Insight with Chris Van Vliet - BONUS: CVV Interviewed About Hitting 1 Million Subscribers, Backyard Wrestling, Content Creation, WWE, UFC

Episode Date: August 30, 2025

On this bonus episode, Chris Van Vliet is interviewed by Zues Dominguez on "The Good Talk Podcast" at West Coast Creative Studio in Los Angeles, CA. In this conversation, Chris discusses his journey growing his wrestling-focused platform over the past few years. From his early days of backyard wrestling (as Chris Sharp) to amassing over 1 million followers across platforms, Van Vliet shares insights on the power of consistent, high-volume content creation, the importance of collaboration, and his lifelong passion for the wrestling and MMA worlds.Please support our sponsors!   PURE PLANK: The future of core fitness! Use the code CVV to save 10% on Pure Plank designed by Adam Copeland & Christian: https://gopureplank.com/?ref=tibcloux   SUPERPOWER: Go to https://Superpower.com and use code CVV to get $50 Off your annual Superpower subscription. Live up to your 100-Year potential. #superpowerpod   SEAT GEEK: Use my code for 10% off your next SeatGeek order*: https://seatgeek.onelink.me/RrnK/CVV2025 Sponsored by SeatGeek. *Restrictions apply. Max $20 discount PRIZEPICKS: Download the app today and use code INSIGHT to get $50 instantly after you play your first $5 lineup!  TIMELINE: Go to https://timeline.com/insightto get 20% off your order of Mitopure!   VUORI: Get 20% off your first purchase! Get yourself some of the most comfortable and versatile clothing on the planet at https://vuori.com/cvv   ROCKET MONEY: Join Rocket Money today and reach your financial goals faster: https://rocketmoney.com/cvv MIRACLE MADE: Upgrade your sleep with Miracle Made! Go to https://trymiracle.com/CVV and use the code CVV to claim your FREE 3 PIECE TOWEL SET and SAVE over 40% OFF   ZOCDOC: Instantly book a top-rated doctor today at https://zocdoc.com/insight   BONCHARGE: Use the code CVV to save 15% off your infrared sauna blanket at https://boncharge.com/cvv   BLUECHEW: Get your first month of BlueChew for free with the code CVV at https://bluechew.com   For more information about Chris and INSIGHT go to: https://podcast.chrisvanvliet.com If you have ever enjoyed any of these episodes, could I ask you to please consider leaving a short review on Apple Podcast or Spotify? It takes less than a minute and makes a huge difference in helping to spread the word about the show and also to convince some hard-to-get guests.    Follow CVV on social media:  Instagram: instagram.com/ChrisVanVliet Twitter: twitter.com/ChrisVanVliet Facebook: facebook.com/ChrisVanVliet YouTube: youtube.com/ChrisVanVliet TikTok: tiktok.com/@Chris.VanVliet Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Ladies and gentlemen, Chris Van Fleet. Oh, welcome back, my friends, to another one here on Insight. I'm CVV. Chris Van Fleet, thank you for hitting play on this episode, and thank you for making Insight the number one wrestling podcast on the planet. I'm sure you've already done so. But if not, hit a super kick on that follow button on Spotify or Apple or wherever it is that you're listening. right now. Welcome, my friends, to a special bonus episode of Insight. This is from an interview I did

last month with one of my best friends, Zeus Dominguez, on his podcast called The Good Talk podcast. I had just hit a million subscribers on the CVV clips channel on YouTube, which, as I say that out loud, that is a wild number. That is a massive number. I'm sure you're one of those subscribers, so I just want to say, like, from me to you, thank you. Thank you. you. And thank you for being on this journey with me. We cover a ton of stuff during this episode. We had just gone to Money in the Bank. So we talked about that. We had also just gone to UFC 317. I'm sure you know this, but I'm a big MMA fan and a big UFC fan. And we also talk about my background as a backyard wrestler. We talk about the Chris Sharp character and all of the

silliness around that. And just in general, we talk about content creation. And if you're a content creator, maybe there's a nugget of knowledge in here that might help you out in your journey. Or just maybe there's something in here that might apply to whatever it is that you do in your life. So I hope that you enjoy this. If you do, please snap a screenshot and tag us. Zeus is at Zeus.com. So z-u-es dot do. I'm at Chris Van Fleet. And here we go. Enjoy this conversation on the Good Talk podcast. We got you back, man. Wow. It's been Over a year since you've been here. Last time you were here was May 30th. You had just built the studio.

Yeah. Look at what you've built, by the way. Congratulations. Thank you. You've had this for over a year. Over a year now, it's been a crazy wild ride here in the studio. We've had so many great guests. I think I've recorded close to 50 episodes here now, too. Yes. Yeah, I think about 50.

Yeah, this has become the L.A. home, the California, the West Coast home of Insight. Yeah. So thank you. This is a home for Insight with Chris Van Vlee. Hey, congratulations on hitting one million followers on TikTok. How does that feel? It's wild. And what, like, between Facebook and then a million subscribers on YouTube and now TikTok.

Yeah, congratulations on the clip channel to getting a million followers. Crazy man. Yeah, thank you. It's been wild. Like, it's a number so big I can't wrap my head around. Yeah. Like, I remember sitting on your couch four years ago with like, I don't know, however many, 20,000 Instagram followers.

followers or something and being like, man, could you imagine if one day, if one day me or you can hit a hundred thousand, like that'd be crazy. Yeah, it's wild. It also speaks to like where wrestling is at right now. Like wrestling is more popular than perhaps it's ever been. Ever? Maybe. Like the attitude era was crazy in the late 90s with the Monday Night Wars. But you didn't have like the internet was existing at that time, but it wasn't where it was at now. So like you've got this confluence of like wrestling is popular. Streaming platforms are popular and that's where Raw lives. The internet's at like everywhere.

Like people are looking at their phone more than than looking at their TV. So I just think it's all of these things coming together. And my content exists on those screens. So it's like it just speaks to where we're at right now with just the world of wrestling, the world of like content creation. I just feel super lucky. And the thing is you've only been doing this as far as like posting content. and so much content for not that long,

maybe just like a few years. I think three years ago is when I was like, I saw somebody else's profile and they were posting a reel a day. So like 30 reels and 30 days, to me felt insane. I couldn't even think of like two videos a month. But I was like, well, what if I could take my interviews

and clip them up into smaller versions and then like do that every day? So it started as like a reel a day for 30 days, almost like a challenge. Like could I do that? Yeah. And that took on a whole life of its own. So, yeah, I'd say that the majority of the growth has been over the last three-ish years. And that's also like anybody who creates content, just know that there is no such thing as creating too much content.

Like if you post, I think I think I post something like 10-ish times a day per platform. But I understand that not everybody in my audience is going to see all 10 of those posts. So if somebody that follows me sees one of them, somebody who doesn't follow me sees one of them, maybe I could get a new person through that. But it's not like you're going to open up your phone and like swipe, swipe, swipe, swipe. And every single one of them is one of my posts. That's just not the way that the algorithm works. But I will say that going all in on just posting more changed my whole perspective of all of this. Yeah.

I've probably said this to you before. But I like to think of clips as the breadcrumbs. So these are the breadcrumbs. It's 40 seconds, 50 seconds, whatever it happens to be. Chances are, if I send you a clip that's 40 or 50 seconds, you might watch the whole thing. But if I sent you a link and said, man, this podcast was amazing. And you look at the runtime and it's an hour and 17 minutes. You're not even going to click play on that.

Yeah. So I figure with clips, if I send it to you and the runtime is 46 seconds, you'll probably hit play. And you might even watch the whole thing. That's the breadcrumb. If you like that, hopefully it leads to the slice of. bread, which is three to five minute clips. And if you like that slice of bread, maybe you're hungry enough to look for the loaf of bread, which is the full entire episode that's an hour or two. And that's kind of the way that I break it down. And that's genius. That's so smart to do.

I think Reels just really changed the game for everyone, for content creators like yourself, right? Alex Hermose started doing this, started just putting so much content out there. And it worked for him, right? So I think that's the recipe. And I think you found your recipe, what works for you. And man, you're like, you're famous when we go to any wrestling event, man. I don't know about that. I'm the person who gets to talk to the famous people. Yeah. Like, how fortunate am I to be able to sit on this side of the table and listen to conversations and hear stories from people like The Undertaker or Edge or John Cena or Dave Batista or Bailey or whoever it happens to be? Like, how lucky am I that I get to do that.

How did your podcast even start like a YouTube channel? How did that come about? Honestly, my YouTube channel started kind of by accident. So my original YouTube channel was in 2007. It wasn't anything associated with my name. But it was just the idea that like you would interview a celebrity or a band or an athlete. And I was doing this for the TV station that I worked for at the time. You would do an interview with someone huge like that.

and it would only air on TV. So unless you were watching that specific channel on that specific day, so unless you're watching Channel 19 on that Thursday at 4.14 p.m., you would never see this interview. And I just thought, well, that kind of sucks. Like, I'm really proud of this interview I did with whoever this big name star is. We just love for other people to see this. And maybe some of those people's fans would appreciate this as well.

I just started taking those raw uncut interviews and putting them on my YouTube channel. Just like only as an idea of like this will be the digital library where these interviews will exist. Just as an archive. Just as an archive. That's it. And hopefully if someone was a big fan of who were some of the interviews I was doing at that time, Robert Pattinson or Steven Spielberg or I did an interview with the Miz in 2011, if you were a fan of

those people's work, hopefully you would find this on YouTube and maybe it would get few hundred views. That's how it all began. And it was just me going, oh, cool, I got to interview this big name person. That'll air on TV. Cool. Fun segment. Let's just take the rest of it and put it online. Maybe someone can find it five years from now and appreciate it. Some of those interviews, though, just by nature of how the internet works, some of them were getting thousands. Some of them we're getting tens of thousands of views. And that's kind of how it took off. And then I realized, oh, if I'm getting access to interview wrestlers specifically,

and that was kind of a rare thing we're going back 13, 14 years ago, to have to be a wrestling fan and to be able to interview pro wrestlers was kind of rare. Like a lot of times when they were doing interviews with mainstream media, the interviews were about, oh, Roz, this Monday, ticket started $20. I was doing interviews where I'm like, hey, can we go back to like SummerSlam, 1998? Like I really want to ask about this match. And it seemed that because I was speaking the language of pro wrestling, I was getting these incredible stories and this amazing insight, pun, not intended.

And that was like, I kind of found my niche through that. So two, three, four times a year. I was living in Cleveland at that time, working for the CBN. affiliate, WIO. Every few times a year, WW would come to town, TNA would come to town, and I would get to interview people like McFolly

or the Mizz was one of them. Dolf Ziegler was from Cleveland, Jeff Hardy. So those are some of the early interviews. I just did those interviews. We'd air a clip or two on the newscast and then I would put the rest of it on YouTube. Some of those just started like,

gasoline got poured on the fire. I don't know how. I don't know why. and some of those overnight were getting tons of views. And I was like, I think I'm on to something here where other wrestling fans appreciate these conversations as much as I do.

Like, they love them as much as I love doing them. Men, the only thing worse than losing your hair is waiting forever for it to grow back. That's why you need hymns. You can start seeing your hair grow back in as little as three to six months. Hymns provide you with convenient and quality access to a range of hair loss treatments that work

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Your name was Chris Sharp, right? That was your first wrestling. That's my backyard wrestling name. Take us back to like how you got into wrestling. And you used to do backyard wrestling too, right? Yeah, yeah. There's there's clips out there of me as a backyard wrestler. Insert the clip.

Oh, wow. Look at that swanton bomb. It all started with a good friend of mine who, if you go back in time, when you were really good friends with somebody in the 90s, you talked on the phone with them. Like that was the thing. You got home from school and you picked up the phone, beep, bo, bo, bo, bo, beep, beep, bo, and you called them, right?

And you would just chat about all kinds of things. And my buddy was really into fishing. That was the thing that, like, brought us together, but it was also into wrestling. And I wasn't. I was on the high school wrestling team. But you were kind of always taught, like, as an amateur wrestler, like, what we do in here, this is real.

What we do on the mat, this is real. And that stuff on TV, that's fake. But one Monday night, we were talking on the phone, and at 9 p.m., Ra was about to start that Monday night, and our call had to abruptly come to an end. He's like, I got to go. Raw is starting. And we weren't done talking about whatever we were talking about. And I said, all right, I'll turn it on. And at the next commercial break, we can finish talking about what we were talking about.

Turned it on, and I was instantly hooked. It was Vince McMahon versus Stone Cold was the main source. storyline at that time on Raw. And I was just like sucked in by the larger than life characters. Like I just, I saw so much of myself in them. And I went from not watching any wrestling to watching everything. I was like, I dove head first. And you know this about me. I'm the type of person that I don't check the depth of the water. I don't check the temperature of the water. Just dive in and we'll figure it out when we get in there. And that's what it was for me in wrestling. And then a few months later, my friend of ours had a trampoline and we were like doing moves on the trampoline that we saw on TV.

Then we found out a friend of a friend had this backyard wrestling league, the HCW, hardcore championship wrestling. I developed this heel character, Chris Sharp, who nobody liked Chris Sharp was a mean guy. And that was kind of it. Like I existed in this world where like it was wrestling and fishing. There was actually a guy at school in high school that called me fishing wrestling. That was his nickname for me. Hey, fishing wrestling, what's up? Because it was the only two things I talked about.

Fishing wrestling. But those were like my real passion. Still to this day. Like bass fishing and pro wrestling, I love them so much. Did you have a move that you like to do back then? Favorite move? My finishing move was the swanton bomb, which was Jeff Hardy's finishing move. Still is Jeff Hardy's.

That was one of my favorite moves too. The Hardy boys were like my favorite move. favorite guys. Yeah. The Hardy Boys meant a lot to me. And like it's so cool now, fast forward all these years later. I've interviewed Matt and Jeff together and also independently a number of times. They're legends. And they're still doing it, which is crazy. Like, I wonder how much longer they'll be able to do it for. But those guys are absolute legends. But yes, there are clips out there of me doing many a swan tom bombs. Yeah. I saw a clip of you doing the rock bottom. Dude, that rock bottoms has to be one of the best rock bottoms. Could it be better than the rocks? You said it, not me. Hey, it's pretty good.

And definitely not. If people haven't seen this rock bottom, insert the clip because this rock bottom, dude, that was insane. Like, you did that, like you've been doing that your entire life. Thank you. And I've probably in my life done thousands of rock bottoms. all of them on a trampoline with like very willing friends or opponents in like, you know, some sort of like ridiculous make-believe trampoline wrestling. All of the credit goes to Rock Hall, who made me look like a million bucks.

So this segment was set up at ACW, which is an independent wrestling company owned by Hornswoggle. So we're in Wisconsin for this. And he sets up this segment. I was the host of the show that night. And we set up the segment where I'm out there hyping up the crowd, Santino Morella comes out. He's a legend. So we're both hyping up the crowd together. And out of nowhere, Brock Hall's music hits.

And he's a mega heel. The crowd hates this guy. And what's so brilliant is he comes out to the new Kids on the Block song, Hangin' Tough. And the crowd chants, oh, Brock Hall sucks. It's the coolest thing to be part of this. like everybody in there sold out crowd is chanting. Brock Hall sucks. So we have this segment.

We're going back and forth and he's like, hey man, how dare you like come out here and, you know, be in my ring. And I'm like, hey, man, I know who you are.

You're that guy who sucks. The crowd's hating on him even more. He goes to swing on me. He misses. I catch him in the rock bottom. And we talked about this earlier in the day. And I said, just please try to make me look good.

Like, whatever you do, when I slap my left hand on your back and we bend down, please just jump. And he's like, oh, I got you. I'm going to make you look great. So I caught him. I looked around. Like I really took in the moment. And you can kind of hear the crowd going, oh, like they know what's going next. And I put my hand there. We both bent down. He jumped up so high. And I landed it down. and I guess because I had done the rock bottom so many times in the past on a trampoline as a kid, I'm just so used to like you automatically spring back up. And you know, the ring has a little bit of give,

but there was just something about the way that we landed it where my momentum was already going back up. And I stood right back up on my feet. I've only done two rock bottoms ever in a ring. One was at prime wrestling. And then there was this one at ACW. and both times I was able to land it and stand back up. And like, there's a brief moment. Maybe you can even see it in the clip where I like,

I can't believe that worked. You're a surprise. Yeah, I'm like, I can't believe I actually landed. You look like a natural. You bounced right back up onto your feet. You did the Chris Sharp look, looked around, and it was amazing, incredible rock bottom. I feel like my backyard wrestling character,

Chris Sharp came out for like eight seconds there. There's a, like, there's a lot of risk there. And I don't mean risk in like somebody getting hurt, which is always possible when you do anything in a wrestling ring. But there's a lot of risk. When you go for the rock bottom and you commit to like,

I'm going to try to stand back up on this, which is the way the rock used to do it. The rock now just plants them down and like, that's it. When you're committing to like the, I'm going to plant them and then also try to stand back up on your feet, a lot can go wrong. Like I could have fallen on my face.

I could have stumbled backwards and falling back. I feel like I got really lucky that that landed perfectly. That was amazing. When I saw that rock bottom, I'm like, wow. That was great. I couldn't believe it. People seem to think that because I landed a rock bottom, I could now have like a match. Let's not get crazy, people.

Okay, let's not get crazy. It was just a rock bottom. But there might be another rock bottom. in my back pocket here. So who knows? I might have another one up my sleeve. What's another move that you'd like to try inside the ring? I did a lot of twist to fates when I was a backyard wrestler.

So that's the Matt Hardy or Jeff Hardy move, you know, swinging neck breaker, basically. Look, I'll try anything. Yeah? I would, like I told you earlier, the swan tom bomb is my move as a backyard wrestler. I think I'd be really scared to get up on the top rope and try a swan bomb.

but I also think that the only way to overcome fear is by looking it right in the face. So maybe I got a swan-time bomb up my sleeve. So when's the next time you're going to be in the ring? Well, between the first rock bottom and the next rock bottom was, I believe, 12 years. So I think sometime 12 years soon now. I don't know. Look, the thing about wrestling is never say never. But I also think that I can't be out every single weekend at every single,

independent show throwing rock bottoms around and people will start to expect it. I think it'd be cool that every once in a while, we plant one on somebody. That's true. I got to show this to The Rock too. Yeah. When's your next interview with The Rock? Excellent question.

You think we can get the Rock in here? If we can get the Rock in here? Like, Smashing Machine's going to be such a big movie in the fact that like we're seeing the Rock in a completely different setting. like there's a lot of meat on the bone of that character. And the fact that it's like, you know, based on Mark Kerr and like the real life story of his life, I feel like we're going to see a completely different side of the rock. I would think instead of a four or five minute junkin interview, I would think the rock would

want to sit down for an hour long conversation to dive into all of that. So fingers crossed. Fingers crossed. We're going to put that out of the world. Let's go. Rock. Dwayne, please. join us. It'd be so great to have you in the studio.

That would be incredible. And then to be able to talk about the movie, that movie's going to be awesome. I can't wait to see that. An hour's not going to be enough time with The Rock. You need any more time. I need about 14 hours. So ask them all the questions I have for them. Can you believe it's already June, man, 2025 halfway through the year? Yeah, wild. That's crazy. What has changed in your life in the past year? Well, the past half year of 2020. Well, we welcome another baby. Well, congratulations. That's probably the biggest one.

December 17th, 2024 is when my son Cooper was born. And then our little girl, Logan, just turned two on May 29th. That without any hyperbole has changed my life. Becoming a father has been the biggest change in my life in so many different ways. I think the biggest is it reminds you of what's important. It also reminds you of what to stay focused on. Because I think that we get into this habit of like being busy for the sake of being busy. Like,

and there's a big difference between being busy and being productive. And I have done my very best to try to focus on being productive and also trying to be as present as I can possibly be for not just Logan and Cooper, but also for my wife, Rachel. So, yeah, that's been the biggest thing. And in terms of content, I just feel like the guests somehow keep getting bigger, the show somehow. continues to grow. And like every month we do a recap of like, here's the top five episodes of the month. Actually, as we record this right now, I just posted like here was the top five episodes of the month for June. Ria Ripley was number one. And every month when I look at those, and that's only five of the guests that we had that month. Every month I look at it, I go, how did we get

these five people to say yes? Knowing that there's eight or 10 or 12 guests that month, how did we get all of these people to say yes. And also to say yes to doing it in person and also say yes to an hour-ish conversation. All of that blows my mind, man. What are some of your favorite interviews you've done in the past six months? You've done a lot. Yeah, it's been crazy. The Seth Rollins one to kick off the year was awesome.

Like that was such a cool thing. It was right before Raw debuted on Netflix. and there was a ton going into the storyline he had at that time with CM Punk. But Seth Rollins is like one of the very best right now. And he's so good at like making whoever he's in the ring with look like amazing. So I think that one to kick off the year was huge. A few weeks after that got to sit down with both Matt and Jeff Hardy, flew to Dallas to do that interview.

And those guys meant so much to me. growing up. There was something about the way that they wrestled, especially as a tag team, which I'd never seen done before. So that was a really cool one. And Jeff Hardy doesn't do long, in-depth, sit-down interviews at all. So for him to be able to trust me and trust me to talk about some of the sensitive topics we talked about during that interview, that meant a lot to me. But there's been so many, like the Rio Ripley interview that we just did in New York. That was a huge one. Like, she's such a megastar. But I feel like, every interview before it happens is the biggest interview.

Like I put so much time, so much effort, so much thought into each conversation that, like, it truly feels like whoever it is, that's a big interview. How do you balance your work life and your personal life? Because you've been traveling so much. You've been going New York, Nashville, a bunch of different places, right? So how do you balance your work life and your personal life? I've got some amazing people. that work on the show with me that are far more talented than I am at the things that they do.

That's helped so much because there was a point a few years ago where I was doing everything. I was shooting the interviews and I was booking the interviews and I was researching the interviews and I was editing them and I was transcribing them and I was promoting like wearing all of the hats and to be able to at one point be able to go, maybe I could find someone to just edit this. I'm not a great editor. I know how to edit it, but I'm like a, six out of ten editor? What if I could find someone who's a ten out of ten editor who does this all the time? Not only would they do it better, they do it way faster as well. And then it would free up time for me to do what I'd like to focus on more, which is actually having the great conversations and diving into that

research. I think that's been a big part of it, is having people who are far more talented than I am taking care of the things and in doing the things, diving into the things that I'm not that great at. So I think that that's been a really big part of it. But when I made the commitment two years ago to do all of these interviews in person, just because I think it's a much better conversation to be able to look someone in the eye, shake their hand, give them a hug. When I made that commitment, I knew that something would have to give. So if that meant I was editing less or I was transcribing less or whatever it happened to be,

okay, cool. And the cool thing about the creator culture that we're in right now, is if my show continues to grow, that means that other creators are able to also grow with it. So if you're an aspiring editor or you're aspiring videographer or whatever an audio engineer, whatever your skill set is, as my show continues to grow, that gives you an opportunity to grow as well and live your dream as well. And that's been the coolest thing about this is like saying to other people who are passionate about just creating great content saying to them like, hey, you want to come along for this ride with me? Like, dude, I'm so grateful that I get to use your studio when I record

here in L.A. That's been one of the coolest things. Like, we've been friends for years. And then we also get to like work together. How awesome is that? It's incredible. I love it. Yeah, so cool. We have a great friendship and a great working relationship too. Yeah. And you invited me to money in the bank. And that was amazing. I started watching wrestling more because of you. Because, you know, I'm meeting all these like wrestling. One of us.

That was awesome. So we went to money in the bank, right? And man, you just, you're a celebrity, man. When you go to these events. I don't know about that. People come up to you, want pictures with you. All these different people just know who you are, right? Especially in the wrestling world.

What do all these fans or people that watch your content, and mean to you. Look, I'm one of them as well. Like, that's the crazy thing. Like, I'm, I'm a wrestling fan as well. I'm a wrestling fan, though, who gets the incredible opportunity to share conversations with people who are the very best of what they do. So I think the cool thing about someone saying, hey, I've seen your videos before or, hey, I enjoy your podcast. The great thing about that is we create in a bubble. Like, think about what you and I are doing right now. It's me and you in a room, and that's it. There's nobody else in this room.

There's three cameras and two microphones, but there are only two humans in here. And it's a nice reminder that on the other side of these cameras, there's people. And that's the coolest part about it, is you create so much in a vacuum that sometimes you forget that on the other side of this are people who are watching this on their phone or on their laptop or tablet or on their TV. that's the nicest reminder. And also, it's just cool that we have this thing in common, this like hyper passion for this lovely thing that we call pro wrestling. And that we can come together and connect on that. Like, it's just like that scene in stepbrothers.

Do we just become best friends? Yep. Like, it doesn't matter where you're from. It doesn't matter what you do for a living. But like you like wrestling. and I like wrestling, boom. That's it. So much in common.

That's it. Right off the bat. Yep. Now we have an endless amount of things to talk about. Yeah. That's exactly how I feel about when I meet like a UFC fan. Sure. You know, talking about UFC, we just went to UFC 317.

What a weekend. What a weekend. What a weekend. Man. What a main event, too. Dude, Charles versus Toporia, the way that ended was the best way. Best case scenario for Topperia. And I guess for us, too, I was rooting for Topporia.

to win that fight. And the way he did it with that knockout was incredible. The stadium went crazy. Well, he went into that fight, undefeated 16-0, and he was the favorite, like, pretty heavy favor going into that. But I was like, could he, like, will he remain undefeated? Like, Charles is not like, he's no joke, right? It's going to be a great fight.

But Ilya just, like, he has no wasted movements. Like everything is so sharp, so crisp. And he knocked him out like it was like the most targeted attack, like the most targeted punch of like, I'm going to hit you here, here and here. One, two, three. Boom. He's in you, Connor McGregor.

There's so many similarities that are been coming out with him and Connor nowadays. At like the stage of his career where he's at now. Yeah, they were both 28 when they both got champ champ status. Wow. And yeah, man. Aren't they like both? Wasn't it an eight? and UFC or something, like,

they've got a lot of similarities. A lot of similarities, yeah. I don't know. Will that fight ever happen? Who knows? Ely and Connor? Yeah. Is Connor ever going to fight again?

I don't know. I feel like he doesn't need to. I don't think he definitely doesn't need to. Because there's so much, like, it's such a lose-lose situation for him. Because if he wins the fight, it's like, all right, you've won lots of fights in UFC. But if he loses, it's like, well, that proven the haters right. Yeah. Like, you can't win another one.

He's such a big fight, though. But I think the fight that will happen is going to be Patty Pimbley because he walked into the cage. Yeah. Why was Dana White so upset about that? I don't know. Like, that was the most exciting thing to happen in UFC in a long time. Yeah. I don't know.

He said he wasn't there. So. But even like he's like, if I was there, I wouldn't have that happen. It's like, what? Like that face off and Ilya pushing Patty. Like, that was fun. It made me. Great promo.

It reminded me of the UFC that I loved in like the mid-2000s. I'm reminded of like the GSP promo. I was not impressed by your performance. Like I love that type of stuff. Yeah, no, it was a great event. Was that the first time you've experienced something like that? Like an event like that, the UFC, meeting so many people.

Yeah, that was great. We met everybody. Yeah. We saw everybody. Our seats were right by where we are people walk by. Right by the ramp there. Yeah. I've been to five UFC in person, five UFCs.

But I've been watching UFC since I was like 15. I remember finding it in like this back corner of Blockbuster on VHS. I remember being like, what is the ultimate fighting championship turning it over and being like, that little dude against that giant dude? Like what? And remember their tagline back then was like, there's no rules? I'm like, no rules? Like, we're going to see a street fight inside a cage.

I was hooked. I remember one New Year's. Actually, it was the same buddy that got me into pro wrestling. One New Year's when we were like 15. I think. We just rented like five UFCs. And we just like, boom, boom, boom. We watched them that evening.

We watched them the next day. And I've loved it ever since. So it's so cool to like, yeah, there's nothing like seen in person. Yeah. Nothing like seeing in person. Incredible. It's the vibe, the people there. Everyone goes crazy.

Yeah. It's amazing. I had such a good time there. We got to meet a bunch of different people. Amanda Nunes, Kayla Harrison, Justin Gage. Israel was there. Volkanowski. Man, so many chee-wee-wees.

Oh, man, dude. I was like a kid in a candy store just like meeting all these different UFC fighters because I've been a UFC fan for a long time. And you know me, I don't miss a UFC pay-per-view fight. So to be there in the building

watching this and the way like it ended with that knockout. And it was so full circle for you and I because we've been friends basically since I moved to LA 5 years ago. And how many Saturday nights did we spend on your couch watching UFC and like then fast forward five years later to like be there watching it with such insane seats? So shout out to on location for making that happen. We went. We walked in the octagon afterwards. Yes. Like looking at the

splattered blood everywhere. It was so cool, man. So it was just so funny that like when they said that I could bring a guest because it was two tickets. I'm like, well, it's got to be Zeus. Well, first, I was, in all fairness, I said, well, let's see if Rachel can come. And Rachel was like, eh, I think it's going to be tough. Grandma's out of town. I don't know if we could be away for two nights. Kids clearly can't come to a UFC event. Thank you, Rachel. So, yeah. Thank you. You go, you go, you got, you like send her a box of donuts or something. I know. Rachel, what kind of donuts you like? I'll send her a box of donuts. She will eat any donut. Any, any donut. who's your all-time goat in UFC?

Man, that's a loaded question, but I would have to say, I would have to go, I think, GSP, man. Yeah, me too. GSP, I think Mighty Mouse, even though he was never really, like, popular, but also Mighty Mouse has always been so good. So I think, but GSP, I think, has to be there.

I'm so biased because I'm Canadian. And there's just this thing when you're a Canadian, you just root for other Canadians, whether they're actors or comedians, or athletes, whatever it is, you're like, ah, fellow Canadian. So when I found out that GSP was Canadian, I was like, well, he's my guy.

And he's just so, like, GSP's like the golden boy, right? Like, GSP did no wrong. Like, inside of the ring, one of the greatest. Yes. If not the greatest. Outside of the ring, goad human. Yeah.

Yeah. Even now, like, have you seen him? He's in, like, incredible shape still. Yeah, well, he's, I think he's like my age. Like, yeah. Yeah. And dude, he's jacked. Jacked.

Yeah. I saw him at Fanatics Fest. Yeah. Saw him at Fanatics Fest briefly. I was just like, oh, there he is. Yeah. He's so humble. Yeah.

I feel like every time I see him on a podcast or anywhere else, he just talks like he's not famous. Like, nobody has anything bad to say about him. No. The perfect, the perfect guy. Love GSP. Yeah. What about you? Would you just say GSP too?

How can you say anyone else? Yeah. When you're a Canadian who grew up. but that was like the big era too. I remember, I remember sitting in someone's basement. It was like a friend of a friend. Remember how hard it was to like,

you know, paying for UFC when you were younger was like, oh my gosh, but then you found out like, somebody's ordering it. If you just come over and bring a few beers, you can watch. I remember watching GSP versus Matt Sarah

in someone's basement and being like, what? GSP's going to lose? And then like, sure enough, he did lose. I was like, that blue, my mind. Everyone's heartbroken after that. And then he came back and then he won it. He got that revenge. Yeah, he avenged his loss. But I remember watching that live and just like, what did we

just witness? This is crazy. Yeah. I also got to see GSP fight live in Rogers Center in Toronto in 2011, I believe that was. Randy Couture's last UFC. I think was UFC 129. I could be off by a few, but I think, look, we have all the world's information in our pocket. I don't want to, I don't I get it wrong and then people will be like, ah, this guy knows nothing. He thinks it was UFC 129. So long ago. UFC, it was UFC 129. Oh, good. Nice. Wow, you have really good memory. St. Pierre versus Shields. Nice. Okay. Got it right. Man, well, dude, thanks for coming to the podcast. When is your next live show? August 1st, New York City. It's going to kick off the very first two-day summer slam happening there. I can't wait. These live shows have been so much fun. And,

And there's just a different element of like getting that many people in the room together. You heard them chanting and laughing and it was just a blast. Yeah. So CVVTX.com, CVVTX.com for people who are going to be in the New York, New Jersey area for SummerSlam or just people who happen to live in that area, would love to have you come out and enjoy the show. One thing I love that you do in the live shows is that you give away things. You give away little pillows. Yeah. The big shots.

Yeah, the big shots. They're like little wrestle buddies. You have one in here somewhere. The wrestle buddies have been so much fun. Like they're an iconic, nostalgic thing from when we grew up. All of us like tried out our wrestling moves that we watched on TV on our wrestle buddies. And now that Big Shots has kind of brought this back, like, I say this all the time, but nostalgia is a hell of a drug.

And you see that in wrestling more than anything else. Like that feeling you get when you hear that song, you see that person. it's just so powerful. And the big shots, I think, really, like, factor into that a lot of like, oh, man, even though I'm a 42-year-old man now, I remember those things from when I was a kid. Yeah. Well, your live shows are incredible. And, hey, you need to check out a CVV live show.

Thank you, man. Insight Live. Come on out. Insight Live. Let's go. Hey, man, thanks for coming on to the podcast again. Man, thank you for having me back. Congrats to you on everything you built, too.

Thank you. It's been a wild ride, and we're going to keep building. Keep growing. Let's go. Let's go. Thanks. 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 should be? Follow and listen on your favorite platform. You've been warned.