Episode 444 - CM Punk
Guest:Lock the gates!
Guest:Alright, let's do this.
Guest:How are you, what the fuckers?
Guest:What the fuck buddies?
Guest:What the fucking ears?
Guest:What the fuck nicks?
Guest:What the fuckadelics?
Guest:What the fuckaristas?
Guest:What the fuckaholics?
Marc:You know, either I'm going to do it or I'm not, but it seems like sometimes when I do it, I keep doing it.
Marc:I don't know how appealing that is, but I'm, well, that time I did it.
Marc:Alright, so there, there's that.
Marc:This is Mark Maron.
Marc:This is WTF.
Marc:Thank you for listening to my show.
Marc:I appreciate it.
Marc:You know, I got a guy on today that some of you know real well.
Marc:And some of you may not know at all.
Marc:But I got CM Punk on today.
Marc:Now, we'll get to that in a second.
Marc:Because I don't know if you know this about me.
Marc:I don't know a lot about wrestling.
Marc:But I became fairly intrigued with it when I interviewed Colt Cabana.
Marc:Colt Cabana is a fan of my show.
Marc:He started his own wrestling podcast.
Marc:You should check that out.
Marc:Art of Wrestling.
Marc:Now, I learned I learned some things from Colton.
Marc:Now, my dear friend, Brendan McDonald, huge wrestling fan.
Marc:Some of you out there grew up with it.
Marc:Love it.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Right.
Marc:You get it.
Marc:The is it fake?
Marc:Is it not fake thing?
Marc:Not an issue for you because you love the sport or the theater or the spectacle of wrestling.
Marc:So when I talk to Colt, I got that.
Marc:I understood it.
Marc:I mean, my recollection of wrestling when I was a kid, there were these sad guys on Sunday morning coming from Tingley Coliseum at the State Fairgrounds in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
Marc:There was a little guy with gray hair slicked back and a goatee, a gray goatee, as I recall, interviewing dudes in unitards and them throwing chairs around.
Marc:Why did it not resonate with me?
Marc:Why am I not a wrestling guy?
Marc:I don't fucking know.
Marc:I wish I was.
Marc:I wish I was.
Marc:I think I would have been a better person if I was into professional wrestling.
Marc:Because if I was into professional wrestling, I know that some things that you may know in your heart or bullshit are just tremendous.
Marc:tremendous spectacles of theater and athletics and blood and guts and screaming and yelling.
Marc:I would know that those things, even though it's not real, but some of the blood is real and some of these guys get really hurt.
Marc:But you know what I'm saying?
Marc:They're scripts.
Marc:If I had been into that, perhaps I wouldn't expect that out of my life.
Marc:Perhaps my personal life would be a little less dramatic if I had a healthy respect of professional wrestling.
Marc:That's what I'm saying.
Marc:I mean, but I also was not a metal kid either.
Marc:I somehow in my mind, there's an analogy between like goth metal and wrestling, you know, somewhere.
Marc:I don't know.
Marc:I some part of my brain.
Marc:I know Alice Cooper is not a professional wrestler, but there's some theatrics there that, you know, are not necessarily, you know, you know, he's not really that guy.
Marc:You know, he's not really wearing that eye shadow and eye makeup when he goes home.
Marc:Yeah, whatever.
Marc:Maybe that's my own thing.
Marc:But I started to think about it like heels and faces.
Marc:heroes and villains uh characters i mean i mean wouldn't that be helpful have you ever been in a relationship where you know once those roles are established who's the heel who's the face the scripts just play out and you have no control over them they just fucking keep repeating themselves it's like being at the worst wrestling match ever
Marc:That would be an interesting spectacle if instead of professional wrestling or even amateur wrestling, you just had couples going up there playing the heel, playing the face and just going through their tedious scripts and predictable bullshit until the winner is decided.
Marc:But someone would always lose.
Marc:Maybe I'm reading too much into it, but I think the lesson of wrestling is essentially that these things, really mythic battles, physical battles, psychological and emotional battles, spectacles of good and evil on the human plane are played out right before you.
Marc:And I never really realized that there were so many scripts and that the whole racket of wrestling was sort of coming up with a script that works for you.
Marc:And a lot of these guys have been both heels and faces.
Marc:And I don't know.
Marc:I learned a lot.
Marc:But I want to tell you going into this that I did not know CM Punk.
Marc:I know he and Cole Cabana were good friends.
Marc:And Cole reached out to me and he was a fan.
Marc:And he taught me a little bit about wrestling.
Marc:And CM Punk, who turns out to be this huge dude, turns out he's a fan of mine.
Marc:I find that out.
Marc:And I'm like, I got to talk to this guy.
Marc:But I am a dude that doesn't necessarily know a lot about it.
Marc:So I'm coming to it from that angle.
Marc:Here I was.
Marc:I watched some CM Punk.
Marc:I watched some wrestling.
Marc:I didn't know what to expect.
Marc:I'm waiting outside.
Marc:I'm waiting for this dude to come.
Marc:And just a dude comes up.
Marc:And I'm like, you're the guy?
Marc:You're the mighty CM Punk?
Marc:But he's intense, man.
Marc:And he did some real shit in his world.
Marc:Some real ballsy stuff.
Marc:But I was sort of thrilled to talk to him because not unlike him, in my life, I've certainly been a heel and a face.
Marc:I think I'm actively equal parts of both of them.
Marc:Is that my wrestling character?
Marc:Could I have a wrestling character?
Marc:What would my heel character be that I just complained so angrily and loudly about?
Marc:That people found it annoying and the face would have to try to get me to quit whining.
Marc:Is there such thing as a neurotic?
Marc:wrestling character definitely there is I wish I knew more I'm gonna know more the CM Punk thing is cool I'm glad he's here I could be a wrestling announcer I've got skills on the mic do you remember though I mean when you were a kid I don't know when you grew up but when I grew up like the newsstand they used to have magazines back when magazines were possible and around these pro wrestling magazines and they were just bloody dudes
Marc:Bloody dudes in unitards, you know, dudes holding bloody dudes faces, just blood all over the place.
Marc:And right next to them were true detective magazines.
Marc:You remember those?
Marc:So you got you got your bloody dudes in like one dude holding another guy's head or holding the guy upside down or holding the guy around the waist, blood all over the place.
Marc:And right next to it, just dead ladies, dead ladies.
Marc:I'm from the true detective magazines.
Marc:What was that audience?
Marc:Who was reading those kids?
Marc:I don't know who was reading the true detectives.
Marc:I looked at one.
Marc:It was just sorted shit, man.
Marc:I don't know what that evolved into.
Marc:I think professional wrestling is, you know, it actually informed almost everything about modern entertainment.
Marc:And I think those those true detective magazines probably informed everything about tabloid television.
Marc:It all started on the newsstand, people.
Marc:Let's talk to the very human.
Marc:And quite honestly, I had a lot in common with him.
Marc:CM Punk.
Marc:I don't know what, you know, it's weird.
Marc:I don't know what to, you know, as you know.
Marc:What to call me?
Marc:No, we'll call you Phil or CM.
Marc:It's fine.
Marc:Phil's good?
Guest:Phil's fine.
Guest:Punk, whatever.
Guest:Everybody always has that problem.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Yeah, all the time.
Guest:What do I call you?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Mr. Punk.
Guest:Mr. Punk.
Guest:And I actually have a weird thing.
Guest:See, you...
Guest:I think our lives are very parallel and similar, but you don't have a code name.
Guest:No, I need a code name.
Marc:Asshole.
Guest:I have code names.
Guest:That's a nickname.
Guest:Oh, okay.
Guest:What's a code name?
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:You have to pick a code name.
Marc:Oh, for like to have somebody like.
Guest:Well, I have a code name.
Marc:What is it?
Marc:Oh, right.
Marc:That's a code name?
Guest:Well, it's my professional name, but I have a big problem with people who don't know me coming up to me on the street and just being like, hey, Phil.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Marc:Do fans do that?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But isn't that sort of an affronting thing?
Marc:Sort of like, yeah, I know who you are, Phil.
Guest:To me, it's very confrontational.
Guest:Well, I think- Because you don't know me as Phil.
Marc:Right.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:Right.
Guest:And it's a weird thing also to introduce myself to somebody like you for the first time.
Guest:Hi, my name's- CM Punk.
Guest:Punk.
Guest:It's weird.
Marc:But, but, but Phil, I mean, do you have a struggle with the, with the identity of, of who you are publicly just, or, or like in the sense that you've got friends that know you for years and you're probably Phil to them.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And then you've got, you know, millions of fans who either love you or hate you.
Marc:A lot of both.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So they're going to come at you with all kinds of shit.
Marc:It means that they're going to respect the character or if a fan comes up to you and says, what's up, Phil, I would assume that your first thought is like, this fuckers try and get under my skin.
Marc:Yes, absolutely.
Absolutely.
Marc:Or do I know this person?
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:Because honestly, a whole ton of people don't call me Phil.
Guest:It's really weird.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Like a whole ton of people that know you for years, though?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Like your parents?
Guest:Are your parents still around?
Guest:They're around, but I don't talk to them.
Guest:You don't talk to either of them?
Guest:We'll get right into it.
Guest:I actually just got a two-year order of protection against both of them.
Marc:both your parents yes like a restraining order biological parents dan and harriet dan and harriet need to be restrained yes get the fuck out of here yes where are they uh they're in chicago yeah so you were just i was just in chicago yeah and you came to my show i did and i didn't get to meet you afterwards i was very nervous because i'm not a big wrestling guy you know i have to say you know i'm sort of a i'd imagine you're not a wrestling guy at all
Marc:Well, okay.
Marc:I mean, I didn't want to say that, but, you know, I mean, it took me a long time to appreciate it.
Marc:I talked to your buddy, Scott.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:And he's a great guy.
Marc:And I learned a lot from him.
Marc:And, you know, my partner, my friend, Brendan, who works with me, is, you know, a huge wrestling guy, grew up with it.
Marc:And it took me a long time just to appreciate the nature of the spectacle.
Marc:And it's in the ancient art of wrestling.
Marc:But I guess what I'm getting at is after watching you be a wrestler and seeing you get out of your car, I was like, I didn't- The mystique was blown?
Marc:No.
Marc:No, the mystique isn't blown, but maybe it was blown a little bit.
Marc:But, I mean, you guys are fucking gladiators.
Marc:For a second when you got out of your rental car, I'm imagining, I wanted you to put your hands up and sort of triumphantly walk up the street.
Marc:No, I limped towards you meekly.
Marc:and said, what's up?
Marc:What's going on?
Marc:But let's start with wrestling fans, though, because I like this idea that guys come up to you and they're like, what's up, Phil?
Marc:That wrestling fans know the artifice of wrestling.
Marc:They understand the spectacle of wrestling.
Marc:They're huge fans of wrestling, but they still know you're just a guy.
Guest:Right.
Marc:Right.
Guest:So in order to get under your skin, I think some people don't know that I'm just a guy.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:You know?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But see, it's such a weird world because there really isn't a big difference between me.
Guest:sitting here podcasting with you or me on television you know what I mean like some people are like oh I play a garbage man or some people are like I'm this guy you know what I mean I'm just I don't do any of that I believe that to a degree but I mean still when you get up there and you have a role to play and you're in a room full of screaming you know
Marc:Just fans that that have very specific expectations out of you.
Marc:I know you're just you, but you have to fulfill or defy their expectations because it's your job.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So just sitting here with me and you, it's a little different.
Guest:A little bit.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But I try not to make it different because I think what's interesting about me is me.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:You know.
Marc:Well, that's I think what you're known for in wrestling is you have this sort of organic approach that is not all based on spectacle.
Marc:You seem to have found a part of yourself that can genuinely become the character.
Marc:It's almost a risk because I don't know if that's common among a lot of wrestlers where they can say what you're saying right now.
Guest:No, I think it's easier for people to play a role and get into whatever character.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:They can separate that.
Guest:To me, I've always been the little punk kid with a big mouth that would just get beat up and still continue just to talk shit.
Guest:Before wrestling.
Guest:It's all I've ever known.
Marc:All I've ever known.
Marc:This was your mode.
Marc:You're a smart ass and you just defy people to kick your ass.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:And did you get your ass kicked a lot?
Guest:Countless times.
Guest:Countless times.
Guest:And there's not one single tough guy or badass on the planet that can say that they've never been beat up.
Guest:Anybody who says, no, I've never been beat up, you're full of shit.
Marc:Well, I'm not a tough guy or a badass, and I can honestly say I've never been beat up physically.
Guest:Well, probably because you know when to shut up.
Guest:I never have ever known when enough is enough.
Guest:I think I'm pretty diplomatic is what it is.
Guest:You can be kind of scary.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I saw that.
Marc:Really?
Guest:I saw that in Chicago.
Guest:The na-na-na-na guy.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:That poor fucking guy.
Guest:No.
Guest:I was actually sitting directly above him.
Guest:And as that was going on, I was ready to just jump.
Marc:on him on that doughy fat kid yes it was it was annoying yeah i can be intimidating and menacing but but when it come right down to it like if you were to come up like if i would have started shit with you i know who you were and you would have stood me down on stage it would be a very ugly thing i would just be like i'm sorry okay at least you could have passed it off as being funny you're a comedian
Marc:Yeah, maybe.
Marc:I was tackled once on stage.
Marc:Oh, really?
Marc:Yeah, physically tackled.
Marc:Me too.
Marc:Yeah, many times.
Marc:All right, so let's go back to where this comes from, because you're unlike a lot of wrestlers in that you're more yourself, and actually it was sort of a struggle for a guy like you.
Marc:You're a little smaller than a lot of them, right?
Marc:Mm-hmm.
Marc:Does that piss you off when...
Guest:No, because that's absolutely 100% the truth.
Guest:I mean, I'm 210 pounds, 215 after I eat.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:I'm one of those guys that in the world of professional wrestling, I'm looked at as a quote unquote small guy.
Marc:Right.
Marc:But it was a struggle for you because you were world champion for how long?
Guest:A long time.
Guest:Like one of the longest?
Guest:I'm partially dyslexic.
Guest:It was either 434 days or 443 days.
Guest:And that's like one of the longest runs of anybody.
Guest:The last, yeah, the longest in the last 25, 27 years, something like that.
Guest:There's a list and it's like Bruno San Martino, Bob Backlund, Pedro Morales, Hulk Hogan, me.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Which is fucking mind-blowing.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But there was a point where you weren't even in the game, right?
Marc:I mean, in terms of the way wrestling works, it's like monopolized.
Marc:There's only one real game for someone to get that stature, and that's WWE, right?
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:So there was a period there where, you know, I know I talked to Colt about it and I know it's, you know, a lot of it's entertainment, but a lot of it's also, you know, physical competition on some level and spectacle and showmanship.
Marc:But, you know, you were not in the running.
Marc:Right.
Marc:And how did you fight your way out of that?
Guest:Well, you know, I've always just kind of put my head down and, you know, charged ahead and just worked super hard.
Guest:And I think I know what's good and I think I know what sucks.
Guest:And there's politics behind it and there's everything.
Guest:And the only thing I ever did was go out there and try to...
Guest:steal the show like every single time you know what i mean and and it's like it's a it's a grind you know we're on the road so long and i eventually you know after stealing the show for so long and going out there and doing my job in my opinion better than anybody on the crew yeah you know and you don't you just you just don't get opportunities you know what i mean so i just i started rattling the cage i just started pissing people off and then eventually my contract was up and they wanted me to resign and i just i just refused to do it
Guest:I just refused to resign.
Guest:And you were public about that.
Marc:Yeah, very, very public.
Marc:So basically what you did is sort of like you were just persistent.
Marc:You're like, fuck you, deal with me.
Marc:Fuck you, deal with me.
Guest:Tell me I suck and fire me, but you're trying to resign me and I'm telling you I'm the best thing that you have.
Guest:So you put me in your top spot, period.
Guest:That's it.
Guest:So the spots, that's what it is.
Marc:That's what it is.
Marc:You're fighting for spots.
Marc:Yeah, absolutely.
Marc:And what does the top spot mean in wrestling?
Guest:I mean, top spot.
Guest:It's weird because it's not a real competition.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:It's not UFC.
Guest:Right.
Guest:But on the other hand, you should want to be the champion.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Champion gets paid more money.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Period.
Marc:So it's not a real competition, but there is a game to it is what it's.
Marc:But the game is mostly politics.
Guest:My job.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And a lot of ways sucks because there's so much negative to it.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:Like people will point at me and be like, it's fake.
Guest:It's phony.
Guest:It's not real.
Guest:You're bullshit.
Guest:But on top of it, it's just like I there's there's high caliber athletes.
Guest:They never be able to do what we do.
Marc:at all right because it's it can be so cutthroat and so you know so it's it's big contradiction well how do you fucking live with that because i mean like in in my head you know i i know that wrestling's fake but it took a conversation with colt cabana and the passion of my friend brendan to to tell me that that doesn't matter because the spectacle of it and the emotions that it serves and and and the nature of the show is is as important as any sort of competition
Guest:yeah so it's i mean it's it's weird you know it's it's a lot of we're we're movie stars but we're also like nfl players in a way right so it's yeah it's really strange but you're talking about an integrity to it so the struggle is that well to me it was never about being a superstar or making money or anything like that like i just fell in love with wrestling when i was a kid so i wanted to wrestle like how old were you
Guest:God, you know, I always I beat the story over the head.
Guest:And like, you know, I put an age on it off the top of my head one time doing an interview like, oh, it was five.
Guest:And I remember, you know, my one of my first memories watching Roddy Piper smash a coconut over Jimmy Snooker's head.
Guest:And in my head, I was a kid.
Guest:I was watching the television.
Guest:This guy's on TV.
Guest:So that means he's a millionaire.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And he's just talking shit and getting away with it.
Marc:But it resonated to you at that time as real.
Marc:I mean, you didn't sit there and think this was fake.
Marc:I mean, you could have seen a slapstick movie that would have given you that.
Marc:But there was something about the intensity of the emotion of this, that these guys were grown men screaming at each other, maybe with blood on them.
Guest:Well, I think it's definitely when you're a kid and you see wrestling, you don't look at it like you look at a movie.
Guest:yeah you know what i mean like you're watching and you're like oh they're two dudes and they're on tv and they're fighting yeah so this is real right you know yeah right you know and i just i i and i never had a moment where somebody was like you know it's fake and i was like oh right no you know it's just something you gradually learn when did you learn that it was fake my god i don't even have a story for that i don't even know
Marc:But come on, you must have felt something.
Marc:It's sort of like finding out Santa isn't real.
Marc:I would imagine as a kid who loved wrestling, the day you realized that this was scripted.
Guest:I just think wrestling is so stigmatized.
Guest:There's always somebody around the corner that goes, you know, it's bullshit, right?
Guest:Right.
Guest:All right.
Guest:Well, then what isn't bullshit about it?
Guest:uh the i mean the four stitches i just got taken out of my chin the 13 staples i just got taken out of my head a week ago you know my fractured skull from 2002 you know knee surgery elbow surgery right like you know we we get the beat out of us and then we have you know as we're we're limping to our cars or we're at denny's at four in the morning there's always that dickhead who's like oh you're bullshit i'm just like ah you know so what am i supposed to do stand up and fuck this guy up in denny's yeah you know what i mean yeah
Guest:yeah you could i want to is that what they're asking for i think so because some part of you is asking for it right i yeah i and back in the day when i was on the independence and stuff like that i used to get into fights all the time because i was way gung-ho about it and i was you know like i have to protect this and if a fan questions your integrity or challenges the business you you fucking show them what's up
Guest:you know what i mean like that's that's what i was taught and that's what i was learned and i had this obsession with like old school wrestlers like harley race yeah you know guys like that right who just take no shit like right tough dudes yeah and i always had a more of an uphill battle because i'm i'm a smaller guy so to me i would just throw hands like every chance i got
Guest:Well, what did you see?
Marc:Because I think what you're saying is really interesting because it's sort of it's sort of fucking my mind up a little bit.
Marc:So good.
Marc:Because, you know, that this this this conflict you have in yourself, you know, that that wrestling is fake on some level.
Marc:Mm hmm.
Marc:But the way that it's real is that the physical dexterity and skills that is necessary to do it are very real.
Marc:And you will get hurt.
Marc:So even though you're sitting there with another dude or you're tag teaming or there's four dudes or two dudes and you're fighting, you know the script.
Marc:But you also know, do you know when you're going to fucking take a hit that's going to give you stitches or is that just part of the game?
Guest:No, and normally it's the stupid stuff that gets you hurt, you know what I mean?
Marc:You mean you're not supposed to get hurt?
Guest:No.
Guest:I mean, you want to avoid it as much as you possibly can, unless you need a vacation, because that's the only time you get time off, you know?
Marc:Right.
Guest:Unless you're me, and you don't get time off even if you get surgery.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Why?
Guest:Because you're working for the man?
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:I'm a valuable asset.
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:I got I got elbow surgery on a Wednesday and I was at a show on Friday.
Guest:I got knee surgery, you know, on a on a Tuesday.
Guest:And I was like a tribute to the troop show on a Friday.
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:They just it's just a good showman.
Guest:you're the guy i guess yeah i literally in december i got my knee operated on and i walked out of the hospital i got in my car my you know whatever with the driver and all that it's not like i was driving right um they're driving me to my hotel and vince mcmahon called me and said i heard good news i heard the surgery went well and i was you know i'm all doped up i'm like yeah it's great feel great whatever yeah and he goes
Guest:Great.
Guest:I got you wrestling right back in a tables, letters and chairs match in three weeks.
Guest:And I was just like, I was on the phone with him.
Guest:I just went, hang on.
Guest:And I just handed the phone to my girlfriend.
Guest:I was like, you talk to him because I don't know what's going on right now.
Guest:I just had surgery.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So he just expected you to go right back to work.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But you're also a rebel.
Marc:When you took on the corporate structure of wrestling, were you really defying them?
Marc:And did that gain you respect and more employment?
Marc:Because I know that a big turning point in your career publicly was calling out a bunch of wrestlers on their shit and calling out Vince McMahon on his shit.
Marc:And he's the king.
Marc:There is no other guy if you want to make a big living in wrestling.
Marc:Now, was that real?
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:So when I was I was so angry and so pissed off that, you know, I watched dudes who, you know, right or wrong, I felt weren't as good as me or even as good as some other guys on the show, you know, get get these opportunities time and time again.
Guest:And character wise, I was a bad guy.
Guest:And real life wise, my contract was coming up.
Guest:So I very much is the most dangerous attitude I think you can have in life is just I don't give a fuck.
Guest:What are they?
Guest:What are they going to do?
Guest:Fire me.
Guest:Right.
Guest:I'm not resigning.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:And they would they would come to me and they'd be like, oh, hey, we got this great movie script.
Guest:We're going to put you in a movie.
Guest:And I would just be like, no.
Guest:no just read the script yeah no i'm not doing it because i know if i say yes you're going to want me to resign and i have to resign if i want to do the movie no no fuck you i'm not resigning yeah and like that was that was power oh when you don't give a fuck yeah there it's it's it no one wants to negotiate with that no because there's no negotiating either you win or you lose and there used to be a time in my career would where they would ask me to do something and i would mother fuck them up and down this is that and now i'm at the point where they ask me to do something and i just go no
Guest:And like, you know, and they just give up because they know they're not even going to push it.
Guest:But I'm not going to stress out about it anymore.
Guest:Right.
Guest:I'm just going to be like, whatever.
Guest:Sign this for your work, Japan for visa.
Guest:And what happens if I don't sign it?
Guest:Well, then you can't get into Japan.
Guest:Sweet.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I'm not going to Japan.
Guest:Sweet.
Guest:No 15 hour plane ride.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Awesome.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I'm not signing it.
Marc:But when you first did it, what what was like?
Marc:Did it garner you more respect from from like Vince or when you first said, I don't give a fuck.
Marc:Fuck you.
Marc:You know, I deserve better than this.
Marc:And they knew you meant it.
Marc:Then did they start playing on your terms a little bit?
Guest:I mean, I I eventually obviously did resign and I don't regret it.
Guest:I got everything I wanted.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And some, but yeah, I definitely think of Vince is one of those guys that he lives by the law of the jungle.
Guest:Only the strong survive, you know, lions, the king of the jungle.
Guest:Like it's, it's, it's, it's, it's weird, but that's who that guy is.
Guest:That's who he is.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And yeah, if, if you're, if you're a pussy, yeah, he, he doesn't got time for you.
Guest:Absolutely.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:Like he'll walk all over you and he'll just be like, God damn it.
Guest:You know, like he expects you when maybe not even expects, but like, yeah, he healed.
Guest:He's one of those old school guys that like definitely,
Guest:respects it more.
Guest:Where do pussies end up in wrestling?
Guest:Bottom of the card, fired, you know?
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:I mean, the life expectancy of a WWE, you know, contracted wrestler is like, I don't know, I think average two.
Marc:Two years?
Guest:Two, three years maybe, something like that.
Guest:And you've been going for what?
Guest:I signed with them in 2005.
Marc:So you're having a long run.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But now let's go back because I talked a little bit about this with Colton.
Marc:You guys are buddies, right?
Marc:Best friends.
Marc:Yeah, we met each other in like 1998, 99 like that.
Marc:And like in terms of the difference between, you know, you two and his approach now is that, you know, he sort of become comfortable with the independent circuit.
Marc:Yeah, because that's where he feels that, you know, he's going to have the most success.
Marc:This is bread and butter.
Marc:And to me, he's a genius.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Why is that?
Guest:Well, he didn't get a fair shake up here.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:And it's one of the reasons why I wasn't re-signing and I was so pissed off.
Guest:Because of Cole?
Guest:Because I've watched guys who are super talented not even get a shot.
Guest:They're just kept down in developmental and they don't even get a chance to show the world what they can do.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:And I think that's super unfortunate.
Guest:And for a guy like him who's awesome at what he does, I don't even know if they offered him a job right now.
Guest:It'd probably be more,
Guest:business savvy for him that turned it down because he's created literally what I call an empire.
Guest:He does his podcast.
Guest:He does comedy shows, and he has his own merchandise, and he's an entrepreneur in every sense of the word.
Marc:But do you find that the fans that are drawn towards... It seems to me that with the big game...
Marc:That the fans are, there's no tongue in cheek to it.
Marc:That, you know, they are invested full on emotionally.
Guest:There can be.
Guest:I mean, there's still a lot of people that, especially like south of the Mason Dixon.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And there are people that it's real to them.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It's real.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And do you play a lot down there?
Guest:Yeah.
Yeah.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:The Bible Belt's my favorite.
Guest:Yeah, everything closes at 2 o'clock.
Guest:Can't go to a gym on Sunday.
Guest:Yeah, it's my absolute favorite.
Marc:So there's still that, that even though whatever conflict you have between whether it's real or not or what that means to certain people, that there's a good number of fans that are completely emotionally invested.
Marc:Even if they don't think it's real, they're emotionally invested in the spectacle and the narrative of all their favorite wrestlers.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:And those are the guys that drive the thing, right?
Guest:Yeah, I'd say so.
Guest:I mean, that's the general audience, yeah.
Guest:Like the smart fans who are in on it and they're like super into it and they read everything on the internet and stuff like that.
Guest:That's a small sliver of the pie.
Guest:Right.
Marc:But there's a lot of energy in the room.
Marc:It's a fucking big show, man.
Marc:It can be, yeah.
Marc:It's wild.
Marc:Now, just as a guy who doesn't watch wrestling, and I didn't want to not... I got to admit that.
Marc:Absolutely.
Guest:I'm not offended by that in any way, shape, or form.
Guest:I feel shitty about it.
Guest:No, see, I think it's great because there's going to be some sort of organic...
Marc:something that happens here and as we talk about it and like you know like i think that's what this is for everybody learns something what is the nature of surprise for those people if they just know that these scripts are going to repeat themselves in one form or another that you know once they are emotionally invested to their fans of certain wrestlers and you were a bad guy are you still a bad guy i i know i'm a good guy now so i think so
Guest:maybe we should go back a little bit so when you first started wrestling how did you start wrestling um i started like i when i was a little kid you know you're super impressionable and you know the world is beginning to mold you and i i learned at a very young age that like you know my parents weren't gonna help me they couldn't help themselves what was their racket what'd they do
Guest:um my mom was a mom yeah you know my dad was uh an electrician perpetually laid off you know what i mean bitter angry guy or what no my i mean you know i mean jesus christ i i i i have zero bitterness or anything towards them i you know my dad was a sweetheart yeah my mom was a little bit of a nutter yeah you know yeah
Guest:This is real life.
Guest:I fell in love with wrestling, and I had an aunt who was closer to my age than she was my mom's age.
Guest:There's a big age gap.
Guest:I was always over at my grandpa's house.
Guest:Both of them lived on the south side of Chicago.
Guest:And she was always going to a place called Medusa Circle, like early Chicago punk club.
Guest:And so I got into like all this different kind of music, you know?
Marc:Oh, really?
Marc:So your aunt was like literally that much younger and she was like into rock.
Guest:Yeah, she was like a total punker, you know what I mean?
Guest:And I was a kid and I was like, Duran Duran, awesome.
Marc:You know what I mean?
Guest:The Ramones, The Clash, great.
Guest:You went to see them?
Guest:I never saw Clash or Duran Duran.
Guest:I got to see The Ramones.
Guest:Oh, you did in Chicago with your aunt?
Guest:uh no i i saw him i mean years later like early 90s so she turns you on to that you knew there was a world out there that was different than the world you were being brought up in that yes yeah and uh so you know what punk rock teaches me as a kid is do it yourself yeah you know what i mean you don't you don't need anybody else to help you diy do it yourself yeah uh one day
Guest:I'm at my local comic shop, and this buddy of mine's like, hey, we got this bullshit.
Guest:He didn't say bullshit, but he said, yeah, we wrestle.
Guest:It's called the LWF, the Lunatic Wrestling Federation, and we roll around in the backyard.
Guest:How old are you?
Guest:I was 15.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And to me, it was the greatest thing ever.
Guest:I was like, yeah, let's do it.
Guest:So after WWF pay-per-views,
Guest:We just roll out in the backyard and film it on one of those old big... Beta Max?
Guest:Yeah, like huge... I'm not that old, Mark.
Marc:Camcorder?
Guest:Right.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:And it literally snowballed from there.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:Like we had seasons, obviously, because we're in Chicago and you can't wrestle in the snow.
Guest:Right.
Guest:But one day I'm like, let's build a ring.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So we borrow all the materials from local construction sites.
Guest:Sure, yeah.
Guest:You know?
Guest:You gave it back.
Guest:Yeah, absolutely.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:borrowing shit from construction sites in chicago yeah there's a little risk in that no low risk low risk you know you we we build a ring it was a death trap yeah a bunch of kids yeah we weren't carpenters where'd you build it whose yard some girl you know you know what i mean yeah you know how you find comfort you know on the road and like strangers and women and then you know yeah it was just some some chick who liked what you were doing some girl whose father had like an empty lot next to her house you know what i mean we just put it there yeah you
Guest:know yeah and and then that snowballs into let's let's buy a ring yeah great how much are those three thousand dollars jesus christ you know what i mean yeah raise the money buy a ring then i bought a ring yeah where'd you put that um it was in my garage for a while yeah and then we like you know take it take it take it apart put it back up and then were you guys like mimicking what you saw on television the the moves and everything
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I mean, we didn't know any better.
Guest:You know, I mean, who the hell knows?
Guest:But I mean, you knew there were moves.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Who the hell knows you go to school or who the hell knows that you got a suplex guy on the left side?
Marc:You know what I mean?
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:And that goes back to dudes working in factories.
Guest:Right.
Guest:You know, and back when the world, everyone was right handed.
Guest:You know, don't you can break my left arm, but don't break my right arm because I need to work the machines that, you know.
Guest:So we do that.
Guest:And then the next thing, you know, we're like we were having these outlaw.
Guest:backyard shows on a farm in, crap, where the hell was it?
Guest:I can't remember the name of the town now.
Guest:It was in Illinois?
Guest:Yeah, one dude had a girlfriend at the time whose father had a farm and we put the ring there and would advertise in my high school and the rival high schools, I'd make flyers.
Guest:I mean, super punk rock, you know what I mean?
Guest:Did you have costumes?
Guest:uh yeah yeah because it was you know it was us goofing around so everybody had like a main character and they had like their their jobber characters you know what i mean the dudes who just get beat up and lose all the time you know so you each had two characters oh there was everybody had like a dozen how many guys were involved in this uh i mean there was a handful like the the the main the main and there was like six or seven of main and these were guys this guy you went to high school with
Guest:Uh, I actually know there, a lot of them were older than me and they went to, um, like high school across town.
Guest:Right.
Guest:I didn't hang out or talk to anybody from my high school.
Guest:I, why?
Guest:I, I don't know.
Guest:I just, I, I just didn't get along with it.
Marc:Were you, were you in athletics then?
Guest:Or were you?
Guest:No.
Guest:Um,
Guest:I wanted to be.
Guest:Like, I remember specifically when I was in eighth grade, you know, and I don't know what I'm going to do with my life, but I was just like, everybody on the football team is cool.
Guest:And, you know, I'm like a dorky, nerdy punk rock kid.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Like, I mean, I get beat up because I have blue hair.
Guest:I have a mohawk or, you know what I mean?
Guest:You had blue hair in high school?
Guest:Yeah.
Yeah.
Guest:so you were an outsider 100 but you know what i mean like and and but i wanted to do something so like i remember like everybody going to bed and like me going back downstairs and like doing push-ups and sit-ups you know what i mean because i was like i'm gonna when i go to high school i'm gonna try out for like the football team or the the wrestling team right and like i tried out for both and like i remember specifically mr hall son of a
Guest:bitch yeah uh mr hall telling me that i i couldn't be on the team i had to cut my hair off wait you had long hair or blue hair um for for wrestling i i had long hair and i had a mohawk yeah um for football and you know what i mean they wouldn't let you do
Guest:Well, that's when I realized I was like, oh shit, this guy just doesn't want me on the team.
Guest:Cause probably cause I'm a weirdo.
Guest:It's got nothing to do with my hair.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And now I walk around and all the jocks and football players have mohawks and I shake my fist.
Guest:Cause I'm like, I got my ass kicked for that.
Guest:You know, that was like, that was a thing.
Marc:You're a trailblazer.
Guest:That was a thing back then.
Guest:And now you guys all walk around, you know,
Guest:It meant something when you were a kid.
Guest:Just let us have something.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So they wouldn't let you on the team.
Guest:No.
Guest:So I kind of outsourced.
Guest:One of my friends that I would do the silly backyard stuff with took Rukyu Kempo and his girlfriend was like way into it.
Guest:So like I got into that and through that.
Guest:And that is what?
Guest:Some whack-ass karate.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know?
Guest:So you started doing that.
Marc:Martial art.
Guest:Pressure point fighting and like breaking people's arms and like fingers and like just wild shit.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So I started doing that, and then through that, I found jiu-jitsu.
Guest:We had a jiu-jitsu black belt in the school.
Guest:And that was the most magical thing I'd ever seen up until that point of my life.
Guest:I was just like, whoa!
Guest:Dude is 120 pounds soaking wet, tapping out, choking out big 300-pound bikers.
Guest:I was just like, I'm in.
Guest:And I got into it that way.
Guest:Well, what stopped you from pursuing legitimate competition in that way?
Guest:There wasn't any legitimate competition back then.
Guest:I mean, this was early 90s.
Guest:So there was no kickboxing?
Guest:There was no... Well, yeah, yeah, but not to me.
Guest:I wasn't exposed to that.
Guest:And, you know, I'm pretty sure, certainly, if there was any kind of, like, if UFC was bigger back then, because this will put it in the time frame for you.
Guest:We actually had Dan Severin come to train with us when we were doing jiu-jitsu.
Guest:He was about to do the super fight with Hoist Gracie.
Guest:So that's like, I don't know, 93, 94?
Guest:Right.
Guest:something like that but it didn't seem like a path you wanted to take not at the time because you were just learning it so you could fucking know you could kick anyone's ass yeah yeah yeah yeah i was sick of getting punched in the face well how much did you get punched in the face i got punched in the face by who when i was a kid dude you just get on the uh you know you like you you get on the bus to go home from school and you just start talking shit and then it's like okay we're gonna fight
Guest:But did you provoke people?
Guest:Me?
Guest:No.
Guest:Seriously?
Marc:No, seriously.
Marc:I would not.
Marc:You were the guy that people were like, I'm going to go hit that guy.
Guest:I had a blue mohawk.
Guest:I had blue hair.
Guest:I was a weirdo.
Guest:Dudes called me faggot all the time.
Guest:Like, you know, funny story, we do this big anti-bully campaign, Be a Star with WWE, and they get me in the studio, and they put me in front of the camera, and they're like, you know, and I truly believe in this because I think all kids get bullied.
Guest:So if even one kid sees me on there, and they're like, oh, shit, punk was bullied.
Guest:Wow, cool, okay.
Guest:And I can tell a kid, you know, like...
Guest:it's all right.
Guest:It'll be okay.
Guest:And even if one kid can take away something positive from that, that's great.
Guest:But they get me in there and they're like, what did kids call you when they bullied you?
Guest:And I was like, faggot.
Guest:And they're like, oh God, you can't, you can't say that.
Guest:And I was like, yeah, I get that.
Guest:But that's what they would call me.
Guest:I was, I was gay.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:Because I was weird and I was into different stuff.
Guest:Right.
Guest:You know?
Guest:So what do you, what do you, I can't, I can't say it.
Guest:No, but I get that.
Guest:They're not going to show a commercial on,
Guest:But that is a pretty standard bullying tactic for guys.
Guest:I think so.
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Marc:That was the one.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So these guys were jocks.
Marc:They were like high school jocks that would kick your ass?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I got into fights with everybody.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:But there's something about that personality.
Marc:What made you so fucking defiant?
Marc:I mean, have you traced that back to the moment where you were like, fuck this, fuck you?
Marc:You say your dad was just a nice guy and your mom was nuts, but something put that fucking anger in your heart.
Marc:I don't know.
Guest:You really don't know?
Guest:No, I don't.
Guest:I just never stopped talking shit.
Guest:People get tired of punching me in the face before I was tired of mouthing off.
Marc:But were you the kid that school would have to call your parents in all the fucking time?
Guest:Yeah, I got into some trouble.
Guest:The best part about it is my mom always would freak out and be like, what
Guest:are the neighbors gonna think yeah and i was like fuck the neighbors who cares what the neighbors think you know yeah i had to pick you up from jail because that was the thing like if you got if you're fighting in my high school like everybody went to jail yeah regardless so you went to jail yeah a lot no not i mean not a lot but you know a couple times but it was always just for fighting and it was just it's just dumb kid high school yeah suspended from school for three days suspended from school for five days
Marc:But there was some party that was like, you know, you wanted to be your own guy.
Marc:You know, you're putting the blue hair on.
Marc:You're doing things differently than everybody else.
Marc:You know, you must have felt that.
Marc:I don't know.
Guest:I never felt like I fit in anywhere.
Guest:But I wasn't like, I'm a trailblazer and I'm super cool.
Guest:No, I think back then I would have given anything to be on the football team.
Marc:Really?
Marc:Yeah, I think so.
Marc:So, all right.
Marc:So, so now you're, you're doing jujitsu.
Marc:You're, you're learning.
Marc:Did you, were you able to kick someone's ass finally?
Marc:Did you have that?
Marc:Was there that moment where somebody started shit with you?
Guest:Like the, I, yeah, I remember vividly like the first time that shit like worked.
Marc:Really?
Marc:Like how it magically.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Well, it was actually, it was, it was my brother actually.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:How many brothers and sisters you got?
Guest:I got I got one biological brother.
Guest:I everybody always hears me talk about my sisters.
Guest:My sisters, you know, like to me, you don't got to be blood to be family.
Guest:Right.
Guest:My family was never, you know, a family.
Guest:They never they never helped me out.
Guest:They never supported me.
Guest:The only thing they ever really did was steal shit from me.
Guest:So I had a best friend around that time, and their family just took me in.
Guest:So her little sisters have known me since they were like three and five.
Guest:I've always been around.
Guest:I'm the big brother to them.
Guest:That's my family.
Guest:Those are my sisters.
Guest:But yeah, one biological brother, and he was the... He got the brunt of the, holy shit, this magical... Is he older or younger?
Guest:He's two years older than me.
Guest:So your older brother, you kicked his ass.
Guest:I mean, not a lot.
Guest:One time he kicked my dog, and that sent me into a frenzy.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:He kicked your dog?
Guest:Don't fucking kick a dog, man.
Guest:Yeah, you're right.
Guest:Come on.
Guest:And how many moves did it take to take him out?
Guest:Not long.
Guest:He had long hair at the time, so he was over in a heartbeat.
Guest:And is he still around, your brother?
Guest:He's alive.
Marc:You don't talk to him?
Marc:I haven't talked to him in like 12 years, something like that.
Marc:And you don't talk to your parents?
Marc:No.
Marc:All right.
Marc:So I guess we're going to get there.
Marc:All right.
Marc:So now you're doing your backyard shit.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:So what was the path into wrestling?
Guest:Well, you know, punk rock, right?
Guest:Do it yourself.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:There's wrestling schools and learning how to do all that stuff, learning how to bump.
Guest:is what you know learning how to fall and stuff like that like that's all basic stuff that i truly believe you could you could teach a monkey how to do it right i mean right run the ropes learn the you know three different ways to take a bump and you're you're you know you're set it's just you eventually have to figure out through experience like when to do stuff yeah it's not so it's not what you do it's when yeah you do it right to get the crowd reaction and to get them invested
Guest:okay so you got to play the crowd yes and you got to feel the other guy absolutely you got to know what he's you know where you it's a it's like a dance it's it's it's all up to the crowd yeah you know what i mean and when you first start out you you're in the back and you're talking to a guy oh i'm gonna do this and i'm gonna do this and then it's your turn and you can do this and you can do this and then now i refuse to talk to the guy i hate it
Guest:You said something in Chicago that is very true with me is that preparation is for pussies.
Guest:I've been doing this half my life.
Guest:Right.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:You're ready.
Guest:And we're going to go out there, and if they boo me,
Guest:Fuck it.
Guest:I'm the bad guy.
Guest:And if they cheer you great, I'm going to make you look like Superman.
Guest:Yeah, we're going to we're going to wait for them.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:And we're going to we're going to go off them.
Marc:Interesting.
Marc:And are there guys that are afraid of that?
Marc:Terrified of it.
Marc:Why?
Marc:Well, I think because they lack the experience and they've never done it.
Marc:But they know how to handle anything that's going to come at them.
Marc:Because the dance is... I hope so.
Marc:You're not going to... I mean, the moves, however you make them your own, there's a finite number of them.
Marc:And if somebody has some experience, they know how to react.
Marc:Sure.
Marc:Right.
Marc:But the idea of improvising is terrifying.
Marc:I think for a lot of guys it is.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And, well, then how, like, at this point when you're like, I'm not going to talk to the guy, what does that guy say to you?
Marc:Fuck you, punk.
Guest:Sometimes.
Guest:I'm not going to play that game with you.
Guest:And there's a few guys.
Guest:No, nobody ever does that.
Guest:And there's a few guys that prefer that.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:But I think it's a very old school way of doing it.
Guest:And unfortunately, it's dying out.
Guest:The improvisation.
Guest:Dude, there used to be so many territories and guys used to wrestle every night twice on Saturday, twice on Sunday.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:And the guys in the business now just don't have that experience.
Guest:They don't have that opportunity to do that.
Guest:So somebody who's been in the business now...
Guest:Five years.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:There's a big difference between somebody who started in like, you know, 72.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Their five years was so much different than somebody's five years now.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:Sure.
Guest:I've talked to kids who are like, yeah, I've been wrestling for eight years.
Guest:It's like, how often do you wrestle?
Guest:Once a month?
Guest:It's like, okay, so you've wrestled like 80 matches.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:They just lack the experience.
Guest:And it's not their fault.
Marc:So when you started, you were doing that circuit?
Marc:You were doing circuits where you'd wrestle every fucking day?
Guest:Uh, no.
Guest:When I, when I started out, you know what I mean?
Guest:I was doing backyard stuff and we pissed everybody off in Chicago because we were untrained.
Marc:You were on the radar of that level of progress work, you know, civic auditorium.
Guest:They all hated us because they knew you were there.
Guest:Dude, we were, we were drawing crowds of like a thousand people.
Marc:Oh, so it was real punk rock shit.
Guest:And they were drawing crowds of like 20 people, the old timers.
Guest:And we would go to their shows and just heckle the shit out of them.
Guest:oh really you know what i mean yeah and i was ready and i was ready to fight any single person you know what i mean did you go in the ring in those when you were no no because that that's i mean that's a no-no if you do that you're asking for when does it sort of you know turn into something where you become a force to be reckoned with when you're in the actual game i guess it was the game here here's how it happened for me yes uh we were doing all this stuff and we're pissing everybody off you know what i mean and i think i'm a pretty rational guy right um
Guest:I would look back at it and I would be amazed that we were just a bunch of dumb kids who were doing this.
Guest:And we bought a ring and got a promoter's license.
Guest:And this is back when Illinois was run by the evil boxing commission.
Guest:We did a lot of stuff that we shouldn't have been able to do.
Guest:Are you in touch with any of these guys still?
Guest:No.
Guest:Really?
Marc:Yeah, big falling out.
Guest:With all of them?
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Is there anybody you haven't had a falling out with?
Marc:Yeah, plenty of people.
Marc:Okay, all right.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Plenty of people.
Guest:So was it falling out around business, was it?
Guest:Well, what happened is we were doing all this great, amazing stuff to us.
Guest:Holy shit.
Guest:I mean, a thousand people.
Guest:None of us had ever been trained.
Guest:And we were doing all this wacky stuff.
Guest:And I took that knowledge and I went, could you imagine how good we were if we went and learned the fundamentals and if we got trained?
Guest:So I hooked up with a wrestling school in Chicago at the time called The Steel Domain, and I was almost immediately like persona non grata with my buddies.
Guest:With the punk rock crew.
Guest:Oh, you're getting trained, you know what I mean?
Guest:And I would...
Guest:I would come back and, like, try to show guys, like, no, this is, you know, this is the right way to do it, you know?
Guest:Would it move?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:And, like, the rift just kind of started from there.
Guest:And then one day, for whatever reason, my brother was in charge of the finances.
Guest:One day I was just like, there's some fishy shit going on here.
Guest:Where's the money?
Guest:How much money do we have?
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:We got to, you know, we need new guardrails.
Guest:What's going on?
Guest:And then it came out that he stole all the money.
Guest:what'd he do with it i don't fucking know he smoked it yeah you know what i mean yeah fucking he's a fuck up you know so i'm hot i'm like what the fuck we gotta kick this dude out he just stole all our money your brother yeah yeah you know uh and they were all buddies with him so they were like no fuck you you're out and then i just went fine fuck you dudes i'm gonna go be a wrestler yeah you know what i mean right like and that's that
Guest:And there's obviously other stories in there, you know, but that is in simplest terms, like what happened.
Marc:So you had this thing going with your brother and with these other dudes and you were drawing a crowd of people because it was off.
Marc:It was like its own thing.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And it was it seemed like like something new and real.
Marc:And you and your hearts were in it.
Marc:And then somebody fucked it up and you were like, fuck it.
Marc:I'm going to now it's my turn to try to take a real shot.
Marc:Right, because this is what I wanted to do.
Marc:And those guys, you don't get the feeling that they want to do it?
Marc:Did any of them keep doing it?
Guest:No.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:I mean, you know.
Guest:The band broke up.
Guest:Kind of proved my point.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:Like, this is something I want to do.
Guest:I was serious about it.
Marc:But you had an appreciation of the art in a way.
Marc:Like, you know, it's one thing to be a bunch of kids getting away with something and, you know, wearing costumes or playing the parts the best you can know.
Marc:But it seems to me that really what makes you different, and also in my conversation with Colt,
Marc:is that you know because you're real dudes that you you were doing this and you knew it was uh you know a spectacle and a show but you you had such a passion for it that you were like well there's there's an integrity to this and there's a way to do it right and there's a way to to sort of you know get your own voice in a way right then you were like that's what i'm gonna do
Guest:I had no choice up until that point.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:That was it.
Guest:I was the guy who paid for three-fourths of the ring.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:I got ripped off.
Guest:But if life has taught me anything, it's just like, fuck it.
Guest:I'm not going to cry about it.
Guest:The best revenge is living well.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:And I was like, the bottom line, the number one goal is, I just want to be a wrestler.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:And this is where I wrestled.
Guest:And now I can't wrestle there anymore.
Guest:You know?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So fuck it.
Guest:Fuck you guys.
Guest:I'm going to go wrestle somewhere else.
Guest:And you were in school.
Guest:So then, then I started, you know what I mean?
Guest:Like I would just, the guys who trained me, I would just jump in a car with them and I would go to shows fucking.
Guest:Indiana, Michigan, Wisconsin.
Marc:The guys who trained you were doing shows.
Guest:Yeah, Minnesota.
Guest:And where were these?
Guest:These were the guys in the Midwest that were, they were hot, they were good, and everybody knew it, so everybody wanted.
Guest:There's Danny Dominion, Ace Steel, Kevin Quinn, a guy named Adam Pearce.
Guest:there was always like guys on the East coast that would get credit for, you know, being good and guys on the West coast and like Chicago, like the Midwest is just kind of like lost, but we had the benefit of being kind of central.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:We could drive to Ohio.
Guest:Oh yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:It's all right.
Marc:You know what I mean?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Cleveland,
Guest:I mean, fuck, we'd get in a car and we'd drive 15 hours to Philly, do a show, drive back for a show in Wisconsin at 3 o'clock, just wired, driving all night.
Guest:I'm crashing rental cars and just keep driving, just doing crazy shit.
Guest:And then, yeah, I start wrestling Friday, Saturday, Sunday.
Guest:Oh, Ian Rotten runs every Wednesday in Charlestown, Indiana?
Guest:Fuck yeah, let's do it.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:And you just go.
Guest:And you don't know who you're going to wrestle.
Guest:No.
Marc:Sometimes you did, sometimes you didn't.
Marc:When the first time you got into the ring with these guys who were training you, or when you first got your shot, what was that day like?
Marc:I mean, do you remember them?
Marc:They beat the shit out of me.
Marc:Because I was the fucking backyard kid.
Marc:But the guys who knew you or the other guys?
Marc:They knew of me.
Marc:When you say you went to a show, if there were four of you, were you wrestling with each other?
Marc:Is that the way it worked or was there another crew there?
Marc:Sometimes.
Marc:You know what I mean?
Guest:But you make connections and you meet the Michigan crew.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:And there's a crew down in Indiana, Kentucky.
Guest:You meet them.
Guest:But yeah, me and Cabana were married to each other for years.
Guest:Because...
Guest:We realized, fuck it, we're 19, 20 years old.
Guest:We're just going to jump in a car.
Guest:And one of the biggest pieces of advice I ever got from Ace Steel, one of my trainers who's, you know, no falling out.
Guest:We're best friends.
Guest:We talk all the time.
Guest:Was just work as much as you can.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:So I'm working for 10 bucks, barely gas money.
Guest:You know, sometimes...
Guest:sometimes you got to throw a promoter down the stairs because he stiffs you you know what i mean and then it's you just try to steal everything in his house you did that yeah that happened a few times adam pierce shoved some hot dogs in the guy's face because he tried to paint us with hot dogs and then we just stole his phone
Guest:You know, it is a lot like comedy.
Guest:Oh, it's the wild, wild west.
Guest:And I don't know if it's like that anymore.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:But pro wrestling used to be just anything.
Guest:You know, it used to be pretty fucking crazy.
Marc:Were there situations where you'd get into a ring with somebody where where the fight became real?
Guest:Yeah, it kind of happened a few times.
Guest:It happened one time with a friend of mine.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Because I think it's easier to punch your friend in the face than it is to punch a stranger in the face.
Marc:Right.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:Because it's just like, okay, maybe that guy just accidentally...
Guest:oh i see so kick me in the face you know what i mean right it's like you're your buddy and he's cross-faced and you need chips your tooth you're like fucking relax you know like what are you what's wrong with you you know like did you do that on purpose you know yeah does the audience know when that shit happens i i think sometimes they can tell yeah because i i just think the the mood kind of changes you know
Marc:I wonder if that's ever... I mean, are you guys so good?
Marc:I mean, obviously you're getting scarred up and you're getting stitches and shit, but are there moments where even people that know it's sort of a show where they're like, holy fuck.
Guest:I think that's one of the goals.
Guest:Is to make that feeling happen.
Guest:I think people... I think I can kind of wear it like a badge of honor if somebody's like, yeah, I know this shit's fake, but...
Marc:punk and this guy they really hate each other and he just really kicked him in the face you know what i mean like that's it then isn't it that's as good as it gets that's that's the that's what being a professional wrestler is yeah it's just like being a comic it's like he's just making this shit up right he's just making this shit up right now
Guest:You know the end of Blade Runner?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Rudger Hauer.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It's an awesome, supposedly ad-libbed soliloquy.
Guest:Right, right.
Guest:Where he's dying, when he's dying.
Guest:Yeah, and to me, who's to really say that that's 100% ad-libbed?
Guest:But it's gone down in movie folklore that he just did that.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:Right.
Guest:And like it's over the years kind of grown a life of its own.
Guest:And it's like legend now.
Guest:It's like, fuck, he just did that.
Guest:He just ad libbed it.
Guest:Wow, that's great.
Guest:So you can watch that scene and almost appreciate it more than you would watch like another scene knowing somebody wrote it and there were just lines.
Marc:this guy just did that yeah wow yeah i think that is is like that well these these guys really hate each other no they're really they're really fighting oh look at this they're really you know what i mean the rest really separating right you know right so when those lines become hazy yes even when you can say like you know heel face bad guy good guy that's this script that's that script you know i saw the tactics and all that like all that stuff like you were it's real interesting to me
Marc:what you're saying that you know there's an improvisation to it there's a skill set to it but once you transcend that and you actually you know become you know a great wrestler it's when that line becomes blurred it's like everyone knows it's fake but it's not those fucking guys it's not about the moves right it's it's about you know how you do them when you do them
Marc:It's about the theatrics, the drama.
Marc:For people to really believe that you hate somebody, even though they know wrestling is what it is, they're emotionally invested in that.
Marc:So there's definitely some part of almost any wrestling fan that doesn't really know it's fake.
Marc:Right.
Marc:That refuses to accept it.
Guest:Or at least you can suspend their disbelief.
Marc:Right, that's the integrity of wrestling right there.
Guest:Yeah, when I sat down on that stage in Vegas and I did that interview you were talking about, yeah, I mean, that was, I mean, I think that's easily the biggest moment of my career because whether you want to believe what I was saying was real or whether you're jaded and you're like, nah, it's bullshit, he's just reading a script, you know what I mean?
Guest:Like,
Guest:That fucked a lot of people up.
Marc:Everyone was just like, wait, whoa, wait a second.
Marc:Well, I don't think it had ever been done that way.
Marc:I mean, whatever the scripts are, and I know there are scripts, because I watched that thing, and what was it, 2011?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And I think what I felt not knowing the whole political structure of wrestling was that you were calling wrestlers out in a way, in a way that that probably hadn't been heard before.
Marc:It's like, you know, everyone knows Vince McMahon.
Marc:Everyone knows the business of wrestling.
Marc:But you were literally saying that these wrestlers are ass kissers.
Marc:and they're fucking political players they don't have any respect for the the you know the the integrity of the sport in a sense or the show in a sense and you were you were whether you were playing the part or not you were a guy that was like calling out the entire system yeah i was pissed and i'm absolutely at my best when i'm pissed but you were really pissed fucking furious
Guest:But when they shut the mic down, did you know they were going to shut the mic up?
Guest:I knew.
Guest:Well, that was the thing.
Guest:It was Vince.
Guest:They called me earlier in the day and they were like, you're not going to believe this.
Guest:Vince wants you to air your grievances.
Guest:And I was like, I can't do that because he's just getting fucking mad at me.
Guest:But I didn't care because I was like, what are they going to do?
Guest:Fire me.
Guest:Great.
Guest:Then I don't have to go to Australia tomorrow.
Marc:You know, how did they know?
Marc:OK, so this is like you were in the system for how long before that?
Marc:Six years, five, six.
Marc:And you were fed up.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:and you basically let the corporate structure know that you were fucking fed up, you weren't getting your shot, and it was bullshit because you paid your dues, you're a fucking great wrestler, and why weren't they giving you a shot?
Marc:Why weren't they giving you a shot in your mind?
Guest:God, I don't know.
Guest:In my mind, I'm too small.
Guest:I have all these tattoos.
Guest:I'm not poster boy material.
Guest:I'm not all super huge and jacked up.
Guest:I don't fit the mold.
Guest:Right.
Marc:And you made this apparent to the corporate structure.
Guest:Yeah, because what I was looking at was re-signed for another three years of fucking this misery.
Guest:Of not getting your shot.
Marc:Yeah, like...
Marc:So what was your role then?
Marc:You were the guy, you were just a bad guy that they had on hand.
Guest:In my mind, I was the bad guy.
Guest:There wasn't a better bad guy in the business at the time.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:And to me, best bad guy fights the best good guy.
Guest:Like, what the fuck?
Guest:Get with the program here, you know what I mean?
Guest:And they weren't giving you that?
Guest:Nobody in that company at the time.
Guest:I had grandmothers jumping the rails, slapping me in the face, you know what I mean?
Guest:Because I was doing this...
Guest:straight edge society thing where I look like Charles Manson I had this big beard and long hair and like I was doing real like I I was writing my own stuff and they were letting me do it because I straight edge society I think a lot of that was way over their heads it was it was like what was the whole angle of it
Guest:I'm straight edge in real life.
Guest:I abstained from drugs and alcohol and all that stuff.
Guest:You never drank or never did any of that shit ever?
Guest:No.
Guest:And I think when people hear that, they're really weirded out by it.
Guest:And I think through my experiences, people are always...
Guest:uh what's the word uh not not offended but they're immediately like well okay well fuck this guy you know what i mean what makes you better than us right right you i'm a i'm a i'm a fucking narc and they get paranoid you know what it calls out their fucking problems yeah because as a guy who doesn't drink people are always like well you don't do you care if i do
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So like they automatically assume that you're condescending.
Guest:Absolutely.
Guest:Right.
Marc:Right.
Guest:So that was the onscreen character and I turned it into this quasi almost religious thing where I was offending everybody, man.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It was nuts.
Guest:I shaved a woman's head in the ring and like, you know, that was like the thing.
Guest:It was like I would shave these people's heads and they would join me and I had this cult and it was just
Guest:it was just fucked up and it was wild.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And I couldn't believe I was getting away with the stuff I was getting away with.
Guest:Right.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Right.
Guest:And this was all your religious iconography and like, you know, like all this kind of, and this all came out of your head.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Cause I was fed up cause I wasn't doing anything.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:And I walked into Vince's office and I was just like, fuck this.
Guest:This is bullshit.
Guest:I wrote this.
Guest:It's 16 weeks to TV and I threw it on his desk and I don't think he read it.
Guest:I think he was just like, great, you know, get, get out of my face.
Guest:All based on the straight edge society.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, and I was wrestling a guy named Rey Mysterio, and I had this whole thing.
Guest:But they eventually fucked it all up, which made me even more mad and sent me more over the edge.
Guest:And then I became the guy who I just didn't care.
Marc:Right.
Marc:I was like, fuck you, whatever.
Marc:But then the day that you get that call where they're like, Vince wants you to air your grievances.
Yes.
Marc:So in a way, this was your break.
Guest:Some part of him said, what does he really give a shit?
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:I just think, well, I know for a fact that Vince doesn't care as long as it's good.
Guest:But he knew that you were really at a breaking point.
Guest:yeah like i i would i we would get into screaming matches and this is prior to like i you know the relationship i have with them now is drastically different than the relationship i had with them then i think he develops this relationship with all this top guys you know what i mean to where you know you can call him up at four in the morning you know what i mean and i i don't think there's a lot of guys on the crew that have yeah that relationship with him
Marc:But he also knew as a straight, it's weird because he knew that you were solid because if you really are straight and you're not going to get, like a lot of wrestlers get beat up by themselves, by drugs, by whatever it is that they do to keep doing this.
Marc:So he knew that you had integrity as a person.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:and so he it's just fascinating to me that that by pushing you over the edge by giving you the opportunity you go ahead and speak your mind fucker and then you took it then all of a sudden you know that was a turning point in your career because why what did the crowd respond i mean we'll talk about how he responded in a minute but how the crowd responded that i i always feel weird about talking about it but like based off of the response i got from all the boys
Guest:in the back, and the fact that I had 126 text messages, you know, on my phone, like, immediately following that from people like, you know, Steve Austin, Harley Race, like, I mean, people that I have the utmost respect for, you know what I mean?
Guest:Like, I...
Guest:and i i think to some extent because i try to be as humble as i can i try to stay grounded i think to this day i still don't know like the ramifications of what i did but i fucking put the place on its ear is the best way i can probably explain it to to somebody who's maybe listening that doesn't know shit about wrestling you know the whole operation i fucked them all up you know what i mean like yeah
Guest:so so vince vince i think yeah i and he'll probably tell you now that yeah i meant to send him over the edge and i did all that on purpose you know blah blah blah but i felt i never got a real opportunity in that company until that moment and like i knew and because that was my point i said if you give me the ball you you'll never see it again because i'm not giving it back
Guest:I'll knock the fucker out of the park.
Guest:All you have to do.
Guest:And if I fuck it up and I suck and I don't, just fucking fire me.
Guest:That's always been my attitude.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:Just give me the shot.
Guest:And if you do it this way, just let me do it.
Marc:And I think what's important for me to understand, and maybe for people listening...
Marc:who are like me and are not connected to wrestling, is that your skill set was so fucking tight and your character and your ability to sort of do the show for a crowd was so fucking refined that that moment was, everything converged on that moment and you were able to deliver.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And you were fucking transparent.
Marc:I mean, in the sense that, you know, all your grievances were aired.
Marc:You fucking called out a lot of other wrestlers.
Marc:You called out the company in general.
Marc:And you redefined how people looked at a wrestler because you're not the regular guy.
Right.
Guest:It's a big deal.
Guest:yeah you know and like i said i don't like to you know be like oh yeah i did this amazing thing you know what i mean um but yeah it's like i said earlier it's the it's the number one moment of my career because he did give me that opportunity you know what i mean you can say a lot of negative things about vince if you don't if you don't know him you know and you hear all these stories and just like anything i've learned you know there's a lot of negative bullshit stories about me out there you know what i mean but unless you know me
Guest:Unless you meet me and, you know, find out for yourself and develop an opinion about me through your own experiences, you know what I mean?
Guest:Regardless of what you want to say about Vince, he gave me that opportunity.
Guest:Right.
Guest:He let you do it.
Guest:He was like, you know, write something and let me see it before you go out there.
Guest:So I was just like, I got to write some bullshit that he's going to okay.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Because everything that I said out there, there's no way he would have let me.
Guest:Oh, so that wasn't the script you gave him.
Guest:You asked me if it was real.
Guest:It was 100%.
Guest:Right.
Guest:I was with the writer and he was just like, and I said, you know, I'm pissed off and I'm fucking quitting.
Guest:I don't care if they fire me.
Guest:And I'm not going to go out there and I'm not going to motherfuck anybody because I think that, you know, like on this level, that's too easy.
Guest:It's crass and it's, ooh, it's too shocking.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:Like that.
Guest:But I mean, I could have.
Guest:I had a live microphone.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:You know?
Guest:I was armed with the fact that I knew that at some point they were going to cut the microphone off.
Guest:I didn't know when that was, so I just kind of got a little bit of, I started to ramble after a while because I kind of ran out of my points.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:And I was just super pissed off.
Guest:So I wrote some bullshit.
Guest:He looked at it.
Guest:Great.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And then I just tore it up and went out there with no script.
Marc:And then after that,
Marc:What did he say?
Guest:What was his first reaction?
Guest:See, it's weird because they cut the mic and I got up and the crowd was just like, ugh.
Guest:And I went to turn around to go through what we call the gorilla position, which is called that because old wrestler Gorilla Monsoon would just sit behind the curtain and watch the entire show.
Guest:So it's his now.
Guest:I went to go walk through there and then I stopped and I was just like,
Guest:i'm gonna have to fist fight somebody when i walk through that curtain right so i'm gonna walk around the back yeah you know what i mean and i jumped and i went side ramp and i walked around and nobody was no there was nobody back there and i was like whoa where the hell is everybody and i turned to my left and i looked and literally everybody was gathered around like the stairs where i was supposed to come down and like this this dude chris masters who worked there at the time turned to me and he looked at me and he goes
Guest:dude, did you just hear that promo, that punk cut?
Guest:And I was like, what's up, Chris?
Guest:It's me.
Guest:And he was just like, holy shit.
Guest:And then everybody started freaking out.
Guest:People like grips and cameramen and sound technicians were coming up to me and they're like,
Guest:Yo, if you get fined, we're going to chip in around here.
Guest:We're going to help you pay for this and this and that.
Guest:And I saw Triple H, I think, first, and he's Vince's son-in-law.
Marc:Who you called out.
Guest:Yeah, I called him out, and he looked at me, and he goes, Well...
Guest:At least I'm just a doofus.
Guest:I'm not a douchebag like Johnny.
Guest:And he points over to John Laurinaitis, who's like the head of talent relations, who's just looking at me like, you motherfucker.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:And then I walked up in the gorilla and Vince was there with his arms out and he just looked at me and he goes, I smell money.
Guest:you know what i mean and i was just like okay and then i i didn't know what to do then because i was just like my plan was you know like alls alls i knew uh is that i'm going to australia tomorrow yeah you know i'm gonna wake up early i'm gonna go to unlv i'm gonna lift and then i'm getting on a plane and going to australia and this is this is my last tour this is it yeah
Guest:And every day on that tour, we goofed around at the end of the night in the ring.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:We had like a farewell for me.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I mean, like people crying, you know, in the ring, like some of the girls are sad, you know, and like, you know, everybody, this is, this is it for me.
Guest:This is my last tour.
Guest:And we flew home and we had the pay-per-view in Chicago and I still hadn't re-signed.
Guest:And I was, I was wrestling John Cena, the guy for the title.
Guest:And like, I, you know, I walked in Sunday and,
Guest:And I didn't have a contract.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:So, like, we had no finish for the match.
Guest:Obviously, that was, it relied on whether I re-signed or not.
Guest:And it just, you know, it was just wild, wild west, man.
Guest:It was insane.
Guest:And I think Vince likes it that way, you know?
Marc:And then you took it.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And you became the guy.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:That's a fucking beautiful story.
Guest:I mean, I had a lot of long conversations with the guy where it was just like, you know, it doesn't matter how big or how little somebody is.
Guest:Like, you know, like when somebody has it and they're passionate about it, like, give them a chance.
Guest:And in a big way, it was never just about me.
Guest:Because like I said, I watch Colt get released without even getting a shot.
Guest:I've watched guys who are way better than a lot of the guys who get hired just because they have abs.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:And to me, this is pro wrestling.
Guest:This is not sports entertainment.
Guest:This is not bodybuilding.
Guest:It's these guys that if you give them a shot,
Guest:They can do amazing stuff and be so entertaining and good at what they do and make people question, is this real?
Guest:Is this fake?
Guest:And I was just sick and tired of watching people get passed by myself included.
Guest:So like in a way I was trying to do it for everybody else.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:And change the idea.
Guest:And I was just like,
Guest:Just give me a shot.
Guest:If I fuck it up, fire me.
Guest:Because God damn it, I deserve it.
Guest:And I don't want to fail.
Guest:And if I fail, I deserve it.
Guest:I'll go do something else.
Marc:You know what I mean?
Marc:It's amazing that in this area of show business,
Marc:That you can so publicly take on the powers that be because they're very intimate.
Marc:It's one guy in his empire.
Marc:And that because of the nature of it, the idea between reality and the show really becomes blurred on all levels.
Marc:And that the guy who's in charge of the big show...
Marc:After seeing what you did, that was a crossroads.
Marc:Like, do I fucking kick this guy out and shame him for the rest of his career?
Marc:Or do I make it part of the show?
Marc:That's fucking beautiful.
Marc:Well, congratulations.
Marc:Thanks.
Marc:And your character has evolved out of the messianic thing.
Marc:I mean, where do you stand as a character?
Marc:I should know this.
Marc:I know wrestling fans are going to hate me for not knowing.
Guest:Well, after I did that little piece of work, I mean, I was like a runaway good guy.
Marc:Oh, because of the integrity of it.
Guest:I had GQ calling me for an interview.
Guest:I did Bill Simmons' podcast.
Guest:Stuff that nobody in wrestling had ever done before, or at least for a while.
Guest:There was a lot of mainstream stuff that came my way.
Guest:Because of the humanity of it.
Marc:It was...
Guest:it transcended the show because you know you were a guy who was you know fighting for his life uh you know and fighting for what he believed in yeah and i you know i i took it i ran with it i became the champion and then like halfway through that championship run like uh became a bad guy um feuded with uh super movie star dwayne johnson the rock you know what i mean and then like uh you know in wrestlemania i wrestled uh dude named undertaker who's
Guest:Within my industry, he's a legend.
Guest:He's Johnny Cash.
Guest:He's Red Fox.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:There's certain people in this business that I think, regardless of how despicable they try to be, they're so good at being a bad guy.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:The people just sit back and they're like,
Guest:this is this guy.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:Like this guy.
Guest:And I was purposely trying to do so many despicable things.
Guest:Like, you know, eventually, if you're such a good bad guy, it can only last so long.
Guest:There's a clock on that.
Guest:And, you know, I busted up my leg.
Guest:I damn near broke my leg at WrestleMania.
Guest:And then, like, once again, I was just...
Guest:i i for the longest time never wanted to use the word burnt out but god damn it i was burnt out yeah you know and i was i was going away regardless and then i fucking break my leg you know and i'm like oh you know i gotta get the hell out of here right i never had a break i started in 1997 i fractured my skull in 2002 and i was pretty much in a coma for like a month and then i just started wrestling again like an idiot you know but so i i i just kind of disappeared and then
Guest:You know, when you disappear off television, and I'd never done that before, you come back and everyone gives you that ovation, like, oh, shit, we forgot about this guy.
Guest:You know, he's back.
Guest:So I kind of default came back a good guy, and now I'm just, you know, I don't know.
Guest:I'm just floating around fighting dudes, you know.
Marc:But you're all right.
Marc:I'm okay.
Marc:All right.
Marc:So now let's, you know, in closing, why did you put a restraining order on your parents?
Guest:what a way to what a way to close uh you know what it sucks and it's unfortunate and um you know i don't know if i don't like talking about it but it's it's weird you know uh the those those dudes are still out there my brother is still out there that i you know and i i want nothing to do with them i wish him no ill will yeah but uh they still constantly talk mad shit about me yeah you know what i mean like uh i
Guest:I don't know if it's jealousy or they hate me because I made it.
Guest:Because it certainly isn't a case of, oh, I left them behind and I flipped the switch and now I'm a superstar and fuck these guys.
Guest:They didn't help me get to where I'm at.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Um, so it's like, I don't like talking about it almost because like, I know, I know they're out there listening, but like in some way, shape or form, this is cathartic.
Guest:And I, and I know that's what you do on your podcast.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Um, uh, it's just an unfortunate situation.
Guest:Like, you know, my, my parents, I learned at an early age that like, uh, they're, they're, they're not going to help me.
Guest:you know, um, they never supported me.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And when I got a little bit of money and became famous, it's like all of a sudden, you know, Hey, pay the mortgage, do this, do that.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And, uh, I did that for too long.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And then eventually, you know, had to explain to them that like, I got my own bills and I got my own problems.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:And like, you know, this isn't sour grapes and I'm not mad at you guys.
Guest:It's just, this is what it is.
Guest:And you know,
Guest:In a lot of ways, it was like breaking up with a girlfriend, you know what I mean?
Marc:Breaking up with your parents, yeah.
Guest:Yeah, and then that just turned into what can only be categorized as harassment.
Guest:Fifteen emails a day, phone calls, you know what I mean?
Guest:Just letters, and I would return to sender, and I would explain to them.
Guest:The only time they would contact me is if they ever needed money or if they, as my mom so eloquently would put it,
Guest:I need 10 front-row tickets for the show in Chicago.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:Yeah, sure.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I know a lot of people who kind of experience that.
Guest:They come from nothing, and they have something, and then you have the family that comes out of the woodwork.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:Oh, you know, your cousin wants to... I don't know who that is just because they're my cousin.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know?
Guest:I have my own family.
Guest:I made my own family, and I'll do anything for them, and those are the people that support me.
Guest:It's just very much like, and the reason I do like talking about it is in case there's a kid out there that has any kind of a similar situation, just know that, you know, you don't have to put up with it.
Guest:And eventually, you know, you're going to do all you can to try to help, but then realize that you're just being taken advantage of.
Guest:and get out right fuck it you know what i mean and unfortunately the level i had to to go to uh just fucking sucked because they you know they didn't want to hear like hey you you know like you you fucked up and i'm not mad at you it is what it is but like you know we don't have a relationship and i don't have to give you money just because i'm your son you know what i mean like yeah you should have treated me like your son right you know you know what i mean yeah and fuck it i got my own mortgage
Guest:Yeah, it's a sad thing.
Guest:Yeah, I mean, it sucks.
Guest:You know, I'm definitely not stoked on it.
Guest:Yeah, right, right.
Guest:Fucking sucked.
Marc:Yeah, it's weird, though, that, you know, because I say that on stage, it's like, look, you know, you don't have to respect your parents if they're horrible.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Well, and, you know, honestly, like, that's in the simplest of terms.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:Like, you know, you're a fucking idiot.
Guest:Why do I have to, you know, like...
Guest:I have to be nice to you.
Guest:It's a hard choice to make.
Guest:You've treated me like shit for how long?
Guest:And you're always going to be like, I brought you into this world.
Guest:And it's just like, okay, cool.
Guest:I paid for that.
Marc:Fuck off.
Marc:You brought me in and I've made my way and despite what you did.
Guest:And to anybody listening to this that thinks I'm a
Guest:dick or a jerk for doing it you know like uh i'll come back for a part two and we'll just talk about all the horrible things and everything they ever stole from me you know what i mean you know there's it's not like i'm some pampered fucking rich kid and all of a sudden i was just like i'm gonna excommunicate my parents right now that's that's not true at all it's just it's a shit shit shit situation well i don't i don't want to i feel like we left on a i don't want it to be on a weird note
Guest:No, it's not.
Guest:I don't think it's a weird note.
Guest:I think it's great.
Guest:I think it's life.
Marc:You know what I mean?
Guest:Life fucking does shit, and you either deal with it or you don't.
Guest:I dealt with it.
Guest:Okay, man.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:Like I said, shitty situation, but I'm not fucking bummed about it.
Guest:I had to do what I had to do.
Marc:All right.
Marc:Well, it's a good story, man.
Marc:Your whole story is a good story.
Marc:It's not over.
Marc:I still got a lot of storytelling.
Guest:Yeah, you seem fit and good and got clarity.
Guest:We can come back and I can talk about how I think I'm out of shape and I'm fat, too.
Guest:There's a lot of problems.
Guest:I got a lot of problems, Mark.
Guest:I feel like I let you down.
Guest:No.
Guest:Like we didn't get to where we needed to get.
Guest:No, I'm educating your listeners who may not know anything about professional wrestling.
Guest:We're all fucked up, too.
Guest:Well, I think some of us knew that.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Well, it was great talking to you, man.
Guest:No, I appreciate it.
Guest:It's cool to see where this all happens.
Guest:It's pretty exciting.
Guest:Some cool people have sat in this chair.
Guest:Yes, sir.
Marc:A lot.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And now you, too.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Thanks, buddy.
Marc:No problem.
Marc:Thank you.
Marc:That's our show, people.
Marc:I hope those of you who love CM Punk and love wrestling got something out of it.
Marc:And those of you who do not know anything about wrestling learned a little something and certainly had an opportunity to overhear a chat with really one of, if not the biggest professional wrestler in the racket right now.
Marc:I'm busy, yo.
Marc:I'm in the middle of shooting my show.
Marc:No, I'm not.
Marc:I'm starting Wednesday.
Marc:That's why I'm freaking out, man.
Marc:Anxiety.
Marc:Anxiety.
Marc:And I'm not just owning it.
Marc:I'm not just feeling it.
Marc:I'm just letting it fester inside of me without identifying it.
Marc:So my hands are tingly.
Marc:My feet are tingly.
Marc:I'm clawing out of my face from the inside.
Marc:You know, good stuff like that.
Marc:Did I mention WTFPod.com?
Marc:Did I mention that?
Marc:Alright, alright, alright.
Marc:Everything's cool.
Marc:Everything's cool.
Marc:Edgar Wright on Thursday...
Marc:Boomer lives!