Wrestling Secrets Revealed

Wrestling, like magic, has it's secrets. I'm going to tell you about a time when Vince McMahon felt having a magician on the program would be a good idea,  and how Hade Vansen, the "son" of the Undertaker was involved.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
M. What's up everybody? Welcome back to a brand new
episode of Wrestling with Freddie. And today's episode is story
Time with Uncle Frederick. And this is Wrestling with Freddie
now stuffing up for the min The host of Wrestling

(00:21):
with Freddie, Freddie Brice tune. Yeah. On today's episode, we're
gonna tell well, I don't know how many stories we're
gonna tell. There's always a bunch of side quests, but
I'm gonna try to focus on two stories, and one
of which was asking me on Twitter. So if any
of you guys know of anything going on when I
worked there that you have questions about, feel free to

(00:41):
hit me up on social media. That's real fpj R.
On Twitter. That's the best way for me to answer
wrestling questions. I'm not on Instagram that much, so this question,
I'm sorry, I don't remember your name, but I'm gonna
get good at that by season two maybe. But he
asked about the story of hayde Vanson. And for those
who there's some like hardcoes right now, they're like, no

(01:02):
freaking way. Yes I wrote this with a couple other people,
but yes I wrote this, and yes it died a
horrible death, So we're gonna get into that, and for
those of you who don't know, it's just a funny story.
And then the other story we're gonna tell it was
my worst day in the company. And I'm pretty sure
Vince did it to me just as as a practical

(01:22):
joke they call it a rib was just ribbing you.
But man, it sucked. And that was when SmackDown I
think was on. Maybe it was the c W or
the up N. It was a long time ago, and
they've changed names a lot more than w W wrestler's names.
But they made me direct a segment for the Masked

(01:43):
Magician because he had a show on the same network
and they were trying to cross promote, and he was
going to use wrestlers as like the volunteers from the audience.
Now we're gonna start with this story because for those
of you who don't know, I love magic. When I
was a little kid, I went to a magic shop
here in Los Angeles, California, and so like some of

(02:06):
the best magicians in the world were here, and it
was a place called the Magic Castle, and you could
go there and eat and they would perform for you.
And these were like top top shelf magicians. And I
went to a magic shop and my mom said, you
can get one trick, any trick you want. And I
looked around at everything, and I didn't look at the
back of any of the boxes. I just looked around.

(02:26):
And I went back to my mom and I said,
I don't want I don't want to get any of
these tricks. And she said why not, and I said,
because I don't want to know how they work. And
there's a scene from a movie with Christian Bale and
Hugh Jackman and they're like dueling magicians and Christian Bale,

(02:49):
I don't want to spoil it for you if you
haven't seen it, but he's in love with this with
this woman, and he's doing a magic trick and this
is like the eight hundreds in England, I believe. And
he's doing a bullet catch, which was a spectacular trick
because magicians had died doing it, and his wife or
his girlfriend doesn't want him to do it, and he says, no,

(03:11):
it's perfectly safe. She goes, show me how to do it.
He's like, no, I can't. I can't show you how
to do it. She goes, well, then you can't. You
can't do it. You you have more responsibilities than just yourself.
Now you have me, we're going to have a child.
You have responsibilities that your father says, all right, if
I show you will you will you let me do it.
She says okay. He does the bullet catch, and then
he reveals the trick that he pulls the bullet from

(03:32):
the gun before he ever gives her the pistol to fire,
and so it's just watting. There is no bullet, and
he breaks it down. He basically says the gun is empty,
there is no bullet, and she looks at him and
she it's almost instead of relief, it's disappointment. And then
she says, oh, well, when you know how it's done,
it's not that special, is it. And you can see

(03:55):
his heart break the way a woman should have in
his heart, and he says, well, no, you know, it's
still it's still pretty dangerous. You know, people can die
doing this, and she just like shrugs it off, like yeah, okay,
whatever whatever, And that to me was magic, right. I
never wanted to know how it was done. It was

(04:16):
why I couldn't watch wrestling for about eight months when
I left the company, because I knew. I knew all
the tricks and some of the magic had had faded away,
And it wasn't until my daughter got real into it
that I came back sort of full circle. So I'm
the perfect guy to direct a segment for a character
whose entire gimmick is destroying magician's careers and exposing all

(04:40):
their secrets and all their trade secrets and and making
magic no longer magic. Like that guy that did that
Scuzzy John was his name, John Moffatt Or no, that's
the character from Silence of the Lambs, the New York
journalist that got slapped by by Dr De David Schultz.
And there was a wrestler who like gave up the
secrets in order to help this story get made. Like

(05:03):
screw that guy, and screw the mass magician. His name
was like Valve Valentine or something and so and this
may sound hardcore, like wow, Freddie is really getting on
a soapbox for magicians, but and I know it is,
it's ridiculous, but check this out. Man, Like these men
and these women, their entire livelihood is on making you
guess right, how do you do it? How do you

(05:24):
do it? So all these YouTube videos, all these Instagram
videos and Valve Valentine who started it with his mass
magician crap, like that's that's hurting magicians. It's not getting
people more excited about magic, not anymore so than they'd
be if they saw a magician and wondered how they
could do it. No, it's just people putting a spotlight
on themselves because they don't have what it takes. They're

(05:46):
not the three dimensional magician. They may just be good
at slide a hand, or they may just be good
on the microphone, or maybe they're just funny, but none
of the other skills are up to part. And they're
mad about that, and they're trying to get their own
shine and make money in a new way. But it's
just destroyed the magic business. So now I get to
work with this guy, So Vince gives me Maria and

(06:10):
Maria Cannellis that is, and uh Biscuits and Gravy what
were their names? Festus became Luke Gallows and uh Gordie's kid.
I don't remember, but anyway, they their theme music wing
Biscuits and Grave and Festus was this character played by Luke.
You guys know him. Now it's Luke Gallows. If you
watched a w or or the indie scenes, now, shout

(06:33):
out to my buddy Angelo who gave him that name.
And uh, his character doesn't speak. He was not mute.
He was just kind of dumb, right and just sort
of like lobotomized. And then when the bell would ring,
this is his gimmick. I'm not saying this was great,
but it made me laugh at least when the wrestling

(06:54):
bell would ring, he would like run, He just beat
the crap out of whoever was in front of him,
and if the bell ring again, he would go back
into his docile, lobotomized state, which doesn't give a long
career for a character like that, because the moment someone goes, well,
maybe if I just ring the bell again in the
middle of the match and he'll stop, and then I
can just pin it, which happened, and then the characters

(07:16):
magic kind of died right them as the tag team
he Maria Canellis, and the story is supposed to be
that Festus has a crush on Maria. I'm like trying
to prevent a migraine wall explaining this this storyline to you, guys,

(07:38):
that's how painful this memory is, and uh, they're gonna
do this magic thing together, the mass magician is. It's
going to be like a date kind of. So I
wake up that morning and I feel horrible. I grabbed thermometer.
Take my temperature one degrees sick as a dog. There

(07:59):
is no there are no sick days at the w
w E. You go, You go to work unless you're dead,
and even then they fire you. He's fired. He didn't
show up. Dude, he's dead. Well, he won't care, so
he wouldn't do that. So I feel like crap. I
take a ton of medicine, I get to work. I

(08:20):
get hit with the masked freaking magician on a segment
No one's gonna watch on a segment. No wrestling fan
wants to watch a segment I don't want to watch
or be a part of, or be associated with in
any way, shape or form. And did I mention I
have a hundred one to temperature. So God bless Luke.

(08:40):
This is Festus, and God bless Maria for galas goes Man,
you look sickred and shamous because she is a solf,
white and pale. She could like see his heart beat
like a like a baby fish or a baby frog.
He goes, man, you look worse than shame is, which
makes me mile and laugh. But man, I'm hurting. And

(09:02):
then incomes sky val Valentine, and now I can't just
tell the guy I hate you. Man, you're jerk and
you're everything that's wrong with the show business. If they
can't afford a scripted shows, so they pay you peanuts
and you get an hour on TV, screw you. I
can't say that, right, So I say, hey, Vole, it's
nice to meet you. Uh, what are the tricks that

(09:23):
you'd like to perform for us today? So he's gonna
do the head spinning around on the box trick. Hey,
that's new and fresh and hit. At least he's not exposing,
you know, something that's not stupid, and then that they
didn't expose on Looney Tunes. And the other is a levitation.
He's gonna levitate Maria and uh, I have never seen

(09:43):
a levitation be performed, So now I have to watch
it because I have to let everyone know where the
cameras are going to be. Right. Well, actually he helped
with that because he has to protect his props. I
don't I'm not trying to take credit for it. So
he's like, hey, we need a camera here here, and
here's all right, I'll grab these guys. I'm writing some
diet log for Maria and Festus too, so she can
be his lovely assistant. Right, and uh, I'm looking at

(10:07):
the levitation gimmick and it's so loud. It's so loud.
And he turns on. It's like and it starts to go.
I'm like, bro, how what how? How do you want
me to this? He goes, oh, well, when I perform
it on my show, there's a lot of music play,
all right, man, Well, all right, I'll put some music

(10:27):
in and post I guess, but right on. And so
Maria comes in and and she doesn't have much dialogue.
It's like, hey, Festus, are you ready to see some magic?
It's I'm literally I don't want to be there. I'm
just trying to make this go as quickly as possible. Maria,
the first trick they're gonna do is the head in
the box. I hate telling the story. So she gets

(10:48):
in and uh, he closes the box up, the one
that goes around her body, and then there's a little
door for the second box that's around her head, and
you can see her smiling face and h he clo.
He closes the box and he turns it degrees and

(11:09):
he opens the back of the box. And what should
be Maria's red hair? Is this a red wig that
is about eight inches shorter than Maria's hair when she
got in the box And not even remotely did you
can look this up on YouTube and not even remotely
the same color texture or anything. Okay, So I'm already

(11:31):
sitting there and the camera guy was Luise, I think
his name was Luise. He looks over to me and
he goes, how did you get stuck with this ship?
And I think I said something like I think he
knows I like magic. I was talking about magic, and
I think he just did this to like screw me
over because I think I might have said screwed the
mass magician or something like that. And he's shaking his

(11:53):
head and the bits over. We do one take. We
do one take, and he goes, how wasn't I go, man,
that that was great. Let's just let's get to the
next one. I'm ready to go throw up at this point.
So while they set up, I go to the bathroom.
I got like a like a wet towel that I
bring over to UH to caterine. I fill up with
ice and I go back to where we're shooting in

(12:14):
this like cafeteria. I lay on a table and I
just put the ice over my head. While I'm laying there.
Maria is, she's so sweet. She comes up, she takes
the ice pack off my head, and she goes, Freddy.
I go, what she goes, don't sell? I said, what
she goes, don't sell? So what are you talking about?
She goes. Every single old timer that walks by here,

(12:35):
if they see you, every single one of them is
gonna go tell Vince and tell him what that I'm
sick because a dog. She goes, No, They're gonna tell
me you're a little bit. Was like, oh no, all right, fair,
fair enough. No more ice bags, or at least not
in public view. So it's time for levitation. And as
the day goes on, you know how how it feels

(12:57):
when you have the flu, You get worse as the
day goes on. Right, So I'm feeling like garbage canny.
I'm drinking like they're a flu by the gallon, I think,
or maybe it was just t and I'm basically hallucinating,
like I'm guys are the worst when we're sick. Girls
are tougher than guys when it comes to getting sick. Man,
I just wanted my mom. So we do levitation and

(13:20):
Maria lays down on the Maria lays down on this
board and uh uh. The mass magician pushes the button
and it goes, it goes up, and then one of
there's two hydraulics and one of them stops working, and
so the right one keeps going up, which means her

(13:43):
feet are going in the air, but her head's not.
And she starts sliding like she goes well, and he goes,
hold on, hold on, hold on, and so he has
to turn it off. And I'm shaking my head just
in shame, frustration and entertainment and joy to see this
guy get posed. And uh gets off the table and

(14:04):
he goes, hold on, hold on, let me fix it.
I go all right, man, try to fix it. And
I go up to Louise and I said, uh, look,
we're gonna send it to the truck and we're just
gonna cut right before it uh, before it gets right
before the thing the gimmick breaks the rig because we
can't do that, and val Valentine goes, hey, guys, yeah,

(14:26):
he goes, uh my, hye, draw is completely broken. I'm
not gonna be able to do a second take. And
Luise goes, hey, man, so I think we should just
send this to the truck and just cut it right
before the thing bread And it is the single worst
segment in the history of SmackDown on any channel, whether

(14:46):
it was the c W, whether it was the up N,
whether it was what was it before that, what is
it now, whether it's on Fox Sports, whether any channel,
it is the worst segments. So you guys try to
give me credit for a lot of stuff and say, Freddie,
you should go back and right man, Freddy, you should
go back and save him. Is that what you want?
Is that what you really want? Because I'm the man

(15:08):
responsible for the mass magician, sorry to say apologize now
this is the sad one hayde Vanson. We received a

(15:30):
note from Vince that said Undertaker needed an opponent to
run through before the next pay per view storyline. Basically,
someone had gotten hurt I don't remember who, and before
we could get take her to edge. They wanted someone
that we could just run through. But they wanted us

(15:53):
to have it be someone that that could mean something,
and so they wanted us to find someone from f
c W that we could bring up a sign, a
gimmick to basically smash and destroy him for the Undertaker.
So it was to Joseph it was Fasio Angelo Fazio,

(16:13):
Krista Joseph and it was meet were called Fasio Low
faz is what we called him, And to Joseph we
just called DJ. And they just called me Freddy or
at least buy my back. I'm sure they said some else.
So the three of us sat down and we started
talking about this, and all our brains kind of went
to the same place right away, which would be like

(16:33):
a cult, like a cultish kind of figure worshippers of
the Undertaker things like that. We're kind of spitting ideas
around and nothing's really clicking. And I don't remember who
said it. I want to say DJ, but I don't
remember who brought it up. But one of us said,
what if he claimed the Undertaker was his father? Who

(16:54):
said that? And then somebody else said, well, I don't
think anyone will buy that, but maybe it could be
like in a like us, like a supernatural sense. And
I remember being like no, either way, like either way
he's getting killed. Anyways, he's getting smashed up, which you know, again,
we're just trying to make this work. It's yes, that
would be a father killing his son, but he's not

(17:14):
really killing him. I just mean like smashing in the ring.
So uh so we try working with that and we
throw it to Michael and Freebird's like, yeah, you know
that whatever, he doesn't he doesn't care. And uh, we
write this promo and this idea that's kind of kind
of good. And he's sort of hacking into the to
the network feed, which is not original by any stretch.

(17:36):
Other wrestlers have done that before, but we thought this
was an authentic and organic way for a character like
this to come through. So he started hacking the feed
on on Front maybe as Thursday Night SmackDown back then,
and uh, they would be kind of grainy pictures. They
look kind of like eighties grainy, and uh. He would
have these messages for the Undertaker that he would come

(17:57):
in with and and talk about how you know, like
what everyone says, basically, his time is nearing an end,
and now it's it's going to be my time, and
I have anger and love for you and all this,
and he had this. He was a British guy. His
name was Hadrian. What a great name, Hadrian. I think
it was Hadrian Howard, and uh he had this ax

(18:19):
undertake up and that he sounded smooth when he spoke right,
shaved head bit of a beard. I think the beard
matched the hairling. And he looked real cool, real cool.
Look smaller guy though definitely a smaller guy, smaller than me.
I'm six one right now, and he was he was
I can't remember exactly what he looked like. I'm prettyure

(18:40):
he's buffer than me, which isn't saying much, but he
wasn't as tall as I am. I'm telling you all
this for a reason. So he's cutting these promos and
he's doing a good job, and so we get the
story approved by Freebird, and then we get it approved
by Vince, and we start shooting these little segments and uh,

(19:01):
they're airing on television. It's an ongoing thing. And he
and he's he's not calling out the Undertaker, but he's
sort of he's speaking about the Undertaker, and you're just
waiting to figure out what the reason for it is.
It can't just be I want your spot. That would
be stupid, and it wasn't. It was this father something.
So we're building up. I think we get two weeks

(19:23):
of TV out of it, and then we go to Bristol,
Connecticut and I'll never forget it because there's a train
station or a train track right by the arena and
we're gonna shoot this segment outside on this like graffiti,
moss and algae urine stained wall. It's just real dirty

(19:47):
and gritty, and we have like yellow Blade to Garamo
Del Torro lighting coming from one side and like blue
and Pink Ridley Scott Blade Runner lighting coming from the
other side, and we're shooting him super clothes and uh,
he busts out the pro minutes that is the best
one that he's done so far. Nothing in ring, everything

(20:08):
on on site and on location. So we cut it,
we show it. Everyone's excited and it's not showtime yet.
We shot this before. We shot this before the show
because this was the tape show, not the live one,
so you had more time to accomplish these goals. So
we're in the production meeting and everyone's putting their segments

(20:28):
through and all this and here comes our segment and
nobody said boot. No one said boot the last two weeks,
last two or even three weeks of TV that we
got out of it, not one agent, not Kevin Dunn,
not not Vince, not anybody. Sometimes we have people on
the Raw team dumping on like SmackDown ideas it was crazy,
Smagdown would catch heat and Smagdown sitting there like y'all

(20:50):
rewrite us the day of the show before you even
read the script, Like no one read SmackDown, nobody, no one,
Vince read it when we were in the production meeting.
That's where our production meetings for four hours long. So
we're all committed to this, or so we think, and
all of a sudden, out of nowhere, Hunter says, are

(21:11):
we seriously going with this guy? And remember this is
not a pay per view match? This is not a
guy that would get any sort of offense off on
the on the Undertaker. It would be just a build
up for the Undertaker to have something to do so
he could smash this guy and then get rolling over
to edge. He says, are we really going to go

(21:33):
with this guy? And Vince goes, man, what's the problem,
and he says, he looks like he cuts my grass
Man and literally and Vince laughed, and literally all the
air went out of the room. Everybody just went no, no,
like you could just feel it because we because now

(21:56):
it's embarrassing to the company, Well at least from my perspective.
You put thing on TV for three weeks and then
you remove it with no explanation. There's no way you
can do that. Like that doesn't happen on any show.
You You could replace someone, right like first Prince of
bel Air back in the day. No, I was under
just a new mom or on the soap operas when

(22:18):
they'd be like the role of so and so is
no played by Michael Barnett. I don't know who Michael
Barnett is. So I'm sitting there like there's no way,
there's no way, there's no way, and Vince laughs and
then Hunter laughs, and then Kevin Dunn laughs. Boy, and
I mean he sells for you would have thought you

(22:38):
that's the best joke ever. Right, So I'm like, oh man,
this is We're dead. We're dead. And Vince goes, all right,
dump it. And now it's not just your idea that's gone.
Whatever I had ideas get crushed. Now I gotta go
talk to homeboy and I gotta tell him that his

(22:59):
character or that he was so excited for. And imagine
you're in the minor leagues, okay, and you get called
up to the Yankees and the guy at first base
as a Hall of Famer it's Don Mattingly, and he says, hey,
I'm gonna show you the ropes, take you under my wing,

(23:20):
and you're gonna be you know, you're gonna be a
part of this baseball team. And you're like, wow, this
is like, this doesn't happen to anybody. Well, it doesn't. Uh.
This guy came up from f c W. His very
first professional wrestling storyline with the company was gonna be
with the greatest. He's over the moon, and then now

(23:41):
he has to be told that it's not gonna happen
because he looks like the guy that cut triple H
his grass. It is such a sickening, sickening feeling, and
it's our responsibility as as the writing team to communicate
it to this guy. And so it gets broken down

(24:03):
to him. He's clearly disappointed. And the question from any
artists who wants to work is, well, well, what's next?
Where do we go from here and I'm not. I
can't tell the guy like, yo, that's a rap, Like
that's it's done, Like you got deaded and it's it's done.

(24:24):
The best thing you could do is walk away for
a year and come back. Like I, I just wasn't
in the wrestling business headspace in or did I have
the experience yet to to break it down for him.
So I just said, I honestly have no idea. I
do not know. Three months later, I think I'm already
maybe six months later, I've now left the company and

(24:45):
I get an email from this dude and he's left
the company and he's just wanting to act. Now. I
remember sitting there going wow, like he could he could
maybe actually do that because he his his work was good,
good looking. Do definitely could play some bad guys for sure.
He had a very like stern mean face and a
sharp nose, sharp eyes like a hawk. Just looked like

(25:08):
a guy that would be in a fight with the
with the protagonist in a movie, right, I call my agents.
At the time, I don't remember where I was. I
think it was I c M. I wasn't. You gotta
remember I wasn't acting then. I'd never officially like let
go of my agent, but I didn't know them very well,
and I said, uh. I emailed him and said, hey,
I know this wrestler, he's one to act. Could I
maybe just get him like a like a hip pocket

(25:29):
deal with you guys, Or could he send a tape
an audition for you and just see if if you
like it. Maybe there's a junior agent there that could
work with him. The email I got back was we're
not looking to work with any professional wrestlers. And I
just sat there. I was like, man, because I you
gotta understand, I love these men and women. I genuinely
love them. I'll respect the sacrifices they make. I respect

(25:52):
what they put their bodies through. I respect the the
the amount of stress that they're under with the travel
they have, and the commitments that the company demands you
you make. So I I've seen them work way harder
than I've had to work for less. So I got
I got a lot of love for these for these
men and women, and I don't I don't like when

(26:14):
this business craps on on the wrestling business because I
think they have some really talented performers. Um. I know
we've talked about some of the actors before, and I
even forgot to mention Dave Batista because I'm an idiot,
but like, look at how carefully that guy has has
built and developed his career, right, Like he's never taken

(26:34):
on too much too soon, and don't hit me with will.
No one offered him the looting in movies. It was
just like the muscle guy parts. That's a bunch of BS.
I know for a fact that's BS, because I know
a movie that got offered to him where he was
the lead and the men, but he didn't feel ready yet.
He didn't want to put himself in that position with
a character that he didn't connect with, and at least

(26:55):
this is what was told to the producer, and so
he didn't do that movie. And you watched just sort
of grow from from a monster in a movie to
suddenly working with Jodie Foster in that weird hospital movie
where he was the orderly that kicked ass, but you
saw some vulnerability out of Dave. Then then he keeps evolving.
Now he's gonna do a romantic or not romantic comedy. Well,
I'm sure he will eventually, but he did a dad

(27:18):
daughter kind of vibe one. He's doing a buddy cop
movie now, like he's really starting to grow and take off.
So to see Hollywood embrace wrestling now, I'm always like, man,
you're just trying to make money off of me and
I And granted it's show business, right, and we all
know business is the bigger word, but they blow so

(27:38):
much smoke man, and I've seen him do it with actors,
so I know they do it with wrestlers. And it
was one of the things that always disappointed me about
my business, so to speak, was the way it just
it's so like segregated isn't the right word. But it
was like when I was coming up, there were TV

(27:58):
shows that I was like, man, that because I want
to do TVs. When they Freddy, you're a film actor,
you don't do television, I was like, what, I'm just
as an actor. There's no film before it, there's not
I'm an actor. And then Glenn Close did a show
where she played a lawyer. I think it's called Damages,
and that blasted the door wide open, and then every
film actor was suddenly a television actor, wounding Emmy's left

(28:20):
and right, and they loved the schedule. They loved the consistency,
They loved that they got to play one character for
a longer amount of time than just six weeks, and
really start to figure that that's exciting for an actor.
And so all of a sudden, that all got mushed,
and now you see Hollywood coming in and the rock
chicks down the door. And then John Cena, instead of

(28:42):
slipping on ice when he walked through it, he took
the frame off so they can't build it again. And
now all of a sudden they're loving wrestlers. So I hope,
I hope the trend continues. And uh, I appreciate all
of you guys and gals listening, and I will see
you next week right here on Wrestling of Freddy. This
has been a production of I Hearts Michael to podcast Network.

(29:05):
For more podcasts for my Heart Radio, visit the I
Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to
your favorite shows. M h m hmmm.