Insight with Chris Van Vliet - Santizap: Oil Up, John Cena's Heel Turn, Best Current Theme Song, Most Underrated in WWE, Roman Reigns, The Rock

Episode Date: September 30, 2025

Get tickets for Insight LIVE in San Diego & Las Vegas! https://cvvtix.com Santiago Zapata (@MrSantiZap) is a podcaster and YouTuber better known as SantiZap. He sits down with Chris Van Vliet at West Coast Creative Studio in Hollywood, CA to discuss the success of his YouTube channel in a short amount of time, his reaction clips being featured on WWE TV, making sure he posts a new video every day no matter what, the John Cena retirement tour and who the final opponent might be, celebrities in wrestling, Logan Paul's WWE career so far and more!Quote I'm thinking about: "The windshield is bigger than the rearview mirror for a reason, because what's in front of you is so much more important than what's behind you"Please support our sponsors!   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/?ref=tibcloux   SUPERPOWER: Go to https://Superpower.com and use code CVV to get $50 Off your annual Superpower subscription. Live up to your 100-Year potential. #superpowerpod   SEAT GEEK: Use my code for 10% off your next SeatGeek order*: https://seatgeek.onelink.me/RrnK/CVV2025 Sponsored by SeatGeek. *Restrictions apply. Max $20 discount PRIZEPICKS: Download the app today and use code INSIGHT to get $50 instantly after you play your first $5 lineup!  TIMELINE: Go to https://timeline.com/insightto get 20% off your order of Mitopure!   VUORI: Get 20% off your first purchase! Get yourself some of the most comfortable and versatile clothing on the planet at https://vuori.com/cvv   ROCKET MONEY: Join Rocket Money today and reach your financial goals faster: https://rocketmoney.com/cvv MIRACLE MADE: Upgrade your sleep with Miracle Made! Go to https://trymiracle.com/CVV and use the code CVV to claim your FREE 3 PIECE TOWEL SET and SAVE over 40% OFF   ZOCDOC: Instantly book a top-rated doctor today at https://zocdoc.com/insightFAST GROWING TREES: Get 15% off with code INSIGHT at https://fastgrowingtrees.com   BONCHARGE: Use the code CVV to save 15% off your infrared sauna blanket at https://boncharge.com/cvv   BLUECHEW: Get your first month of BlueChew for free with the code CVV at https://bluechew.com   For more information about Chris and INSIGHT go to: https://podcast.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

Chris The Greetings and salutations, my friend. Welcome back to another one here on InSight. I'm CVV. Chris Van Fleet, thank you for hitting play on this episode.

And thank you for making Insight the number one wrestling podcast on the planet. Lay your phone down on the ground right now. And hit a shooting star press on that follow button on Spotify or Apple or wherever you're listening right now. So you don't miss out on any new interviews

every Tuesday. Thursday and Ask CVV every single Friday. Sondi's app joins us today for the very first time on Insight, and he's someone that you've been requesting for a long time. He's one of the top content creators in the wrestling space. He has a great wrestling podcast called Wrestling is Cool. And I can't agree with that statement enough. Wrestling is cool.

Not only is Sonti a fellow wrestling content creator. and a fellow Canadian, it turns out we went to the same university, Wilford Laurier University in Waterloo, Ontario. What a small world. We talk about so much here. We cover a massive amount of things. We talk about the rise in popularity of wrestling

over the last few years. John Sina's heel turn and his heel run because those are two very different things. He'll turn and he'll run. We talk about Roman reign's dominance over the the last call it four or five years. And is Logan Paul actually a good wrestler? We're talking about all that and so much more.

Snap a screenshot and let us know you're listening and tag us. He's at Mr. Saunties app underscore on Instagram. He's at Mr. Saunties app on X. I'm at Chris Van Fleet and let's do this. Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome. Sontysapp. This has been a long time coming. It's been a while.

We've been talking for what feels like a year and a half. Yeah. Yeah. And you're like, if I'm ever in L.A. for a Chargers game, we'll do it. So that's exactly what happened here. Chargers, Broncos, Chargers game winning field goal right after that, right here for a CVV. Couldn't be happier, brother.

How do you become a Chargers fan when you're Canadian? That's right. Yeah. So, I mean, we're talking 2005 when I got into football initially. And it was just like my buddies wanting to play mad. We went from Halo to playing Madden. Yeah. I was like, well, I need a team, right?

And being from Southern Ontario from like the Waterloo, Toronto area, for those that don't know, Southern Ontario, there's no NFL teams there, first of all. The closest teams were the Detroit Lions. They sucked. The Buffalo Bills, they sucked. So as a kid, I just came up with the very logical reason of picking the team that sounded closest to my name, Santiago, San Diego. literally now because of that 20-year fandom, super fandom, I adore the Chargers. I live and breathe by that.

That's amazing logic. They're not in San Diego anymore. They're not. They did ruin the whole schick. San Francisco. No, it's not the same. It's not the same. I don't want to hear it.

I don't want to hear it. It's the, to me, forever and always, they will be the San Diego Chargers, even though they're in Los Angeles. But that is genuinely a team that I live and breathe by, man. Now I'm just fortunate and lucky to be in a position to travel, to be able to watch their. games because before I would have to wait for them to maybe have a game against Detroit Lions,

maybe have a game against the bills, and that might happen once every four years. There was that occasional game where they came to Toronto at Rogers Center with the bills. With the bills, but the chances that it would be the Chargers were always zero. They never came to Toronto. So yeah, here we are. 20 years later, Chargers fans still, even though they're in Los Angeles. When I found out you were from Canada when we first met, we did that thing of like, well, where are you from?

Yeah, like, we did we just become best friends? Yeah, yep. But you're like, I'm from Kitchener, Waterloo. I'm like, no way. I went to Wilford-Lorea University. No way. You're like, I went to Wilford-Lorea University. What are the odds that we both went to the same college?

That's crazy. We got similar hairlines. We're equally handsome. Wow, I don't know about that. We both went to Wilfred Lorry University. If we went there at the same time, like, it would have been over. Like we would have like, we would have been best friends, roommates, going to all the bars there together. Does Phil still exist?

It's as far as I'm aware, like I drive by it, I haven't been there because I'm 33 years old now. I don't know if you know this, Chris, but I haven't been to Phil's in about, I mean, we're talking about like eight years now. Like, Phil's is the greatest dive bar ever. Two dollar drinks. They were $1.75 when I was going to Laurier. So you'd give them a tunie. They'd give you $25. back, you're like, no, actually.

Keep the change. I'm bawling out tonight. My student loan came in, you know, my OSAP. Go ahead. Keep your, your, your, your, doony. Go ahead. A toony is a $2 coin

for everybody who doesn't know. I don't know. When you were really bawling, you'd give them a $5 bill for two drinks. Yeah. And you'd be like, keep the change. Dude, I love that place. It's, they say at fills, don't look up, don't look down, you'll have the time of your life. Because if you look down, it is the most vile floor that you'll ever see.

If you look up, it's like, I think I'm going to get sick. You look up there and you just see all kinds of chemicals sprayed onto the ceiling without any sort of like covering or anything like that. So don't look up, don't look down. You'll have a great time. They haven't cleaned that floor probably since they opened. Oh, yeah. Yeah.

I had so many good times there. My student house that I lived in with four my best friends was on Lodge Street. So, like, I was Ezra, not that far. Oh, my gosh, two blocks away. Yeah. Look at us. Look at us, man. Oh, wow.

We're just the same person, just like, you're just a generation slightly ahead of me. Yeah. That's it. And you like wrestling. I love wrestling. I've adored wrestling since I accidentally founded flipping channels. How old were you? Seven.

Okay. Yeah. So your seven, that would have been. been like prime attitude era. No. Oh, no, 2001. I missed the attitude era. Oh, wow.

I caught the back end. So when I got into wrestling, I'm seeing the last like six months of Stone Cold Sea Boston. You're seeing WCW get bought by WWF. Bingo. Bingo. So for me, when I think of like when I got into wrestling, I think of the NWO coming to WWE. My first like big show where I couldn't see it because I'm like, what is a pay-per-view?

Was WrestleMania 18? I had to watch WrestleMania 18 five months later waiting outside of our public library in London, Ontario, for the VHS version to arrive at the local library. So I could watch WrestleMania 18. Man. And you could have. You could have gone to it. I could have, but, you know, I didn't know it was in Toronto because I'm a seven-year-old kid. Yeah.

I'm just seeing these greater than life superheroes on TV. Now, like I think about it now is like somebody that makes content, man, I overanalyze this. If I could just be this blissful, blind kid again, I would enjoy this so much more. But now with what I do with YouTube, I break it down so much that it sometimes kind of hurts the magic. So I think back to those days when I was seven, eight years old, Rock Hogan to me is like, it's like an untainted memory of one of the greatest things that I've ever. gotten to witness on VHS. And I don't know that I can get that same level of magic back again as a 33-year-old man. That match was magic. Like just the crowd reaction, turning the rock heeling

that, turning Hogan baby face, that stare down at the start is just legendary. I wrote a college paper on that. You wrote a college paper on Rock Hogan? Yeah. Technically not, but in my mind, that's what I was going off of. It was a psychology paper on the power of nostalgia. Wow. So it was referencing how nostalgia took over the fandom in that match with Hogan being the bad guy and then nostalgia, rose tinted glasses, that concept took over. And those people that are now adults that were kids watching Hogan, it just took over. This thing that they were supposed to follow of Rock, the good guy, Hogan, the bad guy,

got completely thrown out the window because of the power of the dopamine. that is gathered from nostalgia. I wrote like a 15, 20 page paper on that, and the basis of it was Rock Hogan. I hope you got an A on that. I got like a C plus. The first time I met The Rock, I said to him, hey, I was at WrestleMania 18.

That match means so much to me. He goes, oh, yeah, who were you cheering for? I go, ah, I was cheering for Hogan. And he goes, hmm, so was I. And I'm like, ah, this guy. I wrote a paper on pro wrestling at Laurier as well. Yeah. I wrote a nonverbal communication essay about like,

you can already tell when they're walking out of the volumes down. You can tell who's a good guy, who's a bad guy. You can tell if they're getting over with the crowd. And like the whole thing. Actually, I think I did another like presentation in a fourth year communication studies class of like just presenting like the art behind wrestling. I think we pretty much are the same person.

I think we are, man. And so that's why this is a nice full circle moment. I'm glad we were able to make this finally work. Your content has absolutely exploded over the last three years. I think it'll be three years in November since you started posting wrestling content on YouTube. That's right. And you post a video every day. I haven't missed a single day of uploading since I decided to make the conscious decision to do daily uploads on YouTube.

Just to clarify, not short form content, long form 20 plus minute videos on May 27, 2023. I've done his daily videos, sometimes more than one since May 27, 2023. Whenever somebody asks me for advice with content creation, I always say consistency. That's the most important thing. Big time. Right. If you keep showing up, the audience will keep showing up too. But a video a day every day. So like, you're posting on Christmas. You're posting on your birthday. Yep. You're posting when you're here in L.A. right now. Wow. It doesn't matter. I've got a trip to Japan that I'm gone for 12. days, 13 days, there will be a video on YouTube regardless.

That is my, that is my model, my mentality, because when it comes to the online space, the concept of, is my video better than somebody else? That's purely subjective, right? It's purely up to the opinion of the viewer. I can't necessarily control that. I can try to make the best video possible, but I can't sway the audience's opinion on it. What I can sway is how available I am. So I don't think I'm the best content creator out there,

but I do think I'm up there with one of the most consistent ones. So whenever you log into YouTube, we've made a social pact. There will be Asante's app video there. Yeah. And my side of that pact is to upload, your side of the pact is to keep showing up and watching. And it's worked pretty well for the past two and a half years. Yeah, your stuff blew up really quick.

Yeah. Like you got to 100,000 subscribers. How quick was it? About three and a half months. Oh, my gosh. You know how long it took me to get to 100,000? What? How long?

Seven and a half years. I started in 2011, February 2011, and it didn't happen until August 2018. Yeah, it's a different landscape back then, though. Definitely. I do think that it is funny enough, people think it's harder to get into content creation. Now, I think it's the easiest it's ever been, especially because everybody has the little supercomputer called their iPhone where they can make content. Yeah.

Yeah, I'm thinking of like 11 years ago. Like you really needed like equipment that was only accessible to those that really wanted to dive into content creation. But now literally anybody could be a content creator. But it's intimidating because of how many content creators there are out there. But I promise you, if you're listening, if you're interested in becoming a content creator, for every content creator, there's thousands of viewers. Yeah. And I always say to people like, don't worry about buying these mics or these mics or these cameras like what you have in your podcast.

that camera, that microphone, that is more than enough to start. Yeah. Start there. My first, probably a few hundred videos were shot on my iPhone with one of my friends holding a selfie stick, shaking towards the end as we got to minute 10 or 15 of these interviews. I think the idea is you got to show up. And that has been the thing that I've decided.

I'm going to show up. I'm going to be there every single day. Rain, shine, traveling, holidays. The Santis ad video will be there. I have people from Turkey message me because of like when I upload my videos, they say, Santi, I wake up and I have breakfast to your videos. That's just the routine that I've created for myself. Yeah.

And when I hear that, it's like, all right, well, I can't ruin your routine. I got to make sure the daily video is there for you. And it initially started with a personal goal to do it for 365 days. And once we broke that, I'm like, all right, let's try and break Roman Reins as record. 1,316 days. That's what I'm chasing. I'm chasing 1,316 days of posting every day on YouTube. As we sit here right now, what day are you on?

Oh, I don't know off the top of my head. Okay. Yeah, yeah, but we are sitting on like two years and about four months. So you're like eight, nine hundred. Yeah. We're getting there. We're getting there to tribal chief status. Put up the ones.

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listening right now. Head to Timeline.com slash insight to get started. That's timeline.com slash insight for 20% off. Your cells will thank you. Why do you think your wrestling content took off so quickly? I think that's a great question. I think it comes down to relatability. you and I have spoken about this before about former wrestlers wanting to start podcasts. And I think they have wonderful stories. And we've seen former wrestlers start podcasts and YouTube channels and do well. But for everyone that does well, there's like 50 that do horrible and can't stay consistent and just quit. Right?

Because they realize it's not that simple. I think what's worked for me is one consistency, but two, relatable. because I really am just a fan at the end of the day. Those wrestlers that make content, you can't relate to those guys and girls. You're not the undertaker. If The Undertaker says something, it's gospel. If Sonti's app says something,

you can disagree with me all day long, because I can be wrong because I'm just one of you guys sitting on the couch. Because you're just a fan. I'm literally just a fan. I just happen to have viewers. But I am in the exact same position as everybody that watches my videos.

It's actually the reason, like strategically why I've avoided doing wrestler interviews or taking on opportunities that kind of take me out of the chair and put me into more of a industry person. Because if I'm all of a sudden more ingrained in the industry, I lose my spot in the couch. And I'm no longer relatable. I'm no longer the guy at the bar that you're watching wrestling with. I lose that relatability. So I think that's why it's been successful consistency and people being able to agree and disagree with me because I don't. don't have any authority in the space. I'm literally just a dude.

So if you're doing a video every single day, how do you come up with new topics? Do you have a content calendar? I don't. For me, my content calendar is, doesn't matter, figure it out, post something. Sometimes when wrestling is hot, it's so easy to come up with something.

Sometimes when it's not hot, it's like, all right, we got to stretch something and come up with something and just throw it out there and see if it sticks. What's funny is that sometimes I'll come up with a video idea. I'm like, this is terrible.

But whatever, I'm posting it anyway. And it does well. It does better than I would have thought. So that goes with my mentality of some content is better than no content. But just stick to the plan every single day. But for me, it really is like sometimes, Chris, like I'll have five videos ready to go for the next five days. Sometimes, oh my God, my editor falls asleep in like 30 minutes. I need to come up with something and I just have to just sit in front of the camera and then inspiration comes in.

Just by turning on the camera and realizing that if I don't make something, my editor doesn't eat. My thumbnail guy doesn't eat. These guys are relying on me to do my daily video. Yeah. And that alone, maybe like the pressure makes the creative juices start flowing and the video comes out in some capacity at some point. And what you're hitting on there is one of the things I love so much about the creator of economy because you get to do what you love and you're passionate about, because I get to do what I love and I'm passionate about other people who love editing or graphic design or whatever it happens to be,

they get to do what they love too. And that is the coolest thing about content creation in any space, that there's this trickle down effect of like, you're great on camera, but maybe you're not a great editor. But this person is. Maybe you're not great at graphic design, but that person is. And there's all these other people that also get the benefit from it. That's my favorite part about content creation. Dude, I love how my thumbnail artist landed the gig with me because I was making my own thumbnails. And then he reached out to me via email, kept trying to reach out.

And I'm like, no, I'll keep doing my own thumbnails. And then he sends me an email. He's like, you suck. Here's five thumbnails for your last five videos and they're better than everything that you do. I look at them. I'm like, oh, yeah. All right.

Here's your job. There you go. And he's been with me now for a year and a bit. That's how I found my shorts editor. Yeah. Troy Blair. He sent me a cold email. And I had some vertical videos at that time and they were not great. And he said, I just edited this from your recent interview. It was with Big Show. I edited this together. Let me know what you think. And I was like, oh, that's a lot better, a lot better. And I said,

thanks, but no thanks. I already have somebody. And then I sat on it for a few days and I emailed him back. I said, you know, let's let's work something out. And he's been with me now for three years. And as you know, a lot of people find our content from the vertical videos. Whether it's a short or real, a TikTok, whatever it happens to be. If not for those, kind of like bringing people in, maybe they don't find the YouTube channel or the podcast. Yeah. Yeah.

And for me, it's a lot of the reaction clips. There's a lot of people that think you're just a reaction guy. Yeah, which is like so far from the truth. Like that is like when you look at it like from like an iceberg perspective, that is like a tiny 1% of what I do. The intention with those reactions is, hey, hopefully you like the personality. come find everything else that I do. But a lot of people think that all I do is react to content.

I don't. I do have a podcast, have a Patreon. I live stream pretty much every single major show so that I can have a community to discuss the show with. But the thing that gets the most views is usually the thing with the least amount of effort, which is the reaction content. Have you had a piece of content that went viral and it surprised you? Literally the first, like short.

piece of content that I made. I did a guest the wrestler and the very, dude, the very first one we posted, guest the wrestler and it was Eddie Guerrero. We posted it on TikTok. We blinked. We woke up 400,000 views overnight. Wow. Just the very first one. And that spawned a series that lasted like a year and a half. I did a guest. You did some guess the wrestler with you. And I've had some to get like 15 million views. There was a Logan Paul one that did insane. So that series, like to this day is, is probably like the most shockingly viral thing because

it was so quick. There was no gradual buildup. It was like from day one, it did insane numbers. Now, from like the long form side of things, uh, I did this video where I decided to do a pack opening of like those like WWE like tops cards. And the whole concept of the video was, can I make money opening these. Like, can I open these cards and can they be worth more than what I pay? I made the video and I'm like, this is garbage. This sucks ass. This is the worst video that I've ever made, but some content is better than no content. Let's put it out there and let the people decide. 400,000 views or something like that on the long form 50 plus minute video. I'm like, how? But again, it's not for me to decide what's good. It's not for me to decide what goes viral.

It's for the audience. Yeah. That's what. why I live and breathe by the model of some content. Some content is better than no content. And if one I'm hearing is right here, it reminds me of a quote, which is perfect as the enemy of good. Like if you're, if you're constantly striving for your video to be perfect every single time, you're never going to put anything out. And that's the, the barrier that so many new content creators are in. They are afraid to put out the failures. You got to put out the failures. Yeah. For sure. You, you learn from the failures. But also at the same time, what you think is a failure might actually be a success. You don't know. You are the worst judge of your own content.

Because if you are making the content for yourself or worse, if you're making content for other content creators, you are in a horrible loop, a horrible spiral. You need to make content with the idea that it's being made for viewers. They decide what's good. They decide what's bad. You don't. Yeah. Do you think that there's a shelf life or reaction? videos, do you think you're going to be able to keep doing them? The shelf life is the legal shelf life. Like until WWE decides, nah, that's the shelf life. Because that's what happened to your TikTok, right? Yeah, but that's not even like WWE. That's just this like automated system that TikTok has. It's not even like across the board on all of the different platforms. So like they're fine with it on Instagram,

on Facebook. It's this like TikTok thing that all of a sudden decides, no, you're not allowed to here anymore. get out of here. But when my first TikTok got banned and it got banned at like 700,000 followers, that's when I realized you can't scale off of this. You got to focus on the more creative sides of content creation. And unfortunately, and I say that loosely because it's great, there are a lot of new people trying to get into reaction content. And that's amazing. But that's all they're doing. I highly encourage those individuals to try, your hand at long form content, try your hand at live streaming, be more creative because you cannot scale off of just reaction content. I was lucky that I got into a time where they were really

loose with it and they're like, sure, go ahead, use this content, reactions, whatever, but they can literally turn that off at any moment. Why, why should I rely my, and have my livelihood hang on this thing that's just not reliable, something that could literally disappear overnight? you got to diversify. I think WWE likes the reactions. You were part of WW Unreal. Yeah. One of your reactions is there.

You were a big part of like the final boss stuff, right? Like your stuff's been on a lot of WWE programming. So I don't think, I don't think they're taking that away. I don't think so either. Dude, the rock stuff, he used me for some evil propaganda. You remember when like everyone hated the rock because of the we want Cody stuff? Yeah, yeah. All right.

So I was firmly in the we want Cody side of things. I was like, I don't want the rock here, but I made a video talking about the positives of having the rock here. And he used that on his own Instagram to talk, like to like show the world. Look at how much the WW universe loves the final boss taking Cody Rhodes's spot. And I was so conflicted because I was like, well, I'm getting free promotion on like the fifth biggest Instagram page on the planet. And it's the rock. And it's the freaking rock. But now everyone hates me because they think I'm some sort of agent of the rock that wants

Cody Rhodes out of the picture. Wow. I bet The Rock's going to see this. Of course. Of course he is. But hey, I was just joking. He's not going to watch this. I'll take the free promotion.

Brock. If you ever want to post me on your Instagram to feed the world, the rock propaganda, I'm right here, man. The Rock is one of my favorites of all time. So you can do no wrong as far as I'm concerned. Who is your favorite of all time? It is John Cena.

For a long time, it was The Rock. I still remember the promo in Toronto. Do you remember that? Which one? The gibrony beaten pie eating trailblaze and eyebrow rays and stronger than a bear faster than a buck. The biggest thing to hit Canada because the maple leaf suck. That was one of the first shows I ever went to. Now it is John Cena for a long time.

It was The Rock. So I'm sure you can imagine my conflict when the Rock came back. And it was The Rock and John Cena at WrestleMania. That rock promo, by the way, is so good. Yay, Toronto. That's where we live. With this leather vest? Oh, so good.

So good. So good. So seen as your guy. Yeah. So how do you feel on this farewell tour? Like, I've been getting pretty, like, I've been getting to my feelings. Okay. As the dates hit down, you know, count down here.

And I feel like I've been getting definitely more into my feelings as it became a father. But like, we're down into like, there's only this many dates left. It's on your hand. Dude, what the? We're the same person. So it's like, and I, every time I see John Sina, like, clearly, like, taking it all in and reacting to it, I'm like, oh, man, December 13th is going to be tough. How have you felt about the farewell tour as a whole? Hidden Miss from, like, a quality perspective, storytelling perspective, I think it's been fantastic as a ability for me to say goodbye to John Sina.

getting to see him in all different kinds of environments, getting to see him as a heel, as a baby face, interacting with those that he interacted with in the past, him doing his ode to Adam Copeland, who's in AEW now. Most wrestlers don't get this. Most wrestlers, that's it.

They're just done. And they don't even know when their last match is. We have both the fortunate and unfortunate pleasure to know when John Cena's last match is. fortunate because we get to say goodbye. We get to have the journey to see him go into the sunset. But unfortunate because we get to know when it happens and like it's counting down and it's like starting to strangle me that my favorite, my goat, the greatest of all time,

is about to leave this industry forever. And, you know, they say in wrestling, never say never. I believe when Sina says never. Oh, me too. I believe it. And he has to. He is such a man of his word. Yes, he'll have plenty of other appearances.

Like how we hear the gong and Undertaker comes out, it's a fun reaction. And it's the Undertaker. But you know he's not going to wrestle again. And I think that that's why it's going to hit so hard when he does have that final match. I'm going to be there. I'm going to move heaven and earth to make sure that I'm there. Yeah, there's nothing stopping me. I have to, have to have to go to his retirement.

We were both there when he turned Hill. Elimination Chamber. Roger Center Toronto. That was wild. Say what you will about the heel run. Sure. That heel turn, legendary. I thought I was like,

this is going to go down as the greatest heel turn of all time. Sweet young summer child, did I not know that they wouldn't pay it off with everything that happened there? But in the moment, I thought I was witnessing the craziest thing

to ever happen in professional wrestling history. I thought this was the next Hogan Bash of the beach type of deal. and it could have been had they actually built on it and delivered a great heel run. And I feel like that's still up for the bait. There was stuff to like from the heel run. There were a lot of great promos in there.

Yeah. Like he recently said that his promo, his first heel promo in Belgium sucked and I'm like, wrong, no, sir. Wrong. No, wrong. I've never seen a crowd take over like that. Like, they didn't play theme songs when that promo is down.

I'm getting goosebumps talking about this. Like that crowd was. so angry at Sina, like the shot of that little kid, right? Then the full circle moment later, they were so hot for Cody. I think there were some shining moments in that. But take me to the heel turn itself. Where were you? I was second row right behind commentary beside Drake and Lil Yachty.

What? Yeah. So I got invited by Netflix. And I originally wasn't going to go because I've got this like double-edged sword where like I cover shows and PLEs. So going to them means I can't cover them live. Yeah. But when it with it being in Toronto Elimination Chamber, John Cena going into potentially

a WrestleMania match, I was like, okay, I'm going to go. I took the ticket. It was originally supposed to be like seventh row, putting the B tier content creators back there, Netflix. And then I guess a bunch of people didn't show up to the free tickets of Netflix. And we got there. And they're like, hey, we moved. up to like second row.

And I was like sick. And then beside me and I and another content creator, con man, there was like seven empty seats. And then like 20 minutes into the show starting, I see this convoy of people. And it's Drake Lil Yoddy and his entire security entourage just sitting beside us. That's where they put us.

So I got to witness John Cena's heel turn beside Drake. Did you talk to Drake at all? A little bit. Yeah. Yeah. Just like, what do you think? He's like, that was crazy.

This is wild. Yeah, I took a picture of Drake at one point. And he was reacting to Sammy Zane and Kevin Owens. And I'm like, that was crazy. I posted it. And like 70 media outlets. Can we buy that clip off of you? We want to post that.

Okay, whatever. No, but that's weird. Why do you want to post this? Oh, yeah, man, like right beside Drake, seeing him react to everything was so much fun. Yeah. I know there's been, like, it's easy to look. back with hindsight and go, the John Cena heel run socked or I didn't like it or they should have done it this way or that way. I think that it gave us a lot of interesting moments and

fun moments. It also made when he turned babyface again mean so much more. That pop at SummerSlam was huge. But imagine if we could have gotten there organically. It felt like they pulled the parachute. Oh, for sure they did. But then if there was no heel run, we would have just got like John Cena playing the greatest hits for 36 appearances. And I think that that would have worked. I think that we can objectively say that would have worked. But I think that this gave it a little bit more to work with. I get where you're coming from and him being heel allowed for matches that wouldn't have made sense if he was a baby face. Ran the Orton, C.M. Punk. That tag match against Cody Rhodes and Jay Uso, I think it was at Money in the Bank. That wouldn't have worked if he

was a baby face. So him being a heel, even though it didn't get paid off the way that it should have did open us up to have matches that we all were clamoring for in his retirement tour. And they were able to do it in a way where it made sense because he was a bad guy. Again, they didn't pay it off. It's not his fault. He tried to take, you know, fault for that. I don't know if you saw that. Yeah, he tried to take fault for the heel run not work. It's like, no. It was not you. You were doing everything right. It was the. circumstances in the third parties that were involved in your heel run that couldn't or didn't want to be part of it moving forward that ruined it. But it was not Sina. All we needed was

one sentence explaining why Travis Scott was in the ring. One sentence. One sentence. And also one sentence explaining why you sided with the rock and why he's not here. We got none of it. And I think the other part was he was cutting promos that a 2012 John Sino would have cut. Like he was saying things of like, you know, you were booing me all this time and I was giving you my all. Like, no, we, we were pretty much cheering you this whole time. Like, you can't be mad at us for the stuff we did 10 years ago, 12 years ago. And that was where there was a bit of a disconnect as well, I think. Yeah, I do agree with you.

I think that that heel turned, like the types of promos that he was doing, dude, that would have landed so hard during the Rock versus Sina. And that's when he told me he was, he wanted to turn heel so bad. Like, when he started telling me that stuff during the interview, I was like, tell me more John Cena. It's like, what was the timeline? He's like, oh, my goodness, please. Yes.

And you listen to the promos that he's done as a heel in 2025. And you put them in the context of 2012, 2011. It's like there they hit hard because he was coming off the back of getting booed for burying the nexus, being the overly do-gooder baby phase, you know, white bread, loves everything and everybody. that's when the frustration of John Cena was at its highest. But trying to do that in 2025 when we love you, when we miss you, when we want to see more of you,

doesn't hit as hard. That's why I like to refer to it as the heel turn, which is what happened at Elimination Chamber, and the heel run, which is everything after that. I think the heel turn is an 11 out of 10. I think everything after that, you know, fall short. Yeah. So who do you think is John?

John Sina's final opponent. Oh, there's the ones I want, the ones that I think. Right now we're off the back of Russell Paloza. The way that ended with Brock Lesnar eating John Sina alive, I could see them wanting Brock Lesnar to be John Sina's final opponent. And I think it would make sense with how Russell Palluzza ended. John Sina finally conquering the beast, this guy that's just eating him alive for his entire career,

he ends his career, finally exercising the demon that is Brock Lesnar. I could see it. I don't want that. I feel like Brock Lezor's next move is Cody Rhodes. That's where I... Again? I just... That was his last thing that he did, SummerSlam two years ago.

I also think that Cody and Randy Orton is long overdue, and that might be where we're headed. But I could see what you mean. But didn't they at some point during the promo for Brock and Sina say that this was one last time? I feel like that was, but like it can't. The way the wrestle-palooza match ended requires a sequel. There's no way Sina goes out with what four days, five days left and he doesn't get to have his big super Sina come back against Brock Lesnar at some point.

It's impossible. I think they're handcuffed. You have to run Brock Lesnar back again. Yeah. And I could very well see it being John Sina's last match. So who else is on the list of the wants for you? Dominic Mysteria, I think, would be a wonderful final opponent. I agree.

I think would be a wonderful, wonderful opponent, especially because it's a great callback to the fun feud that he had with Eddie Guerrero in the ruthless aggression era. And if Dom is still the Intercontinental Champion at that point, you've got that hanging in the balance. Will he become the Grand Slam champion in his final match? And Sting changed the game, right? You can go out winning. You can go out as a champion.

So I don't think it's crazy for John Cena to win the Intercontinental Championship on his last match and vacated. I think John Sina goes out with a loss. I think that he is such a man of the business. I agree. That he understands how this works and he's going to be looking at the lights. I could be wrong, but I feel like if John Sina has his way, he will lose his final match. The other prototypical perfect John Sina heel is Gunther.

If you look at everyone that he's feuded with throughout the years, Gunther is like the prototypical made in a lab perfect John Sina heel. He really, really is. And we've already seen Gunther retire Goldberg. That could be something he chases, something like a legend killer, legend retireer. I could see Gunther also being a final opponent for John Cena. But just as of the conversation, as of the day of this conversation, Brock Lesner is probably the one that I think they're going to run. And what's so interesting is if we had had this conversation at the start of the year, like right before that first raw Netflix, I would have said, oh, it's Randy.

Randy, of course. Easy. But then they called it their last match ever. It made sense. St. Louis, backlash, Randy's hometown. I get it. Well, then my next guest would have been, well, Siam Punk. So much history there.

Some of John's best matches ever. I love that money in the bank match they had together. It's got to be Siam Punk. Last match ever, I'm night of champions. I'm like, okay, we'll cross those two off the list. The only other slight possibility, very slight possibility, is Edge.

And I don't think it's possible. But there's the tiniest little 0.1% chance because when he was on my show last May, he told me he had about a year and a half left on his contract. So if I do the simple math here, that takes us to about the end of this year. He debuted, I believe it was in September of 2023. So if we're just spitballing here, we're just guessing, maybe it was a two-year contract if he was telling me he had a year and a half left. So that would take us to somewhere around now-ish, maybe.

Possible. Unlikely, he had injury time. I'm sure that'll be added on. But I just want to throw that curveball out there. That curveball has been in the back of my mind for the entirety of the run. Because he's, that's John Cena's greatest rival. I know people will say Randy Orton. But in terms of quality, in terms of storylines, edge.

Edge is John Cena's greatest rival of all time. When I look at the dates he has left, he's got Crown Jewel. He's got the Raw and Boston, the Rod MSG, Survivor Series, and then the final match. There is no possibility really for a buildup between Survivor Series and the last match. Maybe they build this so that it's like whatever he does is Survivor Series naturally leads into his last match. With the buildup happening, I'm guessing on those Raws in Boston and New York. City, but maybe it's a mystery opponent type of situation. I just don't see how we get there.

I imagine as we sit here right now, he has four matches left, three matches left. I have a question for you. It's a tough one. Can they screw this up? No. There's too much at stake here. I agree. They can't screw this up.

I agree. They can't, but will they? I think it's a differing question. Dude, we are talking about the WWE that cut down. Goldberg off in the middle of his retirement speech. Well, that's a different story. There's a lot of lessons that are learned from that. Big time, big time.

But I am concerned that they could screw this up. And you can't. You can't. You absolutely cannot screw up John Cena's retirement. I so badly do not want John Cena to be part of the War Games match as Survivor series. I think that that would be such a waste of what would be his second last match. Give him a one-off match there with whoever. I don't even care.

I do not want to- Ronde Ameri Ameri- Conno. I would love that. Legitimately, I'm not even meming. I would love that. Just, I would love to see something new. Carmelo Hayes, Brom Breaker, these new cats, these new names. We've done the greatest hits, Chris. We've done the CM punks, the Randy Orton's. We had the rematch with Cody. You brought back Brock Leznor, you did that. Logan Paul has got three matches out of this. Yes. Two of them being tag matches, but still. But still, he's really the only column up-and-comer younger talent that's had any sort of like real feud with John Sina during this.

Logan Paul is impressive. Absolutely. Man, but it doesn't matter what he does. Everyone will continue to hate him and say that he's terrible at this. And they continue to live in a shadow of lies because he is fantastic at this. And I think that you need to separate like Logan Paul, the pro wrestling performer, bell to bell from Logan Paul, the YouTuber media personality. The people won't.

They just won't. How can you look at the. work that Logan Paul does in the ring objectively and go, that guy's not a good wrestler. Like what? You're lying. You're literally straight up lying to yourself. And I've been trying to champion this idea that Logan Paul is amazing at this thing of professional wrestling that we all love.

And it has landed me in so much hot water with the internet wrestling community because as Logan put it in one of his promos, he could walk on water and people will think it's because he can't swim. And it's so. That's a great line in a promo. It is so. true because in every aspect, in the short amount of time that he's been there, he's knocked it out of the park.

And I think that people forget that every match he's ever had has been in WWE. So he didn't get matches in NXT, he didn't have matches on the Indies. He wasn't in another company before this. Like, his first match was in WWE and every match he's had since. The WrestleMania match. Right. That was his debut, brother. And I think that we all kind of went, oh, wow, like, he gets it.

Because it's not just the moves. Like, clearly he has the athleticism. But it's the facial expressions. It's the timing. I just had Sean Michaels on the show and he said, the one thing you can't teach is timing. And it's true. Like, you've either got it or you don't. And he has it.

Logan Paul has it. Doesn't matter whether he has it or not. People will say he doesn't. Yeah. And like, look, if you don't like Logan Paul, the character, or if you don't like Logan. Just say it. Yeah.

Say, I hate Logan Paul. So I will always say I hate Logan Paul. Fair enough. Sure. But don't lie. Don't lie and say that he's terrible at this because he's not. Yeah, you can't say he's a bad wrestler. You just can't.

You literally can't. Yeah. And Triple H said, I think it was like a year or so ago, he's like, Logan Paul has no business being as good as he is. And it's true. Like, he's something like 25 matches in. And like, he's, show me somebody else. who 25 matches into their

WWE career is this good. 25 matches into their career. Kudos to WWE for being able to recognize who they can trot out there and who they can't. Logan Paul obviously is in a different league of his own right now because he's had enough matches, enough main event matches. But they have an eye now with like what celebrities

are actually willing to put in the work. The fact that they were willing to nix and end the stuff with Travis Scott because this guy's not willing to do it. He was training with Booker T, reality wrestling. I don't know what ended up happening there, but he was putting in the work. All right.

But then, you know, jelly roll. All right. Dude, I was the biggest skeptic of jelly roll. The biggest skeptic. And by the end of like his four week run, he won me over. Oh, man. And absolutely won me over.

Even his promos. Yeah. Yeah. Believable. Very. And I think that there's oftentimes when we see people from outside of wrestling come in and they think that you need to talk a certain way and like pretend that you're a badass. It's like, no, you are here to be Jellyroll or Hugh Jackman or Bad Bunny or

or whoever it is. You're here to be that person. You're not here to be like, I've never liked you. Let me tell you something, brother. Right, right. That's like the cadence that so many people want to take with professional wrestling. But Jelly Roll was told, I believe, like if you can put in, if you can commit to this, many dates of training at the PC, we'll give you a match at SummerSlam. He's like, brother, I'm there. And then there's bad bunny. Oh, my gosh. Yeah.

We can talk about Johnny Knoxville. Yeah. There's just these names. I'm like, how do you have the foresight to recognize that this is going to work? Because I'm sure there's probably celebrities lining up wanting to work with WWE at this point, with how mainstream it's getting. And yet they're still so smart and have a good enough foresight. to realize and recognize who are the ones that we can trot out there to have a match and which ones

we can. Because there have been some awful celebrity moments. Awful. There have been some awful celebrity matches and some of them have happened at WrestleMania. Yeah. There have been some bad ones. But what we've had over the last, I'd call it like five years, every celebrity has well exceeded any expectations.

Yeah. And Jelly Roll to me is the most impressive one. Turns out he was watching my videos, listening to me to me. to be critical of him. I was never disrespectful. I've been very conscious of like some people that I'm talking about watch my videos. I said, I think that putting in too many resources into this jelly roll match, Randy Orton, Logan Paul, Drew McIntyre. Jesus, when Bad Bonnie debuted, they gave him a mid-cardamian priest. When it was Johnny Knoxville, they gave him a Sammy Zane that was doing nothing. But we're putting in three main eventors with jelly roll by the end of the whole feud.

I basically apologize. Jelly Roll, you were amazing, fantastic. This was a great match. Brother leaves a comment on my YouTube and the review of that SummerSlam on his 4 million YouTube, four million subscriber YouTube page saying, watching me win you over over the last several weeks has been amazing. I love that so much. Man, I love that you have the pulse that you're listening to what fans were saying,

the feedback that they were giving you because you clearly apply. it. You are somebody that gives a shit about this. And if jelly roll wants to come back two, three, ten more times, I'm in. Me too. Yeah. And that's an uphill battle because as we know, wrestling fans are hypercritical. Big time. So they were going into that match looking for a reason to not like it. And look, if you, if that match is over and you still don't like it, okay, that's fine. Everybody's entitled to their own opinion. But the expectations were like, man, what a waste of a match here was what a lot of people online were saying. Man, that match delivered.

And Jelly Roll looked like a star. Yeah, yeah. I said I would oil up because there's this meme if Jelly Roll did a shooting star press. He didn't. Still not oiled up. What is this oil up meme? I have no idea where it starts. Why every?

Yeah. There'll be so many comments on this video. Did you tell Santi to oil up? Yeah. What is going on here? I think it's been going on for like a year and a half. What is this? Some guy in the YouTube comments left.

Sonti, you should oil up. I just see the Crisco Gifts, too. Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah. And that YouTube comment was the top comment for the next like 700 videos that I made. And if you watch me post anything on social media, shords, TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, top comment, Santi should oil up. Don't know where it came from. Don't know why it started. But we are like a year and a half into people telling me to oil up.

I am a grown ass man, Chris. Why do y'all want to watch me oil up? Like to a degree that's weird. That's weird. Will you be oiling up at any point in time? There will be a point. It has to, right? I have to pay this off.

Do you? I have to pay this off. At some point or another, I know what the people want. I have to deliver on that expectation at some point. It might not be anytime soon. It might be my last video ever. Whether you like it or not.

That's true. Maybe I'll do a pre-recorded video of me oiling up and if I retire, I just make that video public. And I said, I've already retired into the sun. Maybe I've unfortunately passed away and I tell my team publish this when I've passed away. If you're watching this, I'm not with you anymore. Here you go. That is.

So really only if Jelly Roll does a shooting star press. That's it. Jelly Roll is out there. I bet he could. He looks great. I'm concerned that he could. That's the thing. I'm concerned that he put in the work because.

He will clearly put his mind to it. If he decides, I'm going to learn a shooting star press just for the sake of making Santi oil up, he will do it. He's watching your videos clearly, so you're in trouble. You know the parameters, jelly roll. The ball is in your court, my friend. Shopping for a car should be exciting, not exhausting. But between misleading prices and hidden fees, it can feel like a maze.

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I'm going to hit you with a few quick ones here. Of course, we can talk as long as we want. What's your favorite match of all time? Favorite is different than best. Okay. I want to make that very clear. My favorite match of all time is Kurt Engel versus Ray Mysterio SummerSlam 2002. That's a great match and a great opener.

The greatest Summer Slam opener. Oh my goodness. If there is a match to show non-wrestling fans, it is that one. For the hardcore wrestling fans, you've always pondered that question. What match the show non-wrestling fans? And so many people want to say, Sean Michaels versus the Undertaker, Kenny Omega versus Cazisco, Kata at Russell Kingdom. Those matches are 40 minutes.

A new wrestling fan will not sit through that. Kurt Engel, Ray Mysterio, SummerSlam, 2002 is seven and a half minutes of the most jam-packed action that you can see. A combination of lucha and technical wrestling that is an absolute masterpiece. Just eight minutes long. The commitment is low and the reward is enormous. enormous. I adore that match. I love that answer. So do you have a different answer than for best? Keeping it in WWE, it also depends. Like if we're talking from a technical perspective, I will pick the Undertaker versus Sean Michaels, specifically WrestleMania 25. I think that is a wonderful match.

I think it's damn near perfect. But I have a slight reference for Kurt Engel versus Sean Michaels at WrestleMania 21. Oh, I think, I think that is a genuinely stellar match with a wonderful finish of Sean Michaels being locked in an ankle lock for seemingly like 20 minutes and he is screaming,

writhing in agony. If you ever want to see a believable submission hold that lasts for a long time, that's the one. That WrestleMania 21 match is utterly fantastic. The thing I love about Kurt Engel and Sean Michaels is them versus anybody. Kurt Engel versus anybody.

Sean Michaels versus anybody. Instant classic. Yeah, they're kind of like the common thread, right? When you ask fans, best favorite, Mount Rushmore's, whatever, those are like names that you will consistently hear Kurt Engel, Sean Michaels, Sean Michaels, Kurt Engel. Eddie Guerrero as well, when you're talking about just like technical stuff, like bell to bell, great wrestling, yeah, those are the names you're always hearing.

So with that said, then, let's just go for it. Who's on your Mount Rushmore? Oh, so we're going there. All right. Buckling. As cliche as it is, people would love to hear it.

These comments section, it doesn't matter what I say. I could come up with the perfect Mount Rushmore, and it doesn't matter. I'm the worst person alive because I don't agree with them. That's the wrestling fandom that we live in. I like to break it down by eras. And who was the,

for lack of better words, the big dog. of that particular era. And I also want to make it clear that I think it's really important to make this clear that I talk about the ones that I got to witness. Because I could go into the history books and talk about Bruno San Martino. I could talk about Holcogne. I could talk about Stone Cold Steve Austin.

I never witnessed them. I got the back end of Stone Cold Steve Austin. If you were asking me for the definitive by the book Mount Rushmore, I would probably include a bunch of those names. But my Mount Rushmore, since I've been watching and 2001 is just different because the names are just not the same. For me, it is the undertaker. I got to witness what I think is the last portion of his career, putting on some of the greatest matches that I've ever seen. And I put in Sean Michaels in there as well. And they are

parallel, right? They did, they were just in the back end of their careers, just doing some of the best work that they've ever done. Yeah. And then I put John Cena and Roman Raines in there as well. Sure. Like in terms of how they fundamentally, change the industry and how they shape the industry as we see it today. That was John Cena. He carried this company throughout some of the worst years, but he was so influential in transitioning us from the Stone Cold era, from the rock era.

The guy that was pegged to be the guy was Brock Lesnar. He left. So it was put on John Cena to be that guy to usher in this new era, these new faces, these new names, and he was that guy for 10 plus years. And then when I look at from 2015 on, Roman Raines took on that role. And I think it's fascinating that I could break down Roman Raines' career in two halves. Terrible and amazing. That's it.

Basically, old theme song and current theme song. Seriously. Seriously, you really can. When you heard, Danor, der, der, there we go. That was the general reaction. but it doesn't change the fact that that was the guy they picked. That's the guy they pushed to the moon. And me and many people rejected it,

but then seeing him fundamentally change not just his character, but change how wrestlers and characters in the wrestling industry interacted with people at home because of the pandemic. That changed the game. When he came out at WrestleMania 39 and he was just shredded, looked like a million bucks, that for me was a definitive moment of like he'd already been the champ for so long at that point but that was a big moment where I was like oh my gosh like he's never looked better and then he

ended up looking better at WrestleMania 40 but like that that's a star what's interesting about Mount Rushmore is you can always tell when someone started to watch wrestling yeah because those are the people that meant the most to them mine is Hogan Flair Stone Cold and Undertaker Who can debate that? Right. You literally can't. And I think that like you could throw a scene on there. This is the thing about Mount Rushmore conversations.

But what if we do this? If I give you a decade, who do you think is the MVP of that decade? Ah, that's a wonderful question. I actually did a video on that because that's a better way. Right. To to really start to extrapolate who are the goats, right? 80s. Hogan, not even close.

Absolutely. Not even close. Wrestling is not what it is. Yeah. Without Hogan in the 80s. Yes. And this is why the question is. so good and so much easier to break down because every decade has the definitive one.

There's no, there's no debate. Oh, this will be interesting that. I don't think there's a debate. So I'm with you, Hogan in the 80s. 90s, Stone Cold Steve Austin. Absolutely. 2000s, John Cena. What are we thinking?

I agree. I agree John Cena. But I think this is going to be the most difficult decade, though, because you could make a real strong case for the work that Sean Michaels did. You could make a case for what Undertaker did during that era. That's why they were in my in my, in my Mount Rushmore for their work in that era. You know what?

I'll give it to you. I think you could say Randy Orton, especially 09 Orden. Like that bald Randy, man, that guy's different. I think maybe Sina is more definitive in the 2010s. Absolutely. I think there's a better debate in the 2000s. You could give Sina both decades. There's an argument to be made there.

In terms of being top billing, absolutely. You can. The 2000s and the 2010s. Yeah. So then, so we're going, John Sina is the definitive 2010's answer. I think so. I agree with that. Yeah, yeah.

In 2020s, which is crazy because he wasn't even really around in the back half of the 20s. Yeah, at post-2016, he was part-time. But still. In the 2020s, we're still only halfway through. Yeah. I think by the end of the 2020s, it's going to be Cody Rhodes. But right now, I'll still give it to Roman rains. Absolutely.

I agree. But five more years as Roman continues to be appearing only two to five times per year and Cody's there every single week, I think that once the dust settles from the 2020s, it's going to be Cody Rhodes. I think that's pretty fair. Yeah. Who do you think it's the most underrated wrestler right now? Oh, I think there is a magic to what Ludwig Kaiser is doing. He is so talented.

There is no reason why this should be working as well as it's working. What's this? What are you talking about? The alleged accusations that he is El Grande Americano. There's no way he's El Grande Americano. I saw the picture. of him side by side with El Grande Americano, so I would agree.

I'm glad he posted that to shut down the naysayers. I agree. But let's live in this delusion that people are living in. If he is El Grande Americano, if he did take the rule from the alleged former El Grande Americano, Chad Gable, there is no reason why he should be doing this well as El Grande Americano.

You got to listen to the context real quick. He is a German guy pretending to be a Mexican guy, pretending to be an American guy. And he speaks Spanish fluently. What the hell? He speaks like five languages. There's no way that on paper, if you gave me that, I'm like, that's going to fail on day one.

And he's the most over thing in Mexican lucha Libre seemingly. I would have to think, and I don't know this for a fact, I would have to think they just did that as a one-off. The thing that always makes wrestling work is when the person doing it believes it, when they commit a hundred and ten percent. And that's why you see like, that's why Chelsea Green is so great. That's why Cody Rhodes is so great.

That's why Roman Reigns in the 2020s is so great. That's why Al Grande Americano is crushing it. Yeah. He believes it. He believes it. And that's why like, I think he's the most underrated thing going on right now because when you really lay out the context,

this should have failed miserably, miserably. A gimmick that another, guy had that's just being shoehorned onto you. And not only did you make it work, but you made it better. And the guy before you was awesome. Everything was working against Ludwig Kaiser, allegedly. Everything was working against him.

They shouldn't have worked. And the fact that he made it work to me is a borderline miracle that needs to be celebrated. I love it. Where do you think this goes? I have no earthly idea. here's a thing with Mexican Lucha Libre and the culture of Lucha Libre this thing,

and I'm not exaggerating, could last 100 years. Iho del Grande Americano could be a thing. Gimmicks get past. That's the son of the son of El Grande Americano could legitimately become a thing.

Gimmicks don't die there. They evolve. They get passed down. And we're at the point where we might be talking talking about El Nieto, the grandson of El Grande Americano, in a hundred years. That's how over this thing is in AAA. I think that we'll get to a point when Chad Gable comes back and he's healthy.

If he was allegedly part of this storyline, allegedly, of course. I think we'll see a moment where there's a face-off between either El Grande Americano and Chad Gable or two El Grande Americano's. It would be a wonderful moment. It'd be such a fun moment at the Royal Rumble. I was secretly hoping that they would at least put both Al Grana, or Chad Gable and Algrana Americano in different sides of the King of the Ring bracket. Even if it was just for us to look at and go, oh, that's hilarious.

I was hoping for them to like at least make it seem like it might lineup, but I think there's something when Chad Gable is healthy again. There has to be. There has to be. But I'm telling you, when it comes to Mexico and the culture of Lucha Libre, that thing is there. It's not going anywhere. It won't go anywhere.

We're talking about a generational maska. That's mask in Spanish. That's a mascara that will be there for generations. Who wins the WW World Championship first? Bronbreaker or dirty Dominic Mysterio? Not counting the AAA Mega Campionado. So we're talking about the WW World Heavyweight Championship or the WWE Championship. I think Dominic Mysterio.

I think they're willing to be more patient with Bronbreaker. I think that they're willing to allow him to be under the wing of Seth Rollins for a year, two years like Batista was with Triple H. That was from like 2003 to 2005, a two whole years. Dirty Dominic Messera seems like the guy that they could just wake up one day and say, yeah, put the title on him. And it could happen next week.

And it would make sense and it would be awesome. I think that they are more willing to be spur of the moment with Dom and more willing to be patient with Brom Breaker. Because I think Bronbreaker is like, that's a guy they're going to build the company around. They don't need to rush this. That guy's a, that guy's a maid hall of famer already. But with Dominic Mysterio, it could be an Eddie Guerrero thing. Who in the world was expecting Eddie Guerrero to out of nowhere beat Brock Lesner at No Way Out 2004? It was like that.

It felt seemingly out of nowhere before, right? WrestleMania, are you kidding me? They could do something like that with Dominic Mysterio. And I feel it's more likely that that random world championship victory happens with Dom than it does with Brom Breaker. When Brom Breaker wins the World Championship, we'll know ahead of time. We'll know. That's when he wins.

That's when he's going to win it. But with Dom, we won't see it coming. Dirty Dom is so over. And to your point, I think they could pull the trigger on him and make him the world champion whenever this IC run is over, of course. I also hope that we're getting back to a point where at least the World Heavyweight championship changes hands with more frequency. I don't like this idea of like there's only two or three champions in a year.

I love this stat that in 1999, the WWE championship changed hands 11 times. I don't think we're going to get 11 times, but I would love to see five or six people hold the WWE World Heavyweight Championship. So then you need to tune in to Raw because who knows what might happen. You need to tune in to Smackdown because someone could win the World Heavyweight Championship. as someone could win the championship here. I would love to see that happen if we're putting Dominic Mysterio in the mix here.

I would love to explore that, but also explore, let's do a mix of that year, the 1999, with the experimentation of the ruthless aggression era. In the ruthless aggression era, they're like, JBL?

Okay, sure. And then it worked. And it works. That's the beauty of the ruthless aggression era, because people will say attitude era is the best era, the current era is the best era. There's a magic of, of the ruthless aggression era in that there was no guy.

There was no one at the top of the mountain because Stonecold left, the rock left, the guy that they crowned Brock Lesnar said, nah, Sainara, I'm out of here. Yeah, going to UFC. So we're just going to experiment Eddie? Sure, why not? They attempted with Eddie, JBL, John Cena, Batista, Edge was somebody that they experimented with, Benoit, RVD.

They put the title on so many different guys at that time, because they were just hoping to see what's going to stick to the wall. And it ended up being Batista and John Cena and Randy Orr and Edge became auxiliary characters as well as main champions. I want to get back to that where they're exploring and experimenting with new guys. They tried it with Jay Uso and I appreciate it. It didn't work. They changed their mind after two months.

No harm, no foul as far as I'm concerned. What people forget about Jay Uso's run is if you look at all of John Cena's 17 championship runs, Jay Uso's run is longer than like 10 of John Cena's runs. I don't know the exact numbers on this, but Jay Uso's run is longer than something like eight or nine or 10 of Randy Orton's runs. Like his run may be short in this current era, but if we look at just wrestling as a whole, just zoom out just a little bit,

his run wasn't really short by any means. It's by the standards that we have today of Roman Raines' three years, Cody 360 plus five days. Right. The standards have changed and I would love to have, Let's bring them back to four or five month reigns. Let's do that. Yeah.

A few PLEs. Yeah. What do you think is hands down the best current WWE theme song? Oh, man. I could go with generic answers. I think Randy Orton's voices is unbelievable. Especially with the crowd. Now that we have the crowd going on.

John Cena's theme is iconic, but I think Randy's is better. Cult of personality is fantastic. We've already talked about him, but Al Grande Americano's previous theme before he got deaf-rebled, I thought was brilliant. I agree. That, like, American jingle done mariachi style

in 1960s acoustic? Who came up with that? That is brilliant. Absolutely utterly brilliant. But right now, I'm going to go with CM Punk, cult of personality, with Living Color is just so good. That live performance at WrestleMania 41

was just so damn good. It's just such a good song that fits the character of CM Punk and what he is, like perfectly to a T. There's something about hearing that static, too. And I love that they continue that in AEW. Like that, that's his trademark. I always love to like the hit, right?

Whether it's the gong or it's the car crash for Mick Foley or it's the glass shattering, I love that we got the. Yeah, we don't have that with like 90% of themes on Zah. I know. You, the last Royal Rumble when people were coming out, and mind you, I watch wrestling every day. This is what I do for a living. During the Royal Room,

I'm like, who the hell is that? Who's coming out? What? That's Jordan Grace? That's, that's, that's, Zalina Vega? That sounded like the theme from Smackdown. Why is, there is just

such a lack of, uh, instant, instantly like impactful entrance themes nowadays. Jim Johnston was the absolute king. Yeah. Of that. He had you in the first one second.

You knew exactly who was coming out. whether they were at the top of the card or the bottom of the card. You knew it. Yeah, yeah. And we had CFOs there for a little bit. They did like Bobby Rudes, a glorious Shinske Nakamura's theme, Samoa Joe's WWE theme. Like they were doing great.

But nowadays, the music that we have just feel so lifeless. All the best themes are the songs that are from the past. My pick is Cody Rhodes. And I may be biased because Downstate also does the theme song for this show. And those guys are awesome. Shout out to Downstate. But if you watch the evolution of Cody Rhodes' theme song Kingdom, he's been using it since he left WWE.

He was using on the Indies. If you watch the evolution of it, it's always been a great song. And it tells the story of Cody Rhodes' life, essentially. But the woe, when he came back. Baker. Right. It was nothing on the indie. It took six years to get over.

Because he had it on the Indies. He had it in Ring of Honor. he had a New Japan, he had an AEW. They're every once in a while, people that just knew the lyrics, they would, whoa. But it took a few months after his return at WrestleMania 38, and it became a thing. Like, there's a focus on him doing this. And like that makes it such a moment for the crowd. And I think any time the crowd can feel like they're part of it, whether it's an entrance

or it's a match with John Cena doing this, five knuckle shuffle, you can't see me. I think the crowd gets invested in that. So for me, it's that. And that's also the song that, like, if I have a playlist at the gym and I'm just listening to WWE themes or wrestling themes in general, that's at the top of my list.

Dude, it's, to me, those themes that fit the character are always the ones that I consider the best. Like an underrated one, Alberto del Rios thing. Do you remember that with the personal ring announcer? Yeah, Ricardo. Oh, that's so perfect.

That is a theme that fits the character. JBL. Do da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-d-d-d-d-d-down. Good times. Are we just going to sing theme songs? We can. People will listen. People will listen.

Also, if we were going of all time, I love all of Triple H's theme songs. Do you like King of Kings or the game more? I honestly don't treat King of Kings as an entrance theme. I treat it as like a secondary. So you're talking about one-two, two, is this song? And thank you for getting that correct. It is one-two. is this on?

Wait, what do people think it is? One ton. What? Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. The comments will be full of people. What do you mean? It's one two is the song?

One two is the song? Yeah. So many different things. That's my favorite one. That's an awesome one. One two? Is this one? That's what we do on my podcast. Wrestling is cool.

Me and Sancho, my co-host will, like, before we hit record. That's how we do our sound checks. One, two. Is this song? Yo, Jimmy, hit me with that triple A. Yeah. You let the music keep. It's so good.

We could just keep singing theme songs. Yeah, we can. We can. This has gone on for so long. I was like, just chat for like an hour. Dude, this has been amazing.

This is part one of many, I'm sure. I'm confident that we'll talk more, man. Congratulations on all of your success. And I love that you went for it. We didn't even really talk about us. I'll ask you now, what were you doing before you were a content creator full time?

I worked in tech. And I was a senior account. at a tech company in Waterloo, selling tech to big companies and traveling to their location to try and sell them on the software that we had. That was the job. They had nothing to do with wrestling, but I dare say it might have something to do with content creation because I was selling through Zoom, talking to people and presenting on on Zoom. Here's why you should buy your thing. I had my sales voice. I had the sales pep. And, maybe that's something that translated nicely onto content creation.

I was doing corporate sales for a long time. What gave you the confidence to quit your job and go all in on this? My dad. My dad, which is fascinating because when I tell people, a lot of people think that he'd be the one that would tell me, hey, keep your job. You know, keep your day job, son is like a pretty common thing that you might hear with parents,

especially somebody born in the 1950s where content creation is this like super foreign thing. but when it got to the point where financially I could leave my corporate job, but I still refuse to because I was scared. My dad's like, well, why you scared? Well, because I might fail with the content creation. Well, what's the worst case scenario if you fail with content creation? I go get that job again.

Okay. So what is the upside with the content creation? Well, I might get to do the thing that I love for the rest of my life. He says that's the easiest trade bet game. that you could make. If you fail, if you lose, you'd literally lose nothing. Yeah, you're right, you're right back where you started. Right back where you started. But if you succeed, you can change your life upside down, inside and out. And that's what's ultimately happened. It was my dad. My dad's like, do it, quit. Jump into into the pool. Get into the uncomfortable.

Get comfortable in the uncomfortable because that's the only way that you're going to be able to succeed in the uncomfortable. Well, you're doing it. And you continue to do it every single day. talk once I get to 3 1,316 days. We should do another show when we get to that. Next time I'm in Toronto, we'll do one there. Or next time you're down here. Yeah. Anytime you're down here. Wonderful. So I will ask you the question that I ask everybody at the end because gratitude is such a huge part of my life. So what are three things in your life that you're grateful for right now? I'm grateful for my family. As you've heard like from my dad's side of things, it's not just my dad, my mom. Um, uh, My partner, Sarah, they have all been so, so supportive in this journey.

Like for with Sarah specifically, you got to remember that I cover SmackDown. So we haven't had a Friday night date in years. She's willing to sacrifice all that. She's the one that's like when I had 20 viewers, keep going. You know, like this is what you do on Fridays. We're not going on dates. This is what you're doing. She is the one that kept me on track, regardless of, you know, the night that it was on.

She never guilted me because. I took time out of what would be our personal time to do this thing that's ultimately grown into what it was. So family to me is number one, number two, and number three if I really wanted it to be, especially in the Latino culture, we're like this. I've got extended family in Columbia that I barely see that are constantly messaging me, congratulating me, sending me their thoughts, prayers, whatever it might be. Family is huge, huge, huge for me. Number two, can I say wrestling? Of course.

It's my life right now, right? And I love how good it is right now. People that say, oh, WW sucks right now. A.W sucks right now. You didn't live through 2012. You didn't live through 2011. We got it good. We're eating good, brother.

Wrestling. I'm going to be forever grateful for it. AW, New Japan, W, WWE, all of it. It will go down in the Santiago's Apata Journal. when I'm writing down my last thoughts as I'm passing away this era where professional wrestling took me in and allowed me to make a life out of it. Yeah. And number three, I like fitness.

Like fitness to me, like there's so many times where if I'm just like not feeling it, content creation wise, let me go lift some weights. Let me, let me self-talk in my head as a bice of curling when I'm, when I'm just like, I'm squatting, deadlifting, whatever it might be, that gets me into a wonderful frame of mind. That's usually when my creative juices are flowing when I'm lifting. I'll be mid-set. I'm like, I'm going to make this video about this. And I'll just like jot it down on my phone.

And it's been such a huge part of my life. Funny enough, because of John Cena, I started lifting because of John Cena when I was like 17. And it's been a part of my life ever since. And I could, I'm literally going to see myself as an 80 plus year old still going to Oh, same. Yeah, that's going to be me. Yeah. I love those three.

Yeah. So congratulations again. Mind, body, soul, man. Yeah. Mind, body, soul. You're at 400 and something. YouTube on YouTube. This channel, the main channel is at like 700 and something.

With the growth you have, I think you'll surpass my channel. I hope you get to a million subscribers before my channel does. It's not you I'm trying to surpass. It's the greatest YouTuber of all time Maven. Maven. That's who we're all trying to surpass now, brother. these, where has beens now. I love Mavon. It's all about, hey guys, Mavon here.

Hey, guys, Mavon here. I've spent enough time with him. Mavon just surpassed my main channel. He still has a little bit to go to hit my Clips channel. But I look forward to you hitting a million before me. So, just putting that out there. Fingers crossed, man. I can't wait for that, too.

Well, I can't wait to have you back on the show. Thanks again for making this happen. Just two Canadian guys hanging out. Thank you, man. All right, there we go. What a fun conversation. Big thank you to Santi for joining us and just for hanging out. That just felt like a good old hangout session of two guys talking about wrestling.

So thank you for hanging out with us on that one. I'm sure this is the first of many, many times that he'll be on the show. Go hit a power bomb on the subscribe button on Sonti's YouTube channel. And now that this episode is over, go check out his podcast called Wrestling is cool. Snap a screenshot and tag us. share this episode with a friend. He's at Mr. Sonti's app underscore on Instagram. He's at Mr. Sonti's app on X.

I'm at Chris Van Fleet. And what a quote to wrap this up. The windshield is bigger than the rear view mirror for a reason. Because what's in front of you is so much more important than what's behind you. Be great and be grateful, my friend. We will see you on the next one for some more insight on Thursday. We've got the real life smashing machine. Mark Kerr on the show.

I can't wait for you to hear this one. Jim Rome takes on sports. Why? Because I have a job to do. With rapid fire takes. So I don't want to hear from you lava pigs on this notion today. No idea what you're talking about. You're complaining more than you like to breathe air.

It's like you get up in the morning only to complain and cry and moan on social media about things that you don't even understand. He's the spitfire of sports smack. Take advantage of, but get up in here. The Jim Rome Show podcast. What should be? Follow and listen on your favorite platform. You've been warned.