Insight with Chris Van Vliet - Solomonster Sounds Off - How Jason Solomon turned his love of wrestling into a top podcast

Episode Date: February 23, 2021

Jason Solomon talks to Chris Van Vliet from his home in New York City. He talks about why he started his podcast "Solomonster Sounds Off", how it grew to be one of the most popular wrestling podcasts in the world, his first memories of wrestling, being an Orange Cassidy doppelgänger, the lessons he learned from his late mother and father, doing commentary for House of Glory with JDfromNY206, his love for the 1992 Royal Rumble, his favorite match of all time and more!  Submit your Blue Wire Hustle application here: http://bwhustle.com/join 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.  For more information about Chris and INSIGHT go to https://chrisvanvliet.com  Follow CVV on social media:  Instagram:instagram.com/ChrisVanVliet Twitter:twitter.com/ChrisVanVliet Facebook:facebook.com/ChrisVanVliet YouTube:youtube.com/ChrisVanVliet Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

What's up, y'all? It's Druski, and I've teamed up with Mountain Dew to produce a hilarious new basketball podcast called The Do Zone with Drusky. Learn the backstories of your favorite ballers and celebrities like Jamal Murray. Did you have like a favorite team? Was it the Raptors at the time or no? Was the Raptors even started around that time? Come on, bro. I ain't that old, fam.

You're talking like I was 50. Taylor, Roaks, Asian Wilson, and many more. You won't want to miss this. Listen to the Doozone with Drusky on Apple Podcast, Spotify, and wherever you listen to podcasts. So before we dive into this episode, I want to tell you about. Blue Wire Hustle. It's a brand new program where you could host your very own podcast here at Blue Wire. Hustle was created to give everybody the opportunity to take your podcast to that next level. Or if you've always wanted to host a podcast and you didn't know where to start, hustle is the perfect

place for you. As part of the program, you'll receive personal cover art, Q&As with Blue Wire's top podcasters, and an e-learning course full of tips and tricks. And on top of that, they'll help you get your show pushed out to Apple, Spotify, Google, Stitcher, all of the different listening platforms. And the best part is, you get all this for just 15 bucks a month. That's the same rate that any hosting site would charge you just for the initial setup. So whether you're starting from scratch or you have an existing show that you want to blow up, hustle is an open door to you leveling up your podcasting experience. Acceptance into the program is limited.

So get your application in today. To apply, just go to BWHustle.com slash join or check out the description box of this episode to find out more. But once again, it's BWHustle.com slash join. Okay, welcome to the show. If you happen to be a regular listener to Solomonster sounds off and it's your first time here, hello, how are you? I'm Chris Van Fleet. I'm an Emmy Award-winning TV host, and I'm fascinated with finding out how people are wired

to achieve greatness. On each episode of Insight, we have in-depth conversations. We reverse, engineer the habits and techniques of the world's top athletes, celebrities, entrepreneurs, podcasters, you name it. If they are the best at what they do, I want to get their insights

so we can apply it to our own life. And I've had a podcast now for a little over a year and a half, but I feel like such a baby compared to Jason Solomon. He's been podcasting since before podcasting was even a word. He's built an incredible show, and it's only getting bigger and bigger every single week,

so congratulations to him on that. But what I love most about Jason is his drive and his determination. And you'll see what I mean when he starts telling stories about starting a wrestling magazine as a kid or writing for the local newspaper. He's the type of guy

who doesn't let anything stand in the way of what he wants to accomplish. And hey, don't let anything stand in your way of taking a screenshot right now from sharing this on social media, tag me. I'm at Chris Van Vleet and tag Jason. He is at Solomonster. And if you haven't subscribed yet, please take a second right now to subscribe wherever you're listening to this. And I know you've heard me mention it before, but it really does help a ton if you could leave these reviews on Apple Podcasts. They help so much. And it was so exciting to see the show on the Apple Top 200 last week. Like on the same list as

the Kurt Angles show and what happened when and all of Conrad shows and shows from ESPN and Fox Sports. So thank you for helping to put us on that huge list, the Apple Top 200. This reviews from Mike J. Mc21, Mike J. Mc21, who titles this great interviewer. I've been listening and watching his interviews for a couple years now, and honestly, no one does it better. You literally never get bored while listening to these interviews. Awesome stuff. Well, thank you, Mike. That is awesome stuff. You're awesome stuff. And I'm going to keep reading one review on every single episode until we get to that goal of 2,000 reviews or until we get to my birthday, May 19th. Which one will come first? Hmm. My guest today is the host of the very popular Solomonster Sounds Off. What a great conversation. Please welcome Jason Solomon.

Welcome to the show. So good to see you. Good to see you. I feel like this has been a long time in the making. It's been a long time in the making. And we were planning originally to do this in person. But, you know, this worldwide pandemic, you know, changed everything. Pesky pandemic. The pesky pandemic, great alliteration to start things out. I love it. I love it. You know, I know that people think you look a lot like Orange Cassidy, but I don't know.

Do you think you look that much like him? No. I don't, and I don't know. I couldn't even tell you exactly where this whole thing got started, honestly, but it sort of took on a life of its own. I will say this, though, there is a, maybe he was doing like a backyard wrestling league or something like that when he was younger. But I remember on social media, one of the news websites had a screenshot of him when he was like maybe 12 or something. And when I saw that screenshot, it stopped me in my tracks. Really?

It was dead ringer for me when I was that age. But aside from that, I just think it's sort of a silly thing that took on a life of its own. I was kind of hoping to run into him on the Jericho cruise last year, and he chickened out. He didn't show up. Cowardly Cassidy, that's what I call him now. But at the same time, if we've never seen you and Orange Cassidy in the same place, makes you wonder it makes you wonder yeah i actually think you look and this is a deep cut here i actually think you look more like andrew mcmand from something corporate and jack's mannequin and you're like i don't

know who that is i don't i don't know who that is but somebody else the other day told me i look like ted from the tv show shits creek which i don't sure okay which i don't watch so i had to go look him up to see what he looks like and again it's like eh all right maybe i guess they're all compliments, by the way. These are all like very handsome, you know, successful people. Well, far more than me, I guess, but I'll take the compliment. You were like one of the OGs when it comes to wrestling podcasting. I mean, how far back do we go with your podcast? Well, the first year was 2007. So this is going to be 14 years this fall. It'll be 14 years. You predate Joe Rogan.

I predate Joe Rogan. I wish I had Joe Rogan numbers and viewership. That would be, I don't know about the studio, though. It looks like he's broadcasting from a spaceship. But yeah, well, to tell you how far back it goes, back then they were audio shows. So nobody was really using the word podcast like they are today. So it was like, oh, do you want to do an audio show? It's like, sure, I can do that.

So that's how far back that goes. So where did this begin? Like back then, when people weren't doing audio shows, where did you come up with the idea of like, yeah, let's do this thing. Yeah. So it was a friend of mine runs a wrestling news website called sescoops.com, which has only gotten bigger and better in the years since. And at that time, you know, my thought was, okay, it's nice to have this sort of aggregate news site where you bring news from all these different sources together. But let's get some original content on the site in terms of audio. I said, I can do an audio for, again,

people called them audio hotlines back then. Hotlines used to be the big thing. I said, I can plug in a microphone and record an audio update every week. And he loved the idea and he gave me the platform. And so that's how it started. So I had a leg up in that way. It's very, it's probably a lot harder today to start a podcast because everybody's got a podcast. Like Chris Van Van Vleet has a podcast. I have a podcast. I can't believe that guy has a podcast. I know. I asked myself that question every time I see one of your interviews dropped. Me too. All the fan podcast,

wrestler podcasts, so there's so many of them now, I think it's just harder to break through. But even then, let me think about it. You start a show. Where do you start? How do you build an audience? You can create it, but if you don't have a way to drive people to go to it,

it's going to be tough to build an audience. So I at least had this platform where people who went to the website, you know, if they wanted to, would say, oh, what's this? And they would click on it. Now, the rest of the work was on me, because I have to do a good job. If I don't, people are never going to listen to me again. But, you know, I at least had that little foot in the door like, all right, at least there's an audience here. So let's see if they like it. And I, to this day, I have people who will send me

messages and go, hey, I've been listening since episode one. And you're like, you're a liar. Nobody was listening back then. Yeah. I go, what's wrong with you? But yeah, it just, it blows me. When I get messages like that, it just blows me away. I've been listening for 10 years, 12 years, and it's crazy. I always say the best thing about the time that we're living in right now is that anybody can start a podcast. And then I say the worst thing about the time we're living in right now is that anybody can start a podcast. And it's become so much more of like the needle in the haystack because you've got to figure out a way to make yourself stand out.

it's tough you know and i get sometimes messages from people who listen who go oh i'm gonna be starting my own podcast my own youtube channel do you have any advice for me and so i did a whole segment on my show one of my one of my episodes but i'll still you know answer them directly and i'll say the the biggest piece of advice i can give you first of all make sure you're doing it for the right reason yeah because i'll get messages from people saying hey i want to i want to make money and do a podcast I go, when I started my podcast, I didn't even pay any thought to the possibility of actually making a living off of it because who was doing that at that time. So you got to make sure if you're going to do it, you've got to put the time and the effort

into it. It's got to be consistent. You can't do it one week and say, oh, I'll get back to it. Maybe I'll do another one in three weeks. But also find your voice. Don't try to be somebody else. and you got to just find your voice, and sometimes that takes time,

and people aren't very patient. So if they don't see success building right away, they can get very discouraged. And I say, don't be discouraged. It took me a long time before I was pretty happy with where things were at for me. But that's because you went into it with the right mindset. You went into this that you were passionate about wrestling,

you were passionate about talking about wrestling, and anything else on top of that was just gravy. Yeah, I mean, And I just, I remember telling my friend, I said, look, I'm watching these shows already. I've got all these thoughts in my head and all these opinions. It's not like it's a huge burden on me to just plug in a microphone and just verbalize it. Let me just start doing it and see where it goes because I was passionate about it. I had good opinions.

I had, you know, times where I was very negative on the product. And so I just speak. There's no filter. There's no, oh, I'm so worried I'm going to offend this person or that person. I just call it like I see it and give my opinion. It makes it a lot easier that way because I'm not trying to be something I'm not. So to put things in perspective, if you started this in 2007, how long did it take you to make a dollar off of this? I think the first time I really started to see that kind of success.

I want to say it took me about four or five years. Think about that. Probably. Think about how many episodes is that? that. My God. So let's say, let's say that was 2011, 2012. By then I was probably, man, you know what? It could have been 250 to 300 episodes in, maybe somewhere in that range. It was a while. Yeah. Anybody that they're looking to start a podcast needs to rewind this and listen to that part over again because I think that people get five episodes in go,

man, I only had 50 downloads. I'm going to give up. Yeah. And you can't do that. I mean, the people who do that, they just, they never really wanted to do it from the, from the beginning. You know, I'm always impressed when somebody will send me something and say, now, I want you to listen to this. Just give me, give me your feedback. And then they tell me, I go, like, what do you, how do you prepare? And they tell me. And they take the time, they watch the shows.

They maybe collect questions. They do research on this or that and look into what equipment they should be using. And that's the way it should be done, you know, because, again, this is you. like this is you, it's your show, it's your brand, whatever you want to call it, you need to make it the best that it can be. And now a lot of people are on video. They're doing video streams. So all of that is very important.

People are going to see right through you. If you're not doing, if you're going to half ass it, people, people know, they're not stupid. Yeah, but I get messages all the time from people that are like, what camera do I need, what audio equipment do I need? What mixer do I need? What editing software? And I'm like, just start. Like, just start.

because if you start putting all this time and thought and effort into all the equipment, you're just giving yourself an excuse to not start. So I think the most important thing is start and then figure out all the other stuff afterwards. Yeah. And also when people ask questions about equipment and what should I buy, you know, again, everyone's on a different budget. So I don't want to sit here and tell somebody, oh, you have to buy a $400 XLR microphone that plugs into this unit, like because not everybody-

You're describing my exact setup here. You know, I think that's every professional podcaster is going to want to have a setup like that. But, you know, not everybody can afford that. And not everybody knows what to do with that once they have it. So it can be very overwhelming. You don't need to break the bank to start a podcast. I say, just get a decent USB microphone, plug it in. If you're going to be on camera, buy a webcam, which is hard to do now because of COVID.

I think everybody bought up all the webcams. Yeah. But that's all you need. All you need to do is get your foot in the digital. door, just get started and see if this is something that you actually enjoy doing. And if you find that the answer is yes, all that other stuff, you can do that later on. Yeah. Did you ever have a moment along that path where you went? I'm putting all this time, all this effort into this. What's the point? I'm just going to stop. Yeah, of course, you have times like that where there's

so much stuff to watch. You know, like when I started the show, and it's always been, look, WWE is obviously the predominant product. They have so much content out there. And that's what people want to hear about. And it's a mix. It's people who watch WWE. And I'm finding more and more, it's people who have given up. And so they don't watch it, but they're not ready to kind of cut loose just yet.

They want to keep up on what's going on. So what do they do? They listen to podcasts and they watch YouTube stream. So there are times where I'm kind of, I'm juggling essentially two full-time jobs. And it's like, I want to cover all of this stuff, but there's only so many hours in the day. I'll get questions. Can you cover this promotion and that promotion? And I will sometimes.

It's not just WWE and AEW, but it's hard, right? Because you can't necessarily do everything you want to do and it can be frustrating. I mean, you have moments like that. But honestly, it's such, I find it so fulfilling and rewarding. even like this little community that we've kind of built for ourselves and interacting with everybody, I can't imagine life without that. I can't imagine just waking up one day

and not having all these people to interact with, whether it's on social media and our Facebook group. Before the pandemic, we would have the occasional meetup events. People would come out. I love it. Yeah. But for those that don't know, Jason, like you have a full-time job.

So what is your day job? So I work in public relations. I have been working in PR. This is going to be 16 years. So just to kind of take it back, originally I was going to be in broadcast journalism. That's what I wanted to do. And that goes back to when I was even watching wrestling as a kid.

I was more like, hey, I'm going to be Vince McMahon or mean Gene one day. Like, I'm not going to be Hulk Hogan because I don't look like that, but I can do what this guy does. And so I had the LJNs of the announcers. So I wanted to kind of get into that field, and I was about midway through. I was working at my college radio station, engineering, and I wanted to be the first person to bring a wrestling radio show to the station.

That was sort of my goal. I had done that years earlier at the local newspaper here in Brooklyn. I brought the first wrestling column to the paper. They let me, they finally got sick and tired of me. annoying then to go, okay, we'll let you have your own wrestling column if you just shut up. I said, okay, great. So I wanted to do that at the station. I never had the chance to.

And they wanted to give me my own show like a rock and roll show. I said, oh, millie vanilla. I don't care about this stuff. I want to do a wrestling show. I didn't even know where that reference came from. Apparently you were in a time machine going back to the early 90s. Time warp. I feel like I live in a time warp.

But it just got to a point where I said, I don't know. if I want to do this. I can remember actually sitting in a class and one of my professors, she was an adjunct. She was a New York Times reporter. She goes, okay, your project for this month is going to work for this semester is going to be identify a local politician. Make them your target. I want you to find out everything you can find out about them. I want you to find out where they live. I want you to go through their garbage. I want you to like all this crazy stuff. And I go, I don't want to do this. Yeah. So there was somebody else. There was a girl in a class with me.

She goes, hey, PR is starting as a major. It's very similar. Like, you won't lose any credits, and it sounded kind of interesting. So I made the switch. And I just found it to be more interesting to me because it really depends on what kind of clients you work with. But yeah, that's what I've been doing. I got into that.

And I've been doing that ever since. Well, the interesting thing about both PR and journalism is they're both storytelling. They are. You're telling stories when you work. and PR. Absolutely. And it's interesting because I would have been on the other side of the fence. So from where I am now, I'm the one who has to pitch them. So part of my job is you might get on the phone with a reporter or email them and you've got to convince them that the story you're pitching is worth their time. And there's a very adversarial relationship or there can be between press people and PR people, which I understand and it kind of makes the job a little bit more tough. But yeah, I mean, there is. I would. would have been on the other side of the fence. So I feel like that helps me a little bit. So when I'm approaching somebody, I don't want to come off like a telemarketer. So you got to try to relate to them on some level. So it's, I just, I just found it to be more,

more interesting. What type of stuff are you pitching? All kinds. I don't really work with any one particular kind of client. Okay. I've done sports clients, a nonprofit, which is very fulfilling could be a financial client. I did work many years ago with a chocolate company, which was fantastic because they would send samples of stuff to the office. I think I must have gained 20 pounds. It was great. So it's a mix of sort of consumer and nonprofit. And I like that because it's not just one type of client or you might do PR in-house for like if you work for let's just say Amazon. Amazon has their own PR team. That's great. But I kind of get experience in a lot of different fields and learn about a lot of different

industries. So it's a mix of everything. I want to take it back to something you said about how you got this column for the newspaper. It was persistence. And I think that this is something that so many people need to hear because a lot of people will send out one email and go, well, they never got back to me. They just, they don't like me. They don't believe in me.

But they didn't read your email. That is definitely a possibility. So walk me through that story and how that began to them finally going, all right jason here you go fine what you mean in terms of a PR or no no that that job that you got for uh writing the column for the newspaper well it was a case of just trying to convince them that it was it was worth their while they didn't i don't think at that time they felt there was an audience for it i felt completely the opposite way this was 1998 so we were right in the middle of this Monday Night War period, you had these two shows combining for nine, 10 million people every week on TV.

Wrestling was the in thing. You know, you had all the wrestlers on TV and the cover of TV guide back when that meant something. So I would constantly just bring it up because I was covering local stuff, but I just, I thought it was boring. I just, it wasn't doing anything for me. So finally, they relented and said, okay, well, let you do it the first time. Let's see how it goes. one of my most prized possessions is I did a column defending Vince McMahon. And I'm trying to remember what I was defending him on. I think there was some kind of controversy that came up about something tawdry maybe that happened on the show. But I did this whole column defending him. And the editor of the paper comes to me about a week later and hands me an envelope and says, here, this is for you. And so what I can only imagine was an older couple who lived in the area. wrote me a piece of hate mail. And I opened this thing up, and it's this person who's just going on about, what a disgusting thing you've done,

defending this man, and just on and on and on. And I had such a smile on my face. I mean, for a while there, I kind of had it on my wall. I was so proud of it. I said, I've arrived. I got my first piece of hate mail.

This is great. But it showed that people were reading my stuff, and they were getting other letters about it. And I think they realized, okay, this, we can go with this. And I think I did this for at least a year, year and a half, probably. And how old were you at this time? Oh my God. At that point, I was probably 16, maybe. That's crazy. Yeah, it was probably about 16 years. Well, look, I mean, it goes back even farther than that because when I was in middle school, I created my own wrestling magazine. And all I called,

it was called New Generation magazine, very original. And all I was, I had was my IBM Aptiva and a copy of print shop deluxe. And I would sit, I would come home from school and I would work on it. And it was, you know, 25, 30 pages. I would have to kind of map out what content was going to be in there. I create crossword puzzles and stuff. And credit to my mother, she was great because she would take me, we would go to Staples to have them printed. And so for the money, it was costing us or her, really. For the money I was charging my friends, I was charging like 50 cents for it. It was a huge money loser, but I think she recognized like it was a creative outlet for me. And I still have copies of it laying around. I'm still very proud of that.

But yeah, it's just one of those things where I always need some kind of outlet to where I can just do something. I don't want to just be a fan and I have all these thoughts, but I just need something to just kind of tap into, which is what the podcast is now. And yeah, it goes back. At that time, I was probably, I don't know, 13, 14 years old. I can relate to so much that you're saying right now because I'm the exact same way. I don't want to just be a consumer. I want to be a creator as well. I'm very passionate about bass fishing.

I now have a bass fishing brand. But when I was 12 or 13, I started a fishing website that I'm sure like 12 people went to, but I had a fishing website in the same way that you had your wrestling magazine. Yeah. And it's like, yeah. And it was great. because people would buy it for the 50 cents and they would give me feedback on what they thought. They thought of it, hey, can you do this in the next issue? And I would, you know, take that

feedback and take their suggestions and come up with new features in the magazine. And it was great. When you get that kind of feedback, that constructive feedback, that's the best because you know people are, they're enjoying it. Yeah. From an outsider's perspective, it looks like your journey in podcasting and in the wrestling world has been like a slow, steady climb. But has there been anything that's really helped to jump you up a level? I mean, I think a part of it is probably as I've done the podcast, just getting to know a lot of people, making certain connections with people who I've become friendly with or enjoy my work or maybe I've interviewed them on my show, whatever the case may be.

And when an opportunity comes up, I've just been lucky. You know, one of the more fun things I had the chance to do was a few years ago in Orlando, a WrestleMania weekend, they had wrestlecon, but they have the big convention every year. And Damien Nelson, who up until recently, I think, was doing PWR, Pro Wrestling Report for a very long time. And he probably has a similar story where he was doing an early version of his show back when he was the age I was just talking about, I think on public access or something. But we had become friendly and he was able to get me kind of in the door with Fight TV to where I was there correspondent at RussellCon. So they just gave me a cameraman.

They gave me a mic. And they said, hit the floor and just get as many interviews as you can. So I was like a kid in a candy shop. I'm looking around all these wrestlers that I grew up with. There's demolition and there's the Mountie and there's, you know, mean gene and all these different people. And so that's one example of kind of becoming friendly with somebody who saw an opportunity and said, Hey, would you be interested? I said, of course, absolutely.

And that was one of the more enjoyable experiences that I've had because I had never done anything like that before, you know, especially like on camera stuff. That was honestly one of the reasons why I also pulled out of the whole broadcast journalism thing. because I can remember doing this project for one of my courses where you had to do a mock newscast and then everybody in the class would sit there on this TV and watch it back. And I got great feedback, but when I saw myself on TV, I just wanted to like, I just wanted to hide under a rock. Like I couldn't, I couldn't deal with it. And honestly, that was one of the reasons why I said, I can't do this. And they tried to tell me, no, no, no, just stick with it. I go, no, no, I can't. Like, there was just something about it where I just,

seeing myself, like on TV like that, it just, I don't know, it just, it didn't sit well with me. So to be able to get more comfortable doing stuff like that, it's like you said, a gradual process over a period of time. It's hard to see yourself on camera for the first 500 times. And it's even more difficult to hear your voice because we all think to ourselves, I don't sound like that. When you hear your voice on like a voicemail or now when you hear it on a podcast, you're like, That's me.

So how long was that adjustment for you? It took a while to kind of get used to it. Plus my voice, and I think everybody goes through this, the longer you do a show, has changed. So when I go back and I listen to my early shows, again, I cringe because I sound so timid

and just totally different and just almost unsure of myself. I would say probably by year two or three, it didn't take that long. I had that confidence that I found. And you can hear, the difference in my voice. I'll go back sometimes and listen.

I used to call into these wrestling radio shows. Different stations in the country would have wrestling radio shows. There was one in Colorado. There was one in Ohio. A friend of mine worked at the radio station there. So I would call in and I was like their wrestling correspondent. I'll go back and listen to those because I have audio of them every now and then. And you can hear like the New York accent.

I'm like, oh my God. Like I sound totally, totally different. It just takes a while, I think, to find that confidence and just find that, that voice that really represents you. But even though you didn't follow through with your broadcasting career, you're definitely a broadcaster in some sort of form now. You have such a great voice for it. Oh, thank you. I appreciate that. I always, like, sometimes I'll watch something back.

I'll be like, you know, I'm like my own worst critic when it comes to that kind of stuff. But it really, it took, it took time. It took time to just find that voice that I was comfortable with and that confidence is sort of projected. And then I would get messages from people, oh, he sounds like such an arrogant, you know, and then whatever insult they want to throw at me. Sure. It's not arrogance. It's just, there's a difference between being arrogant and being confident.

And there's nothing wrong with being confident in your point of view. I tell people, don't ever apologize for having an opinion just because somebody is giving you, grief about it. So you walk that fine line between the two. But yeah, no, it took it took a little bit of time. So the last time that I saw you in person, it felt like forever ago when we were able to see people in person, it was that House of Glory show, which you are a commentator for. So how did this come together where you started doing commentary for HOG? Well, it kind of goes back to what I was just saying, being in the right place at the right time and just kind of knowing the right people. I am friendly with, and I know you've interviewed

him, JD, Jerry, JD from NYU, and he does the play-by-play commentary for House of Glory. I think he's been doing commentary for about three years for them, and he's very good at it, by the way. I've got to put him over here. He does a tremendous job. And I think it was him who told me, hey,

would you come down to the House of Glory show? We're going to try a little something out. I think they were trying out, like, a pre-show thing. I don't think it aired anywhere. I've seen the video of it, but it didn't stream or anything like that. And we were just going to do like you would see on WWE kickoff shows where we're just behind the desk. It's me and him and maybe one other person and do some interviews.

I said, sure. So I remember showing up with the building that day and I'm wearing a suit. And it's the middle of August. And I show up at the building and there's no air conditioning in this building. And of all the suits to wear, I'm wearing like a gray suit. So now I'm just like, I'm sweating through this suit. I'm going, please let us not show up. camera, please. And I don't think it did. So we did that. And I just thought at that point,

okay, I'm going to take a seat and just watch the show. And as the show got started, somebody else who works there, Jason, who is unbelievably talented on the production end of things and is just an unbelievable asset to the company, he comes over and says, hey, would you be interested in doing commentary for one of the matches? And I said, sure. He said, okay, it just so happened that that night, Austin Aries was there and he was the Impact World champion. He was going to defend the title in an open challenge. So you got to remember something. At that time, and many, many years ago, I had been very critical of impact. Impact did a lot of stupid things back in the day. I was not shy about talking about it on my show. And it's fair game.

I used to watch the product and I enjoyed it for a time until I didn't. And there is a certain irony in the fact that the first match I ever called is an impact world title match. It was not lost on me. So I just kind of got thrust into it as what I thought would be a one-time thing and it went

well. 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 Klinembourg. And now we're giving people an inside look at the World Cup. Time's ticking. I think you can feel the intensity.

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And it just got to a point where there was an opening on the team. And J.D. and I became the commentary team. And up until COVID hit, we were, I like the chemistry that we were really starting to develop together. And I would always learn new things. I would learn things from him because he's very passionate, obviously, with his commentary and does a fantastic job. And we were really starting to fire on all cylinders.

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So the special offer for anybody listening to Insight right now is 10% off your first month. Just go to BetterHelp.com slash insight. That's BetterHelphelp.com slash insight. Who were some of the commentators that you looked up to when you were growing up? Romanoon and Bobby Heenan are the best. I don't care what anybody says.

That is the best announced duo in wrestling history. Always entertained by their commentary, the way they played off each other. Obviously, me and Jean was the best to ever do what he did in terms of the the stand-up interview. So when I got to interview him at that RussellCon event, I even said to him, I said, you know, I had heard you once before make a comment that the mark of a good announcer or interviewer the way he used to do them, you need to do two things. You need to listen and you need to react, which he was

great with. So if he was interviewing Heel who did something really dastardly, me and Jane would not be shy to show how disgusted he was with this person. He was. He was. He was. would react. He would play off of it. And he even admitted to me. He goes, yeah, it's a lost art. He goes, they have their way of doing things now. But yeah, it's a, it really is. It's a lost art in many ways. So I looked up to him. Vince McMahon, you know, he could be very polarizing as a commentator. I thought he was great. I mean, what better person to kind of promote his own company than the owner of the company himself. So in terms of wrestling, those really would be

the names. I mean, Jim Ross, I became obviously a huge fan of later on. I didn't really grow up hearing him as much. So those would be the ones. What's the Vince McMahon line that you love? He had so many great lines. What a maneuver. I mean, come on, that's got to be the go-to one. What a maneuver. I mean, it doesn't matter what maneuver it is. All you got to say is, what a maneuver. That's it. You don't even have to know. Hey, I've employed it myself. I think there was a House of Glory match I did. Somebody did some kind of move. And I legit did not know what it was called. And I think, I wasn't trying to be funny, but I think I said like, oh, what a maneuver. I think, I don't remember if I looked over and JD was cracking up. But, uh, yeah, look, he,

there were a lot of Vinceisms. There's just certain words he would use that only Vince McMahon would use. Yeah. Do you have aspirations to take the commentary to another level? Like, would you want to be a commentator for an impact or an AEW or a WWE? I think, yeah, I don't know about WWE, but I think it's something that I enjoy doing. It was something that almost fell into my lap in a way, and I'm grateful for it. And I discovered that I had a passion for that as well. And I felt like I was starting to really improve and get better because, yeah, there's a long way to go. It wasn't as if I went to school and did sports broadcasting. That's really, I think, what they look for, you know, people who have experience who have done, whether it's football,

basketball, wrestling somewhere else. As far as growing it to the point where I could be doing it on a bigger scale, yeah, it's something I would definitely be interested in doing. I don't know that it's necessarily in any one place. I think it's something I'm absolutely open to. It was not a goal of mine when I started, for example, doing the show. Like, oh, let's grow this into an announce gig or anything like that. but as I have had the chance to do more of it,

yeah, it's a huge thrill. I mean, it's for me to be sitting at ringside, first of all, there's no better seat in the house than being right there at ringside. And with a company like House of Glory, you have a lot of young guys who are really hungry who are dying for a chance, who want to and will one day be in WWE,

there'll be an impact or there'll be in AEW. And to be part of something like that, even just a small part, and to see that and to see them grow is a tremendously fulfilling experience. So I love being part of something like that. Have you given any thought to this being your full-time job to just zeroing in on wrestling and leaving your quote-unquote day job behind? Yeah, I think about it a lot, actually. And I've been very fortunate in that. I've gotten myself to a point where if I wanted to, like tomorrow,

just say, you know what, I'm going to make this full time and this is going to be the way I support myself, I can do it. So, and I never thought I would even be at this point, to be honest with you, it was always a dream. Like, oh, one day it would be so good because I have all these ideas. And I've always said, my biggest enemy is time, because there's just not enough of it.

So now that I've gotten to that point where it's like, all right, you know what? I could do this. COVID kind of gave me pause just because I think, especially with the way things are right now, everything going on. I just don't think it would be the responsible thing for me right now to be doing that. I think it's smart to just sort of keep doing what I'm doing. But in the next few years, is that something I envision doing? It's, I think about it every day. Every day. Has COVID helped your creative process? it has it has it's helped the creative process and i was very worried i didn't know what was going to be in terms of the show and and viewership and everything because on the one hand

all right people are are locked down so you would think they'll have more time for things like podcasts and stuff right so you kind of look at it that way but also uh with everything just that's going on maybe it goes the other way right well i think we all learn that podcasts are very habitual And when the lockdowns first started, everyone that was commuting to work or listened to podcasts when they were at the gym, weren't doing that anymore because their habits changed. And I don't know about you, but like numbers all across the board went down quite a bit in March and April. Well, it's funny because March and April and even into the summer last year were some of my best months. So again, that just goes to show you how weird it could be.

It could be so different depending on who you are. I thought for sure, I was preparing myself and saying, okay. everything is going to go down. The only question is how much is it going to go down? So I was already like preparing myself for the worst. Yeah. And you make a great point. Like I hear from people who will tell me, oh, I listen to your podcast.

Like I can't start my laundry on Sundays until your podcast drops. I said, well, I better get my podcast out there or whoever you live with is going to hate my guts. You can't do your laundry. You're going to be in soiled clothes all week. Yeah. I'm going to be their least favorite person. But then you have people who say, oh, I'll listen to you at the gym. well, a lot of the gyms were closed.

Or I'll listen to you on the bus to work. Well, now they're working from home. Yeah. So what ended up happening for me was it just, it just sort of grew. And I wasn't doing a lot of video up until May of last year. I would do occasional video stuff, but I hadn't really jumped in feet first. And I just thought, you know what, what am I waiting for? Because I feel like a dinosaur now.

Everybody is doing video every week. Right. And I was doing live streams after Dynamite on Wednesdays, and it was like an image with my audio laid over it. I said, this is ridiculous. It's time. So that was a huge game changer for me, because there's this real hunger thing for that kind of content.

So I would say in my case, the summer was up, up and away. The fall, there was a bit of a drive. and then the end of the year which just kind of took off and now it's kind of going down again but now we're heading into WrestleMania it peaks and valleys it goes up, it goes down.

I've said this many times before but I'm fascinated that wrestling numbers weren't through the roof last March and April because in a normal year you've got excuses to not watch wrestling. You're out for dinner, you're at someone's birthday party,

you're taking the kids to soccer practice, working late, whatever it happens to be. On Monday night at 8 o'clock at the end of March and the beginning of April, I know where every American was. They were sitting on their couch deciding not to watch wrestling. And it was fascinating to me that they weren't putting it on. Yeah.

And I think that there's probably a lot of reasons for that. I think you just have, we sometimes forget, because we're doing a lot of wrestling stuff, but it is still a very niche product. No, I get it. But I'm surprised that you're flicking channels, and I guess that's the thing. People don't flick channels on anymore.

They go Netflix and go, yeah, watch something here. Right, right. Or what I've been doing lately, which is I have discovered the greatness of Pluto TV. And there is a 24-hour Bob Ross channel on Pluto. And I am just in seventh heaven because I, when I was younger, I'd be flipping around just like we were talking about. And I would come across probably PBS or something. Sure. And I would see the guy with the big fro and he was painting.

And I'm like, this is boring. Click. well now it's like my favorite thing in the world it's so calming it's so it's so relaxing if I can't fall asleep just put bob ross on he's like my favorite person in the world it's unbelievable that is like such a a compliment and also an insult to bob ross well i look at it more as a compliment than anything else i want to fall asleep i put bob ross on hey i get the same feedback from people who say don't be offended but sometimes uh i have to put you on and i fall asleep I say I won't be offended.

Does it ever feel like it's a job to watch as much wrestling as you watch? Because I find it difficult to watch an entire three-hour episode of Raw. In fact, I haven't watched an entire episode in a while. Does it feel like a job to you sometimes? Yes. Yes. Especially with Raw. It's funny.

You mentioned that show specifically. I think Smackdown lately has been very hit or miss, more hit than miss. I generally enjoy it. NXT is generally a good show, if not, you know, uneventful sometimes. I think that show in particular, I think with the lack of an audience has really been hurt by the pandemic, especially with the takeovers. I mean, that was the fans, they talk about the third man in sports. I mean, the fans were a huge part of those takeover shows, and you don't really have that now. Raw to me, and I've said this on my show, and look, I've seen every episode of Monday Night Raw.

I've been watching Raw from the very beginning. And in my opinion, Monday Night Raw is the worst wrestling show on television. It's not even close. And it's maddening because you look at the talent they have and it shouldn't be that way. You know, you'll have talent that gets called up from NXT. And it's fun to follow their careers. And the old me would be like if you talk to Solomonster from three years ago and let's say so-and-so is going to get called up. It's like, oh, this is great. He's going to get called up to Raw or SmackDown and

his career is going to flourish. And there are some people who will get called up and who will do very well. And then you have people who get called up and they go the complete opposite way. And I don't even blame them. You know, they get called up and they change and tweak things about them. You know, if it's not broke, don't fix it. Or they just don't get featured. You know, you had Alistair Black running around on TV last year. for months, like a pirate with an iPad, Sean. I'm like, what are they doing? Like, now it's the opposite,

where when I hear someone's possibly going to get called up, I get really worried for them. And I'm like, I hope that doesn't happen. Not because I don't want to see them succeed, but because I don't have any faith that once they get called up, they're going to flourish in the way that they should. So Monday nights,

I generally do not watch the show in one sitting. It takes me two or three days to really, it's like bad medicine, you know, only a little bit at a time to really digest it because it is such a hard show to sit through. But with so much of the content that you create being tied to Monday and Wednesday and Friday, do you ever worry that you can't take a vacation because so much of it is tied to this week? I do. And I feel like all the vacations I've taken in recent years are wrestling-related vacations. Pretty much.

I'm trying to think, is there a non-wrestling vacation I've taken? If I did, I don't remember what it would have been. I guess it was maybe three years ago. I had gone to Columbia, and that was a really fun trip until I almost died at the end of it. So that wasn't so fun.

But generally speaking, it is a wrestling-related thing, like a WrestleMania. or the first double or nothing in Vegas, which was a lot of fun. So I do worry about that because the way I do things, every day, I'm working on the show every day. So I have my main audio show that drops every Sunday. It's always been that way.

But I think there are some people who think, oh, well, on Sunday he'll just plug a mic in and just start talking. There's a lot of prep and a lot of work that goes into, especially with everything I cover, including historical stuff. So it's a seven day a week thing. So yeah, I think that's a great point. My first thought if somebody said, hey, you're going to go on a cruise or something like that is,

well, can I bring my equipment and can I bring my laptop? And it's like, no, turn that stuff off and leave it alone. But I feel like there is no turning it off. There's just so much of it. I don't want to fall behind. Yeah. Well, for so many people, wrestling is the escape from their real life. For you, it's just like this extension of your real life.

So what is the escape for you then? Oh, boy. What is the, there is no escape, Chris. There is no escape. There is no escape. I guess the escape for me would be, I'm not like a huge sports fan where I watch a whole bunch of different sports. I'm a baseball fan, so I'm a Mets fan.

So I know what misery is all about. I'm sorry to hear that. I know. Thank you. I appreciate that. I'm hoping that we're turning a corner now under new ownership, but every week seems to bring some other. level of embarrassment to the history of the Mets franchise.

So I guess to some extent, I would say that's an escape. And I guess my job, which is funny to say that my other job is an escape. But I guess it would be because at least it's something other than wrestling. And over the years, even those two have mixed a little bit, many years ago, actually. One of my clients we were working with at that time, there was a wrestling event coming to the stadium where they played. This was a minor league baseball team. Oh, was this the legends of wrestling?

No, no, no. This was something. Because they were at City Field, I believe. They were, and I was there. I was actually at that show, but as a spectator, not working. But we were working to assist them in setting things up for this wrestling event that was coming to this minor league ballpark, and it was an impact wrestling event. So I got very familiar with their PR people.

and I didn't tell them who I was, but, you know, it was kind of very clandestine. Let's not say anything about that because I don't know what the reaction there would be, but that was interesting, just helping to get that stuff set up. So the two worlds sort of mixed there a little bit. We skipped right over the fact that you almost died, so you need to tell us this story. Yeah, it was, it was me being a klutz. So it was the last night of this trip. It was me and a bunch of friends.

We were staying in a house. and there was a pool table that was in one of the rooms. And really, I should have just gone to bed because it was after midnight. We were flying home the next day. And my friend saw that the pool table was open and said, hey, do you want to play? And I said, sure. So the way it was is my room was technically outside the house. I took one of the outside rooms with like a sliding door that just sort of shut.

I went outside to come back into the house because the, the window that was there for that room slid open. And for the majority of the day, the window was open. I just assumed that the window was open. There was nothing reflective on it. And I went to go take a step to come in. And then I very quickly realized it was closed. And so my leg went right through it and shattered the glass everywhere.

So I immediately fall down. I grabbed my leg. And I'm not panicking yet until I look down and I see this. pool of blood. And I realized, all right, this is not good. And I've got my hand on my, on my leg. I'm not letting go. Somebody came over and tied a shoelace around my leg to try to stop the bleeding. And it's like, well, we got to get you to a hospital. So we're in the middle of Columbia. I don't, where is there a hospital? So they physically pick me up and put me in the back of the SUV. And I'm apologizing the whole way there because I'm getting blood all over this guy's car.

So we get to this little tiny hospital and I'm sitting in a wheelchair in the hallway, getting ready to be seen. And this little old lady is sitting right across and she's looking at me, but she's looking like under the chair. And I look under the chair and there's because I'm like leaking blood, there's like a huge puddle of blood under the chair. So they had to go get towels to like sop it up and everything. And I guess at this hospital they had dealt with like machete wounds and stuff before. So they were kind of used to. They were in good hands. Yeah, apparently I was in good hands.

So they stitched me up as best they could. And I didn't know if they were going to let me fly home. So I was more worried about that than anything else. So did you cut your femoral artery? No, I was worried about that. And honestly, if it was a few inches higher, I would have. So I was fortunate in that it didn't, there was nothing torn. There was no, like, major, major damage like that.

but there was so much blood loss that if I didn't get there quick enough, it would have been, it would have been bad. And I said, look, I don't care what they say. Like, I'm going home. And they tell you, you got to be careful of blood clots and stuff. I said, I'm going home. So that was not a fun way to end that trip. And the first thing I did when I got home, I went to my doctor.

And he took one look at my knee. He goes, what the hell did you? you do. I said, well, I said, that's not important. I just want you to take a look at it and just please tell me that they did a good job at least. And I remember him looking like unwrapping it and looking at it. And he had this, he had this weird look on his face like, yeah, all right, I've seen worse. So as it turned out, they stitched me up with glass inside my knee. So I had to, yeah, they didn't get all the glass out, unfortunately. So I had to have surgery a few months later to take it out. Wow. Do you have any like long lasting effects still because of that?

I do. I mean, it's nothing that like prevents me from walking properly or anything. It's still very numb in that area. So there's there's numbness where I don't have feeling in some parts of the knee. And if I like kneel down, let's say to tie my shoe, I can't really kneel down for more than a few seconds because it hurts. Wow. But thankfully beyond, I mean, I have physical therapy and all that because they want you to break up the scar tissue, which I think I just, I think I just did a really bad job of doing that. So that would really be the only residual, that and the embarrassment and shame of walking into the, like, if you saw a picture of this thing, the one thing I regret, I could have told people I got bitten by a shark and they would have believed me. Wow. Yeah,

it was, it was pretty gnarly. How many beers had you had at this point? I only had like two. I mean, people say you must have been really like, no, I would have used that as an excuse. But, like, no, I really had no excuse. Actually, if you had been more drunk, this would have been worse. Your blood would have been thinner. That's true. That's a good point. Wow.

That was my biggest fear. Like, there was so much of it. It was just, like, I saw Eddie Guerrero get hit in the head by JBL once in a match on pay-per-view, and I thought that was gross because he just was bleeding everywhere. Like, picture that, but like from my knee, it was like, oh, this is awful. I think people will be upset if we don't talk about the 92 Royal Rumble at some point during this interview. Oh, my goodness.

I saw all those tweets. That's all they wanted you to ask me about. Yeah, they were just expecting an hour of us talking about the 92 rumble. Why is it the greatest rumble of all time? Well, for a whole variety of reasons. And that's why I tell people it can never be topped. And they're like, oh, maybe one day. I said, no, it was just the perfect, just everything about it, it can never be replicated.

So one of the things I loved about it was the fact that for the first time you had the title that was actually on the line in the match. And I just thought that was the most unique thing in the world. Yeah. The star power in that map. Think about who you had in that match, right? Rick Flair, Hogan, Savage, Sid, Undertaker, DBI. I mean, Piper, I can go on and on.

But the commentary. Bobby Hean, in my opinion, his best performance on commentary as great as he was, was that night. He was having a coronary. Every time something would happen with Flair and Monsoon is like laughing and making fun of them and telling him to calm down and stuff. It was just this whole performance. It was what was going on in the ring,

but also, because remember, I grew up, you know, looking at the announcers, so I paid attention to that. The commentary was just masterful, and it just added so much to the story that I just don't think it could ever be replicated. Anyone who listens to your show knows how important your parents are to you. And you are very much the man that you are now

because of who your mom and your dad were. And I'm curious to know what's the biggest lesson that you learn from both your dad and from your mom? I don't know if it was any one particular lesson. I think their main goal was just to raise someone who was respectful of other people. And I guess maybe the biggest thing, especially from my mom's end, is if there's something that you want to do, then you have to do it. Like, that's it. It's just that simple. even going back to what we were talking about before with the magazine when I was in middle school.

She was helping me print that and paying for it and losing money on that. But she did it not because she liked losing money, which we didn't have a lot of to begin with, but because she knew, like, this is something I was passionate about. So she was always, like, very supportive of me in that way. I've said she was my best friend and my biggest fan, no matter what I did. The podcast, she, are you kidding me? she got the biggest thrill being able to tell people, hey, listen to my son and I'll send you the link and stuff. She was in the gym once.

And I'll never forget it. She texts me when she comes out of the gym. She goes, I met or like one of the listeners of your show came up to me at the gym. And now I'm thinking, oh, God. Because in my head, I'm like, is it someone who just hates me who came up to her or something? Because she was wearing a shirt from the show. And I'm like, oh, God. like what happened?

And she said, no, no, no. Like he was a big fan and he saw me wearing the shirt and came up to me and said, hey, are you, are you Jason's mom? And she's like, yeah, because I had had her on the show once before. And he was more interested in meeting her, I think, than he would have been meeting me. So I would joke and say, you know, you're more popular than I am. She goes, I know, I know. So she was over, over the moon about it.

And I tell people, they say, what's your favorite, like, episode that you've ever done? And I never hesitate. It's the one episode I did, I did a Mother's Day episode. Right. And I brought her on for maybe, I don't know, 25 minutes maybe. And it was like an interview, but then we did trivia. She was pretty good. She was really good.

I was impressed. I said, I think it was just osmosis because she had, I was obsessed with wrestling back then. I watched everything. And if a pay-per-view was going on and I wasn't home and I missed the first like two minutes, I would freak out and stuff. So I think just by osmosis, like she remembers, or she remembered so much stuff from that.

She knew who Sean Michaels and Diesel and all these people were. And I think the one thing she got wrong, I had asked a question about who ran over Stone Cold many years ago. What did she think it was? King Kong Bundy. Oh, that's, uh, so we learned something new that day. It was not Rikishi.

It was King Kong Bundy, who apparently ran over Stone Cold. I'll never forget I did it further off. Yeah. Yeah. But, I mean, aside from that, she did a tremendous job. So I think that maybe was the biggest thing. Like, if you have a dream or if you have a goal, then just don't let anybody tell you you can't do it.

Do it. Yeah. Go for it. Yeah. I think that's a big lesson to learn, especially in this era that we're living in right now. Anything is possible because we have this supercomputer that lives in our pocket. Yeah. It's true.

I mean, it really is like having a little mini computer or on your wrist, right? If you have an Apple watch or something, there's smart phones, there's smart watches. I think there's more smart devices sometimes than there are smart people the way I see them talking on social media. But yeah, you can look, anybody who wants to start a show, we were talking about that before. USB might. You don't even need that if you have a phone.

Yeah. That's all you need. It's fascinating to think that Vince McMahon has built this. entire world that we, you know, are all fans of. But there's so many offshoots of it that if Vince hadn't created the world and hadn't made the WWF this massive, more national and now global thing, that you and I certainly would not be sitting here talking like this. And this, he's just created so many hundreds, thousands, hundreds of thousands of jobs for so many other people that aren't directly related with WWE. It's fascinating. Well, just think about where the company was at the

very beginning and what the company looks like today. I mean, they just had an earnings call the other day. And I guess they made more money in a single year than they ever have, I think in terms of profit maybe, in the history of the company. And it's just so, it's so different now. It used to be a company where it mattered how many tickets you sold, what the gate was. Like that stuff was like the most important thing. Now it's the total opposite of that, where it's just, yeah, that's always going to be important to a degree. But they're not really, if you think about it, they're not really a touring company anymore.

And forget COVID. When COVID is hopefully long over and done with, they'll go back to getting on the road because that's just what they'll always do that, right? They're going to run different venues and stuff. But they're not really a touring company. They're a TV company. The majority of the money they make,

a billion dollars from Fox and a billion dollars now from Peacock, that's all TV money. that that really is where they're making their bread and butter. So it's just a totally different world from the way it was 30 or 35 years ago. I really wonder if house shows are going to come back. I think they will, but I don't think they're going to look. I don't think that the whole house show thing is going to look anything like it used to. I mean, look, you read up on some of the stories of the schedules these guys had in the late 80s and the early 90s.

It was inhumane. And they would be running a three or four shows and, one day, they'd have an A, B, C, and D crew, and they'd be running all over the country. So it's, I don't think it's that insane now, although I do sympathize with the talent when I hear them kind of talking about some of these international tours and going from a five-hour flight to a four-hour bus ride to, I'm like, why don't you go on a boat next? I'd hit every motive of transportation. So I don't envy them for that, but yeah, it's how things have changed.

it's pretty remarkable. Yeah. This conversation's been pretty remarkable. And I want to thank you, Jason. I want to thank you for coming on. I want to acknowledge you for everything that you've built. You are truly one of the OG wrestling podcasters. You're still going.

You're a massive audience. And you deserve it. You've put in a ton of hard work. And it shows with every single episode. I appreciate that. It's very nice of you to say. My goal, I think my interim goal is to get to Chris Van Vleet numbers on YouTube. That's my dream. I want to just get to Chris Van. I would set your goals a little higher than

that. I call you Big Van Vleet. That's my name for you. And I want to just, I want to get to that level. But no, it's, it's, look, I appreciate that. And it's been, I still have fun doing it. It's a blast for me. The people I've met, the friendships I've made, wouldn't be possible. None of that would have happened were not for the podcast. So it's had a huge impact on my life. And my, my, my only goal going forward is to just grow it and make it even bigger than it is now. My goal is to get my podcast numbers to yours. In fact, I was thinking about changing the name of my show to the Vlita Monster. Oh, the Vleet of my, I like Big Van Vleet.

I think you can do, I think you just think I'd need to be larger, you know? Not necessarily. I think, I think that could work. I think that could work for you. I think you'll be all right. You know, I end every interview talking about gratitude because it's such an important thing in my life. I'm curious, Jason, what are three things? that you're grateful for in your life right now?

Well, I'm grateful for my friends. I'm grateful for the show and the success that I've been able to achieve with it, which has impacted every, it really has impacted every aspect of my life, even down to being able to pay off my student loans a lot faster than I otherwise would have been able to. And I'm just grateful for, you know, I'm grateful for my health because as somebody who has had issues of my own, I mean, it's, it's a scary thing. And, you know, what my mother went through and everything. I know, unfortunately, up close, what that can be like and how all of this stuff that we've talked about today, like, if you don't have your health, none of it matters. Yeah. And it could all kind of go away in an instant.

So as long as I can keep myself healthy and I have that going for me, then sky's the limit. Thank you so much. Thank you. Well, there we go. Thank you to Jason for a great conversation. And thank you to you for being with us on this one and listening all the way until the end. You can also listen to Solomonster Sounds Off wherever you're listening to this podcast right now. And you can find a lot of interviews in my back catalog.

By the way, there's 175 other episodes. So if it's your first time here, don't be shy about going back through the archives and listening to some fantastic conversations that we've had. Man, what a great guy, Solom Monster is. And this is a guy who knows his wrestling. I mean, I'm a wrestling fan. I know some stuff about wrestling,

but Jason's knowledge is deep, which is why his show has been as successful as it has been. There's a lot of nuggets of information in there. So if you have a podcast or you're thinking of starting a podcast, I hope you were able to take some great insights from this conversation. See what I did there? Some insights from this conversation. I'll leave you with this quote from Josh Billings,

who says, be like a postage stamp. Stick to one thing until you get there. I love it. Be great. Be great for my friends. We'll see on the next one for some more insight. Podcast, an 80s flashback mockumentary. Back in the 80s, there were a thousand bands trying to make it in the world of rock,

but there was one band that had it all. Hammer Alley. Whatever happened to Hammer Alley? How did they go from top of the rock? I'm looking for a music video. They're a band from 1987, Hammer Alley. Ever heard of them? To Rock Bottom.

Dude, I was born in 1987. I can't believe he's doing this. Hammer Alley. Follow and listen on your favorite platform.