Speaker 1: Welcome back to Unplugged. This episode is presented to you
Speaker 1: by Draft Kings. Crown is yours. Before we get started,
Speaker 1: shout out the homie Lazy Bone. I opened up your package. Brother.
Speaker 1: This dude got like three nice T shirts. He gave
Speaker 1: me a clock like the red clock from the First
Speaker 1: of the month, videos and rolling trays. What else? I
Speaker 1: love when guests bring us gifts anyway, appreciate you, bro.
Speaker 1: Last week, we had an opportunity to sit down with
Speaker 1: the Undisputed WWE Champion, Cody Rhoades. First and foremost, it
Speaker 1: was my first time meeting I'm obviously knowing the lineage
Speaker 1: of his family and how great his dad was and
Speaker 1: having a brother in the space. My first impression he
Speaker 1: was clean, probably the most well dressed guest I've ever had,
Speaker 1: but just the energy, the charisma seemed like a really
Speaker 1: great dude. I think you guys are gonna really enjoy
Speaker 1: this interview. Take a look. Welcome back to Unplugged. Today
Speaker 1: we got a very special guest, WWE superstar Undisputed Champion
Speaker 1: the QB one him Sol Cody Rhodes. Welcome to the show.
Speaker 1: It's an honor. Hey, I have to say, man, I've
Speaker 1: been doing this show, this show and my other show
Speaker 1: for six You're definitely the cleanest one who has ever
Speaker 1: stepped in this building. Man, from head to time. I mean,
Speaker 1: I'm over here like I was wearing slippers before you
Speaker 1: came in. You made me put my shoes on. I mean,
Speaker 1: you have something in your lap right here? What is
Speaker 1: this belt? Obviously coming from a long line of great
Speaker 1: wrestlers in your family, to be at the top of
Speaker 1: the mount right now as the champion with the belt present,
Speaker 1: what does that mean to you to hold this belt?
Speaker 2: I am This is the WW Championship, the undisputed WW Championship.
Speaker 2: For me, this was this massive culmination of not just
Speaker 2: the story I had in the wrestling business, but my
Speaker 2: dad as well. And it spans not just decades, but
Speaker 2: it spans kind of my knowledge of the industry. When
Speaker 2: he goes to wrestle Superstar Billy Graham in nineteen seventy
Speaker 2: eight in Madison Square Garden, he's just a guest from Florida,
Speaker 2: and the crowd takes to him and they love him
Speaker 2: so much that he wins the match, But he wins
Speaker 2: it in a way that Superstar still left with the belt,
Speaker 2: which was the common practice of keeping the territory the
Speaker 2: way it was. I had seen this photo of him,
Speaker 2: and I had seen him holding the title, not ever
Speaker 2: knowing he had won the championship because I wasn't born
Speaker 2: to l eighty five, And he explains to me the
Speaker 2: story this is still when I think wrestling is one
Speaker 2: hundred and ten percent as real as he gets, so
Speaker 2: that it became the goal. Oh eight years old, I
Speaker 2: see this frame with this photo and him holding this title,
Speaker 2: and I thought, I have to win.
Speaker 1: It for him.
Speaker 2: And now you know, I'm forty years old and I
Speaker 2: look at the business quite differently. But I did not
Speaker 2: get my opportunity at the w Championship till I came back.
Speaker 2: For me, what it represents is the biggest title we
Speaker 2: have in our game. You know, you have your your
Speaker 2: various trophies, your you know, your Lombardi Trophy, your Stanley Cup,
Speaker 2: whatever it may be, and this is this is the
Speaker 2: one that you know can always go on last and
Speaker 2: can all He's lead the company. It means something different
Speaker 2: for different people. When John Cena had it, it meant
Speaker 2: this is the hardest working guy in the game. When
Speaker 2: Roman Reigns had it, there was this element of presentation
Speaker 2: and aura. As all the young'uns say today, it always
Speaker 2: means something a little different. And I feel we're in
Speaker 2: that stage of my career where we're identifying what it
Speaker 2: means for me.
Speaker 1: Yeah, still write in that chapter. Yeah, you also have
Speaker 1: a brother that was in the space. Well, so what
Speaker 1: was childhood like with you guys? And obviously your dad
Speaker 1: being a wrestling star other sports wrestling at time. Remember
Speaker 1: my parents used to screen stop flipping your sister and
Speaker 1: throwing your brother, like, what was what was your household?
Speaker 2: Like my oldest brother, Dustin, who was ww's gold dust
Speaker 2: and wrestle, this Dustin Rhodes. I admired him so much
Speaker 2: as a little kid because there's a sixteen year age gap. Yeah,
Speaker 2: he doesn't love me pointing it out, but there's a
Speaker 2: large there's a large age gap. And I would watch
Speaker 2: him at the Omni in Atlanta or you know making
Speaker 2: you know, the Central Plex, whatever it was, and he
Speaker 2: was the women would be going nuts for him when
Speaker 2: you go out there, and he was six six, He
Speaker 2: just he seemed like the greatest wrestler ever, And particularly
Speaker 2: I was watching him in his rookie years and knew
Speaker 2: he was gonna be something special. I admired him, wanted
Speaker 2: to be like him a great deal. That's uh. Anytime
Speaker 2: you have any family in the in the business, you know,
Speaker 2: my father and my brother the biggest thing that's important
Speaker 2: that you do. And my dad was really good on
Speaker 2: instilling this. You have to be really different than they were.
Speaker 2: You can't do you can't do tribute. You gotta you
Speaker 2: almost got to get away from your own identity. Yeah,
Speaker 2: you gotta, you know, you gotta get far. I got
Speaker 2: two nephews who are breaking in the industry, which is jarring,
Speaker 2: but they're gonna make it, and they're breaking in now.
Speaker 2: And the thing I told him was, you gotta go
Speaker 2: and train with someone who doesn't care about the road stuff.
Speaker 2: Trained with somebody who doesn't know about Austin Hall wrestling
Speaker 2: boots or the cowboy wrestlers of old. Get with you know,
Speaker 2: the like the hearts, get that different style and that
Speaker 2: different flavor it or really behoove you as you move
Speaker 2: forward in your career. But to me, growing up, it
Speaker 2: was always I felt we had a very normal life.
Speaker 2: I really did. I didn't realize how abnormal Dusty's job
Speaker 2: was until I first moved into a subdivision, and that's
Speaker 2: where other kids, you know, my dad's a salesman, my
Speaker 2: dad's a teacher, whatever it may be. They really looked
Speaker 2: at my dad just with really superhero very Yeah, but
Speaker 2: I think also a little like Adam's family, because he
Speaker 2: would mow the lawn in his dr wrestling trunks and
Speaker 2: he had these ray bands. My dad this head was
Speaker 2: like as round as this blue table, and these ray
Speaker 2: bands were basically breaking. They're sucked onto his head. You'd
Speaker 2: have to pull them with all the force in the world.
Speaker 2: You'd always make a big spectacle, which was part of
Speaker 2: how it was done at the time. You'd always let
Speaker 2: people know you were in the room. Loud, yes, very loud.
Speaker 2: But I didn't realize it was so different until I
Speaker 2: got around other kids, and for me, I just it
Speaker 2: was dead. Yeah, it was very much. He was older,
Speaker 2: he was a producer. He wasn't as active in the
Speaker 2: ring anymore as he was with the first kiddos. Yeah,
Speaker 2: it just was a very normal childhood until you went
Speaker 2: to the office one day. Then you saw, okay, this is.
Speaker 1: What was the pressure. Like I have two sixteen year
Speaker 1: old twin boys who aspire to play basketball, obviously you
Speaker 1: come from a line of greatness when it comes to
Speaker 1: your profession. What was it like with that Road's last name,
Speaker 1: kind of breaking in and kind of making your own name.
Speaker 2: My sister Teel, she always looked at it in a
Speaker 2: way where she would say, you don't look at it
Speaker 2: as a shadow, look at it as a light. And
Speaker 2: I've really stood by that because I think a lot
Speaker 2: of second gen third generant like they focused too much
Speaker 2: on how difficult the hill is to climb, or how
Speaker 2: unfair it is perhaps to climb, versus think of the
Speaker 2: success you had right, think of the ring, think of
Speaker 2: where you've been if if you're the kiddos. I don't
Speaker 2: think there's any shame in saying, oh, I want to
Speaker 2: be better. I want to I want to say I'd
Speaker 2: be able to outplay him, and that as a father,
Speaker 2: I think my dad wanted to. Mister Hamond Paul hamon
Speaker 2: the other day had said that he thought I had passed.
Speaker 2: He had mentioned in an interview he thought he I'd
Speaker 2: passed my dad in terms of the wrestling game, and
Speaker 2: to me, that's asinine and I don't believe so. But
Speaker 2: as he was saying it, inside, I was like yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: you know, and like you know, like you want to
Speaker 2: get there.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Rest in peace to your father. But he is
Speaker 1: literally the one man that wants you to be as
Speaker 1: great as you can be with no strings attached to it.
Speaker 1: Yea better than him. He would love to know that
Speaker 1: his son looking down and raised a good son. Yeah.
Speaker 2: I think that's the that's the beauty in this. And
Speaker 2: I think when you're at a level of success that
Speaker 2: you've had, and in the wrestling space, a level of
Speaker 2: success that my dad had, it you're just setting that
Speaker 2: bar really really high, really really high. This is gonna
Speaker 2: sound mean, but I don't mean it sound mean. There
Speaker 2: are other second and third generations in the industry, but
Speaker 2: they're not always like the success sons of a mount
Speaker 2: Rushmore dad or mom. You know, I'm not knocking it,
Speaker 2: but that almost Hey, your door is a little more
Speaker 2: open than my door is, right, But I wouldn't have
Speaker 2: it any other way. I wouldn't because it's so you know,
Speaker 2: Charlotte Flair, who's Rick Flair's daughter, That's another one. Look
Speaker 2: at the cards you were handed. Ava, who's at NXT,
Speaker 2: who's rock Starter.
Speaker 1: Look at the.
Speaker 2: Cards you were handed. That's if anything that's just a
Speaker 2: wonderful challenge. That's a wonderful challenge and if you get there, amazing,
Speaker 2: God bless you.
Speaker 1: The WWE and the business of it right now is
Speaker 1: on fire. Recently signed a deal with ESPN for all
Speaker 1: your premium live events, your YouTube pages numbers eleven in
Speaker 1: the world. Signed a deal, a multi year deal with
Speaker 1: one of the best partners in the game, one of
Speaker 1: our partners, Netflix. The business of WWE, and you've seen
Speaker 1: it since a child, and the growth in the peaks
Speaker 1: and valleys, and you've seen other and been in other leagues.
Speaker 1: What makes the WWE what it is and why is
Speaker 1: it so hot right now?
Speaker 2: Gosh, I wish we could kind of trap the lightning
Speaker 2: in a bottle as to what's been created with ww
Speaker 2: and being so hot Netflix and ESPN. I was on
Speaker 2: the red carpet for the Netflix premiere for Monday Night
Speaker 2: Row and I was having to kind of kick myself.
Speaker 1: In La in La. That shit was amazing. I went
Speaker 1: Holy cow, and I sat next to Stephanie McMahon. I'm like,
Speaker 1: holy shit, Like I was fanboying out because I was
Speaker 1: a huge not to cut your off, keep your train
Speaker 1: of thought growing up and I was born in nineteen eighty,
Speaker 1: so wrestling was my life. Your Dad, the Islanders, Hulk, Holgan,
Speaker 1: Jyd all these people like you couldn't tell me. I
Speaker 1: would fight someone to try to tell me that shit
Speaker 1: was fair, of course, you know what I mean. So
Speaker 1: just to kind of see where it's been. And then
Speaker 1: I kind of died off a little bit, and then
Speaker 1: my twins picked it up, and I swore they were
Speaker 1: going to be professional wrestles until they found out daddy
Speaker 1: played basketball and they wanted to go that direction. So
Speaker 1: again you got to see it from all levels, from
Speaker 1: a child to someone who saw the success and the
Speaker 1: peaks and valleys, and now you're at again the top
Speaker 1: of the mountain as the undispeeded champion. But the business
Speaker 1: side has never been as hot and never been as big.
Speaker 2: Into a dome, you had really great seats. If you're
Speaker 2: sitting next to step shut Out, Netflix, Netflix Premiere. As
Speaker 2: I was on the carpet, I just kept kicking myself
Speaker 2: and trying to remind myself to be present and be
Speaker 2: as silly as it sounds, be Cody Rhods, you're doing
Speaker 2: these interviews, you're taking these pictures, because I was really
Speaker 2: caught up in the idea of thinking about the eighties,
Speaker 2: thinking about not just my father but all his peers
Speaker 2: and everything they had did wrestling sometimes you know, eight
Speaker 2: times a week if they were going twice on Sunday,
Speaker 2: and the more carnival aspect of territory wrestling and going
Speaker 2: from city to city and doing it at that pace.
Speaker 2: This was everything they ever dreamed of. This was everything.
Speaker 2: ESPN is just, oh my gosh, this is to be
Speaker 2: taken seriously by the biggest, the main sports component in
Speaker 2: the entire world, and not just to be taken seriously
Speaker 2: to come to the table and say, hey, look at
Speaker 2: what we have, look at our value. Look at WrestleMania
Speaker 2: forty that shattered every record. And it's really started WrestleMania
Speaker 2: in Dallas in a few years, not a few years,
Speaker 2: but a few months leading into that Russemania Dallas, coming
Speaker 2: out of COVID, everything wrestling just became a place to
Speaker 2: come back to for fans, and there's so many great
Speaker 2: stories to gravitate to. You have great great wrestlers like
Speaker 2: Ria Ripley and Seth Rollins and Roman Reigns of course
Speaker 2: and see them punk. It's just a almost comedic list
Speaker 2: of high wrestling IQ talent that love to engage with
Speaker 2: the crowd, mean it, mean what they're doing, authentic in
Speaker 2: their presentation, and they've just got it to this place
Speaker 2: now where like you said, we're number eleven, But I'm
Speaker 2: almost mad hearing number eleven because get gotta get its way,
Speaker 2: gotta get it on that TOPI but I will say
Speaker 2: this is as far as the business is concerned, the
Speaker 2: business really has taken this unbelievable turn upwards with the
Speaker 2: inclusion of Nick Cohn. And I don't know if you
Speaker 2: know Nick, but Nick is the president of WW now
Speaker 2: and he has just looked at it with a different
Speaker 2: and a fresh outlook that is really nice for a
Speaker 2: wrestler's wrestler like me. I try to take a note
Speaker 2: pretty much every time he says anything thinking is that
Speaker 2: seems like wisdom? You know, just there's something special in
Speaker 2: how he is operating WW at this level. And I
Speaker 2: hope we can continue to break all the records because
Speaker 2: nobody gets more mad than eighties wrestlers and nineties wrestlers
Speaker 2: when the business keeps taking off.
Speaker 1: And I love it.
Speaker 2: Because that's what we're supposed to do. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Recently, SummerSlam John Cena tell us about Yeah, the reason
Speaker 1: why you're holding that belt now, tell us about that
Speaker 1: day and the lead up and what it meant to
Speaker 1: finally get it.
Speaker 2: I was very excited about Summerslime because MetLife. So it's
Speaker 2: New York, New Jersey, and that's not an easy market.
Speaker 2: They've seen it all. They're a special market and that
Speaker 2: you have to be special for them to care. You know,
Speaker 2: it's the same vibe when you're going into the garden almost.
Speaker 2: It's just if you can make it in New York,
Speaker 2: I really can't make it anywhere. And to wrestle a
Speaker 2: person who gave me his playbook, who was the model
Speaker 2: for how I like to be as a babyface professional wrestler,
Speaker 2: how I like to do it, how I liked it.
Speaker 2: We were talking an off camera, how I would work
Speaker 2: seven days a week, if the rhythm of wrestling and
Speaker 2: going to every town to be able to stand across
Speaker 2: from a guy who was your mentor somebody who talked
Speaker 2: to you about, hey, well this is why this worked,
Speaker 2: this is why this didn't work. You should work on this,
Speaker 2: you should improve this. It's rare you get the time
Speaker 2: to actually play the game against them, right, You might
Speaker 2: have all those lessons, but you're playing against somebody else.
Speaker 2: It's really rare you can stand across from that guy,
Speaker 2: look him in the eye and not just be grateful
Speaker 2: and and thankful, but also hope he sees you and go, ah,
Speaker 2: there he is right and and and make him see you.
Speaker 2: And the opportunity to do two matches with John, one
Speaker 2: at WrestleMania and then one at SummerSlam where we could
Speaker 2: really treat them almost as one match in itself. Very
Speaker 2: blessed that I got to be in there with him.
Speaker 2: But in the moment, it couldn't be one of those
Speaker 2: I'm blessed, It couldn't be one of those. It needed.
Speaker 2: I needed to bring everything I possibly could, and he
Speaker 2: has given. We're at the tail end of John's farewell tour.
Speaker 2: He has given everything as far as you could possibly give,
Speaker 2: body wise and mind wise to the industry, especially with
Speaker 2: the young talent who asked questions. If you're a young talent,
Speaker 2: you asked John Cen a question, get ready to get
Speaker 2: ready because he's not because a lot.
Speaker 1: Of some superstars and different sports aren't like that. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean. And uh, tell us a
Speaker 1: little bit about him as a person obviously, you know
Speaker 1: he's been someone that's been able to transcend not only
Speaker 1: in wrestling but acting in other ventures. What kind of
Speaker 1: person is he?
Speaker 2: I had a really great feeling that he would do
Speaker 2: well when Peacemaker came up, or acting gigs in general,
Speaker 2: because of his attitude when it comes to ww John
Speaker 2: was always wanting to work, was there, early, stayed the latest.
Speaker 2: Wasn't in the habit of just selling tickets as much
Speaker 2: as he was selling a story. He was selling an experience,
Speaker 2: something that you would come back to. And then you
Speaker 2: hear these stories of him going on sets all over
Speaker 2: town here and being the most professional guy he'd ever met,
Speaker 2: the most prepared guy you ever met. I think John
Speaker 2: has tons of natural talent, gift of gab, and incredible physique,
Speaker 2: incredibly functionally truly strong. He had tons of natural talent
Speaker 2: to be a pro wrestler. But the thing he'll be
Speaker 2: remembered for is the work. Is the work ethic he
Speaker 2: had is he set a standard that this isn't like
Speaker 2: an old man shouting at clouds thing. But if you're
Speaker 2: at an XT right now and you don't know about
Speaker 2: what John's day was like on a Monday, night, what
Speaker 2: his day was like as a performer, then you should
Speaker 2: look it up because that's the level.
Speaker 1: You need to do.
Speaker 2: And even now with ESPN and Netflix and all the spotlight,
Speaker 2: you got to do even more. But he just he
Speaker 2: probably would have made it on talent alone. But the
Speaker 2: reason John Cena and you can't see me is, you know,
Speaker 2: culturally relevant is his work ethic.
Speaker 1: Street Fight of the movie, Yeah, and you're playing guy
Speaker 1: Isle is gonna say, yeah, you know who they need
Speaker 1: to get for then Keith is one of Jog's brothers.
Speaker 2: Hey, I sent the director Catao, the director for Street Fighter.
Speaker 2: I sent him a joke the other day. I said,
Speaker 2: what are street fighters like in their Hamburgers? And he
Speaker 2: I got like a long dot dot dot, a long
Speaker 2: ellipses forever, and then he finally said what And I said,
Speaker 2: zang beef. And I thought that joke nailed, and it didn't.
Speaker 2: It's just I think he gave me like the face
Speaker 2: with the one line thought I was a hit street
Speaker 2: Fighter is. I'm so glad I got to do that.
Speaker 2: Try to tell stories in a different way, and that
Speaker 2: crew Kleina Cogoah the three leads to this movie. Andrew Schultz,
Speaker 2: stand up comedian fifty cents playing ball rog It's It
Speaker 2: was such a ridiculous moment to have everyone on set,
Speaker 2: but it was so well organized rehearsing, like we were
Speaker 2: actually going to be fighting somebody on the weekend because
Speaker 2: everybody was locked into Australia going over all the dialogue together.
Speaker 2: It was just a really well oiled machine and legendary
Speaker 2: pictures and I'm I'm blessed to be part of that.
Speaker 2: I went in for a meeting thinking I was going
Speaker 2: to talk to them about other stuff and they told me, oh,
Speaker 2: we want you for guy, and I I know, I
Speaker 2: know the role. You know, it's a charge character.
Speaker 1: I used to play that game.
Speaker 2: I do find it funny because every now and then
Speaker 2: my list will really settle out and be pronounced. There
Speaker 2: was a few haters online who kept saying a sonic
Speaker 2: boom and now I kind of just want to find
Speaker 2: it somewhere. I just want to find sonic boom. But
Speaker 2: it was a blast.
Speaker 1: Podcasts. You're also in that space. Now, what do you
Speaker 1: want to talk about? Yeah? Do you like it?
Speaker 2: By the way, do you like this?
Speaker 1: Love it? Oh?
Speaker 2: Good, all right, I love it.
Speaker 1: I'm in between well, because you're still your current you
Speaker 1: know what I mean? Like to me, I don't think
Speaker 1: I could put all the time I needed for this
Speaker 1: to be successful. It is if I was still playing.
Speaker 2: I tell them this. Yeah, it's a commit It's hard.
Speaker 1: It's hard. No, it is because I mean I think
Speaker 1: people think, Okay, podcasts, they're not They're not easy. There
Speaker 1: are a lot of work. You need a great team
Speaker 1: around you. Look like you have a good team, but
Speaker 1: it's just like the work you need to put into
Speaker 1: for this to be successful takes away from your primary
Speaker 1: job and the fatherhood and all the other great things
Speaker 1: you have going on.
Speaker 2: Do you do? You do a lot of ad reads.
Speaker 1: Hate them. I just did them for your coming.
Speaker 2: Okay, so they made the mistake of on my pod,
Speaker 2: what do you want to talk about? Which I do love.
Speaker 2: I just don't know if I'm any good for it
Speaker 2: is we there's cocktails provided by Wheatlee Vodka, and they
Speaker 2: make these specialty cocktails. This season for some reason, everybody's
Speaker 2: going live rounds. There's not been one false episode. So
Speaker 2: you're pumping out three of these in a day with
Speaker 2: like a Damien Priest or someone like that. You getting,
Speaker 2: You're getting there right, So then they'll have you do
Speaker 2: the ad reason for you know, a rectile dysfunction roasts
Speaker 2: and it's you're just and I'm already trying that, like
Speaker 2: you're just. I'm locked in and the prompter is so long,
Speaker 2: and all the codes are your name plus fifty off
Speaker 2: like Cody fifty off sign up at backslash code. I
Speaker 2: they're brutal. Two of them have not made it. Two
Speaker 2: of them have flat out not seen air because just
Speaker 2: on the intro for someone I really like, I'm not
Speaker 2: you can't put that out there. I can barely get
Speaker 2: her name out, Like that's no good, you know what
Speaker 2: I'm talking about these, So we're redoing a few of them. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I'm learning.
Speaker 1: I've learned one thing. I can give you adviceles and
Speaker 1: don't take yourself serious doing it. I used to try
Speaker 1: to like really read it and have a serious voice.
Speaker 1: I laugh like I'm doing. We do roast sparks, and
Speaker 1: I laugh at some of like it's obviously they pay
Speaker 1: the bills, so they're very important. I don't enjoy them.
Speaker 1: But there I think we start to have more fun because,
Speaker 1: similar to you, we'll drink or smoke and shoot three
Speaker 1: episodes and we're doing what now, we're doing adreads. I
Speaker 1: can't even see the screen right now. I love this.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm gonna take that strategy going into it because
Speaker 2: they are just.
Speaker 1: Yeah, don't take it so serious, be able to laugh
Speaker 1: at yourself. Yeah.
Speaker 2: I like this because a lot of this could be
Speaker 2: done shorter too.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: The sponsor's great, thank you for the money. Let me
Speaker 2: say your name and what you do.
Speaker 1: And once you guys do a rolling. What they've allowed
Speaker 1: us to do now is on some of them like
Speaker 1: put in your own words, which I'll make it go
Speaker 1: a lot, not to Craig, but anyway, I mean, what
Speaker 1: is it? What was it been like in again Champion
Speaker 1: and we'll touch on a little bit A proud father
Speaker 1: of two beautiful little girls. But then this podcast? What
Speaker 1: does the podcast space meant to you? And how have
Speaker 1: you enjoyed it outside of ad Reids.
Speaker 2: I've enjoyed it because you get to show you're seen
Speaker 2: one way as a wrestler, particularly my guest on the show.
Speaker 2: You're seeing almost sometimes barely three dimensional. Maybe that character
Speaker 2: is what presents and that's all there is. And there's
Speaker 2: a vulnerability to when you sit across from somebody and
Speaker 2: you actually have you share this drink together, and you
Speaker 2: ask questions outside of the suspension of disbelief, outside of
Speaker 2: canonical what we're doing on our show more a little
Speaker 2: bit behind the scenes. But I like to showcase my
Speaker 2: guests in a way that if you didn't understand them,
Speaker 2: maybe you'll start watching a raw or SmackDown and maybe
Speaker 2: that's your guy now, Maybe that's your girl now, just
Speaker 2: because there's something you didn't know about. You know, wrestlers
Speaker 2: are a funny, insecure, wildly confident sometimes party animals. They're
Speaker 2: just all over the map. The human element of it
Speaker 2: gets to be on what do you want to talk about?
Speaker 2: And I like that a lot.
Speaker 1: Well, I think two and to add my goal being
Speaker 1: in this space for almost sixteen now was being able
Speaker 1: to humanize your guests and show like, you know, everyone
Speaker 1: knows what you do, but I wanted to be able
Speaker 1: to pull back the curtain a little bit more from
Speaker 1: my audience and kind of show you as a man,
Speaker 1: as a father, as a businessman. So that's kind of
Speaker 1: always been my thought process going into it, and again
Speaker 1: to introduce fans to new people and new opportunities. Before
Speaker 1: you were the top guy in the WWE you left
Speaker 1: in twenty sixteen. Yeah, can you explain that journey?
Speaker 2: Oh man, it was I'm surprised they let me back,
Speaker 2: and legally, I one thing there's a byproduct of my
Speaker 2: departure is nobody gets to leave how I left. I
Speaker 2: got so a lucky I was Dusty rhodes Son. Also,
Speaker 2: I think they respected that I had put in a
Speaker 2: decade of work. I didn't even sign my release papers.
Speaker 2: I told them I was done on social media, which
Speaker 2: is none of this works anymore, none of this flies anymore.
Speaker 2: I had to leave, and I've heard described as I
Speaker 2: wanted to not be treated as a little kid anymore,
Speaker 2: and they were only ever gonna see me as a
Speaker 2: little kid. And I'm thirty at the time. A ten
Speaker 2: year shift's been put in. I've offered a different body
Speaker 2: of work than my brother or dad ever did, just different,
Speaker 2: just a different variety. And maybe maybe it was a
Speaker 2: matter if I wanted to come back and be seen
Speaker 2: as an adult or come back and be seen as Hey,
Speaker 2: I've accrued all this knowledge. I've wrestled Triple h I've
Speaker 2: wrestled The Undertaker, I've been in the ring with Sean Michaels.
Speaker 2: You don't get that knowledge unless you're in the ring
Speaker 2: with them, and you guys aren't allowing me to showcase it.
Speaker 2: But as time's going on, I look back at it
Speaker 2: and think a lot of it was more immaturity on
Speaker 2: my part. Anger, a lot of anger which can take
Speaker 2: you very very far. My gosh, a chip on your shoulder.
Speaker 2: I just wanted to show outside of the bubble of
Speaker 2: w B, and I've talked about the bubble. I wanted
Speaker 2: to show that I could mobilize an audience to follow me.
Speaker 2: If that meant to a VFW hall where can only
Speaker 2: hold four hundred people, if that meant to the cow
Speaker 2: Palace where you're you know, putting you know, over four
Speaker 2: thousand people in there for a show that wasn't w
Speaker 2: B or the original all In, which was just a
Speaker 2: person on social saying nobody can get ten thousand people
Speaker 2: besides w B and me taking the bet, and then
Speaker 2: the next thing you know, we're off and running and
Speaker 2: there's an alternative promotion out there. I was very lucky, though,
Speaker 2: I got to find a sexier way to tell the story.
Speaker 2: Aroun I'm like, oh, I knew all along, and you know,
Speaker 2: but I was very lucky because I was surrounded by
Speaker 2: good people. I was so angry that I wasn't sleeping.
Speaker 2: I was just motivated. I needed to be everywhere at
Speaker 2: every point I possibly could be, and especially with social
Speaker 2: media and podcasts and how everything are today, I wanted
Speaker 2: to make sure throughout my time away, I took the
Speaker 2: news feed away. Every week, I did something every week
Speaker 2: that took the news feed away. And to the point
Speaker 2: where you know, the Bullet Club was group I was
Speaker 2: part of. Finn Balor started the Bullet Club in New
Speaker 2: Japan and aj Styles was a leader, and we had
Speaker 2: so many shirts at a WrestleMania that a market dealer
Speaker 2: was asking, hey, where are they? When are they on
Speaker 2: the show, and they had to be told, oh there,
Speaker 2: that's another thing. So just the underground scene, meeting my
Speaker 2: flavor and the guys I was around. Just again, I
Speaker 2: never can explain it correctly, but I was. I was
Speaker 2: very lucky to have that, and I was very motivated
Speaker 2: to get it done.
Speaker 1: But I mean, also to your credit, you bet on yourself. Yeah,
Speaker 1: which is important. I think a lot of people like
Speaker 1: you said. I mean, you mentioned earlier than some wrestlers
Speaker 1: are insecure and there's a lot of athletes are insecure
Speaker 1: as a whole, like to be able to have the
Speaker 1: legacy in the weight on your shoulders, to be at
Speaker 1: the top of the mount in the WWE and then bounce,
Speaker 1: take a you know, leave and have a hiatus for
Speaker 1: you know, a handful of years and be able to
Speaker 1: come back like you bet on yourself.
Speaker 2: And it worked, It worked, and it worked further than
Speaker 2: I ever imagine. I think everyone thought w B lifer,
Speaker 2: and nobody knew this was always the goal until I
Speaker 2: really set it out loud and tried to will it
Speaker 2: in existence and came back to w B. But I
Speaker 2: think a lot about it now because now I'm I'm
Speaker 2: often put out there as the face of the company,
Speaker 2: and I don't know if that's accurate or not, but
Speaker 2: that's often where I'm positioned, and I'm honored by that role.
Speaker 2: But I think, is he still inside? I know that's
Speaker 2: like a crazy thing. Is this disruptor? Is he still
Speaker 2: in there? How would he approach this? How would he feel?
Speaker 2: I try everything I can to not become a corporate
Speaker 2: version of myself, even in the most corporate setting. That's
Speaker 2: important because it's it could be quite easy actually, you know,
Speaker 2: you get everything you ever want and then you got
Speaker 2: to find it inside. Is it still on fire?
Speaker 1: You know? Then? Also too, I mean, I mean you're
Speaker 1: forty years old. I mean understanding the journey you've been on.
Speaker 1: I think a lot of people don't appreciate and enjoy
Speaker 1: the journey. Yeah, because it's you know, you've been wrestling
Speaker 1: for twenty years now, and you know, God willing however
Speaker 1: long you want to wrestle. You know, you're kind of
Speaker 1: on the back side of that. So just understanding and
Speaker 1: appreciating that journey because it's been incredible. Were there ever
Speaker 1: times talk to us, because it's only natural times that
Speaker 1: during you were on between sixteen and twenty two when
Speaker 1: you went back, was there any times you doubted yourself before.
Speaker 2: I came back to w Oh my gosh. All the
Speaker 2: time I thought about going and getting a degree, because
Speaker 2: in Georgia, if you have a degree, you can be
Speaker 2: a wrestling coach. I was really into amateur wrestling growing up.
Speaker 2: I was the only one in my family who did
Speaker 2: folk style, freestyle greco Roman. I thought I'd be a
Speaker 2: really good coach and that I never thought about a
Speaker 2: plan B. So that was the first time Plan B
Speaker 2: comes up. You're married at the time, no children just yet,
Speaker 2: but looking to start a family. And you can't start
Speaker 2: a family with just nothing, you know, or a little
Speaker 2: bit of savings here and there. From my time with
Speaker 2: w B. But I doubted myself. I feel like I
Speaker 2: doubt myself every step of the journey. But here's what
Speaker 2: happens in wrestling, is you put up a good performance,
Speaker 2: you have a match, you do somethings, a segment of promo.
Speaker 2: The fans are always the one to tell you that
Speaker 2: you're doing it, that that something is happening. And that
Speaker 2: was undeniable during that period, and it was there was
Speaker 2: others involved with me, but it was undeniable, the buzz
Speaker 2: that was happening. And it'll give you a great example.
Speaker 2: You do a show in San Antonio in a bowling
Speaker 2: alley for three thousand people a bowling alley. Right, They've
Speaker 2: been sitting there for five hours watching this TV taping
Speaker 2: and you're the last thing out there, and you stay
Speaker 2: out there for forty five minutes to an hour, just
Speaker 2: making jokes on the mic, off camera, greeting the fans,
Speaker 2: and not a single soul leaves. You know, there's something
Speaker 2: going there's something happening, and that's always been I never
Speaker 2: get mad at fans, and fans had booed me in
Speaker 2: the past, and maybe they weren't supposed to boom me,
Speaker 2: or fans had gotten to me in a social space,
Speaker 2: whatever it was. I never could go to sleep mad
Speaker 2: at them because they're also responsible for everything I have.
Speaker 2: And that's not just my career, but the confidence. You
Speaker 2: can't do it for silence, right, the live audience needs
Speaker 2: is what we do.
Speaker 1: Yes, this is what makes you the noise, being able
Speaker 1: to decide for the noise of what set's greatness apart. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Tully Blanchard is a legendary wrestler from the Four Horsemen.
Speaker 2: I remember him telling me your job is just to
Speaker 2: make them the loudest, the longest. It doesn't matter if
Speaker 2: it's up that booze cheers, just the loudest, the longest.
Speaker 2: And ever since he said that, scene is of the
Speaker 2: same mindset that's always been Okay, I can do that.
Speaker 1: I interviewed me today and they were super excited, So
Speaker 1: I have some questions from them, but I remember so.
Speaker 1: I had an incident with Kobe in two thousand and
Speaker 1: nine where I faked the ball in his face and
Speaker 1: the yeah, fucking went crazy. My twins got to start
Speaker 1: traveling with me after that because they got become a
Speaker 1: little bit older and I had to use a rest
Speaker 1: kind of example to let them know what it was. So,
Speaker 1: as I told you before, my job was always to
Speaker 1: guard the best player. And the twins would come to
Speaker 1: the games like, Dad, why do they blew you when
Speaker 1: they announced your name in the starting lineup? And I'm thinking, like,
Speaker 1: all right, how do I explain this to six year olds?
Speaker 1: And I'm like, well, you know, daddy has to guard
Speaker 1: the best player of it, so that's like Coole Colgan
Speaker 1: and then Daddy's the undertaker. Yeah, and like, but you
Speaker 1: don't wear black. I was like, yeah, I know, but
Speaker 1: that's my uniform is a basketball. Yeah. Okay, So they
Speaker 1: like you, they just don't like the job you're doing
Speaker 1: them exactly.
Speaker 2: Well, you were the heel.
Speaker 1: Yeah you had to be.
Speaker 2: You had to be everybody's heal. But there's did you
Speaker 2: feel there was a following for you as well?
Speaker 1: It was split because yeah, it's when I became the
Speaker 1: bad guy. It kind of hurt my feelings because I
Speaker 1: felt like, damn, I'm not a bad guy. But then
Speaker 1: once I became once I got ahold of that and
Speaker 1: embraced it. I was the villain. I was great with
Speaker 1: being that villain that you needed.
Speaker 2: Well, I think too, when you're so good at it
Speaker 2: and you're at the level you were, it's not a
Speaker 2: bad guy in a what we would call in the
Speaker 2: wrestling business station in the wrestling business we call like
Speaker 2: a chicken shit heel that's not as good as the
Speaker 2: type of heel perhaps a Rick Flair was so the
Speaker 2: type of you even mentioned the Undertaker one that nine
Speaker 2: times out of ten might be winning this thing. Actually,
Speaker 2: you know, there's a consistency to it to the point
Speaker 2: where you stay that long enough, you find yourself a
Speaker 2: good guy. Yeah, you stay that long enough, you find
Speaker 2: this is this disruptor, this individual, and and you end
Speaker 2: up playing with some of the guys that you used
Speaker 2: to have to guard and things like that.
Speaker 1: You know, well, that was the thing not to cut
Speaker 1: you off. Literally. That next season, Kobe recruited me to
Speaker 1: the Lakers. Yes, so we got into it. We fought,
Speaker 1: and now we're teammates like, oh shit, maybe he's not
Speaker 1: that bad after it.
Speaker 2: No, you weren't bad at all. Is if we're gonna
Speaker 2: we need we need it right, Yeah.
Speaker 1: Heel versus babyface. You've done both in your career. Explain
Speaker 1: the nuances that are held in each of those spaces.
Speaker 2: Gosh, it's a today, It's it's easier to be heel.
Speaker 2: I suppose you know, traditionally a heel is gonna lead
Speaker 2: the match. This is the bad guy. They're gonna feel
Speaker 2: the crowd. Hopefully they're educated enough to know, you know,
Speaker 2: their connection with them when they want you to get up,
Speaker 2: when they want you to not yet you know, in
Speaker 2: terms of then this comeback comes whatever. Even with that said,
Speaker 2: it's a little easier to be disliked today, whereas in
Speaker 2: twenty twenty five now or in the last five years
Speaker 2: or so, baby faces were essentially an endangered species because
Speaker 2: something about doing the right thing wasn't as cool as
Speaker 2: it used to be. You know, the eighties are one thing.
Speaker 2: You know, Bob Ackland was amazing and beloved by fans,
Speaker 2: but that type of kind of goodie two shoes virtuous
Speaker 2: style wasn't the thing that was on. You know, we
Speaker 2: got Breaking Bad on TV, you got Game of Thrones.
Speaker 2: There's a different type of hero. But something opened up
Speaker 2: in the wrestling space where I don't know if it's
Speaker 2: virtuous or if it's goody two shoes or whatever it
Speaker 2: may be, but something open up in the wrestling space
Speaker 2: where good guys have become a thing again. And I
Speaker 2: don't think it's about being virtuous as much as about
Speaker 2: being authentic. You know, Jay Uso is one of the
Speaker 2: most popular wrestlers on the planet. Jay's done some diabolical stuff.
Speaker 2: I've been so lucky I got a great following with
Speaker 2: our young audience. I've done some terrible stuff I would
Speaker 2: hate if they looked up, but when they see me,
Speaker 2: they are one hundred percent sure that is authentically who
Speaker 2: I am authentically, and I think that's been the key
Speaker 2: to being a good guy. I also think it's more challenging.
Speaker 2: We're at this point where the longer that it goes
Speaker 2: for me, the less I'm able to turn to this nefarious,
Speaker 2: dmon bad guy because so much has happened that there's
Speaker 2: a core audience now that won't go. And we actually
Speaker 2: saw this with John Cena recently. I admired him taking
Speaker 2: the challenge and loved him going forward the idea of
Speaker 2: being a bad guy at the end. But you've got
Speaker 2: decades of equity built with them. All that's probably gonna
Speaker 2: happen is no, we're gonna stay with you. We don't
Speaker 2: agree with a lot of these where we're staying with you,
Speaker 2: which is in fun in its own way because it
Speaker 2: creates a hell of an acoustic in the live crowd.
Speaker 2: But he'll babyface is really funny to determine if you
Speaker 2: were looking at a sheet our roster. A lot of
Speaker 2: guys who look like heels might be babyfaces. A lot
Speaker 2: of guys who look like babyfaces might be the heels.
Speaker 2: Same with the girls. It's really our audience is gonna
Speaker 2: make the choice.
Speaker 1: We spoke to the wear and tear and off came
Speaker 1: before we started, what it was like when you first
Speaker 1: came in and how much you wrestled, and then what
Speaker 1: it's like now. Can you break that down to.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean live events today, I wouldn't be able
Speaker 2: to do like today because we'd be in Omaha, Nebraska
Speaker 2: and wed you know, you do your Saturday live event,
Speaker 2: your Sunday live event. Perhaps you do Monday night roll
Speaker 2: your home, you know, Tuesday, Wednesday hit back on the road, Thursday,
Speaker 2: you do Friday Night SmackDown. It was you were home
Speaker 2: two and a half to three days a week and
Speaker 2: you were wrestling. But those live events were wrestling matches,
Speaker 2: so it went twofold. You could really get banged up
Speaker 2: and hurt yourself, or you built up a bit of
Speaker 2: a rhythm and a it's like dancing almost. You got
Speaker 2: to rep out of it where it only advanced your
Speaker 2: skill and at one point in your career they could
Speaker 2: be hurting you like crazy, and at another point in
Speaker 2: your career you could absolutely need them. I will, and
Speaker 2: my man from Talent Relations is here had said, don't
Speaker 2: say it out loud, but I will. I loved the
Speaker 2: days we were wrestling on right, Oh my gosh.
Speaker 1: So give me an example loving.
Speaker 2: I want it back in a year.
Speaker 1: In a year, back in the day, how many days
Speaker 1: out of the year would you be wrestling?
Speaker 2: I mean, so what is that? It would be two
Speaker 2: hundred and something dates sixty Yeah, two dates, and now
Speaker 2: we're at one hundred and twenty ish.
Speaker 1: So you guys got a little bit of load management now.
Speaker 2: Oh again, like credit to the new too new management
Speaker 2: at w TOB with Triple H and Nick con it's
Speaker 2: far healthy. But I came up in the system where
Speaker 2: you're always wrestling, So I look at it and don't
Speaker 2: That's how I knew you would get good at it.
Speaker 2: That's so we've got to figure out how else.
Speaker 1: Can we do that. I love that parallel because I
Speaker 1: came from an era in the NBA. Obviously it's a
Speaker 1: heavy load. Guys are making a ton of money now
Speaker 1: and it's load management up. But I came up in
Speaker 1: an era where we went through the entire training camp,
Speaker 1: played the entire preseason. It was an honor to play
Speaker 1: eighty two games, and we wanted to play every single
Speaker 1: playoff game, right. That was like, that's how we came
Speaker 1: up in the game. So I miss you know, I
Speaker 1: look at it from a standpoint of it if I'm
Speaker 1: going to a wrestling event or if I'm going to
Speaker 1: a basketball game, like I want to see the best
Speaker 1: players out there every single time. Yeah, I mean, because
Speaker 1: it's how expensive it is and all the other you're
Speaker 1: taking a whole family. So it's interesting that the similar
Speaker 1: parallels in wrestling. You know, like you miss the old
Speaker 1: school grind. We're out that motherfucker two hundred days a
Speaker 1: year and we're getting it done. But to your point,
Speaker 1: that's how you felt like you got better and that's
Speaker 1: how you felt those reps got everyone else better.
Speaker 2: Oh my gosh, it's you got a rhythm with your
Speaker 2: your dancing partner. And you said load management. I don't
Speaker 2: know if I've heard it, it's worded that way.
Speaker 1: I hate that.
Speaker 2: I like all there's all these new terms load management.
Speaker 2: But man, oh man, I'm getting in so much trouble
Speaker 2: with my peers. But these wrestling companies are banning so
Speaker 2: much money. Now get up and then like the grind
Speaker 2: is a negative? Now what are you talking about. You
Speaker 2: get to go to a town on Saturday that may
Speaker 2: not normally see you, and you get to see families
Speaker 2: and you get to have a moment with them, and
Speaker 2: you get to be their escape, you get to be
Speaker 2: their hope. Then you go Sunday you do it all
Speaker 2: over again Monday. You've got a good idea, you've been
Speaker 2: on the road, your mind has been tuned in a
Speaker 2: wrestling You've had a good idea, how to do this promo,
Speaker 2: how to do this match. It's just I miss it,
Speaker 2: but I do. I credit too. Ever figures out with
Speaker 2: load management, whoever figures out how we improve, and I'm
Speaker 2: seeing it. Dom Mysterio is probably my favorite example. Don
Speaker 2: Masterio does not have the amount of live events that
Speaker 2: we used to have, although he's working multiple companies for
Speaker 2: WW at the moment, special special talent. He's somebody that's
Speaker 2: often cited internally. I don't think I'm giving anything away
Speaker 2: here as somebody who's gonna be a future of WWE.
Speaker 2: He's one of the ones that when it said, I
Speaker 2: believe it, like I think I'm going to come to
Speaker 2: a WW show in fifteen years and pay money to
Speaker 2: see and it will probably be Dom Masterio on the
Speaker 2: top of the car because he's figuring out how to
Speaker 2: do it. So whatever he's got, yeah, ok, yeah, but
Speaker 2: you never know. He's tall, he's got like you never like,
Speaker 2: you know, by the work in like the Hurre Editarry
Speaker 2: passion that Ray has. He has raised, you know, the
Speaker 2: greatest sutra door of all time with respect to Santo,
Speaker 2: I think he really is the greatest to ever do it.
Speaker 2: Dom is special. There's there's a few that I see
Speaker 2: on that list, and that one for sure. I don't
Speaker 2: want to be overly confident, and you know, but I
Speaker 2: certainly believe it. He's somebody I'm gonna go pay to
Speaker 2: see at an event in fifteen years.
Speaker 1: Well, I mean, I feel like you obviously have the
Speaker 1: respect of what it is, but you miss how it was. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, I mean it's the same thing. I'm not
Speaker 1: gonna be one of these old dudes and shut your
Speaker 1: old ass up complaining how it used to be. But
Speaker 1: like there is some some some you know, there is
Speaker 1: some nostalgia and how the grind used to be done,
Speaker 1: for sure.
Speaker 2: And I remember something one time my dad asked. Somebody
Speaker 2: asked my dad, what which is harder, wrestling seven days
Speaker 2: a week or what they do now in TV wrestling.
Speaker 2: At the time, we were wrestling maybe three days a week.
Speaker 2: And he actually surprised everybody with an answer. He said,
Speaker 2: today is harder because high definition television, every everything you do,
Speaker 2: this conversation, we're having lifts forever. So you can't copy
Speaker 2: and paste, you can't time, you can't steal a song,
Speaker 2: layer it can put it on a T shirt because
Speaker 2: there's somebody who's gonna find it. And so you like
Speaker 2: they were getting a little getting away with things of
Speaker 2: that nature, whereas today it's just the pressure is on.
Speaker 2: And one of the cool things about and I don't
Speaker 2: know if it's cool for a wrestler, but it's cool
Speaker 2: for a fan. One of the cool things about today
Speaker 2: and the lack of live events we have is when
Speaker 2: you see two guys go at it in the ring,
Speaker 2: that might be the first time they genuinely ever touch.
Speaker 2: And I love about that is that those can be
Speaker 2: a little stiff, those can be you know, like those
Speaker 2: can be as real as real gets in a way,
Speaker 2: and that's that's fun for an audience member.
Speaker 1: Walkers. I mean again as a as a longtime fan,
Speaker 1: and I kind of fell off as an adult, and my
Speaker 1: kids brought me back in your guys' ecosystem. Walk me
Speaker 1: through a quote unquote match snight or a game day,
Speaker 1: Like what is your day? Like, when do you have
Speaker 1: to get there? How do you prepare? Do you work
Speaker 1: with your partner? Or like how does that work? You know?
Speaker 2: You see, we got a good, good team here. I
Speaker 2: always have a schedule for everything in the day, and
Speaker 2: I try to balance out from a priority standpoint. WW
Speaker 2: has a lot of things, partners, backstage tours, merchandise is
Speaker 2: a massive component of WW today, especially with our partnership
Speaker 2: with Fanatics. You're looking at a stack of three hundred
Speaker 2: to five hundred. If you're a top man or woman
Speaker 2: of eight x tens, they got to be signed autograph
Speaker 2: weight belts. There's also various you know, community partnerships like
Speaker 2: Make a Wish and those are we try to give.
Speaker 2: Those are absolute one percent all and you've got to
Speaker 2: do that. You've got to also while doing all of this,
Speaker 2: have that hydration mix in the shaker. Make sure your
Speaker 2: gear is laid out on you in your locker room
Speaker 2: or on the bus. Uh, you've got to have the
Speaker 2: top notch again HD television, the top notch gear in
Speaker 2: the game, which is a lot based on wrestlers. What
Speaker 2: would I say their preference? Triple Ah doesn't tell me
Speaker 2: how the American Nightmare looks. I've that's my character. He
Speaker 2: gives it a spotlight, he gives it a highlight. He
Speaker 2: might give me a note. But a lot of the
Speaker 2: characters seeing a great deal of the ones that are
Speaker 2: popular with the crowd come from us. And you've got
Speaker 2: to have everything ready again to steal the feed. So
Speaker 2: it's just a mind going type thing all day and
Speaker 2: with maybe you're wrestling somebody you've never touched before, you're
Speaker 2: working against somebody like a Drew mcandire's is this giant
Speaker 2: Scottish just ball of muscle that you know is going
Speaker 2: to throw you around and it's going to be rather
Speaker 2: aggressive evening. You can't take any risk. You've got to
Speaker 2: The last thing you want to be is that wrestler
Speaker 2: who's taping his wrist up while his music is hitting
Speaker 2: in Gorilla And no, I like to be very, very prepared.
Speaker 2: I don't like to run it tight at all. So
Speaker 2: it's just a matter of if you've got a checklist
Speaker 2: and I always have a little old school yellow legal
Speaker 2: pad with everything that's supposed to get done in a day.
Speaker 2: And they're silly thing, shave your upper body like there's
Speaker 2: still a thing you know, like they're just but they're
Speaker 2: they're but you if you don't by the time that
Speaker 2: bell rings and you can hear that crowd coming into
Speaker 2: their seats and they're wooing and they're doing all that,
Speaker 2: you want to know, you did everything right. You're prepared.
Speaker 2: And I'll tell you something because I'm I feel like
Speaker 2: I've circled around your answer because every day is different.
Speaker 2: But I'll tell you something that really helps at WW
Speaker 2: helps you prepare is we have our own set of
Speaker 2: coaches that we call producers who help us with our matches.
Speaker 2: You've got a legendary person like Michael Freebird Hayes, who's
Speaker 2: just if you can get past the wild enigma and
Speaker 2: unbelievable charisma and swag that Michael's got and whatever outfit
Speaker 2: he has on for that day, he's he is a
Speaker 2: super genius, as we call in the industry when it
Speaker 2: comes to Hey, I think the crowd may be here
Speaker 2: by the time you go out there. You got to
Speaker 2: give him this. You have mister Paul Hayman, you have
Speaker 2: Triple h. You got a young guy like Bobby rue
Speaker 2: d Abyss, Chris Park, these producers, Molly Holly, all these
Speaker 2: producers have experienced have a wrestling IQ. If we didn't
Speaker 2: have them, WW would not be as hot as is
Speaker 2: right now. That producer's squad.
Speaker 1: Now, is that new to the game. Has it always
Speaker 1: been that way or is it kind of amped up
Speaker 1: as you guys as the sport has continued to reach
Speaker 1: its peak.
Speaker 2: I think it's amped up. It's always been part of
Speaker 2: the game, but it might have been a lot less
Speaker 2: when it was Chief j Strongbow just telling you and I, Hey,
Speaker 2: he's gonna give you the leg drop at the end.
Speaker 2: You know, all right, cool, we'll figure the rest out.
Speaker 2: You now have a lot. And maybe that's the answer
Speaker 2: to my question earlier, is how we improve is to
Speaker 2: have those minds in the business. I love when arn
Speaker 2: Anderson's around. I love you, Jesse the body Ventterra will
Speaker 2: talk your head till it explodes. But when he's around,
Speaker 2: I know you're getting some of the greatest information ever.
Speaker 2: And I remember one hundred years ago saying Triple h saying,
Speaker 2: all the books are there, guys. If you don't go
Speaker 2: in there, grab a book and open it up, that's
Speaker 2: your fault. And really, you know NXT right now, our
Speaker 2: developmental system is taught by probably the greatest bell the
Speaker 2: bell wrestler ever in that being Sean Michaels. If you're
Speaker 2: not picking this up, you know, And maybe that's again
Speaker 2: I feel like I'm answering my own question throughout this conversation.
Speaker 1: I like it.
Speaker 2: Maybe that's the difference between wrestling four days a week
Speaker 2: is having those super genius type individuals around to walk
Speaker 2: you through what you did wrong, walk you through what
Speaker 2: you can do further. Undertakers now super involved with a
Speaker 2: Triple AR partner which is crazy because that's Luca Libre,
Speaker 2: but he knows. Yeah, live crowds are live crowds, So
Speaker 2: to have them cheat code, Yeah, that's what it is.
Speaker 2: It's a cheat code.
Speaker 1: Yeah, playing and performing through pain. You had a legendary
Speaker 1: picture that we're going to pull up right here. It's gross.
Speaker 1: You toy your peck muscle right there. Yeah, talk to us.
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm someone and again, football is crazy basketball.
Speaker 1: I've done the tourt ale shots where I've torn something
Speaker 1: in my shoulder, having an able to practice and I
Speaker 1: take this shot, I'm superhuman for four hours and then
Speaker 1: I'm back to horrible pain. You being able to perform
Speaker 1: through pain and not allow it to affect your mental
Speaker 1: and still go out there and put on performance. What
Speaker 1: are some of the stuff that you guys have to do,
Speaker 1: in particular with this injury right here, that you had
Speaker 1: to do to get your mind in the right place
Speaker 1: to be able to make it through this night?
Speaker 2: This is really and this is what a brutal picture
Speaker 2: this is.
Speaker 1: Uh, But that's to me, like as a fan, that's
Speaker 1: like that's a You're a fucking warrior, you know what
Speaker 1: I mean? For you to be able to play or
Speaker 1: perform through something like that. You know, obviously the admiration
Speaker 1: goes through the roof, but it's it's that's not the
Speaker 1: only time you've been hurt. There's a number of times
Speaker 1: where you had to get through it.
Speaker 2: This was there was really no element of preparation because
Speaker 2: I'll be honest, I didn't think I would be able
Speaker 2: to wrestle, And a lot of me being able to
Speaker 2: wrestle is maybe at the time I was scary enough,
Speaker 2: or intimidating enough, or forceful enough with everyone I spoke
Speaker 2: to from a office level, who's in charge of me
Speaker 2: going out there and the world seeing that my pectendon
Speaker 2: is removed from the bone and now is filled with blood.
Speaker 2: I just wasn't allowing the conversation to get to a
Speaker 2: place where I wasn't wrestling. We were the main event.
Speaker 2: Peacock had seen a big surge in subs for Hell
Speaker 2: in the Cell, and I'd also not been the main
Speaker 2: event before I'd come back to wrestle Mania. I wrestled
Speaker 2: Seth Rollins Amazing, wrestled mcnick again the next month of Backlash.
Speaker 2: So we've done too. Now we're the main event and
Speaker 2: we're finishing it off in Hell in the Cell, which
Speaker 2: is one of wrestling's best creations, and we're the main
Speaker 2: event all statering in Chicago, which has not always been
Speaker 2: a market that liked me. It's a real pro punk market,
Speaker 2: and they never they liked me, but I always had
Speaker 2: to earn them over. I just couldn't leave them hanging.
Speaker 2: There was nothing else that could have been the main event.
Speaker 2: I don't mean that with any braggadosha, just there wasn't.
Speaker 2: So I hid. Really was my preparation, you know. The
Speaker 2: night before one doctor looked at it. My own physician said, well,
Speaker 2: it can't get any worse because it was torn. I
Speaker 2: had strengthened my fingers and things of that nature. But
Speaker 2: WW is also very adamant about there's no substance abuse
Speaker 2: in this company anymore. None in the years the eighties
Speaker 2: are over. We've got to be healthy, We've got to
Speaker 2: be clean. So people ask all the time if I
Speaker 2: had any like pain medication or anything of that nature.
Speaker 2: I had for baby aspirins, really because they didn't even
Speaker 2: have regular ad bill. Now they read it. I had
Speaker 2: regular ad bill, I would have had it, but they
Speaker 2: had that baby aspirin. I was for this match.
Speaker 1: I was fine.
Speaker 2: Until a couple minutes in, and then I remember at
Speaker 2: the time being told, Hey, if you're in pain, we
Speaker 2: are going to stop it. There's nothing to prove here.
Speaker 2: If you're in pain, we are going to stop it.
Speaker 2: And my thought was, how would you know, I'm already
Speaker 2: were pretending to be in pain, Like, what level of
Speaker 2: pain are you gonna go on? That's right? So I'm
Speaker 2: walking this tightrope the whole match, not sure if they're
Speaker 2: just gonna ring the bell, But I just Seth was
Speaker 2: the perfect person to be in there with me. Seth Rollins,
Speaker 2: And the crazy thing about this photo is Seth Rollins
Speaker 2: and I recently wrestled at Crown Jewel and Seth finally
Speaker 2: beat me. I'd beat him three times before, nobody had
Speaker 2: sweeped him like that, but he tore his I don't
Speaker 2: know he tore I want to say his rotator cuff is.
Speaker 2: We don't have an actual answer on what's but Seth,
Speaker 2: I know, has gone under the knife and got surgery,
Speaker 2: so at this point real not real. However, you look
Speaker 2: at the industry. Him and I aren't good for each other.
Speaker 2: We're not We don't need to wrestle ever, again, He's lost.
Speaker 2: He's lost his shoulder. That was the first major injury
Speaker 2: I ever had. But I was glad to be in
Speaker 2: the ring with him that night.
Speaker 1: It was special. I mean, what is it? Obviously you
Speaker 1: hear about substance abuse in all leagues, all entertainment facets,
Speaker 1: and obviously all leagues have tried to change it, Like
Speaker 1: what do you guy? You guys beat the shit out
Speaker 1: of your body? What do you out of outside of
Speaker 1: just trying to take care of it? Like, what do
Speaker 1: you guys do to maintain.
Speaker 2: I think now it again load management, which is now
Speaker 2: my favorite term. Ww's really good about Hey, such and
Speaker 2: such banged up?
Speaker 1: It's not.
Speaker 2: We don't power through anymore. That might have been the
Speaker 2: very last example of let's power through. We really the show.
Speaker 2: We create the show so we can navigate around things
Speaker 2: like that and give somebody a break if they need it.
Speaker 2: You just have more athlete conscious people today. You know,
Speaker 2: you've got people who are have amino shakes. You've got
Speaker 2: people who are I started doing pilates about a year ago,
Speaker 2: because your workout has to change as you get past
Speaker 2: thirty five. Right, this peck injury came from me being
Speaker 2: a dumb ass and trying to binge three point fifteen
Speaker 2: with no warm up and open toad sandals. Oh right, dude,
Speaker 2: took it off the bar. Took it off the bar,
Speaker 2: bro open toad sandals, open cup of coffee, what like,
Speaker 2: no knowledge of a body of athleticism of so so
Speaker 2: we now, I feel like, have such a good crew. Larry,
Speaker 2: who's our head trainer, We have just a good crew
Speaker 2: of athlete minded people. And this is why it has
Speaker 2: to be this way. Modern wrestling is insanely fast, with
Speaker 2: an insane amount of rotations, flips, high spots, whatever you
Speaker 2: want to call them. It's not getting any slower. It's
Speaker 2: only going to get more dangerous and more wild. So
Speaker 2: if we're not doing it safely, we're gonna kill our
Speaker 2: own business. So you find a lot more people. It's
Speaker 2: not like the golden eighties, whereas like guy smoking a
Speaker 2: cigarette douce does ten pushups and goes out there and
Speaker 2: tears the house down. It's not that I kind of
Speaker 2: wish that'd be fun. It's a science now, yeah, it's
Speaker 2: a whole science, and we're just I feel like we've
Speaker 2: been provided proper education. I don't mean to I don't
Speaker 2: want to kiss his butt further, but I will. But
Speaker 2: one thing that really helps is Triple H being in
Speaker 2: charge because he was an athlete in there who got hurt,
Speaker 2: who's been there and had to bring himself back into
Speaker 2: the game. So when you're around other people like that,
Speaker 2: you see it and you know it. And now no
Speaker 2: one's coming back early. There's no one like, hey, they
Speaker 2: gave me seven months, but I'll be back in four. No, no,
Speaker 2: you'll be back in seven and you'll be good.
Speaker 1: We'll be waiting for you.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we'll be waiting. It will be here when you
Speaker 2: come back.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So it's just a lot more athlete minded and smart
Speaker 2: businessmen and.
Speaker 1: Women balancing work life and being a father. I mean,
Speaker 1: we're thankful to get a little three and a half
Speaker 1: month break in our NBA seasons. I was someone who
Speaker 1: personally walked away from the game after fourteen nearly fifteen years,
Speaker 1: and was still paid for another two years. I still
Speaker 1: had two years on my deal because I felt like
Speaker 1: I was missing time with my kids. You're a father
Speaker 1: of two beautiful young girls and a newborn right the
Speaker 1: newborn is eight weeks and a four year old daughter.
Speaker 1: What is the balance like and how do you make
Speaker 1: time for your kids and your family.
Speaker 2: I remember hearing somebody saying there really is no such
Speaker 2: thing as the balance. You either are doing one or
Speaker 2: you're doing the other. I have really tried everything I
Speaker 2: can to bring it together, and a lot of times
Speaker 2: that's expensive. I know that's a silly thing though, but
Speaker 2: that's but I don't mind going in on the PJ
Speaker 2: that gets me home at three in the morning versus
Speaker 2: showing up at five pm the next day. I just
Speaker 2: try to be there at the breakfast table for my
Speaker 2: oldest daughter, which is Liberty, because that's what she expects.
Speaker 2: She does understand that I go away for SmackDown is
Speaker 2: what she refers to everything, as you know. So but Leilani,
Speaker 2: my newborn. I just always try to find the moments,
Speaker 2: and a lot of it can be. We're lucky as
Speaker 2: wrestlers that we get to travel the world and wrestle everywhere.
Speaker 2: This way the company is now, you can make it
Speaker 2: so the family comes with, oh really, this isn't an era.
Speaker 2: You know, a lot of wrestlers almost did it.
Speaker 1: Man.
Speaker 2: I've really gone in on the eighties today and I
Speaker 2: shouldn't have, but like they almost did it. In spite
Speaker 2: of the fact that they had a family versus the
Speaker 2: idea that they do it for their family. You know,
Speaker 2: my girls, I got photos with them at with Liberty
Speaker 2: at SummerSlam, and and she knows the backstage area she's
Speaker 2: gone to still photos, she's taken some photos before she's
Speaker 2: she's We've tried to bring her into the mix, because
Speaker 2: that's the only way to do it. You know, you
Speaker 2: got to You got guys who've got tour buses now,
Speaker 2: and those are many homes, so you can have your life,
Speaker 2: you know, and and that's that's special. But it certainly
Speaker 2: I think you hit a point. You said something earlier
Speaker 2: that I'm thinking, Yeah, he's not wrong. You get to
Speaker 2: a point where there's only so much. You can only
Speaker 2: go so long. And I think I know my number
Speaker 2: where I'd like to get with this. And and I
Speaker 2: was lucky that my dad, who I thought was the
Speaker 2: best dad ever, he was out of the game. He
Speaker 2: was in it as a producer and as a creator,
Speaker 2: pop in here as kind of an old man wrestler
Speaker 2: every now and then, but he was out of the game.
Speaker 2: So he was number one dad at every game. He
Speaker 2: coached our football team. He's known in Cobb County as
Speaker 2: coach more than the American dream, like that's what he was.
Speaker 2: I I'd like to make it by the time they hit
Speaker 2: that age that I'm not I'm not going that often
Speaker 2: or I can't really walk around that much. And and
Speaker 2: that's we're getting We're getting closer. What I'd say is
Speaker 2: probably my last contract with ww or the next contract
Speaker 2: I signed probably be my last and and finish finish
Speaker 2: my days with w w E. It's the house that
Speaker 2: built me, and it's the house that brought me back
Speaker 2: and put me in this wonderful, wonderful position. But yeah,
Speaker 2: I I I don't know. It's very very hard to balance.
Speaker 2: It certainly is you've got to but when you're in it,
Speaker 2: you gotta be in it. Arn Anderson, I remember him
Speaker 2: telling me when you came off, when you come off
Speaker 2: the road, He's like, don't take a nap. When you
Speaker 2: come off the road and you show up at that house,
Speaker 2: you're on, You're on. And I love that challenge. Now
Speaker 2: two little ones, though, it's a little different. So uh,
Speaker 2: I'm learning as we go again. Eight weeks so we're
Speaker 2: in the phase of all best laid plans, whatever scale,
Speaker 2: all the help you could get still. It's coming at
Speaker 2: you from all angles, you know.
Speaker 1: So.
Speaker 2: But I got right back in it, man, I got
Speaker 2: right back in. I had changed a few diapers, it
Speaker 2: had been a minute, and then like I got back
Speaker 2: right away.
Speaker 1: I was like right like I was.
Speaker 2: I was so excited. Yeah, all these people taking all
Speaker 2: their time and like they're they got like the Aqua
Speaker 2: Ford and something like no, yeah, yeah I got her, Yeah,
Speaker 2: I got her her two girls too.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I don't know girl dad, yeah, real the girl Dad's
Speaker 2: like a thing in wrestling, and I don't.
Speaker 1: I don't.
Speaker 2: I think I have unrealistic expectations for like I just
Speaker 2: assume they're going to live with me forever, and then
Speaker 2: it ain't, you know. And then I'm thinking, here's what
Speaker 2: I can do to really screw that guy up. Set
Speaker 2: set the bar so high.
Speaker 1: Come on, man, my dad's been doing this ship. What
Speaker 1: are you talking about?
Speaker 2: Yeah, set the bar so high that their daddy issues
Speaker 2: are actually that I'm just always there. Yeah, their daddy's standards.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I want to take you back real, QUI before
Speaker 1: we get out of your dad. Late Great Dusty Rhodes
Speaker 1: rest in peace. But we found some footage of him hooping'
Speaker 1: popska hoop a little bit.
Speaker 2: Oh dude, dude, I know the footage.
Speaker 1: Let's let's watch this clip that I know the footage.
Speaker 1: He was out there working big body jumpers. Look at
Speaker 1: his outfit holex S Luger and Sting. This is amazing,
Speaker 1: So explain what this was.
Speaker 2: This is I believe the NWA versus the Charlotte Police.
Speaker 2: My dad was also the boss of the company. He
Speaker 2: was the executive producer. There's Barry Wyndham on the free
Speaker 2: throw line. He gave a speech before that has been
Speaker 2: described by I want to say Sting as not even
Speaker 2: a pep talk. He said, if we lose to these guys,
Speaker 2: you're fired. So I I have. My legacy of basketball
Speaker 2: is complicated my my dad. I think his favorite sport
Speaker 2: was basketball, and my mom has this one picture of
Speaker 2: him going up for a layup and like talks about
Speaker 2: how sexy his legs were. He's like a big, robust man.
Speaker 1: So it's like not the area you're like, you.
Speaker 2: Know, but he loved basketball. We always had a hoop
Speaker 2: at all our houses and if we had moved or
Speaker 2: if the one was you'd be hearing him out there
Speaker 2: sending up in the morning. I played horse with my
Speaker 2: dad every day from fifth grade to sophomore year in
Speaker 2: high school. I never ever beat my dad ever, ever,
Speaker 2: And then I furthered my shame because he loved basketball,
Speaker 2: loved it, and he was very much of the Like
Speaker 2: something that really motivated him was the year bird plays
Speaker 2: the the shoot around and doesn't take his jumper off,
Speaker 2: you know the one.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, he goes and talks shit, doesn't take his
Speaker 1: warm up off and still wins it.
Speaker 2: Yeah. He would treat that as if it was essentially
Speaker 2: like a great story in sports, Like that's that's motivating
Speaker 2: more than like the miracle on ice that he just
Speaker 2: he loved. He loved basketball, and I thought I was.
Speaker 2: I didn't get any of the skills, obviously, but fanatics
Speaker 2: fest if you want to see reverse of that footage,
Speaker 2: fanatics veest. God bless him. They did this thing where
Speaker 2: they got all of us playing different events, and I
Speaker 2: was not great at any of the events. I was also,
Speaker 2: you're doing the signings and you're doing the photo ops.
Speaker 2: If we ever do it again, we're gonna split the
Speaker 2: days so I can give it my time. But I
Speaker 2: did a full eye shot. I don't know twenty baskets.
Speaker 2: I didn't make one, and I'm in a three piece suit,
Speaker 2: but that's not even the excuse. Like I didn't even
Speaker 2: make one. The DJ there on the floor is like,
Speaker 2: all right, get it up for Cody. Here you go,
Speaker 2: come on, man, get him, get it up. I was
Speaker 2: just completely unathletic. My legs didn't look like I even
Speaker 2: know how to jump. You don't know how to human
Speaker 2: a little bit. Yeah, But the old man loved, loved basketball,
Speaker 2: and he honestly could play. He used to do all
Speaker 2: kinds of pickup games. You go to these buildings and
Speaker 2: they'd be like kids playing in the gym him, and
Speaker 2: the next thing you know, he'd be over there playing
Speaker 2: with him. He just he just loved it that. I
Speaker 2: loved that that footage exists because he was extremely athletic
Speaker 2: for a big, robust dude, and that is what his
Speaker 2: whole gimmick and wrestling was. People will see like a
Speaker 2: fat wrestler today and say something like, oh, he's like
Speaker 2: Dusty Rhodes, and I want to just no, no. Dusty
Speaker 2: Rhodes looked away and then worked away, and the same thing.
Speaker 2: Dusty Roads looked away and then he talked away. He
Speaker 2: just had a just lightning and I don't know what
Speaker 2: it was. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Man, we're coming down the home stretch. I'm gonna ask you.
Speaker 1: I want to throw the questions that my son's had
Speaker 1: at you. Yeah, a question, Yeah, those are them. I said,
Speaker 1: I'm interviewing Cody Rose. What you guys would you guys
Speaker 1: like about him? He's like, you're your guests are so tough?
Speaker 1: Ask him, Carter said, ask him personality wise? How did
Speaker 1: you like playing two different people from Stardust to Cody Rose? Yeah? Yeah,
Speaker 1: what was that like?
Speaker 2: Well, So at the beginning of start Us, I looked
Speaker 2: at it as real. This was in the era of
Speaker 2: you're not getting a lot of playing time, but they
Speaker 2: want you to do something special with this character. You're
Speaker 2: gonna be with your brother Golddust. So I looked at
Speaker 2: it as a challenge to maximize, to really kind of
Speaker 2: make chicken salad out of chicken shit essentially, like to
Speaker 2: that's always a big thing in wrestling. Take something that's
Speaker 2: a little silly and then you blow it out. El
Speaker 2: Grande Americano is a guy we got right now who
Speaker 2: is doing this exact thing. He's taken something that could
Speaker 2: have been a death sentence for another wrestler and is
Speaker 2: just making it special. And they don't mean it to
Speaker 2: be a death sentence, but they mean it to be
Speaker 2: a challenge. And at the beginning of start Us, I thought,
Speaker 2: this is a great challenge. And I've answered the challenge.
Speaker 2: We're selling these gloves. I'm learning how to do the paint.
Speaker 2: I can be so ridiculous. My promos have almost moved
Speaker 2: into this realm where there's a British accent to it.
Speaker 2: At the it's just gone so ridiculous. All this sci
Speaker 2: fi knowledge and trek babble that I knew corporate into
Speaker 2: this character. But I also gave it a shelf life
Speaker 2: of about six months, so over a year. In was
Speaker 2: the lowest of low as a wrestler. And people will
Speaker 2: always send me pictures of me as like them would
Speaker 2: start Us, like remember we met, and I always tell
Speaker 2: them that's human rock Bo. That's like because it's a
Speaker 2: sad clown. I was always in full gimmick. And one
Speaker 2: of the reasons I was always in full gimmick I
Speaker 2: was embarrassed. I didn't want to be half Cody and
Speaker 2: half starterst. I hated the idea. I just couldn't get
Speaker 2: out of the blocks on it. So in the beginning
Speaker 2: I accepted the challenge and then at a certain point
Speaker 2: I got very lost, lost my gut instincts. This was
Speaker 2: all led to me leaving. So I'm so grateful for
Speaker 2: start Us, so grateful for the idea that I got
Speaker 2: to play be ridiculous. And also I was shielded. You
Speaker 2: know today I'm not shielded. I will if I was
Speaker 2: to run to Anaheim right now to do raw, I'd
Speaker 2: come out just like this. That's who I am, that's
Speaker 2: my life. Everys been out in the open since I
Speaker 2: came back on. I lived my story just on television.
Speaker 2: For them that time was just ridiculous. You were able
Speaker 2: to be a character and have fun and be covered,
Speaker 2: be mass so that it had its benefits. But also,
Speaker 2: you know, I'm trying to relate it to to your
Speaker 2: world where you it was beneath me, it was beneath me,
Speaker 2: But then even me saying it was beneath me, that
Speaker 2: was beneath me. It was just this whole conundrum, this
Speaker 2: whole couldn't get out of the blox. And ultimately that's
Speaker 2: why I said see you bye.
Speaker 1: So it's almost like you left this kind of guy
Speaker 1: guy coming off the bench, and you came back as
Speaker 1: a superstar.
Speaker 2: Literally, I when I left and told people I'm gonna
Speaker 2: do something, I'm gonna make it. The amount of wonderful
Speaker 2: posts that are still out there that I love them
Speaker 2: for this that thought. No, not maybe a comeback, but
Speaker 2: not even close to what we've done. That's a beautiful thing.
Speaker 2: I mean, the highest I hate being inside baseball here,
Speaker 2: but the highest three matches in WW history in terms
Speaker 2: of your box office.
Speaker 1: Uh.
Speaker 2: The other name on the card was also start us.
Speaker 2: Basically that's a wild concept. Wild and I don't take
Speaker 2: it for granted, and I don't mean to be to
Speaker 2: brag on it, but that is wild. And some fans
Speaker 2: I don't think can can even see past that, like
Speaker 2: this is we're putting it in on him.
Speaker 1: I guess you know, yeah, hey, it works all right.
Speaker 1: This is my other son who was your favorite wrestler
Speaker 1: that the work you got the chance to work with.
Speaker 1: Thus far ah Man.
Speaker 2: I changed my answer a lot, uh, just to be
Speaker 2: like almost manic in my interviews where they're like, this
Speaker 2: guy's full of shit. But I'll tell you one that's
Speaker 2: been like sticking out to me. A lot of I
Speaker 2: named a lot of the luminary figures like like mister
Speaker 2: Hayman and Michael Hayes. But wrestler in the ring that
Speaker 2: I really enjoy working with, I mean John obviously Jim,
Speaker 2: but I'm trying to think of something that I'll tell you.
Speaker 2: One that I learned a lot from in a very
Speaker 2: very short amount of time was Jake Roberts Jake to Stabs.
Speaker 2: I learned a lot from him in just a single
Speaker 2: promo and a single promo, I learned how a guy
Speaker 2: can basically cut your legs. But if you're strong enough
Speaker 2: as a character, you can stand to that. But if
Speaker 2: you weren't, he was going to move past you. The
Speaker 2: real sign of what we do, the competition on who
Speaker 2: gets to the top, that's all very very real. Just
Speaker 2: the other parts of it are not. And I learned
Speaker 2: a great deal from working with him. I don't share
Speaker 2: that with him enough because it was just one night
Speaker 2: that we had this interview and I thought I just
Speaker 2: got a masterclass, and had I not had my feet
Speaker 2: planet in this ground, this guy would have just eaten
Speaker 2: me up and moved on. But he was one that
Speaker 2: I thought was really special.
Speaker 1: Shout out as an Carter you got got some good questions,
Speaker 1: good answers. All right, quick hitters, real quick name your
Speaker 1: wwe Mount Rushmore.
Speaker 2: That is not a quick hitter. That is like so hey,
Speaker 2: but I'll be I wonder if I can qualify it
Speaker 2: further because my Mount Rushmore. If anyone watches my series
Speaker 2: of interviews, they often think I just have told a
Speaker 2: different story each time. My Mount Rushmore. I think a
Speaker 2: lot of it has to do with so. I was
Speaker 2: talking with my buddy, who's another wrestler, this morning, and
Speaker 2: I was saying that your legacy a lot of times
Speaker 2: depends on your last chapter and not always your active chapter.
Speaker 2: Did you offer anything after you left? So I put
Speaker 2: my dad on Mount Rushmore because his final chapter in
Speaker 2: the business is hilarious. Half the next guys, including Roman
Speaker 2: and Seth, were under his tutelage. War Games is still
Speaker 2: a show that we do to this day. The Road's
Speaker 2: name is still on in the business and currently has
Speaker 2: the game's number one title. He just had an unreal
Speaker 2: from the grave chapter. He threw another jumper from you know,
Speaker 2: so he's on there Mount Rushmore Wise. I think the
Speaker 2: rock is on there Mount Rushmore Wise. He came back
Speaker 2: to a very tumultuous ww uh a year or so
Speaker 2: ago and decided, no, I'm not gonna deal with that.
Speaker 2: I'm in instead going to create a new character, even
Speaker 2: though I'm already one of the greatest characters ever, that
Speaker 2: being the Final Boss. And we've even we've just scratched
Speaker 2: the surface on the Final Boss, like there's something incredibly
Speaker 2: special there. So the rock is on my Mount Rushmore again,
Speaker 2: final you know chapters that you still are. I would
Speaker 2: put Triple H on there because he's put the entire
Speaker 2: ww on his back, and if the guy with the
Speaker 2: title or the girl with the title can't carry the load,
Speaker 2: he's there, even as a executive, carrying the load and
Speaker 2: looking to expand our industry. So then you've got all right,
Speaker 2: you got Dusty, you got Rock, you got Triple H.
Speaker 2: We got four heads. I found this out sadly on
Speaker 2: my bus the other day. There's not five on Mount Rushmore.
Speaker 2: Oh gosh, I want to.
Speaker 1: You know, you can throw too if you need to
Speaker 1: slide too more.
Speaker 2: No, now, I gosh, let's see. Oh he was just
Speaker 2: talking about him. We got to put the five knuckle shuckle.
Speaker 2: We gotta put John on there. Seeing on there because
Speaker 2: again last chapter. If you're a young wrestler and you
Speaker 2: go up to John at his final show in DC
Speaker 2: on Saturday Nights made them and say, hey, John, I
Speaker 2: want to be a wrestler. He's gonna give you thirty
Speaker 2: minutes plus of his time. That's just an insane bandwidth.
Speaker 2: Like my nephews walked up to them and they got
Speaker 2: the greatest lesson they've ever got in their life. And
Speaker 2: he didn't need to do that. Hello is good. You
Speaker 2: shook his hand, you know, move on, No man, He's
Speaker 2: just giving and he'll go down as the hardest working
Speaker 2: superstar ever. So that's a great four headed mount Rushmore.
Speaker 2: There's four heads.
Speaker 1: Give me a few matches that you feel like help
Speaker 1: shape your journey in career.
Speaker 2: My favorite match I used to grow up watching as
Speaker 2: a child. And if I ever get like whiskey drunk,
Speaker 2: who's ever with me? I'll be like, you gotta check
Speaker 2: this out? Is it's not even good? It's the best part.
Speaker 2: It's a clash of the champions. I think it's eighty
Speaker 2: eight and the Night Center in Miami. It's Tolly Blancher
Speaker 2: and Arn Anderson versus Dusty Rhods and Sting and why
Speaker 2: I always want them to watch his matches because Sting
Speaker 2: is starting to catch with the kids. You see if
Speaker 2: the kids have their face painted in the crowd. But
Speaker 2: it's Florida. Still, it's Miami. And when they tagged us
Speaker 2: the oh my gosh, and he knew it. So you
Speaker 2: can feel the sin to like not yet not, you
Speaker 2: know what I'm saying, like this, it's and they they
Speaker 2: they that was the right thing to do though, because
Speaker 2: they were building Sting up, and that's the rub as
Speaker 2: we call it. So that one's incredibly special for me.
Speaker 2: I'm a hardcore believer in WrestleMania twelve, which is Brett
Speaker 2: Hart versus Sean Michaels an hour plus. You hear all
Speaker 2: these people today say it's not what it used to be.
Speaker 2: Not They wrestled for sixty minutes with no falls. So
Speaker 2: I'm a diehard Sean Michaels fan thinking he didn't win
Speaker 2: it again, he didn't win it again, and then you know,
Speaker 2: Gorilla comes out. They're gonna go fifteen extra minutes, they go,
Speaker 2: and he wins the championship and the boyhood dreams Sean
Speaker 2: Michaels becomes champ, legendary, legendary. I remember my dad watching
Speaker 2: me like sit right there watching it, and he knew
Speaker 2: he could out what they were running. He knew and
Speaker 2: he could see how excited I was. So that one
Speaker 2: shaped me greatly. And then my favorite match I was
Speaker 2: ever involved with is Wrestlmania thirty nine and so far
Speaker 2: against the Roman Reigns. Because stadiums, the sound goes up,
Speaker 2: so you can't always hear it until you watch it
Speaker 2: back on TV. But I felt like I literally could
Speaker 2: like feel everyone's heartbeat. I was just connected with them
Speaker 2: that night. Now almost get emotional thinking about it, because
Speaker 2: all this stuff that you talk about backstage, Oh they're
Speaker 2: gonna go like this and they're gonna do this, it's
Speaker 2: not always that when you get out there and man,
Speaker 2: it was there plus wow, and it just it just
Speaker 2: shaped me in a way that I thought. It was
Speaker 2: the first time in my entire career I had a
Speaker 2: complete match. I know that's a crazy concept because I
Speaker 2: was maybe thirty eight at the time, but that's when
Speaker 2: I had a complete match. I'm a slow, slow learner,
Speaker 2: and that was special to me.
Speaker 1: Producer Nate was there. He's shaking his head over their
Speaker 1: sweat and just reminiscent there yeah, I took my dad.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we were there both nights. No, just just rough
Speaker 2: night for a Cody family.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Also they just set I sat in the rings. I
Speaker 2: didn't know what to go, where to go, and Roman
Speaker 2: and left. So there's just that sad shot of me
Speaker 2: just on my butt, like I don't know. I'm grateful
Speaker 2: for it, but.
Speaker 1: Oh, tough night, tough night. The Paul brothers have made
Speaker 1: names for themselves from YouTube stars to one is boxing
Speaker 1: now he's won fighting Jamonte Davis, and then Logan in
Speaker 1: the WWE. What do you think about Logan and what
Speaker 1: he's been able to do so far.
Speaker 2: I kind of want to turn on Logan because every
Speaker 2: time I do an interview, you know how you do
Speaker 2: you and you have to know this with the with
Speaker 2: the pod going like it's going right now, basically you
Speaker 2: get mini canceled and uncanceled on a weekly basis. For
Speaker 2: something you say long form pod, you're gonna say something wrong.
Speaker 2: Logan has so many people who don't like him, and
Speaker 2: I think he's wonderful. He works super hard, he asked
Speaker 2: the right questions. He's big, jack strong, unbelievably athletic, like
Speaker 2: a little bit you know, arrogant. Sure, but you're in wrestling, man,
Speaker 2: like this is in a timid world. Get out there
Speaker 2: and get in there. But I always say that and
Speaker 2: people are like, So what I'll say now is I
Speaker 2: think Logan sucks. I think, with all that great, I
Speaker 2: think it sucks. I want Jake, you know, like, uh
Speaker 2: now they're those two are those two are sending the
Speaker 2: world on five Absolutely, And I feel like, even you know,
Speaker 2: Dana White, I've heard kind of I've seen him on
Speaker 2: Logan's pod that there's a softening to them and not
Speaker 2: just a softening of oh they're okay guys, they're really
Speaker 2: smart businessmen.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I'd like to know Jake a little bit more because
Speaker 2: I really enjoy Logan. And here's something I like about Logan.
Speaker 2: I hope he doesn't mind me sharing this. Logan doesn't
Speaker 2: need necessarily to listen to everybody. Anytime I've ever told
Speaker 2: them something about this and the match something, man, he's
Speaker 2: all yours spun and really taking it in. And maybe
Speaker 2: those are just private combos, but that's how I know, Okay,
Speaker 2: he's he's going to go further. I think I think
Speaker 2: Logan's a huge part of ww moving forward.
Speaker 1: I do So last question, WW heading back to Las
Speaker 1: Vegas for WrestleMania forty two. Last year was record setting?
Speaker 1: What can fans expect?
Speaker 2: Well? Last year at a record setting WrestleMania in Allegiant Stadium,
Speaker 2: lovingly nicknamed the Death Star, I love me some Las Vegas.
Speaker 2: I lost. So we'll go right off the cuff and
Speaker 2: say you're coming to WrestleMania forty two. I will not be losing.
Speaker 1: I will not. That's up.
Speaker 2: I will not. I will not be losing. I think
Speaker 2: wrestling fans got a huge kick out of Vegas if
Speaker 2: they'd never made the trip over and seen just how
Speaker 2: Vegas is done today. I think it will be the
Speaker 2: best show ww's ever put on. There's a commercial it
Speaker 2: might have aired by the time this pod makes it
Speaker 2: out there that really kind of spells out how much
Speaker 2: we want the fans to be part of this WrestleMania,
Speaker 2: especially with our on location experiences. But we did a
Speaker 2: wonderful job for two nights. This one will will top
Speaker 2: anything that WrestleMania forty one did, and very much looking
Speaker 2: forward to everyone coming over. The next WrestleMania we're doing
Speaker 2: is in Saudi Arabia the year after that, so there's
Speaker 2: also kind of this call to get here for this
Speaker 2: Vegas one because we're off, we're overseas for the next one.
Speaker 2: So I'm very much looking forward to one more go
Speaker 2: in Vegas and it's simple wrestleminga forty two. Cody Rhoads
Speaker 2: is not going to lose period this year. No gonna
Speaker 2: first successful defense, Cody.
Speaker 1: We appreciate your time, Congratulations on all the success on
Speaker 1: end out of the Ring. Your legendary run is yet
Speaker 1: to be finalized. This is it's been a fun journey
Speaker 1: to watch and continued success and man, best of luck.
Speaker 2: Thank you so much, thank you. I appreciate it.
Speaker 1: Man, I have a question. You've held the belt the
Speaker 1: whole time. Can I feel it? Yeah?
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know the one I always bring, the one
Speaker 2: that's actually from TV so it can get a little
Speaker 2: beat up. But what they used to do is they
Speaker 2: used to put your nameplate on it, but now they
Speaker 2: put they put your logo on. Okay, yeah, so you
Speaker 2: gotta have a good logo to really sell it real.
Speaker 1: Quick to everyone.
Speaker 2: Where they can find you at everywhere?
Speaker 1: Wait, everywhere? No where?
Speaker 2: Are the place you can find me at?
Speaker 1: Your show? YouTube?
Speaker 2: What do you want to talk about Thank you so much.
Speaker 2: Netflix for Monday Night Raw USA for Friday Night SmackDown,
Speaker 2: ESPN for all ww's major pls, and at Cody Rhoads
Speaker 2: on X at American Nightmare, Cody on Instagram, and I'll
Speaker 2: be there. I'm pretty active, get it. Thank you, appreciate it.
Speaker 1: Man, Thank you so much. Thank you. John Moran is
Speaker 1: in the headlines again after a bizarre postgame interview on
Speaker 1: Friday night. He was suspended by the team for conduct
Speaker 1: detrimental to the team. Let's take a look at the clip.
Speaker 1: What went wrong for you today? A Jo? Do you
Speaker 1: feel like? I mean, it was anything you could do differently?
Speaker 1: I guess regards they had a whole spill to him.
Speaker 2: So from the outside and that outsaid may be wrong,
Speaker 2: but from outside it didn't look like you had your
Speaker 2: usual energy tonight. Okay, you feel like you should play more?
Speaker 2: Oh the coaching staff, what could have been done different
Speaker 2: get a different outcome other than actionally?
Speaker 1: Coaching staff?
Speaker 2: Uh, according to they don't probably don't play me.
Speaker 1: Honestly, that's what basically a message was happter. So it's cool.
Speaker 2: The coaching staff message was that cool, We're good. You
Speaker 2: didn't have anything physically wrong, just illness or anything.
Speaker 1: Okay, I'm fine, all right. This is a very interesting
Speaker 1: I think cross roads are at with Jos's career and
Speaker 1: we're gonna have a little time. I'm gonna run down
Speaker 1: some stuff for you guys right now. But you never
Speaker 1: want to speculate on what's going on behind the scenes.
Speaker 1: Could you never really know actually being a former player,
Speaker 1: But if I were to guess, this is a little
Speaker 1: bit of a power struggle with the new head coach,
Speaker 1: Thomas Cilia, first time NBA head coach, And I've played
Speaker 1: for some great coaches, and one thing I know that
Speaker 1: new coaches try to do is they have to establish
Speaker 1: themselves in the locker room. Obviously, Taylor Jenkins being gone,
Speaker 1: you know, he had a solid run there. There's a
Speaker 1: little bit of ups and downs with him in the
Speaker 1: locker room as well. But I think a new coach
Speaker 1: has to set the foundation the presidents and earn guys
Speaker 1: respect and figure out how to do it because it's
Speaker 1: different these days. I know I've had coaches like Phil
Speaker 1: Jackson who would cuss Kobe's ass out so he can
Speaker 1: talk to everyone else as well. If he's going to
Speaker 1: do it to Kobe. That means he could do it
Speaker 1: to you. I know Stack has said that, you know,
Speaker 1: Pop would cuss out Tim, so he can do it
Speaker 1: to everyone else. So I think what this coach is
Speaker 1: trying to do is you Jaw as an example, being
Speaker 1: the best player on the team, if he can attack
Speaker 1: him to possibly motivate him and help this team. That's
Speaker 1: probably I'm guessing where this coach was going. But that's
Speaker 1: still no excuse for the type of play the job.
Speaker 1: Let us see the other night. You know, obviously everyone
Speaker 1: has off nights eight points three for twelve, whatever that was.
Speaker 1: I don't care about that. That shit's gonna happen. But just
Speaker 1: the lack of effort, the lack of just not wanting
Speaker 1: to be out there, the lack of almost like, you know,
Speaker 1: you're wasting my time having me out here type energy,
Speaker 1: that's something from a star player you can't have. I
Speaker 1: think there's no excuse for that if you look at
Speaker 1: other star players. We would never let another star player
Speaker 1: slide like that, because no matter how messed up it
Speaker 1: may be, going between you and the coach, you and
Speaker 1: the team, what's going on in the locker room, your
Speaker 1: personal life, the stars have to be stars at all times.
Speaker 1: That's on both sides of the ball. I think John
Speaker 1: needs a fresh start, and we're going to take a
Speaker 1: look at a timeline of kind of you know, what's
Speaker 1: going on of lately. But I think before he needs it,
Speaker 1: before the fresh start happens, I think he really needs
Speaker 1: to look at hisself the mirror, because we were ready
Speaker 1: to hand this guy the keys to the league just
Speaker 1: two and a half years ago. You know, someone who
Speaker 1: was having in twenty seven, eight and seven, twenty seven,
Speaker 1: seven and six around those numbers. One of the most
Speaker 1: electrifying players we've ever seen come on the scene, an
Speaker 1: All Star, so he was must watch TV, and year
Speaker 1: by year that's gone down. Some of it's become because
Speaker 1: of injury, which is which is only natural. Some of
Speaker 1: it is because of the off court shit and the
Speaker 1: one thing that we used to hear back in the days,
Speaker 1: you never want your off court bullshit to be louder
Speaker 1: than what you're doing on the court. When Jab was
Speaker 1: at the top of his game, I'm not sure how
Speaker 1: things were going in the locker room or if he
Speaker 1: had tough, you know, situations within that organization because the
Speaker 1: play was doing so so the play was doing all
Speaker 1: the talking. But since then it's been just a decline
Speaker 1: in games played. He's played three hundred and thirteen out
Speaker 1: of four hundred, so it's about a sixty six sixty three.
Speaker 1: Clip hasn't played over sixty five games since his rookie season. Again,
Speaker 1: some of this is injury, some of this is suspension.
Speaker 1: Jock currently is at twenty one and seven shooting shooting
Speaker 1: percentage is at a career low. He's shooting fifteen percent
Speaker 1: from the three point line. Again, this guy came in
Speaker 1: the game electrified, and I think the one knock that
Speaker 1: everyone had is how long will he be able to
Speaker 1: play at this level at the rim. He's gone from
Speaker 1: nearly shooting fifty percent at the rim to this season
Speaker 1: only twenty eight. Again, that ground is hard, you get
Speaker 1: fouled injuries, your body is a little different. And we
Speaker 1: live in a game today where guys are making a
Speaker 1: living shooting. And Joe was able to break the mold
Speaker 1: because he didn't have to be forced to shoot. But
Speaker 1: if he's not able to get to the rim at
Speaker 1: will like he used to, his game is going to
Speaker 1: have to develop. So I say all that to say,
Speaker 1: I mean I think he's still great. I think he
Speaker 1: has a lot of great miles left. But I also
Speaker 1: think he needs to look at yourself in the mirror,
Speaker 1: because I think he's let the outside noise distract and
Speaker 1: and be louder than what's on the court. So we're
Speaker 1: gonna go a little jog down memory lane and give
Speaker 1: you And this is not to bring up old ship
Speaker 1: or anything, but but my point is is just how
Speaker 1: he came in and took the world by storm and
Speaker 1: where he currently sits at right now on a three
Speaker 1: and four basketball team and a lost team that has
Speaker 1: no direction. It doesn't look like it has very much leadership.
Speaker 1: And that's that. That was what you think Jaw at
Speaker 1: this point in his career, what's this year seven? Form
Speaker 1: year seven? You think year seven, that's where he would
Speaker 1: be on all fronts.
Speaker 2: Six years old? Like where you stand in the.
Speaker 1: League that your career? Yeah, well, I mean I think
Speaker 1: you're you're you're heading to your prime athletic proless in
Speaker 1: your twenty seven, twenty eight, twenty nine thirties. But more
Speaker 1: this is the time where you know, year seven, where
Speaker 1: the game should have already started to slow down for
Speaker 1: you and you're able to manipulate the game and understand
Speaker 1: the game and understand, Yeah, we don't need him to
Speaker 1: be a lockdown defender, but we need him to play
Speaker 1: the passing lings like Alan Iverson. We need him to
Speaker 1: work on his game and not be someone who's picked
Speaker 1: on like Steph was picked on early on, and Steph
Speaker 1: took that shit personal. And again, Steph's not a great defender,
Speaker 1: but he's not a weak link anymore. And I think
Speaker 1: that's what they need from Jah is to be this
Speaker 1: twenty six you know, you look at it Aunt Edwards,
Speaker 1: who's not that much with the same How old are
Speaker 1: they close to age? Right? Yeah, you know there's not
Speaker 1: a but you know obviously, And I think to another
Speaker 1: issue with this younger generation is is they didn't and
Speaker 1: this is not all of them, but not a lot
Speaker 1: of them had a lot of like real og vets
Speaker 1: that could tell him anything and kind of guide them
Speaker 1: and help them steer this ship. Not from a superstar perspective,
Speaker 1: but just as a player as you continue to get
Speaker 1: older perspective. But anyway, let's take a look at this journey.
Speaker 1: Number two overall pick in the twenty nineteen draft brings
Speaker 1: electricity to Memphis. Memphis was much watch basketball. Josh rookie
Speaker 1: year he obviously took home the Rookie of the Year.
Speaker 1: Year two, the Grizzlies make the playoffs. He averages thirty
Speaker 1: points in a first round loss, so it's obviously showing
Speaker 1: growth and potential and he still must watch TV at
Speaker 1: this point. Year three, breakout year, All Star, Starter one
Speaker 1: most improved, averaging twenty seven, seven and six, takes his
Speaker 1: team to the Conference. Simmis unfortunately hurts his knee, misses
Speaker 1: the last three games and that's kind of the end
Speaker 1: of their run. They lose in six to the Warriors.
Speaker 1: The year the Warriors go on to win a championship.
Speaker 1: So we're sitting right now, year three, I think we're ready,
Speaker 1: Like he's one of these people that we're talking about
Speaker 1: if we were rind And remember, you know, Brown's on
Speaker 1: the backside, Steps on the backside, Kd's on the backside.
Speaker 1: Who is going to be one of the faces or
Speaker 1: the face of the league. And this is when people
Speaker 1: are starting to stay like that boy out in Memphis,
Speaker 1: Jaw is gonna be at least one of them, if
Speaker 1: not the one. He's the rising star signs his Nike
Speaker 1: deal and there was rumors I don't know if you
Speaker 1: guys heard this, but there was rumors that Nike was
Speaker 1: gonna bring their version of Little pennyback for Jaw. They
Speaker 1: were gonna bring Little Jaw, which would have been absolutely incredible.
Speaker 1: You know. I think Penny hinted. Penny hinted hinted that
Speaker 1: when we had him on What's Burning at one point,
Speaker 1: so there was talks about him possibly having a little
Speaker 1: job which would have took the game to another level.
Speaker 1: He's currently sitting on his third signature model of his shoe,
Speaker 1: And how I measure success on kids shoes is how
Speaker 1: much I see him at AU tournaments and who's wearing them,
Speaker 1: because that means they're being bought. I remember someone I
Speaker 1: used to see all the time was the Kyrie shoe.
Speaker 1: He was always at tournaments. Obviously, Kobe shoes are at tournaments,
Speaker 1: but Jos shoe was in heavy row, so you know
Speaker 1: it was working at one point. Let's take a look
Speaker 1: at twenty twenty two. This is the off season after
Speaker 1: he's hurt. He hurts his knee right twenty twenty two. Allegedly,
Speaker 1: some things happen at foot locker. Later on, there's an
Speaker 1: incident I think at his house with a younger kid,
Speaker 1: and despite all that, he's still able to kind of
Speaker 1: move past that, because obviously, when you're playing at a
Speaker 1: certain level, things are overlooked. He signs to Max deal
Speaker 1: five year, one ninety three, something that changed him and
Speaker 1: his family's life forever. The twenty twenty three season, Josh
Speaker 1: stays in the headlines. January, there's an incident in Indiana
Speaker 1: with some friends in a light. This was also, you know,
Speaker 1: obviously that stemmed over from some on the court shit
Speaker 1: that happened at the game twenty twenty three, the unfortunate
Speaker 1: flashing a gun. This is when we're talking about people
Speaker 1: telling on themselves. I think, right, I think this was
Speaker 1: the whole thing where, you know, he flash of something.
Speaker 1: The league suspends him for eight games. Up until this point,
Speaker 1: he's still killing though, so the headlines are starting to
Speaker 1: get a little louder, but his game is just as loud,
Speaker 1: so it's allowed to continue. At this point, he's at
Speaker 1: twenty seven, eight and six, and they were thirty four
Speaker 1: and nineteen in the Western Conference. The twenty thirty three playoffs,
Speaker 1: Grizzlies losing six to the Lakers in round one, which
Speaker 1: will put him you know, obviously finishes their season. May
Speaker 1: twenty twenty three, another gun incident on Instagram Live. I
Speaker 1: think is Homie caught it. And at this point, you know,
Speaker 1: this is when people are starting to make fun of
Speaker 1: him and almost disrespecting him because one time's a mistake,
Speaker 1: two times is what you know. So again he's incriminating hisself.
Speaker 1: And again I don't even want to bring up all
Speaker 1: this old ship, but my point of bringing it up
Speaker 1: is to make you guys understand how the game has
Speaker 1: suffered since all this off the court shit has started
Speaker 1: to make more noise than me on the court shit.
Speaker 1: So he suspended. Second time around, he suspended the beginning
Speaker 1: of the next season. Is at the twenty twenty three,
Speaker 1: twenty twenty four Missus twenty five games, we're thinking, like, hey,
Speaker 1: you know this is I think this is going to
Speaker 1: wake him up, and from all aspects you think about it, did.
Speaker 1: He came in in those nine games, played nine games
Speaker 1: and was at twenty five, eight and six, and then
Speaker 1: he tears his labram, which ends his season. This past
Speaker 1: season only is able to play fifty games twenty three
Speaker 1: and seven, So the numbers of starting to dip a
Speaker 1: little bit. They're swept out of the playoffs, and now
Speaker 1: we're sitting here with a new coach who is trying
Speaker 1: to figure out, how do I get through this team?
Speaker 1: Can I go through the superstar to do it? I
Speaker 1: think you can tell by his energy and the way
Speaker 1: he handled that situation. Again, we don't want to speculate
Speaker 1: it could be some real bullshit going on behind the scenes,
Speaker 1: but still as the star player to handle it a
Speaker 1: better way. So we're sitting here with a team that's
Speaker 1: under five hundred, and it takes me back to one
Speaker 1: of my original statements. I think he needs a fresh start.
Speaker 1: I think he's outgrown Memphis from a standpoint of He's
Speaker 1: done a lot of shit there on and off the court,
Speaker 1: good and bad. And you know, I think it's a
Speaker 1: good time for, you know, for them to kind of
Speaker 1: press the reset button as a team. You know, I
Speaker 1: think they got some good young talent. Obviously Jaron Jackson
Speaker 1: is still there. I mean it's a situation where do
Speaker 1: they try to clean house and try to rebuild with youth.
Speaker 1: Because if you look at this team as with Jah
Speaker 1: leading them and Jared is this co pilot, I don't
Speaker 1: see the light at the end of the tunnel respectfully,
Speaker 1: especially in a tough Western conference. You know, obviously Sham's
Speaker 1: reported there's tension, you know, over the last few days
Speaker 1: with the head coach who Nate butchered his name and jaw.
Speaker 1: And again I think, if I'm looking at this thing,
Speaker 1: and I'm gonna say it one more time, I think
Speaker 1: it's this head coach trying to figure out who can
Speaker 1: I go through to get through to the team. And
Speaker 1: normally you can use the best player as an example
Speaker 1: to talk to the rest of the team, but that
Speaker 1: hasn't worked. So again, we are now here. Let's think
Speaker 1: about a possible few places he can land. Let's keep
Speaker 1: in mind he's under contract until twenty twenty eight, making
Speaker 1: forty million, which is a lot of money, but with
Speaker 1: today's deals, that doesn't make him unmovable or untradeable. You
Speaker 1: can still move around and play with that and make
Speaker 1: a trade like that work. So we're gonna give you
Speaker 1: a few scenarios. You know, Houston is looking for a guard.
Speaker 1: John can definitely fill that role, which would be scary.
Speaker 1: You know, they could send someone like a shepherd east
Speaker 1: end of van Fleet. They have Phoenix's first round pick
Speaker 1: in twenty twenty seven, So Houston could be a potential spot. Minnesota,
Speaker 1: you know they can throw a Nas Reed, a Devincenzo,
Speaker 1: possibly a Rob Dillingham who hasn't really got an opportunity yet.
Speaker 1: Terrence Shannon Nas can't be traded un till January because
Speaker 1: he just had an extension. But Minnesota is another destination
Speaker 1: and Jah, holy shit, would be scary. Phoenix, interesting situation. Obviously,
Speaker 1: there would be a package, probably around Jalen Green. You
Speaker 1: know they're not giving up Devin Booker, but can Devin
Speaker 1: Booker and Jaw play alongside each other? Great city, I
Speaker 1: think management needs to tighten up and get a little
Speaker 1: bit better. But a great city to play for, a
Speaker 1: great fan base, and obviously Devin Booker one of the
Speaker 1: most solid players in the game. And then last, but
Speaker 1: not least, you know that we're thinking Miami. You know,
Speaker 1: you can build something around Tyler Hero getting a fresh
Speaker 1: start in South Beach could be good for some. That'd
Speaker 1: be a big responsibility for Jah to be out of
Speaker 1: South Beach to get his fresh start, and possibly Brooklyn.
Speaker 1: Brooklyn has assets. They're looking for a star, you know,
Speaker 1: after they lost Kde and Kyrie and Harden, they've been
Speaker 1: looking for a new direction. So Brooklyn can be that
Speaker 1: big New York stage, but not necessarily the nixt kind
Speaker 1: of scrutiny and and and eyeballs where Jock can flourish there, Uh,
Speaker 1: Nate the producer, it makes a good point, I think,
Speaker 1: you know, because we also mentioned, you know, we were
Speaker 1: talking in our pregame conversation who else can use a
Speaker 1: new start, And obviously Trey Young's name came up to me,
Speaker 1: Zion came up to me. But producer Nate said, tray
Speaker 1: for Jaw and both get a fresh reset. And my
Speaker 1: thing to that is, obviously that's a fresh reset, But
Speaker 1: I don't think that trade makes either team better, you know,
Speaker 1: to be honest with you, you know, so I think,
Speaker 1: you know, them go into situations where they can thrive
Speaker 1: and and be a piece of something big would be interesting.
Speaker 1: So we'll see again. The one thing I would would
Speaker 1: say to John, because I'm a huge fan of him,
Speaker 1: Pops looked out for us this summer out in Memphis.
Speaker 1: We kicked it and he opened the gym for us.
Speaker 1: And and so I mean, I love Jaw, but also
Speaker 1: feel like, you know, sometimes in our position, we need
Speaker 1: to have some way of constructive criticism that hopefully gets
Speaker 1: through to the younger player that's not looking to just hate.
Speaker 1: You know, him and Perk just went back and forth.
Speaker 1: He saw that shit, and that's not the position I'm
Speaker 1: trying to come in. My position is just incredibly talented. Bro.
Speaker 1: The sky is still the limit for you, But to me,
Speaker 1: it's less about what's going on around you and more
Speaker 1: about what's going on within you and being able to
Speaker 1: tighten up and killing the shit off the court. There
Speaker 1: can be no more off the court bullshit, locker room distractions.
Speaker 1: You just got to go out there and be a killer.
Speaker 1: And again you're still very capable of doing that, but
Speaker 1: that's going to come with hard work. Bro. You know,
Speaker 1: your game has to improve, especially as you get older.
Speaker 1: That ground gets harder and you're not an acrobaty. You
Speaker 1: can't be an acrobat and dunk on everybody and hit
Speaker 1: the ground that many times. So you know, obviously the
Speaker 1: game has to steadily improve. But then also I think
Speaker 1: the mental mindset of being a twenty six year old
Speaker 1: superstar more of a leader, more of you know, the
Speaker 1: guy the team can rally around, because when things were
Speaker 1: going good, you were that guy. I definitely think a
Speaker 1: new start would help this situation, but I think before
Speaker 1: it goes anywhere, you know, you got to look at
Speaker 1: yourself in the mirror, bro and really remember why you're
Speaker 1: doing this and lock back in because you are one
Speaker 1: of the greatest players in this game and this should
Speaker 1: go by fast. Man. If you don't capitalize on that.
Speaker 2: At a superstar player, brand new head coach, how much?
Speaker 2: So long because we didn't hear about coaching issues And.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean I get I think this is just
Speaker 1: a new coach trying to find his way. And for years, again,
Speaker 1: as I said earlier, coaches have gone at the best
Speaker 1: player to be able to go with everyone else. Now
Speaker 1: I don't know if that's exactly what he's doing or not.
Speaker 1: I'm thinking he's probably trying to challenge him and he's
Speaker 1: just not pressing the right buttons. And to your point,
Speaker 1: Jock could be like I've been here, like what the
Speaker 1: fuck are you talking about? You know, and that's still
Speaker 1: not the right approach to take. And again I'm speculating.
Speaker 1: I don't know what Josh said or done, but my thing,
Speaker 1: as the best player on the team, you don't always
Speaker 1: have to be the leader, but you can't be an
Speaker 1: example of bullshit, and you know, he showed bullshit in
Speaker 1: that last game, so that's something that could never happen
Speaker 1: as someone in his position. So I hope he's able
Speaker 1: to figure it out again. He's one of my favorite players.
Speaker 1: He's one of the best players we have in this game,
Speaker 1: and I think he needs to go out there and
Speaker 1: reclaim that and all that shit starts between his ears
Speaker 1: the World Series too. Remember incredible, incredible, incredible Dodgers come
Speaker 1: through and get back to back titles. Shout out to
Speaker 1: my Dodger people, Mookie and Line and Magic. Magic said
Speaker 1: he's eighteen won eighteen championships, winners, win, Shout out to Magic.
Speaker 1: I think one of the best World Series we've seen
Speaker 1: in a long time. Disclaimer, I didn't get to watch
Speaker 1: all Game seven. I had to go support somebody at
Speaker 1: an event. But trust me, I almost got kicked out
Speaker 1: of the venue for having my phone on because I
Speaker 1: was at a comedy show and they were trying to
Speaker 1: tell me, oh, you can't. It's like, I don't give
Speaker 1: a fuck what you're saying. I'm gonna watch this game
Speaker 1: on my phone. And then the dude win away and
Speaker 1: got someone and the next thing.
Speaker 2: I know.
Speaker 1: They tapped me on the shoulder. Mister Barnes, you're okay,
Speaker 1: you can finish watching the game. So I told him
Speaker 1: you got to throw me out. You and a motherfucking army.
Speaker 1: You're gonna have to throw me out of the comedy
Speaker 1: show if you thought I wasn't gonna watch. I say
Speaker 1: all that to say I heard I missed an incredible
Speaker 1: game seven. You know we have a slide right here
Speaker 1: of literally a slide in how close the Blue Jays
Speaker 1: were to winning this. I was talking shit with some friends,
Speaker 1: some ladies that are helping me with the golf tournament.
Speaker 1: They're Canadians, and there was just a big time shit
Speaker 1: talking about of the whole time. But I will say,
Speaker 1: I mean Toronto played their asses off. I think no
Speaker 1: one gave them the chance that they went out there
Speaker 1: and earned. I think they could have finished it in
Speaker 1: game six. I think a lot of base running errors
Speaker 1: and then obviously bottom of the ninth, second and third
Speaker 1: no outs and you can't score. That's when you're fucking
Speaker 1: with the baseball guys right there, Toronto, that he's trying
Speaker 1: to hand you something. The guys are trying to hand
Speaker 1: you something, and you pop out and then you hit
Speaker 1: into a double play in left field, which was an
Speaker 1: incredible play. And then Game seven, back and forth, Otani
Speaker 1: got out there and they took his head off off
Speaker 1: the mound. But shout out to him, man, just as
Speaker 1: much as he was doing and trying to do for
Speaker 1: that team was incredible. You know, our guy Mookie, the
Speaker 1: fend of the program didn't hit very well. You know.
Speaker 1: I had some conversation with him during it, and I
Speaker 1: can only imagine how in his head he was. But
Speaker 1: he had a huge hit in game three, or excuse me,
Speaker 1: in Game six that that helped them get the victory.
Speaker 1: That's his fourth and three with the Dodgers. Four rings.
Speaker 1: Shout out most, shout out most of any And I
Speaker 1: like what Derek Jeter said too, because I mean, I
Speaker 1: think obviously as athletes, we expect the absolute best for ourselves.
Speaker 1: When he was really hard on usself in the post game,
Speaker 1: I think it was Game six, wasn't it where he
Speaker 1: was really hard said he was playing man, And Derek,
Speaker 1: You're like, nah, man, you've been playing some great shortstop
Speaker 1: and you're gonna be instrumental, you know, moving forward. So
Speaker 1: it's always good to hear ogs, you know, give these
Speaker 1: guys grace and hopefully give them the mental confidence they
Speaker 1: need to get over. But was it, you know, the
Speaker 1: bat wasn't his live like we're accustoming like I'm sure
Speaker 1: he was accustomed to, but there was still things he
Speaker 1: did to win. Yamamoto was absolutely incredible. He was five
Speaker 1: and one then the playoffs with a one point four
Speaker 1: to five e r A two complete games came out
Speaker 1: and closed game seven and he won three games in
Speaker 1: the World Series, which is absolutely amazing. I don't know,
Speaker 1: if you guys got a chance to see it, we'll
Speaker 1: put it up. But they found his how he trains
Speaker 1: and how he trains without weights, and he's thrown these
Speaker 1: like it looks like style froam rockets and and long
Speaker 1: toss and this human fucking crab work just absolutely incredible.
Speaker 1: His flexibility, his focus, the way he got hisself to
Speaker 1: the point he was and able to be so big,
Speaker 1: you know, for the for the Dodgers. But right now
Speaker 1: it's it's you know, in obviously social media world is
Speaker 1: not a real world. Some of you think it is,
Speaker 1: but it's not a real world. But people are having
Speaker 1: a hard time with you know, Dodgers, what they have
Speaker 1: going on. I mean, they'remitted over a billion dollars to
Speaker 1: Yamamoto uh and and Otani uh and I think they're
Speaker 1: worth every penny and more. But you look at it
Speaker 1: in something and I'm mad I didn't say that. I
Speaker 1: saw a post maybe like a month ago, saying that,
Speaker 1: you know, all the guys that the Dodgers are able
Speaker 1: to go out and get had opportunities to stay with
Speaker 1: their teams, but their teams didn't want to pay them,
Speaker 1: and the Dodgers wanted to pay them. So three rings
Speaker 1: in six years, you know, back to back champs. Alex
Speaker 1: Rodriguez himself said that they have the best farm system
Speaker 1: as far as pitching and hitting, So it doesn't look
Speaker 1: like that they're going to be short of of youthful talent.
Speaker 1: You know, they're not afraid to spend money. Does this
Speaker 1: kind of dominance that I don't know enough about baseball
Speaker 1: the inner workings to really know, but is this kind
Speaker 1: of this kind of domination and and and willing to
Speaker 1: just go out and pay whatever? Does this car Does
Speaker 1: this bode well for the rest of the league? Is
Speaker 1: this looming, you know, a stoppage there's no talent, but
Speaker 1: everyone else you guys better figure it out. Dynasties. You
Speaker 1: think about this team obviously, back to back champills the
Speaker 1: first time since win the early okay, I say late nineties,
Speaker 1: early two thousand, so first time in nearly twenty five years,
Speaker 1: and we all know what they were on at that time.
Speaker 1: They were you know, they were doing a version of this.
Speaker 1: You know, they were going out and getting the best players.
Speaker 1: So really interesting to see where this team goes from here.
Speaker 1: They got their stars locked in uh pitching. I'm sure
Speaker 1: they're going to find some amazing prospects and grab another
Speaker 1: all star caliber player in the off season. But this
Speaker 1: is one of the best teams we've seen in a while,
Speaker 1: and I'm happy for him. Man, definitely happy for Mook
Speaker 1: four rings. Lon Roser, the you know, the friend of
Speaker 1: the program, he's the homie. I'm happy for him. Magic obviously,
Speaker 1: magic is magic making magic things happen. So congratulations again
Speaker 1: to the Dodgers. And remember, you guys can conversate with me,
Speaker 1: have me answer your questions the hotline. Make sure you
Speaker 1: hit the hot line two seventy nine call A T S.
Speaker 1: That's two seventy nine c A L L A T S.
Speaker 1: Hope to be here from you soon. Do we have
Speaker 1: anything to hear from this time or no? Okay, This
Speaker 1: Pick six segment is presented by DraftKings. The sixers will
Speaker 1: take on the Bulls on Tuesday, who are playing really well.
Speaker 1: I think VJ. Edgecombe will have more points than when
Speaker 1: Draft Kings Pick six has them at and Tuesday night
Speaker 1: we have SGA, the reigning MVP and the champion Oklahoma
Speaker 1: City Thunder taking on the Los Angeles Clippers, who have
Speaker 1: some defense, but it's still in the season so they
Speaker 1: probably not going to bring it out, so I think
Speaker 1: SGA will have more than the Draftking Pick six has
Speaker 1: him slated for. That's a rap for unplug. You can
Speaker 1: catch us on all the Smoke Productions YouTube and the
Speaker 1: Draft Kings Network. We'll see you guys next week.