Insight with Chris Van Vliet - JBL & Ron Simmons: DAMN!, APA, Eddie Guerrero, BRUTAL Clothesline From Hell, Crazy Road Stories

Episode Date: August 20, 2026

John Layfield (@johnbradshawlayfield) and Ron Simmons (@ronsimmonsofficial) are retired professional wrestlers and WWE Hall of Famers. They sit down with Chris Van Vliet in Minneapolis, MN to discuss the formation of the APA, how the door became a part of their backstage set, Ron Simmons' historic world title reign, John Layfield winning the WWE Championship as JBL, how "Damn!" became Ron's catchphrase, JBL's rivalry with Eddie Guerrero, the most brutal Clothesline From Hell and more! Please support our sponsors: HELIX SLEEP: Flash sale! Go to https://helixsleep.com/cvv for 27% off sitewide! COZY EARTH: Go to https://cozyearth.com/CVV for up to 20% off! BEAM: Go to https://shopbeam.com/INSIGHT and use code INSIGHT for up to 40% off Beam’s Dream Powder DELETEME: Use the code INSIGHT to get 20% off your DeleteMe plan at https://joindeleteme.com/INSIGHT FACTOR: Get 50% off your first box, plus Free Breakfast for 1 Year with the code INSIGHT50OFF at https://factormeals.com/INSIGHT50OFF PURE PLANK: The future of core fitness! Use the code CVV to save 10% on Pure Plank designed by Adam Copeland & Christian: https://gopureplank.com/cvv SEAT GEEK: Use my code for 10% off your next SeatGeek order*: https://seatgeek.onelink.me/RrnK/CVV Sponsored by SeatGeek. *Restrictions apply. Max $20 discount NORDVPN: Exclusive deal! https://nordvpn.com/cvv Try it risk-free now with a 30-day money-back guarantee! PRIZEPICKS: Download the PrizePicks app today and use code INSIGHT to get $50 bonus credit in lineups after you play your first $5 lineup! For more information about Chris and INSIGHT go to: https://chrisvanvliet.com If you have ever enjoyed any of these episodes, could I ask you to please consider leaving a short review on Apple Podcast or Spotify? It takes less than a minute and makes a huge difference in helping to spread the word about the show and also to convince some hard-to-get guests. Follow CVV on social media: Instagram: instagram.com/ChrisVanVliet Twitter: twitter.com/ChrisVanVliet Facebook: facebook.com/ChrisVanVliet YouTube: youtube.com/ChrisVanVliet TikTok: tiktok.com/@Chris.VanVliet Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Ladies and gentlemen, Chris Van Vlee! Great to see you guys together, too. I am right, brother. That's right. Good to be here, man. I feel like I should have built a door back here, right? Would that have been the smart thing to do? You're going to give you a pass on this one. Okay. Appreciate that. I'll tell you funny story on the door. They're building the APA set, and they got the door, and Ron goes, that's good. You've got that deep voice, you know, and they go, what do you mean, that's good?

He said, Ron, oh, that's good. And they go, Ron, it's just the door. And they go, oh, it's just the door. Right. Wait a minute. Wait a minute. What?

And so they left the door. Is it out of his mind? Yeah. And then they realized this is a pretty freaking cool gimmick. But that was Ron's idea. Yeah. And it just resonated with the people. And even now, you know, they still love it.

Was the idea to build out an entire set? I think they were going to, but when they had the door, they had the door frame up. first and Ron goes like, that's good. And I'm looking at him going, actually, that is pretty funny. Yeah. And the guy were like sitting there going, I don't know.

And then everybody else started thinking, this could be pretty funny if they just have a door. Yeah, and they caught on. They caught on so much. Not only just with the guys and girls backstage, but they caught on so much. Well, even, you know, people outside of it, the movies and race drive, everybody. Going to be a part just to come there and knock on that. That's right. No door that's not there.

We got all the celebrity integration that came in W. it be that come to our table and have to go through our door, you know, and fortunately the guys put it over the Rock, put it over, Undertaker put it all. I mean, the guys put it over. It was really cool. And did it instantly become a thing of like, all right, if that's going to be our door, you've got to walk through, you got to knock on it? Yeah, pretty quick. Yeah, quick, you know, yeah, very, and it doesn't take any time to catch up, you know, right? Once, you know, like John says, right, with The Undertaker and Rock coming up, you know, and guys like that coming in, and I might add, who would enjoy doing it.

You know, because they thought it was, like he said, was a pretty good idea. And so it quickly caught on, you know, real fast. When was the first time that you guys met each other? Oh, shit. We knew about each other before we even, you know, probably got in there. We called football players, you know? Yeah. Yeah, but we met each other like, oh, when the first got up there, what, 96, was it?

Whatever you first came in. Yeah, I got there in 90, late 95. Yeah, so it's 96. Yeah, we became friends right away. Yeah. You know, football and similar likes and things like that. Yeah. So we got a long ride away.

I mean, we rode together way before we were with tag team partners. That's when they end up putting us together. Who's idea was it to put you guys together? Well, like you said, okay, I think you were coming off with Barry, right? That's right. Yeah, he's coming off with Barry. And I believe what might have been doing the thing like with Sunny, I believe, right? That's right.

Coming back out of that and somewhere in between there. So we both already had the similar backgrounds, you know, with each other. But I think more than anything would resonate with probably Vince and everybody that does a creation of the team. They're like, you know what? Every week we're hearing about these two fools going somewhere. We had a good time. Yeah. We had good times.

It's either they're about to get in the fight or they've tore up someone's bar or someone is calling here saying we owe money for. something. So let's just see what happened if we put them together. And that's basically how that went down, you know, right. And I really don't think they expected, you know, what really came out of it. I don't think they did either. Yeah. You know, Ron was, he said we came with that with that blue helmet, Stone Cold saw him come in, he goes, the only person that can walk in with that blue helmet and nobody says anything is Ron Simmons. We're all like, that's, that hat, that helmet's really bad. Nobody said a word. Bad idea.

Yeah. Bad. You know, but what am I going to say, right? You know, and it was. That's right. Yeah, when Vince presented it to me, look, yeah. What do you think? Oh, my God.

I'm sitting there thinking to myself, you know, I'm waiting for him to laugh, you know, and say, you know, I'll just kidding you. Right. You know, it's a joke, you know? Right. So as I was going on looking at it and he started pulling out the diagram, so my God, he's serious, you know? Jesus.

And now I'm sitting there thinking I, What do you do? So my thing is like... He wasn't like it was like a real steel helmet. No, it was like a foam helmet. No, because in my mind, when he had told me about this Roman soldier, and he was building me up, and the more he talked to me about it, right, I mean, I'm getting inspired, you know,

because I'm thinking I see myself, you know, with the shield, and I mean the gold, you know, the silver shining and the helmet gleaming and all that stuff. I'd already pictured everything. You're thinking Spartacus. Oh, yes. You know, I mean, real woman, right? So when they called me up there and says, look, we want to go in,

we want to get you in there right for, fit you, and see what the outfit looks like. I'm like, yes, this is it. Right. I walk in and the guy that has already did the costume, and I'm looking around, you know, looking for the shining metal. Yeah. You know, and I said, you know, all right, bro, where it is?

That's it. That's it. Hanging up over there. I said, where? He said, right there. You mean that the helmet, the blue one, the leather? He said, yeah, that's it. I said, oh, my God.

I drop. Now, I'm in a place now where I'm thinking, don't do something stupid, man. Do not call Vince and say, this is not what I had in mind? Now, do you, what do you do now? I said, what do you do now? He says, Ron, you want to? I tried it on. I said, well, yeah. So I tried it on. I said, oh, my God, how in the hell am I going to ever go home with this shit and show my wife this shit? So the first time I showed it to her,

and when she said, I know you're not going to wear that, are you? That's when I knew it was going to be the shit. That was the tail sign when she tells you that. Normally she would say, Oh, it's okay, honey. Just going out there. No, when she said it was shit, that's when I knew I was going to have a problem. And the bad part was Vince loved like the gladiator stuff.

He would always remember the serenganity and the survival of the fittest and the gladiators and battles and everything. So to Vince, this is probably like, I've got this great guy who's this incredible runner up for the Heisman trophy, this stud, this first black heavyweight champion. He's going to be a gladiator.

The idea was really good. Yeah, yeah. But when I'm sitting before him, right, and he was still talking to me about it. Now, in my mind, I'm thinking, oh, my God, you know, I wanted to say something about it. But every time he asked me about it, I said, I can't wait to do it. You know, I'm telling, oh, this is going to do. I can't wait to get into it. Everything was positive, right?

Everything he said, I saw, great. I love it. Right. And I'm sitting there in my mind thinking, God, I'm thinking to myself, man, all the People have watched me play football, going to see this shit, all this shit, right? I said, this is going to be terrible. And I said, the only way to get out of this is just to make him a kick-ass guy. You know, that was the only way to say that, and not comical, you know?

And that's the way it had to go. So fair to say they didn't have plans for you guys together at first. I don't believe so, man. You know? No. No. And, you know, I came in, they didn't plan on hiring me. I'd just come through and I was going to WCW and they found me and they said, hey, we'll sign you.

but they didn't have no plans for me, you know, and they put me with Barry, and I love Barry. But they didn't really have plans for me and Barry. And so I'm just kind of meandering, which I can understand. I can't understand that I'm not having big plans for Ron. You know, they should, you know, good Lord. Especially coming off of what he was doing in WCW. He was already a legend in the business. Yeah.

He's a trailblazer. He's our Jackie Robinson. How can you not have plans for Ron? You know, but whatever it was, they said, we'll just going to put these two guys together and see what happens. Yeah, but, but, but. But, you know, little to what they didn't understand was this. See, they failed to understand that, all right, already we have similar backgrounds with each other. So that's more than most guys coming into a tag team have in common, period.

We're already, athletes, so football is a wide fraternity. When we meet each other with, it's an acceptance thing already, you know? And plus he's going through similar things in the business that I had, you know. So it was an instant fit for us. Yeah. You know, right. Yeah. And I don't think they planned on that.

Didn't think about that. Yeah. You know, one of the big things that happened to us was when we were unopposed by WCW. You know, we always wondered, is, are we drawing a 4.1 and they're drawing a 4.1? Is that really an 8.2 audience, or is that two, 4.1's watching both shows? You're flicking back and forth. Yeah. And we went unopposed one weekend when they had a playoff with NBA or something like that on their, on their money.

not show and we drew like 8.1 overall. We realized that it was a double audience that we're watching two different shows. And they put me against Ron in one of the matches and they didn't even care. We said, hey, can we do a promo? And they go, oh, yeah, whatever. They didn't even care. I mean, we're taking out part of the match. We're doing a promo on global television.

Yeah. Nobody even cared to ask what we were going to say or anything. We're talking about drinking beer and fighting and all this crazy stuff. And we got the ratings. And they said, do you guys see the ratings? We did it 8.6. In our segment, the time, it was one of them, not the highest rated segments of all time with Money Not Wrong. It still is one of the highest, one of the highest of all time.

And all of a sudden, people realized, you know, maybe there is something with this team. Yeah. And I think more than anything, too, man, I think it was something, you know, and people don't, you know, we as, you know, wrestlers in this business, sometimes don't give the audience and the fans enough credit. You've got a lot of people that have been sitting out there watching this business, man, since, I mean, kids as Pop Warner growing up, right? So they are very, they're situated to, you know, from seeing things from that standpoint and look on the screen and tell if something's like authentic and this seems to be real from the sense point.

And see, we never tried to go out there and really just put on too much of an act. Basically what they saw from us was real. Yeah. Okay? Yeah. Yeah. The U.S. soccer podcast. I'm your host Megan Klingerberg and ask.

You're interviewing so many dudes during this men's World Cup. I'm so happy to be back with my U.S. women's national team players. I know the U.S. men's national team has changed how I think about myself, how I think about being an American, how I think about being on a team. It's one year out from that World Cup, and we're going to talk about the brightest prospects in U.S. soccer. You ready? I'm ready. Let's do it. The U.S. Soccer podcast, presented by Henko.

Follow and listen on your favorite platform. When you went from the Akeletes to the APA, when, did you realize you had lightning in a bottle? Pretty quick. You know, one thing we realized, you know, right away, we started getting over. I think we did is when, you know, everybody was crowding for the camera. You know, we're with the nation, with the darkness, with Undertaker and all the guys, everybody's crowding for the camera.

Meanwhile, I thought, why wouldn't the world we fight for the camera? We can stand in the back and be noticed by everybody. We're two pretty big guys at the time. we would just stand at the back and just stand there and let everybody else fight for the camera and people were starting to notice that these two big guys don't care which we really didn't yeah and then then when we got when we got with APA it just it started working you know and I don't know if we noticed it with the fans right away but we noticed it with the boys yeah you know the boys will always tell you if something works or not because they'll tell you how much they like

right you know because they watch everything and the boys are a great indicator and the boys like, dude, that was funny. That was great. Or that was a lot of fun. Did you ever have arenas where they would tell you couldn't smoke? Because you guys were smoking cigars while you're playing poker, right? There's ever arenas that were like, I know this is the gimmick, but.

I don't believe we did. Or if they did, you did it anyway. I don't think we ever run it. Well, the greatest thing ever, Jack Lanzo, who was a wonderful human being, an agent. They would find where they started banning smoking, he'd go to a lot of cigarettes, somebody told him he couldn't smoke. And if he thought they were an asshole, Jack would sit there, and for the next two hours,

he'd put a cigarette in his mouth and go to light it and then go to talk to somebody and never lied it. He'd make all these guys, he'd sit there waiting to write him a ticket, and he just mess with them. I'd tell you one time we were in the Staples Center, and they told us a lot of times we did the show earlier in the day, and so we could edit it

and make it appears if it was live. And they go, guys, you've got to go live. You got to get this right this time. And I said, why are we about to go live? They go, no, you're slurring your words. We had sat back there and got drunk. Again. Yeah.

Is that a common occurrence? It was, we had real, people asked if it was real beer, yes, yes, it was real. Every time?

Oh, of course. Yeah. I didn't even know if they had, knew I think, you know, Hollywood beer was at the time. We didn't have OSHA.

We didn't have none of that crap. You know, we had the first, like, ladder matches and stuff. I mean, we didn't have, we didn't have stunt coordinators. We just,

guys were just doing stuff and hoping it worked. You know, the first ladder match with Sean and Razor. I think they had one ladder. You know, they,

that thing had broke. Good Lord. What a disaster. Yeah, where you go? Yeah. Where you go from there, right? But you know,

like when the Hardies and the Duddlies and Edge and Christians first did that stuff, they, they didn't know template for it. We had no template for it. I mean, he hears some beer, drink beer and have a bar fight scene.

I remember one time we're doing a bar fight scene. I've got Bull Buchanan. I'm going to throw them through a wall and we gimmick the wall. The bull says, it's a one wall. And I go, I'm sorry. We go through a wall.

We land in a toilet. But he didn't go through it. Oh, he went through it, yeah. We land by a toilet. We went through a wall and went into a bathroom. Which, which, by the way, was this Timmy's ball? Yeah. Okay, so you went through the wrong wall, the one which Timmy did not want torn down.

That's right. Yeah, that's right. Tim would give us a list of stuff he wanted broken. So we could rebuild it. Yeah. When you had those bar fights, did they give you like, all right, you can damage this amount of stuff, but don't go over that? Our budget for demolition here is $5,000 or whatever.

It was just the opposite with Tim White because he would tell us he had a jukebox that didn't even work. And we threw a guy through the jukebox by Tim's request. He got like a digital jukebox to replace it. He had an analog television that didn't work. He goes, guys, would you guys break my television? He got like flat screen TV to replace it. Yeah, we rebuilt his bar. We rebuilt his entire bar.

Vince Stoess, he goes, I had no idea that I was going to rebuild Tim's entire bar. Yeah. So, no, we had no parameters of what we could do or what we couldn't do. Probably put $50,000 in Tim, boy. Yeah, we had to. Yeah. The only thing Tim would do is he'd tell us what not to break because it was his. So he would put up the good liquor.

He'd put up all the good stuff. I mean, it was. It was unbelievable what a scam it was. Yeah, and by the way, wouldn't even give us a drink. Wouldn't give us anything for you. No. Right. Yeah.

I was to show you how to tell you his ass was. We'd go in and he had. him and Arnie and Andre used to play cards back in the back room, and he had pictures of Arne and Arnold, Andre, everywhere. We walk in, and Andre's pictures would be back in the back room, and me and Mons be in the front. We're going, dude, you're not fooling. Ron, at what point did you know that Dam had gotten over?

Yeah, you know, and everyone think of mine when I say this, but when we were working together, right? And I'd pull a muscle or do something, right? Or somebody would do something stupid in the rain. And I'd just stand there. Damn. You know, because something that just happened that we didn't agree on or I didn't agree on, right? So the people, and we would go back to the towns each time, right?

So the people within, like, the first ten roles could hear me, right? They just start saying, damn, boy, they're running, damn. You know? So I began him, and I said, hey, man, what? What the hell are they saying that place? I think you say that when something, you know, screws up or something goes wrong. I said, you know what I do? Well, so the writers, they got wind of it, right, and said, look, the next time that, you know,

Booker T. and John Seno were having an exchange in Chicago, and they said, just walk out there. Just walk out there and just simply say, damn, after they finish with their exchange. And when I did that, people sat there for a moment, then they just went crazy. And that's when Dan was born. How long after that did you get a T-shirt? Right. Out instantly. Right.

My only thing about there was that if I had known something like that, like 30 years ago, I never would have taken a bump. That's right. I just walked out there and said, You wrote it for so long, right? Like, you could be on the show, and you're right. Never work a match, never take a bump. Just pop up, say damn, leave.

Yeah, but it's another reminder, you know, in this business we do, you know. And sometimes it's not about just the word itself, you know, it's in the context and the delivery, you know, and which is done, you know. I feel like we've got excellent acoustics in here. Maybe you've got to give us a really good one here. That echoing off the back of all.

One of the funniest times he ever had. It was, it wasn't damn. It was stop. It was so funny. We're working with Godfather in some live event, and Ron goes to lock up with Godfather, and Godfather goes and just starts running the ropes, just running the ropes, and Ron's looking at him,

watching him running the ropes. And I'm on the apron, and watch him, what that world is he doing? Yeah, we got a good idea why he was running the ropes. Yeah. So Ron goes to lock up with him again, and Godfather goes to run the ropes again. And we're sitting and watching the what in the hell is he doing?

Does he have something in mind? Ron goes to talk up and begin and he goes to take off again. And Ron goes, stop. See, that would have been a damn moment. Right there. And Ron goes, what do you want to do? Yeah. And Godfather goes, I'm sorry, Ron.

I'm just high. And this is in the middle of the, of a match. In the middle of a match, he's doing this. Yeah. I told him one night, I said, Godfather, hit me with the whole train. And he goes, oh, we can do it tomorrow. I said, that's the finish you're going over.

And he goes, sorry, I'm high. Okay. I'll tell you one time, we stopped. We're driving on A1A in Florida. And we drive along and Godfair usually rode with us. We almost had to check into a secondhand Betty Ford Smoke Clinic because we had to rob Godfather. We don't even smoke and we were freaking eating the guy munchies.

We'd stop at Bob Evans and get cakes and lies and everything. Oh my God. It was so freaking bad. The one after another. He told us one time, we're in downtown New York. He goes, can you imagine how many drugs there are on this one city block? I said, can you imagine how many drugs are in this car? Right now. So we see him stop until he's sorry.

He's not with us. He stopped those solos by himself. And there's a cop car ahead of him. And Ron goes, oh, man, pull over quick. We got to help him. So we pull it over. And, you know, this is before vapes, you know, when he had to smoke joints. So you could smell those a freaking mile away.

And so we get out of the car, and we're probably 50 feet from his car. It just reeks a weed and we're outdoors. And I'm going, oh, my God, he's going to jail. And he's outstanding in the lane. He's so freaking high. And he's standing there with this cop car cop, me and Rungo back there. And Ron goes, Charles, get out of here. We'll deal with the cops.

Right, right, man. And he goes, no, no, no. He recognized me. He wanted a picture, which is true. The cop pulled him over because he wanted a picture. Now he's got Godfather out, but he's got this guy who's hiring a freaking kite. He's got more in him than most Colombian cartels at this point. And so he goes, no, guys, come on, APA, APA.

We'll go like, Godfather, leave, leave, we'll do with the cops. And I'm like, you know what? No, I think I'm going to just probably ease back to the car. Yeah, I don't know what's happening here. And then we realized the cop has a drug dog in the back of his cat. And this dog is going, ho! He's scratched it to the one. He's like, I'd hit the mother.

No, let me out. I'm going to get doggy metals. I'm going to become a doggy meddles. He wrote, oh, he strikes at the window. And we're like, this is an SNL skin. What the fuck are we doing? And so finally, the cop looks around. He goes, even my dog recognizes you.

Yeah. But he knew what was that. Oh, yeah, he knew what was that. Yeah, he knew what time it was. Who were you typically riding with? Oh, so. Well, mostly, him, Teddy, mostly, you know. Yeah, Teddy was our designated driver mostly.

But Godfather came in with us a lot, you know? Right. But going to him once again, he was too much for Rocky. Right, yeah. He was way too much for Rocky. Yeah, he jumped out. Rock goes, I can't take it. I can't take it anymore.

Somebody else has got to take this man. I can't take that. Come with us. Go with us. We're fine. Yeah, he fit right in with us, you know, except for when it came to just when it got to the point where we thought it was going to be cool with, you know, riding with him and everything.

We're kind of looking at each other, you know, sideways. Like, brother, have we made them a snake here? You've never seen a guy smoke bleak like that. I mean, it's one, like a cigarette, one after another. I've never seen anything like it. It was unbelievable. There was some rap group one time wanted to smoke with him. He almost killed him.

Right. Dude, you're like kind of serious issue. Yeah. A real fucking issue. We're one time. we're in someone like Albany or somewhere up in Upper State, New York, and somebody pulls the fire alarm, you know, make all the wrestlers come out because they wanted to see them.

I used to do that at the hotels, you know, when big old guys come out. So we and Ron are standing out there. We know, like everybody else, like dummies. There wasn't a fire, but we had to evacuate. And we look up and Godfather is standing it at all next to the window, and he's pressed himself up against the window like this. He's like 300-something pounds, and he's butt-necked.

And everybody down there can see him. And the police chief's like, Guys, we've got a large black guy. He goes, yeah. You know what? Just forget it. Just leave him. Just leave him there.

Just leave him there. Yeah. This might not be a good outcome if you go up there. Michael Cole recently told a story where he was driving you guys around for a little while. Yeah, yeah. How did Michael Cole get paired with you? We liked him. Yeah.

You know, we liked him. You know, the thing about it is, you know, people say, oh, you had somebody driving you around. Yeah. because you didn't, not because you didn't like them, because you did like him. We liked Michael. And then plus, they, you know what I mean?

Like, once again, you know, they knew that, hey, you know, we just were guys, you know, that, hey, will go out and just wanted to have fun, you know, and love being around people as much as we could, right. And sometimes, you know, with cold, right, I understand him, you know,

sometimes the job got up on his skin. So it was a good thing to get away from that. So that was a good avenue for him to come with us, You know, he have a couple bills, and we shoot the shit, right. You know what I mean? Because, yeah, he'd get in there with us, and it's not just the business. It's just having fun, you know? I feel like the APA gimmick could have lasted forever.

Why did it have to come to an end? No, you know, it was, we did it, what, six years? Right, like five, six years, right? And it had come, and it was good, though, at that point to where it had come to, that because it, you know, it come to the point to where we had, we was at on top with doing it and we'd had a lot of success with it. And myself having already gone through, uh, having been world champion, had good singles thing behind me. His, he had been through the ropes. His thing was struggling, coming up through the ranks, man. And it was time and was perfect for him to go on and do his thing. you know, and it was perfect timing for him to go on from there, from that momentum we had, and to go on and do what he did. Yeah, it's crazy, John, because if you look at a picture of Bradshaw,

and you look at a picture of JBL, you don't even look like the same person. Like, it's such a departure from what that character was. Was that intentional? Yeah, I got lucky with that. You know, I got lucky with, you know, I dyed the hair black, the tag with Barry Windham, which I think it was probably a mistake. They probably should have been a second iteration of the black. Jacks, you know, maybe more of a motorcycle iteration of the black jacks or something.

They had us dye his hair to look like the originals, you know, Mulligan and Lanzah. And I kept that dyed hair all that time and kept it with Ron and, you know, just kept doing it. I was very fortunate that I was able, hey, I don't know if it was gray or I don't know what color it was. Because I died it for so long, but I was very lucky with it. I'll tell you a funny story. I'm sitting there and I had long hair forever. And Vince asked me to cut it. We had this idea of JBL and all this stuff.

and I'm sitting there at the barbershop, and I've got this, like, feet of hair, you know, on the ground. And Stephanie, the man calls me, but I can't answer it because I'm getting my hair cut. And anyway, finally, I check it. And I'm still, they're still cutting my hair, but I thought it must be important. And so I pick it up. She goes, John, it's Stephanie. Don't cut your hair.

And I'm like, oh, my God. And I'm looking around like that. And she goes, I'm just kidding. And I'm like, she had no idea. I'm in the barbershop. I don't even know she's ever even heard this. I'm like, oh, my God. It's the greatest rib ever.

And I don't even know if she's ever even heard that. It's just amazing that you, you guys have had amazing singles careers, amazing career as a tag team as well. Not everybody gets to do that. Like I feel like you get pigeonholed into one or the other. How were you guys able to make both work so well? Well, you know what, man. And look, and somewhat similar to what he was saying about with, you know, with Barry, right?

I was fortunate enough coming out of Florida Championship wrestling, right? She got paired with Butch. Now, that was a very good learning stage for me, because it was accomplished in the business and been in there for a while, and it was a good state in my career early to learn a lot, you know, to be with him. Right. But the thing of it when you comes to tag team is that, and anyone in the business is going to tell you,

it's a rare thing that when you finally can get with someone to where it's not just being put together, and having to learn each other, it's a perfect fit. And that is a rare thing to happen. Okay, and that's what happened with us. And we were very, very fortunate. And I think that's why it resonates so good to come across the screen with people and they can tell, you know,

hey, this thing is real from the sense of that standpoint, you know. And so we were very fortunate in that regard. And I've had a lot of people like Barry, who was tagged up with him, man, that, you know, coming up, that helped me along the way, which in the singles, you know, that translate into me going on, man, to do pretty good in that. So it's been that kind of thing, you know.

Yeah, you know, you look at great tag teams. And, you know, a lot of them are brothers, you know, the Fonks, the Briscoes, Harlem Heat, Steiner's, parties. Yeah. I mean, so many of them, you know, brothers for very good reason because they're close. They know what the thing was doing. Exactly. You know, Rod or not.

There aren't two brothers that are any closer than me and Ron. You know, and so it just, it was very easy to be out there with somebody that you know very well, somebody that you also trust implicitly with everything that you might ever ever have. And also, you're on the same wavelength. You know, we are always, you know, had the same ideas about matches, same ideas about finishes, same ideas about heat and things like that. Has there been talk of putting the APA in the Hall of Fame together? Now, that would, I don't see why not, you know, why wouldn't it be?

You need a table and a door in the Hall of Fame. That's it. It'd be the greatest place ever. You know what I mean? You're right. Ron, when you won the WCW World Championship, there is pure joy on your face after that one two, three. Take me to that moment.

What are you feeling? Listen, and this is true, okay? I don't think this, like, every few months, man, that I don't go back and just look at that clip. Because it's one I can honestly say that in the, this business, like I said earlier, that it was a real moment in this business. Okay, that's why I came across as it was, as it did, you know, with the boys, with myself, with the fans, you know, and this climate we're in now where we're telling everything

about this business, which I still can't bring myself to do, although everything has been said, I still got a problem with seeing stuff. That's just the way I was saw, you know? Hey, this was a guarded fraternity, and you was very lucky to get in it. Because if you weren't accepted by the guys, you weren't going to make it, you know? And so I still struggle with doing that today. But for me, man, it was coming in on the spontaneous thing being told at the last moment that something like this was going to happen.

No one knew it. Like right before the match? No one at all. Wow. Yeah. And that's where you got the realism of it. Coach, no one would I never suspect that at the house show. Yeah.

You know, one thing, you know, during COVID, we got very bored, and I wanted to start doing stuff. And we do appearances now, probably once or twice a month. The only reason I do them is because I want to see Ron. You know, I want to go spend the weekend with Ron. We either watch college football, do something. We just have fun at a table, you know, talking to fans the whole time. I have a lot of fun with Ron.

And I miss Ron and being around the camaraderie of the boys and all that. But at these appearances, there's, I don't think. there's been one, and we've done, I don't know how many, that some fan has not come up to Ron and said, that moment when you beat Vader was the most important moments in my life. And I can't tell every single autograph session, every weekend, somebody, at least one person will come up and tell Ron how much that meant to him, that he was the one that broke that barrier, and that meant the world to them. Because wrestling was their thing.

Yeah. They needed Ron. How does that make you feel right? And, you know, man, and like at that moment, you know, I can't say now, obviously, I know now, but at that moment, I was just like anyone else, right? You know, you wanted to work your way up through the card, right, and get to the top and, you know, and be a champ, right? Had no idea how that would have resonated as it did.

And to this day, as partners stated, there's not one month or one show, and I get letters every week from someone saying they were at a bad place, talk place in their life, how it changed them and inspired them, and not just black people. You understand me? That's right. Old people of all walks of life, you know. So it's really special. It really means a lot.

That's powerful. Yeah, man. Yeah, it has continued to gain momentum. Yeah. You know, yeah. And Ron is such a smart guy. You know, one thing I love about him, he's always been a mentor both to me, but to a lot of people, you know, to everybody out there.

People come to Ron for advice for very good reasons. He's a very smart, a very sensible person. When we first started doing the APA, you know, there weren't a lot of black and white tag teams. You know, you had Russians, Russians, Canadians, with Canadians, Mexicans, Mexicans, Japanese, Japanese, English, with English, whites, blacks with blacks. Somebody knew they were afraid of it. That's right, for whatever reason. Now you had Thunderbolt and Brisco, you know, back in the 70s, and you had Coco and Coco and... I know you, in Owen.

Yeah, and you had the Dudley. Yeah, NNW's in ECW. So you had some of that, but they mentioned to Ron about making something about the race. And he was so smart, he goes, absolutely not. We've absolutely killed it, right on the spot. No. Because he said, and he was correct, if you make it about race, it's about race. It's not about race.

It's about friends. And Ron never let them do that, which I thought was really a wise decision. Visit BetMDM-GM casino and check out the newest exclusive. The Price is Right Fortune Pips. BetMGM and GameSense remind you to play responsibly. 19 plus to wager. Ontario only. Please play responsibly.

If you have questions or concerns about your gambling or someone close to you, please contact Connects Ontario at 1-866-531-2,600 to speak to an advisor. Free of charge. BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with Eye Gaming Ontario. The U.S. Soccer Podcast. I'm your host Megan Klingerberg. And after interviewing so many dudes during this men, World Cup. I'm so happy to be back with my U.S. women's national team players. I know the U.S.

men's national team has changed how I think about myself, how I think about being an American, how I think about being on a team. It's one year out from that World Cup and we're going to talk about the brightest prospects in U.S. soccer. You ready? I'm ready. Let's do it. The U.S. Soccer podcast presented by Henko. Follow and listen on your favorite platform. John, you had a successful career as a tag team competitor, and you were great in the mid-card, But did you know that that JBL character was going to take you to that next level? I knew I was going to have the opportunity. Yeah, absolutely.

I knew I'd have the opportunity. I knew because they made the character for Eddie Guerrero. So I knew I had the opportunity. They called me specifically for, we got to match the Staples Center in six weeks, eight weeks, whenever it was. And I just got lucky. Yeah, Brock had left the company to go pursue, you know, become USC chair. No, he didn't get lucky, man. Listen, he didn't get lucky.

He's getting too humble. No, no, he didn't get lucky, like I said before, okay? And which is cool. I understand where he's coming from. Well, he had put his work in, okay? Germany, Japan, traveling all around, doing the things that people don't get to see, living in and out of a car, sleazy-ass hotels and motels and that kind of thing. Right.

And he had gone through multiple partners, you know, and in and out with the single thing. It was an absolute perfect moment for that. Any other phase, I believe, would have altered that run that he had. The timing was perfect. Wow. He was prepared for it. You understand? And Ron had set me up perfectly.

Yeah, he's prepared. The way that the APA quit. All of a sudden, you needed somebody for Eddie Guerrero, and Vince called me and asked me if I want to take a shot at it. So I knew I had the chance. Wow. You know, now whether it's going to be successful or not, you know, it was up to what was going to happen in that match. Do you have a favorite Eddie Guerrero story? Oh my God. He used to call me all the time. Eddie loved the JBL character. You know, he called me one time. He's like 2 o'clock in the morning. He goes, essay, I got something for you. You know, he's a grooms for me in my wedding. You know, Ron was my best man. Eddie was a grooms for my wedding with Undertaker, a bunch of other guys. And I go, what is it? He goes, tell him. My ancestors come over here in a boat, not an intertube. And I said, Eddie, you're going to get me killed. You're actually going to get me killed. And he goes, no, no, no, no, essay, good stuff. Good stuff. Eddie used to give me the craziest stuff. He came up with the idea. He came up with the idea.

of throwing the guy back across the border. That was Eddie's idea. That was Eddie's idea. Yeah, the whole thing with Chavo, Chavo senior came up. I don't know if it's Chavo Senior, Eddie came with the idea of his mother having a heart attack in El Paso. But it was a great story because we're backstage and, you know, we're not selling any tickets at Staples Center. People aren't buying me yet. And Chavo came up with an idea.

I think he kind of came up with an idea is a little bit of what he and Piper did back in the 70s in the Coliseum. And I think that's kind of where he got. I don't know because I never talked to him about it. But they said, hey, we got a. idea. So I'm back there. It's just me, Chavo, Senior, Eddie's brother, not his nephew, and Eddie. And they tell us this idea. We're in El Paso on Mother's Day weekend. We're going to honor our father, Gorda Grero, and it's Mother's Day, we're going to give Mother, Mom, some flowers. We want you to give Mom a heart attack. Wow. I'm like, oh, my God. Yeah. Oh, my God. It's like 10,000

Latios. Yeah. Let's see how this works. Yeah. I knew how rough it was going to be. And I'm sitting there, but the best part was Chavo telling the story. He goes, then you can get like a little hit on mom. But he's only saying that to stir up Eddie. And Eddie goes, Chavo, I've told you, he's not going to touch mom. Mom's 70-something years old. John's not going to tell you. He goes, no, no, Big John's a good worker.

He can just, he can like here with a little clothesline or something. And Eddie goes, Chavo, no, John's not going to do anything to mom. He's going to hold her while she goes, he goes, no, no, okay, how about just to boot and mom gets a little color? And by the way, where was this? Where was it? Oh, yeah. In El Paso.

Exactly. It'll pass on Mother's Day. Yeah. Let's see how how this goes. Eddie gets up to fight his brother. They're about to fight. And Eddie knows they've been fighting since they were kids. I'm like, you've got to be kidding me.

I'm in a freaking Guerrero fight here. And I'm the only one there. And they're like mad at each other. Yeah. You had so much heat on you. Like so much heat. When Eddie's mom went down, you know, what happened was I grabbed her like that. And what I did was allowing her to grab my hand and go down.

It looked like I was manhandling her, but I was allowing her. I'm going to take care of. I've got ever Guerrero brother in the world backstage. I'm not worried about these 10,000 fans. Guerrero brothers I was worried about. And I'm allowing her to go down. And I remember sitting there and thinking, there's not a Guerrero that can't work.

I mean, she had a heart attack. I'm sitting there, and I'm in on it, you know, obviously. And I've got her down. And the whole place, you know, was kind of heat. And long have been there in buildings like this. And all of a sudden, the place just gets, I mean, silent. You could have heard a pin drop in the building. The place got, yeah.

And it was the silence. And it wasn't the silence of just quiet. It was the silence of, hey, you know what? We're all going to just attack his ass at the same time. That's right. That's right. That kind of silence. It was unbelievable.

And Eddie's on the ground and he goes, essay, you better get the fuck out of it. Like now. And we had extra state troopers around the room. We had cops are going, John, you've got. Because you could feel the place was about the riot. But we got to get it on camera. There's no reason to do it if you don't get it on camera. And I've got guys, I didn't tell them that.

That's what I'm doing. I'm making sure we got all this stuff. They're going, John, you've got to get out of this building. So they got me to the back. And the places literally, I mean, you could feel it bubbling. By now they're starting to get loud, you know, and they're starting to get ready to come over the rail. And these cops are trying to get me out of the building.

They got me in my car, and my car is running. They take me to the city limit sign. And the police did. And they go, and I stopped. And I said, guys, nobody followed this. I'm good. They said, do not come back. And the police, the police and the C limit, to me a semi-s-in-s, I said, do not.

They said, do not come back. We think you will be killed. Yeah. They said, drive all the way to Odessa, which we had planned anyway. I drove, I had to drive all the way to Odessa to fly out. I drove to this by myself because the police in El Paso. Two years later, we worked there and they wouldn't book me there. They thought I'd be killed.

They thought something would happen to me. I had that much heat. That's amazing. was crazy. It was absolutely nuts. I'll tell you a funny story that I hardly ever told is I go about three miles after the cops had stopped and I looked up and there's a border checkpoint, which is not a big deal. You know, they had them, you know, inland in Texas, not a big deal, except for the fact, all my stuff's in the trunk and I'm in wrestling trunks and wrestling boots and no shirt. And I pull up to this border checkpoint. Oh, my God. And it's a Hispanic officer.

I'm not going to tell him that I gave Eddie Groh's mom a heart attack. This guy might shoot me out here on this road. I just left a building that may be rioting right now. And so the guy comes up and he goes, is there an explanation? And I said, no. No. No. What he did? Do you really want to hear it? He goes, just put your shirt on. And get the hell out of it. Just get the hell out of it. No idea what you're doing. Oh, that's amazing. I want to talk to you guys about your finishers. Both of them are devastating. Ron, how'd you come up with the Dominator? Well, you know, when you're coming up with finishes, right?

You got to, man, it's a process of just thinking of all of everything. Would everybody use this, man, was similar to everything, right? So, you know, I've been doing the Spinebuster. I had originated that thing, man, down in Florida, and Bob Rube, like I said, Bob Rube asked me, well, why'd you come up with that move? I said, well, it's a street. move. You invented the spy most thing?

You do? I started to do that in Florida. I said, that's the first thing you want to do on the street is get people off the feet, you know? So I started doing that, right? And then people started doing different versions of it and everything. So when I came up and WWB coming up with another one, right, I said, all right. So let me just come up with something in the reverse of it, right? But let me do something where if somebody is going to try to copy this, their ass is going to have to have some strength. Okay. Right. So that's why, as how come I went that direction, because I knew that it wasn't going to be too many people trying to pick up 300-pound men on a regular basis. We're doing that. Right. And it wasn't too many people willing to take it.

No, no. Wait, look. He broke road dog's toes one time. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Because he's road dog. And Road dog used to call that spinebuster. He goes, I'm going to spine buster. And road dog would say, It's not a spine buster. It's a fuck you. He's like, fuck you, Roddog. He would hit Road Dog with that spinebuster so freaking hard. Road dog would lay there like he was outlined in chalk. He would just lay there the rest.

It was so funny. Who do you think took the Dominator the best or the worst? Like some guys were like landing on their head. Well, it wasn't, you know, the thing of it was, right? It wasn't a matter of them taking it the right way, right? because they ain't no good way. No. It's all up to me, you know, to be sure that I don't kill them.

You understand? Me, if I screw up, it's bad news. You understand? That's why I'd say you had to have your ass up under you. If you were going to do that move, you understood. Right. You had to have the strength. They had to have the balance and some athleticism to do it.

All right. If I was having a bad day, you're going to be bad news. okay for whoever was taken. Right. Yeah. So that's really, you know, the origins of why and how I came up with it, you know, right.

Yeah. Because I thought first is showing strength and then, you know, you not only have you going to have to get them up there, you've got to hold them there for a period of time. And not only that, you've got to come down with them at the right point to where they're leveled out to where it doesn't hurt them or. injured the neck and face, you know? So it was a lot going into it. Yeah, right.

And you got to be very strong to do it. There's a reason nobody does it now. You've got to be very strong and very athletic to be able to do that. Is there someone that took a particularly stiff clothesline from hell? Oh, yeah, Shane McMahon. Oh, yeah, I almost killed him. Yeah, Shane told me he said that you got to hit me harder than you've ever hit anybody in your life. Yeah.

They almost killed us. Yeah, well, I thought, don't do it. Don't do it. Don't do it. So, I mean, we're at SummerSlam or some major paper you. She's running around. He's running full speed. I'm like, you got to get him.

I hit him so freaking hard. I never hit anybody like that in my life. But he told me, he's like threatening me. All right, you got to hit me, got to hit me. It's all they kept telling me all day was you got to hit me the hardest clothes on he ever head. I hit him. And as soon as I did, Grongos, we're fired. No, I just told me, look, just go back then start packing.

I'm just going to go back here and start packing my shit. Okay. Yeah. The only thing I just recall seeing was just. this part of Shane's right here, disappearing so fast, right?

I was just, I was just standing to shake in my head. Like, it's been a good run. It's been a good run, man. Well, nice knowing this. We're working a match

one time with a couple of extras or something, and Ron hits one of them with that big freaking nominator or something like in the middle of match. Something went wrong or something got to something and he threw him down.

And he comes and tags me and I go, what do you want me to do? And he goes, covering him, I guess. Okay, he's dead.

What happened when you got to the back with Shane? Well, Shane thought it was the greatest thing ever. You know, Shane's nuts. Yeah, Shane thought it was the greatest thing ever. Oh, that's awesome. That's awesome. It's so good. It was just good for me to go back there and see his ass still walking.

That's right. You know, that's what I was glad to see. Right. And that he could talk. Oh, right. There's a close line from how the you gave to Ray Mysterio, and he goes flying. For real. Okay.

Yeah. But most people see, here he is. And look. It was always funny, right, when guys would come up to John and I'd, you know, be able to just waiting for it. Because I knew what's coming, right? Because they're always nervous and they're fucking scared, you know, about it when they find out right that he's going to, you know, give him the clothes line, right?

So they'll come up, they'll come up or ease around me and a roundabout way. They run, you know, like particular way maybe I should kind of, you know, take the, you know, take the clothes on. Should I like kind of, you know, stretch the neck a little bit? or can I, you know, do a slight jump on that? That's a brother, listen, you're going to be lucky if you even remember taking that fucking conclusion. So, you know, with me adding stuff like that to it, right?

Just to make them sweat. They thought Ron was going to be the one that would calm everything. And they know Ron would stir them up, but Ron would do it in such a nice voice, the gentleman's voice. They're like, oh my God, I'm going to die. Ron was scared him to death. Ron one time was talking to him to a match. We used to like, okay, I won't beat the shout of you,

being the shout of you, all this. You know, we cussed like crazy. We were talking to our match. The guys were, the rest was notorious. The guys who didn't cuss would cuss back. And Ron's telling me, goes, now, when you come in, he's got that deep voice, you know, and he's got the huge freaking body.

John's going to beat shit of you, and you come out and beat shuddy. And these guys were looking at us, like, oh, my God. I said, Ron, I think he's scared him to death. He goes, why? Did guys know what they were getting into when it was a match with the APA?

Well, look, man, you know what? Here's the thing with us, and same with him. I was taught, okay, and I mean hero match suitors under his true religion, his training. When you're in that ring, you're doing your best portrayal of realism, okay? There ain't about getting out there throwing a thousand punches, but just throw one, make that shit, looks good.

all right and that's exactly the way I tried to work now some would call it step or whatever you'd like to call it but I called it as real as it can get and that's the way we both work and that's the way he was taught all right and a lot of people didn't like it because they thought it was you know like stiff or whatever but guess what we never did anything that we couldn't take you know right if you entered anybody never hurt nobody that's called taking your time to learn what you're doing you know right right Right, because, you know, that's the way I was taught. I can hear his words now. If you're doing this, the people right there that's sitting at ringside have got to look real hard to see that you didn't hit in. That's the way I was taught, you know? And that's the way things were back in the day, man. That's why you had a lot of arguments and, you know,

and people got into these conflicts back in the day about reporters acting you, hey, is that stuff real? Hell, that's the way guys work. Yeah. That's the way guys and girls worked back then. Okay? The thing that's so great about you guys is how real you are, right? From, like, what you're talking about right now with the hard-hitting style in the ring

to, like, the juxtaposition of how much fun you guys were having behind the scenes. So what was that? What was a car ride like with you guys? Oh, my God, bro. Hey, hey, just being up, you know what I'm saying? Me, I just, hey, and that, ex-Michael Cote. You know, it's fun, you know what I mean? Isn't there a story of you getting left somewhere?

Oh, God. left in a snowstorm in Massachusetts. Yeah. Yeah, we're driving in some snowstorm of Massachusetts on the Turnpike, you know, and we're driving along this way. On the Turnpike. And nobody's on this turnpike because the weather's so bad. We're trying to get to Boston.

And I tell Teddy, I said, hey, Teddy, I said, because we had the music playing as normal. Me and Ronor drink every year. Yeah, we were feeling good. I said, Teddy, pull over. I got to take a leak. He goes, again. I go, Ted. Yeah, he was really mad.

He was pouting. And I said, don't peanut head. And so I said, Teddy, we're driving 40 miles. Now, we're never going to get there anyway. Pull over so I can take a leak. He goes, ah, we're never going to get there. And he pulls over, so I get out and take a leak. Ron gets out, take a leak.

I get back in, Teddy drives off. And I'm sitting there just looking at him. He goes, what? He's frustrated with us. I said, it's not funny. He said, what's not funny? I said, leaving Ron on the side of the road. It's cold out there.

What are you doing? He goes, man, I didn't leave Ron. He looks back. He goes, where's Ron? I go, you left him, you dummy. He's going to kill you. And, you know, now I'm thinking, you know, okay, you know, because we're ripping each of all the time, you know, right? So now it's, I mean, this is a blizzard.

It is snowing like it. Yeah. Right. So the car's pulling off and I'm trying to, you know, hurry up and get finished. And I can't because I'm slipping everywhere. So the only thing you see was the tail lights just disappearing into the snow. I'm like, okay, this is not funny, right? So when you turn back, you can't turn around now.

So he had to take what? He had to back up. Oh, he had to back up. We're scared. We're going to get by a truck. We can't see nothing. Going reverse on the turnpike? We're backing up on a turnpike in a blizzard.

And I'm going to, Teddy, he's going to kill you. He is absolutely going to kill you, and you deserve it. You deserve to die. And Teddy, he finally gets back there, and Ron has been standing there so long. He's got his hand on his hip, and he's got snow built up on his head and on his arm. And he's just standing there like a statue. He is so mad. And Teddy stops about five feet.

from him, he goes, tell him that I did not do this on purpose. So I rolled down the window and snow's glowing in like that. I said, he's been laughing about leaving you. But to his benefit, it was so damn cold, right, that I couldn't say anything to him because I couldn't talk because I was so damn cold and so stiff from standing out there. Now, when my ass started out, we had some work. We had some work. We're driving. We're running. Run back there. He's soaking wet. Even in the snow, he's cold as he could be. We've got the heater on trying to make sure Ron doesn't get pneumonia.

And Teddy is scared to death. He's driving as fast he could drive, but he can't drive that fast. And I said, guys, listen, let's just settle this, okay? We need to get this out of the way. How about we just pull over and you two fight? And Teddy goes, will you shut up? He's going to kill me. And Ryan, Ron doesn't say a word.

He's just looking at him up. With his cheap ass. The only reason he rode with us, man, so he don't have to pay toads. And he doesn't have to pay for gas. Teddy never paid for nothing. Nothing. One time we stopped off, Teddy would like, when you get a car and go to the arena and come back, not when you got to drive.

Taylor would pay for the gas like then. It's like 72 cents, you know? And so one time, Teddy had to pay for gas his turn, and we had like an almost empty tank. And I just was filling up as much as I could was super unleaded, you know, trying to charge as much as I could. And I got to like $39.15 or something. I couldn't get any more. I wanted to get the 40 so bad just so Teddy had to spend $220s. And Ron looks back and goes,

on the ground. Right. Oh, yeah. He didn't pay for tools. He didn't pay for food. He didn't pay for nothing. No. And this common thing that he will pull most of the time, right?

He'd be talking, just like we're talking to each other like right now, right? Yeah. And his ass would know where all the tolls and everything is and no, and he would look at the gas hands and he would time it just right. So by the time we got ready to get gas or get to a toll bridge, we'd look back there and this ass is playing sleep. Yeah, exactly like he's asleep. Teddy, we're not going to charge you of just quit faking asleep.

What do you guys think is the biggest difference between the era that you guys came up in and the era we have now? Oh, man. I think the biggest is that, you know, society has changed and it's thinking, you know. And I think that the era, you know, in which we come up in, right, people's mindset was a lot different, you know, people, It was more like the working class, hardworking person came to those shows back then.

They came to expect to go through their wide range of emotion. They want to see a good guy and a bad guy. Go at it. You understand? I mean a real definitive, good guy and bad guy. And they wanted to go through all of those emotions. You know, see the heel do his thing, man. And then see the baby face come back up, you know,

which we come back up from the depths, you know, all of that. And I think I'd like to see more of that. You know, I like that. And the thing about the boys and girls is that we didn't have social media. You know, we even had cell phones when we first started. And so all we had was each other. You know, and that's one of the reasons the stories are so wild. We had incredibly interesting characters that had nothing to do.

Very bored. You know, we didn't have 60 channels of sports. You couldn't even go to a hotel and, you know, catch an ESPN, sports center or recap, you know, unless you were lucky and caught at the right time. And these guys now have their social media. They have their own platforms. They have their brand that they have to build. And all that's very valuable.

We didn't have any of that. All we had was each other, and I think that's one of the differences. Yeah. Yeah. And I mean, you know, and it's nothing against, you know, everything changed, you know, and it evolves, you know. But I would just love to see the interaction for the fans more, you know, in that way where they go through those emotions that they always used to love to come to see, you know. But, you know, that's the mindset of that as opposed to then. And like John said, you know, with the Internet and, you know, with everything now, the way it's changed, you know, everybody seems to know everything before hell to get in the ring now.

Yeah. You know, so it's kind of a hard thing, you know, to get out there and do some things, man, when everybody's, you know, told everything. Yeah. You know? Visit BetMGM Casino and check out the newest exclusive. The Price is Right Fortune Pick. BetMDM and Game Sense remind you to play responsibly. 19 plus to wager.

Ontario only. Please play responsibly. If you have questions or concerns about your gambling or someone close to you, please contact connects Ontario at 1-866-531-2,600 to speak to an advisor, free of charge. BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with Eye Gaming Ontario. The U.S. Soccer Podcast. I'm your host, Megan Klingerberg. And after interviewing so many dudes during this men's World Cup,

I'm so happy to be back with my U.S. Women's National Team players. I know the U.S. men's national team has changed how I think about myself, how I think about being an American, how I think about being on a team. It's one year out from that World Cup, and we're going to talk about the brightest prospects in U.S. soccer. You ready? I'm ready. Let's do it. The U.S. Soccer podcast presented by Henkoe. Follow and listen on your favorite platform. I like to say nostalgia is a hell of a drug.

So when fans are walking up to you guys at the table, what's the, one thing that they keep coming back to? What's the one thing you hear the most? I hear the most, man, is that, hey, you know what? They loved, you know, watching it then, and then it's like we were just simply saying, you know, they don't want to go, you know, they don't want the ending of their stories too much told, you know?

You know, they always wanted to get into what we were doing. Everybody wanted to find out, you know, they would come up to you all the time. Actually, it's real fake or whatever, right? But they still want to leave some mission. history in there, you know, somewhere. Yeah. Is there a particular match or moment that you guys hear about 10, 20 times a day when you're

signing? Well, I'm a press for it from us. Oh, God, what? Yeah, we always hear about public interview. Yeah. You know, we always hear that when, you know, somebody always wants to bring that up, which is fine, you know, shit happens in life. And that's probably the one.

I'll tell you one time, we were leaving a building and somebody cut us off. And it was like, they were being like assholes to us or something. And flipped us off or something. And Ron, we'd already started drinking, Ron, go, just hit them. So I hit them. And bam. And when I do, they pull over. I thought, well, heck, we'll pull over too, you know.

And so we pull over. And all of a sudden, all these guys start getting out of this van. And go, this is going to be a hell of a fight. It's like two on six. No else. We done, we don't start it. We got to finish it now, or at least whatever happens. We get out of the car and they're going, it's the APA.

They want to take pictures with us. So we're like, I wrecked their cars. Remember we hit Mark Henry up in Canada? Wait, when were we going? We were going to Nova Scotia, Halifax. And Mark Henry and Delo passed us and threw a bunch of chicken bones out the car on us, so they'd been like to a T. F.F.C. or something. They threw a bunch of stuff out on our car.

And Godfather is in the faster sign. Rons in the back or vice versa. And anyway, go, hit them. So they're going about 75, 80 miles an hour, and I'm hitting them going down the road. And, you know, once you get behind somebody, You can't stop if somebody's pushing you, you know? So every time their governor would kick in, I'd ramble. And Takka Metsanoka was in the back of the car, you know.

He's supposed to learn how to speak English riding with the guys. He didn't learn how to speak English. He found God that night. But he's like, they're like, oh, my God. Mark Henry's, world's strongest man has got the steering wheel. I thought he's going to rip it off. Deel's hands bobbing. No, he's fumble for real.

That's right. That 30 or 45 minutes, we were pushing them all down the freaking Nova Scot. Nova Scotia Highway. But that was, bro, listen, that's, that was a common thing with some of us sometimes. Oh, yeah. You know, right, yeah. You know, some of the things that people will probably say, you know what, you guys really are nuts. All right.

Yeah, you know. I'll tell you a good story. I think I can tell. I don't know about the language, but we're up in a bar and Ron and I got separated, you know, and he was over playing pool or I was playing pool or something like that. The red deer? Red deer Canada. I'm Canadian, so these stories are fantastic.

So you're familiar with red deer. I am. We're in a small town. We're in this bar and these guys. And it's a red deer. Me and Ron are separated, so these guys want to take advantage of it, and they're going to jump me.

And they do, and I get around me, and when they do, I punch one of them, I get a pretty good shot on him. He goes down, but the other guys all pull knives on me. So now I'm like,

I'm going to die and freaking red deer. This sucks. So they got knives on me, and they've got me pinned up against the wall, and I'm like, holy shit. And I see Ron across the bar. and he's running toward me.

Now, my side of the knives is not the place you really want to be. You know, that side's not going to do well. Ron runs all over across the bar, grabs a beer bottle off the table. It was like an Avenger. I mean, it was like unbelievable. Talk about a friend.

And he steps right in front of me. And he cuts the damnedest promo year or heard in your life. Just us too, right? Yeah, that's right. Just us too. And they're sitting there. All these guys got these knives

and Ron standing in front of me this beer bottle. And he cuts his promo. I'm going, that's the greatest problem I've ever heard. You know, I've heard Drake so much. I'm like, that's pretty cool. We need to tape that. And then at the end of it, he goes, and I'm going to hit the first white motherfucker that moves.

And when he says it, I'm like, yeah, bitches, yeah, yeah, he'll meet the first. And I start looking around and I realize, I'm the only white motherfucker in here. And I thought, why would he hit me? And I thought that doesn't make any sense. But Ron's like a smart guy. This is what I'm thinking about. I'm like, Ron's a smart guy. But he will, why would he hit me?

And Ron realizes what he says now. He looks around and goes, not. you. And those guys looked at us. It's like an APA skin. Like, look at us like, these are the craziest two people we ever see.

They could just get out of here. Yeah, yeah. They look, you know, when they seen us standing there, and they all got their knives out. Oh, yeah. I'm ready to do business, right? Yeah.

So when they saw us do the exchange between us, and I'm like, no, not you, man. And then the guy says, they looked at each other and they looked around like, you know what? These are the craziest we've ever scene, okay?

Just get there out of here. You guys are wild. Yeah, just get out. We talked about Ron winning the world championship. What was that night like for you, John, when you won the world title? You know, it was

a dream come true. You know, I'd always wanted to be the guy. I'd always dreamed of it. And I'd been the man in smaller territories and things like that. I just, you know, I didn't know if I'd ever get a chance. And fortunately, you know, Ron helped boost me into that position. And a lot of mentoring that Ron had obviously helped me as well.

But, you know, all of a sudden I got this title. And, you know, a lot of it happened. You know, Takers told the story in Chicago when I got fired from C&BC. And I cut the promo. I instead of going out there and begging for mercy and saying, I'm sorry, you know, I went the opposite way and said anybody doubts me as a great American would be like calling Mother Teresa a whore. And that's true. Yeah, it was pretty, it's about as strong as it could be.

I don't think you could say that now. You couldn't say anything I said back then now. And Undertaker was standing back there with Vince, and Vince, you know, Takers told the story as well. And he said, am I going to put the title on him? Taker says, you think? And, you know, that was what did it, was that promo in Chicago. I knew that was sink or swim night.

And then I got, I had the right guy with Eddie DeWero. You know, like I say, I got very lucky. The perfect guy. You were such a memorable champion that I think people are shocked. when they find out you were only the champion once. Like it was one very memorable run. That don't take with that. You know, because right now, as he said,

when I became champion myself, it's just like it's on people's mind as it occurred yesterday. It's how you do it, man, you know? And they come, same thing with him. They come up to the tables now and tell him, hey, just like you said, what a great heel he was, man,

and how they hated his guts. See, that's what it's about. And they really hated it. You understand? See, that's what I mean when I say real heel. Yeah. Okay? And they like, when they, you could tell, they like hated his ass.

I mean, with emotional hate, you know? We had a jumper one now. We had a jumper a bunch of nights. They'd put extra security on me, you know. Vince would say, if I can keep you alive, we're going to draw some money. You can keep you alive? Oh, yeah, yeah, because I was always getting death threats and, you know, different. And we had to have extra security.

So I'm going to the ring one night, and the fan jumped the rail and tried to get to me. And Eddie goes after me. I'm like in San Bernardino or something. It's like 99% of Spanish. I said, I don't think the fans that are 99% Hispanic understand the Hispanic superstar going after and beating up the fan as the baby face. I said, would you please let me do my job as a heel? He goes, he fucked up our match.

He messed up our match. I'm like, please. But by then, little Hebner had turned into Pat McAfee. I mean, and put him this guy's head off. I mean, he's absolutely punted his head off. Bam. The security goes and taken them. Back then, they beat guys up.

You know, they took them to the back and beat them up. And I've got the microphone. And I said, listen, I ain't no security out here. If any of you may single want to jump that rail, I'll beat everybody in this building. If it takes me five minutes. And Eddie's sitting there going, good heat asses, good heat assing. And little Edmere looks at me goes, we're the only white guys in there. And you just stop.

Yeah. Yeah. These stories are amazing. Hey, man. Thank you guys so much for making this house. happen. Congrats on legendary careers. Thank you, man. You guys are absolute legends. Thanks. Thanks a lot. I'm going to ask you the question that I ask everybody at the end of these interviews. Gratitude is such a huge part of my life. I wake up every day and I say out loud three things I'm

grateful for and it allows you to focus on the things you have in your life. And I do it before I go to bed as well. So Ron, I'll start with you. What are three things right now that you're grateful for? Man, that is a very good question. Okay. First, I'm, I am extremely grateful For the few friends that I mean really had growing up as a child. When all hope was given up, there were some in the community. Wasn't standout athletes. They wasn't rich by any stretch of their imagination, but what they saw in one little poor black kid

was something that he had in his, an idea of trying to get out of what he was in. I'm grateful for them. Secondly, I want to pat my own self on the ad. But coming up and having enough sense to understand the gift that God gave you. Now let's do something with it, all right? Bless me with a good body, a sound mind. Now it is up to me to get off my ass and do something with it.

I'm glad of that. Thirdly, I'm grateful for having run across great friends like I have here and sitting over there. You know, all the difference in the world for me. And I've got to put my family in there without a doubt, you know, right, being a rock there to keep me in place. But those things have worked for me along with my belief in God. And brother, and there's a formula that has worked for me. I love that.

John, what about you? What are three things you're grateful for? One of the things, and I don't know, in order, three things, and they're all very important to me. One is Ron Simmons. Ron coming into my life was the best thing ever happened to me, both professionally and personally. I've had a best friend. You know, I've had a guy that I can call no matter what. I've had a friend, a true friend and a true brother, you know, more so than, I don't know how family relations and all that stuff, you know, but he's my brother.

And I'm so blessed to have Ron Simmons in my life. And I'm very blessed to be able to live a dream. I dreamed when I was a kid to be a professional wrestler. I told my grandfather, we used to watch the Von Erickson and the Fonks wrestle before the kids debut, told me, I told me, and David. I didn't know David, but I knew Carrie and Kevin. And I told him I want to be a wrestler.

You know, and I got to be part of a business that I love very much. And people say sometimes don't meet your heroes or don't your dreams, be careful what you wish for. Everything that I wish was far exceeded,

far exceeded by anything I could have ever dreamed. This business has been so wonderful. Absolutely. And I still love it. Rod and I still love you sitting around watching matches and just talking and bullshit and having fun talking about the matches. It's just,

I love the fact that I got to be part of his business, and I still am, which is pretty cool. And then, of course, you know, family that I've had, you know, some wonderful people, the wife and family that's been a very much blessing to me. Well, Ron, John, thank you guys so much for this. Hey, Ben.

Thank you. Hey, man, ain't nothing else to say, but damn. Mike Drodd, hosted by former Navy SEAL, Mike Ridland. What is your take? Was it what you expected? How is the best thing ever? It was something I always wanted to do. If you show me a clear goal,

I'm like, okay, I can do that. Master Chief. He's like, you realize there's about 1% chance that you make it through 1%. That's all I need Master Chief. My platoon went home early, and I just went up to my chief, and I was like, I'm not going home. Turns out I'm staying. That's when we go to war. I was like, okay, I could get used to this.

Mike drop. Follow and listen on your favorite platform.