Insight with Chris Van Vliet - Rob Conway Hated His Theme Song! La Résistance, Fired By Vince McMahon, Randy Orton

Episode Date: September 8, 2026

Rob Conway (@therobconway) is a professional wrestler best known for his time in WWE. He sits down with Chris Van Vliet in Nashville, TN to discuss having early matches with John Cena and Brock Lesnar in OVW, how he was selected to be in the La Résistance faction with Sylvain Grenier and René Duprée, fans hating the group, why he doesn't like his "Just Look At Me" theme, being fired on live TV by Vince McMahon, getting beaten up by WWE legends, and more! Please support our sponsors: HELIX SLEEP: Flash sale! Go to https://helixsleep.com/cvv for 27% off sitewide! COZY EARTH: Go to https://cozyearth.com/CVV for up to 20% off! BEAM: Go to https://shopbeam.com/INSIGHT and use code INSIGHT for up to 40% off Beam’s Dream Powder DELETEME: Use the code INSIGHT to get 20% off your DeleteMe plan at https://joindeleteme.com/INSIGHT FACTOR: Get 50% off your first box, plus Free Breakfast for 1 Year with the code INSIGHT50OFF at https://factormeals.com/INSIGHT50OFF PURE PLANK: The future of core fitness! Use the code CVV to save 10% on Pure Plank designed by Adam Copeland & Christian: https://gopureplank.com/cvv SEAT GEEK: Use my code for 10% off your next SeatGeek order*: https://seatgeek.onelink.me/RrnK/CVV Sponsored by SeatGeek. *Restrictions apply. Max $20 discount NORDVPN: Exclusive deal! https://nordvpn.com/cvv Try it risk-free now with a 30-day money-back guarantee! PRIZEPICKS: Download the PrizePicks app today and use code INSIGHT to get $50 bonus credit in lineups after you play your first $5 lineup! For more information about Chris and INSIGHT go to: https://chrisvanvliet.com If you have ever enjoyed any of these episodes, could I ask you to please consider leaving a short review on Apple Podcast or Spotify? It takes less than a minute and makes a huge difference in helping to spread the word about the show and also to convince some hard-to-get guests. Follow CVV on social media: Instagram: instagram.com/ChrisVanVliet Twitter: twitter.com/ChrisVanVliet Facebook: facebook.com/ChrisVanVliet YouTube: youtube.com/ChrisVanVliet TikTok: tiktok.com/@Chris.VanVliet Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Discover Coffee Plus on Nispresso.com. Rob Conway, thanks for making this happen. I appreciate it. Happy to be here. Yeah, it's good to see you. Yeah, first time I ever met you. Yeah, we're doing this in person. I love it.

What's keeping you busy these days? You know, it seems like there's not enough time in the day, and I don't really feel like I do that much. I mean, between taking care of three dogs and working out and doing wrestling appearances, you know, still feel really busy. You're still wrestling, right? occasionally. I like to do appearances more than I like to do wrestling, but when the time comes, I can still get out there and take care of business and entertain a crowd.

Well, you're looking as jacked as ever. I appreciate it. So you're still, like, Jim is still number one for you. And you know, it was before I got into wrestling. I always liked wrestling as a kid, but I started out, I played college basketball, and then I started kind of weight training for basketball, and I gained like 30 pounds in like six months. I was like, man, the heck with basketball. I'm gonna just, I got more compliments, lifting weights. And so I started doing like teenage bodybuilding contests.

And that's, I was doing that when I drove by and saw the sign that said, nightmare Danny Davis School of Professional Wrestling Live events on Sunday. And I was like, you can learn how to pro wrestle in Jeffersonville, Indiana. So. So went from like the love of bodybuilding to being like, maybe I could do this wrestling thing and probably didn't. know it at the time but be a body guy in wrestling yeah well see i watched wrestling as a kid i mean like we went to the louisville gardens and starting in like fifth grade and i i just never aspired to do it because i mean how are you going to become a pro wrestler when you're a five-foot-nothing

hundred-nothing pound kid from new albany indiana and uh so i really and i liked the macho man well i grew up on jerry luller okay sure you know in louisville jerry luller and then And then the macho man Randy Savage, but I was always attracted to the idea of being larger than life. So it was like the ultimate warrior and Lex Lugar. Like I didn't know if anybody was good at wrestling. I just know that that guy looked big and strong and look like he could take the other guy. Fair to say that you're a body guy in wrestling? Yeah, I would say.

Fortunately and unfortunately. Oh, in what way? Well, once you're a body guy, people, there's a certain expectation that people have when they meet you. you. And they will give you their opinion whether you want it or not. So right now I try to keep my body fat between like nine and 11. You know, right now I'm a little on the leaner side. But if I was to gain a few pounds, people feel confident just walking up going, dude, they used to be in such good shape. You know, or I liked it better when you had this hair or this mustache. Like if I, if I was never on TV, I was just in an elevator, they wouldn't say a word to you. Sure. Once they've seen you on

television, everybody feels like they can just give their opinion about whether it's your music or your hair or how much body fat you have or your trunks. You know, you just, it just comes along with the territory. Well, you got the bicep veins still. I mean, I do not have that. I mean, you look like you could still go. Yeah. Well, when I do wrestle, I try to give 100%. You know, that's one of the reasons I don't do it as much as I used to because I don't, four nights a week for years, That's a lot of wear and tear. I mean, I was real fortunate, but you kind of, when you're on the road, you love being on the road. It's weird to be home for a few days.

When you're used to being home, it's weird to be on the road. Sure. So, you know, I'll do weekends here and there, but the idea of wrestling four or five nights a week and spending months at a time, like, on the road, it definitely doesn't sound appealing anymore. There's this idea from fans that if you're not on TV every single week, week, you're not wrestling. So like you left WWE almost 20 years ago. You're still doing this now. Do you have an age in mind that you want to wrestle until? I never really think about like, I think you just know when you don't, when you're driving to or flying somewhere and you're just thinking, man, I don't want to do this. I think that'll, that'll be the time because it's still fun.

I still watch it, you know, on television. I still watch a lot of the older stuff that, you know, I'm still a fan of the stuff that got me into it in the first place, you know, the early 80s. And then the mid to late 90s when it got hot, that's, I mean, the NWO and DX, that's when people used to just see me and say, hey, man, are you a wrestler? Because I was, I'm like 210 now. I was like 240 pounds with big hoop ear rings. And, you know, I just looked that part. And that's why I was like, am I a wrestler, no, but then I started, I went to a W.

WCW Live event, which I didn't know there was such thing as live events. I just thought everything was TV. Sure. So I went and there was no pyro and no nitral girls. It was just a live event. But I got down close enough to try. I was trying to size myself up to like Bagwell and Scott Steinerd. And they were probably leaner than I was at the time.

But I was similar height, similar size. And I didn't really think about the wrestling aspect. Like, oh, you had to learn how to wrestle. So I'm as big as these guys. I could do it. If you were watching Backlash, you might have seen a face that you recognize sitting behind Michael Cole and Wade Barrett.

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I feel like you've got a lot of comparisons to Buff Bagwell. Oh, for sure. How do you feel about that? That's flattering to me. I mean, I was a buff fan. I told him when I met him. I was a fan of him, a fan of Lugar, Steiner, Ultimate Warrior, Hogan, I mean, British Bull, all the Jack dudes I was a fan of.

You know, it's just that he happens to be probably the closest to my size and height. And then when I left La Resistance, they basically were going to split you up. And you need to come up with something on your own. So basically try to look as least like you do now to do something new. And I was like, well, I've had blonde hair, I've had long hair, I've had a beard. Like, that's when I came up with the mustache. And then the side was kind of like rock sideburns with the Bagwell style mustache. But it just looked, it just fit me personally.

But yeah, I've got a lot of comparisons to, it's weird because people be like, you're trying to be like the rock or you're trying to be like Bagwell. You're trying to be. It's like if you take 10 guys and you're trying to be like all of them, eventually you're just who you are. I think it's also, you have a. similar build to Bagwell. It's the mustache. It's also the sunglasses. Yeah. So like if you guys were wrestling in the same era, if you were in WCW in the late 90s, you and Buff Bagwell could have very well easily been a tag team. Yeah, I would have liked that.

Yeah. Yeah. If I was in, uh, in WCW in the late 90s, I would be sitting on a lot more money. Is that right? I got signed in 2000 right when WCW got bought. So instead of me going right to TV, I had this influx of talent that just got dropped in on us. So, you know, it's like Brock went up and I think Randy went up. And then the next thing you know, we've got all the WCW to compete with to go from developmental to the main roster. Well, you were in OVW when all of the massive names were in OVW. I'm going to go over a few names here because you've had early matches with all of them.

Randy Orton, very early matches with Randy Orton and OVW. Yeah, when I first, now, the first time I met Randy, I remember, you know, I knew his dad was and stuff like that. We were at a gym. And me and him are still good friends. But he, he claims that the first time I met him that when I walked in the gym, they said, this is Randy Orton. He just got signed. He stuck his hand out, and I looked him up and down and walked right by him. And I'm like, that would have never happened.

That sounds like something he would do. But I don't know how he pondered off on. Do you remember how it actually went? No, but I can't imagine me in this lifetime not reaching out and shaking somebody's hand. And then when I first wrestled him, he used to, he's a natural, but he was not in the best shape. Because when I wrestled him, he was so tired that I was basically having to pick him up to close on myself. And the office kind of got on him. And then the next, I think the next day I saw him on the stair climber at the gym. And then within a month, he was in fantastic cardio shape. So you had early

matches with Brock Lesnar. Do you remember your first impressions of seeing Brock Lesnar? Yeah. A lot of times, we would get new guys. And I don't know how you are, but everybody tells me, oh, my boyfriend's really big or my husband's big or my brother's big. And I see him and I'm like, Where are they at? And they're like, oh, that's them. So one of the guys, he said, hey, man, there's this dude here, and he's huge. So I was driving to the show. And I got there and I saw him.

I went, holy crap. Like, this guy's legitimately huge. When early developmental, they started sending us big dudes. I mean, because they were, they would find these blue chip athletes. And, you know, not all of them panned out, but Brock, with his. work ethic and his build and his he wasn't a wrestling fan he was a he was just a great athlete that was bound and determined to be good at anything that he wanted to do and what a career he's at yeah what does somebody say he said like 400 and something matches yes I think I put that stat out that

he had all these matches and then he left for UFC and came back and it was like four five 10 a year no that's a guy that figured it out yes yeah you see the other quite a bit the guy that gave his heart and soul to wrestling and ended up with not that much to show for whereas brock treated like a business yeah and uh because he wasn't that emotional and didn't have that that love uh he never let the business like consume him he he really came out of this winning what's that quote do you want to make friends you do you want to make money and he clearly very clearly chose that yeah i want to make money and he's done very clearly very well for himself. And he probably has just as many friends as if he'd have been the other way,

because what you find is, no matter how nice you are to everybody, ultimately, you make a lot of acquaintances. Because nobody that, you know, no matter how much you want to impress somebody and be friends with them, when you're on the road, like, they're not going to pay your mortgage. You know, everybody is self-employed. They're looking out for themselves first. And that's no fault. That's just the nature of life. Do you remember early matches with a guy named the prototype, John Sina? Yeah. Another guy that, oddly enough, he was the first one at practice and the last one to leave.

Not the most talented athlete. By far the most talented promo guy I've ever seen. Like, I still feel like what you've seen on television is not, it still hasn't. He's got way more to give from a promo standpoint. Like he, because he was a baby face all those years. You know, in OBW,

he was a heel the whole time. I was driving with him on his debut in the WB. It was the two of us. We stayed in the hotel, went up and went tan, got to the building. And Michael Hayes sat down with us and said, John,

you know what you're doing tonight? And he was like, nope, he goes, you're going against Kurt Engel. And he was like, okay. And he had like Zach Morris type of hair.

It was like shaved on the side and long on top. It was blonde. And they said, we want you to get a haircut. And it was before we had the people backstage to do it. So I had to give him the rental car keys so he'd get his haircut. And he was a baby face that night. I don't think he'd ever been a baby face. He was always a heel as the prototype.

He didn't know he was wrestling current angle until he got to the arena. Yeah. That's wild. Wow. And then he did like three or four moves that he'd never done. Like, I think he did a victory role. I mean, heels don't. do those moves.

And as big as he was, he was used to, his prototype, he wrestled a lot bigger than he did as John Cena because he, as John Cena, he has a cell, you know, so is a heel, you're pretty indestructible when you look like him. Speaking of Kurt Angle, you had dark matches with Kurt Angle, at least a dark match with Kurt Angle. Yeah. He had the dark curly hair, black trunks, black boots. and I think at the time I'd had like 500 matches

and he'd probably had like 25. And this is before he made his WWE TV debut, right? Yeah, he was just going. I think every week he would wrestle on Monday before Raw and Tuesday before Smackdown and then on the weekends we'd go to Memphis and train there and stuff. But yeah, I remember asking him if he'd ever given a belly-to-belly overhead suplex. And he was like, no, I was like, oh, well, I take that good. So we planned it.

And then we got out there when he was supposed to give it to me, he got lost and clotheslined me. But then he got me back up and shot me off and called it. So, I mean, that's in wrestling, it's not the mistakes you make. It's whether you make them and cover them up to where nobody knew. I mean, the only people that know what you're playing for the match are you guys in the ring. But to instinctively be able to know, hey, let's get back to that and call it after just a, you know. You know, that many matches is, you know, just shows you how he picked it up faster than anybody I've ever seen. Two years later, I'm backstage asking him for advice.

Oh, that's funny. Because he got to wrestle all of the greats and knew how they did things. And just what you find is the better the person that you wrestle, the simpler it is. You know When I was like two years in, I thought it was good. Three years in, I thought it was good. And when other people would not, maybe they weren't doing as good as I thought they were, I would be upset.

And then later on, I figured out I wasn't that good because if I was that good, I would never get upset with them. I would be good enough for both of us. I would have anticipated four different ways that this could go sideways and already have a plan in my head for, for it. And so, yeah, it's, it's sometimes by the time you really get it, you physically can't do the same things you could do when you were, when you were learning.

Fans know you best for your time in la resistance. What was your character before you got called up to the main roster? What was the Iron Man, Rob Conway, and Ohio Valley Wrestling? And that started out, um, Danny Davis right before my first match. He said, uh, you know, I'll call you the Iron Man. And they also said, where are you from? I said, well, I'm from New Albany. It's just nine minutes away. What it was, everybody at the school was either from New Albany or Jeffersonville or Louisville.

So they're like, they had to make up places for us to be from. So it wasn't like from New Albany and his opponent from New Albany. Yeah. Yeah, especially when we'd go to like Nashville or something. So they gave me the Iron Man Rob Conway from the Steel City of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. So like a lot of people think I'm from Pittsburgh. And then when I got in Laresistance, they were like thinking I was French. And then from Quebec, it's like, hey, then when I became the con man, the first time I came out, I thought, man, I'm finally going to get to be from New Albany because it's a big deal.

It's, you know, my town. And they said from Atlantic City, New Jersey, it's Lily and said that. And I looked at her like, I think we'd go into commercials. It's like Atlantic City, New Jersey. And she's like, yeah, they didn't think New Albany was glamorous enough. And I thought, but the Atlanta City is a glamour capital of the world, I guess. I think fans are going to be blown away by the fact that you're not French. You're not French Canadian.

Because you were in La Resistence, I think people assume that you're French Canadian. Yeah. I never spoke French. The biggest rib we played, I got one time, Sylvain would come out and sing the national anthem and we were at a live event. And he said, tonight, I'm going to give you a. special surprise my partner robert is going to sing it and i was like i've been listening to it him sing it night after night now i don't know what the words are but i figure i could make the same

he's not a good singer so i could make the same noises but before i even started to sing the other team's music hit to interrupt us so yeah no i'm from new albany india i was born in louisville um lived in new albany my whole life but yeah we'd be at live events and uh obviously not tv and people be like, go back to France. And I'd turn around and go, I'm from Indiana, idiot. Or they'd tell us, you're going to lose. And I'd say, we're going to win with the flag in seven minutes. Give them the finish.

But just like one person. And they'd be like, what? That's amazing. How did you get called up to be part of La Resistance? So, Sylvain came. So Renee had already been in OI Valley Wrestling for like a year or so. And then Silvan came, you know, He was a referee at like Hulk Hogan versus the Rock or something.

It was Vince, like he was learning to wrestle, but he was already under contract. And they sent him to OVW, and he wasn't popular. He wasn't real popular with the other guys because he got into the business like from not going the indie route and stuff like that. And back then, people, they were a little tougher on like the tough enough guys and stuff like that because everybody, for the most part, was still coming up to two or three. years of the grunt yeah yeah and but i hit it off with him he's a fun guy and uh so they finally were going to i say finally they were going to bring me up and i went to tv and i had hair like i've got now it's a little bit longer blonde hair curly i wore white and pink trunks and they brought me up specifically to team with stevie richards and victoria was going to be my girlfriend and

They were going to call me the golden boy. And I was going to wrestle Tommy Dreamer, and we already had the match planned out. That was my TV debut as an actual character. Okay. And about an hour before the show starts, John Laroniis came to me and says, Hey, Robbie, we should end your match tonight,

and you're not on the road next week. I was like, because I'd already got an itinerary that I was going to be on four nights a week. And that's pretty much, there goes your dreams. Yeah. He said, but we were going to bring you to TV next week. We think we got something better. Okay.

And I was like, okay. So they called me during the week, you know, which you see that number and you think either something good or something terrible. Terrible. Yeah. And they told me to get a military outfit. So I went with my dad who was, he had got drafted in the Army.

So he was in the Army at one point. And we went to the Army surplus store. And I got the nicest army outfit you could imagine, and even said R. Conway on. I think I made myself like a sergeant. We don't want to be like a four-star general at 29 or third. And so I got to TV and they said, let's see it. And I showed it to them.

And they said, that is beautiful. But we can't use it because the Army is one of our sponsors. So the seamstress backstage, her husband was retired from the Air Force. I'm not sure if that must have, that must have been where they live. She brought that uniform. So I debuted. in the uniform with law resistance that night. But first they set me down in a chair and cut off all my hair. I actually sat with Robbie Rood, Tyson, Dukes, and Showtime Eric Young. That's the first time I'm

at when we were at catering. You must have been in Toronto because those are all Canadian guys. Well, then they cut my hair. And I came back to catering and they introduced themselves to me again. I looked like a different person. I mean, I've got short red hair. And I have, had curly blonde hair like and they never met me before so yeah they reintroduced themselves and i was like it's still same dude that's a lot of he looked totally different so yeah so i had an outdated air force uniform on and they gave me tickets and there was a girl backstage it was an extra too so we went through the front with the ticket i sat in the front row with my cell phone just in case they decided to do something different and i ended up coming out of the crowd and leaving

the Dudley slay in and join La Resistance. So you go from being a singles guy to now being a tag team guy and now you're in this faction, the three of you. Yeah. And I was used to tag team because in OVW, I think I'm 10 or 11 time tag team champion. Like the most, me and Nick Densmore were a tag team for a long time. We've wrestled as a team over 200 times and we've wrestled each other over 200 times. A lot of people don't even have that many matches.

Sure. Yeah. So, yeah, we, I consider myself to be a much better tag team wrestler. So you're happy you're on the main roster, I'm sure. But at the same time, this isn't what you were presented. You were going to be the Golden Boy. And now a week later, you're part of this French faction, which was a much higher role on the card. They were the tag team champions.

So we've in some of the house shows, we would be the main event. So I went from, you know, something to, could have been good, but I don't know how much faith, I don't have that much faith that they would ever have become like world tag team champions in that spot. And certainly wouldn't have the heat that we had in La Resistence. Yeah, real heat. Real heat. People hated you guys. And they never stopped hating us up way too soon. Like you took one faction that had more heat than anybody and broke us up into three not that strong of characters. So it felt like it was kind of a emotion when they broke us up.

Went from being all the shows, being on pay-per-views to having bad music and being on middle-to-low-card. Having bad music, you didn't like your theme song? I don't think anybody actually likes it. I think they get a kick out of it because it's like kind of funny. But if you were getting ready to bench press 300 pounds, you wouldn't say, let me throw on some just look at me. I literally, you can watch, say, a month before, I come out with La Resistance crowd going crazy. You switch it to that lounge music, and I think Stone Cold could have walked out to it,

and people are like, who's this guy? And why is this music like it is? There's people online that say that's their favorite theme song of all time. So you hate it? It's just not a big fan. I call it a crowd killer. At the gym that I go to, like sometimes I walk in and they'll switch to music. to that and I'll look up there and they just they've got my action figures and stuff up but yeah they

know when I look at them like oh come on did you have any say in what that music would sound like i had absolutely no say as a matter of fact the first time they played it i was in gorilla and i think curwin white had just had a match and when they played my music i thought they were playing his exit music and jerry briscoe was like that's your music go and i was like oh no That's the first time I'd heard it. That was the first time? Yeah. What'd you think in that moment?

I was like, man, I've got my, I've got the deck stacked against me right here. It's not exactly time to play the game. Yeah, I think there's the difference there is your music doesn't hit. You know, you're, you know, there's no gong, there's no glass shattering. It doesn't tell you who's coming out. Yeah. Not the character that I had envisioned. In OVW, I was always the top guy.

And I knew how to wrestle as a top guy. So being a, it's, I'm, my wrestling style is to make other people look good. That's what I like doing. That's what I'm good at. But you have to be high enough on the card to where when you make somebody look good that you still win. Or if you lose, it's a big deal for them to beat you. And in OVW, I was always me, Thinsmore. or Doug Basham or Damagea, who later became Danny Basham,

were always somewhere around the title picture because we were there before the developmental started. But you got to a point where you were clearly embracing that theme song. You were singing it as you were walking down the aisle. Like, whether you like the song or not, it's become synonymous with the Rob Conway character. Yeah. I mean, when you're a professional, I mean, that's, you know, I've wrestled people that I don't get along with stuff like, but when you're out there, you do make the most of it.

I mean, it's your time to shine and, you know, your entrance, even though I didn't like the music, is the only time that, for the most part, it's 100% focused on you. Why does the singer of your theme song have a French accent? Everybody thinks it's the Randy Newman from Toy Story. They all think that they used to think it was him. Now they call it a knockoff of his. But the thing is, when I first heard it and went out, I was like, is there any way we could speed it up a little bit? And then Jim Johnson, I guess, got upset about that.

So it was like, now I had, like, heat with the office because I didn't like my own theme song that I had no part in having anything to do with. You know what your theme song reminds me of is, you know, the character Gaston from Beauty and the Beast? And they're singing that song about how great he is. No one's slick is Gaston. No one's quick as Gaston. It's kind of the same type of thing. It's like, hey, look how great this guy is as he's walking down to the ring.

Yeah. But the thing about it is so, it's so low that you have to almost stop doing what you're doing to listen to it. And that doesn't make for a good pop from even heat. In La Reistance, there was no music. There was no lyrics. But when we came out, it felt like an oven. I mean, people were hot. And that's, you know, one thing that I noticed in La Resistance is I could tell when we wrestled someone who was the most over.

In what way? If they chanted USA, our heat was stronger than the baby face's persona. If they chanted for the baby face, then they had more, they were more over than we was. When we wrestled Sean Michaels and Marty Genetti, they didn't chant USA. They chanted HBK. Yeah, sure. But there's a lot of teams that we went against, and we were a stronger team because for the most part, for three years, we were the strongest heel tag team. Really, we were the own, we kind of held the division.

It's underrated in a way because we held the division together because, We went against Rhino and Tijiri, we went against Tijiri and Regal. We went against Regal and Eugene. We went into Dudleys. We went against Lance and Jindrek. But all those teams would kind of, but we were the kind of always.

And the thing is we were always there. We were in Germany and I'm circling Regal. And it's him and Tijiri and it places chant USA. I'm like, why are they chanting USA? And he said, they do what they see on TV. So I hardly ever. did we ever wrestle two guys from the USA? What's the timeline on La Resistance with Renee and Silvan and then you joining in?

What's the timeline on them being together and then you joining? I think only a couple months. Sylvon had actually broke a bone in his neck. And also, they were really young. Like, I'm not sure if either one of them could rent a car. Renee was only 19. Yeah, which is crazy. And so maybe like 24, he might have been over in a car.

So, and they didn't have, at the time they were so green for their position that I think adding me to the mix gave them a little bit of more of a veteran presence, even though I was new to the main roster. Like I pretty much helped train most of the guys and putting matches together. I felt like even guys that people thought were like tough guys, I got along good with them because I'd paid my dues. I think Renee's the only teenager, at least to that point that had won a WWE Championship, won the tag title at 19. Yeah, he was a man child, too. That crazy? 16-6-3, 265 pounds.

Huge. Monster. Yeah. Crazy to think he was a teenager. And he'd been wrestling since he was like 13. Wow. You weren't with them when they dumped Spike Dudley out of the ring, were you? I was in the ring, but I didn't do it.

And then I got the same bump even worse. What do you mean? I took that same exact bump that he took at a pay-per-view where they put me through two tables, but the one table didn't break. My head hit the table. It didn't break. My body went through. They had two of them set up.

They gave me the same move. The Dudley's got the same move, but they did it on me, the guy who had nothing to do with it. And I pretty much got destroyed on that deal. Did it, like as soon as you hit that first table, was it like, oh. Well, see, my first. feet hit the top rope the same as Spikes did. It's hard to pick up a human being and throw them over the rope without their feet hitting. So yeah, I took as brutal of a bump as he did. Which is crazy because you weigh that much more. You're that much bigger than Spike Dudley. Yeah. And it wasn't

something that I wanted to do. And it wasn't something that I would, I tried to volunteer all these other bumps, but the office had their mindset that they were going to, they wanted that bump. They wanted the payback for the Spike Dudley bump. And I was the lightest at probably 2.30 then. So that would be the easiest one to give it to. Do you remember standing in the ring as Renee Dupre and Sill and Gronier are giving that move to Spike Dudley? Do you remember that? I don't remember anything about it other than, you know, you heard the crowd go, you know when the crowd makes a noise different than when they're supposed to. You kind of get that feeling like, ooh, like I knew whatever it was, it wasn't good.

You said that you think they broke up La Resistance too soon. Absolutely. Where should this have ended up going? I don't believe we would ever stop getting heat because that's what we were good at. Like, I grew up watching professional wrestling. I didn't grow up watching sports entertainment. So when I grew up and when I got into the business, it was still considered pro wrestling. The heels are heels.

I'm not trying. You want to be entertaining, but, you know, if you're that hated, you shouldn't be selling T-shirts and stuff like that. Like, that was kind of what I got into. So all of us had the mind frame of getting heat, not trying to do cool moves, not, I could do cool moves. I just didn't do them. And if you do something that's like that,

you got to put it in the right spot. like Randy Orton is a heel. He throws a beautiful drop kick. But he has to do it when the baby face start making a little comeback and then he hits that drop kick when people don't want to see it. And then he can pop up and do his thing. But yeah, that's entering the business. And then when I got to doing it, I mean, if you want me to be a good guy, I'll be a good guy. But if you won't be a heel, I want to be hated.

I don't want to be like, oh, we hate him, but we know he's really an eye. nice guy you know it's like you show up to the building you're in you know you're not mean to fans of course but you don't have to go out of your way to say hey I'm really a nice guy just poo me why I'm out there because people all the time they're man you were my favorite and I say I don't believe that and they say why I said because I never heard one person cheer for me me did you ever have heat so bad that when you left the arena people were shouting things of you or something happened yeah we've had like rock thrown at our car and stuff when we're leaving and stuff like that.

But for the most part, when you meet fans in person, they're just happy to meet. They love wrestling, and then you get to, you know, even if they hate you, they meet you in person. It's like totally different. We do personal appearances sometimes before the show, and it would be like us and all the military. And those guys got it. Like, when we come out, people get patriotic all of a sudden. Sure. You know, and that was music to my ears when I hear the people chant in USA or booing us.

Like, that's, for a heel, that's, like, getting cheered. You guys were part of something special, being part of ruthless aggression. But I also feel like there was a lot of pressure. You were coming off of the Monday Night Wars. You were coming off of the attitude era. Did you feel the pressure? And at this point in time, WWE is the only game in town. So there's no competition.

WWE can do whatever they want at that point, good or bad. Did you feel the pressure to have to live up to the expectations from a few years before? No, the pressure you feel is they are the only game in town. So it's the only place to make good money. So all the pressure is kind of from within is to work hard, show up on time, do all the things that you would do at any job, but then trying to, you know, get the response that you need from the crowd.

And then you learn things that are important. There's things that are important to the company that aren't necessarily important to fans. Like you might have heard some guys talking about time cues before. Sure. I mean, if you were supposed to have a seven-minute match and you had the greatest eight-minute match in the history of wrestling, you're going to be getting cussed at when you come back

because they allowed for seven minutes. and that's, you're supposed to be a professional and hit that time. So that sometimes they're, depending on where you're at and you're on the card, on television, you could have a pretty good match, but you hit that time queue and you come back and they're literally clapping going right on time, guys. Like that's important. New from Nespresso, blend wellness into your coffee routine with a coffee plus range, infused with functional benefits.

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You gotta try breakfast at A and W. And what better way than with a delicious, Pratt organic coffee, starting with just $1 all day, every day, now until December 31st. You gotta try breakfast. I'm participating in A&W locations in Ontario. Jim Ross said that you were one of the best talents OVW ever produced, and the WWE missed out of making you a star. How do you feel when you hear that? Well, coming from someone I respect like JR, that's a huge, you know, a compliment.

but you know you can go back and think man they could have done this and the other thing but my take on things is that they never had to hire me in the first place you know so i think any time that you get doing something you love i mean and that might sound like a politically but i'm thankful for the time i was there everything that i own is because of wrestling um you know the opportunities I got when I left the WWE to put the NWA and New Japan Pro Wrestling, I mean, they would have never came along if it wasn't for my stint in the WVE. So, you know, you can't all be top guys. And like I've gone down and coached at the NXT before, like four or five times.

And a couple times I got there was like right after they let people go. And, you know, the comrade or the atmosphere is, it's pretty. down. Yeah. But in order for those guys to get hired, somebody else had to get let go along the way. If people hadn't gotten let go, I would have never had a job. It would still be the guys from the 80s. So it's like not everybody has a long career like Taker and Sean Michaels and, you know, really long like that, but you just have to make the best out of it while you're there. How did you get these opportunities to train at the Performance Center? originally I was talking to Randy and he was like hey

when you're going to come back here and get your job back I was actually at a show in Las Vegas with like Morrison was on it and Brian Cage and Bubba came out during my match and so it was late at night but it wasn't that late there because I probably wouldn't have answered my phone had have been at home

because of the time difference and and I said man I don't think it could wrestle for nights a week. And he's like, well, what would you want to do? And I said, maybe coaching. I'd like doing that. He's like, do you want to talk to Hunter or you want me to talk to him? I said it'd be a lot better if you talk to him than me, you know, because I hadn't seen him in years. It took about six months after that, but then I got an opportunity to go down there and see it and see, like, be a part of what they're doing now compared to me being there at the very beginning of the developmental. So I'm not saying it's better, but it's a little.

lot more elaborate. It's a lot nicer of facility. But, you know, to say it's better, it's hard to say because of the guys that we produced out of OVW. Would you, if the opportunity arose, would you want to be a full-time coach of the PC? I would want to, yes, but I'm not sure if I would just because of obligations where I live now. I don't know if, you know, work situations with family and things like that, but it would definitely be something that I would, like I would like to do it, but necessarily would I be able to. To relocate to Orlando. It's a big deal.

Yeah. And you've lived in, you know, someplace your whole life and your friends and all of your habits are all there. And then the move to Orlando and the cost of living is a lot higher. That's when I talked to some of the other coaches there. That was their big concern was like, man, when they moved there, like, even someplace decent is a few thousand dollars a month. When La Resistance broke up,

now you've got the opportunity to be a singles guy. Were you promised anything at that point in time that your character would go on to do whatever? Not really. They didn't say, hey, you're going to be the Intercontinental Champion or anything like that. But I had talked to Vince at one point, and this is going to seem outlandish,

but Sylvan was there. And this is when we were still in La Resistance. Because I know Vince liked me as a wrestler. We were in Law Resistance. He pulled us aside one day. He said, Rob, I consider you to be just one tier below Brett Hart as a worker. What a compliment. I mean, we were side ramp for the show.

I was like, well, he said, but you have a gimmick. You need to not worry about having such good matches. You've got to work the gimmick. He wanted us to wave, though. Before we walk out, he wouldn't say. say have a good match, wave those flags. That, you know, he said, you know, he said there's been some other people that did anti-American stuff in the past and they weren't that great.

And they're Hall of Famers. I didn't want to name, but he said they weren't that great, but they knew how to work their gimmick. So after that, that's when it kind of clicked. Me and Sylvan got better because I was, I was shoving the flag in people's mouths. I mean, anytime we got a chance to wave the flag, we figured out, we didn't bring you here because we want you to have five-star matches. We want heat. And so whenever I became a singles wrestler, I already knew that Vince liked my in-ring ability.

And then I took the time to get, I actually looked like I gained weight, but I lost like 25 pounds. Yeah, you were shreddy. Yeah. I just, I knew it was like, man, I can't get bigger. you know, it's about as big as I can stay with, you know, running and jumping and all that. So I thought, well, I'll get leaner. They want something different. So I said, darken my hair, sideburns, mustache, ear rings, hat, glasses.

Vince didn't like the hat. So I had to wear like once. He's like, I don't like the hat. You know, one time I did a promo and it went really good and it got done. And he goes, you need to do it again. You need more oil. And it was like, so I had to oil up more. but yeah he uh

i was never promised anything but i kind of felt like there was i felt like uh where i was going at beginning was toward the intercontinental championship i thought that would have been that that's kind of the the stepping stone to be in a person you know like a main inventor absolutely it's a work i'm a i'm a 30 minute guy i'm used to wrestling long matches making people look good and then either win or lose you know i prefer to cheat to win. I don't really like win and clean as a heel unless I'm just destroying somebody to set up something for the

next match against a better opponent. You were shredded when you were in WWE. WWE said you were number nine on their list of the best abs. How do you feel about being number nine? Well, I guess it's good to just be on

the list, but... You're in the top ten. I'm in the top ten, yeah. But it's pretty subjective. Do you want me to tell you who was in front of you? Yeah. Number eight, Zach Ryder. Number seven, Our Truth. Number six, Dolph Ziegler.

Number five, John Morrison. How is he only at number five? Number four, Naomi. Number three, Tony Neese. Two, Rick Rood, number one, Finn Baller. Finn Baller and Rick Rood, great abs. I feel like you could be right up there. I think that my abs are better than them right now.

right now right now wow if i could stand do you want to yeah sure i don't move that camera out of the way which camera be the first you know maybe this one has the best lighting here damn wow yeah look at that lighting what the heck that's insane you're never and you're how old sir 53 years old and he looks like this ladies and gentlemen Yeah, I think they should probably rethink that number nine spot on there, right? I tell you, just being mentioned is humbling, really. I mean, people are used to be being in character, but I mean, as a person, it's like,

I was in the WB, I got action figures. I was in a video game. You know, I mean, this is a kid growing up in New Albany, and it's like action figure, video game, it was in, you know, WrestleMania. Those are all like bucket list things that when other people tell it to you, you sound like you're talking about somebody else. I don't want to point any fingers at people on this list, but you definitely have better abs than a lot of those people on that list.

I don't want to name names here. They're all in really good shape, though. Sure, of course. It's like a little brother to me. Nobody, I mean, the guy trains hard. He does a lot of oddball. He does. Workouts, like a lot of body weight stuff.

He can move in ways that. What does he call it, Flomo? It's like he's doing like stuff like, yeah, Flomo. You know, he was in Louisville and we would, at the time he was single, and he would wear a belt buckle. And I'm like, you know, I'm a great wingman. He would wear a belt buckle and we would go out. And I would be like, hey, show him your belt buckle.

And that would be a way, especially in the wintertime when it's cold out. Sure. He'd pull his shirt up, you know, all the way to his chest so they could see his abs to show off his belt buckle. One time we were at a place where they had a mechanical bull, and somehow when he flipped off the bull, before he landed, his shirt ended off off. Who were you mostly traveling with? Well, when I got to WB, originally I traveled with Renee and Sylvan out of purely, I mean, that's just kind of the way it was going to be. Makes sense. I could rent a car.

You know, they were. They were too young to rent a car. Yeah. So, Renee was so young. He just did young person stuff. Like we'd be at the mall and he would just like run and jump over a park bench. You know what I mean? Or jump and put his feet on the wall like he was skateboarded at 265 pounds, you know.

And then I started riding with Lance Cade. Lance Cade was probably my best friend in wrestling. And me and him rode together. And then we added Mike Bucci rode with us some. And then Sylvan would ride with. too, but it was always me and Lance, and then later on it was me and Lance and Trevor, Murdoch. And then after that, I don't know if they got injured or something. And then it was me and Tomko and Benoit.

And I rode with them for quite a while. And then me and Tomko and Edge rode together for a while. Do you still keep in touch with any of your friends from WWE now? Keep in Yeah I mean Morrison Orton

Do you know who Aaron Stevens is Of course Damien Sandown? Yes Yeah So yeah He's

He doesn't he live around your area Yeah he lives in Louisville Yes We We You know Think nothing but Great things about him

He's awesome Simon Dean lives in Louisville Oh I got to get him on the show Yeah he's awesome Put in a good word for me I will He's He's

And then Yeah I've got, you know, every once in a while, the way wrestling is, you just kind of, you'll see somebody. I ran into Maven. We keep in touch. John Heidnreich, he's definitely someone that I've kept in touch with over the years. And, you know, getting to go to these conventions, I've been starting to do more of those. And it's, I ran into, got to see Muhammad Hussein.

We had a booth next to each other. And I was there, like, his first day of training. That guy's awesome. So, so, like, I don't have kids, but I feel like I got a lot of little brothers in the wrestling business. And they know that they can call me just about any time. And I'm always going to, because I don't travel as much, it's kind of, feel like I'm kind of like the level headed. You know, one time Morrison called me. And he said that he was like at the airport and a lot of people were asking for autographs.

And I said, hey, I remember when you would have paid somebody to take your autograph. You wanted this and now you've got it. And he goes, okay, man, I'm going to go out there and sign stuff. I've heard someone say one day they're going to stop asking for your autograph at the airport. And that's not to say that like it's not overwhelming when it's happening, but like one day no one's going to care. I mean, that's going to happen to everybody at some point. Yeah. At least the people that do care will really care and the other people won't have any idea.

How difficult is that for you when your identity is tied into? being a WWE superstar. When you're a pro wrestler, that ends. For most people, that ends without them wanting it to end. You get released. Yeah, you was,

I've always said, you want to be done with the business before it's done with you. And that's sad when people, I want to say they hang on too long because you can't really hang. As long as somebody's willing to pay you and you can physically go out there and do it,

why wouldn't you do something you love? But it's when you want to do it and nobody wants you to, wants to hire you anymore, that would be, you know, I think that would be a sad, a sad existence to be wanting to do something that nobody else wants to see you do anymore. You look better at 53 than, number one, most guys at 53, but you look better than a lot of guys at 43, 33, maybe 23. It's just consistency, you know, watching what you eat. I mean, I've been, it's funny, sometimes I'll go somewhere and somebody be like, man, you don't know what it's like. You

probably eat whatever you want. What? Because you just look a certain way and you always, like, I've been measuring my food for 36 years. I did my first bodybuilding contest in 1991. Wow. You know, and then I had to take a lot of time off for wrestling. And then I came back and did a bunch of physique shows in 2017. I was just lucky.

I won, like all of them. G&C Classic, the Mr. Indianapolis, the Mr. Indiana, the Midwestern States. And then I went and turned pro in the IFBB at the Masters Nationals or the North Americans. I did them both a couple years in a row. But then I did it. I've done three IFBB Pro shows. And that's where I really noticed the difference between being, you know, at the time I was in my late 40s and being like 30.

Just the, I couldn't beat my 30-year-old self. And it's just not really the leanness and stuff. It's just the way your skin and your muscle bellies are rounder when you're younger. You just have a younger, fresher look that you can stay in great shape, but you're never going to look like you're 30 when you're 50. There are very few wrestlers that are both a pro wrestler and a pro bodybuilder. And when I say pro bodybuilder, I mean IFBBB Pro. I don't know of any.

Rob Terry? He's the only one that comes to mind. He's not an IFBBB pro. He's, it's like a, he's a Mr. Olympia in like the NAB or something like that. And not that he couldn't be. It's just, there's been pro wrestler. There's been IFBBB pros try to wrestle. But that I know of, nobody's ever had a whole career in wrestling to where they were some type of champ, like really.

Yeah. And then become an IFBBB pro. Brian Cage just won a pro body, or a bodybuilding competition recently. He did an MPC show, which would be what. You do the NPC. I heard him talk about going to the USA's. The USA's is a national show, and that's where you can turn pro if you win. So you might be the only one.

Pro wrestler turned IFBBB Pro. As far as I know, I know, I think there's a female that had done it that was on Smackdown at one point. I think she was with Bobby Lashley back in those times. And she, I think, got her pro card and bikini. but as far as guys, you know, it was something I wanted to do whenever I was younger, and then as I got older, I couldn't do bodybuilding. I had to do physique just from a size standpoint. In my height, to be a pro bodybuilder, I would have to come in on stage at about 270.

So I'd probably need to weigh about 320 in the off season or so. And it's just, it's not, I'm more a, uh, uh, the term aesthetic. Like when I, I don't want to be any bigger than I am. I would like to be leaner and, and have more detail and maybe a little wider show. But the idea of,

I've been bigger and it's just hard to carry that much weight around. Sure. You know, it's, it's just uncomfortable. You had a segment where a ring full of legends beat you up. How did you get selected to be that guy? Well,

I know earlier in the, the day, it was either going to be Randy with them and me, I think, with Piper. So I think Randy did something with Piper that night, I believe, or maybe it was Mark Cuban. But they didn't know which one they were going to do. So I ended up being with the legends. And so we had to rehearse it. Most of those guys hadn't been in the ring in a long time. So just getting in the ring, going up the steps and getting in and having that many people.

and, you know, we didn't used to rehearse a lot of stuff back then. They do a lot more now. And why wouldn't you? You're there all day. Why don't I get it right? And so we did a rehearsal and my music played. I walked all the way to the ring and they stopped it and said, you forgot to cut your promo. I was in awe.

I'm like looking at these guys thinking, wow. I'd forgotten that I was supposed to talk. So then they were like, I remember Stephanie coming up and going, hey, I know that you love the business. and you have all the respect for these guys, but you've got to be a jerk, you know, and they know it. They, you know, they're pros. So then it went pretty good, you know,

went about as good as it could. And then the funny part about it is is that Kevin Von Eric was in there going to give me the claw. Yeah. And like, I talked to Ted DiViase and at one point he was like, which one am I giving the claw to?

And he's like the one that doesn't look like the rest of us. I feel like, Superfly landed hard on that splash. Yeah, he, I've, you know, I've got to send him in a paper view too, him and Eugene. And he was giving me the splash there. And he's got to sit up, brother. Take care of yourself, brother. I'm like, I'm going to take care of myself.

Don't worry. You know, I'm going to do everything I can to not get hurt or hurt anybody. When you got beat by Jeff Hardy in 21 seconds, was the, did they tell you a number? Did they say the match has to be 20? seconds or less. No. So the backstory on that is that I had done a show in OVW with Renee. And he hit, I believe, Ryback before he was Ryback with the flag. And the flag wrapped around and hit me in the face. So I ended up breaking my nose and having a deviated septum. So we had a little time off for Christmas. So I had my nose surgery to get my sept because I couldn't hardly breathe out of one side.

So they contacted me and said, hey, we want to do this thing. We're going to put you and Sylvan back together on SmackDown. But we're going to have you get fired on TV. You're going to, so the wording has to be, I will quit raw, not the company, if I don't win. So I said, well, I'm not cleared to wrestle. I mean, I just had surgery like five days ago. And they're like, well, we'll just fly you in. and have our doctors take a look at you.

So originally the match was supposed to be just like a normal three or four or five-minute match. The match was irrelevant. It was the promo and to get the vents. Sure. You know. And I was, you know, I was like, man, I can't get hit in the face. I mean, like, I mean, it could really, and I, I wasn't in great shape, you know, I'm still taking pain.

I mean, so then the match kept getting shorter and shorter. And I was like, I go, what about this? How about I just start off on him and shoot him in? And he does a sunset flip out of the corner, one, two, three. And I'm like, oh, no. Like, and they're like, okay. You know, I'm going to because, I mean, Jeff, that's the first time. That's the only time I ever wrestled.

Everybody likes Jeff. I mean, if he had hit me in the face, then I would have, I don't even know what would have started fighting back, you know what I was. So we were doing everything we could. just to just get from I'll quit raw to losing to Vince, you know, saying you can't quit, you're fired. And then I was already getting gear made to wrestle on Smackdown with Sylvan. What happened?

We, I sat at home. Part of the deal too, just so you know, it's like, my contract ran over in January. So I got fired on TV January 1st. Well, because my contract rolled over. So I was not on the road. So I was sitting at home getting paid, full paychecks. And they had to keep me off TV until after WrestleMania, because the whole year fired was to spark the angle between Vince and Donald Trump.

So if I showed up two weeks later, he didn't do a very good job of firing me. So after WrestleMania, then I was supposed to start on Smackdown with Savon. Because like I said, together, we were gold. separately they didn't really do that much with either one of us you know so I mean like said I was getting gear made so whenever uh... WrestleMania came and went and they didn't call me up to do it I started thinking man I'm getting paid so if I had already made my guarantee then I'd be set at home not getting paid but the way it worked out I was getting a full paycheck I was thinking I would either do something with me or let me go like it's

Like if they did let me go, it's not like if I did six months later, I wouldn't be like, yeah, I'll come back. You know, who's going to say no to that kind of money? But people think that Vince firing you on TV was essentially real. Yeah. And I never saw you again. It kind of hurt my stock, so to speak, because most people get fired, released. And then they have 90 days and you can start on TV. Well, I was off TV until, you know, I got released, I think in May. They kept paying me until August. but I'd been off TV for nine months. Yeah. And, you know, seven, eight months. Yeah, from January first. And people thought that I got fired on TV. Yes. So it literally was like, I'm the only guy who got fired on TV and really seemingly

got fired. The only other one I can think of is Jeff Jarrett getting fired from when WCW got bought out by WWF. But yeah, you get fired in storyline, but essentially let go. Yeah. Vince McMahon may have hit his best, you are fired on you. Well, I got something to go for me right there then. What does it feel like when you're nose to nose with Vince McMahon,

and he's screaming, you're fired at you? In the ring, it's just character-driven. You know, he's just another segment. Backstage, on the other hand. He's an intimidating guy because, I mean, he kind of holds your future. you know you know it's one of those deals where him or if he's like how you do it and you're like how do you want me be doing like yeah like tell me yeah yeah i mean you kind of i never really felt super comfortable uh there but backstage with that because like i said he had so much power

over you couldn't just go to wcw and t and a wasn't really it was on the map but it wasn't the way that it is got to be and certainly not like where a ewe is now. Sure, and the contracts weren't the same at that point. The guys have it so much better when WCW is around and they have it better now. The more competition, the more money guys can make, the more opportunity there is for more people. The product has to be better because somebody is out there trying to do it better. I think wrestling is, I think sports entertainment is in a great place right now.

I think a rising tide lifts all ships. Yeah. So the idea now that AEW's been around for seven years, not only does it give a viewer a chance to watch different programming, but it also gives your friends, my friends, other opportunities to work somewhere. Yeah. And then when they're under contract, then it gives people who are not under contract more opportunities at the independent level. That's true. So it's the more, I want everybody to make money. I want everybody to make it.

I want fans to be entertained. I just love the business, but I also really want the guys that do good because they put so much time and effort and put their health on the line. And the more money, the better. How much wrestling do you watch now? I see a lot of it on like Instagram.

Sure, like the clips. A lot of the clips. Yeah. Yeah, and then I'll talk to people sometimes and they'll say, hey, did you see this? And it'll make me want to go back on and watch it now that everything's pretty much streaming. New from Nespresso. Blend wellness into your coffee routine with the coffee plus range infused with functional benefits. Choose the coffee you love with added B vitamins, like coffee plus B12 to help support immune function and coffee plus B6 to keep your day moving.

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Starting with just $1 all day, every day now until December 31st. You gotta try breakfast. at participating in W locations in Ontario. I feel like W.W.E fans are only familiar with your time in WWE, but what a career you had after WWE. Two-time NWA World's Heavyweight Champion. How did you feel like you were able to make that transition, leaving WWE into what was next?

At first, it was difficult because I only wrestled in Ohio Valley Wrestling before it was a developmental territory, and then in developmental and then WB. So I'd never wrestled on the Indies. So I really didn't know how to go about, you know, getting booked, how to get your name out there, you know. And I was a little bit like, like I just wanted to wrestle for bigger companies, you know, but there really wasn't anything out there.

I talked to TNA once. It was right when they signed Booker and they were like, hey, you know, we spent a lot of money on Booker. And then I saw some of my friends go there. And I didn't like necessarily. They didn't like get a big push. That was a tough era because you're talking like 2010, 2011. Yeah.

So I never really pursued any of those places because being a former WWE guy, it's a pretty good on your resume. But the more places you go, if you don't get a long run, then you look like you're a former this. guy and former this guy and former this guy. Sure. I'd just rather be former at the top, former World Tag Team Champion three times. And then when I finally got with the NWA, you know, I didn't really intend on being with the NWA. What happened was Jack's Dane was running shows out of San Antonio.

And he was going to join the NWA, basically because he didn't want to other promotion in the area to be NWA affiliate because they would get we got like a press release and it looked pretty good and and NWA was wanting to do business with New Japan and at the time the champion that they had wasn't somebody that they wanted to use and they said well we're thinking about putting it on Rob Conway and New Japan said okay if you fees the champ we'll do business with you wow so that's how I became the world champion was specifically because that's what New Japan wanted Do you have a moment where you're holding the 10 pounds of gold,

and you're just thinking, this is the same belt that Harley Race held, dusty roads. The list goes on and on and on. Yeah. And then so when I lost the belt, it was at the Tokyo Dome. There was 35,000 people there, and Harley Race was the one holding the belt up, you know, doing the presentation. I wrestled Kajima at the Tokyo Dome, and it was surreal.

I mean, you know, the last time I'd seen Harley before that was when he punched me in the face with the legends at homecoming. But yeah, I mean, to me, even when it was going on, it sounded like make-believe. Yeah, it's like the time I was wrestling at the Tokyo Dome as the NW World Champion with Harley Race holding up the belt. You know, I've got a lot of those times in my career where it's like, yeah, it's like the time I took Dusty's elbow and didn't bump. And then turned around and got the claw back, Kevin Von Eric, before I got.

splash by Jimmy Snook. I mean, that sounds like... That is a wild sentence. Like, you know? Yeah. With Billy Graham. Nobody else can say that sentence. May and Mula and everybody in the ring that...

Yeah. Yeah. So, like I said, just about everything about my career looking back just feels like it happened to somebody else. What do you think is the biggest difference in wrestling now versus when you were coming in 25-ish years ago? Well, I don't believe that they're two different sports. So there's people who like pro wrestling.

And they'll go back and be like, oh, what they're doing today, I don't like it. Well, it's not pro wrestling. It's sports entertainment. So you'll frustrate yourself if you try to make them the same thing. So pro wrestling is good guy versus bad guy. There's more realistic violence, I believe. Sports entertainment is like you're telling people this is, entertainment and sports.

So it's athletic entertainment. Yeah. And pro wrestling was more realistic base. And you see a lot of, I say old timers, but the, you know, guys that are even older than me and they're like the stuff they're doing now. Well, they're not doing what you were doing. And one of them is football and the other one's soccer. There are two different things.

Pro wrestling, sports entertainment, because the older guys think to themselves, man, if I was really mad at somebody, I would punch him in a face. Not, I hate this guy. I'm going to do three flips off of a, and hope that they move six feet over before I land. But the intentionist band of the audience now, it's younger crowd. They've seen video games, uh,

were in movies and with all that kind of action. And I think that the guys now are doing what they need to do to entertain people. And the guys from past ERIS did what they needed to do to entertain. people and I think that it's gotten more athletic and maybe less physical if it makes sense. It's not as, they're not necessarily out there to show people how real it is as much as it is to show people how athletic it can be. Did you ever get a call after you got let go to come back for a one-off thing, reunion show to ever be back in WWE? No, just, just, just, done my stints at the

NXT at the performance center. And, and enjoying that. Because you clearly look like you can still go. And when we watch your recent matches, you can still go. I mean, I

could, I can hold my own with the guys up there now. It would be easier now only because they don't wrestle as many shows. Especially during COVID, they were just wrestling once a week. You know, it's hard to stay in ring shape that way, but you can stay a lot healthier.

Thank you so much for making this happen. I understand that maybe you brought something for me. Oh, yes, I did. You brought a gift for me? I brought you a gift, and not just any gift. This gift is the gift that keeps on giving. Not only is it your birthday. May 19th, but it is one of my most infamous matches where I,

You could see the fear in Kane's eyes whenever he came to the ring. I love that you remember that that was my birthday. That's amazing. Wow. Now, I know I can sign it for you, but I know you probably want to wear it every year. Thank you very much. I still, as I'm sure you do too, May 19th is a special day for me. I got a lot of Kane memes that day on my birthday.

But I'm sure May 19th for you being part of that storyline is also something. Oh, yeah. Yeah, what's May 19th look like for you? It looks like about a week out. People start sending me the memes. At one point, he gives me almost an atomic wedgy. So people send me the picture of my trunks all the way up. And it's like, oh, yeah, I remember that.

That didn't feel good. How did you find out you were going to be fed to Kane for this? this May 19th storyline? Probably they come out of the production meeting, usually about 3.30. And they, you know, hey, you're going to be working with Kane,

and he's going to be abnormally aggressive because we really want to get this storyline. Because I'd wrestle him before, even in OVW. When he had that mask, not only did he have a mouth in his mask, but that wasn't his real mouth. Like, there was a mouth in,

like, the first time I was in the ring with him, he was like, take a big backdrop. I'm like, yep, like it was talk playing his day. Wow. And you couldn't see it because of the mask. And he was, you know, he was truly easy to be in there with. But that night, we both knew that I was going to get it. And I just was like, okay.

And I got paid like pay-per-view type of money. Really? You got a bonus. Yeah. When Jim Ross was in charge of pay, a lot of times, if you did something that they wanted you to do. Like something over and above? Yeah, that you would see a little bump on your pay.

Because they knew you didn't volunteer to do it. Like, I don't, you know, hey, just throw me over the top rope through two tables. That sounds like a good. And then throw the flag where nobody can see it and it hit me in the groin. I thought, oh, great. A lot of times the stuff that hurts, the stuff doesn't even make it on camera. So all it took was you getting an atomic wedgy from Kane to get a bonus. Yeah, well, boots to the face and pile driven and choke slammed.

But no, it was, I think it helped his character get, you know, that was probably the most aggressive he'd been since without the mask. Well, I love that I can share May 19th with you and with the Kane storyline. Just look at me. Do you want to sing your theme song? No. I appreciate your disdain for your theme song. People are going to be upset to hear that, Rob.

They're more than welcome to download it. I still get that royalty check. Yeah? Sometimes that thing is in the dollars. And most of the time it's in the sense? Most of the time it's in the sense. Thank you so much for making this happen. Gratitude is such a huge thing for me.

And you hit on it earlier about like, you're just grateful for your career. The goal was to be in WWE. You got to be in WWE. I focus so much on gratitude in my own life because when you focus on the things you have, rather than being pissed off about the things you don't have, I think it puts you in so much of a better mental space. So, Rob, what are three things right now as we sit here that you're grateful for? Well, one, my health.

You know, I think one, two, and three could all. all be my health, my family, and my friends. I mean, those are really, when it's all said and done, I mean, life's pretty simple. I mean, like you said, having gratitude, control the things you can control. If you can't control it, then do your best to accept it and just roll with it. But, yeah, having a good support team. I mean, you can, you know, I think McFoly said it in his book, like he won the world title and came home and his wife is like, hey, you need to take out the garbage. I mean, that's kind of the way it is. You use two different lives and, you know, being grounded at home and realizing that, you know,

ultimately there's people that care about you and there's people that are your acquaintances. And it doesn't mean they don't care. It's just two different types of relationships. And then your health, like people don't even think about their health until they have a problem. Yes. And then that's all you think about. Yes. I mean, so.

Yeah, the well man has a thousand problems. The sick man has one. Yeah. I love that quote. The goal or my strategy is to try to try to prevent as much as I can. You know, some of it's genetic and you're going to have it happen to you regardless. But as far as eating healthy and doing cardio and, you know, luckily the things that I like to do kind of coincide with being unhealthy. And then, you know, having good friends.

I mean, if you've got a handful of friends, then you're doing good. Yeah. Well, thank you again, sir. I appreciate it. I had a lot of fun. That's great. Thank you. Thank you.