Speaker 1: M h. Hello everybody, Welcome back to WWF Wrestling with Freddy.
Speaker 1: I'm your host, Freddie Prince Jr. And uh, thanks for
Speaker 1: coming back to here another episode. We've had a couple
Speaker 1: of guests that I believe I have shown you guys
Speaker 1: wrestlers are people too. Um No, they're actually nerds and
Speaker 1: giant dorks. But I love them because I happen to
Speaker 1: be one two. If you haven't heard the other episodes
Speaker 1: in you're new to it, go back. We've had a
Speaker 1: couple of guests and I tell a lot of stories
Speaker 1: about my time at the w w E. I was
Speaker 1: there post Get the f Out and uh, I hope
Speaker 1: you guys enjoyed today's episode because today is all about
Speaker 1: the w w E plane, gorgeous black with the red stripe.
Speaker 1: But we're gonna talk about stories on the plane today
Speaker 1: and I'll probably get sidetracked a little bit as well,
Speaker 1: and we'll talk about other random stuff. But without any
Speaker 1: further delays, let's start the show now. Stumping up to
Speaker 1: the mic, the host for Wrestling with Freddy, Freddy jun, Yeah,
Speaker 1: aren't you guys. So to start this episode, we have
Speaker 1: to talk about Scooby Doo. I had to go to
Speaker 1: a press thing. The cast of Scoop, the whole cast
Speaker 1: had to go, and they flew us to Cancun, Mexico.
Speaker 1: And the international rules dictate that whatever state in America
Speaker 1: you crossed the border on on an international flight, you
Speaker 1: have to land at the nearest airport to go through customs.
Speaker 1: So for a private jet, and this was I think
Speaker 1: Kevin Costner's jet and Kevin Costner's pilot, our closest from
Speaker 1: there was some small town in Texas, South Texas from Cancun.
Speaker 1: So we're coming in and it is turbulent is not
Speaker 1: the word. The winds are crazy. This plane is We
Speaker 1: felt like the Gilligan's Island ship, like the Chinese ship
Speaker 1: was that was us. So we're literally swerving back and
Speaker 1: forth like the Viking ship at the State Fair, and
Speaker 1: you can't see anything out the window. Sarah's hand is
Speaker 1: on my hand and it's gripped tight like nails through skin.
Speaker 1: My left hand, I'm in the window seat on the
Speaker 1: left side, is gripped to the arm rest, my nails
Speaker 1: into its poor skin, and I'm looking out the window
Speaker 1: and all of a sudden I see the ground except
Speaker 1: not beneath me. I'm looking directly at the ground. The
Speaker 1: plane is about to land sideways on the left wing,
Speaker 1: and my face is about to go through the tarmatic.
Speaker 1: And at the last second, I'm not exaggerating at I
Speaker 1: don't even I've never even told the story. At the
Speaker 1: last second, the plane corrects itself. This pilot was a
Speaker 1: jet corrects itself. And we were coming in hot. We
Speaker 1: came in, We came in hot, and we're sliding and
Speaker 1: slipping and the plane lands, no damage, no anything outside
Speaker 1: of you know, the six and a half years it
Speaker 1: took off my life from the scarring of my heart.
Speaker 1: So we have to get off the plane. Everybody's freaked out,
Speaker 1: and now we have to get right back on the plane,
Speaker 1: take off through this weather, and and get back to
Speaker 1: l A. So I'm freaking out, like, yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: I trust the pilot now more than any human, more
Speaker 1: than my wife. But still like we almost died. So
Speaker 1: we get back on the plane. We made it through customs,
Speaker 1: by the way, we were totally legit and totally legal,
Speaker 1: and we land in Los Angeles and I vow to
Speaker 1: never fly on a small plane again. It's just life
Speaker 1: is too precious. So a few months later, I get
Speaker 1: this job at w W E. The very first plane
Speaker 1: that I have to get on isn't Vince's. I hadn't
Speaker 1: earned that that seat yet, right, But it's a tiny
Speaker 1: ass plane. I'm sitting on it and all I can
Speaker 1: see is the tarmac of I don't Laredo, Texas, whatever
Speaker 1: airport it was, and I see my death and I
Speaker 1: legit get up and there's other employees w W employees
Speaker 1: on this plane. I was like, yeah, I'm not taking
Speaker 1: this plane. I'm gonna take a train and I'm gonna
Speaker 1: see you guys there. I'm out, and I d boarded
Speaker 1: the plane got off and they were like, yo, are
Speaker 1: you seriously? Like, I'm out. I'm not gonna be late
Speaker 1: the shows tomorrow. I'm not getting on this airplane. I
Speaker 1: don't tell anyone the story I just told you guys,
Speaker 1: because I'm not trying to be on this coffin with
Speaker 1: wings for another second. So I get off, take a
Speaker 1: train from Grand Central Terminal, not Grand Central Station, Grand
Speaker 1: Central Terminal, and uh. I take the train to Virginia
Speaker 1: and we do our Monday night raw and everything's cool.
Speaker 1: The train ride goes so well that within three months
Speaker 1: of me doing this, there's an entire new plan in
Speaker 1: the writer's room where all East Coast trips, where the
Speaker 1: train right is four hours or less, the writers are
Speaker 1: gonna take a train. Uh that was me that pulled
Speaker 1: that off. I love trains, I always have, and all
Speaker 1: the writers did too, because you have way more room
Speaker 1: to work when you're on the road. You're writing all
Speaker 1: the time, you're rewriting promos at two in the morning.
Speaker 1: You guys are writing in a laptop. They were not
Speaker 1: high tech back then. They were ghetto. I worked there,
Speaker 1: I think and oh oh nine oh seven something like that,
Speaker 1: so you get the idea of technology was not what
Speaker 1: it is now, and it's brutal. When you're on the train.
Speaker 1: You got a table. Forget that you have room and comfort,
Speaker 1: you have a table to work at. So all the
Speaker 1: writers loved it and they stayed committed to it. And
Speaker 1: then my ask got promoted to the jet, which isn't promotion,
Speaker 1: but isn't because it's crazy on the jet too. So
Speaker 1: I got off the train and they said you're gonna
Speaker 1: fly on the jet and I'm sweating when they tell me,
Speaker 1: they go vince. Once you're on the jet, it's like,
Speaker 1: oh man, all right, okay, and just my my arm
Speaker 1: pits are sweating right now. And I ain't even afraid
Speaker 1: of flying anymore thanks to Vince. Actually, you just kept
Speaker 1: making me do it till I wasn't scared of it anymore.
Speaker 1: So I get on the jet and the first thing
Speaker 1: Vin says to me when he gets on, he says,
Speaker 1: I heard you had a bit of a problem on
Speaker 1: the last plane, with a smirk like, yeah, man, I'm
Speaker 1: not I'm not big on planes. And this is who
Speaker 1: I tell this story too, and he goes, I don't worry.
Speaker 1: I got a better pilot than him anyway. So he uh,
Speaker 1: he's very much long before the pandemic, very anti germ.
Speaker 1: And there's more hand sanitizer on this airplane than there
Speaker 1: are bottles of water. So everyone's sanitizing their hands and
Speaker 1: Vince finishes his and he holds out the sanitizer for
Speaker 1: me to sanitize my hands, and I go, oh, that's nice,
Speaker 1: and I put my hands out and he just starts
Speaker 1: squeezing the damn bottle and doesn't stop, and it's just
Speaker 1: it's just ounce after olence after ounce, and I'm looking
Speaker 1: at him and I'm not gonna move my hands, because
Speaker 1: I can't have him dump crap all over his plane
Speaker 1: held get mad. So I just sit there and eyeball him.
Speaker 1: I don't even look in my hands. I just eyeball
Speaker 1: him the whole time until he finally goes uh and
Speaker 1: it's out. It's one of those small like pure l bottles. Right,
Speaker 1: It's finally out, and I have this huge glob of
Speaker 1: of sanitizer in my hand. So I walked back to
Speaker 1: the bathroom, slopping into the sink. I come back and
Speaker 1: he's chuckling, and he's just doing that to help me
Speaker 1: relax and uh, not worry so much about the flight.
Speaker 1: I see him side on me a couple of times
Speaker 1: on the takeoff and landing and just kind of nod.
Speaker 1: It was really good to me. They were all really
Speaker 1: good to me. So we land and where I think
Speaker 1: it was probably Cleveland. This is during the Misses push.
Speaker 1: The stories I'm gonna tell you today are during the
Speaker 1: Misses push to his first w w E Championship at
Speaker 1: WrestleMania in Atlanta, where they did the giant white letters
Speaker 1: all awesome for his for his entrance. He may have
Speaker 1: already been champ at WrestleMania or that was where he wanted.
Speaker 1: You'll you guys will remember, you have better You're better
Speaker 1: historians than I am. So we're flying to U. We're
Speaker 1: flying to Cleveland. I lived, thankfully. I'm here now talking
Speaker 1: to you, and I'm starting to relax a little bit.
Speaker 1: And the plane is no joke. It's it's work all
Speaker 1: the time. I mean all the time. I remember once
Speaker 1: I opened my laptop and I had downloaded one of
Speaker 1: Richard Pryor's specials, Richard Pryor Live on the Sunset Strip.
Speaker 1: This was after his accident. He had been humbled big time.
Speaker 1: And most comics when they record a special, they do
Speaker 1: it two nights in a row, and they'll edit between
Speaker 1: the two or just choose the best one. The first
Speaker 1: one Richard did side Quest. It bombed. He for whatever reason.
Speaker 1: My dad's manager was Richard's manager. So that's why I
Speaker 1: know this story. I knew Richard very well, not very well,
Speaker 1: but I knew him. So it died and he was
Speaker 1: okay with it, but he was nervous. And they came
Speaker 1: out and did the second one, and it's the red
Speaker 1: suit that even jokes about. And he does the match,
Speaker 1: he lights the match, he goes, what's that Richard b
Speaker 1: running down the street that it's that special, and he
Speaker 1: just kills it the second night, and that was a
Speaker 1: way for me to just kind of like deal with
Speaker 1: the airplane because I didn't enjoy being on a coffin
Speaker 1: with wings. So I open it up. I'm watching my
Speaker 1: ten minutes in and I feel this like firm thump
Speaker 1: on my shoulder and I turned around and Vince goes,
Speaker 1: what are you doing? What you mean I'm watching? Richard
Speaker 1: Perry goes, why we're watching WrestleMania. Yeah, from last year. Man,
Speaker 1: I saw it. He goes, yeah, well he's seeing that too.
Speaker 1: I go, yeah, this makes me laugh. He goes, come on,
Speaker 1: watch WrestleMania. So I legit have to turn off my
Speaker 1: laptop and watch WrestleMania from a year ago with with it.
Speaker 1: Nobody else is watching it. He's making me watch it.
Speaker 1: So I turn it off and I watch it with him,
Speaker 1: and uh, we end up getting back and this is this,
Speaker 1: This is it every time, like he'll go over the
Speaker 1: Monday Night Raw script. Never never the smack Down. He
Speaker 1: wouldn't even I don't think he read it until the
Speaker 1: morning of SmackDown if he read it. But I will
Speaker 1: say this. I know a lot of actors who do,
Speaker 1: like TV actors who don't read their scripts. They just
Speaker 1: read their dialogue memorize it. There's literally a saying in
Speaker 1: l A that goes, bullshit, bullshit, my line, my line, bullshit.
Speaker 1: I've heard it since the nineties. So not every It's
Speaker 1: not just Vince that does that. There's plenty of successful
Speaker 1: people that, God, I know what I'm doing, don't worry
Speaker 1: about it. We would always go over the raw promos
Speaker 1: everything he didn't like. And now you're rewriting on a
Speaker 1: jet and it's not like it's a train. You don't
Speaker 1: have a table to work at, like everybody's bunched up together.
Speaker 1: They squeeze as many as you're legally allowed to get
Speaker 1: on the plane, and we all these massive laptops because
Speaker 1: it wasn't like it is now, and we're trying to,
Speaker 1: you know, rewrite promos. So I did not It's not
Speaker 1: the experience that you think it's gonna that you think
Speaker 1: it's gonna be. So we uh we land and I
Speaker 1: started talking to to Roddy because I'm just when I
Speaker 1: as a kid, I just loved him so much, and
Speaker 1: we're chatting about life in the business, and he says, oh,
Speaker 1: your your dad was a stand up comedian. I oh yeah,
Speaker 1: he was Freddie Prinzi goes get the hell, and then
Speaker 1: he was oh, of course sorry, so oh yeah, yeah
Speaker 1: your name. And he starts talking to about my pops
Speaker 1: and his love for stand up comedy. So he starts
Speaker 1: talking to me about how he compares doing a promo
Speaker 1: in the ring to stand up comedy, and he starts
Speaker 1: talking about Andy Kaufman, and he starts talking at which
Speaker 1: oh side quest check this out. My pops is the
Speaker 1: only dude to ever get Andy Kaufman to break character
Speaker 1: while he was in character. So this is the seventies.
Speaker 1: If you don't know who he is, looking up. Jim
Speaker 1: Carey made a movie about him called Man in the Moon.
Speaker 1: There's probably some biographies that are more accurate. Jim Carrey
Speaker 1: is awesome though in the movie, if you want to
Speaker 1: check it out. But he did a lot of like
Speaker 1: risk ay comedy where he would just abuse people in
Speaker 1: the audience and be totally rude and disrespectful and say
Speaker 1: the most crass things and the people in the audience
Speaker 1: will get out. And this woman slapped him dead in
Speaker 1: the face and he drops dead. On the floor and
Speaker 1: that's when the audience realizes the girl was a plant
Speaker 1: and she's in on the joke, and that's why he
Speaker 1: sold the slap so hard. And when unconscious and then
Speaker 1: he pops up and the crowd would just die laughing,
Speaker 1: and he owned them and he Andy had a great
Speaker 1: run with Jerry Lawler back in the early eighties I
Speaker 1: think it was, and they just crushed it. They drew
Speaker 1: huge numbers, huge money. People loved watching it because Andy
Speaker 1: was They thought he was legit crazy. So the Melrose
Speaker 1: improv in Los Angeles, California. It's seventy four or five,
Speaker 1: I believe five, and Andy's on stage and he's tearing
Speaker 1: into this girl, I mean, just calling her every name
Speaker 1: in the book and just be rating her. And the
Speaker 1: crowd's getting hot. They're like, you know, getting mad at
Speaker 1: my dad, who was he had a father, but he
Speaker 1: was basically raised by by I don't want to disparage
Speaker 1: my grandfather, but basically a single woman, all right, So
Speaker 1: he wasn't around very much. Shout out Carl brutal. But
Speaker 1: so my dad gets crazy angry. He looks in the
Speaker 1: in the room and he sees Andy just tearing the
Speaker 1: scroll apart, and he wasn't familiar with Andy's act, and
Speaker 1: my dad goes up on stage in the middle of
Speaker 1: his bit, grabs Andy and just shakes the shift out
Speaker 1: of him, and Andy starts screaming, Friday, Friday, Friday, It's
Speaker 1: just a bit. She's no, she's with me, She's with me,
Speaker 1: and she's with me. And my dad like freaked out
Speaker 1: and he realized he just ruined a set and then
Speaker 1: literally goes to let go Andy, and Andy smashes himself
Speaker 1: into the fake brick wall and slides down onto the floor.
Speaker 1: My dad looks back and his buddy Tim Thomason tells
Speaker 1: me your dad's thought was, oh my god, I just
Speaker 1: killed Andy Kaufman. And then Andy popped up and got
Speaker 1: my pops and uh, which made my dad laugh but
Speaker 1: also pissed and uh, that was so anyway, that was
Speaker 1: the side quest. Hey, you just leveled up. But Rowdy's
Speaker 1: telling in me how comedy is is a promo in
Speaker 1: the ring and Rowdy if you don't know who Rowdy
Speaker 1: Roddy Piper is. Hey, you should be ashamed of yourselves.
Speaker 1: Be you should seriously be ashamed of yourselves and see
Speaker 1: YouTube or just watch a cool John Carpenter freaky sci
Speaker 1: fi corporation Aliens take over the World kind of movie.
Speaker 1: It's called They Live. It's with him and get Here's
Speaker 1: how small the World is. And the other actor in
Speaker 1: it is Keith David, this black dude who was the
Speaker 1: voice of Spawn on the HBO animated series. That was
Speaker 1: my dad's best friend. In high school. They went to
Speaker 1: that fake that Fame High school. I said fake because
Speaker 1: it's gonna have real classes. My wife went there the
Speaker 1: Fame High School Performing Arts whatever it's called in New York.
Speaker 1: They were doing, uh, you guys got two side quests.
Speaker 1: They were doing a performance of of Mice and Men.
Speaker 1: Lenny and I was gonna say, Liney and Bruce. That's Lenny, Bruce,
Speaker 1: Lenny and whatever. George and my dad was talking about
Speaker 1: making I'm about to make it, man, I'm about to
Speaker 1: break big. Keith David's our David. Keith is telling me
Speaker 1: this story and he has that great low voice, and
Speaker 1: he says, one day, your father didn't show up for
Speaker 1: her for school, and then he didn't show up for rehearsal,
Speaker 1: and that's when we all knew your dad made it
Speaker 1: and it was true. It was my dad got this
Speaker 1: gig in Chicago, and Richard Pryor saw my dad perform.
Speaker 1: Richard Prior discovered my father, by the way, and told
Speaker 1: his manager at the time, you know, you got to
Speaker 1: sign this kid, or you're an idiot. And so he
Speaker 1: signed him and the rest was history. So I tell
Speaker 1: you this story because Rowdy in like the next part
Speaker 1: of his life, or that final chapter of his life,
Speaker 1: I should say, because he's no longer with us rest
Speaker 1: and power. He became a stand up comedian and he
Speaker 1: would do listen. He only had about five minutes of
Speaker 1: material that would that would get you. He would do
Speaker 1: ten sometimes well, so you know, he didn't get a
Speaker 1: lot of you know, comedy love from the clubs because
Speaker 1: it just wasn't at the level that you know, a
Speaker 1: lot of the other people were doing it. But he
Speaker 1: would catch you with like two or three stories, and
Speaker 1: even if the crowd wasn't a wrestling fan, if if
Speaker 1: there could have been none in there, but he was
Speaker 1: such a beautiful storyteller that he would grab you and
Speaker 1: he would do these voices and he could own that
Speaker 1: crowd for a couple of minutes. And I went to
Speaker 1: see him one night with a buddy of mine. And
Speaker 1: it was actually at the Improv which my dad helped
Speaker 1: open back when when it first came out here in
Speaker 1: Los Angeles. I'm sitting there with this executive producer from
Speaker 1: the Conan O'Brien show who loved wrestling and love comedy
Speaker 1: just like me. So we've gotten to a lot of
Speaker 1: both types of shows together. And uh, We're sitting there
Speaker 1: and we're watching him, and I'm almost crying. And it's
Speaker 1: not because it was so funny or so bad. It
Speaker 1: was just to see him doing what he didn't think
Speaker 1: he could do, but respected so much to the point
Speaker 1: that he compared it to what he did. That's just
Speaker 1: one more person that that Rowdy Piper whose life Rowdy
Speaker 1: Piper touched, and not just as a kid, but as
Speaker 1: an adult too. And that's what these wrestlers are there artists.
Speaker 1: For me, it's it's it's the literal I've said this before,
Speaker 1: the literal blood, sweat, and tears on a literal canvas.
Speaker 1: And that's a massive sacrifice. Man. Guys like Mankind, Cactus Jack,
Speaker 1: you guys always McK foley probably. I mean, that type
Speaker 1: of sacrifice is wild and for some people they can't
Speaker 1: watch it right. Meryl Street hates the UFC. She doesn't
Speaker 1: understand it's mixed martial arts and there's an art and
Speaker 1: there's a beauty to a perfectly executed technique. You're just
Speaker 1: either hip to that form of art or you are
Speaker 1: not hip to that form of art. I like She Devil.
Speaker 1: I thought Meryl Streep was great in it. No one
Speaker 1: else did. Nobody saw that movie. So which one of
Speaker 1: us is wrong? You know what I mean? Nobody? They're
Speaker 1: picassos that IM like. It's that doesn't really do anything
Speaker 1: for me? How dare you sorry? I like Modri anymore.
Speaker 1: So that was sort of the the impetus is that
Speaker 1: the right word for me to even do the podcast is?
Speaker 1: I really wanted to showcase what I learned about the
Speaker 1: wrestling business, and what I loved most about the wrestling
Speaker 1: business was that it's all art. It's not always it's
Speaker 1: not always good. But I've seen episodes of Law in
Speaker 1: Order where I was like, I've seen movies where I
Speaker 1: was like, yeah, I wouldn't ever watch that again. I've
Speaker 1: walked out of movies. You have to so careful with
Speaker 1: your criticism, although a lot of it is valid. I'm
Speaker 1: just saying careful, So I'm riding on the airplane now,
Speaker 1: and give me a day off. By the way, I
Speaker 1: got raw off so that I could uh just kind
Speaker 1: of deal with my own crap. So I get back
Speaker 1: in the office and wait, can I even tek? Okay?
Speaker 1: I can talk? So free Bird calls me into his office.
Speaker 1: Michael hayes, I can tell it, and he says, uh, Freddy,
Speaker 1: I gotta ask you a question, and he looks concerned.
Speaker 1: I go, what's up? Man? He goes, you didn't, uh,
Speaker 1: you didn't take a poop on Vincus plane, did you?
Speaker 1: I said, what are you talking about? He says, there's
Speaker 1: no poops on the plane. I said, of course I didn't.
Speaker 1: What are you talking about, man, I didn't even use
Speaker 1: the restroom. He goes, well, someone did, and I have
Speaker 1: to find out who. And he's not laughing when he
Speaker 1: says that. Okay, he's piste off, Like what kind of
Speaker 1: job assignment is that? I gotta find out who took
Speaker 1: a ship on my boss's plane. Freaking the best agent
Speaker 1: in the company. I come up with the greatest finishes.
Speaker 1: At least when I was there, all the fans favorite
Speaker 1: finishes were either free Birds or belle ages and usually
Speaker 1: it was a combination of both, and it wasn't anyone else's.
Speaker 1: And he's having to find out who took a poop
Speaker 1: on the plane. Now we'll say this. He never found
Speaker 1: out who it was. But I did I know exactly
Speaker 1: who it was because the dude ratted himself out in
Speaker 1: my hotel room where a group of writers were all
Speaker 1: hanging out and a couple of wrestlers, and literally as
Speaker 1: soon as he said it, two of the other writers
Speaker 1: were in there, and he jumped up and he goes,
Speaker 1: if you tell anyone, anyone, I swear to God. And
Speaker 1: we all had a good laugh. So remember there's no
Speaker 1: poops on the plate. I've been there, and uh, I'm writing.
Speaker 1: And there was this other writer next to me who
Speaker 1: I didn't talk to about this episode, so I won't
Speaker 1: say his name. And he's talking about this show and
Speaker 1: I looked over at him and he goes, yeah, man,
Speaker 1: I love this show. I can't even say the name
Speaker 1: of the show. You'll know in a second. And I said, dude,
Speaker 1: I I wrote that. He said what. I go, yeah, man,
Speaker 1: I wrote that episode. He was no, you didn't. I
Speaker 1: probably swear to god I didn't I didn't write it
Speaker 1: under my name. It's called ghostwriting. And he goes, what
Speaker 1: are you talking about? I go, where you make more
Speaker 1: money ghostwriting than selling your own damn scripts some of
Speaker 1: the time. I said, I literally the only reason I
Speaker 1: know this. I don't know the show. I've never seen it,
Speaker 1: but the episode you're describing is literally the episode that
Speaker 1: I wrote. He said, what the hell are you talking about?
Speaker 1: I said, I wrote under a ghost name. It is
Speaker 1: called William Ramirez. William Ramirez was my Papu's name in
Speaker 1: Puerto Rico, and he was I think I've told you
Speaker 1: about him before. He was big, like a pro wrestler,
Speaker 1: was a butcher in San Juan, and nobody wanted to
Speaker 1: I was writing these scripts and I couldn't even get
Speaker 1: him read because of like the businesses perspective on Scooby Doo. Right,
Speaker 1: a lot of you saw Scooby Doo and you loved
Speaker 1: it kids, but the studios they looked at it much different. Right.
Speaker 1: It was the original script. I got in trouble for
Speaker 1: saying this a while ago, and then James and echoed
Speaker 1: it a few years later, and everyone was like, oh,
Speaker 1: the courage. So the first script was very much PG.
Speaker 1: Thirteen for Scooby side quests and uh, and that's what
Speaker 1: got everybody excited about it. A lot of the innuendo
Speaker 1: and the hints that were there over the years, they
Speaker 1: James wrote them in in a very slick way, right.
Speaker 1: And then the studio wanted to make the movie g
Speaker 1: rated to allow or pig, to allow all kids to
Speaker 1: go without any like parents freaking out and stuff. And
Speaker 1: they were worried about drug references and and homosexual references
Speaker 1: and things like that. So as a publicly traded company,
Speaker 1: I guess it's a legitimate concern that the w W
Speaker 1: has never feared it. But we all land in Australia
Speaker 1: and all of a sudden we have a different script,
Speaker 1: and I'm gonna say oho, A couple of the actors
Speaker 1: were like yo, Well one of them was me, I
Speaker 1: want to say. The other one was was like, yo,
Speaker 1: is in what I sawt en up for? And uh,
Speaker 1: we were good soldiers and and we did our we
Speaker 1: did our thing. But because of that, after that movie,
Speaker 1: a lot of people were interested in my scripts before it,
Speaker 1: and then afterwards they were like, I just does kids
Speaker 1: movies now, we don't want to read it. So I
Speaker 1: legit used a fake name, William Ramirez, and I sold
Speaker 1: like three scripts in one year, and that I put
Speaker 1: my name by the way, one of the deals went
Speaker 1: away when they found out that it was me. All
Speaker 1: of a sudden, they had all these notes that they
Speaker 1: didn't have the week before because the guy from Scooby
Speaker 1: wouldn't know how to write a script. So anyway, I'm
Speaker 1: sitting there and I'm writing this segment and its first
Speaker 1: SmackDown and he goes, what are you writing? And I said,
Speaker 1: I'm doing this thing for for Jeff Hardy And he
Speaker 1: said what is it? And I said, I was told
Speaker 1: not to say anything. So Freebird had come up to
Speaker 1: me a couple, uh, probably weeks prior, and he said, uh,
Speaker 1: DJ has an idea, wants to try to make Jeff
Speaker 1: Champ talking about Jeff Hardy and it's not gonna happen.
Speaker 1: They have to understand Michael brought Matt and Jeff Hardy
Speaker 1: into the w W E. They're his boy, they're his babies. Okay.
Speaker 1: He has fought for them. I mean he fought for
Speaker 1: them every damn day that I was there, and from
Speaker 1: what I was told, he fought for them every damn
Speaker 1: day before and after. He loves those guys. He would
Speaker 1: kill for those guys. He would lie in court. Will
Speaker 1: he probably in court for any of us, but he
Speaker 1: would like in court for those guys. And a loyal
Speaker 1: freebird is the baddest bird owner. Okay, so he's telling me, look,
Speaker 1: it's not gonna happen. But a lot of my promos
Speaker 1: had been getting over with the boss, and he thought
Speaker 1: maybe I would have the best shot at getting a
Speaker 1: Jeff Hardy Championship story to fruition. I tried to take
Speaker 1: the more understanding approach that I had on my father
Speaker 1: at the age I was then and apply it to
Speaker 1: Jeff so to get into that when I was young,
Speaker 1: I hated my dad like I would get so mad
Speaker 1: at him for the choices he made. He did drugs,
Speaker 1: screwed around on my mom, messed up a lot in
Speaker 1: every aspect of life, and then on my mother's birthday,
Speaker 1: but a gun to his head and the courts ruled
Speaker 1: it an accidental shooting. A lot of people call it
Speaker 1: a suicide. Um. Some people have said that there was
Speaker 1: a note, even though there wasn't a note, But that's
Speaker 1: just how these stories kind of take on the life
Speaker 1: of their own um, and the courts ruled it what
Speaker 1: they ruled it. The point is I didn't want I
Speaker 1: didn't want to understand my father at all. And then
Speaker 1: I met this woman who is still one of the
Speaker 1: most influential people I've ever met in my life as
Speaker 1: far as the effect she had on me. And her
Speaker 1: name is Pam Greer, and if you don't know who PAYM.
Speaker 1: Greer is, you need to google her. In the seventies,
Speaker 1: as far as the power of beauty went, she had
Speaker 1: more of it than any other woman on the planet.
Speaker 1: Every man loved her. That wasn't racist, and even though
Speaker 1: probably did, and every woman respected her because she portrayed strength.
Speaker 1: If you've read her biography, If you haven't, you should.
Speaker 1: She talks about my father a lot, and it she
Speaker 1: talks about Richard Bryor and Kareem Abdul Jabbar, the three
Speaker 1: loves of her life. I started to speak to her
Speaker 1: and I learned a lot more about who my father was.
Speaker 1: My family, of course, would try to protect the child
Speaker 1: right and when you're a junior, you have to remember
Speaker 1: you basically exist as a statue to honor that which
Speaker 1: walked before you. It's very difficult any junior out there
Speaker 1: can relate. You usually are pushed or leaned somehow into
Speaker 1: your predecessor's profession. You're compared to the value of the
Speaker 1: name that came before you all the time. And I
Speaker 1: think Pam knew that. And instead of protecting me, she
Speaker 1: was very honest, and she told me about how much
Speaker 1: she loved my father, why she loved my father. She
Speaker 1: talked about what a fool he was with money, the
Speaker 1: types of choices and mistakes he made. And in the seventies,
Speaker 1: a lot of people made those choices and mistakes, but
Speaker 1: a lot of them are just choices. The great M. V.
Speaker 1: P Will tell you that choice is not mistakes. First
Speaker 1: of all, just meeting Pam Greer, and I'm not trying
Speaker 1: to be funny, but any man will understand this. I
Speaker 1: was like, yeah, I mean, it's so he's you know,
Speaker 1: so he so he fooled around, you know, it's Pam Greer.
Speaker 1: And I'm not trying to be a jerk about it,
Speaker 1: but there's just something amazing about her, you know, there's
Speaker 1: just something captivating about her. And they were also they
Speaker 1: had a relationship before he even knew my mother as well.
Speaker 1: So she starts breaking it down, and she breaks down
Speaker 1: the need for artists to medicate. You just have to
Speaker 1: hope they find the right medicine. And your father never did.
Speaker 1: And that hit hard, so hard that I wanted to
Speaker 1: write it into a wrestling storyline, but I did, And
Speaker 1: it started off with a number between him and m
Speaker 1: v P, who's uh still a dear friend of mine
Speaker 1: to this day, and I hope to have mine as
Speaker 1: a guest. So I don't want to share too many
Speaker 1: MVP stories because I'd rather him tell him, because he's
Speaker 1: just he's a better storyteller than I am. You know,
Speaker 1: people think I made movies in the nineties and oh
Speaker 1: how cool this and that. You know, I had two
Speaker 1: friends in high school too, okay, not three, not five,
Speaker 1: not two, and a bunch of acquaintances. Two friends. I
Speaker 1: was a dork. I didn't know who I was. I
Speaker 1: didn't have girlfriend. I didn't I broke up with a
Speaker 1: girl in the sixth grade because she kissed me on
Speaker 1: the cheek. That's how I called her. Name was Laura Eichelberger.
Speaker 1: Shout out, Laura, we love you girl, Um, sorry for
Speaker 1: breaking up with you. That was me, not you. But
Speaker 1: I was not I'm still not cool. I mean, I'm
Speaker 1: just lucky that Sarah laughs in my stories. That's the
Speaker 1: only reason she keeps me around. But if you think
Speaker 1: about it, the two guests I've had so far both
Speaker 1: played Dungeons and Dragons. One of them is a psychopath
Speaker 1: about it, and one of them loves it more than
Speaker 1: anything on earth. So do I you can. I gonna
Speaker 1: have more guests you can find out played d D
Speaker 1: two and they're gigantic, beautiful, awesome professional wrestlers. But a
Speaker 1: lot of artists are the outcasts. I think there was
Speaker 1: a line in a Robert Downey Jr. Movie that f
Speaker 1: Gary Gray directed, and I can't remember the name, but
Speaker 1: he said, it's like someone on the East Coast grabbed
Speaker 1: it by the edge, shook the ship out of it,
Speaker 1: and all the insecure, weak people ended up in Los Angeles.
Speaker 1: And that's true because it's a city of dreamers. So
Speaker 1: it's all the dreamers from these small towns that feel
Speaker 1: that they need something bigger than that. It's all these
Speaker 1: dreamers from other places that go Hollywood's or New York
Speaker 1: Is where my dreams can come true and they have
Speaker 1: the guts and the courage to go after that. That's
Speaker 1: the wrestler's life. Now it's a little different with n
Speaker 1: x T. You're getting paid to learn how to wrestle.
Speaker 1: Now that's a that's a privilege. Okay, I'm not getting
Speaker 1: paid to go on auditions to act, and a lot
Speaker 1: of wrestlers aren't getting paid to go, you know, on
Speaker 1: the road, drive eight hours to get somewhere to do
Speaker 1: a match. That won't pay for the gas that they
Speaker 1: used to get there. But they need the work, they
Speaker 1: need the experience that that takes courage. It takes courage
Speaker 1: to express yourself honestly or going personally. Now to express
Speaker 1: yourself honestly, um a lot personally, but to have the
Speaker 1: courage to do that is really hard. I'm telling you.
Speaker 1: Earlier in my career I didn't. I still I look
Speaker 1: back on my career and I've only seen three things
Speaker 1: I've done because I don't like watching movies when I
Speaker 1: know the end and I've already read the script. But
Speaker 1: I wish I could change every single moment in it.
Speaker 1: Even if people love it. It still makes me mad
Speaker 1: because I became a better actor the older I got,
Speaker 1: the more of my baggage I let go. And it's
Speaker 1: the same thing in the wrestling business. That's what the
Speaker 1: promo classes were all about. Fail here and wake up
Speaker 1: the next day, Okay, and know that I still love
Speaker 1: you and I'm still going to write for you. And
Speaker 1: I didn't send a video of your of your bad
Speaker 1: take to the boss. Everything's cool, and it allows you
Speaker 1: to fail less when the pressure is on. Like we
Speaker 1: said with with Xavier Woods, there's no such thing as luck.
Speaker 1: There's no such thing as luck. It's just about being
Speaker 1: prepared when the opportunity presents itself. And the people that
Speaker 1: went out and party the night before and at ten
Speaker 1: a m. The next day they were still in bed. Well,
Speaker 1: that's how I booked a lot of my movies, was
Speaker 1: waiting for that actor to not show up and lie
Speaker 1: about my name. But yet that's me. Yes, I'm Ryan Philippie.
Speaker 1: They you very much. Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn't.
Speaker 1: But you gotta take a shot. That's the more of
Speaker 1: today's episode. You gotta take a shot. I hope you
Speaker 1: guys like listening, but I'll speak to you guys soon.
Speaker 1: H This was a very like heartwarming episode, not one
Speaker 1: of our funnier ones, but I hope it was still
Speaker 1: meaningful to you and I hope it connected to you
Speaker 1: in some way, and if it did, you're a wrestling
Speaker 1: fan because wrestling just connected with you. So thanks for
Speaker 1: listening to Wrestling with Freddie. This has been a production
Speaker 1: of I Hearts Michael podcast Network. For more podcasts for
Speaker 1: My Heart Radio, visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. H