Speaker 1: M m h. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to Wrestling
Speaker 1: with Freddy. And when this podcast started, a lot of
Speaker 1: you know, I've talked about surfing and catching waves. I
Speaker 1: wanted to have a very open mind and it was
Speaker 1: basically just gonna be story time with Freddy and maybe
Speaker 1: a couple of my friends. But as I've been doing
Speaker 1: this podcast, my passion for wrestling has been growing and
Speaker 1: growing and growing. And we've had some more guests. But
Speaker 1: today's a crazy day because we have not only my
Speaker 1: biggest guest, but someone who as I've watched his career
Speaker 1: and what he's built grow, I felt a lot of
Speaker 1: weird connections that I want to get into today. Uh,
Speaker 1: Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome the amazing owner and the
Speaker 1: boss of a w Mr Tony Corn, now stuffing up
Speaker 1: for the mic The Hope of Wrestling with Freddy, Freddie
Speaker 1: Prince June. Yeah, thank you, Freddy. Thanks for writing me
Speaker 1: on your show. Dude, I appreciate it. Man. I uh,
Speaker 1: this is weird, Like I've had a kind of a
Speaker 1: a crash course and self reflection watching what you've been
Speaker 1: able to accomplish. So and I'm gonna throw a bunch
Speaker 1: of weird stuff at you and if it doesn't click,
Speaker 1: you just be like Freddie, you're crazy. But I just
Speaker 1: I feel weird connections to you. And in the following regards,
Speaker 1: we're both in some sense legacy kids, all right. Our
Speaker 1: father's accomplished a lot against a whole bunch of odds. Uh.
Speaker 1: They dealt with their own challenges. Now, my father didn't
Speaker 1: deal with the pressure well at all, and his life
Speaker 1: ended way too freaking young. Your father dealt with the
Speaker 1: pressure incredibly well and was able to raise a family
Speaker 1: um and do this business. So I know what it's
Speaker 1: like to be a legacy kid. I know the pressures
Speaker 1: of that, and I knew I didn't want to do
Speaker 1: exactly what my father did, but I wanted to show
Speaker 1: respect to it. So I never got into the stand
Speaker 1: up comedy element of it. But he always wanted to
Speaker 1: be a film actor, and so I jumped into that.
Speaker 1: Here you are, and I got to do all this
Speaker 1: before social media. Here you are. Your father. For those
Speaker 1: who don't know, owns the Jacksonville Jackuars. It's a fairly
Speaker 1: exclusive club to be an NFL team owner, and you
Speaker 1: have to be test a smidge successful to be able
Speaker 1: to pull it off. So you're dealing with not only
Speaker 1: that kind of pressure, but your post social media not
Speaker 1: post you're in social media, we're in we're in DS
Speaker 1: during social media, and that pressure is a global pressure.
Speaker 1: What have you found to be And I will get
Speaker 1: into the beginnings of this in a minute, but this
Speaker 1: was the most important thing to me, So I just
Speaker 1: wanted to make sure we hit it. What have been
Speaker 1: the challenges or what are the things you thought would
Speaker 1: be challenges that were easy? What were the things you
Speaker 1: thought would be easy that were really hard? Um? Can
Speaker 1: you just jump into all that and take as much
Speaker 1: time as you want. The biggest things to me were
Speaker 1: I think And you've worked in the wrestling business, Freddie,
Speaker 1: so you know that when you get in your kind
Speaker 1: of learning from the ground up because you have all
Speaker 1: these experiences watching wrestling on television and then you get
Speaker 1: to work in a company and a lot of what
Speaker 1: you believe in a fan really translates to the business
Speaker 1: and a lot of you know, things you're seeing for
Speaker 1: the first time when you when you get behind the curtain. Yeah,
Speaker 1: big time. And for my first show, you know, I
Speaker 1: had big picture ideas, big picture thoughts like, you know,
Speaker 1: I felt really strongly about certain aspects of the card,
Speaker 1: like you know, for example, that Kenny Omega versus Chris Jericho.
Speaker 1: I really felt like I had to be the first
Speaker 1: main event um that had done huge business for New
Speaker 1: Japan as the main event of the Dome Show a
Speaker 1: year prior, and I really felt like that was a
Speaker 1: big part of my business case was seeing how successful
Speaker 1: that show had been around the world and knowing that
Speaker 1: bringing that to America, American pay per view, there would
Speaker 1: be an audience for that match. That's an old school philosophy, though,
Speaker 1: Like that's old school, Like, hey, Morocco Snooka did great
Speaker 1: business over here, Let's bring that over here. That's old
Speaker 1: That's pretty old school, man. A lot of my philosophies
Speaker 1: really are as we talk, you'll see. I think a
Speaker 1: lot of it is that way, Like you know, the
Speaker 1: way we've we've run the business and routing the tours,
Speaker 1: trying or you know, make the most of what we
Speaker 1: got uh service very well through the pandemic. I think
Speaker 1: that might set and and ran the business like a
Speaker 1: territory for a long time and then you know, managed
Speaker 1: to build a developmental component out of it too. Dark
Speaker 1: because we had daily place, we had the crew, we
Speaker 1: had wrestlers, and there's so many wrestlers around Florida and
Speaker 1: Georgia driving distance that wanted to come in and work.
Speaker 1: I follow most of them on Instagram. I mean they
Speaker 1: literally are like, I'm going to do Dark. I'm getting
Speaker 1: in the car right now, Like I've literally seen this happen.
Speaker 1: It was great, and a lot of a lot of
Speaker 1: those people then became featured wrestlers now on my Granted,
Speaker 1: you know from the beginning, UM, I was entering it
Speaker 1: as similar to you of an educated wrestling fans, and uh,
Speaker 1: put a business plan together from the beginning. UM so
Speaker 1: as far as like challenges that like you have ideas
Speaker 1: that are great ideas. And there's a big difference between
Speaker 1: booking on paper and booking in real life because you're
Speaker 1: dealing with like, actual human beings and it's very different
Speaker 1: dealing with people than dealing with like wrestlers on paper
Speaker 1: or in your imagination. UH. And similar in sports to
Speaker 1: my experience is working in football, like for example, as
Speaker 1: the Gentleman is your film, working with the players and
Speaker 1: their contracts, sitting down with scouts and coaches, evaluating talent,
Speaker 1: I think that gave me a lot of good operation
Speaker 1: to come in. So my experience in a sports business,
Speaker 1: combined with a lifelong fandom of wrestling, I think served
Speaker 1: me well. The thing I probably wasn't prepared for at
Speaker 1: first the first several months was getting my hands around
Speaker 1: doing everything. I don't think anybody ever expected me to
Speaker 1: get so organized. Well, let's so let's jump it. Let's
Speaker 1: jump into that deeper, okay, because look, I tried to
Speaker 1: run a show, right. I had a sitcom back in
Speaker 1: the day. It lasted one season, and it lasted one
Speaker 1: season because I tried to do everything all right. So
Speaker 1: now some people can do this. Their brains are just
Speaker 1: wired that way. I'm left handed, so I'm more right brained,
Speaker 1: so I cannot. Okay, So I it's a this is
Speaker 1: a this is a tricky thing because I was gonna
Speaker 1: ask you, like I'm friends with or friendly with Junie Buss,
Speaker 1: and so I've spoken to her about how she what
Speaker 1: things she takes over versus how her dad approached things.
Speaker 1: Her dad was very much about designating responsibility. What I've
Speaker 1: heard and where I think you're about to go is
Speaker 1: you're in especially in the at least in the beginning
Speaker 1: phases of this you want hands on everything? Is that correct?
Speaker 1: I was not hands on about every I was over
Speaker 1: seeing everything, but it was probably more of a collaborative
Speaker 1: thing the first several months, and I just felt like
Speaker 1: it wasn't was it organized as I would like it
Speaker 1: to be. We had risen to such great heights and
Speaker 1: it's such a great opportunity, and it was all so close.
Speaker 1: And at the end of you know, we launched the show,
Speaker 1: had a huge debut, did really good ratings, and now
Speaker 1: doing really great ratings these past few years. But after
Speaker 1: the first two months or so, uh maybe maybe even
Speaker 1: after the first six seven weeks, started to see it
Speaker 1: dip UM and I think it was probably around late
Speaker 1: November into December and continued through December, and it was
Speaker 1: a trend and I didn't like the way the ratings
Speaker 1: were going, and clearly the way the ratings are going
Speaker 1: were reflecting that the fans didn't. You know, I didn't
Speaker 1: like the direction I was going where we were going,
Speaker 1: and so I made a lot of changes, uh, going
Speaker 1: into that, I felt really good about UM in terms
Speaker 1: of being more organized and just you know, uh doing
Speaker 1: it all shows by hands and they've been a lot
Speaker 1: of you know, more focused, and uh, it's it's great
Speaker 1: having like lots of ideas coming from lots of different places.
Speaker 1: And I do utilize and have lots of different contributors
Speaker 1: bringing ideas to the table. But um, it's just hard.
Speaker 1: Like you've been in those writers, they're brutal, so it
Speaker 1: can be very difficult. I mean, I was the kind
Speaker 1: of guy I could handle about, you know, five or
Speaker 1: six storylines on my plate before the work would start
Speaker 1: to suffer. But you're getting pitched forty fifty things a week,
Speaker 1: so you know, it's like you're going to SNL and
Speaker 1: they're like, hey, we have fifty sketches. Don't worry about
Speaker 1: memorizing all of them, but please memorize mine. And it's
Speaker 1: every talent coming in with their ideas, right, and you're
Speaker 1: the host. You're like, yo, I've never done this. You
Speaker 1: do this every week, like we have to find a
Speaker 1: common ground here. So what I've seen you pull off
Speaker 1: has been nothing short of impressive to me. And and
Speaker 1: you're gonna take criticism no matter what because it's art.
Speaker 1: So the critics are right as much as the fans
Speaker 1: are right, because we're all conditioned to enjoy things based
Speaker 1: on how we were raised and and how we interpret information.
Speaker 1: There's types of TV series now that give you everything
Speaker 1: in the pilot, and when I was a kid, they
Speaker 1: made you wait, but with binging shows they don't anymore,
Speaker 1: so that the style has changed. But that's not my thing.
Speaker 1: I don't go around crapping on it. I just know
Speaker 1: what I like, so I'll just go watch Clue the
Speaker 1: movie or something like that great movie. So you know
Speaker 1: every every single work, Yeah, me too. I'm not handid
Speaker 1: and I know every word of yo. So here's the
Speaker 1: side quest real quick. When we were doing I Know
Speaker 1: You did last summer, we were in North Carolina and
Speaker 1: Madeline Khan, who was Mrs White, was in the bungalow
Speaker 1: next to me, and I was cooking food and it
Speaker 1: was gonna be for the cast, and Madeleine Khan literally goes,
Speaker 1: whatever you'll smelling or whatever you're cooking smells marvelous, darling,
Speaker 1: and I went, oh my god, thank you so much.
Speaker 1: And she came to this little white picket fence we
Speaker 1: were staying in these cottages and she goes, I'm coming
Speaker 1: to have dinner with you, and I legit snubbed the
Speaker 1: whole rest of the cast and had dinner with Madeline,
Speaker 1: who I was completely in love with, a total crush
Speaker 1: on her. It was like a Portobello mushroom pop. My
Speaker 1: mom was a chef. She talked about a cook and
Speaker 1: the cast didn't even talk to my white My future
Speaker 1: wife didn't even talk to me the next day. And
Speaker 1: it's all Madeline cons fault. But I didn't care, and
Speaker 1: I love her and I love her in that movie
Speaker 1: when she's like flames on the side of my face,
Speaker 1: he's greatest anyway, side quest over her and Tim Curry
Speaker 1: had all the best dialogue in that movie. There was
Speaker 1: an animated Star Wars show called The Clone Wars, and
Speaker 1: he did in the final season. He was the I
Speaker 1: don't know people are supposed to know that, but yeah,
Speaker 1: he was the Emperor's voice. I didn't know that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they played with it a little bit. But his acting
Speaker 1: is so sick that people like, yeah, we're good, so okay.
Speaker 1: Howard Hessman passed away recently. Uh you know, he played uh,
Speaker 1: the religious guy who turns out to be an undercover
Speaker 1: top at the end The Kingdom of Heaven Is Real.
Speaker 1: Had to hold back. I was like wrestling plans aren't
Speaker 1: gonna get this, but I wanted to post. I can't
Speaker 1: believe the clue just got us to this. This is amazing.
Speaker 1: Clue was huge in the wrestling business, like so many
Speaker 1: people in wrestling wealth Clue. Did you know that it
Speaker 1: they played different endings in different theaters all across the country.
Speaker 1: They should have been and that's why the movie bombed
Speaker 1: in theaters that they didn't get people all three. So
Speaker 1: satisfying to see the three endings. But is you you're
Speaker 1: such a clooner. This is amazing. So Howard has been
Speaker 1: passed away, and I should have done it if I
Speaker 1: wanted to post the meme of like him saying like
Speaker 1: the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand, because I thought
Speaker 1: that would be really appropriate set off for Howard Hussement.
Speaker 1: You're allowed to meme whatever you want. Man, you don't
Speaker 1: have to worry about that. It's out of respect. You know,
Speaker 1: it's not like you're slandering the good man. People don't
Speaker 1: get stuff. I don't know. I should have done it,
Speaker 1: So Howard Custment, I want, I wanted to do it.
Speaker 1: I should have done it. He was great in w
Speaker 1: therapy Cincinnati. Yes, absolutely, that's great. So he that is one.
Speaker 1: The other thing that he just reminded me of with
Speaker 1: Tim Curry is uh the Emperor, you know, the in
Speaker 1: the actual movie Game McDermott. I had never seen him
Speaker 1: in another movie until this weekend Winbert passed away. Wait wait,
Speaker 1: oh yeah he did. And I've never seen Rky Park
Speaker 1: and I've heard it's good. So I watched Roky Park
Speaker 1: and it's really good, except that, like it's one of
Speaker 1: those things where like all the Russian acts there, all
Speaker 1: the Russian characters are played by British actors, so it's
Speaker 1: like Star Wars where it's just like all the homes
Speaker 1: of British vilains, but the Russian and and all the
Speaker 1: all the Romans in movies are English as well. It
Speaker 1: always works out like that. They got they got a
Speaker 1: Scottish Russian once with Sean Connery, but he just he
Speaker 1: basically says fuck it in the pirst scene and does
Speaker 1: his own thing in Entreet October. That's so true. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and he's got a great wig too. That's a power wig. Man.
Speaker 1: When I tell my hair, it kind of gets that
Speaker 1: like Kevin Nash, Sean Connery, Red October looked to it.
Speaker 1: It's pretty hot and we just we just lost you know,
Speaker 1: William heard and I had never seen him Mcgermand in
Speaker 1: another movie, but he was in the working park and
Speaker 1: he plays like this Russian professor with a British accent.
Speaker 1: Does it take you out of it knowing he's the emperor?
Speaker 1: Was the role? That was the Emperor's role? That impactful
Speaker 1: that you're almost like or was it? Okay? It's a
Speaker 1: pretty crazy pay a pretty crazy character. He's like the
Speaker 1: scientist who like, uh, like, you know, I don't want
Speaker 1: to spoil that. I don't know. I haven't seen it yet,
Speaker 1: so for sure I liked it. I wanted to go
Speaker 1: back and watch something with blame hurt. I hadn't seen
Speaker 1: a free pass and I rarely get free time to
Speaker 1: do anything, and I had a couple of hours, so
Speaker 1: I watched it. So so we had so much in comment,
Speaker 1: as we've established here. Uh so, yeah, man, I want
Speaker 1: to get back into this, Like and you said this earlier.
Speaker 1: You you were basically learning on the job with a
Speaker 1: hyper amount of success right away, but still having to
Speaker 1: learn valuable and sometimes rough asked lessons I had. I
Speaker 1: was a rocket ship, like from my first little job,
Speaker 1: all of a sudden, I was doing movies, movies, movies,
Speaker 1: but I was so green that I always felt like
Speaker 1: I wanted to redo every single scene by the time
Speaker 1: the movie was over, because I felt like I was
Speaker 1: a better actor, but I was getting to work with
Speaker 1: like legends, right, So I tried to sponge it. And
Speaker 1: I always hated everything I did early in career to
Speaker 1: the point where I don' I've only seen three movies
Speaker 1: I've been into my life because I always felt like
Speaker 1: I wanted to change everything. Did you go through something
Speaker 1: like that or is it just you have to steam
Speaker 1: roll and be like throwing away every week. I still
Speaker 1: go through that every like at the end of every week,
Speaker 1: at the end of every taping. It's rare, like like
Speaker 1: revolution all out. There are times where like it's just
Speaker 1: so perfect that you come out the original Revolution. There
Speaker 1: have been times where like you you're done with it,
Speaker 1: and you're like, that could not have gone any better.
Speaker 1: Let's celebrate one of the greatest nights we're ever gonna have.
Speaker 1: But more, you know, we've done a twenty seven episode
Speaker 1: to Dynamite and thirty something episodes a rampage, and a
Speaker 1: lot of times when I come out of TV, even
Speaker 1: though even some of the ones that have been the
Speaker 1: best received, most popular shows, there's like one thing I
Speaker 1: want to have back, And I'm just like banging my
Speaker 1: head and ripping my hair and yelling at myself, like
Speaker 1: what was I thinking just about one thing? You know,
Speaker 1: like you could have flipped these two segments around. Um,
Speaker 1: you know, I would have probably put this later in
Speaker 1: the show, or I could have maybe held the rating
Speaker 1: up higher if I go on with these is the
Speaker 1: lead segments. So I think about that stuff all the
Speaker 1: time and beat myself up. But I would also rather
Speaker 1: beat myself up than beat anyone else stuff Again, like
Speaker 1: a lot of it lives in my head. It's one
Speaker 1: of the reasons why we don't have as much leaking
Speaker 1: of surprises their secrets and stuff, because like it all
Speaker 1: right here anyway. So you know. So it was a
Speaker 1: lot of learning on the job, and I think there
Speaker 1: was like a big moment. We only lost the demo once,
Speaker 1: like we went I think we're head to head with
Speaker 1: nx SKI for like seventy six weeks, and we went
Speaker 1: like seventy five and one in the demo and the
Speaker 1: work where the one was the one to reset me.
Speaker 1: We have been losing the overall number, which was not
Speaker 1: the number of the network tired as much. You know
Speaker 1: that the number that was like the lead number on
Speaker 1: the report that they would talk to us about, like
Speaker 1: the actual scoreline lead to week number eighteen forty nine
Speaker 1: that they focused on. But also you know, looking at
Speaker 1: the total viewers in December, we were losing it the
Speaker 1: total viewers, but we were still holding out to the demo,
Speaker 1: and I I dropped. I quit being in denial when
Speaker 1: we lost the demo. And then it's the only week
Speaker 1: off I've ever had since we started. This is Christmas
Speaker 1: twenty nineteen, because we've done a show every single week
Speaker 1: since October two often except for Christmas twenty nineteen, we
Speaker 1: were off because it was Christmas Day. We didn't do
Speaker 1: a show that day. How is your brain allowing you
Speaker 1: to step away or did your brain make it? Did
Speaker 1: someone tell you, hey, man, take a week? Did you
Speaker 1: need to do? Like what what's going on? And tell myself?
Speaker 1: Like you know those things you do and you know
Speaker 1: firstanding I know you all know exact what I'm talking about,
Speaker 1: Like you know, and like there's something you don't believe
Speaker 1: in and you're like I'm just gonna do it because
Speaker 1: like made it right. And and then like by the
Speaker 1: end of that first year, at the end of twenty nineteen,
Speaker 1: we did do in the show for like three months
Speaker 1: and it just felt like I had that moment. I
Speaker 1: was like, I'm not gonna do anything anymore. I don't
Speaker 1: believe in And and then like you know how you
Speaker 1: sat like in New Years Resolution like that, like and
Speaker 1: I was like, Okay, going into this New Year, we
Speaker 1: get this. Christmas all of New Year's Day was one
Speaker 1: of the best shows we've ever gone, and not just
Speaker 1: because of everyone involved, Like you know, the wrestling was
Speaker 1: off the charts and everybody brought it. There was such
Speaker 1: a We had a huge main event with the arm
Speaker 1: Bucks and Kenny Omega versus Pack and the Looser Brothers
Speaker 1: before they became the Death Drawing Gold but but as
Speaker 1: a trio that was originally supposed to be the Fighter
Speaker 1: in Festimating then in the first Fighter in fest foot
Speaker 1: Pack at a Visa issue and so arrato, kid, I
Speaker 1: love Pack by the way, I he look, you have
Speaker 1: some guys and some girls that can talk, that can
Speaker 1: talk to the point where I don't believe you're you're
Speaker 1: you use writers I don't believe you do. Um. I
Speaker 1: was always I have always agreed with this is weird
Speaker 1: for me to say it, but I always agreed with
Speaker 1: this philosophy. I felt I should only be there for
Speaker 1: the people who can't write their own promote that you
Speaker 1: won't get a mouthpiece four. So that was sort of
Speaker 1: my approach was, Okay, you're not a talker, let me.
Speaker 1: And there was one time I won't say the wrestler,
Speaker 1: but I put an ear piece in his ear, just
Speaker 1: like Marlon Brando used to do, and I in backstage
Speaker 1: read him line for line how to cut it the emotion.
Speaker 1: But because he literally, he goes, bro, I'm a robot,
Speaker 1: just tell me how to do it. And I'm like,
Speaker 1: you gottah. He's I can't memorize this, but if you
Speaker 1: tell me how to say it, I'll say it. And
Speaker 1: I was like, let me think of something. And so
Speaker 1: we went to magic and I was like, can I
Speaker 1: get like an earpiece? They go, we don't have that here,
Speaker 1: but we can get you one from the truck, and
Speaker 1: they grabbed me an earpiece and we stuck a little.
Speaker 1: The tiny little receiver is here, not the one with
Speaker 1: like the loop or anything. Just a tiny receiver. And
Speaker 1: I was in Guerrilla and just cutting lines, telling him
Speaker 1: and telling him good job, Like I even screwed him
Speaker 1: up one time. I was like, that was really nice,
Speaker 1: and he kind of like smiled and I was like,
Speaker 1: no, no no, no, I've never done it. I've never done
Speaker 1: that before. But yeah, so you have, so you do
Speaker 1: have some talkers. And that leads me to somebody. Oh
Speaker 1: I absolutely fell in love with because I hate him
Speaker 1: um and he needed to get beat up. But to me,
Speaker 1: he is not only the future, but the right now.
Speaker 1: And that's m JF. You guys told a story with
Speaker 1: him and Punk that was so the opposite of the
Speaker 1: stories being told in mainstream wrestling right now. You took
Speaker 1: your time. It lacks it's nothing felt rushed. You didn't
Speaker 1: give anything away. And he wore a white suit. He
Speaker 1: wore a I literally when I saw that Punk had
Speaker 1: the white teacher, he had the white suit. I told him.
Speaker 1: A fan of horror movies, I was like, oh, there
Speaker 1: will be blood, and that's such a beautiful representation. Like
Speaker 1: I've said this and you'll you'll click with this. I
Speaker 1: think I've a He's felt wrestling is the purest form
Speaker 1: of art because it's the literal blood, sweat and tears
Speaker 1: on an actual canvas, and it's that's Jackson Pollock. Man,
Speaker 1: Like that to me is what those bloody, those bloody
Speaker 1: matches are. It's Jackson Pollock. And he wasn't for everyone,
Speaker 1: but he's what made modern American artists respectable around the
Speaker 1: world was because of him and his willingness to just
Speaker 1: sort of vomit his emotions on a canvas, which is
Speaker 1: what it was compared to by his critics, but it
Speaker 1: literally set American contemporary art on a whole new level
Speaker 1: that rested on his and a handful of other artists shoulders.
Speaker 1: But Ed Harris played him, so he gets to be
Speaker 1: the most famous one. Um, you guys, Sorry, you guys,
Speaker 1: that's the cynical side of me sneaking in once in
Speaker 1: a while. Um, you guys have something. And I call
Speaker 1: him JF one of the pillars of A. E. W. Right.
Speaker 1: He is ten years from now when he's still there,
Speaker 1: and it's probably gonna be the highest paid wrestler on
Speaker 1: the face of the planet. He is going to be
Speaker 1: one of those guys that you're building multiple at least
Speaker 1: this is my opinion, multiple, multiple men off of where
Speaker 1: And I already saw it with Wardlowe just for a second,
Speaker 1: like where it was just like he's been a robot
Speaker 1: and now he's vulnerable for the first time and he's
Speaker 1: actually like expressing himself with some vulnerability. And I was like,
Speaker 1: if they pulled it off on their first try, like
Speaker 1: on their first try, a man, hallelujah. But I honestly
Speaker 1: feel you guys are on such a great path. I
Speaker 1: know you can't blow too much smoke at this kid,
Speaker 1: but can you just talk about m JF Where you
Speaker 1: found him, who helped you get eyeballs on him? Where
Speaker 1: was the first? Like if you're cool talking about that stuff.
Speaker 1: The first time I saw him was on MLW and uh,
Speaker 1: I was watching MLW that summer team. It was really
Speaker 1: big for me. The only people that really first took
Speaker 1: this seriously were Matt Jackson and Chris Yech and I
Speaker 1: talked to both of them almost every day and uh
Speaker 1: and from the air they brought in a lot of
Speaker 1: other really good people like obviously Matt rod Nick his
Speaker 1: brother and his white Gana runs our merchandise and she's
Speaker 1: a big part of the company too, And then obviously
Speaker 1: with Kenny with Kenny Omega, Tody Rhodes. You know when
Speaker 1: I want to talk to Matt. I wanted to get
Speaker 1: the Bullet Club together, especially inarticular the Elite with Matt
Speaker 1: and Nick and Kenny, which I thought it was the
Speaker 1: best trio in the world. And I really saw Teddy
Speaker 1: coming in as a singles headliner and Matt Nick as
Speaker 1: the top tag team, and I wanted to get Jericho
Speaker 1: and the business case. I knew there were a couple
Speaker 1: of things happening and not so, so let me go
Speaker 1: back to MJF who was the person you've asked about,
Speaker 1: And that's the reson I'm focusing on here. But but
Speaker 1: that's the way I found him was on MLW. I
Speaker 1: was watching a ton of wrestling and other people like
Speaker 1: him too. Like once I started talking to so, he
Speaker 1: brought up that he thought would be great. Um. But
Speaker 1: in my scouting, he was one of the first people
Speaker 1: I saw outside of that group of names I just mentioned,
Speaker 1: uh And and Trent, Trent Bratta would be people that
Speaker 1: remember Trent Dode. You want to side quest real quick? Okay.
Speaker 1: It was my second stint a w W E and
Speaker 1: I'm just running basically an acting class. Okay, so the
Speaker 1: same techniques that we would do, like repetition, we're saying, Tony,
Speaker 1: it's a pleasure to meet you. You're locked into those words.
Speaker 1: You can go it's a pleasure to meet me. It's
Speaker 1: a pleasure to meet and we go back and forth
Speaker 1: until someone feels so stupid I have to change the line.
Speaker 1: Whoever changes the line to loses right. So we would
Speaker 1: do all this stuff like MS would kill it, that
Speaker 1: kind of stuff, because he's just like, f you, let's go.
Speaker 1: But Trent was in there with with with a J
Speaker 1: and um Mendes and they were going to do repetition,
Speaker 1: and he was I don't remember what his name was
Speaker 1: back then. They gave him a terrible name, as they
Speaker 1: do sometimes, but I don't think so. I think it
Speaker 1: was I don't think so Bretta is cool, but it's like,
Speaker 1: what's that FCW. So they came up and they did
Speaker 1: a repetition, but it was Pokemon, and I had never
Speaker 1: I didn't know if I was too old, I didn't
Speaker 1: know what Pokemon was. So he goes something like, hey,
Speaker 1: that's a that's a sweet, right you or something like that,
Speaker 1: and she goes, that's a sweet right and it's going
Speaker 1: back and forth, and I literally look over to Big
Speaker 1: Show and Cardona and I went, what the fund is
Speaker 1: it right you? And and Big Show pop too loud.
Speaker 1: I go, you guys, what are you talking about right now?
Speaker 1: And it was literally, we're going back with the bottom Pokemon.
Speaker 1: That was my introduction to Pokemon. And then A j
Speaker 1: went on to become a freaking world champion after I left,
Speaker 1: and then a best selling freaking author. And now she's
Speaker 1: about to take over Hollywood and she's now running another
Speaker 1: wrestling She's gonna run Wow. I don't know if that's public,
Speaker 1: but she's gonna run Women of Wrestling. And she's written
Speaker 1: some scripts that aren't announced yet, but one of them
Speaker 1: is going to be and it's like with the biggest
Speaker 1: freaking director in the world man, So she's killing it.
Speaker 1: So she's also left handed and she's also right brain,
Speaker 1: just like us. So shout out to to all the
Speaker 1: south Paws in the world right now, everybody. Thanks for
Speaker 1: listening to Part one of the Tony con Interview. Tune
Speaker 1: in next week for the conclusion, aptly named Part two.
Speaker 1: This has been a production of I Hearts Michael podcast Network.
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