Insight with Chris Van Vliet - Mike Rome on His tattoos, WrestleMania 36, Alexa Bliss, His voice cracking on TV, ring announcing

Episode Date: March 23, 2020

WWE ring announcer Mike Rome chats with Chris Van Vliet. I usually love having these conversations in person but since that’s not possible right now, this is my first ever virtual interview. Mike talks about how he was hired by WWE, his love for DC Comics, Marvel and Disney, his new tattoo, his voice cracking while announcing Shane McMahon, the segments he did with Alexa Bliss, WrestleMania 36 at the PC and more! Thanks to Bet Online! Use the code BLUEWIRE at BetOnline.ag to get a 100% welcome bonus on your first deposit. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

What's up, y'all? It's Druski, and I've teamed up with Mountain Dew to produce a hilarious new basketball podcast called The Do Zone with Drewski. Learn the backstories of your favorite ballers and celebrities like Jamal Murray. Did you have like a favorite team? Was it the Raptors at the time or no? Was the Raptors even started around that time? Come on, bro. I ain't that old, fam.

You're talking like I'm 50. Taylor, Rokes, Asian Wilson, and many more. You won't want to miss this. Listen to the Doozone with Drusky on Apple Podcast, Spotify, and wherever you listen to podcasts. It's Chrysomania, brother. That's a great question. Look at you. man with the powerful questions

this is the Chris Van Bleach Show Ladies and gentlemen Chris Welcome back to the CVV show And wow A lot has changed in the world since the last episode And that was just on Thursday Hope you're doing well, hope you're safe

Hope you're healthy This episode is brought to you by Bet Online And it's a little different than what we normally do I love being able to do interviews in person because I feel like there's something so special about being in the same room as someone, being in their energy, and being able to look at them in the eye

and shake their hand, but since none of that is possible right now, we had to improvise. As Plato famously said, necessity is the mother of invention. So this interview with Mike Rome was done virtually, and I'm guessing a lot of these interviews,

at least for the next little while, will be done virtually until things get back to normal. My move to Los Angeles this week had to be postponed because, well, nothing in Los Angeles is open. So there's no point in moving there right now. It's also very clear in this interview that the audio and video on my end, on my computer, weren't as good as what was on Mike Rome's iPhone. So don't worry, I've got that all under control for the next one. And Mike's just such an interesting guy. I guess we should call Austin Romero, because that's his real name. Austin is such an interesting guy.

and there's so much more to him than what you just see on Monday nights, including a lot of tattoos, which are covered up by his suit. If you haven't yet, please take a few seconds to leave a review on Apple Podcasts. We're closing in on 800 reviews.

The goal, of course, is 1,000 reviews by the end of the year, which we're getting very quickly. So I'm going to keep reading one out every episode until that happens. Like this one from Troy A. Turner, who titles this, you need to subscribe to CVV.

I enjoy listening to Chris Van Fleet's podcast because the interviews never feel like interviews, but actual conversations between people. The powers that be need to give him a TV show. I'll gladly sit down for an hour and watch his interviews with the best in wrestling. Well, thank you, Troy. And even if you don't leave a review like Troy did, I still love you anyway. And I feel like with the state of the world right now, we need podcasts and YouTube more than anything to keep us occupied

and to keep spreading that positivity because there is so much negativity out right now with this pandemic. So let's continue to spread the positivity. And you will be hard-pressed to find someone who is more positive than Mike Rome. Not only

is he a great ring announcer, he's just like a great and happy dude. He's also admittedly a nerdy dude. I mean, he has this incredible Batman and Joker's sleeve on his right arm. Great tattoo there. And I know you can't see it because it's just the podcast, but in the background of this interview,

is his office filled with Power Rangers stuff, Batman stuff, Marvel stuff. It's just a total nerd cave, and it's awesome. He talks about how he got his job with WWE, how he was working with Nickelodeon and Universal Studios before this. He does a great Beetlejuice and Grinch impression, by the way, which you'll hear in this one. It talks about how he came up with the name Mike Rome, because as I mentioned, his real name is Austin Romero. talks about what it's been like working with no crowd on RAW the last few weeks in the performance center.

We also talk about his segments with Alexa Bliss and the yellow hair, the platinum hair that he had at SummerSlam. Oh yeah, let's dive right into this great chat with Mike. Rome. Had to be a ring announcer there for a second. Well, I got to say, Mike, this is my first ever remote interview. So this could be great or this could be absolutely terrible. I feel honored that you chose to include me in on this first time. This is the only way we can do interviews.

We can't even be in the same room anyway. No, this is like a social distancing interview. That's exactly what this is. So thank you for taking the time to join me. Of course. Thanks for having me, man. I appreciate that you're showing off the new ink on your right arm there. This is the latest right here.

Very nice. Wow. So explain from shoulder down to. your wrist. What do we have here? Well, do you have any tattoos? I don't. No. Okay. So here's the thing. It's like I had a couple

small ones, but I didn't really like understand the intricacies of like putting together a sleeve, right? So I got like a couple and I'm like, I need to get a sleeve. I need to do this. So I decided to book it. I booked it. I mean a year ago, I think it was

to get the artists I wanted and whatnot. So we sat down and And I'm like, all right, this is going to be great. Here it is. This is what we're going to do. And she's like, you know, I'm going to come up with a concept based on your ideas. And I was like, awesome. So you don't get to see it until we come in for your first session.

I was like, oh no. Yeah. So she came back to me. And at the time, like, when you first sit down to like do your console, you, you end up like, you have all these ideas. You're like, I want the stay puff marshmallow man and beetle juice. And then I want to have the Farragut. Like, there's just all kinds of.

of stuff on there. So she's like, I didn't really know how to put all this stuff in. And I'm like, don't worry about it. I got a better idea now. So we sat down and I was like, I want to do Batman. Like, those are like the whole thing I want to do from the beginning. Yeah. So we started to do this piece, which so you can tell it's still got a lot of stuff to do.

We started to do this piece. And then the idea she had for the other parts was going to be basically like Spider-Man and like the Avengers and stuff. It was basically going to be DC versus Marvel. and the infinity gauntlet was going to be down here and they were going to be going to be going for the gauntlet. I was like, you know what? Screw it.

Just make it a Batman one. So one of my favorite paintings, Alex Ross, Batman, today and tomorrow, is where kind of this stuff comes from. And so she's going to do it like future paths. And then it's going to be all villains down here. Oh, my God. And line onto a thing. So it would be like good evil into one thing.

So it's been morphing as we've been going. Well, your artist looks incredible, by that. the way. Oh, she's phenomenal. Phenomenal. It's just such a shame that this is hidden under suits every week when we see you on Raw. It's funny. Every time I meet somebody, they're like, you have tattoos? And I was like, I know it's weird because you only see

your suits. Like, I'm like, look at me. I'm nice and clean cut. And then I'm like, ha ha. So who is, so who's the real Microm? Is it suit guy or is it, you know, sleeveless shirt guy? I think Mike Rome is the suit guy. And then Austin Romero is the guy with the tattoos in the, you know, the Beatles and

the nerd office. This is quite the office. Thank you for welcoming us into this. Of course. I can't wait until it's actually done. My original concept was to make it a bat cave, but I ran out of time, you know. Somehow this isn't done? This looks pretty complete.

Not done, man. Listen, I don't know if you can see this. Hold on. Please tour us around. Okay, so over here. Actually, you can see it during the daytime here. I'll take you over. Here we go.

This is the great thing about these remote interviews. So obviously the arcade machines, but you can see like all the stuff over here is just stuff I haven't. So I have to get shelving for all of this and basically get spots for this stuff. I'm going to make this whole for everybody. Here. This is. There we go. Yeah, this is a whole whole mess over here.

It's like Comic-Con stuff, posters, random stuff. I haven't put up yet because I ran out of wall space and I just need to rearrange. And then inside this closet, I've got boxes of things that I have yet. my gosh um and then obviously the rest of the room is the rest of the room but i i appreciate that you have your uh your championship your 24-7 title up there you have to you have to get it you are a former champion i am yeah and as far as i know and i think they're still trying to fact-check this i think i am the first ring announcer to ever win a title wow look at you you're a history maker try first time ever uh you know interview over video and

it's pretty bored champion i'm just knocking off those first you know well you mentioned you know your your in ring name your wwee name mike rome and i know that there's there's a bit of a science to how this is done with wdbd so how did your name come about not very scientifically okay um i think i don't even know if i don't even know if i can say this but so basically what happened is I was sitting, went through this process and Greg Hamilton, who's over on Smackdown, who's bringing out for Smackdown, him and I have known each other for years and years. And when they wanted to move him up from NXT, they were like, hey, we need somebody to replace him. He's like, I know just the guy. So he started bringing me in on the process and I auditioned like

over a year period of time, basically. Wow. Awesome. So to kind of give you the full, I had to kind of like I have to give you these pieces because they're very intrigal to the story But basically like I got my phone call I had my interview and then I didn't hear anything for a long period of time and I remember leaving my audition and going I nailed it. This is great. I got this job. Yeah, and I think like three months later the realization said that they didn't call me back And I was like oh Turns out They didn't realize in the process they had already made an offer to somebody else. Oh wow

So when I left the audition, they were like, we love you, you're great, we're going to make an offer, but they'd already made an offer. And the two sides weren't communicating to each other. And so the process went on. And then I got this random phone call one day. And it was like late, late at night. And I remember I was sitting watching Batman versus Superman. I'd wait for that movie forever. I was in a theater.

And if you know anything about that movie, it's long. It is. That movie could have easily been 30 minutes shorter. Oh, God. 30, maybe an hour shorter. and I love that stuff. So I was sitting in there and I had my phone and I saw that the live event producer called me and then I saw the grade called me and I'm like, what's going on?

And so I'm like, whatever, I waited for this movie. I'm going to sit and watch this movie. So I watch the movie. I get out and I hear, hey man, we need to talk to you right now. Call us back ASAP if you don't get a hold of us. We're flying. So we'll talk to you tomorrow. And I was like, what?

So the whole night I'm just sitting there just stressed out of my mind. Like I couldn't sleep. Click over the next morning, like 7, 8 a.m. I get a phone call. I was like, hey, you're so interested. Blah, blah, blah, blah. I'm like, yeah. I'm like, all, you're going to get a phone call for Michael Cole.

He's going to break you down on everything. Right. And literally a second after I hung up the phone, my phone rang. Michael Cole calls me. It's like, hey, here's what's going to happen. We've got WrestleMania coming up. We've got European tours, this, this and this. Because this was like right before WrestleMania in Dallas, I believe.

And he goes. he's like, look, so I had it like, yeah, yeah, he's like, all right, so we get back in April, was it May, later May or whatever, we'll go ahead and we'll have dinner. And I was like, okay, cool. Or later April, beginning of May, that's what it was. And so I like sat down. I was like, all right, cool, this is great, whatever. Then I didn't hear anything for like a month.

So then you start to like go through your head. You're like, did I really have that conversation? Like, did all this happen? Like, it just happened so fast. And they're like, we'll have dinner or whatever. So sure enough, like the week before, I'm like, hey, is there anything you need me to bring or anything? Like, don't just bring yourself.

I'm like, okay, good. I'm still. Everything's still good. Right. And at the time, I quit my other jobs because I was like, I put my two weeks in. So then that realization started thinking like, what if I, what if this isn't happening? But then they brought me to dinner and I was like, all right, this is good. Brought me to dinner.

And Greg's like, it's working. It's going good. It's going good. dinner ends. I don't say anything. And I'm like, wow. Okay. And then the next day, they're like, oh, we had taping,

NXT taping the next day. So like, hey, just come in early. Think about it. If you have any questions, you know, just ask them. I was like, okay, cool. So I go home the night and I'm like writing down all these like intelligent questions. Like, I didn't have any questions.

Dude, one of my neighbors is Scotty too hotty. Like I've gone through. I knew so much about what I was. was getting myself into ahead of time that I was just kind of like crap what do I ask so I'm like trying to health care benefits and this and that you know writing all the sensible stuff down and then we sat down and I'm in there and I'm like all right here we go and he goes all right do you have any questions I was like yeah so um do you want the job and I was like yes he goes all right you're high wow so when you auditioned for this you know because you've done a

a little bit of everything. You've done ring announcing, you've done hosting, you've done backstage stuff. What was your audition process like? Well, it was, it was basically you send in a tape. So they give you this, and this is for anybody else that's going to audition. Basically, you get a sheet. It's like a one-sheater, and it has a bunch of hits that you have to go down and record. So you record yourself doing those. So you send that off. And then, well, now, We review it. And then we see kind of like, all right,

does this person know what it takes? But whatever. And once that happens, then they reach back out to you and then you get invited to a live audition. Now, the live audition is always inside the PC. It's usually during a taping day.

Now, those are very different now because they're not taping days for NXT. They're live. So I don't really, I haven't been to one recently, but I'm assuming it goes the same. You come out to a TV day

and then kind of see how things go and you kind of understand. Because I think the one thing that people don't understand is how much actual non-TV stuff we do. How we, you know, we have all the touring shows and WWB live pretty much three days week and only one day of TV, you know. So it's just to kind of give people to understand like most of what we do is in front of a live audience and not cameras. So they kind of get both and then they bring them in. Like I remember during mine when I came in after they primed me up for the live audition, like I was, it's a little different now. out, but when I was there auditioning, there were people inside the rings.

Like, so in the PC, there were people still working, and they would stop and just watch while you're similar. And Triple H was working out inside the, inside the gym. And it just, it was a whole different thing. Like, Bull Dempsey was, they brought him over at the time to do an interview. And they would, the audition process has changed dramatically. But at that time, it would be like, I would be interviewing him. They're like, we got to come back live.

And I'm like, okay, thank you, bull. They would do that whole thing, like, all right, you got to make up three minutes or you got to go now or whatever it is. And it was definitely a cool experience. And things were so different in the PC, the WWAPC back then. So I forgot to tell you at the end of that story, basically the name thing, what I was getting to it was just a long bill to it. I forgot to tell you this. And I don't want to leave this until I'll forget it. Basically, my middle name is Michael and my last name is Romero.

So they asked me, they're like, what's your, what's your first name? And I was like, Austin, like, oh, you can't keep that. Of course, yeah. At the time, Austin Aries was there. So they were like, no. Yeah, well, that was the main reason. And they were like, if you go up to, you know, if you go up to Raw at that point or SmackDown or whatever, chances are you're not going to keep that name.

And I was like, well, all right, well, they're like, what's your middle name? I was like, cool, Michael. They're like, done. What's your last name? They were like, Romero. and they were like, hmm, Rome. They like halfed it. And I was like, okay, so at the time I was Michael Rome,

and then we went to an N-X-T taping. And I was sitting, I was near Michael Cole. And they were like, Michael Rome. And it sounded so much like Michael Cole. Oh, yeah. You're now Mike Roe. And just asked both of them. But what about the dirty jobs guy?

What is his name, Jim Ro? No. No. What is he? Mike Roe. Mike Roe. It's W-E, right? W.

Yeah, R-O-W-E, yeah. Ah, he's not a wrestler. No, I do get that sometimes. Every once in a while, there'll be like a random tweet. They're like, isn't that the dirty jobs guy? I was like, no. How much of a wrestling fan were you before, you know, this whole process began? So when I was a kid, obviously, like every, I feel like every kid had their phase.

Like, I watched a lot. Like, I grew up, you know, a junkyard dog and Hogan and, you know, the cartoons on. in the morning and just the normal stuff that everybody else kind of grew up with and you know looking at Andre the giant is a monster I remember Undertaker's first appearance there's so many things ultimate warrior was my dude man I used to walk around in my neon but you know you go through that phase and then you kind of hit that I don't know there's that either you find girls or or whatever it is you're into sports whatever it is and you kind of just lose that.

So I think I made it most of the way through the attitude error. And then I missed a lot of like the CM Punk era and kind of that. I don't really, I had to go back and after I got this job and kind of go through and watch that stuff because there were references and things that I was just like, I don't know what that is. So I had to go back and do it. But I definitely watched a lot when I was younger and then had to come back and pick up the stuff that I left off when I went to school.

So when you get this job, do you dive right in head first and start looking at everyone else who's done this job before you? Yeah. I mean, you have to, right? Like, you can't just. Yeah. It's one of those. And everyone has their own style too.

Yeah. It's just the thing is, is that it would be weird to kind of jump in and be like, I'm going to figure it out as I go. So in my process, like I had that whole month before my meeting after I knew. So I, you know, they give you the network and you can kind of just, uh, dive in. And that's all I did. I just watched. And most of the time, I watched NXT because that was what I was going to be working with.

But I would go back and watch older stuff and, you know, ring announcers and commentary guys and kind of figure out, you know, because I'd never ring announce before. Like I was a host for, you know, Nickelodeon and other things. So the ring announcing was so odd to me. And, uh, but I knew, I'd heard it so many times. You know, you had to like Binkle and Chimel and Justin Roberts and. even Lillian and you just you have those things in your heads you're like how do I take what they're doing and make it you know make it your own that's that was always the uh the hard thing and not and Greg and I sound so much alike sometimes that we have to like adapt what we do to

make sure that we don't sound the same really so you like what have you done to differentiate yourself from Greg I've had to go like way like my voice naturally is deeper than Greg's is. So I've had to kind of get gravelier with it to make it like dirtier because it's not like when I was with NXT Craig and I sounded like almost identical sometimes and still to say a lot of people are like

oh I'm watching you on SmackDown right now. I'm like that's not me. That's my dude Greg. He's awesome. Well, unfortunately you should follow him. Unfortunately you guys aren't on camera that much. So if your voices do sound alike it's hard to be able to differentiate I guess.

It's true. It's one of those weird things man it's uh whatever you see like a spotlight by gregg the other day at his whole announcement about the chamber match um and they like just put it on i'm like yeah it's my dude yeah what exactly was your job before this you said you were hosting some different things oh no the white eyes i just wanted to make it seem ominous i actually um i worked uh like right before this uh i worked for Walt Disney World um and uh I was over at the Indiana Jones epic stunt spectacular. And I did, I don't know if you ever seen that show. Of course.

Okay. So you know the guy. I'm not as good at Disney nerd as you, but I go once or twice a year. Okay. That's still good? Yeah, that's most people go once or twice in their life. Yeah, that's true. It's very respectable.

I mean, I lived in Florida for five years. I mean, if you're not going to. You're really, what, like three and a half hours away? Yeah, exactly. Also, with my job as an entertainment reporter, I would get to come up to Disney cover I covered Avatar or Pandora the world of Avatar. Rough

life. Yeah, it was really difficult and they're like hey, we'll put you up at the Animal Kingdom Hotel. Oh God, it's terrible. Just terrible. Look out your window and there's like a gazelle just walking by. Dude, it is insane. I've seen so I've never actually stayed there. I got to visit when it first opened, but I remember seeing

photos and videos from all like the social media people that were there. And they're like, yeah, no big deal. I just casually. woke up in the morning and walk to my window and saw like a water buffalo or something. Right before I left my job in Miami, I was covering the Star Wars like three weeks before it opened. I was in there. Yeah. It was three days before it opened.

And I know you were there all the time now. I mean, this isn't exciting at all to you. Hey, man, it was. Listen, I went from here because California opened first and I booked a hotel. literally told Vanessa, I was like, hey, we're going to Disney. She goes, yeah. And I was like, we're going to Star Wars.

She goes, oh, I booked the Disney hotel because you had to do the reservations to get the blocks. So they would give you that like hour, three hours, I think it is in there. So like you book it and then you have to wait and then like three days before your vacation, they send you the thing that tells when your time frame is.

And we flew across the country. I went to go see that Star Wars and went in there. did all the stuff. And then I got to do the, because I technically still worked at Disney when this one opened. So I get to go to the cast preview to this one. Nice.

I have like three lightsavers from the lightsaber build thing because I made her do one. I did two. So your job, you were hosting the Indiana Jones show? Basically, so there's a director who basically walks you through each scene

and there's a guy who's called the assistant director and his job is almost like an audience warm-up like he kind of comes out and gets the extras that are on the set to do random things. And then he's always like checking down after the director is like, hey, you know, lights get whatever. That was what I did over there. I used to do both director in that.

But I love, that was one of my favorite places to ever work over there at Disney. I think it's amazing that you went from that to WWE, which I'm sure have a lot of similarities, but on the surface seem vastly different. They really do, but it's funny how similar they actually are. And I was working at both.

So I was working at Universal Studios doing like Beetlejuice. And what do you mean? Were you Beetlejuice? I was Beetlejuice. What? Yeah. I don't think I knew this. Wow.

Yeah, for a while. I did that. I did, we used to have a musical review over there. And so I did that in Frankenstein over there. And then I was doing the Transformer. So I did Optimus Prime for a little while. I was Grinched for like six or seven years. During Halloween Horror Nights, I was able to do Jack the Clown,

which is one of their like icons. Wow, yeah. Comedy show. I did every, I was at Universal for a very long time. I was one of my favorite, most of my theme park memories come from Universal. So that's what brought you to Orlando, that job? Actually, I worked for Nickelodeon before that. So that was kind of all over the place.

That's great, though. I mean, and you posted a throwback recently of your terrible hair and terrible beard. Is that the Nickelodeon days? So the one where I was like super blonde and I had my collar up. Yeah. That was when I was working in Nickelodeon. So that was definitely during that time frame that I was at Nickelodeon. I had that like boy band thing going on.

The one before that was, we're at the Hard Rock Hotel. Yeah. That I actually worked at the hard rock as a lifeguard at the time. You've done everything. I literally have. I've been a server. I've stuck in everywhere. Dude, and when I was a lifeguard at Hard Rock,

they literally came out and they're like, hey, we're going to do the shoot for the promotion of this. And they're like, you. You come here. I was like, hey, what's up? And they're like, we're going to put you in the shoot. I was like, all right. So then they just used it, used me randomly,

and then paid me. And then I was on the side of a bus and billboard and all this stuff. produce with like this. Yeah, with a phone. With my little chin strap mustache. I commented on that photo in your Instagram and I said, you should use that phone to call the person who gave you that terrible haircut.

Dude, so, honest, so, and this is not like coming back afterwards because it was a really bad haircut, but all the blonde that they had on the sides and stuff was actually added in after the fact. Oh, wow. So it was just frosted tips. Yeah, yeah, it was literally just frosted tips, but they added, they decided that because it was just here, they wanted to add it up the top, and then they added all those piercings in on me and everything. I was like, wow. Well, between you working for Nickelodeon, I worked for MTV to Canada and my throwback photos. Yeah, there's, I've seen videos.

So between me and you, I think we could either have some terrible throwback show or some awful boy band. I mean, I'm down for either. They're both coming back around right now. So let's go. How is everything in your world? Obviously, you're living close to the performance center, which is probably pretty helpful. Very helpful. Not bad.

You know, I think that it's so, like, I hate saying it like this, but I spend so much time away from my house that now I actually get to like be here and hang out and like be amongst the stuff that I put together. So I'm actually really enjoying this downtime in the quarantine. and like I get to see my girlfriend and you know kind of like have it's weird to say to some semblance of a normal life without leading the house I guess I mean we're not like quarantine but we're just kind of like staying here

because we're never here so it's great watching some movies and yeah I saw that Disney Plus today is releasing their was it upward or onward or whatever that new Disney they're releasing it on Disney Plus and digital so I'm like dude all these movies I wanted to see in the theater are going to be right in my living room

It's going to be great. So I think we're making the best out of it. For anybody that follows you on Instagram, they've seen these videos. You have this theme going, this thread going where you scare your girlfriend because she falls asleep apparently all the time. Yeah. It's really bad. Did she get too mad or you realize were you like, I don't think we need to do this anymore? Bro, I don't even know how to explain this.

Like, she, there was a period of time that I did it so much. I think it was during that like October or Halloween period of time. and we were traveling so much. She doesn't handle the road life very well, but we were traveling so much. She was just, you put her in a car. She has what I call car epilepsy. You put her in a car, and she's out.

She's out. She's done. So there was a period of time where she would drive around like this. No. Yeah, she would fight falling asleep because she was terrified to fall asleep. And the whole time,

you ever seen that old like i don't know if it was from a movie or like a video thing where the the semi has a semi attached to it that's facing the wrong way it's like towing it yeah yeah yeah i always wanted to find one of those because i desperately wanted to go and wake her up because she would panic so hard i think i aged her like 10 years last year what a guy but yeah so we've we've calmed down on it but the other morning because we've been i mean i've been here so So she was in, we were supposed to go for a walk. I literally, I was like, hey, I'm going to go upstairs and grab my shoes.

I come downstairs and she's in virtual reality. And I was like, it's on like donkey Kong. It's going down. You're not, come on. You had two. How did you get the, how did you get the VR on that fast? That's what I want to know. Yeah.

Yeah. So prepare because it's, if we're, depending on how long we're going to be in this house, there's going to be a lot. The good thing is the bedroom is off limits. We have set the bedroom off limits. Well, that's good. You guys have some ground rules here. There are ground rules. How long have you guys been together?

Three years. How many? Three years. Wow. How did you guys meet? Through Universal. So she did one of some of the shows that I did. Oh, okay. I don't know how we crossed past the first time and then, you know, years later, reconnected. And look at you now. Scareing the crap out of each other.

I know. I think if she would have known, if she would have known men, what she knows now. She would have been like, no. She would have said no coffee. Oh, God. Yeah, she would not want that. What was it like on Monday going to work? You know, obviously it was empty and it's at the PC.

What was it like for you doing your job? It was a lot of things. I will say that it was a lot of things. The thing that people, I think, forget. get is that we are surrounded by each other so much that we are really a family. You know, you see everybody down to the camera guys, to the, to the, you know, catering, to whoever we travel together, like from the highest to the lowest. And you see all those people all the time. So at least when you're in a place like that that's unfamiliar, when you're doing something different,

it's at least you're around your family. That's what it feels like. Um, And going to the PC was odd because they did transform most of it. But then you also have that, you know, WWE Performance Center thing on the other side. So I kept looking up and I'm like, oh, yeah, we're in the Performance Center. There's no audience. I mean, for me, it was odd during the matches because it's just so I want to like make up for the noise. So I want to sit in the corner and go, yeah, yeah.

And then like make the noise and do all the stuff because I feel bad. Like I've been on the other side. It would be like me getting into a thing to host or doing Indiana Jones show that needs interaction and not having that. It's definitely different. So it's weird, but it's so cool to see these guys perform these promos and these epic things that they're not used to and step outside their comfort zone and come together to put something out there for people. So I think everybody was like a little somber and trying to figure things out. But once we got rolling, it was just like being back on Monday somewhere else, just without the audience. Yeah.

Well, I want to say, like, as a fan, I like that it's continuing. I like that, you know, the world, some other things in the world may be on hold. And some people may not be able to leave their homes. But I love the fact that wrestling is forever and it's continuing on. I agree. That's why I think I posted, I posted a thing. Somebody took a photo of the arena with us in there. and it's just the emptiness.

And I think Edge was cutting his promo at that time. And I'm just, I'm watching him because I'm just like, wow, dude, like, really just, this is great what some of those guys are doing. And I remember, I posted a thing and people were like, oh, well, they showed, you know, they only showed the rumble or they only did this. And the thing is, is like, when you're taking something that you're used to doing a certain way for so long and now you have to kind of change it, there wasn't a lot of time for us to kind of shift.

what was happening and how to make it. So I think what they're going to see moving forward is going to be a lot cooler of a process because, you know, the first couple, the first two days, they had, they didn't have time to turn it around, but now they've had time to kind of sit there, give something back to everybody to get their minds off of what's going on. And, you know, as long as we can, I'm 100% sure it's going to keep going. And for me, it's great because I get to come home to my bed. Like, it's so weird to go to TV.

and then to leave, get in my car, not a rental car, now go back to the hotel, but come back to my bed. And I'm like, dude, I can't get used to this. It's not going to be good. Let's start traveling again. I just, look, I think what WWE does every single week is incredible. They've been doing it for 20 years. It's amazing that you guys can put on that show.

And I love that it continues. And I appreciate that WrestleMania is still happening. Now it's a two-day event. and I know that with the time that you guys have to put this together, it's going to be something special. Yeah, I think wrestling in general, I mean, wherever it's coming from, it's great that it's still continuing, you know? I mean, the thing is, is everybody wants to sit on one side or the other or whatever it is,

but any kind of wrestling happening right now or anything going out to the people is great for wrestling in general and great for everybody. And I think it's cool. And I love the fact that wrestling is two days now. I'm like, oh, my gosh. going to be insane. And I literally, what's even crazier about it is I know, besides the matches and stuff, I literally know nothing about what's happening for those two days. So I'm just sitting here going, what's going to happen? All right, a quick pause from this awesome chat with Mike Rome.

To thank our sponsor, Bet Online, and with currently no NBA, NHL, or MLB, you might think there's nothing to bet on. Well, my friend, you would be wrong. exclusive partner still has hundreds of sports, events, and games to wager on, or let them bring Vegas to you with their online casino and blackjack. It's all open 24 hours a day. It's all online, including their $750,000 poker series. If you're into props and entertainment betting, you can still bet on Survivor, Big Brother, American Idol, stock prices, you can even bet on the weather.

Yeah. Visit their website today and join for a hundred. 100% welcome bonus with your first deposit. Be sure to use the promo code, Blue Wire, all one word. B-L-U-E-W-I-R-E. Bet Online. It's your online wagering experts. I think you should bring back the platinum hair for WrestleMania.

Bro. I don't think my hair can handle that. Literally within the span of a week. And then one day, it was like a week, and then that Sunday I had it, and then Monday I dyed it back. Wow. Wow. Why was it so short-lived? There wasn't, it wasn't, I didn't get it approved beforehand.

Ah, right. So basically in our, you know, in any contract or anything, you have to, if you're going to change your look, you have to basically ask. You have to go, hey, is this okay if I do this, whatever? With this, obviously it's covered, so it doesn't matter. And I forget about that sometimes, but yeah, so I didn't really get approval for it. So I honestly, I don't, you know, nobody would have minded it if I would have asked, but the fact that I didn't ask was one of those things where it's like, that's right. Look, that was a way of you showing off, you know, the Austin side of you, perhaps. But you do that all the time with your suits and your socks, which I'm also a big sock guy, big suit guy.

So I feel like, you know, that's a big common ground for us here. I like it. Yeah, the socks used to be, I used to do way better with my socks. but now I feel like I have so many pairs. You ever hit that point where you have so many of one thing? You just can't go through it. So I'll go get ready for a Monday and I'm like, I'll just grab these.

I used to put so much thought into it. And now I'm like, I don't know. I also subscribe to one of those boxes, like one of those. Yeah, yeah. I think it's called like Gentleman's Box or something like that, which is cool because it takes the thought process out of it sometimes. So like at least once a month, I'm like, oh, this is great.

I subscribe to something called Sock Club, and it's like a sock of the month. So every month they said, yeah, so it's a mystery sock. So you just get a brown envelope and it says, here's your, it's that time of the month. Here's your sock. And you open it up and you unwrap and you're like, look at that one. What a great sock this month? What? Yeah.

Dude, what a magnificent. time we live in. What a world. What a time to be alive, right? Bro, I remember, like, even like 10 years ago, you couldn't, like, you were like, I really wish I could find this. And like, you couldn't find it anywhere. Now with the internet and everything else, there's all these subscription boxes. Like, you don't even have to leave your house. You're like, man, I need new socks. And it's like, that's why so many people are like, quarantine. I don't leave my house anyway. Bro, I literally, when they, when they were like, hey, we're probably, you know, it's better you

just stay inside. I'm like, awesome. Like, I pop. on Amazon. I ordered all the things I needed. We got board games. I've got an arcade. Man, I'm coming over. Jeez. Bro, bring it. Let's go. As long as you stay on this one and I'll stay on that one over there, we're, you know, for this and apart, we're good to go. Fair enough. I can do that. I just like, it's funny because I've been, it's not like I've been prepping for this forever, but I've been wanting to spend just time in this room or time in my house. So now I'm like, woohoo. If you've been in here.

Oh, what? Yeah. I'm jealous. I haven't been able to work out a week. I actually put it in for Vanessa. Like, I started doing it because she's like, oh, I want to get in shape. But it's so hot, dude. Like, literally, you know how it was in Miami.

Like, it's 100 degrees on any given day out here. So running outside is just brutal. So I bought one of those, like, Peloton things. And then I've got, like, free weights. And I put in, like, gym floor and all this stuff. And then there's a, it was originally a movie room in there. So I originally, like, used to had a 100-inch, like, movie screen thing in there and a projector. So I used to watch it.

So I just turn it around now. I put all the workout videos on the screen and just work out. Or if you're on the bike, you just put some kind of background that's like traveling through Italy or whatever random place that you want to go to. So if you've committed your whole right arm to D.C., is your left arm going to have to be Marvel? Man, it's. I don't know. This is where my dilemma is. So I do love Marvel.

And especially anybody that follows me on Instagram knows I love Marvel. The thing is, I also love horror. And I'm a big Beetlejuice guy. I love, you know, the monsters. I love all that stuff. And this arm, sorry, this arm already has it on there. And I consider doing like a half. sleeve of like beetle juice and like some of my favorite monsters like classic monsters and like

penny wise and uh jason and and michael myers and that kind of stuff and then phasing down into a like 80s montage of like goonies and ghostbusters and all the things i really enjoy and along with some marvel and some power rangers in there so i don't know man i'm i'm so whenever i start i explained or whenever I start a sleeve, my mind's like, what can I do? Because I don't want to do anything other than my arms. Once my arms are done, I'm done. Really? You say that now. I'm done. Done for two reasons. One, my legs are so small that there's really not a lot of real estate on there. If I decided to go into my legs, it's just going to be a pain. Two, my body hates color. And I want to do color tattoos. Like, my body does not like color very much.

So the healing process for colors sucks. And I don't want, I don't want to walk around. Like, I'm already like, I was, I remember doing MSG like right after I got this. And somebody was like, hey, and I was thinking, oh. Oh. God. I just don't want to walk around. Like, don't touch my legs.

You also have such an affinity and a love for a Power Ranger. I feel like this needs to be worked in somehow. It is. So Green Ranger, Jason. he has a tattoo and it's like right here and I kind of like it but I'm trying to figure out the thing is I've never found and this is no offense anybody that has a Power Rangers tattoo I I've never seen one that I actually really liked it all just look kind of cheesy to me and I don't want to do faces like I don't want to do the whole like portrait mode thing on there sure so I'm trying to find a clever way to incorporate my love and have it in there and have it in there and there without going hey for all your fellow power rangers fans that are watching who's the best power ranger of all time uh green ranger man okay green ranger Tommy Tommy Tommy Oliver Jason David Frank I guess if we're doing these rapid fire things what's the best

ride at Disney World and then also our universal rise of the resistance hands down that that literally it used to be yeah the fact that you can drive that ride yourself pretty crazy bro the whole Have you been out, have you seen it yet? I've written out of yet. Oh my gosh, dude, it's crazy. The fact that it's never the same ride, like, for the next group of people, because you're steering it a different way or whatever.

The thing, the whole, Pirates in Shanghai is pretty high up there for me. And then the flight of the Avatar was also up there. But guys, the resistance hands down is like my top theme park ride right now, Universal. No. What is my favorite universal ride? I really miss Back to the Future. I do too, man. That's my favorite movie of all time.

Is it? Yeah. What's the greatest movie of all time? I'm actually in my 80s montage that I was talking about on this, Back to the Future is in there. Yes. It's in there. I actually, you know those Nike BB adapts?

Yeah. What does it look like Back to the Future? That's self-lacing. Yeah, yeah. Just because Back to the Future. Oh, this is amazing. I love that movie. I actually, so AwesomeCon is coming up in D.C.

And I'm actually flying out there because they're all doing a mean greet. Oh, wow. So I'm going to meet the cast of Back to the Future. And low-key, like, little-known fact, my grandma on my dad's side used to date Doc Brown. Wow. As a kid, they walked into my house and I was like this. Did you go, great, Scott? I was like, say, say, Marty!

That's great. He was great, man. He was super nice, too. So I'm really excited about going there because I'm going to be like, hey, remember that time used to my grandma? It must be so interesting for you because you see the hard, core super fans for WWE. And then on the flip side of it, you are that person from all these other things.

It is, it's, it's such a weird, it is a weird thing. It's such an odd thing because so like, you know, when I started this job, I was, I always wanted to be like, all right, the only thing I want to do is, is, you know, do commissions and do that kind of stuff. And because I love this other side as well. and I was trying to always curb to start to do some of those things. So now I'm almost in five years with WWE and I've been able to do a lot of that stuff. But it is weird sitting on the other side of it where I have more access to things now.

Like even Comic-Con when I went to Comic-Con, like I just did it so differently than I'd ever done in years before because of what I do. And it's kind of cool to be on the other side. But then I have to watch the way I am. I'm not like, when I say through, I'm not like, oh my God. Like, I don't, it's weird. Like, I don't mark out for, like, celebrities and stuff like that. But I do mark out for IPs.

Like, oh, man, I'm really excited about this Marvel movie. Or I'm really excited about this stuff like Batman or this and that. Like, I'm, those are the things I'm excited about. So the good thing is I was never one of, I was never somebody who was like, oh, my God, that's so and so. Like, that was never my thing. So that's good because that's where. that's where that like line starts to move back and forth.

But yeah, it is odd to see some of the stuff on our side and go, especially when you're on the receiving end of this sometimes. You know, people can't believe they're meeting you. It's weird, like even walking around Comic-Con. Like, I don't even think about it because to me, like, I don't know. Like, yeah, we're on TV and stuff. But, like, to me, like, I'm just, I'm at a comic convention. Like, I'm just walking around like anybody else, like, hanging out.

and like doing this stuff but then I I know people who are booked on that show and then I know people that were over here and then people will come up to me even though I'm over here talking to it's so it's just this weird world and this like even at Comic Con it was so odd like there's these like shops that I didn't even know about before like that are on top of like venues so like a store will have a private shop up top or this and that that I got invited to or I go over here and I like literally the first day I bought all my stuff. I was like, what do I do the rest of the days?

I've never done that before. Dude, I've never gotten all my exclusives. And then there's all these like after parties and parties on top of parties. And like, I don't, I did Comic Con so hard last year. I don't even think I can go back. I don't think I've recovered from last year

between Drake Maverick and Xavier. Right. We were going in on Comic-Con. You know, it keeps popping out behind your head. We talked about it a little bit earlier, but the 24-7 championship. At what point did you realize that you were going to become the champion? I don't know, man. It's just kind of one of those things where I don't know.

It's weird in our position. You just forget that anybody can kind of go at it as long as there's a ref there. And, I mean, if anybody gets pushed hard enough, you kind of just kind of go for it. So, like, you know, we were on the holiday tour, and I was sitting there, and I had to, you know, I had to go up in the ring and announce the winner, and it just got pushed around a little much, and I turned his back, and I was like, could it be? Could it be?

And I'm, like, twice this size, so I knew a roll-up would be super, at least if I could hold him that long enough to get it. Unfortunately, it only lasts a nine seconds, but. But you're still a champ. I am. I'm still in there. For the shortest amount of time ever, we talked about records. There's one.

Not only the first ring announcer, but I'm the shortest title holder. What is your favorite name to announce? Oh, man. I would have to say, for me, Undertaker. Okay, yeah. Because that was like, I think that was like my first, um, it's the first guy that I like vividly remember watching on the screen going like,

yo, this dude is scary. And like as a kid, like I remember just seeing him and he's just no emotion and like just dominating everybody. Yeah. I remember the first time. I remember when I started here.

I was like, man, I really want to cross paths with him. I really want to announce him. And, uh, I was so worried. that he would not come back and now I get a chance to do it at WrestleMania. So it's one of those like full circle moment things. Yeah. That I'm pretty excited about. But also not necessarily ring

announcing but getting to do the Mean Gene tribute at Raw in Orlando was like awesome. Yeah. Because Mean Gene was that dude who Mark Summers and Mean Gene were the two people growing up for me that like molded the career that I wanted like. Oh wow. of got me into hosting and like having you know interviews and doing all that stuff so I I molded most of my stuff around those guys so getting to actually you know interact with me and jean before he passed and like having conversations with him and getting advice he was just a genuine dude and even at his age he was probably the wittiest funniest person that you would ever meet still um so getting to do his

tribute was just I don't know man like it was weird like I was super emotional in the ring I was Oh my God, I've got to get my, I got to get myself together here. I like that you're not, you know, you're not just a ring announcer. You're actually worked into the storylines with Alexa, which was funny for all of us. I'm glad everybody enjoyed that couple pies in the face. Yeah, the thing is that, you know, there's a lot of freedom and stuff to do a lot of stuff. Like I did a lot of stuff with Chris before he left, and then, um, uh, uh, Bliss and you know when you're backstage you get to do a lot of stuff so it's kind of cool to

have some of those things there just to look back on going wow if there's someone that wants to follow in your footsteps and do what you're doing what's the advice you have for them if they're just starting out what's the advice you have for them to be a ring announcer on your level I would say honestly the best thing to do is to take in you know taking as much as you can like learn from all the people doesn't matter where they are watch as many people as you can do that job and then figure out how you fit into that like figure out how you take the best things they did and make it yours because a lot of people just try to come in and duplicate or do the same

thing and you know it's like okay cool somebody's already done that but if you can figure out how you fit in that get a lot of video of yourself doing it don't be a to get out there and do as many things as you can put it on video submit it send it our way and let us see it because that's i mean honestly that's the only way we're ever going to see it and a lot of people don't have video footage they don't keep video footage themselves but putting together like a reel of you doing things not just ringing that scene but hosting because most of what we do is actually you know at live events where we're just talking and having conversations with the audience which is some dude house shows are some of my favorite thing wbb live some of my favorite things to do um because we get to full freedom

to kind of talk and interact with the audience. So that is, people are like, oh, I can just do this. Like, no, you've got to be able to control an audience. Like, you've got to be able to talk. I think that's a great piece of advice. You've got to get this on video because I think there's a lot of independent wrestling ring announcers out there that just go out to the ring, do their thing, and then go home and, you know, do their normal job.

And you've got to watch yourself, especially in our profession. You've got to watch yourself so you can know what you're doing right. It's certainly know what you're doing wrong. Yeah. It's like, dude, I remember, oh, I remember seeing some of my early stuff from like the Cruiserweight classic, like when I first went in there. I used to stand. Like, I used to slouch over and I'd do this because I would just be staying in the ring. And it's not, it wasn't on purpose.

It's just like I played characters like Shaggy from Scooby-Doo and The Grinch. And a lot of what I, my mannerisms were just like looting over and, you know, doing that. Or like, hey, man, like, like, join Scoob. And so you'd be like, you'd be like this. So I realized I'd be standing in the ring and I would be hunched over. And I was like, oh, God, I look awful. So I had to learn to like stand up straight and like do all this stuff. And also I'm like 6-2.

So it's hard. I'm so subconscious of how tall I am in the ring. So I have to really even like when I'm like this, I just have to make sure that I'm back up again. So I'm not like standing next to somebody going, hey, what's up? If we saw a little bit of shaggy there, who else can we get? Beetlejuice, maybe? Oh, God.

I don't even know. Hey, babe, what's going on? Let me just go right here, going to do the thing, and then you know, whatever. I don't even know. I don't even know what I'm saying. Well, who else are we missing out on here? Oh, gosh, that Christmas music. It's joy about, I'd dry open.

This is amazing. What about some micro-home? Give me your favorite, you know, ring announcing. Oh, God. Foof. Dude, I will blow this camera out here. This one can't handle out. So the audio guys are always like,

I'm such a loud belter. God, I don't even know who to give. I'm trying to think. Maybe you could do Chris Van Fleet. Oh, okay, I can do that. Where are you originally from? Toronto. Parano, Ontario.

There we go. All right. Making his way to the ring from Toronto, Ontario. Chris Van Bleas! Yeah! I feel like I can go fight a bear now. At the end of a long day of ring announcing, is your voice just completely shot?

Yeah. God, what day was that? We did We did something. We did, oh, we did two episodes. We did,

I think it was during Christmas time where we did like one episode. We filmed two all in the same day because they were going to air one the next week so we didn't have to work on Christmas. Yeah. And I mean, I ring announced for six hours.

Six hours. And I remember leaving there. I remember leaving there. What are you doing? She sounds like a party in me. She's like, what do you do? doing it.

Oh, Vanessa. Her hand. She's waving. Welcome. What is happening in there? And it is a party in here. It is always the party in here. So we did like six hours of ring announcing.

And I never thought about it before. Because even back in the day when I first started, we would do like six episodes of NXT ahead of time. But I wasn't ring announcing as many matches as I did that day. There was no, like, provost. Like it was just match, match, match, match. I remember leaving there going, oh. I called her.

I'm like, hey, babe, how's it going? All right, cool. The beetle juice they called her. Yeah, it was, dude, it was, it was crazy. And the thing is, like, I used to be, I used to sing. So I'm used to going on vocal rest. So she knows, like, if I'm tired, my voice is tired, I come home and I'm like, yeah, that's wise. Just 24 hours is not talking, man.

That's the best thing you can do. because the problem is people will take teas and all this stuff and whatever but if you're not resting your voice like even whispering is putting air through there so if you just don't talk for 24 hours take some ibuproving at the swelling down dude golden huh that's interesting have you had a time where you've gone to tv and your voice is not solid oh yeah is this what happened with the best of the world oh dude i was sick as a dog dude i was sick as a dog dude i was So that was the second time. But the first time was WrestleMania in Orlando.

And I was so excited. And we did takeover. So I got sick during the Rick Flair statue unveiling at Access. Yeah. I was sitting in the ring and I was like this. Oh, no. I was there. I watched that happen.

Dude, I was so flush. I couldn't think. You know, when it first hits you, your brain, you just go, oh, no. And the lights are so. hot. And so Triple H is like, really, really big up Rick Flair. Dude, I couldn't think to save my life. Like, I couldn't even like, you know, two time. W. I couldn't, nothing. I'm like, I don't even know what I said. And my fever had just hit. So like they took me off access like literally right after that thing ended because I was sitting. I had to push myself up against the side of the ropes.

So I didn't fall over because I was so flush. They took me out of the ring and they were, put me on the bench for the rest of the night of access and I just kind of laid around backstage and then because I had takeover the next day. So I went to takeover and my voice was not doing well. So I had to felt like hard, which I never do because it's really bad for your voice, especially when you're already like struggling. So I did so much that night, but I lost my voice. And the next day at WrestleMania, it was so hot outside. and I was in a full tucks and I was basically laid out in a tent backstage unless I needed to do something and I was sweating and sickness whatever so I was like trying not to talk to anybody drinking tea and resting my voice

and so I went out for main event the next day for raw I was so excited somewhere in Orlando I'm warming up my voice I'm not get it warmed up I'm like it should be fine walk out there and I'm like hey everybody walk up the middle and my voice was so like a like cracked. It was super high pitch. And I was like, oh, God, this is not going to be good. So then they were like, oh, my God, what's happened? They pulled Jojo back out and they had her come out and do it. It was super embarrassing. But it was there. And then so the, so we just got back for the best in the world thing. I, dude, I had been sick for, I've been fighting something for like three weeks at that point. We had gone on tour overseas on one of those where we had shows

every single night. I think it was after the like a two week tour. and I just whatever it is I couldn't kick it and we were in whatever city it was I feel like it was it was opposite of what I was used to and I kept bouncing from like hot cold hot cold hot cold which was making it worse so I'm like trying to get through this so I asked them ahead of time I'm like hey if we could not do that because like it wasn't that my throat was hurting is I couldn't breathe I couldn't get air in so and the whole point of that thing is like breathing in in getting air, but I could not breathe. And so I was like, hey, guys, can we not do this?

And they're like, yeah, yeah, don't worry about it. And so if you watch, if you watch that, there is a moment where when he stops on the thing and he looks over and says to me, like, do the announcement, I'm like this. I'm literally, I look terrified and just utterly upset because they move the camera over to me. And I'm like, oh my God, what are you doing? I'm like, no, please, dear God. I was like, all right. So I tried to take it as much air as I could.

And that day, he was like going longer than he normally does. And I was like, I can't. I don't have any air. There's nothing there. There's only so much I can do. So yeah, that was a, that was a fun one for a little while. And that just became, you know, what it was. And everything was online forever.

Oh, forever. I think it's funny. Everybody's like, oh, you don't know, you can't do it. And I'm like, look, I'm. I mean, we all have her good days and our bad days. And that was, you know what, I can't do anything about that. Like, we all get sick. But I appreciate that you take a very technical approach to this because I've talked to

other announcers that are just like, no, I go out there and do my thing. And I'm like, you might not be able to do that for that long. I like that you take like a technical approach to this, which could be because of your theatrical background. You're also doing some voice work now as well, right? Correct. I do, listen, man, when you make money, when you're doing, when you're doing, when you're doing stuff with your voice and you know this,

like you host and you do interviews and stuff like that, if you lose your voice, you got nothing. So you got to really, really, it's an instrument. You got to take care of it. It's the same as working out or, you know,

eating healthy for your body. Like, you just got to take care of those things. And so, like, one of the cool things about doing ring announcing, it's like, all right, you know, I've got this. What else can I do with my voice? Like, do characters and stuff like that.

So I got signed to an agency and I've been doing a lot of voiceover stuff. I actually built a little microphone and stuff in here. amazing and I just do voice or they'll send you auditions and then you just kind of do it and like there's video games like it's such a whole other world of like things that I just never do were out there and like you can literally sit at home yes

and record stuff like you know books it's like and then she tucked him into bed and like you're doing all these random things and then you're like oh cool I just made money off of that I just had an American Express voiceover audition the other day dude it's like it's such a like it's a little underworld and it's really hard to get into it's hard to break into it because there's so many established people out there yeah like i felt really good about myself until i went to the um like the directory on my agency page and they had

all these like top talent names and they and i was listening to their reels and stuff and i was like yeah all right i got to step up my game but uh it's been a fun it's you know it's been a fun process of kind of like doing that and i'm like i just did one i can't even say what it's for but something that i really like um and i'm hoping i mean it was like literally right before all this stuff happens so i'm hoping that i hear something back from it because that would be like an ideal situation for me to be able to voice something that i really like so and i was like oh this is amazing as we wrap things up here what do you think is the nerdiest thing in your room behind you there oh nerdiest thing in my room

behind me. What would you, okay, hold on, let's do this. What would you define if you had to, if you had to pick a nerdy thing in your mind, if somebody was like, what's the nerdyest thing you can think of? Well, I think, like,

if I had just one Power Rangers helmet, then'd be very nerdy, but you have several. I do have several. That's what I'm saying. I'm trying to figure out what the threat. I don't know, if you have like a really,

or maybe what's the thing you're most proud of? How about that? Um, I man, let me think here for a second. You got, I got to put some thought into this. I don't know. There's a lot of nerdy stuff. I have a bat signal in here.

That's pretty dirty. But now it's the time to be shining that. Mike, you've really been letting us down. I don't know if you can, here's the thing is I don't know if you'll be able to see it. Well, you can pick your camera up. I'll put you full screen here. And then we can take a look around. There you go.

I don't know if you can see that. Oh, yeah. Yeah, there it is on the ceiling. That's amazing. You can see it right here. Wow. If there was ever a time we needed Batman is now. Listen, you got to see it, right?

But I think, like, I don't know, like Rocketeer helmet's pretty. Wow. Got to love the IKEA shelves. Oh, dude, they're the best. I have one behind me here. I think, I'm, I'm really. I mean that giant Batman Funko. Pretty nerdy.

I don't know, the full Batman suit. Let's just go with the life-size Power Ranger. How about that? That's pretty great. That's pretty great. I also have a Green Ranger scooter, so it was a Comic-Con exclusive. I want to take you, thank you for taking the time to have this quarantine chat with me, this fireside quarantine chat. Of course.

No, this has been fun. And I think it's great for a lot of people to learn about the man behind the suit and behind just the announcements that we see on Raw or the paper views. He's very different than what you would imagine. No, but you're awesome, man. And I, you know, oh, no. Uh-oh, what happened? I dropped you. Oh, he's back. This never would have happened if we were in person. I know. I should have done this on my computer, see? No, if you were on your computer, you wouldn't have been able to want. us around the room.

You say that, but I would definitely lift my computer up and walk around. It's an I'm back. It's easy. You know, just. When you have a room like this, you've got a lot of these laying around. Oh, my, yeah, that's not scary at all. I just want to say congratulations on everything.

Like, you do such an incredible job. And I love the fact that, you know, you chase after your passions and you've made them part of the thing that, you know, pays you. Thanks, brother. too, man. Like I said, before, I've been watching you do your thing for a while. So I'm, I'm super honored and excited to be a part of a tiny, tiny part of your journey now. Well, this is history. That's what this is. Oh, yeah. We definitely established that earlier. This is history.

This is history. I'm going to go back, you know, in like a year from now when, you know, you're all over the place and even more than you are now. And I'm like, hey, but did you do the first video chat? So. So Mike Rome, thank you again. Austin Romero, thank you for hanging out. And I feel like as a ring announcer on the very lowest of levels myself and you up here at the top of the frame, I feel like I learned a lot from this.

So thank you. I appreciate it, man. Like I said, I appreciate what you do and I enjoy all your videos and stuff. So it was cool to actually have a conversation with you. and, you know, switch knowledge back and forth. Now we've been following each other on Instagram for so long, so it's nice to be able to face, even though we're not actually.

And now I've got to get some brain pills, like, you know, on your Instagram. That stuff's the best. So I literally saw that. I'm like, man, I need to find something because I'm sitting around the house. I'm like, I'm trying to be more productive. And I'm, you know, I'm like trying to get my brain in gear. And I feel like, you know, I'm just sitting here going, all right, all right. Let's go and then you posted it.

I'm like, you know what? I think I had a book or something. I got you covered. I got you. My man. So thanks again, brother. I really appreciate you. Thank you, man.

Well, there we go. The first ever CVV interview in the books. Thanks for hanging out with us. If you enjoyed this, please take a screenshot. Tag me. Tag Mike, let us know what you thought about this. Let me know what your favorite part about this was. And this is, I guess, going to be the first of many virtual interviews until things get back to normal.

So let's wheel that into existence. by the way, let's keep putting that out there. Let's hope that this gets back to normal sooner rather than later. And all week long, I'm going to be doing these virtual live Q&As on my YouTube channel. But it's not my questions that I'll be asking. It's your questions from the YouTube chat. So I'm looking forward to having you join me on that. And the lineup is insane.

What a lineup we have for this. In order. Here's who we have. Ryeback, Enzo, Zicki Dice. That's going to be outlandish. Lily and Garcia, Ken Shamrock, and Kelly Kelly. Oh, we will see you there. That's going to be great. And remember, in the words of Tony Robbins, with everything going on right now in the world, what you focus on is how you feel. So if you focus on positive things, you will feel positive. If you focus on the negativity that's out there, you're going to feel negative.

So let's focus on those positives as we head into this week, and I'll see you on YouTube for those live, UNAs. Woo. Gonna be good. 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. They're a band from 1987. Hammer Alley. Ever heard of them? To Rock Bottom. Dude, I was born in 1987.

I can't believe he's doing this. Follow and listen on your favorite platform.