WEBVTT - Looking for Jeff Hardy 0:00:03.840 --> 0:00:06.840 What's going on everybody, as Freddie Prince Jr. Welcome back 0:00:06.880 --> 0:00:10.440 to Wrestling with Freddie. Thanks for all the episodes you've 0:00:10.480 --> 0:00:13.280 listened to so far, and thanks for tuning into this 0:00:13.360 --> 0:00:18.640 week's episode, which is searching for a Hearty or looking 0:00:18.680 --> 0:00:22.320 for Jeff. This was when I was given the Jeff 0:00:22.400 --> 0:00:27.800 Hardy assignment by Michael Hayes, which was make Jeff a champion. 0:00:28.200 --> 0:00:30.520 This is gonna be his one and only chance, or 0:00:30.560 --> 0:00:32.920 so he thought at the time. So we're gonna get 0:00:32.960 --> 0:00:35.720 deep into that. I'm sure there'll be a couple side 0:00:35.760 --> 0:00:38.320 quests as well at some point, So let's start the show. 0:00:38.520 --> 0:00:42.159 Welcome to Wrestling with Freddie. Now stuffing up to the mic. 0:00:42.680 --> 0:00:48.520 The host of Wrestling with Freddie Freddie Prince June. Yeah, 0:00:49.600 --> 0:00:52.280 if you look up on YouTube or any better wrestling 0:00:52.360 --> 0:00:54.240 historian than me, there's a lot of them out there. 0:00:54.360 --> 0:00:57.000 But this is the time when Jeff Hardy became the 0:00:57.040 --> 0:01:01.040 world's heavyweight champion for the very first time, and I 0:01:01.080 --> 0:01:04.800 was given the task of of of accomplishing this which 0:01:05.160 --> 0:01:08.720 most people thought was impossible and crazy. That's the cool 0:01:08.800 --> 0:01:11.280 part that I'll take credit for. But as far as 0:01:11.520 --> 0:01:14.520 the storytelling and the creativity behind it. That was a 0:01:14.560 --> 0:01:17.480 group of people that I would love to get credit to. 0:01:18.160 --> 0:01:19.880 And uh, like I said, I'm sure there'll be some 0:01:19.880 --> 0:01:22.440 side quests. I've been writing for a little while. I 0:01:22.480 --> 0:01:26.240 had done an Undertaker promo that Undertaker said, uh, he 0:01:26.280 --> 0:01:30.200 didn't change a single word too, and to my knowledge, 0:01:30.480 --> 0:01:32.440 at least from what they said, I don't believe that 0:01:32.480 --> 0:01:35.640 had happened in a very very long time. Um. And 0:01:35.680 --> 0:01:37.920 so I started getting bigger guys. I started getting Kane 0:01:37.959 --> 0:01:41.200 and some other top talent there, people that Vince is 0:01:41.440 --> 0:01:45.080 very particular with as far as certain words they can say. 0:01:45.280 --> 0:01:49.559 Kane wouldn't say destroy, he says obliterate things like things 0:01:49.600 --> 0:01:53.400 of that nature. I get the hearty story, and I 0:01:53.480 --> 0:01:55.960 know about a lot of what's going on, And just 0:01:56.000 --> 0:01:59.320 so you guys know where we're at timeline wise, Jeff 0:01:59.440 --> 0:02:03.640 was even with m v P and Jeff's like he 0:02:03.680 --> 0:02:06.640 had this like an airstream trailer on the Hardy property 0:02:06.760 --> 0:02:11.040 and it burned down and Jeff's dog passed away, and 0:02:11.080 --> 0:02:13.680 they were all wondering if they could bring that up, 0:02:14.160 --> 0:02:16.240 and Jeff was like, yeah, if you if you have to, 0:02:16.639 --> 0:02:19.720 you know you can. An m VP really respected Jeff, 0:02:19.760 --> 0:02:22.680 and Jeff knew that. So uh, m v P talks 0:02:22.720 --> 0:02:26.400 about his reckless and wild behavior and it even, you know, 0:02:26.560 --> 0:02:29.880 getting your your little dog killed, and Jeff like cracks 0:02:29.919 --> 0:02:31.880 and they have this fight. And so this is just 0:02:32.040 --> 0:02:35.760 after that. Jeff had a lot of positive energy behind 0:02:35.840 --> 0:02:38.440 him and m v P had gotten a lot of 0:02:38.520 --> 0:02:42.600 like mean nasty heat off of Jeff. And Michael calls 0:02:42.600 --> 0:02:45.480 me into his office and he's he says in his 0:02:45.560 --> 0:02:48.760 ps in his pure sexy voice, all right, here's what 0:02:48.800 --> 0:02:51.120 we're gonna do. I need you to come up with 0:02:51.160 --> 0:02:54.080 a way, and we're gonna get the belt on Jeff. 0:02:54.400 --> 0:02:57.560 Don't call it a belt, We're gonna get it on him. 0:02:57.639 --> 0:03:00.000 And so I'm sitting there like, yeah, okay, no problem. 0:03:00.120 --> 0:03:02.560 I don't know about Jeff's history. I don't I didn't 0:03:02.600 --> 0:03:05.560 know about a dirt sheet until a couple of years ago. 0:03:06.440 --> 0:03:09.120 And I'm forty five. You know, my dad was in 0:03:09.120 --> 0:03:12.880 this business and uh died violently, and he was in 0:03:12.919 --> 0:03:15.760 the tabloids a lot. So maybe I avoid that on 0:03:15.880 --> 0:03:19.040 like a pre programmed, subconscious level. And that's why I 0:03:19.440 --> 0:03:21.919 always kind of looked the other direction because it felt 0:03:21.919 --> 0:03:24.480 like gossip. Maybe I don't know. I've never self analyzed 0:03:24.520 --> 0:03:27.040 that decision. I get into it with this guy Chris 0:03:27.160 --> 0:03:31.840 to Joseph, we called him DJ, and he's he's laughing. 0:03:31.960 --> 0:03:34.160 He's like, it's never gonna happen. Like what you mean, 0:03:34.200 --> 0:03:36.560 It's never gonna happen, and he starts breaking down a 0:03:36.600 --> 0:03:40.560 lot of Jeff's issues in the past of rejecting rehab, 0:03:40.840 --> 0:03:46.160 having drug issues, things like that, and those were perceived 0:03:46.240 --> 0:03:49.760 speed bumps or in in this case, a brick wall 0:03:49.920 --> 0:03:54.880 to get through. But for me, I connected hard with it, 0:03:55.920 --> 0:03:57.520 which I'll tell you about in a minute, and the 0:03:57.600 --> 0:03:59.800 episode that we're trying to talk about serious stuff in 0:03:59.800 --> 0:04:02.960 this episode. It won't be all jokes, but I connected 0:04:03.040 --> 0:04:07.120 hard with it, and I saw opportunity. So my father 0:04:07.440 --> 0:04:09.440 was a stand up comic in the seventies. For those 0:04:09.440 --> 0:04:11.520 who may just be tuning in, I broke this down 0:04:11.560 --> 0:04:13.480 for you in the very beginning, I think, and he 0:04:13.560 --> 0:04:15.520 was a big He was a he was a big 0:04:15.560 --> 0:04:18.560 time deal man. Richard Prior discovered him. My dad had 0:04:18.560 --> 0:04:20.839 the number one show in the country in like nineteen 0:04:20.880 --> 0:04:24.159 seventy five or seventy four or something like that. Drugs 0:04:24.160 --> 0:04:25.920 were a big part of his life. In the seventies 0:04:26.080 --> 0:04:29.320 and tore my entire family apart because of it. And 0:04:29.839 --> 0:04:35.599 on January twenties seven, nineteen seventies six, he put a 0:04:35.640 --> 0:04:38.159 gun to his head and he had about six coludes 0:04:38.200 --> 0:04:41.559 in his system and UH pulled the trigger and he died. 0:04:43.160 --> 0:04:45.800 And it just wrecked my family. And so I had 0:04:46.240 --> 0:04:51.479 a lifetime of experience with drugs. Why people do him? 0:04:51.600 --> 0:04:55.880 I had gone through the anger of that you have 0:04:56.080 --> 0:04:58.760 as a young man, not having a father. I had 0:04:58.760 --> 0:05:00.600 gone through the part of my life for it. If 0:05:00.640 --> 0:05:02.760 you even did drugs, you weren't in my circle of 0:05:02.800 --> 0:05:06.600 friends straight up, like you were just ostracized. And then 0:05:06.640 --> 0:05:09.760 as I got older, I started to have more understanding 0:05:09.880 --> 0:05:13.920 and and the more knowledge I got of what addicts 0:05:14.000 --> 0:05:18.039 go through, it gave me a much clearer perspective. It's 0:05:18.120 --> 0:05:20.839 it's a way of self medicating. It's your brain knows 0:05:20.920 --> 0:05:23.280 it needs something, it just doesn't know what. And that's 0:05:23.320 --> 0:05:26.320 the easiest and unfortunately worst thing you could turn to. 0:05:26.560 --> 0:05:28.679 A lot of times they say, you know, the addict 0:05:28.720 --> 0:05:32.240 isn't taking the drug. The drug is taking the drug. 0:05:32.400 --> 0:05:34.640 This isn't just me telling you this, This is doctors. 0:05:34.640 --> 0:05:39.920 A vault from from medical doctors to psychiatrists, everyone in between, 0:05:39.920 --> 0:05:42.840 and I've just taken knowledge from all of them. So 0:05:42.920 --> 0:05:48.920 I definitely had a sensitivity toward the addict towards drug users, 0:05:49.240 --> 0:05:51.960 but still understood at a certain point you gotta stand 0:05:51.960 --> 0:05:55.960 on your own two damn feet and and get your 0:05:56.000 --> 0:05:59.359 life together, or you can end up like my pops 0:05:59.680 --> 0:06:02.839 and rip a family apart. So this was the approach 0:06:02.920 --> 0:06:05.839 that I took towards the promos and the storyline that 0:06:05.880 --> 0:06:08.920 we were going to do while Edge was champion with 0:06:09.000 --> 0:06:12.040 Vicky Guerrero and Jeff was going to have to climb 0:06:12.040 --> 0:06:14.800 this ladder, and instead of shining away from it and 0:06:14.880 --> 0:06:18.480 running away from it, I leaned heavy into it and 0:06:18.560 --> 0:06:21.960 I almost made Jeff well. I made him a baby face, 0:06:22.080 --> 0:06:25.920 using drugs as the means to do it without I 0:06:26.000 --> 0:06:30.240 feel to this day, without making drugs look cool. We 0:06:30.360 --> 0:06:36.560 portrayed a an artist who was tortured, who had self 0:06:36.600 --> 0:06:40.800 hate in abundance, and who used art to get that 0:06:40.880 --> 0:06:44.480 hatred out, whether it be in Jeff's real life art, 0:06:45.240 --> 0:06:47.120 he was painting a lot at the time. I don't 0:06:47.120 --> 0:06:50.640 know if he still does through his wrestling and now 0:06:50.680 --> 0:06:54.320 through his promos, and the first one I wrote him. 0:06:54.440 --> 0:06:59.000 He changed one word um and he he inserted the 0:06:59.000 --> 0:07:02.440 word image I nation, which was something Jeff came up with, 0:07:03.120 --> 0:07:07.359 and that word inspired every promo I wrote for him 0:07:07.400 --> 0:07:09.520 all the way to the championship, and I wrote every 0:07:09.560 --> 0:07:12.120 single one of those. And again they're all on YouTube. 0:07:12.160 --> 0:07:14.160 You can check them out. You can let me know 0:07:14.200 --> 0:07:16.239 if you love them or if you hate him, which 0:07:16.240 --> 0:07:19.480 everyone you're allowed to feel. However you feel, get hit 0:07:19.520 --> 0:07:22.080 me up on social media and and say, hey, did 0:07:22.080 --> 0:07:24.239 you write this crap? Or hey did you write this gold? 0:07:24.320 --> 0:07:26.360 I love it. But that was the That was sort 0:07:26.400 --> 0:07:28.520 of the spark that kind of lit the fire, and 0:07:28.600 --> 0:07:31.880 from that I just really tried to go into what 0:07:31.920 --> 0:07:36.160 do addicts suffer from the world is not I repeat, 0:07:36.200 --> 0:07:40.160 the world is not black and white. In fact, the 0:07:40.240 --> 0:07:42.640 black and white parts of this world are the smallest 0:07:42.720 --> 0:07:48.320 parts in comparison to the large area that gray encompasses globally. 0:07:49.280 --> 0:07:52.600 Most of us, I would say, aren't good or bad 0:07:52.680 --> 0:07:55.800 people were just people trying to get by right. And 0:07:55.840 --> 0:07:58.440 then there's incredibly good people. And when I say good, 0:07:58.440 --> 0:08:00.920 I don't mean the guy who lets you an entract good. 0:08:00.960 --> 0:08:03.560 I mean like the people who are selfless and give 0:08:03.720 --> 0:08:06.600 a lot of themselves away for the greater good. So 0:08:06.680 --> 0:08:09.960 you might call that great, you might call that the rare, 0:08:10.440 --> 0:08:13.040 the select few. I call them the good. Right. Then 0:08:13.040 --> 0:08:15.000 there's the bad, the people that are only out for 0:08:15.040 --> 0:08:18.480 themselves and will smash and step on anyone to get 0:08:18.480 --> 0:08:21.160 what they want and they don't care what the collateral damages. 0:08:21.520 --> 0:08:23.920 And then there's you and I is we're a bunch 0:08:23.960 --> 0:08:27.200 of decent people who sometimes do wrong, we feel bad 0:08:27.240 --> 0:08:29.920 about it, sometimes do right, we feel good about it, 0:08:30.000 --> 0:08:32.319 and we're just trying to get by. And the gray 0:08:32.400 --> 0:08:38.000 area is where the addict is no longer allowed to exist. 0:08:38.480 --> 0:08:41.520 Once they're publicly known as an addict, then it's just 0:08:41.600 --> 0:08:44.559 black and white for these people. It's oh, they're junkie, 0:08:44.840 --> 0:08:47.120 they're drug addict. Now you can't trust them all. I 0:08:47.200 --> 0:08:50.480 can't do this. By the way, all that criticism is 0:08:50.520 --> 0:08:54.280 completely justified. And that's why we showed Jeff fail and 0:08:54.320 --> 0:08:56.800 fail again. And if you look at the promos in 0:08:56.800 --> 0:08:59.040 this light, which was what I tried to do, I 0:08:59.160 --> 0:09:02.280 styled them after or his matches. Jeff is a crash 0:09:02.320 --> 0:09:06.160 and burn wrestler. It's builds your hopes up, Build your 0:09:06.200 --> 0:09:10.000 hopes up, Get up, to the highest most dangerous point possible, 0:09:10.120 --> 0:09:12.800 the only place possible where if he jumps off, he 0:09:12.840 --> 0:09:15.600 can end the match. And then he fails because the 0:09:15.640 --> 0:09:17.800 guy gets out of the way, or he gets betrayed 0:09:17.920 --> 0:09:20.840 or whatever the issue is, right, And so we tried 0:09:20.880 --> 0:09:22.920 to write the promos in that same sense. And I 0:09:22.960 --> 0:09:25.960 wrote these alone in New York, where I just was. 0:09:26.040 --> 0:09:27.560 So it was very kind of I was making a 0:09:27.600 --> 0:09:30.000 movie out there, and so it's very surreal to be 0:09:30.080 --> 0:09:32.760 in the same city. And honestly, the last time I 0:09:32.840 --> 0:09:35.560 was there was when I was writing these Jeff Hardy promos. 0:09:35.760 --> 0:09:38.080 A lot of these images are are fresh in my mind, 0:09:38.160 --> 0:09:41.319 or at least the philosophies behind them. You know, I 0:09:41.360 --> 0:09:44.560 don't have the the promos memorized like I used to 0:09:44.600 --> 0:09:46.480 have to do back then, so that I could kind 0:09:46.480 --> 0:09:50.400 of demonstrate how I think it should be performed. And 0:09:50.440 --> 0:09:52.120 so I would want to be off book for that 0:09:52.559 --> 0:09:54.920 and then say, look, everything you see me do that 0:09:54.960 --> 0:09:57.280 you like, steal that and make it your own, and 0:09:57.320 --> 0:09:59.760 everything I do that looks like crap. Just throw it away. 0:09:59.800 --> 0:10:02.560 They You're not gonna hurt my feelings the word for word, 0:10:02.559 --> 0:10:04.679 That's what I said to a lot of wrestlers. So 0:10:04.720 --> 0:10:06.840 that's what I was doing with Jeff and I would 0:10:06.880 --> 0:10:09.319 sit in my apartment in New York all by myself, 0:10:10.040 --> 0:10:13.079 and usually I would just have music going on the TV, 0:10:13.280 --> 0:10:16.719 like your satellite TV as music channels. You don't use 0:10:16.760 --> 0:10:20.480 these anymore because it's but I would put on one 0:10:20.520 --> 0:10:22.800 of those channels and I would just sit there and 0:10:22.840 --> 0:10:28.560 I would try to make my dad a sympathetic professional wrestler. 0:10:28.800 --> 0:10:30.520 And that's what each and every one of these were. 0:10:30.640 --> 0:10:33.520 And he would talk about the world just sees me 0:10:33.600 --> 0:10:37.120 in black and white, but I am the gray, meaning 0:10:37.160 --> 0:10:39.920 he could not never possibly be on either side of 0:10:39.960 --> 0:10:43.679 that argument. He it's impossible for him. You guys won't 0:10:43.760 --> 0:10:46.880 let him. So he's an outcast. And that's what his 0:10:46.960 --> 0:10:49.680 fans were at the time. They were the outcast fans. 0:10:49.800 --> 0:10:51.960 They were the ones that rooted for the guy that 0:10:52.080 --> 0:10:53.960 was never going to be champ, and they knew it, 0:10:54.040 --> 0:10:57.800 and they bought his merchandise anyway. And this was a 0:10:57.880 --> 0:11:02.719 key component to the whole pitch that I made. When 0:11:02.800 --> 0:11:04.880 I made it was I asked if I could see 0:11:05.160 --> 0:11:08.880 the merchandise numbers for a bunch of the wrestlers, And 0:11:08.920 --> 0:11:12.920 this was before I was assigned the Jeff Hardy pitch, 0:11:13.840 --> 0:11:17.320 and I saw that Jeff's arm bands were like I 0:11:17.360 --> 0:11:20.440 think at the time, either the I want to say, 0:11:20.480 --> 0:11:22.520 I pitched him as the top seller. They may have 0:11:22.559 --> 0:11:25.080 been the second top seller, or at least for a 0:11:25.080 --> 0:11:27.320 week they were the top seller. So maybe I used 0:11:27.360 --> 0:11:30.439 that as like my example. But he sold a lot 0:11:30.480 --> 0:11:32.960 of freaking arm bands, okay, And they were like the 0:11:33.120 --> 0:11:36.400 Spider Man webs that went up each arm and and 0:11:36.480 --> 0:11:38.920 these things went and Jeff Hardy merchandise and his T 0:11:39.040 --> 0:11:42.240 shirts they were they were selling like crazy. So I 0:11:42.280 --> 0:11:45.480 put together this whole pitch, and I pre wrote every 0:11:45.520 --> 0:11:48.760 promo that you guys saw. I presented to Vince on 0:11:48.800 --> 0:11:52.280 the same day. Everything was written. Now, some thing's changed. 0:11:52.400 --> 0:11:55.240 The Taker promo didn't when they went to London, the 0:11:55.280 --> 0:11:59.320 Taker Jeff promo and then a couple like Jeff. Things 0:11:59.320 --> 0:12:01.840 would change here in there. But the other people edged 0:12:01.880 --> 0:12:05.760 stayed enjoyed staying locked into what I wrote. Vicky enjoyed 0:12:05.800 --> 0:12:07.920 staying locked into what I wrote. It was a little 0:12:07.920 --> 0:12:09.920 bit of Hunter. He wrote his own stuff. He kind 0:12:09.920 --> 0:12:12.800 of did his own thing, and we'll get into that 0:12:12.880 --> 0:12:15.200 at the end. This was when Hunter, I don't know 0:12:15.200 --> 0:12:17.079 if he ever liked me, but he was always respectful, 0:12:17.120 --> 0:12:19.520 but this was when he was kind of like done 0:12:19.520 --> 0:12:21.720 with me. And I respect Hunter, but he was for 0:12:21.760 --> 0:12:23.760 sure done with me, and I get it. We're doing 0:12:23.800 --> 0:12:27.480 these promos and I'm talking about the Gray Area, and 0:12:27.520 --> 0:12:30.480 I'm talking about what it's like to be judged every 0:12:30.520 --> 0:12:33.360 single day of your life, and the promos are really 0:12:33.400 --> 0:12:37.080 getting over with the audience. And the trick to these, well, 0:12:37.120 --> 0:12:41.760 first the trick was finding Jeff in order to shoot 0:12:41.760 --> 0:12:44.199 the promo. So we get there early, at like nine 0:12:44.240 --> 0:12:48.720 ten am. Sometimes a little later earlier was better. Most 0:12:48.720 --> 0:12:51.200 people hated it. But the earlier we got there, granted, 0:12:51.200 --> 0:12:54.280 the production meeting was longer, but I had more time 0:12:54.320 --> 0:12:57.000 to email people what I needed to email, which gave 0:12:57.080 --> 0:12:59.440 them more time to learn their stuff or at least 0:12:59.480 --> 0:13:11.800 understand the philosophy, and it benefited everyone. He got there 0:13:11.880 --> 0:13:14.199 usually around ten AM for most of these, I feel 0:13:14.200 --> 0:13:16.120 like I would get to sign my crew. A lot 0:13:16.160 --> 0:13:20.280 of my stuff was pre approved, but his championship was 0:13:20.360 --> 0:13:24.000 not approved. Just this storyline of the Gray Area was approved. 0:13:24.080 --> 0:13:28.120 We're all getting our assignments, and the best way I 0:13:28.160 --> 0:13:31.320 think to find Jeff is to find Matt right, and 0:13:31.360 --> 0:13:32.880 I was cool with Matt. He had punched me in 0:13:32.880 --> 0:13:35.040 the eye on accident one time, gave me a black 0:13:35.040 --> 0:13:37.680 eye while he was warming up, so he was always like, 0:13:37.760 --> 0:13:41.839 he's always been very sympathetic and kind for nearly fracturing 0:13:41.920 --> 0:13:44.480 my head. And I finally go, hey, man, where's your brother? 0:13:44.520 --> 0:13:47.360 And he goes, good luck with that, and so no, 0:13:47.480 --> 0:13:49.640 there's no panic, but I gotta find him. It's a 0:13:49.640 --> 0:13:52.720 big promo. It was very deep. I never I emailed 0:13:52.760 --> 0:13:54.880 Jeff a lot of promos, but I never received an 0:13:54.920 --> 0:13:56.920 email back, so I don't know if he ever saw 0:13:57.000 --> 0:13:59.760 any of them until the day of until the day 0:13:59.840 --> 0:14:01.880 we shot them. But I said him a lot. I 0:14:01.960 --> 0:14:05.040 said him a lot of emails. So I'm looking all 0:14:05.080 --> 0:14:07.600 around the arena, I do a full lap. I don't 0:14:07.640 --> 0:14:12.160 see him. I find I think it was drough McIntire 0:14:12.600 --> 0:14:14.920 and I say, hey, man, have you seen Jeff? He said, yeah, 0:14:15.080 --> 0:14:17.880 he's back by Catering, which is on the complete opposite 0:14:17.880 --> 0:14:19.320 side of ore. I man, So I go all the 0:14:19.320 --> 0:14:22.239 way back to catering. He's not there. I'm like, Natalia, 0:14:22.400 --> 0:14:25.760 this is Nattie Nidhart, say Natalia, have you seen Jeff? 0:14:25.920 --> 0:14:28.640 Because I think he's back by the buses. I run 0:14:28.680 --> 0:14:31.880 back to the buses. Nobody there, not even someone to 0:14:31.920 --> 0:14:34.160 ask have you seen Jeff. I get back, I find 0:14:34.160 --> 0:14:36.200 Matt again, or I don't find Matt. Matt finds me. 0:14:36.200 --> 0:14:38.720 He goes, hey, man, I saw Jeff. He's back by 0:14:38.720 --> 0:14:41.440 the locker rooms. I go to the locker rooms. He's 0:14:41.480 --> 0:14:44.360 not in there. I go to into the stairwell next 0:14:44.360 --> 0:14:48.080 to the locker rooms on pure Jedi instincts, and Jeff 0:14:48.160 --> 0:14:51.560 sitting on the stairs and he's he's not his head's 0:14:51.600 --> 0:14:55.600 not down, but he's just sitting there and I go, oh, hey, hey, man, 0:14:55.640 --> 0:14:58.920 with What's what's going on? He goes, oh, hey, sorry, man, sorry. 0:14:58.920 --> 0:15:01.520 He's got this like cool Carolina drawl when he when 0:15:01.520 --> 0:15:04.520 he speaks, and I say, we got this promo to day. 0:15:04.760 --> 0:15:06.800 It's all approved. I said, you know, I emailed it 0:15:06.840 --> 0:15:07.840 to you. I don't know if you got it. Goes 0:15:07.880 --> 0:15:10.040 oh yeah, right on, right on, But he doesn't say 0:15:10.040 --> 0:15:12.240 whether he got the email or not. And he starts 0:15:12.280 --> 0:15:14.320 looking at it and reading through it. I say, take 0:15:14.360 --> 0:15:16.600 your time. I say, I'm gonna stay right outside the 0:15:16.640 --> 0:15:18.440 door though, so that if you have any questions or 0:15:18.440 --> 0:15:20.520 anything that you wanna, you know, work on we can 0:15:20.560 --> 0:15:23.960 work on it together, and uh, he says, no, it's okay, man, 0:15:24.000 --> 0:15:25.880 I just I wanna. I really want to learn these 0:15:25.920 --> 0:15:28.000 I like, I like your promos. I want to memorize it. 0:15:28.080 --> 0:15:30.120 And I see that, so I'm like, I'm gonna leave 0:15:30.160 --> 0:15:32.000 him alone. I'm gonna leave m alone. So I leave 0:15:32.040 --> 0:15:34.520 him alone on this first one. We get to a 0:15:34.560 --> 0:15:37.320 backstage area where we're gonna shoot this because I didn't 0:15:37.360 --> 0:15:40.640 want him to do it in ring yet. And we 0:15:40.680 --> 0:15:43.280 start filming and he's not happy with the vibe of 0:15:43.320 --> 0:15:46.080 it because he doesn't get enough time to memorize. That's 0:15:46.080 --> 0:15:48.520 still the biggest issue with the w w E. If 0:15:48.560 --> 0:15:49.960 you're not going to give him time to learn it, 0:15:50.080 --> 0:15:52.480 let them write for themselves, or don't write for them period. 0:15:52.560 --> 0:15:55.920 Just give him a starting place, a midpoint, and an 0:15:56.000 --> 0:15:58.080 endpoint and let him flow. But we didn't have that. 0:15:58.160 --> 0:16:00.200 We didn't have that option. He's not to and it. 0:16:00.360 --> 0:16:02.080 I know it's not where it needs to be, but 0:16:02.160 --> 0:16:03.840 I know it can be better, right, So I say, 0:16:03.920 --> 0:16:06.760 all right, hold up, dude, and I literally write the 0:16:06.760 --> 0:16:09.080 promo out on que cards, on a lot of them 0:16:09.080 --> 0:16:11.440 because we didn't have paper. Big enough to do the 0:16:11.440 --> 0:16:14.560 whole thing on one and so it doesn't look like 0:16:14.840 --> 0:16:17.120 he's reading off a que card. I tell him, hey, 0:16:17.160 --> 0:16:19.720 I'm just gonna move it around two different parts of 0:16:19.760 --> 0:16:22.160 the camera. We won't move the camera. It'll just be 0:16:22.200 --> 0:16:24.560 me moving with the que cards. And you can kind 0:16:24.600 --> 0:16:27.520 of let your face move when you feel pain and 0:16:27.560 --> 0:16:30.080 that will sort of motivate the move to where you 0:16:30.120 --> 0:16:32.160 can see the card again. He's like, all right, all right, 0:16:32.520 --> 0:16:34.560 And this was a quick hustle that we had to do. 0:16:34.600 --> 0:16:36.640 You only get so much time to get these done 0:16:37.000 --> 0:16:39.960 and then approved and then edited into the show. This 0:16:40.040 --> 0:16:42.520 was SmackDown. This wasn't on Monday Night Row. We're doing 0:16:42.560 --> 0:16:44.880 our thing and it's working, and it takes us like 0:16:44.880 --> 0:16:47.120 two or three takes and then it's really flowing and 0:16:47.120 --> 0:16:49.120 he nails it and he's almost hardly even looking at 0:16:49.120 --> 0:16:51.680 the cards now. He said it so much, and we 0:16:51.760 --> 0:16:54.280 get it done, I get it in. It gets on 0:16:54.360 --> 0:16:58.040 TV and the crowd pops big for it, and for SmackDown. 0:16:58.080 --> 0:17:01.960 Then that was rarer because it wasn't the more popular show. 0:17:02.240 --> 0:17:06.119 And they would literally put canned applause in because the 0:17:06.200 --> 0:17:09.479 reactions were never as as good. Maybe people knew it 0:17:09.520 --> 0:17:11.800 wasn't live. I don't know. It was like canned laughter 0:17:11.880 --> 0:17:15.480 on a sitcom, which you do not pull, or maybe 0:17:15.480 --> 0:17:17.399 some actors do. Maybe maybe they don't like it. I 0:17:17.440 --> 0:17:19.840 don't know. We're outside questioning yet. The pop is so 0:17:19.920 --> 0:17:22.320 real that Vince literally says on the headphones. So that 0:17:22.400 --> 0:17:24.200 was a real pop. And I'm like, oh, we're good, 0:17:24.280 --> 0:17:27.720 We're good, We're good. The storyline starting to develop. He's 0:17:27.760 --> 0:17:31.240 going after Edge, nobody trusts it, and we're a week 0:17:31.280 --> 0:17:34.639 out from pitching him as champion. Edge still has the 0:17:34.680 --> 0:17:38.199 belt and Hunters like right on the edge of the 0:17:38.560 --> 0:17:41.800 of the championship picture. At that point, the promos are 0:17:41.800 --> 0:17:46.280 all going well. I got Jeff his promo early that 0:17:46.440 --> 0:17:49.919 morning because he was there with his brother, so like 0:17:50.240 --> 0:17:53.280 nine or ten o'clock, and then, uh, they went to 0:17:53.280 --> 0:17:55.320 the locker room to go to sleep, take a nap. 0:17:55.320 --> 0:17:58.159 Our Truth was already in there taking a nap, but 0:17:58.200 --> 0:17:59.800 we had to be there early for some reason. So 0:17:59.840 --> 0:18:03.679 he and the wrestlers did we go that night. Jeff's 0:18:03.680 --> 0:18:07.959 got his promo completely memorized. He doesn't do it for me, 0:18:08.040 --> 0:18:09.720 but I know he does. You could just kind of 0:18:09.760 --> 0:18:12.720 see it in his eyes, right so we're gonna shoot 0:18:12.760 --> 0:18:15.800 this thing. We're getting ready to rock and roll, and 0:18:15.840 --> 0:18:19.440 all the power goes out and we can't We can't 0:18:19.480 --> 0:18:24.360 record anything. Now. Our camera can record, it's on battery, right, 0:18:24.960 --> 0:18:27.160 our sound can. They don't have to be plugged in, 0:18:27.520 --> 0:18:29.960 but we have no lights. Now it's time to start 0:18:30.000 --> 0:18:32.560 giving credit to other people. This was well before we 0:18:32.600 --> 0:18:34.560 get into that. Let's give credit where it's dude. The 0:18:34.640 --> 0:18:37.679 London Show, which I skimmed over. I didn't go to. 0:18:37.760 --> 0:18:39.320 I didn't want to fly all the way to London. 0:18:39.440 --> 0:18:41.040 I was living in New York at the time and 0:18:41.119 --> 0:18:43.600 taking the train to Stanford every week. And so they 0:18:43.680 --> 0:18:46.800 went and Krista Joseph was the one who shot that 0:18:46.880 --> 0:18:50.000 whole segment and fought for the segment when people in 0:18:50.000 --> 0:18:52.320 the room wanted to change a lot of it. He 0:18:52.359 --> 0:18:54.480 fought for it. Free Bird fought for it. I don't 0:18:54.520 --> 0:18:56.600 know who else did. I'm sure someone else did. I 0:18:56.640 --> 0:18:58.359 wasn't there, so I can't give you credit, but I 0:18:58.400 --> 0:19:00.760 know for a fact they did, as my buddy who 0:19:00.800 --> 0:19:03.920 did go told me so h So that promo goes 0:19:03.960 --> 0:19:06.320 off without a hitch. They say it word for word 0:19:06.359 --> 0:19:09.119 how I wrote it, and DJ shot it well, and 0:19:09.119 --> 0:19:10.879 he had to. You have to understand he had to 0:19:10.920 --> 0:19:14.480 cut back and forth from undertake her in ring to 0:19:14.720 --> 0:19:18.439 Hardy backstage on a pre written thing that I wrote, 0:19:18.440 --> 0:19:20.960 and the writer's not there. So this it's a challenge 0:19:21.000 --> 0:19:23.120 to pull that off. So credit to the trucks as 0:19:23.119 --> 0:19:25.920 well for for editing so quickly, because they have to. 0:19:26.160 --> 0:19:28.560 So we're back. We're now getting ready to shoot the 0:19:28.560 --> 0:19:31.960 promo and the power goes out and Stephanie McMahon comes 0:19:32.000 --> 0:19:34.119 by and she's like, what the hell is going on? 0:19:34.160 --> 0:19:35.840 I'm like, I don't know what the hell is going on? 0:19:36.240 --> 0:19:38.639 We have no power. We can't shoot. She goes, the 0:19:38.640 --> 0:19:41.040 cameras work, don't they go? They do? She goes, then 0:19:41.119 --> 0:19:43.280 we can shoot. We're not going to be able to 0:19:43.280 --> 0:19:45.959 see anything. She goes, hold up. She starts looking around. 0:19:45.960 --> 0:19:48.760 We're literally in like a suite at a at a 0:19:48.800 --> 0:19:53.080 basketball arena, and she's literally frantically looking around, opening cabinet stores. 0:19:53.160 --> 0:19:55.720 I start looking through cabinets and drawers. She finds a 0:19:55.920 --> 0:19:59.560 pen light, a green pen light. I grab a highball glass. 0:19:59.600 --> 0:20:01.760 She show finding it at me. Right, I grab a 0:20:01.800 --> 0:20:04.480 highball glass, like, shine it through this glass. She grabs 0:20:04.480 --> 0:20:06.600 the glass and shines it through. One of the guys 0:20:06.600 --> 0:20:08.639 had a flashlight on him and so he does the 0:20:08.680 --> 0:20:12.080 same thing. One of the crew guys. Of course they would, 0:20:12.560 --> 0:20:18.000 And we use this kind of just ghetto light slash glad. 0:20:18.160 --> 0:20:21.600 We're like MythBusters, like creating new ways to to to 0:20:21.680 --> 0:20:25.679