Insight with Chris Van Vliet - Jonathan Coachman: "Vince Screwed Me Over", Why He Would Never Return To WWE

Episode Date: October 10, 2024

Jonathan Coachman (@Thecoachrules) is a former WWE personality and commentator. He sits down with Chris Van Vliet at West Coast Creative Studio in Hollywood, CA to discuss his time in WWE, his new wrestling podcast "Behind The Turnbuckle", why he thinks he took one of the best Stone Cold Stunners of all time, competing in 30 televised matches against the likes of Shawn Michaels and Randy Orton, wrestling Ric Flair in Afghanistan, who he thinks John Cena's final opponent will be, how much he was yelled at by Vince McMahon while on commentary, falling off his chair when Kane's pyro went off and more! Subscribe to Behind The Turnbuckle here: https://www.youtube.com/@BehindTheTurnbuckle Quote I'm thinking about: “Kindness is magic." Sponsors: VUORI: Get 20% off your first purchase! Get yourself some of the most comfortable and versatile clothing on the planet at https://vuori.com/cvv MANSCAPED: Get 20% off plus free shipping when you use the code CHRISVAN at https://manscaped.com HELLO FRESH: Get free breakfast for life at https://hellofresh.com/freeinsight ZOCDOC: Instantly book a top-rated doctor today at https://zocdoc.com/insight BONCHARGE: Use the code CVV to save 15% off your infrared sauna blanket at https://boncharge.com/cvv MAREK HEALTH: Get a 10% discount on Marek Health's Optimization Package with code CVV: https://marekhealth.com/cvv BLUECHEW: Use the code CVV to get your first month of BlueChew for FREE at https://bluechew.com ROCKET MONEY: Join Rocket Money today and experience financial freedom: https://rocketmoney.com/cvv PURE PLANK: The future of core fitness! Use the code CVV to save 10% on Pure Plank which was designed by Adam Copeland & Christian: https://gopureplank.com/ PLUNGE: Get $150 off your Plunge with the coupon code CVV150 at https://plunge.com For more information about Chris and INSIGHT go to: https://podcast.chrisvanvliet.com If you have ever enjoyed any of these episodes, could I ask you to please consider leaving a short review on Apple Podcast or Spotify? It takes less than a minute and makes a huge difference in helping to spread the word about the show and also to convince some hard-to-get guests.  Follow CVV on social media:  Instagram: instagram.com/ChrisVanVliet Twitter: twitter.com/ChrisVanVliet Facebook: facebook.com/ChrisVanVliet YouTube: youtube.com/ChrisVanVliet TikTok: tiktok.com/@Chris.VanVliet Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Greetings and salutations, my friends. Welcome back to another one here on Inside. I'm CVV. Chris Van Fleet, and this whole show exists because you keep coming back each and every week. So thank you for that. And thank you, as always, for helping to make Insight the number one wrestling podcast on planet Earth.

If it's your first time here, take off your coat, stay a while, welcome to you. And hit an RKO. a follow button on Spotify or Apple or wherever else you might be listening. So good to have the coach Jonathan Coachman back on the show. This is our third interview together. And I was actually just a guest on Jonathan Coachman's YouTube channel behind the term buckle.

I put a link down below so you can check that out. And also give him a subscribe. He's like, he's like a hundred subscribers away from 10,000. So let's get him way up and over 10K before the weekend. starts. Coach has become a great friend over the last few years. And the thing I love about him is he always tells it like it is. And that's a big reason why behind the turnbuckle has been having so much success. It's only a few months old and they're already right there at 10,000 subscribers. When it comes to wrestling, he's seen it all. He's been through it all. He's been

right there as it's been happening. And that's why he's so good when it comes to this stuff. He also tells the best stories, which if you haven't listened to the other episodes that we've done, buckle up. Get ready because his stories are so, so good. Snap a screenshot, tag us so we can share it out. He's at The Coach Rules on social media. I'm at Chris Van Fleet, and here we go. Enjoy this conversation with the coach, Jonathan Coachman. You do not age. You don't. What's the secret? olive oil or aloeira is it a stress-free life

since leaving WWA? No, I'm divorced with two kids You kids It's not a stress-free life Oh God, no Oh God, no Especially not now

Holy shit But I'm We're getting there I'm good I hate looking at myself on that Like there I feel like I get old but No

You look great on the monitor You look great in real life It was about a year ago That you were on the show last Yeah And you were like No man I'm not interested

in wrestling. I'm out. I'm out. Look at you now. Look at me now. You got a wrestling podcast behind the turnbuckle. You are in it. If we go to your Instagram, you're always talking about wrestling. What changed? Well, a lot of that interview did because when you and I last talked, it was a situation where Vince McMahon, who we openly talk about on our show, because I think a lot of people with what happened with Vince, it continues to happen with Vince, is they go, oh, we can't

talk about it. But we address it as, you know, I'm, I'm almost 15 years inside the WWE. My partner, Tommy Carlucci, 32 years inside the WWE. But when I started my sports betting show, driving the line, and we left CBS, and as you know, when you started to grind, the first year is just you never feel like you're getting anywhere. And I had somebody come to me and they said, man, I watched that interview with Van Fleet.

You got so many good stories and so much history with the WWU. Why don't you embrace it? Yeah. And I was letting the fact that Vince screwed me over with money get in the way of what my future could be. And the media landscape has changed so much now from where I live. I don't have the ability to work for a network right now. I would have to move. I've got to look at what your life is and what you can do to earn a living and also set up your future.

And so when I thought about it, I said, well, what can we do? and then my buddy Tommy Carlucci and to tell you how far back me and him go, and we call him Big Tommy C, right? And he was the first adult to meet my daughter outside of the hospital, and she's now 16 years old. Wow. So what did Tommy do in WWA?

So Tommy was the head of the international TV department, and he worked hand in hand with Shane McMahon for years and years. His wife still works there. She's been there 38 years at the company. Wow. And so like a lot of people, he was let go a few years ago. And when you're in your early 60s,

and I'm kind of like you, I look at everybody now and say, man, how can I help? How can I pick people up? How can I be a positive influence? And we've been such good friends for a long time. I thought,

he's got so many good stories. And when he's not on camera, he's incredibly entertaining. So I thought, what if we did a show? And originally, I never thought I was going to go anywhere. I was just like,

let's just have some fun. I had my producer from driving the line. Let's just make some shows. And he thought when I called him, it was for him to be a producer, not to be on the air. And I said, let's just try it. And so we tried it, eased him in. And he was a little bit stiff at first.

But now, are you kidding me? Conrad calls him all the time for his shows. His storytelling is incredible. We have four or five different shows that we do every single week. We do a live Monday night show called The Last Word, which is kind of chopping up Monday nights. We do live Q&As. We do live watch-alongs with the PLEs. We have a show called The War Room, where we chop up the five biggest top.

And we argue kind of like PTI does. So we've developed all of those shows and realized that doing remote content, even though it's different. And we also have an interview show that obviously you're going to be a part of too. We've done a DDP. And we were interviewing DDP. And who walks into the interview? Cody Rhodes. Right.

And we gets 30 minutes with Cody Rose. So we didn't even plan on. And the first thing Cody brought up when we were doing the interview was he goes, coach, I don't know if you remember. but back when, and it kind of hit me. I've been underestimating myself when it comes to my role in pro wrestling, my role in the WWE. And when you spend 10 plus years, because sometimes these idiots online at home that have nothing better to do than to insult you, oh, you're an idiot.

You got fired from eight, never got fired from WWE in 2008. I left to go to ESPN. And I'm going, who, I was the first one ever do that. How am I listening to this person tell me that after over 10 years, that leaving some place is a failure? And so when I stopped listening to everybody and just said, what would I enjoy doing? This is what we've settled on. And it's been a really fun ride. We just secured our first big partnership.

You and I are together on that. That was exciting. And we should say it's my bookie. Which is crazy that you can bet on WWEPL is on my booking. You can also bet on who John Cena's final opponent's going to be. It is so funny you mentioned that. So part of my crew at driving the line. You were on the list.

You were on the list. Do you know how that happened? How did it happen? All right, so here's how it happened. So one of my guys, we call him the numbers guy. His name's Raphael Espars. His entire business is making odds for sports books around the world. He's been doing it for 30 years.

He's worked for every big name, Cesar's, BetMGM, My Bookie, all of them. Right? So if you see the odds for the presidential race or for the Oscars or for anything, my guy makes those. So he texted me one day and he said, hey, coach, John Cena just announced his retirement. He says, you want me to try to get you a meeting with my bookie? And I'd always been like wrestling, betting is the dumbest thing ever. Then he come to find out that it is unbelievably popular. Yes.

And it's a good way, what I call a launch point, meaning you get somebody to open an account and they're betting. and then you get them its community and it's engagement. Hey, let's bet on Seamus to beat whoever at minus 200. And then when they're in there, then they may bet on an MMA or whatever. So he goes, I'll set up a meeting for you. So I said, let's do it. So then he texts me and he says, hey, I'm going to be making the odds for Sina's last WrestleMania match.

And my bookie doesn't care. I mean, we had probably 20 names. I go, hey, put me in there. And he starts laughing on the phone. He says, are you serious? I said, yeah. And give me better off. than say The Undertaker or somebody legit.

And he did. And guess what? As of this moment, there have been 12 tickets written on me. No. Swar to God. I feel bad for those 12 people. Wait, you're saying it's not going to happen? Well, I mean, they haven't called me yet.

And much like a lot of big stars, it had to be the right number. I mean, we saw Stokel couldn't work out his deal last year. So I'm a much, much bigger star. Clearly, yes, yes. So, but yeah, and I'm still on the list. You're a minus 3,500. Minus 3,500. And Undertaker's minus...

Plus 3,500. Plus 3,500. And you're an Undertaker's a plus 10,000. Correct. Correct. Which makes a lot of sense. Yeah. Makes a lot of sense.

And that, to me, is kind of why I'm enjoying this so much. If you were a betting man, and I know you are, who are you putting your money on to be John Seenots' WrestleMania opponent? Well, I think it's going to be, I think it's going to be Randy Orton. Yeah. I really do. because when you look at the fact that they're both basically at the same number of world championships, Randy has come from the kid I knew at 19 years old to where he is now.

I'm so incredibly proud of what he's done and the maturity that he's had. But Sina, I traveled with him for many, many months. And I know that if you watch whether it was the two hours he said down with you, whether the interview that he just did with Club Shay-Shay, where I thought he was ridiculous for talking about Roman Reins being the goat, but that's what he believes. And he is, when he believes in something, that's what he's going to do. And I believe that he's got everything mapped out to the opponent for WrestleMania.

And when he announced it, because we were doing a live watch-along, I thought to myself, so it's all going to end at WrestleMania, he can't have another title run. And then what does he do at the press conference? You asked the first question, if I remember correctly. clarifies it like that's my last WrestleMania, but I'm going all the way to December. That's right. That's right. And it's so brilliant, right? So it's going to start in January. It's going to

start when Raw goes to Netflix. Who's not going to be watching that now? If they're already, you know, you didn't have enough reasons to watch Raw on Netflix, John Cena's going to make an appearance there? Amazing. I think a strong case can be made for Randy Orton's either his last opponent or his

WrestleMania opponent. Maybe both. I don't know. I think he wins at WrestleMania. because I think, and this may be controversial to say as well, but the way Rick Flair has moved the last couple of years, people love him. I have a great affection for him. He has every so often, I'm going to retire, I'm going to retire, I'm going to retire.

He's now, what, nearly 80 years old, and he's still out there, you know, hawking weed and doing all these things. And I just don't know if at the end of the day, and this is very petty, if they do this. but I don't know if the powers that be at WWE want Rick to be that name that's always at the top of the mount. Well, they keep calling John Cena the greatest of all time. Correct. Like they've been announcing him to the ring as the greatest of all time. That's not by accident.

Correct. You know that things in WW are never done by accident. Correct. Like that. So they're planting that seat so that when he wins 17, whenever that happens to be, we'll go, oh, yeah, he is the greatest of all time. He's won the most championships. and just be prepared for a Rick Flair explosion.

Because if you notice Rick Flair on social media, he will continue to post when you're the greatest and you're the greatest. And it's like videos from 1985 or 1995. I was, there are stories I just simply cannot tell. But I have been witnessed to and in this vicinity for some. really, really weird moments that you're like, why, why does this bother you 20 years later? Why does this bother you now? Why can't we enjoy what we've done? Enjoy our careers.

Enjoy the fact that there are marijuana companies that will partner with you, that there are the Migos that will put you in a song, and just enjoy where you are. And instead, I feel like he's always trying to remind us of how great he wants. was. And at some point, all of us, all of us have to move on and stand back and say, okay, that's what I've done. Now what am I doing? Right. There's always going to be the next person, right? Always. Always. And that's, I, it's, it's the next generation that's happening right now. Yep. And John Cena is saying when he's done at the end of 2025, that's it, which then makes room for the new generation that's coming in right now. It's all about paying it forward. And I think that's

part of the reason that I've decided to do behind the turnbuckle, but also become very open to doing other projects. But the misconception is that for some reason, I want to go back. That I would, you know, if Triple H called me, oh, I'd be going to scrambling back. Do you want to go back? No, I do not want to go back. I mean, I'm open to any discussion.

But, for example, somebody said, oh, you were terrible in 2018 when I went back after I'd been at ESPN. There's two reasons for that. A, I listen to Vents. mistake number one, because he wanted me to keep that credibility that I had when I was at ESPN as a journalist, as a guy who did Sports Center, instead of heel coach, which was the best version of coach. And I just started doing heel coach again on social media. And I'm loving it. I'm loving it. So that was the first mistake.

The second mistake they made. And if you notice now, how many three-man boosts are there on Raw or SmackDown? Right now there's none. Correct. Yeah. Correct. It's too difficult. and it's nothing against Corey Graves,

but he just happened to be the one that I was working with when I came back. And I believe at my core that he didn't want me there. And again, that's okay because it's his time now. But it doesn't mean that I didn't have something to give, but I was like the outcast. I was trying to get in. And I remember years ago, JR used to teach me that when you do a three-man booth, it's like a three-man weave.

And you've got to be able to hit guys for a layup or a dunk at the right times while Vince is screaming in your ear and if everybody's not on the same page the ball's going to go out of bounds and that's what I felt like those few months when I came back in 2018 was we fumbled the ball out of bounds

because it was a three-man booth and if I would have been there with Michael or whoever and I could have been allowed to go back to heel coach in a two-man booth I think it would have been completely different so that's why I say never say never if it was in that role fine

I would never go back and do a three-man booth and I would never go back and be that journalist to keep my credibility because quite frankly, look at the landscape, Chris, now. You've got Joe Tessator drinking on camera. Pat McAfee, getting loaded on camera in Dublin Island. I started it. I was the one that made that crossover happen in 2008.

So now there's no more, oh, well, he's at ESPN so you can't do wrestling. Or he's at wrestling so he can't do ESPN. The whole thing has changed. change. So if it was the right role, I would. But I'm enjoying building this world with, like with you, where there's a, there's a huge chasm between credible people who have done it, who are in it, and just the fans at home who are marks that think they know about the business. And all they do is insult people. We always hear stories about Vince yelling in the commentators ear. It can't be yelling all the time, right? Right. What are you generally hearing when Vince is

talking in your ear on commentary? If you're saying 1 to 10, it's usually about a 4. Okay. The only time he would yell is if you didn't say it when he wanted you to say it. So he's teeing you up for lines. Right. So say, for example, Cody Rhodes is coming to the ring. He'd be like, Cody Rhodes, big night this Saturday.

Okay. You know, stuff like that. Now, I will say this. If you, there is a clear, you can tell exactly when Vince got pushed out if you listen to Michael Cole. Because imagine getting beaten down verbally for 20 years. And Michael Cole, I don't think, has missed a show in the 25 plus years he's been there. I know when I was there in my first 10 years, I missed one. And that was for my honeymoon.

That was it. So they create that world in you. And Vince creates that world. Like, this is your show. You've got to be here. Can you imagine Jim Nance or Joe Buck? And they're going on, you're going to work 52 weeks a year? Are you kidding me?

So he's much happier now because he, you know, Triple H is like, I think after 25 years, if you don't know how to call it, that there's nothing we can do for you. But yeah, he would be, you know, very calm. I do remember a time where I said something he didn't like about test. God rest his soul. And I said something to the effect of he was weak or his, you know, you're killing his character. What are you doing? What are you doing?

You just killed his character. You killed him. You killed him. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. And you're still trying to call the match. The match is still going. Right?

Yeah. And so that was the probably... Are the other commentators hearing this or is it just in your ear? No, no. He's got buttons for each person. Okay. And then there's the call all for all the gun. They're the all call.

Yeah. Exactly. So, no, they don't all hear it. And I also say that it has helped me, no matter where I've gone, no matter what I do. that hearing somebody in my ear doesn't bother me. And it's just kind of, I made the joke when I was at ESPN that whoever I work with as far as producer in my ear, it'd be like working with Mr. Rogers

as opposed to what we hear with Vince. But yeah. What's the specific change you've heard in what Michael Cole does now? He's happy. He's happy. He's loose. You know, he can be the guy that we all want to be. He's got one of the greatest jobs in sports.

Yeah. As an announcer, he gets to call an iconic show, whether it's Raw or whether it's Smackdown and they're moving him around. And also, he's an ultimate team player. Because when they announced that Joe Tessator is coming over, I said to myself, there is no way that Tessator is going to give up his college football gig. You know, he's one of the top guys at ESPN. So, you know, he called the Florida State, you know, game last week in Ireland. So I knew at some point they would move Michael to Smackdown and that Joe would do Mondays. and that's exactly what has happened.

The thing that I get bitter at, Chris, to be honest with you, is when I came back in 2018, I had five golf gigs already booked. And Vince was like, I want you to keep this credibility. Awesome. I got these golf gigs. And they said, no problem. You're good. We'll have somebody else step in, give them an opportunity.

And so the first one, when I came back, I could tell they were kind of, why did you miss last week? Second one, Vince was just pissed. And I'm like, wait a second. I was very upfront about this. Yeah. And they put Renee in my spot. and God bless her.

You know, she did a good job. And, but of course, everybody who was there, I was now the outsider. So you had all these people. You had all these women wrestlers. Renee's the best. Renee's the best. Renee's the best. And then I got pulled and put on the Sunday night countdown show, which I actually

enjoyed very much. And I didn't have to travel every week because I could tell the way I was being treated. I was like, they don't want me here. Why I don't know? But they don't. But yet they're letting Pat McAfee leave for five months. to go do college game day and then come back for the Netflix.

I'm like, wait a second. I tried to do this five years ago. Now I'm not saying that I'm on Pat McAfee's level, but it's just how the mindset has changed since Vince left. I love seeing what I like to call the Cole cam, the announcer cam that's on them, because there's the great moments where you're seeing Michael Cole's passion, right? Like, one D, one D!

Like he's just going wild with it. And there's the other moments where Pat McAfee cracks him And he's trying so hard to, like, not laugh on commentary. And you're just seeing him like, like, just breaking. Pat McAfee is a unicorn. And he says stuff without any fear of repercussion. And Michael Cole, the reason you see that reaction from Michael is because if somebody's going to get yelled at for something McAfee says, it's going to be Michael. So he's like, oh, geez, whether it's swearing,

whether it's saying something out of bounds, whatever it is. They're not yelling at McAfee. Man, we love McAfee. We love all the things he does. He does the football. He does the show. He does the SPN. Man, that's who he is.

I mean, last week, for God's sake, he admitted to drinking 30 Guinness beers and 18 of them were on camera. He took an edible. That was 100 milligrams. What? I didn't know that. I mean, yes, yes. And admitted to it.

And everybody laughed. Every video I saw, he's a regular dude. And I'm sitting there going, when I was at ESPN, I couldn't even turn left out of the parking lot. If I was supposed to go right, I would get yelled at. It's so different now. And also, these networks have realized that they can pay guys less, not McAfee, he makes a lot, but pay guys less and allow them to do other things.

So if a guy wants to make a million dollars, then instead of paying them a million dollars, they could pay them $600,000, and they can go get the $400,000 somewhere else. That was not the case when I was. was there. You were in such a unique position, especially that first run where not only were you doing the backstage interviews, you were then worked into storylines. Then you became a character. Yeah. That doesn't happen anymore. Part of the reason was I was, I was big. I'm six, three and a half. I walk around at 250, 260. And I'll never forget that the day that I had done an interview with,

it was a tag team interview. And what we would do to make the wrestlers bigger, because Vince was adamant that the wrestlers had to be viewed as big. So we'd always put them ahead of us. That would, that perception. But then in the tax, so I had my legs completely spread, right? So it was a fight scene. So the camera guy snapped out and I still have my legs out like I'm doing a split. It looked ridiculous. The following week, I'm working out at the gym at the old building. Now they have a new building. And Vince came up to me. He says, hey, Pat. we got an idea. You're just too big to do what you're doing.

But we can talk. You're physical. You played athletics. What would you think about training in the ring and becoming a character? A heel, no less. And I was like, well, I think that would be a fun idea if it was the right time. And that was about May of 2003. And then we ended up doing the first thing, SummerSlam of 2003, where I attacked Shane

with the chair. And so when you're approached about the first thing you're really going to do physically, Chris, and it's going to be hitting Shane McMahon, the boss's son, that's a nerve-wracking experience. Sure. Because if you clip him in the head or clip him somewhere else and you hurt him, you're probably done, you know, to be honest with you. So it was awesome. And I was nervous all day. It was 100 degrees.

It was Phoenix. Who books SummerSlam in Phoenix? I don't know. But they did that year. And so that's exactly how it happened. And a lot of guys helped me and train me. I got booked on house shows. They call live events now.

Friday, Saturday, Sunday. I would show up early. We would train in the ring. A lot of guys helped me. And then what was really cool about it is most people don't realize this, but you always want to send the crowd home happy. It's a perception thing. It's an energy thing.

And normally the baby face will win the main event. And that always used to piss off the heel who was in the main event. So with me there, and when I watch Dirty Dom, I smile to myself because there's a certain level of, now he does wrestle a lot, but there's a certain number of talent in the back that's pissed off. And why is that? Because they would love to have that heat. Yeah. I mean, when he goes to the microphone, the crowd goes bananas. Right.

It's the mustache. It's the long hair. It's everything he does. And he's not ripped. He's not super stacked. All of that. And everybody that walks through the door, you want to have that heat. And that is heat you cannot manufacture.

I got that same kind of heat. People hated hearing me talk because I was so good at it. And then so what happened was they made me a ring announcer. And so the heel could go over in the main event. And then I would do something, make a mistake, make fun of somebody. And then the baby face would beat me up to end the show. and so everybody went home happy, including the heel talent that was in the main event.

So there was a lot of good things that came out of that. You've taken a lot of moves. You've taken a lot of, like, you take a pretty mean stunner. I think I'm top three. I really do. Wow. Because people don't understand how to take it.

People go to their knees and take it. I mean, I think Rock and Scott Hall are one, two. So does that make you number three? Whoa, whoa, whoa, Scott Hall was way over the top. That's what makes it great. Well, but there is a happy media. them that you got to have. So you must have hated Austin theories. He went like a thousand feet in the air. Yeah. And if you got stuck cold, he would say that I was right up there too.

Rock was probably the best. And when I started taking it, I learned from watching by far, and it's not close. Vince is the worst. McPhol is number two. Right. And Linda McMahon's pretty bad. That was pretty bad too. Yeah. And they never understood all you do is because when when you're in the ring and hopefully a lot of young talent listen to this. They think that you're being watched all the time. You're not. It's the person that's doing whatever it is that they're doing that's

being washed. So you can fudge it a little bit. And what you do is you go down on your feet and you launch yourself. All Stone Coal's doing is putting your head right there and going to his butt. Other people who take it off their knees, they go down, Stone Coal's not coming up with you.

So naturally you're both going to fall like that. So if you notice Rock, I learned it from Rock. Then you bounce yourself and then you take the bump and Stone Cold has nothing to do with it. Nothing. And most people don't realize that. Rock took it the way he took it to make Stone Cold laugh. 100%. It's just so fun to be. I love the way that Kurt Engel used to take it because it felt very like authentic. Correct. Like if you were actually getting stunned, you probably would do what Kurt Engel does. Which is why I've said Kurt Engel is the greatest in ring performer there ever is. So good. People argue with me. I'm telling you right now. There's been nobody whether you're training and you come into the business or whether you're an authentic NCAA wrestler like him and Brock and Gabe and all these guys that have done it. Yeah. And that's, to me, it's even harder to make the transition because you've been doing it your whole life one way, looking for points, trying to pin. And now you're coming over and you're trying to be entertaining. And what Kurt Engel is able to do,

not only in the ring, but also as his character with the cowboy hats and the singing and all that, He embraced it. And I don't know why more talent doesn't embrace trying something. Don't sit on the sidelines and complain that they're not using you. Walk in, throw 10 things at the wall. If one hits, that could be a stone cold Steve Austin moment. This episode is brought to you by Timeline. Timeline is a Swiss-based life science company,

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Oh, God. A little fun fact here. Televised. Yeah, televised matches. I'm going to say non-paperview. I think payperview would be included here, maybe. Yeah. I'm going to say six.

30. 30? 30. John Sina, Rick. Flair, Jerry Lawler, Batista, Randy Orton, Sean Michaels, Triple H, Mick Foley, Bobby Lashley, and the list goes on. So anybody out there, all you marks out there that say, I never did any, I was in with the best. Now, Rick Flair, that one happened in Afghanistan.

And I'll never forget, they needed an extra match. And they said, hey, hey, coach, we need you to go eight minutes with Rick. And Rick was so respectful of everybody. I walked up in the locker. everybody said, hey, Rick, they need to add a match, you know, so it's going to be me and you. All right, cool. We'll just call it out there figure four. And I stopped, and there was a couple other talent in the room, and they were laughing.

And I said, Rick, no offense, I'm not Sean Michaels. We can't just call it out there. I need to know exactly what you were doing. And my figure four that I took was so bad. They had to edit around it. You never saw it. And they started teasing me on the plane ride home, and they called it the figure two. True story.

True story. What was so bad about it? Well, I was scared because you have to put your foot above your knee. And you know when you have like a hyper-extended knee, how painful it is? In my mind, I was like, I'm going to hyper-extend my own knee. So I just couldn't physically make my leg go up there because I was terrified. I was going to have a blown ACL. And so my foot was like halfway up my calf instead of all the way up to the knee where then he could hook it.

And then it looked like the traditional figure four. You had a few times where you were supposed to wrestle JR, and they were like, oh, instead of JR, it's actually TR, the rhino. So then Rhino comes out. And instead of JR, it's actually just an R.K.O. And then Randy comes out. You took a great RKO. Thank you. Thank you.

It was that those were such fun days. They really, really were. And we talk about that being the best era so far. And that's part of the reason why is because we had. really good writers and we had really good creative people and we also had superstars and this is my I think my biggest thing when I watch now is you have superstars whether it's WWE or AEW that sit back and wait to be told what they're going to do and we would walk in I would walk in and I would toss ideas out what's the worst they're going to say at least they know I'm invested at least they know that

I'm thinking about it and then it was kind of cool you'd get a phone call on a Saturday or Sunday, and they say, hey, you're going to do this. And a lot of times, they will use the live events to practice matches that are going to be on Monday Night Raw or on SmackDown. I was so great, Chris, that I didn't really have to do that. Is he'll coach sitting in front of me right now? He'll coach is back, and he feels really good right now. Wow, you need the backwards hands, handsome sunglasses.

Well, I have him right over there, so. But yeah, they, they, and that was always kind of fun. And they like to call me kind of the utility player. Sure. And I was very, very proud of that. And I think that's part of the reason that the boys started respecting me because there, you know, there's legendary stories about being hazed or whatever the case might be. Once you step foot through the ropes, your world changes because that's where the danger is. That's where you can get hurt.

And that's why the talent is treated so much differently than everybody else because they're the money and they're the ones putting their bodies on the line for the product. I want to go through some of my favorite coach moments. Okay. Okay. The pyro hits, Kane's pyro hits, and what happens? Well, you fall off your chair. Everybody thought that was supposed to happen. It was. I just didn't know about it.

So Vince told me in my, he goes, hey, I want you to really, he loved when I would get at JR. He loved making fun of JR. And he goes, hey, I want you to put your feet up on the desk and just lean back and just start talking. and J.R. would, he was so put together, just like Michael Cole is, that he would have things written out for entrances, and he knew exactly when music was going to hit. And if you threw him off a little bit, he hated that.

He would grab you, like, he would grab me, like, shut up, shut up. And so that one, I was like, fantastic. And I'll be honest, I really, sometimes they wouldn't put things on the rundown so that talent didn't know or it didn't get leaked to the online community or whatever. That was one of those times. So I just put my feet up. That pyro was so hot and so loud. It's probably my funniest moment I've ever had.

It was so good. Yeah, yeah. But that's true. I didn't know that was coming. How about this segment with you and Vicerra? Oh, God. There have been certain times in my career where I've thought to myself, whatever I want to do moving forward, this will stop that.

That was one of them. And Big Viss, what a sweet guy. And what's funny is you ask me about him and Kane. And those were the two guys that threw me off in the famous SummerSlam commercial, threw me into the pool. Yeah. And those were the two guys that threw me into the pool during the SummerSlam commercial, about five miles from where we're sitting right now at a $9 million mansion in,

in Hollywood, but having this kind of eviscerate me, I guess in that way, and if people want to know they can look it up, I'm sure that you'll put it into the show. Oh, the clip's playing right now. Yeah, I can see that it's playing right now.

And I've said this many times. There are certain things I should have said no to. That is definitely right at the top of the list. He violated you. He did. It was only for like two seconds. It was two seconds too long. Two seconds too long. I'm sorry for bringing that up

It's okay How about when Stone Cold is chasing Teddy Long On the four-wheeler? Do you remember the line that you said? No. He's chasing a black man. Oh, my God. Oh, my God.

It's hilarious. Oh, my God. I'm sure, I'm sure. There are so many things. And fans will see, you know that account that says on this day, 20, right? Yes.

Those are, I don't know if it's a lot of the shots to head, because I have had staples in my head from bad chair shots or whatever. And I really think I've forgotten some of these things. And that one I have forgotten. But there are probably 10 to 20 things that if we did today or said today, we would just be crucified for. And I don't know if that's one of them.

Probably not one of them. No. That's just funny. Yeah, it's just I just think like that. That's why I think, oh my gosh. And so I loved work with Stone Cold and Teddy. Teddy had such great comedic timing. Stone Cold kind of went from being this badass when I first got there. And you know who the person was that kind of got Stone Cold to be the funny person?

Wasn't it the stuff he did with Kurt Engler? 100%. Yeah. 100%. And I think that's what kind of made Stone Cold realize that I can't be this badass forever. And that's why I've said I think he's one of the best reality show host that's ever been on TV. I feel like he's incredibly good with the interviews. I think that he found a talent that he wouldn't have known that he would have. And a lot of these skits that he did after the Kurt Engel stuff

is an example of that. So was our interview last year kind of your gateway drug to allow you to kind of get back into like, all right, I like wrestling a little bit now? It was a reflection for me. Okay. Because I was very honest. And I've had people probably. a hundred or more bring up that interview. And they say, coach, but you said, and when I started behind the turnbuckle, what are you doing? And they accuse me of starting the show to try to get back into the WWE. And I'm like, before you accuse me, watch the show. Because I'm as critical of the WWE as I am of AEW.

It's an opinion-based show. And the reason we do it, but we also are positive, just like you are, because this is a business that people need to understand. And the more they understand, the more they can enjoy it. Instead of just watching it always to look for something bad, because that's what most fans do. And they're so negative. And social media is a cesspool. And especially in wrestling. Yes.

But what I've also found, and part of the reason you went almost exclusively to wrestling is they're also the most rabid fan base. And I said to myself, if I'm going to embrace remote and I don't want to move away from my kids and I don't want to take a job in another state because my kids are in high school, I've got to figure out something. and why not lead into something that I did for damn near 15 years? Why am I ignoring that part of my life? It was stupid over money. And so I can admit when I was wrong and I can admit when do I enjoy every minute? No, I don't enjoy every minute because I think some of it's really, really bad. But I enjoy being somebody who understands the business and I'm really, really smart about the business.

And I've been in there, you listed all the guys. I've been in there with the all-time greats. And I don't want to ignore that anymore. I don't think it's that you were wrong that you weren't going to do stuff in wrestling again. It's just that that was a chapter of your life. And at that point, you were like, I really don't like how that ended.

You felt like you got screwed over by Vince McMahon. I did. I felt like I got screwed over. And then also the five or six months that they put me on Raw on SmackDown, I didn't like how I was treated. And they can say what they want, but that's the truth. I would actively every week, ask Michael Cole,

Can you talk to Corey about us working together? I have nothing against Corey Graves. I've known Michael Cole since 1999. But if they don't want to work with you, there's nothing you can do. And Corey never wanted to talk to me. Like, before you, I never had one conversation with Corey Graves, and I tried. And that's okay, because that's kind of how the business is when you get, I call it boxing out your pension when you're at ESPN. If you don't want somebody to step in and take your spot, and I was never going to take his spot.

He's amazing doing Raw or Smackdown. It was about that's what Vince wanted. I didn't come in and go, I'm stepping into that spot. And so it was really frustrating because I felt like I could have really helped. But also now I'm much more vocal about knowing. And this is the other thing, is that with the whole ESPN situation, you don't know if, because I work for the PGA tour now, too. So there's not too many golf announcers that wear backward hats and sunglasses.

Yeah. But I do it. Yeah. Because now they just have. had a tournament with YouTubers. You know, PGA Tour is embracing YouTube. Everything has changed. And so now I realize that back in 2018, maybe that wasn't the time.

But in 2024, there is no more, oh, he's a wrestling guy or he's a YouTube guy. We're all in the same bucket. And however you can get views and however you can get people to watch and listen and be funny, entertaining, and also credible, that's what we're trying to do. So that's kind of the lane I'm in. What do you think's been the biggest change in wrestling over the last few years? Because it's definitely on an upswing right now. Well, it's on an upswing financially.

And I feel like the WWE in particular hides behind that. What do I mean by that? The other night, the first segment really, really hot with Judgment Day, led to an eight-man tag. It was either a three or four segment match. When I started, you had a two-hour show. You'd see the star at the beginning. and then you see them in the main event. During that three-hour stretch of raw,

you had at least four matches that were multiple segments. If you have enough talent on the roster and you're deep enough, you don't need to do that. But they feel like they do. And if you have shorter matches, say two segments instead of three or four, now you're requiring them to tell a better story. You're requiring the writers to write better stuff for them. And then you're requiring the audience to say,

okay, I need to be here for this. I can't go to the bathroom because this is going to last 45 minutes. That's a pay-per-view length match. That's not a Monday Night Raw length match. And so they hide behind this $5 billion Netflix deal. Fantastic. But when you dig a little bit deeper, when I was there and my buddy Tommy C, my partner,

he ran the international. You know how Vince took the company from, let's say, 80 million to 800 million to a billion dollar company? Do you know how he did that? It was going worldwide, wasn't that? Worldwide, but how did you go worldwide? Because we would tape Raw on Mondays, Smackdown on Tuesdays. Internationally, Raw would air Fridays, Smackdown on Saturdays.

Why? Because he did licensing deals in every single country you could possibly imagine. So it would go to 160 countries. So imagine sitting right here. And Insight is licensed and you get 160 checks that show up for this interview. That's what we did. But imagine living in another part of the world and watching Roth five days later. Correct.

People would never do that now. Never do that now. But the reason we had to do that is because there's certain rules. Sure. And they had to put things in and out. So my point about the Netflix deal is when Netflix really grew a couple of years ago, what did they do? They went worldwide. So now all of those licensing deals that existed for Germany, for England, for all those, gone.

which also leads to people losing their jobs. I know that wrestling is on an upswing right now when I have people say, I just started watching at WrestleMania 39, or I just started watching WrestleMania 40, or I haven't watched in 10 years and I'm back. Correct. I hadn't met new wrestling fans, maybe ever.

I hadn't met new wrestling fans in years. The fact that there's new fans or lapsed fans coming back, that tells me something's happening. There's no question. And I'm, and I don't want you to misunderstand. that I don't think it's on an uptick when I say that they hide behind the financials.

But when they bring the rock back, and this is one thing I worry about, is they bring the rock back who I adore, who taught me a lot. And they very openly say, we give him $30 million. And his agency is over here. TKO is over here. And a lot of the friends that I worked with in the WWE have been strategically exiting the door. So, a guy named Jason Robinson, you may not know who he is. No. Every single, every single one for 28 years that when you see, oh, man, this set's amazing, right? For no mercy, bad blood, WrestleMania, who do you think makes those?

Jason Robinson. He's got his partner, wife, I'm not sure if they're married or not. She works in the truck. Amazing. Her job is now being replaced back into Stanford. You had Kevin Dunn, who hired me on the. the spot. He is no longer there. Who is? Lee Fitting. Lee Fitting was the head of college football at ESPN and the head of college game day. Brilliant mind left ESPN. A few months later, who is now

in Kevin Dunn's spot. How does that happen? Kirk Herb Street's agent for a lot of years was who? Nick Con. So now Nick Conn, who's the president of the WWE, brings in Lee Fitting. So all of these moves, and they can do what they want. I'm not there. I'm just pointing out the facts. is that now a lot of the strength of WWE is on the TKO side. You just saw, excuse me, you just saw that they're moving the training center to where? Vegas, right? What else is in Vegas? The UFC Apax.

There you go, the UFC, and that's where they are. Dana White refuses to even answer a question last night about the WWE moving where they put it all together. So in my opinion, what I see is TKO trying to take over everything when it comes to the UFC and to the WWE. no more pyro. The production is, there's been a lot of changes I do like. I like having the, you know, the video on the side where you're walking in. I like having all. So I do like a lot of the changes. What do you think about ads in the ring? I love it. I think it's great. I think that we have ads in every, every other sport. There's, if you watch hockey, they're on the boards, they're on the ring. If you watch baseball, they're on the mound, they're behind the plate. They're on the fence. If you watch UFC, there's like 15 of them inside the ring. the octagon. When they put a few logos in the ring, people got really upset about that. Well, they need to get over it because I work for the PFL. I do all the betting for the PFL who now owns Bellator. And part of the reason is so smart and people need to understand this is that companies are tired of writing a check to Fox. And it happened to be in a studio show at 5 o'clock.

It runs and it's gone. Yeah. So what you're describing is what they call organic marketing. and you put it in so now your people are seeing it as they're watching the live event. And live event, whether it's wrestling, football, basketball, whatever, that's where all the money is. You don't watch Raw after it's over. You don't watch a football game after it's over. You watch it live in the moment. So all these companies that are spending millions and millions of dollars, they want to make sure that they're getting that return on their investment

and not be stuck at 2 a.m. on the late sports center, you know, at ESPN. So they've created ways of not only it living live, but then it can live organically if you put that match on the YouTube channel or on wherever else it lives. Netflix, you're going to be able to see draft kings, whatever it is, forever instead of a one-off commercial. I mean, we do it, you do it. Yeah. And it's the way you sell things nowadays. It can't just go into oblivion. It can't.

It's like, I get that the ring didn't have ads for some. long and wrestling fans hate change, right? Like, it boils down to wrestling fans don't like change. So when the Prime logo went in there and then this last PLE, there were other logos in the ring, it's just a part of the business where, like, it's just, it happens in every other sport. Why would wrestling be any different? And I would ask wrestling fans, would you rather have Prime in the ring or would you rather have a fly-up during the commercial and say, Monday Night Raw is brought to you by Prime Energy.

That was really good. Thank you very much. Snickers really satisfies. And that's the way we used to do it. You know, you'd have the three, and then the next hour you have three more. Now you can sell those, and you don't have to shove it down somebody's throat, right? And it's very subliminal. It's very subtle instead of doing the fly-ins for the show.

So I don't know why fans don't like it. It's a really smart way of doing it. Because it's change. I know it is. Oh, and I think that's what I've learned. I don't read my mentions anymore because wrestling fans, all they want to do is. complain. Even if they enjoy something, Chris, they will still

figure out a way to turn it negative, which I don't understand because when I watch something and I'm sitting at home, I just want to enjoy myself. I think the biggest thing I remind wrestling fans is have a little bit of patience. If they see something on a Monday or a Friday that they don't like,

they're so quick to grab their phone and talk about how much they don't like it. It's like, give it a week or two, or three, see how this storyline plays out by the time we get to the PLE. then ask yourself if you don't like it or not. But just because in the moment it doesn't make sense, give it a little bit of time.

That would be like watching a movie and halfway through going, oh, this sucks. I hate this. And then by the end of the movie going, oh, wow. Oh, that really tied itself together there. Oh, I get it. I think what you're pointing out is exactly what we try to do at our shows because we have discussion shows.

We have debate shows. We have interview shows. We do everything. and fans need to understand that if they can have the patience, what is at the core of what pro wrestling is? We've lost that. It's storytelling. I sat down with Vince Rousseau,

and whether you like Vince Rousseau or you don't, you cannot dispute the fact that some of the best storytelling in the history of pro wrestling, he wrote. He had to, and this blew my mind, when Austin did that famous Austin 316, said, I just whipped your ass. Vince was so caught up in the moment of what was going on producing the show. He didn't even really realize what Austin had done.

Russo had to go and tell him, hey, we're going to run with this. Run with what? He didn't even know what he was talking about. And Vince had Vince McMahon's ear and had to convince him that reality-based storylines. And when he said this on my show, I said, you know you're exactly right. Reality-based storylines have to be reality-based. be fair, there were also a lot of really bad

storylines of Vince Rousseau's responsible for. So I think we have to take the good with the bad. One hundred percent. Like Judy Bagwell and oh my God, many poll matches. But when you, and this is why I've always said, having 52 weeks of TV is not a good thing. Because imagine trying to write 52 episodes of friends. You're going to have probably 20 or 30 that are pretty bad. Yeah. You have 22. It's they got to a point whether it was during Vince's time or afterwards.

And when I was there, you would see writers literally running in Chris at like 1 o'clock in the afternoon with all these papers they had just printed out because Vince had ripped the show up on Saturday after an eight-hour conference call. Start it over. And he'd be like, oh, my God. They were just trying to get to production. They were trying to get to the start of the show. There were times, I kid you not, where I would have somebody hand me Monday Night Raw that

I was calling about five minutes before. the show. Man. So in defense of them, it's just when if Vince wants something ripped up, there's nothing you can do. And you have to work with that. And that's, that's no way to do big time TV production. But when you have 52 weeks a year, there are, there's no time to breathe. There's no week to take off. There's no time for us to forget. We don't see Roman reigns for four months. And this is part of the thing that I'm talking about is that, Why in the world would you announce that your biggest star is coming back and then make it a run-in? Think about that for a second.

They announced that Roman Raines was coming back at SummerSlam. The entire match, what was the crowd doing? Looking at the entrance, waiting for Roman Raines to come out. And he came out, didn't say a word, and did a run-in. If you're going to do a run-in, and it's a surprise, why would you announce that you're going to do that? They didn't. They did it. 100% it was a press release.

They put out a press release that Roman Reigns would make his return at SummerSlam. And he did, and it was a run-in. If you're going to do that, then just bring him out. But he came out, he hit solo, and that was the thing. And so to me, that was a direct result of, we've got to do something. And we've got to make sure that people watch. And that's now that TKO is involved. Because TKO, let's be honest, they,

made a huge misappropriation of funds. I don't care what anybody says. When you paid $4 billion for a company that somebody spent $2 million on in 2001, $4 billion, they could have got that company for two. You're talking about the UFC. Correct, 2.5. So they bought the WWE because the WWE is a cash cow. So they want to make sure they get every last dime out of all the production.

That's why they did it. So to make sure that people tune in, they can then roll that over. and again, they can do what they want to do. But when you're trying to make up for a $4 billion buy, you're going to do everything you can to get every last dollar. UFC's probably doing okay right now. That TKO stock is just keeps climbing. It's very high right now because of WW.

You played a small role in the absolute worst storyline in the history of wrestling. I can't wait to hear this one. Katie Vic. Oh, God. what was my small role in that? You were the one interviewing Triple H when he was revealing the special footage that he had of Kane.

Do you remember that? And do you remember what that footage was? I believe it was a casket. And I'm telling you right now, Chris, that and anybody will tell you this. If it was Michael Colson here, that if Vince was still involved, people are still terrified of him.

And I'm not proud of the fact, that I never told him no. This is one of the things that I've told you on and off camera. There's a lot of things I should have said no to. That was one of the most repulsive, disgusting storylines of all time. During that time, Vince would go down a road and everything he was doing was hitting, whether it was the milk truck, whether it was the cement truck with the, you know, the Corvette, all of that stuff.

So let's just keep going. Let's do shock TV. I can tell you this, that when that, because they shot that offsite. Yeah. So nobody had seen it until it ran on the show. And backstage, you could hear people just groaning because it was so incredibly bad. And if you put a lie detector on Triple H today, he would probably tell you the same thing. What's crazy about that storyline is this isn't two forgettable mid-carders.

This is two of the all-time greats. Triple H and Kane involved. in the worst storyline ever. I think Kane, who I have so much respect for, so smart, and is one of the few guys that has left and really done good things outside of the wrestling business, I think he would tell you. And there are a lot of things, let's be honest. And thank God that that happened so long ago that now if it was show, I'd be like,

hey, listen, that was 20-some-odd years ago. Because if that happened now, you probably couldn't get a job for a while. You'd be like, really? I don't want any part of that. It was just, it was really bad. There's really not much else I can say. Honestly, I didn't even remember I did that. I honestly didn't.

I've heard a story that there was an actual funeral going on next door to where Triple H was filming this. From what I understand, yes. And they, so they had to shoot it really, really fast to get in and get out because it was at a funeral home. It was a real funeral home, yes. Wow. Could you imagine being next?

or mourning your loved one who just passed away. The other thing they used to do. And there's a man having sex with a mannequin next door. Oh, God, oh God, oh God, oh God, oh God. The thing they used to do, whether it was that or whether it was the grocery store fight was Stone Cold and Booker T. Or whether it was remodeling the Timmy White's bar in Providence eight times is they would just throw money at it. and they'd be, hey, we're, you know, we'll pay you $10,000 to let us shoot here. And that's how Vince would do it.

They would just throw money at it. And I remember Timmy White, every time he would want to remodel his bar, they would have the APA have a fight in there. They would break everything. And then Vince would buy a whole new bar for him. That's a true story. That's what happened. If you look at his bar like every two years, it was remodeled brand new after an APA fight.

I didn't know that was the same bar. Same bar. Same bar. That's amazing. Yeah, I love Timmy White, by the way. Love Timmy White. If you've watched any of these interviews on my YouTube channel, you know that I know a thing or two about a good, plain T-shirt. It's kind of become my uniform at this point, just a solid black t-shirt or a solid white t-shirt.

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Viori is an investment in your happiness. And for anybody listening right now, they're offering you 20% off your first purchase. So get yourself some of the most comfortable and versatile clothing on the planet by going to viori.com slash CVV. That's VU-O-R-I-com slash CVV. You probably saw some stuff on some of those plane rides. Do you have any amazing stories from any of the flights that you've been on that you can tell publicly? Well, at some point we're going to do, and I don't want to keep you. anybody of anything. But after the flight from hell, after that came out, I kind of made a public

statement that I didn't exactly agree with some of the stuff. And some of the producers at the time DM me on social media and threaten to sue me. And I said, you can't really sue somebody over the truth. Well, how would you know if it's not the truth? Well, I was in the middle of all of it. So I actually was an eyewitness and they didn't interview anybody. That was back where all the stuff happened. So other than, so at some point we're going to do a small little pay-per-view, where we tell all the stories. But I will say this, on that flight, Michael Hayes had not cut his hair for many, many, many years. And people don't realize part of the reason all of that happened was we would fly over there on a thing called sports jet.

A lot of teams would share it back then. It was about 60 first class seats. You had four card tables and then probably eight to ten rows of coach where the sports riders would sit, things of that nature. So all of us who were partying were in the back. Well, part of the reason it got so crazy is that the two tours, SmackDown and Raw,

one tour was already on waiting on the plane. We were doing a show in London, and we got onto the bus. It was an hour and a half because anybody's ever been to London. There's no highways. So we had to get to the plane. So now that's an hour and a half of drinking. They're already on the plane. So now that's an hour and a half.

Then the pilot said there's too many people. They were told there were 63. I remember these numbers like it was yesterday. Told there were 63 people. We had 74. It was too heavy. I kid you not, Chris. They walked down the aisle with a piece of paper and you had to tell them your weight. They told, I kid you not. Remember, you're not supposed to ask a woman how much she weighs? And they actually told the women, do not lie about your weight. True story. And so they wrote it down, did the numbers. And I went up to my said, if this is seriously how you're doing it, I'll get off. And I'll get a, a, a, a flight back to the states on a public airline because if we're going to go down in the ocean because we have five or a thousand pounds too much, I'll never forgive myself.

They go, no, no, no, we're good. So that whole process took another hour and a half or two. So now we're talking almost four hours of pro wrestlers drinking, partying, whatever they were doing. And isn't that where they ran out of booze at that by that point? They did run out of alcohol at one point. Me, Jimmy Cordarison, two other referees, played cards all night. So we keep each other awake. Because if you fell asleep, it was not good. Michael Hayes did fall asleep.

And I'll never forget that Xbox cut his hair off. Was he dared to do it? Or was he just? It was 5 o'clock in the morning. We're now eight hours in. Nobody had to dare anybody to do anything. But we landed in Hartford, and Hartford was not prepared for us. There was one lady doing customs.

So we had 74 people in one line going through customers in Hartford. It was early Sunday morning, and then we had the day out before Rob. And I'll never forget Michael Hayes. All of a sudden, he feels that his hair is gone. And he just starts going on. Who cut my hair? Who cut my hair? Somebody cut my hair.

I won't whip your ass. And like, you know, we were all too tired to even really laugh, but it was hysterical. And so then at some point, Gerald Briscoe had had enough. And he goes, Michael, I cut your hair. Which he didn't. He didn't have anything to do with it. He just wanted to shut him up. And Gerald Briscoe is a classic tough guy,

classic, you know, real wrestler from Oklahoma State. And I love Michael Hayes. He was my partner for a long time. But you know when you're dealing with somebody if they can whip your ass. well Michael knew that if anything happened he was not going to win that fight so he literally's like what are you going to do Michael instant shut down everybody got right back in line and we continued on through customs but it was so funny because I don't think to this day that he's cut his hair since that particular flight wasn't Xbox like running around the plane with the ponytail he may have he may have it's a little foggy Chris it's still a little I'm hearsay you know There were a lot of things that happened on that flight. And if you read the online, there's a lot of different online stories about it. I would say probably 40% is true.

Oh, boy. And the other 60 is not. And the other 60 is better than what they wrote. Oh, my goodness. I always love having you on the show. I love it. You tell the best stories. Congrats on everything you're doing.

Congrats on all your success. everyone can go check out behind the turnbuckle. Subscribe. It's linked down below. Thank you. I will ask you the same question I asked you at the end of our last episode. Perhaps your answers have changed. But gratitude is so important to me. So, Coach, what are three things that you're grateful for?

I'm really, I'm grateful for the opportunity to do things I really enjoy the opportunity to help people, the opportunity to be able to, in a world where I want to be a great dad and I want to be present to, in a small way, you know, wrestling to be able to stay in the place that I'm in in the country, the part of the country that I live in. And I just hope that moving forward that people can just chill out just a little bit. And we live in the world of entertainment. And entertainment, whether it's movies, sports, wrestling, whatever it is. It should be just that, just to be enjoyed. So just chill a little bit. Don't be so negative. To use your word patience. And for those of us who do this professionally,

respect us just a little bit because we've been there. And when you put 30, 40, 50 years into the business as opposed to not, maybe respect that a little bit. Man, heel coach showed up today. Man. I've enjoyed it. You're the man. Good to see you. Congratulations to you. Hey, thank you. All right, there we go. Coach just tells the best stories. Such a great guest. And I just feel like we should have him on every few months. Like he was on a little over a year ago. We should have him on every few months. Just because I feel like even if he was on like 10 times, we still wouldn't get all of the stories out of him.

There's still so many great moments, like so many of his big moments, we still didn't even get the chance to talk about in these first three interviews. So I think many more Jonathan Coachman interviews to come. Go check out his YouTube channel behind the turnbuckle. Let's get him up way over 10,000 subscribers before the weekend starts. And by the way, since we're talking about YouTube channels,

my CVV clips YouTube channel is on the verge of 800,000 subscribers. First of all, thank you for that. That's a crazy number to say out loud. But if you're listening to this and you haven't subscribed there or you didn't even know that I had a second YouTube channel that just posts clips in like the best moments from these interviews, please go hit that subscribe button on CVV clips because I'm sure you're already following the show here.

but see the clips on YouTube. It'd be amazing. Snap a screenshot. Tag us so we can share it out. He's at the coach rules on social media. I'm at Chris Van Fleet. And I got this quote for this episode from, I was opening up mush, you know,

the overnight oats. They're delicious, by the way. This was the banana bread flavor. And underneath the lid, there's like a little quote on there. Remember when Snapple did that? I mean, Snapple probably still does that, but I haven't had a snapple in a long time.

But under the lid was this quote, and I went, man, that is so good. Kindness is magic. Think about that. Kindness is magic. You ever had one of those days where nothing's going right and just someone is just nice to at the grocery store or someone holds a door open for you or someone just shoots you a smile or says, hey, man, that's a really cool shirt. It just, and it can totally change the course of your day.

It's magic, right? It's pretty amazing how that works. Kindness is magic. Be great and be grateful. We will see you on the next one for some more insight. We've got Ask CVV number 52 tomorrow. If you've got a question, send it in on social media using that hashtag AskCV or leave a comment on Spotify. And we will see you tomorrow for that one.

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Hammer Alley. Ever heard of then? To Rock Bottom. Dude, I was born in 1987. I can't believe he's doing this. Hammer Allie. Follow and listen on your favorite. platform.