Insight with Chris Van Vliet - Scott D'Amore On His TNA Departure, WWE & AEW Partnership, Kazuchika Okada, Maple Leaf Pro

Episode Date: August 22, 2024

Scott D'Amore (@ScottDAmore) is a retired professional wrestler and onscreen authority figure. He sits down with Chris Van Vliet in Detroit to talk about his time at TNA and his exit from the promotion, how he found out that he would be leaving, turning the brand around following previous fan backlash, making things right with Kazuchika Okada, Jordynne Grace and Joe Hendry appearing on WWE TV, his upcoming work with Maple Leaf Pro Wrestling, the first time he saw Petey Williams execute the Canadian Destroyer and more. Quote I'm thinking about: "...if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat." Excerpt from "The Man In The Arena" - Theodore Roosevelt Sponsors: FACTOR MEALS: Get 50% off your first box and 20% off your next month at http://factormeals.com/Insight50 BONCHARGE: Use the code CVV to save 15% off your infrared sauna blanket at https://boncharge.com/cvv MAREK HEALTH: Get a 10% discount on Marek Health's Optimization Package with code CVV: https://marekhealth.com/cvv BLUECHEW: Use the code CVV to get your first month of BlueChew for FREE at http://bluechew.com ROCKET MONEY: Join Rocket Money today and experience financial freedom: https://rocketmoney.com/cvv PURE PLANK: The future of core fitness! Use the code CVV to save 10% on Pure Plank which was designed by Adam Copeland & Christian: https://gopureplank.com/ PLUNGE: Get $150 off your Plunge with the coupon code CVV150 at http://plunge.com For more information about Chris and INSIGHT go to: https://podcast.chrisvanvliet.com If you enjoyed this episode, could I ask you to please consider leaving a short review on Apple Podcast/iTunes? 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 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Welcome back to another one here on Inside. I'm CVV. Chris Van Fleet. Thank you for the lovely introduction. Samantha Irvin. And of course, Downstate, that song gets stuck in my head all the time.

Hope it's been a good week for you. Thank you for being with us on this episode. And thank you, as always, for helping to make insight the number one wrestling podcast on the planet. And in the theme of today's episode, hit a big old Canadian destroyer on that follow button if you haven't already.

Scott DeMore is with us here, and he's been credited with helping to turn impact wrestling around and really was the brains behind the relaunch of TNA wrestling. That was first announced at Bound for Glory last year. He had that very impassioned promo, we're effing back! Although he didn't say effing. He said the real thing there.

Their first official show as TNA was hard to kill January 13th of this year in Las Vegas. I was there. What a show. what a crowd. It was amazing hearing those TNA chance. Then less than a month later on February 7th, it was announced that Scott had been fired from his position as the president of TNA wrestling. And he's made it very clear this was not a mutual thing. He wanted to stay there. He wanted to continue to grow TNA wrestling. And there was just a difference in the vision that he had and that the company had. In fact, after he got fired, he put together the money to try to buy TNA wrestling.

So we talk about everything that went on with that. We also talk about Scott's new wrestling company, Maple Leaf Pro. They're running two shows, October 19th and 20th, live on Triller. He just has such a great wrestling mind. And I absolutely love this conversation. This is actually the longest episode of Insight that we've ever had. And I feel like we could have gone on for another two hours easily. But I had a flight to catch.

I flew to Detroit to do this interview with him. Scott drove across the border. from Windsor into Detroit, met me at an airport hotel there, and we recorded this. And as soon as we were done, I packed everything up and like sprinted to the gate in order to fly back home. But a great conversation, and I'm so excited to see what's next for Scott and to see what he does with Maple Leaf Pro. Snap a screenshot and share this online. He's at Scott DeMore on Twitter. He's at Scott dot Demore on Instagram. I'm at Chris Van Vleet. and let's do it.

Enjoy this conversation with Scott DeMore. We didn't play on the matching shoes here. Look at that. To me, that's, I mean, that is honestly crazy. I mean, the worst part is you at least noticed. I walked in and was like, you know, I was like, we do? But the first thing I noticed. I was never a shoe guy until like probably this year.

Now it's one of the first things I noticed. Yeah. You know, it's funny is I was never a shoe guy at all. And last year of the year before, we're actually in Chicago. And a guy came by who's a friend with a lot of the talent. He works for Jordan or whatever. And like for the shoe company. And I was talking with him, nice guy.

He's just sitting there in the middle of the afternoon. And he's like, I said, yeah, I's like, you know, I got to step up my sneaker game. Like I get my, my, my chops busted a lot by the guys for the shoes. I go, I wear, I wear like, you know, they say I wear old man's shoes. But I wear these shoes because they make my knees feel better at the end of a 10, 12 hour a day. So the guy goes, what's, he asked me what size I was, asked me if, you know, like, hey, do you mind wacky colors or whatever? So he brings me a pair of shoes.

It's, uh, and he drops off at the hotel that night. Like I thought I just wanted to, oh, yeah, like, I'm going to get you a pair of shoes. Yeah. I didn't think anything else. Then I get it, then I get a text from Moose, where are you? I'm like, oh, I'm in a booking meeting. And he goes, why have your shoes? I'm like, my, and the guy brought a pair of shoes at like midnight.

Wow. So now I'm like, I got to wear them tomorrow. Now here's my dilemma. I am a Boston Celtics fan. And these shoes, as soon as I look at them, I go, these are L.A. Laker shoes. They're purple and gold. They're L.A. Laker shoes. Like, I can't wear these shoes.

But then I'm like, well, I have to. He's going to be there. It's a wonderful, like, all the people that say, oh, let me, like, I didn't even, I didn't expect it at all, right? And would have saw him the next day and been totally, like, then I'm like, well, I got to wear them. And it's not that I didn't want to wear them because of the shoes. I just didn't want to wear Lakers colors because it's, like, in my blood.

Yeah. And I'm like, oh, I walk around all day stressed out, trying to like be like, ah, I can't believe I'm wearing these colors. And at the end of the day, the last thing I do after the last show with T&A would always be, I would get worked on by the massage therapist.

And he's a, he's a New York guy. And he goes, oh, man, look at those retro King's shoes. I go, huh? He goes,

those, like those are the perfect, like L.A. King's running shoes. I looked at him. I go, Kenny, where were you at 8 in the morning when I was so stressed out about wearing

Lakers colors? He goes, Lakers colors are different purple. And I was like, but long story short, or maybe longer, people saw me wearing those shoes. Everybody commented on them. And then the next week, Eddie Edwards and Johnny Bravo and myself, because they're shoe guys, we were talking about pumps. So I, in order to be able to wear the L.A. Kings, or when I taught at the L.A. Lakers shoes,

what I thought at the time, to, like, keep my Celtics card, that night from the lobby of the Marriott in Chicago, order D Brown pumps. And then Eddie and I talked, he's like, oh, next loop, let's wear our D Brown pumps. And Bravo wore his Pistons ones.

And then I was like, oh, so then it's like for my birthday, I got like four pairs of shoes. And for Christmas, I got like three or four pair. And I somehow inadvertently became, so now I've got like the plastic cases that.

Oh, you're that guy now. Well, I had to because there's 20 pairs of, and I think one of the thing is like I always, Like, I know I'm somebody who's hard to buy for. And that's why I was like, please don't buy me anything. Like, I want to spend time with you to see you, to share a laugh.

That's, that's what I want to do. Like, don't feel you have to. But I think people are like, oh, well, here's something that I can, I can do to show my, he liked shoes. Yeah. And the weird thing is, now I kind of do. So, but yeah, it's so weird. My laundry room has, like, these stacks of plastic cases and every shoe goes in.

It's, it's plastic. Because otherwise, there'd just be 20 shoes lying on the ground. That's what my garage. looks like, just shoes everywhere. I know it's not the right thing to do with Jordans. Well, it was made very clear to me by Moose and a couple others. This is how you look after your shoes. So, and that it's funny.

The thing I like about it is there's a lot of events now. Like I was talking this with somebody the other day, how I was going to an event and it said smart casual. Well, smart casual to me would have always meant I had to wear like some form of dress shoe or more formal shoe, right? I would never wear running shoes. But now, 24, you just go, okay, what matches my shirt? Yeah, it's like business up top and party in the bottom.

Yeah, and it's like, and people love that you wear sneakers. And like I used to own a nightclub. I think I was the last nightclub in the area. We still, we didn't allow running shoes. We didn't allow jeans. We didn't allow baseball hats. And your shirt had to be a button up dress shirt with sleeves. And then as time went on, it's like we start going, okay, well, like they have some

valid points. Like, why did, why can this guy go in with his $17 pair of khakis? But this guy here are this $500 pair of jeans. It's like, okay, we have to start allowing jeans. Then it's like, dude, this guy is wearing a $3,800 pair of shoes from Japan. Like, like, and I'm like, I guess all the rules that you made back in the old days to like, but it was to make sure that people were dressing up. Well, they are dressing up. They're just dressing up different. It's a nice pair of jeans. It's a cool pair of shoes. It's a, you know, it's a $300 crew shirt instead of a, you know, $19, you know, like golf shirt or a long sleeve button up. So it's like, okay. And it's like, hats. They can't, they can't wear hats.

That we gave it on that too. I remember seeing you in the ring wearing, I think it was those shoes in a suit. And I'm like, ah, look at this. Yeah, it kind of gave me like the one thing that I thought, like, look, I'm, I was like, I'm not a character on the show. I've kind of have been put into this spot where I'm here to, you know, we found it really tough. The whole idea originally was like, we're not going to do an authority figure. We're not going to do an authority figure. Then we found we're spending so much time figuring out how to get things done without an authority figure.

Maybe we'll just, and we'll kind of, and it kind of started for a couple little things. And I did like the thing with Heath. And then it was just like some of the banter with Deanna. And it's like, okay, we'll kind of use it. And I think sometimes, you know, you got to find the balance. of using it, using too much. But when on camera, I'm like, it sounds like, I can wear running shoes.

They're better on my feet. Like, I can, I shouldn't say running shoes. I can wear Nike's and they're better on my feet. And they look, I mean, look, I'm a 50, I'm a 50 year old guy on a wrestling show. So give me, give me something. I wear a suit out there every time. I don't, I don't, you don't see me walking around in my daily life in a suit.

Like my, my, uh, my banker says they used to, they used to play a game when I would walk towards the bang, um, like to their office. as I'd walk up, they can see from their floor. They're on the third floor above. And he says they would play a game. And it was called court or funeral.

Because if I came walking in a suit, they knew I was coming or going to court or a funeral. It's the only other than that, you know, hey, we see you in a t-shirt or a golf shirt and jorts and, you know, running shoes. When you were on camera in TNA, I mean, maybe you didn't call yourself an authority figure, but it meant something to the fans.

When they saw you, especially cutting a promo, they were like, something big's about to happen or some sort of news is going to be delivered here. And that meant something. Yeah, and that was our hope, right?

Like, I mean, I think Jimmy Jacobs was a big one spearheading it. You know, and look, I enjoy banter with talent, right? I mean, we can have some fun.

My thing was, if we're going to do it, I didn't want to be jacked honey. And I didn't want to be, you know, like Vince McMahon. So that's, I wanted to be more tongue in cheek. I wanted to have fun with it. Like the whole thing, like, like, if you go and you look at the things I did, I'm really a jerk. In a lot of ways, the character, like, throughout, especially through the first few years, like, near the end is more, hey, here's an announcement.

Like, we're going to do this raw, raw, especially as we start heading into the TNA stuff. But the, you know, when I went on TV for Impact, it really, it was like, hey, we got to get this out cool. but then I was like, oh, I can just stick it to people. And if you watch it, really the only thing that's consistent is whether I'm talking to a baby face or a heel, I'm probably sticking it to them. And it's the old, oh, I leave, but I come back to really like, oh, by the way. So our thing was, you know, in a bit of a way, if you come to me for something, it's almost like the saying we're making, be careful when you make a deal with the devil. Because I'm going to give you what you want. But I'm going to give it to you in the least advantageous way for you.

You know, like I sit there and look at the stuff we did. with Heath, right? With Heath Slater. Like, I'm literally just stopping this guy. I go, why would anybody dig their heels in this deep on this guy wanting to work for you? Like, here's a guy who's has star power, who's been in WWE, who's literally showing up and trying to sneak in the building and wants to anything he wants for a job. And I'm like, nope, can't have it. Like, sorry.

Like, but, you know, to tell stories, you have to take some liberties. And we just thought that was a fun one. And it led to the whole thing. with Heath trying to get a job in his campaign. And has anyone ever used cameos in a more entertaining way than we did? Like, yeah, I don't know. Actually, like, I never thought I would be listening to a Flava Flav promo on a wrestling show with him, like, healing on me to do something. Like, yo, Scott, hire my boy Heath, you know.

Yeah. It's like David Hasselhoff, right? Like these things, I just. And we just had fun with it. And, you know, look, I enjoyed it. Performing isn't, you know, at the top of my list of things. But obviously, I love it, right? I did it for years.

And I always tried to be like, hey, if it works for the show, what I didn't like, it's like, hey, like, we've got you doing. And I'd walk into the room and Jimmy or Robert Evans, who is one of the key guys there, and be like, well, you're going to love a lot of this, but you're really not going to like, you have two in rings. What? And one of them's a contract. signing and i'm like guys i hate contract signings so you know then they would have to talk me into

to doing them right because i again i just never wanted to do the mundane stuff of being you know authority figure and i i really didn't want to be on tv that much because i wanted to focus on the behind the scenes but i also like look i'm i have an ego like everybody else and i enjoy the fun of doing it um but it was really more i tried to be like like guys you figure out where we need me and then we'll debate on how strongly. And I had such a good team there through the, through the years, right? Like, whether it was originally when Don Callis was there,

an Abyss and Sanjay Dutt, and then does those guys move on, you know, Tommy Dreamer and Jimmy Jacobs, who have known since he was, she's like 15 years old, probably. You know, it's just so smart and so good. And then Robert Evans, who I hadn't known at all,

but when Sanjay left, like, you look, I'm in that room at one point. And I've got, I've got, you know, Jimmy Jacobs who have known since he was like 14, 15, like, watched him literally grow up from a child to such a, you know, to an adult and, you know, and it's such an amazing wrestling mind. I've got Sanjay Dutt, who he joked. I mean, I hired him still when he was a teenager.

Wow. You know, I've got those two guys have known forever. Then I'd have, like, the Dons or the Tommies or the Abyssas who I've known forever. Then bringing in Robert Evans was like, oh, this is weird. Like, I'm sitting in a room with someone I don't know. and he was he was he was such a great uh he was such a great addition and he brought he brought a little something different uh to it which i always thought was great so i'm very grateful for the team that i was able to work with while i was there and that's just on the creative side there's

there's so many like i could eat up this whole interview talking about the young unsung heroes behind the the scenes that do so much to uh you know and did so much to make that company go So what have these last six months look like for you? Like there was one point, I think you said you were working 80 hours a week on TNA. February, that comes to a screeching halt. So what have these last six months look like? Well, the funny thing is, you know, look, I mean, obviously not the choice of how I wanted things to play out. Took me by, you know, a bit of a, you know, I can't say I was shocked, but it actually happened because I could see the process playing out where, you know, we weren't quite on the same page on things.

you know um as i said on busted open i found out two days before hard to kill but then you still went out to hard to kill put on a you know good face and then you were there another three weeks after that yeah like it's look i mean first of all let asper could have not told me that night but i knew by that night like i already knew and i mean it was like okay like i told him like you and me you're having a conversation, you know, and let's, and we had an honest conversation. And, uh, I said, look, I disagree with it. Um, I don't, I don't, I don't like it, but it's your decision to make. And, uh, I said, this is what I'll do. I'll get on that plane tonight and go to Las Vegas. I will make sure that we have two amazing kick ass shows in

Las Vegas. I'll lock down with the team. I'll make sure that we go into Orlando and we get you out four TVs so that you're in a position to have because you're going to have a lot to deal with. And this way at least, you're going to have five weeks in the can from when I walk out that door, the end of Orlando. And that was my goal, right? I was going to finish up those shows in Orlando, walk out there and then, you know,

just either walk off into the sunset or like the old monster movie like where Godzilla just slowly goes back into the water and disappears like lonely and depressed. It's going to be one of those things, right? And which one was it? A combination of both. I mean, look, it was certainly melancholy. And that the hardest part for me

was telling people because there was a certain amount, like, look, part of me wanted to tell everybody, which isn't possible. And part of my conversations with Anthem were there's some people I have to tell that deserve to hear this from me. So I took a small group of people there.

And that last day in Orlando, I kind of went around and told a handful and said, you can't say anything. This is what's happening. You know, da, da, da, da, da. And then I left there. I went back to my hotel room. You know, a couple of people came by. And this was the hardest part.

I would tell people and they cry. And when they cry, I cry. And then, like, it's like I got to my room and almost like, okay, like, here we. are and then a town that reached out and said hey can i can you know there's a couple of one to come see me and i was like sure it's like i opened the door they tear up i was like okay i can't do this like just being around people is just it's like i'm got a lot to process and i didn't process it because and this is this is how i'm built right there's something to do so when we had that call on that thursday night before hard to kill okay this sucks you know not happy but this is the

mission, you know, and you have to complete it. And I also, I said, I was almost like, if I'm going to go out, if this is going to be the last thing that anybody ever sees, it's going to be one of the best things they ever see. Like, handling this rebranding was very important to me. I fought for this rebranding. You know, there was a lot of people, like, I would have rebranded a TNA day one, except I was told coming in, we can't rebrand. And we had a conversation about it. And you look at the history, you know, like TNA to impact, TNA to impact. To impact. to TNA to GFW to impact. And it's like, hey, guys, let's change the name.

It wouldn't work. But like, how can I nicely say? I mean, I put my heart and soul into the impact brand, but only because to me it was still TNA. So how do you not take the news personally? Like, you know, you always hear the phrase, oh, it's just business, but how do you not take you being let go personally?

I mean, I don't know if I did the greatest job and not taking it personally. I compartmentalized it, right? There was a lot of anger and there's a lot of hurt. And I tried to offset by saying, look, there was nobody sitting there at a corporate level at Anthem who's going, hey, let's do something bad to Scott DeMor. They were making decisions that they thought were right. And I can agree with them or disagree with them and that, but it doesn't change.

How does anybody, even at a surface level, think that removing you from TNA is a good idea? Well, I think that they're wrong. So I certainly am not going to justify. And I think based on that letter that all the talent wrote on your behalf, a lot of people disagreed with this. Yeah. And I, and I appreciate it. It was touching.

I also knew when there's people saying, hey, like, the talent's going to walk out. Like, guys, I've been here. It's not happening. Like, everybody's upset and they're going to be upset for a bit. And I said, and they're scared, you know. Well, there's a lot of talent they re-signed or just signed period because of you. Now what do they do? They go to work just like I did in Las Vegas and in Orlando, right?

I mean, look, the way I tried to deal with it was to get those shows done. Then I walked out of there and was like, okay, like I'm finished. Like now I'm just, I just want to go lay my head down and figure out things. And then I woke up the next morning and put Jordan Grace in the rumble and started like, like, you're like assembling people. to finance a, you know, a shot at buying T&A. So you put that together. Do you present them your offer to buy TNA? Mm-hmm.

And then where's that go? I presented it to them. I actually sent it to them the day that the Jericho cruise was leaving. So I just know that because I wanted to get it out before going on that cruise because then I don't know how. I was on the first Jericho cruise and Wi-Fi was really wrong on the first one. And people said, no, no, no, it's better. but I was like, I don't want to be trying to do business on the Jericho cruise.

So we got the, got the, uh, the offer out then and, and then waited for the process up to play out for them to say yes, no, or come back and negotiate. And honestly, it wasn't something that they were, they were looking at, uh, you know, we just, we weren't going to come to a deal. Are they just saying it's not for sale right now? Yeah, partially or just like their, their, their idea of the value of it. I, you know, different from mine. and I'm

Gander to say there's not a lot of people who love you know TNA more than I do so I look I I thought what I presented was very fair I think when you look at the market conditions and you look at what the company has I thought it was a I thought it was a very fair offer somebody who's has nothing to do with the wrestling side of things but it's pretty well in the know when anthem called me and said

buddy i don't get it because uh you know i i i sat down and tried to figure it out and i couldn't get i couldn't get as high as you got and i said well i said part a little part of what i did is based off of what i think is there to build and the confidence that i think you know that i can lead a team of good people to get it there so um that didn't pan out then came the okay how do we and then from there it's i just want the announcement out how we let's just get this and out like this is agonizing like people are asking me questions like you know people are asking me to make decisions like guys like i'm not in charge anymore we need to get this announcement out yeah so and it got delayed a little i was like guys like this announcement's going out like

like please like for all of our sakes and then afterwards there's people that are like yeah i kind knew something was up because i'd asked you three times to and i mean one of my strengths i think if I lead a project is decision making. Now, you can argue that maybe it's not the right decision all the time. And I'll even look back sometimes and go, well, nope,

I made the wrong call there, but you get a decision. Like that's something, I find that one of the biggest things that can just kill a project is, is lack of a clear direction and lack of getting a decision. So when I, when I work underneath other people on teams, as much as I want to do what I think is right,

most important to me, mission critical to me, is somebody's making a decision. And if you tell me it's me, great I'll make it. And if it's not me, then I want someone to make a decision. The worst possible thing is that situation where nobody makes a decision. It must just be so frustrating because I'm sure it's frustrating for fans. You fought so hard to get TNA back. Then TNA is back. You cut this impassioned promo.

You're effing back. TNA's back, but not with you. What? Yeah. Yeah, that's had somebody say to me, like, between the Chicago promo, like, by the time we announced the T&A announcement. That's it bound for glory. That's a bound for glory, yeah.

And it was like, I'm, I'm jazzed about what we're doing, but I also know on the corporate side, like, we've got a couple things where I'm not overly thrilled. That's a top three, top five TNA promo ever. Oh, thanks. I think, I mean, the other two. who are Jay Lethal and Rick Flair. And then the Scott Steiner Math promo, but...

Everybody's got to bow down to that Steiner Math promo. But I think it's your promo, because it just felt so passionate from your heart. And the funny thing was, there was no promo, I'd be. Like, there was no promo set to be. And the most ironic thing is of all people, the person who said, somebody needs to say something here was Lance Storm. He was the producer of the segment, right? And that was just kind of like, it was kind of like, hey, we're going to air this

video, we're going to air this video, and then we're going to come up and the talent's going to be in the ring. And then Lance is like, I think somebody needs to say something. And then we talked about it for a little bit, and it was, uh, it was Lance myself, Lou DeAngeli was there, and there was one other person. And they're kind of like, Lance is like, I think it should be you. And I'm like, and I looked and Lou's kind of like, and I was like, okay. I said, like, I'll say something. And then we did that. That was impromptu. So, you know, wow.

Yeah. And I mean, I had no idea what I was going to say. Like, I was so concerned about like so much time and efforted went into that reveal video, you know, and that and crafting that and keeping it a secret. And the whole thing that it was like, let's get through that. Then it's just lights come up. The crowd's going to cheer and chant to you. Yeah. You know, it's like, like, whatever.

Okay, sure. I'll thank the people or whatever. so I might have been a little jazzed up. You had nothing planned. You know, like, I don't even think I knew I was going to say, we're back. And then I had to throw in a cuss word because I do that sometimes. But I always find myself. And that's one of the things if you look at it, when I swear on TV, you always see a corresponding, like, GoFund me or something where I donate money to.

And I'd always make sure people know, like, because we were like, oh, did you, that's your swear jar? You owe a fine. Well, here's the thing. if I say, okay, guys, I find myself, you know, X amount of dollars, nobody's going to believe me. So when people would come up to me and say, oh, well, you swore and be like, yep, go to this person's go fund me. Like, whether it was Barry Windham's or whoever else and you'll see I donated, that's my, that's my fine. I said, because none of you're going to believe if I say me or the company fine. This is public.

You know that money went out of my account to something. And then on top of it, you know, it's going to a good cost. Because when Talakos, well, this isn't really a good setup because you can just justify whatever you want to swear now because you're doing something good. I'm like, maybe you're right there. But yeah, like that period and getting that brand out was important. Seeing it through at Hard to Kill was very important to me. Doing that Snake Eyes event the next day, like the TV taping was important in the sense that we had an amazing show at Hard to. hard to kill, but wanted to say, hey, and then the TV show now is going to be different, too.

And I think those first two weeks in Vegas were, I'm really proud. That's kind of where I say, and then we went into Orlando and we got four weeks of TV. Like, I think it's decent TV in Orlando. I think everybody worked hard, but it was already like, okay, like, we're stopping the vision of what my TNA, what I saw TNA looking like. The amazing thing about TNA is for 20 plus years, everybody's been rooting for. for it. This is not the divisive thing where it's these three letters against these three letters. Everybody's rooting for TNA and they always have been. What do you think that's because of?

I think people like an underdog. And I mean, look, you can say everybody's rooting for it, but God knows there's enough negative chatter about it that it's not everybody. That's the internet. That's not real. And one of the things, look, well, I'll tell you what was real. In 2017, I came on as a consultant under Jeff Jarrett. And then in December of 17, heading into 18, you know, I took over things with Don Callas. And nobody had good feelings towards impact or TNA or whatever you wanted to call it at that time. I think they were calling like a cockroach. Like, I can't believe this thing doesn't die. I mean, it was bad.

Like, we, I literally, like, would sit there and we'd have meetings and we'd go, like, we have people who have no other options that are choosing to not work rather than be here. And it's important to point out, this is before AEW. So it was, if you wanted to be on TV, it was WWE or TNA or Impact. Yep. And it was like, I just like, I walked back into the booking room being like, I don't know. Like they literally just chose nothing for coming to work with us, you know, like no matter how advantageous to them, we made the conditions. It was just kind of like, no.

And it continued all. Like some of the people who had bad experiences pre-antham. we would, we would, we would, we would, we would, we would take a lot of work. Now, most of the time, when we got those people back there, you know, and they did something, like the thousandth episode was a great thing. And a lot of people who came back, it was almost like a, like a cleansing experience, right? Like, you get to override, like, it doesn't change those horrible things, you know, or whatever you experience, but now at least you've got something positive. A better taste in your mouth. Yeah. But is that a result? Are those years a result of the, the

Hogan Bischoff times? Is that what, is that the fallout of? of that. I honestly don't. I mean, yeah, I think that era was part of it and then the era that came after it, right? And there was a period where people weren't getting paid and, you know, the whole thing. And it's, it sounds like it. I mean, look, they just, whatever led to it, there's a lot of people on camera and behind it that were, were very bitter and, and didn't have kind feelings towards TNA or impact. So, like, one of the things we had to do was go out there and, and change that perception. And you did.

And yeah, and we worked really hard on it. And it was, it was changing the media perception. It was, you know, because you can't change the perspective. If we sat there one time and looked at it and like nine out of 10 articles about

something we did, something we thought was decent, we're just nine out of 10 articles were negative. And we're like, okay, well, how do we fix this? Like it got to the point where literally we talked to some, like I sat down one on one with some journalists and said,

okay. Like, are you just never going to give us a chance? Like, I get it. You know, this company has mistreated you or lied to you or, you know, betrayed your trust in whatever sense. And if your position is you're just never going to give us a chance on anything. And even if we do everything right, you're still going to find a way to write with a negative spin. Then just say you're, that's what you're going to do. Like, don't pretend you're a journalist.

And you're like just like all I'm asking is give us a chance. I'm not even guaranteeing you. We won't screw up. And you might end up hating us, but you have to give us a chance or don't be a, don't be a reporter. Like you're supposed to report. Like you're not like like give us a chance.

Like if we do something bad, say it. No problem. But maybe, just maybe give us credit. Even begrudgingly for something we do right. And I forget the exact example, but I was like, you watch this. Like it was good, wasn't it? oh yeah, you know.

Yeah, there was an error where it was like, yeah, it was a really good match, but yeah, I wish more people would have seen it. Yeah. Well, how do you fix that then? Yeah, you saying we suck isn't going to help it. And I really,

truthfully, I think as we, and, you know, look, we did a whole media run, mainly in the UK, right after we took over.

And we literally talked about it. Like, we knew it was going to be a long process. and we knew, like, we talked about it one fan at a time. And then we came out of that media tour and I turned to Don and Ed, and I go, this isn't even just one fan at a time. We've got to individually turn media to get them to just give us, like, I honest to God don't know what happened in those years to,

but there was some people who report wrestling who, they just, there's people say, hey, Scott, I like you. I hate impact, or they'd call it TNA. I hate TNA. Okay. So can we change that? And to go from that to that bound for glory with Osprey there and, you know, those great shows in Chicago and that TNA announcement and getting that out there and then being able to build in a period of time where we weren't really running a lot of shows. You know, it's you don't build to, you don't build to a major premium live event.

by not running shows. But we managed to do it. We built enough about the return of TNA to get it there. And then I thought we delivered at Hard to Kill. I thought we delivered at Snake Eyes. It was like getting Okada there to me. And it's kind of, I mean, it's kind of, you know, ironic and kind of cute in a sense that getting Okada there was the last thing, like on my list of things about. changing the narrative about TNA impact.

Because, you know, right away, before it was even public, you know, I flew to, I flew to Japan. You know, we met with New Japan officials about trying to, you know, mend that relationship. Because that relationship was built when I was there booking, right? Like it was Mike Teney, Jeremy Borosh, that team and myself, you know, we were, we put that like Fossacks. First, it was all Japan. We switched to New Japan. And we had that continued on for years. I started out like a, you know, even like the global force thing with you.

I've had a great relationship there for years. And it's like to be told, Scott, we like you. You're a friend, but like we hate TNA and we can't do business. We're in Japan. We talked to them. And it took a lot. And we just like, we have to be able to do something. And you know, Ring of Honor, you know, had its.

And probably rightfully so for some of things TNA had done to Ring of Honor over the years. Ring of Honor wanted nothing to do with it. Like we, we met with Joe Koff and Hunter and that and, you know, like, delirious and said, hey, like, we're here now and we want this to be different. And that wasn't different. And the New Japan one, it took a while, right? Like, I think you start looking at it. I think we get into, like, just pre-COVID, you know, when we start seeing some cracks. And so it took a couple of years. We had to show New Japan, you know, we're different. And I think, you know, as we started doing that, then, okay, now the New Japan, people say, oh, well, New Japan hates them.

Okay, well, now New Japan doesn't hate them, you know. So now the product's good. Can't say the product's not good. You know, the shows are doing decently. New Japan, you know, oh, well, you said New Japan. Well, New Japan's okay with him, but Okada hates him. He'll never wrestle from him. Jeez.

So then I, you know, I was like, okay, like, we've got to have Okada. And I mean, to me, to have Okada there as a statement, like, TNA is back. and here on our first weekend, here's the one guy, who everybody said, no matter what you do, this guy will ever. And that's like, God bless him too, right? Like, the whole thing, right? Like, just kissing the TNA logo and everything else. He had a lot of fun with it, and I appreciated it.

And to me, that was like, okay, like, we're not where I want to be in the sense that I don't like that, you know, I'm two weeks away from walking out the door. but I've checked off everything on my list and, you know, God Okada here, TNA's back and there's buzz. There's buzz, you know, people bought the pay-per-view, like, you know, some people say a record number, which is mind-blowing. Will and Josh had that, you know, unbelievable match.

And again, that promo there was impromptu. Those guys, you know, had an amazing match, but went three minutes short. So he had a full time. So I was a go position and Tommy Dreamer comes and he's like, you need to go cut a promo, which is kind of Tommy's default. I think Tommy,

if he could, would send me out there every night to cut a promo. And that's what Tommy Dreamer would do. And I'd be like, no. And then I go, how short are we? And like when I sit here,

Tommy's in this year and I look over at Lance and I'm on, I'm on comms. I'm like, Lance, you know, how short are we? And I look at him. He goes, we're like four minutes short. And I go, I go, what do you think, Lance?

He goes, I like Tommy's idea. And I go, okay, so now I'm getting up. I'm taking off my headset that's attached to the console. I'm putting on my mobile headset, like my belt pack, because that's my homage to Paul and my way of saying, thank you, Paul, for, you know, Paul Heyman for teaching me things. And I like, and I'm like, they're literally, they're putting my, because as you see, my sports coat's over there.

I never have my jacket on it go unless I'm going. So then now I'm like, okay, like they're putting the jacket on. Somebody's putting the headset on. They're fixing my hair. And, you know, they're getting ready to like, they're starting to hand me a mic. And Dreamer goes, what are you going to say? And I go, I don't know.

I don't know. So I walk. So when I'm sitting there and I've got like this look on my face, I'm literally thinking I have no idea about the words that are going to come out of my mouth. and then I start thinking, boy, I really need to pick my words carefully right now. You know, I know that this point, and I mean,

there's part of me that I think is actually like, these two shows are going to be so good they're going to reconsider. But part of me is like, boy, like what a way to go out if I just, if I just went in this ring and just said, F everybody, this is what happened this week. You know, F these guys, F this place, like da-da-da-da-da.

You know, what a way. way to go down in flames. I'm glad I didn't choose that route, but I'd be lying if I didn't say for a second it was there. What trust, though, to let you go out there with a live mic, or to say, you know, whatever we do,

make sure Scott doesn't go out there with a live Mike? Well, I, trust that also, they just had nothing in place. Like, nobody knew. The couple of people from Anthem that knew, and we're in the building, we're up at a box. Like, they, I mean, so the fact

that they didn't have anybody over top of me, like overseeing the show, I think lends, I mean, to the lens to the fact that they, they probably, and as I said, them, I said, like, yeah, you know, guys, if I would have handled, you know, the, the removing me from power, I would have handled it a lot differently. I don't know if this is something you want to talk about publicly, but did they give you a reason as to why they let you go? Just that they, I mean, you know, we saw things differently. um you know as far as for how we wanted to proceed so they they they want i think partially they just

wanted their guys in charge and i mean i'm i'm i had a good seven years with those guys but i'm not an anthem guy i don't sit in that toronto office you know um you know i i i have my i have my thoughts you know like like look i mean i i just i and you can say it's my ego i I just, I don't, I don't think it was the right move. And I don't begrudge them, right? Like, I mean, they're doing their thing. They're still going to run the company. I always say, everything is bigger than one person, you know?

And I always say, and I'd say, like, everything's bigger than one person. Like, even me, if I'm gone tomorrow, like, things will still go on and things have still gone on. You know? Would you consider taking your talents to another wrestling company? Obviously, you've started Maple Leaf Pro, and we'll talk about that. but if WWE called you or AEW called you to be in that similar type of position. I mean, I'll never say never, right? I'll never say, you know, never because you just can't say that.

You can't say that in wrestling. You can't say that in life. I would have said, no, I was never going to jump back in when I left TNA, you know, years ago. So the right situations there. I mean, obviously, I mean, like, look, I said, it on busted open and I don't I'm not making 2024 you have to put these things in front of it I'm not making light of addiction I come from a family that it's

had the share of addictions but it's almost like I said I have an addiction and it's professional wrestling like I I love professional wrestling I've loved professional wrestling since I was a kid um you know it's funny that promo in Vegas where I talk about watching wrestling with my grandfather when I was like six years old yeah You know, I hadn't thought about that since I was a kid until that night in Vegas. Wow.

I hadn't told that story to anybody. So when I went in the ring with nothing to say and was just like I have to say something, I just kind of, I think it kind of organically came. It's just like, here's my love letter to professional wrestling. You know, was it because my heart was breaking a little bit? Probably. You know, was it because, I mean, was it because, I mean, I also wanted people to know if you never F and see me again, this is how I want you to remember me.

But people may not know that you're successful outside of wrestling. You do very well for yourself outside of wrestling. You don't need wrestling. Are you a glutton for punishment? Yeah, you know, it's funny. I've always strived for years to have people, like, hey, like, it's just a wrestling guy. You know, maybe like years past, you know, I had a nightclub. I had a couple of different restaurants and stuff.

Just a guy who just always, and now there's people like Kevin Nash. I don't know if you know this. Scott's doing fine. Yeah, look, I came up. My father was, you know, was an immigrant here, came over here with nothing, formed a construction company, did very well. Construction's not my, not my forte. You know, what I really worked on doing was building a real estate development company. I don't want to go build it.

I want to go do everything that leads up to it. you know, so I take, I always people say, oh, what do you do for a living? I said, well, sort of depends on your perspective. My perspective is I try to build wonderful, walkable, livable, like wonderful, livable communities for families to grow up, grow up in and live in. They're like, oh, that's wonderful. And I go, the other take is I destroy land and the earth by developing. Are you talking about like, you, you, you.

build like houses in a development? Yeah, like I'll go in and take a raw, what we do at the DeWore Group is going to take a raw piece of property, like a farm or a field or whatever. You can't go in and do anything that's got a ton of trees on it anymore because of, you know, a lot of the predictions. Is this in Southwestern Ontario? Mainly, yeah, yeah, like do some stuff in upstate New York as well, but mainly, mainly in Southwestern Ontario.

I'm starting to look at some different projects other places too, but mainly Southwestern Ontario, acquire a piece of land, look at it, and then, you know, the amount of approvals you have to go through from various levels of government and environmental to get an approval, you know, like I steer through that process. And then, you know, I work with the, you know, all the consultants on that. Then I, then I work with the, the engineers and the planners on how are we going to lay this out, right? Like, whether we have six acres or 600 acres, how are we going to tackle this? What are we going to do? Where are we going to put the school. Where are we going to put the park? What are we going to put in the park? What's going to make our park stand out? Like one of the things that I strive to do when we do a development project is the same

thing I do in wrestling. I want to always feel like when somebody brings that project up to me, I want to feel good about it. Like I want people to go, oh, the park there is so great. Like, or instead of building, you know, an ugly retention pond that's hidden somewhere, can we make it a feature? Can it be Like I was at my mother's place two nights ago, and she lives in a development that we put in, that me and my partners put in. And she lives on that pond. Now, in the day, that pond would have been fenced in and ugly. And I was just watching some kids fishing in the pond at night, right?

Sounds like real life SimCity. Maybe. Where are we going to put the school? Where are we going to put the pond? Yeah, and there's a whole process to it, right? because there's because there has to be a school that's needed and then you select where it goes. And, you know, they want to put it here. And you're like, well, that doesn't make sense because they just want to put it here because

of this. But they haven't considered this, this, this and this. And you try to find, you try to find the balance. And then what kind of what kind of dwellings are we going to put there, right? Like, are we going to build big, are we going to look to build big giant, you know, McMansions? Are we going to, are we going to look to build like a good quality production style single family home?

Are we going to do semi-detached housings? Or, you know, like semis or my father would call them side by each. You know, my father learned English after coming here as an immigrant. And I mean, some of those terms, like to this day, like in our office, Italy. Yep, yep. He came in from a small town in Italy. I've been to it. They say there's 54 people there.

They're lying. There's maybe 20. You know, that's because your dad left, you know. Yeah, with the doors. She keeps going down. You know, if you go on. watch the Bruno San Martino documentary. It's, it's a very same region of a Brutzi. And it's the very same stories. It's soldiers coming in and saying, this is our place now. Get out. It's living in the,

it's living up on the mountain and trying to think, like, where can we get food and, and five, five men, and I say that not misogynistically, but at the time, that's the women, you know, looked after, you know, the families and the men went out and tried to provide. And there'd be the situations where, you know, five men, and I'm sure sometimes women, get together. Okay. we're going to go in, we're going to get bread, we're going to do whatever we can, whatever we can, so we can eat up here. And they do that knowing that if five of them went, four of them may come back. And if four of them come back, then the rest of them are just going to absorb that into who they have to take care of. Like, it's just, you look at that and you go, oh, wow, I got fired from a wrestling job.

Woe is me. Like, you know, you had German soldiers point a gun at you and say you have 30 seconds to take what you can and get out of your home, you know, and go live in the wild. and oh, by the way, you have no food, so you're going to have to sneak in and steal food. And if we catch you, you're going to die. And I'm like, yeah, like, cables, cable's out with this storm, like, likes hard on me. Your shoot job sounds like a wonderful life.

It sounds like a wonderful job. I love it. And I also say, I also say it's crazy. I have a business partner who's also a friend, whose father-in-law is actually a business partner. I was a business part of my father's and a guy who really is just such a decent, wonderful guy, a guy who, you know, after my old man died and things were rough, and it's like, hey, I don't know if we make it out of this.

This partner of mine, and I won't say his name out of respect for him, because I would tell everybody, he had every legal right to bury me, could have put me out of business, would have bankrupt me, I would have, like, had nothing. Like I would have had to like scurry to not lose my parents' house so that my mother wasn't homeless. And I'm going to tear up on this one. Rather than to do that, he'd let me a billion dollars to dig out and have my back. And since then, every decision I do is I want this guy to be rewarded. You know, and my life is good.

We came out the other side. You know, I get to do a job. that I love doing. I love wrestling. And I get to choose between the two of them. You know, wrestling is so much cooler. But I really do enjoy, you know, what I do with property development. And now I've got a great group of partners, you know, just I said I'd never build again.

We now, we just finished building 148 condo units. You know, we've got a few hundred more in the pipe. And, uh, so why do you need, why do you need wrestling? I don't know. Maybe I'm crazy. Maybe, have you considered that? You know, isn't everybody in wrestling a little crazy? I'm a 50-year-old man who's sitting in a hotel room by an airport, like crying like a goober, you know?

So I don't know. Like I love wrestling. And even just like, the same type of thing, like the reward that comes from like, look, right now, Pedy Williams and Bobby Rood and Abyss and those guys are at WWE and they're just killing it behind the scenes, you know. and Kaito Kiyamiyas is, you know, doing great in Noah. Like that's a kid who moved to Canada to do his excursion, lived in my house. You know, they sent me this child, this, like he was 20 years old. And they like, like, you need to make him, you know, like they send him to him. He's like, he needs to be bigger.

It needs to be stronger. He needs to be a star. Okay. Like, you know, and getting to be part of that process and watching these guys develop and succeed and Kushita and everything he's done. and, you know, all these different people. Like, it's just, I mean, I love, I love, I love the business. I love wrestling.

I love the challenges of it. You know, but I also love like, it's just like there's a guy who posted on Facebook the other day and he designed the Maple Leaf Pro logo and he's just so proud of it. Like, I've known this kid since he was literally a child. Like he's a, he's one of the kids that used to cuss at the border city wrestling shows that, you know, that finally got to the point. Like I went out there like and kind of like tapped him on the shoulder while I was on the ground through the And like, hey, guys, appreciate you and love how passionate you are.

If you guys don't stop swearing and hijacking this show, I'm going to eff and kill all of you. Okay, cool. You know, I've known him since that. I watched him as a teenager do our fantasy camp and then, you know, come to the wrestling school. And now he's a, he's an adult who's adulting and has a family and like just had to like miss one of our shows for the first time because it was daughter's first birthday party, you know. And he's, he's making his living in wrestling. and he's, you know, he's being a good father and husband. I'm like, this is amazing.

I get to be a part of all these, all these different journeys, right? As a kid who grew up in the greater Toronto area, the GTA, as we call it, I remember Maple Leaf Pro. Yeah. Now it's back. Maple Leaf Wrestling is just so uniquely Canadian. Yes. And was so cool.

And I mean, I'm of the age where I saw the very tail end of it, right? And really to Maple Leaf Wrestling, to me, growing up was WWF wrestling, right? Because they took over in 84. I'm 10 years old. Like, did I see Maple Leaf wrestling pre-WF? A little. I always remembered hearing about it when I was there.

Yeah. What's the idea? You were out of wrestling, right? You were out of wrestling for at least a little while. Now you're back. Yeah, I mean, look, idle hands. So it sounds like you were busy enough with your other job. Yeah.

And I mean, look. This is a funny story. I won't say I regret it because I was spending time with my mother. I'm blessed to have my 85-year-old mother in good health and sharp mind. She winners in Bradenton, Florida. We were in Orlando. I was like, you know what? I always go and see my mother on her birthday.

Your birthday is February 15th. So I'm always there for, I promised her if you go to Florida, I will always be there on your birthday. And I've held to that. But the problem is I've flown in and met her at 4.30 for dinner and had dinner and gone back to her place for, you know, like coffee and cake and then been gone by 11 o'clock or midnight and literally only spent six, seven hours because I was busy or maybe I spent a day or day and a half, you know, drove over and like stayed there for a week and a half, you know. So just spent time with her and family and everything else. Here's what I didn't consider. Is there a worst place to be when you have nothing to do? And for the first time when you're used to working nonstop, you have nothing to do.

I'm living in a retirement community in Florida. And it's like, okay, I'll get up and I'll go to Dunkin' Donuts and I'll get a coffee. I go Dunkin' Donuts because there's no Tim Morton's there. I had to get that plug in. One day they're going to sponsor me. I think we can see the cup just off, yeah, and the two shot. You have a Tim Horton's cup. Did you get that in Canada and you imported it over here?

I did. Although there's some Tim Hortons around Detroit. That's true Canadian, Tim Horton. The thing I love about Detroit is it's the only place in America where you go south to go to Canada. That's right. Windsor, Windsor was actually called South Detroit for a while. It was one of the names. There was South Detroit, Richmond, Windsor and Walkerville that eventually became Windsor.

But yeah, no, so I'm in an entire community. I get up, I get a coffee. Okay, you know, do that. Like, get cleaned up. Go see my mom and family because they have a place. Then I just stayed like, you know, next door, me and my girlfriend. And then, you know, have breakfast, whatever, do whatever, talk. Go back.

Okay, puts around. Go for a walk. Come back. Da-da-da. Have lunch. And sit there. Okay, it's on 30 in the afternoon. I guess I'll go for a walk again.

And I was, like, I'm starting to panic. So, and I'm walking, and I'm walking along, like, the, the water. And it's a beautiful spot. And then I'm just like, is this my life? Like, how am I going to do this? Like, so I'm glad I did it. I'm glad I spent that time with my mother. But the second that I got home to Windsor is where I was able to start normalizing

of them. Because I've been, even though Windsor's always been my base, I've been gone so much. that like people just assume I'm out of town. So I showed up at a public hearing. It was like it was a thing where they were talking about, you know, like something they're looking at developing. And I wasn't involved in it at all. I just went like,

it's around the corner from my house. I'll pop in. And it's like the mayor of this municipality and two or three of the council members and administrators and people from other municipalities and just other business. Oh, hey, what's going on? Da-da-da-da. How you've been? Like you're,

what are you doing here? Are you interested in doing it? And I'm just like, oh, like life is going to go on. So glad I was with my mother deciding to spend that time in a seniors community in Florida was probably not the most mentally relaxing way to do it. And then I just, then I just eased it. And then kind of tried to figure out what could I do that I would both, if I was going to do some. One, I thought it was important.

I need to be away for a little bit, right? because, you know, we could sit for an hour and talk about the crazy things I thought of doing, you know, in those first, in those first couple of months. And I mean, you know, some of them would be spiteful. Some of them would be downright illegal. Um, you know, so I didn't do any of them. So, but it's like, it's like I said to somebody who's actually at Anthem, I said, you know, you guys always think it's so funny when you hear the stories about me like buying somebody's home out from or whatever I do for somebody that I think's wrong. me. But then you all think like, oh, why would you do this? Like you for years, like, you know, like I, I'm very much like, hey, life is life. But if you, if you wrong somebody I care about or me, like, yeah, like I'm going to weigh how maybe I can, you know, get retribution. So this is not a situation for that. But it doesn't mean my crazy brain's not going to go there. So it's, you know, hey, here. But it's like, I needed all that to work through, right? I needed time to work through that.

So I didn't even want to, I didn't want to talk wrestling. I didn't want to see wrestling. Like, you know, like when you're, you know, you have a breakup. You don't want to see the person, you know, the next morning. Yeah. So I needed a little bit of time. And I needed to kind of work through that and kind of let, let everything kind of settle in. And then slowly started, started working on things.

Okay, what can we do? Well, one of the things that they get is every October for years. I mean, like really. probably we've always ran we used to run every month but even when i was mostly out of the wrestling business since 2012 every october we run some type of big marquee event at san clare college in windsor right it started in 2012 continued up through um through uh 18 and then uh i think in i think 18 or 19 is when we first did a like a tna or impact event as part of it like Border City Wrestling presents impact.

But we've done it since 2012. So now I've got the college is like, hey, what are we doing this year? And I've got people saying, hey, what are we doing? It's like, okay. I've been kind of telling me. I bought the rights to the Tunney family library years ago, you know, and I haven't really done a great job of getting it out there. So it's like, like there's something there.

There's something. It's uniquely Canadian. I feel strongly that it's very hard for a Canadian to break into wrestling. It's so hard for a Canadian to do anything in the U.S. Yeah, and you know, because that immigration system, you know, is a real tough one. Yes, when it's done legally, it is very difficult, and expensive, and time-consuming. And I experienced it, and I've seen lots of experience where it's like, oh, well, we would use you if you were American. Yeah.

You know, so. The amount of job offers I got before I moved to the U.S. Where they were like, well, do you have a visa? I'm like, no, but happy to work with you to make sure we can get it done. They're like, oh, you don't have one. Oh, sorry, we were going to hire you, but now we won't. Right. And I mean, you know, it just, it's, it makes it, there's such a higher threshold for it.

And I'll even just, not just Canadian, but a non-American. Yeah. To get an opportunity. Because if you're going to be the top level in wrestling, you have to be in the U.S. For the most part, right? And then you have to, and then the visa is, what a name. You have to be an alien of extraordinary ability. Right.

That means you need to prove why they're hiring you over any American. Because there's nobody in the U.S. that can, we need Chris because we have scout. And you have to be like, hey, we've, we've scoured the country. There is nobody with this set of skills. We have to bring this person in to do it. And it's literally a petition that you're filling out. That's right. And it's like this thick.

and you're such an expensive process and I went through it when I got an 01 visa and then when I turned that visa into an EB1 green card, what a process it is. So I have a ton of respect for anybody from any part of the world that's able to do it. Yeah, and I think with Maple Leaf Pro,

we can showcase and celebrate that history, which is distinctly Canadian. We can help current Canadians have a platform where they can be seen because it's not even just like, hey, this wrestler from, you know, Barry or this wrestler from, you know, Quebec City or Tuadevez or, you know, Pickering. Pickering. Good town.

My home town. Good hockey town. But they not, can they not just go wrestle for W. Oh, like, be hired for the day for W.W or for, you know, for A.W or TNA, like anything, you know, because they're Canadian. They can't even go over and work like the cool indie shows. They can't go to Sammy Callahan's wrestling revolver or, you know, to go with Danny, go with Danny Daniels, AAW, like the indie shows that have buzz. Yeah, not without lying to a border of their show.

You can't even get those opportunities. So we can provide a platform where one, I think there's a better chance that the bigger organizations can see somebody go, hey, there's something there. We can also, you know, provide them. a platform to build, because you know, as we talked about, you need, somebody says, okay, great, we want to use Chris. Now that, that process comes, that application, right, that petition. And now it has to be like, you have to prove.

So now, how do you prove your, you're a wrestler of international acclaim or extraordinary skill or whatever else if you've never had these big opportunities. So we can have a bigger platform. Prize Picks is America's number one daily fantasy sports app with over 5 million active users. Prize Picks is the easiest and most exciting way to play daily fantasy sports because unlike other apps on prize picks, it's just you against the numbers. All you do is pick more or less on two to six player stat projections and watch the winnings roll in.

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We've got the two shows in October, which I think is going to be a great kickoff. And then I think it's sort of like what happens. in 2025. You know, I mean, we come out of there from October. Like, will we do a couple things later in the year? Probably we're going to keep working on things. We'll have an announcement, I think, by October of some things for next year.

But what we're looking to do, look, we want to, Maple Leaf Wrestling was unique in the sense that, and it's very much in line with 2024, because if you go back and look at the history of Maple Leaf wrestling pre-WF, WWF, WWE, it was like neutral. ground. And even though, like, even back when the territories play nice, they all had their own alliances. Like, Toronto, Maple Leaf Gardens is one of the few places. You might see, you might see Nick

Bach, Winkle, or Greg, or, uh, Vernan, you defend the AWA title in the same card that you see Harley Race or Terry Funk or Luthes defend the NWA World title, then you might even have Bruno or Bob Backlund come in as the WWWF World Chamber. They all wrestled up.

Maple Leaf Gardens. If you looked at arenas that you wanted to wrestle in, you know, back in the in the in the in the 50s, 60s, 70s and into the 80s. There's there's Madison Square Gardens as Madison Square Gardens. And after that, like I don't know if there's a place that was more sought after to wrestle in than than Maple Leaf Gardens. It's where Bruno San Martino went when he had his problems and, you know, he couldn't wrestle in New York. It's where sweet daddy seeky set up his set up his home base when the racial intolerance of of him having the nerve to be married to a white woman started, you know,

ruining his career in some places. He came to Toronto and he's like, wait, I can walk down the street with my wife. And the person I work for isn't mad at me because I had the nerve to marry somebody who has a different, like, tone of skin. Like, you know, I think we can celebrate that. I want to tell some of those stories because I think there's some amazing stories of cultural significance, you know, for Canadians and, and connect with people in general. Like, I always say, we talked about my father immigrating here.

My uncle immigrated here at the same time. And like my uncle would say, if we didn't have a TV, but if we were somewhere where you could watch a TV, he goes, we didn't understand anything. Like, we couldn't want, we couldn't understand, you know, a talk show or we couldn't watch, you know, a, you know, like a TV drama or something and know what was going on. Like, we just didn't grasp English and that's it goes, but you turned on wrestling and maybe we didn't get, you know, maybe we don't get the, you know, the nuance of the things. but, you know, I see this guy he's good, and this guy, he's bad, he'd do the cheat. And, you know, I know, I know, I know, I know it's the, you know, the BS, but, you know,

and my doctor say, you know, don't get upset. But, you know, I watch and, you know, they do the thing with the two guy versus the two guy, and these are two guys keep a cheat behind the referee, and I go referee, meh, my idea! And I'm going, oh, this is why your doctor told you you can't watch this. But his whole thing was, like, and that's why you look at it.

Like, you could, you could understand it. And then the other thing about wrestling is, like, if you're, if you're an Italian immigrant, you've got Bruno or Dominic Danucci or Tony Pricci, you know, if you're, if you're, if you're, um, uh, an immigrant of Latino or Hispanic descent, like, you know, maybe you've got Pedro Morales or. you know, Tito, saying, whoever you've got, like, and if you're, if you're,

if you're, if you're black African American, you know, then you've got Thunderbolt Patterson. You've got Sweet Daddy Seeky. You know, you've got Tiger Jete Singh if you're brown. Like you have all of these things.

Like that's, you know, does wrestling, has wrestling historically done representation right all the time? Well, clearly absolutely not. Yeah. Um,

but it, it was a place where you could look and say like, hey, like, like, there's, there's, there's something I see myself in and,

and something I can connect with. So would you be looking to get a TV deal eventually? Yeah, I think that looking at some form of distribution and if in, you know, in 2025 does that... So on Triller for these two shows right now. Yep. Yep. I mean, Triller's a great platform, you know, excited to have them. And I think probably no matter what we do, I think there would be a relationship with, with Triller. I've been working with the guys at Triller since they were flips mobile. So, you know, like they were, they started as like a, like, you know, with the phones and everything else. And they were in the cutting edge of non-conventional pay-per-view.

Like, we did a lot with them. Like, even going back to like when we did that first broadcast for Russell Kingdom, when Global Force Wrestling presented that first Russell Kingdom, you know, did stuff with them through the fight days and now Triller TV. So excited to have them as a partner. And, you know, we're working on things. We want to, you know, there's still a building that sits. It looks eerily like Maple Leaf Gardens.

Isn't it a grocery store right now? Main floor is. Yeah. Yeah, but the other floor is it's actually Ryerson Polytechnical. So, and what's included in there is an ice arena. Oh. There's an ice arena with a few thousand seats in there. Hmm.

You know, like I was, this is somebody sent me something on, I don't know if it's Twitter or Instagram or TikTok or, you know, whatever other platforms out there. But they sent me something that I just had to push on my phone. And it was an interview about, it was Edge. It was Adam Copeland. talking about how, you know, the things on his bucket list they wanted to do, one of them was never getting to wrestle at Maple Leaf Gardens, you know,

so the exterior still looks the same. Is it still called Maple Leaf Gardens? No, it's called, it's called the Matamy entertainment complex because, you know, we're not allowed to have cool names for things anymore. They all get sold corporately. Right. Which helps pays the bills, which is important. Sure.

But it's, it's still in your, it's still in your heart. It's still Maple Leaf Gardens. And if you look at it, got the maple leaf on the on the on the, if you look at the aerial view, it's got the maple leaf on the roof and it looks the exact same. It's still the, it still has the marquee out front that triangle marquee. Yeah, yeah. That they, they'd advertise the games and the match. Oh, I walked by it recently and I went, I remember saying a Leafs game there. Yeah, I loved going there for, for leasing and sadly, I never made it to a wrestling show. So, so maybe my first time watching wrestling in

that building will be Maple Leaf Pro. Wow. Well, you've got a roster with a lot of names people would recognize you've got josh alexander you've got uh raj desi formerly known as jinger mahal who else you have well i mean uh we've got kushita there from new japan and from from from tna you know we just announced that uh de kha's going to be there i mean the guy's just lighting it up in the g1 he's maybe the the hottest wrestler in the in the world and you know arguably when it comes to match quality right now and uh having him come there and that gives us that that that that uh aew representation. You know, we've got Kevin Knight, who's an amazing young talent from New Japan.

We just announced earlier this week that ELP, who just had that five star with Takesha in the G1, he's going to be there. So I think it's really cool. Like we've got, we've got a few people from New Japan. We've got a few people from TNA. You know, we've looked like we'll have some, you know, multiple people from AW. And then we've got like, we've got the best of the best Canadian. And even like we like Trevor Lee, who, you know, had some time.

Impact went on to Cameron Grimes in WWE. We've got an amazing group of talent together. So, I mean, I think that the matches that night are going to be as good as as any pay-per-view. Like I said it over and over again

when I was with TNA, with Impact, you know, for these pay-per-views. Like, we don't take it lightly. I never take it lightly. I would say that people have to reach in their pocket and pay to watch this in a world where you can get so much on your TV, on your TV, on your tablet, on your cell phone for free, when people invest in you, you know, with money and also

their time, right? Because time's the most valuable commodity we have. So if you're going to sit out and say, not only, I mean, I'm going to both pay to watch this and I'm going to block out my entire evening to spend with your product. We want to deliver and make sure that people get their money's worth. So I think that people see this card come together and say, okay, this is a card that I want to see. This is two nights of wrestling that I want to be part of. And I think I told you, like I wanted to give you that we had talked years ago about doing an interview. I was never able to get it done. We finally accommodate this, including you flying cross country basically to get here. You got to do it in person. Which I appreciate. I'm so sick of Zooms. Me too. It's never the same.

it's not and you can't have that rapport as good as it is and it helps i mean there's nothing better than face to face but i said i wanted to have something that for you is like it's hey here this is this this is my my thank you to you for coverage and this is my thing i wanted to give you like you know we've we've finalized that to me in wrestling and in sport one of the most important things is the voice that's leading you down this this journey, right? The voice that's that's giving you the background and describing the action and ring and explaining it and its importance and providing that emotion is really your tour guide on this journey is so important. And whether it's Jim Ross or Bob Cottle or whoever it is in wrestling,

you know, you need to have a great voice. And I think we have one of the very best. I think we have, you know, I think indisputably the best combat sports cross genre announcer, because Morrow Rinaloa has agreed to be the voice of Maple Leaf Pro. Wow. So, yeah, I mean, Mama Mia. Mama Mia!

Yeah, I mean, he's the man. And, you know, Morrow's got a passion for wrestling. I met Morrow probably close to 25 years ago in Stampede Wrestling. I was coming in as a heel to feud with Sabu, and he was he was the 20, 21 year old kid, you know, who was doing the play-by-play with Bad News Allen, like Bad News Brown.

And we connected then over the years, and he just, he loves wrestling. He's the best, man. You turned on Showtime for any big boxing fight or, you know, you turned on to watch any big, you know, a lot of the big MMA fights, you know, and pride and everything. It's like, Morrow's that voice.

People seem to forget or don't realize. Morrow one was the one who called Floyd Mayweather versus Connor McGregor. Massive fight. Yeah. And now he's calling Maple Leaf Pro. Yeah. That's great.

He's, I mean, I'm so stoked and I'm so honored, you know, because Moro's at a point in his life, like you said earlier, like, I don't need to do something. Moro doesn't need to do anything. You know, Moro's a guy who lives a great simple life, who's, you know, worked at the top of his industry for years and the fact that he's willing to say, yeah, I want to be part this Scott like like like let's do this um to me is unbelievable so i'm i'm humbled i'm honored and he's the man he's like he's just so good it's funny as i was i watched the the tyson jones fight right there during covid when they did it and sitting there and i didn't know more i was

going to be the announcer a buddy of mine um actually my banker was boxing bank was hey like he goes and i was like oh like yeah like come over here like i'll get it on got it on fight tv triller right put it up few people came over and i was like oh my god i go i go that i go morrow's calling this and then one guy's like you know him right and i go yeah i go i'll text him right now so i text morrow while they're on the panel right like like breaking down the fight and then you see him go like this well somebody's talking i was like guys he just messaged me so this guy is so good he's doing analysis and everything else hey great to hear from you glad you're watching like let's catch up soon you know fistball I watched his documentary. He's brilliant the way he breaks down things, the way he, the planning he puts into everything. Yeah. He doesn't half ass it at all. No. And I mean like I've always like like Mike Teney and Moro and all are my guys, right? Like when it's like, hey, I need somebody to to call wrestling action. Like these are the guys. They're just, they're just so good and they're just they bring such weight and power to it. And and you know, I just, I just, I, Morro is.

is somebody who I think is just on a on a whole other level. And the fact that he can do it doesn't matter. Boxing, M.MA, wrestling, like truthfully. And if he wanted to, there's no question. He could turn around and he could call baseball better than anybody out there. Like, he is just so good. Yeah. So good.

And I'm stoked, you know, and I mean, I think it's such an honor to have them. And I just think wrestling fans will be excited. I remember, I remember a few years ago, we brought him in to call Omega Swan, like World Title for World Title. And, you know, people were excited then. And as you said, like the preparation that Morrow does is, is unbelievable, right? Like, he's, he's already prepping for stuff. He's, he's like, there's not even matches for him to prep yet for. So his, his prep is, that guy is going to know more about Maple.

Leaf Wrestling and it's history. And he's going to know every detail of Maple Leaf Pro. And then as he starts to see the athletes, even as they just get announced, he's going to be like, okay, here's what Takesha had for dinner when he was seven years old when he was, when he was visiting his aunt in Osaka. He's going to have all that. Like he's just going to, he's going to dive into a level of detail that nobody else will. And he's going to have all that at his disposal, you know, on October 19th and 20th when he's

calling that action. He's the best. Man, I mean, like I said, I just can't say it enough. I'm just so, I'm just so stoked and humbled. And it's also the perfect example of what I'd love this to be. And this is, this is a chance for me to work with somebody who we've been friends for 25 years. But with the exception of that one match that he called, you know, Omega and Swan, we haven't worked together since Stampede Wrestling, you know, back in 2000. Wow.

So I'm getting to assemble and work with people who I've known for years and loved and, you know, and just getting to have that passion to go out there and present wrestling, you know, how, you know, ideally we think wrestling should be prevented. I'm excited to see it. And we all saw what you did with impact into TNA. We're excited to see what's next for you. Yeah. Thanks, man. I think it's going to be great. And to your point, October's the start.

We go in there. We bang it out. We have two amazing nights. Then for the most part, all eyes turn to 2025. And what's it going to be and where you're going to be able to see it? What form it's going to take? You know, is it weekly? Is it not weekly?

Like what it is? One of the amazing things about this project is, and this is what makes it so cool for me, is it's been so long since I've been in the industry, but not had to think, okay, like, like, we do this great show. Okay, what are we doing on Tuesday night or Thursday now, whatever our show?

That's, it's like everything about it is the 52 weeks a year is such a grind. And that's what no other form of entertainment does it, right? Who else goes 52 weeks a year? You know, even, even like talk show host, right? They'll take weeks off, right? Summer off, yeah. You know, they'll bring in a guest host. They'll run repeats, like whatever.

Like, there is nobody that's coming to you 52 weeks a year like wrestling does. Yeah. And for this project, we don't have to do that. So the great thing is, right now, if we were running 52 weeks a year, we'd be working on everything for October 19th and 20th. And we go, okay, how do we follow that? What are we doing on the TV show this week and next week? And how are we building to the next PLE in November or December?

We get to focus all of our energy. on making October 19th and 20th, you know, Maple Leaf Pro forged in excellence, the two best effing days of wrestling around. And then we get to sit back and go, that was effing awesome. Okay,

what's next? But having that ability to stop and pause, I think is really going to allow us to focus on these two events. Then we'll pause. Then we'll get working hard. We have a few things in the works for 2025. I mean, content for three decades,

specifically Canadian content. I mean, I was one of the first people I know who had my C numbers years ago for those Canadian content numbers, which are so important in Canadian broadcasting. And if you follow, right, they just had changes to the regulations, which kicked in really this year.

For years, we've known that radio and television have had to follow those guidelines. Streamers never have. Now, streaming services are obligated to carry Canadian content in carrying, in a important and highly discoverable way. And it's still like, I think radio was 35% Canadian content, wasn't that it?

Yeah. So every time you turn on the radio, it's like Justin Bieber, Nickelback and Chenaya Twain. That's right. Bare naked ladies. So it's the reason why I wanted to run Great Big C off the road at one point when I was traveling a lot on Canadian highways.

Oh, I love Great Bigsy. That's the first concert I ever went to. Yeah. That's so funny. I was into Maritimes for Grand Prix wrestling and there. You travel seven days a week, right? to town to town, you know, so you're driving hours of day. And I'll just, I mean, when you're in the Maritimes Canada then, it's like, all right,

that was, that was Gwen Stefani and no doubt, you know, followed by great, run away. Yeah, followed by Great Big Sea. Then, you know, we had Madonna and Great Big C, you know, and Aerosmith and Great Big C. And I'm like, like, do these guys own? And they change the channel. There's one time, Edge Christian and I are driving. and we're changing the channel and three channels in a row

had Great Big C on it. My uncle lives in St. John's Newfoundland and I went to visit him when I was like 15 and he picked me up at the airport and he goes, oh yeah, there's Alan Doyle from Great Big Cee. I thought he was joking because we're in Newfoundland. And it seriously was Alan Doyle just standing there

almost like greeting the people but no, he was standing there waiting for luggage. I'm like what world are we living in where Great Big C's on the radio all the time and he's just standing right there. Yeah. They've had a hell of career. I love Great Big City.

I use that as the example because Great Big C, tragically hip, these are the bands that are so distinctly Canadian. Yes. And with great love to them, those are the bands that if you mention them to Americans, most Americans don't know. Like Bear Naked Ladies ended up crossing over. And of course, Nickelback crossed over. Yeah.

But there's a lot of them that are very distinctly Canadian. I love pop punk music. And nobody's heard of not by. choice in the U.S. or stereos in the U.S. But we hear them all the time here. Yeah. Well, because, I mean, it is important. And that's why I may believe Pro needs to exist because there needs to be somebody

making sure that Canadian, because without those Canadian content, you know, regulations, would those bands get a chance? No, absolutely not. Stations would, and then, and they were good, too. They didn't say, hey, you just have to have, you know, 35% of your content be Canadian. They specified that a certain percentage of content in primetime hours, listening hours, morning drive, afternoon drive, had to be. So you couldn't just bury, because, you know, what would they do? They'd bury it all in the middle of the night, right?

That's right. So that's one of the neat things I think the CRTC did. And they take a lot of flack and maybe sometimes it's deserved. But what they're trying to do with the streaming stuff is, okay, like you have Canadian content threshold, the thresholds that you have to meet. But there's no prime time, you know, or prime hours in streaming, right? and on demand. So what they're trying to work with is that's where they're saying it has to be prominent and highly discoverable.

Highly discoverable is going to be a term. I think they're going to be trying to sort out over time. But Crave, which is one of the biggest streaming services, it's the biggest Canadian streaming service, right? It's Bell Media. I went on my crave, you know, not that long ago. And the first tray, right under the revolving window of like what they're promoting, the first tray is Canadian.

Then it goes hit movies, TV shows. that makes it highly discoverable. The first thing I noticed when I got here last night and I logged into my Netflix in the hotel here, right? Is being in the American Netflix, there wasn't a Canadian tray for Canadian programming. And I think what they're looking to push, you know, make sure that Canadians get opportunities,

they're also looking for representation with indigenous and other cultures. So, I mean, like, I think that it's a, that's a great opportunity as a context, creator to be looking to produce Canadian content in Canada at a time when we finally stepped in and said, hey, all these streaming services have been able to operate however they want, now they're going to need to focus and feature some Canadians as well. I think it's the perfect opportunity for wrestling, which has always been something that whether it was, whether it was live events,

whether it was radio, whether it was television, whether it was pay-per-view, whether it was, you know, video on demand and whether it was the network, whatever it is, like wrestling has always been able to be at the forefront of technology. And I think this, this change, which is probably boring the hell out of wrestling fans that are listening in some ways,

to have this change in regulation means that they're going to have to go out there and seek content. And what's wrestling always been? It's always been content that connects with an audience that you can produce, you know, for a reasonable fee. So I'm stoked.

You mentioned it earlier with getting Jordan Grace into the Royal Rumble. Where do the conversations begin with WWE? And what made them open to having these conversations to work with TNI? I reached out to somebody at WBE. I talked to Ed Nord Holmes, Chief Corporate Officer at Anthem, and said, I think, you know, I was thinking this, you know, I was talking to a friend.

And, like, I think it's, it's like the timing's right to reach out. So I reached out to a friend of mine there and said, hey, like, this is what I'm thinking. Bap, blah, blah, blah. And they're like, yeah, like, I think it all makes sense. We talked for a little bit and they said, how are you going to handle it? I said, well, if you're willing,

I would like you to, you know, be the person to take it forward and see if there's any interest. And kind of like, just kind of like laid out and, you know, didn't, not a former proposal, right, talked about a little bit, shot something, you know, very point blank or point, point, point, not point blank point form like this this is this you know worth having a conversation and uh i got a text from triple h and uh we set up how to chat you know kind of just said hey it's a whole new world out there

let's explore things you know i think i think if you look at uh what w e in the direction it's been going with uh with paul and uh and nick at the helm i think you see a lot of changes i think you see a lot of business being done differently. You would not see this TNA collaboration that I'm proud to have been part of starting. Go the way it has, the way you've seen it. You wouldn't see A.J. Stiles over Inoa, wrestling, Marifugi, or any of this stuff. Yeah. It's just such, it's just such an obvious, you know, that with the changing of the guard,

there's been a changing of philosophies on how things should be. So, you know, it's really just how it started. Then it went from there. And it was very much a, hey, man, we're open. It's a different time. Did it start with Mickey James and the Rumble with the knockouts championship? Or was that just a complete one-off? Yeah, I mean, that was totally different.

I mean, honestly. And I don't want to downplay the importance of that because it was huge. You know, having. And I mean, people like. to say sometimes, I can say, I want to stop them and remind them, but when people are excited, I want to do it. But it's, it's not like it's never happened. We saw, we saw, you know, the Rock and Roll Express as the NWA tag team champions, you know, in the WWF. We saw Dan Severn as the NWA champion. We saw the heavenly bodies as the Smoky Mountain tag team. Like, this stuff has

happened, but it's, it's not on the level it's been now. And the Mickey thing was huge, because it's, you know, to have an organization that's completely unrelated. Now, look, that was very different. Mickey James transcends whatever letters you put on top of a company. And it was very much wanting Mickey in there. Now, you know, from my understanding, they were in a creative meeting. They were talking about let's throw away all the rules and what would we do? And somebody said, what if we had like Mickey James, you know, come in and like, wasn't she with, you know,

The person who told me said this TNA, even though it was impacted the time because people would mess that up. And they said, yeah, like, she's the champion. And they said, like, can we do it? And then they quickly decided, yes, we can. And then somebody reached out to me. And we actually talked about Mickey and we talked about the inspiration, like the iconics. You know, the Iconics one didn't happen because of where they were in their careers and what they thought. But it was actually open for all three of them.

And it would have been neat because they were the impact tag team champions at the time. But the Mickey one was, and even the iconics, right, I think it was very much a, it was bringing in talent they were comfortable with that had been there before, that had track and equity for them. Now what was great, that Mickey's wonderful. Like, I mean, if there's not many better people, like, she's just a great human being. What a legend. And Mickey wasn't even under, we had a handshake agreement.

on everything Mickey did. And Mickey could have said, well, it's been fun. I'm going to go make a big payday. And, you know, I'll let you know how it goes. But Mickey was like, Scott, I'm in this. And, you know, if you're good, I want you to handle it, like work out the details. And in my mind, I'm thinking, oh, God, like, I have to ask her to please make, like, you got to be like, you know, the knockouts champion. And she goes, the only things I care about, I'm willing to be flexible won a lot of things. She goes, but I want to come out to my, my hardcore country with my impact video wall. And I'm the champion and I need to come out there with that belt. And I was like, Mickey, I want to come through this phone and kiss you. Um, you know, and relayed that.

And to the credit of the people there, like that day, things get chaotic and, and somebody who's no longer there made it no belts other than these people in the rumble. And that's because there's so many times. They didn't want all these champions. And then Mickey sent it text to somebody there and said, hey, like, this was the deal. And then they came right back and said, Mickey comes up with her belt. Wow. So, but to me, like, that was cool, but that was us in, in some ways, riding off of Mickey James being Mickey F. and James. Yeah. The Jordan thing to me is so different because Jordan is a completely organic TNA person. And they booked her so strong in So strong.

Yeah. Like she wasn't like, and from the first we talked about it, she was going to be featured. She was going to have those stared. And it was like it was handled so well. Communication was was fantastic. Like even that same Jericho cruise. You know, the offer to think I was literally,

the boat is pulling away from, is it is a dock? Is it still a dock when it's a giant boat? Port. Port. We're pulling away from the... We're leaving the ground. And I'm thinking like,

I'm going to lose my signal soon. And one of the last things I get is a text from Triple H, which was just like, hey, I know you might be out of touch this weekend. He was just wanted, you know, we finalized this,

this and this. Everything's good, just how we discussed. You know, like, have a safe trip, have fun. And I'm like, that is just so freaking cool.

And that's just so how wrestling a lot of times has it been. Yeah. Like a lot of times they're like, oh, he's gone. He's at the sea. We can do whatever we want to do now and really screw some people over. But it just wasn't. And it's not that I expected that they would ever do any of that stuff,

but like, you know, that they would ever like do anything underhanded. But even just to take the time when you're that busy to say, hey, like, I know he's going to be possibly out of touch for a few days. I want him to leave knowing we're all good. Wow. Things that we had said because it was kind of like, yeah, that shouldn't be a problem. all those things it's like, hey, it's fine, as it's done,

like, you're going to be really happy with it. And I was. That little bit of a story speaks so much to his character. Like, hey, don't worry, we're good. Yeah. It's funny. Like somebody said, how long have you known Triple H? And I said, well, I guess I've known him since 1994 when he came into WCW.

And like, oh, wow, you guys have known each other forever. Are you close? And I go, no, not at all. Like the long spans without even a hell. but always respect the guy, you know, previously. I mean, even just how he came into WCW. I was like, like, this guy came in, focus. Like, even as such a young guy, he was focused and you knew that he was,

had a plan and what he wanted to do. And look where he is now. It's been great seeing TNA talent being treated really well, booked really well in WWB. I mean, look at Joe Hendry. Joe Hendry is being booked like he's one of their stars. Yeah. And I mean, it's, it's something that should have.

happened ages ago and never did. It's great that it's happening now. My massive ego loves the fact that I got to be part of starting it. But also, like I said, to be clear, it didn't work. It didn't happen because of me. It happened because it's the right thing. And because you have, yeah, give yourself some credit here. Well, I know, Chris, I don't give myself the credit so that you can then jump in and correct me. I'm giving you the credit. This 100% happened because you got the wheels in motion. Yeah. And look, I mean, I'm honored to be part of that. And I can look at it and smile. And look, here's Joe Hendry, a guy who, who, like, Joe grabbed me the one day.

And he goes, he goes, Scott, did I ever tell you why I chose to come to impact? And I'm thinking, damn, he probably didn't. I don't remember. And it was like, I was like, I don't think so. And he told me a story. First, he told me a story about he was someplace else. And his music was playing. And it's like, okay, here I am.

And it was a big moment. And his music has a spot where he comes out. And somebody pushed him and said, go. And like pushed him out. Like before it was the moment, he's kind of like, these guys don't get me. And then he goes, in that moment as I went to the ring, he goes, I thought of an interview you did in the UK.

He goes years ago when you were doing it. I think it was like 2018, 19, you know, long before he ended up coming. because he ended up going to Ring of Honor. And he goes, you did an interview and they asked, you know, they asked you a question about like something he was about future world champions. He goes, and you mentioned Moose, Josh Alexander, and Joe Hendry. And I was like, oh, so glad I did that.

He goes, and I heard that. And I was like, like, there's a guy who gets me. So he said, like, and it didn't, he didn't end up coming then, right? But then when he became free again, he's like, okay. like maybe there's more money for me somewhere else. But right now, like I want to go somewhere where there's, there's people that get me.

And to be clear, it's not like I was the only one. But he told me that's, I think that's the type of stuff that really makes me feel good, right? Like the fact that he gambled on coming to us at impact, to TNA, you know, because he trusted us that we would handle him,

right? And I think, I think we have and they continue to obviously. And he's obviously delivered. Yeah. Those type of things are like they make me happy. You know, having reached out to Jordan when she was on the Indies and, you know, and just be like, there's like there's something there. Like, let's bring her in and, you know,

and she's a completely different talent, you know, back then from what she is now. But there was always something there that was special. Look at Ethan Page now. Ethan Page is, is the NXT champion. And I mean, he's, he's rocking it. And I mean, that's a, you know, it's a, he's, he's, he's, He's somebody else. When we talk about Maple Leaf Pro and why it needs to exist,

you look at Ethan Page. Ethan Page and Josh Alexander both had to go around and try to sneak into the country to work on shows with different companies and ended up having various problems with, you know, the border. And like I remember one of my, I think my first conversation with Ethan Page is he called me up. He said, hey,

I got your number from so and so. I hope you don't mind. But I got this thing at the border and da-da-da-da-da-da. We talked a little bit and I sent him a few pieces of paper. but ultimately people just as happens, especially in wrestling, oh yeah, yeah, come do the shows and then we'll get you, just keep working. We'll get, and then the visa never comes, right? Yeah.

You know, it's coming second Tuesday of the week, as my father used to say. But, yeah, and it, but it took us saying, hey, like, we can get you a visa. You know, like, come in, work here. We'll get you that visa in a platform. And that's needed still today. I've known Ethan Page, Julian, for years. I remember that conversation when he got a visa. Yeah.

And I remember the conversation fairly recently when he moved to the U.S. Yeah. And those are big moments. Yeah. Those are big career moments. Yeah. And I mean, you don't get there unless there's somebody that's willing to invest in you and take a chance. Yeah.

And you need somebody that has the wherewithal to be able to do it. And you need a platform where people are going to see you. So I think, I think with Maple Leafs, We have a chance because you look at it. When's the last time? And I'm not disrespect because there's there's good shows from, from Nova Scotia to BC, right? I mean, there's people running wrestling.

Like there's, I just saw there's a group in Winnipeg and I'll screw up the name. But it's like Winnipeg Pro Wrestling or something. They just booked the Burt, which is like a 12, 1,400 seat building. And it's come, it's still months away. And they got like, I think hundreds and hundreds. Like they're going to sell 1,000 plus like all these things. Like, but where has there been one that people are seeing on a larger scale. Like, how do we get that, how do we get that platform out there in more

places? And it's like we announced earlier this week, an alliance with, you know, QPW in Qatar and with OPW in Australia. Like, here's a chance where we can take some Canadians. Like, it's, it's a, it's a little easier. We can maneuver getting you into Qatar and getting you into Australia, immigration wise, easier. You can do some events there. This pad your resume. Now, when you get that opportunity to go to the U.S. and get a, when somebody wants to say, yes, we want to bring you in, we want to sponsor you in, we want to make a petition, as you said for you. This is the support for why you're doing. So if that wasn't even the case, just the fact that you're getting that experience, like if you're a Canadian wrestler, like indie wrestling is very different than TV

wrestling, when you roll up to St. Clair College in Windsor in October, you were at a wrestling event. You were using the same production truck that just did slammerversary. You're, you're, you're, a building that TNAs run TVs and pay-per-view or premium live events out of, you're having a full crew, you've got the lighting rig, you've got the video wall, you've got a packed house, you've got all those things, you've got producers, you've got everything, you're working in a style that's going to help prepare you. You're getting that experience. Now if you get to travel the world and go to Australia and Qatar and the UK and everywhere

else is part of this, now you're getting that experience, plus you're getting that notoriety. So then if NXT comes calling, if Sean Michaels is sitting there and says, I love Chris. I want to bring him in here. Well, now from a legal point of view, oh, what does he have as far as credentials? Oh, he headlined in Melbourne,

and he did this event in Qatar in front of 5,000 people. And he was on this show, you know, in the UK here at the copper box. And, you know, he did this television project in Canada with Maple Leaf Pro and, you know, da-da-da-da. Well, hop, boom. Yeah. Stamp, here you go. You know, because the worst thing is when you put that petition in and they come back and say,

we need more proof. Right. And you're thinking, well, shoot. I led Trump the first time out the door. What do I do now? Because nobody goes, oh, I'm going to put this in, but I'm going to hold back these things in case they need them. Because they don't say it's not yes or no.

It's yes or we need some more info. Right. And then you're like, oh, what else could I do? Yeah. And you're happy that it's not a no. Yeah. Because they can come. We've had noes, but the more info is scary.

And then they're like, what the hell else can I? You're like, is there anything you forgot to mention? Did you happen to work WrestleMania one here? This episode is brought to you by Timeline. Timeline is a Swiss-based life science company, and they're a global leader in urolithin-A research. So what's urolithin A? It's a powerful postbiotic

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The United States Soccer Federation present the U.S. soccer podcast. My name is David Goss, and I'm joined by my co-host, Megan Clevenberg. And now we're giving people an inside look at the World Cup. Time's ticking. I think you can feel the intensity. All the guys are wanting to really take their claimant, and they want to be on that World Cup roster. There's no doubt about it.

Hosting the World Cup on the home soil comes with its pressures, but we're just really excited just as the people are. The U.S. soccer podcast, presented by Henko. Follow and listen on your favorite platform. I want to ask you, how do you compare the WWTNA relationship to the AEWTNA relationship? Man, just comparing them is so hard. It's like I got a group chat with a couple of, friends. They're both wrestlers. And it's about basketball because I'm a, like I said, I'm a Celtics

guy. I'm a big three guy. I'm a Bird McCale parish guy. I'm an 80 Celtics, right? 80 Celtics, you know, hated the LA Lakers, but have so much respect for Showtime and Magic and Cream in the Lakers and Dr. Jay and the Sixers. And, you know, we have this debate all the time, which is a ridiculous debate, right? Like, if you take LeBron and all the best of the contemporaries or the more recent era and play them against the guys of the 80s, like, one of the guys in the group, Texas, who's a younger guy,

he'd be like, he goes, bro, like burden these guys they get crushed. Like, look at how much bigger and stronger the athletes are. And it's like, well, wait a second. Wait a second. Look at the style of basketball. Like, you've got guys who can't play 80, the guys who are taking playoff games off, only play 60 regular season game. Like,

in the 80s, you played every freaking game all season long. You didn't take a game and you played rough. Yeah. And I'd be like, well, wait a second. I go, let's talk about defense. In the in the in the in the 80s zone defenses were illegal. You couldn't hand check like can I watched basketball and I'm like, I mean, what do you mean?

You can't what? You're like, we can't put your hand anywhere in the body. It's like, how do you guard anybody? You've literally taken away what defense is in today's basketball. Are they bigger, stronger fast? Yeah. But what would happen? Like, what would happen? Like, when's, like, in today's day and age, go back, there's a famous clip in the finals

where Kurt Rombus, who's like just so iconic, right? Like, what a hippie with the hair and that. And he's going on a layup. And Danny Ains comes down to like Brett Hart clotheslines them to the floor, right? And it changed the whole momentum of the game. Now Danny Aange would be thrown out of the game, suspended, fine. You know, like, Rombus would be taken out in a stretcher. You know, it just was such a different game.

like you can't compare them right it's the same thing like you look at where impact was at the time and you know and this this is what frustrates me about social media as great as it is in some ways is no matter what somebody says somebody has to make it toxic like um like can't it just be good that the nxti relationship why are you comparing like okay well first of all um like there's there's there's pros and cons to each side so the nxte thing is obviously super cool the TNA talent is being incorporated into the into the NXT broadcast, which is amazing. The flip, you know, the flip side of the, the preferences of the AW relationship, well, one, we were, we were not in great shape.

Like, the TNA company is so much stronger now in 2024 than, than impact was in 2000. So, like, at that point, like, we really, like, we needed a boost. And it was like the heart of COVID, too. We never got a chance to put Kenny Omega in front. of a crowd. Yeah. Like we would, we would,

we would have, we would have been selling a lot of tickets at that point with Kenny Omega. Yeah, it was your world champion. And, and, you know, Kenny was amazing coming in and don't people ever realize

how banged up and hurt Kenny is. And there's people that have, they're like, oh, well, Kenny like mailed it in. I watched Kenny get worked on for 90 minutes to try to get enough, um, you know, build up enough strength to go out there and wrestle moose at one in the

morning in Jacksonville and people are like oh well Kenny phoned it in like like that guy could barely walk and then that guy sat there apologizing to move giving him moose a great match that few people in the world could give me I wanted to do so much more so sorry um you know he was great now you look at things like hey things are going good for t and a now people go oh well they don't they don't like that kenny didn't get to drop the belt you know Kenny would have dropped the belt would have loved to him you You know, wanted to, wanted to put Josh over, wanted to work with Eddie Evans, just didn't pan out. Like, some of the things that we saw with AEW, like haven't happened for the TNA relationship yet. Like, like, people will point, I love it.

It's like somebody pointed out that, you know, TNA has record low viewership, like one of the Omega shows. They point out that it's something where none of the DVR's work and some systems were on blackout. Point out the other's fact, point out that the highest rated show in the history of access TV, the highest rated not just impact show, but the highest rated. show by a long shot. There would be on Access TV was that 268 overnight number that Kenny did that grew that well into the threes by the time you did the plus three on the plus seven. We never did numbers like we did when Kenny came in there. When you look at it, when when Kenny came in, the rebellion with him and Swan in the main event, the title versus title set a set a record during the anthem era of buys it was it was three to four times higher than than

any of the shows leading into it had been um and then uh and then the next one the slam reversory with uh with with with sammy callahan was uh was the third best show of the anthem era it went Kenny swan then it went the good brothers uh everybody coming in debuting as part of that who's going to show up as part of that, you know, yeah, you know, and that was built on the buzz of who's going to show up, right? This was literally the Kenney Swan was built off of, here's Kenny Omega, here's

Rich Swan title for title. Like that did a huge number. And then like I said, the Kenny Sammy match at Slam was just slightly below the debut of the Good Brothers and everybody off that who's coming.

And then even though like we had to switch gears and have Christian. How is anybody not happy with a guy who is literally part of the foundation of building the original TNA is the first ever guy who said, no, I'm going to choose TNA over W to B. I'm going to look Vince McMahon in the face and lie to him because Jay's thing was, like, Christian's thing was like, you know, like he was all set up. He was leaving. And, you know, he had his talks and everything. And he was told, hey, Vince wants to see you. This is his last day.

And he goes to Vince, and Vince, you know, thanked Mary-out. So when he said, I'm just going to go home. Like, Vince, I just can't do this right now. Like, I need a break. So he's not lying, right? He needs a break from W&P. And Vince said, are you going to TNA? And Christian said, no.

That he flew and signed his TNA. Wow. So he's the first guy that ever shows. And people need to remember that was before Kurt Engel went to TNA. Right. And the other, like, but Christian was like Vince, Vince offered to sign him and say, Hey, stay here and take all the time off you want while, you know, and we'll pay you to sit home. You know, I which I think was Vince's way of testing to see if he was coming to TNA.

But, but I mean, he chose TNA. So we got to bring. And again, somebody who left with not terrible terms, but didn't have the greatest taste in the mouth when he left. He came back, you know, went out there, had great matches. and it was very important to Christian to get a chance to make Josh Alexander. He was such an integral part of making Josh Alexander, and he took it so to heart and so personal that he was going to be part of making him. It wasn't just like, hey, I'm going to have a match with the guy and have a good match,

and that's going to help him. He talked to him about the promos. We got together. We sat and craft this stuff. Well, I'm going to say this. Think of something like this. Like, you know, think in this vein. And, like, didn't just tell him what to say, but helped him understand.

and helped us cultivate the process for it for for for josh alexander to start knowing how to do his own promos and stories and emotion and and the wrestling comes naturally to josh so we knew that christian and josh would have a great match so like the the the facts were kenny wasn't going to be the one to drop the belt there was other options that we had that none of them were better than christian and i think christian was an amazing option one with his history had with tna two he was coming in, he was coming in hot in A.A.W. And they featured Omega and Christian for the TNA or the Impact World title on that first rampage, which did a massive number. And then like the Christian Josh match at BFG was perfect. And, you know, Christian is one of the smartest wrestling minds

out there and built that whole match to say, hey, this is the guy. Like, he beat me fair and square, you know, in the middle of the ring. Like, this is our guy. Um, And it did, it did again. It was one of the highest buy rates other than those other three that we talked about. So at dollars and cents, there's no way you can look at the A.W relationship and say it didn't produce dollars. And I'll tell you from, I still talk to the guys who had at our digital at the time, like anything that touched Kenny Omega and A.A.W. generated a ton monetization lines. The downside to it was, yeah, like we ran into a pickle outside of like outside of doing.

that world title angle, we were stymied in the sense that there was too many restrictions on how to use talent. So maybe what we should have done is dug in and said, hey, like, let's take some lower talent, lower on the AW. Like, you look at the talent that's gone over the TNA shows. They're good talents. But you're not, you're not dealing with the equivalence of the Kenny Omega, the Christians, the Matt Hardy's, right? And I don't say that's not the talent's good, like really good. you know like no quarter cat and all that there's good talent but they're probably the people that you got a little more flexibility with yeah so like do i do i think that there was some some

some downsides to the to the a w relationship absolutely there was some things that were tough but uh i don't i don't discredit the fact that there was really no reason for them to do no reason to loan us kenny omega the way they did and feature him the way we did which drove money both pay-per-view buys and television ratings and stream numbers which turns into monetization and those clips still to this day perform better than a lot of the other clips that tna put out so are the relationships both you have positive negatives yes um you know but i also judge them you know in the context like like t-n a is in a position now where it's just so much stronger like i just remember we're like we got to try this a w thing like we're we're we're looking

And it helped us turn the perception of some around. It brought people to watch the product. Now, do I think some of the AEW fans tuned in and after a few weeks said, okay, like, this is the show we don't need to watch because it's not integrated. You didn't need to watch TNA to watch, you know, dynamite, right? Like, if we could have done some stuff where something happened on Thursday and that pitched a dynamite on Wednesday or vice versa, like I really think there could have been something there.

But we saw some positives. was there some difficulties, yep. And then to your point, we're also doing all of that under the idea that we're flying and driving everybody all around the country in this crazy thing called COVID. Do you remember the first time you saw Petey Williams do a Canadian Destroyer? Yeah. Petey is one of my favorite success stories because when PD came to Can Am wrestling school to train, you know, I like to ask guys like, what's your goals?

and Piedes was like, look, I know I'm five foot nothing, and I'm a little pipsqueak. And he might not have said pipsqueak. And he goes, like, I know like nobody's coming and calling to make me a TV star, but I've always wanted to do this. I'm enrolled in St. Clair College, actually, the place we ended up doing shows at now for the last decade plus. And he goes, I'm going for, you know, policing and security. I'm going to try to be a cop. I do this while I go to school.

If I can wrestle on like Chacharo Club was the was the was where we did our big BCW shows back and he said if I could wrestle on some Chacharo Club shows like that'd be cool. And any other opportunities, I'll just enjoy them until you know I move on. And Pedy was actually a waiter at Applebee's and we always fight about this. I say he was the worst waiter I ever had. He literally argued with my girlfriend at the time about what she ordered. Like even if even if she didn't order what she says she's ordered, she's saying what you brought wasn't right.

And he's like, no, no, no, no, no, that's fine. But like, you didn't, but I'll, I'll get you a different salad. And he's like, no, I didn't. And I'm like, I'm like, okay, we'll just agree to disagree. I said, Petey, I'm the one that had to deal with. So, but he was a waiter at Applebee's. And we got a chance to do that Team Canada thing. And that he was just like kind of brought on because that that team,

original team Canada was a, was a vehicle for Teddy Hart. That was the idea for it, right? Teddy Hart was the captain. He was going to be the star of Team Canada. And PD was brought in. He had wrestled a match, like before we went live, he had wrestled a taped match. And then while he was in the ring,

Teddy Hart was like, I'm hurt, I can't wrestle. And Teddy was in the opener of the pay-per-view against Huventude Guerrera and Jerry Lynn. And as we're sitting there going, shoot, what are we going to do? it's supposed to be a captain's match, the three captains from team Mexico, team Canada, and team NWA. And I'm like, well, Pedy can do some Lucha because I know he's done a little lucha. And Pedy and Jerry have wrestled a lot in BCW.

I was like, so we can focus on PD doing stuff with Jerry. Jerry and Hoovey can do their stuff a million times. And if we just any connection with PD and Hoovey will be fun. We'll get through this. So Pedy comes to the back, like mind blown that he got to wrestle and teen. I almost like, okay, that was it. Like that was, oh, by the way, Pedy, you're on in 10. minutes. You're wrestling Jerry Linnon, Hoovey, in Europe. And he's just kind of like, huh?

You know, so that's really what I think cemented his spot in TNA. Because I think, I think, I think Jeff, like Jeff Jarrett, and that was just blown away. Like Jeff, and Dutch boat, Dutch mentality, we're blown away by the fact that this kid who's green as can be, who we didn't even want to trust on live pay-per-view. Well, 10, 15 minutes later, he's opening up. the pay-per-view against two pretty great, you know, juniors or cruiser weights or whatever your ex-division wrestlers, everyone wants to call it. He's got to go out there with no time to put the match together. Yeah. Like they basically like, like, it was kind of like, hey, we'll do some of this, this, this, okay, like, just listen to me in there. I went up there and had like a pretty

darn good match. Um, so that, that more so than the Canadian destroyer is what I think of with PD is just, he's just so damn reliable. I remember seeing the Canadian destroyer for the first time and being like, it was magic. What did I just see? It was magic. Yeah. It's, it's, there was a point in time, because once in a while, if we were doing, like, we did a, like, a couple of the early house shows. Like, we did one in Plymouth, Michigan with ICP and drew a massive crowd. That's what led to us doing BFG there in, in 06.

ICP basically just bought a show and promoted it and had 3,000 people there. You know, whatever. So, but we did, or on an independent, we'd have fun and do silly stuff for, like, PD's wrestling, Sabin, or whoever. for Sanjay and, you know, Petey would get, I'd give Petey the powder in his hands, right? He'd turn around, they'd kick his hands so the powder, the old finish where the powder goes in his face. And then, oh, no, I'd go to check on PD and he'd kick me in the stomach,

you know, and we did it where PD gave it to me. We did it where I started doing it where I get the powder. And I turn around and they kick, like, I get in the ring dinner for it. They kick it in my face. Petey comes to check on me. That was the finish we did. Pedy comes a check on me, I kick him in the stomach and I Canadian Destroyer him. And I never, I didn't, I was like, oh, okay, well, it'll be funny.

And I'm like, who, like, and not thinking about cell phones or anything else at the time, right? Because, like, I was very firm. We're protecting this Canadian Destroyer. Like, these people think this is magical. They think, like, people are trying to figure it out. And I think PD is the only person in the world that can do it. Like, he has the, there's an entire angle where it was like, it was a secret. Yeah.

And, you know, I taught him the Canadian Destroyer, but I taught Chris Sabin, the counter, right? Like, you know, I was hedging my bets. I gave this power to PD, but I wanted to have something to counter it in case he ever turned on me. We did a whole angle and T&A on that. But yeah, I get to TV the one day and I look at the format and I'm hitting the Canadian Destroyer on AJ Styles on TV.

And I'm like, I'm not doing this. Like, I don't, like, I'm not. And Jeff's like, oh, you are. And I'm like, I'm not doing this, Jeff. Like, I'm not. And he's like, yes, you are. And we had a very stern, you know, somewhat loud discussion about this. And I'm at the point, I was like, I'll quit.

He's like, he's like, stop. I was like, I will go back to the hotel and quit. And he's like, why? I'm like, this move is so cool and so special. And I get it. It'll be cool for the angle. Like, it'll be a cool. It'll be a pop when I hit AJ with the Destroyer.

But once the fat, bumbling, stupid heel manager, talking about the character, not me in real life, does this move? All that magic goes away. Like we literally, we have something that right now, it's not going to last forever. But right now, it's one of the things that people truly are mesmerized and believe in, you know. So that's one of the few times, like as a talent, I put my foot down. It's like, I'm just not doing it. because it just was so cool. Yeah.

You know, and it's just so different. I mean, now it's, I mean, you know, hey, it means. Reminds me of the DDT now. Yeah. You know, the DDT was devastating when Jake used to do it. Yeah. And now it's in every match. It's like a pile driver, right?

Used to be someone who gets a pile driver and they're going to stretcher. Right. You know, now they get out of a pile driver. They do the RVD, the cool pop up and hit like a big, you know, roaring lariat or something. You know, but I mean, look, here's the thing. Wrestling changes. Sure.

There's, I wish I could find it. I was looking for it the other day when I was talking to somebody about this. There was a quote by an old wrestler talking about a new generation wrestler. And it was about how phony he is and it's cartoony and it's, you know, it's a disgrace and it's, it's, it's, you know, it's just pathetic and it's not what professional wrestling is. Do you know who the person was talking about? You know who it was and who they were talking about? That sounds like perhaps Jim Cornette. talking about, I don't know. Like who would a wrestler now be, Orange Cassidy? Sure. Do you know who the quote was? Luthes. Do you know who he was talking about?

Harley Race. Now, you talk to guys from Harley's era. He's tough as nails. He's great. He's so believable. But to Luthaz, oh, he comically oversells and like this stupid comedy,

it's ridiculous. Because Duluth is what Harley Race was doing wasn't what wrestling was. That perspective is brilliant. And that's what I say, like, yes. Is there a magical world where I sit down and I get to run a territory and, you know, you don't hit the ropes probably in the first match and everybody stays in the ring and, you know, we protect Finney. Like, is there this cool little like 19?

Like, yeah. Like, Dreamer and I talk about this. We'll sit there and watch 70s and an early. 80s wrestling for hours. We're not the majority of people. It's not today's wrestling. And that doesn't, like, we can't, that's not what people want.

Like, we can enjoy that, you know, and that's why we've got YouTube and everything else to enjoy what used to be. But that's not, wrestling is, is so much more of a action-packed stunt show. Like, part of it is, we didn't grow up with video games,

or what video games we grew up with were like Space Invaders, and like the first video game I played was you cut the lawn. Like, but it was mesmerizing as a kid because you're on a computer. Yeah. And, you know, you're hitting the keys and it turns this way and this way,

but your job was to successfully cut all the grass in the lawn. Like, that's what a video game was. Yeah. And you look at what it's now, like wrestlers now, we're multiple generations into wrestlers growing up more with video game. We didn't have video game wrestling when I was young.

Yeah. And then when it did come in, like it was, you know, it wasn't like it wasn't what it is. now. So they have a different way of registering and selling and we can we can argue all we want about better or worse like I'm pretty confident. Luthes is amazing. Part of like the Maple Leaf Wrestling Archives is Luthez and and Dick Hutton, the NWA title change from like 57 or whatever

it is. Like it's so cool. But I mean it's you are not getting people to sit down and watch that. Or like Don Callis came for a visit and we sat on the couch, like two old goobers, and we watched, um, we watched Lufez defend the world title against a young upstart by the name of Vern Ganya. And these guys go an hour. And it's cool. And is there some things in those matches that wrestlers today could look at and incorporate into what they're doing?

One million percent. Should wrestlers go out there and do what Lufz and Vern Ganya were doing? One million percent. No. Yeah. Vernanya and Thes should do that because I think they're in Comiski Stadium and I think there's 30 something thousand people that paid to be there. If there's 30,000 people that'll pay to do that now, the pay to see that now, we go do it. But they're not going to because those people want to see Will Osprey.

They want to see Kenny Omega. They want to see Tkechta. You know, they want to see those guys. That's what they want to see. You know, they want to see, you know, Seth Rawlins. Like, you know, like, WWE does unbelievable story telling and combines it with amazing athletics. And, you know, wrestling's going to evolve. And that's why I love whatever, I mean, yep, like, I just as much as anybody sometimes look at stuff in modern wrestling and kind of go,

oh, the way, that's not for me. But I always try to remember that Luthes Harley Race quote. Yeah. You know, because Harley is so revered. Yeah. You know, but Luthaz, he was a comedian and what he was doing. and was a mockery of great sport of wrestling. I've kept you here far longer than I said I was going to have you here,

but this has been such a- Wait, we haven't even started the actual interview yet, have we? Yeah, I didn't hit record. Congrats on everything you're building now, and I'm excited to see what you have in store, October 19th and 20th with Maple Leaf Pro. And I end every conversation talking about gratitude because it's so important to me.

Scott, what are three things in your life that you're grateful for right now? family and friends, like especially I have an 80, we talked about, I have an 85 year old mother who's in pretty good darn physical health. And if she was in the room with no disrespect to you or me would be the sharpest person in this room. So I'm surrounded by wonderful people, you know, her at the top, but her, my girlfriend, my friends, like I just have amazing people in my life that without that everything I went through this year would have been unbearable. But once all the the dust settled and the emotion dropped and the ego got in check,

it's like, I, I, you know, like, I don't, you know, work for this wrestling company anymore. I had seven amazing years there. But if I never do anything in wrestling again, look at everything I've done and look at what I have in my life. I'm grateful for that. I'm grateful for 30 plus years in the toughest sport in the entire world, as Kevin Sullivan would say. 30 plus years. I started this when I was 16 years old training. I lied on my first wrestling license and wrestled as my brother because I was too young to get a wrestling license.

She had to be 18 and I was 17. Can they still come back and charge me for that? Ooh, on a statute of limitations for all the guy. I missed a senior English exam to wrestle on WWF television, and it's been an unbelievable ride since then for 30 plus years. And I always preach to my students, none of us deserve anything. Like, this business doesn't owe us anything. And the amount that this business has given me is immeasurable. what it's given to me personally and also as we talked about a little bit getting to be a part

of so many other people's amazing journeys and you know it's their story but just the fact that I got to be adjacent to it or involved in it or a part of it you know like like seeing you know like seeing like the kushitas and the kiyomias and the petis and the bobbies and the rhinos and you know all these people Tracy brooks like I could go on for like you know like Frankie Kazarian Eric young like all these people in getting to be there and be part of their stories like it's just it's like it's truly rewarding um and that's two so the third would be I'm grateful that after all this time and having 30 plus years in this industry in life that uh I've still got something that I love when I wake up in the morning and that as long as

I keep it in its proper place. And sometimes I don't do a great job as that. As you talked about the 80 plus hours. I love this business. I love this art form, the sport. I love the people around it. And here as I just celebrated my 50th birthday last year and 30 plus years, I still have a zest for it.

And I think a bit of a skill set. And I still get to go out there and do something completely new. And with Maple Leaf Pro, something with the handcuffs off. Like I said, we just have to focus on the 19th and 20th being the best frickin' possible shows. And we get to deliver that to the fans, entertain them. And it'll be amazing, rewarding, it'll be fulfilling.

And then we get to breathe and then we get to decide what's next. And the fact that I still love it and the fact that I still get an opportunity to be part of presenting that. And the fact that I'm so grateful, you know, people always say, you know, to stop and, and pay attention and enjoy some things. Like, I'll be honest with you, when the announcement was coming out about me leaving TNA, and I felt very strongly that announcement had to go out. I had some people basically, like, say, oh, like, it's going to be crazy for you the next couple. And I truly didn't think it would. Because when I lost the book in TNA, the first time, my phone rang once that day.

once when the news broke. Who was it? Tommy Dreamer offering me a job. So that was the, and I, I'm not saying anything bad about anybody else. Back then you had to pick up a phone and call. It rang a lot more this time. Well, it was the text messages and the post, like I, I can't, I don't even know how many posts there were on social media, but even just the text messages

and DMs and everything. It took me days to return them. It was, it was so overworked. And I just didn't expect it. I honestly thought it would be like the first time. Like a few close people might reach out. It was so overwhelming and touching. And then the same thing.

Like I should be as we got ready last week and we announced Maple Leaf Pro on my 50th birthday. Right. So I wanted something to do other than how people tell me how old I was. And, you know, the response was was fantastic. And I just, I'm so grateful that people. appreciated the body of work in my career and specifically those seven years with TNA and they showed that love when I left. And I'm so grateful that when I said, hey, six months later,

with six months is a long time in this day and age that would say, hey, this is what's next. People were excited to hear it. So those would be my three things. Then my, if I can make one parting thing, if wrestling fans can just enjoy wrestling. And I stayed off. social media. I learned I had to stay off social media after, after, um, the announcement. Because here's the thing. I would see people that were like, hey, um, who cares that Scott's gone, you know, TNA is going to be fine. And then people are coming on there defending me. But they're, they're not defending me. They're just saying other toxic terrible stuff. And so it didn't matter. If somebody said, hey, TNA, you know what? Like, I was worried with Scott leaving, but TN.

is doing great. People who think they're defending me are going out there and and slagging what's going on or vice versa. Somebody's saying, oh, I want Scott back. Or somebody else saying, oh, well, screw you. Like, just enjoy wrestling. Just enjoy wrestling. Like, at the end of the day, I try to keep in mind, this is a business where grown adults dress up in fancy, shiny underwear and put on a choreographed, you know, fighting sequence. And then we get mad about the dumbest stuff. Like wrestlers, we get mad when people say that it's not real. And then fans get mad because they don't like something or this booking or, you know,

hey, like, enjoy wrestling and enjoy all wrestling. And if this wrestling isn't your cup of tea, cool, it's somebody else's. So don't watch it. you know, watch the rest of you like. Yeah. You know, and just don't root for failure. Don't root for failure. Because you know what?

Life's too short. And 50 years on this planet have taught me that there's a lot of things that I've spent time, you know, frustrated or worked up over. And when you look back at it, you know, so dumb. You know, so I'm glad. I'm grateful that I got three things and many more I could keep going to be grateful for. and I'm grateful for that passion that wrestling fans have because we all have it. And I just wish that they'll direct it in a positive manner.

I'm so glad we got to have this conversation. Finally, I'm talking about this for years. So thank you for making this happen. Yeah, awesome. Thanks, Chris. Appreciate it. Appreciate it. You can just feel the passion that Scott has for wrestling.

I'm excited to see what he does with Maple Leaf Pro, October 19th and 20th. You can watch it live on Thriller. And I wonder if that TNA deal is dead. Like if at some point down the line, six months from now, a year or two from now, will TNA come back to him and say, are you still interested in buying? It'll be very interesting. Also, he has a brilliant mind for wrestling. Will WW come calling?

Will A.W. come calling. Is there an opportunity there? And I think the most interesting part, he really hasn't talked about this, I don't think, anywhere else, is he has this entirely other very successful business completely outside of wrestling. But he just loves wrestling so much that he wants to be part of it and wants to continue to contribute

in any way that he can. I love it. Snap a screenshot. Let us know what you thought of this episode and tag us. He's at Scott DeMore on Twitter. He's at Scott dot Demore on Instagram. I'm at Chris Van Vleet.

And I'll leave you with this quote from Theodore Roosevelt. Have you heard of the man in the arena? It's a little bit longer than a normal quote, but I just feel like it's so pertinent to the world of social media that we live in and the world of everybody having an opinion here. It's just so good. It is not the critic who counts, not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles

or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs, who comes short again and again, who spends himself in a worthy cause, who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that this place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither no victory nor defeat. The man in the arena.

go check it out. Just Google Man in the Arena and you'll see that. Be great. Be grateful, my friends. We will see you on the next one for some more insight. It's Ask CVV number 45 tomorrow if you've got a question and you're listening on Spotify. Leave it in the comments. Otherwise, shoot me a message.

Hashtag Ask CVV. We will see you tomorrow for that 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 it man, job, but get up in here. The Jim Rome Show podcast. What's your beef? Follow and listen on your favorite platform. You've been warned.