Matthew Cox | Inside True Crime Podcast - TRAGIC DOUBLE LIFE OF PRO WRESTLERS... (FULL PODCAST)

Episode Date: June 20, 2023

TRAGIC DOUBLE LIFE OF PRO WRESTLERS... (FULL PODCAST)

For a limited time at McDonald's, enjoy the tasty breakfast trio. Your choice of chicken or sausage McMuffin or McGrittles with a hash brown and a small iced coffee for $5.5 plus tax. Available until 11 a.m. at participating McDonald's restaurants. Price excludes flavored iced coffee and delivery. Hey, this is Matt Cox, and I'm here with Jeff Kreen, and he used to be a pro wrestler, or a wrestler? Used to be. I still am. look at me what do you make you look at me come on you're telling me i'm not still a pro wrestler

wow right out of the gate he insults me so we're going to do his story so what's going on so how are you first of all i want to thank you very much for having me on the show appreciate it you know obviously i'm a much more important person than you are so it's it's nice that you understood having me on your show is going to value you um anyhow um you brought me here to tell my story yeah well to talk about also to talk about like about this Yeah, yeah, because Chris, we have a mutual friend, Chris, who was telling me, like, you know, you're selling out, you guys are selling out the events and, you know, you got to have this guy on, and, you know, it's getting bigger and bigger. And so he was... So the gist of it is actually very simple. I'm a pro wrestler. I'm coming down to pretty much the end of my in-ring career as a performer. I'm not going to tell you how old I am, but I'm getting to that point where it's about that time. And I was convinced by some people who are in the industry, who are good friends of mine, that we should start our own promotion. And for people that don't know, a promotion is, for lack of a better word,

WWE is a promotion, A.W is a promotion, impact is a promotion. And there are a lot of these smaller promotions around the world called indie companies, independent companies. And I was convinced by some people to start a little independent company. And me being who I am, there's nothing little about anything I do. Everything I want to do is a big dream. So we started this company called Universal Championship Wrestling. And we are running a top of the line independent show.

And I call it an independent show right now because we're still at that level of being an independent company. But since day one, we have been selling out everywhere, anywhere, anywhere from 500 to 2,000 people every time we're doing a show. Our audience is fanatical at this point. We're doing absolutely fantastic things. We're telling stories for the wrestling fans out there that understand there was wrestling in the 80s where it was all about characters and bigger than larger than life heroes, Hulk Hogan and Andre the Giant. and then your bad guys, the rowdy, ratty pipers, the iron chic, you know, we're telling those kind of stories again, the Greek tragedy, you know, the alien where you have heroes and villains and it's this struggle between good and evil, which is what wrestling has lost, in my opinion,

over the years. So we built this company. We run the third Sunday of every month. Generally, that falls around a 20th, but it's always the third Sunday. We're running out of southwest Florida in the Bradenton, Sarasota area, a little town called Palm Meadow. and it's been absolutely fantastic. The feedback from the fans,

the reception that we've gotten from the overall community in that area and the entertainment value for what we've put together has even exceeded my expectations coming out of the gate with this. We've brought in some top-of-the-line independent wrestlers. Some of them fans may have heard of before.

Many of them were talents that I discovered throughout the years or people that I personally had trained or worked with and I put together this group of guys and girls that are just, first of all, unbelievable wrestlers, but secondly, unbelievable characters. You know, you get invested emotionally with them.

You want to see them win or lose, depending on a good guy, bag, I think. So we're really doing something absolutely extraordinary, and at this point is unbelievably exceeded everything I thought it would at this point, and we're getting ready to take it to the next level. We're getting ready to take that next big step and start attacking it more on a nationwide scale

or even a global scale. So we're real happy about that, really excited. So, well, how'd you get into it, though? I'm like, like, what, what, like, where did this, like, where did this originate? Did you always want to be a wrestler? Like, that kind of, like, what's, all right. So let's rewind 30 years. Let's go back. 30. You weren't born 30 years ago. There's a lot of gray in the beard. Well, we're not going to talk about, you know, birth through, well, virginity. I lost a 14. So we'll start, you know, we're not going to go back that far. But we're going to go, wow, did he really, I just realized he threw a shot at me. He talked

about a lot of gray. All right. You know what? This is for a guy who dies his hair on a regular basis. I'm 52. I can see the top there. You're dying that a little bit. All right? He's really older than 52. Did she just wait. Did you just give away my age? Almost 52. Okay. You've got me by a couple. All right. You got me by a few candles. Not many. So really he's going to throw the shot at me to 30 years. We're going to regroup. We're going to rewind 35 years. Is that better for you? Okay. We're going to go back to when I was basically coming toward the end of my high school career. I was living with my adopted father, more or less. My best friend's family kind of took me in. And he was a semi-pro professional boxer when he was young. So he had trained my best friend and I as boxers growing up.

I was one of those guys I loved to fight. In high school, I was, you know, I was looking for the toughest guy in the hallway and I wanted to fight him. I was getting tossed out of high school like every other day for this. It was just, it was my thing. I loved the act of being physical with someone and finding out who was better. It wasn't an anger issue. I was not an unhappy kid.

I just, I like to fight. I enjoyed the physicality of it. So he had taken us into a certain degree and said, well, you know, you guys are constantly doing this out of street. Let me teach you. He thought by teaching us how to box, we would have a little bit more discipline.

Right. And we wouldn't be out on the street doing it as much. and unfortunately he was wrong because all you did them were take two kids that really loved to fight and now you gave us skills. So now we're going to go out there

and do it some more. I'm sorry. In my like I worked, when I was in the halfway house, I was worked in a boxing. And it's funny because like you'll have like a 14 year old kid, 15 year old kid who when they come in,

they are like they're complete assholes. Oh yeah. And six months later it's now they're lethal. Right. But they're still an asshole. No, no. I'm saying that was completely different. They were like, suddenly it was yes or no, sir.

It was soup. They were all like, and I mentioned that to the, the owner of the club, which is, it's Calta's 24 hour fitness. It's a boxing place. It's on, like, it's just right around here. It's on waters. And in Tampa. And these kids, I was like, man, that kid was like a dick when he got here.

And he's like, I know. He's like, I don't know why. It just happens. Like he's like, I was worried. The discipline, you know, what it takes to actually learn the skill. Right. You learn any kind of fighting skill. There's a discipline involved.

Right. And I think with anything else, when you accept that discipline and understand that you have to dedicate yourself to this to learn it, there's a lot of other things about you that change. You know, your mentality about how you approach life and your mentality about how you do things begins to change because you understand that, you know, to accomplish something, I have to be disciplined to be able to do it. Right. So that asshole in you suddenly realizes that, you know, okay, I have to be more serious.

I have to be more dedicated to this. I can't just be this jerk off who's acting like a freak all the time. But that's not what happened with you. Well, my problem was, and no, it's absolutely not what happened to me. My problem was is that, you know, I was always really, really great in school. This is where my high school had a hard time with me, you know. I was an A student. I was one of those guys that would sleep through class and just take the test and pass it.

So I was bored a lot in school, which is where I guess the fighting and wanting a fight came in. It was a thrill for me because I wasn't getting that from school where it was like, you know, you gave me the textbook. I read it the first week and I was done. and now just give me all the tests and I'm out of here. So the actual idea of education bored the hell out of me because I felt like I knew it already. So the fighting for me was just a secondary outlet. So I was already a very disciplined person

because I had that ability to learn very quickly. The fighting was just another way for me to get that thrill, that excitement that you needed. And then here comes my, I call him my father, my adoptive father, who now says, well, we're going to teach you guys out a box and hopefully this will chill you out. And you made us lethal and we're still out there doing it. So then his next idea,

was, well, let's start doing some amateur boxing. You know, let's get into this, because I showed some aptitude for it. So I started amateur boxing, and I actually went 44 and O as an amateur with two golden gloves under my belt. And I turned pro. So you're okay.

I was all right. You know, it was, you know, it was one of those things where it was like, yeah, we could do this or we couldn't. I turned pro at 18, and I had four pro fights, and I won all four of them. And I don't know if you remember boxing

back in the late 80s, early 90s. This was Don King's world. Yeah, I was going to say, huge. It was huge, but it was all Don King. This was, you know, Mike Tyson was kind of at his hype, but starting to have that, you know, boxing was big back then. Tyson had brought it to a whole other level. The problem with it was is, and I'm not trying to say anything bad here, but I was white. Right. And there was no way that a white guy at that time was going to ever get anywhere in his business. Don King owned it. He owned all the great fighters. He owned

everybody. All fights were him putting them together for his promotion. He's a businessman. He's making money and he owned it all and i had my own management team i had my own you know my father was my trainer i had my own management team and we didn't want to be under don king's label and it was you know we're going to do this on our own and it just wasn't going to happen and i you know i had the four pro fights one all four relatively easy i showed a lot of promise but you know my father eventually came to me and he said look you know the reality is we could spend the next 10 years doing this you're going to get in the head for 10 years and we're probably never going to get to the big money fights you could win all your fights and we're never going to get to that level because there's just too

much politics right now. And I basically was like, well, you know what? I'm, I'm done. I had actually at that point, too, I was, at 17, I had started bouncing at a nightclub, a strip club. And I was, I had been promoted to the assistant manager throughout this time. And I was, I was just starting to make some money. Plus, I'm a freaking 19 year old kid who's the manager at a club. I'm not even old enough to drink at. And, yeah. Surrounded by strippers. Surrounded by strippers. So I'm making good money. Your priorities. You have different priorities. Right. It was like, okay, I'm making really good money and I'm surrounded by hot chicks and I'm partying my ass off a night.

Let's just do this for a little while. So I said, enough with the boxing. I said, I'm going to go do this nightclub thing for a while. I'm having a lot of fun with this. I'm making good money at it. I was really, really learning that business and starting to... I was working with some guys, you know, Michael Peters, who was the guy who built the gold club down in Fort Lauderdale,

and I was really learning this business, and it really interested me, and I really wanted to get into it. So I was doing that for about a little bit less than a year. My father's still like, no, listen, you're an athlete. You should be doing it. I'm like, eh, you know, whatever. blah, blah, blah, blah. I mean, I'm really living the life

doing this whole, working at these strip clubs. So my father says, listen, you've always loved professional wrestling. You know, I used to watch when you were a kid growing up. It was great. She's,

you should go check it out. Now, I just got done doing the boxing. I'm dumb with it. I'm done getting hit in the head. You know, I mean, I'm, by that, I got $5,000 cash in my pocket and I just went out with two hot strippers last night. What the fuck do I want to get involved in that?

Right, life is good. Right, I'm doing well. But that urge in me is still there. So one of the best wrestling schools in the world, The Monster Factory, is right in New Jersey. Paulsboro, in New Jersey, right outside New Jersey, that area. Larry Sharp. They have a school to be a pro wrestler?

There's several of them. Really? This is where you learn. I didn't know that. Listen, pro wrestling is like anything else. You have to learn it, you know? It's a learned skill. And one of the best schools in the world was right there in New Jersey,

right outside Philadelphia. Not far from I was. trainer was Larry Sharp, one of the great wrestlers of all time, absolutely one of the greatest trainers of all time. My father's like, look, just go over there. Go over there for the day. Just go check it out. And he's just, he's up my ass about this for like months.

And finally, I'm like, fine, I'll just go. I'll go check it out one day. That way my dad will just stop and I can go back to my strippers and money and, you know, everything else I was doing at that time, which we won't talk about. It's a whole other show. I go over there in the building. you ever just walk in somewhere and right away you felt like you were home yeah like there was

just this instant feeling over me like yeah this is where I need to be I don't even know why yet I just walked through the door and I'm like unit B4 in a Coleman federal prison I was like yeah this is it this is it for me for the amount of time you were there I'm pretty sure it did start feeling it was home it was home you know I mean this is where I need to be anytime you're somewhere for longer than a decade that's your home man yeah absolutely I mean that was your mailing address right there so that's it so i get that and you know what that's the same feeling i walked into this building and i i didn't even understand what was going on yet but i just feel it and i also i'm like wow this is just so i have this try out and you know not doing anything major you know just showing my

athleticism they want me to roll a little bit they want me jump around this that nothing and um you know i'm halfway through the whole thing and i'm just i'm ecstatic i'm like a kid in a candy store i'm like five years old again like oh this is great i want i got to do this i got to do this through the whole process, a couple of the minor trainers at the time came up me and said, listen, you've got some aptitude for this. You know, you should, you know, here's what it costs. Here's what we do, the whole nine yards.

And I'm like grinning from ear to ear. I'm like, this is it. This is it. I walked out of building and I'm standing in the parking lot. I'm getting ready to get my car and I'm just down. I said, this is what I'm going to do for the rest of my life. I just had no doubt in my mind that this was from now to the time I die. Somehow I'm in this industry.

This is what I'm going to. I don't know how. I don't know what I'm going to do. I don't know whether I'm going to be a wrestler. I don't know what it is, but I'm in this business. This is it for me. So I go home to my dad and I tell them, you know, okay, you win. I'm going to be a pro wrestler.

So I enroll in the school. It's a school you pay for it. So I enroll in it. The problem with pro wrestling is, especially why you're going through school, you're not making any money. They don't pay you to train. This isn't like WWE nowadays where they have this training camp in Orlando and they give you a contract and you can pay for this. You know, this is back in a day where you earned your way into this business. You bled, you broke bones.

And you paid for this. You paid for them to break your bones. You paid for them to beat the hell out of you while you're learning this craft. So you're not making any money. So I can't stop the nightclub, which I wasn't about to do anyhow. You know, because now I'm coming up on 20. Really starting to get some traction with that industry where I'm getting some respect to somebody who really knows how to promote a good nightclub, knows how to run it,

understands the management aspect of it. And I'm starting to get requests from other clubs to come in and can you help us? You know, can you come in here and work with us? right so i'm training for wrestling four or five days a week i'm trying to keep my weekends open because that's really when i needed to be in the clubs more than anything and i'm at the clubs all during the daytime too handling the back office stuff and everything else um about a year and a half goes by of me what's up you got that look on your face nothing you're a good storyteller i'm like i don't have to say shit i'm i'm very happy right now want coffee

Get your coffee, don't I'm on my, this would be my fourth, that would be my fifth cup of coffee. Listen, if you're feeling that way, go take a nap. We can put the camera right at me and I'll take care of her from here. I'm good like that. All right. Hey, you're good. I'm glad. I hate having to pull teeth like it's.

So now I lost my train of thought. No, no, you were at the club. I'm at the club. Listen, if I can remember where you are, because typically I'm waiting for an opportunity while you're talking, I'm waiting for an opportunity to talk about myself. But I actually know, you were working at the club. You're actually, you're wrestling and you're having to pay for it. Other clubs are asking you to come in. So what happens now is it's been about a year and a half and I've trained.

You know, I've about a year and a half of training. If you had good training, you're pretty much ready to go. You know the basics. You understand how to actually wrestle, work in the ring. There's still a lot of character aspect and the entertainment aspect of it that you have to learn. But you learn that through trial and error of doing it. So my year and a half is up and I'm starting to do like little matches in the area. You know, we call them beginner matches, student matches.

You're just, you're getting a feel for it. And I'm absolutely starting out of kick ass in the night. club industry that's starting to kind of become like a real thing for me i'm starting to make some really really you know six-figure money doing that now right and i'm 20 years old you know i'm stuck i'm not even old enough to drink in the places still and i'm making this kind of money but wrestling is where my passion is this is this is what's going for me so back then in wrestling it was the end of what we call the territory days this was the early 90s um and this is when there were still territories there was like one big promotion in like the northeast and then one big promotion in the south and then all

over the way. They were like four or five, more like 10, I should say, promotions throughout the country. And that was it. And these promoters would have you come in and you'd work their territory for five or six months and then you'd go to the next territory. But within that territory, you know, it could be like three or four states. You're driving around every night. Most wrestlers are, you suffered. You didn't have any money. You got paid a hot dog and a handshake for every show that you did. You know, you would literally have to drive 300 miles from this show to the next show. You had five dollars. in your pocket you got a quarter tank of gas left and you and your buddy are sharing a stick

of gum for dinner this is how it was now for me fortunately I was making pretty good money doing the club so I had that extra income so guys would always want to go with me right because I can afford the gas and I can afford to get us a hotel room but you know it was that camaraderie on the road and this is really how you learned how to wrestle because you were in the car the van or the truck or whatever the hell you had with all these other guys and some of them had already been doing it's 10 15 years and they're giving you great advice oh this is what I would done at this show kid and this is what I would have done at that one and you know you're working these shows where you know you didn't always like the guys you were working with and

if they didn't like you you know some of those chops and some of those slaps you know they came in a little heavy sometimes all right you had a little argument with somebody at the restaurant beforehand you got to work a show with them that night gonna take out our frustrations on each other you know even though wrestling is uh it's a dance it's it's you know I don't want to hurt you you don't want to hurt me but we want to make it look good because we both have to do this again more annoyed. And we're probably going to have to do it with each other. So I want to respect you and you want to respect me and we absolutely don't want to hurt each other because this is how we're making our money. And if we're injured, you can't wrestle. So you did the best you could to take

care of each other. But there were still nights where it was like, you know what, asshole, you freaking ate my fries at the diner. You didn't ask. You know what? I'm just going to have to, I'm going to have to hit you one time in the ring. It's called a receipt. And here it comes and whap. And the next thing you know, you've got this bloody nose and looks great for the fans. But they don't realize, yeah, you two were really a little pissed off. each other right now so you had these kind of experiences but this is what taught you the business and this is where you know I talked earlier about we're starting this promotion and we're going old school I have a problem with new wrestling and this is why new wrestlers didn't learn this way

they didn't they don't have these experiences where you went out on the road and you did this and you lived this way and I feel that in that period of time through the 80s and the early 90s this is when the best wrestlers were born this is when they were made you suffered for your art and you know anybody who's our generation understands it you're never going to be successful at anything

if you haven't bled for it a little bit right you know if you haven't suffered if you haven't sacrificed something then you don't appreciate you have no respect for it exactly wrestlers today haven't sacrificed

they haven't bled they haven't gone through that I haven't eaten a meal in three days you know I've driven 400 miles I'm out of gas I'm sleeping in my car in the freezing cold to do a show tomorrow night in front of 20 people because sometimes that's what it was

sometimes it could be 20,000 people sometimes it was 20 people but you did them all right and you bled for it so you reached a certain point in your career where you respect this business because you've been through it new wrestlers don't we'll get back to that later because that's a whole thing in itself so I'm going through this period of time this is my 20s traveling all over wrestling as much as I can running you know doing the at this point now I'm in my mid 20s and I've become an entertainment consultant I'm not working for one particular place anymore I'm doing contract work you bring me in for a month you bring me in for three Three months, six months. I'm going to tell you what's wrong with your club. I'm going to tell you how we fix it. I was doing predominantly gentlemen's clubs, but I was working with regular bars, strip clubs. I was starting to move into high-end restaurants.

And I was really, casinos were in my mind down the road, because this was like these were the million-dollar contracts, casinos. So I was trying to get to that level with it, but I was really working with some of the really, really high-end gentlemen's clubs around the world at that point. You know, clubs that were making $20, $30 million a year and wanted to know how to make $50. So I was coming in and helping and really enhancing my career.

And this was fine at that time because, again, you know, those first 10 years of wrestling, you're nobody. You know, you're not making any money. You're starving for your art. You're dying. It's almost like that trial by fire thing where it's like, why am I even doing this? You know, I'm not, you really had to love it. Yeah, right. To want to do it because there was no other reason.

You're not getting money. I mean, you know, groupies were fun, but that's, you know. But beyond that, there was no other reason to do this. this. You weren't on TV yet. You're working these, you know, these shows in these smaller stadiums and you might be a little famous in a certain area, but there was no fame, there was no glory, there was no money. So you're really loving it. And that's where you started to weed out. You know, who were the real true wrestlers? Who were the guys that, this is what you thought about when you woke up. This is what you thought about when you went to bed. I'm one of those guys.

I'm obsessed with it. Even to this day, this is, I mean, you can, you know, Heather over there, she'll tell you, I end up talking about wrestling more often than I talk about anything. else in my life and I have all kinds of stuff going on but I always everything comes back to wrestling so now I'm coming up on 30 I'm starting to really get some traction with wrestling starting to get a name for myself I've worked backstage for some of the larger companies helping out my biggest drawback in the wrestling industry was I became a wrestler at the wrong time I was the wrong size I'm too small to be a heavyweight because you remember heavy weights at that time if you're a wrestling fan you know Hulk Hogan was six six six

Yeah. Andre the Giants, almost eight foot tall. Big John Studs, seven foot tall. You know, these guys were, these heavyweight guys were six, five, or better. They're coming in close to 300 pounds. I'm five, I'm six even on a good day. I'm 5.11 and a quarter on the average day. At my best shape when I was just, you know, looked great.

I was still only 240, 250 pounds. So I'm too small to be a heavyweight, but I'm too big to be a cruiser weight because those guys are 5'8. 5-7, they're 180 pounds, 190 pounds. I'm in that gray zone. So promoters, as much as I was a great wrestler, and at that point had developed the Johnny Walker character and kind of run with it a little bit

and it was getting a lot of traction with it, you couldn't put me with a heavyweight because how am I supposed to win? This guy's this huge guy, you know what I mean? But you couldn't put me with a cruiser weight because how's he supposed to win? Right. So it was this hard spot about what to do with me,

and this was my big Achilles heel. I never fit into that mold of, yeah, we could really do something with him. So I ended up being that guy who would help other wrestlers a lot. Oh, we want to try this guy out. Let's send him out with Johnny, which is my stage name, by the way, Johnny Walker. You know, we'll send him out with Johnny. And if Johnny says he's a good wrestler, then we'll do something with him. So I ended up being that guy.

I was the test guy. You know, I was respected as a wrestler, respected as an entertainer. So we're going to try out all the new guys that we think have potential on him. But that's not doing much for you. It was because, again, I love it. And, you know, I run off a list of names of guys that I'm. I've worked with that have gone on to be, you know, big wrestlers in their careers, and they had to go through me first to get there.

But no, as far as fame goes, financially, it's not doing it for me. So this is, you know, 30, early 30s now. Ten years of doing the entertainment consulting has now burned me out. I'm just strippers I'm dumb with. I'm dumb with the nightclub life. You know, it's, imagine 10 years every night you're in a loud nightclub. There's smoke. I'm sure half of the listeners

at one point in our life have either entertained the idea of being with a prostitute or have been with one but imagine being with one every night of your life. You know, there was... You don't have to sell me on it.

Okay. I'll tell you a great story. I'm 28 years old and I'm working at a club and it was a very, very high-end club. One of the customers was there like every night comes up and he goes, brother, you have the greatest job in the world.

I looked at him and I said, man, how do you see it that way? He goes, dude, because you're getting paid big money. You're here all night with these hot chicks. You got alcohol. He's like, dude, you're living that rock star life. And I looked at him and I said, okay. I said, let me ask you a question.

You married? Got a girlfriend. He goes, I'm married. I said, okay. I said, how long have you been married? He said, five years. Congratulations. You and your wife, you fight every now and then?

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, we fight. But when you're done fighting, you guys make up? You have sex? You know, oh yeah, no, we have great sex life. It's awesome. We fight, but we make up. I said, okay, so you guys have a real nice relationship. Your wife's stable, normal person, doesn't have a whole lot of issues.

No, no, no, we're great, we're great. I said, okay. I said, that's nice for you. I said, I have 150 wives. Every night each one of them comes to me with a different problem, wants to fight with me, wants to argue with me, has some sort of life issue, has more issues than Time magazine because they're all broken. I'm not sleeping with more than three or four of them at a time

I have to put up with them every fucking day so who's living the rock star life here oh by the way I have customers that come in puke on my floor molest my strippers try to stiff us for bar tabs then I have to count all this money at the end of the night which is filthy and dirty you know you get to go home when the club closes and either have sex with yourself your wife or you know whoever you picked up on the way home.

I'm here for another three hours closing up the club, making sure the cleaning crew is doing their thing and all this stuff. I said, so glamour is a facade. And the guy looks at me and goes, yeah, you're right, I'm going to continue selling real estate. I said, good idea, you know. So there's this whole image of, you know,

something might look very glamorous on the outside, you know, the idea of being this guy and running these strippers, being around these trippers, but you don't know the reality of it. And literally, 150 dancers in the club, and every night, they've got an issue, every single one of them. and somebody issues were absolutely insane.

You know, I can't sit next to her in the locker room anymore. Why? She's looking at me. Okay. What? Yeah. Seriously? This is your problem?

This is what I have to deal with? They're bipolar. They have mental issues. They have depression. They have... Wait, I'm going to sum it up for you very, very simply. All strippers, porn stars, escorts. They all suffer from one of two problems.

It all stem from the same place. And this is it. This is the bottom line. Daddy loved me too much or Daddy didn't love me enough Every other thing It all stems from that If you get to the root of any one of the

All of them One could be quiet, one can be crazy One can be loud, anything At the end of the day Daddy loved me too much Or Daddy didn't love me enough That's the core of it all You're the manager

You're the owner, you're whatever Guess who you are You're daddy all right so you're getting all of that from them all of those issues your daddy that didn't love me enough so they constantly want your attention constantly want your affirmation your approval this or that or your daddy who loved me too much now they don't trust you now they don't believe you now they don't want to be near you because you're you're that you're the horrible influence in our lives you're the horrible history in our lives right you have to deal with this constantly

so 10 years of this now I'm done I am burned out I am tired I am exhausted I just the money was incredible at that point I was working with I was actually starting to work with some casinos at that point I'm really really starting but I'm done I'm just I'm finished I'm like I cannot do this anymore but I'm still wrestling and I'm loving this getting that traction in my wrestling career it's starting to pick up and wrestling was starting to get to the point where I could really really be doing this full time now I'm starting to make decent money at it I've got a little nest egg from all the years of doing the consulting I've done well I've got some real real estate. I'm starting to put a little egg together here. I'm doing well. And I'm thinking, okay, taking a break from the consulting thing. I'm done. Finish with that for a little while. I'm going to go wrestle. Drop the consulting thing out on the road, full-time wrestling, bouncing around, different companies doing things. I've now reached the point where I've kind of gotten to that status where I talked about the fact that, you know, we're going to have this guy wrestle with Johnny. And if Johnny says he's good, he's good. I'm starting to come into that

that legendary status now where it's like, you know, you've been doing this so long, you're so good, so many people know you. On the indie, I'm starting to become very, very popular. People know me throughout certain areas. It's starting to become a thing. So it's now, well, now we're going to start paying you some real money to come in and work our promotions because you've got value. You know, you have no value in the wrestling industry unless fans are buying tickets to come see you. Right.

You know, this is, wrestlers are a product. You know, this is what we are. We are a product for a promotion. Nobody goes to a wrestling promotion. Nobody's going to come to my company, UCW, to see UCW. What's that? It's nothing. YouCW is the toy store

Okay It's the products inside the toy store You go to the toy store to buy the toy You go to buy the video game You know you didn't go to GameStop because it was GameStop You went to GameStop because you could get the video game you wanted That's why you're there Wrestlers are that video game

We're the product You have no value as a wrestler Until you have fans that are going to come Specifically to see you You know And we tell wrestlers this all the time How many tickets are you going to sell for me If I book you on my shell

If I put you on my poster and book you on my show, how many people are coming to see you? Oh, well, I don't have a fan base yet. Well, then you have no value to me. I'm going to pay you $20. And you're going to sit, you know, you're going to end up with an opening match somewhere that means nothing.

So I'm going to point now where people are coming to see me. This is a thing. Oh, Johnny Walker is going to be there. Let's go check them out. So I'm on the road. I'm doing this full time. Having a blast with it. Every now in M, WWE, WCW.

I'm doing backstage stuff. Still rarely. Never on TV, my whole career. Never on TV in the United States, I should say. Here comes the second phase of my life. Wrestling's going great, kicking it. I had also decided when I was going to leave the consulting business that I was really just going to kind of take a vacation. I'm going to wrestle when I'm on vacation.

So I just packed up all my shit and moved to South Beach. This is 2003. 2003. No reason. I go home. I'm living in Philly at the time. My home base was still Philadelphia, even though I'm never home. Go home, just decide.

I'm going, I'm moving to South Beach. Literally, threw all my shit in the boxes, hired a moving company, flew down to South Beach, got a hotel room for a month. I didn't have a place to live anything. And just started looking for apartments. Ended up finding this great apartment in South Beach. And I don't know if you remember South Beach at that time. This was the height of South Beach being like the mecca of its cool.

This was before it became the big vacation place that it is, but it was like that kind of, Babitha kind of feel where you went to South Beach to live that party, glamorous kind of lifestyle. Madonna had a club in South Beach, Stallone, had a restaurant. You know, South Beach was very trendy and very hip. So it was a lot of fun to live there. And it wasn't like it is now where it's overblown. Right.

And there's a million people there. It was, you know, four months in the wintertime, very touristy. But then the rest of the year, summertime spring, it was calm. People that, you know, it was a Miami kind of place. So it was great. So I'm moving to this building. And I'm in this building. and it turns out I am the only straight guy

in a building full of female models. God, my heart goes out to you. It was horrible. It was atrocious. It was. It does sound horrible, doesn't it? The flip side of this problem is...

Connor, I feel for him. You feel for him? I mean, first it was hanging out at the strip clubs every fucking night. I mean, and now it's being in the only straight guy. The only guy who's like, what? Six foot tall with a good pair of shoes.

you had to throw in the good pair of shoes line I always say I'm 5-7 with a good pair of shoes So, you know, in good shape A pro wrestler living in an apartment Or building filled with models I mean, I just Okay, but again, we already talked about how Wait, wait, hang on

Because I don't know, it's a nice violin you got there You know, we talked about how glamorous things Are only glamorous from the exterior Because yes, I'm the only straight guy And a building full of models You're going to have to work on this part of your story. There's just no way. There is.

Hang on how bad this goes. I'm about to bring this around. There's no way I feel bad for you in this situation. Because every other guy who lived in a building was gay. So not only am I walking down the hallway getting hit on by these beautiful female models who are looking for a straight man because they're not getting any action from anybody else in the building. I'm also getting hit on by every gay guy. All right.

Which explains the pink t-shirt. I feel safe because this is three feet. Like, I know his reach. I know. I'm got to dodge the first one. I promise you that. No, you're not because I'm just going over the table. So it's, you know, anyhow, you know what?

I look good in pink, all I'm going to say. Yeah, you pull off pink. I pull off pink. You do. Some guys that makes them look like they're a homosexual, but not you, you pull it off. I love how he's prefacing.

You look masculine. He's totally covering that one. Not you. Not you at all. You make pink look masculine. You know what? We're going to go with this. My girlfriend won't wear pink.

But anyway. Well, I heard she's more, she's tougher than you are. She's more manly than I. Right. So there you go. All right. So maybe you should be wearing pink

in that relationship. I mean, you know, listen, if she had her way. I mean, I don't know what goes on in your bedroom. We don't need to go there. But, you know, pink two, too, whatever she likes for you.

So the building. So the building. Okay. So yeah, I'm this, you know, I'm in my early 30s. I'm at the height of my physical looks. I'm doing great. I'm living in this building with all these hot models and all these gay guys. So. Stop it there. I have to stop it there. But it's like, no, it's seriously. It's like it's like dodging. You're dodging the bullets as you're running down the hallway. Like I want to get hit by this bullet, but I got to run from that way. I mean, I spent no time down at the pool because as soon as I would get there, I'm talking to the girls and here comes a flock of guy. And I'm like, I got to go. I'm just, because I I don't know if you've ever spent any time with any, you know, gay guys, but gay guys, and I had to ask them this. Like, why I'm straight? Why are you even bothering? And they would go, oh, we're, you know, straight men to gay men, apparently, we're like, you know, we're the gold standard for them. You know, it's like, gay men don't want another. They want another gay guy for a relationship, but they want the straight man for the, you know, the notch on the belt.

And I'm like, that's just weird because if I was to do that, I'm not straight anymore, am I? I would, wouldn't I be, so I don't get any sense to me. How if you're a straight guy, you could never be with a gay guy because then you're just gay, right? Yeah. Or buy or one of those. That's the guys in prison. In prison, they're like, you know, well, you know, it's prison. It doesn't make you gay.

It does. That's my whole point. Like, there's no such thing as it's not, it is. And there's nothing wrong. If that's who you are, that's who you are. But it doesn't, you're not straight. So for me, it was like this dichotomy of gay guys want the straight guy. But if the straight guy does it, then he's gay.

So you didn't get what you wanted. So it makes no sense. version exactly so it was it was a weird time so um i'm wrestling i'm going crazy so how did i get into the next phase i don't know but this whole conversation is super uncomfortable at this point okay we're moving on we're moving on so one of you know one of the things that you know i was i was like taking pictures and photography and stuff like that when i was young so here's all these hot model girls living in the apartment and they're all like oh you can take my picture you can do this you do that so of course you know cool take your pictures and then we'll have sex

because that's really all it was. It was like, I'm going to take hot girl pictures. I'm going to go to a club. We're going to hang out. Somehow through the course of this, I end up running into a guy who owns a startup adult video production company, a porn company. Porn on the internet had just started to become a thing.

You know, it was like you could, you know, websites were kind of a little crappy, but you're starting to get it home. You know, the credit card lines on sale. It was just starting to become a thing. You had a couple companies out there that were just starting to come up with some really good and video on the internet had just started to become a thing. It wasn't just pictures anymore.

You could start to watch, you know, a 10, a 15 minute video and it wasn't, you know, this big. It was, you know, you could start to get it at a reasonable size. Right. I don't need 15 minutes. But anyway. Actually, the average guy, we found out through studies, the average guy only needs two minutes to get off. So any porn video you shoot is a waste. They're looking for only that two minutes and they never watch the rest of it. You find that two minutes it works for you. That's your pot. So he comes to me

And this is going to be filled with clips You know This is going to be a good clip video So I run into this guy He's actually in the billing part of the industry He works for a company And he handles the billing And he's telling me about how he's partners

With these guys that are starting a production company But they're good The guys are good filmers They're good at production They're just horrible businessman And they really didn't have a lot of money And he's handling their billing for them And at the time I've got a little bit

Disposable cash You know I've done well because of the consulting. So I'm like, I'm looking to invest. I had a couple of real estate things I'm doing well with. And I'm like, all right, porn's starting to become a big thing. There's some money here, you know? So I get with the guys and I end.

The building guys are the guys that make a ton of money. Those are the guys that really, at the end, really made the money. And this is where I was kind of interested because not only did I have the production side of it, but I had the building side with him too. So I'm like, there's like a double-edged sword here where I can be making money coming and going. So, yeah, good pun there coming going. Listen, there's been about five times.

wanted to say that's what she said we can do that we can do that that's what she said that's all right so um so i i get involved with these guys now i'm still wrestling so i'm away a lot but i'm i'm trying to get the business aspect of it put together for them so that we're money managers right we're making good deals and selling things and because originally they were just a production company they were filming for other companies which was lucrative but it's a one-shot deal you're making the money for the product for the product and that's it you're not making residuals you're getting anything else. So you just constantly had to be filming. And I said, well, everybody else is doing websites. Why aren't we? You know, let's keep this production side for everybody else because

this was giving us a little bit of reputation. We had a little bit of clout from that, respect for it. But let's do some websites too. Start getting some residual money going on here. So we got them lined up with that. And then because I had the guy in the billing industry too, he's plugged right into this. Like, set us up with the billing for it. Let's go. Let's, you know, start getting some credit cards. We all know how great having credit card numbers is. Right. nothing like data processing um so we're setting up the the internet side of it i'm still traveling for wrestling this company just starts to grow i mean it's it's business is coming in we're doing great next thing you know we're we're flying in girls and we're having them stay for a month

and i'm putting them up at this hotel and i'm like oh this is just a fucking leech on the money this is ridiculous we're spending 10 20 grand a month on hotel rooms for these girls i'm like fuck it I'm going to buy a big house I actually the show Girls Next Door The Hugh Hefner The whole thing With the Playboy Girls and they're living in a house

And I was watching Something on one of those documentary channels Where like Hugh had 10 girlfriends And are all living in a house And I'm like Oh fuck this, this is it I'm gonna buy a big house We're just gonna have all these girls live at the house

Because this is how we're First of how we're gonna save money How we're gonna have all the girls together We're gonna be able to control the girls a little bit more Be able to control the schedule And it's just gonna be easier The initial idea was not for me to live in the house. I had a nice little place still in South Beach.

Nobody. I just love how he looks the way. Nobody believes that. But I'm with you. I agree. It was just about money. It was about business. It's about the business. And keeping the cost down and scheduling. And I totally understand. And I'm with you. Okay. I'm glad. I hope the fans and everybody watching understands too that it was not about. I didn't. want this right i did not want this this is not where my life wanted to go so i end up getting this just let's just move on um so i end up getting this oversized place out in south florida which was kind of out west where you could get it was a little quieter out there you weren't downtown as much where you'd attract as much attention because even though filming adult videos in florida was legal still is

to this day it's still frowned upon like it's like hey it's you know one of those borderline businesses where, yeah, so you didn't want to really attract too much attention to end up with the cops at your house all the time. And I knew other companies that were just constantly getting raided because they were just shoving it in the community's face. Hey, we're here and we're doing this. And I said, nah, we're going to get this house out in, you know, South Florida, about out west a little bit,

closer to the average of days, it's quieter. People, you know, properties are a little bit bigger. End up getting this big house, all these rooms. We put 15 girls in a house right away. This was a disaster. we put 15 porn girls in a house with no supervision. It feels like the kind of problem you want to have, though, right? Am I wrong?

I mean... Listen, first of all... It's like saying I'm making so much money, but you know, the taxes are killing me. Again, I got to take away the glamour side of this because yes, oh, 15 porn girls in a house. This is great. Okay, 15 porn girls. Now, we all know that women cycle together when they live together long enough, so I got roto-ruder out there once a month cleaning out the toilet because there's a sign on the wall that

says please use, please put used feminine products, your tampons in the basket, not in the toilet. Yet, again, they're porn girls. There's a reason they're doing porn and not building rockets. They can't figure out what the sign says. So what do they do? They put it in the toilet. Rotorut is out there every week doing this.

We found panties and lingerie in the pool filter. Yeah, I'm once again, I'm dying. I want to feel for you. I want to. I hear you. You're going to have to come up with more than Rotor pooter and a clogged fucking pool. The pool had a bikini in it.

My life is hell. Jesus. Okay. Well, again, you know, you stop over there once a week and inspect the house. I want to work with you. There was probably more cocaine in that house than on any episode of Miami Vice ever. Once again. Once again.

Okay. And they're destroying the house. Like, nobody's doing dishes. Nobody's cleaning anything. This house is just an absolute disaster. See, there's the downside. So the cleaning bill was horrible. And I couldn't get a cleaning company that would go back religiously

because every time they'd go there, there's just these hot naked porn girls running around stuffing things into every orifice on their body. So the cleaning people no longer... Did you think about hiring a male cleaning service? Yeah. They were gay. Oh.

It didn't work. Yeah, we went that route to. So after a long meeting with myself and the other people involved, it was decided that I would move into this house, that I would be the stabilizing factor in this. I'll bet you that was a hell of an argument. It really was. I fought tooth and nail.

That was, it was a, it was a bitter fight to the death. So we figure. Or me. No, no, fellas. No. Did they have to twist my arm a little bit? I don't want to do it. My arm was back here.

There was a little twist of a little twist. It's your pack and you're fucking, I'm building the boxes. This is against my will and I'm folding up my clothes and. Is the truck here yet? Is the moving truck here? Maybe it wasn't the worst idea in the world. So, okay, so, all right, he's had this fun. I'm dying for a tragic story.

Hey. Okay. Yeah, maybe. These are all tragedies. Come on now. I'm dealing, you know, it's all right. Anyhow, these are tragic situations, you know. There are a lot of people out there to say, hey, why didn't you just get married,

have a wife, have some kids, enjoy that lifestyle. Go to Disney once or twice a year. Live that life. I have lived a loveless life Listen I have never had the solace Of knowing what it's like To come home to the same woman every night

To feel her warm embrace To have my children come up to me And say dad how are you And I listen and I hear you And I always say when Because you know I always say that You know I wish I'd had that I envy those people

Don't you? I do Don't you? Don't you? I wish I didn't have to Have made all of these these decisions But you know There was a lot of good times I'm just saying, I could have had that, I could have had the Norman Rockwell Christmas. I could have had that, you know, two kids, the dog and the fence.

I could have had the state, I could have had that kind of loving, wholesome, all-American life. Instead, I get saddled with having to spend my life with some of the most gorgeous women on the planet who are unbelievably sexually promiscuous, who constantly need daddy. approval. Hold on. This was my life. This was my tragedy. This is a tragedy.

This is a life tragedy. I can't believe that. You can't see this. You can't see the heartache within me throughout this. My whole life so far has been a Greek tragedy. So I'm living in this house.

I'm away wrestling a lot. Now the nice thing about the house was there was a master side to the house. So I had like my own big bedroom, my own bathroom. That was another reason I agreed to move in. I didn't really have to share a whole lot with the girls. But I'm supposed to be the stabilizing factor.

The girls knew when I was coming home, and it became this thing where I looked, when Johnny's coming home, the house has to be clean, a house to look nicer. Johnny's going to be upset, and we don't want to upset Johnny because there was also a game

that was invented while I lived in the house. The game was called Who Gets Johnny? This is the tragedy part. Hold on no, there's a tragedy here. I've got to get the bathroom. I have to get some coffee. Come on. Are you serious? I mean, this is fucking bullshit.

Do you agree that this is a tragedy in my world? This is tragedy, right? And you're trying to sell it as a tragedy. Welcome to being a pro wrestler. We try to sell everything. Well, we're going to get there. We're going to get there. We're going to get that.

We come back. to the pro. I'm just telling, you know, hey, he wanted the life story. I'm giving it. All right. We could talk about his blue sparkly tights if you want to talk about it. That'll come up later. Oh my God. Hold on. How are we doing so far? We're at, we just breached 45 minutes. Really? Okay. I got probably about another half an hour in me. That's cool. Every one of these stories at least four times. I'm still not delving into the like the detailed, detailed stories. We'd be here for five hours if I started Tell us specific. I'm like wrap this up

and get to something like something South America we're getting there after the porn company we start getting into He's gonna be cutting this up so should he just start with a new topic from here or should

No I gotta finish the house I gotta finish I gotta finish how the porn life went gotta finish how that went because that leads into going back to focusing Like these that I always question My client base

and what I'm doing with my life character Which you got hit with a little bit in the beginning when I said, you see how important it was to have me on your show because I'm more popular than you are? There's no difference between Jeff and Johnny. It's just one job's left. There's a little difference.

There's a little difference. A little bit. All right. We ready? I'm ready whenever you are. See, I would leave, to me, I would leave me getting up and leaving. Yeah. I would cut it and come back.

All right. Put a commercial there. Right. Do something. There you go. Hey. Can we give you like a slide or something for? put in it for a commercial like here you go yeah yeah put that in there do you think you want

take a phone can we can we get one with i can send you a digital copy it's not a problem and we'll get that where there's an awesome yes absolutely no we'll get that spell properly yeah i know in a way that's kind of like yeah they spelled it wrong that's funny you always remember people you always you always remember people for their mistakes always that's that's that's that's i'll hear you that you always remember people for the mistakes we could do that i've heard this fucking Again, I'm leaving out so many things that you don't know because if you weren't here

I would probably be telling You told me you wanted me here I know but now I'm thinking why there's some stories that I could have told him that he would have just fallen off the chair media was gonna watch the whole fucking thing anyway Yeah but that would have been later

you would watch without me in the house So what was the Who Gets Johnny? Okay so yeah So we're jumping Who gets Johnny? So who gets Johnny? So this became the game in the house

Now you've got 15 porn girls in the house guys were generally not allowed over the house because it was important to keep secrecy you didn't put stalkers outside so I'm really the only guy besides the crew who comes and gets these girls and I'm not gonna brag or anything but like at that time guys who did

you know IT guys who did website building guys who handled the cameras these guys were the dudes that never they were the AV guys in high school they're still trying to figure out how to lose their virginity these were these guys

these are the dorks the nerds but they were the smart guy so this is what they're into. They have no suave with girls whatsoever. They have no game. So they literally can't get laid in a $2 horthouse with a $20 bill. So it doesn't matter that they're going over to the house because they're just not doing it for the girls. Johnny lives in the

house. Johnny's got a little gym in the garage. So Johnny's and at the time, I'm much better shape than I am now. I've kind of lost it over the years and I'm looking good. So I had my own wing of the house. Big bay doors in my play. A whole wing, bathroom. I had my little office, bedroom, TV out of the couch.

I really didn't have to get involved with the rest of the house. Every night I would go in a room and I would shut the door and it was a sign on my door that says, do not disturb if the doors are shut. Because at that point I'm looking for my privacy. I'm, you know, maybe I'm sleeping, whatever. So the game became, Hi, can we talk? The girl who got through the door was the winner.

This was the challenge. I found out. Was she? No, I'm just joking. Go ahead. Okay, two points. Two points there. I'm not the one getting beat up on my girlfriend, though, okay?

I give as good as I get. All right. Anyhow. So I found out about this game. Like, the crew was telling me, like, oh, there's this thing going around where, you know, the girl gets in the room. She's, you know, the winner and the other girls, you know, blah, blah, blah. Oh, okay. So there was like this whole month where every time a girl would knock on the door.

Go away. All right. Go away. Now the game has gone to a whole new level because I'm not even, there's nobody. I'm letting in the room anymore. Now it's all day. Who's, like just, they're all over me all day. I can't, I can't even function.

You talk about a tragedy. You know, look, I'm trying to do my phone calls. I'm trying to schedule my wrestling shows. I'm trying to do my damn laundry for God's sakes. And I got some girl grabbing my ass telling me about all the horrible things that she wants to do to me in bed that night. this is hard living life this way it is I'm sure I mean I assume it's distracts from it all I assume so this was sounds really eight years of my life porn companies doing well we're you know moderately successful we weren't vivid we

weren't you know wicked but you know we were making videos for them we're some of stuff we're a moderately successful company doing doing very well I definitely made my investment back financially as well as personal I was going to say it's not I was going to say personally. There was a lot of, you know, and again, you know, maybe in the future, but not right now. I'm not going to name any names. Some of the girls that lived in my house have much like wrestlers that I've worked at, some of the girls lived in my house have gone on to have very successful careers and are very well known. And we'll probably tell you wonderful things about evenings with me. Hey, there were some girls that I guided in their careers.

I mean, that's a lot. A date and the chick that's been important. That's a lot to live up to. Listen, I always tell the porn girls, I tell every girl this, even the porn girls. I said, you know, listen, do you want to get fucked with 12 inches hard? You know, can you punch them twice and hit them in that with a brick three times. All right, and have sex with them. There you go. So, it's a nice joke. I've also always said that it's not the length, it's the girth that matters.

So, you know, there's that, too. You know, I'm like a, I'm like a soda can. Anyhow, moving on. So this is eight years in my life. Porn company's done well. Girls live an ass. drove me crazy, though. Seriously, though.

It's, again, I go back to you, do you have a wife for a girlfriend? You argue, you fight. That drives you insane sometimes. I know I have 15 of them living in an house. I got to deal with all this. You know, for every great thing, there's horrible crap, too.

Yeah, let's move on. Okay, so. That's not. I just, I can't get any sympathy out of you at all. I'm sure the audience feels my pain. I'm lucky. My girlfriend's not here. She'd be pacing.

No, no, no, listen, I expect every single one of you watching this that if you understand my pain, you need to comment. You need, listen, you're either on, wait, you're either on his team and believes that this is the, you know, over the rainbow Oz fairy tale life, which it is absolutely not, or you're on my team and you understand the pain that I feel. And I expect some comments about how we feel about this.

I need to know. Yeah. What? They'll be calm. I'm, listen, and I really feel that at least 60%, maybe 70, it's going to be on my side. They're going to feel my pain. They're going to understand. So, so.

I respect your audience. I really don't. I can care less what you guys think. After eight years, you finally said, that's it. Well, the internet bubble popped. All chafed up. I don't know if you remember, again, that there was that time in porn between like 2000 and 2009 where porn was just, you know, internet porn was making big, huge money.

But as with all things in their infancy that, you know, you had guys that weren't real businessman involved in or didn't understand. It self-destructed. You know, free porn became that thing where it was, it's called affiliate marketing. I'm sure you're familiar with it where, you know, I'm going to pay you, you know, X amount of percentage you go promote my company for me. Well, the next guy's going to pay you, I'm going to pay you 30%. He's going to give you 35.

The next guy gives you 40. Before you know, we're giving away 80% of our money to promote something. And oh, I'm giving you free clips to put out here. Well, now all of a sudden you had these free tube sites, you know, porn hub, YouTube. What do you got to pay for it for anymore? You can go on these sites and you can see it all for free. So what ended up happening was affiliate marketing ended up self-destructing. And the only people who survived it were those, the billion-dollar companies.

You know, those companies that were at the 1% at the top making the really big money and all the smaller companies. Because through that period of time, you also had a lot of companies where you could buy Handycam at Best Buy and go film porn with your girlfriend and sell it because there were so many avenues. So the market became over flooded with bad porn. A lot of bad stuff. wasn't just wasn't produced well, wasn't shot well, and, like, you know, it was gonzo porn.

And there was a market for that. And then you had affiliate marketing, which was giving away the product, trying to get that customer. You know, I mean, porn websites were very simple for porn. You had a three-month retention rate. You only kept the average customer for three months. You were only charging them $20 to $30 a month. But as an affiliate, I'm going to give you $100, $100 every time you're bringing a client. I'm losing $10 every time on a sale.

Right. And this is where it began to fail. And I going to conventions going to AVN going to all these things I started to see this trend of this

and I said this is this is going to be the end of this you know there's a bubble here that's going to pop and it's going to happen because free porn

who's not going to take something free over something paid it's going to happen so you pulled out no no pun intended I pulled out at that point I feel like bad porn

is like bad pizza it's still pretty good it depends on what your standards are do you want a Chicago deep dish or dominoes what's going on

okay so you know what's happening let's do this let's go next what's going on so at that point I'm like that's it I'm done um we sell off the company piecemeal blah blah blah I'm done and I've just I've again these guys are gonna laugh I've had it I've had it living with these girls I've had it with I'm now coming up close to 40 here you know I'm 38 at this point I'm like oh man and the problem with strippers porn stars escorts we keep getting older they always are the same age. They're all 18, 19, 20. We're the ones that keep getting older. I've just had it. I'm done. I need, you know, blah, blah, blah. My wrestling career is, I'm traveling all over the world now, working different places, making good money. I've got, financially, I'm good to go. I don't

have to worry about this anymore. My wrestling career, I'm making good money at. I'm ready to, you know, hey, let's just do this. I've got maybe 10 years left in my career. Let's just go for it. Let's just go. Whatever I'm going to do. I've passed that age where I'm going to be on TV for WV or WCW because I'm just too old now. They don't give contracts to guys that are over 36, because physically you get injured at that age it's going to take you twice as long to recover and heal you know plus you're just not a young stud anymore you're now coming up on 40 you know midlife approaches

so I'm like I'm gonna do whatever I've got to do I've got a great journeyman reputation so we start I have a friend who I wrestle with for years and years and he's like we're gonna there's a circuit where you travel around the world and you do stuff and it's all the same guys same 10 guys and we go to different countries so we're getting booked in South America like all the time

well my first trip to South America was to El Salvador. And El Salvador doesn't even qualify as a third world country. Okay. If you've never been there, you're never going to... First of all, El Salvador is like the worst drug movie you've ever heard of. It literally is run by cartels. Right.

There's three major cartels. They run everything. Government's everything. So I'm not told before we go there that the promoter for this is one of the drug lords, one of the cartel drug lords. Like, this is his entertainment. He brings in all these pro wrestlers. He runs these shows.

He sells tickets. But really, this is for his family and his friends. So we fly down. There's something for him to do. It's not like it's a money-making venture. It's just fun. Well, the money to do these shows is like, outrageous. Like, you don't get paid this in wrestling.

So it's like, hey, here's this big chunk of money. Cool. First class plane ticket down there. We come out of the airport. In the airport, there's police with semi-automatics. Here comes the cartel and their guys. And they're coming with larger semi-automatics. They're in the airport, meeting us at the gate.

We are told by, I guess, the head henchman, I don't know who he is. He says, listen, I want you to understand, as long as you're with us, nothing bad will ever happen to you. We are here to protect you. There's 10 of these guys that look like they just stepped out of an Arnold Schwarzenegger movie, semi-automatic machine guns, body on a fly, Kevlar, and I'm thinking to myself, oh, first I'm like, oh, this is the police. Oh, it's the government.

They're being nice to us. No, no, no. We work for the boss, for the cartel. We take you to the hotel. We do how to say it. Openly saying it. And the cops, every cop in the airport is just finding a quiet place in a corner somewhere to go. They want to have nothing to do with this.

They have walked away from it. We're being escorted. We do not have to go through customs. We do not. Our luggage is picked up for us, putting a nice car. We're all taking the limos to this fantastic resort. Pull into the resort, hotel rooms, everything. Guy could, anything you guys want.

You want a king's here. We teach you like, I got like a bad accent going here. I sound more Saudi Arabian than I do. You'll still have a door, but it's just the accent's going on. Anything we want. Girls, drugs, whatever, whatever you want, you're going to get it. So, okay, this is a little weird, but all right. But we have to stay with these guys because the other cartels might choose to kill us or

kidnap us because they're jealous that he's putting on this show. So the first night we're there, we end up being taken to this fantastic restaurant, great food, everything. All right, great. We go back to the hotel. So the cartel boss, the head guy, he comes up. And he's everything you ever imagined that, everything you ever saw in a bad cartel drug movie, this was the guy.

And, you know, the head guy in Narcos, this is that guy. He's got on the suit that he looks like he's trying to be important, but you know it's a bad suit. He's got the gold chain. He's got the hat. He's got that whole image of what he thinks wealth in America is, is what he's dressing like. But in the end, he just looks like a pimp from the 70s.

Right. But you knew. this is the man. Hey, my friends. Adda, da, da, da, that we're good. Hey, hey, I take you to the house. Okay, what the hell's the house? Again, my life, the Greek tragedy,

it's a whore house. It's a, it's a prostitute house. But it's a bar, nightclub, that has hookers. Now, if you've ever been to El Salvador, okay, God bless you. El Salvadorian people, specifically the women, They're all four foot nine. I don't know why I should have started there.

I mean, they all look exactly the same. They're all four foot nine. They have no tits, no ass, long dark hair, brown skin. Not, you know, not ethnic brown, like black, but just darker skin, like really dark Latino skin. They all look exactly the same. Now, in my career, my life, obviously, I've been with porn girl. You know, this is not my speed. This is like, I'm not into this.

This is like eh But it's hilarious Hot chicks that want to Or chicks that want to have sex You're not into Were you wearing the pink shirt Sorry, go ahead I'm just fucking with you

Go ahead I'm gonna talk to your girlfriend later Make sure you get your ass whipped really good tonight Anyhow So we're at this Nightclub Bar Horhouse deal

So I got my buddy with me He's wrestled for a few years Been around He's never really traveled the world Never really left his backyard so he's all excited and he's thrilled he's like oh this is great this is great so we're sitting there having a couple drinks and we're talking to the big cartel guy and just just having whatever kind of conversation we were having and my buddy comes run up to me and he goes dude dude

dude every chicken here it's only $25 to have sex with him I said dude any girl's only charging you $25 to have sex I think you need to question that he's like brother I don't care but listen can I borrow 50 bucks from you? throughout the night he has now that's a lot of money in el salvador i'm sure i have no doubt i don't know what money in el salvador is like because again we never had to spend a dime so i have no i'm sure down there it is i'm sure it is i'm sure that maybe like 200 bucks i don't know throughout the night he just keeps disappearing because apparently you go up some stairs and there's this upstairs area that i that's where i've never went up there he literally every 20

minutes he'd come back down yeah can i get another 50 jeez like back up again and this goes on we're there for like five hours by the time we leave the place he's into me for almost a grand are you fucking serious i had to have to ask him was there any girl in the place that you didn't have sex with and he goes oh no i had it with all of them some of them two at a time jesus my next question what kind of medication's he on you had a condom right oh no oh no man i bear back that shit oh shit okay so we're We're going to go see. A risk taker.

Yeah, I'm like, we're going to drop you off to doctors when we get home because at the very least you're going to need a penicillin shot. If you're lucky. Let's hope that's all it is. You know, let's hope penicillin is going to clear this up for you. So this is just the first night there. We're there for like seven days. You know, we're doing this like three tour deal because we're doing El Salvador, Guatemala.

We were supposed to go to Costa Rica never happen because the rainy season really didn't have. This was the first time I ever been there. Every night, you know, it was like, we're at the hotel. The resort was awesome. The hotel was great. Like you really had no need to leave the resort. you had everything that you need.

My buddy every night would borrow 100 bucks from me and take a cab. He would, like, the bodyguards didn't want to go anymore. He would take a cab and go there. Like, every night he was there. Like, I don't know how to kid wrestle. He'd find a brothel and... Just whatever it was, because it was $25 everywhere.

So it turns out, like, the fifth night were there. I don't know exactly the details, but two of the cartels apparently got into a gunfight in, like, downtown El Salvador. And they're just, it was just, this whole big thing on the news. And one of the cartels was the cartel that was putting it on off for us. And out of nowhere, like the middle of the night, the bodyguards come rushing and it's we got to go, we got to go.

It's like 2 a.m. in the morning. We got to go. We got to go. We got to go. We got to go now. Get to go. We got to go now. Get the cars.

Throw us in the cars. And I'm like, oh, that's it. We're being kidnapped. We're going to get ransomed off. We're dead. It's over. We're done, you know. they end up taking us back to El Jaffe's house,

which is all I ended up calling him, his place, which is like a fucking fortress. Right. And this is where we have to stay now because they're all worried that we're going to get shot or killed or kidnapped because of this whole gunfight thing. Right.

So this is, you know, we end up doing all the shows, great time, got the money, fantastic, guys wonderful. The day before we're going back, he comes in and his number two guy comes and stands in the lobby with us. He goes, now you all understand that everything you saw here, and everything that was done for you, this is not for the ears of the DEA.

No problem, bro. It's all good. We're happy. No, seriously, we know where you live. I'll be moving when we get home. Don't worry. Now, the cool thing is, I've done gone and done this tour for six years now

ever since then. Love this tour. Great. Every time we go down there, it's like that, though. South America, wow. Costa Rica is nice Like the resort area is nice But like South America is wild

So it's Every time I'm very well known down there now I keep getting asked to go back I also do Dominican Republic a lot Which is a whole other Like whatever's going on over there I have no idea I've gotten to become very well known down there

So I go down there now Now because I'm well known down there I have to have extra security Because the fans Honest to God believe that the wrestling is real So when I beat up the local El Salvadorian wrestler They want to hurt you They want to stab me in the parking lot

They're like wait They're like we kill you in the parking lot We come in get you and they're out there And the body goes like stay between us We're all right, it's good And I'm like, it's not real It's all right, it's good, you know They don't care

They think it's real Do you ever go to Venezuela? Once And yeah that's another Again all these countries down there It's all the same kind of like Even Colombia was like We were there for a cartel guy

I mean, this is, these are the people to run these countries, you know, and they're, they're the ones putting on the entertainment for everybody. And it's, it's, it's what it is. So any one of these little third world countries like that, they're all, we're there, we're not there for a businessman. Well, they're businessmen, you know, everyone to look at it. But they're all, everybody's guns and this and that, and you're all being protected. And it's, it's ridiculous. That's how my buddy Juan is Venezuela. He said, that's the exact same thing. I'm like, well, you know, it's the government. And he was like, government there is not what it is here. Yeah, it's a little different. It's a little more brutal. Brutal. Yeah, they don't have elections. They just have killings. Yeah. We don't like you. Boom, you're not getting a job.

I mean, it's crazy. And it's funny, you know, and I talk about South America because it's, you know, as wrestlers, as entertainers, I would guess any celebrity going down there, they hate Americans because we're everything they don't have. Right. But as entertainers, they love us. Yeah. Like we are like gods to them.

It's amazing the how just the veneer of that glance. of being up on stage or being a wrestling or being a movie star, I'm assuming, it's okay you're American because you're you. It's like, wow, you people's priorities are really out of whack here, but it is what it is. You know, like the cartel people,

we hate Americans, we spit on it, they come down here, we shoot them, we killed them. But you guys are okay, we love you. Dude, I'm as American as you get. I'm from South Philadelphia. I mean, come on, yeah, yeah. If you're going to hate an American, you're going to hate me, you know?

But it's weird. It's incredible. So this is, I don't know, where am I at now? I'm probably my mid-40s, early 40s, been doing this, traveling. Great wrestling stories, great. A lot of cool stuff happening. Getting old, though.

It's starting to hurt a little bit more than it used to, starting to accrue more injuries. I've broken every bone at least once. I'm now currently walking around with a floating rib that just never healed from broken ribs. And every time I take a bump, it's like a bullet goes right through you. yeah he's looking at me like why are you still doing this yeah well i was gonna say um my you can't really get that fix right because you can they do like a surgery but then you have to

be immobile or something for a certain period of time you do what's called a fusion surgery they go now it's actually much simpler than it used to be they actually just go in with little litty-bitty lasers and they set you right and they just fuse the bone back into the socket that it's not sitting in anymore and it's basically it's actually a very non-evasive surgery doesn't sound painful at all. No, not at all. But you're immobile for a few months after that. And, you know, I've just kind of gotten to the point where I know I'm not going to be wrestling, you know, for much longer. I always said, you know, my first goal was like 55, a couple years away from 50. Now I'm really thinking like, probably 52 is going to be it for me. And my matches have gotten

a lot less, you know, athletic and physical. I really try not take as many bumps, but I do. So, yeah, just the point of, you know, now I'm starting to get older. I'm starting to feel it. I know it's coming going to end. But, you know, we talked about it earlier where you love this business. You know, you suffered through the bullshit to be where you are now because it's in your blood

and you can't be without it. And I constantly say to everybody all the time, you know, it's one of my big jokes where I could have bought a boat. Yeah. You know, I just, what am I doing this for? I could buy a boat. I can be fishing right now.

I could be drinking a beer on a boat fishing somewhere. Yet I choose to be in a wrestling ring getting slammed around by a 25-year-old guy and I'm in my late 40s. and it hurts every time. Like there's never a moment anymore where there's no pain. You know, Heather, who's sitting there off camera,

loves to make fun of the way I walk. Hey, I don't know if you guys pick that out. She's, oh my God, out in the background. Because I have, my hips have separated. This is a common thing for wrestlers as we get older. Because you're landing on your back so often, your hips will begin to spread and separate.

So, and you're going to see it when I stand up from this chair for like the first 10 steps, I'm going to wattle. like a duck because my hips are just out of alignment and it takes a second to get my body back upright again and be able to move properly

and this is a common thing I wake up in a morning with this I get out of bed if I sit in a chair too long I get up I walk like this driving in the car I get out of the car I got to lean on the car for a minute and just push my hips forward to get them right you know this is part of you know this is what old wrestlers this is what happens to us you know our bodies

there's a I don't know I guess it's true there's somebody told me years ago that every time you see a wrestler take a bump on his back in the ring that is the equivalent of being in a car accident at 25 miles an hour getting rear-ended all right we do this over and over and over 10 20 30 times in a match yeah so we're constantly in this 25 mile an hour car accident repeatedly over and over and over again snapping your neck against the the mat banging your back do this for 20 30 years you know what your body going to be like at the end of this you know right Where are you going to be?

So I'm coming into that time in my life where it's like, wow, it's just like, they're used to. And I've, you guys aren't going to believe this after everything I've said, but I'm not a guy who used drugs. Right. I was never, was there a period of my time when I was young where cocaine and whiskey was fun? Sure.

But I, you know, well past that era, I never got into the painkillers. You know, I've always been that natural kind of trainer, which is part of why I attribute to my age and I'm still able to go like I am because I never got into that dependency where I needed. because I feel that in the long run, that actually does more adverse stuff to your body than positive.

Detramental. Right. And I always felt that I wanted to feel the pain because at least then I understood if I was doing more damage to myself. You know, I wanted to know what was hurting. Because if I don't feel it, I might hurt myself more and not realize it. I want to know. So I've stuck with that. So I never got into the painkillers.

I never got into, you know, anything like that at all. I train naturally. I take vitamins and drink protein shakes, but I don't even take steroids. I've never did my entire life. Well, I did Clem Buterol for a little while, but that's an asthma medication. It's good for you. Okay, go ahead. Clembuterol is a steroid used by, it's the drug of movie stars.

It's when movie stars have to get in shape for a big action role, and they need to get ripped in like two months. Clembuterol is an over-the-counter prescription, it's a prescription drug that's not legal in the U.S., but it's actually an asthma medication for people who are asthmatic. Right. The side effects, if it's taken at a certain amount over the prescription level, is that it is a muscle growth development too. Because what it does is an asthma medication is it helps the muscles and the fibers and your lungs grow so that you can breathe better. Well, if you overdose this, it will help with your body.

The side effect to it also is is that it's a diuretic weight killer. So not only are you building muscle, you're burning fat taking this stuff. Sounds like a miracle drug. Yeah. This is what me like you talk about, hey, I just saw that movie star three weeks ago. and now he looks like this, this is what Hollywood movie stars take while they're training to get in shape for movies

and stay that way throughout the movies because they can't work out every day once they're filming, but you've got to keep looking good. So Clem Buterol is what you take. Now, that being said, there's some downsides to it. You know, it can cause a heart attack. There's a lot of things that it can do bad.

Yeah, who cares you look at it. I always said, I'm going to die. I'm going to be a good-looking corpse when I die. Well, if the porn star house didn't kill you, so you'll probably go on forever. I hope so. That'd be nice, that that was my, my price for living forever.

I'm good with that, you know. So, but yeah, so I will admit that I took that. You probably complain. I would. Right? Okay, you believe I'm still going at 90? Heather's over there going, that's all he does is complain. You know, he's never happy with anything.

150. When's it going to end? You don't know my pain. I got this hot nurse taking care of me. She's scrubbing my nuts every day and I can't die. The new Bimo, V.I. Porter MasterCard is your ticket to more. More perks, more points, more flights. More of all the things you want in a travel rewards card, and then some.

Get your ticket to more with the new BMO ViPorter MasterCard and get up to $2,400 in value in your first 13 months. Terms and conditions apply. Visit bemo.com slash ViPorter to learn more. So at any rate, yeah. But you don't want to get out of the out of the... I don't want to get out of wrestling. Right.

I don't, so, you know, it got to a point where, and this brings us, you know, right back to, you know, UCW, Universal Championship Wrestling. I know my career is coming to an end. I know, you know, the traveling, shit, man, being on a plane for five hours to 10 hours, driving 10 hours, it's like, I don't want to do this anymore. I don't want to do this traveling to work for all these other companies anymore. I want to be home. You know, I want to enjoy being home. I want to enjoy spending time with my friends. What's the option?

Some people came to me and said, start our own wrestling promotion. I never wanted to do it in the past because I'm so disenfranchised with professional wrestling today. And I know that's hard to understand because I see it and I say I love it. I want to do it. Wrestling in the last 20 years has drastically changed. Maybe for the better, maybe for the worse. I can't answer that question. I come from a generation where wrestling was something different.

And I loved what it was then. Maybe this is wrestling today, but I don't believe so because I've seen the difference in wrestling, the new way of wrestling and the old way of wrestling and you're sitting there looking like you're confused what I'm talking about we talked earlier

about how wrestling was characters yeah when I was growing up they were character it was definitely character driven they were they were cartoon character they were like Superman comic book characters we were comic book characters and we didn't do a lot of fancy moves

but what we did do count it you know you picked the guy up you slammed him it was a big deal and it was this you punched the guy and it made something wrestling nowadays you have these guys that are unbelievably athletic

I take nothing away from their athleticism. They're doing shit that I could have never done, even in my heyday. But I call it Cirque d'Isel wrestling. You go to a wrestling show now, and you see these guys that get up on a top rope, and they do ten flips and a twist, and this and that, and they wrap the guy up, and they roll, and it's incredible.

From an athletic point of view, it is phenomenal. But it's super choreographed. Incredibly choreographed, and it doesn't tell a story. I'm about to give away some secrets for wrestling here. And at this point, they're not really secret. of people know. A good wrestling match is a story. I said it's about the journey about good and evil. If you watch a movie, the beginning of the movie introduces you to the characters. He's the good guy. He does something that good guys do. Here's the bad guy. We know he's the bad guy

because he just killed somebody or he did something horrible. So we've introduced the characters we understand the plot. The good guy and the bad guy have this issue. And we know this issue. The middle of the movie is the conflict. The good guy and the bad guy start going at each other. The bad guy's getting over. He's got all the better weapons, the better guys. It's always the good guy and the bad guy's got a whole army of people. He's got the knowledge. The good guy doesn't know what's going on yet.

He's trying to figure out. So the good guy's kind of getting his ass whooped a little bit through the middle of the movie. You know, he's taking his beating. He's, he can't. No matter what he does, the bad guy just keeps getting away or getting over or getting on him. The good guy, now we come into the right after the middle part of the movie where the good guy is, he's beaten down and he's distraught and he has that moment of clarity in his life where I got to pick myself up and I got to keep.

going because this is what the hero does win lose or draw i'm going to confront the bad guy one more time and whether i live or die i'm doing it for the right reason i'm going to go and then we have the end of the movie which is the final conflict that moment where you just don't think the good guy's going to win but you know somehow he gets the gets the bad guy and he wins and now you have your climactic moment you went through you love the good guy you hate the bad guy oh my god i feel so bad for the good guy he's getting his ass beating it's so bad oh yeah here he comes yes yes he wins yes so you have that emotional ride. This is what a good movie does.

We're a good television show. A wrestling match is the exact same thing. I want to take you on an emotional journey. I want you, now, Johnny Walker, myself, I'm a bad guy. My job is to make you hate me. The more you hate me, the more you're going to love the good guy. The more you're going to cheer for him, the more you're going to want him to win.

But the good guy in all-like movies just can't come out and whoop my ass right away. Who cheers for the guy who always wins? Even if he's a good guy, why do you cheer for him? You want to have sympathy for him. So what happens at the beginning of a match? I come out. Boom, bang, bang, boom, boom, boom.

Hey, I'm Johnny Walker. You can't beat me. This punk can't do anything to me. Who are you? I'm taunting the audience. I'm taunting him. The middle of the match. Good guy starts to, he's coming back a little bit.

But every time he comes at me, gets a one or two good moves in, bang, I knock him back down again. Boom, I just can't do it. Finally, I've got him down, I've beaten him. Looks like I'm going to win this thing. I'm going to pin the good guy. I'm going to win this thing. Good guy kicks out that one last time where you remember the old Hulk Hogan,

Hulk up where he's losing the match and somebody punched him in the face and how can we do the whole start getting fired up and the audience starts getting fired up, man, the whole thing and then bang, he gets the bad guy. This is a good wrestling man. This is a story.

It's that emotional journey where you're invested in the character, you're invested in a match. Modern day wrestling has gotten away from this. The wrestlers have become so programmed in their minds where I'm going to get fame and glory by doing something incredible physically

that nobody does. So they're all trying to outdo, do each other with this athleticism but the story's not there so you don't get emotionally invested in the wrestler you know it's i i tell wrestlers this all the time and it's very true and i ask fans this too fans never remember anything it happens in the match they remember the end they will sit there and say that was the greatest match i ever saw and i'll say tell me one thing that happened in the middle of the match well yeah no i don't i don't remember tell me how the match finished oh he picked them up get him a giant pile driver off the top rope and pinned them.

They remember the emotional aspect of the match, but they can't tell you the moves. The only thing they remember is the end, the finish, the punchline. That move is what they remember. But they remember the emotional ride through the whole thing. Modern wrestling has lost that. Because there's no emotional attachment, you can't get emotionally involved in the match.

And if you still asked a wrestling fan, what happened in the middle of that match? They'll go, oh, well, they did this flippy thing and he flopped over here. They can't tell you what it was. primarily also because there's a and I'm sure you understand this there's an anticipation to anything excitement is anticipation excitement is you know it's going to happen soon it's going to happen soon if I was to punch a guy in a face 10 times really quick or I grab him by

the face and I pull my fist back and I'm selling it and I'm waiting and you know I'm going to punch him sooner or later and you're just sitting there when's he going to punch him and I'm selling a fist and I'm holding it up in the air and I'm doing yeah you're mine you're mine and then 15 seconds later I punch him once I gave you that anticipation I gave you that emotional thrill of here it comes but it's not yet oh my god look at them selling it as opposed to just there's no emotional attachment to it there's no anticipation which creates that excitement in your that anxiety and you're writing on how you look at it wrestling is incredibly psychological there's a psychology to it it's entertainment we're telling a whole two-hour

movie in 10 to 15 minutes. From good to, from finish to beginning, 10, 15 minutes, a two hour movie. I always equated to it's it's the Odyssey. It's the Idiot. It's a Greek tragedy. It's good versus evil. And there's triumphs and failures. And the hero has to go through

the hero's journey. Right. You know, Star Wars, the hero's journey. Wrestling is the exact same thing. We're entertaining you. We're just not doing it on a silver screen. We're doing it in a ring in a match. But I need you to love the good guy and I need you to hate me. And I need you to have sympathy for the good guy when I'm whooping his ass and I need you to want that

good guy to punish me at the end. I need to lose. Right. Or if I win, oh my God, the bad guy won. Well, now you want to come back next week because the good guy might get another shot at him. Right. This isn't the end of the story. The movie's not over. This is chapter one. Now we're going to do it again. So now you're coming back. Wrestling's lost that. This is where I've become very disenfranchised. Again, I think these guys are incredibly athletic. I mean, like I said, it's unbelievable. It's, and I call it Cirque d'O wrestling, because to me it's Cirque de Soleil, these guys are doing stuff where it's like, wow.

But if that's what you want to see, go to Cirque de Soleil. And I tell these guys all the time, I go, why don't you get into gymnastics? Why don't you go to Cirque de Soleil? Because this shit you're doing is insane. You know, like, I started UCW with the idea of,

I want the five-year-old kid in the front row to be able to understand exactly what we're doing. The moves can't be that complicated. The stories. have to be very simple because I want to entertain dad who has that nostalgia of the 80s when he watched wrestling. But I want his son that he's brought with him

to be able to find a hero to cheer for and hate the bad guy. And maybe he's a little bit too young to understand the hero's journey, but emotionally it's still there. You feel that anxiety, you feel that excitement. That's how it's developed. So for me, it was really, really important

when starting Universal Championship Wrestling that I found performers that understood how I wanted to do shows. Because each match in the show, the show itself tells a whole story too. You know, each match is a chapter of the show, which is the whole story. And if matches are put together in the right order,

and if the show is designed properly and the matches are designed properly, you've taken somebody on a two-hour emotional ride from the first bell to the last bell. If you have done that for a fan, they will come back, they will say wonderful things about you. They will, you know, it becomes a thing.

You know, this is what you want. Right. You know, people loved Star Wars, so they went to go see Empire Strikes Back. They were disappointed in Empire Strikes Back because the heroes lost. So they came back to watch Return of the Jedi. Right. Where you got the payoff. Luke won.

Killed the Emperor. Okay. All great stories are told this way. I mean, the movies were bad. The scripts were horrible, but the story was great. The emotional ride was there. Every Marvel movie in the last 20 years has been this Tony Ark for 20 years, was the hero's journey.

He's an arrogant son of a bitch in the beginning, but you know he's the good guy, finds a heart, finds this, survives this, all of a sudden at the very end, he does what he didn't do in the first movie, sacrifice himself for everybody else. This is the hero's journey. Wrestling's the same thing.

If I can tell that story, it doesn't matter if you're a fan or not. If you're sitting there and you're watching this, emotionally, mentally you become involved. I have so many people that have come to UCW. It had never been to a wrestling show in their entire lives. They came because they saw the advertisement, you know, it was something to do.

You know, our tickets are reasonably priced for the family. It's great. There's a wonderful restaurant behind the building where we do the shows. People would come in, hey, well, we'll go over and watch the wrestling. Never fans before. Have come up me at their end shows. It goes, oh, my God, I'm going to come to the next show. I never watched this.

I always thought it was stupid growing up. I never paid attention to it. I never understood it. Now they're fans coming to every show. They're buying T-shirts. Right. It's because it's not about being an actual fan of the wrestling. It's about getting into the story and appreciating the story of what we're telling.

and that emotional ride that we can take you on. Modern day wrestling has lost that. It's what I'm trying to do with UCW, and apparently I'm being successful with it. You know, we have an incredibly loyal fan base. Every time we get a new fan, they stay. Every time we get a new fan, they tell five more people about it.

You know, our product has been... The truth of the matter is, I'm hated in the state of Florida now by other wrestling promoters. I came out of the gate with this. We did great for Nordga. Like I said, what business doesn't take a loss on day one? every great business takes a loss from day one it's just it's how it is you lose for typically you lose

for about two years right i haven't lost a dollar yet i think the average restaurant loses for is it three to five years it's almost three to five years and you can lose almost at that point you're probably into it for a little bit more than 600 percent of your initial investment um is generally the stake there i haven't lost a dime this day we open and i'm a businessman i ran clubs i know all of this right i'm sitting here in shock i haven't lost a dime we've broken even even out of the first five shows. The sixth show, we actually made a little bit of money. I'm thinking to myself, okay.

Just starting to work. Like, the hell's going on here? Like, I fully went into this, expecting to constantly be putting money into it for the first six months to a year. I'm like, okay. And after a year, I'd reevaluate and see, are we losing less? Right. Or are we on a road?

I'm sitting here now flabbergasted trying to do my books because I'm like, okay, everything we're doing is working because we haven't lost a dime. So what do you do? Like, what do I fix? So now it's just taking what we have and making it bigger. I want to bring this style of wrestling back to the wrestling fans and back to the overall community. Because I think that this is what people, you know, I talk about WrestleMania 1. And I talk about the biggest WrestleMania that they had at the Astrodome where there were almost 150,000 live fans at that show.

And you even look at WrestleMania today where they're getting 80, 90,000. fans and five million viewers worldwide every Monday or Friday. So the audience is still there. People still love wrestling and they watch it because it's what they know. But if you talk to the average wrestling fan, they tell you, yeah, I just can't get into the characters these days and I can't really, you know, blah, blah, blah. I want to bring back that story. I want to bring it back to when, you know, it was emotional and you loved it.

And I think that's what's working for us. I honestly God believe him. We have such wonderful characters, you know, we Boone the Gator King. He's a swamp buggy guy. speaks with this weird accent he's a strange fellow he got a head injury he's been wrestling with a head injury for months now for whatever reason he can't lose he keeps winning he's not a good guy he's not a nice guy yet he had fans show up at our last show where they made gator hats it was hilarious there were like 20 of them that walked in with these giant gator hats

and it was because they loved this character he was telling this great story of this idiot guy who is unshaven he actually has not physically well he's just he's not built well at all. He's horribly built. He wears slobbing clothes. He's not, he just, he looks like a swamp dude. He looks like your uncle Fred that lives out in the middle of swamp. But people love the idea that he had this head injury and he comes out with a head wrap on, you know, band is on his head and he wrestles and he keeps winning by accident. This is the story. The fans are invested in it. Right. Brian Idol, who's been a famous restaurant on the circuit for many years. People love to hate this guy. Brian Idol might be the second most hated guy in our company

you next to me. Brian is just this fantastic showman who you want to hate him. You look at Brian and he's one of those guys that you just look at and you go, I just want to punch you in a face. I don't know why. I haven't even talked to you yet, but I want to punch you in a face. He's that guy, you know? So this is the excitement for me about what wrestling is. We're entertainers. I want to entertain. I want to put on a show that the fans are happy about because for me and everything I've done in my entire career, money has been the byproduct of the success from my of what I do. I loved being an entertainment consultant. So I made a lot of money at it because I loved it. I had a passion for it. I loved having the porn business. So it made money. Okay, for a lot of

reasons I loved the porn business. I made a lot of money at it because I had a passion for it. I've always been successful in wrestling because I had a passion for it. It was never about how much am I getting paid. It was about how great of a match could we put on, that passion. UCW Universal Championship Wrestling is the same thing for me. Yes, I would love it to turn a profit. a businessman. But for me, it's the love of it, the passion for it. And if I'm putting on shows where the fans are coming up to us telling us how great we are, then for me it's a success. Money will be a byproduct of that success. I'm not worried about that. I want to put on that great show. I love watching kids leave the show. Like, ah, they're all fired up and they're

getting autographs from the wrestlers and pictures. I love that. I love having fans hate me. I am the most arrogant, self-righteous son of a bitch in the professional, in the professional wrestling world. I can see that. Thank you. Appreciate it. I love having fans hate me. I feel like I haven't done my job if at least two fans haven't thrown something at me or tried to spit on me before the end of a show. I love that.

I'm all about it. Because at the end of the day, your wife still likes me better than you. I promise you that. At any rate, you know, this for me is what it's about. So this is where UCW came from. This is where the concept came from. And, you know, we've been at it now for about a half a year. We've seen great success, and we're looking to hopefully start bringing it to the masses down the road.

We're looking for larger platforms to be able to not only broadcast the shows in certain ways, but hopefully I'd like to do some traveling. I'd like to take the show on tour down the road and be able to film it and broadcast it on certain platforms. So for us, it really is a passion. You know, if anybody's interested in finding out more about us or getting a hold of us, We are, our social media is at UCW Florida for everything. Okay.

Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, Twitter, at UCW Florida. Connor will put it in the description. Okay. So it'll be in the description of the video. Our website is currently under construction. We've been looking for a good company that's going to be able to handle our website for us and have it at the level that we want it to be at. But you can go to UCWWorld.com right now, which will take you to our ticket selling page,

which tells you a lot about the show. shows that we're doing. We plan on having a very interactive fan experience website set up in the very near future. It's very important to me that... Is that being built now by somebody or you're looking for somebody? We are... They'll have... Because if you put... We're looking. If we put your email address in the description, you'll have 10 or 20 guys that'll... We are absolutely looking for somebody and more than happy to have the email address in the description. I'll give you a couple different emails you can use. So yeah, we're looking for, because I want somebody who can manage it for us also and be able to make up because it's going to be very

interactive. So I want to keep it up to date. And because we change the shows, you know, the content's going to change a lot. So it's important for us that it works and it makes sense. But, you know, we're having a wonderful time. I mean, you're a local guy. I'd love you. Have you come down and see a show? No, I'm coming down to this one. Okay. I don't know what, you know, you got to run things by your girlfriend because she makes all the rules in your relationship. I can't go by myself. Can't go by, oh. I didn't know if she'd take here or not. No, no. She's going to be there to protect me. Okay, good. So yeah, February 20th is our next show in Palmetto, Florida. Galactic destruction. Now, yeah, you looked at it earlier and said, Galactic destruction, was that mean?

Well, we're Universal Championship Wrestling. Every single one of our show titles has something to do with the universe. Our last show was called Supernova. The show before that was called Starfire. Our main event of the year, our Our WrestleMania every year. What are you laughing at? That wasn't what? All of this. All of this. Our main event is, our main event is, our of the year is the only one that doesn't have a name after the universe but we stole it and I'm about to get sued for copyright infringement I'm sure our main event of the year is called masters of the universe okay anybody out there who knows where that comes from cool if not keep your mouth shut I don't need to get sued by Hasbro um anyhow they can't because it's all right

but so all of our names and this is you know again I wanted to have names that people were going to remember right I wanted to have like everybody uses oh it's Halloween so what are we going to call our show Halloween havoc right every fucking practicing promotion in the world does that it's Christmas. What is it? Season's beatings. You know, Valentine's Day, bloody Valentine, every promotion out there. This is the unoriginalness of all of these owners out there right now. And I don't care. I'm going to say it. There is a flood of wrestling promotions out there. I call them Mom and Pop backyard wrestling. They're all over. Everybody's running a show every weekend somewhere. But it is a fan. A guy who was a fan, his whole life.

I'm going to open up a wrestling promotion because I love wrestling. What the hell do you know about the business? You sat in the audience, you watched it. Do you know how to run a company? Do you have any business experience? Do you understand the psychology of wrestling? You get no respect from the wrestlers because you weren't one of us. You didn't grow up in this business.

So they come in and the wrestlers do whatever they want to do. You don't know how to... There are so many of these shows. And that's what I'm saying. They're so unoriginal. They all use the same names. Seasons beating. Halloween Havoc.

You know, bloody Valentine, whatever. Fourth of July, bang. They all use these same horrible names. I said, we're going to do something. something different. I'm going to have a theme. We're universal championship wrestling. Let's stick with the universe. We're not just Earth. We're the world. We're the universe. Let's stick with cool names. And people remember our names. They've never heard you. Galactic destruction, Starfire, Supernova, Masters of the Universe. What a great name for like a WrestleMania. Masters of the

Universe. I love that name. Brings out the child in me again. So for me, it's about giving fans wrestling that they deserve. You deserve better than these backyard wrestlers or these marks. We call the fans that own businesses. They're called marks. M-A-R-K-S marks in quotation. They're called a mark. You're like a mark, a target.

Then these marks that open up these wrestling companies and have no freaking clue, have no idea what they're doing. And their shows suck and they get 10, 20 people. You know, we went through a show a couple of months ago where the guy paid $1,000 to rent out of Civic Center, had 50 people in the audience. he probably lost two grand but he thinks it was successful because he had 30 people

right the wrestling was horrid we were there because I wanted to see one wrestler it was one guy wrestling or a young kid that I wanted to look at because I was thinking about bringing them into our show and I eventually did but the rest of the show was like

I could have slipped through this show there was no entertainment value there was no you know when you come to our show we have a stage entrance we have lighting effects we have wonderful DJ music we have you know our people are doing things professionally

and being professional with it and they're there to want to entertain you the wrestlers aren't there just doing matches to do matches you know it's it's very important that we entertain people and we give you that ride right you know you go to an amusement park right because you want to be thrilled you come to a wrestling show because you want to be thrilled it is important to me that you get that okay so this is what universal championship wrestling is all about for me and all about for our fans it's an opportunity to see wrestling as it was meant to be all right since its conception in the carney days Back in the 1920s, you know, this is what wrestling always was, entertaining people.

And that's what we're doing now. And I'm very proud of it. And I think everybody who comes and checks it out or takes a look at us will be very pleasantly surprised and happy too. And we'll become a fan forever. Well, cool. I'm going to go on the 20th. And so that's it. Or is anything else?

I mean, I think we've got it. We're good. I mean, I've got a million other stories I could tell. but you know there's only so much time in the day and you know another time I'm going to be here I'll be here too wrap it up all right this one all right hey so if you like the video do me a favor and hit the subscribe button hit the bell so you get notified share the video to all your friends and family leave a comment in this in the comment section for the algorithm and if you want to know more about a galactic destruction universal championship wrestling

Universal Championship. Championship. Wrestling. Then check the description. All right, that's it. See ya. You swear to that one? We're done.

All right. That's it. Beautiful. Thank you. I had a wonderful time. Thank you.