Insight with Chris Van Vliet - Al Snow: 'Wrestlers' On Netflix, "What Does Everybody Want?", Mick Foley Friendship, OVW

Episode Date: January 2, 2024

Al Snow (@therealalsnow) is a professional wrestler and the owner of Ohio Valley Wrestling (OVW). He is known for his time in ECW, WWE and on the series "Wrestlers" on Netflix. He sits down with Chris Van Vliet at Blizzard Brawl in Milwaukee, WI to talk about how "Wrestlers" came together on Netflix, why he decided to buy OVW, how he trains aspiring pro wrestlers, his take on the importance of psychology in wrestling, how he first got over with "Head" in ECW, being part of the JOB Squad in WWE, his friendship with Mick Foley, his Kennel From Hell match vs. Big Boss Man at Unforgiven 1999, why he thinks deathmatches are stupid and much more! Quote I'm thinking about:“I can accept failure, everyone fails at something. But I can’t accept not trying.” —Michael Jordan Sponsors: FITBOD: Get 25% off when you use the code INSIGHT at http://fitbod.me/INSIGHT ZBIOTICS: Get 15% off with the code CVV and have a better morning after you drink at http://zbiotics.com/cvv MYBOOKIE: Bet on WWE! Get up to $200 cash bonus when you use the code CVV and sign up at http://mybookie.ag BLUECHEW: Use the code CVV to get your first month of BlueChew for FREE at http://bluechew.com GHOSTBED: Get 40% of your purchase with the code CVV at http://ghostbed.com/cvv MIRACLE MADE: Upgrade your sleep with Miracle Made! Go to http://TryMiracle.com/CVV and use the code CVV to claim your FREE 3 PIECE TOWEL SET and SAVE over 40% OFF PLUNGE: Get $150 off your Plunge with the coupon code CVV150 at http://plunge.com BONCHARGE: Go to http://boncharge.com/CVV and use coupon code CVV to save 25% For more information about Chris and INSIGHT go to: https://podcast.chrisvanvliet.com If you enjoyed this episode, could I ask you to please consider leaving a rating or review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify? It takes less than a minute and makes a huge difference in helping to spread the word about the show and also to convince some hard-to-get guests. Follow CVV on social media:  Instagram: instagram.com/ChrisVanVliet Twitter: twitter.com/ChrisVanVliet Facebook: facebook.com/ChrisVanVliet YouTube: youtube.com/ChrisVanVliet TikTok: tiktok.com/@Chris.VanVliet Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

All systems are go. Ladies and gentlemen, Chris Van, Believe. Happy New Year, my friends. Welcome back to another one here on Insight. I'm CVV, Chris Van Pleet. Thanks for being with us.

And thank you for making Insight, one of the top wrestling podcasts on the planet. And know your eyes are not deceiving you. Yes, we have a new logo for Insight, or at least a new main image for the show. It's been three years since we updated it. So I figure it was long overdue and what better time than now? New year? New artwork. Actually, the last time we changed it, yeah, three years ago, 2021, that was when the name of the show also changed. So if you're newish here,

the show used to be called the Chris Van Fleet Show for the first 161 episodes. Mostly because I didn't know what to call it and it just seemed like an easy name. My YouTube. channel was called Chris Van Fleet and still is. So it's just like, well, the podcast will be the Chris Van Fleet Show. But I realized after the first year and a half that I wanted to name that better reflected what the show was really all about. I mean, it's not the Chris Van Fleet show at all. It's not about me. The show has always been about shining a light on my guests and letting them tell their story. So that's why it's called Insight. And all of that is to say we have new artwork for the show. Hope you like it. Hope you're following the show. If you're not,

please take a second right now to just just hit follow on Spotify or Apple Podcasts or wherever you're listening. It's free. It's very quick and very easy to do and it helps the show so much. More than I could possibly imagine. And 2024 is going to be a massive year for the show. So I need your help here to continue to make the show even bigger. But I have just one question for you. What does everybody want? Oh, yeah. I love talking to Al Snow.

On camera or off camera, he's just a wealth of knowledge. And I'm honored to call him a friend. And when wrestlers on Netflix started to take off, I was so happy for him and OVW to be getting the recognition that they deserve for all of the hard work that they've been putting in. If you're a wrestling fan and you haven't checked out wrestlers, first of all, what are you doing? I'm shocked.

Give it a watch. It's so good. And so is Al. He has so much knowledge just about wrestling, just about life. And I think you're going to love this conversation. So snap a screenshot. Let us know that you're listening. Tag us on social media so we can share it as well.

He's at The Real Al Snow. I'm at Chris Van Fleet. Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome. Al Snow. Monster energy is not your jam? Well, you know that or crank or if I stop at a pilot or, you know, a Buckees. And I got to tell you, man, like, because I got the first time I, have you been to a Buckees? Once.

Once? I've been to a Buckees once. It's life changing. Honestly, God, like, like, like, I'm a big fan of Wawa. You know what? I love Wawa. Yeah. I'll get a half a chub.

I get partially aroused when I'm at sheets. But the big maz, it's huge. And then Buckees, though, I'm fully erect the whole time. How do you even get in the door? It's, you know, I just, when I walked in there, it was like Nirvana or something. I was like, I'm not exactly, I was videoing it, showing my wife at like 1 o'clock. in the morning like you gotta see this it's like over here is like a cracker barrel and bass pro shop exploded and there over here's like Walmart and there's so many bathrooms watching you check into the

hotel today was fascinating why is oh with the uh because you're giving them your real name yeah like i'm sorry sir you're not the computer yeah like here we go is it under snow oh yes it is sir yeah yeah And I, it's so, it's so pretentious. You know what I mean? I could Google myself. Yeah. Do you have any identification that says Al Snow? Uh, well, no.

No, I don't have the bait. I don't have the trading card anymore. Do you watch Netflix? Yeah. Or America's Most Wanted. One of the other. They did a beautiful profile on there for me. It was really stunning.

Have you noticed a lot of people that maybe were lapsed fans, but watch Netflix all the time, that are like, I remember how snow. I don't know if they're lapsed. I have seen a big, I'm always, I got to say that I'm very flattered and I'm always surprised when people recognize me. And it surprisingly does happen still quite, quite frequently. But, boy, there's been a major uptick in it since obviously the Netflix thing. And I don't want to say like, but they don't seem like your typical wrestling fans.

like they seem like they're very casual wrestling fans or not at all. And then they seem to recognize me. That was kind of the cool thing about wrestlers is you didn't need to be a wrestling fan. No, I don't. I don't enjoy the story. Yeah. And I think that's a testament to Greg Whiteley, how incredibly talented he is and his crew. You know, all of them, they were really just amazing because to think that they arrived the last week of May and they were there.

until the end of August, and they were filming literally seven days a week, about 12 to 16 hours a day. I mean, and they followed us everywhere. I mean, that was one of the caveats, was we all had to kind of agree that we're going to be willing to be just completely 100% open both professionally and personally. And, I mean, they just, to be able to take all of that raw footage, I mean, months of raw footage,

and pare it down to be able to tell such a captivating story is incredible. So what's the original pitch on this? Because I don't imagine that it's, was it already a Netflix show? No. It was just let's follow around OVW? I don't know. It was a, it clearly was a one in a million shot. Okay.

So the present mayor of Louisville is one of my business partners in OVW. His name's Craig Greenberg. So he and Matt Jones, another partner by the name Jeff Tublin, they all came on board. And shortly after they bought into the company, Craig and his wife attended a wedding and a high school friend who happened to be an executive with BBC America was in attendance at the wedding. They get to having a conversation. He points out that they've just bought into the. this, you know, wrestling company.

She finds it immensely fascinating. Leads to another BBC executive. And then Matt Jones pitches the idea just out of the blue because he's a sports radio host. He had watched Last Chance You and was like, hey, what about if Greg Whiteley were to come here, do similar to what Last Chance You was, the documentary docu series. on OVW. Yeah. So the BBC producer, Alejandro Mendez,

uh, caught his interest. He came out, did a, uh, about five or six minute teaser tape was in, was it with OVW for about a week. And,

uh, real. Yeah. Yeah. Uh, he now pitches it shows the sizzle real to Greg Whiteley. Yeah. Greg Whiteley was like,

oh, this, I want this to be my next project. He goes to Netflix, because he's under a developmental deal with Netflix and goes, hey, I've got this idea.

They pay for him to go out and film a reel to show the executives. They're Netflix. And then they're like, yep, let's do it. And then that was it, you know what I mean?

I want to point out the correct pronunciation is Woolville. Is that right? Louisville. Yeah. You've got marbles in your mouth. Louisville. I used to live in Cleveland. I remember someone saying,

Louisville. I'm like, I believe it's, are you saying Louisville? Louisville. They're like, no, it's not pronounced that way. We called some random business. We just looked it up on Google. Called a random business. We said, this is going to be a dumb question. But how do you pronounce the name of your city?

They're like, well, that's Louisville. We're like, yeah. Yeah, that tells you that you are a true native. If there's any wool in the city's name, it's all Pikeville or, you know, you got a little. bit of mud in your mouth. Oval. Like all of a sudden you had a bit of a stroke in your, loval. The show just served as a great advertisement for Collar and Elbow the whole time.

Oh, yeah. I was wearing Colonovo at Colonoble underwear and Collinobo socks. Just tell everyone to use the code CVV. Yeah. They'll save 10%. In addition to any sale that's on right at the moment. What a deal. So if they've got like a 30% sale, you add your 10% off on your,

Look at this. I got 40 off right there. I mean, you probably don't own anything other than color and albo now. Pretty much I don't. I mean, it doesn't, it wouldn't make sense to. I know. And boy, I tell you, family gatherings and weddings, get a little awkward, you know. But, you know, grandpa's funeral was the shits, I'm telling you.

I don't remember you. He was terrible at strip poker. I'm never good at cards. I don't remember your voice always sounding like this. It never did. Is this the monster energy? No. I wish.

No. I now sound like a didgeridoo, you know? I do that. Kangaroo's like, oh, mate, oh, no. No, I sound like Christian Bell doing Batman all the time now. I'm nowhere. Yeah. I am the vengeance.

I am the night. That's way deeper. Yeah. Oh, man. Could you read like some Christmas stories to us? Oh, I could. Yeah. Like the night before Christmas would sound terrifying.

Twist the night before Christmas. I had severe chronic hiccups for almost three weeks. Like you couldn't stop? Couldn't stop. Did you sleep? No. Wow. No, I was completely exhausted.

I would fall asleep hiccuping and I would wake up, hiccuping, you know, like an hour or two later. And then I'd just sit and then I'd pass out again while sitting, and it just went for weeks. and then I did not know this. Two things. One, they treat chronic hiccups with anti-psychotic mess. So let me tell you some. I had some really intense dreams. One of them at former WWU wrestlers home, Kevin Ferdick, 7.

Jessica and I went up to a wrestling convention. in there in Indianapolis and we're like, you know, stay at our house. Is that Mordecai? Yeah, Mordecai. So, and Dave Hero was along in Caliero. And normally if I say at somebody's house, like I'm, you know, I'm the most unobtrusive.

I hate, I'm so on edge, you know, that I'm going to offend somebody. So, but hey, this was different. So I go to sleep. and I don't even realize normally I'd have sweatpants on or something in case I had to go the bathroom now just in my underwear and I'm laying there and I wake up and I got to go the bathroom. Prior to waking up, I have this, I can't remember the dream, but I know I was planning some celebration. And if I found, and I still don't know what this is, but if I had found it, it was going to be the best day ever. Doesn't make sense. It's a dream, right? So I wake up. I got to go the bathroom. I go to the bathroom, done.

And I'm like, I'm not going to find that. So I start looking through their entire bathroom, all the drawers, cabinets, the shower, I take the lid off the tank of the toilet, you know what I mean? Not in there. So you'd think I'm done. No, I'm not. That would be a, that would be a dull story. I literally now go from room to room upstairs looking through everything, including

Katie and Kevin's room, who are laying in their bed. watching me do this, not doing anything. I'm going through their nightstands, go through the closet, I lift up the mattress, walk out. You think I'm done? Nah, head downstairs. Go through their entire kitchen, their entire refrigerator, every cabinet, the stove, and then around the rest of the house.

I didn't go to the garage of the basement, but I had thoroughly searched the rest of the house. If I'd have been a cop, I could have found evidence. So back upstairs, I go, I'm disappointed, fall back asleep, wake up the next morning. Oh, God. What did I just do? But at least you weren't hiccuping. Yes, I was at that time.

Oh, boy. Yeah, but apparently I must have been sleepwalking and I just didn't know it. I thought I was awake, but I wasn't. Oh, my gosh. Yeah. So how does this tie into your voice now? I don't know. I went to an E&T and they checked my voice box, which is fine.

There's no damage or anything. But apparently the muscles in my throat, when you whisper, they constrict. Well, they constrict now all the time, whenever. I talk. So he, and he was like, well, we could send you to a speech therapist, but he goes at this point, I think this is pretty much what you're going to have. We need to get you into some voice action. Yeah. This is tremendous. You're like the, you're the villain in a movie. Oh, absolutely. I'm 80s for sure. So good. You could be a, you could have voiced Thanos, I feel like. Probably. Yeah. Yeah. Sometimes it gets even deeper and that, you know, which I'm like, what is going on? I, I so, I'd had this voice when I was a kid because back then we didn't have we just had rotary phones. Yeah, those did exist.

And they were stuck to a wall. You couldn't carry him outside the house. And you got charged for long distance. Oh, yeah. But man, I'm having a voice like this and you were to call up, you know, and be like, have you checked the children? And like, one in the morning, you know, excuse me. What's your wife think of this?

She loves it. She thinks it's great. I mean, how could she not? Yeah, got to be a really sexy You know, I'm going to hear, you know The Royal Rumble is just around the corner And as of this moment, the odds on favorites To win the Men's Royal Rumble

Are Cody Rhodes and CM Punk But who do you think is going to win? Put your money where your mouth is at MyBooky. Yes, you can bet on WWEPLEs at MyBooky.ag. And of course you can bet on everything else there. the NFL, boxing, UFC, you can even bet on politics or your favorite TV shows there. When you sign up, use my code CVV, number one, so they know that I'm the one who sent you there to bet on WWPLEs. Number two, and more importantly, you'll get a sweet cash bonus when you sign up with my code CVV and make your first deposit.

That's at mybooky.orgie.ag. The link is down there in the show notes. bet anything, anytime, anywhere, only my bookie. If someone hasn't seen you wrestle in like 20 years, you're a whole new person. Sound different. Sound different. Yeah. Yeah. I'm a lot grayer.

You're a lot more jacked, way more jacked. Well, and I'm really jacked when you turn the lights off. I mean, but look at the size of your arms now. Yeah, yeah. When did this happen? You know, a few years ago, quite honestly, and I, tell people this and they're like, oh, come on. And I'm like, no, dead serious.

I had, and I just had the conversation a little bit ago, a conversation with a friend in Nashville. He was the strength coach for the Chinese volleyball team. It does exist. I don't know if they win much, but they exist. They exist. And he was discussing how his strength, One of the biggest things for strength training is squats and doing lower body work.

And he had told me at the time that a university had done like a 90-day study where they had taken three groups of people. Group A was to only work their upper body intensely. Group B was to work their upper and their lower body intensely. And then Group C was to work only their lower body intensely. And he said after the 90 days, Group A had... The least of the three groups had the least amount of muscle gain and fat loss, toe to toe to toe. Group B that worked both their upper and lower body had minimal about, boy, say that five times fast, minimal, minimal amount of muscle gain and fat loss, toe to toe. but the group that had only worked their lower bodies had the most amount of muscle gain and fat loss head to foot.

So that and then I had stumbled upon a website that I don't think it exists anymore, but it was called a golden age of strongmen.com. And I had just one night I'd just happened upon on Google a picture of George Hackenschmidt. as a wrestler, professional wrestler, back from like the late 1800s, early 1900s. This guy, if you Google that, look at the pictures. This guy's jacked. I mean, the guy, and so I was like, that's during a period of time where it didn't even know what calories were, let alone carbs or protein or fat.

Certainly didn't have steroids. This guy looked amazing. I mean, he looked just incredible. So I got fascinated by that. And I started looking at more and more information, and I got to stumble upon that golden age of strong men, which was where it was from the late 1800s on of wrestlers and strong men. And they, you know, they would develop their own, you know, workout plans, kind of like the old, like Charles Atlas or Arnold Schwarzenegger, you know, where they would sell those mail order training plans. And you could at that time, you could actually download those. and I would read them all and, you know, and I thought, you know, if they look like that,

I'm going to start doing what they do. And so I started training like that. Instead of for years, I had done every imaginable training program that has come along since the early 80s. Or when I started working out, I was 16, so in the late 70s. And I had done everyone, every type. all the thing, and I've had limited, you know, but the more I started training, which was just a combination of actual functional movements and compound movements, and the more I focused on training my lower body, the more things started to change.

And you're using, like, the bats and, uh, I use, uh, I do a lot of, uh, which they, as well, like a lot of body weight training. But I also do Indian, I have sets of Indian clubs or they call them, like Sheik, Iron Sheik used to do, they both are similar. He used to use Persian meals.

They're shaped a little differently shaped like a teardrop. And Indian jorries are a longer, a little wider. The torque and the weight distribution is a little different. And then I started using, what they call Gadas or Indian Mases. So they'll be one long, you know, four to five foot handle and then all the weights

at the very end. I sent you that meme. I came across it and I was like, this is so fitting. I need to send this to Al in case he hasn't seen it. And it went, it said, Al Snow went from getting head

to now bashing heads. Yeah. I look at the difference between these two people. Like, Yeah. Completely, totally different. It's, it really, a lot of it is because of the way I changed, my routine, changed the way I work out and things.

So, you know, I enjoy it more. It's more of a challenge. I don't wrestle as much obviously in the ring as I used to, but it certainly helped at that time when I was, it would, conditioning-wise and training-wise to, because really the only real thing that can condition you to be in the ring is to be in the ring. Sure. But that was the one thing I found that really helped me perform better and move better and endurance-wise.

I really helped a lot. Is that something you would recommend to the wrestlers you're working with? Oh, absolutely. I would. You got a lot of body guys in there. Yeah, I would definitely recommend it for anybody, but definitely for, you know, wrestlers. Because I think a lot of the wrestlers, especially, and I got into that, too, was we trained, like. My wife was a competitive bodybuilder.

She hates, doesn't want to train with me because I train completely different. She trains to sculpt. I train to basically to perform, you know, and there are two different styles of approach. And I would suggest to the wrestlers to train more the way I do than trying to just train, you know, like a bodybuilder. because they're not, for two things, they're not looking just to sculpt their body, they're looking to actually add to their performance ability. And two, a bodybuilder's working to peak at a certain,

which is incredibly astounding the way they can do that, where they try to pace out their training and their dieting and all of that to peak at a very prime moment on stage at that day, at that moment, at that hour. It's insane, you know, where, you know, wrestlers don't have to be at that complete peak, but they got to stay at a certain, you've got to be what you sold on TV 365 days a year. But you've got to have mobility, too. Yes. And I feel like that wasn't even part of the conversation until recently.

Yeah. And, you know, and I've got to really put over and applaud Dallas Page and his yoga program. I love that thing. His training methods are incredible. And the one thing I really like is that when you're doing it, he always says, make it your own, make it your own. As you grow stronger, you'll be able to adapt and you'll be able to keep challenging yourself.

Yeah, I love how he's like. If you can't get out of bed, we can start in bed. Yeah. If you can't get off a chair, you can start a chair. And it's just brilliant. Yeah. I've been fortunate to do a couple of workouts with him. That guy's a beast.

Oh, my God. I cuss him like a dog whenever I do. because he's so, you know, he's just doing it. He's not breathing hard. And he's like, oh, I'm sweating. I'm like, shut up. We did a whole morning where we did a workout. Like I was like, I want to live like you for a day.

We started in a hyperbaric chamber. Yeah, yeah. And then he put an oxygen mask on me. Yeah. And then we went and did DDPY. And then we did the power cuffs. And then we did a cold plunge. Oh.

And then we did a hot tub. And it's like, oh my gosh. He's like, yeah. Yeah, bro. just every day, dude. He's like this all the time. I love it. And then we sat on an inverted yoga swing

where you just hang upside down for five minutes. Really? Bro, you're going to love it. I did. It was great. Yeah, he's the best.

He's intense. But, I mean, he's an awesome guy, such a terrific human being. Yeah. And then, you know, to that, you know, everybody at first were all, you know, because the rest of them always were,

you know, all there's skeptical yoga. And then you get to doing it, you know. And I, even sometimes I'll tell, I'll recommend to some of the rest of them. I'll be like, I ain't doing that.

Dude, I'm like, brother, you have no idea. Seriously. I mean, he's 67, I believe. Yeah, and he ain't slowing down. And he can still grab his foot, put it above his head. Yeah. I can't do anything close to that. Yeah.

I've tried on dates, and it never worked out. I also texted you on our little, it was my mini bachelor party. Yeah. My friend surprised me. They were like, I saw them kind of like talking off in the corner to the server. And I'm like, what are they like planning here? And 20 minutes later, they came out with a cake that had an action figure of you in the middle of it. And it was my buddy Alex and my buddy Jason.

They said, we got you this Al Snow cake with head because you're never going to get head again if you're getting married. I'm like, oh my gosh. Thanks, guys. I'm really positive there. And then I sent that over to you. It was like 11 o'clock in L.A., so it was one in the morning. Yeah, but it was, yeah. I never sleep.

You texted right back, and I'm like, yeah. Guys, the guy from the cake is texting me. Like, no way. So thank you for being part of my mini-batchel. Oh, thank you for inviting me. Yeah. Well, actually, if you'd been there in person, it would have been better. Oh, it would have been fantastic.

Yeah, it was a real constant reminder of the thing they told me that night. Things are going to happen. Yeah. How did it? I watched your ECW entrance recently because I think a lot of WWE, fans remember like, what does everybody want? That whole thing. Yeah. Not realizing that an ECW, you come out to prodigy.

Yeah. The crowd is just chanting, head, head, head, they're all waving the styrofoam heads. Yeah. How do you get that lightning in a bottle to happen? I don't know. I wish I could figure it out again. I really, you know, well, I mean, I kind of do know, and that is, and this is the advice I always give to all the wrestlers these days. and that that is number one everybody's forgotten

what we really sell in wrestling and they you know in wrestling we use that term selling and immediately think it's to act like you're hurt and that's that's the last thing we're selling because an audience is never physically done

what we've done so they can't relate to it unless of course they've grown up in a trailer park or some but um that is always funny to me by the way not to go off in too much of a tangent but when you watch football, at least you've thrown a football. Right. If you watch basketball, at least you dribble to basketball. That's, and I explain that like the reason football, baseball and basketball in the United States have enormous audiences, it's because everybody

can relate to physically what's happening in the ring because literally almost everyone in this country has at some time, even if it's just in the backyard, yeah, on the street, in a, in a driveway, you've done a basketball, you've hit a ball, you've hit a baseball, you've thrown a football, you've gotten tackled. Yeah. You know, everyone can relate. That's why they're so big. That's why hockey has a bigger audience in Canada that does in the United States. And I'm Canadian.

Yeah. Reach into the choir here. The, you know what, the three top most watched televised sporting events are in the world? I would guess soccer. Soccer is number one. Soccer is number one. Cricket. Cricket is number two.

And then number three. I don't know. I'm going to give you. be a silly answer, water polo. That's pretty big in Atlanta's. Rugby. Sure.

Because those three sports are played by more of the population around the rest of the world than anything else. Makes sense. You know, and when you understand that, you understand that a wrestling audience doesn't buy a ticket to believe in

your pain. They buy a ticket to believe in who you are. That's preeminent. And why? are you doing it? So that's what you're selling? That is always what you're selling. You're always selling the intent and the consequence of the action, which you're always trying to convince the audience of who you are. That's why I always tell everybody, like, the Vince McMahon you see on TV is Vince McMahon just the volume ratcheted way up. Steve Austin, really, you've bet him, you've interviewed

him, you know, that guy that goes to the ring, that's the guy you get sitting here just dialed back. That guy is also just a sweetheart of him. Oh, he's an, he's an, awesome human being. He's a fantastic guy. You know, Undertaker is an undertaker. And the reason that unlike acting or other forms of art and entertainment, I think probably stand-up comedy is probably one of the things that come closest. Because just like in wrestling, an audience that's live right there with you can detect and tell if it's not really, you're not being honest. If you're not really who you say you are on that stage or if you're not really who you say you are when you go to the ring you're going to see right through it and at the time that I was that with the

head I was using it kind of as a because I had a really bad attitude which was my own fault and I was using it as an outlet to channel that frustration so audiences could tell it was really me I was really feeling those emotions and and was really being snarky and you know and sarcastic and condescending two people within the business through that, using it as an outlet to channel it. And so it was real, you know, there was nothing fake about it. Could you imagine trying to do that now? I don't know, yeah.

I really don't know if it could happen or not. I don't even know they could play your entrance theme now. But see, that's the other thing is, and I've tried to explain this, I knew it was a double entendre, but that was never what it was meant to be. If you really pay attention when I did it, I got angrier as I did it. The reason I said it was because here's a guy who has spent how many years of his career at that time to be what everybody wants, to be what everybody needs and loves. I'm still not the guy. It's the head, not me, and I'm getting jealous.

So I was laying the groundwork, even though I didn't communicate this defense. And it kind of happened anyways, but not in the same way that I had envisioned, that I was going to get jealous with head. I would turn on it. And then just like you do with, you know, when two wrestlers, I'd attack it in the back and I'd have matches with it. Because in my mind, it's a real entity. Yeah. And I'm jealous now that it's the one that everybody wants. It's the one that everybody needs.

It's the one that everybody loves, not me. And so we're going to have, we'd have a falling out. at some point. Do you think there's something specific that's missing from wrestling now that we had 20, 30 years ago? Yes. And that is that the performers do two things. And that is first and foremost, they sell what they do. It's all about what.

It's all about the moves. They don't sell the who and they don't sell the why. They're not allowing you, okay? The term work, all right, the real definition of a work is a sham, it's a con. It's to make you believe a lie. And the only lie in professional wrestling that has ever been told is that we don't know who's going to win. That we're going out there with the full intent of anything we do to you is being done for one reason. That's to increase the odds of us being able to win and then decrease the odds of us losing.

That's it. because I could do anything to you, anything at all. But the only consequence from it is that it might make you lose and allow me to win. That's it. And that has been lost. That is no longer what they sell anymore. Now they sell you what? Because they think that you're impressed, which we have more athletic ability now in the wrestling

business than we've ever had in the history of the wrestling business. I mean, it's astounding. And, I mean, really, when you think about it, in general, the athleticism of a professional wrestler is, it's incredible. I mean, and I'm not saying that because I've been one. I'm saying that because you're taking people that are, you know, some of them are 250, 280 pounds, and they have the coordination, the timing, the distance, the footwork, and the spatial awareness to be able to pull off incredibly,

the almost Olympic gymnastic type moves and have the control and distance to not even truly injure the other person. And do it in one take. And do it in one take. I mean, they only get one shot at it because it's live. You know what I mean? And that's incredible. But that never, ever sells tickets.

That doesn't even in football, baseball, basketball, UFC. boxing, none of that ever sells tickets. Bahamana Lee was one of the greatest boxers ever. Nobody bought a ticket to see him boxed. They bought a ticket to see him lose because he sold who he was. And the fact that he could box so incredibly would help, but that never sold tickets. And he knew that.

And I even watched an interview where he was like, you know, look, they're never going to come and just see me because I'm a great boxer. They're going to come to see me because they want to see me lose. Yeah. Because I'm going to run my mouth. Yeah. And that's what he did. You know, he built what we call heat.

Heats, uh, not what everybody in the wrestling business these days think that they think that's offense for the bad guy. And it's not. Heats, a want, it's a need. It's a desire you build within the audience. And then they got to, they got to buy a ticket to see the outcome. Whether you're a good guy or a bad guy. It doesn't matter that the heats that want.

This sounds like. what CM Punk is, right? Whether you love him or you hate him, you feel something for him. You, you, it drives an interest and it drives it desire, or it creates a question that you need an answer. Yeah. You know, even if you want to read a book that there's a heat there, that is that interest. It's, you know, and the term came from the old Carney games where, you know, you would,

you know, the Barker, the guy that brought you into the game, shows you the objective, now shows you how to win it. And now he starts building the heat, the heat, the want, the need to desire to get that objective. And then the belief that if you put your money down, the odds are going to increase that you can do it. And that kept you at the game spending more money for a longer period of time. There was an interview right before Cody came back and you're like, of course he's going to come back. No, of course he is. What made you so sure that he was going to come back?

Because it's the wrestling business. But at that point in time, And people may forget this. Nobody had gone. I remember they actually got upset at me about saying that. A bunch of people gone from WWE at age, but nobody had done the reverse at that point in time. Yeah.

Well, because, you know, it is WWE. Say whatever you want. And I don't have a dog in the fight. There is not a bigger, there is not a better platform to make yourself a star. And that at the end of the day, too, is what it really comes down to. Once you walk through that curtain,

nobody can nobody does anything for you the onus the responsibility is directly on your shoulders and and vince has always communicated that and then even in my you know stupidity i was like nah opportunity what are you talking about um and i was so mistaken because i had such a i had so many opportunities and and i just didn't see them for what they really were because i kept pointing the finger at other people instead of at myself. What's a real missed opportunity? Tons. I mean,

what would you say is the biggest one? I mean, I can go down a list. We don't need to do that. I mean, just in general of, you know, when I came back to WWE or WWF at that time, you know,

I came back and I was, I mean, I was on fire. And then I was put into a, into my debut tag match. I was going to tag match me. and had against Too Sexy or I think they were called Too Sexy at that time, not too cool. And, you know, and I love Scotty and Brian.

And they went on to become, you know, I have a great run. At the time, though, they were an underdief team. They were, they put there right there to, for me to get over on them to start off and, you know, to show the audience up as an attraction and, you know, work towards being an main event. You know, and Jerry Lawler made the suggestion of using the head and shoulders bottle to pin the head. And, you know, I thought, well, that'll be. That'll be entertaining, not realizing it didn't do me. I missed an opportunity.

I missed an opportunity to put myself in a spot and go that direction. Shortly thereafter, I worked a match with the rock. And I remember distinctly, Paul telling me never let anyone touch the head. Because it's no different than Jake Roberts snake in the bag. If everyone goes over and picks up the bag, snake doesn't mean anything. And then, you know, I'm literally just starting back in WWF. I let the rock, you know, people's elbow of the head. Should never have done that.

I mean, it just, those were mistakes that were, you know, really just put you right off the rails. And there are things that you don't realize, you know, like a big common mistake. I've made, and I know a lot of others have made, you'll see them come in and they'll get a tryout match, you know, a wrestler will get a trial match. And, and again, this is not a disparagement on anybody. it's just a description. You'll see them work with a guy with Fanaki.

Now, Fanaki is a very talented individual, and the reason that he was put in the spot of always working with those guys, kind of like Jose Luis Estrada or Johnny Rod's back in the day, they know how good Fanaki is. So now they want to see one, if you can have a good match with him, because if you can't have a good match with Fonaki,

probably not going to have a good match with anybody. Okay. Two, and this is what they're really watching, and this is where it always goes off the rails, is the young person that's coming in to have the tryout is like, I'm going to show them what I can do. That's the last thing you want to do because they know what you can do, because if they didn't believe you could do it, you wouldn't be in the ring in the first place. They want to know if you know how to be a star. So we know where Funaki's booked on the card is he's in the dark match, and he's there to test.

you. They're testing you to see if you are now going to try and show everything you can do as opposed to show you can be a star by having in order to do that, you're going to have to have a competitive match with Fanaki, which means you're either going to raise Fanaki to your level or you're going to lower yourself to his. And you're not going to look like you could be in the main event if you take, you know, if it takes you all this stuff to beat Fanaki, well, what would you do? Case and point, if Triple H were to work with Fanaki, would it still be a good entertaining match, absolutely. But at any point in time, would you ever see Triple H look like he was on the same level as Fadaki? No, he wouldn't, you know, because that's the difference

of being able to determine and tell that by your body language, by your facial expressions, by your actions, by what you do, when you do it, why you do it in the match, tells an audience you're clearly here, this person's clearly here. There's other things that are, you know, in your career, out of your control, like the dog kennel match with the, He's very polite dogs. Yeah, they were very, very polite. One had some disciplinary training. That was it.

Who's a good boy? And they're out there, urinating, defecating, and fornicating to the point where two owners are back at the back, exchanging addresses for puppy rights. And I'm like, oh, good Lord. Mick Foley recently, I think, surprised everybody by saying that it was your idea for Mr. Soco. Yeah, it was.

But I don't think that that was like, no i don't know we always you know the boys always like a lot of the like a lot maybe a lot of people don't realize or no probably don't i'm not saying it to but we always helped each other out anyway sure so like you know the valvinus when you come out and do the hello ladies and they do whatever joke who meaning i'd give him a lot of those you'd probably do a great valvinus right probably right now yeah hello ladies there we go yeah yeah panties just fell to the floor you we could hear them all over the hotel. There could be a lot of lucky guys tonight.

So you said like everybody hates a sock puppet? No, it was, you know, Mick came and was like, hey, I got to, you know, go to cheer up Mr. McMahon. And at the hospital, they got me doing this vignette. And he's trying to come up with my ridiculous ideas. And I said, well, why don't you do a sock puppet show and, you know, and hi, I'm Mr. Sock-O and do that and you know i events all of course react i said just don't tell him you're going to do it and he and that's and then the next day there were tons of people in the audience with mr sacco signs and all that you know it's just one of those things where you just catch it at the right time the

right way and it worked especially because his finish was the mandible claw right you know which he took from the actual real um um what was the guy that that tv show um um Fugitive that Harrison Ford did that movie. Yeah. Well, that was all based off of in Cleveland, a dentist that a doctor who had gotten framed for, or they still to the state, don't know if he killed his wife or not. He claimed that a guy, a one-armed man had come in the house, swear to God, and killed his wife. And he had went to prison and lost his medical license. He started wrestling and he had the, he was the one that invented the mandible claws.

Because there's a pressure point, right? Yes. Under your tongue? Under your tongue. And everybody watching this. Yeah. Everybody's like, and if you don't gag,

you're probably pretty popular. But it's so. As soon as you touch that spot under your tongue, it's like, oh my gosh. It actually hurts. Yeah. And I think the fact that,

you know, Mick had it in his pants for the whole match. That'll make you gag too, yeah. Right. Yeah. I can't imagine what's growing down there. At what point? Rambles.

Tactis. At what point do you become okay being the punching bag bag for mixed jokes? Oh, yeah, I was because when you realize that the more he talks about you, the more he puts you over, the more he draws attention to you, the more he acknowledges you. It's not negative. You know, people have a, again, a misinterpretation of what the term, like a wrestling term, to bury somebody is. They think that means to talk negatively. To bury someone is literally, the actual term is just like burying somebody for a funeral.

once you've put him in the ground after a period of time, you don't talk about them anymore. They don't exist. That's burying somebody when you don't speak about somebody. When you speak about them, whether it's positively or negatively, you're drawing attention to them. You're actually putting them over.

So he can make jokes about me all day. I mean, you know, especially in his comedy show, which that's probably the only thing that's funny. I remember Mick, you know, in the locker room when he was wrestling, he'd tell everybody, ah, you know, when I get done wrestling, I'm going to be a stand-up comic.

We'd all laugh, you know. He's a stand-up. comic now. Nobody's laughing. Nobody's laughing. Yes. I think one of the best things about wrestlers on Netflix is a lot of fans remember OVW for Randy Orton, Brock Lesner,

John Cena, Batista, that era there. Yeah. And I think a lot of people don't know what's happened since it wasn't WWE's developmental anymore. OVW turned out, I think probably

well over 200 or more talent that have Is Eugene still the longest reigning or has the most heavyweight championship reigns? I don't think so now. He had 10, I think.

Yeah, I think so. I think he's been beat by now. Okay. But, I mean, if you think we have, there's the Ms. Cody Rhodes, Sean Spears, Alicia Fox,

Rosamendez, Maris, ODB, I mean, Mickey James, I can go down a list of just men and Beth Phoenix, you know, Shelton, Benjamin. I mean, you can go down the list of, of Tentino Morella, Armando Estrada, C.M.O. Estrada, CM Punk, that all came out of there, either from the ground up,

or was like a finishing school before they went to WWE. You know, and, yeah, Sina Brock, all those guys, of course, they came out from the very start, but there were so many more, and there's such a track record. And I think that's a testament to the process of gaining actual experience, both from a TV standpoint and from working, performing in front of a live audience on a regular basis. If someone wants to be in that spot, can they just come and knock on the door and say, hey, I want to train here? They have to apply.

They can go to ovwacademy.com. I'm proud to say that we're the only certified by the state office of proprietary education. That's the state off. Every state has one. Is that in Louisville? Actually, it's not Louisville. It's in Frankfurt. Frankfort, Kentucky.

I don't know why. go. Frankfurt. That's how you say Frankfurt. Frankfort. Okay. Yeah. Yeah.

And also, just outside of Frankfurt is Versailles, which is actually their side, but, you know, we won't bother with the interpretation. It's not, it's not as bad as going to Dubois,

Pennsylvania, and having every resident say, welcome to Dubois. I'm sorry, what? Dubois, Pennsylvania. It says Dubois. No, that's Dubois. Okay.

Don't they say, though, that the correct pronunciation of a city is how the locals say it? Yeah, I mean, you know. So they live in Dubois. Well, they live in Dubois. Good for them. But where was I? So the state. The state office proprietary education oversees all secondary education, trade schools,

colleges, universities. We're the only wrestling training center that is actually certified as a trade school for professional wrestling, sports entertainment, and broadcasting in the world. Wow. Period. There's no other. And part of the reason I ended up ribbing myself and buying OVW. Boy, what?

They said buy a wrestling company. That's their worst decision in your life. Oh, my God. I have still, the jury still out. I still haven't made up my mind. But part of the reason I did that was because there are no standards when it comes to training for professional wrestling. They literally are. It used to, like when I, honestly, when I broke into the wrestling business, it was like an apprenticeship and the person who taught you was held professionally accountable for you.

So like if I went anywhere and I did anything to harm business wherever I went, the guy that brought me in was held accountable. And then he was blackballed from the business or his bookings were affected, you know, to some degree or another. He was punished. So, you know, that went away. And I'm having a conversation with my wife who's a licensed masseuse, okay, a massage therapist. And I got to thinking about it. And I thought, you know, in order to be a licensed profession of anything, okay? And I think that's one where this whole, you know, wrestling training is where it goes askew is people view it as if you're taking on a martial art or you're learning to box and you're not.

You're actually learning skills to pursue a career, you know, a profession. And the first part of professional is profession. And I really think a lot of people have lost an attachment with the idea that it is a career. It's a pathway to learn in a living, you know. I think a lot of people see it as like acting classes. Yeah, but it's just a fun thing to do. Yeah. And I think a lot of people do approach it that way.

But, you know, if you want to be under the licensed profession, you have to go to a state accredited school. You have to be taught by a state approved teacher. You have to complete a certain number of training hours and then a certain number of residency hours of hands-on experience under supervision. Before you can even take a test to be allowed to practice that profession. I mean, even a mortician, and let's face it, if anything goes wrong, the guy's dead already. So what's it matter? You know, where's the loss? And you can just bury your mistakes anyway.

But a professional wrestler, quite honestly, and we don't really acknowledge it, but every time these young men and women go to the ring, there is a percentage of a chance that they will suffer a life-altering or life-ended injury. That's period. That's fat. You know, and you're accepting that risk. So the amount, the quality and the amount of training you get, it mitigates the potential of one of those things happening.

Why are we not being held to some kind of accountable standard as far as training is concerned? Why is it, it's insulting to me that my wife has to go through all of that to be, which, I mean, and rightfully so, I mean, it's a medical practice and et cetera, and I understand that. I'm not taking anything away from that. The likelihood of injury, not that high, you know what I mean? it's there, granted, and if you don't know what you're doing, you could mess somebody up. But the likelihood of injury in the profession of sports entertainment is immensely greater. Sure.

And all I got to do is, at the most, take a physical and then pay my license me. And if so, facto, bingo, I'm a professional wrestler. And that's it. At one time, I remember in a state of Kentucky, you know, outside state capital, Frank, I think there were over a little over almost 4,000 licensed professional wrestlers the state of Kentucky. Where? What are you doing?

There aren't that many shows. Are you just in the backyard wrestling farm animals? Which, if you are, I mean, I'm not going to judge, you know. Steve Irwin did it for a living, so God bless his heart. As Sting Ray sure did. Too soon? I don't know. I don't know.

It's a continent of way. So it's all upside down there anyways. But I met the family at the zoo. They were such wonderful people. Yeah? I mean, I mean, really,

they've got to be on drugs or something. Have you seen these videos recently of his son? His son is like him reincarnated. Oh, I know. Oh, I'm telling you, they are the most kindest, generous, most wonderful people.

They really were. I mean, I just love the wife, the daughter, and the son. And then the boyfriend with the daughter and I even, they were so nice. I was in looking at the boyfriend. Yeah, you two. Are you worthy of her? I love how he would like look at a turtle, be like,

would you look at that? Yeah. The spots on it. Oh, it's just beautiful. Everything was awe and wonder to him. Yeah, I love that. Yeah. I feel like we need more of that in this world.

Instead, we're going, well, he's slightly overroated on that 450 splash. I don't think I like it. I could do that as you said on the couch, eating Cheetos and plays. Like the famous quote from Arnold Schwarzenerner, he was like, I don't want to look like you. If I work, I don't want to look like you. And goes, don't worry, you won't. Yeah, seriously. You'll be fine.

How many people, would you say is the percentage of people that come training with you and don't? Lots. I'll always, you know, even from when I had started my own school back years ago, I was, at first I was really dismayed and I was really shocked. Like, I had high caliber athletes would come in. And I'll never forget there was an athlete out of Canada. He was professional, like cross-country mountain biking and like MMA or not. It wasn't MMA at that time. I think he was into full contact karate,

a bunch of, you know, like three or four sports. He lasted a week and was like, is it for me? What's most people's main reason? The abuse, the physical wear and terror. And it must be hard for you because you go, I had a dream. I chased after the dream. I connected the dots here. What's your problem?

Well, I don't look at it that way. I look at it like, because it's not for everybody. It really is, and again, please don't misunderstand. Like, I'm not saying this because I've been one. It's physically, emotionally, mentally, and it's very challenging to be able to make a living doing this. I stopped wrestling training. Yeah. And well, I trained for like two months.

And it's not for everybody. And I get that. But the fact that you, here's what separates. you from someone else. And I tell this to everyone who walks through the door. You did one thing that probably 99% of the population will never do. You took a chance on yourself and you went and did it. You found out whether it was for you or not. And it wasn't for you, that's fine. But at least you did it. And I tell you that's the, I swear you can do absolutely anything you want to do if you really wanted to do it. If you don't want to, if you want to do something bad enough, you'll find a way.

If you don't, you'll find an excuse. I don't care what anybody says. I don't care what they think. It's just, it's, you know, everybody goes, well, I hate my job. Well, you're not a tree. You're not planted there. Get up and leave. Go find something else.

It's easy for you to say. Well, yeah, it is. Because, you know, I literally, every job I start, I know at some point's coming to an end. You know, when they, they were like, man, you got released from him, you know, And you just, you didn't complain. I was like, well, I knew it was coming. I knew at some point. Everybody gets released at some point.

At some point, everybody's going to get, unless you're the undertaker. Otherwise, at some point, your job's going to be up. Your run is going to be over. And then, you know, I came into the business when we had regional territories. And that was, that was how it operated you because you were a product, you know, and every product has a shelf lie to a certain degree, no matter what it is, you know. And you then went on to somewhere. else and sold your product and maybe you got to come back and sell that product again,

and which was back to Cody. I knew Cody was going to go back because Cody had capitalized on the platform and made himself into an attraction, not only there, but then once he had left, you know, he then really bought himself up to another level that made them be more willing to bring him back and reinvest in him again and thought knowing that they were probably going to get a return on that investment. Yeah. The reason I didn't keep going is I think I liked it a little too much.

I did it in the summer between my sophomore and junior year of college. And then it was time to go back to school. Yeah. And I was like, okay, well, I want to be able to put all my effort into something. Sure. And I still have two years left at college. Do I quit college and go all in on wrestling? Or do I finish college and go back to wrestling later on?

Yeah. And I was like, I'm going to get my degree. Wrestling will always be there if I want to go back into that world. And now I'm fortunate. I get to dip my tone to that world all the time. Sure. And it doesn't hurt when I got out of bed now. True.

And, you know, you did the right thing, which was that whatever it was you were going to do, you committed. And that's it. It was the right thing for me. Right. You can't be half pregnant. You know, you either, I say that all the time. You're either all in or you're not. Yeah.

And the man who chases two rabbits catches none. Right. I say that phrase so often, but it's so impactful for me. It's the truth. I mean, you know, and, you know, so many people will, I'll do it. And then they just only kind of half do it or just go for it. And, you know, because I really, and this will sound silly. But I hear people so many times, the two things that I just, I don't, I can't wrap my head around are one, oh, I'm back at the grind.

Listen, I'm 60 now. I have never ground a day in my life. I don't know what grinding is because I've gotten to do what I love. to do. So it's never been a grind. It's always been just what I really wanted to do, you know? Yeah, I bitched about it and complained about it. You know, that's what most wrestlers do anyways. But, I mean, and when you really think about it, being a grown man, basically fake fighting other grown men in your underwear for money, there's really nothing much to complain about. You can't really sit there and take it too seriously, you know, right? It's not like we're really changing

the world in anyway. But the other one is, you know, all the success or the failure. how do you fail? If you're doing something you love to do, how are you failing? And the only time I think you fail is when you just quit. You know, which is not even really failure because it just wasn't your deal.

It wasn't your thing. Yeah. But in and what's success? I think we all equate success on, oh, you reach a certain level or a destination, or you make certain money. When, for me, I think, I've had a very successful career because I've gotten to do what I love to do for as long as I've gotten to do it.

And they've yet to figure out, I have no clue what I'm doing. And it's not like success is a destination. It's not like, all right, when I get to this point, that's when I'll be happy because then you'll get to that point. But there's so many people that, and it's so many young men and women get into wrestling now with it. Well, I got to get to WB. Now, if I don't get to WB, I just got to get signed by somebody, then I'm successful. And, you know, and I tell them, it's, listen, it's not what you thought. You know, you have this romanticized idea of when you get there, oh, it's all going to be roses, and I'm going to be happy.

And I said, you're going to be miserable because that is a, that is a, that's a shark tank. And you're, you're wearing, like, not even hamburger shorts. You're wearing, like, T-Bone steak underwear. You know what I mean? And, and you are playing chess or poker seven. days a week, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, and with everyone around you at all times. And you never have a day off from that. And as you go up the card, the pressure and the intensity in the competition grows. And you're all, you always have to be on the edge and you always got to be

thinking two to three steps ahead. Did you get to a point where every time you saw a phone call from a Connecticut number, you're like, oh, there were. There it is. Well, no. I got more like, what do they want now? So it was more, though, hey, how you doing? What's the career highlight for you? Being in it as long as I've been. And you're still doing it. Yeah, that's, you know, I, people ask me, they go, hey, what was your favorite moment?

What was your favorite match? Who was the person you enjoyed working? When every time I have gotten to do this, I have loved. loved it. I mean, there's not, I mean, there are certain moments that stand out more than others, but from the very first time on May 11th of 1982, when I walked to a 20 man two ring battle oil in Springfield, Ohio to walk it out in front of six people, to walk it out in front of 66,000 people, don't matter. Forty one years. 41 years are just literally just making shit up as I go along.

I mean, and getting away with it. I mean, that's, you know, Mick, Mick and I argued about that one time at a Comic-Con because that question came up and, you know, he gave some specific answer, and I just went, you know, they asked, what was your favorite match? And I went, you know, and I can't tell you. I mean, because, sure, there are certain matches I enjoy more and some may be frustrated, but just to go do it, that I was 14 when I made the decision. And I know this all sounds corny, I know.

I was 14 when I made the decision to do it and then spent until I was 18 trying to get into it and then got into it. And then it's just been a blast ever since. There's not been one day that I could ever look back and go, you know, man, I probably shouldn't have done this or regretted it or anything. And that's even when I first, you know, there were times I've made a lot of money and there have been times I've not made much money. and there were even times where I would coast into the town on no gas or push the car in and hope that I'd get something paid so I could buy a gas to get to the next town, sleep in my car, sleep at the roadside rest, you know, I joke, I call it carbicue. And that's why I get so excited now about like pilots.

And back of the day, pilot and love, and I would like go in there, oh, you know. Eating the roller dogs? Oh, yeah. I did. Because when I didn't have any money, I couldn't eat. So the only thing at that time, because gas stations, there was not a proliferation of microwaves. You know, those were luxury items at that time. You know, and I know, out there, what? Are you crazy? Yeah, same with the phones on the wall. It stuck to the wall. It had no video screen. You had to turn a dial like that. Hello? had a cord. The microwaves were a luxury item. I mean, at one time, if you wanted to buy a microwave,

it was like a thousand bucks, you know. So they weren't at gas stations and things. So if you wanted something hot to eat, you know, you had to be able to buy it from a restaurant or something. I didn't have any money, you know, and the only thing they had at some gas stations was they were called Stewart's sandwiches. Disgusting. And they were cold and they were gross.

and I got a Boy Scout mess kit, which is like two steel metal pie pans, and it has a metal band around it with a wing nut. And I got some, so you could close it up. And I got a bright idea one day as I was a car over here or something. I don't know when it was my 1974, Plymouth Duster. And that thing could take a bullet and keep running it. And the engine was hot. I was like, and I got some muffler tape, and I would take Vienna sausages or spam or the Stewart's sandwiches, and I would stick them in there, and I would screw it down, and I'd tape it to the end of the car,

and I'd drive down the road, and then I'd heat up whatever it was I wanted to eat. So, you know, it didn't taste great, but it was better than eating it cold. Because if you ever eat room temperature Venus sausage, just imagine. You know, spam right out of the can. That little bit of jelly on it. That's gross.

But everything you're saying here is drive, determination, like not wanting to give up. Like, I think it's Roddy Coleman, the bodybuilder said. Everybody wants to be big, but nobody wants to lift them heavy-ass weights. Right, yeah. And it's like everyone wants to be a pro wrestler, but, I mean, I think there's a reality of a lot of people just don't want to be uncomfortable. Right. Yeah. Oh, I'd have to move away from home or I'd have to live out of

my car or, you know, and, you know, again, it's not for everyone. And it's, you know, and if, if, you know, tell you another little quick story, like we were, we were doing TV review and I was talking in OVW and one of the young kids. I was like, hey, when, you know, when did you get signed? I'm meaning to, you know, WWF. And I said, well, I think I'd been wrestling. for like 14 or 15 years, his jaw dropped. And he goes, what? Took you 14 years against I? I go, yeah.

And he goes, oh, my God, I think I'd kill myself. And I went, what are you talking about? He goes, well, you know, 14 years against I go, I didn't get into wrestling to go to WWF. I didn't. I got into wrestling to wrestle. That was it. Yeah.

As long as I got to do it, no matter where I got to do it, that was all. I cared about. I didn't have a destination in mind. I just wanted to go out and perform. And so the length of time didn't matter, you know. Yeah, I got frustrated at times if I wasn't making enough money or I wanted to make more money, things like that. Everybody does at every job. But but these guys, they're so programmed that that's where they, you know, that's where they're getting in for that reason to get there. And I think, really sadly, which is what makes them so disappointed when they do get there, it's really only going to be there because they just want to be famous.

You know, and fame in and of itself, if people mistake fame for success, that is the dumbest thing you can do because they are not equal in any way. You can be successful by following your passion and doing what you love or you can be famous. And fame is nothing more than a tool that allows you. to have opportunities to simply get more famous, to get more opportunities, to get more famous. That's all it is. It's a way to communicate to someone who wants to invest in you

that they have a really good chance of getting a return on that investment because you have an existing audience. Other than that, it ain't worth nothing. I knew this would be filled with so much wisdom. It's filled with something. It's so good. Have you seen this meme of you from wrestlers

where you're talking about death matches? Yeah, I'm not real popular right now on that. What's a death match, Al? Something fucking stupid. Here's, I'll give you an explanation why I say that. People are very mad about this. Oh, I know they're not real happy with me. Here's why I say that.

I don't, look, it's not my circus, it's not my monkeys. I don't care. And quite honestly, as long as you don't really genuinely get injured, like, if you get hurt, I don't, I'll laugh. like I think it's funny. And it's not because I'm cruel. I hate to say it, like even my own kids. Like, when you get hurt, I find it funny.

And the reason why is I have a lack of a certain, not totally, but a certain lack of empathy, because I live in pain every day just from, you know, all of the abuse over the years. It's just a fan. What hurts? I mean, from head to toe. And like some days are worse than others. And, you know, you know, it. It's better now.

I got both my knees replaced since I had gotten that done. Used to, I'd be in, quite honestly, the pain was so bad that I would have to, it would wear me out. I'd have to take a nap during the day. It was, it was pretty severe. But now it's, it's not nearly as bad, but, you know, some days depending on the weather, can get worse. So you kind of, when you, you know, when you basically take, make a living, throwing yourself on the mat at a impact of, what equates to the force of about a 22 mile per hour car accident at a minimum. When you see somebody fall, you're kind of like, huh, you know,

and you got to catch yourself sometimes, like, you know, especially in public, you see someone like a kid fall or you, oh, hmm, even if it's your own. So I, you know, I am not going to, you know, if you want, you make the decision to do something dumb and you get hurt, I'm going to find it entertaining. Well, they don't think it's dumb. Well, and I understand that, okay, and I understand that wrestling is an art form, which is no different than even like another form of entertainment, like being movies, and movies, there are action films, there are romantic comedies, there are dramas,

and they're horror films, you know, and even in horror genre, there's suspense, there's blood and guts, I get all that, okay? It doesn't work in wrestling, and here's why. for two reasons. Always, there's always two reasons. One is that we're trying, what we're really selling, what an audience is wanting to believe in,

is that we are prize fighters, that we are under a, whatever the blah blah, blah, is, we're under a governing organization, like the WBA, you know,

World Boxing Association, world boxing council. We're under a governing, organization and we are prize fighters. We're going out with an intent to win because if we win, we get paid. If we win more, we get paid more. If we win a title, not only we the best, we get paid more money. We're in a better position.

We can choose our own matches, things of that nature, no different than boxing or MMA. That's what we're selling. Okay. And as silly as that may sound, that even applies. applies to like, you know, and this is a testament to how real it was and how believable it was, the Undertaker is a dead guy, but he's a prize fighter coming out to achieve the goal of winning the prize, the winner's purse. That we have, that we have detached from. That from wrestling, that's what

we're selling. Okay. There's no governing body that would do a sporting event that would allow you, to use a cinder block and hit another man in the testicles to allow a win. That's one part of it. But the other part of it is that the general audience, not the wrestling audience, because let's face it, there is more in the population that do not go to websites to have an interest in what happened in yesterday's matches or see spoilers or the Mr. Mrs. Walmarts, their internet experience consists of Facebook, TikTok, Instagram, Twitter, checking the email, and maybe a couple occasional porn sites.

You know what I mean? Like Asian Asport or something. And Google will trip you write up. Oh, Asian Asper, what the hell is that? But that's the gods and its truth, okay? As much as we in the insulated wrestling world want to believe, it doesn't revolve around us. evolves around Mr. Mrs. Walmart. Mr. Mrs. Walmart only know as far as wrestling is concerned,

W.W.E. It is an iconic brand. The definition of an iconic brand is it's like Harley Davidson and Kleenex Q-tips. You know, it is quintessential of the form of whatever product it is. So that being said, Mr. Mr. Walmart don't know OVW from ICW to GCW to GCW to, to MLW to, they don't know any of that. It's only WWE, but hey, here's local wrestling in our town. We want to go experience it live, and we're expecting to get an experience similar to

what we were sold, WWE. Now we're not going to, we know we're not going to walk in there and it's not going to be the same production value and everything like that, but we now get a horror film. We don't get a rom-com. We didn't get an action adventure. We didn't get, we got a horror film, and we got a gory blood and guts that we took our kids to. And potentially shrapnel from things flying out of the rain could have struck us. That's a completely different experience.

And guess what? We're not going. We see another independent company that's Bobaw W. Ah, we went to that one there. We're not going back. Here's the other reason. The other reason is that it is, it, it has. has. It literally is, and I had this, I swear to you, I swear to you, I had this conversation

with Cebu. Sebu first started breaking tables in Japan, okay? And we were on, I forget where it was, some little independent show or something in Michigan, and he broke a table. And I went, why are you doing that? Why are you doing it every time? And he goes, well, because that's what they want. I don't understand, but I go, do you realize that if you, I swear to you, so professional, I go, you realize if you give that to them every time, at some point, it's not going to be enough. They're going to want more. You're breaking, you're breaking a table. And at some point, you've got to put somebody on it and break the table.

At some point, that's not going to be enough. You've got to put two tables and break those. Then you've got to put somebody on two tables, break that, then you've got to put the table on fire. Guess what's happened? So we've watched these death matches go from just, they beat each other up. they bleed or whatever to using weed whackers on each other. They're going for greater and greater shock value. And then what used to shock an audience doesn't shock them anymore.

You know what I mean? And they just keep upping the ante to where it now it's stunt wrestling. And it is the equivalent of my son was like 13 one time. And in Dayton, Ohio, they had this motocross or, stunt show. It was a two-hour show. My son's 13. So this is the,

he's the key audience. You know what I mean? Yeah. You know, he's a prepubescent. He's, you know, he can't wait to go. So we go, I swear to you,

the first 20 minutes was like, holy Jesus, oh my God, gee, I was shit in my pants because they were incredible stunts that they were doing repeatedly.

Second 20 minutes, we both are like, oh, that's cool. Oh, that's great. Why? It's the same stunts. The next 20 minutes, by the end of it,

my son looked at me and what you're ready to go. I go, you sure? He goes, yeah, I'm done. They weren't doing anything different. They weren't doing anything new. They had right out of the gate, had raised the bar so high

that everything after it was just the same. It was more, and they couldn't top it. So where do you draw the line? Because you've been in hardcore matches. But which, and people say that, you did, but I didn't, it didn't get to a point of absurdity, like there, there's plates of glass now being used, there's light tubes, and not, and it's got, I've literally watched

the evolution of that, where it used to be, where it was one light tube and the guy died, you know what I mean? Well, now it's, that, I just saw recently a thing was like a big giant fan of light tubes, and the, and the person just acts like nothing ever happened, you know, now we're getting into the cinder blocks. And I like, you know, oh, the fire thing too is now a new nuance. And one of the things that fascinate me most about this is no one stops for a minute and goes, hey, once we set this guy on fire, anybody thinking about putting him out? I see them running around the bottles of water.

Hey, does somebody have a fire extinguisher? You can buy one at lows. They're not expensive, you know. Yeah. But never thought to it, you know. And the danger, the liability that is there is insane as far as an audience because, you know, these light tubes get broken, shrapnel goes out in the audience of glass. And I'll give you a prime example. And this is why I honestly have adopted this opinion.

And again, not my circus, not my monkeys. I don't care. But it does directly at first. My, it affects my business. there was a company across the river, literally right across the river in Jeffersonville, Indiana, that was running, and they were doing death matches. And one of them was a Pains of Glass death match. And a young kid is in the main event, of course, takes a bump through a pains of glass, suffers like a nearly 23 or 24 inch cut up his back. Okay?

his father takes the kid to the emergency room to get stitched up. I forget how many dozens of stitches it took to stitch him up. The doctor, of course, inquisitive, crazy, I know, but how this happened, you know, thinking that maybe the father threw him through the door, the storm door or something. He was, hi, someone was wrestling, did a panes of glass death match. What? Where? Down here at such and such a building, did anybody have any blood work?

any of the competitors. Well, they told me, but no, nobody had any blood work. Okay. They immediately contact the health department who then the next day issue a warning in the news to anyone who had attended that show to go get tested for HEP or HIV. This now becomes a major news development in the Louisville market. Again, remember, whatever that company's name was, no one can differentiate OVW from that.

So now you see me operating OVW, and I'm trying to draw an audience of families and Mr. Mrs. Walmarts and the general audience, okay? And they're like, we're not going there. That's an HIV wrestlers, you know, that you're going to go catch Hep C. They use, you know, they're doing, we're using pains of glass.

I ain't real wrestling. I ain't going to watch that and lul, you know. and it adversely affects it. The same goes, you know, and that was, and that was, again, one of the things that motivated me and, you know, to buy OVW was because of the lack of standards, and is that, you know, and it really frustrates me still to the day being on some independent shows and locker rooms and looking around,

and I'm 60 years old and athletically, I'm not talking cosmetically and aesthetically, but let's face it, the entertainment business is a cosmetic aesthetic of business. And I don't care if you look like a bodybuilder, but you need to, when you walk through the curtain, look like you are pursuing an athletic living

in a competitive combat situation. Convinced me you can whip somebody's ass. Don't walk out there looking like every other person that's in the audience. Look like something different. That's your job. You know what I mean? And that's not asking much.

You're asking me to invest my time, money, and effort to watch you. And you're not even willing to invest your time, money, and effort to convince me that you're worth watching. Yeah. Not to also, and this is the real reality, you need to be in a certain amount of athletic condition to perform in that ring safely. To have respect for yourself and your opponent that you don't increase the odds and the risk of them suffering a life-walturing or life-endant injury. And I don't need to see you at six minutes of the match wanting to do that high spot you saw on Raw this week. And you're so gassed to the gills that you slip or fall and drop somebody on her head and break their neck or you hurt yourself. And that's all out of the fact that you're treating this business as a joke and not as what it really is a profession.

And you actually being a professional and having the self-respect and the respect for your opponent and the audience that you go out there in a certain, level of physical condition that you can perform correctly, you know, and that, that really, that's no different to me than the death matches because it adversely affects everyone else's business. Now, an audience is not going to attend my show because they're going to expect that the wrestlers are going to come out, we're going to look the same and perform the same as the ones they've just seen a couple weeks ago. Do you think that maybe the death matches, is that a phase, Or is that the evolution of where? No, I think it is a phase.

You know, and I think again, too, it's also because it's a very, very niche audience. And again, remember everything and everybody is a product. And that means everything and everybody has a shelf life that is going to have a run. And at some point, yeah, it'll reach a point of, you know, it's very entropic. It's a snake eating its own tail because at some point you can't keep raising the bar. You can't shock them anymore than what you already have. I mean, I had because now when I do Vince Russo's podcast, and it happened because I just saw some ridiculous videos. And now fans are sending them in as well to get comment on them.

But there was one where this guy sticks a hypodermic needle in another guy's penis. in the ring in front of an audience. And it, you know, what? Yeah. And, you know, hey, it's your deal. You know what I mean? You can, you can do whatever you want to do. And yeah, you may for a period of time, you know, be successful,

but you're going to be successful here in a niche audience. Why, if you have the choice, why would you want to do that that appeals to this as opposed to appeals to this? What about that Texas death match that recently happened? You see that Swirv Strickland? and Heyman Adam Page on AEW full gear. Dave Meltzer gave it five stars.

And that's fine. You know, for each to their own. Everybody has an opinion. You know, Dave Meltzer certainly has an opinion. Oh, I got into him. Well,

and let me finish, because I want to make this clear because for over years, I've had a certain stance as far as the Dave Meltzer's of the world are concerned. I, you know, I commend Dave Meltzer. I wish him nothing but success, continued success.

He's a very, very well-informed fan. He has never once done this. He has never been in a ring. He's never taken a bump. He's never sold a ticket. He's never set up a ring. He's never ran a show. He's never promoted.

Nothing. The man has zero. experience. Okay. And here's here's we live in a day, Chris, of access to information that's unparalleled ever on the face of the earth. Yeah. I can pick up the phone. I can get any bit of information. That doesn't give me any knowledge on that particular topic. Yeah. That gives me information that I can conjugate an opinion and opinion is the lowest form of human knowledge because it requires zero experience. And the only way you can have real knowledge on any topic is to have information in a commensurate amount of experience that go hand in hand. And I can prove it.

If you go to medical school, it doesn't matter what you, whatever the specialty is, upwards of eight years, I think, to go to attend medical school. You graduate. You're not a doctor. You're not a doctor until you've had a certain amount of supervised hands-on experience coupled with your information. And then you become actually the title of a doctor. You know, can I play devil's advocate here. Even if I've never made a movie before, I can be a film critic. Absolutely, you can. Because I know which movies I like and which movies I don't like. Which is fine because you're still a fan. You're not in the film industry. You don't really know what we were doing and why we were doing and what we were attempting to achieve based

on commercial success. That's it. You know, and you're entitled to it. But understand a critic of whatever it is, whether it's wrestling, sports, movies, dancing, you know, pickleball, whatever, which really sounds like a sex act. I feel like you were going to go down that porn path again. It's possible. I'm always willing to go there. The critic never writes about the topic to either to either. elevate it or to tear it down. They write about the topic to tell everyone else how much they know

about something they've never done. That's a good point. A critic is basically a legless man telling you how to run. That's the truth. So the Dave Meltzers are entitled to their opinion. That's fine. A, you, that appealed to you. That's a five-star match. And yes, there is an audience there for it. But here's, this is a business. And, you know, You know, you can choose. That's why they call them starving artists because they don't make any money. You know what I mean? And you can either choose to take advantage of and capitalize on the opportunities,

amazing opportunities in this business to make life-changing money that will allow you when you retire to live life on your terms or you can appeal to just a niche audience. And you'll be successful either way. you'll enjoy some notoriety and acclaim, which do you really want to do? You know what I mean? And that's my problem with, you know, with those. And it also is a low barrier, no door gateway for people to get, say, I'm a wrestler. I'm a death match wrestler.

I don't have to really invest in myself as far as working out, training, spending any real time. or passion in trying to develop myself, I just do crazy stuff, you know. Yeah. You know, and for those people, I, you know, good. If that's what you want to do, hey, dig it, go do it. You know, that's your deal. But I'm going to, I'm going to criticize you.

I'm going to tell, I'm going to be honest with you. You're adversely affecting the business you claim that you love. You're not doing it any benefit whatsoever, you know. That's not the answer anyone expected, I don't think. Probably not. I think it's great. I think that we've covered a lot in this interview. This is fantastic.

I mean, look where we started and where we are now. And it's an hour and a half in. We can circle right back to where we started again. I will wrap this up with a question that I ask everybody at the end of every conversation. I wasn't doing this actually the last time I saw you. Last time I saw you was before the world had shut down. I was still living in Florida. 2019.

It was in Florida. Gangrel show. that it was gang grill show yeah yeah i don't know when it was but i remember it was like summer of 2019 was it really wow what a different place the world was in yeah crazy yeah gratitude such a big part of my life yeah and boy i feel that so much now that i'm a dad which is crazy i let him get a little older no i'm just kidding oh i got i got six of them i mean it's like why it's not like i'm running a farm or something and i need extra hands You know what I mean?

I got seven grandchildren, Chris. At some point, I literally am the, I'm the overpopulation problem by myself. You know what I mean? And at some point, if I just keep birthing them, you know, they keep popping out of everywhere. They're like little, like, they just like sprout. And then at some point I'll just be able to form an army

and then go take over a small town in Iowa or something. Perfect. Or in Louisville. I don't know. Yeah, or Louisville. Yeah. Or Frankfurt. We go to Frankfurt.

What's three things in your life that you're grateful for right now? everything. I have a fucking awesome life. I don't mean to say fucking, even though, you know, we're all adults. Yeah,

Asian ass porn. Yeah, Asian ass porn, yeah, but fuck it. That's a little too far. Uh, no,

I mean, I've had, uh, you know, I'll be, I've had a lot of challenges and, and had a lot of, uh,

experiences. Not all of them have been happy. Uh, some of them have been pretty, uh, scary. Sometimes I've even, wondered why I'm shocked that I'm still alive.

There have been a few instances that have really been like, who dies a bullet there, quite literally. But man, what do I have to complain about? I mean, really, you know, I've gotten to live my dream. You know, I've met and had relationships with amazing people. This will sound silly. I guess, but then maybe it doesn't. I don't know.

Everything dies. Everything. Everything has a beginning, has a middle, and an end. But everything I consider it to be a book. I consider every experience I've had in life. I consider this experience in life, this thing with OVW, every relationship I've had are stories.

All stories, and all stories have a beginning. a middle and the end. And you never really can enjoy the story till it comes to the end and you start another story. You know what I mean? And if you add, if the story never, the one book you're reading never get to put back on the shelf, you never get to start another book. And then you never get to experience a whole new story. Yeah. So how's that bad? You know, so yeah, I'm, I'm grateful. I mean, I've had, I've had amazing stories. And the overall story has been, fucking awesome. I mean,

it's just, there I go, yeah. And normally, I feel pretty proud that it's taken this long to finally curse. You dropped it before.

Yeah, I asked you. Yeah, but yeah, that was fucking stupid. But usually I curse like a sailor with Tourette's. So,

I even when I do stand-up, I'll like, I'm like, look, I'm just going to tell you, uh, like other artists work with oils or clays. Cursing is my true medium.

I mean, I, you know, Jessica's like, my wife's like, you know, hey, watch your language. And I do. I watch the curse words, pour for my lips, just like golden honey. Anyways. But no, I just, yeah, I mean, yeah, I'm just grateful. I mean, it's been, you know, and I think I've gotten a little more introspective about that. certainly when I hit about 55 or 506 in all seriousness because I started going like a couple years I'm going to be 60 and like I had no problem in 40 50 when it started getting closer to 60 I went hmm because you know the clock's ticket I mean quite honestly it is my average person if you want to be I you know I've determined literally at 93 I'm tapping out

like that's it. What are you talking about? Oh, seriously. By the time you get to 93, people will be living well under their homes. They might be. I don't want to. I don't, because, you know, I don't get that old and look like one of those little hobbits or trolls.

No, DDP will have you feeling great. Literally when people walk around the corner and go, oh, Jesus. Oh, how you doing, Grandpa? You know what I mean? I don't want to do that. I mean, but let's, you know, be honest, an average person lives to about 72 or 75. If I'm the average person, I got 12, 15 years. I ain't.

Yeah. My, you know, my family's pretty long live. That's why I was like, I'm checking down on 93. So. No,

you're not. Yeah, I just want to go there. You're going to be a centuriant. Sign off. One, 150. So,

you know, I, and it's funny you say that, like, if we were talking about this, I don't want to get all heavy or anything, but my, one of my best friends,

his name is Barry Ratcliffe, uh, incredibly talented, uh, intelligent. The guy's insane. Um, well,

legitimately. But, his wife's grandfather was 97 years old he was you know his name was Gordon and and that was where I got the whole story thing because he was sitting there telling me about when he had graduated college

and he was in he lived in Hagerstown, Maryland or just outside of there he lived in Pennsylvania It's where Maryland and Pennsylvania is like one of those tri-state areas. And he was 97. And, you know, he's telling me about his got married and he had all his kids there, his granddaughter Andrea that was my best friend's wife. And he'd always lived in the same house.

And he had said that when he, and it just struck me, he graduated college and he had gotten a job offer to go to Connecticut. to it's some, I forget what, some electronics company or something like that was going to be a really good, you know, great job and a great career. And he said he decided to stay or go and he flipped a quarter, literally flipped a quarter and heads, he was staying, tails he was going. And it struck me so profoundly how different would his life have been. Yeah. If it had flipped tails and he went to Connecticut. Wow. He'd had never met the woman that he married.

He'd have never had the children that he had out. He'd have never had that life. Oh, he'd have never had that story. His story would have been complete. He'd have probably met somebody completely different. Who knows if they'd have been, his previous, his wife had passed away. You know, they had been married for years and passed away. She, he could have been married.

They could have been divorced. you could have cheated on. Who knows what could have happened have. I think about that stuff. And I mean, it just struck me so profoundly that flip the coin. And that whole story, for a split second, I could just literally like imagine like a movie. Yeah. His whole life taking a complete left turn, you know.

I mean, and it could have been better, you know what I mean? It could have been a completely different life. Who knows where it would have went, you know? And I think about myself, I made a redundant. ridiculous decision to run away from the with the circus, you know. And I've literally been able to, I've been, and I'm not bragging by any means. I mean, I want, you to understand this, but because of wrestling, I've gotten to meet incredible people, do amazing things.

I've been in every state in the union except for Alaska, but in all four provinces of Canada, been all over Mexico. There's 10 provinces of Canada. Well, yeah, there are, but I mean, the lower ones. The warmer ones. I've never met an American that knows how many provinces there are. I know. I'm the four major ones.

I've even been on a few of the further north ones too. And they've up in the Newfoundland and Nova Scotia and all of that. And even the Maritimes. But and I've been probably last count like 38 or 39 different countries. Wow. I've been on like four or five safaris in South Africa. You know, I've been literally all. all across Australia, I did

to Tasmania, and that's all because of one thing. Just doing making the decision that I wanted to be a wrestler. That was it. I mean, literally out in the middle of living in a little town, in the middle of nowhere, Northwest Ohio, no different than anybody

else. Nothing special. No great abilities. Certainly no high intellect. Not, you know, not a great looker, but I should turn lights off. It's dark. I look amazing. And I was, I'm being able to do all of that. So I've had an incredible story. So yeah,

as far as gratitude, man, I'm just grateful, period. I mean, just all the time. And to bring it back around full circle here. Yeah. Now people are Netflix and chilling. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Who knows what's going on? If only I could look through the TV. So good to see you, Al. It's good to see you.

Thanks, man. Thank you. There we go, my friends. Al Snow, ladies and gentlemen, doesn't that make you want to go back and watch wrestlers again on Netflix? So good. So good. And I just love his take on life. You're not a tree.

You can get up and move if things are not going your way. He said that to me years ago, and that's something that's always stuck with me. So I love this conversation. You will notice over the next few days that this interview will notice, not go up on YouTube like all of our other episodes. And that's because the video file got corrupted. It happens. I mean, here we are, 549 episodes in on the podcast. We're thousands of interviews in on the YouTube channel. And I'm just, I'm grateful that the audio is still here. We were able to listen to this conversation with no issues at all. I spent a lot of time. I spent a lot of money trying to get this

figured out, but unfortunately, the file couldn't be salvaged. So that makes this an impromptu podcast exclusive. And that means you're part of a special club because you're listening to it here right now. And also on that same trip, this was in Milwaukee where we did this at Blizzard Brawl, which was a fantastic show. Shout out to Dave Hero, my friend who puts on such a great show with Blizzard Brawl every single year. I'd always heard great things about it, but I wanted to finally experienced it for myself. And not only did it meet expectations, but it far exceeded my expectations. What an insane show. It was like 700 plus people there in Milwaukee. It was such, well, just outside of Milwaukee. But man, it was so good. But on that same trip, on that same trip,

I lost my winter coat on the plane. I'm not used to traveling with a winter coat. It was like early December when we, when we did this interview. And I was like leaving LAX, like, Los Angeles, and it was like, I don't know, 75, 80 degrees Fahrenheit. So I packed the winter coat, flew out there, went from Milwaukee to New York, and I did an interview with Julia Roberts and Ethan Hawk for that new movie, leave the world behind on Netflix, which is so good, loved that movie. But then on the flight back, so it was New York to LAX, I left my coat on the plane. Like, I know exactly where it is.

So American Airlines, I love you, but come on. Could you guys check the lost and found report that I've done? submitted. I had the seat number, had the flight number, had the time, I had everything there. I know exactly where it is. I just didn't realize I left it there until I got home. It was a short night and an early morning. So yeah, I need a new winter coat, is what I'm saying here. Such is life. Hope you enjoyed this conversation with Al Snow. Take a screenshot and tag us online. Tell me how silly I am for leaving my coat on the plane. He's at the real Al Snow. I'm at Chris Van Fleet. And And what a quote here from Michael Jordan.

I can accept failure. Everyone fails at something. But I can't accept not trying. New year, right? You got those New Year's resolutions, which I don't think you need to wait until January 1st to start doing things, you know, new. But this is a pretty good quote to keep in your mind.

Have that rattling around in your brain, you know, as this year continues. I can accept failure. Everyone fails at something. But I can't accept not trying. So whatever it is, go out and try. Be great. Be grateful.

We will see you on the next one with some more insight with former WWE superstar Rick. Boogs. Oh, it's a good one. The Hammer Alley podcast, an 80s flashback mockumentary. Back in the 80s, there were a thousand bands trying to make it in the world of rock. But there was one band that had it all. Hammer Alley. happened to Hammer Alley? How did they go from top of the rock? I'm looking for a music video.

They're a band from 1987. Hammer Alley. Ever heard of then? To Rock Bottom. Dude, I was born in 1987. I can't believe he's doing this. Hammer Alley. Follow and listen on your favorite platform.