, nothing like that. That guy's not a wrestler. That's just a civilian that was taken advantage of.

• 2:35:09Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 2:35:09Speaker 04

  You know, and, and does not need his redemption because I'm a Buddhist now and I don't care about that kind of stuff. And I'm not going to be used for fucking clicks ever again.

• 2:35:17Speaker 05

  Yeah, you're above it.

• 2:35:18Speaker 04

  Okay?

• 2:35:18Speaker 05

  You're above it.

• 2:35:19Speaker 04

  But if you show up in my neighborhood, I get popped. This guy, Tommy Invincible, I'm obsessed with. I watch every single Instagram he puts out. Okay, I would be upset if I did not notice that he is right now the United States Bronx Champion. It is going to blow his fucking mind that I'm talking to him about you right now.

• 2:35:32Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 2:35:33Speaker 04

  But I'm telling you, this guy is absolutely phenomenal. Okay? And he is a lifer. He's dedicated his life to this thing and he is incredible and I just want to put him on

• 2:35:44Speaker 05

  There he is standing outside the performance center. So clearly he's on the radar.

• 2:35:47Speaker 04

  Of course, yeah. He's, he's definitely.

• 2:35:48Speaker 05

  I will, uh, you know, look, in, in, in my, uh, in my position now, like, I have a team of people that are across all this stuff. So I guarantee you, they know who he is and we'll get eyes on him.

• 2:35:57Speaker 04

  Tommy, you're going to make everyone feel invincible, bro. Hmm. Okay, Triple H, thank you so much.

• 2:36:03Speaker 05

  Thank you.

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