How "GaryVee" is Heavily Inspired by 'Macho Man Randy Savage'

In this episode of The GaryVee Audio Experience, the team has a throwback episode for you where I talk about my lifelong love of professional wrestling. I share how Macho Man Randy Savage, Chris Rock, and Eddie Murphy shaped the way I cut promos and communicate today. I also discuss why storytelling is the greatest form in athleticism and why Vince McMahon is one of the most significant storytellers of our time. You'll learn about: • How Wrestling Shaped My Communication • Why I Picked Macho Man Over Hogan • The Power of Story Over Performance

• 0:05Speaker 00

  And we are back for another casual conversation with the classic and here today with me is none other than entrepreneur, e-commerce legend, five-time New York Times bestselling author, CEO, keynote speaker, mastermind with social media. And I'm saying that from someone who's read your books and used your techniques myself. And for a lot of you that might not know and what this is all about is a lifelong fan of professional wrestling. It's true. How are you doing today? Gary Vahadrick, AKA Gary V.

• 0:35Speaker 01

  I'm doing very well. Thanks for having me on the show, brother.

• 0:38Speaker 00

  Thank you for coming on. I really want to do this. I always was fascinated with the fact that you were a wrestling fan. I know there's a lot of people out there that do know they might have seen your interviews with The Undertaker or Stephen McMahon, or they watch your podcast and they see the figures in the background and stuff. So I always was like, man, I would love to talk to him about professional wrestling. And I would love for my audience to know that you are a big professional wrestling fan. You're also part of this extended family that we have of professional wrestling fans. So I want to start off with asking like, what were your earliest and first memories of professional wrestling? What made you a fan?

• 1:12Speaker 01

  God, this is so fun to think about because I really haven't thought about it. Um, you know, call it 84. I'm trying to think about, I don't think I knew about wrestling. You know, don't forget, I was born in the Soviet Union. So I come to the States. I'm three years old and 78. By 82 is kind of like when I really start saying I became Americanized because those first fucking four years, we were poor. Like, we barely had a TV. Like, there was, you know, so now I'm seven, 82, somewhere around eight or nine, 83, 84, I think Hogan was already champ. So I don't think I knew he beat the Iron Sheik in the Garden. But I definitely knew about wrestling prior to

• 1:57Speaker 01

  WrestleMania I. So much like most people in their 40s, if they didn't have parents or older siblings that were into wrestling,

• 2:07Speaker 01

  They got hooked up in that incredible era of where Cyndi Lauper's involved, WrestleMania 1. It all popped off in 84, 85.

• 2:15Speaker 00

  Yeah, the Rock and Wrestling era.

• 2:17Speaker 01

  That's right. I, so, you know, there's people my age that had the luxury, it was funny, there was an older guy in my neighborhood who used to tell me a lot of stories. This is all coming back to me now. So I got into it right then. Immediately, there was a guy at the playground. I'm guessing the guy was 30, lived in the, in the townhouse era, and he would tell me about

• 2:41Speaker 01

  the key, you know, Ivan Koloff beating Bruno Sammartino with the knee off the top rope in the garden. He educated me on like Pedro, don't forget, no internet.

• 2:49Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 2:49Speaker 01

  It's a different era. Pedro Morales. Early, you know, because I knew who Don the Rock Morocco was, but young Don the Rock, you know. And so, not only did I get into what was 84, 85, 86 wrestling, right? WrestleMania 1. The action figures that I have on my shelf, buying those, watching every Saturday morning, watching TNT when McMahon would interview people.

• 3:11Speaker 00

  Love that show.

• 3:12Speaker 01

  But I also, but I also would listen to stories on the benchparks of the 70s. A lot of 70s stuff. So I, and, and then I started buying wrestling magazines at Krauser's, which is like a 7-Eleven. So now I'm like learning like The Missing Link and like, you know, like The Blade Runners and like all these other, like, what's UWF? And who are Devon Erics? And then in 86, 87, 88, that stuff started showing up on ESPN. The Dingo Warrior.

• 3:42Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 3:42Speaker 01

  You know, so I was not only WWE, but I was like NWA. I was, you know, AWA. I was really a wrestling head. And would like get super pumped when like Bad News Brown would come to the WBF. I'm like, wait, that's Bad News Allen? Like, you know, like I was really into it. And it was a core part of my entertainment. I mean, my first sleepover party in, as a, you know, because if you're from an immigrant family, you don't have sleepovers that often. So my first sleepover party was SummerSlam, the first SummerSlam. It was a huge part of my childhood. We wrestled outside. I made wrestling figures by drawing and cutting my V friends today, NFPs. A lot of my drawing came from drawing wrestling figures,

• 4:27Speaker 01

  cutting them out on paper and then putting them on cardboard and gluing them so I could actually wrestle with them. Like, it was a very, from eighty-five to ninety, it was eighty-four to ninety, that five, six year period, outside of Jets football, Yankees baseball and video games and just being a kid and doing, and then my entrepreneurial stuff, shoveling snow, selling lemonade. It was a top five thing in my life.

• 4:53Speaker 00

  A hundred percent, yeah. A lot of that's really relatable. I can relate to a lot of that in a sense and it's crazy how it's still with you till today. Like, I saw that video on YouTube recently. Um, I know it's been out for a while, but that one where you're unboxing all your LGN figures. And you're asking your assistants and stuff, like, you know who the son, they didn't really know who it are and you were like a little bit devastated and so like, how do you not know this person? How do you not know that person? Um, how does it feel for you when you go off those figures? Was it sort of more of like, like, when it comes to collectibles, like, how do you?

• 5:20Speaker 01

  I mean, you know, so much of what I do now, if you're listening right now, go to YouTube and type in trash talk Gary V. There's a show I put out. You know, I talk a lot about like ways to advance your career and I started noticing a lot of people talking about, well, Gary, I don't have any money, like, cool that you invested twenty-five thousand dollars into Tumblr and it turned into a million. I don't have twenty-five thousand. And I was like, fair point. I was in a different point in my life. When I was in my teenage and twenties, I would garage sale a lot. I made a lot of money on LJNs and Hasbro action figures.

• 5:52Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 5:53Speaker 01

  You know, I would buy fifty Hasbros at a garage sale for ten bucks and then go list Dusty Rhodes or Andre for fucking fifty to a hundred bucks by himself, right? So.

• 6:03Speaker 00

  I literally, I literally just wrote an article for 137 PM about the fifteen rarest in US figures for you guys.

• 6:08Speaker 01

  I love it. I gotta read it.

• 6:10Speaker 00

  So, if you check, I just wrote that for you. Yeah, yeah. So when you just brought that up, you brought up, you brought up two of them that were on that list and that was the Andre and the Dusty Rhodes Hasbro and the LGN, yeah.

• 6:18Speaker 01

  And I bring it off the top of my head because like, I'm actually trying to see if I can find the article I'm talking to. Um, you know, it's, it's, it's what I, you know, there it is. Love it. I'm gonna share it right now. My Twitter, give you a little love.

• 6:29Speaker 00

  Thank you, thank you.

• 6:30Speaker 01

  You're welcome. Um, you know.

• 6:34Speaker 01

  It was just such a, I say that off the top of my head because I really know, right? Like I know what black card LJNs are. Like I know my shit, like I'm really in this. Like I, I watched most of the Saturday nights main events. I watched the, you know, the first 10 WrestleManias. Like this is a culture I really know and love. And so, you know, for me, the LJN thing was really fun. As a matter of fact, this is not a joke, literally, watch this. If you're listening to the podcast, you won't be able to see this, but I'm going to show you something that's going to blow your mind of how big of a part of my life this is. So this is my eBay, I'm just showing you and then obviously this is my eBay account. The last thing I looked up, I guess was PSA, but watch this, I hope it's there.

• 7:23Speaker 01

  I don't know how they do it.

• 7:23Speaker 00

  Yeah, if you're on YouTube guys, you can check this out right now. And yeah, go check out that article guys, I wrote a handful of articles for 137pm and that was the most recent one I just did. And it was about the most rarest expensive figures as of today.

• 7:34Speaker 01

  Yeah, look at this, look at this.

• 7:35Speaker 00

  Always changing.

• 7:35Speaker 01

  Look at the last, look at the last thing I searched on my eBay account.

• 7:38Speaker 00

  Oh, you're LGN WWF, LGN WWF, the last thing you did.

• 7:42Speaker 01

  So it's like just in me, like it's a very big part of my culture. 80s and 90s wrestling was humongous for me. And I actually have 11 year younger brother AJ. So what was funny about that is his age lands, so his golden year, so I got him into wrestling. But his golden era was in between Hogan and the Attitude Era. So AJ like fucks with like Tatanka and like Duke the Dunk Stradrosi and fucking like that Yokozuna Bret Hart era before we went into Stone Cold and The Rock, right? So I was, you know, Ludwig Borga and fucking Luger and like that kind of that era.

• 8:26Speaker 01

  And so like, it's just always, because once I got out of it, very quickly behind me, my brother is now like, I'm like, this is Steamboat and this is, you know, this is tugboat, excuse me. And this is Earthquake and like that video game came out. And so like, it's kind of just been a constant heartbeat for me.

• 8:44Speaker 00

  And I can relate to that too. My older brother's 10 years older than me and I don't think I'd have been a wrestling fan. He was born in 1981, so he lived through Hulkamania. That was his thing. I was born in 91, so I lived through that same Bret Hart, Yoko, Attitude Era period. So I can totally relate to that as well. I, uh, being a fan of yours, obviously I've watched your videos. I follow you on Instagram for years and stuff. Read your books, crushing it's the one that I was referring to earlier, because doing what I did with the wrestling classic was a lot of reading that book on a plane going to WrestleMania 32. And being like, oh, just slide in the DMs. Don't worry about it. And I'm like, okay, I got this. And I started implementing that in my own stuff that I started doing. Once I realized that this whole wrestling classic thing could be something. I didn't know it at first. I was just doing it for fun. And then

• 9:24Speaker 00

  I went to Dallas and people were wearing my shirts that I printed for fun for Uber money. And I was like, oh, people actually are about this. And your book helped me a lot with that. But that being said.

• 9:33Speaker 01

  Hey, everybody. I hope you're enjoying the podcast right now. Make sure you follow the podcast. That's why I'm interrupting. Let's keep going on this show, but follow the podcast. It'll make my mom super happy.

• 9:44Speaker 00

  I love your reels. I love your TikToks. I love your quick motivational videos and stuff. I always wondered, does any of your like speaking ability come from your love from wrestling and cutting promos back in the day?

• 9:56Speaker 01

  So what's

• 9:57Speaker 00

  You ever like get in touch with your wrestling side? Like I'm gonna cut a promo. Is that like part of it?

• 10:02Speaker 01

  Not only is it a part of it.

• 10:03Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 10:04Speaker 01

  I actually think it's the much, I think basically Gary Vee, the communicator is a mix between Randy, the Macho Man Savage promo and Chris Rock and Eddie Murphy and I mean, the amount of Richard Pryor, Eddie Murphy, Chris Rock I listened to.

• 10:22Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 10:23Speaker 01

  In combination to wrestling promo. Yeah. I mean, like, sometimes it's actually too ridiculous. Like I cut a video six or seven years ago for a conference I was keynoting and they're like, like my team came in and like Gary. You know, would you, uh, you know, they're just, the, the, the ticket sales aren't going that strong. Would you do a quick video to tell everybody about this social media conference? And literally, this is what came out of my mouth. I'm like, hey, guys, it's Gary Vee Civic Center, March 19th, like, I was like, and then I stopped, I'm like, oh, my God, this is literally a fucking

• 10:53Speaker 00

  I've heard something that I'm like, I'm like, this sounds like a wrestling promo to me.

• 10:56Speaker 01

  It's funny, a couple of wrestlers.

• 10:59Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 10:59Speaker 01

  Hit me up on DM who are fans and they're like, dude, you cut promos. And I'm like, I'm like, I do. I know, it took me, I didn't know it for five or six years of Gary Vee shit, but then when somebody pointed it out and I really started getting into my feelings on it. I'm like, yeah, I think, I think quite a bit. I think a lot of my content now is clips from my day to day life. So it's a little bit less, but my rants, which were a big part of my 2014 to 16 content, and I just did one the other day. I feel that they're like flat out WrestleMania promo videos.

• 11:36Speaker 00

  Yeah, because that's what I felt like I'd watch him like, I know he, he's meaning what he says, but I know this is influence from wrestling. I can tell.

• 11:42Speaker 01

  A hundred percent. It's subconscious, right?

• 11:44Speaker 00

  Yeah, like he has that promo skill. Um, do you have a favorite promo? Like, I know Macho Man's one of your favorites of all time. So he's gonna be cup of coffee in the big time or something, but.

• 11:54Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, I think my favorite is when he's outside by the pool.

• 12:00Speaker 00

  Oh, Mean Gene and Elizabeth.

• 12:03Speaker 01

  That's right. And he goes, that Mean Gene, there's a plane going by and I'm not on it. Like, and I'm like, I don't know what, the cup, I just said top is all time, but for some reason, there's a plane going by and I'm not on it. I don't know what it was that, but I'll tell you what my favorite was.

• 12:22Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 12:23Speaker 01

  My favorite was the macro concept of getting us into a frenzy before somebody was actually in the, in the Federation.

• 12:32Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 12:33Speaker 01

  By the time Mr. Perfect and Razor Ramon were actually in the ring.

• 12:39Speaker 01

  I was completely out of control into both of them.

• 12:43Speaker 00

  Yeah, those vignettes are perfect.

• 12:45Speaker 01

  And I think that was the brilliance of Vince McMahon and the WWF slash E. Like, to me, they, they just did such a great job in storytelling that that you were just salivating to watch one of these guys beat the shit out of Iron Mike Sharp or K-9 or Barry Horowitz. You know, back then wrestlers beat up nobodies on Saturday morning. It wasn't all these big matches.

• 13:12Speaker 00

  Yeah, to build a star.

• 13:13Speaker 01

  Correct. So they, they did the boxing thing, right? They took a bunch of easy fights. And, I mean, I mean, that's purple Kerschner. Like even guys that most people don't know as well, like the hype was just so fun. But what really stood out was Razor and Perfect because they really had those guys in a frenzy before they even came in Saturday morning and beat somebody up.

• 13:39Speaker 00

  They were so creative and so good. Like the one where Razor pushes the guy into the fountain. He's like, don't have luck like him.

• 13:45Speaker 01

  And Perfect just doing the bowling and the golf and like.

• 13:48Speaker 00

  And it's crazy because obviously as you get older, you realize it'd be like that whole football thing, throwing it across the field and him running and catching. You know, it's cut in certain things. I was like, whoa, he actually did that? That's crazy.

• 13:58Speaker 01

  Oh, as a kid, you're like King Kong Bundy broke Hogan's ribs and you're like so upset and like, as a kid, it's just fucking awful.

• 14:06Speaker 00

  I think that's the biggest thing about professional wrestling though, right? It captures you as a kid because you have that imagination and you only grow to love it as you get older. Because you, you ever get that question, how do you still like this? Like this UFC, how do you still like this? I'm always like, because now I understand it as a form of like art, like it's like.

• 14:21Speaker 01

  Well, I, I, I like it in the way that I like watching Queen's Gambit. The way that I watch, you know, a show, to me, it's storyline. I mean, I think wrestling is male soap operas.

• 14:32Speaker 00

  It really is.

• 14:33Speaker 01

  You know, like.

• 14:34Speaker 00

  More character storyline that really fascinates me now.

• 14:37Speaker 01

  As a creative entrepreneur and a marketer and a storyteller, there might not be anything I'm more interested in wrestling. As a matter of fact, literally yesterday, I said to somebody, I can't wait to see who triggers the next monster wrestling era. Literally yesterday, I said, Hogan? Stone Cold and Rock. Somebody, it feels like wrestling is doing its thing, but it's very much now like, like, you know, Brock, Undertaker, The Rock, doing WrestleMania. We don't have must see people. Like, I don't feel like I need to watch Raw.

• 15:15Speaker 00

  Yeah, no, 100%.

• 15:17Speaker 01

  But I feel like, what I love about wrestling is, at any moment, there's some kid right now, who's coming up the ranks, who's gonna be the human being, that completely captures the national attention, and for another 24 to 39 months, everybody's gonna know XYZ the name, and it's gonna make everybody watch Raw every Monday night.

• 15:43Speaker 00

  And that's, and I think, I think, and to your point, like, they just kind of brought back John Cena for that reason, because they haven't really built any stars right now that has catapulted wrestling back in that thing, but...

• 15:54Speaker 01

  I, I, yeah, it's funny, me and my friends, when I'm like, going, or like, kind of paying a little more attention, I take, I like guessing. I like saying, I see they're trying to push this guy, I don't think he's got it, right? And, and I like to test my ability of like, having a sense of like, charisma, and the consumer, and, yeah, I don't feel like they've pushed the right people recently.

• 16:17Speaker 00

  Have you given AEW a chance at all?

• 16:19Speaker 01

  A little, very little bit. Like, my wrestling right now, in the last three years, I'm just so underwater, and definitely with, when COVID hit, in the last, you know, 15, 16 months, I just had so many responsibilities to make sure I was on the offense business-wise, that, but, but it keeps going down to the same thing, which is like, you know, I follow it on social.

• 16:41Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 16:42Speaker 01

  But, I haven't been able to like, really, really allocate, like, the way I like to do it, when I'm like, oh, let's do this, like, I need four weeks of like, following the storylines to really get captivated by the charisma of the characters, and I just haven't been able to give anybody that, right now.

• 17:02Speaker 00

  I, uh, not to be another cheap plug, but if you ever need a catalog, I did also write an article on the 20 top AEW matches.

• 17:11Speaker 01

  That, that's such a good point, like, what, I'm not as good of a reader, what I'll probably do, is go watch the YouTube versions of that.

• 17:18Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 17:20Speaker 01

  Because that's what I need to get like interested.

• 17:23Speaker 00

  No, for sure. And I just think it's a good catalog.

• 17:24Speaker 01

  What's the best, what did you, what did you decide was the best one?

• 17:27Speaker 00

  Uh, for me, I think it was between uh Cody and Dustin, but that's also because once again, I'm also a character storyline guy. And there's a really good story there between the two brothers and whatnot. And um, it was if you watch that match, you feel like you're being told a story rather than just watching a match with a bunch of acrobatics and you don't know what's happening. So definitely check that out.

• 17:46Speaker 01

  Yeah, I'm, I'm, I'm way more like way more story than I am performance.

• 17:54Speaker 00

  A hundred percent.

• 17:55Speaker 01

  Um, I love performance. No, no, I mean fucking Rey Mysterio Jr. And Eddie, like some of this stuff is just outstanding.

• 18:02Speaker 00

  Performance stands out more if you're intrigued by the characters and the story.

• 18:06Speaker 01

  Yeah. And I, if I'm intrigued by the story, can overlook poor wrestling.

• 18:11Speaker 00

  A hundred percent.

• 18:12Speaker 01

  Right. Like Hogan, Hogan Warrior WrestleMania is not iconic wrestling. But the story is fucking.

• 18:19Speaker 00

  And that build up, the ultimate.

• 18:21Speaker 01

  Insane, was insane.

• 18:23Speaker 00

  Just to see those two eye to eye was like a moment and that was.

• 18:26Speaker 01

  But, but on the flip side, performance, like when you watch Piper, Bret Hart WrestleMania, where Piper really puts Bret over. Like it's a very underrated moment in wrestling history because it's like in that pocket of like in between.

• 18:40Speaker 00

  Summer of ninety, I think one, which was like a transitional time in a sense.

• 18:45Speaker 01

  I just think that when you see stuff like that, because Piper was such a good wrestler too. And Bret, you know.

• 18:55Speaker 00

  There's still a story there because Bret was the up and comer and Piper was the champion and continental champion. It was his time to get that singles. And so like the story always does kind of make things and elevate things more. And if the story is really good, you'll be invested in the match. And if they're just really good wrestlers, then the match is even more memorable because.

• 19:10Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 19:11Speaker 00

  You know what I mean? Um, I'm going to ask you this a little bit more of a fun question since you're an old school fan and you grew up watching wrestling. So you are a manager. So you were Bobby Heenan, okay? You're going to stretch a Gary Vee family, Vee friends, you can call it, yeah, the NFT stuff. Who would be on that Survivor Series team of five? Who would be your five guys?

• 19:28Speaker 01

  Macho Man Randy Savage.

• 19:30Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 19:30Speaker 01

  Who's disproportionately my favorite wrestler of all time.

• 19:32Speaker 00

  Same here. That's something I agree with fully.

• 19:35Speaker 01

  Um.

• 19:38Speaker 01

  Okay, let's really, I really want to give you a real answer, so I'm gonna really think this through. Um, uh, Y2J?

• 19:45Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 19:47Speaker 01

  I love Chris Jericho. I've always loved Jericho. Um, I would say, I'm, I, I usually to get fast answers, but I really want to think this through because I don't want to give you bullshit. Uh, I would probably put the British Bulldogs on there.

• 20:05Speaker 00

  Davey and Dynamite?

• 20:06Speaker 01

  Yes, because, because I'm thinking about like, who did I really love? Like genuinely love, and I would say the British Bulldogs were the closest thing in my prime to Macho Man.

• 20:18Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 20:19Speaker 01

  Um, and then,

• 20:24Speaker 01

  I'm probably gonna go,

• 20:28Speaker 01

  well, if I can blend leagues since the WWE now owns them all.

• 20:33Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. This is your dream team. This is your stable.

• 20:36Speaker 01

  I would go with Nikita Kolov, the Russian sickle.

• 20:39Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 20:39Speaker 01

  The Russian sickle is still one of my favorite finishing moves. He was just so fucking badass, and I still always had an underlying feeling towards Russia since I was from there. And so I would say Macho Man, the British Bulldogs, Jericho, and Nikita Kolov.

• 20:57Speaker 00

  That's a stacked team with different styles of wrestling, right? They got a powerhouse, you got some flamboyants, you got the tag team, that's good stuff right there. It's a solid team. No, for sure. Let's talk about the Macho Man really quickly, um, because he's my favorite of all time too. Once again, that also goes back to, I think I liked my imagination being captured as a little kid. This guy was on like WWF Mania and whatnot, just all colorful and his cowboy hats and whatnot. Um, what made you a Macho Man fan? What made you like, because during the time of Hulkamania, almost everybody was a Hulkamania. It was always Hogan, Hogan. My brother was Hogan, Hogan, Hogan.

• 21:26Speaker 01

  I, I realized in my older, uh, something happened later in my life when, like, I didn't like Tiger Woods or Kobe Bryant, and then when they were older, I loved them. And I, and when that happened in my 30s, I was like, oh, this is just a very recent realization. I feel like I'm an underdog. I love underdogs. To your point, everybody loved Hogan. I didn't want to be like that, and so I decided, um, uh, you know,

• 21:57Speaker 01

  I really want uh to be different. The other thing that happened was if you remembered a storyline, everybody was buying for Macho Man, that whole manager thing.

• 22:08Speaker 00

  Well, Miss Elizabeth, I still think Hogan was the heel there. He had lost in his eyes for Elizabeth. I'm just, I'm gonna say it.

• 22:15Speaker 01

  So when, when, when he goes, and I thought it was gonna be slick. I remember I was like, I was like, slick's gonna get him.

• 22:23Speaker 00

  Oh, when he, when he was buying for a new manager, yeah.

• 22:25Speaker 01

  And when he said, my manager is Elizabeth, and she comes down, you know, you gotta remember, I'm like 10, 11.

• 22:32Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 22:33Speaker 01

  And like, I'm not sure, but I think that might have been the moment I became a man.

• 22:36Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 22:37Speaker 01

  So between, so between, between underdog, and then he was such a great wrestler, right? Like, if, like, if you watch, if you watch that Tito Santana match that he wins. I mean, and then obviously fucking the Ricky the Steamboat match. I'm so pumped that that is like the greatest match of all time. It means so much to me. That storyline, that was tough for me a little bit because.

• 23:04Speaker 00

  Steamboat fan?

• 23:05Speaker 01

  I wasn't, but I liked them.

• 23:07Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 23:08Speaker 01

  But it was so nasty, like the throat, it was like, it just seemed so intense. But um, but I stuck with him through and through. Um, I loved George the Animal Steel because the Jets were my favorite team and he had a green tongue and that was big for me. Um, so, yeah, I think it was a combination of Miss Elizabeth. At the age that I was, being counter different and just the charisma and like who he was.

• 23:33Speaker 00

  He was just a complete package. Um, I know we're gonna wrap this up soon, so I want to ask you this really quickly as well. The big question, um, you can take your time to think about it. I feel like we've touched on it a bit here and there, but at the end of the day, like, why is wrestling important to you?

• 23:47Speaker 01

  It's because outside of Walt Disney, I think Vince McMahon has been one of the most significant storytellers of characters in our society.

• 23:56Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 23:56Speaker 01

  And I think the friends being one of the most important things in my life for the next 50 years is gonna make sense to why I always was associating to Transformers, wrestling, G.I. Joe, Disney. I'm a storytelling, character-based human being, and I think wrestling's unique because unlike.

• 24:16Speaker 01

  Wrestling, everything else is fictional. This is like real humans that play these characters, but it's storytelling. And I think it's been the most significant storytelling machine in our society. And, uh, and that I admire.

• 24:32Speaker 00

  I love that. I like to call it the greatest form of art and athleticism because it's the one that puts both of them together.

• 24:38Speaker 01

  I agree.

• 24:39Speaker 00

  And it's amazing.

• 24:40Speaker 01

  I, I think, I think Dana White has a lot of Don King meets Vince McMahon. Like, I think he's, why UFC is so incredible is it's like slightly the reverse thing, right? Which is, it's real life, but they do such a great job getting you excited about the fighters. And that matters. That's what great promoting is.

• 25:00Speaker 00

  No matter how much people want to say UFC is real and it's not, they pick a lot from professional wrestling to get you hyped.

• 25:05Speaker 01

  Yeah. And, and, and vice versa, right?

• 25:07Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 25:07Speaker 01

  Like, like WWF, WWE, excuse me now, is very much affected by, and, and obviously has done a lot with the angles and, and Resner's and, and, and Shamrock's and, you know, like, and Bobby and like, so like, it's, it, they're good for each other, in my opinion.

• 25:24Speaker 00

  Yeah. They do. They work well. And look, if Brock didn't go to UFC and come back being the Brock Lesnar he was.

• 25:30Speaker 01

  A hundred percent.

• 25:31Speaker 00

  You wouldn't have that Brock Lesnar kick.

• 25:32Speaker 01

  A hundred percent.

• 25:33Speaker 00

  You couldn't bring Randy, being the way you brought Randy out.

• 25:35Speaker 01

  No way. No way.

• 25:37Speaker 00

  You know, and you were there at WrestleMania 35. I saw you. I was there as well. I was too nervous to say hi then, but I saw you.

• 25:44Speaker 01

  Well, next time.

• 25:44Speaker 00

  Next time. Um, that, because I am a fan of yours and I've, I've, I've listened to your speeches and I've read your books and I follow you on social media. You always say, take advantage of all the opportunity again. I've had the opportunity to sit here with you. So I'm just going to throw it out there. If there's anything you ever want to do in the future that is wrestling related, I'm your guy.

• 26:01Speaker 01

  It's known. Send me an email, literally send me an email right now. I want to save that, put it in a folder.

• 26:05Speaker 00

  For sure. Cause I, the last seven years I've been running this page, I've made a ton of relationships with wrestlers within the industry and people that work backstage as well as a valued voice with the fans. I've been crapping on John Cena all week, but they still love me. That's how, that's how close we are. You know what I mean? So, there's nothing new. I'm more than helpful.

• 26:20Speaker 01

  Send me that email right now. I'm open to it.

• 26:22Speaker 00

  For sure. And I got my articles at 1:37 PM to you. So.

• 26:25Speaker 01

  Cheers.

• 26:26Speaker 00

  Thank you for your time. I really appreciate it.

• 26:28Speaker 01

  Thank you, brother.

• 26:29Speaker 00

  You're doing the thing. Have a good one.

• 26:30Speaker 01

  Everybody, if you enjoyed this podcast, please go back and look at the prior episodes. They're loaded. I appreciate your attention and, uh, thanks for being part of this journey. See you later.