April 9, 2025 • 57 mins
In this heartfelt episode, the hosts discuss the recent passing of Kevin Castle, a beloved figure in the wrestling podcast community. They share personal memories and the impact he had on them both professionally and personally. The episode delves into Kevin's lasting influence, his health issues, and the outpouring of support from the community. They also discuss upcoming tributes, John's efforts to address listener concerns, and the emotional challenges that come with such a loss. Mixed with wrestling talk and personal anecdotes, this episode is a touching tribute to a cherished friend.
00:00 Dominic Mysterio Calls Out CM Punk
02:34 Reflecting on Kevin Castle's Legacy
04:46 The Evolution of Wrestling Podcasts
08:41 Personal Reflections and Tributes
11:05 The Impact of Kevin Castle on the Community
14:46 The Reality of Podcasting and Personal Struggles
24:09 Upcoming Plans and Final Thoughts
29:55 Reflecting on Kevin's Journey
31:31 The Struggles Behind the Scenes
33:57 Kevin's Health and Its Impact
36:12 The Emotional Toll of Loss
42:13 Remembering Friends and Colleagues
50:37 Transitioning Back to Wrestling Talk
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/wrestling-soup--1425249/support.
00:00 Dominic Mysterio Calls Out CM Punk
02:34 Reflecting on Kevin Castle's Legacy
04:46 The Evolution of Wrestling Podcasts
08:41 Personal Reflections and Tributes
11:05 The Impact of Kevin Castle on the Community
14:46 The Reality of Podcasting and Personal Struggles
24:09 Upcoming Plans and Final Thoughts
29:55 Reflecting on Kevin's Journey
31:31 The Struggles Behind the Scenes
33:57 Kevin's Health and Its Impact
36:12 The Emotional Toll of Loss
42:13 Remembering Friends and Colleagues
50:37 Transitioning Back to Wrestling Talk
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/wrestling-soup--1425249/support.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
So Dominic mysterio is calling out seem Punk. I hate
to see them punk? Why because he's old. He disappeared
for what thirty years and came back. He's now sixty
and he's still wrestling. He tortured me when I was
a kid. So I was twelve years old and he
(00:23):
was probably forty five at the time, maybe fifty, and
so like, I mean, I don't know what's up. He's
saying happy birthday to my sister. Who does that? I
can't say that. I'm not gonna say that, but I
don't like seem punk. He traumatized me as a kid.
Who does that to a twelve year old? What's wrong
(00:43):
with him? Oh my god?
Speaker 2 (00:52):
Are these people still upset at punk for whatever reason
they find? What was that all? No?
Speaker 1 (00:58):
I think I think Dominic is planting seeds for a
punk feud based upon Oh that's Domb.
Speaker 2 (01:04):
Oh yeah, that's what I'm saying.
Speaker 1 (01:06):
And he's called he's like, what is he sixty years old?
Speaker 2 (01:08):
Now?
Speaker 1 (01:10):
Oh my god?
Speaker 2 (01:10):
Well, you know what, To be fair, I would rather
watch Punk and Domb than anything involving Rawlin. So I'm
not about that idea.
Speaker 1 (01:19):
Oh yeah, he's I just I thought it was funny
because it's like it's probably the only thing that maybe
last laugh in the last twenty four fucking hours.
Speaker 2 (01:27):
But yeah, well that's well, that's it. I mean, what
a fucking like you said, what a fucking crazy day.
I mean, at this point, it's basically like you said,
twenty four hours, we've gone through this process. So yeah,
and then yeah, RAW was on right after all of
this ship or before everything that. I don't know how
(01:48):
you guys went and did that show afterwards. I fucking
that's that's that's a tough one to do. I had
to listen through most of it though, and Jesus Christ, yeah,
I mean it was. It was good. I really really
love well, I mean, I love John anyways, but I
really love what John was saying on that show.
Speaker 1 (02:06):
Man.
Speaker 2 (02:06):
I think it was very apropos for a lot of
the things that come out of both of our mouths
when we talk about how people behave, whether it be
on the internet or in real life or in wrestling.
So I don't know, I didn't get to hear the
end of it though yet.
Speaker 1 (02:21):
Yeah, I mean I know that DT kind of went
on for a little bit afterwards after me and John
got off. I didn't get a chance to listen to that,
but yeah, John, so for people listening on the download
that maybe not have heard it yet or haven't figured
it out. We lost Kevin Castle yesterday and John came
on to Don Tony's show and he explained what had happened.
(02:47):
He explained how we're not sure if it was a
heart attack or a stroke or what had happened, but
he was by himself. He reached out to a chicky
friend and stuff like that, and for what we know
is when the emergency arrived, there was passed away at
that point. I know John will be talking about it tonight.
(03:10):
He said he's going to do a live thing, I
believe on X so I am John Draper. If you're
listening to this and you want to check it out
live or whatever, that's his handle on X And I
don't know how he's going to feel that by himself.
Jesus Christ, John, I hope you have mods or something
(03:31):
with you, Bud, because that's going to be an insanely
busy live to have. There was a lot of outpouring
and love insane amounts from all different corners of the world,
and yeah, talking about it with John. I mean, I
didn't want to take front and center in any way.
I've been working with Kevin Castle for fucking I've been
(03:54):
a part of Kevin or Kevin Castle has been a
part of my life for twenty plus fucking years. I mean,
that's the reality of it. And I've had the pleasure
of working with him for fifteen plus back in the
Minority Report days, even doing production there and the silly
little commercials and shit too, to producing shows with the
(04:17):
man and obviously having him here on Soup for years
and stuff.
Speaker 2 (04:22):
Well that's it is. I mean people don't realize this,
And like you said, we just saw the graphic for
him and so by the time he was okay. So
when he started the show, yeah, he was thirty two
and he started it, which I feel like that was
right around the age you started the Soup too, right,
or a little bit around that age too. Yeah, I mean.
Speaker 1 (04:44):
There was the pre Soup shit Revolution radio. I mean
I started podcasting in two thousand and five. Technically two
thousand and two was like my first stuff, but that
was like wrestling. It wasn't even called podcasting. iPods didn't
exist yet, it was called it was just called online
radio or internet radio, and I did kind of what
(05:08):
TT did back in his bones days, which was just
play themes and talk about wrestling. It was really generic shit.
It was like teenager shit at that point.
Speaker 2 (05:17):
Well, at this point, I don't think that anybody could
have predicted. I even think fifteen years ago people could
have predicted that it would have became what it did. No. No,
I don't think that anybody knew that it was going
to become as big of a anything as it was.
I think that still remained surprising to people, which is
why there's definitely a different level of I don't know, drive,
(05:43):
I guess you could call it or intention to people
that have done it for that long, to the point
where we saw people that typically would want absolutely fucking
nothing to do with anybody related to our little sphere
or universe, shout out every shout out Kevin everything, because truly,
if you've been around for fifteen, twenty even more years,
(06:08):
you've ran into these names, and if you haven't, it's
more than likely because either a serial type podcast or
a rogan podcast, right, Because that was right around the
time where it was like, oh wow, look at all
these people, like they figured out what this shit was.
But to anybody that was before that, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (06:27):
It was a wild West back then. Dude. I remember
just all the stuff that I would have to do
with with both of those guys, all the guys at
one point, just making sure that there was like so,
this is a weird, antiquated thing. They had this thing
called chatrooms, and these chat rooms were like these individual programs,
and you had to go to websites and set them
(06:47):
up and pay them money just to have people in
a chat room. It's inconceivable to think of people paying
one thousand dollars a month for a chat room in
twenty twenty five, but it was a real thing back then.
It was Oh yeah, it was crazy. Just even to
stream back then cost probably about five hundred dollars a
month easy for.
Speaker 2 (07:08):
DT and and mind you, folks, this was a time
before it was like thank you for the seven thousand
dollars super chat, mister banana man.
Speaker 1 (07:17):
Like, yeah, nobody was paying for shit. It was all
give us money, give you money. What the hell is that? Yah?
Speaker 2 (07:23):
Yeah, you were kind of considered a fucking emotional terrorist
if you were like can I have a dollar? People
like what are you doing to us? Are you bankrupting us? Meanwhile,
there's four thousand people in.
Speaker 1 (07:36):
The Kevin was there for all that, man, He was
there before Brogan, He was there before fucking Jim Cornett.
He was there before all of this. Don Toni and
Kevin Castle were really the cornerstone of wrestling podcasts. I mean,
there are there are older podcasts. Absolutely, there are some
that are still out there. And for whatever Dave's worth,
(07:59):
he's that he's been on air longer, which is technically true.
But as far as podcasting goes, as far as the gritty,
we're not backed by a multi billion dollar conglomerate. DT
and Casey were the original Wayne and Garth of fucking
wrestling podcasts. They really were.
Speaker 2 (08:19):
And don't forget the miracle that is Dave Meltzer both
being twenty five years old and having done a podcast
for twenty five years. Twenty six years. Actually yeah, it's amazing.
It doesn't even make sense how we did it, but
somehow we s pulled it up.
Speaker 1 (08:34):
Oh he went back in time. Yet that's a lareon
in the back.
Speaker 2 (08:37):
Oh my gods. No. But for the people that were wondering,
I left that to you guys last night because you
guys were all obviously much much closer to Kevin than
I was. And like you said, it's really undeniable for
me at least. And I'm not trying to make this
(08:59):
about anything to do with me, but this is almost
impossible for people to not interject themselves into these conversations
when somebody who's passed away, because they're referencing their life
and their relationship with this person who's now no longer there.
And like you said, these big goofy chat rooms with
two thousand people, I mean I was somebody that was
(09:21):
in there. Yeah, And that's how I made my way
into this world, dude. That's how it happened was I'd
heard clips of Don Toni and Kevin Castle, and I
started legitimately downloading it and putting it on an aforementioned
fucking iPod like a regular ass iPod.
Speaker 1 (09:39):
That's so wild, is it?
Speaker 2 (09:40):
And old episodes. I would run out of recent episodes
and download old episodes that were something that might have
seemed somewhat topical, that didn't age poorly, and I'd go
and I'd listen to it at college while I was
driving up there or doing class work or whatever the
fuck it was, But yeah, man, that's how a lot
of people ended up in this space was because of
(10:02):
these guys. There's no way around it. Now. It's such
an insanely, wildly saturated, over the top, like who the
fuck are these people type world. You get that way
because somebody shows you a way to do something, or
(10:22):
somebody does something in a way that makes you go, hey,
I can do that. I think I can do that.
I want to try that, and you and I have
heard this from a million people, not a million people,
but a lot of people by now where they're like, oh, yeah,
we can think we got that from you guys, and
we thought we wanted to do our own shows, like well,
that's that's what this dude did for us, or at
(10:46):
least I can speak for myself in this situation and
maybe go, oh fuck, I can do this. I can
make that happen.
Speaker 1 (10:53):
I'm reading this now and I'm really touched because I
probably haven't talked to him in fifteen years. But Ben Karen,
the guy who runs Wrestling news Source dot com. It's
taken multiple iterations over the years, but that's what it's
called now, and he wrote WNS Remembers Kevin Castle, a
respected voice of pro wrestling radio, Kevin Castle Scandado, a
(11:15):
beloved figure in the wrestling podcast community, has sadly passed away.
News of his death was shared by his longtime friend
and podcasting partner Don Tony, along with John Drapery and
Michell Wrestling Soup and then deeply emotional tribute. The trio
reflected on Kevin's passing and the circumstances surrounding it. While
health issues had been publicly known, not really actually, Kevin,
(11:38):
you know.
Speaker 2 (11:41):
It. Like I said I started, you never disclose the
full extent.
Speaker 1 (11:44):
He didn't. Yeah, he I mean everybody, everybody complains about
aches and paints. We've vault on it a thousand times,
even on these shows in passing, but like the real stuff,
the real problems. The first time I really saw him
open up to me was right around the cop days
when he got sick. Then all of a sudden, he
became very forward with me about what was happening to him.
(12:07):
And I think it's because we all became a lot
closer during those COVID days, because when I got sick,
all of a sudden, I was terrified as to what
the fuck was going to happen, and when you got
sick like it was, I mean, and then there was
all the other people that we knew I lost. I
lost my childhood best friend right right before COVID to COVID,
(12:29):
before they even really had a name for it. They
just called it like an upper respiratory pneumonia. And it's like, no,
that wasn't it. You don't have a six month bill
of health and then that gets rushed out in a week.
And it was just this weird exposure that we had.
And I think those were the times that me and
keV really kind of opened up and over the years,
(12:51):
I mean, he told me about his diabetes, He told
me about what he was he would have to take
in his blood pressure, and like, there were a lot
of things that were going on with Kevin that I
never spoke of, and I don't even think I even
shared with them with you. And it's never a disrespect
thing to you. It was just more along the lines
of with that relationship, it was like, this is his
(13:14):
health problems, but I thought he kind of had them
under control until obviously the hospitals scared A few weeks
back or months ago.
Speaker 2 (13:24):
I heard a lot of this from from John's side,
of it. I mean, this is if we're just going
to talk about it in that respects, it is very,
very tough. And this was obviously dealt into pretty pretty
succinctly last night, But it is incredibly difficult to be
a person that is going through what he is going
(13:47):
or went through, I should say. And at the same point, though,
there is a whole group of people that are around
you that are experiencing that as well. And when I
spoke to John last night before it was probably like
I don't know, five six o'clock at night, I said
(14:08):
to him, I go, this is a very this is
a tough thing for me to talk about with you,
because this dude comes from a very different situation than me.
I'm little family, big problems. He's big family, big problems.
So this is a very different world and a very
different perspective to come from it. But it affects all
(14:28):
those people man like it branches out and so being
able to talk to John about it multiple times and
have conversations with them about it, and because you just
don't know what to do, man like you get put
in these fucked up situations and in many respects I've
shared on the show before It's like I've had people
in my family who were drug addicts, mentally ill, alcoholics,
(14:52):
and there's just nothing that you can really do at
multiple points, and it leaves you powerless and once again
and you don't want to make it about you, but
these are the people in your life. Man, It's hard
to not.
Speaker 1 (15:05):
There's but there's here's here's the human side of it though,
you know, talking to Kevin every week, Yeah, I'll be
the first one to admit not every show is great.
There were sometimes that me and him were down. But
I think when you're that close, sometimes you don't see
all the warning signs, if that makes sense. Like when
(15:25):
I would ask him things about his health, he'd say, oh, yeah,
I'm taking care of it. I'm fine, like and I
would just be like, oh, okay, Kevin's taking care of it,
He's fine, you know what I mean, as opposed to like, well,
are you just blowing me off?
Speaker 2 (15:37):
I just why do you want to assume somebody's not to.
Speaker 1 (15:40):
Get It's just but I mean that's the difference between
maybe I don't know, and then that's where my personal
mind goes, is like it just should I feel guilty
a little bit? I don't know, man, I just.
Speaker 2 (15:55):
Well, we know this as well as anybody man in
a quarter of a century on the Internet, and ourselves
will have revealed this to us. Everybody is running from something.
Everybody's got something in their mind or in their lives
that they're just trying to fucking they're batting it away
(16:15):
from them. And sometimes it's a thing that will carry
our whole lives or will process other times not so much,
and you don't want it to be that way. I mean, man,
I have young parents, like I have young parents, all
things considered for somebody that's now. I'll be forty two
somewhat soon, which, like I said before, fifteen years I
(16:38):
was a fucking baby when we started this, all you
guys were in your thirties and forties, and shit, I
was a fucking.
Speaker 1 (16:45):
I was the kid.
Speaker 2 (16:47):
I would kid Hollywood over here, young lad. Right now,
I'm a fucking middle aged guy too, But like I
have young parents compared to what it is. My mother's
in her mid sixties now. But that's a part of
what it is. You look at people and you go,
fuck they just some people just carry whatever it is
(17:08):
their whole lives, dude, right, and they never and they
can never put their thumb on it, and you go,
is this is this what happens?
Speaker 1 (17:22):
I don't Yeah, yeah, all you can.
Speaker 2 (17:25):
Do like and that's why I really I fucking loved
what John did. And I found a level of irony
and some of the people that have responded to Kevin's
passing and being like, oh yeah, I took away from this,
and I'm like, I think you need to fucking listen
to John, because don't let this become your world. Man.
(17:46):
And I know, ultimately, at the end of the day,
to a lot of people, you and I, we're just
fucking characters, right, I get it.
Speaker 1 (17:53):
I get it.
Speaker 2 (17:54):
Entertainment does that to you. And by the way, I
do that with wrestlers. Of course we're just fucking cat characters. Dude, Like,
that's that, and that's fine. You're a voice in your head.
Every time people have seen us are medicine public, they
always say, shit, that's I didn't think you would be nice.
Speaker 1 (18:13):
Yeah, I thought you would be mean or like just
assholes like twenty four to seven or something. Right.
Speaker 2 (18:21):
One of the people like, I didn't realize me she
was tall. Like they think you, they think you're a character,
like you just made this up, like you're like, I'm
going to be a tall man. Like it's like, no, dude,
Like that's.
Speaker 1 (18:34):
We're exaggerated on the show. That's the difference that we
have an exaggeration on the show. But I'm arguably a
lot more withdrawn in my real life, and not because
it's in an unhappy way, but it's the choice. I
think that's for all of us. Though Joey is not
going to be the wacky dude when he's off the
(18:54):
fucking air. No, he's a husband. Oh, he's a cat
dad like that. It's just you're not You're a teacher,
like you're in charge, you have responsibilities. Would you imagining
if you just started yelling at parents the way you
do it seth rollins on the show?
Speaker 2 (19:11):
Oh well, I mean so only internally sometimes, but about
who doesn't have that? No dude, Like that's that's something
that I am hoping that people really do take away
from that show, like, go and listen to that. My
opinions on this hold way less fucking weight. I had
(19:34):
way less interactions with Kevin. I knew him as a
person to like I said, to be an influential guy.
He was somebody that had a lot of fucking just
natural talent. This he just did, just like his brother,
Like I mean, they're just both of them. They just
did the damn thing. You put John in front of
(19:55):
a fucking microphone, he just did it. You put Kevin
in front of people, and he just did it. He
just talked and it was nothing, and it was seemingly
effortless to them and to people that don't realize what
a level of a gift that is. Go listen to
a bad show, Go listen to a real, bad, painful no,
(20:18):
no way, it is really something. I think Radio Joe,
yeah right, Yeah, that means there's no more bad podcast podcasts.
They're all great. A shout out, Conrad, Oh do you
think I was, folks? Do you think I was just
going to not be mean anymore? That's like in my
own way. By the way, I did find that somebody
(20:41):
posted a thing where they were like, this is what
you guys should take away from this, which I love.
I love that level of lecturing and YouTube comments. You
guys should be nicer to Tony Kahan. And because life
is too short or something I wanted to be like,
your life should be shorter, how about that, like, fuck you.
Speaker 1 (21:00):
Poor billionaire, poor billionaires?
Speaker 2 (21:02):
Is that really? Is that really the fucking direction you
wanted to go in this situation? It's like, oh yeah,
you know, your friend, that's passage. There was some spent
hundreds of hours of your life speaking to like.
Speaker 1 (21:16):
Ninety nine percent of the feedback has been fucking endearing,
wonderful and positive. Right, let me read the rust off
of this is that may not be aware. Prior to
twenty ten, when WNS operated underneath the name Wrestling Dash
radio dot com that's my new ben Don Tony Kevin
Castle were a strong supporter of our early work, making
(21:36):
regular donations. We had a great deal of respect for
their platform, Wrestling Dash news dot com as well as
the down Tony Kevin Castle Show. Perhaps it was the
shared dash in our domain names that brought us together,
but what followed was a mutual appreciation that meant a
great deal to us. They're truly saddened by this last
mill and never for their support. Twenty years later, we
are still going strong. We would like to extend heartfelt
(21:59):
condolences to this on Dado's family, friends and fans during
this incredibly difficult time. Rip Kevin X Ben Karen, co
founder of Wrestling Radio and Wrestling his source. So that
was very nice of him. I was very nice of him.
And I've seen a lot of that going around. Yeah,
Like I said, a lot of positive feedback. I haven't
seen anything really gross, and I was actually kind of
(22:21):
surprised to see some people that I was expecting gross
things from kind of step up and show respect and
resolve for Kevin Castle. So I mean, he'll be missed terribly.
Speaker 2 (22:35):
All we can say to that is thank you, and
it does surprise you. Like I said, sometimes with how
people are that they can pull up that they can
pull some rabbits out of their hats and act like
fucking human beings, but that's still ultimately it. Guys, like
John said, don't fucking make the Internet who you are.
(22:57):
Don't let that become a thing. Just it's not ever
going to be good for you. And also at the
same exact time, just try to be fucking decent. I
mean really like, just try to be fucking decent to people,
especially if they're going through stuff, and if you have
people in your family that need help, go out of
(23:18):
your way to do it, but still take care of
take care of you man like, It's just this is
such a fucking really hard conversation to have because there
is no winning. There are no winners, there are no solutions,
there is no advice. It's just cyclical and you can
just find yourself going in a circle over and over
(23:41):
again having these conversations. But what you do know and
is a very talented, very influential person that fucking went
out of his way to do a lot of shows
for a lot of people at a lot of different points.
He's no longer here, and wrestling wrestling podcasts certainly are
(24:02):
not any better for not having you here.
Speaker 1 (24:05):
Tomorrow, I'm gonna have tres on. So normally Wednesdays I
usually do soup with keV, as everybody knows. But tomorrow,
later on in the evening, I'll have treads on and
I think, I don't think I'm going to open up
the lines or anything like that, but you know, I
know it's going to be like it's almost going to
(24:27):
be like a week of this. But I mean, he
was really important to us, and there's a lot of
facets of his life that he was important to and
Trez has been ride or die with him for many
many years. Like that Kevin tres show at least has
about what six six years under its belt, which is
longer than most podcasts. So I and knowing that she
(24:51):
was his in real life friend, she would help him.
She her and JD and Kevin we're all friendly back
in the day, like they're they're all related in the
real world. And yeah, I just I kind of wanted
to bring her on and have her talk about some
things too, because she saw things that even John and
(25:13):
I didn't because I talked with her last night. I
talked with her for about a good shit two hours
after the show, and we were just going back and
forth through messages, but easily for two hours. I was
I didn't go to sleep this morning till like six
thirty seven, and even then I woke back up at nine,
so I'm not going to sleep well for a little bit.
(25:37):
But yeah, in that time we talked, and obviously being
his one of his close female friends, he would talk
to her differently than the way he talked to the guys,
because that's just that's just how it is. And yeah, yeah,
she spoke of things that I didn't know about with Kevin.
Not bad things, just just different aspects to this man's
(25:58):
life that we never really heard about. That he discussed
about his job, about his music career and stuff like that,
and I thought it would be a nice thing to
tribute him on. I don't know, I guess the last
wrestling soup with Kevin Castle and bring Treason And that
(26:21):
was another thing too. Somebody brought that up to me,
and I think I almost fucking teared up real hard.
And they're like, Mish, what are you gonna do with
the Hall of Fame this year? I'm just like, I
wasn't even thinking about it. I'm like, me and Kevin
have been doing every fucking Hall of Fame for years now. Oh,
and this is the one that we joked about that, Oh, keV,
(26:43):
you're gonna have to do this at three in the
fucking morning.
Speaker 2 (26:49):
Yeah, oh, I know, right, because it was going to
be it's gonna start at eleven o'clock at night, right right.
Speaker 1 (26:56):
And I mean I know that the person said it
not to be it. I know nobody's saying it to
be a dick there.
Speaker 2 (27:03):
But miss, just like we have our habits of doing
these shows. These people they do too, Like you, you
feel weird. And I think that's another important thing. Too,
for people that might not get this or understand the
mentality of somebody that's done a show for a really,
(27:23):
really long time. It's just what's normal to you. It's
normal for you to do these shows. Man, Like I
don't know if people like I said, they it's hard
to explain, Like you and I have come on these
shows after we've lost people, we've had fucked up shit
(27:44):
happen in our day or in our lives, bad things,
but it's just what we do. And it goes beyond
somebody being like, oh, well, is it Is it a job?
It's like no, it's it's a part of who you are.
Speaker 1 (27:56):
And I think I mean, in some respects there's like
job shit that we have to do. We have to
keep up a certain schedule, we have to make sure
that there's enough.
Speaker 2 (28:05):
Oh no, I'm not going to sit here and say like, oh,
it's every day as a fucking beach party, but like
it's a Las Fair or whatever we feel like it.
Speaker 1 (28:14):
Like no, but it's a career. It's not even a job.
It's a at this level, it's a career. And I
mean that with love, because a career is something you
want to do. A job is something you have to do.
And I never felt and I don't think any of
us have ever felt that we.
Speaker 2 (28:29):
Have to do this. No, there's not a let's put
it this way, for a lot of what people put
up with through the podcast world, the juice, especially in
the wrestling sphere, if it was just about the juice,
it certainly is not worth the fucking squeeze, right, let
(28:49):
me put it that way. For a lot of people.
There's a lot of bullshit that people leave just even
the fact that you and I and John and I'm
sure DT and other people too, like we knew or
our immediate inclination was, as people that have been on
the internet for a quarter a century, was like, oh,
here comes some assholes. You have to sit there, embrace
(29:11):
yourself for people being shitty to you, right and the
worst times, not even just like oh your fucking opinion
sucks and you're dumb or you're whatever the fuck, it's like,
oh man, this is a really fucking tough time. There
are still people that are going to be pieces of
shit to you. And that's being in the public eye
(29:32):
and eddie capacity if you want to call it that.
That just comes with the fucking territory to a degree.
But yeah, that's if it's just about the fucking juice.
Unless you're making an absolute fucking gilling, it is more
of like you said, it's something you choose to do
and it's something you're compelled to do, right, And I
(29:54):
think that's what it was for Kevin. That's why even
when people would go, oh, if he's not doing and good,
why as he continued, this is this is what he did.
Man Like, I I don't know what to tell you.
It was important. Exact shit happened with us, manned multiple
times we've done this.
Speaker 1 (30:11):
It was it was very important. And I mean, I'm
not gonna speak ill on this, but when him and
DT separated for that time there, I remember, I remember
how much flack I got for doing the Breakfast Soup
Show and then giving Kevin our platform, and I was
running the Baseball Chicki and the Castle and Chicky Show,
(30:32):
and I remember they're like, oh, you're trying to take
out Kevin Castle. You've been waiting to take over the
Monday night show forever. And it's like I really had
to break it down. I'm like, you really think that
I backstabbed somebody that I've been working with for seventeen
fucking years, just just just to do a show, just
(30:54):
and it was it was the that's.
Speaker 2 (30:56):
Once again, there's these are people that live in the
extended Internet, fucking I understand a little reality universe where
in their mind they're like, you're gonna take the show
from him. It's like, oh, bum bum bum, you could
have this whole empire. It's like, guys, it's a fucking
wrestling podcast. I think it's uh, well, you think this
(31:17):
is a fucking a dynasty. You think there's some sort
of zillion dollars was Mark Zuckerberg? What the fuck?
Speaker 1 (31:26):
I wasn't signing up for an a six figure contract?
Speaker 2 (31:29):
I just I know, Well, that's what, Like, we all knew.
Speaker 1 (31:32):
Look, we all knew that. I always knew, even even
at the worst of times, that Dontoni and Kevin Castle
would get back together. I always knew it, always believed it.
I never stopped believing it, even when I was getting
shihurled at me. I not for a second. I figured
eventually this will blow over. They had been friends for
(31:53):
way too long. It's it's impossible in my mind. And
and they got back together and they fixed it. And
everything was smoothed over, and it took time, but they
figured it out and it was good for them, and
that's the way it should have been, and that's the
way it should have always been. But I'm not a
stranger to people being pieces of fucking garbage because meanwhile,
(32:18):
I'm trying to spin plates and and keep the universe.
I'm literally carrying a giant stone on my neck and
I'm just trying to keep everything going. Meanwhile, people look
at it and they perceive it differently. They perceive it poorly.
They perceive it as as me being an opportunist as
opposed to somebody that's just trying to get.
Speaker 2 (32:38):
We still, like I said, this this craziness, this idea
that people have where this is in some way massively
some fucking fortune.
Speaker 1 (32:50):
Yeah, like it.
Speaker 2 (32:51):
Now you think you're you're getting the keys to the
fucking empire. It's like we're a group of guys that
made silly shows. Was about a silly fucking yeah.
Speaker 1 (33:02):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (33:02):
And like I said, if you're not compelled to do
it and driven to do it and don't feel strange
not doing it, then eventually you're just gonna fucking stop, right,
And that's none of us stopped. I think that's a
big thing to take away from this is that none
(33:24):
of us fucking stopped. Kevin wasn't done. And I think
that's really like to me to put it into that perspective.
Is the saddest I could fucking really truly feel about this,
is that Kevin wasn't done. I don't think that he
was a guy that was just like, I don't I'm
not having fun, I don't fucking have I don't think
(33:47):
he was fucking done. I think he still liked to
watch wrestling. I still think that he found it into it.
Speaker 1 (33:54):
He was just tired, and he was his body was
was shot. I mean, it's no secret at this point
that yes, he had a lot of mental issues that
were going on behind the scenes, but he also had
a lot of physical ones, and it's not so crazy
to think that one didn't make the other worse. Dude,
when Kevin was on, fucking man, I love those shows.
(34:16):
When Kevin felt better that day, those shows were fantastic.
And when Kevin was down, when he was depressed, you
could see those in the shows too. I mean, there's
only so much that as a friend can you do
to steer the shows right, like you can as far
as the public face goes, I can tell better stories.
I can bring up different topics that are silly and
(34:39):
fun to make fun of, or topics that will incite
you to anger, which anger will bring funny. Like I
can do things like that. I know how to control
the narrative of the show. From that aspect, I know
how to control our emotions in order to reflect the
crowd's emotions, the audience's emotions. Like, I understand that, but
(35:00):
there are just some points when you're down, you're just
I could send out naked ball arenas and they wouldn't
do ship. But it is very Yeah, I love keV.
I love keV. This isn't any kind of an indictment
(35:21):
on him. It's just if he was in better health,
we would have had a better show, a better Kevin Castle.
And it's not to say, oh, we needed a healthy
keV to have a good show. It's not that at all.
It's we just wanted Kevin to be better in all aspects.
Of course, you want a better show, but we would
(35:41):
have rather had our friend be better.
Speaker 2 (35:44):
Yeah, better life for someone, right, if it.
Speaker 1 (35:47):
Be damn the show? Really, if keV told turned around
and told us I can't do wrestling soup anymore. I
can't do T D T KC anymore. My health comes
first due. I know nobody would have said, fucking oh,
are you sure, keV, You're sure you can't stand in
for another Nobody would have said that. They had been like,
get the fuck out of here, go to the tropics,
like go to the beach man by the way.
Speaker 2 (36:11):
Just just in case people didn't notice this as well too.
There's a reason why you and I are like, no
thanks to when am fucking shows anywhere. There's a reason
where like, no, thank you to that, because it's like
it does it. Fucking it can't eat your life, it
can chew it up right, and you have to have
(36:33):
that restraint. You have to fucking say no and you
have to move away from it. But yeah, I don't know, man,
I feel fucking crazy talking about this, like we're discussing
a fucking like a drug addiction or something.
Speaker 1 (36:47):
No, No, not that. Yeah, No, I saw people with
some real bad takes on like what had happened? And
I'm like, where are you guys getting this shit from?
But no, it was he had come complications from blood pressure.
He had complications from diabetes. His body was deteriorating mentally.
(37:08):
I'm sure he was depressed. I mean, the depression could
come from anywhere. It could have started from anywhere. It
could have started because he stayed at home a lot.
It could have started because of his job. It could
have started all the way back from his dad. Like,
there were a lot of things that happened in Kevin's
life that had profound effect on the man. And then
(37:28):
on top of that, you complicate that with actual physical
health concerns. Yeah, I'm sure he was depressed too. How
could you not be?
Speaker 2 (37:38):
How could you not be?
Speaker 1 (37:40):
And he was alone. He had his cats, and he
had his neighbors and stuff like that, but he lived
alone and he felt that loneliness. And even though he
had friends like Treads, and even though he had friends
like Baseball Chicky and he had his big family, the
guy was still alone. But he had us, He had
Don Tony, he had everybody online. But it was it
(38:04):
was a band aid to the actual symptoms. It was
just there's a lot of layers to this, It's not
just one thing. And what ultimately took him, I don't know.
I mean, I think the assumption is it was a
heart attack or a stroke or something, but we don't
know until there's any kind of official report or Corners
(38:26):
report or something like that, and not even then, I
don't even know if I even deserve or care to
talk about it.
Speaker 2 (38:32):
I just.
Speaker 1 (38:35):
I'm going to miss my friend. That's all I know.
Speaker 2 (38:43):
And that's all that I mean, what else could you
put it as? Because, like I said, ultimately, at the
end of the day, all of the shit with doing
a show, coming up, with the podcast, making people laugh,
all of the shit that is a very nice part
of having fun with people that you that you love
(39:04):
talking to and being around. That's really it. That's the
biggest fucking part of it. And if you don't want
to do that, like I said, then it's not gonna
work and it's not gonna last. And like I said,
the saddest thing really to me, the saddest thing is
that it feels very unfinished for him. It doesn't feel
(39:29):
complete because the dude wanted to fucking do it.
Speaker 1 (39:34):
That.
Speaker 2 (39:35):
I don't know, No, I don't know, man, but it's
very I want to talk about some seth rock like
oh no, man, like this. I constantly you get put
in these dude, you get put into these mindsets and
it's just like, dude, this fucking woke me up a
(39:56):
bunch of times last night because I think about it,
and you just go, God fucking damn it. Man. Like
just Northeast Irish Italian people, we are just blessed and
fucking cursed at the same time. It's just these weirdly
charismatic creatures who are just at the same time so
(40:20):
emotionally open while being emotionally unavailable. And it just never
feel like there's enough. You just never feel like there's
enough and you're doing enough, and then you just keep
going and fucking going, and you just hope it all
fucking turns out good for you. That's all you can do.
You just hope it fucking turns out good for you.
(40:41):
But I just don't. I just hope the guy is
fucking he's just okay. That's it, Like that's all it
can be. You just go, I hope it's just you're
not you're not feeling whatever level of pain it is,
because clearly all of this shit comes with pain your
mind and your body. It all fucking comes with pain,
(41:04):
and the only resolution to it is that you know
that for you, it will end, and then it goes
on to other people. I don't know, Like I said, yeah,
well no, like you said, what do we say now,
Seth Seth Rawlan, Well, what a great fucking promo? The fuck?
(41:26):
You know what? What the actual fuck? But this is, yes, this,
but this is what we do. This is what we do, and.
Speaker 1 (41:36):
It's yeah, it's it's hard to transition over to something
like wrestling talk after this, and yeah.
Speaker 2 (41:44):
God fucking I know, it's you just feel crazy. You
feel fucking crazy. You feel crazy, like I R And
I said this to John yesterday too. I go, I'm
still not a good fucking source on this. I've had
two people, major people die in my life. One was
(42:06):
my grandfather when I was a kid, and I found
out he was a horrible fucking person. Anyways, But when
you're a kid and somebody will play wiffleball with you
and hang out with you, you think they're the best.
And then losing one of my best friends at fucking
twenty nine to leukemia that his great grandparents attended his funeral. Yeah,
so there's not a lot of experience with this. And
(42:26):
one of them is someone who I was too little
of a kid to get and the other one I
just looked at and I just go, you didn't fucking
deserve this in any capacity. There was no part of
you that merited for your life to go this way
and end this way. And I.
Speaker 1 (42:46):
Got I thought about I was thinking about all the
people I lost during the tenure of the show last
night afterwards, after I was done talking with Tries, and
I'm like I lost. Michael Porter was the first one.
A lot of people might not remember Michael Porter, but
back in the twenty ten twenty eleven days, I'd been
talking to him for years listening to his show. He
(43:09):
was one of those guys that circled the Swacks Wacko
Bob Lisa Miss Destiny days and it was one of
the blog talk radio guys. But he was also an
AWA ref from way back in the day and part
of the Dawn Marie charity stuff. When I remember doing
everything I could to help him because he had horrible
(43:31):
blood pressure and back issues and he was basically he
wasn't homeless in California, but he was living in a
shack like it was a really sad, downtrodden story. And
I remember just sending him fucking pizzas and hit all
the way from Chicago, just because that's all I could
fucking get. That's the only thing that I could deliver
(43:52):
in twenty ten before, before all these grub hubs and
uber eats, that shit didn't exist. I had to literally
call up, like doll, one of those pizza in California
and make credit card orders over the phone just to
get food delivered to this guy. And so he was
eating pizza like three nights a week, and he's like, dude,
I'm just getting sick of eating pizza. I don't know
(44:14):
what else they served. Man, they didn't have fingers, sandwiches
and shit back then. And I loved Michael Porter.
Speaker 2 (44:20):
He was.
Speaker 1 (44:23):
He was a really good guy. And he passed and
that was the first one. I also lost Papa Dave,
Papa Dave Sincere, who a lot of people remember from
Michael Corbyn and Johnny Florida Scott and all these other
guys that were a part of it too, and ladies
and stuff, and it was part of the WNC Show,
(44:43):
which was like a trailer show for wrestling Soup. They
kind of just back in our I think, god, I
think they started on our U stream days Joe And
there's been so many different versions of soup piano shit, right, yeah,
the justin TV day and yeah, they would they would
trail us afterwards and they would do like an hour
(45:05):
hour and a half. And they all had such great chemistry.
They were such a whack pack. They were a zoo pack.
But it was it was so much fun. And Papa
Dave was the literal older, wiser shaman of the group.
He he was sharp. He always had a sharp wit,
like he definitely had dad jokes, you know, and he
(45:27):
was he was like our grandpa at the time too.
He was great and I fucking loved him. I fucking
loved all of them. And then obviously he was part
of the yuck nasty and dogger baby getting the corner
guys days too. Like it was all that surrounding time
and Papa Dave brought us a lot of fucking laughs.
And yeah, when he passed that that gutted me too.
(45:49):
And I mean I still I still have his mug
And all I put in the mug is like little
wrestling figures. Now That's all I do. But I still
have his his mug. And then I lost Coups, who
is my my personal friend, like my my wrestling buddy
since a kid, since I was a kid, and I
mean thick as thieves. Everything I did wrong in my life,
(46:10):
he was probably there. Yeah, like he was just as
good and bad as I ever was. And that broke
me at the beginning of COVID, and I still I
still have a lot of repressed anger and feelings about
losing him and now and now we lose Kevin Castle,
(46:32):
and I know you've lost people. I know you lost
aj Metrono.
Speaker 2 (46:37):
Yeah, well that's yeah, that's it's still it's insane to
me that that's coming up on fucking ten years, dude, Yeah,
that's coming up on ten years.
Speaker 1 (46:50):
And Jay was a great dude. He was so funny
as hell.
Speaker 2 (46:54):
Man. There are situations where people pass away, especially when
they're younger, and the constant the thing is always, oh, well,
they were gonna be a fucking astronaut, right, And people,
to some degree, we go, that's great, we should feel
(47:14):
that way. We miss our people, They're a part of
our lives. And then there are people where I just
look at it and I just go, you get angry, dude,
you really get fucking mad. It's really hard to not
be mad about this, and like I saw comments obviously
from people that they were like John sounds upset or
(47:36):
whatever the fuck it is, like, yeah, he said that,
And I'm like, dude, you not How do people not
understand that that's a part of it.
Speaker 1 (47:43):
How do they not know that I literally said that.
I'm like, of course he's going to be angry. That's
how he's dealing with the fucking pain. What do you
what do you want him to feel? What is the
proper way to mourn?
Speaker 2 (47:54):
Yeah, dude, Yeah, you're fucking mad. Like, there's no way, dude.
To some extent, I'm and honest to god, if there
was ever like a real hey, you want to put
your thumb thumb on me and be like, ah, fuck
this guy, and try to minimize some of the shit
that I will do or say or feel about anything
(48:16):
in wrestling. Here's definitely a part of me where I
see some of these people and I go, you motherfuckers
couldn't sniff AJ's farts. You people are trash compared to him,
and this poor mother fucker the way that he who.
Speaker 1 (48:46):
We've lost a lot of close people during the time
of this show, doesn't get easier. It's not a. I
don't know the right process for anything. If you're angry,
(49:10):
be angry, you're sad, be sad. I love Kevin Castle.
He was good to me, He was my friend, and
(49:34):
I stuck by him. And I will ever be thankful
for all of our conversations. I will forever be thankful
for all the times that he made me laugh to tears.
And I'll forever be thankful for him getting me into
(50:00):
this silly wrestling podcast world. I'm gonna miss him. Yeah, just.
Speaker 2 (50:21):
Take whatever good thing you can away from.
Speaker 1 (50:29):
Yeah, I'm gonna end this one here.
Speaker 2 (50:32):
Guys, are you sure Brad Blaker did a really cool.
Speaker 1 (50:37):
You want to talk about aw dynasty? I already feel
like half the fans at the end of that show.
Speaker 2 (50:46):
Good God heard Kenny Omegga did some flips, Dude, I heard.
But young bocks guys, Yeah, they came back. They finally
figured out human growth hormong those Unfortunately, it just makes
you wider and not taller. Fuck.
Speaker 1 (51:05):
Yeah, no, it's John'll be talking everybody tonight at seven.
I don't know how the fuck he's gonna pull it off,
but there it is. If you didn't know, tonight, John
will be on spaces. Fuck, I gotta admit John, it's strong,
because fuck I don't think I could do that. I
(51:28):
know and not think I know I couldn't do that.
Speaker 2 (51:33):
And I said it to you guys earlier, and because
I fucking showed I've known John for a long last
time too. And like I said, you go back to
the Northeast Irish Italian guy, emotionally available, unavailable, open to
the world, closed off, hey everybody, but also get the
fuck away from me. I get this personality. I get
(51:54):
this mentality. I understand it because today I said to him,
I go, dude, don't don't. Don't be an entertainer. I go,
this is not it's not your time to have to
do that. I'm like, it's not your job to try
to make everybody feel fucking better. And I hope that's
not the case. I hope it's just him being in
(52:15):
a position where he can fucking front all these questions
and all people's thoughts or feelings or whatever the fuck
it is, so that way he can say, Okay, it's
time for me to not go move away from this space,
because you got to think of how fucking nuts it
is for this guy, because you got your lot, you
got your life friends, You've got your people that you're
(52:35):
connected through to just being in the world, your music people,
you're wrestling people, and your Internet people. And John's really
the only one that can front all four of those
fucking worlds for Kevin. This is point.
Speaker 1 (52:49):
This is John's exact words about this to me. I
think it's safe for me to read this. He says, Yeah,
I'm going to host these Twitter spaces tonight because I literally,
no exaggeration, have hundreds and hundreds of dms across my
social media platforms for mostly listeners, and I thought that
this would be the best way to approach it. I mean,
(53:13):
I guess, yes, that's how you'd have to find you
have hundreds of dms, just start as spaces and start answering.
Speaker 2 (53:20):
Oh, I guess, I don't know, And I'm not surprised
by that. Oh these are these are four different worlds
of people that he got he has to face in
this situation like there's and you live for almost sixty
years and you just go, oh, my god, the amount
of fucking people right just in the different walks of
(53:42):
life and everything that you're going to face and to
deal with, And yeah, God, No, I mean that's that,
that's really it is a lot of.
Speaker 1 (53:54):
Just just.
Speaker 2 (53:57):
Show a lot of fucking kindness and patience to John
and please, Like like I said, I I tried to
remind him in the situation. I'm like, dude, don't don't
feel like you have to be obligated to take care
of everybody else in this like, do what's best for you.
I'm like, look out for your mom. Help your mom.
That's really what matters. That's unto itself, already a fucking
(54:20):
horror when I take into account, I'm like, man to
outlive for a parent, to outlive kids. To me, that
is still even as somebody doesn't have kids, I still
look at that. What a what a fucking nightmare that
is just in general, even if you have kids that
are in their fifties or in their sixties or even
like you're just like, dude, do I really got to
(54:41):
fucking be here for that? I just always think of that,
think of how fucking sad.
Speaker 1 (54:45):
That is.
Speaker 2 (54:48):
And how heavy that's gotta be to even consider. Yeah,
I don't know. I Ron Breaker did a really cool
spear though, I will say that cool.
Speaker 1 (55:02):
Penta debut.
Speaker 2 (55:04):
Yeah. Oh Phoenix, Oh, Phoenix. Sorry, how dare you get
it wrong? Distracted by some other things? Something else? Every mind?
Is there anything else you can't remember? The great Ray Phoenix?
Speaker 1 (55:18):
I was thinking so much about a Grande Americano. That's
what it was.
Speaker 2 (55:22):
Yeah, yeah, now that's Phoenix. Yep, Phoenix. He did flips.
There were a lot of flips, a lot of fucking flips.
So what the fuck should we do?
Speaker 1 (55:33):
Man? Should I think we just got out of here today? Well,
you know what, we'll cover a little bit more about
raw and smack down on the Tiffey and Charlotte stuff
on Thursday. There is literally no reason why we can't tomorrow.
Like I said at around eight o'clock, myself and Tries
will do something together and I'm sure there'll be some
(55:54):
more feels there too, and yeah, and then we just
kind of figured it out after that. I did. I
did talk with DT for people that didn't know, So
we'll see how everything goes with that. I guess I
we still need to talk. But it was very It
(56:18):
was very nice yesterday and I didn't feel awkward or
anything like that because I got those two Are you
really doing the show? Yeah? So this is bigger than
all of that, and I thank you for everyone that
sent fucking God, damn Joe so much love on Twitter
(56:39):
and shit and in discord and Facebook even too. Just
thank you. Thank you for caring about our feelings. Thank
you for caring about John's feelings. I appreciate that. Even
though it's like a couple of sentences sometimes or even
just an emoji, I understand and that means a lot.
(57:01):
So Thursday, Thursday, sou Thursday sou. See you then,
So Dominic mysterio is calling out seem Punk. I hate
to see them punk? Why because he's old. He disappeared
for what thirty years and came back. He's now sixty
and he's still wrestling. He tortured me when I was
a kid. So I was twelve years old and he
(00:23):
was probably forty five at the time, maybe fifty, and
so like, I mean, I don't know what's up. He's
saying happy birthday to my sister. Who does that? I
can't say that. I'm not gonna say that, but I
don't like seem punk. He traumatized me as a kid.
Who does that to a twelve year old? What's wrong
(00:43):
with him? Oh my god?
Speaker 2 (00:52):
Are these people still upset at punk for whatever reason
they find? What was that all? No?
Speaker 1 (00:58):
I think I think Dominic is planting seeds for a
punk feud based upon Oh that's Domb.
Speaker 2 (01:04):
Oh yeah, that's what I'm saying.
Speaker 1 (01:06):
And he's called he's like, what is he sixty years old?
Speaker 2 (01:08):
Now?
Speaker 1 (01:10):
Oh my god?
Speaker 2 (01:10):
Well, you know what, To be fair, I would rather
watch Punk and Domb than anything involving Rawlin. So I'm
not about that idea.
Speaker 1 (01:19):
Oh yeah, he's I just I thought it was funny
because it's like it's probably the only thing that maybe
last laugh in the last twenty four fucking hours.
Speaker 2 (01:27):
But yeah, well that's well, that's it. I mean, what
a fucking like you said, what a fucking crazy day.
I mean, at this point, it's basically like you said,
twenty four hours, we've gone through this process. So yeah,
and then yeah, RAW was on right after all of
this ship or before everything that. I don't know how
(01:48):
you guys went and did that show afterwards. I fucking
that's that's that's a tough one to do. I had
to listen through most of it though, and Jesus Christ, yeah,
I mean it was. It was good. I really really
love well, I mean, I love John anyways, but I
really love what John was saying on that show.
Speaker 1 (02:06):
Man.
Speaker 2 (02:06):
I think it was very apropos for a lot of
the things that come out of both of our mouths
when we talk about how people behave, whether it be
on the internet or in real life or in wrestling.
So I don't know, I didn't get to hear the
end of it though yet.
Speaker 1 (02:21):
Yeah, I mean I know that DT kind of went
on for a little bit afterwards after me and John
got off. I didn't get a chance to listen to that,
but yeah, John, so for people listening on the download
that maybe not have heard it yet or haven't figured
it out. We lost Kevin Castle yesterday and John came
on to Don Tony's show and he explained what had happened.
(02:47):
He explained how we're not sure if it was a
heart attack or a stroke or what had happened, but
he was by himself. He reached out to a chicky
friend and stuff like that, and for what we know
is when the emergency arrived, there was passed away at
that point. I know John will be talking about it tonight.
(03:10):
He said he's going to do a live thing, I
believe on X so I am John Draper. If you're
listening to this and you want to check it out
live or whatever, that's his handle on X And I
don't know how he's going to feel that by himself.
Jesus Christ, John, I hope you have mods or something
(03:31):
with you, Bud, because that's going to be an insanely
busy live to have. There was a lot of outpouring
and love insane amounts from all different corners of the world,
and yeah, talking about it with John. I mean, I
didn't want to take front and center in any way.
I've been working with Kevin Castle for fucking I've been
(03:54):
a part of Kevin or Kevin Castle has been a
part of my life for twenty plus fucking years. I mean,
that's the reality of it. And I've had the pleasure
of working with him for fifteen plus back in the
Minority Report days, even doing production there and the silly
little commercials and shit too, to producing shows with the
(04:17):
man and obviously having him here on Soup for years
and stuff.
Speaker 2 (04:22):
Well that's it is. I mean people don't realize this,
And like you said, we just saw the graphic for
him and so by the time he was okay. So
when he started the show, yeah, he was thirty two
and he started it, which I feel like that was
right around the age you started the Soup too, right,
or a little bit around that age too. Yeah, I mean.
Speaker 1 (04:44):
There was the pre Soup shit Revolution radio. I mean
I started podcasting in two thousand and five. Technically two
thousand and two was like my first stuff, but that
was like wrestling. It wasn't even called podcasting. iPods didn't
exist yet, it was called it was just called online
radio or internet radio, and I did kind of what
(05:08):
TT did back in his bones days, which was just
play themes and talk about wrestling. It was really generic shit.
It was like teenager shit at that point.
Speaker 2 (05:17):
Well, at this point, I don't think that anybody could
have predicted. I even think fifteen years ago people could
have predicted that it would have became what it did. No. No,
I don't think that anybody knew that it was going
to become as big of a anything as it was.
I think that still remained surprising to people, which is
why there's definitely a different level of I don't know, drive,
(05:43):
I guess you could call it or intention to people
that have done it for that long, to the point
where we saw people that typically would want absolutely fucking
nothing to do with anybody related to our little sphere
or universe, shout out every shout out Kevin everything, because truly,
if you've been around for fifteen, twenty even more years,
(06:08):
you've ran into these names, and if you haven't, it's
more than likely because either a serial type podcast or
a rogan podcast, right, Because that was right around the
time where it was like, oh wow, look at all
these people, like they figured out what this shit was.
But to anybody that was before that, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (06:27):
It was a wild West back then. Dude. I remember
just all the stuff that I would have to do
with with both of those guys, all the guys at
one point, just making sure that there was like so,
this is a weird, antiquated thing. They had this thing
called chatrooms, and these chat rooms were like these individual programs,
and you had to go to websites and set them
(06:47):
up and pay them money just to have people in
a chat room. It's inconceivable to think of people paying
one thousand dollars a month for a chat room in
twenty twenty five, but it was a real thing back then.
It was Oh yeah, it was crazy. Just even to
stream back then cost probably about five hundred dollars a
month easy for.
Speaker 2 (07:08):
DT and and mind you, folks, this was a time
before it was like thank you for the seven thousand
dollars super chat, mister banana man.
Speaker 1 (07:17):
Like, yeah, nobody was paying for shit. It was all
give us money, give you money. What the hell is that? Yah?
Speaker 2 (07:23):
Yeah, you were kind of considered a fucking emotional terrorist
if you were like can I have a dollar? People
like what are you doing to us? Are you bankrupting us? Meanwhile,
there's four thousand people in.
Speaker 1 (07:36):
The Kevin was there for all that, man, He was
there before Brogan, He was there before fucking Jim Cornett.
He was there before all of this. Don Toni and
Kevin Castle were really the cornerstone of wrestling podcasts. I mean,
there are there are older podcasts. Absolutely, there are some
that are still out there. And for whatever Dave's worth,
(07:59):
he's that he's been on air longer, which is technically true.
But as far as podcasting goes, as far as the gritty,
we're not backed by a multi billion dollar conglomerate. DT
and Casey were the original Wayne and Garth of fucking
wrestling podcasts. They really were.
Speaker 2 (08:19):
And don't forget the miracle that is Dave Meltzer both
being twenty five years old and having done a podcast
for twenty five years. Twenty six years. Actually yeah, it's amazing.
It doesn't even make sense how we did it, but
somehow we s pulled it up.
Speaker 1 (08:34):
Oh he went back in time. Yet that's a lareon
in the back.
Speaker 2 (08:37):
Oh my gods. No. But for the people that were wondering,
I left that to you guys last night because you
guys were all obviously much much closer to Kevin than
I was. And like you said, it's really undeniable for
me at least. And I'm not trying to make this
(08:59):
about anything to do with me, but this is almost
impossible for people to not interject themselves into these conversations
when somebody who's passed away, because they're referencing their life
and their relationship with this person who's now no longer there.
And like you said, these big goofy chat rooms with
two thousand people, I mean I was somebody that was
(09:21):
in there. Yeah, And that's how I made my way
into this world, dude. That's how it happened was I'd
heard clips of Don Toni and Kevin Castle, and I
started legitimately downloading it and putting it on an aforementioned
fucking iPod like a regular ass iPod.
Speaker 1 (09:39):
That's so wild, is it?
Speaker 2 (09:40):
And old episodes. I would run out of recent episodes
and download old episodes that were something that might have
seemed somewhat topical, that didn't age poorly, and I'd go
and I'd listen to it at college while I was
driving up there or doing class work or whatever the
fuck it was, But yeah, man, that's how a lot
of people ended up in this space was because of
(10:02):
these guys. There's no way around it. Now. It's such
an insanely, wildly saturated, over the top, like who the
fuck are these people type world. You get that way
because somebody shows you a way to do something, or
(10:22):
somebody does something in a way that makes you go, hey,
I can do that. I think I can do that.
I want to try that, and you and I have
heard this from a million people, not a million people,
but a lot of people by now where they're like, oh, yeah,
we can think we got that from you guys, and
we thought we wanted to do our own shows, like well,
that's that's what this dude did for us, or at
(10:46):
least I can speak for myself in this situation and
maybe go, oh fuck, I can do this. I can
make that happen.
Speaker 1 (10:53):
I'm reading this now and I'm really touched because I
probably haven't talked to him in fifteen years. But Ben Karen,
the guy who runs Wrestling news Source dot com. It's
taken multiple iterations over the years, but that's what it's
called now, and he wrote WNS Remembers Kevin Castle, a
respected voice of pro wrestling radio, Kevin Castle Scandado, a
(11:15):
beloved figure in the wrestling podcast community, has sadly passed away.
News of his death was shared by his longtime friend
and podcasting partner Don Tony, along with John Drapery and
Michell Wrestling Soup and then deeply emotional tribute. The trio
reflected on Kevin's passing and the circumstances surrounding it. While
health issues had been publicly known, not really actually, Kevin,
(11:38):
you know.
Speaker 2 (11:41):
It. Like I said I started, you never disclose the
full extent.
Speaker 1 (11:44):
He didn't. Yeah, he I mean everybody, everybody complains about
aches and paints. We've vault on it a thousand times,
even on these shows in passing, but like the real stuff,
the real problems. The first time I really saw him
open up to me was right around the cop days
when he got sick. Then all of a sudden, he
became very forward with me about what was happening to him.
(12:07):
And I think it's because we all became a lot
closer during those COVID days, because when I got sick,
all of a sudden, I was terrified as to what
the fuck was going to happen, and when you got
sick like it was, I mean, and then there was
all the other people that we knew I lost. I
lost my childhood best friend right right before COVID to COVID,
(12:29):
before they even really had a name for it. They
just called it like an upper respiratory pneumonia. And it's like, no,
that wasn't it. You don't have a six month bill
of health and then that gets rushed out in a week.
And it was just this weird exposure that we had.
And I think those were the times that me and
keV really kind of opened up and over the years,
(12:51):
I mean, he told me about his diabetes, He told
me about what he was he would have to take
in his blood pressure, and like, there were a lot
of things that were going on with Kevin that I
never spoke of, and I don't even think I even
shared with them with you. And it's never a disrespect
thing to you. It was just more along the lines
of with that relationship, it was like, this is his
(13:14):
health problems, but I thought he kind of had them
under control until obviously the hospitals scared A few weeks
back or months ago.
Speaker 2 (13:24):
I heard a lot of this from from John's side,
of it. I mean, this is if we're just going
to talk about it in that respects, it is very,
very tough. And this was obviously dealt into pretty pretty
succinctly last night, But it is incredibly difficult to be
a person that is going through what he is going
(13:47):
or went through, I should say. And at the same point, though,
there is a whole group of people that are around
you that are experiencing that as well. And when I
spoke to John last night before it was probably like
I don't know, five six o'clock at night, I said
(14:08):
to him, I go, this is a very this is
a tough thing for me to talk about with you,
because this dude comes from a very different situation than me.
I'm little family, big problems. He's big family, big problems.
So this is a very different world and a very
different perspective to come from it. But it affects all
(14:28):
those people man like it branches out and so being
able to talk to John about it multiple times and
have conversations with them about it, and because you just
don't know what to do, man like you get put
in these fucked up situations and in many respects I've
shared on the show before It's like I've had people
in my family who were drug addicts, mentally ill, alcoholics,
(14:52):
and there's just nothing that you can really do at
multiple points, and it leaves you powerless and once again
and you don't want to make it about you, but
these are the people in your life. Man, It's hard
to not.
Speaker 1 (15:05):
There's but there's here's here's the human side of it though,
you know, talking to Kevin every week, Yeah, I'll be
the first one to admit not every show is great.
There were sometimes that me and him were down. But
I think when you're that close, sometimes you don't see
all the warning signs, if that makes sense. Like when
(15:25):
I would ask him things about his health, he'd say, oh, yeah,
I'm taking care of it. I'm fine, like and I
would just be like, oh, okay, Kevin's taking care of it,
He's fine, you know what I mean, as opposed to like, well,
are you just blowing me off?
Speaker 2 (15:37):
I just why do you want to assume somebody's not to.
Speaker 1 (15:40):
Get It's just but I mean that's the difference between
maybe I don't know, and then that's where my personal
mind goes, is like it just should I feel guilty
a little bit? I don't know, man, I just.
Speaker 2 (15:55):
Well, we know this as well as anybody man in
a quarter of a century on the Internet, and ourselves
will have revealed this to us. Everybody is running from something.
Everybody's got something in their mind or in their lives
that they're just trying to fucking they're batting it away
(16:15):
from them. And sometimes it's a thing that will carry
our whole lives or will process other times not so much,
and you don't want it to be that way. I mean, man,
I have young parents, like I have young parents, all
things considered for somebody that's now. I'll be forty two
somewhat soon, which, like I said before, fifteen years I
(16:38):
was a fucking baby when we started this, all you
guys were in your thirties and forties, and shit, I
was a fucking.
Speaker 1 (16:45):
I was the kid.
Speaker 2 (16:47):
I would kid Hollywood over here, young lad. Right now,
I'm a fucking middle aged guy too, But like I
have young parents compared to what it is. My mother's
in her mid sixties now. But that's a part of
what it is. You look at people and you go,
fuck they just some people just carry whatever it is
(17:08):
their whole lives, dude, right, and they never and they
can never put their thumb on it, and you go,
is this is this what happens?
Speaker 1 (17:22):
I don't Yeah, yeah, all you can.
Speaker 2 (17:25):
Do like and that's why I really I fucking loved
what John did. And I found a level of irony
and some of the people that have responded to Kevin's
passing and being like, oh yeah, I took away from this,
and I'm like, I think you need to fucking listen
to John, because don't let this become your world. Man.
(17:46):
And I know, ultimately, at the end of the day,
to a lot of people, you and I, we're just
fucking characters, right, I get it.
Speaker 1 (17:53):
I get it.
Speaker 2 (17:54):
Entertainment does that to you. And by the way, I
do that with wrestlers. Of course we're just fucking cat characters. Dude, Like,
that's that, and that's fine. You're a voice in your head.
Every time people have seen us are medicine public, they
always say, shit, that's I didn't think you would be nice.
Speaker 1 (18:13):
Yeah, I thought you would be mean or like just
assholes like twenty four to seven or something. Right.
Speaker 2 (18:21):
One of the people like, I didn't realize me she
was tall. Like they think you, they think you're a character,
like you just made this up, like you're like, I'm
going to be a tall man. Like it's like, no, dude,
Like that's.
Speaker 1 (18:34):
We're exaggerated on the show. That's the difference that we
have an exaggeration on the show. But I'm arguably a
lot more withdrawn in my real life, and not because
it's in an unhappy way, but it's the choice. I
think that's for all of us. Though Joey is not
going to be the wacky dude when he's off the
(18:54):
fucking air. No, he's a husband. Oh, he's a cat
dad like that. It's just you're not You're a teacher,
like you're in charge, you have responsibilities. Would you imagining
if you just started yelling at parents the way you
do it seth rollins on the show?
Speaker 2 (19:11):
Oh well, I mean so only internally sometimes, but about
who doesn't have that? No dude, Like that's that's something
that I am hoping that people really do take away
from that show, like, go and listen to that. My
opinions on this hold way less fucking weight. I had
(19:34):
way less interactions with Kevin. I knew him as a
person to like I said, to be an influential guy.
He was somebody that had a lot of fucking just
natural talent. This he just did, just like his brother,
Like I mean, they're just both of them. They just
did the damn thing. You put John in front of
(19:55):
a fucking microphone, he just did it. You put Kevin
in front of people, and he just did it. He
just talked and it was nothing, and it was seemingly
effortless to them and to people that don't realize what
a level of a gift that is. Go listen to
a bad show, Go listen to a real, bad, painful no,
(20:18):
no way, it is really something. I think Radio Joe,
yeah right, Yeah, that means there's no more bad podcast podcasts.
They're all great. A shout out, Conrad, Oh do you
think I was, folks? Do you think I was just
going to not be mean anymore? That's like in my
own way. By the way, I did find that somebody
(20:41):
posted a thing where they were like, this is what
you guys should take away from this, which I love.
I love that level of lecturing and YouTube comments. You
guys should be nicer to Tony Kahan. And because life
is too short or something I wanted to be like,
your life should be shorter, how about that, like, fuck you.
Speaker 1 (21:00):
Poor billionaire, poor billionaires?
Speaker 2 (21:02):
Is that really? Is that really the fucking direction you
wanted to go in this situation? It's like, oh yeah,
you know, your friend, that's passage. There was some spent
hundreds of hours of your life speaking to like.
Speaker 1 (21:16):
Ninety nine percent of the feedback has been fucking endearing,
wonderful and positive. Right, let me read the rust off
of this is that may not be aware. Prior to
twenty ten, when WNS operated underneath the name Wrestling Dash
radio dot com that's my new ben Don Tony Kevin
Castle were a strong supporter of our early work, making
(21:36):
regular donations. We had a great deal of respect for
their platform, Wrestling Dash news dot com as well as
the down Tony Kevin Castle Show. Perhaps it was the
shared dash in our domain names that brought us together,
but what followed was a mutual appreciation that meant a
great deal to us. They're truly saddened by this last
mill and never for their support. Twenty years later, we
are still going strong. We would like to extend heartfelt
(21:59):
condolences to this on Dado's family, friends and fans during
this incredibly difficult time. Rip Kevin X Ben Karen, co
founder of Wrestling Radio and Wrestling his source. So that
was very nice of him. I was very nice of him.
And I've seen a lot of that going around. Yeah,
Like I said, a lot of positive feedback. I haven't
seen anything really gross, and I was actually kind of
(22:21):
surprised to see some people that I was expecting gross
things from kind of step up and show respect and
resolve for Kevin Castle. So I mean, he'll be missed terribly.
Speaker 2 (22:35):
All we can say to that is thank you, and
it does surprise you. Like I said, sometimes with how
people are that they can pull up that they can
pull some rabbits out of their hats and act like
fucking human beings, but that's still ultimately it. Guys, like
John said, don't fucking make the Internet who you are.
(22:57):
Don't let that become a thing. Just it's not ever
going to be good for you. And also at the
same exact time, just try to be fucking decent. I
mean really like, just try to be fucking decent to people,
especially if they're going through stuff, and if you have
people in your family that need help, go out of
(23:18):
your way to do it, but still take care of
take care of you man like, It's just this is
such a fucking really hard conversation to have because there
is no winning. There are no winners, there are no solutions,
there is no advice. It's just cyclical and you can
just find yourself going in a circle over and over
(23:41):
again having these conversations. But what you do know and
is a very talented, very influential person that fucking went
out of his way to do a lot of shows
for a lot of people at a lot of different points.
He's no longer here, and wrestling wrestling podcasts certainly are
(24:02):
not any better for not having you here.
Speaker 1 (24:05):
Tomorrow, I'm gonna have tres on. So normally Wednesdays I
usually do soup with keV, as everybody knows. But tomorrow,
later on in the evening, I'll have treads on and
I think, I don't think I'm going to open up
the lines or anything like that, but you know, I
know it's going to be like it's almost going to
(24:27):
be like a week of this. But I mean, he
was really important to us, and there's a lot of
facets of his life that he was important to and
Trez has been ride or die with him for many
many years. Like that Kevin tres show at least has
about what six six years under its belt, which is
longer than most podcasts. So I and knowing that she
(24:51):
was his in real life friend, she would help him.
She her and JD and Kevin we're all friendly back
in the day, like they're they're all related in the
real world. And yeah, I just I kind of wanted
to bring her on and have her talk about some
things too, because she saw things that even John and
(25:13):
I didn't because I talked with her last night. I
talked with her for about a good shit two hours
after the show, and we were just going back and
forth through messages, but easily for two hours. I was
I didn't go to sleep this morning till like six
thirty seven, and even then I woke back up at nine,
so I'm not going to sleep well for a little bit.
(25:37):
But yeah, in that time we talked, and obviously being
his one of his close female friends, he would talk
to her differently than the way he talked to the guys,
because that's just that's just how it is. And yeah, yeah,
she spoke of things that I didn't know about with Kevin.
Not bad things, just just different aspects to this man's
(25:58):
life that we never really heard about. That he discussed
about his job, about his music career and stuff like that,
and I thought it would be a nice thing to
tribute him on. I don't know, I guess the last
wrestling soup with Kevin Castle and bring Treason And that
(26:21):
was another thing too. Somebody brought that up to me,
and I think I almost fucking teared up real hard.
And they're like, Mish, what are you gonna do with
the Hall of Fame this year? I'm just like, I
wasn't even thinking about it. I'm like, me and Kevin
have been doing every fucking Hall of Fame for years now. Oh,
and this is the one that we joked about that, Oh, keV,
(26:43):
you're gonna have to do this at three in the
fucking morning.
Speaker 2 (26:49):
Yeah, oh, I know, right, because it was going to
be it's gonna start at eleven o'clock at night, right right.
Speaker 1 (26:56):
And I mean I know that the person said it
not to be it. I know nobody's saying it to
be a dick there.
Speaker 2 (27:03):
But miss, just like we have our habits of doing
these shows. These people they do too, Like you, you
feel weird. And I think that's another important thing. Too,
for people that might not get this or understand the
mentality of somebody that's done a show for a really,
(27:23):
really long time. It's just what's normal to you. It's
normal for you to do these shows. Man, Like I
don't know if people like I said, they it's hard
to explain, Like you and I have come on these
shows after we've lost people, we've had fucked up shit
(27:44):
happen in our day or in our lives, bad things,
but it's just what we do. And it goes beyond
somebody being like, oh, well, is it Is it a job?
It's like no, it's it's a part of who you are.
Speaker 1 (27:56):
And I think I mean, in some respects there's like
job shit that we have to do. We have to
keep up a certain schedule, we have to make sure
that there's enough.
Speaker 2 (28:05):
Oh no, I'm not going to sit here and say like, oh,
it's every day as a fucking beach party, but like
it's a Las Fair or whatever we feel like it.
Speaker 1 (28:14):
Like no, but it's a career. It's not even a job.
It's a at this level, it's a career. And I
mean that with love, because a career is something you
want to do. A job is something you have to do.
And I never felt and I don't think any of
us have ever felt that we.
Speaker 2 (28:29):
Have to do this. No, there's not a let's put
it this way, for a lot of what people put
up with through the podcast world, the juice, especially in
the wrestling sphere, if it was just about the juice,
it certainly is not worth the fucking squeeze, right, let
(28:49):
me put it that way. For a lot of people.
There's a lot of bullshit that people leave just even
the fact that you and I and John and I'm
sure DT and other people too, like we knew or
our immediate inclination was, as people that have been on
the internet for a quarter a century, was like, oh,
here comes some assholes. You have to sit there, embrace
(29:11):
yourself for people being shitty to you, right and the
worst times, not even just like oh your fucking opinion
sucks and you're dumb or you're whatever the fuck, it's like,
oh man, this is a really fucking tough time. There
are still people that are going to be pieces of
shit to you. And that's being in the public eye
(29:32):
and eddie capacity if you want to call it that.
That just comes with the fucking territory to a degree.
But yeah, that's if it's just about the fucking juice.
Unless you're making an absolute fucking gilling, it is more
of like you said, it's something you choose to do
and it's something you're compelled to do, right, And I
(29:54):
think that's what it was for Kevin. That's why even
when people would go, oh, if he's not doing and good,
why as he continued, this is this is what he did.
Man Like, I I don't know what to tell you.
It was important. Exact shit happened with us, manned multiple
times we've done this.
Speaker 1 (30:11):
It was it was very important. And I mean, I'm
not gonna speak ill on this, but when him and
DT separated for that time there, I remember, I remember
how much flack I got for doing the Breakfast Soup
Show and then giving Kevin our platform, and I was
running the Baseball Chicki and the Castle and Chicky Show,
(30:32):
and I remember they're like, oh, you're trying to take
out Kevin Castle. You've been waiting to take over the
Monday night show forever. And it's like I really had
to break it down. I'm like, you really think that
I backstabbed somebody that I've been working with for seventeen
fucking years, just just just to do a show, just
(30:54):
and it was it was the that's.
Speaker 2 (30:56):
Once again, there's these are people that live in the
extended Internet, fucking I understand a little reality universe where
in their mind they're like, you're gonna take the show
from him. It's like, oh, bum bum bum, you could
have this whole empire. It's like, guys, it's a fucking
wrestling podcast. I think it's uh, well, you think this
(31:17):
is a fucking a dynasty. You think there's some sort
of zillion dollars was Mark Zuckerberg? What the fuck?
Speaker 1 (31:26):
I wasn't signing up for an a six figure contract?
Speaker 2 (31:29):
I just I know, Well, that's what, Like, we all knew.
Speaker 1 (31:32):
Look, we all knew that. I always knew, even even
at the worst of times, that Dontoni and Kevin Castle
would get back together. I always knew it, always believed it.
I never stopped believing it, even when I was getting
shihurled at me. I not for a second. I figured
eventually this will blow over. They had been friends for
(31:53):
way too long. It's it's impossible in my mind. And
and they got back together and they fixed it. And
everything was smoothed over, and it took time, but they
figured it out and it was good for them, and
that's the way it should have been, and that's the
way it should have always been. But I'm not a
stranger to people being pieces of fucking garbage because meanwhile,
(32:18):
I'm trying to spin plates and and keep the universe.
I'm literally carrying a giant stone on my neck and
I'm just trying to keep everything going. Meanwhile, people look
at it and they perceive it differently. They perceive it poorly.
They perceive it as as me being an opportunist as
opposed to somebody that's just trying to get.
Speaker 2 (32:38):
We still, like I said, this this craziness, this idea
that people have where this is in some way massively
some fucking fortune.
Speaker 1 (32:50):
Yeah, like it.
Speaker 2 (32:51):
Now you think you're you're getting the keys to the
fucking empire. It's like we're a group of guys that
made silly shows. Was about a silly fucking yeah.
Speaker 1 (33:02):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (33:02):
And like I said, if you're not compelled to do
it and driven to do it and don't feel strange
not doing it, then eventually you're just gonna fucking stop, right,
And that's none of us stopped. I think that's a
big thing to take away from this is that none
(33:24):
of us fucking stopped. Kevin wasn't done. And I think
that's really like to me to put it into that perspective.
Is the saddest I could fucking really truly feel about this,
is that Kevin wasn't done. I don't think that he
was a guy that was just like, I don't I'm
not having fun, I don't fucking have I don't think
(33:47):
he was fucking done. I think he still liked to
watch wrestling. I still think that he found it into it.
Speaker 1 (33:54):
He was just tired, and he was his body was
was shot. I mean, it's no secret at this point
that yes, he had a lot of mental issues that
were going on behind the scenes, but he also had
a lot of physical ones, and it's not so crazy
to think that one didn't make the other worse. Dude,
when Kevin was on, fucking man, I love those shows.
(34:16):
When Kevin felt better that day, those shows were fantastic.
And when Kevin was down, when he was depressed, you
could see those in the shows too. I mean, there's
only so much that as a friend can you do
to steer the shows right, like you can as far
as the public face goes, I can tell better stories.
I can bring up different topics that are silly and
(34:39):
fun to make fun of, or topics that will incite
you to anger, which anger will bring funny. Like I
can do things like that. I know how to control
the narrative of the show. From that aspect, I know
how to control our emotions in order to reflect the
crowd's emotions, the audience's emotions. Like, I understand that, but
(35:00):
there are just some points when you're down, you're just
I could send out naked ball arenas and they wouldn't
do ship. But it is very Yeah, I love keV.
I love keV. This isn't any kind of an indictment
(35:21):
on him. It's just if he was in better health,
we would have had a better show, a better Kevin Castle.
And it's not to say, oh, we needed a healthy
keV to have a good show. It's not that at all.
It's we just wanted Kevin to be better in all aspects.
Of course, you want a better show, but we would
(35:41):
have rather had our friend be better.
Speaker 2 (35:44):
Yeah, better life for someone, right, if it.
Speaker 1 (35:47):
Be damn the show? Really, if keV told turned around
and told us I can't do wrestling soup anymore. I
can't do T D T KC anymore. My health comes
first due. I know nobody would have said, fucking oh,
are you sure, keV, You're sure you can't stand in
for another Nobody would have said that. They had been like,
get the fuck out of here, go to the tropics,
like go to the beach man by the way.
Speaker 2 (36:11):
Just just in case people didn't notice this as well too.
There's a reason why you and I are like, no
thanks to when am fucking shows anywhere. There's a reason
where like, no, thank you to that, because it's like
it does it. Fucking it can't eat your life, it
can chew it up right, and you have to have
(36:33):
that restraint. You have to fucking say no and you
have to move away from it. But yeah, I don't know, man,
I feel fucking crazy talking about this, like we're discussing
a fucking like a drug addiction or something.
Speaker 1 (36:47):
No, No, not that. Yeah, No, I saw people with
some real bad takes on like what had happened? And
I'm like, where are you guys getting this shit from?
But no, it was he had come complications from blood pressure.
He had complications from diabetes. His body was deteriorating mentally.
(37:08):
I'm sure he was depressed. I mean, the depression could
come from anywhere. It could have started from anywhere. It
could have started because he stayed at home a lot.
It could have started because of his job. It could
have started all the way back from his dad. Like,
there were a lot of things that happened in Kevin's
life that had profound effect on the man. And then
(37:28):
on top of that, you complicate that with actual physical
health concerns. Yeah, I'm sure he was depressed too. How
could you not be?
Speaker 2 (37:38):
How could you not be?
Speaker 1 (37:40):
And he was alone. He had his cats, and he
had his neighbors and stuff like that, but he lived
alone and he felt that loneliness. And even though he
had friends like Treads, and even though he had friends
like Baseball Chicky and he had his big family, the
guy was still alone. But he had us, He had
Don Tony, he had everybody online. But it was it
(38:04):
was a band aid to the actual symptoms. It was
just there's a lot of layers to this, It's not
just one thing. And what ultimately took him, I don't know.
I mean, I think the assumption is it was a
heart attack or a stroke or something, but we don't
know until there's any kind of official report or Corners
(38:26):
report or something like that, and not even then, I
don't even know if I even deserve or care to
talk about it.
Speaker 2 (38:32):
I just.
Speaker 1 (38:35):
I'm going to miss my friend. That's all I know.
Speaker 2 (38:43):
And that's all that I mean, what else could you
put it as? Because, like I said, ultimately, at the
end of the day, all of the shit with doing
a show, coming up, with the podcast, making people laugh,
all of the shit that is a very nice part
of having fun with people that you that you love
(39:04):
talking to and being around. That's really it. That's the
biggest fucking part of it. And if you don't want
to do that, like I said, then it's not gonna
work and it's not gonna last. And like I said,
the saddest thing really to me, the saddest thing is
that it feels very unfinished for him. It doesn't feel
(39:29):
complete because the dude wanted to fucking do it.
Speaker 1 (39:34):
That.
Speaker 2 (39:35):
I don't know, No, I don't know, man, but it's
very I want to talk about some seth rock like
oh no, man, like this. I constantly you get put
in these dude, you get put into these mindsets and
it's just like, dude, this fucking woke me up a
(39:56):
bunch of times last night because I think about it,
and you just go, God fucking damn it. Man. Like
just Northeast Irish Italian people, we are just blessed and
fucking cursed at the same time. It's just these weirdly
charismatic creatures who are just at the same time so
(40:20):
emotionally open while being emotionally unavailable. And it just never
feel like there's enough. You just never feel like there's
enough and you're doing enough, and then you just keep
going and fucking going, and you just hope it all
fucking turns out good for you. That's all you can do.
You just hope it fucking turns out good for you.
(40:41):
But I just don't. I just hope the guy is
fucking he's just okay. That's it, Like that's all it
can be. You just go, I hope it's just you're
not you're not feeling whatever level of pain it is,
because clearly all of this shit comes with pain your
mind and your body. It all fucking comes with pain,
(41:04):
and the only resolution to it is that you know
that for you, it will end, and then it goes
on to other people. I don't know, Like I said, yeah,
well no, like you said, what do we say now,
Seth Seth Rawlan, Well, what a great fucking promo? The fuck?
(41:26):
You know what? What the actual fuck? But this is, yes, this,
but this is what we do. This is what we do, and.
Speaker 1 (41:36):
It's yeah, it's it's hard to transition over to something
like wrestling talk after this, and yeah.
Speaker 2 (41:44):
God fucking I know, it's you just feel crazy. You
feel fucking crazy. You feel crazy, like I R And
I said this to John yesterday too. I go, I'm
still not a good fucking source on this. I've had
two people, major people die in my life. One was
(42:06):
my grandfather when I was a kid, and I found
out he was a horrible fucking person. Anyways, But when
you're a kid and somebody will play wiffleball with you
and hang out with you, you think they're the best.
And then losing one of my best friends at fucking
twenty nine to leukemia that his great grandparents attended his funeral. Yeah,
so there's not a lot of experience with this. And
(42:26):
one of them is someone who I was too little
of a kid to get and the other one I
just looked at and I just go, you didn't fucking
deserve this in any capacity. There was no part of
you that merited for your life to go this way
and end this way. And I.
Speaker 1 (42:46):
Got I thought about I was thinking about all the
people I lost during the tenure of the show last
night afterwards, after I was done talking with Tries, and
I'm like I lost. Michael Porter was the first one.
A lot of people might not remember Michael Porter, but
back in the twenty ten twenty eleven days, I'd been
talking to him for years listening to his show. He
(43:09):
was one of those guys that circled the Swacks Wacko
Bob Lisa Miss Destiny days and it was one of
the blog talk radio guys. But he was also an
AWA ref from way back in the day and part
of the Dawn Marie charity stuff. When I remember doing
everything I could to help him because he had horrible
(43:31):
blood pressure and back issues and he was basically he
wasn't homeless in California, but he was living in a
shack like it was a really sad, downtrodden story. And
I remember just sending him fucking pizzas and hit all
the way from Chicago, just because that's all I could
fucking get. That's the only thing that I could deliver
(43:52):
in twenty ten before, before all these grub hubs and
uber eats, that shit didn't exist. I had to literally
call up, like doll, one of those pizza in California
and make credit card orders over the phone just to
get food delivered to this guy. And so he was
eating pizza like three nights a week, and he's like, dude,
I'm just getting sick of eating pizza. I don't know
(44:14):
what else they served. Man, they didn't have fingers, sandwiches
and shit back then. And I loved Michael Porter.
Speaker 2 (44:20):
He was.
Speaker 1 (44:23):
He was a really good guy. And he passed and
that was the first one. I also lost Papa Dave,
Papa Dave Sincere, who a lot of people remember from
Michael Corbyn and Johnny Florida Scott and all these other
guys that were a part of it too, and ladies
and stuff, and it was part of the WNC Show,
(44:43):
which was like a trailer show for wrestling Soup. They
kind of just back in our I think, god, I
think they started on our U stream days Joe And
there's been so many different versions of soup piano shit, right, yeah,
the justin TV day and yeah, they would they would
trail us afterwards and they would do like an hour
(45:05):
hour and a half. And they all had such great chemistry.
They were such a whack pack. They were a zoo pack.
But it was it was so much fun. And Papa
Dave was the literal older, wiser shaman of the group.
He he was sharp. He always had a sharp wit,
like he definitely had dad jokes, you know, and he
(45:27):
was he was like our grandpa at the time too.
He was great and I fucking loved him. I fucking
loved all of them. And then obviously he was part
of the yuck nasty and dogger baby getting the corner
guys days too. Like it was all that surrounding time
and Papa Dave brought us a lot of fucking laughs.
And yeah, when he passed that that gutted me too.
(45:49):
And I mean I still I still have his mug
And all I put in the mug is like little
wrestling figures. Now That's all I do. But I still
have his his mug. And then I lost Coups, who
is my my personal friend, like my my wrestling buddy
since a kid, since I was a kid, and I
mean thick as thieves. Everything I did wrong in my life,
(46:10):
he was probably there. Yeah, like he was just as
good and bad as I ever was. And that broke
me at the beginning of COVID, and I still I
still have a lot of repressed anger and feelings about
losing him and now and now we lose Kevin Castle,
(46:32):
and I know you've lost people. I know you lost
aj Metrono.
Speaker 2 (46:37):
Yeah, well that's yeah, that's it's still it's insane to
me that that's coming up on fucking ten years, dude, Yeah,
that's coming up on ten years.
Speaker 1 (46:50):
And Jay was a great dude. He was so funny
as hell.
Speaker 2 (46:54):
Man. There are situations where people pass away, especially when
they're younger, and the constant the thing is always, oh, well,
they were gonna be a fucking astronaut, right, And people,
to some degree, we go, that's great, we should feel
(47:14):
that way. We miss our people, They're a part of
our lives. And then there are people where I just
look at it and I just go, you get angry, dude,
you really get fucking mad. It's really hard to not
be mad about this, and like I saw comments obviously
from people that they were like John sounds upset or
(47:36):
whatever the fuck it is, like, yeah, he said that,
And I'm like, dude, you not How do people not
understand that that's a part of it.
Speaker 1 (47:43):
How do they not know that I literally said that.
I'm like, of course he's going to be angry. That's
how he's dealing with the fucking pain. What do you
what do you want him to feel? What is the
proper way to mourn?
Speaker 2 (47:54):
Yeah, dude, Yeah, you're fucking mad. Like, there's no way, dude.
To some extent, I'm and honest to god, if there
was ever like a real hey, you want to put
your thumb thumb on me and be like, ah, fuck
this guy, and try to minimize some of the shit
that I will do or say or feel about anything
(48:16):
in wrestling. Here's definitely a part of me where I
see some of these people and I go, you motherfuckers
couldn't sniff AJ's farts. You people are trash compared to him,
and this poor mother fucker the way that he who.
Speaker 1 (48:46):
We've lost a lot of close people during the time
of this show, doesn't get easier. It's not a. I
don't know the right process for anything. If you're angry,
(49:10):
be angry, you're sad, be sad. I love Kevin Castle.
He was good to me, He was my friend, and
(49:34):
I stuck by him. And I will ever be thankful
for all of our conversations. I will forever be thankful
for all the times that he made me laugh to tears.
And I'll forever be thankful for him getting me into
(50:00):
this silly wrestling podcast world. I'm gonna miss him. Yeah, just.
Speaker 2 (50:21):
Take whatever good thing you can away from.
Speaker 1 (50:29):
Yeah, I'm gonna end this one here.
Speaker 2 (50:32):
Guys, are you sure Brad Blaker did a really cool.
Speaker 1 (50:37):
You want to talk about aw dynasty? I already feel
like half the fans at the end of that show.
Speaker 2 (50:46):
Good God heard Kenny Omegga did some flips, Dude, I heard.
But young bocks guys, Yeah, they came back. They finally
figured out human growth hormong those Unfortunately, it just makes
you wider and not taller. Fuck.
Speaker 1 (51:05):
Yeah, no, it's John'll be talking everybody tonight at seven.
I don't know how the fuck he's gonna pull it off,
but there it is. If you didn't know, tonight, John
will be on spaces. Fuck, I gotta admit John, it's strong,
because fuck I don't think I could do that. I
(51:28):
know and not think I know I couldn't do that.
Speaker 2 (51:33):
And I said it to you guys earlier, and because
I fucking showed I've known John for a long last
time too. And like I said, you go back to
the Northeast Irish Italian guy, emotionally available, unavailable, open to
the world, closed off, hey everybody, but also get the
fuck away from me. I get this personality. I get
(51:54):
this mentality. I understand it because today I said to him,
I go, dude, don't don't. Don't be an entertainer. I go,
this is not it's not your time to have to
do that. I'm like, it's not your job to try
to make everybody feel fucking better. And I hope that's
not the case. I hope it's just him being in
(52:15):
a position where he can fucking front all these questions
and all people's thoughts or feelings or whatever the fuck
it is, so that way he can say, Okay, it's
time for me to not go move away from this space,
because you got to think of how fucking nuts it
is for this guy, because you got your lot, you
got your life friends, You've got your people that you're
(52:35):
connected through to just being in the world, your music people,
you're wrestling people, and your Internet people. And John's really
the only one that can front all four of those
fucking worlds for Kevin. This is point.
Speaker 1 (52:49):
This is John's exact words about this to me. I
think it's safe for me to read this. He says, Yeah,
I'm going to host these Twitter spaces tonight because I literally,
no exaggeration, have hundreds and hundreds of dms across my
social media platforms for mostly listeners, and I thought that
this would be the best way to approach it. I mean,
(53:13):
I guess, yes, that's how you'd have to find you
have hundreds of dms, just start as spaces and start answering.
Speaker 2 (53:20):
Oh, I guess, I don't know, And I'm not surprised
by that. Oh these are these are four different worlds
of people that he got he has to face in
this situation like there's and you live for almost sixty
years and you just go, oh, my god, the amount
of fucking people right just in the different walks of
(53:42):
life and everything that you're going to face and to
deal with, And yeah, God, No, I mean that's that,
that's really it is a lot of.
Speaker 1 (53:54):
Just just.
Speaker 2 (53:57):
Show a lot of fucking kindness and patience to John
and please, Like like I said, I I tried to
remind him in the situation. I'm like, dude, don't don't
feel like you have to be obligated to take care
of everybody else in this like, do what's best for you.
I'm like, look out for your mom. Help your mom.
That's really what matters. That's unto itself, already a fucking
(54:20):
horror when I take into account, I'm like, man to
outlive for a parent, to outlive kids. To me, that
is still even as somebody doesn't have kids, I still
look at that. What a what a fucking nightmare that
is just in general, even if you have kids that
are in their fifties or in their sixties or even
like you're just like, dude, do I really got to
(54:41):
fucking be here for that? I just always think of that,
think of how fucking sad.
Speaker 1 (54:45):
That is.
Speaker 2 (54:48):
And how heavy that's gotta be to even consider. Yeah,
I don't know. I Ron Breaker did a really cool
spear though, I will say that cool.
Speaker 1 (55:02):
Penta debut.
Speaker 2 (55:04):
Yeah. Oh Phoenix, Oh, Phoenix. Sorry, how dare you get
it wrong? Distracted by some other things? Something else? Every mind?
Is there anything else you can't remember? The great Ray Phoenix?
Speaker 1 (55:18):
I was thinking so much about a Grande Americano. That's
what it was.
Speaker 2 (55:22):
Yeah, yeah, now that's Phoenix. Yep, Phoenix. He did flips.
There were a lot of flips, a lot of fucking flips.
So what the fuck should we do?
Speaker 1 (55:33):
Man? Should I think we just got out of here today? Well,
you know what, we'll cover a little bit more about
raw and smack down on the Tiffey and Charlotte stuff
on Thursday. There is literally no reason why we can't tomorrow.
Like I said at around eight o'clock, myself and Tries
will do something together and I'm sure there'll be some
(55:54):
more feels there too, and yeah, and then we just
kind of figured it out after that. I did. I
did talk with DT for people that didn't know, So
we'll see how everything goes with that. I guess I
we still need to talk. But it was very It
(56:18):
was very nice yesterday and I didn't feel awkward or
anything like that because I got those two Are you
really doing the show? Yeah? So this is bigger than
all of that, and I thank you for everyone that
sent fucking God, damn Joe so much love on Twitter
(56:39):
and shit and in discord and Facebook even too. Just
thank you. Thank you for caring about our feelings. Thank
you for caring about John's feelings. I appreciate that. Even
though it's like a couple of sentences sometimes or even
just an emoji, I understand and that means a lot.
(57:01):
So Thursday, Thursday, sou Thursday sou. See you then,
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