Insight with Chris Van Vliet - Killer Kross & Scarlett: WWE Exit, AEW, "We Want Kross" Chants, Pipebomb Promo

Episode Date: October 7, 2025

Get tickets for Insight LIVE in San Diego & Las Vegas! https://cvvtix.com Karrion Kross (@realKILLERkross) and Scarlett Bordeaux (@Lady_Scarlett13) are professional wrestlers previously signed with WWE. They sit down with Chris Van Vliet at West Coast Creative Studio in Hollywood, CA to discuss their time in WWE coming to an end, the conversations regarding contracts possibly being renewed, the viral promo after WrestleMania and the reaction to it, being added to WrestleMania at the last minute, what's next for them in wrestling, possibly returning to WWE or signing with AEW, and more!   Buy Killer Kross' new book "Life Is Fighting" here: https://a.co/d/4ckIswy  Please support our sponsors!   PURE PLANK: The future of core fitness! Use the code CVV to save 10% on Pure Plank designed by Adam Copeland & Christian: https://gopureplank.com/?ref=tibcloux   SEAT GEEK: Use my code for 10% off your next SeatGeek order*: https://seatgeek.onelink.me/RrnK/CVV2025 Sponsored by SeatGeek. *Restrictions apply. Max $20 discount PRIZEPICKS: Download the app today and use code INSIGHT to get $50 instantly after you play your first $5 lineup!  TIMELINE: Go to https://timeline.com/insightto get 10% off your order of Mitopure!   VUORI: Get 20% off your first purchase! Get yourself some of the most comfortable and versatile clothing on the planet at https://vuori.com/cvv   ROCKET MONEY: Join Rocket Money today and reach your financial goals faster: https://rocketmoney.com/cvv MIRACLE MADE: Upgrade your sleep with Miracle Made! Go to https://trymiracle.com/CVV and use the code CVV to claim your FREE 3 PIECE TOWEL SET and SAVE over 40% OFF   ZOCDOC: Instantly book a top-rated doctor today at https://zocdoc.com/insight   BONCHARGE: Use the code CVV to save 15% off your infrared sauna blanket at https://boncharge.com/cvv   BLUECHEW: Get your first month of BlueChew for free with the code CVV at https://bluechew.com   For more information about Chris and INSIGHT go to: https://podcast.chrisvanvliet.com If you have ever enjoyed any of these episodes, could I ask you to please consider leaving a short review on Apple Podcast or Spotify? It takes less than a minute and makes a huge difference in helping to spread the word about the show and also to convince some hard-to-get guests.    Follow CVV on social media:  Instagram: instagram.com/ChrisVanVliet Twitter: twitter.com/ChrisVanVliet Facebook: facebook.com/ChrisVanVliet YouTube: youtube.com/ChrisVanVliet TikTok: tiktok.com/@Chris.VanVliet Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Great to see both of you guys. How are you? Yeah, doing good. Yeah. How about you? We're having fun. Yeah? Oh, yeah.

Last time I saw you guys was night two of SummerSlam. Mm-hmm. So that would have been exactly one week before your contract was up. Mm-hmm. How were you feeling on that day? I'd say we knew. Really? We knew for months.

I feel like what was happening and what was going to happen. I hope it's okay for me to say this, but I'm kind of his, uh, Game of Thrones Red Woman. I happened for a long time when it comes to astrology and looking things up. And a lot of the stuff I do on the paranormal show is a bit real with like the tarot cards. So I did see that we were going to have some sort of contract dispute that it was going to take a while. And I did feel in my gut like we're going to step away since like February. Since February?

Yeah. We haven't told, I mean, we've told very few people about that. But yeah. We know. Were you trying to make things work as early as? February? Always. Always. Always trying to make things work. Always trying to make the best of anything and everything, right? So you approached Hunter back in January, actually, letting him know that you want to stay. Yep. And you, I said we both would like to stay. Yeah. Was your contract tied together? Like,

you have the same end date, right? So both your contracts came to an end on August 10th. That's because you guys came in together. Were your contracts together? Or are they one contract or did you have contracts for each of you guys? It was separate contracts. Separate, yeah. Just signed at the same time. Okay. And then the idea here is like, I've heard you talk so much about your contract negotiations.

Scarlett, where were yours? So after you talked to the representative of talent relations about your contract, one last questions before the 24-hour notice was given, Kevin asked where I stood in all these contract negotiations and they said, we'll get to her once we're done with you, which I took as them using me as leverage against him. I do feel like if he agreed within the 24 hours that they would have offered me something, would it have been the same amount as it was before? Would it have been less? I don't know. But all in all, it felt like a massive, massive red flag. And I did feel like it did come off a bit misogynistic because originally I was

hired before you. Oh yeah. And 2019. Yeah. And the idea that I have no value without him and it's only, you know, determined by whether not he signs, like that came off as very misogynistic to me. Yeah. And also, I told you this a long time ago, but I didn't really ever publicly talk about

this. Like when I signed to go from NXT to Raw, somebody said the exact same thing to me over the phone. And I asked her, I said, what do you think? At that time, we had no reason to ever think it would be strange or go sideways. So I signed it being told, we'll get to her after we get to you. I go up to Raw. Then we go into like, you know, Mad Max in the Thunderdome and she's at home.

So I was like, well, like, I'm not going to do that again. We already saw exactly what happened with that. I was clear to manage but not wrestle. So at any point, it could have come up and done exactly what we did. on NXT, but they said they wanted to separate us and wanted me to wrestle once I was clear after the breast augmentation that popped during that dark match. But then I was cleared, and it was a few days later that they actually fired both of us. Yeah. She was at takeover when I wrestled Joe to drop the bell. She was ready to manage, and they told her don't go out. We're just like,

what's going on here? I was like, can we address this publicly? And they were like, no, don't talk about it. I was like, this is bizarre. Is it fair to? Is it fair? to think you guys were seen as a package deal because you were presented together as such on television and obviously in your personal lives, you know, you can't be any closer than being married. Is that maybe why the contracts were being handled together like that? I mean, I don't know. Why they do what they do, I don't ever want to kind of frame anything against them as it's like my opinion, so to speak, but, you know, when Hunter contacted us to come back, we just did both

for deals together over the phone. So we were, you know, why wouldn't we be under the impression that we would be proceeding that way, you know? Would you say that's fair to say at least? I mean, I feel like everyone knew that the package worked so well. People liked in the NXT. That's why we thought we were going to be doing it on main roster before we got LICO the first time.

I think it's okay to say no, because Vince is no longer, you know, in the position he's in. but I felt as though Vince likes to put his own spin on whatever creative things are brought into NXT. So maybe that's why he wanted to separate us, you know, to create something new. But Hunter was the one who put us together in NXT, which is why he knew it worked. He knew it was good. He knew people liked it. And that's why we thought, was it working for this long? Why wouldn't they resign us together, especially while still using me on SummerSlam in Night of Champions?

I feel like we've always done good work together. And there's undeniable chemistry. Like, obviously. Really? Is there? It seems like you guys like each other. Seems like it. Have you talked to WWE at all since August 10th?

No. We talked to them. I mean, she talks to the girls still. I talk to the guys, like, walk a room. But not the office. No. So that's it. The contract came to an end and that was that?

Yep. Wow. Well, after they spoke to you, they did call me the next day. And it was very strange because they were like, oh, I'm sure. I'm sure you know what's going on with Kevin. And I'm like, all right, you know, you're talking about what happened with him. Sure, but what's going on with my contract? You're only talking about him.

And they said, well, we're going to let your contract lapse. I'm like, okay, that's totally fine. I'm sure everything's going to work out. You know, we love working there. So, you know, the lines open. If you guys ever want to call us. And then he goes, yeah, you know, the lines both open both ways. I know you guys had a great relationship with Nick Con and how.

Honor, you should definitely call them. And I was like, wait, what does, what does that mean? Well, then why were we talking to him in the first place anyways? What does that mean? And he was saying every single thing that he was saying was coming straight from them. So it left us very confused. Very confused. Yes.

Like at one point, man, I was like, you know, I wanted him to be able to explain to me whether like, for instance, the book sales. It's like my life story. Is that, you know, like, where is that on all of this? Forbes wrote an article. We were a top seller in the company for the merchandise. He didn't want to look at any of that, didn't want to discuss any of that. You're getting a big cut of your book too.

Of course. He's telling me that's irrelevant to the conversation in determining my value. That's crazy. Like, my life story is about a kid in the audience of their shows growing up, wanting to be a part of the show, getting into the show and writing a book about how it was part of the show. and now he's telling me that's irrelevant, dude. So like what is what is the statement here? Nothing I've done over the last three years is relevant to the conversation. The book that they're making money off of.

My life story is irrelevant to the conversation. Like, and you're asking me to agree to a figure with a statement like that attached to it, anybody with any sort of like dignity or self-respect is not going to say, you know what, that sounds like a really good deal to me. Like, there were just red flags all over the entire conversation. And I asked him, like, are our bosses aware of what you're saying? He's like, oh, yeah, yeah, they're aware of it. Which I believe, actually.

I do. I have no reason not to believe it. You can't be lying to me on the phone. So when he says, you have a great relationship with them, you should call them. What are we? What more is there to talk about when you tell somebody that all of this stuff to track in terms of performance and your value? to the company is irrelevant. What the hell are we talking about? It's this feeling that no matter how much hard work you put in, whether or not your promos are good,

whether or not your matches are good, whether or not you sell merchandise, it doesn't matter at the end of the day, you're only this number that they choose for you, and it doesn't matter how it's determined, but there's nothing you can do to improve your situation. It's like getting hired at an office building company where you know, you're hoping one day that you're going to get that raise and, you know, be in a better position, but they say, no, this is what it's going to be forever. It doesn't matter how hard you work. But it's kind of that feeling. I was just kind of, I was blown away. That was not the conversation we thought we were going to be having. So if that stuff doesn't matter, what, what do you think matters? That's a great question.

That is a great question. We don't know. We were just left baffled by the end of it all. I just looked on it and I said, I can't believe this is like, I can't believe this is real. Because that's why you caught the promo at Mania because you wanted to be seen in that light. You want to prove that you are good enough to hang with the Randy Orton's, with the Roman Raines, with all these top guys that you, you know, you can carry a program and tell a great story and, you know, create fan engagement and stories that people care about. Like, that's what he was trying to prove this in the higher time. Yes. So what went into that promo with Sam Roberts at WrestleMania? Well, as I said, worked, but obviously based off of real things, that's like the fine line of pro wrestling that makes

those connections, right? What resonates with people. Yeah, the lines were blurred because you were talking about storyline things. You were also talking about things that held a lot of weight and felt very real. Yep. So we do that. Everybody loved it. We leave. The next day was weird at Raw.

So aside from everything that I've talked about, so we don't talk about it again, I get a phone call from somebody in town relations. And he says, creative is like not happy. There's heat. They're, you know, they're pissed. I was like, well, I apologize about that. Let me go take care of that right now. I have a great relationship with them.

They're right across the hall. He went to all the writers. And he's like, he's like, uh, I said, no, no, dude, this is my fault. Let me take care of it. No problem. I go across the hall. I speak with some of the writers, explain everything. They're like, man, we have no idea what you're talking about.

We haven't talked to that guy in two weeks. We liked it. I thought it was cool. Yeah. And some of them didn't even see it. Yeah, I know. So I was like, what's going on here? You know, so walk around the building.

and just looking at everything, everyone's saying hello, everything feels fine. I call him back, no answer. The next day, no answer. I think it was like the third day. He finally picks up. And he's like, yeah, I shouldn't have said it that way. I apologize. You know, it was actually Hunter.

And I was like, man. So since we spoke, have you talked to Hunter and explained everything to him that I explained to him? And he's like, no. And I was like, so you're letting our boss just sit there and fume. for how many days now? You could have just told me this on Monday. He was down the hall. I could go talk to him and just explain all this.

This is like a misunderstanding. So, you know, I eventually did speak with Hunter and cleared the air with him. And, you know, it's just, it's a massive company with a lot of different departments and not all of them are in lockstep with communication. He was super cool about it once we spoke to him. He understood where I was coming from what I was trying to do. And the heads of digital were in the room with us. And they gave us a thumbs up again. It was post edited.

It wasn't like a live thing. It was on, you know, on YouTube. And I just. On their YouTube. Yes, of course. So they, you know. Probably still on their YouTube channel. Yes, it is.

Oh, yeah, yeah. But very, just weird, man. That wasn't the first time I got an apology from him. Were they just upset that it seemed like you went into business for yourself? I think the image or the idea of the brand looking like the bad guy is not something they want. You know? for whatever their reasons there are. And that's okay.

It's their show, you know what I mean? It's not like you go on a curb your enthusiasm and rewrite Larry David's scripts. You know, you're on Larry David's show. You know what I mean? Yeah. So I understand that. But really what I was doing was I was just taking different things that played out and, you know, turning pain into art, as I, you know, was saying. I can't remember who it was, but there was someone in the office who came to us and they were like, hey, there's a lot of people in the office right now.

I think that they're the suit and suit and tie in the truck and they're all wondering who it is. And we're like, oh, no. I forgot about that. I was like, there was no truck that day. That's why I said the guy in the suit and tying a truck. So everybody in the truck was cool. When I didn't have something that required me to be in the building, I would go in the truck and I would watch a show. And I put the headphones on and listen to how things were timed and queued and the changes.

I wanted to learn every single aspect of it. Everybody's awesome in the truck. So like I would never I went we went to dinner with a few people in the truck. Yeah, who's wearing a suit and tie in the truck? I don't know. It's Charles Robinson. Little age. Oh, my man, that's a national treasure.

Yeah. It can't be. Yeah. There were just, there were strange things that happened following that. And I don't know. What does it mean to be a good soldier? Going out there and doing what you're told, you know,

and hoping that, that there's some sort of payoff that, that you're doing the right thing, that it's going to be acknowledged and it's going to be appreciated. You're going to, you know, that would be the best way to put it. It can mean so many different things. But when you left that promo, what happens? So you walk off and it's, I mean, great.

You're like you seem angry, right? You seem angry as you're delivering this. It feels very personal. You walk off the set. Scarlett even looks surprised at like, oh, my gosh, like we did this. You guys walk off. Then what happens? I think we got our bags and watched.

the rest of the show. You missed something. As we're walking away, you said to me, you think we're going to get fired for this? I'm like, well, if it is what it is now, like, that was big. That was really, really big. But you asked me, like, think we're going to get fired?

I'm like, maybe. Yeah. I figured there, I told them before I left, I said, make sure that everyone knows that this is a work. Like, make sure that everyone, otherwise they're, you know, it's, I'm trying to make this as, as believable as possible. If everyone doesn't know that we're all here in this room and it's coming from, you know what I mean? Like everyone's working on it together,

they might not know. Sure enough, they didn't tell everybody. So a lot of people thought it was legitimately real. And I was like, man, if they don't tell everybody, there might be a reaction from a few people like the one we got. Right. And, you know, a few people didn't know. What the hell was going on? The important people didn't know what was going on. But they're not always there. And that's why they didn't know what was going on. Do you think that promo then leads to these interesting contract negotiations that you had?

No. No. Nope. Nope. Things felt weird, even going back into January. So I feel like at the height of what we were doing on TV with our character presentations with Final Testament and stuff like that, I feel like we were entering something new and fun actually with Ms. Who is absolutely wonderful to work with.

The best. That guy is just like a fountain of information and knowledge. He helps everyone around him. He's completely selfless. I loved working with him. But the dynamic of Ms. and I being able to, at least for me, show some range, instead of just being the brooding, cryptic guy,

you never know what he's talking about until it's too late. Or you never even know what the hell he's talking about in general because some stuff never got paid off. But you were a good soldier, so you did what you were told. Exactly. Yep. But working with him and then working with the Wyats, I feel like now the things were starting to connect with people, you know?

So, you know, January rolls around. We have the conversation about remaining with the company. I feel like we're kind of like at our, at that time, at our peak in terms of connection and some of our best work. Then the whole group is fired. And then we're just doing backstages. And I wrestle, I think, one time before WrestleMania against AJ and that was it. You were doing backstages.

They had basically taken me off TV for three months, essentially. And then something very strange happened on the European tour. Do you remember that? No. So there were a few people in locker room that would always fight for us. AJ Stiles was one of them. Oh, yeah. AJ would always fight for us.

Ms. would always fight for us. Great people. So every single time he had to do a backstage, because I know, know some people notice a wise and scrawl in this. Every single week, Cross would ask, why isn't scrawl written into this? You know, she can just be there. They said, oh, no, not this week.

Not this week. So about a few months went by. AJ's supposed to be in this backstage with us. And he's like, doesn't make sense that you're not in this. And I'm like, well, that's what I thought too. But every week, they say no. Oh, yeah. AJ went to the office, got approved that I can be in it.

Later on, we shoot that. And one of the producers comes up to me and says, how did you sneak yourself in there? I remember that. We were pissed. And I'm like, so this has been something that's been talked about to remove me. It felt that way. It felt that way.

It felt that way. It was weird. You were disappearing out of these things where I'm standing 50 feet away and seen for 30 seconds as like an Easter egg. I'm like, is this intentional? That was the only time in my WWW career when I was like, I feel like they could be trying to get rid of me and only keep you. It's the only time I felt that way. I do remember to, like any time I would ever bring up if she could be in the shot, if I would see kind of the sides of the day, they would be like,

I just want to focus on you. And you think that week, it's like, okay, they really do just want to focus on me. But then it happens second week in row, third week in row, fourth week in a row. Now we're looking around going, what's going on here? Like, would it really disrupt, you know, what we're trying to accomplish here? A lot of the people that I was in the backgrounds with, we never even worked with. So what would be the point of constantly removing or out of the shots? They never led anywhere.

It was weird, man. It was very, very weird. When the rest of the group gets released, are you thinking, well, we're next then? Yeah, for sure. I mean, I was confused. Yeah. Me, I was in a place of like, I don't know what's going to happen now. I felt the conversation I had with Hunter went really well.

It was short, almost like a little too well. but I just realized I was like, you know what, no matter what happens, I have no control over it. The only thing I can control is what I do with the time they give me. So for her sake and my sake, I better try to be as entertaining as possible with whatever they give me. So I did little things like, you know, in the way they're hairstyles, the way I would dress,

depending on what I was talking about, just fun things, just trying to be as engaging as possible. The hair stuff was fascinating. Yeah. Right. And then it took a few weeks, but fans started to catch on to what you were doing. Yep. You were mirroring the hair of the person that you were speaking with.

Yeah. Where'd that come from? Just reading psychology and sociology case studies on people who feel like they have like a disassociative order, they try to emulate how they see what would be perceived as normal people behaving. So they just start behaving like normal people. you know, because they have no identity of their own. So I always thought of carrying Cross as this negative energy in the room that was trying to corrupt people or bring out the worse than them. He didn't really have much of an identity of his own, so to speak, in different renditions.

So he would try to mirror them very subtly and try to bring out what he thought was inside them. So I just kind of play on that. He was also in the 48 Laws of Power as far as mirroring. someone when you want to manipulate somebody. So that's a thing, right? Yes. So I would sit like this because you're sitting like this. Right.

Right. Yeah, that's a thing. It's a thing. Yeah. Little things like that. And all the more like I mean, it just goes back to the Sam Roberts thing too. When I was told it was improvisational, I was like, oh, perfect. I've been waiting for this moment where I improvisationally can just do what in my opinion,

they essentially hired me to do, which was to connect with the audience. I can like, you know, before WWE, your success is on you on the independence. You either know how to do this and connect with an audience or you don't. You've always known. So I was like, this is perfect. I have no script. I'm going to give him something good. And I remember even telling the guy at the time, I go, this is going to go viral.

And he laughed. And I go, what are you laughing at? What are you laughing at? You think, you think like I'm joking around or I'm, you know, watch this. We did it. Sure enough, it went viral. I knew because if you're a wrestling fan or if you were before you got in the business, then part of you should still be out in that audience. You should be able to remove your ego and subjectively think about what a person would want to see in a program or what connects with them. I never lost that. I never let that go. I wasn't always able to show it because it's not my show, right? You got your lines and you have a little bit of flexibility to play. But all I've ever wanted to do was, you know, make a connect. and, you know, make people feel like this is something they want to see more of, so they come back, they keep watching. And I feel like the only reason you got that opportunity to do that interview was because you were riffing on the Hall of Fame red carpet, which that whole thing was hilarious. I feel like that's the only reason that you got that spot in mania because we didn't find out that we were supposed to be part of WrestleMania until 1.30 p.m.

That day, we were at WW World signing, and we get a text saying come to ringside and we say, we're feeling. 15 minutes away at WW World. Yeah. What do you mean come to ringside and even talent relations had no idea? So we got a message from a producer. Oh, yeah. Yep. We were just thinking like...

It was that last minute. Oh, yeah. Doors were at 3.30. What time did you actually get to the stadium? 145. Yeah. We had kids in front of. So a whole lot of kids.

I said, we're not getting up until we get through all these people. There's no way. They've been in line for a long time. Yeah. But that was sort of the mentality going into things that day was like, we're disappearing off the program. I need to take control of the situation. and show everybody, even at my own risk, that I can do this with as little amount of time

as possible, doesn't even need to be time on Netflix. Give me time on the channel, which they did on the YouTube channel. We were able to go through the roof with just a little bit of time and no scripts in front of us. This episode is brought to you by prize picks. Look, you and I make decisions every day, but on prize picks, being right can get you pay. Don't miss any of the excitement this season on prize picks where it's good to be right. Prize picks is the best way to cash in this football season.

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restrictions, and important safety information. What happened on the Hall of Fame red carpet? So AJ and I were hanging out, we're walking up together. We're all on our way to the building to sit down. Yeah, in the fountain blue.

Yeah. So AJ and I see that there's media everywhere. And I don't know if we missed the memo. We thought we were just going to sit down. There's a red carpet. Yeah. He's walking up with his wife. I'm walking up with mine.

And I was like, man. We can't walk through this together. And he's like, yeah, yeah, yeah. And I said, you go first. I give you a five-minute head start. He starts laughing. He goes, okay. So I don't know what happened.

But he gets like a head start and we're taking her photos and. Byron's calling us over as well because he's, he's there for an interview. We were kind of like visually overwhelmed. There was just so much going on and there's flashes going off. And Byron's going like this. And all of a sudden I see AJ walking towards me and I went, oh, God. Just like that. Like that's going to change whatever.

everyone is seeing. I was, you know, I don't know what I was thinking. Just said, well, God. And him and I just worked a match. People were ranting and raving about it, which I was so really, I was really happy about that. I could feel that from them. And I don't want to ruin that.

My, my eardrum was blown out. I don't want that to be for nothing. Your eardrum was actually blown out? Oh, yeah. Caught a live one. I was almost completely stone deaf in my ear. For one. Alan's a very physical guy.

Alan. Uncle Alan. I love you. Yeah, sometimes you catch when it happens. No big deal. So he's walking by and I was just thinking I need to, I need to like change the energy here in this situation. I need to just like do something that is going to completely take the attention off of what just happened.

I don't want to remove the fans out of the immersion we created. So I hear in my good ear, in earshot away, all pun intended, Peter Rosenberg is, is making like offhanded remarks about me. And Scarlett's calling me back. So I was like, oh, thank God. I was like, you hear what you just said about you? I said, thank you, Peter. Thank God.

So I start charging over and I get loud and I get aggressive and I said some crazy stuff. Like I was going to smash all the lights. Go like totally Christian Bale Terminator Salvation style. You know, just throw the guy over the railing and whatnot. And the producer of that segment had pulled me over afterwards. And he was like, everyone in the truck was dying laughing. That was hilarious. We want more of that.

know, we do the Sam Robbers podcast tomorrow. I asked him, you know, what do you want? And he's like more of that. Is it okay to finally say who was like, who thought it was real? Is it okay, I finally say? I don't know, man. A higher up comes up.

A very higher up. A higher up comes up to us. Maybe the next day at the signing goes, I just want to apologize about what happened that was, you know, completely unprofessional. It shouldn't ever happen. I was like, man,

I would never talk to anybody like that or behave like that. unprofessionally. I was just working and I explained the situation to him. And he just kind of like, he was like, and he just walked away. I was just like, oh, did he get, I was like, did he get offended that he got worked? I mean, I would never behave like that. Anyone who knows me, even if I was really mad or upset, this is the show. You know what I mean? This is the big show. You're on live. I would never have a meltdown like that. But then he did the podcast and then he for sure thought that you lost your mind. with those two things together one day. It was confirmed to me from a very reliable source.

He was not happy about that at all. At all. That match you had with AJ Styles on Raw, I feel like was the first kind of glimpse into you were just trying new things. And the biggest thing that popped out for me was putting your hands behind your back for the phenomenal forearm. Did you just come up with that in the moment? Yeah, I was just feeling it. I was just feeling it.

I was happy with the way the match was going, with the reactions. the way people were reacting on things. Sometimes when I'm like out there in the flow, I can hear the audience, I can hear Scarlett, I can hear the ref, and sometimes when I'm really like in that trance state of just being totally comfortable and being able to hear everything and move

and take the hits and throw them, I can hear commentary. And that's when I know I'm in like that place, you know? And I can hear commentary and I can hear them going. And I was like, I know exactly what I want this to look like. What did you want it to look like? I wanted it to look like we're trying to turn him to the dark side. This is the emperor and Luke Skywalker, Darth Vader-esque, you know, put my hands behind my back, boom.

And even AJ and I were talking about, we were hoping it was going to lead to him turning me baby face because there was no way he was going to be turning heel. AJ was supposed to be the incorruptible one. He's the one who learned from his mistakes and something that the three of us wanted to do. We were hoping we're going to get the green light was for AJ to pull across the side and be like, listen, you guys have tried everything your way for two and a half years. Has it landed you where you want to be? Please, you know, on the shoulder. Try it my way.

Respectfully, you have something. Do you hear them? Listen to them. We won't cross. We want cross. Yeah. AJ would have been the angel on the double shoulder. Yes.

We thought that was a great play. But here we are. Here we are instead. when did things with AJ Styles not come together? Because there was that match. Then there was the involvement at the WrestleMania match. And then nothing more. Yeah.

That happens. That happens on that company. The stories drop off and things change. It's something you have to get used to. So that's not something we take personally. It's kind of just television and WW in general. There's only so much time in the program. And they have other ideas.

Sometimes those ideas have been in the works for several months. and they like to stick to their guns because some of those ideas are going to pay off on the PLEs. So, you know, in my opinion, if you're not factored into stories that are finishing on the PLEs, then your stuff, no matter how good it is, no matter how cool it is or how the fans are going to react it, you know, it's going to take a back seat. But it would have been very cool to do. I would have loved it. You know, people still think this is at work.

That's okay. Still. That's okay. I mean, it gives us a good story on the Indies, I guess. You know, when people show up to our lines, even when we're at conventions, people still think it's a work like you said. And we just tell them, yeah, you know, might be, might not be, but telling you it's not. It's fine, whatever people want to think.

What's so funny is you were on Ariel Hwani. And he asks you straight up, like, is this part of a storyline? You're like, no, that's not. So you're saying it's not part of a storyline. You're saying it's real. You're saying it's not a work. And people go, ah, that means it's a work. Right.

It's insane. That's why I changed what I say. I'm like, yeah, it might be, it might not be. It doesn't matter. Like, you're going to think what you want to think. But we're out here, yeah. That's the reality. People are going to believe what they want to believe.

Just come to our indie shows, please. Come see us live. Make your decision from there. Yeah. The lines for your indie shows have been bananas, like huge lines around the block. Like, there was a huge interest in seeing you guys. We were very flattered, very honored.

We haven't felt, I mean, we felt a lot of support the last time we exited WWE a lot. This was different. Yeah, next level, for sure. This has been next level, man, especially to at the conventions as well. Holy cow. It's unbelievable.

We're always blown away. We're like, I wonder what today's going to be like, probably be nice. We get there and we're like, oh my God, you know, we're here, we're supposed to be here for four hours.

How are we going to get through all these people in four hours? It's not possible. But the thing is, we get to talk to people in such a way that we didn't get to before. And there's so many people come up to us saying that they've never met a WWRessler before. Like, oh, they try to go to WWE Worlds. They try to meet a wrestler, but the lines are sold out or they can't afford it.

So it's an opportunity to meet everyone, which is great. Like there's so, so many benefits to being on the Indies right now. And just the connection, you know, we're finding with fans. And then people getting to talk to you about your book. And then people getting to tell me, well, I miss you wrestling. You're going to wrestle again. And just all this stuff and just realizing that people remember what you did 10, 15 years ago, which is great.

Yeah. Are you going to wrestle against that? Hell yeah. Hell yeah. When was your last match? Nicky Cross, we wrestled four days in a row, White Six versus Final Testament. We did great. It was 2024, right?

Yes. So it was Christmas store. Yeah. WWW Christmas store. It was great. We wanted to wrestle singles match before then. It was the mixed tag with Ria. So much fun.

Hope you don't have seen this for Ria, but you said it was fun and you had a great time wrestling me. But yes, that's what she told me. All the producers loved it. No, she was great. And I was always ready to wrestle, but the one thing in WWW, you have to be ready to do the best with whatever they give you. So I felt like I was very good at that. Making the most out of every little moment I have.

I've been doing that since I started. So if they want me to manage a wrestle, I was always ready. Now I get to do whatever I feel, whether it's managed wrestle. And we're going to be doing a mixed tag with Jimmy Jacobs. So he's going to be our tag partner in Detroit. That's going to be my first. matchback. So there you go. Yeah. Where do you guys want to go from here? Because it's been about two months since your WWE contract ended. Where do you want to go? What do you want to do? I'll be honest,

everything we've been doing has been really enjoyable. Like having the freedom, I'll speak for me personally, having the freedom to assess the audience where we're out on the show, where we're out on the card, who I'm working with, what everyone else is going to be doing on the show and how to diversify what we're going to do on the tail end of it and be able to bring that to life and hear the reactions and feel that. It's like, I mean, I love being in WWB, but being able to actually perform my artistry in the way that I know people want to see it and being able to hear that and feel that back, nothing beats that. Nothing beats that. I want to do more of that. I want to go back to the places that I was performing.

I'm interested in going to new places. I'm very content with the schedule that we've been building and what we're doing. Going to the conventions, being able to meet fans, aligning that with the book tour, man, it's been awesome. Being able to meet people, especially in the New England area, people coming from Providence. That's where things really took off with the We Want Cross stuff. There's people driving from all over the northeast to meet us in these different places

in these cities and they all have their story about like where they were when that took off, being able to hear that. People getting tattoos of our characters on them. People naming their babies after us. I know that sounds insane, but people have come up to us saying, hey, this is Scarlet Carrey and we named her baby after you. Scarlet Carlin. And there's been another Scarlet.

It's crazy, right? It's awesome. I mean, it's like of the highest flattery people. Was that the baby you were holding in that photo? There was one baby named Scarlet that you were holding. You were holding a baby in the photo that I believe so. Good little soldier. Yeah.

Oh, that was the best. That was so awesome. Yeah, but it was, man, it was really, really, it's, it's been really cool. It's been very fun. More of that. And I think just being able to. Side quests. Side quests.

Side quests. Like what? Yeah. I just being able to show up anywhere at any time and do anything and creating an air of unpredictability at these shows, I think also serves something very interesting to fans as well. I think there was an assumption that you guys would go right to AEW, because this wasn't a 60 day, 90 day situation where you had to wait. Your contract ended on August 10th. August 11th, you could have showed up everywhere.

Of course. Anywhere. Yep. So I think there was like this idea of like, well, whatever the next major AEW event is, Scarlett and Killer Cross are going to be there. Have you talked with AEW? I don't think we should say who we do or don't talk to. But we have friends everywhere. That's the thing.

We have friends everywhere. Well, when did we, when did we kind of sort of meet? That was in 2021. It was from April, 2022. Right before we came back, there was a conversation about you coming in. But the story wasn't, it didn't really make sense. I wanted to do something bigger for Tony at the time. So we just said, let's stay in touch and had planned to do something together.

There's a thing that happens when people either exit or get released from a commercialized wrestling company where, And I'm not speaking on behalf of anybody, but I just know that sometimes people freak out because, like, the ground falls out from underneath them. Sure. Financially, they get scared. So they feel like the best thing to do so nobody forgets about them is to sign somewhere in sort of like a semi-panic or something. Or perhaps they really just want to go there and they just want to get it over with and knock it out, right? That's also totally a scenario. We've never felt supportive like this in our entire lives in the fan base. Like once you've been seen by the WWB universe or you've been seen by any sort of massive amount of global fan base, they come to where you go. And we're in a really fortunate position where we were able to lock in that connection they were waiting for us to make with them before all this happened. So everywhere we go, they come with us.

And as much as we may miss being on the road and being there and performing in front of the WB universe, they show up. it's like they're still with us, you know, and maybe it's not in the massive amount of droves, as you'd see in an arena, but they come out. We appreciate that. And even our fans before WW had been still riding with us. We still see them all the time at these shows. So, you know, we're just, we're enjoying the process and taking things one day at a time. There's no need to make a decision that's, you know, going to be fear-based.

If the right one comes around, more importantly for me, I'll speak for me personally, creatively, if I know that this is something people want to see, then I want to do it. I've always been sold on a creative principle versus money. If you put a pile of money in front of me and there's no principles attached to it, I'm telling you straight up, I'm not interested. If I was lying to you about that, I would have just took what they offered to me. But if you remove principles out of the situation, I'm out. I can't do that.

I can't, I can't. That's not why I got into this. If I was just looking for money, then you get a job doing anything. There's a lot of high paying jobs. I want to create something that people will hopefully remember forever. That's what I've always aimed to do. The thing is, we know what it feels like to be at WWW when it's at its best. You know, when you have that connection with the writers, with your bosses, you know,

when everything's great and it's the best company you've ever worked for. Like the highs are high there. Like we have some of our best memories at WWW. Of course. So we still have that hope that that feeling is still there. which is why we still talk about it that way that, you know, that place could still be what we remember and what we've experienced before. The thing about going somewhere else,

it's almost like jumping from one long-term relationship into another. Yes. When you're still hoping that that connection is still there with the previous company, that they're going to do the right thing, that they're going to call. If we ever go to AEW, that's going to be where we end up. That is we're going to be flying the AEW flag. That is going to be our home forever. Whatever our next company is, that's it.

Whatever the company is. We will fight for that company until the end. Yeah, that is a major commitment. We're both very, very big on commitment. And it wouldn't be fair to Tony for us right now. We're still talking about WW, the way we are, to go over there and be like, oh, you know, we're just here, just to go back to WWE. We wouldn't want to do that to him.

So if we go there, we're like, no, we're going to make this company the absolute best. It's ever going to be. And we'll do that wherever we go. Of course. Do you feel like the door is still open at WWA? I mean, I'll speak for myself. You can answer this separately.

feel like, I don't know. You know what I mean? I don't know what, I don't even, I don't know what that door looks like or what's even on the other side of it. Like, I'm still completely perturbed by the conversation that we had. Like, I just, it was so bizarre and strange and shocking. Why is this such an 11th hour type of thing? Well, that's a great question.

Right. Kind of feels like pressure tactics, no? I think it's, um, sports. business. It's the kind of stuff I've read about that a lot of entertainment industries do, you know, to put the pressure on last minute, you know, so you don't have a lot of time to think and you panic. Yeah. If you know your value and the thing is we've, we know what it feels like to not make money on the Indies. We've learned our value. We've struggled, you know, it doesn't scare us. If that makes sense, doesn't scare us being independent. We'd rather make

less money and feel like we're earning our money than to just show up somewhere and collect a handout and have no room for growth. I'm not going to do that. That's just not how I'm wired. If you accept something less than what you truly want, like in your gut, like, you can't be surprised when you're not happy later on. Exactly. I'm not going to be one of those people living at the bar in the hotel. I saw that on the Indies coming up before I even had anything to do with WWA. Hyper-successful people, I mean, for lack of a better way to explain, it's self-made millionaires. They're miserable. You know, because, more than likely they accepted something that they weren't happy with,

you know, close the distance financially on whatever it is they were, you know, looking to get or wherever they were looking to land. No, there's no way. Do you remember what I asked you when you were given that 24-hour notice that night? Remember I asked you?

Something about, Carl's Jr.? I asked you, is money the most important thing to you? No. I asked you, if you were making this amount of money but things stayed exactly the way they were,

would you be happy? No. If you were making a fourth of what they offered you, just doing your own thing, would you be okay? What did I say? You said, yes, of course. Like, I said independently, yes. Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, because what were you really looking for? Like, what did you get into this for as a kid, as a wrestler? The artistry of it, making moments. So people could remember them the way I did when I was little when I saw them happen. And then the answer was very easy the next day. When do you think the We Want Cross movement really started? Like when did you start noticing the chance? To me, I noticed Vegas because Vegas is his town.

He was the Vegas wrestler. Bloodsport. That's where I really felt. And I'm like, oh, like Vegas is ours. Like this month, like these people are ours right now. Yeah. I love Vegas. Yeah.

Which is another reason why I still have the feeling that it's possible to go back because. WrestleMania is in Vegas. And that's your town, man. Yeah, but I got to tell you not to burst the bubble. I'm just being real with you. I mean, going back to what? Like if the, if the terms are of the last place we were out on the phone, when are we going back to? Money?

You know what I mean? Like, there has to be principles attached to this. There has to be some. of room for growth and the ability to, you know, work at the highest level. If that's not available to do, then, I mean, I don't think that fans want to see anything less than the best you can bring. That's true. You know, I put my money exactly where my mouth was. The very first thing we did was G.CW, you make a moment. We didn't need a million dollars or brilliant minds creatively to help us, you know, create that moment with the audience there. I think it was like,

We were told it was like 1.2 million views in less than 24 hours on that small clip when her and I came out with Shotsie against Cardona. That's the point. We knew. Who needs a brilliant mind when you have Matt Cardona? That guy's the best. He's going to love hearing that. He's going to clip that. There you go, brother.

We should mention big rubber guy too. Big rubber guy, Matt, big rubber guy. What did you say about him in gerbils? Gerbils. He loves gerbils. He loves gerbils. Yeah. There was a weird chant that broke out.

Matt loves gerbils. Oh my gosh. That was so weird. T-shirts. Yeah, whatever. You can love gerbils if you want. I don't know what that means. So, yeah.

You know, it's all one big work. We're allowed to talk about gerbils now, you know? Man, a lot of girls and guys who have gotten released, I've never been released before. They reach out to us and they ask for advice. Sure. What's the advice? I tell them, as long as you don't burn any bridges, as long as you go out there and you

proof to everyone, like what you can do creatively, you keep working hard. There's a really, really good chance you could be brought back in better circumstances. I feel like that's what happened to us. I mean, went from you being in gladiator costume to standing in front of Roman rains. And I feel like we can do that again, but we have to work our asses off to prove that, you know, we are good enough to be where we think we need to be. Were you watching the SummerSlam post show when the crowd was chanting, we won't cross? No.

No, but everybody in the hotel told me, they were all coming out to me with the phones. going, dude, you have to see this. You have to see this right now. I can't believe this happened. No, no, but they were saying we want Brock. I was like, wait a second. Yeah. It was pretty clearly we want cross.

Yeah. Yeah. Pretty weird. I don't know. What do you think of that? I think it was, yeah, it's one way of like saying, look, I hear you, but also like, let's try to keep the focus on the story of the night, I guess. It may think so much worse.

They could have just kept talking. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It was a strange thing to do. Yeah. Then there were chance for the next few weeks. Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm. Yeah. Which was awesome. We appreciated it. You know, we appreciated it so much. I remember somebody calling me and they were like, hey, man, you know, that's not going to go on forever. You should probably take the deal. And I was like, first of all, like, our success is not predicated on the fans hijacking the show.

Of course, that's going to go away eventually. nor were we banking on that changing the people didn't know what like I just told you what had happened in that conversation so like you know you see how much money that people are paying for tickets they are going to have a good time they're not going to spend all that money to be angry in the building you know we appreciated it so much hearing it and seeing it and reading it but it's like It's like I said, all of those people that were chanting that, they come to see us. We know that they're still there. It doesn't necessarily have to be on the show every single night going over the entire show. And also, too, our friends are performing in the ring. You know, they're dieting all

week. They're training all week. They're giving 100%. We also don't, you know, necessarily want that for them. Imagine going out there and killing yourself for the entertainment of the audience. They're chanting for somebody who's not on the show. Yeah, it's like a selfish thing to want for your friends that are in the ring. So we just always try to take the high road in all things. But also, there's no reason for us not to be honest. And if the truth is something that they don't like hearing, well, maybe you shouldn't have fucking said that. This episode is brought to you by fast-growing trees.

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follow and listen on your favorite platform. How much long do you want to keep wrestling for? Forever. Forever! Terry Funk showed up. Yes! Yes! Yes! That's what I love them.

I don't believe in retirement. retirement matches actually. I feel like wrestling, wrestle, because I know some people, you know, they have the retirement match and they want to come back.

Well, some people, some people, they, you know, their body says, you can't do this anymore. You know, some people don't know

it's their last match. That's true. Everybody has a last match. Yes. That's true. Not everybody knows it's their last match. That's true. Right.

I think do it until you stop having fun doing it. If you show up every time and it's, you know, it feels more like work than play. Like, the sole reason we got into this,

it's supposed to be fun. It's not fun anymore. When does everybody get to see this film, Blue Evening? So once it's finished its festival on, which I'm sure is probably going to be the end of this year. Okay, I'm probably going to release it online, probably on our landing page, blue evening.com in January. There's like, you guys keep doing these festivals. You keep getting nominated for awards. You keep winning awards.

Like, there's been so much buzz about this. And it's amazing for the people that live in the cities that get to go see these festivals. But outside of that, like, I'm sure you've gotten so many messages about it. People want to see this. Yes. The trailer is phenomenal. Thank you. Thank you.

There's rules with the festival, right? Where it... They want exclusivity. Sure. To encourage people to understand that there's a community of independent filmmakers out there. You know, it benefits everyone in your block to not have it out there to be seen elsewhere. You know, the only place you can see it is here. Yeah.

We've met a lot of people, wrestling fans, actually, that have shown up to the festivals to watch this, and they never even knew this type of stuff existed or they could see. it. Now they become fans of the festivals, which is really cool. A few people that even were telling me, like, they have like social anxiety. They don't go out much. They were saying that it actually helped them to get out and do something new and kind of break through whatever that barrier would be that, you know, they're afraid to try new things. That was really cool. Festivals are so cool because when the movie ends, tons of applause. I love it. And that doesn't happen when you just go to the random movies, you know, if you go to see a movie this weekend, the movie ends and you leave.

Yeah. I love the, like, respect for the art that you get to see at festivals. And that's such a cool thing. Yeah. What was the idea behind, you're not just acting in the film. You're part of creating this. What was the idea there? It's something I've always wanted to do.

I didn't know how I was going to get to do it, but it's something I've been interested in doing. I've always loved movies just beyond watching them. I like to know how they're made. I like to know how the whole thing's done. I was always one of those kids that watched all the behind the scene stuff on that type of, that type of thing. I feel like there's a big cinematic influence in your work too.

Yeah. And you even always encourage me for years now to go in this direction. Yeah. You know? And so here we are. But I had spoke to a hire up about a year and a half ago over the phone, booked an appointment. I asked them, I said, look, I'd like to be a really big player here. I'd like to know beyond the obvious, how I can sort of improve, you know, the perception of my equity internally to the company so I can have more opportunities.

I want more. I'm not asking for less. I want to do more. I want to optimize this chance. We had a conversation about social media metrics and stuff like that. And we had a conversation about like that power of like third party endorsement brands and TikTok and all that stuff. And I was like, well, I was like, okay, so you've got to get your numbers up. How can I authentically do that?

I think just being a little bit more entertaining and just thinking outside the box. So I did that. We did a bunch of videos together improvisationally like the one with Ms. We're like, he's dead. Back at over a million views, started putting up my own stuff after having a conversation with them to demonstrate I can actually captivate people. Some of the videos that we were posting that we were doing together improvisationally online and character were actually outdrawing the videos that we were in, like on Monday Night

Raw that were going on Twitter. So I was hoping, again, this is going to be conversations we could have and we can explore and just trying to demonstrate I have this thing. I'm a resource that you can utilize as a corporation. One of the other things that I had mentioned was being interested in doing film. And what's the right way to go about that? Because I wasn't looking to leave wrestling to go to film. I wasn't looking to use wrestling as some sort of.

transitional stepping stone. I was confident that I could do both. And I was actually told that they would take me down and introduce me to some people in Los Angeles. It never happened. And I was pretty bummed out about that. I followed up, kind of got like pretty much ghosted on it. So instead of getting disappointed, I said, you know what? I'm going to learn to do this the old-fashioned way. And so I have tons of friends that are in the film industry. One of them had sent me one of his scripts, Jetchanson Fernandez. I fell in love with it. I said, you know, I don't need a handout from anybody.

I'll learn this from the ground up. And so I took the opportunity to basically help create that film and he insisted I'd take a supporting role in it. And that's kind of how it came to be. And again, I was hoping to demonstrate to the company like, I'm not asking you to do me any favors. I just want you to look at me as the resource I could be for you guys. And I'm willing to work for that and learn everything. So I did my best to shadow different positions on set. You're executive producer of that entire film. Yeah. I try to learn everything I possibly could about

making a film. And it was awesome. It was a really, really, really good experience. Did you get bit by the bug? Oh yeah. I love it. So you want to make another film? Yeah. In December, I think we're going into something. I don't want to say too much. But this one seems very certain. You know how that stuff goes, right? It could despair off the face of the earth. But there's a noir film that's going to be done. And I think I've got something in it as a detective, which I'm really excited to sink my teeth and do something with cops and robbers.

Scarlett, you want to do some acting too? Oh, we've both been doing a ton of auditions. There's a few of them that look pretty serious like they're going to happen. There's another big one I can't say that looks like I have a good feeling that you're going to get. I know there's some big stuff coming. Wait a second. But that's a cool thing about, you know, not needing to get permission to do third party stuff.

Like, we can do these auditions. I'm also trying to sell my paranormal show as well. We're shopping that around right now. So that would be my number one, number one dream to happen. So if you know anyone who is looking to produce a paranormal show. Well, it's not just me. It's everybody listening to. Yeah.

I'm so glad you said it. I've been telling her, get that out there. I mean, we're shopping right now. We've had a few meetings with some Hollywood producers. People have produced stuff for HBO Max and Netflix. So, you know, things are. looking pretty good. Oh, yeah. I'm excited to see what's next for you guys. I'm also excited to see this film. I feel like I need to see this thing at some point in time. I've read your book.

And man, I sent you a message about it. Your book touched me. Thank you. Like it was so open, so you were so open, so raw, so honest. You just put it all out there. Were there some things that you wrote about that maybe you had to question, did I talk too much? Oh, yeah. The whole thing. kind of the whole thing. The place I was in before I met Elizabeth, that was scary for that to be in the book. But I just thought like I wanted people to be open to potentially finding, you know, like a soulmate or the love of their life

when they might not necessarily feel like they're ready to have that in their life. Like I could have closed myself off to that. And it would have been the biggest mistake of my life. You know, it was very upfront to her as to where I was. And she was like, you know, we'll take things one day at a time and see where we're at. I was in a very, a very weird place, but couldn't deny that I loved her. And I also chased you very aggressively. Which I loved.

Yeah. That certainly made it very easy. Is life still fighting? It's always fighting every single day. My feet touch the floor. I have thoughts run through my head saying, I'm going to disappoint everyone today. I'm going to fail. We're not doing enough.

We're not doing enough. I'm not doing enough. And then as I take one step forward, every single step on the way away from my bed to the kitchen and I get my black coffee, every single step away from that bed, I say, no, you know what, I can do this. I actually can do this and I'm going to do it today. Today is going to be a step forward. It's not going to be a step backwards.

Every single day life is fighting. In that book you talk about, you were real close to fighting bare knuckle. BKFC. You're in a position now where you're free to do anything. I'm sure they would offer you a large sum of money to go in there. Yeah. I'm a bare-knuckle fight. Yeah.

Are you open to that? Hell no. Hell no. You did it for so many years, too. Mike Perry, Ben Rothwell, no, thank you. No, thank you. You know what it is? That, that demon inside me is gone.

And thank God. Thank God. Once I worked on... There's a lot of stories about fighting in that book. Yes. A lot of stories about punching people in the face. You know, it's, I wanted to balance the metaphor and challenge the idea of what fighting was, right? Yeah.

People always romanticize the physical aspect of fighting, right? There's a whole mental fight too that's going on. A lot of people are fighters and don't realize it. And they're good fighters that they can just, like I said, get out of bed and get through the days. But I feel like a healthier person than I was when I wanted to do that. And I think, thank God it didn't go this way. But like, I think when I was talking to David Feldman, to do BKFC, I think a part of me was still really, really angry about feeling misled,

misdirected and set up by my exit with WWE. And it was lighting that bad fire. It was feeding the bad wolf in me that I had in my 20s in my teenage years. And I was like, you know what? I'm going to let this thing take the wheel for a little bit. I was ready to do that. And I'm so glad that it didn't because almost, almost, every single time. It's not all the time. I'm not going to lie, but almost every,

every single time I knocked somebody out. I always felt bad like 15 minutes later. I always felt really bad. How many people have you knocked out? I don't know. I can't tell you that. There's black helicopters outside the building, Krista. I'm going to start throwing people down the stairs. We're going to go back to that down the stairs. I encourage you to take that fight too. I was really excited about it, but you were like, you don't understand. Like, I wake up in that place every day when I'm in camp. Like, it's not good for me. Like, it's the kind of thing where, you know, someone cuts you off in traffic and you still feel it. You want to jump out of car and hit them.

Like was that? I didn't manage it all that well. Like I got, when I dive into stuff, I get very obsessive about it. So if I was going to be in a camp and I was going to be training and competing and doing all that stuff, now this is all I'm watching.

All I'm doing is watching tape. All I'm doing is thinking about all the things that can go wrong and how to recover the situation. It's like for me, that's not for me. Sounds dark. It's your life for his, right?

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's not for me. That's for other people that manage that much better. And I just respect what they do. and I respect what that is. And I don't want to front.

Like, that's something that is going to be a thing I'm going to excel at at this point in my life. I'm very happy that I got away from and out of that stuff remotely unscathed. Your family told me that I calmed you down quite a bit. Because I remember you were like that when we first met. But when I first met his family, they're like, oh, he's really calmed down since meeting you. Like, you're very good for him.

Yeah. Who's the guy with the shaved head? And who's the guy who's saying? in front of me right now. Guy with the shaved head, a lot of unprocessed things. Yeah, I think that's probably

the best way you could put it. A lot of issues that he was having a hard time identifying or working through. That's what I would say. People want you to shave your head again. So they want me to have issues again. You want the mental case.

And then you have people like Matt Cardona who were like, you had a head full of hair like this and you shaved your hair. head? He's still pissed. That's because he's got fiberglass stuck in his ass. He's not really mad at me in my hair.

He's got fiberglass in his ass. And gerbils. Back to the gerbils. I'm dead. I'm starting something right now. It's a T-shirt. Yeah. Oh, God.

Scarlett, you mentioned it earlier. Oh, boy. Scarlett, how do you pop your implant in a match? I grabbed it. No, it's not what happened. I'll stop, I'll stop. We're going to go off the rails. God, I feel like I manifested that too.

This is why we don't do interviews together because we're going to be goofballs. Go ahead. I bring this out of you. This is why you've calmed down so much. I can't help it as I drink them off. So I had a, I'm just going to get really just medical on this. I had saline implants. Think of a Ziploc bag of salt water.

They need to be changed like tires. They were great. They were great. Oh, they're better now. But I knew that. that I need to get them replaced because I think it was about 12 years I'd had them. And it was a few days before I had that match. I was telling Shati, I'm like, damn, like, I feel like I really need to get them redone.

Like, they don't look as good as they used to. I didn't think so, but go ahead. And I was like, I'm just going to wait until, I was like joking about it. I'm just going to wait until they pop in a match. Two days later they pop. It was just a simple kick like right here. I've been kicked there a million times. That was the moment.

It just popped. Had no idea it happened. It just felt like a bit of a pressure. I get home. I show him. I'm like, hey, does one of these look different than the other one? And then I went to medical. So it wasn't painful. It just felt like a weird, like pressure. It was like a chest pressure. I remember your chest and your lat were locking up too. And that's what scared me. Sure. Because I was like, I'm not a doctor. I don't know what's going on. You know what I mean? I was like, what the hell do we do now? And it was crazy too because when I went to the doctor, he's like on the x-ray,

it looked like you'd been in a massive car accident. What? I don't know if. I'm just really good with pain or what it is, but I was just walking around like, la la, la, until I got my surgery. Just a bit of a pressure. But they're like, it looked like you were in a massive car accident. I thought, I didn't want to tell her this at the time, but I thought that she had, along with that, some sort of partial tear in her pack. We don't know that for sure. But her range of motion was all messed up. And I was like, just go see a professional and take a look at this.

Don't try to work through this. Like, I'm sure it will get better. I've worked through everything in my wrestling career. I've worked through a dislocated shoulder in Japan. Broken rows. Broken nose. Broken noses. Broken ankle.

I've worked through all of it. Like, you know I'm really good with pain. Like I don't sell it. Which is what I'm concerned about. Yeah. But I got the surgery and just approved at WWW. I'm like, I'm ready to go. A week later when I'm supposed to be resting for two weeks.

I show up in like lubiton heels at the PC. I'm like, ready to go, guys. And they're like, you should be in bed right now. I'm like, no, put me in coach, please. You were good a week later? I was at the PC. Wow. I was like begging them to like,

let me work. I'm like, we cannot clear you right now. Yeah. She was just doing managing at the time, too. It's not like, you know, she, you know, had hit a 450 off the top to the outside or something. Like it's, I would still do it though. I know you would. I used to do doomsday devices and heels off the top. That was the best. Yeah. Wow. What do you think is the biggest thing you learned from Paul Heyman? Oh, man. Don't ever doubt yourself. Don't doubt yourself. Be honest with yourself, but do not doubt yourself. have the self-awareness to self-correct, course correct, improve, don't wait for somebody to tell you what to do. If you know you're supposed to be doing something, do it.

If you know you need to improve somewhere, don't wait for them to tell you, just do it, and trust your instincts. That would be like the first thing that comes to mind. He was always like, he's one of those guys, like if you're just spending time around him, AJ and Ms. were the same way, too, I have to say. If you just spend enough time around Paul, he's not even trying to teach you things. You'll learn things if you're listening. It's one thing to hear somebody.

But if you're listening, he can't help it. You will learn just being around him. So I tried not to suffocate him, but I also tried to get as much time with him as I could. And he gave me a lot of his time and Elizabeth as well. Oh, that's wonderful to me. Yeah. He gave her lots of different types of advice. on where cameras were, television timing.

One time he asked us to sit in the truck, and he just said, at the end of the night, come back to me and I want you to let me know how long they remain on a shot for. Just how long they remain on a shot until the next transition. What's the answer to that? At the time, I think it was 3.4 seconds, I think.

That was the time that they were holding. Yeah, well, I timed it. I wanted him to know that I actually authentically did that right. Yeah. And then we got into a conversation. I won't get into about holding moments and understanding without being in the truck when you're in the ring how the show is being shot. So you have a second mind as you're in the ring as to what everyone else is seeing and then how the audience is seeing it. That was a few years ago.

That was in 2021. I never forgot that. This feels like the distinction everyone talks about between wrestling and TV wrestling. I think that people, especially when they come up on the indies, they need to be kind of introduced to this idea of TV wrestling. You're wrestling for the cameras as well as the people in the arena. And that sounds like kind of what you're keying in on here. Yep. He wanted me to have at the time a comprehension of what a producer or the producer is looking for

and just being more well-rounded. You know, just having a greater mind about what it is that you're doing and having an idea of what you could expect it will be for people at home. Do you think that the version that we saw of you guys, the last six months in WWE, is what we will see, wherever it is that you guys go next? Is there an evolution of that? I don't think so. I don't think so. No, I think the version of us that you see going forward is like the more raw, unfiltered true version of us. Her and I have had a particular ideology that we've

exercised on the independence. We've always done this. We actually did this before we even knew each other, which was a subject of conversation we could get into before we started dating where we could actually hold a glance and a stare and actually talk to each other without, like, without blushing. It was hard for me to once upon a time, even just, even be near her. I was so intimidated. But her and I have always tried to lean into whatever it was creatively that commercialized wrestling programs could not have because of sponsorships and endorsements.

So to give you an example, if you're at home and it's Monday night, Monday night, mind the night raw is on you're going to get the best produced wrestling program on television on Monday it's a multi-billion dollar company you're going to get the best of the best right you can watch from home what is going to be so interesting about the independence or a show that doesn't have a budget like that produced like that what's going to be so interesting about these other shows where you're going to leave your house after you know maybe working 40 to 60 hours a week you're a father to spend money and go to one of these shows that a, you know, a budget like that. Well, you're going to see everything and hear everything that you can't see or hear on a show that has

sponsors and endorsers that do not want that type of material in their programming. So we've always leaned into, I guess, how Paul would put it, the extreme, the extreme side of stuff. Exactly, which a lot of times on television now, it's very watered down much of the time. In relation to that time period. Like they, the times have changed, right? They want it to be for everyone,

just kids watching and stuff like that. If you go to an independent show and you understand the demographic of fans that are there, they're a little bit older, 18 plus. You should be able to do both, though. Of course,

100%. You don't want to be, you don't want to be pigeonholed or reliant on one particular way of just doing outrage, shocking stuff or doing things PG. I think the version you're going to see of us moving forward is going to be what the people in that town or that city or that state want to see on the night of. And that I love. That gives me an opportunity to paint something different, to do something different in the

canvas wherever I go. And I'm not bound to where I am, you know, in the show or what they need out of me. The promoter in the audience just wants to get the best out of me that night. And I want to get the best out of my opponent. And then everybody wins. That I love. It's going to be a little different every time. We would have a lot of really, really fun ideas. We would pitch. And a lot of the times, I feel like they didn't go with it because it wasn't the producer pitching its idea. We know everyone's trying to keep their jobs and, you know, give in all sorts of different ideas. Because if it's the wrestlers on a television company who are, you know, creating all the ideas and why are you paying this writer? Why are you paying this producer?

So we kept on in mind to a certain extent to not take it personally if our ideas weren't used and they were good. But we don't have those limitations on the pen scene. We do our best to make sure our writers and our producers look good because that's, It's all one family. It's a balance. You know what I mean? But when you go there, you know, the Indies, it's the Wild Wild West. Yes, it is.

This episode is brought to you by skims. The worst thing about underwear is when you're thinking about it all day because it's uncomfortable or it doesn't fit right anymore. Even though I wear underwear every day and I'm assuming that you do as well. But if you don't, I'm not judging. I haven't switched up the kind of underwear that I wear in years. Just the same old tried and true brand. But for those of you who haven't heard yet,

Skims now offers men's underwear, and I am here to tell you it is worth the height. These days I'm rocking the Skims Cotton 3-inch boxer briefs, and it's everything I loved about my classic boxer briefs, but honestly, so much better. They're like the perfect weight, the perfect cotton feel, and the design is nice and simple how I like it. They have a ton of stretch, and they're made from a cooling fabric that never loses its shape. But most importantly, these are comfortable.

So comfortable. Shop, Skims, Men's, and. It's skim.com slash CVV and let them know that we sent you there. So after you place your order, select podcast in the survey and select our show. Insight with Chris Van Vleet from the drop-down menu. On this wide shot, you look enormous. How much bigger did you get? So when Defy called me shortly after August 10th, they said, we want to have you in the super heavyweight cop.

And I was floating at like 260. And I was like, yeah, definitely I'll do it. Get off the phone and I'm like, I don't want to like, I don't want to lie about my weight. You know what business you work in? I know. I know. But I wanted it to legitimately be a super heavyweight cop. So I started eating an extra couple meals a day.

And it started just going back to- He had two desserts last night. You got to throw me on the bus like that. Oh, shit. Well, you're bulking like that. Yes. Wow. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

What kind of dessert did you have? Peanut butter, chocolate. The Moky ice cream. Oh, the Moki ice cream. I had three. I had a cookie monster. You know the blue ice cream? Oh, I love that one with the little cookies inside.

I would smash this table. 10 pounds of steak at Kuyakaku. Yes, it was so good. What do you weigh now? So I'm 275. So I was, you know this, dude. I was on a low carb diet because I wanted to be as lean as possible. Yeah, and you looked great.

Thank you. And then, you know, I won't. And then, you know, I went off the rails. So it makes me so mad because there's so many things with weight limits, like even hang gliding. I wanted to go hang gliding. Weight on most 250. We can't go. Yeah, we go in like canoes and kayaks.

He's going to go like this. They're like, you can't get on this. You're going to kill everybody. You're going to kill me. Yeah. But I wanted it to look right. I was aiming for 280. I didn't make it.

I was trying to get to 280. You need enough ice cream. I know. You see? That's the message, kids. You got to eat more ice cream. Spike your insulin. See what happens.

But how easier is say it is now? Oh, I mean, look, I always tried to keep my deadlifts over 530. So even if the guy's time was off, just casually, I always always want to have him over 530. My dad got that in my head when I was little. When you were little, yes. He said twice your body weight on compound movements and then you're strong. Anything less than that, you're not strong. He just said that the terrorized me.

Yeah. So he said that the terrorized me. And for the uninitiated, how many plates is 530 pounds? Enough to bend the bar. Yeah. That was the, where were we? We're at Iron Religion. The bar was bending.

I said maybe I should take those off. I was thinking about picking it up and the bar snapping. It was about a snap. So it's fun. It's, I don't know. I got to reel your end, bro. Yeah. Because that's, that's 10 plates plus the bar would be 495.

So it's more than that. More than 10 plates. Yes. Stu also, Wade Barrett got me going down the rabbit hole on dead. lifts because I would post a video. This was a few years ago of like my PR of a deadlift. And then Wade Barrett would post one. And he made it look so easy and it was more than mine.

And he's like, yeah, what else you got? And I was like, great. I'm going to break my back chasing PRs at Wade Barrett. I was like, damn it. But he made me stronger doing that. What's your PR? I think it's still 530. I wouldn't even bother trying to get over 530.

I wouldn't even bother. I'm done chasing that. I remember how proud you were when you, for your AC joint and then you did the 500 for the first time after that. That was a big deal. Yeah, that was a very big deal.

He doesn't have an AC joint. Yeah. That was from NXJ. We're both psychopaths. What can I say? Yeah, you guys are. You know. Yeah, I've always been scared to go over 315 in the event that I pull something or I yank something or I'm too sore.

Needs. Because if you're too sore and you get in the ring, there's a chance that you could like, you know, pull something or tear something. 315 was always a safe way to get like a lot of reps at. So front squats with those always. So as long as you're lifting over what your average opponent was weighing, that's what I made sure that I was lifting at. So what do you think Jesse Ventura's personal best was? for squats. I was just trying to get you to do the voice.

You think I don't know that? You think I don't know what you're trying to do, Chris? You think I don't know that you're trying to convolut the minds of the American children or Canadian? You think I didn't know that you were from Canada? Answer the question. What's your PR? Over 9,000. It's over.

It's over. I can't do it. It's over 9,000. Your voice is just becoming this. You realize that. I know. I have to stop. I feel like with Jesse Ventura,

I'm sure you saw this online. With Jesse Ventura back in the WWE family, Saturday night's main event, people were pitching this idea that you would be on commentary with him. I know. Yeah. Or that there'd be a moment backstage

where he walks by you. His son, Tyrell was telling me, when are we going to do this? And I was like, dude, whenever you guys want. Wait, this could have been a thing? Yes, every single time. Every single time they're at Saturday Night's main event.

They're like, are we going to do it? And I was like, well, there's this guy I worked for, right? It's his show. So unless he tells me yes, I mean, of course. So Jesse wanted to do this? Yes. And the producers were asking us, when are you going to do it? I was like, guys, you're in charge here.

Like, just let me know when you want to do it. But I will say this. I 1,000% plan to tag. with Will Saso. It's going to happen. I promise you. Somewhere, someplace,

I'm going to make sure it happens. And it's going to be one of the silliest, most unhinged, violent things anyone has ever seen. As we'll know this? I'm not going to answer that question. We'll just have to see.

We'll just have to see how things play out. Oh, my goodness. That's not even the most insane thing that we have planned that's secret right now. Oh, yeah. Don't say it. It's going to get weird. I'm not.

We're going to get crazy this year. Well, I can't wait to see it. Yes. I just can't believe that a throwaway line from a workout video that you and I did years ago became this thing in itself. I know. Like, that was a four-second clip in a 25-minute workout video that you and I did. Yeah.

That was how it works, though. Right? It's like when you're just having fun not thinking about anything, just an inside joke with your friends, people like just catch on to it. I can't even tell you how long Jay and Jimmy Ousser were saying Yeet backstage before that. Oh, for sure. That was theirs. That was theirs for like a year.

They had everyone's, we were all saying it to each other backstage. And then I remember, it must have been, must have been Jay went out there. It was like, I can't believe he just did that. All the time. I can't believe he just did that. They're both doing it. And then the audience started catching on to it was hilarious. But that was a thing that was happening with everybody that they started backstage.

It was hilarious. I've just blown away. I remember seeing you at a convention. I saw you at that convention in Indianapolis, Square Circle Expo, not long after our workout video. Yep. And you said like every other person was coming up to you asking about your Jesse Ventruen,

bro. Oh, yeah. Don't tell me you don't have four more reps. Just a complete, just silly moment. Yeah. It still happens all the time. All the time.

I'm sorry. It could be worse. Yeah, thanks a lot. It could be worse. It's great. People like it. They enjoy it.

It's so good. And then somehow, I mean, we already talked about it last time we were on the show. But what are the odds that Jesse Ventura's son is like, Jesse would like to do an interview with you, Chris? And I was like, amazing. And he's like, all right, pick Mondays are good for Jesse. So pick a Monday anytime in the next two or three months and we'll make it happen. I picked a random Monday in July and said, how about this?

And he said, sure. And then he goes, oh, are you going to go to Raw that night? And I said, where's raw? He goes, it's in Minneapolis. I went, what? I didn't plan this out. And I'm like, wait a second. Is Carrion on Raw?

Carrying is on Raw. I texted you immediately and you're like, I don't even know what we'll do, but I am 1,000% in. And then I picked you up from your hotel and you're like, what are we even doing? I'm like, I don't know. I don't know.

We're going to go meet Jesse Venture for the first time. See what happens. So awesome. I think you're going to do his voice to him. That was so cool that day. I was like, I don't forget it. I think imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. Yeah.

It was so awesome. He loved it. Yeah. Yeah. It was so cool, man. I just can't believe that the stars aligned like that. Oh, me neither. For all of that to come together.

And Will Sasse's like, yeah, if I'm around FaceTime, I'm like, seriously? Sure. All right. Even better. Even better. That happens more than you sink. Yeah. With us especially.

Yeah. So where will the stuff? stars a line next for you guys. Oh, you'll see. Don't say anything. Oh, come. So great to see you guys. You too.

And I'm so happy that the first thing that you said when you sat down here was like, we're having fun. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. I love that. So I've never asked you this question, and I'll ask it to you after Kevin. But since I end every interview with this question, because gratitude means so much to me.

Scarlett, what are three things in your life you're grateful for right now? It's every single day. Ah, me too. I do this every day. It's so good for you. I tell people to do it. People come to our convention stands. They're like, can you give me some advice on having a hard time?

Name things you're grateful for. My dogs. My dogs. What are their names? Honey and Hugo. And we have a stray cat. We're taking care of named Catnus too. So her too now.

Catness. Yes. I'm grateful for this crazy man in my life. grateful for my health, grateful for my health and the ability to be able to travel, to be able to continue to wrestle and manage and live this crazy life that we live together. Three very simple things. And there's a lot more, but those are the three main ones I can think of right now. But I love that practice of gratitude.

It's amazing that you're recommended to people because it's this idea of focusing on what you have in your life. Instead of being angry about the things you don't have. Love that. It changes your brain. I think it changes the way things attract to you, like a magnet. It's so good for you. All right. Maybe your answers have changed.

Maybe they haven't. My parents being alive and in stable health is number one for me right now. Having people that are following us around the country showing up just to tell us, like, how we mean to them and what we mean to them. we do for them. These people are strangers to us and we don't realize the things that we say and the things that we do and how they can positively impact people. We just hope that it does. And that's unbelievable.

I mean, and a lot of the gifts that they bring for us too, like the art that they're doing. And it's really very touching. And just, I guess, as a thing. third thing. Being able to live this life, like a question we keep getting from people in media is what would you go tell your younger self? Like, what advice would you give a younger self? I wouldn't give my younger self any advice at all. I feel like the mistakes and the errors that you make throughout your life, it's like an opportunity to grow and learn from that so you don't

make them again. I never thought that I would be here in my life, like as a person being comfortable with who I am and everything going on. Every single thing that's ever been a good thing or a bad thing has led me right to here. And I'm very happy where I'm at. That's that idea that if this doesn't happen, then that doesn't happen. You can't go back and change the things that happen in your past because then you're not this person sitting in front of me right now. Yep. I'm so with you on that. Again, great to see you guys.

And sounds like we'll be seeing you next somewhere. So what about a six man with me, you and Will? Will you? Will you? The interview already ended. Who makes sure that this does not get cut out. No. I'm going to get you.

Do not cut this out. The people want him in the ring. Nobody wants to see me, Russell. It's all right. I'll stay. I'll be in the crowd. I will pay money to see that match with you and Will Sassau versus who's it going to be against? Probably, uh, Mr. Jirbel.

Mr. Jirbel. Two of his henchman. Matt Cardone? He already said too much. Mr. Jirbel in the ass. Well, you know, this is where we're at. This is where our kids. Thank you guys.

Thank you. Jim Rome takes on sports. Why? Because I have a job to do with rapid fight. So I don't want to hear from you lava pigs on this notion today. No idea what you're talking about. You're complaining more than you like to breathe air. It's like you get up in the morning only to complain and cry and moan on social media about things that you don't even understand.

He's the spitfire of sports smack. Take advantage of it. Get up in here. The Jim Rome Show podcast. What's your beef? Follow and listen on your favorite platform. You've been warned.