Speaker 1: What's up everyone? Happy holidays to you. Here is another
Speaker 1: unsanctioned favorite from the archives and Drew the show piece.
Speaker 1: What's up, you guys, It's Freddy Brins Junior and we're
Speaker 1: back with another episode of Wrestling with Freddy. Last week
Speaker 1: we got pretty deep into the promo classes and some
Speaker 1: of the cool exercises and the successes and failures of them.
Speaker 1: So if you haven't heard that, please go back because
Speaker 1: this is a continuation episode. But this episode we'll touch
Speaker 1: a little bit more on what I thought is like
Speaker 1: the most heartwarming moment I ever had in WWE. There
Speaker 1: weren't many, but this time we're going into the ice Storm.
Speaker 1: I have built this story up, so without further ado,
Speaker 1: the Ice Storm, I Wrestling with Freddy. Wow. Stuffing up
Speaker 1: to the mic. The host of Wrestling with Freddy Freddy
Speaker 1: Price tune. All Right, you guys, I'm on the highway
Speaker 1: with a makeup artist from Friday Night SmackDown back then,
Speaker 1: even though we shot it on Tuesdays, and we're driving
Speaker 1: I think from Memphis to Atlanta, and if that's about
Speaker 1: a four hour drive then I'm right. If not, it
Speaker 1: was another town. So we're on the freeway and we're
Speaker 1: cruising down and it's late at night, probably probably about
Speaker 1: ten thirty eleven o'clock at night. We're on the highway.
Speaker 1: It's winter and there's snow on both sides of the road,
Speaker 1: and there are no cars anywhere. We left much later
Speaker 1: than everyone else. Usually you would like pass other wrestlers,
Speaker 1: or wrestlers would pass you. This was before I was
Speaker 1: on the jet. So we're cruising down. It's getting late,
Speaker 1: we haven't seen anybody, and she's getting sleepy. Right. So
Speaker 1: I'm cruising, but we have a map that remember there's
Speaker 1: no map quest, there was no app on a phone
Speaker 1: that told you I have We would print out maps
Speaker 1: at the end of the show and that's how the
Speaker 1: rookies like me you would get from town to town
Speaker 1: before I was, thank god, on the Black and Red jet.
Speaker 1: So we're cruising, I have my map. She's getting sleepy.
Speaker 1: And as we're driving down the road, it's been about
Speaker 1: twenty minutes, maybe thirty minutes. Like I said, there's snow everywhere.
Speaker 1: I see some smoke down the highway. I'm like, what
Speaker 1: the hell is that? Man? So I'm driving cruising down
Speaker 1: this curve and now I see this like fire and
Speaker 1: smoke and in the middle of the snow, and so
Speaker 1: I slow the car down and I'm almost pulled over
Speaker 1: at this point, and the loss of speed wakes up
Speaker 1: the makeup artist and I go, what the hell is that?
Speaker 1: And it's this gigantic tree that's fallen over. The roots
Speaker 1: are uprooted, and it's on fire, straight, just burning in
Speaker 1: the middle of nowhere. There's nobody around it. There's no cars,
Speaker 1: there's no tire tracks anywhere. It's just a tree that
Speaker 1: it looks like it's been struck by lightning. There's no lightning,
Speaker 1: at least not to my knowledge, during a snowstorm in
Speaker 1: the South. Maybe I'm wrong. Hit me up on social
Speaker 1: So I'm slowing down and I've now I pulled the
Speaker 1: car all the way over, and I go, what the
Speaker 1: hell is that? And she goes, I don't know. And
Speaker 1: I go, I'm gonna go check it out. She goes,
Speaker 1: the hell you are? She goes, it's freezing outside. We're
Speaker 1: going to Atlanta. I go, no, I just want to
Speaker 1: see what it is. She goes, no, you're not going
Speaker 1: over there. Get back in the car. I've opened the door.
Speaker 1: Get back in the car. We're gone. I go Okay, okay, okay,
Speaker 1: I go, but that's some crazy shit. She goes, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's crazy shit. Let's go. It's freaky. Okay. So I
Speaker 1: close the door. We're driving. She passes out. Nothing else
Speaker 1: spooky or no polter guys, nothing like that. But the
Speaker 1: road starts getting kind of sketchy, and I have the
Speaker 1: radio on and I'm scanning the AM channels because I
Speaker 1: mean when I mean sketchy, like there's ice now on
Speaker 1: the roads, and we're getting we're in Georgia, we're getting
Speaker 1: just outside Atlanta. And on the radio, I hear the
Speaker 1: mayor of Atlanta, and you could check this out. You
Speaker 1: can figure out what year it is, has just declared
Speaker 1: a state of emergency and he's basically closed the city
Speaker 1: because of an ice storm. The roads are unsafe to
Speaker 1: drive on, and everybody is like, not quarantine, but it's
Speaker 1: a curfew, like stay home, you go on the roads,
Speaker 1: you go and die. So we're close to the airport.
Speaker 1: Our hotel is at the airport, and I cruise up
Speaker 1: there and I mean, we're sliding everywhere like I'm on
Speaker 1: ice skates. We're not in a four wheel drive automobile.
Speaker 1: I'm in like a little four door rental Sedan. It
Speaker 1: wasn't built for the snow. So we're at the airport
Speaker 1: because we know the hotel's close to there, and I
Speaker 1: see one of those like rental car transport vans and
Speaker 1: it's running and there's this black dude inside, and so
Speaker 1: I go up to him and I go, hey, man,
Speaker 1: I'm trying to get to my hotel. Can you help
Speaker 1: me out? And he says, well, what's the name of it?
Speaker 1: And I don't remember what it was, It's the Ice
Speaker 1: Storm Hotel. Will call it the Ice Storm Hotel. And
Speaker 1: he goes, oh, it's down that way. You're just going
Speaker 1: to make a right and just keep going straight and
Speaker 1: you'll see it. You'll see the big sign. It's down
Speaker 1: a big driveway. I go, okay. So I drive down
Speaker 1: there and we get to the driveway and yeah, the
Speaker 1: driveway goes down, but it's steep and it goes straight
Speaker 1: into the hotel lobby. If I take this car down
Speaker 1: this hill, I'm not stopping. It's gonna go through the
Speaker 1: front of the building. So I drive back to the
Speaker 1: airport guy and I say, hey, man, is there is
Speaker 1: there another hotel around here? Because we couldn't find any
Speaker 1: other ones, or can I stay in the Can I
Speaker 1: stay in the airport? I can't get down there. And
Speaker 1: he's this Jamaican dude and he's like, you stay out, dear,
Speaker 1: you're gonna dime on. You better find a way to
Speaker 1: that hotel. And so I'm like, all right, the airport's closed.
Speaker 1: They're not gonna let me in. So I drive back
Speaker 1: and now we're parked at the top of this hotel's
Speaker 1: driveway and the and the makeup artist is looking at me,
Speaker 1: and I'm looking at her, and she goes, how the
Speaker 1: hell are we going to get down there? She goes,
Speaker 1: I can't walk down it. It's all it's all Ice.
Speaker 1: I go, yeah, I don't. I don't know, but I'm
Speaker 1: not going to have like a headline in the paper tomorrow.
Speaker 1: Freddie Prinz Junior found with a makeup artist frozen dead
Speaker 1: in a car. I was like, the stories they would
Speaker 1: write would shame my family for the next generation. I said,
Speaker 1: we're getting down this damn hill. So I'm looking around.
Speaker 1: I don't see any way down outside of you know,
Speaker 1: horrible accident, I get sued or dead or someone else dies. Right,
Speaker 1: So finally, because I'm an idiot, all right, And I'll
Speaker 1: preface this by saying, I've done a lot of dumb
Speaker 1: stuff as a kid and slid down a lot of
Speaker 1: hills I shouldn't have slid down. So I go to
Speaker 1: the trunk. I'll freezing to death, y'all. I'm a California kid.
Speaker 1: My blood is thin. I surf if the water's you know,
Speaker 1: below seventy I'm wearing a wet suit, so I'm cold
Speaker 1: as hell. I'm not dressed properly. I grab my suitcase.
Speaker 1: I set it at the top of the thing, and
Speaker 1: now I'm just staring down the hill at this hotel,
Speaker 1: at the Ice Storm Hotel, and she comes up to me.
Speaker 1: She gets out of the car. She goes, what are
Speaker 1: you doing? And I don't even look at her. I say,
Speaker 1: I'm a slide down this hill on my suitcase. She goes, what.
Speaker 1: I go, i'mna slide down my hill and I'm gonna
Speaker 1: slide down the hill on my suitcase, and so are you.
Speaker 1: She goes, I'm not doing that. I said, you're going
Speaker 1: to get your ass on your suitcase and you're sliding
Speaker 1: down this hill with me. I'm not going to leave
Speaker 1: you in the car to die. Is the only way down.
Speaker 1: I'm sure it wasn't, but I'm not a genius, so
Speaker 1: this was the best way I could think of. I said, So,
Speaker 1: I'm going down with you, and you're not going to
Speaker 1: get hurt. Don't worry. I'm certain of it in my head.
Speaker 1: I'm certain of it. Sara, are you ready? She goes no.
Speaker 1: I go, well, we're going. I said, I'm not going first,
Speaker 1: We're going together. She's she doesn't want to. She gets
Speaker 1: her suitcase. What are the I mean, we have an option,
Speaker 1: get down this hill. That's the option. So she gets
Speaker 1: her suitcase. Every word that I'm telling you in this
Speaker 1: story is actual. Well I'm about to go Tilsa. It's
Speaker 1: actual and factual everywhere. Sorry, every word I'm telling you
Speaker 1: it is one hundred percent true, and every word I'm
Speaker 1: I'm telling you you will not believe. And I'm okay
Speaker 1: with that. So I get on my suitcase. I lay
Speaker 1: it down and I'm sitting on it the way you
Speaker 1: would have sled, and my feet are on the snow
Speaker 1: so that I can have my heels to dig in
Speaker 1: to slow me down. I tell her to do the
Speaker 1: same thing. She sits on the suitcase. I think I
Speaker 1: have like a Toomey. Right, it's like black travel to me,
Speaker 1: that was big enough to get all your crap, but
Speaker 1: small enough to get in an overhead bin one of those.
Speaker 1: And she has like a hard case one because she
Speaker 1: got like makeup and crap. Right, So she sits on
Speaker 1: her suitcase. I said on mine. I say, are you ready?
Speaker 1: She goes, oh, god, I guess so. So we kind
Speaker 1: of do the scooch like our feet are in the
Speaker 1: snow like a one and IT'SO and three and my
Speaker 1: feet are in the snow instantly. The moment that it
Speaker 1: gets steep, there's no more snow for my feet to
Speaker 1: dig into. It is hard ice. It is a good
Speaker 1: inch thick, and there probably not an inch thick, but
Speaker 1: you get the point. Like it is there's no traction.
Speaker 1: So I hit terminal velocity within about two and a
Speaker 1: half seconds, and I'm I mean, I'm flying. I look
Speaker 1: to my right because it's it's too fast for me.
Speaker 1: I look to my right and she's bailing out. It's
Speaker 1: too fast, okay, So she bails out to her left
Speaker 1: toward me right. But now she has nothing. Now it's
Speaker 1: just her body, so she's just gonna keep on sliding.
Speaker 1: But it's not with any sort of control. So she's
Speaker 1: going upside down, she's going horizontal, she's going to the left,
Speaker 1: she's on her left hip, she's on her belly, she's
Speaker 1: sliding everywhere. It looks like breaking to Electric Bugoloo, like
Speaker 1: a deleted scene. Right, She's break dancing all the way
Speaker 1: down this ice and I'm flying. Okay, So I get
Speaker 1: down first. She kind of curved off to the side
Speaker 1: into the snow drift by the curb, but she's okay.
Speaker 1: She gets up, she's solid, make up, good to go,
Speaker 1: case not destroyed. I slide all the way down to
Speaker 1: basically where the valet is and onto the brick entryway
Speaker 1: of this hotel, about four feet away from the double
Speaker 1: sliding doors. The entire staff of the hotel that was
Speaker 1: in that area had been watching us since we were
Speaker 1: on top of the hill, wondering how we were going
Speaker 1: to get down, And they're literally cheering for me because
Speaker 1: I literally just did my evil canievil shit. It just
Speaker 1: went like one hundred and twenty seven miles per hour
Speaker 1: done his driveway, and they're cheering, and I get up
Speaker 1: and I'm laughing, and she's laughing. Everybody's still in a
Speaker 1: good mood, and the guy literally tells me, he goes, dude,
Speaker 1: we didn't know how you were going to get down.
Speaker 1: That was so sick. So we go to check in.
Speaker 1: They don't have her room. So she gets my bed
Speaker 1: and I crash out on the couch and then we
Speaker 1: wake up and the ice they now salted and done
Speaker 1: all this stuff. And the next day we got on
Speaker 1: the plane and we flew back to well, I flew
Speaker 1: to New York City and she flew to wherever, to
Speaker 1: wherever she lived. But that is the ice storm, and
Speaker 1: that's the fastest that I've ever gone in something that
Speaker 1: wasn't a vehicle or a jet. Oh, by the way,
Speaker 1: I flew in a jet. This isn't wrestling related, but
Speaker 1: the like the debt commander at Nellis Air Force Base
Speaker 1: in Las Vegas was a Puerto Rican dude, and he
Speaker 1: loved my dad and my buddy who lives out there.
Speaker 1: Ran a construction company and gave him like some equipment
Speaker 1: to help him do his house and his off his
Speaker 1: off base house. And there in Las Vegas, I think
Speaker 1: it was Henderson, Nevada. And so he was like he
Speaker 1: saw a picture of me and Brian, my buddy Brian,
Speaker 1: and he goes, oh, you know Freddy Prince Junior man,
Speaker 1: I loved his dad. And he goes, oh, yeah, he's
Speaker 1: a good friend of mine. And he goes tell him
Speaker 1: if he ever wants to fly in the jet, it's
Speaker 1: on me. He goes, no cameras, nothing. I was like,
Speaker 1: and so my buddy Brian calls me and I was like,
Speaker 1: what do you mean like a jet jet? He goes yeah.
Speaker 1: I go to oh, dude, I'm in. I drove from
Speaker 1: La to Las Vegas at night at like eleven thirty
Speaker 1: at night, drove as fast as I could, and uh,
Speaker 1: we have the date and I get there and I
Speaker 1: think I'm just gonna fly in a jet. No, it's
Speaker 1: like an eight hour class on how to breathe because
Speaker 1: you're going to be pulling so many g's. And I'm
Speaker 1: in my twenties. I'm cocky. I'm like, yeh, whatever, man,
Speaker 1: I'm half listening, right. So they put me in the
Speaker 1: two seater and forgive me, this is over twenty years ago.
Speaker 1: I don't remember. I think it was an F sixteen.
Speaker 1: I don't know what the two seater was. It might've
Speaker 1: even been like an F one oh something. I don't know,
Speaker 1: but uh, we get in. I've done my my test
Speaker 1: and they make you do this like like I don't
Speaker 1: want to breathe in the mic because it'll sound weird,
Speaker 1: but it's like labor breathing. Okay, So I get in
Speaker 1: the jet, we take off, just the takeoff, I borderline
Speaker 1: tap out. Okay, this dude, I tap out twice. And
Speaker 1: this isn't even from tricks. Just turns where literally like
Speaker 1: he goes, if it feels good, you're not breathing. I said,
Speaker 1: what do you mean? He goes, if it starts to
Speaker 1: feel good, if you feel high, you're not breathing, right,
Speaker 1: I said, okay, And that basically like as in jiu jitsu,
Speaker 1: like they say tap when you when it feels good,
Speaker 1: that means you're about to go to sleep. Twice I
Speaker 1: had to tap because I forgot to breathe, and the
Speaker 1: breathing is the hardest part. At one point in the air,
Speaker 1: I said how long would it take us to get
Speaker 1: to LA? He said about fifteen minutes? And I literally
Speaker 1: was just like, oh my god. So anyway, I like
Speaker 1: going fast. We fly back, I go back and and
Speaker 1: now I'm back ready to go to work, talking to
Speaker 1: Vince about the promo class. Who I like, who I don't.
Speaker 1: And the storyline going on at the time was the Nexus,
Speaker 1: and this was Wade, Barrett and Michael something I can't
Speaker 1: remember saying, but it was a big group that came
Speaker 1: up to like take on kind of like how the
Speaker 1: Shield took on, like the Current Stars. This was they
Speaker 1: were taking on that eras current Stars. So they were
Speaker 1: going after Randy who was a heel, and John who
Speaker 1: was a babyface, and John sold big for him, like
Speaker 1: horror movie sells, right, because they were really trying to
Speaker 1: get this group over. They thought they had a couple
Speaker 1: solid bangers in there. Right. So I'm doing my promo
Speaker 1: class and I have a lot of these guys and
Speaker 1: girls in there now, and we're getting to use like
Speaker 1: really big rooms, like sometimes even the cafeteria because we'd
Speaker 1: have so many people in there. And now I got
Speaker 1: these Nexus cats, right, And there was this one dude
Speaker 1: named Fred, and y'all, if you watch then they he
Speaker 1: wrestled under the name Darren Young. His real name is
Speaker 1: Fred Rosser, and he's now out of out of the closet,
Speaker 1: and and everyone knows that that Fred is a gay wrestler,
Speaker 1: and I think was the first one to come out
Speaker 1: while under the employee of WWE, but certainly not the
Speaker 1: first gay wrestler in the WWE. If you know about
Speaker 1: Pat Patterson, everyone in the company knew Pat was. He
Speaker 1: was very open about it and everyone embraced him. So
Speaker 1: at this point in time, though Fred was not out
Speaker 1: and he was a young wrestler, he was coming up
Speaker 1: and U so now I think he's in New Japan
Speaker 1: wrestling now. So if you're a big wrestling fan, he's
Speaker 1: built from stone, looks great, solid user. And we used
Speaker 1: to call him Black John Cena because he looked just
Speaker 1: like John Cena. But if John was black, even his face,
Speaker 1: it was crazy. You put him side by side and
Speaker 1: it looked like the exact same dude. I think John
Speaker 1: even cut a promo on it in like an actual
Speaker 1: storyline where he's like, maybe we did have the same father,
Speaker 1: but I hate you anyway. I'm fighting for justice. So
Speaker 1: so we're doing the promo classes and it's a lot
Speaker 1: of you you going against me because Vince likes that, right,
Speaker 1: So it's we're going to have a fight and you're
Speaker 1: going to give me a reason to watch Like that
Speaker 1: if you remember the dog story, you're a dog, and
Speaker 1: you're a dog. Now make me want to watch you fight.
Speaker 1: So a more productive way to accomplish that is to
Speaker 1: give them a reason to fight, like I did with
Speaker 1: Kea Stevens and with Beth Phoenix if you remember from
Speaker 1: last week's episode. So William also known as Stephenriegal is
Speaker 1: and was one of the single most helpful human beings
Speaker 1: while I worked at that company. He would warn me
Speaker 1: about people. He would help show me what wrestler strengths
Speaker 1: were and to write my promos to fit the type
Speaker 1: of wrestler they were, because I was not doing that.
Speaker 1: You don't want to write a luchador like a big man.
Speaker 1: You don't want to write a big man like a
Speaker 1: high flyer. There's a different attitude. When you're seven feet tall.
Speaker 1: You don't have to say as much you're seven feet tall.
Speaker 1: I kind of equate it to Darth Vader. You don't
Speaker 1: have to give Darth Vader at a lot of dialogue.
Speaker 1: And you notice he only moves when he has to.
Speaker 1: There's no wasted movement with Darth Vader, which was the
Speaker 1: same crap I would hear in the production. Not crap.
Speaker 1: This is good crap, the same stuff I would hear
Speaker 1: in the production meetings when they would talk about, you know,
Speaker 1: tell these guys, the big guys, to slow down. Less
Speaker 1: is more And there's something I know a lot of
Speaker 1: people disagree with that, but I tend to agree with it.
Speaker 1: It's more. It's what made Frankenstein so scary, right is
Speaker 1: It's why pepe lepu we were amazed with him, Like
Speaker 1: how can someone ask slow? Always catch always catch them right?
Speaker 1: So it may be dated, but with the big guys,
Speaker 1: they don't want them, you know, flying around everywhere. Vince
Speaker 1: doesn't want his guys and his girls getting hurt, which
Speaker 1: is why that WWE style is less exciting because he
Speaker 1: feels it prevents injuries. So Steven has been getting me
Speaker 1: hip to it, and he asks me if he can
Speaker 1: come in and cut a promo and I'm like, yeah, man,
Speaker 1: you want me to pick something for He goes, oh, no, no, no,
Speaker 1: I have something. I said, all right, dude. So he
Speaker 1: comes in and I it was either the Saint Crispin's
Speaker 1: Day from Henry the Fifth, which is no joke, or
Speaker 1: it was from Hamlet, and I feel like it was
Speaker 1: from Hamlet. Otherwise I don't know why I remember this line,
Speaker 1: but I feel like I remember Steven saying the world
Speaker 1: is nothing more to me but a foul and pestilent
Speaker 1: congregation of vapors, and that I know for sure is
Speaker 1: from Hamlet, so I think it was Hamlet. So he
Speaker 1: cuts this, and then he's trying to explain why he
Speaker 1: chose this to all these young wrestlers, and he said
Speaker 1: he was talking about the iambic pentameter, which is sort
Speaker 1: of the rhythm and cadence required by Shakespeare. He's trying
Speaker 1: to explain that you can tell a story whether you
Speaker 1: speak English or not. There were a couple of Japanese
Speaker 1: wrestlers in the room at the time. You can communis
Speaker 1: Kate a story whether you speak Spanish better than English,
Speaker 1: the same way he communed. Those communicated those feelings from
Speaker 1: that monologue to everyone in there, and everyone knew exactly
Speaker 1: what he was saying. When you say someone, this world
Speaker 1: does nothing more to me but a foul and pestilent
Speaker 1: congregation of vapors, I'm communicating a message to you with
Speaker 1: a whole bunch of words that neither one of us
Speaker 1: will ever use again in our entire life. But you
Speaker 1: know exactly what I'm talking about. You go, whoa, Freddie
Speaker 1: is a little depressed. Oh you do, and that message
Speaker 1: has been communicated beautifully, right, So I think Funaki was
Speaker 1: in there. And by the way, I got a great
Speaker 1: Funaki story, kung should we do a Japanese side quest?
Speaker 1: Should we do a side quest? All right, we're doing
Speaker 1: a side quest? Okay. So it's a SmackDown. It's over
Speaker 1: and Shane Hurricane Helms and some of the writers and
Speaker 1: my buddy Angelo the writer, We're all having like a
Speaker 1: beer at the hotel, and you know, after a couple in,
Speaker 1: Shane goes, man, I wish we could get I wish
Speaker 1: we'd get Funaki over again. And Angela is like, yeah, well,
Speaker 1: let's let's think of something. He goes, oh, then it
Speaker 1: wouldn't buy anything we'd do, and he goes, do we
Speaker 1: can think of something? And this is all credit to Shane. Okay,
Speaker 1: I think he even wrote the song that Artruth saying
Speaker 1: to him later on. But uh, he goes, what about
Speaker 1: what if it was kung Fu Naki? And all the
Speaker 1: writers are drunk and they're like, wait what He goes, yeah,
Speaker 1: like kung Fu? Hey, if we can sing the song
Speaker 1: Everybody loves Kong Fu Naki. That dude can't drink some
Speaker 1: socke and he had like this whole freestyle jam that
Speaker 1: they all fell in love with. And I was in
Speaker 1: the writer's room one day and they're pitching this and
Speaker 1: I'm like, yo, wait what And Shane comes in and
Speaker 1: they go, Shane, what about Kung Funaki? And Shane just
Speaker 1: looks at the board and he sees how he booked
Speaker 1: it and he goes, yeah, that's pretty fucking funny, and
Speaker 1: he just walked out of the room. And that's when
Speaker 1: we gave Funaki the Daniel song Crane Kick, and MVP
Speaker 1: sold it better than Johnny Lawrence did in that movie
Speaker 1: Are You Getting Man? Come Home Baby? Sound for the Wind.
Speaker 1: So anyway, that's the Japanese side question. So we're back
Speaker 1: in promo class and Sir William Regal is in there.
Speaker 1: Gotta call him sir, even if he's not a real knight,
Speaker 1: he should be Darren Young Fred gets up and he
Speaker 1: wants to he wants to do a promo them cutting
Speaker 1: on each other, and so Rego says, I'll start my friend,
Speaker 1: and he says, I'll never forget this man. He says
Speaker 1: you don't belong here, and you're going to quit. And
Speaker 1: Rosser comes back and he goes and he does repetition.
Speaker 1: He goes, I don't belong here. You think I'm gonna quit?
Speaker 1: And Rigo just looks back at him and he goes,
Speaker 1: I've seen this a million times before, my friend, You're
Speaker 1: going to quit and you know you don't belong And
Speaker 1: Fred gets this like emotion and cuts like the promo
Speaker 1: of It's a shame I didn't film any of these.
Speaker 1: He cuts like the promo of the Universe. And he's
Speaker 1: straight up, his fist ball up and you can hear
Speaker 1: his knuckles crack, and we've already established there's no there's
Speaker 1: no punching, right, and Fred didn't come off the type
Speaker 1: to do it. And there's his eyes start to well
Speaker 1: up and I'm sitting there watching and Regal's so cool man.
Speaker 1: He's like a gunslinger in the wild West. He's gonna
Speaker 1: let you draw first and still be fast enough. Like
Speaker 1: he doesn't even blink. Bro, this is the guy that
Speaker 1: smashed on Goldberg to let people know like what time
Speaker 1: it was back in the day, right, Like he does
Speaker 1: not care. But he's a good giving man at this
Speaker 1: point in his career. He probably was his whole career,
Speaker 1: but in this moment especially, and Darren Young just screams
Speaker 1: and tears come down his face. At the same time,
Speaker 1: it's like the like Denzel Washington does the perfect tear
Speaker 1: right like he'll hold it for a whole scene and
Speaker 1: then drop it out right at the end, and everyone's like,
Speaker 1: oh God, like that's next level technique. This was just
Speaker 1: raw and came out and he screams, I do it
Speaker 1: long and then there's like a ninety second promo of
Speaker 1: the sacrifice, the fear that this that that, And while
Speaker 1: he's saying this, I shit you not. I literally was like, Yo,
Speaker 1: Fred's gay. You could just I mean, I've work in Hollywood, man,
Speaker 1: I know a lot of people to this day that
Speaker 1: aren't comfortable with who they are based on the reaction
Speaker 1: that society is going to have. Right, So I'm not
Speaker 1: trying to say this to like, oh, look how some
Speaker 1: morn I knew, Like I was like, oh my gosh,
Speaker 1: Fred Fred's gay. And I didn't say anything. I never did,
Speaker 1: and he's out now, so it's not a secret. And
Speaker 1: I don't think anyone else knew except maybe William who
Speaker 1: kind of had this like glint in his eye and
Speaker 1: as Darren Young. Although this was all Fred Rosser finished
Speaker 1: his promo. You know how like British people, like when
Speaker 1: you do something sick in America, we give you that
Speaker 1: head nod, right, like people do memes of it, like
Speaker 1: Robert Redford as Grizzly Adams or whatever. They're like nod
Speaker 1: in his head. Well, British people do this smile and
Speaker 1: it's like a half only half their face works, and
Speaker 1: it's this ry sort of half smile. And Rego just
Speaker 1: gives him this that smile A right, he hits him
Speaker 1: with it and he goes and now, and Rosser finishes
Speaker 1: his promo with I'll Never quit. And Rigo just looks
Speaker 1: at him and he says, my mistake, lad, maybe you
Speaker 1: do belong And everybody was, I mean balling man balling,
Speaker 1: and Fred was too, and Regal gives him this big
Speaker 1: hug man and you can see like Rosser squeeze him
Speaker 1: hard like that there was hurt and pain in there.
Speaker 1: And right after that we wrote this promo forim. And
Speaker 1: you'll forgive me if I don't remember what show it
Speaker 1: was for it, I believe it was NXT, like he
Speaker 1: got moved down to NXT when it was like rookies
Speaker 1: and someone maybe or maybe it was right before that,
Speaker 1: and uh, and we gave him this promo where he
Speaker 1: didn't feel like he should even been there. And I said,
Speaker 1: do you remember when you screamed I do belong? He
Speaker 1: said yeah. I said, I want you. It wasn't my promo,
Speaker 1: someone else's, but he was struggling. I said, I want
Speaker 1: you to feel that when you say I wrestled John
Speaker 1: Cena and he goes, oh, yeah, okay, okay, And so
Speaker 1: he did it and he hit it about like eighty
Speaker 1: percent of where I'd hoped it got, but it still
Speaker 1: got the point across and he's like, oh, I but
Speaker 1: it was more of an arrogant take because it needed
Speaker 1: to be. He's like, oh, I wrestled John scene and
Speaker 1: he got kind of a little choked up on it
Speaker 1: and he was able to kind of bring which was
Speaker 1: a real honest moment to TV. Now. I could relate
Speaker 1: to this because early in my acting class, my acting
Speaker 1: coach gave me this scene. He used to let me
Speaker 1: pick right, but I would always pick real easy stuff
Speaker 1: and he really challenged me. And I don't remember the
Speaker 1: name of this play, and I don't want to remember
Speaker 1: the name of the play, So even if I say
Speaker 1: words from it that you remember, do not hit me
Speaker 1: up at at real FPJR. On Twitter, and do not
Speaker 1: hit me up on Instagram, because I've deleted this shit
Speaker 1: from my mind because it broke me in pieces. So
Speaker 1: my butthole acting. I love my acting coach, but this
Speaker 1: was just Oh he was right. I was wrong, but man,
Speaker 1: I hated him for this. So he gives me this
Speaker 1: scene and my character's crying right away, and that was
Speaker 1: my biggest fear was I don't know if I can
Speaker 1: do that. I don't know if I can cry. I
Speaker 1: don't know if I can open up like that. Earlier
Speaker 1: in my career, I manufactured every performance I did until
Speaker 1: I was probably almost thirty years old, and it took
Speaker 1: me that long to figure out acting. I didn't start
Speaker 1: until I was eighteen, so I was learning on the
Speaker 1: job and everything came real, real fast. I was not
Speaker 1: ready and not prepared, so I withdrew and pulled back,
Speaker 1: which is what I always do. And when I was thirty,
Speaker 1: I finally like this actor Gil Bellow's just I was
Speaker 1: gonna do this movie. This is another side quest Sorry, Alexis,
Speaker 1: but I was doing a play in London and he
Speaker 1: came to watch it because I was going to do
Speaker 1: a movie that he wrote, and we went and had
Speaker 1: dinner afterwards. My cousin was with me, and this dude
Speaker 1: broke down my whole performance and nailed me on every
Speaker 1: bad habit I had. And I'm sitting there like everything
Speaker 1: this dude is saying is like dead on. My cousin
Speaker 1: I can feel is like getting mad, like he's he's
Speaker 1: getting pissed at the guy, but I'm kind of like
Speaker 1: feeding off the energy. And we finally said our good nights,
Speaker 1: and my cousin Joe was like, man, I thought you're
Speaker 1: gonna knock him out. I was like, no, man, Like
Speaker 1: I feel like this guy just kind of unlocks him.
Speaker 1: The next night was the greatest performance that I ever
Speaker 1: had in anything I ever did in my entire career.
Speaker 1: It was a Kenneth Lonergan play called This Is Our Youth,
Speaker 1: and it was the first time I ever like broke
Speaker 1: down organically in a performance. So I knew exactly I
Speaker 1: share that story because I knew exactly what Fred was
Speaker 1: going through the scene was about my dad with a
Speaker 1: character's dad, But I made it about my dad and
Speaker 1: the moment I allowed myself to do that and allow
Speaker 1: a real feeling that I hated at the time. I'm
Speaker 1: forty five now I have kids, so it doesn't carry
Speaker 1: that weight that it used to. Now it's just respect
Speaker 1: and love, like on his birthday and stuff. I miss him.
Speaker 1: But outside of that, like, I've adjusted well to it.
Speaker 1: But then I applied so much real hurt and pain.
Speaker 1: And my character is supposed to accidentally knock over this
Speaker 1: dish full of cocaine and manitol and he freaks out,
Speaker 1: and my choice was I got so mad at myself
Speaker 1: because I was so stupid that I smashed the plate
Speaker 1: on the table and the plate cracked open and it
Speaker 1: split my left hand open, and I was bleeding everywhere
Speaker 1: and I didn't even notice I was bleeding until the
Speaker 1: end of the show. Like that's how into the moment
Speaker 1: I was. And I have gil Bello's to think for that,
Speaker 1: And so to see someone else let something reel out
Speaker 1: like that, it just slap the holy hell out of me.
Speaker 1: Now that's kind of deep and heavy. So we're gonna
Speaker 1: end on a high note, and I'm going to talk
Speaker 1: about one of the funniest promo classes that that we
Speaker 1: ever had or not maybe scariest, and has to do
Speaker 1: with Natty Knightheart and Harry Smith, who was the son
Speaker 1: of a legend. So I loved him very much because
Speaker 1: you have very big shoes to fill. I was the
Speaker 1: son of a legend, so I had very big shoes
Speaker 1: to fill, and so I connected with Harry a lot,
Speaker 1: and I really wanted to get him and TJ over
Speaker 1: and I worked. I worked hard to do it. But
Speaker 1: we just you know, I have plenty of failures. We
Speaker 1: can talk about those too, it's just the success success
Speaker 1: ones are usually cooler and funnier stories. But I failed
Speaker 1: those boys. I've never I never got over that I
Speaker 1: failed the ussos to tag team wrestling is tough, man.
Speaker 1: I remember Vince. I was working so hard on building
Speaker 1: up a tag team division and Vin said, Freddie, I
Speaker 1: got to pay four guys for one fucking match, and
Speaker 1: I kind of went, oh, I had never looked at
Speaker 1: it like that, and again, it's show business. And I
Speaker 1: was in charge of the Cologne Brothers. I named Primo
Speaker 1: for crying out loud, that was nam Primo Colon and
Speaker 1: it kind of like changed my perspective on things and
Speaker 1: changed the way I approached storylines. I couldn't pitch for
Speaker 1: as much anymore. But anyway, or in promo class, sorry,
Speaker 1: another side quest complete it. You just leveled up, and
Speaker 1: if you make it through the whole podcast, you get
Speaker 1: all kinds of experience. It's great. So we were in
Speaker 1: promo class and you guys all remember the rules. There's
Speaker 1: no makeout sessions allowed, and there's no beating each other up.
Speaker 1: That seems These seemed like reasonable requests as far as
Speaker 1: like an acting coach and the talent in that room go.
Speaker 1: And I feel like everyone should be able to follow
Speaker 1: those rules, but apparently not. And it was a little
Speaker 1: Natty Knightheart who decided to break it. And so her
Speaker 1: and Harry are in there, and I've already told you,
Speaker 1: like what the state of women's wrestling was back then,
Speaker 1: and we're going to get into the transition, which was
Speaker 1: the Bellas. And I have no responsibility and take no
Speaker 1: credit for the women's division, but I did help bring
Speaker 1: those girls up. And it was those girls who really
Speaker 1: opened Vince's eyes with their show Total Divas, which we'll
Speaker 1: get into in another episode, and how they kind of
Speaker 1: revolutionized and changed matches from five minutes to all of
Speaker 1: a sudden having multiple commercial breaks, which is just so sick.
Speaker 1: But anyway, we're still in the time where the ladies
Speaker 1: got five minutes and if they had a pay per
Speaker 1: view match, it usually got clipped to about seven to
Speaker 1: give the boys more time. So, as Freebird would say,
Speaker 1: So they're in there and it's a repetition and they're
Speaker 1: going back and forth about you know, I don't even remember.
Speaker 1: It was like you ain't shit, No, you ain't shit, whatever,
Speaker 1: it was, right, They're going back and forth. Michael Tarvor
Speaker 1: was the other Nexus guy. I was trying to think
Speaker 1: of that early on. He had a sick promo where
Speaker 1: he just wrapped and it was amazing. By the way,
Speaker 1: there's another side quest. So they're in there and they're
Speaker 1: going back and forth, but they're getting closer and closer,
Speaker 1: and everyone knows that there's no chance of any like
Speaker 1: smoochie smooch with those two because TJ's her man like forever.
Speaker 1: So they're getting closer and closer, and I'm like, this
Speaker 1: is this is weird. I don't know where this is going.
Speaker 1: And at this point we were doing points. So if
Speaker 1: you changed up the sentence the other person got a point,
Speaker 1: but it wasn't over until someone got three points right,
Speaker 1: so they change it up and he says something to
Speaker 1: Naddy about like that's why you are where you are
Speaker 1: and I am where I am and Naddy just I
Speaker 1: mean it looked Richard Pryor had a joke where he
Speaker 1: talks about he wanted to be a boxer and he
Speaker 1: got hit with a hook and he said, I saw
Speaker 1: his hands start down in Mississippi. It gains speed through Texas.
Speaker 1: Now I'm watching Naddy throw this right hand and it's
Speaker 1: like a John Woo movie. Man, it's full slow motion.
Speaker 1: I'm pretty sure a bunch of doves like took flight
Speaker 1: behind it as it traveled through the air. And Harry's
Speaker 1: hands are down at his side and he's sticking his
Speaker 1: chin out like what And Natty's hook comes all the
Speaker 1: way through open hand hook right, like the way if
Speaker 1: you saw the Godfather talk about how he used to
Speaker 1: open hand slap people off of stools. It's like a
Speaker 1: Godfather slap bah. And it sounds like two by fours
Speaker 1: smashing together to simulate a gunshot. And everyone in the class,
Speaker 1: including me, at the same time, goes and then I
Speaker 1: jump out of my seat before I even let the
Speaker 1: breath out, and instead of breathing out, I just go
Speaker 1: what off? And I curse. Right, I'm trying to control myself,
Speaker 1: but it was a big f bomb and I'm not mad.
Speaker 1: I'm scared because I mean, it's the loudest shot I've
Speaker 1: ever heard of my life. And Harry looks at me
Speaker 1: with a freaking smile on his face. He goes, bro,
Speaker 1: It's all good, like nothing happened. And you know, look,
Speaker 1: I'm an actor. Actors are soft as hell, man. Like
Speaker 1: I've seen dudes not be able to work for two
Speaker 1: weeks just because their feelings got hurt. So this is
Speaker 1: all new to me, man. But this dude took the
Speaker 1: shot of I'm telling you, to this day, I've never
Speaker 1: heard anyone get hit that hard in my life. I'm
Speaker 1: including UFC kicks where you hear like an Edison Barbosa
Speaker 1: foot slap on that one tall skinny dude's face. Back
Speaker 1: in the day, it was like, what that ain't shit
Speaker 1: compared to this Canadian right hand that literally game speed
Speaker 1: through Alberta and then just made contact in whatever city
Speaker 1: we were in. It was we gotta have Natty on
Speaker 1: the show one day as a guess, I just gotta
Speaker 1: know what she was thinking when he did that, because
Speaker 1: in her eyes, he deserved it, and I ain't gonna
Speaker 1: argue with the girl. So that said, guys made it
Speaker 1: through like five side quists today, So you guys are
Speaker 1: the real winners, and I'll speak with you guys all
Speaker 1: on the next WWF Wrestling with Freddie. This has been
Speaker 1: a production of iHeartRadio's Michael Tura podcast Network. For more
Speaker 1: podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or
Speaker 1: wherever you listen to your favorite shows.