The Ariel Helwani Show - Mario Lopez

Episode Date: January 27, 2022

One of the most celebrated names in Hollywood joins Ariel for a conversation about his busy career before the guys talk about Lopez' high school wrestling days, the recently revamped Saved by the Bell on Peacock, things he hasn't accomplished yet, how he tries to stay neutral in political debates, how he's navigated his career during the pandemic, and much more.Mario Lopez is an American actor, producer, talk show host, and entertainer. Known most for his role as A.C. Slater on the '80s hit sitcom Saved by the Bell, Lopez has also appeared on hit TV shows like Dancing with the Stars and Pacific Blue, as well as movies like Colors and Eastside. Lopez currently hosts Access Hollywood and Access Daily, and co-hosts the 3 Knockdown Rule podcast, as well as the nationally-syndicated radio show On with Mario Lopez.You can follow Lopez on Twitter @mariolopezviva and Instagram @mariolopez.We're brought to you by BetterHelp. Join over 1 million people who have taken charge of their mental health and get 10% off your first month by visiting our link at BetterHelp.com/AHS.Today's episode is also brought to you by ExpressVPN. Visit EXPRESSVPN.COM/HELWANI right now to arm yourself with an extra 3 months of ExpressVPN for free.For more episodes of The Ariel Helwani Show, please follow the show on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or your favorite podcast app.Theme music: "Frantic" by The Lovely Feathers

Hey everyone, I hope you're doing well. Welcome back to a brand new edition of the Ariel Helwani show. It is Thursday, January 27, 2022. Thank you very much to my good friends, the lovely Feathers, for this great intro. And thank you very much to all of you for coming back and checking us out. And thank you very much to today's guest, the one and only, the omnipresent Mario Lopez. Mario Lopez is everywhere these days. This man has more jobs than me. He's all over the place, whether it's reprising his role as A.C. Slater on the Saved by the Bell reboot, whether it's his work with Access Hollywood, Access Daily, whether it's his lifetime

holiday movies, all that and more. This guy's everywhere. And he's a huge fight fan. He's a massive boxing fan. He's a big time MMA fan. He was in attendance front row at USC 270. He has been training for a very long time. The guy loves his combat sports, and I respect that very much about him. So I was very excited to talk to Mario about his love of fighting and also his great career and the return of Saved by the Bell and A.C. Slater and being a child actor. All that and more coming up in a second on this here show. Before we get to my conversation with Mario Lopez, a quick word from a couple of our very, very good sponsors this week. Of course, you know about ExpressVPN.

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H-E-L-P.com slash AHS. All right. Thank you very much to both ExpressVPN and BetterHelp. Please support them because they support us. Now time for my conversation with the one and only Mario Lopez. Enjoy. Oh, man. I'm obviously a longtime fan, a longtime admirer. I'm an admirer of your work ethic, my friend. Holy smokes. And I want to get to what you did this past weekend. But could you tell me,

I usually like to say, he does this, he does that, she does this. How many jobs, because everyone says I have too many jobs. How many jobs do you actually have right now? Could you count them? So, okay. I do my nationally syndicated radio show for iHeart on with Mario in the morning. And then I go do my show access daily, which is like my daytime sort of version of like Ellen Regis and Kelly, what have you. Okay. That's number two. And then I do access Hollywood that could access daily things out during the day at noon on NBC, then access Hollywood comes out 7.00 PM on NBC and that's all entertainment news. So then I do that. Um, and then I just finished the last

season of saved by the bell for Peacock. Right. So that's four shows in one day. And then, um, I just finished two holiday movies. Yeah. All right. And then I'm producing a bunch of other stuff and not to mention coaching my kids wrestling team and doing all the other stuff on the side. So very blessed to be as busy as I am and a lot of other stuff that. Boxing podcast as well. You dabble in. I mean, you're the boxing podcast, too, right? Podcast. Yes.

Three knockdown rule, which is fun. Cause I'm, I'm, I'm passionate about combat sports and I do that with my buddy, Steve Kim. And we, uh, just sort of have fun and piggyback on one of the, um, uh, radio days. And, uh, it's a lot of fun just cause I'm already sort of immersed in that world. And, and, uh, to me, those are the most noble and greatest athletes. And I feel the purest form of sport going one-on-one. And I've always been, had a great deal of admiration and respect for anybody who steps in the ring or the octagon. And I, I don't feel anything else compares in the sports world. And, and, and I mean that both from an athlete's perspective and also from a spectator's perspective, because I've been to super bowls, world series and all this, and nothing is like the electricity and the tension

of that. That's like Caesar's palace back in the day. And as I, as I know, you know, um, so to me it's, it's as, uh, it's as good as it gets. You ever have moments ever have days where you're like, I don't want to put on makeup. I don't want to do my hair. I don't want to be on camera. I don't want to talk anymore. And yet you have to, how do you get over those days? Well, I mean, I, I do most of my stuff is a lot of hosting and I do act and, you know, and I'm singing and dancing, doing a bunch of all this stuff at the same time, but I love being a host because I think that's who you are naturally as a person, at least good hosts. I find are they're, they're naturally good listeners. They're, they're inquisitive.

They like people. Well, they like to entertain. I like hosting, whether it's a national TV show or having like a fight party at my house or game night. I like hosting, whether it's a national TV show or having like a fight party at my house or game night. I want to make sure everyone's having a good time. I want to entertain everyone. I want them to have a cocktail in their hand. And I like to just kind of, you know, work the room and have fun. So I have that same sort of approach and attitude on my radio show, my TV show. So I enjoy what I'm doing. Yeah, there's times that I'm tired and stuff, but I don't ever take it for granted especially being a former um child actor and knowing how tough it is to transition into an adult and being taken seriously so because i know and as i'm sure you know a lot

of uh horror stories out there where it didn't go so well uh speaking of uh working the room i saw you working the room at ufc 270 anaheim Honda Center this past weekend. You were there front and center, even in the back with Brandon Moreno, right? You went back to see him after the fight? Yeah, Brandon, I love that kid. He grew up, you know, I'm first generation Mexican. My parents are from Mexico too. And I grew up in Chula Vista, which is the border town to Tijuana, where he's from. So I literally could see Tijuana from my yard growing up. And I'm very proud of him being the first Mexican board world champion in the UFC. And he's such a humble, great guy.

And that was an incredible fight. And very, very close, obviously. And I know there's talks of it going round four. And I think he's just a class act, both in the octagon and outside of it. What about that pop, that reaction from the crowd? This is a flyweight flyweights. Haven't always been the most popular guys on the roster. I was blown away by how the crowd in Anaheim reacted to him. I wasn't in attendance on Saturday. You were how loud was it? It was loud and a lot of rasa there, meaning there was a lot of Latinos there, which I love.

So we come out strong and they it was nice to see that and to see the passion and them getting behind Moreno. And we've always been sort of loyal people. And we're big, big fight fans, I think, in general and very passionate and knowledgeable about it. And we he's our kind of champ because he works hard. He he's a humble guy. Um, we're, you know, most of the, the Mexican people really don't like loud, braggadocious kind of guys. They like their champs to, to be humble and modest and, um, and, uh, hard workers. And he represents all that. How old were you when you were first introduced to combat sports? Do you remember i was a kid because um my grandfather fought in mexico and um big boxing guy and and my dad like we didn't grow up really watching too many um baseball games or

football games too much we i grew memories of my dad and my grandfather were around the tv watching fights and so i was little five six yeah And did you train as, as the, I know you, you, you wrestled in, in, in school, but like, did they take you to the local gym to train in boxing and stuff like that? Or did you do that when you were older? I did. Well, like grew up, um, wrestling on my uncles, um, wrestled and, uh, I did start to train in boxing. But then once I started getting into, um, the entertainment industry at about nine, 10 years old, they're like, okay, maybe you shouldn't get punched in the face right here. So then I'd take a little break. And so I'd still kind of train a little

bit, but I wouldn't, I wouldn't spar as much. And then I just continued wrestling and not until I did a show called the other half or Dick Clark. And I was working in Hollywood. Um, and that was around nine, that was 1999, 2000. Did I start getting into boxing again more just because it happened to be, um, right next to a wildcard boxing club, which I haven't had a teacher on today. Just coincidentally for Freddie Rook. And so he's been a friend of mine for a long, long time, damn over 20 years now. And I started going there. Um, then I just kind of always needed that outlet. You know, it just I always say, like, I train more for sanity than vanity. And I've always been like, like I said, partial to combat sports and specifically individual sports, because growing up, I couldn't really do anything else.

I had to quit football. I had to quit baseball because because when you're acting and you're in the entertainment industry, you never know when an audition might call and you never know what might pop up because the schedule is so fluid and you're not in control of it. And that wasn't really fair to your other teammates. However, on the wrestling, all you had to do was beat out the guy in your weight class. And if you did make practice and you didn't, as long as you beat out the guy in your weight class, you can represent your team. So I was like that. Plus I always kind of liked the idea of not having the, the burden of having my success rely on someone else. Right. Right. I wanted it to be all me. If I lost, I wanted it because of me, but if I won, I wanted it because of me. So I like that.

And in life, there is no team sports. So that's why I'm again, a big fan of the sport all the way around. Did you ever feel like, you know, now it's become a little more of a thing, like the celebrity fights and all that. Did anyone ever approach you back in the day, the late great, uh, Dustin Diamond, uh, dabbled in that world as well. Your old friend screech, anyone ever come to you with a celebrity boxing, MMA, something wrestling match offer. You know, cause I had done, um, at Freddy's he has smokers where these three round fights, I'm sure you know what they are. And I fought in about 10 of them um with Freddy was fun the last thing they want to do is lose to some Hollywood kid right it's always got everybody's best but it was fun so I liked it

and so you know I was used to competing it was fun and and um yeah I'd always be uh open to it if there was some sort of I did actually a couple charity fights um it wasn't big it wasn't like a big to do and it wasn't like how they have a lot of the events now on Triller and before like Jake Paul started coming into it and sort of raising the profile for these other celebs to start fighting and stuff. So, you know, if it was for charity and like the right opponent, but with my contract with NBC, I know it'd be sort of frowned upon. So it'd have to be, it'd have to be like the right opponent and make a lot of sense for the right charity, but I'm always game. I love to, uh, I love to kind of push myself and compete. What do you like better right now?

MMA or boxing? What are you more into? I love them both. I love them both. I really do. You know, growing up as a former wrestler, I love that. Um, MMA has now given the opportunity for these guys to make a lot of money and to have some sort of career outside of college wrestling,

but because before there was no really lucrative path. And as you know, a lot of these fighters now have strong wrestling backgrounds and a lot of these champions have strong wrestling backgrounds. So I'm sort of proud to, to, to be able to see that. Um, but because I grew up with boxing and, and it's, um, uh, been such a big part of my life and know a lot of the players involved for years. I'll always love it, but I really do love them both. And if I can't attend the events on a particular Saturday, then my remote is working overtime, switching back and forth. I read recently, and I'd love if you can explain me what this sort of signifies and symbolizes to you, the National Wrestling Hall of Fame announced recently that you will be honored as the organization's Outstanding American in 2022. What does that mean?

That's a big honor. And I'm incredibly humbled and proud of that. And I'm looking forward to taking my voice to that. And we're in Stillwater, Oklahoma. And and like I said I grew up wrestling and and um it was a big part of my life and I always am proud to promote the sport and raise the awareness level because I think it's it's so important to mold these young men and not only teaches you of course physical toughness but a lot of mental toughness and fortitude and discipline and focus and um I feel uh a lot of traits that could apply in life and, um, confidence being the most, uh, probably most important. And, um, I love everything that, uh, that the sport offers. So if I can continue to, to, to spread the word and the gospel,

if you will, I, I, I will. So I grew up a big pro wrestling fan and I don't think, I don't think, Oh yeah. And, and you, wasn't there like a story at some point recently that WWE was interested in bringing you in for something, whatever happened with that. And they're doing stuff at Peacock right here. We're still trying to figure it out. It's funny. Cause I grew up like you big, big fan. And then, um, and then, you know, I got like a little older, got a little busy. I took about a 20 year, 25 year hiatus. Then I had kids and they got into it yeah and now i got back into it with them and so now i'm living vicariously through them and uh it's great and all

the people at wwe are are are fantastic and coincidentally uh old friend of mine nick khan who i met over a wild card and used to represent freddie is now um the man in charge over there aside from Vince and Stephanie McMahon. They're all great. They're a great organization. It's so much fun. They're so great to my family and I, and we have such a, a fun time. We've been to, I think the last five WrestleMania's and Summer Slams. So it's kind of neat to see my kids there, but I hope we figure it out quick because I'm no kid.

Do you ever want to be in an angle like to actually have a storyline leading up to a match? Yeah, that'd be awesome. Just for my kids, because my kids would die. They would die. But I'm like, yo, we got to figure that out. We better figure it out quick, because I don't know if my body will be able to take it

if we wait too much longer. So as you know, when you're a kid, you're watching wrestling, you're watching pro wrestling, you think that's wrestling. I don't think it's hyperbole to say that, for me at least, AC Slater as a character was the one that introduced me to high school wrestling. I don't think it's hyperbole to say that for me, at least, AC Slater as a character was the one that introduced me to high school wrestling. It wasn't a thing at my school. We didn't have a team. I went to a small school in Canada. And you kind of represented that, I think, for a lot of kids my age. I'm 39. So I grew up watching Saved by the Bell,

Saturday mornings, all that stuff. Do you get that from a lot of people? You wearing the singlet, this was all very foreign. I thought wrestling was Hulkulk hogan you made it real and kind of put a face to the sport do you do you agree with that statement and you hear that from other people well thanks uh ariel yeah i've heard that uh a few times here's the funny thing when that role was being cast it was just supposed to be like this sort of streetwise italian kid kind of like Vinnie Bobarino from Welcome Back, Cotter. But then, so I ended up booking it. And then when I got it, they said, okay, write down all the list of activities and hobbies that you like to do. And being this former inner city kid, my mom used to, my dad put me in a bunch of activities to keep me busy and out of trouble. So I was like the only wrestling, karate, wrestling karate theater dancing singing kid that

excuse me that i knew because every day i had a activity and and it worked because i was hyper and it didn't i didn't have time to get uh in trouble because i was too busy so i wrote all that down and they're like damn you do a lot of stuff and so they incorporated that into the character he wasn't supposed to be a wrestler they made him a wrestler because i was a wrestler wow play the drums he played the drums because I played the drums he wasn't supposed to like do all this stuff and it they incorporated that because that's they wanted it to be sort of similar to me so he wasn't supposed to be a wrestler I just because I happened to wrestle they made it they made it into the storyline so it wasn't like that was the character uh so because that character was so big and so synonymous, I mean, like people, you know,

for the longest time, I would imagine they would just call you AC Slater. Was there a point in your life where you hated that character where you were like, I want to, I don't want to be typecast. I don't want to be called this guy. I don't want to be associated with this guy. I want to be known as something else. The host, you know, the actor, things like that. Did you, did you have that period in your life ever? Never did I feel

embarrassed or ashamed of what I did or wanted to be necessarily known for something else outside of the profession. I guess within the industry, I wanted to be able to prove myself and do other things to be able to transition out of that role. But now, 35 years later, I'm flattered if people still call me that because that means I haven't aged too poorly and they still recognize me. And I'm producing the new version. So now I really want them to recognize me from that because so far so good. It's been received well with strong reviews and I'm happy about that. But, you know, again, the transitions have always been sort of hard. So that's why there is no real rules in the industry. So I've always sort of had a hustler mentality. Maybe it's being an immigrant's kid, but I've always still tried to,

if I'm not acting, then I'm hosting. If I'm not doing that, then I'm dancing or I'm doing a radio. So I've always tried to sort of have a lot of stokes or divin' irons in the fires to try to have different opportunities that could potentially present themselves. Or if not, I can create these opportunities. Why didn't you fall into the same traps as so many other childhood actors? Why didn't it affect you the same way? Well, I mean, I'd like to think that I've always had a strong work ethic and discipline, and I owe that all to my parents. They've been married now 50 years. And again, I think that's that immigrant mentality, strong work ethic they try to instill and there are no shortcuts. And they kind of kick my ass,

I think, if I kind of step that line. And I didn't want to let them down. And I didn't want to burden them with having to take care of them. I mean, I grew up with a real blue collar family. My dad came here and he worked for the city. My mom worked for the phone company. So, you know, very blue collar, regular folks. And I wanted to try to work. And when I got, I kind of, I wasn't one of those kids. I wanted to get into the entertainment industry.

I just sort of fell into it. Well, fell into it. I fell in love with it. And then once I fell in love with it, I realized, you know what? Maybe I can kind of help my parents out and they don't, I don't have to rely on them so much and ease their burden a little bit. Could you even possibly put into words, like what's like being a teenager on a show like that on NBC, looking the way you look with, you know, your abs and those dimples and all that stuff. What is that like? Like how many

girlfriends did you have in your teenage years? I can't even imagine what life was like for you as you were this massive star and this heartthrob for all these girls all over the world. What was it like? Could you even put it into words? Um, it was a lot of fun. Yeah, a lot of fun. I always tell my wife, I said, listen, honey, you, I'm, first of all, I'm glad I met you

when I did. And I'm glad, I mean glad I started really young, really young to, uh, and I had a nice run, a nice, healthy, uh, run. I'll just, I'll just leave it at that. And, you know, and I don't regret it because I think that helped me sort of, um, be a lot more settled and at peace of where I am now, because after a while, believe it or not, it does sort of become redundant and you do start longing for other things and you grow and you mature. And, and now there's nothing more

that I look forward to than coming home to my family and being there with my wife and kids and, and the three dogs and the whole deal, you know, and it's I'm domesticated and I wouldn't want it any other way, but from about 15 to 38 damn it was 30 yeah 37 maybe it was um it was a good time ariel i'll just leave it at that you say 15 true or false what's what's what happened on the 13th birthday is that true come on is that yeah i mean that was uh that's the stuff of legends right there yeah i i you know when you grow up

in certain neighborhoods you start um come on you start uh maturing and then i was wrestling right so i was like i had like little muscles at 13 so i was a little older and i had a lot of older cousins and then when you grow up in tijuana all the bars right next door are 18 you can drink 18 i'm sure in canada yeah yeah yep it was 18 and, all the bars right next door are 18. You can drink. I'm sure in Canada, you can drink a lot. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It was 18 and up, all the bars. And people started going down there like at 15, really, which is now crazy when I have a bad thinking because I have three kids and I can't take my daughter going down.

But that was a different time. And so you're going down. And I used to own a bar in Tijuana. So you can imagine, I was 19 years old, part owner in a bar in tijuana so you can imagine i was 19 years old part owner in a bar in tijuana um and it was basically all like a lot of american kids right there too and it was wild too we'll be there getting fights we did it was so worst investment i ever made we haven't made for some good stories later on now that i look back at it yeah i was playing with wrestling toys at 13. that was pretty much like the closest I was getting to anything.

And you're freaking. I used to have those too. Yeah. The rubber ones, the rubber ones. Yeah. They were tremendous. Honestly,

on the show, you, you and, and John Paul Gosselaar, Zach Morris, were you guys buds? I always felt like there was some tension there, but there was like a rivalry there.

Were you guys friends? Cool. You know, more Paul too, by the way. And Mark Paul, my bad. Yeah. Yeah. No, no it's all right um no we got along well he he was a much more reserved guy a little quiet and um i was a little uh a little more hyper a little more outgoing and like to have fun and uh maybe a little bit rowdier so uh but no we got along

really really well and even now he's still always and we'll do we'll do jiu-jitsu together he's really into jiu-jitsu too so playing with me always, and we'll do, we'll do jujitsu together. He's really into jujitsu too. So he'll come train with me and stuff and I posted some pics and stuff. So yeah, no, we got, we've always got along real well. I got along with everybody real well. And you and Kelly Kapowski, that was a real thing behind the scenes. Yeah. Tiffany. Yeah. Look at me marking out. I like to call them by their stage names.

That's all right. She was, and i'm not like telling tall tales because i've talked about oh no no this is great well i think i was like 18 19 but of course i messed that up because i was a young teenager and an idiot but uh but yeah she was my girlfriend for a while what is it like now like 30 you don't get to walk back into the same house 30 years after you moved out you don't get to you know There's not a lot of reunions and stuff like that. To relive all of this now as a dad, as a husband, accomplished, you're more mature, to go back into this Saved by the Bell role and world, is it initially like an out-of-body

experience? I would imagine it's somewhat surreal to go back to all of this. Well, obviously, I never thought I'd revisit this again. and i had been approached a few times and then when we did a reunion a couple years back on the tonight show with jimmy fallon and we all sort of kind of played our characters and it it uh the ratings were like through the roof and it got a really strong reaction i said you know because my deal over here at nbc i said maybe we can revisit it and reboot started becoming a thing yeah excuse me a thing again and i said but it's got to be done right i don't know i don't want to revisit it it's gonna if it's gonna be uh that's gonna be bad and then i saw cobra kai and then i said okay if we do it like that i said then it uh it could uh

it could work and if we can have someone who was maybe a fan of the show but obviously very knowledgeable um and can have a clever sort of twist to it, then let's explore that. And we were so lucky to find Tracy Whitfield, who was just that, a big fan of the show, young, super smart, real talented. And she had done 30 Rock and the McKayling Show and a bunch of stuff and multiple Emmy winner. So we were blessed to have her. And then we partnered up and yeah, the rest is history. As you know, the nineties different than now people are different, different interests. Like we're maybe more cynical. That show was perfect for Saturday

mornings for, you know, teens and all that stuff. Is there any part of you that's actually surprised at how well it has been received? Like, has this exceeded your expectations? Cause it really does get great reviews and people are into it. There's some nostalgia, but it like works for 2022. Has this, obviously you wanted it to do well. You thought it was going to do well. If not, you're not going to waste your time. But is it possible it's actually exceeded your expectations?

Absolutely exceeded my expectations. I had no idea because the audience is sickle. You never know on what you think might work or is kind of funny. Isn't necessarily the case with the way it's going to be received. And I was pleasantly surprised. And look, I'm not an idiot because I realized the first installment, we have to remember, was a Saturday morning show. So it was literally for little kids. And it wasn't even a teen show.

It was for little, little kids. So it was very juvenile and vanilla and soft. So we had to be very creative on how we were going to be able to give its modern take. And now for the reasons I mentioned before with Tracy Whitfield, I thought they did a good job, but I am shocked that it got received the way it has been so far. As we talked about before, you have so many jobs. I've heard you talk about Dick Clark being somewhat of a mentor to you and an inspiration, the guy who kind of gave you the confidence to go out and be this America's host that you have become. And you've done such a great job with

that. Is there anything left that you haven't done that you really want to do, man, that gig, that platform, that show was something that you have because you've done a lot and i think most people will be content but is there anything else one two things i mean i i am content i i do feel very uh grateful and blessed and and i want to keep doing what i'm doing but um i would love to continue to um do more um things in the producing space. I'll be at TVs and movies and I'm pretty got my hands full with hosts. I'm even guest hosting Ellen on Thursday. That's going to be my 42nd appearance.

I've been on that show more than anyone, believe it or not. So, and now she's I'm hosting like on a regular basis, which is a lot of fun. And I'd love to continue to do that and get more of my family in on the act as far as, cause my kids and I never wanted to push them or encourage them or discourage them one way or the other. But like my wife, I met on Broadway, she's wildly talented. So fortunately they got a lot of her traits and they're sort of kind of leaning towards that direction. And I want to sort of be supportive if that's what they want to do. I've seen your videos, your kids, especially the two older ones,

they seem wildly talented, great dancers and performers. And I mean, they obviously have the genes from their parents. Does it worry you at all? Like if it was up to you, would you rather them not go down this route or are you comfortable with them following in your footsteps, your wife's footsteps and going into entertainment? It's a good question because it's incredibly difficult and there's so many things that are out of your control, regardless of your talent and the work you put in. However, when you're a parent and you know, you can't really control what your kids' interests or passions are going to be. You just have to help guide them if that's what they want to do and support them. At least that's the way I feel.

Accept them for who they are, love them, and then you just sort of guide it and support. So I'll do that. And if lessons are going to be learned, then they're going to be learned. And some of them are going to be hard and that's going to be okay too. You're, I mean, I don't know how many hours you spend in front of a microphone a day, but often it's a live microphone. And you know, these are tough times. And there have been times where you have been scrutinized for things that you have said.

Do you feel that pressure in this day and age, the cancel culture and all that stuff that you got? You have to be really on your P's and Q's. You have to be almost too, and that could affect your performance as well when you're overthinking things and you don't want to offend. And most of this, I mean, 99.9% of the stuff that you are doing is down that fairway. But do you feel that pressure ever of being too PC because you don't want to ruffle any feathers? I don't necessarily feel pressure, but I am cognizant and aware. And it is unfortunate that

sometimes you can't have a particular opinion if it doesn't align with maybe a certain school of thought. Otherwise, you could be labeled this or that. But for the most part, I don't ever talk politics. I don't ever talk religion. I sort of have the attitude of, look, I'm in the people business. I don't want to alienate anyone, and I don't want anyone to have the opportunity to say, hey, I don't like that guy. Let me change the channel.

I want everybody to watch me. I don't want to give anyone an excuse to, to, to turn off the TV. So I'm going to stay in my lane. I'm going to talk about, uh, entertainment, you know, I don't think it's any secret that I am a man of faith and I am about my family, hard work. I try to work hard, stay focused and do the right thing. And I hope the right things happen for me and my family and my friends. Do you have any regrets from your career? I have a lot of regrets just in my life and certain choices that I've made. Sometimes, you know, you can grow up, you do your knucklehead and you do some silly things, but I think I've done a pretty good job of learning from those mistakes and trying to be better. Right. So yeah, there's a lot of things I wish I could do over, but I think at the same time, I've done a pretty good job of learning from him. That period a year ago or so when we're all having to stay at home, quarantine, you're a very active guy.

You're used to going to work. You're used to working out and all that. Mentally for you, I can imagine, maybe difficult at the beginning. How did you cope with it? One week. That's the only thing I had off. One week.

And everybody was like, I don't know what happened. Then I started shooting the show from my house. And then I never missed a day of work after that. As a matter of fact, I was busier these last two years of pandemics. I did two holiday movies on top of four shows on top of all the other stuff. And, um, I was going to fights in the bubble. I was doing, I was still training. I was still going out to wild card. I was still doing jujitsu. I was still doing, you know what I mean? I made sure my kid, my kid got really solid in wrestling. And so we, I was all, I didn't want, I chose not to, to, I was being careful,

but I didn't want to live in fear and panic. And I used that time to kind of just buckle down and focus on things that I wanted to focus on and get better at, had time to kind of straighten out the house and stuff. But work-wise, I ironically was busier than ever. Wow. Okay. And, and one of those things you did that you just alluded to were the Triller fights. You're the host of those events. Ryan Kavanaugh, their owner, he's an interesting cat

and he likes to ruffle some feathers. How do you feel about what Triller is doing right now? And do you continue, like, are you going to keep doing them? They've got another one coming up in February, the Triad Combat again. Are you going to keep doing those shows?

Yeah. You know, unfortunately, I haven't been able time-wise to to kind of do those and so my buddy nick cannon has been doing those the last one yeah yeah he is the last one but yeah i've known uh ryan for a while and he's uh he's an entertainment guy he came from the entertainment was a movie producer and he's segued into that um and so look i'm raising, again, the profile and the awareness level of just combat sports. And I get asked about what I think about Jake Paul and his sort of foray into this. I think it's great. I love circuses. I love events. I love that people are getting in there. People are talking about it. And it's on SportsCenter and it's on this. I think it's great. I am a purist at the same time, but I'm not one to sort of dismiss. I respect anyone that steps in there. And for example, that kid's put in a lot of hard work and he's been training really hard. And so anybody that steps in there, I have a great deal of respect for. And whether it's Triller, UFC, Bellator,

any of these companies that want to get out there and promote combat sports, I'm all for it. Favorite fighter of all time? Well, boxer. I mean, it's hard because there's so many, right? But obviously, I'm partial to like Julio Cesar Chavez because my family's from Culiacán, Sinaloa, the same place he's from. And I met him and know him.

And he's just an awesome guy and legendary. The poster in my office is a big one of him and Taylorlor when they fought in 1990 knock two seconds left um i mean there's so many tyson sugar ray leonard all guys that i'm now chumming with and that are friends it's sort of neat when you grow up having these sort of childhood heroes then you become friendly with them and they're just as nice it makes it even cool so you know guys like that, Leonard Tyson, him, Durant, love all those guys. MMA too, love me some. GSP and Khabib and all the grapplers, of course, a lot of them. You know, Cain Velasquez, obviously very proud of in this modern day. The fighters I've found as opposed to, because I do interview a lot of athletes when it does sort of intersect in the world of entertainment.

And I've always found the fighters are the most humble when they're not out there doing their shtick and stuff. They, cause they don't have anything to prove. And, and they there's the colorful characters, fascinating backgrounds. And that's why there's so many great movies about these fighters, right? Any of the sports, think about it from Rocky, Raging Bull, Cinderella Man, Hurricane, the fight, it goes on and on all the Academy awards are all about these boxers and these fighters as opposed to any other sport.

And that's because I think again, the individual aspect of it, but they come from such colorful backgrounds and such compelling stories. Uh, last thing I'll, I'll leave you with this. And I appreciate the time very much. I know you're incredibly busy. It's a conversation is fun. I wish we could keep going. No, it's all good. It's all good. I appreciate it. I wish we could keep going. No, it's all good. It's all good. I appreciate it. If that kid back in Chula Vista, way back in the day, who wasn't growing up with a lot

and could see Tijuana from the border, if someone would have told him that your life would have turned out this way, would he have believed that person? Or is this just beyond your wildest dreams? Could you not have even scripted this life that you have led you know, led for the last 30 something years? No, I didn't, to be honest, I don't, it's not like I thought this far ahead. My whole intent was to, again, was to kind of try to make enough money to maybe pay for college and not have to burden my parents. That was my goal. And then ironically, I never ended up going to college. So they didn't have to worry about that. But I ended up being busy enough to where now, thank God, things have been going pretty well. So no is the answer, but I remain

very grateful and I don't take it for granted at all. I appreciate that. I respect that very much. I respect your work ethic just incredibly. It's an amazing thing to see you doing all these things. I love the fact that you're a fight fan, that you go in there, that you train, that you support the MMA fighters as well, not just the boxers. So thank you so much. Continued success to you and your family, to your children, to your wife. It's great that you showcase your kids on your social media and you're so proud of them. That comes off as well.

I'm sorry about the Chargers. It was a tough end to the season. I was enjoying this time with you. I'm sorry. Listen, I'm a Bills fan and I'm still in mourning over this. I feel you on that one too. I feel you on that one. They should have had that squib kick.

I agree. 13 seconds, Mario. 13 seconds mario 13 seconds i'm never gonna forget that for the rest of my life you're the man all the best to you and thank you so much for the time you too thank you god bless all right so that was really fun this guy's got a hundred jobs he is super busy i mean i don't know how he fits it all in, but he gets it done and he does it with style. Much respect to him. I appreciate him very much. I appreciate him coming on the show.

I appreciate his time. And I wish him nothing but the best. So check out Mario on all his different platforms. Check out the Saved by the Bell reboot on Peacock. It's actually not bad. It really isn't. I enjoy it. And I loved the show growing up as well.

So it was fun to talk a little fighting with him and a little career as well. All the best to the one and only Mario Lopez, AKA AC Slater. Thank you very much to all of you for your continued support. Thanks for continuing to download, rate, review, subscribe, follow,

all those things and more. It means a lot more than you know, loving doing this show and talking to different people from different walks of life each and every week. And loving having people like ExpressVPN and BetterHelp on board. I appreciate them very much and I hope you support them because they support us. Check out all our interviews on our YouTube channel, youtube.com slash Ariel Hawani.

I appreciate you guys going there as well. And I'll be back next week with a brand new interview. Enjoy your weekend. Thank you for listening. I'll be back next week with a brand new interview. Enjoy your weekend. Thank you for listening. I'll talk to you then. Take care. Woo-hoo-hoo-hoo-hoo-hoo