July 24, 2025 • 37 mins
Follow Kevin Klebold on instagram! - https://www.instagram.com/kevinklebold/
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:12):
How's it going, guys, Thanks for tuning into this episode
of the Phil Talk Sports podcast. Another PWR Wrestling edition
of the show. Today going to recap our most recent event,
PWR Ascension, that took place on June twenty eighth. A
lot of great stuff happened in this one. We crowned
a brand new PWR Heavyweight Champion and former guest of
the show, Alejandro Bravos, stuck true to his word, said
(00:33):
he'd show up anywhere, and he did and he left
with the gold. And then in our main event, we
had an over the top rope battle Royal to crown
our first ever High Voltage champion. And before we talk
about the winner of that match, another headline is said,
I was in it. Yup. I was in a professional
wrestling match for the first time in over ten years.
I got a chance to get back in the ring,
and I got to admit it started out pretty good. Here
(00:54):
you can see I'm hitting a TKO on Friend of
the Show Forrest Nystrom. Later in the match, I hit
a spinebuster on Kyle Steele the Dynasty and things are
going great for me. And so they ran into the
man they call Boomer and here you can see he's
clotheslining me to oblivion and never really recovered from that.
I was able to hang in there for a little
bit longer. I ended up getting eliminated by the guy
(01:15):
that won the whole thing, our new high voltage champion,
Kevin Kleebold, who we're going to talk to in just
a minute here. But as you can see by this
footage that I have, he might not even know this,
but there was a little bit of interference by a
guy by the name of Baron Blackhart. You can see
he hits me with this book that he carries around,
and I might have got back in the ring, might
have not, but that guy should not have stuck his
(01:35):
nose in that match. So before we get to our guest,
I just want to look down the lens and say, barn,
you will be dealt with anyway. It's time to get
to our guests. He is a guy that outlasted fifteen
other man sixteen if you count our j He did
it for dvid D in that match to become the
first ever high voltage champion. So, without further ado, guys
wants you to meet Kevin Cleebold. All right, guys, joining
(02:01):
me at this time, he outlasted fifteen other wrestlers and
an over the top rope battle Royal. He is our
inaugural p w R High Voltage Champion. Welcome Kevin Cleebold.
It's going good man. I think an awesome place to
start would be, it's that your real voice, because that's
all we've ever heard from you before. At what's going
(02:21):
on over there? Alright? This?
Speaker 2 (02:25):
Oh, it's actually all the masks, little voice change right
put in here.
Speaker 1 (02:32):
That's pretty clever, a crazy right, Yeah, that's pretty cool.
So where'd you get the idea for the for the mask?
Speaker 2 (02:43):
Like?
Speaker 1 (02:43):
What about that mask made you want to make that
part of your persona and everything? To tie it back
into wrestling?
Speaker 2 (02:51):
Well, kind of a video game nerd. I modified video
game consoles for a living. I have a shy guy tattoo,
and I've never seen anyone else do it before. It
simple but effective and just ominous intimidating for no particular reason.
(03:12):
So I just kind of adopted it and it's worked
ever since.
Speaker 1 (03:17):
Yeah, people were definitely taken to it. I think at
the last PWR show even saw a few of them
in the crowd, So the fans are really taken to them.
You ended the last show PWR Ascension as the first
High Voltage Heavyweight champion. We talked a little bit before this,
that's your first championship as like a professional. We'll start
with you know, what did that mean to you to
(03:37):
win your first title?
Speaker 2 (03:40):
It was a pretty big deal. I was surprised they
gave me the opportunity in the first place, given my
track record I've had up to that point, nothing but disqualifications.
I just couldn't help myself. Choking Shane Evans out may
have choked him right into retire from being honest, but
(04:03):
I was super grateful for the opportunity. A lot of
serious competitors in that match, a lot of tough dudes,
somehow outlasted them all. Came down to me at Boomer
at the end, he almost had me, managed to get
the upper hand on him, knock him out, won the title,
(04:24):
and honestly, I couldn't believe it at the time, and
I'm still kind of riding that crest of the high
and beautiful wave.
Speaker 1 (04:31):
So a lot of people might not realize that how
different a battle Royal is than trying to just compete
in a regular even if it's a multiman match, But
how does your strategy change? You know, somebody that was
in that match for a short time and you're I'm
one of the many people that you eliminated in that match,
got a little help from Baron Blackhart. I'm not even
sure you knew what happened there, But that's something I
gotta get with him about in the future. But how
(04:52):
does your style change about You know, I'm not trying
to pin someone. I'm trying to not trying to make
him submit. I'm just trying to get him out of
the ring. So how is that different for you?
Speaker 2 (05:00):
One hundred percent it's a lot different than most of
the matches you're gonna be wrestling, where you're looking for
a pinner as submission as normally you're going one on
one with another guy. You can do your due diligence,
you can study the tapes, you can find their strength,
to find their weaknesses and come up with some kind
of strategy to get the upper hand on them. Battle Royale,
you got fifteen to twenty other guys to contend with.
(05:23):
There's so many different variables, especially since you're not looking
for a pin, you're not looking for a submission. Those
aren't going to count. You're just trying to toss guys
out without getting tossed out yourself. So I think it
definitely factors into what you're trying to do.
Speaker 1 (05:41):
So as that match kind of came towards the end,
I was long gone, a couple other guys had been eliminated.
Towards the end of it, we kind of had with
the final eight, the Elite eight, if you will, of
this match, we had a bit of an alliance form
on the side we saw the Unnatural Causes was recruiting.
They recruited Flying Brian Kaiser earlier in the night, they
had forced Nitrant and standing with them, and you were
(06:01):
on the side of Kyle Steele. Ethan was there, Kwame
was there? Was that kind of heat of the moment
or what kind of made those battle lines be drawn?
Speaker 2 (06:11):
Honestly, I can't call it. I'd never met any of
those guys beforehand. I've noticed we do have some similarities
in style, same with the Unnatural Causes and their draftees.
I think it just kind of formed naturally and people
picked their sides and had a big standoff and ended
up pretty big battle.
Speaker 1 (06:36):
Is that the last time we would think to see
you standing with the guys of that nature or can
we expect more of that in the future.
Speaker 2 (06:43):
I'd never say never. If the opportunity is right, I'm
game for anything.
Speaker 1 (06:53):
So we know where you sit right now, PW or
High Voltage Heavyweight Champion. Let's talk about kind of where
you came from, because a lot of guys in PWR
either in Florida, very close to Florida. You visit us
all the way from Colorado for these shows, so you
probably fly over hundreds of promotions, not an exaggeration to
get over here. So I think it's a reasonable question
(07:13):
to ask why PWR.
Speaker 2 (07:16):
Sure, so a lot of people don't know him originally
from Florida, lived there for fourteen years. It's ten years
down in Jupiter to South Florida, and then four years
in Orlando. Is pretty close to where PWR currently operates.
So I want to say probably half, maybe slightly more
(07:38):
than half the roster I've known for upwards of twenty years.
We've wrestled against each other, wrestled with each other, and
a bunch of different promotions all over Florida before I'd
moved to Colorado. And then when they start said they
were getting pro wrestling rebellions starting up last year. I
(07:59):
couldn't help to take the opportunity. Just like the guys,
I love doing the sport. I love coming together and
making a great production. I would fly two thousand miles
to do it. And it's just such a great group
of dudes. The shows are run fantastic. I was blown away.
(08:21):
I hadn't wrestled in eight years well prior to coming
back to tw R, but I came to the show
in February just as a spectator and I got the itch.
I couldn't help myself, so I think I have one
more run in there.
Speaker 1 (08:40):
Well, it's great to see and it's off to a
fantastic start. So, you know, you were eight years separated.
What was that process like getting back into I don't know,
ring shape, both physically and mentally. You know my little
stint in that match. It had been ten years for
me and obviously my appearance in there didn't go quite
as well as years. But what was your process like
getting back? You had the two matches with Shane Evans
(09:02):
that while they you know, went to this qualification, they
went the distance. Could have easily won either of those.
The first Dkey wasn't really your fault. That was more Bravo,
And I've had Bravo on this show, and I totally
see how that would happen. But what was the process
like getting back into you know, you get the itch,
what is step one to like I'm trying to get
back in there?
Speaker 2 (09:22):
I think just general exercise. Cardio was super important. A
lot of people don't realize how easy it is to
get blowing up in there. You know, you're lifting two
hundred undred and fifty pound guys over your head, running
the ropes. So cardio was definitely my first focal point.
(09:45):
Just consistent, see you with the gym, trying to eat better,
you know, cut off the crap, cut out the sugar.
That being said, nothing can really compare with in ring time,
getting time in the ring and rolling around. You can lift,
you can run, you can do all the machines you want,
(10:05):
but actually getting in there and rolling around in the
ring is a completely different animal. So to get prepared
to just staying more consistent with the gym, and then
I'd show up a few hours early for the shows,
get in there, bump around a little bit, hit the ropes,
see how everything's feeling, and I definitely still have some
(10:27):
rust taken over almost a decade off, but every time
I get in there, it feels more and more natural,
and it feels like I'm right back in the hot seat.
Speaker 1 (10:38):
In that eight years away. Did you as a fan
follow wrestling still anymore? A lot of these guys even
when they're away, you know what, maybe not every week,
but like I'm very aware of what's going on in
like mainstream wrestling. Were you involved in wrestling as a
fan at all in that time away?
Speaker 2 (10:52):
Nothing mainstream. I haven't watched any WWE in probably ten years.
I don't think I've watched one aw show. I know
that's a hot take being a pro wrestler not actually
watching the product. I've watched like big clips, you know,
like Ceampunk's return, John Cenas, he'll turn so like big moments,
(11:15):
but I can't remember the last time I've actually sat
down and watched the show. So nothing against them, I
just lost interest in the mainstream product.
Speaker 1 (11:27):
I guess, you know, the more I interview, you know,
more wrestlers on this show. I think that's actually more
and more common like that. People they know what's going on.
They may have some sort of pulse on it, But like,
is it not as unusual as maybe a fan would
think that somebody in wrestling doesn't necessarily watch all the wrestling.
Speaker 2 (11:45):
Yeah, I wouldn't think it's too terribly unusual, Like I
still love watching my friends perform. But I'm and I'm
sure it's pretty common with people growing up, you know,
like me and most of the guys were in our
mid thirties. Now a lot of them have kids. We
all full time jobs, so being able to find that
time to set aside and to dedicate two to three hours,
(12:09):
you know, once twice three times a week, it's kind
of a hard ask. The older you get, the more
responsibilities you have, the more you have going on. So
I don't think it's terribly uncommon.
Speaker 1 (12:20):
But yeah, I always say, you know, back when we
were growing up, I'm only a dash younger than a
lot of the guys on the roster, but you know,
we had maybe we had raw, we had SmackDown. That
was really it. ECW and WCW had come and gone.
Really for most of our you know, teenage years or whatever.
Now you could almost say there was too much wrestling
on TV, and that would have been a good problem
(12:41):
to have back when, but now it's just impossible to
keep up with everything back when you were, you know, whatever,
the peak what I guess we'll start here, what is
your What would you say was your peak fandom around
what time?
Speaker 2 (12:53):
So I was a relatively late bloomer. I guess a
lot of the guys started wrestling in that or sorry,
I started watching in the Added twoed era, which I
think was the peak of mainstream wrestling in the entire
world as far as just like a casual fan or
like you could ask probably anyone on the street in
nineteen ninety nine, they're gonna know who Stone Cold, Steve
Boston is or the Rock. So I got in right
(13:17):
at the tail end, right after the Attitude era had
ended in two thousand and two. I distinctly remember the
very first raw I watched was Triple H's return, So
it was probably, like I want to say, a year
before the Ruthless Aggression era, and I would say that
(13:37):
those initial years were my peak fandom. So I'm gonna
say like two thousand and two to probably probably two
thousand and nine honestly, but definitely two thousand and two,
two thousand and three, two thousand and four, and two
thousand and five were when I was the biggest fan.
Speaker 1 (13:54):
You know, my hot take has always been obviously you
hit the nail on the head attitude era is the
peak popular of wrestling in the world. But like in
the ring, the Ruthless Aggression era was actually, you know,
the peak mainstream. Obviously, there was stuff going on in
like TNA and Ring of Honor all that stuff that
you had to really look for to find. But the
best wrestling you found on TV outside of you know,
(14:16):
if you if you dig for it now was definitely
the Ruthless Aggression era, So that was a perfect time
to get into it. Who were your favorites at the
peak of your fandom.
Speaker 2 (14:28):
I was always a big Hurricane Mark Nice. I was
actually the very first raw I went to was the
one where he beat the Rock, uh and I marked
out Heavy incredible. Yeah, I'll be it was with you know,
stone Cold's interference, but I mean it was still win. Yeah,
it's a win over the Rock. I was a big
Jeff Hardy fan and the Hardy Boys. I think my
(14:50):
first wrestling T shirt was a Lift for the Moment
Hardy Boys shirt rv D and Eddie Garreow. I was
a real big fan of the high flying style, just
kind of reckless attitude. When I started wrestling. Initially, I
tried to adopt that into my own set, and it
(15:12):
turns out I'm not nearly as coordinated as those gentlemen,
and just most of the flips and the high flying
and stuff I did look to just sloppy. So I
just kind of cut it out altogether, you know, play
to your strengths.
Speaker 1 (15:26):
And then I was a I.
Speaker 2 (15:28):
Was a pretty big John Cena Mark when he was
doing the uh Doctor of thugonomic skimmick.
Speaker 1 (15:34):
I think.
Speaker 2 (15:34):
I think in middle school, I actually wore a chain
with a lock on it to school and uh got
in trouble and they made me take it off because
they were worried I'd be running on the playground and
bop up and bust my nose or something and they'd
get sued. So and then uh, later on wrestling, I
was a big fan of Bray Wyatt. I liked his
character work Untouchable on the mic, Like he just is
(16:00):
such a good narrator, such a good storyteller.
Speaker 1 (16:03):
You know.
Speaker 2 (16:04):
Shame he ended up passing so young. Yeah, I think, yeah,
I think that's about it.
Speaker 1 (16:14):
So that floats pretty well into the way I normally
asked this to guys, is the wrestlers you like may
not have been the guys that you adopt style for.
And like the example I always give is I'm a
huge Jeff Hardy fan too. I never once tried to
wrestle like Jeff Hardy because I knew I couldn't do it.
Similar to what you said, like the high flying stuff,
just what didn't work for you. So who are the
wrestlers that like? Not saying they were your favorites, but
(16:36):
you looked at their style, their moves and like, that
is more what I'm capable of doing. So was there
guys that weren't your favorites that you just took inspiration from?
Speaker 2 (16:45):
Yeah, definitely, less so in WWE on some of the indies.
So Chris hero I really liked his technical style, how
creative he was. He could turn a cravat into any
variation of move. Excuse me, super dragon from a p
w G. I don't know if you're heard of him,
(17:06):
but super strong style, real hard hitting just added that
sense of legitimacy to the sport. Also fantastic look. I
don't know how many people try to copy that signature
mask he has. And then as far as w W
E style, probably I don't know if I say it,
(17:31):
Chris Benwa.
Speaker 1 (17:32):
It's okay, you can say it. That's fine.
Speaker 2 (17:35):
Not the most popular dude, but probably the best technical
wrestler of all time. And I'm by no means super
proficient technical wrestler, but I do try to adopt some
of those some of that style into mind, just those
Chris polls, those Chris transitions.
Speaker 1 (17:53):
Yeah, I'm glad you said Chris Hero, because that's a
guy whose name I feel doesn't get said enough when
people get I think people are like influenced by him
and not even realize it half the time. Some of
the stuff that he was able to do.
Speaker 2 (18:04):
Uhh, I think I think he's criminally underrated. He went
to NXT and they made him Cassius Ono, but I
guess he just didn't keep up with uh his form
got a little chubby and ended up getting let go.
Uh you know what could have been? I think he
was fantastic when him and Claudio Is the Kings of Wrestling,
(18:27):
was just such a solid tag team.
Speaker 1 (18:29):
I actually met him once brief, like at one of
the meet and greets at NXT. If I can find
the picture, I'll throw it in here. But yeah, he
was I remember hearing like it was a thyroid issue
with him. So no matter what he did, like he
was going to pack on the weight and that obviously
isn't gonna work in WB's That's probably what happened with that.
This This is the closest thing I come to a
hot take question. There are wrestlers that people adore that
(18:53):
to other people you just don't get. For me, it's
always been Brocklesner, never been a Brocklesner guy. Forrest Nystrom
was in hot water saying his was f Cobb when
Shane Evans was on the show. He's not a well
offspray Kenny Omega guy. So that with that being your
your pre set there, who's a super popular wrestler that
you just you just don't get Roman reigns. That's that's fair.
Speaker 2 (19:15):
Yeah, I think he shit. I think uh, He's definitely
done way better work as the tribal chief. But I
think the reason for that is he didn't need to
talk because he had ham in his mouth. He's the
same thing with Brock, Like they knew Brock couldn't cover
promo so they stuck Haymon with him. They're like, hey,
you're gonna be the big guy. Uh, let Hayman do
(19:37):
the talking. They kind of did the same thing with Roman,
but I think he's uh criminally overrated. Actually the tie
back to Chris Hero that was supposed to be.
Speaker 3 (19:46):
His uh yet in the Shield Punk on the Cole
Cabana podcast and ended up bringing up Roman reigns.
Speaker 2 (19:58):
So yeah, I'd say I'd go with Roman Rains.
Speaker 1 (20:03):
You know, one thing I say in like wrestling conversation,
I think I've said it on camera before. This is
a great time to say it. Roman Rains is the
greatest placeholder of all time because they literally just gave
him the belt, him show up every few months, Paul
Haymond does the rest of the work, and people talk
about what a great job he did with that, And
like my caveat is, I think anybody would have done
a great job with all those in play. You could
(20:23):
could have done that with Chris Hero, you could have
done that with Cesarro Castricknoli. However you want to say it,
you give anybody that many resources, it'd be really hard
to fumble that. So like, did he do well with it? Yeah?
But it's not. I don't think it was super hard
to do well with that. So I one hundred percent
agree with you. And you are the first one to
say Roman rains. That's a bold choice and I respect
you for it.
Speaker 2 (20:43):
Thanks, and I agree if you if you strap a
rocket to someone, they're gonna go to the moon, you know,
if you uh, you know, booking the wh up to
a point, there is there is a lot of diminishing returns,
like with Sina, like they had seen in every match
for one thousand years and people got sick of it.
(21:04):
I think it's a little different because Roman is a heel,
so it's easier if to just keep putting him over
and then he gets the hate for it, but then
it ties into being a heel, so he's fine with it.
Speaker 1 (21:18):
The one I always looked at was I don't know
if you were watching the product at all at this
time or heard about it, but like you know, people
wanted Cesarro. They thought he was the next guy. He
had the look that Vince should have wanted and everything,
and it never really worked out. And they're like, well, this,
that and the other, that's why it never happened. But
then you gave the title to Gender Mahal, And it's like,
if you can give the title to Gender Mahaal, there
was no excuse to at least try it with anybody,
(21:39):
Like why why not try it with Cesarrow if you're
gonna try it with Gender Mahal And General Hall is
a better worker than he probably gets credit for. But
when you take literally just pull a guy out of
the undercard, you eliminated the excuse of like, oh, we
don't have we don't have the ability to try it
with him. If you can try it with gender Mahall,
you could probably try it with anybody.
Speaker 2 (21:57):
Yeah, one hundred percent. I don't pretend to understand any
of the decisions Creative make at this point. They're just
gonna keep doing whatever they want whether we like it.
Speaker 1 (22:10):
So one of the other things I like to ask everybody,
and it's pretty topical now, with you winning your first
championship off of looks alone, what are some of the
belts in you know, maybe more mainstream wrestling that you
are a fan of just based off the look of them.
Speaker 2 (22:26):
Not to plug around promotion, but those new PWR tag
titles look sick. They really do that red leather like
very Chris. But as far as all time, I'm a
big fan of the Intercontinental title from the Ruthless Aggression era.
I think it had a really sleek look, real popular choice.
The original WCW heavyweight title. I think Brock looked great
(22:51):
with that, you know, like the big, big face gold one.
The Smoking Skull belt was cool, even if it was
like a gimmick or a one off. I think of
like the gimmick belts, that was the coolest one. I'm
not a big fan of. I feel like it started
with if it didn't start with the smoking skills with
(23:14):
John Cena Spinner title, and then after that it felt
like every wrestler was trying to like customize the belt.
I know Bray Wyatt had like the big stretched out
face thing. Yeah, and I'm not a huge fan of
that because I think it kind of detracts from the
title itself. But that makes any.
Speaker 1 (23:34):
Sense, it does. So you're talking about this one, right, Yeah, yeah,
I agree. You know, most people love the classic one
and it's a beautiful belt, but this is the one
I grew up on. This is the first like replica
I ever bought, so it's funny I added over on
the shelf. I to grab it. But I will admit
it does surprise me that you weren't into the bray
Wyatt one because that, I mean personally, just from the
(23:55):
short time that I've known you, that seems right up
your alley. So that does surprise me a little that
that wasn't really that's not really your thing.
Speaker 2 (24:00):
It's definitely cool looking. I think it's just the precedent
that it sets, because I feel like every wrestler after
that is going to want to gimmick up their belt
to make it look like this list or that.
Speaker 1 (24:12):
Right like when I don't know if you were watching,
this probably would have been right after you kind of
got out. But like when Jeff Hardy won the title
in TNA, he got like his immortal, you know, imagi
Nation looking belt, and as Jeff Hardy being my favorite wrestler,
there is still a short list of guys that have
gotten their own like custom belt. So like, I'm I'm
happy that he's on it. But the belt itself, yeah,
not a huge fan of it, but it's it's his
(24:34):
art style, so it's what you'd expect Jeff Hardy belt
to look like. But it's like, I'm glad he's on
that list, but but in general didn't didn't love the design.
Speaker 2 (24:43):
Yeah, honorable mention to the the Interconnmental title they had
with the white leather strap.
Speaker 1 (24:49):
Yeah, yeah, that's definitely a favorite for most people. Is
there anyones that you flat out don't don't like?
Speaker 2 (24:57):
Yeah, that Divas title with the butterfly, Yeah.
Speaker 1 (25:01):
I try not to, but I do.
Speaker 2 (25:05):
That wasn't great. I can't think any of off the
top of my head. That of my head that I
just despised, But I just remember that one being ship.
Speaker 1 (25:15):
Do you ever do you have the high voltage belt
anywhere near you? Did you do you take it with
you when you go back to Colorado?
Speaker 2 (25:21):
Or actually I take it to the grocery store. I
take it to Blockbuster.
Speaker 1 (25:28):
There it is. So do you still have days where
you wake up and you're like, I am a champion,
aren't I? Has it fully sunk in yet? It's been
what two three weeks? Like, has it sunk in yet?
Speaker 2 (25:38):
Yeah? I'm still rudding that high. Actually wake up in
the belt every morning. This is all I wear to bed.
Girlfriend hates it, but she understands. It's the champion's duty,
you know, to display the title at all times. But yeah,
I remember for that first week, I was still in
disbelief that I was the champion, that that I had
(26:01):
actually won this. In fact, right after I wanted it
still didn't feel real. You can look at the footage.
I'm in the ring just kind of in disbelief of
what had just transpired, and it definitely took a few
days to sync in. But now that it has more
than happy, I'm ready to defend it. I'm willing able
(26:23):
and fighting champion. Been the rules here and there? Sure, sure,
but you know, whatever it takes. This is the high
voltage title. It was the low voltage title. I wouldn't go,
you know, through any means to defend it or win it, but.
Speaker 1 (26:41):
Makes plenty of sense to me, So I want to
be respectful of the champs time. I don't want to
take too much of it, but I do have a
lightning round of non wrestling questions if your game before
we get out. So let's start with what's your favorite
and least favorite part about living in Colorado.
Speaker 2 (26:58):
Favorite part is the intererny outdoors. I still get in.
I've been here six years. I still get enthralled and
entranced by the mountains. Just gorgeous, natural aesthetics. Least favorite
part be the junkies that seem to be flooding Denver.
We had one or a pair of them decided to
empty our dumpster two days ago and just throw all
(27:20):
the trash everywhere. A month ago, we had a literal
dumpster fire on the other side of the complex. I
can't pull out of my neighborhood without seeing three guys
doing the fentanyl fold at the gas station, and it
just seems to be getting worse.
Speaker 1 (27:37):
I'd love to say if he came back to Florida
that you wouldn't see these things. It's maybe not at
the same level, but unfortunately that's starting to starting to
be everywhere, so that you know, can't really avoid that necessarily.
This one isn't necessarily part of the Lightning round, but
it did mean to bring it up. When you're not
in the ring, when you're not winning titles and you're
not choking people, you like to maud video game consoles.
You've made a business out of it. What's like the
(27:59):
you know, the quick version of how you got started
doing that?
Speaker 2 (28:02):
Sure, So, back in twenty nineteen, I just moved to Colorado.
I was working in an assisted living center for the
elderly with dementia, and I had randomly stumbled across the
YouTube video of a guy that modified Nintendo Week consoles,
and I'm like, Wow, that is the coolest thing in
(28:22):
the world. So I started a little side hustle doing that,
as well as just selling retro video or buying and
reselling retro video games in general. A couple of years
went by, I realized I was making more on my
days off than my days on so April Fool's Day
twenty twenty two, I quit my full time job and
went full time with this and have been doing it
(28:44):
ever since.
Speaker 1 (28:47):
That's incredible. Video game has always been a huge part
of my life. He showed your video game tattoos earlier.
I do have a Sonic da Hedgehog tattoos, so I'm
very much in the club with that. What are the ones?
I'm always curious because I've recently I'm a Dreamcast guy.
That's how we has been my retro of choice. I
worked with a coworker of mine. He knew how to
do it. He showed me how to mod mind so
I have like the st card with all the games
(29:07):
pre loaded. Didn't seem overly difficult. I know there's other consoles,
like the level of difficulty go up and down. What
is like I assume like an NES pretty simple these days.
What's the biggest challenge and what's the easiest stuff to
mod these days?
Speaker 2 (29:23):
Say? The easiest probably the first one I started with,
which was the Nintendo Wii, used to take me upwards
of forty five minutes to an hour to mod one.
Now I think I can do one in about twelve
minutes flat vanilla to fully modded. Same with the Sony PSP,
I can do one of those and probably nine minutes.
(29:44):
The hardest one. By the way, I only do soft modding,
so it's just messing with the software. I don't know
how to use a soldering iron because I know a
lot of I saw stay away from anything Microsoft because
that requires getting in the guts the console and actually
soldering things to metal, which I'm just I'm not comfortable with.
(30:05):
So I guess the most difficult ones of the ones
I do mod would be the Dreamcast, just because that
does require going in and swapping out the disk drive
for an SD adapter. But even that, it's like I
think six or seven screws to get it done just
the time that it takes to do it. Compared to
all the other ones that are just strictly SD card softomode,
(30:27):
I'd say that's probably the more most, if not the
most difficult, the most time consuming.
Speaker 1 (30:31):
So the Dreamcast when it doesn't require any soldering, though,
it's just all spurs and such. Okay, good good.
Speaker 2 (30:37):
The only soldering I've ever done is like Pokemon, save
batteries for the carriages. But I not well versed enough
to start doing wires and you know, connecting things like that.
Speaker 1 (30:48):
Is that something you hope as your business grows or
you like to stick with what you know and just
do that.
Speaker 2 (30:53):
Well, well, so I started off modern Wee's and only
did that for the first few years, and then realize
how many other consoles could be modeled. So I'm always
looking to expand my repertoire. So after that I learned
the PSP PS two, PS three, three DS, we you uh,
(31:13):
and Dreamcast. So anything that can be modeled I'm looking
to mod.
Speaker 1 (31:19):
Isn't the three DS super simple? Like it's it's just
kind of like an SD card with a program type
thing pretty much. Yeah, that's it's because I have I
have one people. Anytime I like when I went to
buy it, it's like, yeah, we only get these in stocks,
so people can buy them and mod them. Like that's
kind of the because once the e shop closed, that's
what everybody wants to do with it.
Speaker 2 (31:37):
Yeah, yeah, they have. It's called the Eighth Shop actually,
so it's just like an emulator to e shop where
you can download whatever you'd like if you own the
physical copy of the game. Of course, is the only
legal way to download a.
Speaker 1 (31:51):
ROM right, Like when I did when I did the Dreamcast,
I literally went down because I have like a bin
of Dreamcast games and I literally went down the line
and found the ROMs of everything that I owned instead
of having to switch to just out it's all on
It's all on a card. That's that's what that's the
main point for it for sure. But with some of these,
I mean, it's like you're not really hurting a business
that's no longer functioning in that aspect to like my
(32:13):
big thing, my big beef with Nintendo, like the classic
Pokemon games. If you don't want people modding them, make
them available on the switch. On the switch too, they're
not there, So what do you expect people to do?
Just never play these classics. Again, I blame them just
as much as I blame anybody, uh you know, downloading
anything that for those type of games.
Speaker 2 (32:31):
Oh yeah, one hundred percent. Nintendo is blood thirsty. I
get a lot of quests for modern Nintendo switches and
I will not touch those because they're still selling games
in stores. Some guy in Canada is moding switches and
Nintendo sued him for twenty five dollars, So I don't
(32:52):
have that right now, right, not planning on getting on
Nintendo's bad side. But I agree some of these games
you can only get in the secondary market, and retro
prices have gotten ridiculous, especially after COVID. Some games have
like tripled in value, and I think they're only going
to go up because they are a finite commodity that
(33:15):
they only produced x amount of. You know, they're never
going to make another Super Mario sixty four, right, and
there's less and less of them every year, so they
become increasingly more rare. They can only increase in value.
But you know, you're hard pressed to pay three hundred
dollars for a single game, So that's how I justify it.
Speaker 1 (33:36):
Yeah, I think that's a pretty safe bet to like
you know, like you said, if you're not trying to
go get the new Switch game that just came out,
Like there, I totally see where the difference of the
line is there. So we we chatted about this a
while back, and I think it'd be fun to end
on this for a definitive answer. What is your I'll
give mine to But are are your Mount Rushmore video games?
(33:58):
That is a big question and you think about that.
Let me let me throw this on top because I
always had this conversation with people when people say, like,
you're Mount Rushmore of X, Y or Z. A lot
of people hear that and say, oh, they want my
top four. But to me, the Mount Rushmore is based
on like the foundation of a r case the country.
So it's more or less one of the four games
that like built your foundation of your gaming taste or
(34:20):
the games that you like. That's how whenever somebody says
like like if you did, I know you're not like
huge team sports guy, but it's like you're Mount Rushmore
of Denver Broncos you can't name somebody now, you gotta
name someone that helped build like the foundation of the
franchise is how So what's like, yeah, so the four
that kind of helped build your your gaming taste.
Speaker 2 (34:41):
Donkey Kong Country two for the Super Nintendo, Twist the
Metal two for the PS one, Ogre Battle sixty four,
Person of Lord Lee Caliber for the M sixty four,
and I gotta say StarCraft for the PC. Pretty big
on StarCraft back.
Speaker 1 (35:01):
In my day. Nice that one's out in left field.
Some people are gonna be happy to hear that one
because that's one of those if you were rather part
part of it, or you weren't, so that's that'll be
cool for that. I'm gonna leave out all sports games
for this because that deserves its own. I'll go Pokemon
Soul Silver. I was gonna say Pokemon Yellow, but you
get you play Soul Silver, you kind of get half
a yellow anyway. Star Fox sixty four Classic, let's look
(35:25):
at oh favorite game of all time, Sonic Adventure two
for the Dreamcast, and I gotta fit one more. Usually
there's a supports game in that fourth role, so let
me think, and wrestling too. You'd have to do like
a whole nother Mount rushmore just for wrestling games. I'll
go with just because me and my wife bondover I'll
go Kingdom Hearts, the original Kingdom Hearts for sure. She's
(35:47):
actually playing Kingdom Hearts three in the other room as
we record this, So.
Speaker 2 (35:50):
There you go, a man of culture.
Speaker 1 (35:52):
Yeah, yeah, of course, So Champ, I just want to
say I appreciate your time. I've gotten to know you
over these past couple months. I'd like to consider your
friend at this point. I'm glad that we're in the
same company and get the chat like this, so I
look forward to seeing you the next PWR show.
Speaker 2 (36:06):
Awesome, the feeling is mutual. I appreciate you having me
on in an official capacity. Sorry about last time. I
just I've always subscribed to the philosophy of asking forgiveness
over permission, so I you know I couldn't help, but
just chime in on your last podcast.
Speaker 1 (36:22):
I'll be honest. I really should have brought that up
at the beginning, but I was more impressed than anything,
so I was definitely not upset. I was more impressed.
But I'm glad we can't call this your podcast debut,
but it is your first planned appearance, so you know,
I appreciate it having you. So I want to thank
everyone for checking it out. Be sure to follow a
PWR on all social media. We got a lot of
good things coming up in the next few months. And also,
(36:42):
do you want to drop the info for your for
your moding business so people can get with you about
some orders.
Speaker 2 (36:47):
Yeah, sure, Dad's Chompsky Hanks Retro shut up. You can
find me at Chompsky Mods on Instagram.
Speaker 1 (36:56):
You go, there, you go.
Speaker 2 (36:57):
Yep, Yes, it's probably backwards, but uh, it's a pretty
unique names, not terribly hard to find. Also, welcome and
just reach out to me on Facebook for all of
your console modification needs.
Speaker 1 (37:11):
Well, there it is, guys. Thank you all for listening
and be sure to tune in late to this in
the next week. We will be reviewing Happy Gilmore too
when that release is on Friday. So that's the next episode.
I want to thank Heaven again for being here, Thank
you all for listening, and we'll see you next time.
How's it going, guys, Thanks for tuning into this episode
of the Phil Talk Sports podcast. Another PWR Wrestling edition
of the show. Today going to recap our most recent event,
PWR Ascension, that took place on June twenty eighth. A
lot of great stuff happened in this one. We crowned
a brand new PWR Heavyweight Champion and former guest of
the show, Alejandro Bravos, stuck true to his word, said
(00:33):
he'd show up anywhere, and he did and he left
with the gold. And then in our main event, we
had an over the top rope battle Royal to crown
our first ever High Voltage champion. And before we talk
about the winner of that match, another headline is said,
I was in it. Yup. I was in a professional
wrestling match for the first time in over ten years.
I got a chance to get back in the ring,
and I got to admit it started out pretty good. Here
(00:54):
you can see I'm hitting a TKO on Friend of
the Show Forrest Nystrom. Later in the match, I hit
a spinebuster on Kyle Steele the Dynasty and things are
going great for me. And so they ran into the
man they call Boomer and here you can see he's
clotheslining me to oblivion and never really recovered from that.
I was able to hang in there for a little
bit longer. I ended up getting eliminated by the guy
(01:15):
that won the whole thing, our new high voltage champion,
Kevin Kleebold, who we're going to talk to in just
a minute here. But as you can see by this
footage that I have, he might not even know this,
but there was a little bit of interference by a
guy by the name of Baron Blackhart. You can see
he hits me with this book that he carries around,
and I might have got back in the ring, might
have not, but that guy should not have stuck his
(01:35):
nose in that match. So before we get to our guest,
I just want to look down the lens and say, barn,
you will be dealt with anyway. It's time to get
to our guests. He is a guy that outlasted fifteen
other man sixteen if you count our j He did
it for dvid D in that match to become the
first ever high voltage champion. So, without further ado, guys
wants you to meet Kevin Cleebold. All right, guys, joining
(02:01):
me at this time, he outlasted fifteen other wrestlers and
an over the top rope battle Royal. He is our
inaugural p w R High Voltage Champion. Welcome Kevin Cleebold.
It's going good man. I think an awesome place to
start would be, it's that your real voice, because that's
all we've ever heard from you before. At what's going
(02:21):
on over there? Alright? This?
Speaker 2 (02:25):
Oh, it's actually all the masks, little voice change right
put in here.
Speaker 1 (02:32):
That's pretty clever, a crazy right, Yeah, that's pretty cool.
So where'd you get the idea for the for the mask?
Speaker 2 (02:43):
Like?
Speaker 1 (02:43):
What about that mask made you want to make that
part of your persona and everything? To tie it back
into wrestling?
Speaker 2 (02:51):
Well, kind of a video game nerd. I modified video
game consoles for a living. I have a shy guy tattoo,
and I've never seen anyone else do it before. It
simple but effective and just ominous intimidating for no particular reason.
(03:12):
So I just kind of adopted it and it's worked
ever since.
Speaker 1 (03:17):
Yeah, people were definitely taken to it. I think at
the last PWR show even saw a few of them
in the crowd, So the fans are really taken to them.
You ended the last show PWR Ascension as the first
High Voltage Heavyweight champion. We talked a little bit before this,
that's your first championship as like a professional. We'll start
with you know, what did that mean to you to
(03:37):
win your first title?
Speaker 2 (03:40):
It was a pretty big deal. I was surprised they
gave me the opportunity in the first place, given my
track record I've had up to that point, nothing but disqualifications.
I just couldn't help myself. Choking Shane Evans out may
have choked him right into retire from being honest, but
(04:03):
I was super grateful for the opportunity. A lot of
serious competitors in that match, a lot of tough dudes,
somehow outlasted them all. Came down to me at Boomer
at the end, he almost had me, managed to get
the upper hand on him, knock him out, won the title,
(04:24):
and honestly, I couldn't believe it at the time, and
I'm still kind of riding that crest of the high
and beautiful wave.
Speaker 1 (04:31):
So a lot of people might not realize that how
different a battle Royal is than trying to just compete
in a regular even if it's a multiman match, But
how does your strategy change? You know, somebody that was
in that match for a short time and you're I'm
one of the many people that you eliminated in that match,
got a little help from Baron Blackhart. I'm not even
sure you knew what happened there, But that's something I
gotta get with him about in the future. But how
(04:52):
does your style change about You know, I'm not trying
to pin someone. I'm trying to not trying to make
him submit. I'm just trying to get him out of
the ring. So how is that different for you?
Speaker 2 (05:00):
One hundred percent it's a lot different than most of
the matches you're gonna be wrestling, where you're looking for
a pinner as submission as normally you're going one on
one with another guy. You can do your due diligence,
you can study the tapes, you can find their strength,
to find their weaknesses and come up with some kind
of strategy to get the upper hand on them. Battle Royale,
you got fifteen to twenty other guys to contend with.
(05:23):
There's so many different variables, especially since you're not looking
for a pin, you're not looking for a submission. Those
aren't going to count. You're just trying to toss guys
out without getting tossed out yourself. So I think it
definitely factors into what you're trying to do.
Speaker 1 (05:41):
So as that match kind of came towards the end,
I was long gone, a couple other guys had been eliminated.
Towards the end of it, we kind of had with
the final eight, the Elite eight, if you will, of
this match, we had a bit of an alliance form
on the side we saw the Unnatural Causes was recruiting.
They recruited Flying Brian Kaiser earlier in the night, they
had forced Nitrant and standing with them, and you were
(06:01):
on the side of Kyle Steele. Ethan was there, Kwame
was there? Was that kind of heat of the moment
or what kind of made those battle lines be drawn?
Speaker 2 (06:11):
Honestly, I can't call it. I'd never met any of
those guys beforehand. I've noticed we do have some similarities
in style, same with the Unnatural Causes and their draftees.
I think it just kind of formed naturally and people
picked their sides and had a big standoff and ended
up pretty big battle.
Speaker 1 (06:36):
Is that the last time we would think to see
you standing with the guys of that nature or can
we expect more of that in the future.
Speaker 2 (06:43):
I'd never say never. If the opportunity is right, I'm
game for anything.
Speaker 1 (06:53):
So we know where you sit right now, PW or
High Voltage Heavyweight Champion. Let's talk about kind of where
you came from, because a lot of guys in PWR
either in Florida, very close to Florida. You visit us
all the way from Colorado for these shows, so you
probably fly over hundreds of promotions, not an exaggeration to
get over here. So I think it's a reasonable question
(07:13):
to ask why PWR.
Speaker 2 (07:16):
Sure, so a lot of people don't know him originally
from Florida, lived there for fourteen years. It's ten years
down in Jupiter to South Florida, and then four years
in Orlando. Is pretty close to where PWR currently operates.
So I want to say probably half, maybe slightly more
(07:38):
than half the roster I've known for upwards of twenty years.
We've wrestled against each other, wrestled with each other, and
a bunch of different promotions all over Florida before I'd
moved to Colorado. And then when they start said they
were getting pro wrestling rebellions starting up last year. I
(07:59):
couldn't help to take the opportunity. Just like the guys,
I love doing the sport. I love coming together and
making a great production. I would fly two thousand miles
to do it. And it's just such a great group
of dudes. The shows are run fantastic. I was blown away.
(08:21):
I hadn't wrestled in eight years well prior to coming
back to tw R, but I came to the show
in February just as a spectator and I got the itch.
I couldn't help myself, so I think I have one
more run in there.
Speaker 1 (08:40):
Well, it's great to see and it's off to a
fantastic start. So, you know, you were eight years separated.
What was that process like getting back into I don't know,
ring shape, both physically and mentally. You know my little
stint in that match. It had been ten years for
me and obviously my appearance in there didn't go quite
as well as years. But what was your process like
getting back? You had the two matches with Shane Evans
(09:02):
that while they you know, went to this qualification, they
went the distance. Could have easily won either of those.
The first Dkey wasn't really your fault. That was more Bravo,
And I've had Bravo on this show, and I totally
see how that would happen. But what was the process
like getting back into you know, you get the itch,
what is step one to like I'm trying to get
back in there?
Speaker 2 (09:22):
I think just general exercise. Cardio was super important. A
lot of people don't realize how easy it is to
get blowing up in there. You know, you're lifting two
hundred undred and fifty pound guys over your head, running
the ropes. So cardio was definitely my first focal point.
(09:45):
Just consistent, see you with the gym, trying to eat better,
you know, cut off the crap, cut out the sugar.
That being said, nothing can really compare with in ring time,
getting time in the ring and rolling around. You can lift,
you can run, you can do all the machines you want,
(10:05):
but actually getting in there and rolling around in the
ring is a completely different animal. So to get prepared
to just staying more consistent with the gym, and then
I'd show up a few hours early for the shows,
get in there, bump around a little bit, hit the ropes,
see how everything's feeling, and I definitely still have some
(10:27):
rust taken over almost a decade off, but every time
I get in there, it feels more and more natural,
and it feels like I'm right back in the hot seat.
Speaker 1 (10:38):
In that eight years away. Did you as a fan
follow wrestling still anymore? A lot of these guys even
when they're away, you know what, maybe not every week,
but like I'm very aware of what's going on in
like mainstream wrestling. Were you involved in wrestling as a
fan at all in that time away?
Speaker 2 (10:52):
Nothing mainstream. I haven't watched any WWE in probably ten years.
I don't think I've watched one aw show. I know
that's a hot take being a pro wrestler not actually
watching the product. I've watched like big clips, you know,
like Ceampunk's return, John Cenas, he'll turn so like big moments,
(11:15):
but I can't remember the last time I've actually sat
down and watched the show. So nothing against them, I
just lost interest in the mainstream product.
Speaker 1 (11:27):
I guess, you know, the more I interview, you know,
more wrestlers on this show. I think that's actually more
and more common like that. People they know what's going on.
They may have some sort of pulse on it, But like,
is it not as unusual as maybe a fan would
think that somebody in wrestling doesn't necessarily watch all the wrestling.
Speaker 2 (11:45):
Yeah, I wouldn't think it's too terribly unusual, Like I
still love watching my friends perform. But I'm and I'm
sure it's pretty common with people growing up, you know,
like me and most of the guys were in our
mid thirties. Now a lot of them have kids. We
all full time jobs, so being able to find that
time to set aside and to dedicate two to three hours,
(12:09):
you know, once twice three times a week, it's kind
of a hard ask. The older you get, the more
responsibilities you have, the more you have going on. So
I don't think it's terribly uncommon.
Speaker 1 (12:20):
But yeah, I always say, you know, back when we
were growing up, I'm only a dash younger than a
lot of the guys on the roster, but you know,
we had maybe we had raw, we had SmackDown. That
was really it. ECW and WCW had come and gone.
Really for most of our you know, teenage years or whatever.
Now you could almost say there was too much wrestling
on TV, and that would have been a good problem
(12:41):
to have back when, but now it's just impossible to
keep up with everything back when you were, you know, whatever,
the peak what I guess we'll start here, what is
your What would you say was your peak fandom around
what time?
Speaker 2 (12:53):
So I was a relatively late bloomer. I guess a
lot of the guys started wrestling in that or sorry,
I started watching in the Added twoed era, which I
think was the peak of mainstream wrestling in the entire
world as far as just like a casual fan or
like you could ask probably anyone on the street in
nineteen ninety nine, they're gonna know who Stone Cold, Steve
Boston is or the Rock. So I got in right
(13:17):
at the tail end, right after the Attitude era had
ended in two thousand and two. I distinctly remember the
very first raw I watched was Triple H's return, So
it was probably, like I want to say, a year
before the Ruthless Aggression era, and I would say that
(13:37):
those initial years were my peak fandom. So I'm gonna
say like two thousand and two to probably probably two
thousand and nine honestly, but definitely two thousand and two,
two thousand and three, two thousand and four, and two
thousand and five were when I was the biggest fan.
Speaker 1 (13:54):
You know, my hot take has always been obviously you
hit the nail on the head attitude era is the
peak popular of wrestling in the world. But like in
the ring, the Ruthless Aggression era was actually, you know,
the peak mainstream. Obviously, there was stuff going on in
like TNA and Ring of Honor all that stuff that
you had to really look for to find. But the
best wrestling you found on TV outside of you know,
(14:16):
if you if you dig for it now was definitely
the Ruthless Aggression era, So that was a perfect time
to get into it. Who were your favorites at the
peak of your fandom.
Speaker 2 (14:28):
I was always a big Hurricane Mark Nice. I was
actually the very first raw I went to was the
one where he beat the Rock, uh and I marked
out Heavy incredible. Yeah, I'll be it was with you know,
stone Cold's interference, but I mean it was still win. Yeah,
it's a win over the Rock. I was a big
Jeff Hardy fan and the Hardy Boys. I think my
(14:50):
first wrestling T shirt was a Lift for the Moment
Hardy Boys shirt rv D and Eddie Garreow. I was
a real big fan of the high flying style, just
kind of reckless attitude. When I started wrestling. Initially, I
tried to adopt that into my own set, and it
(15:12):
turns out I'm not nearly as coordinated as those gentlemen,
and just most of the flips and the high flying
and stuff I did look to just sloppy. So I
just kind of cut it out altogether, you know, play
to your strengths.
Speaker 1 (15:26):
And then I was a I.
Speaker 2 (15:28):
Was a pretty big John Cena Mark when he was
doing the uh Doctor of thugonomic skimmick.
Speaker 1 (15:34):
I think.
Speaker 2 (15:34):
I think in middle school, I actually wore a chain
with a lock on it to school and uh got
in trouble and they made me take it off because
they were worried I'd be running on the playground and
bop up and bust my nose or something and they'd
get sued. So and then uh, later on wrestling, I
was a big fan of Bray Wyatt. I liked his
character work Untouchable on the mic, Like he just is
(16:00):
such a good narrator, such a good storyteller.
Speaker 1 (16:03):
You know.
Speaker 2 (16:04):
Shame he ended up passing so young. Yeah, I think, yeah,
I think that's about it.
Speaker 1 (16:14):
So that floats pretty well into the way I normally
asked this to guys, is the wrestlers you like may
not have been the guys that you adopt style for.
And like the example I always give is I'm a
huge Jeff Hardy fan too. I never once tried to
wrestle like Jeff Hardy because I knew I couldn't do it.
Similar to what you said, like the high flying stuff,
just what didn't work for you. So who are the
wrestlers that like? Not saying they were your favorites, but
(16:36):
you looked at their style, their moves and like, that
is more what I'm capable of doing. So was there
guys that weren't your favorites that you just took inspiration from?
Speaker 2 (16:45):
Yeah, definitely, less so in WWE on some of the indies.
So Chris hero I really liked his technical style, how
creative he was. He could turn a cravat into any
variation of move. Excuse me, super dragon from a p
w G. I don't know if you're heard of him,
(17:06):
but super strong style, real hard hitting just added that
sense of legitimacy to the sport. Also fantastic look. I
don't know how many people try to copy that signature
mask he has. And then as far as w W
E style, probably I don't know if I say it,
(17:31):
Chris Benwa.
Speaker 1 (17:32):
It's okay, you can say it. That's fine.
Speaker 2 (17:35):
Not the most popular dude, but probably the best technical
wrestler of all time. And I'm by no means super
proficient technical wrestler, but I do try to adopt some
of those some of that style into mind, just those
Chris polls, those Chris transitions.
Speaker 1 (17:53):
Yeah, I'm glad you said Chris Hero, because that's a
guy whose name I feel doesn't get said enough when
people get I think people are like influenced by him
and not even realize it half the time. Some of
the stuff that he was able to do.
Speaker 2 (18:04):
Uhh, I think I think he's criminally underrated. He went
to NXT and they made him Cassius Ono, but I
guess he just didn't keep up with uh his form
got a little chubby and ended up getting let go.
Uh you know what could have been? I think he
was fantastic when him and Claudio Is the Kings of Wrestling,
(18:27):
was just such a solid tag team.
Speaker 1 (18:29):
I actually met him once brief, like at one of
the meet and greets at NXT. If I can find
the picture, I'll throw it in here. But yeah, he
was I remember hearing like it was a thyroid issue
with him. So no matter what he did, like he
was going to pack on the weight and that obviously
isn't gonna work in WB's That's probably what happened with that.
This This is the closest thing I come to a
hot take question. There are wrestlers that people adore that
(18:53):
to other people you just don't get. For me, it's
always been Brocklesner, never been a Brocklesner guy. Forrest Nystrom
was in hot water saying his was f Cobb when
Shane Evans was on the show. He's not a well
offspray Kenny Omega guy. So that with that being your
your pre set there, who's a super popular wrestler that
you just you just don't get Roman reigns. That's that's fair.
Speaker 2 (19:15):
Yeah, I think he shit. I think uh, He's definitely
done way better work as the tribal chief. But I
think the reason for that is he didn't need to
talk because he had ham in his mouth. He's the
same thing with Brock, Like they knew Brock couldn't cover
promo so they stuck Haymon with him. They're like, hey,
you're gonna be the big guy. Uh, let Hayman do
(19:37):
the talking. They kind of did the same thing with Roman,
but I think he's uh criminally overrated. Actually the tie
back to Chris Hero that was supposed to be.
Speaker 3 (19:46):
His uh yet in the Shield Punk on the Cole
Cabana podcast and ended up bringing up Roman reigns.
Speaker 2 (19:58):
So yeah, I'd say I'd go with Roman Rains.
Speaker 1 (20:03):
You know, one thing I say in like wrestling conversation,
I think I've said it on camera before. This is
a great time to say it. Roman Rains is the
greatest placeholder of all time because they literally just gave
him the belt, him show up every few months, Paul
Haymond does the rest of the work, and people talk
about what a great job he did with that, And
like my caveat is, I think anybody would have done
a great job with all those in play. You could
(20:23):
could have done that with Chris Hero, you could have
done that with Cesarro Castricknoli. However you want to say it,
you give anybody that many resources, it'd be really hard
to fumble that. So like, did he do well with it? Yeah?
But it's not. I don't think it was super hard
to do well with that. So I one hundred percent
agree with you. And you are the first one to
say Roman rains. That's a bold choice and I respect
you for it.
Speaker 2 (20:43):
Thanks, and I agree if you if you strap a
rocket to someone, they're gonna go to the moon, you know,
if you uh, you know, booking the wh up to
a point, there is there is a lot of diminishing returns,
like with Sina, like they had seen in every match
for one thousand years and people got sick of it.
(21:04):
I think it's a little different because Roman is a heel,
so it's easier if to just keep putting him over
and then he gets the hate for it, but then
it ties into being a heel, so he's fine with it.
Speaker 1 (21:18):
The one I always looked at was I don't know
if you were watching the product at all at this
time or heard about it, but like you know, people
wanted Cesarro. They thought he was the next guy. He
had the look that Vince should have wanted and everything,
and it never really worked out. And they're like, well, this,
that and the other, that's why it never happened. But
then you gave the title to Gender Mahal, And it's like,
if you can give the title to Gender Mahaal, there
was no excuse to at least try it with anybody,
(21:39):
Like why why not try it with Cesarrow if you're
gonna try it with Gender Mahal And General Hall is
a better worker than he probably gets credit for. But
when you take literally just pull a guy out of
the undercard, you eliminated the excuse of like, oh, we
don't have we don't have the ability to try it
with him. If you can try it with gender Mahall,
you could probably try it with anybody.
Speaker 2 (21:57):
Yeah, one hundred percent. I don't pretend to understand any
of the decisions Creative make at this point. They're just
gonna keep doing whatever they want whether we like it.
Speaker 1 (22:10):
So one of the other things I like to ask everybody,
and it's pretty topical now, with you winning your first
championship off of looks alone, what are some of the
belts in you know, maybe more mainstream wrestling that you
are a fan of just based off the look of them.
Speaker 2 (22:26):
Not to plug around promotion, but those new PWR tag
titles look sick. They really do that red leather like
very Chris. But as far as all time, I'm a
big fan of the Intercontinental title from the Ruthless Aggression era.
I think it had a really sleek look, real popular choice.
The original WCW heavyweight title. I think Brock looked great
(22:51):
with that, you know, like the big, big face gold one.
The Smoking Skull belt was cool, even if it was
like a gimmick or a one off. I think of
like the gimmick belts, that was the coolest one. I'm
not a big fan of. I feel like it started
with if it didn't start with the smoking skills with
(23:14):
John Cena Spinner title, and then after that it felt
like every wrestler was trying to like customize the belt.
I know Bray Wyatt had like the big stretched out
face thing. Yeah, and I'm not a huge fan of
that because I think it kind of detracts from the
title itself. But that makes any.
Speaker 1 (23:34):
Sense, it does. So you're talking about this one, right, Yeah, yeah,
I agree. You know, most people love the classic one
and it's a beautiful belt, but this is the one
I grew up on. This is the first like replica
I ever bought, so it's funny I added over on
the shelf. I to grab it. But I will admit
it does surprise me that you weren't into the bray
Wyatt one because that, I mean personally, just from the
(23:55):
short time that I've known you, that seems right up
your alley. So that does surprise me a little that
that wasn't really that's not really your thing.
Speaker 2 (24:00):
It's definitely cool looking. I think it's just the precedent
that it sets, because I feel like every wrestler after
that is going to want to gimmick up their belt
to make it look like this list or that.
Speaker 1 (24:12):
Right like when I don't know if you were watching,
this probably would have been right after you kind of
got out. But like when Jeff Hardy won the title
in TNA, he got like his immortal, you know, imagi
Nation looking belt, and as Jeff Hardy being my favorite wrestler,
there is still a short list of guys that have
gotten their own like custom belt. So like, I'm I'm
happy that he's on it. But the belt itself, yeah,
not a huge fan of it, but it's it's his
(24:34):
art style, so it's what you'd expect Jeff Hardy belt
to look like. But it's like, I'm glad he's on
that list, but but in general didn't didn't love the design.
Speaker 2 (24:43):
Yeah, honorable mention to the the Interconnmental title they had
with the white leather strap.
Speaker 1 (24:49):
Yeah, yeah, that's definitely a favorite for most people. Is
there anyones that you flat out don't don't like?
Speaker 2 (24:57):
Yeah, that Divas title with the butterfly, Yeah.
Speaker 1 (25:01):
I try not to, but I do.
Speaker 2 (25:05):
That wasn't great. I can't think any of off the
top of my head. That of my head that I
just despised, But I just remember that one being ship.
Speaker 1 (25:15):
Do you ever do you have the high voltage belt
anywhere near you? Did you do you take it with
you when you go back to Colorado?
Speaker 2 (25:21):
Or actually I take it to the grocery store. I
take it to Blockbuster.
Speaker 1 (25:28):
There it is. So do you still have days where
you wake up and you're like, I am a champion,
aren't I? Has it fully sunk in yet? It's been
what two three weeks? Like, has it sunk in yet?
Speaker 2 (25:38):
Yeah? I'm still rudding that high. Actually wake up in
the belt every morning. This is all I wear to bed.
Girlfriend hates it, but she understands. It's the champion's duty,
you know, to display the title at all times. But yeah,
I remember for that first week, I was still in
disbelief that I was the champion, that that I had
(26:01):
actually won this. In fact, right after I wanted it
still didn't feel real. You can look at the footage.
I'm in the ring just kind of in disbelief of
what had just transpired, and it definitely took a few
days to sync in. But now that it has more
than happy, I'm ready to defend it. I'm willing able
(26:23):
and fighting champion. Been the rules here and there? Sure, sure,
but you know, whatever it takes. This is the high
voltage title. It was the low voltage title. I wouldn't go,
you know, through any means to defend it or win it, but.
Speaker 1 (26:41):
Makes plenty of sense to me, So I want to
be respectful of the champs time. I don't want to
take too much of it, but I do have a
lightning round of non wrestling questions if your game before
we get out. So let's start with what's your favorite
and least favorite part about living in Colorado.
Speaker 2 (26:58):
Favorite part is the intererny outdoors. I still get in.
I've been here six years. I still get enthralled and
entranced by the mountains. Just gorgeous, natural aesthetics. Least favorite
part be the junkies that seem to be flooding Denver.
We had one or a pair of them decided to
empty our dumpster two days ago and just throw all
(27:20):
the trash everywhere. A month ago, we had a literal
dumpster fire on the other side of the complex. I
can't pull out of my neighborhood without seeing three guys
doing the fentanyl fold at the gas station, and it
just seems to be getting worse.
Speaker 1 (27:37):
I'd love to say if he came back to Florida
that you wouldn't see these things. It's maybe not at
the same level, but unfortunately that's starting to starting to
be everywhere, so that you know, can't really avoid that necessarily.
This one isn't necessarily part of the Lightning round, but
it did mean to bring it up. When you're not
in the ring, when you're not winning titles and you're
not choking people, you like to maud video game consoles.
You've made a business out of it. What's like the
(27:59):
you know, the quick version of how you got started
doing that?
Speaker 2 (28:02):
Sure, So, back in twenty nineteen, I just moved to Colorado.
I was working in an assisted living center for the
elderly with dementia, and I had randomly stumbled across the
YouTube video of a guy that modified Nintendo Week consoles,
and I'm like, Wow, that is the coolest thing in
(28:22):
the world. So I started a little side hustle doing that,
as well as just selling retro video or buying and
reselling retro video games in general. A couple of years
went by, I realized I was making more on my
days off than my days on so April Fool's Day
twenty twenty two, I quit my full time job and
went full time with this and have been doing it
(28:44):
ever since.
Speaker 1 (28:47):
That's incredible. Video game has always been a huge part
of my life. He showed your video game tattoos earlier.
I do have a Sonic da Hedgehog tattoos, so I'm
very much in the club with that. What are the ones?
I'm always curious because I've recently I'm a Dreamcast guy.
That's how we has been my retro of choice. I
worked with a coworker of mine. He knew how to
do it. He showed me how to mod mind so
I have like the st card with all the games
(29:07):
pre loaded. Didn't seem overly difficult. I know there's other consoles,
like the level of difficulty go up and down. What
is like I assume like an NES pretty simple these days.
What's the biggest challenge and what's the easiest stuff to
mod these days?
Speaker 2 (29:23):
Say? The easiest probably the first one I started with,
which was the Nintendo Wii, used to take me upwards
of forty five minutes to an hour to mod one.
Now I think I can do one in about twelve
minutes flat vanilla to fully modded. Same with the Sony PSP,
I can do one of those and probably nine minutes.
(29:44):
The hardest one. By the way, I only do soft modding,
so it's just messing with the software. I don't know
how to use a soldering iron because I know a
lot of I saw stay away from anything Microsoft because
that requires getting in the guts the console and actually
soldering things to metal, which I'm just I'm not comfortable with.
(30:05):
So I guess the most difficult ones of the ones
I do mod would be the Dreamcast, just because that
does require going in and swapping out the disk drive
for an SD adapter. But even that, it's like I
think six or seven screws to get it done just
the time that it takes to do it. Compared to
all the other ones that are just strictly SD card softomode,
(30:27):
I'd say that's probably the more most, if not the
most difficult, the most time consuming.
Speaker 1 (30:31):
So the Dreamcast when it doesn't require any soldering, though,
it's just all spurs and such. Okay, good good.
Speaker 2 (30:37):
The only soldering I've ever done is like Pokemon, save
batteries for the carriages. But I not well versed enough
to start doing wires and you know, connecting things like that.
Speaker 1 (30:48):
Is that something you hope as your business grows or
you like to stick with what you know and just
do that.
Speaker 2 (30:53):
Well, well, so I started off modern Wee's and only
did that for the first few years, and then realize
how many other consoles could be modeled. So I'm always
looking to expand my repertoire. So after that I learned
the PSP PS two, PS three, three DS, we you uh,
(31:13):
and Dreamcast. So anything that can be modeled I'm looking
to mod.
Speaker 1 (31:19):
Isn't the three DS super simple? Like it's it's just
kind of like an SD card with a program type
thing pretty much. Yeah, that's it's because I have I
have one people. Anytime I like when I went to
buy it, it's like, yeah, we only get these in stocks,
so people can buy them and mod them. Like that's
kind of the because once the e shop closed, that's
what everybody wants to do with it.
Speaker 2 (31:37):
Yeah, yeah, they have. It's called the Eighth Shop actually,
so it's just like an emulator to e shop where
you can download whatever you'd like if you own the
physical copy of the game. Of course, is the only
legal way to download a.
Speaker 1 (31:51):
ROM right, Like when I did when I did the Dreamcast,
I literally went down because I have like a bin
of Dreamcast games and I literally went down the line
and found the ROMs of everything that I owned instead
of having to switch to just out it's all on
It's all on a card. That's that's what that's the
main point for it for sure. But with some of these,
I mean, it's like you're not really hurting a business
that's no longer functioning in that aspect to like my
(32:13):
big thing, my big beef with Nintendo, like the classic
Pokemon games. If you don't want people modding them, make
them available on the switch. On the switch too, they're
not there, So what do you expect people to do?
Just never play these classics. Again, I blame them just
as much as I blame anybody, uh you know, downloading
anything that for those type of games.
Speaker 2 (32:31):
Oh yeah, one hundred percent. Nintendo is blood thirsty. I
get a lot of quests for modern Nintendo switches and
I will not touch those because they're still selling games
in stores. Some guy in Canada is moding switches and
Nintendo sued him for twenty five dollars, So I don't
(32:52):
have that right now, right, not planning on getting on
Nintendo's bad side. But I agree some of these games
you can only get in the secondary market, and retro
prices have gotten ridiculous, especially after COVID. Some games have
like tripled in value, and I think they're only going
to go up because they are a finite commodity that
(33:15):
they only produced x amount of. You know, they're never
going to make another Super Mario sixty four, right, and
there's less and less of them every year, so they
become increasingly more rare. They can only increase in value.
But you know, you're hard pressed to pay three hundred
dollars for a single game, So that's how I justify it.
Speaker 1 (33:36):
Yeah, I think that's a pretty safe bet to like
you know, like you said, if you're not trying to
go get the new Switch game that just came out,
Like there, I totally see where the difference of the
line is there. So we we chatted about this a
while back, and I think it'd be fun to end
on this for a definitive answer. What is your I'll
give mine to But are are your Mount Rushmore video games?
(33:58):
That is a big question and you think about that.
Let me let me throw this on top because I
always had this conversation with people when people say, like,
you're Mount Rushmore of X, Y or Z. A lot
of people hear that and say, oh, they want my
top four. But to me, the Mount Rushmore is based
on like the foundation of a r case the country.
So it's more or less one of the four games
that like built your foundation of your gaming taste or
(34:20):
the games that you like. That's how whenever somebody says
like like if you did, I know you're not like
huge team sports guy, but it's like you're Mount Rushmore
of Denver Broncos you can't name somebody now, you gotta
name someone that helped build like the foundation of the
franchise is how So what's like, yeah, so the four
that kind of helped build your your gaming taste.
Speaker 2 (34:41):
Donkey Kong Country two for the Super Nintendo, Twist the
Metal two for the PS one, Ogre Battle sixty four,
Person of Lord Lee Caliber for the M sixty four,
and I gotta say StarCraft for the PC. Pretty big
on StarCraft back.
Speaker 1 (35:01):
In my day. Nice that one's out in left field.
Some people are gonna be happy to hear that one
because that's one of those if you were rather part
part of it, or you weren't, so that's that'll be
cool for that. I'm gonna leave out all sports games
for this because that deserves its own. I'll go Pokemon
Soul Silver. I was gonna say Pokemon Yellow, but you
get you play Soul Silver, you kind of get half
a yellow anyway. Star Fox sixty four Classic, let's look
(35:25):
at oh favorite game of all time, Sonic Adventure two
for the Dreamcast, and I gotta fit one more. Usually
there's a supports game in that fourth role, so let
me think, and wrestling too. You'd have to do like
a whole nother Mount rushmore just for wrestling games. I'll
go with just because me and my wife bondover I'll
go Kingdom Hearts, the original Kingdom Hearts for sure. She's
(35:47):
actually playing Kingdom Hearts three in the other room as
we record this, So.
Speaker 2 (35:50):
There you go, a man of culture.
Speaker 1 (35:52):
Yeah, yeah, of course, So Champ, I just want to
say I appreciate your time. I've gotten to know you
over these past couple months. I'd like to consider your
friend at this point. I'm glad that we're in the
same company and get the chat like this, so I
look forward to seeing you the next PWR show.
Speaker 2 (36:06):
Awesome, the feeling is mutual. I appreciate you having me
on in an official capacity. Sorry about last time. I
just I've always subscribed to the philosophy of asking forgiveness
over permission, so I you know I couldn't help, but
just chime in on your last podcast.
Speaker 1 (36:22):
I'll be honest. I really should have brought that up
at the beginning, but I was more impressed than anything,
so I was definitely not upset. I was more impressed.
But I'm glad we can't call this your podcast debut,
but it is your first planned appearance, so you know,
I appreciate it having you. So I want to thank
everyone for checking it out. Be sure to follow a
PWR on all social media. We got a lot of
good things coming up in the next few months. And also,
(36:42):
do you want to drop the info for your for
your moding business so people can get with you about
some orders.
Speaker 2 (36:47):
Yeah, sure, Dad's Chompsky Hanks Retro shut up. You can
find me at Chompsky Mods on Instagram.
Speaker 1 (36:56):
You go, there, you go.
Speaker 2 (36:57):
Yep, Yes, it's probably backwards, but uh, it's a pretty
unique names, not terribly hard to find. Also, welcome and
just reach out to me on Facebook for all of
your console modification needs.
Speaker 1 (37:11):
Well, there it is, guys. Thank you all for listening
and be sure to tune in late to this in
the next week. We will be reviewing Happy Gilmore too
when that release is on Friday. So that's the next episode.
I want to thank Heaven again for being here, Thank
you all for listening, and we'll see you next time.
Popular Podcasts
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
The Male Room with Dr. Jesse Mills
As Director of The Men’s Clinic at UCLA, Dr. Jesse Mills has spent his career helping men understand their bodies, their hormones, and their health. Now he’s bringing that expertise to The Male Room — a podcast where data-driven medicine meets common sense. Each episode separates fact from hype, science from snake oil, and gives men the tools to live longer, stronger, and happier lives. With candor, humor, and real-world experience from the exam room and the operating room, Dr. Mills breaks down the latest health headlines, dissects trends, and explains what actually works — and what doesn’t. Smart, straightforward, and entertaining, The Male Room is the show that helps men take charge of their health without the jargon.