July 19, 2024 • 15 mins
Ahead of his trip to Cleveland to Summerslam, Sammi sits down to chat with Jeremiah about story telling and his comedy show he's bringing to the Agora next Friday Night.
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(00:00):
I'm excited to be chatting with you, dude. I've I've just enjoyed.
I was telling our guy Chuck here, Dude, I'm a lifer, man,
I've been. I've been a fansince way back. I participated back
in my teens, in my earlytwenties and in the Akron area uh as,
you know, as a as awrestler and working. So I really
I find I admire it. Iadmire the storytelling so much and it's such
(00:22):
a joy for me to get toshare that with my twelve year old and
my and my six year old andsometimes my daughter when I get her interested.
But just to butter your bread fora second, to commend the storytelling
you've been doing over the past Imean the full course of your career,
but I mean the stuff over thepast year and what you're doing now,
dude, I just it's it's it'sso good. Thanks man. That means
(00:44):
a lot. I'd say, Ireally kind of hit my stride with that
stuff kind of just in the lastit's five like five years, and weirdly
enough, it kind of started whenI was doing this thing where I was
managing Shinsky Nakamura that was in liketwenty nineteen. I want to say,
so that was kind of the firsttime I got uh, that's not true,
because I've been in a couple ofreally decent stories prior to that.
(01:07):
But really, once I kind ofwon the intercondinal title, I want to
say that's twenty twenty was right beforethe pandemic. Everything from there on was
pretty like, pretty fun, engagingstorytelling. It's been, yeah, the
last four years, I feel likeI've gotten to really play in my hand
a little bit more at the storytellingside of things. Well, and so,
how does and you know, everyonewill say in almost everything, there's
ten ideas and everything. There's tenideas in radio, there's ten ideas in
(01:30):
storytelling, how do you how doyou find your way to tweak those ten
ideas in new and different ways?Because you know, it's always you're telling
the you know, the there's there'sthe archetypes of different stories. How do
you how do you tell them indifferent ways? Do you find that challenging?
How are you how do you getinspired to do something like that?
Well? The beautiful thing about wrestlingis we have unique characters. So I
(01:52):
think even though a match is amatch, every match is going to be
unique because really what it is isit's the interaction of these two characters,
and you know what happens when thesetwo characters come into conflict, And because
the characters are always unique, thematches are always going to be rather unique
in a sense like, yeah,at the end of the day, it's
a wrestling match, and you've seenin a manner of speaking, you've seen
(02:13):
one, you've seen them all.But the same could be said for reading
a book, watching a movie,watching a television show. The thing that
makes everything interesting is unique performers,unique characters, finding unique little twists on
what those conflicts are. But youknow, and I use the example with
Kevin Owens and myself a lot becausewe've been going at it for over twenty
years and people still seem to beinterested in it because we find new ways
(02:36):
to kind of twist it new situationsevery time where every time we our paths
come into contact with one another whereat slightly different places than we were the
last time around. So it kindof gives it a refreshing twist. And
that's why I think people could bewatching wrestling their entire lives and not get
sick of it, because there's alwaysit's always unique in its own way.
What are those you know, Ijust picture like you and Kevin just sitting
(02:59):
after like the brain Do you guyscan't sit there and brainstorm these ideas?
Do you throw these ideas back andforth? How do how does the how
does the soup start to get made? In that early telling it? It
really depends on what point in ourcareers you're talking about. Yeah, you
know, but the very first timeI ever told like a proper story was
(03:20):
with Kevin in two thousand and nine. We were a team in Ring of
Honor and he kind of like,you know, he felt a little stagnant
and he wanted to turn on me, and I thought we still had a
lot of ways to go as aas a as a team. And then
we you know, and he's like, I'm telling you, I'm telling you.
And then he, you know,we started talking and this is like
on a seven hour drive and it'slike two and three in the morning,
(03:43):
and you know, your creativity startsto kind of flow at those weird hours.
So we kind of started to concoctthe story for a one year program,
which at the time on the independencejust simply didn't exist. And you
know, a lot of that washis, A lot of that was him.
And then as the program started,as the story started getting in,
I started coming up with more andmore ideas too on specially on the latter
(04:06):
half of that's that that that kindof story arc. So all this to
Thay like nowadays, it's a littledifferent. Again, it really just depends
on on It depends on the story. Yeah, like the bloodline, the
bloodline stuff, when he was involved, I think I had a lot more
of a hand in the construction ofthat. But you know, it wasn't
just me, obviously, there's amillion especially the bloodline, Like you know,
(04:27):
you've got Him, and you've gotRome and you've got View so as
you've got all these great minds contributing. But as far as the interaction with
Kevin and myself, I think atthat point in the game, because I
was so invested in that story andI've been cooking up so many ideas,
a little bit more of it wascoming from my side, but He's always
got his twists on it. Soit's like, I don't know, it's
it's just a weird collaborative thing thatI don't really know how to I can't
really sum it up in one sentenceand say, oh, I do this
(04:50):
and he does that. Or it'slike when I talk to artists, you
know, it's how do you knowwhat you created? Process? It's like,
well, do I have the melodyverse? Do I have the lyric
first? I have the feeling first. I'm I'm guessing it's very similar to
that situation. It all depends onon what starts it. Yeah, yeah,
it's super circumstantial. God, I'mthinking about it now, wonder up.
(05:15):
Let me let's go. Let's talkabout that bloodline story like, I
mean, I'm gonna put it intop five storylines in my history of watching
wrestling, maybe even top three becausethat pop when you slam Roman Reigns in
the back with that chair, Idon't think I've heard I I I can't
remember a louder pop than that.I mean, I put it. Okay,
(05:36):
really quick, do this excluding yours, because I'll put that in there
is one of the top can canyou name three other pops that were that
insane when it happened, when thatmoment happened. I can think of great
pops for sure that probably even exceedthat. But what I struggle with is
because people have mentioned this to mea few times. I can't really think
offhand of a pop for a wrestlingmove or like a move that that exceeded
(06:00):
it. Yeah, I could altwaysthink about again off the top of my
head. One and it's and it'sa chair shot. You can you think
of Hogan rock, right, youthink of that being a big pop you
think of right? Or when Austin'smusic hits when Mick Foley wins the title,
like, that's about as loud asit gets too. There's there's no
shortage of unbelievable crowd reactions. Mhm. But the thing that I'm trying
(06:21):
to struggle to think of is likefor a singular move in the middle of
an angle, like it wasn't ina you know what I'm saying. Yeah,
it was just a very very uniquesituation, I mean, and that
had to as a storyteller. Howsatisfying was that once you once the adrenaline
came down, you're sitting there,You're like, man, that's what that
do? You sit back like that'swhat we were going for, man,
(06:42):
And it just hit not just me, but I think you know, of
all the bloodline stuff that we did, I think that was the single most
collaborative segment that we ever did.Everybody brought something to the table. Everybody
brought an idea from like and I'mtalking even you know people behind the scenes
Hunter or you know, Paul Hayman, Michael Hayes, there's Roman Jauso,
(07:04):
Jimmy Usso, Kevin, myself.Everybody brought a different twist to it that
we actually implemented in the execution,and like every single one of it was
incredible. It was so weird,man, I'm getting goosebumps just talking about
it. It was like, I'venever really seen anything like that, Like
an angle that closed out a majorpay per view in a stadium and the
(07:26):
angle had people on its feet forten minutes. It was amazing. It
like so magical. I mean there, and I've said this in other interviews,
but I consider my career a totalsuccess even if it ended tomorrow.
And I think there are Hall offamers who won the World Championship ten times
over, who had the most brilliantcareers you can imagine, and they've never
been a part of a story likethat. We're never gotten the luxury or
(07:47):
the privilege of being in a storythat took people on that kind of ride.
It was just so unique and I'mso lucky to have been a part
of it. It was it wasabsolutely amazing, and I mean lucky to
be a part of it. Butyou were so instrumental in it too,
So please please take as much creditas necessary because you killed it. I
know we got a hard out,so I definitely want we got to talk
the comedy show Sammy Zan and Friendsat the Agora August second, Tickets available.
(08:11):
Now, I know you've been toCleveland a million times. You probably
hit hit it in the indies.What did you I mean, did you
come through in the indies. I'msure it came to Cleveland a bunch right.
In fact, we even worked theAgora. I want to say one
of the first NXD out of stateshows ever was that the Agora. You're
right, so I have fun memoriesof that building, but this one is
a bit of a different animal.Yeah, comedy show, especially like after
(08:37):
SmackDown, so it's a late nightshow. I'm really curious about that how
that's going to factor into things.But you think with all these fans in
from out of state and out ofthe country for SummerSlam, that hopefully a
bunch of people want something to doafter SmackDown and just still there weekend up
with like good wrestling stuff. Andthis is just it's hard to really explain,
but it's just such a unique show, and it's like it's I put
(09:01):
a lot of time and effort andenergy and thought and if the bloodline story
is any indicator when it comes tolike the levels of thought that goes into
what I'm trying to put out.I try to make sure that it's like
a really great show and that it'sa great ride for the fans. It's
not just me sitting up there forninety minutes, you know what I mean
and telling a couple of stories.It's like it's a bit of a variety
(09:22):
show and it's filled with like surprisesand just things you don't always see coming,
and sketches and all kinds of differentguests, and it's it's like it's
it's meant to be a ride,you know. That's fascinating, Yeah,
because that was my first questions,like is it you just said, it's
not you up there for ninety minutes, So you're going to do a little
bit of everything, you know,everything short of singing a song or asking
(09:43):
the audience for suggesting and doing animprov scene, Well that might even happen.
Actually those ideas like and I meansome of that definitely. I mean
the improv stuff definitely happens or hashappened, because again, I only have
two shows as a to go offof up until now. But there's definitely
a level of interaction with the audienceand engagement with the audience. And yeah,
(10:05):
it's just like whatever fun idea youcould think of it, it's I've
thought of it because I want tomake it that kind of mix, you
know, not just with my son. But that's why Sammy's and and friends,
because I get to cheat a littlebit and have these guests that also
are going to elicit the reaction,and guests that you don't get to see
them in that light and now youget to see them in a different sort
of light or performing in a differentway. You know, not necessarily stand
(10:26):
up. I'm not going to askW. W. Russells who've never done
stand up to come up and dofifteen minutes, you know, but to
get them out of their I don'twant to say comfort zone, but rather
get them out of their element ofwhat they're known for and get them for
the fans to see them in adifferent kind of light. You know you
have to do something fun. Well, do you think we'll see anyone besides
other WW superstars? You got anyoneelse? Any any Cleveland celebrities lined up,
(10:50):
any outside Cleveland celebrities that are intown. Any tastes you want to
give us, Sammy, Well,so this is the thing. Every show
is different because it depends on theguests, and I write the show around
the guests. So part of thestress of them telling me like, hey,
do you want to do another onein Cleveland? I was like,
Oh, I don't know about thatbecause I just did the one in Toronto.
It took a lot of time andenergy, and I was my big
(11:11):
pushback was like I have to writea new show because the last show I
can just plug and play. Itwas very specific because of the guests I
had. I wrote around the guests, so and I'm still kind of tinkering
with the guests, so like nothingis said and sown. And that's part
of what I think makes the showfun is that, like I'm freaking out,
I'm walking like a razor's edge betweenthis could be brilliant or it could
(11:33):
be a total disaster. I'm like, you know, a few days out
and guests are still like when somebodydropped down and I have to get someone
new and I'm rewriting. Like thatmadness, I think is part of what
contributes to the fun of the show. And I try to give the show
a bit of a chaotic nature.I try to work that in there,
like things, you know, thingsgo and awry. Well, it's like
it's like Lauren Michael says about SNL. SNL doesn't go on because it's ready.
(11:54):
It goes on because it's time.Trust me when I say the same
is true for Monday Night Raw,I bring the same I think maybe because
I'm addicted to that now, youknow that that like chaos and that adaptation
and that like idea of not fullyfully having it, kind of having it,
but there is that little margin oferror you're not quite sure about.
I think I because I've got addictedto that over the years. I've kind
(12:16):
of brought that spirit into this show, so uh. And the idea was
to make it a mix of likecomics and you know, TV personalities and
wrestling personality. That was the idea. The last couple of shows. That's
what it's been. So it reallydepends on who I have for Cleveland.
But I mean, look, I'mI take too much pride to like just
stick something out there. You knowit's gonna be a great show that's very
(12:39):
very well thought out, that's goingto take people on a ride, because
that's you know, that's that's sortof my thing. Well, let's let's
be honest. You following your yourpride instinct has serve you very well inside
and outside of the ring. SoI think we can definitely count on you
you following through with the same typeof thing for the same Sammy's Aid and
Friends show. Thank you. Yeah, yeah, I don't really know any
other way. I just like Iput too much pressure on myself. I
(13:03):
suppose to, uh, I don'tknow, to make it as good as
it can be. You know,because even with like WWE att WWE's level,
you can put out any anything andit'll be good because it's all good
performers. But it's not about likejust putting out something that's good. It's
like, this is your name,you know, this is your part.
You're doing it, so when you'redoing it, it should be the most
(13:24):
important thing in the whole world.And then when you're done doing it,
you know, family and friends andconnection and community and all that kind of
thing, then that becomes important again. But while you're doing that, it's
just got to be the most importantthing in the world, and you almost
kind of treat it as such.At least that's what I do. And
that's the sickness that I have,you know, maybe to too much of
a point. Sometimes even it's like, no, it's got to be correct,
But if you don't. But ifyou don't have that, then you
(13:46):
don't get that chair shot on Romanswritings back, you know what I mean.
If you don't have that standard,the hundreds of hours of thought and
arguing and and things that went intothat, that's the that's the reward for
it at the end. And sothe same is kind of true of these
comedy shows as well as like,like the other night, I just couldn't
fall asleep. I was in bedat eleven thirty and I didn't fall a
sleep til four thirty because I waslike, what do I do? You
(14:09):
know? Yeah about this? Whatabout love? And I was just writing
the show in bed and I'm like, okay, please just go to sleep.
I'm looking at the time, takethe melt of tone and Sammy go
to bed. Enough thinking about theshows later later. Yeah, I just
couldn't stop thinking about it. Ilove it, dude, I could.
I could seriously talk about It's gonnabe good. I love it. Dude.
You've been You've been great to talkto. I could talk to you
(14:31):
for hours, but I know yougot to get out of here. Thank
you so much. I'm gonna I'mgonna button this up on the front end
in the back when I put iton the air on the podcast, so
I'm not gonna bore you with thesemantics of of get your tickets and I'll
do that on the other side ofit. But really appreciate that, man.
Thanks for putting eyes on it.No, of course, thank you.
Thank you for what you do.Man, Thank you for your time.
Looking forward to having you in Cleveland. Man, it's I don't know
(14:52):
the last time, well you were. You guys were here for Monday Night
Roll just a few months ago,so you maybe you'll get see a little
bit more being here the whole weekend. But they've done a great job with
this city. Thank you very much. Think every buddy, Thank you. S
I'm excited to be chatting with you, dude. I've I've just enjoyed.
I was telling our guy Chuck here, Dude, I'm a lifer, man,
I've been. I've been a fansince way back. I participated back
in my teens, in my earlytwenties and in the Akron area uh as,
you know, as a as awrestler and working. So I really
I find I admire it. Iadmire the storytelling so much and it's such
(00:22):
a joy for me to get toshare that with my twelve year old and
my and my six year old andsometimes my daughter when I get her interested.
But just to butter your bread fora second, to commend the storytelling
you've been doing over the past Imean the full course of your career,
but I mean the stuff over thepast year and what you're doing now,
dude, I just it's it's it'sso good. Thanks man. That means
(00:44):
a lot. I'd say, Ireally kind of hit my stride with that
stuff kind of just in the lastit's five like five years, and weirdly
enough, it kind of started whenI was doing this thing where I was
managing Shinsky Nakamura that was in liketwenty nineteen. I want to say,
so that was kind of the firsttime I got uh, that's not true,
because I've been in a couple ofreally decent stories prior to that.
(01:07):
But really, once I kind ofwon the intercondinal title, I want to
say that's twenty twenty was right beforethe pandemic. Everything from there on was
pretty like, pretty fun, engagingstorytelling. It's been, yeah, the
last four years, I feel likeI've gotten to really play in my hand
a little bit more at the storytellingside of things. Well, and so,
how does and you know, everyonewill say in almost everything, there's
ten ideas and everything. There's tenideas in radio, there's ten ideas in
(01:30):
storytelling, how do you how doyou find your way to tweak those ten
ideas in new and different ways?Because you know, it's always you're telling
the you know, the there's there'sthe archetypes of different stories. How do
you how do you tell them indifferent ways? Do you find that challenging?
How are you how do you getinspired to do something like that?
Well? The beautiful thing about wrestlingis we have unique characters. So I
(01:52):
think even though a match is amatch, every match is going to be
unique because really what it is isit's the interaction of these two characters,
and you know what happens when thesetwo characters come into conflict, And because
the characters are always unique, thematches are always going to be rather unique
in a sense like, yeah,at the end of the day, it's
a wrestling match, and you've seenin a manner of speaking, you've seen
(02:13):
one, you've seen them all.But the same could be said for reading
a book, watching a movie,watching a television show. The thing that
makes everything interesting is unique performers,unique characters, finding unique little twists on
what those conflicts are. But youknow, and I use the example with
Kevin Owens and myself a lot becausewe've been going at it for over twenty
years and people still seem to beinterested in it because we find new ways
(02:36):
to kind of twist it new situationsevery time where every time we our paths
come into contact with one another whereat slightly different places than we were the
last time around. So it kindof gives it a refreshing twist. And
that's why I think people could bewatching wrestling their entire lives and not get
sick of it, because there's alwaysit's always unique in its own way.
What are those you know, Ijust picture like you and Kevin just sitting
(02:59):
after like the brain Do you guyscan't sit there and brainstorm these ideas?
Do you throw these ideas back andforth? How do how does the how
does the soup start to get made? In that early telling it? It
really depends on what point in ourcareers you're talking about. Yeah, you
know, but the very first timeI ever told like a proper story was
(03:20):
with Kevin in two thousand and nine. We were a team in Ring of
Honor and he kind of like,you know, he felt a little stagnant
and he wanted to turn on me, and I thought we still had a
lot of ways to go as aas a as a team. And then
we you know, and he's like, I'm telling you, I'm telling you.
And then he, you know,we started talking and this is like
on a seven hour drive and it'slike two and three in the morning,
(03:43):
and you know, your creativity startsto kind of flow at those weird hours.
So we kind of started to concoctthe story for a one year program,
which at the time on the independencejust simply didn't exist. And you
know, a lot of that washis, A lot of that was him.
And then as the program started,as the story started getting in,
I started coming up with more andmore ideas too on specially on the latter
(04:06):
half of that's that that that kindof story arc. So all this to
Thay like nowadays, it's a littledifferent. Again, it really just depends
on on It depends on the story. Yeah, like the bloodline, the
bloodline stuff, when he was involved, I think I had a lot more
of a hand in the construction ofthat. But you know, it wasn't
just me, obviously, there's amillion especially the bloodline, Like you know,
(04:27):
you've got Him, and you've gotRome and you've got View so as
you've got all these great minds contributing. But as far as the interaction with
Kevin and myself, I think atthat point in the game, because I
was so invested in that story andI've been cooking up so many ideas,
a little bit more of it wascoming from my side, but He's always
got his twists on it. Soit's like, I don't know, it's
it's just a weird collaborative thing thatI don't really know how to I can't
really sum it up in one sentenceand say, oh, I do this
(04:50):
and he does that. Or it'slike when I talk to artists, you
know, it's how do you knowwhat you created? Process? It's like,
well, do I have the melodyverse? Do I have the lyric
first? I have the feeling first. I'm I'm guessing it's very similar to
that situation. It all depends onon what starts it. Yeah, yeah,
it's super circumstantial. God, I'mthinking about it now, wonder up.
(05:15):
Let me let's go. Let's talkabout that bloodline story like, I
mean, I'm gonna put it intop five storylines in my history of watching
wrestling, maybe even top three becausethat pop when you slam Roman Reigns in
the back with that chair, Idon't think I've heard I I I can't
remember a louder pop than that.I mean, I put it. Okay,
(05:36):
really quick, do this excluding yours, because I'll put that in there
is one of the top can canyou name three other pops that were that
insane when it happened, when thatmoment happened. I can think of great
pops for sure that probably even exceedthat. But what I struggle with is
because people have mentioned this to mea few times. I can't really think
offhand of a pop for a wrestlingmove or like a move that that exceeded
(06:00):
it. Yeah, I could altwaysthink about again off the top of my
head. One and it's and it'sa chair shot. You can you think
of Hogan rock, right, youthink of that being a big pop you
think of right? Or when Austin'smusic hits when Mick Foley wins the title,
like, that's about as loud asit gets too. There's there's no
shortage of unbelievable crowd reactions. Mhm. But the thing that I'm trying
(06:21):
to struggle to think of is likefor a singular move in the middle of
an angle, like it wasn't ina you know what I'm saying. Yeah,
it was just a very very uniquesituation, I mean, and that
had to as a storyteller. Howsatisfying was that once you once the adrenaline
came down, you're sitting there,You're like, man, that's what that
do? You sit back like that'swhat we were going for, man,
(06:42):
And it just hit not just me, but I think you know, of
all the bloodline stuff that we did, I think that was the single most
collaborative segment that we ever did.Everybody brought something to the table. Everybody
brought an idea from like and I'mtalking even you know people behind the scenes
Hunter or you know, Paul Hayman, Michael Hayes, there's Roman Jauso,
(07:04):
Jimmy Usso, Kevin, myself.Everybody brought a different twist to it that
we actually implemented in the execution,and like every single one of it was
incredible. It was so weird,man, I'm getting goosebumps just talking about
it. It was like, I'venever really seen anything like that, Like
an angle that closed out a majorpay per view in a stadium and the
(07:26):
angle had people on its feet forten minutes. It was amazing. It
like so magical. I mean there, and I've said this in other interviews,
but I consider my career a totalsuccess even if it ended tomorrow.
And I think there are Hall offamers who won the World Championship ten times
over, who had the most brilliantcareers you can imagine, and they've never
been a part of a story likethat. We're never gotten the luxury or
(07:47):
the privilege of being in a storythat took people on that kind of ride.
It was just so unique and I'mso lucky to have been a part
of it. It was it wasabsolutely amazing, and I mean lucky to
be a part of it. Butyou were so instrumental in it too,
So please please take as much creditas necessary because you killed it. I
know we got a hard out,so I definitely want we got to talk
the comedy show Sammy Zan and Friendsat the Agora August second, Tickets available.
(08:11):
Now, I know you've been toCleveland a million times. You probably
hit hit it in the indies.What did you I mean, did you
come through in the indies. I'msure it came to Cleveland a bunch right.
In fact, we even worked theAgora. I want to say one
of the first NXD out of stateshows ever was that the Agora. You're
right, so I have fun memoriesof that building, but this one is
a bit of a different animal.Yeah, comedy show, especially like after
(08:37):
SmackDown, so it's a late nightshow. I'm really curious about that how
that's going to factor into things.But you think with all these fans in
from out of state and out ofthe country for SummerSlam, that hopefully a
bunch of people want something to doafter SmackDown and just still there weekend up
with like good wrestling stuff. Andthis is just it's hard to really explain,
but it's just such a unique show, and it's like it's I put
(09:01):
a lot of time and effort andenergy and thought and if the bloodline story
is any indicator when it comes tolike the levels of thought that goes into
what I'm trying to put out.I try to make sure that it's like
a really great show and that it'sa great ride for the fans. It's
not just me sitting up there forninety minutes, you know what I mean
and telling a couple of stories.It's like it's a bit of a variety
(09:22):
show and it's filled with like surprisesand just things you don't always see coming,
and sketches and all kinds of differentguests, and it's it's like it's
it's meant to be a ride,you know. That's fascinating, Yeah,
because that was my first questions,like is it you just said, it's
not you up there for ninety minutes, So you're going to do a little
bit of everything, you know,everything short of singing a song or asking
(09:43):
the audience for suggesting and doing animprov scene, Well that might even happen.
Actually those ideas like and I meansome of that definitely. I mean
the improv stuff definitely happens or hashappened, because again, I only have
two shows as a to go offof up until now. But there's definitely
a level of interaction with the audienceand engagement with the audience. And yeah,
(10:05):
it's just like whatever fun idea youcould think of it, it's I've
thought of it because I want tomake it that kind of mix, you
know, not just with my son. But that's why Sammy's and and friends,
because I get to cheat a littlebit and have these guests that also
are going to elicit the reaction,and guests that you don't get to see
them in that light and now youget to see them in a different sort
of light or performing in a differentway. You know, not necessarily stand
(10:26):
up. I'm not going to askW. W. Russells who've never done
stand up to come up and dofifteen minutes, you know, but to
get them out of their I don'twant to say comfort zone, but rather
get them out of their element ofwhat they're known for and get them for
the fans to see them in adifferent kind of light. You know you
have to do something fun. Well, do you think we'll see anyone besides
other WW superstars? You got anyoneelse? Any any Cleveland celebrities lined up,
(10:50):
any outside Cleveland celebrities that are intown. Any tastes you want to
give us, Sammy, Well,so this is the thing. Every show
is different because it depends on theguests, and I write the show around
the guests. So part of thestress of them telling me like, hey,
do you want to do another onein Cleveland? I was like,
Oh, I don't know about thatbecause I just did the one in Toronto.
It took a lot of time andenergy, and I was my big
(11:11):
pushback was like I have to writea new show because the last show I
can just plug and play. Itwas very specific because of the guests I
had. I wrote around the guests, so and I'm still kind of tinkering
with the guests, so like nothingis said and sown. And that's part
of what I think makes the showfun is that, like I'm freaking out,
I'm walking like a razor's edge betweenthis could be brilliant or it could
(11:33):
be a total disaster. I'm like, you know, a few days out
and guests are still like when somebodydropped down and I have to get someone
new and I'm rewriting. Like thatmadness, I think is part of what
contributes to the fun of the show. And I try to give the show
a bit of a chaotic nature.I try to work that in there,
like things, you know, thingsgo and awry. Well, it's like
it's like Lauren Michael says about SNL. SNL doesn't go on because it's ready.
(11:54):
It goes on because it's time.Trust me when I say the same
is true for Monday Night Raw,I bring the same I think maybe because
I'm addicted to that now, youknow that that like chaos and that adaptation
and that like idea of not fullyfully having it, kind of having it,
but there is that little margin oferror you're not quite sure about.
I think I because I've got addictedto that over the years. I've kind
(12:16):
of brought that spirit into this show, so uh. And the idea was
to make it a mix of likecomics and you know, TV personalities and
wrestling personality. That was the idea. The last couple of shows. That's
what it's been. So it reallydepends on who I have for Cleveland.
But I mean, look, I'mI take too much pride to like just
stick something out there. You knowit's gonna be a great show that's very
(12:39):
very well thought out, that's goingto take people on a ride, because
that's you know, that's that's sortof my thing. Well, let's let's
be honest. You following your yourpride instinct has serve you very well inside
and outside of the ring. SoI think we can definitely count on you
you following through with the same typeof thing for the same Sammy's Aid and
Friends show. Thank you. Yeah, yeah, I don't really know any
other way. I just like Iput too much pressure on myself. I
(13:03):
suppose to, uh, I don'tknow, to make it as good as
it can be. You know,because even with like WWE att WWE's level,
you can put out any anything andit'll be good because it's all good
performers. But it's not about likejust putting out something that's good. It's
like, this is your name,you know, this is your part.
You're doing it, so when you'redoing it, it should be the most
(13:24):
important thing in the whole world.And then when you're done doing it,
you know, family and friends andconnection and community and all that kind of
thing, then that becomes important again. But while you're doing that, it's
just got to be the most importantthing in the world, and you almost
kind of treat it as such.At least that's what I do. And
that's the sickness that I have,you know, maybe to too much of
a point. Sometimes even it's like, no, it's got to be correct,
But if you don't. But ifyou don't have that, then you
(13:46):
don't get that chair shot on Romanswritings back, you know what I mean.
If you don't have that standard,the hundreds of hours of thought and
arguing and and things that went intothat, that's the that's the reward for
it at the end. And sothe same is kind of true of these
comedy shows as well as like,like the other night, I just couldn't
fall asleep. I was in bedat eleven thirty and I didn't fall a
sleep til four thirty because I waslike, what do I do? You
(14:09):
know? Yeah about this? Whatabout love? And I was just writing
the show in bed and I'm like, okay, please just go to sleep.
I'm looking at the time, takethe melt of tone and Sammy go
to bed. Enough thinking about theshows later later. Yeah, I just
couldn't stop thinking about it. Ilove it, dude, I could.
I could seriously talk about It's gonnabe good. I love it. Dude.
You've been You've been great to talkto. I could talk to you
(14:31):
for hours, but I know yougot to get out of here. Thank
you so much. I'm gonna I'mgonna button this up on the front end
in the back when I put iton the air on the podcast, so
I'm not gonna bore you with thesemantics of of get your tickets and I'll
do that on the other side ofit. But really appreciate that, man.
Thanks for putting eyes on it.No, of course, thank you.
Thank you for what you do.Man, Thank you for your time.
Looking forward to having you in Cleveland. Man, it's I don't know
(14:52):
the last time, well you were. You guys were here for Monday Night
Roll just a few months ago,so you maybe you'll get see a little
bit more being here the whole weekend. But they've done a great job with
this city. Thank you very much. Think every buddy, Thank you. S
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