Episode 207: @NotDrDeath Steve Williams' Honorable Journey

Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
This is an Honorable Mention with JeffSchwartz and Shane Hagedorn, part of the
Cravenal networking podcast. Hey naw,it's Tuesday. You know what that means?
Happy too for Tuesday and welcome toanother chapter of and Honorable Mention,
the Essential Ring of Honor retrospective podcastcovering the most successful independent wrestling promotion of

(00:23):
this generation. I'm your host,Jeff Schwartz. I am delighted to be
here and officially still on paternity leave. Is my co host, our expert
analysts, a head of Logistics OlilieWrestling content provider and operations specialist, the
Mayor of Merchandise, the warrior ofthe way Back Machine, King of Cage
Match and Code of Honor author Ringof Honor alumni Shane hagenor so Hagenorn is

(00:47):
still not back yet. He willbe back soon hopefully, And today is
a show I am super super excitedfor you all to listen to a little
behind the scenes inside baseball. Itake this last night with my guest you
know him is at not Doctor Deathon Twitter is Steve Williams, and Steve

(01:14):
is probably one of the best followson Twitter, but he also has a
history both inside the wrestling business andas a fan of Ring of Honor,
So we'll go back, we'll kindof outline a lot of that. There
is some amazing stories that Steve tells, including what maybe the all time greatest

(01:42):
story in the history of an HonorableMentioned Podcast all two hundred and seven episodes.
This episode with Steve, I thinkmaybe my favorite interview we have ever
done, and I guess I haveever done. Steve's a great story teller
and he is absolutely fucking hysterical.So please stay tuned. Support an Honorable

(02:06):
Mention by heading over to patreon dotcom, backslash an Honorable Pod. He'll
get shows like this early in adfree. You'll get the show on video
so you can actually watch me spittingwater through my nose listening to some of
Steve's stories. You can email usat an Honorable Mention at gmail dot com

(02:29):
and get all two hundred and sevenepisodes of an Honorable Mention. They're available
at the archives with ads of course, at an Honorable Mention dot wicksite dot
com, backslash Maine. That's anHonorable Mention dot wi x ste dot com,
backslash Maine and if you don't wantthe ads, go over to Patreon

(02:49):
dot com backslash and honorable pod.You heard Scott McConnell sing its praises last
episode. Um, there's daily videocontent, so my incredible collection of shows
and vhs and DVD tapes and discsall are accessible if you're a part of
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(03:16):
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(04:01):
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and get early add free access andbe worthy of an honorable mention. Well,
I think it's time to dive intoit. He's worthy of an honorable
mention, probably presented by Patreon dotcom. Back slash an Honorable Pod.

(05:54):
Welcome to the show to tell hishonorable journey Twitter Superstar not Doctor Death.
Steve Williams, how's it going,Jeff? Thanks for having me, but
oh man, it's going well.I'm really glad we get to do this.
You and I we somehow have crosspaths, we think, and we'll

(06:15):
talk about that a little later.But it's good to actually like have these
discussions and share our stories because withouthaving these stories documented, they may fade
away into memory oblivion. And Ithink your story is pretty fascinating on a

(06:38):
multitude of fronts. When Haggie weren'tkind of told me he was going to
take some time away from the podto focus on the baby and getting used
to kind of having two kids tojuggle and work and the book and all
that other stuff. I was like, Oh, let me make this list
of people I want to have onthe show to talk about their journey into

(07:00):
wrestling and Ring of Honor in general. And we were definitely on the top
of that list solely based on youknow, just Twitter interactions, which is
wild to think about. Yeah,and the worst of the great poem,
big Sexy Kevin Nash. I'm justa guy and just me having this this

(07:25):
forum has led to opportunities like this, which I'm grateful for. And it
sounds just insane to me that someonewants to hear the thoughts of a nerd
in the greater Louisville, Kentucky areaand his talking about you know, men
pretending to fight. It's a beautifulthing we are going on here. Jeff.

(07:46):
Well, the first thing, youknow, you mentioned the Louisville,
Kentucky area. I have to bringup a friend of mine. He is
now a part of the Louisville basketballprogram, Nolan Smith, and he is
a Duke Blue Devil by degree.But his father, Derek, was a

(08:09):
Louisville cardinal and Nolan is now backin Louisville, so if you follow the
Louisville basketball program, you got agem in Nolan. He's like the nicest
guy in the whole wide world.And I'm so happy for him. As
long as he keeps the rest ofthose boys away from the hookers, He's

(08:31):
all right with me. Hey man, Rick Petino is just trying to eat
some dinner in a tiny restaurant,and and and and and you know,
get five star recruits. But um, Nolan broke my heart when he left
Duke to go back to Louisville.But that's that's home for him, So

(08:52):
can't hate. We'll just beat himtwice a year. And ah, all
right, yeah, you're trying tomake this hostel already. It's all good
man. That's what I do.I'm a staunch blue Devil defender, and
listen, I as a basketball fan. M Louisville has produced to the NBA

(09:13):
Donovan Mitchell, who is now thebackbone of the Cleveland Cavaliers rebuilding purposes.
So without Louisville and Rick Petino,I do believe was his coach, Um
d Mitch Spider, Mitchell is nottaking three All Star trips and five years

(09:35):
in Utah to the Cavs. SoI'm super excited nice and I will be
rooting for Louisville to finish second,so you know, I'll take that.
You know, hey, you knowit's beat. As long as we beat
UNC, both of us, everybodywins, right virtually, handshake, brother,

(09:56):
virtual handshake on that. Hey man, Well, let's let's get to
what the people want, because youhave to give the people what they want
on this show, and that's wrestlingtalk. And you have a really interesting
history with wrestling. But before youcan start in wrestling, you find wrestling.

(10:16):
And I guess you know, everybodyhas their you know, out of
WWF for WCW. But there's theindependence, and I'm curious what the independence
look like with your discovery of them. Yeah so really, I mean my
awareness of independence truly came in themid nineties, just through the AFTERMAGS.

(10:41):
I remember reading this article and Iguess would have been PWI about this Rob
Van Dam Tabu series before Van Damwas an ECW and I just knew him
as Robbiev. I'm like, ohmy god, like this looks incredible.
These guys are diving through tables andplaunches or whatnot. Locally, we had
this being Louisville. We were onthe USWA loop, so every Tuesday night

(11:07):
we had I wouldn't call that anindependent as much as I would kind of
glass bashion of the territory system.The first local independent I had access too
would have been id Rotten i WA, which word got to us through school,
as things do when you're fifteen,that oh man, there's these crazy
baschards on Dixie Highway who are bleedingusing fire and tables. I'm like,

(11:31):
oh man, I gotta get outthere. I do not live close to
this, so you get out thereon it would have been a Wednesday or
a Thursday night, and get mydad to drive me. Was a tense
negotiation process, and the first showI went to ended up being an Eddie
Gilbert memorial show in nineteen eighty seven. Oh wow, Terry Funk and Doug

(11:52):
Gilbert, just all the stars wereout that night. It was just I
couldn't have picked a their first nightas a fan to take in this wild
world of independent wrestling. Holy shitlike that blows my mind because that's one
of those like grail tape trading,you know, shows like that was I

(12:16):
remember getting that trade a tape ina trade with a kid named Andy Joyce
may rest in peace and and Andy. He and his dad and his brother
would go to the Fairgrounds in Nashvilleevery Wednesday for TNA in two thousand and
two. So I think they startedlike show three, which would have been

(12:41):
the first show at the fairgrounds.We were four, maybe because the first
two were done in Alabama. Ithink yes, So they would go to
TNA every Wednesday. Did you goto USWA at all? Yes? I
would quite a few times, atleast a dozen times between ninety four,

(13:03):
probably in ninety seven. The lastshow I went to was a June ninety
seven show where Tommy Dreamer came downto Russell Lahler, like the week after
the ECW Arena deal. So Iam so fascinated. So we're gonna have
to put a pause on some ofthese other topics for now. Um okay,

(13:24):
I need to know everything about theus WA. Did you see Flex
Cavanna in person? Was the TruthCommission really that hot? Tell me about
the gangsters versus or when they inductedTracy Smothers into the gangsters? That had

(13:46):
to be like ninety four and ninetyseven somewhere in that vicinity. Yeah,
that was Actually that was the nationthat Tracy. I think it became Shaquille
Ali Na. Yeah, like theDying Days, Oh man, it was.
Yeah. I actually tweeted about theflexic kount of thing recently that I'm
fairly certain I paid seven dollars towatch him Russell and then he he later

(14:09):
he's at same seven dollars to forma billion dollars company or some shit seven
Bucks Promotions lives on. Yeah,I met him. He was a Yeah,
he was a tag team champion withBart Sawyer. Oh my god.
And I don't think I met aRocky, but I met Bart Sawyer and

(14:31):
I'm, you know, fourteen yearsold, and I already knew too much
about wrestling for a fourteen year oldkid in Loibllle, Kentucky in nineteen ninety
six. And my excuse me,sir, you related to buzzing Brent Sawyer
and he he looks at me like, who is this kid? And he
said, no, thank God,that's amazing. So like I mean,

(14:56):
because my say, I love Ringof Honor, That's why this show exists,
and Haggard and I talk about it, But there is a part of
me that, you know, whenI look at what my favorite style of
pro wrestling is Memphis wrestling. Thatnot necessarily the work grade style of wrestling,

(15:18):
but the colorful gimmicks and the simplicityand still eliciting that reaction. That's
my wrestling, you know, nooffense to like the Bucks or the Dragon
Gate guys or will Osprey or anyof those kinds of wrestlers. What they

(15:39):
do is certainly incredible, But Idon't know if I need a whole show
of that, right. I wantvariety. I want, you know,
a cheating heel here. I wantyou know, a high flying match like
their style for sure, And Ifeel like the Memphis Terror Tory and USWA

(16:00):
you kind of throw them into thatpile because there's obviously the Dallas you know,
Jared Connection and World Classes a partof that as well. I just
I am completely infatuated with that era. It's something that if current wrestlers could

(16:21):
take away anything from going back andwatching that stuff, like, I don't
think you can go back to justthe most basic wrestling style they used,
but the promos, they weren't talkingat you, they were talking to you
and talking with you. These guysis a territory full of guys that were
smaller. They weren't going to beas larger than life Hulk Hogan superhero types.

(16:45):
But they talked and they sounded likemy dad and his friends could get
upset, like they were very believableadult men finding themselves in conflicts in this
wild world. To have someone likeDundee, this Australia guy just doing his
Tennessee walk and talk with that accentand making it believable him existing, Jerry

(17:07):
Lawler with his very down to earth, talking with you folksy style. But
then you have Jimmy Dant who isjust all over the place. It sounds
like a damn crazy person. Andthey found ways to make all of these
characters intermingle without scripts. You know, they made sense. They existed in
such a way that I mean,frankly, we're never going to see again,

(17:29):
and I hate that. For wrestling, I don't considered myself a lapsan.
I was listening to the laps fanearlier and they were talking about the
concept for their podcast. Isn't somuch that they don't like wrestling anymore,
is that they missed the way usedto make us feel. And I get
more of that with Memphis than anythingelse. I have said, you know
so many times over the last threeyears that I am so much more interested

(17:57):
and mentally checked in on the creationof the show and what goes into building
a set in the ring, andyou know, we're putting matches together,
then I am the matches and thepromos themselves, and then the tearing down

(18:18):
art so that you can do itall over again somewhere else in front of
a different set of people that havedifferent lives and tastes and hobbies and backgrounds
the next week, right, AndI mean that Memphis era, They're staring
into the same eyes every single week. And I think we would be remiss

(18:41):
if we didn't mention that the soundtrackfor all of that chaos is this grandfatherly
gentleman Lance Russell and local weatherman DaveBrown. It's just it's so fascinating to

(19:02):
me. And I mean, ourage gaps a little different, but I
mean I'm I'm thirty six, andI kind of look at it and I
go, man, that was justcreated for me. Yeah. There's a
line in Lance's obituary in The Observerabout Lance unfortunately losing its mental capacity later

(19:25):
on in life, but as someonefound him at a gas station. He
clearly just wasn't right, and theguy's instinct was to call the TV station.
As for Dave Brown, because whatelse would you do when you find
Lance Russell but get him in contactwith Dave Like That's how ingrained that wrestling
culture was within that community. It'ssuch a small world, I think too.

(19:49):
You know, you mentioned the promosand how it felt like the wrestlers
were individually talking to you with theirinterviews, and now when I watch wrestling,
I feel it's almost the polar opposite. It's the moves are being done
for you as opposed to the vocalityof it. I think Tony Shavanni,

(20:14):
I think does a good job ofmaking it feel like what he's broadcasting he's
talking to you. Yes, andTaz as well. Ex Caliber is so
busy during the course of a broadcast. I don't think he has time to
talk to people. I think hejust has to read off the moves and

(20:36):
the upcoming matches for the following sixshows, and he does an amazing job.
But I think Taz and Shavanni areprobably the two best. Now.
Granted I don't watch a ton ofw WE, but I felt ian Riccabani
did a great job of talking toyou as well what he was doing the
roh product, but Lands and Davetoo also, it felt like you were

(21:03):
just listening to old men sitting ata table next to you in a restaurant.
Yes, I was very spoiled asa young fan having that on one
channel, and then when I startedwatching WCW, Jim Ross was still there.
So being that particular version of JimRoss on another channel was just and

(21:25):
it's such a good job of walkingit through it. You know, WCW
at the time had the combination ofJim Ross on the call and the Dangerous
Alliance just running a rough shot andit was almost like having two Memphisis at
once, you know, Yeah,Where's w WWF had Papa Shongo and h
l D had a puppet just wassliding down hill so fast. I was

(21:48):
very fortunate to have access to theseother companies that get me through at that
time. Well, it's funny tome because you know, my favorite timeframe
in wrestling a side from just theMemphis in general, and the fact that
there's really no structure or organization tolike tape trading for that kind of stuff.
You're just kind of saying give ordownloading. If you're you're downloading stuff,

(22:12):
you know, off the internet,you're just saying, like, give
me this, give me Memph,I need Memphis, USWA. You know,
give me anything I can get.With WCW, I started in ninety
one, um like January issue ofninety one. It is when I discovered

(22:33):
wrestling and it was WCW and theywere promoings. I want I say,
Wrestle War was coming up, andthen super Brawl was when I really dove
in. They were, oh,you know, the super Brawl, Luger
and staying against the Steiners and Flareand Tatsumi Flujenami, Jesse Ventura had not

(22:57):
come to WCW yet, so youknow, you had JR. And Tony
doing commentary and you get to hearthem all these years later together again.
Is a homely feeling. I think, yes, absolutely, it's a different
version of each guy, it's stillthose two guys. And I think for

(23:21):
long term wrestling people like you andI, being able to look back where
we started and where we came fromand the genesis of our love wrestling,
to be able to have something thatwe can still attach to in present day
is very important Yeah, my girlfriendwill watch the shows with me, but

(23:45):
she's not a fan by any means, and that's something I kind of explained
to her because I can kind ofzone out during the shows now, especially
WAB shows, the commentators are interchangeable. For the most part, I don't
know who's there any of the timeunless Pat McAfee is on, because he's
such adam. He's such a dynamicpersonality that it's the host of the show.

(24:10):
It is such an important, vitalthing that is soulless in the ww
product now, and it just it. I couldn't imagine becoming a band without
a voice like Bobby Heenan, engagingme in these terrible Colonel move Staffa matches,
just doing something to keep my attention. Or even during the Nitro era,

(24:33):
yeah, the Cruiserweights were great towatch, but Tony and Bobby and
Mike Tine would talk about the nWoand help drive those main points home.
Whereas these guys now, I don'tknow if it's me or them. I
think it's them, but it couldjust be that I'm older and jaded.
Yeah, I could watch it withthe commentary off and feel like I'm not

(24:55):
missing much These days, I completelyagree with you. And it's interesting too,
because you know, even the lastfew weeks or I guess it's been
what two months now since Vince,you know, was kicked out. I
was told by a friend of minethat works for WWE in the corporate side.

(25:17):
He told me, he goes,I've really enjoyed the TV. Michael
Cole sounds like he has a newlease on life. Yes, And so
I was like, okay, well, I'll give it a shot. I'll
listen for a half hour. Andthere was some segment with Tyler Black Seth
Rollins and Matt Riddle and Michael Colewas talking over it, and I just

(25:45):
I think I lasted maybe ten minutes, and I said, this is not
for me. Yeah, this justisn't for me. And it sucks to
say that, right, I wantto enjoy it. Granted those are two
of my favorite people or wrestlers,but it's just when I turned it on

(26:07):
and I checked out immediately. SortYou're right to not have Bobby Heenan or
you know, a great orator tellingthese stories to get you to not only
laugh but also think and have somesort of you know, good or bad

(26:30):
reaction to the actions you're seeing onTV. It's a big hole. And
you know, wrestling is now amove based business as opposed to a psychology
based business. So yeah, Ithink it's Calibers is so great at what

(26:51):
he does, being able to nameevery move under the sun. And I
don't think he'll ever get enough creditfor that because I don't know some of
these things he says, and I'mjust like, yep, that was a
really cool flipping ado into this isthe thing and then the kick. Um.

(27:12):
So I guess the final question Ihave on the on the independence of
those days for you, because Imean, truthfully, I could go on
for ten hours on USWA and Globaland all these things from the nineties,
but did you get to see anySmoky Mountain. No? Um, they

(27:37):
were I want to say, thefar eastern tip of Kentucky and I was
you know, I was thirteen whenSmokey went under her. So I mean
the Smoky versus USWA feud as itexisted on the USWA television was incredible and
my favorite piece of business that Igot to watch week to week USWA related,

(28:00):
But I didn't actually get to magatinysmoky shows. I read about the
Super Bowl wrestling Weekend and inside Wrestlingthat year in ninety five, I guess
it would have been when Landelle wrestledMichael's thought all man like, next year,
I'm gonna save up money and I'mgonna go to this and those sons
of business went out of business toomuch later, yep, Rick Rubin pulled
the funding and that was the endof that. Um, I just I

(28:22):
find a lot of that. Iknow, like Austin Airis was very critical
of Cornets Roh booking, you know, smokey Mountain of honor or whatever catchphrase
he did, and that that's fair, I would say in his criticism.
But I do think there's room forboth, and wrestling is an infinite place

(28:47):
of expression and an accepting place ofexpression. It's a shame that a lot
of the old heads kind of forgotthat. And I, like you said,
you know, it's not necessarily we'rejaded fans or anything like that,
or we're not fans of wrestling likewe're talking about it right now on a

(29:10):
Sunday night taping a podcast. Butthere is a very big difference now versus
our younger days and what we doabout it and how we go about watching
it. Oh, absolutely. I'vebeen very vocal in my support of Cody

(29:33):
Roose. It started almost as abit on my end just being goofy to
me. It started as kind ofa modern expression of what excited me back
then the first nitro Lex Luger jumpingship. I thought, this is the
first time in twenty years we're gonnaget an opportunity for someone to go from
the aw side over and join theww as an outsider. And this is

(30:00):
exciting. This is a guy whocan make a statement almost like a ninety
nine Jericho, like we need somebodyto be the example of what can happen
if you're willing to come over toour side. So I became very invested
at him just from at standpoint,and then when he came in it just
laid it on so thick, Likehe won me over just based on I'm

(30:21):
a bullshit on myself. I loveanyone who's an unabashed committer of the bullshit,
and Cody was so deep in thatrealm. Followed by the corn Peck
performance, that's it. I'm allin on this guy, Like I have
two American Nightmare shirts now, LikeI've worked myself into a shoot here with
this guy. I'll tell you this, like Cody to me is one of

(30:44):
the most fascinating individual people in wrestling, and I I will hands down and
tell you I went out of myway to watch every single solitary segment he
was in on Raw. And thatfor those people that know me in the
real world and from wrestling, theyknow I don't watch anything on Monday nights

(31:12):
during football season or during basketball season. I will watch college basketball. There
are a couple of procedural shows Iwatch on Mondays. I will not put
on Raw, and I was DVRand Raw for the first time in ten
years because I have such a lovefor Cody and I do find him to

(31:37):
be so authentic, yes, inwhat he does. I will tell you
a story off air when we're doneabout Cody and Brandy just the type of
people they are. You're gonna behard pressed to find somebody who gets it

(32:02):
more than Cody. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, I was around him quite
a bit when he was breaking in. Uh. He came into O BW
as a very young man. Iwant to say he was twenty one.
Yeah, and because he was gonnaget acting school. Yeah, because he
was so young and green, likehe would get uh, kind of a

(32:25):
sign of these little extra bits partof winnings. Sometimes he gets thrown in
at the beginners. So I hadquite a bit of interaction with him back
then. Obviously, you know,he going to w W and I around
here in Louisville, so you know, we didn't keep touch. He's not
when I would consider our friend byany means. I doubt he even would

(32:45):
be able to pull me out ofthe lineup at this point. But uh,
yeah, like I was like thatkid, even even back then.
He's just a wonderful, wonderful guy. And I I wish you nothing but
the best at w W. Ihope he takes over the world. You
know, last podcast episode that Ihave with Scott McConnell, we talked about

(33:07):
how Canada is they've they've made BretHart a national hero as a pro wrestler.
Yeah, and I have been thelast few days having these discussions with
my friends about Okay, Mexico hasRay Masterio and Eddie Guerrero and then many

(33:30):
many years ago they had Al SantoAmerica doesn't really have that where it's a
good human being. And also theycome from wrestling and they're part of the
nomenclature of popular culture, and maybeJohn Cena is that at some point.
But he's an actor now. TheRock came from wrestling, but he's an

(33:57):
actor now, and I would evenargue he's bigger than that. He's a
brand, right, So talking aboutCody now kind of gives me the idea
maybe Cody can become that if hedidn't die. That's a part of the
culture. If you didn't have atattoo, a tattoo on his neck,
I haven't paid to be a senatorone day. Oh. I could even

(34:20):
see him in politics with the tattoo. I mean, I'm sure there's certain
people in certain political parties with threepercenter tattoos. Not not mentioning any names,
Ted Cruise or Kevin McCarthy or whateverother Bronze or law Lauren Boberg,

(34:45):
Trailer Park, Marjorie Green. Imean, it's just I love Cody and
I believe in Cody, and Ithink that's that's the bottom line here,
is that you believe in this characterand this person portraying the character. Yeah,

(35:07):
And he came into a very clearmission statement, I had unfinished business.
I want to be the world champion. I wanted to give it to
my dad. I can't do that, but this mission will move on and
it's it's easy to follow, it'seasy to grasp. He believes every word
he's saying. His actions are consistentas someone who wants to march to the
top. It's pretty gonna be fascinatingto see kind of how that all that

(35:30):
plays out as he returns. Yeah, I'm I'm super super excited for his
return, hopefully sooner than later.I'm guessing probably around the rumble. Yeah,
get to hear there's more than oneroyal family. And and then this

(35:51):
is where all you on the internetinsert your very cleverly written Cody Rhodes lyrics
parody. I think I won thatcontest with a titty meat hanging from a
phone or wherever. I said.Yeah, I mean there was a while
there where there was at least liketwo or three a day where I just

(36:14):
I couldn't stop laughing. And it'sa it's it's a great song. I
freely admit it's still my ring tonewhen I have the sound on my phone.
I like the song. I likethe band. It's not no,
it's catchy, it sounds different thaneverything else. Um, but we talked

(36:37):
vaguely about training and OVW. Sowhat takes you from super fan to all
right, I'm gonna go have ago at this, and picking OVW as
the place to go. Have thatgo. As most things with me,
has a ridiculous origin story. Iwas twenty four years old, married with

(37:02):
a one year old child, whichis the perfect time to try to train
to become a professional wrestler. Ofcourse, my wife at the time had
done some kind of refinancing, financialrestructuring of some sort, which I had
no real knowledge because I was twentyfour years old, and I just let
her into all that. But shesaid she had five hundred dollars for me

(37:25):
to do whatever with that's left overfrom this thing. And her suggestion was
to bind Xbox three sixty. Isaid, no, uh, obw's beginner's
class exactly five hundred dollars. Ithink, now that's the time to try
that, and she looked at melike I was an idiot. Rightfully so,

(37:45):
but I convinced her, Hey,you know, training is Mondays and
Tuesday nights. It's fifteen minutes fromthe house their WW developmental territory. At
the time. You know, thisreally is the best shot at someone like
me making money of this, soshe went along with it and I paid
my five hundred dollars. I whichMonday Tuesday's television was Wednesdays. You know,

(38:12):
OVW has their own building with thering permanently setup, so you don't
have the traditional set up and teardown. There's cleaning of trash, setting
up chairs or whatnot. But Iwould help out with the TV shows set
up with the we'd have occasional talkshows such as the Robbie Dabbers Show.
I would tear down that during commercialbreaks, and yeah, I stuck with
that, wasn't I didn't have someillustrious career. I wrestled off and on

(38:36):
for about a year before deciding itjust wasn't for me. And there are
two kickers kind of bring that home. One was I was seeing guys like
Nigel Beginnis and Brian Danielson just killingthemselves out there and not getting television contracts,
and I had such a great respectfor them and what to do.

(38:58):
I thought, well, Hell,if these guys can't make it, what
the hell am I doing here?And then at the same time the ben
Wa burners happened, and for mostof us who around At the time,
it seemed a very good woman doomfor the business as a whole. There
was talking from congressional hearings and WWEsort of doubling down on their stances,

(39:19):
which just seemed like the worst possiblemove at the time, and I just
didn't see the business going in we'rewell and we're good, So I decided
to god cash out while I stillhave a brand. So, I mean,
I think that's a really interesting pointto in mentioning that Nigel, you're

(39:40):
seeing Nigel and Brian and then nothaving TV contracts. I think that's an
interesting mindset because I think a lotof times now people are like, oh,
you can watch so and so wrestleon iw TV. You know they're
and they're they're doing real well.I mean, look at Jolie Janella for

(40:04):
example, right, he goes toSigns of aw he's a part of the
initial press conference launch in Jacksonville.He's there for two years and not renewed,
and he's wrestling every weekend, Imean multiple times during the week.
He's touring in Australia and Japan andEngland and here and there, and you

(40:29):
know, every day. He's asocial media you know, magnet for attention
because either he's doing something completely absurdand unprofessional or he's just being you know,
Joey from New Jersey, and Ilove Joey. I have nothing but
you know, kind words to sayabout him. He's I think I've known

(40:51):
him since he was like sixty,you know, and it makes me feel
super old because I was like two. But uh, you know, Joey's
a good dude. But he heis the epitome of the modern day version
of good wrestler without a TV contract, right right, But he's on streaming.
Streaming didn't exist in two thousand andsix, two thousand and seven.

(41:14):
Um So, training at ov W, who you know who all is around
you? Kind of in the classesyou mentioned Cody, um you know who
at the time was just starting out. He's my age. Let me betray
just a little bit. At thetime I applied to get into this thing,

(41:35):
Paul Hayman was doing the booking forOVW. Um I I don't think
I had cable television at the time. Maybe like I somehow didn't know that
they were about to relaunch ECW andthat he would be pulled for that.
Um So, yeah, just likethe three weeks that you actually start training
like he's gone. And Paul wasknown locally because he would actually watch the

(42:00):
beginner's classes and put guys on television, one of those guys being the future
Santino. He was trained. Ifnot beginners, then maybe he was in
rip Ro Rodgers intermediate class. Buthe wasn't a contract guy, and Paul
saw something in him and book him. He was replaced. I want to
say Al Snow was doing the bookingand Al was just Crammy is shit,

(42:24):
man, I guess common knowledge now, but I have no future in that
business. I'll bury anyone. Idon't give a shit. He was around
some of the people that were aroundme, Victoria Crawford, Alicia Fox,
Alicia Fox and Klay Kelly had justbeen signed and then they fast tracked Kelly

(42:47):
to TV and sent Foxy to trainwith us, so she was there.
We had god, what was hisname, Ricky Ortiz, I think yeah,
yes, with the Ricky rally towels. Uh. He was a super
good guy and huge, just amassive summatch. He looked apart, yes,

(43:12):
like you. I'd see him inmagazines and stuff and I'd be like,
oh, this fucking guy he lookslike he's got main event level size
and skill, which in hindsight isa ridiculous statement to say, because you
don't have to be six five andshredded to the gills and two hundred and

(43:36):
eighty pounds to be a main eventor right. You know, that's time
and generations passing through. I takea bazillion Brian Danielson's before I would take
one Atlas de Bone. No offenseto Atlas de Bone, right, Yeah,
the mood and OVW was pretty goodat the time. A spirit squad

(44:00):
guys for working with DX and theyhad you know, they were still around
like mikey Mondo would pop his headand all the time just to check on
things. He was training the classright before I got there, and so
most Sexton was the trainer. He'sI think he's still kicking around Northeast Indies.
He was a New York guy.And then Tank Toland James Dick from

(44:24):
SmackDown Fame took over the classes andhe actually started getting bookings for Ring of
Honor while he was training that classas a part of Sweden sour Ink.
He was the fitness trainer. Yesit was he seth sky Fire and Deuce
of Deuced Domino fame for the kindof the three guys handled the training when

(44:46):
I started, and then Duce cycledout because they got called up and Sean
Spears took over. Sean Sean hassince blocking down Twitter because I'm me,
but I had nothing but good thingsto say about Sean as a wrestler and
as a trainer. Like Cody sandthat pro, He's a great hand,
he was really awesome. He's underrated. He had this feud with Cabana and

(45:12):
OBW that was both ridiculous and amazingat the same time. At one point,
there's a stuff bunny who was electrocated. It's one of the favorite things
I've seen on wrestling television. Ihad a pretty good conversation with Sean one
day about OVW, and I wasjust curious, like because I knew he

(45:35):
did. He'd gotten released pre ECWwhere he was re christened Gavin Spears.
Yes, And I asked him,I said, where did this Gavin thing
come from? Because like, SeanSpears just sounds better. Like he was
like, well, you know,they didn't really want to have another Sean

(45:57):
on TV, and my god,He's like I know, and I said,
well, like the Cabana few thatyou had was so compelling to me
because I couldn't wait each week tosee it. And at that time I
was seeing things in monthly increments becauseI was buying the shows from Roh.

(46:21):
So I would see a month ofOVWTV and I'd be like, oh,
man, I got to wait anotherlike three weeks, so I watched this
again. Man. So I meanthere were there were people that were in
OVW even prior to like you know, the oh five time frame, going
back further to the Albright era umwith punk Um. You know, you

(46:44):
mentioned the Spirit Squad Johnny Jeter,I thought had just a sky high potential.
Ziglar you know zigler Um, DickNemeth, you know, he was
always kind of on my radar,is like, wow, this guy's really
good. We went to the samecollege kind of around the same time.

(47:09):
I didn't know him, but Iknew the name. He He may be
the one guy at w WE thathas suffered the most and they will never
figure out what they have with thatguy, Like if he had just been

(47:30):
ballsy enough to go walk away,voted Impact or go to our age or
whatever you know, was out therefor him. We could be talking about
that guy is like an all timelevel guy. Yeah. When they sent
when they sent the squad back toov w uh, severally guys kind of

(47:54):
had half ass like there are acouple of them were like a frat boytag
gimmick for a little bit. Jeterjust disappeared. But Nick Nimmuth, he
was working because of our amateur shows. It was the essentially beginner's class and
rips class ticket seller people. Nickwas volunteering to work with those guys for

(48:14):
free, just get ring reps andto get experienced for leading guys who weren't
as good as him. This wasyour two thousand and six, two thousand
and early two thousand and seven.Like early on, he had something special
in him and I think that's whyhe's the one guy in that group that
ever made it back to television.And he was back pretty quick, but

(48:36):
have been probably the end of eight. I know he was in the O
nine rubble, but he was Hewas Chavos caddy that hers her own white.
He was Kurwin White's caddy um.And think about what the but the
name of Javos newly purposed white guywas uh currowing white um but like Nick,

(49:05):
I mean, he was somebody thatI looked at as like the WWE
version of Brian Danielson. He wasthe worker, Yes, and I to
this day, you know, Idon't watch a lot of WWE. But
he went back to NXT for alittle while and did a couple of matches,

(49:28):
and I watched him in Chompa andI just was like, Wow,
this is like an ROH style match, but it's on an XT television with
very shiny colors surrounding them. Yeah. I can't explain to how it happened,
but around late sixteen, Ninka wasZiler and miss his series on pay

(49:51):
per view, and it's somehow it'slike they did ice versus Soul swap,
like Mad somehow left with all theheat and Ziggler went to a guy people
just didn't really care to see anymore. And it's not like it's work dipped
at all. It's just some somethinghappened in those three months. It's it's
the East Side versus the West Sideof clear battle for the Soul of aar

(50:16):
SmackDown. You know, I I'veknown this since he was on the real
world. He actually dated my neighborSarah Ledwin, and I mean he is
a super fan of wrestling. Yeah, So when I found that there was

(50:39):
this guy that I think he's acouple of years older than I am.
There's this guy that says he's gonnabe a wrestler, that knows all of
this knowledge about you know, WCW, and he's a fan of Ravishing,

(50:59):
Rick Rude. You know, heknew all these people and we could have
a conversation about it and not feellike two nerds. So I was like,
well, I really respect this guy. And then I saw him on
the Tough Enough or whatever the thingwas called that he with Daniel Pewter was

(51:21):
that who was his finalists, andI just thought to myself, like,
wow, this guy made it.H Good things really do happen to people
that care. And I think he'skind of been maligned unfairly by wrestling fans
as a guy that's not very good. But I don't know. He's got

(51:44):
a hot wife, he's got anamazing house, and more money than you
can count, so I think hewins. He is one of the most
winningest people in life that I've seenforty years on the slantt's and he's just
and he never lost himself in thebusiness, like exactly, he's still Mike

(52:07):
Mazzani in from Cleveland, Ohio.There is no change because oh he's now
rich Mike Massanian and lives in laand is he's not too big for his
you know, childhood friends. Orhe's still back here every year Thanksgiving Eve

(52:28):
doing the Miss Tour nice which herents out like a party bus or a
van and they go to a bunchof bars kind of near where he grew
up, and he pays for everybody. Um. The guy that does the
Browns Radio is a part of thatgroup, and he actually is an announcer

(52:49):
for AIW Nathan Zigura. Okay,so I have a ton of respect for
Miss. And he's another one thatcame through OVW kind of post Jim Cornett
h and was a Hayman guy.And I mean, we can't talk OVW
without talking about Jim Cornett. AndI don't know how much interaction you had

(53:16):
with Jim, but there's certainly storiesand and um, you know, I
don't want to say rumors because I'mpretty sure there are one hundred percent true
about special room in his house andhot tubs and things of that nature.
But I guess you know this iswhere we talk about the cook with the

(53:38):
tennis racket. Yeah, I've Ididn't actually meet Jimmy here. I met
him at an ROH show. HI it was one of the Chicago two
thousand and six weekend shows. Ijust saw him standing out. He was
watching Claudio's match. That's what rockHard on cologging. Yeah, so that's

(53:59):
what I'll shook my hand, introducedmyself, told him I'm, you know,
live in the area, and hadanne brief conversation. Was that nothing
special at all. When I departedthe OVW training, I did some intermitt
in printing locally with some less thanreputable promoters and just the kind of shitty
independent people you end up with.And one of the guys had been around

(54:22):
OW for years, kind of prebefore they got that nice building in Louisville
in two thousand and two, theywere at this terrible building in Jeffersonville with
no AC and he was around fortheir original DAVI arena, Yeah, the
one on Mechanic Street with a postvisible art game and all that. But

(54:44):
anyway, he told me a bunchof stories back then about certain people getting
developmental deals because they spent a nightliving in sin or to speak, and
because of who he was, Ibelieved it. But you know, I'm
not going to talk about this stuffbecause I don't know these people well.
And it's like king shaming is notsomething that anybody on this show is for.

(55:09):
It's just shaming Jim Cornette because he'sJim Cornett. Is fine by all
the oh, but then years latersomeone else brings us up publicly. I'm
like, all right, well,I happen to know a little bit about
this. Now I will speak onit. Like I didn't want to break
the news, so to speak,but hey, this is something people were
talking about. I didn't Once Istarted making jokes about it, all of

(55:32):
a sudden, my deems are gettingfull with other local wrestlers like, oh
man, did you know this?Did you know this? I saw this
happened. Yeah, it's a prettywell known up. I guess I have
to say allegedly because I mean broadcast, but we don't see step on us.
Stephen pe knew what was going inat next rooms. And like,

(56:00):
I don't think Jim's denied that theseproclivities take place. I don't think he's
gone. I don't think He's goneon record to seeing that anyone got a
job out of it, which isfair. Like, I don't know for
sure that anyone got a job outof it, but I do know at
least one developmental wrestler who was activelypartaking any activities when they got their deal.
I'll say that, and that's youknow, there is a dirty side

(56:24):
to pro wrestling that exists, andit is not exclusive to OVW or Jim
Cornett or or anybody. I don'tthink we're being specific enough to say that,
Like, pro wrestling has always hadthis side to it of hey,

(56:46):
hey, brother, if you dothis for me, I'll do this for
you. It's always been there,just the nature of the beast. And
I hate to like saying anything negativeabout wrestling as a whole because I've you
know, as I've said on thisshow a million times, I am just
trying to pay back to wrestling whatwrestling is given to me, and I

(57:10):
will forever be indebted because wrestling keepsgiving and I keep taking. So but
there is a very shady side topro wrestling that has existed for you know,
dating back to the origins of whatpro wrestling was. It was a
carnival sport. You know, it'slike, oh, hey, pick the

(57:32):
guy out of the crowd to comein the ring and pin the muscle guy.
But you know a little do youknow the guy in the crowd that
they're picking is also a part ofthe circus, right. My great grandfather
on my father's side, my father'smother, he was a carnival wrestler.

(57:58):
And I don't really know too manydetails about it, and there's not a
lot known because it was so earlyon in the nineteen hundreds. But he
came to the States from the Ukraineand you know, found a job,
was like a local strong man andworked on the railroad. And I also

(58:22):
played professional football and professional baseball,and somehow also was a pro wrestler of
some sort. So I have nodoubt there was like some sort of Carney
scheme. I wish he was stillalive, you know, when I was
born. He passed away, Ithink in the fifties or sixties. You

(58:46):
know, I would have loved totake a deep dive into what the carnival
era of pro wrestling was like.Oh for sure, that fascinates me more
than anything anybody could put on mytelevision now. But there's nobody alive that
was there to see it or bea part of it. So it's all

(59:07):
secondhand knowledge. Like talking about jimcornett Um. So aside from meeting him
at ROH, was there anything elsecirca OVW that he was around for And
when once he slaps Santino, hewas gone. Yeah, that happened a

(59:28):
few months before I got there,and I think he was still part owner
for a bid. But I wantto say around middle six, Danny bottom
out Danny Davis to become one hundredpercent owner. So yeah, Jimmy wasn't
around. He was doing TNA maybeat the time, either either he was
doing TENA or he's about to startwith TNA. I think he would have

(59:51):
been about to start because he washe was doing the Roh Cage of Death
stuff. Yes, summer, uhyou know, of six, and he
may have been around a little bitNo five as well, but nothing really
stands out. I forget when hestopped managing the Briscoes, that was what

(01:00:12):
he was doing prior. Yeah,that was super early, probably like oh
four oh three, And yeah,they put him into be the like the
commissioner maybe in late oh five soundsright. October second of two thousand and
five. He was named commissioner inPhilly the night after Joe Kobashi. So

(01:00:39):
I'm embarrassed that I pulled out formemory. Yeah. Well, you know,
the whole thing was like Percy Pringlecame out in the Paul Bearer costume
and makeup because he was there filminga shoot interview from the Straight Shooting series,
and then he was like, I'mthe new ROAHS commissioner. Oh yeah.

(01:01:00):
And then Jim Cornett was the musicThe Midnight Express music hits and Cornette
comes out and he goes, I'mthe new commissioner of Ring of Honor.
And then he wasn't on any showsfor like quite some time because he was
selling in promos filmed in the ROHoffices the next day for like the next
two or three months. And thenhe was on a couple of shows after

(01:01:22):
that. But I, um,there's a picture I have that I took
with Jim, I think at likethe merchandise table when he was selling the
Midnight Expressed book and he looked atme and he goes, I see you
in every town. What are youdoing in dating and go, I don't
know, I live close sort ofand I was like, I just you

(01:01:46):
know up seventy one, ye know, then you get on the seventy seven
and then you go to my house. That's that's the directions. And he
was like, oh, you know, thanks for being a Ring of Honor
fan and coming to all the shows. Bustled me out and I was like,
not even I thank you, it'sgreat, thanks for being a fan,

(01:02:07):
just thanks for coming to the shows. H. Not thank you for
buying my book. I don't eventhink he signed the book. Now that
impacted it. I'd have to go. Um, but Jim, Jim isn't
not the only um wait, howcould I say this and not get into

(01:02:27):
trouble? The only uh creepy weirdowas the area. Um there was also
this fella by the name of IanRotten who promoted the IWA Mid South And
to his credit, Ian, youknow, it was kind of the first
place that see him Punk m ASteel, Colt, Cabana, Um,

(01:02:53):
Tracy smothers. Uh. You know, at least in modern times post ECW
those guys got breaks and got achance to work every week in that fame
building that you talked about. Yeah, Ian, I went to a few

(01:03:14):
shows in ninety seven and ninety eight, when IWA was still operating in the
old kam Art building on DC Haigwayin Louisville, me not understanding local geography.
I still struggle with this sometimes metoo. And I lived four houses
down from the house I was bornin. I did not know that where
I was in Louisville. I washere Indiana and just I'd have no idea

(01:03:37):
where to go. So Ian wasrunning shows in Clarksville and New Albany and
Jeffersonville, and all three of thosesmaller cities are essentially I think of them
almost like Louisville, like they're justone bigger city, all that close to
each other. And there's literally beena fifteen thirty minute drive tops for me

(01:03:58):
to go to these shows, andI had no idea. By the time
I finally decided to go to theseshows, they lost the building in the
Clarksville, so I didn't really knowhow to pursue it from there. They
ended up promoting the Chicago area exclusivelyfor a while after that. But yes,

(01:04:19):
Bevin sens, Yeah, I meanthey've they've been kicked out of so
many buildings over the years that it'sit's kind of hard to keep track of
all the cities. Yeah, Jimmyran them out of the town by going
to the commission and basically saying they'redoing chicken head fighting freak show bullshit and

(01:04:39):
goad them ran out. So that'show they end in Indiana, which is
kind of the business model today forindies. Most indies now run out of
one building in Jeffersonville because there's nocommission on the Indiana side. But ahead
the reason, the reason I putthem both in the format next to each
other was just so they could fighton the format with each other and each

(01:05:01):
other out. So to Ian's credit, in two thousand and four, I'm
watching Monday Night Raw and a commercialcomes on Raw for Ima in itself,
it had to be the only promotingdollars he ever spent in his life.
But it reached me and the holyshit, they're gonna be in Bloviny.
I told my fiance at the time, we have to go to this.

(01:05:25):
It's never been to a wrestling showperiod, and I take her to Ida
it It turned out to be Nightone or maybe Night two, a like
a four night double shot or quadrupleshot. I guess it would be.
It was TPI weekend and it wasthe night before TPI started. So in

(01:05:45):
New Aubany we see puncosus Claudio timeI'd ever seen Claudio, Alex Shelley and
Roddy against a hero in Nigel ajStyles against uh Aj worked. I want
to say he worked, he worked, he worked dragging that night the main

(01:06:06):
event was a B boy and PeteWilliams Eddie Kingston was on the showing his
tag match. Just like an insaneamount of talent for fifteen dollars and there
couldn't have been thirty people in thatcrowd. Yeah that was I'm waiting for
that punchline of like, yeah therewas like twelve people. Just horrible turnout

(01:06:26):
and to Ian's credit, like that'show you read the most rustling fans in
that area, you advertiser and raw. He did everything he could and just
could not draw the people in theTPI crowds looked a lot better. But
that was several north of here,you know. I went to a couple
of tpis and the thing that alwaysfascinated me. I remember I walked into

(01:06:46):
the let say it was the Oseven TPI and I think I went No.
Seven and eight and I mean Ilooked at the cards, and you
know the heroes. Claudio's Quackenbush,the sex pest with the mustache. He
was on there, Albright, Ithink Jimmy Jacobs might have been. But

(01:07:14):
regardless, I mean, you're you'reflying in a lot of these people,
right, yeah. So I'm lookingaround that I'm maybe trying to do like
a little bit of a head count, I guess, and there's two hundred
people ish, and I'm thinking,what does this guy do possibly for a
living? Did he just he fliesall these people in for wrestling, Either

(01:07:38):
that or they're not making any moneydoing the wrestling. Kingston and Hero was
on that show or one of thoseseven. I think they to each other.
So like Hero was living in Philly, Kingston was in New York,
and I'm like, huh, allright, nobody's making any money here.

(01:08:01):
It just it felt different than likethe indie wrestling I was used to,
which was roah at that point.Yes, And I am just stunned.
I don't know if i WA isstill a thing. I know it was
like as of a year ago,but there they were back down toward your

(01:08:25):
area. Yes, they went outof business, went out of business with
quotations. I guess it would havebeen ten twelve years ago, very publicly
kind of infamously auctioned off the pizzaOven to try to raise some money.
But then he came back after ayear or two and stuck mostly to the

(01:08:45):
Louisville area with weekly shows and fora while bi weekly shows, which is
insane. There's no way you're goingto draw people here every week without television,
especially in the year of Our Lordtwenty eighteen or whatever it was.
I actually went to the twenty sixteendeath which was held in an alley behind
the gay bar in New Aubany,Indiana during broad daylight. The Mike uh,

(01:09:10):
oh god, what was that guy'sname? They like beat the ship
out of him. Oh no,no, that was and that was in
two thousand and eight, and thatwas at a bowling alley in Salisburg,
Indiana. Uh that like Ian's kidwas beating his ass and Mickey knuckles and
yeah, all kinds of people gotlike t it was like Mike something or

(01:09:30):
other. H Mike Bailey. No, No, he was I guess like
a yarder that had been talking shit. So they put him in the tournament
and just beat his ass. Yeah, they they smoked him out real quick.
So yeah, he went out ofbusiness for good. I guess it's
been earlier this year. Somebody publiclysaid something about not getting paid, and

(01:09:55):
then others started to speak out tothe point where they just said, fuck
this, we're folding up. Shot. You mentioned what does this guy do
for a living? I had accidentallyran in him at the taco bell he
worked at once. Oh that wasn't, I swear to God, And I
mean an unknown fact that I hadno intentions of bringing up the inn worked

(01:10:21):
a fast food place and blow andbehold, Yeah, he would like work
it. Somehow got out that theword was it was the Taco Bell on
Taylor Boulevard in Louisville. I checked. There was no tacol bell on Taylor
Boulevard. Taylor Boulevard turns into NewCut Road, and there was a Taco

(01:10:42):
Bell on New Cut. So Iwent there with the express mission of confirming
this news. He wasn't there,So I got a chloop or whatever went
out about my business. Like threemonths later, I'm working in Jevisonville,
Indiana, and there's a Taco bellon Tenth Street in Jevisonville. I go
there. During my lunch break andI'm like three cars behind. I'm like,
man, whoever is that this windowhas some shitty tattoos and not even

(01:11:05):
thinking it could be Ian. Sowe get up to the window and he's
takes my money and I'm not evenreally paying attention, and as he goes
to hand me the order, Ilook up. We make eye contact and
I'm wearing that ring of Honor trackjacket that they started selling. I'm like,
oh eight, I'm wearing that.And he just looks at me and

(01:11:25):
looks at the jacket, and theburrito's froze in the air between us because
he knows he's caught, and hHe's like, sos that run of honor.
I just said, yep, giveme my food. He said,
You're not gonna go online with this, are you? So I don't think
so, man, enjoy your day. I put that motherfucker in park and

(01:11:47):
logged into Crazy Max immediately to tellthe Good Brothers fun just saw. I
mean, that is like maybe thegreatest story ever told on this podcast,
pure pure half astance. When Iwas looking for him, I couldn't find

(01:12:08):
him, and then months later,oh man, just just the best.
I have nothing to say that speechless, mind you, I had. I
had no idea that this was whenI brought up Ian Rotten, because you
know, when you talked to theLouisville, Kentucky area of wrestling, the

(01:12:30):
Kentuckiana area, i WA is abig part of the history. And then
I don't want to make it soundlike they're all death matches and garbage wrestling
and all that kind of stuff,because they had some great wrestling. I
mean, Flash Flannagan came through there. Obviously, I mentioned Punk Cabana,
Ace Big Capri, who I justsaw was in a six man on Dynamite

(01:12:56):
a few weeks ago and it poppedme big time time. Um. I
mean, the list could go onand on. Obviously, the tpis everybody
knows about those, right. Thetwo thousand and four TPI is still I
would say, referred to as thegreatest tournament in the history of wrestling,

(01:13:17):
you know, true tournament, notlike a g one where it's like a
rounder, right. I mean thatthat show, those two shows are just
loaded with talent, and it's it'spretty incredible that something like that could come
up. But i WA was kindof the forerunner to ROH in terms of

(01:13:40):
the great wrestling and the variety ofstyles. Chris Hero also, you know,
came from IWA Mid South. Iguess you could call him an IWA
original. That seems to be thebranding people like to go with in wrestling
nowadays. Yeah, and Ian claimshim as such. Would where his hero

(01:14:00):
would come back like in between WW, since he was wrestling a lot of
i WA shows in the Southern Indianamarket, namely the twentieth Anniversary show in
twenty sixteen. He had a bigmatch that show before he ended up back
in WW just a couple of monthslater. He's he's somebody that has always

(01:14:25):
been loyal to that brand, andhey, I say great, Like I
think loyalty is a quality that isto be admired in all of life in
general. But IWA is there,and then you find roh House. So
I first got online in March oftwenty twenty two or twenty thousand and two,

(01:14:49):
excuse me, I think it wasthe same week that Wrestling India happened
that year, and I knew Iwanted to look up wrestling. That first
night I bought my computer and theonly website I could remember was one wrestling
dot Com. So I went thereand there was a big, bold story
about the round robin challenge was eitherabout to happen or it just happened,

(01:15:15):
and I just kept seeing ring ofon or ring of what the hell is
this? And then over on thetorch Derek Bergen was writing these outstanding DVD
reviews. Derek, Derek is anunsung hero of that scene, especially back
then, these smart, funny,really well written pieces. Now he writes

(01:15:36):
mostly about theme parks of all things. But okay, whatever, Yeah he
does. He's gotten super into theDisney scene. Oh that's way above my
pay grade. Yeah. I don'tknow what happened there, but God bless
him, he's doing good there.Yes. So I started reading his reviews

(01:15:57):
and he was harping on how greatof a show the original Death Before Dishonor
was. So I camped on thisinformation for months of being fairly young I
was twenty two years old or so, and decided, you know what,
thirty dollars was shipping sounds like alot for one show of an independent I've
never really seen, but I'm gonnago for it. I ordered Death Before
Dishonor, and within forty eight hoursof you pressing that piece of order button.

(01:16:20):
The Einstein scandal broke, so beforethe DVD could chip, companies in
turmoil, and I am a selfishass kid, who all I want to
know is where's my DVP hit thirtybucks for? So I waited maybe a
week and I emailed I don't knowif there's r H help at the time.

(01:16:42):
Hey, I know you guys arebusy, but can I get my
DVD please? And within three daysit was in the in my mailbox like
they took care of it. Obviouslyoutstanding event, all right, you know
it was so it was bringing twothousand and four hours on my first show,

(01:17:04):
ordered a couple or DVDs, youknow, liked it, but wasn't
committed or anything. And my fromtwenty third birthday February two thousand and five,
my wife at is the town wantto take me on the road trip?
My birthday is February twenty third,which obviously is our watans birthday as
well. So well, uh,you know that this company I've been watching,

(01:17:26):
Sharon has some shows that weekend.Let me look it up, and
we could have gone to Dayton orChicago that week. In Chicago more exciting
city. So that's where we landed. My first live show was Third Anniversary
Celebration Part three with a punkin JimmyRave and h Cornette and Bobby Haing and
on opposite side of managing people andthe Joe Aris rematch, and I had

(01:17:49):
never been in a show that wasthat electric with just the crowd responses and
the people around me and knowledgeable fanswho were reacting, and I was hoaxed.
From then on. My second showwould have been I can't think of
the August show in Dayton. Werepumped at the title redemption, yes,

(01:18:12):
and then yeah, I was headingaround running. I want to say it
was that Christmas that I just pureaccident managed to get the first cent or
eight rohduts for Christmas and me realizingI got them in order. Maybe once
you try to watch it from thebeginning, and that's what I did.
I stuck with that through probably twothousand and nine of trying to go back

(01:18:32):
and watch all of it, whichis a foolish man's game, but hey,
you know, I've never been ahus of being a genius, so
here we are. It's it's alwaysinteresting. I always love hearing what everybody's
first show was, because I'd getto find anybody that they're like my first
show was this, I'm like,oh interesting, Like that show was terrible,

(01:19:00):
unrepresentative of what bring a line orpresented. And I think that's the
magic of our wage and especially inthe early years. You know, you
go back to March of four,I'm lying to my parents about where I'm
going and gone for the weekend todrive to the Rexplex in New Jersey,

(01:19:20):
you know, three or four daysafter the owner is caught, you know,
having a well, just stay tunedfor the Code of Honor book about
March two, or check out ourat our Best episode. I believe it's
episode two or three in the archives. But I'd like you had to see

(01:19:45):
it. Everything was you had tosee this because there was something on every
single show somehow that you could takeaway and say, I had never seen
that before and I want to seesomething like that again. And it was
almost like an obsession for some ofus to where we needed to see every

(01:20:11):
show as soon as it hit rowaWrestling dot Com or LLL pretend you said
eighteen video dot com add decart byboom Gunn. You know, I can't
tell you when I went to collegein the fall of two thousand and four
as a freshman, I obviously couldn'ttake my entire DVD collection to my dorm

(01:20:38):
room, but ball and Behold,there was storage room under the bed,
and I had a clear container ofDVDs in there that I'd sit there and
watch. My roommate played his videogames and had a pissing contest about it.
Good turn their TV up, louder. You haven't lived until you've heard

(01:20:58):
Jimmy Bauer at nine yelled dangerous okayin a tiny dorm room with an ra
I think three or four doors down. I'm trying to think. It's so
long h the that February double shot. So I was at the Friday Show

(01:21:26):
in Dayton m with Aries and JackEvans against Joe and Brian, Yeah,
and Gibson and Spanky made their Udebut and return r Age, and it
just I think each individual building hadits own lure to it. Um.

(01:21:53):
But when it came to the biggershows, the Anniversary Show, Death Before
Just Honor, Supercard of Honor,Avenge Final, Gorbatur, Final Battle,
the Big Ones, there was somethingin the air. And I don't know
if if you felt that way aboutthose shows or the regular shows, but

(01:22:17):
there was something magical about that time, and I don't know how that was
created or you know, cultivated byRoage, but it seemed like all the
fans were having the same feeling atthe same time. Not only was that

(01:22:40):
palpable to me, I can tellyou the first show out is that where
I didn't feel it and it startedto feel like, oh man, something's
different here. And it would havebeen the Chicago I want to say,
April two thousand and eight, maybewhen they ran the machine Guns Brisco this
rematch main event was a Steen andNigel. They shown it was something Uh,

(01:23:08):
oh god, I'm trying to thinkof what it was. It had
I know the name it was assoon as I see it. Uh it
was Oh then return engagement. Yes, at the whole show was built around

(01:23:32):
uh, Austin Ari's cooking Jimmy Jacobs, and just as the schneight went on,
just people were less and less intoit, and then something was up
was seen in the main event theyhad to go home early. It just
it was the first time I feltlike they felt short. Well. And

(01:23:53):
it's interesting that you say that that'sa show where it kind of felt short,
because if you look at the waythis show is structured, very fascinating.
Aries opens the show beating Silas Young. There's a dark match with Danny
Daniels and Red being Trick Davis andERNIEA. Cyrus. Aries beat Silas Young

(01:24:15):
and the DVD opener. Then itgoes right into Mitch Franklin and Alex Paine
where necro Butcher does a run inand then he beats them both and calls
out Moreshima, which is building towardthe Hammerstein debut a new level. Then
Claudio and Pelly take on Pearson Albrey, where you're building toward the split between

(01:24:42):
Pearson Albright. You have a shimmertag Mischief and Lacy against Daisy Hayes and
Madison Rain. Ashley Lane. Weused to be my waitress at Chili's when
I was regular there, which whenI recently told her that story, she
said, how do you even rememberso well? You talk wrestling, and

(01:25:06):
can I say, right, there'slike a sophomore in college two thousand and
five, probably hero and delirious,and then the machine guns, Brisco's age
of the fall, attacks of Briscosand spiked Mark's arm afterwards, But then

(01:25:27):
you talk about this show having likea drop off, but then you get
Coda Abushe and el Jen Erico,which at the time is pretty revolutionary.
Yeah. Age of the fall OverVulture Squad, which was Tyler Black,
Zach Gowen and Joey Matthews, JoeyMercury taking on Jack Evans Ruckis and Jake

(01:25:51):
Saw. Can you have an inring with Jacob's Lacy and Jacobs has a
temper tantrum sort of? I meanvery clearly, you're doing this psychological warfare
with aries and Jacob's here and thenNigel over Kevin for the title, And

(01:26:16):
I mean, to me, juston the surface, I'm looking at this
show and I'm gonning this sounds allpretty good. But at the same time,
I'm looking at this roster. I'mnot seeing Brian Danielson. I'm not
seeing Nigel, I'm not seeing Samoa, Joe, I'm not seeing Roderick,

(01:26:40):
which is really bizarre the grand schemeof things, because it felt like he
was on every show. It iskind of one of those bottom ball shows.
No Claudio either. Yeah, andthen the next show I was the
Yeah. The next show I wentto would have been the show in Dayton

(01:27:01):
where Pierce was wrestling Nigel for thein WA and r Wage titles, and
they're doing a lot of gaga,Like Nigel is holding one of the streamers
over his eyes like he's a repoman. Yeah, there's a lot of
silliness. Stevens had went over Brianon that drow and people were not happy

(01:27:23):
about that. I still like toget very shit over that, but yeah,
just it seemed like the momentum wasgoing the wrong way just from the
little Obviously I wasn't seeing every showat that point, but like the magic
wasn't gone, but it was fadingalready by that point for me, see,
and I was at a point whereI was doubling down at that point.

(01:27:45):
That's not always the best thing todo, but my personal life in
two thousand and eight was rather tumultuousat best, So I needed something to
grab onto um and I just decidedall my friends good to r oh,
so will be um. Obviously withall these shows, are you attaching yourself

(01:28:12):
to wrestlers that you think are youknow, your personal favorites? Oh yeah,
I was a big punk guy.Obviously. That didn't last long with
him departing, and I met Joebriefly and oh seven, he had just
left the company. I was like, man, I just wish we were
back there. You know, I'msure you're getting paid here and everything's great,
but just for the art. Yeah, I like what you're doing in

(01:28:35):
RH so much more. And he'skind of laughed about it. I was
a big Brisco's guy. I lovedthe Briscoes. I loved skin and Generico.
Alex Shelley I thought was going tobe the next Chris Jericho. Yeah,
you know, I'm really glad youmentioned Alex because he's somebody that I

(01:28:56):
don't think we'll ever get his flowersthe way he deserves. And Eric Stevens
to me is another one, butin a different way. Alex Shelley to
me, I think maybe the mostunderrated and underappreciated wrestler in the history of
ROH. You know, over thetwenty year period he was I don't think

(01:29:20):
you've read a bad match. Ithink he progressed. He changed his character.
He emphasized doing these little things like, you know, winking at people
as he would walk by, ordoing a thumbs you know, like a
fake thumb to the eye to peoplewhen he was a heel. And then

(01:29:42):
you know, okay, doking referees, and you know, I go back
to that Arena warfare match he hadwith Brian where they're stalling for time because
Joe's playing was like Joe is inthe three way main event, and it
was Joe Daniels and Cabana and Shelleyand Brian have like this twenty minute spiel

(01:30:04):
with this little girl in the crowd. Like Shelley's doing all these little body
mannerisms that are so important in thegreend scheme of wrestling. But if you're
just casually watching wrestling, you're probablynot noticing, right. But if you're
a die hard or you're in thebusiness, you see what he's doing and

(01:30:27):
you just go that guy gets it. Oh, I was it made.
Both of these may have happened atROH at two thousand and six Chicago Weekend
where he was tagging with JL Weekend, but he was the ref was on
to me a one, two,three or four. As he's leaving the
rings those his arm, Stelfs says, I hear you, geez, Louise,
and something about the way he deliveredit just killed me. And then

(01:30:50):
they're doing this deal where he's mockinglyholding the baby faces rist out for his
corner, like go ahead and makethe tag, make the tag, and
then he makes tag. He'say,oh shit, that's supposed to happen.
Just so entertaining, and you knowhe the machine Guns got their credit as
a they're starting to get their creditI think more now as a great tag

(01:31:13):
team. But there's a worky workywork, and there's nothing wrong with that.
You know, they're great at that. Alex will never get his due
as just an entertaining guy. Hegets it at a level to very few
ever get it. I think tothe pairing with Jimmy Rave changed so much
for Alex Shelley, where before that, like he was the bad guy in

(01:31:35):
Gen Next where he was just thetypical bad guy jerk. But then there's
a comedic layer you can add tothat when he's in the embassy with Nana
and Rave to playoff of with thetoilet paper and the blowing snot and the

(01:31:55):
you know, all these extra crowdinvolved. That guy is ms. It
really made me appreciate him and Ithink the world of Alex Shelley. He
is easily in my you know topfive list of favorite Roah wrestlers from the
last twenty years and making a topfive list is as you know, it's

(01:32:21):
it's difficult for me. Yes,you know, Haggingbarn likes to joke I
have one hundred people in my topfive, and then my top five changes
on the hour. And he maynot be wrong, but Alex Shelley is
somebody that I thought should have beena world champion. And obviously with the

(01:32:42):
way Ring of Honor ran, therejust wasn't enough time. He was in
Tema as well, so that wasa problem. There's so many little things
about Alex that I just could goon about. Eric Stevens another one.
He and Roderick could have been justthe most badass tag team. Yeah.

(01:33:08):
I like Eric a lot more nowthan I did then, and looking back
at it, like the rejection wasn'this fault up to that. Up to
that point, everybody who had kindof become the man sort of speak in
roag felt very organic, and Ericfelt very much like Gabe decided this is

(01:33:28):
gonna be our guy, let's dothis, and he just didn't let it
happen naturally like it was opposed to. That's not Eric's fault, Eric.
Eric was very capable those matches.He Er Grotty were incredible, and I
feel like, don't get talked aboutenough now. They're definitely lost in the
context of Ring of honors, greaterrivalries, you know, just big picture,

(01:33:53):
because everybody goes to oh Samo Joe, Oh cm Punk, oh Daniel,
Brian Danielson, you know, etcetera, et cetera. But I
would put those Roddy and Eric Stevensmatches, not only the ones in our
age, but also f I P. I'd put those that rivalry and fewed
up against anything, any any stringof honor centric story. Um and the

(01:34:20):
fact that at one point they werebrothers in law just made it even better.
I do think Eric's push initially wasproblematic, but I don't think it
was I don't think Gabe intended toshove him down people's through either. Um.

(01:34:48):
I think he was a He couldhave been a It could have worked
better if he was a heel,yes, instead of trying to be the
baby face we It sucked for himthat he got trapped into that faction warfare,
the thing that turned to shit thebed immediately. Like at its core,
it wasn't a great idea, butthen when they lost Harries almost immediately,

(01:35:12):
and he's still teaming with Cross andthey're just getting fucking mollywopped every week
because I mean, Jack's already doingJack things, So the vote squad isn't
going to go up. It makessense to put the heat on the No
Remorse Core. They should have justwrapped it, the clared No Remorse Core
the winner of this thing and movedon instead. It just lasted for approximately

(01:35:38):
twenty seven years. As far asI know, this thing's still going on
now. Technically it never actually becauseUnscripted three was supposed to be the Trio's
tournament in November of two thousand andseven in Chicago, but so many people
had travel issues and Jack Evans wasin car wreck with Necro and Human Tornado

(01:36:03):
and I think there was like oneother person then in the car, and
Kyle Dirton tells the story on hisepisode Kyle Davis of the NWA out there.
Check out NBA Power on YouTube forKyle Davis fans, Kyle Burdon fans

(01:36:26):
show Big Kyle Got Here. MI just I remember that night was like
cursed from the beginning because Salham Boy'swife passed away that night and then there
was the travel issue with the guysgetting stuck in the ravine. There was

(01:36:47):
a Hero versus Claudio match that Ithink went like forty five minutes and Claudio
just kept beating Hero and then Herokept saying, no, that doesn't count.
I wasn't ready or it was like, and Sweeney was like trying his
best to save it, but evenhe was like, I don't I remember,

(01:37:11):
like at ringside, he just waslike throwing his arms up. I
don't, I gotta kill time.He looked over at me. I remember,
I don't know, like the twentyfive minute mark, they're like in
their third version of this first machI'm I've got my face in my hands,

(01:37:31):
and he just looked over when hegoes, I'm killing time and and
you know, I mean, Alex, God bless them me rest in peace.
But like you could clearly see hewas not handling this thing well.
And Hero and Claudio bless them.They tried their hearts out, but those

(01:37:57):
guys were a better tag team thanopponents, and that match just it kept
going. It was a I thinka twelve minute Pelly Primo Mitch Franklin match
on this show in two thousand andseven. Both those guys are friends of
mine, but even they would say, I don't think we want to do
this. Well, they might likebeating the crap out of each other.

(01:38:24):
Hey I will, I will propup the I think it was a five
way that Pelly had in Dayton inFebruary two thousand and seven, where he
was just a fucking mad man inthat match. Just incredible ovation he got
that night. Yeah, that wasthe night that I kind of was like,
Okay, he's ready. Now,Yeah, let's go. Let's get

(01:38:44):
this guy something tangible and blow andbehold. Like you get to November and
these guys like don't know how todo a singles match that goes the song.
This crowd is giving them no chanceto have any sort of redemption for
themselves. I felt so bad sittingthere, like I tried to bang on

(01:39:08):
the guardrail, dude, do somethingto get the crowd into it, and
the crowd was just like fuck you. There was a guy behind me.
I remember he had a Bulls basketballjersey and it was the all black Chicago

(01:39:29):
Bulls jerseys with the script Chicago andit's one of the all time great like
basketball jerseys. But yes, it'sburned in my memories from that night because
I'm like banging on the guardrail,Let's go Pelly, let's go manch blah
blah blah. And this guy justhe chucked a bottle of water at me.

(01:39:55):
As I'm stating that. It hitme square in the back, and
I turned around. I was sohot. I turned around. I was
gonna beat his ass. Turned aroundand I took one look at him,
and he's got his arms up andI just sat down. Yeah, not

(01:40:19):
gonna do it, not gonna havethat, you know. But it was
it was a very humbling moment.And that whole night was supposed to be
a trio's tournament, and it justlike it epitomized the end of faction warfare,
which is where that story started andat I mean, there was never

(01:40:43):
a blow off. There was thethree Way in New York with Aries,
Roddy and Jack. It should havebeen the end of that feud. But
yet that was the night Ruckus joinedthe Vulture Square and then immediately came back
out after mission and had a singlesmatch with Eddie Edwards and nobody can at

(01:41:06):
all. I mean, it wasthe quietest I had heard that building.
Granted, this is the night likeshe Amn Danielson had their first match Steen
and Generico versus Brisco's two out ofthree falls. There was a sixth man
with Delirious and Pelly and somebody elseagainst the Hangman three of Albright, Whitmer

(01:41:35):
and Pierce, and the crowd wasjust dying for this match, like every
waking step of this match was awesome, and just they were tired. They
did not care one iota about Ruckis. But we've talked a lot about two

(01:41:59):
thousand and seven, but we gottalking about a particular show in two thousand
and seven United we Stand because wefigured out prior to starting taping this podcast,
the Wee Cross Path at United weStand in Dayton and June of two
or July of two thousand and seven, And I guess I kind of talk

(01:42:24):
a little bit about doing crew becausethis is the only time you did crew,
talk about that process working alongside ringCrew Captain Shane haggett Orn June twenty
second, two thousand and seven.Yes, So at this point I was
out of OVW, but still takingsome bookings locally, still training, and

(01:42:47):
Tank Holland was part of Sweet andSour, Inc. At the time,
I didn't know how to get intouch with the Sapalsky other than the r
H message board. So I loggedin. He had a thing thought I
was just a stalker or something.Message him directly, Hey, here's who
I am. I'm training nov wunder Tank he could vouch for me.

(01:43:12):
Can I come help set up?Just meet some people, it said,
I have no expectations of getting abooking. That's want to help. He
replied for me to Yeah, it'sokay to come. Just find Chaine Hagadorn
cool. I had not talked toShane ahead of time at all. So
I get to the building. Iactually run into Tank first, and Tank

(01:43:34):
had just had surgery on his arm. His arm was severely that day,
and I didn't know anything had happened. He's told me to day. I
once say they're in Boston. Hehad caught one of the Briscoes on a
dive and just threw everything out inthe shoulder. Anyway, He said that
Gabe had asked him if he knewwho I was, and that he was
on the paying gimmicks from the surgery, and no sold it. So so

(01:44:00):
like, so, well, I'mglad you got in, like you didn't
have to sneak in good, sothey know you're here. Yeah, man,
I'm I'm official. I wouldn't dothat to you. I found Shane
and things are already pretty well setup. I think I mostly just did
some finishing touches and chairs and whatnot. And uh, after everything was good,
I talked to the Hagadorn and hey, like, do I need to

(01:44:24):
leave? Like, you know,because people here don't know me for real.
I want to make sure I'm notencroaching. I'll say it all the
way. Just shut up if youwant me to. Oh no, you
can stick around. You're fine.Um, so you did the typical restaurant
things, went around, shook hands, introduced myself. Uh, try not
to speak unless spoken to unless itwas the other set up. Guys,

(01:44:45):
I'm at Kyle that day. Um, the kid Zach who turned into Guiseppe
Wherever timekeeper. Yeah. Uh afew other people of PLA obviously, um
and turn out to be a goodshow of the show. The austin Aries
returned on. He started making therounds probably about half an hour before the

(01:45:09):
doors opened, and I'm like,oh shit, Like, I don't think
I supposed to know this, youknow, But everybody was super polite.
Welcoming. I didn't encounter anybody beingweird. Kind of a funny story.
I talked to Nigel about this sincethen. When I went to introduce myself
to Nigel, he didn't see mecoming and was talking to someone else,

(01:45:30):
and I guess Eric giving him crapabout not wearing underwear, And as I
said in my hand for the handshake, he drops trout a show that he's
wearing underwear. So I got myhand out like interest from his exposed cock
and then he says, oh,hey, mate, didn't see it that
Nigel, Nice to meet you.You know, this is a stupid little

(01:45:53):
thing that happens back to day wrestlingshow, and the one pressing memory I
have outside of just watching the guyswork out some spots in the ring is
for some reason, the hero insistson doing back flips from the top rope
just repeatedly as Gabe is rapidly shootingeveryone in the back. It's like doors

(01:46:14):
are opened, doors are opened.A hero just will not stop getting a
hit into nobody in particular until literallyhe sees a foot across the threshold into
the building and then he sneaks offto the back. What what the Hell's
this guy's and I like Chris,like I've met Chris a few times and
no issues or Chris. It juststruck me as a weird case of cutting
it close. So do you rememberin the Dayton building, like when you

(01:46:34):
would walk in the front door,there was like that little hallway with the
bathrooms to the right, and yes, Sid was posted up with Ross right
in front the tickets, and thenyou go through the double doors, and
then you're in the building, yes, for the arena area. So I

(01:46:57):
remember having my back to those doubledoors and Hero and Roddy are working out
something for their lights Out match,which would have been whatever that first show
Pierce had in dating, and Idon't even think Adam was there, but
he was the booker at this point. Gabe was gone. Sort have been

(01:47:18):
November of two thousand and eight,and I think I have that day right.
They're working on this lights Out finishedthing, but the lights Out match
ends in a DQ, so they'redoing a different thing in the ring than
what actually ended up happening in thematch. And I remember like Sid yelling

(01:47:44):
something behind me and kind of standingthere and being like okay, like I
think people are coming in. Youguys don't want to be out there,
so it's interesting that this was nota unique thing you're situation. Although I
did not see Nigel with his pantsdown, so I got that going for

(01:48:05):
me and I all loved the Nigel. I think that guy is another one.
That man how that guy didn't endup on WWTV in a prominent spot
six three. He looks like amega star somewire. I want to say

(01:48:28):
it was maybe Sean radikin back thenhad suggested, why would you just called
this guy up the TV as WilliamRigal's nephew and man like, it's a
perfect spot and that'd be kind ofthe launching point. Yeah, speaking of
that Dayton building, I completely forgotabout this I had before I was training.
I guess I did in my headfor a while. I signed up

(01:48:53):
for Hartley and Wrestling Association's version ofTough Enough. I forget what they It
may have been called like tough Enough, like that shitty classic rock song,
but they go up to Dayton andat the time ww had just implemented their
dress code, so I'm thinking you'lldress for the job you want. I'm

(01:49:15):
wearing slacks and a button up shirtand a tie and my shoes and we're
just all today, we're gonna justsmiling with the crowd, that kind of
thing intermission, and they do that, and they're like, all right,
well, your first challenge is rightnow. We had to run laps around
that entire building, up and downthe stairs on either end, and I

(01:49:35):
was sewed in, blown up andmy legs. We're dead. That That
was the end of the competition forme. Like I was supposed to get
up the next day and drive toCincinnati, and I woke up and realized
I couldn't climb stairs and said,fuck this, I'm done. Yeah,
their footage of me slipping and slidingon that floor in my col's special shoes,

(01:49:57):
I'm just horrendous. Was always impressedthe people that could athletically do things
while in dress up clothes. Ialways felt like I was in a straight
jacket of sorts. You know.I had dinner with my parents before we
started taping, and we're talking abouthow when I would go to religious services

(01:50:19):
growing up, I always looked atit, not necessarily as religious service at
synagogue, but I looked at itas a contest for parents to see who
could dress up their child and fancyclothes and have their child stay well behaved.

(01:50:39):
My parents lost that comment moment theyput me in a suit in a
tie. Yeah, it wasn't goingto last. I would, you know,
take my suit jackets and tie themthe pipes. And there was this
ladder on the bath of the men'sbathroom. It would take you to the

(01:51:00):
roof, and I would like gothrow my suit and tie on the roof
and then come back down with likejust the shirt on out, you know,
untucked or whatever. And I rememberwhen I started dressing nicer for work
working for my dad, and Ijust let that carry over into my everyday

(01:51:23):
thing. So I'd go to ROHand I'd work crew, but I wouldn't
take a change of clothes, soI'd help, you know, with setup.
I remember a particular show in thesummer in Cleveland, July of two
thousand eight or nine, Bret andDelirious Ratt had a massive blade job and

(01:51:47):
actually ended up going off to thehospital. Edge of Sanity might have been
the show. Anyways. It's onehundred degrees outside, yeah, I mean,
and I'm in and button you know, long sleep button down shirt,
khaki pants, nice shoes, andit's a fucking Ring of Honor show.

(01:52:11):
Yeah, what hey this I wantto show up and impress. And I
did the same thing show we're talkingabout, that June two thousand and seven
show. I remember vividly. Iwas ringing black slacks and a red long
sleep button up shirt, which justto sit and watch show in Dayton would
have been hell. And then loadingthe ringboards and whatnot. Oh man,

(01:52:34):
it's sucked out loud. And Iprobably had a white button down or like
a blue polo maybe for the summer. And I remember, like, you
know, two thousand and seven tothat, I was super heavy. I
was probably two fifty. That wasthe biggest, you know, close to

(01:52:55):
the biggest that I ever was.Yeah, it was not good. I
mean I probably sweat off twenty poundsand Dayton noe. I have just sat
in that building. Yeah, Iwas got down to where I'm at now.
But United We Stand was a reallyfun show from multitude of reasons.

(01:53:16):
I mean, look at this card. So Bobby Dempsey and Dingo they're in
the dark match opener taking on Alexsugarfoot paint and pre dirty Ernie O Cyrus.
And then you have Mitch Franklin defeatingJohn Moxley. Oh, I wonder
if that earns Mitch Franklin shot atthe a W World title. I don't

(01:53:41):
know. Kevin Steen and El Genericodefeating the Irish Airborne. Then you had
a gauntlet match with Jimmy Ray,Pelly Primo, Hilarious scrap Iron, Adam
Pearce and Chris Hero No DQ grudgematch with Brunt Albright over b J Whitmer,
kind of foreshadowing from their tables matchin New York at the University Show

(01:54:05):
the previous February, which, bythe way, if people have not seen
that tables match, I think itis what should have been me the last
time tables where ever used in therest of the match, because it will
never get any better. Roder Strongand David Richards over Eric Stevens and Matt

(01:54:27):
Cross. This is when Ari's kindof popped up and was just walking around
in the crowd. I have myown austinary story from that night. It
was not a story of excitement.Lacy comes out with Jimmy Jacobs, who
just had knee surgery following the WrestleManiaWeekend where towards ACL that's the BJ blowoff

(01:54:56):
match cage A. Lacy defeats SerenaDeed. As I told you, I
said, just like the nicest personin the old Kenta and Rocky Romero,
Brian Danielson and Nigel McGinnis against Morishima, Marafuji and the Briscos defeat Matt Sidell

(01:55:21):
and Kyo Castioli two straight falls anda two out of three fall match.
And then we put boards in thetruck and tore guardrail. Signs off.
Cross passed fifteen years before we kneweach other. Pretty crazy. Let's remember
Matt Siddell as people were bringing ringboards up, making it a point to

(01:55:45):
show off, and he took theboards. I'll stack another one on there,
stack another one just being a wrestler, you know. Bullshit. He's
another person that I've come across andwrestling that I think is not intended to
be in wrestling. Not that he'snot a good wrestler, because I think

(01:56:06):
he is a sensational wrestler. Ijust think his personality and interests are pretty
much the polar opposite to what youwould expect from a pro wrestler. Absolutely,
and Mike as well, his brother, I have just such kind regards

(01:56:31):
for and I absolutely adore his brotheras well two of the nicest people,
good good, nice young Jewish boys. So this show was a Friday night
in late June two thousand and seven, Saturday, I had a booking in

(01:56:53):
the Portland neighborhood of Louisville. Iwant to say it was a better a
fair or something just well bullshit looking, so nothing special. And then w
W United Champions would have been Sundayand Mondays. When the world found out
there Crispin Waugh was no longer withus along with his family. Yeah,
it was such a highs and lows. Like I found out about beIN wa

(01:57:17):
by. I was actually got onMySpace. It was going to thank Chris
Hero for take some time to showme a few things, and someone commented
on his page and their user namewas rap Chrispin Waugh. I'm like,
what the hell is that? Andwent to the torch and and Pro Wrestling

(01:57:40):
Insider and both of those sites werefrozen. So at that point I'd been
round enough to know that when thesighter jam, the news is legit.
And to Wade Keller's credit, hesent a blasted his subscribers within the hour
kind of what was known at thetime. This was hours before it was
puck knowledge that he was the killer. Um, but yeah, it was

(01:58:03):
crazy finding out that way. Mymy recollection of it was that they found
out like bid way through the firsthour of RAW, Like yes, yeah,
it was definitely during raw early into RAW. Uh, like individual
or independent sites I should say,we're reporting it. Uh, you know,

(01:58:26):
all of us on message boards kindof you know, learning from each
other kind of what's happening and wweLike the second Raw ended, the graphic
changed from Ben wat tree or whateverto double murder suicide and bold letters.
Yeah, like, oh shit,you know this has gotten way worse than
we assumed. Yeah. I rememberdriving home from work that Monday, and

(01:58:54):
I was on on my phone.I had AOL instant messenger, and homicide
sent a message to the ROH messageboard chat and it was like Ben while
I was dead, r I P. And I was like, huh.

(01:59:15):
And so all of a sudden,like my drive from my dad's office to
the house was I don't know,twelve minutes give or take, and I
remember it only taken me about eightbecause I needed to get to that computer.
Ass's feelingly possible, Yes, becauseI just didn't know what the story

(01:59:35):
was, and I hadn't even seenthe results from Night of Champions the night
before at that point, and Iwould have been in college. So the
fact that I wasn't like cruising thesites, well, no, it was

(01:59:58):
the summer, so I wouldn't havebeen in school at that point. I
have been at work all day,so that makes sense. But or I
just didn't care about the WWE product. That also is very likely because I
didn't watch a lot of WAWE fromI would say probably oh three till thirteen,

(02:00:21):
twenty fourteen, something like that.Um, But I think that was
kind of a seminal moment for alot of wrestling fans of chair shots to
the head, and that ended upbeing your last wrestling book in correct.

(02:00:41):
Yes, um, I kiss Iwanted to take a little time to kind
of assess where I was, whatmy prospects were. Um. The next
kind of half ass attempt at keepingin wrestling was actually another r weight show,
The Man Up pay per view inChicago in September, I believe this
September fifteenth of twenty seven, ina similar situation. By this point I

(02:01:08):
had connected with quite a few ofthe ROH students and crew, and whatnot
through social media at the time,of MySpace being the main one. I
reached out to Haggi Oran Ay Iplanning on coming up to Chicago for the
show. Do you mind if Icome help set again. I'll get it
earlier this time, you don't haveto be able to do a better job.
And so, oh yeah, thatsounds great. We'll see you there,

(02:01:30):
and we just never touched space againin the meantime. It's I don't
know if it was already kind ofdecided that this is going to be the
age of the Fall launch with thebig angle at the end of the show,
but Gabe had decided to lock itdown no outside faces, and honestly,
Shane didn't think about me, becausewhy would. I'm just like a

(02:01:53):
guy who may not show up.So I walked in you all hours before
showtime and order to go, andhe looked like he's all ghost He saw
me like it all came back tohim. He gave shut my hand.
Hey man, I'm so sorry todo this to you, but I gotta
kick you out. He's yeah,nobody from the outside allowed today. I'm

(02:02:14):
like, oh man, yo,I try to plead my case, but
he was adamant. I wasn't goingto go to Gate with it because they
had more than that going on thatday. Uh So I just sat out
of my car for a while tothe Walmart down the road to get some
snacks stuff, consider going. It'sgonna be my car the rest of the
day until showtime. I actually raninto a steaming Generico there and a couple

(02:02:36):
other people, and uh talked toKevin for a minute, told him stay
safe out there, you know,the beautiful stuff. Nothing ground picking.
But then when I got back andsaw that they had plants just kind of
among the fans in the age ofthe Fall, like Ninja O fits,
Like what the hell, man,I could have done that? Maybe all

(02:02:58):
the way back there J one sixone Project one six one made me sit
out here in my damn Hondam vankilling tire hours on end, I could
have done something productive. Yeah,well, like if you passed forward.
You know when Steen was doing theSteen is Right thing and they had people

(02:03:20):
running through the crowd like Ernie wasinvolved doing that. So I mean,
there's there's always something for people todo. And I do appreciate the secret,
secretive aspect of it because it wascertainly some reveal and visually I remember
that night just looking at it andgoing fah dude. At the time,

(02:03:46):
I'm thinking, oh, man,that that looks terrifying, but it looks
so cool now that I'm a nurse. Like Jay could have died that night
easily from this loss of fluid.He could have led out that night like
blood carries oxygen to the brain,and it was leaving his body at a
rapid pace. Gravity was doing whatgravity does. Jimmy taking the blood shower

(02:04:11):
was awesome at all, but man, they could have got that done a
half the time. He met alot safer about it. That was the
grossest thing I've ever seen at awrestling show, And as somebody who has
attended wrestling shows now since nineteen ninetyone, I've seen a lot of gross
people and growth taking place, rangingfrom blood to piss to I'm trying to

(02:04:42):
think. There was a guy thatthrew a cup of piss from the upper
deck at Hogan like a two thousandand two SmackDown or something, and it
just I mean, you throw acup of piss from the upper deck.
No piss is getting to the ring. No, And like I see this

(02:05:09):
guy and he's I see him peeingin them in my head, the wheels
are spinning. Why is he peeingin a cup? Oh, Hulk Hogan
is in the ring and he's gonnatry in And he reared back like he
is you know, Tom Brady,and just threw piss all over the lower

(02:05:33):
bowl. And I just said bucklike, I mean the age of the
Fall concept, like when you watchit back on tape, it's beautiful.
Like neckgro they get a Jimmy Fettermangets a great shot up close to neckgro.

(02:05:57):
I told you you let me outof my cage. I'm a piling
body, said guy. Well,this guy's a made man now, as
if he wasn't already from the CCWfeud to year prior, um, Jimmy
Jacobs is completely rebirthed into this psychopath. Oh and here's Tyler Black, I

(02:06:23):
mean, oh and goth Lacy.Yes, I can't forget about her.
It's funny about the shot of secrecywas I wasn't watching other indies, so
I would have known Tyler Black fromall the other goofball that showed up with
long hair. So it just luckilythere were other more educated pants round.

(02:06:45):
Oh, that's Tyler Black. I'mall right, cool, thanks for keeping
me up because I would have hadno idea. Yeah, I was,
I was familiar with the name.They've been a team, but yeah,
that was we're knowledge ended. Yeahthey were. Um they were out in
PWG once, which is where Iwould have seen them as a tag,
and then they were on that MTVuh deel Wrestling Wrestling Society X. Yeah,

(02:07:16):
it just slowly it was coming backto me. But I can't think
of what their team name was,but it was a similar concepts as I
do it for her, doing itfor her or something like that. D
I FH. That's what it was, UM, and they had like you
know, Jimmy had feelings for whatevergirl it was. She ended up with

(02:07:41):
Siddell and storyline where he was aheel Oh interesting. Uh but yeah,
I mean it was a really coolUM visual And that's a great hag it
arm story because it's one of thosewrestling that's like the most resting trope of
oh yeah that's yep. Forgot totell this guy that. And it's not

(02:08:09):
just the wrestlers, it's it's likebackstage people and I think fans on the
outside, like just a casual fanthat wants to buy a ticket and see
a good show and doesn't care whathappens behind the scenes or you know,
need to see every single show oranything like that. They don't necessarily realize

(02:08:31):
even something the size of our ageat the time, which was bigger than
it's still at the end of theday, like, people have a lot
to do, and it's a processto put together a show. Oh um.
Not to mention, you know,Haggard runs captain or ring crew,

(02:08:52):
and he's got all these hooligans he'sgot to take care of. And I
love all those ring crew guys somuch. They're all really good dudes,
you know, from Giuseppe to Birdto Ernie and Grizz and Pelly, Bobby
Smash Bradley, who you know waskind of an early gen that Turner.

(02:09:18):
Everybody's just such nice, wonderful people. And that's why, you know,
you didn't mind going to the show. Wasn't working really really hard for ten
bucks or twenty bucks if you arelucky, right, But we managed to
cross pass on. On that UnitedWe Stand show, we talked about message

(02:09:41):
board. So what message boards wereyou on? H I said, I
got online in two thousand and two, I didn't really do the message board
thing until like two thousand and five. I was an early adopter on the
pro esting torch of vip board.My name there was m HW at the

(02:10:01):
time. My job was a mentalhealth worker, so that's my main board.
I was also on the Ring ofautom board, posting less frequently as
River City Saint. Yes, yes, yeah, I wasn't the unhinged kind
of social media maniac I am nowon those boards. I was still kind
of learning my way around, andespecially I found the RH board to be

(02:10:24):
a weird mix of people who renewtheir wrestling and then a lot of teenagers
like did did did I give youship? As as JFWO. I don't
remember anyone giving me shit really onthat board because I always I was such
a g to everybody because I feelso bad and hang it on like he'll,

(02:10:50):
you know, he'll go on theway back machine and look up stuff
from like use wires and stuff.And occasionally I'll get on the way back
machine and look at the message boardand I'll say something I was all fuck,
so I apologize. I make ita point to apologize to everyone,
regardless of being an asshole or not. Just to be safe. No,
I was such an infrequent post runboard. I ended up making friends with

(02:11:15):
a local guy that I found there. I want to say. His name
was like phenomenal taild shoot named Travisdesmond Is. He is one of the
hardcore i w A mid South lifers, but he would travel to ROA shows,
He'd go to the New Yorker,even though we lived in Loisville.
Like he was one of those broadwarrior types. And then I stopped reaching

(02:11:35):
out to people when I reached outto a poster named Churchill Downer because I
reorganized that as a law hall Louisvillereference. Yeah, and it turn out
turn out the kid was like fifteen, and I'm like, all right,
I'm not gonna be friend a teenagerhere. Let's let's keep it moving.
Yeah. I mean, I thinkthe ROH message ward and the CGW board

(02:12:01):
were the two big ones for me. UM. But I didn't do a
lot of posting at CCWUM. Buta lot of the people that I met,
they were all really good people,like nice people in person, but
there is that online component of Ican say whatever I want behind the keyboard,

(02:12:26):
and it's it's kind of like adrug of sorts the people I posted
with on the Torch. Later on, we started our own little Facebook group.
Uh, and I'm talking years later. I was probably on that board
through two thousand and nine or twoten, and we started this Facebook group
right after wed savaged ied in twentyeleven, and as far as I know,

(02:12:46):
it's still going. I'm not onFacebook anymore, so I wouldn't know.
Good for you. Yeah, butuh yeah. A lot of these
are people that you'll see me interactwith on Twitter. A lot of like
Seahawk or Philly Drugs or two theBabies, like travel Lord Travis Uh god
damn, I can't remember anyone's namenow. Travis Bryant of the Torch Stuck

(02:13:09):
how he was on that board.People you'll see me interacted with A lot
those are friendships I cultivated through promostlyTorch. It was just at its peak
and amazing forum. I don't eventhink it's active at all anymore, unfortunately.
Yeah. I think that the messageboard concept, in hindsight, is

(02:13:31):
something I really had great value inbecause of the social construct of it.
Like I had my friends from fromelementary school and middle school and high school,
and then I had my college friends, and then I had my wrestling
for him, and I just thoughtit was so cool that I could now

(02:13:56):
have friends that lived in all thesedifferent cities. And then when they would
come, when ringa Honor would cometo Cleveland, people will be like,
oh, hey, you know,I'd love to come to this show,
but I don't know, I don'twant to pay for a hotel and I'm
anywhere, say stay at my apartment. Problem, got air, mattress,
got a couple of couches, gota bedroom, a man, you know.

(02:14:18):
And I think that the social constructand being able to meet these people
that were like minded. Now,granted, I will freely admit that a
lot of people in the last let'ssay six years, they have kind of
shown their true real life colors,including one person who may or may not

(02:14:43):
have been in or about the Capitolon January sixth, which is a fucking
fantastic story that I will tell youoff the air. It's just it's amazing
how all these people could come togetherover this indie wrestling company and then all

(02:15:09):
have the same fanatical knowledge of thebusiness and wrestling itself. You didn't feel
alone anyway, you know. Icould go to the to a raw or
a SmackDown with my friends from collegein high school, and we'd have fun

(02:15:30):
and enjoy ourselves, but it wasn'tthe same. I was talking to John
Phillipavage about this recently, about howthe old message board system it seemed as
a spur better conversation than social medianow because of that barrier to entry.
With the Torch, for example,if you weren't a five dollars a month

(02:15:54):
member, you couldn't access that board. Something like CCW fans or the rh
board. These are things you hadto be looking forward and seeking out.
You could do the effort at thevery least make an account. They were
moderated, some better than others.The old observer board was fucking god awful,
but it's still Yes, it's terrible, and honestly, the internet was

(02:16:20):
better when you had to how toturn on a computer to use it.
The smartphone aspect of anyone being ablejust to jump on and join conversation,
whether they know what they're talking aboutor not. I don't want to advocate
for gatekeeping, but at the sametime, I don't want to advocate for
living just complete morons in the conversationeither. I'm visible on Twitter but I

(02:16:43):
blocked a lot of people who arecontributing nothing. We don't have to agree.
But if you're just gonna jump intoa conversation to say, oh that's
ash cheeks and contribute nothing else,then you're cooked. I got nothing else
for you. I'll made dunk onyou and let other people know that we're
dealing with an here or am Ijust quietly blocking and move all on my
day? These things were left ofa hindrance on the torchboard, and I

(02:17:07):
think that's why I stuck with thatone, because the moderation was tighter the
observer board at the time. Theywere letting Rovert just run absolutely while every
conversation fu worse. Oh man,I just think two. When you look
back at those message boards, theRing of Honor message board in particular,

(02:17:33):
there were certain things that Gabe wouldallow. Gabe had a burner on there.
I don't care whether he denies itto this day, he had at
least one fucking burner account. Idon't know what it was, don't care
all the years later, but hecan't continue to deny me this justice.

(02:17:54):
And I will get justice and findout which one was yours, Gabe.
I don't care how many people Ihave to ask, But I mean there
were wrestlers that were on there,reading and participating in discussions. There were
wrestlers parents participating in the discussions onthose message boards. Jack Evans dad had

(02:18:18):
a famous message board named Batman theScientist. Um, it's just it was
such a different world, and Ido think, um, those days are
missed to an extent um. Butthere there also was a level of toxicity

(02:18:39):
and obsession some people that got lostin the sauce. Oh, and I
freely admit to be one of thosepeople that was such a stunch defender that
I was accused of being on thevaunted ROH payroll even kind of similar to

(02:19:01):
I take on it now where Iwould like I figured out, even though
I'm probably the most wrestling savvy personI've met in day to day life,
that once I got into the weedsof the Internet and started encountering the zoners
and the Bixes of the world thatlike drew so much about wrestling, I
don't know that if I tried toattach this from it like an intellectual high
amy standpoint, I wasn't gonna last. I was gonna get alive, So

(02:19:24):
I would kind of a low levelof ship posting him back then. One
of my favorites was we started animpact threat one night impact on You're just
the old live watch that you woulddo, and I participated in that wholeheartedly,
without having watched a second of theshow, just commenting on things that

(02:19:45):
usually happened and reacting to other people'spost and just keeping the conversation going.
I revealed at the end of Guys, I hope you just like the show.
I didn't see it, just alittle goofy shit like that to entertain
myself. You know, it's reallyat the end of the day, if
you camp op the boys who cameto pop, you know. Yeah.

(02:20:07):
And I think that's the thing likethose message boards. You if you started
a thread and it got a lotof attention, that was like an ego
booster of like, oh hey,they like when I'm cooking over here,
let me start this other thread.And then it dies off and goes to

(02:20:28):
the second page. And then youslide in there with bump and it goes
help fuck you, this one's locked, get out. I remember I remember
starting a thread. Um. Ithink it was like a show review of
some type, like I just gottenthe DVD and I've like reviewed all the

(02:20:50):
matches and I think I did starratings or out of ten, you know,
and there was a ton of discussionand oh, you know you underrated
this, you overrated that you're onthe payroll, blah blah blah. And
it had you know, seventy eightpages or whatever, which that's pretty good.
And uh. Then I the nextthreat I posted was a favorite roh

(02:21:11):
DVD cover and I got like threereplies to the second page and I just
wrote bump and then Gabe, Oh, it was all I'm like a twenty
for our time span. I'm overhyping this show that just came out on
DVD, trying to put pocket AndI love Gabe, but he, you

(02:21:35):
know he and he was like,oh, thanks for the kind words,
blah blah blah. And then Ibumped the DVD cover thread wocked. There
was I can't remember, which mayhave been Revenge of the Prophecy that I
sold my DVD on eBay and theguy messaged me right actually got it,
like what are you think fucking stupidis? And this is literally a bootleg

(02:21:58):
DVD. I oh, man,I about from the company, like direct
from the website. It was.I think it was the first DVD that
wasn't using that early covered their usingfollow them. Yeah, and it was
just early shitty photos shot with justa plain disc. He said, noah,
man, I want my money back. When and now I bought a
riddle? I said, look,motherfucker, are you going going crazy?

(02:22:20):
Maxterchi. I was also lot ofthe time, we're going the RGE board
and ask around and they will tellyou this is what we gotta describe it
perfectly, I promise you. Andnot only did he find people vouching for
me, but he found where Ihad commented that I sold the original DVD
in another thread, like I soldit to some guy who paid forty bucks
for it. I hope he likesit, you know, just like,

(02:22:43):
oh shit, yeah, you're rightman, your story checks out. I
was an asshole, my bad well, and I think when you look at
what crazy Max was just in general, to give a little context, it
was a four them based on tapetrading and tape buying, and I had

(02:23:05):
an account there. I don't thinkI was js wo on there right chair
shots you two k possibly, whichwas a combined tape site that I had
with a buddy of mine, andI remember a lot of people on there

(02:23:26):
that would do like these bulk buys, and you know, like the it's
all from like this so far backgeneration that I think explaining it now is
just it's so hard for me.But like you get five or six people
to go in and make this big, huge order, and it would be

(02:23:48):
one person making the order, butyou send the money to one person to
make this big huge order, andthen he dubs copies for everybody in this
order, so you're getting kind oflike, you know, a seventy five
percent discount, but you're getting asecond generation copy of some And I just

(02:24:11):
remember I did one where I participated, and I just thought it was like
the wildest thing this is, ohah. But then I quickly started going
to video stores and you know,renting and did the dual deck VCR so
I could play in the record ona blake. Right, all of this

(02:24:33):
sounds like it was from the eighteenhundreds, but I swear to god it
was just the late nineties. Yeah. A few years back, Good Helmet
was traveling through on his post DiverseWorld tour he was on and he went
to that idea ba Sholy the twentysixteen anniversary show and crashed in my house

(02:24:54):
that eye and just watching he waseven at that point twenty sixteen, still
willing and dealing in these DVD sets, and I was just blown away that
he was still that entrenched in thisscene. It's like, God, bless
you man. You're you're a historian, a librarian of this footage, a

(02:25:15):
king of the cop tape. Yeah, when you go, I don't think
anybody else is going to pick thisup. No, he was, I
mean, like so good. Helmetwas this poster, and he would build
these original compilation DVDs and VHS tapes, and I mean everybody knew his stuff.

(02:25:35):
You know. He I don't evenknow what you would even compare him
to. Yeah he uh. Heactually got me onto his first person to
put me on a podcast like twenty. He has had a quite a few
over the years. At the time, Us to Be Nation was doing a

(02:25:56):
Best WWE Restore Ever kind of spinoffof g WW or GW and uh we
had met at the Dallas Trustlemania andhe said, oh, Manuel, you
cool guy. You know your stuff. I would have come on the show
with me. I'm like, man, I'm never a podcast. I don't
even know what I'm doing, butI did it, and the second the

(02:26:18):
first show went all right. Thesecond show it's me, him and Chris
Elmer, and I'm like, ohshit, I'm I'm just gonna sit here
and say nothing because you guys aregonna just run this conversation. I can't
contribute anything meaningful with these two historianshere. Yeah, we would have having
probably a ten episode run on thatsite. People seem to like it.
He got me onto at the time. I couldn't get on to the Death

(02:26:41):
on the Driver board to save mylife, because you had to know somebody
to vouch for you. And finallywe recorded when I say, he look,
man, who's dick Daria suck toget on the site and oh mine,
So well, I'm not doing that, but if you could, Yeah,
did you push the surf over yourbrother? It's oh, yeah,
no problem. Yeah. I solike Dead Belly Driver. I had an

(02:27:03):
account, but I didn't feel likeI was on the level to post right.
So I was very much an avidreader and a learner and kept my
mouth shut, Like there were certainlythings I just would read and go,

(02:27:24):
well, this is fucking absurd.I don't understand this. I'll give you
an example, and I mean nooffense to this person if he ever hears
this, but because he's a hellof a nice guy. But Mark Henry,
I remember they were like in lovewith Mark Hanna great. Oh he's
the greatest big man and this andthat, and I'm just like, Okay,

(02:27:48):
I'm gonna watch whatever show he wason, Rowar, SmackDown or whatever.
And I didn't know he was onECW. He was a ECWT and
so I'm gonna watch ECW and I'mgonna see what this Mark Henry because I
knew Mark Henry is sexual chocolate asthe muscle and the nation uh Olympic you

(02:28:09):
know, weightlifter guy h I hadnot seen him as the ECW champion.
So as absurd as the thought behindMark Henry being one of the best wrestlers
in wrestling, uh was um.I hadn't seen it, so I couldn't
say. So I watched, andI believe he wrestled either Zach Rider or

(02:28:43):
Brian Buyers whatever his name was therein a single. I think it was
Zach Ryder. I probably would havebeen Rider on ECW card. Yeah,
Cardona. I think he wrestled MattCardona Zach Ryder, and I just remembered
it was like a three minute squashand I remember thinking, like, that's

(02:29:05):
it. Then I watched the nextweek and I think he wrestled maybe Bobby
Lashly or something, and it wasa little longer match. It was like
ten or eleven minutes, and Iwas not blown away. I just kind

(02:29:28):
of sat there and was like,all right, you know, they beat
each other up. Like I thinkI'll go watch Samoa, Joe Russell.
Yeah, you know aj styles,I'll go watch Nigel. I'm good.
This is not for me, andhey, different strokes for different folks.
Who am I to tell somebody whatgood wrestling is? You know, at
the end of the day, likeI said earlier, wrestling is an infinite

(02:29:50):
place. So if somebody liked MarkHenry more than they liked you know,
Joe versus Kobashi God speaking as Idon't know if you remember this, that
June two thousand and seven show,you remember right back was there in Dayton
really yeah. He had just gotreleased from WW at the time. This

(02:30:15):
was like pre Nexus. He wasthere with Tank trying to meet people and
get a spot. But he's RyanReeves, so it would have been ridiculous
putting him in a ring of honor. Oh as ridiculous is Daniel Peuter.
Yeah. Wow, I have zerorecall of my back. Yeah, he

(02:30:39):
didn't get any work. He wasjust there meeting people. Boy. I
yeah, I'm drawn a complete blankon that one. Um. I this
is my thought on right back.M Goldberg esque run for a little while.
But I believe half of all thedollars he made in Professional Link should

(02:31:00):
go to one dmpunk. Oh yeah, And that's the extent of my right
back thoughts. I yeah, Ihave zero recal. I remember like probably
three or four shows over the courseof like oh four through like twenty twelve

(02:31:26):
ish, whether it be odd peopleshowing up and you like you'd see them
and you're what the fuck is thisguy doing here? Um, Honky tonk
Man was it one? And Iknew it was Honky tok Man because he
had the side burns and was inthe gimmick and fuck is he doing here?

(02:31:52):
Honkey tom Man? Really? Um, but I don't think he did
anything as far as like being infront of the camera. I remember show
in it might have been a WrestleManiaweekend show. Bushwhacker Luke was like in
a corner signing autographs, and Iremember like looking over and just going And

(02:32:16):
I went to dinner with Carrie Silkinafter the show and there he was again,
and then I heard the backstory oftheir their longtime friendship and Puerto Rico,
And that's another area that I'm incrediblyintrigued by and want to see what
it looked like. There's just notreally a lot of like organized footage out

(02:32:41):
there. So the ring of honoryou mentioned the Return Engagement show is kind
of like when that was the waningpart of your interest in the company.
When did you think it officially likeyou're done going to shows, You've seen
enough? Well, and there somestuff after this. Everybody's journeys a little

(02:33:05):
differently, there's a little different,I should say. But the what started
my rapid decline was when it becameapparent that Jerry Lynn was being built to
win the title from Nigel. Andit's not a knock on Jerry, I
mean, he's one of the bestever do it in Rheim, But up
to that point I saw the rohtitle as really being built, being used

(02:33:26):
to build the next guy that's goingto be built around and that was the
first time it felt like something different. It felt like a movie Thie End
based on the success of the Wrestler, and they started losing there throughout and
around that same time was the rohon HD net deal. Part of the

(02:33:48):
allure for me was this idea thatI could follow every single show and either
buy it and keep it or watchit and sell it off. But the
cential for keeping a library was there. Once it became apparent that that was
no longer going to be the model, the clutter parton me, you know,

(02:34:09):
started losing interest. At some pointI stopped watching the DVDs I was
buying. I think the last showsI watched would have been the two thousand
and six weekend where Brian was tryingto work the three Broadways and hurt himself
the last night with Cambata, Soyeah, that was some time in two

(02:34:31):
thousand and nine. I was stillstuck on the two thousand DVD, so
I was not making the progress,so I last The last show I traveled
to would have been the June twothousand and eight show in Dayton. They
came here and I think twenty tento Louisville. I went a couple of
times Yeah. I went to thefirst show. It was just a standalone

(02:34:54):
show that was filmed by the OVWtelevision equipment and had the horrible aspect ratio.
Yeah. And then I went tothe first set of TV tapings as
he did here, and then Iwant to say, they came back and
I didn't come the next time.My favorite thing about the TV taping was
bringing a casual pan with me andDamie Richards was doing the Kawata kicks.

(02:35:18):
He said, who else this guyspamming gay button as somebody that doesn't play
video games and still getting that referencebig pop, big, big Pop.

(02:35:39):
Yeah. I think the Louisville TVtapings was the last time I actually went
to a show. I had afriend, Derek Price, who was lexing
ten about an hour and a halffor me, who would occasionally get the
early I pay per views and Iwould go to his house for the most
but I hadn't watched one. It'sprobably been twenty thirteen. I would be

(02:36:01):
a good internet he did. Uh. Yeah, he was able to make
it work. The last one Iremember seeing was Hosidy come back to confront
Roger Strong. I think maybe oneafter that I saw, but yeah,
I watched the the one this yearwhere the where the Briscoe's rustled FTR for

(02:36:28):
the first time. Yes, butI had watched seen a pay per view
before that said probably like I saidtwenty thirteen, well, super Card of
Honor this year, I think kindof leads me into my next topic is
the future of Ring of Honor.I mean, I think there are certain

(02:36:50):
aspects of the new Tony Cohn Ringof Honor that I love, um because
there is a tie into the old, but it fuels new. And then
there's other aspects where I just kindof rolled my eyes Dalton Castle and the
boys. There's no need for sixman tag team champions in Honor, Like

(02:37:16):
it's arguable whether there's a need forthat in AW as well. But nevertheless,
I'd rather see it in a wthan ROH. And I like the
idea of the hallmark ROH guys JoeClaudia Cabana, Risco, and I like

(02:37:39):
the idea of mixing in some ofthe new faces like Christian. I love
both FTR RISCO matches. FTR ismy absolute favorite tag team in wrestling right
now. It's not even close.Are They're phenomenal. I have so much

(02:38:01):
respect for Dax Harwood as a singleswrestler. And this actually was a discussion
I had with a buddy of minethe other day. We were trying to
think of, like the last timea tag team produced an individual who was
as equally good as a tag wrestler, you know, and their team was

(02:38:24):
equal into a singles run. Andthe only answer I could come up with
this Bobby Eaton. Oh wow,because I think Bobby Eaton was awesome as
a member of the Bed Nights bothversions, and then great singles wrestler as

(02:38:48):
well. I don't know anybody elsethat is on Dax's level as a single.
He has that big match, theClaudio match from Rampage a week ago
was unbelievable. But FTR is atag I just think gives you. It

(02:39:18):
gives me everything that I like intag teams. So I like, I
like, we're a Ring of Honorsheaded What do you think the future is
for Ring of Honor? Having watchedthis stuff for over thirty years, I
think, realistically there's not a future. And it pains me to say that,

(02:39:39):
but historically, anytime one company hasacquired another, it didn't end well
in the long run for the smaller company for the little fish, so
to speak. Going back to Crockettand UWF obviously WWFWCWUM. I think the
Tony's heart is in the right place. I think he wants this thing to

(02:40:01):
grow and prosper, and I thinkthat having the faces around that were around
when it was, to me creativelyat its peak, obviously there was they
did better business. While I waslater with Cody and the Bucks and Bullet
Club and a whole crew, Iwas far removed from the product then,
so I can't speak on it.I just I don't see them getting a

(02:40:24):
teat deal. I think there's talentfor three promotions. I don't think the
public. I don't think the audienceis there for it. Frankly, I
don't think they're going to support threefull time companies at this point. And
I think that eventually Tony's going torealize this and cut bait on this r
H experiment. Yeah, I justdon't see them being a viable long term

(02:40:48):
anymore. Sadly, it was agreat run, a fantastic run, and
I hope that a lot of peopleinvolved do get full time work out of
this. From the rest excuse me, the wrestlers Obviously, the Briscos are
immense talents. To the announcers.Ian Rick Ebonni you mentioned earlier, fantastic
commentator should be getting, should beon television every week. But again it's

(02:41:11):
there's only so many spots, andI hope he doesn't get left behind in
this thing. Yeah, I know, the hopes are really really high.
I just between the Discovery Corner Mediamerger and HBO Max doing what it's doing
and Discovery plus, I believe isthere streaming service? Is there a place

(02:41:37):
for for wrestling? I don't know. Also, you know you have eight
million wrestling promotions streaming shows. Ithink there's a death match show seven nights
a week now. There are mostof them. Half of them don't have
rings anymore. It's either surrounding chainsor in a bar somewhere. There's always

(02:41:58):
somebody will take a bump somewhere.Yep. And it's easily accessible. This
is not a you keep running tothe mailbox every twenty minutes time. Anyway,
it's click a button and a bunchof show. It's happening. I
mean, look, what's happened toImpact just since eight of you has been

(02:42:20):
available. I hear that Impact isa much better show to watch now than
it was at any other time inits history. But I don't know a
single person who keeps up an impactanymore. I've tried. Every time I've
put it on, there's been oneof three people who are instant challenge changers

(02:42:41):
for me. So I just Inever make up ard of a secondent.
Do you want to do? Youwant to name those three instant channel changers
and see a Moose right away?I can. Next time I see Moose,
I wanted to be his obituary.I have no time for that man.
Yeah. Uh, Sandy Callahan,I have put him at the top

(02:43:03):
of the list, just annoys theshit out of me as an existence.
And then Rich Swan, I don'tcare for Rich Swan every you do not
name the one I was expecting.Who's that? Matt Haven? No,
Matt Haven, He's He's inoffensive tome, He's capable. I don't like

(02:43:26):
him as a world champion. That'swhere RH messed up with him. You
put him middle of the show ina tag match and he's fine. Yeah,
I boy, I you know,I love Mike Bennett so much,
and I think the role of himas a person in a talent. Matt

(02:43:46):
Haven should be just keeping praise uponhim twenty four hours a day and just
follow him around wherever he goes.Because I see nothing with Matt Taven.
I'm sure he's a nice guy andhe's got a very loyal, devoted fan
base. I don't get it.I don't. Honestly I tried. I

(02:44:11):
thought, oh, you know TVtitle guy in roh and you know,
like two thousand and thirteen, fourteen, and oh, you make him the
third Wheel with Adam Cole and MikeBennett. Oh you know, Matt Hardy's
there to kind of, you know, add some heat on his own with
his own group. Yeah, notdo it. I can't do it.

(02:44:33):
But I'm with you on Sam mccallahan. I don't think i've seen rich swan
and like right since he was workingfor Gabe Inevolved. Yeah, as a
wrestler riswanse okay, uh, hehad a very public domestic violence issue a
few years back. Yeah, thatwas that just completely soured me on him.

(02:44:56):
And I've heard conflicting stories and it'sjust it was an for me to
say I'm done with this guy.Yeah. And obviously Moose has his history
as well, and Moose is justa fucking idiot too, Like he's he's
done his thing and passed yo withthat with his domestic violence case when it

(02:45:18):
took the picture on social media withI can't think of his ww name uhan
nation um where you could clearly seethe steroid needle in his pocket, I
think so. But did he allegedsteroid needle in his pocket? But it
was definitely a needle of some sort. But like there's been so many time

(02:45:43):
he has opened his mouth, itjust said dumb, like aggressively stupid shit.
And I'm like, I just gotin those time for this person,
like anybody but him, please Iwill. Brian Cage is the same way.
Oh, Brian Cage is a moron, an absolute mora. And that
was in the bund of me outwatching it. Last right show that I
watched was I feel like someone owesme twelve bucks from the portion of this

(02:46:11):
pay per view that has spent watchingBrian Gage. I just when they put
Tully with him, I was like, Okay, I love Tully, but
not even Telly is going to saythis fucking guy and he, to me,
is probably the biggest waste of money. And we a w payroll.
Oh absolutely, I don't. Inever got it big. He's Michael Elgin

(02:46:35):
with you know, a better tansMy god. Um so sadly, you
know your your view on kind ofRoh's future is bleak at best. I
do want to kind of, youknow, bring this thing full circle.

(02:46:56):
We talked message boards and social media, and this is really really the the
big reason you're here. You're hereto add clout to our final podcasts as
social media phenomenon. I believe thelast podcast I did I referred to as
Twitter superstar Steve. It's funny,funny, that's Steve exclamation point, like

(02:47:26):
has become this thing, Like Isee wrestlers doing it now, Like dude,
I'm like, oh my god,what is this? What is happening?
Well, there was a there wasa while in like two thousand and
seven where on the message board Itried to get all bright in all caps
over as like a thing because Iwas like, oh man, this guy,
they're shoving the hell out of him. He's getting reactions a little did

(02:47:50):
I know? He was like thisreckless as anybody. He almost killed Hagadorn,
Yeah, you know, like hewas referred to his captain safety like
just shit like that, and it'slike, Okay, well I think I'm
gonna stop the all caps all bright. Now he's not Kenta, so he

(02:48:13):
scratch that one. But like,you've developed this massive social media following and
it's fucking impressive, and you don'thave the check mark yet and I don't
know why you have twenty three hundredand fifty eight followers right now, which
I mean, you're not like BritneySpears or whoever these you know, pop

(02:48:37):
culture icons are. But it seemslike every single solitary time I opened up
Twitter, I see something from you, and there's a million likes and a
million retweets and a million quote tweets, and I'm just like, how how
does he do this? Where Iwant my followers back? So I started
using Twitter actively. I've had accountfor probably tenuing, but I don't really

(02:49:01):
start using it until like late twentysixteen. I think, um, twenty
eleven is when it says you've joinedmy mind. Yeah, it's Twitter page.
It started as a something completely different. That ship. My dad says,
count had just was picking up steam, and I want to say they
had just got the TV show withWilliam Shatner and I'm like, like I

(02:49:24):
could do something like that. Iwas in nursing school at the time,
so the ship nursing students say,and I would just tweet out things I
overheard in class, and I wasn'tcommitted to it, so it died a
painful death. I would tweet maybeonce a year for a couple of years,
and then uh, wants to startto become disillusion with Facebook. I

(02:49:45):
just took to Twitter. I wasa group chat with Cameron Hawkins talk and
I would say funny stuff in thechat. Hey, I mean you gotta
tweet that. If you don't tweetthat, I'm going to tweet it.
It's like all right, cool.So I would just start bringing throwing these
things out. And at the sametime I was doing some kind of wacky
side quest on there, like Iwas live tweeting old sapt out of Bell

(02:50:05):
episodes or like Billy Madison or whatever, just whatever I was doing on my
afternoon off. I would just tweetas I watched it. I built up
and then I went to the ScenicCity Invitational tournament as a fan in twenty
seventeen. I met quite a fewonline people there. Going into the summer

(02:50:30):
twenty eighteen, I had about threehundred followers, and I just tweeted this
stupid little video clip of Jeff Hardyjust eating shit on a swan time and
the Hardys had just done an interviewsomewhere where Jeff said he's not doing that
move anymore because he's forty and ithurt. So that's just what I tweeted.
Yeah, so I tweeted, JeffHardy, I'm doing the swan ting

(02:50:52):
because I'm forty, and I heardalso Jeff Hardy and it was the clip
of him just eating shit on thisthing, and with thirty seconds she Helms
found it and retweeted it, andthat just launched a cavalcade. It went
to to Tocca and went to MatthewO Batomania. It's all all the stars
are here with the noridonald face.And I doubled from three hundred to six

(02:51:16):
hundred, like in days. Soall right, well, this is my
phone is a mess, but thisis cool. A couple months later,
I got I was in the processof divorce. I locked, my came
going through all that, and uh, while I was locked, just started

(02:51:37):
becoming more and more of myself,just saying whatever. So then when I
unlocked. It comes in spurts um. I tweeted some stupid boot about Jim
Ross and the cheesecake factory that peoplejust thoughtless hilarious. So I'll get like
two or three hundred at a time, and it's happened several times now.

(02:52:01):
Just this year, I'm getting fivefollowers based on stupid shit like saying that
I know that young Bucks can't beatme in a real fight, or or
that you know, just the dumbestshit you could think of. I once

(02:52:22):
I gave up the illusion of everwanting to be in the wrestling business again,
I was able to speak much morefreely with my opinions on things,
and yeah, just being kind ofa naturally funny guy real they quick quit,
and having a few gifts saved forthe right occasion. It's it's taken
me far into this thing, man, I don't get it. I've been

(02:52:43):
lucky enough to be friends some peoplewho have very large followings who will reach
me frequently. That helps getting somekind of public endorsements that way, But
I don't see it as a phenomenonor like anything big at all. I'm
just a stupid forty old guy livingin Lagrange Kentucky who's getting none of time

(02:53:03):
on his days off. It wouldjust fire off tweets and sometimes in the
office, but don't tell the bossthat. It's like you're the ring of
Honor of Twitter, right, themom and pop shop that that has become
a revolution. Yeah, late lastyear, you're talking about Nick Nemmuth.
Earlier, his brother like got likea Legit insted me one time and like

(02:53:26):
I wasn't even talking shit on him. It was a picture of Teddy Bassi
Jr. And it was like,oh, Man Rapper, there's a time
when Developmental was full of guys lookedjust like this. They had stupid names
like Alec Price and Briley Pierce andHot Young Briley himself found it. It
was like, oh, you meanmy time Developmental that spawn Bray Wyatt and

(02:53:48):
whoever. Oh yeah, congrats onyour successful w WF career, Pal,
good work. He is a pieceof shit, So uh yeah, Hot
Young Briley can go flat. Ihave nothing about it. I do this
fun. This a little pissing contest. The aforementioned Rover a couple of years

(02:54:09):
ago, decided to try to getme fired from every job he thought I
ever had over me. It wasa stupid thing to say, and he
was able to turn it around.Preezy. I'll give him credit. He's
a crafty one. Uh. Hewas saying something dumb and I said,
look, I don't care if he'sin a wheelchair or not. I gotta

(02:54:30):
shoot him like a whole threat andhope God understands. And he took that
as me being ablest was the wordthat was thrown around, and then he
started he started tagging. I guessthey googled my name and found podcast i'd
been on. Googled, Hey,pro Wrestling Torch, do you have this

(02:54:52):
able at scum warding for you?Like? I've never worked for the Torch,
I've appeared. I've appeared as aguest on their podcast a few times.
But come on, man, tryharder. These stupid little things happened
social media, Man, it's thebest and the worst thing that could have

(02:55:13):
ever happened. I like it becausethey let's be connected people like minded people.
I made some great friends on there, but occasionally I do have to
go dark because there are people whohave nothing better to do than to get
embarrassed and then try to take everythingyou've ever loved from you, and it's
just silly, you know, why, why do that's somebody? There is

(02:55:35):
one iTunes review our podcast where somebodycalled me a racist, and I looked
at the time that the review wasposted, and I was trying to examine
where this possibly could have come from. And I laugh about it now because

(02:56:00):
of, you know, getting intothe weeds of figuring out who this was
that posted it and why. ButLebron had just left to go to the
Lakers, and I called him afront running douchebag or something like that on
Twitter. And I was friends withthis guy who was manager I think,

(02:56:22):
or like assistant manager at the Cavsteam shop, and he viewed me as
saying, well, you know,buck Lebron, I don't care about him
anymore. Meanwhile, I'm still buyinghis shoes regularly. Right. One of
the greatest basketball players of all time. I agree with him on pretty much

(02:56:43):
everything politically, and I love whathe does for the community. I think
he might be the worst teammate inhistory basketball, but that does not make
me a racist, and calling hima team hopping douchebag does not make me
a rast, Nor does that giveyou a reason to go on iTunes and

(02:57:03):
tell the possible listeners of an honorablemention that I'm a racist, because then
that ropes and Hageorn and Joe Finiand Johnson and everybody else. So this
guy got a VP not a VPN, but like bo ip whatever, the

(02:57:24):
one that you can make a phone, Yeah, and was like calling my
cell phone shit and like just crazycrazy stuff. So I, you know,
went nuclear on social media and unfriendedand blocked and reported and blocked,
and it just kept over and over. New account, new account, new

(02:57:46):
account. So there is a darkside to being vocal on social media.
And I had I don't know atthe time, maybe five hundred followers.
The podcast was maybe a year old. H So you know Twitter, is
that my account with like seven hundredfollowers in a blue check mark? And

(02:58:11):
I had to use one of myburners. Yeah, yes, I had
a burner account. Damn. Guythinks I got like ten burner accounts.
I had two, okay, andone is a my actual real life job
business. So I made this oneand then I got the podcast account as

(02:58:31):
well. So, um, likethis guy went nuts and it was based
on nothing. And I look atwho this guy supports, and you know,
from just a arrest like supports itanswers a lot of questions. Yes,

(02:58:56):
uh, you know about his hislife choices, and I'm sure you've
come across that on your Twitter.You know, you talked about this this
large following, which I don't seeas such because I see people with so
many more followers than me. Thething that does lead some credence to it
is when I discovered I was blockedby AWS account, which I never tagged

(02:59:20):
them. I never tagged mister Khan. I've said some wildly allanish things about
him that may or may not betrue that I have no basis for saying
whether they are. Yeah. Idiscovered it was the after one of the
pay per views that I had actuallyordered, and then somebody retweted all this
is like a good match for Dynamiteor whatever. I'm like, what the
fuck? I can't see it.To be blocked by a whole ass mainstream

(02:59:45):
company is something of a I don'twant to say a badge of honor,
but it's an achievement of some sort. I think. So the only thing
I can compare, and at leastfrom boats perspective, Frankie, because they
and blocked me. Yeah, andI like Frankie, Like, I think
he's a super nice guy. Ihad a really fun conversation with him about

(03:00:09):
Tony Danza playing with Metallica, um, because Frankie's big into like he loves
Metallica and metal music. And Ijust I didn't know, Like I was
like, tell me more, like, where can I find this? I'm
super confused by this collaboration of twoworlds. Yeah, and like a month

(03:00:31):
ago, I went to send hima reaction, you know, because I
finally listened to it and I hadnoticed I'm blocked. Hmm. Let me
search my Twitter archive and see ifI've ever said anything about Frankie blow and
behold. I asked somebody if theywere watching AJ versus Frankie from The Asylum,

(03:01:00):
and there's a match that they hadwhere AJ gets Frankie in the styles
clash and Frankie tucks his chin likehe's supposed to is supposed to go ahead
and the opposite way. Remember thatvividly. Yeah, it is one of
the most disgusting, potentially disgusting injuries. It's not the first time it happened,

(03:01:22):
it probably and knock on wood,it won't be the last time.
But I think that's what got mezat And I'm just thinking to myself,
like, you're not even added inthis conversation, like wow, how could
you be so fucking vain? Andyou're in the wrestling business, so that

(03:01:46):
explains it. Like I've I've blockedpeople on Twitter just because I don't like
them and I don't want to hearfrom them or see their name mentioned.
And I won't publicly name them becausethat's just doing the opposite of what I
intended. But I mean, likeFrankie was a nice guy. I don't
want to say he was my friendor anything like that, but I was

(03:02:09):
just weirded out by like asking ifit was that match and saying that was
really a ugly I guess it waslike an ugly, ugly looking styles clash
and thank god he wasn't hurt orsomething like that that. Sean Michaels got
me over a misunderstanding. I waswatching the ninety seven raw, the first

(03:02:31):
match back after his knee injury andknee injury, you know, I lost
my smile, yes, and somebodyin the crowd had a and I said,
Sean Michaels can die. And becauseit was the first match, back.
I just took a picture of thatas I'm watching on television and tag
dude, and just like it waspart of the first Hey, welcome back
at Shan Michaels. And I guesshe thought I was telling him to die,

(03:02:54):
So I called a stray on thatone. I get it. I
can only imagine the kind of stufthey deal with on a regular basis.
Yeah, I mean, when you'reat that level and you're getting the public,
you're giving the public access to youjust turn off the mentions. I
know, like Punk is one ofthose people. He doesn't have his mentions

(03:03:16):
on he sees something with his namein it. Um, that's I don't
know. I mean, Sean Michaelsis a guy that draws a penis every
time you autographed something, So,uh, what's that the buck step?

(03:03:37):
Even before this whole aw thing over, it's probably been about five years ago
now, I was watching one oftheir matches with the Briscoes on the New
Japan on Access and I noticed thatthey had whichever Briscoe set up for the
Meltra driver and the springboard park gotbroken up. So instead of just hitting

(03:03:58):
a tombstone while you have the guyin and he just dropped and walked away,
and I was like, what thefuck is that? Why didn't you
just tombs on the guy? Ididn't tag anybody, and it ended with
the bug probably nice guys, andI abbreviated it for the sake of character
account. I probably should have gonefurther. So the party nice guys,

(03:04:18):
but fuck them was how I putit and what I really meant to say.
But I don't care for the wrestling, you know, and they blocked
me somehow. Davidson's fan caught oneto this and pointed it out to the
point where I spent an entire Christmasdodging these nerds coming at me because it

(03:04:41):
was either Christmas side of Christmas.Even I did this, That's the notifications
on my phone at the time.I'm like, what the hell is happening
on Twitter right now? Yeah,and to this day, I'm convinced that
the aw block is part of thatlong standing issue we've had with each other.
I mean, knowing who who runsthe aid of social it could be

(03:05:03):
any number of people, But yeah, I have my suspicions. I listen,
I think the bucks are tremendous.Um I I really more so with
Matt than nick Um got to be, you know, pretty social with as
far as like, we had alot of things we talked non wrestling.

(03:05:28):
I never talked wrestling with wrestling.It's so like anytime fans meet a wrestler
and they're like, oh, Ican't wait to ask him about this match
and that match, I'm like,yourself a favor, do it like I
don't. I would never talk tomy dad about like court cases, right,

(03:05:50):
especially when he was practicing. Mymom and I'd be watching like Law
and Order or something, and he'dwalk in the room, he'd see what
was on, and out he'd went. Didn't want he doesn't want to see.
So like Matt Jackson and I,we talked speakers, we talked MBA,
and that was the extent. II can't tell you the last time

(03:06:16):
I've talked like wrestling, like gotteninto the weeds in a wrestling discussion.
I mean probably maybe like Punk andFTR. We talked about Brett Hart.
They kind of made me do aone eighty without really but it was more
they were having the conversation and Iwas standing there listening, and they pointed

(03:06:43):
me in the right direction for thingsthat I wasn't seeing because I'm not a
trained wrestler and it was an educationalIt was more like a college lecturer than
anything else. Yeah, but Ifelt involved because I got to say,
like, oh, I did likethe Piper Brett WrestleMania eight, you know

(03:07:05):
match more than Brett and Sean andWrestleMania twall. That was like my big
contribution to the conversation because we werelike talking Brett's best WrestleMania matches. They're
pointing out other things that he didthat because I was always a Sean or
Flair guy, right, and I'vedone a total one aide that and that's

(03:07:31):
it. That's like, off thetop of my head, that's the only
wrestling conversation with a wrestling other thanwhen I talked to hagging him. Yeah.
I I have a number of wrestlerswho follow me on Twitter just as
a fan, being a fan obviouslynot being a fan of me. Well,
they follow you to the art,fan of you. But I just
want to put it out there,like I get wild. People wouldn't want

(03:07:54):
to follow me because I do sayjust some old stuff on there. If
you don't want the association, that'sfine. I don't agree anyone. Those
who do follow me, if theyif they're cool enough to do that,
I don't dare ask them anything aboutwrestling. I figure, if they're following
me, it's not for my wrestlingpaste. It's most likely just because I'm
saying something funny that they're wanting tosee. I did side of the DMS

(03:08:18):
recently on a wrestler just who's prettyfar moving the situation at the time,
like, hey man, look,I'm just curious, and I promise I'll
never bother you about this sin Didyou feel this dying? You know as
it was happening, And he wasgracious enough to not only reply, but
like a short video. Since somemessages over the next couple of days.

(03:08:39):
I could probably write a short bookabout the subject now if I wanted to.
But by and large, I'm gonnaleave wrestlers alone on social media.
I will reply for mutuals. Ifnot, I will let you be.
I'll give you a like, i'llgive you a repeet, I'll promote your
stuff. But I know I'm onthis side of guard rail and they're on

(03:09:00):
that side. I'm not a friend, I'm a fan, and I will
respect it as such. There aresome exception. You know, there are
people who've got to know outside theresomewhere to you and Matt Jackson there.
Well, my local independent is aParadigm Pro Wrestling, and they have really
taken this Twitter thing to a newlevel. And that they actually put my

(03:09:20):
face on the flyer a few monthsback for their show as a goof.
You know, they had a realflyer, but they also had come beat
wrestling Twitter. Steve if his fencehas put up in time, because it's
my fence that week. And thenI was there this past Friday night and
the ringing oouncer actually pointing me out, and I swear you could have heard

(03:09:43):
someone fart in that building. Therewas no reaction. It helps keep keep
things in perspective. This wrestling mediaship isn't real life. You know,
nobody is paying to see me ina building for sure. Honestly, it's
I think that is a great wayto look back at a couple of my
favorite interactions. So Bobby Cruise,if you've ever spent any time around him,

(03:10:09):
he is never like unless he's working. He is the constantly just busting
balls yea, and he is anexcellent ball buster. So I take this
picture in the Matter's Square Garden showof his bulk spot, and I sent

(03:10:31):
it to him and I said,I got you, and he went over
to the table and I'm in thefront row at the garden in my honorable
mention hoodie that's white. It stoodout like a sore thumb. I didn't
even it was not intentional. Idid not plan to stand out. I
did not want to be known.But a lot of people that saw the

(03:10:52):
show were like, oh, hey, I see Jeff, saw you on
TV, saw you on the payper view access in New Japan were still
doing their thing together, so theyyou know, aired the full show on
their Friday night or Saturday night dimeslot or whatever. So I look over
to Bobby Cruise as he's sitting atthe table after right sending his picture,

(03:11:16):
he gives me two middle fingers.And this had been a running gag between
the two of us for and maybeit's not even just a gag. I
mean, maybe it was like justwhat he does because he would always happen
off every time he saw me.For he'd be in the ring and he'd
like scratch his nose or like he'dyou know, go to grab the microphone,

(03:11:41):
hold it behind his back and getready to bring it to his mouth
to present, and the middle fingerwould come with it. And it's always
like then he'd wink at me.And I think Bobby is just a sensational
ring announcer. Yeah, but um, it's it's that little interaction thing that
keep shoe attached. And as faras Matt goes, like, I wouldn't

(03:12:05):
say I'm friends with the guy atall, but if I'd see him at
a show, that was the introductionwas, Hey, how are you doing?
You know what's going on? Heyyou know you see these shoes came
out or you know these are comingout in a couple of weeks. And
hey, you know my buddy,you know, runs the JD Sports and
I've got now I've got the hookup on pretty much everything. Like as

(03:12:31):
it's release, like my pair justsits in the office, which is like
if you're a sneaker head, that'sthe ultimate, like your life is made
right. You don't even have togo in it the doors open or wait
in line the pairs, just inthe office. It was cool. Um,

(03:12:52):
and uh, you know the loveof wrestling, I think too,
there is always when you socialized witha wrestling fan or somebody that's in the
wrestling business. The wrestlers and thepeople in the business are the ultimate fan.
They're the biggest fans of wrestling becausethey're choosing to do it for a
living. So then you take youras a regular fan this love of wrestling.

(03:13:20):
There is that unsaid understanding. Hey, there is that general base level
thing we have in common. Wearen't total strangers. And I think that's
important with the social media factor becausethere is wrestling there and yeah, you

(03:13:43):
might bust balls, and maybe there'sa controversial thing here or there. And
I mentioned Grizzly Redwood eating poop afterthe Eagles game Super Bowl, and I
mean removed from Twitter. But likethere is the understanding of that inside joke
between friends that like, I don'tknow, I've known Grizzly since two thousand

(03:14:09):
and six, since eighteen years.Yeah eighteen years math not my strong suit,
Like that's crazy, that's half mylife. I've known Grizzly Redwood and
I've known Shaneagguary or even longer.That's nuts. And it's it's the idea

(03:14:30):
that there is the ball busting component. But at the end of the day,
we love wrestling, and you cantake away all the beliefs and religion
and politics and sports and family,and you know where you're from and how
you how much money you make,and how much money you don't make,

(03:14:50):
and what you do for a living. But at the end of the day,
we love wrestling, and I thinkthat's kind of the thing. That's
the reason this show exists, thereason you and I are having this conversation,
and we're pretty fortunate that there issomething like that in a world that

(03:15:15):
seems like there's constantly things adding upagainst us, we have that thing to
distract us. Yeah, absolutely,man, it's I was fortunate enough to
say after the show at Paradigm thispast week to just talk to a few
of the restaurers I've known a longtime now and to the point where they're

(03:15:37):
bringing their trainees and they're kind oftalking over the matches with me, because,
like I said, I'm watching thisthirty years have some training at a
pretty good perspective on the way thingsare supposed to go. And I noticed
after the show, within the nexttwelve hours, all of a sudden,

(03:15:58):
that had like eight more followers,and they were all the younger guys on
the show, and the thought hitme on like, holy shit, they
think I'm somebody. Oh, thesepoor kids like they have no idea because
yeah, especially these smaller shows,Yeah, you don't know who's a promoter
who's not. These these vets aregiving me respect, and we're talking to

(03:16:20):
matchover, speaking very frankly and openlybecause we trust the children's opinion. And
I'm like, oh my god,no like this. So I hope they
said these poor kids straight immediately letthem know. Don't don't talk about Steve
at some show like there's just knowwho I am, fucking Jim Bob and
bucksnort Tennessee. You won't have afucking clue who you're talking about. But

(03:16:43):
it is. It's this thing that, like you said, it brings us
together, especially those who have alittle bit more of a trained eye like
you talked about the guys pointing outthings in my heart matches. How many
thousands of times have we seen Brettin the last thirty years. And these
guys with it are more intricate understanding, are picking up on things like there's
always more to know, and that'spart of what makes being a fan,

(03:17:03):
especially at this almost very intensive levelthat we're at. Like you never stop
learning, even as a fan.If that's around you want to go,
it's it's really crazy, like it'sshe had Gaspar told me an OVW.
So you think Rick Flair goes outthere every night and thinks he knows it
all Like Rick Flair no more thanany of us. I bet you his

(03:17:24):
all has to still learning something everyweek out there, like you are never
too experienced to stop learning. Ican't think of a better way to wrap
this than chad rest in peace andthe idea of never stop learning. Throw
out your social media plugs and handlesand all that good stuff. Oh sure,

(03:17:48):
My only real social media's Twitter atnot doctor Death. That's n O
T D R D E A tH. If you want to hear more
about Soultry Voice of a Pair,several podcasts over the years. I used
to be on the Place to BeNation pop feed with a little show called
Songs with Friends, where me andmy girlfriend broke down song lyrics and the

(03:18:09):
meanings behind them, along with myown ridiculous backstories, just concocting a theory
that James Hetfield may or may notbe gay? What else have we got
here? Of Several wrestling related stuffover the years a deep diver rich fan
on the pro Rusting Torch. I'vebeen on the five Star Match Game hosted
about Joe Gaggy at the Voice ofWrestling, as well as various other appearances

(03:18:31):
over the years. So you cangoogle me and something will come up.
Well, I can honestly say allthe honorable journeys that we have been on
on this very podcast. This isepisode two hundred and seven of an honorable
mention. This may have been theone that got me into laugh the hardest,
and I've really enjoyed this. Ithink a little levity in life is

(03:18:56):
essential, and you know, Idon't want to get too far into the
weeds on my life over the lastfour months, but it's been a pretty
wild ride, and I've just kindof learned to see something that is so
ridiculous and absurd you just laugh atit and makes your life a hell of

(03:19:18):
a lot easier. At the endof the day, we follow a pseudosport
where a girl manthos and a girlman into the ropes and he rebounce like
it's just ridiculous, you know,But here we are. We find the
joy at it. Yeah, andI hope we can continue to find the
Joy. Thank you for joining me. This has been so good, so

(03:19:41):
good. Well, thanks for havingme. Man, This is awesome.
Thanks Man, appreciate it. Aftera successful first outing, Fight Pro Wrestling
is getting ready for their second event, Enter the Fight Round two October twenty
second and Westville, New Jersey,featuring old school rules and new school style.

(03:20:01):
Fight Pro Wrestling brings a unique visionto the world of independent professional wrestling,
featuring a season structure and a tierbased system. Into the Fight Round
two will feature top independent talent likeDelirious, Rhet Titus, The Savage Gentleman,
Victor Benjamin, Lady Frost, Chennaikaiand many more. Tickets and information

(03:20:24):
at fight pro dot com. That'sfight with two t s pro dot com
and say fifteen percent off your ticketsfor into the Fight Round two when you
use the promo code fight two that'sf I G H T T two to
say fifteen percent on your tickets asyou enter the Fight Round two with Fight

(03:20:46):
Pro Wrestling October twenty second in Westville, New Jersey. Want to hear the
ad free version of this show andget it early. Become a patron today
at patreund dot com. Slash anArmable pod. If you become a patron,
you'll get early and add free accessto the show with several tiers to
choose from. That started just afew bucks a month, and each tier

(03:21:07):
comes with more bonus perks like bonuscontent, merch and so much more.
Support the show at Patreon dot com, slash an Honorable Pod and get early
add free access and be worthy ofan honorable mention. Well, that wraps
up what is absolutely the most ridiculousinterview we have ever done in this very
show. Thanks to Steve Williams atnot Doctor Death on Twitter for joining me

(03:21:35):
and getting me to laugh hard enoughthat my stomach hurt. That was an
absolute joy, and I just wanteverybody to know I have never been to
a Taco Bell in my life,so I have not run across Ian Rotten
and I don't intend to at anypoint for the foreseeable rest of my life.

(03:22:00):
So thanks very much everybody for listening. I want to remind you to
head over to our Twitter at anHonorable Pod that is also our Instagram at
an Honorable Pod, Facebook dot com, backslash and Honorable Pod. You can
find me on Twitter and get meup over a thousand at least in terms

(03:22:22):
of follows, were only like eighthundred and some away at mister Jeff Schwartz
zero. That's at mister Jeff Schwartzzero. It's also my Instagram handle and
I'll be your friend on Facebook Jeffspace Schwartz. Just give it a search.
Sch w A r t Z mypartner who is not here again this

(03:22:46):
week. He's busy raising a babyand writing a book. He is at
Hagedorn Shane on Twitter and Instagram,Shane Hagedorn on Facebook, and of course
at Code of Her Book on Twitter. The Code of Honor book is awesome.
I have read multiple transcripts from thebook and I am super pumped for

(03:23:11):
all Ring of Honor fans to getthis in their hands in the coming months
and weeks and years and however longit takes hag it On to finish this
book. It's going to be amazing. So be sure to check out at
Code of Honor Book on Twitter.Our YouTube playlist YouTube dot com Backslash an
honorable mentioned podcast with the non rowagematch of the week. That's where a

(03:23:37):
lot of our cool archival stuff ishoused. There's some slideshows, plenty of
interesting footage to check out at anHonorable mentioned podcast with YouTube dot com in
front of it. So upcoming events, I don't have an Honorable Journey officially

(03:23:58):
scheduled, but my friend Joe Condello, my friend Steve Hoe, and my
friend Big Stu aka Aaron Rund willbe joining me at some point in the
coming weeks as my schedule freeze up. We'll also cover Survival of the Fittest
twenty eighteen Death before this Honor sevenNight one, in Night two, down

(03:24:18):
the Road, when Haggedorn his back, And of course we are brought to
you by the Creative Control Network.Be sure to follow the head of a
Creative Control Network, mister Jophini.He's on Twitter at j W and E
y three r D and at theCC network one on Twitter for all the
latest news and notes on a CreativeControl Network. Be sure to also follow

(03:24:41):
our verified scientists of sound or Astronautof audio or prevayor production, the Ace
of Action Figures, the Voice ofvideo Games, the base Master General,
the Technicians of Trouble, the BestBroadcast Machine, the award winning Autoker out
of Advertisement, Doug Cleaner of Audio, mister Zach Johnson. He's on Twitter
and Instagram, at Radio ZT,and he delivers us the Beast intro and

(03:25:01):
outro every single week, making surethat we sound cooler than the other side
of the pillow. Anyone with informationregarding the murder of my dear friend Carneal
Sledge May Sledge dressed in peace andhis friend Catherine Brown is asked to please
call the Federal Bureau of Investigation forthe Sea of Cleveland two one six two
two six eight four two. Youcan remain anonymous, and there is a

(03:25:24):
one hundred thousand dollars award. Whowouldn't one one hundred grand in their pocket
if you can help convict whoever didthis to Carnal and Kate on June fourth,
twenty nineteen, in the Rocky RiverReservation under the Rain Road bridge between
five oh four and five thirteen pm. The fact that I don't even have

(03:25:46):
to read the note that has allthat information anymore makes me sick. And
I want whatever bastard that did thisbrought to justice, and we might as
well build some gallows for him andhang him in the town square. So
let's get justice for Carnell, forKate, for their families, and for
all of our friends. Carnell isa major void left in my life.

(03:26:09):
And I really missed the big guy, even his very very loud snores that
I'd hear on occasion. So let'sget him. Let's get him some justice.
Rest in peace, Sledge, andof course Kate as well, having
said that, there's only one thingleft to do, that is to quote
the honorable mayor of an honorable mentionyour palace, sal Salernaro. No need

(03:26:33):
to trip out. It's time todip out, slap the porpoise. This
one's over. We're out. Bekind to one another, keep your chin
up, happy everything until the nextepisode. I hope you take my commentary
out of this man, because Idon't want to have anything to do with
it. Red Roughs to I seethem blue forming you, and I think

(03:27:09):
to myself, what I wonderful.I see skies so blue and white,

(03:27:30):
the bright blessed day, the darksacred night, and I think to myself,
what I wonderful. The colors ofthe rainbow so pretty in the sky

(03:27:54):
are also on the faces of peoplegoing by. I see friends shaking hands
saying how they're really saying, I'mdo. I hear biggers c I my

(03:28:20):
step grown. They are like muchmoved and I never know, And I
think to myself what I wonder world. I think to myself what I wonder. W

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