September 19, 2025 • 24 mins
I had a chance to give AEW's Bryan Danielson his flowers on GOAT status. We also discussed John Cena's legacy, AEW ALL OUT in Toronto, being a present father and more.
Thank you for checking out THE SUPERSTAR CROSSOVER Podcast.
Thank you for checking out THE SUPERSTAR CROSSOVER Podcast.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
So what's up.
Speaker 2 (00:00):
It's Josh Martinez of Z one hundred, New York's number
one hit music station with my guest ae w is
Brian Danielson's going on, Man, not much.
Speaker 3 (00:09):
I'm just hanging out in Toronto and having a nice
day before tomorrow's huge show.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
Yeah, so aw all out Toronto. Is there one particular
match that you're looking forward to more than the others
because a friend is involved or you're just curious to
see how it's going to kind of play out?
Speaker 1 (00:25):
So, I mean there are.
Speaker 3 (00:28):
So it's like, one of the things that I'm really
interested in is the aw Men's World Heavyweight World Championship
match between Hangman Adam Page and Kyle Fletcher, because now
Kyle Fletcher is like twenty six years old, this is
his first time and like a championship match on a
world championship match on a pay per view, Like, how's
(00:49):
he gonna do? Like, because I'm just super impressed with
Kyle and I love Hangman, and so I'm really I'm
really excited to see that.
Speaker 1 (00:58):
When one of the other ones that I'm really.
Speaker 3 (01:00):
Excited to see is Eddie Kingston's coming back and wrestling
Big Bill, and I've known Eddie for a really long time.
I admire Eddie a lot in the sense of he's
had a lot of mental health struggles. He wrote this
great article for The Player's Tribune a couple of years ago,
and I think he's he doesn't realize this, but I
(01:24):
think he has the ability to positively impact people with
his story, right, And I think it's probably less well
known than probably Eddie's, but Big Bills has a very
similar story but obviously a little bit different. And I
think he's talked about some of the struggles that he
(01:45):
had when he was in WWE, and I was with
I was wrestling him when he was having some of
those struggles, and to see his growth not only as
a performer as a wrestler, but also his growth as
a human being. I'm really excited for this match, and
I'm really happy for both guys. I think this is
I think both of these guys are incredible, incredible humans
(02:06):
and good and good and they have a strong message
that a lot of people can relate to.
Speaker 2 (02:13):
You know what it is when you're born and raised
in New York City, a certain type of energy that
you possessed that maybe isn't found in another you know,
forty nine set of states.
Speaker 3 (02:25):
Yeah, I mean I I So that's one of the
biggest beefs between me and Eddie Kingston is my inability
to relate to his New York nos, right, because I'm
from I'm from rural Washington, right.
Speaker 1 (02:37):
So the opposite side of the country. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (02:39):
Yeah, and it's like, I'm from a small logging town, right,
It's like, you know, we get eighty two inches of
rain a year. I was like, you know, we you know,
Eddie and Eddie and I grew up very differently. But also,
I mean, you know, when you get to know Eddie
also a lot of similarities, you know.
Speaker 1 (02:57):
So it's it's cool.
Speaker 2 (03:00):
Someone was born and raised in New York City, you
kind of were obsessed with wrestling.
Speaker 1 (03:04):
I mean, you know this.
Speaker 2 (03:05):
You've performed here dozens of times up to this point
growing up in Washington, right, not exactly the biggest hub
for wrestling after into the nineties and beyond, right, they
had a regional territory at one point in the seventies
and eighties. What was there for you that made you
gravitate towards wrestling at such a young age.
Speaker 3 (03:24):
Well, so, just to give you a little bit of background.
My nobody in my family are wrestling fans. So it
wasn't like my dad watched wrestling and we grew and
I grew up watching it together.
Speaker 1 (03:34):
I was sick a lot as a.
Speaker 3 (03:35):
Kid, and a friend came over to my house and
he had his backpack and he said, Okay, I've got
something I want to show you, but you can't tell anybody,
and he starts pulling out a magazine. You know, now
that I'm an adult, I think, like, Okay, what I
should have thought that he was going to pull out
is something like a Playboy or something, you know what
I mean. Like, but it wasn't. It was like the
(03:57):
stacks of wrestling magazines. And I'd never seen it before.
I never even I didn't know what professional wrestling is.
But you have to think, I'm in first grade. He
pulls out these magazines and I've just become just enamored
with whatever this is, and.
Speaker 1 (04:14):
I I was.
Speaker 3 (04:15):
I was sick a lot in school, and so I
asked if I could borrow them because I read a
lot when I was sick, and so like, I would
read through these wrestling magazines and you would just see
these monsters and this is eighties wrestling, right, so this
is like Monsters Road War's face paint.
Speaker 1 (04:31):
You know, you've got all the all the people. At
the time, WWF was doing all this stuff with people
coming into the ring with animals.
Speaker 4 (04:38):
So you've got like Jake the Snake with the thing,
and you've got the British bulldog coming out with the thing.
You've got Cocobeware with the parent and all that kind
of stuff, and you can just I can just see
looking back how this world was just like you know, yeah,
it's so colorful.
Speaker 1 (04:55):
It's just like yeah, so uh so.
Speaker 3 (04:57):
That's how that's how I got interested in it, That's
how I fell in love.
Speaker 2 (05:01):
And it's interesting because I feel like at such a
young age for me, it was the same thing. I mean,
to this day, I'm drinking out of an Ultimate Warrior
Cup with a wrestle body behind me, right, But it's
like the color and the presentation, and obviously things have
evolved from that kind of comic book wrestling to then
in the nineties it was more like an occupation, right
Isaac Inkom or TL Hopper with the plumbing, and then
(05:24):
now it's a little more realistic. How important do you
think you were to that evolution of wrestling where it
was in ring mattered more in America than probably ever before.
Speaker 3 (05:35):
So I don't I don't think it was me. I
think it was the What I actually pinpoint to this
as far as American TV wrestling is Raw going to
three hours, when Raw went to three hours, because you
know Raw, didn't you At first, Ross started off as
a one hour show and then it went to a
two hour show and wrestling, you know, Nitro went to
(05:56):
three hours and that turned out to kind of be
the death of Nitro, and you you know, there were
other things, but like three hours, there is almost too
much content, right, and so Raw switched to three hours,
and so what they needed, what WWE needed is they
needed people who could go out there and entertain people
(06:19):
with their wrestling because you couldn't do three hours of
interview segments and backstages and all that kind of stuff.
They yeah, they're they're no, I mean they they still
they still did it and they still they still do it, right,
but it's like, Okay, you actually need more wrestling than
a three hour show. So it's so it's not so much.
And so that really benefited somebody like me where it's
(06:41):
you know, Okay, you you, and now it's kind of
become the standards. You have to be a good wrestler
to be able to be on these shows, because if
you can't go out there and carry kind of a
a match that goes through a commercial break that's at
least ten minutes, it's gonna you're gonna have a hard
time in a ju wrestling company.
Speaker 1 (07:00):
In twenty twenty five.
Speaker 2 (07:03):
So Aw's first trip to art the Ash Stadium, I
was there. It was you against Kenny Omega. The most
intense crowd reaction I've ever been a part of. And
I work in pop radio, so I've been to screaming
between concerts and I've seen Olivia Rodigo and Gracie Abros
and a lot of these artists that your daughter will
(07:24):
probably soon get into, if not already. Right, was that
the most intense fan reaction you've ever had? Given that
you guys didn't even touch you got the bell just
rang and everyone just lost their minds?
Speaker 3 (07:36):
Yeah, I mean I don't ring things as far as
like what is what was the best crowd reaction or
whatever it is, but it but it's a moment I'll
never forget, right, Like I can I can think about it,
and I just remember looking across the ring at Kenny
and the crowd reaction and just like what did I
do to deserve this life?
Speaker 1 (07:56):
Right?
Speaker 3 (07:56):
Like this is this is this is awesome, right, this
is so cool, and it's like and it was also
something I'd really been looking forward to, Like, you know,
I was I had been watching Kenny, you know, and
I knew Kenny from before from the Independence but we'd
wrestled one match and for Rustling Gorilla that was like
kind of a comedy match, and then.
Speaker 1 (08:18):
Maybe we'd cross pass. I think we did a three
way match, you know, entering of honor or something.
Speaker 3 (08:27):
But I mean, other than that, I've been watching Kenny
and seeing Kenny's growth from the time that I had
last seen him to be at that point in twenty
twenty one, and you know, I was really really excited
for the match, and then for the crowd to be
as excited about the match as I was.
Speaker 1 (08:43):
Internally, it was just really cool.
Speaker 2 (08:48):
So you were kind of an on screen role when
you were forced to retire with the w W. Now
you're doing the commentary thing from a mental health standpoint,
because obviously your passion is wrestling, and you've been very
vocal about that's all you've wanted to be. How different
is your headspace now being an on screen figure now
compared to when you were kind of, I guess a
(09:10):
little bit forced into it, not more under your terms
back then.
Speaker 3 (09:14):
Yeah, I mean, I mean that's the biggest difference. I
think that's for all of us, right, if we get
to do things you can. So it's the difference between, oh,
do you know what I'm gonna It would make my
wife really happy if I just take out the trash, right, like,
and she doesn't have to ask me, and I just
do it of my own accord, and I take out
the trash. That's a very different thing than my wife's saying, Brian,
(09:38):
take out the trash. It was just like, oh gosh,
I have to take out the trash. You know, it's
the exact same thing. It's just a different circumstance, right.
And so it's like I was not ready to be
done with wrestling.
Speaker 1 (09:54):
I did not.
Speaker 3 (09:55):
I It's the equivalent of my wife yelling me to
take out the garbage cans, right, And this time I
was ready, Right, I was ready. You know, my body,
my body's gotten to a point where it's like, Okay,
this for my long term health, this might not be
a great idea for me to keep doing it anymore.
And also I'm ready to be I'm ready to spend
(10:18):
more time at home right with my family, like like
I want. This past year, I was able to coach
my son's tea ball team. I would have never been
able to do that before, right, And so it's like
and I felt a deep kind of yearning these last
I would say four or five years to be deeper
involved in my community and like address some of the
(10:40):
issues within my community. Okay, how can I help, how
can I be how can I be of service? And
and so yeah, that's you know, that's one of the
things that's having these other goals kind of as I
have gotten older. David Brooks, the author, wrote a book
called The Second Mountain, and it's like, you spend your
first the first half of your life pursuing this pursuing
(11:04):
this mountain that is culturally defined as success, right, and
then you get to the if you get to the
top of that mountain, which for me I accomplished more
than I ever thought I would. You get to the
top of that mountain and you realize that that wasn't
the mountain at all. There's another mountain that you want
to climb, and it's so it's like, you know, and
(11:26):
that's I mean, maybe due to our human nature of
never quite being content, right, Bro, you listen.
Speaker 2 (11:35):
As you're speaking, I'm going through like this and obviously
this interviews about you and aw not me, but real quick,
like I'm going through this dilemma. So I have a daughter,
she's turning two in a couple of weeks, but she
lives in Dayton, Ohio, and I live in New York
City doing this thing that I've been wanting to do
my whole life. And I'm at Z one hundred, where
I'm at now is literally the top radio station in
(11:56):
the in the world, like the top pop station, Like
this is it. And then to your it's kind of
like what's next, And it's like that fulfillment of like, oh,
I never saw myself as a father, but now I am,
and like this is really cool when I'm with he
and she's learning these new words and we're able to
have like these kind of sort of conversations, right because
they grow up so fast and you've experienced that obviously,
(12:19):
So I'm gonna definitely check out that book because to
your point, it's like, what's next? I guess, right, And
I always equate success to this endless tunnel. I always
talk people, you're just in this tunnel and you're going,
and you're going. In the back of your mind, you
know there's no end to this tunnel. Yeah, for some reason,
why are we obsessed with staying in this tunnel and
continuing to move forward when we know that?
Speaker 1 (12:42):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (12:42):
You know, like, and these are the kind of conversations
that I love because everybody obviously has a different perspective
on it. But Joseph Campbell, who's a great writer, he
said something along these lines, and I don't have the
exact quote, but it's like a lot of people think that,
you know, you find value in your life through through
(13:03):
meaning or whatever. You know, there's something that you feel
a deep meaning with, right, And I think that that's
that's true. But then he goes on to say, but
I don't think that that's actually it. What you what
you really want out of this, you know, as far
as we know, we've just got one shot at this
life of existing, Right, is that you want to feel
(13:25):
like you experienced a real life, right, And that's what
one of the things that when I look at like
social media or whatever it is, the things that put
you on your phone and desiring something like it looks like, okay,
for example, Instagram.
Speaker 4 (13:42):
It looks like somebody's what I want to experience that
life perception.
Speaker 3 (13:49):
That's probably not a real life right there. You know
the way that they set up their camera, whether the
filters or whatever it is. I mean, we all know
that it's not that that all that stuff's not real.
It's just like you know it's whatever it is. But
how do you live your life in a way that
you actually experience life? Like I don't want to. I
don't want to, uh, just think about love. I want
(14:13):
to feel loved and I want to love somebody. So
it's like one of the things with children is that
it might be the the first time since you're a kid,
I mean, depending on your parents, right, I felt love.
I knew I was loved by my parents, right. But
the time you know, even with your with your partner, right,
(14:33):
there's person a person that you dedicate your life to, right,
sometimes you don't necessarily feel like we all have these
internal things. But with kids, when you have kids like
they're they just love you unconditionally, right, and then your
love for them obviously, you know, sometimes they make you
(14:54):
upset or whatever it is. But like every single morning,
my daughter who's eight, run from her room and jumps
into my arms and it's like my favorite thing to do. Actually,
my favorite way, my favorite thing in the mornings is
when she does that and I can feel her heartbeat
and it's like, oh, like like this is this is
(15:17):
the experience of living. The humans who were here fifty
thousand years ago experienced the same thing. They held their baby,
They held their daughter and experienced the heartbeat and felt joy, right,
and it's like, yeah, man, like that's that's it.
Speaker 1 (15:37):
That's it.
Speaker 2 (15:39):
So obviously your your first job. You were a girl
dad first, I'm a girl dad. Now. Was there on a
particular sport that you got her into first because you
were like this has got to be it, or where
you just hands off and let kind of rehandle that stuff.
Speaker 3 (15:52):
Oh no, no, I you know I we as parents do
we You know, when they're young, you put them in
a lot of to see what they like, right and
see what they gravitate towards.
Speaker 1 (16:03):
And now that she's eight, she's kind of she started
to form some of her own opinions. And she doesn't
like sports, which is which is fine.
Speaker 3 (16:10):
She loves art, right, she loves being creative, she loves
you know, all that kind of stuff, and so so yeah,
so we you know, and but then you have to
do Okay, you do need to have physical activity.
Speaker 1 (16:25):
But what's physical activity that she enjoys hiking? She actually
loves yoga. So she's probably going to be a little
bit like me. You know, people wouldn't think this because
I was a professional wrestler, but I'm not competitive at all.
Like I have no competitive bone in my body. When
I played sports. I played all the sports when I
was a kid and wasn't good at any of them.
Speaker 3 (16:46):
Like in high school, like I liked playing football, but
I only liked practice because and this is I don't know,
you know, I could put it into work, I could
put it into words. Even then, game aren't fun. And
one of the things that's not fun about them is
people care about who wins. And it's like, whereas if
(17:08):
we're just practicing, if I really just leveled my friend Evan, right,
it's like I get to talk crap to him the
next like right in that moment, the next day at school,
the next like, the day after that, Oh remember when
I just smeared you?
Speaker 1 (17:26):
And here we are.
Speaker 4 (17:28):
Twenty six years later and I could still text him
and be like, hey, remember that time I really smeared you?
Speaker 1 (17:36):
You know what I mean? When you play the games,
you don't have that, you know, like if.
Speaker 3 (17:41):
You when when I would play whatever sporting whatever thing,
it was like, I'm not in contact with any of
those people that I played against, right, Whereas like I
can you know, I can text Swerve when we get
off this thing and be like, hey, man, I just
got asked in the interview I did before this, I
(18:02):
just got asked about the match it all in.
Speaker 1 (18:04):
And it literally made me feel like I got goosebumps
because that moment is special to me, right and I
just want to say thank you for all of that,
right so I can text him right now. I did that.
That's one of the things I love about professional wrestling.
Speaker 3 (18:19):
I don't have a single moment like that in like
a competitive athletic career where I get any sort of
goosebumps or anything like that.
Speaker 2 (18:27):
So wrapping things up in a little bit, just a
few more questions. So you just said thank you that
you would thank him. But I like to give flowers
to people instead of waiting till later in their career.
So I personally think you are the greatest of this generation.
I think that the evolution of your character from heel
to babyfacing WWE was extraordinary, like single handedly brought me
(18:51):
back into wrestling at a time as well. And I
know for a fact that a lot of people feel
that way. I'm sure you get the DMS. You see
it often when you're in the buildings nowadays. So I
just wanted to tell you that personally, So thank you.
Speaker 3 (19:03):
Oh well, thank you very much. To be honest, I
don't get the DMS because I'm not on social media.
I don't have I stay away from it like the plague.
Speaker 1 (19:11):
You know what.
Speaker 2 (19:11):
And that's probably why you're in a better mental health
space than like ninety eight percent of us, right right,
But before we wrap things up, the biggest story of
the year seemingly has been John Cena's retirement. You've obviously
had programs with him and worked with him. What would
you say is his legacy to the wrestling industry.
Speaker 3 (19:29):
Gosh, I don't know. I mean, I don't even think
about because I don't think in those terms. I just
think in terms of things that I've learned from John
Cena and just his enormous impact on me as a
person and how he carries himself. You know, I respect
I respect John a lot, you know. One of the
things that I love about John, And this story I
(19:53):
think has been told the decent amount of times, you know,
but it's but it's the stuff that he's the charity,
stuff that he's done and not ever.
Speaker 1 (20:03):
Not ever wanting acknowledgment for it. Right.
Speaker 3 (20:07):
Max talks about in his book Max's book is really
good if people haven't if people haven't read it, but
you know, he talked about his dad giving giving people
food who needed it.
Speaker 2 (20:21):
But in the book, like within the first few pages
of the book, he talks about Cincinnati to date and
donating money because we're the good guys.
Speaker 3 (20:29):
Yes, because we're because we're the good guys. And it's like,
but in doing so, you don't do it so that
anybody knows that it's you. You're not doing it to
get credit for doing it.
Speaker 1 (20:41):
Right.
Speaker 3 (20:43):
The first person who really kind of put that in
my mental space, and he didn't say it to me,
it's just you watched him and do it with John Cena,
you know, you you look at all the stuff that
he's done for kids and everything, and he did all that,
He did more make wishes than anybody ever and didn't
(21:04):
want anybody like, didn't didn't didn't need anybody to know,
didn't want anybody to know. He wanted to improve the
lives of those children, right like that. When I think
of John Cena, I'm thinking of that, right like, you know,
and it's different because as a as a fan, you
(21:26):
you may watch him and what he's done in the ring,
and you know the his legacy within within wrestling or
whatever it is.
Speaker 1 (21:34):
His individual legacy to me is things like that. It's
it's it's him giving me a better perspective and more
compassion for myself when I didn't do the best when
I uh, when I MA main evented my first pay
per view in w w E, right like, and he
(21:54):
like his perspective on that was like, listen, it takes
you can be on you if it takes six months
for people to even know who you are, right to
being on TV, like the.
Speaker 3 (22:06):
Hardcore wrestling fans will know who you are pretty quick,
right but the people, the casual viewers who just watch,
you know, every other week whatever whatever it is, it
takes them six months to even know that you exist, right,
and then even longer for for people to see you
as a main event player, you know. And so those
are those are the kind of the things that I
(22:26):
think about when it and the idea of when.
Speaker 1 (22:29):
He comes to work, he comes to work right. John
Cena was always the first person at the building and
you'd see him. I'd get to the building, and I'm
meticulous about being on time, right, super meticulous. I don't like.
Speaker 3 (22:40):
That's one of the biggest issues with me and my
wife when we especially when we first started dating, is
that she had no problem like if call time was
you're supposed to be there too.
Speaker 1 (22:50):
My thing is, okay, I get there at one forty, right.
Speaker 3 (22:53):
I don't want any I don't want there to be
any twenty minutes twenty minutes early, so that if anything
happens on the way, I'm relate, right, Whereas my wife
was like, oh, it's fine if we're there at ten
two fifteen, and that like it fries my brain and
I said, but you get there, and you know, I'm
perpetually early and John Cena was always there before me,
(23:14):
and you'd see him. He was there like because you know,
he would do a lot of signing of the merchandise
and all that kind of stuff, and and so he
would he would be there working and like his his approach.
It's just I just can't say enough about John Cena.
I think he's he's just he's just wonderful. So anyways,
(23:35):
that's the sort of thing that will be a legacy
for me. And one of the things that I also
think that he's done. And I don't know, I don't
know what the discourse is because I'm not on the.
Speaker 1 (23:46):
Like I said, I'm not on social media.
Speaker 3 (23:48):
But one of the things that I think of in
John Cena too is his willingness to get back right,
Like he there were a period of years where he
hadn't I don't think he won a single match, Like
he was just calm, still losing to guys, right, and
it's like Linus, but he never lost his star power, right,
And this idea of being so confident in your abilities
(24:09):
that you can go out there and you have no
problem losing, and that sort of thing.
Speaker 1 (24:12):
I mean, I I can't say.
Speaker 2 (24:15):
Enough about John you know so love it well tomorrow
all out special Star time, three o'clock, Amazon Prime you
can order it all more. More of the info is
all on aw dot com. Brian Danielson, sir, appreciate you.
Speaker 1 (24:26):
Thank you, yeah, thank you very much
So what's up.
Speaker 2 (00:00):
It's Josh Martinez of Z one hundred, New York's number
one hit music station with my guest ae w is
Brian Danielson's going on, Man, not much.
Speaker 3 (00:09):
I'm just hanging out in Toronto and having a nice
day before tomorrow's huge show.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
Yeah, so aw all out Toronto. Is there one particular
match that you're looking forward to more than the others
because a friend is involved or you're just curious to
see how it's going to kind of play out?
Speaker 1 (00:25):
So, I mean there are.
Speaker 3 (00:28):
So it's like, one of the things that I'm really
interested in is the aw Men's World Heavyweight World Championship
match between Hangman Adam Page and Kyle Fletcher, because now
Kyle Fletcher is like twenty six years old, this is
his first time and like a championship match on a
world championship match on a pay per view, Like, how's
(00:49):
he gonna do? Like, because I'm just super impressed with
Kyle and I love Hangman, and so I'm really I'm
really excited to see that.
Speaker 1 (00:58):
When one of the other ones that I'm really.
Speaker 3 (01:00):
Excited to see is Eddie Kingston's coming back and wrestling
Big Bill, and I've known Eddie for a really long time.
I admire Eddie a lot in the sense of he's
had a lot of mental health struggles. He wrote this
great article for The Player's Tribune a couple of years ago,
and I think he's he doesn't realize this, but I
(01:24):
think he has the ability to positively impact people with
his story, right, And I think it's probably less well
known than probably Eddie's, but Big Bills has a very
similar story but obviously a little bit different. And I
think he's talked about some of the struggles that he
(01:45):
had when he was in WWE, and I was with
I was wrestling him when he was having some of
those struggles, and to see his growth not only as
a performer as a wrestler, but also his growth as
a human being. I'm really excited for this match, and
I'm really happy for both guys. I think this is
I think both of these guys are incredible, incredible humans
(02:06):
and good and good and they have a strong message
that a lot of people can relate to.
Speaker 2 (02:13):
You know what it is when you're born and raised
in New York City, a certain type of energy that
you possessed that maybe isn't found in another you know,
forty nine set of states.
Speaker 3 (02:25):
Yeah, I mean I I So that's one of the
biggest beefs between me and Eddie Kingston is my inability
to relate to his New York nos, right, because I'm
from I'm from rural Washington, right.
Speaker 1 (02:37):
So the opposite side of the country. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (02:39):
Yeah, and it's like, I'm from a small logging town, right,
It's like, you know, we get eighty two inches of
rain a year. I was like, you know, we you know,
Eddie and Eddie and I grew up very differently. But also,
I mean, you know, when you get to know Eddie
also a lot of similarities, you know.
Speaker 1 (02:57):
So it's it's cool.
Speaker 2 (03:00):
Someone was born and raised in New York City, you
kind of were obsessed with wrestling.
Speaker 1 (03:04):
I mean, you know this.
Speaker 2 (03:05):
You've performed here dozens of times up to this point
growing up in Washington, right, not exactly the biggest hub
for wrestling after into the nineties and beyond, right, they
had a regional territory at one point in the seventies
and eighties. What was there for you that made you
gravitate towards wrestling at such a young age.
Speaker 3 (03:24):
Well, so, just to give you a little bit of background.
My nobody in my family are wrestling fans. So it
wasn't like my dad watched wrestling and we grew and
I grew up watching it together.
Speaker 1 (03:34):
I was sick a lot as a.
Speaker 3 (03:35):
Kid, and a friend came over to my house and
he had his backpack and he said, Okay, I've got
something I want to show you, but you can't tell anybody,
and he starts pulling out a magazine. You know, now
that I'm an adult, I think, like, Okay, what I
should have thought that he was going to pull out
is something like a Playboy or something, you know what
I mean. Like, but it wasn't. It was like the
(03:57):
stacks of wrestling magazines. And I'd never seen it before.
I never even I didn't know what professional wrestling is.
But you have to think, I'm in first grade. He
pulls out these magazines and I've just become just enamored
with whatever this is, and.
Speaker 1 (04:14):
I I was.
Speaker 3 (04:15):
I was sick a lot in school, and so I
asked if I could borrow them because I read a
lot when I was sick, and so like, I would
read through these wrestling magazines and you would just see
these monsters and this is eighties wrestling, right, so this
is like Monsters Road War's face paint.
Speaker 1 (04:31):
You know, you've got all the all the people. At
the time, WWF was doing all this stuff with people
coming into the ring with animals.
Speaker 4 (04:38):
So you've got like Jake the Snake with the thing,
and you've got the British bulldog coming out with the thing.
You've got Cocobeware with the parent and all that kind
of stuff, and you can just I can just see
looking back how this world was just like you know, yeah,
it's so colorful.
Speaker 1 (04:55):
It's just like yeah, so uh so.
Speaker 3 (04:57):
That's how that's how I got interested in it, That's
how I fell in love.
Speaker 2 (05:01):
And it's interesting because I feel like at such a
young age for me, it was the same thing. I mean,
to this day, I'm drinking out of an Ultimate Warrior
Cup with a wrestle body behind me, right, But it's
like the color and the presentation, and obviously things have
evolved from that kind of comic book wrestling to then
in the nineties it was more like an occupation, right
Isaac Inkom or TL Hopper with the plumbing, and then
(05:24):
now it's a little more realistic. How important do you
think you were to that evolution of wrestling where it
was in ring mattered more in America than probably ever before.
Speaker 3 (05:35):
So I don't I don't think it was me. I
think it was the What I actually pinpoint to this
as far as American TV wrestling is Raw going to
three hours, when Raw went to three hours, because you
know Raw, didn't you At first, Ross started off as
a one hour show and then it went to a
two hour show and wrestling, you know, Nitro went to
(05:56):
three hours and that turned out to kind of be
the death of Nitro, and you you know, there were
other things, but like three hours, there is almost too
much content, right, and so Raw switched to three hours,
and so what they needed, what WWE needed is they
needed people who could go out there and entertain people
(06:19):
with their wrestling because you couldn't do three hours of
interview segments and backstages and all that kind of stuff.
They yeah, they're they're no, I mean they they still
they still did it and they still they still do it, right,
but it's like, Okay, you actually need more wrestling than
a three hour show. So it's so it's not so much.
And so that really benefited somebody like me where it's
(06:41):
you know, Okay, you you, and now it's kind of
become the standards. You have to be a good wrestler
to be able to be on these shows, because if
you can't go out there and carry kind of a
a match that goes through a commercial break that's at
least ten minutes, it's gonna you're gonna have a hard
time in a ju wrestling company.
Speaker 1 (07:00):
In twenty twenty five.
Speaker 2 (07:03):
So Aw's first trip to art the Ash Stadium, I
was there. It was you against Kenny Omega. The most
intense crowd reaction I've ever been a part of. And
I work in pop radio, so I've been to screaming
between concerts and I've seen Olivia Rodigo and Gracie Abros
and a lot of these artists that your daughter will
(07:24):
probably soon get into, if not already. Right, was that
the most intense fan reaction you've ever had? Given that
you guys didn't even touch you got the bell just
rang and everyone just lost their minds?
Speaker 3 (07:36):
Yeah, I mean I don't ring things as far as
like what is what was the best crowd reaction or
whatever it is, but it but it's a moment I'll
never forget, right, Like I can I can think about it,
and I just remember looking across the ring at Kenny
and the crowd reaction and just like what did I
do to deserve this life?
Speaker 1 (07:56):
Right?
Speaker 3 (07:56):
Like this is this is this is awesome, right, this
is so cool, and it's like and it was also
something I'd really been looking forward to, Like, you know,
I was I had been watching Kenny, you know, and
I knew Kenny from before from the Independence but we'd
wrestled one match and for Rustling Gorilla that was like
kind of a comedy match, and then.
Speaker 1 (08:18):
Maybe we'd cross pass. I think we did a three
way match, you know, entering of honor or something.
Speaker 3 (08:27):
But I mean, other than that, I've been watching Kenny
and seeing Kenny's growth from the time that I had
last seen him to be at that point in twenty
twenty one, and you know, I was really really excited
for the match, and then for the crowd to be
as excited about the match as I was.
Speaker 1 (08:43):
Internally, it was just really cool.
Speaker 2 (08:48):
So you were kind of an on screen role when
you were forced to retire with the w W. Now
you're doing the commentary thing from a mental health standpoint,
because obviously your passion is wrestling, and you've been very
vocal about that's all you've wanted to be. How different
is your headspace now being an on screen figure now
compared to when you were kind of, I guess a
(09:10):
little bit forced into it, not more under your terms
back then.
Speaker 3 (09:14):
Yeah, I mean, I mean that's the biggest difference. I
think that's for all of us, right, if we get
to do things you can. So it's the difference between, oh,
do you know what I'm gonna It would make my
wife really happy if I just take out the trash, right, like,
and she doesn't have to ask me, and I just
do it of my own accord, and I take out
the trash. That's a very different thing than my wife's saying, Brian,
(09:38):
take out the trash. It was just like, oh gosh,
I have to take out the trash. You know, it's
the exact same thing. It's just a different circumstance, right.
And so it's like I was not ready to be
done with wrestling.
Speaker 1 (09:54):
I did not.
Speaker 3 (09:55):
I It's the equivalent of my wife yelling me to
take out the garbage cans, right, And this time I
was ready, Right, I was ready. You know, my body,
my body's gotten to a point where it's like, Okay,
this for my long term health, this might not be
a great idea for me to keep doing it anymore.
And also I'm ready to be I'm ready to spend
(10:18):
more time at home right with my family, like like
I want. This past year, I was able to coach
my son's tea ball team. I would have never been
able to do that before, right, And so it's like
and I felt a deep kind of yearning these last
I would say four or five years to be deeper
involved in my community and like address some of the
(10:40):
issues within my community. Okay, how can I help, how
can I be how can I be of service? And
and so yeah, that's you know, that's one of the
things that's having these other goals kind of as I
have gotten older. David Brooks, the author, wrote a book
called The Second Mountain, and it's like, you spend your
first the first half of your life pursuing this pursuing
(11:04):
this mountain that is culturally defined as success, right, and
then you get to the if you get to the
top of that mountain, which for me I accomplished more
than I ever thought I would. You get to the
top of that mountain and you realize that that wasn't
the mountain at all. There's another mountain that you want
to climb, and it's so it's like, you know, and
(11:26):
that's I mean, maybe due to our human nature of
never quite being content, right, Bro, you listen.
Speaker 2 (11:35):
As you're speaking, I'm going through like this and obviously
this interviews about you and aw not me, but real quick,
like I'm going through this dilemma. So I have a daughter,
she's turning two in a couple of weeks, but she
lives in Dayton, Ohio, and I live in New York
City doing this thing that I've been wanting to do
my whole life. And I'm at Z one hundred, where
I'm at now is literally the top radio station in
(11:56):
the in the world, like the top pop station, Like
this is it. And then to your it's kind of
like what's next, And it's like that fulfillment of like, oh,
I never saw myself as a father, but now I am,
and like this is really cool when I'm with he
and she's learning these new words and we're able to
have like these kind of sort of conversations, right because
they grow up so fast and you've experienced that obviously,
(12:19):
So I'm gonna definitely check out that book because to
your point, it's like, what's next? I guess, right, And
I always equate success to this endless tunnel. I always
talk people, you're just in this tunnel and you're going,
and you're going. In the back of your mind, you
know there's no end to this tunnel. Yeah, for some reason,
why are we obsessed with staying in this tunnel and
continuing to move forward when we know that?
Speaker 1 (12:42):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (12:42):
You know, like, and these are the kind of conversations
that I love because everybody obviously has a different perspective
on it. But Joseph Campbell, who's a great writer, he
said something along these lines, and I don't have the
exact quote, but it's like a lot of people think that,
you know, you find value in your life through through
(13:03):
meaning or whatever. You know, there's something that you feel
a deep meaning with, right, And I think that that's
that's true. But then he goes on to say, but
I don't think that that's actually it. What you what
you really want out of this, you know, as far
as we know, we've just got one shot at this
life of existing, Right, is that you want to feel
(13:25):
like you experienced a real life, right, And that's what
one of the things that when I look at like
social media or whatever it is, the things that put
you on your phone and desiring something like it looks like, okay,
for example, Instagram.
Speaker 4 (13:42):
It looks like somebody's what I want to experience that
life perception.
Speaker 3 (13:49):
That's probably not a real life right there. You know
the way that they set up their camera, whether the
filters or whatever it is. I mean, we all know
that it's not that that all that stuff's not real.
It's just like you know it's whatever it is. But
how do you live your life in a way that
you actually experience life? Like I don't want to. I
don't want to, uh, just think about love. I want
(14:13):
to feel loved and I want to love somebody. So
it's like one of the things with children is that
it might be the the first time since you're a kid,
I mean, depending on your parents, right, I felt love.
I knew I was loved by my parents, right. But
the time you know, even with your with your partner, right,
(14:33):
there's person a person that you dedicate your life to, right,
sometimes you don't necessarily feel like we all have these
internal things. But with kids, when you have kids like
they're they just love you unconditionally, right, and then your
love for them obviously, you know, sometimes they make you
(14:54):
upset or whatever it is. But like every single morning,
my daughter who's eight, run from her room and jumps
into my arms and it's like my favorite thing to do. Actually,
my favorite way, my favorite thing in the mornings is
when she does that and I can feel her heartbeat
and it's like, oh, like like this is this is
(15:17):
the experience of living. The humans who were here fifty
thousand years ago experienced the same thing. They held their baby,
They held their daughter and experienced the heartbeat and felt joy, right,
and it's like, yeah, man, like that's that's it.
Speaker 1 (15:37):
That's it.
Speaker 2 (15:39):
So obviously your your first job. You were a girl
dad first, I'm a girl dad. Now. Was there on a
particular sport that you got her into first because you
were like this has got to be it, or where
you just hands off and let kind of rehandle that stuff.
Speaker 3 (15:52):
Oh no, no, I you know I we as parents do
we You know, when they're young, you put them in
a lot of to see what they like, right and
see what they gravitate towards.
Speaker 1 (16:03):
And now that she's eight, she's kind of she started
to form some of her own opinions. And she doesn't
like sports, which is which is fine.
Speaker 3 (16:10):
She loves art, right, she loves being creative, she loves
you know, all that kind of stuff, and so so yeah,
so we you know, and but then you have to
do Okay, you do need to have physical activity.
Speaker 1 (16:25):
But what's physical activity that she enjoys hiking? She actually
loves yoga. So she's probably going to be a little
bit like me. You know, people wouldn't think this because
I was a professional wrestler, but I'm not competitive at all.
Like I have no competitive bone in my body. When
I played sports. I played all the sports when I
was a kid and wasn't good at any of them.
Speaker 3 (16:46):
Like in high school, like I liked playing football, but
I only liked practice because and this is I don't know,
you know, I could put it into work, I could
put it into words. Even then, game aren't fun. And
one of the things that's not fun about them is
people care about who wins. And it's like, whereas if
(17:08):
we're just practicing, if I really just leveled my friend Evan, right,
it's like I get to talk crap to him the
next like right in that moment, the next day at school,
the next like, the day after that, Oh remember when
I just smeared you?
Speaker 1 (17:26):
And here we are.
Speaker 4 (17:28):
Twenty six years later and I could still text him
and be like, hey, remember that time I really smeared you?
Speaker 1 (17:36):
You know what I mean? When you play the games,
you don't have that, you know, like if.
Speaker 3 (17:41):
You when when I would play whatever sporting whatever thing,
it was like, I'm not in contact with any of
those people that I played against, right, Whereas like I
can you know, I can text Swerve when we get
off this thing and be like, hey, man, I just
got asked in the interview I did before this, I
(18:02):
just got asked about the match it all in.
Speaker 1 (18:04):
And it literally made me feel like I got goosebumps
because that moment is special to me, right and I
just want to say thank you for all of that,
right so I can text him right now. I did that.
That's one of the things I love about professional wrestling.
Speaker 3 (18:19):
I don't have a single moment like that in like
a competitive athletic career where I get any sort of
goosebumps or anything like that.
Speaker 2 (18:27):
So wrapping things up in a little bit, just a
few more questions. So you just said thank you that
you would thank him. But I like to give flowers
to people instead of waiting till later in their career.
So I personally think you are the greatest of this generation.
I think that the evolution of your character from heel
to babyfacing WWE was extraordinary, like single handedly brought me
(18:51):
back into wrestling at a time as well. And I
know for a fact that a lot of people feel
that way. I'm sure you get the DMS. You see
it often when you're in the buildings nowadays. So I
just wanted to tell you that personally, So thank you.
Speaker 3 (19:03):
Oh well, thank you very much. To be honest, I
don't get the DMS because I'm not on social media.
I don't have I stay away from it like the plague.
Speaker 1 (19:11):
You know what.
Speaker 2 (19:11):
And that's probably why you're in a better mental health
space than like ninety eight percent of us, right right,
But before we wrap things up, the biggest story of
the year seemingly has been John Cena's retirement. You've obviously
had programs with him and worked with him. What would
you say is his legacy to the wrestling industry.
Speaker 3 (19:29):
Gosh, I don't know. I mean, I don't even think
about because I don't think in those terms. I just
think in terms of things that I've learned from John
Cena and just his enormous impact on me as a
person and how he carries himself. You know, I respect
I respect John a lot, you know. One of the
things that I love about John, And this story I
(19:53):
think has been told the decent amount of times, you know,
but it's but it's the stuff that he's the charity,
stuff that he's done and not ever.
Speaker 1 (20:03):
Not ever wanting acknowledgment for it. Right.
Speaker 3 (20:07):
Max talks about in his book Max's book is really
good if people haven't if people haven't read it, but
you know, he talked about his dad giving giving people
food who needed it.
Speaker 2 (20:21):
But in the book, like within the first few pages
of the book, he talks about Cincinnati to date and
donating money because we're the good guys.
Speaker 3 (20:29):
Yes, because we're because we're the good guys. And it's like,
but in doing so, you don't do it so that
anybody knows that it's you. You're not doing it to
get credit for doing it.
Speaker 1 (20:41):
Right.
Speaker 3 (20:43):
The first person who really kind of put that in
my mental space, and he didn't say it to me,
it's just you watched him and do it with John Cena,
you know, you you look at all the stuff that
he's done for kids and everything, and he did all that,
He did more make wishes than anybody ever and didn't
(21:04):
want anybody like, didn't didn't didn't need anybody to know,
didn't want anybody to know. He wanted to improve the
lives of those children, right like that. When I think
of John Cena, I'm thinking of that, right like, you know,
and it's different because as a as a fan, you
(21:26):
you may watch him and what he's done in the ring,
and you know the his legacy within within wrestling or
whatever it is.
Speaker 1 (21:34):
His individual legacy to me is things like that. It's
it's it's him giving me a better perspective and more
compassion for myself when I didn't do the best when
I uh, when I MA main evented my first pay
per view in w w E, right like, and he
(21:54):
like his perspective on that was like, listen, it takes
you can be on you if it takes six months
for people to even know who you are, right to
being on TV, like the.
Speaker 3 (22:06):
Hardcore wrestling fans will know who you are pretty quick,
right but the people, the casual viewers who just watch,
you know, every other week whatever whatever it is, it
takes them six months to even know that you exist, right,
and then even longer for for people to see you
as a main event player, you know. And so those
are those are the kind of the things that I
(22:26):
think about when it and the idea of when.
Speaker 1 (22:29):
He comes to work, he comes to work right. John
Cena was always the first person at the building and
you'd see him. I'd get to the building, and I'm
meticulous about being on time, right, super meticulous. I don't like.
Speaker 3 (22:40):
That's one of the biggest issues with me and my
wife when we especially when we first started dating, is
that she had no problem like if call time was
you're supposed to be there too.
Speaker 1 (22:50):
My thing is, okay, I get there at one forty, right.
Speaker 3 (22:53):
I don't want any I don't want there to be
any twenty minutes twenty minutes early, so that if anything
happens on the way, I'm relate, right, Whereas my wife
was like, oh, it's fine if we're there at ten
two fifteen, and that like it fries my brain and
I said, but you get there, and you know, I'm
perpetually early and John Cena was always there before me,
(23:14):
and you'd see him. He was there like because you know,
he would do a lot of signing of the merchandise
and all that kind of stuff, and and so he
would he would be there working and like his his approach.
It's just I just can't say enough about John Cena.
I think he's he's just he's just wonderful. So anyways,
(23:35):
that's the sort of thing that will be a legacy
for me. And one of the things that I also
think that he's done. And I don't know, I don't
know what the discourse is because I'm not on the.
Speaker 1 (23:46):
Like I said, I'm not on social media.
Speaker 3 (23:48):
But one of the things that I think of in
John Cena too is his willingness to get back right,
Like he there were a period of years where he
hadn't I don't think he won a single match, Like
he was just calm, still losing to guys, right, and
it's like Linus, but he never lost his star power, right,
And this idea of being so confident in your abilities
(24:09):
that you can go out there and you have no
problem losing, and that sort of thing.
Speaker 1 (24:12):
I mean, I I can't say.
Speaker 2 (24:15):
Enough about John you know so love it well tomorrow
all out special Star time, three o'clock, Amazon Prime you
can order it all more. More of the info is
all on aw dot com. Brian Danielson, sir, appreciate you.
Speaker 1 (24:26):
Thank you, yeah, thank you very much
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