September 25, 2024 • 31 mins
Join Mike Powers live from the iHeart studios as he welcomes professional wrestler Zack Clayton to the show! In this exciting episode, Mike and Zack dive into the always evolving world of wrestling, sharing his stories from the ring and discussing the dedication required to stay at the top of his game.
They'll also explore the vital connection between health, fitness, and performance, offering insights into Zack's training regimen and lifestyle. Additionally, the conversation highlights the remarkable work of the nonprofit @kulturecity, focusing on its mission to support individuals with sensory needs and promote inclusivity.
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-divide-live--2966262/support.
They'll also explore the vital connection between health, fitness, and performance, offering insights into Zack's training regimen and lifestyle. Additionally, the conversation highlights the remarkable work of the nonprofit @kulturecity, focusing on its mission to support individuals with sensory needs and promote inclusivity.
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-divide-live--2966262/support.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Fox Sports The Gambler Mike Powers from The Divide Live.
I'm here with a special guest, Zach Clayton. What's up, Zach?
Speaker 2 (00:08):
What's up, Mike? Thanks for having me man, of.
Speaker 1 (00:10):
Course, man without a doubt. So we met doing good
and it was had a beer pong event for the
children's specialized hospital, so you know, fun you ended up
getting second place or first place.
Speaker 3 (00:22):
So we got second place. First of all, I didn't
even think we were going to get that far. I mean,
how many teams were there. I think we did ten
teams or something.
Speaker 1 (00:29):
No, it was like sixty two teams, I know, because
we had to create the bracket, so it was like overall, yeah,
maybe it was thirty two March Madness. It was the
same amount that March Madness has, right, So, but.
Speaker 2 (00:39):
It was crazy. It was insane and we would have won.
Speaker 3 (00:42):
But apparently there's a real life like beer pong professionals
that do this.
Speaker 2 (00:48):
For a living forms everything.
Speaker 3 (00:51):
It was insane, and you know, we got right there
with them. We were like a couple of cups down
and we lost and we took second place.
Speaker 2 (00:57):
But if not for them, we would have won. Yeah,
I think maybe they shouldn't have been allowed at a
charity event. I totally agree.
Speaker 1 (01:03):
I totally agree. And then they showed up with the
trophies like at a professional pang event, and I was like,
are you kidding me? Which is great for exposure for
everything we're doing, all of our sponsors that were on
the trophy and stuff like that, but yeah, man, I
was like, of course they won. They showed up in
like jerseys like they were just draining them. Literally, there
was people being eliminated in the first round by them,
(01:24):
and it was just like a buzzsaw all the way
to you guys.
Speaker 2 (01:26):
Yeah, totally.
Speaker 3 (01:27):
And then I heard when we were playing that they
were just in Orlando the week trire and they just
won like ten year in at a professional tournament. I'm like,
what is happening. I'm just trying to trying to do
some good here and eat some pizza. I don't know
this is going to be this competitive, but we took
second place.
Speaker 1 (01:42):
Yeah, dude, it was. It was a crazy experience. It
obviously it was for the Children's Specialized Hospital Foundation. Todd
Frazier was the host of the whole event, but dude,
it was so much fun. The one thing I noticed
and don't take this offense with this. Everybody who was
in the finals was like six feet plus, you know.
(02:03):
So Nikki Cass this year when we bring it back,
he's going to be the ref and make sure nobody's
hands go too far past the table.
Speaker 2 (02:10):
That was the other thing. And I don't know these guys.
Speaker 3 (02:12):
I don't know the professional beer pong champions that we
played against, but there was definitely some They were tall too,
and I don't know. We were definitely leaning over probably
what we were supposed to, but they had this lean
thing that they were doing that I don't know if
it was regulation or whatnot, but it shouldn't have been allowed.
Speaker 1 (02:30):
I totally agree. It's kind of like, hey, I'm gonna
jump into a ring with a professional wrestler, Like it's like, yeah,
you can't do that. Why are they allowed to do that?
So that's another thing. Man, you've had You're only twenty
nine years old, but I feel like you've had experience
after experience after experience, And how did you get into
pro wrestling? And what was that journey? Is that journey
(02:52):
like for you?
Speaker 2 (02:52):
Sure?
Speaker 3 (02:53):
So I started when I was nineteen. Actually this April,
it's going to be ten full years. Congrat Yeah, man,
you know. I started small town upstate New York, Albany area,
It's where I'm from. I started at a local school there,
like a wrestling school. There are wrestling schools. A lot
of people don't know that. They think you kind of
just jump into a ring. That's not really how it works.
(03:15):
There is a proper protocol and training like any other sport.
So I started there. That school was very small, no
name school that shut down shortly after I started, But
I learned the basics there and I went down to Brooklyn,
which for me was a three hour drive every time
I went down. But I did to go train in
(03:35):
Gleason's gym in Brooklyn. But exactly Yeah, with WWF Hall
of Famer Johnny Rods Awesome so which is now WWE,
but at the time that's when he wrestled with WWF
and WWE was. They had eyes on his gym, they
had scouts coming into they had just picked up a
couple guys from there, so I was like, oh, this
(03:57):
is a good place to be.
Speaker 2 (03:58):
And Johnny was great.
Speaker 3 (04:00):
A lot of names came out of there, Taz, Tommy Dreamer, Rally,
like a lot of people came out of there. He's
known for a very old school tough training, which I like. Yeah,
personally he was a very nobs kind of guy. But
by the time I got to Johnny, he was older,
so he didn't get in the ring much, but when
(04:22):
he did it was usually for a bad reason for
somebody else, never for me. But he was a great guy,
and I started doing the Independence. They're called the Independent,
almost like a rock band those local bars. When we
first start, I started with him, did the circuit in
New York, Jersey just kind of learned that circuit, and
then actually moved to Florida for two years, Tampa area, Sarasota.
(04:47):
There was another fed down there I was training with,
did a couple shows, but not much, and then when
I moved back up to Jersey, it kind of took
back off. But that was during COVID, So then COVID
obviously shut down all sports and live entertainment right, so
there was like nothing going on. And then that's when
AW actually started to really started to ramp up, and
(05:10):
I flew down there. They were doing their stint in Jacksonville,
where Daily's place. So the owner of a w owns
to Jacksonville Jaguars, right, So he had the whole arena,
whole arena and complex right wow. So he would fly
us in and we would just kind of do two
or three day stints there and just film film that
(05:32):
we had the film and then you know, roll it
out and move on and come back the next week
or whatever it was. So that's how I started to
get those reps there. And now I work I'm with
TNA now working with the FBI. It's a great group
of guys. Little Guido and Nunzio has been around wrestling
for as long as I've been alive.
Speaker 1 (05:53):
Dude, it's insane, right Yeah.
Speaker 2 (05:54):
E c W days back thirty years ago. Are you familiar?
Speaker 3 (05:57):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (05:57):
No, it was a fraction of action, just like nWo.
Like it was definitely up there, like as far as
like it's a recognizable logo and for you to be
for you to be a part of that, like that's
that's an honor in itself, talk about how did that happen?
Speaker 3 (06:12):
It is And he's a great guy. He's like the
the everyone who knows him in wrestling. It's like he's
everyone's uncle in a way. But he's also like the
crazy uncle, you know, like he's an awesome guy. That started.
Tommy Dreamer reached out to me. It's like, hey, man,
I want you to come in, and here's the idea.
I want to build the FBI back up. I want
to do a new kind of revamp of the FBI.
(06:35):
And I said, I love it, and he kind of
let me and the other guys take the reins with
what we thought it should be or creative and things
like that, and it's been fun so far. There's more
to come, and I'm grateful for Tommy to reach out
and have kind of the trust in us to kind
of just say, here's what I want. But you guys
can kind of make your own thing, so, which is
(06:57):
always an awesome thing to to be.
Speaker 2 (07:00):
In position to be in.
Speaker 1 (07:01):
Like I feel like finally professional wrestlings back to the
like that nineties where when I grew up it was ECW,
WCWWWS Right, so now with all these other companies, Like one,
how great is that for you as a professional wrestler,
But two the fans are winning? Right? And then also
(07:22):
like there's been times where you've seen TNA people on
aw TNA people on you know, Rural Rumble making appearances
like how has that been. What's that chemistry like?
Speaker 2 (07:33):
So it's a great thing.
Speaker 3 (07:36):
So obviously the fans are winning because like when you
said the nineties that a lot of people consider the
heyday in the booming era of professional wrestling, But if
you're in the business, you kind of look at the
nineties like it really was a war and you really
were out there for your company and defend your honor
and your livelihood because back then there were not certain
(07:58):
things like we have now. Those guys back then and
if you talk to them, they'll tell you about it.
They didn't have guaranteed contracts. They didn't get paid if
they didn't work. So if they blew out their knee
and they can't wrestle, they don't work. And there was
no you know, medical system was not what it is today.
Rehabbing is not what it is today. They didn't have doctors,
(08:20):
you know, to come back and do all this stuff.
Like they taped it up and they went out tomorrow
because they had to to get paid. And then that's
when you had WCW come in and they were offering
all this money to all these guys, and it was
competition all of a sudden, which is what we're seeing
now there's a lot of companies, not a lot, but
(08:40):
there are new companies now and people have options, whereas
before this, before about five years ago, they didn't really
have too many options. And it's a good thing. Fans win,
wrestlers have more chances to make money, which is always
a good thing. And it actually creates this boom in
the business again because you are competing with other people again, right,
(09:04):
instead of I'm not saying a monopoly is a bad
thing because WWE they kicked everyone out of competition, they were, right, right, Yeah,
so when you win, you're on top.
Speaker 2 (09:15):
Yeah, sometimes you.
Speaker 3 (09:18):
Don't get the always the competitive edge that you had
before because it's no longer competition, right right, you.
Speaker 1 (09:24):
Know, And I saw some of wrestlers like struggle because
of that, you know, like and WWE started realizing and
they started making different They brought back ECW for a
little bit, and XD became a thing, you know, all
these different orifices. But I was like kind of like,
it's still like, you know, so when AW shows up,
you know, it just kind of really changed everything. TNA
(09:46):
went through their struggles in the beginning, but I always
felt that was impactful, right, No, pun intended because I
switched the impact. But you know, it's so cool to see.
But also like I'm kind of glad that they understand now,
like there's almost like an understanding that all this needs
to exist, or we could all co exist. Right, Still
(10:06):
competitiveness still like you know, totally upset or happy when
somebody crosses over, right, Like, so it's it's still cool.
You know, you've seen you know, Cody Roads come leave
AW to come into WWE. You saw Edge, who I
thought was a WW lifer now in AW it's like everybody,
(10:26):
it's like.
Speaker 3 (10:26):
What you know, and so so first of all, it's exciting, yeah, right,
it brings back the excitement and it brings back uncertainty
for good and bad because, like you said, people you
thought are this company forever maybe not anymore, right, you know,
So now it's like, okay, now anybody could really go
anywhere and do anything crazy, and even people that you
(10:49):
think you mentioned Cody, Cody is a good friend of mine.
Speaker 2 (10:53):
Cody is a great guy.
Speaker 3 (10:55):
He's super smart and everything he does means a lot.
So for him to do what he did and obviously
you see him he's now the WWE champion. Just had
the biggest WrestleMania of all time, where he literally, you know,
you look at what happened with him the Rock. The
Rock comes back. Yeah, and I don't know how closely
(11:16):
you follow, but it sounds like you follow close. The
Rock came back to take the main event spot at WrestleMania,
and the fans said, you know what, that's cool, but
we want Cody. We've been watching Cody for two years.
He needs to finish the story and to see in
real life, Cody Rhoads take on the biggest star in
(11:39):
the world for the spotlight.
Speaker 2 (11:41):
Cody won.
Speaker 3 (11:43):
It's amazing, Yeah, and that can only happen in pro wrestling.
You know that's not gonna happen in Hollywood. Hollywood's going
to say, no, this guy's in and that's it.
Speaker 1 (11:50):
Yeah, exactly, like the fans can't dictate anything, Like as
much as you love your sport, you can't dictate that either.
So when that happens, it's in front of a super
Bowl crowd in Vegas and they realized like they had
to change this, and it's it's so cool one you know,
the Rock to recognize that, I guess because he could
have just taken his.
Speaker 2 (12:10):
Ball and left.
Speaker 1 (12:11):
It's kind of weird that one transaction with the you know.
Speaker 3 (12:16):
You're really up on it. So I was at WrestleMania.
I took Grace in the WrestleMania and such an awesome time.
Speaker 2 (12:25):
Really was awesome, And it was in.
Speaker 3 (12:26):
Philly, yeah right, And it was just a crazy time.
That Philly crowd was awesome and it was like this
thing you were watching was like truly like a Disney
movie play out in real life because you have the
biggest star in the world the most part. Everyone can
pretty much recognize that, right, And to a lot of people,
(12:47):
he's like, he's going back to wrestling. Yeah, hell yeah,
yeah he is, and this is what he's doing, and
that means that it means something because that's what he
wants to do. He could do anything he wants. He
wanted to come back to do this story, right, and
that's really cool.
Speaker 1 (13:03):
That's amazing, especially for that company, especially for you know,
us as fans, because that doesn't happen like we The
only thing I could compare that to is like when
Jordan came back wearing forty five. Yeah, you know, like
things like that. So it's it's uh, yeah, it's it's
a life changing moment where.
Speaker 3 (13:19):
It's like or it's like, you know, we just saw
Tom Brady step back right. It's like if if I
don't know, we can make up a scenario. Because it's wrestling,
we can make it up. And in sports, it's like
imagine Belichick coming back to coach the Patriots with Gronk
and then Bringes all of a sudden like you know what, Yeah,
I want to play this game only music.
Speaker 2 (13:38):
Could you imagine.
Speaker 3 (13:40):
Music exactly like that would never obviously happen, No, but
you can do that in wrestling.
Speaker 2 (13:46):
Yeah, and that's why it's so awesome.
Speaker 3 (13:48):
It's just fun and touching back to the original point
of of now there's a little bit of diversity and yeah,
it's just an amazing time and pro wrestling again.
Speaker 1 (13:58):
That's awesome. That's awesome. Another thing that intrigues me about
you as a human is your willingness to one put
yourself out there, share your fitness journey, share your mental
health journey, and really make a difference. You have a
community on Instagram now that people could subscribe to or
join where you're sharing you know, health bits, whether it
(14:20):
be food, working out, stuff like that. Why is that
so important to you? Obviously it's working for you. And
your body is a part of your job, right, like
it keeps you employed, you know, talk about that and
how that's working.
Speaker 3 (14:35):
Sure, man, Yeah, so touching the last point real quick,
you would think, so, like my body, I work hard
on it, and you know, you have this image going
back to wrestling of what a wrestler should look like,
and then the nineties everyone is six feet whatever and
just jack to the gills and it's like, Okay, that's
what a wrestler looks like. And you turn on TV
now and there's a lot of it. But also it's
(14:57):
great to have the diversity of not everybody looks like
and again that's another good thing. But then also sometimes
it's you're a little bit bitter because it's like, wait
a minute, I work to look like this and you
get to wrestle in a T.
Speaker 2 (15:11):
Shirt injuring beer. It's like, all right, we're both here.
That's cool. But yeah, no.
Speaker 3 (15:19):
So I started actually rewind it when I was living
in upstate, New York and I was trained at the wrestler.
I was also running a gym. A performance gym is
training athletes. It was training everyday people just to be
better right. I had clients that were eight years old
all the way. I had an eighty five year old
woman who would come in three times.
Speaker 2 (15:37):
A week, by the way.
Speaker 1 (15:38):
Amazing.
Speaker 2 (15:39):
Yeah, it really was, and I loved it. It was
so much fun.
Speaker 3 (15:44):
And when I kind of took other turns in life,
I had to stop doing that. But it's something that
I still want to do. And I still have people
reach out to me because they see what I do
and it's like, hey, how are you motivated to do that?
Or what is your plan? Or how do I start?
Or all these questions. And I can't get to everybody anymore.
(16:05):
I can't say just come to my gym and I'll
help you out right. I don't have that anymore. Right,
So now, I believe to me, if you are a
person of influence it as a platform, you should probably
use it to help people.
Speaker 1 (16:18):
I believe that that's a great belief. I wish more
people shared that.
Speaker 3 (16:22):
Yeah, me too, because a lot of people do it
for vanity and all this stuff, and I think you
should use it for a purpose, and the purpose should
be to help people.
Speaker 1 (16:32):
Well, what gravitates me is your delivery in it, And
also like the trueness behind it right, because I've seen
other people that are like I saw this one guy
who's like, I divide in twenty four hours. I treat
that like three different days, and I work out three times.
Every six hours is a different day. And I'm like,
all right, dude, like just be real, Like I get it,
(16:53):
like different formulas and stuff like that, but you are
way overthinking life. And with you, it's like kind of
like you just finished your session and you're just sharing
your feelings and your belief and like hoping that it
gets contagious and maybe you change a few people's lives.
And I like that approach better than the you know
some of these celebrities that do share their opinions and
(17:14):
you're kind of like that sounds like marketing.
Speaker 3 (17:16):
Well, you can tell nowadays, especially what's genuine and what's
not genuine, or who's taking other people's words and trying
to make it their own, and who's just saying what
they actually believe and feel and who's trying to play
up to the camera, and who's just being a real person.
I mean, And then you have guys that are just crazy,
like you follow the fitness space.
Speaker 2 (17:38):
Yeah, yeah, So like an example of that would doesn't
work for me.
Speaker 3 (17:44):
An example would be like Goggins, David Goggins, guy's insane awesome,
but not for everybody. No, most people, unless you're already that,
are not going to find his stuff like intriguing to
follow because they just simp so far.
Speaker 2 (18:01):
The gap is so wide that they.
Speaker 3 (18:03):
Can't even think about even beginning to start getting there
right right, Like if you show his videos to most people,
they'd be like, just what do you want me to
do with that? So you kind of start, you break
it down and work backwards. So it's like join the
free Facebook community or the free Instagram community even if
you don't right now workout, and you don't right now
(18:24):
aren't an athlete, you don't have a nutrition planner. Just
like maybe one of these things that I say will
help you just for that day or that week or
that month, and then maybe that gets you closer to
being like, you know what, that actually wasn't so hard?
What else do I have to do? How else can
I start? And it's like it's really not that hard.
(18:47):
The hard start is thinking about it. It's like how
do I start that? Well, I don't have a planner,
Well how do I It's just that's the hardest thing
you have to overcome. And you quicker, you can close
that gap between where you want to be and where
you're at now and just with anything one step, yeah.
Speaker 2 (19:06):
So stuff closer.
Speaker 1 (19:07):
So personally for me, like to backtrack to the whole
COVID and now the whole world shutdown, like everything became virtual.
So it's like, oh cool, I could sad kind of desk.
Nobody knows that you know, and like you're not seeing
many people in real life right, events where you had
to pick and choose events like you weren't even some weddings.
We didn't go to stuff like that. So it got
(19:28):
very easy to like fall off right. And I definitely
personally I'm addicted to running. When I run, awesome, Yeah
not anymore, but when I run, I'm mentally in my best,
Like it just clears my mind. I remember to do stuff.
It allows me to formulate a plan and structure for
(19:48):
my day, like why I'm in that zone? Like and
I was running on an average day, like you know,
three to five miles, so over one hundred and twenty
miles a day a month. A lot of my bud though,
they were like, dude, you're running too much, like you're
so like. It was also like I couldn't understand that
side of it too, like you know, because you could
run yourself like almost out of like like not it.
(20:11):
It could become counterproductive. So it is a balance of
everything eating right, a little bit of weightlifting, a little
bit of running. But like you said, I was like, hey,
at least I'm doing this right because my favorite thing.
The first time I ever joined a gym, I think
it was like two thousand and two. I was a
junior and maybe senior in high school and they were like, well,
(20:32):
what do you want out of this? I was like,
I want to be able to eat whatever I want
and not gain any weight. And they're like, that's such
a bad philosophy. I was like, and now I'm like, uh,
you know, and they told me I had to like
eat chicken and grilled stuff and all this other stuff. Well,
let's crawl, walk, run like what you just said. Because
I probably would have signed up for the gym. I
(20:53):
would have then been a you know, maybe that trainer
could have then told me to work on my diet,
you know, and a couple of weeks into it. But
when you try to do it all at once a
lot of people gets overwhelming for you to say, take
it a day at a time. To do that just
shows that you actually care about the person and not
the results to show on a piece of paper or
whatever or on a photo in the gym, like, hey, look,
(21:16):
Mike joined, you know, thirty pounds overweight. Now he looks
like this, like and we could have gotten there. But
the minute I said I want to work out so
I could eat junk food, they were like, you're not
our client, You're not a client.
Speaker 2 (21:29):
And I was like, all right, there's a lot to
unpack there.
Speaker 3 (21:31):
But basically, first of all, like the more it's funny
because the more you work out, almost like eating a
day of junk food isn't actually that bad for you anymore. Okay,
it's like it's funny. But again, if you have structure
and a routine and you say that, I am able
to speak in that way that it works because it's
(21:54):
worked and I've done it before. Right, it's not like
I've never done this before with people, right, and it's like, oh,
Zach has a new thing. No, it's not like that
I've done it before and it's worked, and I understand
what works because I've had people that are athletes to
it and people that are non athletic at all. Do
they just want to become better? I had somebody it's
(22:18):
actually a great story, So I'm gonna tell it and
maybe he's listening. He was my phiz ed coach in
middle school.
Speaker 2 (22:27):
Right.
Speaker 3 (22:27):
He was like my pe teacher, right, Okay, And so
the gym was in the same town that I grew
up in, and he came in and he's like, he's like,
no way, he's like Zach.
Speaker 2 (22:40):
I'm like, his name is Mike. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (22:44):
It was just such a great thing, and I signed
him up to the gym, signed him up to my
one on one training. He came in three days a week,
three to four days a week. Actually, he only wanted
to work with me, and then we just bonded for
like six months. But over that six month period, I
(23:04):
think it was thirty pounds or forty pounds he lost.
And then I had him for a year and he
lost I'm pretty sure it was close to one hundred pounds.
Speaker 2 (23:14):
If it was like eighty something pounds.
Speaker 3 (23:16):
Wow, And he's like, I want to start bench pressing again.
I haven't bench pressed since college, okay, Right, Like thirty
years ago. I'm like, let's do it, so be sorry.
I'm on a progressive plan. So we're getting him up.
He'sventing two twenty five for reps yah and sets Wow.
(23:36):
He puts it down. One day he comes up to me,
he's like he's getting a little emotional. I'm like, Mike,
he just crushed it. He's like, no, it's not that,
I just haven't done that in thirty years. I'm like, dude,
that's amazing and that's why we're here. But he was
getting emotional about it, and like that's what it's about.
It's not about like putting him on Instagram for right yeah, you.
Speaker 1 (23:58):
Know, like yeah, like they're like the one Jim was like,
let's take a picture of you with your shirt off
right now and we'll keep looking at it. I was like,
let's not. Let's not like, let's just understand we both
know what I look like.
Speaker 3 (24:10):
You.
Speaker 1 (24:11):
Yeah, I'm not gonna be like you didn't do anything
like you know, so it's like, yeah, that's I think.
That's why. Like I reached out and I was like, hey,
let's let's talk about this, and let's talk about you know,
how we could change people's lives, whether it be you know,
children with autism, children with special needs, or you know,
obviously the children's hospital. So that's the last thing I
(24:33):
want to talk about. If you don't mind culture Kings,
I said it wrong. Culture City, Culture City. I always
say culture Kings. I don't know why because I feel
like you're like a king, like I was a king
and queen of that. So how did that all start?
Culture City and everything?
Speaker 3 (24:50):
So five years ago, lettle over five years ago. I've
been in my fiance almost six years. She was on
the board of Culture City. Culture City is a charity.
We spread awareness, inclusion, acceptance for those with invisible disabilities,
so you inted to it before autism or down syndrome
or aspergers. We work with veterans with PTSD and people
(25:14):
with other mental instabilities. I don't want to say problems
or diagnosis because sometimes it's actually not even that. Sometimes
it's just, you know, something not as serious, but they
don't understand that yet, so we kind of help with
that process. We have a certification sensory certification program where
(25:34):
we go to these different venues, stadiums, arenas, restaurants. We
just certified Broadway last year. We just every Lego store
in the country, like Lego certified by Culture City.
Speaker 2 (25:48):
So what that does is it allows.
Speaker 3 (25:51):
Us to bring our form of a certification. What it
really is just teaches you to identify maybe this person
is having an issue and helps you know what to
do with it. How can we cope with this and
help this person out during the time that they're in
our facility. The other thing we do is we have
sensory bags. We call them inside the bag or headphones,
(26:15):
fidget spinners, and gadgets, weighted blanket every bag. I think
we vary a little bit, but those are for sporting events,
like you go to a wrestling event where there's a
lot of pyro and loud music and banging and slamming.
Sometimes that can be over stimulating, just like you go
to an NFL game or an NBA game, a lot
of loud crowd music, banging, slamming, pyro. Not everybody can
(26:39):
deal with that, even if it's funny, because even if
you aren't diagnosed with something, and we have people that
come to us, it's like, actually, I don't like that,
and I didn't really know that until now, and it's
funny to see people like so you don't have to
have a diagnosis to take part in our programs.
Speaker 2 (26:58):
You can just put on a headphone. Yeah, let us
just help you out.
Speaker 3 (27:02):
So people, we take away the labeling aspect of it, right,
like the negative condenptation of what people believe.
Speaker 2 (27:10):
Yeah, oh, your autism, you can't do certain things. That's
not true.
Speaker 1 (27:14):
Right at all, not even not even close. Yeah, my nephew, Brayden,
he is he knows more about the stock market. He's
eight years old, and he knows more about the stock
market than I could ever ever want a dream. And
he also knows his mom makes like six figures. And
I was like, how do you know that? Like I
didn't know what six figures meant when I was eight,
(27:35):
you know. And he's an amazing kid. And it's just
like it's just like, yeah, like two things that I
love what you just said. Like one is there's so
many different levels of it, right, capabilities and stuff like that,
and and what you actually need. And it's like sometimes
when people hear a label, they society has put a
(27:56):
photo in their head, right, disabled you think of a
person in alchair unfortunately, like stuff like that. So when
I hear a message that's like Hey, sometimes people don't
even know they need our services, and they're like, I
just thought I had to deal with that for the rest.
Speaker 2 (28:11):
Of my life.
Speaker 3 (28:12):
You really be amazed, Like you really wouldn't believe it.
We have so many people, so we've helped millions of
people of Culture City. The other thing we do is
we build out sensory rooms. We call them sensory rooms,
which is pretty much just an enclosed environment like a
safe zone, a quiet zone.
Speaker 2 (28:26):
Right, So we're if we're at a stadium, we're at
a venue like let's do jingle Ball, Let's take Wrestlemannia
and Lincoln Financial. Beautiful sensory room there Eagles Stadium. Absolutely,
you go in and the lights are dim.
Speaker 3 (28:43):
We have the walls outfitted with gadgets and spinners and
lego boards, and we have bean bags and things to
help you decompress, weighted blankets. You can go in there
and just chill, calm down, take a breath, get out
of the loud noise, overstimulated, and then maybe you can
come back to the event. But if you don't want to,
(29:03):
that's fine. You can hang out in our room as
long as you want.
Speaker 1 (29:05):
That's amazing.
Speaker 2 (29:06):
So we have.
Speaker 3 (29:08):
I think we have over six hundred of those now
built throughout the world. We're in eighteen hundred locations worldwide.
That's we handed out over a million censory.
Speaker 1 (29:18):
Bags, perhaps man's.
Speaker 3 (29:21):
So it's definitely a great thing that we love to
be involved in. Yeah, and we love getting people involved
because almost everybody somewhere know someone directly or secondhand that
is effective.
Speaker 1 (29:33):
Yeah, and it's it's becoming like everybody wants to like
talk about statistics and oh now more people have that. Well,
we're identifying the issues too, right, Like we're identifying the
human being and making it more comfortable for them. The
fact that exactly what you just said, like you're able
to join the room and if you want to come
back to the party you can, Like, so you don't
have to now leave the party because prior to that
(29:54):
censory room, what was the option you were going home? Yeah,
and that sucks, man, sucks.
Speaker 2 (29:58):
It sucks back, so you should be able to enjoy it. Yeah,
just because it's loud for a minute, it is loud, right,
it's loud for me, it's got to be loud for you.
Speaker 1 (30:06):
And you know, someone cut this up. Send this to
every speaker company out there in the world because it's
so true, but also like they're the ones making it loud,
so like they should be helping and supporting Culture City
as much as they can. So, dude, this has been awesome.
I can't thank you enough. Thanks for coming into the
iHeart Studios to hang out with me. Is there anything
(30:27):
else you want to share with the audience before we
get out of here?
Speaker 2 (30:29):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (30:30):
Thank you man, it's been great. Let's do it again. Yeah,
for sure, this has been great.
Speaker 1 (30:34):
Where where can they find you a.
Speaker 3 (30:36):
Zach Clayton on all socials? I just got TikTok. I'm
not a big TikTok.
Speaker 1 (30:41):
Let's go. I saw you had six flags doing a
little dance.
Speaker 2 (30:45):
You gotta add that to TikTok. The last couple of months,
I've been trying TikTok. It is just me.
Speaker 3 (30:50):
I have some help, but like not really and I don't.
They're not the best and I'm never going to be
great at TikTok, but anywhere at Zach Clayton.
Speaker 2 (30:59):
Don't make fun of my tikt.
Speaker 1 (31:00):
We'll be right back. This is Fox Sports The Gambler
Divide Live
Fox Sports The Gambler Mike Powers from The Divide Live.
I'm here with a special guest, Zach Clayton. What's up, Zach?
Speaker 2 (00:08):
What's up, Mike? Thanks for having me man, of.
Speaker 1 (00:10):
Course, man without a doubt. So we met doing good
and it was had a beer pong event for the
children's specialized hospital, so you know, fun you ended up
getting second place or first place.
Speaker 3 (00:22):
So we got second place. First of all, I didn't
even think we were going to get that far. I mean,
how many teams were there. I think we did ten
teams or something.
Speaker 1 (00:29):
No, it was like sixty two teams, I know, because
we had to create the bracket, so it was like overall, yeah,
maybe it was thirty two March Madness. It was the
same amount that March Madness has, right, So, but.
Speaker 2 (00:39):
It was crazy. It was insane and we would have won.
Speaker 3 (00:42):
But apparently there's a real life like beer pong professionals
that do this.
Speaker 2 (00:48):
For a living forms everything.
Speaker 3 (00:51):
It was insane, and you know, we got right there
with them. We were like a couple of cups down
and we lost and we took second place.
Speaker 2 (00:57):
But if not for them, we would have won. Yeah,
I think maybe they shouldn't have been allowed at a
charity event. I totally agree.
Speaker 1 (01:03):
I totally agree. And then they showed up with the
trophies like at a professional pang event, and I was like,
are you kidding me? Which is great for exposure for
everything we're doing, all of our sponsors that were on
the trophy and stuff like that, but yeah, man, I
was like, of course they won. They showed up in
like jerseys like they were just draining them. Literally, there
was people being eliminated in the first round by them,
(01:24):
and it was just like a buzzsaw all the way
to you guys.
Speaker 2 (01:26):
Yeah, totally.
Speaker 3 (01:27):
And then I heard when we were playing that they
were just in Orlando the week trire and they just
won like ten year in at a professional tournament. I'm like,
what is happening. I'm just trying to trying to do
some good here and eat some pizza. I don't know
this is going to be this competitive, but we took
second place.
Speaker 1 (01:42):
Yeah, dude, it was. It was a crazy experience. It
obviously it was for the Children's Specialized Hospital Foundation. Todd
Frazier was the host of the whole event, but dude,
it was so much fun. The one thing I noticed
and don't take this offense with this. Everybody who was
in the finals was like six feet plus, you know.
(02:03):
So Nikki Cass this year when we bring it back,
he's going to be the ref and make sure nobody's
hands go too far past the table.
Speaker 2 (02:10):
That was the other thing. And I don't know these guys.
Speaker 3 (02:12):
I don't know the professional beer pong champions that we
played against, but there was definitely some They were tall too,
and I don't know. We were definitely leaning over probably
what we were supposed to, but they had this lean
thing that they were doing that I don't know if
it was regulation or whatnot, but it shouldn't have been allowed.
Speaker 1 (02:30):
I totally agree. It's kind of like, hey, I'm gonna
jump into a ring with a professional wrestler, Like it's like, yeah,
you can't do that. Why are they allowed to do that?
So that's another thing. Man, you've had You're only twenty
nine years old, but I feel like you've had experience
after experience after experience, And how did you get into
pro wrestling? And what was that journey? Is that journey
(02:52):
like for you?
Speaker 2 (02:52):
Sure?
Speaker 3 (02:53):
So I started when I was nineteen. Actually this April,
it's going to be ten full years. Congrat Yeah, man,
you know. I started small town upstate New York, Albany area,
It's where I'm from. I started at a local school there,
like a wrestling school. There are wrestling schools. A lot
of people don't know that. They think you kind of
just jump into a ring. That's not really how it works.
(03:15):
There is a proper protocol and training like any other sport.
So I started there. That school was very small, no
name school that shut down shortly after I started, But
I learned the basics there and I went down to Brooklyn,
which for me was a three hour drive every time
I went down. But I did to go train in
(03:35):
Gleason's gym in Brooklyn. But exactly Yeah, with WWF Hall
of Famer Johnny Rods Awesome so which is now WWE,
but at the time that's when he wrestled with WWF
and WWE was. They had eyes on his gym, they
had scouts coming into they had just picked up a
couple guys from there, so I was like, oh, this
(03:57):
is a good place to be.
Speaker 2 (03:58):
And Johnny was great.
Speaker 3 (04:00):
A lot of names came out of there, Taz, Tommy Dreamer, Rally,
like a lot of people came out of there. He's
known for a very old school tough training, which I like. Yeah,
personally he was a very nobs kind of guy. But
by the time I got to Johnny, he was older,
so he didn't get in the ring much, but when
(04:22):
he did it was usually for a bad reason for
somebody else, never for me. But he was a great guy,
and I started doing the Independence. They're called the Independent,
almost like a rock band those local bars. When we
first start, I started with him, did the circuit in
New York, Jersey just kind of learned that circuit, and
then actually moved to Florida for two years, Tampa area, Sarasota.
(04:47):
There was another fed down there I was training with,
did a couple shows, but not much, and then when
I moved back up to Jersey, it kind of took
back off. But that was during COVID, So then COVID
obviously shut down all sports and live entertainment right, so
there was like nothing going on. And then that's when
AW actually started to really started to ramp up, and
(05:10):
I flew down there. They were doing their stint in Jacksonville,
where Daily's place. So the owner of a w owns
to Jacksonville Jaguars, right, So he had the whole arena,
whole arena and complex right wow. So he would fly
us in and we would just kind of do two
or three day stints there and just film film that
(05:32):
we had the film and then you know, roll it
out and move on and come back the next week
or whatever it was. So that's how I started to
get those reps there. And now I work I'm with
TNA now working with the FBI. It's a great group
of guys. Little Guido and Nunzio has been around wrestling
for as long as I've been alive.
Speaker 1 (05:53):
Dude, it's insane, right Yeah.
Speaker 2 (05:54):
E c W days back thirty years ago. Are you familiar?
Speaker 3 (05:57):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (05:57):
No, it was a fraction of action, just like nWo.
Like it was definitely up there, like as far as
like it's a recognizable logo and for you to be
for you to be a part of that, like that's
that's an honor in itself, talk about how did that happen?
Speaker 3 (06:12):
It is And he's a great guy. He's like the
the everyone who knows him in wrestling. It's like he's
everyone's uncle in a way. But he's also like the
crazy uncle, you know, like he's an awesome guy. That started.
Tommy Dreamer reached out to me. It's like, hey, man,
I want you to come in, and here's the idea.
I want to build the FBI back up. I want
to do a new kind of revamp of the FBI.
(06:35):
And I said, I love it, and he kind of
let me and the other guys take the reins with
what we thought it should be or creative and things
like that, and it's been fun so far. There's more
to come, and I'm grateful for Tommy to reach out
and have kind of the trust in us to kind
of just say, here's what I want. But you guys
can kind of make your own thing, so, which is
(06:57):
always an awesome thing to to be.
Speaker 2 (07:00):
In position to be in.
Speaker 1 (07:01):
Like I feel like finally professional wrestlings back to the
like that nineties where when I grew up it was ECW,
WCWWWS Right, so now with all these other companies, Like one,
how great is that for you as a professional wrestler,
But two the fans are winning? Right? And then also
(07:22):
like there's been times where you've seen TNA people on
aw TNA people on you know, Rural Rumble making appearances
like how has that been. What's that chemistry like?
Speaker 2 (07:33):
So it's a great thing.
Speaker 3 (07:36):
So obviously the fans are winning because like when you
said the nineties that a lot of people consider the
heyday in the booming era of professional wrestling, But if
you're in the business, you kind of look at the
nineties like it really was a war and you really
were out there for your company and defend your honor
and your livelihood because back then there were not certain
(07:58):
things like we have now. Those guys back then and
if you talk to them, they'll tell you about it.
They didn't have guaranteed contracts. They didn't get paid if
they didn't work. So if they blew out their knee
and they can't wrestle, they don't work. And there was
no you know, medical system was not what it is today.
Rehabbing is not what it is today. They didn't have doctors,
(08:20):
you know, to come back and do all this stuff.
Like they taped it up and they went out tomorrow
because they had to to get paid. And then that's
when you had WCW come in and they were offering
all this money to all these guys, and it was
competition all of a sudden, which is what we're seeing
now there's a lot of companies, not a lot, but
(08:40):
there are new companies now and people have options, whereas
before this, before about five years ago, they didn't really
have too many options. And it's a good thing. Fans win,
wrestlers have more chances to make money, which is always
a good thing. And it actually creates this boom in
the business again because you are competing with other people again, right,
(09:04):
instead of I'm not saying a monopoly is a bad
thing because WWE they kicked everyone out of competition, they were, right, right, Yeah,
so when you win, you're on top.
Speaker 2 (09:15):
Yeah, sometimes you.
Speaker 3 (09:18):
Don't get the always the competitive edge that you had
before because it's no longer competition, right right, you.
Speaker 1 (09:24):
Know, And I saw some of wrestlers like struggle because
of that, you know, like and WWE started realizing and
they started making different They brought back ECW for a
little bit, and XD became a thing, you know, all
these different orifices. But I was like kind of like,
it's still like, you know, so when AW shows up,
you know, it just kind of really changed everything. TNA
(09:46):
went through their struggles in the beginning, but I always
felt that was impactful, right, No, pun intended because I
switched the impact. But you know, it's so cool to see.
But also like I'm kind of glad that they understand now,
like there's almost like an understanding that all this needs
to exist, or we could all co exist. Right, Still
(10:06):
competitiveness still like you know, totally upset or happy when
somebody crosses over, right, Like, so it's it's still cool.
You know, you've seen you know, Cody Roads come leave
AW to come into WWE. You saw Edge, who I
thought was a WW lifer now in AW it's like everybody,
(10:26):
it's like.
Speaker 3 (10:26):
What you know, and so so first of all, it's exciting, yeah, right,
it brings back the excitement and it brings back uncertainty
for good and bad because, like you said, people you
thought are this company forever maybe not anymore, right, you know,
So now it's like, okay, now anybody could really go
anywhere and do anything crazy, and even people that you
(10:49):
think you mentioned Cody, Cody is a good friend of mine.
Speaker 2 (10:53):
Cody is a great guy.
Speaker 3 (10:55):
He's super smart and everything he does means a lot.
So for him to do what he did and obviously
you see him he's now the WWE champion. Just had
the biggest WrestleMania of all time, where he literally, you know,
you look at what happened with him the Rock. The
Rock comes back. Yeah, and I don't know how closely
(11:16):
you follow, but it sounds like you follow close. The
Rock came back to take the main event spot at WrestleMania,
and the fans said, you know what, that's cool, but
we want Cody. We've been watching Cody for two years.
He needs to finish the story and to see in
real life, Cody Rhoads take on the biggest star in
(11:39):
the world for the spotlight.
Speaker 2 (11:41):
Cody won.
Speaker 3 (11:43):
It's amazing, Yeah, and that can only happen in pro wrestling.
You know that's not gonna happen in Hollywood. Hollywood's going
to say, no, this guy's in and that's it.
Speaker 1 (11:50):
Yeah, exactly, like the fans can't dictate anything, Like as
much as you love your sport, you can't dictate that either.
So when that happens, it's in front of a super
Bowl crowd in Vegas and they realized like they had
to change this, and it's it's so cool one you know,
the Rock to recognize that, I guess because he could
have just taken his.
Speaker 2 (12:10):
Ball and left.
Speaker 1 (12:11):
It's kind of weird that one transaction with the you know.
Speaker 3 (12:16):
You're really up on it. So I was at WrestleMania.
I took Grace in the WrestleMania and such an awesome time.
Speaker 2 (12:25):
Really was awesome, And it was in.
Speaker 3 (12:26):
Philly, yeah right, And it was just a crazy time.
That Philly crowd was awesome and it was like this
thing you were watching was like truly like a Disney
movie play out in real life because you have the
biggest star in the world the most part. Everyone can
pretty much recognize that, right, And to a lot of people,
(12:47):
he's like, he's going back to wrestling. Yeah, hell yeah,
yeah he is, and this is what he's doing, and
that means that it means something because that's what he
wants to do. He could do anything he wants. He
wanted to come back to do this story, right, and
that's really cool.
Speaker 1 (13:03):
That's amazing, especially for that company, especially for you know,
us as fans, because that doesn't happen like we The
only thing I could compare that to is like when
Jordan came back wearing forty five. Yeah, you know, like
things like that. So it's it's uh, yeah, it's it's
a life changing moment where.
Speaker 3 (13:19):
It's like or it's like, you know, we just saw
Tom Brady step back right. It's like if if I
don't know, we can make up a scenario. Because it's wrestling,
we can make it up. And in sports, it's like
imagine Belichick coming back to coach the Patriots with Gronk
and then Bringes all of a sudden like you know what, Yeah,
I want to play this game only music.
Speaker 2 (13:38):
Could you imagine.
Speaker 3 (13:40):
Music exactly like that would never obviously happen, No, but
you can do that in wrestling.
Speaker 2 (13:46):
Yeah, and that's why it's so awesome.
Speaker 3 (13:48):
It's just fun and touching back to the original point
of of now there's a little bit of diversity and yeah,
it's just an amazing time and pro wrestling again.
Speaker 1 (13:58):
That's awesome. That's awesome. Another thing that intrigues me about
you as a human is your willingness to one put
yourself out there, share your fitness journey, share your mental
health journey, and really make a difference. You have a
community on Instagram now that people could subscribe to or
join where you're sharing you know, health bits, whether it
(14:20):
be food, working out, stuff like that. Why is that
so important to you? Obviously it's working for you. And
your body is a part of your job, right, like
it keeps you employed, you know, talk about that and
how that's working.
Speaker 3 (14:35):
Sure, man, Yeah, so touching the last point real quick,
you would think, so, like my body, I work hard
on it, and you know, you have this image going
back to wrestling of what a wrestler should look like,
and then the nineties everyone is six feet whatever and
just jack to the gills and it's like, Okay, that's
what a wrestler looks like. And you turn on TV
now and there's a lot of it. But also it's
(14:57):
great to have the diversity of not everybody looks like
and again that's another good thing. But then also sometimes
it's you're a little bit bitter because it's like, wait
a minute, I work to look like this and you
get to wrestle in a T.
Speaker 2 (15:11):
Shirt injuring beer. It's like, all right, we're both here.
That's cool. But yeah, no.
Speaker 3 (15:19):
So I started actually rewind it when I was living
in upstate, New York and I was trained at the wrestler.
I was also running a gym. A performance gym is
training athletes. It was training everyday people just to be
better right. I had clients that were eight years old
all the way. I had an eighty five year old
woman who would come in three times.
Speaker 2 (15:37):
A week, by the way.
Speaker 1 (15:38):
Amazing.
Speaker 2 (15:39):
Yeah, it really was, and I loved it. It was
so much fun.
Speaker 3 (15:44):
And when I kind of took other turns in life,
I had to stop doing that. But it's something that
I still want to do. And I still have people
reach out to me because they see what I do
and it's like, hey, how are you motivated to do that?
Or what is your plan? Or how do I start?
Or all these questions. And I can't get to everybody anymore.
(16:05):
I can't say just come to my gym and I'll
help you out right. I don't have that anymore. Right,
So now, I believe to me, if you are a
person of influence it as a platform, you should probably
use it to help people.
Speaker 1 (16:18):
I believe that that's a great belief. I wish more
people shared that.
Speaker 3 (16:22):
Yeah, me too, because a lot of people do it
for vanity and all this stuff, and I think you
should use it for a purpose, and the purpose should
be to help people.
Speaker 1 (16:32):
Well, what gravitates me is your delivery in it, And
also like the trueness behind it right, because I've seen
other people that are like I saw this one guy
who's like, I divide in twenty four hours. I treat
that like three different days, and I work out three times.
Every six hours is a different day. And I'm like,
all right, dude, like just be real, Like I get it,
(16:53):
like different formulas and stuff like that, but you are
way overthinking life. And with you, it's like kind of
like you just finished your session and you're just sharing
your feelings and your belief and like hoping that it
gets contagious and maybe you change a few people's lives.
And I like that approach better than the you know
some of these celebrities that do share their opinions and
(17:14):
you're kind of like that sounds like marketing.
Speaker 3 (17:16):
Well, you can tell nowadays, especially what's genuine and what's
not genuine, or who's taking other people's words and trying
to make it their own, and who's just saying what
they actually believe and feel and who's trying to play
up to the camera, and who's just being a real person.
I mean, And then you have guys that are just crazy,
like you follow the fitness space.
Speaker 2 (17:38):
Yeah, yeah, So like an example of that would doesn't
work for me.
Speaker 3 (17:44):
An example would be like Goggins, David Goggins, guy's insane awesome,
but not for everybody. No, most people, unless you're already that,
are not going to find his stuff like intriguing to
follow because they just simp so far.
Speaker 2 (18:01):
The gap is so wide that they.
Speaker 3 (18:03):
Can't even think about even beginning to start getting there
right right, Like if you show his videos to most people,
they'd be like, just what do you want me to
do with that? So you kind of start, you break
it down and work backwards. So it's like join the
free Facebook community or the free Instagram community even if
you don't right now workout, and you don't right now
(18:24):
aren't an athlete, you don't have a nutrition planner. Just
like maybe one of these things that I say will
help you just for that day or that week or
that month, and then maybe that gets you closer to
being like, you know what, that actually wasn't so hard?
What else do I have to do? How else can
I start? And it's like it's really not that hard.
(18:47):
The hard start is thinking about it. It's like how
do I start that? Well, I don't have a planner,
Well how do I It's just that's the hardest thing
you have to overcome. And you quicker, you can close
that gap between where you want to be and where
you're at now and just with anything one step, yeah.
Speaker 2 (19:06):
So stuff closer.
Speaker 1 (19:07):
So personally for me, like to backtrack to the whole
COVID and now the whole world shutdown, like everything became virtual.
So it's like, oh cool, I could sad kind of desk.
Nobody knows that you know, and like you're not seeing
many people in real life right, events where you had
to pick and choose events like you weren't even some weddings.
We didn't go to stuff like that. So it got
(19:28):
very easy to like fall off right. And I definitely
personally I'm addicted to running. When I run, awesome, Yeah
not anymore, but when I run, I'm mentally in my best,
Like it just clears my mind. I remember to do stuff.
It allows me to formulate a plan and structure for
(19:48):
my day, like why I'm in that zone? Like and
I was running on an average day, like you know,
three to five miles, so over one hundred and twenty
miles a day a month. A lot of my bud though,
they were like, dude, you're running too much, like you're
so like. It was also like I couldn't understand that
side of it too, like you know, because you could
run yourself like almost out of like like not it.
(20:11):
It could become counterproductive. So it is a balance of
everything eating right, a little bit of weightlifting, a little
bit of running. But like you said, I was like, hey,
at least I'm doing this right because my favorite thing.
The first time I ever joined a gym, I think
it was like two thousand and two. I was a
junior and maybe senior in high school and they were like, well,
(20:32):
what do you want out of this? I was like,
I want to be able to eat whatever I want
and not gain any weight. And they're like, that's such
a bad philosophy. I was like, and now I'm like, uh,
you know, and they told me I had to like
eat chicken and grilled stuff and all this other stuff. Well,
let's crawl, walk, run like what you just said. Because
I probably would have signed up for the gym. I
(20:53):
would have then been a you know, maybe that trainer
could have then told me to work on my diet,
you know, and a couple of weeks into it. But
when you try to do it all at once a
lot of people gets overwhelming for you to say, take
it a day at a time. To do that just
shows that you actually care about the person and not
the results to show on a piece of paper or
whatever or on a photo in the gym, like, hey, look,
(21:16):
Mike joined, you know, thirty pounds overweight. Now he looks
like this, like and we could have gotten there. But
the minute I said I want to work out so
I could eat junk food, they were like, you're not
our client, You're not a client.
Speaker 2 (21:29):
And I was like, all right, there's a lot to
unpack there.
Speaker 3 (21:31):
But basically, first of all, like the more it's funny
because the more you work out, almost like eating a
day of junk food isn't actually that bad for you anymore. Okay,
it's like it's funny. But again, if you have structure
and a routine and you say that, I am able
to speak in that way that it works because it's
(21:54):
worked and I've done it before. Right, it's not like
I've never done this before with people, right, and it's like, oh,
Zach has a new thing. No, it's not like that
I've done it before and it's worked, and I understand
what works because I've had people that are athletes to
it and people that are non athletic at all. Do
they just want to become better? I had somebody it's
(22:18):
actually a great story, So I'm gonna tell it and
maybe he's listening. He was my phiz ed coach in
middle school.
Speaker 2 (22:27):
Right.
Speaker 3 (22:27):
He was like my pe teacher, right, Okay, And so
the gym was in the same town that I grew
up in, and he came in and he's like, he's like,
no way, he's like Zach.
Speaker 2 (22:40):
I'm like, his name is Mike. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (22:44):
It was just such a great thing, and I signed
him up to the gym, signed him up to my
one on one training. He came in three days a week,
three to four days a week. Actually, he only wanted
to work with me, and then we just bonded for
like six months. But over that six month period, I
(23:04):
think it was thirty pounds or forty pounds he lost.
And then I had him for a year and he
lost I'm pretty sure it was close to one hundred pounds.
Speaker 2 (23:14):
If it was like eighty something pounds.
Speaker 3 (23:16):
Wow, And he's like, I want to start bench pressing again.
I haven't bench pressed since college, okay, Right, Like thirty
years ago. I'm like, let's do it, so be sorry.
I'm on a progressive plan. So we're getting him up.
He'sventing two twenty five for reps yah and sets Wow.
(23:36):
He puts it down. One day he comes up to me,
he's like he's getting a little emotional. I'm like, Mike,
he just crushed it. He's like, no, it's not that,
I just haven't done that in thirty years. I'm like, dude,
that's amazing and that's why we're here. But he was
getting emotional about it, and like that's what it's about.
It's not about like putting him on Instagram for right yeah, you.
Speaker 1 (23:58):
Know, like yeah, like they're like the one Jim was like,
let's take a picture of you with your shirt off
right now and we'll keep looking at it. I was like,
let's not. Let's not like, let's just understand we both
know what I look like.
Speaker 3 (24:10):
You.
Speaker 1 (24:11):
Yeah, I'm not gonna be like you didn't do anything
like you know, so it's like, yeah, that's I think.
That's why. Like I reached out and I was like, hey,
let's let's talk about this, and let's talk about you know,
how we could change people's lives, whether it be you know,
children with autism, children with special needs, or you know,
obviously the children's hospital. So that's the last thing I
(24:33):
want to talk about. If you don't mind culture Kings,
I said it wrong. Culture City, Culture City. I always
say culture Kings. I don't know why because I feel
like you're like a king, like I was a king
and queen of that. So how did that all start?
Culture City and everything?
Speaker 3 (24:50):
So five years ago, lettle over five years ago. I've
been in my fiance almost six years. She was on
the board of Culture City. Culture City is a charity.
We spread awareness, inclusion, acceptance for those with invisible disabilities,
so you inted to it before autism or down syndrome
or aspergers. We work with veterans with PTSD and people
(25:14):
with other mental instabilities. I don't want to say problems
or diagnosis because sometimes it's actually not even that. Sometimes
it's just, you know, something not as serious, but they
don't understand that yet, so we kind of help with
that process. We have a certification sensory certification program where
(25:34):
we go to these different venues, stadiums, arenas, restaurants. We
just certified Broadway last year. We just every Lego store
in the country, like Lego certified by Culture City.
Speaker 2 (25:48):
So what that does is it allows.
Speaker 3 (25:51):
Us to bring our form of a certification. What it
really is just teaches you to identify maybe this person
is having an issue and helps you know what to
do with it. How can we cope with this and
help this person out during the time that they're in
our facility. The other thing we do is we have
sensory bags. We call them inside the bag or headphones,
(26:15):
fidget spinners, and gadgets, weighted blanket every bag. I think
we vary a little bit, but those are for sporting events,
like you go to a wrestling event where there's a
lot of pyro and loud music and banging and slamming.
Sometimes that can be over stimulating, just like you go
to an NFL game or an NBA game, a lot
of loud crowd music, banging, slamming, pyro. Not everybody can
(26:39):
deal with that, even if it's funny, because even if
you aren't diagnosed with something, and we have people that
come to us, it's like, actually, I don't like that,
and I didn't really know that until now, and it's
funny to see people like so you don't have to
have a diagnosis to take part in our programs.
Speaker 2 (26:58):
You can just put on a headphone. Yeah, let us
just help you out.
Speaker 3 (27:02):
So people, we take away the labeling aspect of it, right,
like the negative condenptation of what people believe.
Speaker 2 (27:10):
Yeah, oh, your autism, you can't do certain things. That's
not true.
Speaker 1 (27:14):
Right at all, not even not even close. Yeah, my nephew, Brayden,
he is he knows more about the stock market. He's
eight years old, and he knows more about the stock
market than I could ever ever want a dream. And
he also knows his mom makes like six figures. And
I was like, how do you know that? Like I
didn't know what six figures meant when I was eight,
(27:35):
you know. And he's an amazing kid. And it's just
like it's just like, yeah, like two things that I
love what you just said. Like one is there's so
many different levels of it, right, capabilities and stuff like that,
and and what you actually need. And it's like sometimes
when people hear a label, they society has put a
(27:56):
photo in their head, right, disabled you think of a
person in alchair unfortunately, like stuff like that. So when
I hear a message that's like Hey, sometimes people don't
even know they need our services, and they're like, I
just thought I had to deal with that for the rest.
Speaker 2 (28:11):
Of my life.
Speaker 3 (28:12):
You really be amazed, Like you really wouldn't believe it.
We have so many people, so we've helped millions of
people of Culture City. The other thing we do is
we build out sensory rooms. We call them sensory rooms,
which is pretty much just an enclosed environment like a
safe zone, a quiet zone.
Speaker 2 (28:26):
Right, So we're if we're at a stadium, we're at
a venue like let's do jingle Ball, Let's take Wrestlemannia
and Lincoln Financial. Beautiful sensory room there Eagles Stadium. Absolutely,
you go in and the lights are dim.
Speaker 3 (28:43):
We have the walls outfitted with gadgets and spinners and
lego boards, and we have bean bags and things to
help you decompress, weighted blankets. You can go in there
and just chill, calm down, take a breath, get out
of the loud noise, overstimulated, and then maybe you can
come back to the event. But if you don't want to,
(29:03):
that's fine. You can hang out in our room as
long as you want.
Speaker 1 (29:05):
That's amazing.
Speaker 2 (29:06):
So we have.
Speaker 3 (29:08):
I think we have over six hundred of those now
built throughout the world. We're in eighteen hundred locations worldwide.
That's we handed out over a million censory.
Speaker 1 (29:18):
Bags, perhaps man's.
Speaker 3 (29:21):
So it's definitely a great thing that we love to
be involved in. Yeah, and we love getting people involved
because almost everybody somewhere know someone directly or secondhand that
is effective.
Speaker 1 (29:33):
Yeah, and it's it's becoming like everybody wants to like
talk about statistics and oh now more people have that. Well,
we're identifying the issues too, right, Like we're identifying the
human being and making it more comfortable for them. The
fact that exactly what you just said, like you're able
to join the room and if you want to come
back to the party you can, Like, so you don't
have to now leave the party because prior to that
(29:54):
censory room, what was the option you were going home? Yeah,
and that sucks, man, sucks.
Speaker 2 (29:58):
It sucks back, so you should be able to enjoy it. Yeah,
just because it's loud for a minute, it is loud, right,
it's loud for me, it's got to be loud for you.
Speaker 1 (30:06):
And you know, someone cut this up. Send this to
every speaker company out there in the world because it's
so true, but also like they're the ones making it loud,
so like they should be helping and supporting Culture City
as much as they can. So, dude, this has been awesome.
I can't thank you enough. Thanks for coming into the
iHeart Studios to hang out with me. Is there anything
(30:27):
else you want to share with the audience before we
get out of here?
Speaker 2 (30:29):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (30:30):
Thank you man, it's been great. Let's do it again. Yeah,
for sure, this has been great.
Speaker 1 (30:34):
Where where can they find you a.
Speaker 3 (30:36):
Zach Clayton on all socials? I just got TikTok. I'm
not a big TikTok.
Speaker 1 (30:41):
Let's go. I saw you had six flags doing a
little dance.
Speaker 2 (30:45):
You gotta add that to TikTok. The last couple of months,
I've been trying TikTok. It is just me.
Speaker 3 (30:50):
I have some help, but like not really and I don't.
They're not the best and I'm never going to be
great at TikTok, but anywhere at Zach Clayton.
Speaker 2 (30:59):
Don't make fun of my tikt.
Speaker 1 (31:00):
We'll be right back. This is Fox Sports The Gambler
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