Insight with Chris Van Vliet - Matt Sydal apologizes for our last interview, AEW debut, slipping off the top rope, Evan Bourne

Episode Date: October 22, 2020

Matt Sydal chats with Chris Van Vliet from his home in Clearwater, FL. He apologizes for what happened during our last interview, talks about his AEW debut at All Out, what happened when he slipped off the top rope, how he came up with the name Evan Bourne, his wrestling school called the Sy Dojo, how he planned the Shooting Star Press into the RKO with Randy Orton, the wrestlers he wants to face in AEW and much more! Please subscribe and support the show by supporting our sponsors! INDEED - Get a $75 credit to boost your job post by going to http://indeed.com/BlueWire BETONLINE - Get a new sign up bonus by using the promo code BLUEWIRE at http://betonline.ag Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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It's Chrysomania, brother. That's a great question. Look at you. man with the powerful questions. This is the Chris Van Vleecho. Chris Van Vleet Show. Ladies and gentlemen. Chris!

Greetings and salutations, my friends. Welcome back to another audio adventure on the Chris Van Vleet Show. This episode is brought to you by Indeed and Bet Online. And if you saw the first interview that I did with Matt Seidel about three and a half years ago,

It was awkward and a little strange to say the least. We talk about it a lot during this interview, but there were moments where he just would randomly start rubbing his face. If you haven't seen this, I encourage you to either pause this right now or at some point during the day, check it out so you can see what I'm talking about. I'm happy to say that none of that happens during this interview.

Instead, we got a very insightful, almost hour-long conversation here. that was really enjoyable. So snap a screenshot. Let us know that you're listening with us. Tag me on Instagram. I'm at Chris Van Fleet, and Matt is at Matt Seidel. And if it's your first time here, make sure to hit subscribe on Apple Podcasts or click follow on Spotify. And I know there's still a lot of people that don't know that I have a podcast, that don't know that this audio adventure exists. So any little thing that you can do to help get the word out there is very, very much appreciated. So thank you. And as you know, reviews help out big time on Apple Podcasts. So I've been reading one out on every single episode as my way to say,

thank you for being with me on this. And also secretly, I'm hoping you'll go, oh, he reads out reviews on the show? I'm going to go leave one right now. A.H. fan in Australia says, awesome podcast. Was that Australian? That's an awesome podcast. I'm so sorry. A-H, what's your real name? Adrian. I'm so sorry for that. Excellent work, Chris. One of the best

presenters there is, great selection of guests and great questions as well. Keep it up. Adrian from Melbourne, Australia. Well, thank you, Adrian. I love Australia. I can't wait to be back there. So as soon as things get normal again, I'm hoping to be back there. So me and you, Adrian, we'll be hanging out. It's not like a plan? We can eat some veggie mite together. Matt Seidel has wrestled all over the world. But most recently, you've seen him in Ring of Honor and AEW. In fact, he debuted in AEW at All Out during the Casino Battle Royal and had a super scary moment when he went up to the top rope for the Shooting Star Press and slipped off.

And, man, for a second there, I thought he was going to break his neck. So we talk about that moment and what led to everything happening there. He's still like, seems to be, you know, he's bummed out that it happened. But also, I think we're all happy that he didn't get injured. We talk about his time in WWE and getting the name Evan Bourne. And, you know, while we're talking about shooting stars, we also break down everything that went into that infamous shooting star press into an RKO that he did with Randy Orton.

I've seen that like a hundred times. And it still blows my mind every single time. He talks about how different wrestling in Japan is and how it prepared him to when he came back to America to make him that much better of a wrestler. So there's a lot here. So let's just dive right into this chat. Here we go with Matt Seidel. Well, it's a pleasure to welcome back, Matt Seidel. Matt, thanks for taking the time to do this.

All right. I'm ready to go. You know, I watched our other interview. It was three and a half years ago. And when I saw you last month, you said, I think we need to do another interview. I think we need to make up for that one and also kind of explain what happened there. Yeah, well, I really wish I could remember three and a half years ago and exactly that. I just remember a friend of mine watching that interview later and saying,

Matt, are you okay? Are you doing all right? Like they were just sort of thinking that maybe it hadn't been getting enough sleep. And I think that might have been the case in that interview. And, you know, it's when you do these interviews, I sort of just say yes to anybody who asked me to do an interview. And even if it's maybe at a time that's not ideal for me, like, minute as I'm trying to figure out a wrestling match against four guys that I haven't wrestled and going on in a minute. So it's just one of those ones where I wasn't exactly sure what to expect. When you don't know what you're walking into, sometimes it's not the best interview. Well, in your defense, I met you that night. We were at Ronan Pro Wrestling in Pembroke,

Pines, Florida. I met you that night and said, can we do this interview? You said yes. And then we decided we do it during the intermission. And you were in the main event. So we did it during the intermission. But while we were doing the interview, the show started back up again. Just feel like you were getting like, you were antsy. You were ready to get out there and work. Yeah. I mean, if you catch me the night before I leave on a trip to wrestle, I have horrible anxiety already. I'm going running through a million scenarios in my head. What's going to happen? Who's picking me up?

Where am I going to stretch? Where am I going to eat? What am I going to find a bottle of water? Do I have to put, like, you know, so I'm running through all those things in my head. That's the night before. And then as you get closer, like on the show day, I'm just only thinking about, you know, this. I just put an intense amount of pressure on myself for every match, for every performance. And this was no different.

And when you don't have what you're going to do in the main event, which I have an obligation to all those fans that paid to see me to give them to deliver a match, not only that they expect, but something twice as good as that. And in this case, basically, we still didn't have a match ready. We had no match plan. We had nothing in the can. And then after intermission, there's only three matches and you have to go out there. So we have to figure out spots, commit them to memory, go out and perform.

But, you know, I mean, I don't regret taking the opportunity to speak with you because, you know, here we are, here we are now, a few years older. I think, I think we're, we have a lot of similarities. So, you know, that one didn't go, didn't start well, didn't end well, didn't have a good middle. Hopefully we can fix the beginning, middle, and end on this one. Well, that's, we're off to a great start already. But I'm just, I'm curious during that interview. You kept rubbing your face.

You were like rubbing your face. What was going on? Hmm, like, oh, that's, that's me when I'm frustrated and annoyed. I think right away when you started the interview off, you called me Evan Bourne or whatever, and I was just like, this guy, like, I told you my name's Matt. It says it on my jacket. Like, you can't call me by my name. It's like Muhammad Ali did, he took it a lot more personally than I did.

You know, I said, you know, and I tried to kind of curve things back to the moment at hand, because if you're asking me about Evan Bourne, that's like a whole different mindset I'd have to step into. And really, I was only available to talk as myself at that time and trying to give. trying to have me walk back through this time machine. It just wasn't a great time for me to be able to do that. Like today we can go back and if you wanted to start on my backyard wrestling days and work our way up, we can talk through everything because I'm in that place. I'm not literally trying to think of duck one, kick him in the head.

What am I going to do after I do that? Can I hit the shooting star press tonight? Like, can this guy take a double knees off the top safely? What, you know? And actually three and a half years ago, I was really, really, really. injured, to the point where I shouldn't have been wrestling. I think I'm not the only wrestler who does this, but I definitely have done it more than I should in my life where I have a neck injury and a shoulder injury on top of my pre-existing foot injury. And so I have just this

living in a world of pain and trying to figure out how I can wrestle and survive. So that was sort of a survival mode, survival mindset interview where I was just trying to bang out a quick interview, go back and do my work. And then I was just like, all right, this is, this is not going how I wanted it to. In interviews, I tend to just show my card, just like I do in a wrestling match. Like, when I'm mad, like, it just, it shines through because there's, there's plenty of moments in my life where I try and be really zen and approach things in a non-reactive form. But when you're wrestling, you have to be in a purely reactive state of mind. So however I'm feeling on the outside, on the inside comes out. A lot of times I'm just kind of more quiet and chill and like I feel like I'm

both that can't be shook. But when it comes time for performing and when things are wrestling to relate it, I'm just so all in. It's like I'm wearing my heart on my sleeve. Have you always put this much pressure on yourself or is that just something since becoming a pro wrestler? Yeah. I mean, I was like whether it was getting good grades or whatever it was, I just didn't feel like mistakes were acceptable. And when I got into wrestling, I was very undersized, very much picked on, abused, smacked around, and basically told I didn't belong. So I always felt that I couldn't give anyone an excuse to tell me I didn't belong,

which meant having flawless matches, being the hardest worker, you know, working your job, going to wrestling training, then hitting the gym before you go, before you have that last muscle milk protein shake before you go to bed. that was me in the early days of protein and when muscle milk came out. It was just an obsession. And I mean, I still have that. When I started to wrestle for Dragon Gate in Japan, I had a lot of pressure on myself already. But then I got to somewhere where the standard was higher than anywhere I'd ever been.

There were no hesitations. There were zero mistakes. I mean, it was unacceptable to the company, to the boys in the back, for there to be any hesitations during your performance. It had to be flawless. And so that has never left me. I mean, I can still remember moments of hesitation

from matches eight years ago. When I can't remember anything else, I just remember that one time where I wasn't sure. And actually, I can tell you, this one time I was, it was after I left WWE, I went back to wrestle for Dragon Gate. And we're in Kyoto, which is

like this very spiritual town in Japan. That's where all their temples are. And we wrestle at a building called KBS Hall, which has like a 50-foot stained glass mirror, like stained glass, like it looks like a cathedral wall of stained glass. You've probably seen it in some Japanese magazines. A lot of companies wrestle there. Anyway, the building has some spirits in it. And we always get blessed before the match by the owner. They throw salt on you. And they kind of do a thing to make sure that the spirits are with you. And I'm wrestling ricochet, my brother Mike Seidel's on our team. And like, it's time for the moment.

where I'm going to get tagged in is coming really soon. And I look over to Rickasham, like, what, what am I supposed to do? I have no clue. I completely, I have no idea what we're doing. And he's like, okay, first you're going to, I said, no, no, wait, wait, wait, I'm just going to go with my gut. I stopped him. I said, I'm just going to go with my gut.

I get the tag. I jump in there just like essentially no clue what's happening and just start running. And then it all just came to me right away. Boom, boom, boom, boom. And at Dragon Gate, it happens twice as fast as maybe three times faster than, you. things happen at WWE. I just came in there and it was just, I just switched off my thinking mind, let my, just the open mind walk in there and I just went, went with it and luckily I didn't mess up. But it's those moments where you're just like thinking too much that you kind of walk into these

mistakes. I feel like the spirits were with you in that story. Yeah, absolutely. Like I really do feel like the universe supports me in a lot of ways. That one in particular, like, you know, that was kind of when I was beginning to get really deep in my spiritual journey, and I did, like, a strong meditation. Like, it's something you can't do in American wrestling. Like, the guys will never let you just lay down in the ring or on the mats on the floor. Everybody wants to bug you. They want to say, hey, are you tired or whatever it is?

In Japan, if you're laying down, they leave you alone. If you're stretching, nobody's going to bother you. So before that match, when the building was cleared out, most of the people were already, the wrestlers were in the back. And I had done my pre-show workout and stuff. and I just lay there and I listened to like a Ram Dass meditation before and I just really felt composed and together and not like my mind was in a thousand places. It was just in this one place in KBS Hall. And it really kind of brought my focus down to the point where I didn't even need to actually remember what we were doing.

It was just like imprinted it. It was already in my brain. And it's just one of those ones where I have enough trust in the universe to just lean in and go for it. Is meditation part of your daily practice? In a way, yes. I mean, I wish it was much more of a daily thing, but even if I'm not doing a long meditation, I'm doing a walking meditation or I'm thinking of my breath.

Like, anytime I do these long drives up to AEW, I'll just try doing like 10 second inhale, 10 second hold, 10 second exhale. And that's not really a meditation by any real definition, but it is in a way in that like your mind's just, you're just focused on what, like, on essentially nothing, which is just breathing, but controlling my breath and then getting into a rhythm where I'm not thinking about what the anxiety that can happen

when you're trying to project. When I get to AEW four hours from now, who could I be wrestling and what kind of moonsault am I going to do? You just can't think about that because it'll just get you all tense and anxious, and that being tense actually makes you tired. And being tense takes away your energy because you're clinched up, you're holding in.

It happens in wrestling matches. It happens in life when you get tense. You're just not as able. You don't have the resources to dedicate to your mind-mouth connection. You're too busy. Your body's taking up all the energy. And that's where your breath comes in and your breath can just breathe it out. So, I mean, when I'm in those tough spots, I just remember to breathe.

And I think when I was grabbing my face like this in that interview, if I had done a deep breath instead, that would have been much more beneficial to just being annoyed. because then you take that energy and you can, it's okay, like, it's okay to be annoyed with an interviewer or an interviewee. It's okay to be frustrated. The problem is if you hang on to it for too long, if you don't breathe it out, then you can run into the problems. Well, I apologize for frustrating you and I apologize for perhaps annoying you during that interview, but I'm glad we're in a better spot now. Yeah, I mean, that's not you. That's me. Like, you know, that's my problem, not yours. So, you know, I'll take full responsibility for bombing that interview.

Just, what makes me more upset is now people might go back and rewatch it. But so just stick with this one, folks. We'll get into whatever we want to get into. Yeah, we'll stick with this one, please. All right. So it may look a little bit different. We switched over from one streaming service, now over to the much more stable Zoom here. And Matt, you mentioned, you know, traveling up to A.A.W. and it was such a nice surprise to see you as an entry in the casino battle royal. How did that come together? Yeah, I mean, it was a really nice surprise for me because I had just finished filming the Ring of Honor Pure Title Tournament in Baltimore for a whole week

and sort of thought my next booking wouldn't be till this October set of Ring of Honor tapings. And sure enough, I got a phone call basically the night before the pay-per-view and to see if I was available to work. And it sounds like an awesome spot. So, yeah, I mean, it just was just done old school style. Hey, give me a call and I'll be on the way. You know, for the last two years, since I left Impact in 2018, I've spent basically the last two years just trying to be healthy, be strong,

and be ready for when that opportunity comes. And I sort of felt like this, that's what I've been putting into the universe. I've really been working towards it, even though it's not like I didn't go on podcast and say, oh, yeah, my goal's to be an AEW, because that's just a little more revealing than you want to say. I mean, but really it had been like a focus of mine. Like, it had been a huge, of course, now I got, now you're going to hate me, Chris. My thing just said 20% battery. Oh, my God. I'm going to figure out a way to locate my charger.

when it tells me 10%, I'm going to take a 2,000 break, run, get the portable charger, plug it in, it will be good, I promise it. Okay, I'm sorry. I was just talking about my AEW. Yeah, and just, I mean, that came about because this is an organization that started

basically on the principles that had guided my entire career in wrestling, which is that everything that got us in the past of wrestling is amazing, and we're so thankful for all of that. but it's really time to feature the forward thinkers in wrestling for it, for wrestling to be more of an open thing than a closed book, for there to be less rules and more creativity, for there to be collaboration instead of just like a top down hierarchy of how things go.

And AEW is just like a federation out of my dream. So when I got that call, I was like, I mean, absolutely, I was just so excited. And it's one of those moments where it's like, oh, there's friends I haven't seen in four, five, six years that I'm going to get to hang out with on Sunday. And that, that in and of itself is super exciting, let alone to, like, debut on pay-per-view, which is huge. So you're not exclusively signed to anywhere right now. Correct. I am a free agent. So this is why we can see you on Ring of Honor, and then we can

see you right after that on AEW, and then back to Ring of Honor. Correct. Well, I'm not, I don't have anything booked with Ring of Honor right now, but my match is just sort of, we filmed eight weeks of TV. So I had a match with Ring of Honor on Monday, and then my AEW Dark airs on Tuesday. Or actually, it was, I had an AEW late-night dynamite debut right the day after a Ring of Honor match. And then I had my, then just this past week when I wrestled Sunny Kiss on AEW Dark, the night before I'm wrestling Jonathan Gresham in the Ring of Honor Pure title tournament. So it was pretty awesome for me to like, to know that like, I mean, during the pandemic, there was no work. I had zero.

work. It was very challenging. I mean, I was just holding on by a string there, by a thread, a thin, thread. But I just was dedicated. I really just believed that there would be a, we'd be able to come out of this and I would be ready. And so just during the time off, I was making new gear for myself. Me and my girlfriend make all my costumes here, ourselves at home. So we were just, we were working on new tights. We were working on new knee pads. We were working on all this stuff. And then the ring of honor thing didn't come. It was only a maybe I had a month to prep a month ahead of time that was booked. And then the AEW thing, I had to be ready the next day for it. So it's just one of these ones where you wait and you wait and you wait, but when that call, when that red light goes,

you have to be ready to jump. And like, so I was just really proud of the work that I had done in the dark. And now we get to bring it and show it off in front of everybody. Because I've been working really hard, um, on all sorts of, you know, the preparations to wrestle, but also at my wrestling school, I have a little dojo in Clearwater called Desai Dojo. and I've just been putting in extra work there. And so when I get a chance to wrestle now, I'm just, my comfort level in the rings higher, my like skills are sharper,

and I just felt like I couldn't have a better time to get these huge opportunities. You know, even I've done a lot of things in wrestling, but you have to understand, as a wrestler, I want to do, I've had 20 years of wrestling, thousands of matches. The wrestling, the shows I want to be on are the shows I want to be on.

and AEW was the only place that I hadn't been to that I was just really wanted to be a part of. And since I've been doing work for them for almost a month now, I mean, after this last Wednesday, I was so fired up on just wrestling in general, not just my matches or my performance, but just the state of the business in general. I felt like I was at the elements of joy that I had at PWG and the small American Legion building literally transferred right over to this giant, huge mega company that still has like that kind of small indie at heart, but yet it has the production level that rivals WWE.

So it's just special to be a part of these movements. So now that you've been in AEW for about a month and you've kind of seen the talent that they have there, who are you so excited to get in the ring and work with? Oh, God. Okay. So my favorite wrestlers to wrestle of all times, are the Young Bucks.

So I'm just looking for a tag team partner for that. I have a few ideas, but I don't want to give my whole hand away. So then following them are the Lucha Bros. Wrestling Ray Phoenix or Pentagon would be great. My last, I've wrestled Phoenix once in singles and in a couple of multi-mans, and I've had two against Penta recently. So I think I'm back for a Ray Phoenix match. You know, there's the entire Dark Order.

Brody Lee would be a match I'd love to have. When he was the TNT champion, I was sort of hoping to work my way up to that level. I'm looking for a rematch with Sean Spears. He and I wrestled, you know, 10 years ago when we were in OVW together. And then we went back at dynamite and sort of started a feud during the pay-per-view. And we blew that off at the late-night dynamite. So I would love to get in there with him again. I have never wrestled FTR.

And anybody who claims to be the best in the world at wrestling, they are somebody I want to wrestle. because when I wrestled, the other guys that claimed that I was very much into the matches I had with them. Because when you wrestle punk or Daniel Bryan, anybody who claims to be the best in the world usually is. And so that would be a really fun match for me in terms of a first-time matchup that I've never had. Well, another guy who claims to be the best in the world of what he does is in AEW and Chris Jericho. Yeah, yeah. And, you know, I've already found out in the ring that he is. I mean, and I see it all the time. I mean, with Jericho, he just has this ability to have fun in the ring.

And he has a charisma that's unmatched and he can back it up with wrestling. I mean, that's what punk. That's what Brian. That's what Jericho always have done. Like, they love to tell you about how good they are because they back it up. Like Rob Van Dam is another example of that. you know, so sometimes I find myself upset, upset with myself over a little bit of false humility. You know, I want to, when I say I want to wrestle these guys were the best in the world,

that's because I'm one of those guys too. I don't have to beat you over the head to do it. I like to just demonstrate it. But so anybody who says they are, I said, well, please, let's dance. So you had a pretty scary moment in your debut where you went up for the shooting star and you felt pretty hard. So did you end up getting injured at all in that spot? I am so lucky I didn't get injured.

I mean, that was the craziest turn of events that happened. I mean, I can say I've jumped off that rope thousands of times and zero times have I had a slip like that, zero. This was the first one. It's also the first time there were fireworks exploding in the background and there's a million excuses, but I'm not going to take them. I mean, that was just, it just didn't go well. but what did go well for me was like I said, the universe had my back on this one.

Because when I slipped, I just basically reached back with my arm and as I would have rotated directly onto my head, which we already discussed my neck injuries, which are, you know, it wasn't until January. Like in March, I started feeling okay, but I haven't been taken German suplexes. I haven't been practicing getting dropped on my head because of my neck injury. And I mean, if you look at the rotation, that was set up for a pogo stick. on my dome. I mean, it was, that's the rotation. I reached my arm out. The rope was there. And basically it kept me from turning over onto my head and I just turned partway,

landed on my back and then kind of rolled onto my head. And so, I mean, it was just super scary. It was like life flashes before your eyes type scary. Just a moment where like there was, I didn't even know there were 20 other guys in the ring at that moment. There was just like, it all went to like condensed into a little dot. And man, yeah, when I landed, And I was fine. I was like, all right, all right. Just, you know how I told you about how I get very emotional in matches? Let's just say I had a lot of emotions flowing right there.

And it was not happy. I was very upset. I was like, what just happened? And then, like, Will Hobbs comes over to me and he's like, are you okay? I'm like, get off of me. I'm fine. So mad. Don't touch me.

I'm mad. Like, oh, man, yeah. And then I, you know, what I did is I laid there because it sounded like everybody thought I was hurt. So using my wrestler instinct, I lay there and marinated it. And because I'm in the ring with guys, like I said, who I haven't seen in tons of years, but have been there through my career since day one, like Frankie Kazarian, who's the next guy that picks me from the ground and brings me back,

who restores me to the moment that I was trying to have. It's Frankie Kazarian. He's there exactly what I need him. Perfect timing. He looks at me in the face to check and see if I'm okay. And as soon as he gives me the look, I know he's ready for me to fire off. up on him because he's he's not beating me up he's giving me a chance to take my moment back and even though nothing will ever take the attention back from that i was able to keep going and the match was

able to keep going and we just moved on i mean in wrestling there's nothing else you can do other than pick yourself up i mean i think there's some an old japanese saying which is fall down seven stand up eight i don't know what i just stand up seven times i guess but that's what i just did i just got back up i mean resiliency is a huge part of my career being resilient as a huge part of who I am in the ring and out of the ring. And so this was a chance for me to demonstrate it. I didn't let it break me mentally. I didn't let it break me physically. And does it still hang over me a little bit? But, you know, I don't mind talking about it because reliving it just makes me more grateful to be healthy today. Yeah, I was going to say there's obviously an element

where you were upset that it didn't go the way you planned. But you had to be like, just have this overwhelming gratitude that like you were okay and you were able to finish the match. No, I was just mad at myself for the air. I mean, I told you, that's just there's no way for me to be okay. I didn't even start to feel better. Like, okay, where are you wrestling companies, it matters to the fans, but as wrestlers, what matters is like who's in the back and who are the guys in the locker room with. And so, like, you know, company loyalty is important, but also my loyalty has always been to the,

to the other wrestlers, to the guys who taught me. And when I got back from that match, Christopher Daniels grabbed me and gave me a short little pep talk, but that instantly alleviated my deepest, darkest fears and just put me more on a level playing field. Then more people backstage, hey, you know, just made me feel better about it. And that's really what made my heart, like, stick in AEW, was how these people took me from my moment at my true, like, at my lowest. And when you're down, it's in wrestling. There's plenty of people that will kick you. I felt nothing but being uplifted.

And then that evening, the guys just continued this. And I just was able to like rejuvenate some old friendships. And yeah, I felt better after falling than I did before. And I mean, that would never happen anywhere else because I wouldn't even listen to people telling me to feel better. I would just tune them out and be like, no, I deserve to be mad at myself over this. I deserve to feel bad because I shouldn't have slipped. But the cooler heads and the wiser men in this business prevailed.

and they got me to the point where when I drove home, I didn't spend four hours driving home, just hitting my head into the steering wheel the whole time. I just let it ride. You know, I just said, you know what? I'm going to come back next week and this one. And I'll have another match under my belt. And I'll be just as mad about the mistakes I'm making that match

than the ones in that match. I just try not to like give it more weight than it deserves. But I have to tend to it because otherwise I don't want to just like suppress it and then like it always hang over me. So this was a chance by talking it out with the other wrestlers. That really made me get over it in a much smoother and easier way. It's not a single person on this planet that would look at that and go, oh man, Matt screwed up.

Like it was just, it was just a freak accident. Yes, it's an accident. But there's only one person who can screw that up. It's the person doing the action, doing the jump. So, I mean, like there's, whether it's fans or wrestlers, it's just, but it's fine. It's okay to think that. Um, but wishing that I had got hurt or something, that's demented or, you know, most people were just, everybody I met was just happy. I was okay. And, you know, that's great. And what really made me

happy was getting another opportunity. And really, the next opportunity I got an AEW was to be on the late night dynamite. So I didn't, I wasn't sure if I'd ever, you know, you got to work your way up to being on dynamite. You got to work your way up to being on live TV. And they put us right out there with a live dynamite. And me and Sean Spears had a main event. We went long. I mean, we had a full slobber knocker of a match. It was no introduction match.

I mean, it was, they put me right back in deep waters to see how I would perform again. And, you know, that was an opportunity. I jumped on. I seized. We had a banger. Just what I was looking for. And that redemption felt so good. That redemption felt real because I felt like I got a chance to show who I am and what I can showcase.

However, I will still say, I'm still. good at battle royals. Like I will do a battle royal. I love them. I'll take another chance. Maybe I'll be an early entrant than the surprise entrant. But, you know, getting a chance to have that singles match with Sean Spears was a great redemption. Even though sports may have taken a little bit of a break in 2020, your business didn't. You have to keep moving and that makes hiring more important than ever. Indeed is here to help. Indeed.com is the number one job site, the world because Indeed gets you the best people fast. Unlike other sites, Indeed gives you full control and payment flexibility over your hiring. You only pay for what you need and you can

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Don't forget to use the promo code Bluewire at Betonline.com. That's Blue Wire, all one word. Bet online, your online sportsbook experts. When I saw you at the Independent Wrestling Expo, a number of people came up to you and asked about the other spot, you know, the other famous Shooting Star Press spot with Randy Orton. And, I mean, it was amazing for you to like retell that story like it had just happened yesterday. Like that was, and that was something that happened quite a while ago, but that's something that sticks in everyone's mind, I mean, even still to this day. Yeah, I mean, what's funny is I probably, when I think of my memories of that happening,

I more just think of how it looks on the video. If that makes sense, like my memory is not like from my perspective. It's like what everybody else saw. But, but I mean, like I was saying to me, that's what I'm going for every single night. Like, that's what I'm trying for. Sorry. We got a cameo there. Yeah, he's should be in, it's Friday.

day we do gifted class. So usually it's pretty easy, but second grade's not, second grade's not easy for anybody. Hi, Leo. Hey, Leo. Okay. Yeah, but I mean, when I like, with, um, see, as far as that RKO goes, it's like, um, I, there's so many ways to think about it. But I mean, when people, when, when you get that moment that gets people to jump up off their chair, jump out of their seat, it reminds me, of the moments that got me to do that when I was young. Like there was that time Taz and Bam Bam, like Taz had Bam Bam in the choke and they went through the entrance way, boom, boom, like through the elevated entrance way.

Everybody jumps out of their seat when Undertaker threw mankind off the hell in a cell. Every, all my friends that I was watching that, which everybody jumps up and starts screaming. So essentially, every time I wrestle, every single match, AEW, dark, main events on paper, whatever it is. that's the moment I'm going for. It's that one moment where everything stops and like everybody is all the attention, all the energy is right there in that one spot. And we did it that night. I mean, I didn't even realize that I had done that maybe once or twice before. I think Alex Shelley gave it to

me one year at a PWG Battle of Los Angeles 2006 or 2007. He and I did Shooting Star and he gave me basically a cutter, but it was just with Randy and the WWE, it was just such a special moment because that RKO had been established and he was the master of it. And people had seen it from all these different angles, but nobody expected this one to happen. I came in, I fly to the ring, full fire, kick him in the head and go up and everybody expects the shooting star press. And in fact, the camera works so good. They focus in this really, really, tight shot on me on the turnbuckle. You almost forget that Randy Orton's laid out on the ground. You just see me climb up and you see right when I jump, then they cut to the shot where there's Randy

as he's flying up into the air and catches me. I mean, it really still pulls people out of their seat and like ESPN posts that on their Instagram and of course they don't tag me. But yeah, when they post that like tons of people end up saying, hey, Matt, check out this. And like, it's cool that it gets people going and because there are just moments like that that connected me to wrestling and I think that's what I'm always going for. For me, it was never about like, I want to be the champion. I need to be the person that everybody loves and adores. It's I just wanted to like reach through the screen and grab people, whether it's by their head or their heart, whatever it was that like when you're 16 and you're watching wrestling and it just connects on this level that, you know, a therapist wouldn't

be able to give you the kind of support that wrestling gave me. And I, I think just that's the connection I'm looking forward to to bring people into the sport I love. And it's a way to share. Like, you can show people that clip and it might make them excited about seeing a wrestling match that night. You know, and that's what I want to be as a good ambassador for the business and the sport. And like, you know, that's what wrestling is today. It's surprising, though, to hear that that wasn't the original spot, that that hadn't been done. Like, you'd done that before. I don't, I don't think a lot of people would realize that. Yeah. Well, what's even worse is that, um,

I think the first time I saw it get nailed was M Dog 20, who does a shooting star press as well, Matt Cross. Him and B-Boy did it on an IWA Mid-South show I was on. And I was like, oh my God, that was awesome. And this loop, we happened to be in Ohio and Matt was doing tough enough, I think, at the time. So he was an extra. And so we were in like Dayton or we were in Columbus on Sunday. And I was talking to him about it.

And I said, oh, yeah, man. Hey, if I ever get in there, if I ever have a feud with Randy Orton, I wanted to do Shooting Star into the cutter. And he goes, yeah, that's awesome. You should totally do it. The next day on Monday, the next day on, I think I even told Randy about it on Sunday, that Sunday night.

Then on Monday, this is how wrestling happens, 24 hours. Then on Monday, turns out me and Randy have a segment. And I say, anybody want to do this? Shooting Star Press, RKO. And there was some doubts from, you know, management that it was humanly possible, they're physically possible. but it really was, it was just this perfect merging of two guys special moves, two guys,

you know, the things that we, I don't want to say we do it without thinking, but it's just something we can do confidently. And I jumped and, you know, there's no control. So basically I'm jumping and if he's there, I'm going to land on him. And if he jumps up and gives me a cutter, I'm taking a cutter. There's no, to me, I have to basically do the same leap and dive. And then just as I've come through, kind of as my head clears where I'd be able to see the ground in my opponent is just just instantly getting caught and just hitting the ground. So I don't really have like this visual image of it. And so I've done a quite a few shooting star presses in my life. Yeah.

The easy version, the safest one is where there's a crash pad, okay? Landing on a big opponent, that's easy. Give me a guy who's 200, 300 pounds. I kind of land on him and bounce off and it's not too bad. the worst landing is going belly out and just smacking, like doing a belly flop into a pool. But instead of a pool, it's a wrestling ring, which a lot more.

And then so this one was, I would say, like the highest level of pain degree because I also had the extra downward gravity of it. But I did land basically how what would be the best way to land, just belly out and eat it. And that's why I just lay there after.

Sometimes I have a lot of energy and I'm selling very energetically. On that one, I just ate it and there's no wind left in me. There was nothing. So I just lay there like a fish, like all. Did Randy think this was possible when you presented the idea to him? Yeah. I mean, basically he didn't even hesitate.

He said, well, yeah, it'd be cool. Like, if we could do it. Like, you know, and I just said it's possible. And it was, it's really like, it's a challenge for him to like jump up at the right time. And it requires it, it requires a very high level of athleticism. in timing, but, like, Randy's not, like, that's not going to be hard for him. He is athleticism and timing. So it was, it just all fell into place that one weekend, like, right there and wherever

was Ohio or some, you know, for me, it's like, I don't, it doesn't matter where it happened or when. It's just that we did it. And like, I gave the fan something to remember because once I do it, for me, my pleasure is into doing it. I want to paint this picture. I painted it. Me and Randy painted it.

We signed off on it. and now it's for everybody else. It's yours. If you want to give it and put a little dead fish instead of me doing it or people want to turn into it. It's for them. We make this art for everybody else. The making of it is where I, like, that's where I'm myself, my highest self, my best self.

But after it's done, it's for everybody else. So that's the same way when I slip on the rope. Like, that's not what I was trying to do. But now it's for everybody else. I'm not going to get too hung up on it anymore. But if people like make me relive it and rehash it all the time, I'll be okay. Did you guys practice this? Like, did you go over this?

Or what we saw live was it? Yeah, I mean, what you saw live was it. I mean, there's really no way to practice. I mean, I can't belly out like that in practice. Hey, buddy. It would be too dangerous. Hey, Leo. Hey, but, pal, can you give me just a minute?

Go back to Ms. Stefanko's class, would you? Now he's a good student. Education is number one. Okay, so, no, there's just no, there's really no way to rehearse it. I mean, Randy had to kind of, I wanted to see, you know, kind of see how he'd get up for it. But, I mean, there's no way to walk that through. But we did, I think there was like something for the cameras. We may have done something so that the way they can get the cameras right for it.

And that the truth is, this move would not have had the same impact if it had been filmed differently. If they had had different camera angles, if they had done. So like, wrestling is really important. but I've always thought that the wrestlers as the boys, we do our jobs. We have bangers every night. Live event on TV. We kill it. But there was something lost in the translation to the viewers.

I don't know if you were a big ECW fan, but was that like a course. But there was something about ECW that made it feel more raw and real and brought it home to you. And so I think we connected with it. It can involve us a little bit more. And I sort of think sometimes the WWE shows you the whole picture. So sometimes you see everything. and so that's almost too much. But when you narrow the frame, they narrowed the frame right on me.

So all you're thinking is airborne is going to jump. He's going to jump. And you forget that Randy's there. And he's not unconscious. All he did was take one kick. So when I jump, then Randy basically comes from out of frame, thus the out of nowhere and does it. So we executed the move. But it took a whole team, cameramen, the guys in the back, the producer of the segment.

So it's like, I, yes, I get glorified. I'm getting, taking that RKO, but really, it's a team effort. And I mean, like, it goes all the way back to my parents letting me save up my money to buy me a trampoline when I was a kid. Like, it was not just me out there doing that. It was like the accumulation of all the work I put in, all the work Randy's put in, all the work the producers put in, and we just made magic that night. And I know that we're hunting for that forever. I mean, that's a feeling that you just don't want to leave as a one-off. You want to just keep running back to it.

That's very humble of you to include everybody, because unfortunately a lot of people don't realize all the cameramen that are there, or the producers behind the scenes, or the director who's calling the cuts to make sure that it cuts properly. That's really great of you to be able to show that appreciation to all of them. Yeah, well, I mean, it's something that I really study,

like, media and its effects and, like, the difference between TVs and movies and how things are shot. And it just, it's beautiful. They have these super close-ups. So it wasn't, you didn't just see me after I took the fall. You didn't just see my body there. You saw my face. And then it goes to Randy's face.

And he's in this wild celebration. And it's an energy that people pick up on. I mean, like, it, like, there's always these things. We talk about psychology and wrestling. We talk about these. But it's all underneath the surface. It's like these real raw feelings that wrestling's able to elicit and people connect with. And like, when you can surprise.

people on TV and it's not a horror movie and you're not scaring them with gore or like just disgusting violence it was like a stunt I guess it was a stunt that really brought brought people right to that moment right where they were at and what what I love about that moment is people stood up and high five their friends and like grab the person next to them and shook them and that creates this bonding experience between the family the same way me and my brothers watch wrestling every people and their friends do it it's like that's what's special about it like me doing a Who, like, I just, I can't pat myself on the back too much for it. But to create a moment where, like, families still, like, laugh about it.

Like, you know, maybe they did say, oh, he flapped like a fish, isn't that funny, oh, fishy, born? So, you know, just whatever inside joke you can create from that. That's what's special about it. Like, when me and my brothers still do Deilo Brown promos, I mean, like, Deel Brown might not have been as big of a star as the rock. But to us, it felt like he was. To us in these moments, it's just as deeply connected as a guy who sold,

millions of dollars in merchandise. And so that's why it's like if I don't sell a million dollars in merchandise by doing that match, like it, to me it wasn't about, it's never been about doing it for money. I never, I still can't believe people pay me to wrestle. I mean, I've been working hard at it. So it makes sense now. But my whole career, I never thought, like my whole career, I thought I would have to work a regular job and just wrestle as my hobby and just the fact that I was able to turn what I loved into what I do to get paid. And then to like have a moment where the collective world of wrestling's eyes are on me, I just grew up in the suburbs in St. Louis.

I just nobody ever told me I'd be anything special or do anything monumental like that. And it's wild to go back and think about that I've had this sweet effect on pro wrestling. You absolutely have. Look, I want to be very respectful of your time. I know that you have some kids you need to teach. But I want to ask you before you go, Matt Seidel is so vastly different from who Evan Bourne was. where did the idea for the name Evan Bourne come from? Okay, great question.

This is another answer that if people think things in wrestling are these nicely laid out plans with six months planned out for this. It was not like that. Nobody, I was in WWE Developmental, and I had gone from Ohio Valley Wrestling. I went from Dragon Gate Pro Wrestling on a Friday night, Ring of Honor in Chicago on a Saturday, and then Sunday packed up my bags, drive to Ohio Valley Wrestling.

Go in there, that place was just insane. Craziest egos, a bunch of wild guys, like a bunch of wild guys, like people, Wild West Wrestling, old school Southern wrestling. I'm there for five months. I work my way up. I'm like OVW Champion. They ship us all down to, well, first, everybody feels like we're all going to get fired, but then they did send some of us down to Florida to begin FCW,

which is kind of the reason why I still live here in, the Tampa Clearwater area. I started FCW, and there's like 60 guys, and I'm not on the list of guys that should be watched. They had a meeting. They point out this guy, Rob Terry, who I love, they're like, Rob Terry's going to make millions of dollars in this business, and the rest of you aren't going to do shit.

And I remember thinking, well, hell no, that's not me. Like, I'm good as hell at wrestling. Like, I don't know if I'm good at what you guys want, but I know, like, I just came from Japan, from Dragon Gate. My confidence was high. Like, you could chop me 20 times. I wouldn't turn red. Like I was like, I could go with anybody in the ring.

There was nothing. And I was in there with the guys who are the best in the world. Just not a lot of people know who they are. Still very valid and unbelievable wrestlers. But I came from there and I had this real high confidence. And this guy from the Indies called me on the phone and was like, hey, bro, can you get me a dark match? And I was like, what are you talking about? I'm in WWE developmental.

I get paid by them. And I've never had a dark match. In fact, I've never even been considered for a dark match. So I hung up the phone and I thought to myself, what am I? I'm going to do. I decided to book myself. So I just flew myself to some shows that WWE had. I asked permission to show up. They told me don't go. I told them, oh, it's, it's, I'm going home to for my brother's college graduation, but just so happens to be when there's shows in Kansas City in St. Louis, which is just like the ultimate work because I was only

going there for those shows. Yeah. So I brought my gear. I went there kind of not approved. And before the show. I got in the ring with Jamie Noble. I wrestled him just kind of in front of the other wrestlers. I didn't do one flip. I didn't do. I just did what he told me to do. Drop kick, something else. You know, nothing too big, but I showed that my footworks there, my timings there, that I, that I was not just a little guy. I was a capable wrestler. And then so the next night, I earned my dark match. That's Monday night before Monday Night Raw. I wrestle Jamie Noble in like a 12 or 15 minute full-on match. He gives me double underhook tiger driver into the arm bar. I mean, it was, it was a, it was a wrestling match. And, you know, it was, it was pretty good. And so, um, they were

pretty confident and high on me at the time right after that match. And the next day was Smackdown. Before Smackdown, they film ECW. Well, Shelton Benjamin was feuding with Coffey Kingston and they needed somebody to wrestle him. And it was proposed that I would do it. But on ECW, they wouldn't, actually, they did let me use Matt Seidel this week. So I wrestled as Matt Seidel against Shelton Benjamin. He powered on me over the announce table onto a chair and I got counted out. When did they ever do stuff like that? It was just nuts. It was awesome. Shelton gave me a great first match. The next week, they had me come back. So I booked myself the first week. Literally the next week, I'm there. They asked me to wrestle on ECW, but they have to change my name. They give me a bunch of

really bad, we'll call them developmental names. And I was like, oh my God, I said to the writer name, Jen, I was like, Jen, I have to live with this name for the rest of my life. Could I please have a few minutes to think of something better than what the names they laid out for me? And she goes, yeah, you know, five, ten minutes, we need a name. That's it. And I'm like, what do I do? So the only, the bet that I knew there the most was punk from our time at IWA mid-south. And he was always kind of there for me and looked out for me. I said, Punk, what do I do? They're telling me my name should be Jason Jordan or something like this. That's not, you know, what do I do? How do I come up with a name? He goes, I can't, what do you want me to

do? Come up with a name for you. And he said, listen, talk to Joey Stiles. He's good at this kind of thing. And he's the kind of guy who can help you. So I asked Joey to help me. He took me into his office. We sat down, put on our thinking caps and came up with a couple names and, And like we thought of like Evan and Eric for first names and Bourne and something else for the other names. And we, Evan Bourne was our top pick. They sent it to legal. Legal says, great. Jen, the writer comes to me.

He says, you're Evan Bourne now. And can you please do a promo for a picture and picture for your introduction? And so I literally like right away, I say, hey, I'm Evan Bourne. I'm not good at promos. I'm going to be doing a match later on tonight. Please watch. Thanks. Bye.

but it's just terrible picture and picture promo. And as soon as that promo ends, Colin Delaney, who's a pal of mine, who was in ECW at the time, he was just off stage there. And, you know, I finished my picture. Yeah, I'm Evan Bourne and watched me wrestle. He goes, we cut, Colin Delaney goes,

Evan Bourne. Oh, you can be airborne. And then so I went from nothing to just happening because the universe supports me enough. I got this name Evan Bourne that just happened to tie into airborne, which is just basically the nickname. I always tried to, like, ditch the Evan and just be airborne. WW never was like dig.

I don't think anybody dug that idea, that concept. But just like, I always just thought airborne was very catchy. And I'm just really lucky that that day, punk was there, Joey Stiles, Colin Delaney. Like I said, like, every wrestler, we, like, I have to do all my work. I have to be killing it every day, grinding, grinding, grindy, griny. But in the end, like, it's this synergistic magic. Like, if you go back to, like, my five-star match that I had with the bucks and, uh, Lucha Bros, a PWG.

Like, that match is amazing, but it's just, sure, I had to be there, but it's like the magic of when we all got together. Because separately, we couldn't have thought of these moves, shooting start pressed into a Meltzer driver, unless we were all there popping these ideas off each other. So there's just like a lot of the magic in wrestling happens five minutes before you go out there, 10 minutes before you go out there. And certainly within the 24 hours before it happens, thus that massive bout of anxiety I always have before I leave to travel is like I need to make magic happen. And how do you come up with an

idea if you're not there? But that's just like I try and remind myself that that anxiety is actually just a version of excitement that I can remind myself, hey, you're actually just excited about your opportunity to wrestle and have this performance that you know you can, you know you can have the best match. You know you can make people jump out of their seats. You can know you give the fans their money's worth, which in the end is like just this goal of mine from when I was a fan and would save up so much money for 10. Sorry, there's a giant blue heron squaw. We've got everything in this interview. This is amazing. Yeah, you know, it's we try and keep everybody on their toes. So yeah.

But man, you know, it's, it's just that that's wrestling, man. We just, so much of it happens that moment. Just before you go out to the ring, you have this idea. you mentioned it to the guy and you're all of a sudden 15 minutes later you're hitting it and it changes the course of your life. I mean, there's just when you're doing live improv quasi-impro wrestling, there's just all these variables. And wrestling is like your match never happens until you walk through the curtain. And, you know, you would never tell somebody, hey, I'm going to, I would never tell somebody I'm debuting on AEW pay-per-view tonight because that doesn't happen to you walk through the curtain. and then all the variables condense into that moment of just like truth.

It's like for wrestlers, getting in the ring is our moment of truth. It's like there's all the possibilities, but the only ones that happen are the ones that happen right then there when the cameras are on. And when you tell a story like that, it makes me realize how spiritual wrestling is when you when you talk about it like that. And I love how you throw things out into the universe and then they come right back to you. And it's been a tough year for a lot of people. 2020's been a tough year. So as we end this, I'm curious, Thanksgiving's, you know, a month away.

When you sit down for Thanksgiving this year, what are you going to be thankful for or grateful for for you in 2020? You know, for me, like, I've, it has been, you know, the struggle has been real. I haven't been able to go see my family like that, like, I haven't been able to fly out and visit any of the family in St. Louis that, you know, like I said, was my support system that launched my, launched everything. And so I actually am going to get to go home and see my family, see my parents. My grandparents are in like a nursing home where you can't go visit them directly. But it's, it's just like a chance to just giving back is a huge part of what I do. Like I said, I have a wrestling school. If you looked at the books, you'd say, Matt, no, you're sponsoring young wrestlers because that's, that's what it is on paper. Yeah,

they pay to go there, but it's not, the books don't balance out as, you know, I'm not making a living as a wrestling trainer. I'm making a living as a wrestler. But being a trainer is how I give back and how I was given so much by these guys when I was a young wrestler. Kid Cash and Jamie Noble just caught me when I'm, you know, basically before I'm 18 and start showing me the ropes. The guy that ended up signing me to WWE saw me wrestle the first time when I was 17. And there's just this cycle of people, of people reaching down one to one and bringing the next guy up. And so I'm just trying to like give back to that. So really what I'm thankful for is all these people in my life that keep me on track, that keep me motivated, that keep me like, like, happy that make me like laugh when I'm like

getting ready for bed. And I think about something silly. One of my students, I have a student named Fabu, Andre. He's done some AEW darks. But I've worked with him. I've worked with him in some indie shows. Yeah. So Fabu cracks me up. And just these people, they're just so special to you. And like, I'm, I mean, I know it sounds silly to be thankful to wrestling, but I'm thankful to wrestling for bringing us all together for having like, you said wrestling is spiritual. Like, I wrestle on a Sunday. I'm always like, we're at church today. Like, it's a church day. Because it's like, you know, that's where we meet.

We collaborate. Everybody gets together. We, we forgive ourselves. We, like, we just, it's, it is my, it is my guiding light. My, my religion in so many ways outside of archaic perubanism and Judaism, which are also my other two religions. but, you know, I'm a guy with a lot of interests and, like, wrestling just somehow encompasses all that and puts me around the people. So, I mean, I'm really just thankful for the people that are around me because, like, I can't control. There's so many things in this world that are out of our control from coronavirus to the response to it to, like, the unfortunate poverty and loss of jobs and so much hurt that we see all over the world that when I'm with the people I'm with, like, we're keeping, we're doing everything.

everything we can to help the person next to us and then they can help the person next to them because we can't you can't help everybody but if you're doing good you know just so that's i mean really what i'm thankful for is all the people who are giving me that good and like re-inspiring me um so many times in interviews i get asked oh who inspired you when you're a kid but really like what inspires what matters the most is who's inspiring you today and i have like a list of wrestlers i have a list of people outside of wrestling that inspire me i have like my friends and really i'm thinking thankful for like to be able to be inspired because when you're depressed and you're going through these hard long periods you don't get that inspiration you don't feel that moment where you want to jump up

out of bed and drop kick somebody you know and i felt that too and i just am like thankful that the cycle's coming up you know the swings going in the direction in the right direction for now and i'm just going to ride that well i'm grateful to you i'm grateful for you and for your time today and thank you for dealing with the technical issues we've had but this has been a conversation. I could talk to you all day, but I want to be respectful of your time, and I know you've got a lot of things to do today. Yeah, absolutely. Well, next time I would just, like, we have seen each other in person. So I really look forward to doing that because, I mean, I actually was, like, I was going to stop the interview part, not stop it, but just, I wanted to

ask you about, like, the belt on your bookshelf, like, the cool, like, be great and be grateful you have in the background. Like, you've got, like, anyway, we can have lots more talks on and off camera. Like, just, just sign me up for them. And thank you for your understanding, my previous interview and that, you know, next time we do an interview, it just will be after my match, not before it. It'll be, you'll have like clear-headed Matt Seidel, not like, anxious, insane guy. I mean, I'm crazy and I'm happy about being crazy, but like insane is too deep. And that's where I was sort of out. This is what we got today. We got a very clear-headed, Matt Seidel. And thank you for talking us through this journey. These are, like, you are an amazing

storyteller, not just in the ring, but here one-on-one in a conversation. You're an incredible storyteller. That means a lot coming from you, Chris. Thank you. Well, thank you, Matt. And I look forward to doing our next interview in person. Beautiful. Peace love, Pro Wrestling. And, yeah, Matt Seidel on Instagram or whatever. Pro Wrestling t's.com, Matt Seidel, M-A-D-T-S-Y-D-A-L. Find me if you want to get back. Thanks, Chris. Well, there you go, my friend. A much-M-M-M-A-M-M-M-A-D-R-Rate upgrade from the last interview with Matt Seidel, which of course you can check out on YouTube if you haven't seen it yet, or if you just want a refresher of it. Yeah, it's there for you. And I know I said it there, but he is a fantastic storyteller. I love this. Take a screenshot.

Let us know that you're listening. Tag us on Instagram so we can share this and say hi. I'm at Chris Van Vleet, and he is at Matt Seidel. That's very easy to remember. He's been doing some great stuff in AEW. But as he mentioned, he's a free agent. So I think that there's no reason he wouldn't get signed to a full-time deal. And when he does get signed to that deal in AEW, I feel like that's when we're really going to start to see the magic happen in the ring, especially with all those opponents that he listed off that he wants to work with in AEW. Oh, and I just love his story of how he got his first match in WWE by basically flying himself

to the show and bringing his gear and kind of talking them into giving him a match. it's so incredibly inspiring. And it's something I can totally relate to. That's basically how I got my first job in TV. And if you haven't heard the story, I'll make it real quick here. But I looked up the email address for the general manager of the TV station that I wanted intern for. I was still in college at the time.

I wrote this unsolicited email. I'd never met him before. And I said, look, I'm going to be in town in a few weeks. Peterborough, Ontario, Canada. The TV station was called Checks TV. I said, I'm going to be in town. Do you have a few minutes that I could meet with you, maybe talk about this internship? I mean, this was a total lie because I had no plans of going to that town.

It was 60 miles away from my hometown, an hour drive. But he said yes. And to make a long story short with my story and with Matt's story, it pays to take a chance and bet on yourself. Because no one believes in you more than you believe in yourself. And as I sit back right now, recording this episode, I think, what if I never sent that email? What if I'd never taken that chance? What if I never, you know, I got that internship, which ended up turning into a job as a TV reporter. What if I never drove those 60 miles each way five days a week for the 18 months I worked at that job? What if I never took those chances?

And the reality is, probably wouldn't be sitting here having this conversation with you right now. So as the legendary Tom Petty once said, go after what you've read. really love and find a way to make that work for you. And then you'll be a happy person. Tom Petty! Be great. Be grateful. Have an amazing weekend. And we will see you soon. The Hammer Alley podcast, an 80s flashback mockumentary. Back in the 80s, there were a thousand bands trying to make it in the world of rock. But there was one band that had it all. Hammer Alley. Whatever happened to Hammer Alley. How did they go? from Top of the Rock.

I'm looking for a music video. You're a band from 1987. Hammer Alley. Ever heard of then? To Rock Bottom. Dude, I was born in 1987. I can't believe he's doing this. Hammer Alley.

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