Insight with Chris Van Vliet - Disco Inferno's Issues With Modern Wrestling, Keepin' It 100, WCW's Demise, Tony Khan

Episode Date: February 27, 2024

Glenn Gilbertti aka Disco Inferno (@therealdisco) is a professional wrestler known for his time in WCW and TNA Wrestling. He is also the co-host of the podcast "Keepin' It 100 with Konnan & Disco". He sits down with Chris Van Vliet at the Blue Wire Studios in Las Vegas to talk about how he got into wrestling, his six years in WCW, winning the WCW Cruiserweight Championship, Television Championship and Tag Team Championship, Jimmy Hart singing his entrance theme, the recent tweet Tony Khan sent calling him an "irrelevant parasite", co-hosting K100 with Konnan, his job at Sapphire Gentlemen's Club in Las Vegas and much more. Quote I'm thinking about: “The greatest glory in living lies not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall.” — Nelson Mandela Sponsors: BABBEL: Learn a new language and get 50% off your lifetime Babbel subscription at http://babbel.com/cvv ROCKET MONEY: Join Rocket Money today and experience financial freedom: https://rocketmoney.com/cvv BETTERHELP: Get 10% off your first month with the code INSIGHT at http://betterhelp.com/insight MUDWTR: Get 15% off with the code CVV15 at http://mudwtr.com/cvv MAGIC SPOON: Get $5 off with the code CVV at http://magicspoon.com/cvv MYBOOKIE: Bet on WWE! Get up to $200 cash bonus when you use the code CVV and sign up at http://mybookie.ag BLUECHEW: Use the code CVV to get your first month of BlueChew for FREE at http://bluechew.com PLUNGE: Get $150 off your Plunge with the coupon code CVV150 at http://plunge.com BONCHARGE: Go to http://boncharge.com/CVV and use coupon code CVV to save 15% on your BONCHARGE Infrared Sauna Blanket! For more information about Chris and INSIGHT go to: https://podcast.chrisvanvliet.com If you enjoyed this episode, could I ask you to please consider leaving a short review on Apple Podcast/iTunes? It takes less than a minute and makes a huge difference in helping to spread the word about the show and also to convince some hard-to-get guests.  Follow CVV on social media:  Instagram: instagram.com/ChrisVanVliet Twitter: twitter.com/ChrisVanVliet Facebook: facebook.com/ChrisVanVliet YouTube: youtube.com/ChrisVanVliet TikTok: tiktok.com/@Chris.VanVliet Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Chris. And here we go. Welcome back to another one here on Insight. I'm CBV. Chris Van Fleet. Are you rested up after waking up early for Elimination Chamber on Saturday? 2 a.m. on the West Coast. 5 a.m. on the East Coast.

Although everyone in the UK and in Europe are going, ha, we do that all the time. PLEs are always on at 2 a.m. or 1 a.m. If it's WrestleMania. So this was a cakewalk waking up at 10 a.m. but thank you for being here. Thank you for being well-rested. And thank you, as always, for making Insight,

one of the top wrestling podcasts on the planet. And if you're one of the many thousands of people who are listening right now and you don't follow the show, it would mean so much to me if you hit that follow button wherever you're listening. While you're at it, give Keeping It 100 a follow as well, wherever you're listening.

I was a guest on K-100 with Conan and Disco. last month, go check it out on their podcast. Today, we've got Disco Inferno on the show. And when I tweeted that he was going to be joining me in the studio in Las Vegas, I very quickly realized there's no in between with Disco Inferno. People either love him and they love the show or they do not love him. And he's very aware of that. So we talk a lot about that. And I would hope that you wait until the end of this episode until you cast judgment on who you think he is, what you think he is, what you think his career is all about and what you think he is all about. So give us about an hour or so, and then you can make your judgments for better or for worse. But I hope you enjoy this conversation.

If you do, please snap a screenshot, tag us and share it out on Twitter. He's at The Real Disco. I'm at Chris Van Fleet and enjoy this conversation with Disco Inferno. Well, I was just on your show, so it only made sense for you to come on my show. So welcome. Great to be here. I mean, you're my backyard, so it works out. I love this setup here, but very professional. It's a little bit different from keeping on 100, right? It's a slightly different setup.

People get on me because I buy podcasts from my bed. You know, they were like, maybe you should clean your lens or something like that. Right. But my whole thing is, like, it's the most comfortable position I can be, and if I'm going to sit there and talk for like two, two and a half hours at a time.

It's hard. You know this from doing this. It's hard to, it's hard to, people say, like, you know, it's tough. They say, oh, how hard it can be. the heart, trying to keep your mental acumen going and try to keep things interesting. And, you know, so, yeah.

Well, the thing about podcasting is anybody can do it. Right. And also the best or the worst thing about podcasting is anybody can do it. Right. And they don't realize that, like, in order for it to be entertaining, you've got to put some work in. Right. Right. So thank you for having me on your show.

We've been talking about making this happen for a while. So you are here. I feel like I should have played your entrance theme in here. Right. Do you remember all the lyrics, lyrics to your entrance theme? You know the funny thing about that song? That's Jimmy Hart. Jimmy Hart's voice on that, yes.

Wow. It sounds like a girl. He voiced over like a lot of the music in WCW and you wouldn't. If like you listen close, you can say, yeah, that is Jimmy. But like you can't tell right off the bat if it's him or not. Disco fever. Do you know all the lyrics? Yeah, disco fever.

Disco fever. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He's so cocky. He's so cool. He's just a disco dancing fool. He comes out on the floor. The girls are chating more, more. That's what I live back.

So good. The simplicity of professional wrestling is like, you know. Then back to the chorus. Let's go figure. Right. Yeah. Did you see the comments when I tweeted that I was going to have you on the show? I saw some of them.

Yeah. It is what it is. You got a lot of heat. You know what, too? I think one of the reasons that I got a lot of, like more heat than I used to. Like I, you know, when me and Conan were doing the podcast before it started growing, you know, I did a podcast with Vince, but that was on a paywall,

so it never really went viral that much, you know, everything, because, like, he's shadow ban and stuff everything, his YouTube, who knows, but, but when,

when I did that, I went back to impact, and I did, like, the Andy Kaufman thing, like, you know, the guy going to get,

you know, the women's wrestling, stuff, everything on that. Yeah. People, like, took me way too seriously.

You know, but I am, I said, like, I, you know, I read the room of professional wrestling. You know,

Like, okay, these people very easily offended. They're like, you know, you know, wrestling fancy things, right? But social media is very polarizing. So, you know, we're the old school guys. So we're in kind of like that camp. And then there's the new school, you know, and stuff that's like people choose sides. But I went, I just embraced like the women's, you know, like women's wrestling sucks. That was that was my thing.

You know, like they can't do it as good as men. And just people like, when I walked out in Philly, for, um, with an old ECW arena. Joe Feeney, the guy that he was, he was an old school, um, ECW fan. Like, he'd been a fan in the, you know, been at that arena a million times just, he's said, it's like, it's like, I got like the second most heat of anybody that he's ever seen in that building before. These people just hated me, you know.

Who was ahead of you? Uh, who was? I think like, the night that they, um, Shane Douglas with the, with the neck brace thing that he did. You know, that was like, like, but people like, looked at, it was very well done. It looked real. You know, so people think that, like, I was like this guy. I hate women, you know, massages.

But it was so easy to do because it was so, as I saw how easy it was to trigger the fans. You know, and it's like, I don't know, that's like a skill that, I don't even want to call it a skill. If you just look, you know, you know what people get upset about. You see it on social media. Sure. Just impress it. If you want to be a heel because ultimately, it got a, what's your name, the Tessa Blanchard over? Pretty, pretty good the way we did it, you know?

Are you saying that what you're doing in the podcast is just playing a character? Not really, but I kind of, what's the word I want to use here? We call Ribbon on the Square, okay, and in professional wrestling, where you're joking, but you're half serious. Okay, you're, it's a joke,

but there's a little, there's a good chunk of truth behind the joke, right? Yeah. I'd been very critical of, like, some of the, like, we've to review the shows. Yeah. So you watch those shows,

some of the, just stink, you know, in my opinion, I used to be an agent, nice to wrestle. I can, people criticize my work back of the day, so I'm very free to, like, do it to what I see if I'm, if that's people, what people want to hear, right? So just some of the women's matches I was watching, you know, I don't want to like personally attack these people,

but some of the matches were terrible. And I'm like, you know, it's fair to criticize the work collectively if like everybody wants to be like pro-woman's wrestling, pro-boas, okay, that's fine. I'm very forward because women draw good numbers. You can't deny that. professional wrestling, they're like, you know, it's a male audience, you know, attractive women. You know, they draw.

People don't really change the channel. So my whole thing was like, well, what I'm not allowed to critique a woman's match as the same as the men's match. That doesn't seem very fair. Well, why are they like a protected group now? There's tons of them in the business. Like back in the day, we had the nitro girls and there weren't that many women wrestlers on the card. Remember, like, growing up when it was just, uh, Moota and then Wendy Richter.

Or Mula, excuse me. And it was just like two girls. And like once every two, three months, it would be on TV for three or four weeks and they have a match, you know? Yeah, and then the divas era changed that. The divas era changed that. And all of a sudden, like, you know, there's a considerable amount of women on the show.

Yeah. And my whole thing was like, I'm watching some of these matches. I have to watch all these shows. And I'd be critical with some of the work. And people say, oh, you're just being a misogynist. I'm like, come on. It's like, I can't, I can, like, stay true to my principles.

If I think something's not good, I'll tell you what it's not good. If I like something, I will tell you, I like that a lot. You know, so it's just honest criticism. You were very kind. That's how we connected. You were really kind. The interview I did with Dave Meltzer, you said some really nice things.

Right. I got to be honest. When someone was like, did you hear what Disco and Conan said on their show about you? I was like, good. You were like, no, it was really good. I'm like, oh, oh, thank you. That's nice. Well, that's funny because I started like watching.

I didn't know you. Like, I was Chris Fanflamed, like, you know, I hadn't seen you in the business because, but I've been out of the business. But I knew, like the interview people in the business, like the podcasters and stuff. know, the main ones, but you just kind of like showed up out of nowhere on my timeline, like interviewing the rest was, I'm like, wow, this guy's, this guy looks the part. Like, like, for example, a guy like Conrad, Conrad gets tons of heat, but he's good at what he does.

Yes. You know what I was like watching you. He was like, oh, this guy's really good at this because, you know, I'm comparing you to the other people that do this, you know, like you're a good looking guy. You dread, you look like you got money, wear nice clothes. I'll take it. And you see a lot of these people that do these things in like, you know, why would I listen to this person, he looks like a slop.

You know, it doesn't really care what his physical appearance looks like on the show. And it's just like, you know. It is amazing that like, you know, I'll do, I've interviewed a lot of wrestlers. I've also interviewed a lot of Hollywood people. And it's amazing how much credibility that has given me. Oh my gosh, I just saw you with Julia Roberts. Right. You just did something with Ethan Hawk or Steven Spielberg.

And it's funny how that seems to be like changing people's perspective there. Right. Well, they see you like with the A-lister. So it's like, well, this guy's like the real deal. Yeah. So, yeah. And they're like, then, so why are you bringing disco on the show then? You must have some real thick skin.

Oh, that's my mantra. I don't block people on Twitter. You haven't blocked anyone? Maybe if you're very vulgar or like, you know, like this gross language, I'll block you. But like, my thing is like, like, who am I blocking? Like, I'm entertained by reading critical comments. I'll retweet some of the critical comments and everything because I think it's some of them are, some of the insults are funny. Like, you know, like they make fun.

I got to laugh. You know, I was like, that's a good one, you know? But like, but most of them are just all the same. It's people with cartoons for profile picks. Same thing. You're your jobber,

you're irrelevant. Just all the exact same tropes, you know? And I'm like, how can I let that bother me? I don't know these. I'm more bothered by people that I know personally have known for years when they publicly go on Twitter and they like,

go have things that have issues with me. That bothered, that would bother me, you know, but the, you know, just the hateful comments and everything, that's, I'm on, you know, sports Twitter a lot. You just, you just, you know, it's just like polarizing, I don't know. That's fandom, right? Like, I think that because we're in wrestling and we watch wrestling, we see how toxic wrestling fans can be.

Unfortunately, that's just fandom. Whether you're a fan of a certain team or a certain sport or a certain genre of movie, that's how fandom works. you get a lot of the he never drew a dime. Right, right. Like the whole, the same thing, you got to understand too.

The culture in the lock, in the business and the locker that I grew up on, completely different than what it's like to do. You know, like, I'm not in the lockerms anywhere, but Conan is. Like, he's, it's night and day. We had, in WCW,

some of the more epic ballbusters in the history of like the entertainment, Who was the biggest ball buster? Scott Hall. I mean, just like he just did not, you know, if you could not, if you had thin skin, you were done. They were like, they were, if you showed you had thin skin, the boys would be on you like, like, like, you know, blood in the, blood in the, the shark tank.

I mean, they were just like relentlessly, you know, you would, you, you know, the, the, you know, the, you know, the, you, they, they, they bullied you, but it's a bully culture. But you know, like, you, you, they, they, they bullied you, but it toughened you up because, you know, bro, back. then we were going out in front of the audiences and like you know the NW you saw people throwing stuff in the ring you know like you know like the crowds were very we would generate emotional responses in the crowd where they did not like you personally yeah you know and stuff so you kind of had to be tough you know in in the in the back like you could you can let like

the fans like if the fans were booing you enough you came to the curtain you were offended by the you know that just didn't happen you know you were trying to you were trying to to generate emotional responses from people to dislike us and yell things at us at ring sight and cuss at us and stuff at the, if you were doing that well, if you were getting that type of heat, you were doing your job really well.

Plus, all of us were... The thing like today is, you see professional wrestling, there's a lot of indie guys on. They do a lot of stuff, and there's a lot of botches, like way more than you used to see back in the day. They're also taking way more risks.

Exactly, right. They're risking more stuff, so you've seen a lot of mistakes. if you made had one botch in that match, your match could have been great, but you had a botch. You knew, it's like, oh, God, when you walked through the curtain,

Kidman was going to be laughing at you, Conan was going to be laughing at you. Bro, everybody in their mother was going to be picking on you because you screwed up a spot out there. And just like, you know, insulting, like, you know, making fun of you and stuff. That's what it was like back then. Today, it's like,

I guess it's more of like a positive atmosphere in the locker room. kind of like to prop at each other up and you know, bro, we were just very competitive back then. So are you trying to bring some of that to modern day wrestling? Is that who you are and what you guys do on the show? Honestly, when we did

the show, it literally is just I'm not trying to do anything. Our show is we take anybody can mail ask us a question. You mail your questions in. And we generate the discussions because usually the questions are about the topical stuff of the week,

happen and stuff. So we don't, like, you know, we don't really format the show, like, say, hey, we're going to talk about this. We know we're going to get asked questions about stuff that happened in wrestling this week, right? Yeah. We read every email. We read every word of every email. We read the insults and stuff. We read it out loud. We, we answer everything. Just our honest opinion. You know, Conan's got skin in the game, you know, because he's the booker for AAA, you know, he has a working relationship with Tony Kahn. But he's, but neither of us will compromise. Like, if you're telling me something, I'm not like, like, did you like this match?

I'm not going to lie to you if it's like two guys, two friends of mine. You know, I must deny it. I really didn't like it. You know, I'm just giving my honest opinions of what I'm seeing and viewing as a fan. Now, the funny thing is, like, you know, I get hated for having certain opinions.

Yeah. Because it's not, I'm not being a fan of the product enough. I'm not supporting. I'm not like, dude, I have no skin in the game here. I go, my skin in the game, literally, is like when I talk about professional wrestling, I would love, people don't really think of it this way.

I would love professional wrestling to get back to like to where it was as popular as it was because our shows would grow in popularity too. So that's where my skin in the game is. Is that if professional wrestling became more popular, we would have more fans. Do you not think we're there? Don't you think it's like,

it's way more popular now than it's been in a long time? Oh, yeah. Yeah, absolutely. And I think that unfortunately people only look at television ratings. And they think like the actual number of people watching the TV show is the exact number of people that watch wrestling. It's like, well, that's not really how people consume content anymore. Right, right. Like if I were to tell you less people are talking on a landline now and you just looked at that stat independently, you might go, less people are talking on phones now.

Well, no, technology has changed and it's grown and we have these things called cell phones now. We have this thing called the internet and social media. People are watching clips on YouTube and Twitter and Instagram and all those other things. It's amazing to me that people will see like 987,000 people watch the show. It's like, well, not really. That's only on TV. It's one kind of little piece of the puzzle. The question is, how many people knew what happened this past week of professional rest?

You didn't watch a show, but you know, you follow the things on your social media. You see the posts, you'll see things. It's like you're not just off the... Nobody in professional wrestling a fan, even if they haven't watched a show in probably five, six years. They're not completely off the grid. If they follow, they still follow John Cena.

They still follow, you know, Randy Ordinner. They still follow these guys on Twitter. They'll see, you know, they're still there. Yeah, and WWE, AEW, TNA, they've all been so good at putting clips up as soon as it happens on a show. Right. So even if you're not tuned in on TV,

you're still able to keep up with what's going on. Right. And the W.W.E has done a just masterful job over the past three, four years specifically. You know, with, especially when they went to the, when the, uh, the pandemic hit.

And they pull the fans out of the arena. It's like, well, we've got to figure out other ways to visually make this product appealing because, you know, that's one thing that WB has always had over every other competing wrestling company, even WCW. you know, we were beating them in the ratings at one point, you know, but both shows are super popular,

but then WVE really up their production game. Yeah. Just like, okay, like what does the nitrous set look like? Okay, we're just going to make ours look better than that. You know what I'm saying? They're always looking at their competitors. And like people say, like, you know, like AEW is not a competitor. They're not, as I said, but, you know, but WW is competing that because they're,

they're upping their game. Okay? And the one thing that I've noticed, like the past three to four years, and they've always been good at it. But the way they are, what's the word I want to use here? The way they're promoting their show to try to generate, to try to grab new fans, they're consciously, you can see the tactics they use.

They're constantly trying to make it to where, if you haven't watched this show in two years, okay, if you're tuning in for the first time, we are going to try the best that we can to fill you in on everything so you're not confused. You're not, you know, like if there's a match coming to the ring, we're going to present a video package and stuff like to tell you what's going on here. So to try to keep you interested so you don't leave the product, right?

And that's the main thing they're doing. And what's happening? Their business is growing. Okay? They're engaging fans. They're keeping fans. The fans are spending money. They're buying the network because they found it, you know,

You used to be like, you know, they used to book shows where, you know, you got to decide between WCWWWE pay-per-view this week, this month. You know, one's 50 bucks, one's 60 bucks. Yeah. $110. I can buy both, but I only have money for one or the other. Yeah. So we're promoting to try to get your dollar compared to the other one, right? But now the show is on, and I call them, it's funny, there are no more pay-per-views.

Yeah. And it's funny when people still say the pay-per-view, I go, it's not a pay-per-view. I go, it's a program on your monthly network subscription. It's just a big show, right? So you see them, like, they're not like kind of like driving like you to like buy the pay-per-view. Yeah. They're just constantly trying to keep you engaged in the storylines. So you can spend that $10 to buy the network prescription on the subscription on Peacock.

And you will watch this show. And what they usually do with that show is it's not like a standalone pay. paper piece. The show is like, it'll guide you into the Monday show. And then the Saturday show it's kind of like, like they have like a clear path. And with the show in the middle that's on the description, that's better than the other ones. And the amount of brand integrations that they do now is, there's a big thing that I don't think anybody's talking about. Like this match is brought to you by this. Or this paper, PLE is brought to you by this. Like the amount of stuff that's being put in there. So you and I are paying the money for the pay per view anymore, but they're

making up for it elsewhere and actually making way more money than they were before. Right, which is fascinating. But, you know, but things are more expensive, too. That's a, that's a thing. But, like, the fact that they're selling out arenas, again, is like, is stadiums. Stadiums. Not just arenas. You know, and it's funny, too, because at my job, you know, there's, there's, I can't wait

to get into your job. I don't say, there's two guys in my job that are old school wrestling fans. They still watch it today. And for everybody, for the uninitiated, where do you work? A Sapphire Gentleman's Club. You're in Las Vegas. Yeah, Las Vegas. Yeah, right.

So we're world's largest. I've been there for 15 years. Great, great job. Yeah, I can't wait to spend an entire conversation about that. But the thing is, they don't really, uh, they're like a couple people watch a show. But I have the, you know, friends of mine that knew me one of the professional wrestler that, like, worked in the cliff from back 20 years ago that I still know today, they don't watch it. But if the show is coming to town, hey, can we get tickets? Yeah.

And they get their kids. And then the kids go and they love it and stuff and they, but they won't watch the show anymore. You know, like they don't do, but if the show is in town, they'll go see it. It's like, WWE is still a hot ticket today. Yeah.

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Bluechew.com. Use that promo code, CVV at checkout, and you get your first month for free. You just have to pay $5 for shipping. That's bluechew.com. The promo code is CVV. You've been very critical of A.W. So I want to do something here. Okay. I want to do a little exercise. Say something nice about A.E.W. Well, I love, I love M.JF.

Love Christian Cage. Jericho's my boy. I love a lot of his stuff. What about the product? They make, it's different. Okay, because then this was my, you know, Guys like Cornett and, you know, they're very polarizing too. But we all share the same basic philosophy.

There's a way to, you know, promote professional wrestling. And when we talked about is like it's very easy for the WWE to engage the fan. Tremendous video packages are like movie trailers with music sometimes and stuff. You're just engaging fans. AEW does not do that at all. They're constantly always trying to like talk about the ratings, talk, you know, the demo number now. They talk about the ratings all the time, but they're not drawing. And I'm like, sitting there looking at you guys, you're not doing some of the basic things that you need to do to draw,

which is if somebody's tuning into your show, they're completely confused. Like there's like guys on their show like Ring of Honor characters. I don't watch Ring of Honor. And I don't think a lot of people watch Ring of Honor. I think they're only doing like 30,000 people on that subscription service they have. So they'll take these guys and put them on the show and I'm like, who is this? You know, I watch this show, watch Dynamite every week. I don't know who any of these people are, and they're acting and announcing like I'm supposed to know.

They booked their show basically for people for their fans, right? Okay, that's fine. The guy's a billionaire. Tony Khan is not going to run out of money. Tony Khan's got way more money than Vincent's Man. You know, that's what people don't understand. Like, everybody thinks, well, they're going to go out of business. Like, no, they're not.

This guy's got, like, you know, this guy that's got $8 billion that's investing $30 million a year. If it says he loses $30 million this year. And a hobby, that's nothing. like billionaires I think spend way more than that a year on like other than what they spend like quarter of a million dollars in a year sometimes right but um but the thing they do that there's basic principles to promote that they do not do and we that's what they mean corner are constantly critical of

it's like dude I don't I don't know the storylines you're you got them like you got a storyline this on here this on collision this on rampage but you're not I'm just watching dynamite so when I'm watching dynamite so when I'm watching Dynamite, you're not filling me in on what happened on those other shows. That is very difficult for fans to engage you. You know, like if I'm watching it's like

I don't know what's going on. What's, what are you going do? Change a channel. Like, I don't know what's going on here. It's like, change a channel, you know, so. There was a real excitement in 2019. And I'm a big believer in the phrase rising tide lifts all ships. And AEW being announced and then double or nothing being their first show leading into

dynamite that fall, I feel like there was a real excitement around AEW and that caused WWE's product to get better. It did. It was everybody's product to get better because there was a real engagement in everything that was going on. Where do you think it shifted?

I think the first month, they dropped the ball. Okay? Like, you can understand what, nobody realizes this. They had, they're, if you bought, if you look at the TV ratings as a stop, okay? And like, it was an IPO and they went, they went public on October 2nd, 2019, right? 1.4 million fans watch a show, right? So if that number it represents a stock, since that date, you could have, you've never been able to sell that stock and make a profit. That stock has been at a loss. Like they've never

reached that, that first show, that benchmark did. They've never been back to that, that mark. Right. And the whole first month, they lost like 400,000, like 400,000 fans from that first. Then they were, then they teetered between like a million 900, you know, that number is pretty consistent for about a year until the pandemic hits would screwed everybody. But yeah, I always say, That was your mistake right there because they took basically independent wrestlers and independent wrestling. And instead of putting it through the professionalism that the WWE does, which is incredible packages for the guys, you know, outfits, you know, just branding of their characters and stuff.

They just threw them out there on TV, had them wrestle and had Dave Meltzer, give a star ratings for the matches. And, you know, what great wrestling this was, what great matches is. It's like, I'm just sitting there watching going like, okay, that's great guys. There's been nine hours of wrestling on for 20, 30 years. I've seen enough of wrestling matches. I go, that's not what interests me in this product. And I don't think that's what interests a lot of people in this product.

Are you interested in the matches or the storylines? What's the most important thing to you? I think for me it's both because the storyline leads up to the match. And if you're not invested in the storyline, you're not going to be as invested in the match. 100%. But what if there's no, the storyline stinks? Are you invested in the match? I go back to like, remember in ECW?

when there would just be two random guys wrestling for no reason. One guy would be in the ring and then someone's music would hit. Right. You had a fantastic match. I love that. I still love just wrestling. I really do. Right.

But I do understand how important the storyline is to get you invested, to make you want to watch next week and then make you want to watch the week after that. Well, if you look at the wrestling fan, they're on like a bell curve, right? In the middle, you have your basic fans that will just, they turn on the product. They get nothing else to do. They're not going to do. they're not going to change a channel. They just watch the show, right?

Then on the extreme end, you have people that are watching it. On one extreme end, you're having people that, hey, watch it. Okay? And then on the other extreme end, you have people that watch it with way too critical of a night, which is not the way we want people to watch a product. I don't want people like the, like the, like the Dave Meltzer fan base, okay, that, you know, that I've never wrestled before. They've never done this.

They're just fans. you know, doing critical commentary over professional wrestlers work in the ring. And the thing is, like, a lot of these people don't even really know what work is. You know, when I grew up in, like, anybody from my era that trained the profession, to be a professional wrestler, you were taught how to do it to make it look as real as possible while protecting yourself and protecting your opponent. Okay. One company tries to do that.

Okay. The other company, if I told you that, that this, you're watching some of the things he's doing the show is like nobody's, these guys are going to get hurt. I'm scared watching some of this. You know, it's uncomfortable watching, for me, watching what I was career with, it's uncomfortable for me watching Brian Danielson out there, wrestle now because I know the guys had like a lot of concussions. I know he's had like issues and seizures and everything.

And I'm watching him and he's still beating himself up out there. And I'm going like, why is he doing this? Why can he just do it? And if he wants to do it, then he can do it. That's my point. That's fine. Yeah. But I'm, I get bothered watching that.

That sounds more like a you problem. That's what I'm saying, though. It makes like they make some of the stuff that these guys do as a professional wrestler as somebody that was very safe in my career that didn't do a lot of risk, that did a lot of showmanship. When I watch what these guys try to do to get a pop and the risk that they take to their bodies, I'm like, I just, I scratch my head. I'm like, what is going on in your head right now that like you're going to like risk a neck injury?

you know, a risk like a busted hip or a thing like everybody's doing these spots on the apron now. The apron is very, it's very hard. It's just for the plywood in the corner. So if you can crack a rib, you know, and I'm watching them just, you don't have to do that, but why do you do that? And this is, I get like, you know, like I said, it's just, that's me personally because I've always preached professional wrestler safety. I don't know if you've seen like over the years, but, you know, I'm very against, like, we know what causes CTE, right? and I'm watching what these guys are doing out there but back in the day you can understand

if somebody like did a super kick to me or was going to hit me up around the head right we would always we would always taught just in a very quick way just put your hands up to protect yourself I'm like these guys are like letting guys kick them right in the head with no protection

and you know you don't know if like he can do that effectively like every single time like we wouldn't I'm forearming you in the side of the head you know I'm not trying to hurt you But what happens if I don't do it correctly? That's still like the bone going up the side of your head and you get your bell rung. You know, and like people just do this like a lot to where I'm like,

these guys got to be getting their bell rungs out there. You know, they got to be like getting these mild concussions. They're probably not reporting them because I'm watching the head trauma. There was a study one time that I told about this like they put these, a peeway football, right? Like this, like maybe a high school football team. and they put these sensors on the helmets that, like, if you got a hit that was hard enough that would cause a concussion.

And, like, one time they would, like, they were getting these, like, the readings were going off the charts, you go, whatever. But when these guys, like, after a play would go up and, like, you know, and to celebrate, and they butt heads with each other, that would trigger, like, that's a concussion level, like, like, like, head trauma. Wow. So I'm thinking, like, you know, if that's, if that can cause, like, head trauma, like something like that, just, I'm just watching what these guys are doing out there.

And I'm like, like I said, it's just, just me getting through my career relatively injury-free. I hurt my back one time, but like this, you know, just a few months I was out. But getting through a relatively injury-free and knowing that I'd navigate in my career to get through an injury-free, and I still got reactions out there without doing the level of risk that these guys have to take to get the reactions. I'm like, why would you not embrace like the way that I did? You'll feel a lot better, you know? The problem is that the bar just keeps moving, right? So what was really entertaining in the 90s,

got replaced a few years later, and then that got replaced, and, like, you just keep having to outdo yourself. And I feel like, if wrestlers would have the style of matches that they would have had 30 years ago, it wouldn't be as entertaining now.

Like, the standard has changed. The bar has changed. It has, okay? And that, and that I think is one of the problems, okay? If you go back and watch a, just, just, like, pull up a Mr. Perfect versus Brett Hart. on a just a random YouTube clip.

And you watch two minutes of these guys. And you're going like, this doesn't look like wrestling today. Okay? They're not slapping their thigh. They're not standing there and letting the guy, like, you stand there and let me hit you, and then you stand there and I'll hit you back, and you stand there and hit me,

and I'll stand there and let you in the middle of the match. Like when they shoot guys in and you're trying to close line the guy, and the guy's ducking your clothesline, you look like you're trying to take the guy's head off. You know, when you're diving out of the ring, the guy's not standing there, looking right at you, then jumping you,

you know, there's like a lot of basic things that, like, why will I call them my pet peeves and that they do today? That makes it look a lot faker than it used to. Okay,

when we would lock up, punch, sell, arm drain, just like the basic ruggedness of professional wrestling we have. Okay? Today it's like very choreographed and smooth.

And it doesn't really look like combat a lot. But that's like what, everybody's doing. So it looks completely different than back in the day, right? And like you said, they raised the bar, you raise the bar,

you raise the bar, guys are trying to outdo the guy that, you know, when went before. But they're doing like more risky versions of like these exact same stuff.

Like, okay, how can I, you know, the original thing was back in Lucha Libre, the suicide dive, okay,

which is basically you just run, you run and die through the second and third ropes. Even when we did that back in WCW had the luch guys. bro, you would eat it. Like, the guy would come like a missile. He would hit you.

You would fall back, but, like, try to have him fall on you, but it would look very, you know, very violent, right? Yeah, yeah. These days, it's like, you run, you do the dive. The guy's, like, clap hands, and the guy lands on his feet, like, he just did a gymnastics movie that goes like, yeah, you know? And I'm like, what did you guys just do there? And it's like, that didn't look like, you were trying to hurt the guy or anything.

So it's like, so now, now guys, like, since everybody's just diving through the second, third row. Now we got to run. Now we got to dive on the top row. And we got to flip off the top row. And now we have to dive in the top rope, jump on the top rope to turn yourself backwards and do a moonsault off the top. It's like all these different variations. I'm just going like, at some point, you're watching it too. Yeah. Somebody's going to really hurt one one time. And I don't want it to be and this is, you know how like people don't think about this, right? with the way social media is and like the the

mobs will just come after you, right? If somebody gets seriously hurt and breaks their neck on a professional wrestling show, it's like you don't tell me that there's gonna people coming out of the woodwork going like wanting to try to ban professional wrestling

or like, you know, like throw a wet blanket on professional wrestling because that's just the way stuff things are these days and I'm seeing guys do this and like I think wrestling if you continue to that, doing that very high risk stuff

you're looking down the road at maybe, you know, like these people coming after the professional wrestling business, you know, and I don't want to see that happen because I've dealt with the commissions. These people are a joke. You know, it's unbelievable these wrestling commissions come there and they

act like wrestling's real. You know, like, I remember we'd be in Baltimore they had these old school like gangster looking guys. You know, they'd be, the guy would stand up on the table was like, no blood tonight. If I catch any of you bleed, he doesn't. I yelling at those.

Like, like, where kids are kids. You don't want the government coming and trying to regulate this again, you know, which could happen if somebody could seriously hurt.

So are you saying you're coming at this from a place if you just want wrestling to be safer? That's where this is coming from? Safer and more realistic looking at more, more details. Like the basic skills are kind of like, they're forgotten. Like you don't watch matches today.

You watch old school stuff like guys like Jerry Lawler and stuff, you know, They look like when they're punching you, it looks real. Like I'm punching you in the face and the guy's selling it. That's a good skill. Show me like 10 wrestlers that can do it like that today. They just don't, like these other basic skills that we used to do very well, they've just ignored them and do different things,

and it doesn't look as realistic. You know, it still has to be still got to look like a fight because you're promoting combat between two guys, building up to a level that they're going to fight each other. So you want to make it look like they can fight. Today is just like, we're building up to we're going to perform against each other. And it's going to be performance.

And a bunch of us are going to rate the performance after it's done. And I just, that's kind of like outside the box of what I think we're at professional wrestling should be. So you and Tony Kahn had a little exchange on Twitter. Called you an irrelevant parasite. Are you an irrelevant parasite, Glenn? Well, first of all, what exactly is a parasite? That's something that I think leeches, right?

Right. Right. Yeah. You know. I watch the shows. I do a podcast. Fans mail me in letters. I answer the mail.

And I've reviewed the shows. I mean, I'm not doing anything. Why are you in a relevant parasite? You tell me. I don't know. I mean, I'm sitting there doing, doing your show. I don't think that's very relevant. Would you interview in a relevant parasite?

I guess it's the idea that you're not in it anymore. So why are you talking about this thing? Why are you just giving criticisms about it? this. Well, the thing is not... What about all the good stuff they're doing? Maybe that's what they're saying. Exactly, which nobody ever hears. Unless you're a listener of our show and you listen to our review and we put over, like,

we reviewed Dynamite. Here's the things we like. Here's the things we didn't like. You know what goes viral? Everything I didn't like. Right. Okay. Because there's no positivity in like promoting anything I said. Like sports keto was funny. They would always, you know, take negative things I say,

constantly put them up on their website. So everybody thinks, I'm just this big hater. You know, but like I have an opinion of certain things. They're pointed. They're kind of like,

you know, I think they're accurate because that's, this might, you know, I'm not going to say stuff I think is true. You know,

you know, the phrase everybody, you know, the thing about opinions and assholes. Right. Exactly. Yeah.

Everybody has one. Right. But that's just, but that's just me. I just have, I just have opinions on, on stuff I like. Like,

I don't like, I don't like, I don't like college football that. Okay, and I'm going to get it from college football. Well, why don't you know college football is better than NFL? Well, no, I'm an NFL fit. I haven't liked college football in years.

I like hockey, like basketball, like baseball. I like wrestling. But it's like the Atlanta Braves go out there. They lose seven to one. What am I supposed to say? This guy stung today. Yeah. You know?

So viral. Disco says the Braves stink. And that's been going on in sports media forever, for decades, right? Like, as soon as your home team loses, and you're listening on the radio, it goes right to the talk show where they're going, what happened to the Blue Jays today?

I just can't believe this. And I think what happened with Tony Khan is when he came along, you got to remember, like, there was, you know, for years, there was people were hate watching WWU, okay, to the point you go to, like, remember like that the show's in,

and then he quit after, like, when the fans came back after the, um, the pandemic. Okay, so we went through a period of like, six, five, six months or whatever it was, but there's no fans, right? Before that, and it's, you know, very clear.

Remember the fans would just troll the show? Yeah. They'd, like, you'd have a collection of trolls that would show up at, like, every single WB show. They would, they would boo the baby faces, they would cheer the heels, they would chant Sampunk,

they would just do everything they can to, like, whatever WB was delivering, trolls in the audience were trying to throw a wet blanket on everything they'd ready to do. And you didn't necessarily. So the fans were reacting very weird, right? So when A.AW came along, everybody said, it's like, oh, great. Now we have like, you know, thank God, we have something other than AWB. Now we have to. So, but the assumption was, okay, we have to be a fan of this. Like, this is the anti-W thing and all the anti-WB people

started watching A-W. And like, we have to be fans of this. And I'm like, you know, like, all right, okay, I'm a fan. I'll watch. You're everything. Okay. I'm a fan. I'll watch. She's something. Okay, I don't like some of this stuff. It's like, well, don't be a hater. It's like, well, you guys did that to the WVE product for like the past like 10 years, you know? So why can't I do it to like this product? I'm just telling you what I like and don't like.

So Tony, I think he just got this like, he got this anti-WB fan base, which is basically what they were to start off with because, like, you know, where were they drawing from? It's like, you know, the Japanese wrestling crowd, you know, the elite, the being the elite, show on YouTube and stuff like, like all that community started watching the show. And I just think everybody, they thought that everybody was just supposed to be a fan of this, too.

And so all of a sudden, because they got very tribal, it just generated, you know how social media is? It's amazing to me that you can't just like both independently. That's ridiculous. That's the thing I don't understand. Like if you like hockey and I like baseball,

I'm not going, Glenn, hockey. Are you serious? It's the worst because of this, this and this. Perfect example is that during the wrestling wars, okay? The fans weren't at war. The two companies were just trying to put on content to try to grab these wrestling fans that were just interested in watching both shows because they just loved professional wrestling.

Now it's like fans of one show, fans of another show, and the fans of both shows are like this at each other. But it's the same product. professional wrestling with a ring in wrestlers on each show, you know? Did you feel this during the Monday Nighter Wars? Like, where did you ever feel like, oh, there's a Nitro fan, there's a Raw fan? No, no, no.

Because they were, if either show was coming to town, the fans were going, like, you know, there was a maybe, you'd find a handful of people to be like, well, I just like the WD. I just like WCW. Yeah. But everybody loved wrestling because all of a sudden, you know, these were new wrestling fans.

You know, wrestling blew up when from like, two to four million weekly viewers. on a weekly basis between both shows. You know, WCW, Saturday Night and WV blew up to like, you know, 10 to 12 million. Yeah. Okay, so like, where did these people come from? This is like, you know, 8 million new fans

that weren't fans of wrestling before. So they're just like, they generate just new fans of professional wrestling that just came out of nowhere, you know? And then they're just, wow, there's two shows on this watch this great stuff because I'm compelled to watch both. Now it's like, you know, like you said, It's just like those new fans, I think they kind of left, you know, because they were just interested in watching this because I think what happened was

is wrestling did become tribal. It did become like us versus them, like, you know, pro-WB versus anti-WE and those fans would argue with each other and just, I don't know, I think that it's kind of interesting. Come this never happened with TNA. Like when WCW and ECW left, how come it was never like TNA versus WWE? Oh, you like TNA? Oh, it's crazy.

just not enough people watched it. WDU has always been the big dog, and they've been very good at maintaining their spot as a big dog. You know, when Vincent Mann started getting beat by WCW, it just kind of like, it just changed. Like,

I'm never going to get beat again. You know what I'm saying? So I think that's what we see, and they just, you know, they don't really have any competition because they can squash competition very quickly with,

with, like, predatory tactics, you know, like for an example, when they knew that, you know, the Wednesday night wrestling war started, you know, which was like, bro, it's like,

you're going ahead to hand with our developmental. It's like, come on. Like these were, we're literally having people from the wrestling school, putting them on TV and trying to teach them how to do TV and the show is called NST, which is next. Like,

this is our next generation stars, you know, stuff. And like, you're going to, like, compete against that and brag about beating them in the ratings when you've got,

you know, Jericho, Moxley, all these guys. It's like, you know, it's like, but it was,

but it was WWE that went, oh, we're going to put our show. on the same day as you. So it was WWE that was pulling the trigger on the so-called war. Right, exactly. But it really wasn't a war, okay? Because with the, this is the way I described it.

Like people, you know, the Meltzer has these goofy tweets all the time. He was talking about bragging about how good Tony's booking was against Triple H's with AW versus NXT, right? I'm like, dude, that's kind of like, let's call a spade of spade of spade. I'm watching the NXT. There's a lot of green guys. I don't know who any of these people are. They're from the school down there.

it's like a college football team playing a pro football team every week, right? But the college football team won a few of the weeks, which is like, you know, if a college football team played a pro team, the pro team would win 100 games out of 100. But the thing that NXT did is, like they beat them in the ratings of a few, like a handful of times.

I said that that was the dynamic on that. So you knew that the next time they went head to head, that they're, you know, you know, what would they have, seen on the show? Undertaker. They were just basically saying, hey, look, guys, if you want to do this again in the future,

this is how easily we can do this. We're just going to call these guys up, send them down there, you know, they're going to show up on TV and look at what we're going to do. And they can do that. Yeah. You know, and they just basically said, you know, look, if there's,

you're not competition to us, you know? That's the message they were trying to send. I want to talk about your time in WCW because I think that so many people now are focused on what you do now and they're not focused on, well, you did so well in the nine, You got a not so easy to get over gimmick over in a huge way. And if people weren't watching Nitro at that time, you came out,

they're singing along to your music, they're dancing in the crowd, they're chanting, often very mean things at you, but they're chanting at you. How'd you get it over? Because, you know, when I grew up watching wrestling, I watched every. I think when we talked about on our podcast, there was seven hours of wrestling every Saturday night in a, Atlanta that you could watch from seven different parts of the country on Channel 36. I was watching WWE because I had cable TV and WCW Saturday night, right?

13 hours of TV. We had the VCR, I'd watch everything. I was a huge, my favorite wrestlers back then were like dusty roads, the horseman, hyper, macho, and the hockey tournament. Okay. So I was just like an independent wrestler just going through just goofy gimmicks. you know, like it was a Brooklyn stud, you know. I was born in Brooklyn.

Like, my very first appearance ever on TV was a character called the slave. I was just like, some chick pulled me out of a chain. Like, you know, I was a slave, like a medieval slave or whatever. So just all these stupid things. And I wore a mask and called myself the magnificent one. Just all corny gimmicks, right? So me and Raven, I was friends with him because he, you know, I'd see him in the clubs and we became friends. So we just kind of had to brainstorm and like, let's figure out a gimmick, right?

Yeah. So he had a tape at this. guy called Dr. Johnny Fever from Calgoor. And it was a tape of like the guy was coming out doing like a disco gimmick. But the only thing the guy would do for the gimmick is he put on a white coat. And he had his trunk. But he just had a white coat on and like sunglasses and would come out there and like like dance. And they quit.

He didn't do it that long, right? So I was saying, okay, this kind of work. I'll pattern my act after the way the honky tongue man does his gimmick. You know, the honky tongue man comes out, comes in the rain. Does he know like, does all the thing? Yeah. But then he would like during the match. he would do the moves

and when he's getting heat he would stop you know do the you know the shanid do the gimmick and I'm like okay well this is a very easy gimmick to do I'll do the disco dance

you know come out like John Gibraltar and when I got the guy down and you know getting heat I'll just stand up in the middle match and just start disco dancing you know

and you know sure enough have the simplicity of professional wrestling you know the fans are like I get the guy down beat him up

and one his other I do my disco dance and the fans boo you know and then the whole way I was saying to myself, I go, I want to do it like the hockey talk, man. I don't want to be like really good at it.

Okay, I don't want to go out there and look like because I'll get cheered. Like, if you're really good, it's just like, what are people going to do? I'll do like the honky talk, man. And kind of like, you know, act like I'm a really good dancer, but kind of just do it very basic and, you know, not, like no sex appeal or anything to it.

It's just like kind of like, you know, just like a goofball disco dancer. Yeah. But that, and that's the way I embrace it. Embrace a gimmick. And that, you know, it worked. Yeah, and I think that people don't realize how successful and popular you were as a TV title. Yeah.

Like, that was a great run you had. Yeah. The stuff you did with Goldberg? Yeah. I was like working with Goldberg. You know what's funny? Because I went to University of Georgia, right? And when Goldberg was there.

And you could see, in our apartment complex, okay, was his bar called T.K. Hardee's. Okay? And it was like, it was like Thursday night. This is back in, like, the early 90s. You would have nickel night. I remember like you go like college, bars they have like nickel beer. Wow.

Like, you know, this is way back in the day, right? Goldberg was a bounce at the bar and you could owe you from my apartment because it was like the top of the stairs and go on this bar. You could look and see Goldberg. He always wore a sleeveless white Dallas cowboy shirt.

Okay? And he had a mullet. And then he played at Georgia. He was one of the best, you know, he went to the NFL. He's one of the best, you know,

college football players in the country, right? Yeah. So the school that I went to in Atlanta was Marist High School. And our baseball team, I didn't play baseball. I just played football and soccer. But our baseball team set a national record for like the most home runs in one year. And they won three straight state championships.

A lot of those guys never went to play college. But a bunch of us ended up going to the University of Georgia. And so a lot of the guys from that team, we had an intramural baseball team. Okay. So in the school newspaper, okay, they had, like a school newspaper, they would rank the intramural softball teams. This is their softball. Intramural softball teams, right?

Yeah. Our team and Goldberg played with the football players, okay? Our team and the football players team were ranked one and two in the school, like in the school rank is for softball. So we would, like, I would see Goldberg and stuff and everything, and we would talk, talk trash. Like, hey, when we play, let's have like, let's bet it. You know, stuff?

Yeah. So they were ranked like, so we, they were ranked number one. They played the number four team, like the, the, the, the agriculture fraternity. I think it was called ATO or something like that, right? And we played, we, we went on the game. We lost, right? But Goldberg's team was supposed to win. They lost because Bill, this is hysterical.

People don't really know this story because it's like, you know, why would you know this, right? There was a, Bill played like in the outfield and he caught it. an out, he thought it was three outs and there was only two outs, right? So he took the ball and threw it down on the ground and ran. The other team, like, ran around and ran around. He had to go back and get the ball. He's like, so he screwed up. He thought it was two outs.

Yeah, yeah. He thought it was three outs, right? The agriculture fraternity, okay, put a sign up on their, on their fraternity. Goldberg's equation, one plus one equals three, okay? And the football players went over there to fight them. Wow. Dude, it was like, you know, like, nobody knows this story, but I knew Bill from that. So when he walked in

back the backstage of WCW what day with Lex Lugar, I was like, what are you doing here? So yeah, so yeah, so that says so we had history. Wow. Pretty funny. And then you were there when his streak was broke. Oh, yeah. Like you were, you were part of that.

Part of that, yeah. Yeah. You were part of some big storylines. You know what's funny? Is Eric was just involved, Bishop was just like a big picture guy, right? So he didn't really didn't care like a lot of what happened with the mid card. It was just, you know, like what Jericho was doing,

but, like, you know, but Eric wasn't really hands-on into booking a lot of the, you know, mid-card stuff, right? So, uh, so,

so, like, they would get their creative, like this, the NBio guy, Scott Hall and everything. So Scott Hall had Louis McColley, right?

Like, he was like his little sidekick, right? Louis passed, right? So Scott always liked having, like, a sidekick guy with him

that could, like, do some, like, take the bumps, you know, just somebody that you, you, it's always good to have a sidekick because you can just do more creative things, right?

So he just one day, like he got his, he came up to me, he goes, he goes, hey man, you want to, well, what if I use you? Like, like, you want to come out with me and do this spot. And like, all right, you know, he would go back and tell the office, how am I going to use disco in this? Like, all right. Like, for three or four weeks, they would book his stuff. And even though I was out there with him on TV, like, they would never book me in any of the stuff. For like the first three or four weeks, Scott would get his material. Come to me and say, hey, hey, let's do this. He said, all right, that he would go tell the man he's a disco and this.

Oh, wow. Okay, so this is funny. So while I'm doing this run with Scott Hall and now I'm in the NWO and stuff or anything, right? I was renegotiating my contract, okay? Because I really wasn't making much because I had made, I had an original contract that had like three tiers of money on it. I was on my second tier. And then I had gotten fired for not doing the job to Jacqueline back of the day. So when they rehired me, they rehired me back at my original contract, the second tier.

So I'd been basically wrestling for like 85 grand a year, okay, which was a month for a considerable amount of time. So I told them, I was like, hey, you know, so now I'm getting over on TV. I'm in the end of you. I'd say it's time for me to renegotiate, right? Yeah. But I wanted to get what the guys I was weren't, not Scott Hall, but I wanted to make the money of like, you know, I wanted like Jericho money. of Dimalenko money and something, because those were the guys I was working with.

We're all going on the road together. We're all wrestling each other or anything. I want to make what they were making, right? So they sent me a contract, and it was like for 125, 150, 175. I was like, it's like half of what these guys are making, right? Yeah.

So I would like always, like, give them the slip. I would never like sign it. Like, you know, stuff in the end. So one day they had the legal, the lawyer, came to the show and said, like, hey, why did you sign this contract yet? Like, well, like, you know, I want more, you know? So Eric comes up to me and he's like, this is crazy.

Eric comes up to me at the show. He's like, what? You're getting over on TV down? You're trying to hit this up for more money? I thought it's like, well, I mean, I'm not, Eric, this is one I'm making right now. He's like, what do you want? He just put me on the spot. I didn't know it.

I could have said probably 500,000, okay? I said it won 350. He goes, okay, oh, yeah, that's fine. I was like, oh, okay, so I went from like 85 to like 350 in that brief conversation. Wow. And I was pissed that I didn't, that was like, oh, my God, I could have gotten more. You know, so I just, so I got into that, that's when I started making, making good money, you know, but that, but that's how like the contract. I was ignoring them.

I didn't want to sign it because I didn't want to get three years of like that money. I wanted more. And I told Eric that and like, you know, but that's what I should have been making because. that's what all those other guys were making. When did you start to see that WCW was having some real issues? When we would be at a, we'd be of Nitro. Okay? And literally, me, Conan, Kidman, Benoit,

we would find a TV and we would be watching Raw. Okay. Because Raw was just more, you know, the Rock and Stone Cold was, it was just like entertaining. And they were doing like kind of like cutting edge, They were doing edgy stuff. Yeah.

And we were still, it was, you know, Hogan, macho, flay, it was still like, just like,

all of our, you know, all those guys were still kind of on top. There was a glass ceiling. We called it, we had what we, we called the top 12, like 12 stars.

There was, and you, like, we could go over, like, we can actually go over. Okay. So Hogan,

Nash, right, Bullberg. Right. Piper. Well, yeah, Piper.

Piper. Bacho. Brette. Paige was in there. Page, yeah. Sting. Luger. Luger. Steiner? No, Giant. Okay. Okay. Maybe one more.

But that was just, like, you weren't, nobody in the midcard was working with any of those guys. You know, except Paige would. But Paige had a lot of creative, creative, because he was friends with Eric, so he would, like, you know, like work with Canyon. and stuff, but you weren't, they weren't budging, you know? And so it was just kind of frustrating to, like, the mid-card guys when watching the other show and they're doing like, you know, Val Venus is out there. So you're just watching, like, what they're doing. Yeah, you're going, I'm a mid-card guy with a similar-ish gimmicks.

Right. I could, you know, man, I can't, why can we, why can't we be like that show? They're integrating everybody. Yeah, that was the great thing about WWF at that time. Everybody had a storyline. Right. Everybody had a storyline. Top of the car to the.

bottom of the car. And then we were doing, you know, basically, you know, cold, we started doing because the creative was getting boring. When the creators started getting boring is when they started doing two segment matches. Like they would throw Booker T and Benoit out there, you know, for, usually the TV matches were six, seven minutes, because we had so many characters. You had to put a bunch of guys in the show. We had interview times. The matches aren't that important.

You know, there's six or seven minutes because all the guys are doing the same thing back then, close line, you know. So it wasn't as complicated in his wrestling. that today, you know, with things. But then they started bringing the luchadors in. Yeah, that's like, whoa, you know. That first hour of Nitro was badass. Right.

Right. But then when the luchadors came in, everybody's like, oh, oh, we got to like, you know, we got to start learning to do what these guys are doing, you know, because we're going to start working because the people are popping at this stuff and they're doing some pretty crazy stuff. We got to start doing that, right? But the top guys wouldn't. You know, they wouldn't work with them.

So it was like, we had our new thing with the luchadors. But it was just all mid-card. And, like, the fans could see that. Like these guys have been on TV for five, six years. Guys like me were really not elevated at anywhere from where we were like three, four years ago. So when WCW ended, why didn't you ever end up going to WWA? Well, because I had done a stint in booking, right? So they put me on the, I was on the booking committee for a while.

Like there was a nine month period where it was near the end, just wasn't good. We didn't have a boss kind of, you know, like Eric was kind of out of the picture, but Eric would come back to the picture. But Brad Siegel was our boss, okay? We'd be in the booking committee committee asking, we had a question for the boss, hey, can we do this? You know, it's like an edgy thing.

Put in a call to the guy. Wouldn't return. When you returned the call. So it's like that's when you knew. And plus we were competing. I wouldn't say competing, but we were like budding heads with production. It was like one time,

um, uh, like we wanted a limo at a show and they, but they brought like a Volkswagen out of, or, you know, I don't know, it was just like we're just, like we were asking for things and they say it like it wasn't in the budget. It's like, well, how, you know, I'm watching Ron.

Like they look like they have like a ridiculous budget, you know, like they're spending like tons of money. We weren't spending any money on like production. So but so many people from WCW ended up going over to WWE. Oh, yeah. Well, to me, why. I was burnt out. Because I was wrestling and booking. And it was just like, you know, there was just stressful.

and I was in the first quarter of making my $350,000 a year. My contract was $275,000. What was it? $250, $350,000. Okay? So when I was in the first quarter of collecting $350,000, because the most money I've ever made, and what they did, they had a clause in your contract.

Every quarter, they could terminate your contract. Okay? So I like started the first week of the $350. So I could have either foregone like $80-something thousand dollars for three months for doing nothing, okay, or just gone to W.E. And I was burnt out and Nash was a good friend of mine. He was taking the money. A lot of the other top guys like Goldberg, like a lot of guys were taking the money, you know?

And I was like, I'm just going to take the money. And hang out. Me and Jeremy Borash and Kevin Nash would like suspend. Like each day we'd come over like they'd play video games. We'd watch TV. We'd go eat sushi. stuff. We just,

just chill, go to the gym and stuff that we just kind of chilled. And after that happened, when it was kind of like, maybe like time of guy, he could have got to WWE,

but Johnny Ace was the guy, was the point man. Me and Johnny Ace did not get along. Right. And, did something happen there? Well, just,

when he came in, he wasn't like, I heard he's changed now, but like you just, you don't like people just, I'm a pretty straight up on this guy. I'm not going to lie to you. I can just tell you.

I can just tell you. I can just tell you. guys, you know, when guys are BS. And he was, he was, you know, he was telling people, hey, we're coming in here. We're going to get rid of Russo and disco and stuff. And they're not thinking that, like, I've got friends that they're telling me what you're saying. You know, too, so I knew this guy, he'd look at my face, smile of me, but I know this is what he's saying, but, you know, behind my back. So me, we just did not get along and I just didn't really want to deal with them.

So at that time, this promoter over in Australia, Andrew McManus, started this thing called the to be a world wrestling all stars and was paying me a good chunk of change to go overseas. Now, I'd been over to Australia a couple times before. I loved it. Right? And that's what, have you been Australia before? Yeah. Oh, but easily. Incredible. It's incredible. It's like, they love Americans. That's the one thing. It's like, you go to Australia, I'd be talking to girls and they just be looking and they go, keep on talking to it. I go, I go, I go, why? You go, we love your accent. I go, my accent. I go, but they're like that. They're very friendly to Americans over there. I loved it over there.

I was like, I'm going to go over there and work. You know, and we do like two, two and a half week tours over there and stuff. And I just had a great time. We had a great crew, you know, like, it was a, we like Sabin, AJ Styles, you know, Sting would come over, O'Conium was working there, just like a lot of my friends. And it was just a fun time. Then as like time went on and then T&A was starting. Yeah.

So I just started working with TNA because me and Jeff were, you know, good friends and stuff. So I just never, there was always something there. that prevented me from being interested to go into WVE. But then, like, all of a sudden, it's like after like eight years after I bet out WZU, it's like, wow, I really never going to wrestle in WE. Almost every other WCW wrestler did. Yeah.

They spend at least some time. Yeah. And almost every other ECW wrestlers spent some time in WWE. Yeah. You're this rare case of someone who just completely bypassed that. Pretty much, you know, and it's kind of... There's got to be some regret, though. Oh, yeah.

Well, yeah. I would say, like, you kind of like, which, you know, because that's what I did for living. Professional wrestler. I, you've wrestled a very high level and it appeared the time when it was the highest, but, like, you know, I can hang my hat on that. I mean, I can see that that was a good run. Because I started, you know, from the start of Nitro to the end.

Yeah. Because when I was at the, I got hired, like three weeks before the first Nitro at the Mall of America, maybe. So, and I was pretty much a regular character on that show from, from. You were on the second last Nitro? Yeah. And the only time I was off was, well, I'd gotten fired. So I was out for like six months or so.

And I got hurt. But I was only out for like about like eight weeks when I got hurt. But other than that, you know, me and Booker and Jeff one day were talking about this. Like, you know, if you went back and looked at house shows and nitro TV appearances, the three of us were up there. Like the amount of times we were because we would do all the house shows, you know. And we would do a lot of TV, you know, a lot of stuff. We wrestled a lot for that company.

So how did all this lead to your current job now? I just got... What do you do at Sapphire? I'm a VIP host. But I don't work the floor or anything. I'm in the back that I just deal with the girls and like in VIP rides and stuff. It's kind of a... I got my own, this is pretty cool.

I got my own little area, my... It's like an area maybe this big back here, back there. I got, you know, I check in the girls and I have my computer so I watch TV. It's pretty easy job. It's away from the... It's like a different... You got to go down a hall to go into the... the main area of the club.

So you're not seeing the stuff that's going on. No. I'm sure you're seeing some crazy stuff. But I did back in the day. I worked the floor for like maybe 10 years. I've been there for like 15 years. So are you handling the VIPs? Like if I'm a rich guy flying into Vegas,

am I dealing with you directly? No, you're in the club. You're a VIP. You spend a lot of money. Now you need to ride home. You come back and I set up the with the dispatch and the valet and everything. I get your mind and take care of you and stuff. So it's just simple stuff.

Do the women have clothes on when they're around you? Yes. Yeah. It sounds unfortunate. It's just a topless club. A lot of the gentleman's clubs in Vegas are pretty classy. There's not a lot of... The nude clubs are like dumps.

Oh, this is a state, though, where if they serve alcohol, you can't be completely naked. Right, right, right, yeah. So, but they, you know... I'm from Canada. This is a wild idea. Right. But north is, there's a line, it's called North Las Vegas. They can do that. There's like, but in the...

Like, you go north of downtown. There's a couple of clubs at there. but they're not nice, you know, so then they're nude, but they so, and they're not on the strip or near the strip or near the street. No, no, no.

You must be seeing guys every single weekend having the night of their life. A lot of times, a lot of celebrities come through there, too. Yeah. You tell us any of them? The San Francisco's 40-9 would always come. Bro, it was hysteria.

I'm sure the Raiders are in there all the time, right? Not really. Really? They're just down the street. Yeah, but the local athletes kind of stay out of the clubs. They don't want to get in that scene, right? But the funny thing was that the Niners would always come like during,

during their byweek, right? Wow. And it was hysterical. They would pull up in the limo and they opened the doors and all the marijuana smokes coming out of the house. But they were always, there's always cool. I mean, like, all the athletes and celebrities have been cool. We had this guy, I had no idea who he was.

On this guy, Louis Miguel, I guess, is a very famous Mexican, like, he's like a big like everything. He came in. it comes in the back, like the VIP or where I am and everything. And the guy I work with speak Spanish, right? They like hit it off and became like best friends. Like every time you're like, you know, came down and he's like bring yourself so yeah, yeah, it's pretty funny.

During the peak of this season, which is summer, right? Summer's peak season of Vegas. No, no, no, right now it's peak season. It's convention season. Oh. Yeah, Vegas is a good. Like January, February, March is when all the big conventions are in town. And that's when you make your money.

December's the worst. I thought school season was the biggest. season in Vegas? It's weird because the pool seasons is weird because it's kind of like a like people will come in town to party to go to the pool.

They're like from L.A. and Arizona people don't fly in and like gamble and go to a pool, but there's like a party crowd that comes so you're saying the people that live in cold weather come here January, February to get away from the cold weather. And then Super Bowl's here next month. Yes. So that that is going to be

because I've been to a Super Bowl. before. Okay, the Super Bowl weekend was one of the fun of the times I ever had my life. This is back when 2001, like right after W.7 went out of business that... What city was it in? Tampa during Gasparilla. Okay, so it's packed. Now, me and Conan and Ray Mysterio and Kidman,

we had met like these Hawaiian tropicals one night, right? When we were out on, you know, I think we're in, when we did the spring break shows, right? Oh, yeah. So we just got in with, like, the Hawaiian Tropic girls and like it was just weird. Like, we'd been

town and they'd be having a Hawaiian tropic contest that night, right? So we'd go, like, judge the contest. Okay, so we swed it. So we went down to a, we went down to the Super Bowl and we were judging the Super Bowl kind of the Super Bowl bathing suit contest, right?

It was sponsored because of Hawaiian Tropicals will put it on. Yeah. So me and my friend, dude, we were going out and me, like, I'm rolling out with like 10 Hawaiian Tropic girls. Okay. Going to these parties with like, you know, the backstreet boys and NSYN. and Troy Aikman and all the playboy models

or anything. But like, we were a hip because, like, I had all these hot girls with me. You know? You got a chance to do it again in four weeks. So that's what I was saying, the Super Bowl parties are unbelievable. Like I said, all the A-list celebrities and stuff, I mean, we had the end of those. But like, for two weeks, it's going to be busy. Like, there's stuff going on all the time with all the media in town. You must have people that just are acting

like it's the hangover every time they come to your place. Yeah, it's like, The hangover, I think, like, it was a blessing and a curse for Vegas. Right, right. Because everybody's trying to outdo that. Right. It's kind of weird because, like, our club is, it's price. Vegas is pricing.

Like, you got to, like, if you want, you want to get taken care of, you got to, like, your bottle service, you know, so, like, girls, like, girls don't really, like, pay a lot attention to people that, that aren't spending a lot of money, like, in these clubs, you know? So it's, like, kind of like big spenders, class years, you know, people. and we try to keep, like, people just want to come and just stand there. They don't buy anything, you know, something,

you know, something like to leave. But that's the way this town is. You know, you kind of got to make money and you got to spend money here. I remember coming, I was living in Cleveland at the time when I came out here and we stood in lying because that's what you do at a bar in Cleveland.

You stand in line and eventually you get in. And the bouncer just kept looking past us, just kept looking past us. And eventually I'm like, hey, man, we've been standing in line for like 45 minutes. He goes, didn't ever make eye contact. He's like, here's how it works, man.

You either tip me or you buy a table. Right. I'm like, what about, what's the point of the line then? What am I doing? They're just looking for good looking girls, this here. Yeah, I'm like, yeah. I think he also said that. Or come in with like 10 girls.

Yeah, yeah. Well, that's the same. We, like in industry, like when we go out, okay, if we go to a club, all we got to do is being like six or seven or eight girls and they'll give you a bottle. Oh. I'm partying with you then Yeah, right, yeah

Well, this has been very enjoyable Thank you so much for coming by You are not in a relevant parasite In my opinion You're very entertaining on Twitter though You know the thing is, though I don't really Everybody says like

You're trying to be relevant It's like dude, I'm just doing Whatever else is I just tweet stuff And I try to be sarcastic and funny sometimes My sense of humor People look at as like you're just like hateful or why you're something,

get you take a joke on that. It's like you can understand. Like when I talked about the ball busting, like back in the day, there's like guys in this industry that I don't really know very well. And I'll kind of like, you know, kind of like needle them on Twitter.

But that's all I'm doing. I'm just busting balls because that's what we all used to do back in the day to each other constantly, you know? And then if you do it to somebody these days, it's like, I don't know, I was like, people would be so sensitive about, you know, somebody's making a joke to you.

Was he being serious? Was he like, dude, I'm just, come on, man. I'm just trying to be funny, you know. I can't wait to see the things that people take out of context from this interview. Yeah, right. So I end every interview with gratitude because it's such a big part of my life. Right. I wake up every day.

I say out loud three things I'm grateful for. Do it before I go to sleep. So what are three things you're grateful for as we sit here right now? Health. Okay, that I'm not walking around like a crippled ex-rassler. I'm grateful that I have a grateful for my mom. She's been great.

It's just me and her right now. I was, I grew up. I was an only child, three Scorpios. Okay, so just imagine what, just imagine what that household was like growing up.

Wow. But I'm grateful for that I still have a good relationship with my mom. And I'm, I'm grateful that I'm still making decent money, you know? From being a parasite? Yeah, from being a parasite.

I guess I'm still kind of grateful that, that, you know, I can still have a, voice in professional wrestling, I guess, you know, after all these years, which is, you know, I'm not really asking for it,

but I guess it had some way to it. It was so funny when we were wrapping up the episode that I was on with you guys. I'm like, you're a legend. You're like, oh, you're going to get a lot of heat for calling me a legend, Chris. You are a legend, my friend.

Oh, well, thank you. So I appreciate that. Thank you so much. My pleasure, man. All right, there we go. Hope you enjoyed this conversation with Disco. and I hope that you see him in a different life. Like, I feel like there's a lot of people who feel a certain way about Disco Inferno,

and they've never listened to Keeping It 100. So I would invite you now that this episode is ending. Go check out an episode of Keep It at 100. Go give them a follow as well. And he raised such a good point here. So often, there are these articles made and these headlines written about the few negative things that they say, rather than the many, many positive things that they say.

And I get it. It's not an article to say, Rob was pretty good. And it's not a headline to say, I enjoyed this match on dynamite. So I understand that that's the world we live in. The focus is on the negative stuff. And there's a whole bunch of fake outrage. But I would just invite you to go check out the show. And then you can make your own decision from that rather than just from seeing a headline or a quote or two.

because there's it's just it's such a different show than what you think it is if you've never actually listened to it. So go check them out. Also, while you're giving stuff a follow, if you haven't followed inside already, please give us a follow wherever you're listening to this right now. And go check out not only our YouTube channels to, right? The main channel, Chris Van Fleet, with the full interviews and then the CVV clips channel with the clips of the moments and the The memories from these episodes, go check out K-100 on YouTube as well. Take a screenshot. Let us know you're listening to this episode and tag us so we can share it out as well.

He's at the real disco. I'm at Chris Van Vleet. I will leave you with this quote from Nelson Mandela. The greatest glory in living lies not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall. Be great and be grateful. We will see you on the next one for. some more insight. 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. Get up in here. The Jim Rome Show podcast. What's your beef? Follow and listen on your favorite platform. You've been warned.