Insight with Chris Van Vliet - My Top 5 Wrestling interviews of 2019 - Which was your favorite?

Episode Date: December 31, 2019

Chris Van Vliet lives by the phrase "vague goals get vague results" so at the start of the year, he made the specific goal to do 50 wrestling interviews in 2019. He ended up doing 100, and in this episode he takes a look back at some of his favorites and why each one was important to him. It was extremely difficult for Chris to narrow it down to just five because there were so many memorable and incredible conversations. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Look at you, man. What's the powerful question. Woo! This is the Chris Van Bleet Show. Chris Van Bleet Show. Ladies and gentlemen, Chris Van Bleet Show. Oh, man. What a year 2019 has been.

Thank you so much for being with me on this audio adventure, just being with me on this journey in general. I'm just so overwhelmed with gratitude as I sit here looking back on the last 365 days and realizing the incredible, amazing opportunities that I've had. And that's what this episode is all about. This episode of The Chris Van Fleet Show is brought to you by Untucket. as we look at the top five interviews of 2019.

If you've been following my YouTube channel, if you're a subscriber on YouTube, you know that at the start of the year, I set out the very specific goal that I wanted to do 50 wrestling interviews in 2019 because we know that vague goals get vague results. So specific goals get specific results. Here we are at the end of 2019.

20 million views on YouTube, 108,000 new subscribers and 100 videos. So thank you. And the podcast now is about six months old, and it's been growing like crazy. I mean, it was in the Apple top 200 several times this year,

which is mind-blowing to think of. It's one of the top 10 wrestling podcasts in the world because of you, and I appreciate you continuing to leave these five-star reviews on Apple podcast. Because, I mean, look, no matter where you listen,

thank you for being part of the show, whether it's on Stitcher or Google, or a lot of Spotify listeners, wherever you're, wherever you happen to be listening, thank you. It's just Apple is the only place where you can review them. So I'm going to continue to read a review as we head into 2020. Why not? Read a review every single show is my way of saying, thank you to you and shout you out like this from Evelyn.

I think it's Evelyn, E-V-O-L-I-N. CVV-V-S-V-E-V-O-L-N. Thank you so much, Chris. Your without-bias wrestling interviews are great for everyone, including the wrestlers to hear their side. Well, thank you so much for that. And I'm going to continue to put out these interviews as we head into 2020. I mean, as we look back on on the year that was, it's pretty amazing. I mean, we interviewed people from WW. We interviewed people from AEW, Impact Wrestling, ring of honor, people that were in MLW, people that went from WW to AW, people that went from

WWE to Impact. People that went from WWE to NWA. Unsigned talent. A few legends. A few podcasters and YouTubers. Ring announcer, we had Justin Roberts on the show. My first ever interview with a referee. Yeah, we had Audrey Edwards.

Aubrey Edwards on the show. Geez, tough name to say for some reason. We also had our longest interview ever, which was the one with Enzo. And then two and a half weeks later, we had the longest interview ever, that two-hour epic with all. Austin Ares. The interviews took place from Florida to Las Vegas to Los Angeles to New York, Chicago, Phoenix, North Carolina, and our first ever interview overseas in the UK. And when you upload 100 videos, it's hard to narrow down to just your top five. So I'm not saying that the other 95 weren't worthy. And if your favorite interview isn't on this list, that doesn't mean it wasn't my favorite interview because it probably was one of my favorites. But like narrowing, down to your top five's like choosing your favorite child or choosing your favorite AJ

styles match you know what I'm talking that's too hard to narrow it all down and by the way yes that 100 does include the post match interviews we did at fighter fest all out and double or nothing and by the way the post match interview we did with Cody after double or nothing was the number one trending video in the world on YouTube for like 36 hours so a massive Massive thank you for that. This episode of the show is brought to you by Untucked, and if you've ever seen an Untuck button down, I mean, they look bad.

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So I can use you take you to all our sponsors in 2019. The fact that we even have sponsors on a podcast that's this young has been pretty incredible. And what an insane year this has been. So here we go. Get ready. It's my top five interviews from 2019. We'll start off with a very big interview for number five with the big guy. Right back.

I feel very underdressed, though. That was what I was going for. Well, you've succeeded. I don't get to. wear suits very often. I'm typically wearing my Feed Me More Nutrition gym clothes. This was the first real interview that Ryback did since leaving WWE. Of course, he has his podcast and his YouTube channel, but this was the first real interview on the record. And we set a lot of things straight here. Like the fact that he was not fired from WWE, he asked

for his release. I hadn't signed the new contract they gave me. So the games had already started, and I just, I'm done. And I just, I sat there for a bit. And I thought it threw fully. And I already was close to, it was just kind of just waiting. Yeah. And this is it. And went and said what I had to say. And they said, you want to go talk to Vince?

And I said, I never want to fucking talk to him again. And I left. Wow. Yeah. This interview showed us out of Ryback that I think people had never really seen before. He's way more intelligent and far more thoughtful than people ever gave him credit for. And Ryback actually gives me credit and this interview credit for helping to say, springboard his YouTube channel. At the time it had like 5,000-ist subscribers. As I stand here right

now at the end of 2019, his channel, Ryback TV, has 186,000 subscribers. That is massive growth. He did it in six months. It took me like six or seven years to get to that point. We live in a day and age, Chris, where with social media we could do and be whatever we want. Number four is Tessa Blancher. And your story's so interesting because I think a lot of people think because of who your father was that this was just predestined for you to become a wrestler. And that was not the case at all for you. No, I actually, I never wanted to be a wrestler growing up. I always wanted to do musical theater and be on Broadway one day. And growing up, my family put me in, like, the Charlotte Children's Theater in North Carolina.

And they put me in, like, anything theater. And all through middle school and high school, I did musical theater. And that's what I always wanted to do. She's not only one of the best female wrestlers in the world. Just take the word female out of that sentence. She is by far one of the best wrestlers in the world. I don't know. It's been neat. People keep asking like, what's next?

Like, what's a goal of yours? What do you want to do? And I'm like, I just want to wrestle some of the best in the world. And I want to become one of the best in the world. I want to make history in my own way. You know, like women are making history right now in sports. And there's the first this and the first this and the first this. And it's great.

It's so great for like the women's revolution, but like I want to find a way to make history in my way. It's so amazing seeing how she's carved her own path and created her own legacy. And I think it's not a matter of if it's a matter of when in 2020 will she become the impact wrestling world champion. It's cool because it's a cool time for wrestling. It shows that wrestling is evolving. It shows that I've always been passionate about intergender wrestling too because a lot of people are so quick to write it off. They're just like, man and the woman, no. But I strongly believe that there's a way to do it.

And I think that after Sammy and I's match, or even after Brian and I wrestled at Russell Circus on the Independence, and a lot of people saw that match, and they're like, okay, I get it. Yeah. Number three is the interview that I got asked about more than any other interview I've ever done in my entire career. And that's the other interesting conversation that I had with Maxwell, Jacob Friedman. We're getting off on a bad foot here, and I don't want to, because you seem like a nice guy, Chris.

You really do, right? Don't ever fucking abbreviate your name like you're some hot shot around me ever again. Sorry, Chris Van Fleet. That's kind of my thing. Maxwell Jacob Friedman. Yeah, but only I get to do the MJF thing. You're no MJF. I mean, this interview had it all from the obnoxiously loud water sipping.

That's good stuff. To the room service that arrived halfway through the interview. I'm sorry, I'm really hungry. This is room service. In the middle of it. Chris, please don't talk. It's really rude. Hi, how's it going? Oh, thank you very much. Which led to the toast being thrown at my head. Show you like carbs, Chris. There you go.

And of course, the infamous omelet. You know what, I'm gonna let you have a piece. I'm okay. No, I insist, Chris. I'm okay. It's all right. Here we go. Open up, train time. Chuk-ch-ch-ch-ch-chug-ch-chug-ch-ch-chug-ch-ch-chchchchchchchchchch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-oh. Big boy, Chris.

You guys wanted to see what MJF was really like? Well, I feel like you got it here. If I'm not making eye contact with you, I don't want to talk to you. If I'm not trying to talk to you, I don't want to talk to you. If I'm out to dinner, I don't want to talk to you. If I'm breathing, I don't want to talk to you. At no point during the day, do I want to deal with a loser fat mark, with a belly that this wide and 70 chins that wants to go up to me and go,

oh, hi, Mr. MJF, I'm a real big fan of yours. Pleasure, my name's Bill. I don't have time for you, Bill. I don't have time for any of you. Pour yourself a little bit of the bubbler. For number two, my now infamous backseat of the car interview with Chris Jericho. And chances are, if you're watching this video right now,

you probably found my channel because of this interview. Yeah, it's been a crazy, crazy less than two weeks. Yeah. But, you know, stuff that we've been working on for a while. And it makes me laugh because today is Saturday. And it was just a week ago that was one of the main events of the Tokyo Dome. Yeah. But so much has happened since then that feels like it was 10 years ago.

Yeah. Chris Jericho shocked the world when he signed with AEW on January 8th, 2019. Four days later, I was sitting in the backseat of his car doing this interview, asking him, how did this signing all come together? All of these things kind of happened at the same time. So something that I heard about four or five months ago, never really took it seriously. Then as the negotiations progressed, I realized it's a very good chance that I could end up with AEW. And I did.

I just remember you saying, though, a while back that you never wanted to sign with another company in North America because you didn't want to insult Vince. What changed? Life. I mean, you know, it's one of those things I never would have guessed it. But as the past year progressed, going. from New Japan to All In, to the crews, and kind of seeing how life was on the other side, I realized that, you know, like the Bucks and like Kenny and these guys, you can make a good

living outside of the WV. And then when you have a billionaire getting involved, suddenly I get the biggest offer of my career by far. You know, I couldn't say no. The way that this interview came together for me is I was living in Florida at the time, and Jericho was doing this live podcast in Ocala, Florida, about a four-ish hour drive from where I lived. So I reached out to him when I said, if you could just give me a few minutes of your time, do you think we could make this happen?

He said, absolutely. Next thing you know, I'm in my car, boom, doing the eight-hour round-trip drive to make this thing happen. And I think this interview was super eye-opening because it showed people that AEW was not messing around. They were willing to pay top talent, top dollar, to lock them down. Starting a wrestling company, not easy.

There's a lot of guys signed already. There's a lot of people out there that aren't signed, but there's also WB, there's Ring of Honor, there's New Japan, there's impact. There's a lot of places now for guys to go. And that's great. And WB is signing as many guys as they can. And I think some people are starting to realize

that they're signing just to sign. And there's a lot of people that aren't really doing anything. So maybe some of those people, instead of signing with the WV, because it's my chance, maybe they'll sign with AW. And here we are almost exactly. a year later, and Chris Jericho is not only the champion, but he's also cementing the fact that he is by far one of the greatest of all time.

But he won't tell you that. I don't think you ever see Wayne Gretzky walking around going, you know, I'm the great one. That's for other people to say it. And it's great to know that my name is mentioned in that way. And then when you really think about it, I mean, I guess there's a case for it. I'm coming up, let's see, next year will be 30. years in this biz and still been on top that whole time basically. I mean, there's been ups and downs that's wrestling. You're not always on top. You go down, you come up, you go down, you come up, especially when you stay in the same place, which is why it was great for me to go to Japan,

where guess what, I'm the top guy. Then I have my own cruise where it's the Chris Jericho cruise and then do, you know, All Elite, where suddenly it's Jericho's the big signing. And here we go. The number one interview of the year is John S. John S. And it's not just because it's John Cena. It's up to the talent to take something, no offense, that is shitty and make it good. I have never been handed a written piece of paper that they go, this is great. It's always how do we turn this shit into something that makes sense. This was actually my third interview with John Cena, but this one was so special because it happened during

WrestleMania weekend, which is even more special when you think about it because if you're a wrestler, Russellmania weekend is the craziest weekend of the year with like not even a free second of time. This interview was supposed to be 10 minutes long. Sina extended it not once. Thank you so much. Wait, we got more. We do. What?

We have more. Look at this. This is why John Sina is the best. How much, we have a clock up there. So what time do we have until? I can't tell you because I don't want you to cut. I don't want you to cut anything short. Wow.

But twice. Wait. Are you serious? One final question. One. Wow, one final question. He dug in deep on some stuff he had never talked about before and gave such incredible great life advice

that at times I kind of felt like this was a TED talk. This is more of a tutorial for like my pieces of semi-sage advice bestowed upon you. Don't waste time and energy over the uncontrollable. It would be awesome if I was champion. It would be awesome if I was a bad guy. It would be awesome if it was this and this and this. take what you have and make it something great.

A huge, huge thank you to Tyler Perry. Yes, that Tyler Perry, for connecting John and I and making this interview happen. And fun little story that I actually haven't told before. I had John seen his number, which was crazy to think about, but I was texting John to coordinate when and where this would happen. So it happened at this gym, it needed to happen at exactly 1 o'clock.

So I show up at like 1255, I text John and say, I'm here. He texts me back and says, I can't see you, and I'm not trying to be funny. What a guy! Sean Michaels, best advice on psychology I ever got. If it's loud, it was good. So I'll leave you with that, and I hope a WrestleMania is loud.

I gotta go. Guys, how awesome is Sean Seam? Well, there we go. 2019. What an incredible, amazing year. And recapping it now, just makes me appreciate just how special of a year it was. So thank you so much for being with me on this journey, whether it was on YouTube and the podcast, whether it was just the podcast, whatever it happens to be.

Thank you. Without you, we couldn't do this. We couldn't make this happen. And it's so exciting to think about how big and great and incredible 2020 is going to be. And we're kicking 2020 off in a huge way. We're kicking it off with one of my favorite interviews that I've ever done. It's an interview that I know for sure is going to be on this list, 365 days, well, actually 366 days from now because 2020 is a leap year.

It's an interview with your Olympic gold medalist. Yeah, the guy who won the Olympics with a broken freaking neck, Kurt Angle. And it's a deep dive into his life and everything else in his career. And I'm so excited. So keep an eye out for that. Make sure you subscribe so you don't miss that one. And we always end the podcast with a quote. And I think the best quote that we could possibly end this one,

with is the quote that we began the year with vague goals get vague results think about that whatever your goals happen to be for the day the week the month the year the decade as we headed to 2020 it's the year of perfect vision 20 20 and i think we can take it one step further with this quote from gregg read a dream written down with a date becomes a goal a goal broken down into steps becomes a plan. A plan backed by action makes your dreams come true. What are your dreams for 2020? Let's go out there. Let's crush them together. I can't wait to show you what's in store for 2020 for me. And I can't wait to see what you have in store for you. 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. Hammer Alley. Follow and listen on your favorite platform.