Insight with Chris Van Vliet - Stevie Richards On His MAJOR Health Scare Earlier This Year, Learning To Walk Again

Episode Date: July 14, 2023

Stevie Richards (@bWoStevie) is a professional wrestler and fitness influencer known for his time in WWE, ECW, WCW, TNA and Ring of Honor. He joins Chris Van Vliet to talk about his recent health scare with a spinal infection he had earlier this year, his road to recovery, his YouTube channel Stevie Richards Fitness, the breakdowns he has been doing as a wrestling analyst, why he feels bad for that infamous chairshot to JBL in WWE, his thoughts on the Right To Censor theme song, being part of that faction with Ivory, Val Venis, The Godfather and Bull Buchanan, the advice he got from Raven about the Blue World Order, being the 21-time WWE Hardcore Champion and much more!  Subscribe to Stevie Richards Wrestling Analyst YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@stevierichardswrestling  Subscribe to Stevie Richards Fitness: https://www.youtube.com/@StevieRichardsFitness  Use the code CVV to get your first month of BlueChew for FREE at http://bluechew.com  Get $150 off your Plunge with the coupon code CVV at http://thecoldplunge.com Quote I'm thinking about: "The secret to getting ahead is getting started" - Mark Twain For more information about Chris and INSIGHT go to: https://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

All systems are going. Ladies and gentlemen, Chris Van Blin. It is lovely to see you, my friends. Welcome back to another one here on Insight. I'm StevieV, Chris Van Fleet. So good to have my friend Stevie Richards back on the show. And Stevie will be the first one to tell you. He's glad that he's able to be on any show.

He's so glad that he's able to be with us now. And if you've been following along on his social media or on his YouTube, YouTube channel, which is linked below in the show notes. So go subscribe if you're not already subscribed. He had a really scary situation earlier this year. He had a serious health scare with a spinal infection. And he gets into all the details here. But if this went undiagnosed, Stevie says that he wouldn't be with us anymore. So I'm glad that here we are. It's less than six months from this happening, he had to learn how to walk again. He had to basically figure everything out again. And now he's back on his feet, quite literally, and he's doing great. So I hope you

enjoy this conversation with him. If you're not already following him, he's at BWO Stevie on Twitter. He's at Stevie Richards on Instagram. Like I mentioned, you can find his, he has two YouTube accounts. He has two channels. One is Stevie Richards Fitness. One is Stevie Richards Wrestling. Go follow both of them. And I'm at Chris Van Vleet. I also have two YouTube channels at Chris Van Vleet, the main channel, which I would assume you're subscribed to. And also the clips channel, CVV clips, where you can see the most interesting and memorable moments from interviews just like this one. So snap a screenshot, tag us on social media and let us know what you think of this episode. Of course, we talk about the health situation. We also talk about the fact that if you think about it, Stevie was in ECW, WCW, WCWE, TNA, and Ring of Honor all kind of like in their peak. So that was so fascinating. We talk about right to censor, that theme song, and yes, we talk about that chair shot to JBL and everything that happened around that. So let's get into this, ladies and gentlemen, it's my friend, Stevie Richard. Stevie, always so good to see you. Thank you so much for jumping on here.

Well, I think after the kind of view I had so far, Chris, it's really happy to be seen. It's seen standing up, upright, alive, loving life. You're going to hear three words throughout this entire interview, thankful, grateful, and blessed. And I'm all three of those things. By the way, congratulations on becoming a father. How's that feel? Thank you. Grateful is another word that I use all the time.

certainly one that's applicable here as I hear my five-week-old baby daughter, Logan, crying over here. I'm so grateful, but grateful for you. Like, this was a scary time for people that know you personally, for wrestling fans who've enjoyed your work. Like, dude, it's, this was a scary year for you. Yeah, it was pretty scary, but also it was looking back on it, and obviously 2020 as hindsight and, you know, having perspective after the facts real easy. During it is the hard part. But, yeah, it was something that was being a wrestler for so many years,

and any athlete will understand, even entertainers and people in Hollywood who you talk to when they do stunts or they get injured doing physical things, there's a blueprint and there's obviously a predictable diagnosis right away of, you broke your ankle, you broke your neck, you tore your ACL, it's pretty easy to see within a short amount of time. This spine infection was a dormant thing that became a mystery and hit me out of nowhere. And it was something that an illness like that that's so unpredictable and then you factor in my age of 51, you factor in other things that are unpredictable when it comes to an infection in that

move so quickly when it gets to your spine. That's what makes it more scary. the unknown of not only the diagnosis, but the unknown of, can I get treated? And then even after treatment, what percentage am I going to be after the treatment's complete? I'm thankful to say that in a lot of ways, I feel like I'm back to 100%, but in a whole bunch of other ways, we're very early in the stages in my road to recovery. So for people who might not know what we're talking about here, you know, kind of walk us through, When did this start?

And what exactly was this? Walk us through. Is that a pun? I didn't even need to do that. Yeah, because I couldn't at one point. I did do a what happened video because there was kind of like these pictures. And I wanted to update people and just didn't want to disappear off social media or YouTube. And even though my ego and my pride didn't want to share myself and my low point,

I'm so happy I did now because it did speak to a lot of people. I've made a lot of friends since then. But going back to the beginning, morning like late January on a Sunday morning, I had one of the best workouts, which must be a sign of the jinx that's coming. I had one of the best workouts I had on a Sunday morning around 9 a.m.

But my back was a little stiff, but I thought, you know, obviously you've spoken to a lot of wrestlers, our backs and our necks are eventually going to hit a wall at some point. And about three hours after my workout, I was completely stuck right in this chair that we're talking to each other and right now. I could not get up. My back was completely at the time thought locked out.

And my wife literally had to come home and peel me out of this chair and put me in the bed, threw me on a heating pad. Then it just progressively got worse within seconds, not minutes. I mean, literally, after it was over, it just accelerated whatever pain I had from the beginning. and then I turned into from having a heating pad with assistance from her to walking with a walker. So from 9 a.m. to about 12, 15 p.m., my entire world, my entire life just completely changed. That's the very beginning. And then the just the desperation of trying to find a doctor, trying to find a surgeon,

trying to find a hospital that can correctly diagnose me. And, you know, we went to a first hospital where they couldn't find the diagnosis that we ended up in the Mayo Clinic. And they saw from the week I had a CT scan in the previous hospital to the week that I was admitted in the Mayo Clinic, it had already eaten like half my L4 and L5. And the entire disc was gone and it was already working into L2L3. So Mayo Clinic was really scared at this pace within a week this happened. And number one, even if we don't know what's wrong with this guy after a painful spine biopsy, we're going to start them on a broad spectrum of antibiotics right away because we got to stop this infection. Because if it gets to his brain, it doesn't take a super intelligent person to figure out if an infection gets to your brain, it's over.

So it was really like we need to hurry up and figure this out. So that was the beginning stages of what I needed to get done. So how did this go from my back hurts? Maybe it's from 30 years of wrestling. Maybe it's from the workout I had today or yesterday to like, oh, this is bacterial. This is an infection. This is something way bigger, way scarier. Well, about maybe eight, nine months before that, I was over one of my best friends' houses and his dogs got kind of freaked out by something. At the exact moment, they got freaked out both of them. You know, I was leaning over pets. And this was like maybe the third or fourth time I pet the dog in the same exact matter in this visit. But something freaked them out and spooked them to where the one dog bit me right in the face and kind of like right through my lip here all the way through. And then the other dog bit me because I got scared by the other dog that bit me. So it was like a recipe for a disaster.

But, you know, it was a dog bite. I was like, okay, well, it's a dog bite. No big deal. not a stray dog, not a feral, not any of that stuff. So we went to an emergency room. They stitched me up up here. They left the leg open. And then I got COVID four days later, which knocked my immune system down. By the way, this is still absolute pure speculation, but maybe an educated guess on the doctors, infectious disease, and then us trying to piece it together. We think that might have lowered my immunity. Then even with that, the doctor claimed, this is where I was like,

you know, I'm in a great deal of pain. But at the same time, I'm like happy to the doctor put me over because he was like, hey, thank God you work out so hard and you do this and that because other people, it would have been a lot worse or would have happened a lot faster. And you're like, oh, I'm glad you noticed. Thank you. Yeah, thanks. As I do this, I got out of the eye and everything in my arm. I was like, I forget I was sick for a half a second. But Hey, I still had an ego, but the fact that I worked out so hard and tried to take care of myself as best I could over these years definitely did, according to the doctors, saved my life. So over-training's awesome.

So what did the road to recovery look like? You get the diagnosis. You know, you're treating this with antibiotics. What's after that? Because as we sit here right now, like you said, like you look pretty great. You sound pretty great. You can move around. Well, I'm still down about 30 pounds.

So during the course of the infection and even before, I'm talking about in two to three weeks, I went from 215 down to 180. Just not from, you know, I couldn't work out anyway, but just from pain 24-7, like nights, like sweats of like where we had to change the sheets out almost every day. It was horrible, like how much pain I was in 24-7. but once I got on the broad spectrum antibiotics in the Mayo Clinic, maybe it was my mindset or something or in my head, but almost within a day or two, I started to feel like I could move that I could do stuff. I still needed a walker.

I still needed help getting out of bed. It was still so painful to have anything touch my lower spine. So sitting, showering. I couldn't even lift my leg up to get into the shape. hour. It was just no mobility, no anything. So the road to recovery was mainly the IV antibiotic therapy. Then I got a pick line, which is basically a line that goes in through my bicep and near my heart to make the antibiotics work quicker after that. They were considering putting a port in my chest, which, by the way, you've interviewed a lot of insane wrestlers. You can understand this.

I was mad that they didn't put a port because I could work out right. away if they put the port. The pick line, I had to wait until it came completely out till I could sweat or do anything. So that was about eight weeks. And then after that, it was literally just trying to get out of the walker, just trying to get off the cane, walk on my own power. And then it was literally like, okay, now you're kind of okay. But now the scary part of how much working out can you do? What do you start with? Can you do cardio? Can you, so it was a very basic recumbent bike or stationary cardio with my back protected. And then literally for the first 30 to 45 days.

And this is why I say it was a good thing because I got to reset my fitness journey, all isometrics. And all I got for those 45 or, you know, 30 to 45 days was, man, you look really good. You look really, got more compliments after the spine infection. I was doing isometrics than before. But now we're at, if I want to skip ahead, now we're still on isometrics. Now we're doing more cable work, body weight work, still doing karma, cardio, adding infrared sauna to try to get rid of all the toxins, not only from the infection, but the antibiotics

really killed all my good antibiotics in my body. So I need to kind of replenish those. So, dude, I'm telling you, it's a miracle. I mean, people can believe what they want to believe. This obviously has brought me much closer to God once again. Like I said, you know, things that happen, you get too complacent, too comfortable with your own life. And then this forced me to kind of have perspective once again. It forced me to renew my faith, get centered in my faith once again.

But also in a way, too, looking at the responsibility, because that's where I had to take my ego and pride out of Chris, but I started sharing the low point of all this. And you probably saw it on Instagram here and there. I got so many people that were either in the same situation or something much worse. But they said that I inspired them. And it's like, wow. And I'm looking at these people that are like a 10-year-old kid or an 80-year-old woman or these people and they're pushing through.

And I'm like, man, you have no idea how much you're, inspiring me to keep going with this. This, like you've always been someone who's centered on fitness and health and wellness, but all of this reminds me of the quote, a healthy man has a thousand problems and a sick man has one. And it just reminds me that you had all of these other things going on. But when your health was in jeopardy, you're like, all I need to do now is just get healthy again.

Is it? You know, and you're absolutely right. And that's something that also I'm thankful for. because I eliminate a lot of noise out of my life too and a lot of things that you think are important, but they're not because you can't do any of those things if you don't have your health. And I'm sure people roll their eyes whenever somebody says at least you have your health. Yeah. Tell you what, if you don't have your health, you don't have anything.

So, and I want to give more credit, actually, you know, because people think, oh, you just worked hard and, you know, you were able to do it because you're a machine or whatever. my wife was the main motivator, the main support system. I don't mean just like, hey, come on, you can do it. I was scared because like I said before, there's no blueprint. There's no roadmap. This is nothing like I've ever experienced, Chris. Yeah.

So when my wife, I found myself saying the two words, I hate more than anything, I can't. My wife will be like, sit up. I can't. Yes, you can. Stop saying. And she would like verbally like give me the kick in the ass that I needed to say, you got to get up now. Because if you don't, it's going to be harder later. So she gave me the tough love when I needed it.

And she also gave me the obvious positive reinforcement to keep going when I needed that. But I hope you give yourself some credit during all this because there's a lot of people. I can't do that. That allow me to give it to you. Okay, Stevie. Because there's a lot of people that could take a life altering thing like this. this and go, well, life was good up until that point. But instead, you took that and went, all right, this sucked. This is a low point. But it's just going to be a low point. And I'm

going to get out of this some way, somehow. Maybe I'm predisposed to the fact that those sad cat videos, like the SBCA videos, or when somebody is really like mourning the loss of a loved one. And that, that spoke to me too, because I'm still here. Like I can, there's people, you're right. There's plenty of people that, unfortunately, are just waiting around to die. They're not really living their life to the fullest. I don't mean redlining or going and jumping off a cliff or climbing a mountain. I just mean live the life that you want to live, make the choices and try to do the things

that you want to do, you know, and fail at them. I failed plenty of my life and I look forward now that I'm still here, thank God. I look forward to failing a lot more and getting feedback from trawls everywhere. I look forward to that day because it's all part of life. And it wasn't like that every day. I'm not trying to sugarcoat it. But like I said, my wife was there. And then she trained me to retrain my own mindset that when I started to hear that,

it was like, nah, F you, I can do this. And it would make me more productive. So thank you for giving me credit. and I turned around and took the credit off myself once again. Well, I'll give it right back to you there. And I love all the content you've been putting out on your fitness YouTube channel. You're very close, very close to 100,000 subscribers. So anybody watching this right now that isn't subscribed, I will link that down below in the description.

Please subscribe to Stevie and check out all the great content that he's making on there, including the journey that you've talked about, but also the recovery and just also just some great, like home gym, garage gym workout stuff. Well, thank you. That's always been, I've been really wired in a positive way that the three things I'm most passionate about never get old. They always change. They always evolve.

Fitness, technology, which we were geeking out before we started recording, giving each other credit, well, you have a better setup. No, you have a better setup. And the third thing's pro wrestling. And, you know, people kind of crap on it or it's not like it used to be. It's different. But in essence, when I was looking at matches from the 70s and 80s, I see stuff in 2023 that actually do mirror that.

So it evolves and it kind of re-evolves back into what's old is new again. And what's new is the old school. It's kind of a cool place to be. You figured out something really unique with your breakdowns. And the video that you broke down of the Tiger Driver, 91, the Ospreo mega match, that just started exploding. It was on everybody's homepage, I feel like that. I got like 50,000 views in like two or three days.

You're using the screen that's behind you there and like breaking down, like pausing it, like second for second frame for frame. What happened and your take on it? And I know this is the beginning of you doing a bunch more videos like this, but you're on to something. I hate the lighting. I want to fix everything, right? Well, you're on to something great here.

And if this is just the beginning, like you're doing. nailing it. Well, thank you very much. And obviously, like I said, it's a, it's actually a testament. Let's say, here we go again. You're going to get mad. I'm going to get mad, but I'm going to credit to other people. It's a testament to the people that mentored me and taught me psychology. Because way back when, if Raven didn't want to take the time to teach me psychology, if Paul Heyman, Tommy Dreamer, and then going to WWE, listen and just listen to the Paterson, get finishes, other people and why and why not and then actually kind of like just shadowing people without them knowing about it like Vince and other people and seeing hell he sets up shots and stuff like that.

If I was stuck in my own ways and thought, I'm just going to do cool moves. I'm not going to listen to this guy. I'm just going to move and I'm going to join, you know, young guys and everybody's like that. You know, I was like that to a degree, but I had enough of a degree in me to say this is really useful information and I'm not a tough guy. So if I employ these psychological kind of elements into the match, I can have a long career because I know I'm not durable and I know I can get injured, but this can protect me. So the reason why people like what I'm doing with this thing back here is because of everybody that's ever given me the knowledge that I'm passing on in those videos.

Well, and let me give you a little bit of credit as well, okay? It's like a battle rapper, something, isn't it? The video is highly entertaining and educational. And like, I think there's a lot of wrestling fans, whether you just started watching and you've been watching your whole life, that watched the Tiger Driver 91 and went, how did both men walk away from that? And just to correct people who, there was a, there was a big uproar about that I've never taken a bump like that in my career. I would argue I've taken worse bumps and not gotten right up. No, I used to take the, um, murder breaker, which is basically the cop killer from a hurricane until they banned it because I was taking such good bumps on it.

They thought it was hurting me. He was so easy. I mean, I could see how the bump can be, but the tiger driver is a little different because at least my back is to Shane Helms's back and it's not like a drop. The cop killer or the vertebraker is like a slide down his back. I mean, it's completely different. I believe the theme song, Vertebraker will break your spine. It's like, yeah, when you see that move, it sure looks like it breaks your spine.

Actually, a couple times when he covered me, I sung that song to him. I mean, it is really catchy. Verda breaker does a trick every time. You imagine if they caught that, like if the ring was Mike and you hear me saying? That's so good. That'll be right up there with the sit. That would be right up there with the sit. Hey, we're live, pal.

This breakdown video we're talking about is available on Vince Rousseau's channel. So if you're looking for it on Stevie's channel, you're going to find a bunch of great fitness stuff on there. It's on Vince Rousseau's channel. Why is it living on Vince Rousseau's channel? Well, besides the fact that, you know, if you look at it from a business sense,

my fitness channel could potentially split the audience. I am aware that there are wrestling fans that support anything that. That's a great thing about wrestling fans, by the way. They do get like a bad rap. if wrestling fans want to support you as a talent or even a company, whatever projects you do, even if it doesn't have to do a wrestling, there's a percentage that will just support you no matter what.

So I have to thank them for that. But from a business sense, Vince Russo has pretty much 100% of a wrestling fan demographic. And on a personal note, you know, and this is something we talked about a little bit off camera, on a personal note, you know, Vince gets such a bad, I don't understand it. I still don't understand it to this day.

And I'm a guy who worked in WWE with them, worked in TNA with them. And then obviously I work with him on the pro Smackdown review with him and bin Hameen. But when this infection happened, the one person, you know, there's people that reached out almost every day. But Vince, like every single day or multiple times per day, reaching out, checking on me, praying for me, talking to me, trying to cheer me up, telling me, don't, because I kept saying, man, maybe if I put a few paws under me, I could still do the shows from a hospital.

And he was like, no, don't do that. Also on another note, which he didn't have to do at all, and I kept telling him he didn't have to do it. He paid me the entire time. But he paid me for not doing the shows. But the personal part of it, the him calling, and even now, he checks on me like yesterday, to tell me not to overtrain. So overtraining is still awesome.

But I don't know. Yeah, I think people still think that Vince Rousseau's the character. I think that they, you know, all the things that he did in WCW, WWWE, TNA, I think people go, I don't like him because of this or that. Yeah, I mean, I still joke when I'm going to say like infection on a pole match or something, you know, like jokes like that. But seriously, it's just like I've known Vince, you can keep laughing. that. I can say I.V. Paul. I.V. Paul on a pole. He loves Paul matches. He tried to, he's on my show.

He's not much. It's just like the Paul match is just like it's so funny because they were doing them and then I watched Memphis wrestling. They were doing them almost every month sometimes at one point. So, and don't quote me on that. They weren't every 30 days. People like, who's every 50 days, you liar? So my, with, he's on my show in like, next week, I think. We've already recorded it. And we were talking about all the matches on a poll. He's like, oh, bro, I only did like three of them. Like, well, it was a little more than three.

But okay. Don't ever give an exact number to anybody in wrestling. You all be. But with Vince, too, I've been friends with him. I mean, I remember talking to him when I was in ECW and he was writing for the magazine before he was writing the TV. Right, yeah. Both, we both actually in our,

in our time have managed our own video stores back when they were competing with blockbuster, before there was a Netflix or anything. So Vince I would talk about movies and talk about video games and other stuff. So we were friends way, way outside the realm of talking anything about wrestling. And he didn't hire me. He's the one that got me my job in 99 in WW. It was like right before he left for WCW. but we talked long before he even came to me with the idea of going to WWE.

Because I already had the WCW run and then I was working the Indies after I had neck surgery. So we were talking during that whole time and never even brought up like, hey, can you get me in? Or, hey, do you have what, you know, you think you're good to go to come into WWE. Never talked about it until probably two months before I went there. This episode is brought to you by Blue Chew. And if you've ever been thinking of trying Blue Chew, how about your first month for free? Yeah, when you use the promo code CVV at checkout at bluchew.com, you'll get your first month for free. You just have to pay $5 for shipping.

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ECW, WWE, and TNA, you were there for, like, some of the biggest stuff they had going on. Yeah, we think so. I think in ROH, too, the short run I had the, really lethal Adam Cole, Silas. They had a great crop of talent. But it was still kind of what the old identity of Ring or Honor, was, and it motivated me to get in the ring.

And then the newer guys, like Adam Cole was new at the time, Silas. Jay was even new, even though he's world champion and TV champ, they really, they were carrying a new era. And I wish Ring of Honor had more of a chance to see that, that crop of talent do what they could. I mean, mostly all of them became stars after Ring of Honor. And if they didn't, it was just politics because they were all immensely talented. But I was blessed to be in Ring of Honor and TNA during the height of that when two million

viewers was like, oh my God, we're an abject failure. So, you know, and obviously ECW during the BW and then WW right at the end of the attitude era to be able to, if I didn't go there during the attitude era, I don't think the right to center would have been born at all. I think you're absolutely right. And like, because it all came off the backs of the PTC, right? The parents television council. Yeah, they were, and we were losing advertisers.

So that was really hurting the money. So Vince, to his credit, man, that thing he came up with, Vince will do a little of revenge gimmick on you. He'll get petty. And that's what the right to censor was. What was your reaction when they played the right to censor theme song for you for the first time? Were you like this? That's it? No, I was just happy to have something.

And when I heard that music, it's funny. We talked about it on the first interview. Yeah, it's also very kind for you to call it music. When I had, well, it could be on the, I was going to say it's never going to make the volume, whatever, on the WWW music. I stopped myself. But when I look at that, like I knew it was an opportunity. I knew I was on TV as a character. And I had, even if it sucked, I had custom entrance music.

I had the Titan Tron. And looking at that, Chris, that made me think back to Raven when I was putting on the half shirt and a Daisy Doob. you're going to stand out. You're completely different. Nobody will ever take your gimmick from you because everybody wants to be a tough, be a shooter, be a badass. He goes, you will corner to market on a specific type of heel. That's the voice that I heard in my mind when that music hit.

I was like, people are going to hate this so much. This is awesome. And they do. I mean, no one's listening to that song when they're at the gym or something like that. You want to give yourself a headache and do some brain job. They did cheer Ivory when she came out for the Rumble, and I was happy to see Ivory not rumbled not too long ago. I thought that was like Ivory has done a lot in her career,

but for them to decide that she would come out in the right to censor gimmick, I thought that was a really interesting choice and also showed how over that was. I agree with that. And also the fact that ivory was so over as the female in the group, She was way more special than us. As a matter of fact, I would have been all for Ivory being the next leader to replace me because that's even more heat at the time. You're looking at a woman boss in these big guys around.

And a woman, she would have been the original Karen if you think about it. That's true. Yeah. People still cosplay as the right to censor. Like, I always see them at conventions or shows all the time. Sometimes I do for the right amount of money on an indie show, too. We actually have one thing, if you check it out, Anthony Green, who's a great young talent, he had the Green World Order.

So he would parody different talents. And we had an idea, or how it'll come out as right to censor. I'll shut the show down, do all this stuff, and he'll pull a snickers out of his fanny pack. I eat the Snickers and go, what the hell am I doing? I'm going to back, come out with the BW. gear, and we have a match. The funny side note on that, a fun fact. and I have a picture up on Instagram.

This is probably a lesson for any wrestler out there when you meet a young fan. He was like, hey, man, you didn't know it. He told me this after we worked. He said, you don't know this, but I met you a long time ago when I was a little kid. He showed me a picture that he had with me and him. They must have came in the locker room, took pictures of all the guys. He took a picture with me. Then we took a picture postmatch, with our arms around each other,

and I split screened it. So like you talk about coming full circle and how, now I'm glad he didn't tell me. You know why? I would have been more nervous than him because I was like, oh my God, I hope I can do good. This guy grew up like a fan and now he's getting to wrestle me.

That's a lot of pressure. Yeah, you've got to live up to those expectations. That's what I'm going to yourself some credit too. Oh, here we go. With these breakdowns that you've been doing, what kind of requests are you getting now? Because I'm sure there's a lot of things that people want to say.

We're getting a few, but I'm going to set it up to have polls. Now, obviously, I have to find the footage. That's the only limitation on what I can do with this. If I can't find the footage or the spot or the match or the, whatever it is, then it's limited to that. So I'm going to run polls on Twitter, on my Instagram, and on Patreon as well, to give people choices every week. You want me to cover this, this, or this.

So they're still going to have a saying it, but I have to make sure the matches are available. I mean, I think we've got to see a breakdown of the chair shot to JBL, right? That's got to be on there. You guys with this chair shot. I still feel bad about that. Oh, you don't. Come on. No, I really do.

I mean, we're laughing about it, but, you know, I really do. I mean, John laughs about it now, too, thank God. But, you know, that's not what we're in the business for it. And, you know, people can think the way they want to think. I told this story when I did the interview with James. You were talking about James from WSI. Yeah. And he asked me about it.

And I was talking. And I literally said, once again, the reason why I have this kind of overthinking mindset, which works with this, I'm talking to John. And I said, dude, you're so tall. I don't know if I can hit you properly with the chair with you standing. Dude's like, what, six, six, three hundred pounds. I mean, he's a monster. I asked him, if there any way you can be on one knee or something

where I can get you? And he was like, no, no, no, just lay into me. No big deal. He was totally cool about it. So even in my mind, I knew he's way up there. I'm not going to be able to hit him fully with the seat. I never knew it was going to be what it was. But I knew he was going to be a live round to some extent that he was going to get.

that is up there that's top three chair shots that people talk about. One is the rock to Ken Shamrock's face. Yeah, that's, I think the other one is Jeff Hardy to Brock Lesnar during the debut. And like you just smacks him in the face and Brock Lesnar completely no-sells it. And then there's this one to JBL. I didn't hit him in the face. So at least I have that going for me.

But you hit him like you were hitting like a grand slam out of the park. I don't look at it that way. I really don't. I mean, it might be a lucky or unlucky chair shot. But if you look, I've never been a great chair shot guy unless it's to the back. Because the chair shot, maybe I should do a video just on chair shots. Clearly you should. Because that one there, if I go to the side here. Please. We're getting a breakdown right now. I love it. I'm literally going like this.

If you look at it, I'm flicking my wrist because he's so tall. the power of the chair shot, watch balls Mahoney, because he does this. Yeah. The power of the chair shot is almost like you're treating it like a slam ball over the head or over the back. So the power doesn't come up here off camera. The power is literally from almost just above parallel to the floor and then through the person you're hitting with the chair. Does that make sense? Of course.

And this is great with the visuals. I feel like this is a video. This is a video you need to put on the channel. Oh my God. It's free. It doesn't do the Patreon any good. No. But you know what?

That's why I was looking at. Even then, I'm on one fun. You literally can see me reaching up to hit John in the head. Because chances are if I didn't do that, I would have hit him in the face. And that would have been, I didn't want to do it like I did it there. But that would have been even worse. Do you feel bad about it because he got hurt or you just feel bad about it because it's still a thing people talk about however many years later? I feel bad about it because it's not what I was trained to do.

I was not trained to hurt people. I was not, I didn't want a reputation. I never had a reputation for hurting people on purpose. And I knew after this, I mean, if Vince released me for hurting him to that degree, it might not have been fair in people's eyes, but I can understand it because that's not what we do. do. That would also be ironic since JBL has been known to, you know, kind of rough some other people up. Well, we do have something called double standards in pro wrestling. I'll know if you ever heard of them. People don't get treated equally. Have you ever seen me after you come back from a break in a Marine trailer and I'm standing in the ring? Life isn't fair.

Hey, you got some, come on, you got some entrances. What are you talking about? I like the Marine trailer. John Steen and I had actually had a running joke where I would pop so huge because it was literally to the point where it was probably 15 marine trailers. And like I come to the ring door and the break marine trailer. And it got to the point where I was getting people to try to be like, I'd say, they got a hostage. And the people were like, it's my wife. They went to the crowd door and so John would do that with me sometimes. He goes, hey, Stevie. They have a hostage. It is my wife.

It is. It's my wife. I'm so curious, because when people win the world title, the intercontinental title, the European title, everybody can tell you how many times they want it. When someone wins the hardcore title or most recently the 24-7 championship, I don't know if everybody knows how many title reigns they have there. Do you know how many hardcore championship reigns that you have? This is a point of contention between Raven and myself, and I put them over a bunch

So now we have to turn it around. But he claims he wanted 22. I wanted 21. In reality, I wanted 22. He won at 21. So which one are we missing here then? We're missing the number of things. I mean, it's hard to keep track of as they're all.

But we were keeping track as a fun little game. I think it got up 22 with me. I wasn't even counting. He's the one that came to me and said, you're at 22 now. so I'm going to try to get the 23. So he would try, and this is where it's fun. This is nothing egregious or negative or harmful.

This is what I like about when people start getting into these, I guess, what are you, these beefs like backstage. Yeah. Like we're all trying to get double pins during the same segment. We're all trying to pad the number. It was we actually all kind of, how can I say it? we all kind of like bonded. We bonded over because there was always the same group of like 10, 12 guys.

Yeah, yeah. In the Keystone Cops type thing. So we liked doing it. It was fun. I mean, it hurt like hell, bud. It was a fun time. But they don't tell you, are you've got six minutes. Stevie, you're going to get two victories.

Raven, you're going to get one. Crash Holly, you get two. They didn't do that. No, they did that, but they didn't do two. Everybody got one. And then Raven was like, yeah, what if I just went at first? and last. We try to throw all this stuff in. And then something, I think one time on a house show, one time, can you tell them just excited to be alive? I really am. Dude, I love your energy. It's the

best. So I just, I really am every day. It's a good part about this whole deal. Not every days like that, but I do have an appreciation for having this. And I have an appreciation for the fact that, man, I got to do all this stuff. That's, that's really awesome. But we would do that. try to pad this and do that stuff. And then we would just call each other out and we'd have fun with it. And nobody had an ego about it. It was really cool. So does somebody need to go back after watching this episode and go count all the victories

and then update the Wikipedia page so that you have 22? Raven can have it. If that's what he wants, he can have it. He's the veteran. I will defer to him. He won it 22 times. Could you guys both have 22? Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no.

No, no. No, we can't. There's no ties in Ravens World. What are you talking about? The thing that I love about you is not just this passion for life, but you listed off the three passions that you have. And what sometimes happens in wrestling, which doesn't happen in other sports, is sometimes when someone has a career in wrestling and they leave it, they're like, that's it. I don't want to talk about it anymore. I don't want to watch it anymore.

That doesn't happen in, say, football or baseball or hockey. You know, someone retires from being an NFL player. They still watch on Sundays. They'll still go to signings. They'll still engage in the community. And a lot of times people get really jaded against wrestling of like, almost like it's the ex-girlfriend that like you're scorned and you don't want to any part of that anymore.

That's a great analogy because there is a thing where guys and I was one of those guys and I'm glad to brought up that question because I think hopefully my answer at least will show the growth that you don't have to be pigeonholed and people should have understanding that when you are on TV and you're famous and you're known and all these things and guys and girls are a lot more famous to me, made a lot more money and a lot more exposure or more mainstream names. I would dare say it's harder for them to escape and kind of reinvent themselves in another field like I tried to in fitness and stuff like that. It's harder when you're known for one thing. It's also like lucrative in a way because people will continue to book you

for conventions and stuff. I wish, and I really do wish if I had to go back, I don't regret anything, but if I could go back to any time when I took everything in my career personally, and that's what a bitterness comes in, because I was bitter. I was, you know, easily offended or I was frustrated. But the positive with that, Chris, is the fact that you shouldn't get into wrestling unless you want to be a top person, unless you want to be a world champion, unless you want to be a huge start. You don't want to go in and half-ass anything because you're working just as hard, taking the

bumps, driving the miles, staying in hotels as the first match is as the main event. We're all taking the same bumps and driving the same miles. So with that being said, I discovered way, way, way. too late in my career when it was over. I'm talking about like when I was working in these after way after WWE. Excuse me. I learned that when they do something negative or they're jobbing you out, if you're getting squashed, if you're not getting booked, they're only doing that to the character, Stevie Richards. They can't hurt you as a man. Now that could be splitting hairs and whatever compartmentalizing it, but it works and it is effective. Because once you get

that perspective, which took me 20, 25 years to learn on my own, I want you to learn that and you truly treat it like a business, you can be a much better politician and businessman backstage and you can, when someone says something to you, you can just let it roll off and do the opposite reaction, number one, that they may want you to sell it and get mad. Now we're not going to push you because you have a bad attitude to hold a test. So, but learning that and even learning now as a businessman with the fitness stuff and doing everything that I'm doing, when someone doesn't want to collaborate with me, when a company doesn't want to enter into an affiliate relationship.

And I use this word too, yet. because there's a lot of companies that wouldn't touch me two or three years ago, Fight Camp, Teeter, Sunstream, Saunas, a bunch of ones that are some of my biggest, most lucrative affiliate conversions, they didn't even answer me. Then two years later, I said, let me try to reach out to these companies again. They were right on board with it. Now, if I had the attitude like, who are you to not answer me? I'm a huge star and I did this.

What good does that do? But look at it as a businessman saying, no, not yet. My time will come. Put your head down, work hard, present a product that will make you undeniable that don't want to collaborate with you. I didn't have that attitude in wrestling. I had the attitude of standing out and being indifferent, working hard, being respectful, keeping my head down, doing all that stuff. But there was always these situations where I got tested and I failed because

I got offended, but it wasn't me. It was the character. And if guys and girls learn that, first of all, you'll frustrate some of the truly evil people in the business that actually get their rocks off on your suffering and frustration and that toxic nature that can literally chew you up and speak you out. You get, you make those people mad. And at the same time, the people that just want to do business will look at you and say,

that's a professional. I mean, hearing you say all this, like that is a tremendous amount of growth, like a tremendous amount of growth to be able to look back and go, I wish I had done this, but now I do this as a result of that other thing that happened. I don't know what it is. And, you know, I give all the credit in the world to the WW, the AEW impact, wherever you are, Japan. If you're a guy or a girl that's in their 20s,

you to be able to handle and shoulder that pressure of being on TV every week, of making six figures, maybe seven figures, of the pressure of putting in 20 or 30 minutes, the pressure of working through an injury maybe through all these different obligations. Because when I was in my 20s, just with an ECW push that was kind of local or urban legend in other areas of the world, I was basically an unknown. And I was an underground wrestler that was kind of, did you see that guy in a half shirt and Daisy Dukes? Did you hear about the BW? There was no pressure.

But I still almost caved into the internal pressure that I put on myself and that people maybe were looking to take my spot, which is the nature of the business anyway. That's what you should be in the business to do. I caved under the pressure multiple times and, you know, didn't understand. a lot of things about the business, didn't understand the investment of time and money into even a two-minute segment on TV. Two minutes is a lot of time to get yourself over. But as a young guy, I said, two minutes, I can't do anything in two minutes. Of course you can't. Your attitude will make you do whatever you say you're going to do. So not to use cliches and tropes and all that stuff, but I was a very immature person and I got to push way too young in my life.

And now that I have what I have, using this, using this platform, hopefully I can help a younger talent get the perspective decades earlier than it took me to get it. What you said there reminded me of something that Cody Rhodes told me not long after his father passed away. He said the best piece of advice that Dusty gave him was to maximize your minutes. Maybe you only get two minutes. Maybe you only get a four minute match, but you're going to lose. Maximize those minutes. What can you do during that time to make yourself stand out? And the fact that you're saying that, this is, I mean, it just makes so much sense. Cody's much smarter than I am because Cody had, first of all, he had Dusty. I don't necessarily think I had a business mentor. There's a guy

Austin Idol, you probably heard of him. Austin Idol, who, as I look at his career and we're friends now and we talk, I can see. He always treated it like a business and never took it personal and was never doing anything personal against the office or anything. He's just like, man, there's no money to be made here. I'm going. That's what I've noticed with his career. I don't think I would have been that brazen or that like cold about it. I still have a very, every company I work for, I felt like I had a personal connection either to people in the office. I definitely had a connection of the talent I worked with on the roster, and I wouldn't want to leave that quickly, which I've done in the past as well, and screwed up and left ECW for WCW.

Another thing I just should have handled differently because I let everybody in that locker room down, and I let the fans down. And I actually let the company down because they invested all this time. Now they have to start over from scratch. And I actually was, I got to give WWE credit for this too. on the rise and fall of ECW DVD, they allowed me on the extra content to actually tell the story

and apologize to all the guys and girls in the company. So that was kind of cool. When you talk about the politics backstage, did you find that what worked for you at one place didn't work for you another? Did you have to politic differently in ECW, WCW, WWE, TNA, Ring of Honor? Well, I'm trying to think.

I think the attitude, and here's where, here's another advice for any, any young wrestler, or even wrestlers, if my age, it might not get it. Whenever I enter a new locker room, I'm talking about it right now. If I were to go into a locker room on an indie here in Florida, I would go around and shake everybody's hand. I'm new to that locker room. This is their locker room, not mine, even though I've been a bunch of places. When I did that and when I learned how to do that, because it took me.

time to learn it the hard way. When I did that, I usually had a much smoother political type of interaction. Now, obviously, I didn't get pushed to the moon and I didn't politic. That wasn't my style. My style was working hard, showing up, trying to. And once again, this is the funny thing. I jump around. This is the funny thing that my overthinking and my OCD about people's styles, because people often wonder why can Stevie, I hate saying the third person, but these are people talking. Why can Stevie work anybody no matter who it is? Why can he get them over? Why can he fit himself into any match or any style?

Well, number one, because my faith carried me through that to serve others. And why I took my ego out of it, it made it a little bit easier. It hurt. It frustrated me because I could do, if they pushed me more, when I did put people, people over, it would mean more. That's the attitude I had. But my energy went into actually legitimately studying film of people in the companies where I worked. And then when we went to work, I would say, hey, man, I was watching a match where you did this, this and that. If we did a spot like this and then went into your move there, would that be cool? Do you like that?

Here's a little secret, too. If you're pitching a spot where the other guys, going over. I'm never going to say no. So I had the comfort of working a spot that I knew my limited athleticism could do. And also I studied their style and all their moves and knew everything about them. And then literally, even if they called an audible in the match, I already knew what the next move was because I knew what that person did. That's why this works out, I think really well because I've always had that attitude of, and that's probably why I spent 10 years in WWE. Because they knew, we got a new guy, we got to be one.

Well, Stevie seems and nobody's doing it. And there no matter who we throw at them, I'd watch stuff at OVW. I'd watch Deep South. I'd watch FCW. I'd even watch current wrestling in case I got to work one of these guys on the Indies. I know it's- You're still watching-

But in a good way. Are you still watching a ton of wrestling right now? Well, now that I'm doing these things, it's actually fun because I feel like an historian of wrestling. Like, I watch Ron Smackdown because we review it on Rousseau's brand. But now there's a different exciting element to it where it's like I come across the match where it's 1983, Memphis, Tennessee, AWA World Title, Nick Bockwinkle versus Jerry Lawler. Let me just set back as a fan. Let me hit record and let me stop it like you said and start annotating. And then there's a point in that match, Chris, where Lawler starts out of nowhere just unloading

these punches that all look like a shoot, but they're not. But they look incredible. And during the video, I'm like, whoa, whoa, wow, wow, wow, wow. Holy shit. Like, I'm acting like a fan. And that's kind of a new kind of almost feels like a rebirth that I can enjoy the business once again. Because like I said, I was in the spot where those bitter old wrestlers were.

Now I have a chance to actually have a little fun and enjoy it again. 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 Clemenberg. 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 stake their claim. 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 Henco. Follow and listen on your favorite platform. Are you still planning to work Indies in the next year or two? If I say no, will they add another zero? No.

Oh. A little Terry Funk action, huh? No, that's not in the plans. It's really not. It's not in the plans. You're done? You're retired from wrestling? I really don't know about that.

I mean, but the spine infection and the fact that two discs and four levels of my vertebrae are eaten away and I need to naturally fuse over 12 to 18 months. Essentially right now I'm done. Now, you know, it's interesting. You brought up something about the NFL. Yeah. And then how it doesn't correlate into wrestlers that leave all time ring action, you will call it, I guess. Sure. Why do you think that is?

I have an idea about that, and this can also help give guys perspective on, and also fans. Yeah. Learn about how much more difficult wrestling can be than even in the NFL. I'm sorry, go ahead. I guess just in my uneducated opinion here, you know, there's a lot of money. Give me some credit. Here we go. We're going to fight.

Oh, boy, the rap battle continues. The battle of humility. I think it's, you know, the NFL is, I mean, that's in America, that is the sport, right? That is, like, Sunday belongs to the NFL when it comes to watching something on TV. And I think that whether you played one play or you played for 20 seasons, you made a decent amount of money, at least in the last few decades. And I think for some people, it's just like, that's the thing I did. I'm super proud of that thing.

And I think that they just carry that with them as their identity for the rest of their life. Whereas in wrestling, you could do it for a long time and end today or tomorrow and really not have that much money to show for it. And I think maybe there's a bitterness of like, I gave my time, I gave my blood, my literal sweat and tears. I'm banged up. It hurts when I get out of bed. And I got nothing to show for it other than, you know, these video clips. Yeah. The way you just described that my heart breaks for each and every person, not just wrestling in the world, that feels that way because that's, that's a horrible feeling. And sometimes

it can be, you know, it's a mix. It can be slightly justified because it's real. You did give your you gave your entire life. You might have gotten divorced. Your kids might not. You sacrificed everything and you have nothing to show for it. That's a terrible feeling when it's all behind you. You know, you can't stop it or figure out a way to have a soft landing afterwards. Here's my point, too.

I'll make up this point first. It's funny because you won't meet a ton of wrestlers that are NFL fans, but almost every NFL player is a wrestling fan. It's true. So I would argue that wrestling is more Americana than football when the actual football players are, you know, because football is amazing and I'm a huge football fan, but it doesn't create the ludicrous moments that wrestling does. You know, more people remember the Hogan slammed Andre de Giant than remember the catch. I really do believe that. The catch is amazing, you know, Montana to, I think.

Dwight Clark? It's funny that when you say the catch, everybody thinks of something different. I thought you were talking about- Beckham's the catch too. The David Tyree catch on the helmet. I thought that's what you were going with that. It's called the helmet catch. But the actual catch was during the Super Bowl, I believe.

Montana to Dwight Clark, I believe. Tight end, he passed away not too long ago, I think. But the point I want to make about the post-full-time career of an NFL player versus a wrestler. And this is another motivation. for this back here. I know it's a recurring theme, but it really does kind of come full circle. When an NFL player retires or leaves, the system of the NFL football in general, whether it be college, high school, whatever level, then we're talking about TV, radio, print, conventions, there's all these things available for a successful, maybe even more lucrative in the case

Tony Romo. Sure. Career post-post-play. Wrestling doesn't really have that. Wrestling doesn't have a feeder system to make former wrestlers into referees, coaches, commentators, which would be amazing, analysts, sideline reporters. You think about the amount of opportunities for a pro football player afterwards are a lot more. And that's why I give them all the credit because the NFL has a time.

problems, but the NFL has really done a lot to try to help these football players. They have classes. I think they have symposiums on, hey, if you want to be a broadcaster, come to this three-day symposium and learn how to be. That's what Pat McAfee did, remember, for rookie broadcasters. Wrestling doesn't have that. That's why I feel it in my, I've had it in my heart for years that I want to be, and this might be crazy to people. I want to be the John Madden, illustrator and that analyst of pro wrestling, that I see this being brought into other places. I think that some of the best commentators in wrestling right now, or at least best color commentators, were former wrestlers. I mean, when you think about Jerry the King Lawler, Wade Barrett,

Corey Graves and, you know, the path that his career took, Nigel McGinnis, like, there are some great examples of it, but there's like six of them, eight of them, Gorilla Monsoon, of course, Jesse the Body Ventura, you know, previously. But you're right, there's not like a system to make this happen. Gorilla play by play, which is even harder. That guy was awesome. Yeah, but you're right, though, there's not like a system to make this happen, I guess. No, there's not.

And this is the thing, too, with, but wrestlers also have a great opportunity. Like you said, football players leave and have the one identity. I think football players, soap opera stars, And pro wrestlers can never shake the persona as much as they want. Then there comes a time where you just have to lean into it. And that's what growing, as I've grown, it used to be a point like, man, I wish they would just recognize me or talk to me or I wish people would consume the fitness content more or do whatever. And then it was like, well, you have all this knowledge. You have all these blessings that were passed on to you.

Why don't you just use that? you were given a gift. I gave me a gift to be able to at least teach. My wife always tells me that she goes, you have a very good demeanor and presentation to teach people stuff without making them feel stupid, which is always what I try to do. I hope I do that. But that's the thing I think that wrestling needs to do is actually look at these former talents

because also people don't give wrestlers enough credit, Chris, for being intelligent. being smart. You're your own account. You're your own travel agent. You're your own personal trainer. All these things. Your own dietician. Your own itinerary travel agent.

You have to organize your entire thing. And you've got to go home and live a life and support your family and do all that stuff. It's incredibly hard. Yeah. You guys wear a lot of hats. And even when you're done in the ring, you wear a lot of hats afterwards to continue to push your career forward. and, you know, pay your mortgage and put food on the table. A lot of guys, including myself, have put problems on ourselves from wrestling, too.

I've never been involved in the drugs, alcohol, or any other demons like that. But we can be our own worst enemies. And then at a point in wrestling, the thing that happens too, which I would always look at as a good thing now, there needs to be a check and balance where you're up, you're being pushed, you're toast to the town. and you've got to experience that that downfall. You've got to experience the downpoint of the roller coaster ride to appreciate, which hopefully, if you're lucky, you'll get a second time where you'll get the high.

Then you're going to appreciate it. You're going to treat people that are on the lower part of the roller coaster much better, probably even better than the guys who work with it on top because you realize that's not an easy spot to be in. Steve, it's been 20 plus years. Your theme song used to say, I'll show you. You'll see. What have you showed us? What were you showing us?

Maybe at my funeral, they'll finally have the answer. Hey, but you know what? That's one thing. I have to say that I will get that as I'm on the beach or I'm walking through the complex. Some of the neighbors know, you know, me for my wrestling days. You'll just hear it. And I used to be like, I don't know what it is with wrestlers. You get to a point where you're like, this is great.

I love signing autographs and then saying my catchphrases. And then you get to that grizzled all smoking a cigarette in the chair, at the locker. What can you do, kid? But you get that at a point where it annoys you, which is stupid. And I've been there. Now it's like when I walk somewhere in some screws, hey, I'll show you. It's like, wow, people remember that?

Well, I mean, you pretty much look the same, too. You have figured out a way to age in reverse. It's incredible. There are some people that think that I'm actually my kid, and it's not me. So if you're a conspiracy theorist that I, yeah, and my kid looks just like me, and I'm, I guess I'm frozen like Walt Disney or something. I mean, maybe you are. Like, you look great.

You feel like you've looked the same for the last 30 years. Thank you. I mean, it really is just going to better early employees. playing video games and getting up and going to the gym in the morning. I don't know about it. But I really do think, all joking aside, like fitness plays such a huge role in not just mobility, but also in longevity, too. And that's how my training has changed.

And that's how this entire infection and this entire road to recovery, you tend to get lazy and you lose the mind muscle connection. That's why Iso metrics. If people don't know what it is, check out what isometrics are. It's difficult. It's easy at the same time, but it's difficult. It's time under tension. And you will work muscles you don't even know existed.

And that's the basis for actually moving forward in your fitness journey. It's not just about throwing weights around and mindlessly doing it. You have to squeeze your muscles throughout the entire movement. And that's why, I'm talking a guy better shape to me. But the ice and pictures is just incredible. You don't have a dad bod. You have a full-time wrestler's bond. This is the new dad bod.

I'm trying to rebrand that this is what the dad bodge should look like because this is a whole other discussion. But it's so easy for people to make excuses as to why they don't walk for 20 minutes in a day or go to the gym or workout or do push-ups or whatever it is. And I want to say like, yes, it's busy. We don't get a ton of sleep right now with a newborn. And my wife, Rachel, is just an angel when it comes to all this stuff. But we still find time. even her. We'll work out in the gym and be staring at the baby monitor the whole time. Like, all I'm trying to say is you're busy. You've got excuses, but everybody's busy and everybody has excuses.

Oh, yeah. I mean, if you think about it, how long, how long every day does a person scroll through Instagram reels or YouTube shorts and you can lose 20, 30 minutes easily on that? That's an entire workout, if not cardio and weights within that 30 minutes, you can do it. For anybody that says I don't have time, I would say to them, show me your screen time. Show me your screen time over the last week. And we could probably find some time there, sir or ma'am. I would say this about that too, that you just got to sit back and like people. People will eventually get to the point where there's, I was 262 at one point.

We talked about it on the last show. And you could tell me everything. I could look in the mirror. I could do whatever. and it took literally just one day me being sick and tired to being sick and tired, and I never looked back. And I hope everybody has that moment of hyper accountability and you never lose it. Some people I'd say that's a bad thing.

I have hyper accountability and blame yourself for everything. But I'd rather err on the side of that than get into the much. And this is another thing about wrestlers. Being in wrestling, Chris, it makes it so, easy to blame everybody else because it is a fake subjective business creatively. You can blame everybody else for your failures. You can take your successes. It's all you when you're successful.

But when you're not, it's everybody else's fault. But now you're an entrepreneur. I have my own business. We wake up every morning. It's up to us. And now you have a family. I have a family. If you don't do right and you don't make income,

if you sit around and feel sorry for yourself, everybody suffers. Yeah. So that's the beauty about, and I would say that to any wrestler, it's leaving wrestling. It's up to you now. That's terrifying, but it's also exciting. And it's actually, you get 100% out of what you put into it. You're going to have such a great life after wrestling if you allow yourself to have one.

It's just, it's amazing. So if there's somebody listening to this that wants to start their fitness journey, but just hasn't done it yet, what do you think is the first step they need to take? you're going to think this is weird since I have my own programs, my own fitness brand. Yeah. I would tell if you have a planet fitness, if you have a planet fitness near you or you can get to it and drive to it. It's not a pain in the butt. Go to Planet Fitness.

Sign up. Ten bucks a month, by the way. Ten bucks. I think they raised a black card, though. A black card, I think, is $24.99 a month. But if you just want to go to the one location and not use the massaging room or whatever, it's $10. You got it. You're going to do that if you see it. So you just pay to 25 bucks. But if you start out with 10, let's just say 10 bucks a month. If you go there, they have personal trainers that are there all the time that will take you through the machines, take you through like a circuit training workout on their express workout, or even just take you through stuff and teach you stuff. Then you can actually take PF 360 classes, which are basically CrossFit classes for 10 bucks a month, where they take you. you through and train you. That is the best place to actually get the foundation, learn how to

train safely for a minimal amount of money, and you get up and you leave the house and you make the conscious decision to get that workout in. And people are always like, why would you say planning fitness? Why not the 12-week program or whatever? Because after the 30, 60, 90 days, most people turn around. If you're happy with it, that's great. But if you're like, man, I can do so much more. I got to space my house. Maybe I'm sure like it's Stevie's YouTube channel with a home gym equipment.

And then you graduate to that. It's amazing. There's something about the act of putting your shoes on, getting into your car, driving to wherever it is that you're working out, going into that place. There's something about that act that I learned that I really needed when the world was shut down and we couldn't go to gyms. Like, it didn't feel the same to me to work out in my living room, which was also the same place where I watched Netflix and Hulu. I feel like there's something about those atomic habits, which is a great book, by the way, of doing this, then this,

then this, then this, that leads to this. Yeah. I mean, there's a social aspect to it, too, and I'm sure after the pandemic, people can wait to get back into the gym or anywhere public. But I've graduated from that. Now, we go to an apartment gym here in our complex. when we want to switch it up or my wife wants you used to treadmill. But I love the space. To me, it's like when we get up at 3.3.30 in the morning, we go to that garage. It's like the whole world's asleep and it's just us. And that's also a great feeling.

But it doesn't matter. You go to Planet Fitness. You go to L.A. fitness. You go to your local little 24-hour powerlifting gym. Or you follow along with P90X. You go do yoga with Adrian on YouTube? just get started. Doesn't matter what that one. I've done yoga with Adrian. It's great. She's great, man. Yeah, she's great. I want to bring this back around full circle, back to where we started this

conversation, because I end every conversation with gratitude. I like that you started with that, but what are three things in your life right now, Stevie, that you're grateful for? I'm grateful for the gift of life that God gave me again, again, again, because I've done so much in my life wrestling wise and everything to kind of not be healthy. But I fought through all these things. I was given the tools. But I've also been incredibly lucky you can call it or I call it incredibly blessed because it could have went sideways so many different times in my career in life. This infection is one thing. So I've been re I've been re gifted life, you know, and reborn in a lot of different ways. And I really love to tell anybody to listen to me about that. And second thing I'm

thankful for and the only reason I'm here right now besides God is my wife. You know, and these are very cliche answers, but they're true. My wife has been the reason that I got out of the walker. I got out of bed, got out of the walker, got off the cane, and also got myself back into relatively decent shape for now. She motivates me, supports me, and even my crazy stuff like two years ago, I'm going to get a smart whiteboard and I'm going to be John Madden of wrestling. She would check in like every week or say, hey, did you contact any companies, any luck on getting that smart whiteboard?

We were talking about it and now it's come to fruition. I believe to that manifestation of constantly putting it out in the universe has made that happen. So the third thing I'm thankful for is just everybody that's reached out and taking time out of their day, including you, Chris. everybody's busy. Like you said, everybody is busy and everybody has their own struggles, their own crosses to deal with. And for people to reach out to me, even if it was just once, and take 10 seconds to send me a message, hey, man, I'm pulling for you. Hey, man, you're going to do it. I've watched your stuff. It made me work out today. Whatever it might be,

those are three things right now that I'm immensely grateful for. And I don't see that ever like diminishing or going away. I'm grateful for you. And I feel like you've got at least another 51 more years with us here. And I'm so glad that we're able to catch up, have this conversation. And I'm just, I mean, it's amazing to me, everything you went through six months ago. And you look like nothing happened as we sit here right now. It's incredible.

It was less than that. It was the end of January. And the infection went all throughout February. and then I went into the hospital in mid, mid-February, mid-late February, I didn't even start to antibiotic therapy until like February, like 17th. Man. So that was eight weeks of that. And then having to learn how to use my body again because my muscles were completely atrophied.

So it's an even bigger like, one, in the world, this is crazy. This is a miracle that this happened. So and a lot of people too, like I take it as a compliment. But people didn't see all that, but didn't watch, they didn't see the Walker video or any of the other stuff. And they think I'm making it up. And I don't blame them. I don't blame them because it's like as much as it turned on a dime that Sunday morning for the bad, it feels like it turned on a dime for the good when all the therapy was over and we're ready to go and start the road to recovery. It's crazy, man.

And I wish, I do not wish this infection on anyone or any kind of pain from the infection on anyone. This is, this was the most pain by far that I've ever been in my life. I'm talking 24-7, dude, it never went away. And I mean, again, it's amazing that you're sitting here right now and you look like a million box. It's incredible. I'm still sweating. I get nervous when I'm talking to a big star. you. Oh, you stop it. You stop it. Steve, he's so good to see you. Thanks for coming on.

Good to see you. One of the things I am grateful for it, can I put a fourth thing down? Please. Not blown smoke, but very often or not very often in this business, very often you don't acquire real true, authentic friends. And I'm grateful for the fact that I have more than I can count on two hands in the business. And I count you as one of those people. I appreciate that, man. And I'm grateful to have your friendship. And it's been amazing watching you continue to grow on YouTube. And I love that we've talked about that. And you're so close. You're going to have one of these or one of these. You know, I got two of them. You're not a big deal. Two of them. What do you take? Come on, man. You know, like this one needs to be over there a little bit more. But it's just a matter of time.

You're right of all the back to the future. Just leave the one license plate. Put my play buns up there. Oh, by the way, that's signed by Michael J. Fox and Christopher Lloyd signed that. Oh, wow. I don't have a ton of merch like that. Like, don't have a ton of collectibles, but that's pretty cool. He's a guy, Christopher Lloyd. I saw he, he looks like he had a similar path of appreciating it, then kind of being annoyed by it.

And now he has a newfound really love for the people that have loved back to the future. Yeah, kind of like, guys, I've been in other movies. Yes, he went through that phase. But now he's just like embracing. It's, dude, being that kind of star, going to convey. It's mailbox money, as Steve Austin would call it. You're getting free money for doing something you did 50 years ago. Yeah.

Crazy. Well, dude, so good to see you. Congrats on everything. And I look forward to having you back on the show. We got to do the next one in person, all right? Working out. Done. We talked about that last time.

That would have been awesome this time. But let's plan to do this. It's 110 degrees here. It's 140 in the garage, which I actually like. But your equipment, Well, not like that. There's been many, many things I filmed where it got about maybe two minutes of a 30-minute video. But we'll definitely work out.

If I come out west there and do something, you come to Florida, it's working out. Sounds great. Let's do it. There we go. Love talking to that guy. Please support his YouTube channels, Stevie Richards Fitness and Stevie Richards Wrestling. They are linked in the show notes. And just so great to be able to talk to him.

I am so grateful. that this health situation, for the most part, is behind him. Like, just absolutely crazy five-ish months that he's been through. And, man, I'm just so glad he's on the other side of this. Please take a screenshot. Let us know what you think of this episode and tag us. He's at BWO Stevie on Twitter. He's at Stevie Richards on Instagram.

I am at Chris Van Fleet. And, you know, since this new channel of his, Stevie Richards wrestling is relatively new. It kind of made me think of this quote from Mark Twain. The secret to getting ahead is getting started, right? That whole idea, people like overanalyze everything and like think so much about like, oh, well, should I do this? How should I do that?

Just start. I say this all the time. You've just got to start. Just start. So this quote is so perfect for that. The secret to getting ahead is getting started. Be great. Be grateful. We will see you on the next one for some more insight.

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