The Sheet with Jeff Marek - On the Sheet: Stephen Brunt Previews His New Episode With Adam Copeland

Episode Date: January 16, 2025

Stephen Brunt joins Jeff Marek to preview his new episode of Up Close with Adam Copeland.Shout out to our sponsors!👍🏼Fan Duel: https://www.fanduel.com/Stream the full conversation with Adam Copeland on Up Close with Stephen Brunt belowApple Podcast: https://apple.co/41DCXleSpotify:https://spoti.fi/3DrZs2cWatch: https://www.youtube.com/@theleafsnation401Reach out to [e-mail] to connect with our Sales Team and discuss opportunities to partner with us!If you liked this, check out:🚨 OTT - Coming in Hot Sens | https://www.youtube.com/c/thewallyandmethotshow🚨 TOR - LeafsNation | https://www.youtube.com/@theleafsnation401🚨 EDM - OilersNation | https://www.youtube.com/@Oilersnationdotcom🚨 VAN - CanucksArmy | https://www.youtube.com/@Canucks_Army🚨 CGY - FlamesNation | https://www.youtube.com/@Flames_Nation🚨 Daily Faceoff Fantasy & Betting | www.youtube.com/@DFOFantasyandBetting____________________________________________________________________________________________Connect with us on ⬇️Link Tree: https://linktr.ee/daily_faceoff💻 Website: https://www.dailyfaceoff.com🐦 Follow on twitter: https://x.com/DailyFaceoff💻 Follow on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/dailyfaceoffDaily Faceoff Merch:https://nationgear.ca/collections/daily-faceoff Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Did I mention that I'm not jealous that Stephen Brunt got this assignment as part of his property with Up Close to go talk to Adam Copeland? Please welcome back to the program. Last time we had him on we talked about his interview with Keith Pelly. This time we'll talk to him about his conversation with Adam Copeland. We want to play a clip from this. We'll do it at the end of the interview here, Stephen. Thanks as always for stopping by.

Selfishly, I just like talking to you. So anytime you release anything, I'm dragging you on this property here. Really quickly, just talking to Mike Grinnell of Spittin' Chicklets, another Spittin' Chicklets guy who bought it, part of the ownership group of an ECHL team. You know, once upon a time, this was completely foreign territory. Like, I still have a lot of friends who existed, you know, in a different era in hockey. As a matter of fact, I was just talking to Bill Waters about an hour before I came on the show today and talking about the old times and times of cliff

and ownership and what it was like. The fact that there's a podcast now that it has become, I don't even know how big the ownership stake is, but has become part of hockey ownership. I know the landscape keeps on changing in ways that we can never imagine, but do you have a quick thought on that one? That all of a sudden, like a media property has now become minority owners of any CHL team?

Yeah, well, it's, you know, again, a universe I couldn't have imagined at some point, like none of that, like not, not one, not one bit of that. I heard what you're saying about Bissonnette though, being the most influential guy in hockey too. And you're right, you know, you're, you're a hundred percent correct. And, you know, that is a, you know, a massive shift, you know, uh, that's like the, the, the plates on the earth moving, right? Like it's not a crusty old guy at a newspaper or you know Somebody on a national broadcast or between periods on hockey night in Canada It's him and I think you know that is you know

It's all part and parcel of the fact that the culture you know the hockey culture has changed media cultures changed No, everything's changed right, but I actually kind of think you know that's a good thing that he specifically is maybe the most influential voice in hockey because I think there's kind of an organic quality to that, right? It's not somebody preaching down from above from the high church of hockey. It's a guy from within. Okay, Adam Copeland.

So I was texting with Adam today and said, hey, I'm gonna talk to Stephen and not jealous at all not jealous at all. First of all how is the place I've always wanted to go down and visit Adam there. I still think of Adam as the guy from Orangeville and whenever I think of Orangeville I always think about making that drive and going to Eddie Shaq donuts. Okay that's still how I think of Adam Copeland. How's his new pad? Well I gotta tell you I got to tell you, first of all, when I knew I was doing this, when, when this came together, you're one of the first people I thought of,

cause I knew I'd probably end up with you and I, you know, and again, live audio wrestling, right? Like I, yeah. So there you go. I knew, you know, I w there might, there might be an audience of one for this, but I knew who the one would be. So there was, so there was that. Um, it, you know, it was super cool that Asheville, North Carolina, I've never been Asheville. Um No, it was super cool. Asheville, North Carolina, I've never been to Asheville. And it was just, it's still coming back from that horrible hurricane that they had.

And when we were down there, they had literally just kind of, the water had just come back. It destroyed the water lines and all kinds of stuff that happened that we don't think about after the news cameras all pull out of town, right? It took months. But it's a super funky little town in the mountains,

kind of like the best of America, you know, like an American college town almost. It's got a great music scene there. There are cool restaurants. It's beautiful physically, kind of a nice old downtown. You know, as Adam, I believe, referenced it, like you get five miles out of know, it's, as Adam, I believe referenced it, like, you know, you get five miles out of town, it's all stars and bars.

So, you know, it's that. But in that little oasis of Asheville, it kind of felt like, you know, these are, I could hang with these people, right? And he's got a beautiful house, you know, up on a hill in the woods. But, you know, like a real person's house, right? Like his kids' toys were all over the place. Is, you know, Beth a real person's house, right? Like his kid's toys were all over the place.

You know, Beth's wife was there. We kind of shot the thing in the gym that's kind of built into a garage next door. But you know, we wandered around the house. I saw his, yeah, his leaf room. You know, his leaf room. I saw his rock poster collection. I saw his library.

You know, a guy who reads a book a week, which was quite something. And I can't tell you how much I liked the guy. Like, you know, you're connected, so you know what I'm talking about. But very cool guy, very, very cool guy. Now, did you, I mean, I can't wait to see this. Now I did text, I said, did you please tell me

that Steven and you talked about Tony Candelo's stories. Now, Tony Candelo is a legendary promoter in Manitoba and the tours through Manitoba, you know, driving a van full of a dozen wrestlers all weighing 200 pounds over an icy lake where it could all end for everybody here. So I'm very much looking forward to this. Like, what was your main takeaway

after spending a day with Adam Copeland? Well, you know, I love the, you know, in this, you know, kind of post kayfabe universe, right, which we've been in for quite a while, you know, the ability to pull back the curtain and talk about how, how it works and how his, you know, he's mapped out his career and the, you know, the different phases of it, um, working and the different phases of it, working with the different promotions. Like his origin story is amazing too, you know that, right?

Like a single mom, Orangeville, Ontario, didn't have enough money to play hockey. The family didn't have enough money for him to play hockey, organized hockey, watching Maple Leaf Wrestling on TV, going down to the gardens and hanging out on Church Street at the door waiting for the wrestlers to come out. Wood street.

Yeah. Wood street. I mean, sorry. Uh, and, uh, you know, winning the contest, the newspaper contest, um, to, you know, to get, uh, Ron Hutchison and sweet daddy Ziki, um, meeting his tag team partner in grade school. Uh, like how ridiculous is that? And like in Orangeville in those days,

what 10,000 people maybe, maybe. Oh yeah, yeah. And the two of them, you know, Edge and Christian are in grade six together. All of that stuff, man. And you know, he's at the tail end of his career now. He's got a couple years left. He figures he's very happy in AEW.

Like seems to really love the whole Tony Khan thing. And talking to him about, okay, how do you complete the story? And it's all there, you know, all of that's in, and I will not reveal it here. And he didn't reveal that in the pod either, but you know what, he's like, I just, I was so fascinated by that stuff and dealing with a guy who was so smart and so articulate.

Yeah, I look, the interview that's on the pod, it runs an hour and a half because we couldn't cut it. We couldn't cut it, man. He's a remarkable athlete. He's a remarkable storyteller. Like he's a wonderful person too. It's interesting. I'm glad you mentioned Sweet Daddy Siki. Now Sweet Daddy Siki, legendary wrestler, just passed away at the age of 91 on New Year's Eve. And I was texting with Adam this morning, and I'm like, how much was Siki around when you first broke in?

He goes, he taught me how to do a drop kick. And he was 60 years old. And he did 12 of them in a row perfectly at 60 years old to teach me, to teach me how to teach me how to do it. Like I've always had a fascination with sweet daddy Siki. He used to host a karaoke night when I lived in Toronto, a karaoke night around the corner from my place at a place called mighty Mike's. And then whenever I go to the CNE, he'd be sitting out in front of his

porch in Parkdale just with his guitar. He was a musician as well as, you know, countryman, sweet daddy Siki, just on his porch, people would go to the cany, he'd be sitting out in front of his porch in Parkdale, just with his guitar. He was a musician as well as a countryman. There's Sweet Daddy Siki just on his porch. People would go to the Canadian National Exhibition. I'd be going to the old Hockey Hall of Fame and there was Sweet Daddy Siki sitting on his front porch. I do wanna ask you this thing, cause you mentioned sort of the K-Fade days versus now.

Like we both grew up, like when I grew up, it was very much the K-Fa days and you follow the wrestlers at Maple Leaf Gardens leaving through the Wood Street exit and it would be all the heels going together to check into the hotel. It would be the baby faces all going at the same time and they would never ever mixed.

And it was like maintain the fiction, maintain the fiction. I started this by talking about, you know, podcasters becoming owners of hockey teams. Back then, you know, you look at that industry versus now publicly traded, et cetera. What are your thoughts of what you've seen over the years as this sport has evolved? Well, man, it's, you remember the old ads in the newspaper

used to say an exhibition of skill and science, right? Do you know why they did that? Is that a legal disclaimer? Is it a tax thing or something? Yeah. Because they were charging money essentially for a fake fight, so it was an exhibition of skill and science.

That was their, that was legalese to make sure they couldn't be sued. Which is the same reason the then WWF when they went to court had to declare that they weren't a sport, right? That they had to say they weren't an entertainment. Correct. Tax issue. Tax issue.

In New Jersey. Yes. So, you know, I keep thinking about the resilience of this, you know, however you want to describe it, sport, entertainment. You know, when I was a kid, you know, you were just, like it certainly doesn't go back to like the gorgeous George days, but it was, you know, in the fifties where it was, you know, unbelievably popular early television, easy television,

right, you know, but through the sixties, through the seventies, the, you know, and when K-Fabe kind of the idea of it, you know, I guess the thing was, you thing was when I was a kid, it was always about, the theory was the audience believed everything, believed it was real. You had to buy into this to enjoy it.

And at a certain point, you kind of roll your eyes and say, well, of course it's not real and look at this. But the amazing thing is it didn't matter. That was irrelevant to people's enjoyment of it. And the idea, like the way people consume it now, and you know, and it's been a long time, you know, the kind of, I'm going to surrender, you know, my disbelief here, right? I'm going to give myself over to it the way I would give myself over to a night at the theater or a movie and just let it happen in front of me.

I'm not going to sit there and deconstruct it. Cause that's not the point. I'm going to enjoy it and I'm going to feel the feels. And you know, the thing, one of the things talking to the, uh, I really enjoyed talking to him about, to Adam about was, so what's it like when you walk out there, you know, cause he's a big music guys, you know, right? So we talked a lot about, about kind of the rock star thing. Like if you're Eddie Vedder and you're, you know, you walk out on stage, which it feels like if you know, 50,000 people are in the palm of your hand.

But he talked about that moment where, you know, you feel what's coming back at you as a wrestler, whether that's love or hate, you know? And both are equally, you know, a measure of success, right? If you're drawing heat and the feeling that, okay, I've made that happen through this art form. Like it's gotta be, it's incredibly powerful and it works, you know, and it worked for my father's generation. It worked for my generation. It works for my kid's generation. And it will work for their kid's generation. It never goes away. Yeah. You know, and I always found it

interesting to talking to, and I used to always make this point when I did the old wrestling video show that you referenced Live Body Wrestling. I'd always make the point to, I would always hate it when I would see a wrestler on a radio show or TV, and they would do the interview in character. And I'd always said to myself, Stephen, if I ever had a chance, could you imagine this for one second?

If I had a chance, if you're watching me today and I was interviewing Tom Cruise, and I pretended that he was really Jerry Maguire what would you think of me Stephen? Well they but it was you remember like Jerry Lawler Andy Kaufman and what's the guy the guy from ABC who sued Tim Stossel Tim Stossel yeah yeah Tim Stossel yeah cuz he got with Dr. Schultz David Schultz yeah it's not real right and? And the guy hit him. So there was, you know, but that was kind of, people believed that was fundamental to it, right? That you had to,

you, you, you had to exist in that space. Um, but again, to me, it's, it's so much more interesting to talk about the craft and about the 100% and all of the, and you know, how do you, you know, how do you work with this guy and what was this guy like to work with? You know, and talk about McMahon and talk about the cons and, you know, and talk about riding around in, you know, station. Tony Candelo's van. Yeah, no, it's so much fun.

And he's, you know, he, look, Adam covers a lot of ground, right? Like a lot of years, a lot of different places. He tells a great story. The other, you know, the other kind of childhood, right? Like a lot of years, a lot of different places. He tells a great story. The other kind of childhood, sort of childhood story was that, and you probably know it, was hanging out with City Line at City TV to see Bret Hart and waiting to talk to Bret Hart after a City Line show with I guess Deanie Petty probably. He was in the crowd, I think, wasn't he? He was in the crowd. Yeah. And he ended up getting invited out bread invited him out to

You know hang out with Stu and the family and you know get tortured by Stu in the dungeon That's awesome We're gonna we're gonna play this clip. Listen. I can't wait to watch this. I can't wait to listen to this This is gonna be 90 minutes of gold Steven. Thanks is all by the way You mentioned maha you mentioned gorgeous George a second ago for whatever reason when you and I get together Something always revolves around Muhammad Ali. So a lot of Muhammad Ali shtick came from a combination of Gorgeous George, I think Freddie Blassie as well.

He would have probably seen him. Classy Freddie Blassie. Yeah, classy Freddie Blassie. And Ali always acknowledged the Gorgeous George thing, right? He was a crazy wrestling fan. And I am the greatest thing. Yeah. Gorgeous George, right?

Always comes back to it. Stephen, your delight. Thanks as always. Best of luck with this one. I is the, I'll tell you what, the Keith Peli interview really raised some eyebrows, perhaps at our old shop, which was very interesting and good to hear. And we very much look forward to this one.

Thanks for stopping by. Thanks, man. Appreciate it. I went to the dark man, he tried to give me a little medicine I'm like nah man that's fine I'm not against those methods but I knew It's me, myself and how this gon' be fixing my mind I do want a record I turned on the music I do want a record I turned on the music It's enough to help can't you sometimes lose it

Helping on the days that went wrong