September 26, 2024 • 31 mins
Join Mike Powers LIVE from the iHeart Studios as he welcomes professional wrestler Zack Clayton to the show! In this exciting episode, Mike and Zack dive into the always evolving world of wrestling, sharing Zack's stories from the ring and discussing the dedication required to stay at the top of his game.
They'll also explore the vital connection between health, fitness, and performance - offering insights into Zack's training regimen and lifestyle. Additionally, the conversation highlights the remarkable work of the nonprofit @kulturecity, focusing on its mission to support individuals with sensory needs and promote inclusivity.
They'll also explore the vital connection between health, fitness, and performance - offering insights into Zack's training regimen and lifestyle. Additionally, the conversation highlights the remarkable work of the nonprofit @kulturecity, focusing on its mission to support individuals with sensory needs and promote inclusivity.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Fox Sports The Gambler Mike Powers from The Divide Live.
I'm here with a special guest, Zach Clayton. What's up, Zach?
Speaker 2 (00:08):
What's up, Mike? Thanks for having me man, of.
Speaker 3 (00:10):
Course, man without a doubt.
Speaker 1 (00:12):
So we met doing good and it was had a
beer pong event for the children's specialized hospital, so you know,
fun you ended up getting second place.
Speaker 3 (00:21):
Or first place.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
So we got second place. First of all, I didn't
even think we were going to get that far. I mean,
how many teams were there. I think we did ten
teams or something.
Speaker 1 (00:29):
No, it was like sixty two teams, I know, because
we had to create the bracket, so it was like overall, yeah,
maybe it was thirty two March madness.
Speaker 3 (00:36):
It was the same amount that March Madness has, right, So,
but it was crazy.
Speaker 2 (00:40):
It was insane and we would have won. But apparently
there's a real life like beer pong professionals that do
this for a living, which had no reforms. It was insane,
and you know, we got right there with them. We
were like a couple of cups down and we lost
and we took second place. But if not for them,
we would have won. Yeah, I think maybe they shouldn't
(01:00):
have been allowed at a charity event.
Speaker 3 (01:02):
I totally agree. I totally agree.
Speaker 1 (01:03):
And then they showed up with the trophies like at
a professional pang event, and I was like, are you
kidding me? Which is great for exposure for everything we're doing,
all of our sponsors that were on the trophy and
stuff like that, but yeah, man, I was like, of
course they won. They showed up in like jerseys like
they were just draining them. Literally, there was people being
eliminated in the first round by them, and it was
(01:24):
just like a buzzaw all the way to you guys.
Speaker 2 (01:26):
Yeah, totally. And then I heard when we were playing
that they were just in Orlando the week Trier and
they just won, like ten year in at a professional tournament.
I'm like, what is happening. I'm just trying to trying
to do some good here and eat some pizza. I
don't know this is going to be this competitive, but
we took second place.
Speaker 3 (01:42):
Yeah, dude, it was. It was a crazy experience.
Speaker 1 (01:46):
It obviously it was for the Children's Specialized Hospital Foundation.
Todd Frazier was the host of the whole event, but dude,
it was so much fun. The one thing I noticed
and don't take this offense with this. Everybody who was
in the finals was like six feet plus. You know,
So Nikki Cass this year when we bring it back,
(02:06):
he's going to be the ref and make sure nobody's
hands go too far past the table.
Speaker 2 (02:10):
That was the other thing. And I don't know these guys.
I don't know the professional beer Punk champions that we
played against, but there was definitely some They were tall too,
and I don't know. We were definitely leaning over probably
what we were supposed to, but they had this lean
thing that they were doing that I don't know if
it was regulation or whatnot, but it shouldn't have been allowed.
Speaker 3 (02:29):
I totally agree.
Speaker 1 (02:31):
It's kind of like, hey, I'm gonna jump into a
ring with a professional wrestler, Like it's like, yeah, you
can't do that.
Speaker 3 (02:37):
Why are they allowed to do that? So that's another thing.
Speaker 1 (02:40):
Man, you've had You're only twenty nine years old, but
I feel like you've had experience after experience after experience,
And how did you get into pro wrestling?
Speaker 3 (02:49):
And what was that journey? Is that journey like for you?
Speaker 2 (02:52):
Sure? So I started when I was nineteen. Actually, this
April it's going to be ten full years grat Yeah. Man,
you know, I started small town upstate New York, Albany area,
It's where I'm from. I started at a local school there,
like a wrestling school. There are wrestling schools. A lot
of people don't know that. They think you kind of
(03:12):
just jump into a ring. That's not really how it works.
There is a proper protocol and training like any other sport.
So I started there. That school was very small, no
name school that shut down shortly after I started. I
learned the basics there and I went down to Brooklyn,
which for me was a three hour drive every time
I went down. But I did to go train in
(03:35):
Gleason's gym in Brooklyn. But I know exactly Yeah, with
WWF Hall of Famer Johnny Rods awesome so which is
now WWE, but at the time that's when he wrestled
with WWF and WWE was. They had eyes on his gym,
they had scouts coming into they had just picked up
a couple guys from there, so I was like, oh,
(03:57):
this is a good place to be and Johnny was great.
A lot of names came out of there, Taz, Tommy Dreamer,
Toy Rag, like a lot of people came out of there.
He's known for a very old school tough training, which
I like. Yeah, personally, he was a very nobs kind
of guy. But by the time I got to Johnny,
(04:19):
he was older, so he didn't get in the ring much,
but when he did it was usually for a bad
reason for somebody else, never for me. But he was
a great guy, and I started doing the Independence. They
called the Independent almost like a rock band those local bars.
When we first start. I started with him, did the
circuit in New York, Jersey just kind of learned that circuit,
(04:41):
and then actually moved to Florida for two years, Tampa area, Sarasota.
There was another fed down there I was training with,
did a couple shows, but not much, and then when
I moved back up to Jersey, it kind of took
back off. But that was during COVID, So then COVID
obviously shut down all sports and live entertainment right, so
(05:02):
there was like nothing going on. And then that's when
AW actually started to really started to ramp up, and
I flew down there. They were doing their stint in
Jacksonville where Daily's place. So the owner of a w
owns the Jacksonville Jaguars. Right, So he had the.
Speaker 3 (05:21):
Whole arena, whole arena and complex right wow.
Speaker 2 (05:26):
So he would fly us in and we would just
kind of do two or three day stints there and
just film film that we had the film and then
you know, roll it out and move on and come
back the next week or whatever it was. So that's
how I started to get those reps there. And now
I work. I'm with TNA, now working with the FBI.
(05:47):
It's a great group of guys. A little Guido Nunzio
has been around wrestling for as long as I've been alive. Dude,
it's insane, right Yeah, e C W Day's back thirty
years ago. Are you familiar? Yeah?
Speaker 3 (05:57):
No, it was a fraction of action just like nWo.
Speaker 1 (06:02):
Like it was definitely up there, like as far as
like it's a recognizable logo and for you to be
for you to be a part of that, like that's
that's an honor in itself, talk about how did that happen?
Speaker 2 (06:12):
It is And he's a great guy. He's like the
the everyone who knows him in wrestling. It's like he's
everyone's uncle in a way. But he's also like the
crazy uncle, you know, like he's an awesome guy. That started.
Tommy Dreamer reached out to me. It was like, hey, man,
I want you to come in and here's the idea.
I want to build the FBI back up. I want
to do a new kind of revamp of the FBI.
(06:35):
And I said, I love it, and he kind of
let me and the other guys take the reins with
what we thought it should be or creative and things
like that, and it's been fun so far. There's more
to come, and I'm grateful for Tommy to reach out
and have kind of the trust in us to kind
of just say, here's what I want, but you guys
can kind of make it your own thing. So, which
(06:57):
is always an awesome thing to to be in position
to be in.
Speaker 1 (07:01):
Like I feel like finally professional wrestlings back to the
like that nineties where when I grew up, it was ECW,
WCWWWF right, So now with all these other companies, Like one,
how great is that for you as a professional wrestler,
But two the fans are winning, right And then also
(07:22):
like there's been times where you've seen TNA people on
aw TNA people on uh, you know, rural rumble making
appearances like, how has that been? What's that chemistry?
Speaker 2 (07:33):
Like? So it's a great thing. So obviously the fans
are winning because like when you said the nineties that
a lot of people consider the heyday in the booming
era of professional wrestling, But if you're in the business,
you kind of look at the nineties like it really
was a war and you really were out there for
your company and defend your honor and your livelihood because
(07:56):
back then there were not certain things like we have now.
Those guys back then and if you talk to them,
they'll tell you about it. They didn't have guaranteed contracts.
They didn't get paid if they didn't work. So if
they blew out their knee and they can't wrestle, they
don't work. And there was no you know, medical system
was not what it is today. Rehabbing is not what
(08:17):
it is today. They didn't have doctors, you know, to
come back and do all this stuff. Like they taped
it up and they went out tomorrow because they had
to to get paid. And then that's when you had
WCW come in and they were offering all this money
to all these guys, and it was competition. All of
a sudden which is what we're seeing now. There's a
(08:39):
lot of companies, not a lot, but there are new
companies now and people have options whereas before this, before
about five years ago, they didn't really have too many options.
And it's a good thing. Fans win, wrestlers have more
chances to make money, which is always a good thing.
And it actually creates this boom in the business again
(09:01):
because you are competing with other people again, right, instead
of I'm not saying monopoly is a bad thing because
WWE they kicked everyone out of competition, they were, right, right, Yeah,
so when you win, you're on top. Yeah, sometimes you
don't get the always the competitive edge that you had
before because there's no longer competition.
Speaker 3 (09:23):
Right right, you know.
Speaker 1 (09:24):
And I saw some of wrestlers like struggle because of that,
you know, Like and WWE started realizing and they started
making different They brought back ECW for a little bit,
and XD became a thing, you know, all these different orifices.
But I was like kind of like, it's still like,
you know, so when AW shows up, you know, it
just kind of really changed everything. TNA went through their
(09:46):
struggles in the beginning, but I always felt that was impactful, right,
No pun intended because I switched the impact, but you
know it, it's so cool to see. But also like
I'm kind of glad that they understand now, like there's
almost like an understanding that.
Speaker 3 (10:02):
All this needs to exist or we could all co exist.
Speaker 1 (10:05):
Right, Still competitiveness still like you know, totally upset or
happy when somebody crosses over, right, Like, so it's it's
still cool.
Speaker 3 (10:15):
You know, you've seen you.
Speaker 1 (10:17):
Know, Cody Roads come leave AW to come into WWE.
You saw Edge, who I thought was a ww lifer
Now in AW it's like everybody, it's like.
Speaker 2 (10:26):
What yeah, And so first of all, it's exciting, yeah, right,
it brings back the excitement and it brings back uncertainty
for good and bad because, like you said, people you
thought are this company forever maybe not anymore, right, you know,
So now it's like, okay, now anybody could really go
anywhere and do anything crazy, and even people that you
(10:49):
think you mentioned Cody, Cody is a good friend of mine.
Cody is a great guy. He's super smart and everything
he does means a lot. So for him to do
what he did, and obviously you see him he's now
the WWE champion just had the biggest WrestleMania of all
time where he literally, you know, you look at what
(11:10):
happened with him, The Rock. The Rock comes back. Yeah,
and I don't know how closely you follow, but it
sounds like you follow close. The Rock came back to
take the main event spot at WrestleMania, and the fans said,
you know what, that's cool, but we want Cody. We've
been watching Cody for two years. He needs to finish
(11:32):
the story and to see in real life, Cody Rhodes
take on the biggest star in the world for the spotlight.
Cody won. It's amazing, Yeah, and that can only happen
in pro wrestling. You know that's not gonna happen in Hollywood.
Hollywood's going to say, no, this guy's in and that's it.
Speaker 1 (11:50):
Yeah, exactly, Like the fans can't dictate anything. Like as
much as you love your sport, you can't dictate that either.
So when that happens, it's in front of a Super
Bowl crowd in Vegas and they realized like they had
to change this, and it's it's so cool one, you know,
the Rock to recognize that, I guess because he could
have just taken his.
Speaker 2 (12:10):
Ball and left.
Speaker 1 (12:11):
It's kind of weird that one transaction with the you know.
Speaker 2 (12:16):
You're really up on it. So I was at WrestleMania.
I took Grace in the WrestleMania and such an awesome time,
really was awesome, And it was in Philly, right, and
it was just a crazy time. That Philly crowd was
awesome and it was like this thing you were watching
was like truly like a Disney movie play out in
(12:38):
real life because you have the biggest star in the
world the most part. Everyone can pretty much recognize that, right,
And to a lot of people, he's like, he's going
back to wrestling.
Speaker 3 (12:49):
Yeah, hell yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (12:51):
He is, and this is what he's doing, and that
means that it means something because that's what he wants
to do. He could do anything he wants. He wanted
to come back to do this story, right, And that's
really cool.
Speaker 1 (13:03):
That's amazing, especially for that company, especially for you know,
us as fans, because that doesn't happen like we The
only thing I could compare that to is like when
Jordan came back wearing forty five. Yeah, you know, like
things like that. So it's it's uh, yeah, it's it's
a life changing moment where.
Speaker 2 (13:19):
It's like or it's like, you know, we just saw
Tom Brady step back right. It's like if if I
don't know, we can make up a scenario. Because it's wrestling,
we can make it up. And in sports, it's like
imagine Belichick coming back to coach the Patriots with Gronk
and then he's all of a sudden like, you know what, Yeah,
I want to play this game only music. Could you
imagine music hits exactly like that would never obviously happen. No,
(13:44):
you can do that in wrestling. Yeah, And that's why
it's so awesome. It's just fun and touching back to
the original point of of now there's a little bit
of diversity and yeah, it's just an amazing time and
pro wrestling again.
Speaker 3 (13:58):
That's awesome. That's awesome.
Speaker 1 (14:00):
Another thing that intrigues me about you as a human
is your willingness to one put yourself out there, share
your fitness journey, share your mental health journey, and really
make a difference. You have a community on Instagram now
that people could subscribe to or join where you're sharing
you know, health bits, whether it be food, working out,
(14:21):
stuff like that.
Speaker 3 (14:22):
Why is that so important to you.
Speaker 1 (14:24):
Obviously it's working for you, and your body is a
part of your job, right, like it keeps you employed,
you know, talk about that and how that's working.
Speaker 2 (14:35):
Sure, man, Yeah, so touching the last point real quick,
you would think, so, like my body, I work hard
on it, and you know, you have this image going
back to wrestling of what a wrestler should look like,
and then the nineties everyone is six feet whatever and
just jack to the gills and it's like, Okay, that's
what a wrestler looks like. And you turn on TV
now and there's a lot of it. But also it's
(14:57):
great to have the diversity of not everybody looks like
and again that's another good thing. But then also sometimes
it's you're a little bit bitter because it's like, wait
a minute, I work to look like this and you
get to wrestle in a T shirt. Was injuring beer.
It's like, all right, we're both here. That's cool. But yeah, no,
(15:19):
So I started actually rewind it when I was living
in upstate, New York and I was trained at the
wrestling I was also running a gym. A performance gym
is training athletes. It was training everyday people just to
be better. I had clients that were eight years old
all the way. I had an eighty five year old
woman who would come in three times a week, by
the way.
Speaker 3 (15:38):
Amazing.
Speaker 2 (15:39):
Yeah, it really was, and I loved it. It was
so much fun. And when I kind of took other
turns in life, I had to stop doing that. But
it's something that I still want to do. And I
still have people reach out to me because they see
what I do and it's like, hey, how are you
motivated to do that? Or what is your plan? Or
how do I start? Or all these questions. And I
(16:02):
can't get to everybody anymore. I can't say just come
to my gym and I'll help you out right. I
don't have that anymore. Right So now I believe to me,
if you are a person of influence it as a platform,
you should probably use it to help people.
Speaker 1 (16:18):
I believe that that's a great belief. I wish more
people shared that.
Speaker 2 (16:22):
Yeah, me too, because a lot of people do it
for vanity and all this stuff, and I think you
should use it for a purpose, and the purpose should
be to help people.
Speaker 1 (16:32):
Well, what gravitates me is your delivery in it. And also,
like the trueness behind it, right, because I've seen other
people that are like I saw this one guy who's like,
I divide in twenty four hours. I treat that like
three different days, and I work out three times. Every
six hours is a different day. And I'm like, all right, dude,
like just be real, Like I get it, like different
(16:54):
formulas and stuff like that, but you are way overthinking life.
And with you, it's like kind of like you just
finished your session and you're just sharing your feelings and
your belief and like hoping that it gets contagious and
maybe you change a few people's lives. And I like
that approach better than the you know some of these
celebrities that do share their opinions and you're kind of
(17:14):
like that sounds like marketing.
Speaker 2 (17:16):
Well you can tell nowadays, especially what's genuine and what's
not gen or who's taking other people's words and trying
to make it their own, and who's just saying what
they actually believe and feel and who's trying to play
up to the camera, and who's just being a real person.
I mean, And then you have guys that are just crazy,
like you follow the fitness space. Yeah, yeah, So like
(17:40):
an example, of that would doesn't work for me. An
example would be like Goggins, David Goggins, guy's insane awesome,
but not for everybody. No, most people, unless you're already that,
are not going to find his stuff like intriguing to
follow because they just simp so far. The gap is
(18:01):
so wide that they can't even think about even beginning
to start getting there right right, Like if you show
his videos to most people, they'd be like, just what
do you want me to do with that? So you
kind of start, you break it down and work backwards.
So it's like join the free Facebook community or the
free Instagram community even if you don't right now work out,
(18:23):
And you don't right now aren't an athlete, you don't
have a nutrition planner, just like maybe one of these
things that I say will help you just for that
day or that week or that month. And then maybe
that gets too closer to being like you know what,
that actually wasn't so hard? What else do I have
to do? How else can I start? And it's like
(18:46):
it's really not that hard. The hard start is thinking
about it. It's like how do I start that? Well,
I don't have a planner, Well, how do I it's
just that's the hardest thing you have to overcome. And
you quicker, you can close that gap between where you
want to be and where you're at now and just
with anything one step.
Speaker 3 (19:05):
Yeah, so step closer.
Speaker 1 (19:07):
So personally for me, like to backtrack to the whole
COVID and now the whole world shut down, like everything
became virtual. So it's like, oh cool, I could s
to be kind of desk. Nobody knows that, you know,
and like you're not seeing many people in real life right,
events where you had to pick and choose events like
you weren't even some weddings. We didn't go to stuff
(19:27):
like that. So it got very easy to like fall
off right. And I definitely personally I'm addicted to running.
When I run, awesome, Yeah not anymore, but when I run,
I'm mentally in my best, Like it just clears my mind.
I remember to do stuff. It allows me to formulate
a plan and structure for my day, like.
Speaker 3 (19:50):
Why I'm in that zone?
Speaker 1 (19:51):
Like and I was running on an average day, like
you know, three to five miles, so over one hundred
and twenty miles a day a month. A lot of
my bud though they were like dude, you're running too much,
like you're so like. It was also like I couldn't
understand that side of it too, like you know, because
you could run yourself like almost out of like like
not it. It could become counterproductive. So it is a
(20:13):
balance of everything, eating right, a little bit of weightlifting,
a little bit of running. But like you said, I
was like, hey, at least I'm doing this right because
my favorite thing. The first time I ever joined a gym,
I think it was like two thousand and two. I
was a junior and maybe senior in high school, and
they were like, well, what do you want out of this?
I was like, I want to be able to eat
(20:34):
whatever I want and not gain any weight. And they're like,
that's such a bad philosophy. I was like, and now
I'm like, uh, you know, and they told me I
had to like eat chicken and grilled stuff and all
this other stuff. Well, let's crawl, walk, run like what
you just said. Because I probably would have signed up
for the gym. I would have then been you know,
(20:55):
maybe that trainer could have then told me to work
on my diet, you know, and a couple of weeks
into it. But when you try to do it all
at once a lot of people gets overwhelming. For you
to say, take it a day at a time. To
do that just shows that you actually care about the
person and not the results to show on a piece
of paper or whatever or on a photo in the gym, like, hey, look,
(21:16):
Mike joined you know, thirty pounds overweight. Now he looks
like this, like and we could have gotten there. But
the minute I said I want to work out so
I could eat junk food, they were like, you're not
our client.
Speaker 3 (21:28):
You're not our client. And I was like, all right,
there's a lot to unpack there.
Speaker 2 (21:31):
But basically, first of all, like the more it's funny
because the more you work out, almost like eating a
day of junk food isn't actually that bad for you anymore. Okay,
it's like it's funny. But again, if you have structure
and a routine, and you say that, I am able
to speak in that way that it works because it's
(21:54):
worked and I've done it before, right, I'm not. It's
not like I've never done this before with people, right,
and it's like, oh, Zach has a new thing. No,
it's not like that I've done it before and it's worked.
And I understand what works because I've had people that
are athletes to it of people that are non athletic
at all, do they just want to become better? I
(22:15):
had somebody it's actually a great story, So I'm gonna
tell it and maybe he's listening. He was my phiz
ed coach in middle school, right. He was like my
pe teacher, Okay, And so the gym was in the
same town that I grew up in and he came
in and he's like, he's like, no way, He's like Zach.
(22:40):
I'm like, name's Mike. It was just such a great thing,
and I signed him up to the gym, sign him
up to my one on one training. He came in
three days a week, three to four days a week.
Actually he only wanted to work with me, and then
we just bonded for like six months. But over that
(23:01):
six month period, I think it was thirty pounds or
forty pounds he lost. And then I had him for
a year and he lost, Uh, I'm pretty sure it
was close to one hundred pounds. If it was like
eighty something pounds. Wow, And he's like, I want to
start bench pressing again. I haven't bench pressed since college. Okay, right,
(23:23):
like thirty years ago. I'm like, let's do it. So
we started. I'm on a progressive plan, so we're getting
him up. He's benching two twenty five for reps and sets. Wow,
he puts it down. One day he comes up to me,
he's like, he's getting a little emotional. I'm like, Mike,
he just crushed it. He's like, no, it's not that,
(23:45):
I just haven't done that in thirty years. I'm like, dude,
that's amazing and that's why we're here. But he was
getting emotional about it, and like that's what it's about.
It's not about like putting him on Instagram for right yeah.
Speaker 1 (23:57):
You know, like yeah, like the like the one Jim
was like, let's take a picture of you with your
shirt off right now and we'll keep looking at it.
Speaker 3 (24:04):
I was like, let's not.
Speaker 1 (24:06):
Let's not like, let's just understand we both know what
I look like.
Speaker 3 (24:11):
Yeah, I'm not.
Speaker 1 (24:11):
Gonna be like you didn't do anything, like you know,
so it's like, yeah, that's I think that's why. Like
I reached out and I was like, hey, let's let's
talk about this, and let's talk about you know, how
we could change people's lives, whether it be you know,
children with autism, children with special needs, or you know,
obviously the children's hospital. So that's the last thing I
(24:33):
want to talk about. If you don't mind culture Kings, I.
Speaker 3 (24:37):
Said it wrong. Culture City, Culture City. I always say
culture Kings.
Speaker 1 (24:41):
I don't know why because I feel like you're like
a king, like I was a king and queen of that.
So how did that all start? Culture City and everything?
Speaker 2 (24:50):
So five years ago, lettle over five years ago. I've
been in my fiance almost six years. She was on
the board of Culture City. Culture City is a charity.
We spread awareness, inclusion, acceptance for those with invisible disabilities,
so you inted to it before autism or down syndrome
or aspergers. We work with veterans with PTSD and people
(25:14):
with other mental instabilities. I don't want to say problems
or diagnosis because sometimes it's actually not even that. Sometimes
it's just, you know, something not as serious, but they
don't understand that yet, so we kind of help with
that process. We have a certification sensory certification program where
(25:34):
we go to these different venues, stadiums, arenas, restaurants. We
just certified Broadway last year. We just every Lego store
in the country like Lego certified by Culture City. So
what that does is it allows us to bring our
form of a certification. What it really is just teaches
(25:58):
you to identify maybe this person is having an issue
and helps you know what to do with it. How
can we cope with this and help this person out
during the time that they're in our facility. The other
thing we do is we have sensory bags. We call
them inside the bag or headphones, fidget spinners, and gadgets,
weighted blanket every bag. I think we vary a little bit,
(26:21):
but those are for sporting events, Like you go to
a wrestling event where there's a lot of pyro and
loud music and banging and slamming. Sometimes that can be
over stimulating, just like you go to an NFL game
or an NBA game, a lot of loud crowd music, banging, slamming, pyro.
Not everybody can deal with that, even if it's funny,
because even if you aren't diagnosed with something, and we
(26:44):
have people that come to us, it's like, actually, I
don't like that, and I didn't really know that until now,
and it's funny to see people like so you don't
have to have a diagnosis to take part in our programs.
You can just put on a headphone. Yeah, let us
just help you out. So people we take away the
labeling aspect of it, right, like the negative condenptation of
(27:08):
what people believe. Yeah, oh, your autism, you can't do
certain things. That's not true.
Speaker 3 (27:14):
Right at all, not even not even close.
Speaker 1 (27:18):
Yeah, my nephew, Brayden, he is he knows more about
the stock market. He's eight years old, and he knows
more about the stock market than I could ever ever
want a dream. And he also knows his mom makes
like six figures.
Speaker 3 (27:30):
And I was like, how do you know that?
Speaker 1 (27:32):
Like I didn't know what six figures meant when I
was eight, you know. And he's an amazing kid. And
it's just like it's just like, yeah, like two things
that I love what you just said. Like one is
there's so many different levels of it, right, capabilities and
stuff like that, and and what you actually need. And
it's like sometimes when people hear a label, they society
(27:55):
has put a photo in their head, right disabled you
think of a person in a chair unfortunately, like stuff
like that. So when I hear a message that's like, hey,
sometimes people don't even know they need our services, and
they're like, I just thought I had to deal with
that for the rest of my life.
Speaker 2 (28:12):
You really be amazed, Like you really wouldn't believe it.
We have so many people, so we've helped millions of
people of Culture City. The other thing we do is
we build out sensory rooms. We call them sensory rooms,
which is pretty much just an enclosed environment like a
safe zone, a quiet zone. Right, so where if we're
at a stadium, we're at a venue like let's do
(28:33):
jingle Ball, Let's take WrestleMania Lincoln Financial, beautiful sensory room
there Eagle Stadium. Absolutely, you go in and the lights
are dim. We have the walls outfitted with gadgets and
spinners and lego boards, and we have bean bags and
things to help you decompress, weighted blankets. You can go
(28:53):
in there and just chill, calm down, take a breath,
get out of the loud, noise, overstimulated, and then maybe
you can come back to the event. But if you
don't want to, that's fine. You can hang out in
our room as long as you want.
Speaker 3 (29:05):
That's amazing.
Speaker 2 (29:06):
So we have I think we have over six hundred
of those now built throughout the world. We're in eighteen
hundred locations worldwide. That's we handed out over a million
censory bags, perhaps man's. So it's definitely a great thing
that we love to be involved in. Yeah, and we
love getting people involved because almost everybody somewhere know someone
(29:31):
directly or secondhand that is affective.
Speaker 1 (29:33):
Yeah, and it's it's becoming like everybody wants to like
talk about statistics and oh now more people have that. Well,
we're identifying the issues too, right, Like we're identifying the
human being and making it more comfortable for them.
Speaker 3 (29:45):
The fact that exactly what you just said, like.
Speaker 1 (29:48):
You're able to join the room and if you want
to come back to the party you can, Like, so
you don't have to now leave the party because prior
to that censory room, what was the option.
Speaker 2 (29:55):
You were going home?
Speaker 3 (29:56):
Yeah, and that sucks, man, it sucks.
Speaker 2 (29:58):
It sucks back, so you should be able to enjoy it. Yeah,
just because it's loud for a minute, it is loud, right,
it's loud for me, it's got to be loud for you.
Speaker 3 (30:06):
And you know, someone cut this up.
Speaker 1 (30:08):
Send this to every speaker company out there in the
world because it's so true, but also like they're the
ones making it loud, so like they should be helping
and supporting Culture City as much as they can. So, dude,
this has been awesome. I can't thank you enough. Thanks
for coming into the iHeart Studios to hang out with me.
Is there anything else you want to share with the
audience before we get out of here?
Speaker 2 (30:30):
Thank you, man, it's been great. Let's do it again. Yeah,
for sure, this has been great.
Speaker 3 (30:34):
Where where can they find you?
Speaker 2 (30:36):
Zach Clayton on all socials? I just got TikTok. I'm
not a big TikTok.
Speaker 3 (30:41):
Let's go. I saw you had six flags doing a
little dance. You gotta add that to TikTok.
Speaker 2 (30:46):
The last couple of months, I've been trying TikTok. It
is just me. I have some help, but like not
really and I don't. They're not the best and I'm
never going to be great at TikTok, but anywhere at
Zach Clayton, don't make fun of my tikt We'll.
Speaker 1 (31:01):
Be right back. This is Fox Sports The Gambler Divide
Live
Fox Sports The Gambler Mike Powers from The Divide Live.
I'm here with a special guest, Zach Clayton. What's up, Zach?
Speaker 2 (00:08):
What's up, Mike? Thanks for having me man, of.
Speaker 3 (00:10):
Course, man without a doubt.
Speaker 1 (00:12):
So we met doing good and it was had a
beer pong event for the children's specialized hospital, so you know,
fun you ended up getting second place.
Speaker 3 (00:21):
Or first place.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
So we got second place. First of all, I didn't
even think we were going to get that far. I mean,
how many teams were there. I think we did ten
teams or something.
Speaker 1 (00:29):
No, it was like sixty two teams, I know, because
we had to create the bracket, so it was like overall, yeah,
maybe it was thirty two March madness.
Speaker 3 (00:36):
It was the same amount that March Madness has, right, So,
but it was crazy.
Speaker 2 (00:40):
It was insane and we would have won. But apparently
there's a real life like beer pong professionals that do
this for a living, which had no reforms. It was insane,
and you know, we got right there with them. We
were like a couple of cups down and we lost
and we took second place. But if not for them,
we would have won. Yeah, I think maybe they shouldn't
(01:00):
have been allowed at a charity event.
Speaker 3 (01:02):
I totally agree. I totally agree.
Speaker 1 (01:03):
And then they showed up with the trophies like at
a professional pang event, and I was like, are you
kidding me? Which is great for exposure for everything we're doing,
all of our sponsors that were on the trophy and
stuff like that, but yeah, man, I was like, of
course they won. They showed up in like jerseys like
they were just draining them. Literally, there was people being
eliminated in the first round by them, and it was
(01:24):
just like a buzzaw all the way to you guys.
Speaker 2 (01:26):
Yeah, totally. And then I heard when we were playing
that they were just in Orlando the week Trier and
they just won, like ten year in at a professional tournament.
I'm like, what is happening. I'm just trying to trying
to do some good here and eat some pizza. I
don't know this is going to be this competitive, but
we took second place.
Speaker 3 (01:42):
Yeah, dude, it was. It was a crazy experience.
Speaker 1 (01:46):
It obviously it was for the Children's Specialized Hospital Foundation.
Todd Frazier was the host of the whole event, but dude,
it was so much fun. The one thing I noticed
and don't take this offense with this. Everybody who was
in the finals was like six feet plus. You know,
So Nikki Cass this year when we bring it back,
(02:06):
he's going to be the ref and make sure nobody's
hands go too far past the table.
Speaker 2 (02:10):
That was the other thing. And I don't know these guys.
I don't know the professional beer Punk champions that we
played against, but there was definitely some They were tall too,
and I don't know. We were definitely leaning over probably
what we were supposed to, but they had this lean
thing that they were doing that I don't know if
it was regulation or whatnot, but it shouldn't have been allowed.
Speaker 3 (02:29):
I totally agree.
Speaker 1 (02:31):
It's kind of like, hey, I'm gonna jump into a
ring with a professional wrestler, Like it's like, yeah, you
can't do that.
Speaker 3 (02:37):
Why are they allowed to do that? So that's another thing.
Speaker 1 (02:40):
Man, you've had You're only twenty nine years old, but
I feel like you've had experience after experience after experience,
And how did you get into pro wrestling?
Speaker 3 (02:49):
And what was that journey? Is that journey like for you?
Speaker 2 (02:52):
Sure? So I started when I was nineteen. Actually, this
April it's going to be ten full years grat Yeah. Man,
you know, I started small town upstate New York, Albany area,
It's where I'm from. I started at a local school there,
like a wrestling school. There are wrestling schools. A lot
of people don't know that. They think you kind of
(03:12):
just jump into a ring. That's not really how it works.
There is a proper protocol and training like any other sport.
So I started there. That school was very small, no
name school that shut down shortly after I started. I
learned the basics there and I went down to Brooklyn,
which for me was a three hour drive every time
I went down. But I did to go train in
(03:35):
Gleason's gym in Brooklyn. But I know exactly Yeah, with
WWF Hall of Famer Johnny Rods awesome so which is
now WWE, but at the time that's when he wrestled
with WWF and WWE was. They had eyes on his gym,
they had scouts coming into they had just picked up
a couple guys from there, so I was like, oh,
(03:57):
this is a good place to be and Johnny was great.
A lot of names came out of there, Taz, Tommy Dreamer,
Toy Rag, like a lot of people came out of there.
He's known for a very old school tough training, which
I like. Yeah, personally, he was a very nobs kind
of guy. But by the time I got to Johnny,
(04:19):
he was older, so he didn't get in the ring much,
but when he did it was usually for a bad
reason for somebody else, never for me. But he was
a great guy, and I started doing the Independence. They
called the Independent almost like a rock band those local bars.
When we first start. I started with him, did the
circuit in New York, Jersey just kind of learned that circuit,
(04:41):
and then actually moved to Florida for two years, Tampa area, Sarasota.
There was another fed down there I was training with,
did a couple shows, but not much, and then when
I moved back up to Jersey, it kind of took
back off. But that was during COVID, So then COVID
obviously shut down all sports and live entertainment right, so
(05:02):
there was like nothing going on. And then that's when
AW actually started to really started to ramp up, and
I flew down there. They were doing their stint in
Jacksonville where Daily's place. So the owner of a w
owns the Jacksonville Jaguars. Right, So he had the.
Speaker 3 (05:21):
Whole arena, whole arena and complex right wow.
Speaker 2 (05:26):
So he would fly us in and we would just
kind of do two or three day stints there and
just film film that we had the film and then
you know, roll it out and move on and come
back the next week or whatever it was. So that's
how I started to get those reps there. And now
I work. I'm with TNA, now working with the FBI.
(05:47):
It's a great group of guys. A little Guido Nunzio
has been around wrestling for as long as I've been alive. Dude,
it's insane, right Yeah, e C W Day's back thirty
years ago. Are you familiar? Yeah?
Speaker 3 (05:57):
No, it was a fraction of action just like nWo.
Speaker 1 (06:02):
Like it was definitely up there, like as far as
like it's a recognizable logo and for you to be
for you to be a part of that, like that's
that's an honor in itself, talk about how did that happen?
Speaker 2 (06:12):
It is And he's a great guy. He's like the
the everyone who knows him in wrestling. It's like he's
everyone's uncle in a way. But he's also like the
crazy uncle, you know, like he's an awesome guy. That started.
Tommy Dreamer reached out to me. It was like, hey, man,
I want you to come in and here's the idea.
I want to build the FBI back up. I want
to do a new kind of revamp of the FBI.
(06:35):
And I said, I love it, and he kind of
let me and the other guys take the reins with
what we thought it should be or creative and things
like that, and it's been fun so far. There's more
to come, and I'm grateful for Tommy to reach out
and have kind of the trust in us to kind
of just say, here's what I want, but you guys
can kind of make it your own thing. So, which
(06:57):
is always an awesome thing to to be in position
to be in.
Speaker 1 (07:01):
Like I feel like finally professional wrestlings back to the
like that nineties where when I grew up, it was ECW,
WCWWWF right, So now with all these other companies, Like one,
how great is that for you as a professional wrestler,
But two the fans are winning, right And then also
(07:22):
like there's been times where you've seen TNA people on
aw TNA people on uh, you know, rural rumble making
appearances like, how has that been? What's that chemistry?
Speaker 2 (07:33):
Like? So it's a great thing. So obviously the fans
are winning because like when you said the nineties that
a lot of people consider the heyday in the booming
era of professional wrestling, But if you're in the business,
you kind of look at the nineties like it really
was a war and you really were out there for
your company and defend your honor and your livelihood because
(07:56):
back then there were not certain things like we have now.
Those guys back then and if you talk to them,
they'll tell you about it. They didn't have guaranteed contracts.
They didn't get paid if they didn't work. So if
they blew out their knee and they can't wrestle, they
don't work. And there was no you know, medical system
was not what it is today. Rehabbing is not what
(08:17):
it is today. They didn't have doctors, you know, to
come back and do all this stuff. Like they taped
it up and they went out tomorrow because they had
to to get paid. And then that's when you had
WCW come in and they were offering all this money
to all these guys, and it was competition. All of
a sudden which is what we're seeing now. There's a
(08:39):
lot of companies, not a lot, but there are new
companies now and people have options whereas before this, before
about five years ago, they didn't really have too many options.
And it's a good thing. Fans win, wrestlers have more
chances to make money, which is always a good thing.
And it actually creates this boom in the business again
(09:01):
because you are competing with other people again, right, instead
of I'm not saying monopoly is a bad thing because
WWE they kicked everyone out of competition, they were, right, right, Yeah,
so when you win, you're on top. Yeah, sometimes you
don't get the always the competitive edge that you had
before because there's no longer competition.
Speaker 3 (09:23):
Right right, you know.
Speaker 1 (09:24):
And I saw some of wrestlers like struggle because of that,
you know, Like and WWE started realizing and they started
making different They brought back ECW for a little bit,
and XD became a thing, you know, all these different orifices.
But I was like kind of like, it's still like,
you know, so when AW shows up, you know, it
just kind of really changed everything. TNA went through their
(09:46):
struggles in the beginning, but I always felt that was impactful, right,
No pun intended because I switched the impact, but you
know it, it's so cool to see. But also like
I'm kind of glad that they understand now, like there's
almost like an understanding that.
Speaker 3 (10:02):
All this needs to exist or we could all co exist.
Speaker 1 (10:05):
Right, Still competitiveness still like you know, totally upset or
happy when somebody crosses over, right, Like, so it's it's
still cool.
Speaker 3 (10:15):
You know, you've seen you.
Speaker 1 (10:17):
Know, Cody Roads come leave AW to come into WWE.
You saw Edge, who I thought was a ww lifer
Now in AW it's like everybody, it's like.
Speaker 2 (10:26):
What yeah, And so first of all, it's exciting, yeah, right,
it brings back the excitement and it brings back uncertainty
for good and bad because, like you said, people you
thought are this company forever maybe not anymore, right, you know,
So now it's like, okay, now anybody could really go
anywhere and do anything crazy, and even people that you
(10:49):
think you mentioned Cody, Cody is a good friend of mine.
Cody is a great guy. He's super smart and everything
he does means a lot. So for him to do
what he did, and obviously you see him he's now
the WWE champion just had the biggest WrestleMania of all
time where he literally, you know, you look at what
(11:10):
happened with him, The Rock. The Rock comes back. Yeah,
and I don't know how closely you follow, but it
sounds like you follow close. The Rock came back to
take the main event spot at WrestleMania, and the fans said,
you know what, that's cool, but we want Cody. We've
been watching Cody for two years. He needs to finish
(11:32):
the story and to see in real life, Cody Rhodes
take on the biggest star in the world for the spotlight.
Cody won. It's amazing, Yeah, and that can only happen
in pro wrestling. You know that's not gonna happen in Hollywood.
Hollywood's going to say, no, this guy's in and that's it.
Speaker 1 (11:50):
Yeah, exactly, Like the fans can't dictate anything. Like as
much as you love your sport, you can't dictate that either.
So when that happens, it's in front of a Super
Bowl crowd in Vegas and they realized like they had
to change this, and it's it's so cool one, you know,
the Rock to recognize that, I guess because he could
have just taken his.
Speaker 2 (12:10):
Ball and left.
Speaker 1 (12:11):
It's kind of weird that one transaction with the you know.
Speaker 2 (12:16):
You're really up on it. So I was at WrestleMania.
I took Grace in the WrestleMania and such an awesome time,
really was awesome, And it was in Philly, right, and
it was just a crazy time. That Philly crowd was
awesome and it was like this thing you were watching
was like truly like a Disney movie play out in
(12:38):
real life because you have the biggest star in the
world the most part. Everyone can pretty much recognize that, right,
And to a lot of people, he's like, he's going
back to wrestling.
Speaker 3 (12:49):
Yeah, hell yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (12:51):
He is, and this is what he's doing, and that
means that it means something because that's what he wants
to do. He could do anything he wants. He wanted
to come back to do this story, right, And that's
really cool.
Speaker 1 (13:03):
That's amazing, especially for that company, especially for you know,
us as fans, because that doesn't happen like we The
only thing I could compare that to is like when
Jordan came back wearing forty five. Yeah, you know, like
things like that. So it's it's uh, yeah, it's it's
a life changing moment where.
Speaker 2 (13:19):
It's like or it's like, you know, we just saw
Tom Brady step back right. It's like if if I
don't know, we can make up a scenario. Because it's wrestling,
we can make it up. And in sports, it's like
imagine Belichick coming back to coach the Patriots with Gronk
and then he's all of a sudden like, you know what, Yeah,
I want to play this game only music. Could you
imagine music hits exactly like that would never obviously happen. No,
(13:44):
you can do that in wrestling. Yeah, And that's why
it's so awesome. It's just fun and touching back to
the original point of of now there's a little bit
of diversity and yeah, it's just an amazing time and
pro wrestling again.
Speaker 3 (13:58):
That's awesome. That's awesome.
Speaker 1 (14:00):
Another thing that intrigues me about you as a human
is your willingness to one put yourself out there, share
your fitness journey, share your mental health journey, and really
make a difference. You have a community on Instagram now
that people could subscribe to or join where you're sharing
you know, health bits, whether it be food, working out,
(14:21):
stuff like that.
Speaker 3 (14:22):
Why is that so important to you.
Speaker 1 (14:24):
Obviously it's working for you, and your body is a
part of your job, right, like it keeps you employed,
you know, talk about that and how that's working.
Speaker 2 (14:35):
Sure, man, Yeah, so touching the last point real quick,
you would think, so, like my body, I work hard
on it, and you know, you have this image going
back to wrestling of what a wrestler should look like,
and then the nineties everyone is six feet whatever and
just jack to the gills and it's like, Okay, that's
what a wrestler looks like. And you turn on TV
now and there's a lot of it. But also it's
(14:57):
great to have the diversity of not everybody looks like
and again that's another good thing. But then also sometimes
it's you're a little bit bitter because it's like, wait
a minute, I work to look like this and you
get to wrestle in a T shirt. Was injuring beer.
It's like, all right, we're both here. That's cool. But yeah, no,
(15:19):
So I started actually rewind it when I was living
in upstate, New York and I was trained at the
wrestling I was also running a gym. A performance gym
is training athletes. It was training everyday people just to
be better. I had clients that were eight years old
all the way. I had an eighty five year old
woman who would come in three times a week, by
the way.
Speaker 3 (15:38):
Amazing.
Speaker 2 (15:39):
Yeah, it really was, and I loved it. It was
so much fun. And when I kind of took other
turns in life, I had to stop doing that. But
it's something that I still want to do. And I
still have people reach out to me because they see
what I do and it's like, hey, how are you
motivated to do that? Or what is your plan? Or
how do I start? Or all these questions. And I
(16:02):
can't get to everybody anymore. I can't say just come
to my gym and I'll help you out right. I
don't have that anymore. Right So now I believe to me,
if you are a person of influence it as a platform,
you should probably use it to help people.
Speaker 1 (16:18):
I believe that that's a great belief. I wish more
people shared that.
Speaker 2 (16:22):
Yeah, me too, because a lot of people do it
for vanity and all this stuff, and I think you
should use it for a purpose, and the purpose should
be to help people.
Speaker 1 (16:32):
Well, what gravitates me is your delivery in it. And also,
like the trueness behind it, right, because I've seen other
people that are like I saw this one guy who's like,
I divide in twenty four hours. I treat that like
three different days, and I work out three times. Every
six hours is a different day. And I'm like, all right, dude,
like just be real, Like I get it, like different
(16:54):
formulas and stuff like that, but you are way overthinking life.
And with you, it's like kind of like you just
finished your session and you're just sharing your feelings and
your belief and like hoping that it gets contagious and
maybe you change a few people's lives. And I like
that approach better than the you know some of these
celebrities that do share their opinions and you're kind of
(17:14):
like that sounds like marketing.
Speaker 2 (17:16):
Well you can tell nowadays, especially what's genuine and what's
not gen or who's taking other people's words and trying
to make it their own, and who's just saying what
they actually believe and feel and who's trying to play
up to the camera, and who's just being a real person.
I mean, And then you have guys that are just crazy,
like you follow the fitness space. Yeah, yeah, So like
(17:40):
an example, of that would doesn't work for me. An
example would be like Goggins, David Goggins, guy's insane awesome,
but not for everybody. No, most people, unless you're already that,
are not going to find his stuff like intriguing to
follow because they just simp so far. The gap is
(18:01):
so wide that they can't even think about even beginning
to start getting there right right, Like if you show
his videos to most people, they'd be like, just what
do you want me to do with that? So you
kind of start, you break it down and work backwards.
So it's like join the free Facebook community or the
free Instagram community even if you don't right now work out,
(18:23):
And you don't right now aren't an athlete, you don't
have a nutrition planner, just like maybe one of these
things that I say will help you just for that
day or that week or that month. And then maybe
that gets too closer to being like you know what,
that actually wasn't so hard? What else do I have
to do? How else can I start? And it's like
(18:46):
it's really not that hard. The hard start is thinking
about it. It's like how do I start that? Well,
I don't have a planner, Well, how do I it's
just that's the hardest thing you have to overcome. And
you quicker, you can close that gap between where you
want to be and where you're at now and just
with anything one step.
Speaker 3 (19:05):
Yeah, so step closer.
Speaker 1 (19:07):
So personally for me, like to backtrack to the whole
COVID and now the whole world shut down, like everything
became virtual. So it's like, oh cool, I could s
to be kind of desk. Nobody knows that, you know,
and like you're not seeing many people in real life right,
events where you had to pick and choose events like
you weren't even some weddings. We didn't go to stuff
(19:27):
like that. So it got very easy to like fall
off right. And I definitely personally I'm addicted to running.
When I run, awesome, Yeah not anymore, but when I run,
I'm mentally in my best, Like it just clears my mind.
I remember to do stuff. It allows me to formulate
a plan and structure for my day, like.
Speaker 3 (19:50):
Why I'm in that zone?
Speaker 1 (19:51):
Like and I was running on an average day, like
you know, three to five miles, so over one hundred
and twenty miles a day a month. A lot of
my bud though they were like dude, you're running too much,
like you're so like. It was also like I couldn't
understand that side of it too, like you know, because
you could run yourself like almost out of like like
not it. It could become counterproductive. So it is a
(20:13):
balance of everything, eating right, a little bit of weightlifting,
a little bit of running. But like you said, I
was like, hey, at least I'm doing this right because
my favorite thing. The first time I ever joined a gym,
I think it was like two thousand and two. I
was a junior and maybe senior in high school, and
they were like, well, what do you want out of this?
I was like, I want to be able to eat
(20:34):
whatever I want and not gain any weight. And they're like,
that's such a bad philosophy. I was like, and now
I'm like, uh, you know, and they told me I
had to like eat chicken and grilled stuff and all
this other stuff. Well, let's crawl, walk, run like what
you just said. Because I probably would have signed up
for the gym. I would have then been you know,
(20:55):
maybe that trainer could have then told me to work
on my diet, you know, and a couple of weeks
into it. But when you try to do it all
at once a lot of people gets overwhelming. For you
to say, take it a day at a time. To
do that just shows that you actually care about the
person and not the results to show on a piece
of paper or whatever or on a photo in the gym, like, hey, look,
(21:16):
Mike joined you know, thirty pounds overweight. Now he looks
like this, like and we could have gotten there. But
the minute I said I want to work out so
I could eat junk food, they were like, you're not
our client.
Speaker 3 (21:28):
You're not our client. And I was like, all right,
there's a lot to unpack there.
Speaker 2 (21:31):
But basically, first of all, like the more it's funny
because the more you work out, almost like eating a
day of junk food isn't actually that bad for you anymore. Okay,
it's like it's funny. But again, if you have structure
and a routine, and you say that, I am able
to speak in that way that it works because it's
(21:54):
worked and I've done it before, right, I'm not. It's
not like I've never done this before with people, right,
and it's like, oh, Zach has a new thing. No,
it's not like that I've done it before and it's worked.
And I understand what works because I've had people that
are athletes to it of people that are non athletic
at all, do they just want to become better? I
(22:15):
had somebody it's actually a great story, So I'm gonna
tell it and maybe he's listening. He was my phiz
ed coach in middle school, right. He was like my
pe teacher, Okay, And so the gym was in the
same town that I grew up in and he came
in and he's like, he's like, no way, He's like Zach.
(22:40):
I'm like, name's Mike. It was just such a great thing,
and I signed him up to the gym, sign him
up to my one on one training. He came in
three days a week, three to four days a week.
Actually he only wanted to work with me, and then
we just bonded for like six months. But over that
(23:01):
six month period, I think it was thirty pounds or
forty pounds he lost. And then I had him for
a year and he lost, Uh, I'm pretty sure it
was close to one hundred pounds. If it was like
eighty something pounds. Wow, And he's like, I want to
start bench pressing again. I haven't bench pressed since college. Okay, right,
(23:23):
like thirty years ago. I'm like, let's do it. So
we started. I'm on a progressive plan, so we're getting
him up. He's benching two twenty five for reps and sets. Wow,
he puts it down. One day he comes up to me,
he's like, he's getting a little emotional. I'm like, Mike,
he just crushed it. He's like, no, it's not that,
(23:45):
I just haven't done that in thirty years. I'm like, dude,
that's amazing and that's why we're here. But he was
getting emotional about it, and like that's what it's about.
It's not about like putting him on Instagram for right yeah.
Speaker 1 (23:57):
You know, like yeah, like the like the one Jim
was like, let's take a picture of you with your
shirt off right now and we'll keep looking at it.
Speaker 3 (24:04):
I was like, let's not.
Speaker 1 (24:06):
Let's not like, let's just understand we both know what
I look like.
Speaker 3 (24:11):
Yeah, I'm not.
Speaker 1 (24:11):
Gonna be like you didn't do anything, like you know,
so it's like, yeah, that's I think that's why. Like
I reached out and I was like, hey, let's let's
talk about this, and let's talk about you know, how
we could change people's lives, whether it be you know,
children with autism, children with special needs, or you know,
obviously the children's hospital. So that's the last thing I
(24:33):
want to talk about. If you don't mind culture Kings, I.
Speaker 3 (24:37):
Said it wrong. Culture City, Culture City. I always say
culture Kings.
Speaker 1 (24:41):
I don't know why because I feel like you're like
a king, like I was a king and queen of that.
So how did that all start? Culture City and everything?
Speaker 2 (24:50):
So five years ago, lettle over five years ago. I've
been in my fiance almost six years. She was on
the board of Culture City. Culture City is a charity.
We spread awareness, inclusion, acceptance for those with invisible disabilities,
so you inted to it before autism or down syndrome
or aspergers. We work with veterans with PTSD and people
(25:14):
with other mental instabilities. I don't want to say problems
or diagnosis because sometimes it's actually not even that. Sometimes
it's just, you know, something not as serious, but they
don't understand that yet, so we kind of help with
that process. We have a certification sensory certification program where
(25:34):
we go to these different venues, stadiums, arenas, restaurants. We
just certified Broadway last year. We just every Lego store
in the country like Lego certified by Culture City. So
what that does is it allows us to bring our
form of a certification. What it really is just teaches
(25:58):
you to identify maybe this person is having an issue
and helps you know what to do with it. How
can we cope with this and help this person out
during the time that they're in our facility. The other
thing we do is we have sensory bags. We call
them inside the bag or headphones, fidget spinners, and gadgets,
weighted blanket every bag. I think we vary a little bit,
(26:21):
but those are for sporting events, Like you go to
a wrestling event where there's a lot of pyro and
loud music and banging and slamming. Sometimes that can be
over stimulating, just like you go to an NFL game
or an NBA game, a lot of loud crowd music, banging, slamming, pyro.
Not everybody can deal with that, even if it's funny,
because even if you aren't diagnosed with something, and we
(26:44):
have people that come to us, it's like, actually, I
don't like that, and I didn't really know that until now,
and it's funny to see people like so you don't
have to have a diagnosis to take part in our programs.
You can just put on a headphone. Yeah, let us
just help you out. So people we take away the
labeling aspect of it, right, like the negative condenptation of
(27:08):
what people believe. Yeah, oh, your autism, you can't do
certain things. That's not true.
Speaker 3 (27:14):
Right at all, not even not even close.
Speaker 1 (27:18):
Yeah, my nephew, Brayden, he is he knows more about
the stock market. He's eight years old, and he knows
more about the stock market than I could ever ever
want a dream. And he also knows his mom makes
like six figures.
Speaker 3 (27:30):
And I was like, how do you know that?
Speaker 1 (27:32):
Like I didn't know what six figures meant when I
was eight, you know. And he's an amazing kid. And
it's just like it's just like, yeah, like two things
that I love what you just said. Like one is
there's so many different levels of it, right, capabilities and
stuff like that, and and what you actually need. And
it's like sometimes when people hear a label, they society
(27:55):
has put a photo in their head, right disabled you
think of a person in a chair unfortunately, like stuff
like that. So when I hear a message that's like, hey,
sometimes people don't even know they need our services, and
they're like, I just thought I had to deal with
that for the rest of my life.
Speaker 2 (28:12):
You really be amazed, Like you really wouldn't believe it.
We have so many people, so we've helped millions of
people of Culture City. The other thing we do is
we build out sensory rooms. We call them sensory rooms,
which is pretty much just an enclosed environment like a
safe zone, a quiet zone. Right, so where if we're
at a stadium, we're at a venue like let's do
(28:33):
jingle Ball, Let's take WrestleMania Lincoln Financial, beautiful sensory room
there Eagle Stadium. Absolutely, you go in and the lights
are dim. We have the walls outfitted with gadgets and
spinners and lego boards, and we have bean bags and
things to help you decompress, weighted blankets. You can go
(28:53):
in there and just chill, calm down, take a breath,
get out of the loud, noise, overstimulated, and then maybe
you can come back to the event. But if you
don't want to, that's fine. You can hang out in
our room as long as you want.
Speaker 3 (29:05):
That's amazing.
Speaker 2 (29:06):
So we have I think we have over six hundred
of those now built throughout the world. We're in eighteen
hundred locations worldwide. That's we handed out over a million
censory bags, perhaps man's. So it's definitely a great thing
that we love to be involved in. Yeah, and we
love getting people involved because almost everybody somewhere know someone
(29:31):
directly or secondhand that is affective.
Speaker 1 (29:33):
Yeah, and it's it's becoming like everybody wants to like
talk about statistics and oh now more people have that. Well,
we're identifying the issues too, right, Like we're identifying the
human being and making it more comfortable for them.
Speaker 3 (29:45):
The fact that exactly what you just said, like.
Speaker 1 (29:48):
You're able to join the room and if you want
to come back to the party you can, Like, so
you don't have to now leave the party because prior
to that censory room, what was the option.
Speaker 2 (29:55):
You were going home?
Speaker 3 (29:56):
Yeah, and that sucks, man, it sucks.
Speaker 2 (29:58):
It sucks back, so you should be able to enjoy it. Yeah,
just because it's loud for a minute, it is loud, right,
it's loud for me, it's got to be loud for you.
Speaker 3 (30:06):
And you know, someone cut this up.
Speaker 1 (30:08):
Send this to every speaker company out there in the
world because it's so true, but also like they're the
ones making it loud, so like they should be helping
and supporting Culture City as much as they can. So, dude,
this has been awesome. I can't thank you enough. Thanks
for coming into the iHeart Studios to hang out with me.
Is there anything else you want to share with the
audience before we get out of here?
Speaker 2 (30:30):
Thank you, man, it's been great. Let's do it again. Yeah,
for sure, this has been great.
Speaker 3 (30:34):
Where where can they find you?
Speaker 2 (30:36):
Zach Clayton on all socials? I just got TikTok. I'm
not a big TikTok.
Speaker 3 (30:41):
Let's go. I saw you had six flags doing a
little dance. You gotta add that to TikTok.
Speaker 2 (30:46):
The last couple of months, I've been trying TikTok. It
is just me. I have some help, but like not
really and I don't. They're not the best and I'm
never going to be great at TikTok, but anywhere at
Zach Clayton, don't make fun of my tikt We'll.
Speaker 1 (31:01):
Be right back. This is Fox Sports The Gambler Divide
Live
Popular Podcasts
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com