Insight with Chris Van Vliet - Xavier Woods on The New Day, UpUpDownDown, G4TV, Kofi's title win

Episode Date: May 24, 2021

Xavier Woods (aka Austin Creed) is a professional wrestler, YouTuber, podcaster, and TV host. He joins Chris Van Vliet to talk about his entire career including his time in TNA and WWE, forming The New Day, being ringside when Kofi Kingston won the WWE Championship at WrestleMania 35, his popular YouTube channel "UpUpDownDown", what he learned from his Achilles injury, becoming a father and much more! 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

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I'm Chris Van Vleet, and thank you so much for coming back each and every episode. And thank you for helping to put the podcast on the Apple top 200 last week. Oh, yeah, up there with Sheplead. shows from ESPN, Barstool, Fox Sports, Talk is Jericho. Of course, all seven of Conrad's podcast. Can you believe he has seven podcasts? Man, nobody works harder than him. But thank you for helping to put the show on the Apple Top 200.

Also, thank you for making my birthday feel so special last week. All of the texts, tweets, calls, social media messages were all so thoughtful. So I super appreciate you. And I super appreciate my guest today. Xavier Woods, aka Austin Creed, whatever you want to call him, he is a gem. Yeah, that's right. He's a gem. And if you don't already, you can follow him on social media at Austin Creed wins.

You can follow me at Chris Van Fleet. And while you're doing things on your phone, make sure to click or click follow or subscribe wherever you're listening to Insight right now. And also give a follow to the New Day podcast and feel the power. This is a conversation that has been a long time coming. So let's get right into it. Please welcome the one, the only, Xavier Woods. We'll be quietly mashing up food over here.

Please, eat away. I don't want to drop. But it's so good to see you. Thank you so much for making this happen. Yeah, dude, of course. Of course. Thank you. It's good to officially meet you.

Like, we have a lot of the same friends, but it's the first time we've finally actually made this happen. Yeah, I know. What's, why have I not been? at the top of the card, huh? Well, I mean, you're a very busy man. Come on. You have so many jobs. I mean, obviously, WWE superstars number one, but I'm really curious with everything you have going on, YouTuber, podcaster, G4 hosts now. Congratulations on that, by the way. What is job number two for Xavier Woods? Definitely G4 is the job that I'm going to be transitioning into once I'm done.

being a bump boy. I'll be playing video games. But honestly, I'm also, so I'm learning bass as well. I have aspirations to be a studio bassist. So for all you artists in the next five or seven years, hopefully by the time you guys are big, I understand how to play bass. And you hit through Atlanta,

I'll play the bass for your album. But I appreciate that you're giving yourself like a good runway. You're saying, all right, five to seven years. Because I think there's a lot of people that go, all right, when I started this thing six months ago, I'll be good in like another six months maybe. No, it's music. So there's certain components of it that I already luckily understand

because I was in band all my life and played trombone. And so that part is easy. And that's usually the hard part of figuring out like music theory and how notes work together in chords and harmonies and all that stuff. So I've got that stuff for the, I don't say for the most part, but like 18% of it, there's still a ton to go. So translating it to playing bass

has been really fun because all of your favorite songs are driven by like a good baseline. And I don't think people really realize that all of the time. And so having that in my hand, like it just, I don't know, it feels good, makes me make that stink face. And if I can get to the point where I can make other people make it, that's the whole point of doing this to kind of spread positive energy everywhere. Are you playing the bass or are you slapping the bass?

I'm playing it. I'm not slapping the bass. Yeah. Not like I love you, man. Yeah, I got a long way to go before I get there. How does the trombone feel about this, though? Oh, trombone's fine, because I've been playing trombone since sixth grade, so she's been good. She's good.

She knows that's where my heart is. But she's open to me playing music with other instruments because she gets that there's not just one instrument for a person. There's many instruments for many people, and everybody needs to enjoy these experiences while we're living this short, short, short, short, short, I'm on a time that we have here on the planet. There's no point to only play one instrument. Why? Why do that? Did you find the trombone in sixth grade, or did the trombone find you? And the trombone found me. So I wanted to play drums, but sixth grade me had no idea what the

word percussion meant. So when they called out percussion and they went to the little room, I was like, I don't want to do that. And then they called the next instrument. And I was like, hey, when are you doing drums? Like, oh, they already called drums like 10 minutes ago. They're like, well, that's what I want to do. They're like, well, the door's closed now so you can't go. I'm like, well, you're in charge of this system. Why can't I just go in? I didn't know what it meant. And so they're like, here, try to make noise sound these other instruments. And I was like, well, saxophone is like real sexy. Maybe I can get good at that and be cool, but I can't make a sound on a woodwind instrument. And so they gave me like a brass mouth piece and they're like, what do you think you should do

with this? And I made the sound like instantly. And they're like, fantastic. Can you do it with this smaller one? I could do it. And I couldn't do it. The smallest one is the trumpet. And then so they're like, okay, cool, you're a trombone player. I was like, what is the trombone? And then luckily the professor, the teacher was a trombonist. And so he pulled it out and I was like, oh my God, yes. I'm so in. I don't want to fast forward too much in your story here, but how does the trombone get worked into what you guys were doing with the new day?

So at that point, we were trying to see what they would say yes to and things that we could do. And so they had an idea. I think it was like after we won the titles and we were in New York, I think. They're like, hey, you know, we want you guys to come down and sing a song.

And maybe like, you know, like New York, New York. And I was like, we're in the car and we got this text at the same time. And I go to the guys like, do you think they'll give us a trombone? Because I can figure out how to play that on trombone. And the guys are like, yeah, let's try. Let's see. We've had a good streak of getting yes. And so we texted them back and we all kind of like waited with bated breath.

And then they go, yeah, we can get you a trombone. And it was like, what are we doing? What door did we just open? And so figured out how to play it during the day. And then we played it during the show. It was just ridiculous. but one of the crew guys, the set guys, Nick, down at the bottom of the ramp,

and I'm supposed to give him the trombone after we do our promo and then we can do our match. But in my head, I was like, man, I'm literally never going to be in the situation again where I'm able to take my passion of professional wrestling and my passion for music and trombone and, like, experience this feeling again. So I'm going to keep this trombone,

and I'm just going to play with it during the match and see what happens. And so I started playing it during the match, and one of the camera guys, is like crying, trying to record what's happening. And we go to commercial and he goes, you've got to keep playing that trombone. I was like, what?

He said, Vince is losing his mind, crying, laugh. Like, he's loving this. I was like, perfect. And so we got in the back and there were the whole, everybody in guerrilla was just was laughing. And Vince was like, that's yours now. You now, I never want to see you without a trombone now. And it's like, what is going on?

This is great. So then it just went from there. But I got legit, one of the happiest days that I've had like in my career, being able to go, oh, you now get to, like, add a piece to what Xavier Woods the character is. So now in my head, I just think back to, like, wrestling and like old school, like, whether a guy would bring, like, a water bottle or a mirror or whatever, like, that inanimate object means the world to him because the more importance you put into this inanimate object, the more people

perceive it as important. They always say, first option is reality. So, like, if this is the most important thing in your life, then everyone's going to feel that. And so I was just excited to get to, like, explore that side of wrestling. Because that's what's always been interesting to me, just like the auxiliary thing. So I knew I wasn't going to be like six, five. I knew it wasn't going to be like 300 pounds. I knew those things. So to me, what was interesting was like, how can I get into WWE and how can I stay in there? Like, what can I do as a guy who's not quote unquote like the typical like body size for wrestlers like back then, you know? And so I was excited that I got to explore that a lot more. And that's why I put so much effort into it. I want to key in one of the words you said there's passion. And I think that that's like, that's like, the thing that drives your whole career is like this insane passion. And if we take this way back, what do you think your first passion was? Man, probably just learning. Learning, not necessarily like learning things like sitting in school and learning, but just like learning things.

Because I really enjoy gaining knowledge. It's something that my dad is like, my dad and my mom, both like instilled into my brain like um no matter what happens to you in life like if you have the knowledge that you want to have no one can take that from you someone can call you stupid but you go oh oh buddy you don't know what that means you're not you know you don't need to talk to me like that so uh that's always been something that's it's been i've been passionate about just learning information and having that um and so that translates into me loving video games and wanting to learn how to be good at video games and then learning about wrestling and learning to learn to learn learn how to be good at wrestling.

But then once I got into wrestling, realizing that from like the fan perspective, you watch it and you see like the fireworks and you hear the music and you see like the larger than life characters and stuff. But like you don't really break it down to like a science a lot of the time. You do sometimes. I'm sure that there's some mega fans out there

that are doing that on the regular. But once you start actually like taking bumps and getting into the industry, you find out so many intricacies that you weren't thinking about as a fan. And I love those. I love little, little things like that. So one, for instance, like, again, I'll go back to me saying, like, oh, I knows I'm going to be big.

So if you see me in an airport and you see Braun Stromen, you go, Braun's the wrestler, this guy's not a wrestler. You know, that's, people have said that to me in the airport before. And it's like, well, that's kind of closed-minded. What do I need to, like, change? And so that's why my gear is always so crazy because that's my canvas to show my personality and express who I am to people that are rocking with those ideas. So when you see the Xavier Woods figure on the shelf,

you go, oh my God, this is orange, pink, blue, yellow. There's unicorns on it. There's pancakes. Like, what the hell is this? And even if you don't like wrestling as a kid, you see this bright, shiny toy, and you go pick it up. So to me, that's a part of wrestling, merchandising yourself and making sure that you are marketable to different demographics.

And so, you know, you realize, like we veil a lot of the things that we say in promos. And it's like Shrek. There's like the adult things in there for you're listening. But it's fine for kids to listen to too. So like you're talking to adults that way, but you're also talking to kids. and figuring out those intricacies of how to bring more people to wrestling has always been so interesting to me.

Did you always have this much personality and this much charisma, or is this a byproduct of becoming a wrestler? I think it's definitely been enhanced a lot from wrestling, but it came about because of like how awkward I am, like internally as a human. Like, it's a mask that I put on. So I kind of, I go. I'm very extra to hide how awkward I feel, I think. And I overcompensate.

So that's why when you ask me a question, I ramble for like 10 minutes I feel, because I'm just trying to make sure I don't feel awkward while I'm talking. So it's a lot of that. But wrestling has definitely brought a ton out of me because being able to be in a space where you can feel awkward and weird and then try something. And then a crowd of people in arena starts cheering for it or like booing you for it. It's like, oh, okay, let me lean into this a little bit.

This is kind of fun. So it's a little bit mix of both. The thing I love about your story is you just showed up. Like you just showed up and got yourself signed. And I think, I don't know if everybody realizes this. You just, you weren't invited. You just showed up and somehow talked yourself into getting a tryout. And like your career kind of went on from there.

It's, it's weird. So like, when I sent myself the first time, I sent like full resume cover letter, all that stuff. And you got like made fun out by a bunch of people. And it's like, well, why? This is not a job? Like, this is what I was taught. Like, you're supposed to bring it. Like, it's a profession.

Like, I'm supposed to, like, come to you and speak to you respectfully and show you, like, where I've worked before and, like, what I've done and why I should be working here. Like, I don't, I don't understand why I'm getting made fun of. But I did that and brought stuff to them. And I, there was the, the only group that sent me a letter back. So I sent it, like, to Indies all across the place and overseas. And WWW was the first place to send me one. And they just told me at the,

this time, you know, you're not, the height that we're looking for. We're looking for guys like over six feet tall, you know, but try again in a few years. So that's when I went to, I got lucky enough to get a job at TNA, like six months before I graduated college. And then once my run ended there, I sent myself to WWA again. And luckily, like they said that they remembered me sending in the resume last time because nobody had ever like brought resumes. They always just sent tapes or DVDs. And at that point, you remember Light Scribe DVDs? Oh, yeah. Yeah, I like took my 8 by 10 and light scribed it on the DVD with my name, my phone number, my contact and all that stuff.

So like there was, if you wanted to contact me, you could have because it was on all over that folder. But they said that they remember that. And then the fact that I went somewhere else to try to get some more experience, they appreciated that. And so then I got the tryout. And then it just kind of kind of went from there. But the fact is like you took the initiative to make this happen for yourself.

And I think there's too many people that sit back and wait for these opportunities to come to them. Yeah. It's, it's hard. I think my grandma used to say this. She said, luck is the intersection of skill and opportunity. And so if you're not working hard enough, if you randomly get the opportunity, you're not going to have the skill. If you've got the skill, but you're not forcing your way into those areas, you're not going to ever get the opportunity. And so it's kind of a mix of that. Like, I was just trying to do everything that I could to like get as good as I could while also working on getting an opportunity in hopes that I'd be good enough for that opportunity when it came. And again, luckily, it's worked out and we're here

and I'm talking to you now. I'm very grateful for this. I mean, when you look at, when you look at what you did with G4, I feel it's pretty similar. Like, you just kind of forced your foot in the door. Maybe the door wasn't open. You forced your foot in there and made it happen. Yeah, it's, I very much believe into like speaking your truth into existence. Yeah. And again, something that people would like make fun of. But when we started New Day and we, whenever we would talk about like our aspirations, I would always say the first thing I would say is Covey's going to be heavyweight champion.

That's, that's the point of this. That is the point of this is to make sure that Covey becomes heavyweight champion. And so like five years in, like, and we did it. And it was like, I remember if I feel like everybody was like, what? What is this? Like, no, like, do you all not remember? This is exactly what we have been saying the whole time. Like, this was the goal.

We got there. So it feels good when stuff like that happens. And so with the G4 stuff, in my head, like, this is what I've been fighting for the whole time, just to try to create a path for myself after wrestling. So I couldn't see what that chapter looks like because talking to so many veterans who have been so kind and given their time to tell. stories and and help us figure out how to best navigate our careers. Obviously, different areas, different things going around, like how the show worked, how a locker room was, like,

whatever. But essentially, wrestling is always going to be wrestling. And so being able to take their stories and say, okay, they got done with wrestling. They didn't, they didn't train any other trades or skills. And they were nervous about, you know, making the jump. And so, you know, you end up in the situation where your body just doesn't want to do it anymore. Your body can. It hurts. It doesn't want to go through that stuff. And you find yourself coming back to wrestling and saying, like, hey, well, let me, let me do this thing. Let me wrestle this match. Let me do this because I, like, need some cash. And so hearing so many horror stories from the guys themselves about how, how bad that, that position feels. And when I say that position, I mean the position I'm not

knowing what the next chapter looks like. So you are terrified to move forward. That, that to me is like the scariest thing for not. only myself, but like from my peers because like if we don't start setting that stuff up now, then we might not be able to set it up later comfortably, you know? So, um, so my thought is, or was, you know, make this YouTube channel, make this gaming YouTube channel and get into gaming because that's where I want to go when I'm done wrestling. Like I knew that already. And so being able to put my face out there and to be in these spaces while I'm still wrestling, it works not only to like to my advantage, but I think the WWE's advantage because now we're, we got more of a

foothold in the gaming space, we're able to reach out to different kinds of influencers of gamers that might not watch wrestling and bring their audiences to wrestling. And that's when they can figure out that wrestling nerds and gaming nerds are the same kind of nerd. We all got made fun of and throughout adolescence. And if we made our way through it to adulthood and still enjoy the things that we genuinely enjoy, now we're here as adults. And so like we both sets of nerds fought through that battle. And so I just want to hold the mirror up and say like, look, we should all be together. like all these all you all gamers should watch wrestling because you like video games for the same reason that wrestling nerds like wrestling and you wrestling nerds that don't play video games should play video games because video games are exactly what wrestling is but you get to like control it yourself like and so so being able to to be a part of that then diagram and trying to stretch that out as much as possible um has been awesome but but long long story long the goal has been to make sure that when i'm done wrestling i i have something and I've been doing my best to try to make some sort of blueprint for everybody else that

might be trying to search for that too. It's like, look, we can start it with something like this, maybe, and it can go this way or that way. But I just want everybody to be forward thinking. This podcast is sponsored by BetterHelp. Is there something interfering with your happiness or is preventing you from achieving your goals? BetterHelp will assess your needs and match you with your own licensed professional

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So the special offer for anybody listening to Insight right now is 10% off your first month. Just go to BetterHelp.com slash insight. That's BetterHelp-H-E-L-P.com. slash insight. I want to talk about your Achilles injury because, you know, you're on the road going like crazy, you know, traveling all the time, new cities all the time, you know, you're on raw all the time. And then this injury happens and it all comes to a screeching halt.

And I'm really curious to know what the biggest thing you learned from that time was. That's a good question. I guess to not stress things that I cannot control. That's big for me. I'm a big control freak and big perfectionist and a lot of things. But the week before I tore my Achilles, I went to a kid's birthday party,

took the kids. And it was the first time that I'd gotten to play with my three-year-old in a sense, like we're at a trampoline park. And he's like, so he's like big enough to jump around and do that stuff. And so he's jumping on me and I'm like throwing him into trampolines and he's like trying to do flips and stuff.

And like this is so much fun. And the next, like I'm saying, thinking we're gonna come here like at least like twice a month. like on Saturdays, maybe, maybe every Saturday we'll come and do this. And then I tore my Achilles like the next week. And so my immediate thought, and this is, this is such a weird thing because this is such like an apparent thing that wouldn't have been in my head had I not had kids. But my instant thought was, I can't go to that trampoline park with my kids now.

And then, oh my God, I can't dance in the kitchen with my kids before bed. Oh, no. And then the third thing was I might not be able to wrestle anymore. And that in itself is when I learned, like, how much my kids have changed me as a, as a person, because all my life has always been wrestling, wrestling, like, I'm going to be a pro wrestler. And I want my name, like, in lights. And I want to, like, do something important and, like, help change the industry to, like, do what, do whatever.

I don't know. I don't know what it was. But it was, that was my focus. That was my motivation. And obviously, like, I realized that my motivations changed when my kids were born because you feel that once you see them like it's it's it's a crazy experience but to to have something like that like a life changing possible life changing injury happened to you and from the from the back of your mind all that rushes forward like this this is what's most important to you it's it's really cool

to see that change happen or feel that change happen so so by the time i was i was you know jogging again and like jump and rope and i'm playing with the kids and everything that's when it hit me again like okay i'll be able to wrestle i'll be able to i'll be good i'll be be good because I could do those other two things and I was like yeah I think I'll be able to come back and then it was um you know some months later and I got to come back to wrestling and everything felt great and so uh learning learning that wrestling is not the end-all be-all for me is is the biggest takeaway from it because I instantly filled up my schedule with convention stuff like I had surgery on a Thursday and that next the next Friday I was in New Orleans at a convention for three days

doing signings all that stuff we did college I did a Professor Xavier from X-Men. I did a Professor Xavier cosplay because I was in one of those little buggy carts anyway. We put the cardboard around and I put the suit on. So we just made it work. But that's probably the biggest thing that I learned. I mean, New Days had such an incredible run.

You've had such an incredible run. I want to know who's the tag team you guys are chasing after. Who's the greatest tag team of all time in your opinion? I don't know. I can't. I'm about picking like greatest. I have, I like so many people for so many different reasons. Sure.

My favorite tag team though, is probably Billy and Chuck, mainly because of their matches with the Hardee's, because it was, as a fan, it was the first time that I noticed, like, hey, these guys are huge and the Hardy Boys are not huge, but Hardy Boys can still knock them down. And so in my, like, teen head was like, man, this is how wrestling, like, should be. People shouldn't be like, oh, like, I'm bigger than you,

so you can't knock me down. I'm like, Billy Gunn is way bigger than Jeff Hardy. And Jeff Hardy got this hot tag, and he's tearing him up. Like, he's bummed, like, crazy for him. And so in my head, again, it was like, okay, so this is where you put your ego aside and you go, let's have this good match, you know? And so to me, those moments always, always popped me as a kid. And I'm sure that there's a billion other situations with a billion other tag teams

that made people feel this that they think are better examples, but this was what it was for me. Because I've always just been obsessed with tag team wrestling. So any of the matches with the Dudleys, the Hardee's, excuse me, and Edging Christian, like those obviously popped off for me a lot. But I like groups as well. So like I was really into three count in WCW.

I love three count. I was like so into three count. I was into what was their tag team? when it was Elix Skipper and who's his partner in the WCW Cruiserweight tag stuff. Oh my gosh. But all like just watching all those matches because again, that was when they were like guys who were my size and they were putting them on TV and they had their own tag division and it was awesome. And so I don't know. I know. I know this is a cop out answer.

But I don't know. I love so many different tag teams for so many different reasons. I can't pick one greatest. I was at WrestleMania 35. that, you know, Kofi mania was just an incredible, incredible moment. But obviously very different for you being there. Walk me through what it was like being ringside of that match, knowing what was going to happen at the end of that match.

I didn't know what was going to happen. Oh, my God. I said, don't tell me. I said, do not tell me. Because if the outcome is told to me and then it changes mid-match, I don't know what I'm going to do. I don't know what I'm going to do. So don't tell me a thing.

thing. And so I just, I knew what we had to do at the end. And, but I didn't know anything after that. And I was like, I, but, and so all of that was just like so real because it, it was something that, I don't know, it made it all real. Not that it wasn't real before because we've gotten to do amazing stuff up to that point. But this was the thing that said, it's not just us having fun and having a good time and having a good laugh with the people. It's like, no, we've, We've created something that is worth what we believe it's worth. Now, everyone sees what it's worth. It's not just wrestling.

It's not just Kofi. It's not just E. It's not just me. It's everybody. It's everybody who's been in the situation where you walk into work and you do everything humanly possible to move ahead, but you just cannot. And as you're there crushing it, you see so many people with no, experience with very little experience or who haven't done anything close to like the things you've

done or been through to get to where you are and they're just not even walking around they're flying past you with no one saying a word to you about you and your position at that point in that moment it made every decision that I've made in my life to get to w.E to get to kofi and e to get to that WrestleMania moment, it made every single one correct because you never know. You never know if you're making the right choice. You have an idea, but you don't know if you've done the right thing. So like I had really bad stage fright and my friend in high school and senior year. She said, you should join. We need boys. I said, I'm not going to get up on stage and sing and dance in front of people. She said, you want to be a pro wrestler, don't you? You have to do that in front of people and

you have terrible stage fright. So why don't you do this? Because it's a lot weirder than like fighting with people. And I was like, oh, okay. So like, in my head, it's like, that was a choice that I made to get me closer to to WWE. Being a cheerleader for a year in college was a step I made to become more agile to get closer to WVE. Adding the trombone in was something from my childhood to get me closer to what I wanted in WWE. And so seeing Kofi in the title and being right there for it made me realize, like, for myself, like I had made all the right decisions. And they culminated in allowing me to be a part of this incredible moment that Kofi was having, you know. And so that, it meant so much for me, like more than anyone will ever know. It wasn't just his moment. It was the moment for the new day.

That was what was so exciting as a fan to see. Xavier, I've really enjoyed this. Like, I could talk to you for like four hours. I want to be super respectful of your time. And I just have one final question. I end every interview talking about gratitude. And I'd say that 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. There's a lot. There's a lot. I'm grateful, first,

I'm grateful that I woke up this morning because any day you're not, any day you can wake up, there's your immediate win. I go small victories into big victories. Thankful for all the friends that I've met through wrestling and through this weird quarantine experience too.

So I was, already, obviously friends, like very close with Tyler Breeze, but on the YouTube channel, up, up, down, down where we do all of our gaming stuff, we decided to start playing Uno during quarantine with Cizaro and Adam Cole. And it's turned to Adam Cole. And we were close to Zara and I were already close as well, but I didn't really have a relationship with Cole. And now he's one of my best friends. So the bond that we've been able to create through this weird, terrible quarantine mess, like I'm so incredibly thankful for that and the bond that I've now got with jessamine shana mea uh charlie like they're so incredible so to be able to work with such

an awesome group of people on on this gaming channel and doing all this stuff and working with g4 all of that being able to dive into other passions i'm extremely thankful for that um and i'm thankful that people are starting to get to a little bit closer back to normalcy it's nice it's nice seeing people start to start to breathe again you know it's a big thing it's a big thing Well, anybody that's subscribed here on my YouTube channel, you need to subscribe to Up, Up, Up, Down, of course you can see Xavier Woods every Monday on Raw. And again, this was such a pleasure, such an honor. Thank you so much, sir. All right. So if you like what you heard, or even if you didn't, go ahead and do these things.

Check me out on social media, Instagram and Twitter, at Austin Creed Wins. Check me out on the YouTube's Up Up, Down, Down, is the channel. And you can go to UUDD shop.com to get all your sweet Up-Up-Down apparel. You can catch me on G4 content as a host, follow them on socials, all social platforms at G4 TV, and check me out every Monday on the New Day podcast. It's a podcast with me, Kofi, and Big E. Go to wherever you listen to your podcast, type in the New Day, click the pink picture with the three black guys faces on it.

That's us. Any click, any subscribe, any five-star review helps your boys out with the algorithms. Appreciate you. You're the man. Thank you so much. Thanks. Well, there you go. What a wrap up, by the way.

Don't you get the feeling like you'd be best friends with Xavier Woods? What a guy. Although the one question that I didn't get to because we were so tight on time was I wondered if he's ever met Carl Weathers because his T&A character, Austin Creed, was modeled after Apollo Creed. So I wonder, you know, with all the conventions that they've both done, I wonder if they've ever bumped into each other and had a conversation. I guess we'll have to wait till interview number two to find out. Also, man, a convention. What are those? How fun would that be to have those come back again?

Take a screenshot. Let us know that you're with us on this ride. Tag Austin at Austin Creed wins. Tag me at Chris Van Fleet. And make sure to follow both of our podcasts, Insight and the New Day podcast, wherever you're listening to this right now. And I'll leave you with this quote

from the legendary Jack Canfield that seems so fitting for this conversation. Don't worry about failures. worry about the chances you miss when you don't even try. Be great. Be grateful, my friends. We'll see you on the next one for some more insight. Jim Rome takes on sports. Why? Because I have a job to do with rapid fire takes. So I don't want to hear from you lava pigs on this notion today.

No idea what you're talking about. You're complaining more than you like to breathe air. It's like you get up in the morning only to complain and cry and moan on social, media about things that you don't even understand. He's the spitfire of sports smack. Ticket banjo, but get up in here. The Jim Rome Show podcast. What's your beef? Follow and listen on your favorite platform.

You've been warned.