The Zach Nichols Podcast - The Paulie Calafiore Life Update! | ZNP EP. 157

Episode Date: March 13, 2026

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Back again with another ZNP, and today I'm spilling the tea. Welcome back to the Zach Nichols podcast for Pauley-Kalefiori round two. Round of applause, baby. It's juicy this week. I don't even know what's going to be talked about, so we might have a couple. I don't even know. We're my headphones. Yeah, all things Polly Califiori might be heavily edited, if you know what I'm saying.

Yeah, we may have to have to have a lot of takes where it's. It's like maybe we should leave this out. Yeah, well. Maybe we should cut this. But we'll see how juicy we can keep it. I think we can keep it clean or, uh, what, what you, what you're sipping on over there, buddy? Oh, a little fizzy bubble. Yeah, no, just, um, a soda.

Okay. Well, keep it clean over there. Another monster shot off for Pauly Califiori, giving us his time, his energy, his, his real life perspective. Pauli. It's good to see you, buddy. you know, I'm actually surprised to see you. I think everyone who's watching this besides Pink Rose is shocked to see you here.

You were talking mad shit, brother. I thought you were going to be on vacation, personally. I thought I was going to be on vacation too, but I think I'm going to have to... I thought you were going to be on vacation with Brad. I thought I was going to be on vacation with Brad. C.T. Yeah. I mean, why are you not on vacation right now?

Now, what's going on, bro? You know, I don't know. You know, listen, here, Zach and I were, we're in a, we're in a good position. Don't rope me in. No, no, no. It's going, it's, you know, keeping a positive here. Like, we're back in the rotation here. All right.

So we want to keep. Are we? Yeah, we want to keep. I don't know if we are. I don't know what rotation you're talking about. I'm on ice. I don't, we were closer than we've ever been. I mean, rumor was that you got a, uh,

I fucking lied about that shit. I never got an availability call. I just wanted to feel cool. So I said I did. No, I'm just kidding. I did get an availability call, but I think it was because Jenna told them too. Okay.

All right. Well, what's up? A vacation availability call, that is. Talk to us about where you're at professionally. What are you doing here in Detroit, man? Yeah. I mean, I came here, you know, I'm not on vacation elsewhere.

So I figured I might as well take a vacation here, chat a little bit. it, you know, talk about how in shape I am. Talk about how I really prepared to be War of the World's One and War the Worlds Two, Pauley, which I feel like has been severely missed. I feel like I'm in gravely missed. I'm going to tell you. Yeah.

I feel like I'm in a single era. I'm in an unhinged era, but, you know, unhinged in a way where, you know, I know where to keep the unhingedness in terms of keeping it in the game, not outside of the game. And, you know, honestly, I don't, I don't want to do anything that's going to shoot Zach or eye in the foot. You know, I am at a spot now where I feel like, you know, we're in a good position in the sense of like they're talking to us. They're calling us. Got to give all the props to, you know, production and, you know, coming under a new network, coming with Paramount and everything. So there's a lot of things changing and I understand how that works.

You know, I kind of feel like, you know, it doesn't really fall on production as much as everybody thinks it does. I do think that there is a changing of the guard happening on the cast side of things. And I think that this has been a long time coming. I think that when I initially came on, like, that was when the changing in the guard was like really starting to happen. because you really had from era three, if you really look at it, on the men's side, you had Zach Jordan, Tony, Corey, Nelson, Hunter, and they were just dogs. They were just savages. They were getting a lot of the screen time. Like, I felt like I was watching them being pushed as like the new vets turned to OGs. And then once the invasion happened of CBS in the UK, I kind of feel like

you had Kyle, you had myself, you had Theo, you know, you had turbos crazy ass. And I really think that the stage was set for an ultimate like war between those two groups of people, everybody very competitive. And then, you know, I think that there's a lot of castmates from the older guard who, you know, are very manipulative. I think they're very persuasive with with that. And I kind of feel like they selfishly, you know, persuaded and manipulated things for a very long time. And still to this day, kind of do. And I kind of feel like those voices need to, you know, in my opinion, know their place, like in the sense of I will always respect them. I will always have love for them. I think, I truly believe they belong on All-Stars. I truly think if they still had it in them, then there

wouldn't be any, you know, say of like, could we beat this? Could we be that? Like, they would embrace the smack talk. They would show up and be like, we're going to bring it to your front door, the way they once did. But just like we talked about last episode that we did, it's like, you know, I out-villened one of the most biggest villains on reality TV and, you know, made them be put in a position where, you know, if I was looking out for myself and my longevity in, my career and, you know, a show that I had done for so long, I would have probably done the same thing, you know, that he didn't. And like, you know, I'm at a good place with all these people. I have no hate in my heart for any of them. I'm very grateful for the opportunity that the

challenge gives me. I just kind of feel like it's time now to really put our best foot forward. And I don't think that error one and error two people should be competing with error five people. And I just think that the natural progression has always been that. I feel like the people from error one who were still able to compete when the error two dogs came in, they stayed around. And then the error two dogs and error one dogs that were able to compete when error three came in, they stayed around. But I kind of feel like we're really stretching the gap here. And, you know, I mean, I wouldn't say no if I was them and I was still getting the call and I was still getting the opportunity. You never say no to the paycheck.

Yeah. I just, you know, this one, I put a lot of, a lot of preparation into it. You know, I kind of feel like the most buzz that happened on 41 from a social media standpoint was me talking smack about the OGs. When I look at the OGs and their engagement, they, other than CT, you know, and like, let's, you know, let's put bananas and Wes into this and, and Kara. But outside of them, their engagement is nothing, you know, and I feel like the only time the fans really get behind their back is when they're coming at me. And I'm happy to give them

that engagement. I'm happy to give them all that stuff. But I don't think that that really translates into, you know, people showing up, collecting a paycheck and not doing their job. And I feel like we've straight away, you know, and I'm not going to get too hyped up about this because like I truly love the show. I'm passionate about the show. I want to see the show succeed. I am going to support any future seasons and anybody on it. I want it to do well because I want to do well. Because I want the opportunities to continue for all of us. But in my opinion, it's kind of like we've gotten away from what gave us that great TV, which was people showing up, they weren't getting paid that much and they weren't competing to win much. So what did they have? They literally did it for the love

of the game. And I feel like there's a lot of us in error three and error four that still have a lot of that passion to just do it for the love of the game. And, um, you know, if my paycheck was extremely big, um, like some of these OGs, maybe I'd have a different perspective because it's like, why would I want to throw that away? I would, I would go in and I would skate by. I'd be like, yeah, now let me get married. Now let me have kids. Now let me do this. And I'm not going to cause any chaos. I'm not going to cheat on my spouse. I'm going to, you know, or maybe I would. I don't know. But that's kind of where I feel. And, you know, that's all I, I don't want. I don't want. I, I don't want to speculate too much. I think when the fans see, you know, who is on vacation and

everything, they can make the decision for themselves of like, it was it, was it justified or not? And, you know, it's not my place. I just, you know, I'm here to wave the flag for the challenge and the production company and the network back on. First of all, you're right about that. Shout out to the challenge for giving us a show that we all love and all these amazing opportunities. You're a lot to have your opinions one way or another. There's a lot to unpack here. The first thing I'll say is, in my opinion, you were undoubtedly in the best shape that you've been since I've known you. You look incredible. I kind of want to ask you to take the shirt off for the people.

There's men and women that want it. But that's for other areas. What I will say, though, and by the way, I'm not going to gloss over the single era that, but we'll definitely, we'll leave that for later. But right now we're talking about era one and error two, specifically competing on the flagship. Let's play a little name game. and I know I have my opinions. There's people that I'm fan of, but just to give you some name games,

tell me, do they belong on the flagship or All-Stars? And I'm just going to go from the recent seasons that we've seen, right? So from 41, Johnny Bananas, flagship or All-Stars? I'd say he's... That concludes the free preview of the Zach Nichols podcast. So go to Patreon and subscribe to see the rest of the shit that we talk. Go do it now.