Insight with Chris Van Vliet - AskCVV #26 - Paul Heyman Press Conference, CM Punk AEW Footage, WrestleMania 40 Review, Cody's Next Opponent

Episode Date: April 12, 2024

Here we go for another #AskCVV episode! On this one Chris talks about the exchange he had with Paul Heyman and Roman Reigns at the WrestleMania 40 press conference, thoughts on the CM Punk/Jack Perry All In footage, thoughts on WrestleMania 40, favorite ECW wrestler, which camera and mic to use as a content creator, who Cody's next opponent will be and more. If you have a question that you want answered on the next one, send it in using the hashtag #AskCVV! Quote I'm thinking about: "Do not spoil what you have by desiring what you have not; remember that what you now have was once among the things you only hoped for." - Epicurus Sponsors: PRIZEPICKS: Download the app today and use code INSIGHT for a first deposit match up to $100! BABBEL: Learn a new language and get 50% off your lifetime Babbel subscription at http://babbel.com/cvv MAGIC SPOON: Get $5 off with the code CVV at http://magicspoon.com/cvv RHONE: Upgrade your closet with Rhone and use CVV to save 20% at https://www.rhone.com/CVV ROCKET MONEY: Join Rocket Money today and experience financial freedom: https://rocketmoney.com/cvv BETTERHELP: Get 10% off your first month with the code INSIGHT at http://betterhelp.com/insight MUDWTR: Get 15% off with the code CVV15 at http://mudwtr.com/cvv MYBOOKIE: Bet on WWE! Use the code CVV to get a 50% welcome bonus when you sign up at http://mybookie.ag BLUECHEW: Use the code CVV to get your first month of BlueChew for FREE at http://bluechew.com 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 15% on your BONCHARGE Infrared Sauna Blanket! 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 short review on Apple Podcast/iTunes? 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

Chris So good to see you, my friends. Welcome back to another one here on Insight. I'm CBV, Chris Van Fleet. Thank you for being with us. Thank you, as always, for making Insight one of the top wrestling podcasts on the planet.

It has been such a good week. Such a good week. I saw a lot of you guys in Philly. Saw a lot of you guys walking out around town in Philly, out to eat, just walking into WrestleMania, me in out of WrestleMania. A lot of you were kind enough to stop by our table at RussellCon and just say what's up, chatted a little wrestling, took a photo or two. The cool thing about that

is I always love hearing the interviews, the episodes that people really relate to. Like, there's obviously the big ones, right? Like, I think people relate to John Cena or The Undertaker, Stone called Steve Austin, The Rock. But it's so cool when someone's like, oh, that interview that you did three years ago with so-and-so, that one really spoke to me. Or when that person told this story on that episode, that really meant something to me. So it's just such a cool reminder that while we're putting out two, three episodes a week, that they connect with different people in different ways. So that was just a really cool thing to kind of realize.

Also at Russell Con, I ran into Downstate, the same band who, of course, yes, sings Cody Rhodes, entrance theme, Kingdom. They also sing The Insight with Chris Van Fleet, entrance theme. Van Fleet. So it's great to see Zach Call, the lead singer of Downstate, and just congratulate them on all of the success

that they've been having. I mean, they've been having a lot of success over the last bunch of years, but especially recently. After Cody Rhodes finished the story, won the WWE championship, a night two of WrestleMania, they were the number one rock song

on iTunes. So huge congrats to them and go check out the episode I did with them a little under a year ago. Last summer, Zach was on the show and just talked about the whole process of not just doing Cody's theme song because they also did Dolph Ziegler's, The Miz's, Chelsea Green, Matt Cardona, the list goes on and on and on. So a great episode, go check that one out. If this is your first Ask CVV episode, welcome. Take your coat off. Stay a while. The way this works is you sending your questions using that hashtag Ask CVV on social media, or you send in an email, CVV at chrisfanvelyt.com. And we will get to as many of these as we can.

Tons of topics to cover here, especially in the wild week that we've had with WrestleMania, the fallout from WrestleMania on Monday Night Raw, everything that happened on dynamites. So let's dive into all of this and we will acknowledge, pun intended, the elephant in the room here. This one comes from Brocked on Twitter. Just wanted to know if you were mad about Haman and Roman blowing your question off or did you just brush it off and you were loving the K-Fabe? It was such an interesting and unexpected moment. So just to set it up, the way these press conferences work is, yeah, you raise your hand, but you

you don't know that you're going to get a question until like right before you ask it. And they come over someone, I know the camera wasn't on the people asking the questions this time. Someone kind of comes over and like puts a mic in your face and you ask the questions. So maybe it was like as Roman and Paul were like walking into the room. Someone came over and like you're going to have the first question for them. And I was like, great. And I thought the question that I asked Paul Heyman was a good one.

And I'm actually still curious what the answer is because the bloodline. angle has been going strong for the last four years. And I mean, just when you think it's starting to run out of gas, they find a way to add a new layer to it, like the final boss recently. And look, Paul Heyman is easily in the conversation for one of the best managers in the history of pro wrestling. I loved the baseball analogy that he made, that the bloodline storyline was only in the third inning. So I was genuinely curious, still am, what is. What is he? He said, are we in now? It seems that perhaps after night two, maybe we're in the bottom of the ninth. I don't know. He's a Hall of Famer. So to be part of an exchange in character like that at the

press conference on night one that led to Roman Raines saying what he said, it was fun. It was fun. And for the record, the woman with the glasses that he kicked out wasn't actually a reporter. in addition to the reporters that are in there for the press conference, they also have a lot of fans in there who bought the priority pass ticket packages. I believe that's what it is. And I guess one of the things that that ticket allows you to do is it gives you access to the post event press conferences. So the woman who he told to leave, the one who like, boo, when he said,

acknowledge me. I watched her. She was one row behind me and like a little bit to the left. So like behind me and like two people of the left. she didn't actually leave from what I saw at least. She just kind of stood up, moved over a little bit to the side of the room and that was it. In any case, this was fun. It was memorable when Roman said next question.

You can see that he's trying to not laugh because he says next question. I'm laughing. He's trying not to laugh. It turned into that fun moment, but I look forward to the opportunity when I get the chance to interview Paul Heyman and Roman Raines at some point in the future. Because, you know, this will be, I feel like I'm in a storyline with them now or something. But it was a fun moment, an in-character moment, not unlike some of the moments, some of the exchanges I've had with MJF.

I think people, on top of the interview that I did with him, geez, that was five years ago. On top of that interview I did with him five years ago, right before double or nothing, the very first double or nothing in Las Vegas. I also had some exchanges with him at various press scrums and press conferences. It's always so interesting just seeing how good these people are, like how good they are at knowing their character and being able to like stay in that moment. Also, did you notice that Paul Heyman referred to Byron Saxton as the man? I don't know if you heard the man's question. But then later, he said my name. He didn't just refer to me as that guy or that man.

He used my name to say, to use Chris's baseball reference, you don't get three strikes. So I thought that was a nice little tip of the hat there, maybe in a small little way. But what a fun moment. One of the greatest heel managers of all time saying that kind of stuff. So it was fun. Ashton Michael on Facebook says, best WrestleMania ever? Six title changes.

I think that the conversation of the best anything is always subjective. And of course, we have this very powerful force here. You know, WrestleMania was just five minutes or five days ago. We have a very powerful force here of recency bias. Ask me this question again in like 10 years. And I think that we'd have the more, you know, that's the broader scope to be able to see if this was the best WrestleMania of all time or not.

But it's definitely in the conversation. And I would also like to throw in that WrestleMania 39 was really good. And a lot of people discount WrestleMania 39 because of the last three seconds of the main event match. They really wanted Cody to win last year. But now that we're a year removed from WrestleMania 39, and Cody has finished the story,

I think that 39 actually may like bump up a little bit in some people's minds. I always thought WrestleMania 39 was a fantastic WrestleMania, one of the best in certainly the modern era. But I think that the recency bias there, especially in the days and weeks after WrestleMania 39, people were just so sour about the way that that one ended. So again, I've talked about this many times. bias and nostalgia, but right up against each other, there are two very powerful forces. There may be a point in time when we look back at WrestleMania 40 and say it's one of the best,

say it maybe it is the best ever. It was great. Top to bottom, night one and night two was great. And I know there were a lot of complaints about the crowd wasn't that loud on night one. It was cold in there. It was cold and it was windy. And I think that there's a lot of people that go, That's the Philly crowd. The Philly crowd wasn't loud. The Philly crowd ruined this. You've got to remember that this is an international crowd. This isn't just a Philly crowd.

If there's 72,000 people in there, I would be shocked if half of them live in the state of Pennsylvania. And I'd be shocked if half of those people live in the Philly area. The amount of people that I met last weekend that were from the UK or were from Canada, I had so many fellow Canadians that had driven down from Toronto. I met some people from Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, met a ton of people from Australia. I don't know why people forget that with PLAs in general, but mostly WrestleMania, this is like the trip of a lifetime for a lot of people.

So this isn't just like, oh, yeah, I'll go to WrestleMania because I live in and around Philadelphia. This is like when the tickets go on sale, actually, when it's announced, it's like, we're going. When tickets go on sale, we'll grab them and we will buy the flight and get the hotel and make this a trip. So this wasn't a Philly crowd. This was a wrestling crowd that was very cold. It was cold. And Night 2's crowd was that much better because it felt like it was like maybe it was 10 degrees warmer. I think it was 10 or 12 degrees warmer Fahrenheit. And it just wasn't windy. I was so fortunate to be sitting in the press box. And the way the press box works is there's windows on it. They were like these sliding windows. So you could keep the windows open. You would be

able to hear the crowd. And we also had the actual feed, the live feed. So we were hearing the commentary and watching the same thing that you were watching on Peacock or on WWE Network. But it got so cold like after a few matches that all the windows got closed up. And there was one window that was open in the entire press box. And the press box is very big. And the one window that was open was right in front of us. And I had a winter coat like a like a parka like with a big fur hood. And I was wearing that inside the press box until that window got shut. So that's just to tell you like, yeah, it was, it was cold in there. Even when you were inside, it was cold. So I don't think it was a matter of night two was that much better than night one in terms of the crowd. It's just that and look,

I think that the booking on night two was better. If I, if you had to ask me right now, which night did you like better night one or night two i think we can all agree that night two as a whole i think was better but it was just that much warmer too but you're right ashton six title changes it was exciting and i think if we look back at my picks i nailed almost all of them i was surprised by gunther losing the championship to sammy zane and certainly not to say that he's not deserving of this but i just thought that there was still more story to be told there. I also thought that ending Gunther's title range, the title reign at 666 days, 666 was a choice because that match could have been on night two and it would have been 667 days.

They could have had a rematch on the raw after mania. It could have been 668 days when he lost it. But an interesting choice to go at 6607 days. 666 days that will be in the record books for at the very least the next two years. Football season may be over, but the action on the floor is heating up. Whether it's tournament season or the fight for the playoff home court, there's no shortage of high-stakes basketball moments this time of year. Get out on the excitement with prize picks,

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slash insight. And right now, my listeners get 20% off sitewide, only available at shop, d u.r.com slash insight. This is an awesome deal. Get 20% off right now. when you go to shopdoer.com slash insight. That's shop, d u.r.com slash insight. Ryan McEvitt on Facebook says,

Hey, Chris, I'm still emotionally recovering from WrestleMania 40. Ha ha. That was him. He said, ha, ha. Who do you think will be Cody's first title defense against? Who do you think Cody should defend the belt against first? There's a lot of options now. And I think what's cool about where we're at is there's not

like a clear choice. It's not like, okay, Cody's the champion now. The next title defense is against so-and-so. Obviously, the one that makes the most sense right now storyline-wise is Roman Reigns. They're one and one now in their matches. That's not going to be the next match. But that's the one that it should be against Roman Raines. It should be. If we're going like by storylines, it should be. I think there's something there with Randy Orton, although you've got to figure out they're both huge baby faces right now, so I don't know how that one works. I think you could see, there's got to be something there. If it's not Roman and Cody obviously still has issues with the bloodline, I think you could see something happening with Jimmy. I think solo could be

inserted in there for maybe something at backlash, but there's also a case to be made for Drew. And Drew's a mega heel. There would be a lot, something that would make sense there while Drew's waiting for CM Punk to be cleared to wrestle. Drew and Cody could be a good one. So it'll be interesting to see what happens here. Will it be a backlash? I would think so. Cody's on the poster for backlash. So I would think that Cody's not just going to be a backlash just to be a backlash. That would feel to me like it should be his first title defense. So we'll see. And I've said this many times before, but I love that we're in an era now where we don't really know. All the people that I listed, you could insert them into a storyline right now with Cody Rhodes for the WWE

Championship, and it makes sense. So let's see how this one shakes out. Rodney 0405 on Instagram says, what did you think of the backstage video of Punk and Jack Perry? I just don't see the upside of showing that footage. Both were in the wrong here. And it's not a matter of who was more wrong. Jack Perry was in the wrong. C.M. Punk was in the wrong. The thing is, only one of those two people is still under contract with AEW. And we knew that this footage, when they first started teasing that they were going to play this, was going to be dissected like the Zapruder film. And I thought it was actually pretty funny how many people that were like they're just they're just saying this to pop a rating and they're not actually going to show the footage.

Like it was it was actually funny to me how many people didn't believe AEW when they said, we are going to show you the footage from all out, all in. We're going to show you the footage that happened backstage. It was amazing to me how many people didn't believe them. They're like, oh, this is just a, they're going to like reenact something. No, they showed the actual footage. And it has been dissected like the Zabrude. film. My initial thought when they announced this is, oh, they've got the smoking gun here.

They've got something that is going to turn CM Punk's story on its head and really tell the truth of what happened here. And then they showed the video and it pretty much just shows everything that CM Punk explained. And I know there's a lot of people that have said they did this for views and the ratings were up on dynamite. But I think that it goes deeper than that. I think it was done to prove a point, but I just don't know what the point is here. Like, I don't know where it goes from here.

This could have been a great way to set up a storyline to have Jack Perry return. And it wasn't even that. It was just, this thing was just a self-contained segment. And it wasn't just, just done for views. Because if it was just done for views, they would have put this out on social media. This would be on YouTube right now.

It would have millions of views on YouTube and it's not there. This aired on dynamite and it only aired on dynamite. So I'm still trying to figure out what the point was here. Will we ever get an answer to that? I don't know. I also don't know why are they talking about a guy who doesn't work there anymore. I just think that maybe it would have been left better unsaid. And this is going to be talked about and

watched back for months, maybe even years to come. I'm trying to, looking at the footage, and then also trying to figure out like what, what's, where do we go from here now? So I'm going to be really curious if this gets brought up on rampage or collision or dynamite next week. But it sounds to me, seems to me, like what CM Punk said on MMA,

on the MMA hour with Ariel Hwani is essentially what we saw in that video. Grant A. Bowen sent this in via email. He says, my name is Grant Bowen. I live in Centerville, Michigan. I'm 11. Do you think Mandy Rose will come back to the WWE? And then he put this in all caps. Please put me on the podcast.

I want to impress my friends. Well, there we go, Grant. I hope that your friends are impressed that you are on the podcast right now. Anything could happen in the WWE. we. Mandy Rose was very popular. She still is very popular. I could definitely see her coming back at some point, but she seems really happy doing what she's doing right now. Mandy is fantastic. So is Tino Sabatelli, or Sabby, as we call him. They're both great. And they've got a fantastic podcast that I was a guest on. So go check that out. But I guess never say never. It'd be great to see both of them.

back in WWE at some point. And we got another email here. This one's from Jason Yu who says, Hey, Chris, recently a new fan and I already love the content every week. Two things. I've heard you spoke about naming this new era that we're in. But what about the era that just ended after ruthless aggression? The era from 2009 to 2019, does that just go down as the PG era?

Secondly, since we're all loving this new era so much, and I'm so thankful for this resurgence, not to mention, your podcast dominance. Thank you, sir. What if we call this new era the gratitude era? Maybe I should make a T-shirt that says the gratitude era. So I think technically, if we look at like the breakdown of the eras, the PG era was officially 2008 to 2014. The era that came after that was called the reality era. That is 2014 to 2016. And, after that we got what was called the new era 2016 to 2021. And now we're in, I guess what they're calling like the post-COVID era.

I mean, there was kind of the COVID era slash the post-COVID era and like the TKO era or the Triple H era, the Polovec era. So I like your idea. I'm grateful that wrestling is in the spot that it's in right now. But I don't know. I guess this is technically called the Paul Levec era, but then if Paul's in charge for the next 30 years, do we call this entire era like till 2050, the Paul Levec era? I don't know.

Also, I saw someone mentioned, I think they tweeted to me that it seems like they're kind of getting Cody ready to like be the next guy at some point. Like kind of like how Paul, Paul and Stephanie, Triple H and Steph. are leading the charge now and taking over things. What if in 30 years from now, or 20 years from now, it's Cody and Brandy? Like, who knows? But I will say this. The error that we're in right now is exciting. And it's more exciting now than it has been for a really long time. And I love it. I love that things happen now where like there's like a tease of it at the start of the show and then there's a payoff at the end or there's a tease of it that happens that we get with

long-term storytelling a payoff a few weeks later, a few months later. Triple H has not let us down yet since he's been in charge. He has not let us down yet. And lots of people who lost their first names, Apollo Cruz and Austin Theory. and so many others, they have their names back. They've got their entrances back. In Triple H, we trust. Maybe that should be what we call this era.

Tommy G. He emailed this one in as well. The message or the title was, Question for Ask CVV Show. What are your thoughts on WWE's World Heavyweight Championship belt, not having the word heavyweight on it, and the undisputed WWE Universal Championship belt,

not having the word universal on it, and it not being an undisputed championship. Well, Tommy, those are two great questions there. And I've never noticed that. I will never not notice that now. I'll give you another one here, Tommy. Have you noticed that the intercontinental championship belt has the word heavyweight on it? Interesting, right? And I get that the World Heavyweight Championship is, it's referencing the big gold belt that does, in fact, have the word world heavyweight wrestling champion on it. Those are the words that are on there. I'm actually looking at a a fan do belt right now. It's just behind my computer monitor. But you're right, but I'd never even

noticed. They've been calling this the world heavyweight championship and it's not have the word heavyweight on it. Every time I see Damien Priest coming out with that, I will notice that now. And so will everybody else who's listening to this? And in terms of the universal championship, I thought Cody said that he just wants to call this a WWE championship now. Because it's one belt. It's not the two belts that was for so long titles. Belt holds up your pants. So I think that Universal doesn't need to be on there because this is just, I think,

back to being the WWE championship. Who knows? We'll figure that out. Oh, here's a good one from Sam Whitworth on Twitter. What was the best? Oh, no. What did the rock? give to Cody. Oh, that's a good one. And I think that that harkens back to this question I just asked of

like, we're seeing something at the start that, like the start of a show that leads to something else. Here's what he gave him. He gave him a storyline. He gave him an idea. It planted a seed for when we do see the rock again, whether that's just in time for SummerSlam, whether we don't see him again until Royal Rumble or something, but maybe before WrestleMania. But I don't know, what he physically gave him, obviously something small enough that it could fit in both of their hands. And here's the thing. Maybe the idea that they had this past Monday and what they end up hang it off with down the line end up being two different things. That's kind of the cool thing here. This could be end up being a pivot as well. Maybe they had this idea of like, oh, it's, it's this

thing. Like maybe it's this thing that the rock got from dusty years ago. I'm just spitballing here. this is not actually what I think. But the cool thing is whatever the original idea is or was could change and morph. Because, yeah, there's a match here at some point between the Rock and Cody somewhere down the line. It could be SummerSlam. I think when the Rock was talking to the press conference, he was saying he had an 824 film. 824 films are traditionally done with a smaller budget.

They're traditionally done with a lot less. shooting days versus a big studio movie or like a DC film, for example. So he said he's going away for a little while. But if it's an 824 film and he said he starts shooting, I think it's next week. So he could be done shooting in like a month. So he could be done shooting by like mid to late May, which would give us a lot of time to build up for SummerSlam. So I'm not saying it's going to be Cody and Rocket SummerSlam, but how good would that be?

how good would that be? So I don't know, but I think that the answer here is an idea. A seed has been planted and that's the cool thing about the era we're in right now. We can pontificate and we can speculate wildly about what it is. Paul Schmidt on Facebook says, what do you think is the most important quality that an inspiring creator must have. I think it's patience. You've got to have patience because I think that there's too many people who start a podcast, start a YouTube channel, start posting content on social media. And after two weeks, they're bummed out because they're not famous or they're bummed out because they only gained 12 subscribers or 14 new followers in that time. Patience. It's the long game. I mean, you are listening to episode number

589 of the podcast. And I know there's a lot of people who just started listening in the last few weeks or a few months. It's a long game here. So patience. And it's the idea that you have to enjoy the content that you're making. You have to enjoy every step of the journey. If you're a YouTuber, I would hope that you enjoy shooting the videos and scripting out the videos, editing the videos, figuring out the thumbnails for those videos, uploading those videos, promoting those videos. And if you don't love every single part of that, if it starts to feel like it's a slog, if it starts to feel like, I like everything but this one thing, and you have the ability to hire someone who's maybe a better editor or maybe someone who's better at shooting your videos

or whatever happens to be, if you have the ability to do that, do it. Because otherwise, you're going to lose your passion for it because you might like 75% of it, but you don't like 25% of it. And that 25% is just going to drag you down. So my voice got very deep there. That wasn't the intention. If this is in your headphones right now, I'm sorry for that. But patience, that's the biggest thing. Don't set a one month goal for yourself. Well, set a one month goal for yourself that's maybe achievable, but set goals that are like five years away or 10 years away, like set goals that are so big that they scare you and then start chasing after them, start figuring out a way, reverse engineer a way to get to it. So I think it's patience. And passions,

I think it goes without saying that you shouldn't be creating content that you're not passionate about. But patience. Patience. Oh, how do I pronounce bait, B-E-I-T, be it, hat-tikva. Hatikva? Another creator question here. This is an email we got. I've watched your YouTube videos for years. I'm a fan.

I love how you do your interview style. I wanted to know what your setup is. I mean, like, what kind of camera do you use? What kind of microphone do you use in studio versus on the go? Thank you so much. Great question. I've answered this a bunch of times before, but, Let's refresh it here on Ask CVV number 26.

So the cameras that I'm shooting on now are the Sony A74. They have just, they're tremendous. And the lenses I have on them are officially look here. It's a Tamron. I have two of them. Tamron 2875 is kind of the go-to lens for me. I get that that's a pretty expensive lens. I'm fortunate now that I'm in a position where I've had a YouTube channel for 13 years.

and just recently upgraded my gear to that. But I shot on my iPhone for the first 12 years on my YouTube channel. So if you have an iPhone or just a phone, I would say start there. But if you really do want to step things up, again, the A74, my go-to, love it. Videos look so good. The way that it shoots images, both video and stills, so good. The mic I use is the Sure SM7B. That is the go-to, the gold standard for podcast mics.

But the mic I use on the go is a Sure 58. Let me just look this up here. It's the handheld microphone. So, Sure 58. We got the, yeah, the Sure-Fety-8. The Sure SM-58. It's like $100. It's a great handheld microphone.

those things can, they just take a lickin and keep on ticking. These are the mics that like comedians use. This are the mics that a lot of bands tour with. So if you're looking for a handheld mic, I can't recommend the SM58 enough. But if you're in a studio and you're looking for like the mic that you're going to, I don't mean an actual studio, but like if you're in your home office or the spot where you record videos and you're looking to step things up, the sure SM7B is,

in my opinion, the best dynamic microphone that you can buy. So there you go. I hope that helps you. Jacob Scovone. Oh, is it Scovone or is it Scovone? I'm going to go Scovone. Jacob, sorry if I got that wrong. Jacob on Facebook says, who's your favorite wrestler from ECW? Oh, man, this is like, this is like asking what your, you know, who your favorite child is if you have more than one of them. I love DC. and it aired on the new TNN in Canada. We didn't get it so much later on. We weren't fortunate to have it from the time that it started. I started watching ECW in like 98 or 99.

But RVD, obviously one that definitely sticks out for me. I loved Kid Cash. I loved Kid Cash's athleticism and how he could hit a Hurricane Rana from literally any angle. So good. Mike Awesome is a supremely underrated talent. And I just, they did him so dirty in WCW with the various terrible gimmicks that I'm not even going to go into detail about. But Mike Awesome. So, so good. And then obviously you've got Taz and you've got the Dudley boys and so many other amazing talents. And I think that if it wasn't for ECW pushing the envelope and really pushing pro wrestling forward. I don't know that WCW would have been as good at that time. And I don't know if WWE would have been as good at that time.

And obviously, a lot of great talent got taken from ECW. A lot of them kind of in the early days of ECW and then a lot of them in the final days of ECW. But for me, I wasn't watching when like Christy Erica was there, for example. I was watching in the last two years, call it. But, I just love how everyone had something about them, like all the way down to like Spike Dudley or Balls Mahoney. Like there were so many great characters. Jerry Lynn. So much, Steve Carino.

I'm feeling I'm listing the entire roster here. New Jack. I love how when someone came out and when they did enter with their entrance themes, I love how they were real songs. But when someone came out into the ECW arena, you knew it was going to be different. They didn't have like two characters that were too similar to each other. And that was just a really cool thing about that time in ECW.

And I went to the ECW arena. I went there to see my friend Paul Walter Houser have a match. And he had a match with Sammy Callahan, which was wild. Sandman ended up coming out and hitting Sammy Callahan with a singing port cane, kendo stick, whatever you want to call it. it was cool being part of just history, just being in that building. Take a little sip here of F3 energy. And you know that mural that you see, the ECW mural that has the dates of like when

ECW started and when it finished? No one talks about this, but that mural is in the men's bathroom. And it's not like you enter the men's bathroom and it's right there. It's like if you enter the men's bathroom, turn left to get into the men's bathroom, then turn right, go past all of the urinals, and there it is on the left on the wall. So any of those photos that you've seen, including the one that I posted last weekend, that is in the men's room at the ECW arena, 2300 arena. Trevor Costluck.

I already answered this as the Paul Heyman question. Tom Malloy on Facebook says, did you have a cheese steak while you were in Philly? If so, what was your favorite spot? We had Carmans in the Redding Terminal, and it was fantastic. Pats and Gino's, I think, are the go-to spots for the tourists. I ate both places there. I don't know if I like Pats or Gino's better.

I appreciate the whiz-wit. Do you want to... Whiz-Wit means with cheese whiz and with onions, whiz-wit. But I think Delis-Sondros had probably the best tasting Philly Chees-Sake. There is something that's just so... good about a Philly Cheesesteak. And it's never as good when you're anywhere else. I know there's a lot of foods like that that are specific to a certain area. But if you have a Philly cheese steak, even in New York, which is just a few hours away, it's just never taste the same. So a Philly

cheese steak in Philly, it just can't be beat. Like in the same way that like a New York pizza in New York, and you guys know I love my New York pizza. I've had New York pizza in various other places. all around the country. Even in New Jersey. New York pizza, New York slice in New Jersey, just not the same. There's something about eating that food

that is, like that is known, like that area is known for, eating it in that area. It just can't be beat. And of course, I've been to Philly a bunch of times. I love Philly.

And we have family that lives in Pennsylvania. My wife's family lives in Pennsylvania. So we've been there a bunch of times. I didn't run the Rocky steps this time. I've run the Rocky steps many times before. I've literally run them. Most people just kind of walk up the steps and then get to the top and take the photo.

Oh, no, I ran them. I did some pretty bad shadow boxing when I got to the top. But those are, I think, two things you got to do when you're in Philly. BLW92 underscore 02 on Instagram says, how did you feel when you got to interview Dustin Rhodes? Long time coming. Long time coming. I was supposed to do an interview with Dustin Rhodes.

in Las Vegas right before the first double or nothing. So five years ago, and we've been talking about making this happen for a long time, really grateful that he made the time to do it. And he had a really busy day at RussellCon that day. That was the Friday of RussellCon, the first day of Russell Con. I had a really busy day as well, but he had a busy day with a huge line at Russell Con, a line that didn't stop all day. And I get it. I mean, Dustin Rhodes, Gold Dust. He is a huge, a huge, huge attraction. So I'm grateful that he made the time. And I was coming from something else. I was just wrapping up something else. He had just wrapped up something in the hotel that I was staying in where Russell Con was. So if you stayed at the Sheridan, I didn't see you there. We missed out because

we were like two ships passing in the night because we were both staying at the Sheridan. But he was patient while we set up the gear. And then we did the interview. And I just love the way that his mind works. I love the way that he approaches the business. And he said something really interesting in that interview. He said, everybody back then used to know how to work. And I said, do you mean that not everybody now knows how to work? And he's like, no. And he explained that. And it was just, it was fascinating, just being able to just sit under the learning tree for a little bit. And also great hearing him talk about Cody and the relationship he has with his brother. And you can just see how proud he is of everything that Cody's accomplished. And also really great to think that

Dustin Rose has had this incredible career that's 35 years. He's 35 years into this career. And the work he's done since signing with AEW in 2019 is, I mean, it's some of the best work of his career in the ring. That match that he had with Cody, man, it was not a job. It was not a dry eye in the building at the MGM Grand Garden Arena. And I think that's, that's what wrestling's all about. It's supposed to make you feel something. And I haven't felt anything since that's made like tears well up in my eyes. I haven't felt anything like that since. I've also got a lot of questions from people saying, when is that interview with Dustin Rhodes going to be up on YouTube? And it will be up on Monday. So usually, I haven't said this public.

I haven't like put this out there, but I always put the episodes out on the podcast first. It's just kind of my way to say thank you to you for listening to the podcast because the discovery ability, I guess it's the discoverability. The discoverability of podcasts is, it's tough. On YouTube, if you're watching something that's already in that same type of topic or something that kind of relates to it, the videos pop up. They pop up on the side of suggested videos or they pop up when the video ends or they pop up on your home screen.

Podcasting doesn't really work like that. And the discoverability is it's tough. So I put these episodes up on the podcast just as my way to say, thank you for being a podcast listener because you guys are loyal. I mean, you're here right now listening to just me hanging out with you. And I appreciate that so much. So generally speaking, the audio episodes go up at midnight Pacific. time, which is 3 a.m. East Coast time. And then I put up the YouTube version sometime in the morning

of that same day. Something happened with the Kelly Kelly video. I don't know why, but I got a strike for it. And if you go check out the Kelly Kelly video, it's been taken down by YouTube. And they put me in timeout. YouTube gave me a strike. It is my first strike. And I can't post anything on YouTube for seven days on the main channel. I can post on the clips channel. And I kind of debated here. Like, do I post this interview on the clips channel and like get it up right now? And I thought that doesn't really make sense. People aren't going to the CVV clips channel to watch an hour long interview. So I'll just wait. I'll just wait until Monday when the strike expires and I get out of YouTube jail and I can post this. So that's the reason that this interview is not up

Yeah, it's the reason the interview is not up on YouTube right now. So there you go. Letting you guys in on this. I haven't posted that anywhere. I haven't shared that anywhere. So I'm sharing it with you right now. And I appealed this. I'm not sure what's going to happen with the appealing process.

But it's obviously a mistake that YouTube made. And it's no fault of theirs. That's okay. Like John Cena said, control the controllable. This is totally out of my control. I appealed it. and still waiting for a decision on that. But in the meantime, there's nothing I can do.

So there's no point in being upset about it. Just move on, figure things out. And I think we have 16 interviews recorded and ready to go. So if we're putting out two a week, that means the next eight weeks of content is figured out here. With some other ones sprinkled in. I'm sure we'll do some new ones here and there. but just know that there's a whole bunch here that we'll be seeing over the next little while.

So I will re-upload Kelly Kelly again and hope everything goes well with it. And then you will see the Dustin interview on Monday. Tumbleweed underscore Morris on Instagram says, is there anything you would have changed in the night two main event? No, not at all. And the only reason people are upset that Stone Cole wasn't there is because that was what the expectation was. And the whole idea is like, if you have expectations and they aren't met, that's when you can start to be disappointed. So if your expectation was John Sina and Stone Cold need to be here, well, if one or both of them don't show up, well, now you're going to be disappointed.

So I wouldn't change a damn thing. And I'm sure you've seen the memes that have popped up over the last few days. But Undertaker has been feuding with the bloodline for like the last four decades. like there was a few in the 90s and then the 2000s and then the 2010s and now the 2020s. So it does make sense for the Undertaker to be there. And what we got out of the Undertaker choke slamming the Rock was that fantastic photo of the rock in the air. Nobody supercells like the Rock. Just the faces he makes, like the face he made after Roman speared him by accident.

The face he made when he was up in that choke slam. So good. So good. So no, I would not change anything from the night two main event. And that is going to be a match. And that is going to be a WrestleMania moment that is talked about for years to come, generations to come. There's so many things that happened within that match and around that match. Obviously, one of the biggest being that Roman reigns iconic. title rain came to an end. He kind of passed the torch to Cody Rhodes. I don't think we're going to see Roman for a little while here. He's going to get some time off, which I think as someone who has had the health problems that he's had is probably a good thing. And also, it's going to make it mean so much more when he does come back, whether that's a few months from now or maybe that's not till sometime next year. it's going to be really meaningful when,

out of nowhere, Roman Rain's music hits. Ben, underscore Clark, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven. Excellent username there, Ben. This is actually our last question. So thank you for all of these great questions.

So good to be able to hang out with you guys on Ask CVV number 26. And if you have a question for AskCV number 27, send it in either very, via email CVV at chris fanfleet.com or use that hashtag ask CVV on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, I guess TikTok, whatever it happens to be. But again, thank you guys for being here. You are a real one for hanging out with us. And Ben's question is, what is your biggest accomplishment? Oh, it's that little girl. It's Logan Van Fleet. That is my biggest accomplishment. That will forever be my biggest accomplishment. And if we have any other kids,

they'll get lumped into that same category. I am, I love being a dad. I just, I do. And I think there was a point in my life where in my like late 20s, early 30s, I didn't know if I wanted to be a father because I was just so focused on my career. And I'd moved around a lot. If you don't know my full story in a nutshell, I've worked in radio or TV in Peterborough, Ontario, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, Toronto.

Cleveland, Miami, moved to Cincinnati, moved to L.A., and now we live in Orange County. So I've moved around a lot, chasing the jobs, following the jobs, and chasing the opportunities, really.

And I've been so fortunate over my career to be able to do interviews with some of the biggest stars on the planet, to be able to report from the Oscars and report from the Grammys. to be able to win four Emmy Awards. I've been so, so incredibly blessed and so incredibly lucky. I have had just so many opportunities. And in that, I was so focused on my career and the opportunities for so long that I didn't want to even think about getting married or having a

family until all of the other stuff was figured out until the career was solid. And I had I just always wanted to accomplish more. And they say timing is everything. And perhaps you can relate to this, but I met the absolute perfect person at the right time. And I'm so grateful for my wife, Rachel. And just the relationship we have and the companionship we have and the love that we share that grows every day.

And that through that love and through our relationship, we now have this. this beautiful little girl. She's now 10 and a half months old. It's flying by. So that's my greatest accomplishment for sure. And it will always be that. And since we wrap these up now with three things we're grateful for, they are number one. Rachel, Logan, my parents, my sister, my family. That's, that's number one. So, so grateful for them as my support system. Love them. Love them so, so much. Number two, I'm grateful for you guys. It was so cool to be able to see so many of you in Philadelphia and the weekend before to see so many of you in Indianapolis at Squared Circle Expo. And I will for sure be in Cleveland for summer slam. Probably money in the bank in Toronto. It's still figuring that out. But I will for sure be in Cleveland. We'll be announcing the live episode of Insight and the very special guests that we'll have. I'll be announcing that all soon, but grateful for you guys for being here. I know there's a ton of wrestling podcast that you could be listening to right now, but I appreciate you choosing this

one and continuing to choose this one every single week and every single episode. So thank you for that. And number three, as I look out the window right now here, I'm just grateful for sunshine. Yeah, it's been a beautiful sunny day here. and there's just something about a sunny day. When you look outside and you go outside and you feel that sun in your skin, there's just something about it that makes you feel alive. So it's the little things, right? I don't want to say the same three things every single time we do one of these,

but there's something about that that I love and the fresh air that comes along with that. So there we go. And what are three things that you're grateful for? I hope you're thinking about that. I'll leave you with this quote from Epicurus, which I think speaks to the whole idea of gratitude. Do not spoil what you have by desiring what you have not. Remember that what you have now was once among the things that you only hoped for.

Be great. Be great, my friends. We will see you on the next one for some more insight. Have an amazing weekend. The Hammer Alley podcast, an 80s flashback mockumentary. Back in the 80s, there were a thousand. and 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.