Insight with Chris Van Vliet - Chad Gable On Wyatt Sicks, Heel Turn, Kurt Angle Comparisons, Olympics, "Shoosh! & Ah-Thank You!"

Episode Date: August 13, 2024

Chad Gable (@WWEGable) is a professional wrestler currently signed to WWE. He sits down with Chris Van Vliet in Minneapolis, MN to discuss his transition from amateur wrestling at the Olympics to becoming a professional wrestler, the comparisons to "Perc Angle" in TNA, if he was ever in conversation to be Kurt Angle's son, the origin of the "Shoosh!" and "Thank You" catchphrases, being the focus of the Wyatt Sicks debut, why there has never been a bad Chad Gable match, the first time he met Otis and more! Quote I'm thinking about: "Embarrassment is the cost of entry. If you aren't willing to look like a foolish beginner, you'll never look like a graceful master." - Ed Latimore Sponsors: PURE PLANK: The future of core fitness! Use the code CVV to save 10% on Pure Plank which was designed by Adam Copeland & Christian: https://gopureplank.com/ BONCHARGE: Use the code CVV to save 15% off your infrared sauna blanket at https://boncharge.com/cvv MAREK HEALTH: Get a 10% discount on Marek Health's Optimization Package with code CVV: https://marekhealth.com/cvv BLUECHEW: Use the code CVV to get your first month of BlueChew for FREE at http://bluechew.com ROCKET MONEY: Join Rocket Money today and experience financial freedom: https://rocketmoney.com/cvv PLUNGE: Get $150 off your Plunge with the coupon code CVV150 at http://plunge.com For more information about Chris and INSIGHT go to: https://podcast.chrisvanvliet.com If you enjoyed this episode, could I ask you to please consider leaving a short review on Apple Podcast/iTunes? It takes less than a minute and makes a huge difference in helping to spread the word about the show and also to convince some hard-to-get guests.  Follow CVV on social media:  Instagram: instagram.com/ChrisVanVliet Twitter: twitter.com/ChrisVanVliet Facebook: facebook.com/ChrisVanVliet YouTube: youtube.com/ChrisVanVliet TikTok: tiktok.com/@Chris.VanVliet Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

How are you, my friends? Welcome back to another one here on Insight. I'm CBV, Chris Van Pleet. Thanks for joining us on this one. And thank you for helping to make Insight the number one wrestling podcast on the planet. I know there's a lot of wrestling podcasts out there. I know there's a lot of podcasts, period.

So the fact that you're here right now, I appreciate you. And if it's your first time, could I just ask you to hit that follow button on Spotify or Apple Podcasts or wherever you're listening? It helps the show so much. It helps us continue to grow. And it helps us to lock down guests like Chad Gable. Man, he is doing the best work of his career right now.

His matches with Sammy Zane and Gunther were incredible. But this heel turn and breaking away from Alpha Academy has been so good. So good. And I know there's plenty of comparisons to Kurt Engel in TNA, perk angle, if you will. and I think those are pretty fair comparisons with the Olympic wrestling background, the intensity that he wrestles with, and also maybe most importantly, his ability to do some comedic stuff and not being afraid to be the butt of the joke. Kurt Engle was the absolute best at that.

And Chad Gable has all the tools to be a singles champion. I think it's just a matter of time, whether that's the Intercontinental Championship. The U.S. title could make a lot of sense. I mean, the All-American story here, the Olympian, I like that, or even possibly, at some point in time soon, Chad Gable could certainly be a world heavyweight champion. We recorded this one in Minnesota two weeks ago. I also went to Raw that night. It was amazing seeing so many of you guys there. I also did episodes with Otis and Jesse Ventura. And I've got a lot of questions from you guys saying, when's the Jesse Ventura? your episode coming out. It's coming out soon. Patience, my friends. In fact, if you go to my Instagram, I've got a broadcast channel on there. So if you go to my Instagram profile, you will see broadcast channel. It's called the CVV feed. I've been putting some behind the scenes stuff in

there, some behind the scenes photos in there, some behind the scenes scheduling stuff in there. So that may be a place that you want to go and join. It's, of course, free to join there. But just a nice little behind the scenes look. So if you're all, already someone who enjoys the content that we put out, go take a look on there. You'll actually see some of the interviews that we recorded today in Los Angeles that I haven't put out anywhere else. And there's like a couple of big ones coming up there. And while you're doing stuff on social media, snap a screenshot of this episode and tag us so we can share it. He's at WWE Gable. I'm at Chris Van Fleet. And let's do it. Enjoy this one with

Chad Gable. We are doing. I like when you walked in. You're like how much water you have over here. You're a hydrated man. I respect that. You are as well. Yes, I stay very hydrated.

First thing I do, and I continue to do it throughout every day, like nonstop. That changed my life. Gallons of water. Same. Change my life. Wake up and I drink a ton.

I think I drink a quarter of a gallon of water with some electrolytes as soon as I wake up. That shifted my whole life. I think people, People underestimate the effects of hydration, what it can do to you, you know, just headaches, just the way you feel in general, you know, the way you live throughout the day, it'll change your life. Yeah, salt is also like, I avoided it for so long.

Yeah. Salt's your friend. I think I blow people's minds. My parents watch me now, like salt my food. And they're like, what are you doing? That's so bad for you. It's like, no, no. It's bad for you not to do this.

Yes. It's a mindset shift. but it is. It makes a big difference, yeah. Well, you can't be in the shape that you're in without hydration and dialing everything. I mean, look at the shape. Come on, man. Get out of here. Get out of here.

But also tell me more. Yeah. No, keep going. No, it's just become a passion of mine. And it's not even like it's not a vanity thing or anything, but training and just physical well-being. Because of what it does for me also mentally is what I've found helps, you know. know, like, the more do you dive into everything, and I know you've experienced some of this and the deeper you get into just taking care of different elements of your life, the physical part of it

is kind of the foundation that bleeds into everything. Because the better you take care of yourself physically, obviously you feel better, but that transforms your mind, man. And it's like, it takes care of everything else in your life. So when you place that at the forefront, at least that's what I've found. It's crazy what it does to your world. Well, there's something about the idea of doing hard things. Yeah. Right.

And certainly not every day do you want to go in there and liftways. Right, right. But you never leave a workout going, man, I wish I didn't do that. No, I never have. Even if it's little things, like even if on that day that you don't feel like you just manage to do something, then yeah, it's like you said, you do hard things. I'm reading a book right now, you know, called do hard things. Funny you say that. And, you know, it's just about resilience and different ways we can look at resilience and what that means for different people.

But that's basically, I think, the key to what we do is just like forcing yourself to do the thing you don't always feel like. But then at the end of the day, you've accomplished something that a lot of other people aren't able to say they did because a lot of other people choose the other route, which is now I'll phone it in today or I'll just take it easy. And there is a time for that what people look at as self-care is giving yourself the day to take it easy. There's nothing wrong with that. But, you know, more often than not, doing the hard thing is the better choice I find. So what do your workouts look like at a typical week? So that's changed a lot over the past few years, thankfully in a good way. I'm working with a guy named Jay Ferugia.

Maybe you do or do not know him, but I can't express the, amount the effect he's had on me by changing my mindset towards training. I mean, for those that don't know, I like, I come from an Olympic background. I wrestled the Olympics in 2012. So I've taken that mindset with me into my now late 30s. I hate saying that. But I can't anymore. Like that was training two times a day every day at the highest level and never questioning it, just doing it.

to a degree and an intensity that most people could not, you know, even fathom. It doesn't work when you get older. Like it just doesn't. And it took him to finally hammer that into me that like, dude, you got to dial it back, man. Because it's just, first of all, you don't need that anymore. Like you're not training for the Olympics, you dork, you know, like this is not, it's a different thing that I'm doing now. And now so I train four days a week with weights. very intensely, but for a lot less volume and a lot less stress on my body than I used to do.

So even two, three years ago, it would have been six or even seven days a week in the gym with weights for 90 plus minutes, like set after set after set, and just grinding myself with the mentality that the more I do, the better it's going to pay off. always always that's been my mentality because in amateur wrestling and training for the Olympics I mean you it worked you know the more work you put in you see your work pay up but this is not what I'm doing now now I want the most out of the least because I have a family that needs my time I have other areas in my life that need time dedicated to them so he really opened my eyes man I I've over the past eight 12 months that I I've been working with him, seeing more results than I ever have by doing the least I ever have. So what do you mean by that?

Do you mean less reps? Do you mean lower weight? Yeah. So he kind of like less exercises per workout. So we're looking at maybe five exercises total. Per body part? No. So like I'll do a, what we're doing now, for example, is I'll do a pull day, a pull day, a push day, a leg day.

a leg day, and then a full upper body day, right? So the pull day might be five pulling exercises. One of them might be for hamstrings. So you get a little lower body on that day, but mostly back stuff, you know. So if you're thinking five exercises, it's not that many, but even on top of that, it's like two sets per exercise or one for some. So by the end of the workout, I've only done nine or ten working sets. And the old me would have told you, like, get out of here.

That's a joke. That's not enough. I'm going to be, I won't get any progress. But what it does is allow you to put so much effort. If you can forge yourself to do it, which I can, so much effort into those few sets that you don't need anymore. As opposed to doing like 30 sets in a workout where what are you getting out of the, maybe you're getting some out of five or six of those, but the other 20 or 25. it's just kind of junk, you know, it's just kind of stuff and fluff that you're doing to say you did a lot.

You're really fooling yourself, you know, but if you can limit yourself to 10 hard working sets or 12 maybe working sets, you can really like apply yourself in those. And it's almost like competitive. It's cool because you're working so hard for those few sets that like it's a competition with yourself to see how much you can get out of those. it's pretty rewarding. It's clearly working. When you look at you now versus you 10 years ago, you're shredded now. Somebody, I don't know about shredded, but somebody posted a picture of me like 10 years ago

too at a show, anxte show or something compared to now. And just the difference of like, like, I don't know, just you can tell I'm doing it right now compared to then. Then it was just, I was, I'm just a larger, I think a bigger, more. like appropriate version for what I'm doing. The effort that I'm putting in is paying off compared to then. Because then it was just like so much effort and so much, I just wanted it so bad and I was applying so much time and effort into the gym.

And I just didn't look any different, you know? It feels good to know that like trusting somebody that knows what they're doing to guide you really works. And I think that's what it takes. It's handing over the reins once in a while, even if you think you know better. Look, I'm just happy that you're still alive. Well, me too. My head is healed.

I feel a little, you know. I'm still here mentally, cognitively. You clearly did not look alive when we saw you. Yeah, that was quite a night. You know, and out of everything I've done over the past, like, couple years, the response to that was so, like, out of this world insane, like, everybody people thought like I can't tell you the amount of people that thought something actually happened to me you know I went to church like that Sunday and ran into a little kid who was watching

and he was like make I was kind of hiding my head from him you know and he was like making his way around me to get a look at my head and he's like where to go where like I'm like well I mean I fixed it but I went to the hospital and stuff it's like it was bad and he's like what they do to you and I'm like you'll have to tune in tomorrow and I go out of watch, you know, it was, it was, they were into it, dude. It was, it was really interesting. Well, I think it was the idea that like, maybe if it didn't happen for real, what happened of the Chad Gable character? Sure. Is the Chad Gable character now dead? I mean, you saw him definitely rattled like he's never been before, uh, which was cool. What this storyline is done

is it came at this awesome time where I had just done the turn. I had become this abusive coaching character, which people got a whole new look, which I thought did. wonders for me. And then all of a sudden, at the same congruantly, the Wyatts came in and forced me to be vulnerable. So like we get Chad Gable, who's this abusive over the top, like shows no vulnerability. Now he's forced to. So you're getting these two dynamic like stories at the same time. You know, I benefit from this and like not a lot of people get to dip their hands in like so many different stories at one time. And it's almost like every time I show up for TV. each week. It's like, well, what are we doing for this story? What are we doing for this one?

This one. This one. My toes are in so many things right now. And I mean, how grateful. Like, that's such a great place to be, you know. Was the pitch like you were going to look dead on camera? Or was it like, you're going to be severely injured? You know, it was going to be that I was going to be the lone guy kind of laid out, you know, initially. We didn't really know how, to what degree. But when we did the, when we got it ready to go, we'll say we were blown away like, holy crap, what exactly happened to me here? We're not sure. And we just ran with it. There was no plan. You know, we kind of saw how it worked out. And it worked out, I think, to our advantage better than we expected because the response to that from an audience standpoint was just out of this world.

And I think it just helped the whole intro of the family and their aura. And they've been doing so great with that. You can tell the audience, they're just taken back by them every single week. The vibe in the crowd, you'll see it tomorrow night when you're there. Maybe you have already. But it's something else when you're out there in the arena and they show up, man. And you've been ham-picked to be in a pretty unique spot here. This is Bo Dallas's first program in five years.

Yeah. And it's with you. that's special for a number of reasons. Bo, he's so excited about this, and he should be, but I feel his energy and his, like, anxiety, the good anxiety he has. He's his pacing back and forth before watching him. And it's similar to watch, you know, eerie in a way, but also so comforting because Wyndham was very similar.

And I had the very good fortune to work with Wyndham when I first got called up to Smackdown. We were on, I remember on a European tour, my first ever. And he was with Randy at the time. And we were over there, me and Jason, Jordan, as American Alpha, we're doing some other match. I don't even know what it was. But then they watched us work like the first night and requested to work with us like the rest of the tour. So the whole card got flipped around. Wow.

And so like for like nine or ten days straight. over there in the UK in Europe we worked with Randy and Bray every night and it was awesome and they just had nothing but like the nicest stuff to say about us afterwards they dropped the tag team titles to us like a month later which to me was just like a nod to us as like you guys are great but I learned a lot from Bray in that time and just gained the utmost respect for him because he's one of those guys that he speaks when he speaks his mom or gives you feedback, you listen. You know, nothing he says feels like he's just saying it, you know, hey, kid, here's a

piece of advice. It's like he's looking at you and offering you his real peace of mind. And something I found about myself that I've kind of discovered over the past few years is like, and this happens with Randy too, or I find with people that I hold in very high regard, I don't always have like these, I'm not texting them all the time. I'm not, I don't have those type of relationships where I'm constantly staying in touch and every day I'm talking to them. But when they say something to me, like I store it somewhere in here and in here and it

means so much to me. Bray was one of those people and Randy's one of those people. So now, like you said, to your point, to be selected as like the first guy to work with Bray or to work with Bo as he carries on Bray's legacy, to me, I get to play a small part in that in carrying on the legacy, which is so special. So like when he gave me Wyndham's old finish the other night, I wanted to make it look, put some stank on it and make it look a little extra special to go like that was for you, my friend.

And now also for Bo as he carries it on. So I think all of us that are playing a part in this right now are in a very special position and a very delicate one to like carry it on and do it in the right way. So it's balance it like a golden egg, you know, take care of it. It's a cool, cool thing. Yeah, that's beautiful. I feel like you're doing the best work of your career right now. Thank you.

You were a tag team guy for so long. And we, everybody knew how talented you were. Now you've got the chance to be a singles competitor. And it's amazing the stuff you're doing. Thank you. I feel like so, first of all, thank you for saying that. I feel the same way. I feel like the heel turn did wonders for me.

There was a sense of reality in that to where I had hit a point. And the Baby Face stuff was going great. The Alpha Academy stuff was going great. We had a blast with that. But I'm a realist and I'm also like a long-term thinker. So like I feel like if the longer I stay with this character, which was kind of some ha-ha stuff, a bit funny, comedic, which was great. because what it did was allow me to get my foot in the door, I think, with the audience in a way that they could connect with me and see me as an entertainer, as a superstar, but also kind of held me in a certain position to where that's how they saw me. So it took the heel turn to go, wow, we can maybe take this guy a little more seriously now.

And I'm also a proponent of like if you're given that opportunity that you asked for, because I did ask for it. It wasn't thrust upon me. I was like, I can do this. I can do the heel turn. I can be a singles guy. But if they give you that opportunity you ask for, man, you better deliver because I do not look favorably, favorably upon anybody that would ask for something and then not deliver. like to a degree that they say they can. That's something I pride myself on.

So I feel like it was on me. The onus was on me at that point to prove all the fans, especially guys like you that you just said, right, is like we all saw that we know how talented you are. Everybody says they know it, but it's on me to deliver it when the time comes. So I felt heavy responsibility to do that. And I hope I am doing that now.

And I want to continue to going forward because I don't want to be the guy at the end of the day, day who everyone says oh he was he was so much better than they gave him credit for than they used them for i want to be used to the degree that i you know my ability speaks for and i think we're getting to that point now finally well here's the thing there's no such thing as a bad chat table match hey there you go it's true i i love i love that you know i love um there isn't one that's well that's that's a that's a feather in my cap then because i i took pride for a long time when my matches on any match I got on TV could only be like 90 seconds or two minutes at times,

but also being like, well, some people might write that off and be like, well, it's just a two minute match. Let's just go do it. It's like, no, man, I get two minutes tonight. Let's see, let's see just how good we can make two minutes. And I, we had a good run there doing that for a while, you know, it's kind of like almost there's an art to it. You know, it's kind of like artistic to be like, well, you got a four-minute match with Finn Baller. I think I had one of those for a while. And he's one of my closest friends, like one of my favorite people in the world. And we could have very well went out and, you know, had a little four-minute forgettable thing.

But it's like, let's just tear it down, man, for four minutes. And I did that with Big E, too, for a while, like five-minute matches and stuff. There's like a clever little art to it. And it's fun. And you're like painting a little bit, you know, I find joy in that. So thank you for saying that. People seem to really love booing you right now. It's so funny because there's the moment when the crowd starts singing you suck at you.

You're in the ring and you're kind of like, oh. Yeah. Well, that's interesting. Yeah. I mean, the first time I heard it, I was like blown away because I'm like, they figured out the cadence to do that chant to our music, which I didn't think existed. Like, I didn't think our music really lent itself to that, you know. I forget what town it was. I should remember, but the first time they did it, I was like, they figured it out.

They're smarter than I am. And it's great because it's taken over. I mean, they've done it in every town I've been in for the last six weeks, including everywhere overseas. They've got it. And so it gets louder every week. But it's so fun, man. And what a, like, honor to have that thing kind of passed on from Kurt's run.

It's just another, you know, thing I'm grateful for to be like, to have the respect from them to that degree where they think that I deserve that, feels just very rewarding. Well, you've had the comparisons to Kurt Angle your whole career. He's an Olympic wrestler. You're an Olympic wrestler. You're now getting the comparisons to a very specific current angle. Sure.

You're compared to Perk angle. Perk angle, yes. Which is the greatest compliment. Yeah, yeah. I mean, what an honor. First of all, it's so funny, man, when that stuff started coming out. because I'm like, oh, here we go. Now we're cooking.

And like the week after it came out, for those that didn't see, we come back from a tour overseas. I can't remember where. But we went to one of my favorite coffee shops called Perk. And I was like, oh, my gosh, did the stars align on this one? And I walked into the copies. They got the big sign. And I'm like, I was there with Otis that day.

I'm like, dude, take a picture of me with this stuff. And it just lined up so perfect and people just latched onto it. And then, like, the coffee place sent me a big box at, like, all this perk merch. And so, like, I got perk shirts and bags of pert coffee and stickers all over my house. And it just worked out really well. But all that to say, like, Kurt is the man, dude, he's been so cool. Throughout everything we've done with him, you know, I got to wrestle him, which was insane. People forget that you guys had a match.

They do. Like, there's still when, like, some dream matches and stuff come up. Some people are like Kurt versus Gable. I'm like, well, it happened. You know, unfortunately, it was like a little later on and like in his career. And I wish the stars would have lined a little earlier. But still, to be in there with Kurt, it was a dream come true. Well, what was really cool about that match is before the match, you shake his hand.

Yeah. And you go, you're a hero. Mine. So cool, right? And then the match starts. And it's like, oh, okay. Yeah. That's awesome.

You caught that. And it was so true because. were up the road from Mall of America a few miles. And I met Kurt there when I was like 13 or 14. And he signed my It's True VHS tape that came out from WWF back then. This would have been like late 90s. Yeah, it was late 90s. It would have been 99 or 2000.

So I was maybe 13 or 14, waited in line at Mall of America with my friend Kurt Pope and met Kurt shook his hand. And I said, someday I'm going to be in WW. and I'm going to wrestle you. And because I, that is a true story. Because I was, I mean, most people don't know, man, before the Olympics or anything, like my dream was to be a pro wrestler. That's all I ever wanted to do.

When I say my friend Kirk Pope that was there with me that day, him and I were like, dude, it was all we, we lived it. Pro wrestling, we traded tapes, we watched Japan wrestling, we watched Indies, everything. That's all we did. We got trained together at a local. independent promotion when we were 16 or 17 and like we had the ring in the backyard we had and we weren't doing flaming tables and all the crazy stuff we were doing the intricate like technical wrestling watching johnny saint when we're 15 tapes of johnny saint when we're 15 years old and doing that

stuff and and like it's just life is so wild man that the stuff comes back around you know it's like i got a picture sent to me like two days ago of uh 20 years ago of me and him wrestling. And I'm doing a German suplex or a chaos theory to him in my backyard. Wow. Life is crazy, dude. I say that to everybody all the time.

It is what you make it. You can do anything you want. If you really, if it is what you want, you'll find a way. Well, if you can see it in your, what's the phrase? It's if you can see it in your mind and you can believe it in your heart.

Yes. And it can happen. I feel like you speaking that into existence with Kurt Engel is why it happen it it is like there's something to the nature of just um being drawn to something in a way that you can't you can't see anything else you've got blinders on that a lot of people say or i i feel anyway that that's what leads to to you land in your dream job or living your dream life is the fact that it it's meant to be right so the fact that it's meant to be means that you've kind

of got blinders on to anything else so every everything you work, everything you do in your life works toward it. So when it's meant to be, the reason it is is because everything you do draws you to it. It's other people say they have these dreams of, if somebody says they have dreams of doing this or that and it never materializes, my opinion is that it's because that's not really what you were meant to do or you didn't really want it that bad, as bad as you're saying you did. Because everything I've experienced in life, And I'm only speaking personally here, right, from my experience, whether it's the Olympics or now WWE. I can truly say I've lived both of my childhood dreams.

And either of them have only both happened because that was my sole focus in life the whole time. My blinders were on to everything else. And that's what afforded me the opportunity. I was just drawn to it because every decision I made, whether I knew it or not, was leading me down that path. And that's how it happens, I think. So if you were singular focus when you were younger was WWE. Yes. How do you get derailed to the Olympics?

Sure. How does that happen? So I was also amateur wrestling the entire time. Sure. You know, it was a one sport life for me. I was wrestling. I didn't do baseball, football, like all these other things. You can tell my ears.

Yeah, my ears give it away, my ugly ears. Did people, like, stop you in the airport or stop you to restaurant? I wouldn't want to mess with you, dude. Yeah, I can just always see. when they look at me, they're just, they're not looking at me. They're looking at my ears. It's like, and then yeah, you get the kind of like, I don't know, it's, well, I think it's more of a respect thing. It's like, maybe he's been through, that guy's been through something. Yeah, I would not want to cross him. Yeah. So, uh, loved amateur wrestling as well. Greco Roman wrestling was just, oh, man,

it was built for me. My hips, uh, it's an upper body sport for those that don't know. It's all throws, no leg attacks. And it's also an Olympic sport. I excelled really well. I excelled really well at it and was just obsessed through school with that as well. And then by the time I hit graduation, you know, there was no clear cut path to WWE. But there was a clear cut path to the Olympics for me that offered itself, which was this Olympic training center at Northern Michigan University, Upper Peninsula, Michigan, and Marquette, right on Lake Superior, where they would give you a full-ride scholarship, which at the time, I didn't quite comprehend the Mexican. of that because you hear a full right scholarship a lot. And oftentimes in like NCAA,

it's not really all it's cracked up to be. There's kind of like it weighs, it's never really a full ride. Sometimes it is. But this was like unheard of. You were paid, your school was paid for. You're housing, your meals, everything. And you went there and you trained for the Olympics from the age of 18. Wow. Yeah, it was insane. I mean, it doesn't really exist even in that, to that degree now. We got, I was very fortunate. very lucky to land in that time period. So I moved up there because the WWE thing, as much as that was my passion, that's what I wanted.

I didn't know how to do it. And like I didn't, there was no route. There was no book to tell you like, here's how you get to the WWE. But I knew the coaches could tell you how to get to the Olympics. You can listen to a coach and they'll train you. I mean, that was my mindset. And I had this crazy coach named Avon Ivanov up there who had moved from Bulgaria. and just the man, dude, like stories about him just could be endless.

Like, he lived in the dorms with us. And we did like Rocky style training every day. That's all it was. It was like 6 a.m. And the winter's up there. If there's one place where the winters are worse than Minnesota, it's Marquette, Michigan. Wow. And it was, oh, man, it's, I didn't either until I got there.

And I'm from Canada. Imagine that, dude. So we dig our cars out of the snow. six in the morning drive to practice would be the only ones on campus every day because there was no cancellation of practice for weather school could be canceled but practice evan is not letting practice get canceled it's like rocky four oh it was exactly like that man it was rocky style training this this guy was the man he was he lived in the dorms with us like i said if he if we were too loud at night you know it wasn't a knock at the door from the campus manager or police it was from

on in his underwear or something, you know, with a baseball bat. Knock it off. Get the bed. He was such a great coach. And I still text him like every couple months just to thank him for like the lessons he passed down because he moved over here. He left his family in Bulgaria and moved over here to get his green card. He was going to school.

And if you've ever seen like the Bulgarian bags people work out with now, like the heavy sandbags. Yeah. Like he's the one that invented those. Like the supless bags you'll see everywhere. He invented him. I produced all his first promo videos for him and watched it like as he was working out with them and everything. It was cool. Anyway, all that to say, just a workhorse of a man that I learned tons of life lessons from.

That essentially made me the wrestler I was, the Greco wrestler, and got me to the Olympics. And so fortunately, for my sake, once again, I've been in fortunate positions at all times. I can't say enough just about luck and timing in my life. On top of, I'd like to credit my work ethic, but that's beside the point. It's luck and timing a lot of times, too. And so at the Olympics in 2012, they had some WWE scouts there that were, and Mark Henry was there as well, and Jerry Briscoe and people, and they were at one of our practices when I was training for the Olympics,

and we spoke a little bit, and I had retired after that. landed a tryout and the stars just aligned man I just got lucky so so when they like come up and introduce themselves you're like I know I know I know sign me up I'll be there next week after I finish up next to the games here so I bet there's some real convincing like WWE has to like talk athletes like Olympians yeah yeah no I imagine there is uh these days I hope not I know in the past there was probably a stigma especially when I was growing up there was certainly a stigma about WWE and that should be gone by now. Yeah.

I mean, look at the roster and where people come from. Yeah. You know, it's a totally different game now. How'd you do with the Olympics? So I took, if you want to put a place on it, it was ninth. I mean, beyond medals, does anybody really do that in wrestling? No. I won my first match through, I was the first match of the day that day, which was cool.

So I got to walk out, get introduced first. And I threw what we call it a five-point throw in Greco-Roman wrestling. which is essentially a German suplex on the guy in the first round and kind of the crowd just went crazy to their feet because it's, you know, it's not all just wrestling people at the events over there. Some people just get tickets to whatever they can see. And a lot of people just want to see Americans. Yeah, right, yes, exactly.

Americans are there just to see their country. Right, right. And so I threw this bomb on this guy and just dropped him on his head, which was super cool. Won the first match. And then I ran into this guy, Pablo Shori from Cuba in the second round, who had kind of become a rival. We had wrestled a few times up until then. I beat him at the Pan Ams, and then he beat me at the qualifier. All that to say, it was our third match. He beat me. And then the way wrestling works at the time, your guy had to make it to the finals for you to get pulled back in to wrestle

for a medal. He lost in the semifinals. So it's kind of weird dynamic where like I'm watching him and you're cheering for the guy that just beat you. And then he loses and you're, you know, swear cussing at him again but uh he knocked me out of the tournament but all i mean dude experience of a lifetime opening ceremonies were yesterday and i just watched him and thought back to my time and it's like what a life what a life man yeah what's the biggest thing you had to unlearn as an amateur wrestler to be a pro wrestler stone face all the time no emotion you know coming in nxte uh when i first got come in that was for certain the hardest thing was like letting yourself be vulnerable.

And that applies to life too, but letting yourself be vulnerable in wrestling, I think, is a big part of it and something that I had a lot of trouble with. You know, obviously in amateur wrestling, we don't, you don't go out there and show emotion to your opponent or show them how you're feeling. But in NXT, I got down there and I'll never forget my first Tuesday when I got thrust in front of, we called it presentation skills, class at the time, basically promo class with Dusty Roads in front of like 80 of my peer, now my peers who are just these larger than life personalities, every one of them,

and that were experienced in doing this and get called up in front of everybody with a camera and red lights on and they're like, give us something. Like, well, what do you mean? They're like, show us some, show us character, anything. Like, please, I hope nobody pulls up any of my old stuff that I did there because, I mean, talk about anxiety and like stress in front of that many people trying to make an impression but having no clue what you're doing it was like it was the worst man but you're either forced to sink or swim at that point it's like get over it and uh hopefully i did think pretty quickly uh but i

was surrounded by great people like there's so many people down in nxte that had no reason to help me and be welcoming but they were and to my benefit i have a lot of people to think from down there. How did you figure out you could do chaos theory? So, I mean, Doug Williams, the OG of chaos theory, was one of my main influences when I was around that age, 14 or whatever tape trading. And I, like I said, me and my friend Kurt Pope in the backyard, I tried it out. And I mean, that was, I was very young and a lot smaller then. But then I wish I could remember the first time I tried it in NXT, but I was like, well, I used to do that when I was 14. I can probably still pull it off now.

And I did it and no one else was doing it at the time and no one in the company even. So I was like, claim it. Like put my mark on it. I'll keep it. But it's a unique move, man. It's one of those things that like I always struggled with because when they tell you pick your finisher and not that that's necessarily my finish. But it's a pretty spectacular move. And but if you're going to do a move like that, that's going to be signature.

They always say like you make sure you can do it on everybody. and it's it's like that one i don't know about that but i pulled it off on brawn stroman so like who else is there that i'm going to need to do it on um he's a big dude but to be able to roll through hang on and deliver another one yeah come on it's pretty it's pretty gnarly dude it just speaks to the not my not my athletic ability but that of the people i'm working with well it takes two right yeah yeah i mean Everybody's necks aren't in great condition. And you're going straight over your neck on that move every single time.

But there's a lot of, when we talk about performance and what we do, there's a lot of that that goes into that move. And it's a difficult one. But there's something so special about the way that you do a German. It's almost like a deadlift. And then you throw the guy back. Yeah. Whereas, and certainly no disrespect to anybody else, a lot of the other ones is like,

okay, you're both going to jump at the same time. yours looks like it you're muscling people up that's great uh i am a lot of times uh so i find with you know pro wrestling some of the art of it is there's only so many moves and there's in art they you often say there's nothing new under the sun right so the trick is you got to find a way to make something your own and um you know they say good artists copy and great artists steal And so you take that into consideration and go, well, I'm not going to invent anything new, really. And that's not always necessary, but I can do something a new way. And so my take on the German suplex, which is my favorite move of all time, is to do it slow and exert strength and create almost like a photographic opportunity with it every time I do it.

So there's always, you can see like it's like a pendulum and like there's a peak moment every day. time of force. And almost treat it like that. Treat it like you're shooting it for a movie every time. Like a piece of art, man. I try to start to look at all this stuff like art. I went to art school, so I'm kind of a geek like that. But frame everything like a piece of art and what your give is going to be beautiful.

You know. Prize Picks is America's number one daily fantasy sports app with over five million active users. Prize Picks is the easiest and most exciting way to play daily fantasy sports because Unlike other apps on prize picks, it's just you against the numbers. All you do is pick more or less on two to six player stat projections and watch the winnings roll in. Get it on the daily action with your friends and become part of the prize picks community today. You can now win up to 100 times your money on prize picks with as little as four correct picks.

So that means you can turn $10 into $1,000. And prize picks is available in more than $30.000. States across the country, including California, Texas, and Georgia. Download the prize picks app today and use the code Insight for a first deposit match up to $100. That's code Insight on PrizePix for a deposit match up to $100. Pick more, pick less. It's that easy. Passion, drive, and patience.

The formula for winning championships is also what keeps your ride or die alive. eBay Motors has everything you need to maintain your vehicle. and level it up to peak performance. Superchargers, roof racks, exhaust kits, LED headlights, and more. Whether you're into speed, power, or style, eBay Motors has you covered. With over 122 million parts for your number one ride or die, you'll always find exactly what you're looking for. And with eBay guaranteed fit, your part is guaranteed to fit your ride

every time or your money back. Because with eBay motors, you're burning rubber, not cash. With all the parts you need at the prices you want, it's easy to make your car of the MVP and bring home huge wins. Keep your ride or die alive today at eBaymotors.com. Eligible items only, exclusions apply. I feel like you should have a singles championship right now.

Like you had so many opportunities this year and so many great matches with Sammy Zane. Yeah. It feels like it's soon. It feels like it's going to happen soon. Sure. I hope so. I feel like I also am disappointed in the fact that I didn't grab one during that whole run

because I also don't want to give the fans the impression that like, well, he's great, but he's also just the guy that can't win the big one, where I know I am and I know I can. But what this is doing is, I think for me, building that first one to mean almost as much as maybe it's ever meant. for anybody. You know, I've come so close, so many times. The Gunther stuff, what it did for my career, what Goenther did for my career can't be overstated. You know, like that, I have him to thank for so much the way he elevated me. And then moving on to the stuff with Sammy, from a storytelling perspective, alongside the in-ring perspective, we got so much accomplished in such a short amount of time, I feel like for both of us, that it left some on,

it left just the right amount on the table for me as a singles guy to be like, he did so much there. He got so much done, but he didn't win the championship. So we've got one piece of the puzzle left, you know, to fill in. And I'm almost happy it didn't happen then because of what we got done there.

It didn't need it. I didn't need it. But now I do. And so now it's still on the table for me. And it's not just the Intercontinental Championship. Yeah. I think that it would. Well, thank you.

Yeah. You're a future world champion. Thank you. And I feel like maybe it's the IC, and maybe it's the U.S. title. But then I think it's World Heavyweight Champion. Oh, baby. Yeah. You're giving me goosebumps here, my friend.

Okay. I mean, if you don't have aspirations to be the world champion, then what are you doing, right? I've said that from day one. My goal, goal goal has never been, oh, I want to be the IC champion. That's not the end game. The end game is be the top guy with the top title. always for me. So I think what we're doing right now is establishing that with this more serious character,

this guy can get the ball and run with it. This guy is someone we can trust to carry a championship like that. And I know I am. I just convince the right people and continue to deliver to a degree that's undeniable. And then stars hopefully will align again. Did this feel like it wasn't in your? your grasp, if we take this back five years ago, the shorty G character. Yeah.

Did it feel like, what are we even doing here? Yeah. I've often said, I mean, probably to nobody's surprise, that was a pretty low point. But again, and I don't want to get too repetitive, but I was asking for opportunities on a weekly basis at that point. You know, I was going into offices and being like, look, I need to work. I need to do anything because I really wasn't doing anything. So I was given the Shorty G character persona.

The last thing I'm going to do, my personality, the last thing I'm going to do is scoff at it and not give it whatever I can. Whatever effort I can is going to go into that because I asked for it, you know, I asked for anything. You asked for it. I asked for anything, an opportunity, and I was given it. Right. So I did the most I could with it. And I think what it showed was that I, am willing to contribute in whatever manner. You know, if it's down here or up here, I'm willing to

contribute whatever I can and whatever's asked of me. So that once you've proven that, that you're going to do that and you're not going to put on a boo-boo face and sit around and sulk around because you're not happy with it, then look at this guy. Let's give him some more. Okay? He showed us. He showed us his grit. He showed us that he's here for the long run. And I think that worked to my benefit, hopefully. But man, think about this. You get that character, then the world shuts down, then a whole bunch of your friends and colleagues get released.

Yes. You must have been going, I'm next then. That thought had, no, it didn't cross my mind. That was all that was on my mind. You must have been, every time your phone buzzed, you're probably like, oh, okay. You know, from a character standpoint, I mean, the human part of me was going,

and they decided to, hang on to Shorty G, like of all people. I mean, if I were Chad Gable, maybe I get it, but Shorty G. But anyway, all that to say, that's where my mind really started flipping to like, let's give them something else to come up with here, you know. And I had so much time at home during that time period where, and creative juices were flowing. And that's when I came up with the Alpha Academy idea.

And I put this whole pitch together for me and Otis, who, you know, had just moved in up the street for me. and we're best friends, which a lot of people know. And I put this whole pitch together, too, for Alpha Academy. This is a whole new take on it. Then I can go back to be in Chad Gable, the coaching character. And thankfully, they ran with it, man. To their credit, they gave me a chance, and it worked out great.

Did cutting your hair feel like this is the whole new character now? It felt so liberating. I don't know if people know how much work long hair is and annoying it can be. But yes, it gave me a fresh look. It gave me, it just made me feel. like a different, just a different character to the audience. You know, there was something about it that just told them, you know, we could at least, even if the name hasn't changed yet or the style hasn't changed, we can give him a different

look now. We can look at him a little differently, which was nice. And it was just freeing, man. Have you thought about going full curt angle, shaving your head? Yeah. I feel like, you know, we'll see how it goes when I curse. cross into my if I turn 40 here sometime soon if the hair starts the white six don't get you again yeah if they don't slice another we'll see what the hair does how it agrees with me but you're

doing well I'm doing okay you know but if it if it starts to run away from me I'll just do it and say I'm paying homage to no you're gonna have an excuse for you're gonna have a hair versus hair match just like curtain edge did we go yeah we'll make the most of it yeah vaccine dupre got like exceptionally good in such a short period of time. And I had her on the show recently. She credited you and Otis to that. And there was a match where it feels like it feels like she turned a corner. Sure.

In this match she like did a step of Mn-Siguri. And I feel like people were like, whoa, she can wrestle. What were the steps that you took with her to work on her in ring stuff? You know, how unique of a situation to where she's really learning to wrestle week by week in front of a live TV audience because at the time she wasn't even doing live events, you know, all she was doing was coming to TV and learning there to work and then going to the Performance Center in Orlando. But we got to a point where we knew she was going to start having some singles matches. And to her credit, she asked me to get in the ring with her at shows,

like before TV and stuff, which of course I did. And so we would work on, I kept telling her, let's do like basics, because we're at a lot of, level and with our company, I think, what's most appreciated and to me, at least what stands out the most with new people is when they do the basic things really, really well. Like, not some flashy new flip or something or new move that looks cool, but that doesn't impress me. Someone doing the old school stuff really well and snug and like they were taught properly, that impresses me. This is what everyone says about Randy Orden. Oh, I mean, he's the epitome of that, you know, and that's probably who I'm stealing this from. I mean, subconsciously, you know, learned it from.

But so that's what we tried to do when I was working with her in the ring was like, lock up and let's just wrestle. Let's just move. And then we'll pick one or two things that you can do when the time comes that are all your own or that are a little flashier, you know? Like one of the things you said, like the insiguri or I think I gave her like the, the thing I stole from Tiger Mask, which was like the headlock to the hammerlock to the drop toe hold, which she got down really good. And so I think initially that's what I tried to instill in her. It was like, don't think you got to do all this crazy stuff.

You're going to impress not only the audience, but the people in the back by doing very simple stuff very well, a lot more than you would coming out and doing a bunch of crazy stuff. And she was in an awesome position where her character was like, She was learning and she was like new to this. So the audience, from an audience standpoint, anything she did was going to be like, that was awesome, you know? And it worked so well. Yeah.

Because like she won her first match, I think, if I remember right, with like a sunset flip or something. And people just went, bah, it's your WrestleMania moment. Like she won a title. And I was like, man, I was so jealous of you with that moment. I wish I just do a sunset flip and the crowd would go nuts. So no, she's the best, man. she her work ethic needs to be spoken for because she she really wants it she's very dedicated and deserves it she talked a lot about how like she would she would reverse engineer success

she would like figure out okay this is where i want to be sure she'd reverse engineer it back and i think working directly with you was a huge step in where she's at now yeah that's cool i haven't heard her say that but that makes sense and to me it was kind of a cool experience in that it forced me to realize where I was at also in my career with the company, that I needed to step up and take a little bit more of a leadership role myself, because it's easy to get caught up in just your own story, your own life, and where you are in what we do on the week-to-week basis. Everything just goes.

But that gave me a chance to take a step back and go, I know we're in this, like, Alpha Academy coaching thing. It's funny and it's fun. But like there's a sense of realism in that to where like I'm getting older now and I've got a little bit of tenure with the company. And I also noticed that with like Creed brothers and other people coming and just like asking for advice now. And like the days can feel long, but the years just go by like that.

And I'm like, man, I became one of those guys that now people are asking for help and advice. And I need to take that seriously. because when I was doing that, when I was younger, I was asking for real. And it can be oftentimes, it can be easy to write kids off or write younger people off and go, oh, they're just coming up and asking you for advice because they think they have to, or they're asking you if you watch their match because that's what you do, you know? But it's like, no, when I was doing it when I was younger, I was very genuine and serious.

I needed that. I needed feedback. I wanted it. So I have to give them the same respect. And like, if they ask me to watch their match or for, feedback or advice on anything, take the time, man, take a step back out of your own life and whatever crap you think you're dealing with and give them the attention they deserve because they're the ones that are coming up next. So that was a cool like realization point for me too.

Did you ever think shush would become a catchphrase? No. Shush, I stole from like I said, Great Outer Steel, from Pauly Shores movie, Encino Man, the bully, the high school jock bully who just said shush like a hundred times in the movie and it was so funny like it was so annoyingly funny and i was like i would never forget the first time i did it like we we had this one night and i think covid had kind of interrupted the plans because a bunch of people got sick had to stay home all this stuff and it was detroit if i remember right and we like me and odis were thrust into this promo seg to open the show out of nowhere. It was like, they're like, well, you guys, you guys can walk and talk and do a

promo tonight. I can say what? They're like, whatever. I was like, oh, baby. I was like, we went waiting for this. And so like, I pulled out all these Pauly Shore references and like these always sunny references, absurd stuff that I just liked, you know, like it was the first time I ever just did stuff that I liked because I had the chance. And lo and behold, the stuff I liked is what resonated with people. And it was like this light bulb. And the crazy thing is you get people that will tell you this. And it happens in all avenues of life. You get advice from people, but it never really clicks until you just like do it for once. And it was like all this stuff I like resonated with the people and stuck. And who would have thought it'd be something as stupid as saying, thank you and shush.

But it's not thank you. It's thank you. How to thank you become a catchphrase? So I think that was by accident as well. That was stolen from, I think, always sunny, if I'm pulling my right reference, because Charlie, in one of the episodes of Always Sunny, he says thank you, like three times in a row. But the last time he said it, he kind of drifts off because I think he had done some, like, he had huffed something or something. But he's like, thank you. And I always heard that last time he said it.

And I was like, that's really funny. And then it was when I got my master's degree and I was being this obnoxious, like, a schmuck. And so to thank people, I said it like that. And then I just heard the people's response and I was like, oh, that one's going to stick. Yeah, that one's going to stick. Was there ever any talk of you being Kurt Angle's son instead of Jason Jordan? There was never any talk of any of that until it happened. Like, we found out about that whole thing the day before or two days before. And we got called in. They told us the deal. and up until that point,

we thought we were just hunky-dory tag team boys for the long run. But that night they sent Jason to wherever TV was, and they sent me to Birmingham, Alabama, I'll remember. And I just sat in my hotel room and watched Monday Night Raw as they announced. And I said, what? Okay. And that was it. And that's how I found out.

It just feels like for you to be sure, his son would have made a lot of sense. You would think so. Yeah, I don't know. You know, I think Jason, he clearly, I mean, what a talent, first of all. But he was such a strapping young lad. And probably in the company's eyes at that point in time out of the two of us, you know, I mean, dude, besides his unfortunate injury, he was going to be a superstar. He was often running with the stuff he was doing with Seth Rollins. And I know he got a lot of crap when he first started with that, with the stuff with Kurt and the

character he had taken on. But people didn't realize, like, that was how you were supposed to feel about that character. You know, he was playing it perfectly. And everyone was, like, very critical of, like, a lot of the traits that the character was doing. And I'm like, that's what you're doing it right, man. That's what you're supposed to be doing. And right before his injury, he was peaking and he was getting all these awesome singles.

He had wrestled Sina. and he was wrestling all these guys just killing it, dude. So I just, what an unfortunate end. But thankfully, he's taken on a producer position, and he's just like, I mean, every time he tells me that he's got my segment or my matches, I'm like, aw, baby. It's like music to my ears.

Yeah, you still get to work with him. Yeah. Money in the bank. Yeah. What's going through your mind when you're dangling above the ring? Yeah. I was picturing.

Jack, you've seen the Joker, like the original Tim Burton Joker, where at the end, he's like dangling over the edge of the building. And he's looking down, but he's got this like smile on his face. And I like saw myself doing that same scene, like a flash of that at that moment. What a reference. It looks exactly like it. And I didn't think about it until I was dangling up there because he's hanging like this and he looks down and I did the same thing. And all I saw was the Joker. And he's like laughing.

So like, I was like, this is kind of cool. I should like put those pictures side by side at some point. But anyway, dude, it's so much higher when you're up there than it looks from when you're down on the mat because I was down looking up at the briefcase and taking a picture like earlier that day and stuff. And I'm like, it's not that high. I'm like, I can almost jump and touch that, which I couldn't. I have a terrible vertical by the way. But I got up there. You feel like you're on top of a mountain.

It's so high. But thank God it was like the audience and the crowd. They were on fire that night and the atmosphere. It took a little bit of the pain away, not all the pain, but a little bit. But not only did you fall. Yeah. Then you get back up and get into perfect position to take the spear from Jay Uso. Yeah.

Yeah. Dude, I haven't been in one of those matches before. I haven't even been in a ladder match before. That's also crazy. Yeah. The money in the bank is your first ladder match. Yeah. Yeah. And my goal was to like really treat it as something special and really take advantage of the opportunity for spectacle of it, you know, which what you just said goes into it is like your timing has to be perfect. Your positioning has to be perfect to make it the spectacle it could be. Because any of them could be like a car crash, which is cool too. Like it's cool of everything. It's just a car crash. Blah, blah, blah, sloppy. But like to do it right and have the best element of like it is a car crash. But it is a car crash. But it is a car crash. But it is a car crash. But it's, it is a car crash. But it's, it's a car crash.

the same time, it's like a piece of art, like I keep saying, and everything aligns perfectly. I think that's the coolest part. It's just to be a professional while you're doing the car crash. The suplex to L.A. Knight, over the top room. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Carnage. Carnage. Yeah, yeah. Dude, everybody was game that night to just go nuts and go crazy. It's not like you could practice that. No, no, no. You wouldn't want to, even if you could. that's a red light on type of thing and and i mean it has to be so it just speaks to everybody's professionalism and everybody in that match i think came out looking better than they went in

which is a hard thing to do when you have that many guys and everybody had a moment yeah that's the cool thing about that particular match cool thing when you get a mix of guys like that which was cool and it was smackdown guys and raw guys and so guys i i'd never touched l-a night in a ring in my life before that night. Wow. Which is very, we came to that conclusion after him and I. And we both said, like, man, we got to do something in the future because we thought we matched very well.

But to have that kind of chemistry with a bunch of guys that you've never really interacted with and you don't regularly, it was one of those where everybody was worried about each other, like looking good. And when you have that situation, you get a kind of match like we had that night, which was great. Everybody comes out looking like a superstar because everybody cared about it. about the match and each other. And you don't always get that. So when you do, it's, it's cool. If I ran into you backstage five minutes before your match, what would, what would you look like?

What would you be doing? I'd be putting on the cocoa butter. That's a little secret to the little tip for the pros. Always, sometimes I get told that I'm a little too slimy in the ring, but that's part of the deal. Coco butter, spraying myself with a bottle of water. And then Otis comes at the last minute, at the 11th hour with the, smelling salts to get the little bit hyped up. But he must get him off like the dark web or the like black market because they're like stronger than anything I've ever smelled. So you open them from here and you can smell them. But he'll jam it up into my nostril and then it like I'll take a little quick smell of the smelling salts and like I can feel it in my eyeballs and like back in my brain, you know? And then I'm like, yeah. Okay, we're ready to go. Smelling salts. Yeah. This is stuff like like power lifters, you know.

Yeah, I know. It's not necessary, but it's just part of the routine. Once you get a routine, dude, I am a routine guy. If I veer from a routine, the alarm bells start going off. I love pre-workout. I love the tingles of the d'allity. Some people hate it. You love it. I love the tingles. I probably am addicted to the tingles. The more uncomfortable I can make myself leading into like a workout or a match, the better, I think. But this goes back to the very start of this conversation with like do hard things. Yeah. Get comfortable, being comfortable. Yeah, it gets stupid, man. Sometimes just get stupid.

Yeah. I feel like I got to try smelling cells. Yeah. Before your next big bench press or your big, or whatever, just before your next podcast, try it, see what happens. I don't know. We've got Maxine on it. Maxine's doing it once in a while.

Really? From a distance. She's not quite as, she doesn't get the eyeball burned yet. Okay, so that's the thing. It's like you start off far away. Yeah. Then you slowly. Especially if Otis is given it.

Never trust Otis, okay? Like with anything. I mean, trust him with your life because he'll lay his life down for he's the best friend in the world. But with anything like that, if he tells you how strong anything is, whether it's like hot sauce, smelling salts or whatever,

at least multiply it by 10. At least, because he's a different, he's not of this world. He's, he's not built like a human I've ever met before. No, no,

no, he gets, when you talk about, like, getting looks at the airport or in public, he gets different kinds of looks, you know, because they're just not quite sure

what they're looking at. that, you know. Do you remember the first time you met Otis? Well, it would have been, not specifically, but it would have been in amateur wrestling because he, I mean, he's younger than me by quite a bit. So I actually coached, when I was coaching amateur wrestling teams in the summer tournaments, my brother would be on the team. And I coached my brother as he wrestled Otis.

They were both heavy weights at the time. Wow. So that probably would have been the first time I ever saw him. But when we became friends was at the Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs, he was there training for the same Olympics I was. So we both lived there for a couple years together in Colorado and just like young kids, man, like watching wrestling all day, watching pro wrestling all day, going to training, coming back, watching more pro wrestling all day,

just no sense of diet or nutrition, just eating like we had the caffeine. Peteria there at the training center, the best food in the world, just eating whatever we wanted, watching wrestling, just living the life, man, it was the greatest. Who did you watch growing up? So early on, like, when I was, when I say early on, I mean, we're talking when I was 11 and 12 years old, really started my obsession. I was a WCW guy. So I was watching, like, Sting was my guy when I was young.

But then I quickly, very quickly, because I was like an internet. geek like fell into the tape trading stuff and so i just fell in love with like jushnliger kibashi masawa the big thick japanese heavyweights they had this build that i wanted like they were like something about them because they weren't shredded but they were just thick and so like me and my other friends cole shrub and matt we would go to amateur wrestling tournaments and like we would put on for our warmups like walking around we would wear like four layers of clothing because we wanted to be thick. Like,

thick was always a thing for us. They looked like kabashi or Masawa. I used to get orange and yellow singlets made and green singlets made to match those guys's gear. I got pictures of that stuff, man. It's awesome. But I was a total geek.

Watch the independence, like, you know, just everything. Man, I devoured wrestling when I was a kid. And I think there's a lot of people that are growing up now watching your style and going,

it's just pure wrestling. Yeah. Like, I feel like there's a, you didn't mention them there, but there's definitely an element of Brett Hart to what you do. For sure, for sure. Just like pure wrestling.

Yep. Brett stuck out to me for that reason. And I think, you know, very similar in kind of our dispositions, you know, the way that I carry myself, at least from what I've seen documented about him. And the couple times that I've met him, he's the same way, a little bit reserved, but also very one of those guys that if he's talking, you're going to be. very attentive to, you know, because everything he says has meaning behind it. He's very thoughtful about everything he says, which I think is unique. But, yeah, one of those guys that really treated wrestling like an art, you know, he looked at it like a piece of art too, which I thought was cool.

But one of the great things about you is you give 100% of commitment to whatever it is, right? So if it's a goofy, silly character, you're all the way in on it. Yeah. If it's hardcore and intense, you're all the way on that, too. Yeah. And that's why I think the comparison. since the Kurt Engel are most applicable. Yeah.

Because if you're making a Mount Rush more of comedy wrestlers, sure. Kurt needs to be on there. Which is crazy to say. Right. Because he's one of the greatest Matt technicians ever. Yeah. But he's also one of the funniest wrestlers we've ever had.

Right. You know, there's something about an amateur wrestler, I think. Maybe that's what it is about a guy that you know, like, could wreck you if he wanted to. Like, just destroy you if you wanted to. If he wanted to, making a fool of himself. Like, there's something commendable about that.

I think that more than anything, that's what lets people resonate with, like, an amateur athlete, especially a wrestler who could tear you limb from limb. It's like, look how he's acting, though. It's like he doesn't take himself that seriously. It lets people know that, like, you're very comfortable with yourself. Like, I don't get into the debates about, I never do about who could beat who in a real wrestling match in the locker room or something like that. A lot of boys will try to stir that up for sure.

And fans, they want to know. It just doesn't interest me. I think I've gotten to the point where I've always been at the point where I'm just, I'm comfortable with myself. I've done it. Like I know what I've done in my life. I got nothing to prove as far as like, I could beat him. I could beat him.

It's just fortunately never been an issue for me. And I think that's what allows me to like when the time comes to be a jackass, like, let's do it, man. I'm fine with it. It's cool. you know dude this has been great thank you so much for making the time thank you dude you're the man it's i feel like uh if you're from minnesota you're like an honorary canadian so i'll take it certain cities yeah i'll take it you're i mean you're you're further north than where i grew up

which is crazy yeah that's true huh i'm from toronto so okay okay where we sit right now is much i mean we're yeah sometimes we're technically Canadian man and we get the same weather so it's brutal Or sometimes worse. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Gratitude's such a big part of my life. So I end every interview with that. What are three things, Chad, that you're grateful for right now? Okay.

First and foremost, I'm grateful for, you saw, I got dropped off by my wife and my son today. In a minivan. Dude, I love my minivan. I am. Anytime we're on the road, we rent a. minivan. Ask, ask Otis, no matter what, it's minivan. If it's there, Chrysler, Pacifica, baby, lay it on me. Oh, my gosh. Beautiful. I was so proud when I purchased that thing, my sunglasses on. When I rolled into the neighborhood, dude, windows down, I'll drive that

thing till it dies. That is the dream car for Chad Gable. But that's not, I am grateful from a minivan, but that's not one of the three. Yes, I get it. My family, I have three beautiful kids. My son, who you saw, and then two daughters, and my wife, who's been by my side since over 20 years now since high school. Wow. So she is a ride or die type of girl, as cliche as that is, moved all over the country, watched me move away from her multiple times to chase all my selfish dreams. But she's been there.

So that's number one is my family. Grateful. Also, this is more recent and something I have never really talked about publicly, but very recently rediscovered God and Jesus. I've been reading my way through the Bible over the past year. I've got maybe 20 pages left and I'll be done. It's been, what an experience that I could go on for forever, not for today, but I mean, like. Like reading it cover to cover?

So I've got a version called the one-year Bible that covers the whole thing if you read one section a day every day for a year. And like anything else, when I commit to something, I'm like a psycho about it. So I've done it every day for a year and I'm on like December 8th or 9th. So are you in Revelation now? So it's ordered differently. It's not a perfect order. They order it very specifically.

So it aligns with like certain things. But it's been, it's been great. Wow. It's been outstanding. That's been a great change in my life. That's something I continue to carry on. And then I think grateful for I just resigned with the company for three more years. and to extend my relationship with the company that's done so much for me afforded me

the things that I never thought I would have been able to do travel around the world and back a hundred times it feels like, see things I never would have sought, meet people I never would have met and just live a childhood dream, which so many people don't ever get to do. How could I not be grateful for that? So to continue that relationship, I'm so excited. And I think, you know, to end my career on maybe, I don't know that it's going to end, you asked me, I have 10 years left in me. I feel physically as good as I ever have.

But to be hitting a peak, I feel like of my career at this point is awesome. So I'm excited for the future. Congratulations on resigning. Thank you. Yeah. I'm guessing the ball was in your court, right? I mean, we both wanted it. You know, I wanted to stay here.

And I think hopefully they wanted me to stay here too because we've been very, I think, mutually beneficial for each other. I love everything the company does. I've done a lot of stuff with Special Olympics for them too, which is something I hold near and dear because my nephew is a part of Special Olympics. He participates. And the Special Olympic Games in 2026 are coming in Minnesota. And so I'm hoping to be at least, if not heavily involved, possibly I've reversed.

request to be even like an ambassador for that for the company. It'd be really cool. And just stuff like that, man, the relationship's great. I want to keep it forever. I want to be here forever. And we want you here forever. Oh, thank you, man. Congratulations on that. Congratulations on the work that you're doing right now. Thank you. And I can't wait to see you with that singles championship. Well, thank you. But dude, don't leave yourself out of this. I would be one to congratulate you too. and thank you for being a guy that discusses with his talent or whoever he brings on, like real life. We don't get that all the time.

You know, oftentimes people want dirt or they want backstage stuff and all this other. You're asking questions to me that I feel like you're genuinely concerned about, like, my story and the things that happened in my life to lead me to this point. You'd be surprised how rare that is. So you're doing good work. And I want to thank you for that. Thank you. Yeah, man.

I selfishly want to be able to pick from everybody's story that sits across from me. Sure. So that I can become a better person myself. Outstanding. And if somebody watching or listening learns from that as well, I must cherry on top. Awesome. Thank you for saying that. Yes.

And what a great conversation. And I just can't wait to see what's next for you. Thanks, man. I'm excited. Thanks, man. Appreciate it. Chad Gable is a good man. I'm sure you already knew that, but I have.

I hope that this episode prove that even more. One heck of a wrestler as well. Big thank you to Chad for taking the time to do this interview with us. And a huge thank you to you for being with us and for listening all the way until the end. If you enjoy this episode, snap a screenshot and share it online. Also share this with someone who you know would love this. Tag us. He's at WWE Gable.

I'm at Chris Van Fleet. And this quote from Ed Latimore. It's something I stumbled across this week, and I love this so much. I think this will hit home for a lot of people. Embarrassment is the cost of entry. If you aren't willing to look like a foolish beginner, you'll never look like a graceful master. Be great, and be grateful, my friends.

We will see you on the next one. For some more insight, we've got the Hall of Fame rejoining us, Beth Phoenix. We'll see you on Thursday. The Hammer Alley podcast, an 80s, flashback mockumentary. Back in the 80s, there were a thousand bands trying to make it in the world of rock, but there was one band that had it all.

Hammer Alley. Whatever happened to Hammer Alley? How did they go from top of the rock? I'm looking for a music video. They're a band from 1987. Hammer Alley. Ever heard of them? To Rock Bottom. Dude, I was born in 1987. I can't believe he's doing this.

Hammer Alley. Follow and listen on your favorite platform.