Speaker 1: M. What's up everybody? Welcome back to a brand new
Speaker 1: episode of Wrestling with Freddie. And today's episode is story
Speaker 1: Time with Uncle Frederick. And this is Wrestling with Freddie
Speaker 1: now stuffing up for the min The host of Wrestling
Speaker 1: with Freddie, Freddie Brice tune. Yeah. On today's episode, we're
Speaker 1: gonna tell well, I don't know how many stories we're
Speaker 1: gonna tell. There's always a bunch of side quests, but
Speaker 1: I'm gonna try to focus on two stories, and one
Speaker 1: of which was asking me on Twitter. So if any
Speaker 1: of you guys know of anything going on when I
Speaker 1: worked there that you have questions about, feel free to
Speaker 1: hit me up on social media. That's real fpj R.
Speaker 1: On Twitter. That's the best way for me to answer
Speaker 1: wrestling questions. I'm not on Instagram that much, so this question,
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, I don't remember your name, but I'm gonna
Speaker 1: get good at that by season two maybe. But he
Speaker 1: asked about the story of hayde Vanson. And for those
Speaker 1: who there's some like hardcoes right now, they're like, no
Speaker 1: freaking way. Yes I wrote this with a couple other people,
Speaker 1: but yes I wrote this, and yes it died a
Speaker 1: horrible death, So we're gonna get into that, and for
Speaker 1: those of you who don't know, it's just a funny story.
Speaker 1: And then the other story we're gonna tell it was
Speaker 1: my worst day in the company. And I'm pretty sure
Speaker 1: Vince did it to me just as as a practical
Speaker 1: joke they call it a rib was just ribbing you.
Speaker 1: But man, it sucked. And that was when SmackDown I
Speaker 1: think was on. Maybe it was the c W or
Speaker 1: the up N. It was a long time ago, and
Speaker 1: they've changed names a lot more than w W wrestler's names.
Speaker 1: But they made me direct a segment for the Masked
Speaker 1: Magician because he had a show on the same network
Speaker 1: and they were trying to cross promote, and he was
Speaker 1: going to use wrestlers as like the volunteers from the audience.
Speaker 1: Now we're gonna start with this story because for those
Speaker 1: of you who don't know, I love magic. When I
Speaker 1: was a little kid, I went to a magic shop
Speaker 1: here in Los Angeles, California, and so like some of
Speaker 1: the best magicians in the world were here, and it
Speaker 1: was a place called the Magic Castle, and you could
Speaker 1: go there and eat and they would perform for you.
Speaker 1: And these were like top top shelf magicians. And I
Speaker 1: went to a magic shop and my mom said, you
Speaker 1: can get one trick, any trick you want. And I
Speaker 1: looked around at everything, and I didn't look at the
Speaker 1: back of any of the boxes. I just looked around.
Speaker 1: And I went back to my mom and I said,
Speaker 1: I don't want I don't want to get any of
Speaker 1: these tricks. And she said why not, and I said,
Speaker 1: because I don't want to know how they work. And
Speaker 1: there's a scene from a movie with Christian Bale and
Speaker 1: Hugh Jackman and they're like dueling magicians and Christian Bale,
Speaker 1: I don't want to spoil it for you if you
Speaker 1: haven't seen it, but he's in love with this with
Speaker 1: this woman, and he's doing a magic trick and this
Speaker 1: is like the eight hundreds in England, I believe. And
Speaker 1: he's doing a bullet catch, which was a spectacular trick
Speaker 1: because magicians had died doing it, and his wife or
Speaker 1: his girlfriend doesn't want him to do it, and he says, no,
Speaker 1: it's perfectly safe. She goes, show me how to do it.
Speaker 1: He's like, no, I can't. I can't show you how
Speaker 1: to do it. She goes, well, then you can't. You
Speaker 1: can't do it. You you have more responsibilities than just yourself.
Speaker 1: Now you have me, we're going to have a child.
Speaker 1: You have responsibilities that your father says, all right, if
Speaker 1: I show you will you will you let me do it.
Speaker 1: She says okay. He does the bullet catch, and then
Speaker 1: he reveals the trick that he pulls the bullet from
Speaker 1: the gun before he ever gives her the pistol to fire,
Speaker 1: and so it's just watting. There is no bullet, and
Speaker 1: he breaks it down. He basically says the gun is empty,
Speaker 1: there is no bullet, and she looks at him and
Speaker 1: she it's almost instead of relief, it's disappointment. And then
Speaker 1: she says, oh, well, when you know how it's done,
Speaker 1: it's not that special, is it. And you can see
Speaker 1: his heart break the way a woman should have in
Speaker 1: his heart, and he says, well, no, you know, it's
Speaker 1: still it's still pretty dangerous. You know, people can die
Speaker 1: doing this, and she just like shrugs it off, like yeah, okay,
Speaker 1: whatever whatever, And that to me was magic, right. I
Speaker 1: never wanted to know how it was done. It was
Speaker 1: why I couldn't watch wrestling for about eight months when
Speaker 1: I left the company, because I knew. I knew all
Speaker 1: the tricks and some of the magic had had faded away,
Speaker 1: And it wasn't until my daughter got real into it
Speaker 1: that I came back sort of full circle. So I'm
Speaker 1: the perfect guy to direct a segment for a character
Speaker 1: whose entire gimmick is destroying magician's careers and exposing all
Speaker 1: their secrets and all their trade secrets and and making
Speaker 1: magic no longer magic. Like that guy that did that
Speaker 1: Scuzzy John was his name, John Moffatt Or no, that's
Speaker 1: the character from Silence of the Lambs, the New York
Speaker 1: journalist that got slapped by by Dr De David Schultz.
Speaker 1: And there was a wrestler who like gave up the
Speaker 1: secrets in order to help this story get made. Like
Speaker 1: screw that guy, and screw the mass magician. His name
Speaker 1: was like Valve Valentine or something and so and this
Speaker 1: may sound hardcore, like wow, Freddie is really getting on
Speaker 1: a soapbox for magicians, but and I know it is,
Speaker 1: it's ridiculous, but check this out. Man, Like these men
Speaker 1: and these women, their entire livelihood is on making you
Speaker 1: guess right, how do you do it? How do you
Speaker 1: do it? So all these YouTube videos, all these Instagram
Speaker 1: videos and Valve Valentine who started it with his mass
Speaker 1: magician crap, like that's that's hurting magicians. It's not getting
Speaker 1: people more excited about magic, not anymore so than they'd
Speaker 1: be if they saw a magician and wondered how they
Speaker 1: could do it. No, it's just people putting a spotlight
Speaker 1: on themselves because they don't have what it takes. They're
Speaker 1: not the three dimensional magician. They may just be good
Speaker 1: at slide a hand, or they may just be good
Speaker 1: on the microphone, or maybe they're just funny, but none
Speaker 1: of the other skills are up to part. And they're
Speaker 1: mad about that, and they're trying to get their own
Speaker 1: shine and make money in a new way. But it's
Speaker 1: just destroyed the magic business. So now I get to
Speaker 1: work with this guy, So Vince gives me Maria and
Speaker 1: Maria Cannellis that is, and uh Biscuits and Gravy what
Speaker 1: were their names? Festus became Luke Gallows and uh Gordie's kid.
Speaker 1: I don't remember, but anyway, they their theme music wing
Speaker 1: Biscuits and Grave and Festus was this character played by Luke.
Speaker 1: You guys know him. Now it's Luke Gallows. If you
Speaker 1: watched a w or or the indie scenes, now, shout
Speaker 1: out to my buddy Angelo who gave him that name.
Speaker 1: And uh, his character doesn't speak. He was not mute.
Speaker 1: He was just kind of dumb, right and just sort
Speaker 1: of like lobotomized. And then when the bell would ring,
Speaker 1: this is his gimmick. I'm not saying this was great,
Speaker 1: but it made me laugh at least when the wrestling
Speaker 1: bell would ring, he would like run, He just beat
Speaker 1: the crap out of whoever was in front of him,
Speaker 1: and if the bell ring again, he would go back
Speaker 1: into his docile, lobotomized state, which doesn't give a long
Speaker 1: career for a character like that, because the moment someone goes, well,
Speaker 1: maybe if I just ring the bell again in the
Speaker 1: middle of the match and he'll stop, and then I
Speaker 1: can just pin it, which happened, and then the characters
Speaker 1: magic kind of died right them as the tag team
Speaker 1: he Maria Canellis, and the story is supposed to be
Speaker 1: that Festus has a crush on Maria. I'm like trying
Speaker 1: to prevent a migraine wall explaining this this storyline to you, guys,
Speaker 1: that's how painful this memory is, and uh, they're gonna
Speaker 1: do this magic thing together, the mass magician is. It's
Speaker 1: going to be like a date kind of. So I
Speaker 1: wake up that morning and I feel horrible. I grabbed thermometer.
Speaker 1: Take my temperature one degrees sick as a dog. There
Speaker 1: is no there are no sick days at the w
Speaker 1: w E. You go, You go to work unless you're dead,
Speaker 1: and even then they fire you. He's fired. He didn't
Speaker 1: show up. Dude, he's dead. Well, he won't care, so
Speaker 1: he wouldn't do that. So I feel like crap. I
Speaker 1: take a ton of medicine, I get to work. I
Speaker 1: get hit with the masked freaking magician on a segment
Speaker 1: No one's gonna watch on a segment. No wrestling fan
Speaker 1: wants to watch a segment I don't want to watch
Speaker 1: or be a part of, or be associated with in
Speaker 1: any way, shape or form. And did I mention I
Speaker 1: have a hundred one to temperature. So God bless Luke.
Speaker 1: This is Festus, and God bless Maria for galas goes Man,
Speaker 1: you look sickred and shamous because she is a solf,
Speaker 1: white and pale. She could like see his heart beat
Speaker 1: like a like a baby fish or a baby frog.
Speaker 1: He goes, man, you look worse than shame is, which
Speaker 1: makes me mile and laugh. But man, I'm hurting. And
Speaker 1: then incomes sky val Valentine, and now I can't just
Speaker 1: tell the guy I hate you. Man, you're jerk and
Speaker 1: you're everything that's wrong with the show business. If they
Speaker 1: can't afford a scripted shows, so they pay you peanuts
Speaker 1: and you get an hour on TV, screw you. I
Speaker 1: can't say that, right, So I say, hey, Vole, it's
Speaker 1: nice to meet you. Uh, what are the tricks that
Speaker 1: you'd like to perform for us today? So he's gonna
Speaker 1: do the head spinning around on the box trick. Hey,
Speaker 1: that's new and fresh and hit. At least he's not exposing,
Speaker 1: you know, something that's not stupid, and then that they
Speaker 1: didn't expose on Looney Tunes. And the other is a levitation.
Speaker 1: He's gonna levitate Maria and uh, I have never seen
Speaker 1: a levitation be performed, So now I have to watch
Speaker 1: it because I have to let everyone know where the
Speaker 1: cameras are going to be. Right. Well, actually he helped
Speaker 1: with that because he has to protect his props. I
Speaker 1: don't I'm not trying to take credit for it. So
Speaker 1: he's like, hey, we need a camera here here, and
Speaker 1: here's all right, I'll grab these guys. I'm writing some
Speaker 1: diet log for Maria and Festus too, so she can
Speaker 1: be his lovely assistant. Right, and uh, I'm looking at
Speaker 1: the levitation gimmick and it's so loud. It's so loud.
Speaker 1: And he turns on. It's like and it starts to go.
Speaker 1: I'm like, bro, how what how? How do you want
Speaker 1: me to this? He goes, oh, well, when I perform
Speaker 1: it on my show, there's a lot of music play,
Speaker 1: all right, man, Well, all right, I'll put some music
Speaker 1: in and post I guess, but right on. And so
Speaker 1: Maria comes in and and she doesn't have much dialogue.
Speaker 1: It's like, hey, Festus, are you ready to see some magic?
Speaker 1: It's I'm literally I don't want to be there. I'm
Speaker 1: just trying to make this go as quickly as possible. Maria,
Speaker 1: the first trick they're gonna do is the head in
Speaker 1: the box. I hate telling the story. So she gets
Speaker 1: in and uh, he closes the box up, the one
Speaker 1: that goes around her body, and then there's a little
Speaker 1: door for the second box that's around her head, and
Speaker 1: you can see her smiling face and h he clo.
Speaker 1: He closes the box and he turns it degrees and
Speaker 1: he opens the back of the box. And what should
Speaker 1: be Maria's red hair? Is this a red wig that
Speaker 1: is about eight inches shorter than Maria's hair when she
Speaker 1: got in the box And not even remotely did you
Speaker 1: can look this up on YouTube and not even remotely
Speaker 1: the same color texture or anything. Okay, So I'm already
Speaker 1: sitting there and the camera guy was Luise, I think
Speaker 1: his name was Luise. He looks over to me and
Speaker 1: he goes, how did you get stuck with this ship?
Speaker 1: And I think I said something like I think he
Speaker 1: knows I like magic. I was talking about magic, and
Speaker 1: I think he just did this to like screw me
Speaker 1: over because I think I might have said screwed the
Speaker 1: mass magician or something like that. And he's shaking his
Speaker 1: head and the bits over. We do one take. We
Speaker 1: do one take, and he goes, how wasn't I go, man,
Speaker 1: that that was great. Let's just let's get to the
Speaker 1: next one. I'm ready to go throw up at this point.
Speaker 1: So while they set up, I go to the bathroom.
Speaker 1: I got like a like a wet towel that I
Speaker 1: bring over to UH to caterine. I fill up with
Speaker 1: ice and I go back to where we're shooting in
Speaker 1: this like cafeteria. I lay on a table and I
Speaker 1: just put the ice over my head. While I'm laying there.
Speaker 1: Maria is, she's so sweet. She comes up, she takes
Speaker 1: the ice pack off my head, and she goes, Freddy.
Speaker 1: I go, what she goes, don't sell? I said, what
Speaker 1: she goes, don't sell? So what are you talking about?
Speaker 1: She goes. Every single old timer that walks by here,
Speaker 1: if they see you, every single one of them is
Speaker 1: gonna go tell Vince and tell him what that I'm
Speaker 1: sick because a dog. She goes, No, They're gonna tell
Speaker 1: me you're a little bit. Was like, oh no, all right, fair,
Speaker 1: fair enough. No more ice bags, or at least not
Speaker 1: in public view. So it's time for levitation. And as
Speaker 1: the day goes on, you know how how it feels
Speaker 1: when you have the flu, You get worse as the
Speaker 1: day goes on. Right, So I'm feeling like garbage canny.
Speaker 1: I'm drinking like they're a flu by the gallon, I think,
Speaker 1: or maybe it was just t and I'm basically hallucinating,
Speaker 1: like I'm guys are the worst when we're sick. Girls
Speaker 1: are tougher than guys when it comes to getting sick. Man,
Speaker 1: I just wanted my mom. So we do levitation and
Speaker 1: Maria lays down on the Maria lays down on this
Speaker 1: board and uh uh. The mass magician pushes the button
Speaker 1: and it goes, it goes up, and then one of
Speaker 1: there's two hydraulics and one of them stops working, and
Speaker 1: so the right one keeps going up, which means her
Speaker 1: feet are going in the air, but her head's not.
Speaker 1: And she starts sliding like she goes well, and he goes,
Speaker 1: hold on, hold on, hold on, and so he has
Speaker 1: to turn it off. And I'm shaking my head just
Speaker 1: in shame, frustration and entertainment and joy to see this
Speaker 1: guy get posed. And uh gets off the table and
Speaker 1: he goes, hold on, hold on, let me fix it.
Speaker 1: I go all right, man, try to fix it. And
Speaker 1: I go up to Louise and I said, uh, look,
Speaker 1: we're gonna send it to the truck and we're just
Speaker 1: gonna cut right before it uh, before it gets right
Speaker 1: before the thing the gimmick breaks the rig because we
Speaker 1: can't do that, and val Valentine goes, hey, guys, yeah,
Speaker 1: he goes, uh my, hye, draw is completely broken. I'm
Speaker 1: not gonna be able to do a second take. And
Speaker 1: Luise goes, hey, man, so I think we should just
Speaker 1: send this to the truck and just cut it right
Speaker 1: before the thing bread And it is the single worst
Speaker 1: segment in the history of SmackDown on any channel, whether
Speaker 1: it was the c W, whether it was the up N,
Speaker 1: whether it was what was it before that, what is
Speaker 1: it now, whether it's on Fox Sports, whether any channel,
Speaker 1: it is the worst segments. So you guys try to
Speaker 1: give me credit for a lot of stuff and say, Freddie,
Speaker 1: you should go back and right man, Freddy, you should
Speaker 1: go back and save him. Is that what you want?
Speaker 1: Is that what you really want? Because I'm the man
Speaker 1: responsible for the mass magician, sorry to say apologize now
Speaker 1: this is the sad one hayde Vanson. We received a
Speaker 1: note from Vince that said Undertaker needed an opponent to
Speaker 1: run through before the next pay per view storyline. Basically,
Speaker 1: someone had gotten hurt I don't remember who, and before
Speaker 1: we could get take her to edge. They wanted someone
Speaker 1: that we could just run through. But they wanted us
Speaker 1: to have it be someone that that could mean something,
Speaker 1: and so they wanted us to find someone from f
Speaker 1: c W that we could bring up a sign, a
Speaker 1: gimmick to basically smash and destroy him for the Undertaker.
Speaker 1: So it was to Joseph it was Fasio Angelo Fazio,
Speaker 1: Krista Joseph and it was meet were called Fasio Low
Speaker 1: faz is what we called him, And to Joseph we
Speaker 1: just called DJ. And they just called me Freddy or
Speaker 1: at least buy my back. I'm sure they said some else.
Speaker 1: So the three of us sat down and we started
Speaker 1: talking about this, and all our brains kind of went
Speaker 1: to the same place right away, which would be like
Speaker 1: a cult, like a cultish kind of figure worshippers of
Speaker 1: the Undertaker things like that. We're kind of spitting ideas
Speaker 1: around and nothing's really clicking. And I don't remember who
Speaker 1: said it. I want to say DJ, but I don't
Speaker 1: remember who brought it up. But one of us said,
Speaker 1: what if he claimed the Undertaker was his father? Who
Speaker 1: said that? And then somebody else said, well, I don't
Speaker 1: think anyone will buy that, but maybe it could be
Speaker 1: like in a like us, like a supernatural sense. And
Speaker 1: I remember being like no, either way, like either way
Speaker 1: he's getting killed. Anyways, he's getting smashed up, which you know, again,
Speaker 1: we're just trying to make this work. It's yes, that
Speaker 1: would be a father killing his son, but he's not
Speaker 1: really killing him. I just mean like smashing in the ring.
Speaker 1: So uh so we try working with that and we
Speaker 1: throw it to Michael and Freebird's like, yeah, you know
Speaker 1: that whatever, he doesn't he doesn't care. And uh, we
Speaker 1: write this promo and this idea that's kind of kind
Speaker 1: of good. And he's sort of hacking into the to
Speaker 1: the network feed, which is not original by any stretch.
Speaker 1: Other wrestlers have done that before, but we thought this
Speaker 1: was an authentic and organic way for a character like
Speaker 1: this to come through. So he started hacking the feed
Speaker 1: on on Front maybe as Thursday Night SmackDown back then,
Speaker 1: and uh, they would be kind of grainy pictures. They
Speaker 1: look kind of like eighties grainy, and uh. He would
Speaker 1: have these messages for the Undertaker that he would come
Speaker 1: in with and and talk about how you know, like
Speaker 1: what everyone says, basically, his time is nearing an end,
Speaker 1: and now it's it's going to be my time, and
Speaker 1: I have anger and love for you and all this,
Speaker 1: and he had this. He was a British guy. His
Speaker 1: name was Hadrian. What a great name, Hadrian. I think
Speaker 1: it was Hadrian Howard, and uh he had this ax
Speaker 1: undertake up and that he sounded smooth when he spoke right,
Speaker 1: shaved head bit of a beard. I think the beard
Speaker 1: matched the hairling. And he looked real cool, real cool.
Speaker 1: Look smaller guy though definitely a smaller guy, smaller than me.
Speaker 1: I'm six one right now, and he was he was
Speaker 1: I can't remember exactly what he looked like. I'm prettyure
Speaker 1: he's buffer than me, which isn't saying much, but he
Speaker 1: wasn't as tall as I am. I'm telling you all
Speaker 1: this for a reason. So he's cutting these promos and
Speaker 1: he's doing a good job, and so we get the
Speaker 1: story approved by Freebird, and then we get it approved
Speaker 1: by Vince, and we start shooting these little segments and uh,
Speaker 1: they're airing on television. It's an ongoing thing. And he
Speaker 1: and he's he's not calling out the Undertaker, but he's
Speaker 1: sort of he's speaking about the Undertaker, and you're just
Speaker 1: waiting to figure out what the reason for it is.
Speaker 1: It can't just be I want your spot. That would
Speaker 1: be stupid, and it wasn't. It was this father something.
Speaker 1: So we're building up. I think we get two weeks
Speaker 1: of TV out of it, and then we go to Bristol,
Speaker 1: Connecticut and I'll never forget it because there's a train
Speaker 1: station or a train track right by the arena and
Speaker 1: we're gonna shoot this segment outside on this like graffiti,
Speaker 1: moss and algae urine stained wall. It's just real dirty
Speaker 1: and gritty, and we have like yellow Blade to Garamo
Speaker 1: Del Torro lighting coming from one side and like blue
Speaker 1: and Pink Ridley Scott Blade Runner lighting coming from the
Speaker 1: other side, and we're shooting him super clothes and uh,
Speaker 1: he busts out the pro minutes that is the best
Speaker 1: one that he's done so far. Nothing in ring, everything
Speaker 1: on on site and on location. So we cut it,
Speaker 1: we show it. Everyone's excited and it's not showtime yet.
Speaker 1: We shot this before. We shot this before the show
Speaker 1: because this was the tape show, not the live one,
Speaker 1: so you had more time to accomplish these goals. So
Speaker 1: we're in the production meeting and everyone's putting their segments
Speaker 1: through and all this and here comes our segment and
Speaker 1: nobody said boot. No one said boot the last two weeks,
Speaker 1: last two or even three weeks of TV that we
Speaker 1: got out of it, not one agent, not Kevin Dunn,
Speaker 1: not not Vince, not anybody. Sometimes we have people on
Speaker 1: the Raw team dumping on like SmackDown ideas it was crazy,
Speaker 1: Smagdown would catch heat and Smagdown sitting there like y'all
Speaker 1: rewrite us the day of the show before you even
Speaker 1: read the script, Like no one read SmackDown, nobody, no one,
Speaker 1: Vince read it when we were in the production meeting.
Speaker 1: That's where our production meetings for four hours long. So
Speaker 1: we're all committed to this, or so we think, and
Speaker 1: all of a sudden, out of nowhere, Hunter says, are
Speaker 1: we seriously going with this guy? And remember this is
Speaker 1: not a pay per view match? This is not a
Speaker 1: guy that would get any sort of offense off on
Speaker 1: the on the Undertaker. It would be just a build
Speaker 1: up for the Undertaker to have something to do so
Speaker 1: he could smash this guy and then get rolling over
Speaker 1: to edge. He says, are we really going to go
Speaker 1: with this guy? And Vince goes, man, what's the problem,
Speaker 1: and he says, he looks like he cuts my grass
Speaker 1: Man and literally and Vince laughed, and literally all the
Speaker 1: air went out of the room. Everybody just went no, no,
Speaker 1: like you could just feel it because we because now
Speaker 1: it's embarrassing to the company, Well at least from my perspective.
Speaker 1: You put thing on TV for three weeks and then
Speaker 1: you remove it with no explanation. There's no way you
Speaker 1: can do that. Like that doesn't happen on any show.
Speaker 1: You You could replace someone, right like first Prince of
Speaker 1: bel Air back in the day. No, I was under
Speaker 1: just a new mom or on the soap operas when
Speaker 1: they'd be like the role of so and so is
Speaker 1: no played by Michael Barnett. I don't know who Michael
Speaker 1: Barnett is. So I'm sitting there like there's no way,
Speaker 1: there's no way, there's no way, and Vince laughs and
Speaker 1: then Hunter laughs, and then Kevin Dunn laughs. Boy, and
Speaker 1: I mean he sells for you would have thought you
Speaker 1: that's the best joke ever. Right, So I'm like, oh man,
Speaker 1: this is We're dead. We're dead. And Vince goes, all right,
Speaker 1: dump it. And now it's not just your idea that's gone.
Speaker 1: Whatever I had ideas get crushed. Now I gotta go
Speaker 1: talk to homeboy and I gotta tell him that his
Speaker 1: character or that he was so excited for. And imagine
Speaker 1: you're in the minor leagues, okay, and you get called
Speaker 1: up to the Yankees and the guy at first base
Speaker 1: as a Hall of Famer it's Don Mattingly, and he says, hey,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna show you the ropes, take you under my wing,
Speaker 1: and you're gonna be you know, you're gonna be a
Speaker 1: part of this baseball team. And you're like, wow, this
Speaker 1: is like, this doesn't happen to anybody. Well, it doesn't. Uh.
Speaker 1: This guy came up from f c W. His very
Speaker 1: first professional wrestling storyline with the company was gonna be
Speaker 1: with the greatest. He's over the moon, and then now
Speaker 1: he has to be told that it's not gonna happen
Speaker 1: because he looks like the guy that cut triple H
Speaker 1: his grass. It is such a sickening, sickening feeling, and
Speaker 1: it's our responsibility as as the writing team to communicate
Speaker 1: it to this guy. And so it gets broken down
Speaker 1: to him. He's clearly disappointed. And the question from any
Speaker 1: artists who wants to work is, well, well, what's next?
Speaker 1: Where do we go from here and I'm not. I
Speaker 1: can't tell the guy like, yo, that's a rap, Like
Speaker 1: that's it's done, Like you got deaded and it's it's done.
Speaker 1: The best thing you could do is walk away for
Speaker 1: a year and come back. Like I, I just wasn't
Speaker 1: in the wrestling business headspace in or did I have
Speaker 1: the experience yet to to break it down for him.
Speaker 1: So I just said, I honestly have no idea. I
Speaker 1: do not know. Three months later, I think I'm already
Speaker 1: maybe six months later, I've now left the company and
Speaker 1: I get an email from this dude and he's left
Speaker 1: the company and he's just wanting to act. Now. I
Speaker 1: remember sitting there going wow, like he could he could
Speaker 1: maybe actually do that because he his his work was good,
Speaker 1: good looking. Do definitely could play some bad guys for sure.
Speaker 1: He had a very like stern mean face and a
Speaker 1: sharp nose, sharp eyes like a hawk. Just looked like
Speaker 1: a guy that would be in a fight with the
Speaker 1: with the protagonist in a movie, right, I call my agents.
Speaker 1: At the time, I don't remember where I was. I
Speaker 1: think it was I c M. I wasn't. You gotta
Speaker 1: remember I wasn't acting then. I'd never officially like let
Speaker 1: go of my agent, but I didn't know them very well,
Speaker 1: and I said, uh. I emailed him and said, hey,
Speaker 1: I know this wrestler, he's one to act. Could I
Speaker 1: maybe just get him like a like a hip pocket
Speaker 1: deal with you guys, Or could he send a tape
Speaker 1: an audition for you and just see if if you
Speaker 1: like it. Maybe there's a junior agent there that could
Speaker 1: work with him. The email I got back was we're
Speaker 1: not looking to work with any professional wrestlers. And I
Speaker 1: just sat there. I was like, man, because I you
Speaker 1: gotta understand, I love these men and women. I genuinely
Speaker 1: love them. I'll respect the sacrifices they make. I respect
Speaker 1: what they put their bodies through. I respect the the
Speaker 1: the amount of stress that they're under with the travel
Speaker 1: they have, and the commitments that the company demands you
Speaker 1: you make. So I I've seen them work way harder
Speaker 1: than I've had to work for less. So I got
Speaker 1: I got a lot of love for these for these
Speaker 1: men and women, and I don't I don't like when
Speaker 1: this business craps on on the wrestling business because I
Speaker 1: think they have some really talented performers. Um. I know
Speaker 1: we've talked about some of the actors before, and I
Speaker 1: even forgot to mention Dave Batista because I'm an idiot,
Speaker 1: but like, look at how carefully that guy has has
Speaker 1: built and developed his career, right, Like he's never taken
Speaker 1: on too much too soon, and don't hit me with will.
Speaker 1: No one offered him the looting in movies. It was
Speaker 1: just like the muscle guy parts. That's a bunch of BS.
Speaker 1: I know for a fact that's BS, because I know
Speaker 1: a movie that got offered to him where he was
Speaker 1: the lead and the men, but he didn't feel ready yet.
Speaker 1: He didn't want to put himself in that position with
Speaker 1: a character that he didn't connect with, and at least
Speaker 1: this is what was told to the producer, and so
Speaker 1: he didn't do that movie. And you watched just sort
Speaker 1: of grow from from a monster in a movie to
Speaker 1: suddenly working with Jodie Foster in that weird hospital movie
Speaker 1: where he was the orderly that kicked ass, but you
Speaker 1: saw some vulnerability out of Dave. Then then he keeps evolving.
Speaker 1: Now he's gonna do a romantic or not romantic comedy. Well,
Speaker 1: I'm sure he will eventually, but he did a dad
Speaker 1: daughter kind of vibe one. He's doing a buddy cop
Speaker 1: movie now, like he's really starting to grow and take off.
Speaker 1: So to see Hollywood embrace wrestling now, I'm always like, man,
Speaker 1: you're just trying to make money off of me and
Speaker 1: I And granted it's show business, right, and we all
Speaker 1: know business is the bigger word, but they blow so
Speaker 1: much smoke man, and I've seen him do it with actors,
Speaker 1: so I know they do it with wrestlers. And it
Speaker 1: was one of the things that always disappointed me about
Speaker 1: my business, so to speak, was the way it just
Speaker 1: it's so like segregated isn't the right word. But it
Speaker 1: was like when I was coming up, there were TV
Speaker 1: shows that I was like, man, that because I want
Speaker 1: to do TVs. When they Freddy, you're a film actor,
Speaker 1: you don't do television, I was like, what, I'm just
Speaker 1: as an actor. There's no film before it, there's not
Speaker 1: I'm an actor. And then Glenn Close did a show
Speaker 1: where she played a lawyer. I think it's called Damages,
Speaker 1: and that blasted the door wide open, and then every
Speaker 1: film actor was suddenly a television actor, wounding Emmy's left
Speaker 1: and right, and they loved the schedule. They loved the consistency,
Speaker 1: They loved that they got to play one character for
Speaker 1: a longer amount of time than just six weeks, and
Speaker 1: really start to figure that that's exciting for an actor.
Speaker 1: And so all of a sudden, that all got mushed,
Speaker 1: and now you see Hollywood coming in and the rock
Speaker 1: chicks down the door. And then John Cena, instead of
Speaker 1: slipping on ice when he walked through it, he took
Speaker 1: the frame off so they can't build it again. And
Speaker 1: now all of a sudden they're loving wrestlers. So I hope,
Speaker 1: I hope the trend continues. And uh, I appreciate all
Speaker 1: of you guys and gals listening, and I will see
Speaker 1: you next week right here on Wrestling of Freddy. This
Speaker 1: has been a production of I Hearts Michael to 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. M h m hmmm.