Insight with Chris Van Vliet - AskCVV #83 - Backlash Thoughts & Review, R-Truth vs. John Cena, MITB Bold Picks, Karrion Kross

Episode Date: May 16, 2025

https://cvvtix.com - Get your tickets for INSIGHT LIVE in LA and NYC with VIP Meet & Greet! Welcome to AskCVV #83! On this episode, Chris gives his thought on Backlash and answers questions about John Cena and Randy Orton's final match together, whether or not John Cena will win his 18th Championship, the favorites to win Money In The Bank, the best MITB cash-in of all time, interview preparation, the return of RVV and much more!Quote I'm thinking about: "Perfection doesn’t build you, effort does."Please support our sponsors!   PURE PLANK: The future of core fitness! Use the code CVV to save 10% on Pure Plank designed by Adam Copeland & Christian: https://gopureplank.com/?ref=tibcloux  SEAT GEEK: Use my code for 10% off your next SeatGeek order*: https://seatgeek.onelink.me/RrnK/CVV Sponsored by SeatGeek. *Restrictions apply. Max $20 discount   TIMELINE: Go to https://timeline.com/insightto get 10% off your order of Mitopure!  STASH: Go to https://get.stash.com/INSIGHTto see how you can receive $25 towards your first stock purchase and to view important disclosures   MAGIC SPOON: Get $5 off your next order at https://magicspoon.com/cvv   VUORI: Get 20% off your first purchase! Get yourself some of the most comfortable and versatile clothing on the planet at https://vuori.com/cvv  FABRIC: Join the thousands of parents who trust Fabric to help protect their family. Apply today in just minutes at https://meetfabric.com/CVV   ROCKET MONEY: Join Rocket Money today and experience financial freedom: https://rocketmoney.com/cvv  HUEL: Get 15% off plus a FREE Gift for NEW customers with the code INSIGHT at https://huel.comMIRACLE MADE: Upgrade your sleep with Miracle Made! Go to https://trymiracle.com/CVV and use the code CVV to claim your FREE 3 PIECE TOWEL SET and SAVE over 40% OFF   ZOCDOC: Instantly book a top-rated doctor today at https://zocdoc.com/insight   BONCHARGE: Use the code CVV to save 15% off your infrared sauna blanket at https://boncharge.com/cvv   BLUECHEW: Get your first month of BlueChew for free with the code CVV at https://bluechew.com   PLUNGE: Get $150 off your Plunge with the coupon code CVV150 at https://plunge.com   For more information about Chris and INSIGHT go to: https://podcast.chrisvanvliet.com If you have ever enjoyed any of these episodes, could I ask you to please consider leaving a short review on Apple Podcast 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

Ladies and gentlemen, Chris Van Fleet. Greetings and salutations. Happy Friday, my friends. Welcome back to another audio adventure here on Insight. I'm CVV, Chris Van Fleet. Hope it's been a great week for you. Thank you for joining us on this one. And thank you for making Insight,

the number one wrestling podcast on the planet. Hit a pump handle slam on that follow button. wherever you're listening, Spotify, Apple, wherever it is. I'm sure you're already doing that because you're a real one and we're hanging out together right now on a Friday for an Ask CVV episode. But I just figured I'd check. And if you could, you know, I don't ask for really anything. But a rating on Spotify or a review on Apple, that would help the show far more than I

could ever explain. If you missed it earlier this week, we announced another. live date on the tour. Insight Live is coming to Los Angeles the day before Money in the Bank. So this is Friday, June 6th. The guest announcement will be coming in a few weeks. But if you've seen the other live guests that we've had, you know, it's going to be good. Grab your tickets now before it sells out at CVVTX.com. That's CVVTIX.com. So I just got back from St. Louis a few days ago. there for backlash. We've recorded an interview with Lyra Valkyria, which you will be seeing in the, actually, you'll be seeing that on Tuesday. I was going to say, you'll be seeing that in the

next few weeks. No, you'll be seeing that in a few days. That is our next episode. That one's happening on Sunday. We got deep on this one. Like, I don't think she's done a long interview like this. Like, I feel like she's in a way, still a little bit like of an enigma. Like, we've obviously seen her work in NXT. She's tremendous in the ring. We've seen everything she's been doing on the main roster. She's the inaugural WWE Women's Intercontinental Champion. For about 24 hours, she was two belts Lyra when she was the tag team champions with Becky Lynch.

She has an amazing story. And I can't wait for you guys to check that one out on Tuesday. But I had a blast in St. Louis. I kind of feel like we've been spoiled with backlash for the last. two years. Like, I thought this backlash was very solid, but I also think that you have to, like, temper your expectations because it's backlash. Like, it's, it's not WrestleMania. It's not the Royal Rumble. It's not even, of course, we can go through the big four, SummerSlam Survivor Series. It's not even like a money in the bank. So I feel like you got to

temper your expectations here. But, man, we got spoiled last year with that insane crowd in Leone, France, the year before that in Puerto Rico. So, like, this crowd, in St. Louis was great by like U.S. standards, but compared to some previous backlash is like, how can you compete? You can't. You can't compete. I put out a poll on social media. I put it out on Instagram and YouTube and also on Twitter. I said, how would you grade this? I do it for every PLE. And the resounding response was a B. And I would agree with that. I think this was a solid B. PLE. And I feel like it's a it's a B level PLE if we're just being honest. It's not a top tier. Not show. It's not one of the big four. But I thought that there was, it was really solid and it sets

us up for some other things coming up after this, especially for, well, Saturday night's main event for sure, but especially for money in the bank. So we'll get into all of that here today because welcome, my friends, welcome to Ask CVV number 83, the Wes Welker, Andre Reid, and my birth year edition. My birthday is on Monday. May 19th, 1983. Don't say that date to Kane. I may or may not be talking to Mayor Jacobs in the next month or so. I've said too much. I've done this too many times where I put it out there. We haven't recorded it yet. And if it doesn't happen, you guys are going to be like, what, oh, what's going on? CVV? You said, you said that interview was going to happen. But May 19th, don't say that date to Kane. And thank you for all the early birthday wishes that I have already

got from you guys. You are far, far too kind. Let's dive into this one. If you have a question for next week, for Ask CVV number 84 and whoever you think we should call it the addition of who wore jersey number 84, send it in. If you're listening on Spotify, leave a comment. I think that's one of the best ways to get in touch. Send it on social media

using the hashtag Ask CVV or shoot me an email CVV at chris vanfleet.com. This one is from Ozzy M96 on Spotify. Hey Chris, big fan of the pod. You're one of the best interviewers that I've been listening to

on a consistent basis. My question is, who do you think will ultimately take the title from Sina before he hangs up his boots at the end of the year. The thing is, I don't know. I've been saying since last year, since John Cena announced that he was going to have this retirement tour,

I've been saying, well, Randy Orton, it's got to be Randy Orton. There's so much history there. But they made it real clear with this match of backlash that this was the last time. And I feel like they did a great job paying tribute to their entire feud and many of the matches that they had before this.

So, look, anything can happen. in wrestling, but I think we got to scratch Randy Orton's name off the list. It doesn't feel like that's going to happen anymore. They wouldn't have made such a big deal about this being the last time if they were just going to turn around in six months and give us something else. So it's not Randy Orden. Although, of course, we all remember Rock versus Sina was once in a lifetime. And then a year later, it happened again. So there is precedent here. But I think that there's, you can make a really strong case for a few people. I think you can make a strong case for it being CM Punk.

There is a ton of history there. That one would make a ton of sense. Cody Rhodes. And I feel like when Cody Rhodes does return, whenever that ends up happening, the dots will be connected a little bit more on that one. And then you could make a case for the rock. I don't think that's going to be it, though.

but I think that the other real possibility is John Cena putting over a younger talent. Someone like a braun breaker, someone like a Gunther, like someone who wasn't around during the main Sina era and someone who he's going to pass the torch to. I don't know. Like I stood on business for so long about it being Randy Orton because of course it makes sense that it would be Randy Orton. But at the same time, of course it made sense that Randy Orton. got this match with John Sina on John Sina's retirement tour in Randy Orton's hometown St. Louis.

So it's likely, very likely, not going to be Randy Orton. So I think it's going to be one of these other ones. But we still get seven months to go. Well, little under seven months. We've got until December. So a lot of things are going to happen between now and then. Miller Times 64 on Spotify. Chris, I was at Backlash.

What an awesome event. Sena and Norton was so much fun and the women's match was stellar. What was your opinion of the show? Love your work. Thanks for being a positive person in wrestling. Much love, Kenny Miller. Well, I don't want to pat myself on the back too much, but I kind of called it last week on Ask CVV number 82.

I said, I'm either going to get four or five of these picks right. And the one that I was kind of iffy on is the one I got wrong, which was the women's intercontinental championship match. The other ones, I nailed them, but I also kind of feel like they were somewhat obvious. Let's go through the match by match. Let's go through the entire card here. The four-way match, what a way to kick off the show that United States Championship on the line. I thought that Jacob, like, showed that he has the ability to really carry this title

and, like, really make it super meaningful. Jacob won, as predicted. L.A. Knight took the pin. Also, as predicted, we said it was either going to be L.A. Knight or it was going to be Damien Priest taking the pin. When Damien and Drew got taken out by that superplex outside of the ring, it was like, okay, kind of see where this thing's going from here. But that was a really fun match and just a great way to kick off the night and kick off the show.

I want to point out, I don't know if it read like this on TV, but every single match, all five of the matches, God of this is awesome chant, which is both awesome because they were some great matches. There were some great moments in those matches. But I also say this all the time. Like, they can't all be awesome. Like, if awesome is like the absolute best echelon,

the thing we are striving for, they can't all be awesome. Like, I feel like when you look at a card that has like five matches on it, maybe one or two deserve that this is awesome. awesome chant, but it is a way to say to the performers like, we appreciate what you're doing. And maybe there needs to be another phrase or another chant. I don't know.

It just seems to me they can't all be awesome. You know, dirty Dom and Penta. I'm still curious about this one. And maybe you guys can help me out. Maybe I'm thinking too logically with this. Really fun match. Love the Latino cheat shirt there. And when I was talking about planting seeds for some things.

to come. There's definitely some dissension happening in Judgment Day. We're going to see Finn and Dom have some issues here. Finn seems to have some real jealousy. And it played out during this match. Not sure how Penta

earned this title shot. Pence has already lost to Dom. He lost to him in the four-way match at WrestleMania. He lost to Dom in a one-on-one match that they also had. So it just, it felt like this match was really hot-shoted. And no complaints. I love both of those guys. I'm just talking about this from a sheer logistical

standpoint. What did Pentate do to earn this title shot on a PLE? Well, he beat J.D. McDonough, and that was it. Like, it just kind of felt like, and it wasn't specified. Winner of this match gets a title shot at backlash. It was just, he won the match. And then a few days later, it's like, well, it's going to be Penton versus Dom. So that's the part I'm not really, really wrapping my head around, but, man, Dirty Dom is so freaking entertaining. And it's just a matter of time. He's going to be a world champion at some point in time, but we are getting such amazing character work out of him.

Like, he has dialed in exactly what this character does, what this character is all about, and it's been so much fun watching this all unfold. Becky versus Lyra, I was genuinely surprised at this outcome. I thought for two reasons. One, I thought Becky was going to win this match. Or I thought that if Becky doesn't win this match, it's going to have something to do with Bailey running in and either causing a distraction or actually like hitting Becky and like what the refs, the ref turned away and not seeing it.

That's what I thought would happen. And when it's funny, when I interviewed Lyra on Friday, we did the intent. entire interview, she had the intercontinental championship on her shoulder. And I was like, well, I don't know. I don't know what's going to happen at backlash. Like by the time this interview comes out a week later, is she still going to have that championship? Or is this going to be like, it's going to be reminiscent of that moment when she was the champion? But Lyra surprised me. I think she surprised a lot of people. She is really finding out who she is. And we saw. And we saw, that with the promos with Becky. Like, I think Michael Cole actually said it right after Lyra's promo

with Becky on the Rob before Backlash. She said, Lyra's really coming out of her shelf. We actually talked about it during this interview. She talked about it. She'd been in this industry for 10 years. And she's really starting to find her footing and see what she's really capable of here. And I love to see that. So where does it go from here? Do we see Lyra, versus Becky again? Is it, is Becky moving on to something with Bailey?

Like, when are we going to see Bailey again? There's obviously some things there that need to be figured out. I just, I question where it goes from here with Lyra, but I enjoyed that match a lot.

That takes us to Pat versus Gunther. Pat McAfee versus, say, I did it again. Gunther, I got to figure out, I can't switch between the two. They do that on,

they do that on commentary all the time. Like one commentator, we'll call him Goonther. One commentator, we'll call him Gunther. I'll just call him Gunther for the remainder of this episode, if that's okay with you. I thought this was a match that really over-delivered, like super competitive match. I think that on paper, when this was first announced, people just thought this was going to just be a beat down. Like it was going to be Goonther going in there and just completely beating down Pat McAfee. But Pat actually got some offense in there. But he did a really good job in this match of making Gunther, I did it again,

Gunther look like an absolute monster heel, just bullying Pat around, kicking out of what was Pat's finisher, the, like the punt, but not the punt like Randy does, like the punt like he's kicking a football up, kicked out of that at like one, like, oh, that's all you got. Not even Michael Cole helping on the outside and holding down Gunther's feet, not even that could help Pat McAfee get the win here. But I thought it was, this match was like very entertaining and it showed the kind of athlete that Pat McAfee is. Obviously, we know he's, you know, one of the greatest NFL punters of all time.

Not always does that translate, though, into the wrestling ring. We've seen it translate with the matches that Pat's had previous to this, especially the work, in my opinion that he did with Adam Cole, Bebe, in NXT. But I really enjoyed this. If we're putting on the wrestling logic hat again and forgive me if I'm being too silly by thinking about things in a logistical way, but why didn't Wade Barrett jump in? Like, I get that Wade Barrett plays the heel commentator, but like, that's his commentary partner.

And also, like, when Michael Cole, that was the part I really, didn't understand. When Michael Cole starts to get manhandled by Goonther, how was Wade Barrett able to just stand there on the side and just continue to call the action? That part didn't add up for me. Didn't take anything away from the match, but that part I was just like, well, what are we doing here? And I guess, again, if we're keeping the logic hat on, maybe we couldn't have zero commentators because all three of them would have been at the ring at that point. But I don't think this is the last that we've seen of Pat McAfee in the ring. He brings it. Every single time he's in there, you can just tell that he just oozes passion for pro wrestling. And that brings us to the main event,

John Sina versus Randy Orton won last time. And in John Sina's promo on Smackdown, the day before backlash, he said something that was really interesting. Maybe you didn't pick up on this, but it really hit home for me. He said that for the last 20 years, you were either, you were either, either a John Cena guy or you were a Randy Orton guy. I'm paraphrasing here, but it's true. Like, those were the two biggest, most, biggest names that were the most consistent, right? They were always there. They've always been there.

If we're talking like mid-2000s to mid-2010s. And it kind of reminded me of the whole conversation with the 90s. You're either a Sean Michaels guy or you're a Bradhart guy. And I think that this match here was exactly what it needed to be. And it was John Cena continuing to work as a heel. Randy Orton couldn't have been more of a baby face in this match being in his hometown of St. Louis. And so interesting seeing this flipped on its head. We're so used to being the opposite.

We're so used to John Cena being the baby face and Randy Orton working as a heel in the match. But you'd have to think, you'd have to think John Cena was hyper aware. of what people thought of that WrestleMania 41 match against Cody. So you'd have to think going into this, all right, we had a plan for that match. It seemingly didn't work. Like obviously, John Cena got the job done. But the fan reaction pretty much across the board has been not good towards that match. So John Cena would have to go into this match being hyper aware of that.

All right. Now we've got to over deliver. we've got a we've got a at the very least meet the expectations the crowd has if not exceed them and I think that that's exactly what this match did seen working as a heel is very interesting because I think we're used to some of the flashier stuff that he does and when he slows it really slows it down and when he starts to work as a heel I don't think people are used to seeing that and I see the criticism online of like well if John Cena says he's going to ruin wrestling and then he goes out and has boring matches.

Well, man, that just doesn't add up for me. That's taken the easy way out. So, like, I think that there's a fine line that he has to walk right now with, depends on what your definition of ruining wrestling is. Ruining wrestling could just be your childhood hero is doing some nefarious things now. He's cheating to win. How could he do that? John Seen also said he's going to ruin your childhood.

He said that in the promo on Smackdown. So, like, yeah, that's one version of ruining wrestling. Another version of ruining wrestling is taking all the pizzazz and all the flare and all the excitement out of it and just having like a kind of a boring match, like two ref bumps in this match. I think after the first one, you're like, all right, well, I see where this is going. And I think we all kind of went into this match going, John Cena's going to retain the title. There's really is no question about that.

We were talking last week of, does he? purposely get disqualified, does he get himself counted out? We did see him trying to get himself counted out. Randy Orton said, I don't think so, brought him back into the ring. But instead, it took two ref bumps, the extra table. When the announced table didn't break, I definitely feel like there was a moment where Randy Orton and John Cena were like, well, that sucked. You even saw even see Randy Orton like kicking the announced table. Like, oh, come on. It wasn't supposed to break like that. So then he went to search for more tables. They weren't under one side of the ring, went around to the other side.

Oh, there's a table. Like that, to me, felt like an audible. That to me felt like we were going to have a broken table in this match. So we are going to have it right now. By hook or by crook, we're going to make this thing happen. I love the moment where everybody got an RKO. All the producers ran out and then RKO, RKO, RKO, then our truth runs out. Randy Orton's like, what are you doing here?

RKO. And we'll get to our truth in a minute. But I feel like there were so many details in this match that people missed. Like specific moves, specific reversals that were callbacks to some of Randy Orton and John Cena's legendary matches together. And I just feel like in general, there's going to be a lot of details from this heel run as a whole, then aren't going to be appreciated until it's over. like seen as he'll turn is kind of making a little bit more sense, like him siding with the rock and the Travis Scott stuff has not been explained. And unfortunately, never will be, which is super frustrating.

Like, at least just explain it, even if it's just one sentence in a promo. Explain why Travis Scott was there at Elimination Chamber. We just need an explanation. But the underlying element, if you can just, just for a moment. If for a moment you can pretend like the Travis Scott stuff doesn't matter. Please bear with me on this one.

The underlying element of this heel turn, we sought. We saw it at the end of this match with Randy Orton, St. Louis. John was questioning him himself. He's looking at the championship and he's thinking to himself, was this all worth it?

Because think about this. Before turning heel, John Sina hadn't won a televised singles match since April 28th, sorry, April 27th, 2018. Over seven years ago, he lost to people like Austin Theory and Solo Sacoa. It took him turning heel and seven years to finally get another singles win. That's when he beat Cody for number 17 at WrestleMania 41. And it took him being a cheater. It took him doing it in a way that John Cena would never do.

And I feel like that emotional moment after the match with John Cena staring at the championship tears in his eyes is kind of like, in my opinion, him asking himself, was it worth it? Like, is this the man who I am now? it's almost like a glimmer of what we're going to see from beyond, like from here. Because I don't think John Cena remains a heel for the rest of this year. So yeah, it's this idea. He hasn't won since 2018 without cheating, without outside interference. And I'm sure we're not going to see John Cena retiring as a heel, but I just wonder where it goes from here. He said something very telling in our interview from last year.

So that was February of last year. And we were talking about his heel run. And I'm sure you've heard the clip or maybe you've seen the clip. But there's a part in that answer that I don't think people are focusing on. I tweeted it out this week, but it was really telling me. It was very interesting. So he's talking about what his heel turn would have looked like in 2012. Had he turned heel like they originally planned before Roxena won.

And he said, quote, Take a really good, good guy and have them lose their way. It's Darth Vader. It's Star Wars. You want to root for him. Don't give up on that guy. You know there's good in him. And I know he was talking about a version of John Cena from 13 years ago,

but I would be completely shocked if he doesn't turn face again before the end of the year. The big question, of course, is how and also when. but there's something there. Like the heel turn was like the fans, we've already said it in all of the problem. I'm just, there was this pent up anger for all of these years of like doing the right thing,

doing the right thing and still getting booed. Taking it with a grain of salt anyway, gritting your teeth and still doing the right thing and getting booed. And then continuing to work through that and still doing the right thing, always showing up, always being there,

always being the guy, can rely on continuing to be that good guy and the fans still boot him. That is what this heel turn is all about. It just sucks that we have to pretend like the elimination chamber stuff, the Travis Scott stuff, at least to right now, doesn't really exist. I've seen the rumors. Maybe you have to. There's rumors that Travis Scott's going to be involved in some sort of tag team match at SummerSlam. Hopefully, if, that does happen. We get some answers. We get an explanation as to why Travis Scott is suddenly a heel. I thought he was coming out with Jay Uso and yeeding all over the place and also smoking weed

in the Intuit Dome for the Netflix premiere. But like we, there's no explanations there. And it's just it's insulting to our intelligence that it hasn't even been addressed. But Travis Scott has been training at Bookerty's reality of wrestling. He has taken this very seriously from what I understand. I hope we get some answers there. I just think that with this whole thing here, with the John Sina thing, it might be hard to see the vision here till we zoom out a little bit. Like we are in it right now. We are in it week to week, promo to promo, PLE to PLE with John Sina.

But do you remember, let me take you back two years ago, do you remember when Cody went into that match, WrestleMania 39 against Roman Raines, and everybody, including myself, assumed, Oh, yeah, Cody Rose is going to win this. And he didn't. And then his next PLE, he had a match with Brock Lesnar at night of champions. And he lost that too. And there was this huge outrage of like, well, what are you doing to this guy? How weak are you going to make him look?

He already lost to Roman Reins. That didn't make any sense. That was a stupid way to end WrestleMania 39. And now he's losing again. This doesn't make any sense. But if we just zoomed out just a little bit. it all started to make sense. Like he didn't get a meaningful win.

He beat Dominic Mysterio at Money in the Bank, we're still talking about two years ago. But it wasn't until he beat Brock at SummerSlam in August of that year that it was like, okay, Cody Rhodes is back on track here. But there was some time there when like a lot of fans were questioning, what the heck is this?

My point is, nobody's talking about that because we had a beautiful moment at WrestleMania at 40 when Cody finished the story. People don't remember those details along the way, even though they were freaking out about it about it right after WrestleMania at 39.

All of that just ends up being water under the bridge because the story ended up having this great ending. Quite literally finished the story. I have faith that that'll happen with this John Cena thing. And we're just going beat to beat right now and seeing where this thing's going to go. I'm really curious. And I love that there's so many questions about all of this. who's John Cena's final opponent going to be? Does he win the title again? Does he, like there's so many

questions. We've got quite a few of them on this episode, but I think that that's what's so interesting about this era now. It's not predictable at all. Sean the Good on Instagram says, for Ask CDV number 83, after what we saw at the post show with John Cena and Our Truth, do you think we see John Cena in his last match versus Our Truth with the title on the line? No. I don't think we see that at all. What I think we will see is we will see John Sina versus our truth at Saturday night's main event next Saturday. And I think there's a, there's already been a precedent set for this. Like Randy Orton takes out John Sina and the raw after WrestleMania a few weeks later, backlash. I don't think that we're getting John Sina

beating up our truth just to have this be a many, many months long feud. This is going to be something that is going to happen at Saturday night's main event. I think you can pretty much bet on that one. I will say that none of us in the press conference knew how to react to what was happening. So I was in the press conference, Triple H. Well, first of all, Jacob Fattu came out, did his thing. Then they had Dominic Mysterio interviewed in a completely different part of the arena. Then Triple H comes in like he always does. He goes over the numbers, talks about all the matches, starts taking questions from the reporters. And then out of nowhere, John Sina walks in, who is no one told us about that. And then we're like, oh, John Sina's going to just interrupt this.

Triple H did a really good job of selling it too. He's like, oh, I didn't know you were going to be here. Oh, yeah, all right. Well, there we go, John Sina, ladies and gentlemen. And then Sina starts answering questions. Our truth comes in. And it's funny because when Sina sat down and watch it back, or maybe you noticed it when you were watching the press conference, Sina moved the table just a little bit away from the edge, just a little bit.

And I thought, oh, John Sina being such a heel, he doesn't want to sit that close to the reporters. What a guy. It made sense a few minutes later that he was moving the table away so that our truth could land more safely. but that just kind of happened out of nowhere that we'd never seen a moment like that where someone had been slammed through a table at a WWE press conference. It's like, oh, my goodness, okay.

And then we were told like, okay, everybody's got to go now. Our truth was just like laying behind us in the middle of his broken table. And they're like, okay, everybody at the room. Like, all right. Well, I hope he's, okay. There were some cool moments during that exchange, though, like John Sina calling him Ron. Oh, Ron. Oh, yeah. And then afterwards, after he does the attitude adjustment through the table, I don't think the cameras picked up, or the mic picked up on it on the feed, but you could hear it

in the video that I posted. John Sina looks at everybody and goes, no more questions and then walks off. It's like, oh. There's details. It's a lot of details. But no, I think that this is. Saturday night's main event, and that's what we're going to see. That matches, or that cards already starting to get stacked. That means both the world title and the WWE championship are going to be on the line because they just announced it's going to be Jay Uso defending against Logan Paul. So if you didn't already see this from the previous Saturday nights main events, like they're having big matches.

They're having big marquee matches on these shows. My only question here. And again, maybe I'm being too logic. and wrestling, you know, doesn't need to have this much logic in it. But our truth helped Sina win that match. Like, John Sita was about to get punted in the head, and it was our truth that came out and stopped him. How could John Sina possibly repay our truth like that?

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That's timeline.com slash insight. The John Cena retirement tour is in full effect. We know he's going to be at Saturday night's main event. We know he's going to be at Money in the Bank. And a whole bunch of other dates have been announced, which is why I want to give a huge shout out to today's sponsor, Seekheek. With over 28 million downloads, Seekek is the number one rated ticketing app. There are more than 70,000 events listed on Seat Geek, including concerts, sports, festivals, and more.

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set of tickets at Seatkeep. That's 10% off any tickets with the promo code CVV. So make sure to click the link in the show notes to download the app and then have that code automatically be applied to your account so you can use it later. Big shout out to Seatkeek for sponsoring this episode. Terry Morgan on X, happy early birthday CVV. Do you think John Sina wins Number 18. My simple answer, Terry is no. I see a lot of fantasy booking scenarios where it could happen. I've seen a lot of people talking about.

John Cena is going to enter the money in the bank so that he can get the briefcase and he can ruin wrestling by making sure that nobody cashes in on him. I think it's great stuff to fantasy book about. I can't see that happening. John Cena, as we sit here right now, has 24 appearances left. A lot of those are obviously going to be promos, setting up his matches. But I feel like as long as he stays healthy, he's going to wrestle at every PLE, and he's going to wrestle at every Saturday night's main event.

And I think that's kind of the expectation now. When you buy a ticket for a PLE, you're assuming that John Cena is going to be on the card. So that gives us, if we look at the calendar here, seven, maybe eight more matches, unless he starts having one-off matches on Raw or Smackdown or maybe even a fun one on a live event. So let's look. Cina is confirmed next Saturday in Tampa for Saturday night's main event. I'm almost positive. It's going to be John Cena versus Artruth.

He is confirmed for Money in the Bank on June 7th in Los Angeles. That's two. He's not confirmed yet for SummerSlam, but I can't see any situation where he's not on one of the two nights at SummerSlam in New Jersey. He is confirmed for Clash in Paris on September 1st. He is confirmed for Crown Jewel in Perth, Australia on October 11th. He is, and that's it. Those are, that's it for his confirmed date. So those are just, those are just five that we've brainstormed here, that we've spitballed

out here. Survivor series, I would imagine he's there. And then that takes us into December. And his final date hasn't officially been announced by WWE yet, but it has been heavily rumored that it's going to be at the 10th. TD Garden in Boston on Saturday, December 13th. So that's seven. That is that seven PLEs slash Saturday nights made events.

Maybe you slide in another match here or there, but that's seven or eight more matches. That's it. So seven or eight more opponents, max. Maybe he has some rematches. maybe he has some feuds that lasts for one or two PLEs. That brings us down from seven or eight opponents to five or six opponents possibly. So it's going to be really, really interesting. I just don't think that he loses the title, somehow gets into a situation where he can win it again to then lose it again.

Because I don't think that John Cena retires as a champion. I understand that you could put a nice little fantasy booking situation out there of like, well, if you really wanted to ruin wrestling, he could retire as the champion to make sure that nobody could beat him for it. Yeah, sure, I guess. That's one way of looking at it. But again, I think the idea of ruining wrestling means a very different thing to every single person. Like, that's what I think is so brilliant about this idea of like, I'm going to ruin wrestling. What does that mean? What does it mean? It's supposed to be open-ended, I think. It's supposed to be, like, it's up to you. You decide.

Leave it up to your interpretation. Henry Morales emailed this one in. Hey, Chris, first I want to say, I appreciate your positivity a lot. It's really helped me to become a more positive person myself. That's great. My question to you is, do you see John Cena going for the I.C. title at any point during these final months? Maybe.

Like, it's possible, but I think it's highly unlikely, especially with what we just spelled out here. Seven, maybe eight more matches total. Sure, there could be some surprises, but as of right now, John Cena hasn't wrestled in Raw and hasn't wrestled on Smackdown. Sure, that could change. Of course that could change. But if we're going with the way that it's been for these last five months, it doesn't seem likely. I think his focus is going to be on the World Championship or the WWE Championship, whatever you want to call it, that's where the focus is going to be. I think it'd be a great thing for the fans, for John Seen to be a Grand Slam champion, but no one is going to look at John Cena's legacy or John Cena's resume 10, 20, 30 years

and go, man, he was a really great wrestler, but he didn't win the Intercontinental Championship. What? Are you insane? Adam John Keats on Facebook says, hey, CVV, keep up the great work. Real, real one here. Well, thank you for being a real, real one. Adam, John Keats, A.J.K. Who's your early pick for money in the bank? I think the dark horse here is carrying Cross. He is catching lightning in a bottle and taking off behind the scenes with fan engagement. Hello, number one merch seller. It's true. Carrying Cross was the number one merch seller at some point last week. Cross is a master manipulator and the stories he could tell with the briefcase would be incredible. I agree. I would love, love to see Carrying Cross be missed.

your money in the bank. There's a lot of just amazing stories that he could tell there. What Carrion's doing right now reminds me of what L.A. Knight was doing when he was really catching fire with just like going out there, just being consistent, like putting out his best work and the fans, like you couldn't ignore it. You couldn't ignore it. And that promo that Caring Cut on the Raw Recap show, Megan Morant and Sam Roberts, it was very obvious. There was some frustration there like yeah sure that's a lot of things that carrying cross would say but there were also a lot of things in that promo that kevin the man would also say and think like there were a lot of elements of that that were reminiscent of c m punk's infamous pipe bomb and you're playing with fire i think when you do

things like that because sure you're saying all the things you're airing your dirty laundry you're you're getting things off your chest and and you can do it under the guise of like well my characters really angry. But I think there's also the possibility of, man, what if you pissed the wrong people off? What happens from there? But that hasn't been the case. It seems like they're okay with Carrion taking the ball and running with it. And I love that. So I would love to see Carrion Cross win. But look, it's really early right now to make money in the bank predictions. We don't even know who's going to be in the match. But I think that some of the names that we've got to consider here are braun breaker. I mean, we know he's going to be a future

champion at some point in time. It's just a matter of when him holding money in the bank would make a ton of sense, especially when he's aligned with Paul Heyman and Seth Rollins. If he cashes in and he's got those two guys in his corner, yeah, pretty much a done deal. One, two, three, new champ. but I think you've also got some really interesting stories with CM Punk. If CM Punk becomes Mr. Money in the Bank, that's constantly looming, constantly in John Cena's mind, everything that he does, whether it's a promo, whether it's a match against somebody else, it's always in the back of his mind. That could be interesting.

Logan Paul. And obviously, WWE's giving him a world title shot at Saturday. night's main event. Logan Paul, just holding that as a heel. People already don't like Logan Paul. The heel heap that he would have, if he's cashing in on a defenseless champion, I think could really take that to another level. I'm going to throw a wild card in here as well. Cody Rhodes. We haven't heard from Cody Rhodes since he lost the championship at WrestleMania. When are we going to see him again. I would imagine we either see him around money in the bank or if not we see him at Somerslain. But Cody Rhodes entering that match and then Cody kind of having that that bullet in the

chamber and going, look, anytime, you know that I've got this here. So that could be another interesting one. And I just think with the Cody conversation, that's going to all come down to when. When does he return? Because Cody, Cody plays a big factor in just the landscape of WWE as a whole. But I think that Cody's going to play a big factor in what the rest of the John Cena retirement tour looks like, too. On the women's side, let's look at some people who aren't champions right now. Charlotte Flair, Becky Lynch, Naomi. I think that those three, I think would be heavy favorites,

Again, we don't know who's even in this match. That'll all kind of fall into place over the next few weeks. But I think that you could definitely make a strong case for any of them. A.J. Barnes on Instagram, A.J. A. M.J. M.S. Hey, Chris, just wanted to ask, what is your favorite money in the bank cash in of all time? And I love that since we're talking about money in the bank, I've got to talk about my favorite money in the bank cash in of all time. I think I've answered this like a long time ago, but it's Dolph Ziegler.

Dolf Ziegler, cashing in that money in the bank. The night after WrestleMania 2013, it was just a culmination of just like a beautiful moment. And I remember this. I remember it distinctly. I was at WrestleMania the night before in New York. in New Jersey, okay, I get it. People always do that. It wasn't in New York.

Well, W.W.E said it was in New York, but I get it. I get it. It's in New Jersey. Of course, my wife is from New Jersey. She would be very upset if I was saying the Meadowlands was in New York. I was there the night before. Then the next day I went back and I was back at work that Monday. And I was working the evening shift.

And I remember sitting at my desk and I was working as an entertainment reporter for the CBS affiliate in Cleveland. So I'm sitting at my desk. I've got the TV on. It's on mute. I'm getting ready to go on to the set. And I've got, I don't know, whatever it is, five, ten minutes. And I'm watching, Raws on, but it's muted.

And I see what's going on with Alberto Del Rio. And he's staying down in the corner just a little longer. And the camera is like lingering on him. And I'm like, oh, my gosh. Oh, my gosh, it's about to happen. And I, like, unmuted it. And I turned the volume up. And I'm just sitting in nowhere.

I'm here to show the world. Oh, here it is. And the pop was huge. You already know the Rafter WrestleMania crowd is already like so hot. That pop was just massive. And I think the thing that might be lost now 12 years later when we talk about the Dolph Ziegler Cashin is like a lot of people focus on like the fact that, you know, Dolph Ziegler never got a fair shake.

Even Dolph said this when I've interviewed him many times, Nick. He's even said like, there's a moment. in that match were like, ah, man, it looks like Dolf's going to get Dolfed one more time because there were so many situations where Dolf Ziegler was put into them where it's like, clearly he should win, and then he doesn't. And Dolf just goes out there and makes his opponent look like a million bucks. And there's a moment in the match where he almost gets Dolfed and like he almost loses the match. And I think that that's what a lot of people focus on. I get that. But it was the fact for me that he had this briefcase for 267 days. He wanted it, Money in the Bank, July 15th, 2012.

He held on to it all the way until April 8th, 2013. And that was the thing that really got it for me. It was like he's always had the briefcase. And there just hadn't been the moment for him to cash in. and then he picked his spot, he cashed in. The ovation when his music hit was huge and then the pop that he got after he won was amazing. And then you just see the look on his face when he's holding up the championship. It's just like, yeah, yeah, I did it. Like it's, there was just, like, pure emotion there. Of course, a very close second is the heist of the century.

I love that moment as well. I love that it was, had never been done before where they turned a WrestleMania main event into a three-way match just out of nowhere. I love it. And it was just such a complete surprise. I was also there for that one as well. But the Dolph Ziegler one to me was just like everything that a money in the bank cash in should be. And there have been some good ones.

There have also been some not so good ones. And on this same note, I feel like with Drew McIntyre winning money in the bank last year, cashing in like an hour. or later unsuccessfully, which helped his feud with CM Punk, but didn't help the money in the bank situation at all. I feel like whoever wins it this year holds on to it. We're not going to see this immediate cash in this year. That's just a gut feeling, but that's what I think about it. Prize picks is the best place to get real money sports action. With over 10 million members and billions of dollars in awarded winnings, prize picks has made daily fantasy sports accessible to all.

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Yes, use that code Insight to get $50 instantly. after you play your first $5 lineup. Prize picks, run your game. All right, this is an email from Abram Velasquez, and it is the return of my beautiful, incredible, amazing wife, Rachel Van Fleet, better known, of course, as RVV. Hi, honey. Hello, thanks for having me back.

The people missed you. The people missed you. We need to have you on more often, but, you know, The kids. It's very busy. I've missed the people. Yeah. Well, you're back. You're back. All right. So we've got a question here directly for you, honey. Real, real one here. I have a question for you. And the great and powerful RVV. Wow,

great and powerful. Makes me feel good. It should. I seem to remember Rachel saying that she didn't know much about wrestling. What did you think when Chris told you about his love for pro wrestling and how much of his career is focused on it? And Chris, were you worried about what people, what she would think, given that there's a stigma that some people have about pro wrestling? Chris, I love the show and I always stick around until the end to hear what quote you finish with. And that is one of my favorite parts.

Keep up the amazing work. Best wishes to you and your beautiful family. So what do you think? I feel like we might have touched on this story before, but I'm not, I'm not sure. I know, obviously, I've told you this story before. but after our first date, which went very well, okay, let me back up. I mean, it went well enough that we're here now, married with two kids. Yes.

Prior to our first date and even after our first date, I didn't know anything about this pro wrestling passion. And after our first date went really well, I told my mom about him and my mom Googled you before I even Googled you. And she said, well, I hope you like pro wrestling. and I said, what does that have to do with anything? And she was like, I think this guy's involved in that world. And I was like, no, he's not.

And so mom did more research than I did about you. And I didn't actually really know about it until it was too late. But I think maybe, I don't know, three or four dates in, something like that. It wasn't really, it didn't come up, I would say. Like, it wasn't really. Yeah, I didn't lead with it. It wasn't like the first date and I'm like, oh my gosh, how good was Brock Lanzer versus the Rock at SummerSlam 2002?

I mean, it was a really good match, but it's not like I was leading with that. None of my photos, and we've said this many times, we met on Hinge, a dating app. None of my photos were like me doing anything wrestling related. Not that I was trying to hide it. It's just like I had different photos. Yeah. And then as I did find out more and more how much you were into it, though, I'd, I'd, didn't really have any stigma in my mind. I thought it was a pretty cool interest in hobby and

passion. I remember asking you, though, just because I was naive to the wrestling world, it is fake, right? How dare you say the F word? How dare you? My own wife. But then he took me to my first show, and I, that's when I said this before, too, that's when everything changed with how Ivy Wrestling because I was like, these people are so talented. They're true athletes, really. It was just blew my mind what everything that goes into it. And it changes when you go because you see the crowd involvement and you see like it's not just the people in the ring that are passionate about it. It's everybody. Everybody in that building is passionate about it. Now we've been to a handful of events. To answer the second question here, was I worried what she would think,

given that there's a stigma some people have about pro wrestling? No, I didn't care. I was going to like it no matter what. I've liked it my entire life. If Rachel wasn't into it and she thought it was silly, okay, that's cool. I mean, I'm sure there's lots of relationships where one partner likes something and the other partner likes something else and they don't, you know, that's not their thing together. Cool. That's fine.

You like your thing. I like my thing. I didn't care. And for the people I have met in life that are like, oh, that's so silly or don't you know it's fake? it's like, yeah, cool. And you've heard me say this a thousand times. Yeah, every movie is also fake.

Every TV show is fake. No one is standing outside of Hamilton on Broadway going, you know, that's not Alexander Hamilton up there. You know, he didn't actually rap, right? Like, it's entertainment. And it just happens to be the form of entertainment that I love. So my love, thank you for loving me, regardless of all of this. Well, and you've turned me into a fan too. So I wouldn't say that I'm at your level by any means,

but I definitely, I enjoy it now. And I get a kick out of when you're conversing with me about something and I know who you're talking about and I have feedback and opinions now or I'll say someone's name and your jaw just hits the floor. Like you'll see someone and you'll be like, oh my gosh, isn't that Booker T? And I'm like, why? You know who Booker T is? You know like it. least 10 wrestlers now. Oh, probably. Maybe 11. Don't make me listen. I'm not good under pressure, though. You know this. I won't. I won't put you on the spot right now. Do you want to stick around for one more? Of course, always. Okay, so this one, I mean, this, this factors you in. So it's

perfect. And if you have a question, my friends, for my beautiful, incredible, wonderful wife, Rachel, send in your ask RVV questions, leave them on Spotify, email them in. It's always so fun. I always learned something every time we do one of these. This is an email from Corey Poitris, who says, I don't know if I'm getting this in on time or if I'm late. Maybe we should have talked about this last week, but it was awesome seeing you at TNA and getting a great reaction last week. How are you feeling getting the reaction that you did? I was totally caught off guard. The reason that Rachel's still around for this is because that was Rachel's first ever TNA show.

It was. It was awesome. Yeah, you've been to A.W. WW, an indie show or two. You'd never been to a teenage show. What'd you think? I thought it was great. It was really well done.

Everything was, it was really fast-paced, too. I liked how quickly everything moved along, and you weren't kind of sitting around, like intermission type style, you know. That crowd was hot, too. We're talking about the show in Irvine, California, which is like 20-ish minutes from where we live. and I TNA got me tickets. I had no idea where we were sitting.

And I went to the box office, you know, gave my ID. And then they handed me over the tickets. And I'm like, oh, row A. That's probably, that's probably pretty good. And we walked down. And sure enough, it was first row and it was ringside. And it's funny. You guys know I've been a TNA fan for a long time.

Like I've been watching TNA for 20 years. I went to my first TNA show in 2007 in Oshawa, Ontario. I remember like when the day the tickets went on sale, like refreshing the page, refreshing, refreshing, we ended up sitting front row, me and two of my friends, Matt Sutton and Greg Cusack. So this was a very full circle moment to 18 years later. I'm sitting in the front row again. And out of nowhere during one of the commercial breaks,

the camera guy just like kind of like came over and he was just like standing there. I'm like, oh, I guess they're like going to do a thing where like I'm on screen. And I'm like, okay, well, what do I do now? I was like, I had like just a few seconds to figure it out. And you're like, I don't want to be part of this at all. And you like backed away. Why didn't you want to be on camera? No, I didn't. I wanted to get behind the scenes footage. And I couldn't do that sitting right next to you. So I scooted it away. So I could film you being filmed, which I, in hindsight, wasn't necessary. No, it made it look like I went to the show by myself. I actually went with not just you. I went with my buddy, Brandon. We met up with Brandon there and his girlfriend. It was a

blast. And it's funny. I did, you know, they were like, we've got Chris Van Fleet in the house. And I was blown away by the reaction that I got. Like I am so extremely grateful that even one person in that building is familiar with any of the episodes that we've done or any of the interviews that we've had. That was so cool. So if you were there, thank you. If you watched it on TV, thank you. Amazing. And I will be a TNA fan forever. I love TNA and we'll be definitely going back to more TNA shows. It's been a, I've been to a handful of it the last few years, like since, since things reopened. But man, I just, every time I'm there, every time I hear the TNA shows, it's been a, it's TNA, TNA, TNA. It just, it's so nostalgic for me and I love it. So more TNA shows for you too, babe.

Sign me up. Okay. Let's go. All right. We got to get two mics. We can talk about it every time. We're standing very close. Well, you're sitting. We're standing very close to each other. And I'm just pivoting the mic. Boo. Between the two of us here and making it work. Okay. Thank you so much for popping in here. It's hanging out. making sure they, you know, we're working around nap times to make all of this happen. I love this season of our life right now. It's amazing. And I love you, babe.

I love you. Oh my gosh. Rachel Van Fleet, ladies and gentlemen. She's the best. Nolan Miller emailed this one in. Hey, CDD, while your pod is the number one wrestling podcast and I love every episode that you share. Do you know if The Undertaker is going to do any more episodes of the Six Feet Under podcast series? he's one of my favorite wrestlers

and I always enjoyed hearing his stories from the road and with other superstars and those from even outside the world of wrestling. Thank you for all of your hard work. Nolan from Indiana. Nolan, I don't know. And I certainly hope this isn't the end of six feet under. I love that podcast.

And it was amazing seeing what they were able to build in such a short period of time. But they haven't put out an episode since March 10th. And the biggest thing in podcasting, whether you're a podcaster or you're looking to get into podcasting, the most important thing is consistency. And they were so consistent for so long, always putting out an episode every single week. But the fact that they haven't, I don't know if this means the show's over or if the show is on

hiatus, but I certainly hope that it's not over. But if you listen back to any of the old episodes, even the one that I was on. And I can't believe there is a world that exists where I was a guest on The Undertaker's podcast. Like what world is that? Like how is that? It's crazy that Mark, still crazy calling the Undertaker Mark, but Mark and his co-host Matt Lida invited me to be a guest on their show. But in so many episodes, he references the fact, Undertaker references the fact that like,

he's just doing this because his buddy. Matt, his co-host and him go way back. He's just doing it because Matt asked him to. And then he even said like, he made references to like, well, you know, we're doing it this week, you know, like, who knows what will happen? Who knows how I'll feel about it next week? So there's a lot that goes into podcasting. And I don't know if, unless you do it, you don't, I don't think you truly appreciate how

much time and effort goes into it. It is not as simple as just hitting record, and that's it. Boom, you got a podcast. There's so much else that goes into it. The writing and the research and the production and the promotion, all of the other things. So I don't know, but I certainly hope that it's not the end. Because like, if you're the undertaker and you host a podcast, who's going to say no to you? Right?

Like, he has the ability to get everybody on the show. because again, who's going to say no? Who's going to say no when the Undertaker calls you up? So I don't know. I hope this isn't the end of it, but I guess we'll see. Phil We met emailed this one. And dear Chris, hey Chris, it's Phil. I've been a longtime supporter and consider myself a real, real one.

I watch every interview you do, no matter who the guest is. And I've even gone back to rewatch older ones because they're that entertaining. As a pro wrestling content creator, myself, you've been a huge inspiration to me in this space. Very cool. I had the chance to meet you at RussellCon during WrestleMania 40 weekend in Philly. It's one of the best moments of my life right up there with seeing Cody Rhodes win the WWE championship. I don't want to take up too much of your time, so I'll get right to the point.

What's one of the boldest yet scariest things you've had to do to get where you are, personally or professionally? I'm a big believer in speaking things into existence, and that mindset has helped me grow into a better person of myself every day. Thank you for the inspiration you share with us, wishing you, RVV, and your two amazing kids, a blessed weekend. By the way, three things I'm grateful for, my family, my faith, and the opportunities that I have been blessed to have sincerely, Phil. Well, thank you, Phil, for all of the very kind words there. I appreciate it. I think the boldest, scariest thing I've done is I moved to an entirely new country for a job, a country where I

knew nobody, had no family members, had no friends in the city that I moved to. And I did it all on the assumption and the hope that there would be more opportunities around the corner for me. That was it. And this was in 2010 when this happened. I moved from my hometown of Toronto. I was hosting a TV show there, had the opportunity to move to Cleveland. and become an entertainment reporter for the CBS station there. And it was a bold move. It took a lot of thought and really put a lot of thought into, like, is this the right move? Like I assumed I'd done a lot of auditions for different shows that I would, if I got the job,

I would have been hosting in New York or in L.A. I just kind of thought that that would be where I would end up moving to. And how crazy is it that all these years later I now live in L.A. But that was another big scary moment too. But I think that was the biggest one. We're like moving to a country where I didn't know anybody with just the hope that there'd be more opportunities. The next one I just alluded to it was when I moved out here while I was living in Miami. I was living in Fort Lauderdale.

I was hosting a TV show in Miami, traveling the world, talking to the biggest. stars on the planet, like interviewing people like The Rock and Kevin Hart and Jack Black and Tom Cruise and Sandra Bullock and Oprah Winfrey, like the list goes on and on and on and on. So incredibly grateful to have all those opportunities. But my YouTube channel was starting to grow at that time. And there was also a lot of points where like I was taking dates off. I was taking vacation days to like film YouTube content. I was, I called it and sick. I was, I was, one point where I called in sick because I didn't have any vacation days left, called in sick to drive to do an interview like many hours away, like drove there and drove back. I was starting

to see the writing on the wall that there were more opportunities for me with YouTube than there was being on TV five days a week. But that was a huge, huge bet on myself was leaving the sure thing, leaving the Monday to Friday job of like, if you tuned in on Channel 7 at 7.30, you're saw me every single week night and you didn't know who I was going to be interviewing that week or what kind of crazy fun adventure I was going to be going on like was I going to be swimming with alligators was it going to be taking batting practice with the Miami Marlins was it going to be learning how to throw a football with the Miami Dolphins like these are all things that I did when I lived there so I just bet on myself and I was like I think that there's something

here with like wrestling was starting to get exciting again for the first. first time in a while. AEW was like injecting this new excitement and this new life into wrestling that had been become stagnant for a little while for being completely honest. And I was just going to ride that wave. So that was it for me. It was just like I couldn't see the entire picture, but I could see the next step. And that was all I needed. I could see the next step. And I ended up moving out. I ended up leaving my TV station in October of 2019. I ended up moving out to LA in the middle, like dead middle of COVID. I moved in July of 2020 with the assumption that like, oh, man, this thing can't last that much longer, right? I don't want to be missing any

opportunities by not being out there. How little did we know, right? At that point in time. But that was it, Phil. It was just like, even if you can't see. the whole picture, but can you see the next step? Okay. Go. Yeah. Go from there. Take another step. Figure it out. Johnny on Spotify says, hey, Chris, big fan of you for about a year now. I was wondering if you could walk us through the entire process on how you set up an interview. Much love and thank you for always being so positive in this space. So I keep a in my notes section. I just, if there's someone that I think I might interview or there's something interesting that I see or like during raw or Smackdown or PLE or Dynamite or if I see a clip online that makes like triggers a question in

my head. I'll just write it in my notes section. So I've already got notes for like people I don't have any scheduled dates with. I've just plenty of notes in my phone. So that's that's where it begins. We just like constantly thinking, oh man, well, if I ever get the opportunity to talk to Sean Michaels, I'm going to ask him about this. Oh man, if I ever get the chance to talk to Kane, well, this is going to be one of those questions. So that's, that's early, early where it begins. When we do finally get something scheduled, what I'll do from there is I will reach out to Alex Hunt. He's the guy who transcribes all the interviews from my website.

So if you go on podcast.chrisfanfleet.com or you just go to chrisfanfleet.com, you'll see he's transcribed all of the most important, interesting moments from the interviews. he also dives deep into the research. So I've got Alex looking at research, trying to figure that out. I start to do some deep research figuring out like, all right, what's a skeleton of their career? Like what's just a framework of their career? Where did they start?

Who'd they get trained by? Where are they born and raised? Where was their first break? Did they go to TNA, then WWE? Did they get released? Like, I just want to see the framework of their career. And then we kind of figure it out from there. I also have Fer Rojas, who's a really good friend of mine from when I was living in Miami.

He's also starting to do some research because I think the idea of like two heads is better than one, three heads is better than two. So like more people that can just give me input. Like maybe Alex saw something in a match from 2016 that he's always wanted to know the answer to. Like I really like just a super deep cut of a moment and like write it down. Put it in the research. I'd love to know more.

And then I have those same moments too. Like, what if there was a thing from like, you know, behind the scenes like web only promo that went up that like no one has talked about or no one's asked them about like that's the type of stuff that I would like just, I'd love to know that it exists. So then we compile all of the research notes together. And then I start to get an idea of like, okay. All right. So these will be some of the. main topics that we'll talk about here. And I'll never forget this piece of advice, a friend of mine, a radio veteran told me when I was first getting into radio, because radio

was my first ever job in broadcasting. He said, know how to get into a segment and know how to get out of it. And meaning like in radio, like, know how you're going to kick off that segment and know how you're going to throw to a commercial break, throw to the next song, whatever it happens to be. The middle part will just kind of figure itself out, which totally makes sense. And I feel same way about interviews. Like, know how you're going to get into it. Like, how are you going to break the ice? What's going to be the first topic that you talk about? Is it going to be like, we just saw you lose this really big match. Let's talk about it. Or is it going to be like, oh my gosh, me and you went to the same college, Lance Storm. We both went to Wilford-Loria

University. Like, what's the thing going to be that's going to kick off the conversation? How are you going to get into it? I think about that a lot. Like, what's going to be the first, thing. And then you know what the last question is going to be. I'm going to ask what are three things they're grateful for. That's the way that we're going to get out of the interview, you know, in terms of the radio talk that we were doing, how you're going to get in and how you're going to get out. I think about that a lot. And then if I'm doing the interview and I'm flying to it, I will listen to a podcast or two or three of that person. It just kind of makes me feel like I'm hanging out with them. It gets me into the mindset of like, what's this person like? Are they

funny? Are they serious? Are there certainly things that if you bring them up, they're going to be pissed off about? If I'm driving into an interview, like some of these ones you've seen, well, you've seen a ton of them, but recently, like interviews with Joe Hendry or Matt Cardona, where we're driving into West Coast Creative Studios, I'll put a podcast on and I'll just listen to it in the car and it's like that person's sitting next to me on my drive over. And then usually right before the interview, I will, on the back of the notes that have been made, I will write in pen. I'll write out the notes that you often see sitting in front of me on the table or if it's an interview where we're on location. The notes are sitting down by my feet, but they're just point form. Like it'll just be like, for example,

it'll be like, WrestleMania 40, Money in the Bank, raw after WrestleMania, like whatever it happens to be, just the corresponding thought to that story or that question that we'll ask. And that's it. And I don't have like an order of questions. I don't have like, all right, this is going to be the first question and this is going to be the second question. And when they're answering that, I'm going to be thinking about this next one. No, I was trying to as much as I possibly can be present in that moment and just be thinking

about like, oh, they said this thing. Oh my gosh. They brought up this. So let's ask a follow up question about that. I'm just trying my best to be present. And if they bring up something that leads me into a question that I thought, oh, man, I was going to ask that towards the end. But they just brought it up right now. Well, here's the perfect opening to ask.

That's kind of a basic idea of how this all comes together. But in no two conversations are the same. No two guests are the same. So it's never the same for any two episodes. But that's kind of, if we're breaking it down, just generally speaking, that that's kind of. kind of it. Peter Lucas on Facebook says, hey, CVV, I saw that you went to a Mayday parade concert the other day, and it made me feel good knowing that you are a fellow pop punk fan. What other pop punk concerts have you been to? Well, yes, I am big time pop punk fan. I love all music,

but pop punk. It was like the soundtrack to my like later teen years and certainly into my college years. So it just takes you back to a place and a time for me. Love it. I've been to a lot of different pop punk shows. So many. Probably too many to list off here. I'm going to definitely forget some big ones. But off the top of my head, newfound glory, some 41, all American rejects, starting

line, yellow card, census fail, hot mulligan, dangerous summer, Hawthorne Heights, We the Kings, Eves 6, taking back Sunday, dashboard, confessional. Panic of the disco saves the day, boys like girls, probably so many others, I'm forgetting. The one I haven't been to yet, and I can't believe it because they are my number one pop punk band is blink. I had tickets. That is a whole other story in itself.

I had tickets. It was one of those deals where like, I think it was the summer. It was the summer after we graduated from high school. So the summer before we went to college. And like the tickets went on sale like, I don't know, that November or something. maybe it was like that January, but like way before, like six months before the concert,

eight months before the concert. And we were like, oh, yeah, we're all going to go. Let's grab tickets. Let's just grab the, at the Moulson amphitheater in Toronto. Just grab lawn seats. You just sit on the lawn. So I'm like, done. So I bought my lawn seats.

And about like a day before or two days before, I found out that none of my friends bought tickets. They said they were going to, but other things came up. They didn't end up going. So I'm like, well, what am I going to do? Like, do I go to a concert by myself? I don't know. And, you know, this is also when you're, like, hard up for cash.

I think those tickets for like $40. So I took the train into Toronto and I stood outside the venue. And I was like, do I go? Do I not go? What do I do? And then a scalper was like, anybody selling tickets? And I was like, actually, I am. How much would you give me for these?

And he's like, I don't know, face value is 40 bucks. I'll give you, I'll give you the 40 bucks. And I'm like, ah, man, could you just, could you make it 45? He's like, dude, I'm giving you your money back. Like, take it or leave it. Do you want the 40 bucks? And I was like, I don't know. Do I want it?

Do I want to go a concert by myself? All right. I took the money and got back on the go train, went back home and never ended up seeing Blink 1 and 82, even though I had tickets to see them. So in hindsight, and of course hindsight is 2020, I'm going, of course I should have seen them at Bolson Amphitheater, especially back then before they broke up. But the good news is the original band is back together.

They're playing shows. That one's definitely going to happen. But yes, I'm a fellow pop punk fan. Love lots of different music. If you look at my playlist right now is a little bit of rock. There's a little bit of hip hop. There's quite a bit of country on there. there's if you've been listening for a while you know i've got a real affinity for pop music so there's

some real poppy songs on there as well but yes i've been to many pop punk concerts and mayday parade at house of blues in anaheim was a blast i actually saw a few of you guys there it was cool to know that we're we're all in this together all right that was our last question for Ask CVV number 83, the Wes Welker, Andre Reid, and my birthday year edition. If you've got a question for next week, leave a comment on Spotify, along with those birthday wishes. Thank you for all the birthday wishes you've been already sending him. Or email your question in, CVV at chris fan of leap.com or sending it on social media using

the hashtag Ask CVV. Can you believe we had the return of RVV this week? if schedules will allow it. And what I really mean is if our children's nap schedules will allow for it, it would be great to have RVV back on more often. She is just the best, the best. Thank you for joining us on this one. We'll wrap this up with a quote,

not attributed to anybody in particular, but it was a quote I saw on a YouTube video. I just thought it was so perfect. So many people are scared to even put any sort of effort in because they might fail. And they're just, they're so scared of failure that they don't even take the first step.

And this quote, I just thing nailed it so perfectly. Perfection doesn't build you. Effort does. So good. Be great and be grateful, my friends. Have an amazing weekend.

We'll see you on the next one for some more insight. We've got Lyra, Valkyria, joining us on Tuesday and then Mr. Kennedy. Kennedy on Thursday. It's a fantastic conversation. And the next time that I see you guys,

I will be one year older. Amazing. We'll see you on the next 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.

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.