Last Podcast On The Left - Kinda Fun: Wednesdays Are War (w/ Brody King)

Episode Date: October 10, 2019

In an effort to show you what else we got going on at The Last Podcast Network, we're dropping our latest episode of KINDA FUN into your feed: On this ep, Ben and Katy are joined by New Japan badass Brody King and they talk breaking kayfabe on social media, his passion for music, and the next generation of wrestlers coming up through the ranks.

Coming down the aisle, it's time to farm! Who the hell are you to tell the top anything? Yeah! He has broken a hat! And that's the bottom line! I've got the style of profile like never before! Woo! Hey, what's up everyone? How you doing?

Welcome to the show. I am Ben Kissel, hanging out with... Oh, Katie Darks. That's me. That's you, Katie. I'm so sorry. We haven't done this in three weeks. Have you forgotten your name? I know. I gotta knock off the rust. I'm sorry. No, it's good to be back with you, Katie.

I miss speaking with you so much when we were in Europe. I missed your big red face. I know. It's massive and it is red. And everything is going good with you. The show, Jim Jeffery's show is going good and everything. We're back. Jim Jefferies is back on the air. We crushed at Tuesday night, so that's good. We're going to try to do it again next week.

And in the meantime, I'm here with you, celebrating wrestling. Hell yeah. Awesome. And it's not just Katie and I today. Today we have the honor of being with a dude. He is a badass motherfucker. I will say that. I absorbed his body with my eyes for about three hours last night. And dare I say I'm forever changed. We are with Brody King.

Thank you so much for being on the show, Brody. Really appreciate it, man. Thanks for having me. I've also missed your big red face. Yeah. Thank you so much, dude. And Brody, you can watch him on Ring of Honor. Also, if you just want to like do a little YouTube and you can find a great match with him against Masada at

WrestleCircus. So honestly, that match was like totally badass. So I guess Katie, what do you want to start off talking about with Brody because he's sort of like a rising star, kind of the king of the underground. And I have a few questions because during this match with Masada, the announcer gave you one of the highest praises that any human being can be given.

He compared you to Bruiser Brody, which I thought was like unreal. But Katie, where do you want to start with Brody? Well, he's hot off. He's hot off a big weekend here in Los Angeles. It's the Battle of Los Angeles, which if you're not familiar, it's what I called and what I feel like you can correct me if I'm wrong

is essentially the WrestleMania of the independent scene. Awesome. And he crushed it. I did good. That's awesome, man. Talk to me just a little bit about your, because the first night, night one, it was you and, was it? Caveman Ugg.

Yes. It was amazing. He's an Australian caveman and his name is Ugg. He's a big guy. He's probably about six foot, 250-ish pounds. He has a gigantic beard, long hair, real wild man. Yeah, it was, it was a lot of fun. Our styles meshed very well together.

By style, I mean, we just beat the shit out of each other for about 12 minutes. And yeah, it was great. And when you say six feet tall, you're like, he's a big dude, but you're six foot five, right? Yeah. So you are, you're still towering over this guy. I mean, do you like wrestling people who are about

of the same height as you or the same weight as you? Does that make it easier? Or how does that change the match when you all are sort of like comparative when it comes to weight and size? It definitely makes it a little bit harder because, you know, just being able to do a lot of the things that I do with someone my size is significantly harder than a smaller guy. Or I think my preferred zone is probably like around six foot.

Yeah. Because I've wrestled Lance Archer. He works for New Japan Pro Wrestling and he's about six, six, six, seven. And just some, like some of the movements are just like so much more different. Like his feet are like touching the ground where like someone else would be like completely in my arms or something.

It's weird. So if you had like a wrestling opponent tinder profile, you would say like looking for someone six foot and under roughly 225 to 200. Yeah, exactly. All right, cool. Can you just talk about the atmosphere at Bola or any PWG show for people that haven't been there?

What's it like for you as a performer? It's, you know, I feel like when you start wrestling, it's what almost every independent wrestler strives to be at. PWG is, you know, the top of the mountain as far as independent promotions go. Right. And that's really where, you know, most of the big names now have made their start.

So yeah, being four years in and being able to, this being my second Bola was, you know, a huge accomplishment. And also just like this also being my second Bola and me being in PWG for about a year and a half now, I felt a lot more relaxed going into this one. You know, PWG still is like one of the only places anymore that makes me feel kind of nervous. Like you get those like butterflies in your stomach because

I feel like there's so much pressure for people to, you know, they want to see the best product possible. Right. So, you know, whereas if you have an off night somewhere else, you can kind of just brush it off. But if you have an off night at PWG, let alone at Bola, then it's like, I fucked the whole year up. Yeah, pack it in.

Yeah. It's like being drafted, essentially. Yeah, exactly. It's your combine. The first PWG stands for pro wrestling gorilla. Check out that company. It really is the height of the indies. The more that I'm learning about it, it seems to be the stepping

stone for a lot of superstars that go on to New Japan, perhaps AEW, even WWE. When it comes to your life, it's interesting because I was doing a little bit of research. So, you're a straight edge person. You don't drink. You don't do any drugs. You chose to go down that road because you got into heavy

metal music. You're also the lead singer of a band called God's Hate. So, check out that band. I know that's a massive passion for you, Brody. When it comes to wrestling, you're going through a lot of pain. I know you broke your leg while practicing, and I'm fairly certain that was the worst injury you've had so far, right? No, not at all.

Not at all? Okay, great. Because the interview that I watched you, you were like, that was the worst so far, but that was about a year ago. So, I'm happy to hear, I'm not happy to hear you've been injured more. But maybe you could talk a little bit about how do you avoid, you know, sort of the pitfalls of professional wrestling.

Obviously, you know, your career is still blooming, but how do you avoid that sort of pressure to perhaps, you know, take a little bit of an oxycontin or something like that when going through the injuries, and perhaps you can talk about some of the physical pain you've been through in the ring. Yeah, I guess it's just never been in my mind for that to be like, I don't want to call it a crutch, but even an option. Like, I've just dealt with the pain.

I mean, I don't want to sound like a major tough guy, but it's just like, I just kind of take, you know, a couple Advil and just keep moving. Last December, right before Christmas, I had a match with Jake Atlas, and I took a super kick to the face and broke my jaw. Oh, great. So, it shattered one of my molars and broke my jaw in half.

And I had to have my jaw wired shut for about a month. And the doctor said, you absolutely cannot wrestle for six months. Oh, my God. And the next weekend, I had a cage match with Sammy Callahan and a no ring match with Darby Allen. Oh, my God. No, you're grounded.

With my jaw wired shut. Okay, now how the hell did you pull that off? Because Katie and I have talked about Darby Allen before, and Sammy Callahan, I actually YouTubeed him as well and then I bought one of his t-shirts because I'm trying to up my wrestling t-shirt game. Both of those dudes are badass. Yeah.

Both of those dudes are extremely physical. How did you re-break your jaw? And also, how the hell did you breathe? Well, breathing was definitely hard. Oh, my God. And the thing that I didn't take into consideration was, I was like, okay, well, I can breathe sort of. So, I've broken my nose like six times so I can barely breathe

out of my nose. Cool. That sounds great. Teeth clenched like sucking air through my mouth, but when you're selling in the ring, all of my hair is also in front of my face. Right. So, when I try to take a deep breath,

all of the hair also went in my mouth. Oh. So, then I'm like gagging on my hair and like can't breathe, and it's just like, it was awful. But, I mean, it makes for a good story, you know? I mean, here we are. Here we are. How did you, what's your origin story into wrestling?

Because you're in four years, which is still fairly new in the grand scheme of things. Yes. Talk to me. What's your origin story? How did you get to this point? So, I fell into a vat of radioactive waste. And then, yeah.

Oh. Oh, well, here we go. I've been a lifelong wrestling fan since I was a kid. Kind of fell out of it, you know, as a teenager when it became, quote unquote, not cool anymore. Yeah, sure. But, yeah, I started watching it a little bit in my 20s, like when CM Punk was doing like the straight edge society

movement. And it was like, oh, there's this straight edge wrestler on TV. That's such like a subculture that like wasn't, you know, widely popular at the time. And I'm like, no, I'm obviously going to check this out. Right. And then one of my friends met a local wrestler

and he was like, oh, you know, if you ever want to get in the ring and like try some stuff out, let me know. So, I saw some pictures of him, you know, doing rolls and hitting the ropes. I was like, what are you doing and how do I do this? So, we went to a local show at Santino Brothers Wrestling Academy, which is my school that I graduated from. And the next day I signed up for the beginners course.

And here we are. Yeah, and here we are now. So, for someone who wants to get into wrestling, I know that they don't just throw you in the ring. You're not immediately just like, here's a title match. You have to work your way up and you basically have to be, for all intents and purposes, a janitor. You have to be the dude who constructs the ring.

Can you just give a little bit of insight to the people who want to get into wrestling? It's not going to happen overnight. And it's going to be a colossal pain in the ass. And for all intents and purposes, you're going to be the, you're going to be the promotions bitch for a little while. So, what was that process like for you? Did you ever feel, how long did you have to go through

that process? And I know that process kind of never ends. It's almost like right now you're like the king of middle school and you're about to go into high school and you're a freshman again. Then after high school you go into college and then you're a freshman again. Then you go into grad school and then you're a new grad

school student. It takes forever to get all the way up there. But how was that process in the beginning when you had to work your way into the ring? Yeah, so it took me about a year and a half of training about three to four days a week, three to six hours a day before I had my first match. And like you said, you know, you do whatever it takes to,

you know, whatever your promotion needs and whatever your school needs, you know, you're putting up the ring, you're doing ring crew, you're doing security, cleaning up after the shows, helping out with the wrestlers, get to and from the show. It's all, you know, it's what we call paying the dues. Right. The wrestlers before you had to do that and, you know,

they recognize hard work and you want them to, you know, vouch for you one day on a show. So you just try to work as hard as you can to try to be able to get to where they are. And then, yeah, some guys do it for a lot shorter. Some guys do it for a lot longer. You know, I know guys that haven't gotten to where they want to be in 10 years or 15 years.

So they're still, they're still kind of doing the groundwork, which is, you know, to me that it's really hard to hear stuff like that because it happens so fast for me, but it just, I guess, doesn't happen for everybody at the same pace. Right, right. Where are you now? So what, what promotions are you working with? Where, where are you traveling?

What's, where are you now? What's your, what's your track record been to where you are now? So I am exclusive in the United States to New Japan, or to Ring of Honor. Right. And I also work for New Japan Pro Wrestling. And my exception is PWG. Got it.

So when it comes to getting to Ring of Honor, you said that your ascent was relatively quick. What was that connection like? Did they scout you or was that someone who vouched for you? Who was able to get you into Ring of Honor? Because that is a massive promotion. Obviously they're on television. Everyone knows, anyone who knows anything about wrestling

knows about Ring of Honor. How did you end up getting to where you were now? Was it just in Ring, or did you have, did you have help from any outside sources, or what do you attribute your success to there? So I mean, I worked my ass off for, you know, a year and a half trying to get to where I was. And even after that, I was still in the Ring every day almost.

Right. So I feel like, you know, my, my in Ring was a little bit more polished than, you know, a lot of the other guys. Also being six and a half feet tall, 275 pounds covered in tattoos. It's already like, you know, I'm a built-in gimmick right there. Right.

It was already, you know, I look, I stand out from the rest of them. I also had the opportunity to, aside from being trained from Santino Brothers, I also trained with Rocky Romero. And through him, I got to meet a lot of people, one of those being Marty Scurll. And Marty kind of like, you know,

from a distance just like kept an eye on me. Like he was watching, you know, what promotions I was working for. And then when I started working for PWG, he hit me up one day and he was like, Hey, do you want to do this tour of Australia? I was like, yeah, of course. Hell yeah.

For sure. So he's like, yeah, I have this idea for, for a new group called Villain Enterprises. And we started it there and we tested it out there. And then he's just like, you know, I guess he also was pitching me to ring of honor at the same time. So I think Marty had a big hand in that, aside from, you know, also training with guys like Rocky

and being able to meet a lot of those guys. So when I came into ring of honor, I had already known a lot of the people or, or met them and some, some facet worked with them. And for those that don't know Villain Enterprises, this is a kick-ass group. It's Marty Scurll. As Brody mentioned, Brody obviously,

PCO and Flip Gordon. When it comes to these groups, I'm interested, how real are these kinds of factions? You know what I'm saying? Like, you know, like, are you guys really close? Do you travel together? You know what I'm saying, Katie? Like, it's like, when I remember thinking of with DX,

I'm like, do they like each other? What is this? How contrived is this? Obviously we knew with the click going back old school that they were actually friends because they broke protocol for the curtain call, all these kinds of things. But are you guys, like, what is the, how much of it is K-Fab and how much is it?

Like, you guys are truly like partners in all this. I mean, I can't speak for it. Tell us everything. I can't speak for a lot of the other, you know, groups, but we definitely are very close. Like, we travel together. We do everything together. As far as being on the road, like, we usually, you know,

get changed in the same locker room. We kind of stay close together. Oh, my God, do tell. Go into detail on that. But, no, I'd like, you know, Marty's almost like my wrestle wife, like, on the road. Like, we bicker and argue and, but, you know, at the end of the day, we're still, you know,

all right, what do you want to get for dinner? Where do you want to go afterwards? Sounds a lot like prison. PCO's like our, you know, our wrestling dad, and he's 51 years old if he didn't know that. So we're always like, where can we go to eat? Well, do they have chicken and broccoli for PCO? Okay, yeah, we can go there.

51, that man can move. He is truly not human. But yeah, I feel like as far as, you know, what people's idea of, you know, faction is that we kind of adhere to that mold pretty well. Right, right. When you first started, so you've been to Australia, you've traveled the world.

When you first started, what was your vision of like, all right, I'm going to be a wrestler, or was this, I'm going to try this out and see what happens. Was there an end game? I mean, with most things that I do in my life, my end game is always just to be the best that I possibly can. So like, when I started training, I had went to my first PWG show and it was like,

instantly like, okay, my goal is to work PWG. And so then I did that. And it was like, my goal is to work New Japan for wrestling. And then I did that. And then now I'm signed to Ring of Honor. So everything that I've set so far has happened. Right, right. What are some of the main differences that you've seen

between a promotion like PWG, between ROH, and between NJPW? What are some of the differences within those promotions? As you go to a different promotion, you're like, okay, this is a bit of a different beast. I'm going to have to adjust some things. Do they try to change your style? Because I know I've heard stories of major promotions

like WCW back in the day and WWE now, where they're like, no, I'm still, it was cute that you did that in New Japan, but here we're just not going to like, let you be AJ Styles, for example. Because you go back and you watch old AJ Styles matches and you're like, be cool if you could do that again. But I know Vince has a very rigid idea

of what wrestlers should do in the ring. Have you found that they want to change your performance, or have you just found that Japanese audiences want one thing, Ring of Honor audiences want another thing, PWG audiences want a thing? How do you deal with the different promotions? I mean, it's definitely, like the last thing you just said, I've been fortunate enough to wear Ring of Honor,

New Japan, and PWG. They're definitely very open with your ideas, and they don't really try to stifle your creativity or what you already have brought to them. I think someone like WWE, they like to, they like for you to have, you know, comfortability in your character, but they like for it to be their,

very much their thing, I feel. Unless you, you know, are in AJ Styles, and you have this like huge name that like, you can't bring in AJ Styles and then call him something else and pretend like he didn't have this, you know, huge career before. Right, of course, of course. But yeah, like PWG, we get told,

go have the best match you possibly can. There's not really any rules or, you know, guidelines other than that. It's like, go out there and kill it. Ring of Honor is a little bit more TV based, so it's like, you know, if you are the first match on the card, maybe you're not gonna have the PWG, you know, balls to the wall match,

because you'd be taking away from the main event. Ah, right. But at the same time, they're not gonna tell you, don't do this or you have to do this. Like, you just kind of know your place on the card. So when it comes to being TV based, do you have to then work within those parameters, or do they like edit that in post,

like when it comes to like commercial breaks, this is a little bit nerdy, but I'm just kind of interested in it. Do you have to be like, okay, bro, we got a commercial break coming up. Let's, you know, I'm gonna give you a bear hug for 90 seconds until the commercial break is done and then we can bump out. Or how does that work and how do you,

I guess, compartmentalize like this is for television and we're also in a live match. You know, that's gotta be kind of tricky to figure out at first anyway. Yeah. Ring of Honor actually doesn't really give us commercial cues. I have worked for promotions that do, and it is very much like,

all right, now we gotta fuck off for 90 seconds and like not do something super important so it doesn't miss TV. Right. But Ring of Honor, yeah, they just edit it the way that they need to, but you need to be more aware of working the cameras, working the hard cam,

whereas in PWG you just don't even think about that. You just go nuts. Yeah, and with the Ring of Honor crowd, I feel like they are very in-between independent and like a WWE style crowd. So they love to have fun with you. So if you hype them up or if you be a heel to them, you'll get a lot more response than from like a PWG crowd

where they're gonna be like, why are you talking to me? Just go fucking do your match. Just go wow me. Yeah, exactly. Working New Japan is really interesting because it's still very old school. It's like almost like 80s style wrestling

like as far as the format, but with new style moves and stuff like that. Yeah, like a lot of the stuff that would get over in the States, some of the faster spots or the cheeky stuff doesn't really work in Japan. Like they like their good guy, they like their bad guy and they want to see the good guy win. That's it.

And it's kind of like refreshing and really fun to be able to work in that style. What was the first, because I know, Jeff, we went to Wrestle Kingdom. What was your, as a performer, what's your reaction to the golf clap? They're very polite. The audience in Japan is just different than it is here.

Yeah, it's strange, it's almost like a challenge. Like how hyped up can you get these very polite, quiet Japanese people? Right. But then I fortunately got to have a match with Okada at the Sumo Hall in Ryagoku and they were absolutely not quiet during that match.

It was like the whole place was shaking, just chanting Okada and it was unbelievable. That's awesome. It is funny that they are so, I guess, reserved, considering New Japan Pro Wrestling does get pretty violent. I mean, they definitely love high spots. They do do a lot of crazy ass matches, though, don't they? Yeah, oh yeah.

Big time. I mean, some of the arguably the best matches in the last 10 years have come from New Japan Pro Wrestling. I believe that New Japan is the best wrestling on the planet. Right. There's something almost creepier about them watching someone covered in blood and just being like, yes, that's fine.

As opposed to like in America, we're like, at least there's blood, yes, but I think it's scarier that they're just like, hmm, very nice. Yeah, they're very reserved, yeah. So going back to the analogy that the announcer gave on your match versus Masada, which again, check it out, Wrestle Circus. It's obviously like there's no scanning cameras or anything.

It's pretty basic, but that's why I kind of loved it. The equivocation between you and Bruiser Brody, he went on to say that you're a very opinionated wrestler. You have a lot of thoughts on how the business should go and where the business should be. So maybe you could just sort of extrapolate a little bit on that. In your experience so far, what would you like to see the wrestling business become?

And why do you want it, or what are some of the issues that you see with it right now that you think could be fixed when it comes to benefiting professional wrestlers as I actually do a Bruiser Brody segment in our live show talking about how he was an advocate for wrestlers to be treated more fairly and given more money and he was actually going to start a wrestling promotion himself.

But what do you want to see happen with the industry of professional wrestling and what are your thoughts on where it is now? I mean, wrestling is in a very strange place right now. I mean, it's in like a huge booming period. And I feel like that is almost tearing it in half. Like you have AEW and you have WWE that are now, you know, for lack of a better term at war with each other.

I mean, we haven't seen it yet, but it starts next week, but there's a huge buzz about it. Oh yeah, I got Katie. I was texting with Katie last night and she was like, are you watching NXT on USA? I was like, I just lost cable. And then she's like, get sling. I bought sling. And then 30 seconds later, this is technology is amazing. I had every single channel.

I cannot wait for, what will it be? Will it be the Tuesday Night Wars? Is that what it's going to be? Wednesday Night Wars. Wednesday Night Wars. Wednesdays are war. I cannot wait for that to happen again because I thought that was the best time in pro wrestling when WCW and WWF at the time were in Monday Night Wars, right? Yeah, because everybody is trying to up their game

to have the best product. And, you know, I think that that's just better for the overall health of all wrestlers. Like everyone gets more money, everyone gets more work, and it's, I don't know, it's just a great time. The thing that I don't like that's happening right now is a lot of wrestlers are kind of, it sounds old school, but breaking kayfabe, like they love to go by their real name

on, you know, Instagram or Twitter, and they love to talk about the inside workings of the business and have these, you know, backstage, like, segments where, I don't know, it just, it exposes too much. Like, I don't mind sitting here and talking about, you know, like putting a match together or like what it was like at certain promotions, but I feel like there's, you know, a certain mystique and, you know,

a thing that a lot of fans romanticize about wrestling that they don't really want to know about. Right, right. And I feel like if you give too much away, then it takes away from what we're trying to give to the fans. Right, it takes away a little of the imagination that you would be, you would have, because you already know too much. Yeah, like if you know that, you know,

ex-wrestler is also, you know, the front guy at a gym in this city, you're like, oh, well that sucks. Like, or like, you know, like, it just, like, it just takes away from what I feel like makes wrestling so special. Yeah, I hear you. It's similar to my thoughts on Tom Cruise,

where I can't watch a Tom Cruise movie anymore just because I hate him so much as a person. And I can't change my brain over to be like, no, no, he really is the dude for Mission Impossible. That's him. I was like, no, he's a Scientologist, psychopath. My wife is the same way, yeah. And I feel like I've become the same way,

I mean, about Tom Cruise. There's definitely a line between, with social media, it seems like a whole new element to, like, traditional wrestling that has kind of been a curveball for a lot of performers. There's like, what are we doing? Who are you? Are you gonna stick with the name?

But then there's also people like Joey Ryan, who have this gimmick in the ring that's kind of super sexist and whatever, if you were to do that on social media, everyone would be like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. But yeah, you feel like he does a good job at kind of drawing the line of like, well, this is who I am in the ring,

but this is who I am, for the most part, in real life. Yeah, I feel like Joey is like, I love Joey, he gets, I feel like a lot of the wrestlers that are doing that, like when they're breaking a lot of K-fabe, they feel like they're taking a note from Joey Ryan, but it's not really. Joey, I feel like, still knows the line.

And some people see what he's doing, they try to do what he's doing, but then they take it too far. Right, it goes one step past it. Yeah, you're right, he is a good line of what to keep kind of in context. Right. So going back, we were talking a little bit

about your band, God's Hate. I know you're a huge dude, you love music and you're sort of a massive passion. What's the comparison with being on stage performing with music and being on stage in the ring? Do you get a similar vibe, do you get a similar rush, or what's the difference between those two things? I mean, it is, it's hard to say.

I mean, it's similar on a smaller independent scale. I feel like a very big punk and hardcore show would be more like a PWG show, especially when PWG was in Recita. The fans are on top of each other and everyone's having a good time. There's tons of energy in the room. Yeah, you just feel disgusting,

but you wouldn't want to be anywhere else. Have you ever been in a situation where a fan was very aggressive and you're like, bro, I'm gonna knock you out? You do understand, you can't just touch me, right? Yeah, I mean, yes, I have been in that situation as a musician and as a wrestler. Oh my God.

But then there's just incomparable things. At least for me, I don't know how it feels to play to 20,000 people. I will never know how that feels. But then walking out at MSG, I'll never have that feeling in music. So it's like, I've been able to experience things in wrestling that I will never experience in music.

So it's kind of hard to tell the difference. Yeah, because I know for us, when we do our live shows with Last Podcast on the left, we started out doing literally a theater here in Long Island City. I think it helped 30 people. And now we do 1,800 room-seaters. And it's almost easier to do the larger crowds

than the smaller crowds for us, we find. Just because there's more people, there's more energy, there's more laughs, there's just more engagement. What do you think is easier to perform for? What do you like to perform for more? A massive crowd or one of those more intimate PWG-type crowds? Because it does change how you perform, right? Yeah, I mean, performing it in receipt for PWG

was like everyone is so close to you that it's like you kind of feed off that energy. But at the same time, you know, I've never understood what some perform, like, you know, like the bigger wrestlers or big musicians when they're like, oh, you know, you just get the energy from the crowd. You don't truly know what that means until you're like,

I was standing in the middle of the ring at MSG, 20,000 people around me, cheering my name. And you're just like, your whole body just feels like it's like taken over by electricity. Right. That gave me the chills. You feel like you just turned into the Hulk.

It's an incomparable feeling. It's unbelievable. And it's fascinating from... Okay, so you've done that. What's future plans for you? What do you see? I feel like that's a pretty big check mark on all this. I mean, that's like, I don't know.

I never thought that I would do that. Yeah. I don't know what's bigger than that. Well, absolutely. And it's funny because you just take these things one step at a time. And that's kind of, you know, the background of the entertainment industry, and which is, of course,

what you're in, that no one sees. It's all those, like, little steps, those little connections. And then all of a sudden, you're on the main stage. And then people will be like, overnight sensation. And it's like, no, motherfucker, I've been doing this shit from the background for many, many years. And that's why I got to this stage. I'll never forget when Bernie Mac got his TV show

and all these articles, overnight sensation. I'm like, that motherfucker was headlining for 20 years. Okay? Yeah. There's no such thing in the entertainment industry, where very rare do you get to be an overnight sensation in real life. And usually, those people end up flaming out

because they're not ready to be on that kind of platform. So what is like, if you, not, we don't have to go into the wayway future, but obviously you're with ROH now. What do you want to see? How do you want to see villain enterprises? How do you want to see your story unfold within that company in the relatively near future? What story do you want to tell?

I would like to see, you know, Ring of Honor, go back to being the best wrestling on the planet, having, you know, the next crop of guys that are going to be superstars. You know, Ring of Honor has this lineage of guys like Kevin Steen, El Generico, Samoa Joe, like AJ Styles. Like, it's every name that you could think of has gone through Ring of Honor.

And like, that's a huge prestige that I feel like we need to keep up with. And especially with so much more competition now, we have to be on the forefront of these young guys like Jake Atlas and these young guys like Alex Zane and like, you know, the guys that are just starting to like scratch the surface, we need to take those guys and really turn them into the superstar of tomorrow.

Right. And then how do you, is it possible? How would Ring of Honor, because it seems to me like a lot of these promotions like ROH, they do great, they build up all these names like Samoa, like AJ, and then WWE comes and it's just like, here you go, we're going to buy you and then, I'm not judging the talent whatsoever.

You got to get that money, man, life is extremely difficult and when opportunity comes calling, you got to answer. But how do you maintain, how do you hold on to, you know, the talent, the roster that would make Ring of Honor great, that makes Ring of Honor great? Is that even possible to do? Or do they just keep on cultivating new talent? Yeah, I mean, they've just, they've always

just cultivated new talent, like right now we have guys like the Briskos and we have Marty Skurl and like, I feel like Marty Skurl is bar none one of the best wrestlers on the planet right now. As far as an entertainer and an in-ring worker, I don't think he can be touched. The Briskos I think will one day go down as the greatest tag team of all time.

Wow. They just have something that, you know, you can't teach and it's hard to even explain unless you've seen them live, like, they just have this thing that gets this guttural reaction from people that is unbelievable. Right. But yeah, I feel like, you know, bringing in guys like,

you know, Flip Gordon and guys like myself and we want to make Ring of Honor better and we want to make it what we, you know, loved as a kid. Right. We want to be the next Samoa Joe or the next AJ Styles. I feel like if you don't want that, then you shouldn't be there. Right.

Like you should want to be in Ring of Honor because of the lineage that Ring of Honor has. Right, right. Right, the legacy. Yeah. I feel like there's so much talent right now. So much. So much talent, so much solid talent

of the indie guys that are at the top of their game that have kind of spread out across all promotions. Now, what does this, what does the next class look like coming up through the indies? I mean, like, just when you think that you have seen it all, like, I've watched Will Osprey do things that I didn't know were humanly possible. You know, like I just mentioned him, that kid, Alex Zane,

he did a dive to the outside. It was a 630 dive. Oh, my God. Like when I first saw a 630, it was like off the top rope and it was like, how did that guy just, it was ricochet. Right, yeah. I was like, how the fuck did he just do that?

He just spun like three different times and this kid's doing it as a dive outside of the ring. Oh, my God. And I think he can do it standing. Good. It's unbelievable. That's not human. How do you do that?

No, I remember when the moonsault was about as big as you could get. Yeah. It was like growing up, it was like, oh, my God, they just did a moonsault. Match is over. That is it. Well, that's as much as we're going to get.

Yeah. And now you're like, oh, that's like in the opening spot. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I think that fans are being treated to some of the best wrestling that I have certainly ever seen in my entire life. When it comes to these high flyers, when it comes to the people being able to do all of these flips,

is there anything that you would like to see when it comes to like story based? Because I know, you know, in ring, that matters immensely. You could almost argue it's more important. But then again, you also have a situation where Mike's skills are totally valuable. And if you look at someone like an old school Stone Cold,

when he was injured, rolled over to ECW, without that experience, without that, what I think it was like a year and a half or something, where Paul Heyman basically was just like, learn how to be the best on the mic you can possibly be. And without that, I don't think Stone Cold exists, despite the fact that Vince made him a mute with the million dollar man as his manager

for the first like two years, for some reason. But can you explain a little bit on that performance? What's it like to improve on the mic? And what is, how key is that to your wrestling persona and to the industry as a whole? It all depends really like, right now in my position, I don't have to talk on the mic. I also have kind of a very dominating presence.

We're just standing there. It's like, you know what? I don't want to compare myself to the Undertaker, but he had that vibe where all he ever said was rest in peace. Yeah, that's it. But like, you know, Marty is so good on the mic that he kind of like takes the mic skill and I'm more like his enforcer. Right.

But I do think that the mic skills is, I don't want to say it's being lost, but I feel like it's not being put on the forefront that it should. And I think the best example of that is MJF, Maxwell Jacob Friedman. He just, or he's on AEW. He is such a piece of shit that like, it doesn't,

you don't ever have to see one of his matches and you're entertained by what he's doing. Like everything he says is going to get a reaction out of somebody. And that's what you want in wrestling. Like if he can go in there and cut a 10 minute promo and then have a five minute match, like he's one, saving his body. And two, like that's career longevity

because he's going to be able to talk way longer than he can wrestle. Absolutely. He is a piece of shit. It's great. He is so great. We're speaking in kayfabe, by the way. As a person, I'm sure he's wonderful.

But yes, his character is a total. I happen to know Max personally and he's also a piece of shit. No, I'm just kidding. You heard it here first, ladies and gentlemen. No, he is classic, man. He's old school Rick rude. You're all fat.

I love that stuff so much. He is like Roddy Piper. When he passed away, some part of him entered MGS body and that is like, he is just going to be the best heel of our generation. I feel like. And you talk about using social media in kayfabe. No, I mean, he's just, he's priceless.

Like they're like even at or meet and greets. Like he just lives it and it's so great. I texted him the other day and I said, you're not going to be happy until a fan stabs you, huh? I can't wait for the day. When you have a stuffy graph moment. Yeah. And I said, well, I hope that it's like in the lower leg.

Like not somewhere fatal, but like you have a scar to remember it by. That's so funny. It's so great. I mean, can you ever go too far? I was watching this interview with Jericho the other day and he was talking about how degeneration X gave all of these, or Vince obviously did,

but DX wanted to give all of these glow sticks to, to all the fans. So they did, right? And Jericho is in the ring and he pisses off the fans. So naturally a fan throws a glow stick at his face. And then he's like, come on, let me have it all. So every single glow stick was in the ring. And he comes backstage and Sean was like,

what the fuck dude? We're never going to be able to do that again. Because you got every single. The whole thing was that we promised the Vince that the fans were going to throw the glow sticks and you had him throw every glow stick at you. And so he was supposed to, he got yelled at by everyone. And then of course, inevitably he texts Vince

and he's like, I just did the best job of all time. I'm the greatest heel ever. And Vince is like, yeah, there's no problem. We're all good dude. You did your job. But is it possible for someone to go too far? Have you ever seen that happen? Whether they're like, yeah, you're supposed to be a heel dude,

but you just started a riot. Yeah. I mean, that, that definitely happens. And I feel like within the parameter of whatever you're working with that it's acceptable or not. Like I've seen, you know, chairs being thrown or like fans trying to fight the wrestlers. Like the locker rooms emptying out because, you know,

someone is fighting a wrestler. It's just sometimes it does get a little bit too far and people, you know, take it a little bit too seriously. But at the end of the day, I feel like you're doing your job. Like if you've pissed this person off enough to where when they entered the building, they thought it was fake to where now they're trying to kill you. Like you did your job.

That is, that is perspective. Honestly, that's my pro wrestling is just like so fun. And it's as a comedian, we have to have the audience really like us at the end, but it would be really cool if we just got boot off stage. That would also be like super empowering. If that's what we were supposed to do, I would be like, job well done guys.

Great. Nailed it. Awesome. Well, thank you so much for being on the show Brody. This has been such a badass conversation. Really appreciate you, man. Thanks for having me out anytime. So any matches coming up anywhere,

tell people where to find you right now. Tomorrow I have a match in Las Vegas with Jeff Cobb. Then on Saturday, it is me and PCO versus Roosh and Dragon Lee. Awesome. Hopefully I will be going out of the country again in November. So that will be exciting. I just can't announce anything about that yet. Very cool.

And of course people can catch you on Ring of Honor still, right currently. Yep, Ring of Honor. And I think I'm on every show for the foreseeable future. Villain Enterprises is always going to be number one. You can get me on Twitter or Instagram at BrodyXKing. And yeah. Awesome, brother.

Well, thank you so much, man. Brody King, everyone. All right. There it was, our interview with Brody King. Katie, I loved him. He is amazing. He's still technically listening to this, so we can't say anything too bad.

He's sitting right here. It's fantastic. I love it. I love it. Yes. Check out Brody King on Ring of Honor. He's a big, beastie man. He's covered in tattoos.

He's everything I wanted to be. But you know what? I never broke my leg. So I'm doing okay because I can't deal with pain. I also like to drink too much. All right. Well, let's do our match from the past. This week's match from the past, this is a extremely fun match from 2005.

It's ECW's One Night Stand. It's with Little Guido versus Super Crazy versus Yoshira Tajiri. And did you get a chance to watch this match, Katie? I did. And I just pray for health insurance, and I don't even believe in God. I just, my heart, I feel like I have too much of a, I get very concerned about performers' well-being when they do things like, that's being done in this match.

Yes, especially Super Crazy. It's not just a clever name. He is super crazy, and it is like unbelievable this match. And I agree. Every wrestler deserves health care. And as soon as Brody King is at the top of the food chain, I think they're going to get it. All right, everyone.

Enjoy this match. Super Crazy just took out the entire FBI with the Moonsault down to the balcony. Take a look at Tajiri go over the sunset flip. Super Crazy hangs on. Tarantula. There it is, the Tarantula. We have got to take another look at that Moonsault down to the balcony. This is why they call him Super Crazy.

Can we take one more look at that? There we go. There was the match from the past. Katie, it is so good to be back with you. And I'm just so happy we're back to doing the show regularly. Yeah, we're back in it. We're back. We're doing it.

We're doing things. We're doing things. All right, everyone. Thank you all so much for listening. Never forget. Hail yourselves. And Katie, catchphrase? You had three weeks.

Catchphrase? Don't hurt yourself. Don't hurt yourself. That's this week's catchphrase from Katie Dirks. All right, everyone. Thank you so much for listening. We'll talk to you soon.