Speaker 1: And they're asking me. This is like an hour and
Speaker 1: a half meeting, and they're asking me all kinds of questions.
Speaker 1: How would you compete? How would you do this? Do
Speaker 1: you want to compete? Do you just want to exist?
Speaker 1: Do you want to be the highest rated show? Do
Speaker 1: you want to be the second? Like all? And they
Speaker 1: were like, please be honest, like we want you to
Speaker 1: be real with this. So I'm answering all their questions.
Speaker 1: Ladies and gentlemen, are you ready? S's about to hit
Speaker 1: the fan? Welcome to sanction Thursday's horestling. What's Freddy? What's up? Everybody?
Speaker 1: Welcome to unsanctioned Thursday. As we talk about whatever we
Speaker 1: want to talk about. First things first, Before the show,
Speaker 1: producer Alex and I were talking about Star Wars and
Speaker 1: Star Trek, and I'm gonna be honest with you guys.
Speaker 1: I'm making confident. I know everybody thinks I'm this like
Speaker 1: Star Wars guy, because I did a voice in a
Speaker 1: cartoon once. I prefer Star Trek. I'll be real with you.
Speaker 1: Star Trek was way cooler when I was young. It
Speaker 1: was insinuated that everybody on Star Trek was having sex
Speaker 1: and getting down sexy time and partying that never happened
Speaker 1: in Star Wars. I was like twelve thirteen years old.
Speaker 1: You know how interested I was in those things. There
Speaker 1: was no way as Star Wars was getting any play
Speaker 1: in my house. It was all Next Generation. Then I
Speaker 1: got exposed to the original Star Trek after that, and
Speaker 1: you know, Captain Kirk was getting down with aliens all
Speaker 1: over the galaxy. On Next Generation they were just on
Speaker 1: the ship having relationships deep Space nine. Don't even get
Speaker 1: me started the movies. It's way cooler. I just I
Speaker 1: prefer Star Trek. And I'll say it right here on
Speaker 1: the podcast. I don't care whose feelings get hurt. It's
Speaker 1: better live, long and prosper everybody. All right, As promised,
Speaker 1: I will give an update on the Federation, So bad news,
Speaker 1: good news right as doors closed, others open. And I've
Speaker 1: talked about this before. So I went out to I
Speaker 1: was it four or five places. I can even tell
Speaker 1: you some of the places now. We went to Warner Discovery,
Speaker 1: which was like the worst meeting that I had out
Speaker 1: of all of them. They basically just wanted me to
Speaker 1: do a reality show. By the end of the pitch,
Speaker 1: and knew nothing about wrestling. And didn't seem to care
Speaker 1: for wrestling at all, So it was not I told
Speaker 1: you I'd be more descriptive. So it was not a
Speaker 1: good meeting. I must have failed at some point in
Speaker 1: the pitch because they were not interested in what I
Speaker 1: was saying. I gave the same pitch to everyone else.
Speaker 1: It was the only place that didn't work. Also pitched too.
Speaker 1: What was it was? It called Vice? Yeah, Vice TV,
Speaker 1: and they wanted the show bad, but they were going
Speaker 1: under some business restructuring, trying to basically stay on the air,
Speaker 1: and they couldn't afford the show at the end of
Speaker 1: the day. That was a place I really wanted to
Speaker 1: go because they have dark side of the ring and
Speaker 1: I thought we could be a cool pairing with with them.
Speaker 1: So I was disappointed there. There were a couple other
Speaker 1: places I'm trying to remember the names, but where the
Speaker 1: meetings went well. But I feel like I wasn't pitching
Speaker 1: to people high enough up on the totem pole to
Speaker 1: get the idea heard by the top dogs. And that
Speaker 1: was the wall that I felt I was running into
Speaker 1: on the majority of the pitches. And then there was
Speaker 1: a weird meeting at this streaming place and I won't
Speaker 1: say the name of it yet, but I'll tell you
Speaker 1: guys as soon as I can. And they asked my
Speaker 1: wife in a meeting, hey, is your husband still interested
Speaker 1: in wrestling, because we want to be in the wrestling business,
Speaker 1: and my wife said, yeah, he's out with a show
Speaker 1: right now, and they said, well, we want to sit
Speaker 1: and meet with him. So now let me back up
Speaker 1: the original pitch to help get this show made. I
Speaker 1: can share this now was a documentary about trying to
Speaker 1: pull this off for the first six episodes, and then
Speaker 1: episodes seven and eight would be a two hour special
Speaker 1: on what we actually accomplished the actual promotion. So see,
Speaker 1: I'm giving you guys more information than I've ever given anybody.
Speaker 1: So it was six episodes of the process of me
Speaker 1: trying to recruit wrestlers, finding the space, trying to sell
Speaker 1: out the theater or the arena, whatever it was we
Speaker 1: were going to do. I knew we wouldn't be able
Speaker 1: to do like, you know, ten thousand or anything like that,
Speaker 1: so I was going to do something around, try to
Speaker 1: do something around like twenty five hundred in a theater,
Speaker 1: because I think it's art. I think wrestling is art
Speaker 1: and could be presented in a theater. I wouldn't be
Speaker 1: the first guy to have done this, so it was
Speaker 1: going to be that whole process. And that's why I
Speaker 1: was saying the Warner Warner Discovery was more interested in
Speaker 1: that than doing anything else, and they only focused on that,
Speaker 1: and I kept trying to redirect the conversation and they
Speaker 1: just weren't having it. All the other places were down
Speaker 1: and opened everything. So I sit and I talked to
Speaker 1: this this new company that wants to talk to me
Speaker 1: about wrestling, and they're not interested in the documentary at all.
Speaker 1: They want a professional wrestling promotion. And they're asking me.
Speaker 1: This is like an hour and a half meeting, and
Speaker 1: they're asking me all kinds of questions. How would you compete?
Speaker 1: How would you do this? Do you want to compete?
Speaker 1: Do you just want to exist? Do you want to
Speaker 1: be the highest rated show? Do you want to be
Speaker 1: the second high? Like all? And they were like, please
Speaker 1: be honest, like we want you to be real with it.
Speaker 1: So I'm answering all their questions and they're real upfront
Speaker 1: on their finances where they're at, what they can afford,
Speaker 1: what they can pull off, and how they would pull
Speaker 1: it off. And it was unorthodox to me, but not
Speaker 1: to them, because it was the first time I had
Speaker 1: ever heard of financing shows this way and doing things
Speaker 1: the way they were wanting to do it. But I
Speaker 1: try to stay open minded, right, I want to have
Speaker 1: a promotion, So I'm listening. I'm listening. Then I start
Speaker 1: asking them questions for about thirty minutes, and they start
Speaker 1: explaining their philosophies, their business philosophies, more and more clearly,
Speaker 1: and we continue to talk and have conversations, and eventually
Speaker 1: we come to the I come to the realization that
Speaker 1: to start something new in the sort of corporate owned Hollywood, right, Like,
Speaker 1: there's only one independent studio really in Hollywood anymore, that's
Speaker 1: A twenty four. They're the only ones that don't have
Speaker 1: a corporation that owns them and finances them, that's publicly traded,
Speaker 1: that's held hostage by the opinions of their stockholders. If
Speaker 1: they tweet enough bad stuff, then the company loses stock
Speaker 1: like that kind of shit. A twenty four doesn't care.
Speaker 1: They make the movies they want to make, and that's
Speaker 1: why their movies are usually pretty cool. They take big swings.
Speaker 1: Sometimes they miss, sometimes they hit home runs. But they
Speaker 1: don't answer to anyone but the people, which I think,
Speaker 1: or to themselves, and then their art speaks to the people.
Speaker 1: So to create something new in the corporate world without
Speaker 1: an IP attached and intellectual property, meaning without it already
Speaker 1: being a brand and having something is borderline impossible. Marketing
Speaker 1: departments make a lot of choices over presidents at a
Speaker 1: lot of these at a lot of these places now,
Speaker 1: and if they don't feel they can market you, you're
Speaker 1: not making that show work, let alone even getting on
Speaker 1: a list. It's very much like you have to be
Speaker 1: a made man, or your show has to be a
Speaker 1: made show, like a really popular comic or a show
Speaker 1: from England or a movie from Japan or something like that,
Speaker 1: and then they go, yeah, we can sell that because
Speaker 1: they've already seen it. They lack the creativity of the
Speaker 1: marketing people that existed generations before them, who couldn't depend
Speaker 1: on that studios used to build stars. Who is this actor?
Speaker 1: I don't know. We're going to tell the people who
Speaker 1: that actor is. We're going to tell the people who
Speaker 1: she is. We're going to make them fall in love.
Speaker 1: We're going to show them who these people are and
Speaker 1: showcase their skills that happened in the music industry too.
Speaker 1: We're going to build these stars not anymore. If you
Speaker 1: don't have a million followers on social media, a lot
Speaker 1: of these record labels won't even meet with you. You have
Speaker 1: to provide everything. It is the least amount of work
Speaker 1: possible for the maximum amount of profit. So that's the
Speaker 1: world we live in. Existing in that world, I come
Speaker 1: to the cold realization that I can't start it from scratch,
Speaker 1: and it's a humbling moment, and it's a sad moment.
Speaker 1: And then the dude that I'm talking to calls me
Speaker 1: up and he says, hey, what if we grabbed someone
Speaker 1: else and brought them in as a partner. I said,
Speaker 1: what do you mean? He says, what if you work
Speaker 1: within an existing brand? And he says, here's some independent
Speaker 1: promotions that are looking for TV deals. They want to
Speaker 1: offer me the opportunity to tell my story and to
Speaker 1: present my promotion within the existence of another one, sort
Speaker 1: of like how Ring of Honor exists with AW. So
Speaker 1: I start sitting down, I'm thinking about that, and I
Speaker 1: start looking at the rosters of the of the places
Speaker 1: that they that they they brought me, and the infrastructure
Speaker 1: that each one already has or does not have, and
Speaker 1: I start weighing the pros and cons. I talk to
Speaker 1: my guys that are a part of my team and say, hey,
Speaker 1: you know, these are the ones that I'm interested in,
Speaker 1: But what do you think my main guy, my right
Speaker 1: hand happen to like the exact same one that I
Speaker 1: liked for all the same reasons that I liked it.
Speaker 1: I call back dude, I say, hey, man, we like
Speaker 1: one of them. Do you think they would meet with us?
Speaker 1: He was like, trust me, they're going to meet. Let
Speaker 1: me set it up. They don't know that it's you.
Speaker 1: I'm going to introduce you in the call. You're going
Speaker 1: to make your pitch to them, and if they say yes,
Speaker 1: we'll let the lawyers get into it. So I sit
Speaker 1: down with these with these two gentlemen on a zoom
Speaker 1: call with my guys and them, and I make my
Speaker 1: pitch and I'll be real with you, guys, I'm just
Speaker 1: grateful for the opportunity to earn their respect. You can't
Speaker 1: earn respect the first time you meet, but you can
Speaker 1: get the opportunity to you can earn that. And so
Speaker 1: I'm sitting there like, I just I respect what these
Speaker 1: men have accomplished and what they've done with their brand,
Speaker 1: and now I'm coming in not to change it. I
Speaker 1: don't want to change it because what they established I
Speaker 1: happen to love. So I start changing my idea and
Speaker 1: my pitch and start thinking of the best way to
Speaker 1: help get their talent over. I can't say too much
Speaker 1: without giving it away, so forgive me for the pauses.
Speaker 1: Alex won't edit them out. It'll just be these dramatic
Speaker 1: pauses for you guys to deal with. As I deal
Speaker 1: with the anxiety, you can too. So I make my
Speaker 1: pitch and we discuss it in a sort of ring
Speaker 1: of honor sort of way, where it's a brand within
Speaker 1: the brand right and help finding talent that either need
Speaker 1: a fresh code of paint, need a fresh start, are
Speaker 1: young and need work, veterans that may not have a
Speaker 1: story that I could provide a story for, and all
Speaker 1: around the board we discuss all of it, and I'm
Speaker 1: super nervous during it. These guys are probably going to
Speaker 1: hear this podcast and realize how nervous I was and
Speaker 1: be like, oh so sweet. So anyway, I finished my
Speaker 1: pitch and the first thing the dude says, man, I
Speaker 1: can really feel your passion, which is good and bad.
Speaker 1: That could go either way. It's yeah, I'm feeling you,
Speaker 1: or that's the only nice thing I could think of
Speaker 1: to say, because I hate all your ideas. So he
Speaker 1: says that, I'm like, Okay, I wonder which one that is.
Speaker 1: I hope it's the I hope it's the good one.
Speaker 1: We say our goodbyes. I called my wife. I say, okay,
Speaker 1: I had the meeting. How to go. I have no idea.
Speaker 1: They played their cards close to the best, so I'm
Speaker 1: not quite sure. And then this pro wrestler that I
Speaker 1: know texts me and goes, yo, man, so and so
Speaker 1: just texted me to like check you out. I was like,
Speaker 1: oh my god, I hope he's said nice things. He's like,
Speaker 1: don't worry, man, I got your back. You are you're
Speaker 1: a good guy. Man. I told him, you're one of
Speaker 1: the good dudes. Then my guy from the streaming company
Speaker 1: called me and he said, hey, man, we had a
Speaker 1: really good meeting, and I think I think things are
Speaker 1: going to move forward. So these are baby steps in
Speaker 1: the process. Still, I think things are going to move
Speaker 1: forward is obviously a good thing. It's better than I
Speaker 1: don't think things are going to move forward. That's the
Speaker 1: opposite of good. That's really bad. But that doesn't mean
Speaker 1: it's a done deal. Lawyers are going to get involved,
Speaker 1: you know. People still have certain things to think about.
Speaker 1: People have are going to want to protect their brand
Speaker 1: as much as possible. They'll find that. I'm very agreeable
Speaker 1: with that. Look at me. I'm like negotiating on my
Speaker 1: own podcast. But yeah, it's still a long road and
Speaker 1: I have a lot to do and there's a lot
Speaker 1: of work that I don't even get to be involved in,
Speaker 1: which drives me crazy because it's like lawyers in negotiating
Speaker 1: and stuff like that. I am doing my damnedest to
Speaker 1: make this work. I am doing my damnedest to make
Speaker 1: my dreams come true. I have not accepted a closed door,
Speaker 1: as much as they hurt. I keep finding other ones
Speaker 1: that or they find me one way or the other.
Speaker 1: But you have to be ready when opportunity comes. My
Speaker 1: godfather used to say people are gonna call like me lucky,
Speaker 1: but I'm just ready when opportunities come my way and
Speaker 1: they're not. And he was a real hardcore Guy's name
Speaker 1: was Bob Wall. You guys should google him. He's a
Speaker 1: tough son of a bitch, and I didn't agree with
Speaker 1: everything he said in life, but I do believe him
Speaker 1: being as prepared as possible. You tend to be a
Speaker 1: lot luckier when you're prepared. So I encourage all of
Speaker 1: you to follow your dreams and chase him whether they
Speaker 1: whether they fall apart or not. And we're in a
Speaker 1: world where a lot more people talk about their dreams
Speaker 1: like me, people on social media, people on YouTube, things
Speaker 1: like that, and so there's a lot more room to
Speaker 1: be embarrassed and to be shamed. But if you just
Speaker 1: go in and I want to say this the right way,
Speaker 1: I want to say it clearly so everybody understands, don't
Speaker 1: do it for anyone but yourself. When it comes to art,
Speaker 1: don't make art for the people. Make art for you.
Speaker 1: If they can, that's a beautiful thing. If they don't,
Speaker 1: then they didn't. But it'll still be honest and pure
Speaker 1: and organic, and it'll come from you. It comes from
Speaker 1: a place of honesty, and that's you have to hold
Speaker 1: onto that during the tough times. And trust me, during
Speaker 1: this process, I went to five or six places I
Speaker 1: got told five or six nos, No, Freddy, your dream's
Speaker 1: not good. Enough for our company. That's basically what they're
Speaker 1: telling you. It's easy to give up. It's easy to
Speaker 1: give up. It's hard to keep pushing that boulder up
Speaker 1: the hill when you feel like it's just going to
Speaker 1: fall all the way back down again. That's like sisyphis.
Speaker 1: You can look that up too, Bob Wall and sisyphis.
Speaker 1: Those are your Google words for the day. But if
Speaker 1: you keep pressing, this is not Greek mythology. This is
Speaker 1: real life. If you keep pressing and you tell your
Speaker 1: brain to shut up, because your brain's gonna lie to you.
Speaker 1: Your emotions are going to lie to you. They're going
Speaker 1: to tell you you're not good enough. They're going to
Speaker 1: tell you it's not worth it. You have to shut
Speaker 1: those voices off and remember that initial voice that told
Speaker 1: you the initial idea and the initial dream. I had
Speaker 1: thoughts creep in my head of f it man, just
Speaker 1: be an actor multiple times, and I squashed those thoughts,
Speaker 1: those negative thoughts, and stayed focused on what the dream is.
Speaker 1: And I'm closer now. I haven't been told yes, it
Speaker 1: could all fall apart tomorrow and I'll be super bummed again.
Speaker 1: But that doesn't mean it's over. It just means that
Speaker 1: door's closed and you either have to build another opening,
Speaker 1: kick through another door, use a key and unlock it,
Speaker 1: or just keep knocking until someone answers. And that's that
Speaker 1: kind of is it perseverance, that kind of discipline, that
Speaker 1: kind of dedication is how everyone accomplishes their dreams. Anybody
Speaker 1: that tells you it's easier than that, I don't feel
Speaker 1: there being honest with you or themselves. It's hard damn work.
Speaker 1: If it gets easy, i'll let you know, but but
Speaker 1: it hasn't so far. So that's the update. I thought
Speaker 1: you were going to get a short one, but I
Speaker 1: guess I gave you guys the long winded version today,
Speaker 1: so a little closer. Not there yet. Told you guys
Speaker 1: about the documentary aspect of the show that's gone, and
Speaker 1: now it gets to be exactly what the dream was
Speaker 1: and is, which is the wrestling promotion. So that's where
Speaker 1: I'm at. Keep your fingers crossed. I love sharing this
Speaker 1: stuff with you, guys. I share as much as I
Speaker 1: can without you know, I don't want to say so
Speaker 1: much that I screw deals up or that I make promises.
Speaker 1: I can't keep shit like that. I want to be
Speaker 1: completely honest and as open as I can. I just
Speaker 1: can't say everything. But when the deal's done or when
Speaker 1: the deal dies, and let's say, I have to like
Speaker 1: go okay, I'll try again next year. Then I can
Speaker 1: break down everything for y'all. So anyway, that's where we're at.
Speaker 1: I want to thank you guys for listening, thanks for
Speaker 1: tuning in, thanks for being a part of this process
Speaker 1: with me on this journey. I wish Jeff would have
Speaker 1: been here. He's not going to know any of this stuff,
Speaker 1: so you guys can rub that in his face on
Speaker 1: social media. Make sure you tune in every single Wednesday
Speaker 1: to Wrestling with Freddy, Wrestling with Friends every single Thursday,
Speaker 1: to unsanctioned Thursdays, or listen whenever the heck you want.
Speaker 1: I'm Freddy Prince Junior on behalf of Jeff I Peace.
Speaker 1: This has been a production of Iheart'smichael Toura podcast Network.
Speaker 1: For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.