The Delvin Cox Experience Episode 374 Featuring Featuring Cortez Branch

Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
This podcast is sponsored by patreon.com/devil Cock
Experience. If you want more content,
including exclusive shows, make sure you go to patreon.com/devil
Cock Experience. Also special shout out to
Patreon producer. Welcome to the Delvin Cox

(01:18):
experience, the podcast, which each week I'm on a one man
mission to you now coast to diversity.
I'm your host, Delvin Cox with me on the podcast.
It's a special guest, a brother who's kind of a Jack of all
trades man. He he has his hands and like
everything he he like you asked what he does.
I can't, like, just pin it down to one thing.

(01:40):
Plays football. He's a podcaster.
He's an international man of mystery, my man.
Cortez Brunch. How you doing bro?
I'm doing good today. How about you, my brother?
I'm doing good man, pretty good actually.
I mean, you know what they say like you need 7 streams of
income. So for me, like I've been
looking for stream number 5-6 and seven right now and we're

(02:00):
working on it. We're working on it.
Yeah, I see you try to get 56789.
Man like they keep on messing with this economy.
I might need 10. Yeah, that's that's a good
point. That's a whole other
conversation. Yeah, you know.
For real. It's it's weird in January, so
we can't really say too much. That that is also true.

(02:22):
I, I, I'll tell you about a little bit somebody that a
little bit later. But as always, let's start the
podcast off with the five for five, five questions, 5 minutes
to get the ball rolling. Cortez you ready bro?
Yes, get it? Question #1 I asked my this
question last week and I don't know if they understood the
assignment so I'm going to ask you all the serial mascots

(02:46):
getting the one big brawl who you think is winning.
Count Chocula. I'm glad you answered like
immediately with like certainty with it too.
And it makes sense. He's a vampire.
Yeah, second lucky. Yeah, I like, I like the
answers. 3rd 3rd The Tricks Rabbit.

(03:10):
Trick Rabbit. Yeah, I like that too.
Tony the Tiger. I like that you pick the tricks
rabbit because you know, he's like on meth or something like
that. Yeah, yeah.
Like literally yeah. I don't know if you've ever seen
Rick and Morty, but if you ever saw Rick and Morty, they had
like they had jokes about this, you know what I'm saying?
It's so people like, oh, count chocolate, then.
Lucky. First of all, I've seen

(03:30):
leprechaun growing up and you know, I wasn't afraid of too
many things in my life, but leprechaun kind of stuck with me
for a long time. Look, I like leprechaun.
I absolutely hate it. Leprechaun with a passion.
Yeah, I don't, I don't think people these days understand,
like when you were younger and you watched Leprechaun,
especially in that generation, like Leprechaun was kind of a

(03:53):
freaky dicky fool, you know whatI'm saying?
Like he, he was, he was kind of creepy.
Yeah, he was. He definitely was.
But yeah, but contract, you're going to win first.
He's a vampire and he's undead, so.
Yeah, I like it. Like your answer?
Question #2 you're a wrestling fan like me.
Big time. Big time reckless fan.

(04:14):
Did you get the side court? Did you get to watch Wrong I?
Actually host the wrestling podcast if y'all didn't know.
Yeah, we're going to give him that too.
So. Well my first question is did
you watch raw Netflix 2 times? Oh, you watched it twice?

(04:34):
Yes, I watched it last night andthen I watched it again during
work. So you will get my question and
completely since Hulk Hogan's washed.
Hulk Hogan's been watched for a decade.
Facts people don't. Don't fuck with him no more.
We like. Stop messing with him when that
video came down. Like what was it, 2011?
Yeah, and. Then he was away.

(04:55):
He was away from like television, at least in WWE, for
at least like four or five yearsbefore they brought him back
and. Keep bringing him back and he.
Stopped. Well, they, I mean, they brought
him back originally because he'sfriends with Vince, but then
like afterwards, like he's stillfriends with, with, I hate to
say it, he's still friends with Triple H and he's still friends
with The Rock, you know what I mean?

(05:15):
Yeah. And, and, and TKO is a
multinational corporation that also deals with, with the Saudis
and, and, and UFC. So it, it's kind of like in in
the media. Y'all don't know who Dana White
is or what Dana White does. You should probably check it
out, because Hulk Hogan's right up their alley.

(05:38):
Exactly, 100%. So my question to you, Cortez,
is this. I'm listening.
Hulk Hulk Hogan tarnished his name.
Pretty much wrecked his name people.
Yeah, Hulk Hogan. He's he's wrecked.
Yes, but on the other hand people still like his theme
song. They like to think somewhere

(06:00):
they're like him. Yes.
So who else can we give that theme song to that would work so
we can like? Chad Gable.
You know what? That is a great answer.
That is a really great answer. You either give it to Chad Gable
or you give it to like his little, his little posse.
I if I wasn't WWE and I wanted to really capitalize on a couple

(06:24):
of things, I would give Chad Gable Kurt Angle's theme music.
I would have Kurt Angle bless him with the music and then I
would give, I would give the rest of the the group itself
called Hogan's Music to come outwith.
That's actually a really good idea, and it makes sense.
I mean the name of the group is American Made.
Yeah. I'm I am the United States
champion on multiple levels. I'm glad.

(06:47):
You went and got your belt too. Oh yeah, I was going to get the
BMF belt, but I think that's a little bit extra for today.
I got my AW belt around here somewhere.
I like that belt so much I. Do too.
Like, I might not like the company as much as I liked it
when it came out, but I like that belt so.
I love that belt. It's it's clean, it's perfection

(07:10):
in in a modern belt, yeah. I really like.
The AW, yeah, modern, modern championship is it's perfection
in a modern championship. And I don't think that there
that unless you're a belt collector, I don't think that
you appreciate the AEW Championship as much as you
should. I.

(07:31):
Agree Now it might be devalued and Jon Moxley might just be
Dean Ambrose in in in hiding, but it's it's that belt is is
magnificent. It's a magnificent piece of
artwork. I'm not gonna lie, I want to
have a conversation about about this whole Jon Moxley thing, but
I don't have it right now. But yeah, I would just say this.

(07:54):
You know, I will have you. I will, I will extend an
invitation the next time I, I don't know when you're free, but
the next time that we have a show, it's will probably be
either, it'll either be Thursdayor sometime this weekend.
I'll send it over to you and I'll link you together with Ali
and we'll get you all. Yeah, we'll do some joint.
We'll do some joint work there because, you know, it's kind of,

(08:17):
it's not hard to find wrestling fans, but it's hard to find
wrestling aficionados who actually understand both the
inside, the outside of the business as well as have the
history. But also people that you can put
on camera and have them talk about it and actually understand
what we're talking about. That's the hardest part is, you
know, relaying it to your audience.
That is facts. But yeah, I was saying the more

(08:39):
I want to look at this Jon Moxley one, I'm like, man, they
might have just kept that belt on swerve.
They, I don't think Smurf had itlong enough and you know, I
can't change my mind on that. I I think the the match with
Brian was awesome, but after that it kind of went downhill.
It did. And I just, I, I just don't

(09:01):
think that, I don't think that Tony Khan is in a place to, to
understand, to understand what is going on with the, with the,
with the community. Because it's like I'll, I'll,
I'll say this as a long time WWFfan, WWE fan, and now a joint

(09:26):
merger WWETKO fan, you know, I, I, I will watch almost anything
wrestling, almost anything wrestling.
You know, I've watched, I've watched N.W.A growing up.
I've watched ECW growing up. I watched WCW growing up.
I watched WWF growing up. I have watched the majority of

(09:49):
televised wrestling dating back to the 70s, not so much the 60s,
but the 70s. You know, the 70s on down is
where I started identifying. I'm not, I'm not from the 70s,
but I needed to know who these people were and why they were so
important because they were getting the star treatment.
And I'm like, I don't, why do I care about Coco?
Beware, you know what I'm saying?
I need to find out who, why these people were important.

(10:12):
You know, so I went all the way back, even at an early age,
especially because we got the Internet in the early 90s and I
was able to start finding out things.
And I want to say like Tony doesn't, I don't think Tony Kahn
has the same, you know, background as like the casual or
even the long term fan. And I think that he's lost touch

(10:37):
with his booking. And I think that a lot of the
wrestlers that he has have lost touch with the industry.
And I will say that bringing back Kenny Omega and him
returning is going to help, but I don't think that it helps that
they just did Wrestle Kingdom, because I don't think that one,

(10:59):
I don't think that Wrestle Kingdom made AW look more
important. I think Wrestle Kingdom made New
Japan look more important. Correct.
I agree with that 100%. And I and that was kind of a
mistake from a company that's literally getting beat by a
developmental brand of a bigger company they were trying to
compete with. Yeah, I agree.

(11:19):
I heard something on a podcast on a Patreon of a podcast this
week that kind of shedded some light on that subject a little
bit and helped me understand what exactly is going on with
that situation because. Make sure you don't get
demonetized, by the way, with that logo.
So just put this on the materialreal quick because you know how

(11:39):
that goes. Any any longer than a couple of
minutes, you get demonetized. Yeah, but they are.
They're essentially sick. And this person wouldn't know.
He essentially said that people think the booking is Tony Khan's
fault, but essentially Tony Khanis not the one that's booking
everything. I, I think he's got, I think

(12:01):
he's got, and I know, I know that like Bruce Pritchard works
for WWE, but I, I think that he's got, he's got a couple of
of writers and bookers who are booking his shows.
And I just don't think they understand that there are a lot
of things that just don't work anymore with with modern

(12:22):
wrestling. And you can tell by how it's
booked, how certain, how you cansee certain things booked really
well and certain things booked like completely the opposite of
AW. You could essentially you could
tell what Tony Khan's booking and what he's not booking by
because of that. Yes, yeah.
And, and I think that the disparity that we're able to see

(12:45):
because of the booking is, is what causes us to like, I'm,
I'm, I'm going to be, I'm going to be that that ass hat in the
room today. I'm going to do it.
And I know that there's probablygoing to be some people that are
upset with me about this, especially because this is not
the Patreon version of, you know, the Devil Cox experience.
But I'm going to say it. The AW women's division is not

(13:06):
very good right now. And they have a couple of of
superstars that they're they're they're promoting.
And, you know, I think I just think they need a little bit
better writing. And for and when they started
out, they had very good writing for the women's division.
And now they don't have very good writing for the women's
division and aside from Tony Storm and maybe Brit Baker.

(13:29):
But you would think that with All Star talent that they do
have available to them that theywould be using it to the best of
their ability. But if they're not going to do
it on the men's side, you know they're not going to do it on
the women's side. That's just how pro wrestling
is. I think they're booking it good,
I just think they're booking it incorrectly and.

(13:52):
I know that's what I. Mean in terms of, and I'll tell
you why, because I went to, I don't know if I told you this, I
went to the pay-per-view this past weekend.
What, what was the name of it? It was World's Inn.
No, you didn't tell me you went.You didn't tell me you went to
World's Inn. Yeah, I I went to the World's
Inn this past week and it was really good.
One thing I noticed about World's Inn is the biggest woman

(14:17):
star there without question is Mercedes Monet.
Yeah, Mercedes Monet is probablythe biggest women star outside
of WWE on the planet right now. Yes, and and it's great that she
is. The problem is that she doesn't
have the main title. So when she comes out with the

(14:39):
TNT, the TBS title, it feels like the main title and at the
same time it diminishes the actual main title cuz like OK,
the biggest star has this TBS title, which feels more like the
main title than the main title does.
But but at the same time, you have Mercedes facing people

(15:02):
we're next few exceptions that aren't the caliber of the people
that you want her to face yet. Well, here's my question.
Does does it work if you have a champion that has four, well

(15:25):
let's say 3, three world titles and a secondary title from your
company? Are you devaluing the other
companies by having their world champion only able to hold your
secondary championship? Or are you, are you building
towards them being the double champion?

(15:46):
Because at this point she can't lose the TBS Championship I.
Agree. She can't lose it.
She can't lose it. If she does lose it, then it
devalues her brand. But at the same time, if she
does lose it, then she's no longer credible to go for the
for the world title. Yes, and in a perfect booking

(16:06):
world. And then you add on to this, you
add on that with the whole scenario of if she's winning all
these titles from these other companies because she had like 4
now, why is she going for the RHtitle facing the longest
reigning women's champion in wrestling right now?
Or why is she going for the AW championship?

(16:30):
It makes no sense. Because isn't isn't Amber Moon a
champion? Yes, she is the always champion
and she's been the. Athena.
Yeah, she's been the champion for almost want to say 2 years
now. Yeah, I.
Was going to say she's been the women's champion for two years
in the ROH. Yeah, and she's had a great one

(16:52):
with it. Well, it's how I haven't seen
very many AW superstars outside of like maybe the top 10
advanced their character work. And for her, I've I've just been
disappointed in her character work only not saying that she

(17:14):
hasn't done great work, but I kind of want to see Athena be a
little bit more like the Ember Moon from NXT and have
personality, you know, and I don't mean personality as you
know, this yelling black chick. Yeah.
We see that way too much. She does it, but The thing is,
is Donald Ring of Honor and. Exactly.

(17:35):
And who watches Ring of Honor? Exactly.
No. Who's watching Ring of Honor?
Who's who's like do you rememberwhen Kevin Owens was on NXT and
that that version of NXT they had Kevin Owens, they had Seth
Rollins, they had this is after before so some more Joe got

(17:55):
there, but this is like it's like NXT version 1.
Sami Zayn was over there now they were doing Charlotte was
there Mercedes Monet such the best.
That's the best to me. Actually, I'll take that back.
I think the best version of NXT was that period of time where
they had the up and coming. Y'all going to shout me down for

(18:21):
this, but I'm going to say it anyway.
When Velveteen Dream was up and coming, they had Samoa Joe
there, they had Keith Lee there,they had undisputed error there.
They had they had oh, sanity wasthere.
At that point in time, they still had a couple of the

(18:44):
women's division that was still there that that that are that
are now on the main roster. Let's just say they had a lot of
talent at that point in time, and at that point in time I want
to say that NXT was a much more.Not saying it's not a credible
brand now, but NXT seemed like it was way more of a threat to

(19:05):
the main roster. I agree like.
The DI was down. There yeah Adam Cole was down
there with the with the undisputed era yeah DIY that was
together you you know and you know I could go on and on but
you know there's no real reason to the street profits were down
there at that time that. Was a cool.
That was a good era. You know, they they had a lot of

(19:29):
talent that was in NXT and it's,let's just say that the AW
roster is very similar to that roster, not just because that,
you know, the amount of talent that's there, but because a lot
of the people from that AW roster just happened to be

(19:50):
working in AW. Yeah.
You know the interesting thing about AW roster, they have not
yet have yet to have the whole roster healthy at one time.
It's never happened. No, not a single time.
No, it's never happened. And I want to say that first two
year run of AW was fantastic. And I don't know, I don't know

(20:14):
if if I can if I can't say that isn't Chris Jericho's best world
heavyweight title run. I agree.
If any company, and we've seen him in what four companies?
And I think that that was the best title run he's ever had.
And it's not just because it it's not just because he was so
good, but there was literally noone that could threaten his
title run. I I want to agree.

(20:37):
He was, he was that good. He was so good that he's been
trying to recapture that since then and this hasn't worked.
It's not going to and and it's not that.
It's not that anything is wrong with Chris.
It's that you ever seen you everseen a guy who how you watch
football. Yes, we all watch football.

(20:59):
You know, I play watch. At one point in time, we started
to realize that and I think thathe realized this too.
There was nothing else for him to do and that was Tom Brady.
Tom Brady physically could stillbe in the NFL right now.

(21:20):
Aaron Rodgers is able to play looking like a granddad.
Tom Brady can still play in the NFL.
He's in perfect shape. He's got a cannon.
He wasn't like Elway. Tom Brady has a cannon still to
this day. Not Elway, sorry, sorry.
Not Elway, not paid Manning, TomBrady and still has a cannon.
He still has the football knowledge, as you can see from
watching him on television talk about it.

(21:41):
And there would have been guys behind him that would have been
able to strengthen whatever he didn't have anymore.
And but he he chose to go out the right way.
He said. I have nothing else left to do
in the sport. And it isn't that I don't want
to continue playing. It isn't that I don't.
But at some point in time, you have to give up, especially when

(22:03):
you've accomplished everything. In Jericho's case, there simply
isn't anything else for him to do.
And, and it's, it's kind of a byproduct of him being so
versatile. If Jericho's got the same
problem that Matt Hardy has, there really isn't anything for
you to do. And no matter what you want to
do, there's nothing for you to do.

(22:24):
You have done everything. I agree.
You know, it isn't, and it's notthe same as a, as a rock run.
It's not the same as a, even a Stone cold or a Shawn Michaels
run where you know, they can't go the same way.
Well, not the rock. I don't know what's up with that
dudes freak athlete, but but everyone else, you know, they
can't go the way that they used to go.

(22:46):
On top of knowing that they can't go the way they used to
go. They just like the Undertaker's
last match for example. He just looked old.
Yes, very old. And, and no matter how much you
know, you still had the aura, hestill had the presence, he still
had the respect, but he just looked old, you know what I
mean? Just looked old.
And I. Like Sting for some reason.

(23:10):
Well, Sting is smart, and I don't mean like Undertaker's
not, but if you watch Sting throughout history, Sting was
very, very intelligent about howhe wrestled.
Yeah. Sting didn't hit spots that he
didn't need to hit. He never hit spots he didn't
need to. Hit kind of like Jeff Jarrett.
Yeah, Jeff Jarrett, the same wayhe didn't hit spots that he
didn't need to hit, and I'm not saying that.

(23:33):
OK, Did you watch the show Heels?
Yes, I did good job. You remember, you remember at
the very end where the match wasover and he said, no, let's go
for this in season 2. And and Jack climbed up to the
top rope and did a a beautiful shoot and star press, which that
was actually Stephen Emil, who he actually can do a shoot and

(23:55):
star press. And he did the shoot star press
and and he sees his dad in the crowd and his dad is looking at
him and his dad is like, you should have listened to me, Jack
you. But even in the crowd, his dad's
proud of him, but you should have listened like you didn't

(24:15):
need to do that, You know, and there's a lot of that that
happens in professional wrestling where you can tell
this is a shoot spot. They're going to do the spot,
but they don't need to do the spot.
And I feel like Sting never did that.
And I feel like Jeff Jarrett never did that.
And I think that that's part of the reason why their careers

(24:37):
have prolonged, you know, and I think that's why Brett's been
pissed at Goldberg for the entirety of, like, the last 20
years is because there were spots that didn't need to get
hit that got hit. Yeah.
And most of the time in professional wrestling, if you
hit spots that you probably don't need to hit, go ask Mick

(24:58):
Foley how he feels when he wakesup in the morning.
Exactly. There's like, yeah, you.
You created a spectacle that theworld will talk about forever.
But when you're sitting in a wheelchair, muscles atrophying
like Lex Luger, you're going to ask yourself that I really need
to do that. See, you're cooking now, did I
really need to do that? And I have, I'm going to say it,

(25:21):
Kenny Omega's feeling that. And you know who's going to feel
it is Will Osprey and Ricochet. And they're the guys that, hey,
you're hitting wonderful spots, but did you need to hit 15 of
them in this match? Probably Allen.
Darby especially. The only difference with Darby

(25:42):
is I feel like Darby legitimately does not care
whether he lives or dies, no? He doesn't what scares me.
I don't think that's a character.
I think that's just who he is. Yeah.
See, now you don't got, you know, outside, go outside of
wrestling. He's the same way.
Like he lives his life like that.
He does like remember he was in the bus in the bus accident.

(26:05):
Yeah, he got hit by a bus. Wasn't accident he got he.
Got hit. He got hit by a bus and then
wrestled two days later. Yeah, and he's I.
Think against the doctors orders.
Yeah, he's supposed to be. I think he's doing about
everything now. He is.
That's where he's at. Yeah.
Like Darby's one of those peoplewhere he's like, I survived

(26:28):
multiple life near near death accidents and he's he's a black
cat. But what do we know about Black
Cats? They only got 9 lives.
Yeah. Facts.
So you. Know they never know when it's
going to run out, you know, and I, I really do hope and I really
do wish that that if in the perfect world, in the perfect

(26:49):
world AW fixes their problems and we can watch them both and
get I I missed having wrestling every day man, I really did
because I don't watch AW as muchas I used to.
I, I think they will. I think it's just time, it's
time for a pivot. And I was hoping that if your
mask thing would do it, but based off of last week it didn't

(27:12):
do it. No, and the reason if it didn't
happen is because it it was simulcast.
It's not just we're always just on Netflix.
Yes. Yeah, RAW was only on Netflix.
If you have other cable networks, it did not air.

(27:37):
It was just on Netflix. Whereas with with Dynamite, it
was on HBO Max and it was on this normal station of TNT.
And why would I tune into HBO Max if I already watch it on TNT
and it's on my DVR every week? You have to you there.

(27:58):
And I know why, because they were afraid that they were going
to lose viewership if they switched just to Max, which they
would have. I think honestly, I think they
probably should switch it and I think it might be the other way
around. I think people are people don't
have TV's anymore. I know a lot.
Of people don't have. I know a lot of people who just
don't have cable cause cable fucking sucks.

(28:18):
Yeah, no, they don't like you. Unless you have like YouTube or
the app, you're probably not being able to watch it.
Yeah, 'cause I cause what? Yeah, it's it's on other
streaming platforms that do streaming cable like what's the
other one, Sling? Sling TV.
Sling Filos. There's a lot of them, yeah.
You know, there's a lot of thosethat will give you cable
networks. But let's face the facts here,

(28:40):
most people don't even pay for those.
It's mostly the YouTube TV people that watch those episodic
exactly because YouTube TV is the best value for that in that
same range of money, you know what I mean?
I only had cable for wrestling and I'm now going to get rid.
Of yeah, yeah, like if it wasn'tfor if it wasn't for Smackdown

(29:01):
and the occasional AW show that I like to watch or, you know,
every once in a while, some sports, I don't know.
I wouldn't really. I wouldn't own.
I wouldn't own YouTube TV, Sorry, YouTube.
I'm just keeping it real. The rest, I don't, I don't
really. I don't really deal with the Big
5 networks and their scripted sitcoms anymore because that's

(29:25):
the same as the last show. Like for example, do you know
who Kat Dennings is? You're a brother.
So as soon as you do of course notice the way I said this, you,
we understand what we're talkingabout.
OK, Yes, Sorry to y'all other people who don't understand what
the appeal with Kat Dennings is.She ain't for y'all.
Exactly. No matter how much you want to

(29:47):
believe that she is. She's Kat Dennings is not for
y'all. Just like you know, Danielle
Official is not for y'all either.
Yeah, that's enough said. Follow the secrets.
Just letting y'all know they were not on TV for y'all,
Definitely not. They were not on TV for y'all.

(30:08):
They're on TV for, you know, us chocolatey variety types.
But you know, so she's in this new show that popped up and I
thought it was AI thought it wasjust, you know, they're moving
to Broke girls. And this is this is on during
raw last night in this commercial though, Netflix that
they got a new show with Kat Denny's coming on one of the big

(30:30):
5 networks. I think it's on NBC.
And I was like, I thought, I thought this was just two broke
girls because the first thing they said was she's broke.
And I'm like, well, she just dida show about being broke.
She's. Broken.
Good. Like somebody give this girl
some money. She definitely deserves it.
She's a good actress. She's funny.

(30:51):
You know, I once, I once dated agirl who who resembled and
talked just like Kat Dennings. I also dated a girl who looked
just like Danielle Official. And I did not do it on purpose.
Yeah. You did.
You were 100%. Dead.
No, I did not. I didn't seek.
I did not seek them out. I did not seek them out.
They found me. And when they found me, I I

(31:13):
said, well, I'm not going to letyou go.
I'm not going to lie. That one girl's name, her name
was Melissa, but I literally hadher in my phone as Topanga and
no one blamed me because she looked just like her She looked
just like her She looked just like her just like her like
there was if I would have showedyou a picture of this girl, I

(31:33):
don't have any of her because I'm not a creep guys, this is
almost a decade ago. We were cool up until about 6
years ago, but this is this was almost a decade ago.
But she she looked just like Topanga and that's what I put
her in as my phone because one, I didn't think that she was ever
going to talk to me again after the first time I saw her and
two, because she looked like Tepanga.

(31:55):
You know the other girl. I didn't put her name in the
phone as Cat, but I wouldn't this.
Is amazing we're we're we're telling these questions question
#3 for you don't get yourself introuble, Cortez.
But that would be bad. What is the wildest thing you've

(32:20):
ever done that you can the same?Thing I've ever done.
Is there a category? Yes.
Is there a subcategory? OK, I'll, I'll, we'll, we'll,
we'll, we'll, we'll limit it. Limit it as a kid.
So as when I say as a kid from 5:00 to college.

(32:45):
Man, I'm have to narrow this down.
OK, so from 5:00 to college, thewildest thing that I ever did, I
kissed here tequila on the lips in front of 3000 people.
Oh, that, that is, that is actually.
How did this happen? So I used to dance, not exactly,

(33:09):
but I used to dance with, with, with, with, you know, a little
dance team at this club in the suburbs of Chicago.
And the special guest was tea with tequila.
And she watched us do this dancebattle for like a whole hour and
a half, two hours of us just dancing, right.

(33:30):
And so when she leaned in to give me a kiss, I like, I didn't
turn my head on purpose, but like, I turned it a little bit
and she went with it and she just, she didn't make out with.
But afterwards I was like, damn,she's kind of a porn star.

(33:51):
Kinda. And she's and she's in
Hollywood. Yeah.
Do I have AIDS? I was like, wait, wait a minute.
Oh my. God aids doesn't work that way.
OK, so not even close. You like, I know for a fact that
she doesn't Remember Me. I know she doesn't watch
football, you know, and I know that, you know, my hair was a

(34:11):
little bit crazier back then andI and I had a lot less facial
hair, but that was that was quite a wildest thing that I did
as far as like risk being taken,you know, as far as like, you
know, normal stuff. I think the wildest thing that I
did was like, bro, I used to just drive to places to meet

(34:32):
people that I had never met before, But I drive like 3-4
hours, five hours, you know, past a line to go meet this
random girl that I met playing video games with or, you know,
just like you remember the old school chat rooms, like you're
just being a chat room. That's.
Some real shit. I know plenty, Catherine.
Yeah. Like, and this is back in the
day too. Like I wasn't 16.

(34:53):
I was 1617 years old, you know, driving four or five hours ago,
Me, the chick that I had never met before.
And like, yeah, you know, sometimes it wasn't, it wasn't
like even just like physical. It was just like, I want to meet
a New Girl for somewhere to something completely different.
There's a chick that was in Maryland and I didn't drive to
Maryland, but let me just tell you, it was it was worth the

(35:13):
trip. I don't think I've ever driven
3-4 hours. I think the furthest I've drove
drove was like an hour and a half maybe.
Well, I was blessed. I had a brand new car.
A lot of happened and, and I was, and I was a driver like I
was St. raced, you know, I St. raced and I just wanted to be in

(35:36):
my car all the time when I wasn't on the football field or
you know, I wasn't playing baseball.
I just, I really just wanted to drive.
And so for me a 3 or 4 hour drive banging my music was not
going to hurt my feelings, you know what I'm saying?
Like. Like, like I said when we
started this episode, International man of mystery,
you're out here dancing like Chris Brown, St.

(35:57):
Racer, like Vin Diesel. For this day, the only person
that's ever beat me in a dance battle is Chris Brown.
Hold on, you dance against ChrisBrown.
More like I made Chris Brown dance against me.
He he wasn't trying to do that. How did this happen?
See see that question #4 How didthis happen?

(36:17):
So, you know, being in, in the city of Chicago, I got to meet a
lot of different people, like I got to basically ruin Mims set
and hot import nights in Chicago.
But I, you know, I, I punched Soulja Boy and whether he's
going to, whether he's going to talk about it or not, everyone
saw it happen. Everyone.
It was at a Sweet 16 party in Naperville, this place called

(36:39):
the barn. I I definitely punched Soulja
Boy and. That's what we.
Talk about because he was talking about my sister.
OK. That that that's, that's fair.
My for y'all that are watching, I don't know but if y'all are in
Atlanta and y'all ever been to Glow Bar, my sister owns Glow
Bar, which means that you know, if you live in Atlanta, you
probably have been there. I know exactly what you talk

(36:59):
about. My sister owns that bar, my
little sister. So go tells Andrea that her Big
Brother sent you, not the tall one, the football 1, and she's
going to give you a nice little discount and give you a hookah.
She's not going to pay for everything, but she going to
give you a nice little discount and give you a hookah because I
sent you over there. So, you know, a lot of

(37:19):
celebrities go through there anda lot of people they they
perform at her at her little club that she's got over there.
I shouldn't say little because that thing is kind of big.
Yes, it is, you know. This was back this was back
before she was like on on like let's go hang out with the
Atlanta Falcons status, you know, so this is before she
dated Cam nude and all of that, you know, and global.
Is a pretty big club. Pretty well known club too.

(37:43):
Yeah, she like she. Opposite you, you said like it
was just some shack like no, I've I've been buying this it's.
Not. It's not Little.
Yeah, the girl pops. Not Little.
No, not. Even a little bit.
Sorry Zan, I'm I know. I have family who stay in
Georgia and they're like, they tell like you should go, like

(38:04):
absolutely. I'm watched, you know.
Because you're going to see somestuff, especially at one of her
all white parties. So.
So this is before that. This this is when Soulja Boy was
coming up standing with his grandma in Naperville.
Yeah, I'm telling you a secret. He wasn't all the way out in
California like he keep telling people.
But anyway, he was talking crazy.

(38:25):
And then he like, he was a jerk all night, man.
Like he was playing on the sidekick.
Like a bunch of us didn't have them.
You know me, I worked, I've beenworking since I was 10 years
old. So, you know, people might have
mistaken me for being rich sometimes when I wasn't, but
that's because I worked. I worked all the time.
I worked after school, I worked after practice.
I worked, I worked hours. I wasn't supposed to be working.

(38:47):
I worked jobs I wasn't supposed to be working.
I worked off the books. It did not matter.
I was trying to make some money,you know, I never raced for pink
slips, but I definitely took y'all money when I got the
chance, you know? But we were at a show in
Chicago, I think it was called Warehouse or whatever, and, and
Chris Brown was, was doing his thing.
He was this, he was young, bro. He couldn't have been any older

(39:09):
than 15 or 16 years old. This was the time.
Clearly, before Rihanna, this was like the.
Oh, this is way before that dude, like 2000.
This is like 2004, man, 2005 maybe, you know?
And he was young, you know what I'm saying?
I was young, he was young, and we were doing our thing of me
and the guys, you know, Jerome, may he rest in peace.
He was real, real good friend ofmy sisters too.

(39:31):
But Jeron had brought me into this whole environment of like
this underground like young clubscene where like there was no
you. You, you don't need no idea to
get in here, you know what I'm saying?
Now they call it afters, but before that there was no such
thing. It was just that this was an
underground event. You went to an underground
event. Y'all dance, you remember?
You remember the Juke jams? Yeah, we had something like that

(39:52):
down in Miami. Yeah, so the Juke jams would
make their way around the country and, and, and and and
basically everybody under like 25 would go to these Juke jams.
And so I was at this event with him and he was just playing
around doing his thing. But you know, me, I'm I'm going
to trade ticket up a lot. And like, I was doing good.

(40:12):
I was able to, I was able to do this.
I was able to do that. I was able to do this.
I was able to do that. And then he did a backflip and I
lost. I couldn't do nothing else.
Yeah, you don't. You don't battle people who can
do God damn backflips and like. I could.
I have done so many things in this life and, you know, I've
jumped out of a plane, you know,I've done all types of stuff,
but I cannot do the backflip. Yeah, that's that's, that's the

(40:33):
next. Level.
I just don't. Understand it I.
I I'm. Just this is perplexing to me.
And this is awesome because Chris Brown has been compared to
like Michael Jackson in terms ofdancing and skills.
You're. Like, yeah, I I can take this.
Hey I'm I still got some moves. I'm I'm very good.
To be fair, it wasn't. Like prime Chris Brown, this is

(40:55):
early Chris Brown, that's early Chris Brown, this is.
Like he was still crumping. Yeah.
You know. I'm I'm very good.
And just about anyone that will that's that's that's see me at a
club where, you know, one of these days I will show you some
old club pictures of me and you going to look you're going to
look at the picture and be like,yeah, I wouldn't battling him.
You know, you see what I had on and the way I looked and you

(41:16):
were like, yeah, I could tell from where you where you look.
He was not. He wasn't playing.
So I, I had it though, I definitely had it back then.
I was, I was real good. I thought.
I thought nobody could beat me. And then this dude showed up.
Yeah, this this guy like I I remember when stomp the.
Yard came out and I recognized alot of people in that movie that

(41:37):
were background dancers because,you know, they was it wasn't
that they were traveling dances that, you know, they, they went
to all the major cities to try to get the right people for
those movies Yeah, yeah, I do know 'cause.
I had a couple of films to try to stomp the yard.
Oh yeah, you know. I didn't get the child where I
was playing football. So I was, yeah, at that point I
was all about my sports. I was still dancing, but I was

(41:58):
all about my sports at the time.It was, it was, it was taken
but. Yes, yes.
So. Soulja Boy, I hit you again,
bro. I don't care.
Fact. Yeah, like I like, I like.
This. Energy alright Chris Brown was
cool I I still don't like. Something boy I love.
This this is great. Question #5 See, we gonna
finally get through this. 55 NowCortez you play football, you

(42:21):
play international football, is that?
If you can pick any. 5 athletes to play on your team.
Who are you picking? Well, I'm going to.
Go with Cortez senior. I'll go Jerry Rice, Tom Brady,
Terrell Owens and Dionne Branch.I like it.

(42:43):
I don't think with with that. With that offense, not not
counting the offensive line, obviously we're going to
offensive line come stock, whichis even if we had a mid level
offensive line, if we had those guys, my and myself at running
back, I especially all in our primes.
I don't think we're getting beat.
I think we win the Super Bowl. I like it.
Let me ask you a question. This is an interesting question

(43:05):
for you considering the state ofNFL right now.
Do you think, see, we, we will be getting to know who you are
and stuff like that for people who don't know just just.
So y'all can let me know if you can see that yes I can let.
Me. Hold on, let me see that.
Take that off real quick there. You go, that is the championship
race and that's. My name, my number.

(43:28):
And that's a definitely a this light.
Is definitely not doing. Any justice?
But you can guess from the shapeof that what that is so.
Let well before we get before weget into who you are and stuff
like that to get by the story, Iwant to ask you a question
because I I love football. I used to love it back in the

(43:50):
day and what am I problem with football now is it seems like
your position, the running back has been diminished over the
years. Oh, it doesn't seem like it has
been. Yes, and I fucking.
Hate that it has been like I well, part of the problem with.
The running back position is that.

(44:11):
The the coaches believe. They can put anybody back there
which is and have the same results like I'll take, I'll
just take a, I'll, I'll take a, take a, a quick receiver and
throw him back there and we can get some, we can get some
rushing yards. Doesn't work like that.
No, and that's why San Francisco.
Had such a problem this year. That's exactly what they did.

(44:33):
Yeah. I I.
Say this because like when, whenI was even now, I love like
running back. My favorite player of all time
is Bo Jackson. Like, you know I I grew up a
well deserved favorite player ofall time.
Yes, Bo Jack, I grew up. There, Bo Jackson, Barry
Sanders, Emmett Smith. I wasn't picking none of them
from my. From my five guys because that

(44:54):
means I'll play a lot less. Yeah, that's that's.
Very smart, very smart of you. But yeah, so when I watch
football now, that's one of the things that's glaring to me.
Like, yo, why do you run the ball?
It should be. Well, it's because the.
League is a passing league. It's a quarterbacks league.
It's it's seven O 7 with slight tackling and you know.

(45:19):
I know I'm not saying that abouteverybody.
And every team or the players mentality, that's not what I'm
saying at all. I'm saying that's what the
league wants. The players want to play.
Football. The league wants quarterbacks to
throw for 500 yards, Yeah. You know it used to be that if a
quarterback. Had, you know, 2 touchdowns, 175

(45:39):
yards and you know, 60 rushing yards and they had, they had the
best day ever. Now they're going to say that
these quarterbacks are, they didn't put up, they're not
producing. They only put up two touchdowns
today, that is true. That is very true.
It's. Very different than what it used
to be. So yeah, other than Derrick.
Henry. And Saquon Barkley, you don't
really have guys that are going to rush for anything more than

(46:02):
like 1200 and they think that's.A lot.
That's sad, man, that that. What I remember.
No, you're used to you're. Used to guys like Isaac Bruce
and Peyton and Jackson and Sanders and Smith and, you know,
these greats rushing. For lots of.

(46:22):
Yards and every team had one. Every team had like one dude who
was killing it. Well, you got Tim Brown.
You got the. Juice.
Yeah, that guy, yeah. You know, guys that were able to

(46:43):
change the game with their legs and their physicality, and you
just don't, you don't have very much of that these days because
the game has turned into a lot more finesse.
And I think that's one of the reasons why Marshawn decided to
retire twice. That's a good point, but.
Well, I mean you. Had the best running back on the

(47:04):
planet at the time and you choseto throw the ball which I'm not
mad about it at all I'm sorry guys I'm not mad about it at all
because the patriots got into the Super bowl, but I I I don't
support that I don't support I don't support that type of play
calling and every time it happens to me I tell my coaches

(47:25):
you're going to turn me into Marshawn Lynch today and they.
'D be like you are B. Small B, Small junior.
And I say no, I'm at like, are you going to throw the ball when
I've already pierced the goal line three times tonight?
That's facts. You got to.
You got to use. Your running back, that's my
thing. Exactly you.

(47:46):
Have to use your running back that that's the.
That's part of the game. If you don't use the running
back, then what's the point? Then you don't have.
No, you don't have. An all around the game you just
just have a quarterback and you live about die by that
quarterback, which a lot of teams live and die by.
Literally, they lose their quarterback and this season's
over with. And I know this very well.

(48:09):
That's that's the. Problem.
And that's, that's literally. What the problem?
Is it shouldn't be like that. I'm with you all.
Right, for those who don't know Cortez.
Let them know a little bit aboutyourself because you, like I
said, you're a Jack of all trades, master of many.

(48:35):
Oh, did I freeze? Yeah, I was asking.
I said oh, let people know aboutyourself.
For those who don't know who youare, well.
You know, I'll I'll keep it. I'll keep it on the short end.
I'm I'm Cortez Branch junior thesecond you know, I'm I'm a
generational football player. I'm the son of NFL player, you
know, pre NFL slant myself. You know, I'm international

(48:58):
football player, race car driver, father of one.
And you know, I, I try to apply myself to everything that I'm
interested in, maybe not always at the same time, but I do give
100% effort at everything that Ido.
And if I'm, if I'm racing cars, I'm talking about racing cars.

(49:20):
If I'm playing video games, I'm talking about playing video
games. I'm streaming that video game.
I'm kicking everybody's butt in it.
But it's because I have the one thing that I have mastered is
maximum effort. You know it once.
Once you can master maximum effort, you can pretty much
accomplish anything you want. You know, all you got to do is

(49:41):
find the lane to get it done in and the minute you find the lane
to get it done in, you can you can accomplish what you want to
accomplish when you want to accomplish because your body
listens to you. Your brain is on the same page
as your body. And you know the steps that you
took to get there are the same steps that strengthen you to
when you did get there till you performed well.
Is it was one of the things thatyou learned growing up?

(50:01):
Well, not everyone, but I was, Iwas blessed with, you know, the
mentality and the people around me to give me that mentality is
the five PS and that's proper preparation prevents poor
performance. I like that so.
If I prepare so if you like. If you like comic books and you
know about Batman, the inside joke for the comic and the nerd
community is Batman can accomplish anything if he has

(50:21):
enough prep time, correct? And that's.
Pretty much true about the the average human being on earth.
So it doesn't matter that I'm 5/9 and 3/4.
It doesn't matter that, you know, I was only 165 lbs for a
little while. It didn't matter, you know,
didn't matter. I've played center in basketball
games before and high school basketball games I played

(50:42):
center, you know what I mean? And it was never about the, the,
the, the height. It was always about the amount
of effort that you was getting. I was jumping out the gym
dunking basketballs, blocking guys to not 2 times my size.
But you know what I'm saying? These guys are huge.
And it was never, it was never like, oh, Cortez just as
fantastic. No, it was never that at all.
It was I gave the effort that ittook to accomplish what I wanted

(51:05):
to do. If I wanted to be a good
three-point shooter, I went in the gym and shot 1000 balls a
day. If I wanted to be a good hitter
in baseball, I spent all my money on the batting cages when
I was growing up, you know, I went to the open fields and, you
know, threw tennis balls at the wall and hit them off, hit the
hit them back, you know, and it takes a lot of a lot of
concentration to hit a ball thatyou threw to yourself.

(51:26):
You know what I'm saying? Like these are all things that
you that you do. It's the same with race car
driving. You know, I'm not the best race
car driver. I'm probably not even very good,
but I'm not bad and and. And when it comes to race?
Car driving, you have guys that are in there in NASCAR that
haven't won a race in 10 years, but they're still there.
You know what I mean? It's, it's, it's a, it's a
dedicated thing that you do in your life.

(51:49):
When I first started podcasting,I was horrible.
I can barely even watch some of those early shows that that I
did with my original podcast. We used to call it originally
the first podcast that we did was called the Town Hall
meeting. Quickly we found out that we
needed to rename our podcast. So we renamed our podcast the
Bend Podcast, and we progressively got Better

(52:12):
Together as a unit until, you know, we all started doing other
things or some people are still on the show.
I don't appear on the show anymore.
I'm still in the opening credits.
I'm still credited as a creator.And every once in a while I'll
pop in. But you know, and that was when
I talked about politics all the time.
I don't do that anymore. You know, I'm, I'm a lot more
mature in my opinions and my, most of my opinions don't get

(52:33):
brought to platforms unless, youknow, I volunteer them.
You know, but every little thingthat you do in your life, you,
you have to give 100% effort into it, whether it be becoming
a father, being a spouse, you know, working like, one of my
favorite things to do when I train people at work is I tell

(52:53):
them everything about the job, how the job works, you know, how
we do the job and the attitude that you have to have at work.
And then the last thing that I tell them is, hey, today was
probably very extensive for you because I'm thorough.
And they say, yeah, you gave me a lot of information.
I said, don't worry, if you get hired, I'm going to go over this
with you again. And then I'm going to the people

(53:14):
that are going to be around you are going to also reiterate this
to you because this is what we taught them.
And and they say, well, how do you feel about the job?
I said I don't and. They say, what do you mean you
don't and. I say, look, has anybody ever
asked you what your dream job is?
In the end, they say. Oh, I wanted to be a football

(53:35):
player. I wanted to be a telecaster.
I wanted to be an actress, you know, I wanted to be a pro
golfer. I wanted to be a dancer, you
know, I want to be a rapper. You know, all these things.
And you know what I always tell people when they asked me, well,
what my dream job is. What?
I say I don't. Have a dream job because I don't
dream of Labor. That's a great point.

(53:57):
Yeah, I don't. I don't dream of Labor.
I don't. My dream job is getting.
Money deposited into my. Account every day while I sit on
the beach and drink my favorite beer, which is imperial and if I
sit on the beach somewhere and drink my favorite beer while I
look out into the ocean and and get even more chocolate than I

(54:18):
already had with my Caribbean ass.
You know, that's, that's what I want as far as my dream job, but
as far as like, if I have to make money somewhere, I'm going
to give all of my effort to ensure that I can maximize how
much money I'm making. So that means that I have to do
a good job and not just a good job.

(54:38):
I have to do a great job if I want to make the money that I
want to make. And that's, and I know that most
of society doesn't think that anymore, But for, for those of
us who aren't just giving and handed things and opportunities,
we have to prove our worth and we have to have people leverage
their capital on us to, in orderto make that money.

(55:00):
And the only way to do that for them with the majority of us is
to give maximum effort at what we do, even if we do not like
it. So I tell people all the time, I
don't like this job. I hate going to work.
You can't, we can't tell. That's because I'm going to do a
great job while I'm here. I.
Like it? Let me ask you some questions.

(55:20):
I'm very. Fascinated.
About this and this whole conversation, because you are a
person and we had this, we had this conversation offline a
little bit before we even started.
A person who's like I need to have multiple strings of income
come again, yes. We we joke like. 789 We joked on
saying that, but at the same time I want to ask you, because

(55:41):
you're always doing things, how is your time management in terms
of everything's on our schedule?That's not what I'm getting to
because you. Have you have your work life?
You have your home life. He hasn't been in his life.
How do you kind of balance thesethings to do all these things,
man? Because you do a lot every
everything's got to be on. A schedule like I'm talking

(56:03):
about like, and I know this is going to sound like a really
jerk thing to say, but it's downto the minute.
I mean, you know this from talking to me for weeks, you
know what I'm saying? And you know, actually it's been
a couple of months now, but you know, you know this, you know
this from that. Like it's everything.
And I think Jason probably told you about that, you know,
beforehand, like, hey, this dude's really busy, but he wants

(56:23):
to be here, you know what I'm saying?
And it's it's it's. Necessary.
It's necessary because you can'thave too many things
overlapping, because once again,if you're going to give maximum
effort to what you're doing, youdon't want to have a lot of
distractions. And doing too many things at
once at the same time is a problem.

(56:44):
It might look like I'm doing a lot of things at the same time,
but I'm really only doing one thing at a time.
But I blocked out the schedule to the point of where, OK, I got
35 minutes to do this and I got 30 seconds in between this.
I'm gonna go use the bathroom and come right back.
And I'm gonna start this projectand then I'm going to do this
project for an hour. And so that once that hour hits,
I've got, I've got a 2 minute overlap for that.

(57:05):
So I might be able to go over a little bit here, but the next
thing that I'm going to do is I'm going to be able to finish
this too. At the end of the day, the thing
that gets the most compromised is the fact that I don't sleep
as much as I should. And I make up for that.
I, I'm going to make, I make up for that.
I make up for that every chance that I get.
You know, if I go on vacation, I'm going to spend a day where

(57:27):
I'm don't really spend too much time outside of my bed or my
hotel room or my Airbnb, depending on where I want.
I prefer Airbnb because it's more like me.
I'm being at home and I can roama little bit.
I can sit on the porch that I can go in the backyard.
I can run around the dog. I could jump in a hot tub,
Jacuzzi, you know, whatever is is the amenities that I have,
you know, I could go on a drive in the neighborhood.

(57:48):
I can do something to unwind andrelax.
I can go to sleep for the next 5to six hours.
You know, that's an unplanned nap where I can just lay in bed
and watch movies and catch up onTV shows that I didn't mean to
catch, that I've been meaning tocatch up on, even if I've been
meaning to catch up on this showfor three years.
Sorry, sorry, Handmaid's Tale, you're just sitting there in the
queue. It's cool, you know, but but

(58:11):
that's the most important thing.The most important thing is
making sure that you have a schedule for everything that you
do, and I'm sorry, so this is going part.
So This is why you guys should go on his Patreon and you guys
should make sure that you subscribe and buy access to the
Dove and cops experience on Patreon, because you need to be

(58:32):
able to see a lot of things thatare unfettered and things that
come right off the cusp that, you know, men are talking about.
But you know, sorry to the ladies.
You know, I do mean that out of that's not a that's not an
empty, you know, apology. But I'm going to say this.
Women love spontaneous men, but I'm going to tell you what the
only people that I can afford tobe spontaneous have more money

(58:54):
than they can spend. Also true.
And if you don't? Have more money than you can.
Spend you need to drop the spontaneous part of your life
because it's only going to end up with you being broke.
And I mean that. There's a.
You know, there's an old proverbscripture, you know, in the the
Anglican Bible, as I'm going to call it right now.

(59:16):
Sorry to y'all that don't like the fact that I said that but it
is what it is and it is a fool and.
His money will soon be. Parted from each other.
If you're not smart with your. Management of what you do with
your assets, then you're going to not have any and
spontaneousness is going to ruinthat.
Don't get me wrong, I didn't saydon't take opportunities when

(59:37):
they come towards you, but make sure that you at least put a
little bit of thought towards the opportunity.
You know, if you just run aroundwith throwing money at
everything that you got, you're not going to have enough to
throw. That is facts.
That is a heavy lesson that manypeople learn the hard way to say
the least. Yeah, it's just that it's, it's

(01:00:00):
literally just blocking. Out your life make put
everything in a box and decide which box needs to be stacked up
first. If you're going to go in a box
1000 times, you probably don't want it to be at the bottom of
the pile. Just saying.
Yeah, so let me. Ask you this, how do you 'cause
like I said, you play football, you do a lot of things, How do
you prevent yourself from mentalburnout?

(01:00:23):
Well. I have times that I call me
times and me time doesn't mean that I'm going to go out to the
club with my boys, me time. Means I need to sit.
And have reflection with no noise on what I need to do next.
By no noise I mean I don't need to be on my phone.
I don't need to be in the presence of a woman.

(01:00:43):
I don't need to be in the presence of even my child.
I need to be sitting in a room by myself like I am in my office
right now, and I need to be looking at my accounts, looking
at my emails, clearing out my inbox.
You know, if you if, if you lookat my inbox right now, you'd
probably want to punch me because yeah, I look like my

(01:01:04):
inbox looks like one of those girls that tries to shuttle off
on the Internet. But look at all these messages.
I never opened. I did not open these.
I, I, I am not unopening these messages.
That was not what's going on. I just.
Cleared this out. Last Tuesday and it's already
double what it was when I cleared it out.
And I, I answered the messages and I answered the emails.

(01:01:24):
I answered the, the apps in the order that they need to be
answered, not in it. You know, I ranked them in terms
of priority. You know, if you're somebody
that I haven't talked to in ninemonths and you send me a what's
up, how you doing text? I might not answer you till
Friday. And it's not because I'm not
caring. It's because you didn't need me
for the last nine months. What do you need me for now?
That's. True.

(01:01:47):
You know. There's about 5 or 6 people.
That are going to get immediate answers.
Like for example, you know, I might not have known you that
long, but if we're if we have something that we're supposed to
be doing, I'm going to answer you very, very quickly.
To let you know that and and. You can, you can vouch for this
down to the minute of when I'm available, yeah.

(01:02:08):
We've had these conversations down to his work.
I'm not late, you know, like there are some acceptable events
to be late to, but there are meetings.
Meetings you don't, you don't, you never, you don't show up
late to a meeting. You can show up late to an
event, but you cannot show up late to a meeting.
It's not classy and it does not show respect, especially if

(01:02:32):
you're the guest. That's true.
That's very true. That's good point.
Let me ask you this Cortez, because we're, we're we're
getting now into the work life balance thing and I'm, I'm
digging with this conversation is going.
So with all the things you do, because like I said, you do a

(01:02:54):
lot. How do you mentally prepare
yourself each day when everything is going on to keep
yourself motivated to do these things you got to do?
Well #1. I'm going to give an
unconventional but very conventional answer.
Every day I wake up with the mindset.

(01:03:14):
That I'm not the biggest thing on earth.
I also wake up with a mindset that I didn't make myself and
that the world didn't come from nothing.
And it doesn't. I'm not going to say that it
doesn't matter to me how the world was created, but I'm going
to say that I'm not. Arrogant enough to.
Believe that I exist on accident.

(01:03:38):
I'm not arrogant enough to believe that any.
Of us exist on accident and thatthat any of the cosmos was
created on accident. I'm not arrogant enough to
believe that do I know everything about all of this No
no I don't. Am I going to claim to?
No, but I have grounded myself through.

(01:03:58):
Not religion. I'm not a religious.
Person anymore. I've given up religion, but I do
believe in an entire power. I do believe in spirituality and
I do believe in a creator. And every morning I give thanks
to the Most High First as best of my ability.
I'm not a perfect human so I don't get on the ground and roll
around and say 1000 prayers, butI give thanks to the Most High

(01:04:19):
first for giving me another day and.
That lets me know immediately that.
I have some ability to make somedecisions and make some moves
that I'm not the person that's always in charge.
Anything can happen Murphy's Law.
Anything can happen today. But on the off chance that the

(01:04:43):
most highest watching and listening actively at the moment
and right at me. If I am so blessed to get shined
on today, I'm going to give thanks to the fact that.
You put air in these lungs. And that I'm not a quadriplegic
or anything else and I can move freely.
The second thing that I do most of the most of the time,
especially if I'm feeling feeling spicy, is I say.

(01:05:12):
The Lord has allowed me to live another day.
And I'm going to make it everybody's problem.
That's awesome now. I mean, it's kind of
self-explanatory, but a what that means?

(01:05:32):
Is that you know that if you're coming up?
Against me, I'm going to give all of the effort.
You know it's not the immovable.Force versus the unstoppable.
Object. That's not what it is.
I'm both, So what does that makeeveryone else?
I like it. You know it's I need to win.
Today I didn't say how I. Needed to win, but I need to.

(01:05:54):
Win today I. Need to win every day, but I
need to find a way to win. Even if it's a small victory I I
need, there's not a day that I don't look for the win.
Not a day I look for the win. Every day I like it.
One of the things I appreciate. About you Cortez is you are a

(01:06:20):
person that is very comfortable with who you are and your.
Aura shows that and your being. Shows that.
And to be clear, it's not cockiness.
It's not arrogance. It's all.
It's all. It's also very much.
If anything, it's humbleness. You're somebody who.
Yeah. Yeah, I hate me the most.

(01:06:46):
So there's a joke. It's a joke going around.
I. Didn't create the joke, but I
resonated with the joke and I'm going to tell you what the joke
is right so. And I remind you, I kind of.
Ruined it a little bit, but you know, we're going to do this bit
and I look at you and I say I will.
Give you $50,000. Right now, under one condition,

(01:07:08):
the person who you. Hate the most gets 100. $1000
Will you take the $50,000? Yes.
So most people still say yes because it's 50.
It's $50,000 that you didn't have.
I always say Oh yeah, run that I'm getting $150,000 and they

(01:07:29):
say what I. Say well, the person I hate the
most. Is myself so you getting paid?
So you're getting paid twice. I'm going to get the 100,000 and
I'm. Going to get the 50,000.
So I get 150,000. It wouldn't.
No, that's not what I mean. But well, you, you said the
person you hate the most. That's me if I didn't.
I would never. Want to change I would never

(01:07:52):
want. See Comfort, certain types.
Of not comfort. Content.
Miss contentness in in yourself is the enemy of progress, yes.
It is if I'm so. Content in myself that I don't

(01:08:14):
need to. Change then I don't I no longer
progress and I I I I do this thesame thing like you remember
Gary Coleman yeah of course different.
Strokes. Do you remember Julia White?
Of course. Not, not today's Julia White,
you know, Yeah, that was my favorite Julia White.

(01:08:37):
Not Urkel, but the reason why Urkel.
And the reason why? Gary Coleman's characters got
stale is because they did the same bit for like a decade
straight. That's correct and they did not
change it. When they went to, when they
went out in. Public, they were these
characters. They weren't themselves.
They were these characters and they did the bit, say the thing,

(01:08:59):
say the thing, say the thing. And The Simpsons made fun of
this, you know, with Bart, they did this with Bart where Barta
got famous and they just, everybody just wanted Bart to
only say the same thing that made him famous.
And what you see is if you have that character syndrome with
inside yourself where you don't change and you don't alter who
you are, you don't learn from your mistakes and every episode

(01:09:20):
is basically a A1 off episode ofyour life.
Then you, you, you don't grow with the times, you don't
change, you don't become dynamicand you don't make any inroads
in your own life. You're not introspective enough,
You know, you don't have a driveanymore to succeed anymore.
You know, you get stuck in high school like a lot of people do.
They talk. But you in high school, you was

(01:09:40):
kind of lame. Well, yeah.
I mean, half our, half our classis dead and I'm still alive and
I don't even think that, you know, I have half my life gone
yet. So you still.
Talking about that. Yeah, I didn't forget that.
It happened, but it kind of was like in the recess.
Like I have been to like a bunchof different countries since

(01:10:01):
then. Like, can we talk about that?
Let's not talk about the time that my pants was too tight in
6th grade. I don't want to talk about that.
Yeah, it's it is interesting. How people, and I get why they
do it. They live in that one facet of
their life and they keep bring up that one facet because I
guess they resonate with that. Time as a As a.

(01:10:21):
Time of happiness and the other people who I guess like me and
you who move on from that periodof time, like you know what,
that was a cool time when it happened.
Now is bigger and better things.We advance, we adapt, we're
moving, going with our lives. But you know, I, I completely
get that there are some people who can't get past that.
I have a lot of friends like that unfortunately.

(01:10:45):
Yeah, who were just stuck in that high school era time.
Like, oh bro, we it's 2025 now. We've been going out of high
school for quite some time. Yeah.
So I mean so so you you get it then.
You get exactly what I mean by that.
Like it's I, I have a drive to to be.

(01:11:07):
So I, one of my slogans is 1% better every day, 1% better
every day. And yeah, I have a bunch of
motivational things that I literally have to tell myself
over and over and over again, but it's one of the main ones
is. 1% better. Every day.
Yeah. I did not have a great day

(01:11:29):
today. Not today, obviously today was
pretty cool, you know, but 1% better every day.
And that doesn't mean that I'm going to solve world hunger or
doesn't mean I'm going to solve cancer or AIDS or any of these
things that, you know, have beenwrong with our world.
It just means that I'm going to be a little bit better tomorrow
than I was today because I'm better today than I was
yesterday. And if, if I still got air in my

(01:11:52):
lungs, I could do this and this and this and it it all goes down
to the, once again, the competition thing.
Well, if a bear is attacking us,how fast do you have to be?
Well, I don't have to be Usain Bolt, but I just got to be
faster than you. No offense.
Yeah, that's true. So.
That's why you train well, you don't train and.
I train so I'm going to be faster than you and you know,

(01:12:15):
may the may the odds ever be in your favor.
However that goes. You know what I'm saying?
Like that's, that's kind of how you have to live life if you
want to do things. And I'm not comfortable not
doing things, but some people are.
I'm not knocking anybody that's comfortable with where they're
at. I'm just saying that I'm not
usually comfortable for too longin one spot.

(01:12:36):
And it's not saying that I can'tlive in the same house for
years. I'm not saying I can't drive the
same car for years. You know, I'm going on a decade
of owning 1 vehicle, not mind you, I'll have, I have more than
one vehicle, but this one particular vehicle, this little
race car that I bought, I've hadfor about a decade and I don't
have any plans on selling it or not driving it, no matter how

(01:12:56):
less comfortable than, you know,my everyday vehicle is, you
know, 'cause for me, it's not about comfort.
It's about the aesthetic of the vehicle and the sights, the
sounds, the roar, all that, thatI love.
And I'm, but I'm not comfortablewith stagnating and just, well,
that was a nice plateau. You know, I got a triple double.

(01:13:17):
Well, can I do it again? But if I got one last.
Time I could probably do it again.
Maybe I could get 2? Triple double S.
Right now, well, I got two out of my games for, you know, and
it's not a, it's not greed, it'snot gluttony.
It's none of those things because none of them are
necessarily monetary, you know, you know, except how much pizza

(01:13:40):
I could eat, because that's a completely different story.
But it's I want to be, I want tobe a better man.
I might have you. So I.
I I don't. I don't have the stomach
capacity the way that I used to,but I remember one time I
ordered 4 pizzas from Domino's and I ate all of them in like 8

(01:14:01):
hours alone. I was very depressed.
So have I done that? I've.
Done three. I don't think I've done four.
Well, they were doing a 2 for two deal.
And I I didn't. Have this is right when I did.
Yeah, this is 2020. You know, I didn't have a family
anymore and I was kind of alone and I just ate pizza all day and

(01:14:25):
play video games. I was the biggest bum that day.
I ate pizza and I eat and I playvideo games all day and I watch
the music videos. And, you know, I, I hit my vape
harder than I ever hit my vape in my entire life.
And I don't think I worked out for two days.
And I just, you know, I didn't even want to watch porn or
nothing. I didn't even look at a naked
girl. I was just depressed, you know,

(01:14:46):
But I came up out of there. We all have those moments.
I don't think I. Like I don't eat like that when
I get depressed like that. But we all, oh, back then I had
the stomach. I had the stomach back then.
Like not, not the outward stomach, but I had the internal
like capacity to eat. Now I'm done after a couple
slices. You know, I've I've gotten in
shape again and I've I've got mymind to be in a stronger place

(01:15:09):
to where I'm not saying I don't have my lows, but like it's,
it's the Angel and demon on my shoulder and the angels on my
shoulder. Talk about hey, bro, what's your
problem? And the demons on my shoulder
like, hey, you know what, I don't like him over there, but
hey, what's your problem? You know, and now it's like they
both was. Now I'm the one like, hey,
what's going on with y'all? Y'all on the same team now like

(01:15:30):
that is that is a good thing. Though that you you.
Sent it yourself and you kind offigured out that when 'cause I
think that's the the most important thing about
depression, knowing that you're what you're going through and
that you can get through it. But dude, I have been.
Not to take the show you. Know to the Nether.
Regions of the world. But I've I've been through a lot

(01:15:53):
of traumatic things and I will tell you something about trauma.
You know when trauma hits. You the hardest is.
When you let it, that's true. I, I I look.
I look at trauma. As in the same way I look at
lifting weights. This hurts a lot, especially the
older that I get. But.
Give it two days and I feel likeSuperman.

(01:16:15):
I look like Superman. Superman.
I want to. I want to carve a statue of
myself or Commission someone else to do it.
You know what I'm saying? That's.
And you're sad, but man, you felt like crap a couple days
ago. Yeah, I did feel like crap a
couple days ago. Yeah, but.
I feel great. Now, and that's because I
worked, I went through that and and you know, a lot of people

(01:16:41):
are going to disagree with me onthis, but you heal.
You heal from an injury. You don't heal from a hurt.
That's true. You work through a hurt I when I
coach the kids, I asked the kids, are you injured or are you
hurt? Because if you're, if you're
hurt, sit out to place, I'm sending you back in.

(01:17:04):
If you're injured, I'm going to call a medic, OK?
That makes sense to me so most. Things in life, especially
trauma, those are hurts I'm going to work through.
This hurt even if. It means eating 4 pizzas in a
day. I'm going to work through this

(01:17:24):
hurt if it's an injury. I'm going to need to do some.
Some some therapies or PT, I'm going to need to, you know, go
to Athletico or ATI and get trained again.
You know, that's the difference.So a lot of things that have
happened to me, which are considered trauma in today's
society, they're hurts. They're big hurts, but they're

(01:17:47):
hurts. Frank Thomas size hurts, but
they're hurts. The reason why they call it
Frank Thomas, the big hurt, not the big injure, is because
during Frank Thomas time with the White Sox, they never won a
World Series. They never even got close, you
know, and so. That he's just a big.
Hurt, yeah, he's going to hit a couple home runs and make you
lose a game that you needed to win.
But you know what? It's cool.
You got to play them and beat them four more times throughout

(01:18:08):
the season. They won once, but he looked
real good in that one game, you know, and and that's what I
that's what I do. It's it didn't kill me.
It didn't kill. Me so if it didn't kill me then.
I'm supposed to face this monster again until I beat it,
right? OK, cool.
Let's see what happens. I'm gonna go up again.
I played. I played.
I played a lot of video games growing up.
And you know one thing about thefinal boss?

(01:18:29):
He's going to whip your butt thefirst couple of times you play
him. Yes, we learned this.
In Sonic Doctor. Robotnik is going to kick that
butt, but then you're going to get him.
You're going to get him, you're going to get him, but he's going
to kick that butt at the 1st, you know, And if you did get a
first time victory, you know, one time, one time, one shot and
you beat him right away. You it's almost anti climactic,

(01:18:49):
like I didn't have to work for this.
That level wasn't that hard. That is true, yeah.
Yeah, and I'm not saying. You don't appreciate the the
dub? But come on, sometimes you have
to work that hard it. Means what would you earn it?
I'm just saying. That if I give you a car.
Versus if you paid your money for a car, even if it's a
Porsche, you're going to treat the Porsche that you bought a

(01:19:11):
whole lot nicer than the ports that I gave you.
And that's, and that is not whether you're a good person or
a bad person. That has nothing to do with it.
It is the human psyche, the effort that you exerted to get
something is going to directly, directly to show by how you
treat it. You know, I have, I have, I'm

(01:19:34):
working on this. I'm not saying that I'm a master
of it, but I'm working on treating things that are gifts
the exact same way as I treat things that I bought myself that
isn't not. It's work in progress.
Good way to go about this. It's working.
It's a work in progress. You know I'm work.
I'm working on that. I really am all right.

(01:19:54):
I like that final. Question, of course, has.
We've been, we've been rocking for a minute now, man, you're
doing all these things when it all, when it's.
All set and done. This might be a big one for you.
How do you want to be remembered?

(01:20:17):
When I was young, they asked me a question of.
What do you want to your tombstone?
And I would always say Cortez Branch.
He was fast, OK, because at thatpoint in my life.
I wanted to be the fastest. Person on earth, Sonic.
I got really close. Yes.
I got really close. I was on Team USA track and

(01:20:37):
field. I competed all over the world.
I got really close to my goal, did not accomplish.
Being the fastest man on earth and that's.
When physics took over, and I don't mean physics because, oh,
you know, your body broke down. Now, my body didn't break down,
but I'm not 65. Yes, and.

(01:20:58):
I got to cover. A lot more space when I'm not
65, you know what I'm saying? And I'm going to leave it at
that today. And hopefully this part change
but. Today, if it was to say he.
Gave his. All.

(01:21:21):
In everything that he did. That would satisfy me as far as
my goal and what I want to be remembered by as somebody who
always showed up. And if, if, if I met you, I'm
going to make you feel like you're the most important person
in the world. If it's your birthday, I am
going to celebrate you. If it is your graduation, I'm

(01:21:44):
going to celebrate your graduation as if it was the
Super Bowl. If, if, if, if you got a raise
at work, Hey, man, drinks on me.You got a raise.
You know, it is about celebrating each victory, not
going overboard every time, but about appropriately celebrating
each victory along the journey. Because what we've come to find

(01:22:05):
out is that success, the it's not a, it's not a final
destination. The real success is how you
treat the steps. On the journey, everybody wants
the big house. The majority of people who get
the big house right away after not having any housing in
between, they lose the big house, they lose all the money,

(01:22:27):
they lose all the big house. They lose the fame, they lose
the jewelry, they lose the girls, they lose the cars, and
usually they lose their lives atthe end of it.
That's true. And if if I'm supposed to be.
On the journey. To to reach eternal comfort and
not. Necessarily just get it right

(01:22:48):
away. If I'm supposed to be on the
journey because the you know theperson upstairs, wherever
upstairs is. Decided that I needed to go
through the steps I. Got to go through the steps and
I got to appreciate the. Fact that I made it to the next
one. So I.
I wanted, I wanted to say he gave his all.

(01:23:09):
I'm going. To give everything that I got
while I'm here I. Like that and it's the best I
can do. And he did his best as the
biggest compliment that you could ever give me.
I like that. And to be honest, for most.
Things in my life I only ever want someone to acknowledge that
I did my best. He didn't take the playoff.

(01:23:35):
He didn't phone it in. He did his best.
He did his best. He did his best, he did his
best. He gave us everything that he
had. To his gas tank was empty, he
drove every. Mile that you could possibly
drive down to the centimeter, millimeter.
He did his best. He always did his best.

(01:23:58):
That's what I want. He always did his.
Best he want. He wanted to be the best.
Father, he wanted to be the bestson, he wanted to be the best
grandson. He wanted to be the best worker.
He wanted to be the best athlete.
He wanted to be the best driver.He wanted to be the best gamer.
He wanted to be the best electrician.
He wanted to be the best weightlifter.
He wanted to be the best vapor. He wanted to be.
And he not only did he want to do it, but he went and gave it

(01:24:19):
his paw. And even if you could jump 5
feet farther than him, even if you could run a second faster
than him, even if you could lift50 lbs more than him, even if
you could kill 20 more people than him, win this game, it did
not matter to him. He celebrated your greatness,
but he never considered himself less because he gave everything
he had. You know that that kind of goes

(01:24:44):
back to another biblical story. You know, I'm pretty sure we all
know about, you know, the woman who gave her last two 2 little
coins when this rich guy threw some money in there like it
didn't matter. You know what I'm saying?
Everybody's not rich, not rich and monetary things.
Some people don't have any type of richness in their life, and
I'm going to be the first personto admit that that happens

(01:25:04):
often. But he gave his.
Best he did the best that he could.
He tried every single day and every single day being better
than yesterday. For you for.
Me and everybody and every hand that I shake, every fist that I
bump, you know, and everything else in between.

(01:25:26):
I did my best, man. And I'm sorry I wasn't good
enough, but I did my best and I'll try to do better tomorrow.
Like it? Let them notify you, brother.
So let them. Notify you, you can find me on.
Instagram. At Soul Reaper, the number 24,
Soul Sol Reaper 24, you can findme on the X or Twitter and Soul

(01:25:49):
Reaper, the number 2 no #2 the word for I don't really use
Facebook that much anymore. My name is Cortez branch.
You can find me on there if you want to look for me on in the
podcast and see obviously you can catch me here.
You can catch me on the digit dreaming off the gridiron
podcast, which is a wrestling slash football podcast, and you

(01:26:10):
can also sometimes find me on the DOA podcast.
And if you look back in time, you can find me on the the the
Bend podcast, as we already talked about that the DOA is the
dig on America podcast. You guys remember Jason Dutch?
That is one of his shows and TikTok is Soul Reaper 24 as
well. I'm trying to think, is there
anything else? Oh, you know, I'm I'm in the

(01:26:31):
Snapchat. So look, look me up on Snapchat.
It's TEZYSHAY Tessie Shea yes, that is a celebrity star next to
my name. No, I did not pay for it because
you can't on Snapchat. And that's one of the reasons
why I gave more time to Snapchatis because both Twitter and
Instagram and Facebook allowed you to buy them and it

(01:26:52):
diminished all the people who earned them through their
efforts, correct? So.
You can't buy it on. Snapchat you can buy a black
one. But you can't buy the right one.
Thanks. And I mean, like I said, I'm
just giving. Give me my best.
Oh, if you're a video game person, you can find me on

(01:27:12):
Twitch at I believe it's TRC Tezi Shay 24.
It might just be the one baller 24, just Tezi Shay 24.
But at my my stuff's posted, you'll find me if you look at
Yeah, you can just type in his name and you'll see all this.
Stuff. Yeah, I'm, I'm there, I'm there.
I I. I create stuff, you know.

(01:27:34):
I make things for other creatorsand I have a hard time saying no
to things that I can do, if thatmakes any sense.
Things that I can't do, easy to say no to those things, but
things that I can do and I know I can do, well, hard to say no
to. Well, you can do a lot.
I do my best. I'd say that much I'd do.

(01:27:55):
My best thank you guys for listening.
As always, Delva Cops spins, we are out peace.

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