Speaker 1: M. What's up, everybody? Welcome back to another episode of
Speaker 1: Wrestling with Freddy. The WWF is back and I'm back
Speaker 1: with you. I hope you're ready to hear some WrestleMania stories.
Speaker 1: Now stepping up for the mining of Wrestling with Freddie
Speaker 1: Freddie Prince June. Yeah, we're on the road to WrestleMania
Speaker 1: right now. It's getting close. Hope you guys are excited.
Speaker 1: You're gonna see Rhonda Rousey the winner of the Women's
Speaker 1: Royal Rumble and Brock Lesner, the winner of the Men's
Speaker 1: Royal Rumble, and the main events of WrestleMania, which is
Speaker 1: always awesome. Rhonda gets a very mixed response from the crowd,
Speaker 1: and she tends to be very honest with her feelings
Speaker 1: in the moment the crowd. For those who don't follow
Speaker 1: the brand very much, they loved her when she first
Speaker 1: came in with the Rock at a WrestleMania that was
Speaker 1: at the San Francisco Fordia Niners New Stadium Levi Stadium,
Speaker 1: I don't remember which one it was, and she did
Speaker 1: a hip toss on Stephanie McMahon in the middle of
Speaker 1: the ring, and that was kind of this hint and
Speaker 1: this tease that she was gonna come. So when she
Speaker 1: did debut, the crowd got behind her and they were
Speaker 1: really the live crowds were really hyped for and then
Speaker 1: they turned and when they did, you could see it
Speaker 1: emotionally bother her, not the character Ronda Rousey. It hurt
Speaker 1: Ronda Rousy and she was very public in interviews about it.
Speaker 1: And she's the kind of person who when you feel
Speaker 1: like that you're going to use a certain type of
Speaker 1: person is going to use anger as a means to
Speaker 1: re empower your ego, right, And so she turned on
Speaker 1: the fans and interviews and talked trash back, but not
Speaker 1: in an in character sort of way, just in a
Speaker 1: very dismissive wrestling isn't that important, I'm a real fighter
Speaker 1: sort of way. And once you say that and you
Speaker 1: go into the real in fake world with wrestling fans,
Speaker 1: you're in a lot of trouble. And so the reaction
Speaker 1: to her got worse and worse and worse, and the
Speaker 1: fans didn't drive her out of the business, but it's
Speaker 1: certainly you could tell sucked a lot of her passion
Speaker 1: for the business when she would speak on it. So
Speaker 1: now she's back. She debuted in the Royal Rumble again,
Speaker 1: which is my favorite pay per view I never missed.
Speaker 1: I've only missed one because it worked and I see
Speaker 1: her come out and the crowd was pretty darn cool
Speaker 1: about it. So I wonder how long that's gonna last.
Speaker 1: I wonder if she's gonna say something that makes them
Speaker 1: mad again, because they pick up every little quote on
Speaker 1: the dirt sheets. Now, I've learned so much about dirt
Speaker 1: sheets since I started this podcast, it's crazy. So I'm
Speaker 1: very curious to see how her road to WrestleMania goes
Speaker 1: over the next few weeks and a few couple of months.
Speaker 1: And we're on our road to WrestleMania right now. So
Speaker 1: we're gonna start with the first WrestleMania I ever got
Speaker 1: to go to as a guest, which if you listen
Speaker 1: to our episode one, you'll hear some of all the
Speaker 1: way to the first WrestleMania that I worked as an employee.
Speaker 1: I'm in Orlando, Florida with a with a group of
Speaker 1: friends and we had gotten into the bad habit of
Speaker 1: betting matches on TV and McAuley I've talked about this before,
Speaker 1: he's been a guest on the podcast. I hope you
Speaker 1: guys listen to that episode because it's really funny and
Speaker 1: he's got such a good mind for wrestling, and one
Speaker 1: day we shall take over the ind scene. But we
Speaker 1: would bet a hundred dollars a match, right, So however,
Speaker 1: if there are ten matches, you had to bring a
Speaker 1: thousand bucks cash with you, and there were often more
Speaker 1: than that. And for whatever reason, I think I can
Speaker 1: count on one hand how many matches I won versus
Speaker 1: how many he wants. So I lost a lot of
Speaker 1: money to this guy. So we go to Mania, and
Speaker 1: I think the first match was this Battle Royale eliminator
Speaker 1: that wasn't even on during the pay per view, and
Speaker 1: the winner of it was going to get a match
Speaker 1: against Chavo Guerrera oh for the e c W Championship,
Speaker 1: and Kane wins the Battle Royal. Nobody bets that match,
Speaker 1: so we're all making bets, and everybody bets Kane, so
Speaker 1: we're not gonna bet the e c W match, and
Speaker 1: Mac out of nowhere says I want to make a
Speaker 1: prop bet, and me and the other two two people,
Speaker 1: they're like, what, He goes, I bet you it's a
Speaker 1: squash match. I bet you came beats him in like
Speaker 1: ten seconds and we go, okay, sure, whatever, man, here's
Speaker 1: a hundred puck. So everyone gives him action on it
Speaker 1: because there's four of us, so including Max, so there's
Speaker 1: three dollars on the line that he could win. And
Speaker 1: so the match happens and I crap you not, I've
Speaker 1: looked it up online. It's over in nine seconds. It's
Speaker 1: a full squash choke slab match tablo down one to three.
Speaker 1: So MATC collects money right away from us. The other
Speaker 1: match and I don't remember all of them. I just
Speaker 1: remember losing all my money. They had a Belfast Brawl
Speaker 1: which was against Fit Finley, and his gimmick the w
Speaker 1: W gave him was he's Irish so he likes to fight,
Speaker 1: which is honestly, fairly accurate, fairly accurate description of them.
Speaker 1: One of my best friends is Wayne McCullough. He was
Speaker 1: a silver medalist in boxing, had gotten a lot of fights,
Speaker 1: so and I've been to Ireland and saw a lot
Speaker 1: of dudes fighting. They were always friends afterwards, but I
Speaker 1: saw a lot of fights. So anyway, it was him
Speaker 1: versus John Bradshaw Layfield j b L. And a Belfast
Speaker 1: brawl is basically a street fight where they're bringing out track.
Speaker 1: I remember a lot of trash cans got smashed on
Speaker 1: people's heads and and uh we we all said that
Speaker 1: it's a Belfast brawl. So fit Finley is for sure
Speaker 1: gonna win his own match. He's Irish like, not just
Speaker 1: American Irish like he's from Ireland. You have to listen
Speaker 1: to his accent to hear everything he says because he
Speaker 1: has that Irish brogue right, and so for sure he's
Speaker 1: winning the match. Well for sure, he didn't win the match,
Speaker 1: and Mac pulls in a three hundred off the script,
Speaker 1: and then they have the main event. Nobody bet the
Speaker 1: Flair retirement match because everybody knew how that was gonna go.
Speaker 1: Mac probably would have said something crazy like I'll bet you.
Speaker 1: Sean Michael says, I'm sorry, I love you. He didn't,
Speaker 1: but it's within his potential. So there's the Triple Threat
Speaker 1: match and Randy Orton's the champion and I'll never forget
Speaker 1: this Triple h is the challenger and John Cena is
Speaker 1: the second challenger, and the way this story had been
Speaker 1: told on TV, and I was really back into the
Speaker 1: brand at this point because I was seeing a lot
Speaker 1: of the new people after this long hiatus I had
Speaker 1: taken from wrestling from watching it, and the Orton story
Speaker 1: was incredibly undertold, as you see with a lot of
Speaker 1: w w E stories, So it didn't seem like it
Speaker 1: was an intentional under cell and the real drama, the
Speaker 1: real passion, was all coming from Sena and and Hunter.
Speaker 1: They had the momentum. They're just crushing matches doing this.
Speaker 1: So we all make our stupid bets, and where everyone's
Speaker 1: betting Senia or Triple h. I bet I bet Triple
Speaker 1: h Uh. Fathers bets Sina, I don't remember what our
Speaker 1: other buddy bet, and Mac of course bets Randy Orton.
Speaker 1: It's such a slap in the face when Norton wins that.
Speaker 1: The next day on Raw, the show opens and he
Speaker 1: literally walks out with the belt on him and he says,
Speaker 1: expecting someone else and to watch that we were still
Speaker 1: in Orlando. It was just like, I'm looking at Mac
Speaker 1: and it's literally what Mac would have said had he
Speaker 1: written it. So after WrestleMania, it's the Rick Flair retirement match.
Speaker 1: I get to meet Rick Flair and we kind of
Speaker 1: clicked and we're joking and talking. I loved your dad.
Speaker 1: I loved your father. Were you know, cracking jokes And
Speaker 1: this guy named Chavel Classics there and he's telling me
Speaker 1: this crazy story about doing cocaine with my father in
Speaker 1: with him, Frank Sinatra and the Chicago Mafia in Chicago
Speaker 1: at this of called Mr. Chows, which isn't there anymore.
Speaker 1: It's a little comedy club. So it's just an insane
Speaker 1: night for me, right And I'm sitting there with the
Speaker 1: legend Rick Flair, who's my favorite wrestler ever, and it's
Speaker 1: coming on twelve o'clock, one o'clock, two o'clock. I'm done, okay,
Speaker 1: I'm I've had it. I've had I've had some some beverages.
Speaker 1: I've had, you know, a lot of beverages. I'm ready
Speaker 1: to go pass out. This guy hasn't even like gotten
Speaker 1: warmed up two AM hits and I'm done. I'm drunk.
Speaker 1: I cannot drink anymore. I'm ready to pass out. And
Speaker 1: Rick Flair is twenty one year old who has been
Speaker 1: drinking far more than I have and is nothing like
Speaker 1: he's just ready to go. So I tap out, Mac
Speaker 1: taps out. We all go to bed and then we
Speaker 1: watch you know, Monday night raw there in Orlando. The
Speaker 1: next the next night and we all catch red Eyes
Speaker 1: from Orlando back to Los Angeles. Now in episode one,
Speaker 1: I told you about uh, this woman who I spoke
Speaker 1: to the kind have arranged all that. Her name is
Speaker 1: Kristen Prouty, and she's an amazing woman. She still works
Speaker 1: there and has literally built her career path like it
Speaker 1: was never This is the cool thing about w w E.
Speaker 1: You can get assigned a job, right and you can
Speaker 1: live with that job, and it can be crazy, it
Speaker 1: can be great, or you can create your own job.
Speaker 1: You can create your own career path within that company
Speaker 1: if you're creative enough. And she's one of the people
Speaker 1: who was and is and she's still there and she's
Speaker 1: at a very high level in the company. And her
Speaker 1: and I started talking and I've I've spoken about this,
Speaker 1: like I said in the first episode about me coming
Speaker 1: to work there, So I did, thanks to the thanks
Speaker 1: to this awesome chick and UH in her introducing me
Speaker 1: to Stephanie McMahon. And it's been a year at this
Speaker 1: point and I've been in the company. I'm grooving and
Speaker 1: all of a sudden, I'm gonna work my very first WrestleMania.
Speaker 1: Ye WrestleMania for the employees on the on like the
Speaker 1: non wrestling side is the best and worst week of
Speaker 1: the year in the company. You're you're writing stories backwards
Speaker 1: from WrestleMania backwards the whole year, and every time someone
Speaker 1: gets hurt or every time someone gets heat with the company,
Speaker 1: every single story is forced to change because we write
Speaker 1: from WrestleMania backwards. So if your main event is John
Speaker 1: Cena versus the Miss, everything from the day after WrestleMania
Speaker 1: to the next WrestleMania has to slowly build up a
Speaker 1: story for John Cena and the Miss to eventually meet
Speaker 1: in Georgia at WrestleMania the following year. So it's an
Speaker 1: incredible challenge on the on the writing staff or on
Speaker 1: the entire creative team just to get there with all
Speaker 1: the changes that come about. And they're so used to
Speaker 1: change that they welcome it, they embrace it, they invite
Speaker 1: change even when change isn't necessary. So you know what
Speaker 1: you're in for going in. At least I thought I did.
Speaker 1: I thought I was prepared. We get to the hotel
Speaker 1: in Georgia and Vince Rince out like basically like a
Speaker 1: banquet room in the in the hotel where you would
Speaker 1: have like a convention where like those snake oils motivational
Speaker 1: speaker salesman like talked to young dudes about how to
Speaker 1: be an alpha. Don't believe that crap, you guys. That's
Speaker 1: a whole bunch of nonsense, and they're just making money
Speaker 1: off you. Um, just my two cents. Anyway, he had
Speaker 1: one of those spaces. Vince us did much more noblie
Speaker 1: than they did, and we bring him WrestleMania. And I
Speaker 1: was invited into this meeting and there were only I
Speaker 1: think four or five of us in there. It was myself, Brankawortz,
Speaker 1: I believe Christopher to Joseph was in there, and I
Speaker 1: don't remember who else, but it was a very free
Speaker 1: bird was in there. Michael Hayes and Vince sets down
Speaker 1: the script and Brian sort of presents it to him,
Speaker 1: and Vince starts banging through everything he wants to rewrite
Speaker 1: and everything he wants to change. And this goes on
Speaker 1: for one, two, three, now four hours in. We're four
Speaker 1: hours in, you guys. I've taken a bathroom break once,
Speaker 1: almost tapped out, like I literally there's a part of
Speaker 1: me that wanted to like text somebody in the room
Speaker 1: and be like, hey, tell him I'm sick in the bathroom.
Speaker 1: I can't I can't make it back it. This is
Speaker 1: Vince's most prized position WrestleMania. WrestleMania is what made wrestling
Speaker 1: the mainstream attraction that it is today. I believe the
Speaker 1: terms trademark. I don't think anybody else is even allowed
Speaker 1: to use it. I mean it literally defines the w
Speaker 1: W WET in Vince's mind, maybe in some others, but
Speaker 1: it is the show because it is the show that
Speaker 1: made the company. So he cares, and he cares a lot,
Speaker 1: and you can accuse him of caring too much, but
Speaker 1: you could accuse him of that every single week, like
Speaker 1: we outthink ourselves with the things we're passionate about all
Speaker 1: the time you meet Vince McMahon, But with this, it's
Speaker 1: a different it's a different beast and it makes you,
Speaker 1: it makes you crazy. So this is day one where
Speaker 1: this is Saturday's production meeting and we're rewriting the entire
Speaker 1: show basically, and Vince wants to have this. We're gonna
Speaker 1: have Snoop Dogg Snoops coming, and we have to write
Speaker 1: in a segment for Snoop Dogg. You're gonna, right, you're
Speaker 1: gonna write the Snoop Dogg segment, All right, what are
Speaker 1: you looking for, man or whatever? Just write something. Oh,
Speaker 1: and you're gonna write the Morrison the Morrison segment too
Speaker 1: with Trician Snookie. I go, what because you're doing a
Speaker 1: Snookie segment and he's not smiling, and I'm like, yo, man,
Speaker 1: I'm not doing the Snookie segment. Like that's not that's
Speaker 1: not happening. Man. You tried to get me to do
Speaker 1: do this against Michelle McCool another time and I told
Speaker 1: you no, then I'm not doing that. So I got
Speaker 1: four segments. Man, I'm not adding that one. If you
Speaker 1: want me to add one. He goes, oh, I go, man,
Speaker 1: I don't know if you're joking or if you're not,
Speaker 1: but that's what I said. This isn't like, that's bullshit.
Speaker 1: I'm not doing that match, not the match, but the
Speaker 1: segment that they wanted to do. Only the agents, the
Speaker 1: old school wrestlers. They're the only ones that to the matches.
Speaker 1: So he's kind of like grunting chuck, like a chuckle grunt.
Speaker 1: What do you call that? At gruckle, it's more one
Speaker 1: of those like, all right, we'll just get somebody to
Speaker 1: write it, which basically someone not in the room is
Speaker 1: going to have to write it and then direct that segment.
Speaker 1: But I'm sure as hell wasn't gonna do it. Man,
Speaker 1: I didn't like the idea when they first brought it up.
Speaker 1: I fought against it in the room because the Jersey Shore,
Speaker 1: I think, is the show that she was on, and
Speaker 1: it was big back then. But I'm not a reality
Speaker 1: TV dude. In fact, I'm like anti reality TV because
Speaker 1: that takes jobs away from, you know, scriptwriters that I
Speaker 1: know and like a lot, and I would rather then
Speaker 1: be working. And this the the industry likes reality shows
Speaker 1: so much because they can make it for a tenth
Speaker 1: the cost of a scripted show, So that gets rid
Speaker 1: of more scripted shows, which means more of my writer
Speaker 1: friends are broke. So that's why I was so against
Speaker 1: it at the time. Right, it was just like she's
Speaker 1: the enemy, so I'm sure she's lovely. I just you know,
Speaker 1: that was my soapbox that I was standing on. So
Speaker 1: they get whoever they get for that. And I have
Speaker 1: my segments, and one of them is the snoop segment,
Speaker 1: and I have no idea what to do, and Vince goes,
Speaker 1: he's not gonna wrap, and I go, okay, that that's
Speaker 1: the only rule we're gonna have Snoop. But he's not
Speaker 1: gonna wrap. In a backstage segment like okay, So I
Speaker 1: go backstage like what are we gonna do? Man? And
Speaker 1: there's this dude named Dylan. They call him horn Swoggle,
Speaker 1: and he played this leper Con right, he's a dwarf
Speaker 1: in real life. He played this leper Con character and
Speaker 1: he never spoke that was again. He would go on on
Speaker 1: and like, you know, grind his teeth and bite your
Speaker 1: ankles and do little evil leprica on things like from
Speaker 1: the horror film Leprecha. And I said, hey, man, do
Speaker 1: you want to uh do you want to talk tonight?
Speaker 1: He said what? I go more specifically, do you want
Speaker 1: to rap for Snoop Dogg tonight? He goes, are you kidding?
Speaker 1: I go, yeah, I gotta write it, and I can't
Speaker 1: write reps, but I'm gonna write you a rap. You're
Speaker 1: gonna do it for Snoop? And like he's looking for new,
Speaker 1: like you know, new acts to bring with him on
Speaker 1: the road. You're gonna be one of the people auditioning.
Speaker 1: He says, dude, I would love to do that. I said,
Speaker 1: all right, man, as soon as I'll write your thing
Speaker 1: first and I'll give it to you so you could
Speaker 1: practice it, because it's gonna be terrible morning you Now,
Speaker 1: he goes, no, man, thank you so much. He was awesome. Dude.
Speaker 1: I still I still know him. I love him. So
Speaker 1: I write this up. I don't remember what the lyrics were.
Speaker 1: I'm sure it's online. If you want to humiliate me
Speaker 1: by hitting me on social media, that's at real F
Speaker 1: p j R. On Twitter, I'll block you for life.
Speaker 1: I won't, but you don't have to humiliate me. That's
Speaker 1: a choice and it sears to make. So we go
Speaker 1: in there and I got Cardona and Rowdy Roddy Piper
Speaker 1: who have agreed to help me out. I made this
Speaker 1: like passion plead to Piper about how much I love
Speaker 1: him and respect him, and I loved They Lived so much.
Speaker 1: And we're talking about him and Keith David because Keith
Speaker 1: was my dad's best friend in high school, the black
Speaker 1: dude from They Lived The Voice of Spawn on HBO.
Speaker 1: That's Keith and my dad used to be in theater
Speaker 1: school together and they were doing like of mice and
Speaker 1: men in and my dad dropped out one day side
Speaker 1: Quoest and Keith, who I met on the Mass Effect
Speaker 1: video games. We were both voicing characters in the third one.
Speaker 1: He voiced it in all three and he was telling
Speaker 1: me stories about my dad. He said, always knew one
Speaker 1: day I was gonna show for school, and that meant
Speaker 1: that he made it. And sure as how, one day
Speaker 1: he didn't show up, and nobody was mad. They were
Speaker 1: cheering because they knew. Someone called my dad and said, yo,
Speaker 1: you got a shot. And I was on the Milton
Speaker 1: Pearl Show and my dad killed it and uh yeah.
Speaker 1: So anyway, so I was talking to a piper and
Speaker 1: asked him, I said, hey, will you come and do
Speaker 1: the snook a bit and crack a coconut on on
Speaker 1: Cordona's head. He said, man, I said, he's down with it,
Speaker 1: and uh, Rody's like yeah, I'll love yeah whatever, I
Speaker 1: can do it now And we have a couple of
Speaker 1: the you know people doing that. It's like a montage
Speaker 1: of auditions and Snoop's job is just to say next
Speaker 1: at as soon as everyone's done next, that's all he
Speaker 1: has to do right, easiest job in the world. We're
Speaker 1: shooting all of the talent side first, the wrestling talent
Speaker 1: side first, so that I can just shoot Snoop once
Speaker 1: and get him out of there. So it's just Snoops
Speaker 1: p o V and everyone's coming through and said deals
Speaker 1: comes our Hornswaggle comes through and he does his rap
Speaker 1: and is he's so good, you guys. The lyrics are trash,
Speaker 1: but Swaggle can rhyme, and so he made it sounds
Speaker 1: serviceable to where I literally was like, yo, he did
Speaker 1: have one take. I was like, bro, I can't write better,
Speaker 1: and you totally saved this whole bit. That's wonderful and
Speaker 1: I love it. He's like, all right, cool, So he
Speaker 1: crushed it. I failed him, but he crushed it. And
Speaker 1: and then Cardona comes and we're talking. He's talking to
Speaker 1: Piper and I'm just watching. I didn't get involved in
Speaker 1: the physical stuff because that's that's their world, right. I'm
Speaker 1: gonna look, I've worked with some stunt teams, uh seven
Speaker 1: different times. Like they're like, dude, I've been resonated every
Speaker 1: day for forty years. So I'm just watching them, let
Speaker 1: them do their thing, and and they're ready to go, Okay,
Speaker 1: we're ready, We're ready. We get our camera on, all
Speaker 1: the lights are going. I'm so excited to see this.
Speaker 1: And then Piper goes, no, no, give me the other coconut,
Speaker 1: and Cardona goes, well, Piper, because nothing, and he grabs
Speaker 1: the other coconut, which looks like it has not been
Speaker 1: gimmicked to break or crack open in any way shape
Speaker 1: or for and Cardona is kind of like Froz and
Speaker 1: it reminded me of this story that I heard back
Speaker 1: in the day. Oh. I think that it was a
Speaker 1: movie called The Deer Hunter, and there was a scene
Speaker 1: which would never be allowed today on set where they're
Speaker 1: playing Russian roulette with a pistol, and before the other
Speaker 1: actor gets the gun, Christopher Walking goes to the gunmaster
Speaker 1: and goes, no, no, no, get the other gun. That
Speaker 1: wasn't a good Christopher Walking, sorry, no, no, get the
Speaker 1: other gun. And the other actors like, what the hell?
Speaker 1: And they did the scene with the gun that had
Speaker 1: not been supposedly cleared for safety, even though it had been,
Speaker 1: but the other actor had only seen the other gun,
Speaker 1: and Christopher Walking was trying to evoke a very honest
Speaker 1: and raw reaction and this is in the seventies, so
Speaker 1: you could be more dangerous with the way filmmaking was made,
Speaker 1: and often were. But this was the coconut version of
Speaker 1: It's so much lighter. But Cartona still is like, hold up, man,
Speaker 1: is that is that nicked or not? Like in his hat.
Speaker 1: I can see him watch it. So I'm sitting there like,
Speaker 1: oh my god, what's about to happen? What's about to
Speaker 1: go down? And I'm trusting Piper, and Cardona's trusting Piper,
Speaker 1: and uh so Cardona comes in and he's making his
Speaker 1: pitch to Snooped August to why he should be a
Speaker 1: part of the act. You could YouTube this too, and
Speaker 1: Piper comes in and just from from camera right so
Speaker 1: you're left side of frame, and whacks him in the
Speaker 1: head with the coconut, and a coconut cracks open and
Speaker 1: looks kind of like a rough crack, so it looks
Speaker 1: legit and Cardona drops and then Piper just looks into camera.
Speaker 1: And we had talked about this. He was like, things
Speaker 1: are always funnier in threes, right, I go, yeah, that's
Speaker 1: the comedy rule. He goes okay, and so he just
Speaker 1: he kind of like points to the camera looks away,
Speaker 1: points off and it walks out and he does it
Speaker 1: in threes. It has his his sort of great exit,
Speaker 1: and we cut and Cardona's laying there on the floor
Speaker 1: and I'm like, hey man, we're good. Cut, Holy Matt,
Speaker 1: are you okay? It's like I'm at all right? And
Speaker 1: you know, he was just still selling trying to mess
Speaker 1: with me, but I literally thought he was. He was
Speaker 1: jacked up. So we've shot all this and it's now
Speaker 1: probably twelve o'clock. This is Sunday at WrestleMania Day, and
Speaker 1: Snoop's called times twelve o'clock and one o'clock comes and
Speaker 1: Snoop's not there, Like one thirty two o'clock comes, and
Speaker 1: they're starting to come, Hey Freddy, we need your we
Speaker 1: need your segment for the truck. Yeah, that's great. Snoop's
Speaker 1: not here, Like, well, you gotta kid him. I go, really,
Speaker 1: how would you like me to get Snoop dog? You
Speaker 1: should just call Snoop. Let me call him right now?
Speaker 1: All right? So what's his number? Like the expectations were
Speaker 1: ridiculous some days. So I'm looking at this guy. I
Speaker 1: won't say his name because he had a bad attitude
Speaker 1: and He's like, well, are you gonna get the shot
Speaker 1: or not? I go, what would you like me to do?
Speaker 1: I can turn this in without snoop, or we can
Speaker 1: wait until he gets there and we'll get it to
Speaker 1: the truck late. So what would you like to do,
Speaker 1: because we'll let the truck know you're not ready. I
Speaker 1: con do what you gotta do. So we're sitting there,
Speaker 1: two o'clock comes and my phone rings and my phone's
Speaker 1: on silent, but I see it and I answered my
Speaker 1: phone and it's my mother and she says, uh, she says,
Speaker 1: she goes, Jimmy just Jimmy just died. And my middle
Speaker 1: name is James. My son Rocky, his middle name is James.
Speaker 1: And we're named for my uncle Jimmy, James Barber. That's
Speaker 1: what that. That middle name is there for him and
Speaker 1: one other man. We're the most influential men in my life,
Speaker 1: the other being Bob Wall who randomly just passed away. Um,
Speaker 1: this is the sad part of the podcast. But I'll
Speaker 1: get through it, and so will you. So I get
Speaker 1: this call, and you gotta understand, my uncle Jimmy was
Speaker 1: everything to me. He he didn't teach me how to
Speaker 1: throw a punch. He taught me why you have to
Speaker 1: sometimes punch. He taught me when when to punch, how
Speaker 1: to punch, the philosophy behind the fight in the first place,
Speaker 1: why sometimes it's necessary. He instilled the philosophy of being
Speaker 1: a bully buster. He got mad at me, and this
Speaker 1: is a weird side quest. He got mad at me
Speaker 1: in the sixth grade for not sticking up for this kid.
Speaker 1: I didn't even know. I was telling this other kid
Speaker 1: on the street. Eric Eric Spiegel was his name about
Speaker 1: this fight. I saw my uncle overheard he why didn't
Speaker 1: you step in? The kid couldn't even defend himself. He
Speaker 1: was a seventh grader. You know, I don't. I don't
Speaker 1: want to find him. Mincael Jimmy grabbed me. He was like,
Speaker 1: you see somebody who can't defend themselves, you step in
Speaker 1: and we called it bully busting. And I did that
Speaker 1: from from that moment on, and I wouldn't get in trouble.
Speaker 1: He took me to Uncle Cliffs, which was the local
Speaker 1: amusement park. If I would beat up a guy that
Speaker 1: was hurting someone else. Um, that might sound crazy to
Speaker 1: you guys, but to me, he was like the best,
Speaker 1: just the best man ever. So sorry for getting choked up.
Speaker 1: I'm not trying to bring it down, but and it's
Speaker 1: just kind of like caught me out of the blue.
Speaker 1: So anyway, I get off, I get off the phone
Speaker 1: with my mom and uh and snoops there. So I'm
Speaker 1: literally breaking down. I don't I don't know what to do.
Speaker 1: I told my mom I would I would call it
Speaker 1: right back. Um. I asked them, you know, hey, give
Speaker 1: me a second. And I run back to the writer's
Speaker 1: room and I'm trying to hold it together. And as
Speaker 1: soon as I opened the door, like just being exhausted
Speaker 1: from the travel and all that and and getting hit
Speaker 1: out of the out of the blue, and then him
Speaker 1: being such an important person in my life, I just
Speaker 1: like lost it in there, and just like I'm in
Speaker 1: the writer's and when I just screamed out my uncle
Speaker 1: just died. I have to go home, and everybody's like, wait,
Speaker 1: what in DJ, Like, I think I was probably gonna
Speaker 1: just fall over if I think he was hugging me,
Speaker 1: but he was probably just holding me up. And the
Speaker 1: only thing I could think to say was snoop, dogs here,
Speaker 1: someone needs to direct my segment. I didn't even have
Speaker 1: like like wind in my chest, like air air in
Speaker 1: my lungs. When I said it, and Branko Wertz was
Speaker 1: so cool. He was like, Freddie, Stopwick, We'll take care
Speaker 1: of it. And he goes, you have to get out
Speaker 1: of here. I said, I don't know what to do.
Speaker 1: He said, you gotta go to the airport. Now, you
Speaker 1: gotta fly home. I said, okay, I'll I literally just repeated,
Speaker 1: I said, okay, I'll go to the airport and I'll
Speaker 1: go fly home. And uh, they were really good that,
Speaker 1: you know, the writers took real good care of me
Speaker 1: that day, explained to my absence and why I had
Speaker 1: to go. And I got on an airplane and and
Speaker 1: I flew back to Los Angeles. I gotta flight literally
Speaker 1: like an hour after I got to the airport. I
Speaker 1: just gave my credit card and got the first flight
Speaker 1: out of there and flew home. And I went to
Speaker 1: the funeral, and they gave me two weeks to kind
Speaker 1: of like well, I said, take all the time you need.
Speaker 1: But after two weeks I called him and, uh, you know,
Speaker 1: when you go through something like that, family becomes such
Speaker 1: an important, such an important thing. And and Sarah and
Speaker 1: I were starting to talk about having a baby, and
Speaker 1: which would have been our first daughter, Charlotte, My daughter
Speaker 1: Charlotte Grace, who loves professional wrestling and I mean loves
Speaker 1: it and because she loves the gymnastics. So all you
Speaker 1: haters on the high flyers, there's a lot of kids
Speaker 1: from the next generation who really like that and respect it.
Speaker 1: Um and so I I talked to Braank Goworts and
Speaker 1: Stephanie and I said, hey, I need to change my
Speaker 1: hours or I need to give my two weeks. She said, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, we're about to move you up in the company.
Speaker 1: And I was like, yeah, I can't. I can't. I
Speaker 1: can't do that. And so, uh, instead of changing my hours,
Speaker 1: I just I gave him my two weeks and I
Speaker 1: put him in kind of not half hearted, but with
Speaker 1: a heavy heart. I just wanted to be home, you know.
Speaker 1: I was like waiting for my phone to ring NonStop,
Speaker 1: which sucked. And then my two weeks were over and
Speaker 1: I and I left, and I didn't watch wrestling for
Speaker 1: six months, and Summer Slam was coming to Los Angeles
Speaker 1: and I thought it had been a good enough break
Speaker 1: and big show. Who is so cool? Man Paul, who
Speaker 1: was a guest on on the show. If you guys
Speaker 1: want to see this the Coolest Giant or listen to
Speaker 1: the Coolest Giant ever, check out that episode. He's the
Speaker 1: best dude. Man. He invited him. He say, hey, man,
Speaker 1: I love to see you. We're gonna be at Staples Center. Um,
Speaker 1: come come early if you want. You don't have to
Speaker 1: stay for the show. Just I want to say so,
Speaker 1: all right, man, I'd love to. So. I got in
Speaker 1: contact with Kristen Prouty again. It all comes back two driven,
Speaker 1: motivated people. I should have Proudy on the podcast. She
Speaker 1: wouldn't want to do it, but she's super cool. Anyway.
Speaker 1: I see here when I get there and you get
Speaker 1: to park underneath Staples Center where like Kobe Bryant used
Speaker 1: to park and all that, I'd say that it's so
Speaker 1: sweet Staple Center and they w W takes good care
Speaker 1: of you when you get there. And I come in
Speaker 1: and this is where I ended up getting taking the
Speaker 1: job again. Randomly enough, I come in and there's I'm
Speaker 1: talking to a couple of the wrestlers that used to
Speaker 1: be in like that I used to work with basically,
Speaker 1: and all of a sudden, this huge Paul just smacks
Speaker 1: me right on the back wow wow, And I'm like,
Speaker 1: you know, it's like a backsmacker when you were in
Speaker 1: high school. And I go ah, and I just hear hello, Hello,
Speaker 1: are you and it's Paul and it's She's just he's
Speaker 1: a giant. He's literally a giant. And so we catch up.
Speaker 1: We start talking and I hear from some I don't
Speaker 1: remember who was, Hey, Vince's down ringside and he'd love
Speaker 1: to talk to you, and I go, oh, man, let me. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I didn't get to say, like face to face to
Speaker 1: Vince that it was my my two weeks. I just
Speaker 1: said bye, and he was like, all right, I didn't
Speaker 1: know you're leaving. I was like, so this would be
Speaker 1: a good moment for me to kind of explain it.
Speaker 1: And so I go down there and he's on the
Speaker 1: headset and uh, he says, hold on, hold on one second.
Speaker 1: He takes a headset off. He's a big old back
Speaker 1: smacker too. How yeah, you look great at all this
Speaker 1: And we're talking and catching up and I told him
Speaker 1: he looked like robotop and he gave me that like
Speaker 1: a looking a nod, but it was a looking and
Speaker 1: nod of okay, that's a compliment. But I have no
Speaker 1: idea who that is um and he didn't watch w CW,
Speaker 1: so there was no reason for him too. I guess
Speaker 1: shout out to the hardcorees who loves staying and know
Speaker 1: what that reference is for. But after about five minutes,
Speaker 1: he uh, he said, you know, he called me son,
Speaker 1: that's son of a pitch. He said, you know, we
Speaker 1: could uh, we really could use your back here. We
Speaker 1: could use your back, your son. And I told him
Speaker 1: straight up, I was like, man, that schedule is so
Speaker 1: it's so brutal, and that he was super cool. He
Speaker 1: you know, he said, you could basically make your schedule.
Speaker 1: It could be an every other week thing. It could
Speaker 1: just be paper used to help people out with their
Speaker 1: promos on the on the bigger shows, a chance for
Speaker 1: them to get over on in front of more eyeballs.
Speaker 1: And so I took the deal and that that started
Speaker 1: my second journey at H at the w w E,
Speaker 1: which is when we really started breaking down the promo
Speaker 1: class and doing a lot of the scene study where
Speaker 1: we were just taking scenes from movies. They liked movies
Speaker 1: like Bad Boys and Liar Liar and and Beautiful Girls.
Speaker 1: Eve Torres did the Rosie o'donald speech from Beautiful Girls,
Speaker 1: which is her talking shit about beautiful girls and Eve
Speaker 1: Torres is one of the most beautiful women on the
Speaker 1: face of the planet. So and she didn't want to
Speaker 1: do I remember she didn't want to do it. I said,
Speaker 1: that's why I want you to do it. She goes,
Speaker 1: what do you mean? She goes, it's it's I'm gonna
Speaker 1: come off hypocritical. I said, this isn't gonna be on TV.
Speaker 1: This is to challenge you, so you can see that
Speaker 1: you can, you can push yourself and you can show
Speaker 1: how much raine you have. She's like, all right, And
Speaker 1: she came in and she straight crushed it, like better
Speaker 1: than what I would have done with it. And I
Speaker 1: don't know how hard she worked on it or if
Speaker 1: it was just natural, but like it was probably our
Speaker 1: biggest class when she performed it. That was when we
Speaker 1: were like probably thirty thirty students students, thirty wrestlers deep sorry,
Speaker 1: and uh, they gave her standing ovation. Yeah, me included.
Speaker 1: She just crushed it. But uh, but that's sort of
Speaker 1: the WrestleMania story. From the good, the bad, and the ugly.
Speaker 1: I'm sury how to ugly cry face earlier that you
Speaker 1: didn't get to see ha ha, but just something to
Speaker 1: get you in the spirit for WrestleMania. I appreciate you
Speaker 1: guys listening. I really love doing this podcast. I love
Speaker 1: sharing wrestling stories with you. I would say sorry for
Speaker 1: the side quest, but you guys always say the side
Speaker 1: quests are cool and you like them, so we'll keep
Speaker 1: doing those as well, and keep listening until next week.
Speaker 1: I promised no blubber and no crying. Next week, it'll
Speaker 1: be all fun and party time everybody. Thank you for listening,
Speaker 1: and we'll see you next week on Wrestling with Freddie.
Speaker 1: This has been a production of I Hearts Michael podcast Network.
Speaker 1: For more podcasts for My Heart Radio, visit the I
Speaker 1: Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to
Speaker 1: your favorite shows. H m hmmmmm.