Insight with Chris Van Vliet - X-Pac on beating addiction, joining the NWO and DX, "X-Pac Heat", teaming with Kane, Hall of Fame

Episode Date: June 22, 2021

Sean Waltman, aka X-Pac, is a 2-time WWE Hall of Famer and host of the Pro Wrestling 4 Life podcast. He joins Chris Van Vliet for an in-person interview in Los Angeles, CA to talk about his legendary career, being inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame twice, his role in the NWO and DX, his friendships with Triple H, Kevin Nash, and Scott Hall being Kane's tag team partner, his reaction to the term "X-Pac Heat" and much more! Submit your Blue Wire Hustle application here: http://bwhustle.com/join If you enjoyed this episode, could I ask you to please consider leaving a short review on Apple Podcast/iTunes? It takes less than a minute and makes a huge difference in helping to spread the word about the show and also to convince some hard-to-get guests. For more information about Chris and INSIGHT go to: https://chrisvanvliet.com Follow CVV on social media: Instagram: instagram.com/ChrisVanVliet Twitter: twitter.com/ChrisVanVliet Facebook: facebook.com/ChrisVanVliet YouTube: youtube.com/ChrisVanVliet Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Well, hello, my friends. Welcome back to another audio adventure here on Insight. I'm Chris Van Fleet. Thank you so much for being with us, wherever you are, and whatever you happen to be doing. And if you haven't yet, please take a second to hit subscribe or follow on whatever platform it is that you're listening on right now.

If it happens to be Apple Podcasts, by the way, it'd be so incredibly helpful if you could leave a review on there. Guys, the world is starting to get back to normal. This right here is another in-person interview. Oh, man. It was so awesome to welcome Xbox into my home for this chat. I mean, he lives like 15 minutes away from me. So instead of doing this over Zoom, he asked,

Hey, man, would it be okay if I came over? We just sat down and chatted in person? I'm like, uh, yeah. And I think you'll agree with me that it's always so much better when we do these in person. There's just something about that connection, looking someone in the eyes, shaking their hand, just feeling their energy.

I was actually just a guest on Xbox podcast. It's called Pro Wrestling for Life. So when you're done with this interview, you can go check out his show on whatever platform it is that you're listening on. Snap a screenshot. Let us know that you're with us. Share this on social media and tag us.

Xbox is at the real Xbox on Twitter, and he's at Real Xbox on Instagram. You can find me. I am at Chris VanVle. It's just my name. Super simple. You know, Xbox has had such an incredible career. And there's no way that I could possibly do his whole career justice in a little over

an hour with this conversation. But we cover a ton here. So let's dive right into it. Please welcome the two-time Hall of Famer, Sean Waltman, aka Xbox. Thank you so much for coming to my neighborhood here. Thanks for having me in your home. Yeah, of course. We're kind of neighbors-ish.

You live 20 years away. Just 15 minutes down the block. Yeah. So like when we talked about doing this interview, it's like, well, we could do it over Zoom. But why not do this in person? Yeah, exactly. So thank you. So thank you so much for coming my way.

Also, thank you for having me on your show recently. Dude, it was a great talk about it. That was a lot of fun. It was nice having you on too. And congratulations on rebranding your podcast, bringing it back because you've got a great show. Thanks. I got to have a really good team. that really makes it, you know, makes it happen.

So, you know, I just got to show up and talking to my microphone, looking to the camera. That makes it easy. Yeah. They make it all, you know, they make everything else happen. So I'm grateful to my team. Out of great respect, what should I call you? Just call me Sean.

Do most people call you, Sean? I mentioned this to you before. My older friends that have known me for several decades, tend to call me kid, like Conner, like all the click people. They still call you kid? Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure.

Okay. Like Road Dog calls me kiddo, Bambito. Yeah. And, you know, and some people call me Pah. Right.

You know, it just depends. I don't know. Like, it's funny because Kurt Hannick, was perfect. Yeah. It was just a dear friend.

And he used to call me kid. I just, it was just, man, it's not, all right, I'll just skip to the part where I was no longer one, two, three kid. Sure. Yeah. And, uh, Kurt comes to WCW. And so we're hanging out with each other again. And he says, calls me Sean.

And it crushed me, Chris. It was like, why are you calling me this? Like, I just, I started respect. I'm like, dude, that hurt my feet. Like, yeah. No, I want to hear like. Yeah. I just, I wanted to hear him call me kid.

It just made me, you know. So basically people. call you kid, Sean, or Pock based on what point in your life that you met them at? More or less. Okay. Yeah. What is an Xbox? That's just me.

It's just a name you made up? Yeah. So, you know, when I came to WCW, Eric named me six. Yeah. And people were like, oh, what does that mean? You want to put one plus two plus three equals six. So, you know, so everyone's speculated. I still don't know the answer to that.

Eric, you know, and I remember Eric ever really confirming one way or another where he got it from? Your name's six. Yeah, and it was cool. It was weird at first. I remember I'm asking me, did you ever think that you'd have a name like that? I forget something to do at numbers. And I'm like, one, two, three, good. He's like, oh, yeah.

But so, long story short. Yeah. Hulk would call me six-pack after, you know, six-pack of beer. Sure. And then my friends, like all the Lucha guys and all the younger, the guys that were from a younger generation, change it to Pock. Right. So it was six-pock.

And then when I left, you know, when I was showed the door, WCW, I, you know, Vince was trying to figure out a name for me. Yeah. And it was weird because, like, one of, one of Vince's eye, Vince isn't afraid to throw out an idea. I mean, anyways, his, he knew I didn't want to be called the kid anymore. Yeah. And so he's like, well, I know you don't want to be the kid anymore. He goes, what if we call you?

And this is before Becky Lynch, the man. And I'm like, ugh. I'm not feeling it, man. I mean, you don't want to shit on Vince's idea. Sure. Yeah. But you know what? He would throw an idea out like that.

And if you weren't a fan of it, it didn't hurt his feelings. Well, that's good. Because I know, I mean, there's always these stories where people are afraid to say no to Vince. It's hard. Right. I'm sure it is. Because, you know, Vince throws out an idea. He's Vince McMahon.

Yeah. You can't be like, sorry. Yeah. It's kind of like when, you know, when he ran the whole idea past Steve Boston to be the ringmaster. And he's like, yeah, sounds good. Yeah. Well, you just happen to be books, right? Yeah.

And that's how a lot of guys get stuck in these gimmicks. Well, look, sometimes the gimmicks don't sound great maybe on paper. Yeah. And then you go out and you do it and it works out. Sorry about that. No. Get your caffeine in you. All day long coffee.

No more drugs and alcohol, but. How many of these will you drink in a day? Well, I usually don't drink these. It's like, you know, we went to Starbucks. Yeah, why not? Yeah. But usually I'm just, I'm at the Kyrig machine at my house. like, you know, 20 times a day.

It's ridiculous. In the middle of the night, I wake up and have a sip of coffee. That does not sound right. I don't know why. In the middle of the night drinking coffee. Yeah, it's crazy, right? Yeah. Yeah.

I mean, we went to Starbucks just now, but, you know, you're wearing the mask and the sunglasses. In a normal time pre-COVID, how often do you getting recognized? These days, like obviously, you know, I don't look like Xbox. Come on. I look like. I look like Xbox 2021, but not necessarily, you know, 1999 version.

I guess, though, if we were at a place where there's a wrestling show being run or convention, like all the time. Sure. Yeah. And that people still recognize me, Chris, you know, like the grocery store and it's like that. They're just not sure.

You know what I mean? Yeah. Yeah. Or I'm sure you get this all the time. I know you from somewhere. Well, they know exactly who the hell I am. Well, but you don't want to be like, yeah, of course, two-time Hall of Famer. Exactly.

X-Poc right here. Oh, there it is. You need it. I've said this to you before, off-camera, but you're going to be a three-time Hall of Famer. I think so. I would be very grateful. Yeah. But it's not something like I'm actively, like, hoping for.

You know what I mean? Like, I don't wake up going, God, when am I going to be, you know, Well, you've done it twice. Induct him to the Hall of Bain for the third time. I mean, you've done it twice, but if you did it third time, you'd be the first one. But also. Yeah, we, I don't think they're going to let that happen, Chris. I don't know.

Well, why not? Look at the career you've had. Sure, but I mean, how could, how could I be a three-time Hall of Famer and Rick Flair only be two-time Hall of Famer? Come on, man. Or Hall of Cogan, yeah. Yeah. So, just being honest, man.

you were in two, you know, the two biggest factions of all time. Also, like, how honored are you that, like, NWO had countless members? I don't even know how many members. DX also grew to have way more members than were inducted. How do you... Well, not really. I mean, we had five, six members. Well, but...

I mean, like, and not against Hornswoggle, but I don't think Hornswoggle was really... Sure. I feel bad even soon. No, no, but I think you would agree. But with, like, NWO, you're one of the people. Like, how honored were you? well there's a lot like there are others that deserve to be up there being inducted in the Hall of Fame for the NWO yeah as much as much as me for sure yeah so I'm grateful like you know like this guys

well obviously you know big show Randy Sabb I'm thinking of the guys that that like were the the the NWO crew when I was there yeah And it was like, much, big show. Like, I mean, you know, there, there was like Norton and Bagwell and like IRS, like, Microtundo. Yeah. That were people here didn't maybe understand like what contribution they were making. But like over in Japan, they were crushing it. Yeah.

You know? And so like they deserve to be up there. So, yeah. And, you know, some people are going, uh, fuck he doesn't deserve to be NW All-Fame or what and I'm not going to sure, okay.

But this is pro wrestling, right? And you know this. There's a lot of people that go, well, no, the MWO is just the three members that form the NWO. Then there's other fans that go, no, the NWO is anybody who wore that shirt.

Yeah, but okay, so here's the difference. It's like I was originally most likely going to be the first, the first one. Really? Because when, you know, when we all jumped, I was the one that kind of started that whole thing in motion. I don't know if you know the story, but please tell us.

So people know it, but I'll just short, condensed version. I was out here training and recovering from an injury, some nagging injuries. I was living with my friend Rich Men, I was staying at Rich Minzer's house. He used to help run Gold's Gym enterprises. Oh, wow. So, like, I was training at Gold's Gym. And so I met with Barry Bloom. You may know who Barry Bloom was.

Of course. He's the agent for every rest. And so, like, besides his work with Jesse Ventura, I was the one that kind of got Barry back full blown into the, like, well, basically, I met with Barry. Okay. He told me what was going on with Eric and, you know, they were going to open up the checkbook and try to sign some people. Yeah. I was definitely interested because I just, I wasn't making any, you know, I wasn't making very much money. Yeah. For the amount of time I was on the road.

Yeah. And this is in WWF. Yeah, yeah. And so, like, we were talking and I, so I caught, I got on the phone and called Scott. And we talked to Scott and that set the whole thing in motion. Wow. Yeah. You're the whole reason that they jumped.

Wow. So were you going to be the mystery man instead of Ogen? It never got that far. I'll tell you why. The contracts back then, and I'm assuming they might even still have this clause, when your contract is up, if you don't give notice that you're not renewing your contract within 90 days, it automatically rolls over. Right.

I didn't, I fucked up the timing on my 90-day notice and it already passed. and I was stuck. So you were rolled over in a new new contract. How did you get out of it? Well, so we had this big long tour. It was like Scott and Kev's last Europe tour. There's like a big,

there's like this real famous picture. I've seen it on the back of the bus. Yeah, yeah. From that tour, right? Yeah. And it was just, you know, that was a hell of a tour. I'm sure. In many different ways.

but anyways we come back from the tour I was I was really bummed out because they were leaving I was stuck in I was in the dog house Chris because they knew you know that I was the one that you know kind of instigated all of this yeah this was the whole click thing yeah and so anyways I was already having issues substance issues pills you know

you know like I had a reputation by that time obviously So I overdosed in a production meeting when we got back. And they sent me to rehab. Wow. What did you OD on? I just a bunch of various pills. Oh, geez. Yeah.

Yeah, I made sure I took a handful of pills before I went in and sat in on the production meeting. It's a smart call. Yeah. Do you remember anything about that production meeting? No. Wow. No.

I vaguely remember going in there because I was telling what Kurt Hennig at the time. And, yeah. So, of course, they looked at Kurt and blamed it all on Kurt. That was one of how many stints did you have in re-? I did three. But look at you now. Yeah. Like, you're clean now, right?

Yeah. How long have you been clean? Well, it's not a simple question as that. Sure. Because I quit doing like the hard shit, you know, and I was still taking some pill, like some anti-anxiety stuff. And then, like, I was. you know, I had a real serious bout with, with opioids.

And I was injecting and all that. And anyways, I ended up on, it's called Suboxone, Chris. I'm not sure if you've ever heard of it. No. But it's a maintenance drug to help you stabilize when you're coming down off of opiates. It's like withdrawal from opiates. Like I went through that like a week and a half. It was a, like, if I had a shotgun out of a shot.

shot myself in the fucking head with it. That's how bad it is. So what are we talking? You can't sleep. No, you're just violently, like, involuntary, you know, heaving. Heaving, and just, like, it's just the worst fucking thing I've ever experienced. Ten times

worse than anything I've ever experienced. Wow. And all you're thinking in that moment is, like, if I just did drugs again, I'd be fine. Yes. Yeah. Wow. And so somebody somebody was on that Suboxone themselves and they came to me and gave me why and I was like this is a miracle. Because you don't even get

hide on that, but it stabilized you. And it was, I was on that for about three years and ended up weaning myself off of it very slowly. Wow. Because like, even on that, like that Suboxone, when you come off of that, if you don't come off very carefully, like the withdrawals from that, are just as bad, if not worse, because of the half-like of the drug.

Wow. So anyways, once I wean myself off of that, I never had an issue with opiates again, thankfully. Wow. And, you know, I've had some surgeries. Sure. Yeah, so when you're recovering from surgery, they don't prescribe you pain killers now? Yeah, I did. Like the ACL surgery I just had in January.

Yeah. They gave me a bottle with some not even extra stink. They were regular strength vikidon. I took about half the bottle. Does it have to be administered by somebody else at this point? No. Oh, really? No.

And you trust yourself? Yeah. Oh, that's, yeah. Man, that's great. That's a huge step. You know, and I was not like something I'd recommend. Yeah. You know?

Because sometimes, though. Others, but like, it's just, I'm over it, man. Like, I just, I'm at this point where I just can't even picture myself going back down that road. Man. Not saying it's impossible. Yeah. You know, because a lot of people, they let their guard down. they end up, you know, back in the fucking gutter.

Yeah. But you seem like a completely different person right now sitting in front of me than the stories that you were just describing. Oh, big time. But you're like, you're self-aware enough to go like, I'm a changed man now. And here's the thing, Chris. And I have to, I have to give a lot of the credit to where I'm at now to cannabis.

and it's really like it's you know 12 step and a n a and all that they'll tell you like oh you're not clean you know dude i'm i am in like if some people will tell me you're not in recovery dude if this isn't fucking recovery what is man my i'm living i'm living my life my life is great yeah and you know i use this drug uh you know to help that make that happen man yeah Yeah. That's amazing. You're in the position you're in now with a lot of thanks to cannabis. Absolutely. Yeah.

And so like for me to, you know, talk about like where I'm at now and just say, oh, yeah, I clean my act up and not mention that. I'm not doing a service. Like, I just, I wouldn't be being honest, man. Well, you're living in the right state for this. You're living in California. Yeah. If you were living in some sort of state where this wasn't legal, maybe we wouldn't be able to be As open.

Most of my time, you know, pretty much all my times I've been arrested had something to do with drugs. So, you know, it was all drug related. Right. But again, you're able to look back and go, yeah, I made a lot of mistakes back then. But look where I'm at now. What was the turning point for you, do you think? Different. There's different ones.

Yeah. Huh. I mean, you know, when you get arrested for trying to buy pills and you, you know, you you end up having to go on probation. And, you know, that kind of helps motivate you a little bit, too. So those things help. It's also got to be embarrassing when you get arrested and like, look, getting arrested, I'm sure sucks.

Yeah. But you're getting arrested with a certain level of notoriety as well. Exactly. So it's not like some secret. It's now the world has to know that you got arrested and exactly what you got arrested. But it was no shock to anyone, Chris. Sure. You know, I mean.

That's unfortunate to say, though. Yeah. but it's the truth. And so at that point, you know, like, I guess I could have felt shame or whatever, but, you know, I had already shown my ass to the world so many different times. And it was just like, eh, yeah, you know. But look at the career you've had in spite of all of that. In fact, I don't know if you'd have the same career if you hadn't gone down that path.

I don't know, man. Yeah. Yeah, I've never really thought. about that? It's just been my journey, man. I try not to go, what if. Yeah. But your career is so interesting

because, and when I was on your show, they were like, pick one topic to talk to Sean about. One topic! My God, like, we could talk all week about your career. And the topic that we picked, if people want to check out the episode, was your partnership with Kane, which was, man, the stories you told there,

and I'm sure we'll tell some here, we're so good. But your career can be broken up into like some really interesting phases. WWF, WCW, and then obviously a massive run with WWE. Yeah. And like they were three different stages

and like kind of three different people too. Three different characters. Well, it's weird because I don't look, I mean, a lot of people look at it that way, Chris, but like I've never... We didn't even talk about TNA, which is also in there, yeah. But like I've always just considered, regardless of what name I went under,

it was just a name. Like, I always felt like these were just different versions of me. Yeah. You know, at different points of my life. Yeah. Where do you think that Xbox ends and Sean Waltman begins? Or are you pretty similar? You mean, like, the Xbox from 1999 that was telling everyone to suck it and fucking just all the debauchery and everything?

Sure. I'm a long ways from there now. Now, what about that time? It's just, I've just evolved as a person. I've grown. What about at that time, were you pretty similar to your character? Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, man. Like, yeah. Because, you know, all that fucking notoriety and like everyone's, you know, and you saw how it used to be, man. Like, I mean, you know, women used to, you know, show up, you know, flash the camera. Like, it was just so like I leaned into that. Sure. when I wasn't, you know, in my private life, I leaned into that.

Let's put it that way. And I imagine it would be tough to go drinking with your buddies who are, no disrespect to you, significantly larger than you, you know, when you're drinking with someone like a Kevin Nash or... By the time I got back to WWE and even through my WCW run, I didn't touch alcohol. At all? Nope. Wow. No.

I might occasionally have like a sip of a beer or something. something just for like in a social situation. But my, my policy was strictly the weed. Did you have a problem with alcohol before? Is that why? It wasn't what I, I didn't consider it to be the main problem.

It was pharmaceuticals. Yeah. You know, it was the pills. Yeah. But you're mixing them with the alcohol because they go hand in hand, right? Right.

And then you get all kinds. I mean, they're not supposed to go hand in hand. But fucking, you know what I mean. When they do, you get all kinds of. Were the pills from a surgery and then the addiction just kind of held on from there? Not early on, no. That's often how it starts.

You're hurting and, you know, hey, you take this and it'll help you. Yeah. You know, you just end up. And then you just like the way it feels. I hadn't done any of that shit before I showed up at WWF. Yeah. You know, like, I'm not in pain anymore. I mean, I drank and I had some pot and stuff here and there when I was before I got there.

But that was a whole new world for me, man. Yeah. Yeah. And then you, you know, if you start taking Vicodin or oxies or whatever, then you need to start taking more and more and more, right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. And, you know, the tolerance issue. And then, you know, it's a matter of like being able to continue to score more pills, you know. Yeah. It was a point one time, like, I was buying bottles at fucking 500.

Norcos, they're called, like the 10 milligram. Oh, my God. Yeah, hydrocodones, yeah. And you're taking how many of those a day? Various amounts. Jeez. Like, Kurt Engel always tells the story about, like, taking a littley a fistful. Like that.

Not quite as bad as Kurt, though. Yeah. Like, because that, like, 30 pill, like, I wasn't taking 30 fucking pills at a time ever, but, you know, I might take, like, eight or 10 or something, you know. Wow. Yeah. When you look back at your career, and again, you've done so many different things, you've got the ring on both hands. to prove it. What's the big highlight for you? Me personally.

Things like standing across the ring from nature boy, Rick Flair. Yeah. You know, being in there with Hulk, I mean, Hulk, guys like that, man. Like, my heroes ended up becoming like friends of mine,

Chris. Like, how many fucking people can say that? Yeah. You know? Yeah. It's crazy, right? It's really crazy. Yeah. Do you always know that you want to be a pro wrestler?

Always. Like when you were a kid? Well, I mean, not always, but I always knew after my very first live wrestling match. And you were how old? I was like 10, 1982. Okay. And it was Rick Flair versus Dusty Rhodes for the NWA World title. It was NAC's first title run.

The Bayfront Center in St. Petersburg was like Florida's, or, the South's version of Madison Square Garden. It even looked like a smaller version of Madison Square Garden inside. And so I was just, dude, I was hooked immediately, Chris. Huh. I mean, immediately. And you're 10 years old, you don't know what the path is to get to be a pro wrestler, but you're just thinking.

I was going to find out. I want to do that. Oh, yeah. So how much longer after that, you're 10 years old, you're not going to start training, but how much longer after that until you did start taking steps? So here's a deal. Yeah. I started, the person that brought me to my mat, my first wrestling match, also worked at the Bayfront Center.

Okay. So I would be there with him earlier and help set the ring up. And then ended up going to different towns in Florida. To set up the ring? With Gordon Nelson, old-timer named Gordon Nelson, one of the toughest guys ever in wrestling. Huh. Ballhead dude. And so, yeah, I would just show up to different towns and help them set the ring up.

so I'd be, you know, getting it for free. And like in the Bayfront Center, like I was in the back, backstage area when I was a kid, like, around all these guys. You know, so some of them had seen me, like, there's people I know now that remember me fucking as a 10-year-old kid running around this portatorium in Tampa, you know, and all the fucking all the matches. Excuse me, of course. You can say whatever you want. So when did you start training? How old were you when you started training? I was 15.

Wow. Yeah. So how big is a 15-year-old Sean Walman? Like, not that much shorter than I am now. Okay. But, like, a year prior to that, I bet you I didn't weigh more than 130 pounds. Wow. Yeah.

Wow. Yeah. So you're 15, you maybe weigh 150 pounds? Something like that. Yeah. And then how old are you for your debut match? I was like 16. Yeah.

You've literally been wrestling your whole life. Almost my whole life, yeah. Wow. What do you think it is that, you know, you have, when you list off these people that you're friends with and the fact that you were in DX and in NWO and those were your friends.

What do you think it is about you that endears you to those people? Well, so Scott kind of took me in, you know? Like, that's how Scott is. He's always, like, to take the younger guys there because he was, because Kurt Henning was that way. And Kurt was the mentor of, you know, Scott, Sean, guys like that.

And so, you know, and that was Kurt's mentality. And so Scott carried that on. He always wanted to help the younger guys. And Scott, he loved me. I loved him. And so, like, they took me in, and we all had this passion. I mean, a lot of people have the passion, right? Sure.

But, like, when everyone else is driving down the road after the matches, talking about, like, you know, can't wait to get to the bar, so I can go get laid or, you know, whatever, six-pack and a blowjob or whatever the fuck the mentality was at the time. We were coming up a ways and solved the problems of the rest of the industry. Make our, you know, the psychology of the matches,

the main, you know, like coming up with the main event style psychology, shit like that. Yeah. You know? And we were just, you know, we, except for Hunter, We all like to get an ebriated. We all like to get up a little bit. Like there was a couple of occasions where he said, okay, tonight I'll have, and he had one or something.

Is this because he was so into bodybuilding? It just wasn't his thing, man. Like he never felt a need to mood alter. Wow. Yeah. And man, I envy that in somebody. Yeah. I mean, I like to have a drink or eight or ten.

Yeah. He just, you know. Yeah. And when I see someone that doesn't, it's funny. When you're out at a party or something and you offer someone a drink, they're like, no, I don't. You're like, I envy you, but also like, why? There's always a reason.

Yeah. There's always a reason behind it. Yeah. So interesting to like, some people like, oh, I've never done it. Well, and then some people are like, I'm in recovery. They'll explain the whole thing. You don't need to do that. Just say, no, thanks, man.

I'm good. Yeah. Yeah. You don't need to make somebody feel like shit because they're drinking. Yeah. That's true as well. Yeah. Who were the people that you rode with most of the?

the time. You mean besides the click? It was, so it was always before you? Not always, because there was a period like early where I rode, but Brett a lot. Okay. Which is kind of, seems kind of weird, right, because of the rivalry between Brett and Sean. Yeah. You know, so, but I, Brett was so good to me, man. I remember, like, when my daughter was born the night, we were drive, like, anyways,

I have a lot of memories, great memories. traveling with Brett and just conversations with him and just in my greatest match I've ever had is with him. Just I loved it. I loved traveling with Brett. He was like a lone wolf. It would only be like me and him or him and like one other person. There wasn't a whole fucking carload of people with Brett. And you can probably learn so much from him.

He's in his prime at that time. Yeah. And also like he was a big influence on me. Like if you look at my like my gear and my stuff. Like, that's all hot. Like, you didn't, you didn't see the Calgary influence. Yeah. You know, like the, the singlet trunks, tights, three piece combination and the three stars on the side.

Like, you know, that was my very first set of gear. Yeah. You know, it wanted to look like Owen. Yeah, when you say that, it makes sense that. But I never would have put the two and two together. Yeah. I also never would have guessed that you rode with Brett. I did, yeah.

Wow. Yeah. But the rest of the time, it was rotting with the click. Well, eventually, like, I ended up with them and just that, that just ended up being the, you know. Those were your guys. Yeah. Yeah. And then did you, did you, obviously you wouldn't predict how much trouble you guys would get in with that whole incident with the click.

But I, which one? Well, I mean, the one, the curtain call, I guess is the big one. Oh, because I don't know, like if you were referring to the Montreal thing. Oh, no. Because I wasn't like, you know, we were gone by that time. Yeah. Yeah, no. Like, they, like, I think, like, Brad might have assumed that we all were, like,

on the phone with each other all the time and knew what was up, but, like, we had no idea. People are going to be talking about the conspiracies behind that for the rest of time, I feel like. And so, like, you're talking about the curtain call. Yeah. That was when I was in my first rehab. Wow. Yeah. That's right.

Yeah. You weren't there. Yeah. Yeah. So, like, I was, like, I started to mention it to you. Yeah. And then, you know, I get. not this is what conversations are all about so um oh shit now i can't remember what the fuck i was going

say we'll come right back around to it eventually did you did you think that they would get in trouble or did you did you understand how much trouble they got in for that and you weren't there for it but i can yeah i can i can i can definitely understand uh the heat yeah because i mean you know it just goes against everything that you know like the rules right like At that time. Yeah. Yeah. So I understand.

I understand. I wasn't there, though. Yeah. How long were you in rehab for that time? That was the first time. It was 28 days. And then when you came out, were you like, I'm good? I was good, yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. For a while, yeah. That's great. Yeah. So Vince brought me in after my rehab. Yeah. I can't believe I didn't already tell you this part.

So I go to rehab. Vince pays me better in, while I'm in rehab, than like I ever got paid. Like I'm on the road grinding, right? I remember I got like 10 grand for this one show. I didn't even, I wasn't even like, it was either Kuwait or South Africa or something I missed. And I got a check for 10 grand or something.

Wow. Yeah. And it just, it really, really helped make it so. I wasn't worried, like, oh, how am I going to pay the bills? Yeah. You know? So, but, yeah, Vince brought me in, flew me to Stanford, had a meeting with me and said,

if you want to go work for that billionaire asshole, I'll give you a week to think about it. And so I thought about it. Well, I already knew. Yeah. But I took the week and then I called J.J. Dillon, had a talent relations at the time. Yeah. I said, yeah, I'm gone. And he knew.

He knew. Was it a money thing or is you just want to be with your friend? I just, I was. I was in the doghouse. Like, I just needed to. And Vince, the way Vince looked at me, I was never going to, you know, he saw me in a certain light. And I was desperate to get him to look at me in a different light. And it wasn't going to happen until I left.

And, you know, did that somewhere else. So you're saying, yeah, you needed to go to WCW, reinvent yourself so that when or if you were to go back to WWF, it would go, oh, my gosh, look what you've done with your career. Yeah. And that is exactly what you did. I mean, I wasn't like dying to get back to WW up the whole time I was in WCW because we were crushing it, right?

You guys were. Yeah. But, you know, I always in the back of my mind knew I'd be back. That's interesting. Oh, yeah. And the timing worked out, like, so well for you, like, in kind of a backwards way that you got fired from WCW.

But can you imagine if you hung on in WCW until it got bought by Vince? And you would have got lost in the mix with so many of those guys. I don't know, man. I don't know because I was, like, I had just, I was, my stock was going up. Yeah. We had the six man in, in Charlotte, North Carolina for, for NAC's return. It was NACC. Kevin Green and Roddy Biper versus Scott, Kevin and I.

And like, coming out of that, my stock had risen dramatically. And I was looking to get a raise, actually. And then, you know, then I, you know, I broke my neck. Yeah. So, and I don't know if I mentioned before, but, you know, after I broke my neck, like, I still worked for two weeks, you know, I still had matches because I was trying to get a raves. And it's hard to get a fucking raise when you're out hurt, right?

Well, sure. You're like Kurt Angle here. Right. Yeah, it was a similar situation. Like, people don't think it's doable, but yeah. How much pain were you in? Tons, man. And obviously it hurt more when you bumped?

Yeah, but like, you know, at least when you're out there, you feed off the energy. The worst part of that is on the way to the ring leading up to going out there when you're fucking hurting and, you know, you're not taking pain pills. So there's nothing to mass the pain. And, you know, like. Oh, my God. Yeah. And then I got DDTed off the, off of Scott Steiner's shoulders up the top rope up, which was great. It all worked out.

Yeah, great on a broken neck. Yeah, but, like, I was fine. I didn't get hurt on it. Like, they took good care of me. It was a fun match, but. Would you say it's the worst injury you've had in your career? The fact that you've had to think about it. Yeah, it's hard to say, man.

Because acutely, if that makes any sense, maybe. Okay. But, like, over the, who knows? Who knows? Like, you know, the, I'm not sure. What's the nagging? I tore my asshole, right? Like, you know about that?

one. When you describe it like that. Yeah, I missed a Bronco Buster. It was Jerry Lynn's retirement match. And, you know, like, I've done it a million times. Yeah. But like the turnbuckle was exposed a little bit. So the threads of the turnbuckle, like literally ripped my asshole.

I had to have emergency surgery. Like I was bleeding out, man. So you rushed to the hospital. Well, I didn't. Okay, after the match, you could tell like it was bleed. I knew I was in bad shape. Like you could see the footage of when I hit. You could see me going, I tore my fucking asshole.

Like you could see it, you know, the mouth, like me mouth the words. But like there was an after party and it was Jerry's retirement, right? And so I just took some sweats on over, you know, a track suit on over my gear. I left my gear on. So the gear held everything together, right? Like, there was still some blood, but during the after party, I kind of felt that I sprung a leak. And I'm like, uh-oh. And so I rushed out of there, I got to my hotel when I took everything up, like the whole bathroom, man, it was just covered in blood.

And I'm immediately like, called an ambulance. And I started getting dizzy, like, and. Oh, my God. Like, it was like, serious, man, the loss of blood. Can you imagine if that was your cause of death? Oh my God. A ripped asshole. Yeah.

So I had to have the emergency sphincterplasty surgery. Oh my God. Yeah. And then like it was the second time I did it. With the same move? Same move. Yeah. The first time I didn't have to have surgery, but I had like 13 stitches.

And so I just always figured what the chance of that that fucking happen again. So they have to like. I found out. So they sew up your sphincter? Well, the first time it was just... Okay, I stitched you up, yeah. But the second time was it tore all the way in to my, you know, it wasn't just, you know, it was, it was way worse, way more serious.

And I'm sure without getting into any great detail here, most people that are having that surgery do not have it from a wrestling accident. Sure. They have it from perhaps something in the bedroom. Exactly. So how are you explaining this to the doctor? Exactly. As I'm laying down, right?

Like, I remember the nurse and, laughing their ass up and they're trying to tell me, don't do that. Like, like, because they were trying to do something. And, like, I'm over here cracking jokes and they, don't do that. Like, because, you know, it's hard to, hard to be surgical when you're laughing your ass up, right?

Literally. Literally laughing your ass off. That's, so the ripped asshole worse than the broken neck. In a way, yeah. And then it was like the diapers, like, having no way of the diapers. How long you could take a shit

properly again? Oh, it was brutal. Like, oh, wow. A long time. It was a little while, man. Like, it seemed like I held it for a few days, three, four days.

That does not sound fun. Yeah. My goodness. I was on the Suboxone at the time that happened, too. So there was a little, like, it was kind of tricky

with having to prescribe me something for that. Oh, my gosh. Other than that, are there any nagging injuries as you sit here right now? I mean, obviously the knee was bad, which you got fixed. You didn't have an ACL for a while, right? So a few years back, yeah, I didn't. For 13 years, my ACL was gone.

Come on. Wow. I just adjusted, you know, there was a lot of things I couldn't do. But if I didn't try to do them, people didn't know I couldn't do them. And there was still plenty of shit I could do. So, yeah. Yeah. around it. What is it here that you put in?

Oh, yeah. So I was in a match. You know, Nick Aldous? Of course. Yeah. So Nick and I were in a tag match, a couple guys. And I, anyways, I don't want to get into the specifics of how it happened, but they had to do with the clothes on. And I hit him right here.

And my, my pack, I tore my peck completely and my bicep. Like, you could feel it. Feel my peck. Oh my gosh Like dense in yeah Yeah I only have half a peck on the side And my and my bicep was torn

It comes into a ball right down there So that was brutal man That was the most fucking pain I've ever had in my life And you finished the match I'm sure I did Of course I did And then I drove four hours home Because I was living in Philly at the time And I couldn't take it my arm

Everything swole up And they almost had to cut my arm off Chris Wow. Yeah, because I had this thing called compartment syndrome. Which is what? Like everything and that, like it just started filling up with blood. I can show you, I don't have the photo right now, but like there's photos of it. It's ridiculous, dude.

Is this because you waited too long to go to the hospital? Sort of, yeah, because, I mean, I should have gone right. Sure. But I drove home four hours. Yeah. It was the worst pain I've ever had, man. I can't imagine driving in that kind of pain. unbelievable.

I'm glad you have both of your arms. Yeah. I'm just glad you're with us after all of these stories that you're telling us. Like seriously, you could have, you know, it could have been death by ripped asshole or death by many different types of drugs as well. Yeah. Because, I mean, you talk a lot about pills, but it wasn't just pills for you. No, dude. I had, you know.

Like, you've done it. You've done it all. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And, like, the worst part of it was, I was doing IV. You know? And this is meth?

And like pretty much whatever. Like it was the Coke, the meth. Like whatever I was doing at one point, I was putting in a needle. Wow. And you're injecting into your arm? Yeah, no, into the veins, you know, like not just intermite, like, you know, sending you right to the moon type shit. And then how long does a highlight that last?

It depends, man. Like, I mean, because when you're doing meth, I mean, that shit lasts a long time, man. even once like the initial high goes down, that shit's in you forever. Well, not forever, forever. Yeah, but for a while. As opposed to like, I'm not, I don't want to like put you on the spot here,

but if you've ever done cocaine. I haven't. Well, if you ever have, like, you kind of go up and down quick. Okay. And the, you know, the amphetamine is a longer lasting. And you were always shooting it? Because like a lot of people are not at first,

but then somebody said, hey, you know, boy, if you take, if you take this and you make, it with that. Like, boy, it really works good. And so my dumb ass, you know, I should have known better, man. I was already, like, I already been to rehab once. But you wanted to feel a certain way. Yeah. But a lot of people that get addicted to meth have meth mouth. Yeah. And you don't. You have. I just got back from the dentist couple days ago. Your teeth look great. Yeah, the ones you can see. Yeah, I got really lucky with that. Yeah. Well, that's because you weren't smoking. That's mostly

I smoked it too. It's just I have good genetics when it comes to teeth. And withstanding meth, I guess. Yeah. I mean, all the, like, back here on this side, like, several missing, like, I'm getting some implants put in. And that's because of meth or just because? You know, I'm sure it had something to do with it. You know, and, you know, you're grinding your teeth and all that shit. I think that's like everybody. I went to the dentist when I was 30 and they're like, you know, you grind your teeth. I'm like, no, I don't. And like put a little camera in this look at all this.

Like, yeah, okay. But yeah, so, yeah, man, that's, it's, it's, it's, uh, now this is, this is the drug of choice now. It is. That's insane, man. I mean, when I quit doing all the bad shit, uh, I got this, uh, I got this really, like, I got this love for coffee, man, that I never knew was there. You weren't a coffee drinker before?

Not really. Huh. You know, if I was, it was strictly for the, to get the jolt, you know. I drink, like, whenever I've drank coffee and I don't drink coffee regularly. I don't feel anything. But as I was telling you when we were going to get coffee, pre-workout, like, that's my thing. Yeah. This is probably like, you know, it's probably bad because it's such a jolt.

It's, yeah, man, but like I take the pre-workouts that are out now. Yeah. And like I was mentioning to you earlier on the way to Starbucks, this shit called Ultimate Orange, and it had like actual effigrine in it and you know you take it and you're bouncing out the fucking walls on the way of the gym yeah yeah are you still working out a lot or did your knee injury really you know i've been i haven't been but i're still in great shape thanks but um i'm about this i'm about to start getting serious about training again um well you know because if I'm planning on having another match or two, Chris,

got to be in shape. So that you're not, you're not fully retired. No. This is how it works in wrestling, though. No. You're never, ever retired.

You know what I said, I'm done. Like I'm saying, you know, I said, you know, you know, it's not like I'm making a rule.

I'm done and I'm never going to do. Like, I don't put shit like that on myself. I'm never going to do this again. You know what I mean? Yeah. It's just that I'm not planning this big, you know, one more run. Right.

I'm just going to have some matches, man, see what happens. You still are technically under contract with WWE. Under, like, Legends contract. Which, I mean. That's appearances mostly. Yeah, and just they get to use my likeness. Sure. And then they're more apt to put me on their, you know,

They're merchandise. Right. If I'm under Legends deal. Right. And then when they have reunion shows, hey, Sean, come on out. Yep. But whether you're under contract or not, you still get residuals, right? I do.

And that's pretty great when you're getting residuals for Xbox and DX and NWO. Yeah, well, I'm not sure what my cut of NWO and DX merch is, but. I would imagine it's a fifth or, no, that doesn't work like that. No. Yeah, when I talked to Billy Gunney's like, like, It's like half a cent of half a cent. It's crazy, dude. That adds up, though.

When you look at that, they send you the statement. Yeah. And you see what your share is. It's like, wow. Well, it's better than not getting a share at all, I guess. So like it's best not to concentrate on that and just look at the number. Sure. You know, just.

But think about this, Sean. You've been able to get those residuals for 20 years. Yeah. They've been like, and, and you know, I mean. You can't retire off of them, I'm sure, but still. Not right. now, but, you know, when they, when W.W.E. went public. Yeah. When they, yeah. Kim, a publicly traded stock. Yeah. I got stock options. I was one of 12 people that got stock options.

Oh my gosh. Do you still have those stocks? No. No. Well, because I mean, they were, they expired at a certain point. Okay. And, you know, I guess when they gave them to me and when, when the, uh, see, I had to hold on to him. The rule was he had to hold on to him for like a year or something. Yeah. And so like if I could have sold them the next day, I'd have like three, four million dollars. But if you had hung on to them now would have been, you know, 20 years later. Yeah.

I mean, the socks worth 50-something dollars now. Yeah, I ended up cashing them out at certain points when I needed the money. Sure, which makes sense. And why would you hold on to the stocks for 15 or 20 years or whatever would have been? Especially if I'm like at like certain situations in my. life where I don't have any fucking money. Yeah. You know what I mean?

So. Yeah. But wow. One of 12 people to get that. Yeah. I mean, you've, again, with everything in your career, you've been set up pretty good with all of the success that you had. Yeah. I mean, we've talked a lot about the high parts of your wrestling career.

What's like a storyline that you were in that you were like, oh, man, I wish I hadn't done that or I wish I hadn't put into a, been put into the storyline. Is there one? Or did you make the best of every situation you had? Uh. Huh. I hated the fucking, boy, I'm seeing a drop a Nethon.

That's okay. I hated the crybaby match with Scott. Which, like, that's an example of me being in the doghouse. Usually when somebody leaves the company, they put someone over on the way out. Yeah. Now, Scott left the company, and he still beat me and they fucking put a diaper on me

in the bottle of my mouth and baby bottle. of my ass. Yeah. It's got to tell you. Yeah. That wouldn't feel good, I wouldn't say. Yeah, it sucked. Yeah.

But then, like we talked about on your show, this stuff you did with Kane was huge. Yeah. And also, I don't know if everybody realizes, but like, you kind of being the ying to Kane's Yang really helped Kane. Because up to that point, he really didn't have a ton of personality. And you were able to really bring that out of him. Yeah. Yeah.

I mean, he'll tell you, he'll say that. who he talks about it. Well, he says that you're his favorite tag team partner, and he's mine. Which is crazy because he teamed with The Undertaker. Yeah. Look at everyone you've teamed with. Sure.

Yeah. But it was just what, it was just the magic we did. We've created together, you know, as a team and just, man, I just, and I was really, like, if they ever had any creative, like, uh, we want to do this.

And it, it wasn't right for, Kane like it wasn't going to happen. I was going in there and like, Kane's not doing that. Kane wouldn't do something like that. I mean, I was just, because Kane,

Glenn's a real easygoing guy. And he would, you know, he would just go along with something. I'm like, no fucking way, man. And they would listen to you. Oh, yeah.

Wow. Because I feel like there might be a point where they'd be like, yeah, well, that's nice, Sean, but you guys are doing this anyway. Yeah. Yeah, but they, we're the ones that are going out there and actually executing it. Sure.

Yeah. But then there's also times where you see lots of guys who have to go execute something that they don't believe in. I had a lot of stroke at the time. How did that happen? You know, I came back and I helped them win the war. Yeah. You know? Yeah.

So, you know, I came back in time before WCW ship sank, right? Yeah. I mean, I guess if you're one of the guys who jumped ship. And I was, you know, DX was huge, man. Yeah. And, you know, they had faith in me. And they have faith in my mind for all this. And, you know, it was cool.

Like, I wasn't unreasonable. Like, it was really shit. He shouldn't have been fucking do it. Yeah. Right. I'm really curious. When was the first time that you became aware of the phrase Xbox Heat? I was kind of like,

It was right, like when the term kind of started going, making its rounds. And this was on the internet, like with fans? Or was this a term that was being talked about in the locker room? No. No, it was just an internet thing. Yeah. Yeah. And I mean, it's go away heat.

That was basically what fans were describing it as? Yeah. They were just sick of me. Certain segment of the wrestling fan community had enough. So, I mean, you know, I get it. I get it. But did it not? I mean, I don't know if I get it, actually.

Yeah. I kind of do. Like, it's pretty insulting, it feels like. Yeah. Because, I mean, there were times when you were trying to get heat, but they were saying, no, no, no, that's not heat. This is a different kind of heat. I mean, we're talking about it's not the same as the booze like you're getting,

like I'm getting in the arena. The chatter on the internet and on the websites and the Xbox heat and all that. Like the reactions I'm getting in my matches, like on TV and everything, weren't indicative of the Xbox heat thing going on on the internet. Because like the go-away heat, Chris, is when you go out there and you're busting your ass and giving everything you got and they're just like, they're not making any noise. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. So Xbox heat's not that. You're getting booed. It was just two different things going on at the same time. Yeah. But I mean, here we are still like 20 years later. People know what the term Xbox heat is. I can't imagine that feels good. No, but, you know, fuck, man.

I'm almost 50 years old. I can't let shit like that from, you know, 25 years ago. Yeah. Bother me. But you could also hold both your fists up again and be like, I guess this is what Xbox Heat gets you. Yeah. There it is.

Right? Yeah. We talked about this before, but I don't think it was on camera. What are inscribed in each of your... I don't want them. It says NW.06, and then the other one is something like... I don't know. Let's see.

I can't even... Do we know just by looking at them, which rings which? Well, one of them has 2019 and one of those 2020. That's pretty easy. Let's see. I don't know. Maybe you can... Well, I'm holding it.

Oh, my gosh. This says DX-40619. So that's obviously when you were inducted. Okay. So that's it. DX and then the date? Yeah. What about this other one?

Is it going to say NWO6? Oh, okay. Something like that, yeah. Do you wait, do you always? Like when they asked me the second time, I'm like, whatever. Just to be honest with you, Chris. Yeah. Do you wear one?

Oh, let's see. Okay. Wolfpack 6. Oh, Wolfpack 6, yeah. Okay. Can I wear it for a second? Sure. Oh my gosh, guys.

Which finger will it fit here? Yeah, it was a Hall of Famer for one second. That's really cool. Do you always wear the NWO one on the left hand? Hmm. Ah. And the... No, I don't pay attention when I'm putting them on.

One on each hand. My God. That's pretty damn cool. And then next to it, your wedding ring, which is also cool. Yes. Yeah. You were going to bring your dog, which I was very excited about. I apologize, man.

It's okay. Honestly, that was the big, like, hey, man. come to your house, I'll bring the, I'll bring Lula. And then, man, there's just, yeah, it didn't. That's okay. It didn't work itself out. Anybody who's seen you at a convention knows how much Lula means to you. Oh, yeah.

She goes with you everywhere. Yeah. What kind of dog is she? I mean, besides my life, she's the love of my life, man. Fuck. She's like part, it's mainly Pomeranian. Okay. Yeah.

And she's, you know, for those of you that don't know, she has a, Her jaw was broken at some point before I found her. She looks so sweet. And just this big long tongue hangs out. And it's just, oh, she's the best. And her attitude, man. She's a gangster. She's a warrior.

Did you, so you rescued her? Yeah. Yeah. Or did she rescue you? People talk about that. It was kind of cliche thing to say or whatever. And there's something to that, though. Well, for sure.

Yeah, man. Like, like, it's almost like a security blanket at, times. For both of you, I'm sure. Oh, yeah. At what point in your career, Sean, do you think you started thinking about life after wrestling? I don't know if I ever got to that point.

I'll let you know when it happens. Yeah. Because you're still very much in it. Yeah, just different ways. What would you say is your week-to-week involvement with wrestling right now? Just doing my show. Yeah. Are you watching a lot of wrestling?

I'm watching more than I was. Because of the show. Yeah, but man, there's just too much. It's a lot. Maybe not the right way of putting it because it's like having too much money. Too much wrestling is not a bit. It's just you can't, I just can't consume it all, Chris.

It's a lot because it's three hours of, and if you're going to watch everything, it's three hours of raw, it's two hours of impact, two hours of AED, two hours of NXT, two hours of Smackdown. Yeah.

And like if you can find R.O.H. Throw in some R.O.H. The Japan world and, you know, NWA has a show. Like, they mark, has like about a hundred and some different, you know. Championship wrestling from insert the name of any city. Yeah, he's question.

Absolutely. Yeah. It's the best time to be a wrestling fan, I think, because you've got so many options. You could, and because of the internet, you could name, you know, some awesome match that you had in 1999. And people could go watch this thing right now. It's great, right. Isn't it? Yeah.

Actually, name a match that people should go watch. What? name a match that people should go watch other than the Brett Hart match you said. Oh, wow. Man. So if you can find it. People can find anything. One, two, three kid and Razor Ramon versus Sean Michaels and Diesel from like it was the,

it wasn't the first action zone, but it was the second edition of action zone. We did it. Someone will find this. Westchester War Memorial and White Plains. It's one of the best tag. it's definitely like one of the all-time best tag matches of that era for sure. Wow. Yeah.

Yeah. I mean, speaking of Razor and 1, 2, 3 kid, that match must be the match that a lot of people go back to. You beating Razor, 1, 2, 3 kid, becoming the 1, 2, 3 kid. That must be like when you're at conventions or whatever, that must be a thing that people are always wanting to talk to you about. It's one of the big ones. Like, it wasn't a great match, but it was like the most important moment in my career. And there was not even a close second. Yeah.

You know. But on your show, you told me the moment that people hate you for. Oh, when I turned on Kane. Yeah, like, people still hate you for this. Some do, man. Wow. I mean, and they know, they know it was all, you know, a show and everything, but they can't help their emotions.

Yeah. Like, that's how effective that was. I mean, that was, that's mega heat. Yeah. That's like mega heel heat. Yeah. I also don't think anyone saw that coming. Like there's a lot of heel turns.

Oh, they kind of did. We telegraphed it a little bit, Chris. Teased it for a little bit. If you look back at it leading up the weeks, you could, you know, we kind of planted the seeds. So that when it finally did happen. It wasn't just out of completely out of nowhere. Yeah. You broke Kane's heart.

Yeah. How dare you. Are you still close with Kane? No. I love that guy. I'm very sure he feels saying about me, but we don't. I'm not big. Like, I don't.

I'll hit people up randomly. Hey, man, I was just thinking about you. Like, want to say hi, I hope you're doing well. Yeah. But it's not like we're on a phone, you know, on a regular basis. Yeah. But it doesn't mean what, you know. Well, he's busy being a mayor too.

Yeah. Yeah. Who is it that you're in touch with the most, would you say? Uh, you know, my cabs got. Shit. You still talk to Triple H? Yeah. You know, like we would just, we got a little text chain, you know, the five of us.

Oh, nice. And there's different random shit. We'll throw on there. You know, this morning it was, you know, the way, like Gargano and. Yeah. And then they dressed up like the clip, right? Did you see it? Yeah.

And so. Triple H was in this photo with them. Yeah. Yeah. And so like somebody, I think Sean texted it. text Shane and we all made comments and I'm like and because Candace LaRae was me right and I'm like I hope they don't have to hope they don't have to roll Candice to her hotel room on a luggage cart too often and fucking Hunter texts. They just shaved her eyebrows last night. Oh man. So anyways. I felt so bad for you when I

found out that story about your eyebrows being shaved. Yeah. Yeah. Because that was your first action figure photo? Yeah, it was my first, it was my first house show loop, like live event loop. It was out here in L.A. You know, it was like Anaheim, Sacramento, Reno, San Diego. Anyways, it was out here, and we drive it a little bit. And it was a great time, but man, I had too much drink and a few too many pills. Sure.

You know, like I'm living it up, right? Yeah. I'm on WWF and round of, round of Yankees for everybody, and I'm smoking a cigar, and I put the fucking cigar in my mouth backwards and burn myself. I mean, just shit like that, right?

Yeah. And then I end up, uh, yeah. Passed out and they shave your eyebrows. Yeah. And a striped on my pubes. Like, I woke up, like, I didn't even notice that until I got home.

My wife saw it. I remember seeing that photo of you, and I was, but the first time I thought I was young, and I didn't put two and two together. And I was just like, he looks different in this photo. And I couldn't put my finger on why you looked so different. So like, and then later on the day after that was taken,

it was, I worked, I had a match on Raw from the Manhattan Center. I worked with Blake Beverly, aka Mike Enos. Yeah. We had a really good match, too. He gave me an awesome match. And, but so I got a message like from my, grandmother saying, hey, cousin Kerry was worried about you. She said that was something wrong with you.

Like she saw you on TV and she couldn't tell, but she just looked like there's something wrong with you. I'm like, my fucking eyebrows. How long did it take for them to grow back? They never really did all the way. Oh, my gosh. What asshole friends do you have? You know, that was, hey dude.

Like, I, hey, I pulled, I pulled a lot of ribs myself, you know, so I kind of, you know, just trying to fit in and be a part of all that, you know, and I thought it was cool, you know. Yeah. So, like, I, yeah, I'm not really proud of some of that shit. With everything you've accomplished in your wrestling career, what do you think is the biggest lesson that wrestling has taught you about life? Ooh, I'm not good at questions like that, man. I love it, but you'll come up with something great. I'm sure you will. Yeah.

Because if you look at... I mean, you learn, like, I don't, like, I can't kill, you know, I don't have this clever, like, saying or anything, but, and you really, you really learn about people, about the nature of people, you know, whether it would be how to, how to manipulate them when there's 20,000 of them inside of an arena. Or just other. Or one-on-one backstage, maybe. Yeah.

I mean, I would think that wrestling must have taught you a lot about perseverance. Because from the outside looking in, you were in the era of giants. And you were a lot smaller than a lot of your friends. And look at the career you had. Sure. Just because you stuck with it. Sure. I'm not sure.

I'm not sure if wrestling taught me that, Chris. Or if I just, like, it was a lesson I learned about my. myself, you know. I mean, there's a lot of people just quit. Yeah. You know? So, uh, yeah, I just, I think I just learned a lot about myself as far as what I can handle. Yeah. A lot of people quit. And what I can't. A lot of people quit and you didn't. Yeah, well, a lot of people don't love this like I do. Yeah. A lot of people see wrestling, oh, hey, it's, you know, I want to be, I want to be a Hollywood superstar, so maybe I can, you know,

get that way through wrestling. You know, I'm not down to people, but it's just they don't love it like the rest of us do. Yeah. Do you still love it as much? Absolutely. Yeah. And when you were around it like,

I saw you at Russell Con, when you were around it and you're around your brothers that are, you know, that you had all these memories with, it must make you love it that much more. Yeah. And it's always so great, To see, you know, everyone.

Even, and this might sound a little bit weird, but even people, like, I didn't care for that much because, you know, there's certain people you just don't mess with. Yeah. And then there's others, like, we're on the opposite side of the fence from, like, for serious, you know, issues. Like, it doesn't matter, man. Like, I'm happy to see you. I don't care, like, what we had going on back in the day, dude.

Like, I don't hold. But at the same time, Chris. Like there's some people that still might, I might not be their cup of tea based on, uh, fuck those guys, you know, from back in the day. Yeah. And so, you know, I get it. Whatever. I mean, when you had as much stroke as you had, was there a lot of animosity from other people?

Absolutely. Huh. Absolutely. Because, I mean, you know, if we, if we'd roll in, you know, to the building later than everyone else or. But on the flip side of that, you know, people complain, oh, they're coming in late. we don't, you know, but when everyone else is done with their match, Chris, they would get in their car and drive to their hotel or like, well, we're still in the fucking building. Yeah.

So, okay, like, we got to show up same time as you. You don't get to fucking leave until we do. How about that? Everyone always talks about the champion schedule in that way. The champion's probably going to be in the first segment and probably going to be wrestling the main event. So he has to stay, or she has to stay all the way to the end. And the same thing is true when you're in DX.

Like you're in a lot of segments. But I can imagine there'd be some animosity from people going, man, there's only so many spots. Yep. Why do you guys get all of them? During DX, man, there were a lot of spots. Yeah. Because like they made every spot count.

So they might not have been as high up on the card as other. but they, like, just about everyone was in meaningful shit, like where they felt like they had skin in the game and they were contributing and, you know, and they felt good about what they were doing. Yeah. I think, I'm pretty sure they were getting paid pretty good, too. Yeah. You know, like, and not that there weren't people that weren't happy or disgruntled, but like,

compared to a lot of other times in the industry, like, the most amount of people were happy. Sure. In the locker room at that point. And say what you want about Vince Russo and, you know, a lot of people have different opinions about him, he wrote storylines for everybody. Whether you were at the top of the card or the bottom of the card, everybody had a storyline. And that was the magic of the attitude era, in my humble opinion. And, you know, like, I don't, people are welcome to say anything they want about Vince.

And, you know, everyone's entitled, you know, to feel how they want to. But I just like to give credit where it's due also. Like, if you're going to talk about the bad, like at least acknowledge the good. Yeah. And I think that there is, yeah, and this doesn't need to turn into a whole thing about Vince Russo, but there's a lot of good stuff from that time. And a lot of people go,

oh, Vince Russo, he's the guy that did every match on a poll. And I interviewed him recently. He's like, I had like three poll matches. That was it. That's the only thing people want to talk about. It was just things, man, like, yeah, never mind. No, it's all right. Yeah.

I'm really appreciative that you came here for this interview. These are so much better when you can sit next to somebody, look them in the eye, feel their energy. So thank you for coming this way. I appreciate it. I appreciate it. Hey, is there anything else? Yeah, I want to end with, I end every interview with this, but I talk about gratitude. Yeah.

I say, if you can be grateful, you'll live a great life. So what are three things in your life that you're grateful for right now? Well, Lula. Right? Yep. Before your wife, I love it. It's weird because, like, okay, because I have kind of like maybe four things. That's fine.

Give us four. Be an honorable mention. My support system I have around me. Yeah. You know, like I was mentioning to you earlier. You know, like, is that Maria Manuno's birthday party the other night? Like, all, like, that's her husband Kevin. They're the ones that brought me out here.

And like, I'm doing great in life. And they have a ton to do with it. Yeah. So, like, that whole support system I have around myself out here. Yeah. It's incredibly important. I'm so grateful for it. My relationship with my kids.

That was non-existent for a while. Yeah. Like, I didn't talk to my son for over four years, almost five years. Wow. Yeah, I didn't blame him for not wanting to talk to me. So, but, you know, my relationship, my kids is back on track. and miss my health, Chris. Yeah.

You know, and everything else falls into place. Sure. I mean, you're still with us now through everything. So I know I'm really grateful for that. So thank you. Thank you for this great conversation. Thanks, ma'am. I appreciate you.

Thank you for letting me be a hall of famer for a second, too. Sure. Well, there we go. And that makes me miss doing in-person interviews so much more. But they're coming back. Slowly but surely, in-person interviews. are coming back. Big thank you to Xbox for coming by my house

and spending the afternoon with us for this. And thank you to you for hanging out with us as well. It's just, you know, it's so amazing to see how much Sean has turned his life around. Snap a screenshot. Let us know you're on this ride with us. Tag us on social media. Sean is at the real Xbox on Twitter

and at Real Xbox on Instagram. And you can find me. It's just my name. At Chris Van Fleet. And of course, you can check out Xbox podcast. called pro wrestling for life, wherever you're listening to this right now. I will leave you with the very wise, very sage words of Zig Zigler, who says, failure is an event, not a person.

Yesterday ended last night. Be great. Be grateful. 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. and bands trying to make it in the world of rock. But there was one band that had it all.

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