Insight with Chris Van Vliet - BONUS: CVV Interviewed About Dream Guests, Stone Cold Interview, Viral Moments, AJ Styles' Retirement & More

Episode Date: February 14, 2026

Welcome to a special bonus episode! Chris Van Vliet was recently a guest on "The Joe Vulpis Podcast" where he gave his thoughts about the Royal Rumble and talked about recent interviews with John Cena, when Stone Cold Steve Austin pranked him, dream guests, Mount Rushmore of the best bodies in pro wrestling, AJ Styles' retirement, the most viral moments on "Insight with CVV" and much more. Subscribe to "The Joe Vulpis Podcast" here: https://www.youtube.com/@thejoevulpispodcast Please support our sponsors: HELIX SLEEP: Flash sale! Go to https://helixsleep.com/cvv for 27% off sitewide! BEAM: Go to https://shopbeam.com/INSIGHT and use code INSIGHT for up to 40% off Beam’s Dream Powder DELETEME: Use the code INSIGHT to get 20% off your DeleteMe plan at https://joindeleteme.com/INSIGHT  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/cvv 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 NORDVPN: Exclusive deal! https://nordvpn.com/cvv Try it risk-free now with a 30-day money-back guarantee! PRIZEPICKS: Download the PrizePicks app today and use code INSIGHT to get $50 bonus credit in lineups after you play your first $5 lineup!For more information about Chris and INSIGHT go to: https://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

Chris How are you, my friend? Welcome back to another one here on Insight. I'm CVV. Chris Van Fleet. Thank you for hit and play on this bonus episode.

And as always, thank you for making Insight the number one wrestling podcast on the planet. I'm honored that you would spend a little bit of your day hanging out with me on this one.

I was recently a guest on my friend Joe Volpice's podcast, which is appropriate titled the Joe Volpice podcast. We recorded this a day after the Royal Rumble, so at the start of this, you're going to hear some very fresh thoughts about the Rumble as a whole. Just keep in mind, this was 24 hours after the Rumble. We didn't have all of the answers then that we have now. We still don't have all of the answers, but we talk about the storylines that could lead into WrestleMania 42. We also talk about some of the big guests that we've had on Insight recently.

like John Cena, like Stone Cold Steve Austin, and the fact that Stone Cold pranked me right before our interview, we also list off some of the dream guests for insights. So please cross your fingers with me that we get one or two, or hopefully maybe all of these dream guests. And it would mean a ton to me if you follow the show. If you hit a power bomb on that follow button on Apple or Spotify and also subscribe on YouTube,

as well. And please take a second to do the same for Joe and support the Joe Volpice podcast wherever you're listening to this. He's had some amazing guests recently, like Chelsea Green, Maxine Dupree, Natalia, and Jackie Redmond, just to name a few. All right, let's get into this. Please enjoy this chat on the Joe Volpest podcast. My biggest prediction, Sol Ruka is going to dominate the women's division this year. Wow. And what a standout performance in the Royal Rumble. She's going to get the call up so soon. She's so good. That Soul Snatcher is unbelievable. One of the best moves. Unbelievable. How does she come up with it? Great question. For you to ask her. Have you been in talks to talk with her? No, not yet. I'd love to. You should. I would love to have Soul Rook on the show.

I mean, that was a star. That was an insane performance. What did you think of the Royal Rumble? I thought it was good, pretty good. I think there were some questions. We'd love. I think there were some questions we have to like sit back and wait to see how they get answered. And this is the interesting thing about pro wrestling, right? Is like stuff will end up happening. And instead of going, oh, wow, that's an interesting plot point right now. Where do we go from here? People just go, oh, I hate it or I love it.

Instead of like, let's see how this pans out. I feel like we're 37 minutes into a movie and people are going, this thing sucks. Right, they need to let it play out. Let's just see where this plays out. Let's see what the masked man was doing when he took out Braun Breaker. Right? That story is going to turn into something. I saw a theory that it might be Logan Paul.

I saw that theory as well. Do you think? This is the thing that I love. This is the thing I love. There's probably three or four people that could realistically be. It could be Seth Rollins. There's obviously some dissension there. There's obviously a storyline there.

What if it's Austin theory? And he's being played by Seth Rollins and he's just been infiltrating the vision and trying to like take things. apart from the inside. That would make sense. Logan Paul would also make sense. What if it's CM Punk? You know, CM Punk and Braun Breaker have some history. C.M. Punk needs an opponent for WrestleMania. It's a lot of things there. But I will say this. There's not a single person on planet Earth that would have predicted those final four for the men's rumble and the women's rumble. Not a single person. Like, if you could have picked those eight people,

you might as well go buy a lottery ticket. Was there any entrances that really surprised you? So, Brie Bella coming back was a shocker for sure. Like, I thought with her being married to Brian Danielson, and obviously he's a big part of AEW, I just didn't think it would happen. I even asked him when he was on the podcast a few months ago. And he said, I think the only way that she would go back is if she did something with her sister, if it was Bree and Nikki again. Seems like that's what we're going to get here.

That was a huge shocker. I think there were also some surprises that weren't in there, like some really easy ones. how the heck was Kit Wilson, not in the Royal Rumble? With the amount of momentum that Kit Wilson has, just to hear that theme song, even if Kit Wilson gets eliminated in 1.9 seconds like Santino Morella in 2009, just send them out there,

have them get eliminated, play the music again, the crowd pops, where was that? When you interview these people, do you get a little more biased thinking that they should get more of a push after they're an awesome person? It's funny because you go into the interview

going, man, that person, and so talented. And then you do the interview with them and you're like, oh, how could everyone not love this person? They're so great. And then like, yeah, of course there's like a little bit more of like, oh, I'm really pushing for that person. But Kit Wilson, I feel like should have been in the Rumble. I don't know how Joe Henry wasn't in the Rumble. Kind of doesn't really make sense to me that Joe Henry was in the Rumble last year as a TNA star and not this year as a WWE superstar. That was one I thought would have made a lot of sense. But Roman Rains winning the Rumble is going to be really interesting to see how this plays out. He hasn't won the Rumble in 11 years. People seem to

very conveniently forget that he hasn't even got a title shot from when he lost the WWE championship to Cody Rhodes. Never got a rematch. No one talks about this. So I'm curious to see where this goes because I don't know if Drew McIntyre is still going to be the WWE champion heading into WrestleMania. So you are expecting a good WrestleMania this year? Every year, I think we're all expecting a good WrestleMania. I'm really curious now that we are officially on the road to WrestleMania, how does this play out? And I think it starts with like four main points. Who are the champions, right?

Who's the WWE champion? Who's the World Heavyweight champion? Who's the women's champion? Who's the women's World Heavyweight champion? I think we start with those four and kind of start to build some stories from there. We've got a few of those pieces lining up here. But let's see how it goes. But yes, every year I think we go in expecting not even a good wrestling.

We go in expecting a great WrestleMania. Everybody wants their socks to be blown off. Will it happen this year? I guess time will tell. What's been your most memorable WrestleMania moment? Oh, man, this is easy. WrestleMania 18. The Rocko?

Skydome, Toronto. I was there. I know. Right? So, like, to be there in my hometown for, in my opinion, the greatest wrestling match in the history of the entire business, that's my WrestleMania moment. Like, before the men,

match even starts. That stare down. Rock's looking at Hogan. Then they look off. Then they look the other way. J.R. even says that this is a WrestleMania moment. And it is. And like the match is what it is. But the storytelling within it is a beautiful thing. And I think that one of the things that if you don't remember that match or you haven't watched it in a while, one of the biggest things about that match is Rock was supposed to go in a huge baby face. Hulk Hogan, part of the NWO, we're supposed to hate him. It's not what happened. Like Hulkomania was running wild in there. And all of a sudden, before the match even started, Rock's getting booed. Hogan's getting cheered for the first time in years, and they switched it up. And Hogan worked the match as a baby face. Rock worked as a heel.

Oh, it's a beautiful thing. What's up, guys, real quick. This interview is brought to you by Fanduel. It may be the last call for football this week. But you still have a chance. to hit the jackpot during Super Bowl 60 on Fandul. Because with Fandul's $6 million touchdown jackpot, you can win a share of $6 million in bonus bets. $6 million. All you have to do is opt in and place in any time touchdown score

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the official sports book partner of Super Bowl 60. Thank you guys for watching. Now back to the podcast. When you're in the crowd for a moment like that, do you get that feeling that something is happening? Oh, for sure. For sure. And I love Rock.

Like, The Rock is my guy. And as soon as Hogan came out, I went, I think I'm, I'm going to cheer for Hogan. I remember interviewing the Rock years ago. And I said, hey, Rock, I was there. It's my favorite match ever. WrestleMania 18, Skydome, Toronto. goes, oh yeah, that's great.

Who were you cheering for? Said, yeah, I was cheering for Hogan. He goes, me too. But yeah, it was crazy, like, knowing that that was happening. You could feel it in the air. And I remember there was this little kid sitting at the end of our row, and he was cheering for Rock, like louder than anybody. And when Rock won the match, which I think we all knew that was going to happen,

he, like, turned to me. And he's like, ha! I told you! So, and I'm like, yeah, I think we knew, but like, how cool was this? When you're interviewing these people and they ask you things just about your own personal opinions, do you ever get nervous to tell them your real thoughts? Like, if they're going to say, like, did my match suck or something like that? Yeah, are you going to be honest with them saying it wasn't your best performance,

but you still, would you do that? I'm never going to lie to somebody, but I don't think, I don't think someone's ever asked me, like, hey, did you like my match with so-and-so and, like, it was just a total, like, stinker. I've never, like, come across that moment before. But I think that one of the things that I like to do in my podcast is I just try to keep it real. You know, I try to keep it real. And one of the biggest things with that is, like, looking at the match within the context of the moment, I think it's a really important thing. It's so easy to look back with hindsight a year ago, five years ago, 10 years ago, and go, oh, well, that thing sucked. In the moment, maybe it made sense.

And then there's other moments of maybe they didn't make sense. Like Seth Rollins versus the fiend and hell in the cell. Storyline didn't make sense. Finish certainly didn't make any sense. But I think that they just had to take what was given to them and try to make it work. Recently interviewed the Hardy Boys. Yeah. Together.

How does that happen? Well, they've been doing a lot of press for TNA. TNA just has this new deal right now with EMC, which is super exciting. I've been a TNA fan basically since the beginning. So I knew that TNA was going to be in and around the area. I've been talking to Matt for a while, Matt Hardy. Through DMs? We were texting.

Crazy. And I've had Matt Hardy on the show several times. I've had Jeff Hardy on the show once. So I've had them on the show separately, but I haven't had them on the show together. So I was talking to Matt and I said, like, I want to get you guys on the show together. And we were like figuring out some times, figuring out some dates. and finally put it together. And those guys are just legends.

And they're still doing it. How do you figure out what to ask the two of them now that they're together so you can get them to bounce off each other? And that's tough, right? Because they have so much history together as the Hardee's. Also, Hall of Fame careers on their own,

Jeff Hardy and Matt Hardy. So I think, I don't know, I'm actually curious what your research technique looks like. I like to look at a framework of careers, start to finish. who'd you get trained by? What were the big moments along the way? Was it WCW, then into WWE, then TNA?

I like to look at all the points along the way. And then I like to look at some of the big moments. Like when you think of the Hardy Boys, there's three, four, five. I guess it's the Hardy Boys. Maybe there's 25 big moments that pop out. What are some of the stories that I would just love to hear? Even if it's the story that's been told before, hasn't been told to me. Like I really wanted to hear the story that Matt,

Hardy told me about suplexing Rick Flair off the ladder at WrestleMania 22. Rick Flair's 57 years old. And if you remember the way that he sold that superplex, he was like selling it like his back was broken in half. He looked legitimately hurt and fans to this day thought that he was hurt. And Matt was like telling the story of like, oh, it couldn't have gotten any better. And like I took care of him. And like, we needed this bump to like get him out of the match and it worked perfectly.

So it was cool to be able to hear that story. But I think for me, it always starts with what are the stories I want to hear? What are the things I've always been curious about? And let's build on that. What's your research technique look like? For somebody like some 41, they have such an extensive career. And I just interviewed Derek. Yeah.

Oh, so jealous. So how do you figure out where to start and what to ask him and pull out of him something that isn't in his book or set on another podcast or that feeling when you can get them to talk about something new? and they go, oh, I haven't told the story before. Yeah, yeah, it's gold. The best. Yes.

It's the best feeling. So, it's, I try and listen to other interviews that they did. And when I hear them say the same story over and over again, I try and steer away from that. But like you said, sometimes it's hard. You want to hear them tell the story to you. Yeah. And then I also, I'm a big, like, I love mindset. And I love being able to learn from successful people.

Like, that's one of the coolest things about being able to sit in the chairs that we're in, right? You get to listen to people who are the best of people who are the best, of the best at what they do. And maybe I'm not a singer or actor or voice actor or wrestler, whatever it is, but I can take cues from their career and apply them to my own life. And I try to do that as well.

Like, oh, when things were really down in your life, you did this thing that changed things over here. I love to like take those little cues and like just selfishly, take them for myself and hopefully somebody that's watching, that'll work for them too. Do you listen to other Hardy Boys interviews? Yeah, I listen to,

Lots of that stuff, yeah. Do you try and do that to hear what you want to talk about and what you want to avoid and what they've said four times already? Yeah, but also, and this is going to sound weird. So it's like an hour-ish drive into the studio in L.A. I'll put on a podcast, and it feels like I'm sitting in the car with that person. I do that, too. Oh, yeah.

And then it, like, warms me up to talk to them. Because you understand their cadence. Yes, exactly. Like what their sense of humor is and, like, oh, they have a dog. I have a dog. Oh, we now have some rapport here. So I feel like I've spent the last hour with them. And then when they show up, five minutes later, I'm like, oh, hey, good to see you again.

Even if I've never met them before. But yeah, I think it's a lot of like sometimes, and I'm sure that this is the case with you as well, you'll hear another interviewer or ask a question and you can see that person just shut right down. I'm like, oh, okay, well, that's a topic we shouldn't approach like that. Okay, so that's a mental note or even a physical note. But yeah, I think it's just like trying to figure. out what the beats are going to be of the conversation. I heard a great piece of advice when I started my radio career. And it was learn how to get into a segment and learn how to get out of a segment.

So if you've got a two-minute talk break on radio, how are you going to start that talk break? How are you going to end it? What you do in the middle take care of itself. And I apply that to podcasting. How are you going to set the tone, break the ice, get this conversation started? and then after it's all done, how are you going to tie it back up with a nice little neat bow and ended up as well? And I think about that

with every conversation. What's our starting point going to be? We'll figure out the rest. You interviewed Stone Cold. Crazy. How do you, are there any topics that you were not hesitant,

but you knew you couldn't just throw that question out there so you kind of have to butter it up? Well, the thing with Stone Cold is you've got this legendary career. and we had about an hour. So it's like, what are the things that we want to talk about during this hour? Does he have an out time? No, he was just hanging out on the ranch.

I just think that he was like, I'll give you, you know, about an hour. Chaff for about an hour, which is so cool that we did the interview at the Broken Skull Ranch. But I think for me it was like, what are the things I definitely want to talk about? Like, one of the things I wanted to know the answer to. I'd asked him previously who took the best stunner. I was really curious, who took the worst? because there have been some bad stunners. There have been some really bad stunners.

RVD, love RVD. That is an iconically bad stunner. Linda McMahon took a very bad stunner, but he said Vince, hands down, worse stunner. And Vince had so many chances to take a stunner and just could never get it right. The one he gave him at WrestleMania 38 in Dallas

was atrocious, awful. And it's just funny that after all those years, he can't get it right. Was there anything that you were surprised that Stone Cold said? I asked Stone Cold what the advice he would have for up-and-coming wrestlers would be. And I didn't know what the answer was going to be. And I think his answer surprised me and it surprised a lot of people because that clip went viral. He said, sell.

Sell. And he went into why it's so important to sell. And I think that that is such an underutilized tool. in wrestling, that if you can learn how to sell, then not only you make the other person look great, you're also showing how great a performer you are as well. And that was something I was like, oh, wow, I hope that some up-and-coming wrestler,

here's this clip. I don't care if they listen to the whole interview, but I hope that they hear this clip, and they go, huh, I'm going to focus a little bit more on my selling. Is Stone Cold more serious or more relaxed or more funny than you thought? Stone Cold is everything you want him to be. It was the coolest thing. So we set up this interview at his ranch.

His ranch is in Nevada. You're setting up the cameras yourself. Yeah. In the room by yourself. I was with my buddy, Jamil. Okay. So Jamil and I flew to Reno, Nevada, rented a car. It's quite a drive south to the Broken Skull Ranch.

And his publicist who set this up is like, all right, I'm going to give you his number. He's going to call you the night before just to, like, go over, like, all the details for the interview. Of what to talk about? No. just like the arrival, where to park, like where we might set up, just that stuff. Stone cold himself. Yes. You get the call.

So we've gotten to the hotel. I'm doing some like last minute research and my phone rings and I've already saved his number. So my phone rings and I like to show my buddy. I'm like, Stone Cold Steve Austin. Hello? Hey, Chris, Steve. And then he pulls a prank on me. He goes, so you're going to come by the house about 15 minutes, 20 minutes.

from now? I'm like, no, don't you do this to me, Steve? I know it's tomorrow. And it was like 545 at the time. He's like, here, you're coming by about 6 o'clock. I'm like, no, don't you do this to me. I know it's tomorrow at 10 o'clock. And he kept like playing it up like I'm supposed to be at his house soon. And then finally, he's like, all right, so when you come in, uh, you know, just park anywhere you want, like, you'll see me in the driveway. And I'm like, this sounds amazing. And he's like, I could probably give you a half an hour. I'm like, sure, I'll take any time. He's like, I'm just joking. We can talk for an hour, whatever it happens to be. So roll up, he gave me like the gate code. So punching the gate codes. Big gate opens and go

in. It's just massive ranch and field. And sure enough, there's Stone Cold Steve Austin standing right there on the driveway, park the car, go out, shake his hand. He's just, what you see is what you get. It's Stone Cold Steve Austin. He was just the coolest guy ever. I don't know how, Anyone could possibly be any cooler. And he toured us around the ranch so we could find a spot to do the interview. Do you want to do it here? Do you want to do it over here? What are you looking for?

Lighting sound? Yeah, basically. And a cool background. But lighting's always the most important thing. So he's like, oh, maybe we can do it in the guesthouse over here. That was a little dark. Oh, there's my chickens. Maybe we could do it over in the horse barn.

That was probably a little cold. There's my horse. There's my solid-ass cats. And then we ended up deciding to do it in his garage, which was a very, it was a very, very cool background. We had the option of doing it as gym. That was also, yes, podcast studio there. That was just such a cool thing. And then we set up and we're just like chatting with him about different things. Finally, we're like, all right, think we're good to go. Damn, chat with Stone Cold for a little while. How do you know where you're going to start the Stone Cold interview? I just started with where

we were at that day. In the conversation? Just in general, like here we are at the Broken Skull Ranch. like, thank you for inviting me here. This is so cool. And then I knew how popular his cats were on Instagram. So I'm like, I got to bring up the solid-ass cats. So then we started talking about the solid-ass cats, and the conversation just kind of flowed from there. Something that he wants to talk about that's not too businessy,

just a fun fluid thing. And also just setting the tone for like, if someone's just listening to this podcast, I want to set the tone for them that like, here we are at the broken skull ranch right now. Also, people still think to this day that the Texas rattlesnake lives in Texas. I think they'll be surprised to learn that you live in Nevada. Then he told the whole story of actually he went from Texas to California, California to Nevada.

Talked about this land that he has there. Look, he could have read the phone book for an hour and it would have been a fantastic conversation. Do you feel any pressure from interviewing him? What kind of pressure of like living up to the, standards of my 16-year-old self. That he's the legend. There's so much that you could pull from him and where you want to take it

and what the audience wants and what you want selfishly to hear. Yeah, I think that you can't live with those expectations. I think you've got to go into it just like, if I ran into this person and had the chance to like spend an hour and have a beer with them, what would we chat about? It wouldn't all be like super serious,

just firing away at questions. Some of it would be just a backer. and forth of, you know, what's going on with this? I asked him about his podcast. And he was like, why you ask me about that? And I'm like, because it was really popular. I think his podcast is still on the charts. Did he say he wants to bring it back?

He was like, yeah, maybe. This podcast is still on the charts and he hasn't put out of a new episode in something like five years. That's insane. He's like, I wouldn't know what to talk about. I'm like, you could talk about anything. And it would be popular. But I think it's just for me, I'm sorry.

such a lifelong wrestling fan. So when I have the chance to go to the Undertaker's house or Edge's house or Stone Cold's Ranch or Goldberg's Ranch, whoever the interview might be with when John Cena came to the studio recently, I think there's a little bit of like, what are the questions I've always wanted to ask this person? And also like, what would the like 15, 16 year old version of me be thinking right now because that that kid is freaking out you know it's hard to believe that it's already been over a month since john seen as final match and i'm grateful to say that i was able to be there in person in dc with some amazing tickets from seek geek and i want to give a huge shout out to seek geek for sponsoring this episode with over 35 million downloads seek geek is the

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automatically apply to your account so you can use it later. Big shout out to Seekkeek for sponsoring this episode. The United States Soccer Federation present the U.S. Soccer Podcast. My name is David Goss, and I'm joined by my co-host, Megan Clemenberg. And now we're giving people an inside look at the World Cup. I think you can feel the intensity. All the guys are wanting to really take their claim, and they want to be on that World Cup roster.

There's no doubt about it. Hosting the World Cup on the home soil comes with its pressures, but we're just really excited just as the people are. The U.S. Soccer Podcast, presented by Hencold. Follow and listen on your favorite platform. When you're touring around Stone Cold's house, what was the most surprising thing you saw? He has a bass pond, which as a bass fisherman, I was like,

that's pretty cool. Does he have a lot of memorabilia? Not that I saw. I didn't go inside the main house, but not really. Not that I saw. I think the thing that would blow you away is just, these people just live like normal people, right?

He's Stone Cold Steve Austin, but at the same time, he's Steve. He's your buddy, Steve, who drinks beer. Did you drink a beer with him? I did not drink a beer with him. Did you want to? I should have drank a beer with him. That would have been the best way to start it.

Just do one of these. Next time. That's the insane. When you're interviewing John Sina, how do you figure out where to take that conversation? Because now you're getting one of the final interviews of his career. Well, first, you've got to figure out if you can see him, right? And you couldn't.

I could not, no. Not even in the thumbnail. I wanted to do a full hour interview here and title it with John Sina, and it's just me talking to nobody. I felt so lucky that I had the opportunity to talk to him because he only did a handful of interviews before his last match. Somehow, I was one of them. And when you look at the interviews that he did,

it was like he did one with Tom Rinaldi, ESPN. He did Jimmy Kimmel, actually right after he left my studio, he did Jimmy Kimmel. He did Joe Rogan the day after he left my studio. And he did, you know, one or two more here and there. I'm like, how was I on that list? Like, that's crazy. And weren't you guys going back and forth saying you're going to do one eventually?

Yeah. And like I had done an interview with him. the previous year when Ricky Stinnocky came out. We did an interview that was like over an hour. And he was so kind, like he added it on to his press day. So he was doing a junket that day. And then we had figured it out that I was going to get the last hour of his press day, which was so cool. So like it was in the junket setting. I just basically walked in. It was already miced up with the lights and cameras. So that was cool that he would like, we did the podcast interview at that point in time. But he said, next time I'll come in the studio. And I'm like,

next time you're going to come to my studio. Like, that's crazy. And he's a man of his word. John Sina is, like, he's so fantastic that if he says something, he means it. So when he announced that he was going to do his retirement tour, this was in Toronto, Money in the Bank, 2024, that 2025 was going to be his final year, final run. And then I saw him at the first raw Netflix here in L.A. And he spoke to him very briefly.

but I texted him and I said, I'd love to have you on the show at some point this year. And he's like, I'm sure we can figure something out. And then we've gone back and forth a little bit, but it just didn't seem like the timing was right, especially when he was a heel, like it just felt like the conversation wasn't going to happen then. Then he turned baby face at SummerSlam or right before SummerSlam,

and I'm like, okay, maybe this will happen? And I was thinking, could I do an interview with him when it's all said and done and just look back retrospectively on the year? You aren't at the end of the career. Right. And I'd been making notes the whole time in my phone of like, well, what happened with this? And then what was the story here? And I was just making these notes along the way.

So I got him basically right at the end. Like I got him before it was official who his final opponent would be. But other than that, like, we went through the whole year from like not winning the rumble to winning elimination chamber to turning heel to the WrestleMania match, which he like openly was like that match didn't really go the way we wanted it to. I was working as a heel. It was kind of seen as me wrestling boring. I was told to change my style. The next match I had was backlash with Randy Orton. The crowd was back into it.

Even though I was a heel, I was wrestling a more exciting style. There was so many beats to that that were really interesting. So for me, it was like I had such a unique opportunity to sit with him at the end of his career. It was one of the last interviews he ever did as an active wrestler. It's like we got to look back at that entire year, the good, the bad, the ugly, all of it, and just go through all of it. And it was just such a cool thing. And like, John Cena showed up to the studio by himself, didn't come with like an entourage

of people, didn't come with anybody. It was just John. Came into the studio. And it's funny, he came in at 1.30. We were supposed to start the interview at 1.30. I was told he would probably arrive at, at least half an hour early, and he did. So once we, like, got going, he goes, uh,

I'll give you the Iggy. I'll adjust my tie at about 2.30 and, uh, you'll know it'll be like, time to wrap up. I'm like, well, sounds great. At about 2.30, he never did this. 2.35, 240, still talking. Chris. Right?

And I'm like, how much longer can I push this? I knew he had to leave at 3 o'clock. So like, chalk, talked for a little bit long. I think we talked for like an hour 20-ish, hour 25. And then I wrapped it up. Then he got out the door like 257. And I got him to sign. I had a physical ticket from WrestleMania 41. Like those are so rare having a physical ticket. So I had him sign the physical ticket from WrestleMania 41 and he wrote on it, never seen 17. So I don't know how many of those exist in the world. I'm thinking not too many. So that one meant a lot to me that not only was I

there for his final WrestleMania. There the day that he won the record breaking 17th championship and then also he signed that for me. So that was pretty cool. Do you try to get something signed from everybody? I have

8 by 10s in my office from like some of the bigger names that I've interviewed. Why not a pop or a shirt or? You got pops everywhere here, don't you? I've never, I don't know, just don't collect pops. It started with, I had 1, 8 by 10. DDP is a really good

friend of mine. He'd given me an 8 by 10. So I had one. And then I'm like, well, what if I just printed one out for like, you know, the next time I interview Edge or the next time I have Christian in the studio or Chris Jericho and started just kind of going, okay, I'll print out an 8 by 10. So it's just something selfish for me. It's actually inspired by DDP. DDP has this office in his house. And DDP is such a good friend of mine. I love the work he's done with so many people. I say it all the time. and I will never skip out on another chance to say it again. The world is a better place because DDP's in it. I love that guy.

His office is full of photos just from his life. Like, just reminiscent of talk shows he's been on, famous people he's met, movies he's been on, red carpets he's walked. And it's just like, it's his entire life in photos. And I was really inspired by that. So I've now filled my office with just moments from my career. that make me look at and go, oh, wow, I did that thing. That's pretty cool. And also the 8x10s from some of the cool people I met. What's the most special piece of memorabilia that you

have? That John Cena ticket's pretty special. But I think that I got The Rock to sign a WWF magazine the first time I met him. And I did an interview with The Rock like 2012, and he signed this WWF magazine, and I got it framed with a photo of me and him. Rock was my guy growing up. So to have him sign this magazine to Chris, had fun, Dwayne the Rock Johnson, that one's pretty cool. What was your favorite match from the Sina final retirement tour? Without question, my favorite match was John Sina versus AJ Stiles.

That match was pure magic. like it was a love letter to wrestling. The throwbacks to like doing the TNA moves and then the WWE moves thrown in there, like just doing all these different finishers. I love that. Like I think that when you look at that match, it was the most perfect match

during John Cena's final run for sure. Do you remember when Sina first debuted? Way back? Yeah. Yeah. I remember watching it live. Really? Like with Kurt Engel?

Yeah. Ruthless aggression. And I remember he had something about him. I had no idea he was going to stick around for that long. But you could just tell he was built. Jacked. And he was just motivated. And the way that he came out to the crowd was really powerful.

Yeah. It's funny because that gimmick they were giving him at that time didn't really work. It was like almost there, but not. Yeah, like he was coming out in like the hometown colors in every town. but like the crowd wasn't really getting behind it. And John will tell you this. He told me this during an interview. He was like he was probably a few months away from getting cut.

And if he got cut, that probably would have been it. And the thing that saved him was Stephanie McMahon, heard him freestyle in the back of a bus. And she's like, hey, that thing you did. How did you memorize all those words? He's like, oh, I didn't memorize him. I was coming up with that on the spot. She's like, really? Turned into the doctor's thogonomics gimmick, saved his career.

and then he became the John Cena we know in love. When are you interviewing Stephanie? Oh, good question. She has a podcast? I would love to have Stephanie on the podcast. Do a home and home. My name got mentioned on her podcast. With who?

O'Shea Jackson Jr. was talking about how, like, I was flying everywhere to do these interviews. He's like, fan fleets! So it's out in the universe. I would love to have her on the show. And I think that she is so underrated for her heel work. Oh, so good.

So good. I wanted to turn the channel off every time she came on. Yes. She was so good. Nobody slaps harder than Stephanie McMahon. Would you take a slap from her? Yeah, of course. Chris, take a slap from her, drink a beer with stone cold.

Wow. Could you imagine? Take it at five from Sita. Maybe not that. I don't know four. Go through the table with the Dudley's. Well, you know. Have you ever had the Dudley boys on together?

Not together. No. I've had them both on separately. You got together. You got to do the whole TLC tag team. That'd be great. Oh, yeah. Yeah, got to get the Dudley's on together.

Because that line of questions changes drastically when you have the both of them together. For sure. Because, again, they've had amazing careers on their own. Obviously, a legendary career as a tag team. But you're right. You put them together. It's a completely different conversation. Do you think AJ Stiles is actually going to retire?

That is the million-dollar question. I don't. I don't either. And I don't. want him to. AJ Stiles. I love that dude. It's a weird send-off.

Yeah, well, it's just the fact that, like, he went to take off the gloves, went to leave him in the ring, and then he didn't. He kept him on. So what does that mean? Right. And I don't know if this was done intentionally or not, but a lot of people pointed this out. He was talking a lot about, like, his final match in WWE.

And I read that as him saying, like, his final match in WWE because he's a WWE guy. That's what I was thinking. Like, he's been in WWE for 20s. 10 years. What if he was saying that intentionally of like my final match in WWE, but man, some other things I still have to do in Japan or TNA or wherever the case, wherever the place may be? I think he'd go back to TNA. But he can do that while still in WWE. But maybe it makes it more poetic. He told me when he was on the podcast

last year. And he broke the news on my podcast that he did not want to wrestle past 50. So he's 48 now, turns 49 this summer. He was like, I will not wrestle past my 50th birthday. Like, I will not. So that was huge news at the time. And he said, if things pan out the way that I want them to pan out, we'll start to see. Like, he goes, if my retirement plans come to fruition, like, we'll start to figure it out. So is this the start of that? Was this the retirement, in quotes, from WWE? And then something else happens from here? I don't know. But that didn't feel final.

Post interview, what was your most memorable thing that somebody told you? Because after you've chatted with them, you've built this little camaraderie. Now maybe the cameras are off. You can ask something that you couldn't say on the camera. Oh, like they told me a piece of information. Yeah, maybe something that you can say now. I shared a moment with The Undertaker that I could definitely not. share on camera.

It's funny. I asked him a question during the interview. I said, give me your best Paul Bearer's story. And he goes, I probably shouldn't tell that one on camera. We went out to dinner later that night. And it was everybody he had flown in for the podcast. So it was me,

Maven, Midian, Godfather, and then some other friends. And towards the end of the dinner, he told that story and it was, I'll just say it's a legendary story, but not one that should be repeated on a podcast.

It's never been out there. I don't think so. I think people, like, witnessed it and I have seen it, and it's a fantastic story, but it's not a story he's told publicly. But I, all of us that were sitting at that table

when he was holding court, we got to hear that story. But I'll say that there's been pieces of advice, or little nuggets or stories that I'll hear them in an interview and like it will change my life. Like, and that is not hyperbole. Like John Cena said three words, control the controllable. And I think about that all the time. Like you can't control what other people do.

You can't control what other people say. But what you can control is how you react to what other people do and what other people say. And that has been one of those things that has stuck with me. That interview was 2019. I still think about it today. Are there any other nuggets? of information that someone shared with you that changed how you view things?

When Sean Spears was on the show for the first time, I didn't really think about it in that moment, but it ended up being a clip that kind of went everywhere. He talked about how your 20s were for figuring out what you don't want to do with your life. Take chances. Take risks. Do the thing that maybe it isn't interesting to you

to figure out if you like it or not. And your 30s are for leaning into the things that you do enjoy doing and that you do love. And that really spoke to a lot of people, a lot of people that, you know, maybe were lost or maybe were upset that they hadn't found their thing yet. And I think that that really calmed a lot of people down to go, all right, my 20s are for kind of just experimenting, figuring out what works and what doesn't. I think that was a really big one. Why did that clip with Jordan Grace go viral?

I have no idea. Or not clip, photo. Were there? Zero clue. Completely took off on his own? I did that interview, Joe, a year ago. I remember. That photo was from a year ago. And someone just posted on Twitter and a... A year later, I kept getting tagged in that thing. And it was like a picture of her from behind sitting at the interview table.

And she looks so jacked. Like Jordan Grace is beyond jacked. And she's like, oh, it would be funny if you posted this with the caption, like, guess who I'm interviewing? Because it's like pretty damn obvious who I'm interviewing. Nobody else is built like Jordan Grace. Like, oh, it's cool. So, like, I was like, you cool with this? She's like, yeah, of course.

So I posted it. And, like, everybody in 2025 when I originally posted that was like, oh, cool, Jordan Grace is going to be on the show. For some reason, a year later, somebody made this pop back up again. And it got, like, something like 15 or 20 million impressions on Twitter. And people were making, like, ridiculous predictions and ridiculous, like, jokes about it. I don't know how this one came back around. I have no idea.

What was your most viral moment of all your? your interviews. It's Zach Gowan talking about getting pushed down the stairs by Brock Lesnar when he was in a wheelchair. I think that's the one. That's the one that took off. Let me just triple check here. I believe that is the most watched clip on my clips channel. Why did that one take off compared to every other clip you've done? Great question. I don't know. Excellent thumbnail, great title. That's got to be the only reason, right? Let me see. Sort by Most viewed. Oh.

That's number four, actually. Mark Henry talking about breaking the padlock off the steel cage. Hell himself. Just the steel cage. So he was, the story is he was supposed to, like, they were supposed to gimmick the padlock. So he was just supposed to, like, pull the chain and it goes, tink. Look how strong Mark Henry is. Chain just broke apart.

Whoever was supposed to gimmick this padlock, gimmick this chain, never ended up doing it. So it was a legit chain. it was a legit padlock, and Mark Henry, being the world's strongest man, actually broke this thing. For real. That clip has 47 million views. Yeah.

Christopher. And it's such a fantastic story. Yeah. When you are in the interview and you have that story being told, does it feel like everybody would enjoy this? It felt like a great story. It didn't feel like a story

that I thought would go that crazy viral. Isn't this the funny thing about the internet? It's like something that you think is just like an incredible little nugget. It does like okay numbers. What's your most watched video? Brian Baumgartner from the office talking about him paying bills on set while he's in the background. Oh, it's a great clip. It's a really interesting because you never, I never thought about it.

Yeah, because they're like pretending to actually work in the background. But the computers actually work and he has to pay his bills. Why not actually just use that time to just do things? you have to do. You had a great Ron Pearlman clip that got a ton of views recently, too. Hellboy 3. Yes. It was supposed to be a trilogy.

Yeah. And the second one did good. First one did great. They should have done it. Have you had clips where, like, you don't even think it's going to be anything? And then for whatever reason, six months from now, it pops off. And you're like, that thing has two million views. I've had videos pop off a year and a half later.

Wow. So this is a message to everybody out there who wants to do anything. Just throw it up. Yes. Throw that spaghetti at the wall. Because you never know what's going to hit. You never know, like, sometimes it's the silliest little things, too. Sometimes it's like someone making a look, a gesture, the way they pronounce a word

that makes the clip go viral on some, like, subreddit or some, like, message board. Crazy. Yeah, I've had Yahoo News post an article of the video six months later, and then it took the video off. Yahoo News, thank you. There you go. It's so cool because you get to talk to all these massive figures of every era. And there's just so many key moments in history that they have. Yeah.

And you get to pull that out from them, like the Mark Henry story, the Hardy Boys. Yeah. And like some of them just like kind of come out of nowhere. Like, of course, when you think of some people, like there's the key moments, right? Like when you think of certain wrestlers, like, oh, well, I got to ask about this return or I got to ask, about this WrestleMania moment or this crazy chair shot or something. But sometimes they'll be like, I had such a hilarious story with Bianca Bel Air when she was on the show.

And we were trying to figure out why in the Royal Rumble she was in the corner like laughing. And I'm like, why is she like, what is she laughing about? What's so funny about what's going on here? So I said, in the Royal Rumble, what was happening here? Why are you cracking up? And she started laughing. She's like, because I got to like look at the actual clip here. But basically like she was getting kicked into somebody, which ended up making it so that she was getting motorboated.

Like out of nowhere. She's getting motorboated. And she's like, oh, well, that makes sense. Yeah. Why she's laughing. Yeah, I guess so. I don't know why I can't find it here now. Who is it with?

I'm trying to figure it out. because it'll make it make that much more sense if I can like describe the actual clip here. She was doing the motor boating or she got? Her face was, she ended up being the motorboater. Chris. And like, I had no idea that was the reason why it was so funny. I had no idea why she was laughing. It all makes sense now.

You recently interviewed Raven, Buff Bagwell. Were they all at the same spot? Yeah, DDP's Performance Center in Atlanta. Yeah, it was so cool to be able to have those legends there. I love that Raven interview. Oh, thank you. Raven is just, like, what a smart guy, like, in and out of the ring. He had such an impactful place in the history of wrestling.

Like, when you think about that character, he was so, it felt so real, so visceral in the 90s. And I feel like it was so inspirational for so many people that came after that. And his documentary is fantastic, never more. It's available. I think on Prime Video. So good and tell such a great story about, like, how committed he was to play in that character and just the thing that he did. Well, legendary wrestler from the 90s have you not interviewed that you want to talk to? Wow.

Who have I not talked to yet from the 90s? WWF, WCW, ECW. All right. Sting? You never talked to Sting. Sting hasn't really done it. any interviews, like any podcasts. If you got the exclusive.

Sting is at the very top of that list. I have not interviewed JBL. Because that's more like 2000s. I used in the 90s as well. Have you had Farooke? I have not done Farooke or Ron Simmons. You have to get the tag teams together. That would be so good.

Because when was the last time they were both in a room together? Yeah. I think they do signings together, but I don't know when they've done like an interview together. And that's where we do it. There's a lot. There's quite a few. And then I think I'm going to get a Randy Orton interview because of my appearance on your show last time. Oh, from that clip?

Yeah. What did we do? Oh, you called him out. I called him out. I said that I was the three most powerful letters in wrestling. CVV. Not RKO, CVV. So that hit his algorithm?

It hit his algorithm. Someone made a clip out of it. He kept getting tagged on Twitter and I got a DM from him on Twitter. And he said, like, I guess I got to do your show now. And I'm like, yeah, I guess you do. So, 2026 will be the year that CVV and RKO finally happen. Are you going to hit him with anything, a sharpshooter? Am I going to hit Randy Orton with a move?

I don't know what your motives are here. What are you insane? No, I enjoy living life and, you know, having fully functional limbs. Chris Sharp comes back. No, not against Randy Orton. Maybe I will give him a firm handshake and look him in the eye and say, thank you for your time, Mr. Orton. If you could interview Andy, Randy,

if you could interview Randy Orton tomorrow, what's the one question you would want to ask him? One question? That's it? One question. One question. One question. This won't be the only question,

but I really want to ask him about that time he did, like, to the Bollywood Boys, he like did a little, like, flip under the announce table, and then he looked, he's like, oh, that was a little hard. I want to ask him about that one. I don't want to ask him about his favorite RKO, but I want to ask him about what the most difficult RKO was. I've heard the story from Seth Rollins about like,

they really didn't think they'd be able to hit the stomp into the RKO, WrestleMania 31. I'd love to hear that story from Randy. Like, Randy's so smooth. He's so good. I'm sure he was like, I'm sure we can figure this out. But the Shooting Star Press into the RKO,

the Evan-Born one, I don't even know if that felt possible for anybody. So I'd love to know, like, What was the most difficult RKO, the one that you went in going, our chances of hitting this are unlikely, but let's give it a try anyway. I want to hear him talk about evolution. It's a mystery. What was that like for him, from his perspective, just being amongst those legends. Did he think his career was going to be set going forward?

Did he still have to prove himself? That's a great one, because that set him up, right? You got Rick Flair in there, who's Legend of Legends. you got Triple H who was already a made man. Batista was like very much in the prime of his career. And Randy Orton's this young gun. It's like, looks like a million bucks, can talk, can work. What happens if we stick him around these three other stars?

And obviously it was lightning in a bottle. Here's the really interesting thing about Randy Orton is his father was a legend. Randy Orton seniors. Orton, sorry, Bob Orton's a legend. Cowboy Bob. Cowboy Bob Orden. His arm was broken for like nine years. there was a point in Randy Orton's career when his accomplishments and his career overtook that of his fathers.

That's a pretty cool thing that, like, your dad who's already a legend, you've now had a better career than him. And, like, I'm curious for him, like, when that moment clicked for him. Who's your favorite bloodline wrestler in wrestling? Of all time? I think I'll go with Roman Raines. Have you interviewed him? Kind of. I did an interview with the Shield like 13 years ago at a WrestleMania. But I haven't like a one-on-one interview with Roman Raines. No, I haven't done that.

So it's just a matter of time, hopefully. Would you want him before WrestleMania? I'll take Roman Raines at any point in time if he's willing to say yes. Call out Roman Raines. Maybe that clip will happen. Call out Roman. Go for it. Hey, Roman. Hey, how you doing? It's me, Chris.

I was wondering if at some point in time, if you're not too busy, and I know you just won the Royal Rumble and you've got this big match, big match at WrestleMania with whoever the opponent may be. I was just wondering if you have an extra hour or two at any point in time. Maybe you want to talk about wrestling for a little bit. So anyway, let me know and talk to you then. That was amazing. promo? That's 100%. That's going to happen.

If you could have any... What a promo. If you could have any three-hour interview with any wrestler, who would it be? I'm going to go with Sting. Especially, like, knowing that Sting hasn't done an interview, there's so much

to cover with him, right? And when you think about Sting, he had a Hall of Fame career with both face paints. Hall of Fame career as Surfer Sting. Hall of Fame career as Crow Sting. Like, legend of a human being. Three hours will not even begin to scratch the surface of Sting's career. Why the baseball bat?

Why the baseball bat? Let's find out. What a weapon, right? Yeah, let's, I don't think three hours would be enough time. So we'll try to figure that out. Which wrestler out of all your interviews had the toughest bump? That choke slam that Spike Dudley took from the Undertaker that started in the ring and went out, is so nasty to watch because he just like thuds to the outside.

So bad in fact that like Undertaker didn't want to do it. Spike Dudley tells a story of like he had to convince Undertaker like, no, I got this. Like I'm Spike Dudley. Like I'm like do whatever you want. Like I can take the bumps. And like he had to convince Undertaker to actually end up doing it. And Spike said it was like nothing. I was just like, hi, I landed to the outside.

It was easiest thing. But that one you watch. and you just kind of go, ooh, ouch. Whose finisher is the most underrated? You know what move doesn't get talked about enough right now? Maybe because it's a bit of a new move. Leon Slater's Swanton 450.

Those two moves in and of themselves are insane. The Swanton bomb, the 450. You're telling me, you put those together? Like, he holds the swan ton long enough that it looks like a swan ton, then rotates into a 450? What? I'm a big fan of the moves that, like, are only being done by, like, one person. And that's no disrespect to, like, moves that get done by different people or people

that put their own spin on it. But what I'm saying is, like, there are some moves in wrestling that can really only be done by, like, one person because their skill set is just, like, so dialed in. Like, John Morrison's Starship Payne, so tight. tight with the twists and the way that he like does, I don't know, what looks like 14 rotations before he lands on the guy, that's a type of move that like probably can't be done by anybody else. And I love seeing that type of stuff. I also love when people like put a new twist on something new, like a move you've seen before, but you're like, oh, I've never seen

like that before. And like the Soul Snatchers actually a pretty great version of that. Like I've seen a neckbreaker before. Never seen one like that. What the heck? And like, if we, go back to the 90s, that was Buff Bagwell on the Blockbuster. Like, we've seen a neckbreaker before. Oh, man, you're going to jump off the top rope, jump over the guy and then do a neckbreaker. And the fact that here we are 25 plus years later and people are still doing the Blockbuster is a true testament to like, you created something special back then. Those wrestlers in the 90s were so jacked.

So jacked. What do they say about it when you're interviewing them? Like, how are they doing it? Well, I think it's pretty obvious. and like Buff Bagwell was very open about the things that he was doing to get that big. But when you look at the greatest bodies of all time in wrestling, it's like mid-90s to like early 2000s. Who do you think had the best body? Of all time?

Yeah. I don't know if it, I don't think I can narrow down to just one. Or a couple. I'll give you a Mount Rushmore. Please. I love a good Mount Rushmore. Yes, you do. Lex Lugar.

Like, what a physique. Ultimate Warrior. Batista, especially like early-ish Batista, man, like a lean 300 pounds? Crazy.

This is a thing that's always so tough about Mount Rushmore's, right? You've got to narrowed down to get just one person left. I want to throw Chris Masters in there. Masters had a hell of a physique,

and people forget he was only like 20 years old. Right, very young. Or 22 or whatever, like early 20s. Yeah, Master's had a great physique. Brock's a tank, but different kind of tank. Right, like just farm boy strength.

Obviously, Bobby Lashley has an insane physique as well. Muscles on muscles. And, like, has somehow been getting more muscular, like, looks better now than he did when he debuted. Billy Gun Today. Oh, my gosh. Billy Gun Today is unbelievable. I mean, it's not human.

You got to give him a shout out. Billy Gunn. Absolutely. And Billy Gunn now. would, like, destroy the Billy gun when he debuted. It's in, like, 20 times better shape now. At 62, I think he is. Crazy.

Who's your fourth? Who's the fourth? Triple H is another one, I think, we've got to throw on there. There's a lot of honorable mentions we're doing here. I really think that Buff Bagwell doesn't get enough, like, not enough people talk about Buff Bagwell's physique either. It's, like, one of the most. jacked guys in the history of wrestling,

but who's going to be the fourth? I'll just make it a top three. Top three. A whole bunch of honorable mentions. Do you have a Mount Rushmore, John Cena matches? Of all time. My favorite John Cena match is

Money in the Bank, 2011 with CM Punk. I love the buildup to that. Started with the pipe bomb, made it feel so authentic and, like, got people so invested. That's one of the, of those moments, one of those inflection points that brought a lot of fans back to wrestling.

That match itself was so good, told such a great story. Then CM Punk leaving with the title, Chef's Kiss. Like, amazing. That's my favorite John Cena match. That's my favorite CM Punk match. I think actually John Cena worked some of his best matches during his farewell tour. I love that match. I already mentioned it earlier, but love that match with AJ Stiles.

I just think it was the crowd was amazing. It was fun. It told a great story. It also told a great story with not a lot of buildup. You didn't need a lot of buildup. You didn't need weeks of talking on Ron Smackdown to sell this match. They sold this match. They made this match on X.

And we all went, yeah, uh-huh, John Cena versus A.J. Stiles, yes, please. And the match over-delivered. It was amazing. I'm also going to go with Cody Rhodes versus John Cena from SummerSlam. Cody Rhodes winning the championship back, that street fight. There were so many cool moments in that match. I think that they were very aware that they were making up for a lackluster WrestleMania match, and they pulled out all the stops and made that match just super,

super memorable. This isn't so much a match, it's a match, but more a moment than anything. The 2008 Royal Rumble was special. Nobody thought that John Cena was going to be there. He had just been injured three months before with an injury that was supposed to take him out, I believe, nine to 12 months. He rehabbed like it was his literal job. He rehabbed like several times a day every single week and was somehow able to enter the Royal Rumble at number 30. A magical, special moment.

The look on Triple H's face says it all. It's like he's seen a ghost. He can't believe that John's seen is there and is going to enter the Royal Rumble. Like, how are you medically cleared to do this? thing, wins the rumble. I just thought that that story was just beautifully told. My favorite rumble moment for sure. Mount Rushmore of wrestlers who love wrestling.

Wow. Don't they all love wrestling? But you can tell that some people just love the art of it. They grew up on it. It fuels them. It fuels their soul. Everything about it. I feel like nobody loves wrestling more than Brian Danielson.

Like I just, the way that he wrestles with, whether he's Daniel Bryan or he's Brian Danielson, like, you can just tell, like, he cares. Like, he just, like, he puts so much into it. This is going to be so tough to narrow down to four because I don't think there's anybody who works for a wrestling company with, it doesn't matter what the letters are, that doesn't love it. That doesn't, like, love the craft of, like, putting together a promo, putting together a match, slowing things down to create moments for the audience, speeding things up a little

bit. So who else just loves wrestling? I feel like Cody Rose has to be on that list. Cody Rose is doing so much like for the fans. He's he's like the ultimate baby face. There's so many moments. His entrance alone is just like fan service. He's someone who obviously grew up in the business surrounded by, which I feel like then gives him a completely different perspective of like just getting it, right? You know who else just gets it? I think just loves the craft of it. Chelsea Green.

Yes. She doesn't care what you give her. She's going to make it work. Sign me up for everything. She does it all. Put me on TV for 12 seconds and I'll make it worthwhile. I don't care if I lose the next 15 matches. I don't care if I lose for the next year.

I get to be on TV every week. Fantastic. And I think that at its core, that's what wrestling is. Wrestling isn't about like, bell to bell, can I win this match? Wrestling's about going out there and creating moments. And like so many times, like the Royal Rum is a perfect example of this. You remember the moments in the match. You might not even remember who won that Rumble.

So I think that that's a really good one of like Chelsea Green just goes out there and just like loves it. really seems like where he's at in his career right now, Randy Orton just is just taking this all in. Like, you can tell he's slowing down in his entrance, just loving it. And then speeding up when he has to, like he's, that power slam, he does this so good. Everyone says he's so smooth in the ring.

Like, I feel like Randy Orton was put on this earth to be a pro wrestler. I quite literally was born into it, but like, so good. Have you ever had almost conversations with Triple H to do an interview? I felt like we were going to do one at some point last year. When WWE went to Netflix, right? Yes, and it just didn't pan out because of scheduling, but that's what I'd love to do. I've seen him since, and I'm like, I'd still love to have you on the show. And he's like, let's make it happen.

So at some point in time, it'd be so difficult to, if we just had an hour, it's just an hour with Triple H. So many different errors that you can talk about. was a long period point like a long length a long length of time i get it he's watching this he's like all right got to give him four hours yeah sure i'll take four hours but it's going to be so tough because there's triple h in the corporate position he's in right now but also to me growing up like this is the game right like i was so invested in triple h like late 90s loved when he changed to like the game character and the one two is this on what a theme song so i'd have to like to like talk about, like, things that are occurring right now, the business side of wrestling, but also,

like, my favorite Triple H match is the street fight he had with Cactus Jack, Royal Rumble 2000. Like, tell me all about that. Taking these nasty bumps on the outside, pedigreeing Cactus Jack face first into thumbtacks. Like, I want to be able to talk about stuff like that. There's so many great Triple H matches, so many great Triple H moments, so many great Triple H promos. So we'd have to find the balance of, like, talking about current stuff and then also talking about past stuff.

And one of the really most interesting things I want to talk about with Triple H is he didn't have that final send-off match. His last match was some random tag match at a house show overseas. And I'm sure he had no clue that was his last match. And I'm just curious how he would have wanted to book his last match. I would assume WrestleMania, but with who? When? What's the storyline?

Because I can guarantee you when he laced up his boots, I want to speak for him, but I'm sure he probably didn't know that would be the last time he'd be doing it. And that's a really, it's going to be a tough thing. Every wrestler has the last match. Not every wrestling knows when it's going to be. That was deep. Christopher Daniels told me that. And I'm like, damn, that's so true.

Some wrestlers get to go into the last match, like John Cena with Gunther and go, this is it. And some wrestlers go in and have something happen with their heart or a bad injury. And their body says, hey, that one? That was it. Sorry. What was your most memorable moment with Mick Foley? Oh, man, that guy's just the best.

Oh, what a great guy. I was really curious to talk to Mick about the idea of like, what's his career look like if Hell and a Cell doesn't happen? Ooh. Right, what if his Hell and a Cell match was just a traditional Hell and a Cell match? What if they just went in and had a gruesome match within the confines of Hell and a Cell? Because to this point, Helen Assel was supposed to keep you in. Hell and a Cell was supposed to be this visceral match that, like, would keep you within the confines.

You couldn't run out of the ring. You couldn't run into the crowd. He had to stay here. And then people could use the cage for, like, extra punishment or as a weapon. and what happens if you don't decide to climb up there? Like he had told Undertaker, oh, yeah, I was up there earlier today. And, like, it was a total lie that that hadn't happened.

They just, like, figured it out on the spot. And, like, it was very clear during that match that it really couldn't handle the weight of both of them walking up there. And, like, the zip ties are, boom, peon, peon, peon, peon, flying off as they're walking off. But, like, it was interesting talking to him about, like, what if you don't get thrown off? Like, it's still a great match.

but like probably just with great respect another match. And he told me a great story about like he wanted to have a moment. And that ended up being it. And what a moment to have. That was 1998. And people still talk about it. Still talk about it. And that's going to be one of those moments forever.

Like people will always talk about Mick Foley getting thrown off Ellen Assel. What WWE attitude era would you want to interview, wrestler? that I haven't interviewed yet. Yeah. Hardcore Holly. Oh, he'd have stories. Hardcore Holly. And when was the last time that Bob Holly did an interview?

I don't know. I've heard that he's just like living a very happy retired life and is not interested in doing interviews. And if that's the case, great. I'm really happy for him. But I would love to talk to Hardcore Holly. What would you want to pick his brain about? Everything.

Like the way that he worked, also the way that he looked. know if anybody had better traps at that point in time. He just worked this like really aggressive style. And I wonder where that came from. And like some of those Alabama slams that he was given people look like they were personal. I wonder if any of them were. And also he did such great stuff with Crash Hawley. May he rest in peace. Crash Holly, like pretending he was the super heavyweight. I'm not pretending he was a super heavyweight. We weighed well over 400 pounds. memories of crash and just talking about that, I think, would be really cool. So I'll put that on to the universe.

How cool would it be to talk to Hardcore Holly? Have you ever been in contact with him? I have not. He's on Twitter a lot. He is? Yeah. I see his tweets. Okay.

Could you, you know, float this out there to him? Yeah, yeah, yeah. This clip is live. That's what so crazy about this. Who knows where it's going to go? Isn't that wild? Yeah. When you interview.

Michael Chandler. Yeah. Are you a big MMA guy? Yeah. You watch UFC a lot? So I remember going to Blockbuster and renting UFC on VHS. Were they actually in the back, the back room? Not when I was going.

They were just out and about. Yeah, this was like probably late 90s. I remember like renting them. And this is pre-Dana White? Yeah, I guess it would have been. He wouldn't have taken over yet. Oh, yeah. This was like UFC when they were in the single digits.

Wow. When there were no weight limits, there were no top. time limits. Those were wild. Oh, they were wild. Yeah. I was... Would you think of it? Oh, I just thought it was barbaric. And like, at the time, I'm 14, 15, 16 years old and like, you've got all this like testosterone just flowing through your veins. So I'm like, this is the greatest thing ever to be able to watch this. Was Ken Shamrock in there? Yes. Ken Shamrock was in there. He had some legendary fights with early on, Hoyce Gracie. He had that insane feud with Tito Ortiz a little bit later on. Tito Ortiz is a

punk, where I'm saying that. I got really into it, like, early to mid-2000s. Like, when you think the names that were around at that point in time, they're all legends, like Tito Ortiz, Chuck Liddell, Rampage Jackson, GSP, Matt Hughes, Matt Sarah, like, so many, like, incredible fighters during that time. And they all had, like, these larger-than-life personalities. I still watch quite a bit now, but I'd say that, like, the real peak was like getting a few buddies going to buffalo wild wings standing room only and you're

like oh i can kind of see the tv over here i remember like remember when gs p fought matt sarah no so matt sarah beat him matt sarah was a massive massive underdog i remember like one of my buddies was like oh one of a a friend of a friend is ordering the pay-per-view and i think that We can sneak in his basement, just stand in the corner and watch this. And that's what we did. We watched Matt Serra upset the world and beat GSP for the Walter Way Championship. Wild. It was always one friend who bought the UFC.

Always. And we always went over. And we'd like, I don't know if it was the same for you, you'd chip in five bucks. We had these two friends. They were twins, Mark and Kev Rogers. And their parents were cool with like, yeah, we'll order it. And we would go over and throw in five or ten bucks. And we'd watch the UFC or the WWR.

PAPER views. Like, what would we do without friends like that? Seriously. What was your favorite W.W.E. Paperview growing up? Other than WrestleMania? Yeah. Like, WrestleMania.

I always love King of the Ring. Oh, King of the Ring. Royal Rumble is just special. And I think what's so special about Royal Rumble is you just don't know who's going to come out after that buzzer goes. I love it's a hockey buzzer. You're wearing a hockey jersey right now. Three, two, one.

Royal Rumble is always cool because, like, It feels like anybody has a chance. It feels like anything could happen in there, although realistically it's probably going to be one of these two or three competitors. But Royal Rumble was always really cool for me. The final three women in the Royal Rumble. Yeah. Did you have an idea?

Did you think that Liv was going to win? So I predicted Liv and I predicted Roman Rains. Oh, really? Yes. I don't want to pat myself on the back too much here, but... Well, that's two out of 60 you got right. Yeah, my predictions for paper views, PLEs, have been pretty great over the last few years. I don't want to pat myself on the back too much.

I knew that Gunther was the favorite going into that A.G. Stiles match, but my heart told me AJ Stiles wasn't going to lose and wasn't going to retire. But other than that, I was like bang on with everything. I predicted so many other things in the Rumble. I was like, Lash Legend is going to have a standout, performance. She's going to eliminate the most people. Boom, that's exactly what happened. I said,

Obafemi's going to have a standout performance, a star-making performance. He's going to have the most eliminations. Boom, he had the most eliminations tied for five with Roman Reigns. Yes. So I predicted Liv. I predicted Roman Reigns. The final three for the women,

Tiffy, Liv, and Sol Ruka. Well, surprising. Sol Ruka. I love it. I think she's going to get a major push. I couldn't agree, Mark. I'm supposed to interview. I don't know if I have to beep it out.

Okay. That'll be good. Oh, that's amazing. Very excited for that. What a legend. Have you talked to her? Yeah, I haven't had like a long interview with her. I'm also supposed to do an interview with her soon.

Maybe it's the same time. Maybe. We'll high five each other as we go in and out. Sounds great. Is there any interview that you really want to make happen of an old timer legend? That we haven't done yet? That you have not done yet. that hasn't done the rounds in a while,

that you just think there's a few more stories that you can get from them. Can I just keep saying Sting, so it just keeps going out into the world? It's going to... I really want to do an interview of Sting. If Sting's on TikTok, which I think he is,

this is going to hit his algorithm. I had a conversation with his manager the other day, and he's like... And I said, stop calling. He called me. So this is going to happen? About something completely different. Oh.

No, I just, Sting doesn't need to do one. And I had a very pleasant conversation with staying off camera. He's the best. If and when it happens, it'll be amazing. Trish Stratus is one I would love to do. And she's back. She's back. She looks like she's aged about 14 minutes.

She looks incredible. That's what I would love to do. And I feel like that feels within the realm of possibility. So let's throw that one out into the world. Trish Stratus, please. We are both from Toronto. So we already have that in common. We just talk about Tim Hortons and Swiss chalet for an hour.

Go from there. What would you want to know from her? Oh, man. I think it's just longevity. Like, Trish Stratus 25 years ago made an impact. Trish Stratus now, 25 years later, is still making an impact. In the toughest industry. In the toughest industry.

And like, so many people in wrestling are lucky to have a six-month run. I was lucky to have a one-year run. She's had a run that's lasted decades, and she's still a legend. Where her music hits, it's still a massive pop, and she can go. She hasn't lost a step.

I think it just all comes down to how, right? And, like, I'm also just really curious, if wrestling didn't happen for her, I know she was doing a lot of things with fitness, and she's been on countless magazine covers. If wrestling didn't happen, what's her career look like?

I'm sure she's a success. doing whatever she puts her mind to, but what does it look like? Because she was such a product of, like, right place, right time, absolutely right person. All of those things clicked for her when she made her debut. And it just worked. And like, we all had a giant crush on her course. How could you not, right? You need help that day. I'm free. So I think it's just the longevity. And I, I think, I think that's the most impressive thing about her career. Does she have a memoir? I don't think so.

She needs one. Yeah. That'd be really interesting. Yeah, agreed. Do you think that Undertaker's streak should have ended? What a moment, right? Like, you talk about WrestleMania moments. I was there, too.

Wouldn't have been more impactful if it was unbroken and then maybe someone somewhere down the line has to beat it? Well, look, one of the biggest things no one talking about, about is Undertaker is lost twice at WrestleMania. Before the streak? No. Brock Lezor beat him when the streak ended, and then a few years later, Roman Reins beat him as well.

So he has two losses at WrestleMania. So like the streak ends, and then like he loses a few years later, it's like, well, that doesn't feel like it has that as much of an impact. Like, you put over Roman Reigns, but that one just doesn't feel like it's as impactful. Look, me fantasy booking

now 12 years later isn't going to change anything, I wouldn't have had the streak end. I remember how quiet it was in that arena. It was weird. Do the people think that that was the right move? I think that everybody in the arena, and I speak for myself because I was in there, I think people thought it was a mistake.

It was one, two, three, then the music didn't hit. And we all just, we're all kind of looking around at each other. What? No, no way. I just went silent. And then Brock's music hit.

And then we started to realize, oh, this is a thing. Nobody thought it was a possibility that he could lose, which is probably why they booked him to lose. But I don't know. I think the streak should have remained. Why not have him retire with the streak intact? Do you have the Undertaker's number? I do.

Should we call him? Right now? Why not? Probably not. Yeah, we should wait. Yeah. We'll call it after. We'll call it after.

Who do you think has the most underrated theme song? Do you know what theme song goes so hard? and not enough people talk about, Dilo Browns. I remember. You're looking at the real deal now. I remember playing on the PlayStation 1 game. Oh, man.

And it's something, it's that song combined with his entrance, shaking his head and the shoulders. Oh, my goodness. That song is so, so good. Billy Gunn has two theme songs that are amazingly underrated. I'm an ass man.

The lyrics of that song are just poetic. Is that underrated because it's a little vulgar, so they're not going to keep that in the ether of it? Maybe it's underrated because it was a mid-card gimmick. But that song is fantastic. And all the things he's doing with the asses, he loves him.

I love to love him. I love to kick him. I love to kiss him. I love to all the other things he's doing with him. But his theme song for the one Billy gun with the saxophone, it sounds like it's a 1990s sitcom theme song. Man, it's so good. Do you know the song I'm talking about?

No. Oh, can I play this for you? Please. Oh, my goodness. People have now cut it together. So it plays over like the full house theme or the full house like video. Yeah, or like the Family Matters intro. And as soon as I play this for you, you're going to go, oh, of course.

Oh, man, this is so good. I still can't get over how Jackty is. I can't either. You ready? Yeah, I know this one. Oh, man. So good. And then he's like, look at all I've got.

As much as I loved The Undertaker's roll in with Limp Biscuit, sometimes it was so slow. And it's kind of ruined the momentum for me. And I had to go do something else. Undertaker is like Dead Man theme, though, with the gong. I don't care if that entrance is 45 minutes. Sign me up for that thing. I want another monster like that. love those gimmicks. Like the Kane, the Undertaker. Yeah. We don't really have one right now.

Kind of have a little bit of it with the Wyatt 6. But yeah, someone, it just feels like unbeatable. Unstoppable. We definitely had that with Bray Wyatt. Yeah. Oh, man, taken from us far too soon. In TNA, I think that Abyss was so underrated and not talked about nearly enough. He's on WWE now, right? Yeah. He's doing a lot of stuff behind the scenes. You see him on Unreal. Was he always doing that even at TNA? I don't think so. He was just wrestling. Yeah. I don't quote me on that, but I think so. Have you ever interviewed him? No, and we have been talking about making this happen. And with how much I love TNA, I can't wait to dive into stuff with Abyss. When you talk to AJ Stiles? Yeah. Was that predominantly WWE, or was it a full mix?

We were able to talk about whatever we wanted. Where'd you take it? A lot of TNA. Like some of his greatest moments are in TNA. Some of his scariest moments are in TNA. like, I love those ultimate X matches where he takes the drop kick, I believe, from Chris Saban and, like, gets turned inside out and almost lands on his head. That was a crazy save. Oh, insane. Insane. But yeah, we talked a lot about that.

And we also talked about his exit from TNA. And, like, he thought he was going to be TNA till he died. And TNA offered him this terrible deal. And he was like, so you're, like, basically making me leave. And that was what forced him to go to Japan, which then ended up, leading for him to debut at the Royal Rumble 2016, and then been with WWE for 10 years. Out of everyone you've talked to,

who sold the most merch? I think it has to be Stone Cold Steve Austin. Did you talk about that? We talked about how he created the Austin 316 shirt, and up to that point, he hadn't had any merch, and he's like, I've got this idea. Austin 316, boom, it's a T-shirt. But here we are 30 years almost

since the Austin 316 promo. And Stone Cold is still one of the top five merch sellers every single month. Insanity. Insane. And I get it. A lot of it's just, he's Stone Cold, he's a legend, one of the greatest wrestling characters of all time. It's also marketing, too.

So like every city they go to, there's Los Angeles 316, Nashville 316, Toronto 316. So like, if you're making a new T-shirt in every city, you've got a chance to sell more, right? And they're really brilliant about that with, like, Cody's stuff. So he's the American nightmare, but he'll be the Toronto nightmare. And he's the London nightmare. And, like, so smart to, like, brand the stuff for each city that they go to. Who do you think had the best promos? For me, personally, it's The Rock.

I love that The Rock could take just a tiny little germ of an idea and turn it into an entire thing. Like, think of the things The Rock got over. it doesn't matter being a catchphrase. How about the fact that the rock got taking inanimate objects, turning them sideways and sticking them up your ass, you got them to be a catchphrase. Like, rock has just a litany of catchphrases. It's not just if you smell what the rock is cooking.

It's like Rudy poo candy ass. It was the jabroney beating, pie eating, that whole one. You shut your mouth. So good. Like, so, there's so, there's so many catchphrases. Just bring it. Rock got the crowd chanting fruity pebbles at John Sina.

I think that that stuff's so good. Like, rock at his best, for me, there is so many great promos. And I'm not saying that Rock is the best. This is a personal choice for me. And I think it has a lot to do with, like, when I really became a hardcore fan of wrestling, rock for me is the best on the mic.

If you could pull in any past interview and interview them again tomorrow, who would it be? I'd love to have The Undertaker back on. We did that interview like two years ago, and it was almost two hours. It feels like yesterday. Oh, my gosh. There's still so much we could talk about.

That was two-ish hours, almost two hours, and there's still so many more things to talk about. Undertaker, and then I'd love to have Stone Cold back on. I don't know if I really count The Rock. I've had, like, shorter interviews with him. I think the longest interview I've ever done with The Rocks, like seven minutes. I thought you had like a 30 minute. No.

And the seven minute was at a press junkie, right? It was backstage at Monday Night Raw when he was promoting the Rock Sina match. And then also promoting, this is such a, like, tells you exactly what time he was at. It was also promoting G.I. Joe, too. So, like, we're going way back. But it was like seven minutes. So if I could have the rock, just sit down here right now, I'd be ready to go. I wouldn't even need to do research.

No brush up. No. Let's just talk. Is he standing outside? Is he waiting? Dwayne. That doesn't matter if he's here. What would you do?

I would tell you to get the hell out of here. And I'd sit down and ask you for the SD cards later. What advice would you have for any person who wants to go into wrestling media? Consistency is the number one thing. Like you need to, number one, you need to start. That's the most important thing. Don't try to come up with a catchy name for your, YouTube channel or your podcast or just start. It's going to suck and just be aware that's going to suck.

Your first interview, your first blog article, your first video, whatever it is, it's going to suck. But just know that your next one's going to be better. It's also going to suck, but it's going to be slightly better than the first one. Is that how yours was? You just kept slowly building each little aspect a little better. Yeah, and I was fortunate that I was doing this kind of in the background while also working on TV. So like TV was my main gig. Making content just happened to be a byproduct of, you're making content when you're working on TV.

I was just taking these interviews and putting them on YouTube. But I think the biggest thing is like, be consistent. Find a day of the week that you're always going to put stuff up and do it and stick to it. And I think that the biggest downfall of any content creator is allowing themselves excuses. Like, oh, I was feeling tired today. or, oh, I had a busy week or whatever. And I get it. And I'm not saying that that stuff shouldn't factor in,

but like treat it like a job. And it will start to reward you like a job. Like if you're not feeling up to it or you've had a rough day, you still got to go to work tomorrow. You still got to pay the bills. And I think that if you treat content in that same way, that like,

maybe you're not having a great day or maybe you can't think of a great idea, it doesn't matter. Turn on the camera and make it happen. Good friend of mine, Sonti's app, he is such a perfect example. of this. He puts out a video literally every single day. I don't know the exact number now,

but I think it's like two and a half-ish years in. So Christmas Day, Thanksgiving Day, a day when he's traveling to, you know, another part of the country, doesn't matter. He finds a topic, he hits record, he puts out the interview. And that's why he has hundreds of thousands of subscribers, tens of millions, hundreds of millions of views because he just keeps showing up. And if you as a creator keeps showing up, your audience will keep showing up too. What is one of the biggest grateful moments that you've had recently? For me, when I check my email on, I just hit refresh and this new one comes in for a podcast request and somebody wants to come on.

Or a DM from somebody, like Michael Chandler recently just DM me out of nowhere. Look at you! What has been... He's the best, by the way. I'm so excited. Oh, it's going to be great. I've really well to talk to me. He's so inspirational, too.

What has been one that's happened to you recently that you were like, is this real? If it's okay with you, it's not even going to be professional. It's like being a father, the days are filled with those moments. My daughter, Logan, is two and a half. My son Cooper is a little over a year old. Like just waking up and seeing them instant gratitude. And I'm hyper aware that this stage that we're in right now of them being a little kids is such a fleeting short stage. I heard a great quote that the best thing about being a parent

is watching your kids grow up. And the worst thing about being a parent is watching your kids grow up. And I relate to that so much. Like I'll like phone like, I do this thing on my phone where like it's a different background every time I tap it. So like here's a picture of Logan when she was like 13 months. I barely recognize that little girl. She's a little baby there. And I'm just like, I'm grateful in the moments for the silliest little things. Fun little voices I do with the kids are like, my daughter is so funny. She'll do silly voices, so it's that. Those are the things I'm super grateful for.

Like coming back from a trip and Logan will run down the driveway into daddy's arms for a hug. Cooper's not walking yet, so he'll get there at some point soon, but those are the moments for me. As a dad, do you do any wrestling moves on them? very safely right now. Just the easy ones, like a swanedomba. I've been, she does leg drops all the time. Oh, yeah, I imagine that. And she'll call them leg drops because we said it like one time.

So like, she'll jump on mom and dad's bed and like just like jump up real high and slam down a leg drop. Leg drop. I, uh, I've picked her up for a power bomb a few times. Like, like, like, Picked her up like Batista style and then gently place her down. down. The Undertaker last ride drop. Gently placed her down on like a pillow.

And the look on my wife's face, Rachel was like, I'm like, it's good. It's good. I got her. Full control. Don't worry. Chris Sharps here. But I think maybe as they get a little bit older, we have a bunch of those wrestling buddies, the big shots.

And she likes to throw those things around. I've got, I don't know, probably 15 of them. So like there's Cody Rhodes and Eddie Guerrero and Ultimate War. or macho man. So she's like throwing them around. Who knows?

Do you collect wrestling figurines? Not really. I have a few of them that like mean a lot to me, but not really. I collect a few wrestling cards. I've been like collecting a few that like, like I have the Rock's very first autograph card in 1998. How did you get that? Found a guy who was selling it.

Wow. Oh, it's an actual signature card from that? Yeah. Like it's one of those like redemption or like one of those. Send in and. No, actually it wasn't a redemption card. It was in the pack. Wow.

Yeah, and there's not that many of them. No, that's rare. Yeah, and it's, that one means a lot to me. But I don't collect figures. Do you? You got a few of them here. I have a couple, yeah. It's just, they're big and bulky, so I don't really have too much space to place them right now.

You're just a pop collector. Because those are easy to stack. Like, I have this sign, yeah. Zelina and Andrade back there. Yeah, yeah. I have Charlotte Flair. I have. You got Paige behind you?

Page, Chelsea Green, vaccine. Yeah. Everyone's been on the show. Yeah. Okay. I try and get all of that for whenever they show up. Yeah, that's cool. What do you have coming up?

You can say, come on, just leak it. Who do you got? When's this going to come out? When do you, uh, tomorrow? Oh, okay. Naya Jacks will be on the show this week. Wow. Yeah, that's going to be a good one.

Okay. And I guess I'll put it out there. And, yeah, we haven't actually done it. I hate always put, I hate putting it out there in case something happens. But I'm supposed to have Rusev on the show soon. You know, he lives out here. Yes. Yeah.

So we've been lining this up and trying to make this work. And then I kind of want to do a redo on my least favorite interview ever with MJF. So if everything comes to plan this week. That will happen. That should happen. Hopefully he doesn't bail. AEW is in town, so we'll see. Hopefully.

Would you get anyone else on there? Yeah. There's a few. There's a few maybes. It's all, you know, it's all very circumstantial with schedules. Who do you have coming up? You've been, like, I am sitting in a chair where legends have sat. Recently, I was supposed to do something with Ashton Coucher.

Oh, what? I was traveling. Oh, why didn't you fly back earlier? I know. It was the same day that I had to fly out. But anytime I take a vacation, something like that happens. Is there a way to redo this? No.

Oh, that's it. Yeah. This is that one. Oh, man. But I, I've told myself. that I need to just go on vacation and take that time off and whatever happens happens. Yeah, I get it. That was a big missed opportunity.

Yeah, there'll be another one that'll come around. I'm a big believer of like this happens because this other thing is supposed to happen over here. Yeah, and then next time when I do see him, I'll be like, hey, we were supposed to do this. And I'll be like, oh, okay. Yeah, there you go. Who else? Something with Chrissy Teigen. Okay.

And something with Sarah Michelle Geller. Amazing. Have you had Freddie Prince Jr. here yet? No, I want to. You know, he loves wrestling. Have you done David Arquette? Yes. I've had him on a few times.

Oh, okay. Yeah, legend. I didn't know Freddy Prince likes wrestling. He used to work for WWE. Doing what? He was a writer. Really? Yeah, for two different stints.

Wow. He was the guy who booked Jeff Hardy to win the WWE championship. Wow. It was his idea. He pitched it. He had the story behind it, and they went with it. Did everyone run their ideas to Vince back then? Oh, yeah.

And Vince was the show. The shot caller. Vince was the audience of one. Yeah. I like it. Let's do it. Yeah, either or I don't think so. It's funny.

Anybody you interview that tells a Vince story, they have to do the Vince voice. So I walked up to Vince, and Vince was like, I don't know about this. Terrible Vince. I don't like it. Yeah. Also terrible Vince. Have you ever had Brock Lezzer? No.

Brock Lezzer doesn't do interviews. He's only done one interview with Pat McAfee. That was it. I think in recent memory, yeah. Like he did some UFC interviews when he was the heavyweight champion, but yeah, I don't think so. I don't think he's doing interviews. It doesn't need to. It just lives in his acreage in Saskatchewan.

Just lives life. This has been awesome talking to you. Oh, so good to see you. I've never been on the Joe Vulpas podcast. No, it's out now. And we also have Chris's microbraller here. Look at that guy with the grateful t-shirt. I'm going to need you to sign it.

How do we sign that thing? Maybe the back of a shirt. Okay. Yeah. We'll give it a try. This is so sick you're a figure. I can't believe it. Yeah, thanks, man.

Thank you for having me on. Always good to chat a little wrestling with you. Yeah, it's so exciting. This is so cool. Have you ever gone to a WW event in Saudi? No. I think the only WW event I've gone to outside of the U.S. other than Canada, of course, was London.

Oh, okay. Yeah, that's it. What's the vibes over there? In London? Yeah. Like when you go overseas, how does it differ from U.S.? Well, I think because a lot of the fan base are like real football fans. You've got the chance.

You've got the songs. They'll be singing songs that like, I've never heard this before. Somehow the whole audience will like figure out a way to like come together on this. They were hot though. Like they were into it. They were booing Cody Rhodes on that Smackdown in London. And then Cody Rhodes got him to turn right back around. He's so good.

he mentioned like a local wrestling company which got them to like turn a little bit and then he's like yeah because london does deserve to get a rustlemanian ah yeah that's right that was pretty cool if wwee offered you any position that you wanted you got to create it what would you want to do i'm at a pretty great spot right now but if w ewee is going to offer me any sort of position i would say uh wrestler main event russomania night two Maybe a tag match to hide my weaknesses because I'm not a wrestler. So me and the Rock versus anybody. Anybody. Throw it out there. Yeah. So that'll be the position.

Oh, man. I really want you to talk to Triple H. Well, you know, maybe we can make this match happen too. Because that's what people want to see. The YouTube podcast guy in the main event of WrestleMania. I mean, if anybody wants to see Chris in a wrestling match, comment down below who you want to see him wrestle. Ooh.

Yeah. Who do you want to see that match? with. Randy Orton. Oh man. Randy Orton's so good. He could even make me look like a good wrestler. Guys, go subscribe to Chris. He's going to be linked down below. Thanks for coming back. Dude. Thank you.

Jim Rome takes on sports. Why? Because I have a job to do. With rapid fire takes. So I don't want to hear from you lava pigs on this notion today. No idea what you're talking about. You're complaining more than you like to breathe air. It's like

you get up in the morning only to complain. and cry and moan on social media about things that you don't even understand. He's the spitfire of sports smack. Take advantage of it, but get up in here. The Jim Rome Show podcast. What's your beef? Follow and listen on your favorite platform. You've been warned.