When I Worked with John Cena at WWE

In this episode I talk about the time John Cena and I came face to face over some heat he had with me. I also tell the story of how Vince McMahon handed $20 million dollars to someone and never asked a single question.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:04):
Welcome back to Wrestling with Freddie. Thank you for coming
back to us. I had a lovely winter break. I
hope you guys did as well. I went on a
trip with the Trip. Before you have kids, they're called vacations,
they're wonderful, they're fantastic, and post kids, they're called trips,
and there is no such thing as a vacation until
they graduate and move out. So let's start the show.

(00:26):
Welcome to Wrestling with Freddy. Now stuffing up for the mic.
The host of Wrestling with Freddie, Freddie Prince Junya. But
we went to Hawaii, Home of the Rock, and it
was lovely. I felt the Mana, I felt the magic.
I've always felt the magic there. Actually lived there when

(00:47):
I was a little kid, only for six months. My
mom was working in a hotel and she was in
the hotel industry. She was a chef and uh we
stayed on Oahu in Honolulu. But I was just a
little kid. But I guess you just get some kind
of weird connection to that place. The only thing I
could link it to that I felt similar is New
Mexico because it's such an old land. I mean, when

(01:11):
we were kids, we would go on field trips to
like the Anasazi ruins, which were built into walls, and
you would see civilizations that live there. There's a magic
to New Mexico. But Hawaii is a special place, I think.
And the Rock talks about Mana, right, but that's that's
real because it's like lava coming from the center of
the earth out and it's it's it's an earth builder,

(01:35):
you know what I mean. So there's a lot of
power there and it's very humbling. And the point of
this is, when I'm an old, fat, retired guy, I'll
probably live there and I'll start my own little indie
Hawaiian Wrestling Federation. But I digress. We're back to the
show and it's gonna be no guest today. You're stuck
with Uncle Freddie and you're gonna get some stories. And

(01:56):
I thought we would kind of take it old school,
not old school like the old days, but just old school,
meaning three of the dudes that weren't necessarily people I
worked with, but people that had an impact on me,
that were there before me, during my time there and
long after. And we'd start and I've talked about John

(02:19):
Cena's distaste for me when I was there a little bit,
but I thought we would kind of deep dive into that, um,
deep dive into my relationship with with Kane, who has
mayor Glenn Jacobs. That's right, people, he is the mayor
of a small town in Tennessee and uh. And then
finally with Chris Jericho with a conversation he and I

(02:39):
had that really kind of broke down Vince for me,
and people go, I love your your your perspective and
your philosophy on Vince. Well, these perspectives come from experiences
with other people who are more experienced than me, and
I sort of I rely on their on their knowledge
to kind of come up with my own opinions with

(03:00):
live in a world today where opinions are solidified so
quickly because of a like button, or even worse, the retweet,
because then you're you're you're reiterating something that you just
saw that must be fact. Um. But I you know,
I'm forty five, so I didn't grow up with that,
and I kind of wait to make my my opinion

(03:22):
on someone until I have as much information as I'm
comfortable with. And my generation is just I think, maybe
comfortable with more or uncomfortable with less information. Maybe that's
a very brustly way to say it. We started at
the company and me and this other writer, Angelo, who
I've I've mentioned a couple of times on the show

(03:42):
before all the writers would take heat from meaning they
would catch a lot of crap from the talent, because
a lot of the old school talent doesn't think there's
a need for writers, and I tend to agree with
a lot of them, because a lot of the men
and women that are over in that company are highly
capable of writing or improving their own promos in ring

(04:06):
or backstage, and they don't really require writers. Sina. I mean,
Brian Gowertz wrote for him, but Sena could write his
own promos if he wanted to, and I'm a hundred
percent certain that he did many a time, or at
least rewrote what Brian laid down for him in some
bullet points and then filled it in. They worked together,
but John was a hundred percent capable as people can

(04:28):
see now, he's an incredibly talented actor, uh a talented
artist period. And I've always said I respected John even
though he didn't like me when I was there, because
I was an actor, which he is now, um, but
I always respected him because John was willing to wear
the crown during the g rated era, and that was

(04:51):
a crown that no top guy wanted. John made his
bones being the opposite of the Marine. John made his
bones being a brash, in your face, white rapper who
would talk trash to you, and you know, there was
nothing marine ish about him. And then when he became

(05:14):
the Marine, and he became the world champion, and he
found a gimmick that would stick right, because he's not
any of those things. He's all of those things. And
it's about finding certain personality types that you think will
make an impact. And when he found the Marine character,
even when you booed him, he would take the booze
right the way a soldier would take it, the way

(05:36):
a soldier returning from Vietnam was was you know, yelled
at and people were throwing things that our soldiers coming home.
You know, you really try. You saw John really trying
to embody that character. And other guys could have taken it,
like Triple Edge could have worn that crown. But Triple
Edge didn't want to do segments in the first hour
of Raw when it was still family friendly. He wanted

(05:56):
to be in the last hour of SmackDown or raw
and do his d X adult stuff, the stuff that
got him over, the stuff that he always did once
he found the right character right, so he could have
taken the crown. Vince would have gladly given it to him,
but he chose not to. John took this on himself.
And you, I mean, you don't have to respect that.

(06:17):
But a guy like me is just programmed to respect
the hell out of that. So when I got there,
I already had respect for John. And the first time
I met him, he called me Ashton Kutcher. So you
have to understand, I'm going in there as positive as
as a human being could possibly be. Looking at this

(06:40):
guy like dang man, that's that's a thankless I'm not
saying this, but in my head, I'm like this, it's
a thankless job. He's getting booed for being the good
guy so much, and you know it bugs him, and
he's been public about it now and said that, yeah,
that that bothered him. Sometimes he learned to embrace it,
and when he did, they started cheering again, which is crazy,

(07:01):
um and a cool journey on itself. But uh, I
met him and he hated me, and it wasn't even
that he hated me. It was just like a total disregard.
I think he called me Ashton Kusher and uh, you know, great,
we got Ashton Kusher working here now. And I take
everything with it with a smile and uh and a chuckle.

(07:22):
And I I don't take myself seriously, but I take
what I do very seriously. And I was there to work.
And I've said this before, I don't mind earning it.
So I go, yeah, and I'm I'm I'll learn it now.
I never wrote anything for John because, like I said,
he didn't need it, and Brian Gowertz was his guy
the same way that he was the Rocks guy. And

(07:42):
Brian knows what he's doing. And uh so I never
had to work with him. I worked with other talent
that he would be in segments with sometimes and sometimes
would write like a half of a segment. Believe it
or not, there would be two writers, each one writing
a different half of the segment. Don't ask me how
it works. Oh wait us in so maybe they saidn't
do that, but I, you know, dealt with him a lot.

(08:06):
And when we it got awkward when I started the
acting class, so we had I've told you the stories
before our numbers. When we first started, and this was
before the class was real popular. But a lot of
the younger talent, the f c W which is now
an XT talent that we're coming up, they were just

(08:29):
looking to brush up their their acting skills, and so
we started doing scenes from movies they liked. I said,
you you find any movie you want. I'm not gonna
make you do any of the crap work. You send
it to me. I'll transcribe it. I'll give it to
you a physical copy and an email so you always
have it. When you lose it, I will print you

(08:50):
up another one. All you have to do is the
scene work, breaking down the moments. Why is the character
saying this, what's the motivation, Let's look at the scene
on an overview, what's the obstacle and what's the goal?
What do you want and what's preventing you from getting there?
And once you start to analyze that, it's like practicing

(09:10):
a martial arts technique. You stop thinking about it and
you just start doing it. And that's when acting feels
more real, is when actors aren't searching for lines or
trying to remember blocking because they rehearsed and put in
the work, and that way your take one is actually
pretty damn good instead of it taking fourteen fifteen takes
because an actor was lazy. I get a little triggered

(09:31):
by lazy actors. If you can't tell this will turn
into a thirty minute podcast about people not knowing their ship.
Uh sorry. So anyway, I was working these scenes with
the talent and I think it was Writer and Hawkins,
and they were doing a scene from Bad Boys with
Will Smith and Martin Lawrence, which was making me laugh
before they even started, just to see these two guys

(09:52):
do it, and they actually did really well with the scene.
And in the middle of this class this scene, John
just swing has opened the door, grabs us a folding
chair that we were all sitting in, sets it down
in between Hawkins and Rider, and sits in it and
just looks at me like what are you gonna do?

(10:15):
And in my head, I'm just like, what the why
would you do? Why would you make this about you? Man?
Like why wouldn't you wait until after this? Like what
why would you interrupt this? And I get answers to
this in a moment, but I don't say anything. I
just go, hey, man, you want to talk to me outside?
And he stands up right away and he's mugus dude,

(10:37):
he's built like Ben Grimm from The Fantastic Four for
crying out loud. And we go outside. So I'm not
going to fight the dude. So we go outside and
I go, man, what the hell was that? And he goes,
that's what I was about to ask you. So he
has zero respect for whatever process I'm I'm attempting to

(10:59):
bring to the table, right And we kind of jaw
back and forth for a minute, and he and these
are his words, and he would he would admit to
all this. It is not a bad thing. Confrontation is good.
Conflict is good. That's how situations get resolved. When you
avoid it, it becomes passive aggressive, and then it carries
on and on and on, and it affects your work,

(11:20):
it affects their work, and then it affects the company's work,
and then everyone sucks a lot of passive aggression in Hollywood.
So so I'm of the opinion you should just confront
situations head on, and that's what we did. And he said, look,
maybe I'm a neanderthal his words, and he says, but
I just don't see how any of this ship works.

(11:41):
And I'm looking at him, like in my head and
look and now look in hindsight, he's out here making movies.
So it's all it's a growing it's a growing experience,
learning experience for all of us in the end, whether
we recognize that or not. But I look at him
and I say, hey, man, not everybody can do you do?

(12:01):
All right? I'm not saying, hey, can I work with
John and can I give him acting lessons? When I
had my first meeting with Steph, I said, why the
hell weren't you Duke and g I Joe, You're the
best actor on the roster. I said, but I'm trying
to get them to a level where you're at or
close to it, because if I don't, who the hell
is And he kind of like shrugged his shoulders and

(12:22):
like excelled, and I said, hey man, it's not like
you're helping him out. And that kind of like tightened
up as humongous muscles, these massive shoulders that kind of
like tense stuff. And he goes, yeah or whatever, and
he walked away and I go back in and Cardona
was like, dude, I thought you guys were gonna fight,
Like bro, I'm not trying to fight the incredible hulk Man.

(12:43):
Shut up. So we finished the class, and uh, I didn't.
We have our taping of whatever show was that day,
Monday and Iraq as John was there, and uh he
was the face of the company and Monday and I
Raw was the show of the company back then. So
I'm on the jet. We're flying back to White Plains,
New York from whatever city were in Cleveland or wherever

(13:05):
it was, and Vince has me hold out my hands.
He's got some hand sanitizer and he's he's you know,
you don't like germs, and so he starts to put
some hand sanitizer in my hand and then as a
rib won't stop, he just keeps squeezing it and squeezing it,
and he's just staring me down, and I'm staring him down. Right.

(13:26):
It's not like I can just let the crap fall
in his G four, G five, whatever it is, G something,
because that's disrespectful. But I'm not gonna wine or whimper
or tap out. So I just let him into the
bottle and I stand up and I slap it down
in the sink in the bathroom, wipe my hands. I
come back in and he's laughing. He thinks it's great.

(13:47):
And Kevin Dunn thinks it's the greatest joke that anyone's
ever pulled off in the history of jokes. And uh,
I sit down and Vince goes, so, I heard you
had a little, uh, a little problem with Sina today.
I'm like, no, man, I try to downplay it. I go, no,
I think he's just testing me. Man, all you guys
like to test me. And he goes, I don't worry

(14:08):
about it. I'm the only one that can fire you anyway,
and Kevin laughs at that. He starts laughing at Vince's joke, like, man,
that wasn't even that good. And uh, but I I
learned in that moment, like, Yo, don't worry about it.
Keep doing your thing. If they're giving you crap, I'm
the only one that you need to worry about giving
you crap. Right, you could take it from everyone else,

(14:29):
is how I took it to to me. So I
go in there and I'm just hopeful that he doesn't
interrupt the class again. And to his credit, he never did,
not even once, And as time went on, he called,
he still said, oh, what's up, Baston Crusher. I think
one time I used to wear this hat that my uncle,

(14:49):
he was a Vietnam veteran. Uh when he passed away,
I stole it from that from the house, and UH
I used to wear it a lot. Because my uncle
is real responsible for the man that I grew up
to become. I'm named for him. His name is James Barber,
and my middle name is James. My son's middle name
is James's. He's an important man in our in our

(15:13):
family's history. Side Quist a very important man, and he
demanded not only respect for himself, but he always demanded
the family show respect to one another. He was in
and out of our lives a lot because he had
a lot of problems coming back from from Vietnam. I
remember I used to have to crumple up newspaper and
toss it at him when he'd be napping on the

(15:35):
couch to wake him up for dinner. Because if you
went while I learn hard way, if you went and
shook him, you were on your back and his hand
was on your throat because in his head he was
still in the war. He had to do just look
up reconnaissance Marines Vietnam, and you'll know what he had
to do. We're not gonna make this depressing. So anyway,
I'm wearing this hat and he goes, oh, nice doe
she had, and I hit him. I don't even look

(15:56):
at him when I say it. I go it was
my uncle's he was in Vietnam, and it just goes, oh,
like that right. They never talked about that ever again.
So there is respect there. It just has to be
something he deems worthy of respect or you gotta earn it.

(16:21):
So six months in I'm doing a segment and it
was with Santina Morella, Beth Phoenix and some and someone
else I can't I can't remember who else. And I'm
sitting next to Vince in Guerrilla and the segments going well,
because our Santino is the man Like anything you wrote

(16:43):
he would make better. I loved working with him when
he was on SmackDown. I got to work with him
all the time and we would just crack each other
up with jokes like on what the scene is gonna be?
Things he would say words he could butcher, and he
would just not get dead no matter, no matter what.
And he needed so little direction you could. If anything,

(17:05):
it was only to like tighten it up because he
could go on for thirty minutes and we only had two.
So it was a segment that was going really well.
Again all credit to the talent, especially in the case
of of of the Lion. It's going well, and Vince
gives me the elbow to the ribs, but not the
fu elbow. It's it's not like the Randy Macho may

(17:28):
have finished your elbow. It's like the revitalizing elbow when
he hit Hogan with it and woke Hogan up, which
was like horrible, should have never happened, but it happened.
He's given you the positive I'm like, hey, good job, kid,
God damn. And Cina is back there too, because he's
in the next segment. I think I'm even wearing my
uncle's hat and uh, he says, and again I'm my

(17:48):
eyes are on. The monitors were just backstage. They call
a guerrilla position. It's where they come out of the
curtain and walked to the ring for those of you
that don't really watch the brand. And so he's back
there waiting for his time and he goes, hey, man,
that was a that was a really good segment and
I didn't even look at him much, but yeah, whatever,
and just they liked it, and I phil Vince gotta
give me another nudge, which was either chill out or

(18:10):
well done. I don't know which one it was. We
didn't talk about it, and uh, that was the moment
where I was like, all right, he's I think I
think I earned his respect and I don't. But I
don't know, you know, man, maybe not. Maybe he was
just like, well, I'm just done crapping on him because
the boss is right there. But either way, we never
had an issue or or a conflict ever again. After that,
he was always just would give me a nod. He

(18:31):
didn't talk about my uncle's hat. He called me Freddie
instead of Ashton. By the way, his last name I
think is Coucher, not cousher. And I don't know if
John knew that. But you know, you can't say a
man's name, right. I don't say John Cena. I say
John Cena. So anyway, I know people have had fun,
and I've told some of the Seni stories before. I
wanted to be clear. Even though he didn't like me

(18:53):
and I didn't like John, I respect John. I respected
him then I respect him now. I respect the irony
of what he what he's doing now because he hated it.
He hated Hollywood so much. But Hollywood doesn't show wrestling
the respect that I think wrestling deserves. So I think

(19:14):
if there's ever a company man, John Cena is the
ultimate company man, like he would do anything for the company.
He would take any bullet for Vince McMahon, because that's
his experience with the company has always been not I'm
not gonna say always been positive. Everyone has ups and downs,

(19:35):
but this company found him, developed him in o VW,
brought him up, made him the face of the company.
Not for a year, not for two years, not forever. Okay,
he was the champion forever, Himmer Randy, and he would
always win it back. So his love and respect for

(19:56):
that company is the way you would love school counselor
that saved your ass and and put your life on
the right track, or the way you look after your
parents as someone spoke against them. So that's where his
loyalty was in Hollywood has never been pro pro wrestling.
They're happy to pluck the most talented people and make
them a star, but they've always had their their kind

(20:17):
of crappy feelings for it. That'll switch us over to
a more positive relationship. I had, and that was with
Glenn Jacobs, who plays this hideous monster from hell named Kane.
And he was the Undertaker's brother, younger brother, thank you
very much. And he had insecurities throughout his career about

(20:39):
being the younger brother. He had conflict with his brother.
They had resolutions and wrestled together, and we're the most
powerful tag team in the universe. He had his own
singles title runs. He did horror type wrestling all the
way to comedy type wrestling when he tag teamed with
Brian Danielson who's in a w He's shown a large

(21:02):
range as far as what limited range the Kane character
allows you to have. He's even starred as the monster
in a monster movie. I can't remember the name off
the top of my head. You get this image of him,
and he is a a hideous beast behind a mask.
Why else would he wear a mask? It must be hideous,
he wears. When he took the mask off because he

(21:23):
was no longer hideous, he would put in crazy contacts
to make himself look more freaky. Freaky, and and and
and strike fear in the hearts of men. And then
you meet Glenn and you could call him Kane. He
responds to either one, and he's a he's like a poet.
I think he's immensum member even like he's this. The

(21:45):
dude reads Shakespeare. The guy gave me book recommend The
guy got me to read that Hawaiian The Rich Dad,
Poor Dad. He like, hey, man, this book meant a
lot to me. You should you should give it a read.
And I'm like, alright, cool. He gave me a book
about the Rothchild's system of banking, its influence on America,

(22:06):
and why should we should be wary up at his
way into bigcoin and why should we should be wary
of our paper currency that's barely backed on gold anymore.
He gave me this in two thousand seven, y'all. I
don't know the name of it, and I'll be honest
with you. I only read about the fourth of it.
And Bill Burr had a joke he said, reading puts
me to sleep. It I fell asleep a lot, but

(22:29):
I got through a quarter of it, and I did
learn that the Rothchilds were some evil sons of bitches,
and our banking system is corrupt as all hell. So
if you want to buy a gold I'm not mad
at you. If you want to buy a big one,
I get it. But this guy, first of all, I
never saw Vince more hands on with a promo than
his feelings for Kane. He has this weird case. I've

(22:53):
described Vince as as a as a kid with a
toy box, right, and they're all his toys and you
have to play with them the way he wants you
to play with them. But he's never more particular than
when he was with Kane. For real. He never yelled
at me louder and we would go back and forth
from time to time, but most of the time, dude
was really cool with my with my ideas are the

(23:14):
ones that got to him. Sometimes they die on the
vine before they even get there. They go, no, the
show is full. I remember I came in there and
I don't remember the promo. This is you know, however
many over ten years ago. But there was the word destroyed.
He reads the word destroyed, and he stopped and he
looks at me and he's like, piste off at me,
like I've done something not wrong but offensive. I go what?

(23:39):
And he shot? He goes Kane, what never say it destrong? Hey?
What say ah blaate? And there's this long pause. Right,
you gotta remember the way my brain works. I'm not
a reactionary dude, and I'm comfortable with silence, so I
don't mind it. So there's this long pause, and in
my head, I'm like, this isn't a fight that I'm

(24:00):
gonna fight. It's it's it's a word, but I kind
of want to know why it's it's so important to
the boss. And so I take a beat and I say,
you got it, obliterate? Are there any other words in
here that are going to get that kind of reaction?
And if so, can you tell me why? And he

(24:21):
just gives this grunt that he would give when he's
unamused by your amusement. Basically, he wanted he wanted me
to take a more serious I guess it was just
more like and he starts reading it through, reading it through,
and he goes the rest of it is fine, just
trying to make the end a little better, Like all right,
I go back and uh, there's a writer named Christopher

(24:42):
to Joseph who worked there, and he was always good
to me, not all the writers for kids. To me,
Chris was always cool man from Jump Street. And I
go in and he goes, how'd it going? Yeah, pretty good.
He wants me to rewrite the end. I said, he
really hates the word destroyed. And Chris goes, yeah, I
wanted to warn you about it, but I just thought
it'd be funny if I didn't. I what are you
talking about, man, he I said, I've never seen him

(25:03):
get angry. He goes, he's so crazy about kine and
the words that you use. When I was like, I'm
telling you broke it was. I've seen actors trip out right,
and I mean trip out where it's over a word,
over a line, and you're like, dog, just just tell
him you're saying something different, Like you don't need to
be this dramatic and make it a level ten need

(25:25):
in order to convince them like you're the lead of
the show, you're the four hunder pound gorilla to be like, yo, man,
need I need a different line. You don't even have
to say better. You can say it better if you
don't want to worry about their feelings. But you can
just say a man need a different line there, and
it has just as much weight and so it was
a rib on me. But I brought it to to
Glenn and he does his thing, and he does what

(25:48):
he does right, and here's the difference you'll see in
like some of the writers. So he kills it and
everyone goes, oh, great bromo, Freddy, great bromo. I'm like, man,
I didn't do anything like it. It's the same speech
he's made a hundred times. It's just you know, different
bourbons that's on that's on him. The next week they
gave the same storyline promo to someone else because I

(26:10):
was just trying to help out. They were busy and
worn down. On that week's episode, Kane does his thing
and kills it, and the writer in chargees like, hey, Freddy,
did you see my promo? Which thing? Man? I was like,
you feel like looking for a compliment. You didn't say nothing.
This dude said it. So there was a lot of
There was a lot of insecurity and ego in that room.
And it wasn't just because I was there. I mean

(26:31):
that that's just a that's a personality trait that he
either exists or it doesn't, and you either grow out
of it or you don't write. And a lot of
these guys probably grew out of it, and a few
of them probably didn't. We're gonna end with Vince McMahon.

(26:51):
But to get there, the best perspective I ever got
on the man was from Chris Jericho, and Chris was
always really cool to me. He didn't have to be.
We didn't work together. There was no reason for us too.
He was high quality actor. Forget the fact that he's
one of the best wrestlers ever. Forget all that he

(27:12):
didn't need any help writing a promo. He didn't need
any help with direction on how to execute a promo.
So there was no reason for for he and I
to talk outside of me asking questions about, you know,
the history of wrestling, you know the matches he was
in promos that he had done, just so I could
gain information. Right, So I'm sitting and I'm talking to
him after a match, and uh, he was. I remember

(27:34):
his trunks they were like blue with like sparkles on him,
and he was. He was in a run with John
Cena that culminated in Boston, And this was the week
before that, and we were talking about Vince and this
idea that I had to to get one of the
smaller wrestlers over, which which was Kofi. And we'll get
into that storyline in another episode, which is the Kofe

(27:56):
Gauntlet match, which they took years later. In turn, didn't
do the Kofe Gotlin match that got him the World Championship.
The one we came up with was simply pitched for
him to win the Intercontinental Championship. So I was talking
to him and he said this one sentence that I'll
never forget. He said, Vince is his father's son. And

(28:18):
I said, what did that? What? What is that? What
does that mean? I knew nothing about Vince's dad outside
of the fact that Vince got the company from him,
you know, years ago, and and and did like some
hard business, but business he felt that had to be
done right. And he goes. Vince's dad only liked the
big guys. He never he never pushed a small guy ever.
He just didn't. He didn't believe that a small guy

(28:39):
could be the big guy. He goes, and that's Vince's son.
He goes, and he believes that. He goes. I can
show him a million UFC tapes. I can show him,
you know, a million instances where a smaller guy goes,
he has said. But outside of you know, a handful
of of choices that he's made over the years with
Ray and with Sean, things like that goes. He just doesn't.
He doesn't believe in the smaller guys. I said, yeah, man,
but you had all all the titles, he said, I

(29:01):
didn't have him for a long and I was sitting
there and it kind of it didn't hit me right away,
but on the plane going home, I never knew my
dad right, so I didn't connect with with what he
was saying at first. And then as I was going home,
and I was always trying to think of I was
always trying to figure Vince out. And there's no figuring

(29:24):
anyone out completely, but I was always trying to figure
out where his head was at and what would be
the best way for me to get my ideas over
to contemporize the business, so to speak, right, And I
feeled a lot, regrettably. I don't have an issue saying
it now it's ten years later, but it sucked. You know,
Failing in a segment is one thing. Failing in a pitch,

(29:46):
for whatever reason, always hurts me more. Right, It's like
the infancy of an idea that you're rejecting as opposed
to the totality of it. I'm sitting on the plane
and I started thinking about the father figures that I had.
My uncle James, I call him jimmy uncle Jim, my godfather,
Bob Wall, my uncle Ron de Blasio, who was my

(30:06):
father's manager, Richard Pryor's manager. He was the one that
got me hip to the business real quick. He was
the one that taught me the phrase it's show business,
which words bigger. That phrase came from Ron de Blasio,
and he didn't get it from anyone else. He's just
been in the game. That was Prince's manager. Y'all, remember Prince.
Everybody knows Prince, yet that was his manager. The guy's

(30:27):
seen everything. Anytime I had questions about Hollywood, not the
side quest, but I always went to him before my
own agents are managers. Just because Ron's seen everything, He's
dealt with everyone, I could get a better sense of
how to enter a negotiation with Warner Brothers because they're
notoriously the most evil, disgusting negotiators in the world. You'll

(30:48):
be worth a million bucks, they'll offer you a hundred
grand and and act like you should be thankful. And
you gotta figure out the people to speak to, when
to speak to them, to walk away, to not even respond,
and how they'll react to that. And I always wanted
to be able to be three fourths. I told you,
I want to know how Vince thinks. I would want

(31:09):
to know how these studios would think and operate, and
so I would always talk to people who had who
had dealt with them before any time I had a
big negotiation, which is why I always got those bumps
before to the rest of the actors, and all you
other actors should thank me for helping raise your quotes
in the nineties. It's because you know it's not Reese
Witherspoon I think is credit for that one. I start

(31:30):
applying that to me, which helps me then apply my
philosophies to Vince and the w w E was making.
This leads us to our final story and to close.
They were making movies, and I'm not gonna say they
were good movies, but I can say that because I've
been in some dogs myself. Y'all aren't allowed to say that,

(31:50):
or you're just haters. Dylan is allowed to have opinions anymore,
so they weren't necessarily great, but they were making movies,
and they were making them for five million dollars a pop,
which limits the type of movie you can make, limits
how good it can look, limits the level of talent
you can get. Money helps make a good movie. Granted

(32:11):
you can pull it off without We've all seen some
great movies made for a million dollars or less considerably less,
but for the most part, money can help you get
the technology and the talent at the levels you want.
So five million back then got you what it got you.
And they weren't getting distribution. They were relying on the
Walmart DVD distribution deal that they had. They weren't even

(32:35):
attempting to go to theaters because they were making enough
money off the Walmart releases and Walmart had paid them
in advance because they kind of had a built in audience, right.
There was a writer on the creative team who was
a television writer and I'm not going to say his name,
but he was getting it wasn't clicking with what wrestlers

(32:56):
needed to say and the types of stories that wrestlers
could pull off, and the types of story whereas that
we could pull off as a company. While having to
have wrestling matches. Think about that philosophy, and that was
this guy's philosophy. You have these matches are really affecting
the story. It's like, nah, dog, you're supposed to service
the matches is a wrestling show. That's why Bruce every

(33:17):
week would be like, it's a lot of talk. It's
a lot of talk. And he was dead on, by
the way. So this guy asked Vince if he could
transition from the creative team to the film division because
he had experience in film. Now he had experience in television,
but not really experience in film. This gentleman. Now, I

(33:38):
respect the man's hustle, but this was a hustle just
the same. He started selling his own scripts under a
different name, a pen name what you're allowed to do
to the w w E, and then was producing his
own movie himself and paying himself to do it. And
I saw this right away, right right. I know a

(33:59):
Hollywood hustle when I see one. And Vince, like I said,
when you don't have a dad and people call you
a son, it has an effect on you as a
young man. I'm forty five. Now you can call me son.
I'm not gonna do anything you ask me to do.
I'm old and cranky, so I didn't. I felt like

(34:19):
there was advantage being taken of. I felt like he
should have just said, hey, I wrote this great script,
let's make it, and Vince would have said yeah. He
would have said yes, but I didn't like that there
was this subversive element to it. So we're on the
tarmac in White Plains, New York, which is the home
base of the w W E jet, and we're getting
ready to fly. I think to New Orleans, and everybody's

(34:42):
bags are out there, and I have my car. Is there.
I get out of the car. I'm on the phone
talking to the wife. I see Vince's limo pull up,
and that's usually means it's time to get your ass
on the plane. Let's go in and say waiting on
nobody and I go, hey, babe, the boss is here.
I'm out. I love you about click the phone off.
I'll walk straight up to Vince. I go, hey, man,
before we get on the plane, I gotta tell you something.

(35:02):
I said, you guys are making these five million dollar movies.
This guy is selling you scripts that would not sell
in Hollywood. That I'm sure he's tried to sell a
dozen times and everyone passed on. And you're paying him
for something like that and then paying him to make
his own movie. I said, that's five movies a year
at five million dollars a piece, or maybe it was

(35:23):
four four movies a year at four at five million
dollars a piece. Vince, he looks me dead in the face.
He goes, Freddie, it's twenty million dollars. Get on the
fucking plane. And I literally my jaw must have hit
the girl. I looked at him and said, can I
have that job? And he started laughing, slapped me on
the back, and I got my ass on the plane

(35:44):
and we flew to wherever we flew toto a match
and the whole flat I'm sitting there like, that's a billionaire,
that's a bill, that's that's what a billionaires. I never
I knew Vince a little bit at that point, so
he was more comfortable to bullish ship and and and
chat a bit. But to hear someone say that the
way like if someone's like, hey, whatever your might, Hey Mike,

(36:08):
can I borrow some money? A normal amount of money?
You could lend somebody, what fifty bucks for me? If
a Boddy was like, Hey, I need some money. I
probably have a little bit more than I hook it up.
Hey man, I get five million dollars for a movie.
He couldn't we do that four more times? Oh yeah,
that's the million dollars cares the whole flight. That's all

(36:31):
I'm thinking about. I'm sitting there like, he ain't even
this dude ain't even gonna get fired. It's probably knew
it was a hustle. He just doesn't care. He's got
the money from Walmart already, so it doesn't even matter
if the movie makes a dime, so screw it. And
it was just that I never I've never looked at
my finances that way, even if I was in a

(36:53):
position to, I don't. I don't think I could do that,
But who knows, maybe I would be the exact same way. Anyhow,
storytime is concluding. I hope you guys have fun. I
really am enjoying this podcast, and I'm really having a
lot of fun talking with you guys. I like when
y'all hit me up on on social media. I really
enjoyed the conversations. Uh, you don't have to agree with

(37:15):
everything I say. If you have questions or or you
disagree with something, feel free to hit me up. Like
I said, I don't take things personally. If you're If
you're rude, I'll be rude back. If you're cool, then
I'll be cool. We can, we can disagree, and I can.
You might even change my mind on some crap. It's
been a while. We're gonna have Chris Jericho on, who
is has so much knowledge of the business on a

(37:37):
on a global scale, and for people that aren't even
wrestling fans, we're gonna talk about a lot of the
business of wrestling, the legit and some of the illegitimate stuff,
and we're gonna get into it on a on a
deep level. And he's a really cool guy to speak
to on that, about how the Arenas make money, who
runs the Arenas Sometimes it's the mob. So there's there's
a lot of deep stuff that we can talk about

(37:57):
and have some fun with. So even if you're not
that into wrestling, you might be into some scandalous stories.
But for those of you who are, it's Chris Jericho.
We're gonna talk wrestling outside of that. I love talking
to you guys. I'll see you guys again next week
right here. On wrestling with Freddy. This has been a
production of I heart Radio's Michael Tura podcast Network. For

(38:18):
more podcasts for my heart Radio, visit the i heart
Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your
favorite shows. H m hm