The Blindboy Podcast - Sami Zayn

Episode Date: September 23, 2020

I chat with WWE Wrestler Sami Zayn about Kayfabe, Compassion, Islam and Politics Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Adorn the shorn coroner with a cardigan. Welcome to the Blind Boy Podcast. There's a good chance that you are a brand new listener because of my guest this week. If you are a brand new listener, go listen to some earlier episodes of this podcast. All right. Check out Qantas, Spotify, type in the best of the Blind Boy Podcast. And I've put all my favourite episodes there. Welcome to all the new listeners. You're very welcome. For regular listeners, you might be aware my voice sounds slightly different this week. This is because I have triggered a dust allergy in the most strange way. I have a two foot puppet of the actor Gabriel Byrne that I was using at the weekend

on a Twitch stream and I'd been storing this Gabriel Byrne puppet in my attic for like a month and basically he'd gotten dusty and his operating this Gabriel Byrne puppet on Twitch for an hour

triggered my dust allergy and now I have the sniffles and my voice is slightly sniffly Gabriel Byrne Puppet on Twitch for an hour triggered my dust allergy. And now I have the sniffles. My voice is slightly sniffly. Don't be worrying for my health. It's just a dust allergy. So a few weeks back, I did a podcast, the name of which was Clancy's Pancake. And this podcast was about professional wrestling. I looked specifically at the phenomenon of kayfabe within professional wrestling which is

a word that's used to describe the cognitive trade-off that an audience member must engage in in order to enjoy professional wrestling. With professional wrestling the audience knows that it's fake. They know that these characters aren't't real they know that sometimes the match is even predetermined who's going to win the audience knows this but they deny themselves this knowledge in order to engage in the entertaining spectacle of wrestling and this unique situation is known as kayfabe and it's unique to wrestling and the podcast clancy's Pancake I used professional wrestling kayfabe to analyse American politics and this podcast was quite popular

it went viral and it attracted the attention of a WWE professional wrestler by the name of Sammy Zane now I'd never heard of Sammy because I don't keep abreast of wrestling. I haven't watched professional wrestling since I was a kid. But Sammy shared it and when he did people on Twitter's heads exploded. What I found was that people who listen to my podcast who enjoy wrestling are huge fans of Sammy Zane because Sammy is a wrestler but he's also

very outspoken politically and is known as someone who has very articulate and wide-ranging opinions within wrestling and I found an intersection between people who listen to this podcast and people who like Sammy so loads of people were saying, Sammy and Blind Boy, you have to have a chat. You have to have a chat. So I got talking to Sammy on Twitter and we organized a chat over Zoom. And that's what this week's podcast is. It was quite, it was quite, it was before I got chatting to sammy it was very it was funny for me because when i announced that i was going to be interviewing sammy on this podcast there was there was a lot of

annoyed annoyed wrestling nerds there was a lot of annoyed people who are running wrestling blogs or people who'd been running wrestling podcasts who Who couldn't get an interview with Sammy. Apparently it's difficult to get this type of access. To someone like Sammy in the WWE. He's one of the biggest wrestlers in the world. He's one of the biggest wrestlers in the world. And we barely even spoke about wrestling. What we did do is we had.

An incredibly enjoyable. And engaging conversation about the kayfabe within wrestling, obviously. Kayfabe, but we spoke about politics, we spoke about compassion, we spoke about anger, we spoke about Islam. We had a fantastic, a fantastic conversation, and I'm really pleased to be sharing it with you this week. Before I continue with it, Sammy is, he's Canadian

Syrian and Sammy he's involved with a charity the Syrian American Medical Society SAMS and Sammy's involvement is called Sammy for Syria and basically what Sammy's doing is helping Sammy for Syria. And basically, what Sammy's doing is

helping the Syrian American Medical Society get mobile clinics and ambulances into areas of Syria that have been very, very badly affected by the Syrian civil war. Areas whereby they've been so desecrated by war that they don't have access to things like hospitals. So, Sammy for Syria helps to get ambulances and mobile clinics they've been so desecrated by war that they don't have access to things like hospitals so

sammy for syria helps to get ambulances and mobile clinics into reach some of the most uh disenfranchised and traumatized people in the world so i just want to give that little plug before i chat to sammy he's doing great work in that respect this is the first interview that I've conducted on this podcast in over six months because of coronavirus I haven't I haven't done any live podcasts and up until this point I haven't done any new interviews because I didn't know how I didn't know how to do it or how it'd be right. So with this interview, because I kind of got the opportunity to interview a person who is very difficult to interview, I was like, fuck it, I'm going to do it on Zoom. I'm going to record my side of the interview on this mic, on this good mic.

And I reckon I can get decent enough audio quality too. I'm really happy with the audio quality of this interview. So without further ado, here is my interview with Sami Zayn, the Canadian wrestler who is with WWE and is one of the biggest wrestlers in the world. He's one of the most famous wrestlers in the world. If you don't have to be into wrestling if you're thinking fuck it I don't give a shit about wrestling I don't want to listen to this

trust me you're going to enjoy it we speak about wrestling but everything we speak about is through the lens of humanity we speak about humanity that's what we speak about alright so Sammy you're a wrestler with the that's what we speak about alright the art so

Sammy em you're a wrestler with the WWE em I don't know anything like I used to watch wrestling

when I was a kid and I used to really really adore it and then I kinda grew out of it and when I announced on Twitter that I was speaking to you

I got all so many replies. And it took me back to realizing the soap opera element of wrestling. The drama, the entertainment part. And how many replies were people wanting to know about your personal life or your views and things like that. And one of the things that... The reason you're on this podcast is because you heard a podcast that I did

about kayfabe. And I was speaking about kayfabe and I was comparing Donald Trump and American politics to being a type of kayfabe. And what I want to, what I'd love to ask is, what is kayfabe? From someone whose job is kayfAB, what is KFAB?

Okay, well, so yeah, that podcast you did was really interesting. And it's definitely, and I'm glad because, you know, put us in contact and everything. And now here we are speaking today. So I think it was a great podcast. And I think you made some very astute observations in there. And I think you made some very astute observations in there. But so kayfabe, so kayfabe is part of what drives pro wrestling in my opinion, but it's not everything. And so, but it's a big, big part of it.

I think kayfabe really refers to the suspension of disbelief that makes, that makes wrestling work. And you touched not obviously in obviously, in your podcast, saying that, you know, we know it's not real, but that's not the point. We want to just enjoy it, you know, and don't ruin that for us. And then you talked about how that overlaps

into what's going on in American politics, which, to be fair, I think that element has always been involved in politics because politics has always been kind of spectacle and theater and we all know on some level that they're lying but we all just kind of go along with it you know um so i think i think kayfabe is about suspension of disbelief um but i don't think that's entirely what makes wrestling work. I mean, it's actually, it's crucial,

but we enter a very interesting time in the world now where kayfabe is, in a way, dead. And it's because of social media, Sammy. Well, it's actually, it's prior to social media. You know, the podcast you did,

and we could do a whole talk about the podcast you did, but one of the things that struck me is when you were talking about the podcast, about, you know, kayfabe and all this in your podcast, you were talking pretty specifically about wrestling in the 90s. Yes. And that's important, important actually because wrestling is

older than that but the 90s are where you see a radical shift uh in just in so many ways and one of the things one of the i guess the most remarkable things is i want to say maybe it was 1996 vince mcmahon himself comes out on television and says, look, we think you're tired of this good guy, bad guy kind of stuff. And, you know, the world isn't simple. It's a little more shades of gray. And we're not going to treat you like imbeciles. And we're going to give you a more complex kind of product.

So I'm not saying that was the death of kayfabe by any means. But there's a radical shift in there where we're telling you straight up, this isn't real. This is entertainment. I think as audiences, you are now more literate and we have to, we can no longer pretend that this is as fake as it is because it might, it might die. Like, are we living in kayfabe 2.0? Like what, when you heard me saying kayfabe, is it like, is an archaic, is an archaic term? No, no. And you're, you really hit the nail on the head there. Because wrestling, if you look at it historically, it's always been a reflective art form in that it reflects the times that it's that exists in. So if you go back to even the 40s and the 50s, you know, it's always, especially in the United States, it's always where, you know, where it's from. States, it's always where, you know, where it's from. It's been reflected of the sentiment at the time or the zeitgeist, as you discussed, the zeitgeist of the time. So, you know, the villains in the 40s and 50s are Germans and they're Japanese. And then, you know, in the 70s and 80s, it's Russians and Iraqis and Iranians and Arab bad guys and all this. So it reflects sort of

the sentiment in the country at the time. And I'd even argue, this is a whole, again, everything we're saying can easily be expanded upon and kind of become its own podcast. But I'll also say that now may be the time when, especially if you're just looking at WWE, WWE isn't all of pro wrestling, but it certainly is the biggest company. So we'll just talk about it within WWE now. WWE isn't all of pro wrestling, but it certainly is the biggest company. So we'll just talk about it within WWE now. WWE now, I'd say, is the least political it's ever been as far as the actual product. Very little of what you're seeing on television reflects the hysteria that I would say has engulfed American culture right now now you know through politics and wwe doesn't touch

that but i would argue that wwe not touching that is once again a reflection of the product of the times we live in oh because you know what i'm saying yeah yeah yeah. Because there's that sense. It's too hot now. Exactly, exactly. Which, again, is a reflection, but it's like this weird anti-reflection reflection where you can't even reflect it. But, like, do you think maybe it's because people now can't leave their kayfabe at the door? Like, if I think back to Hulk Hogan, Hulk Hogan for me, when I saw him as a kid, Hulk Hogan represented America and American imperialism.

Hulk Hogan was the American dream. And then you had someone like the Iron Sheik. Was the Iron Sheik supposed to be like an Arabic character or Iranian or Iraqi? Yeah. Iranian, yes. Yeah. So when you have Hulk Hogan and the Iron Sheik together in a ring, it's literally, it's reflecting through theatre war and it's reflecting through theatre American imperialism. And if today you had one character who is clearly a Trump supporter and then another

character who represents a liberal, maybe the audience wouldn't be able to leave their kayfabe at the door and you might actually end up with actual riots in the crowd. Yeah, so it's kind of too hot to touch, but part of it is also the polarization as well, you know, because let's just say on a live event, and again, we're talking in a COVID era world now, but let's rewind, let's rewind six, seven months to when, you know, live events are still going on in small towns and all across America. And I get on the microphone, even on an untelevised event. all across America. And I get on the microphone, even on an untelevised event. And I, I, and I say something like, Oh, we're in, uh, you know, Biloxi, Mississippi. And I bet there's a lot of you

dumb Donald Trump supporters out there. And if I say something like that, um, I might not be getting the reaction. You can't even control that reaction. Cause you don't know. Yeah. You don't know the audience. Okay. And you don't know how many of them actually do support Donald Trump and how many don't. And a big part of pro wrestling. So this is. But that to me suggests that kayfabe is broken down. Like it's the audience I would imagine are willing to throw something at you.

They'll get really angry. It's like. Yeah. So wrestling used to be like that. I mean, you did. You elicited because because it was under the. I mean, how much shit did I not see on TV? Like surely in the history of wrestling during the Reagan era, when things were divided, surely shit got out of hand.

Surely the crowd took things too seriously. And that's just the bit that I didn't get to see on TV. Of course, of course. And that's because, you know, it was a pre-social media world. And we can get into all that after. Oh, fuck, you couldn't. You can't hide that now. So if shit gets out of hand now, everyone's got, everyone has a phone.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean mean and a bad guy is a heel you're a heel yes i'm a heel i'm a heel have you always been a heel sammy no no actually i was a career good guy i was a career baby face for about 15 years i was like the quintessential good guy i'd never been a bad guy and then I turned heel in 2017 I believe and what is the nature of your badness what like when you go out there into the ring and you understand okay my character is to be a bad guy how what how does your badness take form in your performance what what do you want to do and who do you want to upset well so I think the character's point of view because i i was delicate about being doing too radical of a transformation because that's also something that you kind of can't buy right like so if this guy tells me for five years that he's about one thing but then one day he turns bad

but he's about not suddenly he's saying a complete one 80. To me, there's a bit of a disconnect there where it's like, Oh, this guy's now playing this completely different person, you know, because it's so far removed from the original identity that we've crafted for you. So in my case, I tried to kind of say, well, okay, the character still believes what he believes, which is he's always kind of been about doing the right thing and fighting for what's right and this and that.

But now he's taken this new outlook on the same viewpoint. And so now his methods are just different and he believes himself to be, you know, he still believes himself to be justified and, and, uh, almost like a martyr, you know, about for doing the right thing. And he just, but all these ego comes into play. You've become Barack Obama. You think you're doing the right thing, but you're still bombing weddings.

Yeah, yeah. Maybe that's one way of looking at it. I'm Barack Obama. Yeah. How easy and hard is it, Sammy, to, like, I can like, I remember I think, was Sid Justice always a dickhead? Or did Sid Justice start

off as a... No, he was a good guy. He was a good guy. He was a bad guy. He flipped. Yeah, he flipped. And I remember, Jesus, the sense of fucking betrayal. Like, I was seven. So the sense of betrayal that I felt, it put me off any man who has that haircut for the rest of my life. I believe

the haircut is called the Missouri mudslide. It's a particular style of mullet. But like actually yeah I'll tell you why. Because the first ever porn that I ever saw when I was about 11 it was a dude with a Missouri mudslide and I couldn't enjoy

my first porn because it reminded me of the treachery of Sid Justice. And it's like, you're not even supposed to be looking at the dude. That's amazing. But that's the impact that kayfabe, because I'm a kid and I'm learning very, very important moral lessons from wrestling.

A very binary good and bad good and bad and i wasn't questioning it but my dad was my dad was going this is harmful there's no in between this is not how things are and i'm going but it's so much fun and he he used to hate letting me watch it yeah you know and it's weird because here's this thing that I love. I really do love it. And I've loved it as long, as far back as I can remember. And it's, it's funny because now in your older age, you recognize these things that your, your dad, your dad recognized. And, and then I have to kind of reconcile that and I have to kind of make that fit and go, well, you know, on the one one hand it does kind of promote these promote not promote but again because it's a reflects um excuse me reflective

it's it's just a reflection it's not it's not uh it's not dictating anything it's not saying this is how it should be it's reflect it's reflecting and perpetuating what's already going on. You know, so I don't know. I feel like... How do you feel, Sami, as like, so you're Syrian-Canadian and you're a Muslim too, yeah? Yeah, I was raised Muslim, yes.

You were raised Muslim. Very Muslim, yeah. At any point in your career, have you felt that you were pushed into a direction to make? Like you were a wrestler at a point where the dominant narrative in America is that Muslims are bad, Muslims are evil, Muslims are terrorists. Did you ever feel pressured or pushed into trying to portray that negative image? No. In fact, I'd probably say the opposite. But so this is long before I ever signed with WWE.

God, I don't even know where to start here. We could either start when I'm a five-year-old kid, or we could start... Yeah, start from the start, man. I want to know how you found wrestling and how you got into it. Okay, so just to touch on the upbringing and how it relates to wrestling and all that.

Actually, how did your parents get from Syria to Canada? What was that about? Oh, it's a crazy story. My dad told it to me, and I'm actually a little sketchy on the details, but it was the 70s, and immigration was a lot different then. But he came to study and then just kind of stayed. And then they almost kicked him out, but then they let him in. It was just crazy, the story.

It's kind of long. And my dad's not a good storyteller. It's not linear. There's weird details that he omits. And so it's kind of a crazy story. But all that to say, my parents come here in the late 70s. And as a result, I'm born here. Which, again, whole other thing we can discuss there about how much, uh, you know, hard work goes into success and how much is just

complete luck that's out of your, out of your hands. Because if I was born in Syria, you know, would we be talking right now? Would I be a wrestler who knows so so i become this really interesting little person because on the one hand i'm my household is arab muslim and that's it it might as well have been in syria but then i go out into the world and i'm this really white looking kid with red hair yeah everyone thinks you're a fucking irishman everyone thinks yeah this is falling it's fallen me my whole life but i think irish people look at me and they go well you don't look irish yeah you know because they can tell but but you know most people they just see red hair and they go oh what are you irish and oh yeah the yanks yeah yes yeah and so but no i'm not i'm

not and so but but but that definitely i think colored my experience because i'm brought up as this i'm treated as as just this white red-headed kid um and and then i noticed i noticed the difference if i was out with my parents because my mom uh you know wore the hijab and my dad has a big beard and it's pretty obvious we're Muslim. And so you kind of observe this dynamic from a very young age. And from a very young age, I'm a product of two very different cultures, which I think in a way... Would it be fair to say, were you discovering white privilege that you would have had? Yes,

absolutely. I always want to say, I don't want to get into all of it, but when people are like, Oh, white privilege doesn't exist. I always just want to chime in. Like,

look, man, I am a white red headed Arab Muslim. And I can tell you that it exists. And I can tell you, cause I've seen it. I've seen it firsthand when I'm alone and how i'm treated when i talk because i don't have an uh an immigrant accent versus when my you know with them with my parents or you know when i'm crossing the border uh you

know because my name is is not the most arab sounding name but if my name was like you know abdul rahman abdul kareem or whatever i I might have had a lot more issues traveling the way I did between 2004 and 2000. A question I'd love to ask Sammy, right? Because like the American border is a scary fucking thing. Even for Irish people, it's scary. I don't know what it's like for Canadians, but like, like at what point when you go to the U S border and the guy is, or the woman is staring at you, is there a point where they're like, ah, it's a white Canadian dude. It's okay. And then they find out something about you in the

moment that suggests that you're Muslim and then shit flips. So it's never happened to me. It's never happened to me. Uh, I know other people that have kind of had that experience. Uh, but for me, it's never happened because again, my name doesn't really sound Arabic and I don't look Arabic. And so I really never had any sort of problems. Uh, and it's funny, and I don't know if this can get me into any kind of trouble now, all these years later, but you know, for the first first several years and this is another thing i i we can get into there's just so much but um when we talk about illegal immigration which is another hot button issue in the united states but you know i don't think anybody would think this is immoral or evil for me to tell that, you know, for the first several years of me

making my name in the state. So I started traveling into the U S in 2004 and I only first got my first work visa. And I want to say 2007. So those first three years, three years, I was technically crossing the border illegally. You know, I was, I was lying. I was saying, Oh, I'm coming here to train for wrestling or whatever yeah and yeah because you don't get to start you're not earning a lot of money and work yeah i'm making i'm making a hundred dollars a match yeah uh and so you know nobody nobody would even think to say this person is crossing the border illegally and they're, you know, nobody's thinking to say that. And I think that's because I'm one, you know, white Canadian or, you know, really an Arab,

but viewed as a white Canadian. And also because it's viewed through the lens that, well, this is just a kid following his dreams to make it in the world. wrestling. American frontierism. You are following the American frontierist dream. Right. But it's very different when it's me versus when it's a, let's say, you know, a Mexican laborer who wants to, you know, just he's willing to pick crops for pennies on the dollar. These people are vilified.

So you're the good immigrant. I'm not. You're the good immigrant. I'm not. You're the good immigrant. I'm the good immigrant. And I think part of it is whiteness, if I'm being frank. But the other part of it is that we don't value labor. We don't value that type of labor. We don't value crop workers.

But we do value art, and we value pro wrestling. And we love that narrative of a kid following his dreams to make it big in the, in, in wrestling or in Hollywood and nothing but a dream. You know what I mean? There's this whole narrative around it. There's a, that surrounds it that for some reason just doesn't get afforded to Central American or Mexican laborers who are doing the exact same thing, coming here, just trying to make, you know, trying to live the American dream and trying to make enough money to provide a decent life for their family. So I've always noticed, again, the

difference in the framing of my story of coming to America versus how, how, how the story is framed for these other people who are far less fortunate. And also as well, you've done, can you speak about the charity work that you've done in Syria and, and, and whether as well, if, if that shit like got you in trouble or raises eyebrows in the U S no, uh, not at all. I'd love to talk about it. And thank you for bringing it up because it puts some eyes on it, uh, you know, to, to your audience who might not know me. And, uh, essentially, um, I'll tell you how it started. And it was from just calling myself out on my own hypocrisy, which I think became a big thing to me a few years ago is really realizing like,

how much of my value system am I living by, you know? And so, you know, for years and years, the war in Syria, I just think it's this awful thing. Everybody could agree on that. But then, you know, at a certain point I had to say, well, what are you really doing about it? Nothing. You know, you're just like everyone else, you talk, you talk about how terrible it is, and how whatever, but you don't do anything about it. And so I said, I got to do something about it. And so I got in touch with this organization called SAMS, which is the Syrian American Medical Society. And the reason I was drawn to them in particular is because they were doing work on the front lines on the ground in Syria, like in the war zone, you know, in the thick of it.

And to make a long story short, we had, we basically launched a campaign, a fundraising campaign to raise money, to be able to launch a mobile clinic, which is delivering healthcare to, you know, to internally displaced people, to people whose homes had been blown up or now living in camps and things like that. So, you know, they had no access to healthcare. So this mobile clinic basically drives out to them and delivers healthcare to them. And so that's still going on. It started in 2017. We had it running for about a year and it provided something like 11 000 medical services which i'm very proud of and then now we're doing it again we just it just got up and running

a few months ago and did you want to say did you visit syria at this at this point to see what things were like no no i haven't visited since 1998 i I think. Because it's, to be honest, like Syria isn't really somewhere you just visit, is it? You know, I don't even know. I don't even know now. Certainly, certainly getting to these camps would be... Very, very difficult and dangerous. Yeah. One question I got that I wanted to ask is, is how do you feel about, so wrestling is,

is actually incredibly camp, but it's the fan base see it as this very macho and heterosexual thing, but wrestling itself, I mean, it's men dancing around in their underpants, hugging each other, you know, how,

how, how do you feel about that? How do you feel about hyper masculinity within wrestling? Is there room for, I don't know, a kind of a shift? just hyper masculinity i think it's um there's definitely an aspect of sexual sexualization because you see it in women as well especially it's much easier to identify in women right but there has been a real shift in recent years of looking at the women wrestlers as competitors and, and not just eye candy like they were, you know, maybe 10 years ago. And similarly, uh, even, even the way that the male physique looks in pro wrestling,

these, I mean, look, when I started wrestling in 2002, I was told from day one, you're way too small, you know, way too small. You're never, because what wrestlers looked like in 2002 were just, they were massively jacked up. Yeah. And I don't see like the wrestlers that I adored when I was a kid, like they were on a lot of steroids and that's why a lot of them are dead. Right. And once again, a reflection of the, of the world we live in in the 80s you see steroids are everywhere steroids are candy i mean you look at you look at the action stars you know prior to arnold schwarzenegger and then after arnold schwarzenegger two very different things so the world uh you could see what's going on the world reflected in pro wrestling in the 70s all a

man needed to have was a hairy chest and that was it. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, so once again, I think you see that reflection and now you look at the wrestlers now and they're athletic and all that, but you're not seeing guys jacked to the gills, you know, with their veins busting out of their necks as much. That's the minority more than it is the majority for sure. So I think there has been a shift in that. But just to touch on something you said there at the beginning of your question, when you were saying in a way wrestling is very simplistic, I think it's actually very complex.

And not to sit here and defend this thing that thing that I, you know, that I like, but it, but it really is profound because, but it is, so it's simplistic, but I don't think it's simplistic in the way that people who insult wrestling view it as simplistic where they say, oh, it's just two guys and they're just dancing around their underwear. That's sort of a way to, to dismiss, to dismiss some of the complexity behind it. Yeah. It's very reductive. It's very reductive.

And now if I was going to be reductive about wrestling, what I would say is that wrestling in essence is the art of manipulation. Right? And so in order to manipulate, one has to have an understanding of some very complex concepts like psychology and sexuality and sociology, you know, and you manipulate these things. You manipulate the human condition to elicit the reactions you want. And if you look at it through a capitalistic lens to get their money, that's what drives the business. And so that's why into the academic level and you get into academic language that can be very exclusionary, then you have these theories that you can't necessarily

articulate to everybody. And this is, again, one of the things that I think you do brilliantly is you bring these very interesting and complex ideas and you deliver them in a way that's very accessible to people. And so I argue that since wrestling is sort of my discipline, that I can use wrestling in some ways as a mirror for how the world works, much like the way you used to describe how politics work, you know, like especially when people talk about Democrats and Republicans, let's say in the States, I always refer it back to wrestling. And I go, look, man, when we go on these European tours, the good guys are on the good guys bus

and the bad guys are on the bad guy bus. Wow. Are you serious, man? Yeah. Yeah. Are you discouraged from being friends with someone who your character is at odds with? from being friends with someone who your character is at odds with? No, it's just one of the last bastions of kayfabe that's still alive. But like in private, you're having drinks, you're having drinks with the people you're fighting with, I'm guessing. And there you go. And there's, again, if you get back into the reflection of how the world works and politics and all that,

here's the good guys, here's the Democrats on one bus, here's the Republicans on the other bus, here's A, here's the good guys here's here's the democrats on one bus here's the republicans on the other bus here's yeah here's a here's b but you know what they both we both go to the same arena yeah we both change in the same locker room we both do the same job and at the end of the day it's the same name that's on our paychecks and i'm guessing two actual conflict would fuck up your job to for you to step into a ring with someone you have a real actual issue with, I'm guessing would get in the way of your professionalism in the same way as it would as would a politician. Cause then emotion comes into it. Yeah. And that's a great point. I never even thought of that, but you're absolutely right. And so, uh, you're right. It behooves you to keep

good relations with these people. So even though there's the spectacle of going out there on camera and saying this person, and I can't believe his behavior, it's very much within the storyline, uh, of what you're seeing on television. It's never personal, you know? Cause then, like you said, they probably all just go out and have drinks after the show, you know? you know because then like you said they probably all just go out and have drinks after the show you know and so again it's just it's just a way to reflect the world to people in a way that maybe makes it under easier to understand yeah how do you feel about kayfabe in in the age of social media like like is a wrestler expected to continue like like have wrestlers had any twitter feuds and this is part of the script so there's i i i could really talk about this one i love this subject um so there it's very

very interesting for a couple of reasons uh one twitter there is a disconnect between so if you look at just my twitter for example i won't say everybody's twitter but One, Twitter, there is a disconnect between, so if you look at just my Twitter, for example, I won't say everybody's Twitter, but I'll just use myself as an example. I do tweet about a lot of stuff that is not congruent with my character at all. It's just me. It's just me.

Now, again, social media is a tool and it's all in how you use it. If you want to use it as strictly a tool to further your storyline and your character, that's fine, but that's not how I choose you use it. If you want to use it as strictly a tool to further your storyline and your character, that's fine. But that's not how I choose to use it. I choose to, I see it as a platform and that I can, you know, spread ideas on this platform. So I should make it count or I can raise money for charity. Uh, you know, for this whole, the whole thing we did with Sammy for Syria was all through social media. It was all through Twitter and a little bit of Instagram

there at the end, but it's all through social media. So it's all in how you use it. But, um, so what I'll do sometimes is if I am doing a character tweet, I think sometimes it confuses people because they don't know if it's the character or, or the person. Or I was thinking, what, what if you're like in a feud with a wrestler and then you accidentally like a picture of his dogs on Instagram? Oh, I mean, it'll, it'll go far beyond that. And it's not accidental. You know, people just don't care. So you can be in a program with somebody, a program being a rivalry with somebody on television,

but then still have a friendly back and forth with them on Twitter. Holy fuck. Yeah. But then we'll also sometimes on the show use Twitter as a vehicle to start a program between two wrestlers. So we'll manufacture a Twitter beef between two wrestlers and then we'll go on television and go, oh, look at these two fellas. They got at it on Twitter and now they're going to have a match. You know what I mean? So,

so it's sort of, it's very fluid. It's extremely fluid, but it, but it brings about a couple of things that I am very fascinated in. And one of the things that I find so interesting about the professional wrestler as an artist or as a performer and the only one that i could kind of compare it to is maybe stand-up comics where because because we tell you straight up it's an act okay this is not me this is not me this is an act but they still think it's you they still think that if you said it you believe it and the only other people I can compare that to is stand-up comics. You know, it's an act. Yeah, because they're talking about their life.

They're talking about their lives. They're talking about their wives, their kids. But when I look at a stand-up comic, I have the kayfabe is, I know that some of what you're saying is probably lies because your job is to give me the most funniest and entertaining version of what actually happened and i'm okay with that and i don't want to think about it yeah yeah i mean like dave chappelle is incredible and you know he'll talk about his wife and kids sometimes but then he'll also make a joke just a minute later about like you know eating pussy or something crazy, you know, like, or like getting, you know,

trying to have a threesome with his friends. But then minutes later, we'll, we'll, we'll joke about, you know, a story about his wife and family and it being a very healthy. So it's very fluid. It's very fluid. Snoop Dogg has been, has been married to his wife since he was 17 years of age. And all he talks about is fucking other women while having a very healthy, loving relationship with his wife on Instagram. Right, right, right right right so you and you see it with musicians too uh and rap music in particular because they're selling an image especially so you know uh not everybody's living that image well that's about i mean i talk about mental health with a plastic bag on my head you know yeah well you know i wanted to talk about the plastic bag on my head, you know? Yeah. Well, you know, I wanted to talk about the plastic bag for

a minute. Let's just pause things there briefly so we can have a time for the Ocarina pause. We can insert a digital advert. All right. Um, if you're a new listener, there's digital adverts in this podcast in the midpoint. So I like to just give a little warning so you don't get a shock. So here is, I'm going to shake a little. little warning so you don't get a shock. So here is... I'm going to shake a little. On April 5th, you must be very careful, Margaret. It's a girl.

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I stream on Twitch about three times a week. All right. You can have direct access having chats with me or watching me making music. Twitch.tv forward slash The Blind Boy Podcast. And the Patreon page is patreon.com forward slash The Blind Boy Podcast. Let's get back to sammy zane asking me about why i wear a plastic bag yeah well you know i wanted to talk about the plastic bag for a minute let's circle back around to that but please remind me because i wanted to wear a mask you

used to be called a generic that's right you had a mask on yes so i really wanted to ask you about the mask because one thing so so here's another thing, and I'm sorry if I'm rambling or I'm all over the page or just a lot, my mind's starting to get excited now. So one of the things that I observed when I, what, when I had a mask and before, before I want to say this, I didn't know, I knew very little about you before I heard your podcast. I heard you once on Russell Brand's podcast. And I said, oh man, you said something in there like, oh, you know, advertising doesn't sell you a product. It sells you an idealized

version of yourself. And right away I was like, oh man, I like this guy. I like this guy. But then I didn't, I didn't, you know, hear about you for years. And then your podcast, uh, about pro wrestling that you did a few weeks ago popped up and, and I listened to your podcast. And when I listened to your podcast, then I discovered the rubber band. And then I discovered horse outside. And then I discovered that you had this BBC show and that you wrote a book and that you're really successful in all these different avenues. And I didn't know any of it. Right. And, and you wear a plastic bag on your head. So it hides your identity. So one, one question for you and forgive me if you've ever addressed this on a past podcast, but I'm curious about your take on it is, have you ever noticed a difference between you without the mask and

you're just you you're just some guy that no idea who you are and then all of a sudden when you say oh actually i'm blind boy and then the transformation and how they treat you oh fuck yeah right like isn't that just the most remarkable thing that but that's why i have a fucking bag on man i know and that's why i love the bag and i wish i had the bag i loved wearing a mask and because i want i do want my work to be famous but i don't want to be exactly and if that makes sense so to answer your question sammy like what that does for my mental health is fantastic okay so so one thing i say people, because some people say to me, just take off the bag. You don't need it anymore. And what I say is like in Ireland, I'm pretty well known in Ireland, but once I don't have this bag on, no one fucking knows who I am.

Nobody knows who I am. And one thing that I know what I, so what I say to people is if I'm at a festival or something, if I'm at a festival and I'm backstage and there's like 200 people in a room so I can walk into that room with the bag on as blind boy and I'm the centre of attention and when I meet a person I don't have to put any

work in this person knows who blind boy is they're exceptionally nice to me okay then I take the bag off and i go back into that same fucking room with no bag on and i'm just a regular dude and what happens is when i meet people they are now speaking to just a stranger and i have to put in and what's nice about it is when i when i don't have a bag on and I'm speaking to another person I now have to gain their trust by using empathy by being kind I have to show that person I am someone who's

worth talking to and that human interaction is very genuine and it's very compassionate when I've got this fucking bag on I don't need to do any of that I walk into the room everyone knows who I am everyone is nice to me for no fucking reason if that was my life i think i would have great difficulty maintaining a healthy sense of self-esteem i'd have great difficulty being humble because my capacity everyone who knows me is like there's fucking blind boy and i don't have to put the work in i don't have to put the effort in and that would be frightening to me i mean there's a lovely story from bob dylan what bob dylan said because bob dylan like he's he's fucking crazy famous that's as famous as you get and bob dylan said the biggest heartbreak for him was that he's at the level of fame where he can't even be normal around famous people so if bob

dylan goes to the famous person restaurant and Tom Cruise is there and Robert De Niro is there everyone eats differently because Robert De Niro is like there's fucking Bob Dylan you know and that for him is the heartbreak and a prince was similar to it too and taking it back to Russell Brand like I know a story about like, so some people, so, so, so fame does not suit my personality. I, like you said there, I want to work. I want to create art. I want to perform. And that's what I love doing, but I don't want the fame shit. It doesn't suit who I am, but there are other people and I'm sure you've met them in the industry and fame actually suits their personality. They need it and they're healthy within it. And Russell Brand.

I would argue that last point about the healthy. Sorry to cut you off. But I would argue that even if you do well with it or it suits you, I don't think that if it drives you, I don't think that's healthy. But we can get into that after. And I'm sorry to cut you off. Carry on with your story about Russell Brand there. Russell.

There was a point before Russell became known in America Russell was incredibly famous kind of just in the UK and Ireland, like really famous everybody knew him and Russell likes fame he does enjoy it he enjoys the notoriety

it's, he would say it's kind of part of the the thing that he has to fight but he does have a desire and a like to be noticed and to be the center of attention so when russell was mad famous in britain he went to california and he couldn't fucking handle that nobody knew who he was he couldn't handle the anxiety of that's interesting so he had to go to malibu where all the english people live and he just stood there on the anxiety of that's interesting so he had to go to malibu where all the english people live and he just stood there on the corner of malibu and then people knew who he was and he needed it which is yeah so that doesn't sound healthy no right you know

russell has struggled his entire life with addiction and mental health issues and this is his shtick you know um i do this to i'd be a lot more successful sammy if i didn't have this fucking bag i'd have a lot more opportunities um i would be doing better in my career but i don't think i'd have mental health i don't think i'd be able to trust who's my real friend i like meeting someone as a fucking stranger man and i like putting in the effort and human compassion and i like earning that person's respect for me to be okay to speak with him and when someone finds out i'll tell you what i what i think it does and stop me if i'm wrong but what i think that's what it's amazing about it the bag is that it allows you it forces you to compartmentalize

your identity as a performer with your identity as who you are at home with your family and friends because they are two different people yeah you were they are they absolutely absolutely you know they they are the bag the bag is that it's so visually different that it's you're simply not the same person So it forces you to do something that most people struggle with greatly when their entertainers and their identity and their self-worth gets latched onto that. There you go. That their value is contingent on the art that they create.

What ends up happening is the line between you and the performer is completely blurred. Especially, like I said when when we're pro wrestlers where there's that you don't even know where the character begins and the person begins um but but sammy what's it like for you then being somewhere like new york where you go into any shop and somebody knows who the fuck you are and then being on tour and maybe going to a country where you're not as known what are those two experiences like for you well so this is the thing that i also love is we have a very niche audience in a way i'm not john cena so john cena walks around you look at him you know that's john cena or the Rock or whatever. I mean, WWE as a brand is very famous.

Everyone's heard of it. But like, you know, even in your case, you know about WWE, but you're kind of tuned out and you don't know who all the characters are. I could walk right by you and you wouldn't know who I am. I know The Rock. I don't even know if The Rock is even still in fucking wrestling. I don't know.

No, he's not. He's not. But, you know, there's certain people who at the four who are really placed at the helm of the company who will be recognized far more i'll get recognized especially in new york city but it's not i can walk down the streets in new york city i have this super convenient level of fame where um I am left alone 99.9% of the time. And then once in a while I'll recognize someone and it makes their day. Okay. And, and that is the perfect level to me where I can be nice to someone and I can, I can have somebody go, I just met Sammy Zane. Oh, I got a picture of them. And it helps brighten up their day a little bit. And that feels good to you. That

feels good for you because that's an act act of compassion but how do you one thing that always frightens me too is it's like sometimes I do get recognized and my voice will give me away and it happens so rarely that I can actually have a connection and a conversation with that person and introduce them a little bit to who I am behind my bag. And it's lovely and it's not excessive. But my big fear would be if I got heavily recognized and then six people ask me for selfies. And then by the time I've done six, I'm a human being.

I have limits. And then when seven comes along, I'm saying no. And to number seven, I'm a fucking dickhead. You know what I mean? Of course. Yes. That always,

I remember when you were saying that, it reminded me of a story one time I was in Hawaii with a wrestler who's one of our top wrestlers named Daniel Bryan, but I've known him forever from the independents.

We've come up together and we were in Hawaii and you know, he's very, very nice person. He's a very nice person. So if in hawaii and you know he's very very nice person he's a very nice person so if somebody asks him for a picture he's happy to oblige but then exactly the scenario you just described came up or because he's also married to one of the bellas who are on total divas or total bellas so they have crossover appeal with a whole other audience that has nothing to do with wrestling just like women who watch the e-network will recognize him you know um so he started getting recognized and then one picture turned into five

or six he's like oh man i gotta i gotta get out of here because he's not built he's not built for that either um but goodness just going going back to the thing two two things i wanted to ask or discuss. One, do you ever resent the difference in the treatment to blind boy versus you as a person? Like, is somebody kind of like rude to you? Has it happened to you? Not rude, but they don't give a shit about you because you're just some guy and they don't give a shit. I have had situations.

Yes, man. And you see that transformation and it's like, you shallow, you shallow give a shit. I have had situations. Yes, man. You see that transformation and it's like shallow, you shallow piece of shit. Yeah. I haven't had that a lot, but I have had situations, man, where I'm not wearing my bag. I'm just socializing and I'm entered into a new group of people and I'm speaking to someone and this person is just being rude, just being rude for for because this is how they are. And then having been rude or not engaging me for the entire night, someone whispers into their ear and says, do you know who that is? And all of a sudden they're the nicest person.

And that breaks my heart. And I have to, that breaks my heart, man, to see what I have to tell myself is I've just met a shadow person and that person exists and that's okay. And it's not all humans. Yeah. The thing that upsets me is I think I, whether I want to acknowledge it or not, I think that exists within me, within all of us to a certain extent too. Yeah. You know, but, but, but when you observe it, you're like, huh, that's not right. When you're, when you're at the center of it, you're like, oh, man, something seems really wrong about that. So you've had that situation. Have you had situations where you're just having a chat with someone and then someone says, this guy's really big in WWE.

And all of a sudden the person changes. Yeah. Well, so, you know, I think about this back. My friends would do it a lot, and this is even before WWE, just because wrestler is such a strange occupation. So, you know, back when I was single many moons ago and, you know, going to bars and chatting up women or whatever, this is just so long ago now, it feels like a different lifetime.

But there was always, like, it's almost like this ace up your sleeve or it's a superpower you have or it's like well because it's one of the first questions that comes up so like oh what do you do well actually i'm a pro wrestler oh really well wait a minute that's that's interesting you know yeah and so it becomes like it just really makes you question uh the idea of like social currency a little bit you know and and this is one of the things i want to circle way back around to here when you're talking about wrestlers on twitter and the age of social media and all this um one of the things that social media has done to wrestle let's actually take wrestlers out of it to people. I mean, just everyday people is, is it's been, Ooh, let me see if I can articulate this properly. It's been like the next level of

corporate takeover of corporatocracy and corporate mindset. So I thought that the debt, like, and maybe I'm right about this, maybe I'm wrong. But the biggest corporate takeover of all time is the corporate takeover of America. America now is, you know, wholly owned by the corporations whose interests it serves. But now, but that's still an abstract idea. It's an abstract idea. It's this like body, whatever America is.

America doesn't, it's not a tangible thing, right? But it's the system of governance has now been infiltrated by corporatocracy. But now it's like with Instagram and with Twitter and with the idea of social currency being afforded to the everyday person, it becomes the corporate takeover of the individual. So now the individual now commodifies themselves

and every aspect of their life yeah in an effort to get more social currency yeah and i see it with wrestlers a lot because i'm pretty private even though i don't have the bag my figurative bag anymore i i do have a personal shield i i'm pretty private with my personal life fans don't know much about me when it comes to that you know they can they can infer a lot based on conversations like this one that we're having right now about who I am or based on my tweets but they don't know about my personal life and they don't know everything about me and I keep it that way by design yeah but there's other wrestlers obviously I mean the bag the bag does that as well but just there's certain things i'll

speak about my childhood i'll speak about my parents but then other stuff outside of that i just i'm not talking about it that's mine and i'm entitled to that same same and i think i think you i feel like you know i feel a connection with you on this level because i think you think those things are sacred yes and you still think you still value these things you still value privacy and i think it's other and i do too it's other people like i my that's what freaks me out about um influencers and things it's like that's your fame but now your sister's in the photograph now your dog is in the photograph it's like are you consenting with all these people about do they to bring the these people into the spectacle of your life.

You know what I mean? I wish I could say, like, look, again, I said this earlier, I am reactionary. But then I've reached this level where after my initial reaction, which is usually like disgust or anger or whatever, or judgment, I always sort of, I always got to go pause, go two steps deeper. What, you know, why, why you got to ask you, you don't just got to look at how people are behaving. You got to ask yourself, why are they behaving this way? And when you start to look at why, and then you almost feel like sorrow or you feel compassion for people, you know, that's very important. Uh, and I think that's a big problem once again with our culture is going back to that whole conversation is there's a big lack of a introspection but b

compassion and we're not we're not conditioned to ask why we never ask why is somebody behaving this way never we're not taught to look at people and even look at them as, as anything other than their, their behavior at that moment will completely, they're judged completely on their behavior in that moment and nothing else. And there's no further thought, you know, and you take these very complex issues and I'm sorry, I'm ranting and I'm going in the wrong direction now, but you take these complex issues like crime and, and, and poverty, or, you know, you see all these riots going on and, and whatever, all these huge issues and people just take it at face value and they go, well, this is, this is bad. They're acting this way, but they don't, they don't ask why, you know, the conversation ends there when it comes to the, the, the public

sphere. What I'd love to know, Sammy is like, you're, you know, you're bringing words like love and compassion into your conversation there. How much of your outlook on life and humanity is informed by Islam and what you grew up learning about with Islam? I had only in recent years, I want to say in the last couple of years of deep, deeper introspection, um, you know, being brought up with religion, the way it was within my household certainly warped me in some ways. Like, there's no question I think, but you know, every, everything warps us. I was brought up with fucking Catholicism. Like, so yeah. Yeah. So you, so you understand, and especially, uh, you know, Catholicism has that reputation where it's just shrouded in guilt and judgment. Yeah. And so, uh, certainly Islam, I don't think is, well, maybe it is a little inherently judgmental. I guess any,

any religion that says God is going to judge you inherently has judgment in it. But, um, you know, you can practice Islam in a somewhat nonjudgmental way, but certainly I was, I felt, I felt like judgment was a huge part of, uh, of it. Uh, and then only in recent years did I kind of start to realize like, wait a minute, this, this also, this colored my perspective in a lot of positive ways too, that I didn't make the connection with as being derivative of my Islamic upbringing until recently. So one example would be fasting, when you fast for Ramadan. When you fast at an age of like 12 or 13, at a time when all you want to do is play and party and eat and, you know, have fun. It teaches you, it teaches you a lot of valuable lessons at a very young age,

lessons that some people don't even learn in their whole life about go about going without and about sympathizing and empathizing with people that have to go without and what it's like to, uh, you know, just not not everybody has when you're really hungry you're like man when is it five o'clock so i could eat but then you think to yourself man some people don't get to eat at five and is that part of the lesson of ramadan is that part of of when you are fasting are it does islam ask the person fasting to think about what it's like for someone who doesn't have the option of fasting? This is their existence. For sure. For sure. And I think these are both,

these are the lessons that, you know, for, for Islam or for any of these religions that have gotten the flack that they have. And, you know, I think a lot of it is, um, you know, people say things like, Oh, you know, religion is the cause of war. And I don't agree. I think religion is just, it's a tool. An excuse. It's an excuse like anything else.

If it wasn't religion, it would be nationalism. If it's not nationalism, it's, you know. But look at people fucking fighting over masks, about who wears a mask and who doesn't. It's polarizing. Whatever you give humans to polarize over, they'll polarize. And eventually someone's going to throw a stone. Exactly. So what I'm getting back to and using it almost like social media is that these are tools.

These are tools and it's how you use them. And so if I stop and think about, you know, and there's also a great deal of compassion that's taught in that lesson about fasting. And humility is a big thing, you know? So I was talking to a friend of mine once that he actually brought up the point because he was brought up Catholic too. And he's like, you know, when you're a kid and they tell you, say sorry to God and God wants you to worship him and pray to God five times a day and tell God that you love him and you're, and you're a kid. So you're, you're thinking is like, what's up with this God guy? That's a bit entitled God, isn't it? Yeah. Like we seems like he really wants a lot of credit all the time.

Yeah. What's, what's up with that? You're, you're a kid. So this is what you're thinking. You're like, wait a minute. If I, if I apply these very same principles to a human it seems arrogant or it seems whatever but then but then the connection was made like no the lesson in that is that is humility actually it's you're saying that you haven't done this all there's there's a cosmic okay there's a there's there's there's there's something that you need to be grateful towards towards because it's not all you controlling this. And that ties in with what you're saying about collectivism.

When you're saying collectivism, it's about us recognizing, hold on a second, this is part of something greater than us. This is the collective, the thing that allows you to eat your food in the morning. Someone had to prepare that food. The thing that allows you to get into your car. Someone had to make that car. It's all collective efforts. And the individualism is the illusion. Yeah. Yeah. And in addition to that,

now that religion has kind of gone by the wayside in a cultural, cultural on a cultural level, where it's not so dominant in our cultures and certainly, you know, in Ireland or the States, like it used to be. so dominant in our cultures in certain, you know, in Ireland or the States like it used to be. Now, you'll hear a lot of people say things like, well, I'm very spiritual, but I don't subscribe to any religion. And what they're basically doing there is they're keeping the lesson that is taught from, I mean, ideally, hopefully, they're taking the lesson of saying, well, there's a greater cosmic force that surrounds not only my life, but all of us. And we're all interconnected.

And even if you get into some real like hippie dippy stuff about the universe and the whatever, and the consciousness and consciousness, we're all one consciousness sharing, you know, individually experiencing a collective consciousness. Um, you're still saying the same thing that Islamic people are saying about God. You're just using different language and you're not using a humanistic representation because we tend to think of God as like a giant man in the sky. So we reflect ourselves. You know what I'm trying to say here? I'm not sure I'm putting it in the right word.

We give it a human quality, whereas now we're getting a bit more abstract with like saying words like consciousness and interconnectivity it's god it's just god you just you you want a different vision of what what you call it exactly yeah exactly and i think people just you know in this day and age uh perhaps because of the rise of individualism, people also don't want to be tied down to the dogma that surrounds these religions, especially when individualism is so tempting and is so readily available, you know. But I do think individualism is slippery, is a slippery slope for many reasons. And one that I absolutely abhor, I just hate, I hate. And this is a narrative that pops up in wrestling a lot,

actually, to tie it back to wrestling, about like, I did this. Like, I earned this. I worked so hard and I got here, you know, like come on. You're not talking about the people who helped to, you mean it, the selfishness of, of, of declaring an achievement as the sole thing of one person. Yes. Because again,

because this narrative permeates pro wrestling and it permeates our culture, which is like, you work hard, you get something. And that's the end of that. That uh our culture which is like you work hard you get something and that's the end of that that's the end of that you work hard you get something and at no point anywhere in that conversation do we talk about the interdependency and that about how crucial it was that you had good parenting yeah how crucial it was that you know you met the right person at the right time who did something out of the goodness of their heart that allowed you to have the right break that got you to the next step. You know, or that you were lucky enough to be born healthy. Or that you were lucky enough to be born with an aptitude for these skills that not everybody has.

Because if you don't... There's just so much luck. Like what you're saying there, Sammy, if you don't recognize that, then that's how people are allowed to call other people losers. Do you get what I'm saying? It's like if we have this individualism of I am where I am because I worked really, really, really hard and this is all me. And then you go, well, what about this person over here who doesn't have much?

Oh, they must be a loser. And now you're denying. Or they must be lazy hard enough instead of going hold on a second maybe what was their situation with their parents what was their education what was their economic situation exactly what was exactly what i'm saying and that's that's the why and that's the why that we don't ask yeah and that i think once again goes back to individualism which i think um again again, I don't know, I personally feel, maybe I'm wrong, maybe I'm a crazy conspiracy theorist, but I think that there are sinister

motives behind keeping people thinking in that individualistic way, because it serves corporatism. And that's just my opinion. But I think it's pretty, it's not, it's not much of a reach, you know, they, they are, they go hand in hand. Uh, and, and if you convince people that everybody should be allowed to do this sort of stuff and that nobody should be allowed to tell you what to do, cause you're an individual. And then, you know, they're like, yeah, that's how you get people cheering, cheerleading billion dollar transnational corporations polluting polluting our water and polluting our air and destroying our planet because you wrap it up in the guise of under the guise of individualistic freedom so i think it's a real slippery slope i think it's so important to recognize uh man what we're saying shouldn't be we shouldn't even have to say this, but you gotta, you know, but you gotta recognize your,

the, the amount of dumb luck of just dumb luck. Like I said earlier, I could have been born in Syria. We wouldn't be having this conversation. I, you know, that might've been me and my kid floating face down in the, in the, in the Mediterranean for all I know, the difference between the difference between that man, that refugee who now you're calling dirty and you're calling subhuman and the difference between me, who you're maybe have adoration for the difference between him and me is, is my dad moved to Canada before I was even born. That might be the only difference. Yeah. Otherwise it might've been me and that's that's the thing that you know man i'm gonna go off on way the wrong subject here but i'm gonna ask you

one last question sammy um just because a lot of people were you banned from saudi arabia i don't know i don't know the specifics on this. Uh, to this day, I didn't really ask, but I wasn't, cause I wasn't really keen on going anyway, but WWE did a thing, you know, a partnership sort of with, or some sort of signed, some sort of deal to put on these shows in Saudi Arabia for, uh, I don't know what, 10 years or something like that. And, uh, I just wasn't invited to go. And I really never,

I never really dug into it too much cause I wasn't keen on going too much anyways to begin with. Um, but you know, I would like to discuss that for a moment because there is, there is a certain amount of, uh, what's the word I'm looking for here. certain amount of, uh, what's the word I'm looking for here? You know, like it's, it's, it's very, it became very popular, very easy to say, well, you shouldn't go to this country because they do these awful things. And I understand it. And I agree. And you know, like if I was asked to perform in Israel, I wouldn't, right. Um, but, but at the same time I perform in the United States, you know what I mean? And I live in the United States, you know? So, so I kind of have, there's that sort of dissonance that we kind of, to, to get your head around a little bit.

Right. So I don't know. I don't know. I don't know how I feel about all of that. But it's like, man, that's, Jesus Christ, man. I call for social justice while using the infrastructure of corporations that are destroying the world. You know what I mean? Like the software that I use i know i know with smartphones look this this is this is one of the biggest things that i personally deal with and i feel like i have a lot of weird personal guilt because i feel like i'm a part of the system that i

criticize right and especially in the days of social media and say that twitter is bad exactly exactly and it's like actually sammy just while we're on this topic uh so i covered this in my bbc series and there was a dude who i interviewed it didn't make it into the final cut but he was a guy who literally was like i'm gonna live off grid. The world is too evil and there is no way for me to be. He was a he wasn't a Buddhist, but he was into Buddhism. And he was like, I need to live a life of pure compassion. And I cannot do this if the clothes that I wear came from a sweat factory in Pakistan. I cannot do this if my food is not ethically produced.

So he tried it and he was arrested. He couldn't, he couldn't live that life. It meant illegally occupying someone's land. It meant the police coming and breaking his shit down. It meant him ethically being unable to work and relying upon asking people for money. And I interviewed him and it wasn't possible. Because then I said, I started quizzing him going where did this light come from where did this come from and he had an led light and I said look this this light came from China what do you

know about this light and I was being nice and compassionate but I was asking him about it he couldn't he could not do it. It was not possible for him to live without blood on his hands. The show was about slavery and the central question I had at the start of the show was how many slaves do we own?

How many slaves do I own? How many slaves do you own? Just for us to exist in Western society. Yeah, man man that's some heavy shit the answer is between 60 and 70 oh my god so just for you and i to i mean like our phones you know you're on your phone right now doing this interview and there's a product in the phone called coltan which comes from what's an artisan in the mines artisan is what they call it but mines in the congo where you know apple or whoever are distanced

from where the mines are but there's kids getting their fucking hands chopped off there's it it's impossible yeah possible to for it's it's important and this is my point because especially in the age of social media there's a lot of what about is yeah and there's a lot of purity tests, you know? And well, you say this, but you do that. And it's like, fuck off, man. What do you want from me? You know, like, what can I do? I'm trying the best I can. Does that not count for anything?

I mean, I'm trying here, man. I'm trying, I'm just doing the best I can. And yes, yes, you want to live in a way that is most harmonious with your value system. And yes, that means questioning where a lot of this stuff comes from. This is why I stopped eating meat, you know, several years ago, because I realized, well, shit, I can't just say that I care about animals, or I think animals are grand or whatever, and then be okay with the mass this this industrial level of cruelty i just can't do it um and so i'm out because that's easy i could control

that so that's me doing my best but then someone says what about the squirrel that was killed on the road to deliver your tofu right or you know there's can't, you cannot, you cannot break free entirely of exploitation. And I didn't, I didn't know that. I'm going to watch that episode of your show for sure. That sounds very interesting to me because I think about it all the time because I'm constantly bombarded with, well, uh, you know, you say this, but you're also a part of this and this person does that. And then, you know, that person. And so what, what, what do you want me to do? I'm just trying to work within the framework because unless we abandon the framework altogether and we try to go hermit, like your man there, unless we do that you you are beholden to these systems i so so like for example i pay tax to the u.s government who then takes my money bomb syria and they give it to that's right and you have a service to help the same people that you're technically bombing that's right that's right yeah and i so what's the answer so what's the answer if i'm really

adhering to this purity test but the answer is my answer systematic change but like that's right yeah and i so what's the answer so what's the answer if i'm really adhering to this purity test but the answer is my answer systematic change but like that's fucking huge right but but but what i'm saying is what's the answer on an individualist level if i'm beholden to this purity test um you got it i'm a hypocrite well i i if i got an unhypocrite which i'm all for i'm all for calling myself out but does that mean no longer wrestling ever again in the united states no no longer making a dime because even if i move back to canada i make my money in the states which means i have to pay tax to the american government so does that mean denouncing amer altogether, never visiting America again. Or, when I would look at it, you are someone,

you're using your position of privilege to do what you can within that. And that's how I look at it. And that's how I look at it as well. You've traded off. You work in a big corporation,

you earn money in the States. You pay the American taxpayer. But while you were there, you're doing what you can to dismantle that system. And you've made a trade off. You have put it very succinctly in a way far better than I could. But yes, that's exactly what I'm saying.

And I'm saying it's on us to do the best that we can. And I also think culturally some very well-intentioned people are getting sucked into this, into this, into this type of conversation, um, of like, well, you know, you, you're one of the most disgusting things that I'm sorry, I don't want to, I don't know how long this podcast is going and I don't want to make this too long, but one of the most disgusting things I've seen recently is in the wake of the murder of george floyd um or jacob blake is then turning around and saying well you know he was no angel you know he did these things yeah and and it's like so does that mean what does that mean exactly like does that mean they

so does that mean is it you know what i'm saying for a fake $20 bill? Is that what you're saying? You had a fake $20 bill, so that's the death penalty. And the amount of people that I saw swallowing this up and putting it out there and circulating it and just saying, well, don't shed no tears

for this guy because, you know, he committed a crime. We made up some rules and he didn't adhere to all of them you know and so therefore it's the collateral damage shit it's it's when i'm critiquing obama when i'm critiquing obama and i'm talking about obama droning a wedding in pakistan or in syria because one of them might be in isis you know what i mean and then it's like how many people died but it's like yeah but one of them was in isis and you know what i mean and then it's like how many people died but it's like yeah but one of them was in isis and you don't know if that kid could have grown up to

be in isis too you don't know right and you know what better way to create isis soldiers than by you know bombing their uncles and aunts and right right you know but whatever that's a whole other topic uh the only reason i brought this up, um, is because we need to, and another part of, uh, and when I say we, I mean all of us, but especially the people who have a platform and you're doing it all the time and I'm trying to do it is re reshaping the culture because that's one of the things that I think we have some influence over. We've been afforded this luxury somehow, some way, through a lot of dumb luck and a little bit of, tiny bit of hard work, which I wouldn't even call work because I enjoyed it so much.

But we've now been afforded this platform. And I think one of the things that we can facilitate, hopefully, is some cultural change. Because as I said, all these problems are so deep rooted in culture. They're not, you know, they're not easy. They're not easy fixes. You know, and I had this thought the other day, I had this, I know it's your trademark, but I had this hot take about defunding the police. hot take about about defunding the police and i was thinking you know what if what if you didn't take away their money and what if you didn't call for abolishing the system altogether but what if instead you made it mandatory that they all had to you know there were sociology classes and economic classes and historical classes that they had to take surrounding crime and surrounding poverty so that they understood the system that they were a part of.

The term defund the police I think is such bad branding because Such bad branding! That's not even what they mean. They're not calling for abolition. When someone says defund the police, what they mean is that all the money is being put toward

punitive, violent policing. So how about we take a good chunk of this money away and instead we put it into social services. If someone has mental health issues on the street, that a cop with a gun isn't who shows up. Instead, someone who shows up with proper

training, who can deal with this compassionately. Because the American system of policing, it's militaristic and it's because of the prison industrial complex. The policing is designed to create criminals, to create people who are in prisons because people earn money from prisons. So I'd love it if they found a different term

to defund the police because you hear it. It's a terrible term. I agree with you. Everything you just said is spot on. What people say is, oh, you want a lot. Okay, so get rid of the police and then there's anarchy. And it's like, no, just stop giving the police all that money and think of different complex ways to deal with the complex situation instead of just a hammer. It's like dealing with everything with one hammer.

What's the end goal of what you're what you're saying and and that is a cultural shift the end it is a shift it's a shift away is helping punitive rather than punishing people that's right it's it's it's shifting the mindset away from punishment and and creating a more humane system and the and and the we're not even calling i look, there's an argument to be made for abolition. I don't think it's completely unreasonable. It's not like police is an inevitability. It's not. It's a very recent creation.

But I'm not even saying abolish it. It was created for the Irish by the British. Is that right? John Peel. That's why some people call, not John Peel. Yes, sir. No, Robert Peel. That's why some people call... Not John Peel. Yes, sir. No, Robert Peel. That's why some police are called Peelers.

But literally the first ever police force was created by the British for Dublin to control the Irish only like 150 years ago. And I tell you another thing. The Irish are the only people who tried to invade Canada. Well, I love the Irish.

In the 1870s, a group of 150 Irish people tried to invade the Canadian border and didn't because there was only 150 of them and they were drunk that's hilarious anyway all I'm trying to get out of here not to go off on a huge tangent

because I can believe me I can but all I'm saying is this whole thing of defunding the police it's just you're right, it's terrible branding. What people are calling for is getting away from the mindset, the mindset, the mindset of militarization, the mindset of punishment and inhumanity and gearing it towards compassion and understanding and just understanding or via at

the very least the attempt to understand or the for the formality of making them going through classes where they have to attempt to understand what has created the circumstances for all this so what i'm talking about is a radical shift. Before you get to legislative reform, you need cultural reform. And that's one of the things that's not discussed. And I really think that culture is at the root of all these things. But the only time that I do despair is when I'm like, you know what, I'm going to go out on my million, with my 1 million Twitter followers, and I'm going to put out a message of positivity and I'm going to change the culture.

And I go and I do it. And then I look and I see like fucking Ben Shapiro or some shit like that with his six million followers or whatever he's got and his bajillion likes. And I'm like, oh man, we're up against it, aren't we? You know, and it's like... But the thing is I'm like, oh man, we're up against it, aren't we? You know? And it's like, but the thing is, I mean, that, that the others, it's easier to agree with Ben Shapiro and it's not easy to agree with the message that you're saying, because it's, it's, it's a complex message

that asks us if I'm to agree with Ben Shapiro, I get to be reactionary and angry and reaction and anger are really fucking easy because I don't have to accept any personal responsibility but if I'm meant to go with compassion I have to, compassion requires empathy and it requires self reflection and it requires ownership and taking responsibility and that shit is tough

but just getting fucking angry and going it's their fault, that's easy as fuck, really easy it's the difference between getting's easy as fuck. Really easy. It's the difference between getting a takeaway and cooking your own meal. Yeah, you know, you've got a real way with words there, blind boy, because that would have taken me about 30 minutes of rambling and raving

before I finally hit the hammer on the head. But you just, you perfectly encapsulate the idea and that's very much it. It takes work to, it takes and that's very much it. It takes work to, it takes, it's not even work. It's one, just one step deeper than our immediate visceral reactions. And that's what I, God help us. That will really make the world a better place. If we could just go people and look, I'm, I'm not perfect. I'm working on it all the time because I have those same reactions, but at least I've learned to stop and go well wait a minute why are they acting that way

just that's it one question one word why and then you start getting into well you know there's these pressures and there's these constraints and there's these situations that people are dealing with and it just makes you a more compassionate person. And it hopefully makes the world a better person or a better place. One thing that I've been, I've been learning that a lot recently because, because of quarantine, I'm not meeting a lot of humans, but right next door to me, my neighbors have this dog and the dog wakes me up every morning. He barks and barks and barks when he's on his own. And I obviously feel angry because I'm being woken up. And one morning I found myself going onto Amazon to buy a thing that makes loud noises that trains dogs. And then I said, no, why is he barking? And then I started going, sure the poor little dog is at home on his own. Those

barks that are waking me up, those are barks of loneliness and fear. And all of a sudden I put the phone down and I'm not buying this thing to punish his ears. I'm instead going, I need to live with his barking because his barking is his pain and his fear. And I need to start thinking that way and going, it's okay. I can lose an hour of sleep it's okay that poor dog is terrified

and it took a lot of effort but if I didn't now I'm a man who's just bought a weapon for hurting dogs you know what I mean man that's a great story that's a great story I love that story but it's that's it that's the shit you know

but you know what it is man I'm not annoyed with his barks anymore. They exist, but I haven't tuned out because I'm not angry with him. I accept, I accept the pain and suffering of his barking. I accept it and it's okay. And what's amazing about this story, by the way, is that you were actually directly impacted by this dog's barking, even if it was in a very mild, it was a mild inconvenience. You were woken up maybe a little earlier than you would have. It's a mild inconvenience, but still it directly affected you. Whereas a lot of these things that people are like calling for just the most insane kind of stuff yeah or about issues that don't actually even affect their day-to-day life lock them all up throw them across send them all back to hell

and whatever bomb the whole country and you see you hear people say these crazy things and it doesn't even affect you do you know what else you know what else does sammy just to regarding when i when i was processing my anger with the dog and this is this is to to reflect the point that you're making there about people being angry with things that don't affect them when i was processing my anger and my fists were clenching and i was ready to order a tool to hurt his ears with noise when I started to look at that anger yes I'm irritated by the dog but all the dog did is he triggered a much deeper anger and a much

deeper unfairness that wasn't related to the dog it was the unfairness that I feel that I can't do gigs because of coronavirus I love travelling it's the unfairness that I feel that I can't go to Spain now for two weeks and write and all these things in my life that are unfair

that I'm angry about but I don't live with that anger it just all came out now and now it's a poor dog next door and I should have been giving him in terms of the irritation of his bark he deserved a level two of anger. But all of a sudden, in my mind, I'm giving him a level eight. And he's now has responsibility for the unfairness of the world.

And only by analyzing the anger and having compassion and saying his barks are barks of fear and loneliness, was I able to reveal to myself, Ah, look at all this shit you're really angry about, but you're not taking any ownership at all. You know, and if I was a different person, I could have taken it a step further. And now I'm someone who's physically hurting a dog. Or this is how dogs get poisoned, man. People poison fucking dogs, you know?

Wow. They do that. And it's the same process, but I'm lucky enough to have had the self-awareness to spot it and have empathy because i work on myself like that well it takes a lot of emotional intelligence that i think again it's it's you have it but i learned that capacity that's the thing you learned it exactly it wasn't we all have the capacity for i learned it and I'm lucky.

And the other thing, Sammy, I had fucking parents. I didn't grow up with a lot of money, but I grew up with a lot of love. And that stands to me, stands to me. And that's why I can go to that place. Someone who grew up with angry parents

or living with abuse, it's a whole different journey for them to empathize with someone else's pain you know or an animal's pain so so i think and again this is why i think your podcast is important and i think again trying to foster this culture of emotional intelligence and reflection is so important because maybe that's one less dog poisoned. That's one less weapon bought off Amazon, you know? Um, and just, ah, man, I don't know. It's like, you know, I think I heard you say this on your podcast and it really, really connected with

me because I'm a very, I think you said something like you're by default, a very happy person, but it's external things make you unhappy. And I'm very much the same way. I'm like, my default setting is like an 8.5 or 9.5. I'm really just flying high. Like, and there's no reason not to. I mean, I'm so lucky. It's insane. It is insane. I can't't even it's so hard to even explain how lucky i am the fact that i can everything when you think about everything i can breathe i can i can pee unimpeded you know that's good that's a big fear of mine when you get older men have prostate issues and you can't even pee you shit your pants i i can i have control of my bowels. I know that sounds ridiculous. But you can walk. You can breathe.

But I can walk. I can breathe. And you know what? If you take even one... My God, these things. There's so much to be grateful for. And when you're grateful, you're happy. And I think that's really... Look, if I had two guiding principles that I think I try to live by

and that everybody should try to live by. And it's not perfect, but you try. It's gratitude, gratitude and compassion, gratitude and compassion. And I, I mean, there's just so much to be grateful for. And then when you have that gratitude, I feel like compassion is sort of a natural byproduct because you're like oh my god i'm so lucky oh man those poor people don't have what i have that sucks for them and it makes you simultaneously sorry for them but not in like a patronizing or condescending way but in an empathetic sort of way and it also heightens your gratitude and appreciation for what you have. And it's very hard to be a miserable bastard when those are the thoughts that are filling your head. You know what

I mean? Although, you know, sometimes I guess you could feel sorry. I certainly do for all the suffering in the world. And that's, that's what brings me down is when I can't balance my compassion and my gratitude and compassion sorrow overtakes compassion and that's where i struggle is is with the sorrow with the state of things sometimes uh and that's something that i'm i don't really know the answer to that one other than going back to what you said earlier we just do our best for me with that shit what I do is you have to accept suffering exists you have to accept that suffering is part of the tapestry of human existence

and you do you look at what is within your you have to look at what's inside your control because to be given excessive energy to something that is genuinely outside of your control that is impacting your mental health and the thing is if you allow things that are outside of your control, that is impacting your mental health.

And the thing is, if you allow things that are outside of your control to impact your mental health, then you're of no service to your community. So the positivity that you do, Sammy, when you're speaking on Twitter or when you're trying to change things or what you're doing in Syria, you can only act on those things because you're coming from a position of being driven to do it.

But if you were to allow the pain of things that you can't control to impact your mental health, you won't be motivated to do the change that you can. Do you get me? Yeah, well, you know, but so I ultimately think you're right. I ultimately think you're right. But I think, um, I think anger and sorrow and, and these things, if, if you don't allow them to overtake you, I think they can be channeled into really beautiful things because, because the thing in Syria was born out of, out of sorrow and compassion, of course, but out of sorrow and out of this anger and this horrible thing. Did you have a sense of duty? Did you feel any duty? and this horrible thing.

Did you have a sense of duty? Did you feel any duty? I felt duty because I started to recognize that there was some change that I could surely affect. And I just didn't really know what that was because nothing will make you feel more powerless than a war overseas in a foreign country. I mean, you're talking about things that are within our control.

If anything seems out of our control, that would be probably be top of the list, you know? But then recognizing that, wait a minute, I can do something. And then going back to the idea of collectivism, you know, people, a friend of mine gave me a lot of credit for this whole, like the Sammy for Syria thing in the mobile clinic. But I, when I thought about it more, it's like, yeah, it's real easy to think that way. But it's also, the truth is it was a collective effort. The money that we raised was through collective. It wasn't just, I could have donated the money once by myself anonymously, and that would have been the end of it. And then I could have carried on going, oh, you know, well, I did my part. But the truth is we are more powerful together. powerful together. There's more power. There is individual power and there is individual responsibility,

but there's collective power and collective responsibility, which is so much greater. We are just, that's the nature. That's again, the nature of humanity. We're better together. That's how we've worked. That's how we've thrived. That's how we survive. So it was a collective effort and you know i didn't do anything all i did is i worked within a very individualistic framework because i put my name on the thing exactly right i called it i called it sammy for syria and that's not because i want to toot my own horn it's because i know it's branding and attention you're operating within the system to go here's go, here's my brand.

Here's my brand. Now you'll pay attention. Right. Because the truth is most of the donors, the people who've donated, I mean, they have no personal allegiance or a lot of times even awareness to the conflict in Syria. They have no awareness about it, but they know me and they like me. So they'll think, oh, Sammy's trying to do something. I like Sammy and this is a good thing. I'll help. Versus if I just called it like Syria aid,

people will be like, well, Syria is not my problem. Right? So I used individualistic thinking, individualistic framework and branding and corporatism and branding and marketing. And once again, these are all tools that I think, circling back all around to pro wrestling here, from the very first question, how does pro wrestling inform our life or how is it a reflection of our life? I learned these tools, how to manipulate these tools, how to recognize these tools through professional wrestling.

Because I started to realize, you know, and, and maybe I'm, maybe I've gone off the deep end a little here, but you understand what I'm trying to get at, right? Like I had to use the existing framework and I had to use the individualism and all that and branding and marketing and all these tools through wrestling that wrestling usually manipulates for, for, you know, profit it for social change able to channel them yes yes well sammy that was two hours of a chat which is fucking loads oh shit i'm sorry no man that's perfect you're gonna be able to use all of course i will it's a podcast that's the beauty of a podcast but look that was a

fantastic conversation thank you so much for it okay okay? And it was just amazing to... I was worried that I'd have to ask a bunch of wrestling questions and not know enough about wrestling, but we had a lovely conversation just about humanity and life. So thank you for that. And one thing I'll say to you too, I know it's fucking corona, so I won't be in America for a long time

and you probably won't be in Ireland for a long time, but if we get the opportunity, I'd love to have a pint or a cup of tea with you. If we ever, uh, are in the same country. A hundred percent, man. Really? I feel like, and I told you this when I messaged you, but I feel like you're a real, you're a kindred spirit and I love what you're about. I think you're doing great work. I think it's important work. Uh, you're, you got away with words. You're very succinct. And if I ever started a podcast, I don't think it would, I. I think it's important work. You got away with words. You're very succinct.

And if I ever started a podcast, I don't think it would, I don't think it would have the clarity that you have. You have an amazing knack for clarity. And I really appreciate you having me on. I hope. What a lovely chap. What a lovely gentleman.

That was a fantastic interview with Sammy. It was a pleasure to do it. And he's someone who just gives me hope he gives me hope knowing that he's got this giant platform he has a huge platform he has this massive ability to reach

wrestling fans, primarily male audience and to reach them with a positive message of compassion and that fills me with hope and that was a pleasure I'll talk to you next week, I'll be back with a positive message of compassion. And that fills me with hope. And that was a pleasure. I'll talk to you next week. I'll be back with a hot take. All right. God bless. You're invited to an immersive listening party led by Rishi Keshe Herway, the visionary behind the groundbreaking Song Exploder podcast and Netflix series. This unmissable evening features Herway

and Toronto Symphony Orchestra music director Gustavo Gimeno in conversation. Together, they dissect the mesmerizing layers of Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring, followed by a complete soul-stirring rendition of the famously unnerving piece, Symphony Exploder, April 5th at Roy Thompson Hall. For tickets, visit TSO.ca. Thank you. Thank you. you