January 26, 2022 • 40 mins
Chris Jericho shines a light on the young talent in AEW, and tells me about how he has remained a force in wrestling after more than 30 years in the business.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
What's up everybody. Welcome back to Wrestling with Freddy, and
we have a very special guest today. I'm always excited
when I get the chance to speak to him. He's
succeeded in so many different areas of art and uh
and life, and I like getting to speak to these
types of people more than anyone else. So let's start
the show. Welcome to Wrestling with Freddy. Now stopping up
(00:25):
for the mic, the host of Wrestling with Freddie Freddie
Prince June. Yah, ladies and gentlemen, please welcome one of
the all time greats and one of my favorites, Mr
Chris Jericho. All right, and I'm excited to you. You've
done my show before, and now it's only fair that
(00:47):
I do yours in return. How are you, brother? I'm
doing good, man, I'm doing good. Like I said. Uh,
you know, we've been busy this whole time, over the
last year and a half, you know, with with a
w and of course now that we're all back on
the road and there's crowds and other stuff. So for me,
the whole uh you know, lockdown and Pandemic was obviously
(01:08):
a hindrance, but we still kept moving every week so
it wasn't like I was ever, you know, stuck in
a house and couldn't go be creative, so that that
kind of helped me. So I've been actually really good
over the last you know, a couple of years. See,
for me, it was the opposite because I'm an introvert,
so I literally was in heaven. I was like, I
don't have to see anyone going anywhere. I'll sit in
(01:30):
my little studio and write all day long. It was heaven.
A lot of people like that, absolutely, so it was
I don't do very long episodes, but we got a
lot to catch up on. Sure. Since I last spoke
to you, you helped you helped create an entire new
wrestling federation and uh it has since launched. It has
(01:51):
become wildly successful. And the growth that you guys are showing,
and I'm not talking about numbers and all that stuff
because I don't care about that. You guys are gonna
beyond ten years regardless of numbers, and then people can
talk about whether or not mountains have been climbed, but
you guys have already kind of established a foundation. I
like watching, and I watch much more consistently than I originally. Uh,
(02:14):
did with this younger talent that you guys are bringing up.
You're seeing creative growth on a damn near weekly basis
with some of these younger people. And I don't know
how much you're willing to go behind the curtain here
and how much of the the sort of love you're
willing to share. But a lot of these young kids.
(02:37):
I watched someone like m JF. And I'm just sitting
there like he's doing an old school thing but in
a new school way, and somehow he's It's like Japan,
like they exist with like the oldest of old and
the newest of new, and they don't crap on each
other and somehow they make it work. And I he's
(02:58):
this weird hybrid that I don't know if people are
are used to see him for a while. Do you
want to talk about him or are you supposed to
hate him right now? Do you want to smash him
in the face. Um, this is not a movie, you know.
This is not uh, you know, like your experience doing
Scooby Doo or whatever it may be. It's like, this
is not a script for somebody wrote it and this
is the part you play for the next ninety minutes.
(03:20):
This is something that we play on a weekly basis.
Like you said, for ten years for me thirty one years. Uh,
you cannot write a promo for me. Um, that's gonna
be better than what I can write for myself now
in w B after working there for you know, a
dozen years, I had kind of more freedom to to
(03:41):
do that, but a lot of other guys didn't and
would kind of have to do what they were told,
and therefore it gets very uh, stagnant, sterile. It doesn't
feel real. And I think the a W from day
one has always let the guys do their own promos,
write their own stuff. Something I said, let the pro
was be pros. That's what we're paid to be. And
(04:02):
whether it's being on screen, behind the scenes, lighting whatever,
I'm not going to tell the lighting director how he
should light my face because we hire right. We have
the old school John Malkovitch philosophy where he says, hey,
I don't tell you where to put the cameras, don't
tell me about my motivation exactly it's right. And it's
the Clint Eastwood thing where where you hear where he's
(04:26):
doesn't do a lot of takes. Why is that? Because
I hired these guys because I thought they're the best
guys for the part. I don't need twenty takes to
convince me of that one or two is pretty much
going to be the closest, right. I feel the same
with a W. So when you take a kind of
like and JF, if he was in another company, they
would probably give him more of a script, which is
(04:46):
not going to be the same as when you just
talk off the cuff. Though sometimes he says things, I
say things all of us do that maybe we're a
little bit over the line, But for the most part,
it's more real, and it feels more admitted, and it
just feels, uh like the whole scenario is more legit.
And I think the first thing people notice when they
(05:07):
started seeing a W from day one is that this
just feels different because the guys can be more of
the characters that they want to be and not characters
that have to be approved through. And you know this
more than anybody four or five sets of rewrites and
redrafts and approvals four or five, I mean they had
in their given notes. So like, right, it's going in
(05:29):
on right now. Yeah, And you know, like I said,
if if, if you and I were going to write
a script, and we honed it and did rewrites and
rewrites and wrists and finally sold it. For the most part,
that script that we're now casting our our actors with
would be you know, ninety complete most of the time,
most of the time in this you know, if in
(05:51):
the w W world they're writing their scripts the day
of the show sometimes and then changing it right up
to Uh, there's no way you can really master that
as a performer. The best way is just your own
personal character and knowing your character better than anybody else.
What would I say? What would I do? Know? Some
guys need help. M JF doesn't need help, Chris Jericho
(06:13):
doesn't need help. Those type of guys can go out
there and do what they what they're paid to do,
and it just comes across better. And as a result,
I think more people really enjoyed our show right out
of the gate because of that I might not have
expected at first, because of them, Well, wrestling is wrestling.
That's not the case. Yeah, that's not the case at all.
Let's uh, I wasn't expecting to go down this road.
But let's go a little deeper into that. Because when
(06:35):
I when I worked there. You hit me with a
couple of philosophies and you probably won't even remember one
of them, but I really took it to heart. But
before we get into that, I want to talk about
that writing element, because I always felt if you didn't
know how to write your own promo, you needed someone
like me. If you did, what am I what? What
(06:57):
would we do? Like? There's no there's nothing that I
can give you that you don't already know how to do.
And most of the time, the people who knew how
to write their own promos were already over to some extent,
so they didn't need much help getting over outside of
the other person in the ring. Where I found it
to be most beneficial were people that either a couldn't
(07:18):
do it and guys that were literally like, yo, man,
could you just like give me a line reading and
I'll just do it like like you do it. I'm like,
all right, but you gotta sound tougher than me. I
sound like, you know, a stoner from l A. You
gotta sound like a badass. So um. The one thing
that I did find though, was I could help problem
(07:38):
solve a lot of the overwritten stuff. Right. I remember
seeing an m v P promo and he hated it
because Vince wrote it and or rewrote it, I should say.
And I was kind of sitting in the back looking
and I already knew what the fix was, right. It
was just one little line that needed to be tweaked,
and I knew it would be in his voice, and
(08:00):
that was the problem. None of it was in his voice.
And I finally just said, all right, he's either gonna
knock me out, because we had never met and he
wasn't giving me like a come on in and help
out kind of. I said, he's either gonna throw a
punch or he's gonna hear this out and I'll earn
some respect. And I ran up and he was with
he was with DJ, and I said, hey, man, I
(08:20):
think it's just this one little line and it's kind
of like a pulp fiction vibe. And I hit him
with the line and he looked at me like he
was gonna kill me. And I said the line and
he goes, don't go anywhere, sit down, and I was like, okay, okay,
I'm in, and we rewrote the promo real quick, and
I just let him basically say what he wanted to say.
And then I would kind of like put a couple
of words there to bring those sentences together. And he
(08:42):
and I had a really good working We became really
good friends after that, even though he wanted to kill me. Um.
But when I went to like pitch ideas, I would
run into walls a lot. And then you and I
had a conversation. And again I don't know if you'll
remember this, but I was having a hard time pitching,
uh some of the smaller guys, and you just kind
(09:03):
of smiled and like looked away like you were remembering
something way back when. And I didn't know what it was.
But I'm like staring at him, like what's he gonna say?
What's he gonna say? And whatever you were gonna say,
you changed to Freddie. He's his father's son, and I went,
I went, what do you what do you? What do
you mean? I mean, I grew up without no dad,
(09:24):
so it didn't click with me. And you said, his
dad loved the big guys, and he's his father's son,
so he's always going to see the big guy able
to beat up the small guy, no matter how much
evidence you show him, because his father told him it
was that way. And I remember like getting on the
plane and with Vince and kind of like looking at him,
(09:50):
and I just changed. It changed my whole philosophy on
how I pitched things, especially how I pitched the smaller guy.
And the first one I tried it with was Kofi,
and I literally just I pitched it like a like
a Spider Man comic where all the bad guys beat
up Spider Man the whole time, but it's his like
(10:11):
goodness that's going to sort of bring it out and
not Hulk out. But you know, we always pitched it
where and of course you know he wouldn't win the
he wouldn't win the title, but we'll just get him
into that match, and you know we'd always be like, well,
cross that title bridge when we get there. So so
it really changed the way I pitched, and I started
having a lot of success with it. And after Kofi
(10:32):
came to Jeff Hardy storyline which brought him to the Championship,
and I literally started just looking for different angles, and
I started seeing that he was selling more merch than
even Hunter was selling, and so that's what I went
into the pitch with. It was like, you know, the
creative was the creative but I was like, hey man,
this dude selling more merch than anyone in the company
right now, and even the people who were against the idea, like,
(10:55):
he's selling more merched than you. Brom You've got thirty
plus years in this business, and I've seen matches of
you all over the world. You know that I have
a weird obsession with Asian culture. You gotta talk to
(11:19):
me about Japan. I know we don't have a ton
of time, and I got a million things I want
to talk to you about. But is Japan where you
made your bones? Or was Canada really weird? Not made
your bones? Found yourself? Is where you found yourself? Let
me kind of tie it all together, because because that
is the true story it is to this day, like
(11:39):
w B has always been a big man's territory. Um.
It started in the sixties and seventies with with Vince's dad,
and Vince loves big guys. It's just the way it is.
It's the culture he came up in. And even when
when some of the smaller guys get a shot, it
still goes back to bigger guys more often than not.
Having said that, so, in the early nineties, when I
(11:59):
first started I was very small, in five eleven two
twenty pounds. This was the whole Camania era still, which
was six three hundred pounds. So how do you get
into the business. Well, I knew starting on Canadian Independence,
I'd never be the biggest guy in the show, but
I could have the biggest character and the biggest personality
and the biggest charisma. So I started kind of focusing
(12:21):
on that, which very much helped me throughout the years
even to this day. Then where do you go? Well, um,
you could go to the indies around Canada, but if
you wanted to go to the big leagues, which for
me was always do w to b it just wasn't
the place at the time. Everyone was too big. So
I was also really into Stampede Wrestling which was in Calgary,
(12:42):
and all of those types of guys, which was your
Owen Heart, Chris Bena, Brian Pillman, the smaller guys that
I could tell like, these guys are probably my size,
you know, plus thirty pounds of muscle, but they're very
athletic and acrobatic, and I was very mu especially Owen Hard.
I was very connected with Owen and what he was doing.
What is this Owen Hard do he wrestles in Japan.
He wrestles in Mexico. Well, that's interesting to me. How
(13:04):
can I do that? So that's kind of where all
that started. In Calgary was still at the time of
very big wrestling hotbed where there was guys working in
Mexico and guys working in Japan. So I got a
couple of tours of Mexico, which then led me to
meeting Ultimo Dragon, who still wrestles to this day, who
was wrestling in Japan and was looking for arrival uh
(13:25):
and not arrival a rival um. And so that kind
of where is where I stepped in, and I got
a couple of tours there right off the bat and
did good, so I kind of got a steady job
there very quickly. So Mexico and Japan is where I
made my mark the most uh and the earliest, because
it wasn't so much based on size, it was based
(13:48):
on athleticism and showmanship. So when I was twenty two
years old, I was like, uh, probably like you when
you were twenty two, Fred Freddie I was a cover
boy as well, on the cover of all of all
the team Beat magazines and those type of things. In
in in Mexico, and you know chicks when you win
a date with Cortazon de Leon was was my name,
(14:10):
and all that sort of stuff. And also and it
also wrestling had just gone on TV a few years
priors of wrestling was huge in Mexico. So it's very
much a Beatlemania type of of a reaction with and
chicks like you come out of the arena and they're
just fucking guy. This is not exaggeration. Remember getting kissed
on the cheek and grabbed and pulled and uh. They
(14:32):
used very red lipstick that would basically tattoo itself to
your skin. You could wash that for an hour and
it would still have read. And after a while, I
just walked around with red marks on my face. What
else can I do? And this is not to say
look at me, I'm such a stud. It's just to
say this is how popular was so right out of
the gate at a young age, I had that fame.
But also too, I was learning from the best workers
(14:55):
in Mexico because I was in the main event. So
because I was the good looking baby face who could work,
I was working with Negro Costas and Bestislava and you
know Sangre Chakana and all these types of guys Altahano
and and and and Silver King. So I was learning
how to work a different style, and then that nailed
me go to Japan, where I learned another style. So
(15:16):
by the time I was four, I'd already had five
years of main event experience all around the world. A
lot of guys don't have that at the time, and
they still don't have it to this day. So I
was very fortunate because of that international flavor. I still
work that way to this day and can pull things
that I learned from Negro Kostas in n that no
(15:36):
one remembers and no one knows, but I know it.
And then I can pull what I learned from, you know,
Sean Michaels, or what I learned from Ultimo Dragon, or
where I learned from Eddie Guerrero and all these different guys,
and next time I have a match with Darby Allen
or Jungle Boy or m JF or Eddie Kingston, I
can kind of bring in something extra to the table
because of the way things were when I first started.
(15:57):
You're still talking about young people. You always thinking about
getting the next person you have to from day one
and a W Freddie and and once again it's something
this is not a w B bash. I worked there
for for almost twenty years. I loved working for w B.
But one thing that they still have an issue with,
and you can see it if you watch the show
is building new stars. They really have a problem with that.
(16:19):
I don't know why, but once again, it doesn't matter
to me what they do. From day one and a
W when we showed up on October two, even before that,
when we showed up for the first couple of pay
per views, we had no television deal. Then when we
finally got one on T n T, it was an
ad revenue share. Now what that means for people that
don't know, is you make the money based on the advertising.
(16:40):
If fifty advertisers, you get a share, If one advertiser,
you get a share. So it was not a big
monster deal. So I realized early on is being the
kind of the face of the company and the one
guy that the national audience knew besides Jim Ross, but
the one guy that was in the ring. I mean,
they knew Cody maybe, but not really. And Kenny and
the Bucks were kind of more independent or popularly in
(17:02):
other countries. I need to make new stars as quickly
as I can, Cody being one of them, Uh, Kenny
Omega being another one. And then you moved to look
at my first few programs like that Match three in
a W was versus Darby Allen. Then Jungle Boy was
right around that time. And then you know then John Moxley,
who had to be rehabbed when he came from w W.
(17:24):
MOCKX was not mocks when he first showed up. He
was still Dean Ambrose, kind of the goofy guy that
wasn't funny doing a little stupid ship. They made him
do we talk about writers. We we had to make
him into a star right out of the bat. So
all of those guys, if you look at the first
six months pre lockdown in a W, I worked with
all of them so very quickly. We had six to
(17:44):
eight to ten guys that were all shouldering the load.
And four months after our first date October two or
three months we we went from the ad ReBs share
to a contract for I believe a hundred and sixty
million dollars for four years. Because of the demos and
ratings we got right out of the gate. That add
that AD revenue share is such an old school Hollywood
move and it's I mean, it's literally like walking on
(18:08):
a plank and the captain of the ship is like,
tell me a joker. It's the ocean for you. If
I don't laugh, it is the scare. I've been in
negotiations where that was on the table. Then I was
just curious. Okay, so it's a dent gamble on myself
right on. Let's see what happens. I guess, you know.
And and then when I first started podcast, it was
the same as it was an AD share And then
(18:30):
you know, either you you you strike up a chord
and get a fan base quickly, or you don't. So
we were able to get one very quickly, and it
paid off in space. And now if you look at
the television contracts that are out there, I mean, we
are primed if we continue doing the demos that we're
doing for a huge renewal when the time comes, just
because the ratings and more important because the demos that
(18:50):
we've been acquiring. Let's talk about multiple show business real quick.
Have Look, you've been able to succeed in a lot
of different areas, not just wrestling, but through rock and roll,
especially in this decade of your life. I mean, I
know you've done it longer, but you've really kind of
exploded with Fozzy. My son rocked out to it when
(19:13):
I would drive him to school on Syria Sex m
because you were on the hard rock station, not thirty five,
not thirty six, but thirty seven, and even he was
rocking out to it. Do you think that wrestling opened
that door for you or do you think that door
would have been opened and wrestling slowed it down. I mean,
(19:34):
it's really hard to transfer from one craft to another
in any form of show business. It is. I mean,
like I said, you know all about this because I
know Hollywood is and you came in. You know as
as the teen heartthrob, Well, how does the teen heartthrob
transposed to winning an oscar at fifty? I mean, you
do get stuck into a mold that people want you
(19:57):
to be in Fozzy. I think at the start it
was probably more hindered by the fact that I was
a wrestler rather than helped. I think we had to
work twice as hard to get people's respect because there
are so many bands in Hollywood, um from different actors
and stuff. And that's fine. I mean, everybody should do
what they want to do. But I don't think people
took it as serious at first, solely because I was
(20:20):
the singer. What really kind of opened the door was
the fact that we never quit, we never stopped, and
we worked, like I said, twice as hard. But for us,
the real difference is when we started getting played on
rock radio, like you mentioned, but across the country too.
I never realized how important rock radio is two bands,
even in two then I never realized until we started
(20:43):
getting played on rock radio how it just took things
through the roof. And then finally when Judas came out
and that became the elusive hit single. I mean I
I got videos on Twitter last night, one from London
Stadium or west Ham this was sing that was an amazing,
amazing and in the same day with Carolina Hurricanes playing
(21:05):
it during their period their play breaks too, So you've
got both of these things, um happening at the same time.
Now Judas has gone from you know, a fosy song
to more of a universal sports arena song. I'm not
all happened because of rock radio and timing and the
fact that we just kept continuing to build and write
good songs and work with the right people. Rock radio
(21:28):
when they support you. And and my uncle who discovered
my dad and Richard Pryor before comics. He had musicians,
so he had friends, He had Van Halen, he had
x Exene from that punk band X back in the day,
and any the power of radio is this when you're
(21:48):
driving down the road and you just got off work,
or you had an audition that you knew was gonna
go great and instead of just sucked ass and was
and you know you're not gonna get it, or your
old lady just broke up with you, or maybe your
old ladies driving you crazy and you put on the
radio just to yell and scream, and then all of
a sudden, the song comes on that just like clicks everything.
(22:09):
And that's why radio is never gonna die, because you're
always going to be in a car at some point,
piste off at someone, and there's just a certain song
that brings you back. Man. I mean, I I got spoiled,
like I got a soft spot for for three types
of people, stand up comics because my old man, professional
wrestlers and rock and roll stars. Okay, so it's until
(22:32):
you go on stage and crack some jokes. Then you'll
become like sainted in my in my mind, i've done
that before that you are, you'll be the saint that
your your next gimmick from Less Shampyond to Saint Christopher St. Jericho.
That's right. But yeah, man, ever since I was a kid,
I remember it was my twelfth birthday. It was and
(22:54):
I was in my uncle's backyard in Brentwood, California, and
Exan and the band punk band X were there in it.
She was married to Vigo Mortenson at the time. This
was before he was like famous famous. He was just
an actor named Vigo. And uh, she's sang a punk
rock version of Happy Birthday to me and my cousin Kate,
(23:15):
and then uh, she was leaving and I said, oh,
please don't go, could you. I don't remember what song
I asked her to play, so would you please just
play one more thing? She goes, I can't. I'm going
to a Belinda car She had a cigarette. She goes,
I'm going to Belinda Carlisle concert. And I was like,
what Belinda car In my head, I'm like Belinda Carla
and she goes, yeah, I'm going to kick her fucking
ass and she just walked out. I'm twelve, so until
(23:38):
I was like sixteen, I believe she legit like went
there to Beta Hell on a poor little Bolinda Carla.
But I've always I've always loved rock stars because of
that very first encounter that I had with one, which
was her, And every time I've met him, I've had
the best time. And now you get to live the
wrestler life, which is tough, but then you get the
(23:58):
rock star life just glory. So you have like the
perfect the perfect balance. Man. Well you know what, dude,
I mean, I think that's kind of one of those
miss umbers. Like, you know, rock and roll isn't as
glamorous as you think, especially when you first start. Like
anything else, it's like wrestling, you are acting like you
gotta just go with the flow and travel in a
(24:20):
van and you know, do all the things you gotta do.
Now we've reached a certain level where we have a
nice tour bus and um, so that that takes things different.
But you know when we toured with Slash, you know,
Slash has a really nice tour bus that takes him
to a really nice hotel where he gets off the
bus and stays overnight and then in the morning gets
back in the bus and drives, you know, forty five
(24:41):
minutes of the gig. For us, you're driving sometimes you
know three d four miles on the bus and when
you get to the gig, there's a shower in the
gig if you're lucky. If not, you get a day
room where you go have a shower, but you get
back onto the bus to sleep and travel. So there's
different levels. And then there's the Stones who travel and
private jets to private tells and then you know they're
(25:01):
playing stadium, so there's always different levels. But to me,
the most important, same with the same with a W.
A w's treatment is a million times better than w
w's ever was because the Khan family our owners of
sports teams, so they come at it from a sports standpoint.
I never had hotels and cars provided ever ever, ever
(25:21):
in in the in the thirty years of working in
the States. If I did a want offer something, but
they would never take care of that. A W does.
So you know, the most important thing is if you
want to be there and you love what you do
and you have a passion for it, the rest of
it falls into place. You know, if you don't want
to be there, you can be staying at the Waldorf
for story and flying in a private jet and it's
(25:42):
a hindrance. If you do want to be there, you
can travel on the back of a van and stay
at the you know, sleep in the van, or stay
at the Super eight with six other guys and you're happy.
So to me, I've always done things, in my opinion,
for the right reasons. I've never done things for money.
I do it because I love to do it. And
if you see of my my my career, uh you know, history,
(26:04):
my resume, so to speak, it's pretty rare when I
do something just once, like podcasting. We're going on nine years,
five books. We've done eight fausey records. I've been wrestling
for thirty one years. It's never like, oh, he put
out a book and maybe didn't make money or asked like,
you gotta put the time and to build it no
matter what it is, acting anything, And that to me
(26:25):
is why I've always picked and choose projects according to
what my gut instinct is. You know, Cruise, like we
worked on the Cruise for three years and we're we
just announced our fourth one I have. I have friends
that are a part of that cruise now for a
couple of years. I have buddies that have gone and
done in the in the stand up comic world. But
(26:45):
that's great, it's it's it's the best vacation I have
to If you do and they all love it, they
all love it. If you're doing your your podcast for
the next year or so on Cruise five, love the
Freddy Prince Live podcast, you can come hang out. It's
the best. It's the best vacation. But point is, it's like,
if you do things for the right reason, the money
will follow you. If you do things for money, you're
(27:06):
probably not gonna like it and either not do the
best job you can or it's not gonna last, and
you've got to go into the next thing. And I've
never done that. As a result, my career has always
been diverse and I've had great longevity. And for everybody listening,
the reason he can say that, and the reason I
can nod my head and you don't see it is
because we have both seen people do it for money,
and we have both seen those people phase out real
(27:29):
quick because it does not work. I agree, it doesn't work,
and that's like I said, and it's sometimes it's hard
to wrap yourself around. I turned down big money gigs
not all the time, but most of the time because
(27:51):
you'll find money in other spots. If if it puts
you in a bad position where you don't feel it,
then you're probably not gonna do a great job, and
people can people can sniff that out. Aren't stupid for sure.
The modern fan for audiences were never sophisticated until post millennium,
and that's when audience has started like figuring stuff out
(28:11):
and going okay okay. Behind the scenes is now just
the scenes, like there is no buy so you can
you cannot fool them out. I want to finish with
something that's more for just my fantasy, but maybe you
can jump into if you could have one match, any
stadium guaranteed sellout any opponent at any time in their career.
(28:37):
I'm giving you the doctor who phone booth. You can
travel wherever, whenever, any stadium guaranteed sell out every single
fan screaming or booing for you, whichever one you want,
any opponent at any time in their career, who and where? Well,
but there there is there is, there is two that
I would take but but but but the one that
(28:58):
I'm really looking forward to now that will have is
the is the is the story we're building with Eddie
Kingston and a w that's a guy from day one,
the moment he walked in and said that's a superstar.
It's gonna be a huge baby face. But I like
his style. It's very hard hitting and you know, he
I can't believe you brought him up. I love I
love Eddie Kingston. I love to hear that you're actually
(29:18):
doing something with him. He legit, forget the Puerto Rican
Puerto Rican thing. Okay, it's not just because of that.
I he legit. I was watching whoever does gerrols? Like
video clips and those montages on social media. They need
a raise like they kill I'm telling you man, the
music behind it, the cut, the edit. They did one
with Eddie a couple of months ago, and I legit cried, cried,
(29:41):
and and that's the reason why I like him is
is he doesn't look like a typical wrestler. He just
looks like a tough guy at the bar. But his
promos are above and beyond. So that's why like I
kind of pick and shoes who I'm gonna be working
with and also too, it has to fit in with
the plans that Tony Khan has and with the guys have.
But the Edione was really something cool to me. And
I also deal in long term stories, so uh, nothing's
(30:05):
set in stone, but but that's one that I'm really
looking forward to that will happen. But the two that
I have that never did happen and their brothers and
they're from the same part of the country as I
am was, was Brett Hart and Owen Heart. I never
had a chance to work with either one of them. Um,
when I made up my mind to leave w CW
and nine and come to w B. If you gave
(30:26):
me a list of ten reasons wrestling, Owen Heart would
be one of the probably seven, eight, nine, ten ones.
Owen passed away before that could happen. He passed away
and I'd believe in May of ninety nine. I didn't
get there till August, and then Brett was in w CW,
but we were on different levels. I was never kind
of allowed to get to that level when I was there,
and then he had to retire out of w CW,
(30:48):
so we really never actually not really we never had
a match together. So those two I think would have
been great chemistry. Um because when you come from a
certain area of a country, and obviously I trained at
the Heart Brothers pro Rusting camp. There wasn't any Heart
Brothers there, but there's a certain way that you train
where our styles were very similar and we probably think
(31:08):
a lot the same. And you know, people say who's
who's the greatest of all time? And to me, you
could it's all subjective whoever you think it is it is.
Some people say it's you know some people some people
say that Christierick is greateful time and if you think that,
thank you. But other people say Christijerick is not even
the top twenty. You know. But to me, Brett Hart,
you could make a case for him as being the
(31:30):
greatest of all time, or one of them at least,
because as the years go by, you forget how good
these guys are or how good these guys were, and
all it takes is watching one of their matches in
their prime you go, holy sh it, this is better
than anything that's going on today. But you forget that
as the years go on. But so Brett Nolan would
have been huge, And then of course for me, Sean
Michaels was a guy really wanted to work with, and
(31:53):
we did in two thousands and three. We had the
best match at WrestleMania nineteen um, but we really got
to come to other in two thousand and eight, and
that was one of my favorite stories that I've ever
done in my life. Uh eight nine months long. I
can't compare it to anything if you wanted to make,
you know, a documentary on how to have a great
(32:14):
angle that was originally supposed to be nothing and ended
up being a top angle that we're fighting for the
world title nine months later, nine months storyline and wrestling
is like music to my ears. Well yeah, and then
just think to Freddie we did m JF and I
in the Pinnacle, Inner Circle did a year. It was
it was I think it was two days, shy a year.
(32:34):
So I made sure to mention it in the week
after just so we could say it was literally legitimately
three sixty five days. And that was done more like
we didn't plan it that way, but we had a
long term story that kept being cool, and I said,
let's what's the rush. That's the thing I asked any
wrestling company, what's the rush. You got fifty two weeks
a year, a WS two shows a week, WWS two
(32:57):
shows a week. I hate hot shotting. I hate story
ways that don't tell a full arc with all the
twist and turns you can do. And I also hate
it when people go, alright, already, this needs to end.
It's been going on too long. Shut your fucking mouth. Okay,
an hour or two of Titanic. If you thought it
was too long, you didn't see anything yet. The whole
last hour was the whole thing. So just shut up
(33:17):
and enjoy the ride from beginning to end, and then
tell me your opinion. Don't get mad at the beginning,
don't get mad in the middle. Wait and see the
whole movie before you start giving your opinions. And that's
what I really focus on the best, and I appreciate
long term storylines, and that's kind of what I focus
on with whoever I'm working with. In aw you and
(33:37):
I are so old school, man. It literally is the
reason I stopped watching TV because I got tired of
knowing everything about the main prior in the pilot. I'm like,
you answered all my questions already. I don't need to
see episode two. He doesn't need to grow, He's already perfect. Great.
I just I just stumbled on this show on Netflix
called Slasher, and it's kind of like a Canadian version
(33:58):
of American horror story, but is way gorrier and it's
way better written. Do you gotta check it out? From
episode there there. Each one is its own contained season,
but it starts in episode one and it's this violent,
gory murder mystery where you do not see what's happening
until episode eight. All three seasons i've seen so far
been that way. I love it. I don't know what's
(34:18):
happening that stuff. Yeah, and you know it's got eight seasons,
so of each episode two, well that was stupid. Well
just shut up because an episode six, when you see
in two, it's gonna make sense. It's like a Tarantino
movie or something. I love that ship. Just I will
watch from beginning to end. Just don't give me any
plot holes and give me some plausible reasons and I'll
be there. Yeah, man, old school, Yeah, thank you so
(34:43):
much for being on the show. Man. I appreciate your
time so much. Dude. You succeeded in so many different
facets a lot every guest that I've had on are
people who I respect their process and their approach because
I feel those are ways to success. And uh, with
not even asking you those types of questions, you just
laid it out. Just you laid it out for anyone
(35:07):
listening like that your approach to learning, your approach, to
leaving your comfort zone and going to other places to
challenge yourself. And then when you succeed there, of course
that dude brings you to Japan to have a rivalry
with him out there because of the sacrifice, because of
that work, So of course you get noticed in Japan
and then get to go like that's the process. And
(35:27):
even when I try to talk about the glamour life,
you go back to the early days of the rock
and roll when it's tough and it's rough and there
are no private jets, And that's that's what's necessary for
artists to succeed. That's why Jackson Pollock was broke most
of his damn life. But if you if you look
at at how he would have succeeded today, he would
have been a multimillionaire today with the way media goes
(35:50):
and those types of things. So that's the level of sacrifice,
that's the type of grind and uh, you're far I
I like to claim myself as an ex ample of it,
but you are a far finer example of it that
I got first class quicker than some people. So I can't.
I can't suffered like the rest of you. No, dude,
(36:12):
like you said, man, I mean um. Even even when
I left w B to go have the match with
kenyel Mega at the Tokyo Dome once again in Japan
for not being there with New Japan for over twenty years,
took a chance, built the match, had did huge business
with it over in Japan, and that's the match that
Tony con saw where he realized people want to see
(36:34):
an alternative and that kind of spurred him in a
lot of ways to take a chance to start a
w And then when he took that chance, I took
another chance and went with him. So to me, it's
always about that you leave your comfort zone. You know,
if your kiss take the makeup off, you know you
gotta do it. If not, you get stuck in a
nostalgia role or you become stagnant and nobody, nobody wants
(36:57):
to see that. I've always been mostly influenced by David
Bowie when it comes to this, he always updated his image.
He always evolved and changed you never fucking even til
his last record Lazarus, you never knew what Bowie was
gonna do, but it was always Bowie and it was
always cool. Even if you didn't like the Berlin years
or you didn't like the thin White Duke or whatever,
it still was something really cool and it was exactly
(37:24):
And that's what I love about those types of guys,
the long term. Guns and Roses did it, the Beatles
did it, Johnny Depp does it. I mean, you're always
changing and I love that, and so I, as Chris
Jericho made a pact with myself years ago, I'll never
once again. I'll never do it just to get a paycheck.
And if it bores me and I'm not creatively stimulated,
I'll move on to the next thing. And that's what's
(37:45):
always benefited me with my career. And I've got a
great fan base that trusts me on that and follows
me and nine times at Attendant success once in a while,
not quite, but nothing's ever a failure unless you don't
try it. That's the best advice. Second, give damn right.
And by the way, the list is still a top
ten gimmick of all top I don't care what everybody says.
(38:06):
That ship that would correct me up and that. But
once again, Freddie, like when when I came to a
W and two thousand and nineteen, another reason was, if
I go back to W now, the first thing they'll
do is make me put someone on the list. And
I'm not feeling it anymore. That was two thousands. That's
that's too, that's so two thousand and sixteen. But that's
how you've always been, man like, You've always had these
(38:28):
things to to continuously evolved. And I think, and again,
I've never bashed WW on this podcast. I have my criticisms,
but I've never bashed on him. But when they find
something that's money, they never want to let go and
they get a little they get a little bit of
a not a little bit, but they fear like like
Garth from Wayne's World, we fear change like they don't.
(38:50):
They don't want to see what's next, and it'll it
takes top guys to kind of show them like we're
stopping that. It takes a top guy a lot of
confidence to do that. Uh, And so I think w
B kind of shies away because most guys that's hard
to do. Man. I've seen you do it multiple times
in a year. I've seen you do it multi times
(39:12):
in a year. I don't I don't think I've seen
anyone else ever do that, which is I'm not trying
to blow smoke. It's just crazy, thank you, But I
can because I'm still a fan of everything. I can
feel when it gets a little bit boring, and I
can feel when it's like, Okay, we've seen this again
and that's cool, but give me something new, man, Just
just something. You know, if I go see a band
played ten times and it's the same set every night,
(39:33):
it's like just throwing throwing something, throwing something different for
the guys that see you ten times, and the best
bands do that, you know. Um, So that's kind of
always been my m O. And that's what I'll continue
to do and um because it's exciting and it's it's
inspiring to me to do that. Well, dude, you're the best.
You're so awesome that I've literally seen an m M
(39:54):
A guy do the walls of Jericho in an actual
match and got a tap. That's how awesome you are.
And thanks for Rido part of the show. Brother Thanks
Freddy anytime man, always got always got time for you
for sure. All Right, you guys, thanks for tuning in.
I'll see everybody next week with a brand new episode
of Wrestling with Freddy. This has been a production of
(40:15):
I Heart Radio's Michael Tura podcast Network. For more podcasts
for My heart Radio, visit the I heart Radio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
H m hmm.
What's up everybody. Welcome back to Wrestling with Freddy, and
we have a very special guest today. I'm always excited
when I get the chance to speak to him. He's
succeeded in so many different areas of art and uh
and life, and I like getting to speak to these
types of people more than anyone else. So let's start
the show. Welcome to Wrestling with Freddy. Now stopping up
(00:25):
for the mic, the host of Wrestling with Freddie Freddie
Prince June. Yah, ladies and gentlemen, please welcome one of
the all time greats and one of my favorites, Mr
Chris Jericho. All right, and I'm excited to you. You've
done my show before, and now it's only fair that
(00:47):
I do yours in return. How are you, brother? I'm
doing good, man, I'm doing good. Like I said. Uh,
you know, we've been busy this whole time, over the
last year and a half, you know, with with a
w and of course now that we're all back on
the road and there's crowds and other stuff. So for me,
the whole uh you know, lockdown and Pandemic was obviously
(01:08):
a hindrance, but we still kept moving every week so
it wasn't like I was ever, you know, stuck in
a house and couldn't go be creative, so that that
kind of helped me. So I've been actually really good
over the last you know, a couple of years. See,
for me, it was the opposite because I'm an introvert,
so I literally was in heaven. I was like, I
don't have to see anyone going anywhere. I'll sit in
(01:30):
my little studio and write all day long. It was heaven.
A lot of people like that, absolutely, so it was
I don't do very long episodes, but we got a
lot to catch up on. Sure. Since I last spoke
to you, you helped you helped create an entire new
wrestling federation and uh it has since launched. It has
(01:51):
become wildly successful. And the growth that you guys are showing,
and I'm not talking about numbers and all that stuff
because I don't care about that. You guys are gonna
beyond ten years regardless of numbers, and then people can
talk about whether or not mountains have been climbed, but
you guys have already kind of established a foundation. I
like watching, and I watch much more consistently than I originally. Uh,
(02:14):
did with this younger talent that you guys are bringing up.
You're seeing creative growth on a damn near weekly basis
with some of these younger people. And I don't know
how much you're willing to go behind the curtain here
and how much of the the sort of love you're
willing to share. But a lot of these young kids.
(02:37):
I watched someone like m JF. And I'm just sitting
there like he's doing an old school thing but in
a new school way, and somehow he's It's like Japan,
like they exist with like the oldest of old and
the newest of new, and they don't crap on each
other and somehow they make it work. And I he's
(02:58):
this weird hybrid that I don't know if people are
are used to see him for a while. Do you
want to talk about him or are you supposed to
hate him right now? Do you want to smash him
in the face. Um, this is not a movie, you know.
This is not uh, you know, like your experience doing
Scooby Doo or whatever it may be. It's like, this
is not a script for somebody wrote it and this
is the part you play for the next ninety minutes.
(03:20):
This is something that we play on a weekly basis.
Like you said, for ten years for me thirty one years. Uh,
you cannot write a promo for me. Um, that's gonna
be better than what I can write for myself now
in w B after working there for you know, a
dozen years, I had kind of more freedom to to
(03:41):
do that, but a lot of other guys didn't and
would kind of have to do what they were told,
and therefore it gets very uh, stagnant, sterile. It doesn't
feel real. And I think the a W from day
one has always let the guys do their own promos,
write their own stuff. Something I said, let the pro
was be pros. That's what we're paid to be. And
(04:02):
whether it's being on screen, behind the scenes, lighting whatever,
I'm not going to tell the lighting director how he
should light my face because we hire right. We have
the old school John Malkovitch philosophy where he says, hey,
I don't tell you where to put the cameras, don't
tell me about my motivation exactly it's right. And it's
the Clint Eastwood thing where where you hear where he's
(04:26):
doesn't do a lot of takes. Why is that? Because
I hired these guys because I thought they're the best
guys for the part. I don't need twenty takes to
convince me of that one or two is pretty much
going to be the closest, right. I feel the same
with a W. So when you take a kind of
like and JF, if he was in another company, they
would probably give him more of a script, which is
(04:46):
not going to be the same as when you just
talk off the cuff. Though sometimes he says things, I
say things all of us do that maybe we're a
little bit over the line, But for the most part,
it's more real, and it feels more admitted, and it
just feels, uh like the whole scenario is more legit.
And I think the first thing people notice when they
(05:07):
started seeing a W from day one is that this
just feels different because the guys can be more of
the characters that they want to be and not characters
that have to be approved through. And you know this
more than anybody four or five sets of rewrites and
redrafts and approvals four or five, I mean they had
in their given notes. So like, right, it's going in
(05:29):
on right now. Yeah, And you know, like I said,
if if, if you and I were going to write
a script, and we honed it and did rewrites and
rewrites and wrists and finally sold it. For the most part,
that script that we're now casting our our actors with
would be you know, ninety complete most of the time,
most of the time in this you know, if in
(05:51):
the w W world they're writing their scripts the day
of the show sometimes and then changing it right up
to Uh, there's no way you can really master that
as a performer. The best way is just your own
personal character and knowing your character better than anybody else.
What would I say? What would I do? Know? Some
guys need help. M JF doesn't need help, Chris Jericho
(06:13):
doesn't need help. Those type of guys can go out
there and do what they what they're paid to do,
and it just comes across better. And as a result,
I think more people really enjoyed our show right out
of the gate because of that I might not have
expected at first, because of them, Well, wrestling is wrestling.
That's not the case. Yeah, that's not the case at all.
Let's uh, I wasn't expecting to go down this road.
But let's go a little deeper into that. Because when
(06:35):
I when I worked there. You hit me with a
couple of philosophies and you probably won't even remember one
of them, but I really took it to heart. But
before we get into that, I want to talk about
that writing element, because I always felt if you didn't
know how to write your own promo, you needed someone
like me. If you did, what am I what? What
(06:57):
would we do? Like? There's no there's nothing that I
can give you that you don't already know how to do.
And most of the time, the people who knew how
to write their own promos were already over to some extent,
so they didn't need much help getting over outside of
the other person in the ring. Where I found it
to be most beneficial were people that either a couldn't
(07:18):
do it and guys that were literally like, yo, man,
could you just like give me a line reading and
I'll just do it like like you do it. I'm like,
all right, but you gotta sound tougher than me. I
sound like, you know, a stoner from l A. You
gotta sound like a badass. So um. The one thing
that I did find though, was I could help problem
(07:38):
solve a lot of the overwritten stuff. Right. I remember
seeing an m v P promo and he hated it
because Vince wrote it and or rewrote it, I should say.
And I was kind of sitting in the back looking
and I already knew what the fix was, right. It
was just one little line that needed to be tweaked,
and I knew it would be in his voice, and
(08:00):
that was the problem. None of it was in his voice.
And I finally just said, all right, he's either gonna
knock me out, because we had never met and he
wasn't giving me like a come on in and help
out kind of. I said, he's either gonna throw a
punch or he's gonna hear this out and I'll earn
some respect. And I ran up and he was with
he was with DJ, and I said, hey, man, I
(08:20):
think it's just this one little line and it's kind
of like a pulp fiction vibe. And I hit him
with the line and he looked at me like he
was gonna kill me. And I said the line and
he goes, don't go anywhere, sit down, and I was like, okay, okay,
I'm in, and we rewrote the promo real quick, and
I just let him basically say what he wanted to say.
And then I would kind of like put a couple
of words there to bring those sentences together. And he
(08:42):
and I had a really good working We became really
good friends after that, even though he wanted to kill me. Um.
But when I went to like pitch ideas, I would
run into walls a lot. And then you and I
had a conversation. And again I don't know if you'll
remember this, but I was having a hard time pitching,
uh some of the smaller guys, and you just kind
(09:03):
of smiled and like looked away like you were remembering
something way back when. And I didn't know what it was.
But I'm like staring at him, like what's he gonna say?
What's he gonna say? And whatever you were gonna say,
you changed to Freddie. He's his father's son, and I went,
I went, what do you what do you? What do
you mean? I mean, I grew up without no dad,
(09:24):
so it didn't click with me. And you said, his
dad loved the big guys, and he's his father's son,
so he's always going to see the big guy able
to beat up the small guy, no matter how much
evidence you show him, because his father told him it
was that way. And I remember like getting on the
plane and with Vince and kind of like looking at him,
(09:50):
and I just changed. It changed my whole philosophy on
how I pitched things, especially how I pitched the smaller guy.
And the first one I tried it with was Kofi,
and I literally just I pitched it like a like
a Spider Man comic where all the bad guys beat
up Spider Man the whole time, but it's his like
(10:11):
goodness that's going to sort of bring it out and
not Hulk out. But you know, we always pitched it
where and of course you know he wouldn't win the
he wouldn't win the title, but we'll just get him
into that match, and you know we'd always be like, well,
cross that title bridge when we get there. So so
it really changed the way I pitched, and I started
having a lot of success with it. And after Kofi
(10:32):
came to Jeff Hardy storyline which brought him to the Championship,
and I literally started just looking for different angles, and
I started seeing that he was selling more merch than
even Hunter was selling, and so that's what I went
into the pitch with. It was like, you know, the
creative was the creative but I was like, hey man,
this dude selling more merch than anyone in the company
right now, and even the people who were against the idea, like,
(10:55):
he's selling more merched than you. Brom You've got thirty
plus years in this business, and I've seen matches of
you all over the world. You know that I have
a weird obsession with Asian culture. You gotta talk to
(11:19):
me about Japan. I know we don't have a ton
of time, and I got a million things I want
to talk to you about. But is Japan where you
made your bones? Or was Canada really weird? Not made
your bones? Found yourself? Is where you found yourself? Let
me kind of tie it all together, because because that
is the true story it is to this day, like
(11:39):
w B has always been a big man's territory. Um.
It started in the sixties and seventies with with Vince's dad,
and Vince loves big guys. It's just the way it is.
It's the culture he came up in. And even when
when some of the smaller guys get a shot, it
still goes back to bigger guys more often than not.
Having said that, so, in the early nineties, when I
(11:59):
first started I was very small, in five eleven two
twenty pounds. This was the whole Camania era still, which
was six three hundred pounds. So how do you get
into the business. Well, I knew starting on Canadian Independence,
I'd never be the biggest guy in the show, but
I could have the biggest character and the biggest personality
and the biggest charisma. So I started kind of focusing
(12:21):
on that, which very much helped me throughout the years
even to this day. Then where do you go? Well, um,
you could go to the indies around Canada, but if
you wanted to go to the big leagues, which for
me was always do w to b it just wasn't
the place at the time. Everyone was too big. So
I was also really into Stampede Wrestling which was in Calgary,
(12:42):
and all of those types of guys, which was your
Owen Heart, Chris Bena, Brian Pillman, the smaller guys that
I could tell like, these guys are probably my size,
you know, plus thirty pounds of muscle, but they're very
athletic and acrobatic, and I was very mu especially Owen Hard.
I was very connected with Owen and what he was doing.
What is this Owen Hard do he wrestles in Japan.
He wrestles in Mexico. Well, that's interesting to me. How
(13:04):
can I do that? So that's kind of where all
that started. In Calgary was still at the time of
very big wrestling hotbed where there was guys working in
Mexico and guys working in Japan. So I got a
couple of tours of Mexico, which then led me to
meeting Ultimo Dragon, who still wrestles to this day, who
was wrestling in Japan and was looking for arrival uh
(13:25):
and not arrival a rival um. And so that kind
of where is where I stepped in, and I got
a couple of tours there right off the bat and
did good, so I kind of got a steady job
there very quickly. So Mexico and Japan is where I
made my mark the most uh and the earliest, because
it wasn't so much based on size, it was based
(13:48):
on athleticism and showmanship. So when I was twenty two
years old, I was like, uh, probably like you when
you were twenty two, Fred Freddie I was a cover
boy as well, on the cover of all of all
the team Beat magazines and those type of things. In
in in Mexico, and you know chicks when you win
a date with Cortazon de Leon was was my name,
(14:10):
and all that sort of stuff. And also and it
also wrestling had just gone on TV a few years
priors of wrestling was huge in Mexico. So it's very
much a Beatlemania type of of a reaction with and
chicks like you come out of the arena and they're
just fucking guy. This is not exaggeration. Remember getting kissed
on the cheek and grabbed and pulled and uh. They
(14:32):
used very red lipstick that would basically tattoo itself to
your skin. You could wash that for an hour and
it would still have read. And after a while, I
just walked around with red marks on my face. What
else can I do? And this is not to say
look at me, I'm such a stud. It's just to
say this is how popular was so right out of
the gate at a young age, I had that fame.
But also too, I was learning from the best workers
(14:55):
in Mexico because I was in the main event. So
because I was the good looking baby face who could work,
I was working with Negro Costas and Bestislava and you
know Sangre Chakana and all these types of guys Altahano
and and and and Silver King. So I was learning
how to work a different style, and then that nailed
me go to Japan, where I learned another style. So
(15:16):
by the time I was four, I'd already had five
years of main event experience all around the world. A
lot of guys don't have that at the time, and
they still don't have it to this day. So I
was very fortunate because of that international flavor. I still
work that way to this day and can pull things
that I learned from Negro Kostas in n that no
(15:36):
one remembers and no one knows, but I know it.
And then I can pull what I learned from, you know,
Sean Michaels, or what I learned from Ultimo Dragon, or
where I learned from Eddie Guerrero and all these different guys,
and next time I have a match with Darby Allen
or Jungle Boy or m JF or Eddie Kingston, I
can kind of bring in something extra to the table
because of the way things were when I first started.
(15:57):
You're still talking about young people. You always thinking about
getting the next person you have to from day one
and a W Freddie and and once again it's something
this is not a w B bash. I worked there
for for almost twenty years. I loved working for w B.
But one thing that they still have an issue with,
and you can see it if you watch the show
is building new stars. They really have a problem with that.
(16:19):
I don't know why, but once again, it doesn't matter
to me what they do. From day one and a
W when we showed up on October two, even before that,
when we showed up for the first couple of pay
per views, we had no television deal. Then when we
finally got one on T n T, it was an
ad revenue share. Now what that means for people that
don't know, is you make the money based on the advertising.
(16:40):
If fifty advertisers, you get a share, If one advertiser,
you get a share. So it was not a big
monster deal. So I realized early on is being the
kind of the face of the company and the one
guy that the national audience knew besides Jim Ross, but
the one guy that was in the ring. I mean,
they knew Cody maybe, but not really. And Kenny and
the Bucks were kind of more independent or popularly in
(17:02):
other countries. I need to make new stars as quickly
as I can, Cody being one of them, Uh, Kenny
Omega being another one. And then you moved to look
at my first few programs like that Match three in
a W was versus Darby Allen. Then Jungle Boy was
right around that time. And then you know then John Moxley,
who had to be rehabbed when he came from w W.
(17:24):
MOCKX was not mocks when he first showed up. He
was still Dean Ambrose, kind of the goofy guy that
wasn't funny doing a little stupid ship. They made him
do we talk about writers. We we had to make
him into a star right out of the bat. So
all of those guys, if you look at the first
six months pre lockdown in a W, I worked with
all of them so very quickly. We had six to
(17:44):
eight to ten guys that were all shouldering the load.
And four months after our first date October two or
three months we we went from the ad ReBs share
to a contract for I believe a hundred and sixty
million dollars for four years. Because of the demos and
ratings we got right out of the gate. That add
that AD revenue share is such an old school Hollywood
move and it's I mean, it's literally like walking on
(18:08):
a plank and the captain of the ship is like,
tell me a joker. It's the ocean for you. If
I don't laugh, it is the scare. I've been in
negotiations where that was on the table. Then I was
just curious. Okay, so it's a dent gamble on myself
right on. Let's see what happens. I guess, you know.
And and then when I first started podcast, it was
the same as it was an AD share And then
(18:30):
you know, either you you you strike up a chord
and get a fan base quickly, or you don't. So
we were able to get one very quickly, and it
paid off in space. And now if you look at
the television contracts that are out there, I mean, we
are primed if we continue doing the demos that we're
doing for a huge renewal when the time comes, just
because the ratings and more important because the demos that
(18:50):
we've been acquiring. Let's talk about multiple show business real quick.
Have Look, you've been able to succeed in a lot
of different areas, not just wrestling, but through rock and roll,
especially in this decade of your life. I mean, I
know you've done it longer, but you've really kind of
exploded with Fozzy. My son rocked out to it when
(19:13):
I would drive him to school on Syria Sex m
because you were on the hard rock station, not thirty five,
not thirty six, but thirty seven, and even he was
rocking out to it. Do you think that wrestling opened
that door for you or do you think that door
would have been opened and wrestling slowed it down. I mean,
(19:34):
it's really hard to transfer from one craft to another
in any form of show business. It is. I mean,
like I said, you know all about this because I
know Hollywood is and you came in. You know as
as the teen heartthrob, Well, how does the teen heartthrob
transposed to winning an oscar at fifty? I mean, you
do get stuck into a mold that people want you
(19:57):
to be in Fozzy. I think at the start it
was probably more hindered by the fact that I was
a wrestler rather than helped. I think we had to
work twice as hard to get people's respect because there
are so many bands in Hollywood, um from different actors
and stuff. And that's fine. I mean, everybody should do
what they want to do. But I don't think people
took it as serious at first, solely because I was
(20:20):
the singer. What really kind of opened the door was
the fact that we never quit, we never stopped, and
we worked, like I said, twice as hard. But for us,
the real difference is when we started getting played on
rock radio, like you mentioned, but across the country too.
I never realized how important rock radio is two bands,
even in two then I never realized until we started
(20:43):
getting played on rock radio how it just took things
through the roof. And then finally when Judas came out
and that became the elusive hit single. I mean I
I got videos on Twitter last night, one from London
Stadium or west Ham this was sing that was an amazing,
amazing and in the same day with Carolina Hurricanes playing
(21:05):
it during their period their play breaks too, So you've
got both of these things, um happening at the same time.
Now Judas has gone from you know, a fosy song
to more of a universal sports arena song. I'm not
all happened because of rock radio and timing and the
fact that we just kept continuing to build and write
good songs and work with the right people. Rock radio
(21:28):
when they support you. And and my uncle who discovered
my dad and Richard Pryor before comics. He had musicians,
so he had friends, He had Van Halen, he had
x Exene from that punk band X back in the day,
and any the power of radio is this when you're
(21:48):
driving down the road and you just got off work,
or you had an audition that you knew was gonna
go great and instead of just sucked ass and was
and you know you're not gonna get it, or your
old lady just broke up with you, or maybe your
old ladies driving you crazy and you put on the
radio just to yell and scream, and then all of
a sudden, the song comes on that just like clicks everything.
(22:09):
And that's why radio is never gonna die, because you're
always going to be in a car at some point,
piste off at someone, and there's just a certain song
that brings you back. Man. I mean, I I got spoiled,
like I got a soft spot for for three types
of people, stand up comics because my old man, professional
wrestlers and rock and roll stars. Okay, so it's until
(22:32):
you go on stage and crack some jokes. Then you'll
become like sainted in my in my mind, i've done
that before that you are, you'll be the saint that
your your next gimmick from Less Shampyond to Saint Christopher St. Jericho.
That's right. But yeah, man, ever since I was a kid,
I remember it was my twelfth birthday. It was and
(22:54):
I was in my uncle's backyard in Brentwood, California, and
Exan and the band punk band X were there in it.
She was married to Vigo Mortenson at the time. This
was before he was like famous famous. He was just
an actor named Vigo. And uh, she's sang a punk
rock version of Happy Birthday to me and my cousin Kate,
(23:15):
and then uh, she was leaving and I said, oh,
please don't go, could you. I don't remember what song
I asked her to play, so would you please just
play one more thing? She goes, I can't. I'm going
to a Belinda car She had a cigarette. She goes,
I'm going to Belinda Carlisle concert. And I was like,
what Belinda car In my head, I'm like Belinda Carla
and she goes, yeah, I'm going to kick her fucking
ass and she just walked out. I'm twelve, so until
(23:38):
I was like sixteen, I believe she legit like went
there to Beta Hell on a poor little Bolinda Carla.
But I've always I've always loved rock stars because of
that very first encounter that I had with one, which
was her, And every time I've met him, I've had
the best time. And now you get to live the
wrestler life, which is tough, but then you get the
(23:58):
rock star life just glory. So you have like the
perfect the perfect balance. Man. Well you know what, dude,
I mean, I think that's kind of one of those
miss umbers. Like, you know, rock and roll isn't as
glamorous as you think, especially when you first start. Like
anything else, it's like wrestling, you are acting like you
gotta just go with the flow and travel in a
(24:20):
van and you know, do all the things you gotta do.
Now we've reached a certain level where we have a
nice tour bus and um, so that that takes things different.
But you know when we toured with Slash, you know,
Slash has a really nice tour bus that takes him
to a really nice hotel where he gets off the
bus and stays overnight and then in the morning gets
back in the bus and drives, you know, forty five
(24:41):
minutes of the gig. For us, you're driving sometimes you
know three d four miles on the bus and when
you get to the gig, there's a shower in the
gig if you're lucky. If not, you get a day
room where you go have a shower, but you get
back onto the bus to sleep and travel. So there's
different levels. And then there's the Stones who travel and
private jets to private tells and then you know they're
(25:01):
playing stadium, so there's always different levels. But to me,
the most important, same with the same with a W.
A w's treatment is a million times better than w
w's ever was because the Khan family our owners of
sports teams, so they come at it from a sports standpoint.
I never had hotels and cars provided ever ever, ever
(25:21):
in in the in the thirty years of working in
the States. If I did a want offer something, but
they would never take care of that. A W does.
So you know, the most important thing is if you
want to be there and you love what you do
and you have a passion for it, the rest of
it falls into place. You know, if you don't want
to be there, you can be staying at the Waldorf
for story and flying in a private jet and it's
(25:42):
a hindrance. If you do want to be there, you
can travel on the back of a van and stay
at the you know, sleep in the van, or stay
at the Super eight with six other guys and you're happy.
So to me, I've always done things, in my opinion,
for the right reasons. I've never done things for money.
I do it because I love to do it. And
if you see of my my my career, uh you know, history,
(26:04):
my resume, so to speak, it's pretty rare when I
do something just once, like podcasting. We're going on nine years,
five books. We've done eight fausey records. I've been wrestling
for thirty one years. It's never like, oh, he put
out a book and maybe didn't make money or asked like,
you gotta put the time and to build it no
matter what it is, acting anything, And that to me
(26:25):
is why I've always picked and choose projects according to
what my gut instinct is. You know, Cruise, like we
worked on the Cruise for three years and we're we
just announced our fourth one I have. I have friends
that are a part of that cruise now for a
couple of years. I have buddies that have gone and
done in the in the stand up comic world. But
(26:45):
that's great, it's it's it's the best vacation I have
to If you do and they all love it, they
all love it. If you're doing your your podcast for
the next year or so on Cruise five, love the
Freddy Prince Live podcast, you can come hang out. It's
the best. It's the best vacation. But point is, it's like,
if you do things for the right reason, the money
will follow you. If you do things for money, you're
(27:06):
probably not gonna like it and either not do the
best job you can or it's not gonna last, and
you've got to go into the next thing. And I've
never done that. As a result, my career has always
been diverse and I've had great longevity. And for everybody listening,
the reason he can say that, and the reason I
can nod my head and you don't see it is
because we have both seen people do it for money,
and we have both seen those people phase out real
(27:29):
quick because it does not work. I agree, it doesn't work,
and that's like I said, and it's sometimes it's hard
to wrap yourself around. I turned down big money gigs
not all the time, but most of the time because
(27:51):
you'll find money in other spots. If if it puts
you in a bad position where you don't feel it,
then you're probably not gonna do a great job, and
people can people can sniff that out. Aren't stupid for sure.
The modern fan for audiences were never sophisticated until post millennium,
and that's when audience has started like figuring stuff out
(28:11):
and going okay okay. Behind the scenes is now just
the scenes, like there is no buy so you can
you cannot fool them out. I want to finish with
something that's more for just my fantasy, but maybe you
can jump into if you could have one match, any
stadium guaranteed sellout any opponent at any time in their career.
(28:37):
I'm giving you the doctor who phone booth. You can
travel wherever, whenever, any stadium guaranteed sell out every single
fan screaming or booing for you, whichever one you want,
any opponent at any time in their career, who and where? Well,
but there there is there is, there is two that
I would take but but but but the one that
(28:58):
I'm really looking forward to now that will have is
the is the is the story we're building with Eddie
Kingston and a w that's a guy from day one,
the moment he walked in and said that's a superstar.
It's gonna be a huge baby face. But I like
his style. It's very hard hitting and you know, he
I can't believe you brought him up. I love I
love Eddie Kingston. I love to hear that you're actually
(29:18):
doing something with him. He legit, forget the Puerto Rican
Puerto Rican thing. Okay, it's not just because of that.
I he legit. I was watching whoever does gerrols? Like
video clips and those montages on social media. They need
a raise like they kill I'm telling you man, the
music behind it, the cut, the edit. They did one
with Eddie a couple of months ago, and I legit cried, cried,
(29:41):
and and that's the reason why I like him is
is he doesn't look like a typical wrestler. He just
looks like a tough guy at the bar. But his
promos are above and beyond. So that's why like I
kind of pick and shoes who I'm gonna be working
with and also too, it has to fit in with
the plans that Tony Khan has and with the guys have.
But the Edione was really something cool to me. And
I also deal in long term stories, so uh, nothing's
(30:05):
set in stone, but but that's one that I'm really
looking forward to that will happen. But the two that
I have that never did happen and their brothers and
they're from the same part of the country as I
am was, was Brett Hart and Owen Heart. I never
had a chance to work with either one of them. Um,
when I made up my mind to leave w CW
and nine and come to w B. If you gave
(30:26):
me a list of ten reasons wrestling, Owen Heart would
be one of the probably seven, eight, nine, ten ones.
Owen passed away before that could happen. He passed away
and I'd believe in May of ninety nine. I didn't
get there till August, and then Brett was in w CW,
but we were on different levels. I was never kind
of allowed to get to that level when I was there,
and then he had to retire out of w CW,
(30:48):
so we really never actually not really we never had
a match together. So those two I think would have
been great chemistry. Um because when you come from a
certain area of a country, and obviously I trained at
the Heart Brothers pro Rusting camp. There wasn't any Heart
Brothers there, but there's a certain way that you train
where our styles were very similar and we probably think
(31:08):
a lot the same. And you know, people say who's
who's the greatest of all time? And to me, you
could it's all subjective whoever you think it is it is.
Some people say it's you know some people some people
say that Christierick is greateful time and if you think that,
thank you. But other people say Christijerick is not even
the top twenty. You know. But to me, Brett Hart,
you could make a case for him as being the
(31:30):
greatest of all time, or one of them at least,
because as the years go by, you forget how good
these guys are or how good these guys were, and
all it takes is watching one of their matches in
their prime you go, holy sh it, this is better
than anything that's going on today. But you forget that
as the years go on. But so Brett Nolan would
have been huge, And then of course for me, Sean
Michaels was a guy really wanted to work with, and
(31:53):
we did in two thousands and three. We had the
best match at WrestleMania nineteen um, but we really got
to come to other in two thousand and eight, and
that was one of my favorite stories that I've ever
done in my life. Uh eight nine months long. I
can't compare it to anything if you wanted to make,
you know, a documentary on how to have a great
(32:14):
angle that was originally supposed to be nothing and ended
up being a top angle that we're fighting for the
world title nine months later, nine months storyline and wrestling
is like music to my ears. Well yeah, and then
just think to Freddie we did m JF and I
in the Pinnacle, Inner Circle did a year. It was
it was I think it was two days, shy a year.
(32:34):
So I made sure to mention it in the week
after just so we could say it was literally legitimately
three sixty five days. And that was done more like
we didn't plan it that way, but we had a
long term story that kept being cool, and I said,
let's what's the rush. That's the thing I asked any
wrestling company, what's the rush. You got fifty two weeks
a year, a WS two shows a week, WWS two
(32:57):
shows a week. I hate hot shotting. I hate story
ways that don't tell a full arc with all the
twist and turns you can do. And I also hate
it when people go, alright, already, this needs to end.
It's been going on too long. Shut your fucking mouth. Okay,
an hour or two of Titanic. If you thought it
was too long, you didn't see anything yet. The whole
last hour was the whole thing. So just shut up
(33:17):
and enjoy the ride from beginning to end, and then
tell me your opinion. Don't get mad at the beginning,
don't get mad in the middle. Wait and see the
whole movie before you start giving your opinions. And that's
what I really focus on the best, and I appreciate
long term storylines, and that's kind of what I focus
on with whoever I'm working with. In aw you and
(33:37):
I are so old school, man. It literally is the
reason I stopped watching TV because I got tired of
knowing everything about the main prior in the pilot. I'm like,
you answered all my questions already. I don't need to
see episode two. He doesn't need to grow, He's already perfect. Great.
I just I just stumbled on this show on Netflix
called Slasher, and it's kind of like a Canadian version
(33:58):
of American horror story, but is way gorrier and it's
way better written. Do you gotta check it out? From
episode there there. Each one is its own contained season,
but it starts in episode one and it's this violent,
gory murder mystery where you do not see what's happening
until episode eight. All three seasons i've seen so far
been that way. I love it. I don't know what's
(34:18):
happening that stuff. Yeah, and you know it's got eight seasons,
so of each episode two, well that was stupid. Well
just shut up because an episode six, when you see
in two, it's gonna make sense. It's like a Tarantino
movie or something. I love that ship. Just I will
watch from beginning to end. Just don't give me any
plot holes and give me some plausible reasons and I'll
be there. Yeah, man, old school, Yeah, thank you so
(34:43):
much for being on the show. Man. I appreciate your
time so much. Dude. You succeeded in so many different
facets a lot every guest that I've had on are
people who I respect their process and their approach because
I feel those are ways to success. And uh, with
not even asking you those types of questions, you just
laid it out. Just you laid it out for anyone
(35:07):
listening like that your approach to learning, your approach, to
leaving your comfort zone and going to other places to
challenge yourself. And then when you succeed there, of course
that dude brings you to Japan to have a rivalry
with him out there because of the sacrifice, because of
that work, So of course you get noticed in Japan
and then get to go like that's the process. And
(35:27):
even when I try to talk about the glamour life,
you go back to the early days of the rock
and roll when it's tough and it's rough and there
are no private jets, And that's that's what's necessary for
artists to succeed. That's why Jackson Pollock was broke most
of his damn life. But if you if you look
at at how he would have succeeded today, he would
have been a multimillionaire today with the way media goes
(35:50):
and those types of things. So that's the level of sacrifice,
that's the type of grind and uh, you're far I
I like to claim myself as an ex ample of it,
but you are a far finer example of it that
I got first class quicker than some people. So I can't.
I can't suffered like the rest of you. No, dude,
(36:12):
like you said, man, I mean um. Even even when
I left w B to go have the match with
kenyel Mega at the Tokyo Dome once again in Japan
for not being there with New Japan for over twenty years,
took a chance, built the match, had did huge business
with it over in Japan, and that's the match that
Tony con saw where he realized people want to see
(36:34):
an alternative and that kind of spurred him in a
lot of ways to take a chance to start a
w And then when he took that chance, I took
another chance and went with him. So to me, it's
always about that you leave your comfort zone. You know,
if your kiss take the makeup off, you know you
gotta do it. If not, you get stuck in a
nostalgia role or you become stagnant and nobody, nobody wants
(36:57):
to see that. I've always been mostly influenced by David
Bowie when it comes to this, he always updated his image.
He always evolved and changed you never fucking even til
his last record Lazarus, you never knew what Bowie was
gonna do, but it was always Bowie and it was
always cool. Even if you didn't like the Berlin years
or you didn't like the thin White Duke or whatever,
it still was something really cool and it was exactly
(37:24):
And that's what I love about those types of guys,
the long term. Guns and Roses did it, the Beatles
did it, Johnny Depp does it. I mean, you're always
changing and I love that, and so I, as Chris
Jericho made a pact with myself years ago, I'll never
once again. I'll never do it just to get a paycheck.
And if it bores me and I'm not creatively stimulated,
I'll move on to the next thing. And that's what's
(37:45):
always benefited me with my career. And I've got a
great fan base that trusts me on that and follows
me and nine times at Attendant success once in a while,
not quite, but nothing's ever a failure unless you don't
try it. That's the best advice. Second, give damn right.
And by the way, the list is still a top
ten gimmick of all top I don't care what everybody says.
(38:06):
That ship that would correct me up and that. But
once again, Freddie, like when when I came to a
W and two thousand and nineteen, another reason was, if
I go back to W now, the first thing they'll
do is make me put someone on the list. And
I'm not feeling it anymore. That was two thousands. That's
that's too, that's so two thousand and sixteen. But that's
how you've always been, man like, You've always had these
(38:28):
things to to continuously evolved. And I think, and again,
I've never bashed WW on this podcast. I have my criticisms,
but I've never bashed on him. But when they find
something that's money, they never want to let go and
they get a little they get a little bit of
a not a little bit, but they fear like like
Garth from Wayne's World, we fear change like they don't.
(38:50):
They don't want to see what's next, and it'll it
takes top guys to kind of show them like we're
stopping that. It takes a top guy a lot of
confidence to do that. Uh, And so I think w
B kind of shies away because most guys that's hard
to do. Man. I've seen you do it multiple times
in a year. I've seen you do it multi times
(39:12):
in a year. I don't I don't think I've seen
anyone else ever do that, which is I'm not trying
to blow smoke. It's just crazy, thank you, But I
can because I'm still a fan of everything. I can
feel when it gets a little bit boring, and I
can feel when it's like, Okay, we've seen this again
and that's cool, but give me something new, man, Just
just something. You know, if I go see a band
played ten times and it's the same set every night,
(39:33):
it's like just throwing throwing something, throwing something different for
the guys that see you ten times, and the best
bands do that, you know. Um, So that's kind of
always been my m O. And that's what I'll continue
to do and um because it's exciting and it's it's
inspiring to me to do that. Well, dude, you're the best.
You're so awesome that I've literally seen an m M
(39:54):
A guy do the walls of Jericho in an actual
match and got a tap. That's how awesome you are.
And thanks for Rido part of the show. Brother Thanks
Freddy anytime man, always got always got time for you
for sure. All Right, you guys, thanks for tuning in.
I'll see everybody next week with a brand new episode
of Wrestling with Freddy. This has been a production of
(40:15):
I Heart Radio's Michael Tura podcast Network. For more podcasts
for My heart Radio, visit the I heart Radio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
H m hmm.
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