Speaker 1: Welcome back to Wrestling with Freddie. Thank you for coming
Speaker 1: back to us. I had a lovely winter break. I
Speaker 1: hope you guys did as well. I went on a
Speaker 1: trip with the Trip. Before you have kids, they're called vacations,
Speaker 1: they're wonderful, they're fantastic, and post kids, they're called trips,
Speaker 1: and there is no such thing as a vacation until
Speaker 1: they graduate and move out. So let's start the show.
Speaker 1: Welcome to Wrestling with Freddy. Now stuffing up for the mic.
Speaker 1: The host of Wrestling with Freddie, Freddie Prince Junya. But
Speaker 1: we went to Hawaii, Home of the Rock, and it
Speaker 1: was lovely. I felt the Mana, I felt the magic.
Speaker 1: I've always felt the magic there. Actually lived there when
Speaker 1: I was a little kid, only for six months. My
Speaker 1: mom was working in a hotel and she was in
Speaker 1: the hotel industry. She was a chef and uh we
Speaker 1: stayed on Oahu in Honolulu. But I was just a
Speaker 1: little kid. But I guess you just get some kind
Speaker 1: of weird connection to that place. The only thing I
Speaker 1: could link it to that I felt similar is New
Speaker 1: Mexico because it's such an old land. I mean, when
Speaker 1: we were kids, we would go on field trips to
Speaker 1: like the Anasazi ruins, which were built into walls, and
Speaker 1: you would see civilizations that live there. There's a magic
Speaker 1: to New Mexico. But Hawaii is a special place, I think.
Speaker 1: And the Rock talks about Mana, right, but that's that's
Speaker 1: real because it's like lava coming from the center of
Speaker 1: the earth out and it's it's it's an earth builder,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean. So there's a lot of
Speaker 1: power there and it's very humbling. And the point of
Speaker 1: this is, when I'm an old, fat, retired guy, I'll
Speaker 1: probably live there and I'll start my own little indie
Speaker 1: Hawaiian Wrestling Federation. But I digress. We're back to the
Speaker 1: show and it's gonna be no guest today. You're stuck
Speaker 1: with Uncle Freddie and you're gonna get some stories. And
Speaker 1: I thought we would kind of take it old school,
Speaker 1: not old school like the old days, but just old school,
Speaker 1: meaning three of the dudes that weren't necessarily people I
Speaker 1: worked with, but people that had an impact on me,
Speaker 1: that were there before me, during my time there and
Speaker 1: long after. And we'd start and I've talked about John
Speaker 1: Cena's distaste for me when I was there a little bit,
Speaker 1: but I thought we would kind of deep dive into that, um,
Speaker 1: deep dive into my relationship with with Kane, who has
Speaker 1: mayor Glenn Jacobs. That's right, people, he is the mayor
Speaker 1: of a small town in Tennessee and uh. And then
Speaker 1: finally with Chris Jericho with a conversation he and I
Speaker 1: had that really kind of broke down Vince for me,
Speaker 1: and people go, I love your your your perspective and
Speaker 1: your philosophy on Vince. Well, these perspectives come from experiences
Speaker 1: with other people who are more experienced than me, and
Speaker 1: I sort of I rely on their on their knowledge
Speaker 1: to kind of come up with my own opinions with
Speaker 1: live in a world today where opinions are solidified so
Speaker 1: quickly because of a like button, or even worse, the retweet,
Speaker 1: because then you're you're you're reiterating something that you just
Speaker 1: saw that must be fact. Um. But I you know,
Speaker 1: I'm forty five, so I didn't grow up with that,
Speaker 1: and I kind of wait to make my my opinion
Speaker 1: on someone until I have as much information as I'm
Speaker 1: comfortable with. And my generation is just I think, maybe
Speaker 1: comfortable with more or uncomfortable with less information. Maybe that's
Speaker 1: a very brustly way to say it. We started at
Speaker 1: the company and me and this other writer, Angelo, who
Speaker 1: I've I've mentioned a couple of times on the show
Speaker 1: before all the writers would take heat from meaning they
Speaker 1: would catch a lot of crap from the talent, because
Speaker 1: a lot of the old school talent doesn't think there's
Speaker 1: a need for writers, and I tend to agree with
Speaker 1: a lot of them, because a lot of the men
Speaker 1: and women that are over in that company are highly
Speaker 1: capable of writing or improving their own promos in ring
Speaker 1: or backstage, and they don't really require writers. Sina. I mean,
Speaker 1: Brian Gowertz wrote for him, but Sena could write his
Speaker 1: own promos if he wanted to, and I'm a hundred
Speaker 1: percent certain that he did many a time, or at
Speaker 1: least rewrote what Brian laid down for him in some
Speaker 1: bullet points and then filled it in. They worked together,
Speaker 1: but John was a hundred percent capable as people can
Speaker 1: see now, he's an incredibly talented actor, uh a talented
Speaker 1: artist period. And I've always said I respected John even
Speaker 1: though he didn't like me when I was there, because
Speaker 1: I was an actor, which he is now, um, but
Speaker 1: I always respected him because John was willing to wear
Speaker 1: the crown during the g rated era, and that was
Speaker 1: a crown that no top guy wanted. John made his
Speaker 1: bones being the opposite of the Marine. John made his
Speaker 1: bones being a brash, in your face, white rapper who
Speaker 1: would talk trash to you, and you know, there was
Speaker 1: nothing marine ish about him. And then when he became
Speaker 1: the Marine, and he became the world champion, and he
Speaker 1: found a gimmick that would stick right, because he's not
Speaker 1: any of those things. He's all of those things. And
Speaker 1: it's about finding certain personality types that you think will
Speaker 1: make an impact. And when he found the Marine character,
Speaker 1: even when you booed him, he would take the booze
Speaker 1: right the way a soldier would take it, the way
Speaker 1: a soldier returning from Vietnam was was you know, yelled
Speaker 1: at and people were throwing things that our soldiers coming home.
Speaker 1: You know, you really try. You saw John really trying
Speaker 1: to embody that character. And other guys could have taken it,
Speaker 1: like Triple Edge could have worn that crown. But Triple
Speaker 1: Edge didn't want to do segments in the first hour
Speaker 1: of Raw when it was still family friendly. He wanted
Speaker 1: to be in the last hour of SmackDown or raw
Speaker 1: and do his d X adult stuff, the stuff that
Speaker 1: got him over, the stuff that he always did once
Speaker 1: he found the right character right, so he could have
Speaker 1: taken the crown. Vince would have gladly given it to him,
Speaker 1: but he chose not to. John took this on himself.
Speaker 1: And you, I mean, you don't have to respect that.
Speaker 1: But a guy like me is just programmed to respect
Speaker 1: the hell out of that. So when I got there,
Speaker 1: I already had respect for John. And the first time
Speaker 1: I met him, he called me Ashton Kutcher. So you
Speaker 1: have to understand, I'm going in there as positive as
Speaker 1: as a human being could possibly be. Looking at this
Speaker 1: guy like dang man, that's that's a thankless I'm not
Speaker 1: saying this, but in my head, I'm like this, it's
Speaker 1: a thankless job. He's getting booed for being the good
Speaker 1: guy so much, and you know it bugs him, and
Speaker 1: he's been public about it now and said that, yeah,
Speaker 1: that that bothered him. Sometimes he learned to embrace it,
Speaker 1: and when he did, they started cheering again, which is crazy,
Speaker 1: um and a cool journey on itself. But uh, I
Speaker 1: met him and he hated me, and it wasn't even
Speaker 1: that he hated me. It was just like a total disregard.
Speaker 1: I think he called me Ashton Kusher and uh, you know, great,
Speaker 1: we got Ashton Kusher working here now. And I take
Speaker 1: everything with it with a smile and uh and a chuckle.
Speaker 1: And I I don't take myself seriously, but I take
Speaker 1: what I do very seriously. And I was there to work.
Speaker 1: And I've said this before, I don't mind earning it.
Speaker 1: So I go, yeah, and I'm I'm I'll learn it now.
Speaker 1: I never wrote anything for John because, like I said,
Speaker 1: he didn't need it, and Brian Gowertz was his guy
Speaker 1: the same way that he was the Rocks guy. And
Speaker 1: Brian knows what he's doing. And uh so I never
Speaker 1: had to work with him. I worked with other talent
Speaker 1: that he would be in segments with sometimes and sometimes
Speaker 1: would write like a half of a segment. Believe it
Speaker 1: or not, there would be two writers, each one writing
Speaker 1: a different half of the segment. Don't ask me how
Speaker 1: it works. Oh wait us in so maybe they saidn't
Speaker 1: do that, but I, you know, dealt with him a lot.
Speaker 1: And when we it got awkward when I started the
Speaker 1: acting class, so we had I've told you the stories
Speaker 1: before our numbers. When we first started, and this was
Speaker 1: before the class was real popular. But a lot of
Speaker 1: the younger talent, the f c W which is now
Speaker 1: an XT talent that we're coming up, they were just
Speaker 1: looking to brush up their their acting skills, and so
Speaker 1: we started doing scenes from movies they liked. I said,
Speaker 1: you you find any movie you want. I'm not gonna
Speaker 1: make you do any of the crap work. You send
Speaker 1: it to me. I'll transcribe it. I'll give it to
Speaker 1: you a physical copy and an email so you always
Speaker 1: have it. When you lose it, I will print you
Speaker 1: up another one. All you have to do is the
Speaker 1: scene work, breaking down the moments. Why is the character
Speaker 1: saying this, what's the motivation, Let's look at the scene
Speaker 1: on an overview, what's the obstacle and what's the goal?
Speaker 1: What do you want and what's preventing you from getting there?
Speaker 1: And once you start to analyze that, it's like practicing
Speaker 1: a martial arts technique. You stop thinking about it and
Speaker 1: you just start doing it. And that's when acting feels
Speaker 1: more real, is when actors aren't searching for lines or
Speaker 1: trying to remember blocking because they rehearsed and put in
Speaker 1: the work, and that way your take one is actually
Speaker 1: pretty damn good instead of it taking fourteen fifteen takes
Speaker 1: because an actor was lazy. I get a little triggered
Speaker 1: by lazy actors. If you can't tell this will turn
Speaker 1: into a thirty minute podcast about people not knowing their ship.
Speaker 1: Uh sorry. So anyway, I was working these scenes with
Speaker 1: the talent and I think it was Writer and Hawkins,
Speaker 1: and they were doing a scene from Bad Boys with
Speaker 1: Will Smith and Martin Lawrence, which was making me laugh
Speaker 1: before they even started, just to see these two guys
Speaker 1: do it, and they actually did really well with the scene.
Speaker 1: And in the middle of this class this scene, John
Speaker 1: just swing has opened the door, grabs us a folding
Speaker 1: chair that we were all sitting in, sets it down
Speaker 1: in between Hawkins and Rider, and sits in it and
Speaker 1: just looks at me like what are you gonna do?
Speaker 1: And in my head, I'm just like, what the why
Speaker 1: would you do? Why would you make this about you? Man?
Speaker 1: Like why wouldn't you wait until after this? Like what
Speaker 1: why would you interrupt this? And I get answers to
Speaker 1: this in a moment, but I don't say anything. I
Speaker 1: just go, hey, man, you want to talk to me outside?
Speaker 1: And he stands up right away and he's mugus dude,
Speaker 1: he's built like Ben Grimm from The Fantastic Four for
Speaker 1: crying out loud. And we go outside. So I'm not
Speaker 1: going to fight the dude. So we go outside and
Speaker 1: I go, man, what the hell was that? And he goes,
Speaker 1: that's what I was about to ask you. So he
Speaker 1: has zero respect for whatever process I'm I'm attempting to
Speaker 1: bring to the table, right And we kind of jaw
Speaker 1: back and forth for a minute, and he and these
Speaker 1: are his words, and he would he would admit to
Speaker 1: all this. It is not a bad thing. Confrontation is good.
Speaker 1: Conflict is good. That's how situations get resolved. When you
Speaker 1: avoid it, it becomes passive aggressive, and then it carries
Speaker 1: on and on and on, and it affects your work,
Speaker 1: it affects their work, and then it affects the company's work,
Speaker 1: and then everyone sucks a lot of passive aggression in Hollywood.
Speaker 1: So so I'm of the opinion you should just confront
Speaker 1: situations head on, and that's what we did. And he said, look,
Speaker 1: maybe I'm a neanderthal his words, and he says, but
Speaker 1: I just don't see how any of this ship works.
Speaker 1: And I'm looking at him, like in my head and
Speaker 1: look and now look in hindsight, he's out here making movies.
Speaker 1: So it's all it's a growing it's a growing experience,
Speaker 1: learning experience for all of us in the end, whether
Speaker 1: we recognize that or not. But I look at him
Speaker 1: and I say, hey, man, not everybody can do you do?
Speaker 1: All right? I'm not saying, hey, can I work with
Speaker 1: John and can I give him acting lessons? When I
Speaker 1: had my first meeting with Steph, I said, why the
Speaker 1: hell weren't you Duke and g I Joe, You're the
Speaker 1: best actor on the roster. I said, but I'm trying
Speaker 1: to get them to a level where you're at or
Speaker 1: close to it, because if I don't, who the hell
Speaker 1: is And he kind of like shrugged his shoulders and
Speaker 1: like excelled, and I said, hey man, it's not like
Speaker 1: you're helping him out. And that kind of like tightened
Speaker 1: up as humongous muscles, these massive shoulders that kind of
Speaker 1: like tense stuff. And he goes, yeah or whatever, and
Speaker 1: he walked away and I go back in and Cardona
Speaker 1: was like, dude, I thought you guys were gonna fight,
Speaker 1: Like bro, I'm not trying to fight the incredible hulk Man.
Speaker 1: Shut up. So we finished the class, and uh, I didn't.
Speaker 1: We have our taping of whatever show was that day,
Speaker 1: Monday and Iraq as John was there, and uh he
Speaker 1: was the face of the company and Monday and I
Speaker 1: Raw was the show of the company back then. So
Speaker 1: I'm on the jet. We're flying back to White Plains,
Speaker 1: New York from whatever city were in Cleveland or wherever
Speaker 1: it was, and Vince has me hold out my hands.
Speaker 1: He's got some hand sanitizer and he's he's you know,
Speaker 1: you don't like germs, and so he starts to put
Speaker 1: some hand sanitizer in my hand and then as a
Speaker 1: rib won't stop, he just keeps squeezing it and squeezing it,
Speaker 1: and he's just staring me down, and I'm staring him down. Right.
Speaker 1: It's not like I can just let the crap fall
Speaker 1: in his G four, G five, whatever it is, G something,
Speaker 1: because that's disrespectful. But I'm not gonna wine or whimper
Speaker 1: or tap out. So I just let him into the
Speaker 1: bottle and I stand up and I slap it down
Speaker 1: in the sink in the bathroom, wipe my hands. I
Speaker 1: come back in and he's laughing. He thinks it's great.
Speaker 1: And Kevin Dunn thinks it's the greatest joke that anyone's
Speaker 1: ever pulled off in the history of jokes. And uh,
Speaker 1: I sit down and Vince goes, so, I heard you
Speaker 1: had a little, uh, a little problem with Sina today.
Speaker 1: I'm like, no, man, I try to downplay it. I go, no,
Speaker 1: I think he's just testing me. Man, all you guys
Speaker 1: like to test me. And he goes, I don't worry
Speaker 1: about it. I'm the only one that can fire you anyway,
Speaker 1: and Kevin laughs at that. He starts laughing at Vince's joke, like, man,
Speaker 1: that wasn't even that good. And uh, but I I
Speaker 1: learned in that moment, like, Yo, don't worry about it.
Speaker 1: Keep doing your thing. If they're giving you crap, I'm
Speaker 1: the only one that you need to worry about giving
Speaker 1: you crap. Right, you could take it from everyone else,
Speaker 1: is how I took it to to me. So I
Speaker 1: go in there and I'm just hopeful that he doesn't
Speaker 1: interrupt the class again. And to his credit, he never did,
Speaker 1: not even once, And as time went on, he called,
Speaker 1: he still said, oh, what's up, Baston Crusher. I think
Speaker 1: one time I used to wear this hat that my uncle,
Speaker 1: he was a Vietnam veteran. Uh when he passed away,
Speaker 1: I stole it from that from the house, and UH
Speaker 1: I used to wear it a lot. Because my uncle
Speaker 1: is real responsible for the man that I grew up
Speaker 1: to become. I'm named for him. His name is James Barber,
Speaker 1: and my middle name is James. My son's middle name
Speaker 1: is James's. He's an important man in our in our
Speaker 1: family's history. Side Quist a very important man, and he
Speaker 1: demanded not only respect for himself, but he always demanded
Speaker 1: the family show respect to one another. He was in
Speaker 1: and out of our lives a lot because he had
Speaker 1: a lot of problems coming back from from Vietnam. I
Speaker 1: remember I used to have to crumple up newspaper and
Speaker 1: toss it at him when he'd be napping on the
Speaker 1: couch to wake him up for dinner. Because if you
Speaker 1: went while I learn hard way, if you went and
Speaker 1: shook him, you were on your back and his hand
Speaker 1: was on your throat because in his head he was
Speaker 1: still in the war. He had to do just look
Speaker 1: up reconnaissance Marines Vietnam, and you'll know what he had
Speaker 1: to do. We're not gonna make this depressing. So anyway,
Speaker 1: I'm wearing this hat and he goes, oh, nice doe
Speaker 1: she had, and I hit him. I don't even look
Speaker 1: at him when I say it. I go it was
Speaker 1: my uncle's he was in Vietnam, and it just goes, oh,
Speaker 1: like that right. They never talked about that ever again.
Speaker 1: So there is respect there. It just has to be
Speaker 1: something he deems worthy of respect or you gotta earn it.
Speaker 1: So six months in I'm doing a segment and it
Speaker 1: was with Santina Morella, Beth Phoenix and some and someone
Speaker 1: else I can't I can't remember who else. And I'm
Speaker 1: sitting next to Vince in Guerrilla and the segments going well,
Speaker 1: because our Santino is the man Like anything you wrote
Speaker 1: he would make better. I loved working with him when
Speaker 1: he was on SmackDown. I got to work with him
Speaker 1: all the time and we would just crack each other
Speaker 1: up with jokes like on what the scene is gonna be?
Speaker 1: Things he would say words he could butcher, and he
Speaker 1: would just not get dead no matter, no matter what.
Speaker 1: And he needed so little direction you could. If anything,
Speaker 1: it was only to like tighten it up because he
Speaker 1: could go on for thirty minutes and we only had two.
Speaker 1: So it was a segment that was going really well.
Speaker 1: Again all credit to the talent, especially in the case
Speaker 1: of of of the Lion. It's going well, and Vince
Speaker 1: gives me the elbow to the ribs, but not the
Speaker 1: fu elbow. It's it's not like the Randy Macho may
Speaker 1: have finished your elbow. It's like the revitalizing elbow when
Speaker 1: he hit Hogan with it and woke Hogan up, which
Speaker 1: was like horrible, should have never happened, but it happened.
Speaker 1: He's given you the positive I'm like, hey, good job, kid,
Speaker 1: God damn. And Cina is back there too, because he's
Speaker 1: in the next segment. I think I'm even wearing my
Speaker 1: uncle's hat and uh, he says, and again I'm my
Speaker 1: eyes are on. The monitors were just backstage. They call
Speaker 1: a guerrilla position. It's where they come out of the
Speaker 1: curtain and walked to the ring for those of you
Speaker 1: that don't really watch the brand. And so he's back
Speaker 1: there waiting for his time and he goes, hey, man,
Speaker 1: that was a that was a really good segment and
Speaker 1: I didn't even look at him much, but yeah, whatever,
Speaker 1: and just they liked it, and I phil Vince gotta
Speaker 1: give me another nudge, which was either chill out or
Speaker 1: well done. I don't know which one it was. We
Speaker 1: didn't talk about it, and uh, that was the moment
Speaker 1: where I was like, all right, he's I think I
Speaker 1: think I earned his respect and I don't. But I
Speaker 1: don't know, you know, man, maybe not. Maybe he was
Speaker 1: just like, well, I'm just done crapping on him because
Speaker 1: the boss is right there. But either way, we never
Speaker 1: had an issue or or a conflict ever again. After that,
Speaker 1: he was always just would give me a nod. He
Speaker 1: didn't talk about my uncle's hat. He called me Freddie
Speaker 1: instead of Ashton. By the way, his last name I
Speaker 1: think is Coucher, not cousher. And I don't know if
Speaker 1: John knew that. But you know, you can't say a
Speaker 1: man's name, right. I don't say John Cena. I say
Speaker 1: John Cena. So anyway, I know people have had fun,
Speaker 1: and I've told some of the Seni stories before. I
Speaker 1: wanted to be clear. Even though he didn't like me
Speaker 1: and I didn't like John, I respect John. I respected
Speaker 1: him then I respect him now. I respect the irony
Speaker 1: of what he what he's doing now because he hated it.
Speaker 1: He hated Hollywood so much. But Hollywood doesn't show wrestling
Speaker 1: the respect that I think wrestling deserves. So I think
Speaker 1: if there's ever a company man, John Cena is the
Speaker 1: ultimate company man, like he would do anything for the company.
Speaker 1: He would take any bullet for Vince McMahon, because that's
Speaker 1: his experience with the company has always been not I'm
Speaker 1: not gonna say always been positive. Everyone has ups and downs,
Speaker 1: but this company found him, developed him in o VW,
Speaker 1: brought him up, made him the face of the company.
Speaker 1: Not for a year, not for two years, not forever. Okay,
Speaker 1: he was the champion forever, Himmer Randy, and he would
Speaker 1: always win it back. So his love and respect for
Speaker 1: that company is the way you would love school counselor
Speaker 1: that saved your ass and and put your life on
Speaker 1: the right track, or the way you look after your
Speaker 1: parents as someone spoke against them. So that's where his
Speaker 1: loyalty was in Hollywood has never been pro pro wrestling.
Speaker 1: They're happy to pluck the most talented people and make
Speaker 1: them a star, but they've always had their their kind
Speaker 1: of crappy feelings for it. That'll switch us over to
Speaker 1: a more positive relationship. I had, and that was with
Speaker 1: Glenn Jacobs, who plays this hideous monster from hell named Kane.
Speaker 1: And he was the Undertaker's brother, younger brother, thank you
Speaker 1: very much. And he had insecurities throughout his career about
Speaker 1: being the younger brother. He had conflict with his brother.
Speaker 1: They had resolutions and wrestled together, and we're the most
Speaker 1: powerful tag team in the universe. He had his own
Speaker 1: singles title runs. He did horror type wrestling all the
Speaker 1: way to comedy type wrestling when he tag teamed with
Speaker 1: Brian Danielson who's in a w He's shown a large
Speaker 1: range as far as what limited range the Kane character
Speaker 1: allows you to have. He's even starred as the monster
Speaker 1: in a monster movie. I can't remember the name off
Speaker 1: the top of my head. You get this image of him,
Speaker 1: and he is a a hideous beast behind a mask.
Speaker 1: Why else would he wear a mask? It must be hideous,
Speaker 1: he wears. When he took the mask off because he
Speaker 1: was no longer hideous, he would put in crazy contacts
Speaker 1: to make himself look more freaky. Freaky, and and and
Speaker 1: and strike fear in the hearts of men. And then
Speaker 1: you meet Glenn and you could call him Kane. He
Speaker 1: responds to either one, and he's a he's like a poet.
Speaker 1: I think he's immensum member even like he's this. The
Speaker 1: dude reads Shakespeare. The guy gave me book recommend The
Speaker 1: guy got me to read that Hawaiian The Rich Dad,
Speaker 1: Poor Dad. He like, hey, man, this book meant a
Speaker 1: lot to me. You should you should give it a read.
Speaker 1: And I'm like, alright, cool. He gave me a book
Speaker 1: about the Rothchild's system of banking, its influence on America,
Speaker 1: and why should we should be wary up at his
Speaker 1: way into bigcoin and why should we should be wary
Speaker 1: of our paper currency that's barely backed on gold anymore.
Speaker 1: He gave me this in two thousand seven, y'all. I
Speaker 1: don't know the name of it, and I'll be honest
Speaker 1: with you. I only read about the fourth of it.
Speaker 1: And Bill Burr had a joke he said, reading puts
Speaker 1: me to sleep. It I fell asleep a lot, but
Speaker 1: I got through a quarter of it, and I did
Speaker 1: learn that the Rothchilds were some evil sons of bitches,
Speaker 1: and our banking system is corrupt as all hell. So
Speaker 1: if you want to buy a gold I'm not mad
Speaker 1: at you. If you want to buy a big one,
Speaker 1: I get it. But this guy, first of all, I
Speaker 1: never saw Vince more hands on with a promo than
Speaker 1: his feelings for Kane. He has this weird case. I've
Speaker 1: described Vince as as a as a kid with a
Speaker 1: toy box, right, and they're all his toys and you
Speaker 1: have to play with them the way he wants you
Speaker 1: to play with them. But he's never more particular than
Speaker 1: when he was with Kane. For real. He never yelled
Speaker 1: at me louder and we would go back and forth
Speaker 1: from time to time, but most of the time, dude
Speaker 1: was really cool with my with my ideas are the
Speaker 1: ones that got to him. Sometimes they die on the
Speaker 1: vine before they even get there. They go, no, the
Speaker 1: show is full. I remember I came in there and
Speaker 1: I don't remember the promo. This is you know, however
Speaker 1: many over ten years ago. But there was the word destroyed.
Speaker 1: He reads the word destroyed, and he stopped and he
Speaker 1: looks at me and he's like, piste off at me,
Speaker 1: like I've done something not wrong but offensive. I go what?
Speaker 1: And he shot? He goes Kane, what never say it destrong? Hey?
Speaker 1: What say ah blaate? And there's this long pause. Right,
Speaker 1: you gotta remember the way my brain works. I'm not
Speaker 1: a reactionary dude, and I'm comfortable with silence, so I
Speaker 1: don't mind it. So there's this long pause, and in
Speaker 1: my head, I'm like, this isn't a fight that I'm
Speaker 1: gonna fight. It's it's it's a word, but I kind
Speaker 1: of want to know why it's it's so important to
Speaker 1: the boss. And so I take a beat and I say,
Speaker 1: you got it, obliterate? Are there any other words in
Speaker 1: here that are going to get that kind of reaction?
Speaker 1: And if so, can you tell me why? And he
Speaker 1: just gives this grunt that he would give when he's
Speaker 1: unamused by your amusement. Basically, he wanted he wanted me
Speaker 1: to take a more serious I guess it was just
Speaker 1: more like and he starts reading it through, reading it through,
Speaker 1: and he goes the rest of it is fine, just
Speaker 1: trying to make the end a little better, Like all right,
Speaker 1: I go back and uh, there's a writer named Christopher
Speaker 1: to Joseph who worked there, and he was always good
Speaker 1: to me, not all the writers for kids. To me,
Speaker 1: Chris was always cool man from Jump Street. And I
Speaker 1: go in and he goes, how'd it going? Yeah, pretty good.
Speaker 1: He wants me to rewrite the end. I said, he
Speaker 1: really hates the word destroyed. And Chris goes, yeah, I
Speaker 1: wanted to warn you about it, but I just thought
Speaker 1: it'd be funny if I didn't. I what are you
Speaker 1: talking about, man, he I said, I've never seen him
Speaker 1: get angry. He goes, he's so crazy about kine and
Speaker 1: the words that you use. When I was like, I'm
Speaker 1: telling you broke it was. I've seen actors trip out right,
Speaker 1: and I mean trip out where it's over a word,
Speaker 1: over a line, and you're like, dog, just just tell
Speaker 1: him you're saying something different, Like you don't need to
Speaker 1: be this dramatic and make it a level ten need
Speaker 1: in order to convince them like you're the lead of
Speaker 1: the show, you're the four hunder pound gorilla to be like, yo, man,
Speaker 1: need I need a different line. You don't even have
Speaker 1: to say better. You can say it better if you
Speaker 1: don't want to worry about their feelings. But you can
Speaker 1: just say a man need a different line there, and
Speaker 1: it has just as much weight and so it was
Speaker 1: a rib on me. But I brought it to to
Speaker 1: Glenn and he does his thing, and he does what
Speaker 1: he does right, and here's the difference you'll see in
Speaker 1: like some of the writers. So he kills it and
Speaker 1: everyone goes, oh, great bromo, Freddy, great bromo. I'm like, man,
Speaker 1: I didn't do anything like it. It's the same speech
Speaker 1: he's made a hundred times. It's just you know, different
Speaker 1: bourbons that's on that's on him. The next week they
Speaker 1: gave the same storyline promo to someone else because I
Speaker 1: was just trying to help out. They were busy and
Speaker 1: worn down. On that week's episode, Kane does his thing
Speaker 1: and kills it, and the writer in chargees like, hey, Freddy,
Speaker 1: did you see my promo? Which thing? Man? I was like,
Speaker 1: you feel like looking for a compliment. You didn't say nothing.
Speaker 1: This dude said it. So there was a lot of
Speaker 1: There was a lot of insecurity and ego in that room.
Speaker 1: And it wasn't just because I was there. I mean
Speaker 1: that that's just a that's a personality trait that he
Speaker 1: either exists or it doesn't, and you either grow out
Speaker 1: of it or you don't write. And a lot of
Speaker 1: these guys probably grew out of it, and a few
Speaker 1: of them probably didn't. We're gonna end with Vince McMahon.
Speaker 1: But to get there, the best perspective I ever got
Speaker 1: on the man was from Chris Jericho, and Chris was
Speaker 1: always really cool to me. He didn't have to be.
Speaker 1: We didn't work together. There was no reason for us too.
Speaker 1: He was high quality actor. Forget the fact that he's
Speaker 1: one of the best wrestlers ever. Forget all that he
Speaker 1: didn't need any help writing a promo. He didn't need
Speaker 1: any help with direction on how to execute a promo.
Speaker 1: So there was no reason for for he and I
Speaker 1: to talk outside of me asking questions about, you know,
Speaker 1: the history of wrestling, you know the matches he was
Speaker 1: in promos that he had done, just so I could
Speaker 1: gain information. Right, So I'm sitting and I'm talking to
Speaker 1: him after a match, and uh, he was. I remember
Speaker 1: his trunks they were like blue with like sparkles on him,
Speaker 1: and he was. He was in a run with John
Speaker 1: Cena that culminated in Boston, And this was the week
Speaker 1: before that, and we were talking about Vince and this
Speaker 1: idea that I had to to get one of the
Speaker 1: smaller wrestlers over, which which was Kofi. And we'll get
Speaker 1: into that storyline in another episode, which is the Kofe
Speaker 1: Gauntlet match, which they took years later. In turn, didn't
Speaker 1: do the Kofe Gotlin match that got him the World Championship.
Speaker 1: The one we came up with was simply pitched for
Speaker 1: him to win the Intercontinental Championship. So I was talking
Speaker 1: to him and he said this one sentence that I'll
Speaker 1: never forget. He said, Vince is his father's son. And
Speaker 1: I said, what did that? What? What is that? What
Speaker 1: does that mean? I knew nothing about Vince's dad outside
Speaker 1: of the fact that Vince got the company from him,
Speaker 1: you know, years ago, and and and did like some
Speaker 1: hard business, but business he felt that had to be
Speaker 1: done right. And he goes. Vince's dad only liked the
Speaker 1: big guys. He never he never pushed a small guy ever.
Speaker 1: He just didn't. He didn't believe that a small guy
Speaker 1: could be the big guy. He goes, and that's Vince's son.
Speaker 1: He goes, and he believes that. He goes. I can
Speaker 1: show him a million UFC tapes. I can show him,
Speaker 1: you know, a million instances where a smaller guy goes,
Speaker 1: he has said. But outside of you know, a handful
Speaker 1: of of choices that he's made over the years with
Speaker 1: Ray and with Sean, things like that goes. He just doesn't.
Speaker 1: He doesn't believe in the smaller guys. I said, yeah, man,
Speaker 1: but you had all all the titles, he said, I
Speaker 1: didn't have him for a long and I was sitting
Speaker 1: there and it kind of it didn't hit me right away,
Speaker 1: but on the plane going home, I never knew my
Speaker 1: dad right, so I didn't connect with with what he
Speaker 1: was saying at first. And then as I was going home,
Speaker 1: and I was always trying to think of I was
Speaker 1: always trying to figure Vince out. And there's no figuring
Speaker 1: anyone out completely, but I was always trying to figure
Speaker 1: out where his head was at and what would be
Speaker 1: the best way for me to get my ideas over
Speaker 1: to contemporize the business, so to speak, right, And I
Speaker 1: feeled a lot, regrettably. I don't have an issue saying
Speaker 1: it now it's ten years later, but it sucked. You know,
Speaker 1: Failing in a segment is one thing. Failing in a pitch,
Speaker 1: for whatever reason, always hurts me more. Right, It's like
Speaker 1: the infancy of an idea that you're rejecting as opposed
Speaker 1: to the totality of it. I'm sitting on the plane
Speaker 1: and I started thinking about the father figures that I had.
Speaker 1: My uncle James, I call him jimmy uncle Jim, my godfather,
Speaker 1: Bob Wall, my uncle Ron de Blasio, who was my
Speaker 1: father's manager, Richard Pryor's manager. He was the one that
Speaker 1: got me hip to the business real quick. He was
Speaker 1: the one that taught me the phrase it's show business,
Speaker 1: which words bigger. That phrase came from Ron de Blasio,
Speaker 1: and he didn't get it from anyone else. He's just
Speaker 1: been in the game. That was Prince's manager. Y'all, remember Prince.
Speaker 1: Everybody knows Prince, yet that was his manager. The guy's
Speaker 1: seen everything. Anytime I had questions about Hollywood, not the
Speaker 1: side quest, but I always went to him before my
Speaker 1: own agents are managers. Just because Ron's seen everything, He's
Speaker 1: dealt with everyone, I could get a better sense of
Speaker 1: how to enter a negotiation with Warner Brothers because they're
Speaker 1: notoriously the most evil, disgusting negotiators in the world. You'll
Speaker 1: be worth a million bucks, they'll offer you a hundred
Speaker 1: grand and and act like you should be thankful. And
Speaker 1: you gotta figure out the people to speak to, when
Speaker 1: to speak to them, to walk away, to not even respond,
Speaker 1: and how they'll react to that. And I always wanted
Speaker 1: to be able to be three fourths. I told you,
Speaker 1: I want to know how Vince thinks. I would want
Speaker 1: to know how these studios would think and operate, and
Speaker 1: so I would always talk to people who had who
Speaker 1: had dealt with them before any time I had a
Speaker 1: big negotiation, which is why I always got those bumps
Speaker 1: before to the rest of the actors, and all you
Speaker 1: other actors should thank me for helping raise your quotes
Speaker 1: in the nineties. It's because you know it's not Reese
Speaker 1: Witherspoon I think is credit for that one. I start
Speaker 1: applying that to me, which helps me then apply my
Speaker 1: philosophies to Vince and the w w E was making.
Speaker 1: This leads us to our final story and to close.
Speaker 1: They were making movies, and I'm not gonna say they
Speaker 1: were good movies, but I can say that because I've
Speaker 1: been in some dogs myself. Y'all aren't allowed to say that,
Speaker 1: or you're just haters. Dylan is allowed to have opinions anymore,
Speaker 1: so they weren't necessarily great, but they were making movies,
Speaker 1: and they were making them for five million dollars a pop,
Speaker 1: which limits the type of movie you can make, limits
Speaker 1: how good it can look, limits the level of talent
Speaker 1: you can get. Money helps make a good movie. Granted
Speaker 1: you can pull it off without We've all seen some
Speaker 1: great movies made for a million dollars or less considerably less,
Speaker 1: but for the most part, money can help you get
Speaker 1: the technology and the talent at the levels you want.
Speaker 1: So five million back then got you what it got you.
Speaker 1: And they weren't getting distribution. They were relying on the
Speaker 1: Walmart DVD distribution deal that they had. They weren't even
Speaker 1: attempting to go to theaters because they were making enough
Speaker 1: money off the Walmart releases and Walmart had paid them
Speaker 1: in advance because they kind of had a built in audience, right.
Speaker 1: There was a writer on the creative team who was
Speaker 1: a television writer and I'm not going to say his name,
Speaker 1: but he was getting it wasn't clicking with what wrestlers
Speaker 1: needed to say and the types of stories that wrestlers
Speaker 1: could pull off, and the types of story whereas that
Speaker 1: we could pull off as a company. While having to
Speaker 1: have wrestling matches. Think about that philosophy, and that was
Speaker 1: this guy's philosophy. You have these matches are really affecting
Speaker 1: the story. It's like, nah, dog, you're supposed to service
Speaker 1: the matches is a wrestling show. That's why Bruce every
Speaker 1: week would be like, it's a lot of talk. It's
Speaker 1: a lot of talk. And he was dead on, by
Speaker 1: the way. So this guy asked Vince if he could
Speaker 1: transition from the creative team to the film division because
Speaker 1: he had experience in film. Now he had experience in television,
Speaker 1: but not really experience in film. This gentleman. Now, I
Speaker 1: respect the man's hustle, but this was a hustle just
Speaker 1: the same. He started selling his own scripts under a
Speaker 1: different name, a pen name what you're allowed to do
Speaker 1: to the w w E, and then was producing his
Speaker 1: own movie himself and paying himself to do it. And
Speaker 1: I saw this right away, right right. I know a
Speaker 1: Hollywood hustle when I see one. And Vince, like I said,
Speaker 1: when you don't have a dad and people call you
Speaker 1: a son, it has an effect on you as a
Speaker 1: young man. I'm forty five. Now you can call me son.
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna do anything you ask me to do.
Speaker 1: I'm old and cranky, so I didn't. I felt like
Speaker 1: there was advantage being taken of. I felt like he
Speaker 1: should have just said, hey, I wrote this great script,
Speaker 1: let's make it, and Vince would have said yeah. He
Speaker 1: would have said yes, but I didn't like that there
Speaker 1: was this subversive element to it. So we're on the
Speaker 1: tarmac in White Plains, New York, which is the home
Speaker 1: base of the w W E jet, and we're getting
Speaker 1: ready to fly. I think to New Orleans, and everybody's
Speaker 1: bags are out there, and I have my car. Is there.
Speaker 1: I get out of the car. I'm on the phone
Speaker 1: talking to the wife. I see Vince's limo pull up,
Speaker 1: and that's usually means it's time to get your ass
Speaker 1: on the plane. Let's go in and say waiting on
Speaker 1: nobody and I go, hey, babe, the boss is here.
Speaker 1: I'm out. I love you about click the phone off.
Speaker 1: I'll walk straight up to Vince. I go, hey, man,
Speaker 1: before we get on the plane, I gotta tell you something.
Speaker 1: I said, you guys are making these five million dollar movies.
Speaker 1: This guy is selling you scripts that would not sell
Speaker 1: in Hollywood. That I'm sure he's tried to sell a
Speaker 1: dozen times and everyone passed on. And you're paying him
Speaker 1: for something like that and then paying him to make
Speaker 1: his own movie. I said, that's five movies a year
Speaker 1: at five million dollars a piece, or maybe it was
Speaker 1: four four movies a year at four at five million
Speaker 1: dollars a piece. Vince, he looks me dead in the face.
Speaker 1: He goes, Freddie, it's twenty million dollars. Get on the
Speaker 1: fucking plane. And I literally my jaw must have hit
Speaker 1: the girl. I looked at him and said, can I
Speaker 1: have that job? And he started laughing, slapped me on
Speaker 1: the back, and I got my ass on the plane
Speaker 1: and we flew to wherever we flew toto a match
Speaker 1: and the whole flat I'm sitting there like, that's a billionaire,
Speaker 1: that's a bill, that's that's what a billionaires. I never
Speaker 1: I knew Vince a little bit at that point, so
Speaker 1: he was more comfortable to bullish ship and and and
Speaker 1: chat a bit. But to hear someone say that the
Speaker 1: way like if someone's like, hey, whatever your might, Hey Mike,
Speaker 1: can I borrow some money? A normal amount of money?
Speaker 1: You could lend somebody, what fifty bucks for me? If
Speaker 1: a Boddy was like, Hey, I need some money. I
Speaker 1: probably have a little bit more than I hook it up.
Speaker 1: Hey man, I get five million dollars for a movie.
Speaker 1: He couldn't we do that four more times? Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: that's the million dollars cares the whole flight. That's all
Speaker 1: I'm thinking about. I'm sitting there like, he ain't even
Speaker 1: this dude ain't even gonna get fired. It's probably knew
Speaker 1: it was a hustle. He just doesn't care. He's got
Speaker 1: the money from Walmart already, so it doesn't even matter
Speaker 1: if the movie makes a dime, so screw it. And
Speaker 1: it was just that I never I've never looked at
Speaker 1: my finances that way, even if I was in a
Speaker 1: position to, I don't. I don't think I could do that,
Speaker 1: But who knows, maybe I would be the exact same way. Anyhow,
Speaker 1: storytime is concluding. I hope you guys have fun. I
Speaker 1: really am enjoying this podcast, and I'm really having a
Speaker 1: lot of fun talking with you guys. I like when
Speaker 1: y'all hit me up on on social media. I really
Speaker 1: enjoyed the conversations. Uh, you don't have to agree with
Speaker 1: everything I say. If you have questions or or you
Speaker 1: disagree with something, feel free to hit me up. Like
Speaker 1: I said, I don't take things personally. If you're If
Speaker 1: you're rude, I'll be rude back. If you're cool, then
Speaker 1: I'll be cool. We can, we can disagree, and I can.
Speaker 1: You might even change my mind on some crap. It's
Speaker 1: been a while. We're gonna have Chris Jericho on, who
Speaker 1: is has so much knowledge of the business on a
Speaker 1: on a global scale, and for people that aren't even
Speaker 1: wrestling fans, we're gonna talk about a lot of the
Speaker 1: business of wrestling, the legit and some of the illegitimate stuff,
Speaker 1: and we're gonna get into it on a on a
Speaker 1: deep level. And he's a really cool guy to speak
Speaker 1: to on that, about how the Arenas make money, who
Speaker 1: runs the Arenas Sometimes it's the mob. So there's there's
Speaker 1: a lot of deep stuff that we can talk about
Speaker 1: and have some fun with. So even if you're not
Speaker 1: that into wrestling, you might be into some scandalous stories.
Speaker 1: But for those of you who are, it's Chris Jericho.
Speaker 1: We're gonna talk wrestling outside of that. I love talking
Speaker 1: to you guys. I'll see you guys again next week
Speaker 1: right here. On wrestling with Freddy. This has been a
Speaker 1: production of I heart Radio's Michael Tura podcast Network. For
Speaker 1: more podcasts for my heart Radio, visit the i heart
Speaker 1: Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your
Speaker 1: favorite shows. H m hm