#102 Johnni DiJulius: Embracing Challenges: Wrestling, Adventure, and Personal Growth

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (01:44):
Thank you, thank you.

Speaker 2 (01:57):
We're live what's going on man.
How you doing, how you doing.

Speaker 3 (02:02):
I'm fantastic how you doing.
Thank you for having me, not aproblem.

Speaker 2 (02:04):
So it's been a minute .
How are you doing?
How are you doing?
I'm fantastic.
How are you doing?
Thank you for having me.
Not a problem, so it's been aminute.
I usually go almost every week,if not every other week, but
sometimes there's a little bitof a break.
But this is a big break.
So we had some college visitsgoing on my son's Liam, he's 16.
Been going around the countryup a little bit so we finally

(02:25):
got done doing that, came back.
Yeah, I'll be allowed to saywhere you went.
What's uh, uh, where he.
He committed to.
So he went to.
He was supposed to go to iowa.
We didn't go to iowa, he wentto virginia and kind of he were
after the schools he'd been toalready.
He kind of had his mind made up, you know so, and it was just a
decision.
So he committed to virginiacongratulations, that's awesome.
It's been a fun I love the guysdown there.

Speaker 3 (02:44):
I wrestle against Virginia quite a bit.
They're good guys.
That's awesome.
Steve Garland how many yearshas he been there?
15 years.

Speaker 2 (02:52):
Yeah, yes, 15 or 17.
Something like that.
It's been a while.
Him and the Paulsons.
I couldn't get it.
I hope they're watching.
I couldn't get a good read offof Trent.
First, when I met him, traviswas all right.
You know Travis is kind of old,but Trent was so intense Right

(03:13):
when we first met, I was like Idon't know, was that supposed to
be like that?

Speaker 3 (03:17):
I said, okay, okay, the good thing is that different
personalities on a team, on acoach's staff, is good.
You know, you got the onethat's young and hip and you can
relate to.
You got the one that's hey,that's kind of like mom and dad,
I don't really want to pissthem off.
You got the politician, you gotthat.
So it's good to have thatmixture.
But my first, uh, my firstwrestling match at the ncaa

(03:38):
tournament ever was against auva kid oh, no kidding yeah yeah
, matt snyder oh, really nice125 back when I could make 125
UVA kid, no kidding.
Yeah, yeah, matt Snyder.
Oh really Nice 125.

Speaker 2 (03:49):
Back when I could make 125.

Speaker 3 (03:51):
I'm going to look that one up.
Don't Don't.
I took an L.
Don't look it up All right.

Speaker 2 (03:56):
So everybody, it's the Vision Quest podcast.
It's been a minute but we arejoined by this guy is so much
fun to just listen to and theinsight that you I mean
everybody might have someinsight, but the way you deliver
and the insight that you dohave is fantastic.

Speaker 3 (04:10):
Thank you.
I appreciate that.
I'm lucky because my dad was aspeaker, so I stole the traits.
So, I have a cheat code.
I always say, oh, people saythey comment that a lot and I
say, well, well, I'm the world'sbest plagiarizer.
I just steal right like you'regonna say something that I'm
gonna like and I'm gonna sayit's gonna sound like I said

(04:32):
like it's, that's right, so I'mnot like I'm not coming up with
shit on my own, I just stealfrom everybody isn't that where
we're all at at this point,though?

Speaker 2 (04:39):
I mean, with how long humans have been around, are we
kind of copying?
Anyways, we're just tweaking ita little bit.
Exactly the delivery, andthat's the thing.
Delivery is important too incomedy.

Speaker 3 (04:47):
It's the same thing, delivery well, you know my dad,
actually you know because you're, you were a comedian.
You said you uh, yeah, actuallyyou can't like not be a
comedian.
You always are right, you are acomedian, right, but he, uh, he
always says that he, wheneverhe goes and does like speaking,
uh, engagements with these bigcompanies, uh, comedians, he
uses as a reference a lotbecause they recall things

(05:09):
really well.
So, like you say a joke at thebeginning of your set, the
chicken crossed the road, ha haha, right.
Then 40 minutes later you'll belike, oh yeah, and then I was
driving on the street, what didI see?
The chicken.
You bring back the chicken,right, are you ready?
So he does that with whateverpoint he's trying to make, with
whatever, like they'll alwaysrevisit something he talked
about 40 minutes ago.

Speaker 2 (05:29):
You know, I feel like it's such a good way to learn,
if, if I'm recalling things, youknow it was, and I didn't learn
that stuff till like later onin life, right, I mean that I'm
an angry old bastard now.
Before that, like I was bad, Ididn't leave the house very much
.
I still don't leave the housemuch.
I mean, look what I do, I'm inmy basement, right, but uh, so

(05:50):
right, okay.
So the the thing about you,though, is that it's I leave my
house too much that's right.
You've been on a wild ride, man,and that's why I you know.
Just I said I don't do a ton ofresearch.
I did look some stuff upbecause I heard some crazy
parachute story about basejumping and I was like, come on
what?
What I didn't look it up.

(06:10):
I didn't look it up yet becauseI want to talk about it.
Like I said, I want all this tobe kind of fresh, right.
So I just looked up articles,saw some stuff that really
popped up on Google right awayand I left it at that.

Speaker 3 (06:21):
Okay away and I left it at that, okay.
So what are the questions?
You just want me to kind of getinto it no, we're gonna get
into it.

Speaker 2 (06:25):
We want to start from the beginning.
We want where are you from?
Where'd you, where'd you startfrom?

Speaker 3 (06:28):
so I grew up in cleveland ohio, took a summer of
cleveland ohio uh, aurora uh.
Rested at walsh jesuit, uh.
First of all, I'll tell you howI got interested.

Speaker 2 (06:37):
First of all, so, yeah, yeah, we want to start
sports.
It doesn't matter what it was.

Speaker 3 (06:41):
My lovely mom, right?
Well, so actually my dad was abaseball player and he played at
Cleveland State.
He was a shortstop, so healways wanted me to be a
baseball player my whole life.
Okay, and I played baseball inthe summertime but I had like
ADHD off the charts.
I was freaking hyper.
I couldn't go to bed at nightin the wintertime.
I had nothing to like burn meout you know what I mean.

Speaker 1 (07:02):
Wow, In the wintertime I had nothing to burn
me out.

Speaker 3 (07:04):
You know what I mean.

Speaker 2 (07:05):
We need to fucking get this kid tired.
Somehow that's intense yeah,yeah.

Speaker 3 (07:07):
So my mom had a friend who was a four-time state
champ from Ohio.
He actually wrestled atWisconsin for a couple years but
he didn't finish there.
His name was Dan Hanson and itwas like Jim Jordan era, like
around that time, yep, yep.
So she hits him up and she'slike, hey, I want my son to
start wrestling.
What would you recommend that?

(07:27):
So my mom drove me to my firstever wrestling practice and
that's at six years old.
Five or six years old that'swhen I started wrestling and
that led to, uh, you know, adomino effect of all of us right
of of what we do now.

Speaker 2 (07:40):
so so it's not good you cut.
You're coming from a great areafor wrestling, right, I mean?
Yeah who doesn't hear aboutiron man right?
You know, walsh jesuit is myhigh school that's what I'm
saying, that yeah, right, rightthat's.

Speaker 3 (07:52):
I mean it's having that like it was like a holiday
at our school.
We didn't have the biggestwrestling like.
You know how pa some of theselike wrestling schools they
treat like football.
Yeah, we didn't have that asmuch in cleveland, ohio.
However, ironman felt like aholiday because we call it
school.
It's great for that, so that'sawesome to be able to have that

(08:13):
at my high school.

Speaker 2 (08:14):
They give you the day off.

Speaker 3 (08:16):
The entire student body gets the day off.
No way, yeah, that.

Speaker 2 (08:20):
I didn't know.
That's pretty cool.
Holy cow, that's a big deal.
The whole school just shut,shutdown for you.
So when you started out five,you know, five years old, what
club were you going to?

Speaker 3 (08:29):
It was a small club called Mayfield wrestling clubs,
a town in the area, and thenand then I left and I went to a
West shore which is St Ed'syouth program.
Yep, yep, that's right yeah,and that led to me being at uh,
north akron, which is walsh's,you know theater program yep,
yep, okay, okay, so when?

Speaker 2 (08:49):
what was the first?
Because, again, you come from areally affluent wrestling area,
right?
So where?
When did you start goingnationally to tournaments?

Speaker 3 (08:58):
that's a good question.
So so me and me and my bestfriend, his name's ty mitch.
He's a three-time state champfrom Ohio, super tough kid,
didn't pan out as much incollege, just ended up following
different paths, right.
But high school-wise he wonFargo.
He was three-time state champ.
I think he was like top five,six, seven for his recruiting
class, not just at his weight.

(09:20):
I think he might have beenpound for pound top ten.
I'm not sure, for I think hemight have been pound for pound
top 10.
I'm not sure for a senior class.
Went to Virginia Tech, him andI pretty much started at the
same time.
So my dad and his mom were bestfriends in high school, in
college, nice.
That ended up families beingsuper close as they both had
kids.
We started wrestling togetherand we became best friends,

(09:41):
right, okay?
So we're going to all thesetournaments together and we're
starting to win by like seven,eight years old, like pretty
much everything.
And my dad would always say uh,you know if, if I'm very lucky
that my dad wasn't like atypical wrestling dad in the
sense of sure ego driven, let'sbe undefeated, right, which I
get, you know, dad's out therelistening.

(10:01):
I don't get it.
I don't get it.
But you know, go get your kidssome losses, trust me, it's
correct, correct.
So my dad was like, okay, weneed, we need to go.
Uh, we.
His goal was to get me 10losses in a season.
Right, that was like a reallybig goal.
So we started going to jerseyand pa and tulsa and reno and

(10:22):
all these other you know,national tournaments, yeah, and
me and ty together again startedReno and all these other you
know, national tournaments.
Yeah, and me and Ty togetheragain started going to all these
national tournaments Tulsa, paand so we started seeing better
kids.
Right, that's better kids,different styles.
Ohio might have a little bit ofstyle.
All of a sudden you'rewrestling with a kid from Iowa
Okay, that's a different style.
And we started really seeing,you know, national wrestling on

(10:44):
a big scale.
Sure, and uh, and that's reallywhere it started.
You know, I it's cool becauseyou walk around your little
middle school and you're not,you're not just like a kid that
goes to middle school, you're awrestler.

Speaker 2 (10:55):
Yeah, you know right, it's like it's serious, it's
very serious.

Speaker 3 (10:58):
My whole identity as a kid is very serious.

Speaker 2 (11:04):
You know, yeah, yeah, yeah, I can attest that because
Liam had the same thing, causeit was.
I mean, he started at five andwhen he was in school, people,
like kids, would pick on himRight and like they didn't know.
And then they found out youknow, they the FAA phone and
they found out on the playground, where it wasn't something that
he flaunted about, but theyknew like he wrestled right you
know, wrestling was they thinkddt and all that other stuff,

(11:27):
right, and then they startmessing around with them.

Speaker 3 (11:29):
They found out, you know, it's kind of it's kind of
like the it's uh, it's like ahidden treasure that nobody
knows about until they yeah yeah, right, you know, quick, quick
little story too, like, uh, Idon't want to skip over too much
, but so two things ty and I, uh, grew up wrestling together.
Okay, we go to high school.
We were supposed to go to thesame school.

(11:50):
He had to go to the publicschool, aurora, where I live.
I had to go to walsh jesuit,the private school, like 20, 30
minutes away.
We end up wrestling in statefinals my freshman year, right,
me and my best friend now,unfortunately, you know he gets
me, you know, in the statefinals freshman year, uh, and
then you know, we ended up beingdifferent weights after that
and, uh, you know, winning threestate titles each.

(12:11):
He was a year older than me, sohis freshman year I was still
in eighth grade, but then westarted when we were three state
titles each, nice.
And then, uh, this is kind of alittle bit sad, I don't know a
little bit darker now.
So that was, that was ty.
So I really started this, thisjourney with yeah, that's my mom
who brought me to my firstpractice, uh, and it's kind of
like the spark plug behind, likemy energetic self and all you

(12:33):
know how I, my entirepersonality, sophomore year
after all my first sex house.
She unfortunately passed away.
She was in a car accident likea week or two after the state
tournament.
So state tournament ends twoweeks later, a car accident,
like a week or two after thestate tournament.
So state tournament ends twoweeks later, a car accident.
And then my mom right, but youknow I like bringing this up,
especially with kids.
I do a lot of clinics, right, Ido about 80 clinics a year and

(12:53):
I'm talking about this kind ofstuff because you know we say a
lot of cliche things.
Oh, once you learn in wrestlingyou're gonna deal with the rest
of your life, you'll use thosetools.
But we don't really, we don'treally like have like real
applicable examples.
You know, and for for for me,that I mean is it is it easier

(13:14):
because I wrestled?
No, but it's manageable becauseI put myself through suffering
every day.
Yeah, and it was likesimulating hardship.
And then all of a sudden,inevitably suffering every day.
Yeah, and it was likesimulating hardship.
And then all of a sudden,inevitably, what do we all get?
Well, grandma dies, we getinjured.
We, we flunk grades, somethinghappens.
That's real life hardship.
Yeah, and I'm able to managethat in in the best way I

(13:35):
possibly can, not always easy,but the best way I possibly can
because I suffered so muchwrestling.
So you know not to jump intosomething deep and sad right
away, but you know we're talkingabout my mom, you know.
So, yeah, obviously somethingon your mind.

Speaker 2 (13:49):
It's, it's, it's.
You know, I can't.
I have both, so I can't.
I definitely can't say that Ican put myself in your shoes,
but I can definitely think thatyou know it does a testament
just because of the stress yougo through.
You know not not only thatsituation you know losing a,
losing a parent and or or asibling, but then having that
and then also the stress of theevent.

(14:09):
You know the, the dual or thetournament that you have to go
to and a lot of guys go, youknow like they don't because
it's.
They know that that person thatthey're missing is that's
probably what they wanted.
Right, they would have wantedme to do this and as hard as it
is, that's the stress you knowlike that's for sure.

Speaker 3 (14:24):
Yeah, yeah, I think that's the prep.
I think I think too, like youknow, a lot of people will hear
me maybe saying this and be like, well, how are you comparing
you know wrestling workouts andyou know it's hardship and
comparing that to like losing afamily member.
Of course, I don't think thosetwo things are, oh sure, right,
right.
But you know what they are.
Short term, they're equal, andwhat I mean by that is is I'm

(14:45):
not saying they're equal pain,but when you're dealing with
something, if your pinky hurtsor you have, you know, chest
pain, something serious in themoment it hurt is hurt right,
like in the moment, for a second.
So when I'm overwhelmed with Ijust want to breathe.
I don't want to do any sprints.
My voices are talking to myhead this sucks, get out of here
.
It doesn't matter if my fuckinghouse is on fire.

(15:08):
The only thing I'm thinkingabout is when is coach gonna say
practice is over, like it isengulfing my mind?
So, although that is not on agrand scale, as important or as
impactful or as painful aslosing a parent, dealing with
that like high volume of stress,you know, in the moment when
it's in in discomfort, when it's, you know, full-on turbulence

(15:31):
yeah that's a really tough placeto navigate.
So I have this thing that I calluh, why, what, I call why what,
and basically what it means isyou know, if I was going to get
thrown in the first 10 secondsof a match, I would never say
why me, why did I do that?
Why, god?
Why?
Why did I shoot?

(15:52):
Why?
I'd probably say, ok, what do Igot to do to get back in this
match?
I got to get an escape OK, nowI got to escape.
Ok, I got to get a takedown OK,now I got to choose down second
period.
Hey, now.
Now I'm here Now.
So when I translate that to, to,to, to real life hardship, you
know I could say why me?
Why does good things happen tobad people?
Or I said the opposite what isbad things happen to good people

(16:12):
?
Why not?
Why, yada, yada, what do I gotto do to be there for my
brothers?
What do I got to do to be therefor my dad?
What do I got to do to be thereto, to get over somebody that
that was so close to me, to buyfor my life, and I think that's
a really, uh, really importantasset that wrestlers have it

(16:36):
takes a minute.

Speaker 2 (16:37):
It takes a minute, you know, to in again.
I have an older son.
He's 21 years old, so I watchedhim.
You know, try to do the samething.
Why, why is this?
Why is this?
Never any kind of introspection, but just kind of why, like
looking out.

Speaker 3 (16:53):
Why is almost like a past tense word, you know what.
I mean why?
And look back.

Speaker 2 (16:57):
Doesn't matter now.

Speaker 3 (16:59):
I got him.
Just came off the plane.

Speaker 2 (17:05):
I lost all stuffy, so sorry you're good, you well,
dude, you've been all over theplace, man I haven't stopped
traveling.

Speaker 3 (17:14):
I haven't stopped traveling since, like, I've been
on the road since may until,like, right now.
It's like my first full weekhome, so it's gonna be nice,
yeah, it's gonna be good yeah,well, but here's the thing.

Speaker 2 (17:25):
Okay, so we're gonna.
We're gonna get back into thewrestling here when, when you,
when you were younger, you hadwrestling right, it's what you
grabbed onto.
What did you do outside ofwrestling?
That passed the time for you,because this is gonna build into
later yeah, how do you do what?

Speaker 3 (17:40):
you, do you know, I was always.
I was always like, adventurous.
You know, maybe not like, notto the prediction of like what I
do now, obviously, but out inthe woods doing stuff.

Speaker 2 (17:48):
You know, yeah, but I wasn't like a, I wasn't a
country boy.

Speaker 3 (17:52):
Like I've never really like vibed with the whole
.
Like I'm not like the hunter,you know and don't disrespect me
the hunt that's all cool.
Like I'm a softy, I like I'lleat meat but I can animals, like
I just I just not my vibe Rightand and and.
Uh, you know I would, I wouldmore so go adventure around the
woods with, instead of likebeing outdoorsy in the sense of
like survivalist, it was morelike I'm outdoorsy being

(18:14):
creative.
It was more like that.
Like I was like imagining youknow, dragons and and and and
fairy landing not criticalminority, minority.
Like happening when I'm eightyears old playing in the woods,
like that's what I was right, Iwas more like that nice.
So you know, I'm running around, I'm riding bikes around town
with my buddies, we're, we'readventuring the woods, we're,

(18:35):
you know, climbing trees, we'redoing all that crazy stuff.
It was more of a creative side,right and then I wasn't.
I think I wasn't.
I was very lucky with myparents being, you know,
relatively successful at a youngage where we traveled a lot,
where I saw different culturesLike I never became.
I never became, you know, jadedtowards specific demographics

(18:59):
or communities, because I never.
I only saw bad things on thenews about X, y and Z.
It was always easy because Imet everybody, I saw everybody
and everybody's a human being.
At a young age it was reallyeasy for me to grasp.
So I'm very fortunate.
I think that probably put thebiggest effect on how I live

(19:21):
life right now.

Speaker 2 (19:22):
Okay, okay, it explains a lot.
Like right, just like I said,it's going to lead into you know
things that kind of go post,post college here.
But with with middle school,you know, you started kind of.
You got into the national scene, you and you guys I mean it
sounds like.
I mean I'm gonna just be likeyou were pretty good, like you
obviously had an area that youcame from that came, that had

(19:43):
you know good, good pedigree,good wrestling people to be
around, good partners, plus withthe guy that you grew up with
and you know teammates and andthings like that were probably
all top notch.
And then with high school, didyou find yourself?
Were there a few morechallenges that you were like,
oh man, I gotta catch up tosomething?
Did you have?
Did you have any kind of mentalissues in high school?
Like Like I don't know if I canbeat this guy?

Speaker 3 (20:05):
No, not in high school.
My transition from middleschool to high school was pretty
smooth.
I was rest of the year.
Like with a tall system, I wasrest of the year.
Yeah, but for all weights, yeah,okay, I think 1,500 or 1,200,
whichever one was right beforehigh school, yeah, and then when
I got into high school, rightaway I was pretty good.
I was ranked pretty highnationally, second first year at

(20:27):
States and then, yeah, I neverreally struggled with that kind
of stuff.
You know, I developed badhabits in high school.
But mental stuff, actually, Ideveloped some bad habits
mentally in high school where Irelied too much on superstition
and ritual.
You know, like I should sayritual, because there's positive
aspects to's positive aspectsto, like I should.
Ritual and routine are differentright, I was gonna say routine,

(20:48):
yeah, yeah, it's like, okay,I'm getting myself in the in the
state of mind that I'm used togoing to get in a fight
afterwards.
That's good.
You know, if I if I crack myneck left and then crack my neck
right and then I go out thereand wrestle.
Hey, I'm used to going left andright and then wrestle like I
like I might just snap into it,that's good, I like that, right.
But when it becomes like luckyunderwear and and oh, I got to,

(21:12):
you know, you know, uh, knock onwood four times, whatever weird
stuff like that which a lot ofwrestlers have, you know what
it's trying to do.
What it's trying to do iscontrol a controllable that we
cannot control.
Which is the outcome?
Oh, if I work as hard as I can,I can control that.
No, you can't.
I'm sorry, but you're going tolose a bit, because talent
separates and people are better,and that's just how it is.

(21:34):
If you don't lose again, likethis time, I've lost a people,
that that I've outworked.
Well, how does that make sense?
Well, they're better atwrestling than me.
You know what I mean?
That's not an excuse, right.
That's just, we got to makeadjustments.
So, yeah, when it comes to likesuperstitions, what, what

(21:54):
really bothers me about myselfis I would give the credit to my
superstition and not my hardwork, right, like if I would win
, it was because I knocked onwood and not because I trained
at 6 am and that's a bad placeto start developing habits from
then you start to give lessemphasis on, on your work ethic,
and you start to give moreemphasis on these, these fake

(22:15):
controllables that are trying tocontrol the outcome that you
really can't rely on.
So so it's really it's that thatdeveloped in high school a
little bit because it workedright.
Yeah, it worked.
I won everything in high school.
It was, it was, it was easy,but it wasn't because of
superstitions, it was because Itrained hard and and I was
pretty good.
And then I get to college andand I and and we don't think we,

(22:36):
we think we know of it and andit doesn't.
It doesn't come as easy.

Speaker 2 (22:39):
You know, college is a is a big step that's so,
because of that, that, yoursuccess before and that's why I
really want to talk about thattransition was was it basically
right when you got into thepractice room or was it when you
, like you, went to an open orsomething you know?
Did you redshirt?

Speaker 3 (22:56):
uh, no, no, I went in .
Uh, I went in right away 25 okay, okay so I was supposed to go
33.
Because I was 130, my senioryear of high school, I was
supposed to go 33, okay, butLogan Couldn't make 25 anymore.
So Logan was like Okay, loganSteber, for those watching, yeah
, pretty tough guy, right, hewas pretty good, he, he was

(23:18):
gonna go.
He was like Okay, we're tryingto figure out the lineup.
And he's like Okay, I think I'mover 33, do you think you can
make 25?
I was like dude, I'm gonna try.
So I get down to 45 for myfirst open.
And I had a juco kid, like firstround was michigan state open,
but it was like a juco kid.
And it was like 10-9 and I won.
But it was like freaking, likeyeah, I'm big 10 wrestler like

(23:40):
ohio state starting with 25pound.
And no disrespect to juco, jucokeys are fucking tough.
Yeah, right, but.
But but there is, there is theexpectation, right, that I'm I'm
supposed to beat this guy,which is a weird thing that we
say.
But like, whatever, they're 10,9, 10, 9, close, barely scraped

(24:00):
by and after like the firstminute and a half, like I am
exhausted.
So in high school, my firstround, I can tech fall everybody
and feel like dog, shit, likemy weight cut could be.
I could starve my way down toweight.
I could eat like shit afterwins, I could be a little
bloated and I could stillprobably tech the guy in college
.
That first match is going to beso freaking hard and everything

(24:25):
is going to hurt and if youdon't cut your weight right,
you're going to have a reallybad time.
You know you might wait becauseyou're good at wrestling, but
you're going to have a reallybad time.
So that really was eye-openingfor me.
You know it's like you bettertake this freaking seriously.
You better take this weight cutseriously.
You better take your warm-upseriously.
I used to hardly warm up inhigh school.
It's like.

(24:45):
It's like this arrogance thingthat happened.
You know what?

Speaker 2 (24:47):
I mean, yeah, I can see that warm up.

Speaker 3 (24:49):
Your warm up is so important because, yeah, all
that blood is trying to breakdown that food that you just
stuffed in your stomach and noneof it is in your muscles.
So if you don't start that warmup and get your heart rate up
and get that blood reallyflowing back into your arms and
back into your legs, yeah,you're going to have a hard time
in your first period.
You have real hard time, youknow.
So that that warmup is crucial.

Speaker 2 (25:11):
That's so.
That's the crazy stuff that youknow.
You don't think because you'renot.
You're not talking about it asmuch, especially when a parent
makes their kids start to cut,like when they're a young kid
we're talking eight years old,now nine, 10.

Speaker 3 (25:25):
I was cutting young.
I can't lie, I was cuttingyoung, I was cutting.

Speaker 2 (25:27):
Yeah, so okay.
So here's the difference.
So like, oh, and I'm not goingto make excuses for it, but I'm
also going to say that you guyswere also in an area that this,
you guys were in a competitivewrestling environment in the
first place.
So you knew about that coming upin the first place, right.
It was about that coming up inthe first place, right.
Was there the knowledge aroundyou at the time where, because
you know how it is like, peoplewill tell you something, be like

(25:48):
you got to do this, you got toeat this way, you gotta eat this
way.
And you're like, yeah, yeah,yeah, I've been doing this.
I still eat this stuff that mymom makes.
It's healthy stuff, but I stilleat this and kind of disregard
or did you have the knowledgearound you guys about cutting
properly at?
that time and did it properly Inever had.

Speaker 3 (26:03):
That properly is is I did.
All that happens again.
Right, I'll kind of get to whatI did wrong weight cutting,
wise.
But no, I didn't.
Unhealthy cup weight when I waseight, nine, you know, it was
like, let's say, I was.
I forget how much I weighed.
Eight nine years old is 60pounds, whatever right it's not
the same kind of weight, right?
if I was.
If I was 60 pounds, yeah, if Iwas making 60 pounds, I would

(26:24):
weigh 64.
So it's not the same kind ofweight, right?
If I was.
If I was 60 pounds, yeah, if Iwas making 60 pounds, I was only
at 64 you know what I mean.
It was like right, right right,it wasn't like crazy, right
right, which body percent?
Wise, like that's, that'sprobably a high percent, if you
really think about it at thatright.
But here's the thing my dadnever made me cut weight.
Okay, I like, I like wanted to.
It was weird.
I hated it.

(26:44):
I cried.
I said I'll never do it again.
I've never drank alcohol before, but I'm assuming it's like
when people go out and they'relike I'm never drinking again
right, yeah, and they do again.
So for me it was like I'll cutweight and I'm fucking miserable
and I'm starving, I'm thirstyand I'm wrestling on nothing and
you know I make the weight.
I went to tulsa and and I'mlike I'm going 40 pounds next

(27:08):
week, like you know.
You just like start thinkingand you know what it does, which
is really good when you getolder in high school, is it
forces you to live a goodlifestyle.
There's unhealthy parts ofcutting weight Yo-yoing.
Oh, yeah, yeah.
If people start to get into likebad habits of, like bulimia or
anorexia, that's unhealthy.
But one thing that I reallylike is resting on an empty

(27:31):
stomach when you know you can'teat after this.
That takes something.
You know that.
That really takes something.
You have to.
You have to learn a lot aboutyourself.
I really like that and itforced me to live a good
lifestyle in the sense of all myfriends want to go out and
drink.
Well, I'm cutting weight, I'mtired, I'm going to watch a
movie, you know.
So that's a really it forces youto live somewhat a responsible

(27:54):
lifestyle.
And side note, side note tothat, when my mom died, uh, when
I was 16, uh, although it was,it was, it was a car accident.
Alcohol kind of led to ithappening.
So at that moment I decided Iwas never going to drink alcohol
, and I hadn't at this point.
So now I'm 32 and I've nevertried alcohol.
Because of that, you know, andthat helped cut weight too.

(28:14):
You know, you see people incollege who like to party and
they get caught up in thiscollege lifestyle.
I'm 21, I'm allowed to drinknow and I had a big advantage uh
, from from from youth, fromfrom right yeah, just from never
, never wanting to uh dabble inthat.
You know, I've done one thing inmy entire life I've never
smoked, I've never drank.

(28:35):
We can talk about this if youwant yeah yeah, with jake paul I
did an ayahuasca retreat.
We can talk about that, youknow, later on yeah, yeah, we'll
bring that up.
We'll bring that up, andactually I actually I had a
full-on conversation with my momlike this, like me and you
right now, so wow that wasreally cool.

Speaker 2 (28:51):
That was really cool.
So I don't, I don't dis, Idon't disregard that stuff.

Speaker 3 (28:54):
Yeah, it's more of a dis so people don't even look at
it like a drug.
Really.
They more so look at it liketherapy, which which I think is
is good, especially, like youknow, all the knowledge that we
have on like the natural type ofthings.
I'm not like super like hippieholistic, but no right, I
definitely, I definitely am intolike learning about it because
it is really cool oh, it'sintrospective.

Speaker 2 (29:12):
I mean that's the whole point.
I mean because it's not, you'renot, it's not interacting with
the outside world.

Speaker 3 (29:16):
You're trying to and I'm not doing it to escape
reality.
It's like, no, I'm gonna drink.
And again, here's something Ido want to clarify.
People listening if you drinkalcohol and I say I don't do, I
think I'm better than you.
No, not at all.
That's not what I believe.
I think if you are able toenjoy alcohol, smoke, weed, do
what you want to do, right.
And it's not because you wantto escape reality, it's just hey

(29:39):
, I just want to have a vibe foran hour or two.
That's fucking awesome.
I know that I would not be likethat and I would abuse it.
So there, because my mom, youknow, had had trouble and
struggled.
So therefore I was like youknow what?
Because I'd be worse than a lotof people.
I'm never gonna do anything.
It was more like that.
So it wasn't because I thinkI'm better than people, you know

(29:59):
like it's.
It's, it's the opposite, kindof right, Right.
And I agree, I'm a fucking, I'ma piece of shit, you know yeah.

Speaker 2 (30:06):
I totally agree with that.
I mean, that's the same thingwith anything that really I'm
just in life, but you do getwhat you got to do, like, if
you're doing it to and it's allfor you and that's all it's
about, then have at it, man.

Speaker 3 (30:17):
Right, all right.
But so we're going to pause,because if you're going to skip
weight cutting, there's onething I thought when I was
talking yeah, I'm sorry if I'mfilibustering too much, but I
get excited.
I get fired up about this, it'sall right.
I want kids if they'relistening, or dad's listening I
really want to spread this.
My biggest problem that Icarried into college from youth

(30:38):
weight cutting was I knew I canget away with starving my way
down to weight.
I could float a lot.
I always understood, like, okay, every six hours I'll lose a
pound.
Okay, so if I don't eat all dayat school and then I practice
and I lose two pounds and then Idon't eat until dinnertime, oh,
I can have like three pounds atdinner.

(30:59):
I would always think to myselfI can starve my way down to
weight.
Because I was scared of onething I was scared to work out
extra, and I think a lot of kidsare scared to work out extra.
They're scared that if I eatI'm going to have to run Right,
and that was something that Ireally struggled with in college
.
You know, jay Jaggers, if hewas here right now, he'd be yup.

(31:21):
You did Like he'd be fucking,he'd be giving it to me.
It's, it's.
It was a really big problemwhere I was so scared to like
have like a grape, you know,because, well, if am I going to
have to work on it?
Cause if I feel like shit rightnow, it's like yeah, you might
feel like shit right now, butyou know why you feel like shit.

(31:44):
Right to weight, because youwant to eat at night and it'll
feel so good, you can have thatbig ass Gatorade.
Stop fucking being a pussy, goeat and don't be afraid to work
out extra.
Ok, I had a sandwich and aGatorade and I got to go run for
20 minutes.
Good job, you do that threetimes a week.
Well, that's 12 workouts amonth.
Hey, in three months week.

(32:05):
Well, that's 12, that's 12workouts a month.
Hey, in three months, that'sthat's 36 workouts.
You know what I mean?
It's like that adds up overtime and that's a little bit of
an edge, you know.
So don't be afraid to work outextra.
Don't be afraid to eat.
I think that's a reallyimportant thing that I wish I
was better at uh in middleschool, because it would really
help me in college so it's a.

Speaker 2 (32:22):
It's interesting that you mentioned that, because
liam is, there's a kind ofeverything's going to roll back,
because liam is like currently,everything you're talking about
is literally what he's goingthrough, right like we can get
away with it.

Speaker 3 (32:32):
I can starve.
I can get liam's good, I canget away with starving and kick
an ass.
First round of the tournament.
Oh, by the seven, by the timethe semis come around, I'm full.
I feel good.
I've had hours to digest, butit's like in college.
Don't work like that.
You can't just be used tostarving, you know right, not
good, right, right, and that'sit.

Speaker 2 (32:51):
So that's the balance .
Because he wouldn't.
It's literally.
I told him, and there'sendurance, you can tell that
they're, they're dead right,yeah, I said you.
You need to get on a bike, dude, you don't have to run, run it
running's impact.

Speaker 3 (33:03):
It's on a bike airdyne.
You can go like this feet andarms go at the same time, just
freaking low impact, who standsin motion, like you know, like
something that doesn't get yousore.
It's close to it's close to thetime you're supposed to compete
.
I get it.
You're not trying to abuse yourbody, but just don't be afraid
to move around.

Speaker 2 (33:19):
Yeah, yeah, and that's the discipline thing you
know, that's there's a at an agewhere, like, you're already
defiant enough because you'regoing through another
testosterone spurt and you knowhow to.
Like, he knows how to doeverything right, he knows how
to do it all by himself, andthat's, and that's fine.

Speaker 3 (33:33):
I want the independence, but, like I don't
know how to do shit alone.

Speaker 2 (33:36):
So, like you know, I think I think we all think that
when we're 16 and then all of asudden, you're like dude and I'm
going to be like 45 years old,calling my dad Like dude.
What do I do?
Hold on, I thought I knew howto do this, but I told you I did
, but I really don't.
So, yeah, so I can, I, can, I,I, I can't relate as far as just
everything you guys wentthrough, especially Liam, and

(33:56):
what you went through forwrestling.

Speaker 3 (33:57):
I appreciate you saying.
You always say I can, I'll uh,you know, I do 80 camps a year.
I see like 10,000 kids.
I do a lot Right and at fulltime, pretty much like even in
the winter, and I'll do thesecamps.

(34:19):
I'll teach something that Ilearned, like that I didn't know
until, like college.
Yeah, you know.
Hey, freaking travel to lagThey've taught me this.
Third in the Olympics.
Like, know, coach, goes to me,hey, I'm really happy you're
teaching.
I said the exact same thinglast week and it's just good
that we're on the same page andI'm like, dude, you may have
said the same thing last week, Idon't know, but why are you

(34:40):
telling me that?
Like, what is the point?
Like, are you trying to relateto me like I, I'm sure you're a
good coach?
You don't have to prove to meyou're a good coach, like I
believe I believe you, you're agood coach.
You know, jordan Burroughstaught a double leg and I taught
a double leg last week.
I would never tell JB, hey,dude, I taught double legs last
week.
I would probably think, jb, I'mnot going to tell Gordon Ramsey

(35:02):
, hey, dude, I cooked pie lastweek, you know what I mean.
I cooked filet mignon last week.
Randy probably fucking does itpretty good.

Speaker 2 (35:11):
I just don't.
I tell Liam that too.
It any good, you know, I justdon't I tell liam that too.
I mean I don't.
It's at a level that I don'tanymore.
I don't know.
You know, right, even I'mtrying to pay people to coach
him because I don't know, likeI'm trying to make sure that I
don't screw whatever he's gotgoing up.
But like, even sports wise, Iplayed, like soccer was my gig.
But soccer is way differentthan wrestling.
Right, there's a.
It's completely different.
There's a little physicality toit in soccer, but it's

(35:32):
different.

Speaker 3 (35:33):
I love soccer, though Soccer's sick.

Speaker 2 (35:36):
I absolutely do I fell in love when I was like
four or five and I didn't stop.
Wrestling was a filibuster fornot playing indoor soccer is
what that was.

Speaker 3 (35:46):
I love all sports too .
As wrestlers, we have a chip onour shoulder because we don't
get the love that the footballteam gets in high school or the
basketball team or whatever, andI get it.
That gives us like a reallycool, like niche community,
which is really good.
I do like the side of it, butI'm a cheerleader bro.
Like basketball we're supposedto hate that.
Basketball's sick, basketball'sso sick.

Speaker 2 (36:08):
Like the Cavs are defeated.

Speaker 3 (36:09):
Well, they're playing the horse right now.
I don't know if they're winning, but the casual defeated
Basketball's sick LeBron's dopeStop calling him a sissy, like
dude freaking.
Basketball's sick man.
Like all sports are sick.
And if you want to keepwrestling, sick man, put good
energy out there.
You know, put good energy outthere.
It'll reciprocate itself, Ipromise you know I like the ch.
I get it.

(36:30):
I get it, but at the same time,dude freaking soccer is cool,
it's a cool sport.

Speaker 2 (36:37):
It tried to get Liam into it and it was interfering
with wrestling practice.

Speaker 3 (36:41):
Well, that's fine, something else to decide.

Speaker 2 (36:43):
I like wrestling more than anything, and that's what
I told him.

Speaker 3 (36:45):
But as a fan, I like all sports, I like
competitiveness.

Speaker 2 (36:48):
I play a lot of very good yeah Hell yeah, I watch
Angel.

Speaker 3 (36:51):
Reese and Kayla Clark freaking, claw their faces off.
It's sick, it's gangster.
I don't care what it is, I'llwatch anything yeah let's see.
Yeah, jesus, yeah, freaking,I'm kind of team Angel.
I think I might be team Angel.
I know that's going to pisspeople off, are you Okay?
Kayla Clark's dope, she's dope,they're both dope, they're both
dope, she's dope, they're bothdope they're both dope, but

(37:14):
Angel is getting like.
If everything Angel did was inmale form, she would be like, oh
, she's a competitor, butinstead she's a girl and she's
complaining and it's like no bro, she fucking is like she's
putting it out there.
Let the entertainment happen.
I think she is.

Speaker 2 (37:35):
She takes a beating and she keeps going.
You know she does.
It's tough, like I'm a critic,right, like I'm a guy that's out
there saying this sucks ordoesn't suck, and I can, I'm
sure I bring enough negativityto make people throw up.
But at the same time, though, doI do see that I mean, it was
the same thing when I, you know,like I said with ben, like
you're a kid's club kind ofthing, but you know, it was part

(37:56):
of the entertainment, it's partof the gig, and they're able to
talk about it, right, exactly,and if they're able to take it
and still play and do that andI'm not saying that they're not
hurt.
You know, I'm sure that there'sstuff that's set out there that
absolutely can rail on someone'smind, right At the.
Yeah, at the same point, though, too, that they're getting paid
, not much by the wmba, but forsure, with their, with their nil

(38:16):
deals, I mean, they're gettinga good good amount of money to
do the thing that they love,right, and I can't, I can't come
down on that, that's.
That is a positive thing,because I I was able to do that
for a little bit, but then I hadto realize that I was old and
not able to play with 18 19 yearolds anymore yeah, two, two
things that I really think of.

Speaker 3 (38:34):
One people don't get paid a lot In certain aspects,
not just the WNBA, usa Wrestlingand here's something that I do
wish was a little bit differentwe as wrestlers have to do
better as a community.
Because, number one we alwaysthink If you're not making the
world team, what does everybodyon the forums and Twitter say
Washed?
It's like, hey, if somebody'renot making the world team, what

(38:55):
does everybody on the forums andTwitter say Washed?
It's like hey if somebodydoesn't make a world team and
they want to wrestle, guess whatthe fuck they should do Wrestle
.

Speaker 2 (39:05):
Wrestle.

Speaker 3 (39:06):
Wrestle it's getting hard.
You got like, like, with thatsame mindset, you better be the
best fucking insurance salesmanin the country, otherwise quit,
like.
What is the point of sayinglike, oh you know, chance
marston doesn't make the worldteam burned out?
How much longer he's got bro, Idon't care.
Like he can wrestle to hissport, I don't care if he wants

(39:29):
to wrestle and the more peoplewe get wrestling.
If somebody's not winning thenba championship every single
year, should they stop playingbasketball?
No, they're probably prettygood on their freaking team.
You know, we need, we need.
We need lebron james's and weneed people that are just like
run-of-the-mill guys.
We need the james hardens, weneed the yeah, the jr james
hardens pretty good, but jrsmith's, like we need across the

(39:51):
board.
We need that, right.
So that's the first thing.
The second thing I was justthinking of, too, is we're
talking about angel reason,we're talking about kayla clark,
we're talking about thesepeople, right, his personalities
in wrestling.
I think we do a really bad jobof suppressing an individual
expression and we don't allowsuperstars we have this phrase

(40:11):
act like you've been therebefore and a lot of times people
haven't been there that saythat you don't know what it
feels like to win.
And I'm not saying like youknow, you can't have opinions if
you haven't won something, butit's like we wrap it up in a
respect cloak yeah, we thinkit's respect and it's not dude
me flexing.
You know what.
That's respectful to myfreaking family in the stands

(40:32):
looking at me and saw howfucking hard I just tried.
That's respect.
I respect the sport ofwrestling and the art of
wrestling enough to bepassionate about it and give a
fucking fist bump.
Do I need to go AJ Ferrari anddouble finger the crowd?
No, I'm not saying that.
But it's okay to havepersonality in your sport and I

(40:56):
think that's a really importantthing In a sport that we can't
be that creative Like if a kiddyes his hair or wears a knee
sleeve or wears like a chin cup.
That's about as much creativityas we can get.
We can't do that.
We don't have the visors atfootball, you know what?
I mean, we don't have thetouchdown dances.
We don't have that visors andfootball and, uh, you know what
I mean.
All that.
We don't have the touchdowndances.

(41:16):
We don't have that muchcreativity.
Let us do it.
Stop hating on everything somuch.
You know jake, being close withjake, jake has a really good
phrase and this kind of atteststo, to how jake paul is and a
lot of people probably, uh,understand him more with this
quote.
Yep, make them have an opinionof you.
Make them have an opinion ofyou.
Right, who's?

(41:36):
Uh, you know some ufc fighters,that that that you know I
dislike colby covington.
I have an opinion of him andthat is a good thing for the
sport.
He's a piece of shit, but guesswhat?
It's a good thing.
I think he's a piece of shitbecause it helps the ufc, right
like.
That's the, that's the attitude, like everything's gonna make
them have an opinion of you.
Then there's people Leon Edwardsright, I like Leon and he's

(41:58):
came on more star power in thepast couple of years, but at the
beginning he wasn't a factor, atalking point.
You're right, he wasn't talkingabout.
Nobody had an opinion of him,and sometimes just getting your
hand raised is not enough tosell a sport.
Drama and storylines sell asport.
Drama and storyline sell asport and winning caps it off.
Winning is the period or theexclamation point at the end of

(42:20):
the sentence.
It can't just be the thing thatthe sentence is about.

Speaker 2 (42:24):
And I think we have some actors in the play.
Fuck, we have Carson.

Speaker 3 (42:27):
Arachi, we got AJ Ferrari.
I don't love his anticssometimes.
Aj Ferrari's a bad examplebecause I don't like some of the
stuff that he's done.

Speaker 2 (42:39):
An example.
Nonetheless, there's a line.

Speaker 3 (42:44):
I don't need you to be a punk by having a chip on
your shoulder.
He's a fucking gangster.
Let's go.

Speaker 2 (42:49):
Correct If you're listening.

Speaker 3 (42:53):
No disrespect, just, you know, be a good human dog,
all right, be a good human.
I hope the best for you.
All right, Just a good person,that's all.
Good person, man?
And if you're not a good person, I'm going to talk about it.

Speaker 2 (43:08):
And guess what?
Man Spreading the love.
I agree, I think when theybrought it back in the we know
what the celebration's in theNFL I was like, yeah, why not?
I mean these guys.
It's like a natural.
It's almost natural, right,it's almost natural to do.
Some guys do and some guysdon't.

Speaker 3 (43:24):
But the guys that do, man, it's entertaining the good
thing about the guys that don'tis like okay, the Iowa style
wrestling, Iowa style mentality.
Even though they get their handraised, run off the mat, act
like you've been there before.
It's almost they do it in a way.
That's still a talking pointbecause it's like Iowa, right,
so it's not exactly what I'mtalking about.

(43:46):
That's still a talking pointand that's still good because
it's villainous.
It's like well, you thinkyou're too good to do that,
right, so I like that one still.
It's other ones that like Ican't think of a good example,
but it's like you.
Just you could have gave memore.
You're a non-factor.
Show your personality.

(44:07):
Don't be afraid to talk.
Have a life outside ofwrestling a little bit, where I
have communication skills, Ihave personal skills and I can
give interviews.
I can give interviews, I cantalk.
I have hobbies that people areinterested in and all of a
sudden, I go to the mat and nowthere's a storyline behind me.
Right, Spencer Lee had fans.
That because he was good atwrestling.
He had fans because of fuckingPokemon, which is good.

(44:29):
Show your personality,Wrestlers.
Show your personality.

Speaker 2 (44:33):
All the way through, all the way through, all the way
through.
I think a lot of in what bringsto wrestling is the is the
edges, because there's so much.
It's all you right, it's aboutyou and, like you said, I'm
showing my family that we justkilled it, you know, because
they put something into it tooright.
So he put balls on the road forme, exactly, exactly, and I'm

(44:56):
not about a guy standing overthe top of him like screaming in
his right, yeah, that line.
Right, but getting up, you gotthe pin.
Whatever you're walking away inyour flex, whatever it is,
that's a that is fine and,honestly, not a lot of refs have
a problem with it.
It's the other people on theoutside that want to bitch about
it.
Right, and I'll, I'll, I'll,I'll put myself up against the
wall.
I'm sure I've done it withsomeone, or it was like man, you

(45:17):
look like an idiot, you knowjust whatever it is Kind of
thing I'm talking about them.

Speaker 3 (45:22):
Right, like you got my attention, I'm still like a
sense of like okay, let's say,but it makes me go.
I want that guy to lose that'sgood it's still part of the
storyline you don't wanteverybody to win in wrestling
because now all of a sudden it'sjust two good guys, it's never

(45:42):
a fun story.
Two bad guys is good and a goodto bad is good but two good
guys is not good, it doesn'twork like that.
I'm sorry, it just doesn't worklike that.
And if you're a wrestler outthere and you want to be the
good guy, go be a superhero.
If you're out there and youfeel like you're the kind of guy
who's like fuck everybody else,they don't get me, go fucking
lean into it and beat it.

Speaker 2 (46:05):
Go fucking beat it, that's right.
What was your first flex?
I did, bro and I regret it.

Speaker 3 (46:12):
I hate that.
I was like I was scared to becocky and cocky is a strong word
, but in general I was justscared to like, I was scared to
let it show.
Yeah, yeah, and I wish I did,you know.
And you never know what you'regoing to do Like.
Is the reason we wrestle ForNIL money?

(46:33):
No, it's a good byproduct,though.
Is the reason we wrestle fornil money?
No, it's a good byproduct,though.
Is the reason we wrestle to goto go viral?
No, of course not, but it's agood byproduct if you never know
what could happen.
You say something stupid in apost game, post fight, post
wrestling match interview.
You do some stupid dance, youthere is a company out there
that will see it and be like oh,let's give him NIL money.

(46:56):
He just shouted us out.
He just, you know, you neverknow where that can go.

Speaker 2 (47:00):
See how many people like that, how many people are
watching that.

Speaker 3 (47:03):
Yeah, you know when Trey Hedlay did the hoagie thing
, like after, it was like eightyears ago or something After
who's number one If that was NILtime and that was subway and
that was quiznos and that wentviral and that went.

Speaker 2 (47:17):
you never know what that can lead into he is, you
know, he's hokey that's what I'msaying that's right, it worked,
I mean, so that was that's, Iguess, even aj being a heel, and
even the because he puts heputs himself there right.
It's not like he's trying toavoid it I don't think he put it
where.

Speaker 3 (47:33):
I think he just is there.
I I don't think he's trying tobe anything, I think he is,
that's there, that's what it is.

Speaker 2 (47:42):
That's what it is, and I can get along with it.
You got it everyone.
Someone has to do something,right?
Well, I?

Speaker 3 (47:48):
don't love it.
I don't love aj's antics, butyou know, if here's where I
struggle, what I want my son todo, what AJ Farrelly does, no.
Nope.

Speaker 2 (47:57):
That's called parenting.

Speaker 3 (47:58):
But yeah, but is it?
What are the pros and cons ofwrestling?
Does it make us look bad?
Does it make us is it goodbecause we want him to lose?
What are the pros?
What's the upside?
I don't know, and I'm sure if I, if I hung with aj.
I've been told he's a nice kid,angelo actually, I heard
angelo's a great kid yes, liam'sactually hung out with him.

(48:18):
He's, I've heard angelo's areal good kid so it's like, it's
like being a talking point.
You know, I feel like age is atough, a tough example to use,
uh, because it is so far overthe line, true, but you know,
carter sriracha, I think, is abetter example.
I like carter, yeah, I likeCarter.
I think he plays a heel perfect.
He talks his shit.
I think Carter's a perfectexample.

Speaker 2 (48:41):
So don't get me wrong , I'm not the guy that, like
I've done comedy right.
Like I understand the, I'mhaving a hard time buying the
meanness though.
Oh Carter, yes.

Speaker 3 (48:54):
Really.

Speaker 2 (48:57):
Interesting Because these guys have been so nice for
so long.

Speaker 3 (48:58):
That's they was, that's they said, the gold state
warriors.
Don't be so like.
Everybody is like a good, goodboy, except draymond green,
right, right.
And it's like hey, I'm gonnatake it on myself to be the the
guy you know.
I mean so it's almost like youlike a couple of those.
Let me say something real quick.
I'm friends with a lot of PennState people.
I'm friends with a few PennState wrestlers.

(49:22):
I fucking hate Penn State.
Bo's my boy.
Shout out to Bo, that's my boy.
I hate you man.
I hate wrestling you guys.
I hate everything about you.

Speaker 2 (49:32):
Out the boat like that's my boy.
Yeah, that's my boy, but I havea hard time buying his.

Speaker 3 (49:34):
I hate y'all man, like I hate wrestling you guys,
I hate everything about you.

Speaker 2 (49:38):
I hate the way you look you're so good oh well, you
guys have to be so good right,yeah, yeah, I just I think I I
do like the entertainment value.
I think when we first came inI've evolved, but I was probably
the same stuffy way as like no,we don't need that, we don't
need and that's that's good ifyou don't recognize for sure and

(50:00):
the only thing that it camefrom was just the parenting side
.
Like if I teach my kid thisstuff now, like he's going to be
out of control of stuff andpeople are having their cameras
out I would just rather him justbe like yeah, okay, if he's
crying a little bit after heloses, don't mind, whatever, go
do your thing.
But then as we started gettinginto middle school and he got
into high school and kind ofwatching how you know, like how
these guys Penn State andStaracci and stuff like that go

(50:21):
with it, but I was like allright, I was like God, but these
guys just don't seem very goodat it.
Right, like, could they likemaybe take a couple Siriano,
took some acting classes?
Those guys could probably payoff a little bit.

Speaker 3 (50:33):
I forgot, siriano did acting classes.

Speaker 2 (50:35):
He did, he did, yeah, and I think he's actually taken
some out in California, but Ican't get him back on too.

Speaker 3 (50:41):
I did a little acting recently.
I don't know if you found your….

Speaker 2 (50:44):
See, now we've got to get back into you.
We've got to get back into you.
We're going to get there.
You did do some.
Sure many people that arewatching probably know of it.
I'm excited about that.
So when we, when we left off,you were let's get into high
school.
You were transitioning intocollege practice room.
You know you got into dietingand and.
But as far as competition wise,I mean, it's not like you're

(51:06):
walking into a light you knowlight room, you're walking into
ohio state right yeah, yeah, forsure.
What was that the?

Speaker 3 (51:13):
guys in my room at that time.
We had henry suhudo trainingfor uh, freestyle stuff.
We had angela sabato and so wechan for freestyle stuff.
We had reese tom free trainingfreestyle stuff with logan
steven, who's on my team.
We had hunter steven, who wasmy weight uh not my weight, but
my team, my roughly my weight uhwith sean bunch, who was you

(51:33):
know old team member.
So we had like seven or eightguys that were all within 10
pounds of each other that wereeither all americans or trained
to make a world team, or henrysuhudo, olympic champion, right
like right.
It was insane.
You know you didn't get a break.
Where it can be detrimental andit can be good.
It's like if you're not able tobuild confidence, that sucks

(51:57):
right.
But also, like you do watchyour ass kick once in a while
too, which is great right, butyou don't want it every single
day.

Speaker 2 (52:03):
So I mean, so that's the mental side, I guess,
because you know you talk aboutdieting but most guys don't get
that until they get into collegewith nutritionists and like
talking to the you know coachesabout it.
Anyways, mental side, what didthat do to you?
You're a competitor, right.
I mean you like to pushyourself and put yourself in
positions that make youuncomfortable, but when you get
into that type of a situation,like you said, high school is

(52:24):
like oh, I'm going to do this.
Now you get in the college room.
I mean, what was the firstmonth like?

Speaker 3 (52:29):
I mean tough.
I you know you always hearstories like freshmen don't get
takedowns.
For the first month I didn't.
I didn't score a lot of pointsfor probably a few practices in
a row, unless it was anotherfreshman.
It's tough and there's guysthere that you would have beat
up on in high school.
They weren't the toughest andthey're a byproduct of a really

(52:54):
tough system.
Now Big Ten college wrestlingand one thing is I call it
taking someone's last breath,where in wrestling you take
something down and you kind offeel like, as you're about to
secure it, they go and they kindof bail out.
That happens a lot in highschool, in college.

(53:17):
Nobody like conceived that easywhere it's.
It's almost like you ever tripin front of your crush.
Yeah, you know when you were,when you were young, you trip,
play, you play it off like, likeno, I don't.
You stand up real fast.
You put wrestling in collegelike that.
You're about to get thetakedown and it's like they play
it off.
It's like it's like you didn'tget, it's like they're already
back to their feet and you'relike you're like fuck what's

(53:37):
that too, I don't know.
Like that was really.
It's one of those where it's sohard, where me scoring points
almost takes away on me.
If I score points in highschool, I gain confidence.
If I score points in collegeand somebody's trying really
hard, please don't get up.
I'm so hard and that's like acrazy thing to have, like as a

(53:59):
freshman, young man, 18 yearsold, like it's awesome yeah, I
can't again, that kind of thingI can't relate to.

Speaker 2 (54:08):
I played tough guys in soccer and again, or when it
comes to the, the, the mental,and your liam was excited
because number one, he wanted,just wanted to get into a room
where the guys were also youknow, again you're talking about
probably state champs and stateplacers, things like that,
where that's a whole room, rightand and that's got to be an
exciting time.
But, like, at some point didyou wind up questioning yourself

(54:29):
once you got into college?
Yeah, yeah, of course, whereyou're like, of course, yeah,
should I keep doing this?

Speaker 3 (54:33):
well, one thing is is , if you don't, if you don't
push yourself to a place whereyou question yourself, you're
probably probably going to apretty easy, easy, okay field of
people, which which I don'tthink is the best thing.
So you know that's hard to dolike be me being removed from
discomfort right now.
It's very easy to identify.
It's like you ever play likemafia or werewolf.
It's like, okay, when I'm deadI can.

(54:54):
I know who's the mafia.
I know exactly who you know,like if I see the movie already,
I know who the killer is.
Like.
How do you not know?
So that's how I feel right now.
Right, but when you're in itand all the discomfort is like
everything sucks, it's cloudy, Ihurt my, my chest hurts, my
brain hurts, like when you're init, it's really hard to realize
what's good for you and what'sbad for you, because all you

(55:16):
want to do is feel comfort again.
All you want to do is feel likeI can breathe again and you
know.
Okay, here's a good story.
I had this wrestler.
His name was mac mcguire.
Pretty tough kid, nationallyranked top 12, top 13 every year
.
Uh, four-time nationalqualifier, never all american,
but pretty tough, you're notsure.
Kent state okay mac was somebodyI did not match up well with it

(55:42):
stylistically.
You know people that wouldwould whoop on him, I would be.
But when I wrestled mac I Istruggled.
He was a left leg lead.
I didn't do good with left-legleads.
You know he shot a sweep to myleft side right, no, I'm sorry,

(56:04):
my right side.
He just shot a sweep to myright side and I just wasn't
good there right Now.
I wrestled him four or fivetimes in college.
I never lost to Mack, but again,I didn't match up well.
I won five matches against him.
I never scored one takedown,never one takedown.
So I always won some weird way,like I got to turn, I have to
do his back, some weird shitwould happen.

(56:25):
I got to ride out points, likesome weird shit would happen.
Oh shit.
So we're at the national duelsand it's Hofstra versus Ohio
State.
We win, kent State has IowaState.
We have the winner.
Next it's coming down toheavyweight and Mack wrestles
for Kent State and I'm sittingthere and I'm watching this come

(56:47):
down to heavyweight and I'mgetting emotionally invested
into this match, rooting forIowa State, because I don't
match up good with Matt McGuire.
I don't want to wrestlesomebody I don't match up good
with Matt McGuire.
I don't want to wrestlesomebody.
I'm matching good with rightright, so I'm getting all into
it.
Well, iowa State ends up losing, kent State wins.
I have to wrestle Matt McGuire,but I just took an emotional

(57:10):
loss before.
I even stepped foot on the mat,yeah.
Like instead of just going torecovery putting my feet up hey,
who do I?
Got next Cool Deal with it whenit comes.
Like instead of just havingthat kind of attitude, yeah.

Speaker 2 (57:22):
You went through a whole other night.

Speaker 3 (57:23):
I just emotionally invested into something, lost
the emotional investment and nowI got to go wrestle it with a
negative attitude and go goingit fucking match up with this
guy.
Now the story would be betterit had I lost the match.
Right, I ended up winning, butbut it doesn't show what is
important.
What's important just winningor getting better.

(57:43):
And that sounds like I'm aribbon giver.
Everybody gets a trophy.
That's not what I mean.
What I mean is, though, if, if,imagine if my attitude could be
fuck, I don't match up goodwith this guy to oh, I don't
match up good with this guy, soooh, I don't match up good with
this guy.
That's sick.
What if I got excited for that,which is a really hard thing to
do?
And another way would be like,let's say, I'm terrible in a

(58:05):
position what's a position thatLiam isn't that great at yet oh,
just his probably.

Speaker 2 (58:12):
I would say down position.
He's still a little weak Down.

Speaker 3 (58:14):
Okay, fine All right, so let's say it's two to one
third period or three pointtakedowns now, so we'll say it's
three to one.
Liam's winning third period.
About a minute left, he givesup a takedown.
He's on bottom.
He's down by one.
Most people who aren't good onbottom are going to say fuck, he

(58:38):
just took me down and I'm notthat good on bottom.
Fuck, fuck, fuck.
Instead.
What if it could be thatdelusional optimism?
He just took me down, I'm notgood here, I'm not good here.
I know I sound fucking dumb andcrazy right now and nobody will
ever be that delusional andoptimistic about it.
But if I can get excited where Isuck at, well, that's what I

(59:00):
want, because I want to getbetter at wrestling.
You don't get better at hittinghome runs by not swinging the
bat, so you should get excitedto be in a position that you
suck at.
It makes you better.
It makes you a better wrestlerfor it and I know it's cliche,
we say that kind of stuff allthe time, but it's so easy.

(59:21):
It caught up in like I'm notgetting takedowns.
This is hard.
I don't like this.
I don't match up good with thisguy.
He's on my side of the bracket.
This person got upset.

Speaker 2 (59:35):
I suck against him.
It's easy to get into that routeand so a lot of negative, I
agree, and with the kids that Icoach in soccer, you wind up
getting.
You see the body language onguys, even in a wrestling match,
when something especially whenyou're a ways into a match
something happens that theydidn't want to, that they feared
would happen, and you see thebody language change, right like
the, the arm slumping or yousee the head down further.
But like, so coaching soccerand having a group of kids that

(59:57):
come into a game number one thatthey probably lost last year,
so some of them already havekind of a brain into it that
this is going to be a hard gamealready, right, like they don't
even, they have no idea, theyhaven't even started, the
whistle hasn't even blown yet.
Right, oh, you get down by agoal and you still have a half
to play yet and guys are nowdropping their shoulders.
That's, as a coach, like.

(01:00:18):
Just watching that as a coachis like my god, you already gave
up on yourself.
Oh, you've already mentallygiven up and it's hard to bring
now, let alone one kid.

Speaker 3 (01:00:27):
What if, as a coach, we could do what I just
suggested, though, who gave upon himself?
Now it's time for me to coach.
Now this is going to challengeme.
What if we can get excited forlike, I never really judge a
coach by a team of awesome kids,instead of judging a Big Ten
school that gets really highlevel recruits?
Those kids are probably goingto pan out Pretty good at

(01:00:49):
wrestling.
What if it was like a LockHaven, cleveland State, kent
State, and you get a like a uh,you know, a lock cave in
cleveland state, kent state?
You know, and you get a kidthat you know he was fourth,
fifth, sixth in the state inhigh school and you get.
You get him to to the round of12.
You're a pretty good fuckingcoach.
You know, that's how I see it,you know so yeah, so that and.

Speaker 2 (01:01:07):
But that's the kind of how I approach it with with
the kids once they're down,because I mean I can
individually call them over andbe like, hey, dude, you got him
coming right at you.
Every single time he's justdoing this, stop him.
Then they get that one.
Stop, you know right.
Then it starts to build fromthere and then taking it, then
the other kid sees it.
So it all of it's infectious,right.
So again, even as a coach inthe corner, that's got to be

(01:01:29):
tough.
I mean, again, high intensity.
It's a different intensity fromsoccer to wrestling, for sure.

Speaker 3 (01:01:35):
I think a lot of the principles could be translated
pretty good.
For sure, he gets the one stop,he gets the one stop Built for
it and it's look the infectionright.
So I would say confidence.
Actually, before I even say it,I'll ask the question when do
most people say confidence comesfrom?
They would say what Well,winning, winning, sure, or like

(01:02:01):
preparation.
I would say a lot of people saythey're confident.

Speaker 2 (01:02:03):
Sure, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:02:04):
That's a pretty common like hey, if I study for
the test, I'm confident on thetest, right, like that happens,
yep.
So I've trained really hardbefore before and I've still
been nervous and I've alwayswondered like, okay, why am I so
nervous, like unsure if I'mgonna win?
Well, because the win is notguaranteed, right.
So for me, a lot of peoplethink, okay, I'll hit that move

(01:02:28):
when I'm confident.
Oh, I'm learning this new move,I'll throw legs in when I'm
confident.
And I think it should be theopposite.
I think confidence is a rewardyou get from trying.
So I throw legs in, I getreversed.
I throw legs in again, I getreversed, I throw legs in again.
Oh, I flatten them out, greatway to look now I'm confident.

(01:02:51):
It's the same thing with mycliff jumping.
If I'm on a cliff right and Ijump into water, not a base jump
but just a regular cliff jump,it's really high.
I'm not confident After I jumpthough, totally vulnerable,
totally insecure, and I hit thewater.
I come out of the water, I go,let's go again.
Now I'm confident.
Confidence is the reward youget from effort.
So kids out there that arelistening, don't wait till

(01:03:14):
you're confident to do the move.
Don't wait till you'reconfident to ask a little shorty
out right, right, do it first,get get curved, get dumped.
Now I'm a little bit moreconfident because I did it.
I put myself out there.
That that's what I thinkconfidence is.
Is is after effort, not before.
You know, that's a big part ofit for me.

Speaker 2 (01:03:34):
I agree.
I think a lot of times thesight always gets lost and I
come back to this every singletime.
Parents lose sight and then,once the parents lose sight, the
kids lose sight.
The building blocks start fromthere.
I see it in soccer, not justwrestling, I see it in soccer
too.
The reason why kids get and Ithink a lot of the mental

(01:03:54):
disappointment comes from isbecause kids, social media kids
see doing other kids doing theseawesome things.
And why can't I do that?
Why, you know?
Then when they try to do itsomewhere and it doesn't work,
then there's the disappointment,right and but at least.
And I look at them and say, hey, at least you tried it.
Because how are you gonna knownow you know what, know what
you've got to fix?
Now you go to the drone, you goback to work and figure out

(01:04:16):
what you had to do the last time.
So they get so disappointedbecause they're not the Pele's
and the Diego Maradona's rightaway they want to score six
goals a game.

Speaker 3 (01:04:25):
Do you think Maradona was better than Messi?

Speaker 2 (01:04:28):
All hands down.
Really yes, Really yes.
I do, I think, as a ballhandler, I think he was 10 times
better.

Speaker 3 (01:04:35):
That's really the GOAT debate now.
Right, that's MJ LeBron.

Speaker 2 (01:04:39):
It is To me.
I don't know if we want to gothere, but to me MJ is the.
I mean LeBron's won how manytitles, how many championships.

Speaker 3 (01:04:49):
It's a team sport, right?
What about Bill Russell?
He has 11.

Speaker 2 (01:04:53):
If we go by titles championships it's a team sport,
right?
What about?
What about bill russell?
He has a lot of this he if wego like titles bill russell's to
go bill russell, oh yeah, I puthim up there I, but I would not
have lebron.
See, that's weird aboutbasketball, because I don't know
enough either, so I shouldn'ttalk.
I know, I know, I mean either Idon't know, I always find it
funny.

Speaker 3 (01:05:08):
This is just super little, like we don't have to go
into basketball much.
I I was kind of funny, though,like with LeBron, and you know
MJ might be better, Like youknow, whatever, but I was kind
of funny.
Lebron is four and six, I think, in the finals.
Well, let's say we took six ofthose losses in the finals and
instead of losing in the finals,he lost in the semis.

(01:05:30):
Right, and he's four for four,but he didn't make it to the
finals six other times.
We would respect him more,which is a weird, it's like.

Speaker 2 (01:05:41):
No he made the finals .

Speaker 3 (01:05:43):
Like that's sick, like it makes no sense that we
do that.
We base it.
Like you know, we're a veryoutcome-based society.

Speaker 2 (01:05:50):
We are which in wrestling.

Speaker 3 (01:05:52):
When I talk to kids about like outcomes and stuff
like that, like my biggest thingis surrender the outcome I
stole that from somebody in mylife at some point.
But surrender the outcome andwhat that means is not that
winning doesn't matter, butwinning is almost like that
crush that you have at school,where this is stupid analogy.
But if you let the crush knowyou like her, what happens?
Oh, all of a sudden she doesn'treally like you because you're
too too much.

(01:06:12):
If you act like mr cool, oh now, all of a sudden you're
mysterious, you're cool and thecrush is into you and all that
stuff.
So it's like if you are overlyfocused on winning, sometimes
you don't do any moves and youfreeze up yeah, and that's the
crush, right.
And if you don't, let your crushif you're not thinking about
winning and you're thinkingabout, hey, I'm gonna'm going to

(01:06:32):
eat good, I'm not going tothink about the match, I'm going
to eat good.
Hey, I'm going to warm up, it'sgoing to be a good warm up, I'm
not going to think about thematch, I'm going to warm up.
And you continue to staypresent, you know, all up until
you're already in the tie up,and now it's like I'm not
thinking, try moves.
I'm not, you know, stuck in themud.

(01:06:53):
If I shoot, he might score, shemight score.
I'm willing to do moves and Ithink that's a really important
thing, like not beingoutcome-based, at least as a
competitor.
Us, as fans, we can beoutcome-based, but as a
competitor I am so aboutsurrendering the outcome and
being focused on the presentcontrollable moment.
You know I can't control theoutcome.
I can controllable moment.

(01:07:15):
You know I can't control theoutcome, I can control my
warm-up.
Focus on that.
You know that's reallyimportant to me.

Speaker 2 (01:07:18):
I'm sorry, I'm getting fired up about this.
No, that's well.
I mean that obviously that wentaround for a little bit, right?
You know that's it's to.
To me, I think that's obviouslywhat's missing from a kid's
brain.
You know the the thoughtprocess whether it doesn't
matter what, sport doesn'tmatter, like you said, you could
be going for that, that girlthat you've been staring at for
right, exactly it's always aboutam I gonna get?

Speaker 3 (01:07:36):
am I gonna get rejected?
And not, am I willing to putmyself out there and that's a
loss, and that's the mostimportant thing, because now
that'll translate like okay,here's something I love talking
about.
I used to always hear don't takepractice home with you.
Lou rosella would always tellme that and he he's one of my
favorite coaches.
I've ever had right, but Inever knew what that meant.
I would always hear, like youknow, if I got beat at practice

(01:07:58):
I'd say, all right, don't takeit home with you, like, leave me
here, leave practice here.
But nobody really like openedit up and dissected it to me.
Right, travell and me weretalking one time and he was
basically like what does thatmean?
What does don't take practicehome with you mean?
I don't know he goes.
What becomes a part of yourpersonality is not the outcome.
It doesn't become a part of whoyou are as a man or your

(01:08:20):
identity.
Basically, me and NathanTomasello were similar weight
classes.
He was 25, I was 33.
We'd wrestle every day.
Now, let's say I was feelingreally good and I can get them.
Today I beat them.
I would leave practice feelingsick, but the outcome doesn't go
home with me.
What does go home with me is thechoices I led up to the outcome

(01:08:45):
.
Well, I shot one time and thenI did the whole.
Oh, I lost my contact because Igot really tired and, oh, my
ankle kind of hurts and oh, I'm,you know, to hit some blocking
and backing up and I won two toone.
I won three to one.
Okay, you think the wind goeshome with you.
No, no, the wind stays here.
You know what goes on with you.
You're a fucking.
You know you're not willing torisk.

(01:09:05):
You know you're you're.
When it gets reallyuncomfortable, your ankle starts
to hurt.
You find a way.
You know, like that stuff goeshome with you.
On the flip side of that, if hebeats me, he kicks my ass.
He beats me 10 to 2, but I shot12 times.
I put myself in wrestlingpositions when I got really
tired and the voices weretalking and I was looking at the

(01:09:26):
clock and I started being aclock watcher.
Guess what I fucking shot again.
And guess what that goes homewith you.
Not the loss, that again.
And guess what that goes homewith you.
Not the loss, right, right.
That choice that you made to bea bad motherfucker.
That becomes a part of who youare as a man.
And the best thing aboutwrestling is, every day, we get
to reset that.
We need to reset that everysingle day.
And it's really cool and it'sreally powerful that we have
that as as wrestlers, and notjust wrestling.

(01:09:46):
Soccer has, all these sportshas it, but you know, everything
has, and and I really, reallystress to these kids, as much as
the outcome matters in thesense of your social currency
hey, I won this tournament.
At the end of the day, I wouldmuch rather you try wrestling

(01:10:08):
moves and lose for your.
I know I'm talking a lot rightnow, but I get so fired up by
this.
My best analogy, my bestanalogy, is a casino versus a
real world investment.
For example, could I go to thecasino and play craps right now

(01:10:28):
and win a hundred bucks tonight?
Yeah, maybe it could happen.
Could I do that for a full yearand sustain winning the entire
time?
Probably not so so.
So winning two to one, doingzero moves, is like playing
craps.
I got away with it.
Yep, doing moves, a millionmoves, putting myself in

(01:10:52):
positions, trying new things,but coming up short losing would
be like a real world investment.
I just put my money in thecrypto, in the stock market, in
something real estate.
I didn't see the return today.
I didn't see the win today, butI will in a year.
So it's like the casino.
I did zero moves in a year.

(01:11:17):
So it's like the casino.
I did zero moves.
The real world asset I did alot of moves but I lost.
But I get better at wrestlingby trying moves.
I don't get better at wrestlingby trying gimmick ways to win
in blackjack you know what Imean.
That's like my best way I canput it out there.
It's like I'd rather you losetrying moves than win and sneak
it trying no moves, even thoughI am under the impression that,
yes, winning matters.

(01:11:37):
It's such a crazy thing becausewe want to win so bad.
We want to win so bad.
We don't want people to thinkwe suck, but we forget to try
moves.
I did it, everybody does it.
If you're listening, don'tfucking do it.
Don't do it.
Do, do it, don't do it.
Do move, don't do it.
Put yourself in positions thebetter guys gonna come out on

(01:11:58):
top, the better guy, the betterguy or girl will come out on top
of the rest of the move right,put yourself in positions, let's
see what happens.

Speaker 2 (01:12:04):
That's the attitude and again because kids want to
be able to do things likeinstantly and they want it to
work instant, the instantgratification type thing, you
know where if it yeah, I canride them out and I can win.

Speaker 3 (01:12:16):
It's like right, you go get 10 takedowns and maybe
win, but get better nonethelessright, right, and the game
changes.

Speaker 2 (01:12:22):
You know, just talking about going from high
school to college, you know thegame is up and now you have to
be able to step up to that leveland and keep the mental
capacity.
That's what's kind of curiousabout the mental side, because
every person handles itdifferently.
But even like people that youknow, like you that had success
already, that knew what it waslike yeah, I had to go and work
and do this, but then you got tothe college room you're like,
oh shit, okay, I gotta do this,this and this and this as well.

(01:12:44):
Holy cow, okay, okay, but youknow, knowing, knowing what you
knew, going into college and andobviously the, the life that
you were already kind of living,as far as you know, learning
about how to, how to dietproperly Once you got into
college and I didn't dietproperly in college.

Speaker 3 (01:12:59):
You didn't.
No, I had bad habits frommiddle school to high school
that I brought into college andI was trying to starve my way
down to weight.
It was senior level.
When I, when I, when I starteddoing Team USA stuff that's when
I was like, okay, I need tofucking do this right, because I
was.
I had that happens.

Speaker 2 (01:13:14):
I definitely okay okay, so that followed through
into college.
Okay, yeah, and I could see it.
I mean, it's not like it's odd,right, like I mean, what
college guy isn't out therehaving a hard time with anything
that they're doing with eating?
Yeah, for sure we're giving ashit about it, right like
whatever, I'll lose it.
So when college freshman year Ithink you said 125 the
sophomore years when you went to133.

Speaker 3 (01:13:35):
Yeah, I had redshirt sophomore year and then second
sophomore year, junior Senioryear.
I was 33.

Speaker 2 (01:13:41):
How was, how was the redshirt season and why did you
redshirt?

Speaker 3 (01:13:46):
Just moving up weight class, it was good, you know,
just got some good opentournaments in Trained.
Good, you know, was living withsome Non-wrestlerslers, which I
don't think is the best uh idea, not that like I'm not the
party right, I don't drink right, but in general, just a clash
of lifestyles they're.
They're rolling in at 5 ameating pizza.
You know I'm I'm getting up fora 6 am workout.

(01:14:06):
Like it's a clash of lifestyles.
It is good.
However, uh toi, don't wantpeople to distract themselves
from wrestling.
There's a good balance.
I need to be all in, but I alsoneed a life outside of
wrestling where I can reset mybrain if I need to.
Tom Ryan actually said this tome one time.
I was figuring out where Iwanted to go to college.

(01:14:29):
I was pretty young, I was asophomore and I forget who had
reached out to me at the time,like I was stayed.
I think I was talking to karenmccoy at maryland, a little bit
like different colleges.
I you know david taylor wasactually texting me, not kale,
it was david at at penn state,but I think I'm assuming it was.

(01:14:49):
It was, uh, indirectly throughkale, like you, like some legal
thing, I don't know.
I'm probably snitching onsomebody right now Accidentally.
I apologize.

Speaker 2 (01:14:58):
You were the first.
No, it's not odd.
It's not odd.

Speaker 3 (01:15:03):
When I was kind of thinking about where should I go
, tom said if you broke your leg, god forbid, and could never
wrestle again, would you stillwant to be there?
And I kind of asked myself okay, iowa State.
I'm not a big.
Some people love the country,they love the open air.
They, like I know Ames is moreof a city than other places, but

(01:15:24):
that's just not me.
I do like a city.
I like being able to go to acomedy club, a movie theater.
I like going to see friendsthat are in an apartment complex
right next door, like I likethe, the, the fast pace.
Oh, they're shopping.
There's restaurants, like Ilike that.
Yeah, I just do so for me.
When he asked me that, it's likeyou know what that does matter.

(01:15:46):
It does matter because if Ineed, I'm gonna be the best
version of myself on the mat.
If I am, you know, not feelinglike it's a chore sure you know
what I mean.
If I'm only at the college onlyfor the chore, then it's gonna
drag, it's gonna be like therest of it.

(01:16:07):
It's like, you know, peoplethink of it as like no, you got
your blinders on and you're gotno for me.
It wasn't like that.
You know, for me it was like Ineed to enjoy the quality of
life and I'll work hard for you.
Don't don't.
I don't drink, I don't party, Ipromise you, I'm not trying to
distract myself.
I just want to be able to shutit down when I am overloaded
from practice and go.
You know, go go play someblackjack at the casino.

(01:16:28):
You know, go do something whereI can go entertain myself a
little bit, like it's'simportant to me.
You know, and I really likedthat he asked me that question,
cause that really helped me cometo Ohio state.

Speaker 2 (01:16:37):
Annoying Cause with Liam.
Having gone through the processand and I was I have a friend
that I talked to quite a bit.
Uh, jamie Nelson, and he wastelling me the same thing.
He's like you have to schooland wrestling there, but you're
living there.

Speaker 3 (01:16:52):
Yeah, you're going to be there.

Speaker 2 (01:16:54):
Right.
So he's like you gotta.
He has to like the environment,like they visited Ohio state,
things like that.
And he was like you have to beable to be comfortable of like
on Saturday you're going to godo stuff right, like stuff.
And you have to be able to belike oh yeah, I can go right
over here.
I love it, you can go rightover here, this is great, you're
gonna have something tocomplain about everywhere.
But, um, we got joe williamsonlistening.

(01:17:14):
Hey, he's pretty, prettyexcited about, uh, probably I
would say, getting out and doingstuff, because that guy's my
guy.

Speaker 3 (01:17:21):
He's all over what og man?

Speaker 2 (01:17:23):
that's my guy if I, if it wasn't for joe, I probably
wouldn't be doing a podcast.

Speaker 3 (01:17:28):
I'll be honest for joe there'd be no wrestling
media period.

Speaker 2 (01:17:32):
freaking trendsetter, some of those old videos
watching, some of the old flowstuff, man, that is some of the
best stuff on the planet.
Him and Joe Cania those guys Itell you what, man, if I had met
Joe Williamson, I probably likeI said, you're damn right there
, Joe I probably wouldn't bedoing a podcast.

(01:17:53):
But if I hadn't met the otherJoe, Joe K, I probably wouldn't
be doing a podcast.
But if I hadn't, uh, if Ihadn't met the other joe, joe k,
I probably wouldn't be doing itstill yeah, yeah, yeah I told
you joey came in.

Speaker 3 (01:18:02):
That's the guy.
He's awesome, I know I know Iknow he's jersey.
How do you?
How do you know him?

Speaker 2 (01:18:07):
so I actually had him on and we were talking a little
bit about, uh, um, some stuffover twitter and and just kind
of I can't remember if it wasabout flow or whatever it was
about.
We're just talking about stuffon twitter.
I was like, man, I'm gonna getyou on the show.
You're just kind of knowingabout the stuff that he'd been
with flow.
I was like, all right, this iswrestling plus the media before
and and his uh, his uh.

Speaker 3 (01:18:26):
I can't say much, but his project that he's working
on oh, I know so much about that.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,
yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:18:34):
It'll be cool, it's going to be fun and I and Joe is
such a he's one of Joe K is oneof those guys that running into
him and like talking to him toget a completely different
perspective on many intelligentpeople and there's some dumb
people too, but there's so manyintelligent people in this group

(01:18:54):
that going especially you know,going with liam down to
virginia, knowing the networkingthat you can do with a lot of
the people that are in the sport, it's, it's fantastic and ever
there again, there are going tobe people you like, people you
don't like, but it's probablyone of the and I've been in the
dog world training dogs withlabrador retrievers.
That is just a strange world onthe side of its own right.
This is probably one of themost energetic and, I would say,

(01:19:19):
unique small worlds of all ofthem, of all the small worlds
you can be in, and I think thatI think the world's about to
blow up a little bit more withwrestling.
I think it's going to hurt alittle bit, but I think it's
going to have a whole differentlook once everything kind of
comes out with this ncaa stuff.
But I digress right, maybe I'mnot, I'm, maybe I'm not tuned to
what's going on so you I mean,obviously you know about the

(01:19:41):
house versus uh, ncaa or ncaaversus house, whichever one it
is uh, the 2.8 billion dollar umsettlement that they had with,
I think, athletes from 2017 topresent, as far as NIL deals
things like that.
So all that is going through.

Speaker 3 (01:19:59):
Why does it just start in 17?
I was 16.
What the frick?
Yeah, wait, you cut out audio.
I can't hear you.
Can you hear me?
I can't hear anything you'resaying yeah, there you go yeah,
yeah, I I hit something, it's myfault.

Speaker 2 (01:20:20):
But with the ncaa, the all, that's, all that stuff
that's going on with, becausesports are going to start
getting eliminated, becauseschools have to pay into this
$2.8 billion deal, right, soit's getting kind of scary.
Fucking NIL man oh yeah, sookay, don't get me wrong.
I applaud the kids that wereable to grab some cash Right.

Speaker 3 (01:20:40):
Right, yeah, like I want kids to get paid, yeah, but
it's not.
It's not.
The car dealership down thestreet wants your picture for
their image and likeness on abillboard.
Like that's not what it is it'sturning into hey, we're this

(01:21:02):
school over here.
We have some money and we can'tgive you a scholarship.
We can give you millions ofdollars.
Come to our school.
It's like what?
How is Bloomsburg going tocompete with this?
Like you know, how are theseteams gonna like?
This is crazy.
It's a social stratification,like it's just.
It's.
It's the hunger games is whatit is.

(01:21:22):
It's it's district 12.
District 12 has to fight forfood and scraps.
District one is literallytraining tribunes to fight in
the hunger games as trainedkillers and then they get thrown
into the same test.
How, how is that fair?

Speaker 2 (01:21:42):
you hear about campbell.
What happened with campbelluniversity?

Speaker 3 (01:21:45):
well, they got.
They cut their scholar whatthey cut they cut all their
scholarships.

Speaker 2 (01:21:49):
They had three kids that were on scholarships and
they based oh, basically okay,this is just a synopsis
basically said they weren'tgoing to be able to compete that
season.
Oh wow they essentially cut out.
You know now I'm not throwingshade.
There's a lot of beef going onon twitter.
I'm not throwing shade towardsthe athletic director there or
anything like that they had to.

Speaker 3 (01:22:07):
Yeah, I did see senses.

Speaker 2 (01:22:08):
And then we're like defending yes and I'm gonna get
scotty on too.
He said he was willing to comeon.
We're gonna get him on too, butyes they were defending the
athletic director because theywere being told I mean, she's
only the athletic director right, because the schools are the
ones that are being told thatthey have to pay this money.
Now they can open up theirscholarships to every person
that's on the roster right.
But the ncaa just had rostercuts, so a football team has 135

(01:22:32):
, they're going to go to 105wrestling is 30 30 correct
across the board.
But they're like you can givescholarships to whoever you want
.
Caveat the school can give themoney to whatever sport they
want, so obviously you're goingto give your money to a sport
that's high revenue, right?
Football, basketball.
We're talking about theimportance before so we are

(01:22:52):
going to see programs mostlikely being nixed now.
This is something that collegehas wanted before in the first
place.
That's right you know well it'sall again.
It's because of nil, becauseeverybody won.
I should be getting paid this.
You will.
Would you just let them worksomething out?
But?

Speaker 3 (01:23:08):
I think nil, I think nil simultaneously with the
transfer portal is a dangerouscombo.
I don't want kids to be stuckin a place.
I get it.
You need to be able to, if youknow.
I get it.
Like I'm not saying like, hey,you made a decision, you can
change the decision.
A coach can leave anytime.
I understand, but I also thinkyou know when they're jumping

(01:23:29):
ship because they're gettingmore money somewhere else and
then they're taking that andthey're taking it away from the
program that maybe built them upto be able to get that money.
Like sometimes it makes mequestion if those small programs
are going to be around long.
And it actually was only goingto be 30 teams that are
profitable and those are theonly 30 teams that are left.

Speaker 2 (01:23:49):
Well, and they're talking about?
They're talking about schoolshaving to possibly and this is
not anything that's on paper yetbut they're talking about
schools possibly having to cutdown to eight sports.
I mean, that's how far this isgoing with this, like I don't
know, and that's like per gender.

Speaker 3 (01:24:07):
Like.

Speaker 2 (01:24:09):
I think again.
I believe so.
I think, cause if you cut, youknow, if you cut a man's, real
men's sport or whatever you cancut a woman's.
However, that title line stuff,I don't know how it works
Exactly.
I'm on the outside and I getinformation, but I do minimal
research.
I just am, I kind of, I getfrustrated and I get upset
because of what, how you'refeeling the same way.

(01:24:30):
Liam is just starting to getinto it.
I have questions.
What's going to turn into thisfor him?
I'm not going to college, solike I don't have that aspect of
it.
But I just, you know, I askedand these guys don't know either
, like I'm, I'm asking stupidquestions for something that
they can't even answer yet,cause they don't know.

(01:24:52):
But I was like, dude, what'sgonna happen, you know, like if
fafsa gets wiped away, you knowwith with the department of
education, like what's?
gonna happen, like I don't knowthe prices right now and I'm my
kid hasn't even got to collegeyet, right, still trying to
figure this out like I don'teven have a kid, yet all I
wanted to do is wrestle yeah,hey, you know what?
Hopefully it's leveled out bythen, where you'll be back in

(01:25:15):
the mix, where your kid's notyou, he'll have the after
effects and maybe it won't bethat bad right joe makes a good
point.
Rich, you're getting richer.
It's going to be tough asmaller school kid all americans
.
They're gone, yep literally mansucks yeah, yeah'll, we'll see,
but that's what's going onright now.
I know there are some certainthings that have been somewhat
finalized, but they still calledit preliminary for some reason,

(01:25:38):
so I'm not sure we'll find outthe exact specifics.
But back to johnny lighter news.
Johnny, okay, when did you getinto base jumping?
When did all this part?

Speaker 3 (01:25:48):
yeah, so I was on this.
So I'm 18, uh, I had justturned 18, july 5th 2010, okay,
and 10 days, five years later,it's like 10th.
Uh, my dad, you know, at thetime was like, hey, what are you
gonna do for your birthday?
Obviously you're not gonna goparty.
You don't party, um, you know,I said, well, maybe, uh, what's
something I do when I'm 18?
Like, well, I guess legally Ican skydive.

(01:26:09):
My mom went when she was stillalive.
She was skydiving.
Maybe I'll do like a tandem.
Tandem, for those listening,you know, means straps to
another person.
That is a professional.
So I go tandem.
I love it.
It was great.
A month or two later, I go backwith my buddy, ty that I was
telling you about.
Go right, I did maybe like onemore tandem.

(01:26:32):
So I did like three and I wentto the same place.
Every time one of the workersgoes dude, you're wasting your
money.
Like you should, uh, you shouldtry to get your license.
It's 25 jumps and you, you knowyou have your own parachute,
but you're like we hold you inthe sky and then you open your
pressure.
You know we let you go and,like you know, you you're
basically skydiving alone for 25jumps and you're learning how
to fly your body.

(01:26:52):
So I did that.
That led to me having myskydiving license.
Now I can do whatever I want.
Hundreds of jumps later Iunderstand yeah, I'm getting to
that joke.
Hundreds of jumps latersomebody comes up to me and goes
hey, there's this event calledBridge Day in West Virginia.
Bridge Day is an event wherethere's hundreds of thousands of

(01:27:13):
people come watch us jump off abridge in West Virginia, and
BASE is an acronym.
It stands for Building AntennaSpan and Earth Span is bridges,
earth is cliffs.
Okay, and basically thedifference between skydiving and
BASE jumping is just you'rejumping off of that fixed object
as opposed to an aircraft.
Now, the dangers are you're alot closer to the ground, so

(01:27:35):
it's a lot less time.
There's no reserve chute.
You know, when you're basejumping, if you're doing
something, it's usually illegal,it's at night, it's in a city,
there's power lines, there'scrosswinds coming up the alleys
of all these different cities.
It gets hot.

(01:27:56):
Right wrestling.
Prepared you for that?
Yeah, so I, uh, I did.
I did my first spaceship and abridge, now a bridge this would
kind of fall into what joe'stalking about.
Yeah, uh, a bridge is what wewould call a forgiving object,
because as an object you havepeople think like the parachute
open, oh my gosh, thank goodness, that's like the least of my
thoughts.
I don't think about that at all, and not because I'm not scared
, I'm terrified when I'mterrified of those a lot

(01:28:17):
different things.
The gear is designed to work.
It's gonna work.
It'd be like me worrying aboutmy parachute opening would be
like you worry, is my breakgonna work if I apply the brake
pressure on the brake, like it'shappened.
But that's not the fear.
The fear is how does it open?
We have on heading openings,then we have off heavy openings,

(01:28:41):
which means the direction I'mjumping yeah body position wind
something yeah gives it a 90left, 90 right or a 180.
Now, if you have 180 degreeopening on a bridge, that's okay
.
You have nothing behind you,you just circle off right on the
bridge, true?
Well, if you're on a cliff,that's a bad day, right?

(01:29:02):
That's a bad day, right?
So I'm on this.
I'm on this cliff in thesuperstitions called, uh, called
the ramp, because we built aramp up there to give us a
little bit of separation fromthe cliff.
Okay, yeah.
Right.
So if you think about it likeinertia-wise, I jump off a cliff
.
A lot of people think thecloser you are to the ground,
the scarier it is.
But really, the closer you areto the ground, the farther you

(01:29:25):
are away from the object.
Right, that's the thing.
So it's not always like thecloser the ground the more
dangerous.
Sometimes it's like it's theopposite.
I took a what we call a weakdelay, which weak be, not weak,
w e w?
E a like it was not strong.
Took a week delay.
I ran off the cliff.
Took like a two second delay.

(01:29:45):
Probably could have got anothersecond out of it, which would
give you more separation rightRight.
On my open 180, on opening, badpack job, bad body position,
whatever it was, it wasn't a lotof wind that day.
I open, I'm facing the cliff.
Now I only have about a secondand a half until I hit.
So I reach up, I grab mysteering toggles it's called

(01:30:12):
popping togglesles I grab and Ijust immediately impact the
cliff.
Now in Arizona it's sandstone,a lot of sandstone, and while
I'm fighting off this wall I'mlike just two-stepping down this
thing.
It's just cheese grated myparachute.
I finally turn off and you seein the video I look up and I go,
oh, I shredded my fuckingcanopy.
A canopy is a parachute.
I shredded my fucking canopyand now this cliff that was on

(01:30:32):
the ramp.
I go oh, I shredded my fuckingcanopy.
A canopy is a parachute.
I shredded my fucking canopyFuck.
And now this cliff that I wason the ramp is 500 feet to
impact, like a rock drop,basically like impact.
But when I open there's like atalus, so I still have to fly.
It's maybe like 1,000 feet,1,500 feet to the landing area
where it's flat.
So when I turn off I have allthese holes in my parachute and
now I'm losing so much altitudeover that talus, where I'm not

(01:30:56):
going to outfly it Right, andthere's all these chibi rocks
all around, like all over theplace.

Speaker 2 (01:31:02):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:31:02):
So I'm like, fuck, I'm not going to outfly this
talus.
If I hit these, these chibirocks, you know, if my, if my,
if my shoe gets caught, that'sthe best case scenario, right,
like, if it doesn't get caughtand my parachute collapses and
like loses pressure, I'm goingto, I'm going to hit the ground
at from, you know, a hundredfeet high, like it's not, it's a
bad day.
And, uh, you know, fortunatelyI, I fly right into a rock.

(01:31:26):
It gets draped up, it catches.
I'm hanging there for a minuteand I'm like, oh my gosh,
something has to be broke my leg, my ankle, something broke.
So I ungear because I don'ttrust that it's going to hang.
And I kind of like, you know,shoot me on like Spider-Man, you
know on the wall and I'mhanging on to the, the rock and

(01:31:50):
a minute goes by, 10 minutesgoes by, and nothing really
hurts, and I'm like I think I'mokay, like I think I'm good,
like this is crazy.
I call I had service, somehow,I call a buddy.
Uh, they're all hiking up totry to find me and they asked me
if I wanted to call rescue.
And I'm like I can't be thatmotherfucker.
It was like during covid.
Like people are in the hospitaland shit, i'm'm not going to be
that motherfucker yeah.
You know that that takes a bedfrom some old dude that needed

(01:32:13):
it.

Speaker 2 (01:32:13):
Like fuck you out therethinking you're you're about to
die on the cliff side and you'relike I don't want to bug
someone.

Speaker 3 (01:32:23):
It's that, it it's right right, I was, I was good,
I was, you knew, yeah, I wasgood.
But I'm still 50 feet above theground, you know, and this
sandstone is like just fuckingit's, it's not great grip.
So about an hour goes by, thisguy named david finally hikes up

(01:32:46):
to me and sees me.
He finds me because it was avery, like you know, weird area
to get to me.
Okay, finds me, he finds me.
It was a very weird area to getto me.
He finds me.
I'm like, okay, I'm going tostart climbing down.
I don't want to climb and fall,break my leg and have nobody
there.
I'm like, okay, I'm going towait until David gets here.
I start climbing down.
I get 15 feet over the ground.
This little nook that I was injust gets really wide.

(01:33:07):
I couldn't really wedge myselfin it.
I'm going to have to jump.
So I jumped.
It felt like a million feet.
It was probably 10 feet or less.
I jumped, I hit the ground, I'mokay, give him a big hug.
You know, love you, bunch oflove yous Jesus.
And I jumped the next day.

Speaker 2 (01:33:27):
Holy shit, that's so.
So I mean honestly because andI've been in situations like not
that, but I've been insituations where you're more
focused on just staying alive,right like it's, you're not
thinking about how high you are,whatever it is, you're just
focused.
Okay, where am I?
What do I gotta do?

Speaker 3 (01:33:45):
frantic you know what's good, though.
You know what's good aboutwrestling that Alcubese thing
again, like when you're in themiddle of a wrestling match,
you're not thinking like you'rethinking about the result before
you step on the mat.
Dude, I want to win.
Oh shit, I want to win, I wantto win, I want to win.
That's how it is when Ibasically fuck.
Man, I don't want to like this.
Why am I even doing this?
This is fucking dumb.
But then when you get in thematch and you're like in a hand

(01:34:07):
fight and you're in a shot,you're not thinking about like
minute number six and oh, dude,I'm going to get my hand raised.
You're thinking like I betterfucking score.
That's all you're thinking aboutI better get out on bottom, I
better like I'm only in thematch now and when I'm base
jumping, I'm not thinking aboutliving and dying.
I'm thinking about like okay,gotta turn right right now, oh,

(01:34:35):
I gotta turn left right now.
Oh, I gotta you know, you knowwhatever it is and and I gotta
bleed some altitude off rightnow.
I'm really high or whatever itis.
So that's a really cool.
You know parallel where it's.
You're very, you're hyperpresent, yeah you know, that's
why no, that's how no tomorrowstarted.
I don't know if you looked into,you know any of that, but I own
a brand called live no tomorrow.
Okay, basically, it doesn'tmean go jump off buildings and
be suicidal, right, that's notwhat it is.
What it is is more like hey,what makes you feel present?

(01:34:56):
Now go fucking attack it.
You know it doesn't mean youhave to give up disciplines of
tomorrow and be, you know,irresponsible today, but it
means, if your goal is to be anactor, is to go start brand is
to start a podcast is to start,you know, uh, your bakery,

(01:35:16):
tiktok shop, I don't care.
Go fucking do it.
Live tomorrow.
Stop thinking, one day I'll doit.
One day I'll do it, go fuckingdo it and for me that happens to
be something that's very highrisk, right, and you know, and
base jumping is not my notomorrow.
Actually, base jumping issomething I love and it's very
fun.
Traveling in general is I feelso present, like when I'm in the

(01:35:39):
philippines or I'm in brazil orI'm in italy, like if I'm doing
something that is just with adifferent culture, with a
motherfucker that don't speakenglish.
Like that to me I am like highon cocaine, like I am so happy
in that moment.
That is my live.
No, tomorrow, I am nowhere elsein the world except that moment
, and it is so it's suchimportant.

(01:36:00):
So traveling is more than basejumping and wrestling more than
traveling, most likely.
But you know you can't wrestleforever, so we gotta find some
shit have you thought aboutputting shoes back on to wrestle
something?

Speaker 2 (01:36:12):
So I wrestled.

Speaker 3 (01:36:14):
I did a quad after I graduated through 2020.
And then I go up to ClevelandState quite a bit and I train,
where I can wrestle withcollege-level guys.
So I'm still ashamed.
I feel good, but I'm 32, and Itravel full-time.
You do this summer.
I summer was like 20 countrieseverywhere right now.
Yeah, it's hard to give that up.

(01:36:34):
To be honest, like being ableto see the world.
It is a really uniqueopportunity.
It's hard to give that up.

Speaker 2 (01:36:39):
So I agree, I agree and I I I'm not doing the world,
but like the after doing thesecollege visits I was my wife and
I like we should just get likeone of those camper vans it's a
blast man, it's a blast.
I just started traveling around.
I did van life in.

Speaker 3 (01:36:52):
Switzerland for a little bit, it was great.
Yeah, in Switzerland, like you,just it's rough because you
just rough it, but it's fuckingyeah there's a generator hooked
up to it.

Speaker 2 (01:37:04):
What's rough?
And I still get a flat screenTV and a stove and a sink in
there.
I'm good.

Speaker 3 (01:37:08):
I meant like lacking of showering.
Roughing, I still get a flatscreen tv and a stove and a sink
in there.
I'm good, I bet.
I bet like uh uh uh, lacking ofshowering.

Speaker 2 (01:37:12):
Yeah yeah, no, I'm not going without that there's.
That's not right.
No, no, no, no, I'm notroughing it that way, sorry,
right, I'm 45, I can't do thatanymore.
You can do that.
You can do that.
That's cool, that's cool.
But so you had I?
I looked at you, I did look upyour college career.
College crew is pretty good.
I mean, you were what.
Four times you went to thenational tournament, right?

Speaker 3 (01:37:33):
Yeah, yeah, I actually am pretty insecure
about my college career, to behonest.
I always felt like I was betterthan my results showed.
I beat a lot of national champs.
I beat the number one seed inmy bracket, sophomore, junior
and senior year.
I beat hodge trophy winnersafter they won hodge right like

(01:37:53):
I beat world bronze medalists,but I don't have any like
accolades to show for it, whichkind of goes against what I'm
talking about earliersurrounding the outcome.
Like it's, it's your choicesthat make up who you are as an
identity.
I still believe in all that,but when I do these podcasts and
I do like different wrestlingclinics, it is nice to have like
credibility result wise, and Ido struggle.

(01:38:14):
I I find myself better thanwhat I have to show for and,
yeah, it bothers me.

Speaker 2 (01:38:21):
And I get it as a competitor.
I understand, but I do knowthat you know a lot of times,
and I can attest to this, I mean, I wasn't an awesome athlete,
but I feel like my coachingabilities are 10 times better
right.

Speaker 3 (01:38:33):
If you win everything , you're not a good coach.

Speaker 2 (01:38:35):
You have to fuck up.

Speaker 3 (01:38:36):
Sometimes you know where how I can spot a fuck up
motherfucker.

Speaker 2 (01:38:39):
Yeah well, and that's the thing.
Is that that's why I do jv.
We're the development side,we're not the.
Of course the varsity coachwants to win like we.
Just we went out like two gamesearly out of the season.
We're like what, what the fuckjust happened.
Like what are we?
doing, you know, but I like thedevelopment side.
I'm a big fan of kidsunderstanding and getting a
perspective of not just how do Iwin or do better here, but how

(01:39:03):
do I do better in general.
Like you said, building onthings and and the building
blocks are important.
I love watching kids get agrasp of those building blocks.
You don't have to be in I don'tknow how many national
champions or coaches right now,but not all of them.
Is it a great?

Speaker 3 (01:39:18):
athlete to have.
Some of the best coaches are.
You know, it's interesting whenyou're really successful.
Sometimes you have this likethis is how I did it, so this is
how it has to be done.
That could be an Achilles heelas a coach, I think, whereas I
would like to think it's hey,this is how I did it.
Let's figure out what works foryou.

(01:39:39):
When you look at people thatare really successful, one thing
that they have in common issometimes they have nothing in
common.
They're messy people and superorganized people and they've
been successful.
There's people that wake upearly and people that sleep in
and get workouts later in theday that are successful.
So I think you know, being ableto be a coach not me, but just

(01:40:01):
coaches in general that, okay,let's not make broad rules that
everybody must follow and let'streat eat.
It's an individual sport.
Let's make this individual,let's be circumstantial per
athlete, and I think it can bereally powerful, you know big
time.

Speaker 2 (01:40:17):
I agree, I agree, um, so let's, let's go ahead and
jump.
You've recently done a film, soand I know some people
obviously know about it already,but there's a lot of people I I
don't think do I.
I know, but what's the filmcalled?

Speaker 3 (01:40:32):
All right.
So this film is called the StopKind of give you my short
little summary of how I got intoit.
So, to be honest, after collegewrestling was over, after TVSA
stuff was over, when I was donecompeting RTC-wise, I just
always had a passion for travel.
Travel led to being superadventurous.
The skydiving, the base jumping, I just kind of coupled into

(01:40:54):
that.
That led to being socialmedia-wise.
Hey, I post some base jumps.
They do pretty well, right, Ican see some money on YouTube.
I can see some money on TikTok,you know, getting billions of
views.
And then not only that, butbeing close with Jake Paul.
So how I know him, he wrestledin ohio.
I was at ohio state, he was alittle high school wrestler.
We stayed close.

(01:41:15):
Now he's jake paul, jake paulnow.
And and we're still closefriends, right, we're close, we
talk every day.
Right, like every, we havegroup chat, me and and his few
roommates.
We talk every single day.
I was nice, I was with him thismorning.
Uh, so when I started to likeunderstand, that's not really
the industry, but social mediais like as close to like the

(01:41:36):
hollywood industry as like otherthings could get, yeah, I
started to really like, you know, put my foot out there more of
of wanting to be on camera anddo things you know as maybe
narcissistic as that sounds,it's fun, it's a fun it's fun to
be creative.
It's fun to be entertaining,it's fun, right, and you know I

(01:41:57):
don't find it wrong to likeappreciate affirmation.
You know I will say before Ieven get into the movie there's
one thing where I did make arule for myself.
So I posted a video of sky atone time out of a hot air
balloon.
It got everywhere yeah, sportscenter, bar stool, like all
these accounts and it's postingit.

(01:42:17):
I was coaching at harvard atthe time and I was so excited.
I was so excited to leavepractice early to see, to look
at my phone, and it got to thepoint where I was not living on,
I was giving up the presentmoment, yeah, to go attack, like
this virtual world that doesn'tmatter to read comments, right,
yep, because I was getting somuch traction.

(01:42:40):
So I made a rule for myselfit's okay to appreciate
affirmations, hey, comments,people saying stuff, joe schmoe
from kansas, that's fine, youcan appreciate, but not at the
expense of what you're doingright now and not at the expense
of do you like that more thanyou like actually skydiving

(01:43:01):
itself, right, like?
That's my rule, yeah, so, so ifI'm not doing anything, I do
something cool.
I share it, I post, I post itand I'm just chilling.
I'm in the car, I'm justlooking at my phone.
That's okay to appreciate allthe attention, but if I'm giving

(01:43:22):
up things to do, that that'snot okay.
That's not okay.
Yeah, present yeah, yeah,present.
So I'm, I'm, I'm starting toreally appreciate this, this,
this, this world where I see onsocial media they're looking for
extras in a movie that arewrestlers okay, yep.
So like fuck, let's do this,let's, let's see what I'm a
wrestler, right.
Send an email, cold email, justemail the director, right?

(01:43:45):
This director won an oscar.
He's a good director, not fordirecting, he won it for editing
.
He edited Argo.

Speaker 2 (01:43:52):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:43:53):
He edited Zero Dark Thirty.
He edited Heat, which Heat islike one of my favorite movies.
He did the Breakfast Club.
He did Spider-Man Homecoming.
He's done a lot of stuff Firsttime directing, and Ben Affleck
and Matt Damon are producingArtists.
Equity is the productioncompany and the story is about
Anthony Robles, one-leggedwrestler from Arizona State,

(01:44:14):
wins the nationals.
He beats in the finals MattMcDonough.
Matt McDonough is kind of thisIvan Drago character who was the
returning national champ, iowavillain type, you know right.
Yeah, well, I wrestled MattMcDonough in college.
So I say that in my email yeah,I wrestled mcdonough and I kind
of like I juiced up a littlebit, like I had done some extra

(01:44:35):
stuff in movies before.
I've had lines, but allindependent and it was just for
fun for friends that I had in la.
No, nothing like no big actorsor nothing, but I put that in
there, you know, just becauseright it helps.

Speaker 2 (01:44:46):
Yeah, why not?

Speaker 3 (01:44:47):
director hits me's like yo can we get on Skype or
not Skype?
Sorry, zoom, skype Skypedoesn't exist anymore.
Zoom, I would love for you toaudition so we get on.
And this motherfucker's havingme do like Stance in Motion in
this room.
I'm doing Stance in Motionright here, really In my socks.

(01:45:12):
He up on the wall I'm like guyslike, yeah, I, I have, I've,
I've beaten jason ness before,like I better get this, really
want to be doing this like youknow what I mean.
Like and uh, you know, he, hehangs up.
They call me a couple dayslater.
They go hey, we would love tooffer you the part of man.
Great, right, great.
And then they go who's youragent we can send your offer to?
I'm like oh yeah, shit.

(01:45:33):
So I go, uh, you know I'm inbetween agencies right now.
Uh, just send it to me.
Just, you just send it right tome.
So, boom, that'll be a niceoffer.
Now this is a sag movie, so I'm, like, you know, sag, eligible
now, like all that stuff.
Don jones bringing a coach, uh,uh, you know anthony robbins,
played by this kid named geraldjerome jerome wanted any.

(01:45:54):
There's.
There's a.
There's a tv show about thesefive black kids in new york city
that get police brutality inlike the 80s.
It's called central park five.
It's like a famous story it's,it's huge, right, and the show
is called when they See Us Now.
Jarrell won an Emmy for thatshow.
He's like a really good actor,right.
Okay, michael Pena is in it.

(01:46:15):
He's from Fury.
He's great, a lot of big, youknow, having the director,
obviously.
And yeah, I was getting readyto go and then boom, writer's
strike, actor's strike happened.

Speaker 2 (01:46:26):
Oh shit, yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:46:26):
Active Strike happened.
Oh shit, yeah, so fast forwardI'm in.
Like six months later I'm inLusaka, zambia, all the way in
Africa, yeah this dude.
And.
I get a phone call.
I get a phone call From theproduction and I'm like Dude
Strike just ended, when can yoube in LA?
So I fucking flew From Lusaka,zambia, to Los Angeles that's

(01:46:49):
like A 17 hour flight and flewfrom Lusaka, zambia, to Los
Angeles that's like a 17-hourflight.
I get there and I'm like let'sgo.
We ended up filming, we wrappedand it's premiered.
It's trending good right now.
It releases December 6th intheaters, but it's a select data
release just to qualify for ifthere could be Oscar contests,
because J-Lo gives a really goodperformance.
She's Anthony's mom in themovie J-Lo.

(01:47:11):
She does a really good job.
It's not just wrestling.
There's a lot of drama in hishome life.
My character has a good amountof screen time, but I'm not like
the main antagonist.
It's like his own home life ishis antagonist and I happen to
be the wrestler that he wrestlesthe last in the third act.

(01:47:34):
That's really what it is.
And yeah it's going to be fun.

Speaker 2 (01:47:39):
So did you have to get your ears extra
cauliflowered.

Speaker 3 (01:47:42):
No, they did get Don Cheadle, so people listen.
Don Cheadle is War Machine,tony Stark's best friend in Iron
man, and you guys probably knowwho I'm talking about.
He's Rhodey.
He's been in Hotel Rwanda.
He's been in Crash.
He's been in Oceans 11, 12.
He's a brilliant actor.
One of my favorites Grew upwatching him.
They gave him cauliflower here.
It was pretty cool.

(01:48:03):
So me and him we had everyscene together.
Me and Don and you know we arechairs were next to each other
for the month.
That was on set and it wasgreat, you know we got to chop
it up quite a bit.

Speaker 2 (01:48:14):
So so you got.
You got some great experiencedoing that, but at the same time
, though, too, like now, thatbroadens your horizons.
I mean, what are there otherthings you're looking at?
Now, too, I would love.

Speaker 3 (01:48:24):
I would love to stay in that.
That was like the most fun I'veever had in my life.
It was it made me not want tobase jump because I didn't want
to get hurt.
Like it was like that.
It was probably a good thingfor me.
Like base jumping is likepeople look at it like it's a
it's a death wish, it's a drugaddiction.
To me it's, it's, it's, it's,it's.
There's so much beauty in itand like all this, like
creativity that I can have, andit's it is dangerous and we have

(01:48:48):
inherent risk.
So it's not this death wish tome.
I love living.
I do not.
I do not want to die.
I do not want to die right.

Speaker 2 (01:48:55):
But I understand that in the video.
Yeah, I understand thenarrative that it plays.

Speaker 3 (01:48:59):
But also, I really do want to uh, you know, continue
to pursue, you know,possibilities in acting.
Maybe I can be an mba fighter,some movies, maybe you'll be in
a in a, in a sag film, one withthis magnitude.

Speaker 2 (01:49:12):
You never know what kind of doors you're gonna, so
we'll see I, I think, becauseyour creativity, I think there's
a lot of things you canaccomplish and do.

Speaker 3 (01:49:19):
I hope so I did an independent film.
Actually, I gotta put my phonein the charger, it's about to
die.
I did an independent film, uh,about a month ago.
Small budget thing, but just tokeep you know, in the, in the,
in the area which, is good sothat's good.

Speaker 2 (01:49:35):
And again, I I don't do after seeing just the you're
you're obviously viral clip withthose kids, you know, and I I
watched that on the speech.

Speaker 3 (01:49:46):
Yeah, yeah, yeah speech.

Speaker 2 (01:49:48):
seeing that, that's what kind of drew me towards you
a little bit more and, like Isaid, I try to find guys that
are that have something thatought to offer as far as just a
personality Cause, I mean, noteverybody that you talk to is
able to, you know, articulate astory and not everybody that you
talk to is has a story.

Speaker 3 (01:50:04):
you know what I mean.
Again, again.
I'm only as good as the peoplearound me because, like, I steal
from them so my dad's a goodspeaker and I've had dope
coaches and friends that I cansteal cool anecdotes from, and
that's why I can articulate wellat all.
So it's not me, it's, it's, youknow.
It's people like joe, joe, youknow joe in the comments.

Speaker 2 (01:50:23):
Both the joes yeah, like them, you know, and that's
why I love doing this, bringingguys like you out to be so
people can, you know, heareverything, right, like I said,
just to get the whole story, notjust part of the story, because
I think I listen to a lot ofdifferent podcasts.
Yeah, and it's greatinformation.
It's not that they suck, it'sjust like I want to do that one
where it's literally it's justabout them.

(01:50:43):
I just want to be about themall the way through.
You know, because all thestories that up with that that
you don't get time to talk tosomebody about at a tournament,
right, and you don't want tobother people that's how I am
most of the time at a tournament.
I don't want to bother that guy.
Usually you're here becauseit's business, right, it's fun
being at a tournament, butthat's business time, right,
like you're coaching a guy oryou're competing, kind of thing

(01:51:04):
I don.
So this is a place where peoplecan come and listen to that
stuff.
But, joe, joe does have anotherquestion here.

Speaker 3 (01:51:10):
So this is Evan, from Wrestling, best advice for me
to support.
I've been standing back so far.
I mean, dude, you have been.
You've been a part of the sportas long as I have.
I think that you know theadvice I can give you is you can
give me better advice than Ican give you, in my opinion.
But if I were to offersomething, I you can give me

(01:51:30):
better advice than I can giveyou, in my opinion.
But if I were to offersomething, I would always go
back to what Lou Roselli alwayssaid to my dad you'd be a dad at
home, you let your coach be thecoach at practice, and I think
that's the best thing that hecould do.
But yeah, like you know, when Ido these clinics, you know I
have like five things, maybefour things that are important
to me, and skill and techniqueis fourth, the first three.
The first three are, and here'swhy the first three are is he

(01:51:56):
having fun?
Is she having fun?
Are they relating to the stuffand are they finding ways to
fall in love with wrestling?
Then it's did they get better?
Did they get skill?
Did they learn moves?
Did they whatever?
Did they work hard?
And the reason being is becauseif they don't do the first
three, they won't learn anything.

(01:52:17):
That is just a dictatorship.
I'm telling you what to do, soI really try to bring fun into
wrestling.
Listen, we're going to have Ihate my life days where I'm
doing sprints, you know, and ifI can understand why that's
important as opposed to justbeing fucking whipped into doing
it, I think that's a lot morebeneficial.

(01:52:38):
Like, if I can get excited togo to practice.
I'm going to play dodgeballlike coaches that are listening
not Joe, obviously, but othercoaches that are listening that
don't play games at practice.
You're an I'm sorry, I'll beblunt like you need to make the
practice fun.
And guess what?
Wrestling isn't always fun.
Wrestling's fucking hard.

(01:52:58):
It's a really hard thing to doto wrestle.
It sucks sometimes.
I love it.
I love the suck, I love it, butit's fucking hard.

Speaker 2 (01:53:08):
We have to be able to make it fun.

Speaker 3 (01:53:09):
We have to be able to enjoy it.
We have to have a smile.
You don't get.
You're not able to suffer forsomething that you dislike.
You're able to suffer forsomething that you love.
And if you could find ways tofall in love with someone.
I don't have to love sprints, Idon't have to love losing, I
don't have to love cuttingweight, but I love putting my
foot on the line and seeing whathappens.

(01:53:30):
I love being on the bus playingcards.
I love, you know, waking up andmaking fun of the freshman when
I'm a junior and I'm in highschool, whatever it is.
Find a way to fall in love withwrestling and the rest will
follow.
The hard work will follow.

Speaker 2 (01:53:44):
We had a couple of practices where I wrestled some
kids this was at youth and thenI actually trained again to
wrestle in a tournament Sweet.
And I'll never forget when Ihad my first practice back in my
30s or something like that.
It was at that point where Iwas telling Liam I was like you
need to toughen up Like this,you need to certain things need

(01:54:05):
to suck up right.
And I wound up going to liketwo or three practices.

Speaker 3 (01:54:16):
I went home, I told my wife was like don't ever
fucking tell our kids that thissport's right ever don't like
there's a way.
There's a way to say like, hey,you can give more here, you can
give more there.

Speaker 2 (01:54:21):
Don't ever tell them, it's not by, but we just.

Speaker 3 (01:54:23):
The disconnect happens like that, like I
remember it being so much easierthan it was it.
It was so fucking hard.
So, it's.
We'll just be like oh dude, yougot, you gotta run, you gotta
lose weight, go run.
But when you're doing it it'slike there's nothing.
I want to do less right nowthan move my body.
It's.

(01:54:43):
It's so fucking hard.
It is, it is so hard and it'sso hard and it's like we're
saying it from a place ofcomfort.
It's so easy to say.
Then, all of a sudden,discomfort is introduced and
you're like, wow it's a wholedunning kruger effect right like
it is.

Speaker 2 (01:54:56):
It is fucking insane.
That's right it is.
And that's why I say I alwayssay, because I mean I wasn't
that good at wrestling, I didn'tput that much effort into it, I
can't, I can't equate how itfeels like you guys, can you
know like?
I can't do it just because Ididn't put that much into it
knowing, and I did into soccer,but that was a team sport, right
like I was also playing withfive other guys in the field by

(01:55:16):
yourself.
Man, like you're, you'regetting the crappy dotty and
that's why a lot of thesestories.
I I've had other guys on thatthat.
Uh, you know one of the, theguitars from red clay strays.
He didn't wrestle but he playedfootball.
I like equating all sports intothis.
Obviously, vision Quest is moreof a wrestling thing.

Speaker 3 (01:55:35):
It's kind of fitting that Vision Quest podcast and
the next wrestling film.
It's kind of cool.
I like to put that together.
I don't know why it's cool.

Speaker 2 (01:55:46):
I have tried to keep it a mix, because every sport
has its own quest.
Every athlete is trying to dotheir own thing.
So, dude, you've been on herefor almost two hours.
It's been great.

Speaker 3 (01:55:56):
Honestly, it felt like it's been a half hour,
let's do it again.
Man, I would love to do itagain.
I feel like we spark, noted alot of middle school, high
school, college and evenpost-college and knowledge and
we can really get into somestuff, I think for sure, and
that so that's the other thingtoo is like I've got plenty of
guys that have been on here acouple times, two, three times.

Speaker 2 (01:56:13):
That's what this is about right continuing
conversation, and it's always tome it helps me clarify my mind
a little bit.
I've been off for a while,right, like I gotta get off
twitter dude, like I gotta go goaway or something.
Yeah, it's just, it's gottenand I'm I don't get super
political.

Speaker 3 (01:56:29):
I have my thoughts on certain things, it's hard right
now.
Right, it's hard right now.

Speaker 2 (01:56:34):
And because I'm impulsive so I don't shut my
mouth right, I open my mouth.

Speaker 3 (01:56:38):
It's sad how both parties are very mean to each
other, and I wish it was nicer.

Speaker 2 (01:56:47):
So far, opposites right, literally just let's talk
, let's talk and I get pushed.

Speaker 3 (01:56:52):
Whoever I'm around, I get pushed away.
Like you know, when I'm in thesmall town wrestling community,
I'm like dude, don't.
I don't want to hear anotherfucking conspiracy about how
hurricanes are fake do not donot tell me a shit.
And then when I'm in the cityand I'm more like with my
liberal friends and it's like,bro, I don't want to hear
anything from you, I just wantto hear nothing stay, keep your
wokeness away yeah like, yeah,over there, but it's, it's been

(01:57:16):
awesome.

Speaker 2 (01:57:16):
Dude, we'll definitely get you back on.
I know, um, we do havekatherine shy.
We got to get her back on.
She's gonna be on.
She's great.
Huh, she's awesome that lucafit she's doing.
It's great.
Um, what do you got coming up?
You got any shout outs oranything like that?
Anything you got coming up soon?

Speaker 3 (01:57:32):
You know, I don't think I'm traveling.
I have a lot of camps coming upbut nothing.
It's just a bunch of highschool like teenagers having me
in, but there's nothing reallymajor except go watch
Unstoppable.
Coming up in January 16th.
It releases on Amazon Prime, sothat's probably the most we're
gonna be able to watch it yes,and also you know live no
tomorrow.
That's my biggest shout out.
Live no tomorrow.

(01:57:52):
Do cool stuff, even if you'renot purchasing it from me.
Go live it yourself.
Go do school, actually, beforewe go.
Let's end with that.
What would your no tomorrow be?
What makes you feel the mostpresent?
That you know gets you fired uplike you're.
You're laying it's, it's,you're a kid.
Tomorrow you're waking up to goto Disney World and you have
your Disney outfit picked outthe night before.

(01:58:13):
What are you drooling at?
Tell me what it is that makesyou feel the most present at age
45.

Speaker 2 (01:58:21):
Watching my kid wrestle.

Speaker 3 (01:58:22):
Oh, that's a good one .
I'll be over here doing selfishshit, risking my life.
Fuck you man.
That's such a good one.
Damn Watching my kid wrestle.
That's good.
I like that.
That's a good one.
I like that.

Speaker 2 (01:58:35):
I can't live, and that's the thing is I can't I
live.
I lived so much of the momentin the corner.
Now I get to be dad.
It's cool huh.
And that's yeah, well, good,good, that was awesome, man, I'm

(01:58:56):
really happy you have you on.
Thank you, it's been a greatshow.
I'm gonna get us out of here.
Um, I know joe, joe and joehave been listening.
You guys appreciate youcommenting.
It's been awesome.

Speaker 3 (01:58:59):
Uh, joey k popped on just at the last minute here,
but um, last minute we just gotdone talking crap about him.
He missed it.

Speaker 2 (01:59:02):
I know, right?
Yeah, well, that's fine, I'lllet him know in text later on.
I'll let him know just how muchof a great guy he is, right,
yeah, yeah, all right, well,we're gonna lead out here, I'm
gonna play some music, we'regonna end the stream.
I still want to talk to you forjust a minute afterwards, sweet
, and we're gonna go from there.
Peace, thank you.

All Episodes

Episode Transcript

Popular Podcasts

Stuff You Should Know

Dateline NBC

On Purpose with Jay Shetty

.css-15opob5{left:0;position:absolute;top:0.8rem;} All Episodes

.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}#102 Johnni DiJulius: Embracing Challenges: Wrestling, Adventure, and Personal Growth

Episode Transcript

Popular Podcasts

.css-r6mb8g{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:1;overflow:hidden;}Stuff You Should Know

Dateline NBC

On Purpose with Jay Shetty

All Episodes

#102 Johnni DiJulius: Embracing Challenges: Wrestling, Adventure, and Personal Growth

Stuff You Should Know