October 23, 2025 • 26 mins
This week, I'm joined by the incredible Nick Manfredini, who worked with one of the most iconic wrestling characters, Bray Wyatt. We reminisce about our late-night car rides, the magic of Bray Wyatt, and the creative process that brought the Firefly Funhouse to life. Nick shares untold stories and insights into the wrestling world that you won't want to miss.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:05):
Ladies and gentlemen, are you ready's about to hit the fan?
Speaker 2 (00:11):
Welcome to on sanctioned Thursdays, a wrestling with Ready.
Speaker 3 (00:19):
What's up everybody?
Speaker 1 (00:20):
Good day to you, and welcome the unsanctioned Thursdays, the
show that you guys demanded because our other show's too
short and has too many commercials.
Speaker 3 (00:28):
So here you go. You get a little extra talk
wrestling talk this week.
Speaker 1 (00:32):
And we have a guest that I haven't spoken to
in I don't know how many years, but it's been
over a decade. And the last time we spoke, we
were in a car driving in between cities at like
two am, and there was another writer in the car
as well, a really good dude, and I haven't seen
him in forever, but he has worked in WWE Creative,
(00:54):
started as a writer's assistant, moved all the way up
to senior writer. That's like how sushi chefs have to
do it, man, They start in the kitchen before and
they work all the way up from busser to waiter
to sue chef to chef.
Speaker 3 (01:04):
That's how he did it.
Speaker 1 (01:05):
And because of that, here in a lot of respect
from guys like Bray fucking Wyatt he's known him ever since.
Speaker 3 (01:11):
He was husky.
Speaker 1 (01:12):
Harris worked with him, helped create the Firefly Funhouse and
the Fiend character with Wyndham. Wyndham was an amazing human being.
We both knew him very well. You knew him much
better than I did. And with us is Nick Manfredini.
And how are you, sir. It's great to see you again.
You're looking good.
Speaker 2 (01:30):
I look my age. I feel like I aged twenty
years working at WWE, but I.
Speaker 1 (01:35):
Still we both have we both have some gray in
our beard, but that's okay.
Speaker 2 (01:40):
A little bit, a little bit.
Speaker 3 (01:42):
Yeah, I got a little more than you.
Speaker 2 (01:43):
Twenty eleven last last time we spoke. Wow.
Speaker 3 (01:47):
Yeah, he's been for it. Yeah, that's been forever. It was. Yeah.
I think we were on a Pacific Northwest trip. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (01:54):
I think we're going from like Portland to Seattle or
something like that. Yeah, something like that, something like that.
And we had a lovely gentleman in the car with
his name Angelo Fazio, who was another writer there that
I liked very much, Lofa as we called him. He
joined the same day I did and stayed much much longer,
and he was the one who introduced.
Speaker 3 (02:12):
Me to you.
Speaker 1 (02:13):
So let's just get started on one of my favorite topics,
which is Wyndham and Bray and the magic that you
guys got to create, and then from there we'll just
kind of see where the conversation goes. And then I
want to talk to you about a little bit of
wrestling news that happened in the last week and get
your take on that too. But Wyndom to me, was
the last attraction in wrestling as far as people that
(02:36):
were like almost a circus attraction that you had to
see because there was a little bit of mystique in
magic to it. Guys like the Undertaker, guys like Caine,
all these like mystical characters, and Bray was sort of
the modern day version of that. You guys got to
take big time swings in working to get this character
(02:56):
over things that hadn't been done really in wrestling, or
at least not to that level and not executed at
that level. What was it like just trying to get
this character through past the past.
Speaker 3 (03:09):
The heads of the company and on the television.
Speaker 2 (03:12):
Well, he just kind of touched on it like we
always wanted to do something that's never been done before,
and you know, in wrestling everything's been done right, you know,
some form of fashion. So we were trying really hard
to just come up with a character that's unique, that's different,
you know that and who them would always say, he
wants to do something to elevate wrestling, so more than
(03:34):
just you know, a promo a match. He wanted to
be this larger than life character. So we met when
he was Husky Harris an XT. We just became friends.
You know, he had horror movie t shirts on talking
to him.
Speaker 3 (03:46):
MVP was his senior was MVP was his mentor for
Husky Harris. I remember that. Go ahead, so sorry for
interrupting you.
Speaker 2 (03:54):
So he's you know, he wears horror movie t shirts.
I'm a big horror movie guy. We started talking, became friends.
Remember I burned him a copy of Lords a Salem,
a rob zombie movie.
Speaker 3 (04:04):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (04:05):
We would always talk about House of a Thousand Corpses,
that terrible movie that we both hated. So we became friends.
You know, he went back down to n XT, kept
in contact, you know, texted back and forth. You know,
he's like, I'm working on this new thing. This is
the wife early Wyatt family. And he sent me one
of the promos and I was just like blown away.
I couldn't believe what he had done. How he was
(04:27):
able to channel all these different inspirations from horror movies,
from different characters that he liked growing up, and all
these different things put this into Bray Wyat and he
just kind of became that character.
Speaker 3 (04:38):
It was.
Speaker 2 (04:39):
It was crazy. And then once, you know, I kind
of I really wanted to work with him, so I
was like, let me get ahead of this, let me
start writing stuff for him, coming up with some ideas.
So I ended up writing the original like Wyatt Family
vignettes right before they debuted, and we kind of we
worked together ever since that was basically outstarted.
Speaker 1 (04:57):
Did you meet any resistance when you were trying to
get these guys on TV? And how did you sort
of circumnavigate that if you did?
Speaker 3 (05:05):
Uh?
Speaker 2 (05:05):
For the Why Family, not really, they were receptive that
everybody kind of saw the act. They liked it. Yeah,
I think everybody was, you know, they knew, you know,
how could you not realize this guy was special? It
was so obvious. But just watching anything he did, anytime
he opened his mouth, so it wasn't like there was
any you know, resistance to get him on TV back then.
You know, once he got on TV, once he became successful,
(05:28):
that's when everybody started getting involved, you know, changing things up.
So certain things went ways we didn't plan mm hmmm.
From a character standpoint, it got a little supernatural, a
little too much supernatural, too supernatural.
Speaker 1 (05:44):
Well go a little deeper on that if you if
you could what what what would you describe as as
the Wya stuff that you preferred and the Wye stuff
that you didn't prefer.
Speaker 2 (05:54):
So he was very Charles Manson inspired, right, So we
would always watch my YouTube Seurchurchory back then was just
Charles Manson and cult for anybody you know, looked it up.
So I've probably seen every Charles Manson quote, every video,
every promo have you ever cut? You know, we were
trying to take little pieces from each one, and that
(06:16):
was the style we wanted to go for. To get
off topic, Charles Manson, I don't know if this story
has ever been told. Wyndham's teammate, former teammate in college football,
became a prison guard at Charles Manson's prison. Allegedly, this
guy showed Manson the Bray Wyatt promos and he wanted
(06:38):
to meet him man, and.
Speaker 3 (06:40):
This was the whole thing.
Speaker 2 (06:43):
So yeah, it is one hundred per cent true. And
uh so Mike Rotunda knew about it, and I think
he brought it up to somebody maybe I don't know
if it was Hunter or Vince or someone, and they immediately,
you know, squashed it obviously because they were like, who
shoot a network special?
Speaker 3 (07:03):
Oh my god, Manson Bray meets Charles miss.
Speaker 2 (07:06):
It was immediately squashed. And then afterwards I was like, Dad,
let's let's just go, like next time we're in northern California,
me and you, you know, just put on a hat
or something. Nobody will uh will know it to you.
Let's just go meet him, you know.
Speaker 3 (07:17):
Oh my god.
Speaker 2 (07:18):
Yeah, I thought more about it, and obviously it was
a terrible, terrible idea. Would have been a good story,
but a bad idea.
Speaker 3 (07:25):
Yeah. He Uh.
Speaker 1 (07:26):
Sean Penn had an it, had an experience with him.
He went to jail for something and was in jail
in the same prison as Charles Manson, and Manson was like, yo,
I'm a big fan. Wrote him a letter. It was like,
I'm a big fan. I'd love to talk to you.
And Shohn Penn was like, yo, fuck that I'm not
trying to talk to you.
Speaker 3 (07:43):
Yeah, man, it's a yeah, I think. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (07:46):
It was like, woah, man, this would be so fun,
you know, weird to do. But yeah, you know, obviously
bray Wyatt proably would have never seen TV again if
we did that.
Speaker 1 (07:55):
He was willing to take huge chances and big time swings.
And you know, I always compare it to like this
will sound weird because the opposite of horror, but like
Jim Carrey, right, like Jim Carrey's level of commitment to
his comedy, to that character.
Speaker 3 (08:09):
And let's say Liar Liar.
Speaker 1 (08:11):
Where he can't tell a lie and he can only
tell the truth and he's trying to say that the
pen is red even though the pen's blue and he
can't and his body goes crazy and it's all this stuff.
If he doesn't commit one hundred percent to that, it's
corny and goofy and shitty and we're going, oh god,
when is this scene over? But his level of commitment
is such that you're like, yeah, man, like the pen
(08:32):
is blue. When he goes crazy, the crowd goes nuts.
Bray was able to do things with puppet shows, bro
that shouldn't have worked, and he somehow made it work.
I mean I remember watching that and going like, this
is like watching the fucking Muppets on acid right now,
and it shouldn't. I shouldn't be responding to any of this.
(08:54):
And because it's Bray and his level of commitment was
so high.
Speaker 3 (08:59):
That I'm I'm like, yeah, dude, the fucking pen is blue. Like,
somehow it just worked. Dude?
Speaker 1 (09:05):
Did you Was that more when the company got a
hold of it, or was that something that you guys
the Funhouse? Was that something that you guys created as well?
And if so, how the fuck did you make it work?
Speaker 2 (09:17):
So I will say this, the Ray White character, the
original one, the Firefly, Funhouse Fiend, that was not a
WWE product. That was me and Wyndham and then Jason Baker,
you know, the brilliant artists we worked with for the
Funhouse stuff. He created the mask and the puppets and
all that stuff.
Speaker 3 (09:37):
Yeah, so.
Speaker 2 (09:40):
It was not a hey, do this, this came from creative,
This came from whatever. For the Fiend and Funhouse. I
tried to keep everything as secret as possible. I didn't
want anybody getting involved tweaking it. We just kind of
did it on our own, came up with this idea,
pitched it, you know, getting it past Vince was a
(10:00):
little tricky. Uh So that was a fun experience having
to go over the original vignettes with him and having him,
you know, read through it and what the sociopath you know,
he's going through the vignettes. Yeah, he loved the puppets though.
He loved the idea of the puppets. I remember the
first time you read them, he just goes, well, why
(10:20):
is he not wearing the mask the entire time? I
was like, fuck, Like that's the whole the whole point
is like that, you know, the dark side and the
light side of these two of his character, So that
that would have obviously squashed the whole thing.
Speaker 3 (10:33):
Yeah right, I.
Speaker 2 (10:56):
Forget what happened, you know, uh what I had to
you know, how I explained it to him, But it
might have just been he wanted me out of the office,
and he's like he was just confused and just get
out because there there's you know, if you push back
too hard with him, he's just gonna double down and
you know, make it his. So you have to be
very careful how it was pitched. And I think I
(11:19):
handled it well and we were able. He was just like,
just go do it, and we got it. That's all
I needed. I didn't need anything else. I was like,
just go do it. So that's how we got the
the go ahead to shoot the vignettes. As far as
the character itself, the true story behind Funhouse was so
we had the fiend idea or not. We had an
(11:40):
idea that he had the idea that he wanted to
wear a mask, right, he wanted to be a monster,
become a monster, and that was kind of it. That
was all we had. It was just he wants to
be wear a mask, become a monster. But monsters don't
cut promos, and we obviously can't lose promos from Bray Wyatt.
That's as you know, bread and butter. So we had
to come up with away a unique way for him
(12:02):
to call promos. And it was always what's never been
done before, what's never been done before. That was always,
you know, in the back of both of our heads,
and you know, and you were right, there's in wrestling again,
everything's been done, you know in some way. So it's tricky.
It took us a little while, but the truth thing,
the true story behind the Funhouse was. I was drunk
(12:24):
watching the Mister Rogers documentary Won't Where's It Going? Won't
You Be My Number? The documentary that came out. So
I'm watching that and I'm like, shit, like what if.
I don't know what came into my head, but I
was just like, what if you did this? What if
Bray worked with puppets? Because there was it There was
in a gift or not. It was a scene in
(12:44):
the movie, but I remember seeing the gift of it
of mister Rogers putting on this clown mask. Right, you
could probably it's very easy to find mister Rogers clown mask.
I'm like, I think that was it. I was like, shit,
that's Ray wearing the mask mister Rogers. And it was
just maybe it was the red one talking or in
my brain, but I was just like, let's try and
do this. Let's I sent them a text. I was like,
(13:05):
we got I got a crazy idea. He responds with
the Jack Nicholson departed gift, like uh, And then you know,
I'm watching the documentary, I'm drinking more. Mister Rogers is
you know, singing to the kid in the wheelchair. I'm
getting all like emotional you know, I'm not in any
shape to talk creative at all. So you know, later
(13:27):
on that night we talked. He calls me like we
would talk like not every day, but pretty much almost
every day during the week about creative. This was like
a Friday or Saturday night, and uh, you know, I
pitched it to him. I don't remember exactly what I said,
but he was just kind of like, eh, you no,
it's gonna it might make me look stupid. And he
was work you know, after what happened with the other
(13:49):
pray Wyatt and kind of how that went awry, he
was very like careful, you know, he wanted to be
make sure that this was gonna work. So he was
a little he wasn't like against the idea, but he
wasn't like gung ho yet.
Speaker 1 (14:03):
Uh.
Speaker 2 (14:03):
I think it was the next morning or the day.
A couple of days afterwards, Uh, the song Lithium came
on Nirvana song. You know, it's like a today I
found my friends there in my head and that was
that was like, oh, show, okay, this is another thing
we can take kind of applied to this that. So
I knew he was a huge Nirvana fan. Kerko Bang guy,
(14:25):
So I used that as an example. I was like,
this is kind of it. And then in the movie It,
the New remake, there's a scene with Pennywise where he's
in the crowd of a kid show and he's chanting
kill them all, and it's this crazy scene. It just
stuck with me and I was like, that's it. I
sent that to win them. He saw that. I think
it just clicked in his head and he's like, all
right now now he's coming up with ideas. We're puppets.
(14:47):
We're both going back and forth. Like the ball was
rolling after that. So it took like a few days
to kind of I don't want to say convince him
because he wasn't like totally against it, but uh yeah,
it took a little little convincing and then once he
was on board, he was, you know, one hundred miles
an hour, let's go.
Speaker 3 (15:04):
You guys were able to make magic with that character as.
Speaker 2 (15:07):
He was with everything. You know, he didn't do anything
half assed.
Speaker 3 (15:10):
Nah, he did. He committed one hundred percent.
Speaker 2 (15:12):
Thank you. I I it was so much fun and
uh you know, we had such a blast and there
was so much work that went into it. M hm,
you know, it wasn't just show up to TV do
it like. This was a week long process trying to
come up with different things, trying to tell, you know,
the same story when he's working a match, maybe he's not,
(15:32):
you know, having having matches at that time, telling the
same story in different ways. So we were constantly trying
to come up with you know, unique segments, unique like
lessons in the Funhouse and different things like that, so
that it was it was hard, but it was also
like just a shit ton of fun, uh, to be
able to do that with him. It was never meant
to be supernatural. It kind of once that became successful,
(15:57):
it was like, oh, you know, everybody's involved, everybody, He's
changing things, everybody's getting their hands on it. When it
was just a very small group at first, then it
became a big thing. So it kind of spiraled a
little out of control at the beginning because it was
never supposed to be. He was supposed to be in control,
right right, Wyatt of the Fiend. That was the whole point.
(16:18):
And like the fourth vignette, he tells the story about
how now I can control it, he's doing the paper
plate mask. Vince saw it another way to where it
was something he couldn't control and he had to. It
just kind of came out. He wouldn't even mention the
fiend by name. It was always like alluding to this guy.
So that kind of changed it a little bit and
made it a little you know, we have to It
(16:41):
wasn't the original vision, but you know, he was very
frustrated with stuff like that when somebody was trying to
change what he wanted to do. But you know, and
I was too. I mean, I'm not gonna lie, but
you know, we're employees, right, we don't own this character.
As much as we created this. We have to look
(17:03):
at it like we don't own it. We're employees. We
have to do what's told. What you know, Let's make
the best of it. Let's not complain and just kind
of go ahead. And that's that's the way I like
to approach it. And he, you know, he did too,
after some you know, complaining and threatening to quit.
Speaker 3 (17:20):
But uh, yeah, it was.
Speaker 2 (17:23):
It was a lot of compromise, right, like a marriage,
a lot of compromise. I hate how it ended up
turning out in the end. It just got you know,
so goofy and just not what it was supposed to be.
But again, you know, we'd really proud of some of
the stuff we did, you know, the Funhouse match with Sina. Yeah,
(17:46):
able to pull that off, you know, and that was
put together in two days, I think maybe three days
at the most. That was like, that's what the Funhouse
was meant to be.
Speaker 3 (18:00):
Like.
Speaker 2 (18:00):
Just to see that come to life, it was you know,
it's pretty awesome to see, especially WrestleMania with all that
COVID and everything going on, it was crazy time. But
to be able to get that off the ground and
have people like it, it was. I'm really proud of that.
M M.
Speaker 1 (18:40):
If you could have people remember one specific moment of
Brave's legacy, what would that moment be?
Speaker 2 (18:48):
You know, I think as much work as he put
into characters, and you know how much he wanted to
please the fans, I think you know, his family was
most important, Yeah to him. So I think, you know,
being remembered as a good father, I think he'd want
to be remembered by that.
Speaker 3 (19:08):
Yeah, I think you're probably dead on man, I didn't
know him as well as.
Speaker 2 (19:11):
Sorry, he's probably laughing at me now.
Speaker 3 (19:13):
No, Well, as long as he's laughing, it's good man.
I didn't mean to break you up.
Speaker 2 (19:19):
We you know, we had so many phone calls. He's
calling me from like his kids, like I don't know,
recital or the kids at the doctor crying in the background,
and he's talking to me about you know, Charles Manson
and whatever, you know, whatever else. So it was his
his family came first. So I want him, you know,
wanted to be remembered for that more than anything.
Speaker 1 (19:41):
Well, Nick, let me take you out of that that
train of thought and get because you worked for w
W Creative with more than just bray.
Speaker 3 (19:50):
And there was some news this.
Speaker 1 (19:51):
Week about AI and and writing wrestling, and you know,
I'm very I think it's hysterical that Hunter would say
something like it's inevitable when he's the head of Creative
and it's like, it's not inevitable, just say no, you
don't need it. I'm not a believer in AI and art.
I don't think the two really mix. I don't think
(20:11):
analytics and art particularly mixed that well. I think it's
why people complain about the way movies are today. A
lot of that has to do with the choices executives make.
But they're saying it's inevitable and they're bringing it in now.
I have my own conspiracy theories as to why. I
won't bore you with them. But do you think there's
a place for AI in wrestling writing creative?
Speaker 2 (20:36):
First of all, I think that I don't know how
accurate that report is. I mean to say that.
Speaker 3 (20:41):
I hope it's not. By the way, Yeah, I hope
it's wrong.
Speaker 2 (20:43):
That they're coming up with storylines and wrinning promos like,
I don't buy that. I don't think that's true, because again,
you need writers at TV to produce all this stuff,
so you're not going to replace them. You're not gonna
have a fucking robot, you know, at least not yet
produce a walk or shoot a promote, you know, do
a promote somebody. So I don't like, you have this
(21:03):
giant creative team. You don't need chat GBT to come
up with ideas for you. So I don't think that's
what they're using it for, at least I hope not.
Speaker 1 (21:11):
What if I told you companies like Netflix were thinking
about doing.
Speaker 2 (21:14):
It, isn't that the whole big plima going on right
now with I don't you know, I'm again I don't.
Speaker 3 (21:21):
AI is just weird Nick, It's like it's not an
artistic tool.
Speaker 1 (21:26):
Like I don't want to watch a robot paint a picture,
so I don't want to read what a robot has
to write, Like I just that's never that's never been
my thing. So I'm like, I hope you're right, and
I hope that it's a bullshit story and there's zero
truth to it. But I know that studios are seriously
starting to consider this kind of stuff to get rid
of writers, So I wouldn't put it past another corporation
(21:47):
to do the same thing.
Speaker 3 (21:48):
That's more where I'm coming from.
Speaker 2 (21:50):
I guess, cause it's a lot, it's a live show.
I mean, you've been back you've been backstage, you know how.
Or it's like you need people to shoot a backstage
to a promo and headset, so you can't replace that.
I mean maybe they can shrink the team a little bit.
I don't know, but I mean you definitely can't replace everybody.
There's no way.
Speaker 3 (22:09):
Better not be able to it.
Speaker 2 (22:11):
Just when I saw the report, I was like, there's
no way this is true, Like they're not coming up
with storylines.
Speaker 1 (22:17):
You said earlier that you and Bray had this sort
of shared love for horror. I almost made a horror
movie with him. You've sort of transitioned from wrestling to
this space and kind of joined the horror world. What's
new for you, man?
Speaker 2 (22:30):
So, yeah, he had mentioned working with you on something
a while back. I didn't know all the details behind it,
but he definitely mentioned it to me once. But yeah,
that was always his thing, you know, even back when
I first met him. He wants to do a movie.
He wants to be like Rob Zombie, you know, that
was you know, he wants to do a House of
a thousand corpses, that type of stuff. So that was
(22:52):
always the you know, we always both kind of looked
at it like this is a springboard to that, right,
so let's stick together at WW and then you know,
move on to something else, because that's always what he wanted,
always what he wanted to do. Right the summer twenty
twenty three, we were he called me and this was
(23:12):
the last time I think it was the last time
I spoke to him on the phone, and he said
he was having these you know, meetings with people about
you know, developing stuff for TV. So he's you know,
his mind goes one hundred miles an hour and he's like,
we got to do this, do this. So we we
we started putting together now idea for a TV series.
This was like June twenty twenty three. So I started
(23:35):
putting together stuff, doing research, and obviously nothing came of it,
you know, but I do want to you know, he
had all these ideas that were not used. We had
a lot of ww stuff that wasn't used. Take that.
I don't want to see it go to waste. So
got to figure out a way to take some of
(23:57):
that do something with him, you know, get with this
obviously with his family, not not doing it on my own,
and figure out a way to kind of bring bring
this stuff to life and make his you know, dream
come true in a way. So hopefully we can do
that at some point. It was a little hard to
get back to it, but I want to start, you know,
relooking at that stuff again and finishing it, seeing if
(24:20):
we can do something with it. So but yeah, that
was always his dream. It was always movies, TV horror.
You know, he wanted to do some some really cool stuff.
He had some great ideas and uh yeah, get I
mean talking to him, you you know, it's like me,
it's like get pouring water in an envelope like, it's
just overwhelming. It's just the tidal wave of ideas at once.
(24:43):
So the hard part was channeling it and focusing it
and getting it something, getting it to someplace where it
makes sense. That was always the trick. But yeah, he
was really focused. He always wanted to to do it
at Just timing wasn't wasn't right obviously, Yeah, just bad,
just bad timing.
Speaker 1 (25:04):
Pouring water in an envelope is uh is a really
beautiful way.
Speaker 2 (25:08):
Yeah, that's what I used to tell him.
Speaker 3 (25:09):
I really, I really.
Speaker 1 (25:11):
Appreciate you coming on here and and sharing these stories
with with me and with my listeners. And I appreciate
you being open and honest about it. And and I
hope I didn't take you to any bad places, man,
But I just I'm so grateful to you for coming
on here and speaking about somebody that touched so many
people's lives and giving them sort of a chance to
(25:33):
see inside that character that he created and the legacy
that he left of being such a wonderful family man.
Speaker 3 (25:39):
So thank you, Nick. I appreciate you, Oh.
Speaker 2 (25:42):
Thank you man. And and again there's so many untold
stories with him. I could go on for five hours.
Speaker 1 (25:47):
We'll have you on another one, man, We'll have you
on another one, and we'll get deeper.
Speaker 2 (25:51):
I'll come on again. Yeah, I I uh, it took
me a while to really be able to talk about
this stuff. I didn't really want to do interviews, do
anything like that. Yeah, but you know, there's a lot
of untold stories with him, a lot of really good
stories put him, paint him in a really great light.
He was a genius.
Speaker 3 (26:08):
You know.
Speaker 2 (26:08):
He deserves it, He deserves to be he deserves all
the praise he's getting, and even more so, if I
can do anything to help that, yeah, I'm on board.
Speaker 1 (26:18):
So you guys, that's Nick mann Perdini. He's the man.
Thank you guys for listening. Tune in to this episode,
this this week, next week, every single week. We're here
almost fifty two weeks a year, so enjoy the show.
I'll see everybody next week on Wrestling with Pretty
Ladies and gentlemen, are you ready's about to hit the fan?
Speaker 2 (00:11):
Welcome to on sanctioned Thursdays, a wrestling with Ready.
Speaker 3 (00:19):
What's up everybody?
Speaker 1 (00:20):
Good day to you, and welcome the unsanctioned Thursdays, the
show that you guys demanded because our other show's too
short and has too many commercials.
Speaker 3 (00:28):
So here you go. You get a little extra talk
wrestling talk this week.
Speaker 1 (00:32):
And we have a guest that I haven't spoken to
in I don't know how many years, but it's been
over a decade. And the last time we spoke, we
were in a car driving in between cities at like
two am, and there was another writer in the car
as well, a really good dude, and I haven't seen
him in forever, but he has worked in WWE Creative,
(00:54):
started as a writer's assistant, moved all the way up
to senior writer. That's like how sushi chefs have to
do it, man, They start in the kitchen before and
they work all the way up from busser to waiter
to sue chef to chef.
Speaker 3 (01:04):
That's how he did it.
Speaker 1 (01:05):
And because of that, here in a lot of respect
from guys like Bray fucking Wyatt he's known him ever since.
Speaker 3 (01:11):
He was husky.
Speaker 1 (01:12):
Harris worked with him, helped create the Firefly Funhouse and
the Fiend character with Wyndham. Wyndham was an amazing human being.
We both knew him very well. You knew him much
better than I did. And with us is Nick Manfredini.
And how are you, sir. It's great to see you again.
You're looking good.
Speaker 2 (01:30):
I look my age. I feel like I aged twenty
years working at WWE, but I.
Speaker 1 (01:35):
Still we both have we both have some gray in
our beard, but that's okay.
Speaker 2 (01:40):
A little bit, a little bit.
Speaker 3 (01:42):
Yeah, I got a little more than you.
Speaker 2 (01:43):
Twenty eleven last last time we spoke. Wow.
Speaker 3 (01:47):
Yeah, he's been for it. Yeah, that's been forever. It was. Yeah.
I think we were on a Pacific Northwest trip. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (01:54):
I think we're going from like Portland to Seattle or
something like that. Yeah, something like that, something like that.
And we had a lovely gentleman in the car with
his name Angelo Fazio, who was another writer there that
I liked very much, Lofa as we called him. He
joined the same day I did and stayed much much longer,
and he was the one who introduced.
Speaker 3 (02:12):
Me to you.
Speaker 1 (02:13):
So let's just get started on one of my favorite topics,
which is Wyndham and Bray and the magic that you
guys got to create, and then from there we'll just
kind of see where the conversation goes. And then I
want to talk to you about a little bit of
wrestling news that happened in the last week and get
your take on that too. But Wyndom to me, was
the last attraction in wrestling as far as people that
(02:36):
were like almost a circus attraction that you had to
see because there was a little bit of mystique in
magic to it. Guys like the Undertaker, guys like Caine,
all these like mystical characters, and Bray was sort of
the modern day version of that. You guys got to
take big time swings in working to get this character
(02:56):
over things that hadn't been done really in wrestling, or
at least not to that level and not executed at
that level. What was it like just trying to get
this character through past the past.
Speaker 3 (03:09):
The heads of the company and on the television.
Speaker 2 (03:12):
Well, he just kind of touched on it like we
always wanted to do something that's never been done before,
and you know, in wrestling everything's been done right, you know,
some form of fashion. So we were trying really hard
to just come up with a character that's unique, that's different,
you know that and who them would always say, he
wants to do something to elevate wrestling, so more than
(03:34):
just you know, a promo a match. He wanted to
be this larger than life character. So we met when
he was Husky Harris an XT. We just became friends.
You know, he had horror movie t shirts on talking
to him.
Speaker 3 (03:46):
MVP was his senior was MVP was his mentor for
Husky Harris. I remember that. Go ahead, so sorry for
interrupting you.
Speaker 2 (03:54):
So he's you know, he wears horror movie t shirts.
I'm a big horror movie guy. We started talking, became friends.
Remember I burned him a copy of Lords a Salem,
a rob zombie movie.
Speaker 3 (04:04):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (04:05):
We would always talk about House of a Thousand Corpses,
that terrible movie that we both hated. So we became friends.
You know, he went back down to n XT, kept
in contact, you know, texted back and forth. You know,
he's like, I'm working on this new thing. This is
the wife early Wyatt family. And he sent me one
of the promos and I was just like blown away.
I couldn't believe what he had done. How he was
(04:27):
able to channel all these different inspirations from horror movies,
from different characters that he liked growing up, and all
these different things put this into Bray Wyat and he
just kind of became that character.
Speaker 3 (04:38):
It was.
Speaker 2 (04:39):
It was crazy. And then once, you know, I kind
of I really wanted to work with him, so I
was like, let me get ahead of this, let me
start writing stuff for him, coming up with some ideas.
So I ended up writing the original like Wyatt Family
vignettes right before they debuted, and we kind of we
worked together ever since that was basically outstarted.
Speaker 1 (04:57):
Did you meet any resistance when you were trying to
get these guys on TV? And how did you sort
of circumnavigate that if you did?
Speaker 3 (05:05):
Uh?
Speaker 2 (05:05):
For the Why Family, not really, they were receptive that
everybody kind of saw the act. They liked it. Yeah,
I think everybody was, you know, they knew, you know,
how could you not realize this guy was special? It
was so obvious. But just watching anything he did, anytime
he opened his mouth, so it wasn't like there was
any you know, resistance to get him on TV back then.
You know, once he got on TV, once he became successful,
(05:28):
that's when everybody started getting involved, you know, changing things up.
So certain things went ways we didn't plan mm hmmm.
From a character standpoint, it got a little supernatural, a
little too much supernatural, too supernatural.
Speaker 1 (05:44):
Well go a little deeper on that if you if
you could what what what would you describe as as
the Wya stuff that you preferred and the Wye stuff
that you didn't prefer.
Speaker 2 (05:54):
So he was very Charles Manson inspired, right, So we
would always watch my YouTube Seurchurchory back then was just
Charles Manson and cult for anybody you know, looked it up.
So I've probably seen every Charles Manson quote, every video,
every promo have you ever cut? You know, we were
trying to take little pieces from each one, and that
(06:16):
was the style we wanted to go for. To get
off topic, Charles Manson, I don't know if this story
has ever been told. Wyndham's teammate, former teammate in college football,
became a prison guard at Charles Manson's prison. Allegedly, this
guy showed Manson the Bray Wyatt promos and he wanted
(06:38):
to meet him man, and.
Speaker 3 (06:40):
This was the whole thing.
Speaker 2 (06:43):
So yeah, it is one hundred per cent true. And
uh so Mike Rotunda knew about it, and I think
he brought it up to somebody maybe I don't know
if it was Hunter or Vince or someone, and they immediately,
you know, squashed it obviously because they were like, who
shoot a network special?
Speaker 3 (07:03):
Oh my god, Manson Bray meets Charles miss.
Speaker 2 (07:06):
It was immediately squashed. And then afterwards I was like, Dad,
let's let's just go, like next time we're in northern California,
me and you, you know, just put on a hat
or something. Nobody will uh will know it to you.
Let's just go meet him, you know.
Speaker 3 (07:17):
Oh my god.
Speaker 2 (07:18):
Yeah, I thought more about it, and obviously it was
a terrible, terrible idea. Would have been a good story,
but a bad idea.
Speaker 3 (07:25):
Yeah. He Uh.
Speaker 1 (07:26):
Sean Penn had an it, had an experience with him.
He went to jail for something and was in jail
in the same prison as Charles Manson, and Manson was like, yo,
I'm a big fan. Wrote him a letter. It was like,
I'm a big fan. I'd love to talk to you.
And Shohn Penn was like, yo, fuck that I'm not
trying to talk to you.
Speaker 3 (07:43):
Yeah, man, it's a yeah, I think. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (07:46):
It was like, woah, man, this would be so fun,
you know, weird to do. But yeah, you know, obviously
bray Wyatt proably would have never seen TV again if
we did that.
Speaker 1 (07:55):
He was willing to take huge chances and big time swings.
And you know, I always compare it to like this
will sound weird because the opposite of horror, but like
Jim Carrey, right, like Jim Carrey's level of commitment to
his comedy, to that character.
Speaker 3 (08:09):
And let's say Liar Liar.
Speaker 1 (08:11):
Where he can't tell a lie and he can only
tell the truth and he's trying to say that the
pen is red even though the pen's blue and he
can't and his body goes crazy and it's all this stuff.
If he doesn't commit one hundred percent to that, it's
corny and goofy and shitty and we're going, oh god,
when is this scene over? But his level of commitment
is such that you're like, yeah, man, like the pen
(08:32):
is blue. When he goes crazy, the crowd goes nuts.
Bray was able to do things with puppet shows, bro
that shouldn't have worked, and he somehow made it work.
I mean I remember watching that and going like, this
is like watching the fucking Muppets on acid right now,
and it shouldn't. I shouldn't be responding to any of this.
(08:54):
And because it's Bray and his level of commitment was
so high.
Speaker 3 (08:59):
That I'm I'm like, yeah, dude, the fucking pen is blue. Like,
somehow it just worked. Dude?
Speaker 1 (09:05):
Did you Was that more when the company got a
hold of it, or was that something that you guys
the Funhouse? Was that something that you guys created as well?
And if so, how the fuck did you make it work?
Speaker 2 (09:17):
So I will say this, the Ray White character, the
original one, the Firefly, Funhouse Fiend, that was not a
WWE product. That was me and Wyndham and then Jason Baker,
you know, the brilliant artists we worked with for the
Funhouse stuff. He created the mask and the puppets and
all that stuff.
Speaker 3 (09:37):
Yeah, so.
Speaker 2 (09:40):
It was not a hey, do this, this came from creative,
This came from whatever. For the Fiend and Funhouse. I
tried to keep everything as secret as possible. I didn't
want anybody getting involved tweaking it. We just kind of
did it on our own, came up with this idea,
pitched it, you know, getting it past Vince was a
(10:00):
little tricky. Uh So that was a fun experience having
to go over the original vignettes with him and having him,
you know, read through it and what the sociopath you know,
he's going through the vignettes. Yeah, he loved the puppets though.
He loved the idea of the puppets. I remember the
first time you read them, he just goes, well, why
(10:20):
is he not wearing the mask the entire time? I
was like, fuck, Like that's the whole the whole point
is like that, you know, the dark side and the
light side of these two of his character, So that
that would have obviously squashed the whole thing.
Speaker 3 (10:33):
Yeah right, I.
Speaker 2 (10:56):
Forget what happened, you know, uh what I had to
you know, how I explained it to him, But it
might have just been he wanted me out of the office,
and he's like he was just confused and just get
out because there there's you know, if you push back
too hard with him, he's just gonna double down and
you know, make it his. So you have to be
very careful how it was pitched. And I think I
(11:19):
handled it well and we were able. He was just like,
just go do it, and we got it. That's all
I needed. I didn't need anything else. I was like,
just go do it. So that's how we got the
the go ahead to shoot the vignettes. As far as
the character itself, the true story behind Funhouse was so
we had the fiend idea or not. We had an
(11:40):
idea that he had the idea that he wanted to
wear a mask, right, he wanted to be a monster,
become a monster, and that was kind of it. That
was all we had. It was just he wants to
be wear a mask, become a monster. But monsters don't
cut promos, and we obviously can't lose promos from Bray Wyatt.
That's as you know, bread and butter. So we had
to come up with away a unique way for him
(12:02):
to call promos. And it was always what's never been
done before, what's never been done before. That was always,
you know, in the back of both of our heads,
and you know, and you were right, there's in wrestling again,
everything's been done, you know in some way. So it's tricky.
It took us a little while, but the truth thing,
the true story behind the Funhouse was. I was drunk
(12:24):
watching the Mister Rogers documentary Won't Where's It Going? Won't
You Be My Number? The documentary that came out. So
I'm watching that and I'm like, shit, like what if.
I don't know what came into my head, but I
was just like, what if you did this? What if
Bray worked with puppets? Because there was it There was
in a gift or not. It was a scene in
(12:44):
the movie, but I remember seeing the gift of it
of mister Rogers putting on this clown mask. Right, you
could probably it's very easy to find mister Rogers clown mask.
I'm like, I think that was it. I was like, shit,
that's Ray wearing the mask mister Rogers. And it was
just maybe it was the red one talking or in
my brain, but I was just like, let's try and
do this. Let's I sent them a text. I was like,
(13:05):
we got I got a crazy idea. He responds with
the Jack Nicholson departed gift, like uh, And then you know,
I'm watching the documentary, I'm drinking more. Mister Rogers is
you know, singing to the kid in the wheelchair. I'm
getting all like emotional you know, I'm not in any
shape to talk creative at all. So you know, later
(13:27):
on that night we talked. He calls me like we
would talk like not every day, but pretty much almost
every day during the week about creative. This was like
a Friday or Saturday night, and uh, you know, I
pitched it to him. I don't remember exactly what I said,
but he was just kind of like, eh, you no,
it's gonna it might make me look stupid. And he
was work you know, after what happened with the other
(13:49):
pray Wyatt and kind of how that went awry, he
was very like careful, you know, he wanted to be
make sure that this was gonna work. So he was
a little he wasn't like against the idea, but he
wasn't like gung ho yet.
Speaker 1 (14:03):
Uh.
Speaker 2 (14:03):
I think it was the next morning or the day.
A couple of days afterwards, Uh, the song Lithium came
on Nirvana song. You know, it's like a today I
found my friends there in my head and that was
that was like, oh, show, okay, this is another thing
we can take kind of applied to this that. So
I knew he was a huge Nirvana fan. Kerko Bang guy,
(14:25):
So I used that as an example. I was like,
this is kind of it. And then in the movie It,
the New remake, there's a scene with Pennywise where he's
in the crowd of a kid show and he's chanting
kill them all, and it's this crazy scene. It just
stuck with me and I was like, that's it. I
sent that to win them. He saw that. I think
it just clicked in his head and he's like, all
right now now he's coming up with ideas. We're puppets.
(14:47):
We're both going back and forth. Like the ball was
rolling after that. So it took like a few days
to kind of I don't want to say convince him
because he wasn't like totally against it, but uh yeah,
it took a little little convincing and then once he
was on board, he was, you know, one hundred miles
an hour, let's go.
Speaker 3 (15:04):
You guys were able to make magic with that character as.
Speaker 2 (15:07):
He was with everything. You know, he didn't do anything
half assed.
Speaker 3 (15:10):
Nah, he did. He committed one hundred percent.
Speaker 2 (15:12):
Thank you. I I it was so much fun and
uh you know, we had such a blast and there
was so much work that went into it. M hm,
you know, it wasn't just show up to TV do
it like. This was a week long process trying to
come up with different things, trying to tell, you know,
the same story when he's working a match, maybe he's not,
(15:32):
you know, having having matches at that time, telling the
same story in different ways. So we were constantly trying
to come up with you know, unique segments, unique like
lessons in the Funhouse and different things like that, so
that it was it was hard, but it was also
like just a shit ton of fun, uh, to be
able to do that with him. It was never meant
to be supernatural. It kind of once that became successful,
(15:57):
it was like, oh, you know, everybody's involved, everybody, He's
changing things, everybody's getting their hands on it. When it
was just a very small group at first, then it
became a big thing. So it kind of spiraled a
little out of control at the beginning because it was
never supposed to be. He was supposed to be in control,
right right, Wyatt of the Fiend. That was the whole point.
(16:18):
And like the fourth vignette, he tells the story about
how now I can control it, he's doing the paper
plate mask. Vince saw it another way to where it
was something he couldn't control and he had to. It
just kind of came out. He wouldn't even mention the
fiend by name. It was always like alluding to this guy.
So that kind of changed it a little bit and
made it a little you know, we have to It
(16:41):
wasn't the original vision, but you know, he was very
frustrated with stuff like that when somebody was trying to
change what he wanted to do. But you know, and
I was too. I mean, I'm not gonna lie, but
you know, we're employees, right, we don't own this character.
As much as we created this. We have to look
(17:03):
at it like we don't own it. We're employees. We
have to do what's told. What you know, Let's make
the best of it. Let's not complain and just kind
of go ahead. And that's that's the way I like
to approach it. And he, you know, he did too,
after some you know, complaining and threatening to quit.
Speaker 3 (17:20):
But uh, yeah, it was.
Speaker 2 (17:23):
It was a lot of compromise, right, like a marriage,
a lot of compromise. I hate how it ended up
turning out in the end. It just got you know,
so goofy and just not what it was supposed to be.
But again, you know, we'd really proud of some of
the stuff we did, you know, the Funhouse match with Sina. Yeah,
(17:46):
able to pull that off, you know, and that was
put together in two days, I think maybe three days
at the most. That was like, that's what the Funhouse
was meant to be.
Speaker 3 (18:00):
Like.
Speaker 2 (18:00):
Just to see that come to life, it was you know,
it's pretty awesome to see, especially WrestleMania with all that
COVID and everything going on, it was crazy time. But
to be able to get that off the ground and
have people like it, it was. I'm really proud of that.
M M.
Speaker 1 (18:40):
If you could have people remember one specific moment of
Brave's legacy, what would that moment be?
Speaker 2 (18:48):
You know, I think as much work as he put
into characters, and you know how much he wanted to
please the fans, I think you know, his family was
most important, Yeah to him. So I think, you know,
being remembered as a good father, I think he'd want
to be remembered by that.
Speaker 3 (19:08):
Yeah, I think you're probably dead on man, I didn't
know him as well as.
Speaker 2 (19:11):
Sorry, he's probably laughing at me now.
Speaker 3 (19:13):
No, Well, as long as he's laughing, it's good man.
I didn't mean to break you up.
Speaker 2 (19:19):
We you know, we had so many phone calls. He's
calling me from like his kids, like I don't know,
recital or the kids at the doctor crying in the background,
and he's talking to me about you know, Charles Manson
and whatever, you know, whatever else. So it was his
his family came first. So I want him, you know,
wanted to be remembered for that more than anything.
Speaker 1 (19:41):
Well, Nick, let me take you out of that that
train of thought and get because you worked for w
W Creative with more than just bray.
Speaker 3 (19:50):
And there was some news this.
Speaker 1 (19:51):
Week about AI and and writing wrestling, and you know,
I'm very I think it's hysterical that Hunter would say
something like it's inevitable when he's the head of Creative
and it's like, it's not inevitable, just say no, you
don't need it. I'm not a believer in AI and art.
I don't think the two really mix. I don't think
(20:11):
analytics and art particularly mixed that well. I think it's
why people complain about the way movies are today. A
lot of that has to do with the choices executives make.
But they're saying it's inevitable and they're bringing it in now.
I have my own conspiracy theories as to why. I
won't bore you with them. But do you think there's
a place for AI in wrestling writing creative?
Speaker 2 (20:36):
First of all, I think that I don't know how
accurate that report is. I mean to say that.
Speaker 3 (20:41):
I hope it's not. By the way, Yeah, I hope
it's wrong.
Speaker 2 (20:43):
That they're coming up with storylines and wrinning promos like,
I don't buy that. I don't think that's true, because again,
you need writers at TV to produce all this stuff,
so you're not going to replace them. You're not gonna
have a fucking robot, you know, at least not yet
produce a walk or shoot a promote, you know, do
a promote somebody. So I don't like, you have this
(21:03):
giant creative team. You don't need chat GBT to come
up with ideas for you. So I don't think that's
what they're using it for, at least I hope not.
Speaker 1 (21:11):
What if I told you companies like Netflix were thinking
about doing.
Speaker 2 (21:14):
It, isn't that the whole big plima going on right
now with I don't you know, I'm again I don't.
Speaker 3 (21:21):
AI is just weird Nick, It's like it's not an
artistic tool.
Speaker 1 (21:26):
Like I don't want to watch a robot paint a picture,
so I don't want to read what a robot has
to write, Like I just that's never that's never been
my thing. So I'm like, I hope you're right, and
I hope that it's a bullshit story and there's zero
truth to it. But I know that studios are seriously
starting to consider this kind of stuff to get rid
of writers, So I wouldn't put it past another corporation
(21:47):
to do the same thing.
Speaker 3 (21:48):
That's more where I'm coming from.
Speaker 2 (21:50):
I guess, cause it's a lot, it's a live show.
I mean, you've been back you've been backstage, you know how.
Or it's like you need people to shoot a backstage
to a promo and headset, so you can't replace that.
I mean maybe they can shrink the team a little bit.
I don't know, but I mean you definitely can't replace everybody.
There's no way.
Speaker 3 (22:09):
Better not be able to it.
Speaker 2 (22:11):
Just when I saw the report, I was like, there's
no way this is true, Like they're not coming up
with storylines.
Speaker 1 (22:17):
You said earlier that you and Bray had this sort
of shared love for horror. I almost made a horror
movie with him. You've sort of transitioned from wrestling to
this space and kind of joined the horror world. What's
new for you, man?
Speaker 2 (22:30):
So, yeah, he had mentioned working with you on something
a while back. I didn't know all the details behind it,
but he definitely mentioned it to me once. But yeah,
that was always his thing, you know, even back when
I first met him. He wants to do a movie.
He wants to be like Rob Zombie, you know, that
was you know, he wants to do a House of
a thousand corpses, that type of stuff. So that was
(22:52):
always the you know, we always both kind of looked
at it like this is a springboard to that, right,
so let's stick together at WW and then you know,
move on to something else, because that's always what he wanted,
always what he wanted to do. Right the summer twenty
twenty three, we were he called me and this was
(23:12):
the last time I think it was the last time
I spoke to him on the phone, and he said
he was having these you know, meetings with people about
you know, developing stuff for TV. So he's you know,
his mind goes one hundred miles an hour and he's like,
we got to do this, do this. So we we
we started putting together now idea for a TV series.
This was like June twenty twenty three. So I started
(23:35):
putting together stuff, doing research, and obviously nothing came of it,
you know, but I do want to you know, he
had all these ideas that were not used. We had
a lot of ww stuff that wasn't used. Take that.
I don't want to see it go to waste. So
got to figure out a way to take some of
(23:57):
that do something with him, you know, get with this
obviously with his family, not not doing it on my own,
and figure out a way to kind of bring bring
this stuff to life and make his you know, dream
come true in a way. So hopefully we can do
that at some point. It was a little hard to
get back to it, but I want to start, you know,
relooking at that stuff again and finishing it, seeing if
(24:20):
we can do something with it. So but yeah, that
was always his dream. It was always movies, TV horror.
You know, he wanted to do some some really cool stuff.
He had some great ideas and uh yeah, get I
mean talking to him, you you know, it's like me,
it's like get pouring water in an envelope like, it's
just overwhelming. It's just the tidal wave of ideas at once.
(24:43):
So the hard part was channeling it and focusing it
and getting it something, getting it to someplace where it
makes sense. That was always the trick. But yeah, he
was really focused. He always wanted to to do it
at Just timing wasn't wasn't right obviously, Yeah, just bad,
just bad timing.
Speaker 1 (25:04):
Pouring water in an envelope is uh is a really
beautiful way.
Speaker 2 (25:08):
Yeah, that's what I used to tell him.
Speaker 3 (25:09):
I really, I really.
Speaker 1 (25:11):
Appreciate you coming on here and and sharing these stories
with with me and with my listeners. And I appreciate
you being open and honest about it. And and I
hope I didn't take you to any bad places, man,
But I just I'm so grateful to you for coming
on here and speaking about somebody that touched so many
people's lives and giving them sort of a chance to
(25:33):
see inside that character that he created and the legacy
that he left of being such a wonderful family man.
Speaker 3 (25:39):
So thank you, Nick. I appreciate you, Oh.
Speaker 2 (25:42):
Thank you man. And and again there's so many untold
stories with him. I could go on for five hours.
Speaker 1 (25:47):
We'll have you on another one, man, We'll have you
on another one, and we'll get deeper.
Speaker 2 (25:51):
I'll come on again. Yeah, I I uh, it took
me a while to really be able to talk about
this stuff. I didn't really want to do interviews, do
anything like that. Yeah, but you know, there's a lot
of untold stories with him, a lot of really good
stories put him, paint him in a really great light.
He was a genius.
Speaker 3 (26:08):
You know.
Speaker 2 (26:08):
He deserves it, He deserves to be he deserves all
the praise he's getting, and even more so, if I
can do anything to help that, yeah, I'm on board.
Speaker 1 (26:18):
So you guys, that's Nick mann Perdini. He's the man.
Thank you guys for listening. Tune in to this episode,
this this week, next week, every single week. We're here
almost fifty two weeks a year, so enjoy the show.
I'll see everybody next week on Wrestling with Pretty
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