Insight with Chris Van Vliet - Andrew Yang on WWE's "plain F-ing greed", Vince McMahon, favorite wrestling match, AEW

Episode Date: September 10, 2020

Former U.S. Presidential Candidate Andrew Yang speaks with Chris Van Vliet from his home in New York. He talks about WWE and Vince McMahon's "ridiculous classification of WWE wrestlers as independent contractors", what he thinks can happen to change it, WWE comparing their intellectual property to Disney and Warner Bros., his thoughts on AEW, his favorite wrestlers growing up, attending WrestleMania 4, his all-time favorite match and more!  Please subscribe and support The CVV Show by supporting our sponsors!DOOR DASH- Get $5 and zero delivery fees on your first order of $15 or more when you download the Door Dash app and use the promo code BLUEWIRE DIRECTV NFL SUNDAY TICKET- Use the promo code BLUEWIRE to get 15% off your subscription this season athttp://NFLSundayTicket.tvBETONLINE- Head tohttp://betonline.ag and use the promo code BLUEWIRE for your free welcome bonus! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This podcast episode is brought to you by Coors Light. These days, everything is go, go, go. It's nonstop hustle all the time. Work, friends, family. Expect you to be on 24-7? Well, sometimes you just need to reach for a Coors Light because it's made to chill. Coors Light is cold-loggered, cold filtered, and cold package. It's as crisp and refreshing as the Colorado Rockies.

It is literally made to chill. Coors Light is the one I choose when I need to unwind. So when you want to hit reset, reach for the beer that's made to chill. Get Coors Light and the new look delivered straight to your door with Drizzly or Instacart. Celebrate responsibly. Coors Brewing Company, Golden Colorado. This is Greg Olson, and I'm thrilled to introduce my new podcast, TE1. TE1 will chronicle a 60-year evolution of the tight-end position,

from its origins as an obscure, overlooked blocking role to the versatile superstar position that it is today. I'll explore the evolution of the position through conversations with some of the all-time game-changing tight ends. And just like the incredible tight ends we sit down with on my new show, the Chevy Silverado is in a league of its own. This truck is all about grit, strength, and dependability. The same attributes it takes to be a tight end. It's Chrysomania, brother. That's a great question. Look at you, man.

We're the powerful questions. Woo! This is the Chris Van Vleecho. Chris Van Vleecho. Ladies and gentlemen, Chris! Welcome back to another audio adventure on the Chris Van Vleet Show. This episode is brought to you by DoorDash, NFL Sunday ticket, and bet online. And I'm so excited about this one.

So excited. Who knew that former presidential candidate Andrew Yang was a wrestling fan? And not just a casual fan. You'll hear it here. He is a lifelong fan. And it's hard to disagree. with what his favorite match of all time is. Snap a screenshot.

Let us know that you're listening. Tag me. I'm at Chris Van Fleet. Tag Mr. Yang. He is at Andrew Yang. I know that he would love to see that you were listening to this. If you're a subscriber,

you're probably listening to this early because bloop bloop. You got the alert. That's the sound of an alert. Bloop bloop. If you haven't subscribed yet, join us. And if you happen to be listening

on Apple Podcasts, if you're listening to this on your iPhone right now or maybe your iPad, Do people listen to podcasts on iPads? Either way, if you're listening on Apple Podcasts, please rate and review the show, and I will read one out on every episode until we get to that magic number of 2,000 reviews.

It's not really a magic number. It's just a specific goal. That's what it is. Because, as you know, vague goals get vague results? Specific goals get specific results. This one's from Chef Matt Martin. He says, CVV deserves a title belt.

I've been listening for over a year now, and I have to say, Chris is deserving of a title belt, and I'm going to keep listening until he's strapped. Chris is engaging, an awesome conversationalist, and just seems like a cool guy that hasn't let himself change, even though he talks to famous people all the time. Chris even answered a few questions of mine on Instagram, which I thought was super cool. Thanks for what you do, and thanks for entertaining us, Chris. Well, thank you, Chef Matt Martin. I wonder what kind of chef he is.

Maybe he's a pizza chef. I certainly do love pizza. And thank you for leaving the review. Please, if you haven't yet, please leave a review. And yes, if you have a question on Instagram or Twitter, hit me up. I'm happy to answer your questions. So earlier in the week, news came out that Vince McMahon said that talent could no longer engage with third parties and that continued violations could result in fines, suspensions, or termination at the discretion

of WWE. Well, this did not sit well with Andrew Yang, who sent out a series of tweets calling out WWE and Vince McMahon in particular for what he called a, quote, ridiculous classification of WWB wrestlers as independent contractors while controlling their name and likeness. He said that these were corrupt labor practices. So I replied to Mr. Yang's tweet. I invited him on the show, and here we are. And it turns out he's a massive wrestling. wrestling fan. So here we go. Please welcome to the Chris Van Fleet Show, Andrew Yang. Well, Mr. Yang, certainly appreciate you taking the time to do this. Thank you so much. No problem, Chris. Glad to be here. Well, I think you turned a lot of heads this week when you called

out WWE, Vince McMahon specifically for their quote, ridiculous classification of WWE wrestlers as independent contractors while controlling their name and likeness. For you, what's so ridiculous about this. I actually got a message from someone who as part of the WWE pointing out to me the story about how WWE was saying, hey, don't go on cameo or Twitch. And it infuriated me because I know that the WWE has been trying to play it both ways for years where they're saying on one hand, can't do anything without our say-so. We own you, but you're an independent contractor and we have nothing to do with your health, retirement, any of the benefits you get that would accrue to an employee. So to me, you have to make a choice at some point. If you're going to control all these

aspects of a wrestler, performer, performers, waking life, then you should take some responsibility, too, for that person a bigger picture. Maybe if they have a kid, maybe they get some maternity or paternity leave, you know, maybe they get an offseason, maybe they get recovery time. And I say this as someone who's been a long-time fan of the sport. I know you know a lot of the performers well yourself. They're putting their lives on the line, or their health on the line, their family life on the line all the time. They made Vince a billionaire.

And then the fact that he's still being so heavy-handed about their ability to make a simple buck-on cameo just struck me as so absurd and ridiculous and wrong. And I've been on the side of MMA fighters who are in the similar boat, frankly, with the UFC and Dana White. And because I got this note from this performer, I said, you know, like it's past time that someone calls Vince out for this, particularly because if Joe and Kamala win, I may be a position to do something about it. So I think a lot of people were looking at this from the outside going, this guy's a politician. I mean, what does he know? But you're a lifelong wrestling fan. So, like, who were some of the people that you looked up to growing up?

Well, I'm a little older than you, Chris. So for me, it was like the original 80s, Hulkomania heyday. So my favorite wrestler was macho man Randy Savage. I was like a huge macho man. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Dig it.

Ricky Steamboat I liked. And then a little bit later on, there's a whole generation of performers. I really liked that passed away quite early. So it was like ravishing Rick Rood, Mr. Perfect Kurt Hennig, a bunch of those guys where I was like, how could British Bulldog? Like a lot of those guys, you're like, how the heck are they dead? Like I feel like I saw him just the other month and you know, on TV and they look great. I went to live events with my brother who was also a fan.

So I saw Andre the Giant in person. I marveled at how enormous he was. Like it felt like if you tuck yourself into a ball, he would, like, funny, like, throwing over his head. So, yeah, like, I was a real wrestling fan growing up, and I feel like every kid in the 80s was a wrestling fan, unless it was just my town. No, no, this was everywhere.

It was everywhere in the 80s and 90s. And, you know, I grew up with it. It was a family bonding experience. I took my brother and me to see WrestleMania for the, you know, And so things like that, it was incredible. Wow. So, so WWE kind of like tried to clarify these statements and basically compared themselves to Disney and Warner Brothers with their intellectual property.

Do you think that's a fair comparison? I really do not because there no down anyone's mind that if an actress or performer plays Bell from Beauty and the Beast, that is not actually Bell. does not live in a magic castle with the beast. And so if the actors then turns around and does something of their own accord, everyone knows it's talent for hire and she's doing something else. And so with professional wrestlers, you inhabit a character, but you're still a human being,

and you still should be able to do things as any human would do. For example, making appearance, show up on cameo. Like, do things that take advantage of, it'd be if you, Chris, somehow were in a movie and then all of a sudden you weren't allowed to turn around and do anything as yourself. Right. So I think that the comparison is not very apt in large part because the treatment is so, again, it's so dissonant because I'm. On one hand, you're saying, look, we have no responsibility for you. But on the other hand, we control your very image, your name in some cases, and you can't do anything without our say-so. In a way, it's actually inhuman.

It's dehumanizing. It's saying, like, look, you are no longer a human being. You are this character. And I remember one of the pieces of evidence, this will show what a fan I am, of how off-based is. You remember when he busted out, like, the fake Razoramon and the fake diesel? Of course, yeah. Got Holland, Kevin Nash went to. Yeah.

But that's literally how he thinks about it. It's like, I made you. I invented you. It's like, actually, there are two dudes. They're walking around. They work for your competitor. And no one cares about these new fake characters that you're coming up with. Like, without those individuals and the talent, the characters don't matter and they don't exist.

Yeah. It's just so interesting that, like, if Chris Hemsworth went and did something as Chris Hemsworth, we don't go, oh, there's Thor doing that thing. But in the wrestling world, like, the lines are so blurred between the character and the person. Yeah, that's where I was going with trying to draw a comparison with Disney. You know, it's like, like, Disney doesn't own Emma Watson.

Nice. It's not like Emma Watson, like shows up some plays, and Disney's like, can't sign those autographs. know, and that's the, so if they want to compare themselves, you know, they should really rethink their values in large part because if you do look at someone like Emma Watson or Disney or Warner, guess what? They're members of the Screen Actors Guild and they have tons of benefits. Like, if you want to go that direction, Vince, then you'd have to, you'd have to clearly change how you treat your workers, which is a legitimate go. And that would be one thing I would suggest is,

look, if you want to control their name and likeness, guess what? Then, They should be part of a union or a professional association. They should have benefits up to their eyeballs. And then you can have a conversation with them about some of their activities. But I guess someone on the flip side could say, well, they read the contract. They signed this. The performer agreed to this. So maybe they're on the hook for it.

Well, one, I heard from a former who's not happy with this particular clarification or this particular rule. But the truth of it is that there's a vastly uneven bargaining table. at work where if you're a performer and WWE says, hey, here's this contract, and we're going to stick a bunch of things in it that you think are unfair, ridiculous, or exploitative, at the end of the day, you feel like you have no choice but to sign that deal because WWE holds the keys to the kingdom. You know, they're the largest company, the surest means to elevate your career. And there hasn't been a genuinely competitive market for years.

it's one reason why I, like many other fans, naturally root for AEW to succeed and create a genuine competitive market so that wrestlers don't get exploited. But the reality is that WWE is a quasi-oply and imagining that these wrestlers, oh, they know what they got into. It's like, well, they didn't really have a genuine chance to negotiate a bargain. Hey, a big thank you to you for checking out this conversation. And a big thank you as well to our sponsors. DoorDash. You've counted on restaurants, and now restaurants are counting on you. And while their dining rooms may be closed, they're still open for delivery with DoorDash. DoorDash is the app that brings you the food you're craving right to your door. You could even say they dash it to your

door. Ordering is super easy. Just open up the DoorDash app. Choose what you want to eat, and your food will be left safely outside your door with the new contact list delivery drop-off. offsetting. So choose from your favorite national restaurants like Chipotle, Wendy's, or the Cheesecake Factory, double, many of your local favorite restaurants are still over for delivery as well. So just open up the Door Dash app, select your favorite local spot and boom, your food is on the way to you. And right now our listeners can get $5 off and zero delivery fees on your first order of $15

or more when you download the DoorDash app and enter the code Blue Wire. That's $5 off and zero delivery fees on your first order when you download the DoorDash app in the app store and enter the code Blue Wire. Don't forget that code is Blue Wire for $5 off your first order

with DoorDash. Also a huge thank you to DirecTV's NFL Sunday ticket. Oh man, I am so excited that football season is back, even though I'm a Browns fan. Yeah, I admit that publicly. Strange, isn't it?

And with NFL Sundayticket.tv, you can stream every live out-of-market NFL game, every Sunday afternoon on your favorite devices, plus Red Zone and DirecTV fantasy zone channels. You will never miss your favorite teams

or your favorite players. So no matter where you live, NFL Sundayticket. dot TV is your key to get the most glorious Sundays ever. Use the promo code Blue Wire at checkout. You will get 15% off your subscription.

Visit NFL Sundayticket.tv and use that promo code, Blue Wire. So, I mean, you've been very complimentary towards AEW. What do you think that they're doing correct or are they moving in the right direction here? It feels like they are. And I actually talk to the talent in AEW too. And they like it. say they're being well-treated and they have a degree of freedom in terms of their ability

to take other bookings. It seems like it's an organization that has performers and talent very much at the ownership structure or at a minimum, they have a ton of input. And they understand who they're competing against, too. So if you have WWE, you have like the Vince Empire. It's very, very top down and you know you have no choice and then they are the employee led alternative and i think they take that seriously so i was thrilled to hear from performers at aew that um they feel great about it you know and it's a it seems like it's a very different approach so what can change i mean if this is a corrupt labor practice as you call it what can change oh a lot can change is if you look at at it. The WWE, to me, has a choice. It's, look, we're going to treat you as independent

contractors, you can do whatever you want on your off time, and we don't have all of this say-so over a lot of your activities. Or you can start treating them like your employees, which they are, and you introduce real benefits, including a real union or professional association and real negotiation, And if you saw that happen, then I think very quickly you'd have a lot of performers come out of the woodwork and say, if they weren't fearful, frankly, losing their job or spot in the roster or their livelihoods, where they would say, I would love it if we had some recovery time, better health care, my incentives weren't to go out there hurt all the time. Then you could see a real transformation. And to me, it needs to be on the table. It's long overdue. You had folks like Jesse Ventura trying to organize this sort of thing before, but Vince has always managed to just keep the ball moving, you know, like nothing to see here, nothing to see here.

But I can promise you that if I'm a part of the Biden administration and I can do something about this, I will. You have a National Labor Relations Board that officially has purview over this. And right now it's Trump appointees and they're not going to do a thing. But if you had a different set of appointees looking at the labor practice of the WW. To me, it's crystal clear that they can't have it both ways and that right now performers are employees and everything but name. So are you looking to perhaps become a part of this? You're looking to become the Labor Secretary? I'll do one of a number of things if Joe and Kamala will have me.

But one of the things I said in my tweet was like, look, even if I'm not the labor secretary. secretary, can I call the labor secretary? Will I know that person? Sure. You know, can I call the people who are the new appointees to the National Labor Relations Board? Yes. Like, will I, will I forget about this? Hell no. And that's part of it, is that like Vince and the gang, they buy because they're like, well, the mainstream press won't pay any attention to it because it's wrestling. And the wrestlers can say a damn thing because they know will come down on them like a ton of bricks. So let's just keep exploiting people and making our millions and we'll just get away with it for decades and decades. And the bill's coming due.

I'm going to be the person that does it or the person that is there when it's done. And it's going to give me great pleasure because, like I said, that people know. I grew up a fan. I'm sick and tired of seeing my childhood heroes die early and then not knowing whether their family has had any reasonable means of. support thereafter. I'm sick of having this feeling in my stomach where when you see these performers put themselves on the line that some of them aren't getting what they deserve. And as a fan, we deserve better. It's like, you know, we deserve to be able to support these performers with a clean conscience, knowing that they're doing great, their family's doing great, and they don't

necessarily feel like they need to perform hurt if their body requires some kind of, of break or recovery. I feel like this is a great promo. You'd be great. You should step in the ring. You should cut a promo be part of a storyline. Well, this story is dead real. And I will say, though, that there are a lot of effective storylines that kind of melded reality with fiction.

So to the extent that this ends up being part of a narrative, I'd be open to it because I think the fans know. The fans are smart. The fans understand what's going on. It's one reason why a lot of people support AEW is that they get this negative vibe from the WWE about the way the talent's being treated. And you can tell that, you can tell that has nothing to do with the bottom line anymore because the McMahon's have made so much money. They have enough money where they're like investing in these, you know, like football leagues and whatnot. And then the XFL failed again, you know, and so if you're a wrestler, breaking your back, and then the WWW. is like, oh, we can't afford you.

Like, you're fired. It's like, well, you probably could afford it if you could afford to lose tens of millions on that debacle. And so that the affordability argument does not apply to the WWE in a way that it applies to every other firm. If you look at AEW, I have a feeling that our economics are real. But the WWE does not have those constraints anymore because it's a public company. Yeah.

Like the McMans are now worth hundreds of millions of jobs. they spend it on all sorts of stuff. I'm going to, should have looked this up prior to our call. Do you happen to know the WWE's market camp? Well, I think that Vince, well, we can look this up, but I think that Vince is worth $1.7 billion. So I don't know if. Yeah, and the company's worth $3.3 billion.

And so if your company's worth $3.3 billion and you're mistreating workers, you know, I mean, that's just shameful. Really it's shameful. Like there was a point in the distant past where you, you could have made a legitimate argument based upon cost, but now you can't. Now it's just plain fucking greed. And we can all see it. Like, fans know.

So it's one reason why a lot of people want there to be fair treatment of wrestlers and genuine competition in the market. So as we wrap this up, I'm curious to know what your favorite match of all time is. This may date me, but I remember macho man, Steamboat, WrestleMania 3, just being his mind-blown. match. It's an all-time great. Yeah. And because I was a matron man fan, in part because of that match. And then so he loses that match, but he somehow gets elevated from it because it was so good.

And then he goes on to become the champion. And I loved the matroner man title run. It made me very sad when, as a kid, I was pretty young. But when they gave the title back to Hulk Hogan the following year, I was like, no, I thought we were back. this, that it came back. So that match sticks out for me. I just want to thank you for taking the time to talk about this, to talk a little wrestling here. And look, I know this is the craziest time of year for what you do. So thanks for carving out some time for this. No problem. It's important. You know, like what happens to these performers is a really big deal. And it's an emblem of what's

gone wrong in the economy writ large where if you have money on one side and people on the other, money's winning, the people are losing. And if you can change that in any context, you have to do it. And if we can do this for wrestlers, it would actually be a very powerful signal. And you should know, Chris, this is not like, oh, I'm going to talk about this and forget about it. Like, this bothers me, and I'm not going to rest until something changes. So, you know, if you're in the industry and you're looking at this, like you should just try and make these changes without, frankly, me and the government forcing you to and then maybe you can claim like you did the right thing. If wrestlers want to reach out to you to talk to you about this, is that a possibility?

Yeah, the easiest thing is to get me on Twitter. I'm pretty good on it. Well, that's how this happened. So again, thank you for your time, Mr. Yang. And yeah, this has been fantastic. Appreciate the heck out of you, Chris. Stay good. Well, there you have it, my friend. A huge thank you to Andrew Yang for finding time for this conversation in what is the busiest time of year for a politician, or at least the busiest time of every four years with the election just less than two months away now. Take a screenshot. Help us spread the message that he's talking about in this interview. Tag us both so we can

share this. I am at Chris Van Vleet. He is at Andrew Yang. By the way, what do you think of his favorite match of all time? Steamboat versus macho man? Hard to disagree with that one. Also, hard to disagree with what he's saying here. If wrestlers truly are independent contractors, then it seems to make sense that they should be treated as such. But I guess the big question here is what's going to change, if anything? But it's so great to hear Andrew Yang talking about this. And thank you for hanging out with us for this conversation. And I'll leave you with this quote from Socrates, The secret of change is to focus all your energy, not fighting the old, but on building the new. So there you go.

Be great. Be grateful. Have a great week. And before we go, we got to thank Bet Online, because the weight is finally over. Oh, yeah. Football is back. And you may not be at a game this year, but you can still be in on the action at Bet Online. Bet Online is going the extra mile to make sure you can get in on every possible chance to win this season.

From game spreads and totals to team, player and coaching props, bet online gives you more options to wager than anywhere else online. You can get in on their season opening bonuses today and start wagering on wins, division and championship futures all day, every day. So just head to bet online today and take advantage of all the great. rate sign-up bonuses. Don't forget to use the promo code bluewire at betonline.ag. That's Blue Wire.

All one word, B-L-U-E-W-I-R-E. Bet-Online, your online sportsbook experts. 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. Whatever 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 them? 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.