Insight with Chris Van Vliet - Tyler Breeze Chopped The S*** Out of My Chest, His New WWE Job, Almost Getting Fired, Fashion Police

Episode Date: November 16, 2023

Tyler Breeze (@mmmgorgeous) is a professional wrestler with WWE. He is also a professional wrestling trainer and owns "Flatback Wrestling School" in Apopka, FL with AEW star Shawn Spears. He sits down with Chris Van Vliet in Hollywood, CA to talk about his current job with WWE working as a producer for UpUpDownDown, his wrestling school with Shawn Spears, the advice they tell new students, the importance of doing a good promo, how he almost got fired before coming up with the Tyler Breeze character, what Dusty Rhodes saw in that character, forming Fashion Police with Fandango, becoming a new father and much more! Quote I'm thinking about: "The measure of intelligence is the ability to change." - Albert Einstein Sponsors: FITBOD: Get 25% off when you use the code INSIGHT at http://fitbod.me/INSIGHT ZBIOTICS: Get 15% off with the code CVV and have a better morning after you drink at http://zbiotics.com/cvv MYBOOKIE: Bet on WWE! Get up to $200 cash bonus when you use the code CVV and sign up at http://mybookie.ag BLUECHEW: Use the code CVV to get your first month of BlueChew for FREE at http://bluechew.com GHOSTBED: Get 40% of your purchase with the code CVV at http://ghostbed.com/cvv MIRACLE MADE: Upgrade your sleep with Miracle Made! Go to http://TryMiracle.com/CVV and use the code CVV to claim your FREE 3 PIECE TOWEL SET and SAVE over 40% OFF PLUNGE: Get $150 off your Plunge with the coupon code CVV150 at http://plunge.com BONCHARGE: Go to http://boncharge.com/CVV and use coupon code CVV to save 15% For more information about Chris and INSIGHT go to: https://podcast.chrisvanvliet.com If you enjoyed this episode, could I ask you to please consider leaving a short review on Apple Podcast/iTunes? It takes less than a minute and makes a huge difference in helping to spread the word about the show and also to convince some hard-to-get guests.  Follow CVV on social media:  Instagram: instagram.com/ChrisVanVliet Twitter: twitter.com/ChrisVanVliet Facebook: facebook.com/ChrisVanVliet YouTube: youtube.com/ChrisVanVliet TikTok: tiktok.com/@Chris.VanVliet Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

All systems are go. Ladies and gentlemen, Chris Van Blele! Okay, how are we doing, my friends? Welcome back to another one on Insight. I'm CVV, Chris VanV. Thank you for being with us on this one. And yes, thank you for making Insight, one of the top wrestling podcasts on the planet.

We are consistently in the top five floating around in there with Jim Cornette, busted open, Eric Bischoff, and a few others. And if you're listening to this and you're one of the 75% of people who listen but haven't hit that follow button yet, please, could I just ask you to hit follow? Wherever you're listening to this right now, whatever app it happens to be, it helps the show more than I could possibly explain in this quick intro here. But basically it comes down to this. The bigger the show gets, the better the guests can continue to get. So please do me this favor and hit follow wherever you're listening.

do this. And if you've been subscribed to my YouTube channel for a while now, you know that there's some history with me and Tyler Breeze. Or I guess I should say with me and Tyler Breeze's chops. If you've seen the video, 20 chops at Flatbacks, the wrestling school that him and Sean Spears owns at a popka, Florida. He's like, I'm not really a chopper. And then he hits me. It's chop number 17 if you go back and watch the video again. It's like, I'm not really a chopper. And then pow! It's like a whip hitting me square in the chest. And that's a video that people still bring up to me daily. That in the Anne Hathaway video.

If you don't know what I'm talking about, look it up. You'll find it very quickly, I'm sure. It gets shared all the time. But this was a great conversation with Tyler Breeze. I love this guy. And he was released from WWE in 2021 during some of the pandemic cuts, but then kind of quietly got rehired almost right away. doing some work on up, up, down, down.

He's an awesome guy, and we find out here he's about to be a new father. He just kind of slides that in at the end, just kind of just tosses it in. Oh, yeah, I'm grateful for that. So between him being Canadian and both of us having this love of wrestling, we also have the thing that were new fathers in common. So if you enjoy this, please take a screenshot, tag us, and share it out. He's at, mm, gorgeous. I don't know if that's how you're supposed to say it, but I feel like every time I read it,

I'm like, mm, gorgeous. MMM gorgeous. And I'm at Chris Van Fleet. There's no fun way to say that. Just at Chris Van Fleet. But take a screenshot. Tag us. Let us know you're listening to this episode.

We will retweet it. We will share it on our Instagram stories. But please, just let's continue to spread the word about the show. But this is a great one. So enjoy this conversation with Tyler Breeze. I was just thinking of how exhausted you must be. because if I picked you up from the airport at 9 a.m. Pacific time after a six-hour flight from the East Coast, what time did you wake up in Florida?

Four. One a.m. here. Oh, man. You feeling all right? Yeah. And you're wrestling tonight? Yeah. Oh, baby.

And doing a signing after this. Actually, funny enough, the like two, three-hour signings of having to be on, they'll get you. That's the one of times you. Or hosting, like, as funny as it sounds, playing the. video games or something like that. If you have to be on and talking, you know. If you're on the whole time, by the time you're done like two or three hours, you're a little, you're a little tired.

Well, because especially to meet and greet, people can't come up to you and you're like, hey, buddy, good to meet you. Hey, man, how are you? Yeah, no, you get, nice to see you. You want to, I mean, I know. I want to give them like a pleasant experience. Of course. Because for, you know, the 17 seconds that they meet you, that will be the impression they

always have of you for the rest of their life. Well, that's, I'll always tell them, too, like, and again, you'll see people and they get nervous and whatever. So if we take a picture, I'm always like, hey, just double check, make sure it's the one you want because like some people just go, I got the picture and run away. It's like, no, no, no, no, double check. It's okay. We'll take another one if we need to. Like, I want this to be a nice experience for you, you know what I mean? You know what joke I always make? I always say, let me see that. And then they'll show me on their phone, I'll be like, that looks just like us. They're like, ah, ha, ha, and I'm like,

that's such a terrible joke. It works every time. You can feel free to borrow this. I might steal it. I might steal it. That looks just like us. Yeah, it's good. You've got this, you might have. You might have the best gig right now. You're signed with WWE. You're able to take these bookings all the time. Like, you're, it's the best of both worlds. Kind of. I mean, don't expose me here.

But if we got... Don't worry. Nobody's watching. We got, yeah. It's just us. We got a good thing going. We got a good thing going. I got my hands in a lot of different stuff, irons in the fire. Diversifying, as we say.

What is the WWE job that you have? I work for Up, Up, Down, Down. So Up, Up, Down, obviously, as you know, WDB's YouTube channel, strictly for gaming, myself and Woods are on there. And we just kind of get into all sorts of stuff. There's not really like, you can say gaming,

but like we just did up, up, down, down summer games, for example, and it was basically just a bunch of people having fun and, you know, running around like their kids again. And that's work, that's work. Could you imagine, you know, playing video games as a kid growing up in Canada and telling your parents one day, like, I'm going to make money for this? Yeah, I try to do it now and tell them and go, my mom, it's funny because like when Twitch started to like, when we started to do like Twitch stuff and and YouTube stuff and whatever.

Yeah. A couple of years ago trying to explain of like how it is and and how it works. My mom a couple times was like, hmm. So you're playing the game and they're watching. And I said, yes. She said, why don't they play the game? I don't know. Maybe they don't want to.

Maybe they just want to see like me do it. And then you're trying to explain that like, okay. well, they know me and they know Woods and they know whoever they're watching from what we get to see in four or five minutes, ten minutes on a Monday or a Friday or whatever. So they know that person. But they don't really know the person

who's sitting here now with a hat and doing whatever. I mean, they don't know this one. So that's the side that they want to see. Actually, I believe even Triple H said at one time in an NXT meeting. We were kind of talking about having a presence online and social media and being smart and all that stuff. But he goes,

you don't understand that like the people want to see anything that you want to do so like they want to see you brushing your teeth you know what I mean because they never get to see that but if all of a sudden you're there and you're talking to them and everything they want to see like every part of your life because you're the one that they like to tune in for yeah and you don't really think about it like that until you know you do start thinking about it and you go oh I guess that makes sense like I know for me like the people you know if I like Brad Pitt as an actor okay I see him in a movie and I see some other stuff but like I'm also interested in what he's like, like, what does he do for a workout?

What does he do in between time? What does he do when he's, you know, hanging out? What is it? Does he watch movies? Does he play video games? I don't know. But I'd be interested in knowing. And there's also those little things that make you feel human, right?

Yes. So, like, passion is contagious. So if you can put out whatever it is you're passionate about, like, I talk all the time about how I love bass fishing. Sure. And for other people who like fishing, we now have a thing to connect on. Yeah. And it makes you more than just a person they see on.

TV, it makes you, it humanizes you in a way. Well, I think so, especially, I guess during pandemic time, probably the thing that I've gotten most recently is not really like, hey, you had this match or, hey, I saw you in WDB or any of that. Yeah. It all comes back to like me hanging out with my friends playing Uno and all of a sudden they go, oh, now we can do that too. And then it's also fun when we do it.

And then we watch you do it. And it's all fun. Like, now we're all doing the same thing. Yeah. And that might be the biggest, like, kind of what you said, where they can, they almost access the same thing that you're doing. And you find that similarity. You remember when People Magazine would do the celebrities? They're just like us.

This is kind of like the modern version of that. Basically. Like, here's Angelina Jolie with, like, a bag of groceries. Like, ah, here's Jennifer Aniston walking their dog, walking her dog. Yeah. Yeah. It's anything, I guess you said it right, to kind of humanize you or, you know, the similarity. because, again, if you see, like, The Rock, for example, like, I see The Rock.

I know he works out because he posts, you know, all the time, but you don't think so much about the day-to-day of what they do. When the Rock posts the bass fishing that he does, and I don't think people realize this, he lives in Virginia. He lives on a farm in Virginia, and that's his own, like, ponds full of bass. When he posts that, even if you don't like fishing, you go, that's kind of an everyday thing to do. Like, you're fishing? Wow.

He's a normal dude. Exactly. Yeah. The funny thing about people watching you play video games is as a kid, I hated when it wasn't my turn. Sure. Because when we're talking about the original systems, it was two people at a time. Yeah. So when it was, you know, two of your friends playing or two of your siblings playing and you had to watch, I hated that.

Yeah. I was the same. Just sitting there waiting for your turn. Like, okay. Yeah. You died. Oh, you died. It's my turn.

No, but I died really quick. So, like, give me one more try. Yep. Yep. Whereas, like, now I honestly can't believe. that people tune in to watch other people play. And I'm curious, because there's kind of a lot of, like, different aspects to it. Like, one, they just, they want to see what their, you know, favorite wrestler, favorite, celebrity,

favorite, whoever. They just want to see, like, what they're doing. Or maybe someone's really good at a game or they're really passionate about a thing, and they like seeing how into the game you get. Or even just hearing, like, your thoughts and your takes on certain things where they're like, oh, I thought the same thing at that part and whatever. And then other people sometimes there's And again it sounds funny

But sometimes they're too busy Sometimes they're too busy to turn on a console And sit there and play But you know if you're at work or if you're you're you know Busy doing something you can watch it on your phone And all of a sudden now you're going Oh cool yeah oh that game actually looks really cool Maybe I'll get that

And so it's it's I guess getting a glimpse of what it is And you can kind of you know either turn it on turn it off But you're not committing I guess as much as if you're going like All right I'm going to sit here for an hour Play this game Celebrities are so accessible now. Yeah. Because if you were a big Tom Cruise fan in the 90s,

you could write fan mail to, like, the movie studio, and maybe he'd get it. But you don't know if he'd actually read it or write back to you. Now you can DM a celebrity. You can write a comment and they'll like it or write back. On a stream, you can react with them in real time. Oh, yeah. It's a whole new era now.

Well, that's... So that was the other part where I was explaining to my mom. I said, like, you've got to understand. And if Matt is shy in real life, and maybe, you know, I don't get out and I don't have a lot of friends or maybe, you know, high school was, you know, a bad time for me, or maybe I'm just a little bit awkward.

In a chat room or in a chat on, you know, a Twitch stream or anything like that, you almost get a fresh start to where, like, again, I don't have to be Matt. I can be Gamer Guy 23. And now maybe Matt, again, is a little bit awkward and maybe, you know, I don't have a lot of friends or maybe I had a bad experience or something. but Game of Guy 23, he's cool. And now he's got more friends in here

because we show up all the time and we watch this go down. Yeah. So now in here you get to like almost escape a little bit and become somebody else. And now you're making friends where again, you may have never actually met each other. But you guys are talking and it's kind of that,

it's almost like, do you remember the old show Blind Date? With Roger Lodge? I love that show. You learn about someone, but you don't get to see them and you don't get to make those like those natural first impression assumptions or whatever it is, right? So instead, like I know in our Twitch stream, people have become really good friends and all of a sudden they start hanging out, you know, in real time, like on their own or meeting up because they're all in different cities. And now you've just become, you know, a part of something that, again, in your everyday average life, unless you're going, hey, Chris, you know, come and hang out with me and play games, you're not going to get that. But all of a sudden, you can all meet up here and do that.

And again, it's almost like a fresh start or a little bit of like you get to live like two lives at the same time. And your favorite celebrity or whoever happens to be there too. This episode is brought to you by FitBod. And I feel like this is the time of year when it's hard to get those workouts in because of everything that's going on around the holidays. But on the flip side, this is the time of year when you feel like you need to be getting those workouts in because of all of the delicious holiday food that you're eating. And that's why I love FitBod. It makes planning your workouts so easy. And the workouts are extremely personalized to you and your goals and to the equipment that you have.

So you tell the app I have these kettlebells, these dumbbells, these barbells. Maybe you have an entire gym that you're going to, whatever it is. They will design a workout for you and the goals that you have, which is great because you can switch that up when you're traveling. I'm traveling a lot these days. and that's why FitBod makes it so easy to reach my fitness goals. Give it a try. Download FitBod today and get a head start on your fitness resolutions. You don't need to wait until January 1st to get started with this.

So you can get 25% off your subscription and get three personalized workouts when you go to FitBod. com.com. That's 25% off and free personalized workouts at F-I-T-B-O-D-M-E. slash insight. You may be the smartest wrestler outside of wrestling with all of the other business that you have going on

because it's not just the Twitch streaming. It's not just up, up, down, down. It's the properties that you own and rent out. And like a lot of wrestlers don't think about life after wrestling. And I feel like you have thought about life after wrestling before you were even wrestling.

To a point. So I think it's also, I don't know if we can just say like wrestlers. I think it's athletes in general. Or someone who, you know, very quickly comes into money or fame or whatever. It's kind of an easy trap to fall for that like, that's going to last forever.

Yeah, yeah. And unless someone clues you in that like, it doesn't last forever, then it's very easy to kind of get tricked in that way. And luckily, you know, he was just on the show. Lance Storm was the one who clued me in on everything, even getting in where it's like, hey, just so you know, like you're not taking the safe route here. You're gambling.

You're gambling that you might do this for a living. You might get an opportunity. You might get hired. You might have one year run. You might have a five year run. Like, everything is just kind of luck. And, you know, obviously you put in work to make your luck a little bit better. But the average person I think he told me was like five years.

You have a five year career of actually making like good money. Even if you make astronomical money, five years is not a long time. It goes very quickly. So even getting into it, you have to have that mindset of like, what am I going to do after this? What am I going to do when the money stops when all of a sudden your monthly income goes to zero dollars? that's terrifying, right? And again, especially when you get to a certain spot, you go, ah, I don't want to get a normal job.

Like, I don't want to go back to doing what I did before. So you need to create opportunities for yourself because when you get that call, nobody's really knocking and going, hey, we need you to do this, this, this. You have to have things in place. So luckily, again, I was with W.D. for like 11 years. So I long kind of, you know, made it past my five-year average.

But I was ready to go, you know, way before those 11 years. was putting little things in place and everything else was bonus at that point going all right here's this okay here's this okay now my monthly income isn't zero it's you know five dollars ten dollars whatever you whatever you add to that little you know investment yeah it just kind of goes up and up and up and again that's kind of one of those things where especially now man if you look like at social media like if you look at instagram or ticot or all that stuff and it's kind of funny because you see the like the trends right so i remember i can't remember when it was but like chains and like all you're all that you all those things were really cool way back.

And then they kind of went away, and now they're back. Like, everybody I see has like these big, you know, blinged out chains and whatever. And you're like, all right, if you're going to blow your money on that stuff, just so you know, like, you can't pay your mortgage with that if you have no job. So, you know what I mean? But it's you fall into the designer, you know, lifestyle and everything else. So you just have to kind of take a step back and also go, all right,

I have a whole, you know, life to live after this. So what am I going to do? And then, you know, kind of put. pieces in place. You kind of created your own fate because like you said, you were there 11 years before getting released, now you're back. Sure. But I feel like you skirted a bunch of releases just by kind of going, I'm going to try this thing. Like Tyler Breeze, you know, like that wasn't the plan from WWE. That was something you figured out and it just happened to work. Oh yeah. And that's, and again, it kind of falls on you need to make your own opportunities sometimes because

if you just sit there and go, ah, you know, they'll come up with something for me eventually. They won't. They will not. And then you'll be gone a lot sooner than you want. So like, you have to be proactive in, in not only wrestling and not only anything else, but everything you're going to do, you have to be proactive and actually take an interest in. And that comes down to kind of everything that I started learning along the way of like, if you're not interested in your own finances, then you're missing a big portion of your life. Because like, if you don't care, why would anyone else care? Right. If you don't care about your career, no one else is going to care more than you, you need to care. If you don't care about your health, if you don't care

about what you're eating, stuff like that, you have to be the main source of like caring about all your stuff. So when you start to, you know, again, kind of think that way, you start to think that way about everything. And then, again, you just kind of learn. And you start looking at people who are more successful than you, and you go, okay, what are they doing? And I remember the craziest thing that kind of opened my eyes to things was learning that people with a lot of money or people who have been successful. I was like, how do they have so much money? Like, they must just have a job that pays them a lot of money. And it's not.

They don't have one source of income. They usually have six or seven. I went, how do they have six or seven? How do they do this? And then you start learning about it. And again, that's where you kind of go into stocks or real estate or whatever, whatever you want to kind of get interested in. But there's a world out there and there's a lot of money if you want to kind of put the work in and do it.

Or you can go, you know, I work for this company. I'm making really good money. I'm good right now. Did you feel like your days in WWE were numbered before you came up with Tyler Brise? I felt like they were numbered like every week. It was a crazy time. And again, it's just how it is. And what year was that?

When I got hired, it was 2010. So that, oh, yeah, wow. Right. And it's a way different time. This was pre-NXT. This was FCW. FCW was still kind of like, you're a part of WWE, but WWB is here. And then FCW is like over there.

It's like around the corner and like you don't really see it. But you're there. And again, even just looking at the hiring. cycles that they do. So when I came in, it was right at the end of like where they wanted everybody to be really big and really jacked. So me, obviously, I've never been a gigantic guy. So I got hired and I came in and I went, oh my God. Like, there's no way I'm going to last here because these guys are huge and like, how am I supposed to compete with this? But you're hired for a reason. And all of a sudden, you see those people and they're kind of going and they drop off here or they go up or they do whatever

they're doing. And now all of a sudden they started to hire a lot of people who knew how to wrestle and they wanted to wrestle. And that was when all of a sudden you see the Cesaros come in and the, you know, Brian Danielsons come in, and the Moxley's and the Sets and all those guys. They kind of, you know, got away from that look or more into the work kind of hiring cycle. And again, same thing. Like you'll see that, that lasts for a while. And then all of a sudden they go, man, we should probably get some big guys in here.

And all of a sudden they're back in, you know what I mean? And I saw that cycle go a bunch of times. So when that happened, again, you just kind of have to be realistic with yourself and not live in the delusion of like, I'm here, I'm safe. You know what I mean? Like, you're never safe. You're never safe. And the second that you think you are, you're out.

So you have to very much, again, be proactive to where I made sure that I was building connections. And again, a lot of this was just imprinted on me by Lance. He was the one who kind of said, hey, man, like when you're there, this is when the work starts. This is when you need advocates in those meetings that you're never going to be in. You need people to speak up for you if they go, huh, I don't know, I don't really see it with this guy.

You need someone to go, I do. Or, hey, just give him a chance. Or, hey, he actually had this. otherwise that's the new perception of you like someone says it and if nobody shoots it down that's you so you were proactive enough to you came up with four characters four potential

characters one of them being Tyler Breeze what were the other three one was a snowboarder uh named kale cove who actually I was I thought kale cove was real cool just because I like the name I thought like kale cove like a cool dude with a K oh yeah yeah kale coovo at the beginning yeah yeah

at the start see on the same okay um but snowboarder And just kind of like, I kind of always had that anyway. So a lot of people didn't know or didn't think that I was Canadian because, like, you just have a different perception of it. Everybody thought I was from California all the time just because I was more like relaxed, kind of like funny, chill. A lot of people thought like, I was just kind of like a druggie or something because I was just so like, hey, man, whatever. Like, it's cool. But you're from Colona, BC, which is kind of like that snowboarder spot.

Kind of, well, Pinticton is close to Cologne, but Cologne is like the big one. But yeah, I mean, I grew up snowmobiling. Like, wintertime, it was snowmobiling, snowboarding, summertime. It was dirt biking and, you know, all the other stuff that goes along with it. So I knew enough of it, and now you just need to, you know, embellish it a little bit. So my big idea was Kale Cove was going to wrestle in snow pants. Oh, God. And, dude, it would have been terrible.

I would have died. But, like, snowboarders, if you watch, like, X games and stuff like that, they had some, like, cool snowpants. Yeah. But trying to wrestle in it, especially in Florida, oh, my God, I would have been boiling. All right, so Kale Co. Who else? Yeah. Okay, Cole was one.

Another one was, so I was Mike Dalton at the time. Yeah. Who was just kind of like blonde-haired, tanned, drop-kicking, you know, no personality wrestler guy. Yeah. So I went, oh, let's try, like, the darker side of him. Okay. So I kind of like, I tried a couple different versions. I tried one that was maybe like a little, like, Joker-esque where, like, I was a little, like, maybe lost it a little bit.

Okay. But I kind of just wanted to see, like, a bad side of Mike Dalton, which really, realistically, there was probably not much substance, too. but it was a little different than what they had already seen. Then Tyler Breeze, you know, obviously was, and at the time was way different than initially what I wanted it, or what it turned out to be. It was way different, what we started with. And I think, it might have just been the three.

Okay. Because I think we filmed vignettes for the three. And then we went, okay, like this is a good start. And then I had some other ones ready, but I don't think they ever came to fruition. What was it that Dusty Road saw in Tyler Breeze? Honestly, I don't know. So, like, it was one of those things.

It was kind of crazy, man. And, like, dude, it's nuts, man. What a wild life if I break it all down, like, the way that it goes. So, like, hired in 2010, almost fired, have a match with Czaro. Czaro's debut match for FCW. That saves me the first time. Because of Cizaro upper cutting your head off. That was the one.

Yes. So that saved me just because it was like, yeah, he's going to be gone the next round of cuts. And then all of a sudden, hold on. There might be something here. That saved me. The next one was. a tester show for NXT. So they were seeing a full sale

was going to work for it. And my buddy Tom Latimer was just supposed to, he was a part of the original Ascension. And he was just supposed to kind of kill me. And they knew that I could bump and sell and do whatever. So it was supposed to be short and sweet.

Here's Ascension. They loved Ascension at the time. Dusty loved Ascension. And so he went, okay, it's going to be a single match, whatever. And because he was my friend, Tom was like, you know what? He was put in like a little bit more.

So I added in a couple things. And Triple H was sitting next to Dusty. And he literally looked at him and went, who is this? Why haven't I seen him at all? And all of a sudden I'm saved again. And I think, oh, man, within, oh, at least. This was when cuts were fairly regular.

Like, three months at latest, like six months. So, like, you never really, if you got off the chopping block, you were back on there, like, very quick unless you were progressing. And then the next time I was on there, and again, going into this, this was kind of the main one where we had evaluations. And they would kind of sit you down and they'd tell you, you know, how you're doing and everything else. And I went into an evaluation, and I got,

tore apart. And I just went, what happened here? Like, I was just on cloud nine. Like, all of a sudden, I thought I was going to be like this thing. And I got tore apart. And they tore me apart for about five minutes. And finally I went, you know what? Writing's on the wall. I'm out of here. So if I'm going down, I'm going down swinging. And I started firing back. And I was like, I was like, no, man, I'm pitching this. And I'm trying this. I'm doing this. And you told me to do this. And I did this and blah, blah. And as it's happening, I just went, I'm so out of here. Like, there's no way that this is going well. So I finish up. I walk out. And Wood's a standing right there and he goes how'd that go I said probably the worst evaluation of all

time I said literally I'm out of here 100% I'm out of here and he went well he goes if you're going down he goes let's at least like go down swinging where he goes let's give them more ideas if they're thinking you have no ideas let's give them a bunch of ideas I said okay so he finished up training he came came home we filmed three of the vignettes which we filmed the kale cove one we filmed the Tyler breeze one and we filmed Mike Dalton one and I sent him to every WWE email that I had every every single one that I had all the coaches, everybody higher up that I'd never even met, I just sent it. And I just went, hope for the best.

And nobody got back to me except for Dusty. And Dusty just said, hey, there might be something with Tyler Breeze. Let's talk about it when you come back. And I said, okay. And that was the beginning. And then I went and talked to him. And again, it wasn't really like a, this is why it's good or this is why it's bad. It was just like a, okay, so what do you think of this?

And I went, well, like, I've been trying to be a wrestler for so long. I said, let's go the complete opposite. Let's go to where I don't know how to wrestle. Tyler Breeze does not know how to wrestle. He's a male model who thinks wrestling's easy, and he loves that there's cameras and video cameras, and I can be shown to the world in a moving fashion instead of in pictures like a model. And he went, yeah, I see that. That's kind of cool.

And I go, but I said, I don't want to wrestle. Like, I want to go out there and, like, I happen to be out of my element because I'm wrestling now. But I said, I don't want to be, you know, drop kicking and doing all this stuff. And he goes, I get that. He goes, okay. And so we kind of went that route until it was like, okay, well, you need to do some stuff. So we found kind of the happy medium of like a little bit of wrestling, but mostly not wrestling. And even when I debuted, even when I debuted, like, you'll see, I didn't really do a lot.

It was more of like I punched, I kicked. I showed a vicious side because when you do a like, you know, a male model kind of thing, you can't just be a male model and then not beat somebody up because then there's nothing to it. So we made sure that it had a perfect balance. And then it started to kind of just people started to take interest in it. And someone had an idea. And then someone had an idea. and then I started figuring it out and I went, oh, why didn't I do this the whole time?

Like, this is way better than what I was trying to do. And then they just kind of went where it went. It's very Zoolander. It was exactly Zoolander. But, I mean, I don't even know if people have ever made the correlation, but there was a male model before, Rick Martel. There's always been a male model. That's right. There's been, but you're nothing like Rick the model Martel.

No. Like you were so much more like Zoolander. And I think, actually, I think what really made Tyler Brie's work was you had great entrance music. So, oh, the entrance music was awesome. Wait, which entrance music? The first one, or the one that I sang? I think the one that you sang. So that one ended up kind of taking on a life of its own,

but the first one that I had was good. The first one that I had, like, man, I was heartbroken when I had to get rid of it, and then I had to sing my own entrance thing. Why'd you have to get rid of it? Because it was one of those royalty-free, like, and you'll see it on, like, commercials and, like, you know, intros for shows and stuff like that,

because it's just one of those royalty-free ones. And like the Hardy Boys music. You hear that in commercial sometimes. You're like, what? Yeah, anybody can use certain ones. Or hardcore Holly's music. It's just kind of like a library of like, this will work, this will work, this work. So they gave me this one.

And then eventually, you know, I think we had at the time, there was a band or whatever. And they started doing everybody's entrance music. So you're, and it's funny because, you know, you'll see it on iTunes or whatever. And it's, you know, this person by this person. And it's kind of like the same as like back in the 80s, 90s. It was Jim Johnson did everything. And then it switched. And, you know, all of a sudden, this person was doing everybody's entrance music.

But that was kind of the main thing of like, one, it gave another layer to what the character was going to be. You know, I mean, same in that same vein as Sean Michaels singing his own stuff. And, you know, what's to like about this guy singing about how awesome he is and how good he looks and everything else. And it really added to the character, but it also got us away from that royalty free. What were some of the lines that you love from that song? So, funny story. And this, again, this kind of comes with, it's all about navigating the territory. So, because there's no like roadmap on like how you're supposed to do things.

But being proactive, you have to be careful in like how you do certain things. So navigating especially at that time when it comes to that type of stuff. Everybody likes, you know, everybody's an artist and everybody likes doing their own stuff. So if somebody comes to you and they go, hey man, I wrote this song for you. What do you think of this? You can't just go, I don't like this. Because then they're going to get offended and they're going to go, eh, okay, well, I like it. So we're doing it.

So you have to kind of like, you know, tiptoe around a little bit. So the original lyrics of what they sent me, very different. It was very different because, again, it was someone else's, you know, depiction or idea of what Tyler Breeze was. So I went, okay, I can't tell them this doesn't work, but how can I get, you know, some of my ideas in here? So I sat there and I kind of rewrote some of the lyrics with keeping some of theirs in, but adding in some of my signature stuff. And so I kind of emailed them back and I went, hey, I was just curious. like, you know, what do you think of this? And you go, what is your opinion on it?

So that you don't go, my opinion is better than your opinion. What is your opinion on this? And they went, oh, this is great. This is your signature stuff and everything else. But you're keeping the same aura and the same, you know, essence of what they put into it. So now it's a collaboration instead of, again, my idea or your idea. Yeah. And so I kind of emailed it back and I said, what do you think of this?

And they went, yeah, it's great. And I said, okay, cool. So I ended up singing that one. And again, the final product turned out way different than what we're. what it was. I think the, if I had to break it down to like lines, I mean,

the funny part is the one that wasn't even written in. It just happened to get added after. And it's, I hear it everywhere I go. There's always one guy and it's, look, everyone, it's Tyler. That's probably the most, the biggest line out of there,

which again is just like an intro line. But if I, that's probably the one I hear the most, I think. I mean, it's so good. Yeah. How much money do you think you've spent on Tyler Breeze's clothing? because he was dressed so well.

Yeah. I mean, most wrestlers are just like trunks and boots and knee pads. That's it. Well, and so that was one of those things where, like, you have to be, you have to think outside of the box a little bit. So I made sure that I had constant gear being made. Like, I told my gear lady Sue, I was like, hey, just so you know, like, I'm going to order, like, one from you. And then now just make, like, reverse colors on that and then another color scheme. And it got to the point where I just said, nope, you just, you just surprise me now.

Wow. But I need gear this week and this week and this week and this week. And so kind of like every week I had a new pair where, and it's a little trick too, where if I had like 10 pairs of gear, if I wear one, and then I won't wear it until I wear the other ones. And then it seems new again. Of course, yeah. So like if you do that, then all of a sudden it seems like you have a bunch. But that's a lot of gear. It is. And especially two at the time, full sale tapings were four episodes in a night. So if you had three or four matches, you literally have to do your match, go back, change as quick as you can. Go do the next match. Like it was go, go, go. And especially because I was like, ah, I'll change gear. every time. I was like, I should have just worn the same gear because, like, you know, you got time to run back out there. And especially if you're back to back, which sometimes you were, it was kind of a mad dash to get other stuff. But yeah, no, the, you can't be a male model who slacks on their fashion, you know what I mean? But you went from probably having, and I don't know, but I'm guessing, half a dozen pairs of trunks, few pairs of boots, that's it,

to now 50 or more. Yeah, yeah. It actually, so traveling on the road, as you know, can be a little bit overwhelming. I had one suitcase that was just full of my gear because, smart me, I had a gigantic fuzzy fur vest, which took up a ton of room with gigantic fur tassels that took up the rest of the room, and then some gear just put in the side, but you have to check bags every time,

you have to do everything. And I was like, oh, man, if I just wore less of this stuff, I wouldn't have to check a bag, I could just carry it around. But again, you got to elaborate and, you know, make it entertaining. So you're spending thousands of dollars, if not tens of thousands of dollars on gear.

I think normally, like a normal set, a normal set was probably like 1,500. But then you've got to make one for every show. I started getting smart towards the end of it where I would have like neutral colors. So like if I had a black vest with black boot tassels, that would work for like three or four pairs of gear. So all I needed was like a different pair of tights.

Did you get to the point where you could just sell these and maybe you make some money on them. Yeah, they're almost all gone. Oh, brilliant. This is what I'm talking about. It actually turned one point. This is you telling all my secrets here. It actually turned at one point.

It turned profitable to get gear made. Brilliant. This is so smart. Yeah. I don't know how fashionable you were before Tyler Breeze was a thing, but were you Googling like, oh, okay, what color goes with this? So, no, I did. And again, this is kind of funny because if you know me at all, like, before I became

Tyler Breeze. And before I became a wrestler in general, I worked on a railroad. So like... I remember you telling me the story. Yeah. And before that... You were like a train conductor. Yeah. Yeah. So I was very much like at home. I live in sweatpants. And like a hoodie because I was in Canada. So it was like sweatpants and hoodie. And then I don't even think I went to a wedding and I didn't even own dress clothes. I didn't have a dress shirt or anything. And like so when I came down, Jinder Mahal was actually the one who was like,

Hey man, we got to take you to like get some stuff because there's a dress code. And I went, oh yeah, I don't have any dress clothes at all. We went. And we went and bought like a bunch of dress shirts and shoes and belts and all that stuff. Where'd you go? Express. Express. They always have like buy one the second 60% off. I had a million V-neck shirts and I got like one or two dress vests that you could put

over everything and like it had a suit because I'd never had a suit. Like very much not into fashion and stuff before that. It was mostly this. It was mostly sweatpants, hoodie and a hat. That's I kind of just lived in that. Express is like every guy's first step of like I need some like dressier clothes. Yeah. You can actually dress this thing.

When I first moved to the States, my boss was like, we got to, like, your clothes are fine, but like, basically telling me, like, we've got to step it up here. Fine is not fine. Fine is like, yeah, we need to do something with you. Remember he actually tore pages out of a GQ magazine and, like, handed them to me. He's like, this is what we had in mind. And I'm like, oh, boy. And he goes, why don't you, like, had to Express? And I just moved to the U.S.

I didn't know what Express was. I looked it up, and I walked in there. And I'm like, whoa. Skinny ties everywhere. Yeah. Look how fashionable I could be. It was funny too because at the time, like FCW, you'd see everybody show up to the show. And at least two or three people were wearing the same thing because we all went to Express to load up, man.

Especially that time where like patterns were a thing, like dress shirts with patterns. Yep. Yep. Like, oh, I've seen that one. I almost bought that one. I guarantee Byron Saxton still has all of his express stuff. I mean, I'm sure you do. Some of it. It didn't make the move.

I think I wore it out. I wore out a lot of it. Wow. Yeah. I still have some. Yeah, ties and stuff. Well, and then I upgraded a little bit. I got a couple things here and there, but I upgraded from Express.

Once I started to, like, get into the Tyler Bree stuff, then it was like, all right, I got to, like, get a couple of this, a couple of this. And then gear-wise, I had a main idea, and then I just trusted suit. I just got to go, whatever you want. At this point, I trust you. Make the fabric nice and whatever color combination looks cool. And she'd surprise me. She'd just show up to a show and have it. I go, great, looks awesome.

There is not a day that goes by where someone doesn't make some sort of constant. comment to me about the time that I spent of Flatbacks. Yeah? And especially about chop number 17 of the 20 that I got, which was the first one that you gave me. Oh, yeah. My goodness. I was like a gunshot. Yeah.

Well, so that's funny enough, I'm not a chopper. I'm not a chopper. And that's what you said. You're like, I'm not really a chopper. And I'm like, oh, I beg the difference. Flatbacks is the only place where you'll really see me throw a chop. I just don't throw chops. It was a hell of a chop. Yeah. I just don't like, I don't like that

it could be good or it could be bad. And most of the time, it's going to be bad if I throw it. So I just don't do them. But I got them in me, apparently. You definitely have them in you. I didn't think that video would turn out to be what it's turned out to be. So what does that tell you? Does it tell you that everybody wants to see you get beat up?

Or do people just love chops? Do they love me? Or do they love flatbacks? Do they love spears? What is it that made all of a sudden that get a million views? You know what I mean? I mean, it's a great thumbnail, right? It's a great thumbnail of like my chest, like red and welted and purple.

That picture's up at the school. No, yeah. You stand in the middle, me and Spears sitting there going, yeah. Spears told me that I made the wall and I'm like, I made the wall. Well, you got a good chopping chest and you marked up real easily. Some guys, like, you can chop them and they won't mark up. You marked up on like the first one. Yeah.

Yeah. I feel bad watching that video back because I wasn't in like my best shape. And now that video has been seen by, like, it's something like, 20 or 30 million people, if you include TikTok and YouTube shorts. And I'm like, I just wish that I had leaned out a little bit. I'm in much better shape now. I saw you posted it, yeah. But that video has been seen by everybody.

And what's also interesting is that full video is something like 15 or 20 minutes long. Yeah. And nobody talks about the fact that I was taking bumps to the start of that video. I'm locking up. I'm running the ropes because I trained, you know, when I was 20. not a single comment about my actual wrestling ability. No. All the comments are about the chops that I took.

Yeah. Well, I love it too because, again, like, that's a flatbacks, you know, ritual. We're there. We do chop day. And again, it's so funny. Like, it's not a bad thing. Like, people get into it. People love it.

Which, again, you can see on the video. So it's not like you were the only one just getting chopped to oblivion. You know what I mean? Yeah. That was the day. Everybody else was, too. And it's just kind of like, I don't know, it's weird wrestling camaraderie, man. I remember it's the weird, you can't really explain it to people if they don't know.

I remember we did one time. We had a drill in FCW where you'd wrestle for basically an hour straight. But you would kind of like rotate and you'd work an arm or work a leg or do whatever. But you're basically tired, you're tired because you're going and you're yelling and you're doing everything. And I remember one day we did the drill. And it was me and Connor from the Ascension. And we're standing in the corner. We're probably about like the 45 minute mark.

And we're both tired. We're both beat up. And it's just like for whatever reason, we're good friends. and I chopped him or he chopped me. And then all of a sudden we're just wailing on each other. And we're tired of it's 45 minutes. And we're going, ah, it just like fires you up. And then they're like, all right, rotate to the next partner.

We're going, why do we do that? But you can't help it. Like, we're not going, why did you do that to me? It was like, ah, that's what we do, I guess. Do you know if you've got any new students from that video? Uh, I know people have mentioned it. I don't know if it's the sole reason that they showed up. But maybe they go, I didn't know there was a school in central Florida.

And I live in central Florida. And now I've got, you know, two guys that have this great school. Maybe that's what I, that's originally what I want. Well, and I know that we've actually had people from like, we've got, because we get people internationally, we've had people from overseas who have mentioned it. So not just like, oh, I'm in the area and I'm a local. Like, we've had people come from Israel, Italy, France, Germany, like all over the place, Australia. Wow.

I mean, so. What's day one, look? like if I've signed up, I'm going to go to Flatbacks. What's day one? Day one at the school is, you know, you get to meet us, obviously. We double check with everybody, make sure that you're, you know, you know what you're signing up for, like you're healthy enough to be here. Everybody's good to go. And then we get into it. And we just kind of go here, here's an introduction on, you know, what this takes. And for the most part, we're getting into like cardio stuff. So we're not even in, we're not in the ring. We're not doing, you know,

bumps and moves and stuff like that. We're kind of just showing you like, hey, we know what wrestling is and you have an idea of what it is from watching it, but you need to be in shape. Like, you need, I need to be able to rely on you because once we get into all the stuff that you want to do, if you're tired, you're going to hurt me. And I need to know that even when you're dead tired, you're going to protect me. And that's usually what we get to where, okay, like, if you haven't prepared, if you haven't hit the gym, if you're not in shape, if you're not watching what you eat, you're going to struggle a little bit.

And again, it's not to like discourage you or weed you out is to let you know, hey, you should probably work out while you're here. because again, if you're holding me up in the air, I need to know that I'm going to walk out of there okay. Do you give people like a workout regimen to follow before they come to the school? Not before. Some people have asked and we'll kind of say like, hey, it's not so much

like do this, this, this, this. Literally anything that you can do will help you. If you want to run on the treadmill all day, go crazy. If you want to go outside and do something else, go crazy. You want to lift weights, go nuts. It's all going to help you. The only thing that if you do nothing, it's not going to help you. But that's amazing to me.

like you see how many people come into your wrestling school or any wrestling school or wrestle on the indies and clearly look like they don't ever work out. Yeah. And I'm like, hold on. You've watched wrestling your whole life.

That's why you're here because you love wrestling. What do all of these people that are on TV have in common? Oh, they're in some sort of shape. Yeah. Well, that was always my biggest thing. Of course the disconnect.

That was always my biggest thing, right? So like when I was a kid, you'd watch wrestling and you were like, oh, yeah, and I'm going to grow up to be like six foot three, 225 pounds. And then all of a sudden

you grow up and you're like, I am not that. So then you start realistically looking and like, all right, if I was standing next to somebody who would be the comparison, my comparison was always Dolf,

right? We're roughly the same size. We're going to do the same stuff. We're in the same shape, whatever. Same hair. Exactly, right? So I'd be lying if I said,

I haven't signed a couple of Dolph autographs. That's just how it is. But he was always my guide of like if I'm standing next to him, does it look like I'm trying to get his autograph or that I'm going to wrestle him? And that to me kind of went, and again,

It's not like a judgmental thing or anything else. It's a look at your career realistically. If I don't invest in myself, one, we're taking a beating. So if you don't take care of your body, your career is going to be very short because you're going to get hurt. But at the same time, you never get to learn about, we never get to have this conversation if you want to pay me to do this for a living. You only know what you see. So the first impression, I don't care if you're big. I don't care if you're small.

I don't care if you're tall, short, whatever, I need to see something that is marketable. Right? If you just look like the guy, again, if you look like you're there for a meet and greet and you're going to, you're going to, to, you know, ask for an autograph. I don't know if I need to invest money in that guy because you're not even investing money in that guy. You know what I mean? So you have to objectively, and again, this is kind of the weird part where if you look realistically at yourself in the mirror, you have to kind of be honest with yourself and go, I should probably get in shape or I should probably get bigger or I should probably trim up or I should probably do whatever. And a lot of people don't

do that. And that's the thing I just don't understand because in every other sport, if you're playing baseball or trying to play baseball professionally or football or soccer, basketball, hockey, whatever it is, you're looking around the locker room and going, oh, man, if only I looked like that guy or played like that guy, and you're trying to, you know, figure that stuff out. Well, I think we take for granted the fact that, like, in wrestling, you know what's going on, I know what's going on, and, like, it's a choreographed work. We know what's happening.

You know what I mean? So people lose that there's, like, a competition aspect to it, or, you know, you want to divide it or say that it's not in the same category as, you know, hockey or football or whatever. where a lot of aspects of it are. Like, again, if you're out of shape, we can put some smoke and mirrors around it to help you a little bit. But at the highest level, like, again,

anybody can become a wrestler. You can become a wrestler and wrestle on a show this weekend if you really wanted to. But if you want to get to the highest level, there's a very big difference in the athletes, the strength, the looks, the everything else. So, like, if you want to compete, if you want to do this for a serious living,

you have to do a lot more than the average person and not take for granted that, again, it's in the same. categories, movies or TV shows as opposed to, you know, the NFL or the NHL. So what's the advice you have for someone who's... Is that us? No. Is that going to get on it?

That's okay. We're in Hollywood. This type of stuff happens all the time. It's a carhorn honking out here. What's the advice you have for somebody then who's coming to your school and wants to do this for a living? Prepare. Please prepare.

This is... So me and Spears have a... Once you start coaching people, you kind of end up in like these like endless loops of the same thing. We're going on four plus years now, and we're, it's funny, because we're going to let the secret out,

and then all of a sudden we're going to break the streak. We probably won't, because this is just how people are. So we tell them, day one, again, when you come in, we give you the talk of what you're getting into, and we go, just so you know,

we will be doing promos. Please prepare a promo. That doesn't mean sit in your, apartment, car, whatever, and think about a promo. This means pull out your, your phone because everybody has one, film yourself doing it, and then watch it back and do it again, and write the promo out and actually prepare and try to do this. Again, we're not doing it off the

top of our heads. We're not just feeling it. We're not doing that. We are preparing it and then doing it to the best of your ability when it comes time. We can't stress that enough. Every time that we get to promos, we go, did you prepare that? And they go, no. Why? Why? Well, you know, I thought about it a couple times. Cool, man. Like, it just doesn't compute in my head of, like, why am I begging you to prepare for what you told me you want to do so badly? It doesn't add up to us.

Like, if you were an actor and, like, the first thing that happens either to get into an acting school, because that's a big thing here in L.A., that you have to audition just to get into the acting school. Yeah, some of the bigger ones. So you need to have a monologue. And your acting coach, your acting teacher will tell you, you've got to have a monologue. Yeah.

And that's a big thing that you've got to think about. And it's usually you're doing someone else's work from a movie or a play. But you've got that monologue. And you look at the script and you're like circling words and you're like, okay, I'll put a little bit of emotion into this. The same thing should be happening with Rustin. Maybe you need to like, maybe you guys every single day need to be harping on like, promo day is four weeks from now.

Guys, you need to write this out. Promo day is three weeks from now. Are you working on your promo? promo day is two weeks from now. Maybe that needs to be a thing. We could try, but again, keep in mind, we'll do promo day and we'll do it. And we have the same speech every time. And we go, there was even one class that Spears went, do you think they prepared?

I said, I think this is the one. I think they all prepared. And then they didn't. And I went, oh, you even got me. Like, I thought you were going to and you didn't. But we've done it where, like, we, again, we do promo day. We critique them. And then we harp on, like, you need to do.

We are doing this again. So please take what we've got. in you and prepare, prepare, prepare. And then we'll do it usually the next day and we'll go, if we were doing promos today, did any of you do anything when you left here? And they go, no. That's crazy. We just did it last night.

You had a couple hours at night and then you had all day. And then now you're here. And you're still like, that's the thing. You can lead the horse to water, man. But they are going to choose if they drink or not. But the amazing thing, you're working an indie show later today. You could take any of those people in the back. and if the promoter says to them like,

oh, we're going to shoot a promo and half an hour to, you know, talk about this match, all of those people would come up with something and they'd be ready to go. It might not be amazing, but they'd have something and probably one take, they'd be able to nail it. I know that, like, if I went to promo day and it sucked, and you and Spears gave me some feedback,

all I would be thinking about that night is, how can I not embarrass myself for the next time the promo day comes around? Yes. Right? Being called in and not knowing what's going on, or like, you're paying attention to the drills, you're paying attention to everything. But same thing, and even going a step further, once we learn punches and kicks,

we go, you can practice this literally anywhere. You can practice this here, you can practice this at home, you can practice this. And you need to practice this because these are one of the things that are very important. Yeah, it's the basics of every match.

And then a week goes by and we'll go, your punches don't look very good. Have you been practicing them? And they go, no. And you go, why not? And then even then, now you've had your coaches telling you that they don't look good.

So now you think you go home and you're practicing like crazy. Week goes by. Have you been practicing them? Not really. What? We told you. All right.

At that point we go, okay. Their internet search history after the first promo day should be like, best wrestling promos ever, best WWE promos ever, Jake the Snake promos.

Like, it should be like watching other people and just grabbing little things. Keep in mind though sometimes and again, this is a combo of things, I think. But when I started wrestling,

I did not like promos. I didn't put any effort into my promos. That should be the stuff that you worked the hardest on that. I liked wrestling. And a lot of guys like wrestling. They want to be wrestlers. We've had some who come in loving wrestling,

and then they realize that it's awesome if they care about your wrestling because of your promos. Then some change. Some of them don't. Some just kind of go, oh, I'm okay with just the wrestling. But what about, like, some of the best wrestlers of all time who were amazing promos and very okay wrestlers?

Well, so I think this is the thing, too, is that there's a lot of podcasts out there. And a lot of people who have done this for a long time, they put it out there that, ah, we just had bullet points or we just go off the top of our head or we were feeling it. And then they go, well, if this person just feels it, then I'll just feel it. And we go, they tell you that,

but I promise you, they didn't just feel it. They had ideas, and they'd cut these promos before. So they're not just like whipping these up out of thin air. They've got ideas because they put the work in. And without this turning into a full-time creator lesson here, That's right. I always tell podcasters when they're starting out, I'm like, if you don't have 10 episodes, 10 guests,

10 ideas for 10 episodes right now, ready to go, you don't have a podcast. Yeah. Because, yeah, you and your friends are really funny when you sit around watching the game or having a few drinks, but nobody wants to listen to that. If you don't have 10 topics that you can go off of

for the next 10 weeks or five weeks if you're doing two per week, that's not a show. Yeah. And I feel like if you're a wrestler, and a wrestling character, and you know your character well enough, you should be able to cut a promo about this,

that, and this other thing. That's if you know your character enough. A lot of people don't, they don't go that deep on it. They go, all right, and we'll say, what's your character? Who are you? And they'll go,

I'm an arrogant heel. Okay, well, that's everybody. So what else do you got? Yeah. I don't know. Maybe he's kind of a jerk. Oh, okay. So is everybody.

You have to, and they keep going, well, how do I figure this out? I said, well, ask yourself why. Keep asking why until you can't ask yourself why anymore. Like, why are you this way? Why are you arrogant? And they go, why? Yeah. Maybe because of this.

That could work. Why are they that? Why do they want to wrestle? If they're this, then now why do they even want to get in a ring and wrestle? Yeah, I mean? And they'll go, oh, I never thought of that. And you go, yeah, that's, keep asking yourself why, and you'll figure it out. There's a thing in, like, the personal development space where it's like the five

whys. So if you're doing something on the surface level, you're. level. If you can't get to five whys of like, why are you doing this? Why? It was exactly what you're talking about. Then you got to dig a little deeper. Yeah. Because again, it's all just, it's, and what I've kind of realized is people try to play an emotion. So like, oh, okay, I'm going to be arrogant or I'm going to be, you know, cocky or I'm going to be whatever. You can't play that. You have to think about traits. So like, again, everybody in their life has somebody that they don't like, so why don't you like them? And then steal that. Oh, this person talks a lot. They're kind of

annoying. Cool. Maybe I talk a lot of annoying. Yeah, that's cool. Do you think people are self-aware enough to know that? I think that's another part of it. Not until somebody brings it up. Yeah. So, and again, my biggest thing, so Tyler Breeze, and this is, right in, like, my wheelhouse was that Tyler Breeze character, because I love the, like, the airhead idiot. Like, you're just untouchable. You can't, you can never kind of, like, talk yourself into a corner, because worst case scenario, if I forget my entire promo or I like say something that makes no sense. I can just stare at my phone and go, oh, sorry, I was just staring at myself, right? And I love those characters. So like the stifflers of American Pie, uh, Andy from Parks and Rec, like, there's always that character in a show.

And I just started going, oh man, these are, these are, these is gold. And I just notebooks. I just steal their lines and I'd take everything because that is what I wanted Tyler Reese to be, the Zoolanders, like, all that kind of like, just dumb but really funny stuff. I just took all of and went, I'm going to put this here and this here and this here and this here, and then you figure out who this person is and why people are either going to dislike him or like him. And it's a lot of those traits where, again, it's why I watch certain shows or why I feel about certain characters, because those characters had creative teams hash out that character, so there's no holes in them.

What's ironic is the character Tyler Breeze is not self-aware at all. In order to be not self-aware, you yourself, Matt, had to be very self-aware. Very self-aware. That's hilarious how that works. Yeah. I also think it's interesting that, like, you and Fondongo on the surface don't, the characters really don't have a ton in common. Dancer and a model.

Yeah. But when you put you guys together, you go, oh, wow, there are a ton of similarities. And when you put this together, it really does work. It works big time. And that was, I think, kind of almost finding similarities in that when he started, when he started doing the dancing stuff, he was almost like very serious, right? He wasn't really, he wasn't really in that same. kind of Tyler Bree's airhead aspect. But when we came together, all of a sudden, like,

he was off, you know, he'd go on these random tangents. And I'd go like, whoa, yeah, that's cool. And then we found this common ground of like, we're both kind of idiots. And then it just works where it's going to go, especially when you, you know, all of a sudden you're the cops of fashion, you know, this fashion police thing. And I'm going, oh my God, we're just, we're untouchable. We can do no wrong. Like, anything we say is probably going to be stupid and funny. And as long as I don't burst out laughing. And even if I do, it's probably still. okay, you know what I mean? How fashionable were you before you were the fashion place?

Dango, so Dango, funny enough, in FCW, when I came in, he was the man. Johnny Curtis was the coolest dude. That to me, like, and this was like in real life and as the wrestler, like, as a wrestler, just jacked, big dude, good at wrestling, like, just overall, I went, that's what a wrestler is. Like, he's got it all, man, he's just like this young, good-looking dude, he can kill it. And then in his real life, he was just the coolest dude in the world, man. Probably the best way to sum it up is we went out one time and like all these like, you know, new FCW guys and whatever.

And all of a sudden we go to a bar and Johnny Curtis is there. And Johnny Curtis comes over and he just big leagues like just walks over. Hey, guys, what's going on? Blah, blah, blah. And he's on NXT at the time. And we go, oh, man, he's like a big star. He's whatever. And I see him walk up to the bar and he leans into the bartender.

And he tells her something. And then all of a sudden she just pulls out like a million shot glasses. and starts lining the bar with them. And she just, like, sitting there, blah, blah, blah, blah. And I see him look, sign something, looks over to us and goes, all right, boys, like, see a later. you later. And he ends up leaving and basically just took one shot and left the rest for us.

And I went, that guy's the coolest dude. Like he bought around for you guys. Yeah, dude, like, he's just like Patrick Swayzy. Like, he's just got that coolness to him, man. He's just the dango's the coolest. And what a move, too, because that's something you'll never forget. Yeah, that to me, like, I already thought he was the coolest. And then he did that and I went, man, this guy's the coolest dude in the world.

Like, he's the coolest. I wonder if he's even aware of like, is he just trying to be a nice guy? Like, hey, here's one for the boys. That's just how he is. Like, he's amazing. Overall, like, and he's hilarious, especially when you get to know him. He is the coolest dude in the world, nicest guy in the world. But then he can also be like a real hothead.

But as long as you understand, like, it's probably a miscommunication or like a misunderstanding, then we're good. You know what I mean? So he's not really like. angry and mad is just like one of those things that eventually you clue him in and we just laugh it off and man yeah he's just he's the coolest man i feel like you and your three friends were the mvps of the pandemic like what you guys figured out very quickly when the world was shut down and nothing else was going on you figured out something pretty special there which funny enough we just stumbled on

we literally just stumbled on we were trying to do the same thing that everybody at home was doing I think just trying to pass the time, trying to have phone with our friends, and it turned into what it turned into. But same thing, like, you know, Battle of the Brands with me in Woods was the same thing, too. We just, the funniest story where he moved in and he was moving in, and I see him pulling out all this video games and everything else. And I'm looking through him and I go, oh, Smackdown Vissaraw 2006. Oh, that game's so good.

So I love that game. He goes, yeah, me too. And I said, I'd usually just play the GM mode, though, and he goes, me too. And all of a sudden, we just start playing it on our own. And then we go, huh, let's just film this and see if they want it on the channel. And all of a sudden, it's the staple of the channel. And now all of a sudden we're the, you know, the spokespeople for the mode in 2K23. So it's like it's, you just start something.

And I think if people genuinely see that you're enjoying yourself and not just sitting there, like, putting it on and going, oh, this game is really cool. You know what I mean? If they see that you're into it and you're having fun, which, Uno was exactly that. It was, you know, all of us just going, all right, let's log on, let's have fun. We happen to be recording. But we're just going to play until, you know, most of the time we'd start at like 11 or midnight. And then we would just deliriously play into the night. And end recording, send it in and just forget it even happen.

And then people would watch it. And all of a sudden, like, these catchphrases would live on. And, you know, to the point where we had our own Uno deck, like, the official Uno deck came out. Like, it got way bigger than we ever thought or intended that it would be. It was just four friends having fun, man. People forget there was a real novelty early on in the pandemic when, like, I think that when people think of 2020, they think of, like, All the bad stuff. And there was a lot of bad stuff.

And it sucked. Stuff was closed down and so many people lost their job. That all sucked. And I'm certainly not taken away from that. But there was a real novelty, like mid-March, when the world came to a screeching halt and we're like, oh, man, like, we've all, like, got this time. Like, we're being forced to, like, take time to spend with our friends to, even if it was just a FaceTime or a Zoom, connect with people.

And, like, there was a real novelty for, like, two weeks when we thought it was going to last for two weeks. Yeah. Remember that? Yeah. And then it got into what it became, but there was a real novelty of like, those guys are hanging out just like us. Like, we can't go to concerts anymore.

We can't go to sports games anymore. We're forced to sit at home and play Monopoly or Scrabbler, Uno or video games. This is kind of cool. For the first time in our lives, maybe the first time ever, we're forced to slow down and like pause for a little bit. Well, that's, yeah, and it's, it's like the world's so fast moving, man, especially now. like if you look at any given crowd or event or anything, 90, 95% of people are on their phone.

Oh, of course. Very rarely are they just sitting and joining each other's company or being social anymore. So almost to the fact where you're, you got no choice, you're locked in a house with, you know, your family or friends. It's like, all right, cool. Like, what are we going to do? And that's when I know, like, I loaded up. I had board games. I had a ton of board games.

We were playing them nonstop. Remember when people couldn't get puzzles? Yeah. Puzzles worldwide. It's sold out. Yep. Yeah. It's just people, they need entertainment and they need stuff to do.

And again, it's just almost like a lost art now of just hanging out with your friend and sitting. And like, you know, I remember the same of like, you know, every Friday as a kid or as a teenager, like, your friends are coming over and they'd usually sleep over at one of the houses. And we just play do it. Play 007 all night or do whatever. And it's like that, I don't know, especially because things are online and everything else. Like very rarely are you just hanging out with your friends and enjoy your company. You know what I mean? This, what we're doing right now.

It's super rare. It's commodity, man. An hour of uninterrupted conversation where our phones are away and we have to pay attention. That's right. That I also think is why podcasts works so well because nobody gets past the initial layer of like, how you been? Oh, that's cool, man. Yeah. Oh, man, that might be my most, like I go out of my way specifically.

If I'm having a conversation with you, I will not pull out my phone and look at it just because I think it's so rude, man. you're literally telling me you're not interested in this conversation right now. Yeah. And if you have to, if there's an emergency or something, it's like, hey, I just got to check my phone for like two seconds, man. Okay, and we're good. But I've seen it and I've had it happen where like we're mid-conversation and I just slowly drift off. Yep. Is this happening?

Is this real? Is this actually going down? I turned off all notifications on my phone two years ago, except for phone calls. Sure. But I turned off all notifications because if we were talking like this and I felt my phone buzz, Even if I didn't check it. Yeah. My mind would immediately go, was that a text?

Yeah. Was that Twitter? Was that Facebook? Was that Instagram? What was it? Or you get those phantom buzzes and you think that's going? Yeah. You pull out your phone and you look and there's nothing and you go, huh.

All right. And all you're thinking is like, I want to check my phone, but I don't want to be rude. Uh-huh. Oh, man, I just got to go to the bathroom. You've been in the bathroom three times the last hour. Is everything okay? I checked Facebook, Instagram mode. Yeah.

So I now turned off all notifications so I can be. more present. And that is such a rare thing now to actually be present. I'm very curious, like, what the next generations do and how they are. Because, like, I remember even as a kid, like, sure, technology's gotten better and everything else. But, like, we've, as kids or as younger, you know, in teens and 20s and stuff like that, you're very fast moving. And you're very, like, on to the next, on to the next, on the next. And you hear, like, older people tell you, like, you got to enjoy the journey and slow down a little bit and this and this. And you really don't until all of a sudden you hit a certain

age and you go, I'm okay with just like sitting here hanging out with you and like, yeah, let's just, just watch a, you know, watch something happen over here or do it. Like, you just, you want time to slow down a little bit because it really does go fast. You know how everything seems to be cyclical? Like the fashion now is the fashion from the 90s. Oh, yeah, yeah. Right? And that just seems to be a thing.

I just bought my mom a pair of shoes that she had when she was in the eighth grade. Amazing. Wow. Yeah. Yeah. I wonder if this, the attention thing will end up being cyclical too. Like we're so inundated right now that like you don't even know where to look because there's so many options. I wonder if somehow 10, 15, 20 years from now, it's going to go back to like, oh, man, dad, you look at your phone all the time.

It's like, well, that's because that's what I've always done. But like, I wonder if there's going to be a generation that's going to want to unplug. There's got to be. Slightly. There's got to be. There's even, so I was just talking about this actually where everybody, every phone has a camera on it. So, like, disposable cameras and, like, you know, do you remember the climb of, like, all these, like, digital cameras came out? Of course.

They were so expensive. Yeah. And then they kind of went away because now they're on your phone. Of course. But now they're coming back to where people are, like, taking disposable pictures or Polaroid pictures or, like, kind of, like, days gone by of, like, older technology. And it just comes back again and you go, this is the coolest. You go, why are you? What?

Is it because, like, when you take a photo with a Polaroid, you've got basically one shot or a disposal camera. One shot, maybe two. And that's it. Like, remember, you would go to a concert or you would go to a sports game, and you'd take, like, four photos. And then you'd have to wait to take 20 more to develop the film. And then you would develop the film from, like, three months of memories. And you'd be like, oh, I forgot. I even took that one.

It was always the mystery. Whereas now you go to a concert and you take 117 photos. Or, this is always my favorite. If you stand up and you record, like, the whole concert, I go, are you just watching the concert through your phone? Are you ever going to watch that video ever again? Never! You will never look at that video again. Like you, I don't know, man.

Like, just be in the moment and enjoy what's going on. But it's crazy because, again, 90% of people will have their phone up going, I'm recording this or they'll post it or whatever. And it's like, again, you'll never watch that. You'll never watch this again. And do you think they're recording it to go, like, I can't wait to watch this song back? And maybe that's the case.

Maybe you look at that memory six years from now and go, that was cool. Or are you just recording it to, Put it on social media so that your followers will go, you went to that person's concert? Oh, man, you got tickets to Beyonce. You were at the Taylor Swift concert, whatever it happens to be. Well, that's, so me and my wife talk about this all the time,

because it's like, not just her, but people in general love, like, photo shoots now. People do photo shoots for everything, right? So you take these photos and everything else. But none of them are, like, none of them are real. Like, you're not actually doing this in your everyday life, for you're just, they're like these weird fake pose pictures because everybody's doing it. And it's like, why don't you like just take normal pictures in everyday life and you'll kind of see like what you're like instead of like, and again, I think I saw somebody at the airport

do it today. I watched them and they're sitting there and they're just like this. And they're miserable and tired and everything else. And all of a sudden they pull their phone. And they go, and they take this picture and I go, you're not enjoying the airport. You hate the airport right now. Why are you doing this? And it's like, I don't know.

It's just, I don't know why people feel the need to post. every little thing. And again, it's not real. You're editing that picture, or you're editing that emotion, or you're smiling. I don't know. It's weird.

It's a whole thing now. Did you take engagement photos? We did. We did. Isn't it funny? Because, like, you're doing stuff you would never do in real life.

Like, hey, hold hands, walk away from us. And when you get about 10 feet, jump into the air. Yeah. What? Yeah. I mean, they end up making these great photos.

Sure. We have our engagement photos hanging on our wall in our house. But, like, you're doing these, very weird things and a place you're probably never going to go to. I think I said I would do it as long as we didn't do like all the stereotypical poses. And then like she's going to look.

We took pregnancy photos too and like, okay, she's going to look down and you're going to look off into the ocean. I'm like, okay. Yeah. Sure. Yeah. Or you're just like eyes closed like just holding up tightness. Like, whenever you ever done that?

What kind of tangent have we gone off? But it's just, you know how it is. It's just how it is. I want to be respectful. of your time because I got to get you to your signing here. Sure, sure, sure. But thank, it's so good to catch up with you. You always. Thank you for hanging out and not chopping me. I appreciate that. No chop. Yeah. Hey, no chops it does. And again, again, that was your call. It was. That was your call. We don't just go around chopping around. Right. And I need to

reiterate this every time we talk about it. They're so mean. They chopped them up. It was my idea. Spears was like, because I was like, I want to come to the school. I want to, you know, take a bump. I love that. I love getting back in there. locking it up. And he goes, well, it would be really cool if, what if I gave you a chop? Yeah, one. And I'm like, one chop. Yeah, sure, I'll take a chop. No problem. I said, let's make it a little bit more interesting. Let's make it a video

people might actually want to watch. How about you have all your students chopping? And he's like, you did our student chop day. Are you sure? Yeah. Eight students plus you guys. Cassie watching. Yep. Yeah, so, and then he's like, oh, by the way, everyone gets two chops. Take off your shirt and get in the corner. I'm like, yeah. Well, that's, yeah. So, like, I think when he did it, he did it when he went to wrestling school.

And I don't know how many he ended up taking. We talked about this all the time. I think he took at least 15. But he was, like, at the time, he was, like, tiny. And, like, the guys were gigantic. They were, like, 300-pounders just killing them. I know I took, like, 20 at least in this class. And so I think the most we've ever done with a big class.

Because if there's a big class, we'll, like, dial it down a tiny bit. But I think the most we've ever done is maybe 24. In a row. And again, they have to learn how to do it and safely. So they're not just wildly, you know, chop at each other. They're learning how to do it properly. But it's, you know, the same thing of, I guess it's 2023's version of, you know, how it used to be back in the day where I remember we even asked Billy Gunn one time. We go, how did you break in?

And he goes, honestly, I went to a school and went, I think I want to be a wrestler. And they just legitimately beat him up for three hours straight. And I went, okay, yeah, we don't do that anymore. So like a couple chops for like, you know, two minutes of your life. That's better than getting three hours of big. eating up for real. My God. I had to ring announced the next day, Blueprint Pro Wrestling in Deerfield Beach.

And I remember putting my shirt on. It felt like I had the worst sun tan or sunburn. I was like, oh, I'm buttoning up my shirt. Oh. When I left, you were like, you're going to want to get some aloe vera. And I'm like, Alovera. You're like, yeah, it's Florida. It's going to be lots of aloeira around from all the tourists getting sunburn.

Sure enough. Well, as we normally say, too, and people are like, you're messing with me. But sometimes you get cut. Sometimes there's a little cut, some whatever. I was like, grab some hand sanitizer, toss it on there. And they go, that's going to hurt. And I said, yeah, but you need it. Like, all of our dirty hands just touched you.

So it's funny, funny watching people's reactions to me. All right, so we wrap this up with the same question every time. And by the way, thank you for hanging out. This went really fast, man. This went very fast. I feel like this was just a normal conversation. Your patience here with all of this. What are three things in your life that you're grateful for right now?

It's an interesting question because I could really, I could really blow this wide open here. Okay. I'm a pretty private person. I'm a pretty private person. What are you going to be grateful for? You can be grateful for private things? You'd be grateful for public things. I'm, I'm great.

You know what? I'll give you something. I'll give you something good. I'm grateful for my family. I love my family, family and friends. I'm grateful for my health. I'm 35 years old and feel great. I changed up the way I eat.

I'm like feeling pretty good. or everything else. You look good. Thanks, man. Thanks. Trying to get to where you are. And the third one, again, this little breaking news, people know, people know if they know me.

But if they don't know me, they don't know. I'm grateful that I'm having a kid. Oh, my gosh. Having a kid in six weeks. Wow, congratulations. Oh, my gosh. Dude, that's amazing. I'm a newfound father myself.

I know. I saw. I have a, you know, totally different appreciation for all of that now. Do you know if it's a boy or a girl? Boy. A little baby boy. Wow. Yeah.

Dude, I know you've heard this from everybody, so I'll just pile on. It will change your life. Oh, yeah. And it has changed my life in immeasurable ways. She's three and a half months old. Already. I feel you just posted the picture.

And by the, this is how you'll know you're a dad when the background of your phone is the baby and the wife. Spears's background changes daily. New picture every time. She sent this to me when I wasn't, I was just away for the last few days. Yep.

you know, just casually interviewing Rick Flair and Hulk Hogan. No big deal. What a flex, dude. She sent me that photo. I'm like, oh, I miss them so much. Dude, that's amazing. Congratulations. Thank you, man. I wish you all the best.

You have lots of friends who are parents, but if there's anything I can do to help, let me know. And when we're off camera here, send me your baby registry. We're going to get you to see you. Mom, man. Mom, man. Yeah. Cool. So good to see you.

Thank you, buddy. Thank you. Okay. There it is. Big congrats to Tyler. I'm becoming a first time dad. Woo! Welcome to the club, my friend.

That's just, and we did this interview like six weeks ago, so you can kind of connect the dots here, you know, do the math. Yeah, congrats. Huge congrats to Tyler and the whole family there. And I just wanted to wait until the time was right to put this episode out. So the time is, is now right. So huge congrats. And I love talking to him.

him. It's funny. I drove over to the studio with him and then I drove back from the studio with him. And we were like, did we really talk about anything there? Like, it just felt like we were hanging out. And the mics just happened to be there. Yeah, sure, we drank a little bit of F3 energy, of course. F3energy.com. Use the code CVV. You'll get 15% off. And if you're looking for a new energy drink, F3 is great. And if you don't want to buy it on F3Energy.com, go to Amazon and leave a review on Amazon, but F3 energy is pretty fantastic. All right, so is Tyler Breeze. Take a screenshot. Let us know you're listening to this. Share it out. Tag us. He's at Mm-hmm, MMM gorgeous. I'm at Chris Van Fleet. And here's a quote from Albert Einstein to wrap this up. The measure of intelligence

is the ability to change. And man, how fitting is that quote for his whole conversation there of pitching different characters and his ability to change and try to put something together so he wouldn't be fired. I love it. Be great. Be grateful. We will see you on the next one, which is tomorrow. And Ask CVV episode. It's still time to tweet me a question. So it's included on the next Ask CVV episode. But we will see you on the next one for some more insight. The Hammer Alley 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 then? 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.