Speaker 1: What's going on everybody, as Freddie Prince Jr. Welcome back
Speaker 1: to Wrestling with Freddie. Thanks for all the episodes you've
Speaker 1: listened to so far, and thanks for tuning into this
Speaker 1: week's episode, which is searching for a Hearty or looking
Speaker 1: for Jeff. This was when I was given the Jeff
Speaker 1: Hardy assignment by Michael Hayes, which was make Jeff a champion.
Speaker 1: This is gonna be his one and only chance, or
Speaker 1: so he thought at the time. So we're gonna get
Speaker 1: deep into that. I'm sure there'll be a couple side
Speaker 1: quests as well at some point, So let's start the show.
Speaker 1: Welcome to Wrestling with Freddie. Now stuffing up to the mic.
Speaker 1: The host of Wrestling with Freddie Freddie Prince June. Yeah,
Speaker 1: if you look up on YouTube or any better wrestling
Speaker 1: historian than me, there's a lot of them out there.
Speaker 1: But this is the time when Jeff Hardy became the
Speaker 1: world's heavyweight champion for the very first time, and I
Speaker 1: was given the task of of of accomplishing this which
Speaker 1: most people thought was impossible and crazy. That's the cool
Speaker 1: part that I'll take credit for. But as far as
Speaker 1: the storytelling and the creativity behind it. That was a
Speaker 1: group of people that I would love to get credit to.
Speaker 1: And uh, like I said, I'm sure there'll be some
Speaker 1: side quests. I've been writing for a little while. I
Speaker 1: had done an Undertaker promo that Undertaker said, uh, he
Speaker 1: didn't change a single word too, and to my knowledge,
Speaker 1: at least from what they said, I don't believe that
Speaker 1: had happened in a very very long time. Um. And
Speaker 1: so I started getting bigger guys. I started getting Kane
Speaker 1: and some other top talent there, people that Vince is
Speaker 1: very particular with as far as certain words they can say.
Speaker 1: Kane wouldn't say destroy, he says obliterate things like things
Speaker 1: of that nature. I get the hearty story, and I
Speaker 1: know about a lot of what's going on, And just
Speaker 1: so you guys know where we're at timeline wise, Jeff
Speaker 1: was even with m v P and Jeff's like he
Speaker 1: had this like an airstream trailer on the Hardy property
Speaker 1: and it burned down and Jeff's dog passed away, and
Speaker 1: they were all wondering if they could bring that up,
Speaker 1: and Jeff was like, yeah, if you if you have to,
Speaker 1: you know you can. An m VP really respected Jeff,
Speaker 1: and Jeff knew that. So uh, m v P talks
Speaker 1: about his reckless and wild behavior and it even, you know,
Speaker 1: getting your your little dog killed, and Jeff like cracks
Speaker 1: and they have this fight. And so this is just
Speaker 1: after that. Jeff had a lot of positive energy behind
Speaker 1: him and m v P had gotten a lot of
Speaker 1: like mean nasty heat off of Jeff. And Michael calls
Speaker 1: me into his office and he's he says in his
Speaker 1: ps in his pure sexy voice, all right, here's what
Speaker 1: we're gonna do. I need you to come up with
Speaker 1: a way, and we're gonna get the belt on Jeff.
Speaker 1: Don't call it a belt, We're gonna get it on him.
Speaker 1: And so I'm sitting there like, yeah, okay, no problem.
Speaker 1: I don't know about Jeff's history. I don't I didn't
Speaker 1: know about a dirt sheet until a couple of years ago.
Speaker 1: And I'm forty five. You know, my dad was in
Speaker 1: this business and uh died violently, and he was in
Speaker 1: the tabloids a lot. So maybe I avoid that on
Speaker 1: like a pre programmed, subconscious level. And that's why I
Speaker 1: always kind of looked the other direction because it felt
Speaker 1: like gossip. Maybe I don't know. I've never self analyzed
Speaker 1: that decision. I get into it with this guy Chris
Speaker 1: to Joseph, we called him DJ, and he's he's laughing.
Speaker 1: He's like, it's never gonna happen. Like what you mean,
Speaker 1: It's never gonna happen, and he starts breaking down a
Speaker 1: lot of Jeff's issues in the past of rejecting rehab,
Speaker 1: having drug issues, things like that, and those were perceived
Speaker 1: speed bumps or in in this case, a brick wall
Speaker 1: to get through. But for me, I connected hard with it,
Speaker 1: which I'll tell you about in a minute, and the
Speaker 1: episode that we're trying to talk about serious stuff in
Speaker 1: this episode. It won't be all jokes, but I connected
Speaker 1: hard with it, and I saw opportunity. So my father
Speaker 1: was a stand up comic in the seventies. For those
Speaker 1: who may just be tuning in, I broke this down
Speaker 1: for you in the very beginning, I think, and he
Speaker 1: was a big He was a he was a big
Speaker 1: time deal man. Richard Prior discovered him. My dad had
Speaker 1: the number one show in the country in like nineteen
Speaker 1: seventy five or seventy four or something like that. Drugs
Speaker 1: were a big part of his life. In the seventies
Speaker 1: and tore my entire family apart because of it. And
Speaker 1: on January twenties seven, nineteen seventies six, he put a
Speaker 1: gun to his head and he had about six coludes
Speaker 1: in his system and UH pulled the trigger and he died.
Speaker 1: And it just wrecked my family. And so I had
Speaker 1: a lifetime of experience with drugs. Why people do him?
Speaker 1: I had gone through the anger of that you have
Speaker 1: as a young man, not having a father. I had
Speaker 1: gone through the part of my life for it. If
Speaker 1: you even did drugs, you weren't in my circle of
Speaker 1: friends straight up, like you were just ostracized. And then
Speaker 1: as I got older, I started to have more understanding
Speaker 1: and and the more knowledge I got of what addicts
Speaker 1: go through, it gave me a much clearer perspective. It's
Speaker 1: it's a way of self medicating. It's your brain knows
Speaker 1: it needs something, it just doesn't know what. And that's
Speaker 1: the easiest and unfortunately worst thing you could turn to.
Speaker 1: A lot of times they say, you know, the addict
Speaker 1: isn't taking the drug. The drug is taking the drug.
Speaker 1: This isn't just me telling you this, This is doctors.
Speaker 1: A vault from from medical doctors to psychiatrists, everyone in between,
Speaker 1: and I've just taken knowledge from all of them. So
Speaker 1: I definitely had a sensitivity toward the addict towards drug users,
Speaker 1: but still understood at a certain point you gotta stand
Speaker 1: on your own two damn feet and and get your
Speaker 1: life together, or you can end up like my pops
Speaker 1: and rip a family apart. So this was the approach
Speaker 1: that I took towards the promos and the storyline that
Speaker 1: we were going to do while Edge was champion with
Speaker 1: Vicky Guerrero and Jeff was going to have to climb
Speaker 1: this ladder, and instead of shining away from it and
Speaker 1: running away from it, I leaned heavy into it and
Speaker 1: I almost made Jeff well. I made him a baby face,
Speaker 1: using drugs as the means to do it without I
Speaker 1: feel to this day, without making drugs look cool. We
Speaker 1: portrayed a an artist who was tortured, who had self
Speaker 1: hate in abundance, and who used art to get that
Speaker 1: hatred out, whether it be in Jeff's real life art,
Speaker 1: he was painting a lot at the time. I don't
Speaker 1: know if he still does through his wrestling and now
Speaker 1: through his promos, and the first one I wrote him.
Speaker 1: He changed one word um and he he inserted the
Speaker 1: word image I nation, which was something Jeff came up with,
Speaker 1: and that word inspired every promo I wrote for him
Speaker 1: all the way to the championship, and I wrote every
Speaker 1: single one of those. And again they're all on YouTube.
Speaker 1: You can check them out. You can let me know
Speaker 1: if you love them or if you hate him, which
Speaker 1: everyone you're allowed to feel. However you feel, get hit
Speaker 1: me up on social media and and say, hey, did
Speaker 1: you write this crap? Or hey did you write this gold?
Speaker 1: I love it. But that was the That was sort
Speaker 1: of the spark that kind of lit the fire, and
Speaker 1: from that I just really tried to go into what
Speaker 1: do addicts suffer from the world is not I repeat,
Speaker 1: the world is not black and white. In fact, the
Speaker 1: black and white parts of this world are the smallest
Speaker 1: parts in comparison to the large area that gray encompasses globally.
Speaker 1: Most of us, I would say, aren't good or bad
Speaker 1: people were just people trying to get by right. And
Speaker 1: then there's incredibly good people. And when I say good,
Speaker 1: I don't mean the guy who lets you an entract good.
Speaker 1: I mean like the people who are selfless and give
Speaker 1: a lot of themselves away for the greater good. So
Speaker 1: you might call that great, you might call that the rare,
Speaker 1: the select few. I call them the good. Right. Then
Speaker 1: there's the bad, the people that are only out for
Speaker 1: themselves and will smash and step on anyone to get
Speaker 1: what they want and they don't care what the collateral damages.
Speaker 1: And then there's you and I is we're a bunch
Speaker 1: of decent people who sometimes do wrong, we feel bad
Speaker 1: about it, sometimes do right, we feel good about it,
Speaker 1: and we're just trying to get by. And the gray
Speaker 1: area is where the addict is no longer allowed to exist.
Speaker 1: Once they're publicly known as an addict, then it's just
Speaker 1: black and white for these people. It's oh, they're junkie,
Speaker 1: they're drug addict. Now you can't trust them all. I
Speaker 1: can't do this. By the way, all that criticism is
Speaker 1: completely justified. And that's why we showed Jeff fail and
Speaker 1: fail again. And if you look at the promos in
Speaker 1: this light, which was what I tried to do, I
Speaker 1: styled them after or his matches. Jeff is a crash
Speaker 1: and burn wrestler. It's builds your hopes up, Build your
Speaker 1: hopes up, Get up, to the highest most dangerous point possible,
Speaker 1: the only place possible where if he jumps off, he
Speaker 1: can end the match. And then he fails because the
Speaker 1: guy gets out of the way, or he gets betrayed
Speaker 1: or whatever the issue is, right, And so we tried
Speaker 1: to write the promos in that same sense. And I
Speaker 1: wrote these alone in New York, where I just was.
Speaker 1: So it was very kind of I was making a
Speaker 1: movie out there, and so it's very surreal to be
Speaker 1: in the same city. And honestly, the last time I
Speaker 1: was there was when I was writing these Jeff Hardy promos.
Speaker 1: A lot of these images are are fresh in my mind,
Speaker 1: or at least the philosophies behind them. You know, I
Speaker 1: don't have the the promos memorized like I used to
Speaker 1: have to do back then, so that I could kind
Speaker 1: of demonstrate how I think it should be performed. And
Speaker 1: so I would want to be off book for that
Speaker 1: and then say, look, everything you see me do that
Speaker 1: you like, steal that and make it your own, and
Speaker 1: everything I do that looks like crap. Just throw it away.
Speaker 1: They You're not gonna hurt my feelings the word for word,
Speaker 1: That's what I said to a lot of wrestlers. So
Speaker 1: that's what I was doing with Jeff and I would
Speaker 1: sit in my apartment in New York all by myself,
Speaker 1: and usually I would just have music going on the TV,
Speaker 1: like your satellite TV as music channels. You don't use
Speaker 1: these anymore because it's but I would put on one
Speaker 1: of those channels and I would just sit there and
Speaker 1: I would try to make my dad a sympathetic professional wrestler.
Speaker 1: And that's what each and every one of these were.
Speaker 1: And he would talk about the world just sees me
Speaker 1: in black and white, but I am the gray, meaning
Speaker 1: he could not never possibly be on either side of
Speaker 1: that argument. He it's impossible for him. You guys won't
Speaker 1: let him. So he's an outcast. And that's what his
Speaker 1: fans were at the time. They were the outcast fans.
Speaker 1: They were the ones that rooted for the guy that
Speaker 1: was never going to be champ, and they knew it,
Speaker 1: and they bought his merchandise anyway. And this was a
Speaker 1: key component to the whole pitch that I made. When
Speaker 1: I made it was I asked if I could see
Speaker 1: the merchandise numbers for a bunch of the wrestlers, And
Speaker 1: this was before I was assigned the Jeff Hardy pitch,
Speaker 1: and I saw that Jeff's arm bands were like I
Speaker 1: think at the time, either the I want to say,
Speaker 1: I pitched him as the top seller. They may have
Speaker 1: been the second top seller, or at least for a
Speaker 1: week they were the top seller. So maybe I used
Speaker 1: that as like my example. But he sold a lot
Speaker 1: of freaking arm bands, okay, And they were like the
Speaker 1: Spider Man webs that went up each arm and and
Speaker 1: these things went and Jeff Hardy merchandise and his T
Speaker 1: shirts they were they were selling like crazy. So I
Speaker 1: put together this whole pitch, and I pre wrote every
Speaker 1: promo that you guys saw. I presented to Vince on
Speaker 1: the same day. Everything was written. Now, some thing's changed.
Speaker 1: The Taker promo didn't when they went to London, the
Speaker 1: Taker Jeff promo and then a couple like Jeff. Things
Speaker 1: would change here in there. But the other people edged
Speaker 1: stayed enjoyed staying locked into what I wrote. Vicky enjoyed
Speaker 1: staying locked into what I wrote. It was a little
Speaker 1: bit of Hunter. He wrote his own stuff. He kind
Speaker 1: of did his own thing, and we'll get into that
Speaker 1: at the end. This was when Hunter, I don't know
Speaker 1: if he ever liked me, but he was always respectful,
Speaker 1: but this was when he was kind of like done
Speaker 1: with me. And I respect Hunter, but he was for
Speaker 1: sure done with me, and I get it. We're doing
Speaker 1: these promos and I'm talking about the Gray Area, and
Speaker 1: I'm talking about what it's like to be judged every
Speaker 1: single day of your life, and the promos are really
Speaker 1: getting over with the audience. And the trick to these, well,
Speaker 1: first the trick was finding Jeff in order to shoot
Speaker 1: the promo. So we get there early, at like nine
Speaker 1: ten am. Sometimes a little later earlier was better. Most
Speaker 1: people hated it. But the earlier we got there, granted,
Speaker 1: the production meeting was longer, but I had more time
Speaker 1: to email people what I needed to email, which gave
Speaker 1: them more time to learn their stuff or at least
Speaker 1: understand the philosophy, and it benefited everyone. He got there
Speaker 1: usually around ten AM for most of these, I feel
Speaker 1: like I would get to sign my crew. A lot
Speaker 1: of my stuff was pre approved, but his championship was
Speaker 1: not approved. Just this storyline of the Gray Area was approved.
Speaker 1: We're all getting our assignments, and the best way I
Speaker 1: think to find Jeff is to find Matt right, and
Speaker 1: I was cool with Matt. He had punched me in
Speaker 1: the eye on accident one time, gave me a black
Speaker 1: eye while he was warming up, so he was always like,
Speaker 1: he's always been very sympathetic and kind for nearly fracturing
Speaker 1: my head. And I finally go, hey, man, where's your brother?
Speaker 1: And he goes, good luck with that, and so no,
Speaker 1: there's no panic, but I gotta find him. It's a
Speaker 1: big promo. It was very deep. I never I emailed
Speaker 1: Jeff a lot of promos, but I never received an
Speaker 1: email back, so I don't know if he ever saw
Speaker 1: any of them until the day of until the day
Speaker 1: we shot them. But I said him a lot. I
Speaker 1: said him a lot of emails. So I'm looking all
Speaker 1: around the arena, I do a full lap. I don't
Speaker 1: see him. I find I think it was drough McIntire
Speaker 1: and I say, hey, man, have you seen Jeff? He said, yeah,
Speaker 1: he's back by Catering, which is on the complete opposite
Speaker 1: side of ore. I man, So I go all the
Speaker 1: way back to catering. He's not there. I'm like, Natalia,
Speaker 1: this is Nattie Nidhart, say Natalia, have you seen Jeff?
Speaker 1: Because I think he's back by the buses. I run
Speaker 1: back to the buses. Nobody there, not even someone to
Speaker 1: ask have you seen Jeff. I get back, I find
Speaker 1: Matt again, or I don't find Matt. Matt finds me.
Speaker 1: He goes, hey, man, I saw Jeff. He's back by
Speaker 1: the locker rooms. I go to the locker rooms. He's
Speaker 1: not in there. I go to into the stairwell next
Speaker 1: to the locker rooms on pure Jedi instincts, and Jeff
Speaker 1: sitting on the stairs and he's he's not his head's
Speaker 1: not down, but he's just sitting there and I go, oh, hey, hey, man,
Speaker 1: with What's what's going on? He goes, oh, hey, sorry, man, sorry.
Speaker 1: He's got this like cool Carolina drawl when he when
Speaker 1: he speaks, and I say, we got this promo to day.
Speaker 1: It's all approved. I said, you know, I emailed it
Speaker 1: to you. I don't know if you got it. Goes
Speaker 1: oh yeah, right on, right on, But he doesn't say
Speaker 1: whether he got the email or not. And he starts
Speaker 1: looking at it and reading through it. I say, take
Speaker 1: your time. I say, I'm gonna stay right outside the
Speaker 1: door though, so that if you have any questions or
Speaker 1: anything that you wanna, you know, work on we can
Speaker 1: work on it together, and uh, he says, no, it's okay, man,
Speaker 1: I just I wanna. I really want to learn these
Speaker 1: I like, I like your promos. I want to memorize it.
Speaker 1: And I see that, so I'm like, I'm gonna leave
Speaker 1: him alone. I'm gonna leave m alone. So I leave
Speaker 1: him alone on this first one. We get to a
Speaker 1: backstage area where we're gonna shoot this because I didn't
Speaker 1: want him to do it in ring yet. And we
Speaker 1: start filming and he's not happy with the vibe of
Speaker 1: it because he doesn't get enough time to memorize. That's
Speaker 1: still the biggest issue with the w w E. If
Speaker 1: you're not going to give him time to learn it,
Speaker 1: let them write for themselves, or don't write for them period.
Speaker 1: Just give him a starting place, a midpoint, and an
Speaker 1: endpoint and let him flow. But we didn't have that.
Speaker 1: We didn't have that option. He's not to and it.
Speaker 1: I know it's not where it needs to be, but
Speaker 1: I know it can be better, right, So I say,
Speaker 1: all right, hold up, dude, and I literally write the
Speaker 1: promo out on que cards, on a lot of them
Speaker 1: because we didn't have paper. Big enough to do the
Speaker 1: whole thing on one and so it doesn't look like
Speaker 1: he's reading off a que card. I tell him, hey,
Speaker 1: I'm just gonna move it around two different parts of
Speaker 1: the camera. We won't move the camera. It'll just be
Speaker 1: me moving with the que cards. And you can kind
Speaker 1: of let your face move when you feel pain and
Speaker 1: that will sort of motivate the move to where you
Speaker 1: can see the card again. He's like, all right, all right,
Speaker 1: And this was a quick hustle that we had to do.
Speaker 1: You only get so much time to get these done
Speaker 1: and then approved and then edited into the show. This
Speaker 1: was SmackDown. This wasn't on Monday Night Row. We're doing
Speaker 1: our thing and it's working, and it takes us like
Speaker 1: two or three takes and then it's really flowing and
Speaker 1: he nails it and he's almost hardly even looking at
Speaker 1: the cards now. He said it so much, and we
Speaker 1: get it done, I get it in. It gets on
Speaker 1: TV and the crowd pops big for it, and for SmackDown.
Speaker 1: Then that was rarer because it wasn't the more popular show.
Speaker 1: And they would literally put canned applause in because the
Speaker 1: reactions were never as as good. Maybe people knew it
Speaker 1: wasn't live. I don't know. It was like canned laughter
Speaker 1: on a sitcom, which you do not pull, or maybe
Speaker 1: some actors do. Maybe maybe they don't like it. I
Speaker 1: don't know. We're outside questioning yet. The pop is so
Speaker 1: real that Vince literally says on the headphones. So that
Speaker 1: was a real pop. And I'm like, oh, we're good,
Speaker 1: We're good, We're good. The storyline starting to develop. He's
Speaker 1: going after Edge, nobody trusts it, and we're a week
Speaker 1: out from pitching him as champion. Edge still has the
Speaker 1: belt and Hunters like right on the edge of the
Speaker 1: of the championship picture. At that point, the promos are
Speaker 1: all going well. I got Jeff his promo early that
Speaker 1: morning because he was there with his brother, so like
Speaker 1: nine or ten o'clock, and then, uh, they went to
Speaker 1: the locker room to go to sleep, take a nap.
Speaker 1: Our Truth was already in there taking a nap, but
Speaker 1: we had to be there early for some reason. So
Speaker 1: he and the wrestlers did we go that night. Jeff's
Speaker 1: got his promo completely memorized. He doesn't do it for me,
Speaker 1: but I know he does. You could just kind of
Speaker 1: see it in his eyes, right so we're gonna shoot
Speaker 1: this thing. We're getting ready to rock and roll, and
Speaker 1: all the power goes out and we can't We can't
Speaker 1: record anything. Now. Our camera can record, it's on battery, right,
Speaker 1: our sound can. They don't have to be plugged in,
Speaker 1: but we have no lights. Now it's time to start
Speaker 1: giving credit to other people. This was well before we
Speaker 1: get into that. Let's give credit where it's dude. The
Speaker 1: London Show, which I skimmed over. I didn't go to.
Speaker 1: I didn't want to fly all the way to London.
Speaker 1: I was living in New York at the time and
Speaker 1: taking the train to Stanford every week. And so they
Speaker 1: went and Krista Joseph was the one who shot that
Speaker 1: whole segment and fought for the segment when people in
Speaker 1: the room wanted to change a lot of it. He
Speaker 1: fought for it. Free Bird fought for it. I don't
Speaker 1: know who else did. I'm sure someone else did. I
Speaker 1: wasn't there, so I can't give you credit, but I
Speaker 1: know for a fact they did, as my buddy who
Speaker 1: did go told me so h So that promo goes
Speaker 1: off without a hitch. They say it word for word
Speaker 1: how I wrote it, and DJ shot it well, and
Speaker 1: he had to. You have to understand he had to
Speaker 1: cut back and forth from undertake her in ring to
Speaker 1: Hardy backstage on a pre written thing that I wrote,
Speaker 1: and the writer's not there. So this it's a challenge
Speaker 1: to pull that off. So credit to the trucks as
Speaker 1: well for for editing so quickly, because they have to.
Speaker 1: So we're back. We're now getting ready to shoot the
Speaker 1: promo and the power goes out and Stephanie McMahon comes
Speaker 1: by and she's like, what the hell is going on?
Speaker 1: I'm like, I don't know what the hell is going on?
Speaker 1: We have no power. We can't shoot. She goes, the
Speaker 1: cameras work, don't they go? They do? She goes, then
Speaker 1: we can shoot. We're not going to be able to
Speaker 1: see anything. She goes, hold up. She starts looking around.
Speaker 1: We're literally in like a suite at a at a
Speaker 1: basketball arena, and she's literally frantically looking around, opening cabinet stores.
Speaker 1: I start looking through cabinets and drawers. She finds a
Speaker 1: pen light, a green pen light. I grab a highball glass.
Speaker 1: She show finding it at me. Right, I grab a
Speaker 1: highball glass, like, shine it through this glass. She grabs
Speaker 1: the glass and shines it through. One of the guys
Speaker 1: had a flashlight on him and so he does the
Speaker 1: same thing. One of the crew guys. Of course they would,
Speaker 1: And we use this kind of just ghetto light slash glad.
Speaker 1: We're like MythBusters, like creating new ways to to to
Speaker 1: shoot things. And steph McMahon, the daughter of the owner
Speaker 1: of the company, she's literally holding a glass and a
Speaker 1: green light and lighting Jeff Hardy and so is one
Speaker 1: of the other crew guys. And I'm holding que cards.
Speaker 1: That's where the flashlight came from. He gave it to me,
Speaker 1: and I'm holding it on the que cards so Jeff
Speaker 1: can read the que cards even though he's he's locked in,
Speaker 1: but we we need to be there. It helped him.
Speaker 1: So we shoot this whole thing and Vince freaking loves it.
Speaker 1: And I'm looking at Stephanie and and we didn't see
Speaker 1: I I on a lot of stuff, but this is
Speaker 1: where she really earned my respect because she was willing
Speaker 1: to get her hands dirty and there was no way
Speaker 1: we were going to fail. It just wasn't an option.
Speaker 1: And I, uh, you know, I'm sitting there going like
Speaker 1: we're screwed. What what can I do? I gotta I
Speaker 1: gotta find a generator or wait for the power to
Speaker 1: come on. She came in and there's no wait. No,
Speaker 1: we're not waiting. We're gonna get this. We're not gonna
Speaker 1: get screwed. If the power comes back on, we'll shoot
Speaker 1: it again. But we're getting this, and we're getting it now.
Speaker 1: Not only do we get it, it looked way cooler
Speaker 1: than it would have looked if we had full power.
Speaker 1: Maybe not to you, but in the moment and the
Speaker 1: adrenaline that's going on these shows, it's a big it's
Speaker 1: a big deal, and they put a lot on the line.
Speaker 1: It's their families. It's not just their company, it's their
Speaker 1: family's name that's on the line every week. I know
Speaker 1: a lot of you know fans will say, well, they
Speaker 1: don't seem to worry about that too much, the way
Speaker 1: they booked things. I get that. I get that, And
Speaker 1: there's a lot of stuff in the w W E
Speaker 1: that I can't stand. All right. I love carrying Cross.
Speaker 1: When they brought him up to the main roster, I
Speaker 1: literally was like, he's done and that's it. And then
Speaker 1: they released him. So I'm with you. I get it.
Speaker 1: I love Bray Wyatt too, I'm with you. But they
Speaker 1: do take pride in their name, and they do take
Speaker 1: pride in their company. And this is just an example
Speaker 1: that's not on a gossip column somewhere where I can
Speaker 1: legit tell you. Home girl rolled up her sleeves, Doug
Speaker 1: a foxhole, got a gun, figuratively took post and was
Speaker 1: not letting anybody get over that line like it was.
Speaker 1: I loved her for that. I literally loved her for that,
Speaker 1: and it helped us accomplished the story that we were
Speaker 1: trying to accomplish. So we're kicking, but with the promos.
Speaker 1: I'm in here by the way, by the way, you guys.
Speaker 1: I was in New York the first time I've been
Speaker 1: in New York since I worked for w w E.
Speaker 1: I was making this We're on a side quest making
Speaker 1: this movie. This is how crazy Manhattan was. I literally
Speaker 1: moved to Brooklyn halfway through. So the first like five
Speaker 1: days I'm there, there's this homeless dude outside that either
Speaker 1: was massively hooked on drugs or straight up had sponti
Speaker 1: biffo like the way he was talking like, I was
Speaker 1: worried about this guy. Every day. It would get real
Speaker 1: cold at night, there were some nice days, but at
Speaker 1: night it would get real cold. One night, he's standing
Speaker 1: outside the apartment that they set me up in to
Speaker 1: where like you can't get in the apartment unless you
Speaker 1: step over, and I'm this is kind of a sad story,
Speaker 1: but I'm looking at the guy. I'm like, man, this
Speaker 1: man he looks dead, right, So I climb over. I
Speaker 1: literally step over the dude. Tell the doorman. He's like, no, man,
Speaker 1: he's out there every night. I come down the next
Speaker 1: morning nine hours later. They called a forced call. When
Speaker 1: you don't get twelve hours off, everyone's like, you get
Speaker 1: twelve hours off, bro, screw you not all the time.
Speaker 1: I come downstairs and my driver was this nice Puerto
Speaker 1: Rican lady named Janetta, and she's crying and I'm like,
Speaker 1: what's wrong and she goes. When I got here, they
Speaker 1: took the poor man in the in the ambulance. He
Speaker 1: was dead. It was like messing with my head. I
Speaker 1: was talking to the hair and make up people and
Speaker 1: a trailer that that morning at work, I'm like, yo,
Speaker 1: it was like Manhattan, so different, and it's like messing
Speaker 1: with me and the producer her and he's like, dude,
Speaker 1: what a dead body? I was like, yeah, he goes,
Speaker 1: You're going to Brooklyn. So I went to Brooklyn and
Speaker 1: everyone had a smile on their face. Everyone had a beard.
Speaker 1: Not the girls, y'all didn't have beards, but the guys
Speaker 1: had great beards. Everyone had dogs. They let me pet
Speaker 1: their dogs. I didn't steal any of their dogs, which
Speaker 1: was hard. People walk around with like sushi and coffee
Speaker 1: with real sugar because there's no artificial sweetener in Brooklyn.
Speaker 1: They don't allow it. And thank you Brooklyn, because uh,
Speaker 1: I was very It was very this l A boy
Speaker 1: was very unequipped for Manhattan this time around. So anyway,
Speaker 1: we get to the pay per view and this is
Speaker 1: the match where we have pitched that Jeff Hardy is
Speaker 1: gonna go over. Now all the top dogs know this
Speaker 1: is where the story is going. Vince knows this, Kevin
Speaker 1: Dunn knows this. Bruce Pritchard of course, Freebird, it's his idea.
Speaker 1: I don't believe the agents know until the moment that
Speaker 1: we're about to speak of, and Hunter for sure knows,
Speaker 1: and Stephanie for sure knows. We get in there and
Speaker 1: I believe it's Armageddon was the name of the pay
Speaker 1: per view, and we sit down and we make our
Speaker 1: or I don't do it, but Michael makes his pitch
Speaker 1: for the match. The finish with Hardy going over for
Speaker 1: the championship, nobody says anything. It's super quiet, and Vince goes,
Speaker 1: anybody have any thoughts and a couple of the agents
Speaker 1: speak up and they you know, they're pro, They're pro Jeff.
Speaker 1: He's been working hard. We even did an angle. I
Speaker 1: get mad at the way the media treats wrestling, but like,
Speaker 1: I just always hated it. So we even pulled one
Speaker 1: on them where we took that Jeff storyline of him,
Speaker 1: you know, being this the screw up that the w
Speaker 1: W we had him, and we leaked a story that
Speaker 1: wasn't even true with Jeff's permission to uh like CNN
Speaker 1: or somebody, and they bought it and so CNN, here's this,
Speaker 1: I've got you suckers deal with that, and uh, it
Speaker 1: wasn't even true, and it was gonna help us, hi Jeff,
Speaker 1: so that he could be this like surprise his entrance
Speaker 1: and make this match like a triple threat, I think
Speaker 1: is how the story was going to go. But but yeah,
Speaker 1: they ran with that story and we got to burn
Speaker 1: them on it. Later and Vince like that we got
Speaker 1: to give them the middle finger because the media has
Speaker 1: never been good to the w w E or WWF.
Speaker 1: I remember specifically, Kevin Dunn did not want Jeff to
Speaker 1: be champion, and he kind of like shrugged his shoulders.
Speaker 1: He goes, you gotta be kidding me with this, and
Speaker 1: Vince doesn't say anything. He regards the opinion. He hears
Speaker 1: some other agents like speak up and they say good thing.
Speaker 1: I remember arn Anderson said good things. Pritchard hasn't said
Speaker 1: anything yet. And then Hunter speaks up and goes, are
Speaker 1: we seriously I'm going to do a triple agent pressure?
Speaker 1: Are we seriously gonna fucking trist this guy? And that
Speaker 1: was like a sniper bullet taking you out at the leg,
Speaker 1: an honest bullet, but a bullet just the same. I
Speaker 1: was nervous that someone might say it because they would
Speaker 1: be right. But I believed the story we were telling,
Speaker 1: or we're trying to tell, was was worth the risk.
Speaker 1: I genuinely did. I thought we were telling an honest,
Speaker 1: interesting wrestling story, and I don't think that's the easiest
Speaker 1: thing in the world to do, and I don't think
Speaker 1: you can just stick it on anyone. I think it
Speaker 1: has to fit the talent, and this story fit. And
Speaker 1: so I've been preparing the whole time, and Michael was
Speaker 1: gonna let me take any more bullets, for sure, because
Speaker 1: it's just he just wasn't He brought these guys in. Man,
Speaker 1: he fought for the hearties more times than anyone in
Speaker 1: the company, and he knew the foundation we were standing
Speaker 1: on better than anyone. And I knew that's why he
Speaker 1: put it on me because I was smelling good to
Speaker 1: the boss at the time. I always smelled good to
Speaker 1: the bus, thank you very much. And uh so I'm like,
Speaker 1: all right, this is gonna be this is gonna be
Speaker 1: my argument. And I know d Jail speak up. But Hunter,
Speaker 1: if he wants to smash on dj he can smash
Speaker 1: on him. And Vince can smash on anyone. But the
Speaker 1: only one who could really smash on me was Vince,
Speaker 1: because anybody else I could speak to on at least
Speaker 1: an equal playing field, maybe not as far as like
Speaker 1: wrestling knowledge, but as far as like confidence and what
Speaker 1: I knew I brought to the table, and the fact
Speaker 1: that I could walk away. So those are my only cards.
Speaker 1: So I start pitching why this is a good idea,
Speaker 1: and I'm telling this is an honest story. We've done
Speaker 1: nothing but tell the truth. I said, if he has
Speaker 1: a relapse, if he goes down again, you take the
Speaker 1: title off him. I said, you've taken it off and
Speaker 1: before for stuff like that on smaller belts. I said,
Speaker 1: we've taken it off other people in a day. I said,
Speaker 1: we can pull this off. I said, you gotta you know.
Speaker 1: I'm giving him this passion plea. It's about five minutes long.
Speaker 1: And then Hunter starts shooting it down again, and I
Speaker 1: don't you know, I don't want it to be a fight.
Speaker 1: I don't want it to be an argument. I don't
Speaker 1: want to have any He's in the company, but I
Speaker 1: don't want this whole story that we built up to
Speaker 1: let the fans of Jeff Hardy down again. And it's
Speaker 1: my idea. There's some pride and there's some ego there
Speaker 1: that I believe is worthy of this brass ring, so
Speaker 1: to speak. Right, So we're having our creative argument back
Speaker 1: and forth. Hunter starts challenging the merits of the story,
Speaker 1: but that's hard for him to do because I had
Speaker 1: this thing plotted out. So I got an answer for
Speaker 1: him at every stop, and then he brings up the
Speaker 1: reliability again, and I say, I'm a kind of out
Speaker 1: of options, so I just hit him. Would look as
Speaker 1: unreliable as this dude has been. He's the number one
Speaker 1: selling merch guy that we have in the company. And
Speaker 1: I threw out his numbers from whatever week I saw it, right,
Speaker 1: I go, that's off those armed bands and his T shirts.
Speaker 1: I said, these fans believe in him more than any
Speaker 1: other wrestler in the company, and that includes you, which
Speaker 1: I shouldn't have said, but I did. I wanted Jeff
Speaker 1: to go over in this freaking match. It gets kind
Speaker 1: of quiet, and I'm looking at Vince and I go,
Speaker 1: we came all this way. If we don't make him
Speaker 1: champ now, we're never gonna do it. And if he
Speaker 1: screws up, it's on me, and uh, Vince kind of
Speaker 1: sits there for a moment, and then he says, all right, Uh,
Speaker 1: everybody get out, and everybody means everybody except Bruce, Kevin
Speaker 1: and Hunter, right, So that means I have to go.
Speaker 1: So I'm gone, Freebird's gone, DJ is gone. We're all
Speaker 1: waiting outside. We don't like go to our stations. We're
Speaker 1: waiting outside. We want to know the answer. The production
Speaker 1: meeting on this day was on the same floor as
Speaker 1: like the V I P. Cafeteria, So there's this like
Speaker 1: empty cafeteria behind us, a lot of free space. We're
Speaker 1: sitting there and I'm looking at Freebird and I go,
Speaker 1: what do you think? And he goes, I don't know.
Speaker 1: You know, you did your best. He's like trying to
Speaker 1: prep me for failure. So now I'm like, shoot, Ben,
Speaker 1: it's just not gonna happen, Like, is it seriously gonna
Speaker 1: get get killed right now? And listen again, Hunter was
Speaker 1: proven right at the end of the day. I mean,
Speaker 1: Jeff got in trouble. I think less than a year
Speaker 1: after this happened. They gave him the other belt after that,
Speaker 1: the other championship, and then he got in trouble and
Speaker 1: then got a bigger trouble and had to leave the
Speaker 1: company for a while. So at the end of the
Speaker 1: day he was right. But all of a sudden, the
Speaker 1: door swings open and only Hunter comes out, and he
Speaker 1: doesn't even look at me right, and he walks by.
Speaker 1: And so this now means two things. One, this dude
Speaker 1: doesn't like me anymore, and it's probably gonna work against
Speaker 1: me now, which is what happened, and to just gonna
Speaker 1: be the world heavyweight champion, which is the whole point
Speaker 1: of this in the first place. And so I'm willing
Speaker 1: to take these bullets and I'm willing to get him
Speaker 1: the champion or to you know, to get this story
Speaker 1: through so he can be the champion. And I watched
Speaker 1: the match from like the back, like a side, like
Speaker 1: a side entrance, right, and Hunters not involved in the
Speaker 1: finish because he did not believe in the idea and
Speaker 1: I respect that. And Jeff comes in and he gets
Speaker 1: it on on edge. I think Hunter was out of
Speaker 1: the ring at the time. And then he climbs up
Speaker 1: the scaffolding and which is psycho dangerous, but he did
Speaker 1: it before the match, did at once, just to show
Speaker 1: that he could. And he holds the belt up there
Speaker 1: like the highest point in the arena, which speaks volumes
Speaker 1: to who Jeff Hardy is, dude still wrestles today, who
Speaker 1: he is as a professional wrestler, and who he's always
Speaker 1: been as a professional wrestler. And we got that storyline through,
Speaker 1: and it was definitely it wasn't the most proud of
Speaker 1: a story because I had another story that we'll talk
Speaker 1: about on another episode that I was more proud of,
Speaker 1: but it just didn't get as much love because it
Speaker 1: wasn't it wasn't Jeff, and and it was something that
Speaker 1: me and the talent manufactured as opposed to bringing real
Speaker 1: stuff out from my own life and the history that
Speaker 1: I had with my father and Jeff's trials and tribulations
Speaker 1: during that time as well. Um with consent and with
Speaker 1: permission of course, but there are there's a smaller one
Speaker 1: that that didn't. They didn't last, but I have more
Speaker 1: pride than that. But it definitely, you know, it gave
Speaker 1: me a lot of latitude which you don't normally have
Speaker 1: as a writer there after after Jeff, to work with
Speaker 1: younger talent and to kind of spread my wings a
Speaker 1: little more. But it caused problems as well. They had
Speaker 1: a wrestler that he looked like the rock Um, not
Speaker 1: as big, and he could speak English, Arabic, Hebrew and
Speaker 1: something else man and he and I had this cool
Speaker 1: kind of idea that we had worked out. And I
Speaker 1: remember this was maybe like a couple of weeks after
Speaker 1: the Jeff thing, and Hunter came up to me and
Speaker 1: he was like, hey, man, I'm working with in a
Speaker 1: month something, so you don't need to work with it.
Speaker 1: He didn't say stay away from him, but he's saying amen,
Speaker 1: like I want you around the guys that I like.
Speaker 1: And so that's when I was kind of like, ah,
Speaker 1: that sucks, man, Like you know, I was just trying
Speaker 1: to you don't do right by the company. And Jeff's
Speaker 1: sales went through the roof even more after that, and
Speaker 1: the storyline lasted pretty strong. We gave Jeff an entering
Speaker 1: one with Edge that went a little sideways because it
Speaker 1: was entering and not in a controlled environment, but he
Speaker 1: still got over and the crowd started chanting with Jeff,
Speaker 1: which was, you know, the goal anyway, just it went
Speaker 1: a different way than I wanted. But I'm a dungeon
Speaker 1: master in Dungeons and Dragons, so I'm prepared when things
Speaker 1: go off the rails. But yeah, man, it was that
Speaker 1: was a bittersweet moment in the company, and it was
Speaker 1: the first time I really started considering, like is it
Speaker 1: is it worth it? There's so many egos here. I'm
Speaker 1: gonna hurt someone's feelings every time they lose a match.
Speaker 1: It was true. I mean I had dudes come up
Speaker 1: to me and say, hey, man, if I lose another match,
Speaker 1: I feel like they're gonna let me go. I'm not
Speaker 1: trained to do anything else that resonated with me. It's
Speaker 1: a humbling it's a humbling moment for anyone to go to.
Speaker 1: I'm not saying the dude's name. But he followed it
Speaker 1: with like, I don't want to be packing groceries if
Speaker 1: I get released, and I was like, man, I gotta
Speaker 1: get something. His student wasn't even on my on my
Speaker 1: list of people are supposed to be working for. And
Speaker 1: I started writing for him and his valet, this you know,
Speaker 1: twisted sick thing that might work on the w W
Speaker 1: E S version of E c W, which they still
Speaker 1: had at the time. I probably worked on it for
Speaker 1: I think two weeks and they released him ten days in.
Speaker 1: I didn't know, And I found out on the SmackDown
Speaker 1: that they shot E c W on the same day
Speaker 1: a SmackDown on Tuesday back then, that they let Homeboy go.
Speaker 1: And I was just like, dang, he knew he saw
Speaker 1: it come in. Show business in general is real cutthroat,
Speaker 1: and a lot of people talk about luck and I'm
Speaker 1: here to tell you there's no such thing there is
Speaker 1: being prepared for opportunities, and there has been unprepared for opportunities.
Speaker 1: The son of a gun in this group is the
Speaker 1: opportunit unity because we never know when it's gonna come,
Speaker 1: and far too many of us, far too often are
Speaker 1: unprepared when those opportunities present themselves. So if you have
Speaker 1: a passion, you have to be ready because you never
Speaker 1: ever know when it's going to present itself. I'm telling you,
Speaker 1: when I was an acting class, you hear actors talk about,
Speaker 1: oh I got an audition tomorrow, Oh what time I'm
Speaker 1: at ten? I gotta be there early at nine, And
Speaker 1: then you hear that same actor say, you know, hey,
Speaker 1: let's go drinking after class. Well, you know where my
Speaker 1: head's going. I didn't party until I made it right,
Speaker 1: So in my head, I'm like, this dude ain't making
Speaker 1: his nine am meeting, But you know who is met,
Speaker 1: and those are the opportunities I would bust my ass
Speaker 1: on the scene. I wasn't even supposed to be in
Speaker 1: on go with. I'll even tell you a name, because
Speaker 1: Brian knows I did. It was Ryan Philippi and uh,
Speaker 1: he wasn't gonna make that meeting. And I showed up
Speaker 1: and they said Ryan, and I walked straight in. The
Speaker 1: assistant knew I wasn't Ryan, and I gave the read
Speaker 1: and the director goes, that's a that's a great job.
Speaker 1: I said, oh thanks. He goes, who are you? And
Speaker 1: I just like checked my shoes right away, right like
Speaker 1: eyes to the floor and shame. And the casting director
Speaker 1: knew the jig was up, and I look up. I go, yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm Freddie, and before they could say anything, shout out
Speaker 1: but she wouldn't see me otherwise, and the director starts laughing.
Speaker 1: He goes, you did great, man, you did great. He goes,
Speaker 1: give me your last name. I say, friends. He goes,
Speaker 1: all right, I booked this job. The casting director never
Speaker 1: sees me again. So I don't know what you want
Speaker 1: to take from that. Either take advantage of the opportunity
Speaker 1: and lose out on others, or lose out on all
Speaker 1: the opportunities. But I knew if I studied my ass
Speaker 1: off and gave the best audition, I would have the
Speaker 1: best opportunity to book that job. And I've seen wrestlers
Speaker 1: do it. I've seen them get their chance and and
Speaker 1: have that match where maybe they weren't supposed to or May,
Speaker 1: even though they were gonna lose, it was going to
Speaker 1: be an eight and they're on the twenty side as
Speaker 1: far as who's going to get over, and then the
Speaker 1: other wrestler, the veteran, it's like, hey, we're gonna make
Speaker 1: this sixt and they give this other wrestler a shot.
Speaker 1: I watched Edge do it with Dolph Ziggler early on
Speaker 1: and he came backstage. I'll never forget this. Vince goes,
Speaker 1: how do you do? And Edge goes that dude can work,
Speaker 1: and that was all it took, and all of a sudden,
Speaker 1: Ziggler had had Vicky and Ziggler became a champion. And
Speaker 1: it's he was prepared for the moment. And when you're
Speaker 1: prepared for that moment, opportunity has no choice but to
Speaker 1: roll out the red carpet. If you're unprepared, it's it's
Speaker 1: a crappy road that hasn't been paved in forty years
Speaker 1: and you're a Porsche. You're a Porsche driving on this
Speaker 1: horrible street. Why are you doing that? So always, always,
Speaker 1: always be prepared. This isn't really connected. This is just
Speaker 1: another side question. But especially if you're an artist, work
Speaker 1: that craft. Be ready to present it to people. If
Speaker 1: you're a painter, have a have a portfolio ready to go.
Speaker 1: If your sculptor, don't give them all the way, save
Speaker 1: some so you have something to show people. If you're
Speaker 1: a writer, you better be writing as soon as you
Speaker 1: turn this podcast off. And if it's a wrestling movie
Speaker 1: and that nobody thinks it's gonna get made, screw them.
Speaker 1: Write it anyway, right, what you want, not what people
Speaker 1: tell you to write. That's a good message for all
Speaker 1: you streamers out there that stream video games or whatever.
Speaker 1: I see you at. What should I play? No, no, no, no, no.
Speaker 1: Play what you want to play. That's what's authentic. Anything else,
Speaker 1: you're gonna burn out. Maybe that's why I didn't last
Speaker 1: in the wrestling business. I tried to write for everybody,
Speaker 1: and I burned out. All Right, you guys, thanks for
Speaker 1: tuning in. I'll see everybody next week with a brand
Speaker 1: new episode of Wrestling with Freddie. This has been a
Speaker 1: production of I Hearts Michael podcast Network. For more podcasts
Speaker 1: for my Heart Radio. Is it the I Heart Radio app,
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to your favorite shows?
Speaker 1: H m hm mm hmmmmm.