My Mom's Basement - EPISODE 12 - WRESTLING WITH BAYLEY AND KAZEEM FAMUYIDE

Episode Date: June 10, 2019

On a 'From The Top Rope' edition of My Mom's Basement, WWE SmackDown Women's Champion Bayley joins Robbie and Carrabis to discuss her recent Money In The Bank win and cash-in, what her goals left in the WWE are, her all-time dream opponents, pop punk music, and much, much, more, while Kazeem Famuyide - host of the Flagrant 2 podcast and former WWE writer - sits down with Robbie in-studio to talk about his time with the WWE, and the day-to-day/week-to-week/month-to-month life of a WWE writer! UFC 238 is also recapped and questions are answered.You can find every episode of this show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or YouTube. Prime Members can listen ad-free on Amazon Music. For more, visit barstool.link/mymomsbasement

Hey, My Mom's Basement listeners. You can find our episodes on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or YouTube, and Prime members can listen ad-free on Amazon Music. Let me just remind you, if you're not subscribed to this podcast already, it would help me out a lot if you did so, and if you leave a rating and review, that helps even more. And of course, as the week goes on, tweet at me about the show, if you have an opinion, if you have a question,

if I misquoted something, if you just think I'm an idiot, if you like the show, whatever you're thinking during the show, I want to know. So tweet it to me, at Robbie Barstool. Let's keep the discussion going throughout the week. I love it. Now let's talk UFC 238, because this was a huge card. We had a special Friday bonus edition of the show just this past Friday to talk about it, to talk to Marlon Marais, who was in the main event, and unfortunately came up on the losing side of that main event. And we talked to Kaitlyn Shukagian, our girl who won the first bout of the night, setting herself up for title contention, probably. So let's talk about it. She opens the card against Joanne Calderwood. She had a great fight. It was a

pretty controversial win. I saw a lot of people saying that they thought Joanne won the decision. I really didn't think that she did. I know I'm biased for Caitlyn. She's a good friend of mine. We just had her on the show. But I really believe that she did enough to win. She poured it on with the volume throughout the entire fight, especially in round three. And although she got taken down three times, Joanne never really did anything with any of those takedowns.

You know, Caitlyn tried to slap on a triangle at the end of round one, I think. And she also beat up on JoJo from her back. So like, I thought that was a clear round one for her. She was landing her overhand right constantly, like she could not throw that right hand without it landing. And then in the third round, she threw with crazy volume, landed every shot she threw, and Joanne was like clowning her at the end like it was an easy win. That was crazy. And for a girl that's come up on a few split decision losses, I'm very, very happy that a decision finally went her way. A close, razor-thin decision finally went her way. Hopefully she gets that title shot against Valentina Shevchenko at Madison Square Garden in November. That would be huge.

Speaking of Shevchenko, holy fucking shit. If you haven't seen the finish to Valentina Shevchenko versus Jessica Ai, you got to find it right now. I wrote a blog on it on barstoolsports.com. If you search the two's names or you search UFC 238, you should be able to find it. Just click on my blogger name too. That's always the easiest way to find blogs. This was one of the most brutal, violent finishes in women's MMA history and in recent MMA history. It was just violent all around. It was fucking terrifying. Valentina Shevchenko, the bullet, lands a head kick that just sends Jessica Ai into the other. It's what I wanted to see happen in the co-main event to

Henry Cejudo, the king of cringe, who's just the worst. But unfortunately, he's a fucking beast as well and made the most insane adjustments I've ever seen. So in that fight, the main event, our guy Marlon Marais has the perfect first round, legitimately flawless. Henry had like nothing to offer for him. Everything Marlon was throwing was landing. Every time Henry tried something, he was getting shot down. He goes back to his corner. His corner tells him, hey, this is the same thing that happened in the Demetrius Johnson fight. You got to make some adjustments. You got to bring the fight tells him, hey, this is the same thing that happened in the Demetrius Johnson fight. You've got to make some adjustments.

You've got to bring the fight to him, brawl a little bit. As soon as he did that, he wrecked Marlon Marais and completely winded him as well to the point where at the end of the third round, Marlon was just toast. And Henry took him down and TKO'd him because he had nothing to offer. He even said that in his post-fight press conference. I felt bad for him. He was a nice guy. But he was just like, yeah, I just got too tired.

Bro, how do you let that happen? I get that Marlon Marais has never been to a five-round fight. Like, he always finishes fights early. But, bro, you're in a championship fight. Like, you have to prepare cardio beyond what was prepared. That just kind of blew my mind. I'm not trying to throw him under the bus. Listen, I'm not one to speak.

I've never been in a fight in my life. But when you get to that level, you should be prepared for five rounds, obviously. And Marlon Marais just wasn't. Also on that card, you had Tony Ferguson versus Donald Cowboy Cerrone, which a lot were saying was, you know, the people's main event. And it was awesome. Awesome, awesome, awesome for the first two rounds. And then I saw an unfortunate end when uh cowboy blew his

nose and his nose was very very broken and he blew his nose very hard and his eye just welled up and immediately got the size of a baseball and closed completely doctor stoppage so tony ferguson got the tko dana white said that they're gonna arrange for a rematch of that i don't know how i feel about that because geez tony ferguson 12 wins in a row, hasn't lost since 2012. What more does this guy have to do to get a title shot? I don't even like Tony Ferguson. I actually dislike Tony Ferguson. I think he's so annoying. I think he's as cringeworthy as Henry Cejudo. Obviously, I know he had some personal issues recently, and I wouldn't wish that upon anyone. I'm glad that he's doing well, but God, I hate that guy. And I'm the one saying it. He needs a title shot. He needs the winner

of Khabib versus Poirier in September, and I think he could be the one to take Khabib down. And in that fight, I would definitely be backing Tony Ferguson. But you know, you don't like to see a fight end like that. The fight, while it lasted, was glorious. It was just two straight savages throwing at each other. Cowboy took the loss very well. And I got some tweets throughout the week. People were saying, Robbie, what's it going to take for you to go out to Cowboy's Ranch, the bad motherfucker ranch, this summer, make some content with him? I would love to do that. I would love to do it with Young Page Views, do an episode of Barstool Outdoors with Cowboy, do an episode of My Mom's Basement with the both of them. I think it would be a blast. So we'll try to arrange for that. I know I'm going to try to arrange to get to International Fight Week. We'll have an answer for that probably this week. So that'll be exciting if I can make it out there. I'm also interviewing some absolute legends of the sport this week. And Friday's bonus episode is going to be the most stacked one I have ever put out.

We're talking legitimate MMA legends, some people that I'd consider the future of the sport, and a whole lot of talk about Bellator 222. There's your little hint for who those guests may be. And now, let's get into myself and Jared Karabas' interview with the WWE SmackDown Women's Champion, Bayley. Bayley, you're on the line with Robbie and Jared from Barstool Sports. Robbie, Jared, you're on with WWE SmackDown Women's Champion, Bailey. Bailey, how's it going?

It's going great. How are you guys? We're great. We're actually big fans of you, so this is very cool to be able to do this interview with you. You're riding high off a SmackDown Women's Championship win. We're stoked to see it. What's the current vibes? Are you riding high still? Yeah, I feel like a different person. I feel really good. It's just, you know, I've never had a night like I did at Money in the Bank, and I think I'm kind of just riding off that, like you said, just riding the wave and hoping that it just continues to get better and better.

So what was that night like? Because it seemed like a re-emerging of Bayley. You've been in the WWE for years now, on the main roster for years now. But Money in the Bank seemed like the biggest crowd reaction you ever got on the main roster. Why do you think that was? Do you think fans were just dying for you to hold that championship once again? You know, I thought about that afterwards, too. I was like, I just felt, I think it was time. The fans just felt it, and I felt it,

and it really felt like a reconnection with the fans. Like, you know, we've always been good to each other, and I would like to say that we get along all the time. But something about that night was just, I felt something different in my heart and uh I think they felt it with me and when I you know when I finally cashed in and won the Smackdown Women's Championship and ran the crowd it was like it was like the night that I won the Raw Women's Championship like it was real genuine love and they were real like genuinely happy for

me and for what was to come so I don't know what it was about that night. It was just one of those special nights, and I got really lucky that I got to experience all of that in Hartford. And how did that championship win compared to the championships that you've won in the past? Everybody, you know, all those nights have a special story and a special place in my heart. But I would say, man, it's pretty up there.

I would say that one is something that I feel like it took the longest to get to. And it's one of those last championships that I have yet to win. And I really like the SmackDown. I really love the SmackDown roster and I've always felt like it's kind of been treated as like the underdog show when like it really isn't. So I take it as like I want to build this division so bad and I want it to be the best women's division

that is in pro wrestling right now. So I feel like now that I have this championship, like I can help contribute to that because that's all I want to do is just change the world and make things better, you know? Yeah. And I think, honestly, just to share with you why I think I liked it so much is because it reminded me tremendously of one of my favorite moments as a kid. And that was Hulk Hogan running in at the end of WrestleMania 9 and defeating Yokozuna right after Yokozuna beat Bret Hart. Yours basically felt like that, but it made sense because you had the Money in the Bank briefcase. Hulk Hogan didn't have that.

He just kind of had that match with Mr. Fuji. But that's why it was one of my favorite of your experiences in the WWE. I thought it was just very nostalgic in that way. That's an awesome uh comparison thanks i i well you know uh when eddie guerrero won the championship at the cow palace i remember him jumping into the crowd because i was there at the show and i was all the way up at the top but watching him jump into like the first row i i felt him like even though i was so far away like i felt him and it felt so real and that was one of those moments that i always keep with me and i always wish to experience with the fans so i think at money in the bank i

was like man that it felt like it reminded me of that night uh so i have a question for you bailey because you've pretty much won every title that there is for you to win in the company at this point including at the nxt level what goals do you have left now? Like, obviously you want to have a long title reign here, uh, with the SmackDown women's championship, but do you ever look at back at what you've accomplished and think,

what is there left for me to do now, now that you've accomplished everything that there is for, for a woman? Um, yeah, I just, like you said, I just want to have a title run.

I want to be remembered as one of the greatest women's champions that's been in the company. I wouldn't say, like, my Raw Women's Championship reign wasn't very long, and I lost it in my hometown, so I hate that that has happened. Same with the Tag Team Championships. I wish we could have held on to those a little bit longer. So this one I'm really taken to heart and kind of like there's a chip on my shoulder and I'm really focused

on hanging on to this. And like I mentioned earlier, I want to build this division. I want to wrestle the girls that haven't even had the opportunity to showcase themselves yet, like Liv Morgan and Ember Moon and Mickie James, who we haven't been able to see on SmackDown Live yet. There's so much talent, and I know this sounds crazy or maybe impossible, but I would love to even wrestle girls that are in NXT and NXT UK because I just want to get all the experience and everything that I can and just better myself every time and every time.

So then, I was just going to say, because since you're talking about opponents now, I was curious who your dream opponent is. Like, this could be someone that's active right now. Like you mentioned, there's obviously a lot of talent in NXT still. But you can even mention a Hall of Famer, someone that's no longer with us, someone that's retired, anybody.

Who's your dream opponent? Like, you retired anybody who's who's your dream opponent like you could you could face literally anyone who's ever stepped in a professional wrestling ring before i would have to say lita okay i mean there's so many people obviously that i would love to wrestle even like guys but lita was the one that um man i was the biggest lita fan and she was the one that really helped me realize that it was possible. A tomboy like me could make it into this type of company and things like that. She was my hero, so I would love to. I got to team with her one time on Raw, but I'd love to have a one-on-one match with her.

As far as guys go, if you could wrestle a guy, is it Macho Man for you? Is it Eddie or those two? Yeah, it would be Macho Man. That would be a dream match for the ages. I'm sure you could do it on one of the video games or something like that. Here's a question I have for you, Bailey, and this doesn't even have to do with wrestling. But as a big Paramore fan, I see you tweeting about Paramore all the time and just a bunch of different fans. I'm curious as to what's on your playlist and what are you listening to right now i normally uh i listen to there's sometimes it's paramore but most of the time

it's a day to remember okay yeah just get me really like amped up it's either a day to remember or pierce the veil so you're a big pop-up fan yes yes nice so much more like my uh traveling um or just i'm just at home i'll put on one of their records because I have a cool little record player. And, yeah, they're the best. And I got to meet them. I couldn't believe it. I know. I was actually at the show that you were at, and you were like a section away from me.

I saw you, but I didn't want to disturb you because we were at a Paramore show. Yeah, the Radio City show. Oh, yeah. That was the first time I met them. So amazing. What a great show that was that was an absolute blast so bailey i have a question for you because uh you know as a wrestling fan like i'm 30 so i've gotten i've gotten to see wrestling evolve over the years and some of the best of all time have been masters of evolving and reinvent reinventing

themselves uh for you how do you see do you ever think like are you are you a thinker of like night to night like this is what i need to do tonight or every or you ever just you know you guys are on the road all the time do you ever just think how am i going to evolve as the years go on um lately i've been thinking uh long-term stuff and where I want to be and how I want to be seen and uh how am I going to accomplish the things I want to do if I stay the same you know without evolving you kind of don't really get anywhere but this this this uh business is so like everything changes so quickly and last minute so I've become a more uh by day type of girl, but obviously still having my long term goals and dreams like in the back of my head. So I would say I've kind of stayed on

par with where I wanted to be in my like timeline. So a little bit of both, I guess you could say. So I've always been interested in like, having a question that I ask every performer, ask every performer to sort of pool all of their answers. You're actually the first person I'm going to ask this to. Wow. So if you could take one aspect from one WWE wrestler, could be male, could be female, you get to acquire that aspect. Who would you take it from? This could be in-ring ability this could be promos this could be look this could be anything like swagger like there you

can acquire one thing from one particular wrestler male or female what are you taking and who is it from oh man i need it i need a little bit of everything but i man that's hard that's a good question I could lose so many things but I'll right off the top of my head because I always get anger with myself I wish I was a little more athletic and I really just want to show a really nice I just want to do a nice drop kick like I wish I can jump higher and I wish I could move faster and I just got to kind of have like weird hips and knees. So I don't really move a lot. So I would say, you know,

one of the cruiserweights, I guess, let's go with like Kalisto or something like that. I wish I could do the things that he can do, but I just can't. It'd be wild to see you doing like one of those Salida Del Sol's off the ladder, through the ladder, the whole, the whole works.

I was sitting in the front row. That was what? Extreme Rules 2015? Something like that, yeah. I was front row sitting in John Cena's dad's seats that night. And that happened literally in front of my face. And I was like, oh, my God. That was one of the scariest things I've ever seen in a race. That was the perfect example of anyone who says like, oh, wrestling's fake. It's like, why don't you go out there and try one of those? Yeah I've ever seen in a race. That was the perfect example of anyone who says, like, oh, wrestling's fake.

It's like, why don't you go out there and try one of those? Yeah. Okay? No, thank you. Yes. I'll tell you what the one aspect I don't want from somebody is. It's that from Kalisto. Yes.

Yes. Imagine how his butt feels after that. I think about that all the time, even with leg drops. I'm like, how do you do a leg drop? My butt would just be killing me. Right. Yeah, I'm not doing that. Right.

No. All right. So Bailey, to close off this interview, thank you so much for the time. But we have to ask you because we ask everybody, if you could recommend our listeners an obscure match, something that – maybe a match that you were in, maybe a match that you weren't in, but something that you feel didn't get the do it deserved for them to go back and watch? Oh, wow. We just had Kofi Kingston on. He gave us Eddie Guerrero versus Rey Mysterio, Halloween Havoc, of course, and then he gave us Mark Henry versus Chavo Guerrero from a random 2006 SmackDown.

Oh, my gosh. He got real obscure with it. Well, this is going to be a terrible answer because I don't even remember the other guy's name. And this is just because it's so fresh in my head and probably hasn't gotten the notice that it should. Last week it was Jack Gallagher versus, oh, this is so bad. Oh, no. I don't want to say his name. He's one of the newer cruiserweights.

He's a super young one. Dang it. Okay, just go watch Jack Gallagher's match from last week on 205 Live. They went about like over 30 minutes maybe or 30 minutes or so, and it was just amazing. These guys, these 205 Live guys put their heart and soul in every single match that they do because they're trying to, like I'm trying to do to SmackDown, they're trying to build that brand and that division.

And they do just such an amazing job. It looks like it was Humberto Carrillo? Yes. Okay, yes. Humberto. There you go. Yes, Jack Gallagher versus Humberto from 205 Live. Go check it out.

It's stuff you've never been seen before, like seen done before, and just you could feel their heart and soul in that match. Yeah, you know what? I think that's a very good recommendation because I've been tooting 205 Live's horn on this show for a long time. I think that's a very, very good professional wrestling show where, like you said, you could very much feel that they're going out there every night and they're going out there every night

and they're trying to steal the show, which is what I love in my wrestling. Bailey, thank you so much for joining us. It was a pleasure talking with you. Best of luck to you in a historic title reign. Let's have our fingers crossed that this one is the historic one that you want it to be. Thank you, Bailey. Thank you, guys. Take care.

Thank you very much to Bailey for joining the show. It was a ton of fun getting to talk to her. It was cool getting to talk to her about pop punk too. It's a mutual interest we have outside of wrestling. Now let's throw it over to my chat with Kazim from UDA. Oh my God, I might've mispronounced that name again, but Hey, we're about to talk about how frigging hard his last name is to pronounce right now okay welcome back to the show i am joined by a very special guest now someone that i've wanted to create content with for a while we followed each other on twitter for years i feel like uh kazim famiude is that am i saying you got you got you were like 98 there it's like oh okay okay it must be so fucking annoying to

begin every interview with the interviewer being like, Hey, did I say that right? Nah, you get used to it. Yeah, my last name's Fox, so it's always been easy. When you're a kid and you've got to write your name over and over again, kids would be real annoyed. I'd be like, my nickname's Rob, so Rob Fox. And they'd be like, you motherfucker. My best friend was Chris Mashendaro.

He was like, are you kidding me? But Kaz was a writer at WWE for nine months, I believe. Yeah, yeah, about nine, ten months. You were released in February. Yes. But I wanted to talk to you on this show. We have a lot of wrestling fans that are listeners. Nice.

And kind of just talk about the whole process. Yeah. So how did you, first of all, you were a lifelong wrestling fan, correct? Lifelong wrestling fan ever since, literally my first memory was Survivor Series 1989. Wow. On my dad's lap when it was, I think it was the Mega Powers versus, I forgot who, but I got the fucking poster on my wall still framed. One of my ex-girlfriends found the poster and got it framed.

It was a really cool moment with me and my dad who passed away a few years ago. So I'm a lifelong wrestling nerd. That's awesome. My first memory was so i was born in 98 uh-huh so my mom i know my mom wouldn't let me watch wrestling at that time obviously because it's attitude era yeah pushing the boundaries so my brother raised me on golden era shit nice so my first memory of wrestling is the wwf's most unusualual Matches VHS. Oh, shit. So which matches were in that one? So it actually had the first WWF ladder match, which was not WrestleMania X. It was Bret versus, was it Bret versus Shawn?

Yeah. It was Bret versus Shawn, right? It was a house show. It wasn't taped. I remember that. And the finish of it was like a classic. Bret tips the ladder over. Shawn, you know, groins himself on the ropes.

Yeah. Classic Shawn spot with the bouncing yeah oh i'm losing it yeah but it was that it was um i think it was the one two three kid versus razor ramon was on that as well the the money bag match oh those are legendary matches i remember those coming up and much like your poster like that vhs is very special to me and i saved it was one of the few things i saved in hurricane sandy i was like i was like i gotta fucking get i got six feet of water in my basement. I was like, I got to fucking get down to that basement and get that VHS

tape. It's crazy how like those matches and those events are like so tied to like childhood shit. It's like, you don't remember, like I don't remember shit from my childhood, but I remember like, I remember watching like the Iron Man match like live at my boy's house in Staten Island. And like not sleeping afterwards because I'm like, oh my God, what's going to happen to Brett?

Is he going to leave? Are you a Brett guy over Sean? I was a Brett guy. I honestly didn't become a Sean guy until after his first retirement. When he came back and found himself and he put on these classic fucking matches, I was like, oh, yeah, nah, Sean's really the dude. I was kind of hating this whole time. Who is your number one all time? God, number one all time? It's like asking me for my favorite fucking child

uh i would i would have to go probably the rock like i'm not like here's the thing like people love to go like straight like you know technical wrestlers or like guys come on like it's great matches whatever but like people that have like the entire package, I got The Rock as my favorite, my personal favorite, somebody who's always been entertaining. But as far as entering, people that I love to just watch matches for days and days, I can go Shawn or Kurt Angle. Shawn and Kurt Angle matches. And also, you look at WrestleMania 21, Shawn versus Kurt Angle.

One of the greatest WrestleMania matches of all time. See, those matches were the ones that really started to make me believe. Okay, yeah, no, I understand. Like, you know, when you're younger, you're still thinking about wins and losses and, like, championships and all this other stuff matters. But once you start to get a little older, you start to think, oh, wow, like, this guy got me invested in this story. And then you see, like, the like the genius of like what makes a great

professional wrestler and like that whole story that sean and kurt angle told leading up to wrestlemania 21 at the match and that was like the beauty of the brand split back then was like this was a legitimate dream match because the brand split was it was an actual split like you didn't see kurt and sean like they were just talking shit to each other wild card rule nothing like that i don't even know what the fucking wild card rule is anymore. To be honest with you, I have no idea what it is. I'll tell you exactly what it is. It's just people back there probably freaking out over ratings.

It's like, okay, we need our biggest stars on all our shows all the time. Yes. And how can we make a rule to do that? So that's what it looks like to me. And it kind of sucks because when I was there, one of the things that kind of got to me as a guy who's's like a big fucking wrestling nerd it's like you know these are i'm writing for guys i'm fans of and i can't find five to ten minutes to get them on tv to wrestle to talk like 30 seconds in the backstage like nothing and now that's making like you know that's that's that's sending people even further down the depth chart where you got you got roman on both shows got kofi on both shows

and i saw a report came out uh just yesterday I believe that there's like 55 active members of the roster who haven't been on tv in like two weeks I can imagine which is crazy so let's get your time at WWE okay when do you get hired uh I got hired uh last it was well it was it was a weird story because like they I first went there For a digital Director's job Okay

So like the guy Who makes like the backstage Stuff or whatever And then I didn't get that But then like They kind of did like Research on me

And they're like Oh you've been at so many places And yada yada yada And like you love wrestling And the HR lady Was basically like If you could come to WWE What would you want to do

Like she just Flat out said I was like I would love to help with creative At to WWE, what would you want to do? Like, she just flat out said that. I was like, I would love to help with creative. At first I said I would either love to be, like, you know, one of those backstage interviewer guys or I'd love to do creative. And they're like, great, come. Doing, like, an actual, like, a Tom Phillips type thing? Yeah, like a Tom Phillips or, like, a Charlie Caruso or, like, one of those guys. Once I was way too big to be that guy.

So I was bigger than that. I would fuck up that moment when the HR lady says, if you could do anything here, what would you want to do i'd be like ww champion i would fuck up that moment we're not talking about that sir i'd be like nxt champion yeah right i'll start yeah but um yeah nah so uh they they brought me in and then i went and uh did interviews with uh you know uh dave kapoor who was Rajan Singh on WWE TV. But he's one of the heads of creative. And Road Dogg, Jesse James, who both of those guys are amazing people. And Ed Kosky, who's the head writer of Raw and one of the most long-tenured guys.

And we shot the shit. We agreed on a lot of things. What's that like? Are they talking wrestling or are they talking just creative? eyes and um you know we we shot the shit we and we agreed on a lot of things they agreed what's that like are they talking are they talking wrestling or are they talking just creative like creative ideas so first so first off they give you um they they they give you like an assignment so uh once you're in for the interview they kind of like say okay give us a a six-week build to a pay-per-view or whatever right so i think my build was from like elimination chamber to no it was royal rumble to elimination chamber and uh you know i was kind of giving them ideas and they

bring you in and they kind of ask you to kind of you know like talk about why you go here here here and explain it and then um on top of that they kind of in addition to like they want to see if like you're a decent guy like they want to see like okay well you know why do you tell the story what's this what's that and you know the creative guys obviously you know they they they know their shit so um you know once you you're you're bouncing back and forth on ideas or whatever you get a good vibe with them and then uh yeah a few days later they called me and you know told me i got the job but at the time i was doing a show for uninterrupted with with uh you know LeBron James company and Spotify and I had maybe like four episodes left so I had the job and meanwhile I went to Wrestlemania in

New Orleans and hung out whatever but like I didn't sign the on the dotted line yet but I had the offer on the table so once I figured out the when the season finale date for that show was signed the contract and then I didn't start until i think april maybe like two weeks before money in the bank last year okay so post-wrestlemania yeah it was post-wrestlemania but like honestly as like a big wrestling fan that's followed forever that's a tricky time to start it's a very tricky time it was a very tricky time no up to me like i would love to start like the road to wrestlemania but now knowing like how a lot of these things are like year-long builds and like stuff is kind of not set in stone but pretty much

like hey this is the direction we're probably going to try and go to if all goes according to plan um i was i i enjoyed the time that i started because it kind of was a little bit of a fresh start it was you know maybe a month after mania there was uh and it felt like that mania's fallout was different than others in that we've discussed this on the podcast. Like, looking back, that was a fun show. I was there. It was a great show. I enjoyed it.

It was a fantastic show, man. It just didn't really have much effect on, like, the universe of wrestling. There wasn't a whole lot of long-term things there. I mean, like, I think Brock won again. And, you know, Undertaker was in the scene. The things were fun. Like, it was a fun show it was like some some cool things that happened and it was enjoying it was enjoyable but um yeah

I started like shortly before Money in the Bank last year and uh you know once you get there you kind of like shadow people for a while and you're on the road with them yeah I started off on the road which they usually don't do a lot of um because you know once we got to know each other you know I knew a lot of the wrestlers before I even got there so I was cool with a lot of um because you know once we got to know each other you know i knew a lot of the wrestlers before i even got there so i was cool with a lot of the nxt guys i was cool with the new day just through twitter and shit yeah through twitter through um not even through twitter like we've we've hung out yeah we were i'd be calling wally mania you know i mean like so a lot of those guys that we we all were pretty cool so they trusted me with talent so they were like at first

they said you know we're gonna start you on the home team, yada, yada, yada. But, like, three days before I'm about to start, they're like, actually, we're going to send you to Chicago for Money in the Bank. And, you know, we're going to start you on the road right away. So I was like, all right, cool. So you kind of get thrown into the fire. And, like, you're in a fucking smorgasbord of, you know, if you're a big wrestling fan, you're just like, holy shit, there's Dean Malenko, there's Art Anderson, there's Triple H, there's Vince, there's Shay, all the producers. Finley.

Finley, Jamie Noble, like Kidman. And these people I grew up on, I'm like, holy shit. It's like open an action figure draw. Exactly. Those are all your guys. Yeah. And the cool thing about it is when I was there, and they

don't usually do this for a lot of people i think but they kind of went out of their way to like be cool to me because you know i i knew a lot of the guys before i got there so they were like excited i was coming so you know it wasn't just like who's the new guy i was like oh shit kaz is here yeah you know so um all the a lot of the ogs you know out of the way to be like really cool with me vince was super cool to me, Hunter, everybody, you know. And, yeah, man, it just started rolling from there. It was like a blur for like 10 months. So is there separate teams for Raw and SmackDown?

There was. There was. So when you're doing home and road assignments, home assignments are much more like long-term shit where you kind of get to sit and plan out storylines. And that's in Stanford or is that like literally wherever you are? That's in Stanford or where there's some, there's maybe like a handful of freelancers, but it's basically you report to Stanford and you do like long-term storylines.

But for the road, it's basically like whatever's on TV, that's your, you know, your responsibility. Week to week. Week to week, right. So if I was, I was, I started onDown, and I was home and road for SmackDown. But once you get a script, it says home, whoever, and that's basically whoever wrote the thing. And road is your name and the producer's name. So it's basically like if there's any type of physicality, you get the producer, you go through the shit, and then you get to it. And are you working hand-in-hand with producers on everything where there is something like that?

Yeah. If there's no physicality, you don't have to. But if there's anybody putting hands on anyone, you need your producer to kind of walk through the thing. It's almost like a director type of thing where they kind of call in the action. But words, the way they say things, how things are explained, all that type of shit, that's all you. Down to camera angles when people come in when we break out like every single thing that's on that screen is up to you um does that include like uh someone interrupting a promo like you're saying like when they're coming out when they're hitting music yes yes did you get to give the call all those all those so like when you're

in the ring dream is like that was that was the glass stone cold's coming out that was the fun part right rope him into every promo so like the backstage stuff was fun like if you get to if you get to work with some people like those could be fun but like the real adrenaline rush like the real fucking like strap it to my veins type of shit was calling in ring promos and i got to do a ton of that with like new day i got to do a ton of that with uh leo rush and bobby lashley and i saw an interview with you where i have to bring a ton of that with uh leo rush and bobby lashley and i saw an interview with you where i have to bring this up yeah because this is like the coolest shit in the world to me saw an interview with you where you revealed that you were behind the steiner math joke yes that was that was the one of the more funniest uh things it was nears eve and uh they

were talking about entering the royal rumble and you know the fun thing about working with the New Day is you know a lot of times they'll have some cool stuff and you know before I got there they were like you know you're like the first guy that's kind of come in that kind of like speaks our language so even if like nobody else gets it you were at the time the first black writer they

had or the only black writer they had not the first yeah I mean it was me and Ryan Ward who's like half black. But, you know, it was different. Like we kind of, me, E, Woods, and Kofi. It's nice to have that in a writer's room where there's, what, 30 people? Exactly. Yeah. Exactly.

And we kind of spoke the same language. So with the Steiner Math stuff, that was the first time I got triplaced to pop in Gorilla. That's amazing. Were you in Gorilla when they was in the promo? Yeah, yeah. So I guess every time you do an in-ring, then you have to be in Gor in gorilla so you're calling out the you know the music you got kevin dunn in your ear you got um you know kidman and you know whoever the producer is in front of you and then you got vince and triple h to your left uh pretty much like quarterbacking everything else but like

anything that's happening on screen at that time that's all your responsibility so uh i think that they were announcing that, which is crazy to look back at now because it wasn't, we had like a joke about Kofi never getting a WWE title shot. Yes. And like, we were just kind of like,

let's just slide that in. And we're like, you know, we need to get this in here. And it wasn't the plan for Kofi to be, Of course not, yeah. you know, fighting for the WWE title. There was a specific plan that was going into there

and Kofi was not part of that at that time. But we slid in the thing about like Kofi, like, oh, you know, it's not WWE title, there was a specific plan that was going into there, and Kofi was not part of that at that time. But we slid in the thing about, like, Kofi, like, you know, it's not like I'm not here every year and every week, and I never get hurt, and then they're like, well, Kofi, don't worry. So we got that in there, and then it was all three of them entering the Royal Rumbles, so we were like, all right, so we got a 33% chance,

you know, and then Woods goes, Woods goes, hey, why are you doing Steiner math? And Hunter goes, oh, Ste are you doing Steiner math? And Hunter goes, Steiner math. And fucking falls out. So I was like, yes, I got a good one. That's fucking amazing. Yeah. Like, if you haven't seen that, by the way, the Scott Steiner promo.

The greatest. Possibly the greatest promo ever cut in the history of professional wrestling. People always talk about the Ultimate Warrior and his, like, nonsensical promos. That was the closest thing we got to the return of the like the funniest shit in the world the full commitment to the very under underrated part of that the full commitment from uh from p williams and then the mini scott stein and shit still posing and as he's saying numbers he's like all right i'm still gonna pose but yeah but fucking amazing so when you get to w to WWE and they put you on the road right away, what was your first, like, okay, you're in charge of this? Okay, so I want to say, so, like, first off, they kind of let you shadow somebody for a while.

So, like, after a while, they give you, like, little bit parts, like, little, like, backstage things. But, like, my first actual take off the cuffs, take off everything you're doing us from from the root of to the tuta was the um five-time celebration for a taxi yeah with booker t with booker t the new day it was their fifth time winning the taxi titles and we always have like a list of like legends that we could call up like just in case something works storyline wise it works for the schedule oh really so it was like boom let's get booker t well uh steve guerrero is like yo let's get booker t for this five-time uh celebration steve guerrero is was is the uh head writer of smackdown and um he's like let's get booker t and new day and you just kind of he's like just just whatever you think is cool just go with it so um wrote it all down that's

pretty intimidating like your first gig is you're writing for the New Day, one of the most popular acts, and then a fucking legend. Two-time Hall of Famer in Booker T. But they were all super cool because it's like, you know, New Day, we're writing my guys. And when, you know, I meet Booker, like, hey, you know, I'll be there. He's like, you know, he's almost like, oh, shit, Black Rider. All right, this is going to be good. And I remember us kind of like going through it and Booker comes out in the King Booker outfit and, you know, us kind of rehearsing it. And everybody's just like popping in the back and just like, oh, man, it's going to be so funny.

And, you know, it's hard. You know, if you watch it, like Booker's lip keeps quivering. We didn't get through an entire we didn't get through any rehearsal without him like cracking the entire time. So it was so much fun man that's gotta be a nice feeling though because especially someone that like sure it was your first wwe thing but you've been around the block as far as creative yes entities go yeah like when you know that you're all laughing and you're popping yourselves in rehearsal yeah you gotta know it's gonna play well to the crowd later exactly Exactly. Okay, so there's the thing, right? So, like, I kind of wrote for, you know, TV and online.

Because I know sometimes we'll be in, like, Des Moines, Iowa, or, like, Tulsa. And it's like it's a family event. And it's not necessarily, like, the most diehard wrestling fan. So you don't want to do something that's too over their heads, that they won't really catch. Like the Steiner Math. Yeah, the Steiner Math. But, you know, like that pop people.

We're in Vegas. It's a pretty decent, good wrestling crowd. And, like, once you see the Steiner Math, they got a good laugh in the crowd. I was like, all right, great. They remember Steiner Math. It's a WWE universe. So it's like, all right, that was cool. But, yeah, man, like, you know, I've been, you know, I've worked for a number of creative

agencies and did a ton of things. And, you know, being a lifelong wrestling fan, like that was it right there. I was like, fuck anything else I've done. Like I could be able to say like, here, look at this. I did this. I created it. I worked with these guys. And now, you know, even like not being there, I have like lifelong friends with, you know, guys that I watch on TV still.

And even to this day, like certain people will like hit me up like, yo, check this out. Do you think it's funny? Can you add something to this? Like whatever. Which is awesome. And I'm like, those are my friends. I'm like, yeah, of course. And especially knowing that they trust your, you know, ideas.

Yeah. They trust you as someone to bounce the ideas off of. Yeah. Yeah. Which is very cool. And as you get going in the WWE as a writer, where were you finding your lanes as far as like, oh, I know. These are people I like working with. These are promos I like doing.

This is the backstage thing I like doing. What was that for you? I really liked working with talent, man. It was almost like you hear your horror stories about the WWE, and it's not like they don't exist, obviously. There's definitely difficulties. It's a's a very very very demanding gig but you know once you get there and once you're with the talent and you're working together and you don't know what's going to work or whatever like you know i really enjoyed like sitting with you know wrestlers and producers and like finding something that works and then getting there and being happy it worked out and hugging it

out but oh man that's great can't wait for it and um that's where i found my lane like a lot of the talent really trusted me so like when i when i wasn't there anymore they were pretty bummed about it and a lot of them reached out to me um the people you know elias reached out kevin owens reached out of the bar you know people that i wrote with like sparingly but they were like oh man you know they're really gonna miss you man They're really going to miss you here We're really going to miss you here as well We don't talk all the time But we'll catch up here and there

I really loved working with the talent It was fun I'm a fan of those guys I came from a different world What's this wrestling shit I watched Kevin Owens At Hammerstein Ballroom, like,

come through the crowd and fucking powerbomb Steve Carino. Were you there? Yeah, I was there. I was there. Holy shit, that's a legendary event,

One of my first, that, and one of my first ever indie wrestling experiences where I really, like, fell in love with, like,

this shit was, I'm really cool with Cassius Ohno, or Chris Hero, and, you know, he's a huge hip hop nerd, so like, when he found out I was a wrestling nerd,

he was like, yo, you wrote for the Source? He's like, oh, my God. So it was one of those, like, it was like the Spider-Man memes. Yeah, yeah. They pointed at each other. And we both became really cool. So, you know, he was in Kings of Wrestling, and one of my good friends, Cody Beware,

did their entrance music. So it was like, yo, come to the Best in the World show. And that card was just, like, if you look back at that card now, it's like Cesaro, Cassius Ohno, World's Greatest Tag Team, Rollins. No, Rollins was gone, but it was El Generico, Sami Zayn, Kevin Owens. The main event was Eddie Edwards versus Davey Richards in richards in the fucking oh shit yeah that's the yeah that's the suplex over the yes yeah yep yep right in the fucking concrete um and uh god like that's when i was like oh i get it now yeah i fucking get it now you know what i mean

like a lot of my wrestling experience was like either tapes or you know wwe and wcw ecw shit but like that was the closest i felt like oh this is like some ecw like energy shit and that's when you know and it's crazy to look back like oh man like i've worked with damn near all these guys now you know and it's great man it was really great so what was the uh what was the ratio as far as like working with talent which you liked and then working with producers or working with vince like what else were you doing aside like working with talent, which you liked, and then working with producers or working with Vince. Like what else were you doing aside from working with talent? Do you write the whole show with the writing team? Yeah.

And then you go, okay, this is my segment here, so I'm going to go pitch this to so-and-so and whatever? So when you're writing Raw, you're kind of breaking it down into 16 segments, right? And essentially it's three one-hour shows that you're writing so um because of you know commercials and you know times that you have to meet for usa network there's always something big at the top of the hour like wrestling fans know that exactly so we got to do we broke it down into 16 segments and uh you know and the crossovers were very important

so it's like whatever happens at the end of the first at the end of one hour going into another hour because some shows end and they're flipping through channels oh raw's on so we had to make sure that something was on in between those eight nines nine tens and ten elevens and paul hayman was one of the guys who like god bless that dude man that's another guy who i knew before here who when he found out i was here he kind of you know brought me into like yo this is this is my guy and like kind of fucking great guy to have you know like and i'm talking about like your wing a little before i even got there like i like watched his fucking wwe network specials his dvds like all this type of shit like i'm like from the fucking paul heyman tree and like him and you know he's still you know we still keep up here and there and like he's an amazing dude

and uh he was the first guy to really pull me to the side and really show me the importance of, like, crafting that show. So when we're making a show for, like, either Raw or SmackDown, we would break down to 16 segments for Raw, 12 segments for SmackDown because four segments for each hour. We'd usually get the matches first. Say, okay, we want to go here, here, here, here, here. And then usually, you know, the first segment is one segment. and that either leads to a match or that leads into something else. You got two matches, two segments right there. So it's like, boom, opening segment, boom, two, three. We're going to go fucking Rollins versus whatever for two segments.

And then boom, fourth, for fourth segment. Then we'll get like a promo, whatever. So we break it down. Who are you doing this with? Is there like a head writer that's like, hey, is what vince is looking for out of this show is it like and then you with the rest of the writers you gotta get so it's not so much ideas off each other and do stuff like that yeah it wasn't so much like this is what vince was looking for a lot of times you know a lot of times shows would completely change like the day of you hear that

all the time like yeah sheets and shit like that like the show of. You hear that all the time, like on spreadsheets and shit like that. Like the show is completely not what it was two hours ago. 20 minutes ago. So there were times where – so yes, there would be, you know, from Monday to – if you're on the home team, like once people go out after the production meeting to, you know, get their shit to the producers and the writers, like the home team would go back shit to the producers and the writers. The home team would go back into the dugout back in Stanford, and we would work towards next week or work towards later today or be on call just in case, hey, we need some changes here and there.

So that would be the home team lead writer that would lead that and the home team that would kind of facilitate that as well. And that would be happening from Monday to Tuesday and Wednesday. Thursdays, though, is when everybody's in Stanford, and that's when we go through the entire, you know, new show. We would kind of break down the segments. We would see what works, what doesn't work. They would have a meeting with Vince that Friday, kind of spitball the show to him. Then the lead writer would, you know, write the show, and then the lead writer would write the show

and then we would get our assignments that Friday that Friday we send it in we get feedback from the lead writer what's good, what's not good and then after that they go and sit with Vince some shit works, some shit stays, some doesn't stay

you get the script back that Sunday Saturday's usually for yourself travel day would be Sunday we'd get the script back and then you know Monday morning we'd hit the production meeting and we'd go through the show and then you know then it's the Greek chorus then you got the producers giving their feedback

you get the commentators getting the feedback you're getting you know the head writers anybody who has anybody who's sitting in the room is free to you know chime in and be like hey i think this is cool i think this is not cool whatever and at the head of the table is dunn hunter and vince or dunn vince and um whoever's there a lot of times shane wouldn't sit in the front of the table he would you know he's he's kind of like one of the guys so like he was kind of like chill or whatever but yeah usually at the head of the table would be you know he's he's kind of like one of the guys so like he was kind of like chill or whatever but yeah usually at the head of the table would be vince hunter and and and done

and uh we would just kind of and whoever uh was the head writer of that show so it'd be either you know road dog or kosky and um yeah that's that's how it would go we would go through the show and then they would have another meeting after that meeting to see what stays what doesn't stay and then that would happen a myriad of times before rehearsal which is about two hours before doors open which we go through you know everything that happens there with producers and matches and you know tvs and camera angles and all that shit and then um doors open and then it's showtime crazy how much goes into a production like Monday Night Raw where it's like they're doing it week after week after week after week no off season

for 20 years now. It's the most demanding job I've ever had in my life and I've done a lot of shit in my life. And that's why being a lifelong fan getting back online and being back into that fucking

being just a guy who just watches as a fan again, it's so much harder to be so critical because people – Yeah, you appreciate it a little more. You appreciate it so much more. And it's like I love – I'm just a fan of pro wrestling. I'm not just a fan of WWE. So I want AEW to succeed. I want New Japan to succeed. I want Ring of Honor to succeed because I feel like good wrestling anywhere is good for wrestling everywhere.

That's why I'm still kind of apprehensive. I'm hopeful that AEW is successful but I'm still apprehensive because it's like y'all don't know how hard it is to put on a weekly show, a good weekly show every

single week. It's not just you can have all the great talent in the world as we've seen. But like WWE, their crop of talent right now might be better than it ever has been. Absolutely. Without a doubt. It's definitely just as far as entering combination of being able to talk, entering fucking being able to be good at literally everything. There's never been a better time than right now as far as talent is concerned. And, you know, there's just so many things that go into the creation of a good weekly wrestling show that, you know, I still –

it still remains to be seen if somebody is going to really come and knock on that, you know, the WWE's door as far as being a real competitor. And, you know, then I started to realize why a show like NXT is so successful because, you know, it's a controlled environment. You're performing in front of the same diehard fans every single week. These people know Velveteen's Dream. They know Gargano and Ciampa's story. They know Undisputed Era.

They know their fucking theme songs. But why do you think that can't translate to the main roster? Because I feel like, as a wrestling fan, that the emotion we get in NXT, the storylines we get in NXT, the long-term storytelling more than anything. What is preventing that from hitting WWE television? To me? Is there discussions in the writers' room about long-term storytelling as far as like, okay, it's January and we know the WrestleMania main event. Let's map out every step of the way to get there absolutely but things change things always change and you know

um a lot of times you're writing for an audience of one so if we're going somewhere and the one is like i don't like this anymore yeah we're going that's what it seems like is that super frustrating as a writer to be like oh if you map out a ton of shit and he's just like Vince throws some something into it where you're like, OK, well, now everything's changed. So personally, I've I thought I had a really good relationship with Vince and Hunter and those guys like they treated me extremely well. I never had like a blow up with any of those guys. Like, but I've seen them have blow ups i've seen them like say hey we're going this way and like no this shit fucking sucks or like a a live promo goes off the rails and somebody gets rung out and gorilla like i and that's that never really happened to me it only happened to me one time and that was like something you know super minuscule

it wasn't even a ring out it was just like oh just don't do that again you know but um after that it's i've seen i've i i got frustrated for people because I've seen how hard they would work on something. And, you know, especially certain talents that I'm a fan of who, you know, a lot of the guys that, you know – the one thing I've seen is that, like, talents that work as closely as possible with us that were mid to top two talent usually got the better shit so like a lot of times that that that the great ms and daniel bryan stories that were being told like they would be in creative with us like during the show just like sitting there mapping shit out with us like yeah anything like kevin owens and elias would sit there with with colin who's a guy who wrote a lot of the great Elias shit, who helps write his songs to them. They sit there all

day long and create great shit together. And obviously, yes, a lot of people want to sit in creative and they sit and spend a lot of time with the writers, but they're only one guy sometimes.

So a lot of times I can see how it gets frustrating. And a lot of times you the writers but you know they're only one guy sometimes so a lot of times i can see how it gets frustrating and you know a lot of times you know you have to do with your email or just you know if they're not on the show this week you gotta they'll hit you and you know we have called lists so like a friday or saturday you're like yo am i on the show tomorrow is there anything going on and sometimes you got nothing for them and that sucks because it's like you know like you you want to have something for them especially in your shoes like if you're a friend friends with the guy yeah dude what can you do for me it's like it's like i'm trying bro this is a job as much as it is yeah me as it is for you so it's like yeah now talking talent working with writers and and the creative process of you guys you know putting your brains together and getting whatever the talent wants, whatever you guys think is best.

I saw you do an interview where you discussed the levels of how people take promos. And some people will do them word for word, make it their own. Some people will do whatever. And you mentioned that Dean Ambrose was a guy that would pretty much take whatever you gave him and make it his own. You said he was great at that. And I'm not trying to start a beef between you and Dean Ambrose, but he went on Jericho's podcast and talked a bunch of shit about the writers

where I felt like some of it was unwarranted. And I even spoke to some people in the WWE, like some wrestlers, that said some of it was unwarranted. They were like, I don't think you should have gone as in on the writers as he did. It was more a Vince thing. That was his issue. But as far as Ambrose guys, a guy like him, were you

working with him and getting a sense that he was frustrated? I never worked with Ambrose one-on-one. But I do... I listen to the Talk is Jericho podcast and a lot of the stuff he said about getting changes with Vince, that's very warranted.

That's definitely a thing that happens. But i didn't take it personally uh i didn't think you know a lot of the stuff he said was was mean-spirited or or just kind of like salty or anything like that i'm i'm a dean i'm a john moxley fan like i think he's a great talent and i remember when he came back how excited we all were to have him back. Did you, by any chance, catch his match last night? I saw a little bit this morning. I saw a couple of the gifts. Fucking Cheeseburger hit me, and he's like, yo, give me the fucking, you know, come check it out today. And I've been out all day, but as soon as I get home, I'm going to go check out NG.

It's very good. Highly recommended for me. I heard it was fantastic. Because Juice is another guy that's tremendous. I love Juice. Love Juice, man. And, you know, and John is, he's, I've seen him take a lot of shit and turn it into sugar. That was basically what I was saying with him. You know what I mean?

I got that sense as a wrestling fan even that he's doing that, especially with a lot of his comedy stuff. I've been saying for years that Ambrose showed too much of his comedy chops and now he's the comedy guy. And they're like, oh, that's who you are now. Yeah, and he's wearing foam, like, 10-gallon hats on SmackDown because Vince thinks that's funny one week and the next. And granted, I wasn't, you know, I didn't get to work with Dean or John. I didn't get to work with John a lot. You know, I don't think I wrote anything for him specifically.

But, you know, I was definitely in the room, like, you know, giving ideas for stuff. And, you know, I think one of the really good things that they did was that heel turn when uh you know after roman you gave a real very real moment for everybody and people were very invested in that and then uh the turn that happened right there i was i you know sometimes when something big's about to happen i go out into the arena and i sit because I want to absorb it and be like, okay, is this working? Is this going to – or I just want to like just feel the moment like as a fan. Yeah, as a wrestling fan, I was going to say that's exactly what I would be doing.

That was the biggest perk of the job. Getting to go to a bunch of wrestling shows. Sitting ringside and just be like, oh, man, they don't know. Oh, watch when this happens, motherfucker. And that was one of those moments where I was like, oh, there it going to be. And it was it was perfect. It was fucking perfect. We had kids crying.

We had grown adults crying. People were just fucking like, why? Like, why today? Why now? It was already a super emotional up and down episode of Raw. And to end it like that, I was like, we got our brand new mega fucking heel in Dean Ambrose. And as an Ambrose fan, I always wanted to see him be that i was like we got our brand new mega fucking heel and dean amber and as as an ambrose fan i always wanted to see him be that mega fucking heel and um you know and then the next couple of days they go into the whole uh you know i don't want to be in the crowd type of thing because you know whatever they make me sick and they stink whatever that and they just kept taking

that to new levels i wasn't i wasn't i mean know, and that's the thing. Like, after a while, like I said, like, we sometimes were writing for an audience of one. So a lot of times, if this is where we're going, this is where we're going. Yeah. And we got to try our best to make it good, you know. And, you know, and that's kind of what it was with that. I didn't think, you know, I don was he he really meant to shit on writers like that but um i mean i could see why he would i mean he's a guy who's been there for almost what 10 years eight years whatever long time long fucking time so i don't think it was just like

the people that were there i think that was just something that was just built up for a long time and you know just he was just kind of just being himself and i wouldn't i didn't take no no i didn't take take it personally i'm sure i'm sure you know i'm cool with a lot of the guys who wrote a lot of that stuff. And I'm sure they didn't take it personally either because a lot of times they feel the same way. And they know how it's like. And he did sort of mention that as well where he would be like, is this really what we're working with? And the writer would shoot back like, yeah, I'm sorry. Yeah, yeah.

That is a very real thing. That's a very real thing. Were you ever – did you ever write something for a writer that was maybe hey or wrote something for a wrestler that was they didn't like and you had to go to vince like with them to be like hey can we change this did you ever have one of those or no yeah several times several times uh and that's like that's the only times i got like one on ones with vince was when i'm in there with talent and be like yo we want to you know work on something and and is that a difficult position for you to be the middleman there? No, not because you're not necessarily the middleman.

A lot of times it's like, you know, it depends who you go in there with. That's a big thing. And there's certain people that Vince trusts and there's some people that Vince is like, yo, I'm going to make this work with you. And this is where we're going. Yeah. If I'm going in there with the new day vince trust the new day with anything so if he says if he if they feel this is something that they're not comfortable with or they think they could make it better they'll be like okay i'll listen to you

like all right great yeah that sounds good you guys come for the all right cool let's do it you know what i mean yeah uh but if you're somebody else who doesn't really have that cachet like those guys um it could be a little bit more difficult and it could be just like oh no this is what we're doing and this is how it's gonna go and you know it'll work and and you know we're gonna tell a long story and you're gonna get heat or whatever like you know and he's the boss bro like it's not just like he's the guy in charge like he's the guy who cuts the checks he's the guy on the marquee a lot of the times like you know and he's that's that's just who he is and granted there are certain days where he's not there and hunters running the show or road dogs running the

show and it's a lot more like uh it's almost like when the substitute teacher's in yeah like the cool substitute teacher because like yeah you could feel the energy in rehearsals and like backstage when like because people will be asking like did Vince get in yet because a lot of things a lot of things can't move. It's so funny you're saying this because that's how everyone out

there feels about our boss. Like there are certain days where he's not here and we're like oh is Dave coming in today and he'll be like Frankie his guy will be

like no. We'll be like oh okay and we all kind of kick back. I did kick back a little bit. And nothing else really changes.

Nothing changes. We all do our work. We all do the same thing we would do if he were here. It's just a different vibe. Yeah, it's just a different vibe. That's all it is. It's not like, oh, you know, shit's going to be lax because the boss wasn't here. It's like, no, it's just a different vibe there.

And a lot of things can't move without Vince checking the boxes on a lot of things. But when he wasn't there, it's just basically like, okay, like we, we talked to Hunter, we talked to dog, we talked to, you know, the producers and then they take it to Vince. And a lot of times he's not there. He's like, all right, well, we'll see. Yeah. You know? Yeah.

And you know, it's just, it was just, it was just a lot more, it's just different. Yeah. It was just different when he was, when he was the guy. Cause he's, he's one of the, he's one of the boys too. So like, not only is he like, you know, doing that shit, like he's in the ring, like, you know, showing people like, yo, this is that. Showing people how to lay something in? Yeah, like, you know, like he's still gets in there.

Going back to that Kevin Owens promo where he had Kevin headbutt him in the face and he's like, cut me hard way. No, not Vince. Let's talk about Hunter. Oh, Hunter. I thought Vince was in the ring. Oh, no, dude. I was like, Vince is showing people how to lay shit in the ring?

What's going on? No. I mean, Vince will definitely. All right. So Vince will definitely not. If there's like a stunt that we need to do, Vince will always be the first one to do it. Just to make sure. Still to this day?

To this day. He will be the first one. He will do it before anybody else does. Just to be like, hey, if I could do this, you could do this. That blows my mind. You know what I mean? He's a fucking lunatic. Have you seen Vince do stunts?

Golly. The one thing I can remember. My mind's super foggy on it. I almost feel like I remember him walking us through the Braun Strowman porta-a-potty shit with Kevin Owens. Yeah. Where, like, he wasn't in the port-a-potty, but he's basically, like, directing traffic, like, how he wanted to look, how he wanted to go, whatever.

He didn't, like, take the exact fall, but, like, he's, like, showing, you know, how he wanted it to look. But, like, it wasn't, you know. Yeah, he's an absolute lunatic. He is an absolute lunatic, but he's a fucking billionaire, so what the fuck could I tell him? Yeah, so to close this off, I feel like. So what the fuck can I tell him? Yeah. So to close this off, I feel like I could talk to you for hours about wrestling.

And you've got to come back on the show at some point so we can do that. But to close this off, ratings are obviously horrible right now. They're on a downward spiral. They keep going down and down and down. Basically, my question for you is, and I'm not asking you to have the answer to this, but why? Like what do you think, as someone that was there, as someone that saw how the sausage was made, why do you feel that ratings just keep going down? Because I don't think interest in wrestling is going down.

I don't think interest in wrestling is going down. If I had to venture a guess into why things are the way they are as far as ratings is a concern. I would just say it sounds kind of fucked up, but I don't think us as fans are doing a good job when it comes to WWE. What do you mean by that?

I feel like social media has played a big part into how even I could enjoy wrestling. You know what I'm saying? Like there's certain shows that I can't watch. I can't get into certain

I can't get into certain episodes of Raw and be on Twitter at the same time because like you know it's just so overwhelmingly negative on Twitter. And I'm not saying that's the ratings fault whatever. But a lot of that stuff permeates.

You know what I mean? And on top of that you know it, it's different crowds, man. Like, you got to remember, like, back in the day, there was, like, it was, like, a very high, like, teenage to young adult audience in these shows. And now it's a family show. It's a family show. There's kids in the audience. There's, you know, so they cheer when it's time to cheer. They boo when it's time to boo. And you go to nxt you go to nxt takeover and it's mostly those

young those teenage young adult audiences that are very boisterous that are very engaged and a lot of the times like the audience makes like 60 of the show like do you think the divide there is because of the product that is on the main roster versus the product that's in NXT that's drawing those different fans? No, because if you watch a pay-per-view, they're into the show. You know what I mean? If you watch Money in the Bank,

they're into every match. Look at Bayley's win. Exactly. It was raucous. Bayley will be on this episode with you, actually. Oh, really? Yeah, we talked about that with her, and she said it was one of the best crowd reactions she ever got in her career. Yeah, Bayley was awesome, too. I didn't get to work with her too much, but she took a picture of my mom when she came backstage, which was really cool.

Yeah, that's awesome. But she was awesome, and she's somebody who was made in NXT. You know what I'm saying? She's somebody who was made in NXT. So she knows what it's like to get those genuine reactions. And a lot of times, man, these people are out there busting their ass. I look at it like the Cruiserweights, too. Bust their ass week in, week out. And they just don't get a reaction from anybody. Which frustrates me.

I love 205 that was one of the first shows I got to work on I got to really like Leo Rush's character out of that I got to really do a lot of stuff and I saw you said you took some inspiration from Mayweather which I love he was totally Floyd Mayweather

just like the way he talked shit and like the rhymes he was doing but you know it's a lot of the times, man, like we really underestimate how much fans drive how good the product is, man. And like I can't really say that, oh, it's the fans fault because that's not true. It's just that it's absorbed differently when the crowd is reacting to every single thing in the ring. And I don't know if that's a town thing. I don't know if that's the way it's produced.

I don't know if that's the crowd. I really don't know. If I knew, I'd be a billionaire. Of course. I'd still be over there. But I just know as a fan, I can watch the wackest match. I can watch an Orange Cassidy match where he's literally doing nothing. But they are so invested in everything he does.

It looks amazing. One of my favorite matches to recommend to people and it's an obscure one is Cesaro versus Daniel Bryan from 2006. Go way back to PWG. They did a match called referred to as the headlock match. Have you heard of it? Yes, I have heard about this.

Cesaro throws a headlock on Daniel Bryan and for the next 25 minutes he's in that headlock. Yes. And it's one of the most entertaining matches you'll find. And the finish is just like he gets out of the headlock. They go do, like, leapfrog rollover, and I think they do, like, the Davey Boy 92 finish. Yeah, just put the trunk pull.

Yes. And it's something like that. And it is so entertaining. And I met Daniel Bryan at WrestleMania 31 Access going back years. I bought the VIP meet and he's my favorite all time. He's one of the guys when I was over there that I was like, you know when you're a fan of somebody and you're like, man, I really hope you're cool. Surpasses everybody. Thank God.

He was one of the first guys that when I first got there, he literally just sat and just talked to me about books and podcasts. That's awesome. It's the shit that he's into. So I brought that match up to him as a fan at AXS. And I was like, hey, I want to let you know I've been following your career forever. You're my favorite wrestler of all time. I go from last year's WrestleMania main event to the headlock match with Cesaro on PWG. And his eyes lit up.

And he pulled me in close. He's like, most people here have not seen that match. So I really appreciate you bringing that up. The great thing about Daniel is that like he's, like he's so fucking smart, bro.

Like he's so smart and he knows, like I've never seen a guy who can manipulate an audience so fucking, like Kevin Owens is one of those guys. Dude, look at his feud

with Kofi Kingston. He was the most beloved baby face that the WWE had since Stone Cold Steve Austin. And he flipped the script on him. And he became the most hated motherfucker. And he became the most hated. That whole feud, I thought, was perfect. And I know that it wasn't originally the plan, but it worked so perfectly. And I talked to Kofi a few weeks ago about that feud and about how Daniel Bryan was the perfect heel.

Even in the match itself at WrestleMania, Daniel Bryan was the perfect heel. Even leading into it, I wasn't there anymore, but I was still talking to the guys. And I didn't want to know anything because I'm still a fan. I'm like, don't tell me anything. But I'm sitting there, it's like, God, I hope it's Daniel. I hope it's Daniel. I hope they're going. Because being there so many times, it could be so

obvious to go this way and they'll still go another way. So I'm so glad. For as much shit as people are giving the current product, the way they've handled Kofi right now, he's probably one of the best book champions of the modern era as far as a guy who deserves it, a guy

who still gets genuine crowd reactions, still gets chance when he comes out, outside of the ring, the way he carries himself. And he's a babyface getting cheered. A pure babyface. Yes, as white meat a babyface as possible. And he's still getting cheered. I love the way the New Day works with him

too now in his singles role. Me and Jared Karabas, who does wrestling content with me here, we've talked about all the time, like DX back in the Attitude Era when they were a faction, but they were also all separate. We had the tag team over here. We had Hunter was the champ over here. Like the New Day kind of having a miniature version of that with Kofi as the champion and Big E and Xavier cheering him on but not interfering in his matches. Kind of like what the Young Bucks did for Kenny Omega for a long time.

Yeah, that's what it kind of feels like right now. Yeah, and I love that. So thank you for joining me. Tell people where they could find you. You can follow me on at RealLifeCaz on Twitter, Snapchat, Instagram, Facebook, whatever. You can check out the Flickering 2 podcast every Tuesday and Friday. You can check out the Kaz and Vic show on

Slam Online and Slam Media, wherever you get your podcasts. You can download my app, Stationhead, on App Store. You can check me out, Stationhead, on App Store. You can check me out. Do Stay Palooza, June 14th in Atlanta at Masquerade and June 22nd in Los Angeles at the Belasco. And I think that's all the plugs I got. That's a man that has his fucking plugs down.

I was on a podcast the other day. I was on a podcast the other day and they were like, all right, tell the people where they can find you. And I was like, I got a Twitter. I got one of those for sure. You can follow me there. That's about it. I go to work every day. If you catch me walking into the office on 7th Ave, that's about it.

Thank you so much, dude. We'll have to have you back on. Yeah, man. I like the new office. I'll come through whenever. Awesome. All right. Thanks again to Kaz for joining the show.

It was a ton of fun sitting down with him and talking about the process of what a WWE writer goes through in this day and age. You know, day to day, week to week, month to month. I'm definitely going to have to get Kaz back on the show to sit down with myself and Karabas together and just talk wrestling endlessly. I put out the call for some questions this week and received a couple. So I'll go through a few of them. Someone earlier in the week wrote in and said, can you please touch on the WWE Super Showdown on the podcast? I forget who wrote in. My apologies if it was you, but I will touch on it briefly.

No, I did not watch it. I saw clips of Undertaker versus Goldberg, and that went just about as well as everyone thought it would. They friggin' both spiked each other on their heads. It was shameful. It's shameful that they go to Saudi Arabia. It's a disgusting deal they have with that company, and I thought putting on that match especially, Goldberg versus The Undertaker, they knew both of those people couldn't perform. I think The Undertaker and Goldberg both knew they couldn't perform. But hey, they want that Saudi Arabia blood money. So there you go. On the bright side, a good story to come out of the WWE Super Showdown show in Saudi Arabia was Finn Balor afterwards.

Probably right as he got on the plane to get out of that crazy fucking country, posted this image of him standing on the stage of Super Showdown wearing a Pride Month shirt. And he said, happy Pride Month from Saudi Arabia. You know, Balor Club is for everyone. Love is love. And that definitely is getting him banned from all future Saudi Arabian trips. Definitely a good deal on his part. Now, moving on to some other questions. Muhammad Brown wrote in, said, rank the Rocky movies, all of them.

All right, I haven't even thought about this. I'm going to do it off the top of my head. Rocky 1, obviously number 1. Rocky 3, number 2. I'm a huge Clubber Lang guy. I'm going to put Creed 2 after that. I know putting Creed 2 over Creed 1 is controversial. They're neck and neck for me, but hey, I'm a sucker for Dragos. Creed after that, Rocky IV after that one, Rocky II then, which I don't really enjoy, Rocky Balboa, actually Rocky Balboa before II, and then II, and then Rocky V, which, God, we don't even fucking speak of. So yeah, Rocky, Rocky III, Creed II, Creed, Rocky IV, Rocky Balboa, Rocky II, Rocky V. And I'm a huge fan of the Rocky series. I love Rocky, so that's a good question. Next, Cameron Ramos writes in, I love this question, Qui-Gon versus Obi-Wan, but in Episode III, who wins? So I guess if Qui-Gon versus Obi-Wan but in episode 3 who wins? So I guess if

Qui-Gon wasn't killed by Darth Maul in episode 1 and he grows as a Jedi and Obi-Wan continues growing as a Jedi they both make it to episode 3

so about like 19 BBY who wins? I'm gonna say this I think it's an easy answer I love my guy Qui-Gon Jinn he was one of my

favorite Jedi ever when I was a kid especially but Obi-Wan wre him. Obi-Wan just has the better fight IQ. When you look at both of their one-on-ones with Darth Maul, Qui-Gon didn't know how to deal with the double-bladed lightsaber whatsoever, and Obi-Wan just flat out did. He cut it in half right away, disable half of it. It's a pretty obvious choice. How Qui-Gon couldn't see that, I don't know. I don't know. I don't mean to be speaking badly of the dead here, but you just have to know that as a Master Jedi.

If someone whips out a double-bladed lightsaber, the best course of action would be to make it a one-sided lightsaber. That's just flat out what you gotta do. Obi-Wan thought of it right away. Obi-Wan was even smart enough to hold on to that little fucking nipple that was sticking out of the thing, and then flip up, do a whole front flip over Darth Maul. He got the lightsaber, cuts him in half, and then years later on Star Wars Rebels, kills him again for good. So I think Obi-Wan takes him, especially, even look at Obi-Wan versus Anakin. Anakin's growing so strong, he's even tapping into the dark side to

gain extra power. Obi-Wan just fucking stands on a mountain. He stands on a little hill and he says, don't, you know, don't try me. I got the higher ground. Anakin does all flip, cuts him in half, leaves him to bake. So Obi-Wan, one of the goats for sure, I think, would destroy Qui-Gon. There are very few Jedi I would actually favor against Obi-Wan. Even when you look at the fight that Obi-Wan lost in Episode 4 against Darth Vader, he very much makes a conscious decision to lose that fight. Strike me down and I will become more powerful than you could ever imagine, you know? So sticking with my guy, Ben Kenobi, shout out Ben. You have to touch on the Tom Cruise,

Justin Bieber situation, says birdies and bogeys, Mo Wilson 14. So yeah, this was a crazy thing that happened on Sunday night. Bieber just put out the call to fight Tom Cruise. He was just like, Tom Cruise, I'm formally challenging you to a fight in the octagon. I would love to find someone to put this on if you were brave enough to accept. And he tagged Dana White. He wants this to happen. Why?

Nobody has any idea. Nobody has any fucking clue. Now here's what I said in the blog, and here's what I'll say on the podcast. Bieber don't want none of that smoke. I don't know why he thinks he does. I've seen videos, pictures of Bieber recently. He looks all weird. He looks all hipstery. He looks all strung out. Tom Cruise may be 56 years old. He may be famously short, but he's still Tom fucking Cruise. He's Ethan Hunt. He's been training with Navy SEALs for years for those Mission Impossible movies.

He is in probably the best shape of his life. And every time he films one of those Mission Impossible movies, he like snaps his leg in a half and then finishes the take. He just walks away from the shot like nothing ever happened. And he's such a good actor that you can't even tell that he got hurt. So, yeah, Tom Cruise. I said, you know how Ben Askren, he has those watermelons. Ben Askren, if you don't know, is an MMA fighter. He does this

thing. He'll put a watermelon in like a headlock and he just squeezes until the thing explodes. I think Tom Cruise would do that with Justin Bieber's head. He would just squeeze it until it explodes. And not even like the Oberyn thing, where Oberyn gets his head squeezed by the mountain in Game of Thrones. I'm talking headlock. He just squeezes it. Justin Bieber's head explodes. It's a whole thing. So yeah. And then somebody else wrote in and said, this is Darbs31 wrote in and said, if you could choose any two celebrities to fight, who would you pick? I should have thought of this before.

You know, I knew the question, but I didn't even put any thought into it. All right. We'll do one for the ladies. I'd like to see the mega powers of Oprah and Gale collide. I think that would be a hell of a fight. And I'm taking Oprah in that fight, even though Gale probably has her on speed. I think Oprah wrecks Gale. All right, It's a Cold World wrote in and said, if you were a wrestler, what would your character be like? And what would your finisher be?

Hashtag from the top rope. Shout out from the top rope. I hope you enjoyed this episode of my mom's basement because it was very from the top rope centered. So I put a ton of thought into this, obviously, because if you were unaware, I trained to be a wrestler the summer between my junior and senior year of high school. And while I was training, I was putting a ton of thought into this. I think I've talked about it before on From the Top Rope, maybe on radio. I don't know.

I've talked about it somewhere, but I didn't have a name picked out. I knew I was going to keep Fox somehow. I had entrance music picked out, which is kind of ridiculous in hindsight. Like, how about you learn how to wrestle before you pick your theme music? But I guess everyone dreams of stepping through that curtain at WrestleMania if you're a wrestling fan, and what would your music be? It was Gasoline by Audiosleeve. If you haven't heard that track, it's a banger, so go check it out. Shout out Chris Cornell. Rest in peace. He's one of the all-time greats. And as far as gimmick went, I always wanted to be a tag team wrestler. My idea was basically I always loved tag team wrestling. I still love tag team wrestling. I wish tag team

wrestling was better prominently around the world. It actually is good around the world. I shouldn't say that. Mainly in WWE, I wish tag team wrestling was better because they have some of the greatest tag teams in the world and just don't utilize them well. But my idea would be that I would be in a tag team with somebody and we would be a submission knockout specialist tag team. So like, I think I was going to be the submission guy and someone else, probably someone much bigger than me, you know, to give us the Kane, Rob Van Dam dynamic before that, the Kane Xbox dynamic. But I would put people in submissions and my tag team partner would knock them out while they were in said submission. So I was thinking like a sleeper hold into like a rolling elbow or the main one I was

always thinking was I would put the person in a sharpshooter and as the person was trying to power out of the sharpshooter, think Stone Cold Steve Austin, WrestleMania 13, my tag team partner would hit them with a curb stomp, knocking them out. And then like, it's like they passed out in the submission, but you knocked him out in the submission. I don't know. I had a bunch of ideas on how we could make that work and cross faces into like, like leg snap moves. I don't know. I was thinking of a bunch of stuff like that. But basically the idea behind that was also also I've always loved submission wrestlers like Bret Hart and obviously Daniel Bryan, my favorite of all time, Dean Malenko, Chris Jericho, always loved that. And the issue with wrestlers like that is sometimes people wouldn't agree to lose to them

because they don't want to tap out. They don't want to pass out. It makes them look weak or whatever. But I thought knocking them out and said submission wouldn't make them look weak like it's a cool way to win by submission so if you're a wrestler out there steal that fucking idea because it's a great idea um that was my idea there let's see do we have another question yes david k ruiz who i think has written in in the past thanks for listening david said who would you make the next main villain of the mcu or what would you do next in general obviously with the multiverse you bring in the Fantastic Four and the X-Men even if you don't want to bring them in via the multiverse that's what you do next you bring in those two families

I was going to say teams because the X-Men isn't necessarily a family but fuck it they are a family a dysfunctional family at times but they are a family. I would make Doctor Doom the next big villain of the MCU. I think it would be cool to see a villain recur multiple times in the MCU like we saw with Loki, like we saw with Thanos, and Doctor Doom is the perfect villain to do that because he's so

unlike Loki and Thanos where we could start him at a very human level and bring him all the way to cosmic doom, where he's, you know, let's say as powerful as Thanos. And you'll see the evolution of the villain like that. I think it would be super unique for the entire MCU. So yes, that's what I would like to see next.

And that wraps up the questions, and that wraps up this week's podcast. I hope you enjoyed it. As I said before, make sure you come back on Friday for a very special bonus Friday edition of My Mom's Basement, especially, especially, especially if you're an MMA fan. I will be talking with some legit legends.