Insight with Chris Van Vliet - Ricky Starks on being compared to The Rock, his AEW debut, being WWE enhancement talent

Episode Date: November 24, 2020

Ricky Starks chats with Chris Van Vliet from Jacksonville, FL. He talks about making his AEW debut in the TNT Championship Open Challenge against Cody Rhodes, getting signed by AEW immediately after that match, being compared to The Rock with both his promos and his look, working for NWA and winning the NWA Television Title, the power of manifestation and visualization, what he feels he needs to take his career to the next level and more!   Support the show by supporting our sponsors:  BOSLEY- Get a free info kit and a $250 off gift card by texting CVV to 203-203 or visit https://www.bosley.com/lp/chrisvanvliet/  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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That's CVV to 203-203. That's a great question. Look at you, man. With the powerful questions. This is the Chris Van Bleachow. Chris Van Bleed Show. Ladies and gentlemen, Chris!

Welcome back to the show. Thanks for joining us on another insightful audio adventure on the Chris Van Bleed Show. This episode is brought to you by Bosley, Indeed, and Bet Online. And Ricky Starks is one of the fastest rising stars in AEW. He's also one of the nicest stars. And there's so many great takeaways

from this conversation, things that you can start applying to your own life immediately. Stop a screenshot. Tag us on social media so I can retweet you. I'm at Chris Van Fleet on Twitter and Ricky is at Starkman Jones. And if it's your first time here, hit subscribe so you don't miss out on any future episodes or any future conversations that we have because we have at least two, if not three conversations, episodes, interviews every single week.

This week we got three of them. What a week, right? If you're listening on Apple Podcasts, by the way, it'd be so super appreciated. If you could just take a few seconds out of your day right now to scroll down and click those five stars. And if you're feeling extra generous, you could even leave a review

as we creep ever so close to that goal of 2,000 reviews before my birthday of May 19th. Right now, we're at 1305. So I feel like we're getting there. We're definitely making some progress here. This one is from Green Giant 311 who says road to 2000. Here in Oregon, I watch on YouTube or listen at work if I don't have time.

Chris gets the best guests. Well, thank you, Green Giant. That's an interesting username. I wonder how tall you actually are. Is your skin actually green? Or maybe you're just a fan of the green giant brand of beans or corn or whatever other canned vegetables that they have. But thank you.

Thank you for helping. Get us one step closer on that road to, 2000. Much appreciate. And the point of all of this is I'll be reading one review on the show every single episode. So keep them coming in. Ricky Stark's turned a lot of heads

when he debuted on Dynamite on June 17th when he accepted Cody's challenge for Open Challenge for the TNT Championship. He says he actually manifested that moment into existence. That one-time appearance with AEW turned into him

getting signed and now he's been entertaining us with some incredible promos and some amazing matches. He's got a lot of comparisons to a young rock. So we talk a little bit about that. We also talk about how growing up in New Orleans really shaped the person that he is now. How he became friends with the Undertaker. That's crazy to even say that. And what he thinks that he needs to do to take his career to the next level. So here we go. please welcome Ricky Starks. Absolute Ricky Starks. It is an absolute pleasure to have you on.

Thanks, man. Thank you for having me. I think it's, man, when is the last time I saw you at NWA, right? I saw you, I saw you the day you won the television championship. Ah, the pay-per-view, hard times. Yeah. Yeah. I was there.

I was like, man. That was this year. I know. It feels like four. years ago. Oh, that's insane to think about that. It all happened this year. Dude, but what a year for you?

What a year this has been? Insane. Insane trajectory from winning the NWA television title at hard times to, you know, being in Jacksonville and having a huge main event tag match against Cody and Darby Allen. I couldn't fathom it. But, I mean, this year has. probably been filled with the highest of highs and also the lowest of lows for you. Yeah, especially around, you know, the beginning of the March, beginning of March, April, around that time period, I didn't know what was going to happen.

And I couldn't have imagined the results of all of that, you know, leaving NWA and whatnot. So, and then being in during a pandemic, like, there's a lot, there's a lot to digest. when you think about it. If there wasn't a pandemic, if this was just a normal year, like quote unquote normal year like last year, do you think you'd still be with NWA? Probably, probably. I think so.

But that's a hard one because I had a year plan already scoped out for myself. And in that year plan, it wasn't in the writing for me to be there for as long as I could have been. right now. In my head, I was going to be there for maybe like, you know, eight months. Get what I could out of it and see and then, you know, assess my career from there and then move on. But obviously, that got shortened up a bit just through the pandemic and things like that. And now we're here.

Right. You know, you're such good friends with Sammy Gavar. So I'm curious, when Sammy got signed, when he's one of the, you know, original hires of AEW, is there a little, I mean, obviously you're happy for him, but was there a little part of you that's like, man? How can they didn't call me too? Oh, yeah, for sure. There was a lot of that. That was a feeling that I had to deal with because at the time, Sammy got hired. And then I had friends who were getting signed to NXT.

And I was, I remember one day, like, being at the gym and just thinking like, damn, man, what is it? You know, I've been doing it for, um, that was doing it for eight years, nine years when Sammy got signed, right? And so just like, I don't know what else to do. I've really run the gambit of things to put myself out there with and, you know, different shows to go to. Because at the time, I wasn't big on the Indies. I never had that. So I really was struggling with that mentally to figure out like, damn, I'm happy. At the same time, I'm literally being left behind.

Everyone is moving on. But, I mean, you kind of bet on yourself by making these vignettes, paying to make these. these vignettes, which in the indie world, paying to, like, do anything is like a, it's a crazy thing to think about. You want to be putting money in your pocket, not out of your pockets. So what went into that whole decision? So I had the, I had a WWE trial in 2017, right? I got told no.

And it was just more of a no, not right now. When we do the Cruiserweight Classic Part 2, you'll, you know, you'll be a contender for that, or whatever the case may be. And so at the time, I had just come back. No, I think I went to England that year, and I came back and nothing. That was it. I was just still doing Texas Indies. And I remember thinking to myself, I can't compete with guys who are able to do the crazy flips and all that, right?

But no one can really compete with me when it comes to personality and character. And so I remember thinking, I had this idea of making this lookbook. I said, I'm going to make a lookbook for myself. And it's not necessarily like there's a story to it or anything, but you watch it and you're either intrigued by it. You're either like curious or you want to see more. And I went and found this guy in Texas. The name is Travis Ward, another metals production company he has. He's awesome, like one of the best dudes ever.

And I literally scoped out the places I wanted to go as far as filming. And I wrote down everything that I had envisioned. and I pitched it to him and we together, he said, okay, we can go here and film it here and we can do this and we can do that. And so I spent for that one, I spent a little bit over $600 for it

and it came out great. It was perfect. I produced it all. The only thing I didn't do was the editing and filming, but everything else, the wardrobe, the coloring, all that came from me. And that was just my way of like,

hey, this is what I'm about. And it kind of picked, up with interest at first. And in my head, I said, all right, I'm spending this money right now, but this will, like, who's to say two years from now? I'm not making well over $200,000. This little 600 will be, yeah, it'll be paid for. So that's how I approached it. And that was just a way of trying to get out there because I had no other choice. I couldn't figure out anything else to do. Were you doing this with a goal in mind? I mean, because, you know, this was fairly unprecedented at the time. So were you doing this with a goal in mind of like, I'm going to make this, then I'm going to like send this out.

Maybe I'll send this back to WWE. Maybe I'll send this to some wrestlers I know. Yeah, actually. So the goal was always to use that as some type of platform to like get some eyes on me. Right. And in my head, I said, this will be the way that I get in with whatever company, because AW at the time wasn't around. Right. I wasn't thought.

But I said, this is the way to get in. And I remember sending those. videos in particular to William Regal and to like Canyon Seaman. And, you know, I think Regal was very positive in the reaction to it. Very receptive. But there wasn't much that came from it. So at that point, I was like, okay. So I kept trucking along and then I came up with another idea to do another one. And it just kept building from there. And essentially what I didn't realize at the time was these were promo packages that I was creating for myself better than some of the wrestling companies

were doing for their own signed talent. You know what I'm saying? So this was a better introduction to a wrestler than even the major wrestling companies were able to do. So, you know, that was cool to have at least. And somehow, actually, when I saw you back at hard times, I interviewed Nick Aldous, and he brought you up in the interview.

Right, yeah. And Nick Aldus was basically saying, like someone who's betting on themselves like that, you've got to take a chance on. And it was because of Nick that you got into NWA. You know, and that's a funny story because I think what happened was Nick saw the video, saw the first one, and then sent it to Lagana.

And they hadn't seen me wrestle, and they never saw me cut a promo. And they said, hey, this guy's very creative. So let's at least take a chance on this and see. And that's when I got hit up by Lagana to do the NW70 pay-per-view and it kind of just

started from there when they wanted to do a TV show episodic TV show that would air on YouTube and that's how that all got but yeah he initially saw it

from Twitter which like I had said earlier that kind of it worked out because that was the book It looks like you became a filmmaker in the process

dude I love it it was great I'm a huge Quinn Tarantino is one of my favorite directors I love I love cinematography

so great because the medium there of wrestling and film, no one's really touched on it. No one's really tapped into it. And not to Toot Maugh and Horn, but some of the vignettes, you know, you don't see, no one's done really. People have tried, but no one has really still done those types of vignettes

for themselves or on national TV. So is this something you would recommend, you know, if there's an indie wrestler that's watching this right now, that's trying to, you know, get noticed. Would you say, yeah, go down that path. It works for me. Sure, I would.

But at the same time, just like others before me, when they told me to go down on their path, it was always met with a disclaimer of this may or may not work for you. So you really have to see, like, just try it. This was like, I wouldn't say this was the last ditch effort, but this was the idea that I hung all of my hats on to be like, this has to be it. There's no other way.

So how did AEW come about? Well, that's a crazy story because, so I didn't resign with NWA. I told them, no, thank you. I'm good. And this pandemic had just started. And so I remember watching AEW Dynamite. It's the night that Cody came out and said that he would be issuing an open challenge. And then went on Twitter and said, this is open to anybody.

And so I remember watching that. And then that was, so the next day, Thursday, I was at the gym again. And I, dude, I had this, like, vision. And this vision came to me where I was like, I could see myself walking out. I could see myself cutting this promo on them. And just this huge thing, right? And so I could, like, it was recurring. And the next day, I had it still.

I said, oh, this is how I get in. And so that Sunday, I got a text message from AEW. saying, hey, there's a opportunity here to challenge for the title. Are you interested? I said, hell yeah. And then got my stuff booked, and I went to AW and I wrestled Cody. The funny thing is that I thought that was just a one-off thing. In my head, I thought I would wrestle, go on the Indies, raise my rate, and then build my

stock, because I didn't think that they were hiring. I just, I figured we're in a pandemic, no one's hiring at now. everything the world has stood still. And so, yeah, I mean, I came to the back and really didn't hear. It was a good, you know, good reaction to the match. But that was it. Then when it aired, I got a call from Tony Kahn and kind of went from there. So you visualized this.

And then did you take any steps after that or it just kind of happened that A.A.W. reached out to you after this. So I didn't. So I'm trying to remember that the timeline. of it. I had visualized it. I want to say that weekend, so that week I did bust it open on Monday, right? And that was get yourself over on Monday. I did that interview. And then immediately after I had went and posted my new video, I did another vignette that I was waiting on to issue. So I had that going. And then Wednesday, I had saw it and then had the vision. And then Sunday,

I got the call. Keep in mind, in between that, Cody had saw the vignette as well online and said he liked it, right? So I was like, okay, after I had the vision, though, I never followed up with anyone because I didn't have any contacts at AEW. I have friends there.

I have a friend here, but I didn't use them just because I'm a very, I'm a very independent person. And so I was like, well, if it's meant for me, it's meant for me. My motto is that everything works itself out. I'll always, always say that. I don't stress about things because it does me no good.

So while I didn't really put any action to it, I was training. I was still eating well. I was making sure that I was in shape and, you know, doing all things that is necessary. But I never reached out to anyone prior to that. Is visualization like a part of your routine? Is this something you do frequently? Dude, manifestation is a huge thing that I believe in. Yes.

Because at the times when I was living in a car or, you know, sleeping on someone's couch, or I did not have means to pay my insurance or almost my rent, something would happen. Like, in case and point, I remember back in like February after my birthday, or March, excuse me, I couldn't. I had needed like 150 bucks for. my insurance and I didn't have it. I just didn't have it because I wasn't making money at NWA. I was not making any money to the point where it's just, I was very struggling. And so I need

150 bucks. And I remember clean out my closet and I went through the shoebox for some reason and I found $200. I was like, oh my God. That isn't the first time stuff like that has happened though. That's the thing. There's been common currencies where things like that just happened. And I'm like, It's not a coincidence at that point. It's how I perceive myself in the world and the energy that I put up. I'm not some huge hippie. But when it comes to manifestation, I 1,000% believe in it. I'm with you, 1,001% over here. Yeah. You just can't ignore it, man. No, I completely agree. And it's one of those things that I feel like, without getting too woo-woo,

I feel like the universe matches the energy that you put out. Yes, absolutely. And it takes time to figure that out. And I feel like that comes from experience and actually going through a lot of BS. And rotation of like, oh, something bad happened again. Oh, always me, you know. Right. But you want to talk about the energy that you put out. I mean, nobody has more charisma, I feel like, than you do. And were you always this guy? Like, were you the kid who was just like, you know, the class clown? Like, look at me. Yeah. So, I mean, that's that's me in a nutshell. I'm very,

I'm very, I'm much of a smart ass in the sense of, I'll say things, I'm very quick with it, I'll say things at the slip of a tongue, and I'm always trying to do something to make other people alive. So that's just how I am. That's how I grew up. I wouldn't say I was necessarily the class clown.

I left that to other people, but I'm more of the subtle comedic relief, you know, back in high. Yeah. Yeah. This has been a thing that I feel like I've always been just a person who wanted to put on a show for someone. Yeah. I mean, now you've translated that into being a fantastic promo guy.

And I'm curious growing up, who were the promo guys that you watched and went so good? Well, I mean, there wasn't it. So when I was younger, I think a lot of my influence comes from the fact that I grew up in New Orleans. and I was around a lot of older people in New Orleans and I had a conversation. I'm very much of an old soul. So I'll have a conversation with an older person than I would a younger person

because I just relate better. So I take a lot of the things that I say and whatnot from those people, from the elders that I grew up with. It wasn't until I got into wrestling fully that I started to really deep dive on promo guys. You think of people like Thunderbolt Patterson. as a promo guy who actually the rock kind of pattered himself after as well,

same with Booker, Booker T. So I had guys like that. I had guys like, like, like, I used to study Stone Cold when he was in ECW. I used to study like Paul Heyman as well. Obviously, I could say The Rock. The Rock is a great promo, but that wasn't someone that I studied. I studied a lot of how Dusty talked and, and, you know, things like that.

So I think the majority of that just came from how I grew up. Right. And now there's all kinds of comparisons to the rock because of how you are on the mic. But, I mean, you also kind of look like Survivor Series Rock. Yeah, I get it. There's the eyebrow. Wow. I should have been casted in that new biopic show that you guys.

I'm telling you. Yeah. But, you know, I'm not too sadden or mad about the comparison. right? Well, you shouldn't be. Right. Just because, like, I mean, that's cool to have that, but I know at the end of the day who I'm pattering myself after, if you even want to call it that. And I already know how my lineage is going to be moving forward. The comparison won't last my entire life. They just won't. So if that's the starter for how people see me right now and then the intrigue is still there, then I'm fine with that. You know, when I was watching,

your vignettes again to prepare for this interview. I actually saw like a Prince vibe. Hell yeah. Yeah, I love Prince. Oh, okay. Yeah, I do not like Michael Jackson, but I love Prince. And so obviously there's some, the style that Prince has and the coolness that he has, I mean, that's, anyone can see that.

But, yeah, in those vignettes, there was some Prince vibe. Dude, especially the first video. If you saw the first video before it got taken down, there's a electric blue, or excuse me, a computer blue, like a solo. That whole guitar riff is computer blue itself. And so that's really where I got that idea from, because that's one of my favorite songs. You know, if we talk about this lineage that you, you know,

obviously have in mind and what you're headed towards, what do you think it is that you need in order to get to that next level? I think the next step would be a championship title. I think having that, here's my opinion, I don't necessarily need a title. I can be just as great without it. I could probably go my entire career without ever having a title. But obviously, the title adds a little certain spice to things, and that only enhances the flavor of the entire meal, right?

So I think having that only takes me another step. I think you need, and everybody needs this, but I think it would really help you to have a live crowd. Because you would, you know, the 10, 15,000 people that are going to be at AEW shows when things open back up again will be in the palm of your hand. You know, I've been waiting. And I've often dreamt about how that would be, right?

I understand how that is for an intimate crowd like you saw the studios in Atlanta. And that was fun. But I often think about walking out and being like 15,000, 20,000 people. How is the reaction going to be? Because we can base it off of how the reaction is right now online. And that's a good measure. But it's different when you're at a live setting like that in an atmosphere that's shared by, you know, 19,000 other people. I think it's safe to say a lot of things have changed in 2020, including how we work.

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The biggest influence, because I'm being frank, obviously my family is a great influence on me. My mom, my sister, my brother, my niece. They're a huge influence. I think when it comes to wrestling at a time, biggest influence was taker for me. I tried to really pattern myself out of The Undertaker in the sense of a leader,

a wrestler, you know, things like that. And I still do to a certain extent because now I've had to grow into my own. But those two main influences would be that. I gave you the family and I gave you the wrestler side of it. How did you become friends with The Undertaker? So I... Praise it even asked that.

I know, especially for how much of a fan I am. So back in Austin, there's a gym called On It. And I used to go to Onit. I went there. I only started going to Onit because I thought I would have a tryout back in 2016. So I was training way before, you know, I fully had my tryout. And so I was there barely making it by because it was like $194 a month. And I was this dude making minimum wage.

And so I would go at the same time that Taker was there because Taker was preparing for his match against Shane in Dallas for Mania. So whoever knows what that timeline is, you can correct it. WrestleMania 32. Yeah, 2016, right? That'd be, yeah, four wrestlmanias ago.

Okay, yeah. Five WrestleMania. Yeah. One of them. So he was there constantly, and he was filming a documentary, but he was filming a documentary just for his family, because he figured that would be the last one.

Hmm. I befriended the documentary. The guy who was doing the documentary. His name was Brandon. Really nice, dude. And I told him, like, oh, that's one of my favorites. And I would talk to Takeger.

I went up to him, I'd say, thank you for everything, follow, blah, this and that. And so since I was there all the time, he would come and make small talk with me. So that happened. That was it. I want to say fast forward to the next year, me and my tag partner, Aaron Solo,

went and started to film a documentary on us, just on the Indies. And there was a part where Brandon asked Taker if he wouldn't mind sitting down with us and us asking questions and, you know, being under the learning tree. Yeah. And from there, Taker was getting ready for his match against Sina and Mania 34 in New Orleans, I think it was.

Yeah. So he had, he hit us up and wanted to train. And W.J.B. sent out this ring to this location. It was a sick setup. I'll never forget. We were in there. I want to say for two days or three days. And I was just in the ring sparring with Undertaker.

And I couldn't, I cannot fathom it. I cannot understand it. Like, I met Michelle and I met him. I made his daughter. It was the most insane thing I've ever done in my life. And this is, you know, before things obviously started happening with AEW, you had some, you had worked as developmental talent in, or I guess, you know, enhancement talent in WWA.

Were your conversations with Undertaker like, hey, how can I like kind of get my foot in the door a little bit more? No, and I'm never that type of person. And I'll tell you why. Because I feel like my hard work and dedication should speak volumes for itself. And if you're a person who sees that and acknowledges that while this dude busts his ass, maybe I should try to help them out, then that's fine. But there's times where I just won't ask because in my head it's like,

if I have to ask, that puts, you know, that kind of puts that person in a position and all this other stuff that goes through my head. So I always just say, if I work hard enough, it will work. It may not be right when I wanted to, but it will happen. Yeah. You know how often Ryback shares that clip of putting you through the table backstage? Not enough, I would assume. Not enough. I see it pop up on the algorithm for YouTube.

There you go. When you type your name into YouTube, that's one of the number one clips. And your name's not even in the title. I know. It's a arena worker. Yeah. But, you know, the work that you did with WWE, you were in the ring with, you know, some pretty big talent there. Dude, I wrestled Kane. I wrestled FTR. I wrestled Ginger Mahal. And it's so funny to see the same, you know, when you're up there are the same people you see when you're not in a negative way. You know what I'm saying? It's almost cyclical because there's a show that I wrestle Gender Mahal at. and then I'm working with FTR and I saw Ryback in Vegas at the gym and he gave me great, great advice.

So it's so crazy to think about. So how close do you think you were to working for WWE after doing that talent, you know, the enhancement talent with them and then the tryout? Not, I don't think I was close at all. Wow. And I'll never understand why. I never understand why for someone, I love wrestling. It really is the only, I never played any sports.

I never did anything. I only watch wrestling. And I have immersed myself and become obsessed with it. And I love it to death. So when I did the tryout in 2017, and I was told and saw the reaction when I killed it in the promo class, and I was keeping up with everybody when we were doing the workouts. And even Bloom was saying how good of a job I did,

I realized they didn't want a wrestler. They wanted someone who wasn't passionate about it, that they could probably make into it. And I still don't get why. That was the time period where I kind of went crazy. I died in my hair. I kind of couldn't figure out what was wrong with me. So I don't know why that happened.

And I thought every time I went to WWE, I was like, oh, this is going to be it. This is how I get in. and it wasn't. And that's fine. And I'm okay with that. Because the funny thing is, the day that I wrested with Cody,

I got a phone call from, from WW, saying, hey, we've been watching you and we wanted to bring you in. I said, oh, really? Okay. Interesting of all days. And so I entertain that conversation

because I was curious. Yeah. So I think I knew already what decision I was going to make. And I had a very dear, great friend telling me once, you should look at the people who want to invest in you and not know anything about you, as opposed to the people who only wanted you when they saw someone else having interest.

Yeah, that's so powerful. Yeah, so that put things in perspective. And I don't hold any ill will towards WW. But I really think they dropped the ball majorly on that. And I'll never know why. And I guess I don't care now. But it doesn't matter now. That's very interesting to hear that WWE is watching Dynamite, though.

Well, yeah, tell me about it. That's, they watch everything. I don't believe that they don't. I do think they have their eyes everywhere. Have you ever called 1-800 Stark's line? I have. It's a sex hotline. What?

Yeah. No, it's not. It is. It's pretty cool. What it was, I don't know if they went out of business, but I would think business went up during the COVID period. Right before we got on this call, I dialed it. And it's obviously way too many numbers, right?

Yeah. But it connected anyway, and it said, we have a special offer for you. If you're over the age of 50, press one. So I'm like, all right, press one. And then this woman came out like a live woman. This was not a sex line. She goes, hi, this is like the health, you know, discount hotline. And I was like, oh, I'll just hang up now.

Hell yeah. That's so weird. I swear when I started that back in 2000. 2015 maybe, 2014. And I remember calling it just because I was curious as well. And it was the sex hotline. But I guess they changed it now. I should have bought the number.

I had the idea of buying the number and having a pre-recorded like a clip of me talking when you called it. I couldn't figure out how, though. And I didn't have the money to really spend on that. Yeah. It's a lot as easy as just setting up a website. Yeah, exactly. I could have just did it with a. Google number and then literally had to be a live number. Yeah. And had people bombard me with calls all

then that would just be annoying. Yeah, exactly. Then I would be like, all right, this is stupid. Guys, I got to go to sleep now. Yeah. And also hang out with The Undertaker. Yeah. We had to eat barbecue together. I love how you talk about how much, how important visualization is. And I think that there's, you know, there's so much that can be taken out of that. I also think that gratitude is a really important quality to have. And I always say, be great, and you'll be grateful. And I want to end this by asking you, what are three things that you're grateful for in your life right now? Well, I'm definitely grateful for the job that I have. I'm internally grateful because if I'm grateful, then the teenage self is grateful and my child self is grateful. I'm also grateful to still have the ability to now

take care of my family and buy my mom a house or a car or give money to my sister and my brother and my niece. I'm grateful for that. And I'm also grateful to just be in the position that I am in and to have other people say, hey, you are good enough. You are good enough to be here. You're a talent unlike no other. And I'm grateful that you're here. You know, hearing that from other people, having the friendships that I have. I'm all grateful for that because, like we talked about earlier, I couldn't have predicted this happening the way it has happened. And I think that the day that I, before I die,

I would definitely tell my kids, you know, people talk all the time about like dreams and things like that. And if you dream it, you can make it happen. I think that's BS. What I say is that if you manifest it and you put in the work and make sure all your eggs are in order, it will work out. You didn't manifest no timeline.

You just manifested getting to the end goal, right? So that's what, I think that's how I take these things now. And I look back and think about, especially with Thanksgiving around, the things that I am supremely grateful for. Yeah. I'm so excited for you. Congratulations. When I saw you got signed, I was like, yes, of course.

It's amazing. Can I still call you stroke daddy or we don't do that anymore? I mean, yeah, for sure. People still do. I think a lot of people wonder why I haven't gone by that nickname. And it's like, I'm on TV. I can't go by that anymore, y'all. That's a line that's very, you know, that's a hard one to maneuver around.

But I do miss that nickname because it makes me think of back to, you know, the independence. This was so great, man. Thank you. And again, I'm congratulations. I'm really pumped for you, man. Thank you, man. This is a crazy time

we're living in, but I think, I think obviously this was going to happen either way. This interaction was always destined to happen the way it has.

It just needed to take some time. Yeah. I appreciate you, man. I appreciate you, Chris. This was fun and great,

and I loved it. We'll do a part two another time soon. I think we should do a part two once I become champion, whether it's AW World Champion or the AWT&T champion. Done. You heard it here first. Yeah, you get first.

There it is. Absolute Ricky Starks. And I feel like this is an interview that will be coming back to in a year or two or five when he's holding those titles that he was talking about. I mean, he's just a mega talent in the ring. And, yeah, it's just a matter of time before he holds the TNT Championship. the world championship and, you know, and any other title that

AEW happens to come out with. Take a screenshot. Let us know what stood out for you the most here. Tag us on social media. On Twitter, I'm at Chris Van Vleet, and Ricky is at Starkman Jones. And he said it during his promo on Dynamite when he debuted. And he said

he's always had two things. His work ethic and grit. And both of those things can take you as far as you want to go in life. And he has a lot of both. He has a lot of both work ethic and grit. And basketball coach Tim Notkey said it best. I love this quote so much. I say this all the time. Hard work beats talent when talent doesn't work hard. Oh, that is so true. Be great. Be grateful,

my friends. Hope you have a great week and we will see you on the next one. 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 then? 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.